Follow Friday 6-13-25

Jun. 13th, 2025 12:29 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] 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".

Murderbot 1x06

Jun. 12th, 2025 09:08 pm
holmesticemods: (Default)
[personal profile] holmesticemods posting in [community profile] holmestice
Title: a night of contemplation
Recipient: CumberCurlyGirl
Artist/Vidder: Redacted
Verse: Books: Doyle Canon
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: non-explicit sexual content
Warnings: none
Summary: A quiet night at Baker Street - full of blissful rest for some, anxieties and sleeplessness for others.

View on AO3: a night of contemplation

Dept. of Small Victories

Jun. 12th, 2025 09:57 pm
kaffy_r: Picture of the face of Isha, girl from Arcane S02 (Isha penultimate)
[personal profile] kaffy_r
Yesss ... Suck It, Cheeto!

I needed this. A judge told That Man that he was being an illegal POS in two separate ways. Even though I'm perfectly aware that this administration's playbook is "Ignore the courts," I know this one is probably like a cockleburr under his saddle. 

As I said, suck it. 


Fem Gift Boxes Pinch Hits Due June 20

Jun. 12th, 2025 09:11 pm
toothpastepancake: (femgiftboxes)
[personal profile] toothpastepancake posting in [community profile] pinchhits
 There are still two boxes without gifts for my gifting fest, [community profile] femgiftboxes . Due June 20 at 8PM EST.

writtenworldsaloud's box: Hazbin Hotel, Golden Sun, YuYu Hakusho (fic, vid)

Flaim_Ita's box: Kamen Rider Geats, Mahoutsukai Precure, Hana no Asuka-Gumi, Kamen Rider Decade, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne (Fic, Art, Comics, Podfic of any of my applicable fics)

Thanks!

Signups Open!

Jun. 12th, 2025 07:52 pm
justmarriedmod: (Default)
[personal profile] justmarriedmod posting in [community profile] justmarriedexchange
Sign ups for Just Married are open!
Sign up here.
See the tag set here.

We have a google spreadsheet of freeform tags for browsing (thank you to the sheet creator). To use the spreadsheet, make a copy, and use the arrows on the left hand side to expand individual categories.

Sign ups will close 11:59 pm UTC on June 22. To convert that your time, click here and add a city/time zone. Or, see the countdown clock.

Requests will be visible as they come in. Watch the sign up summary for numbers of requests/offers per fandom (note: fandoms with 0 requests will not appear). Watch the requests summary for details on requests, including requested ships, freeform tags, and media types.

Detailed instructions (copied from guidelines) are below. Some quick notes:
  • Please be careful when selecting Any Relationship/Any Freeform. Do not request Any Relationship unless you are sure you are fine with receiving any relationship in the fandom in the tagset; same with Any Freeform. Do not request Any and then DNW certain relationships or tags. If your DNWs contradict the signup, the signup takes priority.


    Requests )

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    Note on tag categories: Just Married is multifandom, so please take all tags as fandom agnostic and at face value. E.g. the Marriage Laws category refers generally to laws about marriage, and not specifically the Harry Potter postcanon fic premise; the Soulbonds category refers generally to the psychic link trope, and not specifically Star Trek's Vulcan bonds or Loveless's fighter-sacrifice bonds.

    If you are creating for a fandom where the category or tag does refer to a more specific thing, it's fine to use the narrower interpretation, but this is neither required nor expected.
  • 2 days to check in

    Jun. 12th, 2025 06:05 pm
    longficmod: Photo of a woman tying a running shoe (Default)
    [personal profile] longficmod posting in [community profile] fandom5k
    We have a little more than two days to check in! Here's a countdown.

    As a reminder, everyone must check in, including pinch hitters. If you don't check in by the end of this period, I'll assume you're defaulting from the exchange. This is also the default deadline if you want to sign up next year without completing a make-up assignment.

    Details of the check-in are on this post.

    (no subject)

    Jun. 12th, 2025 05:14 pm
    shadaras: A phoenix with wings fully outspread, holidng a rose and an arrow in its talons. (Default)
    [personal profile] shadaras
    1.
    The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar, is very beautifully written and really is a love letter to fairy tales and sisterhood, all of which I knew it would be going into it. It is also a novella I am turning over in my head because I am trying to figure out if my "I think it should've been longer" is a genuine structural thing or just the side-effect of the print volume being ~130 pages long, only 99 of which are the titular story. (the other 30 pages are a short story teasing her upcoming short story collection.)

    This is not a long story! Reading a doorstopper novel, something like Priory of the Orange Tree or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell (neither of which I ever finished, hah), being off in your estimations of length by 30 pages is unlikely to matter to the overall pacing of the book or what you expect from it.

    It is almost a quarter of these printed pages.

    That is a very significant amount of difference! I think about structure and pacing as I read. It's not always conscious, but I know that the number of pages remaining matters to me and my expectations. Sure, there's often some number of pages that aren't narrative at the end of a novel, but: scale, again, and also the sort of book that has extensive end notes/an appendix/etc is visible from the start, where it probably has a map and/or dramatis personae as well.

    All of this is to say: I liked this story quite a lot! Which is why I'm spending so many words squinting at the way it was presented and poking at it like "you could've done better to prepare me for how this story was going to pace so that I wasn't surprised when it ended". (Because it is a gorgeous volume, with beautiful illustrations and clear care given to how it appears as an object, so why—)


    2.
    I taught kids class for aikido last night, because my friend who usually lead teaches wasn't feeling well, and used this as an excuse to teach the kids a very basic forward roll technique. They're all good enough at forward rolls to take one, and this throw done at their level just guides them into the position to take a forward roll; there's no force behind it, just form. (If done with the right timing and angle, it is very effective at forcing a roll! But that's much more advanced and very hard to do unintentionally.)

    They did great with it, as I knew they would, and idk why this is the first time they've been taught a forward roll technique other than "my friend didn't want to teach it yet".

    Next on my agenda: making them do the ikkyo pin. We'll see how long it takes to get there. (This is more likely to be something I can be like "hey what if we taught this" about and get "oh, yeah, sure" in response.)


    3.
    I talked to my mom on the phone this weekend. [insert 1k of deleted words about family stuff here, which tbh boil down to: I really should figure out finding and seeing a therapist. (this is not a new thought.)]


    4.
    I've started watching The Apothecary Diaries, an anime that I have been "yeah I'd probably like this" about since I first heard of it, and: surprise! I do like it quite a lot, as I like most stories about women and their politics and also weird girls with specialized knowledge using that knowledge to solve mysteries and help people. Maomao, the protag, is a 17yo apothecary who loves poison, does not notice people flirting with her, and thinks about how pretty the women surrounding her are all the time. (Also there's a dude who's in love with her in part because she's the only woman who goes "ew, leave me alone" instead of mooning over him, because heterosexuality must be gestured at and dudes need representation too.) (There are other men in the show; that guy, who also has interesting plot reasons for existing and doesn't actually exist solely to moon over Maomao, is just the only one other than Maomao's dad/teacher who really matters.)

    I'm 10eps in and having fun. Truly just one of those things where sometimes everyone going OMG IT'S SO GOOD makes it hard to give stuff a shot, and going "y'know what I want to try something new and this has always sounded fun" is a lot easier to make happen.


    5.
    In other thoughts about tv shows and structure/pacing. So. Okay. I have a terrible fondness for Hearing About Sports while also often having zero interest in watching sports. (Sometimes [personal profile] tavina liveblogs sports at me and I adore this, it's very fun, please tell me about your investment in an event and explain to me why you have feelings about it; I love to go !!! over things I only just heard about and learn about underdogs I will promptly root for on principle. or about Your Team doing well at things when I have no investment about rooting for anyone in particular but like it when my friends' investment is rewarded!)

    So there's the netflix sports shows, which I'm pretty sure started with Drive to Survive, which is about F1. There are a number of seasons. My twin got me to start watching them like. Three years ago...? Something like that. It's a good series, and that's in large part because in its first season it understood a very important fact about sports tv:

    You need to give the audience enough context about the sport that they know why they should be invested in it.

    It's not enough to present a charismatic and/or attractive person who wants to win (and probably won't) and say "look! root for this person!". You gotta know what the sport is, and what makes it dramatic, and what it takes for someone to be good at it, and then you need to show the people you're following being good at that sport! It's okay if they fail, or fuck up, or whatever not being perfect looks like; you just also gotta show when they do things right, when they get close to victory, when they have the stuff that makes it interesting to root for them. And that means the audience needs to know what that is, and what it looks like, and see that happening.

    A startling number of mediocre Netflix sports reality shows do not understand that the first thing I want from a sports reality show is: the sport

    perhaps I am unusual for this, but, like

    if you want to get people into your sport... I think they need to be given the tools to understand the basics of how your sport works... and see that sport being performed/played in competition...

    also your show can't just be "look! women can do this too!" and generally spend more times on the lives of the women than on the women actually doing the thing. like, yes, I know people find that inspiring, but wow it's more inspiring to see people doing thing than to see them crying with their families about having fucked up, couldn't you have used that time to show some people doing cool stuff instead. show me their training. their actions. not their failures to the point where I'm like... where even was the cool victory stuff... you were too focused on humanizing them and forgot that being visibly good at shit is part of the story of "I want to be one of the best in the world at this activity" too...

    how are you doing?

    Jun. 13th, 2025 08:14 am
    tielan: (PacRim - Mako)
    [personal profile] tielan
    I'm thinking of you guys and praying for you.

    *hugs*

    Comments screened in case you want privacy.

    The Property of Hate Volume 4

    Jun. 12th, 2025 06:03 pm
    marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
    [personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] book_love
    The Property of Hate Volume 4 by Sarah Jolley

    The continuing adventure.

    Read more... )

    The Friday Five for 13 June 2025

    Jun. 12th, 2025 05:25 pm
    anais_pf: (bunny photo)
    [personal profile] anais_pf posting in [community profile] thefridayfive
    This week's questions were suggested by [livejournal.com profile] pleepleus.

    1. What item would you be embarrassed for people to know you own?

    2. What is something you splurged on just for you?

    3. What is something that you own with no real world value that is priceless to you?

    4. Do you collect anything?

    5. What item belonging to a friend/family member do you covet?

    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!

    Sunshine Revival

    Jun. 12th, 2025 04:24 pm
    ysabetwordsmith: Text says New Year Resolutions on notebook (resolutions)
    [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] goals_on_dw
    The old [community profile] sunshine_challenge is defunct, but other folks are reviving it this summer with the [community profile] sunshine_revival. See the schedule and link below for more information. Spread the word!

    Are you looking for a month-long July goal for blogging, writing, art, or other creative expressions?  This event works great for that kind of goal.

    Sunshine-Revival-2025-Banner-3.png

    Read more... )
    juushika: Photograph of a black cat named October, peering out of a white fleece cave (October)
    [personal profile] juushika
    Title: Calling on Dragons (Enchanted Forest Chronicles 3)
    Author: Patricia C. Wrede
    Published: HMH Books for Young Readers, 2015 (1993)
    Rating: 2 of 5
    Page Count: 245
    Total Page Count: 536,270
    Text Number: 1964
    Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
    Review: The witch Morwen leads a ragtag group to save the Enchanted Forest from wizards. Familiar premise, indeed; what differentiates it is the PoV; and I like Morwen, but we don't learn much about her and her clowder of talking cats runs into all number of cat-related tropes that I don't enjoy. I also don't like the new comic relief character. Or the ongoing Telemain communication gimmick, and all of these are running gags, and that's a lot of running gags to find frustrating in one short book. This didn't work for me, and it feels, even more than its predecessor, like it's just a setup for a "real" book.

    Something fishy!

    Jun. 12th, 2025 10:18 pm
    [personal profile] cosmolinguist

    Today for work, I saw someone spell fisticuffs as "fisty cuffs" and a) that is adorable and b) it also makes me realize what a strange word fisticuffs is!

    So naturally I looked it up.

    c. 1600, fisty cuffes, from fist (n.) + cuff (n.) "a blow", with the form perhaps in imitation of handiwork.

    Well! That's such a boring etymology, but... nice to see the spelling returned to something more like the original!

    I said this on fedi and a friend's response has been delighting me ever since:

    I always misread it as fishticuffs, so always had an image in my head of some kind of betta fish boxing, complete with gloves over fins

    That made me giggle. They're an artist so I asked if they would draw this some time. I am wondering how a fish gets boxing gloves on its fins...

    juushika: A black and white photo of an ink pen (Writing)
    [personal profile] juushika
    Title: Through the First Antarctic Night, 1898-1899
    Author: Frederick A. Cook
    Published: 1900
    Rating: 2 of 5
    Page Count: 520
    Total Page Count: 536,025
    Text Number: 1963
    Read Because: I have Problems; Project Gutenberg has this one
    Review: This is the first primary source that I feel like has not appreciably added to my understanding of Antarctic exploration, in that, between Sancton's Madhouse at the End of the Earth and Guly's papers, particularly "'Polar anaemia': cardiac failure during the heroic age of Antarctic exploration", I'd already read the good bits, and better contextualized than in Cook's direct account. What's left is a fairly uninspired narration with repetitious but, worse, often ineffective meditations on the Antarctic atmosphere. There's not much insight into the human factor even as regards Cook himself, the fascinating period medical understandings are better analyzed elsewhere, and while it's a glimpse into Cook's narrative style, that style is scattershot and unreliable. Eminently skippable, but given that accessible Belgica resources are thin on the ground, I'm not mad I read it.

    (FWIW, Arçtowski's narratives are more spread out and obviously weighted towards science, but I still liked them more: that bias and brevity makes the peeks of a distinctive sarcastic voice, the foibles of the expedition, and the polar atmosphere all feel better chosen and more valuable.)
    holmesticemods: (Default)
    [personal profile] holmesticemods posting in [community profile] holmestice
    Title: The Pubs of London
    Recipient: Bluebellofbakerstreet
    Author: REDACTED
    Verse: BBC
    Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson:
    Rating: Explicit
    Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
    Summary: John rewards Sherlock for entering out into the city for hobnobbing with the goldfish. Also, a history lesson.

    Read on AO3: The Pubs of London

    Birdfeeding

    Jun. 12th, 2025 02:22 pm
    ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
    [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] birdfeeding
    Today is cloudy and quite warm.

    I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a mourning dove.

    I put out water for the birds.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I checked the firepit. It has burned down mostly to ashes. I started trimming weeds around the outside edge.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I picked half a bag of mulberries in the savanna.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I sowed Bee Lawn Mix on a bare patch beside the garden shed.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I did a bit more work around the patio.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I picked a bag of mulberries in the savanna.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I finished trimming around the firepit.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I trimmed more grass along the edge of the strip garden.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I trimmed grass along the south edge of the patio.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I trimmed brush along the edge of the strip garden.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I trimmed weeds along the edge of the south sidewalk.

    EDIT 6/12/25 -- I intended to lay the base for the next bonfire.  I was only able to find one log big enough, and I need two.  There are some older ones but they are buried under too much brush to reach.  >_<  And it started drizzling anyhow, so fuck it.

    I am done for the night.

    How to Secure Yarn End on a Ball

    Jun. 12th, 2025 02:19 pm
    ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
    [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] get_knitted
    Use a hair clip.  It holds securely, doesn't damage yarn, molds to the shape of the ball, and tells you exactly where the end is. 
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