If only
Jan. 8th, 2026 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathleen_daileyNew Warp-Drive Propulsion Concept Moves Fictional Starships Closer to Engineering Reality
The resemblance to the twin nacelles of the USS Enterprise is not merely aesthetic ... but reflects a potential convergence between physical requirements and engineering design, where science-fiction architectures hint at practical pathways for real warp-capable configurations.
Quote...
Jan. 8th, 2026 12:27 amfairyniamhQuotes:
"If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting."
"I've come to the realisation that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing half the time..."
"I'm always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don't even take what I am seriously."
~ David Bowie
"If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting."
"I've come to the realisation that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing half the time..."
"I'm always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don't even take what I am seriously."
~ David Bowie
Snowflake Challenge #4
Jan. 7th, 2026 07:37 pmfairyniamh
Challenge #4: Rec Your Last Page
Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric! !
( Hidden Answer )
snowflake Day 4
Jan. 7th, 2026 03:02 pmmelagan
Challenge #4: Rec Your Last Page
Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!
Not including checking my email, the last pages I delved into were the comment pages of Snowflakes' challenge #3.
I've been making an effort to read everyone's entries and sprinkling comments here and there. So, I poured a cup of coffee and read some of the latest comments this morning. Would I recommend it? Hell, yes.
We're a worldwide, vast community made up of creative, opinionated individuals, yet we all have fandom in common.
Today, it led me to learning a little bit about Twi'leks. (It was referenced in a comment, and my Star Wars knowledge is pitiful, so naturally I had to look it up.)
A Toronto version of saudade
Jan. 7th, 2026 11:15 amkathleen_daileyI don't think about my old neighbourhood very often, but today I received a message that mentioned the imminent sale of the Beacher Café (or maybe it's already sold--the website is gone), which triggered a frisson of nostalgia.
I remember the many fannish conversations I had at that café, a place that I still associate with an otherworldly, altered-state-of-consciousness period of intense reading and writing and imagining and analyzing (just like what I'm seeing now with friends who are immersed in Heated Rivalry creativity). For some reason--its lighting, its layout, the artwork on the walls, the general ambience--that particular café felt like a portal that, if entered at the right moment and in the right mood, might transport us to a dimension where we could catch a real-time glimpse of the universe and characters that preoccupied us so strongly.
It's been decades since I've lived in that time-forgotten lakeside neighbourhood, but I'll never forget the irreproducible synergy of people, ideas, and passionate inspiration of those days.
I remember the many fannish conversations I had at that café, a place that I still associate with an otherworldly, altered-state-of-consciousness period of intense reading and writing and imagining and analyzing (just like what I'm seeing now with friends who are immersed in Heated Rivalry creativity). For some reason--its lighting, its layout, the artwork on the walls, the general ambience--that particular café felt like a portal that, if entered at the right moment and in the right mood, might transport us to a dimension where we could catch a real-time glimpse of the universe and characters that preoccupied us so strongly.
It's been decades since I've lived in that time-forgotten lakeside neighbourhood, but I'll never forget the irreproducible synergy of people, ideas, and passionate inspiration of those days.
Quote...
Jan. 7th, 2026 12:06 amfairyniamhQuotes:
"Anything you can imagine you can make real."
"Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth."
"I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through."
~ Jules Verne
"Anything you can imagine you can make real."
"Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth."
"I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through."
~ Jules Verne
"Stop sending butt plugs to Bahrain"
Jan. 6th, 2026 02:28 pmkathleen_daileyToronto sex store receives letters from U.S. Department of War.
[Grace] Bennett questioned whether or not the American soldiers stationed in Bahrain have been directly notified on what they are allowed to order to the country.
"I don’t know why they’re sending me very cross letters saying, 'Stop sending items that could cause bodily harm to this country,'" Bennett said. "This sounds like a you problem. The call was coming from inside the house."
Fandom Snowflake Day 3
Jan. 6th, 2026 10:05 pmswingandswirl
Challenge #3: Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.
Wow. Where do I even start with fandom?
Fandom changed the course of my life, for the better.
