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My Outgunned game is a spy thriller of sorts. I thought it would be fun to skip the usual "characters start together, get briefed, plot their mission together" and so on, I'd start with three of the five breaking into an apartment. They are 14-year-old Diane Dean (the driver), 18-year-old Concordia Butterstein (unsanctioned intrusion and asset acquisition expert) and 70-year-old Jethro Winthrop (the smooth talking fellow who hired the other two because they offered the best value for price)
( Read more... )
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A vast megadungeon from Expeditious Retreat Press for D&D, AD&D, and other tabletop fantasy roleplaying games.
Bundle of Holding: Halls of Arden Vul (from 2022)
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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"
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...Wait, we're supposed to believe that it's the rebels who are wrong?
Side-Eyeing Science Fiction’s Love of Empire
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A teen subject to intermittent time-loops sets out to prevent the murder of his unlikable grandfather. This will be much harder than he expects.
The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa
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Sisters process family tensions as the world slowly grinds to an end.
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
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Running this many days without sleep, I find it hard to tell whether I had an insight about creativity this weekend or just reinvented a 101-level objection to LLMs and so-called generative AI, but it ocurred to me that such technologies are not capable of allusions. Their algorithms are not freighted with the same three-dimensional architecture of associations which accrete around information stored in the human cold porridge, all the emotional colors and sensory overtones and contextual echoes which attend the classic example of a word like tree when you throw it out across the incommensurable void between one human mind and another to be plugged into their own idiosyncratically plastic linkage of bias and experience whose least incompatibility may be the difference between a bristlecone and a birch and Wittgenstein has to lie down with a headache, but all of these entanglements form as much of the texture of a writer's style—of any human communication—as the word cloud of their vocabulary or their most commonly diagrammed sentences. It has always interested me to be able to detect the half-rhymes or skeletons of familiarity in the work of other writers; I have always assumed I am reciprocally legible if not transparent from space. I've seen arguments against the creativity of LLMs based on intentionality, but the unintended encrustrations seem just as important to me. By way of illustration, this thought was partly sparked by this classic and glorious mashup.
I was delighted to find on checking the news this morning that a new Roman villa just dropped. Given the Iron Age hillforts, the twelfth-century abbey, the Georgian country house, and the CH station, Margam Country Park clearly needed a Roman find to complete the set. I have since been informed of the discovery of a similarly well-preserved and impressive carnyx. Goes shatteringly with a villa, the Iceni tell me.
I joke about this rock I spend most of my time under, but how can I never have heard of Marlow Moss? The Bryher vibes alone. The Constructivism. And a real short king, judging by that jaunty photo c. 1937 with Netty Nijhoff. Pursuing further details, I fell over Anton Prinner and have been demoralized about my comprehension of art history ever since.
Last night I read David Copperfield (1850) for the third time in my life. It has the terrible feel of a teachable moment. In high school I bounced almost completely off it. About ten years later, I enjoyed the dual-layered narration and was otherwise mostly engaged by the language. Now it appears I just like the novel, which I have to consider may be a factor of middle age. Or I had just read the necessary bunch more of Dickens in the interval, speaking of traceable reflections, recurring figures; my favorite character has not changed since eleventh grade, but I can see now the constellation he's part of. It seems improbable that I was always reading the novel while waiting for chorus to start, but I did get through Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) in the down time of a couple of rehearsals that year. I was not taking either of the standard literature classes, but I had friends who left their assigned reading lying around.
I have to be at three different doctors' offices tomorrow. I could be over this viral mishegos any second now.Current Music: Pavement, "Grave Architecture"
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sigh
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Jan. 12th, 2026 @ 10:27 pm
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One character in my Outgunned game gets a laptop as part of his starting gear. Game is set in 1977 so I told the university age player he could have a programmable calculator or a slide rule.
"What's a slide rule?"
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Diseased grimdark English-language sourcebooks by Christian Eichhorn for the artpunk tabletop fantasy roleplaying game Mörk Borg!
Bundle of Holding: Eichhorn Mork Borg
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This is late because my site was down when I had the time to post on Saturday. Seven books new to me. Two fantasy, one non-fiction, one mainstream, one collection of poetry, and two thrillers.
Books Received, January 3 to January 9
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39 Which of these look interesting?
View AnswersOf Venom and Vengeance by Mikayla Bridge (July 2026)
6 (15.4%) Bad Advice by Susan Carpenter (April 2026)
3 (7.7%) The Innocent Canadian by John Delacourt (April 2026)
6 (15.4%) Woodbine Grove by Ryan O’Dowd (December 2025)
3 (7.7%) Rum Maniacs: Alcoholic Insanity in the Early American Republic by Matthew Warner Osborn (March 2020)
22 (56.4%) Inside Passages by Heather Paul (April 2026)
4 (10.3%) Existence in All Its Uncoverable Beauty by Calvin White (April 2026)
2 (5.1%) Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%) Cats!
32 (82.1%)
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Had a person wander into the 2nd floor corridor looking for the women's washroom. Alas, our 2nd floor women's washroom stopped being functional this week end so all I had to offer was three gender neutral washrooms... one of which is usually the men's.
Then it occurred to me the corridor she came from is from the "new" part of Hagey, the accounting section. While she was hesitating, looking unhappy at the choices offered, I asked if that was where she was from. She said yes, so I told her that section has a very nice (zero barrier) women's on the main floor. Off she went.
Once she was gone, it struck me as odd that she would wander as far as old Hum looking for a washroom.t.
I mentioned this to my supervisor and yeah, apparently because it's an expansion of Hagey, it didn't have to have all the amenities an independent building of the same size would have to have. Thus the comparative lack of washrooms, and a total lack of elevators.
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Tales of America's thrilling genocide on and colonization of Mars!
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
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The best thing about a photo I found tonight of John Vickery in 1981 is not that it headcanoned itself instantly as an image of the younger Neroon, it's that I had just been watching him in an American Theatre Wing seminar from that same year and been struck by how little of his older self in or out of character was immediately traceable in his thin collegiate face and especially his light Californian voice and so when looking out of mildly feverish curiosity for his notices that summer as Prince Hal I was really not expecting to find through nothing but chiaroscuro and expression his future Minbari bones.
Offstage, he had reminded me more of Kyle MacLachlan and barely looked old enough to have the bachelor's in mathematics which was part of his origin story. He tells it again in another seminar in 1998 and still has a nervous gesture of touching one of his eyes as if tired or distracted slightly; he's a great fidgeter in front of an off-the-cuff audience. I had gone looking originally for his voice, which turns out not even to be that mid-Atlantic when he's using it for himself. Three decades plus I had to notice this actor with my brain on perpetual standby for B5 and now it has an opinion.
To keep on the theme of theater, I had no idea until her obituary that Tina Packer started her career in the three-quarters burninated 1966 BBC David Copperfield with Ian McKellen and then the much more successfully recovered 1968 Doctor Who: The Web of Fear before she discovered she cared much less for acting than directing or producing, whence Shakespeare & Company. The last time I saw Hugh Whitemore's Breaking the Code was in 2011 at Central Square Theater and they are reviving it this spring with the actor I last saw as Gaveston in the ASP's Edward II in 2017, whom I expect to be a superb Turing and me to leave the theater muttering about Joan Clarke as usual. In lieu of a teleporter, I have to hope for a transfer of this High Noon.Current Music: Townies, "Elderberry Wine"
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Jan. 10th, 2026 @ 09:19 am
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I am aware jamesdavisnicoll.com is down.
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Posted by Aditi Paul https://www.transformativeworks.org/ivd-2025-volunteer-qa-translation-spotlight/ https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=274409 Last November we asked the community to submit questions to our OTW volunteers in celebration of International Volunteer Day. In this series of posts we will spotlight some of our committees’ responses.
The Translation committee‘s main responsibility is making content from the OTW and its various projects accessible to fans who don’t speak English. This includes content for the organization’s main site, FAQs on AO3, Open Doors import announcements, and AO3 news posts, among other things. They also collaborate with other OTW committees, for example to help them communicate with non-English speaking fans and users.
We asked the Translation committee for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:
Translation Committee Specific Question
Question: Is there a software required if one wanted to volunteer? Also, are there any specific devices required?
Committee answer:
While we have no specific software requirements for volunteering, we definitely recommend using a device with a bigger screen in general, like a desktop or a laptop, or at least a tablet, as that makes it easier to keep everything you need for your work on your screen. One of our requirements for any software we use is that it can run in a common internet browser on a computer, without any local installs, though they may require an app on mobile devices.
General Questions
How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?
- It varies a lot week to week! Some weeks are very quiet and there’s not a lot to work on, but when I do get an assignment, I tend to spend about a couple of hours on it, and that will usually be it for the week unless we’re working on time sensitive tasks or projects, when things can get more hectic! Translation in particular sets generous deadlines to complete our assignments (5 or 7 days depending on what we’re working on), which gives us plenty of time to work on it even after RL work hours and factoring in other real life things. I also sometimes help the Tag Wrangling team with their Spanish tags, but that accounts for a couple of minutes of quick work overall, I’d say. So… tl;dr, about 2-3 hours, give or take, depending on what we have to do for the week! (Saku)
- It depends on the task, but an average of 2-3 hours per week suffices. (Nameless_ghoul_7)
How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?
- I usually find time for this during the weekend, considering my day job, so it’s more of a weekend activity for me. And I prefer to do my translation in one go, and then go through it again afterwards in my free time post weekday work.
It’s definitely taught me to be good at time management, because you can’t predict how your week is going to go at any point. (Ana)
- I use a time tracker to help me track the time I spend on OTW volunteer tasks, though that usually ends up working more in retrospective, where towards the end of each week I look at the hours I did to evaluate whether my current workload is adequate or whether I should delegate some of my work to other people (or if that’s not an option, what I can deprioritise and put off until a bit later). I usually try to pick up some volunteer manager or chair trainee work every other day or so (unless I’m working on something that requires daily attention), just to avoid driving myself insane, because at the end of the day there’s always more work I could be picking up still. (Rhine)
What’s your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?
- My favourite part of volunteering at the OTW has been meeting several new people from around the world and seeing how our different POVs and experiences help with different understandings of life in different spaces and how independently of our differences, cultures and upbringing we’re united by pure passion for what we do in and for fandom. Passion and compassion is often hidden or missing in “work spaces” and the OTW has been a positive space filled with positive learning experiences for me since the moment I started volunteering. It’s an ever evolving space that takes every instance to be better. (CottonDuck)
- I was going to say “the people!” and that is mostly true (I’ve met some wonderful folks as part of Translation, and it’s been a great time overall!), but if I sit down to really think about it, I think my favorite part is that it feels very gratifying to be giving back to a community that has done so much for fandom and fan spaces. I don’t read a lot of fanfiction myself anymore, much as I do occasionally write it, but fandom is still very important to me and I’ve made a lot of good friends thanks to it, so it feels good to be able to contribute my time and skills and do something for a space that has done so much for me in turn. It’s good work and good people all around, and it feels good to be part of it through my work for the OTW and AO3. (Saku)
What’s the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?
- How chill the Translation volunteer managers are! If we need something, be it a hiatus, more time on a task, or clarification on some part of the text, we’re pretty much always granted them! And having a full week to do the task is very nice too, I originally thought it was going to be much more hectic. (kati)
- The sheer scope of work that is involved! There are so many volunteers, like, seriously, *so many*, and each of us have our own little roles to perform, thus helping everything run like clockwork. Having said all that, it’s all strictly on a volunteer basis, which makes it probably the only “work place” I’ve seen where we all actually enjoy doing what we do. (Ana)
What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?
- Mostly the same as any normal day. Only that I set apart one or two hours most days to translate what’s been assigned to me. (ttom)
- It varies a lot! As Translation volunteer managers, we handle several different tasks, depending on the time of year, and what projects are currently going on. For example, if I’m on duty for managing our email inbox and handing out tasks for the week—we alternate regularly—I’ll set aside around 2-3 hours a day after work for that. When we are recruiting for new translators, I’ll spend a chunk of time in a week holding interviews. There are also routine tasks that each of us rotates through, like preparing meetings or coordinating the upload of translated content to the OTW and AO3 websites. Independent of the task, I usually work through shorter items on my to-do list on weekday nights, and leave bigger tasks for the weekend. (Elin)
What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?
- Cats… I love cats and I have one. (Nameless_ghoul_7)
- Cats, giraffes, turtles, butterflies, and I can go on. As for cats, I love the Egyptian Maus that I currently have. (AnneHelena)
- My favourite animal is the betta! I loved aquaculture a lot!! My favourite breed of dog is the Indian Pariah Dog. (Aditi Mandavgane)
Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what’s your favorite work on AO3?
- I love reading fanfics and it’s difficult to choose a favourite one. But among the recent fics I am reading, Bifurcation Sandbox by Gardenersnake8822 is a favourite. (Gloriosa)
- I love reading fanfic! It’s definitely become a hobby, and has been the brunt of my reading as of late (because books are expensive </3). It's really difficult to pick a favorite work, since I've read so many amazing fics, but if I had to pick one, I'd pick "The Lowlander" by user foxymoxy! It's a BTS-Dragon Age crossover fic that takes the captor/prisoner trope and really dissects and does something interesting with it. It's one of my all-time favorites, and I re-read it all the time. (Somber)
Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?
- Yes! I have a writing account on some platforms like AO3 (ofc, duh), Twitter, Wattpad, and Medium. There are so many things I love about writing. But, I’m going to list 3 of them here:
- I can finally read my ship in tropes that I really wanted to read.
- The research process. I gained knowledge while doing my hobby. I learn how to write better, to portray the emotion better, to explore and experiment with my characters’ personality, discover interesting information, and so on.
- It helps me clear my mind. (Keane)
- I used to write original stories that never went anywhere and only started writing and publishing fanfiction in order to learn about AO3’s user interface so that I could translate the tutorials more accurately. I like how freeing it feels not to have to worry too much about writing well enough for the general audience – it’s just me and the five people (at most) who will ever see my silly little stories! (Slovenian Translation volunteer)
What fandoms are you (currently) in?
- I’m currently obsessed with F1: The Movie and Ocean’s Eleven Trilogy. (Cassie)
- I’ve been in the Star Wars fandom for more than 20 years at this point, mostly on the Rogue One / Andor side nowadays. (Auré)
Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?
- My answer is yes, absolutely! Especially on AO3 in particular, because Mandarin Chinese authors have been facing immense opposition in the form of censorship and takedowns of both digital and physical publications of our works. The 227 incident that resulted in AO3 being banned in Mainland China was a major turning point in the involvement of AO3 within Chinese fandom communities, so every time I see a new Mandarin Chinese work on AO3 I’m always grateful that one more author has found a safe avenue to share their creations with the rest of fandom. (Chinese Translation volunteer)
- Absolutely! My first language is Portuguese and I always find it surprising when I see works on some fandoms that are definitely not popular in my country. It’s like an invisible thread suddenly connects me to someone I don’t know but share two things in common: a language and a love for a fandom that makes us want to spend time and effort creating something to share with that community. Funny enough, I usually like to read fanfics in the language my brain associates them with. For example, I don’t speak Korean, and I usually watch K-dramas with English subtitles to continue learning English, so that’s the language my brain associates that series with. When I see a work in Portuguese for that fandom, it’s like my horizons have suddenly been broadened. And if I get a chance to make an online friend because of it? Even better! (Amanda)
- I translate English to Marathi, and I don’t see a lot of Marathi fanfic on the site, but when I stumble upon one, my heart soars and I feel on top of the world! (Aditi Mandavgane)
Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!
(For more answers from Translation volunteers, check out this work on AO3, where we’ll collect additional replies to each question!) https://www.transformativeworks.org/ivd-2025-volunteer-qa-translation-spotlight/ https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=274409
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While we seem to have skipped actual plague, all of my households have acquired the going lurgi and my head feels like a balloon which has been filled with concrete and may at any second fall off. I have not been ill with a pharmacologically suppressed immune system before. I hadn't been sure it would be capable of running even a low-grade fever.
I have him so totally identified with the role of Neroon on Babylon 5 (1994–98), I keep forgetting that John Vickery in common with many actors who could handle the hours of makeup made several appearances on Star Trek, although the time I actually seem to have seen him in that universe involved no enhancements beyond near-catatonic terror as the sole survivor of a creepily derelict death-ship in TNG's "Night Terrors" (1991). Perhaps it was just lost to the sands of fanzines, but I was genuinely surprised that no one on AO3 ever filled in some kind of /comfort for a character who spends nearly his total screen time telepathically looping through cryptically traumatized echoes and crying. Just when you think you have a handle on other people's id.
It is not reasonable that for two years the earth has been bereft of a rust-black little cat with cut-lime eyes, my miracle, my salty boy, my sassafras, while it suffers the weight of human people who are not worth one of his twenty-six claws, snagged in my bathrobe as he clambered to my shoulder for his terrycloth time after a shower. I miss turning back the covers in this weather to find his sincere blink up from the bedclothes, the absolute trust in the soft curl of his back that no one would shift him from his burrowed comfort. I miss the notes in his purr, from the musical edge of wanting to the subterranean roar of contentment, the whole architecture of his body vibrating like throat singing with the little whiffle that went in and out of his voice, his signature trill. I miss the unretractable click of his claws that announced his progress and the calluses of his desert-rose pads with which he gripped fiercely for human touch. From childhood I was taught that cats turn into flowers and Autolycus lies with his grave goods at the roots of the forsythia I have twice watched bloom since his death; the candle lit for him after sunset burns and his sister did not spring immediately off the bed when I stumbled into it, nauseated and head-aching. I am not without cat in my life. But I am without this cat and he was of inestimable worth to the world.Current Music: Vivian Girls, "Where Do You Run To"
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