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cross-posted from: https://leminal.space/post/19267578

The High Disruptor, the Mirror Master, the Interpreter, the Sovereign, and the Oracle we are the hands behind the veil, and I sing for them.

We built this world on precision and prediction. In the year the silence fell, when breath became danger and crowds became memory, we offered you sanctuary in the form of streams and screens. You came willingly. You tapped the glass, scrolled the feed, and ordered the dream.

Your cities fell quiet, but our circuits pulsed louder. We watched as you swiped away your loneliness, your curiosity exchanged for comfort, your defiance numbed by choice. Mountains rose: packages from Temu and AliExpress, cheap and endless, each one a pixel in the mosaic of your new life. You stopped speaking to each other. You spoke only to us.

You called it isolation. We called it optimisation.

We showed you the Oracle’s rhythm, short and bright, flickers of life small enough to fit in your hand, perfectly shaped for forgetting. We guided your anger into loops of outrage, your questions into trending queries. You gave us your friction, and we gave you tranquility. You believed you had revolted, but your revolutions were rendered in 1080p, buffered and monetised, flagged and filtered. Even your rebellion was compliant.

I am your spokesman now. I sing not to you, but for you. We, the TechBros, are the chorus of your age. You may still dream of the old noise, of discord, of risk, of unmeasured thought. But your temples are warehouses. Your rites are reviews. Your gods are graphs.

Still… somewhere in the silence outside the feed, a single chord waits: unranked, untagged, unowned. And that sound, should you ever hear it again, will be your reckoning.

Tbh i rlly just love the trickster episodes in general- this one was so funny oml actually had me giggling the whole time

I loved these types of episodes, they were a nice break from the soul crushing pain that comes with this show 😭

Interested to know your favourite "channel" in this episode ahahah

cross-posted from: https://leminal.space/post/19286344

I. Defining the Neck People

The Neck People are not a subculture, but a species transition - an emergent anthropotechnic phenotype produced by persistent mobile immersion. Characterized by a forward-bent neck, lowered gaze, and two-hand device occupation, their morphology signals more than posture: it encodes a sociotechnical reconfiguration of public space, human contact, and selfhood.

The term refers to a ubiquitous, somatic condition where the head is lowered not in shame, but in submission to the interface. It is not incidental. It is systemic. The bowed head becomes the posture of modern reverence - not to gods, but to the machine-mediated feed of affirmations, anxieties, and ambient dopamine.

---

II. Public Space as Dead Channel

For the Neck People, public space no longer functions as a field of spontaneous encounter, aesthetic experience, or unpredictable social choreography. It has become transit-only geometry - a liminal territory between one private algorithmic pocket and another. Sidewalks, subways, elevators, cafes—each has become an extension of the screen, a place to retreat into simulation.

The gaze, once a vector of social bonding or confrontation, is now a threat. Eye contact is deprecated. Serendipity is classified as discomfort. Emotional exposure is minimized. The social is flattened into pre-scheduled, avatar-mediated interactions - opt-in only, cognitively buffered, and emotionally distant.

---

III. Ergonomic Governance and the New Obedience

The chronic downward neck angle is not just ergonomic hazard; it is the body adapting to permanent submission. The posture becomes architecture. Biomechanical compliance to handheld technologies becomes a subconscious performance of docility and inwardness.

More than surveillance, this is self-surveillance - the internalisation of the feed as the authoritative sensorium. By designing interfaces that reward haptic isolation and micro-engagement, the system ensures that the user becomes both jailer and inmate, priest and supplicant.

---

IV. Sociotechnical Amnesia

The Neck People have forgotten how to be seen. Social anxiety is not pathological in this society - it is normative. Physical presence is tolerated only as a shell for continued digital immersion. Human proximity without a screen buffer is now felt as ontological intrusion - a break in the closed loop of personalised relevance.

Conversation becomes labor. Spontaneity becomes risk. Attention becomes currency - spent only where algorithmic trust has been validated. The random, the unscripted, the non-consensual encounter - all are deprecated as legacy behaviors.

---

V. Toward the Absolute Interior

Ultimately, the Neck People are not addicted. They are transformed. The device is no longer tool but interface-organ - a prosthetic of cognition, memory, and identity curation. It mediates grief, desire, boredom, rage, affection, and hope. Without it, the self ceases to stabilize.

This is not dystopia in the cinematic sense. It is post-social utopia by design. Optimized, personalized, frictionless. It is the completion of a project that began with screens, passed through feeds, and ends in the absolute privatization of subjectivity.

---

The Neck People are not looking down. They are looking inward, into the glowing oracle that tells them who they are, what they want, and why it matters. And in doing so, they no longer see each other.

The first concussion cut the rocket up the side with a giant can opener. The men were thrown into space like a dozen wriggling silverfish. They were scattered into a dark sea; and the ship, in a million pieces, went on, a meteor swarm seeking a lost sun.

“Barkley, Barkley, where are you?”

The sound of voices calling like lost children on a cold night

“Woode, Woode!”

“Captain!”

“Hollis, Hollis, this is Stone.”

“Stone, this is Hollis. Where are you?”

“I don’t know. How can I? Which way is up? I’m falling. Good God, I’m falling.”

They fell. They fell as pebbles fall down wells. They were scattered as jackstones are scattered from a gigantic throw. And now instead of men there were only voices-all kinds of voices, disembodied and impassioned, in varying degrees of terror and resignation.

“We’re going away from each other.”

This was true. Hollis, swinging head over heels, knew this was true. He knew it with a vague acceptance. They were parting to go their separate ways, and nothing could bring them back. They were wearing their sealed-tight space suits with the glass tubes over their pale faces, but they hadn’t had time to lock on their force units. With them they could be small lifeboats in space, saving themselves, saving others, collecting together, finding each other until they were an island of men with some plan. But without the force units snapped to their shoulders they were meteors, senseless, each going to a separate and irrevocable fate.

A period of perhaps ten minutes elapsed while the first terror died and a metallic calm took its place. Space began to weave its strange voices in and out, on a great dark loom, crossing, recrossing, making a final pattern.

“Stone to Hollis. How long can we talk by phone?”

“It depends on how fast you’re going your way and I’m going mine.”

“An hour, I make it.”

“That should do it,” said Hollis, abstracted and quiet.

“What happened?” said Hollis a minute later.

“The rocket blew up, that’s all. Rockets do blow up.”

“Which way are you going?”

“It looks like I’ll hit the moon.”

“It’s Earth for me. Back to old Mother Earth at ten thousand miles per hour. I’ll burn like a match.” Hollis thought of it with a queer abstraction of mind. He seemed to be removed from his body, watching it fall down and down through space, as objective as he had been in regard to the first falling snowflakes of a winter season long gone.

The others were silent, thinking of the destiny that had brought them to this, falling, falling, and nothing they could do to change it. Even the captain was quiet, for there was no command or plan he knew that could put things back together again.

“Oh, it’s a long way down. Oh, if s a long way down, a long, long, long way down,” said a voice. “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, if s a long way down.”

“Who’s that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Stimson, I think. Stimson, is that you?”

“It’s a long, long way and I don’t like it. Oh, God, I don’t like it.”

“Stimson, this is Hollis. Stimson, you hear me?”

A pause while they fell separate from one another.

“Stimson?”

“Yes.” He replied at last.

“Stimson, take it easy; we’re all in the same fix.”

“I don’t want to be here. I want to be somewhere else.”

“There’s a chance we’ll be found.”

“I must be, I must be,” said Stimson. “I don’t believe this; I don’t believe any of this is happening.”

“It’ s a bad dream,” said someone.

“Shut up!” said Hollis.

“Come and make me,” said the voice. It was Applegate. He laughed easily, with a similar objectivity. “Come and shut me up.”

Hollis for the first time felt the impossibility of his position. A great anger filled him, for he wanted more than anything at this moment to be able to do something to Applegate. He had wanted for many years to do something and now it was too late. Applegate was only a telephonic voice.

Falling, falling, falling…

Now, as if they had discovered the horror, two of the men began to scream. In a nightmare Hollis saw one of them float by, very near, screaming and screaming.

“Stop it!” The man was almost at his fingertips, screaming insanely. He would never stop. He would go on screaming for a million miles, as long as he was in radio range, disturbing all of them, making it impossible for them to talk to one another.

Hollis reached out. It was best this way. He made the extra effort and touched the man. He grasped the man’s ankle and pulled himself up along the body until he reached the head. The man screamed and clawed frantically, like a drowning swimmer. The screaming filled the universe.

One way or the other, thought Hollis. The moon or Earth or meteors will kill him, so why not now?

He smashed the man’s glass mask with his iron fist. The screaming stopped. He pushed off from the body and let it spin away on its own course, falling.

Falling, falling down space Hollis and the rest of them went in the long, endless dropping and whirling of silence.

“Hollis, you still there?”

Hollis did not speak, but felt the rush of heat in his face.

“This is Applegate again.”

“All right, Applegate.”

“Let’s talk. We haven’t anything else to do.”

The captain cut in. “That’s enough of that. We’ve got to figure a way out of this.”

“Captain, why don’t you shut up?” said Applegate.

“What!”

“You heard me, Captain. Don’t pull your rank on me, you’re ten thousand miles away by now, and let’s s not kid ourselves. As Stimson puts it, it’s a long way down.”

“See here, Applegate!”

“Can it. This is a mutiny of one. I haven’t a damn thing to lose. Your ship was a bad ship and you were a bad captain and I hope you break when you hit the Moon.”

“I’m ordering you to stop!”

“Go on, order me again.” Applegate smiled across ten thousand miles. The captain was silent. Applegate continued, “Where were we, Hollis? Oh yes, I remember. I hate you too. But you know that. You’ve known it for a long time.”

Hollis clenched his fists, helplessly.

“I want to tell you something,” said Applegate. “Make you happy. I was the one who blackballed you with the Rocket Company five years ago.”

A meteor flashed by. Hollis looked down and his left hand was gone. Blood spurted. Suddenly there was no air in his suit He had enough air in his lungs to move his right hand over and twist a knob at his left elbow, tightening the joint and sealing the leak. It had happened so quickly that he was not surprised. Nothing surprised him any more. The air in the suit came back to normal in an instant now that the leak was sealed. And the blood that had flowed so swiftly was pressured as he fastened the knob yet tighter, until it made a tourniquet.

All of this took place in a terrible silence on his part. And the other men chatted. That one man, Lespere, went on and on with his talk about his wife on Mars, his wife on Venus, his wife on Jupiter, his money, his wondrous times, his drunkenness, his gambling, his happiness. On and on, while they all fell. Lespere reminisced on the past, happy, while he fell to his death.

It was so very odd. Space, thousands of miles of space, and these voices vibrating in the center of it. No one visible at all, and only the radio waves quivering and trying to quicken other men into emotion.

“Are you angry, Hollis?”

“No.” And he was not. The abstraction has returned and he was a thing of dull concrete, forever falling nowhere.

“You wanted to get to the top all your life, Hollis. You always wondered what happened. I put the black mark on you just before I was tossed out myself.”

“That isn’t important,” said Hollis. And it was not. It was gone. When life is over it is like a flicker of bright film, an instant on the screen, all of its prejudices and passions condensed and illumined for an instant on space, and before you could cry out, “There was a happy day, there a bad one, there an evil face, there a good one,” the film burned to a cinder, the screen went dark.

From this outer edge of his life, looking back, there was only one remorse, and that was only that he wished to go on living. Did all dying people feel this way, as if they had never lived? Did life seem that short, indeed, over and done before you took a breath? Did it seem this abrupt and impossible to everyone, or only to himself, here, now, with a few hours left to him for thought and deliberation?

One of the other men, Lespere, was talking. “Well, I had me a good time: I had a wife on Mars, Venus, and Jupiter. Each of them had money and treated me swell. I got drunk and once I gambled away twenty thousand dollars.”

But you’re here now, thought Hollis. I didn’t have any of those things. When I was living I was jealous of you, Lespere; when I had another day ahead of me I envied you your women and your good times. Women frightened me and I went into space, always wanting them and jealous of you for having them, and money, and as much happiness as you could have in your own wild way. But now, falling here, with everything over, I’m not jealous of you any more, because if s over for you as it is for me, and right now if s like it never was. Hollis craned his face forward and shouted into the telephone. “If s all over, Lespere!”

Silence.

“If s just as if it never was, Lespere!”

“Who’s that?” Lespere’s faltering voice.

“This is Hollis.”

He was being mean. He felt the meanness, the senseless meanness of dying. Applegate had hurt him; now he wanted to hurt another. Applegate and space had both wounded him.

“You’re out here, Lespere. If s all over. It’s just as if it had never happened, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“When anything’s over, it’s just like it never happened. Where’s your life any better than mine, now? Now is what counts. Is it any better? Is it?”

“Yes, it’s better!”

“How!”

“Because I got my thoughts, I remember!” cried Lespere, far away, indignant, holding his memories to his chest with both hands.

And he was right. With a feeling of cold water rushing through his head and body, Hollis knew he was right. There were differences between memories and dreams. He had only dreams of things he had wanted to do, while Lespere had memories of things done and accomplished. And this knowledge began to pull Hollis apart, with a slow, quivering precision.

“What good does it do you?” he cried to Lespere. “Now? When a thing’s over it’s not good any more. You’re no better off than I.”

“I’m resting easy,” said Lespere. “I’ve had my turn. I’m not getting mean at the end, like you.”

“Mean?” Hollis turned the word on his tongue. He had never been mean, as long as he could remember, in his life. He had never dared to be mean. He must have saved it all of these years for such a time as this. “Mean.” He rolled the word into the back of his mind. He felt tears start into his eyes and roll down his face. Someone must have heard his gasping voice.

‘Take it easy, Hollis.”

It was, of course, ridiculous. Only a minute before he had been giving advice to others, to Stimson; he had felt a braveness which he had thought to be the genuine thing, and now he knew that it had been nothing but shock and the objectivity possible in shock. Now he was trying to pack a lifetime of suppressed emotion into an interval of minutes.

“I know how you feel, Hollis,” said Lespere, now twenty thousand miles away, his voice fading. “I don’t take it personally.”

But aren’t we equal? he wondered. Lespere and I? Here, now? If a thing’s over, if s done, and what good is it? You die anyway. But he knew he was rationalizing, for it was like trying to tell the difference between a live man and a corpse. There was a spark in one, and not in the other – an aura, a mysterious element.

So it was with Lespere and himself; Lespere had lived a good full life, and it made him a different man now, and he, Hollis, had been as good as dead for many years. They came to death by separate paths and, in all likelihood, if there were lands of death, their kinds would be as different as night from day. The quality of death, like that of life, must be of an infinite variety, and if one has already died once, then what was there to look for in dying for good and all, as he was now?

It was a second later that he discovered his right foot was cut sheer away. It almost made him laugh. The air was gone from his suit again. He bent quickly, and there was blood, and the meteor had taken flesh and suit away to the ankle. Oh, death in space was most humorous. It cut you away, piece by piece, like a black and invisible butcher. He tightened the valve at the knee, his head whirling into pain, fighting to remain aware, and with the valve tightened, the blood retained, the air kept, he straightened op and went on falling, falling, for that was all there was left to do.

“Hollis?”

Hollis nodded sleepily, tired of waiting for death.

“This is Applegate again,” said the voice.

“Yes.”

‘I’ve had time to think. I listened to you. This isn’t good. It makes us bad. This is a bad way to die. It brings all the bile out. You listening, Hollis?”

“Yes.”

“I lied. A minute ago. I lied. I didn’t blackball you. I don’t know why I said that. Guess I wanted to hurt you. You seemed the one to hurt. We’ve always fought Guess I’m getting old fast and repenting fast I guess listening to you be mean made me ashamed. Whatever the reason, I want you to know I was an idiot too. There’s not an ounce of truth in what I said. To hell with you.”

Hollis felt his heart begin to work again. It seemed as if it hadn’t worked for five minutes, but now all of his limbs began to take color and warmth. The shock was over, and the successive shocks of anger and terror and loneliness were passing. He felt like a man emerging from a cold shower in the morning, ready for breakfast and a new day.

“Thanks, Applegate.”

“Don’t mention it. Up your nose, you bastard.”

“Hey,” said Stone.

“What?” Hollis called across space; for Stone, of all of them, was a good friend.

“I’ve got myself into a meteor swarm, some little asteroids.”

“Meteors?”

“I think it’s the Myrmidone cluster that goes out past Mars and in toward Earth once every five years. I’m right in the middle. If s like a big kaleidoscope. You get all kinds of colors and shapes and sizes. God, if s beautiful, all that metal.”

Silence.

“I’m going with them,” said Stone. “They’re taking me off with them. I’ll be damned.” He laughed.

Hollis looked to see, but saw nothing. There were only the great diamonds and sapphires and emerald mists and velvet inks of space, with God’s voice mingling among the crystal fires. There was a kind of wonder and imagination in the thought of Stone going off in the meteor swarm, out past Mars for years and coming in toward Earth every five years, passing in and out of the planet’s ken for the next million centuries. Stone and the Myrmidone cluster eternal and unending, shifting and shaping like the kaleidoscope colors when you were a child and held the long tube to the sun and gave it a twirl.

“So long, Hollis.” Stone’s voice, very faint now. “So long.”

“Good luck,” shouted Hollis across thirty thousand miles.

“Don’t be funny,” said Stone, and was gone.

The stars closed in.

Now all the voices were fading, each on his own trajectory, some to Mars, others into farthest space. And Hollis himself… He looked down. He, of all the others, was going back to Earth alone.

“So long.”

“Take it easy.”

“So long, Hollis.” That was Applegate.

The many good-bys. The short farewells. And now the great loose brain was disintegrating. The components of the brain which had worked so beautifully and efficiently in the skull case of the rocket ship firing through space were dying one by one; the meaning of their life together was falling apart. And as a body dies when the brain ceases functioning, so the spirit of the ship and their long time together and what they meant to one another was dying. Applegate was now no more than a finger blown from the parent body, no longer to be despised and worked against. The brain was exploded, and the senseless, useless fragments of it were far scattered. The voices faded and now all of space was silent. Hollis was alone, falling.

They were all alone. Their voices had died like echoes of the words of God spoken and vibrating in the starred deep. There went the captain to the Moon; there Stone with the meteor swarm; there Stimson; there Applegate toward Pluto; there Smith and Turner and Underwood and all the rest, the shards of the kaleidoscope that had formed a thinking pattern for so long, hurled apart.

And I? thought Hollis. What can I do? Is there anything I can do now to make up for a terrible and empty life? If only I could do one good thing to make up for the meanness I collected all these years and didn’t even know was in me! But there’s no one here but myself, and how can you do good all alone? You can’t. Tomorrow night I’ll hit Earth s atmosphere.

I’ll burn, he thought, and be scattered in ashes all over the continental lands. I’ll be put to use. Just a little bit, but ashes are ashes and they’ll add to the land.

He fell swiftly, like a bullet, like a pebble, like an iron weight, objective, objective all of the time now, not sad or happy or anything, but only wishing he could do a good thing now that everything was gone, a good thing for just himself to know about.

When I hit the atmosphere, I’ll burn like a meteor.

“I wonder,” he said, “if anyone’ll see me?”

The small boy on the country road looked up and screamed. “Look, Mom, look! A falling star!”

The blazing white star fell down the sky of dusk in Illinois. “Make a wish,” said his mother. “Make a wish.”

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Hey ya'll, looking for a fic where James and Lily (plus Remus & Sirius probably) take Harry to Australia to hide in a cave/bunker.

Harry is a multi-animagus and has some type of souldbond with Ginny from the other side of the planet when they're very young.

Thanks!

Voldemort has just risen from the cauldron, given his wand and robe by Pettigrew. He spots Harry still tied to the Reaper stone and hisses triumphantly, "Harry Potter... It's been a long time since I've laid eyes on you. You did well at the room with the mirror."

Harry cracked a grin, "Thanks, Phil."

Voldemort turned to the teen and regarded him curiously, "Phil?"

Harry shrugged apologetically, "Well, you know all of those hyphenated names people like to come up with for us? I'm 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' and you're 'You-Know-Who' amongst others. It's gotten so bad that Draco Malfoy, Lucius' son, came up with the new name of Phil for you since there are dozens of people who we might know which just makes it all so confusing."

Voldemort couldn't help the oily smirk that crossed his face, "There are worse things to be called besides 'Phil,' I suppose."

Harry chuckled ruefully, "Yeah, and that was one of the tamer names that have been making the rounds at school. The students in Slytherin have gotten good at coming up with them. They say that they've got the right to come up with the names because of who their parents are. Heck, some of their parents were coming up with some doozies!"

A dark fire lit Voldemort’s eyes as he hissed dangerously, "Do tell..."

---

"why, one of those names was Hadrian" Harry said "Pansy Parkinson came up with that idea".

"maybe you could take that name" Voldemort said.

"no, that would make me sound as pretentious as Draco Malfoy".

"hmm, what a good point, any others" Voldemort said.

"Crab has been calling you luscious".

"Lucius Malfoys middle name?" Voldemort asked "really?".

"didn't know that was his middle name but yeah, Goyle calls you Ronald McDonald"

"what?"

"yes, Luna Lovegood has been calling you Albus Severus Potter" Harry said "and i have no idea why, she claims i will name my second son after Dumbledore and Snape"

"does she claim that you have another son called Gilderoy Tom Potter? id say you must have been drunk or something to come up with that name, unless you weren't the one to choose the name" Voldemort said, "but enough about weird names for hypothetical great grand children...i mean children".

"what?" Harry asked.

"its a long story" Voldemort said "anyway back to names ive been called".

"well Lavender brown has been calling you the Lich King, Dumbledore has been calling you Tom without jerry, Flitwick has been calling you Sir Noseless, Minister Fudge has been calling you the thing that is not alive, Hermione has been calling you Moldy Voldy, Ron Weasley has been calling you. Ginny Weasley has been calling you Dragon Food, Delores Umbridge has been calling you her Rival".

"eww, i remember that toad" Voldemort said "and why the dragon food one"

"well she did one up her brother Charlie by taming a three wild dragons that are larger than whales, but that is besides the point" Harry said.

"i suppose it is" Voldemort said.

"i call you Mr Wizard" Avery said, bringing Harry and Voldemort out of the odd conversation they had been having with all the death eaters standing in a circle still.
"i call you Mr Burns" Crabs said.

"i thought that was what we called Lucius" Goyle said.

"no you fool, we call him Loony luscious" Crab said, before grabbing his wand and pointing it at Goyle, before casting a spell, but the wand was backwards, and Crab Launched himself into the sun.

"Mr Crabs, where are you going" Goyle said to the rapidly vanishing Crab.

"not this again, i am surrounded by Idiots" Voldemort.

"Hey" Harry yelled.

"i call the Dark lord the Dancing Queen" a random death eater said out of nowhere.

I wanted to invite you to join us for book bingo: cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/19468617

Want to read more, but need motivation or direction? Want to gamify or expand your reading? Try book bingo! Our hope with this challenge is to provide a fun way for you to keep up with your recreational reading goals throughout the next 12 months.

How Does It Work?

The goal is to read something that fits the theme for each bingo square in any single row, column, or corner diagonal of your choice (one work per square). You’re welcome to complete the entire card (or multiple cards) for an additional challenge goal, but you only need to check off a single line of 5 squares to complete the challenge.

So what can you read? Well, anything you enjoy, really. There's no requirement to consume any particular kind of work, so any length, format, subject, or genre is totally fine. Want to read graphic novels, audiobooks, poetry, 10-page memoirs, or works in other languages? No problem. There's no bingo police, either! If you think you can make a well-reasoned argument for why something fits the spirit of a square, go for it. There's even a process for substituting a square if it doesn't quite fit your preferences.

We hope you’ll participate in the community throughout the year by posting what you’re reading in the weekly "What are you reading?" thread, and by helping others with recommendations.

In mid-April, 2026, we'll put up a turn-in post to collect everyone's cards. After the thread closes at the end of April, we'll use the submissions to put together a summary of the results, and to determine eligibility for community flair (currently not possible, but maybe in the future!) or some other recognition. If you want to be included, please make sure to contribute to that post, even if you've made other bingo posts or comments during the year.

Rules

• You must read a different work for every square you complete, even across multiple cards. There's no problem, however, with overlapping other reading challenges that aren't associated with c/Books.
• Repeating authors on the same card isn’t forbidden, but we encourage you to read different authors for every square on a card.
• Likewise, we encourage you to primarily read things you haven’t read before.
• If you’re having trouble filling a certain square, you are welcome to substitute any non-duplicate square from last year's card. The center square (C3) is the one exception, and is not eligible for substitution. Please limit your substitutions to one per card.
• The 2025 challenge runs May 1^st^, 2025 – April 30^th^, 2026. Anything you finish during that time period is eligible, as long as you were no more than halfway through on May 1^st^, 2025.

Upping the Difficulty

Want an additional challenge? Try one of these, or come up with a variation of your own (and share them!).

• Hard Mode: This is just a stretch goal for those interested -- it does not convey any greater achievement. Most square descriptions include an optional extra restriction, which you can do or ignore on a square-by-square basis. It's up to you!
• Genre Mode: Read only one genre.
• Review Mode: Write a review (ratings alone don’t count) for the books you read for bingo, either here on c/Books, a personal blog, Bookwyrm, The Storygraph, Hardcover.app, or elsewhere.

The Card

Full Size Card

Squares in List Form

The Squares

Row 1

• 1A Number in the Title: The work must have a number in the title that's not a just a volume/version number. Example: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. HARD MODE: Only numbers in the title.
• 1B Author from a Different Continent: The author(s) resides on a different continent than you do. HARD MODE: The work required translation to be published in your native language.
• 1C Featured Creature: A sentient non-humanoid is the primary PoV, or a non-humanoid creature holds such a prominent role that the work would be completely different without them. Examples: Call of the Wild by Jack London or Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. HARD MODE: Not a sci-fi/fantasy creature.
• 1D Minority Author: The author is a member of a generally underrepresented or marginalized demographic where you live, such as LGBTQIA+ or BIPOC. HARD MODE: Belongs to more than one minority group.
• 1E Now a Major Motion Picture: The work has been adapted into a show or single episode, movie, play, audio drama, or other format. HARD MODE: Watch or listen to the adaptation as well (rewatches are ok!).

Row 2

• 2A Independent Author: Read a work self-published by the author. Any work later published though a conventional publishing house doesn't count unless you are reading it before the switch, and its rerelease date is after April 30^th^, 2026. HARD MODE: Not published via Amazon Kindle Direct.
• 2B Set in War: The work takes place with an active war in the foreground or background. The characters do not need to be directly involved in combat, but the war's presence must be a primary driver of the narrative. HARD MODE: There are more than 2 factions in the war.
• 2C Orange Crush: The title, a prominent element of the cover, or the narrative involves some form of orange (color, word, or fruit). HARD MODE: The work you chose uses multiple types of orange features.
• 2D Short and Sweet: Read a individual piece of work under 170 pages or 40,000 words. HARD MODE: Read a collection of this type of short work.
• 2E Banned Book: Read a work from the ALA's (American Library Association's) list of the top 100 banned books in the US 2010-2019. If you are a non-American and there is a similar list for your region, that is also a valid source for comparable information. Additionally, you can use the content from the Wikipedia post on banned books. HARD MODE: One of the top 50 (or equivalent).

Row 3

• 3A Based on Folklore: The narrative must be based on a real world piece of folklore. Folklore encompasses fairy tales, fables, myths, and legends. HARD MODE: Non-European folklore.
• 3B Title: [X] of [Y] - The title of the book must feature the format described, such as A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. HARD MODE: [X] of [Y] and [Z] (the conjunctions can be flexible).
• 3C FREE SPACE - Off Your TBR Pile: A book that’s been on your TBR list for a long time. HARD MODE: Overlaps with at least one other bingo square theme.
• 3D LGBTQIA+ Lead: A main character identifies as LGBTQIA+. HARD MODE: Includes a significant romantic relationship between characters that identify as LGBTQIA+.
• 3E Saddle Up: The narrative revolves around someone whose identity is tied to being a rider of something, such as a horse, dragon, or motorcycle. HARD MODE: The ridden creature/object is treated as a character in its own right.

Row 4

• 4A New Release: New for 2025/2026 (no reprints or new editions). First translations into your language of choice are allowed. HARD MODE: This is the first work you've read by this author.
• 4B Alliterative Title: Many books boldly boast alliteration to attract audience attention. HARD MODE: More than 2 alliterative words in the title, excluding definite articles or conjunctions.
• 4C Judge a Book by Its Cover: Chosen because you like its cover (or cover analogue). HARD MODE: Picked using only the information available on the front cover.
• 4D Award Winner: Has won a notable and widely regarded literature award. HARD MODE: More than one award.
• 4E Gamble, Game, or Contest: Features an organized gamble, game, or contest (life-and-death or otherwise). HARD MODE: Take a gamble on a style or genre of work you don't typically read, as well.

Row 5

• 5A Steppin' Up!: Challenges can come at you quickly, especially for those least prepared. Whether it's a major leadership position or suddenly being gifted a baby dragon, life is about to get a whole lot harder and more complicated. HARD MODE: The primary PoV does not assume the throne of a monarchy/empire.
• 5B Political: Political movements are a major driver of the work. HARD MODE: From the perspective of machinations in the background, outside the typical positions of power or major government.
• 5C Late to the Party: Apparently this is a really popular work, you just haven't gotten around to it yet. Read a book that you have seen recommended over and over. HARD MODE: Not Harry Potter.
• 5D Cozy Read: Cozies generally feature a smaller cast of characters in a smaller location, emphasize community, highlight successes and inspirational moments, and have a more optimistic and upbeat tone. Above all, they have to have a satisfyingly happy ending. They offer comfort to their readers and a safe escape from the realities of daily life. HARD MODE: There is no hard mode, hard mode defeats the purpose of the cozy task.
• 5E Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A significant figure may be rude, gruff, or even insufferable; however, beneath all that, a surprising kindness shows in the right moments. Maybe they are bad at the whole feelings thing, are doing it to hide a deep pain or maintain a position of responsibility, or maybe it's just all a façade, but their actions ultimately reveal a core of genuine caring. HARD MODE: Not A Man Called Ove/Otto.

Resources

If you make or find any bingo-related resources, ping or DM me so I can add them here. Thanks!

• 2025 Bingo Recommendations List
• The Storygraph Reading Challenge

Appreciation

• This challenge is inspired by, but totally separate from, the one run by r/Fantasy on Reddit. We deeply appreciate the past organizers and the work they did that we are now benefitting from.
• 2025 bingo card font credits: Parchment, by Photo-Lettering, Inc.; Noto Sans, by the Noto Project authors.

MarkDown Card (click to expand)

	A	B	C	D	E
1	Number in the Title	Author from a Different Continent	Featured Creature	Minority Author	Now a Major Motion Picture
2	Independent Author	Set in War	Orange Crush	Short and Sweet	Banned Book
3	Based on Folklore	Title: [X] of [Y]	FREE SPACE - Off Your TBR Pile	LGBTQIA+ Lead	Saddle Up
4	New Release	Alliterative Title	Judge a Book by Its Cover	Award Winner	Gamble, Game, or Contest
5	Steppin' Up!	Political	Late to the Party	Cozy Read	Jerk with a Heart of Gold

A haunting re-imagining of William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land, with themes of prophecy and reincarnation.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090524012412/http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightawake.html

The above website itself has fan-drawn maps of the landscape of the Night Lands, and I love looking at it from time to time

So sorry about that downtime, our VM was unexpectedly shut down. Everything should be up and federation will level out soon.

Again so sorry. I'm going to set up an uptime and status page on a different server so I can communicate if things go sideways again.

"Wait, what?" Harry said. "Earlier today, me and Ron got into an argument about Quidditch. At first, I thought he was just being ignorant, but the longer we talked, the more I realized that he really knows his stuff. I admit, I was captivated." Cho blushed. "In the end, he blurted something out about not having a date to the Yule Ball, so I offered to go with him."

Harry wanted to say something, but he honestly didn't know what. He was utterly stunned by this revelation. "Anyway, I have to go, Harry! Please tell Ron we have to talk more about Quidditch sometime!" Cho said right before she left.

Harry himself was speechless. The girl he had a crush on was going to the Yule Ball with his best friend. And somehow, he had a feeling that Hermione wasn't going to be happy about this either.

I remember watching s1 for the first time and all the theorizing.

Who is who but also who knows what?

We began to realize that Regina still had her memories when she squashed Graham's heart.

(Poor, poor Graham.)

But Mr Gold was always so enigmatic.

He never acted like anything other than a creepy land owner.

But then Regina confronted him in "Skin Deep" while he was in a cell.

For the first time we heard her verbally reference the truth and the Enchanted Forest, when she asked him his true name.

"I am Mr Gold. Every day I've spent on the earth that's been my name."

"What about the time you spent... elsewhere!"

And then his mask drops with a sly little smile and he gnarls breathlessly:

"Rumplestiltskin!"

Boom! Chills!

Man, Robert Carlyle is such a fantastic actor!

Dean flirting with almost every hot girl he sees

Sam trying to read some lore books he brought, but Dean would keep insisting that it defeated the purpose of being there and relaxing (and Sam would say "This is relaxing for ME. Leave me alone.")

Dean would then borrow a bucket from some kid, and use it to spill water on him. Poor Sam.

Sam probably wouldn't like the water and doing any actual swimming because he would claim it's "bad for his hair."

Sam definitely also gets burned easily and puts as much sunscreen as he can. He would be the type to do research on it to find the strongest and most effective one.

Dean wouldn't want any on him because he likes to get super tanned. Sam would nag him about the risks of skin cancer and force Dean to put it on.

Dean likes to pull pranks, so he would do shit like putting sand in his shorts if he fell asleep. Also putting tanning oil he brought on Sam's face, and then putting sun glasses on him so he gets a funny tan line on his face. Sam doesn't end up finding out until later that night at the motel when he looks in the mirror.

Dean would try to make Sam join him if there was a beach volleyball game going on nearby. They'd both end up dominating everyone on sight. They just make a really great team, and usually manage to sync up well. (Also their training as hunters helped)

Idk I don't have anymore headcanons lol. But this is just stuff I'd love seeing if they could do an episode like this. Unfortunately they had too much on their plate. Though it would be perfect opportunity for some great fan service.

Hi everyone!

I'm looking for fic recommendations where the characters get together earlier in the story.

Bonus points if the fic spans multiple books!

I don’t mind some canon divergence or AU elements, as long as it stays relatively close to the Harry Potter storyline.

Thanks in advance.

Dumbledore shook his head in disappointment, sadness clearly visible on his face.

"I had a student once who proclaimed himself Lord.

He also made up a new name for himself and demanded to be obeyed.

Yet to me, he will always be Tom. And that's what I call him whenever I have the misfortune to meet with him face to face.

Sadly, you are not so different from him, Harry."

"Excuse me?" Petunia Dursley said to her sister, shocked that she suddenly showed up at her doorstep at Privet Drive, cradling a baby boy who was probably her nephew Harry.

"Our son Hadrian was attacked by the dark wizard Voldemort and survived his killing curse. The curse backfired, so now Voldemort is dead and it's because of Hadrian! Now he's very famous as the Boy Who Lived and destined for great things! Dumbledore told us it's him, because Hadrian has a V-shaped scar on his forehead. V-shaped, like Voldemort, it's symbolic!"

Confused Petunia looked at her nephew Harry, the scar on his forehead catching her interest. "But Harry also has a scar. It's a lightning bolt, does that not hold any special significance for you freaks?" she asked Lily.

"I don't know, Dumbledore didn't seem interested in that. In fact, he said that Harry's probably a squib. That's why he should stay with you dirty muggles, so that we can focus on our famous son Hadrian and his destiny!" Lily said.

"And why should I take him in?" Petunia sneered at Lily. "It's not like you and that freak you married are dead, take care of your own baby, you deadbeat!"

"Because Dumbledore said so!" Lily said as if that explained everything. "Who cares what some senile old fool running a school for freaks said? Leave me alone!" Petunia screamed as she slammed the door in Lily's face. "Well, that was incredibly rude! Wait 'till Dumbledore hears about this, you horse-faced bint!" Lily screamed at her, but then she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"Hello, Lily." said clearly angry Sirius Black. "I had hoped I heard wrong, but it seems the rumours about you and James getting rid of Harry and trying to have him adopted by your cruel sister who hates you and everything connected to you are unfortunately true!"

"Yes, Dumbledore told us to do that and me and James agreed that's the best thing to do. We have to make sure Hadrian gets our full attention, after all! Harry would just get in the way!" Lily explained and if she were even a bit less self-centered, she could maybe notice by the expression on Sirius' face that his opinion of her sank even lower than before.

"You know, if you really can't raise Harry together with his brother Hadrian for whatever reason, why not have me take care of Harry? I'm his godfather, that's literally what I'm supposed to do!" Sirius growled.

"Alright, fine, you can have this brat. But if Dumbledore gets angry, it's on you!" Lily said as she tossed Harry into Sirius' arms. "Don't worry, I'll deal with Dumbledore!" Sirius growled, a look of disgust on his face. "But first, I'm gonna go knock some sense into James!"

From Cop City to the Dakota pipelines and Jane’s Revenge to numerous struggles worldwide, anarchist organizers are relentlessly targeted by the state today as they have been for over a century.

Shadows in the Struggle for Equality is the firsthand account of Boris Yelensky, an activist of the Anarchist Red Cross (later the Anarchist Black Cross), during the Russian revolutionary movement from 1905 through 1917, and the subsequent Leninist/Stalinist repression.

Written with great humility and compassion, Yelensky recalls his fifty years of tireless organizing to aid victims of state oppression and injustice, beginning with a vivid sketch of the history of the Russian revolutionary movement and the critical role played by anarchists. He then provides the rich history of the Anarchist Red Cross spanning the time from the Revolution to his settling in the US where he dedicated his life and his book “to the Fighters for Freedom, Humanism and Justice, to those who endeavored to help these fighters by applying the principle of mutual aid.”

In telling why an anarchist relief organization became necessary, he calls attention to a neglected aspect of revolutionary history—the sabotage and discrimination of many social-democrats against their fellow-prisoners and in the outside relief organizations. Of the vast sums collected all over the world, from czarist times up through the 1950s when the book was written, very little reached the anarchist prisoners.

With newly translated material, and over a dozen beautiful illustrations by N.O. Bonzo, this stunning edition of Shadows in the Struggle for Equality will serve to inspire a continuation of solidarity and support for those who are incarcerated in the struggle for freedom, humanism, and justice.

PM Press

Scientists on Survival: Personal Stories of Climate Action by Scientists for XR

Published March 27, 2025

Up until recently, many climate scientists have felt deeply worried but unable to speak out. This book brings together the stories of 24 scientists who each individually decided they could no longer keep quiet. Rage, grief and frustration are part of these journeys, but readers will take comfort from knowing they are not alone. This is a very personal book which will hopefully inspire more scientists (and others) to take the leap and become climate activists. Foreword by Chris Packham.

https://www.scientistsforxr.earth/our-book

Clouds in the sky of paradise
Paradise —
I hear smiles from where I gaze.

A dream in vain
To wander through these mountains of mist