settiai: (Siân -- settiai)
Lynn | Settiai ([personal profile] settiai) wrote2025-05-28 10:34 pm
Entry tags:

Aurendor D&D: Summary for 5/28 Game

In tonight's game, the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.
watersword: An open book (Stock: book)
Elizabeth Perry ([personal profile] watersword) wrote2025-05-28 08:38 pm

oh, hi, aten't dead

I have been staggering through the past few weeks, holding myself together with string and duct tape, and it is finally the Cottagecore Week.

I have finished a sashiko patch on a pair of jeans and I am very proud of myself, as well as the first of the embroidered numbers for my front & back doors, and I have solved the problem of how to print patterns onto stabilizer (use the library makerspace printer from a USB). The mending circle at the local "sustainable fashion collective" (it's a secondhand store with some mending/tailoring services) was fun and I'll go back when the bus schedule allows. Dropout.tv and the 1995 Pride & Prejudice miniseries have been my companions as I sew this week, and they are both great for that purpose. I think I will move on to North & South and perhaps Horrible Histories next. Is Shakespeare & Hathaway fun?

The knotweed in the garden has been beaten back from the path to the shed, and the asparagus is coming up spindly and feathery (I really hope that they will thicken over time, I will eat a thin asparagus spear without complaining but I love asparagus with some heft); no trace of the rhubarb, which I'm kind of upset about, but seeds are always chancy, and I'm waiting to see what happened with the watermelon and sunflowers, now that I've staked the peas. Surely something will come up? The gladiolus in the front garden are looking more promising, although I don't know what happened to everything else. I have proof that someone in the Parks Department exists, and has just been ignoring my emails (a coworker knows the parks director, and emailed her, and the person I have been trying to get in touch with answered when their boss was on the chain, but no luck since, so this is progress but not by much).

I have been wallowing in books, and can enthusiastically join the chorus of those of you who have been shrieking delightedly about Robert Jackson Bennett's latest, A Drop of Corruption, it's so good, please discuss in the comments; and I finally got my hands on Katherine Addison's The Tomb of Dragons, ditto.

lauradi7dw: me wearing a straw hat and gray mask (anniversary)
lauradi7dw ([personal profile] lauradi7dw) wrote2025-05-28 08:05 pm

In pictures vs real life

I enjoy looking at the clothing here
https://nepenthesny.com/

If I saw someone walking down the sidewalk wearing most of them, I would stare a lot.
settiai: (Boromir & Faramir -- megalixer)
Lynn | Settiai ([personal profile] settiai) wrote2025-05-28 08:05 pm

Oops?

"I'm exhausted from not getting enough sleep, and my spoons are gone after the hell that was work today," I said yesterday evening after getting home from work.

"I have so many things that I need to get done this evening, but I don't have the energy right now," I said. "Plus my head's really starting to hurt."

"You know what?" I asked myself. "A short nap will be the perfect solution."

Spoiler: it was not the perfect solution for accomplishing things yesterday evening. Why not? Because instead of it being a short nap, it turned into a full night's sleep.

Oops?

Seriously, I didn't even turn out the lights. I curled up on top of the comforter on the bed. I wasn't even under the sheets. And I still slept for hours.

Luckily, I woke up for something like twenty minutes a little before midnight. That gave me time to take care of a couple of things that I really had to do, and then I was able to at least turn out the lights and such. But, yeah. That wasn't exactly what my plan was for yesterday. It's certainly what happened, though.
the_shoshanna: little girl screaming with glee: "OMG squee!!" (omgsquee!)
the_shoshanna ([personal profile] the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-28 06:10 pm

I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride my bike

When I was ten years old, friends and I came back from seeing a James Bond movie and were playing at James Bond on our bikes, and I swerved too sharply, fell over, and broke my left leg. I broke both the fibia and the tibula, in fact, but they were clean breaks, very tidy. Hurt like screaming hell, though. As was the custom of the time I was the hospital for several days and came out in a full-leg cast. My father, who lived some distance away, couldn’t get there right away and sent me a dozen roses in the hospital, which made the whole thing absolutely worth it; I had never felt so grown-up!

But that was the end of my bicycling career. For fifty years.

Now, however, I've moved to a small, mostly flat, navigable city, and I want to try getting back on that literal-not-proverbial bike! I fairly often have places to go and errands to run where driving feels silly but walking might take juuuuust too much time, and a bike seems like the obvious option. But do I want to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a new bike and run the risk that I won't enjoy it, or feel safely balanced after so long, or whatever, and will in fact end up not using it much? I do not.

Fortunately this city has a couple of nonprofit bike repairing and reselling organizations! So I stopped by one of them this afternoon and chatted with the head mechanic, and he picked out a bike for me from their (all donated) stock on hand, and we verified that it fits me. It needs some repair work and tuning up, which they will do over the next couple of weeks (him: "There's about six bikes ahead of you in line." me: "It's been fifty years, another two weeks is not a problem!"), and they asked for $125-$175, according to my ability to pay. I wasn't able to actually test-ride it, since it has no tires at the moment, but I was able to balance pretty well; I do feel pretty confident that I haven't forgotten how to ride a bike.

(And this time I hope to learn how to shift gears, too! Kid-me's bike was a three-speed and I just left it in second all the time.)

Now I just need to get a helmet -- which I do know to buy new/unused. And a lock. Whee!
chestnut_pod: A close-up photograph of my auburn hair in a French braid (Default)
chestnut_pod ([personal profile] chestnut_pod) wrote in [community profile] fffriday2025-05-28 01:57 pm

A few short, middling reviews from the year so far

Metal From Heaven by August Clarke
I recommend to everyone [personal profile] skygiants' review for a perspective from someone who enjoyed this book more than me. I respected it, but I can't say I liked it. However, it is clear to me that many people would like this very much! A violently purple, ambitious fantasy story about lesbians who hate each other and the workers' revolution (sort of).

I felt like it careened out of its own control around the 2/3 mark (which is also where one can audibly start hearing the Evangelion theme song). However, if you like swirly-marbled psychedelic books with 90s anime antecedents where every character can be described as The [attractiveness adjective] [morality adjective] Lesbian, evil blue tangerines, and other people's trip diaries, this is for you. It's very very different, ambitious, and fresh, which one likes to reward, so I hope it gets lots of attention, even if it wasn't totally for me.


But Not Too Bold, by Hache Pueyo
This was… basically okay. "Lady Mary and Mr. Fox" but lesbian horror-spiders. I appreciated how the Folklore Flavor details were specific in a way that I find sadly uncommon in this species of contemporary "monster" "romance" fantasy. It is stuck halfway between the broad strokes of a fairytale and the demands of a lengthier novella trying to have a mystery plot, and the romance is really just armature.


The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands, by Sarah Brooks
This is a blown egg of a book. There's a shell of cool things, like trans-continental trains, eco-horror gaslamp-style, a quasi-Rusalki in ambiguous love with the orphaned Chinese train-foundling, and alt-history, but the shell is all there is. Bombastic but substanceless.


Hopefully in the next few months I will read some new-to-me F/F which I can wholeheartedly love.
sage: image of the word "create" in orange on a white background. (create)
sage ([personal profile] sage) wrote2025-05-28 03:39 pm

What I'm Doing Wednesday

books (Shaw, a different Shaw, Spinney, Ames, Barkataki, Palmer) )

yarning
ahahaha, etsy. So, out of the blue, I sold 3 things Monday, 2 of which I didn't have in stock and had to make, and guess who hadn't crocheted at all in 3 weeks? And hardly at all for nearly 3 months? Also, I hadn't sold anything through Etsy except patterns in months, or promoted my shop on social media, or even uploaded the few things I've finished lately to my shop. Stupid shoulder, stupid slump. But now I've caught up, I need to jump back into it. And also get the sold items in the mail.

