firecat | Reading

james_davis_nicoll

There's a planet in the habitable zone... but not an Earthlike planet.

Bad News From Alpha Centauri A…

james_davis_nicoll

Sabrena's life is full of struggles already. The last thing she needs is an other-worldly adventure. Life is, alas, not considerate of a teen's preferences.

Sabrena Swept Away by Karuna Riazi

stonepicnicking_okapi

I'm really pleased with how these turned out. Thanks to

sweettartheart for sending me the Tim Holtz phrase stickers. I have never used those before (but many, many YTers do) and I think it is a good effect.

sabotabby

You should stop whatever you're doing and listen to Wizards & Spaceships' latest, "The Science Bros Answer Your Science Questions Part 2." There's a lot of explaining physics (and the problems with time travel, but also how mutable the immutable laws of the universe might be), and more slagging off the idea of Mars colonization. But most importantly there's a bit about dragon evolution that is rad as hell. It will make your day.

andrewducker

1. Labour's plan to jumpstart city building after Rayner's 1.5m homes drive stalls: (tags:housing uk )
2. Chimps consume a pint of lager's worth of alcohol every day in fruit: (tags:alcohol chimpanzees )
3. Man with Covid for over two years became virus incubator, as it evolved into new variants of concern: (tags:pandemic virus evolution )
4. Samsung confirms its $1,800+ fridges will start showing you ads (and so I will never buy one): (tags:advertising Samsung technology OhForFucksSake )
5. Early dropoff in girls' school sports linked to new gender confirmation forms (in Canada): (tags:Canada girls sports school LGBT transgender bigotry )
6. Trump Spends Entire U.K. Trip Trying To Figure Out Where He Knows Prince Andrew From: (tags:politics Child_abuse satire usa uk royalty )
7. An "At The Mountains Of Madness" game, where you play as a penguin.: (tags:penguins hplovecraft games wtf )

classicfilmex

Assignments are due almost exactly 12 hours from now [countdown | in your time zone].

Please make sure that you have a completed work of 1000 words or more posted -- partial works and/or works that are under the minimum risk deletion and default at deadline. If you need a one-time extension, please contact us at classicfilmexchange@gmail.com.

Good luck to those still working!

Current Mood: excited

minoanmiss

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

Current Mood: contemplative

ysabetwordsmith posting in

followfriday

Got any Follow Friday-related posts to share this week? Comment here with the link(s).

Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".

Current Mood: busy

minoanmiss

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

Current Mood: exhausted

pumpkinkingmod posting in

trickortreatex

Just an update that signups are closed! I'm going to finish fine-tuning matching tomorrow morning (East Coast time), so don't wait up for unmatchable emails tonight :)

rshipmod posting in

relationshipping

All assignments are in and we will open on time tomorrow, September 19th, at 9:59PM Eastern. Please ensure your works are ready to be seen and loved! As a reminder, you must comment on your gift before the start of next year’s exchange, or you will be banned.

that_knitting_blog_feed

http://thatknittingblog.blogspot.com/2025/09/my-irish-mittens-adventure.html

My friend Kevin, who has visited Ireland several times, bought four mitten kits by mistake, thinking they were actually mittens. I cannot account for how he did it. He asked me for help. I said I'd knit them, thinking I'd learn a lot.

I've been knitting for 60 or so years and I've never done mittens, gloves or socks, and I suppose I now can take mittens off that list. I agreed to do it and got the wool from Kev in January and it's now September and I'm just finishing them. I rarely make any knitted piece from a pattern because I enjoy designing the fabric. I typically make very simple shapes that show off the colors and textures of the yarns and stitches. So counting stitches and making the numbers of stitches and rows come out "right" is a challenge. I learned a lot.

Most of that learning came from the mushuggenah pattern which was rather wildly inaccurate. I had to re-write it after ripping out large sections of mitten and re-counting everything. I wrote to the company hoping they had an updated and corrected version but they didn't bother responding. So much for Irish wool companies.

There were no illustrations with the instructions, resulting in my sewing the flip tops on the wrong way. I was a bit freaked out that I found out right before I was going to give them to Kevin, but I was very glad that he did not give them as Christmas gifts to his loved ones with that fatal flaw. With more hours of work I'm done and Kevin will have his hand knit Irish mittens.

As you may guess, I consider this particular pattern to be a colossal fail. And of course it has reinforced my conviction to go my own way and not follow the instructions of others, no matter how tempting it might be. For beginners: if you do want to follow patterns, check to see if they have updates or corrections before you begin knitting and insist on illustrations so that you can SEE what you are making.

The yarn is fabulous - classic wool that is stinky and scratchy and utterly beautiful.

I'm always impressed with pattern designers who can do things like make a thumb without making a separate piece, but just figuring out how to develop the short rows within the context of the mitten shape. I liked doing the thumb all eight times.

