Quote of the Day:

"Writing involves both the expression of an idea and the exploration of an idea — that is, when writing, you set out with an intention to say something, but as part of the attempt to capture an idea, the idea itself is altered through the thinking that happens as you consider your subject. Anyone who has written has experienced one of these mini-ephiphanies that is unique to the way humans write."

— John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI (2025)

(He's talking about nonfiction, but this happens to me while writing fiction allll the time.)


Today's Writing:

Alibi sentence! Mondays, man.


Tally

Days 1-21 )

Day 22: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] chanter1944, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] luzula, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] ysilme


Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
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watersword: Keira Knightley, in Pride and Prejudice (2007), turning her head away from the viewer, the word "elizabeth" written near (Default)
([personal profile] watersword Sep. 23rd, 2025 02:12 pm)

As per usual: I am not even a little bit ready for the Days of Awe! Emotionally. I'm pretending that the cleaner was scheduled yesterday so I could start 5786 with a clean house. It's gonna be real weird to be with my mother for Y"K, although really most of that day will be spent on the ferry, which will actually be a lovely way to pass the time thinking about Y"K stuff.

I have eaten my apples & honey and gone to the river and filled my cup with friend time, and that's a pretty good way to start the year. L'shana tovah, friends.

Posted by Lute

In the last year, AO3 has seen a rise in “art commission” spambot comments. The bots leaving these comments pretend to be artists who want to make comics or illustrations for a fan’s fic. After convincing their targets to contact them off AO3, they scam their targets into paying for that art. Fans have reported that after sending payment, they either received AI-generated art or nothing at all.

AO3 has been working on various methods that we hope will reduce the spam. However, these scammers are persistent and creative about circumventing our protections.

To avoid falling victim to one of these scams, the Policy & Abuse committee recommends:

  1. Do not commission art from someone who solicits you by commenting on your work on AO3. Commercial activity is prohibited on AO3. If someone is encouraging behavior that violates our Terms of Service, it’s a good idea to be cautious. They likely do not have your best interests in mind.
  2. Do not provide your email or social media contact information to a commenter who asks for it, even if they say they’d just like to discuss your work further. Scammers try to get you to talk to them privately, because it is often easier to deceive or manipulate people in a one-on-one conversation.

Example of this type of scam

An example AO3 comment exchange with a spambot.

Elizabethbrown123: Wow, this fic was amazing! The way you describe things is so vivid and really brought the characters to life. Your work moved me to tears.
cool_username_42069: Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it. <3
Elizabethbrown123: You’re welcome! I’m so glad you responded. Do you use Discord or Twitter, or could you tell me your email so we can chat more? I’ve got some ideas I’d love to share with you, but I don’t want to spoil anything.

This is just one example of how a scammer tries to lure the work creator onto a different platform where they can pressure the creator into commissioning art. These scammers use AI to generate realistic-sounding comments. The comments often contain generic praise or statements that could apply to any work, but sometimes they are extremely lengthy and/or specific. If the creator is suspicious and asks why the scammer wants to move the conversation off-site, they will typically claim that they aren’t a scammer and/or that they can explain things better in private.

However, unlike a regular user, a scammer will always do at least one of two things:

  1. They will ask you to commission art from them, or
  2. They will share their contact information and/or ask for your information (such as an email address or username on a site that supports private messaging, like Instagram or Discord)

If you suspect that you’ve received a spam comment on your work, don’t reply and especially do not provide them with your contact information. Just report the comment to Policy & Abuse so that we can take care of it.

What to do if you encounter this scam

If you receive a scam comment from a guest, you can press the “Spam” button on the comment. This helps train our automated spam-checker to better detect this type of behavior.

If you encounter a scammer that has a registered account, or if you encounter a guest posting scam comments on someone else’s work, please report them to the Policy & Abuse committee. To do so:

  1. Select the “Thread” button on the scammer’s comment. This will take you to the specific comment page.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Policy Questions & Abuse Reports.
  3. In the “Brief summary of Terms of Service violation” field, enter “Spambot”.
  4. In the “Description of the content you are reporting” field, enter “This is a spambot, their username is USERNAME.”

Reporting in this fashion helps us auto-sort your report so that it can be handled as soon as a Policy & Abuse volunteer is available. To help us address reports about these types of bots as fast as possible, please only submit one report per account, and don’t include multiple accounts in the same report.

If you encounter a scam commenter on someone else’s work, you can let the work creator know the commenter is likely a bot and link them to this news post.

