Daily Check-in

Jul. 28th, 2025 06:00 pm
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
 
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Monday, June July 28, to midnight on Tuesday, July 29. (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33438 Daily Check-in
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 2

How are you doing?

I am OK.
2 (100.0%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
0 (0.0%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single.
1 (50.0%)

One other person.
1 (50.0%)

More than one other person.
0 (0.0%)




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
 

Write Every Day: Day 28

Jul. 28th, 2025 04:44 pm
sanguinity: (writing - semicolon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

[personal profile] zwei_hexen has graciously agreed to host us in August! (Thank you, [personal profile] sylvanwitch and [personal profile] ysilme!)

My check-in: Inspired by how much fun [personal profile] brithistorian has been having writing pomegaverse these last couple of days, I ditched my other projects and started on my Keep Fandom Weird bingo card. Someone's terrible horrible no good very bad day just got even worse. :-DDDDD

Day 28: [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] sanguinity

Day 27: [profile] badlyknitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] yasaman,

more days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

New to me Big Finish Audio

Jul. 28th, 2025 09:38 pm
beccaelizabeth: my Watcher tattoo in blue, plus Be in red Buffy style font (Default)
[personal profile] beccaelizabeth
I am so so so behind on Big Finish, today I listened to some from 2018.

7, Ace and Mel, in Red Planets and The Dispossessed

Second one first: I don't think The Dispossessed really filled out the corners in its story, and Ace and Mel seemed to witness the story more than be in it. I think I missed bits of some conversations because it was just some guy explaining his side of the plot to them. There was an alien made vivid by having her speak like a regular person, but somehow the regular people didn't have the same trick. And there was a girl whose entire presence in the story was just, like, being scared and hiding. Basically the Doctor got to be cool but everyone else got to be there, so, not my favourite.

I like how Ace and Mel compare contrast. They're both older because Big Finish, but the ways they have and have not changed get really highlighted by putting them in these stories together.

Red Planets was much cleverer and did have a lot of corners full of story. Written by Una McCormack. Alternate history. Interesting ideas. And all back in the box by the end, but the biggest interesting idea is, how is this one history the Right history, really? Because it is the one the Doctor (and the audience) knows? All these people, all wiped away because the Right history had to happen again.
Which they've also done with Klein but this was a good take on it too.
I liked how they introduced the strangeness via Mel. Mel's thing is she Doesn't Forget, but here the history she's so sure she remembers is news to the listener. Interesting unsettling way to go.
Ace ending up uncertain if she was cause or cure of all the weird is good as well.
Ace is so confident by this point in her stories, and not exactly trusting of the Doctor, so doing this to her is much story.



Can't remember which I've said but I've been listening to 7 Ace Mel stories all since A Life of Crime the last few days. The idea of Mel getting her possibilities ate in her sleep remains one of the creepiest. And there's a lot of good character stuff happening, bringing Mel back in a story continues way. Now she might leave any time, or do anything.

She just did a very big anything at the end of the last story so I look forwards to the next story.

But it is 10pm and I has a busy day (opticians, test, ordering new glasses in old frames)
so I shall try and be sensible and go sleep.
vivdunstan: Art work for the IF Archive including traditional text adventure tropes like a map, lamp, compass, key, rope, books a skull, and a sigh referring to grues (interactive fiction)
[personal profile] vivdunstan
Another casualty of the UK Online Safety Act: all interactive fiction (including traditional parser text adventures) games stored at http://ifarchive.org are currently geoblocked to UK users. The IFTF folks are trying to work out a solution, but there is no current clue to how long that might take. The archive holds 30+ years worth of generally amateur/free IF games - a vast number. Including my own. Which I can't play online right now. Not that I want to, but it's rather ironic! Meanwhile the intfiction forum where this might usually be discussed is still down 36 hours later, after a Linode cloud server outage.

And IFComp is also likely to be affected, including the next competition opening for judging in just over a month. IFTF folk are currently urgently reviewing that. I wonder if I'll be able to play *any* IFComp games this year.

vital functions

Jul. 27th, 2025 11:00 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Reading. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh, The Book, with A, a chapter at a time.

Also a bit more of The Age of Seeds, but only a very little bit.

Writing. Fun migraine facts: I spent the weekend discovering that writing by hand at speed Just Does Not Work Well. "Stopping" for "stopper", "fascinate" for "fastener", and so on and so forth...

Listening. Songs and stories! Including, apparently, these people + friends.

Playing. Admin: the LRP.

Eating. I may have slightly subsisted primarily on lemon and sugar crêpes. The raspberry and lemon curd toasties remain a delight. Some blackberries from the hedges.

Exploring. Finally (consciously) observed the giant purple cockerel. The Navarr woods at night.

Growing. Actually managed to water the plants before setting off, go me.

Observing. A BAT IN THE MARQUEE. ALSO A GIANT DRAGONFLY. Also the swallows (I think). Stars.

August reccers volunteer post

Jul. 28th, 2025 10:51 pm
fignewton: (don't say ka)
[personal profile] fignewton posting in [community profile] stargateficrec
This entry will be open through the 31st. The August reccers post will hopefully go up some time on Friday.

Comment with the username you'll be using to rec and the category you want. Choose a category from the list below or select a more rare category that has been used in the past. If you want to rec a category that is not on the list below or in Memories, that's fine, too: you may volunteer for a category that isn't listed.

By signing up, you are committing yourself to reccing at least two (preferably four) stories in that category during the month of August. July reccers who wish to sign up again should rec their minimum two for this month before doing so. You don't have to check the Memories before choosing which stories to rec. If you have a good fic to rec, go for it! Do remember, though, that story links must be freely accessible, without requiring any sort of login to view. The FAQ and rec template, with detailed instructions, can be found here. Reccers may add self-recs once they have done their minimum two for their category of the month, and see more details at the FAQ entry.

You must be a member of [community profile] stargateficrec in order to post. So if you're a new reccer, be sure to join the community.

Common but not exclusive categories )

Remember: first come, first claimed!
fatalfae: Sunnydale Herald use ONLY. (Default)
[personal profile] fatalfae posting in [community profile] su_herald
YOUNG BUFFY: Hi, Willow. What are you doing here?
WILLOW: Actually, I'm, uh ... looking for you. Here. Again.
YOUNG BUFFY: (strokes her doll's hair) Do you like dolls?
WILLOW: No ... (kneels) and I think we already deja'd this vu.
YOUNG BUFFY: (giggles) You talk funny.
WILLOW: Yes ... as you'll tell me again when we're older and in chem class.

~~The Weight of the World~~



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What I Got in Murano

Jul. 28th, 2025 07:08 pm
[syndicated profile] scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

When Krissy and I went to Venice, one of the trips we had scheduled was going to the nearby island of Murano and watching some of the artisans engage in their centuries-long tradition of glass-making. That in itself was quite interesting, and when it was done we were taken into the actual shops, just in case we wanted to buy, say, a $50,000 chandelier or an arty blown-glass head of Medusa going for $25,000. In fact we did not — the mere thought of owning something both that expensive and that fragile fills me with an almost holy terror — but as we wandered about both Krissy and I found (relatively) more modest-priced items we decided to take home as 30th anniversary gifts to each other. Krissy’s was a glass rum decanter, which she will get excellent use from. Mine is the item you see above.

What precisely is it? I mean, technically I think it qualifies as a bowl; you can put fruit in it, or possibly keys when you come home, or maybe those marbles you use to fill up clear vases in houses where you’re not actually supposed to touch things. But I confess I didn’t buy it to be functional; I bought it because it was pretty, and green (which is my favorite color) and because all the little square elements you can see have their reflective layer at different depths in the glass, giving the piece in real life an almost startling sense of texture. When we were wandering about the shop, I kept coming back to it, which meant this was the piece I wanted (it also happened this way several years ago when I bought a painting from an aboriginal artist while I was in Perth). For me, it’s art, not necessarily functional (Krissy’s is also art, it’s just art you can store rum in).

Again, it was not a $50K chandelier (which is what the one in the picture above was going for), but it also was easily the most I’ve been on a single piece of glasswork — I paid more when we had the windows in the house replaced a couple years back, but that was, like, all the windows. So I was naturally apprehensive about whether the thing would make it to the house in one piece. Fortunately, the folks we bought from have some experience with shipping glass, and work with a courier service here in the US that knows how to expedite object d’art coming from abroad. Both the bowl and decanter arrived without a scratch.

(And yes, we had to pay a tariff. I’m pretty sure we would have had to before the current administration as well, but the thing about the current administration is one can never quite tell what the tariff will be on any particular day, which is a really not great way to do things. As it turned out, we paid the tariff before this administration and the EU decided on a 15% general tariff on everything coming out of Europe, so we got a lower rate, but regardless, this is no way to run a trade relationship.)

If you go to Venice I do recommend a side trip to Murano to look at the glass and such, because it was fascinating, and also, I will warn you not to go if you’re not willing to end up spending more than you ever expected to in your life on glasswork. Is it worth it? In my case, yes; this piece is lovely and I think I will get years of enjoyment out of just simply looking at it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to buy any more of it. One piece (plus a rum decanter) is enough, thank you.

— JS

Check-In Post - July 28th 2025

Jul. 28th, 2025 08:11 pm
badly_knitted: (Get Knitted)
[personal profile] badly_knitted posting in [community profile] get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


This Week's Question: What do you like to listen to / watch while crafting?


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!



[syndicated profile] scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

Have you ever wished you could just pay someone to scratch your back and play with your hair? Like a massage but lighter and softer? Well, it turns out you can, and I totally did it.

A little known fact about me is that I love ASMR. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, and it basically means that when you hear or see certain things, you get a pleasant tingling sensation in the back of your brain that can even give you chills. If you’re not well versed in ASMR, you probably just think of it as that weird whispering thing people do into a microphone, or worse than that you associate it with unpleasant mouth or eating sounds.

Well, I’m happy to report not all ASMR is like that. Certainly not the kind I like, anyway. For me, I have always liked the ASMR videos of people pretending to do your makeup or skincare, where they dote on you and give you a pampering session and are a comforting presence. But I also like the ones where they actually use a real person and do things like scratch their back, tickle their arms, play with their hair, trace their face. It sounds like a strange thing to watch, but it’s really easy to imagine yourself as that person, and it’s weirdly relaxing.

And I’m certainly not alone in this, because if you look at the comments of these videos, you’ll see so many people saying things like, “I wish that were me,” “how do I get someone to do this to me,” “I wish I could just pay someone to do this for an hour.” It turns out a lot of people would love to have someone touch them nicely in a soft, comforting way! Who knew?

So, there I was, watching one of these videos on Tik Tok from Soft Touch ASMR, when I noticed that the caption of the video said that you could book an appointment with her. Someone was finally doing the thing everyone had been asking for for so long! Where in the world could this possibly be located?! California. Of course it’d be across the country from me. Tragic.

@soft.touch.asmr.spa

it’s your turn to be the girl in your fave ASMR vids – book in bio to feel the tingles IRL at Soft Touch ASMR Spa💕 (based in LA & poppin’ up all over!) #asmrmassage #asmrspa #softtouch #asmrtok #fyp #inpersonasmr #asmrtreatment #asmrrelax #asmrbackscratching #asmrtracing #asmrhairplay #asmr #asmrtingles #asmrsleep

♬ memories – leadwave

Then, I saw that she travels and does pop up events in other major cities. And she had one coming up in Chicago. Well, now there’s a drive I can do. Is it five hours? Yeah. Did I book an appointment anyways? Oh yeah.

Julie was so sweet and friendly, and I had an amazing experience with her. Before our session began, she asked me if there were any specific triggers I wanted her to focus on, and I mentioned I really wanted the back scratching with the claws I’ve seen in her videos:

@soft.touch.asmr.spa

Could you handle the IRL tingles? Book a Soft Touch ASMR Massage & feel it yourself 💖 (link in bio / softtouchasmr.com) Soft Touch is LA’s 1st & only ASMR Spa for gals, trans & non-binary pals ✨ #softtouch #asmrmassage #fyp #asmrtok #asmrspa #asmrirl #asmr #asmrbackscratching

♬ original sound – Soft Touch ASMR Spa

Julie gave me the most relaxing hour ever, with tons of light touches, tickly scratching all over my back, arms, and shoulders, combing my hair softly, I was seriously in heaven. I had to try really hard not to completely fall asleep and miss everything.

It was such a calming escape, I started to wish I had booked the 90 minute experience instead of the 50 minute. I really thought that by the end, I would be totally touched-out and that it maybe wouldn’t even feel good anymore, but I was completely wrong and I was dreading it being over. I also determined I needed this treatment like, every single day from here on out. It really was so nice.

So, even though it was definitely a splurge and a five hour drive away, I am so glad I went and had such a unique, relaxing, awesome experience. It was only after I went all the way to Chicago that I learned she was doing a pop-up in Indianapolis and Columbus later that week, but I wasn’t that upset about it since I love Chicago anyways and had a fun time visiting there regardless.

Would you enjoy this kind of experience? Do you like ASMR videos? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

oursin: Hedgehog saying boggled hedgehog is boggled (Boggled hedgehog)
[personal profile] oursin

Recent spam email for a conference with initials which did not immediately decode for me:

ICGO is a boutique-style event that emphasizes depth and interaction. Modest in scale but rich in content, the conference’s intimate setting fosters close communication and meaningful dialogue. It encourages one-on-one and small-group discussions that often lead to lasting collaborations.

Takes me back to the dear old 1970s and the growth movement, what?

But then we discover

This esteemed gathering offers an exceptional opportunity for obstetricians, gynecologists, researchers, clinicians, and healthcare professionals to connect, share insights, and advance the field together.

One-on-one with gynaes is more reminding one of 70s soft pornos, hmmmm?

The conference is in

Athens, a city that blends ancient heritage with modern innovation, providing an inspiring backdrop for intellectual exchange. Its vibrant culture and Mediterranean charm will undoubtedly enrich your conference experience.

There is, apparently, a International Conference on Gynaecology and Obstetrics which holds ALOT of conferences in exotic places. I have managed to track down the details for a past occasion and discover - SURPRISE!!!! -

Travel
Due to limited budget resources, we regret to inform you that the conference is unable to sponsor or cover travel expenses for any participant, including speakers. We encourage speakers to make their own travel arrangements and plan accordingly.
Important Note
Please note that this conference is organized independently without sponsorship or support from any external organizations. The registration fees are primarily used to cover the cost of amenities and services provided to our registered members, including meals, snacks, sessions, networking opportunities, and other event-related activities.

The cherry on top of all this? -
We are pleased to offer honorariums to our esteemed keynote and invited speakers. To qualify for an honorarium, speakers must secure a minimum of 5 paid registrations or group paid registrations from their students, colleagues, or peers. The amount of the honorarium will be determined based on the number of registrations obtained. We encourage our speakers to actively promote the conference within their networks to ensure a rewarding experience for all.

Does this count as pyramid-selling?

Wotta racket, eh?

goddess47: Emu! (Default)
[personal profile] goddess47 posting in [community profile] stargateficrec
Show: SG-1, Leverage

Rec Category: Jack O'Neill
Characters:Pairings: none
Categories: gen, crossover, alphabet soup, mission gone awry, humor
Warnings: none
Word Count: 2,138 (total, across 2 parts)
Author on DW: [personal profile] tallulah_rasa
Author's Website: AO3 Profile
Link: A is for... Another Day at the Office


Author's Summary:

Same old, same old.


Why This Must Be Read:

It's a crossover with Leverage! It's cute, fun and short... there are two parts, read them both. It will brighten up anyone's dreary day!



snippet of fic )

First off

Jul. 28th, 2025 09:45 am
nanslice: (Default)
[personal profile] nanslice


SIMPLY GAGGED. What gorgeous art. Look at these lads. ;3; Also a new manga series bridging the gap between Endless Waltz and Frozen Teardrop. Do I think Frozen Teardrop is hot garbage? Yes. Am I still hype as fuck? YES.

Warhammer fandom has been exceptionally obnoxious and it's really killing my drive to create things. I might need to find a new fandom. :\a I don't even know what I'm interested in anymore tbh. Also it would break Will's heart if I leave this fandom, even though we have completely opposite opinions. I don't know. Right now I'm just doing my best to not interact with anyone on tumblr lol.



SIMPLY GAGGED AGAIN, SMOSH SUMMER GAMES IS SO BACK, BAYBEEEEE~

I probably had more to add to this post, it's been sitting open for a couple of days, but I'm feeling so hyped right now for Smosh Summer Games, let's fucking goooooooo.

Disability Pride!

Jul. 28th, 2025 11:02 am
suzy_queue: (9-1-1: Try a little tenderness)
[personal profile] suzy_queue
This has been such a busy but FUN month!! I programmed a series of about a dozen disability pride events, and they were all fantastic successes. I got a lot of positive feedback from patrons. My march got 100 people, twice as many as last year! I saw people and families at multiple events, and built relationships with them, and they built relationships with each other. <3 Yesterday ended with an ice cream social, and it was absolutely amazing. And I made two friends! Not like hanging out friends, but patron/program friends.

BFF and teen came for a ten day visit, and it was delightful. They were here for the march and the steampunk/time travel ren faire weekend, and we had a great day up there. Teen had a lot of shows she wanted to see, and I enjoyed them a lot. Dungeons & Shakespeare was probably my favorite--audience participants pulled names from bags and rolled dice to tell a story. Ours was a very handsome Black man playing the Nurse, who was being tracked by Dogberry after the death of Juliet, ended up teaming up with Mercutio, ditched him, teamed up with Dogberry and they fought against a Shadow and barely managed a win. It was HILARIOUS.

We also spent a lot of time watching Gilmore and Buffy, which was fun. We did not get around to building my exercise bench, but someday. Teen had built herself a nest of blankets basically where we'd be building and putting it, ha.

I am a few weeks out from joining DnD, and got to roleplay some background scenes with the GMs on Friday night. It was SO FUN. I made them laugh, and their characters. I did an apple pie spell for an attack/distraction. (She is bewildered by the idea of attack spells--she can summon bees and icicles and pie, ha.) I caused a few explosions and booms before ending up with a quarterstaff.

I am forever wanting to post here, but I've been busy and tired and recovering. I finally got my PsA med last week, after missing June's dose entirely. I never got as sore as I have before, but I did get fog and lower energy.

On the plus side, I did change when I take some meds, and now can do some things at night again! Which is good as planning for October's convention heats up, ha. We're meeting weekly, and getting good stuff done.

Let's finish up with some gratitude.
1. I really enjoyed my programs this month! Some made me nervous still, but overall less anxiety than I've had before.
2. A patron offered to host an interactive version of my disability pride exhibit for free on his company's website--it's 360, with hot links.
3. Having 3 people in my small apartment for 10 days could have been stressful, but honestly, we did great together. And working mostly half days during their visit was restorative.
4. I'm going to see Fantastic 4 with Unicorn next week, and hope to see Superman when I'm off on Friday! Yay for fun movies!
5. I have the new Sims 4 pack about fairies, and my new sim Oli Flutterblossom has very cute wings!

Nominations Guidelines - Summer 2025

Jul. 28th, 2025 12:20 pm
littlefics: Three miniature books standing on an open normal-sized book. (Default)
[personal profile] littlefics posting in [community profile] seasonsofdrabbles
Nominations are now open for the summer 2025 round of Seasons of Drabbles!  Nominations will remain open until signups close on Monday, August 11. Note we are reusing the tagset from last round, so please check if what you're nominating is already in the tagset before submitting them. (That is, if AO3 is not down, which it is as of this post.)

Important Reminders
  • We will not approve broad writer's-choice character nominations (e.g., "Creator's Choice of Demon" or "Any Star Trek Captain"). This is because it requires the mods to have fandom-specific knowledge when checking that gifts are for a requested character during approvals. Instead, please nominate specific characters.

    For example, we would not approve "Creator's Choice of Jedi" under Star Wars because it'd require the mods to know/find out which individual characters in a gift are Jedi or not. Instead, we'd ask you to nominate specific Jedi characters. The only fandoms where such broad nominations are permitted are the "Creator's Choice" fandoms (e.g., "Female Character"), since by their nature, character nominations cannot be specific.

  • All character nominations should be disambiguated, for example: Steve Rogers (Captain America (Movies)). Not doing this slows the approval process significantly, so please disambiguate! Characters may be nominated in any/every fandom in which they appear.


General Guidelines
  • You may nominate up to 10 fandoms with up to 10 characters each.

  • With some exceptions, both umbrella fandoms and sub-fandoms are allowed. For instance, you may nominate under Marvel Cinematic Universe or Star Wars - All Media Types. You may also nominate under sub-fandoms such as Thor (Movies) or Star Wars Original Trilogy.

    Please remember that if you request Any for an umbrella fandom, you will be requesting any character who appears in any of the fandoms below the umbrella - NOT just characters in the tagset. So if you plan to request Any, you may want to request under a specific sub-fandom rather than the umbrella.

  • RPF is allowed. Nominated RPF characters must be famous in their own right, and must be 18+ for modern RPF.

  • Crossovers are allowed. Crossover fandoms should be nominated as Fandom A/Fandom B. Character nominations for crossovers should be nominated as Character's Name (Fandom A/Fandom B). For example, if nominating Luke Skywalker for a Narnia/Star Wars crossover, the fandom would be nominated as Chronicles of Narnia/Star Wars, while the character would be nominated as Luke Skywalker (Narnia/Star Wars).

  • Recursive fandoms are allowed. The required format is Recursive: Fic/Series title - Creator. Recursive fandoms may be nominated under two circumstances: 1. the creator has posted a blanket permission statement, 2. you are the creator. In either case, please contact us when nominating so that we have the pertinent permissions. Characters nominated under recursive fandoms should be disambiguated with the title of the recursive fandom.

  • Since we will be re-using the tagset all year, recursive fandoms will be removed on an as-needed basis between rounds (only if a blanket permission statement comes down, or the creator asks for it to be removed).

  • Original Works are allowed. When nominating characters, please disambiguate with (Original Work). If an original character's gender is important to you, please specify it in your nomination. An example nomination: Original Nonbinary Character (Original Work)

  • Original characters may also be nominated in existing fandoms. When nominating an original character within an existing fandom, please disambiguate with the name of the fandom. If an original character's gender is important to you, please specify it in your nomination. An example nomination: Original Anbu Character (Naruto)

  • Objects/concepts/etc. may be nominated in the character slot for any canon in which they appear. For Original Works, you can make some up if you would like. Some example nominations: Cursed Hat (What We Do in the Shadows (TV)), Magic Mirror (Original Work)

Picture Book Monday: Sakimura

Jul. 28th, 2025 12:26 pm
osprey_archer: (Default)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
My romp through the archives continues! This time, I read Zhenya Gay’s Sakimura, a picture book about Gay’s real-life Siamese cat Sakimura (usually called Saki). She drew this cat from life, and you can tell, because he’s just bursting with life, individuality, and cattish charm.

Saki, in the story, is a cat with everything a cat could want. He has a yellow water bowl and a green food bowl, which is filled daily with cubes of raw beef. (This was before the days of kibble, and a cat could live well.) He has a catnip mouse and a ball and a window where he can watch people pass by on the street.

But what he doesn’t have is a friend. And so Saki sneaks out and traipses away into the woods, where he tries to befriend a bird, and a squirrel, and three fat frogs, whereupon he falls into a pond with a splash and decides (after paddling frantically to shore) that perhaps the woods is not the best place to find a friend.

So he goes on, and finds a farmhouse, where he is too big to befriend the ducks and the chickens and too small to befriend the horses and cows. After a long drink of milk, he decides to take just one last look for a friend…

…whereupon he finds a tiger cat sunning on the porch! They take one look at each other and are bosom friends. They run and play on the lawn, and then when they are tired they curl up to sleep.

Dept. of Monday

Jul. 28th, 2025 05:06 pm
kaffy_r: (Deficiency weekly)
[personal profile] kaffy_r
Mondays - Survivable

That's probably not fair to Mondays, especially since I haven't gotten anything done thus far. This Monday might turn out to be spectacularly good. I'm betting mine might land smack in the middle, between spectacular and survivable; more than occasionally enjoyable, as long as I get to complete some of the tasks I've assigned myself. 

The past couple of weeks found me fighting depression, to which I'm sure I must have at least obliquely referred. Some of that has to do with immigration stress. Bob and I have very different visions of what our future should hold, and we had a productive talk about that. While the talk was productive, the stress is there. Our conversation is a good place from which to continue work on the immigration effort. 

I am still trying hard to return to "The Vegetarian" and I'm wondering if it will be one of those books that I think I should read, but I can't catch hold of it, or it doesn't hook me. That doesn't happen often, and I do want to give the book one more try. 

BB and I and one of our friends saw the movie "Tampopo" on Saturday night. Bob and I watched it years ago, and really loved it, and it was a treat to see it on the big screen at the small venue where it screened. (Facets Multimedia, for those in the Chicago cultural know.) If you ever have the chance, find somewhere to rent or stream it because it's wonderful, even on a small screen.

It's an amazing 1985 Japanese comedy about love, lust (be forewarned), hard work, the love of food, and the herculean task of creating the best ramen shop ever, by training the widow who runs it. It's also a Western, sort of. It's hard to describe beyond that. It also seems to me to be a loving but critical snapshot of Japan before that country's economic downturn in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Today I have to do some actual for-money writing. I've actually transcribed my notes from the interview I did almost a month ago, and I figure it's time to go over them, highlight what I think should be in the feature, and then at least start the feature. 

Later on ... well, I'll probably stay indoors until my physical therapy appointment this afternoon, since the heat index is going to be in the mid to high 90s. Humidity, what even is it? I'd give a lot to have Arizona heat; nice and dry. 

I've had this song, by the Irish duo Saint Sister, in my head on and off for perhaps two weeks. It's beautiful, haunting, and it also cuts like a razor. I love this live version, which they performed several years ago. The music video is also spot on, if you want to watch that. I checked and was happy to know that they still exist, although they're not performing for a while, as the two of them work on solo projects. I hope you like it, and I hope your Monday is going well. 




Excursions

Jul. 28th, 2025 03:02 pm
liv: Table laid with teapot, scones and accoutrements (yum)
[personal profile] liv
This week P'tite Soeur organized a family trip to London. All four siblings and Dad, which is quite a feat of logistics even if we didn't manage to also include partners.

London )

Another thing I was able to do due to not being in Israel was to visit the community I'll be spending Yom Kippur with, the amazing Kehillat Kernow, a peripatetic community covering most of the Cornwall peninsula. (Yes, that's me in the news article at the top of their website, they are very prompt at reporting!) The long train journey was not as wonderful as I had hoped, because the trains were very very overcrowded in peak season, but at least I had a seat and got to enjoy the lovely views. And read a bunch of novels, which is definitely making my brain happier.

They invited me to dinner Friday evening, and had a very Liv conversation about dealing with racism in education and medicine, with the other guests having direct professional expertise, not just setting the world to rights. And put me up in a super nice hotel in a neo-gothic pile that used to be a convent, and were gracious enough to invite me to stay Saturday night as well so I even got a little bit of time in Truro, which is where they held this particular service. I walked along the river a bit, I found a teeny-tiny Pride festival in the town centre, but it was packing up by the time I had finished dinner at 7 pm, so I wasn't able to get dessert from one of the sparkly rainbow doughnut stands.

In between I lead a Shabbat service, with very enthusiastic participation from the community, and they even appreciated my somewhat political sermon about whether we can still be Zionists in this moment. Because it was the new moon of Av, I got to read from their super-exciting Historic scroll. Well, actually I chanted the verses about the creation of the sun and moon; it's still a big deal for me to do that in public. I'm pretty pleased with how all that went.

And now I'm back and I have another month of relatively uncrowded schedule. It's very nice.
felis: (chrisjen)
[personal profile] felis posting in [community profile] fanart_recs
Fandom: The Expanse
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Camina Drummer
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: Pastel pencil on paper
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: [tumblr.com profile] livesinyesterday
Why this piece is awesome: A gorgeous portrait of Drummer! Aside from the great likeness, I'm fascinated by the contrast between Drummer's signature black and the wide range of pastel colours the artist used for her face, in a way that still makes it come together as a coherent and perfectly natural whole. Really great.
Link: https://livesinyesterday.tumblr.com/post/629089413361795072

Recs recs recs

Jul. 28th, 2025 11:25 pm
mific: (Sheppard reads Tolstoy)
[personal profile] mific
Ebooks:

Copper Script by K J Charles
The usual well-plotted historical romance/mystery from Charles. Set in 1924, the fantasy element is that Joel, gay and a WWI veteran who's lost his dominant hand, makes a living as a handwriting expert but his uncanny success at assessing the personality and state of mind of writers is a paranormal gift. Aaron is a closeted detective in the London force and their chance encounter and subsequent work together uncovers a serious enemy. I liked that the tension built so that everything seemed insoluble (to the more uptight Aaron) but was eventually deftly resolved by the other two less-conventional protagonists. An entertaining read.

I had less luck with the other ebooks I tried.

Angelfall (book 1 of 3) by Susan Ee
A YA series from 10 years ago that had mostly rave reviews. It's post-apocalyptic, centered on the protagonist Penrhyn, a 17 y.o. girl who, yes, is a bit of a Special Girl. No overt powers but her mother, who has paranoid schizophrenia, paid for her to have extensive martial arts training, like you do when you have a major mental disorder. I could have put up with that nonsense as Penrhyn's nicely feisty, but there were three big problems. 1. The worldbuilding was crap. The apocalypse was 2 months earlier and "the world as we know it" has been comprehensively trashed by destructive, homicidal angels. Yes, as in archangels etc., with wings and swords. There's a vague reference to "the asteroids and the fires" to account for the extreme infrastructure damage to cities and bridges, but no real attempt at making the cracky premise work. And the angels are very much extrapolated from Judeo-Christian myth (unfair to the non-Christian world) which mythology makes no sense at the best of times so good luck basing your worldbuilding on it! No explanation was given for the angelic vendetta on humanity (I gather a bit more emerges later, but I was past caring). We're told that only Gabriel knew the plan and human weapons killed him early on, so now no one knows. 2. The romance was bothersomely Twilighty with Raphael, an ancient (and beautiful and built) demigod angel thrown into travelling with Penrhyn, and clear hints of attraction developing. It felt like an adolescent girl's daddy fantasy with no depth or coherent structure. (Ee is not an adolescent.) 3. The latter part of the book suddenly switched from gritty survival in the ruins to a bizarre infiltration of the angelic HQ in a luxury San Francisco hotel filled with desperate human women slinkily dressed and made up to the nines, fawning over tuxedoed clubbing angels like a mobster's wet dream. And then it takes another sharp turn into horror, and finally into a dramatic and improbable rescue. Nope.

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Another post-apocalyptic series but the action rapidly moves to an underground dungeon maze as in similar games. Full of typical gaming detail and you need to be at least a bit of a gamer to enjoy this. I'm not, so DNF.

Audiobooks (read by the author):

On the Hippie Trail by Rick Steves
Interesting enough, and nostalgic for me as I did the big OE and travelled from NZ to Kathmandu at about the same time as Steves ended up there in the mid 70s (although he did what we used to call "the overland", from Istanbul to Nepal, before various wars erupted and made that impossible). I found it reasonably engaging but although there were occasional attempts at deeper thinking about white privilege, the issue of beggars, travelling vs tourism, and other interesting subjects, he didn't give these much space and it was mostly a travelogue and sometimes a little casually dismissive of the local people who were struggling to get by and didn't actually owe Steves friendship or generosity. Comes with access to a pdf with lots of photos he took, which is a nice bonus.

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
A fascinating, horrifying, and engaging deep dive into the history of TB and how it's ravaged humanity, and how it continues to do so in those parts of the world that can't afford the inflated prices of Big Pharma. There were many fascinating revelations, such as that the skinny model look Western women are supposed to aspire to partly stems from C19th TB chic when getting thin and dying became romantic (and was also hard to avoid). Green gets angrier as the book progresses about the fact that TB killed/kills many AIDS sufferers and is still a terrible disease in poorer countries while the West does very little (Trump of course cut funding recently, e.g. to the Apopo programme where rats sniff out infected samples with amazing accuracy). The rise of resistant TB is also daunting, and Green lays it all out clearly and with passion. A great read, although the issue does seem to have gripped Green in a somewhat obsessive manner.

Paper Towns by John Green
Fiction, from a run of YA novels that preceded his current focus on TB. It felt a bit similar to Looking for Alaska, which I listened to a few months back, in that it focuses on a somewhat anxious and socially sidelined young man, Quentin, at the end of high school/start of college who's obsessed with a mysterious girl. In this case his beautiful neighbour, a somewhat "manic pixie dream girl" of a young woman who's superficially one of the cool kids, but who runs away leaving clues which he frets away at for the bulk of the book. It's set in Orlando, Florida, and Quentin has an engaging friend-group although initially all male (they're not great at achieving girlfriends and in Ben's case I can see why - he calls all women honeybunnies; even his girlfriend refers to him as "a challenge"). Much of Quentin's detective fretting revolves around a dog-eared copy of Whitman's Song of Myself, and the book partly explores the barrenness of the USA suburban subculture and physical environment, set in unreal theme parks and abandoned subdivisions - the paper towns of the title, although that also refers to unreal, multi-faced people. Interesting, but a bit slow and neurotic. Green's been open about having OCD and there are hints of obsession in these YA books, and in his new TB focus.

Physical library books:

Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice
I liked his first book Moon of the Crusted Snow a lot more, maybe as it was immediately post-apocalyptic so there was more change and drama. In this sequel (which has solely been available as a physical book way longer than seems usual) an exploratory party from the tribe go south to find the ancestral lands by Lake Huron the government forced them to move from. They're surviving in the colder north 12 years after the ?EMP and civilisation's collapse, but barely, and game is getting scarce. They have the expected encounter with evil white survivalist cult dudes, but most of the book is lower key travelling, and there was a lot of untranslated Anishinaabe language that I had to skim. The ending also seemed a bit too happily-ever-afterish to ring true. I got through the book, but it didn't grab me.

Once More With Feeling by Victoria Coren and Charlie Skelton.
A non-fiction account of their attempt to make a porn film after they stumbled into a job reviewing porn movies in their youths and decided they could definitely do it better. I DNF'd I'm afraid - I'm just hopeless at reading physical texts these days. My eyesight is worse at night which is usually when I read, and I can't read them in bed. I was enjoying this amusing tale, and if it was an audiobook I'd have mainlined it for sure. Unfortunately, as an older text, it's not even an ebook. Recommended if you still read physical books.

Korean practice

Jul. 28th, 2025 01:43 pm
profiterole_reads: (Sakura)
[personal profile] profiterole_reads
Here's the new Korean practice post! As usual now, it's an open chat.

You can write about whatever you want. If you're uninspired, tell us the story of what you're currently watching/reading/playing...
You can talk to one another.
You can also correct one another. Or just indicate "No corrections, please" in your comment if you prefer.

화이팅! <3

Fic: Who We Really Are

Jul. 28th, 2025 01:57 pm
tinypinkmouse: (Default)
[personal profile] tinypinkmouse posting in [community profile] sid_guardian
With some encouragement from people on Tumblr I finished and finally posted one of my somewhat older WIPs (apparently, I started writing this almost exactly three years ago).

Who We Really Are (20036 words) by tinypinkmouse
Chapters: 4/4
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Shen Wei (Guardian), Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, During Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby Animals, Fix-It of Sorts, Dating, First Kiss, Flower Tribe, twins reconciliation, baby animals make everything better
Summary:

No one expects the Black Cloaked Envoy to show up with baby animals clinging to him. Yet somehow it keeps happening.

Trivial life stuff (and fandom)

Jul. 27th, 2025 10:38 pm
sholio: (Fireweed blossoms)
[personal profile] sholio
1. SOMETHING IS EATING MY GARDEN. I don't know what; my guess is either a) moose (we know there's a cow-calf pair hanging around; we've caught them occasionally on the driveway game camera), or b) a porcupine. Which would never have been on my radar as something that would eat a garden if I hadn't seen it in the backyard a week or two ago, absolutely going to town munching on raspberry bushes and fireweed. I feel like the way that the garden is getting decimated is consistent with something low to the ground that's pulling down pea vines and similar, and also doesn't eat too much in one go. But after we put up loose wire fencing around one of the beds, it apparently got into it anyway and ate a bunch of my lettuce and some of the remaining pea vines. Porcupines can both climb and dig, so it's possible a motivated one could get over loose fencing pretty easily - but the damage pattern this time could also have been something leaning over and eating from the top. I CAN'T TELL, but it is really annoying because it's taken out nearly all my peas and a bunch of the salad stuff. I picked some broccoli tonight even though I didn't need to use it yet, because my broccoli heads are just about fully crowned and I'm going to be incredibly annoyed if I wake up tomorrow to find that they've been devastated as well.

2. I got to pet puppies today! One of the people in my TTRPG game group has a dog (a Great Dane) that had puppies, ELEVEN of them - the 101 Dalmation jokes write themselves - and invited us over after gaming to pet them if we wanted to. They're about 3 weeks old, eyes open and toddling, but still potato shaped and incredibly soft and pleasant to hold. Puppies. <3 (I miss having a dog, although I don't want a Great Dane for a number of reasons. Handling someone else's puppies is delightful, though.)

3. Summer of Horror authors revealed, including my very unsurprising offering. I continue to be delighted with my deliciously spooky/romantic gift!

4. The Biggles prompt fest is also going delightfully.
kiya: (headdesk)
[personal profile] kiya
I need to write some shit down so I can sort it all out.

Will add to it as I remember things I need to deal with so I can unload them from my brain.

Primarily of interest to me. )
kiya: (gaming)
[personal profile] kiya
Three lunatics and a paladin, once more.

Dramatis Personae:

Viepuck and Izgil, who have complicated magical theory shit going on
Celyn and Robin, who hit things and heal people

When we left off we had retrieved an evil sphere and yelled for help answering what to do with it.

So we sorted out what to do next. )

(no subject)

Jul. 27th, 2025 11:17 pm
skygiants: Izumi and Sig Curtis from Fullmetal Alchemist embracing in front of a giant heart (curtises!)
[personal profile] skygiants
I was sitting outside at work two weeks ago reading Zen Cho's Behind Frenemy Lines when our regular volunteer suddenly popped up next to me. "What are you reading?!" she demanded, and I blinked at her, and she said "I can't remember the last time I smiled as much reading a book as you were right now! Please tell me the title, I have to read it!"

So now you all know two things, which is that I have no poker face when reading in public and also that Behind Frenemy Lines is a delight. It's a particular delight to me because this book is a really fantastic, affectionately grounded example of bring-your-work-to-the-rom-com; my brother works in the same kind of big law firm as the protagonists and every word of it rang true. As soon as I was done I texted my long-suffering sister-in-law to tell her that she should read it immediately. (My brother should read it even more, but he will never have the time to do so, because, again, he works in big law.)

So, the plot: our heroine Kriya Rajasekar has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend and followed her boss to a new firm, which has unfortunately resulted in her sharing an office with the competent but deeply awkward lawyer whose presence throughout her career has coincidentally but unfortunately coincided with all the most screwball catastrophes in Kriya's career.

Charles Goh does not know that he is Kriya's bad-luck charm. Charles actually has kind of a crush. This is regrettable for Charles given that life has provided them with a couple of perfect reasons to fake date (Charles needs a date to his cousin's wedding and Kriya needs to fend off the increasingly inappropriate attentions of her recently-divorced boss) and also a good reason they should not real date (Kriya is busy fending off the increasingly inappropriate attentions of her recently-divorced boss and does not need romantic complications from her office-mate/fake boyfriend.)

As a sidenote, the cousin's wedding is a Fandom Wedding, the details of which I will not spoil but which are the other half of why I was laughing visibly out front of my office building (and which I did not explain to the volunteer.) I would not trust a lot of authors to write a Fandom Wedding, but this book carries it off with charm and ease. It really helps that the leads do not understand what is happening and do not really care except inasmuch as it's nice to see a person you like get married.

Of course everybody catches feelings, but also everybody also catches more serious ethical dilemmas, as the corruption case from The Friend Zone Experiment rebounds back into the plot and forces both Charles and Kriya to figure out where their professional lines actually are. I love where the characters make their respective stands, and where they end up; the stakes feel exactly right for the book, deeply grounded and deeply personal to the characters. It's so nice to pick up a Zen book, and know I can trust her to always be very funny but also to always make her books about something real.

Fanvid: Galileo (gen)

Jul. 27th, 2025 10:23 pm
amedia: Young Chinese man wearing horn-rim glasses and a lab coat focusing intently on a dropper over a beaker; caption reads SCIENCE! (Guardian: Lin Jing Science)
[personal profile] amedia posting in [community profile] sid_guardian
Title: Galileo
Fandom: Guardian (TV 2018)
Relationship/Characters: Lin Jing, the SID ensemble
Music: "Galileo" by Naturally 7
Length:: 2:56
Summary: My tribute to the adorkable Lin Jing of Guardian, and his gadgets, gizmos, and doodads.

Drama Post 3 of 3

Jul. 27th, 2025 06:18 pm
olivermoss: (Default)
[personal profile] olivermoss
Really just fucking sick of people using 'oh but we are anti-TERF, we are the good guys' as a shield

* There was a Harry Potter film fest in Portland this weekend that was... pro-equality? It was put on by "SPEWW - the Society for the Promotion of Equality for Witches & Wizards" They say they are anti-TERF and it's totally striking back at her.

2 teeny, tiny problems. It was an HP film fest with artist alley at a location that absolutely and definitely only shows properly licensed movies and pays royalties. Since they run indie theaters, their split is worse than, say, what Regal pays. So, literally worse than seeing the films at national chains.

Second, I know some of the artists involved and certain people involved are absolutely transphobes. This is so not an anti-TERF event. I know a certain subsection of the Portland art scene very well, and that subsection is 'people who table at geek events'. Not just as someone who hits up as many as I can find, but also as someone who has run artist alleys and events, and also just as someone who is at a lot of events. I know what some of them have said about me behind my back, because they were within earshot. When I say 'behind my back' I am being literal.

So yeah, this is just a pile of bullshit.

* RomanceCon is an evolving situation right now and I want to start by pointing out that they have changed who is managing the con, but as far as anyone knows, they did not change ownership. Unless, new info comes to light, it looks like they involved an indie bookstore so they could go 'oh, look, it's run by an indie bookstore now, how wholesome, come to our con to support them!'

It looks the majority of authors have pulled out, a lot of the big names definitely did. I would like to have hard numbers, but most places I'd go to for sourcing have banned discussion of this about two weeks ago so the numbers are old. The management company bringing in Julie Soto and having a lot of focus on Harry Potter at the con was the point of contention. They were going to have several HP panels because 'fans don't have a safe space online' to discuss HP anymore and they are all about safe spaces. Basically, the romance con was going to have a huge HP focus and the attending authors were not expecting that.

Here's the thing, while authors were scattering they put out statements talking about how some of the panels were the idea of trans people and also if authors decide to return then they'll donate part of the table fee to trans charities. The table fees are non-refundable, so if the authors didn't come back it just goes to the con's owners. They really tried to pull 'we have trans staff, coming to our con is listing to trans people. And if you don't come money wont be donated to a trans charity'. What the shitfuck? When it comes to trying to use trans people as a shield this is just next level.

We've got enough shit going on without transparent and cynical attempts to use trans people as a shield. There is even a local bookstore that is making a point of carrying HP books because 'they are so important to queer people, the next gen of queer kids need these powerful experiences too'. What? Just carry the books or don't*. Stop with the weird using 'for queer people' or other weird insane bullshit. This convoluted 'oh but it's FOR people like you' bullshit is driving up a fucking wall.

(* I'd prefer not, obviously, and I have the option of shopping at stores that wont carry her. But like, don't try to paint carrying her as even more supportive)

(no subject)

Jul. 27th, 2025 08:13 pm
shadaras: A phoenix with wings fully outspread, holidng a rose and an arrow in its talons. (Default)
[personal profile] shadaras
A few things, briefly:

1.
I saw Sinners yesterday. Fantastic movie. I adore the music. I love the visual imagery. It used metaphor beautifully.

I feel like I should be able to articulate more about it but, well, it is very good and a dense text and it is late for me right now. xD Very glad I've now seen it! Will keep thinking about it!

2.
[community profile] battleshipex is, as ever, an experience. xD my team hit the victory condition this afternoon after blazing through the boards and bosses in a frankly terrifying way. I do not think we expected to go this fast. I do not think anyone expected a team to go this fast! The mods kept going UH SLOW DOWN WE AREN'T READY.

(ngl I think it's more fun when the teams are closer to each other. but then, I also missed seeing mod announcements of things like "X revealed Y shape!" and the like, so, y'know, different people have different things that are fun, and I had a very good time with the people on my team. would have regardless of how fast we went.)

but hey I'm looking forward to watching the other teams duke it out for second place and for when the massive collection of works we've all made is revealed. <3

3.
[personal profile] hafnia has begun posting the novel that ate us to ao3, and I am delighted that other people can start reading the thing that we've been discussing incessantly for two months. xD This has been our mutual hyperfocus! It is the product of us gleefully following our shared ids and going "what if—" and also tormenting our blorbos. <3

This story includes: high fantasy regency-inspired romance, trans themes, weird/kinky sex, lots of thought about consent and agency, bad communication becoming better, and a slow burn towards a happy ending that's at the end of what has become a trilogy.

Write Every Day: Day 27

Jul. 27th, 2025 05:56 pm
sanguinity: (writing - semicolon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

My check-in: Beta comments and a soupçon of editing.

Day 27: [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] sanguinity

Day 26: [profile] badlyknitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] ysilme

more days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

Daily check-in

Jul. 27th, 2025 08:33 pm
mecurtin: Icon of a globe with a check-mark (fandom_checkin)
[personal profile] mecurtin posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Sunday, July 27, to midnight on Monday, July 28 (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33433 Daily check-in poll
This poll is closed.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 29

How are you doing?

I am OK
17 (60.7%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now
11 (39.3%)

I could use some help
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single
10 (34.5%)

One other person
12 (41.4%)

More than one other person
7 (24.1%)



Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

RIP Tom Lehrer

Jul. 27th, 2025 05:16 pm
marinarusalka: (phryne drinking)
[personal profile] marinarusalka
May his memory be a (hilarious and dubiously appropriate) blessing.
double_dutchess: (Sunnydale Herald)
[personal profile] double_dutchess posting in [community profile] su_herald
Angel: Lorne, I need you to use your contacts to find out what Holtz is up to. He's out there somewhere. We can never forget that. Finding him is our number one priority.
Gunn: I thought you said...
Angel: Finding Holtz and making money are our two number one priorities.
Cordelia walks by behind him and clears her throat.
Angel: Helping the helpless, finding Holtz, and making money are out *three* number one priorities.

~~Provider~~


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Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

neotoma: Bunny likes oatmeal cookies [foodie icon] (foodie-bunny)
[personal profile] neotoma
A baguette of bread, goat mozzarella, 1/2 lb of cremini mushrooms, snacking peppers, donut peaches, 4lb of yellow peaches, nectarines, apricots, flat-leafed parsley plant, sorrel plant, chocolate chip cookies, walnut dark chocolate cookies.

I harvest several tomatoes from my garden and made a toasted caprese sandwich for dinner.
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Organization for Transformative Works: Election News

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State of the Justin

Jul. 27th, 2025 05:46 pm
jducoeur: (Default)
[personal profile] jducoeur

Wow, I've completely failed to do any long-form posting lately. Mastodon is a seductively easy outlet, encouraging quick thoughts (and occasionally rewarding them highly with boosts and faves) without the effort of serious writing. I'm kind of disappointed in myself in principle, but not sure whether it's likely to change.

That said, it's been A Lot recently, so let's catch up on some stuff. This is going to be a bit of a long wander across several topics; hopefully it won't be entirely boring.

Work

As promised, I took three months off for a sabbatical, before starting to look for a new position at the beginning April. I did talk to a few companies, but in practice, it turned out to be all about Networking, as usual.

When I say "it's all about Networking", mind, I don't mean spending all my time pressing the flesh at cocktail parties. Real-world networking mostly consists of being good to the people around you, helping them out when you can, and being pretty clear about when you're looking.

In practice, I got Just Plain Lucky this time. Right around the time I started looking, I got a ping out of the blue from Carlos, asking, "Hey, Justin -- would you happen to be in the market?" After a response of, "Wow, good timing", we got to talking.

To explain this, I have to step back half a dozen years. From around (it's complicated) 2017 through 2021, I was working for Rally Health, primarily on a project called Rally Recover. Recover was great -- a product I was really proud of, to help surgical teams keep in touch with patients post-op. There was a lot to it, but the backend was mainly three of us: me (the Scala expert), Steve (the Ruby on Rails expert), and Carlos (not quite as expert in either, but solidly good at both, so he acted as the essential glue).

Sadly, Recover got cancelled -- great though it was, Optum (our Corporate Overlords) weren't figuring out how to sell it effectively. So our team got shunted onto A Project Of Which We Will Not Speak (suffice it to say, it was a political clusterfuck, and largely collapsed after six months), and thence over to start building a new product called OnePass.

I laid down a good deal of the technical foundation of OnePass (built in my preferred stack: Scala, using the Typelevel functional-programming framework), and was having fun on it when The Merger happened.

Like I said, Rally had been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Optum (which itself is part of the UHG empire). We'd known for most of a year that Optum had decided to absorb Rally, and a lot of folks were nervous about that, but I'd initially blithely said, "We build all of the best software in Optum -- surely they won't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, right?"

But some months later, one or two senior folks who I particularly trusted abruptly left, so I started to get nervous. I wound up interviewing at Troops while on vacation in Hawaii in late 2021; by the time I got home, the merger had happened, and I survived precisely one day at Optum before noping out, giving notice and joining Troops.

Anyway...

After four years "incubating" at Optum, they apparently decided that OnePass was going to thrive better as an independent company, so they were spinning it off. Carlos knew that I don't enjoy working at a corporate giant like Optum, but a scrappy startup like OnePass is becoming is right up my alley.

So basically, I'm boomeranging back to my old project, even through it's a completely new company. I know that I like the tech stack, and I can probably bring a lot to the table -- it seems like the right move.

My first day is tomorrow, so I'm preparing for the roller-coaster now...

Querki

During the sabbatical, and even more during the subsequent months while negotiating things with OnePass (we agreed to wait until the company was fully established before starting the process, so it's taken a while), I've been finally making progress on Querki.

Reminder for those who haven't been following it forever: Querki is my little garage startup, which I've been working on (with a lot of help from Aaron, who also owns a chunk of it) for a dozen or so years now. It's a hybrid between a wiki and a database, designed for "small data" problems -- enabling individuals and small communities to keep track of and organize stuff.

Fairly early on, I made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time. Querki was built using a product called Conductr -- an early "containerization" system that was optimized for the Scala/Akka architecture that Querki is built on. It seemed like a good fit, and as a result I wound up as the smallest customer for Lightbend, the consultancy behind Scala, Akka, and Conductr: we had a handshake agreement that I would alpha-test Conductr and help them work out the kinks.

But things change over time. Lightbend decided not to be the primary supporter of the Scala 3 language (which is instead managed by the Scala Center), and has instead doubled down on Akka; indeed, they changed the company name to Akka recently.

And Conductr? It just kind of quietly died. It was a clever idea, but Kubernetes sucked all the air out of the containerization room, and there was no point in competing with it.

Querki was, AFAIK, the only third-party product ever built using Conductr (that is, the only one not built by Lightbend). And by the time Conductr was clearly dead, I had a dayjob, and didn't have time to extract it from Querki's architecture.

But there was a huge problem: Conductr was invasive. Much of its power came from the fact that it was actually laced through the application itself, not just wrapped around it. And it was built using Scala and Akka.

Which meant that Querki was bound to the specific versions of Scala and Akka that Conductr had been built with. And Conductr was dead.

So Querki has been stuck on an increasingly antique platform for the past ten years. I was able to make some progress on features during that time, but have been more and more stuck because of that.

So the sabbatical was spent learning enough about AWS to figure out how to do the things that Conductr had been providing, and then "ripping out the tablecloth" -- rewriting Querki so that one day it was built on the Conductr architecture, and the next day it wasn't.

Since then, I've been speed-running a decade of ecosystem evolution: step-by-step upgrading Scala, Akka, Play, and dependencies. That's not yet done (indeed, there's quite a lot to do yet), but making progress has been extremely satisfying, and I'm probably halfway there.

(The next step is upgrading from Cassandra 3 to 5, because Querki's Cassandra host will be removing support for 3 late this year. Thank heavens I've gotten as far as I have, or we'd be in serious trouble come November.)

The plan is to get it all up to Reasonably Modern -- probably not Scala 3 (which is a big jump), but modern versions of Play and Akka (or more likely Pekko, the open-source fork that got set up when Akka locked down its license). Then I'm going to fix a few horrible long-standing bugs (eg, Eric discovered the hard way that Querki Spaces start having serious trouble loading if their history becomes very long), and make some long-desired architectural changes (in particular, rewrite the heart of the QL engine to use cats-effect and fs2). And then I can figure out what comes next.

Typelevel

I've mentioned before that I'm on the Steering Committee for Typelevel, the above-mentioned organization that OnePass (and many other companies) is built on. Suffice it to say, there are some changes coming there: it's not all public yet, but I expect my responsibilities to grow in the coming months. I've been avoiding taking on additional responsibilities elsewhere as a result.

SCA

That said, it's been a busy year for me in the SCA, especially for my two offices.

Chatelaine

I've been Baronial Chatelaine (the new-people officer) for just about three years now. I mostly enjoy the work, but I've been getting a little toasty, and was starting to get quite worried by the beginning of the year: I wanted to hand it off, but had no idea to whom.

Once again, I got super-lucky. Within days of each other, around the time of Birka, Thorfinn and Revna -- both of them young, energetic fighters -- asked whether I was looking for a deputy. I gratefully said absolutely, and suddenly found myself heading a Chatelaine team, which is a vastly healthier state of affairs.

Both of them have been very helpful, and Thorfinn in particular has been a force of nature, doing much of the work to drive the new Baronial Discord, working with the Webminister to improve our site, and generally help new folks. So I'm happily trading places with him around now (we haven't really worried about exact dates, but Pennsic is my three-year anniversary), with him stepping up as Chatelaine and me stepping down to Deputy. I expect that to continue to work well.

Dance

One of the questions I kept hearing from new folks was, "Do you have a dance practice? I'd like to try dancing!" And of course, we allowed Dance Practice to go quiet a year or two ago, so I didn't have anything to tell them.

So early this year, I basically declared that I was coming back as Dancemaster, but changing it up a bunch.

Aaradyn managed to get us the "friends and family" discount for the church she works at, which eased the way a lot -- having a nice site within walking distance of Harvard Square made it much easier to get things going again.

Since we've had difficult sustaining a frequent practice in recent years, I decided to scale it back to monthly for the time being. That allows each Dance Practice to be a bit special, and lets me lean into the publicity harder.

And I decided, entirely on my own recognizance, to start running it using the gender-free "Larks and Robins" protocol. That replaces "Lords and Ladies" -- it's mnemonically brilliant, and I've been using it with great success for the Arisia Renaissance Ball for the past couple of years. The younger dance community in this area are largely used to it, and I'd very much like to bring in some of those folks, so I decided that we're going to follow along.

It's going reasonably well. We're not getting the 30-40 dancers we had in our heyday (much less the 150 who show up for the BIDA contradance in Porter Square), but we're generally getting a decent critical mass, including a fair number of new folks. I'm taking the summmer off, but plan to continue in the fall -- it's being a good deal of fun.

General

Suffice it to say, I'm trying to keep my head on straight during these "world on fire" times. It's not easy, finding the right balance of staying engaged while not letting myself fall into fear or depression, but so far, so okay.

I miss y'all! I'm trying to stay social, but opportunities don't present themselves enough. I hope to see folks more: we need each other, if we're going to stay sane through all this.

As always, comments and questions on any of this highly welcome...

[syndicated profile] fanhackers_feed

Posted by fanhackers-mods

Today’s scholarly excerpt comes from All New, All Different? A History of Race and the American Superhero by Allan W. Austin and Patrick l. Hamilton (U Texas Austin, 2019), a book that broadly discusses race and ethnicity across the history of comics, particularly Asian villains and nonwhite sidekicks but also focusing on the way mixed ethnic heroic groups were both collections of stereotypes and also attempts at being liberatory/inclusive/diverse in a particularly American way.

While studies that isolate a particular ethnic or racial group make important contributions, this book takes a different but complementary approach: charting the largely unexplored terrain of a more broadly inclusive history of race and the American superhero, with all its complexity and contradictions. In this, we strive to present the patterns of racial and ethnic representation more generally in comics and superhero popular culture, the attitudes from which they emanate, and those they seek to cultivate.
Scholars’ still somewhat qualified understanding of superhero popular culture and race is especially ironic given that racial and ethnic representations were inherent, both figuratively and literally, within early comics and comic strips. As David Hajdu has pointed out, the Yellow Kid, the late nineteenth- century trailblazer for newspaper comic strips, spoke in a clichéd ethnic hodgepodge and hung out with others who were nothing more than gross stereotypes of Italian, African American, and Middle Eastern cultures. But though stereotypes ruled the strip (and in many ways the art form) from the start, these early newspaper entertainments also came to belong to ethnic immigrants. As Hajdu importantly notes, the “early newspaper comics spoke to and of the swelling immigrant populations in New York and other cities where comics spread, primarily through syndication (although locally made cartoons appeared in papers everywhere). The funnies were theirs, made for them and about them.”
As the earliest strips revolved around immigrants and outsiders, so too did the early comic book industry. In 1937, when the studio run by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger opened, it employed writers and artists who felt like outsiders: immigrants, women, native-born Americans of every ethnic stripe, and others on the margins of society. Of course, these outsiders wanted in, and, Hajdu argues, Superman represented their assimilation. Whereas the Yellow Kid, in at least one sense, celebrated ethnic immigrants, Superman embodied their casting off their cultures for a more mainstream “American” identity. Aldo J. Regalado echoes Hajdu, describing comics as the way in which immigrant (largely Jewish) creators “negotiated their way into the cultural mainstream” via not only their characters but, ultimately, the industry they helped create.10 Such a development was hardly surprising, and is actually fairly typical of the immigrant experience writ large. Given how comics in general and their first superhero in particular base themselves in patterns of immigrant history and experience, scholars ought to pay even greater attention to both because they provide a unique window into evolving attitudes about race and inclusion in the United States.

Various Links 7/21 - 7/27

Jul. 27th, 2025 05:29 pm
senmut: Rebecca Horne in a hat with a smirk (Highlander: Rebecca)
[personal profile] senmut
With over 15 links, I'm cutting this one.

various bits to share )
petra: A blonde woman holding an electric guitar (Corner Gas - Wanda rocks out)
[personal profile] petra
97 years isn't long enough to have someone that amazing around.

My favorite song by him, as an old erotica-peddler, is "Smut."



What's your favorite?

(no subject)

Jul. 27th, 2025 05:25 pm
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
Unfortunately some stuff came up and I wasn't able to catch any of DC Slash's online convention this weekend. I am looking forward to checking out the vid premieres once they're posted!

Raise a Jello Shot

Jul. 27th, 2025 01:23 pm
olivermoss: (Default)
[personal profile] olivermoss


Lost Tom Leher today, so a very timely song

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