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Apr. 22nd, 2025 11:00 pm
hafnia: Animated drawing of a flickering fire with a pair of eyes peeping out of it, from the film Howl's Moving Castle. (Default)
[personal profile] hafnia
There's a friending meme going on over here, so if that's your bag...well, you know what to do??

(I left a comment that in no way describes what this journal is actually like, Go Team Me.)

Honestly I should probably just link people at my mastodon account, like, "GOOD LUCK!"

This is my account there, for what it's worth. (GOOD LUCK!)

Check In Day 22

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:04 pm
fleetsparrow: Drawing of Bear in a Batman costume, in her identity Bat-Bear. (Default)
[personal profile] fleetsparrow posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Good night, good evening, good afternoon, good morning!  (Choose your time zone appropriate greeting as desired.)

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 0


How was your writing day?

View Answers

Fun!
0 (0.0%)

Work.
0 (0.0%)

Suffering....
0 (0.0%)

Exactly OK!
0 (0.0%)

An infinitely more nuanced answer....
0 (0.0%)

Discussion time:  When I was in school, I was very much a "one story writer".  Every now and then, I might switch to another story if the first one hit a block, but generally, I never wrote multiple things at the same time.  After college, I continued very much in this same way, where I wouldn't even let myself think about writing something other than what my current project was (especially when it was exchange related and therefore time sensitive).

And then one day I took an arrow to the knee, I decided to write something besides my main project out of spite for myself and my arbitrary Highlander-esque "there can only be one" rules.

This did help relieve some of the stress of "I'm not writing AND I'm also mad at myself for it, so I'll not write even harder."  It also created a new issue where I have so many stories started but relatively few of them actually finished.

Which is a very long-winded way to ask:  what about y'all?  Do you tend to stick to one story/project until it's finished?  Do you hop from one to another depending on your mood/brain capacity/due date?  If you have multiple stories running at once, is there an order that you follow for when one gets its turn?  If you write one at a time, do you ever have times where other ideas try to muscle in on your time, and, if so, what do you do with them?
cyberiad_queen: (Creature)
[personal profile] cyberiad_queen posting in [community profile] 100words
Title: 'тоска'
Fandom: Original Poetry
Rating: G

тоска )

Fandom stuff

Apr. 22nd, 2025 08:23 pm
snickfic: (Giles bookish)
[personal profile] snickfic
- I signed up for [community profile] seasonsofdrabbles. Come join me! So I have someone to write for.

- After my first [community profile] hurtcomfortex idea got increasingly complicated with less and less direct h/c, I now have a new idea that is directly h/c and much simpler. Which is great, because I can tell it's going to be a long 'un. (That's why the writing period for this exchange is so long, right? Because h/c takes lots of words??) So now I have 400 words, and the deadline isn't for like six weeks! Woo!
flipflop_diva: (Default)
[personal profile] flipflop_diva posting in [community profile] smallfandombang
Title: Sometimes Planes Just Disappear
Author: [personal profile] flipflop_diva
Artist: [personal profile] endlesstwanted
Fandom: Manifest (TV) / Ghosts (US TV)
Characters/Pairings: From Ghosts: Sam/Jay, Hettie, Trevor, Flower, Pete, Thor. From Manifest: Michaela/Drea, Ben/Grace, Olive, Cal, Jared
Rating/Category: PG / Het, femslash
Genre: Crossover, comedy, supernatural
Word Count: 10,280
Warnings: None
Summary: When Flight 828 disappears from all airport control tower radars, it appears somewhere else. And that somewhere else is the lawn at Woodstone Mansion. And now there are even more ghosts running around, along with a plane that may or may not be a ghost itself. And that is just the beginning of the chaos.

Link to fic master post: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64946923
Link to art master post: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64939735

Back home

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:50 pm
silver_chipmunk: (Default)
[personal profile] silver_chipmunk
And finally our work in [personal profile] mashfanficchick's mother's house is completed!

I got up at 11:00, had coffee, showered and dressed. [personal profile] mashfanficchick's friend Liz G came at 12:00 and we met her at the house, and took two trips to the storage unit, bringing the last boxes over.

Then we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant, which was delicious.

Finally, Liz G drove a few things from the house to [personal profile] mashfanficchick's apartment, and the very last thing of all, [personal profile] mashfanficchick and I walked a folding table that wouldn't fit in the car from the house to the apartment. And that was that.

I stayed awhile longer, to hang and relax, and then I Ubered home.

I got home a little after 6:00 and fed the pets, and puttered on the computer til 7:00 when I Skyped the FWiB.

We talked til 8:00 when I had my Al-anon meeting. That was very small but good. M wasn't there. I hope she's OK.

Then I had a little to eat, and texted with the Kid about funeral arrangements. A depressing subject but now that Oldest Brother has entered hospice, pretty necessary. It looks as though we'll do a direct cremation with a service at the crematorium, followed by a two hour memorial at the funeral home. I hope that cousin Cliff will be able to do the service.

Went to the bedroom and played solitaire, then came out and fed the pets again. Time for bed pretty soon.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2. The house is done.

3. Good lunch.

4. The Kid.

5. Cousin Cliff.

6. My copy of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish came.

Teaching Diary: Madness

Apr. 23rd, 2025 10:58 am
wrote_and_writ: (Default)
[personal profile] wrote_and_writ
Today, I got a little taste of what dementia might feel like, and I am NOT thrilled. So I was already feeling low due to a combination of cramps and chronic disrupted sleep (only got about 4 hours last night, and not consecutive). I go to class. There are 25 kids on the roster and 25 desks, so I rely on my seating chart for attendance. Three desks are empty, so I go through -- who’s absent? Curry, Anna, and Matthew. Great. But wait, the attendance program says Victoria is absent, not Anna. And there’s a kid in Anna’s seat. But it’s not Anna, is it? (I’ve gotten worse with faces as I’ve gotten older. It’s better since kids mostly stopped wearing masks, but still not great.)


So… are there four kids absent or three?


I’m talking through this, trying to make the attendance math work, and the kids are giggling but they aren’t saying anything. I figure they’re just giggling because Ms. Debra is a weird teacher and they like to laugh at me. Fair enough. Except the math isn’t mathing, especially as I hand back papers. I call for Anna. I look at the girl in Anna’s seat. She doesn’t come up. I call again, more insistently. Is… she Victoria? And just being cheeky and sitting in another seat?


I tell the kids to go to their assigned seats. No one moves.


I call Anna and look at her. She doesn’t get up.


I move on. I can’t deal with this right now. I have a headache.


I still have Anna’s and Victoria’s tests at the end.


I call William over. I trust William. He’s an outsider (his mom is Chinese and dad is American and he’s got a special schedule) like me. I point to Anna.


“Who is that girl?”


William looks at her. He hasn’t seen her all semester. He remembers -- it’s OLIVIA! Olivia, who moved at the end of the first term and WAS in this class before today. Olivia, who put on her old uniform and snuck (?) in to hang out with her friends because her new school is on holiday. (IIRC -- and that’s a big IF -- she and her family moved to New Zealand, so they might be on Easter break.)


Y’ALL. I LEGIT thought I was losing my mind. I recognized her, but once she moved and my class rosters got rearranged at the start of the new term, I put her out of my mind. So my brain recognized her as My Student but gave me no other information. None of the other kids offered information as I was clearly having a breakdown.


Or maybe not so clearly. I’m pretty silly a lot of the time, pretty dramatic, so maybe they thought I was just being silly and dramatic. They aren’t malicious kids, although they are sometimes naughty.


But none of them said, “Miss, that’s Olivia,” so I had to fight my brain and figure it out.


And that made me think -- is this what it was like for, say, my Granny, all the time? Seeing people that weren’t actually there and wondering why we were not backing her up? Asking for people who were long gone and being angry that we were keeping them from her?


Maybe I’m just being my silly and dramatic self, but it was a genuinely distressing ten minutes to not be able to trust my own mind because I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

wrote_and_writ: (Default)
[personal profile] wrote_and_writ

Here is a synopsis from the publisher's website:




Unwanted by his adoptive parents, Jiang Cheng leaves home to live in a cold, gray city with his deadbeat dad whose only talent is feeding a gambling addiction. Alone save for his suitcase, the rebellious teenage boy arrives at the train station ready to face his miserable new life.


But the moment he steps off the platform, Jiang Cheng meets the peculiar young girl Gu Miao, along with her big brother Gu Fei—a boy his age with a musical staff shaved into his hair. Rumor has it that Gu Fei is bad news with dark secrets of his own, but Jiang Cheng still finds himself pulled toward the withdrawn delinquent thanks to Gu Miao and, perhaps, fate. The unlikely friendship that blossoms between them shows Jiang Cheng the hidden depths of Gu Fei…and the hidden depths of his own feelings.



I really got into this book. Even though it’s danmei, it’s less about the romantic relationship (especially in volume 1) and more about how these boys are navigating life in a rough place. The town is based on declining manufacturing cities in China. In the book, it’s a closed steelworks. The depiction of public school life, especially in a school that is not top-tier, was really interesting to me as a teacher. I know my experiences as a teacher in China are very different from the average teacher’s life, even as I’m now in a bilingual school and not an international school, but I could see some similarities between the teachers in the book and some of my colleagues, and I have a lot more sympathy for what they go through (even as I’m annoyed by a lot of things I have to deal with).


I’m looking forward to the rest of the volumes. I really hope Gu Miao turns out okay. She’s got some rough stuff going on for such a little kid.

wrote_and_writ: (Default)
[personal profile] wrote_and_writ

Here is a synopsis from Kirkus Reviews:




Even though her boyfriend broke her heart and, in despair, she lost her job, 25-year-old Takako doesn’t want to leave Tokyo. Her uncle Satoru, though, owns a cramped, musty bookstore in Jimbocho, Japan’s famous book town, and he offers her a room in exchange for her assistance. Surveying her temporary abode among the piles of books, Takako says, “If I got even the slightest bit careless, my Towers of Babel would collapse.” Yagisawa’s short and engaging novel is simply structured, following the ordinary events of Takako’s days at the bookstore.



This novella is just under 150 pages long, and it’s a really nice story. As someone Satoru’s age rather than Takako, I did find myself more interested in his story and wished to know more about him, but I still enjoyed reading the story. When I looked up the synopsis for this book, I saw that a sequel had been published. I don’t know if I’ll read it. It introduces more of the bookshop customers, but I think I’m done dipping into this world. I enjoyed the time I spent there, and I’m ready to move on.


I read a book with a similar premise last year, the Korean novel Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum, and I liked it better because we get the POV of multiple characters. Still, this book was an easy read, a nice palate cleanser between doomscrolling the news.

wrote_and_writ: (Default)
[personal profile] wrote_and_writ

Here is a synopsis from the author's website:




Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.



Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer.



What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?



This book was such a fun read! It’s a bit like Miss Marple in Chinatown. The found family element is really heartwarming, and the reveal about the murder is heartbreaking and interesting. I loved the way the characters come together, and I love Vera.
endlesstwanted: (Default)
[personal profile] endlesstwanted posting in [community profile] smallfandombang
Title: Sometimes Planes Just Disappear: the gallery
Artist:[personal profile] endlesstwanted
Author:[personal profile] flipflop_diva
Fandom: Ghosts (US TV 2021)/Manifest (TV 2018)
Characters/Pairings: Samantha Arondekar, Jay Arondekar, Hetty Woodstone, Trevor Lefkowitz, Alberta Haynes, Thorfinn
Rating/Category: General Audiendes, Gen
Warnings: none
Summary: Graphics inspired by the story by flipflop_diva.

Link to art master post: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64939735
Link to fic master post: -
tsuki_no_bara: (Default)
[personal profile] tsuki_no_bara
something happened today that i wanted to share and now i don't remember what it was. it's spring? but you knew that. i don't have an apartment yet, but you knew that too. i do however have a lot of leftover passover food. i have an entire unopened box of egg matzo. i should buy chocolate chips and make matzo crack.

we got new desk chairs at work and they are COM. FY. my back feels so supported.

My heart of silk
is filled with lights,
with lost bells,
with lilies and bees.
I will go very far,
farther than those hills,
farther than the seas,
close to the stars

--Federico García Lorca, from "Ballad of the Small Plaza"

What do I do instead of reblogging?

Apr. 23rd, 2025 02:27 am
soc_puppet: A gray masked dumbo rat wearing a Dreamwidth cheerleading outfit and waving red color-matched pompoms (Cheering you on)
[personal profile] soc_puppet posting in [community profile] the_great_tumblr_purge
Reblogging is a core feature of Tumblr that doesn't really translate well to Dreamwidth. There are a couple of different ways to replicate it, but which one you pick depends on what your goal was when reblogging a particular post.

"I want to be able to refer back to this post at a later date."
The feature you want for this is likely Memories. Memories are a site-specific bookmarking system that predate tagging. In those times, a lot of LJ users would use it to organize their own posts, such as keeping track of their fics. (Tags were introduced a relatively short time before Dreamwidth split off from LiveJournal.) Memories can be public, access-locked, or private. Any Memories you make on Dreamwidth will be of Dreamwidth posts only.

Unlike with Tumblr's reblog feature, if you add someone else's post to your Memories and the original poster deletes it or locks it, you will no longer have access to it, but it does give you a way to keep track of posts made by other people.

"I want to be able to spread the word about this post."
The way most Dreamwidth users do this is by making their own post about it, either in their own journal or on a community, and including a quick blurb and a link to what you want to share. (If it's a post by another Dreamwidth user, it's considered polite to ask in the comments if OP is okay with you sharing the link around. Most people are okay with this if they made a public post, but some may ask you to make your own post about the topic instead, especially if their own post is access-locked.)

That said, there's also technically a workaround made to mimic reblogs, made by [personal profile] astolat (yes, that Astolat), [personal profile] ljwrites, and [personal profile] melannen. I haven't tried it myself and don't particularly want to, so there aren't a lot of questions I can answer about it. However, I would say that it would still be polite to ask for permission to reblog a post in this case, especially since, as far as I'm aware and unlike with Tumblr reblogs, the original poster will not automatically be made aware of your reblogging.

Interestingly, I've heard that this reblogging tool can also work on some non-Dreamwidth site links, such as from AO3.

"I want to share this cool, funny, or interesting thing with other people."
Did a friend or someone else you subscribe to make a post that you thought was particularly funny or insightful? I recommend sharing it at [community profile] metaquotes! Metaquotes is a community specifically dedicated to sharing fun and interesting things made by other people. It's not very active at the moment, but with a little work, we can change that...

"I have something I want to add to this post."
If what you want is to share your thoughts on a topic, I recommend replying to the post with a comment! If it's something you would have put in the tags or comment section of a reblog (and isn't rude), I can about guarantee that the original poster would be interested in receiving it.

There are exceptions; if you feel like your comment might derail too much from the original post, or if you manage to exceed the character limit for one comment, you might consider making your own post (with a link to the original), and replying to the original post with a link to your own.


And those are the basics! You may want to mix-and-match on these, depending on the content and your goals for it; for example, if someone posts something really funny that you want to share, you can reply to the post, and post to Metaquotes, and link back to it in a post of your own. But overall, these options should cover most of your needs.

If you have any questions, or if there's something I missed, please feel free to let me know in the comments!

Purrcy, bees

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:02 pm
mecurtin: face of tuxedo tabby cat Purrcy looking smugly happy (purrcy face)
[personal profile] mecurtin
#Purrcy was both happy and regal, sitting in my seat on the sofa with the sun coming the skylight on it. See how he smiles at me in Cat!
#cats #CatsOfBluesky

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is lightly curled on a brocade cushion, looking at the camera with ears alert, whiskers spread wide and white, eyes light green and pupils just slits. He is clearly very happy, as sunlight shines on the cushion and most of him.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is lightly curled on a brocade cushion, looking at the camera with ears alert, whiskers spread wide and white, eyes light green and pupils just slits. He is clearly very happy, as sunlight shines on the cushion and most of him.




I sat out on the porch to eat breakfast today, and the local hive of feral honeybees was awake, buzzing about looking for nectar. The crabapple flowers are opening, so they seem to have their timing just right. The carpenter bees were also out, inspecting the eaves. It was really good to have that 1/2 hour, even though it was so late in the morning (I had errands to run before my stomach was ready for breakfast) that I didn't see or hear any migrants.

Daily Check In

Apr. 22nd, 2025 08:52 pm
senmut: cookbooks lined up in a row (Food: cookbooks)
[personal profile] senmut
*\o/* Word Count Step Count Headache?
Daily 254 8,303 no
Monthly 9,554 217,636 5 days

Time For Another One Of These

Apr. 22nd, 2025 07:43 pm
astrogirl: (Ford)
[personal profile] astrogirl
Chapter 6 of "Congratulations on Your Apotheosis" is up. And leaves me feeling like I really should apologize to the characters.

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