therealsnape

It was 78 yesterday. Today my students freaked out and raced through lab because it was snowing its brains out. I wasn't going to go to water aerobics but my friend peer pressured me. We came out of that, wet headed, to 2 inches of snow on our cars. OMG

Water aerobics was good, weird but good. She doesn't use music. I've never done this without music. we were too busy laughing at each other anyhow. I'm the only one who had ever done water aerobics before. That pool was empty. It's also...awful. 20 years I've never been in there. it was closed the first five years I was here. I have always avoided it because I didn't want in the pool with students and it was always 'booked up' and another faculty member said no, it's always empty. it needs painted badly. It's a soulless structure but it is a pool.

Hope I won't be too sore tomorrow.

And it was a rough night. I woke up at 4 to an alarm. It was my dexcom. My sugar was at 51 and crashing out. Fun times.

Speaking of actual fun times, both of my panels, (my sabbatical research on the first lady doctors, and a panel on Victorian/Edwardian medicine) were accepted by the Gettysburg Steampunk festival. I'm very excited about this. I'm thinking of doing something for Tsubasacon as well

Another panel I'd like to offer up next year would be women of horror in the Victorian/Edwardian era (and maybe one of the same group for SF/F) and to that affect let me offer up for Women's History month not our dark queen Mary Shelley but rather Charlotte Riddell who wrote ghost stories that were also tied into social restrictions and social commentary. You can read more about her here.

It's music monday 30 weeks of music. This week's prompt is 17 A song that got you into this artist Share your faves too.

( I'm sharing my first songs for several artists. Love to see yours )

here's the whole prompt list

( It's under here )

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Criminal Minds

senmut

AO3 Link | Reasons (300 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) [2020]
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dinah Lance ~ Renee Montoya
Characters: Dinah Lance, Renee Montoya
Additional Tags: Triple Drabble, Canon Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships
Summary:

Dinah can't handle being the reason... but can see why.

Reasons

"What the fuck was that?"

Renee looked at the singer turned vigilante and didn't have a great answer for her, Dinah just knew, seeing it in the woman's fading fear — for Dinah — and the drop of her eyes.

"Got a little nervy is all," she decided to say. "Cop reflexes, all that."

Dinah's eyes went narrow, before she sucked in a breath and spun away, unleashing the full Cry on the alley, stopping the gang advance, pinning several with trash bins and debris from the sheer force of it.

Her gaze flicked to the rapist-murderer laying there, dead from a single shot through his forehead.

"Let's get outta here." She stalked off, knowing good and damn well no one would look too close into the death, that Renee wouldn't pay the price for the killing —

— but Dinah would have rather never have been the reason Renee squeezed off the round.

Renee followed; Dinah hadn't told her not to, and they really needed to hash this out without Harley or the kid or anyone else butting in.

"You held your mom's death against me for years."

The quiet words, spoken three blocks over, threw cold water on Dinah's temper.

"I don't. Not now. She… she made choices too."

"Yeah, but… I knew what those choices cost you, and I hate it. I can't… you… I need you to make it out of this shit alive."

Dinah took a breath, then another, before she put a hand on Renee's forearm. "Goes both ways, now. I need you to keep breathing, kicking ass with me, and make it count when we finally decide we can walk away.

"Not for mom. For me."

"Yeah, I get that. I'm going to try harder to remember you make your own choices, but it's hard."

"Always is."

sarajayechan

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

sarajayechan

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

Current Mood: accomplished

musesfool

Oscar winner Michael B Jordan! Woohoo! I did not watch the Oscars but I am so happy for MBJ!

Also for Kpop Demon Hunters and "Golden!"

Here are two links I enjoyed this morning:

= Don't Fence Ted McGinley In (NYT gift link) (also, spoilers for aired episodes of Shrinking)

= 'The Pitt,' as Told by Its Patients

*

Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: Golden - Huntrix

oursin

This is so much what I've been thinking about a different period that I'm writing about - that it's there, even though people are saying It's Ded, it's just not doing the flashy newsworthy visible stuff or the results are the things are are not, or no longer, happening: The one thing everyone gets wrong about feminism.

***

I am a great admirer of Professor Athene Donald's blog, and I like this recent post: Unintended Consequences - in particular perhaps this apercu:

Business gurus tend to talk about ‘being authentic’ as the right way to lead. But if you are a testy, over-bearing soul being authentic may be very destructive for those around you.

So much that.

***

This is another story about mobility in the world: Looted from a royal palace: The medieval jug now on display in London:

A large bronze medieval jug bearing the English royal coat of arms would be a rare find if dug up in England, but somehow it had ended up in West Africa, in modern-day Ghana, thanks to early trading routes between nations.
Dating from between 1340 and 1405, the jug is the largest surviving bronze ewer from medieval England. Decorated with an English inscription, royal heraldry and coat of arms, it was originally a luxury object — but its meaning changed dramatically as it moved across continents.

***

I've had to do with either this artefact or another very similar in my working days, I did not know about the biological contamination (we didn't know for quite some time about the radioactive notebooks, either): a parchment scroll designed to guard against the dangers of childbirth:

Until now, this scroll’s worn surface and suggestive staining constituted the main evidence for its use in childbirth. However, new research by Sarah Fiddyment, presented in the exhibition, reveals that human proteins found on the scroll’s surface indicate the presence of cervico-vaginal fluid. This is an important breakthrough in the burgeoning field of biocodicology, which seeks out the invisible traces left behind by users of manuscripts, as they held, rubbed or kissed a parchment.

(I hadn't heard that story about the dormouse, but wot she does not mention the Godalming rabbit lady?!).

***

You know, I would have sworn that back in my working days I came across something appertaining to this historic event: How smallpox claimed its final victim, but I'm unable to trace it.

james_davis_nicoll

A monstrously large horde of rulebooks, supplements, and sourcebooks for Trail of Cthulhu, the tabletop roleplaying game of eldritch Cthulhu Mythos investigations using the GUMSHOE System from Pelgrane Press.

Bundle of Holding: Trail of Cthulhu MEGA

otw_news_feed

Posted by therealmorticia

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-453-0-9-456-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=280523

We started the year with some major improvements to our bookmark search, making it possible to sort and filter bookmarks by word count, and deployed several batches of fixes to strengthen site security and improve performance. These release notes collect all changes made to AO3 in January.

Shoutout to first-time contributors Juliette Curran, KooShnoo, Mae Light, and sanchal ghosh! Thank you for your work.

Credits

Coders: Brian Austin, Cubostar, FlyingFalcon, irrationalpie, Juliette Curran, kiyazz, KooShnoo, Mae Light, sanchal ghosh, Sarken, Shakelush
Code reviewers: anmazz, Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, KooShnoo, lydia-theda, ömer faruk, Sarken
Testers: ana, Bilka, Brian Austin, choux, killiane, Lute, lydia-theda, marcus8448, ömer faruk, slavalamp, wichard, Yuca

Details

Release 0.9.453

On January 21, we deployed some major improvements to our bookmark search, including the ability to filter and sort bookmarks by word count!

[AO3-6301] – Series blurbs would list all fandom tags from the works included in that series, even if a work was still saved as an unpublished draft. Now series blurbs only display fandoms from posted works.
[AO3-6303] – Series blurbs would also always list fandoms from works that were restricted to logged-in users. We now make sure that if a fandom in a series comes from a restricted work, it’s not listed when a guest is browsing series blurbs.
[AO3-6304] – Relatedly, series blurbs would always show up in bookmark listings for a certain tag even if that fandom’s work in the series was restricted to logged-in users. That’s also fixed now!
[AO3-6471] – We have added word count information to bookmarks! You can now search, filter, and sort bookmarks by the length of the bookmarked work or series. If a series contains restricted works and you’re not logged in, a series’ word count will reflect only the works that are accessible to you.
[AO3-7119] – We tweaked the way search queries work when searching bookmarks, so input is parsed more accurately and a “1k” and a “2k” tag won’t be interpreted as the same tag anymore (for example).

Release 0.9.454

A small grab bag of fixes was released on January 26.

[AO3-7264] – We employ certain measures to prevent spam on AO3, such as limiting how many times an action can be performed by a user in a certain time frame. We have now added an option to restrict new accounts more severely than older accounts when it comes to leaving and editing comments.
[AO3-7238], [AO3-7262] – We added extra information to the details our spam-checking provider uses to determine if a comment is spam or not.
[AO3-7045], [AO3-7060], [AO3-7248] – Some database clean-up and dependency updates.

Release 0.9.455

On January 28, we deployed some of the necessary changes to enable two-step verification for AO3 admin accounts.

[AO3-6918] – These changes prepare the login interface for 2FA enforcement to ensure the greatest possible security for admin accounts.
[AO3-7249] – Site admins, such as members of the Policy and Abuse committee, frequently need to look up a user’s past usernames and email addresses. To speed up searches while we work on long-term performance improvements, we moved this information to separate tables.

Release 0.9.456

A collection of navigation and display fixes was deployed on January 30.

[AO3-6869] – On devices running iOS, footnotes on the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports form were misaligned. Now everything looks tidy again.
[AO3-7028] – In one of our public site skins, some pagination links had become unclickable. If you’ve been using the Low Vision Default skin, now you can page through a user’s works in collections again!
[AO3-7213] – On narrow screens, the “Suggest a Language” button on the Work Languages page was slipping behind the list of languages and couldn’t be clicked. That’s also fixed.
[AO3-7247] – Fixed the broken link to the Fannish Next of Kin FAQ on the Technical Support & Feedback form.
[AO3-7251], [AO3-7266] – Some code clean-up.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-453-0-9-456-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=280523

pauraque

I liked this book when it was a fantasy noir starring a biracial knife-throwing assassin with magic hands in 1940s New York who's trying to get out of the business but keeps getting pulled back in. But that book wraps up about a third of the way through the actual book. Then it turns into a completely different book where the assassin moves upstate with her boyfriend and the story becomes about slimy small town politics and the characters' profound guilt for their actions in the city, and I became increasingly confused about what the book was trying to do and decreasingly satisfied with my reading experience.

Part of the problem is that Dev (the boyfriend) kind of rubbed me the wrong way and I didn't feel invested in the romance between him and Phyllis (the assassin), so shifting the focus more to their relationship was not going to work well for me. I actually liked both characters less and less as the book went on, and by the end I was feeling pretty fed up with both of them. A late promotion to the group of main characters is Tamara, Dev's ex, who comes to have a close bond with Phyllis as well. There is some interesting complexity to the dynamic of this trio, but I ended up frustrated with the way it was handled.

relationship endgame spoilers

It seemed to me that this was going in a poly triad direction, and then backed off of it. And I mean... it's not not poly. Phyllis, Dev, and Tamara have a one-night threesome, and Tamara also has a boyfriend who's deployed overseas, and in general it is not a book that assumes people only love one person at a time. I did appreciate that. What specifically threw me was this passage in Tamara's POV:

Sure, she and Phyllis had kissed that night with Dev and even now, in certain light, she didn't mind the notion of touching Pea [Phyllis] until she came. But the love she felt wasn't really that kind—it was a blood love, a bone love, and it ricocheted off of her other loves at unexpected angles.

Maybe I'm misreading the author's intention in pushing away the idea that Tamara's love for Phyllis is "that kind", or maybe I'm misunderstanding what "that kind" is supposed to be. But to me it read like the poly dynamic was being held at arm's length, which was not the direction I'd hoped it would go. I guess the Tamara/Phyllis relationship is ambiguous and not clearly defined as (queer)platonic or romantic, which sometimes I like, but the way it was presented here didn't land for me.

I also didn't understand what we were supposed to take away from the reveal of how the magic in the book works.

worldbuilding and plot spoilers

Only certain rare people have magic, and only people of color. It's eventually shown that the magic is a gift from their ancestors, who intended for their descendants to use it to fight white oppression. But if the ancestors are displeased with how the magic is used, the magic can turn against its holder or disappear completely. This explains why Phyllis loses control of her hands—the ancestors wanted her to assassinate the sadistic mob boss Vic (who is white), but by that point Phyllis wanted to stop killing so she didn't do it. She spends the rest of the book trying to make amends for the murders she's committed, yet her hands continue to torment her for not killing Vic, and she eventually sickens and dies. Dev, who also has magic, does kill Vic, and is tortured by guilt for the rest of the book, and he also dies. Tamara has magic too, and also becomes consumed with guilt because even though she never hurt anyone directly, she worked for Vic and looked the other way; she tries to sacrifice herself to save Phyllis but doesn't succeed.

To me it ended up reading like the characters were being punished for not living up to binding magical agreements that they never consented to or even knew about, which override their own agency and moral convictions. What are the ancestors trying to accomplish here? How does any of this help in the fight against racism? We're told that magic is getting rarer, but it's not really explained why. I know it's not because people of color in the 1940s don't need the help, and I can't imagine the author is saying it's because they're not worthy of it, but... what, then? Phyllis and Dev's daughter is supposed to have extraordinary powers, but I don't think that's explained either and I didn't have a clear sense of what she's expected to do. The whole cosmology of the book didn't make sense to me.

It sucks because I find Johnson's prose excellent, and the first third worked so well for me. I really didn't want to have to say I don't like this book! But alas, here we are.

prettygoodword

kigurumi (ki-guh-ROO-mee) - n., a full-body costume of a mascot or cartoon character; full-body cosplay of a human cartoon character with realistic proportions paired with an anime-style mask, or sometimes just the mask itself; a set of onesie pajamas of a cartoon animal.

All three types of costumes, and the word itself, come from Japan -- when I jotted the word in my queue, I was thinking of the last:

skunk kigurumi

Thanks, WikiMedia!

From Japanese, where it's usually written 着ぐるみ, from ki, clothes/wear + -gurumi, all over/complete.

---L.

james_davis_nicoll

Five benefits to a thermonuclear war.

Smile, Smile, Smile

slacktivist_feed

Posted by Fred Clark

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2026/03/16/reach-throw-row-go-revisited/

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/?p=73276

Leo Cundiff jumped into a freezing lake to save a drowning baby. And now it's our chance to return the favor.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2026/03/16/reach-throw-row-go-revisited/

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/?p=73276

jazzyjj posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

conuly

And isn’t everything risk?

The beloved lives
Then dies,
Then (if we’re lucky)
Rises again
Into a poem or song

Or into the world
In some other form
Impossible to predict.

Simplest story, oldest tale:

Sparrows sing it
From every hedge;

And swallows, also,
From their nests on the ledge.

**********

Link

rogueslayer452

Nathan Fillion just announced that there's a Firefly animated show in the works, set to be taken place between the first season and the movie.

This is quite a whiplash in terms of Whedonverse news lately. First, the BTVS sequel series got cancelled, and now we might possibly be getting more Firefly in animated form. What's next? A Dollhouse revival with Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj being a central part of the story? (Actually, that would be pretty dope, ngl.)

With that being said, this came as quite a surprise. There was some vague buzz about Nathan going to tease us with something in relation to Firefly, however we've been hearing these kinds of things for years and it's usually just either an event or some kind of merchandise, and it's become kind of an inside joke among fans about "maybe this time it'll be a season two!" when we know that's not the case. So I wasn't prepared. Since it's still in the development stages I'm not getting my hopes up just yet knowing how fickle the entertainment industry is especially these days, however I can't help but feel tentatively optimistic for the possibility of this actually happening. It seems they're actively determined to make it so, and Nathan is probably the biggest advocate for more Firefly anything. I know some fans are disappointed about this being animated and not live-action, which I completely understand since I also wanted that too, but when taking into account how long it's been unless they were going for something many years after the events of Serenity with the crew, doing animation is probably the safest choice. I also have additional thoughts including my personal concerns about things, but that'll be for another post.

So. A second season of Firefly in animated form. Whodathunkit, huh?

Current Mood: good
Current Music: Agnes Monica - Tak Ada Logika

tielan

Every time I lay down for a nap or an early night, or stay in bed for a longer sleep-in, I get disrupted by someone.

I'm not sleeping well. Is it a stress thing? A perimenopause thing? A thing with the weather? A 'life the universe and the end of the world as we know it' thing? Who even knows!

Unfortunately, I don't get a break in evening events until Thursday. And while I could stay home for each of them, in the first instance I'm the president, in the second a young woman is coming along for the first time, and in the third it's a social event.

I think I may have to take the sleeping drugs tonight. Well, melatonin.

creepy_shetan posting in

comment_fic

[ If you're interested in being a Tuesday-Thursday guest host, you can sign up here. Thanks! ❤ ]
↑↑↑ Available dates:
March 17 & 19
March 31 & April 2
April 7 & 9

Good... evening? Morning? 6^^;; Looks like it's just another Lonely Prompts Monday, and I'm sure everyone wishes it was still Sunday, right? ♫ (On a positive note, if you're reading this, you've survived the Ides of March!) If this is your first time at

comment_fic on a Sunday, you can either request previous prompts to be filled or share your recent fills for prompts. (Or do both, of course!) ✎

How to look for prompts:
We have plenty of prompts that might just nibble away at your brain today. You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^

Whichever you decide to do, prompt or fill (or both), please remember:
1. You can only request five prompts to be filled.
2. You can request no more than three prompts from a particular fandom.
3. You can, however, fill as many prompts in as many fandoms as you'd like!
4. In the subject line, be sure to say whether it is a request or a fill!
5. You must link back to wherever the prompt is in the community archive (whether filling or requesting), and, if you're filling the prompt, please post the fill as a reply to the original prompt.
6. If you are filling an "any/any" prompt, please let us know what fandom you've written it for (or if it's original!).
8. If there are possible triggers in your story, please warn for them in the subject line!
7. If you've filled any lonely prompts in the past week, this is the place to share them!
9. Finally, please remember to add your prompt fills to our AO3 collection: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2026 collection. See further notes on this option here.

How to link:
[a href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/449155.html?thread=70682755#t70682755">MCU, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, She's wearing daisy dukes and one of his button-down shirts.[/a]
(change the brackets to "<" and ">" respectively)
or:
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/139897.html?thread=30155641#t30155641
Burn Notice, Sam/Michael/Fi, "It's always been you. And it's always gonna be you."

We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2026 collection.

If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)

If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word! comment_fic

A friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.

conuly

Watch on YouTube

conuly

that the Roman calendar was batshit.

Today is the Ides, okay, and yesterday was pridie Ides, so far so good, and the day before that was three days before the Ides, because the Romans a. counted backwards and b. did this weird inclusive counting, so Friday, Saturday, Ides = three days.

(Which is also how Good Friday is three days before the Resurrection, when it blatantly isn't.)

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

( Read more... )

Mother Nature is Drunk

10trueloves: overprotective

(no subject)

Fannish 50 round 2, #14

we're going up, up, up, it's our moment

A miscellanea

Bundle of Holding: Trail of Cthulhu MEGA

AO3 Releases 0.9.453 – 0.9.456: Change Log

Credits

Details

Release 0.9.453

Release 0.9.454

Release 0.9.455

Release 0.9.456

Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson (2020)

kigurumi

Smile, Smile, Smile

Reach, Throw, Row, Go (revisited)

Interesting Links for 16-03-2026

Just one thing: 16 March 2026

[And isn’t everything risk?] by Gregory Orr

You can't take the sky from me.

so tired

Lonely Prompts Sunday-Monday, Week 11 [DW Edition]

(no subject)

This is the yearly reminder

Profile

February 2026

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags