Current Mood: sick
Current Location: from francis with love

Entry tags:

Blogging Challenge

Snagged from

3weeks4dreamwidth

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.

Entry tags:

vital functions

vital functions

Reading. I am up to AUGUST 2025 in my She's A Beast back-catalogue catch-up. Will I be able to read Anything Else At All Soon? Maybe?

Among several library holds that have now turned up (... ulp) I have technically started Run Towards the Danger (Sarah Polley), another memoir about embodiment, which I... suspect was recced via SAB one way or another. By "technically" I mean "I am a couple of pages into the preface, and trying to decide whether the formatting fuckery is worth sticking through".

Writing. So. many. e-mails. about. objects. and I have barely even Started the damn Object E-mails good grief.

Progress on Book also continues (look at me not using qualifiers!). Currently I am slightly going in circles about (1) how much background I need to give on why I think "biopsychosocial" can be a useful frame at least to the extent of providing structure for the first big chunk of the book, (2) what you've got to be very careful you're doing if you want that to be the case, and (3) whether I need to engage in depth with the goddamn philosophy of it all in re e.g. "it's not a model if it doesn't have predictive power" (which I am extremely inclined to sidestep by just......... calling it a frame).

Playing. ... we have tripped and fallen and are playing Librarian: Tidy up the arcane library. Initially we were co-playing with A doing most of the driving and me going LOOK THERE'S A PATTERN-- but then it became apparent that my ideal mode of gameplay (keyboard rather than controller, Manually Shelve Each Book Individually) is not compatible with A's (controller rather than keyboard, Use All The Magic). So I got a second copy. And have been playing through it merrily and slowly. To my amusement it turns out that my specific bullshit here............ gets you the rarest of the Steam achievements. (I am about 2/3 of the way through shelving, and things are speeding up substantially in more or less the same way as they do with jigsaw puzzles. This has eaten my brain and I really really need to do Other Things that are Not This but gosh it gets quiet in here when Allow The Brain To Just Focus. Will I do any further rounds of it? Unclear.)

Cooking. Continue to appreciate braised chickpeas in all their forms (still v keen on Adding A Tin Of Artichokes to the party).

Eating. Had my second hundoburger, which I had deferred until after E1, for the purposes of having an additional day where I didn't need to think about food. Also: STRAWBERRIES; bakery brunch (feat. both the bread pudding and the cardamom bun); ... almost certainly other things but the brain it says no.

Exploring. Bakery brunch featured a detour to visit a red horse chestnut I'd spotted from the bus on my way back from yesterday's hospital appointment, and also pointing out to A the pink bits on some of the flowers on the standard horse chestnuts on the way there.

Technically Finchley Memorial hospital, but mostly I got on a bus I was familiar with and played sudoku to keep myself vaguely calm, and then I managed to NOT panic and get onto a bus going in entirely the wrong direction by dint of it pulling out of the stop sufficiently far ahead of me there was no way I was gonna catch up with it, and then got the unfamiliar bus in the correct direction and... spent significantly more of that panicking quietly. There was definitely A Point at which, it having become apparent that the bus was On Diversion and Not Following Its Usual Route and None Of The Normal Stops Were Happening, I equally quietly Gave Up and decided this was simply going to be yet another hospital service I got discharged from for being disabled, BUT in fact that service TERMINATED at the hospital (and was the only one serving it!!!) so it did get there in the end. I would still prefer to not do that journey again please and thank you, even though I did per the above spot a convenient local red horse chestnut on the return leg, and for that matter several dramatic wisteria hidden from road level but NOT from upper-deck-of-bus level.

Growing. A took me to the allotment this afternoon! The josta is setting quite a lot of fruit and the cherry is even managing some despite my utter failure to water them! I put some marigold seeds in the ground in between rows of broad beans though this is clearly futile because the red ants are already Very Definitely farming on them; the oca in the bottom half of that bed are starting to come up despite the utter lack of watering, as above; none of the seedlings at home died while we were away; ... I did some weeding?

Observing. BABY BIRDS incl. cootlets going WHEEK WHEEK WHEEK all the way up and down the river; the Egyptian goslings are now at the stage of mostly having vaguely competent adult plumage coming in but still managing to turn into balls of ungainly fluff when they sit down; a second batch of coot eggs is being Definitively Incubated. We did not see the duckle again but we did see a very small starling. It was a very pleasant brunch down by the aqueduct.

Entry tags:

Tripping

I got my van back last Wednesday, finally, yay! My kind neighbor gave me a ride up to pick it up, so that worked out very well.

Now I'm getting the van ready for my next trip, which will be May 7. With exactly one week to get the van dewinterized, cleaned up, systems checked out, and supplies loaded, I knew time would be tight, but I figured as long as there were no issues that came up, I'd be able to get ready in time. And fortunately, everything has been going smoothly. I dewinterized and sanitized the fresh water system on Thursday, Friday I checked out all the systems to make sure everything was working, cleaned inside the cupboards, drawers and surfaces, and loaded up all the supplies that usually stay in the van, like tools and kitchen ware and bedding. Yesterday I started stocking the kitchen with food and making a shopping list for tomorrow.

Today, I'm mostly resting. Might take out a few more kitchen items and go through my backpack/briefcase to make sure I've got all the power cords and trip info and notebooks and so on that I'll need. Maybe do a load of laundry.

Tomorrow or Tuesday I'll make a run into town for groceries and money and whatever else I might need. Wednesday, load up clothes and toiletries and such. Then Thursday, off I go! I'll join up with J&J in Pennsylvania on the last two stops of their winter travels.

I've also been thinking a lot about my plans to see BTS in August. That will be the complete opposite of my camping trip and I keep getting things confused in my head. ("Need to remember to fill the cat's water fountain before I go... No, I'm taking Davey with me, that's for BTS when I'm only gone overnight...")

I'm hearing horror stories about hotel/travel/crowd issues with the BTS concerts that have happened in the US so far -- people getting scammed on tickets, hotels cancelling confirmed reservations at the last minute to resell the rooms at higher rates, people standing in line for hours and still not getting into the stadiums on time, merch selling out in a few hours. I'm getting a bit nervous for my plans. I reserved a hotel and parking at the stadium when I got my sad little single ticket in the 300s in the presale, and thought I was all set, but I hear people saying "If you want merch, be ready to line up at 8 AM!" and "Get in line by 4 PM to get into the stadium!" and "Hand out your freebies before you line up, they might not let you into the stadium with extra bags!" and... I remember how my plans for Jin's concert went awry, and that was only an arena show. I thought I'd corrected for that with my current plans but I don't know.

Maps tells me it's a 2-1/2 hour drive to MetLife from here. Which is a laugh. I'm thinking four hours, if past experience with traffic to that area holds. My hotel has a 3 PM check-in. I was thinking if I leave at 10 AM I should get to the hotel by 2 PM. Possibly earlier, possibly later, but around 2 PM. If my room isn't ready yet, I can hang out and get something to eat and maybe meet some other ARMYs. Check in at 3 PM or sooner, then head over to the stadium. Hand out freebies for an hour, try to buy some merch, find my gate and get in line around 4 PM. Hand out more freebies and hang out with ARMYs in line. Once inside, depending on whether there's time and whether or not I managed to buy anything outside, check out the merch. Then find my seat and turn on my ARMY bomb and get ready to go!

As far as merch goes, there's one thing I really really really really want: the brick-red city jersey that is only available on site (can't be preordered for pickup at the venue). I also really want the charcoal-gray member jersey (SUGA version), also only available on site. There will be merch booths outside and inside the stadium, so I can try both places but if the merch lines are hours long outside, I will have to wait to try inside, and just hope there's time and they don't sell out before I get a chance.

I have thought about trying to go down the night before, so I can just spend the whole day at the stadium on concert day, but hotels are already sold out, so that's not likely to be possible. Or just getting up at, like, 6 AM and heading down early on the day. Would that work? What time will the stadium parking lot be open? Would I be able to go straight to the stadium and go back to check into my hotel later? Can I check into the hotel online or at, like, midnight when I finally get out after the concert? Should I try to park at the Secaucus station and take the train to the stadium? Ack!

I keep reminding myself that the concert is not until August and there's plenty of time to work all this out. Right now, I just need to concern myself with my camping trip which is in FOUR DAYS. But my brain cannot help working overtime on both plans, and getting them all muddled.

Entry tags:

Catching up, in bullet points

I've been extremely busy, and consequently extremely tired, and haven't been around on Dreamwidth all that much in the past couple of weeks. Rather than one of my standard weekend wrap-up posts, I'm going to attempt to go through the various things that have been happening, in brief, in list form.

Two weeks ago,

catpuccino came up to Ely to visit. She lives in London, we've known each other since the first day of high school, but what with one thing and another, I hadn't seen her in person since 2024. She's going through some tough stuff at the moment, so it was nice to be able to help her get away from all that for twenty-four hours, at least (and talk foodie things with someone who's even more plugged into that scene than I am).

Almost immediately after that, my father-in-law came over from Germany to visit for a week. He drove, and took the ferry, which meant he was a free agent, and could go out and do things while Matthias and I were at work, and he did catch up with some local friends a couple of times, but for the most part he seemed to just want to chill out in our garden, under the cherry trees. His regular daily life involves a lot of energetic grandchildren (my sister-in-law has three kids), and I think he viewed our place as something of an oasis of calm. My mother-in-law was the real Anglophile in the family — she came over to England on exchange as a teenager, fell in love with the place, and the two of them basically visited the UK almost once a year for their entire adult lives, barring the Covid years and my mother-in-law's increasingly fragile health. So coming back here alone after her death was a bittersweet experience for my father-in-law, stirring up a lot of complicated emotions, but I think he was pleased to have made the trip.

He left on Wednesday, and on that evening Matthias and I went to an author event with Andrey Kurkov, hosted by the local independent bookshop. (Ely is a sleepy small rural town, but it definitely punches above its weight in terms of literary events due to this fantastic bookshop.) He read from and chatted about his latest historical mystery novel (set in 1919 Kyiv), and answered audience questions with patience. (My favourite, somewhat left-field answer: '[In the final decade of the Soviet Union,] I graduated with a qualification in Japanese translation, and they wanted me to do my military service as a spy listening in to the Japanese in the Russian far east, but I didn't want to do this, since it would have prevented me from being allowed to leave the country. I asked my mother, who was a doctor, if she had any well-connected patients who could get me out of this, and one of her patients, who was a senior military figure, was able to instead transfer me to doing military service as a prison guard in Odesa. When the other guards found out I was a writer, one of them asked me to write his speeches for his meetings with the leadership, so I spent my military service reading propaganda magazines and rewriting the articles for him to reuse in his speeches.' This struck me as the absolute peak absurd Soviet experience.)

I've had a run of lots of timetabled, lecture-style teaching, which happens this time every year, but is always a bit exhausting: it's in a huge, echo-y wooden lecture theatre (when the students come through the doors, they slam loudly and make a massive amount of noise), it's to groups of 75 students, repeated three times to different groups, and it's with undergrads rather than the postgraduates and researchers I normally teach (who are a lot more work to keep focused), and I always feel completely flattened by the time the Friday class is over. The one nice thing is that these classes are in central Cambridge instead of out on the hospital site where I normally work, and I can buy decent food and coffee afterwards. I guess it's a good thing I don't normally work in that part of town, because I'd be so tempted to eat lunch out every day, and end up bleeding money.

I read Innamorata (Ava Reid), and with Reid I think at this point it counts as hate-reading, since my expectations are always so low, and they're always confirmed. This is her take on a gruesome gothic novel, complete with purple prose, and the literary equivalent of a child hopping up and down going 'look! look! did you see what I just did?' Did I see her obvious and intentional allusions to Mervyn Peake? Yes, yes I did. Am I shocked at all the gore, bodily fluids and shock value edginess? Shocked that I keep picking up Ava Reid books, maybe.

Then I read Almost Life (Kiran Millwood Hargrave) and Testament of Youth (Vera Brittain), and was a lot happier in my choice of reading material. The former is a novel about two young women who meet, hook up and fall in love in 1970s Paris, then go their separate ways, but continue to haunt and fall in and out of each other's lives, in a mess of intense emotions, difficult choices, and lost chances. The latter is both a memoir of the author as an individual (fighting the parental expectation to marry and instead attend Oxford as a young woman in the 1910s, then serving as a nurse in WWI and watching all the young men in her life be swallowed up into the maw of that terrible war), and a portrait of the absolute wrenching collective trauma experienced by her entire generation, and how impossible it was to go back to civillian life and go on living afterwards.

Then I read The Red City (Marie Lu), which had a great premise (clandestine underworld alchemist syndicates fight a global battle for dominance, operating much like real-world organised crime), and an absolutely wrenching depiction of intergenerational immigration trauma, but was written for absolutely no reason in third person present tense, which for me is the literary equivalent of someone chewing audibly near my ear. I only like present tense when it's used to evoke a sense of stream-of-consciousness-like immediacy, as if you're getting a glimpse inside a character's messy, unedited interior monologue (I prefer it much more in the first person), but when the whole story feels as if it could work perfectly fine in past tense, the use of present tense is distractingly grating.

Yesterday was Eel Day in Ely, which involves, among other things, a giant cloth eel on a frame being paraded through the town, trailed by an incongruous juxtaposition of local groups (think Morris dancers followed by a girls' rugby club, followed by musicians playing steel drums, followed by a Scout group, etc). We were in the market buying vegetables, so missed the actual parade, but did witness all these various participants marshalling in front of the cathedral beforehand. We did a quick swing around the stalls afterwards, but it was pretty hot, and we'd already eaten lunch, so we didn't stay long.

We watched the recent Wuthering Heights adaptation yesterday, and I regret to report that it was 90 per cent vibes and dramatic scenery, and I was not particularly impressed.

As it's a long weekend, there was a food and craft fair outside the cathedral today, and Matthias and I wandered around, eating lunch from one of the stalls, people- and dog-watching, before meandering on home, having picked up a box of macarons to eat over the course of the week with our tea and coffee.

We've made a start at booking tickets, etc for our summer holiday, which makes it start to feel a bit more real. I love the planning stage — investigating food, activities, transport, and so on, with the days of the holiday unfolding, and given greater shape.

Current Mood: content

Entry tags:

writing: logs

Intensely Intermittent Writing Logs - May 3rd, 2026

I'm nervous about doing another of these log posts because when they happened somewhat weekly, it was massively depressing to have to drop them when the shit and the fan met for a torrid love affair... Yet here I am! Random stuff that doesn't feel particularly post-specific. I guess I just want to chat ;D

General status/Last week:

I not only discovered the "copyholder" function on Scrivener (basically an additional way to break down your screen, adding a little read-only window at the bottom of your editor pane), but also that you can show a previous snapshot in there. I'm doing A LOT of rewriting at the moment because I added a couple of subplots, and being able to restart a scene from scratch while having the copy of the previous version below + a preview of my bookmark of the updated scene outline in the Inspector side-pane is really super neat.

Once again, I'm thinking I really should sit down with the Scrivener manual someday and have a good read. Then I remember it's nearly 800 page-long. But the number of times when I think "it would be really neat if..." for something small (or not!) and tadam! It's already somewhere in there! only ever increases.

I'm enjoying this round of structural edits!! Obviously, it is only the beginning, and is going slowly. My pace tracker is saying at this pace, I'll probably be done at the end of December lolsob. But that's fine, I'm hoping that it'll pick up a bit once I find my feet with this new way of doing things.

Additionally, something ultra cool that's happening is that I seem able to focus for longer periods than I have in a long time. I believe it's because I've done so much of the thinking work ahead of time and have such a detailed revision plan. A lot of the bigger questions already have answers, and it's about how to make it all fit into the current scenes (and a bunch of rewriting, clearly!) as well as a bit of puzzle solving as I move different character introductions and dialogues around. I think that'll calm down once we get past the intro chapters?? (Then there can be new types of problems XD)

Projects:

Soul Thief structural edits!

What's coming up next week?

More structural edits, clearly :D And also I want to write to the folks who volunteered to beta the Cursed Witch to check if they're still up for it and confirm timelines. (Prepare thyselves!! >:D)

Feel free to share your writing/creativity plans if any for the coming week, too, if you'd like! What's going on with you?

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: from francis with love

Entry tags:

Places Meme

Snagged from

maevedarcy

Places

I'm filling this up at:
my living room
Last place I went to:
The bank (and it just happened to be cookie day)
Favorite place in your house:
My couch
Last place I cried at:
My couch
Last place I laughed at:
Also my couch
Where did you go on your last vacation?
Northern California
What was your favorite thing about that place?
The roadside Bigfoot attraction we went to while killing time before the live show we were going to started.
What was your least favorite thing about that place?
The lack of places to eat at in walking distance from our motel.
What's your favorite place in your city?
The library
What do you like about that place? Well, it's a library, a nice one. They have books, DVDs, puzzles, games, a decent library of things, a wide variety of events, a computer lab, an affordable copy machine, wonderful staff, comfy chairs... I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: from francis with love

Entry tags:

Icon Meme

Snagged from

goodbyebird at

3weeks4dreamwidth

Reply to this post saying 'icon', and I will tell you my favorite icon of yours. Then post this to your own journal using your own favorite icon if you're one of those inhuman things that are actually capable of choosing between ~~YOUR PRECIOUS BABIES!~~ userpics.

pootling along

Today I have:

successfully navigated some unfamiliar-to-me public transport with only the normal amount of panic
MADE IT TO THE GYM post-unfamiliar-public-transport (having been Indisposed this morning, when I had planned to--)
- achievement unlocked: asked to borrow a pair of dumbbells from a much-stronger-than-me human For One Set while they were resting (because warm-up); they were a delight
- achievement unlocked: politely asked the human in the next rack if I could have the yellow plates they... seemed highly unlikely to use
... tripped and fell into Computer Game instead of doing most of the afternoon/early evening things I had grand plans about...
and we UNFUCKED THE KITCHEN SOME, good job us.

(Everything is still very much a post-event disaster, but. Made food ate food made a stand against the forces of entropy. It Is Well.)

Entry tags:

wed 2026

Write Every Day April 2026 - Days 1-15: Final Tally

Sorry this is late! I think I have everyone now. Let me know if not!

Final Tally

( Days 1-15 )

Thanks everyone!

Entry tags:

tv shows

April TV shows

It's been a busy month (about which more later in a further post), and that's meant I've only managed to complete three TV shows, all of which were fairly short in length. These shows were:

The latest season of The Capture, a BBC crime/spy/political thriller whose premise is that the British police and security services have been engaged in a clandestine programme of 'correction' — planting nonexistent deepfake evidence in order to convict people of crimes for which there is no real evidence, supposedly justified as serving some greater security or political good. At the end of the last season, this was all exposed and out in the open, and the latest season deals with the ongoing messy fallout (surprise surprise, simply revealing the shadowy iniquities perpetuated by the British political and security elite does not result in an immediate transformation of the country for the better). In this season, along with the deepfakes, there's generative AI to contend with, and everything proceeds at breakneck pace with terrifying consequences. The sense of not having a solid grip on observable reality, and the sickening ease with which the characters justify the unbelievably unethical things they do is terrifying. The acting and writing are as sharp as ever, and the show is the televisual equivalent of a page-turner, but I couldn't help but find the plot completely ludicrous: not because the UK police, military, or security services wouldn't be attracted to doing all the dodgy technological things they're portrayed as doing, but because their competence at doing so and seemingly bottomless funds to support these actions strained the bounds of credulity.

Kleo, a surreal, darkly comedic spy thriller set in the dying days of partitioned Germany, in which the titular Stasi assassin gets framed and thrown into prison by those above her in the chain of command, released several years later after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and immediately sets about trying to hunt down those responsible for the stitch-up and attempting to uncover the larger political reasons why it happened. The story barrels along on an international chase, zipping from a Berlin left reeling at the overwhelming political and social changes bursting forth, to Spain and Chile, filled with a fabulous cast of characters (the side characters are particularly fun), against a backdrop of crumbling modernist architecture and an absolutely glorious soundtrack. I enjoyed this immensely.

Midnight at the Pera Palace, a Turkish historical drama in which Esra, a struggling journalist, gets assigned to write a puff piece about the history of a (real) luxury Istanbul hotel, and gets sucked back in time to 1919, where she has to foil a nefarious British plot to assassinate Mustafa Kemal. I wanted to like this more than I did: it has all the seeds of a silly piece of popcorn TV (ludicrous premise, the potential for lots of humorous time-travel shenanigans — to be fair there were some of those, like the point at which Esra needs to read a plot-relevant diary, but can't, as it is in Arabic script, which got replaced by Latin script as part of the reforms introduced in the wake of the founding of the modern Turkish state — a gorgeous setting, and a glimpse back into the cosmopolitan world of this hotel in its heyday), but it was just a bit too melodramatic and overacted for my taste.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: from francis with love

Entry tags:

Zombie Apocalypse Meme

Snagged from

goodbyebird at

3weeks4dreamwidth

Give me a character from one of my fandoms, and I'll tell you how they survived the zombie apocalypse. If, indeed, they did survive.

Current Mood: discontent
Current Location: from francis with love

Entry tags:

Fic Stats Meme

Snagged from

maevedarcy

Rules: Give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the least words.

most hits
Getting Used to it (621 words) by spiralicious
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Okumura Rin/Okumura Yukio
Characters: Okumura Rin, Okumura Yukio
Additional Tags: PWP, Unbeta'd, Tail Play, Twincest, Community: hentai_contest
Summary:

Rin helps Yukio becomes used to his new body.

second most kudos
Oh Yeah We Shoulda Seen it Coming (856 words) by spiralicious
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne
Additional Tags: Secret Relationship, Sexual Frustration, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, Bruce Wayne is Batman, POV Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick Grayson is So Done, Parental Dick Grayson, Parental Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne is Robin, Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Humor, Damian Wayne Might Have a Crush
Summary:

Dick just wants a few minutes alone with Bruce.

third most comments
And She Was Here For Tea (582 words) by spiralicious
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics), Addams Family - All Media Types, Addams Family (TV 1964)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Bruce Wayne/Wednesday Addams
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Wednesday Addams, Alfred Pennyworth
Additional Tags: Community: allbingo, Winterfest in July 2021, Bruce Wayne is Not Batman, Kid Fic, Fluff, Tea, Crushes, Awkward Crush, First Crush, The Waynes and Addams are Neighbors, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alfred does not approve, But he will get over it, First Kiss, Bruce & Wednesday are the same age, Bruce is still an orphan
Series: Part 1 of Bruce & Wednesday
Summary:

Alfred braced himself. He was a professional after all. It was good that the young master was making friends with children his own age, but the young mistress was so... unsettling.

fourth most bookmarks
It's And She Was Here For Tea again, link above.

fifth most words
Cinderella had a Wrench (7504 words) by spiralicious
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell, Alphonse Elric/Winry Rockbell
Characters: Edward Elric, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s), Pinako Rockbell
Additional Tags: WIP Big Bang 2016, Angst, Mentioned violence, Interrogation, Wedding Planning
Summary:

Ed and Winry's impending wedding had been speculated about for months. All knew it would be the event of the year. No one expected the reason why. Not all weddings end in happily ever after, some tragically just end.

least words
Winter Wonderland (47 words) by spiralicious
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Elf On The Shelf, Elf on the Shelf POV, Letter fic, Crack
Series: Part 8 of Dear Chuck the Series
Summary:

Sprinkles the Elf has been given a very special assignment from Chuck himself. He's weirdly proud of the boys today.

This was a very eye opening look at my stats.

Current Mood: good

Entry tags:

3W4DW Day 7 Check-in

1. one creative thing I did today

I saw a movie!

No, wait, hear me out: you may be thinking that this isn't an action of personal creativity, and you're not wrong, but creativity needs to be nurtured and fed. A lot of the reasons I write fluffy fanfic is that I just don't have the necessary experiences to write anything else. I need more experiences! And that could be through living live myself, or it could mean by consuming media.

It is rare I watch movies these days. I don't particularly like movie theaters, for one, and for two, movies tend to be long enough that my mind wanders. But today's movie was good, and I mostly stay focused the whole time! It was also a more comfy setting for me, being at my local library rather than a theater.

I went on mom's behest, but once she told me what the movie was about I went "OOOH!" because I knew I'd like it. We say Rental Family with Brendan Fraiser, and it takes place in Japan (<3!) which is relevant to my interests. I enjoyed it! Not as much as seeing Barbie or Wicked, both of which we also saw at the library, but it was a good movie and I was glad I went.

2. one thing I'm proud of today

I listened to my body and fed it when it was hungry, and napped when I was tired. Otherwise... well, the day was rather lost with going out to breakfast this morning with mom, then movie, then home, then a late lunch, then FLOP on bed, then dinner, then streaming.

I also did not overly freak when something anxiety-provoking happened. This is good progress!

3. video game progress

The latest FFXIV raid has made me want to replay the Bastok Rank 6-10 missions, so before dinner I logged into my Amalberga, my documentation alt who happens to be from Bastok and has completed up to rank 5. I did read the wiki for the 6-1 mission, and I probably could have done it at her level, but it would have been dicey, as she was only level 82 (cap is 99). So I took her Trusts out to Mount Zaylom to fight crabs and level up. She's now level 85, and I am barred from leveling up again with a genkai (limit breaker) quest. I need to farm 10 Kindred Crest's (easy, I probably have them already!) and 5 merit points. I have no merit points currently, so that will mean more EXPing against crabs.

After dinner, I streamed on Siofra. We're in the midst of the Wings of the Goddess expansion, and just finished the 5th set of the Windurst path questline. There was a battle that gave me some trouble. It's meant to be done with real players, and you can bring a whole 18-person alliance if you wish. I was doing it with Trusts (computer controlled NPCs) and they are pretty dumb, in that they won't attack until I swing my staff at an enemy. I'm a MAGE, folks. I get aggro usually by spellcasting. But nope the Trusts just stand there going "durr..." unless I do a physical attack. It's one of the few things that annoy me about the game.

Anyway. First attempt, I tried picking off the enemies one by one. Not good, the wards were defeated and I lost. Second attempt, I tried doing Diaga to grab all enemies at once, which allows for better fighting by the blasted Trusts, but the wards still fell.

The wards have an HP pool. I am a White Mage. The obvious thing is to cast Cure on them, but that doesn't work--they are immune to Cure spells. However, Dancer's Curing Waltz will heal them! So I changed my subjob from /SCH to /DNC, did a few macro changes, and tried again. This time I won!

Unfortunately, I only had oomph for a 2 hour stream. Because FFXI is unvoiced, I do a LOT of "voice acting" by reading lines. I am not an actor, but I try my best. It's exhausting though, trying to perform. So I opted to quit for the night when

jillwise who was watching had to leave.

My FFXI anniversary was on April 25th: I first stepped into Vana'diel on that day in 2009. SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. Where has the time gone? And how cool that the game is STILL up and running so I can enjoy it. But when I realized just how long it's been, I nearly crumbled into dust.

And now, BEDTIME! (Prompto: "Soft sheets, baby!")

Entry tags:

migraine

[migraine] ... mrgh

Today has been. the first time in A While that I have spent mostly horizontal and mostly asleep on account of migraine, despite drugs. I am Not A Fan.

( Read more... )

Introduction Post

Hello World!

We are a system of around 14, but only a few of us might make use of this account.

What is it that we like?

Drawing
American Sign Language (please sign with us!)
Comics
Sci-fi
Vintage office aesthetics
Gardening
Systemwork and self-help
Psychology from a Mad Pride perspective

Some of our favorite movies:

Interstellar
Project Hail Mary
Arrival
The Truman Show

Some of our favorite books & comics:

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Making Comics by Scott McCloud
Unmasking Autism by Devon Price
My Body Unspooling by Leo Fox
R.R.R. by Violaine Briat

Who you are likely to see here:

Hotfix (he/him)
Russel (he/him)
Hollowbody (he/him)
Deryn (she/her)
Cason (he/him)

We'll tag our posts with the author, or leave it blank if we don't know who wrote it.
... and probably some other stuff that I can't remember right now.

I have no idea what the posting culture on this site is like yet, and how feasible it is to share art here since that's mostly what we do. It's been a while since we've ever used a blog, so this is pretty exciting! This post will probably get updated/redone later when we get a better hang of things.

Entry tags:

Books read, May 2026

1 May 2026
- *The Monster in the Manor (Lyonne Riley)

Entry tags:

3W4DW Day 6 Check-in: a day late (but not a dollar short)

Whoops I forgot to do this yesterday, so here's my answers now:

1. one creative thing I did today on Thursday

I worked on a Divine Hat, hoping to finish it for a Nerdopolis challenge. I could have finished it in time had I stuck with it, but I changed projects because I really wanted to fill the Love What You Do challenge, where teams pick their own themes.

I started a knitting pattern for the challenge, but this was pretty late in the afternoon, and it soon became apparent I wouldn't finish in time. So back to crochet I went, where I freehanded a pocket tissue cozy. It's not great, but it's recognizable for what it is, so hey! And I got to fulfill the challenge, which made me happy!

Here's my write-up for my submission:

Co-op’s theme this month is Favorite Streamer. Mine is Colin Ryan, who along with being a Final Fantasy XIV streamer, also happens to be the English voice of Alphinaud in the game! Colin’s streams are fun, wholesome, and chill, and I just adore watching his reactions as he experiences the full breadth of the game’s story for the first time.

Players in FFXIV are referred to in the game as the Warrior of Light. The WoL has a special ability called the Echo, which allows them to glimpse scenes from people’s pasts. When the Echo kicks in, the Warrior holds their hand up to their face, as if experiencing a sudden headache, and squints in pain. Well, when Colin first saw the Echo, he thought his character was sneezing! Henceforth, the Echo is called The Sneeze on his streams. In honor of this, I made a Pocket Tissue Cozy so I’d never be without my tissues should The Sneeze strike!

Team shout out for Nerd Cred: Colin is not only a streamer of FFXIV but an actual voice artist from it as well, and thus fits into my team’s scope! I can’t resist sharing this clip from his stream - here is Colin hearing himself in game for the first time. IT’S ADORABLE!

Watch on YouTube

2. one thing I'm proud

I spent a large part of my afternoon listening to and supporting a friend. I'm not always the best at being a friend, so I definitely want to give myself a pat on the back for this one.

3. video game progress

I logged into Windy and did an alliance roulette on her. I got first Dawntrail raid AGAIN, for the second day in a row. I didn't mind all that much though, because it gave me a coin.

Windy's gear was at ilevel 745. She needs to be at least i755 to do the new patch content. I had previously ran the 7.4 dungeon with Duty Support, which dropped casting body for her. SCORE! I also spent some of her meager stash of gil on the crafted SMN book - and since there was a pentamelded one up for just a bit more than the regular HQ ones, I opted for that one. Her wallet hurts, but that was a big help in her ilevel.

After running the raid, I looked at getting more tomestone gear for her. She already had Historia hands; I picked up a Historia necklace and ring, too, because I had enough Mathematics for them.

I had an inkling that augmenting some of the Historia would be enough--did I have enough coins? I DID! So I augmented the hands and choker, and that put me at exactly 755. So she's good for content!

If I have time, I might do some hunt trains or something on her to see if I can't get the newer tomestone gear (Historia is kinda outdated at this point), but I'm not going to worry too much if I can't.

Current Mood: rushed
Current Location: from francis with love

Entry tags:

#mybooks meme

Snagged from

maevedarcy

#mybooks

This week I'm reading:
How to be a Saint; An Extremely Wierd and Mildly Sacrilegious History of the Catholic Church's Biggest Names by Kate Sidley

My favorite book of all time is:
I am currently accepting applications for a new favorite book of all time

My current favorite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months) is:
Hunger's Bite by Robin Taylor

The last book I bought was:
To Terra volumes 1-3

The first book I bought with my own money was:
I don't remember the exact title,
but it was a collection of Edgar Allan Poe short stories

The first book I received as a gift was: A collection of Mother Goose fairy tales

The last book I received as a gift was:
I'm not sure.

The last book I borrowed from the library was:
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, for book club

The book physically closest to me right now is:
Vagabond: A Memoir by Tim Curry

This or that:
Physical book or e-book: physical
Used or new: doesn't matter
Fiction or non-fiction: fiction
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: coffee shop
Paperback or hardcover: paperback
Romance or Crime: crime

Yes or no:
Stream of consciousness? no
Poetry? yes
Memoirs? yes
Philosophy? no
Thrillers? yes
Chronicles? yes
Travel logs? yes
Dialogue heavy? yes

#mybooks This week I'm reading: My favorite book of all time is: My current favorite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months) is: The last book I bought was: The first book I bought with my own money was: The first book I received as a gift was: The last book I received as a gift was: The last book I borrowed from the library was: The book physically closest to me right now is: This or that: Physical book or e-book: Used or new: Fiction or non-fiction: Read at a coffee shop or at the park: Paperback or hardcover: Romance or Crime: Yes or no: Stream of consciousness? Poetry? Memoirs? Philosophy? Thrillers? Chronicles? Travel logs? Dialogue heavy?

Current Mood: rushed
Current Location: from francis with love

Entry tags:

ABCs of Me Meme

Snagged from

goodbyebird at

3weeks4dreamwidth

The ABC's of me.

A. Age: 40

B. Bed Size: twin

C. Chore You Really Dislike: dishes

D. Dogs: I have dog friends, but I do not currently reside with one.

E. Essential Start to Your Day: the daily Oz's Vault video

F. Favorite Color: purple

G. Gold or Silver: silver

H. Height: tall

I. Instruments You Play: none

J. Job: semi retired house/pet sitter, library furniture, and weekly bookkeeper

K. Kids: I'm an aunt to many

L. Live: There is a rumor that I might be undead.

M. Mom’s Name: Personally, I call her Mom.

N. Nicknames: Kat

O. Overnight Hospital Stays: I haven't had any since I had to go back as a baby to go back under the grow bulb.

P. Pet Peeve: not clearing the cook time from the microwave when you stop it early

Q. Quote From A Movie: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

R. Right or Left Handed: right

S. Siblings: 3

T. Time You Wake Up: This varies a lot, depending on where I have to be that day. I am NOT a morning person. Or even a daytime person, really.

U. Underwear: purple

W. What Makes You Run Late: Hubris

X. X-Rays You’ve Had: feet, arm, hands, head...

Y. Yummy Food You Make: stroganoff

Z. Zoo - favorite animal: cats of all sizes. But also pigs.

If any of the words don't work for you, choose a different word that uses the same letter. That way the meme changes and evolves as it travels around.

creatures!

Went into town this afternoon to post some things, and observed Several Creatures. The blue butterfly around the lilac near the top of the hill was very welcome; the Egyptian goslings are starting to look almost grown up, with eye markings and a general reduction in fluff and increase in sleek!

(Elsewise today: SLEEP, post-gym Spatzen, more free electrons and therefore more laundry; both social and solitary wiggles; good therapy; and some Tentatively Positive Communication re Admin: the LRP.)