notable quotables

Sep. 1st, 2025 01:10 am
ursamajor: droppin' the ball (d'oh)
[personal profile] ursamajor
[personal profile] hyounpark has recently started watching the 2022 revival of Quantum Leap, and tonight's episode? Revisited the World Series quake. As somebody who lived through that? ROFL, pedantry ahoy!

Me: "Hi Candlestick! ... wait, happy hour during Game 3 of the Bay Bridge Series? GET UNDER A SOLID DOORWAY NOW."
Me: "WHAT THE HELL YOU WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO SEE THE FERRY BUILDING FROM THERE IN 1989, NOT EVEN WITH THE FREEWAY COLLAPSE."
Me: "You can't get across the Bay in the time you have! The bridge is down, BART is down, that utility tunnel is at least FIVE MILES LONG, and even when you come up on the Oakland side you still have to get through the entire-ass Port of Oakland. And you're playing a white family, highly unlikely they would have lived in West Oakland at the time, so now you have at least another two miles of running to get anywhere where the apartments look like that and you could plausibly have none or very few Black neighbors, and OH WAIT YOU'D HAVE TO CROSS THE CYPRESS STRUCTURE TO DO THAT, which also fell down in the quake! Your 90 minutes are up, tick tick BOOM."
[personal profile] hyounpark: "Watching this ep with you is WAY more entertaining than watching it by myself would have been!"
Me: "And this didn't even account for going back to their new apartment in SF at least two miles in the wrong direction, RUNNING UPHILL, to look for the kid!"

*

The Strategist interviewed Sally Jessy Raphael a few weeks ago on some of her favorite things, and I feel seen.

"Let me explain. The first thing people say when they see me is, “Oh my God, you’re so short.” This is terrible. I am slightly under five feet. This means that if I go to buy grown-up clothes in the store, everything is too long. Everything. Every skirt, every pair of jeans, it doesn’t matter what I pay or where I shop. So, I have pinking shears. Everything I own, I pink with the pinking shears. It doesn’t make sense for me to go to Kohl’s and buy $9 jeans and then send them to be hemmed for $30. In New York, that’s what it costs to hem. So I gave up on having anybody hem them. And I’m having trouble threading my sewing machine. So pinking shears do everything."


I mean, not that I own a pair of pinking shears, but I'm always on the lookout for jeans that are short enough for me off the rack. Usually, they end up being some form of slim-to-straight fit cropped style, but the best pair of jeans I ever had was a flared sort of baby bellbottom style that I got at a clothing swap like 15 years ago. They didn't last terribly long (got holes on the inner thighs within a couple of years), but I loved the hell out of those jeans - they were button-fly (look, I bought my first pair of jeans with my allowance from the Gap in the early 90s and that's what I imprinted on), they had embroidered cuffs, they flared out below MY knee height just enough to balance my curvy hips better than any pair of then-trendy skinnies ever did, and I wore them at least twice a week while I owned them except in summer.

They were my holy grail of jeans, and I've been looking for anything like them ever since. I've tried on jeans from probably every American mass-market brand in the interim, but no. At this point, I own two pairs of Levi's Wedgie Straights because they are not "cropped" and come in a 26" inseam (so the knees hit where they're supposed to), and are suitable for the times when I just need plain old jeans that don't stand out. They are reliable. But they don't feel like ~me~ the same way these old jeans did.

I know the real answer is that I just need to buy a sewing machine and learn how to make my own jeans, but. Sigh.
duskpeterson: The lowercased letters D and P, joined together (Default)
[personal profile] duskpeterson

BLOG FICTION

Tempestuous Tours (Crossing Worlds: A Visitor's Guide to the Three Lands #2). A whirlwind tour of the sites in the Three Lands that are most steeped in history, culture, and the occasional pickpocket.

Latest installments:


EARLY ACCESS

A Visitor's Guide to the Three Lands: Novel and Side Stories (Crossing Worlds), which includes an expanded version of Deadly Introductions, is now available to my Patreon and Ream readers. The omnibus will go into general release next month.


