skygiants (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants) wrote2025-05-30 11:23 pm
skygiants) wrote2025-05-30 11:23 pmEntry tags:
(no subject)
The Boston Ballet production of Maillot's Romeo et Juliette has turned out to be not only my favorite Boston Ballet production that I've seen so far but also tbh one of my favorite Romeo and Juliets full stop. It is Taking Swings and Making Choices and some of them are very weird but all of them are interesting.
( we're just gonna go ahead and cut for length )
( we're just gonna go ahead and cut for length )
Prisoner's Exchange Mod (prisonerex_mod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
prisoner_exchange2025-05-31 12:31 am
prisonerex_mod) wrote in prisoner_exchange2025-05-31 12:31 amEntry tags:
Returning Pinch Hits 3, 6, 7, 8, 9
These pinch hits will be due Sun 15 Jun 2025 at 10:00PM EDT. Please reply to this post with the number and username that you want to claim (all comments are screened). You can also send an email to prisonerex.mod@gmail.com to claim.
( PH 3 - Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Fire Emblem Musou: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, 殺し愛 | Koroshi Ai (Manga), Limbus Company (Video Game) )
( PH 6 - Team Fortress 2, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison, Scream (Movies) )
( PH 7 - Doctor Who (1963) )
( PH 8 - Vlad Țepeș (1979), Felvidek (Video Game), 15th Century CE RPF )
( PH 9 - 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù )
( PH 3 - Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Fire Emblem Musou: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, 殺し愛 | Koroshi Ai (Manga), Limbus Company (Video Game) )
( PH 6 - Team Fortress 2, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison, Scream (Movies) )
( PH 7 - Doctor Who (1963) )
( PH 8 - Vlad Țepeș (1979), Felvidek (Video Game), 15th Century CE RPF )
( PH 9 - 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù )
kareila (kareila) wrote2025-05-28 07:17 pm
kareila) wrote2025-05-28 07:17 pm
the person you are trying to reach is not available
The new bookshelves were declared open for business on Saturday and so I've been spending all of my available time since then populating them. Not all of our books are going to fit, so I'm prioritizing the ones that spark joy and then we'll see how much space is left afterwards.
(Will also reminded me that he plans to keep his books in his room even though his room is adjacent to the library.)
(Will also reminded me that he plans to keep his books in his room even though his room is adjacent to the library.)
the_shoshanna (the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-28 06:10 pm
the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-28 06:10 pmI want to ride my bicycle I want to ride my bike
When I was ten years old, friends and I came back from seeing a James Bond movie and were playing at James Bond on our bikes, and I swerved too sharply, fell over, and broke my left leg. I broke both the fibia and the tibula, in fact, but they were clean breaks, very tidy. Hurt like screaming hell, though. As was the custom of the time I was in the hospital for several days and came out in a full-leg cast. My father, who lived some distance away, couldn’t get there right away and sent me a dozen roses in the hospital, which made the whole thing absolutely worth it; I had never felt so grown-up!
But that was the end of my bicycling career. For fifty years.
Now, however, I've moved to a small, mostly flat, navigable city, and I want to try getting back on that literal-not-proverbial bike! I fairly often have places to go and errands to run where driving feels silly but walking might take juuuuust too much time, and a bike seems like the obvious option. But do I want to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a new bike and run the risk that I won't enjoy it, or feel safely balanced after so long, or whatever, and will in fact end up not using it much? I do not.
Fortunately this city has a couple of nonprofit bike repairing and reselling organizations! So I stopped by one of them this afternoon and chatted with the head mechanic, and he picked out a bike for me from their (all donated) stock on hand, and we verified that it fits me. It needs some repair work and tuning up, which they will do over the next couple of weeks (him: "There's about six bikes ahead of you in line." me: "It's been fifty years, another two weeks is not a problem!"), and they asked for $125-$175, according to my ability to pay. I wasn't able to actually test-ride it, since it has no tires at the moment, but I was able to balance pretty well; I do feel pretty confident that I haven't forgotten how to ride a bike.
(And this time I hope to learn how to shift gears, too! Kid-me's bike was a three-speed and I just left it in second all the time.)
Now I just need to get a helmet -- which I do know to buy new/unused. And a lock. Whee!
But that was the end of my bicycling career. For fifty years.
