nineveh_uk

m_findlow posting in

Title: Pointless
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,104 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 486 - Revenge
Summary: Ianto is stuck in a world of hurt, made worse by the fact that he can’t be there beside Jack when he needs him most.

( Read more... )

sanguinity

Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

zwei_hexen has graciously agreed to host us in August! (Thank you,

sylvanwitch and

ysilme!)

My check-in: Inspired by how much fun

brithistorian has been having writing pomegaverse these last couple of days, I ditched my other projects and started on my Keep Fandom Weird bingo card. Someone's terrible horrible no good very bad day just got even worse. :-DDDDD

Day 28:

china_shop,

sanguinity

Day 27:

badlyknitted,

brithistorian,

callmesandyk,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

yasaman,

( more days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

sovay

I sent this post in memoriam Tom Lehrer to

selkie, after which it hit me that the funniest part about Lehrer working for a born-secret agency was that he said as much in public. It's in the Revisited introduction to "The Wild West Is Where I Want to Be" (1960): "Now if I may indulge in a bit of personal history, a few years ago I worked for a while at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. I had a job there as a spy. No . . . I guess you know that the staff out there at that time was composed almost exclusively of spies . . . of one persuasion or another . . ." It's a hit with the audience, who did not have a chance of knowing for another thirty-odd years that he meant it. What Lehrer actually did for the NSA still appears unconfirmed, but writing in the second edition of Quantum Profiles (1991/2020) his one-time fellow Harvardian Jeremy Bernstein guessed—the classical combination of mathematical skill and being an absolute weirdo—"probably codebreaking." I'd never thought about it and I'd believe it. That line run on the audience in MIT's Kresge Auditorium in 1959 is a cryptographer's joke: it works in its own right, but to get it properly requires a key. Jesus, can you imagine him and Leo Marks in a room together? It would have been an arms race which of them could be self-deprecatingly funnier without giving a thing they didn't want to away.

Current Music: Tom Lehrer, "Send the Marines"

shadowkat

I may have had one too many matcha latte's today. Hopefully, I will sleep tonight.

Buffy Reboot Casting News

I'm not crazy about this? It feels too much like a retread. But I may be wrong? Also there's one too many new regulars or new characters, and none of them look intriguing. Plus a lot of men, and not many women - the original series had more women or female characters and built in new characters as it went.
( excerpt )

Here's IGN's take on the above:

https://www.ign.com/articles/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-reboot-casting-confirms-its-new-scooby-gang-backing-up-previous-leaks

"As previously announced, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong will lead the project, while Gellar will appear in its first episode, then appear afterwards in a recurring role.

The rest of the cast are all new to the franchise, TVLine reports, and include Severance's Sarah Bock as Gracie, Law & Order: SVU's Ava Jean as Larkin, and Faly Rakotohavana as Hugo. Major Crimes' Daniel di Tomasso plays Abe, while Frasier's Jack Cutmore-Scott is the mysterious Mr. Burke.

Gellar, meanwhile, was credited on the new script as Buffy "Anne" Summers, which some fans have suggested might mean the Slayer is once again attempting to operate under the radar, and using her middle name as a pseudonym.

While Gellar, who acts as an executive producer on the new show, has said she was keen for the reboot to feature a mix of new and returning characters, including those who were no longer alive, it's perhaps not surprising to see the series' core cast confirmed as all-new characters.
( Read more... )

And the casting breakdown leaked on LJ:

https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/130240609.html
( see below )

Again, mixed feelings? I'll try it of course. But I'm going in with low expectations. So much will depend on the writing? It can go in any number of directions.

Unfortunately, they may well need more than just Gellar to pull in the Buffy fandom, since the vast majority of it wasn't watching for just Buffy, and many were watching for the supporting characters.

That said? I remain convinced that Marsters is involved somehow. Along with many others from the original cast (or Disney wouldn't have stopped them from doing Slayers on audio books) and Marsters wouldn't be as tight lipped about it and what he's working on. They don't need to do much - just bring them in as ten minute cameos or recurring - to pull in an audience.

Also they are just shooting the pilot at the moment. Whether it airs, has a lot to do with how well the pilot is received by Disney.

They are also rebooting the Buffy and Angel comics, again.

Kelly Thompson Takes over the Buffy and Angel Comics

( Excerpt )

Sigh. I have no idea who Kelly Thompson is? I liked "The Last Slayer" best, with a 50 year old Buffy. But that's just me.
***

It's brutally hot here. In the 90s, feels like the 100s. (I let you figure out the translation to C, since I'm too lazy to google it.) The high today was 94, felt like 104 with the humidity. It's currently 90 degrees. I have A/C on and damn it's costing me a lot this summer. It has to be on all day - or it will work harder to cool down the apartment, and medications, etc could be affected.

