geraineon: (Default)
[personal profile] geraineon
Hope you all had managed to have a bit of a restful end of the year and beginning of 2026 (despite 2026 starting off with such trashfire awful news).

The start of the year is commonly a time everyone does new year resolutions but somehow, the very act of making something my resolution makes it extra hard for me to achieve ("I do NOT tell me what to do!!!!). However, I have seen a new year bingo thing going around on fedi on things that will give joy in 2026 and thought that it's a fun low-stakes idea! But I didn't have 24 things to put on a 5x5 bingo card so here's a list, in no order, of the things that if I do in 2026, will probably bring me joy:

  1. Update my DW once a month (stretch goal: once a week)

  2. Send postcards once a month

  3. Finish 3 novels (I started many, finished very few last year)

  4. Consistent exercise regardless of intensity

  5. Watch a local musical/play/etc

  6. Start and finish a visual novel game in Japanese (2026 is the year I go back to JP otome games, maybe!)

  7. Go back to consistently self-learning Chinese (yep, I dropped it again after moving last year)

  8. Organize a LoGH/other anime watch party


And things that will be useful to me but might not necessarily bring me joy:
  1. Make a professional site for myself, and building a "professional identity."

  2. Build a "professional identity", which is basically, where I want to go from here and work towards that path

  3. Publish from my dissertation


Some reflections on 2025 )
sholio: Chess queen looking horrified (Chess piece oh noes)
[personal profile] sholio
I don't think I posted about this at the time, but there was an absolute odyssey involved in getting the original batch of B5 script books that I ordered.

The original process was this:

I'd known about the existence of the B5 script books vaguely for a while, but hadn't really thought of buying them before. In October, when I came back from traveling, I googled it and found a massive site called "B5 Books" that had authorized editions of all the B5-related books available, which was a lot of them, not just the script books but tons of other stuff as well.

They had closed yesterday.

But wait! They were staying open through the weekend (like 2 more days) because they'd had technical issues. So I splurged and ordered an absolute ton of books (about 2/3 of the total script books out there, mainly focused on episodes I especially wanted to read about). I would have preferred to order just one to find out a) what the books were like, and b) what their customer service was like, but ... closing in 2 days! So I gave them my credit card info for a quantity of books that I don't want to think too closely about.

A month went by.

I got a shipping notice and a tracking number, and and then a box arrived .... with 2 books in it.

I contacted customer service (a bit nervously, in the hopes they'd still actually answer). To their credit, they were very quick to respond; evidently there was a second tracking email I hadn't received for some reason, for the box with most of the rest of the books in it. (They sent me a free digital book to make up for the emotional distress, too - they were really nice.)

This was back in December, and I was leaving on the 13th, Saturday, so I periodically checked the tracking info for the box. It showed up in Fairbanks over the previous weekend, and showed that it was supposed to deliver on Monday.

Monday came and went. About mid-week, the tracking info showed that it had traveled out of Fairbanks again. (Why??) I had visions of the box going all the way back to the sender for some reason. Meanwhile, I had planned to spend the last couple of days before I left diving into my new books, but as the week ticked down and it continued to tease me ... I guess not. Finally, on Friday, I got an actual "out for delivery" notice, and then a notice that a "pick up at post office" slip had been left. Also, Friday was our last day of actual mail delivery (we'd put a hold on it until after Christmas that started on Saturday and went for 2 weeks, i.e. about the amount of time that the post office will hold a box - you know, this box with $100s of books in it). I was headed to the airport Saturday afternoon, but I figured it should be possible to stop by the post office on the way.

I picked up the mail.

No slip.

I thought, okay, maybe I picked up an early batch (yesterday's? our mailbox is on the highway and both the mail delivery and our collection of it is kind of haphazard) so when Orion got home a few hours later, I asked if there had been a slip in the mailbox.

Nope!

So now my package is on hold at the post office, I GUESS, with no ability to redeliver and our mail delivery not starting until after the approximate return to sender date. We hunted all around the mailbox just in case it had been dropped. No slip.

I ended up printing out the tracking number and taking that to the post office on our way to the airport, and that DID work and they DID have the box and I got it, YAY. (Orion said that the slip spontaneously showed up in the mailbox when he was headed home after dropping me off, so WHO KNOWS what was up with that.)

Anyway, all of that ended up working out in the end, and I enjoyed the books so much that I went on Amazon to see if I could find used copies of the ones I didn't have. I ordered a few more, and I just checked the shipping info and discovered that one of them - from a 3rd party Amazon seller - was sent via Fedex and supposedly delivered on Thursday afternoon, i.e. 2 days ago.

Guess what I don't seem to have!

Orion says that Fedex often leaves deliveries in random places around the yard - he's found them on piles of construction supplies, left at the door of the shop instead of the house, etc. Inauspiciously, it snowed a few inches last night, so everything is covered with fresh snow. Also, it was dark. Still, we took flashlights and went and hunted high and low in all the places that a package might be, ranging from likely (covered with snow beside the door) to unlikely but possible (at the doors of the various outbuildings like the greenhouse, on top of random vehicles in the yard) to the highly unlikely (at our road sign, in our mailbox). Not a single sign of it! I don't know if it was delivered to some other house, mistakenly marked as delivered when it's actually fallen under the delivery truck seat, or if a very soggy B5 book is going to turn up four months later when the snow melts, but seriously, WHAT EVEN. I've never had a book go missing like this in all the time I've been ordering used books off Amazon!

Anyway, further updates from the B5 script books are coming soon, and maybe I'll have this particular book eventually, or maybe not.
proustbot: (walk of shame/terror)
[personal profile] proustbot
I have several things that absolutely must be finished by Monday, and I dealt with those inflexible looming deadlines by once again downloading Inscryption and beating all twelve levels in Kaycee's Mod.

Such triumph, such victory.

I have once again uninstalled Inscryption.

Weekly Update, 1/10/26

Jan. 10th, 2026 07:40 pm
yaaurens: (Default)
[personal profile] yaaurens
Whelp, it has been a week and a half of the new year and hoo boy has it been a doozy so far.

I don't really want to get into the politics of everything, but it surely has been weighing on my mind quite heavily.

I suppose I should mention at least briefly for posterity, because ugh. cut for politics )

ANYWAY on to the life updates and stuff. 

- I started doing the Hybrid Calisthenics workouts via the app, and oof. I am so out of shape, it's ridiculous. I looked at it and was like, hey, this'll be easy. HA. I did three days and had to take a break because I was so sore. And then the next day was a physio day, and I've decided that's going to be a non-HC-workout day anyway. Annoyingly, because my physio days move around, I can't just set my rest day on the app and be done with it.

- I started ANOTHER part-time job, this time doing bookkeeping/accounting for a business someone I know just started. It's such a mess already, omg. It took me FIVE HOURS to fix the mess she made of her accounting software and get everything to balance and reconcile correctly. She also has zero clue what she's doing, because she sent me a message with a list of vendors that she said we needed to 1099, and I'm like... no? we don't? These are vendors, not contractors? She's just so clueless, and doesn't seem to have done ANY research into how to start a business/corporation, which is so frustrating to me. Like, who starts a huge, costly project like this without doing ANY kind of research to find out what you need?

- The good news is, with that new job, I can afford to go see Suzy Eddie Izzard's one-person Hamlet production, so we're making plans for that in a couple of weeks. Very fortunately, my work schedule is such that on Friday I get off at 1pm, and then don't go back to work until 3pm the next day, so being down in LA for an 8pm show will be doable and getting back late won't be harmful to my sleep either, haha.

- cohort and tax job continue; the other day I was horrified when only one person (me, humblebrag) answered a fairly basic question correctly. Seriously. Which of these four options counts as a capital asset, and NO ONE ELSE GOT IT RIGHT?!? How did these people qualify to be tax preparers? I also made the mistake earlier of telling the teacher that I had been an ATL and CSP prior, and now she expects me to know things. Whoops.

- discovered that the 1099s that the IRS sent us were very weirdly NOT carbon copies like they usually are, despite being formatted like carbon copies. Was I clever and did I discover this BEFORE I did all the typing? No, of course not. In any case, we have some time, so we're trying to get an account with the IRS to file them online rather than doing the typey-typey, because I always fuck up so many times. Our other option is to send in the forms we have, and use the PDF form to send to the contractors, but that requires so much more effort. Ugh. I am, however, doing better at tracking my work hours for mom, and I will Not Let Myself Fail to Invoice this year.

- health stuff! Got my PCP changed on my insurance to my actual PCP for the first time in literal years. I guess that's one nice thing about them switching IPAs; they all have to take new patients again, so I can sneak in officially. I also have an appt with my pcp for next week, so we can get the hand specialist worked out, and discuss all the other Things. I need to make sure I write up my list of things to bring up before then. Physio levelled up, they're giving me more resistant items to squeeze and pull and so forth, so that's nice? Progress is being made! Also had my yearly eye doc appointment, so I'm trying out different contacts since the ones introduced last year kinda sucked. We're also going back to same rx in both eyes because my right eye is right in between the two powers. This new brand of contacts seems better so far - the old ones seemed really flimsy, and would blink out super easily, or fold in my eye and jam up under the eyelid, which was no fun.

