davidgillon: Text: You can take a heroic last stand against the forces of darkness. Or you can not die. It's entirely up to you" (Heroic Last Stand)
[personal profile] davidgillon

 I've got an Asda order due for delivery later, but a couple of the substitutions in the confirmation email confused me, What the hell are "slice cheoni" or "pizza pepsal"?

Finally worked out it's a cheese and onion slice (euuww, that's going back), and a pepperoni salami pizza. C'mon, Asda, it's not meant to be an intelligence test!

mific: (palette)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] drawesome
Title: Forgotten Treasure
Artist: [personal profile] mific
Rating: Teen (for the mermaid)
Fandom: original work
Notes: Made in Procreate for the prompts "undersea", "forgotten things", and "map".



full-sized pic under here )


Eva returning from the dead...

Oct. 25th, 2025 12:52 pm
luzula: a Luzula pilosa, or hairy wood-rush (Default)
[personal profile] luzula
Alas, Eva has disappeared today and was probably taken by a fox. : (( Her ducklings are all grown up and I do not think they miss her. I shed some tears, but actually more for Egon than for her, because he keeps looking around for her and not finding her. : ( They always stuck together. But I'm actually glad they're not in monogamous pairs like geese, because the other partner can sometimes die of grief when one of them dies. We have also lost a very good brooder. Why can't the fox take males instead, if it has to take our ducks?? But I'm not surprised it took Eva, because she was the one always wandering off from the rest of the flock, with Egon following after. She was also blind on one eye.

ETA: OMG, EVA IS BACK!!! Where on earth has she been?? She was gone for like five hours, which never happens. Whatever she was doing, I am VERY glad to have her back. <3 <3

I did not sign up for Yuletide, sigh. I am just so busy right now, and it felt like too much pressure. Perhaps I will treat. But I did sign up for the Get Your Words Out challenge to write 15 days in November and 15 in December. I WILL finish that longfic.

assorted tv dramas

Oct. 25th, 2025 12:00 pm
philomytha: closeup of a man holding a teacup (Teacup)
[personal profile] philomytha
Nanny (1990s TV series)
An interwar-into-WW2 TV series following a single main character, Barbara, as she qualifies as a nanny and takes a series of jobs. This was fairly gentle TV to watch, following Barbara from one family and household to another and dealing with a wide variety of family issues ranging from bullying to bereavement and the complicated halfway between upstairs and downstairs nature of her position. Lots of period childcare details, lots of closeup looks at the social setups and status of families who employ nannies. Barbara sometimes stays with a family for only one episode, sometimes for an entire season of the show, which does mean that sometimes you get really involved in the details of particular characters' lives but then never see them again. And as well as her work there's her love life, her need to conceal the fact that she is a divorcee from many of her employers, her relationship with her elderly father, her eventual marriage and subsequent marital difficulties. Plus the outbreak of WW2 and all the social upheaval that involves and Barbara eventually moving on from nannying to a different kind of childcare career. There were some episodes that I wasn't so fond of (the one with the little girl with significant learning disabilities was almost unwatchable for me) but overall it was a very sweet show that deserves a bit more love. Might be a good one for anyone who likes both Call the Midwife and Upstairs Downstairs.


Berlin Station, season 1
A contemporary spy drama based around the American CIA station in Berlin, where a mysterious whistleblower keeps leaking their more unethical behaviour to the press. This was good in many ways, with lots of great Berlin scenery to entertain, but also more than a bit uphill and impenetrable as far as the plot went, and had an awful lot of identical middle-aged white guy spies, all of whom also had substance abuse problems, marital troubles, career troubles or all of the above, so I couldn't reliably tell them apart for the first half of the story. There was a lot of very confusing action and office politicking, and I spent most of the first half with only a vague idea of what plot might be happening. The main investigator character was pretty boring, but the (bi) antihero was a whole lot of fun and he managed to make the investigator a bit more engaging, so I persisted with it and I'm glad I did, because the plot did finally more or less come together, there were two deeply fraught queer romances, and at the end it got hugely iddy and decided to whump the character I particularly wanted whumped, ie the antihero: he was captured, drugged, questioned, forced to relive his worst memories, shot, went on the run with his erstwhile interrogator while shot... the storytellers were going for a bingo card there and I had zero problem with any of this. And if you're going to have a deeply melodramatic showdown scene, Teufelsberg is a pretty damn good site for it. I kind of want to rewatch it now to see if the plot makes more sense the second time around now, though I suspect only parts of it will; a lot was added as window dressing without the writers really caring what happened in it. I don't know why so many spy dramas feel they need to be completely impenetrable but I suspect the influence of Le Carre. It's not that their plots are inherently more complex than others, but you definitely get the sense that the storytellers feel it's important to tell them in the most obscure way possible. Still, I'd like to watch more of it but the other two seasons seem to be harder to get hold of here.


The House of Eliott, season 1-2
A TV series I've been meaning to get around to for ages but hesitated because all I knew about it was that it was about fashion and set in the 1920s. But I have finally got around to it. It started really strongly: our two heroines are Beatrice and Evangeline Eliott, two vaguely upper-class young women whose ultra-controlling father has just died leaving them with no friends, no education and no money, and a distant cousin who wants to be just as overbearing a guardian as their father was. Their one talent is dressmaking, and they try to find ways to use that talent to gain their independence and build lives for themselves. Most of the early episodes as they work their way through this situation were really good, their gradually growing circle of friends, their false starts and mistakes, but gradually the story became less centred on Bea and Evie overcoming adversity together and became more reliant on melodramatic miscommunications, characters making every conceivable bad romantic decision, and people instantly shouting at each other or storming off just as the other was about to tell them some plot-critical piece of information so that things immediately go wrong for lack of the information (this happened multiple times in rapid succession). But I was sufficiently fond of the characters and the nicely done 1920s setting and background that it's fun to watch despite the soapiness, and every so often the intelligent storytelling of the earlier episodes comes back. And of course the costumes are gorgeous. And there are even some period aeroplanes!

Drawtober 2025 Prompt 25. Map

Oct. 25th, 2025 02:42 pm
leecetheartist: A lime green dragon head, with twin horns, and red trim. Very gentle looking, with a couple spirals of smoke from nose. (Default)
[personal profile] leecetheartist posting in [community profile] drawesome
Here be dragons. Except in that one spot. )

Write Every Day: Day 25

Oct. 25th, 2025 06:14 pm
china_shop: New Zealand painting of flax (NZ flax)
[personal profile] china_shop
"Nobody talks about the middle. The part where the excitement fades and progress stalls. Where the work feels endless, the wins feel small, and the finish line isn't even in sight.
The middle part is where most people quit – not because they couldn't do it, but because they thought it wasn't supposed to feel this way.
But this is actually where the growth happens. Push through.
One day, this chapter will be the part of the story you're most proud of."

–Jay Yang, via Instagram

My day 25: A bit of a slow start (partly distracted by the Yuletide letters post), but I managed 1,115 words of a new gift fic. I'm trying to slow down the writing and let it be sensory, rather than racing to get to the finish. Let's see how that goes. (There are so many things I'm "in the middle of" or meaning to write atm that my head feels splintered. I need to get back into the habit of sustained attention and finishing, without making the writing feel rushed.)

Other than that, another walk through trees this afternoon, and a quiet evening ahead.

The tally
Tally )

Day 23: [personal profile] alightbuthappypen, [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] chanter1944, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cmk418, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora

Day 24: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cmk418, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora

When you check in, please say what day(s) you’re checking in for. You can join in or take a break at any time; you’re always welcome back. And please let me know if I’ve missed you.

wreak

Oct. 25th, 2025 01:00 am
[syndicated profile] merriamwebster_feed

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 25, 2025 is:

wreak • \REEK\  • verb

Wreak means “to cause something very harmful or damaging.” It is often used with on or upon.

// The virus wreaked havoc on my laptop.

See the entry >

Examples:

“Ours is a geography of cataclysm: Santa Anas wreak their psychic wrath; the odor of disaster seeps from the street like that sulfurous egg smell of the La Brea Tar Pits.” — John Lopez, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Sept. 2025

Did you know?

In its early days, wreak was synonymous with avenge, a meaning exemplified when Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus proclaims “We will solicit heaven, and move the gods / To send down Justice for to wreak our wrongs.” This sense is now archaic, but the association hasn't been lost: although wreak is today most often paired with havoc, it is also still sometimes paired with words like vengeance and destruction. We humbly suggest you avoid wreaking any of that, however, no matter how badly you may crave your just deserts.



ride_4ever: (RayK sad)
[personal profile] ride_4ever
[personal profile] obi_ki and her son Alan have been two of my Con*Strict friends. I've just today learned of Alan's death. Too sad for me to write more here but you can read about Alan's life and his family and his friends at Alan's obituary.

Vacation and weather

Oct. 24th, 2025 11:52 pm
mxcatmoon: Plague Doctor (Plague Doctor)
[personal profile] mxcatmoon
My vacation starts... now.

It's been pretty chilly nights here in the South, but I've been resisting putting my heat on. Instead, I've been doing some laundry every day to use the dyer. LOL. I'll probably put it on tomorrow. I like to be home the first time, so I can monitor to be sure it's working well. I think I can definitely put away my shorts for the year, now.

I wanted to enjoy Halloweeny stuff on my week off, but instead I'm obsessed with Miami Vice so I probably won't do much if anything to enjoy the holiday.
patrokla: I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards! (Default)
[personal profile] patrokla posting in [community profile] yuletide
Hello from this year's primary mod, Helen! Kat and Livi have largely stepped away this year, but are very kindly helping with some behind the scenes stuff. Most posts and emails will be from me :) This will be my first time doing a lot of the swaps process, so if you notice anything seriously awry, please let me know!

2025 schedule, links, and more! )

Questions? Check out the current FAQ. (Which will be updated this weekend to reflect international shipping issues!) If that doesn't help, feel free to comment here or email us at yuleswaps at gmail dot com!

Subject or object?

Oct. 25th, 2025 02:58 am
igenlode: The pirate sloop 'Horizon' from "Treasures of the Indies" (Default)
[personal profile] igenlode posting in [community profile] fan_writers
A quick conundrum: if someone notices that another character is looking at him, does that make him the *subject* or the *object* of an assessing gaze?

I feel that logically speaking one ought to write "found himself the object of an assessing gaze", but my first instinct was to put "subject"; certainly he was *subjected to* the other character's thoughtful look :-)

Trump would HATE this...

Oct. 24th, 2025 07:55 pm
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher
 
... ad about his oh-so-grand ballroom. (AI generated) We wouldn't want it spread around and shared over multiple platforms, now would we? (StarWatcher winks very obviously.)
 

Post DEADline pinch hits! mwahaha

Oct. 24th, 2025 06:44 pm
pumpkinkingmod: (pic#8274963)
[personal profile] pumpkinkingmod posting in [community profile] trickortreatex
The deadline has passed! Which means you may peruse our lineup of eepy creepy pinch hits below!

To claim, please comment on this post with your AO3 name and the number or name of the pinch hit you would like. Comments are screened. Pinch hits are first-come, first-serve, and if you're the first to claim, you'll receive the assignment to your email.

You don't have to be signed up to Trick or Treat to claim a pinch hit.

These are due October 28, 23:59 UTC.

Thank you!

PH #6 (firsttraintovictoriaville):
  • Roots of Pacha (Video Game), The White Stripes, Pathfinder: Kingmaker (Video Game), Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-reum
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/firsttraintovictoriaville

    PH #13 (plicate):
  • Head On (1998), Set It Off (1996), Succession (TV 2018)
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/plicate

    PH #16 (rubylily):
  • Code Vein (Video Game), 神さまのいない日曜日 | Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi | Sunday Without God (Anime & Manga), Märchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift (Video Game), Octopath Traveler (Video Game), Octopath Traveler II (Video Game), 刀使ノ巫女 | Toji no Miko | Katana Maidens (Anime), void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium (Video Game), Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Video Game)
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/rubylily

    PH #18 (UnhinderedDreams):
  • Crossover Fandom, The Black Dagger Brotherhood (TV), Buffyverse (TV), I Kissed A Vampire (2010), Nocturnal Animals (2016), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/UnhinderedDreams

    PH #26 (Marenke):
  • 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game), Yellowjackets (TV), Something Dark and Holy Series - Emily A. Duncan
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/Marenke

    PH #28 (all_ashes):
  • A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Don Giovanni - Mozart/Da Ponte, House of the Dragon (TV), The Decameron (TV)
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/all_ashes

    PH #31 (bluerosekatie):
  • Bionicle - All Media Types, Tron: Uprising, Tron (Movies), Rockman | Mega Man Classic, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tetsuwan Atom | Astro Boy, Minecraft: Story Mode (Video Game), Metroid Series, Crossover Fandom
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/bluerosekatie

    PH #32 (blueteak):
  • House M.D., Born With Teeth - Adams, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/blueteak

    PH #36 (diplomacy):
  • 永夜星河 | Love Game in Eastern Fantasy (TV), 藏海传 | Legend of Zang Hai (TV), 春花焰 | Kill Me Love Me (TV), 淮水竹亭 | Love in Pavilion (TV), 云襄传 | The Ingenious One (TV), 云之羽 | My Journey to You (TV), Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/diplomacy

    PH #39 (humancorn):
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 魔尊也想知道 - 青色羽翼 | Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know - Cyan Wings, 화산귀환 | Return of the Blossoming Blade (Webcomic), Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, 我和我对家 | I Ship My Rival x Me (Webcomic), Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, 山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021)
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/humancorn

    PH #40 (IncurablePeppermint):
  • Misfits in Toyland (Webcomic), Alien Nine, Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/IncurablePeppermint

    PH #49 (Syksy):
  • Buffyverse (TV), Charité (TV 2017), The Mummy (Movies 1999-2008), Penny Dreadful (TV)
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/Syksy

    PH #50 (terribletressym):
  • True Blood (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Spider-Verse (Sony Animated Movies)
  • https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/trickortreatex2025/user/terribletressym

    Already claimed )
  • sovay: (Claude Rains)
    [personal profile] sovay
    I can't listen to podcasts. It's the same problem as audio commentaries. They are difficult for me to extract information from. I make the occasional effort for friends or colleagues and otherwise read transcripts where available.

    I have just discovered that Bill Nighy has a podcast. Apparently it launched on my birthday. It is the half-hour ill-advised by Bill Nighy. I am as we speak listening to the first episode which I selected at not very random considering there are only three so far:

    Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you are on the planet. Welcome to ill-advised by Bill Nighy—and the clue is in the title, particularly on the first word. The risk of getting to my age is that you can not infrequently be mistaken for somebody who knows what's happening or how to carry on, and you only have to take a quick look around the world to see how that's going, and how my generation are managing the planet, for instance. I mean, you may have picked up a few things along the way which might be of use, like, I don't know, parking, or online shopping, or not taking cocaine, obviously. But other than that, in all the big important things, I remain profoundly in the dark. But I try and keep a straight face when people start acting weird.

    After which he immediately begins to tell the listener about his recent eye operation. It does eventually pertain to the nature of the podcast, but frankly it was such an ideal segue for a programme that bills itself as "a podcast for people who don't get out much and can't handle it when they do . . . a refuge for the clumsy and the awkward . . . an invitation to squander time" that it won me over to treating it as an audio drama whose laconically anxious and slightly acid narrator has a very good fund of self-deprecating stories that wind their way around to some species of advice, defined by Nighy as "not actually making things worse." He sounds unsurprisingly like his interviews. The difficulty of extracting information does not improve just because I like the speaker, but apparently I will now make the occasional effort for actors, too.

    Update: the parking is a lie. Nighy spends most of the introduction to the second episode explaining that he cannot and never could park successfully. "I'd drive miles to find somewhere where you didn't actually have to park, you could just leave the car." Well done, Reginald?
    qian: Tiny pink head of a Katamari character (Default)
    [personal profile] qian
    [personal profile] skygiants did a very kind post about this development, which made me think perhaps I should also do a public post about it on this, the social networking site on which I am probably most active ...

    Anyway, my epistolary novella The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo is being republished by indie press Homeward Books and for the first time, it will be available in hard copy form! With a jazzy new cover featuring art by Kim Nguyen, it is SO cute and chic. Homeward Books are fundraising to put out their first two releases (Jade is the second) and you can pre-order both via the Kickstarter here.

    LBCF: When the Pawn …

    Oct. 24th, 2025 08:09 pm
    [syndicated profile] slacktivist_feed

    Posted by Fred Clark

    Wherein the authors -- and characters -- abandon the conspiracy-thriller subplot with which they have grown bored and turn, instead, to their fantasy of the ultimate politician (multilingual and blonde).

    Yuletide 2025 Signups Closed!

    Oct. 24th, 2025 04:36 pm
    yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
    [personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_admin
    Sign-ups for this year's event are now closed, with 1224 sign-ups. Welcome to everyone who's joined us for Yuletide 2025!

    The Avoid Matching request form will remain open for another three hours for last-minute edits to your requests.

    What will mods do now?
    - Run matching.
    - Contact participants who have no possible recipients, or where there's another matter to discuss.
    - Update you on when assignments are likely to go out.

    If we need to contact you, we'll use the email account associated with your AO3 account. (You can find it at Preferences -> Edit Profile -> Change Email.) We may also use this account later in Yuletide - for example, if your author has a question for you. Please check that you can access this email!

    What should you do now?
    • Check and edit any letter you may have linked in your sign-up (please ensure it's complete by end of October 29th AT THE VERY LATEST, and consider adding it to the app and to the comments at the letters post). (If you didn't link your letter in your sign-up, it's too late now. Trust in your author!)

    • Please check your letter is accessible - log out of the platform where you have posted it and check that you can still view it, or ask a friend to. Tumblr in particular may cause issues with this and may require you to change your settings.

    • Keep quiet about what you've offered: Yuletide is anonymous until reveals.

    • Check that you can access your AO3-linked email.

    • Check out the pinch hit community, [community profile] yuletide_pinch_hits, and sign up through Discord, a feed, or the Google groups mailing list to get immediate alerts for pinch hits. You don't have to be signed up to this year's round of Yuletide to claim a pinch hit.

    • Browse the promo post or even add a promotion.

    • Check that you're happy with your AO3 settings for treats / unassigned gifts - see an older post for more information. If your account is new, treats may be disabled.

    • Look forward to your assignments!


    Congratulations to everyone who posted a story to the 2025 New Year's Resolutions collection, either as requested by mods or just because you wanted to fill a prompt. The collection will be open for roughly one more day, until we send out assignments - if you're planning to post, post soon! The NYR 2026 collection will open on January 1.

    Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app

    Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.

    [syndicated profile] thebloggess_feed

    Posted by thebloggess

    This isn’t a real post. It’s me venting a little and also maybe letting you in on something that might cost you a lot of money if you aren’t aware of it, especially if you are an author. Scammers have been taking advantage of authors forever. They know that your books are your babies andContinue reading "You are being scammed. Don’t fall for it."

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