Ooops: No Podcast This Week

Oct. 24th, 2025 06:00 am
[syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed

Posted by SB Sarah

Smart Podcast, Trashy BooksI goofed! There won’t be an episode this week. I apologize!

I will return to my regular schedule on October 31st.

I swear, the reason is because the expression of time having to be in numbers is insulting to me personally. (I got dates mixed up. It’s so embarrassing).

I’m sorry about that!

 

 

 

Daily check-in

Oct. 23rd, 2025 08:22 pm
mecurtin: Icon of a globe with a check-mark (fandom_checkin)
[personal profile] mecurtin posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Thursday, October 23, to midnight on Friday, October 24 (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33756 Daily check-in poll
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 24

How are you doing?

I am OK
12 (52.2%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now
11 (47.8%)

I could use some help
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single
7 (30.4%)

One other person
11 (47.8%)

More than one other person
5 (21.7%)



Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
[syndicated profile] mangabookshelf_feed

Posted by Sean Gaffney

By Buncololi and Kantoku. Released in Japan as “Sasaki to Pi-chan” by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alice Prowse.

The danger of a series like this, which tries to change genres with every new volume, is that eventually you’re going to hit up against one that you’re not really all that interested in. When I saw that this volume was going to be about VTubers, I sort of groaned. It’s not my thing, and I don’t do the virtual idol thing either. So when Type Twelve decided to make this her new thing, I was prepared for this to be a slog. Fortunately, I was saved by the fact that the author knew which character to give the spotlight to this time around. Kurosu has gotten short shrift for a good deal of the series (when the anime came out, most wondered why she was even there at all), but her deadpan horrible personality meshes really well with trying to be a hot VTuber success, especially since we also still have her desperate 13-year-old horny urges to bang Sasaki (which is never going to happen, and I think she knows it deep down).

As noted above, Type Twelve is done with school because of … well, see Book 8. Instead, she’s decided to try uploading videos to Youtube (yes, they use the actual word). This becomes a competition, with everyone in the “family” (thus not including Elsa and Peeps, who already have a Youtube channel) competing to see who can get the most page views… and the winner has to order the loser to obey any command. Naturally, this gets Neighbor Girl tremendously excited, as even she knows that middle-management dude Sasaki is not going to be able to compete with four cute young-looking girls. She decides to (with Type Twelve’s tech help) become a cute, happy VTuber… which is a disaster. However, the backlash actually forces her to use it to her advantage, and she comes back admitting the happy girl was a fake and she’s a depressed introvert. This goes MUCH better… to the point where she’s scouted!

I’ve talked before about how the neighbor girl is so screwed up and horrifying that it almost comes around to being funny, but that’s not really sustainable if you’re going to have the series develop characterization (which is debatable – honestly, I think this author is far happier having its characters be cutely meta than learning anything about themselves). Over the course of the last few books she’s been forced to endure a lot and also interact with others far more than she ever did before. As a result, while her quiet cynical sarcasm is present and correct, as is her twisted sex with Sasaki fantasy, she no longer looks as if she’s actively trying to kill herself. Actually, she may have found a career path – her quick deductions at the scene of a crime, while getting in the way of the plot, show off a detective skill that’s actually kind of scary. Is she healing? A bit?

The others, rest assured, get stuff to do, and Hoshizaki gets the funniest part of the book. But yeah, this continues to interest me, even when it’s playing around in sandboxes I don’t care about.

Manga the Week of 10/29/25

Oct. 23rd, 2025 09:44 pm
[syndicated profile] mangabookshelf_feed

Posted by Sean Gaffney

SEAN: You may now Halloween the week away however you want, including manga, spooky and otherwise.

ASH: Sounds like a plan!

SEAN: Airship has the print debut of Virgin Knight: I Became the Frontier Lord in a World Ruled by Women (Teisou Gyakuten Sekai no Doutei Henkyou Ryoushu Kishi), which features a world where sexual norms between men and women are reversed, and women are dominant! Into this comes our reincarnated hero, and he’s not standing for that!

ASH: Hmmm. This is something that could be done really well, or really not.

SEAN: Two ongoing print books from Airship. We see Heroine? Saint? No, I’m an All-Works Maid (And Proud of It)! 4 and Witch and Mercenary 4.

