cornerofmadness: (Default)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
When it looked like we weren't getting the snow they said I packed up and went to Point Pleasant to bum around. I will admit the coffee grinders coffee house isn't my favorite (and dudes DO NOT put the coffee of the day at some side table. Put that near the register. I totally wouldn't have bought that) got writing done. At this point Capitol One's bot texts me again about Best Buy trying to get payment for their protection membership pushed thru (this is 200$, I don't want it and this will become important)

I go to the Mason Jar antique store/country store/shit shop and I find the best thing ever. Star Trek salt and pepper shaker. I don't even haggle over the price. I ALMOST did for two other items (I am not good at this mind you) One was a pressed glass pitcher and two goblets of BLACK glass and the uranium glass juicer (both were 35$ each. Both remained in the store).



I spotted a blue glass horse bookend and thought [personal profile] evil_little_dog will marry me if I get her that for her birthday. I swoop over. It's 60$ for one book end. They don't have the other. I decided I didn't really wanna marry ELD anyhow.

I waltz down the street (with my ST shakers) to the Point Pleasant Trading Company which specializing in cryptid shit. (btw cryptids are absolutely saving PP from oblivion. there were tourists everywhere. In Jan. In the cold.) They had absolutely gorgeous Mothman/Flatbush Monster/Loveland Frogman/Big Foot t-shirts. I don't need a 35$ t-shirt(the number of the day is 35) They had an amazing cardigan with mothman and the silver bridge. No Dana you DO NOT need a 60$ cardigan. But it's in my size. NO. Bad Dana. And the upstairs was rocking. they've added sound to the Black Light Mothman Experience Indoor Mini Golf (Why will NO ONE play with me? WHY)

I bought nothing there and crossed the river back into Oh and headed to Remo's this absolutely terrifying local treasure of a hot dog stand inside a (collapsing) house. Got lunch. (because I forgot my freebie thing for the Mexican place) Went to the library to get more books for popsugar because I can absolutely read this many at once, right? (ha) I did not go to the Lego exhibit they have right now. It opened this week and had 20000000 kids in it (well it felt like it at any rate)

Went to the boba hut. My credit card is declined. Naturally. Because I'm going to Aldi's next. I know why. Remember that Best Buy thing? Yeah so Capitol One decides OMG red alert (in spite of me telling them it's fine two days ago when I THOUGHT I had canceled that membership). They texted me we'll close this card and send you a new one. I'm now steaming. At least I have another card.

I hit Aldi's. Get cheese I don't need. I don't even remember which ones. Got some frozen things I don't need (like I needed cheese) go home with my boba. I'm a mile from home when one bursting boba wings up that straw at mach 1 and straight into my vocal cords and pops. Mango liquid shoots down my bronchial tubes and like any good asthmatic tube, they immediately clench up and fill with mucus. By the time I park, I'm crackling and wheezing like I've pneumonia and in need of a trach. every time I cough I taste mango. How much fluid was in one tiny boba?

I get inside, deal with Best Buy and this time it went thru because I got the survey of sadness. Why did you leave us? I call up Capitol One and I'm coming in hot now. We'll close this card. No chucklefuck you won't. I explain 4 times what happened, told them every charge that should be on that card this week. Those aren't fraudulent? NO. In theory I can use this card again. If I can't heads will be on pikes.


And [community profile] fandomtrees released. Let me share my cool gifts plus all the ones I wrote (I get the feeling the other Hazbin folk either aren't Huskerdust shipper or saw I had 3 fills and moved on because only one person took up on my HH prompts and did two (including my new icon)


My Gifts


Hazbin Hotel Icons So pretty

softer addictions Hazbin Hotel, NSFW

But What If There Was a Demon vs Dinosaur Cage Match? Angel the Series/Buffy the Vampire Slayer (by [Bad username or unknown identity: spikedluv)] La Famiglia I'd love if some people read this one as it's original fiction and I feel like maybe I should revisit it down the road. Wrote it for [personal profile] sysann

Of Slayers, Sisters and Sleepovers Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Fernweh The Raven Cycle

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

here.

Happy things

Jan. 18th, 2026 04:50 am
vriddy: Two cups of coffee on a tray (friendship)
[personal profile] vriddy
We're hosting a(n otherwise lovely) guest at the moment who believes that "keeping informed" means checking the news several times a day then discussing how terrible everything still is, and I Am Not Thriving! \o/

So a bunch of happy things:

1. Someone in my Dreamwidth circles shared delightful, gorgeous fanart an artist made of their fic. This reminded me of meeting an old fandom friend again after several years. At some point, we were looking at each other's phone background because what was it? A cute pet picture maybe? A partner or kid photo? Nope! It's art that we were lucky to receive for our respective stories! Haha. What a gift. She used a stunning scene based on a Yuri on Ice fic of hers, and mine is this peaceful, joyful piece from [tumblr.com profile] fluffyblaire for the Sheep Farming AU.

2. Woke up too early, but I got 30 minutes of cat cuddles for my trouble!! Biscuits then full purring engines the whole way through. She's resting against my foot now, using it as support while she begins the daily ablutions.

3. I'm writing a hurt/comfort fic for Spring Thunder that is scratching exactly the right kind of id for me right now. I can barely explain why except that it just works and it's like immersing myself in a rose bath every time I go back (*). And the advantage of waking up too early is that I should get to spend a couple of hours in there before getting on with the rest of the day!

(*) DISCLAIMER: I have never taken a rose bath. I imagine it to be gently scented, but not overwhelmingly so. The bath water would be Just Right the entire time, too. The petals would stay artfully placed above the water as well.

4. Hm... Can I get to 5? I would like to get to 5. I would also like to write, though. Let's pretend I'm holding onto the other two for SUSPENSE! Oh no wait I have another one: I had a tasty cup of coffee while I was gearing up for wakefulness, and now I'm going to brew a delicious cup of tea before settling in with words in my mental sanctuary.

5. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED A HAPPY JOYFUL THING MAY BE MENTIONED LATER WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT

Feel free to mention joyful things on your mind in the comments, too! Or your rose bath experience. I'm interested.

Just Create - Flip Edition

Jan. 17th, 2026 08:47 pm
silvercat17: (code of Thundera)
[personal profile] silvercat17 posting in [community profile] justcreate
What are you working on? What have you finished? What do you need encouragement on?
 
Are there any cool events or challenges happening that you want to hype? I've been neglecting Dreamwidth - tell me what I'm missing!
 
What do you just want to talk about?
 
What have you been watching or reading?
 
Chores and other not-fun things count!
 
Remember to encourage other commenters and we have a discord where we can do work-alongs and chat, linked in the sticky.

Creative Jam

Jan. 17th, 2026 10:37 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The [community profile] crowdfunding Creative Jam is now open with a theme of "Memories."  Come give us prompts, or claim some for your own inspiration!  This is our 150th session, so I hope to see lots of excitement.


What I Have Written:




From My Prompts:



.

Today's Adventures

Jan. 17th, 2026 05:27 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today we went to the Otto Center in Arthur. Normally the third Saturday of each month is their craft show, and that's how it was marked earlier. It turned out to be a small farm and homestead show, with different vendors and a few folks we recognized. So that was interesting.

Read more... )

TWICE, the First

Jan. 17th, 2026 07:54 pm
lovelyangel: Sana RTB Special in Japan (Sana Concert)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
TWICE performing “I Can’t Stop Me”
TWICE performing “I Can’t Stop Me”
TWICE This Is For World Tour
Climate Pledge Arena • Seattle, Washington
January 13, 2026
Sony RX100 VII • Zeiss 24-200mm (35mm equiv) f/2.8-4.5
f/4.5 @ 200mm • 1/800s • ISO 3200

This is a lengthy post written mainly for myself so that I’ll have a record of what actually happened. At my age, memory is the first thing to go.

tl;dr: I went to Seattle to see the TWICE This Is For World Tour Concert at Climate Pledge Arena.

I feel extra fortunate in that I was able to get tickets to two TWICE concerts this month. Of the two concerts, only the first one, in Seattle, was I able to get a fancy VIP Soundcheck reserved seat ticket, which provides:
  • One premium reserved or general admission ticket to the show
  • Access to the pre-show TWICE soundcheck
  • Exclusive VIP gift item
  • VIP laminate and lanyard
  • Pre-show tour merchandise shopping opportunity
  • Early entry to the venue
  • Designated check-in and on-site VIP event staff

I’ve never had this before and I was eager for the experience.

A TWICE Adventure, Below This Cut )
sanguinity: Amanda Root as Anne Eliot from Persuasion 1995, enjoying a cup of tea (Persuasion - Anne with Tea)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Today is Christmas, three times over!

1.

[personal profile] luzula finished Far Frae the Bonny Hills and Dales, a Flight of the Heron longfic that I have been following for the past eighteen months. AU where Ewen is transported and sold to the Caribbean sugar fields. There are tragic parts to the story (note the "major character death" warning), but it ends in a good and satisfying place. One of the things I love about [personal profile] luzula's writing is that she makes her characters earn their happy ending -- and they do.

Congratulations to [personal profile] luzula, and happy Christmas to me!

2.

[community profile] fandomtrees revealed! I received some beautiful maritime-fandoms icons (William Bush, Frederick Wentworth, and Anne Eliot), thank you to [personal profile] sarajayechan and [personal profile] chewingbottles! I am looking forward to using them!

I also made a half-dozen things (which will have their own reveals post later), and that's been fun, too.

3.

Family Chistmas celebrations got delayed twice, first by weather, and the second time because my brother called up and said he was still waiting on my Christmas present to be delivered. He insisted he had ordered it in good time, but repeated shipping delays, it was supposed to be delivered any day now, etc. etc. And I was all dude, it's fine (while wondering what the big deal was, but whatever, if he wanted to hold off so we could do it all in person, that's fine, too.) I get a long weekend for MLK Jr. weekend (for non-USians, this weekend), so we pushed it all back to today, when we convened at Mom's house for delayed Christmas celebrations.

[personal profile] grrlpup and I got everyone a lot of Japan souvenirs -- my brother got squeaky-toy katana and a whole big box of the bubblegum he had adored as a kid (which, fair enough, took us WEEKS to find, it no longer being in every convenience store like when we visited Japan as kids) -- and we also got some beautiful hand-made art from my sister-in-law. I thought present-opening was done. When my brother dropped in my lap a great big box the approximate size, shape, and weight of an autoharp. Although a bit heavy for an autoharp? Weirdly balanced for an autoharp, too. (Not that he would ever get me an autoharp!)

Lo, this was my brother's Christmas present to me:
color me dumbstruck )

I am very much blown away by the gift, and yes that was very much worth delaying celebrations for and also making sure he could watch me open it in person, I very much get it now.

Either he won Christmas or I won Christmas, I'm not sure which, but either way, Christmas was indeed won.
rogueslayer452: (Default)
[personal profile] rogueslayer452
Challenge #02: Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!

After thinking on this one, I decided to tweak this prompt a bit and focus on animal companions from fictional stories that I love.

My favorite fictional animal companions. )
jacey: (Default)
[personal profile] jacey

Audiobook narrated by Tony Robinson

After an autobiography and several history books aimed at kids, this seems to be Tony Robinson’s first attempt at adult historical fiction, but he’s such a good narrator of other people’s books, his own seems to have landed without teething troubles. It covers the historical period of Alfred, later known as Alfred the Great, ruler of Wessex, and eventually King of the Anglo-Saxons until his death in the year 899. He was the youngest son of King Ethelwolf and three of his older brothers ruled before him. But this is not all from Alfred’s point of view. Chief amongst the viewpoint characters is Asser, idealistic monk (and eventually a bishop) who is credited with writing Alfred’s biography. The story concentrates of the rule of High Ethel Wolf, Alfred’s father and his children and heirs and also covers religious politics in Rome, with Asser and Cardinal Balotelli hoping for a better world, and to see an end to the predations of the Norlanders. For much of the story Alfred in in Rome, having been exiled by his father, while his older brothers jockey for position as the next High Ethel. The story moves from Anglo-Saxon Wessex to Rome and back again (several times) weaving a tapestry of historical fiction around real events. Expect Viking raids, down-to-earth rulers (good and bad), religious politicking, and some excellent characters. It’s a good listen.


snowflake day 9: tropes

Jan. 17th, 2026 09:05 pm
sixbeforelunch: An illustrated image of a woman holding a towering stack of books. No text. (woman holding a stack of books)
[personal profile] sixbeforelunch
Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

Challenge #9: Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works.

Y'know, there are a lot of tropes that I like in theory, but which have a tendency to fall flat because the idea is cool but the characterization isn't there. I bring it up because my first thought when I read this prompt was "Megastructures! Progenitors! A megastructure built by a progenitor race!" The problem is, too many stories lean on the coolness of the idea and forget to do character and relationship work and so I get bored as soon as the initial "oooh, neat!" factor wears off.

The tropes I really love in practice and not just in theory are the ones that involve jiggling the characters around and seeing what falls out. Some of the cliche common fic tropes like amnesia and body swap are great for that. Seeing two characters trying to handle each other's bodies--especially if there are powers and alien biology involved--or having one character act without the weight of memory while the other is crushed by it, that stuff is gold for playing with character and relationship dynamics.

Time-travel fix-its, where one or a handful of characters wake up in the past and are given the chance to fix something that went wrong in canon, are also a lot of fun, for similar reasons. The time-traveling character knows things that the people around them don't, and usually they have to keep it a secret. Although these sorts of fic are most satisfying when you are specifically mad at something in canon. I was pondering what a TNG time-travel fix-it would look like, and while there are things the characters would like to fix, there is nothing in the show that I as the viewer would specifically want changed ... at least not enough to care about a time-travel fix it. But MCU fix its that undo some of the dumber PTB decisions? DC fix its that fix Bruce's relationship with Jason without heaps of unnecessary angst? Yes please and thank you.

AUs are good--specifically canon-divergence "want of a nail" style AUs where one big thing went differently, or close-canon parallel universes where some things are different, but the setting is broadly recognizable are good for that too. I like them both as self-contained stories, and as stories where two universes meet and compare differences.

I like competency porn, and my definition of competency encompasses emotional intelligence. Give me two people having a hard conversation in good faith and I am there for it. I also like stories that highlight quiet competencies, especially domestic labor, emotional labor, or admin work--basically female coded stuff that'd not even enough respect. It doesn't have to be female characters, though. Anyone doing hard, unglamorous work that's shown to be important will get me, especially if it's respected in story.

I like unconventional heroes, but also conventional ones. Stories where the two team up and actually get along and respect each other are great. I'm thinking of Miss Marple and the police inspectors who know she can run circles around them and listen carefully to her advice, or Jessica Fletcher when the cop of the week is working with her rather than against her.

Ugh. I know the moment I hit post, I'll think of half a dozen more tropes I love, but I've rambled long enough.

Octopath Traveler 0 - Lady of Grace

Jan. 18th, 2026 01:36 am
tehexile: (Default)
[personal profile] tehexile posting in [community profile] 100words
Title: Lady of Grace
Original (or) Fandom: Octopath Traveler 0
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Heidne/Tatloch, spoilers
sovay: (Lord Peter Wimsey: passion)
[personal profile] sovay
I may feel like a dishrag, but if so it's a dishrag who had a wonderful time returning to Arisia after six years, even if the ziggurat on the Charles is still a dreadful place to hold a convention. For the Dramatic Readings from the Ig Nobel Prizes, I performed selections from W. C. Meecham and H. G. Smith's "Effects of Jet Aircraft on Mental Hospital Admissions" (British Journal of Audiology, 1977) with what I hope was an appropriately haggard channeling of my sleepless night and Leonie Cornips' "The semiotic repertoire of dairy cows" (Language in Society, 2024) with what I hope was an appropriately technical rendition of cow noises. I heard papers on the proper techniques of nose-blowing, whether snakes dress to the left or the right, the sexual correlations of apples. It feels impossible, but it must have been my first time onstage since onset of pandemic. Readers who overstayed their allotted two minutes were surrounded by a chorus of bananas.

I had forgotten how much socializing my attendance of conventions used to entail. I turned the corner for registration and immediately spotted a [personal profile] nineweaving, followed in close succession by a [personal profile] choco_frosh, [personal profile] a_reasonable_man, and a [personal profile] sorcyress. I was talking to the latter in the coat check when Gillian Daniels came in and now I have a signed copy of the second edition of her chapbook Eat the Children (2019/2026). I had not lengthy enough catch-up conversations with [personal profile] awhyzip and [personal profile] rinue and am now in possession of a signed copy of Nothing in the Basement (2025). I brought water with me and kept forgetting to duck outside to drink it. Dean gave me a ride home afterward and commented on my tired look, which was fair: six, seven years ago I could sprint through programming even after a night of anaphylaxis or a subluxed jaw and these days there's a lot less tolerance in the system. It seemed to be a common refrain. If I have fun and don't take home any viral infections from this weekend, it'll be a win.

Tomorrow, panels.
siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
(h/t [personal profile] hudebnik)

Two things: this is a thing that has happened, I have a read on what it is that nobody else seems to have come up with.

1) The thing that happened:

2026 Jan 16: NYTimes: "Thousands of Chinese Fishing Boats Quietly Form Vast Sea Barriers" by Chris Buckley, Agnes Chang and Amy Chang Chien

The most interesting thing here is the visualization animations, so if that link doesn't work for you:

2026 Jan 17: TaiwanPlus News [TaiwanPlusNews on YT]: "NYT: China Tests Civilian Fishing Boats in Maritime Military Operations"


2) Take:

“The sight of that many vessels operating in concert is staggering,” said Mark Douglas, an analyst at Starboard, a company with offices in New Zealand and the United States. Mr. Douglas said that he and his colleagues had “never seen a formation of this size and discipline before.”

“The level of coordination to get that many vessels into a formation like this is significant,” he said.
Yeah, so, about that:



It turns out that the world leader in developing systems for coordinating large numbers of semi-autonomous vehicles is China.

The way a drone show works is that the design of the show and the intended positions and trajectories of all the individual drones is calculated and stored on the coordinating computer, from which they are transmitted to the drones during the show. However, drones in the air can be knocked off course by turbulence, so they also have onboard collision avoidance and position resumption algorithms.

The drone show company in question, Shenzhen DAMODA Intelligent Control Technology Co., Ltd. brags they can control 10,000 drones from a single laptop.

There were only 2,000 ships. Well within what their system could handle.

So what this could be is a test of such a coordination technology deployed to civilian boats.

Perhaps on each of those ships was either a sail-by-wire system that puts them under remote/autonomous control, or a receiver/interface that relayed instructions to the human pilots from a drone-controller that both received orders from command-and-control and managed the specifics of positioning through the same sort of collision-avoidance and repositioning algorithm as light-show drones.

Also, I suspect the way DAMODA manages to control so many devices from a single laptop – I was not able to quickly get a bead on this, and it would be unsurprising if they were less than forthcoming about their secret sauce – is that they have been figuring out ways to offload more and more of the steering logic onto the drones themselves. There comes a point, I suppose, where the logic for collision avoidance and repositioning crosses over into what used to be called (back in the 1980s and 1990s) flocking algorithms. Perhaps this was a test of a flocking algorithm based system for boats.

In any event, this might not be an example of a lot of people doing a thing. This might be an example of a thing being done to a lot of people. I mean, it almost certainly is the latter in that the government of China's modus operandi is to "voluntell" its citizens, and one of the concerning things here is the apparent use of civilians for military maneuvers. I'm saying this might be a test of a system that doesn't rely on acquiescence to government authority.

fic alert! stream alert!

Jan. 17th, 2026 06:28 pm
althea_valara: An icon of Sephiroth saying, "LOL". (Sephiroth LOL)
[personal profile] althea_valara
[community profile] threesentenceficathon has started! The first post is here.

I have written a little something! For the prompt any, any, defeated by a horde of small children - my fill is "Final Fantasy XI, G, nameless female adventurer and the Tarutaru trio from Chains of Promathia"

I would fill more but it's streaming night! In about an hour from this post, I'll be going live on Twitch with some Arcadion raids in Final Fantasy XIV (we're on the second tier) plus roulettes as Viper. I'm still learning Viper so don't expect wondrous DPS, but I should do decent, I think? You are welcome to come cheer me on! Or lurk, lurkers are always welcome.

The Foster Kittens

Jan. 18th, 2026 12:19 am
bunn: (Cat)
[personal profile] bunn
Yesterday, the rescue came to collect the foster kittens to be neutered, and later they emailled to say that the ops had gone well, but a home had come up, and would it be OK by us if they went straight to their forever home?


I was a bit sad for their mum, Binx, who was clearly unhappy on her own and calling for them, but so it goes for cats. They don’t get to be families for long ( and often don’t want to be).


But! Then the rescue called to say the new home hadn’t worked out and could we have the kittens back? I was delighted. Binx was even more delighted (even if after 20 minutes of wild kitten shenanigans she looked rather less enthusiastic about them).

Right now they are all snuggled up together and she’s feeding them while they all purr. I’m glad they will have at least another weekend together.
I'll try to get some photos tomorrow.
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
January 17 - 'If you could wave a magic wand and get a new season of a show or new book (or movie) in a series, what would it be? And why would you pick it? (i.e. did it end on a cliffhanger, or you always wanted more, etc)' for [personal profile] donutsweeper

Read more... )

(there are still slots open for the January Talking Meme here)
pigshitpoet: (Default)
[personal profile] pigshitpoet


Lyrics : .Read more... ). ♫¸.•*¨♥✿♪

dr. π (pi)



enjoy!

❤️

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