If you want to see more everyday photos of what I am doing I post frequently on Instagram @journalofathousandlives

http://thatknittingblog.blogspot.com/2025/09/my-irish-mittens-adventure.html

nikis_101

OK, some stuff i want to include:

These are the beetroot and corn symbols, will be featured in ships, cloting and some of the object of each team, maybe I will also include some other symbols...

Now let's see the Charatcers, kind of important to say thet they named themselves since the gt their memories erased, on the Videos provided for the penitentiary company it's encouraged to choose their own name, but they also got Nicknames and such:

1- Mark/Hollywood: Mark looks about 30, very atlethic and with a strong american (lol) accent, which is the reason why he's called "Hollywood" by the next character. Easygoing and quite the charmer, he sort of thought about taking a position as the "brawn" of the team, as it turns out, he slowly creeps into a leadership position and kind of enjoys it. He doesn't seem that interesting in his pasts or anyone's, but tries to listen and conciliate all the team's interests.

2- The guy without an arm/Morgan: He took so long to decide how they should call him that he ended up being called all sort of stuff

3- Jacaré/Jaws/Ironjaw:

lizvogel

(Copied from comments elseweb, because I want to be able to find this should it happen again.)

I don't deliberately choose stories to stretch my writing ability; I just write what catches my interest. But sometimes, it seems, stretchy sneaks up on you.

The current WIP is definitely of the snuck-up-on-me kind of stretchy.

Some of it is simply that I'm having to be more analytical than is my wont. For example, I need a bigger cast for the ending to work, so I'm having to deliberately create characters, when normally they just wander into my head fully-formed. I'm trying to balance the demographics, because while I don't care, my MC would. And I'm measuring out their introductions so that I don't end up dumping a whole horde of people in at once Because The Plot Said So, which means I'm watching the pacing/structure a lot more carefully, when usually I'll just do things whenever it feels right.

There's also a lot more threads in play than I anticipated for something as surface-simple as "man survives Apocalypse". I wouldn't go so far as to call them all plot threads, but they're definitely concepts in play throughout the novel. So I have to keep the theology discussions balanced against the practical necessities, and time them so that the one supports or feeds off of the other. I introduced an additional outside threat that I planned to do more with, ended up dropping, and am going to have to weave back in PDQ before it becomes a broken promise to the reader. There's a character with a Secret, who spends the first two-thirds of the book saying things that everybody takes one way, but that the character and I know mean something else entirely. (That part's been fun; cue evil author cackle of glee.) I'm having to do more set-up than I'm used to for the ending, because none of the characters know what's coming so none of them are actively working toward it, but several of them are unknowingly doing things that will contribute to it. Having to hide the plot from all the characters is definitely a new thing for me.

Looking at it like this, none of these things are supremely stretchy for me (except maybe hiding the plot from the characters). But trying to do a whole bunch of moderately-stretchy things at the same time definitely adds up. And here I thought I just had a nice little trying-not-to-die-in-a-devastated-world story. (No, seriously, I thought this one was going to be relatively easy.)

It's definitely taking longer, too. Not so much in time (I'm always slow) but in word count. I'm at 80,000 words right now; my natural length is usually 80-90,000. This sucker's got at least 30K more words to go, maybe more, and I've been saying that for at least the past 10,000 words now. The more I work on it, the farther from the end I get. So the little voice in the back of my brain saying "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" is not helping.

And of course all this is coming to a head at about the two-thirds point, which is where I usually bog down on a novel anyway. I know what happens, I don't care any more, can rocks just fall and everybody dies? This has nothing to do with the quality of the story and everything to do with the writer, but it's hard enough to slog through even when the path forward is relatively, er, straightforward. When I have to keep jumping between multiple paths and keeping them all in sync and this is hard work, dammit, it's awfully easy to decide the yardwork is a higher priority.

Current Mood: thinky
Current Music: Imagine Dragons, "Radioactive"

yourlibrarian posting in

common_nature

In our final few days we left Oregon, though stayed the night just outside its border in Mount Shasta. The mountain is clearly seen looming over the city but we could see it for many miles as we headed south and finally passed into California.

( Read more... )

stonepicnicking_okapi posting in

sweetandshort

Title: things left unsaid
Fandom: BTS
Rating: Gen
Length: 100
Pairing: RM/Jin
Prompt: quiet
Summary: Unable to sleep in the barracks, Namjoon remembers Seokjin's gift.

( Read more... )

senmut posting in

no_true_pair

Title: Best Day
Fandom: Transformers [Bay Movies/Bumblebee]
Pairing/Characters: Optimus Prime & Charlie Watson
Content Notes: None
Prompt: September Eighteen - 1 & 3 - best day ever

Follows this

"Are you well, Charlie Watson?" Optimus Prime asked in concern as the woman had tears in her eyes, watching Bumblebee leave with Sam.

"Yeah, umm, I… can't begin to tell you how much all of this means, Optimus Prime." She looked up at the mech, remembering that recovered recording so long ago. In the metal, not flesh, he was even more impressive.

"I have given the others who aided us Cybertronian citizenship options. Would you care to have that, to protect you from your interesting government?"

She stared, then dabbed tears away and grinned.

"Right. Best day ever," she avowed.

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6831 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 06 secrets from Secret Submission Post #975.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

kaberett

A little while ago the toddler's household told me that you could turn the top of a pineapple into a whole entire pineapple plant (with the caveat that at least 60% of the time it goes mouldy). My first attempt at this had got as far as growing a whole entire root network but then suffered a Tragic Incident from which it never recovered; the second had been sat around with partially-browned but no-longer-becoming-more-browned and definitely-still-partially-green leaves for Quite Some Time. I had more or less hit the point of "... is this actually doing anything? at all?" and then upon my return from the most recent round of Adventures I rotated it in service of watering it, to discover...

a pineapple crown, growing a whole new set of leaves

... that it's growing a WHOLE NEW SET OF LEAVES. Look at it go! I am very excited!

(My understanding is that if I manage to keep it alive that long it'll take somewhere in the region of 3 years to fruit, and then in the fashion of all bromeliads will die having produced said single fruit. Happily this is about the rate at which we eat fresh pineapple...)

stonepicnicking_okapi

So today is my wedding anniversary (15 years! we were dating 6 years before we married. Traditional gift would be crystal and modern gift would be glass, the interweb tells me) and I feel VERY different than I have in the past. I am...normal...about it. No angst. No weird horrible suicidal feelings. No wishing I forgot it. No urge to cut.

We went to the kabob place, just the two of us, ate, and it was fine.

Am I in a better place or am I resigned to my fate? The job means I am bringing in income and having more interaction with people and getting out of the house, so I THINK it means that I am in a better place mentally.

Or have I just stopped hoping for a way out or a way that things could be better?

I am going to choose to think it's a good thing until proven otherwise, not to be so plagued with negativity about being married. I still think it was a mistake, and I still don't like the concept of marriage at all, in any way, but it was nice to just go eat a meal and come home and feel...normal. No worse than any other day.

That's a good thing, right? I don't know.

nikis_101

The begining of this was that I had a super weird dream that was so narratively complex that kind of gave me trauma (?) I'm acustomed to have dreams about lonely architectonic spaces that I have never been before. LIke brick offices and such, and lately I have dreamt a lot about coworkers (a specific coworker more than once, but i dont want to dwell into that ) So this is the development, still in progress about a personal story that reflecs that dream. I will trasncript my dream as I told a dear friend the very next day i had it:

Había este gran pueblo/casa(?)

Y dos grupos de personas que no se conocían de nada. Cada uno tenía rocas y artefanctos, unos con el símbolo del maíz y otros como de una remolacha (?) en fin habían unos monstruos que se veían como humanos peor eran espiritus que perseguían y cazaban a los de la remolacha

No importaba si conservaban los objetos o no, los perseguían horriblemente. Eventualmente por el miedo la gente del maíz empieza a darle a los espíritus la gente de la remolacha tan rápido como pueden, pero cuando no hubo más gente de la remolacha los espíritus reunieron todos los artefactos de la remolacha y se los dieron aún nuevo grupo de e gnetq eu trajeron, y empezaron a cazar a la gente de maíz que ya estaba cansada y débil.

Aparentemente los símbolos de maiz-remolacha no significaban nada

Sólo les ayudaba a cazar o lo hacia más satisfactorio para ellos así o algo...

En algún punto una señora incluso se refirió a los remolachos (lol) como la gente para el sacrificio y honestamente no quiero volver a dormir.

So. This was it, the original setting didn't convinced me taht well so i'v been thinking in a futuristic setting and develop the corn-beet symbols to be more conceptual as well. As por the story, I'm still trugling to traslate a lot of the concepts but I want to integrate some ideas:

The people didnt remember anything about their previous lives, but were told they were criminals witha death sencence condoned to colonization in a far-away planet
Some sort of plants integrated with human organs or able to replicate imperfectly human organs in sort of disgusting hybrids
Sort of want to leave behind the idea of concious monsters (?) i want the plant so be evil hahahahh
I also want to have a bunch of disabled characters, with very technological prothesis
I have read a lot of right-wing nonsensery in X and while i don't think It's truth, i feel likea some of It can be good fiction concept, as blood memory making humans do stuff agains their morals for teh sake of continuathe their genes. About the problems of genetic dead ends and the fundamental instinct of reproduction and about finding a good "genetic" partner, but idk how to put together all this.
I don't want to do a Gattaca rip off, tho, the main tension is the corn people trying to find why are they and their growing tribalism agianst beet people.

Finally, I want a cozy, sort of boho tribalist aesthetic, but we'll see:

Story pin image

eatdrinkmerrymod posting in

eatdrinkmakemerry

A few clarification questions on tag nominations so far:

1) Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types - we prefer not to use "All Media Types" fandoms as they increase the risk of mismatched expectations between creator and recipient. Please pick a Narnia fandom (the novels or a specific adaptation). We will accept the nominated ships under Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis if we don't hear back before the end of nominations.

2) Supernatural (TV 2005) - the nominated ships Castiel/Other(s) and Castiel & Other(s) are ambiguous. Nominator, if you had specific Other(s) in mind, please edit the tags or let us know who you intended. They will be changed to Castiel/Any Character and Castiel & Any Character if we don't hear from you before the end of nominations.

Nominations are ongoing until the 23rd! The tagset is here. Keep the delicious dishes coming!

himejoshiheart posting in

lyricaltitles

title: There’s not a chance that you will be the one to break the spell (If that’s everything, then later, I’ve got things to do as well)
fandom: In Stars And Time
song: override (will stetson cover)
ship: Mirabelle ~ Siffrin
wordcount: 5626
summary: Mirabelle finds Siffrin again while on a journey for the love that maybe wouldn't make her want to throw up? But what if Siffrin... wasn't Siffrin?
originally made for

iddyiddybangbang

read on ao3!

himejoshiheart posting in

iddyiddybangbang

title: There’s not a chance that you will be the one to break the spell (If that’s everything, then later, I’ve got things to do as well)
fandom: In Stars And Time
author: Chibi aka Siffrin aka Wilbur
ship: Mirabelle ~ Siffrin
wordcount: 5626
summary: Mirabelle finds Siffrin again while on a journey for the love that maybe wouldn't make her want to throw up? But what if Siffrin... wasn't Siffrin?

read on ao3!

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

These questions were originally suggested by

polypolyglot.

1. Do you believe you can have more than one soulmate in life?

2. Are you with that soulmate now?

3. If not, how long did your relationship with your soulmate last?

4. Do you still think about your soulmate, if you are not together?

5. If you're not together, do you think your soulmate still thinks about you?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

shadowhive

My fear was right about student finance, it hadn’t gone through when I did my application like I expected. I did a text chat with someone Tuesday to make sure and then filled in the online form. Hopefully it’s right and should be sorted but… Ugh. I’m not gonna dwell on it. And at least I know now as opposed to what happened a few years back (where, just after Christmas break, I got hit that it hadn’t been processed asnd so was screwed)

Yesterday was the funeral of mum’s friend’s great aunt. I’d only met her a few times but she seemed nice and she was 101 years old which is insane. The service was nice enough but of course these things are always gonna be sad. And, for me it bought things back cause it was the same place my grandparents had their funerals. I dunno if it bought the same things up for mum cause we haven’t talked about it but…

Anyway into better things than those two issues.

Two shows came back to Disney+ this week, High Potential and Futurama. High Potential is being released weekly though damn I wish the opener wasn’t cause it ended on a cliffhanger. I wonder if the game maker plot line will be resolved next week or if he’ll come back later on. Either way it’s good to have Morgan back cause she’s amazing (and I love that tv guides have it listed as a highlight).

Futurama is instantly funny, but unlikely High Potential an entire season got put up. So far I’ve seen the first three and I did enjoy them, though the third did feel like the weakest. The relationship conflict between Fry and Leela just felt so forced, especially when Fry had gone to all that thought for the anniversary thing.

I still need to watch last weeks Alien Earth ep (and this weeks) and the new Lego Star Wars thing is tomorrow which looks fun.

Gaming wise I’ve not started Borderlands 4 cause I’ve not felt up to doing much at night again (ugh) but I did manage to find Pokémon Violet to get the mystery gift Pokémon. I also did all the post game gym rewatches which were fun, especially with the grass gym leader having a grass Tera type sudowoodo. Though ughhh I hate that my trainer name on there is Wilbur so much for obvious reasons.

I did start Silksong tonight too and I beat the first boss without dying (yipee!) and met Shermawho is so cute with his lil song. It looks and sounds so pretty, though I fully expect to lose my mind. I just got to the flea caravan and that’ll be where I’ll end it today

Focus has been off still writing wise. There’s a want to write but I dunno the words just don’t wanna come for some reason. It’s so irritating.

I do sometimes do a fic wants post but I might just edit the last one instead of making a new one.most likely it’ll just be adding 5 Seconds Of Summer and Anthony from Dark Divine.

Saturday is gonna be the first of many cinema trips. If I wasn’t gonna do that I might have done something tomorrow (the cinema has Galaxy Quest but only for one day, and I found out Armor For Sleep is in Birmingham but I’ve not listened to them for ages).

The rough cinema trips are:
20th: Thunderbirds (+ something else, most likely bad Guys 2)
29th: Mystery film (+ something else but ??)
2nd: Curse Of Frankenstein (+ something else)
6th: Mystery film (+ something else)

I suspect the mystery films are Him and The Black Phone 2 respectively, though the second might be something else. The other things I’ll see will depend on what’s on those days. (And if I’m wrong about the mystery films I do still wanna see them.) I might see something on the 17th or 18th but we’ll see.

I found out that the Doctor Who boxset is coming out on my birthday, so the daytime will be Pokémon and the night will be that. Which is great cause the first ep is Terror Of The Zygons which feels fitting.