dirt
omg the thrips saga is ongoing. The whole extensive bathroom-greenhouse is at risk, and I've sprayed almost everything in there down with Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew, whether it's edible or not. Also unfortunate, there are fungus gnats in my terrarium, so along with a Buddha statue, there are 2 yellow sticky trap flags. They really set the tone. Um, not. Also, but fortunately, the snail is 100% NOT a leaf-eater, so I'm hoping it lives on detritus and not something important, like roots. Will have to do more research now that it's large enough to possibly identify.

healthcrap )

food
I made mujadara for the first time in at least a year, and it turned out so well. I'm glad I used both giant sweet onions, because they were just enough. Also made sunflower arugula pesto. Zucchini noodles are weirdly satisfying, even if they aren't near filling enough. Still having trouble getting anywhere near thirty different plants a week in my diet, and also getting enough protein.

#resist
June 1: Pride LGBTQ Protest
June 3 to 9: Target Boycott
June 14: Flag Day & No King's Day (Trump's Birthday) Protest
June 19: Juneteenth Protest
June 27: Stonewall Anniversary Protest
June 24 to 30: McDonald’s Boycott
July 4: Independence Day Boycott and Protest

a list of resources:
50501, Tesla Takedown, Build The Resistance, The General Strike, Indivisible, Rise & Resist, Move On, The People's Union USA, all but the last taken from 50501's latest Substack post. Plus, on DW: [community profile] thisfinecrew and [community profile] communityactionusa.

I hope all of y'all are doing well! <333
immortalje: Typwriter with hands typing (Default)
immortalje ([personal profile] immortalje) wrote in [community profile] dailyicons2025-05-28 09:45 pm

Prompt 2497: Ajar

Today's prompt is: ajar



• You have 2 days time to submit an icon for this prompt (in other words, until prompt 2499 gets posted)!
• Prompt 2495 have been closed.
• If you have any questions regarding the prompt, feel free to ask in a comment.
• To submit an icon you simply reply to this post with the following information:
Icon:
Claim: (only necessary if it's a specific claim)
Status: (e.g. #1/10 - number of icon completed/table size)

Pre-formatted
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
rachelmanija ([personal profile] rachelmanija) wrote2025-05-28 10:28 am

Blood Over Bright Haven, by M. L. Wang



Sciona, the first woman ever admitted to the University of Magic, takes on Thomil, a janitor from a discriminated-against culture, as her lab assistant, and they both learn dark secrets about their world.

Thomil is introduced when his clan makes a desperate run across deadly ground to get to the safety of a city surrounded by a magical shield. The shield protects against bitter cold and the deadly Blight, which randomly zaps and dissolves people, but the area around the city is particularly Blight-infested. Only Thomil and his baby niece survive. When they arrive, they find that the city natives hate their race and has consigned them all as a permanent underclass.

Ten years later, Sciona, a well-to-do young woman in the city, is preparing for her magic exam to try to get into the sexist magic university, which no woman has ever passed. Though she does pass, all the male mages but her mentor hate her and hassle her. The only other person who's even remotely nice to her is Thomil, the janitor, who is assigned as her lab assistant as a cruel joke. But though Sciona is racist and classist, and Thomil is mildly sexist in an oblivious way, they find that they kind of get along...

Wang has an engaging, easy-read style for the most part, the intros to the two main characters are quite compelling, and despite the heavy-handed axes of privilege themes, Thomil and Sciona have a nice dynamic.

I said "for the most part." The exception is the magic system, which I think is basically computer programming via magic typewriters (spellographs). The wizards program a spell to access a specific area of the magical Otherrealm (which they can't see or sense in any way, so they're just plotting points on a grid) to grab magical energy or matter from it. But we get MUCH more detailed and lengthy descriptions of it, from long explanations to actual spells:

CONDITION 1: DEVICE is 15 Vendric feet higher than its position at the time of activation.

ACTION 1: FIRE will siphon from POWER an amount of energy no lower than 4.35 and no higher than 4.55 on the Leonic scale.

ACTION 2: FIRE will siphon within the distance of DEVICE no higher than 3 Vendric inches.

If and only if CONDITION 1 is met, ACTION 1 and ACTION 2 will go into effect.


The first half is Sciona and Thomil working on various spells, interspersed with very heavy-handed commentary on colonialism, sexism, and how Sciona totally gets feminism when it applies to her personally but is oblivious to all other isms. Sciona is an awful, self-centered person and Thomil is mostly perfect. Almost exactly halfway through, there is a shocking reveal. At least, it shocked many readers. It did not shock me.

Read more... )

Despite what the plot description sounds like, Sciona and Thomil do not have a romance beyond occasional sexy feelings. It's a magical dystopia/dark academia, I think similar to Babel (which I could not get very far into) but less anvillicious in that it does not have literal footnotes saying stuff like "This is a racist comment and racism is bad." (In the bookshop, I have Blood Over Bright Haven tagged "If you like Babel you will like this.") Sadly for M. L. Wang, this comparative subtlety got them some reviews on Goodreads accusing them of condoning Sciona being a bad person and endorsing her beliefs.

I did not care for this book but I can see how it would work for many readers, especially if they're shocked by the twist at the halfway mark.
geraineon: (Default)
geraineon ([personal profile] geraineon) wrote in [community profile] cnovels2025-05-28 09:52 am

Read-in-Progress Wednesday

This is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*
brightknightie: Forever Knight logo on Toronto skyline at sunset (FKFicFest Moderator - Knightie)
Amy ([personal profile] brightknightie) wrote in [community profile] fandom_on_dw2025-05-28 07:22 am

FKFicFest: A Forever Knight Ficathon (now releasing)

FK Fic Fest 2025

[community profile] fkficfest | FKFicFest A03 Collection



[community profile] fkficfest '25 is releasing!

We have 12 all-new Forever Knight fanfic stories this year. We're releasing one per day as long as they last. So far, 3 are live!

Follow the reveals as they happen on our '25 AO3 sub-collection or DW community.

Do you remember FK on CBS's "Crimetime After Primetime?" In local syndication? On the USA cable network or the original Sci-Fi Channel? DVDs? Streaming on Crackle, AppleTV, or Amazon? We still love our favorite vampire homicide cop and all his friends, enemies, lovers, coworkers, and car. Come play with us!

cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (Default)
Cimorene ([personal profile] cimorene) wrote2025-05-28 04:47 pm
Entry tags:

hunting for leave in conditioners for curls (waves) that don't stank

As you all are potentially aware, I have an allergy to at least one (unknown id) perfume and am hyper sensitive to other (many, but not all) perfumes and some natural fragrances. Besides one lavender tea incident, the throat swelling has only ever been in response to perfumed products on the lower half of my face for longer than the time it takes to wash it back off (so it's not TOO scary, since I always have time to escape). Hypersensitivity isn't the same as allergy, but when you add the knowledge that some unknown perfume aggressors out there will make my airway swell mostly closed, the hypersensitivity becomes very alarming and hard to deal with. Am I sneezing and feeling like I'm gonna choke because Smell, or am I risking anaphylaxis?

So as you can imagine, I usually buy unscented cosmetics, hygiene products, etc. And that's not always enough! As I was saying to [personal profile] twistedchick recently, sometimes I have to discard unscented products due to the smells of ingredients. Common offenders include burning (how?), ozone (this isn't unbearable but it's very annoying), a vaguely "gone off" smell in some moisturizers (rancid oils? Or some kind of fungal ingredient??), and urine (WHY! I know it's because they use urea in the manufacture but that's an issue I would think they would consider urgent to fix???)

But sometimes I feel compelled to try scented products because there doesn't seem to be a good unscented alternative. If you have any special requirements for shampoo and conditioner - in my case, I have low-porosity hair and lots of common ingredients don't work for me - there tend to be no unscented options, because unscented products are already considered a special requirement. I have decided that I need a new leave in conditioner that's more effective for holding curls and waves without frizz, and maybe a curl cream. (I don't like gel but it's always there if I can't find a good cream solution.)

Well, I tried a John Frieda Frizz Ease "curl revitalizing oil spray" today with great hopes.

My first impression was "this smells like my mother in law". [personal profile] waxjism agrees. It's a perfume, and the product does contain a little patchouli but it's not exactly patchouli that smells like her (but it is musky). The ingredients include "perfume", as usual, which should be illegal anywhere btw, so that's not much help.

Anyway, it's strong enough that I don't like it and will have to give it away, but it's not strong enough that I need to wash it out a day early, as long as my hair is kept back out of my face.

I've been reading the occasional perfume review reblogged by [personal profile] cleolinda and have got the idea it could be oud or some rose-related thing. Or maybe it's the combination of patchouli with one of these other things? I'm medium confident that it's not moringa...

full ingredients list )
fox_in_me: fox.in.me (Default)
fox_in_me ([personal profile] fox_in_me) wrote in [community profile] addme_fandom2025-05-28 04:45 pm

New subscribers and subscriptions

Name: Mr. Fox
Age Group: N/A
Country: Ukraine

Subscription/Access Policy:
Feel free to read, comment, and share your thoughts. I'm always open to dialogue.

Before adding me:
I’m an open person without any specific agenda. I’m Ukrainian — and perhaps it’s worth mentioning these days, just to avoid misunderstandings.
Welcome aboard. Think of this journal as a collection of messages in a bottle.

I mostly post about:
Stories from my life — thoughts, feelings, and moments during this time of war in Ukraine. I try to write honestly, capturing emotions: memories of peace, reflections on the present, and fragments from my life as a mariner and traveler.
This journal is still young — I’ve recently returned to writing after a long break. Most entries are bilingual (English and my native language), and I often include my own photographs — chosen to match my thoughts or mood.

Main Fandoms:
I’m not active in any specific fandom, but I enjoy stories that resonate. Some shows I like include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and others.

Fannish Interests:
Photography (almost professionally), lomography (capturing daily glimpses), music (especially acoustic, alternative, and instrumental covers), psychology, and classical literature.
I love discovering new things — ideas, places, stories, and people.

I'm looking to meet people who:
…feel connected to what I write — kindred spirits or simply those who find meaning in my words. I’m open to everyone (with one exception: I don’t welcome those who support or excuse the war). My posts are open and honest. I’d love to find new interesting people to read and connect with.

Favourite Movies:
Disney classics, Pearl Harbor, Greyhound, Loneliness on the Net, Sweet November, and others that reflect emotion and transformation.

Favourite Books:
Loneliness on the Net, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Art of Loving, To Have or to Be?, and other books about meaning and depth.

Music:
Acoustic and instrumental covers, alternative and classic rock, hip-hop, and popular tracks — I don’t limit myself to a single genre


osprey_archer: (books)
osprey_archer ([personal profile] osprey_archer) wrote2025-05-28 08:49 am

Wednesday Reading Meme

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Rebecca Romney’s Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend, in which Romney tracks down many of the books Jane Austen admired (often as ebooks, which I must admit takes much of the romance out of the rare book hunt) and discovers many lost gems of literary excellence. (And also Hannah More, whom she did not take to.) An engrossing read.

D. E. Stevenson’s Mrs. Tim Gets a Job. Like all of D. E. Stevenson’s novels, this is cozy like sitting curled up in an armchair by the fire with a cup of cocoa while a thunderstorm beats against the window in the night. It’s not that she’s writing in a world where bad things don’t happen, or even where bad things don’t happen to our heroes, but by the end of the book it will all turn out right.

Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States, edited by Mikail Iossel and Jeff Parker. An essay collection published not long after 9/11, although only a few of the essays actually touch on that event. Many of them include potshots at American political correctness (hard to embrace the concept if you come from the country where you could literally be sent to a gulag for “political incorrectness”), as well as lists of American books the authors read at a formative age.

I thank my lucky stars that I didn’t read this before Honeytrap, as the book might have been delayed indefinitely while I tried to work my way through the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, as well as some other authors I’ve never even heard of. With truth the author of this essay notes “the average Soviet person probably knew [American science fiction] better than the average American.”

What I’m Reading Now

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Sadly suspicious that none of these characters are ever going to make it to the lighthouse.

What I Plan to Read Next

Does my lightning zoom through Jane Austen’s Bookshelf mean that I will at last read an eighteenth century novel? MAYBE. The library boasts Fanny Burney’s Evelina, Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Romance of the Forest, Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote, and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda. Any recommendations among those works?
slippery_fish: (music)
slippery_fish ([personal profile] slippery_fish) wrote2025-05-28 12:18 am
Entry tags:

If I could just crash here tonight?

Me, finding out that Thea Gilmore released an album with cover songs this year: 🫨🤩

The joy of not following pop culture closely. Stumbling across new material made by your fav.
luzula: a Luzula pilosa, or hairy wood-rush (Default)
luzula ([personal profile] luzula) wrote2025-05-27 10:29 pm

Unsent Letters Exchange

I didn't really bother trying not to be obvious when I wrote this for [personal profile] sanguinity:

Excerpt from the Journal of Captain Keith Windham for August 14-16, 1745 (1011 words) by Luzula
Fandom: The Jacobite Trilogy | The Flight of the Heron Series - D. K. Broster
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham
Characters: Keith Windham, Ewen Cameron
Additional Tags: Diary/Journal, Missing Scene

It was fun to write a bit of Keith's journal from when he first met Ewen! It was equally obvious that [personal profile] sanguinity was the one who wrote me this lovely "Mr Rowl" fic:

Nary a Cause for Tears (9400 words) by sanguinity
Chapters: 4/4
Fandom: "Mr Rowl" - D. K. Broster
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Raoul des Sablières/Hervey Barrington, Raoul des Sablières/Juliana Forrest
Characters: Hervey Barrington, Raoul des Sablières, Lavinia Barrington, Hannah Jeremy, Juliana Forrest, John Jeremy (Mr Rowl)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Enemies to Lovers, Bittersweet, Missing Scenes, Canon Compliant, Pining, (but not only pining!)
Summary: If he dies here, that will be his final judgement of me: that I take joy in his suffering.

Were it true, I would be a happier man this night.

It is a fic with many layers: an academic framing, a journal intended for public consumption, and the same character's secret journal. I really enjoyed how these layers interplayed with each other, and of course it's great to get Barrington's POV on the canon events (and more than the canon events, too!). There are some lovely missing scenes here.
immortalje: Typwriter with hands typing (Default)
immortalje ([personal profile] immortalje) wrote in [community profile] dailyicons2025-05-27 10:28 pm

Prompt 2496: Tool

Today's prompt is: tool



• You have 2 days time to submit an icon for this prompt (in other words, until prompt 2498 gets posted)!
• Prompt 2494 have been closed.
• If you have any questions regarding the prompt, feel free to ask in a comment.
• To submit an icon you simply reply to this post with the following information:
Icon:
Claim: (only necessary if it's a specific claim)
Status: (e.g. #1/10 - number of icon completed/table size)

Pre-formatted
oracne: turtle (Default)
oracne ([personal profile] oracne) wrote2025-05-27 04:01 pm

5 Things Always Make a Post!

1. I participated in Science! This involved an MRI of my right calf while at rest and before, during, and after doing a minute of movement. I got paid, and used part of it to finally buy the Shape Note song book a college friend (from choir) worked on. The next step is to try and make at least a few of the monthly sings in my neighborhood this summer, while I'm off from regular choir.

Read more... )