For early digital we have a BL light novel. Bowing to Love: The Noble and the Gladiator (Ai ni Hizamazuku Toki) stars two men who are torn between duty, pure pleasure, and actual love amidst a vaguely Ancient Roman fantasy world.

ASH: I enjoy a good historical fantasy.

ANNA: Yeah!

SEAN: Also in early digital: The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash 11.

Cross Infinite World has 2nd volumes for I Want to Be a Saint, But I Can Only Use Attack Magic! and Love & Magic Academy.

Ghost Ship has the 15th and final volume of Peter Grill and the Philosopher’s Time.

Hanashi Media debuts two new light novels, both of which you likely know from the manga that have been coming out here for a while. The New Gate stars Shin, who is essentially Kirito, fighting with others to escape from a VRMMO turned death game. But when he finally succeeds, he passes out… and wakes up 500 years later, in the “real” world of the game.

Re:Monster has our hero killed and reincarnated in another world as a lowly goblin. But he can gain power from eating, and also has his past memories. With these he will rise up to become someone greater.

They also have a 9th volume of Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy.

Inklore has a 5th volume of Father, I Don’t Want This Marriage.

J-Novel Club debuts another contest winner! The Dragon and the Blade Saint: This Isn’t Where We End stars a dragon who is furious that the revered “Blade Saint” killed all her people. She goes back in time to fix things… but now she’s a human?

The other debut is a manga, The Fearsome Witch Teaches in Another World: Ms. Aoi’s Lesson Plans (Isekai Tenishite Kyoushi ni Natta ga, Majo to Osorerareteiru Ken: Aoi-sensei no Gakuen Funtou Nisshi), based on a light novel J-Novel Club will be releasing soon. It runs in Comic Earth Star Online. A woman is reborn in another world with terrible regrets. But now she knows sorcery, and is headed to the magic academy. Can she do things better in this reborn life?

ASH: One would hope!

SEAN: Other light novels out next week from JNC: Isekai Walking 4.

And for manga we see 8th Loop for the Win! 6, The Conqueror from a Dying Kingdom 6, and I Only Have Six Months to Live, So I’m Gonna Break the Curse with Light Magic or Die Trying 4.

Kodansha debuts Light of My Life, a BL title from Gateau. Two best friends have grand dreams. Years later, neither of them is where they expected to be. Can they repair their friendship… and perhaps more?

MICHELLE: Well, I’m sucker for bittersweet BL, so count me in!

SEAN: Nezumi’s First Love (Nezumi no Hatsukoi) looks cute and adorable, but be warned it runs in the seinen Young Magazine. A young assassin falls in love for the first time, and now has to figure out how to chase her love and not have her bosses get in the way.

Also in print: AKIRA Hardcover Collection 3, Blue Lock 23, I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability 16, Nina the Starry Bride 12, Phantom of the Idol 8, and The Seven Deadly Sins: Four Knights of the Apocalypse 19.

ANNA: Shouting out Nina the Starry Bride!

SEAN: In digital they have Am I Actually the Strongest? 15 and Gamaran: Shura 34.

Retailers say that KUMA has a one-shot debut. Director Akasaka’s Princely Training Course (Akasaka Buchou no Prince Boy Ikusei Keikaku) stars a guy with bad luck in love. But then he meets a handsome young man… that he’s supposed to train at his office! And the man is the future company president!

And we also see Happy Crappy Life 4.

ASH: This is a series I should probably catch up on at some point.

SEAN: One Peace Books has the 2nd volume of You Talk Too Much, So Just Shut It Already!.

ASH: I rather enjoyed the first volume.

Ponent Mon has a re-release of The Solitary Gourmet in a nice hardcover.

ASH: Very glad to see this release!

SEAN: Seven Seas debuts Hope You’re Happy, Lemon (Kuso Onna ni Sachiare), a Shonen Jump + series about a guy who broke up with his middle-school girlfriend after she admitted to cheating on him with multiple guys. Now he’s in college, and has a crush on another girl. But then Lemon shows up again… and now he’s bodyswapped into her body?!

MICHELLE: That took an unexpected turn!

ASH: It really did!

ANNA: Whoops!

SEAN: And we have My Twisted Eating Disorder (Meisou Senshi Nagata Kabi: Gourmet de Go!), the latest biographical manga from Nagata Kabi. It ran in Web Action.

