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Nursed Back to Health

Comment with your character, preferences, preferred role, and any information you'd like to include.
Your character has either been injured/sick and had to be taken in (possibly against their will) or has been the one to help somebody like the former. Through the mending process, the two characters in a thread have fallen in love - or at least grown closer and more affectionate.
Reply to others.
Thread.

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Title: Gains 572
Author:

enchanted_jae
Team: Aurors
Character(s): Draco, Harry
Rating: PG
Warning(s): None
Word count: 100
Written for:

dracoharry100 Prompt No. 792 - feud
Disclaimer: Characters are the property of JK Rowling, et al. This drabble was written for fun, not for profit.
Summary: Draco is included in Potter's protection.

( Gains 572 )

The company I work for is 100% remote. Partly because the three founders all live on different continents. As a 100% remote company, they try to let teams get together in person so that we can actually meet each other and bond. Last February they sent the entire company to Monaco (I know!!!) but after an earlier meeting where everyone who attended came back sick, I wasn’t sure that I was ready to travel 1) to Europe to 2) a meeting with over a thousand coworkers who didn’t seem to be following any sort of health protocols, during 3) the middle of cold and flu season. So I bailed on the trip to Monaco. But as I told my manager at the time, I’m perfectly willing to travel during the summer. Just not in the middle of cold and flu (and covid) season.

So we finally got the word on where our documentation department offsite meeting will be in May. They’re sending us to Edinburgh, Scotland. I’m so excited, I’ve never been. I honeymooned in England with the Wasband, but we didn’t get as far north as Scotland.

I’ve also got another offsite with my engineering team in June. We were hoping for Europe for that one too, but between it being summer (so high tourist season), the Paris Olympics (July 26 - August 11) and the European Soccer Championships (which runs for weeks in ten different cities in Germany), that offsite was priced out of Europe. Still not sure where we’re going, all the Engineering Manager will say is that it’s down to two cities in Canada. So I’m just going across the border for that one, but it will still be an adventure, I’m sure. If they pick Montreal, I just might drive so I have my car with me. Toronto might be a haul, but also a possibility to drive.

Today is much like yesterday was.

Currently...
Playing: "Pokemon Shield". "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney", streaming on Twitch.
Reading: "Star Scrolls" ebook. "The Magic of Recluse" print.
Watching: Amazing Race, Season 13. Psych, Season 4.

Ongoing bus saga will, once again, be covered in another post or series. I’m combining two posts to catch up and because I am lacking insight into a couple of stops and legs of the trip.

The trip participants traveling by car spent the night outside Chicago then started Day Five with coffee and a tour at Jesus People Chicago (https://jesuspeoplechicago.org/) which is a nonprofit that houses the homeless and runs a coffee shop in addition to their many other projects. I hope to get more info about this visit from the trip participants later.

They proceeded to a second stop at Arizmendi Ecovillage (http://arizmendiecovillage.com) where they had a tour, conversation, and spent the night. Again, I hope to learn more later from the folks who were there.

On Day Six we reunited in St Louis, returning the rental car and all traveling by bus again. After breakfast we shared a trip to City Museum (https://citymuseum.org/), one of my bucket list stops on this trip. This place combines some actual museum exhibits (plants, animals, history, etc) with the most impressive collection of climbable and otherwise physically interactive exhibits I have ever seen in one place. A dozen different different 5% slices of the building would fit right in at Burning Man. At least a thousand feet of slides and a mile of crawl/climb/shimmy tunnels of stone and steel and wood with a dozen different styles. More branches and choices and chances to get lost than any maze I’ve explored, let alone so densely packed in 3D. Oh, and no maps (until you find the one at the top of the space). I strongly recommend a visit for anyone with children, and any adventurous adults as well.

I am writing this as we drive west from St Louis from the afternoon into the evening of Day Six. I failed to find a community to host us for a visit between here and Denver, so we have most of a day of driving and sight seeing and sleep ahead of us before our whirlwind tour of central Colorado communities starts tomorrow

I'm so sorry this is so rough, I'll fix it soon I swear.

Sidequest TCG:

Name: Star
Member Join Date: 20/03/2024
Collecting: lolegends-lux
Activity Log

Collecting:

Keeping:

Trading:

And earlier today, before getting those test results, I was doing more work on my RGB lighting control code. I worked out some more issues and can scroll two different sets of colors in different directions on the two LED strips on the front of my computer case. Transbian powers activate!

https://youtube.com/shorts/JkJXhMmUO-k?si=xIwKWqBqvrT7kqNk

Fandom: Bridgerton
( Links )

Cast
	Silas Rovira BLURB GOES HERE	Soren Rovira BLURB GOES HERE
	Vardan Rovira BLURB GOES HERE	Tassia Rovira BLURB GOES HERE
	Rowan Rovira BLURB GOES HERE	(Uncle??) BLURB GOES HERE
	Allegra BLURB GOES HERE	Drusilla BLURB GOES HERE
	Risha BLURB GOES HERE	Bastian BLURB GOES HERE
	Bruce (my Beloved) BLURB GOES HERE	Spicy Omega Baby (also my Beloved) BLURB GOES HERE

It does not seem like it has been that long. Yet it is true, as of today Angelo and I have been married five years. Gifts are appreciated (fifth anniversary is wood, for those of you curious) and may be left at our suite while we are out at dinner.

Do not expect us back until some time tomorrow.

I think the main reason why I don't often post is I don't think I'm a particularly engaging writer. Then again, this is my journal so I shouldn't have to worry about things like that shouldn't I?

I was ruminating about fandom (in general) again and I really wish I could take a more active role within it. Most of my time spent within fandoms has been primarily as a lurker. Occasionally, I would muster up courage to post art but within a short time, I would end up deleting it.

Posting art online has always been a challenge for me because I felt as if I wasn't "good enough". I know it's just an assumption I'm making but I cannot but help feel this way. I post art and then delete it immediately after out of embarrassment. I think I find it embarrassing because I am revealing to people what I enjoy. I'm expressing a part of myself that I keep bottled up most of the times, so it's understandably why I would feel embarrassed. There's also this fear I have of being judged for showing love towards the things I like. Showing my artwork is showing the world a bit of who I am. I was bullied as a child and teenager for being public with my interests and it's been a process to heal from that.

One of my goals this year is to start posting my art online again. It's not a particularly ambitious goal but it's one I very much want to achieve. It's part of a wider goal of gaining more confidence in myself. It's not something I can just wake up one day and complete.

I don't think social media sites such as Tumblr and Twitter are particularly great places for the cultivation of fan activities, and discussions. It's frustrating that there isn't a better alternative. Fan creations are treated as "content" and there is a pressure churn out stuff constantly. It's disheartening that even hobbyists are pressured to chase the algorithm. I know Tumblr has slowed down and become m (Read more)

Yes, I'm sure the dramatic scene I played out yesterday is offensive, especially to Evangelicals.
I wasn't actively tryna to worship el Diablo. I was letting Jesus know that I am angry with Him and that He aroused my ire and that I will not tolerate it.
I was raised Chratholian - Christian and Catholic.
But I belong to a temple for all paths to Light, Dark, and Shadow.
I am a dangelmon, archangelon, arkdaemon, and imperialfallen.
Most of us are dangelmon, only a handful are imperialfallen. Instead they are shadowmongel.
I find many currently available temples to the masses lacking the cohesive unity needed to exist in a challenging modern world. moreover many current belief systems create unstable regions, war, and misunderstandings. I prefer to include all precepts and temple tenets from around the worldS, including indigenous ones.
I know that many Christians were hoping that I would do this all for Jesus. But only for the realms that welcome Him. He's not welcomed in certain regions of the cosmos.
I hope you understand why I was angry and fought with JC. And that it's not just because i'm a arkdaemon, but because He made choices that hurt me and my family for many decades.
Moreover, I dislike when you accuse me of not caring for 'whites' enough and try to appeal to what-you-hope is a guilty conscience concerning that. So I hit back in an unkind and despicable way because of your provocation.
Please understand that Jesus isn't WHITE. Nor is He any other color you try to delegate to Him. He's cut from a Cloth that is reserved for the Most Holy and you are not cookie cutter shapes of Him.
I hope you understand my misgivings, my anger, and my horrid behavior, especially yesterday.
Best wishes always.
*love and light*
~emma ruth

Interested in rping with a goddess of destruction? Making bad life decisions and in being making deals with her?

Then this is the place for you.

