Mask of Ares: Third Snippet for the Re-Release!
Mar. 10th, 2026 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seawaspLet's look in on the young lady who we only saw briefly in the prior chapter...
( ... she was a bit upset... )
seawaspLet's look in on the young lady who we only saw briefly in the prior chapter...
( ... she was a bit upset... )
Interesting Links for 10-03-2026
Mar. 10th, 2026 12:00 pmandrewducker- 1. Grammarly Is Offering 'Expert' AI Reviews From Your Favorite Authors—Dead or Alive (without their permission)
- (tags:ohforfuckssake ai writing )
- 2. Google proposes an AI training datacenter that would use up to 8 million gallons of water *per day*
- (tags:water google ai )
- 3. NHS England continues attacks on trans kids
- (tags:uk transgender lgbt ohforfuckssake )
- 4. It is likely that the UK is still under-diagnosing ADHD
- (tags:adhd uk )
The birdhouse in your soul
Mar. 10th, 2026 10:35 amsmokingbootDear friend's cat died yesterday. As ever the words don't work. She is devastated. He was such an excellent boy.
I got myself an ice-cream out of the freezer, and was eating it when the doorbell rang. Some guy was there with a parcel for us, Amazon or something (clearly not Evri or it would have been bunged over the back wall.) We chatted for a moment and he told me it was his mum's birthday. I wished her a happy birthday.
'Oh she's in a better place now,' he said, 'she passed last year. But you know, she was 88 and they say you've learned all your lessons by the age of 82. So she's definitely in a better place. She passed all the tests.'
He carried on talking about her for a while, and I listened, seeing no grief in him except perhaps this sign, the need to talk about her. Eventually I asked him if he would like an ice cream in celebration of her day. He declined but blessed me for offering it, and away he went.
And somehow this old song is in my head remembering him and the death of beautiful Malkin and this gents' memory of his mother, all these things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Y7IxGG9zg&list=RDS4Y7IxGG9zg&start_radio=1
I got myself an ice-cream out of the freezer, and was eating it when the doorbell rang. Some guy was there with a parcel for us, Amazon or something (clearly not Evri or it would have been bunged over the back wall.) We chatted for a moment and he told me it was his mum's birthday. I wished her a happy birthday.
'Oh she's in a better place now,' he said, 'she passed last year. But you know, she was 88 and they say you've learned all your lessons by the age of 82. So she's definitely in a better place. She passed all the tests.'
He carried on talking about her for a while, and I listened, seeing no grief in him except perhaps this sign, the need to talk about her. Eventually I asked him if he would like an ice cream in celebration of her day. He declined but blessed me for offering it, and away he went.
And somehow this old song is in my head remembering him and the death of beautiful Malkin and this gents' memory of his mother, all these things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Y7IxGG9zg&list=RDS4Y7IxGG9zg&start_radio=1
Lake Lewisia #1367
Mar. 9th, 2026 05:08 pmscrubjayspeaksIt seems that some people were inadvertent overachievers on Sunday, and they did not so much "Spring forward" as "launch wildly into the future." Temporal anomalies have been detected at houses that also experienced sudden and mysterious disappearances, so investigators believe the missing people have catapulted into some as of yet undetermined date. While further study will continue, we may have no choice but to wait until we get to the future as well to reunite with our lost neighbors, hoping all the while that they are making it nice for us.
---
LL#1367
---
LL#1367
Sit and watch my TV set
Mar. 9th, 2026 08:00 pmsovayI have been made the unexpected recipient of an unbirthday scarf. It is patterned as if with fossil leaves and irresistibly striped.
My day
Mar. 9th, 2026 10:43 pmcosmolinguistI had a lot to do today: a kinda tricky day at work, walking Teddy, making dinner, visiting a friend, and I wanted to go to the gym.
And I did all of it! And some chores like moving heavy things around, finalizing the grocery delivery that'll come tomorrow, and doing laundry.
Feels good.
(no subject)
Mar. 9th, 2026 04:03 pmcatchthewind posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
addmeAge: 30s
I mostly post about: Daily life - my thoughts, things I'm up to, things I've created (I'm an artist), my travels, movies I've watched, photos I've taken. The mundane and anything that grabs my interest. I try to find whimsy in everyday life, and I probably think too deeply about a lot of stuff.
My hobbies / interests are: Drawing, journaling on paper and stationery in general, reading fiction, watching movies, musical theatre, EGL fashion, playing The Sims 4 and Animal Crossing, Lego, learning languages, traveling whenever I can (usually on my own), and whatever actor I might be obsessed with at the moment.
I'm looking to meet people who: Thoughtful people who have similar interests and values. I'm looking for community and people I can connect with. I'm feeling very burnt out from social media and how loud and demanding it is with people just observing each other and nothing ever going any deeper than that. I miss feeling like I had actual friends on the internet, and learning about people's lives from all over.
My posting schedule tends to be: Whenever I feel like. Sometimes that might be daily, sometimes weekly. I try not to post any less than that.
When I add people, my deal breakers are: Bigots. People who exclusively post about fandom, fanfic, or book reviews and little else. As an artist, I'm anti-AI. And just mean, judgemental types, I don't have space for that kind of attitude in my life. Be kind or get out.
Before adding me, you should know: I have C-PTSD, hEDS, and I'm neurodivergent. I don't talk about these things much, but they exist in the background and shape much of my world.
The Long and Short of It
Mar. 9th, 2026 02:48 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
scalziwhatever_feed
I promised Krissy that I would not buy any new guitars in 2025, and that was a promise I mostly kept (I did buy one guitar, but it was for her). However, it is now 2026, and last month I turned in two full-length books, and I thought therefore it might be okay to treat myself. That said, I pretty much have every guitar I might ever need, in most of the the major body shapes, so if I was going to get any more of them, they needed to fill a niche that was not otherwise occupied.
And, well, guess what? I found two stringed instruments that fit the bill! What a surprise! And as a bonus, neither is technically a guitar.
Small one first: This is an Ohana O’Nino sopranissimo ukulele, “sopranissimo” being a size down from the soprano uke, which is typically understood to be the smallest ukulele that one might usually find. The O’Nino here is seventeen inches long from stem to stern, and is absolutely dinky in the hand. Nevertheless, it’s an actual musical instrument, not a toy, and if you have small and/or nimble enough fingers, plays perfectly well. It’s not going to be anyone’s primary ukulele (I have my concert-sized Fender Fullerton Jazzmaster for that), but if you’re traveling — and I often am — and want to take along a physical music instrument — which I sometimes do! — then this is very much the travel-sized uke to tote around.
There are even smaller ukes available, but those do start being in the “is this a musical instrument for ants” category of things. I’ll stop with a sopranissimo.
Almost literally on the other end of the scale we have the Eastwood BG 64 Baritone Guitarlin. The one type of guitar I did not have in my collection was a baritone guitar (which adds an additional four frets to the guitar on the low end, allowing for a lower/heavier/twangier sound). This particular baritone is one of an esoteric variant of guitar known as a “guitarlin,” in which the guitar adds frets on the high end to be able to access notes that one would only usually find on a mandolin. So, basically, this instrument goes from baritone to mandolin over 35 frets, which is, to be clear, an absolutely ridiculous number of frets to have on a single instrument. I can already see the serious guitarists out there despairing about the intonation in the mando frets, but those people are no fun.
I was traveling when my guitarlin arrived and I haven’t yet been able to play around with it yet, but here’s a short video of the guy who helped design it fooling about with it:
(And yes, I got the one with the tremolo, because of course I did.)
Between these two instruments my collector itch has been scratched for a bit, and I look forward to messing around with both in the upcoming months. I won’t say I won’t get any other guitars ever, but at this point it’s getting more difficult to find where the gaps are in what I have, so I do imagine my acquisitions will slow down rather a bit. Let’s hope, anyway. I’m running out of room in the house for them. Although I guess I do have a whole church, don’t I. Hmmm.
— JS
(no subject)
Mar. 9th, 2026 04:46 pmlea_hazelI dare not put my hopes on paper (virtual paper), though plenty of other people have filled the pages of newspapers with their fears. And yeah, the worst case scenarios I can think of are pretty damn bad. But I'd like to think that, even in our world, not all change is for the worse.
This Is Not My Beautiful Wife
Mar. 9th, 2026 07:45 ammallorys_camera
Absolutely slammed at Schlock Montgomery yesterday. Four returns in four hours, three of them relatively complicated returns. Miss Ramada Inn snarled at me: "You need to pick up the pace."
I did not snarl back, You need to go fuck yourself, though I smiled inwardly, thinking it.
There's hardly any light in the back of the Schlock Montgomery office where my desk is, and many W2 forms use 4-point font for entries like employer TINs and wages, all of which must be encoded precisely into the Schlock tax prep software. This meant many minutes spent attempting to study said documents with the magnifying app on my phone.
Plus, the Schlock tax prep software is really klugy compared to the tax prep software I was using as a TaxBwana. Hit the wrong key, and you are signing the client up for a Schlock payday loan at a 36% interest rate—which I did with the first set of clients, a heavily tattooed married couple, filing jointly. It took me 15 minutes to figure my way out of that because I was the only tax preparer in the office; there wasn't anybody else to ask. The clients were not amused.
You can rise from this desk at any moment, tell those clients, "Your tattoos are really ugly, and you suck", I reminded myself as I keyed frantically through solutions. That kept me amused.
And eventually, I found the solution.
My second client was a dapper man in a grey porkpie hat who used to be a correctional officer at Rikers Island.
Rikers Island correctional officers get really good pensions!
Mr. Trapper (not his real name) spends his retirement hanging out in the Newburgh Barnes & Noble reading edifying biographies of Black sports heroes. He could afford to buy those biographies, but I guess he likes being a regular in a crowded place.
I found myself flirting with him! And having fantasies of ambling down to the Newburgh Barnes & Noble, so we could fall in ❤️LUV❤️! Was it the pension? Or the porkpie hat?
My third and fourth clients were a couple in their late thirties, filing separately—she was still married to someone else, which made her claim to Head of Household dubious, but hey! Schlock tax preparers before me had approved it, so who was I to gainsay?
This couple had a combined income substantially less than mine, & I consider myself poor.
In fact, they personified America's white urban underclass. They seemed utterly miserable, and I thought, Well, this is really why the enlightened inhabitants of Alpha Centauri dispatched you to this planet, so you could report back on the desperate look in the woman's eyes: You're a field scientist!
The time did pass quickly.
Only 37 more days to go!
###
Daylight saving time has added enough hours to the day so that I can start going to the gym again. So, that's good.
And it finally stopped raining.
The sun came out yesterday, and temps soared into the 60°s, melting the snowbanks & turning the meadows around the casa into a muddy swamp.
This is not my beautiful wife.
International Women's Day Belated Post
Mar. 9th, 2026 11:33 amoursinI am given to understand that there is a campaign afoot to get a Blue Plaque for Dame Rebecca, as, quite shamefully, there is not one already.
***
Dorset Archives Trust seeks donations for archive catalogue: we feel they might foreground rather more than they do that this is for the papers of Sylvia Townsend Warner???
***
The Woman Who Invented the Penny Bank - I do not think I had heard of Priscilla Wakefield before.
***
Ladies of the Lights: Female Lighthouse Keepers in the UK and the US (Of course I knew about Grace Darling, even before Jessica Mitford wrote about her.)
***
Sadder stories of women: Hidden lives of female prisoners past and present:
The lives of female prisoners in the 19th Century and those experiencing the criminal justice system today are not dissimilar, a charity worker has said.
An exhibition at Newcastle Cathedral is documenting the untold stories from female prisoners at the former Newcastle Prison, which stood in the city's Carliol Square between 1828-1925.
Volunteers from a family history group have begun transcribing the records of at least 6,000 women, imprisoned by Cambridge University in the 19th Century. I have read the book by Biggs (The Spinning House) but was underwhelmed as a result of her stylistic narrative choices. I am all for this sort of project.
