florianschild | Reading

Fandom 50 #16

Untitled Narwhal!Merman Izzy by MegaDucko
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Character/Relationship: Izzy Hands (Izzy Hands/Edward Teach in framing text)
Medium: Art
Length: 1 piece
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: slice of life, romance, ambiguous ending, established relationship, au: merpeople, long-distance relationship, gifts, nature
Artist's Summary: For 27 years now Ed has been bringing Izzy, his sea unicorn, small gifts every time he returns from a particularly lucky raid and those are Izzy's happiest moments...

Description:

Merman Izzy, his lower half the mottled grey tail of a narwhal and his brow sporting a long horn, lounges kelp-draped on a rocky shore. He's adorned with a bracelet and an earring, and protected in a small grotto beside him are a collection of other trinkets.

Izzy's status as the ship's unicorn has a special place in my heart, and bringing this together with a merperson AU to give us Izzy as a narwhal-style merman is just brilliant. And as always, MegaDucko has realized a brilliant concept beautifully.

The setting is perfect for Izzy, with his sturdy build and scars: not white sand and crystal-blue waters but a more rugged and cooler coastline, beautiful in its own way but not conventionally idyllic. The overall design of his body feels so natural despite its fantastical construction, with the way his musculature and colouring blends together between top half and bottom, and with the way he's got his tail curled around, dripping water on himself. Curled over his gifts from his sailor-love, it's easy to see that piece of land he's cuddling up to as a proxy for Ed. His expression perfectly strikes the balance between contentment and yearning, and I'm firmly opting for the happier ending discussed in the artist's thread.

flaskbringer posting in

fandomcalendar

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dhampyresa

This artbook is the "collection of pretty pictures by various people" type of art book rather than the "includes tutorials by a single artist" type of artbook. I like both these types of artbooks and own multiple of each, as well as "collection of pretty pictures by single artist" and "includes tutorials by various artists".

It's published by YBY Éditions, with text in both French and English. The text is titles for the illustrations and sometimes a few sentences about the content.

My favourites were (featured here as pictures of the pages):

I like the use of light to portray intimacy.
Eros and Psyche, by Robbuz
( Eros and Psyche )

The minimalist use of colour here is really neat.
Doctor Faustus, by Couple Of Kooks
( Doctor Faustus )

The green and purple work so well together!
Blind Love, by KME
( Blind Love )

I love the multiple light sources.
Moonlight, by Sara Deek
( Moonlight )

Transmasc/transfem yin/yang is so cool!
Yin and Yang, by Mathilde Périé
( Yin and Yang )

The book contains 46 illustrations total and I enjoyed all of them.

volkameria

I got this idea from

tozka , who in turn got it from Tracy Durnell's weeknotes! This seems like a really good way to blend my journaling and fandom posts into one and give more space for other random thoughts; we shall see how this goes!

Interesting Articles
https://aftermath.site/grand-theft-auto-vi-games-industry - What GTA6 represents for the video game industry as it exists in 2025. Really solid, in depth examination of why the hype cycle is what it is right now.
https://www.404media.co/viral-ai-generated-summer-guide-printed-by-chicago-sun-times-was-made-by-magazine-giant-hearst/ - More AI slop nonsense, this time as a reading list published in several major newspapers. I cast blame here on both the person who cut corners and did not check his research, and the systems of work that prioritize content generation above accurate and good information that *lead to* behavior like what the writer did.
https://aftermath.site/darumi-amemiya-the-hundred-line-last-defense-academy-emo-cringe-punk - An essay on why Darumi of Hundred Line fame is a love letter to cringe.

Fixation of the Week
If I said Hundred Line would anyone be surprised? No? Okay moving on... ( Minor spoilers (Day 40) )
(I'm also working on a patch for my jacket that looks like Eito's - if anyone wants the cross stitch pattern I'm happy to share!)

Media Stuff

Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter - Vol. 4-6. All volumes came in from the library at once, so I'm catching up on 7 right now. The manga seems to end at 8, which is a cliffhanger! But it looks like the novels pick up where we leave off, starting around Vol. 4, so I think I'll buy those next time. I love how it switches from fun otome isekai to economic seminar in the blink of an eye, and Iris is such a complex and competent lead. It makes her sweet romantic moments with Dean all the better! (Also Dida best boy.)
Bocchi The Rock! Ep. 1-4 - Started the show, it's really good and I'm enjoying the music. It's that right blend of angsty rock and poppy female vocals that I love.
Star Trek: Lower Decks S5 E09 - So close to being done with the series! Makes me sad; this was the most fun I've had with Star Trek since Voyager, but I'm glad it's ending on a high note.
Liturgy of the Ordinary - Ended up starting and finishing this book within 3 days. I love how this book illustrates the importance of practices, and how to connect the joy of living with acts of worship even - and especially - in the mundane. She lost me a bit in the middle, and I think the criticism of this book that one could easily become paranoid and overfocused on doing the right things or believe they can become holy by shopping at farmers markets rather than Wal*Mart is absolutely correct. However, the book helped me mentally connect the dots between daily practices like brushing teeth, sleeping, and doing tech work, and how they shape my spiritual life.
- Quote: The contemporary church can, at times, market a kind of "ramen noodle" spirituality. Faith becomes a consumer product - it asks little of us, affirms our values, and promises to meet our needs, but in the end it's just a quick fix that leaves us glutted and malnourished. ... Christian worship, centered on Word and sacrament, reminds me that my core identity is not that of a consumer: I am a worshiper and an image-bearer, created to know, enjoy, and glorify God and to know and love those around me.
RinRin - a new female metalcore producer who I found on Spotify. I've had FCKNRUN on loop an embarrassing amount of times this week.
NYT Crossword - either I'm getting old, the USA is about to enter a recession, or both, because I've been having a shocking amount of fun with the NYT crossword. I've yet to fully solve one (I've been a letter or 2 off a few times though!) but there's something very satisfying about it. Even if I have to constantly google the sports trivia or wonder who thought rebuses were OK...

Food Stuff

Hubby weightlifts and is looking to enter strongman competitions and, as such, needs a very high protein diet. We have so many protein powders at this point, it's kinda funny.
Cooked Kung Pao Tofu + Chicken - pretty good!
Baked raisin scones twice this week, now that I have finally learned the magic of the pastry knife and how to work with cold butter. Someone stop me.

Website Stuff

Made an account on LibraryThing, and am learning how to use it! So far it's lovely. It feels very much like browsing a library catalogue with all its quirks.

Looking Ahead

Looking forward to a long weekend! Hoping to spend some time outdoors and some time crafting.
Work promises to bring its own share of ridiculous problems, but what week doesn't it? I'm just hoping that some of the weirdness can stop and it can go back to being really *busy* and not odd.
I'm quite eager to make Tinga de Frijoles this week! Might even make it this Sunday.

torchicwpip posting in

smallfandomfest

(Ignore the fact that I only submitted one prompt for this series and then forgot to do more before the deadline whoops)

Rhythm Heaven is a series of rhythm games published by Nintendo. If you know the Warioware series, it’s kind of like that: a bunch of wacky minigames where you hit the buttons (or the stylus, depending on the game) to the rhythm of the music. But what kind of minigames can you expect? Well, we’ve got:

- A monkey and a mandrill (his name is Mandrill) coach you in golf
- You, an astronaut, must translate a Martian’s message to the people of Earth
- You, a Martian, must translate a farmer’s tinder profile to the Martians back on base
- You are a little seal that must step and roll
- Tap dancing with monkeys!
- a watch operated by high-fiving monkeys (this is a great game for people who like monkeys)
- ping pong in space!
- baseball in space!
- a guy who has been stuck in the basement until he masters karate (in French it’s been 55 years)

You can earn little tidbits of lore for doing well in minigames, in the form of Reading Material and Rhythm Items (the latter is a Megamix-exclusive). But the fandom also makes a lot of their own headcanons, lore, and ships!

As of writing this, there are four games in the series: the original game for the Game Boy Advance (known in the fandom as Rhythm Tengoku, as it was never localized outside of Japan, and Rhythm Heaven Silver, named after a popular fan translation), Rhythm Heaven for the DS, Rhythm Heaven Fever for the Wii, and Rhythm Heaven Megamix for the 3DS.

The downside is that the physical copies of the games are notoriously difficult to get nowadays. Luckily, it’s very easy to hack your 3DS (for legal reasons I cannot confirm nor deny that I have homebrewed at least 3 game systems).

Current Mood: awake

rachelmanija

I have been reading much more than I've been reviewing. So...

Poll #33152

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 104

View Respondents

Which of these books would you MOST like me to review?

View Answers

When the Wolf Comes Home, by Nat Cassidy. Horror novel about an out of work actress on the run with a little boy.
10 (9.6%)

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shannon Chakraborty. The rollicking adventures of a middle-aged mom PIRATE in fantasy medieval Middle East.
53 (51.0%)

Diary of a Witchcraft Shop, by Trevor Jones and Liz Williams. What it says on the can: a diary of owning a witchcraft shop in Glastonbury.
15 (14.4%)

Sisters of the Vast Black, by Nina Rather. SPACE NUNS aboard a GIANT SPACE SEA SLUG.
36 (34.6%)

Making Bombs for Hitler, by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch. Children's historical fiction about Ukrainian children kidnapped and enslaved in WWII, by a Ukrainian-Canadian author.
11 (10.6%)

Under One Banner, by Graydon Saunders. Commonweal # 4!
17 (16.3%)

Archangel (etc), by Sharon Shinn. Lost colony romantic SF about genetically engineered angels.
19 (18.3%)

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton. Historical murder mystery with time loops and body switching.
23 (22.1%)

Irontown Blues, by John Varley. Faux-noir SF with an intelligent dog.
6 (5.8%)

Blood Over Bright Haven, by M. L. Wang. Standalone fantasy that kind of looks like romantast but isn't, with anvillicious anti-colonial themes.
13 (12.5%)

An Immense World, by Ed Yong. Outstanding nonfiction about how animals sense the world.
32 (30.8%)

Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling, by Henry Lien ("Peasprout Chen"). Nonfiction, what it says on the can. Not all stories are in three acts!
31 (29.8%)

Blacktongue Thief, by Christopher Buehlman. World's greatest D&D campaign in a truly fucked world.
16 (15.4%)

Have you read any of these? What did you think?

prettygoodword

demesne (dih-MAYN, dih-MEEN) - n., manorial land retained by the feudal lord and not rented out to tenants; (law) possession of land as one's own; land belonging to and adjoining a manor house, estate; a realm, a domain.

This is a synonym of many senses of of domain, and indeed is a doublet of it -- both are from Old French demeine/demaine/demeigne/domaine, main sense being power, domain was taken directly from that into Middle English, while demesne, originally spelled demayne, passed through Anglo-Norman first. As to why this word switched from using -y- to -s- to indicate the vowel before it is long, that's a tricky bit, but there seems to have been influence from mesne (pronounced MEEN) meaning intermediate in a feudal context. As for that Old French domaine, it's a noun use of an adjective descended from Latin dominicus, belonging to a lord or master, from dominus, master/proprietor/owner, from domus, home/house, from PIE *dṓm, house/home, from the root *dem-, to build.

---L.

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3093/

A 5% efficiency gain at the cost of a 99% efficiency loss

https://xkcd.com/3093/

spikedluv posting in

smallfandomfest

Is everyone ready?!! Prompts are now available for claiming! Please read the following rules before you claim a prompt.

( Rules for Claiming Prompts and Posting Submissions )

That’s it for the rules! Now for something fun: if you submit three or more fanfic and/or fanart, in any combination, you will receive a lovely button acknowledging your contribution to

smallfandomfest!

Complete List of Prompts

(If you notice that your prompt is incorrect, please comment here and let me know immediately so I can correct it. Once the prompt has been claimed I won’t be able to change it.

Also, if you notice typos, pairings not being listed uniformly, or large fandoms that slipped through, please let me know so I can fix/make a note of them for the next round. Thank you.)

Please reserve this post for claims and questions about the current round.

If you have questions about the fest in general, please ask them here.

If you have questions about what fandoms qualify, please ask them here.

spikedluv

Last Friday: I hit Price Chopper while I was downtown. I did three loads of laundry and changed kitty litter. I watched current eps of 9-1-1 and Leverage: Redemption, and read more in a book. Temps started out at 61.0(F) and reached 89.1. There was so much sun! The thunderstorms that were supposed to roll in about 1pm held off until after 9pm.

( more back here )

ysabetwordsmith posting in

followfriday

Got any Follow Friday-related posts to share this week? Comment here with the link(s).

Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".

Current Mood: busy

beamkatanachronicles posting in

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lomonaaeren

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penaltywaltz posting in

wipbigbang

Check-In #1 is now live! New to the form (and the ones after this) is an section for letting us know whether you're participating in the Big Bang or the Reverse Bang. Please fill out the form for each project you are doing, with one form response for each project. You have until June 5th to fill it out!

https://forms.gle/rbt8zKvBi1PNbict6

magicrubbish posting in

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Preview

See the rest here @

magicrubbish

Current Mood: calm

setsuntamew posting in

icons

The month flew by, so here's something cute to round it out~

request your own @

vogliaa

matsushima posting in

addme

Name: Meep
Pronouns: æ/ær, ey/em, or she/her
Age: 36
Location: Tokyo, Japan (from New England, USA)

I mostly post about… my daily life - work (international school librarian) and school (MA Humanities, Self Designed - focusing on imagination as a form of escape from capitalism) but my conversion journey to Judaism, also pretty flowers I saw today; interesting things I read; Shinto shrines I visited; and my cat, Tiamat.

The hobbies I'm trying to monetize/professionalize are… writing - picture books, poetry
The hobbies I'm not trying to monetize/professionalize are… crochet, writing - queer romance, doll photography, indie web design, getting my nails done

I'm looking to meet people who… are adults (21+ only, non-negotiable because of my day job), post about your daily life (whatever that looks like), interact occasionally (I don't expect comments on every post!), and aren't -ist/-phobic, you know? no transphobes, no biphobes, no Islamophobes, etc. welcome here!

My posting schedule tends to be: I post at least once a day most days, often more; I use the "Don't show on Reading pages" ticky-box for inane thoughts or when I'm really on a hypergraphia tear and try to put excessively long posts under a cut.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: (See above, and…) I am a genderqueer asexual lesbian converting to Judaism [with a non-Zionist rabbi] so I think you can guess. If you voted for the current U.S. president or you are very concerned about """fairness in women's sports""" but aren't talking about the pay disparity between the NBA and the WNBA we are not going to get along.

Commenting expectations: I post a lot but I don't expect comments on every single thing! I try to comment when I have something to say but I won't spam you.

Current Mood: hopeful

maevedarcy posting in

smallfandomfest

So you're looking for a lighthearted book series that's equal parts funny and intriguing, I have THE urban fantasy series for you.

The Georgina Kincaid series is a collection of six(*) urban fantasy novels written by Richelle Mead. The series is written in a first-person perspective following the main character, Georgina Kincaid, who is a succubus with a heart (sort of).

More info with mild spoilers for the first books of the series under the cut.

*The six OG books in the series. Picture from ebay.

The basics

( Read more... )

The characters

( Read more... )

Why you should read it (spoiler free)

( Read more... )

Why you should read it (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES)

( I'm serious, I will spoil the first book and part of the series for you. I'm not joking. If you don't like spoilers, do not click )

Where to read
( Read more... )

Did you read it already?
Then please talk to me about it I'm starving!!! Fr there's only ONE fic on AO3 for this fandom that's not a crossover. Let's change that!

maevedarcy posting in

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anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

These questions were suggested by

thegreymouser.

1. What was the best gift you received?

2. What was the worst gift you received?

3. What gift did you wish for, but never got?

4. What was the best present you gave?

5. What was the worst present you gave?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

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REC: Untitled Narwhal!Merman Izzy by MegaDucko (Our Flag Means Death)

Dishonored Gift Exchange - Fugue Feast 2025 - Sign Ups Open (You can nominate in the form)

"Mythes et légendes" artbook review

Journal: Week of May 23rd Update

Pimp: Rhythm Heaven by torchicwpip (Welkamo)

Book Review Poll

demesne

Drafting

SFFest37: Rules Reminder & Claiming Post

The Week in Spikedluv (May 16 – May 22)

Follow Friday 5-23-25

The Great Ace Attorney: Homumiko Week 2025

[This Lordship Business]: I Have Been a Brother to O.W.L.S, 37/?

WIPBB Big Bang/Reverse Bang 2025 - Check-In #1 Is Live!

Stock Icon Update - May, 25

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nice to meet you ✨

Pimp: Georgina Kincaid Series (Richelle Mead) by maevedarcy

Four Or More 2025 Bingo

The Friday Five for 23 May 2025

May 2025

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