settiai: (Critical Role -- settiai)
Lynn | Settiai ([personal profile] settiai) wrote2025-10-17 02:52 am

Critical Role: Campaign 4, Episode 3

I'm trying to type up posts each week as I watch the new episode of Critical Role. It's a combination of quotes, random thoughts, and some speculation, and it's full of spoilers (albeit vague ones in places).

Spoilers under the cut. )
Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books ([syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-10-17 06:00 am

689. RT Rewind: May 2016 Ads & Features

Posted by SB Sarah

Smart Podcast Trashy Books Romantic Times RewindWe’re going back to May 2016 to look at the Ads & Features in Romantic Times magazine. The kilts are kilting and the abs are ab-ing, and we’ve got some questions.

  • How do we feel about the terms “book boyfriend” and “pre-con”?
  • How much of the 2016 conference depended on Twitter to announce pop up signings and special limited time events?
  • And do you remember how important Twitter was to a conference?
  • How many different ways are there to photograph a very muscled shirtless man? I think we’re going to see all of them.

So hop into the time machine, we’ve got the snacks, and we’re off to May 2016.

Patreon folks, you have an extended cut of this episode, available through the app or through your private feed.

Listen to the podcast →
Read the transcript →

Here are the books we discuss in this podcast:

We also mentioned Elyse’s review of Imagines, complete with Amanda’s specialty Photoshop.

Visual aids? But of course!

His job is Chin. ALT: Kresley Cole's The Player, which features a white dude in a black suit and black tie facing to the side, but his head is cut off right in the middle of his schnoz, so the most striking thing on the cover is his chin.

“His job is chin.”

The 2016 Men of Romance. 19 pictures of men in different poses, from flexing all muscles while rapped in chains (2?) to shirts and tshirts and tank tops, to bare chested and flexing. We were particularly charmed by Michael Foster, bottom right, who is wearing a big black puffy blouse UNBUTTONED BUT STILL TUCKED IN YEAH, and holding a big sword while standing in front of a major wind machine. Also, Vikkas Bhardwaj's picture looks like his head was added afterward and it's uncanny.

The 2016 Men of Romance.

We were particularly charmed by Michael Foster, bottom right, who is wearing a big black puffy blouse unbuttoned but still tucked in (YEAH), and holding a big sword while standing in front of a major wind machine. Also, Vikkas Bhardwaj’s picture looks like his head was added afterward and it’s uncanny.

Lana and the Laird by Sabrina York: A blonde White woman in a blue gown is pulling the shirt off a man who is facing her, and she has one hand wrapped around the back of his head. He's of course, got a kilt on, and her undressing him? Pretty dang great.

She’s ripping his clothes off! That’s pretty cool.

The centerfold from Christine Feehan for her Sisters of the Heart series features a sepia tone image of a woman with a cropped tank, a backwards ball cap, jeans folded up to capri length, and striped socks aiming a GIANT ASS SCOPE RIFLE out of a window. She's also got massive bullets on a belt around her waist, while, as Amanda pointed out, that gun has a magazine. We spent a lot of time with this image - look, she's even got a flask in her back pocket for when she's done.

This is the centerfold image, or part of it. We spent a lot of time with this image: the hat. The jeans. The striped socks (is this Anita Blake!?). The giant rifle with scope and the even more giant bullets around her waist. Look, she’s even got a flask in her back pocket for when she’s done.

It could be your face on the cover of a romance novel. Details at www.YourFaceOnaRomanceNovel.com. Airfare. Hotel. Makeover. Photo Shoot. More. Only $!5 to enter. WTF.

WTF?

 

 

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What did you think of today's episode? Got ideas? Suggestions? You can talk to us on the blog entries for the podcast or talk to us on Facebook if that's where you hang out online. You can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave us a message at our Google voice number: 201-371-3272. Please don't forget to give us a name and where you're calling from so we can work your message into an upcoming podcast.

Thanks for listening!

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lycomingst ([personal profile] lycomingst) wrote2025-10-16 10:47 pm
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(no subject)

I felt the need for retailing lately. I bought two new couch covers for the couch the cats have made an eyesore. I couldn’t find another spring green one (the cats tore the one I had), probably because of tariffs. I bought a pink one which complements the curtains. If I get tired of being posh, I have one that is like a tiedyed with circles of vibrant colors, so garish, I love it. If the cats scratch these, and I’m going to discourage that, I will patch them. I can’t be new slipcovering all the time.

I got the ginger snaps I ordered from Philly and, oh, alright, I bought some hard to find Tastikakes, too. It’s beautiful weather now but this weekend, there’ll be more rain, I’ll have cookies and coffee and tv. I’m snacked up.

The tree I see outside my back window that was in full Fall foliage, glowing deep red and orange, suffered during a recent hard shower. Lost most of its leaves and now looks very forlorn. Know how you feel, bud.

I also bought some new sheets. I wanted to replace an old one that was just too small for the mattress and would keep popping off it. Most every day I’d have to wrestle it back on. I got a sheet that’s a deep rose color and I love it. And some patterned ones that don’t look as good as the photo of them, and there’s a top sheet I don’t need. Maybe I’ll make curtains from it to replace the window blinds the cats have severely injured.
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Merrilee ([personal profile] merrileemakes) wrote in [community profile] booknook2025-10-17 04:13 pm

Review: Jinkies and Minority Monsters

There's 2 more works from the itch Curated Collections About LGBTQIA list that I want to highlight.


Jinkies! A Daphne/Velma Zine by Elise Schuenke

More an art book than a story but it contains utterly adorable snippets from the life of 2 gorgeous and adventerous women. There's fun encounters, domestic scenes and bonus Buzzfeed Unsolved references. I am 100% here for these feels.

If you like Elise's style I also recommend her other works Starcrossed and Still Here.


Minority Monsters by Tab Kimpton

Description: Greetings explorers, and welcome to Alphabet Soup Land! Want to learn about the not-so-invisible Bisexual Unicorn? The secrets of the Asexual Succubus? Or the previously unfathomable fathoms of the Genderqueer Merperson? If so, you’re in the right place! Packed full with comics of mythical monsters, field notes and information sections; this spotters guide of LGBT* and Queer creatures is the perfect companion for any adventurer.

Review: This is such a wholesome and fun approach to describing the different flavours of humans. But it's also quite nuanced and introduces some of the common mythconceptions and misunderstandings around different identities. The art is fun, colourful and inclusive. It might read a little condescending at times, but I mostly read that as minority fatigue. For an entry price of pay what you want it's worth checking out, even if only for a moment of dopamine.
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sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2025-10-16 11:28 pm

I had no inkling of just how far the plates of our continents would crack

This week having in the main sucked on ice, I am on Cape Cod drinking hot water with lemon from a tall mug hand-painted with a sea-green octopus and the call sign for WCAI. The hope for the next couple of days is a profound amount of nothing, with sea. I have already eaten some slightly fancy tinned fish.
mxcatmoon: Clippy (online censorship protest) (Clippy)
My Fannish Corner ([personal profile] mxcatmoon) wrote2025-10-17 12:17 am
Entry tags:

AO3 Servers

OTW posting about their membership drive. If you haven't seen the photos of the servers, you ought to take a look. It's really cool! Every disgruntled fan who bitches "why do they need all these donations?" needs to see them. I guess maybe these people think AO3 is run out a corner of someone's bedroom.

ao3_news_feed | October 2025 Membership Drive: The Systems You Support
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-10-16 11:21 pm

Books

19 Queer Books for International Pronouns Day!

Yesterday was International Pronouns Day! While it’d be rare to find a book with no pronouns, for this list, we’re focusing on books in English that have at least one character who uses pronouns other than he/him or she/her. Whether those pronouns are they/them, it/its, or neopronouns, we tried to get a cool variety on today’s rec list of 19 queer books. The contributors to the list are: Linnea Peterson, Rascal Hartley, MJ, Nina Waters, Alex, Terra P. Waters, and Shadaras.
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-10-16 11:05 pm
Entry tags:

Today's Smoothie

We made the caramel apple cider smoothie again, this time with both bananas frozen.  It's a little thicker but with bits of ice; not sure which I like better, but both taste delicious. 
ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-10-16 10:58 pm
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StarWatcher ([personal profile] starwatcher) wrote2025-10-16 09:55 pm

What the hell?

 

Road maintenance, USA style, is variable, to say the least. Potholes are filled -- eventually. Cracks are often filled with a "drizzle" of asphalt. When the road needs refurbishing, it gets "chip-sealed." This is a process of laying down a thin layer of tar, covering that with a layer of small pebbles, and pressing it into the tar. It's actually pretty effective, after a period of "settling in" by being driven on. And finally, if the road warrants it, it'll be dug up and completely rebuilt.

So, the four-mile stretch between my road and the next intersection has been rebuilt. It's been a slow process that started back in April or May. (I've slept since then.) But now that stretch of road is finished, a little wider than it was (yay!), and smoo-o-o-oth. It's been a treat to drive on; we don't often get such a quiet, non-bumpy ride around here.

When I went to town on Monday, there were orange barrels beside the road. I figured they would block off sections as they applied the striping. When I headed home today, I discovered they had chip-sealed one lane; I assume the other will be done tomorrow.

I am absolutely dumbfounded. Why on earth did someone direct the workers to chip-seal a brand new road?!?? Maybe someone got roads mixed up -- they've chip-sealed roads to the east and west of this one. (I took alternate routes to get to town while the rebuilding was going on, so I got to see the chip-sealing "spread.") And I know the workers have to do what they're told. But wasn't there anyone on the team who could call someone of more seniority and say, "Hey, look, this is a brand-new road. Isn't this chip-sealing supposed to be going on a different road?"

I mean... if this road gets an unnecessary treatment, there won't be the funds for some other road to get the treatment it needs. Talk about government waste!

Or maybe this is a case of, "That's New Mexico." Right up there with the way they re-striped my road about 15 years ago, with double-striping (don't pass) the entire 8.5-mile length. I'm sure people complained; there had previously been plenty of places where passing was allowed. So, a few weeks later, they had to cover the 2nd stripe with black paint, in places where it was okay to pass. I just shook my head; such a stupid mistake to make, but seems par for the course around here.

My European and British friends... is road maintenance any more sensible over there than it is here?

 
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AurumCalendula ([personal profile] aurumcalendula) wrote2025-10-16 11:43 pm
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(no subject)

Queen Demon by Martha Wells:

Read more... )

Also, volume 1 of AJ Demas' new serial (set in the same world as Sword Dance, but ~300 years earlier) is now available as an ebook from her website! I thought it sounded neat, but Ream as a platform didn't interest me.
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brithistorian ([personal profile] brithistorian) wrote2025-10-16 10:27 pm
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Hello! Still here!

Hi everyone! Hope you're all doing well. I've been busy recently and so haven't posted, but I am still around. Yesterday I had my birthday (52) and today A. and I had our wedding anniversary (33).[/1]

Today I made my once-a-year trip back to LiveJournal (I have an LJ friend who wishes me a happy birthday by LJ message every year.). I looked around for a moment this time and noticed a couple of changes about the place: For starters, paid accounts are now called "Pro" accounts. And when you click on it (out of curiosity to see how much they cost now), you discover that they're priced in rubles now! I'm still pissed off about what happened to LJ. I love it here at DW, but I miss the people who got lost during the transition over.

[/1] Yes, we got married the day after my 19th birthday. In fact, we spent my 19th birthday in line at city hall getting out wedding license. We could have been married on my 19th birthday — when we went to the judge's office to schedule the ceremony, he wanted to just drag in a couple of secretaries to act as witnesses and marry us right then and there, but A. wanted her mother and sister to be there, so we put it off until the next day.

ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-10-16 10:06 pm
linky: A shelf of books. (Stock: Books - Multicolor)
Linky ([personal profile] linky) wrote in [community profile] comment_bingo2025-10-16 11:08 pm

Bingo: Blackout

Here's the link to my bingo card! Putting the list of fandoms under a details html tag due to length.

Fandoms List
Captain Harlock
10 Things I Want to Do Before I Turn 40
Kamen Rider Ryuki
Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger
Warrior Nun
Number One Sentai Gozyuger
Kamen Rider Gotchard
Choujuu Sentai Liveman
Ultraman Arc
Shin Kamen Rider
Aim For The Ace
Kamen Rider OOO
Kpop Demon Hunters
Kamen Rider Ghost
Kamen Rider Kuuga
Kid Icarus Uprising
The Outsiders

(Kamen Rider Series, The Outsiders, Captain Harlock, Gokaiger and Warrior Nun already have tags so don't worry about those. May I please have Fandom tags for the rest? Thank you for your time!)
ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-10-16 09:34 pm

Poem: "New and Innovative Approaches"

This poem is spillover from the July 15, 2025 Bonus Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from [personal profile] rix_scaedu and [personal profile] dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "Emotionally Constipated Man" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony Barrette. It belongs to the Big One thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It follows "An Interest in the Affairs of Your Government" so read that first or this won't make much sense.

Read more... )
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cornerofmadness ([personal profile] cornerofmadness) wrote2025-10-16 09:50 pm
Entry tags:

Dentists and Disappointments

Had to be at my dentist this morning. I remember why I like him so much but damn I wish it wasn't 2-3 months even on an emergency appointment. He said that yes there is a bone spur and a broken buccal plate where they pulled out the tooth, so nothing unexpected there. It'll take months to fill in but that wasn't why I was there. My first crown is a problem child. It is 22-23 years old, had it put on in FL. It was a metal and porcelain style and I've spent two decades reacting to the metal in my gum. But it's now old. It's worn down badly in the back and it no longer fits well. Mostly it's a great place for food to get up under and be a pain in the ...well mouth. We're going to pull it off and replace it as soon as shit-ass insurance says yes. I go from there to the library because I won theater tickets. I was SO HAPPY! I won tickets to the Markay (the art deco theater saved from destruction and is such a nice place) I was thrilled until I got from there to my coffee house and looked up the play 'night, Mother Ooooo it's Halloween so surely this is horror, right? RIGHT? No, it sounds depressing AF about an epileptic divorced mom talking to HER mother about what to do when she dies because she's killing herself tonight. The whole play is two women. talking. ABOUT SUICIDE. Oh hell no. I'm taking the tickets back and telling them, thanks but see if someone else wants them because i have a conflict with the date (sounds better than I don't wanna see a play about suicide, not with my own issues) So disappointed. Wanna guess how many of the seven meds I was texted about that CVS actually filled? Did you guess one? Here's a gold star. I will never use their text service again. I had to go back up to Jackson later for the Uptown Upstairs history tour. I have a write up. Will share tomorrow (in theory) because I haven't had time to get the pics off my camera. I did have to get my ticket today at the Lillian Jones Museum (a cat followed me in. I should have carried him across the street which is where it lives and that's a busy road but I feared he'd cross back again) turns out the woman there got her nursing degree at my uni in the 1980s and remembers the people I started with. Speaking of nurses, the afternoon class did better and my majors did MUCH better this time
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flemmings ([personal profile] flemmings) wrote2025-10-16 08:49 pm
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(no subject)

 Garden waste pickup happens every other week, along with non-recyclables, and this was a recycle week. I assume Signora neither knows nor cares when it's supposed to go out. She just leaves her bags and bins of clippings piled by the fence and eventually it will disappear. Maybe it's the power of suggestion, but her two immediate neighbours decided today would be a good time to set their bags out as well. But not piled against the fence, oh no. Sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. I wrestled them back out of the way, cursing them soundly. Because they're going to leave those bags out for another week, including the three days of rain, and even if they don't disintegrate therefrom the local wildlife and dogs are apt to get at them. And the garbage guys do not take disintegrated garden bags. Yes it's a mild annoyance but seriously, why are people?

Tried DLing Greek onto the upstairs tablet and it hung at 50%. Luckily it loaded instantly on the downstairs one so I can carry on with Themistocles. Though now I'm of two minds. If I enter a Greek word in, uh, romaji, google at once gives me it in Greek with its meaning first thing. Enter it in Greek and I get Greek webpages-- duh-- and need to click on the link to wiktionary which will eventually give me a translation if I scroll down to it after the Doric, Cretan, Lacedemonian, etc. etc. readings. Maybe sticking to romaji is the way to go.

Had my monthly visit to Sushi on Bloor with their Partager wine, and that was nice. Am currently simmering the bones from that chicken I roasted along with some organic celery that was disappointingly tough and bitter, hence useless for the Waldorf salad I'd intended it for. Plus parsley (a splurge) and bay leaves (do bay leaves actually add flavour?) and a large carrot and an ancient apple that might as well go in the stock as anything. Shall definitely strain this and use as stock, since I'm tired of finding tiny bones in my chicken soup. Must have food on hand because: rain most of the weekend plus autumnal crud in the walker's wheels. Expect to be housebound for a stretch.
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Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2025-10-17 11:37 am
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Climate: A Grim Prognosis

For the past several weeks, I have delved deeply into the content produced by scientific climate change deniers. By "denier" I mean those who argue that global warming is below the range expected by mainstream studies and by "scientific" I mean that handful of actual active researchers in climatology, rather than unqualified opinions. Without exclusion, I've found that these scientific deniers engage in extraordinary selection biases, unfounded speculations, and flawed logic. But, to the untrained eye, I can certainly see how they could be convincing; they appeal to ideological confirmation biases and, of course, they appeal to certain vested interests. Their influence is profound; there are very few climatology journal articles that are in the denier category, but the content makes up the overwhelming majority of related advertorials. The result is a profound disparity between an misinformed public opinion compared to scientific research, which, in a capitalist democracy, is reflected in the politics of demagoguery.

Two days ago, the World Meteorological Organization reported the largest recorded level of atmospheric CO2 and the largest increase in a single year (a reminder that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for a very long time). It follows Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2016 Paris Agreement, which sought to preferably limit global warming this century to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, with a long-term objective of below 2.0 degrees. As COP30 approaches it increasingly becomes clear that voluntary agreements to a global problem is biased toward unenforceable lobbying even when adaptive and mitigative technologies exist and even when our first major tipping point (coral reef losses) looms, a situation that has been warned about for years even as fossil fuel subsidies increase - your taxes at work.

I am now in my third year as a climatology postgraduate, after many years of debating the issue and engaging in autodidactic research. When I started formal studies, it quickly became apparent to me that, despite international agreements and technological change, the most accurate trajectory was the RCP8.5 scenario; high-emissions, high-growth, high-population, the highest plausible temperature increase, i.e., the worst case scenario. Maybe it's the risk engineer disposition in me, but I think we should prepare against worst-case scenarios, especially when the costs are high. The problem is that they are so incremental; people understand the accretion of warming as explained by the popular metaphor of the "boiling frog" story that describes how people do not effectively react to creeping changes. Whilst it is a strong and appropriate metaphor, it is also a myth. A frog will react when the water is too hot for comfort. But I wonder whether humans are as clever as a frog.