Oh well, at least the smoke is gone - it's 58 air quality today as opposed to 100-138 over the weekend.

***

I was enjoying the Billy Joel Documentary And So it Goes which is coupled with an album of over 155 songs also entitled And So it Goes, Sunday Night on HBO. It told me a lot of things about Billy Joel that I didn't know - such as how Elizabeth Webber was the love of his life and his manager for a good portion of his career. She's interviewed in the documentary, and is responsible for getting him situated in the music business, and ensuring his songs became hit singles - by picking the ones that would take off such as "Just the Way You Are" - she was a better judge of his music and what would become a hit than he was or his producer. Just the Way You Are - is the song that got Paul McCartney's attention and the one McCartney wished he wrote. (Seriously Paul? You can't write all of them.)

Just the Way You Are

Although my favorite Joel songs were the stories he told, such as The Piano Man and Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.

****

I'm ignoring the news at the moment, and side eyeing it? Or looking at it from the corner of my eye. I can't do anything about it. And it's not like I don't care - I do. But I can't help the Ukraine (there's a lot of Ukrainians in my area and building), and I can't help Gaza. Or any of the other places around the world that are suffering and under fire (sigh, there are so many). I think humans like to kill each other? Today on the morning news - they informed me that over 3000 ghost guns had been taken off the streets. Ghost Guns = illegal guns, that have been purchased illegally. Also shootings have gone down in NYC since they've started the program. There was bad news too, but I jumped away from it.

Work was..frustrating? But I let it go. I edit, then someone else edits, then someone else edits, then I see it again - and I think okay, why did I bother? And why did they make those edits? I'm trying to copy their edits from other reviews, but they aren't consistent, and contradict themselves.
I'm also apparently the financial guru, by default - no one else cares about the financials. So someone has to - me. This amuses me to no end. Oh well, I only have three - four more years left, possibly just three depending.

Example?
( Read more... )

***

Here's a photo:

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3121/

Detectives say the key to tracking down the source of the kites was a large wall map covered in thumbtacks and string. 'It's the first time that method has ever actually worked,' said a spokesperson.

https://xkcd.com/3121/

redbird

I just got off the phone with a (genuinely) helpful person at Amalgamated Bank.

I've been talking to them in order to close a joint account in my and my mother's names, and the bank told me in June that the easiest way to do this would be to withdraw all the money and then have them close the account. In order to do that, I had to set up online banking, but only after adding my phone number to the account, which I did in June. Apparently the reason I couldn't log in to the online account after setting it up was that I'd written the password down wrong.

The person at the bank reset my password for me, and then told me how to link this account to an account at another bank. I'm waiting for the test deposits to hit my account, which may take a few days. After than, I can transfer the rest of the money.

Also, I got up in time to go for a walk this morning, to the grocery store and back, before it got too hot. It's a hot day in July, so the six things I bought included ice cream, Italian ices, and fresh blueberries.

beccaelizabeth

I am so so so behind on Big Finish, today I listened to some from 2018.

7, Ace and Mel, in Red Planets and The Dispossessed

Second one first: I don't think The Dispossessed really filled out the corners in its story, and Ace and Mel seemed to witness the story more than be in it. I think I missed bits of some conversations because it was just some guy explaining his side of the plot to them. There was an alien made vivid by having her speak like a regular person, but somehow the regular people didn't have the same trick. And there was a girl whose entire presence in the story was just, like, being scared and hiding. Basically the Doctor got to be cool but everyone else got to be there, so, not my favourite.

I like how Ace and Mel compare contrast. They're both older because Big Finish, but the ways they have and have not changed get really highlighted by putting them in these stories together.

Red Planets was much cleverer and did have a lot of corners full of story. Written by Una McCormack. Alternate history. Interesting ideas. And all back in the box by the end, but the biggest interesting idea is, how is this one history the Right history, really? Because it is the one the Doctor (and the audience) knows? All these people, all wiped away because the Right history had to happen again.
Which they've also done with Klein but this was a good take on it too.
I liked how they introduced the strangeness via Mel. Mel's thing is she Doesn't Forget, but here the history she's so sure she remembers is news to the listener. Interesting unsettling way to go.
Ace ending up uncertain if she was cause or cure of all the weird is good as well.
Ace is so confident by this point in her stories, and not exactly trusting of the Doctor, so doing this to her is much story.

