althea_valara: A mug of hot cocoa with the words "Snowflake Challenge". (snowflake challenge)
[personal profile] althea_valara
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Challenge #11

In your own space, grant someone's wish from Challenge #5. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your own post with the wishes you granted if you feel comfortable doing so.


Okay, I actually granted wishes by commenting on folks' posts, but here's a round-up of the ones I did:

1. [personal profile] catness wanted recs for games featuring cats, so I recced Stray, Sudocats, and Cats Love Boxes, along with a mention of the kitties of Forspoken.

2. [personal profile] falena asked for book recs and voice recordings, so I recced Connie Willis and Courtney Milan, and also linked to my Twitch stream where they can watch videos of me chatting.

3. [personal profile] visualjyushi asked for FFVII icons and writing advice; I commented with both when Challenge 5 first went up.

That's enough for now--I might look through the list again later to see if there's more I can grant.

My own wishlist is here - I've already gotten some great comments but I'll link it again in case folks are feeling generous.

Cherons

Jan. 21st, 2026 03:16 pm
fayanora: qrcode (Default)
[personal profile] fayanora
In the new Star Trek series taking place in the future Disco era, the Cherons -- the "black on one half, white on the other" species -- are back, and people are asking how that can be, if there were only two of them left alive in the TOS episode about them -- both men, and both dead by the end of the original episode.

My thoughts:
1. We know they were space-faring, otherwise the episode would never have happened. So maybe the ones from their world who weren't racist left together to find another world to colonize, and it was just the ones still on the homeworld that killed each other off.
2. Maybe someone thought "hey, let's give their species a second chance" and cloned members of their species from DNA samples left on the surface.
3. Both of the above.

Personally, I prefer the idea that the non-racists got together and were like "fuck these racist assholes, let's go start a colony together, my mirror-image friends."

Though I do have an additional idea along with the "non-racist Cherons started a colony together." What if two other colonies were also made? Members of one race that were just racist enough to not want to be around the other race, but not so racist that they wanted to hunt down the other race, what if they went off and made a second colony? And then the same kind of middle-ground racists from the other race made a third colony for the same reasons?

Yeah, I like that. And maybe have all three colonies be in the Beta Quadrant. The Beta Quadrant doesn't get as much love and attention as the other quadrants in Star Trek.

Brooke and I also speculated a bit about if the two races could interbreed, and what their mixed-race children would look like. At first I was like "Well let's break out the punett squares and figure it out like it was eye color." Then to be funny, I said "checkerboard pattern!" Brooke said "all black or all white" next. Then we settled on "one or the other must be a dominant trait, or else the conflict would never have started." Or at least would never have been that extreme.

[food] parsnip risotto, redux

Jan. 21st, 2026 11:11 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Back in November I made a ridiculously overengineered parsnip risotto, as a way of dipping a toe into my next cookbook project. I said at the time that it was very tasty, and also I was unlikely to ever make it again.

Temporary dietary restrictions. )

Some metaphors

Jan. 21st, 2026 02:58 pm
fayanora: cognitive hazard (cognitive hazard)
[personal profile] fayanora
Using Internet Explorer or Edge to download Chrome is like using a Chevy Nova to bring home an elephant that eats all your food, wrecks all your shit, and sends regular reports about you to the NSA. (Because Chrome is bloatware and spyware combined.)

Using IE or Edge to download Firefox, on the other hand, is like using a Chevy Nova to bring home a complete home entertainment system from Best Buy. One of the non-smart kinds, with Dolby Surround Sound and Bose speakers.

Using IE or Edge to download Brave is like using a Chevy Nova to bring home several Nazi SS officers or ICE agents.

In this essay I will

Jan. 21st, 2026 05:25 pm
jadelennox: Girlyman: Does Nate ever think of anything he doesn't say? (girlyman: nate doesn't think)
[personal profile] jadelennox

Gandalf was a chickenshit with no self-control who could have prevented the massive death toll at Pelennor Fields. Take the ring, kill the baddie, jump into Mount Doom before it has a chance to corrupt you. But nooooo, it's way more fun to have a grey-Maia/fire-Maia punch-up in a bottomless pit in order to emerge in a gleam of backlighting and inspirational music riding a glowing horsey like a tween girl's puberty dreams, than it is to take the ring, zap in, punch the eyeball Maia in his dumb eyeball, and then jump into the lava.

pauraque: drawing of a wolf reading a book with a coffee cup (customer service wolf)
[personal profile] pauraque
This is my second post about As the Earth Dreams, though these are the first stories in the book. I missed the book club meeting when they were discussed, so I'm afraid you'll only be getting my thoughts on them.

I also read the introduction and learned that it offers a one-sentence synopsis for each story, so I guess I can use those when I can't come up with a better one and/or don't understand a story's plot.


"Ravenous, Called Iffy" by Chimedum Ohaegbu

A masseuse attends her mother's fourth funeral, a prelude to her latest resurrection, only to encounter family she's never met. )


"The Hole in the Middle of the World" by Chinelo Onwualu

In a dystopian future, a refugee sells her memories. )


"A Fair Assessment" by Terese Mason Pierre

An antiques appraiser summons spirits to learn more about the objects, and encounters her ancestor. )
beanside: Papa Perpetua V from Ghost (Default)
[personal profile] beanside
It's hump day! We're almost halfway there! We're one day closer to the weekend (which for us looks like it's going to be a weather filled weekend.

We're still about 3-4 days out from the storm, so I don't know how accurate the forecast is yet, but they're talking about upwards of 12", maybe closer to 20?!?! That's a lot of fucking snow. The temp is going to be in the teens, so they're saying probably powdery snow, with a decent amount of wind. I have nowhere to go after the projected start time. I do have to go get my hair cut on Saturday morning, but that should be fine. Then, we have game til 3. I think the snow is supposed to start in the evening, so we might have time to go grab dinner. It's restaurant week, but we haven't made it anywhere. Then we shall hunker down and relax and wait to see how much snow we end up with. It's going to snow all day Sunday, so it's a good time for hot cocoa and maybe some baking. We'll see. I've been low key wanting to make my cinnamon rolls again. I might need to get some more yeast first, though. I need to see how long it's good for. Apparently it's only good for a couple months, so yeah, I'll need another small jar of yeast. I want my rolls to plump up nicely.

Yesterday was busy at work. Mostly answering calls, though I did fill in a few cardiac slots. Apparently the Columbia office is going to start doing Cardiac MRIs, which is awesome. We're booking into April, so all the help they can give would be great. The tricky part is that they're only doing limited diagnoses. There's a list of about 15 things that they will see patients for.

Right now, that's perfectly fine, as I'm the only one filling these in, and I can read and follow directions. But in the coming weeks, they're going to open it to general scheduling. And then, it is going to be a clusterfuck. I like my coworkers, but some of them are dumb as hell. We're going to mess up the template right off the bat. And then there's the fact that some patients schedule through mychart. I have no faith that the system will be able to understand what Columbia wants. In this case, since these are my circus and my monkey, I'm a little bit nervous about how it's going to go. Because if it goes poorly, it's probably mine to fix.

While I wait for my "rather soon" pay bump, I did apply with another dept for a supervisory position. It's in our concierge office, which would probably be a handful. I don't want to leave Radiology, but I do want more money. I figure if I were to get it, I could come back to Radiology and ask for a counter offer. That's what the assistant manager suggested, at least.

We watched the first episode of Heated Rivalry last night. I really enjoyed it. Not sure if I'm going to end up fannish about it, but we'll see!

I'm very much ready for a vacation. I've still got 106 days to go. Though the NY day trip is in 87 days, so that's good. I'm looking forward to both trips. I've not been to a Broadway play in New York in *forever*, so that's exciting. I think our last one was to see Joey Fatone in Rent, probably...15 years ago? Maybe?

I do want to start going more often. I really enjoyed Phantom when we saw it in Baltimore a few months ago. I liked Rent. I want to see Hadestown and maybe Beetlejuice, so that'll be on my list.

And of course, I cannot wait for Alaska. It's going to be so relaxing and fun. I'm looking forward to every part of it, except the flights. I'm not a fan of flying, so that might be a bit sucky. I wonder what we'll be able to see from the plane, though. Will we fly south enough to see the Grand Canyon? Will we be able to see the Rockies? What does the Pacific ocean look like? I've never been further west than Texas.

If the flight goes well, I may consider doing more things in the future. Spur of the moment trips to different places. Like Boston or Toronto. Then, in the fall, we have CONfab in Chicago, which should be fun.

And on that note, I have some CONfab news to post, so I'm going to go forth and do that. Everyone have an amazing Wednesday!

more urban fantasy

Jan. 21st, 2026 06:49 pm
deird1: Illyria, with text "Godking" (Illyria godking)
[personal profile] deird1
I've got a few more drabbles, to match the ones I did earlier.

seven new drabbles )

(no subject)

Jan. 20th, 2026 03:09 pm
ysobel: (Default)
[personal profile] ysobel
Not dead. Just a lot of stuff.

Mom has been moved to the new place (which is also memory care -- she hates being locked in) and when I visited her last week it was not great at all. The place looks nice but mom was insistent that she needed to go back to OldPlace and I could take her. (I declined. Six times.). I need to decide how often I'm visiting her, because I can't do every week.

Wrote a story for Yuletide (pinch hit) and I love the source and I have no energy to write up all the stuff I want to say

Have FOP flareup under my jaw. I can still chew but mouth opening is restricted -- about the size of a slice of bread's thickness -- and chewing is effortful. Have to take smaller bites so there's more chewing needed too. Have started prednisone (ee) so hopefully that will help. No clue if this is permanent or will resolve. At night it feels like I have something heavy resting on my neck; it doesn't interfere with breathing but it's kinda uncomfortable and getting to sleep is harder.

I've been playing a (free with gacha elements) casual life sim game called Heartopia. So cute. I've just adopted a cat (golden spotted, looks like a bengal) and have unlocked the option to adopt a dog but can't decide which one (golden retriever I name Phoebe? Black lab named Yahtzee? Shiba Inu? Corgi? Husky?). Also you can interact with wildlife. So much cuteness! I love.
althea_valara: An icon of Lyse Hext from Final Fantasy XIV. She's got blond hair and is wearing a traditional red dress. (Lyse in Red)
[personal profile] althea_valara
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Challenge #10: Big Mood (Board)

CHOOSE SOMETHING YOU LOVE AND CREATE A MINI MOOD COLLECTION OF THREE (or more) ITEMS THAT EVOKE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT IT. You don’t have to limit yourself to visual media, or collect the items into a special format like a square (though you can if you’d like).

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.


I wasn't quite comfortable doing a mood board, because I didn't know where to get images from for it! Look, I care about artists/photographers/graphic designers; I am not about to do a random web search and steal their art for a frivolous purpose. I did look at Pixabay briefly for free clipart but didn't see anything that was right for the first term I searched on, which was "crying", lol.

Anyway, I ended up making a word cloud of terms and feelings from Final Fantasy XIV. And yes, "sobbing" was one of the first words I put in. There is a certain zone in this game that I sobbed my way through. No really, it took me THREE HOURS to traverse the zone and I cried for every minute of it. That's how powerful the emotions are in this game.

I cannot say enough good things about FFXIV. The story is absolutely amazing and you WILL be affected by it. The gameplay is pretty darn fun, too! I love the game to pieces and thus there was no competition here; I +was+ going to create something related to it.

If you're interested in giving FFXIV a try, let me know! I'd be glad to give pointers to any sprouts (FFXIV term for "new player").

sg-1 fic

Jan. 20th, 2026 01:44 pm
archersangel: for the moments that leave me speachless (no words)
[personal profile] archersangel
any, any, polyglot )


there is a second post now. you can still do fills in the first one, but can not post more prompts.

NOTE: the icon doesn't 100% apply to the post, but it is about daniel & his 23 languages. it is close enough.

We need more characters with glasses

Jan. 20th, 2026 07:18 am
fayanora: Steph book (Steph book)
[personal profile] fayanora
We need more main characters with glasses, especially ones with round frames, so H***y P****r isn't the first character we think of every time someone or something with glasses on pops up.

And honestly, more characters with glasses in general!

In my Ravenstone series, there's over ten characters with glasses:

1. Calandra "Cally" Metaxas (has regular frames/lenses at first, later changes to round frames/lenses)
2. Eris Metaxas
3. Steven Lambert
4. Ceridwen Ravenstone
5. Oleander Ravenstone
6. Delbert Freudenberger
7. Dr. Alicia Roberts (Dalia's therapist)
8. Zabi Rahim
9. Juniper Carmichael (canonically has round frames/lenses, even gets compared to Mirabel from Encanto)
10. Drusilla Morgenstern
11. Elijah Ryder
12. Aisling Tierney (an old woman)
13. One of Aavraak's parents
14. Sarah's dad
15 and 16. Brandon's mom and dad
17+. Some of the teachers

Also, Vedya wears "smart glasses" to recognize faces for her, and Chooli wears smart glasses to transcribe what people say around zem and display it for zem because Chooli is deaf. Oh, and I've got in my notes that Felicia Grimaldi needs glasses, but she hasn't worn them yet in canon.

Yes, magic is a thing in this story, most of the characters listed above are witches. Human magic hasn't really worked out how to fix eyes any better than mundane medicine has, and most people either don't trust faeries to fix their eyes or don't know that's an option.

beanside: Papa Perpetua V from Ghost (Default)
[personal profile] beanside
IT's Tuesday! We made it through Monday!

Mind you, work is probably going to be 300x busier today than yesterday. Though yesterday they kept me busy with callbacks and filling slots. I won't say the day flew by, but they kept me busy enough that it didn't drag, so that's good. I took a few calls, but not many. Most of them were outbound.

After work, I finally cooked those steaks. Denver cut steaks=really fucking good. I did exactly what the internet told me. Sear on high, then move it to the oven for about 15min on 350. It worked out perfectly. It was still juicy and delcious and very tender. IF you have it available, it's a much cheaper alternative to a strip steak.

I managed to drop our heavy ass wooden serving platter onto my foot yesterday. It was propped up and just tipped over onto my instep. It's sore and a bit bruised today, which is annoying. Considering the monster size and the patch of spikes to hold your meat in place, I'm lucky that it was just a bruise. It hurts to walk and I'm sure putting a shoe on to take the doggo out is going to be unpleasant.

I may cook tonight or I may do carryout. I found a new Italian place to try, so I'm tempted. I should do what I planned and make chicken with a piccata pasta. I have to look at our white wine. I don't know if I have any that isn't sweet, so I may need to postpone that til tomorrow night.

Tomorrow, I have nothing planned, though Jess has a game, which is cool. It's nice to be slowly restarting games now that [personal profile] poisontaster is feeling better. Thursday, I have a virtual game night to attend for work.

This weekend, they're talking about a "major snow event" for us. It's still early, so that could change, but right now, I'm seeing anywhere from 5-13". It's supposed to start slow on Saturday morning, and then really pick up towards the afternoon and evening. (I, of course, have an appt to get my hair cut at 10am, so we'll see.) Then, on Sunday, we're due for another few inches. Not looking forward to that. It'll be super pretty, but goddamn that's a lot of snow to clean off the cars.

We're down to 107 days til the cruise, and it's time to start looking at all the shit I want to do in Vancouver and Seattle. I know Seattle we're doing the Space Needle for the BIL and then Pike's Place Market for me, but Vancouver is a little less structured.

I know I want to do the Flyover Candad and Iceland rides at the place in Canada Place. I'd like to see the steam clock do it's hourly thing, Granville Island for lunch, and then maybe a bit of Stanley Park. We're going to get tickets to the hop on hop off bus, which will take us around town. Night one, we're eating at the ARC Restaurant, which is right across the street from our hotel.

Breakfasts will be in the club room. They also serve snacks and nightly hors d'oeuvres, so that could also be good. Depending on how tired I am, those may be dinner.

It's only one half day in Seattle and a full day in Vancouver, so it's not much time. We're coming in on the 7th, early and will have 4 hours in Seattle, then up to Vancouver we shall go. The next day, we can explore Vancouver, and then on the 9th, the ship sails.

I set the schedule according to my internal clock, which means getting up early a lot. For the flight to Seattle, we need to leave at 4:30am to get to the airport. To get on the boat, I'm figuring no later than 8am. We need to get breakfast, have the porters pick up our luggage, with a port arrival time around 11:30, so I'd like to leave about 10:30 to have time to get down there and through the maze of the check in and customs. Since we're going on a cruise that goes to the US, we need to clear American customs to get on the boat.

Then, it'l be thermal spas and mimosa's for the rest of the week.

And now, sad that I sill have 107 days until said 4:30am departure, it's time to get myself together. Everyone have an excellent Tuesday!

Ow

Jan. 19th, 2026 09:54 pm
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
Two canes can be better than one.

I have a battery of tests aimed at me for the leg weakness, in case it's neurological.

And my primary care is leaving (again) within a few months. They said last time that I would be assigned to someone in the same practice. That was inaccurate. They're saying it again this time, so I will prepare for battle.

Cats are nice and warm, and extraordinarily heavy on the knees.

The Daily Spell (2025)

Jan. 19th, 2026 07:42 pm
pauraque: Guybrush writing in his journal adrift on the sea in a bumper car (monkey island adrift)
[personal profile] pauraque
letter tiles in columns drop into a lower grid to spell out words in a newspaper headline

In this daily puzzle game, the goal is to spell out the words in a newspaper headline by choosing letters to drop down from the columns above. The headline starts blank, so you have to figure it out based on possible English words, syntax, and context. (E.g. If there's a one-letter word and the possible letters you can drop are A, G, and X, well...) When you've filled in the headline you get to read a short news article from the cozy fantasy realm of Yliad, where arcane scribes study at rival magic schools. Each week's puzzles form a story arc, and the arcs gradually piece together the worldbuilding.

I saw this game linked in the Clues By Sam newsletter, and I've added it to my morning round of daily puzzles. I find it pretty easy, but word puzzles are definitely more in my wheelhouse than logic puzzles, and there's nothing wrong with a quick warm-up before your brain is fully in gear. The little stories are on the cutesy side, so, you know, don't expect epic tales of blood and sacrifice or anything. The narrative just adds some interest and flavor to your standard drop-quote puzzle. And it's queer-inclusive so that's a plus!

The Daily Spell is free to play in your browser. ✨

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