***
Hmmmm. While I would certainly agree that female desire is not taken seriously enough: A very paternalistic attitude’: why is female desire still not taken seriously?, I am massively, massively, massively cynical about the potential of the 'pink pill' or female viagra as I had several posts here some years back about the very unprepossessing results produced*. In particular I adduce this link to the ever sensible Dr Petra Boynton's thoughts. Is this just being bigged up by pharma entrepreneurs???
*And, of course, the notion that you can fix women's libidos with a magic bullet pill.
SGA: Fieldwork by Rheanna (and Homework by busaikko)
Mar. 10th, 2026 12:42 ammific posting in fancakeFandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: Ronon Dex/John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Dave Sheppard
Rating: Teen, Gen
Length: 3158 (Homework is 963)
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Rheanna on AO3, busaikko on AO3, susan_voight on AO3
Themes: Siblings, Friendship, Going home, Established relationship
Summaries:
Ronon starts his e-mail correspondence with Sheppard's brother more or less by mistake.
For some reason, after his father's funeral Dave Sheppard keeps getting e-mail from Ronon Dex.
Reccer's Notes: This is a remix of Homework by busaikko, and they can be read in any order - this is basically a rec for both fics, Fieldwork being from Ronon's POV, and Homework, which is just as good, from Dave's POV. Ronon's in a relationship with John and as part of learning English he starts emailing John's estranged brother, Dave. Rodney then gets involved as Ronon goes to him for help. The characterisations of Ronon, John, and Rodney here are spot on, and it's both funny and moving - a wonderful set of stories.
Fanwork Links: on AO3: Fieldwork and Homework
Alternate DW links: Fieldwork and Homework
Susan_voight podficced both stories, both separately and collated.
Characters/Pairings: Ronon Dex/John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Dave Sheppard
Rating: Teen, Gen
Length: 3158 (Homework is 963)
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Rheanna on AO3, busaikko on AO3, susan_voight on AO3
Themes: Siblings, Friendship, Going home, Established relationship
Summaries:
Ronon starts his e-mail correspondence with Sheppard's brother more or less by mistake.
For some reason, after his father's funeral Dave Sheppard keeps getting e-mail from Ronon Dex.
Reccer's Notes: This is a remix of Homework by busaikko, and they can be read in any order - this is basically a rec for both fics, Fieldwork being from Ronon's POV, and Homework, which is just as good, from Dave's POV. Ronon's in a relationship with John and as part of learning English he starts emailing John's estranged brother, Dave. Rodney then gets involved as Ronon goes to him for help. The characterisations of Ronon, John, and Rodney here are spot on, and it's both funny and moving - a wonderful set of stories.
Fanwork Links: on AO3: Fieldwork and Homework
Alternate DW links: Fieldwork and Homework
Susan_voight podficced both stories, both separately and collated.
RIP Country Joe McDonald
Mar. 9th, 2026 06:08 amlauradi7dwPhooey to Parkinson's.
I didn't go to Woodstock but a classmate did (with his older brother). I saw the 1970 documentary from which this is taken in Paris, of all places. It's nice to be old(ish) but I'm not as old as those facts would imply. I had not remembered that CJ says close to Arlo Guthrie's exact line from Alice's Restaurant in this context (while admonishing more people to sing along).
The loathsome Karoline Leavitt said that the draft might come back. Which quagmire are we in?
Strong language warning, as NPR would say, although I used the F word in full in a recent subject line.
I didn't go to Woodstock but a classmate did (with his older brother). I saw the 1970 documentary from which this is taken in Paris, of all places. It's nice to be old(ish) but I'm not as old as those facts would imply. I had not remembered that CJ says close to Arlo Guthrie's exact line from Alice's Restaurant in this context (while admonishing more people to sing along).
The loathsome Karoline Leavitt said that the draft might come back. Which quagmire are we in?
Strong language warning, as NPR would say, although I used the F word in full in a recent subject line.