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Posted by Isabella Penn

https://cheezburger.com/44055301/i-started-to-notice-things-changing-for-the-worse-correctional-officer-quits-job-and-exposes

A former correctional officer says he does not regret how he left his job, even though some people believe he went too far.

This 30-year-old man said he worked at a correctional facility for about a year and a half and did not mind the job at first. The structure reminded him of his military service. Although the work was tough, he felt able to handle it and stayed committed. He supervised inmates, handled their requests, and made sure everyone was safe during his shifts.

After about a year, he noticed the facility was not being managed as well. He said several top managers either quit or were fired under suspicious circumstances and were replaced by people he thought were corrupt.

He also said some staff traded favors with inmates for contraband, promotions, or better assignments. At the same time, assaults on staff became more common, and he claimed management would not address the problem. Officers who could not be influenced faced hostility, trouble, and violence.

Eventually, he said he was "greenlit," meaning inmates marked him as a target. He asked several times to be reassigned because he was worried about safety, but his requests were denied and he was threatened with being fired if he refused unsafe posts. His formal complaint was ignored. After several inmates passed away, he decided to leave to protect himself and his family.

On his last day, he set up a mass email to go out during a shift change.

https://cheezburger.com/44055301/i-started-to-notice-things-changing-for-the-worse-correctional-officer-quits-job-and-exposes

sjmerc_local_feed

Posted by Nate Gartrell, Harry Harris

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/24/video-shows-richmond-detective-breaking-into-his-own-patrol-car-after-fatally-shooting-man/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12435148

HERCULES — A video circulated on social media shows new details from a fatal police shooting that shut down Interstate 80 for hours on Thursday.

The video, which has been posted on Instagram and TikTok and viewed thousands of times, shows a man either dead or dying from gunshot wounds as the Richmond detective uses a blunt object to smash in the driver’s side of his own vehicle and open the door, after apparently locking himself out. He drops the object next to the man on the ground as the roughly 15-second video ends.

Neither the detective nor the man killed have been publicly identified. Authorities said on Thursday the man had stopped his car on the freeway and that the detective stopped behind him to help, while on his morning commute. Around 7:20 a.m., the man allegedly tried to open the detective’s passenger door and then charged at him with a scissor jack, prompting the detective to shoot.

The object the detective uses to smash in the window appears similar to a scissor jack. Authorities haven’t confirmed whether it is the same object the man allegedly brandished.

The California Attorney General’s office is investigating the incident under a statute that requires it to look into cases where a police officer kills an unarmed person. That will add this fatality to an ever-growing backlog of nearly 60 police killings, dating back to 2022, that are still under investigation by the agency.

The video shows the man’s car positioned between the diamond lane and adjacent lane on westbound I-80, near the Pinole Valley Road exit in Hercules. It shows the detective’s car, lights activated, positioned behind to the left. The man is lying between the detective’s car and the concrete barrier for eastbound traffic. The cameraman appears to be another motorist making his or her way over to get around the obstruction.

The California Highway Patrol shut down all westbound lanes of I-80 before the Richmond Parkway exit shortly after 7:30 a.m., backing traffic up into Vallejo. Authorities later closed a lane on eastbound I-80 and diverted traffic off the freeway at the Willow Avenue exit in Hercules. Helicopters circled the area as the investigation continued.

Around 5:10 p.m., the CHP announced all lanes of westbound lanes had reopened.

Staff writer Rick Hurd contributed reporting

The video can be seen by following this link. It is graphic.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/24/video-shows-richmond-detective-breaking-into-his-own-patrol-car-after-fatally-shooting-man/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12435148

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

otw_news_feed

Posted by Lute

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ivd-2025-volunteer-qa-volunteers-recruiting-spotlight/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=275888

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 Volunteers & Recruiting committee (VolCom) is in charge of inducting, retiring, and placing volunteers on hiatus. They handle personnel records and tool access, as well as assisting with the formation of new committees, subcommittees, and workgroups.

We asked VolCom for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Volunteers & Recruiting Committee Specific Questions

Question: Sometimes I want to help the OTW, and consider applying for a volunteer position like tag wrangling, but I don’t have a lot of time to commit. Is there anything I can do sporadically, or without a lot of time per week?
Committee answer:
All of our roles come with a weekly time expectation—when we recruit for a role, we post a position description, it’s listed there. For some roles, the time requirement starts at two hours per week, while for others it may be five hours or more. How this time is split up in a week depends a lot on the role.
If you find yourself not having enough time to volunteer, but still want to support the OTW, please take a look at our How You Can Help page.

Question: Since this is a non-profit organization, if I wanted to become a volunteer (for fun and because I care about the work being done here), would I be able to use my time as legitimate service hours? (for highschool for example)
Committee answer:
The OTW is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the United States, but whether we are a good fit for legitimate service hours depends on the specific requirements your school/work/etc may have. Our volunteers usually do not volunteer under the name they use at school or at work, but if you are comfortable letting either your Chairs or the Volunteers & Recruiting committee know that name, you can receive a written proof of volunteering. If there are other requirements, e.g. a proof of volunteered hours, we can’t guarantee that this will be possible for all roles. If you are considering this option, please reach out to the relevant committee via the contact form to discuss what’s possible.

Question: Is there a limit to how many times someone can apply to volunteer and be rejected? How many times should you try before giving up? I’ve applied at least five or six times to different groups and I’m wondering if I should stop bothering you!
Committee answer:
We do not have a limit for applications to the OTW in general. However, if you’ve been repeatedly not accepted for a role, chances are that you are not fulfilling the requirements for that role. Additionally, some committees might have their own restrictions (see the recruitment post and/or position description). Please also consider your application quality and whether there are other reasons that might lead to you not being offered a role. You can email us and ask why an application was rejected – it depends on the committee how much feedback they are willing to give, as the goal is not to write the “perfect application”. Our roles differ a lot in the skills required, so keep an eye out for other roles that might be better suited for your skill set!

Question: What types of things can be done by volunteers? I say this as someone who’d love to volunteer at some point in the future, but have no idea if I have any skill that would actually be helpful.
Committee answer:
The skill sets required from our volunteers depend a lot on the role: There are roles that require some kind of formal education or in-depth knowledge of a specific topic, such as being a lawyer or a financial analyst. Other roles, however, are teaching all required skills during the training period, for those roles it mostly depends on being the “type” for the role. For us in VolCom, it’s more of the latter than the former. For example, our volunteers need to enjoy documentation work and ticking off tasks of to-do lists while being able to do work autonomously. There are many roles in the OTW that look for a specific type of person more than a person with a specific set of skills, or the skills are very transferable: Skills such as project management, navigating tricky interpersonal situations, dividing big-picture goals into actionable items, etc. If you keep an eye on our socials and the news posts, you will see us recruiting regularly. Each role comes with a position description that explains both what the volunteers in this role do, and what is required of applicants, so just watch out for a role that matches your skills and interests!

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?

This tends to vary by week as well as by role! As a tag wrangler I used to spend about 3 hours a week on my fandoms, and though it has required some “pruning” of what fandoms I’m working on, most of mine were currently consistent enough that this is a pretty stable amount of time for me.
For Volunteers & Recruiting, where I serve as both volunteer and co-chair, the time is a lot more fluid. For volunteer-specific tasks I can go between 5-10 hours a week, and for chair work that’s an addition of another 3-5 hours per week. The work done isn’t always in solid chunks of time — I do try to count in the time I have even when I’m just catching up on messages from various other volunteers/committees, but in general that’s where I’ve fallen. (Eevee)
I’m a VolCom volunteer and it depends, but I’m mainly spending around 4 to 5 hours minimum working for my committee. It can go from processing inductions or removals or following up on a specific request we’ve received from an OTW member, which in this case is usually pretty easy, to bigger tasks like running recruitments or reviewing documents. In that last case, I like to take 2 solid hours during every work session to really dive into it. (Kalincka)

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

I usually block some time on my weekly calendar to get to it! Usually, I do OTW work in the evening, after I’ve come back from my day job. I work an 8-4, and I live fairly close to my workplace, which means that commuting doesn’t eat up too much of my schedule. There are days when I don’t do OTW work, but I always check my emails and Slack multiple times a day to make sure I’m not skipping something urgent. Tasks can vary so even if they’re mainly cases, they vary, so I don’t find it too repetitive! (Kalincka)
I spend at least fifteen minutes every day on volunteering – keeping up with what’s happening, seeing if there is anything urgent that needs to be dealt with. Usually, that means I look at my emails and our internal chat platform at least three to four times a day. This is mostly the same every day.
I work on cases and on documentation frequently – sometimes that happens spontaneously, sometimes I block time in my personal calendar so I don’t end up making other plans. This is not as regular and scheduled as me keeping track of what’s going on in the organization and my committee, but it usually happens for a few hours every two to three days.
I also have the benefit of having a very flexible daytime job and working a lot from home, which means a lot of my work days consist of me doing an hour of my paid job, an hour of OTW work, three hours of paid job, and so on.There are a lot of recurring tasks or categories of tasks, but it’s still so many different categories of tasks that it’s not getting boring. (corr)