Can't remember which I've said but I've been listening to 7 Ace Mel stories all since A Life of Crime the last few days. The idea of Mel getting her possibilities ate in her sleep remains one of the creepiest. And there's a lot of good character stuff happening, bringing Mel back in a story continues way. Now she might leave any time, or do anything.

She just did a very big anything at the end of the last story so I look forwards to the next story.

But it is 10pm and I has a busy day (opticians, test, ordering new glasses in old frames)
so I shall try and be sensible and go sleep.

kaberett

Reading. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh, The Book, with A, a chapter at a time.

Also a bit more of The Age of Seeds, but only a very little bit.

Writing. Fun migraine facts: I spent the weekend discovering that writing by hand at speed Just Does Not Work Well. "Stopping" for "stopper", "fascinate" for "fastener", and so on and so forth...

Listening. Songs and stories! Including, apparently, these people + friends.

Playing. Admin: the LRP.

Eating. I may have slightly subsisted primarily on lemon and sugar crêpes. The raspberry and lemon curd toasties remain a delight. Some blackberries from the hedges.

Exploring. Finally (consciously) observed the giant purple cockerel. The Navarr woods at night.

Growing. Actually managed to water the plants before setting off, go me.

Observing. A BAT IN THE MARQUEE. ALSO A GIANT DRAGONFLY. Also the swallows (I think). Stars.

andrewducker

We've gone on holiday on purpose!

(Us, my brothers, our families, my parents, and their dogs. Seven adults and five kids altogether. Staying in a rented house half an hour out of Southampton for a week.)
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

purplecat

( Spoilers )

ffutures

Since I wanted to get cheap train tickets and messed up on my train and bus timings I got to the Continuum games con too late for the first games on Friday afternoon, so spent a few hours socializing before my first game in the evening. After that I either played or ran games all weekend. Didn't play any freeform RPGs or board games thing time, I forgot to sign up for the freeforms in advance of the con and managed to find an RPG I wanted to play in all of the time slots.

Friday evening - the Space 1999 RPG - Afterimage, a nice cheesy adventure using all the tropes of the TV series. I played a theoretically non-combatant member of a team sent to chart a way through a dense asteroid belt before the Moon hit it, and as usually is the case ran into aliens who were not what they seemed. Some intrigue, mind control, and an eventual triumph for doing things the simple way by extreme percussive maintenance. Good fun, although I'm still a little boggled that someone actually converted the series into an RPG. REALLY hoping that this will lead to more RPGs based on Gerry Anderson's series, especially Thunderbirds, UFO (Space 1999 was originally expected to be a sequel to UFO), and Captain Scarlet.

Saturday morning - the most recent Doctor Who RPG - Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, a Torchwood adventure. Lots of investigation in and around Cardiff and Barry Island, and an eventual gunfight in a very dangerous location. I played Owen Harper, but didn't get to make much use of my medical skills, although some biology did come into it. Enjoyable and worked reasonably well.

Saturday afternoon - the Code of the Spacelanes RPG - Sparks in the Void, run by Simon Burley who wrote the system, in which our crack team of amnesic adventurers managed to turn a relatively small problem into near interstellar war, and were more or less responsible for the loss of most of two space fleets. I played a pessimistic space medic and had a lot of fun.

Saturday evening - The Shiver RPG - The Hollow World, basically Jurassic Park in a hollow world setting. This was an interesting idea but I think that the allegedly cinematic/horror system just doesn't work very well, especially if you are tired and trying to make sense of a load of special dice with weird symbols, character sheets that don't seem to be very well designed and don't relate character abilities to the relevant characteristics very well, and rules that make a fairly simple fight against some mindless enemies take nearly half an hour to play out. I don't blame the GM for this, I think that the adventure and system simply aren't very well designed. Probably the most disappointing game of the convention.

Sunday morning - I ran one of my old Doctor Who adventures, Curse of the Conqueror (originally written for Virgin's Time Lord RPG, I've now converted it to my own Diana Warrior Princess rules), in which a group of characters from the classic Dr. Who era had to handle a time paradox and prevent WW3. I don't really want to say too much about it since it worked well and I may run it again at Dragonmeet in December if I don't think of anything else. I'll probably put both versions on line as free downloads eventually.

Sunday afternoon - The Savage Worlds RPG - The King in Purple, the latest in a series of steampunk/Cthulhu Mythos adventures in which a Victorian crimefighting team based on Marvel and DC characters fought a certain cackling maniac who might owe more than a little to the Joker. I've played in one of the earlier adventures and enjoyed myself both times - not a huge fan of the system, but the GM was good enough that it didn't matter too much.

Sunday evening - the Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme RPG - A Tournament at Ware? - A very silly adventure for a very silly game run by Phil Masters, who wrote most of the Discworld RPG. I played the backstabbing princess of Ware, trying to set things up to inherit the Kingdom if Daddy suffered an unfortunate "accident", but didn't get very far due the machinations of three mysterious knights in pastel armour, Sir Robin and sundry other knights, and the Head of Light Entertainment. I tried to recruit Tim the Enchanter to Team Princess, but due to some spectacularly bad dice rolls it didn't happen. I helped to defeat the knights but didn't advance my agenda, and it ended with Daddy possibly looking at one of his knights to inherit. Always assuming that the Princess doesn't take him out first...

And so to bed, and today home to an afternoon and evening spent catching up on things.

lannamichaels

A good time! Some nice stuff where you can really see the development of halacha over time about a lot of relevant kashrus stuff (bread, cheese, wine, milk, fish, grasshoppers, prepared foods, etc). But not much to note about specifics. But it is amusing that grocery fraud is such a constant: yes, you do have to be concerned that someone who is claiming to sell something has actually substituted something cheaper instead, and also people will absolutely pass off fish as being another kind of fish. You gotta know what you're eating!

My notes behind cut.

( Read more... )

stonepicnicking_okapi

Watch on YouTube

conuly

Tom Lehrer died.

marina

A wild post appears!

( a purely personal update )

ffutures

This is an offer of a translated Italian 5th edition RPG setting from Acheron Games based on the Book of Revelation and the Divine Comedy.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Apocalisse

To be honest, this isn't something I would want to run - I'm more interested in the prelude to an apocalypse than the event itself, and prefer Good Omens to the Divine Comedy - there's a lot more opportunity for fun. And for that I think In Nomine already works pretty well. But if you are interested it's not expensive, and does include the source material.

dewline

I know there's complaints - with cause - about the management of Substack. I still follow several accounts there, and one of them belongs to former MP and continuing punk rock musician Charlie Angus.

This was today's upload:

https://charlieangus.substack.com/p/the-riot-of-christie-pits

He uploaded a history lesson on Canadian anti-fascist resistance and how it went at a baseball game in Toronto in August 1933...

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: "The Daily Beans" on YouTube

james_davis_nicoll

English-language ebooks of Apocalisse and Inferno, the Acheron Games campaign settings based on the Book of Revelation and the Divine Comedy for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and compatible systems.

Bundle of Holding: Apocalisse & Inferno

lexin

Smokey has not been eating - she last had a decent meal on Thursday. I decided to give her the weekend to buck her ideas up, but on Saturday and Sunday nights she didn't want treats (not at all like her) and she didn't want pets. Also not at all like her.

So I took her to the vet this afternoon. She hated it as she always does, and showed it by hissing and spitting at the vet when she tried to take a blood sample.

The vet thought then that the problem may be something to do with her kidneys, but they ran the sample and it's not that.

Next thought is that it's something to do with her thyroid, so I have to take her back tomorrow when they're going to give her something to calm her, do a scan (just in case it's something nasty) and take more bloods. She'll hate it, but I don't see that we have any alternative.

I'm so worried about her that I'm shaking even more than usual.

Current Location: Home (Bangor)
Crossposts: https://lexin.insanejournal.com/325604.html

yourlibrarian posting in

tv_talk

When person after person said they watched Penguin even when it was uncomfortable to keep going with it, it sounded rather familiar. I saw it with The Wire and especially with S2 of Andor. These were stories exploring the failures of systems, their purposes sabotaged by failing to account for personal agendas and human nature.

To me, Penguin and Andor share other similarities of the "it's so well written I had to see more" variety. Both are shows set within a franchise that do not feature the main features of that franchise, and which deal with the ruthlessness of societies in recognizable and everyday ways. ( Read more... )

In a side note, for those wanting more DC discussion, check out

gotham_tv for commentary on that show.

Torchwood: Fanfic: Pointless

Write Every Day: Day 28

We only want the world to know that we support the status quo

Buffy Reboot Casting News, Buffy & Angel Comics Reboot, among other things

Kite Incident

a productive day

New to me Big Finish Audio

vital functions

Photo cross-post

Lucky Day

Continuum 2025 - fun, fun, fun...

[Daf Yomi] Maseches Avoda Zara, perek 2, Ein Maamidin

Music Monday: Cuban Fire by Stan Kenton

No!

A purely personal post appears

Another RPG Bundle - Apocalisse-Inferno

Charlie Angus: The Anti-Fascist "Riot" of Christie Pits

Bundle of Holding: Apocalisse & Inferno

Cats, eh?

Penguin is DC's Andor

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