NEWS

Early access previews at Patreon and Ream

I'm now providing one-month-early previews of my new e-book fiction through Patreon and Ream. I want to give a treat to readers who financially support me, while still making those stories quickly available to the rest of my readers. The early access model seems to be the best way to handle that.


General news and upcoming fiction )

Ways to offer me a tip, financial or nonfinancial )

(no subject)

Aug. 31st, 2025 08:58 pm
dustbunny105: (Default)
[personal profile] dustbunny105
Got the living room furniture all moved around. As annoying as it is to have had to do it, the new arrangement does look pretty nice. The only real problem is that we don't have a good place for our craft cubbies anymore. We're gonna have to move them either into the hallway or the guest room. Which is also pretty annoying but not the worst, I guess.

Bingo

Aug. 31st, 2025 08:52 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
I  have made 7 fills in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics Bingo


I1 (Somebody at the Door) -- "No Faster or Firmer Friendships" (Polychrome Heroics)
I3 (As If by Magic) -- "To Allow in More Light" (Monster House)
I4 (Someone from the Past) -- "An Inkling of Things to Come" (Polychrome HeroicsShiv)

N4 (He Who Whispers) -- "He Who Whispers" (An Army of One)

G2 (Family Matters) -- "When You Learn to Read" (Polychrome HeroicsBig One)
G3 (Before the Fact) -- "Where You Find Light" (Polychrome HeroicsBig One
G4 (Deep Waters) -- "The Most Precious Heritage" (Polychrome Heroics: Rutledge)  

General Exchange Letter

Aug. 31st, 2025 09:21 pm
everysecondtuesday: glasses and milk tea in the morning (Default)
[personal profile] everysecondtuesday

Hi! I have previous past letters with likes lists and prompts that still hold true, so feel free to peruse old letters, though please be aware of my current DNWs and requests. This is a general letter with likes lists, etc., but because I often request fandoms that I have requested in the past, please feel free to check out my fandom tags on the sidebar and see if there's anything in past letters you think might apply! There's probably a greater than 50% chance I have requested the fandom or ship before.

For ease of finding me: [archiveofourown.org profile] tuesday.

What I've written and what I want as a gift can differ, so for best results, please rely on my likes and DNWs over what you may find on my AO3 works page.

Text Likes )

Art Likes )

General Likes )

Ship Likes )

Smut Likes )

Vid Likes )

Do Not Wants )


Cyberspace Theory

Aug. 31st, 2025 05:29 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The ecology of attention

There’s a moment, usually around the seventh open tab, when your brain lets out a quiet scream. Not loud. Just a gentle, exhausted howl from somewhere behind your eyeballs. You've read ten headlines, watched half a video, skimmed three opinion pieces, checked your email, ignored two messages, and now you can't remember what you were doing in the first place. Welcome to the modern infoscape. It's busy, it's loud, and it's eating us alive.

Read more... )

New Year's Resolutions Check In

Aug. 31st, 2025 01:00 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
We made it to the end of August! \o/ If you have completed some of your medium-term goals or subgoals, and/or you're still chugging away at your ongoing goals, then pat yourself on the back. You worked hard for that. We have also finished summer. If you're doing seasonal goals, hopefully you have completed your summer batch and are about to start on fall.

This year I'm trying something new, continuing to track goals at the end of each month. So far it seems to be helping, so that's encouraging. I'm looking at my goal list more often and trying to keep ticking off more of them. The main drawback is that this update becomes more of a chore each month.

These are the previous check in posts:
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 4
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 10
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 17
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 24
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In February 28
New Year's Resolutions Check In March 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In April 30
New Year's Resolutions Check In May 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In June 30
New Year's Resolutions Check In July 31

Read more... )

Birdfeeding

Aug. 31st, 2025 03:25 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is partly cloudy and mild.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches. I heard a cardinal singing but didn't see it.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/31/25 -- I watered the irises.

EDIT 8/31/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/31/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/31/25 -- I took out the hose and watered the new picnic table and septic gardens.

A male ruby-throated hummingbird dive-bombed me while I was out with the hose. Hopefully he'll go back and drink from the droplets on the plants. :D I heard a woodpecker drumming but didn't see it.

EDIT 8/31/25 -- I watered the patio plants, old picnic table, barrel garden, goddess garden, and other house yard plants.

A sphinx moth tried to lick me, and then visited the impatiens and other flowers on the old picnic table. :D

Cicadas and crickets are singing.

We got the hose reeled up and put away.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

My Khepri amulet is in my other pants

Aug. 31st, 2025 09:26 pm
dhampyresa: Sun from Sense8 (hugs)
[personal profile] dhampyresa
I've been sitting on this fic for far too long and at this point it is melting out of my eyes. Hopefully posting it will give me back brain power.

Coming Forth by Day (24977 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Black Panther (Marvel Movies), Ancient Egyptian Religion
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Erik Killmonger & Shuri
Characters: Shuri (Marvel), Erik Killmonger, Bastet (Ancient Egyptian), Set (Ancient Egyptian), Tanit (Carthaginian Religion & Lore)
Additional Tags: written before Wakanda Forever, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary:

Shuri and the others don't go to the Jabari following Killmonger's murder of T'Challa, and the gods take a more active role.



This fic was started shortly after the first Black panther movie came out and I have ignored all MCU canon since. Nothing but the movie and myths, babey!

This fic is, to me, "Shuri vs the gods of pre-dynastic Egypt", but that's not entirely accurate. The existence of Bast is attested since at least the IVth dynasty (Old Kingdom). I thought it was prior to Narmer's unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, but I can no longer find the source. I've chosen to interpret this, in the context of the MCU, as meaning she was brought there by Wakandans.

Additionally, predynastic Egypt has kings known as Scorpion, Double Falcon and Crocodile, a list of names in which "Black Panther" would fit perfectly.

Seth dates back to Naqada III (predynastic Egypt), Neith to the Irst dynasty (Thinite period), as does Khnoum.

I have also chosen to use the French names of the gods because I'm French ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The gods of Ancient Egypt, with very rare exceptions, are associated with one or more animals. These animals are all real and known animals.

Except for the sha, Seth's animal.

There are several theories as to what animal the sha is meant to be. The one I most believe in and have chosen to use for this fic -- under the name "seteshin" is that it is a (sub-)species of canid, gone extinct in Ancient times, as happened to Ovis longipes palaeo-aegyptiacus, itself linked to Khnoum.


I'm sure I'll close this window and be reminded of something I meant to say, but alas I have a headache and must away.
jesse_the_k: SAGA's Prince Robot IV sitting on toilet (mundane future)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

Free Toilet – Haunted. Slightly Used. You’ve Been Warned.

Posted 7-Aug-2025 from the north side of Madison

In a dark room, a standard toilet seems to glow white

click for pic )

Do you have guts of steel, a strong back, and a questionable sense of judgment? Then boy, do I have the throne for you.

As Paul Harvey intoned, the rest of the story…

I’m giving away a toilet. Not just any toilet. A porcelain enigma, a mystical butt-bucket, a vessel forged in the deepest depths of a cursed Home Depot clearance aisle.

It flushes with the fury of Poseidon’s trident and occasionally emits sounds that suggest it’s trying to communicate in Morse code. It once screamed. Not like the pipes—like a person.

The backstory? This toilet was installed in my guest bathroom, affectionately known as “The Chamber of Screams.” Three guests used it. Two of them have since moved to Canada without explanation, and the third refuses to make eye contact with me at barbecues.

What you need to know:

Flushes. Sometimes violently.

Bowl glows faintly during thunderstorms.

Came with a bidet. Now it just hisses and sprays randomly like a venomous snake.

Every full moon, the tank fills with glitter. Unclear why.

One Yelp review from a plumber simply said “no.”

I just want it out of my house. You must pick it up yourself and sign a waiver that I am not responsible if it follows you home.

NO SCAMMERS. NO WITCHES. NO EXORCISTS (already tried). Serious inquiries only.