We also encourage you to share this post on social media and help spread the word about how to protect yourself from scammers and reduce spam on AO3.

amalthia: (Farscape)
([personal profile] amalthia Sep. 22nd, 2025 09:40 pm)
Tonight I was re-watching some of my favorite Farscape music vids and wow I felt like this was the golden age of music vids. Like this fandom kept raising the bar in terms of what is possible in a music vid.

The vid "Fix You" had wonderful use of voice overs and overlays/crossfading. The song choice and editing made it was absolutely perfect. I cried the first time watching it. Youtube LINK: Fix You

Then I re-watched "Angel of Moya" to the song "return to innocence" and this vidder did something I never saw done to before, which was they played the clips backwards from the end of the show until the beginning and it worked. Angel of Moya by Avenue Potter.

Then there are these two John/Aeryn gems from Leviathan.

She Drives me Crazy
A life less ordinary

There are so many other good vids in this fandom. If you have any recs please feel free to share in the comments!
[personal profile] letzan posted about recent "high velocity f/f fandoms":

I want to shine an occasional spotlight on fandoms that are in flux. There are two kinds of fandoms here:

  • Fandoms that are growing rapidly, which are typically not in the top 20 now, and may never get there, but might be interesting for F/F readers to check out and encourage.

  • Fandoms that are losing ground on the top 20, and seem to be "post-peak." They may well peak again in the future, but it's a good moment to look back at the impressive amount of F/F which has been written so far.


There were some real surprises (to me) in both the list of femslash fandoms that are growing over the last 3 months, and those "losing ground." [personal profile] letzan is also soliciting femslash recs for all of the fandoms listed in the post!

Take a peek for yourself.
Sorry this is so late again. Mondays are hopeless...

Also, it's getting near the end of the month. Who will volunteer to host October? Raise your hand!


Quote of the Day:

"The ways creative work gets done are always unpredictable, demanding room to roam, refusing schedules and systems. They cannot be reduced to replicable formulas."

— Rebecca Solnit, "Woolf's Darkness," in Men Explain Things to Me (2014)


Today's Writing:

More words on that thing I thought of that I didn't want to forget. \o/


Tally

Days 1-20 )

Day 21: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] luzula, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] trobadora

Day 22: [personal profile] china_shop


Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
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hannah: (Running - obsessiveicons)
([personal profile] hannah Sep. 22nd, 2025 05:25 pm)
The first day of fall. Rosh Hashanah beginning a new year. And giving blood, too. It took me just over six minutes, which isn't bad except for how I know I can do better than that. I'll keep hydrating and hitting the treadmill.

I'm also going to leave the bandage on until bedtime, as usual. It's yellow, so I feel like I should pick a dress for tonight's dinner that'll really make it pop.
pi: (Default)
([personal profile] pi Sep. 22nd, 2025 11:38 am)
Dear Festividder,

I'm delighted that we're matched on one of these small fandoms. Vids are excellent and I can't wait to see what you come up with!


I'm always happy to be introduced to new-to-me music through vids, it's how I find some of my favorite artists and songs. 
But if you'd like, here are some examples of music/musicians I like already: Dessa, Griff, Glades, Taylor Swift, Tiffany Day, Lil Nas X, Years & Years, Vienna Teng, BOY, Be Steadwell, Alexander James Adams, Mon Rovîa, Adia Victoria, Indigo Girls, Mary Lambert, Lady Bri, Chvrches, Oh Wonder, Owl City, Little Mix, Foxes, Cloudy June, Haley Kiyoko, Carly Rae Jepsen, Liang Lawrence.

DNWs: I don't enjoy music with screaming/shouting in it. I don't enjoy most metal, hard rock, punk music, or twang-y country music. Please avoid inclusion of audio from the source. Please no added script/words over the footage throughout the vid (optional subtitles are fine, title & author / vid meta data at end or beginning are fine), color correcting to fix lighting is totally fine but I prefer vids in a natural color range rather than color-corrected to an unnatural appearance (like teal/orange, all purple in tone, etc).

fandom details for The Summer Hikaru Died, Mission: Save the Hunter, The S Classes That I Raised, The Rogue Prince is Secretly an Omega, The Husky and His White Cat Shizun, BL Metamorphosis, Buddy Daddies, and Deadloch )
Tags:
watersword: Keira Knightley applying lipstick and looking in a mirror, with the words "a work in progress" nearby (Keira Knightley: lipstick)
([personal profile] watersword Sep. 22nd, 2025 01:02 pm)

Block party yesterday extremely good: I met someone who keeps bees on his garage roof, and may have acquired volunteers for the pollinator garden, and talked about needlework with someone, and ate delicious fried chicken and upside-down peach cake. A+ community experience.

Today the cleaner is taking a crack at my dishwasher filter because I could not face a further attempt, and I am doing the interesting parts of my job (discussing copyright in archives! writing semantic HTML in preparation for writing modern CSS! prepping for a teaching commitment later this week!), and tomorrow I will go to the river for Tashlich first thing, and then have a co-writing sesh with H., and then the apple tasting flight with local honey (not from the garage bees) with friends in the park.

There is a constituent meeting with my state senator I am planning to go to later this week, he seems mostly useless but not actively evil, wish me luck.

petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
([personal profile] petra Sep. 21st, 2025 10:24 pm)
I have made my nominations:
Slow Horses (TV)
The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Galavant (TV)
Doctrine of Labyrinths - Sarah Monette
InCryptid - Seanan McGuire

The nomination coordination spreadsheet is here if you want to see what other people who know the spreadsheet exists have nominated.
Tags:
azurelunatic: Hinky: adj: pure evil fuckery afoot. Syn.: suspicious (hinky)
([personal profile] azurelunatic Sep. 21st, 2025 05:37 pm)
The worst part of colonoscopy prep turned out to be the sheer number of trips to the bathroom, which knotted up my legs something fierce. The second worst part was the taste of the solution, even with added flavorings. It was salty! (I got the huge jug rather than the Miralax version. Miralax at least isn't salty.) Next time, probably either green unsweetened Kool-Aid or lemonade Crystal Lite or whatever.

Off topic for FFA )

I did make the planned gallon of orange jello, but since it was a little late for me to actually eat it, I put mandarin orange slices in it. Since that's often part of Belovedest's lunch. Today I packed it into smaller boxes to help with that effort and to decrease the crowding in the fridge.

I got a slight nap after everything was about finished. The split prep schedule meant that I started the second half around 12:30 am. Appointment check in time 6 am.

The distance in the facility wasn't super bad, although we brought my chair just in case. (Speaking of the chair, I have decked it out with retroreflective tape and electroluminescent wire. It looks much safer. The cup holder went on Friday.)

The procedure wasn't bad. )

I got dressed again. I had picked a cute nightgown for the outing, black with flowers and butterflies. Instead of a coat (it's getting chilly at night) I wore my dramatic black velvet robe, the one with lace trim and bell sleeves. I received a compliment. And as soon as I proved I could stand up without excessive wobbling, we were off.

Belovedest gathered breakfast for me on our way home, and I took a much needed nap (interrupted a few times to confirm that I could be made conscious and accept hydration).

And that was that.

We did our usual Friday shopping on Saturday. I was still sore. Today my legs are thankfully feeling normal.
Tags:
Quote of the Day:

"Maybe this book will be banned in Florida right out of the gate. But I guess if you’re not banned in Florida, then what are you really doing with your life."

— Sean Sherman, in "Reflections on Creating Turtle Island: A Cookbook Against Erasure," in his newsletter The Sioux Chef (9/7/2025)


Today's Writing:

About 250 words, about something I thought of that I didn't want to forget. 8-)


Tally

Days 1-19 )

Day 20: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] luzula, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] trobadora

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
Tags:

Posted by therealmorticia

The Pinky and the Brain Page, a Pinky and the Brain fanfiction and fanart archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

Background explanation

James, the archivist, used to run and maintain a Pinky and the Brain fandom site from around 1995 to 2000. When he recently found some of the stories in an old hard drive he searched the Internet for some of them, but his searches came up empty. Rather than letting those stories sit unread he thought he would rather they be shared on the AO3 for people to enjoy and remember.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with James to import The Pinky and the Brain Page into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanfics and fanart currently in the The Pinky and the Brain Page will be hosted on the OTW’s servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from The Pinky and the Brain Page to the AO3 after September 2025. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on The Pinky and the Brain Page?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We’ll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your The Pinky and the Brain Page pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

  1. You’d like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
  2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
  3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
  4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
  5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
  6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your The Pinky and the Brain Page account, please contact Open Doors and we’ll help you out. (If you’ve posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they’re yours, that’s great; if not, we will work with the The Pinky and the Brain Page mod to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:

If you still have questions…

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We’d also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of The Pinky and the Brain Page on Fanlore. If you’re new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We’re excited to be able to help preserve The Pinky and the Brain Page!

– The Open Doors team and James

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

runpunkrun: the king of all cosmos' pea-sized prince (katamari damashii)
([personal profile] runpunkrun Sep. 21st, 2025 09:22 am)
Like many things this year, my Japanese study has been greatly reduced by time and circumstance. In January I stopped doing my daily work on WaniKani (where I'd reached Level 9) and KaniWani but kept up with my lessons on Duolingo. Much of my vocabulary has slipped away from me, but the grammar persists, and the vocabulary's easy to look up, so I'm not that bad off, and I can pick WaniKani back up whenever I want because I have a lifetime subscription. I'm just gonna be SUPER BEHIND when I do. ウヘッ。


Volume 4

Describe a wedding | Make plans to go out

Vol 4 )

I impulse-made pasta dough in the stand mixer last night, and then today, I:

  • went to the farmer's market, where the good sourdough vendor was in attendance and recognized me, and I also picked up an apple tasting flight (Macoun, McIntosh, Honeycrisp, and Gala) and honey for Rosh Hashanah Tuesday, as well as a dozen gorgeous multicolored eggs, a purple cauliflower, and various other vegetables;
  • meandered around the neighborhood in perfect early-fall sunshine, following the treasure map of local yard sales, and one house was giving away their stuff, including an adorable little pitcher and stationery and stamps and linen napkins I'm going to turn into embroidery projects;
  • did some gardening and met up with a friend and her kid, and hung out with them for a few hours and made play-doh shapes;
  • came home and rolled out half the pasta dough and made ravioli and took a hot bath.

And now I'm going to drink some mint tea and lie on the couch and read a book and cuddle my cat. Tomorrow there is a block party and more fresh pasta to roll. This all feels suspiciously idyllic.

Quote of the Day:

"We just sit down at the table with a bottle of wine and plot out sections together. Then we each go off and write our own sections. Then we meet, read them back and forth, and when we have something we're satisfied with, we plot out the next section. It's fun."

— Bill Pronzini, on collaborating with Marcia Muller, from "Partners in Crime," an interview with both of them in The Sonoma Independent (1996)


Today's Writing:

No word count as such, since I was turning bullet points into a shitty first draft. ;-)


Tally

Days 1-18 )

Day 19: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] luzula, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] yasaman, [personal profile] ysilme


Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
Tags:
runpunkrun: chibi james t kirk making finger guns with the pansexual flag behind him (fun seeking pansexual)
([personal profile] runpunkrun Sep. 20th, 2025 11:28 am)
ALSO, long time no see, but I've been quiet because I've been WRITING. Stay tuned for Kirk & Spock bonding in their shared bathroom.
Set in a place that is probably not Earth, or Earth at a very different time, where kaiju rise up out of the ocean during the wet season and head for land. In the Empire, the Engineers maintain the sea walls that keep the leviathans out; the Legion fight them back; the Apothetikals develop organic means to alter the plants and animals—and people—that make it possible to survive in this hostile land, and the Iudex investigate the crimes. The wet season's coming and Dinios Kol, Imperial engraver and (apprentice) assistant investigator, has been sent to the scene of a ghastly murder to engrave it in his memory and report back to his master, the reclusive and eccentric (and possibly autistic) Anagosa Dolabra.

This is a plot-driven mystery, more focused on the details of the investigation than the development of the characters, and for me that made it feel a little empty. The ad copy wants you to believe Din and Ana have a Watson and Holmes thing going on, but that is barely the case. The characters are mostly a means to an end, a collection of characteristics rather than actual people, and this includes our first person narrator, Din. He's a nervous little (queer) guy, basically, only tall, did he mention he's tall?? He's tall, gang. And dyslexic. I liked him well enough, but I never felt like I really knew what he was about.

The book has a fantasy science-fiction vibe, and a bunch of new guys, like whenever RJB needed to explain a crime he just invented a new type of guy. It was starting to feel a little silly. Like, "Oh, didn't you know about this type of guy? It's the only way this mystery makes sense!" I don't think the mystery is the kind that can be solved just by paying attention, rather it's the kind with an extensive drawing room scene near the end that explains it all.

And I guess I've been reading exactly the right amount of Adrian Tchaikovsky because I kept wondering what was up with the leviathans, like what's their deal? Has anybody bothered to ask why they want to come on land? Maybe it's part of their life cycle, maybe there's something there they need—but this is not that book. It's a fantasy murder mystery set in the middle of a seasonal kaiju attack that must be stopped, and that's fine, it's just one more way the story lacked depth. But the mystery and the world building were enough to keep me engaged, and I'm curious to see what happens next so I've already checked the sequel out from the library.

Contains: body horror; a lot of blood; fear of contagion; sword violence.
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