I helped out with redrawing backgrounds for a couple of scanlations of Jack Jeanne spinoff manga, which was more fun than I expected!
Both are prequels set in the year before the game takes place. They're both high on slashiness but relatively low on trans vibes despite all the cross-dressing.
Parsley This is about two secondary characters (Sugachi and Kaido) and might actually be enjoyable out of context, as the story of a new student at an all boys acting school finding his place once he starts playing female characters.
Pecker Backstory for Neji and Chui, won't make much sense out of context.
The final words of one of the victims of the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., have been shared by his family: "Tell my parents that I love them so much." The local MP says the message was delivered by a "hero" classmate who helped care for Abel Mwansa, Jr. and others hurt in the tragedy.
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that gave birth to a one-ton baby, captured a legendary move on film, discovered a hole in space, and imagined our brains on Mars.
First, a sperm whale named Rounder gives birth on camera, complete with some surprise guests. Then: the deadliest headbutts on the high seas, a natural refuge from cosmic wrath, and rats take a trip to the space simulator.
What a week it has been for the most majestic of all beats: sperm whale news. I’m going to have to go a little Ishmael on your asses, because two unrelated studies have peered into the underwater realm of these mysterious marine mammals and observed customs that have never been captured on film before.
First, researchers report the first detailed footage of a sperm whale birth, which scientists recorded in full with drones on the morning of July 8, 2023, off the coast of Dominica.
Though a handful of sperm whale births have been previously observed, this high-resolution aerial imagery is by far the most comprehensive footage. The team tracked the entire 34-minute delivery, followed by an extended postpartum period that revealed the members of the whale clan providing assistance to the calf and its mother, who is a well-studied female named Rounder (a.k.a whale #5714).
“Other adult females positioned themselves closely around [Rounder],” said researchers co-led by Alaa Maalouf, Joseph DelPreto, Maxime Lucas, and Simone Poetto of Project CETI, a collaboration that studies sperm whale behavior and communication. “Plumes of blood and the subsequent observation of the newborn marked the moment of delivery at 11:46 a.m.”
“The group rapidly transitioned to cohesive and highly active behavior; individuals took turns lifting the newborn, physically supporting and pushing it to the surface,” the team continued. “This phase continued for about an hour, during which time the entire unit remained tightly grouped. In addition, there were close passes by Fraser’s dolphins (Lagenodelphis hosei) and brief interactions with pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus), which encompassed the sperm whale cluster and occasionally dove beneath them.”
It’s a sublime scene of new life, whale doulas, and curious bystanders in the delivery room. It also offers "unprecedented insights” into the complex sociality of sperm whales, a species that forms tight-knit matrilineal clans that share labor among members that span many generations, according to the study.
“These analyses provide evidence of birth attendance, or assistance, in a nonprimate species, a behavior long considered characteristic only of humans and their close relatives,” the team concluded.
In addition to that glimpse into the watery birthing bed, a separate team reports the first ever video footage of sperm whales headbutting each other.
“Here, we present 3 UAV (drone) based observations of head-butting and head-first contact between young sperm whales in the Azores and Balearic archipelagos,” said researchers led by Alec Burslem of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who conducted the study in a previous role at the University of St. Andrews.
Yup, that’s a headbutt. Image: Association Tursiops
“To our knowledge, this behavior has not previously been positively confirmed in sperm whales with supporting documentation, or scientifically described,” the team said.
While this is the first time the headbutting has been captured on film, it has been anecdotally described by many sailors over the centuries. The study even opens with a quote from Owen Chase, a survivor of the whaling ship Essex, which was sunk by a sperm whale that rammed its head into the hull in 1820, providing the inspiration for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Over the course of months adrift on small whaleboats, most of the crew died and Chase was forced to resort to cannibalism of deceased crewmates to survive.
In short: The sperm whales give life, and the sperm whales taketh life away. This has been sperm whale news.
Scientists have discovered a giant cavity between Earth and the Moon that no dentist could ever hope to fill. You might be thinking—isn’t space already one big cavity? But while space is mostly sparse, it contains plenty of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), energetic particles shot out by cosmic cataclysms like supernovas or gamma ray bursts.
Now, observations from China’s Chang’e-4, the first spacecraft ever to land on the far side of the Moon, has revealed a huge void where GCRs are warded off by Earth’s magnetic field. Given that these rays are hazardous to human health, the cavity could provide astronauts with some helpful cover from tiny cosmic bullets in future missions.
A figure depicting the GCR cavity. Image: Shang et al., Sci. Adv. 12, eadv1908
“GCRs were previously considered to be approximately uniformly distributed throughout the Earth-Moon space,” said researchers co-led by Wensai Shang of Shandong University at Weihai, Ji Liu of the University of Alberta, and Zigong Xu of Kiel University. The presence of the giant cavity “provides a potential strategy for mission planning…as operations could be timed to coincide with these lower radiation periods to reduce exposure risk.”
It’s not every day you unlock a giant new space shield! Sometimes, a cavity can be a good thing.
If humans do continue to explore space, we’ll need a lot more than a weird cavity to protect us. In a new study, scientists exposed rats to simulated space radiation in a lab and discovered that it had measurable impacts on the reward and risk circuits in their brains.
Rats exposed to radiation exhibited altered “cost–benefit decision-making…in both sexes” and “males displayed a global degradation of reward sensitivity...whereas females exhibited a selective shift toward high-risk, low-probability choices,” said researchers led by Richard Britten of Old Dominion University.
The findings add to a growing body of research on the many deleterious health effects of prolonged periods in space. As NASA prepares to launch Artemis 2 next month—the first mission to send humans to fly by the Moon since the Apollo era—it’s the perfect time to reflect on the realistic tradeoffs of our spacefaring dreams.
Assuming all goes to plan, the Artemis 2 crew will only be in space for 10 days, and will experience a negligible radiation dose. But a crewed trip to Mars would take at least a few years. To that end, the new study “advances understanding of how chronic low-dose space radiation may compromise behavioral regulation—a critical component of astronaut performance and mission safety.”
With that, here’s to happy travels and healthy brains—on Earth and off it.
The weekly chat posts are intended for just that, chatting among each other. What are you currently watching? Reading? What actor/idol are you currently following? What are you looking forward to? Are you busy writing, creating art? Or did you have no time at all for anything, and are bemoaning that fact?
Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes: or
A Pasadena man is speaking out after losing his home in a fire earlier this year, saying he and his son can't access emergency shelter options because of his son's dog.
The Alberta government and the father of a man who suffered cardiac arrest and permanent brain damage after he was allegedly given a "massive overdose" of a potent sedative at a Winnipeg hospital two years ago are suing the facility, three medical providers and two Manitoba health authorities for negligence.
Every month in OTW Signal, we take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including issues related to legal matters, technology, academia, fannish history and preservation issues of fandom, fan culture, and transformative works.
In the News
An article published in February in the Dublin Inquirer highlights the fannish origins of author Diane Duane and how her experiences writing fanfiction influenced her career.
Inspired by a deep love of the (at the time) newly airing Star Trek: The Original Series, Duane began to craft stories featuring her favourite characters. Like many fans discovering a new world for the first time, she turned to storytelling as a way to explore it more deeply. The skills she developed while writing these stories would help her build a decades-long career as an author.
Duane found herself writing Trek “fan-fiction” – although, she says, she didn’t know that’s what it was called then.
Taking a sip of her cabernet sauvignon, she remembers her first effort as a crossover between Trek and musical sitcom The Monkees.
“I don’t know why I’m even admitting this in a public place, but it’s true,” she says, laughing.
Duane’s writing credits include novels and screenwriting work for well-known series from the Marvel, DC Comics and Disney franchises in addition to her original work. She remains engaged with the Star Trek fandom, enjoying the franchise’s recent series, Strange New Worlds.
Using a recent article featured in Dexerto and the subsequent online backlash as an example, the author argues that when large media outlets introduce fanworks to broader, uninvolved audiences it can disrupt a community based on shared norms, and mutual understanding.
Fandom spaces used to be private, and fandom etiquette previously outlined a set of rules for fans. Now, media exposure turns these online communities mainstream, posing problems for authors when fan works are often created quietly and out of admiration for the source material — not a desire for attention.
The author stresses that ethical reporting on fandom requires recognizing fandom as a legitimate cultural practice that is shaped by decades of participatory storytelling, shared values, and communal identity.
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Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
April has two uni Nationals weekends in Sheffield (one each with Womens Blues and Huskies), a hockey camp in Hull, three other hockey games, hopefully some more theatre trips, and a movie date next week with Tony.
My children rickroll me pretty regularly, so That Song gets stuck in my head.
How long do they last?
Not very long. My brain is usually too preoccupied with other sources of worry and stress to spend long on an earworm.
What do you do to get rid of them?
I don't know if this will sound contradictory, but on the rare occasions when an earworm sticks, I find that playing the actual song gets rid of it.
What is the worst ear worm you've ever had?
There's this Robyn song that I dislike intensely, and it popped in and out of my head for a week. I don't like the song so was very reluctant to employ my usual remedy.
Do you get some guilty pleasure in passing the ear worm along?
Not unless it's reciprocally rickrolling my children.
Fandoms:9-1-1, Bridgerton, Elite, Fallout, Heated Rivalry, Kuhnya, Made in Heaven, Mako Mermaids, Mr. Robot, Roswell New Mexico, The Last Kingdom, The Tudors, Vikings, Yellowstone, Young Royals
Raw Farm does not sell your typical cheddar. A one-pound block of the aged, GMO-free cheese retails for $16. (Naturally, it’s for sale at Erewhon, the high-end grocery chain.) Some people are willing to pay that kind of premium because the cheese is made exclusively from unpasteurized milk. So is almost everything else that’s sold by Raw Farm, a 400-acre dairy farm in Fresno, California, that is commonly cited as the country’s biggest purveyor of raw milk and cheese. When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president in 2024, his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, visited Raw Farm and filmed herself on a tour of the milking operations. Raw Farm has carved a very successful niche out of the unfounded belief that raw milk and cheese are more nutritious than the regular stuff.
Pasteurization exists for a reason: It is a time-tested way to make sure that dairy products don’t contain bacteria that can make you sick. And now Raw Farm has found itself in the middle of an E. coli outbreak. The FDA is pointing to Raw Farm’s cheddar cheese as the reason nine people—including multiple children under the age of 5—have fallen ill. Three of the individuals have been hospitalized, and one has developed a serious kidney condition. Regulators have asked Raw Farm to recall the product. Yet the company has refused to do so. Grocery stores are still carrying the cheddar.
A maxim of food safety is that when the government says your product is making people sick, you stop selling it. Sometimes companies are in a “state of shock and disbelief,” Frank Yiannas, a former deputy FDA commissioner who was previously the vice president of food safety at Walmart, told me. “They can’t imagine that it’s truly their product.” In the history of the modern FDA, essentially every company implicated in a foodborne outbreak has agreed to a recall—until now. Democrats in Congress have even tried to place pressure on Raw Farm to pull the product off shelves, but the company is not backing down.
In this cheddar chaos, Raw Farm has painted itself as the victim. When I spoke with Aaron McAfee, the company’s president, he was quick to note that he takes safety very seriously. Raw Farm has voluntarily recalled its products at the FDA’s urging more than a dozen times. In 2024, Raw Farm immediately pulled its cheddar cheese after it was linked to E. coli. (The company subsequently wrote on its website that the recall was “UNFOUNDED.”) This time, however, the request “just felt wrong,” McAfee told me. He insists that the government’s case is based on “circumstantial evidence” and that his company isn’t at fault. None of Raw Farm’s cheddar has actually tested positive for E. coli.
Food-safety investigations are messy. Regulators need to move quickly to prevent more people from getting sick. Companies are often asked to voluntarily initiate a recall before the government can actually prove that a product is unsafe. At times, the FDA does shift its focus to other foods: In 2008, the agency warned consumers not to eat tomatoes suspected to be contaminated with Salmonella, but it later identified serrano peppers as the likely cause of the illnesses.
Still, food-safety experts I spoke with were emphatic that the FDA is probably correct about Raw Farm’s cheddar. Despite the lack of a positive test that the cheese is contaminated, the agency has two facts to rely on: The E. coli strains from all of the patients are closely related, suggesting that they came from the same product. Second, of the eight people who investigators have been able to interview, seven confirmed that they consumed Raw Farm’s dairy products. “The statistical likelihood of that just being pure chance is almost zero,” Yiannas said.
The agency does have the legal power to force Raw Farm’s cheese off the market through a legal maneuver known as a mandatory recall. Such a move has little precedent. In 2018, the FDA forced a mandatory recall of a brand’s kratom supplement, which had been contaminated with Salmonella. But the FDA would likely be in a tougher situation this time around. The kratom seller didn’t fight the mandatory recall, but Raw Farm would. McAfee told me that he had asked the FDA to pursue a mandatory recall because it would give him the opportunity to appeal. “I was not granted due process,” he said. (Companies can request an “informal hearing” to discuss the order.)
Exactly why the FDA hasn’t moved forward with a mandatory recall is unclear. (I asked a spokesperson at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA. The spokesperson referred me to only what the FDA has already said publicly about the case.) The agency could still be gathering the necessary evidence to justify such a step. Or perhaps Kennedy doesn’t want to declare a mandatory recall: He said shortly before his nomination as HHS secretary that the FDA’s alleged “war” on raw milk must end. McAfee claimed that Kennedy is a Raw Farm customer but that he has “not heard anything from D.C.”
Even if the FDA eventually pushes Raw Farm to pull its products off the shelves—whether voluntarily or through force—that may not be the end of this saga. The reality is that we might never know with 100 percent certainty what caused those nine people to get sick. And doubt about the dangers of unpasteurized products is a reason they are so popular in the first place. The business of raw milk is based on convincing people that the milk is worth consuming despite objections from the FDA that it has no proven benefits over conventional pasteurized products and that it comes with an outsize risk of making you sick. If people found the FDA credible, a company like Raw Farm wouldn’t exist.
During my conversation with McAfee, it was easy to see why people might believe him more than they would a nameless bureaucrat. He talked about trusting his cheese so much that he feeds it to his daughter, and he cited FDA regulations like a trained lawyer. When we spoke, he was quick to emphasize all of the tests his company had done to ensure that the cheese was safe, and he referenced the company’s food-safety plan, which spans five binders.
People experiment with all kinds of products because they trust unproven anecdotes over government warnings. But the fact that a company is willing to risk more people falling sick from E. coli because of a belief that the FDA can’t be trusted should be a much bigger wake-up call for the agency. By McAfee’s telling, Raw Farm is the subject of a “witch hunt.” The FDA has the power to regulate the food supply with an iron fist, but its job has historically been much easier because companies have faith that the agency is doing what it can to stop an outbreak. That is no longer a guarantee.
To the DARC author in question, Canada's continuing autonomy and desire to preserve same is "anti-Americanism". A lot of you who keep in touch with me here are Americans who know far better than "John Waterman" of DARC and their fellow-travellers, thankfully.
Yes, both countries are standing on lands under Indigenous nations' stewardship, and they too rightly have informed opinions of their own on such arguments...
What a Marvelous Little Creature. This centipede just happened to already be glued into my book on the next page.
I had planned to go to a No Kings protest with Jules and Hazel in Clarion at noon but now I'm just not feeling it. I'd rather do my usual OA meeting and then come home to bury Skye and help Dave with the kitchen sink. We found out last night that it was leaking. Luckily the leak water all went into a basin that was stored under there. I had invited the usual Sunday dinner people to dinner tonight (because Hazel can't be here on Sunday) so I need to make a dinner too. Dave caught a bunch of fish recently that he wants to fry and I'm going to try the cabbage recipe again but this time with noodles and a more proper kind of veggie sausage. It feels like it'd just be a good day to lay low at home now.
In today's team meeting when we were talking about the upcoming week, my boss (gently!) made fun of me for not realizing that next Friday is a bank holiday -- the other day when I was talking to someone about a thing that had to be rearranged from another day next week, they suggested Friday so I told my manager she could do Friday and he had to tell me Friday's the bank holiday.
To add to the making fun of me, I said it was extra bad of me to not know this because it's D's and my anniversary. That made my manager properly laugh, heh.
Then he asked "How many years?" and I just made an "oh god..." kind of noise, which sounds suitably middle-aged like who's even counting any more. But really all it means is that the long run-up of being good friends makes it feel like we've been together longer than the technical answer (seven years now). I will always treasure the memory of when we'd been dating only like three months, getting a train home at night, a young woman who needed help gravitated toward the table we were sitting at and we got chatting. She asked where my accent was from and I told her and we talked about that, she looked at D and asked him if he'd ever gone with me, and he said "not yet!" (which was true, it'd be another four years before he did!). She'd clearly been assuming that we'd been a couple for ages, and I don't blame her at all because I do think we gave off that vibe. So then she asked how long we'd been together. And I was delighted by D's casual answer, "a few years," splitting the difference between the technical reality of three months or so, and the vibe of people who'd been close for more than a decade.
I tried to channel that spirit to answer my manager's question, split the difference, especially when he added "estimate!" I think I said "fifteen?", dragged out to have about fifteen e's in it, and as many question marks at the end.
After much fretting about whether I'd get to the hospital in time, I arrived at precisely the time of my appointment. Then over the course of about two hours had a mammogram, doctor's exam and ultrasound, and they decided that it was a sebaceous cyst - and was perfectly harmless unless it got infected. As it was already getting smaller, this didn't seem likely.
However, it seems that I was not as un-worried about the whole thing as I thought I was. Even before I got home, the deep, lancing fibro pains had started up, and by the time I got home it was the full works: jabbing pains everywhere, back locked up, feeling sick, dizziness, fatigue etc.
I can only assume that this was my body dealing with suddenly not being stressed any more. As a stress reaction, I do not like it.
DH is off at the Halesworth day of dance. Son has borrowed one of our cars because his new car is in the garage, so I do not have a car available. I had planned to cycle into town, do some weight lifting, toddle around the shops, maybe have lunch in a nice little place as a treat, but while I am fatigued, dizzy and in pain I don't know that that's going to be possible.
Basically everything is terrible. I'm going to the garden to eat worms. But I don't have cancer, so that's something :)
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