- I *almost* got to work as a handler at ALA this weekend, and then couldn't because of the dang schedule. I was trying So HARD to make it work, but then they found someone who could work all four days, and I could only do three. But they said they would put me on their list, so hopefully if they have shows with more advance notice (the discussion happened on Tuesday, the con started Thursday) I'll be able to do some more gigs. (I am also sad because a lot of my friends are work in New Orleans this weekend at a con, but I was not picked for it.) (more therapy fodder, yaaaay)

- Dad and I are watching Blood River as the evening show, but it hasn't really been holding my attention very well and I'm not sure why. Possibly because the story is sort of a prequel, but also sort not, because the writer realized he didn't like what he'd done with the characters originally and decided he wanted to re-work them? So things don't quite fit into what has already been laid out story wise. I joined a group watch tonight of the first six episodes of My Lady General, which is gonna be fun, and hopefully I'll be able to see the rest of the eps. Sunday was the B5 group watch, which is great fun because we're up to Babylon Squared and that set of episodes, which is just SO GOOD. 

Next week is going to be busy busy busy. I have my first tax appointment on the schedule; hopefully he shows up and has his paperwork so I can actually do the thing and get those first time jitters over with. Shakes comes back this week too; I asked everyone to please double check their schedules and let me know if they foresee any missed dates so I can go ahead and get casting done now while it's calm and not while I'm stressed with tax work. We'll see if that actually works, ha. I also have So Much Work to do for mom, that I really need to get done this week. Maybe I'll take one of my non-tax work days and go sit at the shop and do work there.

Goals for the upcoming week: Survive the tax appointment. Finish work for mom. Get in the habit of doing regular HC workouts.
Good things: fuzzy blankets (always). surprisingly good headshots for work. my elephant slippers.

Signups Now Open!

Jan. 11th, 2026 12:25 am
littlefics: Three miniature books standing on an open normal-sized book. (Default)
[personal profile] littlefics posting in [community profile] seasonsofdrabbles
Signups are now open! They will remain open until Sunday, January 18 @ 11:59pm Eastern Standard time (Countdown). You can browse the requests in the app!

The tagset will remain open for nominations through the end of signups. 4,000 characters have been nominated so far, but there's always room for more! Please disambiguate your nominations to make the approvals process faster.

Reminder: We have a relatively new rule that when you sign up, you cannot exclude single drabbles from your offers or requests. You are still welcome to request or offer the other drabble types, you just can't leave 100-word drabbles out entirely from your signup. We will let you know via the email associated with your AO3 account if we notice you've left out single drabbles in your signup. Matching and signups will otherwise work the same as before. See the Guidelines for more details if you have further questions. 
 

 

GENERAL SIGNUPS REMINDERS:


Is AO3 not letting you sign up for a character that you know is definitely in the tagset?
  • If it is simply not appearing in the dropdown, try copy-pasting it from the tagset itself. This is a known AO3 bug.

  • If that does not work, please comment here or email us with the exact fandom and character(s) you were trying to request/offer. A mod will then batch load it for you on the backend, and you will be able to request it. This is a caching issue with AO3.


Requests:
  • You can request 3-10 fandoms with 1-20 characters each. Fandoms in your requests must be unique, but may be related (e.g., three Star Wars requests would be fine, as long as it was three separate Star Wars fandoms).

  • Each request must include at least one freeform (Drabble, Double Drabble, Triple Drabble, Drabble Series/Sequence (Various)).

  • Blank signups are allowed, but prompts, likes, and a list of DNWs are strongly encouraged.

  • If you wish, you may request Any for the character section, but please note that Any = any character in the canon (NOT just the tagset). Please do not request Any unless you really are open to receiving any character from that canon. If you have character DNWs, requesting Any might not be the best idea, as this could end up with a bad match with someone who had only offered that character. We will be checking for this before we send assignments, but it's possible we could miss something, which would lead to us having to re-assign your writer and send you to pinch hit. (Note that the character DNW would still be upheld in this situation.) If you are requesting Any and do not wish to receive fic about objects, etc., you should DNW that as well.

  • If you wish, you may request Any for drabble type. This means you are open to receiving any of the 7 drabble types in the tagset.

  • Please note that you cannot opt out of single drabbles. In other words, you are still welcome to request other drabble types, but you cannot exclude single drabbles from your requests.


Offers:
  • You can offer 3-10 fandoms with 1-20 characters and 1-7 drabble types each. Fandoms in your offers must be unique, but may be related (e.g., three Star Wars offers would be fine, as long as it was three separate Star Wars fandoms).

  • If you wish, you may offer Any character. This means any character in the tagset (i.e., if your recipient has requested specific characters, you must write one of them). Please do not offer Any unless you really are open to writing any character in the tagset for that fandom (including any last-minute additions to the tagset). (If your recip requested Any, y ou may write any character from their requested canon.)