This is the place for it. Whether it's from meme's or otherwise. I'm rather open to all the things!

Hit me up in my inbox if you're interested.

Frondescence - noun.

Frondescence is used to describe something leafy and green or about to unfurl.

The adjective form is frondescent.

fucked up how when you put all your thoughts down on "paper" it can give you the space to do wild shit like invite your mom over to have a frank conversation about about the lack of trust between you both :o

Fluffity fluff is an exchange centered around all kinds of fluff! Friend fluff, romance fluff, family fluff, creepy fluff, plot or empty calories—this exchange covers it all! Participants will create a work of at least 1,000 words or an individually made fanart.

2024 Links

Tagset | Signups | Collection | Dreamwidth Community

2023 Schedule

Nominations Open: March 21 (nominations will continue to be open through sign-ups)

Sign-up Opens: March 26

Sign-up Closes: April 2

Assignments Due: May 26

Works Revealed: May 31

Creators Revealed: June 7

All deadlines are 15:01PM CDT (UTC -6).

FAQ

How do you define ‘fluff’?

Fluff has a wide definition. For the purposes of this exchange, we will be very liberal with what ‘fluff’ is, exactly. While the most general definition revolves around pleasant, feel-good work, there can also be instances of creepy fluff, hurt/comfort fluff, etc. As such, please describe what kind of fluff you are looking for within your request.

How do I contact the mods if I have a question?

Your mods are neosaiyanangel and Koschei B. Email neosaiyanangel@gmail.com or event.kosch@gmail.com, reply to Dreamwidth posts, or DM on Discord at neosaiyanangel

Rules

General rules

Each participant will produce a complete, original, brand new work that is created specifically to fulfill a request for this exchange and meets the following requirements:

Fanfic: Your fic must be a story with a beginning, middle, and end. It must be written in English and at least 1,000 words long.

Fanart: Your piece doesn't have to be colored, but it must be a completed work and cannot be drawn on lined paper. Allowed fanart includes digital and real media (e.g., paper and pencil, paint, sculpture). No AI-generated art, sketches, WIP images, bases, traces, or graphics (e.g., photomanips, aesthetics/mood boards, or screen captures).

Each work must match one of the recipient's requested combinations of fandom + relationship + additional tag. It does not have to be for the request you matched on.

The wor

I'm ridiculously thrilled by some solid progress on Miriam's health issues.

To try to abstract things to a point of easy understandability, there is a test, test foo, that Miriam has had done several times.

In the past, she has always gotten result A. Result A is not indictive of auto-immune issues. However, it's well-documented that result A can *actually* be a pattern called pseudo-result-A, which is caused by overlapping multiple other results that *do* indicate auto-immune issues. There's a note about this in the official medical literature about this test and has been for years, yet it has not been incorporated into the actual process of test interpretation. It takes significant expertise to distinguish pseudo-A from actual A, and doing that check isn't part of the standard process, so an unknown percentage of people with auto-immune issues are getting dismissed as negative on test foo.

The most recent panel of tests Miriam got returned both result B and result C on test foo. This is what Miriam has suspected has been going on for *at least a year* and probably longer, but there's no way to contact a testing center and ask if they have anyone with expertise to make this kind of judgement and who could look at the test.

To say I'm thrilled would be an understatement. Possible progress toward treatment for her pain! And at the same time, The fact that this takes *so long* for the medical establishment to figure out when it seems so obvious a possibility to us is infuriating.

I'm reading a lot of Star Wars fanfic right now, in particular fix-its (often time travel fix-its) set before the rise of the empire. And so, so many of them use "BBY" to specify the date. "BBY" stands for "Before the Battle of Yavin". None of the characters at this time know that the Battle of Yavin is going to occur. They should be giving dates in the Republic (or other contemporaneous) calendar.

CANON: Ensemble Stars
CHARACTERS: Arashi Narukami
CREDIT TO:

rosebursts

HERE @

rosebursts

love song dedication

whether it's a song you want to slowdance to or the sort you'd drunkenly belt out at karaoke, this jam is a special one. you've picked it out for the person you love.

have a crush on. wanna bone. we're not the meme police.

but who cares if the lyrics fit or not> y'know, it doesn't even have to be directed towards a specific person. maybe you wanna AU a different sitch with each dude/tte who replies. DO YOU, YOU BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY.

be cool. this one's for you, baby.

( Containing: Arashi Narukami (& icons featuring Izumi Sena, Tsukasa Suou, & Leo Tsukinaga). )

Today has felt like a tiring day. We had the zoom cancer appointment, which turned out to be a little draining surprisingly. The result of it (after much emotional talking) is going to be mum having a blood test at the local doctor. If she has the gene, then I’ll have to take it too, but if not then it means we’re fine. Of course it’ll take time. So… we’ll see.

Other things. I posted fic Monday so that’s that done, I wanna try and post more prompts to the dead dove meme I got the prompt from (since prompts close Monday) but we’ll see if my brain comes up with any cause it’s been fuzzy.

I also cleared a bunch of my icons which was quite sad to do. I had thought of clearing George’s anyway so his is not much of a lose but I still feel so… ugh about Wilbur. Still it freed up a bunch of slots which I filled up a bit already and I’ll try and make more soon.

Yesterday was exhausting cause it was a food delivery day and since I’m low energy it was draining. But things did come. The Small Robots book came back in stock so that came, along with a Lego Minecraft set that was on offer with the shop. The main delivery though was the new Doctor Who boxset, season 15 which I started tonight. (More on that soon)

There was also a trailer for the new Star Wars show, The Acolyte and it looks pretty good. I’m definitely looking forward to it. It does seem to be Jedi centric, but with it being set at their height it should be at least something different. (Plus there’s at least two hot guys which is a plus)

Tonight I decided to watch the first ep from the boxset, which was Horror Of Fang Rock. When a new blu ray boxset is announced I always look through the episode list and most of the time there are episodes that I really look forward to. This boxset had a few I couldn’t remember too clearly but also two I was really looking forward to, this being the first.

As the name implies Horror Of Fang Rock is a spooky story, being set in a fox shrouded lighthouse. It’s (Read more)

CUDDLE MEME

what to do:
☆ post a comment with your character's name and fandom or preferences, if you have them.
★ use the magic RNG 1-12 to pick the cuddly scenario. or not.
☆ then cuddle it out!

cuddle choices:
① Sweet dreams It's been a long day and all you want to do is sleep or just rest your eyes for a bit. Hopefully whoever is close by doesn't mind if you use them as a blanket.
② Stormy weather The heavy rain, thunder and lightning won't be letting up anytime soon. Luckily, it's the perfect weather to stay indoors and snuggle up close and keep warm.
③ Lazy dancer It's the end of a party, or maybe it's only the two of you, but the tempo is slow and the lights are low. Let your dance partner take the weight and just sway.
④ Surprise attack Time to invade someone's personal space. Are they working too much and need a distraction? Maybe you just wanted to brighten their day. Either way, they won't see it coming.
⑤ Movie night It can be on the sofa or in a darkened theater, but you've got your popcorn and someone to settle against during your favorite movie.
⑥ I love you, man It's totally platonic, really. You're just very good friends, no matter what people like to think. But you just love your friend so much you want to hug them, whether they like it or not.
⑦ Jeepers creepers Welp. You were just frightened. Was it a spider in the washroom, a ghost in the attic, a bad dream? Either way, you're looking for someone to cling to right now, and who better than that person right there?
⑧ Hurt and comfort Whether you're sick in bed, just been dumped or suffered a traumatic event, you need someone to wrap their arms around you and make everything go away.
⑨ Sunday morningMaybe you just had a wild night. Maybe there’s just not enough space at your place and you need to share your bed. Or maybe you just got really tired and someone else happened to be there. Doesn't matter because now the person w (Read more)

(4 comments) (reply)

CANON: Ensemble Stars
CHARACTERS: Ritsu Sakuma
CREDIT TO:

rosebursts

HERE @

rosebursts

"If that event never occurred none of this would have happened." Philemon's words, promising to create another reality was one of the last things Tatsuya experienced in his world.

That and smacking that stupid butterfly mask off right along with Philemon's smug expression. He promised not to forget Lisa or Eikichi or Jun and now...

He's standing by himself in the Velvet Room. It looks like a lounge but only Igor's there. No Nameless, or Belladonna or Demon Painter either. Great, with no Demon Painter that made half the tarot cards that Tatsuya had on him totally useless. Maybe the fact Igor was the only one of Philemon's assistants standing around was relevant somehow, to this new reality.