I’ve seen this reading meme so I end the post in this.

What have you recently finished?

Clown In A Cornfield which I did think was really great! It has made me wanna get the second book though I’ve not had luck finding it yet. I’m gonna be on the lookout for the blu ray too, though that’s out of stock in some places too and we don’t have the cool steelbook.

What are you currently reading?

Currently nothing, it’s been dark due to storms and my heads not been the best. Technically I’m still reading Flight Of Icarus. I read the first chapters then got sidetracked and haven’t been back yet.

What are you reading next?

I should read my next read Christie book, but it’ll probably be I Want that Twink Obliterated or Shredded (another book of short stories) for spooky season. Or Halloween Party which isn’t one of the read Christie books but I have had the pretty one siting around for Halloween.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Christopher Larkin - Bone Bottom

prisca posting in

fic_promptly

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

jedibuttercup posting in

iddyiddybangbang

Title: Serendipity Comes From Defying Expectations
Author:

jedibuttercup
Fandom: Knives Out (2019)
Pairing: Marta Cabrera/Ransom Drysdale
Word Count: 10,500
Rating: Teen
Warnings: No archive warnings

Summary: Ransom was the only one of the Thrombeys who hadn't been haunting the patriarch's doorstep with demands and pleas ever since the party. Maybe there was a little more to him than the façade of a spoiled rich kid who valued nothing and no one besides himself.

Link to: Serendipity Comes From Defying Expectations (at AO3, or on DW)

greghousesgf

I have absolutely no idea what to do here. They're doing a party and raffle for the residents but the Fuckup Squad insists that everybody fill out some form rating them to participate. (The forms are NOT anonymous.) I think I have just as much of a right to free food and a chance at a $50 gift card as anybody else living here but if I let them know how incompetent I think they are they'll use some excuse to kick me out. If I lie on the form it'll only encourage them to keep fucking up (and I don't feel right about lying anyway, even to people I don't like.) If I don't fill the form out they are going to want to know why. (Even if I didn't have a problem with lying, I don't think I could make up a convincing one to explain why I didn't want to fill out the form anyway.)

Current Mood: grumpy
Current Music: Brahms

goddess47 posting in

no_true_pair

Title: After the Bar Brawl
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing/Characters: John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagen
Word Count: 263
Content Notes: none
Prompt:

no_true_pair September 18 - John Sheppard & Teyla Emmagen - best day ever

Link to fic: After the Bar Brawl (on AO3)

sinesofinsanity posting in

fancake

Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender
Pairings/Characters: Zuko, Iroh, the GAang in the background
Rating: G
Length: 2,889 words, 19min 30s
Creator Links: Haicrescendo
Theme: Food & Cooking, character development, family, families of choice, going home, missing scenes,

Summary:

[Zuko’s greatest failing, not his only but just one that stands out the most in a very long list, is that he’s never known quite what he had until it’s gone. Or, on the opposite hand, he covets the things that don’t matter, that seem to matter so much at the time and turn out, in the end, to be something that Zuko’s made up in his head.

And then Zuko finds, of all things after it all, that he misses Uncle Iroh’s tea.]

Or,

Zuko screws up his life and in the process of fixing it, figures out some tea wisdom along the way.

Reccer's Notes: This story is so beautiful and gentle. I absolutely love seeing how Zuko's growth and character development is mirrored with his finally learning to make a decent cup of tea. Plus the neat detail of how he despite learning from and trying to emulate his uncle, he makes it his own way. Zuko and Iroh's relationship is lovely in this too. Just an all around lovely story. klainelynch does a beautiful job with the podfic as well

Fanwork Links:
Heat, Wait, Steep, Repeat
and the Podfic both on AO3

mdlbear

Today I am thankful for...

Kaleidofolk's new album starting to come together,
Mario of StudiOjo in Wateringen. Also, having a professional recording studio walking distance (450m) from our house.
Learning a lot about recording. NO thanks for my scratch tracks being barely usable. Oops.
Bandmates (m and N) with an ear for harmony, as well as m's voice coaching.
Bronx's growing talents as a snuggler. He may be taking lessons from Ticia. Also, having a cat to keep my back warm on cold nights.
5mm cube magnets.

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: see post

oursin

Dept of, inventing the city: Fake History: Some notes on London's bogus past. (NB - isn't Nancy murdered on the steps of a bridge in the 1948 movie of Oliver Twist? or do I misremember.) (And as for the Charing Cross thing, that is the ongoing 'London remaking itself and having layers', surely?)

***

Dept of, smutty puns, classical division: Yet More on Ancient Greek Dildos:

Nelson, in my opinion, has made a solid argument for his conclusions that, while “olisbos” was one of many ancient Greek euphemisms for a dildo, this was not its primary meaning, nor was it the primary term for the sex toy. Rather, this impression has been given by an accident of historiography.

***

Dept of, not silently suffering for centuries: The 17th-century woman who wrote about surviving domestic abuse.

***

Dept of, another story involving literacy (and ill-health): Child hospital care dates from 18th Century - study:

"Almost certainly she was taught to read and write while she was an inpatient."
He suspects just as part of the infirmary's remit was to get its adult patients back to work, by teaching children to read and write it would increase their employment opportunities.

***

Dept of, I approve the intention but cringe at certain of the suggestions: How To Raise a Reader in an Age of Digital Distraction:

Active engagement is crucial. This doesn’t mean turning every book into an interactive multimedia experience. Rather, it means ensuring that children are mentally participating in the reading process rather than passively consuming. With toddlers, this might mean encouraging them to point to pictures, make sound effects, or predict what comes next. With older children, it involves asking questions that go beyond basic comprehension: “What do you think motivates this character?” “How would the story change if it were set in our neighborhood?”

Let's not? There's a point where that become intrusive.

***

Dept of, not enough ugh: Sephora workers on the rise of chaotic child shoppers: ‘She looked 10 years old and her skin was burning’

The phenomenon of “Sephora kids” – a catch-all phrase for the intense attachment between preteen children, high-end beauty stores and the expensive, sometimes harsh, products that are sold within them – is now well established.... The trend is driven by skincare content produced by beauty influencers – many of whom are tweens and teens themselves.... skincare routines posted by teens and tweens on TikTok contained an average of 11 potentially irritating active ingredients per routine, which risked causing acute reactions and triggering lifelong allergies.

conuly

I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.
It's like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

************

Link

nikis_101

Re installed my habitica but without the loss of healthe system because "me da amsiedad"...I feel like that shit really helps me because Im eager all the time to complete easy but beneficial tasks for my life.

I'm working from home today so actually having a great morning. sorted out some work related stuff and I'm hoping to advance in my original story and also in a repository of my work related stuff I have on the onedrive.

Also i dont't remember my stupid institutional password so I've beeen postponing the inevitable mommetn in which i will have to ask the IT team to reset it for me.

Gosh, I only talk abour work nowdays.

jazzfish

( marseille, ochre, Lacoste )

Next: return to Paris, mostly cathedrals, and home.

jo posting in

tv_talk

Apologies for the post title -- I am very bad at coming up with titles for entries.

This topic arose out of a discussion on Bluesky and I thought it would be interesting to post it here. The premise is that before streaming, scripted television had to react to its own reality. What I mean is, shows that had to pump out 20+ episode seasons *every year* had to deal with actual real life things and work them into the script. For example, a character becomes pregnant because the actor gets pregnant, or a lead role had to "go missing" for part of a season because the actor was off doing a movie or dealing with a real life issue, or a character had to end up in a cast or otherwise accommodated because the actor injured themselves in real life, or the "filler episodes" that exist because of budget concerns, or the finales that were written because they didn't know if they'd be renewed for another season, etc.

With streaming, because the wait between seasons is so long, we no longer get these (admittedly sometimes rather demented) workarounds anymore. Or as one person on Bluesky put it: "If you can just tell the story you want to tell with the actors you have with whatever running time you want, it's not TV, it's a movie."

Thoughts? Do you miss the imposed responsiveness of pre-streaming TV? Do you have any favourite (or not so favourite) examples of plot lines that came about because of real life events involving the actors or other aspects of the show (e.g. budget issues)?

conuly

I am just brimming over with excitement.

*************************************

( Read more... )

westiec posting in

flashexchanges

Fat Bear Flash
A fic & art exchange for fat bears of all kinds!
- minimums: creator's choice of 300 word fic or a nice sketch

Schedule:
Noms & Signups open: now!
Noms & Signups close: September 22
Works Due & Revealed: September 30
Creators Revealed: October 5
all deadlines are 11:59PM UTC

Tagset 🐻 AO3 Collection 🐻 AutoApp

spiralsheep

Won't be around for the next few days as I will quite literally have my head in the sand. /duneroamin'

With Jonathan Livingston Seagull (4 votes) on my phone and Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop (5 votes) in my rucksack. Imagine, the library could've provided BERYL BAINBRIDGE's much maligned English Journey (after J. BOYNTON Priestley's earlier English Journey). Or I could've cheated and borrowed Mr Lucton's Freedom by Francis BRETT Young which I saw on a returns trolley.

Two books diverged at a sandy shore
And, sorry I couldn't leaf through more
And be one reader, branching out
I took each text as far as I might
Re-turning leaves in autumn light.

glitteryv posting in

recthething

Every Thursday, we have a community post, just like this one, where you can drop a rec or five in the comments.

This works great if you only have one rec and don't want to make a whole post for it, or if you don't have a DW account, or if you're shy. ;)

(But don't forget: you can deffo make posts of your own seven days a week. ;D!)

So what cool fics/fancrafts/fanvids/podfics/fanart/other kinds of fanworks have we discovered this week? Drop it in the comments below. Anon comment is enabled.

BTW, AI fanworks are not eligible for reccing at recthething. If you aware that a fanwork is AI-generated, please do not rec it here.

james_davis_nicoll

A selection of Dozois' best, from the first half of his half century career.

Geodesic Dreams: The Best Short Fiction of Gardner Dozois by Gardner Dozois

stonepicnicking_okapi

September's theme is POEMS I LEARNED IN SCHOOL. Thank you

thatjustwontbreak!

Fog by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

oursin

Happy birthday,

auguris and

fitzcamel!

cerberusia posting in

iddyiddybangbang

Title: Heron
Author: hapaxlegomena on AO3
Fandom: Stardew Valley
Characters: Shane, Farmer
Word Count: 11k
Rating: E
Warnings: CNTW

Summary: He'd never had much to do with their northern neighbour, though Marnie had always spoken highly of him, so he stuck a forkful of trout in his mouth instead of replying. So there was a new farmer in town. So what? They'd probably barely meet. It wasn't much to do with Shane.

LINK

snickfic

Today I need to share with you the two best bits from the Mexico gigs, both on the second night, Sept 13.

ITEM ONE:
Here is a video of Noel directing the crowd to do the poznan, which is the Manchester City football club's special celebration dance. Liam's been having the crowd do it the whole tour, but this time he talked Noel into doing the explanation for the first time.

So much to observe here:
- Liam: "I've seen you do it," probably referring to this memorable occasion when Noel definitely did not do it.

- Noel greeting them in Spanish.

- Noel: "Not asking you to do the okey-cokey." 😅

- Noel explaining the correct process very clearly and efficiently, which is not something one would ever say about Liam's approach.

- But best of all: Noel saying "The big man doesn't ask for much," and then pausing to laugh at the utter and profound absurdity of this remark.

ITEM TWO
And here is Noel miming that Liam should throw his sombrero to the crowd (having already thrown his maracas and tambourine), and Liam handing it to him so HE can throw it. This is also the first time Noel's thrown anything on the tour AFAIK.

They're just having so much fun together and being so charming about it. Incredible. Not in our WILDEST DREAMS did any of us in the fandom dream anything like this was possible.

full_metal_ox posting in

fancake

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi; Chen Qing Ling
Pairings/Characters: Gen; M/M; Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian; Jin Zixuan, Wen Qing, Wen Ning, Nie Mingjue, Nie Huaisang, Jiang Fengmian, Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, Lan Xichen, Lan An, Lan Wangji
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 1,209 words
Content Notes: No Archive Warnings Apply, arrant pedantry, Author Showed Her Work, Food Porn, gastrotravelogue, tea nerdery, Tumblr work
Creator Tags:
headcanon, the untamed 陈情令, cql, mo dao zu shi, mdzs, wei wuxian, lan wangji, nie huaisang, jin zixuan, wen qing, nie mingjue, wangxian headcanon at the very end because that's what i'm here for, tea, i really like tea, heicha, oolong, white tea, green tea, dragonwell, my ramblings, qi is a thing for some tea drinkers

Creator Links: (AO3)

Haoppopotamus; (Instagram)

haoppopotamus; (Tumblr)

watch-grok-brainrot (formerly ~~wangxianbunnydoodles~~)
Theme: Food & Cooking, Cultural Differences, Meta, Research, Worldbuilding

Summary: Since watching ep 3 for the first time (i.e. january), this has been knocking around in my brain. In ep 3, we see JZXuan waltzing into the same inn as the Yunmeng Trio, booting them, and then rejecting “bad tea”. Ever since, I’ve watched a lot of tea being poured in CQL. It got me thinking, what kind of tea would different sects prefer and what would different characters drink?

Reccer’s Notes: In which Haoppo uses her tea connoisseurship as a vehicle for characterization and worldbuilding (and invites her imaginary friends to illustrate and share her interest.) For the likes of me (with no claim to Asian cred by birth or upbringing, and whose blunted sensory range reduces almost all tea to hot leaf juice), this serves as a window into an unfamiliar area of interest and body of cultural reference frames (the idea that tea might possess qi, not necessarily related to its flavor, was a new one on me—but of obvious importance to cultivators.)

Fanwork Links: Tea Preferences by CQL Sects - a Headcanon

(The original post, preserved on the Wayback Machine, includes a beautiful and apropos GIF header: Tea Preferences by CQL Sects - a Headcanon (~~wangxianbunnydoodles~~)

Current Music: “Cha Ge”

silveradept

Let's begin here with celebrating fifty years of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and fifty years of what might be the most unique theatrical experience someone goes to when they go to see Rocky. (And the fact that while the thing on the screen stays the same when you go to see Rocky, everything else changes depending on where you are and what time it is.)

Organizations that fail to consider intersectionality in their diversity, equity, and inclusion will create things like employee resource groups that only capture a part of someone's experience and that elide the places where the intersectionality is unique and important. Which should make you unsurprised, but also horrified, that the Institute for Museum and Library Services budget is being given directly to propagandists for a project that will present a white man-centric view of history and demand that we all believe it as the sole and only truthful narrative of the United States.

James Dobson, creator of such abominations unto his God as Focus on the Family and the Family Policy Alliance, has gone to receive judgment at 89 years of age. Our world is far better off without him, and the damage that he has done to the world would take generations to heal if he were the only one doing his kind of damage. But like so many others, he has disciples and followers, and they will continue to perpetuate his damage into the world for generations to come.

A man who believed that violence was an answer, and who aggressively sowed the wind wherever he went, has reaped the whirlwind, killed by the violence he promoted, by a gun that he believed should have more rights than the people killed by it. He is no longer able to use his organization to promote and encourage harm to others.

( The fallout from such, and plenty of other things, inside )

Last out, Bohemian Rhapsody translated and performed in Zulu and with the visual and singing styles of several other African traditions. It's worth a watch and a listen, absolutely.

The concept of Queer Time, where the signifiers of "adulthood" like marriage, children, and houses are not achieved on any kind of regular time, if at all, and therefore queer adults have to find their own ways of demonstrating to the community that they are full grown-ass adults.

And the iconic Atari CX-10 joystick as a decanter for drinking, along with a couple of Atari-logo glasses.

(Materials via

adrian_turtle,

azurelunatic,

boxofdelights,

cmcmck,

conuly,

cosmolinguist,

elf,

finch,

firecat,

jadelennox,

jenett,

jjhunter,

kaberett,

lilysea,

oursin,

rydra_wong,

snowynight,

sonia,

the_future_modernes,

thewayne,

umadoshi,

vass, the

meta_warehouse community,

little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Music: Depeche Mode - Barrel of a Gun

Profile

firecat (attention machine in need of calibration)

September 2025

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

Page Summary

tarlanx in fffc - Little Special 226: icons
james_davis_nicoll - Bad News From Alpha Centauri A…
james_davis_nicoll - Sabrena Swept Away by Karuna Riazi
stonepicnicking_okapi - Collage Journaling: three
sabotabby - podcast friday
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 19-09-2025
classicfilmex - 12 Hours to Deadline!
minoanmiss - So I posted that story I dreamt.
ysabetwordsmith in followfriday - Follow Friday 9-19-25
minoanmiss - Song of my day
pumpkinkingmod in trickortreatex - Signups are closed!
rshipmod in relationshipping - All Assignments Are In!
that_knitting_blog_feed - My Irish mittens adventure
nikis_101 - Characters and hopefuly soon sketches
lizvogel - Recognizing Stretchy
yourlibrarian in common_nature - Mount Shasta and Entering San Francisco
stonepicnicking_okapi in sweetandshort - [10 out of 20] BTS: gen
senmut in no_true_pair - Best Day (Transformers [Bay Movies/Bumblebee], Optimus Prime & Charlie Watson)
case in fandomsecrets - [ SECRET POST #6831 ]
kaberett - [growth] pineapple is go!
stonepicnicking_okapi - Into the void: crystal anniversary edition
nikis_101 - IdEA
eatdrinkmerrymod in eatdrinkmakemerry - Nominations clarifications
himejoshiheart in lyricaltitles - bingo 2025 - in stars and time - FREE SPACE
himejoshiheart in iddyiddybangbang - In Stars And Time, Mirabelle ~ Siffrin
anais_pf in thefridayfive - The Friday Five for 19 September 2025: Soulmates
shadowhive - (no subject)
prisca in fic_promptly - Thursday, September 18 - Free for All
jedibuttercup in iddyiddybangbang - Serendipity Comes From Defying Expectations [Knives Out | Marta/Ransom]
greghousesgf - (no subject)
goddess47 in no_true_pair - After the Bar Brawl (Stargate Atlantis; John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagen)
sinesofinsanity in fancake - ATLA: Heat, Wait, Steep, Repeat by Haicrescendo
mdlbear - Thankful Thursday
oursin - Assorted things and stuff
conuly - Breakage by Mary Oliver
nikis_101 - Habitica returns
jazzfish - france travelogue IV: rognes (2/2)
jo in tv_talk - The beauty (?) of pre-streaming TV
conuly - We now have a washer again
westiec in flashexchanges - Fat Bear Flash
spiralsheep - In which our heroine visits Llagerub on Sea
glitteryv in recthething - Community Recs Post!
james_davis_nicoll - Geodesic Dreams: The Best Short Fiction of Gardner Dozois by Gardner Dozois
stonepicnicking_okapi - Poet's Corner: Fog by Carl Sandburg
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 18-09-2025
oursin - (no subject)
cerberusia in iddyiddybangbang - Heron [Stardew Valley, Shane/Farmer]
snickfic - hola méxico
full_metal_ox in fancake - Mo Dao Zu Shi; Chen Qing Ling: Tea Preferences by CQL Sects - a Headcanon, by watch-grok-brainrot
silveradept - Sex and Violence, Tech and Violence, and some genuinely neat stuff - Early September 02025

Style Credit

Base style: Modular by branchandroot
Theme: Purple Haze by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated 19 Sep 2025 03:25 pm

tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers

Reading

Links

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags