diffrentcolours

Judy is reading a time travel story which has modern day people going back to 1914- and it's annoying her that the dialogue the author gives his Georgians to speak feels really "off".

Yeah, well, but how did people speak in 1914? What's our evidence?

It's almost entirely literary. And literary dialogue has been cleaned up, tidied up, rendered, well, literary. And, anyway, we can't know whether any particular writer had a good ear for dialogue or not.

Did anyone ever speak like Oscar Wilde's people- except, perhaps, Oscar himself? Was the speech of Irish peasants half as as colourful as the stuff Synge puts in their mouths? Going back a bit further, did Dickens's Cockneys really transpose their "v"s and "w"s and if so when did they stop?

And how did people cuss during the Great War? Someone a while back was protesting that is was wildly anachronistic to have soldiers saying "fuck" in the movie 1917- and it piqued my interest, so I dug. Turns out they certainly did- all the fucking time- only you wouldn't know it from most of the contemporary novels, memoirs and plays.

Accuracy bows before good manners. It does in our time too. Stick a microphone in front of someone's face and they'll start minding their "p"s and "q"s. There's a lot more casual casual racism (the taboo of our times) in the speech of the streets than shows up in the record that will be available to our grand kids....

gywomod posting in

getyourwordsout

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lycomingst

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

The category(ies) you choose are up to you. You can give top 10 Fics you read last year, the top 10 songs to create to, the top 10 guest stars on your favorite show, top 10 characters in your favorite book series, top 10... well, you get the idea.

So I watch a lot of Brit tv and these are 10 actors that I delight in coming across in a show. In no particular order.

( Read more... )

questionable_content_feed

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5744

The Older, Wiser Sister

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5744

helloladies posting in

ladybusiness

Adventures Elsewhere collects our reviews, guest posts, articles, and other content we've spread across the Internet recently! See what we've been up in our other projects. :D

( Read more... )

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armaina

So, I like Affinity Studio, I like the products a lot. I like the interface, I like what they do, I like the ease of use with vector tools, I like the range. They're very close to being an actual replacement for Photoshop in ways no other application has been before it. I purchased the total suite of Affinity 2 at launch for 100$, an incredibly affordable price and well worth the tools for photo editing, vector work, and page layouts.

Some time ago, the Affinity suite of applications' parent company, Serif, got acquired by Canva. There was concern about this, a lot about what Canva stood for and the growing amount of generative tools being shooed in with little oversight. But for a time Canva left the Affinity Suite alone and it made some wonderful advancements. Affinity Publish is a big reason why I was able to start making zines, as it's interface was easy to pick up on and especially intuitive.

A couple months ago, Affinity was made into a singular program and released for free, and I have some mixed feelings about that.

NOW

I have no complaints about the fact that they made free something that once was paid. I don't think that's a bad thing, I don't feel I'm 'owed' anything. I paid for a digital license, not exclusivity. I still have the installs and backups, I can install it wherever and whenever. And in some ways, I think it's a good thing.

When trying to teach people basic photo editing, there's an ease of use that simply does not exist for Krita or GIMP. You can certainly learn to use those two, but there's a very stark learning curve that can get incredibly frustrating. And then, there's the text tools. There's one thing very few free services have gotten right and that's text tools, GIMP is a lot better than it used to be, but both Krita and Inkscape have some very odd controls for text editng. I've guided a lot of tech-inexperienced people through a lot of applications, and the truth is, Affinity and Photoshop have consistently been easier for tech newbies to pick up on than GIMP and Krita.

When the announcement hit about Affinity being rolled into a new program and it would be free, the first thing I thought was.. 'Oh I finally have a free tool I can point a whole lot of people to that they'll be able to pick up pretty easily and learn from. I know a lot of 'non artists' that would benefit greatly from being able to have a tool to do minor image editing. I can make PSD templates and they'll work completely, intact text layers and all, in affinity. And that's before even getting into how people that want to make Zines and don't have the money for fancy software can now look to Affinity. Most the free zine makers are for the really small zines, and then scribus is free but it isn't nearly as robust as Affinity. Like, in a lot of ways, Affinity going free is honestly, kind of amazing for the overall accessibility of design.

The thing that I'm actually concerned about this distribution model, is the long-term access.

With the applications I pay for, I typically get access to previous versions that I can install as needed if a change happens that I don't like. This type of free model, one that isn't open source, these companies rarely allow for access to previous versions which means if it changes, you're often unable to roll back to a previous version if you don't like the new changes. And if they ever decide the project isn't worth it to keep onto anymore, they can scorched earth the whole thing and there'd be nothing for it. Or they can switch back to a paid model, but only subscription once again locking others out of the ability to work on their projects lest they conform and hope they have it saved as another format.