Assuming he was there, since his memories were also intact. There was a cork board full of poorly organized information, so maybe that was left by a Persona user here. He decides to approach that first.

"Who the hell is Goro Akechi and why does he have so many names?" Seems to be the first thing that catches Tatsuya's eye.

( Containing: Ritsu Sakuma (& icons featuring Leo Tsukinaga & Izumi Sena). )

tell me a lie i want to hear.

HOW TO PLAY:
a. comment with your character + prefs.
b. as the above header states, another person will tell them a lie that they think your character wants to hear.
c. can you believe? as long as you need to buy into their lie, does truth matter?

(8 comments) (reply)

1. Got in the car last night to pick up vegetables, tried to use the windshield wipers to rinse away the fine yellow layer of pollen covering the windscreen, and discovered that one of my wiper blades was in the process of disintegrating. Which is potentially urgent since it's supposed to start raining today and we're supposed to go somewhere after work, and it would be nice to be able to see out the windshield while I'm driving. After running errands and eating dinner last night, we tried to go buy new wiper blades, but alas, the internet lied to us about the store hours. But this morning

grrlpup was MY HERO and went out before work to get new wipers AND got them installed. Which perhaps sounds minor, but means I will not be scrambling to run errands between dinner and square-dancing tonight, an interval that always feels very rushed and cramped. To reiterate: MY HERO.

2. I am attempting to learn how to plot map-based data in R (uphill battle, but we'll get there), and the tutorial I just now opened up had a section on spherical geometry. Spherical geometry from my nautical fandoms! <3 <3 <3

3. These last weeks we watched The Shop Around the Corner (1940), In the Good Old Summertime (1949), and You've Got Mail (1998), which are three adaptations of the same source material, a play in which two people who hate each other in real life are also anonymous pen pals falling in love with each other. We've got beef with the plot (midway through in all three adaptations, the man discovers who he has been corresponding with and doesn't share the info with her, instead choosing to use the knowledge to fuck with her, and somehow this does not cause problems for the romance?), but we kept watching each subsequent adaptation to see if any of the remakes fixed the plot. (None of them did.) Arguably, You've Got Mailmade it WORSE by changing the floor-manager/employee friction of the first two into "I run a chain of big box stores that is coming to put your family shop out o (Read more)

hi hi, howdy howdy...
just checking in while here at work to say that i saw beetlejuice yesterday and it was everything i could have hoped for and more! i did get the chance to meet justin and asked him to sign my school of rock playbill, which he did...i almost cried over this but i kept myself together and didn't-- thank god...I'll be seeing the show again tomorrow, and that is when I will start working on my much longer post about it!! I'm really looking forward to seeing it again, so keep an eye out for my rambling soon enough...that's all for now, I only have about an hour and a half left at work today!

also sorry for not commenting much on everyone's posts, please know i'm reading them! just have been much busier than i thought i would be in-between shows and stuff!
ok see you soon!

the prince & princess trope meme

DIRECTIONS:
oo1. comment with your muse & add preferences in the subject
oo2. use RNG to get your prompt (1-20)
oo3. tag around and have fun!
oo4. don't forget to avoid those dragons. unless you like dragons.

( Read more... )

I bought a pair of boxer briefs yesterday and they're so nice! Plus they're colorful. Whenever I get underwear from the women's section it's cheap but boring - you get like one fun print in the pack of gray and Granny Pantie White. But while men have more fun designs they are more expensive and the brands seems like you only get one per pack. but they're pretty nice! my only issue is that period products don't stick to them but I know there are female boxers out there. I never really thought about wearing men's underwear but I think it is splendidly comfortable! And the pair I got was rainbow, so you can't go wrong with that.

And it’s snowing. Because of course it is. And we’re under a snowfall warning with 10-30 cm of snow expected by Friday morning. Sigh.

In good news, it’s also pattern release day! The pattern for my most recent test knit for Tasha Moss of Tasha Could Make That was released today, so yay! I’m so pleased with how my project turned out and for once I had no problems finding the perfect buttons. I am very glad we were able to get in a photo session before the weather changed.

Woman wearing a vintage inspired hand knit cropped cardigan in a blue-green bulky yarn

Express Line Pattern - link to the pattern on Ravelry

Question of The Day:

March 20 - National Ravioli Day - do you enjoy Ravioli? What's your favourite flavour combination?
I do. It’s been a while since I’ve had really good Ravioli though. Back when we lived in the city we had a favourite Italian restaurant and they had a lovely veal ravioli in a rose sauce that I really liked. That restaurant no longer exists, of course. My most recent meal with Ravioli came from one of our Food Rescue packages and was obviously source from the local care home. It purported to be Butternut Squash Ravioli, but sadly it was institutional “cheese” Ravioli in canned tomato sauce with some chunks of vegies, including butternut squash, added in. Edible, but not spectacular.

Zed

20/03/2024
Starter Pack: lolegends-lux11, lolegends-lux15, lolegends-lux01, bgate-astarion15, dage-anders18, reverse199912, ffantasyxvi-kisstoremember17, hboyfriend01, ffantasyxiv-themis18, ffantasyxvi-kisstoremember18, tarcana-lucio05, persona2-isin11, estars-adonis03

wip

sᴇᴀsᴏɴᴀʟ ɢʀᴇᴇᴛɪɴɢs ᴍᴇᴍᴇ
ᴀ ɢᴇɴ ᴍᴇᴍᴇ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀssɪɴɢ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ sᴇᴀsᴏɴs
ᴏʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟ ᴍᴇᴍᴇ ʙʏ

snowbroth

i. post with your character, including series and any preferences.
ii. select prompt either with the power of your mind or the help of the lovely RNG. feel free to make your own!
iii. share the seasonal love!

( Read more... )

(4 comments) (reply)

wip

I'm not giving up my life for Pam and her fucking daughter. You made me do that so I'd feel guilty and die for her. You're an ignorant fuck.

I dont want to die in anyone's place. Leave my mom and I alone. I want my fucking inheritance back.

I'm not a celebrity but one does steals my identity and face. They're trying to make me her slave because she has a lot of money.

It wasn't originally planned by those who came to protect me but the rich, famous and influencial decided to make me their slave, the government can't regulate this but we've revealed why some people can't be famous or rich.

It's not me that can't be, as long as I become a recluse heh but it's people who are very selfish and corrupt, who may be that way due to other people who call themselves the underground government.

Some people are selfish on Their own. Sometimes they do crazy shit, they force poor people like me to die in their place or take wealth from me that was given to me for a job well done.

The United States government proved my blood family would treat me like garbage if they didn't know my race despite the fact we live in America. I was even treated like garbage by the mixed, who expected me to want them.

Sheffield and his family taught my sister that she was superior to me for being black.

Whites were mean sometimes but not really, in secret we were bestfriends or in public.

Even Asians besides a few treated me like garbage.

People constantly used me for their agendas and hurt me.

Everyone had an agenda but whites. The north American may have proved why we can't have nice things with less restriction and why people aren't really free.

The military, government and rich and influencial are constantly going through this.

I can't out if I'm the first or there are more people like me. There may be.

This was set up with the Chinese, European, Canadian and north American, Japanese governments.

We didn't want them out races, but that's how it goes. Native Americans, African Americans sometimes, the Jewi (Read more)

In more me-related running news:

1. Six cemetery loops today! I even kept my stride through all six of them, though on five and six the slowdown on the very steepest part was noticeable.

I only managed one loop yesterday, due to a perfect storm of events that conspired against me and kept me feeling very dissatisfied.

Tomorrow, unless I'm sore (but I don't expect to be), I'm gunning for 7. If I wimp out, remind me that SOME people are engaging in actual running heroics today and not complaining about a bump on the ground that I generously call a hill. :P

2. I continue to laugh my head off at how I can teach myself to decipher 18th century German handwriting and order archival material and correct errors by historians, while my eyeballs turn red and inflamed...and two people care, but I make *one* inside joke about a niche subject, and it gets retweeted by the right person, and suddenly I'm approaching 50K views and 250 likes in just a few hours. So much visibility for so little effort and so little value!

Anyway, I was waiting to see if I would win the internet, and indeed, one person has awarded me the internet for today and possibly the whole week. I've never won an internet before! :DDD

A few people responded to the f!Cassian/Jyn fic referenced here. That was a reblog of the original post and it's a little difficult to determine when people originally responded, so I'm just putting all the responses to the original prayers and proclamations post here:

rain-sleet-snow said:

<3 <3 <3

elperian reblogged it and added:

#yessssss #go read it now!

brynnmclean tagged it:

#oh good!

oh-nostalgiaa tagged it:

#yessss so good

And

incognitajones responded:

ah, thank you for the lovely flashback!

I replied:

Thank you!!

Awww, Joe McConaughy, aka Stringbean (many runners have trail names), is out with a sprained ankle, having not even completed loop 2. :( Last year he completed a Fun Run (3 loops), though not in time to continue on to loop 4.

The race that eats its young, indeed.

If you want to know more about him, this YouTube documentary about the 2023 Barkley focuses on him, though it's nice enough to give good coverage of other runners, especially the 3 finishes, and was responsible for introducing me to Karel (and Joren)!

In low-stakes drama news, current reports are saying it was a crew member, not any of the runners, who was responsible for the littering.

Though if it had been a runner or runners, my favorite tweet in the thread was a suggestion not to DQ them immediately, but to wait until they had run as far as they could, and the Barkley course had done its worst on them. Then when they tapped out, tell them, "Nah, you were disqualified anyway." Brilliant schadenfreude.

Watch on YouTube

Having thought over the two versions of Popular Ratification that I've drafted, I am more inclined to submit Version 2. If anyone prefers Version 1, you now have the language that you can use if you want to propose an amendment by substitution. Alternatively, if you want to move the voting deadline to earlier, you can move amendments to the proposal at the Glasgow Business Meeting.

I have added commentary to Version 2, with the intention of it being submitted as the makers' argument and thus part of the legislative record. The marginal comments within the document are not part of what will be submitted, but were there to help people reading the proposal understand what was going on. Yes, it can take a lot of words to explain something, with the explanation being longer than the wording of the legislation itself. That's how laws and constitutions work. "Plain language" often isn't that plain, despite what some people think.

I've seen more complicated suggestions, like having the members of Worldcons N and N+1 votes separately and both of them having to ratify the proposal. I can see the attraction, but the more bells and whistles you add to changes, the less likely they are to pass, in my opinion. But hey, anyone who wants to make amendments can do so, and all you have to do is convince a majority of the people in the room at the 2024 Business Meeting to vote for it initially.

If any of you who have previously volunteered to co-sponsor this proposal (you have to be a WSFS member of the 2024 Worldcon, attending or not, and you don't have to attend the Business Meeting to co-sponsor a proposal), contact me with your name as it appears in Glasgow's records. I don't necessarily know the names of the people behind the DW/LJ handles commenting here.

成语
斩钉截铁, firmly/resolutely (literally "chop nails and slice iron"; apparently first used in Song-era Buddhist texts?)
见多识广, experienced and knowledgeable (literally "see a lot, know broadly")
省油的灯, someone easy to deal with (literally "a fuel-saving lamp," most often used in the negative as 不是省油的灯 to mean a person who is a lot to handle; comes originally from the literal depiction of fuel-saving lamps in Song-era poems by Lu You? Hard not to include it here as part of the lantern imagery)
( pinyin )

词汇
这么, like this; 这时(候), at this time; 这样, this way ( pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-2-word-list/

Guardian:
几年来我为研究所招揽了不少英才啊，你是第一个斩钉截铁地拒绝我的人, over the last few years I've brought quite a few brilliant scholars into my institute, you're the first to turn me down flat
你跟老赵这么些年，你见多识广，你最了解他, you've been with Lao Zhao this many years, you know him backward and forward, you understand him best
我有直觉啊，这个家伙可不是省油的灯, my instinct tells me this guy is going to be trouble.
如果这时候龙城发生什么案子，谁来带队, if a case comes up in the city right now, who's going to lead the team?

Me:
最好跟他说得不多，他不是省油的灯。
忘记了吧，我怎么这么傻啊？

A black and white 1912 photo of the Villisca Axe Murder house in Villisca, Iowa, with a photograph of victim Josiah Moore. Public domain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villisca_axe_murders#/media/File:The_day_book._(Chicago,_Ill.),_14_June_1912.jpg

Hey, y’all, it’s Weird Wednesday! Where on some Wednesdays, I blog about weird stuff and give writing prompts.

Today: The Villisca Axe Murders: 1912 Tragedy

On the night of June 10, 1912, eight people were murdered with an axe in a house in Villisca, Iowa. Josiah Moore (shown above), and his wife Sarah, along with their four children and two neighbor children, were killed in their beds by a person who has never been identified. And I mean never—the internet doesn’t even have a favorite suspect.

I used to live in Iowa, and I have actually been to the “Villisca Axe Murder House,” now a museum and historical site, and a frequent host to ghost tours. Visitors are free to leave their mark on the rafters in the barn, writing messages which range from the usual names and dates to oddly creepy warnings like “Don’t stand on your head in the kids’ room.” On my visit I was struck by how little has changed, though Iowa has traveled more than a century into the future: at the end of our tour, we were discussing suspects and expressing sympathy for the victims, exactly as people have been doing outside that house for over 100 years.

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some creepy writing prompts, such as:

The Closet

According to an early rumor about the case, there was evidence the killer hid in a closet and left cigarette butts, and the mark of his own butt on a bale of cotton batting, to show he’d been in the house before the family got home that night at 9:30. Then the killer waited until at least midnight to actually attack.

So first of all, this isn’t based on any actual evidence. But it would make for a good story, because in June in Iowa in a little house without air conditioning, those closets would be sweltering. How would a murderer withstand hours in a tiny, overheated space? Could he be incredibly disciplined? Could he be having a psychotic break? Sneaking onto the par

Yesterday was nice and easy. After complaining about not being able to get to my QC work because of reopening tickets, my boss gave me a break from the queue so I could focus on it. I used the time to get through four orders -- I think that's about 25-30 certs between them. After a while it just got easy to fall into the rhythm of the work, to the point that I was hustling a bit to finish my last order at the end of the day. It's been a while since I felt good about the work I did, so that's something to celebrate.

We hit the gym after that for a chest workout, which wasn't so bad. The last few exercises we do -- DB raises -- are meant to be burnouts I guess, but boy howdy do they wreck me. The side raises especially, where you're just extending your arm out to a 90 degree angle while holding a 10-pound weight, are just murder. I should use a smaller weight for those until the support muscles are strong enough, but for some reason I never do this when I have the chance.

I tend to have my best time in the gym when I'm fully grounded in my body and have no ego about how much I can lift. Treating it as a movement exercise where the form is the most important thing is the perspective I want, but it's a little hard when you see the gains that R. and K. are making. I always feel like the fat asshole by comparison, so there's this unspoken burden on myself to lift at least half of what K. is doing at any given time, even if my form suffers.

But that's silly. I've made good progress over the past few months and as my diet improves I'll continue to build muscle and shed fat. And honestly, it's not even necessarily about that; the delight I felt coming back to the gym was the pleasure of feeling my own body at work. It's a weird way to frame it, but accurate. Imagining the 10-pound weight is a 10-pound bag of flour I'm lifting at the store makes the whole thing feel a lot less silly. And it's a lot easier to get up from the seiza bench after meditation. My core feels like it ca (Read more)

Coming Soon

Intrepid Little Bastards, part whatever.

So we hung up the fat balls on the fishing line, and as documented yesterday, an intrepid magpie stole one and had it re-stolen by a crow. We later discovered the fat ball holder on the ground, and well emptied, presumably by several happy squirrels and perhaps a corvid or two.

So Beast found a better means of affixing it to the fishing line, which, I may remind you, is strung between the corner of the house and the nearest fence post. The fat ball holder is furthest from the house, then there are three empty plastic bottles strung along the line, then a cylinder which is regularly filled with peanuts, suet, sunflower seeds, and mealworms.

Well. Today, as I was about to start on lunch, I realised that there was a fat and very happy squirrel dangling insouciantly upside-down on the suspended cylinder of peanuts, suet etc. I was impressed, and frustrated at not having seen how it got there.

So I opened the window. The squirrel dropped to the ground and fled into the bushes, along with its ground-based brethren.

Not. Five. Minutes. Later, I spied the squirrel making its way along the fishing line from the fence side. On top, like a tight-rope crawler, not shimmying along underneath. When it reached the fat ball holder, it rebalanced itself, then jumped fleetly up, bounded along the plastic bottles and leaped for the cylinder. And feasted.

I summoned my Beast, roared at the squirrel, it fled, and after five more minutes, did the whole performance again, this time underneath the fishing line until it got to the fat ball holder, where it regrouped. In the interval between cylinder feasting, it drove the other squirrels away from the bounty spilled onto the ground during its feastings.

I am (a) impressed with this squirrel's agility; (b) wondering if putting the fat balls up there was a strategic error, since the container provides a platform and quite possibly also steadies the plastic bottles; and (c) determined to thwart the in (Read more)

Thinking about the last time I went through airport security there was a girl there just deadass wearing nothing except a skin-tight unitard. Breezing through the body scanners, no care in the world. Pure power move.

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Too Much (Buffy, PG) by badly_knitted

Secret Slayers (Buffy/Spike, E) by bewildered

[Chaptered Fiction]

[Russian language] Благие намерения, Chapters 1-5/5 COMPLETE! (Buffy/Angel, T) by B_E_S
Breaking the Code, Chapter 1/? (Dawn, Star Wars xover, G) by Buffyworldbuilder
[French language] Recommencer, Chapter 1/? (Buffy/Faith, M) by FridayQueen
Never Give Up, Chapters 58-64/64 COMPLETE! (Buffy/Angel, T) by melodys_muse
[Ukrainian language] Forward to Time Past//Вперед у час минулий, Chapter 33/67 (Buffy/Spike, E) translation by Uraniya
hit rewind, Chapter 43/? (Buffy/Spike, M) by untiljanuary

Early One Morning, Chapter 25 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by all choseny
A Little Poet in Her Monster, Chapter 11 (Buffy/Spike, R) by Desicat
Forgiveness Doesn't Come Easy, Chapter 27 (Buffy/Spike, R) by Slaymesoftly
Love Lives Here, Chapter 37 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Passion4Spike

A Breath is But a Soundless Whisper, Chapters 30-31 (Buffy/Spike, 18+) by Blackoberst

Left on Read, Chapter 19 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by ashcrashed
Bizarre Double Life, Chapter 20 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by violettathepiratequeen
Embrace, Chapters 19-20 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by Harlow Turner
Out of the Wasteland, Chapters 19-20 (Buffy/Spike, R) by Harlow Turner
Truth or Dare, Chapter 20 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Chelle
I love you., Chapter 20 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Lilacsandorangeblossoms
Tag, You're It!, Chapter 20 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by VeroNyxK84
How Could I Not?, Chapter 20 (Buffy/Spike, R) by simmony
Glimpses of the Cellar Dwellers, Chapter 20 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by Maldorana
We’re Having a Baby!, Chapter 20 (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only) by Maxine Eden
30 Ways to Say I

They fall together, like fresh snow off the mountaintop: first, in measured, patient, cultivating reunion after an extended dinner at their inn. Then, with passion. Then, syrupy and slow, with morning. In a rare, turn, after bathing, Lan Wangji denies himself the rigors and discipline of morning and coaxes them back abed, to hold his lover throughout his rest near sunrise, until halfway to midday.

He stirs them, inevitably, when the blinding bright white of the day overwhelms, and they must set for the road to make good pace to Cloud Recesses while still enjoying their stroll. They arrive, meandering, in the depths of a trickling, golden afternoon, when much of the clan is distracted with the latest lecture of a visiting hermit — they say, an aspiring immortal — and neither Uncle nor Sizhui can be politely parted from his wisdom. First, a brief stop with Liang. Secondly, for Lan Wangji, yet slowed by his fading wounds and bruises, to test the recovery of his disciples.

Lastly, facing the dregs of an afternoon together with no duties, no assignments, no occupation — curiosity wins over. With the packed necessities of a quick meal in his qiankun pouch, he steers Wei Ying to walk the winding, if peaceful path toward the peripheral territories, past the liminal, isolated quietude of the jingshi and into the periphery of Lan Wangji's inherited grounds.

A short walk, yet they may have breached the threshold of a brave new world. He had chosen the space for its proximity to river water, cunning, lively spikes of rice stabbing the field, alongside feral flowers. Already, the builders and architects have marked a path to make a road, but they have yet to set down wood or stone for steps. These, he knows, are still youngdays for their home, Wei Ying's house, rising on strong, sprawling bones that stretch out over a considerable territory: a number of rooms, some superfluous, including an isolated study for Wei Ying's pleasure and a music chamber. A large kit

It's been a while; things still suck.

A statement from Jewish Americans opposing AIPAC: In contrast to AIPAC, we are American Jews who believe that US support for foreign governments should only be extended to those that respect the full human and civil rights, and right to self-determination, of all people. We oppose all forms of racism and bigotry, including antisemitism—and we support the historic alliance in our country of Jewish Americans with African Americans and other people of color in the cause of civil rights and equal justice.

Reject AIPAC - is a broad coalition of progressive groups working together to take on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated dark money Super PACs across electoral, political, digital and organizing strategies. The coalition calls on candidates for federal office to take the Reject AIPAC Pledge to not take endorsements or contributions from AIPAC and/or aligned PACs.

Has Zionism Lost the Argument?

There was a recent article in NYT about Guernica editors quitting over an article that was published by an Israeli writer. I didn't find the actual article itself offensive, maybe just kind of misguided or something? But anyway, r/literature has the actual gossip - the real issue is that the article was published without any editorial insight/input and did not reflect the vision of the magazine.

Speaking of NYT, New York War Crimes is a single-purpose site documenting criticism of NYT's journalistic practices, especially in regards to Palestine.

Mass death is imminent in Gaza.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Carol Ryrie Brink’s Winter Cottage, a wonderful book! Near the beginning of the Great Depression, Minty and Eggs are on the road with their sweet but feckless father when their car breaks down… right next to someone’s charming isolated lakeshore summer cottage. As their current destination is the back bedroom of an aunt who emphatically does not want to put them up, they make only some half-hearted attempts to fix the car before settling into the cottage for the winter. (Conveniently, they arrive with a winter’s worth of provisions, left over from their father’s latest failed business venture: a grocery store.) Exactly as cozy as a book with such a premise should be.

I also read Gerald Durrell’s Catch Me a Colobus, because I realized that the local library has a few of his books I hadn’t read and instantly could not survive another moment with a fresh Gerald Durrell book in my life. This one is a bit of a hodgepodge, I suspect because Durrell wrote it swiftly to get funds to shore up his zoo, which is mostly what the first third of the book is about, as he returned from a collecting trip to find the zoo hovering on the edge of bankruptcy. We continue on a trip to Sierra Leone for his first BBC series (this is the bit that the title comes from, as colobus monkeys are high on his list for the collecting trip), and end with a trip to Mexico to collect the rare Teporingo, a volcano-dwelling rabbit in danger of extinction.

Although hopping from continent to continent like this makes the book a bit formless, Durrell’s prose is a delight as always. I love his metaphors, perfectly apt and entirely unexpected: the “slight squeak” of a Teporingo, “like somebody rubbing a damp thumb over a balloon,” or the experience of walking through a forest of massive bamboo stalks, which “creak and groan musically” in the slightest wind; “It must have sounded like that rounding the Horn in an old sailing ship in high wind.”

What I’m Reading Now (Read more)

I've been sleeping really poorly for a couple of weeks. I keep waking up an hour or so before my alarm and then intermittently until my alarm goes of, and then—the irony—I slept through my alarm on Tuesday to the point I don't even remember it ringing although it must have because I checked it was on the night before.

I'm pretty sure it's anxiety, but I'm not sure what is setting it off so much. I need to spend some time with that...But because I've been having trouble sleeping, I've been reading a lot. (And also, because I picked some really good books this last fortnight.)

What I just finished reading

First, I finished reading Interbeing, which describes the working of the Order of Interbeing and their documents. I'm not sure that I expected the topic based on the cover. (I keep picking books on the basis of (a) their cover, (b) what someone said about it that caught my interest, (c) approximately two sentences of the blurb I read, (d) very occasionally, on the basis of the entire blurb. All this to say that I pick my book based on ✨vibes✨.) Now I know that Thich Nhat Hahn has two types of books, "technical Plum Village" type of books and "general populace" type of books. To come back to Interbeing, I didn't expect it, but I actually found it interesting because I'm a nerd like that.

My next book was The Name of the Rose. It's a book that I've been looking at on our bookshelves for 20 years (exactly, I checked). I actually would have taken a crack at it sooner but our edition was sadly blurbless. I liked it so much! It was interesting and funny, which I'm not sure I thought it would be based on the first couple of chapters. I've copied out a bunch of quotes, separated out into two categories: sleep because it's been a struggle, and funny conversations between William and Adso. I don't think that any of the quotes are more spoilery than the blurb, but it might spoil the humorous effect, so thread carefully.

Adso's thoughts on sleep

Here's a r

Что будет, если в Сахаре построят коммунизм? Первые двадцать лет -- ничего, а потом песок закончится.

Спрос на испанскую красавицу Марию-Хуану побил все рекорды. По крайней мере, в области ценопроизводства. Причин называют много, одной из них то, что в Испании цены на нее еще выше. Вы им верите? Я -- да. Решили, что могут взять еще больше, вот и берут. Тем более, что новым гендиректором назначили чувака со звонкой фамилией Шекель. Но обо всем по порядку.

Был проведен очередной эксперимент ~~по построению коммунизма в Сахаре~~в исраномике с настолько же предсказуемым результатом, как в анекдоте. Если израильское правительство за что-то возьмется, подключит регулятора, займется ценами и станет заботиться о слабых слоях, то вскоре в области образуется картель, цены взлетят до небес, конкуренция кончится не начавшись, кучу бабок урвет государство на налоги, остальное допилят допущенные через регулятора бизнесмены, почти наверняка суперблатные. Растить марихуану в Израиле -- не надо ничего. Был даже случай, когда ее высадили на разделилке на въезде в святой город, благо клумбу поливают за госсчёт. И только с большим опозданием и по наводке менты спохватились и приехали выдирать. Придумать здесь бизнес сложно, но можно. Уже когда пошел базз о пользе медицинской марихуаны, и туда ломанулся эхуд бардак, стало ясно, что бибкино правительство собирается забить на обещания легалайза (а, может, и декриминализации), а вместо этого будет доить торчков (и больных) под предлогом заботы о медицине. Собственно, (Read more)

Вот каким должен быть гороховый суп, а не та бодяга, полное недоразумение.
Чтобы ложка стояла!.

6b8a3540-af69-11ed-adf2-f5662c7af325

Salvest-Hernesupp_UUS_210x280_preview-kinnitamiseks-03-1200x675-1

Apples

Totally Had to Share!

Permanent link to this comic: https://xkcd.com/2161/

Happy Bunny Festival/Spring Equinox!

Hoping you all are having a Bunny-full time with warmness and daffodils

Вдова Алексея Навального – Юлия Навальная – заявила во вторник, что Владимир Путин не является законным президентом России и что она попытается убедить мировых лидеров не садиться с ним за стол переговоров.

«Мы доказали себе и другим, что Путин – не наш президент, – заявила Навальная в ролике, размещенном на YouTube-канале ее покойного мужа. – Результаты выборов значения не имеют... Мы будем добиваться, чтобы никто в мире не признал Путина легитимным президентом, чтобы никто не садился с ними за стол переговоров».

Watch on YouTube

Last week, I woke up to this song on my dash. It was poetry set to music, such that the gorgeous strings arrangement was merely present as emotional punctuation, and I sat transfixed like a pinned butterfly. Not just over the idea of reincarnation, because honestly that's been done to death. No, more the idea of people we would reach for across space and time, even if everything went to hell in this life. That we would recognize them no matter how we reconstructed our lives and decide, even knowing how it ended up the last time around! the getting there was so worth it we'll try again. 'I can't imagine you without the same smile in your eyes. there is something about you I will always recognize'. and in the knowing it will be worth it. No matter how many hours of tales they have to recount about hummingbirds and scorpions and mountain retreats. Fuck I was in tears in the best way, and then I needed to know who all these artists were! (Because I'm late to all the good parties.) And that they're a queer supergroup, with this wonderful catalogue both together and apart is such an unmitigated joy. I'm savoring it in tiny precious ambrosia sips.

On Sunday I went to the cousins with Dad and made everyone dinner. I know I can help with food. Patient cousin wasn't doing as well as Dad said she was on Friday night. I was surprised. She was in the living room with people and not coughing, but seemed not following things, and rather weak. They were having her used a bathing treatment thing as they thought it was the bronchitis. I thought maybe it was turning into pneumonia Then the pro bother who had the heart surgery comes in and they tell him about the cancer. I would have thought they would have said something when he got released from the hospital. He did well, but I could tell he was hurt that no one was going to tell him unless he came over. They lied to him and said that they just told me and Dad today too. It was very uncomfortable.

Today I get a call in work. The lead cousin wants to update me. I thought the appointment where they find out the test results was on Thursday..then they would tell people. They wanted me to call my uncles and sister. Well it seams lead cousin wanted to take her sister to the ER on Monday because she forgot how to sign in on her lap top and hadn't given anyone else at work or at home her passwords. She refused to go. Yesterday lead cousin got her to go to the ER...she was too confused to say no. Her doctor sent her to the hospital in Needham and not Boston because he thought it was closer ...ummm...wtf... I don't understand why she did not have an ambulance bring her to Boston (the hospital I work at). The found out her calcium had spiked and that was causing the issues. They treated her for that and want to transfer her to Boston because while they can run tests they cannot actively treat cancer. Now they have to wait for a bed to open in Boston... They took the Mom in to visit and they would stay as long as they could. I thought that was good as she may not be able to have visitors when they start treating the cancer....if they have to do emergy treatmen (Read more)

(3 comments) (reply)

Watching Scissor Seven in my pastime between the usual popular titles.

Scissor Seven is really good too, it's got a style that feels more a mixture of that watercolor style that I associate with manwha but is more what you'd expect from something like Superjail!/Ballmasterz. In all honesty it's a messy style that I think Chainsawman should have had as the manga's style is messy which reflects the pulp feel of it imo, kind of like Dorohedoro. Anyway, this series would fit perfectly on Adult Swim and kind of surprised Netflix let it reach 4 seasons because Netflix.

With regards to the more popular stuff, I'm glad people are really getting into Dungeon Meshi, it was long overdue and Ryoko Kui is a master crafter at what she has made so just happy to see that.

Getting warmer, getting warmer, already warm:

Following up on this post’s top link, NASA's Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth after 4 nail-biting months of gibberish. (via)

Graph of date of peak cherry blossoms in Kyoto from 812 CE to today. The warmer average temperatures means earlier blooming. (via)

Zoomable map of all hotsprings in the United States, with temperatures. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from Naming of Parts, Henry Reed.

Welp, I received a dispute verdict from the bank that said my ATM transactions gave the correct amount and I angrily corrected them that it was someone stealing my card.

Then I was told that I need to provide more proof which left me wondering what the hell can I even provide when it happened on a day I spent entirely in the house so called them again and was told to file a report, so went to a police station to file a report as not-awkwardly as possible. This was followed by yet another call to them because they gave me a deadline that didn't work with office business hours. Then it included several hours of calling a phone bank where I couldn't reach the detective because I couldn't find them only to eventually find out that the phone bank was using the names of previous detectives that left.

So finally, after all that hurdle jumping, I finally got a verdict and-in my shock-they actually refunded me the money. I'm still waiting for ATM fees to be refunded but the lion's share is back. Thank god.

Ironically this was money that I was thinking of passing along to other people so it wasn't something I was planning to gripe over too much and tbh I only made a big deal out of it because I wanted to give my bank a hard time for having such terrible customer support. Anyway, passed some to someone I know with rent problems and I'll probably move some along to other people along the way.

I'm also reducing my debit use as much as possible to reduce this from happening. Also, this taught me that the next time someone skims my card, it's quicker to just say someone stole the goddamn card. At least if it's credit card fraud it's easier to deal with loss prevention.

Tally:
Welcome post
Rec your work post

( Days 1-10 )

Day 11:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

lferion,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

yasaman,

yhlee,

ysilme

Day 12:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

lferion,

luzula,

sakana17,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

yhlee,

ysilme

Day 13:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

lferion,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

yasaman,

yhlee,

ysilme

Day 14:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

lferion,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

yasaman,

yhlee,

ysilme

Day 15:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

lferion,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

yasaman,

yhlee,

ysilme

Day 16:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

vendettadays,

yasaman,

yhlee,

ysilme

Day 17:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

vendettadays,

yasaman,

yhlee,

ysilme

Day 18:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

luzula,

marvelouscity,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

yasaman,

yhlee,

ysilme

Day 19:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

yasaman,

ysilme

Day 20:

china_shop

Let us know if we missed you or if you didn't check in for a while, so we can add you. Of course joining the fun is possible at any point.

