seperis | Educationally Speaking

Despite getting a late start all weekend and being distracted by a new matching game on my phone (I can lose hours to these stupid games), I got some good cooking done!

Yesterday, I made garlic & mozzarella milk bread (pics), which turned out quite well even though I forgot the salt due to its weird placement in the recipe (in theory I understand why it is where it is, but in practice it makes no sense to do it that way), but I used salted butter, so I don't think I missed it, and the bread rose just fine.

This afternoon, I finally made this strawberry cheesecake since my cream cheese was well past its use-by date and my heavy cream was getting there! It's still chilling, but when I licked the spatula after pouring the filling into the pie plate, all I really tasted was the five-spice powder. Which I like! But it's not what I would expect given the amount of freeze-dried strawberry powder in it. I guess we'll see how it goes when I cut into it tomorrow. (I also have this issue with nutmeg - even when I try to go easy on it in something, it still is frequently the only thing I taste after using it. I don't know why!)

And then I finally got up and made meatballs with oregano and red wine vinegar to have for lunch during the week. This was a method my grandmother used to use, and it is a great way to eat meatballs (or veggies - she also used to make it with zucchini, and I imagine you could do other types of squash or eggplant this way) - you make and cook the meatballs and set them aside. Then you saute onions in some olive oil (or in the beef fat left if you've fried your meatballs - I do mine in the oven, so I just use oil) and lower the heat and let them caramelize a bit, then you put the meatballs back in , sprinkle about 1/8 cup of dried oregano over them, and the pour in 1/3 - 3/4 cup of red wine vinegar. Be careful as billows of deliciously pungent smoke will rise from your frying pan at that point! Then lower the heat and let it all simmer for 10 or 15 minutes. Good both hot and at room temperature! (I haven't made it with zucchini myself, but for that, you slice and fry or bake your zucchini, and then continue on with the onions/oregano/vinegar as described.)

I have taken the garbage out and started the dishwasher, so now I am prepared for the awfulness of Sunday night. Sigh.

*

I don't know where the day went, or the weekend. How is it almost midnight already?!

Anyway: Over at

sid_guardian we've kicked off another rewatch - a slo-mo one this time, half an episode per week. And since we've already done the "take an epic amount of notes and write epic post" kind of rewatch, this one's going to be a bit more relaxed. *g*

Zhao Yunlan sprawled on a couch, grinning at his phone. The background shows a purply sky with stars. Text reads "Slo-Mo Rewatch. Guardian - half an episode per week @ sid-guardian.dreamwidth.org."

Zhao Yunlan sprawled on a couch, grinning at his phone. The background shows a purply sky with stars. Text reads "Slo-Mo Rewatch. Guardian - half an episode per week @ sid-guardian.dreamwidth.org."

Here's the first post, episode 1, part 1.

Last night at dinner, Geoff and I ordered a pint of beer and a half-pint of cider. When a different waiter arrived with the glasses, he asked, "Who has the cider?" I do appreciate it when they don't assume.

I had a hard time getting to sleep. I think I hadn't been aware of how stressed I was about how badly the day could have gone, even though in fact everything ended up fine; and also about my first indoor restaurant meals in five and a half years. I ended up taking an antianxiety med, which did the trick, and I slept deeply and well until seven am. Meanwhile poor Geoff apparently had anxiety dreams! (Partly because his son is terribly anxious at all times, and especially about us doing this trip, and self-soothes by unloading his anxiety on Geoff. 🎶It's the circle of li-i-i-ife 🎶)

Today was forecast to have intermittent light rain. What it actually had, all morning, was heavy rain and strong winds, on one of the harder hikes of our trip. "Not a long day, but a hard one," said the company's description, with 750 meters of cumulative uphill. My feet are all tingly now...and some of my toes hurt. My rainwear protected me well, but the rain cover on my pack, well, epically failed. Nothing that would be hurt by getting wet was in it -- except my passport. It, and all the clothes we wore today, are now draped around tonight's hotel room, and will hopefully dry out by tomorrow! Which is supposed to be sunny again. That makes me happy, but Geoff, who can overheat scarily easily sometimes, remarked that if today had been blazing sun the way yesterday was, he'd have absolutely died on the steep uphills.

We were mostly following Offa's Dike (ancient miles-long earthwork dividing England and Wales) and the Shropshire Way path, and once we were out of the town we started in (which took ten minutes, these towns aren't big!) it was pretty much all through fields: mostly sheep, often cattle, once a couple of horses. To get from one field to another we were either climbing over stiles or going through what are delightfully called kissing gates; believe me, by late afternoon we were grateful for every time we could go through a kissing gate instead of hauling ourselves over a stile!

Around midday we met a family (?) coming the other way: looked like two brothers in their late twenties and their dad. We chatted for a few minutes about the weather; they had hiked through hail! One of them commented that there are three types of fun:

1. You enjoy it while you're doing it;
2. You don't enjoy it while you're doing it, but you enjoy looking back on it;
3. You don't enjoy it while you're doing it, and you don't enjoy looking back on it, but it makes a great story.

We loved that and are totally stealing it. Today was some of each. There were some fucking grueling uphill slogs...

At one point we came to a gate into the next field, and a herd of cows were right there on the other side of the gate: maybe twenty or so, including several nursing calves and a bull. We were not going to walk into the midst of that crowd! So we hung out on the other side of the gate for a while, occasionally saying things like "come on, guys, go over there," "yes, you're moving away! Be a trendsetter!" or just, because it was obvious, "Moooooove!" While they eyed us grimly and largely refused to do anything except relieve themselves torrentially on the path we'd be walking. Geoff got a couple pictures of the nursing calves. Eventually they did slowly saunter away a bit, and once they were all a couple dozen meters away -- most especially the nursing calves, their mothers, and the bull, we for sure know not to come too close to, or between, them -- we slipped through the gate and walked gently past them to continue on our way.

We also met a couple of horses in another field, who hoped very very much that we would have treats for them. Which we did not, but that didn't stop them from following us for a while. In that field we met a local man (from Clun, the town we were heading for), out on a four-mile circuit hillwalk with his dog (and he must have been seventy, a great inspiration to us), and when we stopped to chat with him I was startled to find one of the horses had come up behind me and was nosing hopefully at my backpack!

Anyway, the rain mostly stopped around midday, though it did spit again a few times, and there was some glorious mist over the fields and hillsides. After seven hours we finally staggered into Clun and tonight's hotel. Our room's en suite bathroom is up three stairs, we have to go uphill yet again just to pee! Oh, the humanity.