Fandom was how I, a sheltered teen growing up in a conservative country, encountered gay couples for the first time, when shipper drama had me fleeing to the slash side of HP fandom. senmut and ilyena_sylph introduced me to poly couples with Happy’Verse, and I’m still friends with both of them to this day. The very kind encouragement of the folks in the World’s Finest Superbat comm gave me the courage to publish my own fic, first Harry Potter and then Superbat. And then Numb3rs fandom (and specifically numb3rs100 and its weekly prompts) taught me how to write. And then my beloved co-writers taught me how to write things longer than drabbles.
senmut and ilyena_sylph introduced me to poly couples with Happy’Verse, and I’m still friends with both of them to this day. The very kind encouragement of the folks in the World’s Finest Superbat comm gave me the courage to publish my own fic, first Harry Potter and then Superbat. And then Numb3rs fandom (and specifically numb3rs100 and its weekly prompts) taught me how to write. And then my beloved co-writers taught me how to write things longer than drabbles.I’ve lost a lot of those old fannish friends, whether they moved on from a fandom or I did, or when platforms shut down. But I’ve been lucky to keep some incredibly dear ones, and make excellent new friends, too. /waves to rhi and draconis, among others/
rhi and draconis, among others/Speaking of new friends, I want to talk about one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced, fandom-wise.
Numb3rs will always be the fandom of my heart. But it was never a particularly big show, and by 2022, the fandom was pretty much dead. And then someone (Hi Byrne!) wrote, and posted, an incredible story. Which inspired me to rewatch the series, and start writing again. And pull others in, too. And while Numb3rs will never be as active as it was, it’s still really cool to see the part I played in resurrecting it a little bit.
Another really awesome thing about fandom? Exchanges, and how much they’ve gotten me to push my limits. If it weren’t for exchange prompts, I would never have written To The Sticking Place, about Percy Weasley (and NOT a story I could have written in my 20s or without years of reading fic and meta). I definitely wouldn’t have been brave enough to think I could replicate Jane Austen’s style well enough to attempt thy love like a mark is stamp’d (I am a Jane/Colonel Fitzwilliam shipper to the end. Sorry, Bingles.) Or, even after shipper nonsense annoyed the fuck out of me, take on the challenge of writing The Goblin Emperor fic. Or write 10k of smut for an upcoming challenge, despite being ace.
Fandom also had me reading things I never would have encountered otherwise. Not just slash, although that's part of it. Thanks to fandom, I discovered drabbles, my beloved random fact fics, fic in the form of in-universe documents or meta, and a whole host of other things. I found writers who put the pros to shame, fics that made me gasp at the brilliance of their creators. I can safely say that reading fic has been an education, as much in what I should strive for as what not to do.
Fandom also had me reading things I never would have encountered otherwise. Not just slash, although that's part of it. Thanks to fandom, I discovered drabbles, my beloved random fact fics, fic in the form of in-universe documents or meta, and a whole host of other things. I found writers who put the pros to shame, fics that made me gasp at the brilliance of their creators. I can safely say that reading fic has been an education, as much in what I should strive for as what not to do.
Fandom also helped me reclaim my identity. When Numb3rs first aired from 2005-2010, I explained away some of the egregious errors in the show’s depiction of Amita (who was a Tamil American character played by a very westernized half-German actress) by making her half-Rajasthani. (It still didn’t fix everything, but it was better than nothing). When I returned to writing Numb3rs in 2022, I made a decision. Amita would be 100% Tamil Brahmin, and that would be enough.
Never mind that Hollywood thinks all Indians speak Hindi, love Bollywood, and subsist on naan and butter chicken. Never mind neither the showrunners nor the actress bothered to give Amita a defined backstory until s4, and even then, they chose the most goatfucking stupid way of going about it possible. I would write Amita as she should have been written, like the second-generation Tamil American daughter of immigrant parents with a connection to the old country the show said she was while failing utterly to depict it accurately.
That conviction led to me writing saaptiya and 25 Random Facts About Amita Ramanujan, two fics I’m incredibly proud of, with the support and encouragement of non-Desi friends. And in doing so, I healed a wound that I never realized had been hurting me for nearly two decades.
So yeah. Thank you, fandom. For everything.
I shouldn't...but Hell Yes!
Jan. 6th, 2026 09:23 ammelaganSo, this ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
5soulmates challenge popped up on my list. How could I resist it?
I picked Table #10, but there are many others to choose from. This is a multifandom challenge. You can find out more about it here.
5soulmates challenge popped up on my list. How could I resist it?| Table #10 - Touch | ||||
| 01. first touch | 02. touching your soulmate leaves fingerprints | 03. touching your soulmate feels good | 04. touching your soulmate lets them feel what you're feeling | 05. you can only touch your soulmate |
I picked Table #10, but there are many others to choose from. This is a multifandom challenge. You can find out more about it here.
Quote...
Jan. 6th, 2026 12:04 amfairyniamhQuotes:
"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."
"Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten."
"Yesterday is done. Tomorrow never comes. Today is here. If you don't know what to do, sit still and listen. You may hear something. Nobody knows."
~ Carl Sandburg
"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."
"Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten."
"Yesterday is done. Tomorrow never comes. Today is here. If you don't know what to do, sit still and listen. You may hear something. Nobody knows."
~ Carl Sandburg
New Game of Thrones Site!
Jan. 6th, 2026 05:28 amintothisshadowI’ve moved all the GoT and HotD screencaps to a domain of its own: Seven Kingdoms. Wanted a dedicated site!
(no subject)
Jan. 5th, 2026 04:14 pmmelaganWrite a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.
I'm letting this vid clip show how far John will go for the man he loves.
Snowflake Challenge #3
Jan. 5th, 2026 01:41 pmfairyniamhChallenge #3: Love Letter
Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all!
( Hidden Answer )
politics, porn, true crime
Jan. 5th, 2026 10:57 amrunpunkrunMore screen time. I watched all of these on Netflix.
Hostage: The British Prime Minister's husband is kidnapped in French Guiana while working with Doctors Without Borders. I watched two episodes across several days, mostly for Julie Delpy as the President of France, but I just didn't care about these people's problems. And then Julie Delpy did a public end-run around the prime minister to get French troops stationed on English soil to stop migrants from entering France from the channel and my entire being just shriveled up and died with how much I didn't like that.
Minx: The evolution of an erotic feminist magazine in the early 1970s. A fun and raunchy show that wants people to succeed and be kind to each other—mostly. The main character, Joyce, is kind of a pill, but part of the fun is watching her become more flexible as she's exposed to new perspectives. The first season is about building a team and putting a magazine together, but the characters lose their way in the second season as they give in to fame and power (or are alienated by it) and the show similarly becomes muddled; appropriate, maybe, but it also felt very unfocused and even cruel at times, quite a departure from the first season. Contains: drug use, nudity, and lots of dicks.
The Staircase (2022): The thing about The Staircase (2004) is that it will make you detest Michael Peterson. Did he kill his wife? Well, an owl certainly didn't do it. Guilty or not, the man is an odious narcissist, and Colin Firth nails him right down to his way of speaking. So I hated him immediately of course. But not in a fun way. The series also stars Toni Collette! And wastes her! Outside of a death scene so raw I wanted to look away, she mainly spends her time drinking and being quietly sad, except for a scene with a leaf blower and two more death scenes that are similarly awful, but similar enough to the first that it kind of dulls the effect over time. The whole thing is pretty tedious, which might be excused in a documentary, but not in a drama. If you've seen one The Staircase, you don't need to see the other, and really, you probably don't need to watch either. It was really great to see Juliette Binoche again, though. Contains: a lot of blood; violence.
Hostage: The British Prime Minister's husband is kidnapped in French Guiana while working with Doctors Without Borders. I watched two episodes across several days, mostly for Julie Delpy as the President of France, but I just didn't care about these people's problems. And then Julie Delpy did a public end-run around the prime minister to get French troops stationed on English soil to stop migrants from entering France from the channel and my entire being just shriveled up and died with how much I didn't like that.
Minx: The evolution of an erotic feminist magazine in the early 1970s. A fun and raunchy show that wants people to succeed and be kind to each other—mostly. The main character, Joyce, is kind of a pill, but part of the fun is watching her become more flexible as she's exposed to new perspectives. The first season is about building a team and putting a magazine together, but the characters lose their way in the second season as they give in to fame and power (or are alienated by it) and the show similarly becomes muddled; appropriate, maybe, but it also felt very unfocused and even cruel at times, quite a departure from the first season. Contains: drug use, nudity, and lots of dicks.
The Staircase (2022): The thing about The Staircase (2004) is that it will make you detest Michael Peterson. Did he kill his wife? Well, an owl certainly didn't do it. Guilty or not, the man is an odious narcissist, and Colin Firth nails him right down to his way of speaking. So I hated him immediately of course. But not in a fun way. The series also stars Toni Collette! And wastes her! Outside of a death scene so raw I wanted to look away, she mainly spends her time drinking and being quietly sad, except for a scene with a leaf blower and two more death scenes that are similarly awful, but similar enough to the first that it kind of dulls the effect over time. The whole thing is pretty tedious, which might be excused in a documentary, but not in a drama. If you've seen one The Staircase, you don't need to see the other, and really, you probably don't need to watch either. It was really great to see Juliette Binoche again, though. Contains: a lot of blood; violence.
Quote...
Jan. 5th, 2026 12:59 amfairyniamhQuotes:
"If you want to be sad, no one in the world can make you happy. But if you make up your mind to be happy, no one and nothing on earth can take that happiness from you."
"Realize that enough hidden strength lies within you to overcome all obstacles and temptations. Bring forth that indomitable power and energy."
"Be kind to others, so that you may learn the secret art of being kind to yourself."
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
"If you want to be sad, no one in the world can make you happy. But if you make up your mind to be happy, no one and nothing on earth can take that happiness from you."
"Realize that enough hidden strength lies within you to overcome all obstacles and temptations. Bring forth that indomitable power and energy."
"Be kind to others, so that you may learn the secret art of being kind to yourself."
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
New Years Book Meme
Jan. 5th, 2026 10:20 amswingandswirl Ganked from muccamukk.
So the closest book to me was Indian Christmas: Essays | Memories | Hymns, about how the nearly 30 million Christians in India celebrate the festival.
Sentence #6 on page 126 is from the chapter 'Did Your First Christmas Cake Come Out Of An Ammunition Box, Too?' by Estherine Kine.
Mrs Tanquist baked her cakes in a big mud oven, but her students ingeniously used ammunition boxes after the men discovered they were airtight and preserved head very well.
So for context, cooking on gas ranges rather than wood- or kerosene-fired stoves only came to India in 1965, and even then, it was limited to larger urban areas. Electric ovens came even later - my mother, born in 1961, has stories of my grandma baking cakes in a 'sand oven' - a large pot filled with sand that was heated over a flame, functioning as a sort of bain-marie. Even now, gas is standard in any home that can afford it rather than wood or kerosene. Electric stoves are not common, or are used as a sort of secondary cooking device, since power cuts are pretty common even in big cities.
The ammunition boxes mentioned were left by British troops when they quit the subcontinent in 1947. Mrs Tanquist, the wife of a missionary, taught the author's mother and her friends how to bake Christmas cakes, among other things.
Given the state of the world around us, let's hope this sentence heralds a transition to peace after years of conflict. We can hope, right?
(For my own sanity, I am choosing not to delve into RL politics on DW. Let's keep it that way in the comments, please.)
muccamukk. 01. Grab the nearest book.
02. Turn to page 126
03. The 6th full sentence is your life in 2026.
So the closest book to me was Indian Christmas: Essays | Memories | Hymns, about how the nearly 30 million Christians in India celebrate the festival.
Sentence #6 on page 126 is from the chapter 'Did Your First Christmas Cake Come Out Of An Ammunition Box, Too?' by Estherine Kine.
Mrs Tanquist baked her cakes in a big mud oven, but her students ingeniously used ammunition boxes after the men discovered they were airtight and preserved head very well.
So for context, cooking on gas ranges rather than wood- or kerosene-fired stoves only came to India in 1965, and even then, it was limited to larger urban areas. Electric ovens came even later - my mother, born in 1961, has stories of my grandma baking cakes in a 'sand oven' - a large pot filled with sand that was heated over a flame, functioning as a sort of bain-marie. Even now, gas is standard in any home that can afford it rather than wood or kerosene. Electric stoves are not common, or are used as a sort of secondary cooking device, since power cuts are pretty common even in big cities.
The ammunition boxes mentioned were left by British troops when they quit the subcontinent in 1947. Mrs Tanquist, the wife of a missionary, taught the author's mother and her friends how to bake Christmas cakes, among other things.
Given the state of the world around us, let's hope this sentence heralds a transition to peace after years of conflict. We can hope, right?
(For my own sanity, I am choosing not to delve into RL politics on DW. Let's keep it that way in the comments, please.)