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Situation not Normal . . .

Some of you might have heard about the chemical tank that is about to explode or leak gallons of toxic goo. Well, the cut-off is about four blocks from us. Some neighbors have bailed, but most of us are indoors, windows shut. We have filters going and masks at hand in case the thing blows--the air is fine otherwise, so I open up the house and stand in the doorway to air things out every so often. Being closed in, no walks, means I'm getting a lot of stuff done.

I lost my sweet little dog a few days ago. I am missing her every time I turn around and she is not a shadow at my heels, or pressing her warm little body against my side or nudging me for scratches or to fill her puzzles so she can work them.

Getting ready to travel east in a few days, trying to wrangle hotel res being one of my chores.

Much reading and writing.

Closing comments--send any good wishes by mental telepathy!

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Spring 1980 Destinies (Destinies, volume 7) edited by Jim Baen

Another foray into a long cancelled, fondly remembered magazine of my teen years.

Spring 1980 Destinies (Destinies, volume 7) edited by Jim Baen

Maybe it's just me

but you shouldn't ignore somebody who's outside at 11:30pm, sobbing on the ground in the rain.

And indeed I did not ignore her, but everybody else was studiously looking the other way. (She declared that she was fine and did not need me to call anybody. I don't know if I believe that she was fine, but she got up and walked to the bus stop and didn't stagger as she did so, so okay. Also, I saw as she stood that her phone was clearly working, so she really didn't need me to call anybody.)

Current Mood: grateful

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Happy Birthday Dimash <3

He is 32 today. ^_^ Which seems like the perfect opportunity to post something I have been meaning to post ever since the Winter Olympics...

Under a cut, cause I think it'll get long. <3

( So, did you know that the winner of the men's Figure Skating is from Kazakhstan? )

~

In more recent news, Dimash, who is UN Migration Goodwill Ambassador, this week visited Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee camp. Dimash News has several pieces on his, I will just link to this one:

Cultural Heritage and Music: Dimash Meets Rohingya Community Musicians in Cox’s Bazar

Dimash also posted a message on Instagram, which is really sweet. LOTS of kids.

You can donate here. <3

~

Finally, then last last year, 14 young Virtuosos from The Virtuosos Talent Show, adapted Dimash's song 'Omir' for orchestra, and offered this recording as 'a heartfelt birthday gift and tribute to Dimash Qudaibergen’s artistry, inspiration, and the incredible community of Dears around the world'.

('Virtuosos is a classical music talent show with a unique format, focusing on discovering young classical talent and then giving the talented youngsters a chance to develop and progress in a way that few others have'. Dimash has been a judge on the show for the last few years, he is incredibly supportive of young talent and has even set up a children's music competition in Kazakhstan.)

Watch on YouTube

~

There are so many terrible things happening in the world, so it is good to remember that there are also good and talented people out there, helping others and creating beauty. ❤️🎶

Dimash Masterpost

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Bora Chung: The Midnight Timetable (22 May 2026, Carriageworks, Sydney Writers Festival)

I've been procrastinating on posting my theatre and concert write-ups but this one is skipping the queue. I love Chung's short stories, they're very eerie and strange and often quite moving. I would recommend Cursed Bunny, Your Utopia, and Midnight Timetable.

Bora Chung appeared at Sydney Writers Festival in conversation with Siang Lu, author of Ghost Cities. This was a good discussion, featuring good banter between two friends who became acquainted at Ubud, Adelaide and Sydney Writers Festivals. Chung was quite self-deprecating and funny. She is multi-lingual, being fluent in English and a teacher and translator of Russian and Polish.

These notes are paraphrased and may contain inaccuracies!

( Read more... )

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Strange Pictures by Uketsu

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

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Heck Yeah, I Love Violence.

A roundup of recent ficlets I've written in response to requests on Tumblr! And only two of them are for The Goes Wrong Show! See, I'm still capable of writing about other things.

( The Goes Wrong Show, Chris and Robert, violence, 300 words. )

( The Goes Wrong Show, Dennis and Chris, name confusion, 230 words. )

( The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Ashley and Julia, makeup, 270 words. )

( Final Fantasy VIII, Rinoa and Seifer, postgame, 420 words. )

( Death Note, Light and L, bodyswap, 230 words. )

If you have any ficlet requests of your own, let me know; they'd be very welcome! It's too hot to leave the house at the moment, so I'm looking for creative ways to pass the time indoors.

Alternatively, let me know if there's any particular topic you'd like to see me cover on one of my websites! The websites in question are for Final Fantasy VIII, Silent Hill 2, Death Note, Danganronpa and The Goes Wrong Show.

I... suppose there's nothing preventing you from saying, 'I'd like to see your websites cover your opinion on Max and Chloe's relationship in Life Is Strange,' but there's no obvious place on my websites to put that, so in that case I might just respond to your comment with my Max and Chloe thoughts.

(no subject)

Happy birthday,

catlinyemaker,

heleninwales and

ruudboy!

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Poetry recs

Two recs.

With the palm of your hand by

kerk_hiraeth.
200 words, Inspired by Korean GL Characters (dramas; movies, short films)

Posted as fic, but sits on the border between prose and poetry. Beautiful and melancholic. <3

~

Don't You Dare by

annabeth_roses
Eleventh Doctor/River Song. | angst. | 252 words.

Link goes to DW, you can find it on AO3 here.

Go wallow in Doctor/River feels. <3

Current Mood: okay

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In Which It Is Sunday

It is 48&#!76; this morning and supposed to get up to 66°. It's also supposed to maybe rain? I am debating the possibility of going out to mow. I don't want to mow; I hate mowing. So I'm kind of hoping for rain, so I don't have to. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, but it's also supposed to be much, much warmer, so I don't want to mow tomorrow, either.

Yesterday, it rained for a good chunk of the day. I went out and got groceries early, and, because I felt like something nice for breakfast, went across town to the Other Grocery Store, because they have a better bakery. I over-indulged, because of course I did. I came home with a bag full of baked goods. Mmmmm, carbs.

After that, though, I was at a bit of a loss, because my next task should have been laundry, but it was already done. I should then have moved on to some other chore, but...I did not. I sat down at my desk and indulged in some of the fresh baked goods, then read fic or watched YouTube videos until it was nearly time for Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, then discovered that it wasn't playing yesterday, which was annoying. So I went to the website and listened to a couple of older episodes while working on the June pages in my journal. I thought a couple of them were really cute and a couple of them were okay. They involve pastel backgrounds and some black cat stickers that I am pretty sure I got from The Washi Tape Shop. It took me two hours to get through that, but that was partly because the first one took extra time because I colored the background instead of using stickers or papers or washi tape. I wised up for the second one, though, and used washi tape. I took some photos, mostly because I really was proud of how well the first page matched my vision for it.

By that time, Parker was making a nuisance of himself, so I let him bully me to the couch for a nap. Tegan joined us and we made one big, snoozy pile. Naps are your friend.

Speaking of napping and cats, I caught Tegan lounging in one of the soft cavey things yesterday. Just when I think I know her....

Oh, and she has eaten in the kitchen the last couple of days, even with Parker shoving his head into the same bowl.

* insert shrug emoticon here *

I read last night (I am now rereading Platform Decay), then did some writing, then read some more.

So...I want to say that I accomplished nothing yesterday, but that's not quite true. I made art (sort of), I caught up on my favorite radio program, I read, and I wrote. And I served as the warm base for a kitty nap, which is, after all, my purpose in life. Other than the ability to open cans for them, of course.

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blake's 7

30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 24

~~Day 24: Funniest moment~~
Day 24: Funniest moment or character

Vila is the funniest character, no contest, but Avon has flashes of the wittiest and most cutting snark, especially in the first two seasons, maybe because Blake was a frequent target.

All the original questions are on Tumblr.

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using up yarn

Cursed sweater 3 (triplet sweater 3 2025) update

The knitting is going fine and the sweater looks good. I've knitted 35 cm so far.

The pattern is a 90s Drops design pattern with an inverted triangle shape to make the shoulders wider than the hem (not doing that) knitted in pieces and seamed (like basically all mainstream patterns of that era, but not doing that) (I will seam the shoulders because those are functional seams that help keep the sweater in place and prevent it stretching out of shape, but there's no benefit to side seams on an oversized simple pullover, or seams where the sleeves attach ever) with set-in sleeves (not doing that)... and I already ruined the bottom hem by following the directions to start with three rows of reverse stockinette between the ribbing and the body, and will have to unknit that part backwards and redo it upside down after I finish the body.

But overall I guess it's going well. Very quick and easy to knit.

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Mutual Rapport - ART/Murderbot Prompt Party

Title: Mutual Rapport: an ARTMB fanworks event
Links: Tumblr | AO3 Collection | Rules & FAQ | Sign up to Create

Schedule/Timeline
Podficcer sign-up date/s: Open now until 26 June
Podfic submission date/s: Now until 26 June
Collection reveals: 10 July

Podficcer Requirements
Minimum: 1,500 word podficced fic
Maximum: None

Additional Info
After signing up, the mods will send you a list of prompts submitted to the event (which will always remain private) that correspond to your offers. You offer to create for three of them, then are assigned one officially. After fulfilling your first assigned prompt, you are free to fulfil more!

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Zolita - Holy

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television

What a week. collapses in exhaustion

++ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has come to its end, ending The Late Show's thirty-three year run on the air, with a grand send off and a massive "fuck you" to CBS for bending the knee to censorship. It really does suck that it has come to this, a clown in office who uses bullying tactics and threats for anyone who disagrees with him, and it's unfortunate that it's working. On the plus side though, Stephen gave it his all and he'll go off to do better things, not just with his upcoming LOTR movie project but just in general. After all, censorship doesn't stop people from speaking out.

++ Spartacus: House of Ashur was called by STARZ.

Truthfully, as much as I didn't watch this due to not caring about the character of Ashur and initially questioned the decision to bring back his character for his own little spin-off, this is still a bummer to learn. I do think the direction of the show being an alternate reality spin-off is interesting, and if there was a plan on this becoming an anthology kind of a show exploring different characters from the main series being in their own "what if?" kind of timeline where events happened differently then that would've been awesome. Sadly, we'll never know. Nevertheless, the main series is still awesome and I love revisiting it.

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Dungeon Crawler Carl reread

I have read book 8 (the new one) and loved it, but I haven't posted about it for reasons of general mental overwhelm as mentioned in the last post. (There was a lot in that book!) I decided to reread the first few chapters of book 1 for the early character intros, and uhhhhh I've now reread my way through to fairly late in book 3.

Random thoughts about these early books below, including potential spoilers for the whole series here and in comments.

( In no particular order )

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"there's no wifi in the garden, but the connections are better"

Today's plant sale was delightful, impressive, and funny; got three things I've been looking for for years and three neat new finds. Also there were lots of humorous signs about plants and gardening.

Planted nothing, did not finish brick maple tree. Took dog to park, discovered new secret trail to the top of the hill, recorded a whole hour of speaking for the output challenge. Amazing how doing things makes them easier. Definitely another vote for "anything worth doing is worth doing badly."

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recs

fic rec: Saving Grace

I have just spent the whole evening reading Saving Grace, a bookverse retelling of Project Hail Mary (bookverse) from Rocky's POV. It's well done, especially in how it shows Grace as an alien species. Heartily recommend.

Checkin

Welcome to writtenwordsaloud, whose post caused me to look at this comm and work out that we've been quiet for over six months.

This is thus a general checkin post - how is everyone going? If you want to share what your current cleaning wins and/or struggles are, that would be interesting, but not essential.

I'm completely swamped by things the next two weeks, but I'm hoping to have the spoons to start semi-regularly posting some time in early June. But you don't have to wait for me, anyone who wants to post is welcome. Do you want cheering on in a task you are struggling with? Want to report in on a win, whatever the bite size?