thefourthvine | Reading

conuly posting in

Dear Eric: I lost my husband two years ago after a long, drawn-out decline. It was a traumatic ending.

Our son, now in his late 40s, was indifferent to his father’s decline. Our son has always been a challenge. Difficult teenage years with lots of poor decisions and rebellious behavior. He did not want to be a part of our family and has adopted other families as his own. He calls other people Mom and Dad, does not call or keep in touch with us. I have accepted his decisions.

We were not bad parents. We provided a solid family life, celebrating birthdays, Christmas and vacations. We had a loving home.

When my son was 13, he started breaking the rules, smoking and selling pot, being disrespectful, skipping school and being embarrassed by us. He was not abused or neglected in any way. He called his father’s life’s work “crap” and diminished us in every way.

Now that my husband has passed, I’m in the process of making a new will. I do not wish to leave my son anything because he has disinherited us. He will be surprised that our estate is larger than he expects. He is very detached and treats me with contempt. Should I leave a letter to explain this or just let the chips fall where they may?

– No Longer Mom

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conuly posting in

agonyaunt

He's really more in the job of doling out humor than advice, but sometimes advice just happens.

Paul writes: In my house, we reuse rubber bands from newspapers to seal up food packaging. But my wife insists they must be washed first, or else it’s unsanitary. I say that’s ridiculous. Who’s right?

Hodgman rules: I doubt you’ll have any cross-contamination issues unless you’re using these rubber bands, say, to truss a raw chicken. (P.S.: Don’t.) I, too, wrap old rubber bands around open potato chip bags, and I munch without fear, because you and I are creatures of pure logic. But that doesn’t mean your wife’s aversion isn’t real. Those chips will taste germy to her. Everyone has their “little weirdsies,” a term coined by the NPR correspondent and friend of the court Linda Holmes. These are the small, strange preferences we all have — like refusing to drink “stale” water — that our spouses accept because they’re harmless. Unless it’s truly interfering with her quality of life, leave it alone. Or embrace it. There are weirder ways to spice up a marriage than soaking rubber bands in alcohol together.

torachan

1. It's the start of a three day weekend! And the start of three weeks of long weekends.

2. The stadium that is hosting World Cup games is right in between home and work and the freeway has had signs up with the dates of upcoming games informing people that traffic will be bad and avoid the freeway if possible. Unfortunately it's not possible for me if I have to go in to work those days, but so far I've managed to avoid getting caught in really bad traffic. Today the match was at noon, and I normally would have stayed until like 2:30-3 and then come home and taken my 4pm meeting at home, but I knew that would be right when everyone would be leaving the stadium so I was able to come home before the 2pm meeting and take both of those from home. The traffic was a little worse than usual (as it has been on other game days) but not too bad.

3. We're going to Pride Nite at Disneyland later tonight. The event doesn't start until 9pm, so hopefully rush hour traffic will die down in a bit here and we won't have too much trouble getting there.

4. Gemma seems to really like my new carpet. She's been coming and rolling around asking for pets more than she did with the old carpet lol.

musesfool

My nephew Victor entered Mayor Mamdani's lottery for the 300 seats at City Hall for today's Knicks parade, and he won! So he and Trish got to sit through the ceremony and see everything from relatively close up! They said it was awesome. I watched but did not see them in the crowd. I enjoyed it. There were so many high points - Mamdani's speech, Brunson's speech, seeing Alvarado and KAT, who are local and really understand what this means to the city, dancing to Alicia Keys! Mariska Hargitay! Her and Brunson's mutual admiration society is so cute! A fitting end to a magical post-season.

*

Current Music: New York State of Mind - Billy Joel

gelliaclodiana

Over the last couple of weeks I have read the first three Locked Tomb books! And enjoyed them greatly. It sort of took me a while to get into Gideon the Ninth, but then I started Harrow the Ninth and was just completely overcome by whatever the hell was going on there. (I mean, but the end it became a lot clearer, but oh, Harrow!) And then the same with Nona ~~The Ninth~~, where things get that much more painful for everyone.

One thing I really love, which I had not considered as an upside to stories about necromancy, is that characters get to have their great death scenes and then come back again! But I also have some questions. ( under the cut )

As an aside, the worldbuilding here seems to me (not a Catholic) to be very very Catholic. Lots of god being embodied, lots of body-and-blood, lots of resurrection-and-life stuff. I guess that's possibly just generically Christian but then there's all the incense and the ritual and the death nuns...

I am now rereading GtN and looking forward to all the lab sequences, now that I know who everyone is.

On a RL note, we have heat again! I realize that for most people having the furnace out of operation in the summer is not a big deal but this is San Francisco and we have this thing called June Gloom. The gas pipe to my house had to be moved as part of the rebuilding-the-stairs process and it has been a bit touch and go getting everything working again. Yesterday evening we had nothing, because the builders jostled the new pipe and the automatic cut-off was triggered (this might only be a thing in earthquake country, but basically the gas line has an automatic shutoff if it senses motion) and the contractor and plumber had to come out late to fix it.

the_shoshanna

Geoff and I walked in the Pride march last Saturday with my congregation as part of a multifaith coalition, and it was great: perfect weather, lots of people lining the streets cheering, multiple women wearing "Mom Hugs" t-shirts (why no "Dad Hugs"?), innumerable children of all ages waving rainbow flags. I do sort of miss the marches of my 20s in Boston, with so many thousands of people and dozens of groups marching (I was often with the Gaylaxians). But of course Boston is larger than my current city by, like, two orders of magnitude! As I remember them, the Boston marches always ended with the contingent of queer police, and they would get a huge cheer from everyone hanging out at the end of the route watching the marchers come in; that sure feels like a different era. Geoff and I walked around Kingston's post-march festival to check it out, but didn't feel any need to hang out for a lengthy period of time.