~ ~ ~

ysilme here: Thank you all for your good wishes! My trip went fine; for once a railway trip without any issues, interruptions, delays or anything, which doesn't happen too often according to frequent travellers. ;op
Writing-wise only an alibi sentence today - there wasn't enough space for my notebook and being left-handed I need a proper table to write longhand, and now I'm too knackered for more.

(3 comments) (reply)

( OOC intro )

There will be more words later, but for now:

https://www.vickersfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/Patricia-Lou-Vogel?obId=31027504

( this is a cut )

"всё идёт по плачу"
"всё идёт по плацу"
"всё идёт по плаху"

--
А.Кац и Я

This morning started in a pretty promising manner - one of the first things that happened was I got a phone call asking about my interest in a project administrator role. They said they would send me the information, but didn’t - I think I maybe scared them off with talking about trying to go in a project management direction. (If they didn’t see a way to progress from their project administrator job to project management, then in my opinion I dodged a bullet… that’s the predicament I’m in now, after all.)

I did my work and kicked butt - I’m irritated, but I’m not unprofessional - and then I went home, opened my personal laptop, and began working on applications. I need to work on streamlining my process more - Looking up a job advertisement, researching the organisation and taking notes about it and its role, looking at desirable criteria/credentials and see if I have anything that translates or evidence that I could and would work toward its criteria if achieving the role, and customising my CVs and Cover Letters.

I hate it - it isn’t fair to have to go through so much effort multiple times per day, when they only have to do it once and then just use the same description for that position repeatedly. But it is what it is.

I don’t know how I’m going to afford it but I think I also need to make sure I get some APM, CMI, and other coursework in.

I’m kind of curious about the officer positions. I didn’t get shortlisted. I just hope I don’t see it on the job board again.

I remember the first time I tried to play Fallout: New Vegas, I was just incredibly confused. ( Read more... )
Courier Nisk is tired of the Legion's shit
With all that in mind, I'm now replaying Fallout: New Vegas and having a much better time. ( Read more... )
Courier Nisk also took 2.3 seconds to get tired of Father Elijah's shit
Knowing that I'm closing in on the endgame, I figured it's time to go do some DLC! I picked Dead Money first, because the internet told me to. Elijah managed to mash all my Courier's buttons all at once right from the get-go ( Read more... )

So yeah, Fallout: New Vegas, you sometimes are lazy as hell in the plot department, and you crash to desktop like it's your job, but sometimes you do get things right.

Chugging along work. Diving into Book 4 of the Earthsea stories. Been having fun in Magma on and off with friends and todays the official first day of spring. Gonna make a pot of tea and lock in with these next 3 cuts.

turns out the questionable beetroot pasta does a much better job of resembling food minus the cheese. still not going to make it again, but very glad I only added the cheese to the half of it we actually ate on Monday -- which meant that the other half did not wind up going in the compost today.
( teeth )
PIP review form showed up on Friday last. I've requested copies of letters various from the GP. I have not actually opened the damn thing and started going through it yet. temptation to just scrawl "all my incurable congenital conditions are still incurable, PS I have chronic migraine now" over the front and leave it at that Extremely High (but will not actually be indulged).
made it to the allotment!!!!! saw FAKE SNAKES, one of which was Basking Happily in the (currently mostly empty) bed in the greenhouse. ( animal harm )
SAW THE BAT SAW THE BAT SAW THE BAT. was on call with S. stopped abruptly and stared fixedly over the top of the laptop screen out the window. went "-- but it might just have been a bi-- IT CAME BACK IT'S A BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT". approximately.

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I feel that I should note here for the record that I've now lived in the DC about 25 years, which is kind of remarkable even though I don't have much to say about it. I came here with no job and no local contacts; I thought I'd pay off some debts and then go back to graduate school. I did pay off the debts, eventually. [First I racked up even more debt.]

It all turned out OK, which wasn't obvious when I came down here and stayed for two weeks in a rundown motel off interstate 395 while looking for a place that would rent to someone who didn't have a job. I was lucky. I had a decent education and parents who were willing and able to co-sign a lease. My asshole graduate advisor grudgingly told one of my friends that the National Science Foundation wanted to offer me a job while I was of no fixed address (ah, the days before mobile phones).

I didn't get my Ph.D., but I still think that a doctorate would be a great retirement project. I make four times what I made at my first job, and I work for an organization that does good things. More surprisingly, they don't do anything (as far as I know) that I don't support. My boss leaves me alone but has my back when I need her. I don't have or need a professional photograph of myself. I like most of the people I regularly work with.

I have a career (ugh), a spouse, a house, a dog, and maybe four true, local friends who I didn't know before I moved here. One of those four is my spouse. I'm at the point where I have choices, and I'm comfortable prioritizing my happiness over lots of other things (prestige, money, power, etc.). I agonize over whether to donate small amounts of money to many different causes or focus on larger donations to a few core issues. I have a lot of books and vintage Tupperware.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024, episodes 1-2)

Started watching the new AtLA. Trying to rewatch the original animated along with it, using this Nerdist guide to which cartoon episodes are getting adapted into which live-action ones.

So far, I really like the choices they’re making! The first live-action episode is a condensed version of episodes 1-3, with some fight scenes combined and some shenanigans trimmed out. Also, some info from later in the show is worked in — I’m not sure we needed to open with an extended flashback from Aang’s era, but I like that, say, Katara and company don’t just have to guess how long Aang was frozen, he mentions a festival for Sozin’s Comet and they can get a precise date from there.

The second one is a remix of animated episode 4, bulked up with scenes of Aang actually connecting with Avatar Kyoshi, and getting some substantial plot-advancing backstory, which worked well (and was probably a lot easier than trying to have him surf/wrestle a giant CGI fish).

Sokka’s first meeting with Suki gets revised from “Sokka mocks the combat skills of her whole gender, gets beaten in a fight, and can’t improve until he gets over feeling embarrassed on behalf of his whole gender” to “Sokka tries to look personally cool/impressive, gets beaten in a fight, and can’t improve until he gets over feeling embarrassed that someone he thinks is hot will see all the gaps in his combat skills.” Which honestly feels like, if they were writing the original cartoon right now in 2024, that’s just how they would’ve done it.

(The ill-fated Last Airbender movie is fresh-ish in the memory, they played it at the 2023 Marathon, a little more than a year ago. This is such a relief in comparison. The acting, the pacing, the worldbuilding, it’s all so beautifully solid.)

Meanwhile, still working through…

Mawaru Penguindrum

So I'm standing in the lobby waiting for my physio appt so as not to be too early, and yes I'm standing in a stupid way- bent over the rollator reading my phone- and I straighten up and BAM suddenly I can't put any weight on my right leg and the knee wants to crumple and the tendons have gone to concrete and I'm insta-crippled. Limped the ten metres to the clinic and tried to get things to loosen a bit. Physio did her best and I was able to get home and up the stairs, both of which had threatened to be impossible. So ice and gout meds and fuckit another Baker's cyst or the old one acting up again, and the next litte while is going to be very interesting indeed because this is worse than last November was.

Another interesting short story from Liu Cixin, about a civilization of elderly folks who had created Earth, coming home to have someone to take care of them in old age.

Spoilers.

( Read more... )

The next job from Mission Control is to go to Duna, but before that, a launch window to Moho will open up. I will send a probe there to get some science and, if I do it right, put a satellite in orbit to use the Orbital Survey mod to begin mapping the planet.

I know this launch window is coming up because the Alarm Clock mod will apparently reach out to Alexmoon’s Launch Window Planner to tell you when those windows will be. The mod predicts the window for Year 1, Day 154.

Wanting the detailed information about Ejection Angles, Ejection Inclination, and the delta-V required, I went to the Launch Window Planner website and it gave me conflicting information. There was a not-so-good window back on Day 94 and a good window coming up on Day 269. Day 154 was pretty much the worst time to try to get to Moho.

I wasn’t sure why the dates were so different but using the protractor on the screen method of judging the 108.2 degree transfer window, it looks like the year 1, day 154 information from the Alarm Clock mod is the correct one

That doesn’t tell me the Ejection Inclination, so there may be an inclination change maneuver node needed.

It also doesn’t tell me the specific delta-V requirements. According to the KSP delta-V map:

(930 transfer + 760 capture + 2,400 low orbit) + 20% = 4,908 m/s

The KSP delta-V map suggests a possible 2,520 m/s might be necessary for an inclination change but that assumes you are going to be burning at an ascending ot descending node to match inclinations. You probably don’t need to do that but, even so, Moho is a challenge for being so deep in the sun’s gravity well and you will probably use more delta-V than even Launch Window Planner would predict. Even with the 20% I threw in there as Standard Operating Procedure, I will build with more.

As the plan is to have a single satellite perform both the visual and region orbital surveys, I add two antennas, the Communotron DTS-M1 and the RA-15 Relay Antennabecause they (Read more)

Этому дала, этому дала, этому дала, а этому - не дала. Не потому что мой любимчик, а просто руки не дошли.

--
А.Кац и Я

Ask my top 5 anything, and I'll answer in reply.

(16 comments) (reply)

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, "Is it good, friend?"

"It is bitter - bitter", he answered,

"But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart."

~Stephen Crane, In The Desert

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

~Raymond Carver

Husband had an eye screening appointment today all the way out at Aintree but I really didn't feel up to taking him. My body just wanted to stay put and heal. I didn't want to end up stranded at Aintree, not feeling up to getting home again or struggling to do so. Plus, it takes almost half a day - an hour's travel each way (allowing for the taxi to arrive, traffic issues, etc) and an hour for the appointment. So, I rang up to cancel and the receptionist said they'd get us an appointment at the Royal, instead! The Royal is so much easier.

Got a head start on my monthly report because I'm on leave next week, and did the fortnightly dashboard update for what I'm hoping is the last time because our wonderful placement student is building me a new one in Power BI! I've left it in EPC's hands but I will need to focus on getting the final tweaks done.

Watched Fuzzfinger do the Junon parade, which looks like a bit of a pain. Barret looks cute in his sailor suit, though <3

Some progress in FFXVI. Mid is now firmly installed and I did a couple of sidequests. Dorys' VA seems - lacklustre...? But now that I think about it, I remember her improving as the game progressed. She's one of the NPCs who has an interesting story arc, too.

A couple of biopics coming up on Netflix look interesting - 'Shirley' about Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for POTUS, and 'Scoop' about the women who organised the interview with Prince Andrew about his relationship with Epstein. I didn't watch the interview at the time because I have zero interest in Andrew, but I'm intrigued by this being from the pov of the women.

And that's about all from today.

pov you are desperate for genuine connection
pov everyone you meet senses how desperate you are
pov you thought this year would be a magical experience
pov reality hits hard and hits day after day relentlessly
pov everyone knows your presence here is fleeting so nobody wants to get to know you
pov your brash personality pushes everyone away
pov you have too much free time so fucking much free time that all you do is think and think and dwell and dwell
pov you want it all to go quiet but it never goes quiet
pov you wake up at 2am every night sometimes 1am sometimes 3am and lay in bed for hours thinking endlessly on top of the long waking hours of staring at the ceiling, at the closet door
pov you want this to end but you’re afraid of it ending because you don’t want to go back to the same because you thought this year would be different because you can’t accept that it wasn’t even half as good as you thought it would be.

pov you’re scribbling in notes app and wishing someone could relate to you: “Theres a moment when the thrill wears off and you think wow I came here for things to be better but it seems like everything is just worse and then you have a crisis bc you don’t have your friends or your comfort foods and no one talks the way you do and you’re also older than everyone else and everyone your age already has stability and you’re just like wtf is my life and even if you know it’ll get better eventually the present still fuckin sucks”

Hello everyone!
Thank you all for 15 years so far, of amazing icons!

As the majority of us online journaling veterans, are still migrating from Livejournal; as this is an active community, I figured a Friending Meme is in order! Lets make some new friends, to keep our online journaling aesthetic alive!

Just copy and paste this code below as a comment, and let the friendships begin!
Feel free to reference this Friending Meme to others too!
(you can take out some of the questions to your liking as well.)

Title: The Need for Speed
Fandom: MCU
Rating: General
Length: 359 words
Summary: Steve didn't tell anyone about all those tickets, especially not Tony.

( text )

In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World’s First Prophet, by Paul Kriwaczek. About 20 years ago I read a book that made unusual connections between the culture of western medieval Europe with the ancient Scythians, the people who lived in what is now Ukraine, and recently I was wondering what this book was. And then I found it properly shelved on my bookshelves, so I read it again. This time I’m going to summarize what’s going on in each of the chapters, for my future reference.

The first chapter is a rambling but interesting account of the author’s various encounters with remnants of the Zoroastrian religion, during his many years travelling and living in Central Asia. From this point he works backwards through history.

Chapter 2 is about Nietzsche, whose phrase “Also Sprach Zarathustra” was used by Richard Strauss in the music later adapted to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. We learn that Nietzsche thought his work was overthrowing the ideas our culture got about “good” versus “evil” from Zarathustra and that we needed to transcend conventional ideas of morality. Of course the Nazis later thought this was great.

Chapter 3 is the one I remembered, in which we learn that the Albigensian heresy in western Europe (the Cathars) was because of the religious beliefs they shared with the Bogomils in Bosnia, in which the material world was evil. The author traces these religious ideas to the Visigoths, and from them back to the Scythians, who were influenced by the Zoroastrians, and considers other aspects of European medieval culture to have also come from the Visigoths. “Wherever the new masters settled, in today’s France, Spain, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, the new “Gothic” way of life took over, with its heavy cavalry and mounted aristocracy, its social division between rulers and ruled, its music, poetry, art and craftsmanship, as well as its special status for women.”

In Chapter 4, we learn about (Read more)

Today, after some false starts, I think I finally found the solution to covering the rear window in my car. Basically, because the glass struts and the rear windshield wiper, I couldn't make a proper stencil, even in parts, for my usual Reflectix/Cloth blackout shades. Then, I decided to try just attaching the black cloth to the rim of the window with magnets. It worked well, but left gaps on the side and at the bottom. So I attached some more magnets. I'm hoping it will work well enough at night to be indistinguishable from tinted windows.
I'm going to do a light test tonight. If the fabric is too light porous, on its own, I can attack black duct tape to the inside for better obfuscation.
Wish me luck! *fingers crossed*

Today is sunny and cool.

I fed the birds. I've seen several sparrows, several house finches, two robins, two starlings, a male cardinal, and a mourning dove.

I dug the hole to plant the 'Fall Gold' yellow raspberry.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- I planted the yellow raspberry.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- We moved the 2 bags of cypress mulch from the trunk of the car, one to the Colorado blue spruce tree and one to the picnic table.

I've heard crows and red-winged blackbirds in the yard.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- I spread compost around the yellow raspberry, then added the jug and the label.

Today is sunny and cool.

I fed the birds. I've seen several sparrows, several house finches, two robins, two starlings, a male cardinal, and a mourning dove.

I dug the hole to plant the 'Fall Gold' yellow raspberry.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- I planted the yellow raspberry.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- We moved the 2 bags of cypress mulch from the trunk of the car, one to the Colorado blue spruce tree and one to the picnic table.

I've heard crows and red-winged blackbirds in the yard.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- I spread compost around the yellow raspberry, then added the jug and the label.

Even to the edge of doom (9003 words) by lotesse
Chapters: 4/10
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Caspian/Lucy Pevensie
Characters: Lucy Pevensie, Caspian (Narnia), Edmund Pevensie, Eustace Scrubb, Drinian (Narnia), Bern (Narnia), Coriakin (Narnia), Aslan (Narnia)
Additional Tags: Canon Rewrite, Aged-Up Character(s), Sailing, Romance, Eventual Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Royalty, POV Multiple
Series: Part 2 of An ever-fixèd mark
Summary:

The spirit that had awoken in her in was, Lucy knew, part of her former life, her life before she’d gone back to being a schoolgirl again. Not stuck visiting family, or bored and dreaming during lessons, but striking out with knife, claws, and faith for freedom, for justice, for her people, for what was right.

Coming back to Narnia meant taking on a mantle of majesty. She felt, not old, not young, but the Queen again.

Korean-style hotdog edition.

After Alvin Zhou took a swing at these, I was curious enough to try the place not far from here that does them.

My initial reaction: this is trash food for garbage people.

It's possible I just ate it too soon out of the fryer: the breading detached from the interior almost immediately, and the cheese in mine was much too runny. Also why is there sugar on it? The bread part was good enough.

Ultimately it's just a hotdog on a stick, so I might give it another try, next time giving it a minute or two to firm up and not be mouth-burningly hot on the inside. But it's also a $7 hotdog on a stick, which is pretty dear.

Maybe being drunk helps?