So while I'm very excited for there to be something viably comparable for matters of graphic design for anyone low or no income, I'm very wary about the future of what that might mean and the access to the tools in question.

Current Mood: mixed
Current Music: Module - Xenon Home World

bella_luugosi

( Challenge #7: LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF )

sovay

My schedule for Arisia this year is minute, but a fairly big deal for me since the state of my health last allowed me to participate in programming in 2021. I mean, at the moment the state of my health is failed, but I'm still looking forward.

Dramatic Readings from the Ig Nobel Prizes
Saturday 3 pm, Amesbury AB
Marc Abrahams et al.

Highlights from Ig Nobel prize-winning studies and patents, presented in dramatic mini-readings by luminaries and experts (in some field). The audience will have an opportunity to ask questions about the research presented—answers will be based on the expertise of the presenters, who may have a different expertise than the researchers.

Cursed Literature
Sunday 4:15 pm, Central Square
Mark Millman (m), Alastor, Kristina Spinney, Sonya Taaffe

Some literature describes haunted houses; other books seem like they are haunted, as though the act of reading the book is inviting something vaguely unclean into the reader's life. Whether considering the dire typographical labyrinths of The House of Leaves, or the slowly expanding void at the heart of Kathe Koja's Cypher, some works leave a mark. Panelists will explore books that by reputation or their own experience, produce a lingering unsettled feeling far beyond the events and characters of the story.

SFF on Stage
Sunday 5:30 pm, Porter Square B
Raven Stern (m), Andrea Hairston, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe, Stephen R. Wilk

Science fiction and fantasy have long been mainstays of live theater; William Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1595. Peter Pan introduced one of the 20th century's best known characters in 1904. In 1920, R.U.R. gave us the word "robot." Universal Studios' famous version of Dracula was adapted not from the novel, but the wildly successful Broadway play. That's not even getting into modern musicals like Wicked or Little Shop of Horrors. What does it take for genre to work in a live setting, and where have we seen it succeed (or fail)?

Anyone else I can expect to see this weekend? The ziggurat awaits.

Current Music: Wednesday, "Wasp"

oursin

What I read

Finished Dream Count - not quite up to her earlier works? all being a bit of the moment (starting in lockdown and so on)? Will see what comes out in discussion.

Mick Herron, Clown Town (Slough House, #9) (2025) possibly getting that series-dip effect a bit? And was I really supposed to be flashing on the Marx Brothers' stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera during one particularly fraught episode?

Matt Lodder, Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art (2024), which was very impressive (and copiously illustrated) and one guesses a bit of a passion project*. Interesting that there is a recurrent theme of tattooing coming out from being a subcultural thing among lowlives: when the story in fact is that they were the ones for whom body art would be being recorded for identification, in muster-rolls or prison records etc, and people of more genteel status would not be In The Record as being inked unless for some unusual particular reason. And that its being/becoming a fashionable thing has cycled around or maybe always been there. Also fascinating the links between tattooers and the development of a subculture/s.

*Yes, we would like to see what he's got portrayed....

I intermitted this with JD Robb, Framed in Death (In Death, #61), which had come down to the (nostalgic) price of old mass-market paperbacks (now defunct). Not one of the stronger entries, yet again, serial killer with very specific modus.

On the go

Eve Babitz, I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz (2019) collection of her journalism, 1975-1997.

Up next

Well, I don't suppose that the books from local history society - which I have now been informed are available and can be purchased - will arrive very shortly, so dunno.

mythicmistress

Challenge #7

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

This is kind of difficult for me, and I don't know if these are OK answers, but here goes:

1. I'm dependable at my job, to the point that a coworker said they were a bit worried the day I was late. (Things were fine, I just overslept.)

2. I'm responsible with my credit card. (Sticking to my budget, and making sure I pay my bill on time.)

3. I still have the will to go on, no matter how much I feel that the world sucks right now.

poliphilo

I'm not sleeping well because, "Cough-cough-cough, cough-cough-cough." I keep thinking I've got this cold on the run and then it rallies. On the whole, though, I haven't been feeling ill, just tired.....

hrj

This is the sort of trip I never felt able to schedule before retirement: put together several purposes and just take a couple weeks to see people and do things.

I flew out on a red-eye because I always have this dilemma when flying east that I can either get up at an ungodly hour of the morning (which means either leaving my car at long-term parking, or getting an airport hotel room the night before), or I can arrive later in the evening than I want to be dealing with unfamiliar transit systems, or I can take a red-eye and have the logistics at both ends done at a reasonable hour of the day...at the expense of losing most of a night's sleep. I did sleep for several hours, but then spent most of yesterday vegging around L's appartment. (Which worked out because she had several online things to do.)

Today is L's big-number birthday celebration (one of the aforesaid "several purposes"). Then I have five days in NYC in which I have two items scheduled, which gives me a chance for more spontaneity than I usually have on trips. After that, it's up to Maine for the family part of the trip.

I was able to get all my blog/podcast stuff set up for the rest of the month--only need to switch things to "live" on the web--so any "work" I do on this trip can be on less urgent (i.e., actually writing on book projects). I think I've been managing better at avoiding having short-term deadlines rule my creative life, but somehow the non-fiction projects have called to me more strongly than the fiction. I suspect that's because the non-fiction is more in the revisions phased than the "creating text out of nothing" phase.

nanila posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

jack

Smoke LARP festival in London for two days.

Game 1 about dysfunctional committee running a large LARP event. This was hilarious and cathartic for a lot of people. Everyone had a character, the auteur overcommitted to the vision, the overly emotional over verbose writer, etc, etc who are over the top. And it's so easy to run with -- whenever someone asks "We can tear the fittings down for extra costumes?" you can say "Yes, obviously!"

Game 2 about Superheros matching Nemeses speed-dating style on a reality TV show style. The characters were all hilarious.

Game 3 about the Greek Gods running a gameshow, spiralling slowly out of control. 13/10 for Binney as the overworked madcap Hades. My favourite moment was seeing Hades getting increasingly many semi-anonymous requests handed over from the GM, and as Poseidon writing out a note in the same style and handing it over. And not discovering until the end that Hades had just taken it on board and "More death! Put Hecate in charge! Don't trust Odin! MORE SQUID!!!" had blended in perfectly with all the other notes and he'd gone on to do all those things. And second favourite when hades was waving the post-it representing the necronomicon for an unspecified plan, taking it and helpfully tearing it up before handing it back.

Game 4 Canterbury Tales. Set just before the End of the Wars of the Roses when the tales had just been printed. I had to leave early, with my fate hanging on the outcome, when we'd just heard a rumour that Henry had been slain and Richard captured by Henry's forces. It turned out later that Henry's widow and a putative Edward V Prince in the Tower had both proclaimed themselves, potentially leading to turmoil. But I'm pleased they both had a good chance, and that probably removed the problems hanging over my character from the previous politics 🙂

jack

TIL more about VeggieTales. I had heard they avoided depicting Jesus as a vegetable. But apparently they specifically (a) will not show Jesus as a vegetable and (b) do not show the vegetables as having a redemptive relationship with Christ.

The show shows some vegetables living on a kitchen counter. Those characters then morph into a Christian-friendly story, either an old testament bible story, or a contemporary "someone learns an important lesson about goodness" story. So you have Larry the vegetable transplanted into a Biblical Joseph role. In the story, God exists. But the plain vegetables aren't Christian. Because the creators think that Jesus died for *humanity* and any other intelligent species was not fallen (like Angels) or not been saved (like Demons) or had its own relationship with God (like Narnia).

And even in the story, none of the characters are ever Jesus, because that would seem disrespectful. What does happen in the later series is that the characters portray nativity plays, where a unnamed non-Christian baby vegetable acts as a non-Jesus baby human character, who is pretending to be baby Jesus. Also in the early series there's a couple of nativity stories with a crib, but you only see golden light from the crib. Or sometimes a swaddled form, but not whether it contains a doll, vegetable, human and/or god :)

https://justinkuiper.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-the

andrewducker

1. Trump v BBC - a guide to the case: (tags:usa uk bbc politics law )
2. Iranian-linked Scottish accounts fall silent again with Iran's internet blackout: (tags:iran scotland propaganda )
3. Adelaide Writers' Week cancelled amid controversy over disinvitation of author Randa Abdel-Fattah: (tags:Australia Palestine Israel writing festival )
4. New Tesla feature to automatically create explicit images of pedestrians it passes on the street: (tags:satire funny Tesla nudity )
5. Zoe Saldaña Becomes Highest-Grossing Actor of All Time With 'Avatar: Fire and Ash': (tags:movies money )
6. Government drops plans for mandatory digital ID to work in UK: (tags:IDCards Labour )
7. Warhammer Maker Games Workshop Bans Its Staff From Using AI in Its Content or Designs, Says None of Its Senior Managers Are Currently Excited About the Tech: (tags:AI GamesWorkshop Warhammer )
8. Making a natural freezer: (tags:temperature video ice )
9. A divorce lawyer on the concept of "soulmates": (tags:love relationships video )
10. The polls in Wales are, frankly, unprecedented: (tags:Wales polls )
11. Contract secured for one of world's largest offshore wind farms Berwick Bank (off the coast of Scotland): (tags:scotland electricity windpower )
12. Scientists confirm 2025 was the third hottest year on record: (tags:globalwarming doom )
13. What's the stick in *your* stream?: (tags:advice life )

oursin

Happy birthday,

ljgeoff!

siderea

Heads up, locals! Observers report evidence of ICE/DHS activity preparing for an operation in MA, imminently.

2026 Jan 13 5pm: u/rarelighting in r/Boston: Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge, points at:

2026 Jan 13: Axios: Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge by Mike Deehan

Discussion at Reddit:

OP:

While listening to the Sam Seder podcast today, someone sent in a report about increased activity at the Burlington ICE facilities. Stay alert folks.

u/Neat-Beautiful-5505 • 4h ago

Another Reddit post showed three 18-wheel trucks hauling several new SUVs each to the Burlington ICE facility.

u/_still_truckin_ • 4h ago

Two dozen white Ford Explorers. They’re the same Interceptor models that real police departments use. You can spot them by the searchlight mounted to the driver side A-pillar and lack of tracks for roof racks. Saw them in the parking lot of the Burlington ICE building.

u/ThePirateKing01 • 4h ago

Shoutout to @BearingWitnessBurlington on YouTube and TikTok

To those who say protesting peacefully doesn’t amount to much, this person has been both protesting and monitoring the facility almost 24/7. Without people like this we wouldn’t have the heads up that we do now

u/minilip30 • 4h ago

“The bottom line: While no operation has been officially confirmed, Boston is not waiting to find out — it is mobilizing now.”

Good!

Remember, ICE needs a warrant to enter any private residence or business. Business that aren’t fascist supporting should have signs that they will not allow ICE entry without a warrant.

u/beanandcod • 4h ago

A judicial warrant, signed by a judge

u/Pnoman98 • 4h ago

A lot of police presence at Alewife& Gov Center

u/cccxxxzzzddd • 4h ago

The Rindge / fresh pond apartments at alewife are home to many immigrants, particularly Ethiopians

This is not good

Edit: not good that ice is there

u/mysteriousfrittata • 4h ago

Saw a car full of them parked outside of MGH yesterday evening. All wearing DHS fatigues etc. Naturally the assholes were parked in an ambulance parking spot. I called to report a strange vehicle parked there.

u/HolyMoleyGuacamoly • 4h ago

they appear to be staying at that marriott right next door. was by there for a bit and saw a ton of activity in and out of there of single white men in suvs with beards

Happy_Literature9493 • 3h ago

Copied and pasted from Safari reader mode [the Axios article:]

“Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge Mike Deehan Boston City Hall is privately getting ready for a potential spike in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.

Why it matters: Even without a confirmed federal operation, the city is "planning for the unthinkable," according to Mayor Michelle Wu.

Escalating tensions and violence in other cities are deepening anxieties within immigrant communities and worsening the friction between sanctuary communities and federal authorities. The latest: Wu confirmed on WBUR this week that she is discussing enforcement scenarios with Boston Police leadership.

Her goal is to establish clear protocols to ensure local police resources are not co-opted into federal immigration efforts. Wu maintains that Boston police will not leak information to ICE, a stance she views as crucial to maintaining community trust. The big picture: Boston isn't alone in bracing for federal action.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has stated plans for a larger presence in Boston, promising more agents following disputes over sanctuary policies. Past initiatives mobilized large-scale enforcement across Massachusetts. Zoom in: Unverified but persistent reports from residents and activists note a delivery of SUVs to the Burlington ICE Field Office last week.

Advocates interpret the arrival of three car carriers hauling SUVs as a sign that the local ICE branch is staffing up. What we're watching: If federal enforcement accelerates, pressure will mount on public-facing institutions and communities with sanctuary policies.

Courthouses are typically a flashpoint for arrests. City community centers and schools will need to know how to respond if agents appear at their doors. ICE likely won't limit large-scale enforcement to Boston. Municipalities with large immigrant populations like Chelsea, Everett, Lawrence, Revere and Lynn could also be in the crosshairs. Threat level: Activists have staked out the Burlington ICE office for months and will likely be among the first to know of any major rollout.

Expect throngs of Massachusetts residents to demonstrate against ICE if a surge happens here. The bottom line: While no operation has been officially confirmed, Boston is not waiting to find out — it is mobilizing now.”

silveradept

The dreaded "say nice things about yourself" challenge has appeared at

snowflake_challenge!

While we’re busy celebrating fandom, it’s good to remember to celebrate ourselves, too. Fandom is all of us! I know it’s often easier to talk about what we like about other people than it is to talk nicely about ourselves, but challenge yourself here --

Challenge #7

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

( Challenge: Say good Things About Yourself. Difficulty: Very )

Current Mood: energetic
Current Music: Yoko Shimomura - Lord of the Castle

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