I had proposed getting takeout burgers for dinner, but Geoff pointed out that we were already downtown, so instead we had a huge late lunch at a downtown pub, which killed any need to have dinner at all. It was 2 pm and they served their breakfast menu until 3, so we both got their "breakfast burger": beef patty, lettuce and tomato and onion, a fried egg, cheese, bacon, and bacon marmalade. It was ridiculously good, especially the bacon marmalade. I took one bite and said, "I have to figure out how to make this"; but the research I did afterward suggested that homemade bacon jam has to be eaten within a week or two even if it's kept in the fridge, whereas the commercial stuff can last as long as any other commercial jam, so if I want some I guess I'll just buy it. First I need to figure out what, besides burgers, I could put it on, though -- we don't usually make burgers at home!

I have a Pride umbrella that I had brought to the march to loan to anyone who wanted to use it as a sunshade; it's tagged with my name, address, and phone, and I figured that either it would get back to me or someone else would make good use of it going forward. And indeed, I quickly lost track of who had it, and then yesterday someone from my congregation called me up and said she had it, was now a good time to stop by and give it back? Definitely, I said, pleased. Now it's back ~~in the closet~~ on the shelf until the next appropriate rally. I don't usually like to use umbrellas against rain, because I don't like having my hand tied up by holding it and I'd generally rather just be in a good raincoat and put a cover on my pack, but I'm very glad I have this one!

Tomorrow we go to Montreal for an overnight to see a friend and have a Father's Day dinner with Geoff's family, and then I immediately leave for eight days in rural PA with my best friend, our annual vacation together. Ever since the border reopened as the pandemic eased, we've rented a place halfway between us (except for last year when we went to see a third friend in NC) and we just hang out and talk and watch TV (I am going to show her Heated Rivalry! I cannot wait) and cook together (she is an amazing cook) and we're going to be staying next to a fair-trade farm-to-table chocolate-and-coffee factory; we stayed there two years ago, went on a tour, and then spent like $150 each in their gift shop. I brought so many treats back for Geoff and for my local book group! I expect the same will happen this year; plus this year we'll be there over my birthday, so I am anticipating a phenomenally good birthday dinner.

dine

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torachan

1. When I took a walk after lunch today I happened to walk past a Wendy's and saw they had Minions stuff up all over the windows, so I checked their menu online to see if they had a banana Frostie and they don't, but they do have a banana syrup you can get swirled into your Frostie, so on my way back I popped in and got a chocolate/banana swirl. It was pretty good! Not nearly as good as the banana chocolate shake at Fat Burger, but I might get it again while they have it.

2. A while back we saw a video on youtube about various local restaurants and one of them was a fried chicken place that's pretty close. It looked really good and we said we should go sometime but then totally forgot about it. Then tonight we were talking about dinner and decided to get something and Carla remembered it, so since Carla was feeling worn out and didn't want to go out to eat, I rode my bike down there to pick up food and bring it home. It was about an eight minute ride each way and honestly with as bad as traffic was right then I think I probably got home faster than I would have in a car, and certainly faster than a delivery driver would have as they'd probably stop at other places first. Also saved money by not paying all the delivery fees.

We got a crispy chicken sandwich and a Asian salad crispy chicken wrap and both were really good. Also got a side of lemon potatoes, which were also tasty.

3. We originally were putting this blanket as a tent on the sofa for Chloe but then Ollie discovered it and was using it all the time, but now Chloe has come back to it, too. (So far they haven't had any disagreements about who can use it when. Fingers crossed it stays that way!)

china_shop

Singaporean artist Leia Ham reimagined LotR as Tale of the Middle Kingdom, since Chinese name for China (Zhōngguó) means "The Middle Kingdom." Her concept art includes the Fellowship, armors, buildings like Bag End, props like Aragorn's banner and Fellowship brooches, and more. #TolkienTrewsday

[image or embed]
— Putri Prihatini (putriprihatini.bsky.social [BlueskySocial]) June 17, 2026 at 2:29 AM

rydra_wong

GFW's unisex boxer briefs are back (now with a modified design that allows you to wear menstrual pads with wings, and a wider size range):

https://www.gfwclothing.com/collections/boxer-shorts-unisex

They are the best.

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stranger Things
Pairings/Characters: Robin Buckley & Mike Wheeler
Rating: Teen
Length: 3,407 words
Creator Link:

ottermo
Theme: Just Like Canon, Canon LGBTQ+ Characters, Gen

Summary: Robin and Mike have a talk.

It's tough when someone you love falls in love with you.

Reccer's Notes: Robinnnnnnnnn. Also Miiiiike. This is such a sweet conversation. These two barely—if ever?—talked in canon, but I feel like if they had, if Mike had asked Robin for help, it would have gone just like this. It's part of a series, but can totally be read alone.

Fanwork Link: the same boat

runpunkrun

Second book in The Captive's War trilogy. Still feels like an Adrian Tchaikovsky knock off, and the characters are nowhere near as memorable or engaging as those in the authors' own Expanse series, but for a follow up to a long, dense book that came out two years ago that I barely remember, this was surprisingly readable. As long as you're reading for world building and plot. It does have that middle book problem where it's mainly just moving people around on the board to get them into place for the third book, but at least it doesn't drag it out.

Contains: genocide, violence, gore; a crop of babies grown in artificial incubators from stolen genetic material; two unwanted surprise erections under almost identical circumstances (being spooned by the erectioneer).

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

omens

Pet Behaviour Nightly Rating: Nico - C, Sunny - B (not bad!!!! we slept in until 6:30) and yesterday's chipotle pork burgers with avocado were A+++. I'd bought a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce bc I see it come up in recipes from time to time but never in one I was actually making, so I bought a can a month ago just to have on hand in case I fell across a recipe again, and then I'd be READY. We used it in the pork burgers twice and the rest in chili - definitely will become a pantry staple :D

Kelly is off all day kissin dolls (aka first aid training) and I managed garbage day all by myself in the nick of time!

Have written 4k in four days, we'll see how day 5 goes today but I still don't want do anything else so seems like it'll be pretty good (RIP Spanish)

I have to work myself up to calling my drs office, ideally today, but I do not know if it will happen.

I really have nothing going on and I'm bored. I thought maybe something would spring to mind when posting but lol

PS the bacon poutine fifa chips just taste like saltier bbq, unimpressed

Current Music: absolute chill time with kortez's sold out album

dine

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torachan

1. Tuxie is a quiet eater, so when I hear a plate clattering outside I know that it's someone other than him eating. During the day, it's crows (especially when it's baby season; they love to feed their babies with cat food) and during the night it's usually possums. Of course since it's dark outside, I hardly ever get a good view of the possums, but last night I heard a clattering plate and I had left it right on the back porch and had the door closed, so I turned on the outside light and looked out the door's window and was able to watch the possum as it ate. I don't know why some people say possums aren't cute. I love them!

That reminded me that I also recently heard a noise right outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night and one of the cats was watching very intently out, so I peered out my window and saw the shadowy shapes of a bunch of possums walking along the top of the fence about two feet from my window.

My dream is to one day see a mama possum with all her babies on her, but so far I have not had the chance.

2. As I mentioned the other day, I got the new shelf set up in the garage, so this morning I took some pictures. It looks like I took pics around this time last year and you can see we've added several more pieces of furniture since then.

( Read more... )

3. People always use the hashtag Tongue Out Tuesday for cats on bluesky, but I guess Jasper got confused and thought it was Tail Out Tuesday.

musesfool

Things, and also, stuff:

= Work remains hectic but hopefully I will be able to send out my board package tomorrow and then finally write up several committees' worth of minutes, which I have not been able to do because every time I start, I get interrupted.

= I've been making chicken bacon ranch wraps for lunch this week and they are so good! I made bacon on Sunday morning, and bought the Perdue shortcuts grilled chicken, so I heat some of the chicken and 2 strips of bacon up in a frying pan and then lay a couple of slices of mozzarella on top to melt. In the center of a whole wheat wrap, I add some arugula (though you could use whatever lettuce or spinach you prefer), and then lay the warmed up meat and cheese on top of it, add a few squirts of ranch dressing, and roll it up. Delicious and filling!

= I stumbled upon a recipe for whipped lemonade that sounded good in theory but then it had both sugar and sweetened condensed milk in it and that sounds way too sweet to me. I get why the sugar is there - you rub the zest into it to really capture the lemon flavor, in addition to using juice, but just thinking about adding sugar to sweetened condensed milk makes my teeth hurt. I wonder if subbing whipping cream for the condensed milk would work? Or would it curdle from the lemon? Inquiring minds want to know. (I do have a recipe for lemon buttermilk sherbet somewhere, and of course, lemon sour cream ice cream is one of my faves to make, so I can kind of get there in other ways. Hmm...)

= I got interrupted by work and now it's 3 hours later and I can't remember what else I was going to say but in the meantime, I did get a laugh out of the fact that VGK and Torts have parted ways.

*

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Pepper = Butthole Surfers

china_shop

I saw this article in my local paper and thought it was a great summation of a worrying situation (although it comes down on the side of social media bans for teens, which I oppose for privacy & practicality reasons):

Our children are growing up in a world controlled by technology, not democracy (Web archive link)

As I’ve previously argued, democracy does not reproduce itself automatically. It depends on citizens with attention, judgement and some command over their impulses. It needs the ideas of virtue and honour. A society that cannot form such citizens will still hold elections, but it will struggle to sustain democratic life.

twistedchick

Background: I discovered that the county-run swim center nearest to me has deepwater running times open when I'm available. My swimsuits are ancient and the elastic in them is dying.

So I decided to drive to the Lands End outlet to try on what they have, get something to wear.

I drove over this afternoon. It wasn't there. In place of Lands End, in the plaza, was a Gap Outlet (no swimsuits.) I went a little further down the plaza to Athletica. No swimsuits.

Oookay, I will try to order one when I get home.

On the way home I noticed that the Chico's, which used to be across the street from another mall where I worked when they had a Borders Books, is gone. It's an empty site with a backhoe.

Another couple of miles, I turned left and headed toward the private Catholic girls' school that had so much traffic coming from it that it had its own dedicated cop to handle directing traffic. This time -- no cop. And no school. The rolling green lawn is not green but mostly paved and out of it have sprung enormous townhouses -- if a townhouse is four stories -- or flats, or something. Dozens of them.

I also noticed that the road I was driving on had changed names. It had been Knowles; now it is Strathmore, possibly in connection with the arts center and entertainment venue at the end of it.

Did I suddenly switch timelines or something? I do remember the county talking about housing and construction, but I don't recall anything about this.

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Poll #34738 round 188 theme poll

This poll is closed.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 91

Pick the next theme of fancake:

Fannish Non-Fiction
21 (23.1%)

In Denial
30 (33.0%)

Unreliable Narrator
40 (44.0%)

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairings: Ilya Rozanov & Scott Hunter (background Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter/Kip Grady)
Rating: Teen
Length: 2426
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: milominderbinder on AO3
Themes: Just like canon, Canon LGBTQ+ characters, Missing scene, Friendship

Summary: "I did. After MLH awards, in June. Oh, I did not tell him about Shane and me. But what he did, it was important. It changed things. For me, at least - maybe for us."

On the night of the MLH awards, Ilya corners Scott Hunter on a quiet balcony.

Reccer's Notes: A nice missing scene that fills out the brief mention in canon. Ilya has a quiet word with Scott Hunter - seems like it would be the start of their friendship. Very much 'just like canon', and with great characterisation.

Fanwork Links: nobody knows (and nobody gives a damn, either way)

mific posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom:
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Ryland Grace, Rocky
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: cjbee on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: A big, sweeping piece encompassing several key moments in the movie. Nice design and flow.
Link: Red string of fate, backup link here

cimorene

I was intrigued (though not all that excited) to learn that Christopher Nolan is filming The Odyssey. I always expect to enjoy film portraying ancient history, but I also always expect to be annoyed. I appreciate Nolan's direction, but I'm not a huge fan of his, either.

As readers may remember, I'm not an Odyssey fan, exactly. I only read the Odyssey and the Iliad in Emily Wilson's translations a couple of years ago. I did go through a period of being in Greek Mythology fandom as a child, and hence accumulated a store of trivia about them, but I was young and it never occurred to me at that time that one could read translations of original texts. People just kept giving me different books that basically were retelling the same things from the same sources.

After the Iliad and Odyssey, I also read a bunch of Greek tragedies; I was going to read some Roman tragedies too, because one of the books I bought to get a Wilson translation of a Greek tragedy had some of both, but I didn't actually read any of the Roman ones. I'll probably get around to it at some point.

But I have been thinking I wanted to reread the Iliad and Odyssey already in the last few months, even before news of this adaptation, and then the other day I stumbled upon a video on YouTube where the classicist Mary Beard touted her podcast, Instant Classics, and said they were going to be hosting or... doing?... a reading-the-Odyssey series and talking about it soon, and I thought that sounded neat. Maybe I'll look at some of the older podcast episodes as well.

dine

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twistedchick

On the benefits of wearing earplugs, especially at concerts as well as loud workplaces.

dine

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rydra_wong

Watch on YouTube

Saw this at Sheffield DocFest yesterday and stumbled out into the afternoon light afterwards with shellshock.

Found out afterwards that Dogwoof bought the rights and it's getting a UK cinema release in July (and apparently a "Oscar-qualifying run" in the US in the autumn).

We got an unscheduled bonus Q&A from the directors/stars (Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak) and gave them a standing ovation, which British people do not give lightly.

The Q&A (in a screening room so small they didn't even need to hand a mike around) was intense and vulnerable and occasionally hilarious.

One of the people in the film, Habak's doctor friend Hamza, turned out to be in the fucking audience, and put his hand up to ask a thoughtful question and then troll gleefully: "So, that Dr Hamza, what a great character ..."

While the rest of the audience were like JESUS FUCK DUDE WE JUST WATCHED YOU IN AL-QUDS HOSPITAL TRYING TO TREAT PATIENTS WHILE BEING BOMBED.

(Habak like: "I MADE YOU LOOK THAT GOOD.")

And then the people in the front row of the audience were like "So, we're film-makers from Ukraine ..." and didn't even need to explain why it was so meaningful to them.

omens

The go go go did not last. The entire last week was sluglife. Just tired, always. Things that happened:

(I have to get out my phone and see if there are photos, to jog my memory lol)

(Ok there are no photos except the loblaws deal of "if Canada wins we will give you two (2) chicken fingies!!!!" and a picture of two sad and lonely mid fingies. This cracked my shit up and my friend was like, "well, Canada tied, so does that mean you get 1??" Loblaws loves to do this giveaway shit from time to time and it is always insultingly cheap and never actually useful. I give you no benefit of the doubt, loblaws. None.)

- basically I've done nothing, but the last two days I've written like 3k. Which is insane. There has been much, much ranting and frothing about comics timelines (oh how deeply I hate war games). And done none Spanish, naturally. Hobbies: pick One

- we had a very thundering and raining day yesterday. Pansies are very pleased. I was very pleased about not having to water!

- we didn't even leave the house this weekend (though we sat out on the deck and enjoyed the storms a fair amount) so we have no good groceries!

- have some tiny bags of chips with weird soccer flavours, though, which I never would have bought bc I see a fifa logo and I get a rage (like the olympics rage, very similar) but Kelly knows (ofc) that I have food fomo and a deep love of weird flavours. I have only tried the steak chimichurri so far and they are pretty much the exact flavour of bret's côte de boeuf grillée (I miss bret's) crossed with the lay's Quick burger chips (which is to say: burned meat with a lil something), so I liked them but I only ate a handful and Liam ate the rest in the night (works for me lol)

- (parentheses)

But anyway, today I'm back at it. Got laundry and vacuuming to do, got podcasts to listen to. Got writing to keep tinkering with.

dine

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petra

( Yelling (positive) )

Current Mood: charmed
Current Music: I tried to write you the prettiest song in the world

petra

Outrageous Fortune (2333 words) by ThisAintBC
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Slings & Arrows, due South
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Darren Nichols, Ellen Fanshaw, Maria (Slings & Arrows)
Additional Tags: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions
Summary:

Most people stare at Darren as if he is the abyss, or perhaps a modern art installation, which is as things should be and all in all very gratifying. Maria, unfortunately, stares at Darren as if he is a misbehaving toy poodle.

New Burbage takes on a familiar tale.

*

Somehow I missed this when it was posted, despite having beta-read its inspiration. That's okay, I suppose, because it meant I could die laughing today instead of two years ago. Absolutely flipping glorious Darren Nichols voice, perfectly comprehensible if you don't know Slings & Arrows as long as you know who Martha Burns is, in due South context, and that she plays Ellen Fanshaw.

Current Mood: howling with laughter
Current Music: I am Darren Nichols. Deal with THAT.

celli

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petra

Eight o'clock: TV hour (400 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Project Hail Mary (2026), Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ryland Grace
Additional Tags: The Rachel Maddow Show - Freeform, Fuck Her Or Be Her?, All The Colors of the German Rainbow
Summary:

Dr. Ryland Grace, in academic disgrace, mopes and watches TV. It helps.

Current Mood: wistful
Current Music: Bull pucky!

musesfool

It was very exciting to watch the Knicks win the NBA championship last night with another wild 4th quarter comeback! My brother's kids went to one of the watch parties and put me on alert that if they couldn't get home, they were planning to come here to sleep, and I said of course! And then I did not hear from them again, so at 2 am, I went to bed.

I woke up this morning and texted to make sure they got home all right, and when they didn't respond, I checked in with my brother, who told me that the subways had been shut down (I had not read or heard the news), so they ended up going to one of my nephew's friend's apartment to sleep before getting home this morning. But they said they had a good time and it looked like people were mostly being cool while celebrating from what I saw.

The parade is on Thursday! I am no longer one to stand in a crowd for several hours, so I have no intention of going, but I think it's gonna be super cool.

In other news, I was doing one of my every-so-often checks to see if there was a publishing date for Alecto the Ninth yet and I ended up on the Locked Tomb subreddit, which is fine - there is some cool meta there - but I have tried to consciously repress that Muir was in Homestuck fandom, and posts there always remind me, and I do not wish to know anything more about Homestuck than I already do, which is almost nothing. And there is still no release date for AtN. Sigh.

*

Current Mood: lazy
Current Music: Landslide - Fleetwood Mac

petra

Kashyyyk Kennel Club-Certified Humans (1198 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chewbacca & Han Solo, Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker/Han Solo, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Characters: Chewbacca, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Leia Organa, Lando Calrissian
Additional Tags: Han Solo is Chewbacca's Dog (Star Wars), Crack, Star Wars Holiday Special References, Ignores Solo: A Star Wars Story
Summary:

Chewbacca does his best to be responsible for Han's care and feeding, but the Human needs some serious obedience training, and it's hard to be a disciplinarian all the time. Maybe the princess can be a good influence.

Current Mood: woof
Current Music: I want the moon to make me howl

wychwood

We trekked up to Manchester with choir yesterday, which is always an interesting experience. The BBC Phil is very different from our orchestra, and because they exist primarily to perform for radio broadcasts rather than making their income by selling concert tickets, the hall is often pretty empty - but not yesterday, which was about 90% full, I think.

The vast majority of our concerts are with our own orchestra, and the BBC Phil is the only other one we work with regularly enough to start to get to know them a bit by sight. Their lead cello has always been rather Byronic; he's now rather less so than formerly, partly because his hair is thinning and therefore less dramatically swoopy, but I did leave the building to find him outside smoking in a leather jacket, so he's clearly still fully committed to the bad boy lifestyle.

( orchestra demographics )

The audience was very enthusiastic! which is always nice. We got a bigger cheer than the orchestra or the soloists, which always seems a bit mean when the orchestra play for ninety minutes and we only sing for ten, but it's true that we get the best bits of the piece, so... And now back to work and next weekend is very nearly free, except for (nooooo) my reaudition for choir, the highlight of every two-year period.

petra

[Podfic] There once was a princess from Alderaan (3 words) by pezzax_shenanigans
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Amilyn Holdo/Leia Organa/Rey/Rose Tico
Characters: Amilyn Holdo, Leia Organa, Rey (Star Wars), Rose Tico
Additional Tags: Limericks, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes
Summary:

Podfic of There once was a princess from Alderaan by Petra:
A limerick of sapphic persuasion.

*

Short, speedy, charming as hell.

*****

[Podfic] The man with the katanas (37 words) by Ravin_Pods
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale, Deadpool (Movieverse)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cecil Palmer/Wade Wilson, Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Characters: Cecil Palmer, Wade Wilson
Additional Tags: Double Drabble, Stolen Kiss, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming
Summary:

Cecil's broadcast from your average cancelled Thursday.

Podfic of The man with the katanas by Petra.

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The sound effects really make it, and I adore this podficcer's radio voice.

Current Mood: drowned in moonlight
Current Music: Or, as they say in Limerick

dine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

musesfool

The New York Knicks are your 2026 NBA Champs!!! Jalen Brunson scored half the points the Knicks had! MVP!

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Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Music: Knicks post-game show

petra

The comment read, "I’d gladly read other limerick stories."

At which point I realized that, while my limericks are tagged on AO3, my limerick cycles hadn't been.

So I indexed them for the person, and then I tagged them all with Limerick Cycle, which should shortly be a canonical tag.

Current Mood: i think i'm funny
Current Music: There once was a fan from the Great Lakes

watersword

A friend gave me her old aircon, I lugged it up three flights and got it set up, and ...it turns on and does nothing. I'll take the filter out and clean it tomorrow (UGH) but if that doesn't work, I am out of ideas. (Yes, I looked for the manual online. The troubleshooting tips are not helpful.)

Semi-relatedly, I still need to sort out repairing the oven and the dishwasher, which are both, separately, fucked up. Physical reality is the worst.

marina

1. I seem to have, tragically, read all the alpha/beta/omega fics that exist on AO3 for The Pitt. Or at least, all the fics that are within my reading parameters. Note, this is not ship-specific! I'm ship agnostic when it comes to this show. Anyway, this is a tragedy, I am very sad. It makes me want to write my own fic (other than the ones I've already written) just so there's more of that shit in the world.

2. I wrote a short story recently, for the first time since... many years. Definitely for the first time since 2019, probably more than that. But I sent it in to a local anthology and it got accepted. So it will be published, in print, later this year. I don't know where that puts me in relation to finding my way back to my own voice when it comes to original fiction, but it is happening. And it is nice.

Another thing that's nice is that I wrote this story in about 2 writing sessions, across 2 different days during the same week. Before, short stories used to take me on average 6 months. They were the woooorst. The shortest it ever took me, for a story I needed to submit purely for a technicality and that I knew I could "slack off" on, took about 2 weeks. That story will never see the light of day, and I'm totally OK with that lol.

So, mostly this feels like a huge achievement for me as a writer, that I've done so much practice with my original work that I'm now able to produce something "high quality" enough to get published within such a short time. It didn't start out this way! Despite being a born anxious pessimist reality keeps annoyingly proving to me that things can improve if you invest the time and effort.

3. They're having an actual Heated Rivalry party here this week - by which I mean, a nightclub is hosting a Heated Rivalry night - and I am actually considering going lol. The party starts at 11pm, which is normal! Except I'm 16-23 anymore, which is the age range when I was going to nightclubs in that format lolol It's just so rare to have a fandom event IRL like this, that is a draw. It's also nice that I told some coworkers about it lol. Like I don't know if any of us will come, but it's nice to have coworkers I can share this with.

4. Work is... in kind of a holding pattern. ( work )

5. I've watched so much TV lately, but of course my schedule is currently ruled by The Vampite Lestat. The absolute MASTERPIECE. I'm obsessed with this show and I've read zero fic for this show, which tells you all you need to know about how good the canon is. And I've been reading fic for this universe since I was a teenager!

( spoilers for 3x01 )

petra

Petrova Truthers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (3804 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary (2026), Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ryland Grace & Eva Stratt
Characters: John Oliver, Ryland Grace
Additional Tags: Parody of Satire, late night television, Nobel Prize Nominee, in-universe media
Series: Part 2 of Last Week Tonight parodies by Petra
Summary:

John Oliver discusses people who think that the Sun is not getting dimmer, why everyone else on the planet is #HotForStratt, and what you — yes, you — can do to save the world.

Current Mood: i'm gonna sing the doom song
Current Music: Last Week Tonight theme song

petra

Item the first:

I have about 4K words of the Last Week Tonight: Petrova Truthers draft fanfic. It’s Project Hail Mary book canon but should make plenty of sense to people with only movie canon knowledge. I would love to bounce it off of at least one person who’s read the book before posting.

It’s gen, in the sense that John Oliver is of course hot for the hotties involved in PHM, but it’s unrequited and he doesn’t do anything but flirt shamelessly.

~~Hit me up with an email and I’ll invite you to the Ellipsus doc! It’s ad-free, it’s not the Google hegemony, and it’s pretty darn user-friendly.~~ ETA: The story is here and complete. Enjoy.

*

Items the Second through Sixth:

I offered to write for Three Weeks for Dreamwidth and promptly flaked out, but I got to the prompts today! And then I prompted Katarik for inspiration, and ze wanted Darren Nichols. I love me some Darren Nichols.

*

There was an outlaw in Bolivia (30 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Harry Longabaugh | Sundance Kid/Robert Parker | Butch Cassidy
Characters: Robert Parker | Butch Cassidy, Harry Longabaugh | Sundance Kid
Additional Tags: Limericks, Poetry
Summary:

A limerick for Butch and Sundance.

*

There once was a witch from steep Lancre (32 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Nanny Ogg
Additional Tags: Limericks, Poetry
Summary:

Nanny sings.

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I don't like to brag and I won't 'cause I don't have to (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Rome (TV 2005)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Titus Pullo (fl. 54 BCE) & Lucius Vorenus
Characters: Lucius Vorenus, Titus Pullo (fl. 54 BCE)
Additional Tags: Drabble, Linguistics
Summary:

Lucius Vorenus constantly surprises Titus Pullo.

*

Macbeth dir. D. Nichols, 2026 (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Slings & Arrows
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Darren Nichols & Geoffrey Tennant, Ellen Fanshaw & Geoffrey Tennant
Characters: Geoffrey Tennant, Ellen Fanshaw
Additional Tags: Implied Darren Nichols (Slings & Arrows), References to Macbeth - Shakespeare, Drabble
Summary:

Darren knows a hit trend when he hears it.

*

Josh Lyman and Leo McGarry: Limerick Fight! (195 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The West Wing
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Josh Lyman & Leo McGarry
Characters: Josh Lyman, Leo McGarry
Additional Tags: Limericks, Verbal Sparring, Poetry battle, Poetry
Summary:

Leo and Josh being irritated but fond of each other, in verse.

Current Mood: distracted myself from reality
Current Music: We're dreaming hard, we came so far, now I believe

musesfool

So yesterday, I logged off a call with my boss and the CEO, and my internet went down again, just like it had on Wednesday, at almost exactly the same time (1:30 pm EDT). After some back and forth with Spectrum where they insisted it was a me problem and scheduled a tech visit, I got a message that there was an outage in my area but it would be fixed by 4:30 pm.

Unfortunately, instead of being done with work at 2:30 pm like a usual summer Friday, I had a board call from 3 pm - 4:30 pm (despite all of my written and verbal instructions to Assistant J, many meetings were scheduled on times and days I told him not to schedule things, like the Tuesday after a Monday holiday, or 3 pm on a summer Friday, but I hope this experience of having to work 2 extra hours on a summer Friday stays with him so he never does it again), so I had to be on by phone, because no one from IT ever answered my question about why I couldn't use my phone as a hotspot, the way I used to be able to. Until I was logged in on my phone - then Teams started blowing up with instructions and I was like, sorry, on a board call, can't talk right now. But it should work going forward if necessary. I was looking in the wrong spot (I mean, I was looking under "hotspot" instead of "wifi" so was I really wrong? I don't think so. and yet!), which they kindly told me.

I could have tried to switch in the middle of the call, but figured better to stay on and get all my notes than disconnect and not be able to reconnect. And then at about 4:35, the internet came back! And I still had to wait almost 2 more hours for one of my co-workers to finish editing her slides so I could PDF them and send to the chair for review. And then the slides were too large, even as a reduced-size PDF, to email with all the other materials, so I had to split it into 2 emails. I told my boss they need to slim that deck down, but one of the VPs is insisting on having his slides in there twice since he gave the same presentation at 2 meetings, instead of just saying, "please refer to slides A-K for this presentation." I am desperately hoping the chair dings him for that, but he probably won't. (If it were up to me, I'd have just deleted them but when I asked my boss told me the VP specifically stated he wanted them in there twice. It's just the pre-reads deck that probably nobody reads, so it probably won't matter to anyone else, but I think it is a bad way to manage your meeting materials.)

Anyway! In other news, I mentioned friend L is moving back to ATL next month, so she's coming to hang out here next weekend, so I need to get some of my clutter tucked away before that happens. I ordered some Rubbermaid bins to pile stuff in, which won't look great but will at least free up the chair from all my mixing bowls and cupcake pans. (I know, I know, but sometimes it's just easier to always have stuff out then to put it away and need to pull it out again three days later.)

I'm thinking about what to cook and I might do the white lasagna I like so much - I could send half of it home with her and still have enough leftover for dinner for a couple of days - plus the SK strawberry summer cake. And maybe breakfast tacos on Sunday? And some coffee granita? Idk, I'm still thinking.

*

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: The (Shipped) Gold Standard - Fall Out Boy

glitteryv posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: BTS
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Kim Namjoon | RM, Kim Seokjin, Min Yoongi | SUGA, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung | V, and Jeon Jungkook
Content Notes/Warnings: N/A
Medium: Papercraft
Artist on DW/LJ: N/A
Artist Website/Gallery:

Guzrogal
Why this piece is awesome: Firstly, this is one of the fandom's BESTEST papercraft artists and, they never disappoint. This instance, frex, is abt celebrating 13 YEARS of BTS joy. They've chosen to portray a pic one of the members had posted on Insta.

The LEVEL OF DETAIL in this piece is amazing. This is 2026!BTS, reunited at last (after almost 4 yrs of military service), and ready to get onstage. I can't help but smile whenever I look at this fanart.

Link: our forever seven!

vass

Books
Finished T Kingfisher's Paladin's Faith, which I think was better than any of the preceding books in that series. I liked it a lot, and I hadn't really expected to, since neither of the protagonists had really appealed to me in the earlier books.

Read Isaac Asimov's 1957 short story 'Profession', which some website somewhere linked to as an example of Why LLMs Are Bad, but which read to me as a strikingly good fictional example of the social model of disability in action. Unfortunately, I don't think Asimov knew that was what he was writing, and I think we were supposed to agree with the historian informing the protagonist that he was the one in a gazillian very special snowflake who was smart and original enough to be worthy of the financial burden of individualised education.

Listened to the audiobook (read by Ali Stroker) of disability rights activist Judith Heumann's memoir Being Heumann, cowritten with Kristen Joiner. I'm unfamiliar with Kristen Joiner's work, but the writing style of the memoir made me think ghostwriter. The narrative voice was... well, the association in my head is "90s middle grade novel", but that might say more about me than it does about the authors. It's that in medias res, "Chapter One. Ring, ring! I awoke suddenly to the sound of the telephone. I started to get excited butterflies in my stomach. Who could be calling me at this time of night? I sat up in bed and reached for the receiver. It was 1991, and I was Claudia Kishi, secretary of the Baby-Sitters Club, and I had my own phone in my bedroom." kind of thing.

That said, nothing wrong with writing something in an easily accessible style so long as you're not leaving important parts out. Not knowing Judith Heumann's life well enough to know what I don't know, I can't speak to the facts, but I can say that the word "bullshit" appeared once in it, which wouldn't have happened in the aforementioned 90s middle grade novel. And she packed a solid amount of real, usable information about activism tactics and strategy, and real disability rights history and organising principles and also disability 101 in there, and with a minimum of inspirational glurge or undue optimism about the present political state of America (it was published in 2021, two years before her death.) It's simplistic but not trite.

Plus Judith Heumann did have a genuinely very eventful and interesting career.

Tech
I got my current self-hosting project working: I can now point my phone (or my laptop) at my RasPi and select a song from the disk attached to it and play that song through the phone or laptop's speakers. (The difficulty was that most of the guides I could find assumed I wanted to use my phone to control a RasPi with a speaker attached to it, so I could play music hosted somewhere other than on the RasPi.)

Weather
Wet and cold.

Cats
Dorian experimented with a salchow too, at least once. He also was kind enough to demonstrate for me today that he can reach the one remaining kitchen bench I thought he couldn't get up on. At least this way I know he can do that. Meanwhile, Ash has the salchow locked in, and is now innovating with other Birdie eradication methods, such as a crocodile death roll.

dine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

china_shop

1. Got in my car on Thursday (to take a friend to lunch), and it wouldn't start. *headdesks forever* So I emailed the mechanics, they came and took it away on Friday, disconnected the stereo (it was shorting out the battery), and brought the car back, all for free. I'm assuming my troubles are now over. *knocks on every wooden surface within reach*

(I feel a bit foolish about all this. I bought a new battery a month ago because of repeated issues, and I have a trickle charger. So ot1h, I kind of did the best I could. But otoh, the stereo was making occasional weird thumping noises to the point where I had "call the mechanic" on my to-do list for weeks. I just never actually did because talking to mechanics is awkward. Doh! Anyway.)

2. Blocco 181 is a beautifully filmed Italian show about drug dealers and gangs, with three central characters who quickly get into an m/m/f relationship. The sex is Sense8 levels of explicit, and the ship is so good -- very little of the angst is about its configuration; it's all divided loyalties and "Two households [...] from ancient grudge break to new mutiny," etc. Loving it. Carefully not checking AO3 for fic, because I don't want to be spoiled for season 2.

3. Our @*%$&#$% government is trying to pass some UK-style "definition of a man and a woman" nonsense, so I went to a trans rights rally today. ( My sign. )

4. Duolingo is still eating me alive, ahhhhhhhh. (It's trying to teach me characters for real now; so satisfying.)

How are you? *waves*

the_shoshanna

I haven't been very enthused about making food lately; I've felt behind on things and not interested in planning or making meals, and if I lived alone I'd probably have eaten a lot of peanut butter over the past few days.

But! Today I went for a jog in the morning after several days of being unhappily sedentary, and got pretty much everything prepped for the service I'm helping run on Sunday, and decided that by god I was going to cook some of the things that have been on my to-do list!

Before we went away last month I made a dinner of roasted vegetable ratatouille, and we had enough left over to freeze, and it was just the right amount to top a pizza with, which I did last week. And it was great having pizza topping ready to go, only having to make the crust -- especially in the immediate aftermath of getting home and collapsing; before we left, I prepped and froze several meal bases with that in mind. So today I made a huge batch of ratatouille: five cookie sheets full of chunked eggplant and zucchini and bell pepper and onion, tossed with tomato paste, garlic, herbs, and olive oil, and that massive load of veg all roasted down into just four servings to put in the freezer. Eventually they will go on pizza, or pasta, or gnocchi, or directly into our mouths.

Also today I made a similarly huge pan of sauteed ground turkey and kale, with onion and herbs&spices; it's the base of a tomato ragù, but I froze two servings without the tomato sauce, and the third will get simmered in tomato sauce tonight (which came out of the freezer!) and go over pasta.

I had hoped to also make an apple-cheddar bread, but I'm out of time. (And energy.)

Tomorrow is Pride, and I'll be walking a lot: half an hour to the start and then another half hour home from the end of the march, plus the actual march, plus however much we wander around the post-march festival; I didn't get to see any of it last year because I had to bolt immediately as the march ended, to go perform a wedding that kept me waiting for more than four hours and ended up not even happening. I hope to convince Geoff to go for takeout burgers and fries for dinner tomorrow!

Profile

Keep Hoping Machine Running

June 2026

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Page Summary

conuly in agonyaunt - LW, if you were such a great mom, why does your son hate you?
conuly in agonyaunt - "Judge" John Hodgman slipped up and gave actual advice!
torachan - Daily Happiness
musesfool - but i know what i'm needing and i don't want to waste more time
gelliaclodiana - Oh wait, yesterday was Wednesday
the_shoshanna - things and stuff
dine - the graveyards are full of indispensable men
torachan - Daily Happiness
china_shop - This is cool
rydra_wong - PSA for UK people (or those who don't mind the international shipping cost)
runpunkrun in fancake - Stranger Things: the same boat, by ottermo
runpunkrun - The Faith of Beasts, by James S.A. Corey
runpunkrun in fancake - Theme Reminder: Just Like Canon
omens - yawn
dine - I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else
torachan - Daily Happiness
musesfool - Cinnamon and sugary and softly spoken lies
china_shop - (no subject)
twistedchick - The trip where things weren't there
runpunkrun in fancake - Round 188 Theme Poll
mific in fancake - Heated Rivalry: nobody knows (and nobody gives a damn, either way) by milominderbinder
mific in fanart_recs - Red string of fate by cjbee (SFW)
cimorene - The Odyssey again
dine - the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it
twistedchick - New Substack post
dine - Music Monday
rydra_wong - ... yeah you should probably see this
omens - ha
dine - ice ice baby
petra - Interview with the Vampire 3x2
petra - Recommendation: Outrageous Fortune - Darren Nichols puts on a due South-inspired play
celli - I am spoiled for all other travel
petra - Eight o'clock: TV hour - Project Hail Mary story, gen
musesfool - can the child within my heart rise above?
petra - Kashyyyk Kennel Club-Certified Humans - Star Wars story
wychwood - der herr der ernte geht und sammelt garben uns ein, die starben
petra - Podficced - Star Wars & Deadpool/Welcome to Night Vale
dine - never try to outstubborn a cat
musesfool - he deserved it, he earned it
petra - And then someone said to me
watersword - technology was a mistake
marina - A random post appears
petra - Petrova Truthers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - Project Hail Mary story
petra - Drabbles & Limericks - Butch Cassidy, Discworld, Rome, Slings & Arrows, The West Wing
musesfool - but i'm no good at math and besides, the dollar is down
glitteryv in fanart_recs - BTS: our forever seven! by Guzrogal (SFW)
vass - Things
dine - while history never repeats itself, political patterns do
china_shop - Offline life (wait, does Duolingo count as offline?)
the_shoshanna - cooking

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