If you’re brave enough to sit upon the throne and live to tell the tale, contact me ASAP.

archived version

Book Log: Rick Astley - Never

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:05 pm
scaramouche: She-Ra's sword, animated (she-ra's sword is sparkly)
[personal profile] scaramouche
I was in the city over the (last) weekend, which meant that although I have an on-going resolution to not buy any books until I've cleared my still-unread book stack, this was an exception. A big exception! But an exception all the same because I rarely go into the city, so I got a whole bag of books that I will rotate in reading with the still-unread book stack, and one day, maybe, I will clear all of them.

Rick Astley's recent autobiography Never was not on my to-read list, but I picked it up on a whim, and as soon as I got home, apparently it was the one I was most excited about starting, so I did. I think because I'd recently enjoyed his cover of Chappell Roan's "Pink Pony Club", plus Dave Grohl mentioned him in his autobiography when I read it (and had to dig it up to reread his version of the same meeting that Astley mentions in his book).

So like, comparing to the handful of other musician autobiographies I've read (specifically: Dave Grohl, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner and Phil Collins), Astley's is very different in the sense that he really is Just Some Dude. He loves music and loves making music, but he isn't POSSESSED by the urge to make&perform music the way that's very clear for those other musicians I've mentioned, and since he got swept up in the commercial music-making machine when he was young (not very young, but young enough), he didn't get to cut his teeth performing on the circuit and figure out his own strengths. All musicians may be limited by commercial interests, but it seems to me that a consequence of that, plus the lack of a mentor, Astley didn't get much of a voice of his own that first time round as he exploded as a pop star, which gave a specific kind of hit to his confidence and perception of self (which isn't imposter syndrome, but something else). Boy was convinced most of the "genuine" musicians around him hated and/or wanted nothing to do with him, despite being proven wrong again and again.

By Astley's own admission he feels that he doesn't "deserve" to write an autobiog because he doesn't have that much music out, but that's just not true, man. His experiences are fascinating because it really is a case of luck coming in to revive his career (he had juuuuust the amount of psychological understanding of the Rickroll to, uh, roll with it, which took off after he dipped his toes back into the industry), and although he can't go back to the heights of the 80s, his second go-round has been firmly on his own terms and been so much more freeing for him to express himself, through writing and producing his own music, performing as a drummer again in his punk band, and embracing nostalgia performances. Which is neat! And reading about that is also neat.

Though also reading about the 80s pop machine from someone who lived it is also super neat and actually terrifying, which is the meat of the book. He's really lucky in that he got out of it relatively unscathed (which he's well-aware of) and that glimpse into how easy it is for a sheltered person to be dumped into a world you don't understand and be taken advantage of because you just don't know any better and don't even know you can say no to things -- it's a tale as old as time, but still good to read the someone's actual lived experience in a specific place and time period.

While reading the book, I listened to some of his newer tracks, and I quite like some of 'em! Most of them recorded at home and with him performing all the instruments, even.



Little Black Dress Exchange reveals

Aug. 31st, 2025 08:41 am
vriddy: Jacket Hawks with a cocky smile (cocky hawks)
[personal profile] vriddy
The [community profile] littleblackdressex exchange creator reveals happened this morning :D I wrote a Hawks/Natsuo quiet nature walk fic (and added a notch and 28th ship to my Hawks shipping challenge XD). Funnily enough, I ended up matching to the person I wrote all the pinch hits for earlier in the year. Hopefully they aren't sick of me yet 😂

Unknowable | Boku no Hero Academia | Natsuo/Hawks | 1.3k words | rated G
Summary: After the war, Hawks and Natsuo start meeting regularly. It all started with Natsuo desperate to understand more about how his lost brother became the broken man in the hospital.
Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3

Delightfully, my gift was also Hawks/Natsuo! What are the odds?? Little Black Dress is like a personal "bowl" exchange, and Hawks/Natsuo is not a particularly popular ship... I'm not actually sure they even ever share a panel in the manga? XD

My gifter went at the ship from a different angle and I loooove the story premise they wrote to go with it, it is perfect and their art is LOVELY, they picked a perfect scene :D

I wanna date my role model's son! | Boku no Hero Academia | Natsuo/Hawks | Art | Not rated/SFW

The Fermi paradox

Aug. 30th, 2025 10:29 pm
fayanora: cognitive hazard (cognitive hazard)
[personal profile] fayanora
I've been hearing a lot lately about various complicated solutions to the Fermi paradox, and it's kind of annoying because my solution is very simple: no other planet in the universe is home to anyone insane enough or evil enough to mass murder their own kind and pollute the planet they live on for short-term gains, at least not in enough numbers to be a real threat to the rest of their kind/world. We humans alone are insane / evil to enough of a degree as a species for industrialization and capitalism to exist. Everyone else in the galaxy, and maybe everyone else in the universe, is just chilling out going no further than being holistic, eco-friendly agricultural communities freely sharing their bounty with one another because they're all the same species and they're all sane and rational beings. Unlike humans.

Sure, they'll never get into space that way, but they also won't have to deal with only getting about five to seven thousand years of civilization out of the deal before their planet starts becoming inhospitable to them because of their own stupidity and evil. They won't have to deal with nuking themselves to extinction, or worse. Odds are pretty good most of them will get at least twenty or thirty thousand years, or even millions of years, of civilization before something kills them all off.

TERFs go die in a fucking fire.

Aug. 30th, 2025 10:02 pm
fayanora: lil girl knife (lil girl knife)
[personal profile] fayanora
I wish Shinigami Eyes worked on the Tumblr app on my phone. I'm getting so fucking tired of accidentally reblogging TERF scum. Especially those claiming to be leftists.

A note for everyone: you cannot be a leftist if you are a TERF. TERF ideology is inherently right-wing. You cannot be antifa and be a TERF. TERF ideology is inherently fascist. If you are a TERF, your ideology is closer to Hitler and Mussolini than to any form of leftism. Even centrist liberals are more progressive than any TERF.

Today's Adventures

Aug. 30th, 2025 09:53 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today we went to the Tuscola Family Fun Day and the Arthur Amish Country Cheese Festival.

Amusingly, I'm wearing a goldenrod-yellow T-shirt with a corncob and the caption "This is my crop top." (It's full length.) I got at least half a dozen compliments on it. :D I bought it earlier this year at another event, definitely a good choice for fall festivals.

Read more... )

A sports post by YOGAP

Aug. 30th, 2025 09:23 pm
fayanora: Ye Olde Goldyn Appyl Presse (YOGAP)
[personal profile] fayanora
A post by YOGAP on BlueSky

This is how insipid and stupid most sports sounds to me.

(Image is a post by Ye Olde Goldyn Appyl Presse on BlueSky reading " #YOGAP #Sports news: Arabella Bellacini Rappanucciano Cappucino of #Italy wins 1st place in the international " #Peekaboo " competition, beating 5 time consecutive winner Xiao Xing Song of #Taiwan, who got 2nd place. A. Cappucino, who is paid 1.4 billion #Euros a year, is said to be getting a raise")

(no subject)

Aug. 30th, 2025 08:59 pm
dustbunny105: (Default)
[personal profile] dustbunny105
Had a nice day out with my sister and her kids. Finally got to take y recycling and drop off my small box of donations at Goodwill. I was hoping we could arrange to get one of the furniture pieces I saw on Marketplace but it turns out that she recently picked up a new coffee table and it's still in her van until they're ready to place it inside, so there's no room. She'd otherwise have been amenable, so I'll just have to hope none of what I've been looking at goes before next week. I ended up holding off on getting Travis's new tank stand because when it came time to just settle, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm really glad of that now since so much that I like the look of has been put up now.

Anyhow, aside from that errand, we went for lunch and ice cream. The kids were all in good moods and well-behaved. For the most part. Not gonna hold it against the little one for getting fussy when it got close to nap time, natch. We also stopped at Michael's so I could get the black yarn I need to finish that one scarf and mittens set. We did a lot of browsing, particularly of clearance, and the older two each picked out a coloring book. I found two copies of a Transformers sticker picture activity booklet and grabbed those too. Not sure why I grabbed both, tbh, even though they were super cheap. I usually roll my eyes and move on from merch like that because it always pays dirt to the female characters. Still, I knew the older two would enjoy it and having two does make it a little more fair. Maybe I should get some fan-made sticker sheets and let them use those...
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