ASH: Nagata Kabi’s works are heavy, but well done.

SEAN: Seven Seas also has The Ancient Magus’ Bride 21, The Condemned Villainess Goes Back in Time and Aims to Become the Ultimate Villain 5, Headhunted to Another World: From Salaryman to Big Four! 9, Ichi the Killer Omnibus 2, Kaya-chan Isn’t Scary 3, Magika Swordsman and Summoner 19, Mysterious Disappearances 7, Time Stop Hero 13, and Tokyo Revengers: Brilliant Full Color Edition 3-4.

MICHELLE: I really need to catch up on The Ancient Magus’ Bride.

ASH: Saaaaame. It’s a series I really enjoy, too.

Square Enix Books has Soul Eater: Soul Art Encore!, an artbook done after the Perfect Edition finished.

Tokyopop has Assassin’s Creed Dynasty Box Set, with 5 volumes now handy in one box.

They also debut I’ll Never Fall in Love With Amano! (Amano-kun to Koi Nanka Shinai!), a shoujo title from Dessert. Takahide is angry that she always comes second to Amano in academics. But when he mistakenly thinks she has a crush on him, she’s quick to take advantage…

MICHELLE: Why is it always the guy who’s “effortlessly brilliant” and the girl who can never quite manage to measure up?

ANNA: Sigh.

SEAN: Monster and Ghost is a manga that ran on the online Renta service. It’s a BL title about a delinquent everyone sees as a monster and the ghost who knows what he’s really like.

MICHELLE: Ooh.

SEAN: Yotsuya Ghost Knight is a BL one-shot that ran in from RED. An exorcist turns to a porn star for help in… well, read the book.

ASH: Oh, my!

SEAN: And Tokyopop also has I Was Reincarnated as the Heroine on the Verge of a Bad Ending, and I’m Determined to Fall in Love! 6.

Udon Entertainment have Mega Man X DiVE: Official Complete Works, which is what it sounds like.

Viz Media have Castle in the Sky: The Official Cookbook, which is what it sounds like.

They also have Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku Complete Box Set, which is what it sounds like.

One Piece: Law’s Story is a light novel giving us Law’s backstory.

Also from Viz: Boy’s Abyss 11 and Real 16 (the first new volume in four years).

MICHELLE: I legit gasped!

ASH: Real is one of my absolute favorites; incredibly excited for this.

ANNA: Wow!!!!

SEAN: Yen Press has its October titles at last, starting with Gals Can’t Be Kind to Otaku!? (Otaku ni Yasashii Gal wa Inai!?), the story of an otaku who likes shoujo stuff who meets two gals who also do. It runs in Comic Zenon.

ASH: I hope they can get along together.

SEAN: Monster-Colored Island (Kaijuu Iro no Shima) is a yuri series from Young Dragon Age. A longer girl with no friends finds a city girl at the top of a cliff… which they then fall off! After reviving her, the two find that strange things start to happen…

ASH: Gotta be careful around cliffs.

SEAN: Yankee & Carameliser is BL title that ran in B’s-LOVEY recottia. A supposed bad boy posts pictures of great desserts on social media. This is done in one, but has a sequel.

ASH: Delinquent food BL manga? I’m in!

ANNA: That’s a mix of genres I hsve not seen before.

SEAN: Also from Yen Press: Bungo Stray Dogs: Wan! 12, From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman 4, Goblin Slayer 16, Handyman Saitou in Another World 8, The Hitman Stans 2, Kaiju Girl Caramelise 8, Liar Liar 3, Lycoris Recoil 4, Mint Chocolate 13, Pink & Habanero 4, Shy 11, Spring Storm and Monster 4, The Summer Hikaru Died 6, Toilet-bound Hanako-kun 23, Übel Blatt Deluxe Edition 4, and Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke’s Mansion 9 (the final volume).

MICHELLE: I should revisit Pink & Habanero and Spring Storm and Monster, at some point.

SEAN: Not as large as I expected! Scary! What appeals to you?

Ted Lasso Drabble

Oct. 23rd, 2025 06:22 pm
senmut: spooky cat on a jackolantern (General: Halloween 3)
[personal profile] senmut
Costume Party or read at SquidgeWorld (100 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ted Lasso (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Keeley Jones, Ted Lasso, Rebecca Welton
Additional Tags: Drabble
Summary:

Keeley manages to coordinate them, even if they didn't think to do so






They hadn't coordinated their costumes, to Keeley's intense frustration. A few words whispered into Coach Beard's ear seemed to have done the trick.

Rebecca was going to be washing the hair gel out for days, she thought, but she had to admit that she made a striking bride of Frankenstein. Ted looked like he was appreciating it while she enjoyed the way he brought his quaint charm to Bela Lugosi's classic Dracula.

"A pair of monsters walk into a bar…" Ted quipped, having met her at the pub for the costume party.

"Let's go have a monster mash," she replied.

The Friday Five for 24 October 2025

Oct. 23rd, 2025 03:23 pm
anais_pf: (bunny gif)
[personal profile] anais_pf posting in [community profile] thefridayfive
These questions were originally suggested by [livejournal.com profile] akarii.

1. What do you see when you are looking out of the window closest to you?

2. Who was the last person coming into your room?

3. What is the most predominant colour around you?

4. What is right behind you?

5. What is on today's calendar sheet?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

Writing Sprints October 24-26

Oct. 23rd, 2025 11:31 am
treefrogie84: (wwm)
[personal profile] treefrogie84 posting in [community profile] weekendwritingmarathon


what’s a 1k1h?|| time zone converter || 1k1h Calendar

All sprints are run on Discord only. You can find our Discord server here.

Friday ( time zone converter)

5am PT/ 8am ET/ 12pm UTC Mrsimoshen 

8am PT/ 11am ET/ 4pm UTC Max

11am PT/ 2pm ET/ 6pm UTC        LittleMissTPK

1pm PT/ 4pm ET/ 8pm UTC LittleMissTPK

5pm PT/ 8pm ET/ 12am UTC Treefrogie84

7pm PT/ 10pm ET/ 2am Sat UTC Alec


Saturday ( time zone converter)

24 Hours of Sprints starting at Midnight Eastern!

Sunday ( time zone converter) **EU TIME CHANGE!** Please double check your time conversions!

5am PT/ 8am ET/ 12pm UTC PreciousAnon

7am PT/ 10am ET/ 2pm UTC Treefrogie84

9am PT/ 12pm ET/ 4pm UTC Treefrogie84

12pm PT/ 3pm ET/ 7pm UTC PreciousAnon 

5pm PT/ 8pm ET/ 12am Mon UTC Treefrogie84

7pm PT/ 10pm ET/ 2am Mon UTC Joe


Reality TV, a Mystery, & More

Oct. 23rd, 2025 03:30 pm
[syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed

Posted by Amanda

The Fake Mate

The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson is $1.99! Lara reviewed this one and gave it a C:

If this book had maintained its giddy pace all the way through, it would have absolutely delighted me. As it is, it’s a distinctly meh situation that I’m left with. Would I recommend it? Probably not. The first just-over-half is really fun reading, but it falls apart so dramatically after that, I ended up very disappointed.

Two wolf shifters agree to be fake mates but unexpectedly find something real in this steamy paranormal romantic comedy by Lana Ferguson.

Mackenzie Carter has had some very bad dates lately. Model train experts, mansplainers, guys weirdly obsessed with her tail—she hasn’t had a successful date in months. Only a year out of residency, her grandmother’s obsession with Mackenzie finding the perfect mate to settle down with threatens to drive Mackenzie barking mad. Out of options, it feels like a small thing to tell her grandmother that she’s met someone. That is, until she blurts out the name of the first man she sees and the last man she would ever date: Noah Taylor, the big bad wolf of Denver General.

Noah Taylor, interventional cardiologist and all around grump, has spent his entire life hiding what he is. With outdated stigmas surrounding unmated alphas that have people wondering if they still howl at the moon, Noah has been careful to keep his designation under wraps. It’s worked for years, until an anonymous tip has everything coming to light. Noah is left with two options: come clean to the board and risk his career—or find himself a mate. The chatty, overly friendly ER doctor asking him to be her fake boyfriend on the same day he’s called to meet the board has to be kismet, right?