What’s your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

I love meeting other volunteers and learning how the OTW works. I find it super fascinating to learn how such a large organization runs and at the same time meet the people behind the scenes of it all. (Bekyro)
Getting to work together with so many people from all over the world who care for so many different fandoms. I have gotten to talk to people from so many countries that I would have never met otherwise. I also think that AO3 (and the whole OTW) defies a world in which value and worth are measured in financial units – we don’t get paid, the writers on AO3 and Fanlore don’t get paid, the readers don’t get paid. Being a part of this awesome project makes me proud and happy. (corr)

What’s the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

We don’t have shareholders or people with financial interests that tell us what to do. We’re all regular fandom people who love fandom and want to maintain a place that’s a home (an archive) to all transformative works. Sometimes, when I browse through discussions about the OTW, I get the feeling that people don’t know that we are not a for-profit company, that we are not making any money, that every wrangled tag, every written news post, every design decision for AO3, every Fanlore policy, all of these things are made by fandom people in their free time. We’re doing this not because we want to earn money with AO3 or the other projects, but because we love fandom and are dedicated to the OTW’s mission. (corr)
There is a lot more to the OTW than AO3! I encourage people to check out Open Doors and the other projects the OTW is holding up, it’s worth a look. I know I’ve learned so much thanks to Fanlore, and I didn’t even know that it was OTW volunteers that upheld this platform. (Kalincka)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

There’s one thing that never changes, and it’s checking emails/cases/messages. It’s the foundation of my typical day. The tasks in themselves always vary. As a VolCom volunteer I’m pretty sure I do at least one removal per week. (Kalincka)
I check my emails and our chat platform multiple times a day to monitor if something urgent comes up – as I get sent an email for every change in our cases, I also keep track of those like that. That’s what I do every day. On days that I do active work, I focus either on documentation, training, or handling cases, and spend one to five hours doing that. (corr)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

My favorite animal are sheep! Unfortunately, I don’t own any sheep. My favorite breed of cat is trash can kitty, all of the cats I have are the ones nobody at the shelter wanted, and they are the best cats I’ve ever met (I might be biased). (corr)
I would have to say birds, especially parrots. I love Sun conures, but cockatiels are definitely high up there too (if they weren’t, my own would probably peck me) (yes, I am very biased). If we include fantasy creatures, dragons are also at the top (Bekyro)

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what’s your favorite work on AO3?

I love reading fanfic! It’s the reason I stumbled upon the OTW in the first place. I wouldn’t say I’ve got a single favorite fic in the entire world, but I keep a list. Off the top of my head, and since we’re in an end-of-the-year period, I would heavily recommend reading this Klaus fic (formerly titled ‘In the name of love’). It warms my heart every time (Kalincka)
I do! While I do not have any favorite fic, as I read depending on my mood, I do have a bunch I keep returning to. I’m scared to check how big my collection of fics I reread has gotten nowadays. (Bekyro)

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

I do, even if it’s less than I’d like due to lack of time. I have about 350k words published on AO3 and half a million in drafts, which is what I wrote in the last four years.
I like to get my readers to yell at me. My writer discord is really good at getting upset with me, if I’m not being insulted for hurting their feelings, I didn’t do my job right. I am mostly a character-driven writer, and I like to put my characters into situations or make them face negative consequences. I also love to write healing, but I am decidedly not a fluff writer – the things I write as comfort for myself tend to get comments of people saying that I still hurt them. (corr)
I do, though ironically not as much since I started volunteering for the OTW. I love expanding on the worlds given to us, doing missing scenes, fixing tragedies from canon, or imagining canon-compliant AUs (I promise, these are possible!). (Eevee)
I do not, to the despair of my fic writing friends. Although I may give it a try sometime if the mood strikes. (Bekyro)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

I’ve not been super active in fandom spaces lately, but the last time I was active was in Haikyuu!! and SK8. Recently I’ve fallen into a danmei rabbit hole starting with 2ha but I haven’t read/written much in it. I also read a lot of bl manhwa/manga! (Eevee)
A few years ago, I read this questionable book series called All For The Game by Nora Sakavic, and I have accepted my fate of living in this fandom. I love-hate the books, I love-hate the fandom, and I have found amazing friends in the fandom. Apart from that, I read a lot fandom-blind, as I am looking for specific kinds of stories or tropes. (corr)

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

I love that they exist! I think AO3 was one of the first sites where I saw the language I grew up speaking as an option and something about that felt so validating? I don’t read in my native language, but I come across them when translations are requested for tags in my native language and I’m always so excited when they show up. (Eevee)
While I don’t read any of them myself, I do find it nice knowing they exist. Especially as my native tongue is a smaller one, and it normally tends to drown among the countless bigger languages that exists (Bekyro)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers, check out this work on AO3, where we collect additional replies to each question!)

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ivd-2025-volunteer-qa-volunteers-recruiting-spotlight/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=275888

ao3_news_feed

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/34111

International Volunteer Day

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 Volunteers & Recruiting committee (VolCom) is in charge of inducting, retiring, and placing volunteers on hiatus. They handle personnel records and tool access, as well as assisting with the formation of new committees, subcommittees, and workgroups.

We asked VolCom for replies to your questions, and received a lot of feedback! Below you can find a selection of their answers:

Volunteers & Recruiting Committee Specific Questions

Question: Sometimes I want to help the OTW, and consider applying for a volunteer position like tag wrangling, but I don't have a lot of time to commit. Is there anything I can do sporadically, or without a lot of time per week?
Committee answer:
All of our roles come with a weekly time expectation—when we recruit for a role, we post a position description, it's listed there. For some roles, the time requirement starts at two hours per week, while for others it may be five hours or more. How this time is split up in a week depends a lot on the role.
If you find yourself not having enough time to volunteer, but still want to support the OTW, please take a look at our How You Can Help page.

Question: Since this is a non-profit organization, if I wanted to become a volunteer (for fun and because I care about the work being done here), would I be able to use my time as legitimate service hours? (for highschool for example)
Committee answer:
The OTW is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the United States, but whether we are a good fit for legitimate service hours depends on the specific requirements your school/work/etc may have. Our volunteers usually do not volunteer under the name they use at school or at work, but if you are comfortable letting either your Chairs or the Volunteers & Recruiting committee know that name, you can receive a written proof of volunteering. If there are other requirements, e.g. a proof of volunteered hours, we can't guarantee that this will be possible for all roles. If you are considering this option, please reach out to the relevant committee via the contact form to discuss what's possible.

Question: Is there a limit to how many times someone can apply to volunteer and be rejected? How many times should you try before giving up? I've applied at least five or six times to different groups and I'm wondering if I should stop bothering you!
Committee answer:
We do not have a limit for applications to the OTW in general. However, if you've been repeatedly not accepted for a role, chances are that you are not fulfilling the requirements for that role. Additionally, some committees might have their own restrictions (see the recruitment post and/or position description). Please also consider your application quality and whether there are other reasons that might lead to you not being offered a role. You can email us and ask why an application was rejected - it depends on the committee how much feedback they are willing to give, as the goal is not to write the "perfect application". Our roles differ a lot in the skills required, so keep an eye out for other roles that might be better suited for your skill set!

Question: What types of things can be done by volunteers? I say this as someone who'd love to volunteer at some point in the future, but have no idea if I have any skill that would actually be helpful.

Committee answer:
The skill sets required from our volunteers depend a lot on the role: There are roles that require some kind of formal education or in-depth knowledge of a specific topic, such as being a lawyer or a financial analyst. Other roles, however, are teaching all required skills during the training period, for those roles it mostly depends on being the "type" for the role. For us in VolCom, it's more of the latter than the former. For example, our volunteers need to enjoy documentation work and ticking off tasks of to-do lists while being able to do work autonomously. There are many roles in the OTW that look for a specific type of person more than a person with a specific set of skills, or the skills are very transferable: Skills such as project management, navigating tricky interpersonal situations, dividing big-picture goals into actionable items, etc. If you keep an eye on our socials and the news posts, you will see us recruiting regularly. Each role comes with a position description that explains both what the volunteers in this role do, and what is required of applicants, so just watch out for a role that matches your skills and interests!

General Questions

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?

This tends to vary by week as well as by role! As a tag wrangler I used to spend about 3 hours a week on my fandoms, and though it has required some "pruning" of what fandoms I'm working on, most of mine were currently consistent enough that this is a pretty stable amount of time for me. For Volunteers & Recruiting, where I serve as both volunteer and co-chair, the time is a lot more fluid. For volunteer-specific tasks I can go between 5-10 hours a week, and for chair work that's an addition of another 3-5 hours per week. The work done isn't always in solid chunks of time -- I do try to count in the time I have even when I'm just catching up on messages from various other volunteers/committees, but in general that's where I've fallen. (Eevee)
I'm a VolCom volunteer and it depends, but I'm mainly spending around 4 to 5 hours minimum working for my committee. It can go from processing inductions or removals or following up on a specific request we've received from an OTW member, which in this case is usually pretty easy, to bigger tasks like running recruitments or reviewing documents. In that last case, I like to take 2 solid hours during every work session to really dive into it. (Kalincka)

How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?

I usually block some time on my weekly calendar to get to it! Usually, I do OTW work in the evening, after I've come back from my day job. I work an 8-4, and I live fairly close to my workplace, which means that commuting doesn't eat up too much of my schedule. There are days when I don't do OTW work, but I always check my emails and Slack multiple times a day to make sure I'm not skipping something urgent. Tasks can vary so even if they're mainly cases, they vary, so I don't find it too repetitive! (Kalincka)
I spend at least fifteen minutes every day on volunteering - keeping up with what's happening, seeing if there is anything urgent that needs to be dealt with. Usually, that means I look at my emails and our internal chat platform at least three to four times a day. This is mostly the same every day. I work on cases and on documentation frequently - sometimes that happens spontaneously, sometimes I block time in my personal calendar so I don't end up making other plans. This is not as regular and scheduled as me keeping track of what's going on in the organization and my committee, but it usually happens for a few hours every two to three days.
I also have the benefit of having a very flexible daytime job and working a lot from home, which means a lot of my work days consist of me doing an hour of my paid job, an hour of OTW work, three hours of paid job, and so on.There are a lot of recurring tasks or categories of tasks, but it's still so many different categories of tasks that it's not getting boring. (corr)

What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?

I love meeting other volunteers and learning how the OTW works. I find it super fascinating to learn how such a large organization runs and at the same time meet the people behind the scenes of it all. (Bekyro)
Getting to work together with so many people from all over the world who care for so many different fandoms. I have gotten to talk to people from so many countries that I would have never met otherwise. I also think that AO3 (and the whole OTW) defies a world in which value and worth are measured in financial units - we don't get paid, the writers on AO3 and Fanlore don't get paid, the readers don't get paid. Being a part of this awesome project makes me proud and happy. (corr)

What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?

We don't have shareholders or people with financial interests that tell us what to do. We're all regular fandom people who love fandom and want to maintain a place that's a home (an archive) to all transformative works. Sometimes, when I browse through discussions about the OTW, I get the feeling that people don't know that we are not a for-profit company, that we are not making any money, that every wrangled tag, every written news post, every design decision for AO3, every Fanlore policy, all of these things are made by fandom people in their free time. We're doing this not because we want to earn money with AO3 or the other projects, but because we love fandom and are dedicated to the OTW's mission. (corr)
There is a lot more to the OTW than AO3! I encourage people to check out Open Doors and the other projects the OTW is holding up, it's worth a look. I know I've learned so much thanks to Fanlore, and I didn't even know that it was OTW volunteers that upheld this platform. (Kalincka)

What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?

There's one thing that never changes, and it's checking emails/cases/messages. It's the foundation of my typical day. The tasks in themselves always vary. As a VolCom volunteer I'm pretty sure I do at least one removal per week. (Kalincka)
I check my emails and our chat platform multiple times a day to monitor if something urgent comes up - as I get sent an email for every change in our cases, I also keep track of those like that. That's what I do every day. On days that I do active work, I focus either on documentation, training, or handling cases, and spend one to five hours doing that. (corr)

What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?

My favorite animal are sheep! Unfortunately, I don't own any sheep. My favorite breed of cat is trash can kitty, all of the cats I have are the ones nobody at the shelter wanted, and they are the best cats I've ever met (I might be biased). (corr)
I would have to say birds, especially parrots. I love Sun conures, but cockatiels are definitely high up there too (if they weren’t, my own would probably peck me) (yes, I am very biased). If we include fantasy creatures, dragons are also at the top (Bekyro)

Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?

I love reading fanfic! It's the reason I stumbled upon the OTW in the first place. I wouldn't say I've got a single favorite fic in the entire world, but I keep a list. Off the top of my head, and since we're in an end-of-the-year period, I would heavily recommend reading this Klaus fic (formerly titled 'In the name of love'). It warms my heart every time (Kalincka)
I do! While I do not have any favorite fic, as I read depending on my mood, I do have a bunch I keep returning to. I’m scared to check how big my collection of fics I reread has gotten nowadays. (Bekyro)

Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?

I do, even if it's less than I'd like due to lack of time. I have about 350k words published on AO3 and half a million in drafts, which is what I wrote in the last four years.
I like to get my readers to yell at me. My writer discord is really good at getting upset with me, if I'm not being insulted for hurting their feelings, I didn't do my job right. I am mostly a character-driven writer, and I like to put my characters into situations or make them face negative consequences. I also love to write healing, but I am decidedly not a fluff writer - the things I write as comfort for myself tend to get comments of people saying that I still hurt them. (corr)
I do, though ironically not as much since I started volunteering for the OTW. I love expanding on the worlds given to us, doing missing scenes, fixing tragedies from canon, or imagining canon-compliant AUs (I promise, these are possible!). (Eevee)
I do not, to the despair of my fic writing friends. Although I may give it a try sometime if the mood strikes. (Bekyro)

What fandoms are you (currently) in?

I've not been super active in fandom spaces lately, but the last time I was active was in Haikyuu!! and SK8. Recently I've fallen into a danmei rabbit hole starting with 2ha but I haven't read/written much in it. I also read a lot of bl manhwa/manga! (Eevee)
A few years ago, I read this questionable book series called All For The Game by Nora Sakavic, and I have accepted my fate of living in this fandom. I love-hate the books, I love-hate the fandom, and I have found amazing friends in the fandom. Apart from that, I read a lot fandom-blind, as I am looking for specific kinds of stories or tropes. (corr)

Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue?

I love that they exist! I think AO3 was one of the first sites where I saw the language I grew up speaking as an option and something about that felt so validating? I don't read in my native language, but I come across them when translations are requested for tags in my native language and I'm always so excited when they show up. (Eevee)
While I don’t read any of them myself, I do find it nice knowing they exist. Especially as my native tongue is a smaller one, and it normally tends to drown among the countless bigger languages that exists (Bekyro)

Thanks so much to every volunteer who took the time to answer!

(For more answers, check out this work on AO3, where we collect additional replies to each question!)

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/34111

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Current Mood: indescribable

Posted by Brad Dickson

https://cheezburger.com/37433607/employee-discovers-that-they-no-longer-have-a-shop-via-a-facebook-post-from-their-employer

A confused employee discovered that they no longer had a job in 5 days when they saw a post on Facebook from their employer advertising a closing-down sale.

We all dread coming in one day to work to find everything shuttered up, door locked, no notice, no warning, no final paycheck. Just a tumbleweed blowing across the street behind us as we stare at the chains on the door. And, still, we might think, "This would never happen to me," but it can and does, as evidenced by this discussion on the dreaded discourse of losing your job that popped up online this week.

The fact of the matter is that the modern workplace has far too many conveniences. Instead of mail rooms, we have emails, Slack, instead of talking smack about Brian during lunch in the breakroom. And, as fortune would have it, finding out you've been fired via social media instead of being ushered into a bleak beige room before being told that you no longer have a job or health insurance.

This employee found themselves in a surprising situation when they discovered through a Facebook post that their employer was having a closing-down sale. They put two and two together and realized that this was their notice that they would soon be without a job, and likely to be all the notice they were going to get. This news caused them, in turn, to turn to social media and offer up their frustrations about the lack of professional courtesy they were experiencing.

There's something startling about learning about such life-changing new is such a nonchalant way, placed in amongst all the other noise and lazy content that's selling something begging for your attention. Like learning that a loved one has passed away via Instagram because your cousin got the news before you did and ran to share it with the world. There, surrounded by photos of people's food and selfies, is some of the worst news you'll ever read in your life. Like something out of a black comedy that even the best writers could dream might actually happen.

This discourse sparked a lot of discussion, and in this volatile employment landscape, being accustomed to—and prepared for—cold realities is all the more important.

https://cheezburger.com/37433607/employee-discovers-that-they-no-longer-have-a-shop-via-a-facebook-post-from-their-employer

james_davis_nicoll

I got an email from Riotminds providing me with a free preview of their upcoming Wicked Dew - Victorian Horror RPG. What caught my eye is that it seems to be entirely online. I've asked if there's a downloadable rulebook I overlooked, but I can see why a company might adopt a purely online approach.

Posted by Remy Millisky

https://cheezburger.com/44105221/gas-company-raises-prices-before-winter-storm-instructs-parent-of-baby-to-turn-heat-down-in-21

On the eve of a major winter storm, this parent was totally stunned by the gas company's "advice".

When you're expecting snow, you've got to prepare! We're on the eve of what's supposed to be a massive snowstorm, which are exceedingly rare these days. We hardly ever see more than a foot of snow around these parts, but this winter has been quite icy and dropped snow around various parts of the US with far more frequency than usual.

The forecast is never perfect — sometimes the meteorologists call for 3 feet of snow, then we get a light dusting. But it's good to prepare for the worst, just in case. Being stocked up on food, having extra flashlights and batteries, and making sure to clear the snow from your doorstep every few hours are just a few things you can do to endure the storm. I know because I asked my own Mom how to prepare for the storm, and that was her good advice! Parents always want the best for their kids, whether they're babies, teens, or grown adults. And that's exactly what this parent below wants, too. In fact, they're asking for the bare minimum — they just want literal heat to keep their baby warm.

That leads us to the utterly insane response from the gas company that they have to get their heat from. In some spots in the USA, you can't choose your provider. They might be the only choice for miles around. If you want heat, you'll just have to pay exactly how much they say, and it can be costly.

They sounded the alarm, sharing that their gas company had the nerve to email them and say they're temporarily raising the prices. But don't worry — just in case you're thinking, "Wow, what a transparent cash-grab at the expense of vulnerable customers who can't refuse their service during a blizzard," the company assured this parent that they weren't doing that. I mean, by all accounts, that's what it looks like. In fact, I don't see how it could be anything besides a cash grab from a captive group of humans. But a company would never go on the internet and tell lies! That'd be crazy!

Wow, just imagine if they were fleecing their customers, boosting prices during negative temperatures. Nay — their good word will surely warm customers during this storm. I'm sure their customers will be smiling from ear to ear, teeth chattering uncontrollably, while reading that email, knowing that the company is raising prices because it's in the customer's best interest. Sure, Jan!

While there's not much this person can do, at least there are plenty of people on the internet who sympathize with them, as you can check out below.

https://cheezburger.com/44105221/gas-company-raises-prices-before-winter-storm-instructs-parent-of-baby-to-turn-heat-down-in-21

enchanted_jae

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: cold
Current Music: "Let's Dance" ~ David Bowie

It's weird for Philly & north to be expecting a foot or more of snow and for that to be the *minor* part of a winter storm. We're all battened down, here: lots of food in the freezer, extra milk for hot chocolate, we have a generator. But since not much ice is expected, "only" a foot of snow and bitter cold weather, we count as relatively OK -- this isn't anything people aren't prepared for, after all. My car is a Subaru, and this is why.

I'm thinking a lot about those of you in regions where the infrastructure & housing construction are less prepared. Send up a signal flag at

fandom_checkin if you can.

You must PET! I command it! says Purrcy and so of course I must obey. A stern taskmaster, but adorable.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby sits up on his little platform giving the camera a stern look. His ears, which are standing straight up, look exceptionally large.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby sits up on his little platform giving the camera a stern look. His ears, which are standing straight up, look exceptionally large.

#Purrcy was playing excitedly in his box, so I stretched my phone over to see what he was playing with -- and it's a Forbidden Hair Tie, he *knows* he's not supposed to have those! I swapped it for a feather toy, less likely to get swallowed to disastrous effect.
#cats #CatsOfBluesky #Caturday

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby's head is on the side in his box, wild-eyed and snarling, teeth visible as he fiercely chews a black elastic hair tie. He is a mighty hunter! Do not touch his prey!

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby's head is on the side in his box, wild-eyed and snarling, teeth visible as he fiercely chews a black elastic hair tie. He is a mighty hunter! Do not touch his prey!

I meant to post My Week in Books on Wednesday, but writing about Lord Shang got involved, also my back hurt. So this is the list as of Wednesday.

#9 Tales from Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
I didn't read this when it first came out in May 2001 -- I was waiting to get around it and then 9/11 happened and my concentration was shot for a year or more. This is where she really does the work of looking at the patriarchal and Western preconceptions she'd lazily incorporated into Earthsea's worldbuilding way back when (when she was young and I was a child) and asking How (in a Watsonian fashion) they got in there, before she dismantles them in The Other Wind.

#10 The Other Wind, Ursula K. Le Guin
So this is the one where Le Guin finally dismantles all the parts of her original Earthsea worldbuilding that didn't grow as she grew, that were put in lazily or because they were tropes or "archetypes" and not because they spoke the Truth of her heart.

One of these things was, why are there no female students on Roke? Another was, how does this relate to the Old Places and the Old Magic? Both of these questions Le Guin started to work with in Tehanu. But the central question is, why does the Land of the Dead look like the ashy afterlife of the mediocre dead in certain Western mythologies, where is Death that is the necessary other side of Life?

And it's pulling on that thread that unravels everything, patriarchy, Old Magic, Kargad lands, dragons, and all. To reform it into a more perfect union? Perhaps. At least one that has a chance to grow better.

And yes, I cried at the end. "Not all tears are evil."

#11 The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett. Re-read for the first time in decades. It was one of my re-re-re-reads during my childhood/teens, but I didn't read it aloud to my kids when they were young because I didn't want to attempt the Yorkshire accents, so the gap was longer than for many of my childhood faves.

I hadn't remembered how much it's a story of two rich children whose parents never wanted them. But of course when I read it then I wasn't a parent, that part didn't register. Another thing I notice now is that it's a sign that Mary and Colin are ill, neglected, and ugly that they are *too thin*, and of returning health and good looks that they become *fatter*. This was normal! This is the human baseline: too thin means undernourished and ill, plump means healthy. When Mary first comes from India her hair is lank, flat, and thin; when she becomes fatter and healthier her hair comes in thicker and glossier.

What did register, what really soaked into my brain, were the descriptions of spring coming. I wonder how much my feeling that spring is the best season is due to this book?

And now that I've been a gardener for years the gardening passages mean even more than they did to me as a child.

#12 Kim, Rudyard Kipling.
Tried reading it as a teen but could never make it out of the first chapter, this was my 1st time through. Not what I expected--I thought there'd be more of a *plot*. And I didn't expect so much of it would be about religious seeking. I knew, from "The Miracle of Purun Bhagat" in The Second Jungle Book that Kipling respected the sadhu tradition, but no-one had mentioned that Kim's most important relationship is with a lama, that spying-for-the-Empire is really his side gig. And WOW, Kipling really has zero respect for the C of E, the Catholic priest comes off a *lot* better.

I picked this up to read because, having just read The Secret Garden, I was thinking about the orphans of Empire who feature so heavily in British kidlit of the late 19th C & between the wars. Wandering through Wikipedia, I found that Kipling *was not a native speaker of English*. I hadn't realized how deeply the imperialist project had twisted him personally. Because it's clear that he loves India as his native land, even though he doesn't love the people as his people--but the English aren't truly his people, either.

People who've imagined what happened to Kim O'Hara in the future are IMHO wrong if they think he'll still be a British agent after 1922 at the latest. By the end of the novel he's still a political ignoramus, but sooner or later he's going to talk to some adult Irishmen about the connection between the most recent (1899-90) famine in India & the Potato Famine. Maybe he'll slip away to Ireland, maybe to America, maybe he'll use his skills for Indian freedom--but once he figures out he's not actually *English*, just another one of their playing-pieces, he's not going to stay loyal. It's just a Game to them, after all.

#13 The Book of Lord Shang: Apologetics of State Power in Early China. By Shang Yang, edited & translated by Yuri Pines
I picked this up because I've read some of Yuri Pines' academic articles. Lord Shang is one of the most reviled writers in traditional Chinese thought, usually for the uniform, harsh punishments he recommends for *everything*. What Pines makes clear -- and what you can see in the text -- is that Lord Shang was opposed to a lot of what were considered virtues -- filial piety, family loyalty, even human feeling (ren, 仁) -- because they were used to indulge sloppiness and corruption. He classified the teachers of such virtues -- that is, Confucian scholars -- among the worthless, wandering class, who have to be eliminated or discouraged if the state is to achieved its goal: the establishment of a unified Empire of All-Under-Heaven.

Obviously Confucian scholars, who Lord Shang hated, would more than return the favor of hating him back! But to my reading they also hated him for two additional reasons.

Lord Shang's formula for controlling the people and molding them into an unstoppable military force involved both a carrot and a stick. The stick was a very heavy punishment-based legal code, which everybody talks about in horror. More important to my mind was the system of carrots: cutting off all other methods of social advancement besides through the military, but leaving military success as a *guaranteed* route to social rising, open to foot soldiers on up. *Any* peasant who went to war and was credited with an enemy head got more land. With more success (= heads), more land, more authority, more money -- the prospect of true social advancement was there, for anyone who was willing to fight.

And this leads to the other reason later scholars hated Lord Shang: it worked. This formula to create a motivated rank-and-file military is one reason Qin overcame the other Warring States, to become the first dynasty and set much of the template for future Chinese history.

There's only been study so far comparing Lord Shang to Machiavelli and I haven't been able to read it, but there's a lot to do there. Both men were realists, advising rulers about what *really* works, talking about human behavior as much as possible stripped of their respective cultures' platitudes. Lord Shang's advice is more extreme because the situation he faced was more extreme: states with millions of people, fielding armies of tens or hundreds of thousands, warring against others for the prize of Emperor of All Under Heaven. The stakes for Machiavelli's Prince were minute by comparison, and the level of control he might exert was also limited. And he didn't propose anything as radical as offering a route for social advancement to peasants.

#14 A Most Efficient Murder, by Anthony Slayton

#15 A Rather Dastardly Death, by Anthony Slayton

First two in the "Mr. Quayle Mysteries". The first one is better, as it has a strong flavor of Wodehouse mixed in with Agatha Christie. But both owe too much to Christie IMHO in that they're *fundamentally* snobbish. Also, as pastiches written by an American, they suffer from a. Americanisms/anachronisms, b. not realizing how the passage of time works. Mr. Quayle is frequently described as a "young man", but he was in The War and this is 1928, he is no longer young.

So they passed the time, but that's about it.

So I posted my Star Trek fic: Maybe He's Born With It (Maybe It's GlaxosEpsilonYor)!!

Going by file dates I started that one in 2020, so compared to all my other wips, it was relatively new. It took a lot of writing to finish because when I started it was really just a couple of paragraphs and then five handwritten pages. I quickly had a first draft, but it needed a lot of editing to connect the themes and refine Jim's voice. It's at the very start of his career as a captain and he's still a hot bro-y mess, and even though I found myself resisting his self-centeredness, I needed his actions to reflect that selfishness, and I think I hit a good balance of bro and personal growth. He can be taught! Spock, of course, is perfect. No notes.

Next up in my endless list of neglected WIPs: It should be my Pinto fic—which, as I recall, is all but done except for the last lines, fuck you, last lines—but instead, it's the G-rated Stargate Atlantis

kink_bingo non-sexual knifeplay fic about an extinct Satedan fruit. I gotta be me.

Looks like I last opened this in 2011 and it's basically complete. Let's gooooo.

Posted by Jesse Kessenheimer

https://cheezburger.com/44096773/non-confrontational-employee-exposes-an-office-thief-crafting-a-glitter-trap-to-call-them-out-during

Maybe it's just a pen, but they were HER pens, expensive ones at that.

Office supplies can get expensive. There's a reason that most of us use the office printer to do our taxes, and we somehow end up with a house full of company-branded pens and notebooks. While it's one thing for employees to use equipment and supplies paid for by the company's deepest pockets, stealing from your coworker is just low. You should be supporting your fellow colleagues, and considering you likely make the same salary as your cubiclemates, thieving from the desk of a close comrade is some employee-on-employee crime that cannot be tolerated.

For this reason, it's important to call those freeloaders out, but for a non-confrontational personality, sometimes buying new packs of pens is easier than the confrontation, but not forever. As something of a non-confrontational individual myself, I'm personally quite proud of the office worker in this next story because they crafted a perfect workaround to a classic problem. I'd nearly quit my job before confronting a thieving coworker directly, but setting them up for some public humiliation is the perfect lighthearted middle ground for us non-confrontational types. Without getting HR or any managers involved in a stupid cubicle dispute, this worker figured out a way to catch a thief in real time: Glitter.

Impossible to erase and as persistent as this office thief, glitter ink presented itself as the perfect Pink Panther-style trap for this employee. Surely, after getting caught with the infamous ink on their hands, there would be no more pens stolen from their neighbor's desk.

https://cheezburger.com/44096773/non-confrontational-employee-exposes-an-office-thief-crafting-a-glitter-trap-to-call-them-out-during

sjmerc_local_feed

Posted by Nathan Canilao

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/24/basketball-roundup-san-ramon-valley-stuns-no-13-granada-in-overtime-to-keep-ebal-chaos-alive/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12435062

If the East Bay Athletic League couldn’t get more unpredictable, San Ramon Valley made sure it stayed that way Friday night at Granada.

The Wolves stole a 70-64 overtime win just days after Granada had a statement victory over Dougherty Valley.

SRV (10-12, 3-2) outscored Granada 14-8 in the overtime period.

“This team, they have composure and they execute,” SRV coach Brian Botteen said in a phone interview. “We got some clutch rebounds and made some clutch shots. That’s what this team has been doing and they’re scrappy.”

Tommy Ambidge led SRV with 22 points. Senior point guard Tyler Smith scored 18 points, Pierce Iattoni added 12 and Hudson Garcia had 11.

SRV led by as much as seven in the third quarter, but Granada’s offense turned a corner late in the second half. The Matadors got 27 points after halftime from stars Brandon Hahn and Damien Miles.

A last-second foul gave the Matadors a chance to win the game at the free throw line, but the Livermore school hit just one of two shots, forcing overtime.

From there, it was all SRV.

Nate Dessoye, who hadn’t scored all game, poured in five points and hit three crucial free throws to lift SRV in OT.

The win catapulted SRV back into the postseason mix. The Wolves came into EBAL play with just seven wins and will need to finish with a .500 record overall, in league play or against Division I opponents.

With four league games remaining, the Wolves have a heightened sense of urgency.

“We’re fighting for our lives to play and make the playoffs,” Botteen said. “We’ve had some rough growing pains for a team that really returns only one player that played about six minutes a game last season. So they’ve learned how to play and how to compete, and how to make up for some deficiencies that maybe we don’t have against other teams.”

Granada (15-6, 2-3) got 25 points from Hahn and 16 points from Miles.

No. 2 Archbishop Riordan 61, Valley Christian 44

This matchup was stopped in the second quarter when Valley Christian center Teniola Bamisebi took a hard fall and remained down on the floor for an extended period of time. Trainers attended to Bamisebi for nearly 20 minutes, and VC athletic director Ryan Realini confirmed to the Bay Area News Group that paramedics were called and Bamisebi was taken to the hospital as a precaution. Realini said Bamisebi has total control of his extremities and added, “We feel good he will be OK.” Both teams warmed up once Bamisebi left the court and eventually restarted the game, which Riordan led 9-8 with 7:39 remaining in the second quarter. Bamisebi had seven of VC’s eight points and was still the Warriors’ leading scorer at halftime when they trailed 23-17. Emmanuel Ahamefule and CJ Ani each had nine points in the win.

No. 4 Archbishop Mitty 56, Sacred Heart Cathedral 46

SHC put up a good fight, but the Monarchs were too much in this WCAL matchup. Amani LaMere-Swift scored 17 points and Nicholas Gklaros-Stavropoulos added 12 for Mitty (9-6, 3-2). SHC dropped to 8-7, 1-4.

No. 6 Clayton Valley 60, Berean Christian 21

Clayton Valley rolled through another Diablo Athletic League challenger. Senior Vince Ellis came off the bench and scored 13 points for the Ugly Eagles. Charlie Sullivan also had 13 points and Zion Grissom added eight. Senior Giovanni Buchanan had seven points for Berean Christian (8-5, 2-3). Clayton Valley won its eighth straight game and improved to 16-3, 7-0.

No. 8 The King’s Academy 82, Menlo School 57

Claxton Ladine propelled TKA to yet another West Bay Athletic League win, scoring 21 points. Xavier Barnett added 13, Tristan Wai had 12 and Hezekiah Sires chipped in 10 for the Knights, who improved to 15-3, 4-0. Menlo (9-8, 1-3) got 18 points from William Lenihan.

No. 9 Dougherty Valley 61, No. 10 Monte Vista 56

The Wildcats only needed five players to score to notch a solid EBAL win over Monte Vista at home. Rashod Cotton Jr. scored 18 points, Rylan Sevilla had 16 and Alonzo Walker totaled 11 as Dougherty Valley (15-7, 3-2) earned a bounce back win. Max Nishikawa scored 14 points for Monte Vista, which dropped to 14-8, 3-2.

No. 11 Amador Valley 45, No. 14 Dublin 40

The Dons escaped with another defensive win, defeating EBAL foe Dublin on the road. Guard Elijah Stanley led the way with 14 points and San Jose State commit Cade Kruger added 10. Aiden Li had 14 and Izaiyah Romero scored 11 for Dublin, which dropped to 15-7, 2-3. Amador Valley is 14-8, 3-2.

No. 12 Moreau Catholic 74, Irvington 51

Star big man Brendan Williams continued his strong play, scoring 16 points to lead Moreau to a blowout Mission Valley Athletic League win. Isaiah Clendinen had 13 points and Khollin Ware chipped in 10. Irvington (11-9, 3-5) got 17 points from Aneesh Malyala. Moreau is 16-3, 8-0.

No. 18 California 69, No. 20 Livermore 59

Despite Livermore’s sophomore sensation Amare Chandler scoring 31 points, California snapped its four-game skid and picked up a much-needed EBAL win. Jaiden Jones scored 16 points, Emeka Ifediora had 14, Juremi Ejuwa recorded 12 and Santa Clara commit Brayde Kuykendall chipped in 11 for California (11-11, 2-3). Livermore dropped to 16-6, 2-3.

No. 19 Milpitas 87, Mountain View 47

The Trojans continued their dominant run through the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division, this time breezing past Mountain View (8-10, 2-4). Dylan Nguyen had a game-high 29 points, followed by 24 from Pranavram Krishnan. Diego Inocencio led the Spartans with 15 points. Milpitas improved to 17-1, 6-0.

Acalanes 59, Alhambra 49

The Dons picked up their fifth win in the last six games, downing Alhambra on the road in a DAL game. Gavin Dodge led the way with 19 points and Cameron Hood added 14 for Acalanes (12-9, 4-1). Alhambra, which dropped to 13-7, 1-5, got 15 points from Kingston Sabino and 14 from Cooper Largent.

Burlingame 51, Terra Nova 48

Sophomore Lucca Maher scored a game-high 19 points and Max Robenalt had 13 to lead the Panthers to a Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division victory. Terra Nova (8-10, 1-5) got 23 points from Kai Gieraths and 14 from Jonathan Martins. Burlingame is 12-5, 4-2.

Fremont-Oakland 75, McClymonds 53

Zaire Albert had 25 points, Tyreese West scored 17 and Jabari Jones chipped in 11 as Fremont (12-7, 2-1) picked up an Oakland Athletic League win. McClymonds (4-14, 1-2) got 16 points from Antuan Mason and 14 each from Lavonte Jenkins and Josiah McCombs.

Heritage 58, Antioch 41

Kenyaun Jones had 15 points and Jett Libiran and Aidan Muse each scored 14 as Heritage picked up a Bay Valley Athletic League road win. The Patriots improved to 13-7, 5-2. Antioch dropped to 7-13, 2-5.

Los Gatos 55, Monta Vista 44

Dionysis Maroudas scored 16 points and Milos Grabovac had 12 in a solid Santa Clara Athletic League De Anza Division win for Los Gatos (14-4, 5-1). Adarsh Inampudi had 17 points and Alex Tashjian scored 14 for Monta Vista, which dropped to 12-5, 2-4.

Menlo-Atherton 61, Half Moon Bay 48

Four players scored in double figures for M-A (13-3, 6-0 PAL Bay) as the Bears grabbed a comfortable win over HMB. Jerry Williams scored a team-high 18 points, Aiden Atkins had 16 and Luca Auer and Jacob Sutton each had 11 in the win. HMB, which dropped to 11-7, 5-1, got 16 points from Owen Perez, 14 from Gio Garduno-Martin and 12 from Levi Meighan.

Mt. Eden 56, Encinal 46

Devin Santos dropped 21 points, Denzel Jackson had 17 and Cash Gonzales scored 12 as Mt. Eden won its third West Alameda County Conference Shoreline Division game. Kimani Mayfield had 17 points for Encinal, which dropped to 8-9, 0-4. Mt. Eden is now 11-8, 3-1.

Saratoga 47, Fremont-Sunnyvale 46

Saratoga squeaked by Fremont behind three double-digit scorers. Junior center Anson Hulme scored 19 points, Cole Sheehy had 13 and Aidan Liu added as Saratoga (11-6, 6-1) picked up a SCVAL El Camino Division victory. Fremont (10-7, 5-2) got 17 points from Kota Xu and 10 from Kai Daron.

Serra 64, St. Francis 54

The Padres held a 14-point halftime lead and didn’t look back to notch a solid WCAL win. Wyatt Vonblanco scored a team-high 25 points, dished out four assists and had three steals. Senior shooting guard Tyler Bailey had nine points. Serra improved to 10-6, 2-4 while St. Francis dropped to 8-9, 0-6.

Ygnacio Valley 75, Miramonte 69

Jalan Cody recorded a triple-double, scoring 16 points, grabbing 10 rebounds and dishing out 10 assists in YV’s DAL win over Miramonte. Machai Alston led all scorers with 27 points and Jaelyn Cox had 21 and nine rebounds. YV improved to 8-10, 4-2. Miramonte dropped to 11-9, 2-4.

GIRLS BASKETBALL

No. 1 Archbishop Mitty 76, Sacred Heart Cathedral 21

Mitty (15-2, 4-0) continued to roll along in West Catholic Athletic League play, this time with its second-biggest win of the season. The Monarchs employed a balanced scoring attack led by McKenna Woliczko, who poured in 11 first-quarter and 18 first-half points, finishing with 25 overall and making 11 of 12 field goal attempts. She added seven rebounds and seven assists, the latter a career high. Maliya Hunter was next up with 21, and Devin Cosgriff added 12. Sofia Teresi had seven points. For SHC (5-13, 0-5), Lea Escobar led the way with seven points. Mitty held the Irish to seven points or fewer in every quarter, including three in the third.

No. 2 San Ramon Valley 92, Granada 20

This one was over quickly, as SRV (17-3, 6-0) led 33-0 after a quarter and then pulled its starters. Freshman Kellan Thornson led the Wolves with 15 points, and Hania Bowes had 13 points and six rebounds. Fellow freshmen Presley Uchikura (nine points, nine boards) and Isla Allen (nine points) contributed as well. Granada dropped to 7-15, 0-5.

No. 4 Priory 64, Harker 19

Taylor Marsland led Priory (12-5, 4-0) with 14 points, three rebounds and two steals as the Panthers took care of business to remain unbeaten in West Bay Athletic League play. Sasha Johnson added 13 points, three steals and three rebounds, and Abigel Smuk had 10 points, four rebounds and four steals. Harker fell to 8-8, 4-4.

No. 5 Pinewood 74, Menlo School 27

It was raining 3s in Los Altos Hills as Pinewood (14-1, 3-1) poured in 16 3-pointers (12 by halftime) en route to routing Menlo (11-5, 1-3). Pinewood’s proficiency from distance gave the Panthers 52 first-half points. Abigail Yew led Pinewood with 20 points, and Alex Tseng scored 14. Anusha Krishnan had 12, Andri Wilkinson chipped in 10 and Caitlyn Kramer scored nine plus 12 rebounds and 10 assists. Sophia Longinidis led Menlo with 14 points.

No. 6 Archbishop Riordan 64, Valley Christian 26

Fresh off a week of big wins, Riordan (10-5, 2-1) bounced back from a tough loss to Mitty, getting back on track with a big win in the City. The Crusaders spread the scoring out very evenly, as Tallyah Nasol (10 points), Nylah Dyson (nine), Mafalda Fontan (nine), Ariah Thompson (eight) and Marina Bravo (eight) all played key roles. Valley Christian (7-11, 1-4) was led by Jahniya Payne with six points, with Evelyn Gittens and Anaya Bannarbie adding four apiece.

No. 18 Half Moon Bay 51, No. 17 Menlo-Atherton 49

In a thrilling finish in Atherton, Half Moon Bay completed a successful trip across Highway 92 and beat M-A thanks to Makena Glynn’s 3-pointer with 3.8 seconds to play. Luisa Tava’s 3 at the buzzer rattled out for M-A. Glenn Reeves was in Atherton and has the full story here.

No. 19 Dougherty Valley 55, Monte Vista 34

DV (16-3, 4-1) continues to establish itself as one of the better teams in the EBAL, now third in the league behind SRV and Carondelet. Newly minted Bay Area News Group athlete of the week Keira Tom led the way with 22 points and added four rebounds and three steals. Chloe Omega had 13 points plus five assists, four steals and a rebound. Vanessa Nguyen had 11 points, three assists, four rebounds and two steals. Monte Vista dropped to 10-10, 2-3.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/24/basketball-roundup-san-ramon-valley-stuns-no-13-granada-in-overtime-to-keep-ebal-chaos-alive/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12435062

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: awake

Posted by Bar Mor Hazut

https://cheezburger.com/44043269/part-time-employee-gets-promoted-above-dismissive-colleague-then-ignores-colleagues-attempts-to

A revenge in the shape of a promotion.

It's almost impossible to get along with all of your coworkers, and that is okay. You don't have to be best friends with the people you see every day at the office; you don't even have to be friendly. What you do have to be is professional.

That is the only must when it comes to a workplace relationship. It doesn't matter if you absolutely love or hate each other; if you have to work together, you have to be able to act professionally around each other, no work will ever get done properly otherwise.

When the colleagues in the story below started working together, things between them went quite smoothly; they shared an office, bantered, and maintained a friendly vibe while also successfully working with one another. At some point, for some reason, the dynamic shifted, and one of the colleagues crossed the uprofessional line. Instead of respecting her coworker, this employee started leaving her out of meetings and conversations, ignoring her requests, and altogether became outright hostile.

This led her coworker to consider looking for another job, but before she managed to do that, she was actually offered a promotion. This was a great opportunity, so the coworker took the promotion, which led her to a role that was ranked higher than her entitled colleague. Safe to say, the colleague was not happy about the shift, but she no longer had the power to disrespect her coworker.

Instead of giving the entitled coworker a taste of her own medicine, the promoted employee decided to do the exact opposite. She acted entirely professionally, but never friendly, towards the entitled coworker, and showed her exactly how you're supposed to act at a workplace, even if you do not get along.

After being on the receiving end of the cold shoulder for a while, it was clear that it was getting to the colleague, who all of a sudden returned to the friendly attitude she had when these two just started working together. Unfortunately for her, it was way too late to take all her entitled actions back and return to being friends…

https://cheezburger.com/44043269/part-time-employee-gets-promoted-above-dismissive-colleague-then-ignores-colleagues-attempts-to

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Posted by Martha Ross

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/24/bay-area-ballroom-dance-19th-century/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12345138

John Ruzicka wasn’t quite himself when he stepped into the large, stately room at the top of a grand staircase in the Elks Lodge in downtown Alameda.

On that Tuesday night in November, as on most Tuesdays, the room was being used as a classroom for Ruzicka and more than two dozen others to learn the dances and social etiquette of the 19th century English ballroom. Ruzicka had dressed for the part. Donning a Regency-era men’s tailcoat, waistcoat and ruffled shirt, the theater actor, writer and director from Livermore was cosplaying Fitzwilliam Darcy, the aloof romantic hero of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” More specifically, his outfit was inspired by a suit that Colin Firth wore while playing Darcy in the beloved 1995 BBC series adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice.”

For the next two hours, Ruzicka danced with a swirl of partners. Some also had dressed up, displaying elegant gowns they had sewn themselves, made with glimmering fabrics and featuring shoulder-baring necklines and voluminous skirts, puffed up with petticoats or crinoline. All together, this combination of costumes and period dance — with waltz music by Johann Strauss I — created a vision of a long-ago time in Europe or America, when balls and village dances provided a key way for people to socialize.

John Ruzicka of Livermore, along with other attendees, participates in Victorian-era dance lessons led by James and Cathleen Myers of PEERS (Period Events & Entertainments Re-Creation Society) in the grand ballroom of the Elks Lodge in Alameda, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) — John Ruzicka of Livermore, along with other attendees, participates in Victorian-era dance lessons led by James and Cathleen Myers of PEERS (Period Events & Entertainments Re-Creation Society) in the grand ballroom of the Elks Lodge in Alameda on Nov. 18, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

These Tuesday dance classes are organized by Period Events and Entertainments Recreation Society Inc., an Alameda-based nonprofit founded in the 1990s by the husband-and-wife duo James and Cathleen Myers. During the classes, James plays the traditional role of dance master. “And waltz!”, he said while teaching the Paganini Waltz. The couples twirled — one, two, three, four — as James continued, “Right, left, right, left. Turn! And waltz! Pass on the right. Slide on the left. Link arms!” Cathleen also acted as dance mistress by demonstrating the steps and helping James provide encouragement and brief explanations for a dance’s historical context.

“I had been wanting to get back into dancing and more historic dance,” said Ruzicka, who described himself as a big fan of Austen, Charles Dickens and Shakespeare. After a theater colleague told him about PEERS, he found his way to a PEERS ball and to his first class in early 2024. “When I went to the first lessons, I got hooked, and I’ve been coming ever since.”

The students include men and women of all ages, from Gen Zers in their 20s to baby boomers in their 60s and older. What evidently draws them to PEERS classes isn’t just the dance but a chance to spend time with other people who share their love of history, literature, theater, movies, period fashion or doing a grown-up version of dress-up and play-acting.

Michelle Apriña-Leavy, left, of Oakland, and Sven Jensen, of Alameda, pause as they watch James and Cathleen Myers of PEERS (Period Events & Entertainments Re-Creation Society) leading Victorian-era dance lessons in the grand ballroom of the Elks Lodge in Alameda, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) — Michelle Apriña-Leavy, left, of Oakland and Sven Jensen of Alameda pause as they watch James and Cathleen Myers of PEERS leading Victorian-era dance lessons in the grand ballroom of the Elks Lodge in Alameda on Nov. 18, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Theo Lamb, 20, of Alameda, has her group of friends but was looking for a new way to exercise, get out of the house and meet new people. “Everybody was super nice. I love the dancing, even though I wasn’t very good at it at first,” she said, explaining that she also likes making her own costumes. “The dancing is awesome. It’s so elegant and pretty.”

The Bay Area is a mecca for social dancing, from salsa to line dancing to modern ballroom, said Richard Powers, a choreographer and dance historian who teaches social dance classes at Stanford University. Powers said people of all ages, including Stanford undergraduates, are drawn to social dancing because it emphasizes human interaction — in contrast to the sense of isolation people may feel in a world of screens, AI-generated realities and political and cultural divisions. Vintage dance is especially appealing to people looking for that brief escape to times and places that seem more gracious and friendly than our own, Powers said.

In the classes, the Myers duo focuses on teaching dances that were popular in the 1800s, including the waltz, polka, mazurka and quadrille. The couple has occasionally explored earlier styles, going as far back as the Elizabethan era, but they are more likely to jump to 18th century country dances or all the way to the 20th century with ragtime, the Charleston, the one- and two-step and the foxtrot. They also organize regular dance parties and events that pay homage to different eras or themes: Victorian, Gilded Age, Edwardian, “My Fair Lady,” “The Great Gatsby,” 1930s swing, “Haunted Mansion” and “Film Noir.”

The Myers and other PEERS dancers also play an important role at the annual Great Dickens Fair held at Cow Palace in Daly City every December. As the Fezziwig Party Dancers, they re-create the famous dance scene in “A Christmas Carol,” when the Ghost of Christmas Past encourages Ebeneezer Scrooge to recall a joy-filled holiday party at his former workplace.

Working at the Dickens Fair in the 1980s, in fact, inspired the Myers to start PEERS. After previously meeting at a science fiction convention in Los Angeles, James moved from New Orleans to San Francisco to be with Cathleen, and they married in 1983. Cathleen had grown up doing vintage dance, thanks to her parents, while James picked it up after meeting Cathleen.

Attendees participate in Victorian-era dance lessons led by James and Cathleen Myers of PEERS (Period Events & Entertainments Re-Creation Society) in the grand ballroom of the Elks Lodge in Alameda, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) — Attendees participate in Victorian-era dance lessons led by James and Cathleen Myers of PEERS in the grand ballroom of the Elks Lodge in Alameda on Nov. 18, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

While immersing themselves in vintage dance, Cathleen and James had their day jobs. She taught classics, while James still works in business as a contracts manager. For James especially, PEERS has provided a creative outlet, which he and Cathleen say is an incentive for a lot of their members. “I think there are a lot of dancers in our group who are in the high-tech industry, and dancing is a nice relief,” Cathleen said.

“This is the place where nerds can express themselves,” said Andrew Beaubien, an audio software engineer from Oakland, who has long pursued side passions as a singer, musician and musical theater performer. He was one of the Fezziwig Party Dancers at the Dickens Fair last month. At the Tuesday night class, he dressed up in a 19th century men’s tailcoat and top hat, while his real-life partner, Anaïs Wong, donned a white, off-the-shoulder gown that floated around the floor. (For the record, PEERS members don’t usually dress up for the Tuesday night classes, but did so for this particular class because photos were being taken.)

Wong, a psychologist who has previously studied ballet and more contemporary styles, seconded Beaubien’s view of the allure of period dancing. After she and Beaubien met through a friend, he asked if she’d be interested in accompanying him to a dance group that specializes in historical re-enactments. “Nerdery, costumes, dancing?” she recalled. “I’m like, ‘Oh yeah!’”

Professionally, Wong attests to the “self-care” that PEERS classes provide to participants. People can enjoy a good workout, gain self-confidence by mastering a new physical skill and live out dreams they may have abandoned when they left behind adolescence to begin “adulting.” “I think a lot of us also are wanting to put on a show,” she said.

To be part of the “show,” PEERs members learn steps, turns, passes and glides that appear simple but are woven into intricately beautiful variations that mirror the social milieu of ballrooms from 70, 100 or 200 years ago. Anyone who’s read 19th century novels or watched their screen adaptions knows that ballroom dance scenes tend to be loaded with drama, social jockeying and, above all, romantic intrigue.

After all, the ballroom was the chief place where unmarried men and women could properly interact and scope out suitable marriage prospects. For that reason, the dances were designed to let these young people get a good look at one another, mix with as many partners as possible and maybe enjoy some conversation and flirting while on the dance floor. Fans of that BBC version of “Pride and Prejudice” may remember the sparks flying between Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet when they first danced together at the Netherfield Ball. Of course, at that early point in the story, the two hid their growing attraction for each other behind smoldering glances, verbal sparring and elegantly executed dance moves.

But one thing about Elizabeth and Darcy at Netherfield: They probably wouldn’t have been dancing a waltz, according to James and Cathleen Myers. As usual after a Tuesday night class, the Myers and other PEERS members gathered for drinks in the Elks Lodge Rathskeller, where the couple offered some brief commentary about the waltz. While Austen may have been familiar with the waltz, the dance was still considered scandalous in certain segments of society in the early decades of the 19th century when she was writing. That’s because it involved an unprecedented amount of physical contact, with men and women facing each other and holding each other by the shoulders and waist.

James explained that even Lord Byron, the morally challenged Romantic poet who died in 1824, was shocked by the waltz, writing a poem that warned of its “slippery steps” and “freely” ranging hands. “Lord Byron was scandalized?” Ruzicka exclaimed in disbelief. “He was the most scandalous person!”

Cathleen theorized that the growing popularity of the fast-moving polka in the 1840s, especially in the aftermath of revolutions sweeping across Europe, helped make the waltz widely acceptable, including to parents who decided to stop worrying that it would endanger the morals of their adolescent children.

Meanwhile, when it comes to the romantic underpinnings of the ballroom, Cathleen acknowledged that relationships have started at PEERS events. That was the case for Beaubien and Wong, who got to know each other driving back and forth to classes. “At the Dickens Fair, we’ve had proposals on the dance floor,” Cathleen said.

But most PEERs members are just looking for a way to get out, dance, maybe display their DIY costuming skills and meet friendly new people. “It’s a wonderful group,” James said, while Cathleen added, “They’re very good at getting the shy people out of their chairs and dancing.”

If you go: PEERS hosts vintage dance classes on Tuesday evenings at the Alameda Elks Lodge at 2255 Santa Clara Ave. The 7 p.m. class is designed for newcomers, while the 8 p.m. class is for more experienced dancers. The cost is $10 for both hours. For more information about PEERS classes, balls and other events, visit peersdance.org.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/24/bay-area-ballroom-dance-19th-century/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12345138

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Posted by Sal Pizarro

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/24/hometown-heroes-exhibit-showcases-san-jose-athletes-artists/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12434285

I doubt anyone really looks forward to going to San Jose City Hall unless they’re skipping through the delightful Sonic Runway or practicing their skateboarding tricks. But now there’s another reason to pay a visit that doesn’t require sitting through a meeting.

This week, the city unveiled “Hometown Heroes,” a three-piece exhibition that showcases San Jose sports figures — from NFL stars to roller derby players and synchronized swimmers — while also putting a spotlight on the artists and photographers who bring their images to us. It’ll be on display through July 31, as the region hosts Super Bowl LX, NCAA men’s basketball games and FIFA World Cup soccer matches.

Artist Emilio Cortez stands with his mural, "San Jose Game...

Artist Emilio Cortez stands with his mural, "San Jose Game Changers," which is on display in the San Jose City Hall wing building as part of "Hometown Heroes," an exhibit celebrating San Jose athletes, artists and photographers, on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)

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Artist Emilio Cortez stands with his mural, "San Jose Game Changers," which is on display in the San Jose City Hall wing building as part of "Hometown Heroes," an exhibit celebrating San Jose athletes, artists and photographers, on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)

Digital screens throughout City Hall are displaying “The Community in Motion,” a rotating lineup of 44 sports photographs from 25 local photographers that capture people participating in all kinds of sports in San Jose, from Little League baseball to a Sharks game.

There’s also a display in the City Hall tower lobby featuring the work of Arnold Del Carlo, a professional photographer. Known to many just as “Del,” he chronicled a number of aspects of San Jose life with his camera in the post-World War II years. This exhibit focuses on his work on San Jose State’s athletic program.

But the most eye-catching piece is “Larger than Life,” the four vinyl murals adorning the long hallway in City’s Hall’s wing. Each of the four artists — Emilio Cortez, Elba Raquel, Sam Rodriguez and Alyssa Wigant — created a piece that works on its own, but taken together, they form a great tapestry of San Jose’s athletic heritage. They celebrate homegrown heroes like Jim Plunkett, Brandi Chastain, Steve Caballero and even Krazy George and highlight the lessons sports can teach us about adversity.

And, if you’re a Gen Xer like me, you’ll love Wigant’s woman-centered refresh of the ubiquitous Pee-Chee folders we all had in school with her piece, “She-Chee Folder.”

At the opening reception for the exhibition last Tuesday, San Jose Director of Cultural Affairs Kerry Adams Hapner also provided a rundown of the upcoming art installations and activations coming this winter and spring. They include the “Invisible Skies” event at City Hall on Jan. 31, “Minis,” featuring illuminated sculptures at City Hall created by Esteban Garcia Bravo and students from SJSU’s CADRE Media Lab, and “Free Throw,” an interactive projection-mapping installation by G. Craig Hobbs and the CADRE lab that’ll light up SAP Center in late March.

GREEN PARTY: Gratitude filled the courtyard of Mezcal restaurant in downtown San Jose on Thursday night at a “thank you” celebration for Alan “Gumby” Marques, who recently stepped down after serving as the San Jose Downtown Association’s interim CEO for nearly all of 2025. Mezcal owner Adolfo Gomez, who chairs the SJDA board, put together the festivities, along with fellow board members David Mulvehill of Nuvo Hospitality and Chris Shay of Sharks Sports and Entertainment.

Marques, who owns Heroes Martial Arts in downtown San Jose, has been involved with the Downtown Association for more than a decade and stepped in after the sudden departure of CEO Alex Stettinski last April. Now that the SJDA has hired Brian Kurtz as its new CEO, Marques can go back to his day job full-time, though he told me he values the perspective he got on downtown issues from holding the interim position.

Alan "Gumby" Marques, left, poses with Mezcal owner Adolfo Gomez in front of a piñata-style sculpture of the Gumby character at a thank-you celebration for Marques, who recently stepped down as interim CEO of the San Jose Downtown Association, held Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026 at Mezcal. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)

“What makes San Jose so unique is that any one of us can make an impact here in whatever way you decide to do that,” Marques said. “It’s really your opportunity more so than anyplace in the world, and I’ve been around.”

Marques picked up the “Gumby” nickname long ago, and it stuck because of his flexibility in jiu jitsu. Naturally, the party was filled with Gumby references. There was a green Gumby cocktail served, Gumby cartoons on the TVs and Gomez unveiled a huge piñata-like sculpture of the Gumby character as a gift for Marques. Shay presented him with a Sharks jersey emblazoned with “Gumby” on the back and No. 75, which is the number of Sharks winger Ryan Reaves known for his, shall we say, physical play on the ice. That’s perfect, Shay said, as Marques is a fighter for downtown.

SKATE ON: A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Tricia McNabb, manager of the downtown San Jose ice skating rink, was hoping a sponsor would come through to keep the rink open through the Super Bowl. PG&E answered the call, and you can glide to your heart’s delight in the Circle of Palms through Feb. 8 now. By the way, the San Jose Downtown Association is referring to the rink as “Skate Under the Palms” these days, and you can get hours and other info at www.skateunderthepalms.com. I guess telling people you run Downtown Ice doesn’t have the same benign meaning it once did.

Nighttime ice skaters enjoy the outdoor rink in downtown San Jose's Circle of Palms on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)

THAT’S ITALIAN: The Mission Chamber Orchestra’s collaboration with San Jose’s Italian American Heritage Foundation continues for a fourth year next weekend with “Italy by the Bay,” on Feb. 1.

For the 3 p.m. concert at the IAHF’s cultural center at 425 N. Fourth St., the orchestra will be joined by Francesco Darmanin, a native of Florence, Italy, who is not only the guest clarinet soloist but also the composer of one of the pieces. The orchestra will perform Darmanin’s “Foglie di Narciso,” and he also will be the soloist for Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. Surprised to find Mozart in a program of Italian music? Juan Cristóbal Palacios, the Mission Chamber Orchestra’s music director, says the music of Venice, Naples and Rome shaped Mozart’s development as much as Vienna did.

You can get more information on the concert program and purchase tickets at www.missionchamber.org.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/24/hometown-heroes-exhibit-showcases-san-jose-athletes-artists/

https://www.mercurynews.com/?p=12434285

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