  • If you wish, you may offer Any for drabble type. This means you are open to writing any of the 7 drabble types in the tagset. (Note that unless your recipient has also requested Any, you must write one of the specific drabble types they requested.)

  • You cannot opt out of single drabbles. In other words, you are still welcome to offer other drabble types, but you cannot exclude single drabbles from your offers.


Do Not Wants:
  • Only reasonable DNWs in your AO3 signup will be enforced.

  • A reasonable DNW is a DNW that is clear and does not attempt to box your writer into writing just one thing.

  • Confused about what a DNW is? See this Fanlore article.

Other:

  • If you encounter any issues while signing up that are not noted above, please let us know ASAP, as AO3 bugs can sometimes hit exchanges.

  • If you need to let us know something about your signup (such as not wanting to be assigned to a specific other participant), please contact us via email (seasonsofdrabbles AT gmail) or the mod contact post.

I speak machine

Jan. 10th, 2026 10:51 pm
the_siobhan: (Sweetums)
[personal profile] the_siobhan
Still not King.

Did birthday dinner with the gf. I realized at some point like... maybe a month ago? That I spent the entire past year telling people I was the age I actually am this year. How am I SO BAD at dates that I get my own age wrong for an entire year? I can't even blame senility, I have always been like this.

***

Finally heard back from the permit wrangler. He spoke to the engineer and the answer is no, he will not sign off on the work. This doesn't shock me. He told me the fucking contractor didn't even follow the blueprints that were used to get the permits, so he has no confidence that the foundations were actually built to spec.

So permit wrangler says he's going to go back to the city and try once again to get in touch with the original contractor. I really appreciate his commitment to trying to find a better solution, but at this point I'm kinda resigned that I'm just have to tear up the floor. I just want to get it over with.

***

So in the meantime I'm still here just cleaning and de-cluttering the rest of the house. Got a wild hair up my ass to pull apart the corner of my office where my weight bench sits and was able to vanquish much dust and dried cat-puke.

I still have too much fucking stuff. This would be simpler if I didn't have such a huge aversion to just tossing stuff into landfill. This is partially the environmentalist side of me, and partially because there was a time in my life when a third-hand hotplate might have actually saved my life. So I have trouble throwing out a perfectly functional hotplate when somebody out there might be in the same position I was in 30+ years ago. But you know, figuring how to get rid of this stuff takes time and so... Things leave, but in much smaller boxes than if I just hired a bloody dumpster.

***

The plus side of not being able to do house construction work is that I have have been spending a lot more time on my b-list, which is 1) plants and 2) family tree. The kitchen island is so huge that I have been able to devote an entire half of it to a bunch of pots that I have seeded with herbs. I installed grow lights in the chandelier[1], so it's going to be an experiment.

[1]Hauled my wobbly ass up a ladder. Did not fall off. Victory achieved.

I had the brilliant idea that if I started tossing birdseed on the deck outside my office, I would give Lord Brock something to look at that would distract him from screaming at me for attention while I'm working. This has backfired spectacularly, because now he climbs onto the window-ledge and screams at me to make the birds happen.

***

On the plus side, digging through my family tree has led me to discovering the other out queer person in my family which is pretty cool. (Statistically I figured it was unlikely I was the only one, especially given just how big Irish Catholic families tend to be.)

A question I hadn't anticipated; I keep coming across generations where there are multiple people with the same name but different birth-dates. I'm trying to figure out if they are cases where one source I'm drawing from has the wrong birth year, or if there were families where they re-used names when babies died. Like there is a French branch were they seem to have named half the boys after the father but with different middle names. Was that real? Was that just Anglos fucking up non-English names? (That happened so often with the Irish names, I don't have any problem believing they also did it to the French.) Or am I finding birth records, but not their death records in families where infant mortality was really high?

Also, I have no explanation for how researching my family name led me to an Irish vampire movie, but now I really want to see this film.

anti-ICE demonstration this afternoon

Jan. 10th, 2026 10:53 pm
redbird: clenched fist on an LGBT flag background (angry queer)
[personal profile] redbird
We went to the Boston anti-ICE demonstration today, one of many throughout the United States. Cattitude and I got there slightly after the nominal starting time, and managed about an hour before the cold got to me. Yes, it was above freezing and not windy, but standing still on a large open plaza is chillier than moving around. Adrian came to the demo with some of her comrades from Havurat Shalom, and arrived before we did. The crowd was large enough that we didn't try to find her until we were all preparing to leave.

It was a good-sized crowd, but the acoustics and sound system were abysmal; I could only make out a few scraps of what the speakers were saying.

I wore a winter coat, wool socks, and light-weight long underwear, which was too warm while we were on the trolley.

Me-and-media update

Jan. 11th, 2026 04:55 pm
china_shop: An orange cartoon dog waving, with a blue-green abstract background. (Bingo!)
[personal profile] china_shop
Previous poll review
In the Comfort food poll, 55.6% of respondents said their preferred comfort food is chocolate, and 46.7% said savoury carbs. In ticky-boxes, 'juicy intricate poetry words' and 'pushing on through' came second equal (40% each) to hugs (80%). Thank you for your votes! <3

Reading
I listened to half an m/m romance audiobook that I selected for one of its readers (Will Watt), but the overuse of "fucking" as an intensifier (and in particular, the repeated phrase, "he was so fucking hot") kept making me roll my eyes. It might be a faithful reproduction of the inner monologue of a first-year uni student, but I don't read romances for verisimilitude. So I switched to The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary, read by Carrie Hope Fletcher and Kwaku Fortune, seen mentioned on my flist. I'm halfway through and enjoying it immensely. ETA:
Warnings.Contains past emotionally abusive relationship, stalking, and PTSD.


A little more Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain in hardcopy. Nothing in ebook.

Kdramas
Andrew and I have nearly finished The Guest. I want to ship the OT3, but I don't really care about the priest. (Sorry, priest guy! Alas, you are not my type.) Still, it is a great (gory/horror-y) show, and I've conveniently forgotten some of the developments. We just have one episode to go.

A bit more of While You Were Sleeping, a few episodes of Cashero (I'm not sure I'm in the mood for established relationship, but otoh, Junho! ♥), and a marathon-running BL called Mr. Heart, which was sweet but extremely slight.

Where is the next Love Scout/Family by Choice/whatever??

Other TV
Finished Stranger Things, which got so complex that I lazily stopped following the logic and just watched it as a collection of scenes. But I enjoyed those well enough. So glad they got their victory lap.

Three episodes of Heated Rivalry.
Minor spoilers; tl;dr not my thing. Wow, I'd heard it was fanficcy, but I wasn't prepared for the total absence of anything resembling an external plot. Like, not even a figleaf. Not even a hockey arc. How??

Anyway, my prediction that it's probably not for me has proven correct. Like, I can tell that the show is made of crack (in the addictive sense), but I'm not into super-buff dudes, and I didn't like the 'fucking but feeling kind of miserable about it' vibe I was getting from Hollander. He deserves better.

But I kept going for episode 3, and I'm really glad I did. There was the coffee smoothie shop not-AU and ♥Kip♥ and his friends and family. And Scott, who fell for Kip in 2.3 seconds like a parched man stumbling into an oasis and, okay, is messed up, but at least self-aware and ~able to communicate~ and ~say nice things~! They were such a breath of fresh air! All the "smoothies" for both of them!

So that (predictably) is me. And I'm actually kind of relieved, because while the show is compelling and well-acted, it's not what I want in a fandom, and anyway, I'm hardly even managing to keep up with my quiet corner of Guardian fandom atm.
I may watch the last three episodes at some point, idk. Wishing those of you who're into it all the very best with your new addiction!!

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, Cross Party Lines, Letters from an American, more of Our Opinions Are Correct (Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz's podcast) including the Murderbot episode, Tech Won't Save Us, the starts of a few other things.

Writing/making things
I've been practising drawing, and picking up art supplies in bits and pieces. The moldable eraser is magic.
Have a couple of sketches.



(Imperfect, but I think it's identifiable, which is not nothing. I darkened the linework a little in Paint.NET.)

For my future reference, this all started because I wanted to draw Bingo from Bluey!, which led me down a Youtube Art Videos For Kids rabbit hole. Then I bought new colour pencils and was noodling around with them, and people said nice things about some of my doodles... :-)
Art Youtube For Adults is also really lovely, btw -- full of super-talented people being encouraging and helpful.

I've written a treat for [community profile] fandomtrees, but I need to make some edits, and I have no attention span. Chances of my finishing it are about 90%, and chances of any further treats are more like 30% at this stage. Maybe one day I'll be able to make art gifts...

Life/health/mental state things
My arms are gradually improving, but I'm anxious about them. Andrew's having an operation this Thursday; I'll need to be able to bike and drive and cook and so on, and I'm still sore half the time. So I've started swimming again. (I stopped partly because I was avoiding public spaces where I couldn't mask, and partly because my long post-lockdown hair stays damp all day. But the outdoor pool is open for the summer, so I'm going for it.)

I just bought a small $2 desk at a junk shop so that I have a workspace to retreat to downstairs while Andrew's recuperating on the couch in the living room. I'll see how that goes.

I have a hand-me-down mini air fryer from my parents which I still haven't taken out for a spin. Quick/easy meal suggestions very welcome, especially if they're things I can throw together late at night, post hospital visits. (NB: I don't do onions or brassicas.)

