capri0mni | Reading

Morning Dance
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1339
[Morning of Saturday, 4 November of 2017]

:: Just after Dawn, Jules wakes feeling wonderfully rested and calm. He starts fitting his possessions back into his room, until he notices a potential problem. Part of the “Lodestar” arc, set in the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::

Jules woke up as he exhaled. As soon as he inhaled, without opening his eyes, he knew that he was home. He smelled his father’s shampoo and cologne, then realized that his pillow was warmer than he was. Slowly, Jules opened his eyes.

Bennett lay slantways on the sofa, partially upright, and Jules was beside him, barely more upright. The teen chuckled to himself as he eased upright, then to his feet. He pulled the old afghan over his father, then padded into the kitchen.

It took petting the coffee machine for a moment for Jules to re-familiarize himself with the machine, but he soon had the water in the reservoir heating and mugs waiting on the counter. He grabbed his backpack to take it to his room, or the room that he had shared with Blainn.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: restless

redbird

I am back from Montreal. The trip home had some annoying delays while they found us an airplane, or figured out how to tow the one they had, or something, but was otherwise fine.

Rysmiel gave me a back rub last night that did significant good for the tension in my neck and right shoulder. I currently have an unrelated shoulder pain, from spending too much time poking at my phone while spending several hours at the airport, but if I'm somewhat cautious now that I'm home, that should take care of itself in a day or three.

I am catching up on some of the PT exercises I didn't do while traveling because they require elastics, or the foam roller, or weights, but doing all of them tonight would be imprudent.

buttonsbeadslace

- My Russian classmate explaining ski mountaineering to us in Spanish, limited by the fact that neither I nor the prof had ever seen or heard of it before (it was a new event at the winter Olympics this year) and that in Spanish it's called "esprint skimo" which does not convey much meaning to the uninitiated. We eventually found a video online (after I pointed out to the prof that "eskimo" means something else.)
- Talking about laundromats and whether people in the US actually use them (yes) and why US apartment buildings have communal laundry rooms, unlike here where having a washing machine in every unit is standard (I could only guess it might be because US clothes dryers need a higher voltage electrical outlet than standard, and Americans expect a washer and dryer, so installing them in every unit is more work?)
- Most of my classmates were absent today so I gave my little presentation about shape note music to an audience of zero Americans, zero Protestants and zero musicians of any kind.
- I went home and looked up statistics and found that Spain is 53% Catholic, 40% atheist/agnostic/non-religious, and 3.7% Every Other Religion And Every Other Christian Denomination. Hashtag I don't know what I expected.

gremdark

This always works for my brain when it's buzzing, and it's BUZZING today. So here's a post for me to edit with updates as I get writing done and tidy the house. ADHD meds, save me from myself! I've locked myself out of my phone for 120 minutes, so my only options are writing, chores, and staring into space.

Wrote a few hundred words on a Rare Kink Buffet prompt. When I'm this jittery with directionless ADHD energy, my cleaning hack is to do roughly five units each of several tasks instead of trying to pin myself to one. So I put away about five dishes, folded five pieces of clean laundry, and picked up five things from the bedroom floor.

200 words of a different Rare Kink Buffet prompt. I can really feel the hyperactivity (and associated misery) today. Absolutely horrid. I put away five more dishes, folded the rest of the laundry, cleaned the stovetop and counters, and spot-vacuumed the corners and under furniture. I know I took my meds this morning because I was there when I took them and the drink I got to take them with is still on the table. But I sure FEEL unmedicated and I'm glad I don't have to drive anywhere this afternoon.

200 words of a third prompt. I took a break for lunch, then put away the rest of the laundry and five dishes and cleaned the toilet. Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. Would you believe it if I told you that current geopolitics have me kind of on edge?

400 words of another prompt. I put away the rest of the dishes, then loaded the dishes from the sink into the dishwasher and did some vague kitchen tidying. It's beginning to look cleaner in here.

Current Mood: pleased

gremdark

For those who aren't active on Tumblr right now, a tl;dr. A new update to how notes on reblogs work, which has so far rolled out on desktop and to some mobile users, is breaking the way most people use Tumblr. Each reblog-with-text now has its own likes, comments, and notes section. This means that not all interactions on posts are visible to the OP. Artists are in an uproar, but this also breaks aspects of the block function and removes the ability to turn off reblogs on posts that have been reblogged with text.

With that in mind, I've tentatively offered to give mutuals and longtime followers of my personal tumblr access to this account if they DM me. I'm nervous about that, because I like keeping my online identities pretty siloed. I'd previously only connected this account to my fandom identity. I have a good group of followers over there, though, and I'd be sad to lose them.

I don't think this is The Big One where everyone flees the Tumblr site like rats from a sinking ship, but it does feel as big as the 2018 porn ban, with the added uncertainty that these changes rolled out the day they were announced. The Changes blog on Tumblr has blithely said that they can see the userbase has strong feelings, which they claim they'll monitor over the "next weeks" of this rollout. I'm certainly concerned and making backup plans.

Those of you who use Tumblr, what do you think of all this? What are you planning?

Current Mood: pissed off
Current Music: Favorite Liar - The Wrecks

alatefeline

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

Current Mood: determined

soc_puppet

The good news: I finished both of my fics for

pokepodproject! I got the second one fully typed three minutes before midnight 😮

The bad news: While I managed to get my Unown K story posted to the Into the Unown collection on AO3, the connection is timing out and not letting me post my Unown A story 😢 Hopefully AO3 will be back up for me soon, so I don't miss the posting deadline! (Even more hopefully it's not just my computer being fussy...)

The other bad news: Tumblr is imploding again! We'll see if this is the thing that finally kills the site.

Current Mood: lethargic

igenlode

Planted up another square of towel-tomatoes, since I have just emptied another windowsill-wide mini-margarine tub... this time using the 'good' seed, i.e. from the fruits that had lots of seeds in them rather than saved across lots of fruits that didn't have many, and labelled as "Towel (good)" accordingly.
After 15 days I already have a ridiculously large number of tomato seedlings in the other two tubs, unfortunately; I think I may have got 100% germination this year!

dialecticdreamer

Home At Last
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1183
[Evening of Friday, 3 November of 2017]

:: Cash helps Jules into the house a little before midnight, then makes himself scarce. Jules’ homecoming is meant to be fluffy, but might be emotionally intense for readers. Part of the “Lodestar” arc, set in the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::

Cash slowed to a stop in front of the mobile home where lights spilled out of the living room windows, brightening the porch that spanned the narrow front before illuminating the three steps just barely narrower than the front of the house and the attached porch. Setting the brake and shutting off the engine made Jules rouse slightly. “Oh, I forgot,” the teen mumbled. “Wanted the box I sent to you marked ‘F’. That’s the big souvenir collection for the little o--” A yawn turned the start of the word into a noisy sigh. Jules’ jaw cracked noisily.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: amused

davidgillon

Given President Bonespurs is whinging about the European nations, and the UK in particular, not queueing up to join the war he started without consulting them*, I thought I'd look up the precise wording of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty.

"Article 5

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked"

Mutual defence against an armed attack on a NATO power in Europe or North America, does not give Trump the right to drag NATO into an offensive war he started in the Gulf, without consulting them, no matter what he might think.

This is why NATO never got involved in Vietnam, and why Kennedy and Nixon didn't throw a tantrum over it.

Meanwhile there's a pretty good argument Pete Hegseth committed a war crime at his press conference on Friday, which takes a truly special level of stupidity.

Hegseth: "no mercy, no quarter!"*.

Hague Convention of 1907, Regulations: Art. 23: "In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden

....

(d) To declare that no quarter will be given;"

As a former officer Hegseth should know that, and if he doesn't, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, standing next to him, definitely should.

* He may have forgotten accusing all the Coalition powers of staying away from the front lines of Afghanistan just a couple of months ago, but the other NATO nations haven't. As you sow, etc

** At least Hegseth stopped short of yelling "Deus Vult!", but it's still some Crusader-level shit and you can bet the Gulf powers noticed.

Current Mood: Unimpressed
Current Location: The bit of Europe that doesn't include the Gulf
Current Music: Yakety Sax

jesse_the_k

While he was quite surprised to walk out for his morning on-leash ablutions into heavy snow above his knees, he's really starting to relax.

This morning I reached down to stroke his back and he didn't flinch.

Just now I was resting on the floor by his bed, petting his back. I started to scritch the scruff of his neck, and he relaxed even more, his dark eyes shining up at MyGuy behind the camera. (I'm reclining on my tripled-up exercise pad just behind him, shockingly without glasses.)

( Read more... )

Only 28 days of enforced rest to go!

meridian_rose

Round 2 of

seasons_of_fandom is opening soon! Multifandom challenge community with original fic and stock icons welcome. Challenges include graphics, writing, and puzzle games.

Please check it out, and if you join tell them I sent you :)
Some no pressure pre-round challenges are already posted but the community and challenges open fully in April.

sign up post

dialecticdreamer

Home Stretch
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1363
[Evening of Friday, 3 November of 2017]

:: After an incredibly long series of connecting flights, Jules finally arrives in Sacramento. He and Cash have a very intimate discussion on the ride to Mercedes. Part of the “Lodestar” arc, set in the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::

Every muscle and joint in Jules’ body hurt. By the time he stood to deplane in the Sacramento airfield, ready to brave the narrow, stale air of the skywalk to reach the terminal, the teen was mentally making a list of the arthritis-adaptations that his dad used during massages, and wondering if he could afford the time to get a fifteen minute chair massage.

As he dragged the Bodhi bag in its light blue case out into the artificial light but echoing openness of the terminal, he found that the massage business was no longer tucked between the first aid station and the Tastee Shack booth. He didn’t see Cash, and at a few minutes after ten o’clock at night, he didn’t expect to see his father, Joshua or Griffin Tull, either.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: anxious

redbird

My right shoulder and neck started hurting Friday night, along with an ache on my right side. I tried Tylenol, which did nothing, but this morning it occurred to me that while I know naproxen doesn't help the weird neck/shoulder tension, it might help my back. I tried, and yes it helped.

Other than that, I went for a walk in the snow yesterday, after staying in all day Friday, and in the evening rysmiel, Sasha, and I watched the first half of the National Theater at Home production of _The Importance of Being Earnest_. It's very good, and we are going to watch the rest of it tonight.

igenlode

It has been warm, and I have been sowing seeds and giving my tomatoes holidays outside. It has also been very cold at night, with a white frost, and I had to put the extra blanket back on top of my bed! To my relief the rocket and lettuce seedlings survived the cold all right, and everything else was still safe beneath the soil...

( Poppies )

Some of the strawberry plants are showing signs of life (though at least one appears to have had its new growth eaten off, and is trying again to put out a fresh set of leaves). Some of them look as if they may have died over the winter.

I soaked a dozen or so dwarf peas and they are now in a newspaper jar, but have shown no signs of sprouting just yet. I also sowed a tray with the last of the assorted purple flower seed, though so far as I remember it didn't come up terribly purple and didn't appear to contain any of the listed species other than cornflowers! Certainly most of the seed remaining in the packet looks like cornflower tufts, though they may simply be the biggest...

( Gypsophila elegans, Gypsophila vaccaria, Swan River daisy and pink Linaria )

pedanther

. At the weekly boardgame meet, we played Cockroach Soup (which is like Cockroach Salad but with more slurping, although one player refused to slurp and just said "slurp" instead), Flip 7 With A Vengeance (which is like Flip 7 only more so), Lovecraft Letter (which is like Love Letter with the option to unlock forbidden techniques that are more powerful but increase the chance that you'll go mad and get disqualified), The Mind, and Cheating Moth.

. Further experimentation with the cat-head ice cube tray has established that if I leave it out of the freezer for about fifteen minutes, the ice blocks will melt enough to relent their grip while otherwise retaining their shape. I will probably continue to use the dog tray more often, as I'm not the kind of person to know fifteen minutes in advance that I'll be wanting a cold drink. I have made a mental note to try with fruit juice and see if that affects the grippiness.

. I've played through all the prequel missions in the XCOM 2 "Tactical Legacy" DLC. There's a state I get into sometimes when I'm reading a book that I'm not really enjoying, where I'm still interested in seeing what happens next but what I'm really looking forward to is getting to the point where I've seen what happens next and can move on to something else; that's how I felt when I was doing the last few missions. One thing I can say for them is that they've given me a new appreciation of how the main game works as an ongoing story with a cast of familiar characters who grow and develop over time, with the player getting involved in guiding their development, and isn't just a bunch of arbitrary missions featuring an arbitrary bunch of people with random skill sets.

. Auditions have begun for our next production, which will be the Peanuts-inspired musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. I remember auditioning for something years ago (it seems likely it was Putnam County, though it might not have been) with Charlie Brown's kite song from this musical, but I haven't been able to find where I stored the music for it. (I was undecided about whether I would actually audition with it this time, since usually I make a point of not auditioning with a piece from the musical I'm auditioning for, but it would have been nice to find it again regardless.)

. The BBC has announced the recovery of two more missing episodes from early Doctor Who, both from near the beginning of "The Daleks' Master Plan". This means we now have substantially more than we previously had of Adrienne Hill's run as a Doctor Who companion, and of Nicholas Courtney's first appearance on the series.

Coincidentally, the day after the announcement, I was poking around in my digital archive looking for the kite song, when I found a mysterious folder containing a single file with the informative name of "scan0003.jpg", which turned out to be a newspaper clipping from the last time an episode of "The Daleks' Master Plan" was recovered.

. The family walk continues.

flareonfury posting in

dw_community_promo

galorechallenge is a returning Crossover Fic Challenge from LiveJournal where you would find a crossover, grab a prompt & start writing! NO CLAIMING NESSARY! Post your story to the community (or at least link to it) once you're done. Feel free to grab more than one prompt, and more than one crossover! There are no limits on how much you can write per round. Check out the rules for more information.
Also once the round ends, we'll vote on our favorites by fandom & you can get a fancy award. Or if there is only 1 crossover for a particular fandom, it will move on to the next round.
While it is a multi-fandom challenge, and SO MANY fandoms are allowed, there are some restrictions, so check out the fandoms currently allowed.
Round 14 is open until June 30, 2026 @ 11:59 EST.

Rules & FAQ | Prompts | Submit New Prompts/Crossovers |

neotoma

Lucy Glo apples, shallots, white potatoes, a small head of cabbage, carrots, celery, spicy bratwurst, thick-cut bacon, cranberry chevre, a loaf of whole wheat bread, a gallon of lavendar-lemonade, a pint of shiso-orange mint lemonade, peanut butter cookies, dark chocolate walnut cookies.

pedanther

#8: A book with a cover in the same colour as the previous book

Devil in the Mountain: done. The pace picked up toward the end, which is perhaps less a statement about the book itself than about how I had enough grasp of the concepts by then that I wasn't having to keep pausing to process.

StoryGraph Onboarding Challenge: A book you discovered via the 'Similar Users' toggle on the News Feed

Having completed Bleak House, I have to admit that a section in the last quarter fully justifies its inclusion as a detective story, complete with murder, the suspect the police consider obvious but the audience knows didn't do it, the suspect the audience is given every reason to think did it short of actually showing the murder being done, and so on, all the way to the summation in the drawing-room. There's some impressive setting-up of things that will turn out to be important later. There's even a bit where the detective finishes a conversation and pauses on the way out the door to ask one last thing.

I enjoyed the rest of the novel, too, although some of the directions the "heroine is epically clueless about being in love" plot went were, to put it politely, a bit odd.

Miscellaneous

For no other reason than because I reached the front of the hold queue,

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green.

A collection of essays with the conceit that Green is writing reviews of, and giving ratings out of five to, random things that it would be foolish to give ratings out of five to, such as "Viral Meningitis" and "The Lifespan of the Human Race". Most of the essays end up being about more than just the thing being reviewed and rated: The first essay, for instance, is nominally about the song "You'll Never Walk Alone", but also covers the history of the musical it originated in and also looks at the phenomenon of sports fans adopting club songs and Green's history with football club whose fans adopted this song in particular. Many of them, as the title suggests, end up having something to say about humanity's place in, and effect on, the world.

I'm enjoying the essays, and finding it a useful book on days when I want to keep my reading streak going but don't want to get involved in anything long and complicated.

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor.

A university history department staffed by Loveable Eccentrics has access to time machines which they use for conducting first-hand historical research. In due course, there is Plot involving people who wish to use the time machines for more selfish purposes.

( Read more... )

I admit that I did get into it in the run-up to the dramatic climax, which I was suitably engaged by, and the same for the second dramatic climax that, due to an oddity of the plot structure, followed several chapters later. However, the blatant sequel hook in the epilogue failed to find purchase, and I don't anticipate continuing with the series.

dialecticdreamer

Touching Base
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1236
[Evening of Thursday, 2 November of 2017]

:: Jules can’t sleep, thinking of the approaching plane trip which will bring him, finally, home ot Mercedes and his family. He calls a friend with a thin excuse. Part of the “Lodestar” arc, set in the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::

Somewhere in the maze of hostel rooms, someone was playing an out of tune guitar in desultory, awkward scales. Jules glared at the bedside alarm clock and sighed. It wasn’t yet nine at night, and it wasn’t the stranger’s fault that he had to be at the boarding gate at three in the morning to catch a four a.m. flight.

Squirming restlessly on the luxurious single occupancy room with ensuite, Jules couldn’t keep his eyes shut for more than a few heartbeats at a time. When he sat up, he automatically reached for his phone to scroll slowly through his contacts. He checked the local time, then dialed.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: accomplished

Profile

Ann

March 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Page Summary

dialecticdreamer - Morning Dance (part 1 of 1, complete)
redbird - home again
buttonsbeadslace - Spanish class experiences of the week
gremdark - Chore Accountability
gremdark - Tumblr... grr.
alatefeline - apropos of the top-down structural attack on Tumblr community ties
soc_puppet - Fics complete!
igenlode - Towel (good)
dialecticdreamer - Home At Last (part 1 of 1, complete)
davidgillon - Suppose they gave a war and nobody came
jesse_the_k - Day 21: Shadow Continues to Mellow
meridian_rose - Seasons of Fandom landcomm promotion
dialecticdreamer - Home Stretch (part 1 of 1, complete)
redbird - shoulder etc
igenlode - Seed log
pedanther - Week in review: Week to 14 March
flareonfury in dw_community_promo - galorechallenge | Round 14 is now open!
neotoma - Farmer's Market -- 14 March 2026 (Daisy Day, 24th of Windy, Year 234)
pedanther - Book Chain, etc, Week 11
dialecticdreamer - Touching Base (part 1 of 1, complete)

Style Credit

Style: Poppy Fields for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Mar. 18th, 2026 03:03 am

Harmonies and Counterpoints

Reading

Morning Dance (part 1 of 1, complete)

home again

Spanish class experiences of the week

Chore Accountability

Tumblr... grr.

apropos of the top-down structural attack on Tumblr community ties

Fics complete!

Towel (good)

Home At Last (part 1 of 1, complete)

Suppose they gave a war and nobody came

Day 21: Shadow Continues to Mellow

Seasons of Fandom landcomm promotion

Home Stretch (part 1 of 1, complete)

shoulder etc

Seed log

Week in review: Week to 14 March

galorechallenge | Round 14 is now open!

Farmer's Market -- 14 March 2026 (Daisy Day, 24th of Windy, Year 234)

Book Chain, etc, Week 11

Touching Base (part 1 of 1, complete)

Profile

March 2026

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags