fic: costume
Nov. 26th, 2025 04:52 pmKotobuki Tsumugi, Akiyama Mio
Mio/Tsumugi
100 words
Fluffy, Usual Hokago Tea Time shenanigans, Lowercase
For day 5 of thedrabblecollective’s November challenge on Tumblr
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fic: chilly
Nov. 26th, 2025 04:46 pmHakaze Kaoru
100 words
Grief, Lowercase, Kaoru-centric
For day 4 of thedrabblecollective’s November challenge on Tumblr
( Click me )
Birds
Nov. 26th, 2025 03:33 pmEarlier this morning we had some Blue Jays, House Sparrows and Wild Turkeys.
I also saw some Tufted Titmouse, White breasted Nuthatch further in the woods.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Birdfeeding
Nov. 26th, 2025 02:12 pmI fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 11/26/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 11/26/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
.
Birdfeeding
Nov. 26th, 2025 02:11 pmI fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 11/26/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 11/26/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
.
Wednesday is annoyed that a seminar, booked as being online, turned out to be in-person only
Nov. 26th, 2025 07:14 pmWhat I read
After Hours at Dooryard Books was really good - set in 1968 in a used bookstore in Greenwich Village - this was so not a Summer of Love - but lots of Unhistoric Acts - also I really liked that what I feared was going to be one of those three-quarter way through Exposure of Dark Thing/Arising of Unexpected Crisis in Relationship actually didn't go angst angst angst wo wo wo.
Slightly Foxed #88: 'Pure Magic': pretty good selection, though rather irked by the guy fanboying over Room at the Top and all he can say about the sexism side of things is that the protag's behaviour to women 'may be less than admirable but he is not a cad'. O RLY. What do you call putting the local rich guy's daughter in the club and then chucking your older woman mistress, who dies horribly in a car accident?
Robert Rodi, Fag Hag (1992) - of its period perhaps. I think there may be works of his I remember more fondly than this one? Don't really recommend.
Dick Francis, Hot Money (1987): this is one in which I was waiting for the narrator to get, as per usual for a DF protag, nastily done over, probably by one of his siblings or in-laws in this convoluted tale of seething envies within the family of a much-married tycoon. He did get blown up but that was not personal and so did his father. No actually woodsheds but there was a glasshouse and various other nooks and crannies to see something nasty in.
On the go
Back to Lanny Budd - O Shepherd, Speak! (#10) (1949) - Lanny as ever finds himself where it's happening in the final stages of WW2 - have got to the aftermath of the war, and thinking about peace. Quite a way to go.
Up next
No idea.
040: Ocean; Enhypen; Vacation Plans (Park Sunghoon, Lee Heeseung)
Nov. 26th, 2025 11:34 amTitle: Vacation Plans
Rating: G
Type: Fic
Size/length/word count etc.:685
Prompt: 040: Ocean
Fandom/Ship: Enhypen; Park Sunghoon, Lee Heeseung
Notes/Warnings: None
Summary An unexpected break gives them a chance to return to other hobbies.
Find the table with the list of fics here
Book review: The Once and Future King
Nov. 26th, 2025 10:32 amAuthor: T.H. White
Genre: Fantasy adventure
Last night I finished The Once and Future King by T.H. White, because I felt like it was time I made a real foray into the Arthurian legends. The actual first Arthurian book I read was The Mists of Avalon, but that was years ago and before I had heard the full story about Marion Zimmer Bradley. This book takes a decidedly different tone. I’m sticking to the most common name spellings for all of the characters here, because spellings do vary across all versions of these legends.
The first thing that surprised me about The Once and Future King is that it’s funny, and frequently in an absurd, dorky kind of way. Knights failing tilts because their visors fell over their eyes wrong, Merlin accidentally zapping himself away in the middle of a lesson because he was in a temper, the Questing Beast “falling in love” with two men dressed in a beast costume, that sort of thing. This silliness is largely concentrated in the first quarter of the book, which is about Arthur’s childhood, but it’s never fully lost.
The second surprise was how long the book focuses on Arthur’s childhood, but then again, it is setting the scene for Arthur’s worldview and the lessons he internalized as a child which shape his approach to being king.
( Read more... )Ask a Manager: 2. My husband’s boss wants him to hire the boss’s girlfriend
Nov. 26th, 2025 11:54 amWe Interrupt This JLI Content for Some JLI Content: SECRET ORIGINS #33 (JLI 29)
Nov. 26th, 2025 07:57 am
I planned for the next part in this series to be the Max Lord spotlight in Justice League International #24, but that’ll come early next week.
Warning for some discussion of age-inappropriate relationships and creators with tainted histories.
DC’s Secret Origins series did all JLI-themed origin stories for three issues, after doing the Justice Society and the original Justice League of America. Each issue had three stories: this one includes Mister Miracle and Oberon, Fire/Green Flame, and Ice/Icemaiden. No, Fire shouldn't be able to fly on that cover; just go with it. YES, ice-bridges are more Iceman's thing, JUST GO WITH IT.
Mister Miracle and Oberon’s story is “Escapism” by Mike Carlin and Don Heck. It’s a split-page compare-and-contrast exercise.
( You see, Mister Miracle is...TALL, and… )
Wednesday Reading Meme
Nov. 26th, 2025 09:16 amWhat I am Currently Reading: Dogged Pursuit (Andy Carpenter Series) by David Rosenfelt.
What I Plan to Read Next: I have two books waiting for me at the library, so one of those.
DNF: Guardian of the Horizon (An Amelia Peabody Mystery) (Elizabeth Peters)
I didn’t so much DNF this book as DNS (Did Not Start) it. I recently learned that this author wrote stories from the ‘lost season’. (The time between the books.) I was not pleased with that information because I do not want to go backwards and I hoped that this next book in the series (which I had already requested from the libarary) was not one of those ‘lost season’ books. Dear reader, I hoped in vain. ( more back here )
The Goodreads description does include the information that the book is from the ‘lost season’; I wish I’d know about these books so I could have read them in the proper ‘order’ time-wise (rather than publication-wise). But you can, if you’re just getting into the series! Thankfully not all of the books in the rest of the series are from a ‘lost season’, so I have requested the book after this one from the library.
🍵🫖
Nov. 26th, 2025 05:39 pmSubtitling controversy
Crunchyroll has swapped Aegisub for Ooona as their subtitling tool. Reasons why this is causing outrage:
1) Ooona is a product of an Israel-based company
2) Ooona is the same software used for Netflix and Amazon subtitles. This means the subtitles are more, hmm, minimalistic? And lack the same amount of onscreen translation and styling that are standard in the anime community. It's also subscription-based (and cloud-based). From what I understand, the change in services is meant to make it easier to conform to Netflix / Amazon's subtitling standards (using one subtitle version across all platforms instead of converting from .ass), but a lot has been lost in the process.
Here's a detailed write-up about it, with plenty of screencaps and subtitle samples for reference. It's so long I never finished reading it. 😂
Several high-engagement Twitter threads have alleged that Crunchyroll now uses "AI subtitles" or "AI software". I haven't found any definitive info that supports that, but I've seen some Reddit posts/comments point out the use of AI in closed captions.
We realized that relying exclusively on 100% human translation would prevent many valuable works from ever reaching global readers. But with recent improvements in AI translation quality, we saw an opportunity to address this challenge.
We understand that opposition to AI usage often stems from concerns about it potentially replacing human writers—and we feel the same way.
That’s why we explicitly inform all of our writers and publishers that use of AI is strictly limited to translation purposes only, never for creating original content.
And we’ve received full consent from all writers and publishers we work with.
We operate through 100% legal contracts with authors and publishers, and proceeds go directly to the authors. Constructive criticism of our service is welcome, but it should not distract from the importance of supporting authors legally. 😔
— OmO fictions_official (@omo_fictions) November 25, 2025
We want to express our sincere… https://t.co/TSs4WWbAPk
again, it's disgusting how even the *authors* know their work is being fed through AI. it's no AI until it benefits them a tiny bit https://t.co/4UA47MLQTT
— レン (@riamuyumemi) November 25, 2025
Controversy about AI tools
Ridi's Subsidiary Prodifi Launches AI-Powered Webtoon Localization Tool
+ November 2025 update:
Prodifi, the subsidiary of RIDI, has announced a service termination next month due to “internal service strategy adjustments.” (this article includes Lezhin's statement about its involvement with Prodifi)
RIDI is the parent company of the international webtoon platform Manta. The localization tool supposedly streamlines the process of adjusting typesetting (for speech bubbles, sfx, etc) and supports multiple languages. It is unclear to me how much auto-translation is used in the actual translation process, and with Prodifi's service termination announcement it's unclear if they are still able to use the software. I'm not tapped into the translated manhwa scene enough to have anything to say about the translation quality, but readers have been very unhappy with Manta's new pricing scheme and even unhappier with the recent AI revelations.