Good things
Andrew, swimming, drawing, Kdramas, Guardian, Zhao Yunlaaaan, modern medicine. Cat:



Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45


Do you meditate?

View Answers

yes, regularly
4 (8.9%)

yes, from time to time
10 (22.2%)

I used to
6 (13.3%)

I used to occasionally
4 (8.9%)

what you mean by 'meditate'?
7 (15.6%)

no
18 (40.0%)

other
2 (4.4%)

ticky-box of being squeamish about fingernail clippings
2 (4.4%)

ticky-box full of hockey show squee
5 (11.1%)

ticky-box full of feeling kind of zonky
19 (42.2%)

ticky-box full of skipping across treetops and dancing through the clouds
22 (48.9%)

ticky-box full of hugs
34 (75.6%)

Random Sports Stuff

Jan. 10th, 2026 07:50 pm
muccamukk: Faiza and Jac drink lemonade and watch cricket. (Marvel: Watching Sports)
[personal profile] muccamukk
Yes, from me.

IDK if you can see [youtube.com profile] CBCSports in other countries, but they're currently playing my preferred type of figure skating (the recent nationals), which consists of:

  • Individual single short programs (long programs are usually too long for me to want to watch a single dance routine, and I also don't want to watch hours and hours of the stuff).

  • Of just the top competators (so I don't have to feel bad when they fall down or do poorly, also see above about attention span).

  • With the music directly onto the broadcast (rather than echoey rink music).

  • Without commentary, except maybe a few notes before the dance starts (because I neither know nor care what a triple toe loop or whatever is, and equally do not care if the skater did a double instead.)

Anyway, youtube has figured this out and is giving me random Canadian children gliding around the ice.

(Randomly my only sports icon relates to cricket.)

gratuitous digital art

Jan. 10th, 2026 08:55 pm
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
(selling prints via the local game store)

stylized digital illustration: a fantasy lady, peacock-themed

Digital painting in Procreate, at 11"x17" print.
[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

Androcentric China will have to live with this potentially formidable woman, just as they're having to deal with Prime Minister Takaichi.

"Is North Korea's 'princess' walking a path toward succession?", Nikkei staff writers, NikkeiAsia (11/25/25)

This is a most impressive article, based on AI analytics of more than 14,000 hours of footage that highlights the elevation of Kim Jong Un's daughter.

She's only 12 years old, but is poised, has good graces, and knows how to behave.  She appears to be intelligent, curious, and attentive.  Look at her gestures, her glances, her movements….

Just judging from this video-visual montage, Kim Jong Un picked the right "respected child" as his successor.

I think she is receiving excellent training from her auntie, Kim Yo Jung, Kim Jong Un's younger sister — Jung Un is a very impressive person, and so is Kim Yo Jung.

The Workers' Party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, features stories about Kim Ju Ae's activities mainly on its front page, referring to her as "loved child," or "respected child." Nikkei picked up references to jajebun, a word used to refer to Kim Ju Ae, from more than 6,500 pages of the newspaper between her public debut and the end of October.

자제분 (jajebun)

is a Korean honorific term meaning "your child" or "someone else's child," used to show respect for another person's son or daughter, similar to how "Mr./Ms." shows respect in English but specifically for a child. It's a polite way to refer to a child when speaking to their parents or elders, combining the respectful noun "분 (bun)" (person) with "자제 (jaje)" (one's own child, but used respectfully for others).  (AIO)

Mark Metcalf said that he was also interested in the significance of how Kim Ju Ae's name has been gradually modified over the years and the significance of such changes. Insofar as he recalls, Kim the Current's honorifics changed to indicate the increasing importance of his role.

BTW, did you know that, on 2/13/17, North Korea had Kim Jung Un's own half-brother, Kim Jung Nam, eldest son of Kim Jung Il, and once considered his presumptive heir, chemically assassinated (at the Kuala Lumpur Airport, no less!).?  

They take this matter of succession very seriously.  Almost bungled it with Kim Jung Il.

 

Selected readings

oldtoadwoman: (snowflake challenge)
[personal profile] oldtoadwoman
Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

Snowflake Challenge, #2: Pets of Fandom

For a few delusional moments, I thought I'd handle all of these prompts with art and after one quick initial sketch decided that I don't have time or I'll still be finishing these prompts next year. (I literally have art prompts from two or three Octobers ago that I keep saying I'm going to do "some day".)

I think sometimes starting an elaborate project might be a subconscious way of avoiding the project because deep down I know I'm never actually going to do the cool idea in my head.

That said, I do have a very clear idea of what my entry on Pets of Fandom should be.



So, I loved, loved, loved the 2025 Superman movie. I don't know how it landed with the younglings who didn't grow up with Christopher Reeve's Superman as the iconic version, but all of my friends that I've talked to had that same delighted reaction to this movie. It's fully modern and never even does any overt callbacks to the 1978 movie. But it has that same idealistic spirit, leans into the corniness without ever going too far, and just made me very happy. When I first realized the superdog Krypto was going to be in it, I think I cringed just a tiny bit. A CGI superdog was obviously going to drag things down, I thought. But. Oh, it was perfect. The fact that Krypto was a badly-trained chaos vector worked on so many levels. (My sister once had a dog that she always said she was going to take to obedience class when she had time but she never did and the dog eventually treated the entire house like a chew toy. Imagine that dog with super powers.)

If you didn't see Superman and were feeling done with superhero movies after a glut of them in the theater, I urge you to make an exception for the 2025 Superman. It's just so sweet.

A key character moment is when Lois Lane responds in disbelieve that Superman is about to put himself in danger for the sake of a dog. To which, Superman replies, "Yeah, and he’s not even a very good one, but he’s out there alone. And he’s probably scared."
cahn: (Default)
[personal profile] cahn
So I'm going to talk about one of my major fandoms (that I don't usually talk about here), shiny things, because I can! (I started this post more than a month ago and it is high time to actually finish and post it.) In particular, I want to talk about diamond simulants and lab diamonds (although there's also very recently been some cool stuff about lab sapphires too). The funny thing is, I've never been a super fan of diamonds in general. I mean, I'm not going to say no to them! they are very shiny, and they have some cool dispersion (splits light into component colors, like a prism, so you get little rainbow flashes if it's cut well), and I love that they're super hard and come in octahedral crystals, but I have always been a colored stones kind of kid. But! In the last ten years there have been a ton of developments in this fandom relating to diamond simulants and lab diamonds, which I think is very neat.

First I want to define what I'm talking about.
Natural diamonds / earth-mined diamonds are diamonds that occur naturally in the Earth's crust and are mined from the ground.
Diamond simulants are not diamonds, but other substances that look enough like diamonds that they are used in jewelry that might otherwise use diamonds. I'll talk about cubic zirconia and moissanite as diamond simulants later on.
Synthetic diamonds / lab diamonds are chemically identical (*) to natural diamonds but are made in a lab.

Apologies if you happen to love diamonds, but I find the whole natural diamond thing kind of obnoxious in several ways. )

Brief discussion of cubic zirconia, and the rise of moissanite )

The rise of lab diamonds )

Lab ruby/sapphire: Some recent cool news on the lab sapphire front )

Photos )

(*) There are little things that can be different, so generally speaking lab diamonds can be distinguished from natural diamonds by a laboratory, but basically they're both made of carbon and look identical, especially if you have the same "grades" in one as another.
(**) When I refer to "carat" in the context of diamond simulants in particular, I will always be referring to "size of an ideal-cut diamond," which is about 6.5mm in diameter for a round diamond. Simulants will have different weights than a carat, of course, but generally the industry refers to a "1 ct moissanite" as something that mimics a 1 ct diamond, even though the corresponding cubic zirconia will actually be heavier than a carat and the corresponding moissanite will be lighter! Of course, "carat" when referring to colored stones just directly means the weight of that stone.
(+) www.diamondcz.co.uk came along in 2004, importing well-cut cz from China, and took well-cut cz from a relatively expensive niche market to super cheap!
(***) And even less (<~$300/ct last I looked) if you're willing to deal with Chinese companies directly -- it turns out there are whole subreddits devoted to both moissanite and lab diamonds that have instructions on this.
(****) Also emerald and garnet! Lab emerald in particular is a very big thing, very popular these days among people who buy lab gems, though emerald is not as much my thing so I don't know as much about it. Lab garnet can also be doped to get a lot of different colors, which is fun. Emeralds can't be made by the super cheap processes so they've taken a couple of decades longer to get cheap enough to be popular, but nowadays you can easily get them cheaply.
[syndicated profile] mendonomasight_feed
Bald Eagle at the Navarro River, as photographed by Jon Shiu!

Bald Eagles continue to expand northward as their numbers increase. Jon Shiu photographed this Bald Eagle flying over the Navarro River.

From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

"For such a powerful bird, the Bald Eagle emits surprisingly weak-sounding calls—usually a series of high-pitched whistling or piping notes. The female may repeat a single, soft, high-pitched note that has been called “unlike any other calls in nature”; apparently this signals her readiness for copulation." You can listen for yourself at this link: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Bald_Eagle/sounds

Thanks to Jon for allowing me to share his photo with you here.

We are having cool and dry weather. No rain predicted for at least a week or more. There are overhead clouds late this afternoon, which are making for a dreamy-looking sunset!

[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

Knowing full well that 漢文 ("Sinitic Writing; Classical Chinese; Literary Sinitic") is pronounced Hànwén in Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM), Kanbun in Japanese, and Hanmun in Korean, I wanted to know how it is pronounced in Vietnamese, and was directed to this resource,  "Another Nôm Lookup Tool based on Unicode", where I learned that it is Hán văn.

I also learned that, pronounced háng, 漢 can mean "to stand with groin open".

 

Selected readings

[Thanks to Bill Hannas, Steve O'Harrow, and John Phan]

silversea: Asian woman reading (Reading)
[personal profile] silversea posting in [community profile] booknook
Humble Bundle's running a sale where you can pick up 65 science fiction, fantasy, and horror books by women for only $18 through January 31st.

Pretty good deal, if you ask me!

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/fierce-women-science-fiction-fantasy-horror-open-road-media-books

Edited: Apparently this bundle is only available in the US (unsure if it's available in Canada?).

A small ponymeet

Jan. 10th, 2026 11:36 pm
loganberrybunny: Singing the So Many Wonders song (Filly Fluttershy)
[personal profile] loganberrybunny
Public


344/365: Bird mural, Worcester
Click for a larger, sharper image

Thanks in part to the icy weather of late meaning two people didn't feel able to risk the journey to Worcester, there were only five of us at the My Little Pony fan meetup today. It was still a very nice few hours, though, as it nearly always is. The mural I've posted here was awkward to photograph, since the road it's facing (Cherry Tree Walk) is rather narrow. I had to use the wide-angle setting on my phone, which is why the quality is a bit lower than sometimes. This striking piece is by Curtis Hylton, and was painted in 2021.
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


A middle-grade novel about a boy who lives in the woods, tagged as "A worthy successor to Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain."

12-year-old Raymond Hurley lives with his beloved dog Rosie and his neglectful, drug addict, emotionally abusive parents, who move constantly, have only cooked a homemade meal for him once in his entire life, and scream at him and stomp out when he cooks Thanksgiving for them. The one time he told anyone about this, he was temporarily placed in a children's home that was even worse than living with his parents, so he has decided to never tell anyone anything ever.

When they take off, ditching him and Rosie, he lives in the woods behind his middle-school. He continues attending school, as they feed him twice a day. Otherwise, he dumpster-dives after hours at the school, and fishes in the river. While this is all going on, he accidentally makes two friends at school despite his resolve to stay under the radar, accidentally befriends an old man who also fishes in the river, and accidentally tames a coyote (!), who he names Hank. But obviously, this is all unsustainable long-term...

This book isn't that much like the classic "kid survives in woods" books. It's not really about wilderness survival, it's about homelessness and the psychological effects of negligence. It doesn't have the vibe at all of something like Hatchet, where there's something satisfying and profound about living off the land and being in nature, even though it's hard and dangerous and uncomfortable. Raymond's life in the woods is just sad. It's closer to something like Homecoming, in which four kids abandoned by their mother make their way across the country in search of a home, but it's sadder and more aimless than that because Raymond is alone in his predicament and doesn't have a goal other than "stay out of the children's home."

The elements that are survival-y, like taming the coyote, clash with the overall feel of suburban social issue fiction. Especially because they're wildly unrealistic - you can't tame a coyote to the point of petting it and playing with it and having it play with your dog! A coyote will EAT your dog! (There's a key scene involving a venomous snake that also pinged my "it doesn't work that way" sense.)

I didn't really like this book, though it's not a bad book at all. I would have liked it better if it had fully committed to being a realistic book about a homeless child. I also would have liked it better if Raymond's big goal wasn't just "stay out of the children's home," but "stay out of the children's home because I hate it and they'll take away Rosie and who knows what will happen to her." He never once worries about that, which seems like a really odd thing to not be concerned about under the circumstances. If he'd been committed to protecting Rosie, it would have given him and the book more drive. I get that the writer wanted to have Raymond be more just drifting through life, but since he's putting a lot of effort into not getting caught, I think it would have made the book more compelling if the effort was connected to a living being he cared about.

The ending is an absolutely typical ending for this sort of book:

Read more... )

Content notes: child abuse, homelessness, animal death.
aurumcalendula: Mirror Universe Philippa Georgiou in teal lighting (former emperor)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
Jan 10 - 'I think my main problem with Section 31 was that what was clearly intended as the first season of a show, plot wise, was hacked together to make the plot of a movie. Provided you'd knew in advance there would be only room for a Georgiou movie, and bearing real life restrictions in mind (i.e. guest stars from other Trek shows can only appear as they are today or have to be recast), what should a mirror Georgiou centric movie have been about?' for [personal profile] selenak

Read more... )

(there are still slots open for the January Talking Meme here)

Profile

corvi: (Default)
corvi

November 2023

S M T W T F S
   1234
567 89 1011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930  

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jan. 12th, 2026 10:57 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios