April 8th, 2026
angrboda: A primula flower (Marine Blue). Petals are blue, center is yellow. (Primula)
posted by [personal profile] angrboda at 07:41am on 08/04/2026
For Christmas Husband gave me a nice Critical Role notebook as 'something to go with', so I have been vaguely pondering what to use it for. I have now decided to have a go at making it a garden journal.

I have no idea how one does that. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm basically just putting stuff in there and seeing where it goes. I don't even know how long I'll be able to keep it up,* but we're having a go anyway. So far I've put in a list of what's in the different beds off the top of my head, I've put a todo list of tasks I'd like to get done during the spring (lol!),** and I've put in a number of ideas for how I would like to do the terrace pots and a list of other plants I might like to try and plant.

It occurs to me that it might also come in handy when we go to the garden center because I can take it with me and look up what I was considering, which feels far more attractive than a note on my phone, and I could potentially also put in things that I saw at the garden center that might be interesting later on, especially if I remember to also bring a pencil.***

This decision coincides, or is probably partially born from, the effort Husband is currently making to get through a vast stack of garden magazines that have piled up. We tried putting them in a specific place, so that they weren't always lying around on the dining table. This worked splendidly for me because it was more tidy, and not at all for him because the magazines tended to just accumulate and he'd never actually get around to looking in them. So now the magazine storage situation is a bit unclear. Anyway, he's making his way through them, tearing out the pages he wants a closer look at, and I got trough after him and do the same.

On one page, I was mainly interested in a small bit in the bottom third, so in a fit of inspiration I cut it out and glued it into my journal. I had a bit of leftover hobby glue that was still good, so I used that. I discovered that the paper is really too thin for this to be an ideal solution, but on the other hand, I'm kind of enjoying the tactile way the paper has gone a bit crinkly now where it has dried. Might acquire more unsuitable glue and do it again.

---

*But it is giving me some opportunity to use highlighters. I have far too many highlighters. But they come in so many colours, and you obviously have to have one in each colour. I mean, obviously!
**If I do a third of them, I'll call it a success.
***Not a pen. A pencil. And definitely not a mechanical one. An old fashioned one that you have to sharpen. I've been favouring them for years now. I think it has something to do how it feels to write with it.
posted by [syndicated profile] apod_feed at 04:51am on 08/04/2026
starandrea: (Default)
I know some people (especially in the west) have lots of legitimate concerns about LLM as AI, and many of them will not be as amused as I am by the ways in which Google's AI results present themselves in response to partial searches.

Nonetheless, I smiled at the return when I attempted to verify Old Dominion as the performer of the song "Snapback." I typed the opening lyrics "strictly out of curiosity" into google and accepted the suggestion "strictly out of curiosity what would happen"

Google's AI overview replied, "Based on the lyrics to 'Snapback' by Old Dominion, if you got with them, they would likely kiss you, skip rocks, and start something new together that night. They would focus on you in a snapback, T-shirt, and Ray-Bans, taking midnight selfies and making memories."

My point is, I'm not sure today's weather was strictly necessary.

picture )
cornerofmadness: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] cornerofmadness at 11:31pm on 07/04/2026 under , ,
Tuesday/Thursday are my long days and today was very long. It's only a few weeks until classes are over and my research students are spinning around. Turns out the new incubators we have on loan for micro suck it. They have SUCH a strong fan it's trying out the agar to the point of uselessness. Had to spend time googling can we turn the fan down (no) what else we can do (put distilled water in there to help humidify it) these seems like a design flaw.

One my special agars went missing. Argh. Found a different special agar that we can use thankfully.

I never get a moment to work on my exam for Thursday.

Students showed up. 'Dr. Evans there is a BAT in the study room.' (Funny part this is the same student who found the bat in the sink last time) So I get a wild life prof we suit up in mammal handling gloves but I don't do much. My climbing on chairs days are over. We get this adorable eastern brown bat safely back outside. Meanwhile these students were in this room for 2 hours with this bat just chilling asleep on the wall and they never noticed. (we need observational skills in health care, just saying).

After work, I race home, change, go out to eat because I'm going to an art thing at the library at 6. I slide in and there we have black canvases. We're making 'galaxies.' the pro art is faint swirls of purple/blue/pinks with white stars.

Well there wasn't much instruction other than go dark to light on the colors purple to blue to teal to pink and daub them on the canvas with the sponge with no instruction on how to get the swirls I kept waiting for it. Next thing I knew here's the white, splatter on your stars. Um....HOW do I make it look like a night sky? By now it's too late to swirl, it's dry. So I didn't get a galaxy but it looks like a 1980s era party pattern. I do rather like it. I think it's rather pretty but it did fail the assignment



Also I painted it all left handed.

I race home (since this was SHORT) I got the exam mostly done before the writer's virtual meet up happened. I blasted out about 800 words on a halloween short story and about 1500 words on the novel. I really need to get this moving because I don't want it to be overly long. It's weird suspense/mystery they want you to stick near 80K. Fantasy is longer which is good because the 80s novel is over 100K and now it's like add description. Where? What do I lose of the plot for this? That's hard. Writing's hard.
Mood:: 'accomplished' accomplished
Music:: Evil Lives Here
queervanilla: (Default)
adrian_turtle: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] adrian_turtle at 11:37pm on 07/04/2026
A few days ago I heard someone talk about how the warmth of April was so hopeful yet so fragile. This morning we had snow, if only for a few minutes. I hope this will be the last Frost for a while.

You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still
You're one month on in the middle of May
But if you so much as dare to speak
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch
A wind comes down from a frozen peak
And you're two months back in the middle of March.
southernmedicine: (bode blaster)
Some positivity.

+ I'm feeling a lot better. For the past couple of weeks, I would cry at least once a day, usually at work. Hours a day, tears sliding silently down my face while I worked on my clients. These past couple of days, no crying at all. My mind has not been crowded with nasty thoughts, like a demon whispering to me trying to weaken me so it could possess me.

+ Gabe, our DnD group's DM and also Blair's brother-in-law, contacted me directly (!) which is pretty cool because while we get along well, we don't really talk much directly to each other when we're not playing DnD. He asked me how much a massage costs at my work, and I offered to do it for him direct, at home with my own table, for cheaper instead. So I've got an appointment with him this week.

+ It was incredibly stressful and time consuming, but I did my taxes (I'm getting money back this year instead of having to pay!) and I secured some new health insurance for myself. It's affordable, and honestly not that great, but it sure is something.

+ I've been sitting here in the lab with Blair, on her college campus, keeping her company while she works on a project. I've burned through the entire season of Wonder Man, which I hadn't even heard about until I saw it by chance listed on the streaming website I use. It's really good, and I really like it.

+ Things are improving a little between Blair and I. She's not exactly being as affectionate as I was getting used to, but after a huge break-down in front of her the other night (and her being very understanding and supportive of my depressive episode) we at least feel like we're connecting a little better. I guess that's the thing about rock bottom, is that once you're there, the only way to go is up.

+ Voted today!
Mood:: 'hopeful' hopeful
lassarina: Alistair, from Dragon Age, with quirky eyebrow (Alistair O RLY)
sheliak: Scott Summers, wearing the most amazing shirt in the history of comics. (octopus shirt)
This is a backdated entry because I decided I minded not having all my icons on my own journal. (Still need to fix hosting...)

These icons were made in 2018 for [community profile] girlgenius_fanworks.


sheliak: Storm from the X-Men comics, drinking tea with her cape wrapped around her. (storm: tea)
Very belated crosspost which I am backdating! (It felt weird to not have these on my own journal. In 2026. It felt weird then when I was going through and adding year tags to my icons.)

In my efforts to make a comm icon, I got.... carried away. The results (below) are free to anyone who happens to want one.

Icons )

If you'd like an icon of an X-character or characters, let me know and I'll see what I can do! (Just specify if you want one without or without text, or with a particular background color, or if you have a particular issue in mind. And if you want a different series logo it may take a bit longer.)

Banners )
hannah: (Dar Williams - skadi)
posted by [personal profile] hannah at 08:54pm on 07/04/2026
As I said I would, I'm now starting Rome. I figure it's two seasons, I can breeze through it easily enough before moving onto other TV shows or another few movies.

Two minutes in, and I'm starting to suspect I'm going to need a few breaks to come up for air on account of the sensation of getting present-day news through prescient art.
Mood:: 'indescribable' indescribable
Music:: nothing now
olivermoss: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] olivermoss at 04:58pm on 07/04/2026 under


Wider shot:



Got another fill:

(I was able to clock where this one was and this is why I went out to Division today.)

more )
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
posted by [personal profile] beatrice_otter at 02:35pm on 07/04/2026 under
I use the same name everywhere so I am [personal profile] beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.

I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for a long time and am usually very happy with my gifts.

The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.

I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.

General Likes and Dislikes )

Crossovers )

Rivers of London )

SWOT )

DS9 )

Moon Knight )

Enterprise )

TNG )

TOS )

Voyager )

trobadora: (Black-Cloaked Envoy)
If you signed up for this year's 520 Day Reverse Exchange, you should now have received your assignment email. (If not, check your spam folder!)

What to do next:
  1. Reply to your assignment email now, so we know you've received it. Please don't change the subject line.

  2. If you have any concerns about your assignment, let us know ASAP by replying to the email. (Again, please don't change the subject line!)

  3. Create a fanwork for your assignment. Make sure it fits your recipient's requested canon(s), media, pairing(s) or character(s), and rating(s), and doesn't include anything they've said they don't want. Remember that specific scenarios and prompts are optional. Have fun!

  4. Post your completed fanwork to the AO3 collection by 11:59PM UTC Wednesday 13th May! (What time is that for me?).
    • On the AO3 collection page, click "Post to Collection" at the top of the page.

    • Enter your recipient's AO3 name under "Gift this work to".

    • Please keep any creator's notes or other commentary positive.
  5. Keep your assignment secret! If you need to host fanart or podfic on a different site, make sure it's not visible/searchable on that site before reveals on 20th May.

  6. To make edits to your work after posting, you can access it via your AO3 Statistics page.

  7. If something comes up that means you can't complete your assignment by the deadline, please contact us ASAP so we can discuss an extension or, if necessary, find a pinch-hitter.

All entries will go live on Wednesday 20th May (520 Day). Please keep your assignment a secret until then!

General info, schedule and minimum requirements

We hope you enjoy creating for your assignment, and we can't wait to see what you come up with! *\o/*
thawrecka: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] thawrecka at 08:34am on 08/04/2026 under ,
Glitter (196 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jennifer's Body (2009)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jennifer Check/Anita "Needy" Lesnicki
Characters: Jennifer Check, Anita "Needy" Lesnicki
Additional Tags: Resurrection, Short, Nonnies Made Me Do It
Summary:

The 17th time Jennifer resurrects and finds Needy all over again...



First posted here on FFA.
April 7th, 2026
musesfool: Daisy Ridley as Rey with lightsaber (you were not mine to save)
Today's poem:

An Epistemology of Planets
by Annie Dillard

Mercury

A brook runs on all night;
a book, shut,
still tells itself a story.
So you, out of thought,
you, forgotten Mercury,
still spin and spend the circles of your fury.

Venus

Evenings, after I've eaten
dessert, you rise, you wear
your barest, shining skin.

Later, mornings, you up
and do it again.

Do you think I've forgotten so soon?

Earth

Planets, alone, and grieving,
look who you're running with:
look at our baby-blue planet the earth
and all of the people, waving.

Mars

Mars keeps its dignity,
its networks of cool.
Certain photographs reveal
an air of longing, still.

Jupiter

Swings, spattered
by shadows of Jovian moons:
Io, Europa, Callisto,
the giant, Ganymede.
Companionable, each

nonetheless keeps

the perfect arc of his distance.

Saturn

         It is to you I come in my dream,
you, dancing alone in the dark, light-heart,
       asleep inside your spinning hat!

Uranus

Uranus, cold face,
old rock and ice,
remembers a song
and sings it once
round the dark, twice.

Neptune

Banished, Neptune,
luminous, green,
sleeps, and dreams of the sun.
Awake, he holds her round
as tight as he can.

Pluto

Spends twenty years
wandering in Cancer,
that old celestial
crab. Takes years to touch
carapace, jointed foot
on jointed leg; nudges
mandibles, roving, awed,
in every season.
                          Getting to know
you, still, I find you clear-eyed,
cloistered, clawed.

***
Mood:: coughing
Music:: Mets vs Dbacks on tv
starandrea: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] starandrea at 05:47pm on 07/04/2026 under
Oh, right. That was what happened when I wrote Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue; it's coming back to me.

That is just 2000 words of soap opera, right there.

“I’m sorry,” Lan Huan says, and it’s more bitingly sarcastic than he’s been in years. “What did you want me to think? I slept with you and you decided to die. What exactly am I supposed to take from that?”

(Also it's chapter 28/30 in a story that's 14th in a million-word series, so I'm not claiming it makes sense out of context. But I really enjoyed rereading it.)
mrkinch: Erik holding fieldglasses in "Russia" (bins)
posted by [personal profile] mrkinch at 02:07pm on 07/04/2026 under , ,
It was cold thing morning, especially the wind. I regretted not a single one of my five layers plus jacket and windbreaker, though I could shed the last two and a Henley while I sat in the dip in late morning. Still no Western Warbling Vireo or Black-headed Grosbeak though at least the latter should arrive eventually. What has arrived are European Starlings.:( Not many, think, and the strangest thing was a flyover of an apparently standard, blue and black Rock Pigeon. I had that white escapee a while back but never before a city pigeon. I saw the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in the same general area, and the White-crowned Sparrow was still singing near the parking lot; He's been there a month, now. But the most fun were the Warblers; lots of Orange-crowns, a couple of Wilson's, and in the willows at the corner, singing Townsend's and Yellow-rumped. All that's missing is McGillivray's! The list: )

I rarely actually want to go home, after, but my back gets tired after three or four hours. Today I parked briefly along Shasta Road and sure enough, I heard a Western Warbling Vireo. This is a place where I used to hear one every Spring/Summer as I drove by. It's been a couple of years, I think, but apparently it's still an attractive spot.
littlefics: Three miniature books standing on an open normal-sized book. (Default)
posted by [personal profile] littlefics at 05:36pm on 07/04/2026 under ,
Hope you're as excited as we are about the signups rolling in so far! You still have the rest of the week to submit and/or edit your signup.

We wanted to share three reminders related to signups:
  • Recall that you cannot exclude single drabbles from your offers or requests. You are still welcome to request or offer the other drabble types, you just can't leave 100-word drabbles out entirely from your signup.
    • If you don't include single drabbles in your signup, we will reach out to you via the email associated with your AO3 account. Should we fail to hear from you by the end of the grace period (12 hours after signups close), we will unfortunately have to remove your signup.
  • In this exchange, matching is OR matching. That means you will match on at minimum one character. While it's certainly possible your assigned writer will write about multiple requested characters, or even a particular ship, it's not guaranteed. Keep this in mind as you prep your signup and prompts!
  • Due to modly error, you cannot select "Any" for Drabble Types. Instead, you'll have to manually select all of them. This won't impact matching at all, but apologies for the extra clicking required!

If you have further questions that aren't answered in the Guidelines or the Signups Post, get in touch.
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
posted by [personal profile] redbird at 05:23pm on 07/04/2026 under

There were seven posts in the community in the last two months.

On February 3, [personal profile] rydra_wong posted a link to Naomi Kritzer's Bluesky thread about ways to donate and otherwise help people in Minneapolis, Springfield, OH, or wherever else ICE invades

On February 14, [personal profile] petra posted about public comments about gender-affirming care for minors

On February 20, [personal profile] lyr posted about [reporting GoFundMe pages that help the murderers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti]{https://thisfinecrew.dreamwidth.org/324071.html)

On February 28, [profile] chestnutpod posted about logging in Oregon's old growth forests

On March 7, [personal profile] sathari posted about a global women's general strike

On March 9, [personal profile] petra posted about mandatory conversion therapy for trans immates

On March 11, [personal profile] flamingsword posted about protecting LGBTQ kids from a proposed change in HHS policy

Please use this poll, or leave a comment, to let us know what you’ve been up to, or are planning.

Poll #34452 April check-in poll
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9


In the last couple of months, I...

View Answers

called one or both of my senators
3 (33.3%)

called my member of Congress
2 (22.2%)

called my governor
1 (11.1%)

called my mayor, state representative, or other local official
1 (11.1%)

voted
3 (33.3%)

did get-out-the-vote work, such as postcarding or phone banking
2 (22.2%)

sent a postcard/letter/email/fax to a government official or agency
4 (44.4%)

went to a protest
4 (44.4%)

attended an in-person activist group
2 (22.2%)

went to a town hall
1 (11.1%)

participated in phone or online training
0 (0.0%)

participated in community mutual aid
2 (22.2%)

donated money to a cause
5 (55.6%)

worked for a campaign
0 (0.0%)

did text banking or phone banking
0 (0.0%)

took care of myself
5 (55.6%)

not a US citizen or resident, but worked in solidarity in my community
0 (0.0%)

committed to action in the current month
1 (11.1%)

did something else--tell us in comments
0 (0.0%)

As usual, you can comment on the pinned post or DM me if you want a tag added or other help with the community.

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