Mackenzie will keep her grandmother off her back, and Noah will get a chance to prove he can continue to work without a real mate—a mutually beneficial business transaction, they both rationalize. But when the fake-mate act turns into a very real friends-with-benefits arrangement, lines start to blur, and they quickly realize love is a whole different kind of animal.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

The Prince of Broadway

The Prince of Broadway by Joanna Shupe is $1.99! I stalled on finishing this one, but these were my thoughts: great chemistry and I love the hero is pretty upfront about wanting revenge on the heroine’s dad. He tells her so. However, it takes place simultaneously with the events of The Rogue of Fifth Avenue, so the dad in question is still terrible to his daughters.

In the second novel in Joanna Shupe’s the Uptown Girl series, a ruthless casino owner bent on revenge finds his plans upended by a beautiful women who proves to be more determined than he is—and too irresistible to deny.

Powerful casino owner.
Ruthless mastermind.
Destroyer of men.

He lives in the shadows…

As the owner of the city’s most exclusive casino, Clayton Madden holds the fortunes of prominent families in the palms of his hands every night. There is one particular family he burns to ruin, however, one that has escaped his grasp… until now.

She is society’s darling…

Florence Greene is no one’s fool. She knows Clayton Madden is using her to ruin her prestigious family… and she’s using him right back. She plans to learn all she can from the mysterious casino owner—then open a casino of her own just for women.

With revenge on his mind, Clay agrees to mentor Florence. However, she soon proves more adept—and more alluring—than Clay bargained for. When his plans are threatened, Clay must decide if he is willing to gamble his empire on love.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

The Charm Offensive

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun is $1.99! I mentioned this on a previous Get Rec’d! It’s a m/m romance set in a reality dating show. One main character is a producer and the other is the Bachelor-esque contestant.

In this witty and heartwarming romantic comedy—reminiscent of Red, White & Royal Blue and One to Watch—an awkward tech wunderkind on a reality dating show goes off-script when sparks fly with his producer.

Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star.

Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off.

As Dev fights to get Charlie to open up to the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

Detective Aunty

Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin is $5.99! If your library hold is still waiting to come in since this was released in the spring, this is around half off right now.

When her grown daughter is suspected of murder, a charming and tenacious widow digs into the case to unmask the real killer in this twisty, page-turning whodunnit—the first book in a cozy new detective series from the acclaimed author of Ayesha at Last.

After her husband’s unexpected death eighteen months ago, Kausar Khan never thought she’d receive another phone call as heartbreaking—until her thirty-something daughter, Sana, phones to say that she’s been arrested for killing the unpopular landlord of her clothing boutique. Determined to help her child, Kausar heads to Toronto for the first time in nearly twenty years.

Returning to the Golden Crescent suburb where she raised her children and where her daughter still lives, Kausar finds that the thriving neighborhood she remembered has changed. The murder of Sana’s landlord is only the latest in a wave of local crimes which have gone unsolved.

And the facts of the case are Sana found the man dead in her shop at a suspiciously early hour, with a dagger from her windowfront display plunged in his chest. And Kausar—a woman with a keen sense of observation and deep wisdom honed by her years—senses there’s more to the story than her daughter is telling.

With the help of some old friends and her plucky teenage granddaughter, Kausar digs into the investigation to uncover the truth. Because who better to pry answers from unwilling suspects than a meddlesome aunty? But even Kausar can’t predict the secrets, lies, and betrayals she finds along the way…

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

"Hear What the Language Spoken by Our Ancestors 6,000 Years Ago Might Have Sounded Like" | Open Culture (10/14/25)

With two audio recordings.  If you want to hear them, click on the link embedded in the title.

…since oral cultures far predate written ones, the search for linguistic ancestors can take us back to the very origins of human culture, to times unremembered and unrecorded by anyone, and only dimly glimpsed through scant archaeological evidence and observable aural similarities between vastly different languages. So it was with the theoretical development of Indo-European as a language family, a slow process that took several centuries to coalesce into the modern linguistic tree we now know.

The observation that Sanskrit and ancient European languages like Greek and Latin have significant similarities was first recorded by a Jesuit missionary to Goa, Thomas Stephens, in the sixteenth century, but little was made of it until around 100 years later. A great leap forward came in the mid-nineteenth century when German linguist August Schleicher, under the influence of Hegel, published his Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages. There, Schleicher made an extensive attempt at reconstructing the common ancestor of all Indo-European languages, “Proto-Indo-European,” or PIE, for short, thought to have originated somewhere in Eastern Europe, though this supposition is speculative.

To provide an example of what the language might have been like, Schleicher made up a fable called “The Sheep and the Horses” as a “sonic experiment.” The story has been used ever since, “periodically updated,” writes Eric Powell at Archaeology, “to reflect the most current understanding of how this extinct language would have sounded when it was spoken some 6,000 years ago.” Having no access to any texts written in Proto-Indo-European (which may or may not have existed) nor, of course, to any speakers of the language, linguists disagree a good deal on what it should sound like; “no single version can be considered definitive.”

And yet, since Schleicher’s time, the theory has been considerably refined. At the top of the post, you can hear one such refinement based on work by UCLA professor H. Craig Melchert and read by linguist Andrew Byrd. See a translation of Schleicher’s story, “The Sheep and the Horses” below:

    A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: “My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses.” The horses said: “Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool.” Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.

Byrd also reads another story in hypothetical Proto-Indo-European, “The King and the God,” using “pronunciation informed by the latest insights into PIE.”

See Powell’s article at Archaeology for the written transcriptions of both Schleicher’s and Melchert/Byrd’s versions of PIE, and see his article here to learn about the archeological evidence for the Bronze Age speakers of this theoretical linguistic common ancestor.  

For more on Schleicher's Sheep, see also J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair, The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West (London:  Thames & Hudson, 2000), pp. 222-223:  Schleicher's original version of 1868, Adams' new version of 1997 (with laryngeals), and our translation.

 

 

Selected readings

[h.t. Ted McClure]

Episode 2691: The Fistfight Show

Oct. 23rd, 2025 09:11 am
[syndicated profile] darths_and_droids_feed

Episode 2691: The Fistfight Show

For some players, even overwhelming odds looks like a cool challenge. There are two ways out of this.

Have other players talk sense into them. Or let them try and find out.

The second is more fun, but the first is more conducive to an ongoing adventure.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Oh, huh. I guess I didn't think that getting hit like that would slow the group down enough for them to get caught. Sure, Chewie or Finn would have needed to pick Poe up from prone, but that wouldn't have stopped the other from continuing to shoot troopers showing up. 30+ troopers would be a little difficult to win against though, so..... I guess this would be the same result in the end.

Poor Chewie. Briefly relieved from his prison, only to be caught a minute later and then told he's part of a comedy program again. At least Rey is still running around and can break them out again later? If that Force Distraction isn't too enticing I suppose.

Transcript

Soulgazer by Mary Rapier

Oct. 23rd, 2025 06:00 am
[syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed

Posted by Guest Reviewer

D+

Soulgazer

by Maggie Rapier
July 8, 2025 · Ace
Fantasy/Fairy Tale RomanceRomance

This guest review comes from Lisa! A longtime romance aficionado and frequent commenter to SBTB, Lisa is a queer Latine critic with a sharp tongue and lots of opinions. She frequently reviews at All About Romance and Women Write About Comics, where she’s on staff, and you can catch her at @‌thatbouviergirl on Twitter. There, she shares good reviews, bracing industry opinions and thoughtful commentary when she’s not on her grind looking for the next good freelance job.


Florid, breathless, filled with stomach-churning effluvia and old skool as all get-out, but also self-aware enough to know what it’s done and where it’s going, Soulgazer is an extremely dramatic peek at the life of an utterly helpless waif cursed with Too Much Power, the witty pirate who is magnetically drawn to her, and the love that binds them together in spite of it all. It’s campy, but not campy enough to really make it a legendary hoot — a D+ read that mostly kept me entertained due to its ripeness.

Ever since she was a literal infant, Saoirse has been cursed with an extremely powerful, volatile and unpredictable magic that has resulted in her father imprisoning her in an isolated cabin with no human contact after she accidentally kills her brother. This was because of her touching a soulstone after being kidnapped by her grandmother, who thought Saoirse’s death would bring an end to her own curse. Most people who touch soulstones — which are formed when a person dies – go mad or die themselves. She violently suppresses the magic as hard as she can with the help of an amulet, but its protections aren’t perfect. The only way out of her isolation is marriage to the Stone King, who is notoriously rough and mean. This will provide a political alliance for her father, the king of their island, and thus make her useful to him and get him some heirs. If that means having the amulet’s runestone symbol tattooed on her back so her husband will never know she’s got such gifts, so be it.

She is too much of a marshmallow for marriage to such a guy, naturally. Fortunately for Saoirse, she’s heard legendary tales of the roguish pirate Wolf of the Wild since she was young – it is later established that they are only two years apart in age so I guess I can buy a teenager thinking a teenage pirate is cool?

Faolan, said Wolf of the Wild, is luckily in-port when she manages her daring escape. Saoirse seeks him out on the eve of her wedding, thinking he might give her passage to the Isle of Lost Souls, which is the only place in the world strong enough to absorb her magic, as it was created by the now-dead gods her people once worshipped. They instead strike a bargain. They enter into a handfasting of convenience and she promises to guide him to the invisible lost Isle of Lost Souls using her powers. Her father and former fiance are not happy. Let the chase begin.

Warning: you are entering nigh-on cartoonish territory with this one, and I admit I couldn’t stop giggling in the wrong places. The magical system kept me reading, as did the charming if stereotypical and egotistical Faolan, so I’m keeping this at a solid D+.

Poor Saoirse is the most put-upon heroine I’ve read about in centuries. Her magic is mighty but the suppression of it is painful. So is the tattoo her parents place upon her skin to force her into keeping her magic in tight. Until she meets Faolan, a lot of this reads like misery porn. She does have a core of strength and dignity, but watching her flail around and throw up and be victimized and hurt can be painful to see in a not-fun way, and it goes on for pages and pages. She desperately resists her magic, believing that she’s to blame for trauma and death, but even when it shows its positive side, she thinks her father’s lies about her powers are right instead of taking in what she sees before her. By the end of the book she finally starts to unleash herself, and that is a blessing to the narrative, which can finally stop focusing on her suffering.

Faolan, meanwhile, is your classic roguish pirate. Killian Jones from Once Upon a Time and Jack Sparrow are his clear role models. His shivers timber. But he’s fun and a sensual enough presence. He and Saiorsie bring out the best in one another even though he and his crew are pretty mean toward her at first and even though Saoirse has to keep reminding herself that oh no, this isn’t a real marriage! But he does get her to at least show some spirit and spunk and call him out on things, so that’s a relief.

The villains here – Saiorsie’s dad and the Stone King – are noncomplex: the personalities are broad, and the adventure kind of predictable. The language used here on occasion made me giggle. Every time a character exclaimed feck all I could think of was Father Ted – definitely not a comparison I wanted to think of for multiple reasons, especially during the love scenes.

It’s flawed, and it’s sometimes accidentally funny, but I have to admit I was never bored while reading Soulgazer. I’d definitely take the sequel out of the library instead of buying it, however – unless I were offered buried pirate’s treasure.

sunnymodffa: Cartoon of 2 seals swimming in a desert oasis (Seals in a sunny oasis)
[personal profile] sunnymodffa posting in [community profile] fail_fandomanon
 
Obviously, the character's personal Suez Canal was wide, wide open... and then the Ever Given attacked.

The Ever Given touched a set of coordinates inside Suez that had never been touched before.
“Oh” Suez said, clenching down and trapping Ever inside him. ”Oh!”


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November Project - the Top 30

Oct. 22nd, 2025 08:40 pm
senmut: Plo Koon and Kit Fisto side by side (Star Wars: Plo and Kit)
[personal profile] senmut
So I went and grabbed my 'most written' fandoms, and have a list of 30. I plan to write at least a drabble for each of these thirty fandoms.

I will take requests on a first come, first serve basis for prompts to these fandoms. (Extra prompts might get used later.)

The List

*DCU
1. Comics
2. TimmVerse
3. Birds Of Prey (TV, Movie)
4. ReeveVerse Superman
5. Keaton et al Batman
*Star Wars
6. OT & Related
7. PT
8. TCW & Rebels
9. Legends
10. Forgotten Realms
*Transformers
11. G1 (Original comics and cartoons)
12. Bay Movies & Bumblebee
13. Shattered Glass-esque
*Anne McCaffrey
14. Pern
15. Talent
16. Freedom
17. Crystal
*Star Trek
18. TOS
19. TNG
20. Novels
21. DS9
22. Marvel (spotty across franchises)
23. Fast & Furious
24. Forever Knight (TV 1992)
25. Stargate SG-1
26. Highlander: The Series
27. Doctor Who (spotty across franchises)
28. Elfquest
29. Labyrinth (1986)
30. MASH (TV)



Leave a comment with the fandom, character(s), and simple prompts if you want to claim one.
[syndicated profile] mangabookshelf_feed

Posted by Sean Gaffney

By Hiromu and raemz. Released in Japan as “Chitose-kun wa Ramune Bin no Naka” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Evie Lund.

Throwing up the spoiler warning here: I discuss the big revelations in this book, but not till the third paragraph.

I was expecting something else, to be honest. After the trauma of the last few books, the sturm und drang and Yua playing Baker Street over a sobbing Chitose, that we would sort of go back to everyone smiling, going back to their normal high school lives, and have a nice, relaxing 7th book. And, to be fair, so was the author. There is an extra-long afterword describing their thought process while writing this book, and you can see how the first, oh, third of the book is written by a very different person from the one who wrote the last two-thirds. Because the author is correct, that is what the characters want. It’s what the readers want. We do not want more angst. We want to relax. Unfortunately, for the sake of the story, the author cannot give that to us. And so… see the girl on the cover>? She’s a first-year. She’s spunky, cute, and loves the whole cast. And she’s also a bomb.

After the events over the summer, Chitose is hoping that everything will go back to normal. And, aside from Yuuko having the traditional “moving on” haircut, they do. Which means it’s time to plan for the culture festival, which is two months away and seems to involve both a sports day AND a culture day. Naturally, Chitose and company are very involved, especially since, in his first year, he was not in the right headspace to handle a festival. Now he and the rest of the group want to be on the cheer squad. They’re joined by Asuka, who is happy to do something with them before she has to graduate. They are also joined by Kureha, a first-year who has heard all the stories about the very famous Chitose and his very famous friends, and is star-struck. She rapidly becomes part of their group. A bit too rapidly. The reader gradually feels that things are about to go very, very wrong.

As our little bomb sent everyone into a coma over the course of the last third of the book, I noticed that Yuuko was pretty much absent. She’s not like all the others, after all. She actually confessed and was rejected. So Kureha can’t really do much about her. It’s worth noting that Kureha is being written as a horrible villain after the reveal, and the reader sees her as one long before that, but to all the other girls, she’s not. Particularly Yuzuki, who is on the cover of the next two books in this series, and I strongly suspect is going to step past Yuuko to steal the main girl spotlight. But the way that Kureha demolishes Haru, Asuka and Yua with “innocent” ease shows off that much as we’d like all the girls to be equal in their chances to win Chitose, that’s not how love works. You have to commit. You have to be ready to hurt others to get what you want. Yuuko understood that, and the hurt was devastating to her. Kureha is able to hurt far more easily, but so far only Yuzuki, who has always been the most aloof of the group, is ready to take things to the next level.

As the anime seems to be polarizing people, the novels are hitting another high point. Just… be ready for things to not be safe and fun.

Daily Check-in

Oct. 22nd, 2025 06:13 pm
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
 
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Wednesday, October22, to midnight on Thursday, October 23. (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33754 Daily Check-in
This poll is closed.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 26

How are you doing?

I am OK.
15 (57.7%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
11 (42.3%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single.
8 (30.8%)

One other person.
11 (42.3%)

More than one other person.
7 (26.9%)




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
 

ST:TOS Drabble

Oct. 22nd, 2025 07:01 pm
senmut: A painted picture of Bones McCoy (Star Trek: Bones McCoy)
[personal profile] senmut
Musical Duel or read at Ad Astra (100 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Spock (Star Trek), Nyota Uhura
Additional Tags: Drabble
Summary:

Just a friendly improv session






Uhura smiled mischievously, and Spock let an eyebrow rise at the look. She shifted the tempo of the song she was playing on the dulcimer, and he adjusted his own on the Vulcan harp. The crew that were enjoying the musical duel-duet smiled approvingly.

The idea of it had settled into Spock's mind as a game. He played a few more measures, then changed the harmony, making Uhura adjust to him.

Back and forth they went, with encouragement from the crew, while Spock found himself rising to the challenge and Uhura enjoying it.

They were both winners in the end.

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