Now, however, I've moved to a small, mostly flat, navigable city, and I want to try getting back on that literal-not-proverbial bike! I fairly often have places to go and errands to run where driving feels silly but walking might take juuuuust too much time, and a bike seems like the obvious option. But do I want to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a new bike and run the risk that I won't enjoy it, or feel safely balanced after so long, or whatever, and will in fact end up not using it much? I do not.
Fortunately this city has a couple of nonprofit bike repairing and reselling organizations! So I stopped by one of them this afternoon and chatted with the head mechanic, and he picked out a bike for me from their (all donated) stock on hand, and we verified that it fits me. It needs some repair work and tuning up, which they will do over the next couple of weeks (him: "There's about six bikes ahead of you in line." me: "It's been fifty years, another two weeks is not a problem!"), and they asked for $125-$175, according to my ability to pay. I wasn't able to actually test-ride it, since it has no tires at the moment, but I was able to balance pretty well; I do feel pretty confident that I haven't forgotten how to ride a bike.
(And this time I hope to learn how to shift gears, too! Kid-me's bike was a three-speed and I just left it in second all the time.)
Now I just need to get a helmet -- which I do know to buy new/unused. And a lock. Whee!
krad (kradeelav) wrote2025-05-28 03:43 pm
kradeelav) wrote2025-05-28 03:43 pmEntry tags:
(no subject)
lmao i love my work IT department, i start having weird certificate issues after an update that aren't solved by three resets and basic troubleshooting on my end - and my favorite IT bro escalates me directly to the executive support specialist skipping who knows how many levels :') 'eh fuck it, krad never calls unless if it's a kernel issue or something similar.'
( called it too. i can tell by the teamviewer shenanigans this is more than your average 'have you tried to turn it off and on a fourth time' bug )
( called it too. i can tell by the teamviewer shenanigans this is more than your average 'have you tried to turn it off and on a fourth time' bug )
halfcactus (halfcactus) wrote in poetry2025-05-28 11:56 am
halfcactus) wrote in poetry2025-05-28 11:56 amEntry tags:
Mary Oliver: "Red Bird", "Invitation"
2 poems from Mary Oliver's Red Bird collection.
Red bird came all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.
Of course I love the sparrows,
those dun-colored darlings,
so hungry and so many.
I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
I know He has many children,
not all of them bold in spirit.
Still, for whatever reason—
perhaps, because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue
or perhaps because the heart narrows
as often as it opens—
I am grateful
that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing can do.
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistle
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for the sheer delight and gratitude—
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
Red Bird
Red bird came all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.
Of course I love the sparrows,
those dun-colored darlings,
so hungry and so many.
I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
I know He has many children,
not all of them bold in spirit.
Still, for whatever reason—
perhaps, because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue
or perhaps because the heart narrows
as often as it opens—
I am grateful
that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing can do.
Invitation
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistle
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for the sheer delight and gratitude—
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
skygiants (skygiants) wrote2025-05-27 07:39 am
skygiants) wrote2025-05-27 07:39 amEntry tags:
(no subject)
I've had great luck in the past with the sort of kdrama in which an angry immortal supernatural woman has to hang out in contemporary Seoul with a nice mortal boy. We were hoping The Judge From Hell would be that sort of kdrama, and, technically, it is; I think in its heart it would love to be Hotel del Luna. Unfortunately, it has also decided that what it wants to be is a violent revenge fantasy with incoherent and punitive ethics. Interspersed with wacky shenanigans! and a healthy dose of Catholicism?
Okay, so the premise: our heroine is Justitia, the DEMON JUDGE of the UNDERWORLD, THIRD IN LINE to the THRONE OF HELL, whose job is to sentence unrepentant murderers to unending torments. However, when a nice young judge gets murdered and accidentally ends up in her domain instead of the lesser hell where she belongs, Justitia refuses to listen to her pleas of innocence, gets ready to sentence her anyway, and promptly gets her wrist slapped by her superiors: she's gotten complacent! Time to go to Earth, wearing the body of the dead judge, and learn! about JUSTICE!!!
Given that Justitia's initial mistake involved accidentally sentencing an innocent person, you might be forgiven for thinking that Justitia's job on Earth might involve perhaps getting justice for the wrongly accused, or learning to temper justice with mercy and a little bit of nuance, or even uncovering faults and corruption within the justice system as it exists. haha! no. Justitia's job is to hit a quota of Unrepentent, Unforgiven Murderers On Earth and sentence them to unending torment, just like in her day job. She does this by chasing them around a sequence of nightmare scenarios that mimic the things they have done to their victims and beating them up, then stamping them on the forehead with a little stamp that says GEHENNA while then the doors of hell open and an ominous voice roars GEHENNA!!!! and they get sucked into hell. We did not enjoy the excruciating sequences of murderers being chased around a sequence of nightmare scenarios that mimicked the things they had done to their victims, which the show obviously wants us to find cathartic and satisfying. We did enjoy the ominous voice that roared GEHENNA!!!! It made us laugh every time.
( this got long but tbh not as long as it could have been. this show was so incoherent )
Okay, so the premise: our heroine is Justitia, the DEMON JUDGE of the UNDERWORLD, THIRD IN LINE to the THRONE OF HELL, whose job is to sentence unrepentant murderers to unending torments. However, when a nice young judge gets murdered and accidentally ends up in her domain instead of the lesser hell where she belongs, Justitia refuses to listen to her pleas of innocence, gets ready to sentence her anyway, and promptly gets her wrist slapped by her superiors: she's gotten complacent! Time to go to Earth, wearing the body of the dead judge, and learn! about JUSTICE!!!
Given that Justitia's initial mistake involved accidentally sentencing an innocent person, you might be forgiven for thinking that Justitia's job on Earth might involve perhaps getting justice for the wrongly accused, or learning to temper justice with mercy and a little bit of nuance, or even uncovering faults and corruption within the justice system as it exists. haha! no. Justitia's job is to hit a quota of Unrepentent, Unforgiven Murderers On Earth and sentence them to unending torment, just like in her day job. She does this by chasing them around a sequence of nightmare scenarios that mimic the things they have done to their victims and beating them up, then stamping them on the forehead with a little stamp that says GEHENNA while then the doors of hell open and an ominous voice roars GEHENNA!!!! and they get sucked into hell. We did not enjoy the excruciating sequences of murderers being chased around a sequence of nightmare scenarios that mimicked the things they had done to their victims, which the show obviously wants us to find cathartic and satisfying. We did enjoy the ominous voice that roared GEHENNA!!!! It made us laugh every time.
( this got long but tbh not as long as it could have been. this show was so incoherent )
krad (kradeelav) wrote2025-05-26 02:01 pm
kradeelav) wrote2025-05-26 02:01 pmEntry tags:
engaged cruelty & disengaged cruelty
little bit of thoughts on a trend.... not intensely dark or particularly squicky, but more of a somber topic.
i've been rotating a theory lately of something i'm calling "engaged cruelty" vs "disengaged cruelty". a lot of this is in the context of pondering about how the online world has changed from the early 2000's to now; particularly in cis(?) male dominated spaces (eg the chans, hacker news, jock-y subreddits, but also some real-world spaces).
( Read more... )
i've been rotating a theory lately of something i'm calling "engaged cruelty" vs "disengaged cruelty". a lot of this is in the context of pondering about how the online world has changed from the early 2000's to now; particularly in cis(?) male dominated spaces (eg the chans, hacker news, jock-y subreddits, but also some real-world spaces).
( Read more... )
the_shoshanna (the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-25 04:56 pm
the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-25 04:56 pmgive the governor a "harrumph"
I was supposed to meet up with someone yesterday, and we had the following email conversation:
them: We operate out of Location A and Location B. I'll be at Location A Saturday afternoon from 2:00 on.
me: Great, I'll be at Location A a few minutes past 2:00 on Saturday!
me at 2:15 pm: Hey, you're not here yet so I'm going to run a quick errand and come back.
me at 2:30 pm: You're still not here, so I guess we'll try again next week? I hope everything is all right on your end.
them at 3:00 pm, after I was already home again: We're at Location B.
It's not a huge deal, we will connect next week, but damn, I would have appreciated even a perfunctory "Oops, my bad," you know?
them: We operate out of Location A and Location B. I'll be at Location A Saturday afternoon from 2:00 on.
me: Great, I'll be at Location A a few minutes past 2:00 on Saturday!
me at 2:15 pm: Hey, you're not here yet so I'm going to run a quick errand and come back.
me at 2:30 pm: You're still not here, so I guess we'll try again next week? I hope everything is all right on your end.
them at 3:00 pm, after I was already home again: We're at Location B.
It's not a huge deal, we will connect next week, but damn, I would have appreciated even a perfunctory "Oops, my bad," you know?
the_shoshanna (the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-24 10:39 am
the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-24 10:39 amall in good taste
Quick final update: coffee everywhere except at home tasted fine, and coffee at home was vastly improved after we, uh, disassembled and thoroughly cleaned the grinder, which had never been done. So I guess I was just hypersensitive to the buildup of ick after several days away from it? Anyway everything is fine and I did not have COVID and I can enjoy my morning coffee again, yay.
krad (kradeelav) wrote2025-05-23 09:13 pm
kradeelav) wrote2025-05-23 09:13 pmEntry tags:
(no subject)
honestly have a pretty fun laid back and fun long weekend ahead ~
* lots of drawing! there's a few smaller fire emblem related pieces i'm trying to get my artistic pipes cleaned out with before making the final push on some collaboration work (anthology, another short nsfw FE comic, some background work with a bud). back half of this year's already lined up with said straight-up dream jobs so i'm quite excited to get to them after i print this one gunter/corrin comic.
* going to meet up with a doujin circle broski tomorrow for lunch again ~! <3 likewise slept in for ages today and managed to rescue a skink (common lizard around here) that was trapped inside the house. he lost his tail but was quite excited and wriggly to be outside again, and didn't seem all that worse for the wear.
* accidentally read up on Jane Jacobs via a book review - she's so interesting as a lady economist/urban planner way back when that was predominantly a male-dominated business, and wasn't afraid to say thoughts that threw all kinds of groups in a tizzy. that line doesn't do her justice but i deeply enjoyed reading the book review and that she pushed back against both the whole McCarthy censorious era of the US government and the dudebros in her industry.
* on a more melancholic note i was reading a different article about an AI researcher/ethicist gaming out what was going to happen in the next decade and just, deeply bothered at a (paraphrased) quote of his when he was responding to a question about what he'd teach his children now that the world's changed by AI, and it was something falteringly along the lines of teaching virtues now for the sake of them versus having always taught virtues because they were for work. and i just. ??????? record scratch. i had to reread that line a few times to make sure i didn't read it wrong. just feels ... sad that the point of virtues is missed that much?
honestly i was telling my mom yesterday that the point i'll really start getting concerned about ai on a physical level is when it's starting to seamlessly work with biotechnology as implants and do what it's supposed to do there. genuinely enhanced hearing/eyesight/motor skills. to me, then it's a threat for control reasons in a level that's hard to throw a killswitch or disentangle. i mean, i'm biased about this since i have (and have had) a pretty cutting-edge hearing implant since i was two, lol - but it just ain't there on a reliable level and right now still consistently feels like it's a chatbot hooked up to a suite of apps versus pure text-based chatbots a few decades ago like omegle. the computer is still ultimately in a box and this might be a very american/southern way of looking at it, but you can still ultimately shoot the computer in a box with a gun XD
* lots of drawing! there's a few smaller fire emblem related pieces i'm trying to get my artistic pipes cleaned out with before making the final push on some collaboration work (anthology, another short nsfw FE comic, some background work with a bud). back half of this year's already lined up with said straight-up dream jobs so i'm quite excited to get to them after i print this one gunter/corrin comic.
* going to meet up with a doujin circle broski tomorrow for lunch again ~! <3 likewise slept in for ages today and managed to rescue a skink (common lizard around here) that was trapped inside the house. he lost his tail but was quite excited and wriggly to be outside again, and didn't seem all that worse for the wear.
* accidentally read up on Jane Jacobs via a book review - she's so interesting as a lady economist/urban planner way back when that was predominantly a male-dominated business, and wasn't afraid to say thoughts that threw all kinds of groups in a tizzy. that line doesn't do her justice but i deeply enjoyed reading the book review and that she pushed back against both the whole McCarthy censorious era of the US government and the dudebros in her industry.
* on a more melancholic note i was reading a different article about an AI researcher/ethicist gaming out what was going to happen in the next decade and just, deeply bothered at a (paraphrased) quote of his when he was responding to a question about what he'd teach his children now that the world's changed by AI, and it was something falteringly along the lines of teaching virtues now for the sake of them versus having always taught virtues because they were for work. and i just. ??????? record scratch. i had to reread that line a few times to make sure i didn't read it wrong. just feels ... sad that the point of virtues is missed that much?
honestly i was telling my mom yesterday that the point i'll really start getting concerned about ai on a physical level is when it's starting to seamlessly work with biotechnology as implants and do what it's supposed to do there. genuinely enhanced hearing/eyesight/motor skills. to me, then it's a threat for control reasons in a level that's hard to throw a killswitch or disentangle. i mean, i'm biased about this since i have (and have had) a pretty cutting-edge hearing implant since i was two, lol - but it just ain't there on a reliable level and right now still consistently feels like it's a chatbot hooked up to a suite of apps versus pure text-based chatbots a few decades ago like omegle. the computer is still ultimately in a box and this might be a very american/southern way of looking at it, but you can still ultimately shoot the computer in a box with a gun XD
littlefics (littlefics) wrote in seasonsofdrabbles2025-05-23 11:14 am
littlefics) wrote in seasonsofdrabbles2025-05-23 11:14 amEntry tags:
Feedback on Spring Round and Summer Round Timeline
With the Spring 2025 round now at an end, we would love to get your feedback on a few things!
First: When would you prefer the next round take place (between June, July, and/or August)? We'll take this into account in combination with the mods' availabilities to create the next schedule.
Second: Off the heels of our largest round so far, it seems like a good opportunity to hear general feedback on what works and what could be better. Are there rules or expectations we could clarify? Suggested changes to the generative AI rule? Something else?
If you don't feel comfortable leaving a public comment with your feedback, you can also comment on the Mod Contact post (where everything is screened) or email us instead.
First: When would you prefer the next round take place (between June, July, and/or August)? We'll take this into account in combination with the mods' availabilities to create the next schedule.
Second: Off the heels of our largest round so far, it seems like a good opportunity to hear general feedback on what works and what could be better. Are there rules or expectations we could clarify? Suggested changes to the generative AI rule? Something else?
If you don't feel comfortable leaving a public comment with your feedback, you can also comment on the Mod Contact post (where everything is screened) or email us instead.
lettersmod (lettersmod) wrote in unsent_letters_exchange2025-05-22 07:59 pm
lettersmod) wrote in unsent_letters_exchange2025-05-22 07:59 pmCreator Reveals
Gift creators for Unsent Letters 2025 have been revealed! Thank you to all participants and pinch hitters, and I hope you enjoyed the exchange. The collection will remain open indefinitely for treating.
krad (kradeelav) wrote2025-05-22 06:56 pm
kradeelav) wrote2025-05-22 06:56 pmEntry tags:
(no subject)
i will always be thankful to that one artist lady (Elizabeth Gilbert) who talked about the concept of muses on a TED talk, kinda early on when those talks were still cool. late 2000's or so? early 2010's? that line in particular that stuck out at me was her simply saying (paraphrased) "I honestly don't think humanity was built to handle the sheer focus of the whole world on one person especially creatively."
man that stuck with me!
has stuck with me, since it was oddly prophetic (this was like, pre-twitter stone age times), and since either by way of "handy psychological sleigh-of-hand-trick to offload the idea of creativity" or [latent actual woo shit] having said Muse allowed me to dodge so many weird artistic existentialist hangups i never even knew could be a thing, especially new ones cropping up recently.
artistic insecurity (externally)? the concept's so foreign since i'm... doing it for my Muse, i'm not doing it for other people? social media engagement falls under this bucket too. listen, man, i'm a pair of hands for the stuff that comes out. sure i can always get better technical execution-wise, but then it becomes a fun and weirdly tangible game to solve for. i can have an ego about a compliment or two but it's always secondary to what matters, you know?
artistic insecurity (internally)? usually if i'm hating my shit there's something else going on like burnout or a brain recession and he's always quick to point that out and redirect me lol.
AI stuff? not relevant to personal artwork since the very idea of faking it for my Muse is so... it misses the whole point to the degree it's offensive. service is worship. worship is service in a religious context, that kind of thing. the kind of thing that becomes corrupted and something else if gone through the motions.
dogpiles? not my problem; some people just React to strange-to-them shit or got their own issues. their issues with art don't become mine.
anyway i guess this is me lightly wishing more people would be open to the idea of muses because it feels like it'd soothe quite a few brainworms. but then maybe there's a failure case of muses given the variety of people out there (eg offloading too much responsibility to the point of kind of being a dick or like, unreality level of harmful mental illness) and i just siiiigh.
(also jesus lol when did the TED website UI become absolute shite, i remember when it was so much fun to read through all the transcripts...)
man that stuck with me!
has stuck with me, since it was oddly prophetic (this was like, pre-twitter stone age times), and since either by way of "handy psychological sleigh-of-hand-trick to offload the idea of creativity" or [latent actual woo shit] having said Muse allowed me to dodge so many weird artistic existentialist hangups i never even knew could be a thing, especially new ones cropping up recently.
artistic insecurity (externally)? the concept's so foreign since i'm... doing it for my Muse, i'm not doing it for other people? social media engagement falls under this bucket too. listen, man, i'm a pair of hands for the stuff that comes out. sure i can always get better technical execution-wise, but then it becomes a fun and weirdly tangible game to solve for. i can have an ego about a compliment or two but it's always secondary to what matters, you know?
artistic insecurity (internally)? usually if i'm hating my shit there's something else going on like burnout or a brain recession and he's always quick to point that out and redirect me lol.
AI stuff? not relevant to personal artwork since the very idea of faking it for my Muse is so... it misses the whole point to the degree it's offensive. service is worship. worship is service in a religious context, that kind of thing. the kind of thing that becomes corrupted and something else if gone through the motions.
dogpiles? not my problem; some people just React to strange-to-them shit or got their own issues. their issues with art don't become mine.
anyway i guess this is me lightly wishing more people would be open to the idea of muses because it feels like it'd soothe quite a few brainworms. but then maybe there's a failure case of muses given the variety of people out there (eg offloading too much responsibility to the point of kind of being a dick or like, unreality level of harmful mental illness) and i just siiiigh.
(also jesus lol when did the TED website UI become absolute shite, i remember when it was so much fun to read through all the transcripts...)
kareila (kareila) wrote2025-05-22 12:17 am
kareila) wrote2025-05-22 12:17 am
Entry tags:
retail therapy?
I didn't really need to buy Connor a new iPhone for his graduation, but I made him the offer since that was what I gave Will when he graduated, and he took me up on it. Connor had been using the iPhone SE that I had bought as an extra family phone 4 years ago, and although it's still in good condition, it's definitely dated. He picked out a basic iPhone 16 in teal green, but only after I demonstrated that he could disable the so-called Apple Intelligence features.
I also didn't really need a new Kindle, either, but Amazon was having a sale recently, and I got an additional discount from trading in the kids' Echo Dot devices, which were at least six years old and had barely been used in all that time. In fact, when we moved house last year, I had boxed them back up in their original packaging, so they might have fetched even more on the resale market than what I got for trading them in. At any rate, my new Kindle is more responsive than the old one, has a slightly better screen, about twice as much storage space, and charges via standard USB-C. The only downside I've found so far is that Calibre on my laptop can't sync with it; I have to use Amazon's USB File Manager app. And I still can't sideload EPUBs directly.
I guess I will deregister my old Kindle and offer it to Robby to use. In the past, whenever he has wanted to read an ebook, he's used the Kindle iOS app on one of my old iPads. If he doesn't want the Kindle, maybe I'll load the Discworld books onto it for Connor, since he never did get around to reading them before they disappeared into moving boxes. (Although he has plenty of other books that aren't packed away... he's currently working his way through One Hundred Years of Solitude.)
I also didn't really need a new Kindle, either, but Amazon was having a sale recently, and I got an additional discount from trading in the kids' Echo Dot devices, which were at least six years old and had barely been used in all that time. In fact, when we moved house last year, I had boxed them back up in their original packaging, so they might have fetched even more on the resale market than what I got for trading them in. At any rate, my new Kindle is more responsive than the old one, has a slightly better screen, about twice as much storage space, and charges via standard USB-C. The only downside I've found so far is that Calibre on my laptop can't sync with it; I have to use Amazon's USB File Manager app. And I still can't sideload EPUBs directly.
I guess I will deregister my old Kindle and offer it to Robby to use. In the past, whenever he has wanted to read an ebook, he's used the Kindle iOS app on one of my old iPads. If he doesn't want the Kindle, maybe I'll load the Discworld books onto it for Connor, since he never did get around to reading them before they disappeared into moving boxes. (Although he has plenty of other books that aren't packed away... he's currently working his way through One Hundred Years of Solitude.)
the_shoshanna (the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-20 12:01 pm
the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-20 12:01 pmtasteful update
I posted yesterday about coffee recently tasting unpalatably bitter to me, and a number of people noted that yes, that could be a COVID symptom. Which is true. (And thank you all for weighing in!) But I feel fine (which I know doesn't prove anything), nothing else tastes strange to me, and I tested negative yesterday (which I know isn't worth much, but it's something), and today I went out and got myself a coffee from Tim Horton's, which tasted fine. I mean, sweeter and milkier than I normally have it, but without any of the bitter layer that milk and sugar at home was only kind of lying on top of without ameliorating. And Geoff confirms that he opened the bags of coffee we're currently working through a few days ago; I can't remember exactly when the bitterness started, but the timing doesn't not match up. (I have realized that it definitely didn’t start before I left: I was fine with airport coffee through a sip valve in my mask, and with hotel and homemade coffee the whole time I was in Virginia.)
So I'll take another test just for the heck of it, but I'm pretty confident that there's something amiss with this batch of beans, which Geoff, who has a notoriously deficient sense of smell, just isn't picking up on or bothered by in the same way.
I hate that I have to do this calculus. Stupid pandemic.
So I'll take another test just for the heck of it, but I'm pretty confident that there's something amiss with this batch of beans, which Geoff, who has a notoriously deficient sense of smell, just isn't picking up on or bothered by in the same way.
I hate that I have to do this calculus. Stupid pandemic.
littlefics (littlefics) wrote in seasonsofdrabbles2025-05-19 12:51 pm
littlefics) wrote in seasonsofdrabbles2025-05-19 12:51 pmAuthors Revealed
Authors are now revealed for the Spring 2025 round! Thank you to everyone who made this round possible. We reached author reveals with 492 works across 250 fandoms!
Reveals doesn't mean you should stop reading and commenting (or even treating), so we hope you continue to enjoy all the great drabbles in this round's collection. Moderation has now been turned off.
If you haven't already (as it has only been 2 days), we strongly encourage commenting on your gift(s) whenever you get the chance.
There will be a feedback post shortly, which will ask among other things when people would prefer the next round to take place--so stay tuned.
Reveals doesn't mean you should stop reading and commenting (or even treating), so we hope you continue to enjoy all the great drabbles in this round's collection. Moderation has now been turned off.
If you haven't already (as it has only been 2 days), we strongly encourage commenting on your gift(s) whenever you get the chance.
There will be a feedback post shortly, which will ask among other things when people would prefer the next round to take place--so stay tuned.
the_shoshanna (the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-19 11:15 am
the_shoshanna) wrote2025-05-19 11:15 amchanging taste
For the last week or so, coffee has tasted incredibly bitter to me. I mean, it's bitter from the start, but I drink it with sugar and milk and I've always really liked it; Geoff makes our breakfast coffee every morning and it's a nice little thing for us. (Sometimes when he goes away overnight he grinds coffee for me to have the next morning before he leaves.) But lately I've been finding it unpalatably bitter; even when I add extra milk and sugar, they just layer over the bitterness without easing it. Nothing about our brand, roast, or brewing method has changed, only how I taste it.
(I went away last week: four days in Virginia for a memorial service, which meant my first plane flights since February 2020, which was a bit of a mindfuck, plus a bunch of socializing, and Geoff says he's heard that things changing taste is a possible COVID symptom. I've never heard that, only that losing the sense of taste can be, and I feel completely fine, so I really doubt that's it. Plus iirc it started before I left.)
But this is a bit of a problem, since a) I like coffee, and b) having gotten only three swallows into this morning's cup before I had to stop, it was ten am before I could get my act in gear to start being productive. By which I mean, make a cup of black tea instead. But I don't like tea as much as I (used to) like coffee!
I miss coffee.
ETA: Okay, I have taken a COVID test, and it is negative, for what that's worth... (I think it's six months expired, but they're generally supposed to be good for a year or so after stamped expiration date, last I heard.)
(I went away last week: four days in Virginia for a memorial service, which meant my first plane flights since February 2020, which was a bit of a mindfuck, plus a bunch of socializing, and Geoff says he's heard that things changing taste is a possible COVID symptom. I've never heard that, only that losing the sense of taste can be, and I feel completely fine, so I really doubt that's it. Plus iirc it started before I left.)
But this is a bit of a problem, since a) I like coffee, and b) having gotten only three swallows into this morning's cup before I had to stop, it was ten am before I could get my act in gear to start being productive. By which I mean, make a cup of black tea instead. But I don't like tea as much as I (used to) like coffee!
I miss coffee.
ETA: Okay, I have taken a COVID test, and it is negative, for what that's worth... (I think it's six months expired, but they're generally supposed to be good for a year or so after stamped expiration date, last I heard.)