Calvin and Hobbes (![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
calvinandhobbes_rss_feed) wrote2025-06-14 12:00 am
calvinandhobbes_rss_feed) wrote2025-06-14 12:00 am
marthawells (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marthawells) wrote2025-06-13 12:08 pm
marthawells) wrote2025-06-13 12:08 pmEntry tags:
Murderbot Day
* Interview with Sue Chan, the production designer:
https://filmstories.co.uk/news/murderbot-designing-a-future-world-that-doesnt-look-like-alien/
“I started out by taking the most ancient societies on each continent – Etruscans, Asian, European, and African cultures,” Chan tells us. “I looked at the most fundamental motifs and gathered them into a bible, then asked my team to imagine 100 generations from now, when the diaspora of Earth have chosen to live together in society. How would they evolve a unified set of symbols? A language that really honours where they came from.”
This informed the alphabet that can be seen in the decoration painted across the otherwise grey, corporate habitat the PresAux crew are leasing. At the same time, acknowledging how much of the crew is queer and polyamorous, the colours of the rainbow are also entwined into their decorations.
“All of that is mashed up but it has a fundamental logic to it,” says Chan.
* Interview with Akshay Khanna (Ratthi):
https://squaremile.com/style/akshay-khanna-murderbot-actor-interview/
I’m incredibly excited for people to watch Murderbot on Apple TV+. Sci-fi has been my favourite genre by a country mile forever, and being on a show like this has always been a career goal of mine. Frankly, I had too much fun filming that show, and getting paid to do it constantly felt like I was getting away with something on set.
And the show is just so good. I can confidently say it’s fantastic – and if you don’t like it, then I would gently tell you that it’s OK to be wrong sometimes.
* Interview with Sabrina Wu (Pin-Lee):
https://www.autostraddle.com/sabrina-wu-interview-murderbot/
And then once I got the role, I read the books and I was legit just blown away at how funny the books were. I just haven’t seen such a dry sarcastic sensibility with this kind of hero sci-fi stories. And then I also just really liked that it was in the tradition of I felt like Octavia Butler, where it’s like, “oh, this is a queer imagining of the future.” So I don’t know. I just thought it was a really sweet, funny, different world. I also, obviously every comedian who becomes an actor, their dream is to get to work on something with action to move beyond an It’s Always Sunny kind of comedy. I believe there was already an opportunity for me to be in a spaceship and shoot guns, and it just made me happy that it was genuinely funny source material.
* Video interview with Tattiawna Jones (Arada) and Tamara Podemski (Bharadwaj):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NllgfEekw9s
* And a video interview with Noma Dumezweni (Mensah)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZpigqUqZXQ
* and a video interview with Noma and David Dastmalchian (Gurathin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=361cKOujISE
* And a video interview (with a transcript) with Alexander Skarsgard, Jack McBrayer, and Paul and Chris Weitz:
https://collider.com/murderbot-alexander-skarsgard-jack-mcbrayer-creators-paul-weitz-chris-weitz/
* And there is a profile of me in The New Yorker (!!)
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/do-androids-dream-of-anything-at-all
https://filmstories.co.uk/news/murderbot-designing-a-future-world-that-doesnt-look-like-alien/
“I started out by taking the most ancient societies on each continent – Etruscans, Asian, European, and African cultures,” Chan tells us. “I looked at the most fundamental motifs and gathered them into a bible, then asked my team to imagine 100 generations from now, when the diaspora of Earth have chosen to live together in society. How would they evolve a unified set of symbols? A language that really honours where they came from.”
This informed the alphabet that can be seen in the decoration painted across the otherwise grey, corporate habitat the PresAux crew are leasing. At the same time, acknowledging how much of the crew is queer and polyamorous, the colours of the rainbow are also entwined into their decorations.
“All of that is mashed up but it has a fundamental logic to it,” says Chan.
* Interview with Akshay Khanna (Ratthi):
https://squaremile.com/style/akshay-khanna-murderbot-actor-interview/
I’m incredibly excited for people to watch Murderbot on Apple TV+. Sci-fi has been my favourite genre by a country mile forever, and being on a show like this has always been a career goal of mine. Frankly, I had too much fun filming that show, and getting paid to do it constantly felt like I was getting away with something on set.
And the show is just so good. I can confidently say it’s fantastic – and if you don’t like it, then I would gently tell you that it’s OK to be wrong sometimes.
* Interview with Sabrina Wu (Pin-Lee):
https://www.autostraddle.com/sabrina-wu-interview-murderbot/
And then once I got the role, I read the books and I was legit just blown away at how funny the books were. I just haven’t seen such a dry sarcastic sensibility with this kind of hero sci-fi stories. And then I also just really liked that it was in the tradition of I felt like Octavia Butler, where it’s like, “oh, this is a queer imagining of the future.” So I don’t know. I just thought it was a really sweet, funny, different world. I also, obviously every comedian who becomes an actor, their dream is to get to work on something with action to move beyond an It’s Always Sunny kind of comedy. I believe there was already an opportunity for me to be in a spaceship and shoot guns, and it just made me happy that it was genuinely funny source material.
* Video interview with Tattiawna Jones (Arada) and Tamara Podemski (Bharadwaj):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NllgfEekw9s
* And a video interview with Noma Dumezweni (Mensah)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZpigqUqZXQ
* and a video interview with Noma and David Dastmalchian (Gurathin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=361cKOujISE
* And a video interview (with a transcript) with Alexander Skarsgard, Jack McBrayer, and Paul and Chris Weitz:
https://collider.com/murderbot-alexander-skarsgard-jack-mcbrayer-creators-paul-weitz-chris-weitz/
* And there is a profile of me in The New Yorker (!!)
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/do-androids-dream-of-anything-at-all
![[desperately] Maybe this is from some country where they use commas as decimal points, and also as digit separators after the decimal, and also use random other characters for decoration???](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/reading_a_big_number.png "[desperately] Maybe this is from some country where they use commas as decimal points, and also as digit separators after the decimal, and also use random other characters for decoration???")
History | smithsonianmag.com (smithsonian_hist_arc_feed) wrote2025-06-13 10:00 am
smithsonian_hist_arc_feed) wrote2025-06-13 10:00 amThis Exiled Romanov Princess Fled the Bloodshed of the Russian Revolution and Reinvented Herself as
A new exhibition spotlights Natalia Pavlovna Paley, the granddaughter of a czar. She built a new life for herself in France and the U.S., appearing in films and on the pages of glossy magazines
anais_pf (anais_pf) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thefridayfive2025-06-12 05:25 pm
anais_pf) wrote in thefridayfive2025-06-12 05:25 pm
The Friday Five for 13 June 2025
This week's questions were suggested by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pleepleus.
1. What item would you be embarrassed for people to know you own?
2. What is something you splurged on just for you?
3. What is something that you own with no real world value that is priceless to you?
4. Do you collect anything?
5. What item belonging to a friend/family member do you covet?
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!
pleepleus.1. What item would you be embarrassed for people to know you own?
2. What is something you splurged on just for you?
3. What is something that you own with no real world value that is priceless to you?
4. Do you collect anything?
5. What item belonging to a friend/family member do you covet?
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!
History | smithsonianmag.com (smithsonian_hist_arc_feed) wrote2025-06-12 12:00 pm
smithsonian_hist_arc_feed) wrote2025-06-12 12:00 pmYemen’s Al-Qahira Castle Survived Centuries of War and Neglect. Can It Survive Its Own Restoration?
With funding for preserving the historic site in jeopardy, local officials are wondering what will come next for the 800-year-old structure
Teres (teres) wrote in the_great_tumblr_purge2025-06-12 07:52 am
teres) wrote in the_great_tumblr_purge2025-06-12 07:52 am
Dreamwidth tips and observations.
Given that I've made some observations and tips on my own journals over time, I thought it was time to share them a bit wider, so here goes:
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
zan77 (zan77) wrote in addme_fandom2025-06-11 11:56 am
zan77) wrote in addme_fandom2025-06-11 11:56 amEntry tags:
What-ho all
Name: Zan
Age group: 40s but rapidly heading towards 50s
Country: UK
Subscription/Access Policy: Public, at time of writing
Fannish Interests: Right now I'm mainly into Djo, Stranger Things (as my icon suggests, I'm having somewhat of a Joe Keery year), The Terror, Severance, and my attention to the MCU has been revived somewhat by Agatha All Along, Thunderbolts and (hopefully!) Fantastic Four.
I enjoy reading golden age detective fiction, fantasy, romance and historical non-fiction. I've written a small number of fics but am trying to get out of a block and write some more.
I've been a long time but mostly lurky presence in fannish spaces since the early 2000s, and can also be found as zan77 on tumblr
I like to post about: Not many posts on my dreamwidth yet but I'm hoping to use it to get back into the habit of longer posting.
About Me/Other Info: Outside of fandom I'm also an amateaur bellydancer and enjoy crochet. As I officially enter Fandom Old territory I've started to yearn for the old Livejournal style interactions of my youth! Hoping to find some like-minded souls to talk to.
Age group: 40s but rapidly heading towards 50s
Country: UK
Subscription/Access Policy: Public, at time of writing
Fannish Interests: Right now I'm mainly into Djo, Stranger Things (as my icon suggests, I'm having somewhat of a Joe Keery year), The Terror, Severance, and my attention to the MCU has been revived somewhat by Agatha All Along, Thunderbolts and (hopefully!) Fantastic Four.
I enjoy reading golden age detective fiction, fantasy, romance and historical non-fiction. I've written a small number of fics but am trying to get out of a block and write some more.
I've been a long time but mostly lurky presence in fannish spaces since the early 2000s, and can also be found as zan77 on tumblr
I like to post about: Not many posts on my dreamwidth yet but I'm hoping to use it to get back into the habit of longer posting.
About Me/Other Info: Outside of fandom I'm also an amateaur bellydancer and enjoy crochet. As I officially enter Fandom Old territory I've started to yearn for the old Livejournal style interactions of my youth! Hoping to find some like-minded souls to talk to.
History | smithsonianmag.com (smithsonian_hist_arc_feed) wrote2025-06-09 01:13 pm
smithsonian_hist_arc_feed) wrote2025-06-09 01:13 pmHow America's Forgotten Second National Park Lost Its Federal Status—and Gained a New Lease on Life
Much of Mackinac Island was designated as a national park in 1875, but it proved to be too expensive for the government to maintain, so it was transferred to the State of Michigan in 1895
Rascal (gimmighoulcoins) wrote in addme_fandom2025-06-09 08:13 am
gimmighoulcoins) wrote in addme_fandom2025-06-09 08:13 amEntry tags:
Hello there!
Name: Rascal
Pronouns: He/Him
Age Group: I'm in my early 30s - please only add me if you're 20 or older!
Country: USA
Subscription/Access Policy: Very general fandom posts are public, whereas things that are access only are probably more along the lines of "mini-essay pondering a bigger subject through the lens of fandom" or a fanwork idea I'm not quite sure about yet, but what to share to a degree.
What I chat about: Fandom and hobbies are probably what I'll most frequently chat about, but I also love getting analytical and waxing philosophical about life - often through looking at fandom things. I find it fun, and my shared reflections tend to be more neutral-to-positive. When it comes to fandom specifics, I love writing fanfic and AUs, and exploring ideas for those, and a character deep-dive is one of my favorite things! I also just like sharing the enthusiasm I have for my favorite things, fandom or otherwise.
I'm looking to connect with people who: Want to talk and share their enthusiasm, too! I'm a chatterbox who really wants to extend his fannish social circle - I'm a househusband who sometimes ends up with a lot of free time and I'd love to spend more of it engaging in fun talk! I'm also looking to connect with people who are open-minded and accepting, and not interested in anti culture or other fandom discourse.
Main Fandoms: Pokemon has been my forever fandom, ever since Pokemania hit the States. I kind of fell off in the GBA/early DS era (Emerald and Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, specifically) but got back into it in a big way since and have never left. I'm mainly into the games, but I have a lot of fondness for the early seasons of the anime, and I've really been enjoying the new Pokemon Horizons series? I'm really behind on it, though. My other main fandoms are Disney Duck canons - a lot of 'em, but I'm especially fond of the 2017 DuckTales reboot, Darkwing Duck, and the various comics - and Fraggle Rock, which I discovered well after its time but I love - and now it has a reboot, too, and I also love that!
Other Fandoms: Delicious in Dungeon, In Stars and Time, Steven Universe, Dimension 20's Fantasy High, The Muppets, Sonic the Hedgehog (games, the movies, and the IDW comics - though I'm super behind on the comics), Zeddy Zi's Ramshackle, Lilo & Stitch, Tangled, Ratatouille, and a lot of other animated movies... Oh! And Phineas and Ferb is back and ngl, I'm kinda losing my mind over that. Such a fun show, I love its themes of creativity
What I create for Fandom: Fanfic! And occasionally icons, but mostly fic. I've really been getting back into it lately.
Other Hobbies: Reading, bracelet weaving, Dungeons & Dragons... I'm starting to get into art and I'm trying to get into cooking as more a hobby than housework. I also love collecting! Currently, I collect bookmarks and merch of Meowth from Pokemon.
Pronouns: He/Him
Age Group: I'm in my early 30s - please only add me if you're 20 or older!
Country: USA
Subscription/Access Policy: Very general fandom posts are public, whereas things that are access only are probably more along the lines of "mini-essay pondering a bigger subject through the lens of fandom" or a fanwork idea I'm not quite sure about yet, but what to share to a degree.
What I chat about: Fandom and hobbies are probably what I'll most frequently chat about, but I also love getting analytical and waxing philosophical about life - often through looking at fandom things. I find it fun, and my shared reflections tend to be more neutral-to-positive. When it comes to fandom specifics, I love writing fanfic and AUs, and exploring ideas for those, and a character deep-dive is one of my favorite things! I also just like sharing the enthusiasm I have for my favorite things, fandom or otherwise.
I'm looking to connect with people who: Want to talk and share their enthusiasm, too! I'm a chatterbox who really wants to extend his fannish social circle - I'm a househusband who sometimes ends up with a lot of free time and I'd love to spend more of it engaging in fun talk! I'm also looking to connect with people who are open-minded and accepting, and not interested in anti culture or other fandom discourse.
Main Fandoms: Pokemon has been my forever fandom, ever since Pokemania hit the States. I kind of fell off in the GBA/early DS era (Emerald and Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, specifically) but got back into it in a big way since and have never left. I'm mainly into the games, but I have a lot of fondness for the early seasons of the anime, and I've really been enjoying the new Pokemon Horizons series? I'm really behind on it, though. My other main fandoms are Disney Duck canons - a lot of 'em, but I'm especially fond of the 2017 DuckTales reboot, Darkwing Duck, and the various comics - and Fraggle Rock, which I discovered well after its time but I love - and now it has a reboot, too, and I also love that!
Other Fandoms: Delicious in Dungeon, In Stars and Time, Steven Universe, Dimension 20's Fantasy High, The Muppets, Sonic the Hedgehog (games, the movies, and the IDW comics - though I'm super behind on the comics), Zeddy Zi's Ramshackle, Lilo & Stitch, Tangled, Ratatouille, and a lot of other animated movies... Oh! And Phineas and Ferb is back and ngl, I'm kinda losing my mind over that. Such a fun show, I love its themes of creativity
What I create for Fandom: Fanfic! And occasionally icons, but mostly fic. I've really been getting back into it lately.
Other Hobbies: Reading, bracelet weaving, Dungeons & Dragons... I'm starting to get into art and I'm trying to get into cooking as more a hobby than housework. I also love collecting! Currently, I collect bookmarks and merch of Meowth from Pokemon.