Tomorrow's hike is not so bad, and the forecast is for sunny and cool. The day after's, though, is harder than today's; today had 750 meters of cumulative uphill, and Tuesday's has 800. Tomorrow morning we'll phone the cab company that moves our main luggage from place to place and hopefully arrange to get a lift with the luggage for part of the way that day. Because NO.

(The shortened option only cuts the cumulative uphill to 600m. Yikes.)

Hey Escapaders!

We’re now just six months out from the next in-person Escapade, and I know many of you have been excited to book your hotel and register for the convention. The wait is over!

To register for the convention:

1. Start by going to https://escapadecon.net/shop/register-for-in-person-escapade-2026/

2. After making your payment, you should be taken to a page to enter your badge name and other information. If you aren’t, try going to https://escapadecon.net/escapade-36-registration-in-person/ and filling out the form there.

That’s it!

If you’ve already registered for the convention, you should be in our system. Unfortunately, you can’t easily pull up the information from the form you submitted (this is something we are working on fixing) but if you want to re-submit your information, you can go to https://escapadecon.net/update-your-registration-info/.

To book your hotel room:

1. Start at our special magic link: https://www.hilton.com/en/attend-my-event/laxabes-rcg-5fcb641f-16e7-47bb-b537-45ad15911160/

2. Click “Book a Room”.

3 .At the top of the page it takes you to, select the dates you want. It will default to a six night stay, so it’s important to change this to the actual dates you want! Make sure you also choose the right number of guests for your room.

4. Choose the room type you want, enter your information, and you’re all set!

Remember, if you book with our link, you get many benefits, including discounted parking ($20 per night versus $60 per night!), a refund of the mandatory $12.92 per night tax, and a reduced deposit (capped at $250 for the whole stay). Plus, you support Escapade! If you have any trouble using the link above, please let us know ASAP.

Pro Tip:

It’s recommended to come in on or before Thursday night and leave no earlier than Sunday if you want to experience the full convention. We might have some fun activities for early birds who get there on Tuesday or Wednesday, too! And of course, if you want to stay for the Tired Puppy Pile party, you may want to wait until Monday to head out…

We’re so excited to see you there!

-glymr

Escapade Director’s Chair

Geoff, after we've hiked uphill for two hours through heavy rain and driving wind: You know, this pastime has a bit of masochism involved in it.

me: YOU THINK.

(but since I'm posting this this evening from our second hotel, you know we made it! The company said 4½ hours of walking, allow six; it took us seven. Geoff is exhausted and I have a blister.)

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It's a fucking learning experience!

We started out to do our first walk today: taking a bus to just outside the town and walking a long (loooong) loop back to our hotel. The company estimates it at five hours of walking, and says to allow seven when you add rest stops and lunch breaks and so on.

First the bus let us off at the wrong place. Then -- epic fail #1 -- we thought it had let us off too soon rather than too late, and walked way too far along the road looking for where we wanted to be, before realizing and backtracking alllll the way again. Having now walked two hours already, we decided to just do an out and back partway along the loop, to a conveniently placed visitors' centre and back, and then catch the reverse bus back home, but -- epic fail #2 -- forgot to check the return bus schedule. (I thought I had it downloaded, so I didn't think to check the bus stop sign; but I did not have it downloaded.)

Then we had to cast about a bit at the start of the walk, because the directions were a bit confusing; we'll be sending a note to the company about a few infelicities. Starting with, they said there was a red phone box at the bus stop we wanted to get off at, and since we'd been watching and hadn't seen one, that's why we thought we'd been let off too soon; but the phone box is not (is no longer?) red, so we'd missed it. (We still should have realized where we were from other clues, but that threw us off at the start. For the rest of it, I blame catastrophic jetlag.)

Anyway, we finally got ourselves oriented and hiked crosscountry to the visitors' centre. It was a lovely walk! Gorgeous scenery of hills and farms, sunny and windy and cool. It amazes and delights me that we can just blithely walk into and across farmers' fields, past (and sometimes carefully through) their cattle and sheep herds.

Thankfully the visitors' centre was open and had (a bathroom and) free wifi -- cellphone signal was bad to nonexistent all day, and never strong enough for a data connection. So we were able to get online and check the return bus schedule, which turned out to be: one passing in an hour, and we could not have backtracked fast enough to catch it, and one passing in four hours, which would mean idling by the side of the road for two and a half hours. And that was it for the day. If we'd remembered to check the schedule before heading out, we could have made sure to turn around and head back in time to catch the first one. Epic fail.

Plus, by the time we got to the centre, Geoff's feet were very tired and he didn't think he was up to backtracking across country the way we had come. Going back along roads would have been easier walking, but significantly longer, plus the roads are quite narrow and have virtually no verge, so walking along them, as we had done in the morning, meant constantly jumping up onto the few steep inches of grass and bramble between the roadway and the hedge whenever a car came by.

So we punked out and phoned the taxi guy who had picked us up at the rail station the day before and taken us to our hotel (as I've remarked to a couple people, yesterday we took a car to a train to a bus to a plane to a train to a train to a train to a taxi to our hotel), and he was willing to come pick us up and take us back to our hotel. (For a lot of money, but our only alternative was to hitchhike, which is our absolute last resort.) He's a friendly guy, very loquacious with details and anecdotes about the area, but his accent is so unfamiliar to us that I think we miss a quarter to a third of what he says! When Geoff phoned him, he wasn't familiar with the visitors' centre we were at and asked for our what3words location, and I was worried that the words would get mistranscribed because his accent and Geoff's are so different. But Geoff spelled each word out, and he did manage to find us, though it took him forty-five minutes to get there: "that's the middle of nowhere!" he'd exclaimed to Geoff when he'd pulled up our location. We had a pleasant wait sitting outside at one of the centre's picnic tables, and after a while struck up a conversation with a local man who was bicycling around the area. He confirmed that it's very isolated; once the volunteer staff of the visitors' centre go home, there's very few people around.

Anyway, now we're back at the hotel, rather earlier than we'd expected to end the day! In the end, though, it wasn't a bad day. Now Geoff is napping and I'm blogging, after which there will be a lot of showering before dinner. And we have learned many mistakes not to make on tomorrow's hike!

An irony here is that I was a little worried that I wasn't in good enough shape for this week, and would be holding Geoff back, and instead it was Geoff who flagged today! In fairness, his pack is heavier than mine; he carries more things. (Even when he was already starting to flag, he offered to take my half-full water bottle in trade for an empty one, to lighten my load at his expense; I declined the offer.)

Tomorrow's hike is listed as "not a long day, but a hard one": four and a half hours of walking, they say to allow six hours in all, and a cumulative ascent of 750 meters. Here's hoping we can make it!

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After not writing anything more than alibi sentences for ages - my last fic was in May (The Consultant, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan), and the one before that in March (Beyond the Gates, the Mountain, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan) - I'm signing up for a lot of stuff now! Deadlines are usually very effective at making me write, so now that I'm not so busy any more and it's actually possible, that should get me back to where I want to be, writing-wise. I hope. *g*

In order of reveals:

There's rarepairexchange, which has its deadline a little over two weeks from now, though reveals aren't until October. I've been poking at my assignment, and I have a bunch of things I know I want to be in it, but so far I haven't managed to pull it all together into a coherent narrative. Hopefully once I've conquered this one, things will be flowing again!

Then there's guardian_wishlist, for which I just finished my sign-up last night - and we've only just posted the first batch of wishlists. (Mine is here; I'm requesting Guardian drama and RPF, as well as Guardian/Grimm and Guardian/Stargate crossovers.) And there are so many tempting prompts already! Reveals are on 6 October, and I hope to make a bunch of stuff before then.

Next comes ficinabox, with a deadline in October and reveals in November - assignments aren't out yet, but should come soon. I won't seriously tackle that one until after Rarepair Exchange, though. Plenty of time if I brainstorm and have a plan by then!

There's also the Guardian Bonus Bingo grace period in November, for which I hope to finish at least some of the things I started and didn't finish so far. *g*

Yuletide is of course gearing up again as well, so that's what I'll be working on in December. Can't wait to find out which rare fandom I get to write this time!

Then, hopefully fandomtrees will also run again this year, and I'll get to make a bunch of stuff for that too! Reveals are genearally early to mid-January.

And finally, there's fffx which doesn't have its deadline until the second half of January. I still need to finish my sign-up for that (planning on doing that this weekend), but that deadline is so far away, there'd still be plenty of time even if I didn't start thinking about it until after Yuletide ends. (Though I hope to have a plan before then!) Of course, an idea might grab me right away and I might be working on this in parallel to everything else, you never know! *g*

Yeah, I know that's a lot. *g* I hope to make up a bit for all those months of not writing! But everything's nicely spaced out, except for Rarepair Exchange revealing one day before Guardian Wishlist, and the Bingo grace period overlapping with FIAB reveals. So it should be very doable without being too exhausting. *g*

What fests or exchanges is everyone else doing?

Our flight was delayed by almost an hour and I had serious doubts that we'd make our train out of London, which would have set off a cascade failure of prebooked transit. But by dint of rushing as fast as possible through the infinite hallways from our arrival terminal, through baggage claim and border control (THANK GOD for the e-gates), to the Heathrow Express platform, we actually made out train with time to breathe! That was not how the smart money had been betting, so I'm very relieved.

(Also, as you can tell by the fact that I'm posting this, my UK SIM is working perfectly. £10 for all the service we could possibly need, I'm very pleased.

Now we're relaxing on our first train (of two, followed by a prebooked taxi). Well, I say "relaxing," but we're apparently on the Lad Local; we're sitting directly behind a group of eight young men all talking and laughing uproariously, and consuming vast quantities of sandwiches, crisps, and canned drinks that look like beer but I'm not sure. I can't really follow their conversations but they don't seem unpleasant in any way, just loud. I like hearing people having fun!

ETA: One of the lads just tried a friend's drink and announced that it was some kind of tequila lime grapefruit something something, I didn't catch it all; and he said, "Do you ever feel like they're putting too many flavors into a drink these days? Like, that's a lot of flavors! I like it when I just drink a beer, you know, it's a nice simple refreshing one flavor--"

"In other news," interrupted one of his friends, "old man yells at cloud."

ETA2: Our first train was delayed en route and we had only four minutes to catch our second one, but thankfully it was 1) on the adjacent platform, and 2) also slightly delayed! Everything has fallen into place despite the stresses. On this train, the announcements are made first in Welsh and only afterward in English. I've never actually heard Welsh spoken before; it's so pretty!

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There's so much TV coming back soon:

- the new season of Only Murders in the Building starts on 9/8
- the new season of Slow Horses starts 9/24
- the new season of Abbott Elementary starts 10/1

And it's not tv, but the new season of Batman: Wayne Family Adventures also starts 10/1 - there was a new mini episode last night, featuring Alfred being the best. <3

Meanwhile, I still have not watched:

- season 2 of Andor
- season 2 of Wednesday
- season 2 of Poker Face (though I did watch the first episode - the one with Cynthia Erivo, who was fantastic)

And of course, China Beach is finally available on a streaming service I do not have, and without some of the iconic music they used, but it would definitely be worth checking out if I wanted to pay for another streamer, which I don't.

Instead, I seem to have fallen into another Elementary rewatch. Despite some of the ghastly murders, it is a very comforting watch and I love Joan and Sherlock's relationship so much. And I might be feeling a Killjoys rewatch coming up soon too. I guess we'll see.

There are other shows I keep meaning to check out but have not as of yet - there is just too much to watch and too little time.

*

I might have a more cooperative vid idea to poke at while I let my Star Trek ones percolate!

I definitely need to do a full Discovery rewatch soon! Strange New Worlds still doesn't sound like my thing, but I'll have to check out episode 3x09 the next time I have Paramount+, since it looks like it was a good Ortegas episode.

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Via

brithistorian: the South African Ndlovu Youth Choir has translated Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody into Zulu. It's gorgeous - and after I saw the video, I just had to share it. It's completely stunning:

Watch on YouTube

Dear Carolyn: I’ve noticed an odd pattern in communication with my mother-in-law, “Ellen,” that I barely know how to describe, much less address. Basically, she won’t ever state her needs or wants, even when it’s very clear what she needs or wants.

One example: On a visit last week, my 3-year-old was listening to an audiobook that mimicked animal sounds. On multiple occasions, Ellen mentioned that she was concerned the book was too stimulating for my daughter. Each time, I told her it wasn’t and said my daughter had my permission to listen until dinner. By the second or third time she brought this up, it became clear to me Ellen was the one overwhelmed by the sounds.

If she'd just stated that — “Hey, I'm getting tired of elephant noises!” — then I would have happily told my daughter to pack it up. But when I said, “Ellen, it sounds like you might be getting annoyed by the toy and prefer it be put away?” she immediately insisted, “Oh no! I just think Granddaughter doesn't like it! She thinks it's too overwhelming!” I responded, “For the last time: She plays with this all the time, and she’s not overstimulated,” but then five minutes later we were back to, “She must find that toy so noisy and confusing!”

Many, many interactions are this way, and I don’t know how to react. I want Ellen to just say what she wants, rather than hiding behind the projected emotions of her grandkids, kids or her husband. It feels ridiculous to go along with an obviously untrue story, but it also feels ridiculous to tell my mother-in-law, “Sorry, Ellen! I'm not going to make Janie put away the toy that obviously bothers you unless you admit it bothers you!” Do you have any advice for navigating these conversations?

( Read more... )

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( books (Dunnett, Dunnett, Herron, Tierney) )

media
I finally finished watching Murderbot S1! (It only took forever bc I suck at visual media.) I loved it and want more! I'm hesitant to dive into fic, though, due to the "murderbot has a penis" and "Gurathin/Murderbot" tags. I want canon-compliant Murderbot adventures, not forcing it to behave in any manner like a sexbot. So, those are 2 things for me to filter out of search... But re the ending, wow, evidently they spent their whole series budget on ep 10 & it became a whole different show. Really satisfying.

( dirt )

yarning
no yarn group this week, as too many people were sick or busy. I haven't crocheted on my own in well over a month, as I'm not at all motivated. It's SO frustrating. I'm hoping I can get off one of my meds that affects creativity & regain inspiration. I did at least get 3 kickbunnies listed on etsy...though I haven't promoted them on social media yet due to lack of motivation. OTOH, I have a potential customer waiting on an address to send a bunny to? That's something.

healthcrap
Still having frequent headaches and rationing triptans (I'm not low on them (yet), just being frugal with the stash). The vertigo/feeling faint is bad. Generally, I'm getting 2-16 minutes of Deep sleep per night and not feeling rested at all. ( cut for discussion of weight loss )

yuletide!
noms open in less than 2 weeks, on the 15th, yay! Get your fandoms ready! \o/ And they've upped the number of fandoms you can nom and request! I need to have a look back at the books I've read this year and see what I can manage to offer. Hrm.

#resist
10/18/25: No Kings Day #2

It's that time of year again!

Yuletide is still my favourite multifannish exchange, and this year's schedule is out - nominations start on the 15th. And they're running an experiment with giving us more nominations and requests this year! Very cool, and I hope it works out well!

What's new this year:

The deadline is 12 hours earlier than it was the last few years. (First time in a while that the deadline will be when I'm actually awake, but I'll try not to cut it too close. *g*)

Reveals are also 12 hours earlier than they've been the last few years. (First time in a while that I'll be awake when the collection opens!)

We get 5 fandom nominations instead of 4. (Woohoo!)

We get 8 requests instead of 6! (And again, woohoo! It's so hard to choose between rare fandoms.)

Who else is doing Yuletide? Have you thought about what you're going to nominate/request/offer this year?

Back in the Before Times, Geoff and I tried to take a trip every year. Then COVID hit, and we haven’t done any significant travel in six years. (I mean, that was New Zealand, so if anything was going to have to last us six years, that would be it.) But it’s six years later, we’ve had ten vax shots each, and tomorrow we are leaving for Wales!

travel blather herein

I am, of course, still paranoid about getting ill.

But I have a strategy, because I perseverate a bit on these things

We plan to mask as much as possible in public indoor space, just as we do at home; on my last trip to visit friends I perfected the eating-indoors-in-public method of

1. inhale
2. hold breath
3. unmask
4. take bite
5. replace mask
6. exhale
7. chew and swallow

and while it’s troublesome, on the other hand it seems to have worked. So that’s the plan for the plane flight and long UK train rides. Plus I have a mask with a SIP valve, so I can drink with it on. We’re hoping that we’ll be able to eat many meals outside, but we’ve reached the point of being okay with it if we can’t sometimes on this trip. (I mean, I say that now. I warned Geoff that he’ll have to expect that I’ll freak out a couple of times, that’s just part of the process. I have spent six years deliberately inculcating a phobia in myself! It took me a long time to get over the phobia of semen I deliberately inculcated in myself in the mid-1980s, too, but hey, I have never had either HIV or COVID, so I’m okay with harnessing neurosis, it works for me.)

Also I keep reminding myself of this post that I made long before COVID was a thing; it’s not like it’s the only risk involved in travel!

We’re doing a weeklong hiking trip with a company we’ve traveled with several times before, the kind where they move your luggage from B&B to B&B and you walk all day with a daypack and a lunch. (And hiking poles and raingear and their awesome GPS navigation app.) We love them; in fact, in March 2020 we’d already paid a deposit for a trip that summer, which we never got to take! (They refunded us, of course.) Their system is efficient and clear, we love the places they offer to stay and the routes they have us take, which are sometimes delightfully off the beaten track and are described wonderfully. “Watch out for the muddy bit”; “turn right just past the house with a chicken mural”; “there’s a great spot for a picnic lunch just over the rise”; and so on. Also I have no idea what kind of customer-management software they’ve got on the back end, but in arranging the trip we’ve corresponded with a number of different people, and every single one has been fully up to speed with what we’re doing, what our few special requests are, exactly when and how we’re arriving at the start and departing from the end, and so on. Nobody who has ever navigated customer service hell will take that for granted. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re the most reasonably priced such company I’ve ever found, in the admittedly limited comparison shopping I’ve done.

This walk is quite challenging, and we’re a bit uncertain we can actually do it! They tell you the cumulative uphill distance for each day’s walk, which is sometimes a lot (the worst day has an 820-meter total rise), and some of the days’ hikes are expected to take as much as eight hours, counting rest breaks. If we punk out, though, we can generally arrange to ride with our luggage to the next stop instead of walking to it, and they always make clear when there’s a local bus available, or a way to cut off a loop, or some other shortening option. Geoff and I have both been exercising pretty hard to get in shape for this, but I do think I could have done more.

We leave tomorrow: a friend will give us a ride to the train station, we take a train to Montreal, and then hopefully a free shuttle bus to the airport, but I’ve heard stories that the shuttle is often late or overfull. We can always take a cab, but if the weather is good -- the forecast has been iffy, but right now it looks okay -- we might just walk it. It’s only about half an hour, and it will be the only exercise we get for a couple of days, so the prospect has some appeal! But man, I miss living a twelve-minute drive from a major airport so much.

After we finish that week of heavy hiking, we spend two full days (three nights) in a pair of small coastal towns called Fishguard and Goodwick, where the plan is to spend one day rambling along the coastline, which is supposed to be gorgeous, and the other sea kayaking! There we’re staying on a smallholding that rents out one (1) bedroom as a B&B, and the couple who run it have been incredibly friendly and helpful with recommending activities and restaurants, offering rides (rural public transit is pretty thin on the ground), and so on; also their breakfasts sound amazing, and that’s a thing we always look for when choosing B&Bs! I’m bringing them a half-liter of local maple syrup as a thank-you gift; I don’t generally do that, since it is a business relationship, we exchange currency for goods and services, but they’ve really gone above and beyond, and I mean, they’re only barely a business.

Then we have another three nights in Aberystwyth, and I have very little idea what exactly we’ll do there ~~other than collapse~~, except that the National Library of Wales is there and I want to see what exhibits they have on, and there’s a scenic railway that might be worth checking out. Then one day on the outskirts of London, in a place chosen only because we can catch a coach from there direct to Heathrow the next morning. We’ll land in Montreal in the evening and spend the night in an airport hotel, before catching a train home the next day.

I am the main planner of our trips; Geoff calls me Logistics Girl. Which is fine with me, because I enjoy it, I’m good at it, and when I leave bits for him to do I always want to micromanage anyway, which is stressful for everyone. (But, I mean. I asked him to manage our getting to and from Montreal, while I took primary responsibility for everything on the actual trip; managing the domestic side included deciding whether and how to see his family there and/or ask them for airport rides and/or an overnight stay, and I didn’t want to be the person making those decisions. And he said sure, and absolutely understood that that should be his job. And then he sent me essentially a Google search link for airport hotels and asked which one I’d prefer. And I was like, which part of “I want you to do the work of researching options, weighing them, and choosing the best” did you not understand? I can do a damn Google search myself! I mean, I understand that he wants to be sure that I’m happy with the final choice, and I appreciate that, but then he can do what I do, which is narrow options down and present my top two or three choices, with a quick overview of the pros and cons of each, for him to consider.)

ANYWAY. He did do that after I cranked at him. And in fairness, I've found that I’m quite out of practice at logisticking, myself! Trying to track everything and figure out infinite options and piece together itineraries was unexpectedly stressful: where do we want to go, how will we get there, which railcard is our best option and how do we get it, is the layover time we have a reasonable amount of time in which to navigate this specific station, and on and on. Also so much has changed in the last six years; I never used to have to download umpteen transit apps, but on the other hand it's way easier and cheaper to get a foreign SIM than it used to be. And there has been a ridiculous pile-up of last-minute craziness:

I got a new orthotic this summer, and that meant that my hiking boots didn’t fit, so I needed new boots. Also, usually when you have a prescription orthotic you take the original insole out of the shoe or boot to fit the new one in, but I didn’t want to do that, because that’s where a lot of the padding is, and with the amount of walking I’m going to be doing I did not want to be doing it only on the unpadded sole and the fairly hard orthotic. So I was looking for boots that could fit both. I ended up buying three pairs in a week! First I went shopping and found a good enough pair; not great, but they were there and the store had a generous return policy, so I bought them as a stopgap and kept looking. Then in another store I found a fabulous pair that fit beautifully, but the pair in the store was damaged and they couldn’t get me another one, because the style was discontinued and remaindered. So I searched for it online and found what seemed to be the only pair of women’s 10s left in Canada, at massive discount because discontinued and remaindered, and ordered them with rush shipping -- and when they arrived they didn’t fit, because it turned out the salesman had given me a pair of men’s 10s to try on, instead of the women’s 10s I’d asked for. No wonder there was room for both insoles! And there wasn’t another men’s 10 of that brand and style to be found. But with that info I went back and tried on some other men’s 10s and found a really good pair of Merrell’s, a brand I’ve always had good luck with. The first pair of new boots got returned; the second pair, being discontinued and remaindered, were final sale, but they turned out to fit a friend who also needed new boots; and my old pair, which are still in decent shape, went into the thrift-shop-donation pile.

So that was one bit of craziness. Our long-delayed front porch project is finally going to begin construction while we’re away, which means we had to find somewhere to leave the car because our driveway will have a dumpster in it for construction waste and we’re not allowed to leave the car on the street; but fortunately a house across the way is empty and for sale, and the owner said we can park in his driveway. I started developing a stye like the one I had in the spring that got so bad I needed antibiotic ointment; but happily I still had half a tube of ointment left so I prescribed myself another round of it plus all the hot compresses I could manage, because I did not want to be dealing with an eye infection in rural Wales! I discovered by the merest fluke of luck that a bus service we're relying on was canceled as of Sept. 1, but I managed to find the replacement service, run by a different company, that is mentioned on the new company's Facebook page and nowhere else including not on their website or on any of the travel planning sites, and confirm that we can still make the train we're taking it to. The new bus leaves fifteen minutes earlier than the old bus, so if I hadn't stumbled across that notice we'd probably have been screwed. And then a few days ago I somehow managed to wrench my knee rolling over in bed, I don't even know. But although it hurt like fuck for a few minutes, by the next day it was just a vague ache, and the day after that it was fine. Thank god. I mean, a week before we leave? Argh.

Anyway, my do-before-leaving list has seventy items on it and just over sixty of them are now crossed off; and my packing list has sixty items on it and fifty of them are crossed off -- and many of the rest are things I plan to wear on the plane rather than pack.

All that said, though -- and it’s a lot to say! -- I’m really looking forward to this. Traveling together used to be one of Geoff’s and my great pleasures, and not being able to do it has been one of the great losses of COVID. I want to see amazing sights and eat amazing food and encounter new people. I want to hear Welsh! I want to exhaust myself and feel accomplished about having done so! I want to share all of the above with Geoff!

I also hope to blog the trip here, as much as I can. Stay tuned. But now I gotta go polish off a couple more of those to-dos...

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[be warned, the same column contains another iteration of The Harry Potter Debate]

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I made this sheet pan pancake for dinner last night (pic) and it was good, but I don't know that I'd call it a pancake - it is much thicker and not particularly fluffy. The texture is more "cake" than "pancake". But it was good with butter and syrup and will also provide several days of breakfast so I can't complain. It's super easy to throw together, too - no buttermilk needed. The handful of strawbs I had left had gone moldy in the fridge, but I had about 3/4 cup of frozen berries left in the freezer that I folded in and also about 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips that I sprinkled on top, so that worked out.

*

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This past Saturday was the day that four thousand university students arrived in town, making it an excellent day to not be in town! Happily, there's an annual garlic festival on that day, about half an hour north of here, so just as we did last year, Geoff and I headed on up.

it's basically a small farmer's market, only focusing on garlic. I hadn't realized, before we went the first time, that there were that many varieties of garlic! I mean, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising, I'd just never really thought about it. In any case, my palate is not refined enough to bother about the subtle differences in taste among them: slightly sharper, slightly sweeter, slightly earthier, and so on. Also some are better keepers, but I don't try to store garlic for months, I just buy less of it more often, because I'm not farming it. But it's very fun to look around!

Although it's focused on garlic, there's other things on sale as well. Many of the garlic farmers bring a few punnets of veggies as well, and there's a lot of canned and pickled veg for sale. A beekeeper comes with a hive in a glass frame, so it's fun to watch the bees and look for the queen (she's always smaller than I expect her to be). We bought some honey from him last year, which was very good. There's also a soapmaker, and a couple of woodworkers; the friend we went with this year bought a beautiful turned elm bowl from one of them, and also a bud vase of . . . chestnut, I think? a darker wood, anyway, and then he gave her a second bud vase for free! One or two people were selling various knitted things, and for some reason there's also somebody selling bamboo sheet sets.

I tried black garlic, which I would think would be very much the sort of thing I like, and yet I did not like it. One dealer sells honey-garlic tarts, which Geoff tried last year and rather liked, and got another one this year to munch on, but I think they're vile. (And there's not a lot of food I think that about!) On the other hand, someone was selling jars of candied jalapeno slices, which have nothing in particular to do with garlic except I imagine they would go well with garlic; they're not candied in the sense of being entirely sugar-coated and sticky, they're more a very sweet (and spicy) pickle? We tasted them (all the dealers give out samples, because they're not dumb) and they were delicious. I asked the seller what he does with them, and he said they were great on nachos and grilled cheese sandwiches, and I said, "I guess I'm making nachos this week!" and bought a jar. I did indeed make nachos the next night, and they were indeed fantastic. Next I'll try them on on barbecue chicken pizza...and they look pretty easy to make as a refrigerator pickle, so I'll be looking up some recipes!

Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang: ( Ecoterrorists )

Ben Aaronovitch, Stone and Sky: ( Abigail to the front )

Rachel Hartman, Among Ghosts:( ghosts versus abusive family )

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Bee Speaker: ( Mars to the rescue (?) )

KJ Charles, Death in the Spires: ( murder among the swells )

Antonia Hodgson, The Raven Scholar: ( my favorite book so far this year )

The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One (2018), ed. Neil Clarke: ( the pulse of the moment )

Richard Siken, I Do Know Some Things: ( prose poems )

Scott Carson, Departure 37: ( eerie phone calls )

Charlie Jane Anders, Lessons in Magic and Disaster: ( magic and community )

Melissa Caruso, The Tethered Mage:( palace intrigue and magic )
Chuck Tingle, Lucky Day: ( Not for me, sorry )

Kate Elliott, The Witch Roads:( survival in a dangerous magic world )

KJ Charles, A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel: ( more m/m in rural England )

Ray Nayler, ( Three very interesting books )

Matt Dinniman, Every Grain of Sand: The Shivered Sky - Book 1: ( Nope, need more Donut )

Ada Palmer, Too Like the Lightning( also not for me )

Allie Therin, ( 2/3 of a paranormal m/m trilogy )

Mira Grant, Overgrowth: ( Rant incoming! )

I haven't been posting much lately - or rather, in a long while. In March I crashed pretty hard after a writing marathon, and then work got very busy for a very long time, so I spent several months putting almost all my energy into that. Until late May I kept thinking I could do more, fannishly, but after that I gave up on keeping up with anything other than the Guardian novel readalong on

sid_guardian. August has been (finally) back to normal at work, but the month just flew past before I could get back on my feet, never mind in the saddle. *g*

But this month I'm trying to make that happen. Writing more than alibi sentences: something I need to relearn, LOL.

And I'm trying to post more again here too, finally! My plan for that is twofold:

post something every day of September, and

because I keep feeling like I did literally nothing at all since April other than work, but that's not in fact literally true, I want to remind myself of that by posting about stuff I did do during these months.

Yesterday I got off to a good start by posting about the very last thing I did in August, namely watching Dongji Rescue.

For today, here's another thing I did do recently, together with

china_shop: preparing for

guardian_wishlist! And then sign-ups just opened at the end of August:

A gifting fest for Guardian and related fandoms: guardian-wishlist.dreamwidth.org

A gifting fest for Guardian and related fandoms: guardian-wishlist.dreamwidth.org

I really love this fest. It's our Guardian-and-related-fandoms version of

fandomtrees (rules), and we're in our fifth year already, wow! I love that this fandom is still going strong. :D

Our schedule for 2025:

28 August: sign-ups open - open now!
5 September: first wishlists posted
15 September: sign-ups close
16 September: final wishlists posted
6 October: gifts revealed

Wishlist reveals are on Reunion Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival, which is late this year. Hopefully I can actually get back in the saddle and write some significant amount of gifts in that time!

We already have 8 sign-ups! I haven't finished mine yet, but soon. Definitely hoping so see some more of you there as well! ♥ ♥ ♥

Yesterday a friend and I went to see Pride, the 2014 movie about the queer support of the 1984 miners' strike in Britain. I'd heard wonderful things about it but never seen it, and the local film society had organized a showing for Labor Day, so off we went!

It was indeed excellent, really powerful and moving. I started getting chills at the opening music, and my friend and I both wept through parts of it. I hadn't thought about the juxtaposition of the AIDS crisis and the miners' crisis, but omg, I was flashing back to what it was like in the late 80s (even for me, and I'm not claiming to have been heavily involved in queer activism or at the heart of the catastrophe or anything. But I was queer, and I did live through that period, and I had friends who didn't...) I thought the movie did a great job of integrating the two ongoing concerns, especially with Mark's encounter with his friend at the club; that was a heartbreaking moment. The acting was spectacular, as was some of the scenery.

Thinking about the film the next day, I'm a little dissatisfied with how much of the story was simplified for the movie: we see so little of what LGSM actually did that the arrival of 5–10(?) busloads of miners at the 1985 Pride march seems wildly disproportionate. They're coming from places and union locals that we never saw LGSM interacting with or supporting. I wanted to see more about the lesbian-only group. Also, I disliked how Joe apparently teleported from London to Wales on his own just for the sake of a confrontation between him and Mark; I found that implausible even while watching it.

But the movie has prompted me to go look up some of the actual history, so I call that a win! And I really enjoyed it. Also I've watched a bunch of Bronski Beat videos today...

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Title: Pay the Man
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Music: Pay the Man by Foster the People
Summary: The war that brought them together also broke them apart, sending them down paths that seem irreconcilable. Yet it’s only after they’ve parted ways that they may, at last, truly understand one another. / a Barriss/Ahsoka fanvid
Notes: This is my first fanvid, and I wrote up some reflections on it on my Dreamwidth! I would love to chat with more experienced vidders about the experience.
Warnings: Some flashing lights, fast cuts, cartoon violence

AO3 | DW | Tumblr | YouTube

Last night I saw 东极岛 Dongji Rescue (IMDB | MyDramaList), Zhu Yilong's new film.

It's based on a historical episode from World War 2 (the sinking of the Lisbon Maru), though it's heavily fictionalised and in no way historically accurate. *g*

(There's a 2024 documentary on the real event, which I'd love to see if anyone knows where to find it!)

Anyway, Dongji Rescue is a really well done, effective film! ( spoilers below the cut )

Also, watching this movie was a very multilingual experience - the film itself has Chinese, Japanese and English dialogue all aplenty (which you don't see nearly enough of, IMO!), handling the language barriers really well - and then we had German subtitles on top of that. *g* They were good, too, and not as distracting as I might have expected. Since I've generally watched Chinese media with English subtitles, and also learned what Chinese I have with English-language material, all my Chinese is routed through English, and it's usually somewhat disorienting to watch something with German subtitles instead. But the multilingual mix of this film somehow balanced that out, and I didn't have an issue. Though I was happy to have the Chinese subtitles as well as they helped me follow along the Chinese dialogue where I could!

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Per the dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

The bbq yesterday was fun! Baby Miss L continues to be a character - she's a little awkward but she manages to get up and down steps now. In fact, she stood on the steps and was like, "Jump! Jump!" and we were like, " um, no, no jumping off the steps!"

Anyway, there were a lot of desserts, but the strawberry cake was enjoyed. It smelled fantastic and tasted good too.

In other news, I did the August recs update earlier:

unfitforsociety has been updated for August 2025 with 12 recs in 2 fandoms:

* 11 Batfamily and 1 Batfamily/Spider-Man crossover

***

Hi! I have previous past letters with likes lists and prompts that still hold true, so feel free to peruse old letters, though please be aware of my current DNWs and requests. This is a general letter with likes lists, etc., but because I often request fandoms that I have requested in the past, please feel free to check out my fandom tags on the sidebar and see if there's anything in past letters you think might apply! There's probably a greater than 50% chance I have requested the fandom or ship before.

For ease of finding me: tuesday.

What I've written and what I want as a gift can differ, so for best results, please rely on my likes and DNWs over what you may find on my AO3 works page.

( Text Likes )

( Art Likes )

( General Likes )

( Ship Likes )

( Smut Likes )

( Vid Likes )

( Do Not Wants )

Link

1. Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I have an 8-year-old daughter, “Amanda.” Amanda loves to sing, but if I’m honest, her voice is awful. I’ve learned to tolerate it. But my husband tells her to stop every time she sings in his presence, and it hurts her feelings. In response to my telling him as much, he says her singing is like fingernails on a chalkboard, so he shouldn’t be expected to “endure” it. When I suggested we get her some singing lessons, he said he didn’t want to “waste money on a lost cause.” Should I sign her up anyway?

—Vocally Challenged

( Read more... )

******************

2. Dear Care and Feeding,

My parents divorced when I was 13. Within a year, my dad married my stepmom, who had a son who was 2 at the time, and a little over a year later, they had my half-sister, “Anna.” Anna’s birthday was two weeks ago, and I bought her a Nintendo Switch 2 (I discussed it with my dad and stepmom ahead of time, and they agreed to it).

The problem is that Anna’s half-brother, “Jacob,” has more or less appropriated it for himself, and Anna has called me up saying she has been able to use it all of three times since I gave it to her.

Jacob has literally taken it for himself—as in it’s in his room and Anna can’t access it. My dad and stepmom seem to think this is perfectly acceptable and have made no effort to make Jacob return it to Anna. I wouldn’t have a problem if Anna were sharing it with Jacob, but I didn’t buy the gaming system for it to be given over to him. I am ready to ask my dad and stepmom to either make him return it to Anna or reimburse me for the cost of it so I can buy her a new one. Thoughts?

—Confiscated Console

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A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

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Dear

ficinabox creator(s),

thank you so much for creating a gift for me! I'll be absolutely thrilled about anything you can create about the relationships or worldbuilding themes I requested. Here are all my request details and prompts, as well as general preferences/likes etc.!

My AO3 account is

Trobadora, and it's set to welcome treats.

General Preferences

( Likes & Dislikes/DNWs )

Fandoms, relationships, worldbuilding

In somewhat alphabetical order:

Jump directly to:

Christabel/Grimm crossover: Christabel/Geraldine in Grimm
Grimm: Nick/Renard/Juliette, Worldbuilding
镇魂 | Guardian (TV): Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, Worldbuilding
Grimm/Guardian (TV) crossovers: various combinations of Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing, Sean Renard, Juliette Silverton, Nick Burkhardt
Nantucket Trilogy - S.M. Stirling: Kashtiliash & Raupasha
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Anastasia/Jabberwocky
Sherlock (BBC): Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty
山河令 | Word of Honor: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu, Worldbuilding

( Christabel/Grimm crossover: Christabel/Geraldine in Grimm )

( Grimm: Nick/Renard/Juliette, Worldbuilding )

( 镇魂 | Guardian (TV): Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, Shen Wei & Ya Qing, Worldbuilding )

( Grimm/Guardian crossovers: various combinations of Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing, Sean Renard, Juliette Silverton, Nick Burkhardt )

( Nantucket Trilogy - S.M. Stirling: Kashtiliash & Raupasha )

( Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Anastasia/Jabberwocky )

( Sherlock (BBC): Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty )

( 山河令 | Word of Honor: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu, Worldbuilding )

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Profile

seperis

Page Summary

musesfool - engine running hotter than a boiling kettle
trobadora - Guardian Slo-Mo Rewatch
the_shoshanna - Today involved much more walking, but many fewer epic failures!
escapade_team in escapade_con - In-Person Escapade 36 Registration and Hotel info is live!
the_shoshanna - conversation this morning
princessofgeeks - hardware
dine - you can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone
serrico - End of a vacation
princessofgeeks - Random Star Wars thought
the_shoshanna - It's not an epic fail, it's a shakedown cruise!
dine - if you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars
princessofgeeks - Star Wars
emrinalexander - (no subject)
trobadora - fests and exchanges
the_shoshanna - made it!
dine - if stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
musesfool - I'm going there no more to roam
aurumcalendula - (no subject)
princessofgeeks - further adventures in bureaucracy
trobadora - Bohemian Rhapsody (Zulu version)
conuly in agonyaunt - Carolyn and readers are both nicer and more helpful than I am
dine - my drinking club has a book problem
sage - What I'm Doing Wednesday
trobadora - YULETIDE!!!!
the_shoshanna - We're going to Wales!
princessofgeeks - Postcards from the bureaucracy
princessofgeeks - Fall is falling, the TBR/W pile is growing
minoanmiss in agonyaunt - Ask a Manager: Two from the same column (horrible call overheard and employability vs nudity)
dine - "write drunk; edit sober" (Hemingway, probably)
emrinalexander - Got through September 1st
musesfool - can't run out the clock
ranalore - one giant leap for ranakind
the_shoshanna - the stinking flower
rivkat - Fiction, including an unhappy rant at the end
trobadora - September posting, and Guardian Wishlist
the_shoshanna - Pride!
aurumcalendula - Grumbling about vidding
dine - the kids are alright
mossy_bench in vidding - New Vid: Pay the Man - Barriss/Ahsoka, Star Wars: The Clone Wars
trobadora - 东极岛 Dongji Rescue
dine - tomayto, tomahto
mark in dw_maintenance - Code deploy happening shortly
musesfool - they've turned aside our stories of the gentle fall
everysecondtuesday - General Exchange Letter
conuly in agonyaunt - Two letters in the same column
denise in dw_news - Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts
niqaeli - ...hi.
dine - I'm not dead yet, and neither are you
trobadora - Dear FIAB creator(s)
mrshamill - today is apparently grief awareness day

Quotes

If you don't send me feedback, I will sob uncontrollably for hours on end, until finally, in a fit of depression, I slash my wrists and bleed out on the bathroom floor. My death will be on your heads. Murderers
. -- Unknown, on feedback
BTS List
That's why he goes bad, you know -- all the good people hit him on the head or try to shoot him and constantly mistrust him, while there's this vast cohort of minions saying, We wouldn't hurt you, Lex, and we'll give you power and greatness and oh so much sex...
Wow. That was scary. Lex is like Jesus in the desert.
-- pricklyelf, on why Lex goes bad
LJ
Obi-Wan has a sort of desperate, pathetic patience in this movie. You can just see it in his eyes: "My padawan is a psychopath, and no one will believe me; I'm barely keeping him under control and expect to wake up any night now to find him standing over my bed with a knife!"
-- Teague, reviewing "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones"
LJ
Beth: god, why do i have so many beads?
Jenn: Because you are an addict.
Jenn: There are twelve step programs for this.
Beth: i dunno they'd work, might have to go straight for the electroshock.
Jenn: I'm not sure that helps with bead addiction.
Beth: i was thinking more to demagnitize my credit card.
-- hwmitzy and seperis, on bead addiction
AIM, 12/24/2003
I could rape a goat and it will DIE PRETTIER than they write.
-- anonymous, on terrible writing
AIM, 2/17/2004
In medical billing there is a diagnosis code for someone who commits suicide by sea anenemoe.
-- silverkyst, on wtf
AIM, 3/25/2004
Anonymous: sorry. i just wanted to tell you how much i liked you. i'd like to take this to a higher level if you're willing
Eleveninches: By higher level I hope you mean email.
-- eleveninches and anonymous, on things that are disturbing
LJ, 4/2/2004
silverkyst: I need to not be taking molecular genetics.
silverkyst: though, as a sidenote, I did learn how to eviscerate a fruit fly larvae by pulling it's mouth out by it's mouthparts today.
silverkyst: I'm just nowhere near competent in the subject material to be taking it.
Jenn: I'd like to thank you for that image.
-- silverkyst and seperis, on more wtf
AIM, 1/25/2005
You know, if obi-wan had just disciplined the boy *properly* we wouldn't be having these problems. Can't you just see yoda? "Take him in hand, you must. The true Force, you must show him."
-- Issaro, on spanking Anakin in his formative years
LJ, 3/15/2005
Aside from the fact that one person should never go near another with a penis, a bottle of body wash, and a hopeful expression...
-- Summerfling, on shower sex
LJ, 7/22/2005
It's weird, after you get used to the affection you get from a rabbit, it's like any other BDSM relationship. Only without the sex and hot chicks in leather corsets wielding floggers. You'll grow to like it.
-- revelininsanity, on my relationship with my rabbit
LJ, 2/7/2006
Smudged upon the near horizon, lapine shadows in the mist. Like a doomsday vision from Watership Down, the bunny intervention approaches.
-- cpt_untouchable, on my addition of The Fourth Bunny
LJ, 4/13/2006
Rule 3. Chemistry is kind of like bondage. Some people like it, some people like reading about or watching other people doing it, and a large number of people's reaction to actually doing the serious stuff is to recoil in horror.
-- deadlychameleon, on class
LJ, 9/1/2007
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Fan Fiction is John Cusack standing outside your house with a boombox.
-- JRDSkinner, on fanfiction
Twitter
I will unashamedly and unapologetically celebrate the joy and the warmth and the creativity of a community of people sharing something positive and beautiful and connective and if you don’t like it you are most welcome to very fuck off.
-- Michael Sheen, on Good Omens fanfic
Twitter, 6/19/2019
Adding for Mastodon.
-- Jenn, traceback
Fosstodon, 11/6/2022

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