(no subject)

Jun. 8th, 2025 07:58 pm
flemmings: (hasui rain)
[personal profile] flemmings
Looks like the wildfire smoke got me, in spite of there being no air quality warning. Or else I've started having hours-long anxiety attacks. Went up to Loblaws, halfway there began feeling tight-chested and dizzy, couldn't breathe deeply,  and didn't get much better inside. Now sinuses are swollen but I can kind of breathe. So much for laundromat, and now of course it's raining.

New Comm

Jun. 8th, 2025 06:41 pm
senmut: Capitol in distance, Washington Monument in foreground, all in fog (Scenic: Patriotism and Politics)
[personal profile] senmut
[community profile] communityactionusa is set up now. As you can probably tell by the name, it's intended as a place to help guide action, and the sticky is referencing "Project Mailstorm". Go look, see if it's your cuppa.
mxcatmoon: (Ianto splash)
[personal profile] mxcatmoon
Just a few updates, feel free to skip as usual (maybe just writing it down will help some).

Updates... )Updates... )

Updates with political and mental health stuff... )

I do have a couple of ideas for drabbles... maybe I'll manage to write one or two after all...

Various Links 6/2 - 6/8

Jun. 8th, 2025 03:16 pm
senmut: Grand Admiral Thrawn in repose (Star Wars: Thrawn)
[personal profile] senmut
13 links today

The Old Guard 2 Trailer

Rodimus Prime cross-stitch

Epistolary Avatar: the Last Airbender fic

Leverage Filk

Cat Dad update - mentions the passing of the mother cat, but the babies are thriving. 7 years of wholesome Cat Dad.

Very WOW but very dangerous standing swing stunt - if any of the more dangerous Cirque de Soleil stunts give you anxiety, skip this.

Seattle Mariners Pride vid

The Great Escape (performed by a cat)

Oslo Pride video

Skeletor and He-Man UK commercials for something - link opens on first vid, scroll down for second.

See Snoopy flying on his dog house

Great vid of a dust devil sans dust

Egyptian Blue pigment re-discovered? - caveat is that I did not research to see if this is a "Discovery" where the locals never lost it.

#659, Bashō

Jun. 8th, 2025 09:42 am
runpunkrun: john sheppard and teyla emmagan in uniform and standing in a rocky streambed (hold the stillness exactly before us)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
don't be like me
even though we're like the melon
split in two
     -1690

Translation by Jane Reichhold.

俳句 )

I just realised!

Jun. 8th, 2025 12:55 pm
kitarella_imagines: Profile photo (Default)
[personal profile] kitarella_imagines
Two of my fanfics are EXACTLY the same length in words! 16,968 words each! Both M/M romances but vastly different fandoms!

That sort of thing gets me overexcited!🤣

EDIT: well that didn't last long! I thought of another sentence I must add to one fic, and it obviously changed the word count! 😂
shadowkat: (Default)
[personal profile] shadowkat
CNN Aired An Exclusive Live Broadcast of the Broadway Play: Good Night and Good Luck - adapted for the stage from the film of the same name. The reason they aired it is made clear upon the airing - at the very end, Edward R Murrow, the CBS News See it Now broadcaster who famously took on McCarthy, during the Black List and McCarthy Hearings, stands front and center in front of a screen displaying multiple screens of the news. He states in a halting speech, enunciating each word, with a slight tremor to his voice, "we've seen what happens when power goes unchecked, that's not the question before us now, the question is - what will you do about it?"

I was thinking as I was watching it live on MAX (I no longer have access to CNN), that evil is like a spider, sitting in the dark corner of the room, smoking a cigar, wih a red top hat and tails smirking. And asking in a whisper of a voice, low and barely audible, "what do you want?" And indicating with a smile - "come into my parlor my dear and I shall give it to you, with a price of course".

It's insidious, and shadows egos. Self-importance. Self-righteousness. Power. Fame. Fortune. Wealth. Beware the righteous, and the self-important, and most of all the arrogant and narcissistic hunting awards and acknowledgment and power.

I don't know what I personally can do to check the power or stop it. I've been pondering it. I can write, I can post, I can draw, I can paint, I can do my job at a public agency. And I can hope people listen.

People aren't very good at listening? Have you noticed that? Too busy thinking about themselves or what they are going to say next or how they'll respond. Too filled up with thoughts to hear...ones that lie outside of their own minds and brains. I tell people a story and they tell me their own back again, and mine....slides off unheard, lost somehow within theirs? The meaning gone. And they tell me theirs and I tell them my own, and it happens all over again from the other side - with their story being lost.

I did social group therapy once - and we were for the most part forced to listen, but everyone tended to flounder at it. Either they'd ask pointed questions, correct the person's choice of words or syntax or speech (which isn't listening by the way - it's judging, and helps no one), interrupt, direct the conversation to themselves, provide advice, try to fix whatever it was, dismiss it as already solved or playing the victim, but seldom did they listen.

And once on a fan discussion board - we fell into a discussion about writing carefully, and I thought - no that's not the problem here or not that alone, we also need to learn how to read carefully. And people don't? Too busy reading quickly, flying through or past the text, to see it clearly let alone truly comprehend it? Now, for example, raise your hand if you just skimmed this passage and oh so many others? Be honest? How many have you skimmed, jumping over words and phrases and reacting to a sentence here or a paragraph there - but not seeing the whole? I know I do. Try a little experiment, if you will? Read just one paragraph of a post, or the unhidden bit. Then take a moment, and read the rest later, has your opinion of it changed?

We live in an age of content overload, and we surf and read and look at so many things simultaneously. Texts fly by. Our memory of them fleeting or garbled. And more often than not - people just read blurbs. If I post something with information below a "cut tag" - how many will read what's below the tag, and just respond to the top of the post? Losing the point of it. Or respond to the post, without reading the comments below? We don't read carefully - and most mistakes are made because of it. They were on the discussion boards. 90% of the arguments online are the result of "miscommunication" or the inability to politely ask for clarification prior to snarking, judging or condemning.

I think the flaw in the human brain is a tendency to assume everyone thinks the same and perceives things the same? When no one does? And well...a failure to communicate as a result?

**

You'll have to excuse me, I'm exhausted. But the weather is shifting, and I'm hurting less all of a sudden - which means the arthritis isn't being pinged by the human weather vane.

I'm also frustrated with my fellow humans. And perhaps with myself and my own limitations. And a touch depressed, no more than a touch, as a result. But hey at least I don't hurt as much as last night. So maybe the back brace is helping?

It's a warm spring evening. The sky has cleared of clouds, and it's sliding towards dark, from twilight. Nine PM on the East Coast. But I can still see puffs of cloud moving slowly across the pale blue sky, lit from within by moonlight. Our swiftly turning planet in the vacuum of space, surrounded by stars and galaxies which far too many of us take for granted as we bumble upon it babbling and gurgling at one another as is our way.


(no subject)

Jun. 7th, 2025 08:45 pm
flemmings: (Default)
[personal profile] flemmings
I thought they might have cancelled Open Tuning because of the air quality, but no, they seem to have had fewer venues this year. And next door was mercifully not one of them, so hurray.

Ventured out in the early evening to the laundromat with socks and underwear, which I normally do at home, but maybe should wash in hot water once every year or so. Laundromat was blissfully empty save for a woman clearly doing a week's worth of family laundry. Alas, one reason it was empty may have been that the coin machine was out of change, and all I had was four toonies and 1.25 in the coins the machines do take. Inflation being as it is, they should make a washing machine that takes toonies, but that day is not yet. So I put my clothes back in their hamper, came home, and washed them in the basement as always. Shall hope the underwear on the basement lines doesn't mold, and shall stick the rest of it on the outside lines tomorrow.

It's happening!!!

Jun. 7th, 2025 05:19 pm
bleodswean: (Default)
[personal profile] bleodswean






Idol is back and it's WHEEL OF CHAOS time! I'm in and I really encourage all of you to give it a whirl, too! It's fun, truly! And even when it's not, you're writing and isn't that what we're here to do? 

therealljidol | The Wheel of Chaos Sign Up

PRIDE 4: Hardison/Eliot/Parker

Jun. 7th, 2025 03:50 pm
senmut: 3/4 view from the front side of Eliot, Parker, and Hardison (Leverage: OT3 take 2)
[personal profile] senmut
Marking Dates (531 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Eliot Spencer/Alec Hardison/Parker
Characters: Alec Hardison, Eliot Spencer, Parker [Leverage]
Additional Tags: Origami, Fluff
Summary:

Hardison and Eliot mark the date in a way that Parker will enjoy.



Marking Dates

The saying that money can't buy happiness had to have been thought up by a rich person, Hardison decided. He kept folding the non-sequential bills, setting up a menagerie of wild animals. After he had twenty-six of them, he put them in the box, closed it, and left it on his desk, just where the box had been for several days.

Parker had noticed it on the first day it was there, asked about it two days after that, then forgot it existed as it became part of her surroundings. It was the perfect place to hide something in plain sight — though he'd taken the precaution of spritzing it with his aftershave, to hide the money smell.

Parker was funny enough about money that she might have smelled it otherwise.

When Eliot came in that evening, Hardison caught his eyes, looked at the box, got the slow blink of agreement, and that was that.

Two days later, the box was gone, and Parker studied that space, making the cute frowny face she did while cataloguing where everything was supposed to be.

"Where'd the box go?" she asked.

"Have to find it," Eliot answered, before he and Hardison exchanged a grin. Her eyes lit up, so Hardison continued. "Scavenger hunt, in our building, out of the way spots… with things to find on the way to the box."

"What kind of things?" she asked, even as she was getting excited.

"The kind of things you like," Eliot said, and she did a tiny little clap and bounce before vanishing.

"And that, my friend, is how we say 'happy anniversary' to her," Hardison crooned, amused, and going to watch the spy-eyes through the building. Eliot joined him, putting him in a brief headlock playfully.

"Figuring out her love language wasn't so hard," Eliot said, but he was smiling when she found the first animal, right where he'd thought she would, an alligator. "How in the hell did you find an origami A to Z?"

"Man, everything is on the internet now," Hardison told him, still thrilled they'd found a gift that worked.





Parker found the last animal, cunningly folded so it appeared striped, making it a zebra, and the box was just ahead. She opened it, seeing cash — multiple currencies even! — and the note that said 'happy change together day'. Her chin wibbled, for just a moment, before she put all of her finds in the box. She'd had to back track for the otter and the shrew when she realized they were in alphabetical order, but now she had a full menagerie of money.

Her men — both of them were hers and theirs and ours — made fusses on days that weren't Christmas, but not in the way she saw other people do it. That, among many things, kept her falling in love with them every day, knowing neither one would ever push her in a path she couldn't handle.

She'd have to make a run on a store before she went back up to them; junk food for Hardison that had some pretzels in it, and she'd pick up that smelly cheese Eliot had insisted would make great brioche grilled cheese sandwiches.

Return to volleyball

Jun. 7th, 2025 11:49 am
susandennis: (Default)
[personal profile] susandennis
About 5 last night, the facilities coordinator sent out a note that the pool was fixed and it should take about 6-12 hours to reheat. I swapped some texts with Steve and we agreed to give it a go today. Turns out 12 hours was a hair optimistic. It was warmer but it was still pretty cold. In hindsight...

But, we had a good time and a nice crowd and it was fine and fun.

Elbow coffee was its normal nothing but harmless today. Also a good crowd. It's really a nothing gathering but also a painless way to touch base with neighbors and make sure everyone is fine. Without Myrna, we really don't even see each other much any other time.

I'm still working on my utility room. I have one more item coming from Amazon (Monday) which will take care of the final issue. But it does look much nicer now and is easier to find shit.

I got the invitation to my nephew's wedding today. The wedding is in the middle of October. This is June. Clearly wedding rules have changed. At least I don't have to go. And, according to their website, one of their top two most wanted gift requests is money. Whew. That takes a load off. Also their wedding website let me RSVP so I don't even have to hunt down a stamp and mail this little card back. I like these new wedding rules. In my day...

Last night they had fried chicken on the buffet and I loaded up. So now I have fried chicken for lunch. Yum. Then baseball. My perfect afternoon.

May-December (Film Review)

Jun. 7th, 2025 05:51 pm
selenak: (Damages by Agsmith01)
[personal profile] selenak
Which I would have watched on the big screen if I could have, but a brief showing time and my tight schedule did not allow it. Anyway: this is the movie in which Natalie Portman plays a (tv) actress, Elizabeth, who wants to play Gracie (Julianne Moore) in a movie based on events taking place about two decades plus earlier than the film's setting, which is 2015. (Though the film itself premiered in 2023.) Said events consisted of Gracie, at age 36, having had a "relationship" with a thirteen years old boy, Joe ,whom she after some years in prison for statuary rape married; he's currently 36 (as is Elizabeth), the same age she was back then, and played by Charles Melton, who I osmosed before this movie was mostly famous for playing a jock type in Riverdale but who is absolutely stunning in this film (and should at least have gotten an Oscar nomination), which given he's working with Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman at their best, is truly saying something. There are also kids (the one Gracie was pregnant with when she got caught is now in college, and thn there are twins about to graduate), as well as Gracie's offspring from her earlier marriage, with her son Georgie being the same age as Joe. The movie is directed by Todd Haynes, and dives right into how incredibly messed up a story this is.

Now, if you start the film knot knowing what it's about, then the first few minutes might let you assume it's a black comedy about suburbia; Gracie, Joe and their children live in the proverbial idyllic white fenced area somewhere in South Carolina, with Gracie (who runs a small scale bakery) coming across as somewhat high strung but popular among her neighbours - and then Elizabeth arrives, only to find an anonymous package at the couple's front door which contains feces. There are some comedy beats throughout the remaining movie, but actually I would classify it as emotional horror. Gracie is still absolutely incapable of admitting she ever did anything wrong, and we get an early taste of her ability to manipulate and achieve emotional control when she comments on her daughter's choice of prom dress: "You're so brave to show your arms! I wouldn't have dared", with the result that of course the poor girl doesn't buy that dress but the one Gracie likes. Elizabeth isn't the film's heroine, either, though in the first half her investigation provides the audience bit by bit with the backstory from various povs via the characters Elizabeth talks to; the movie goes full throttle about what a disturbing and ruthlessly exploitative process an actor working on a role can be if that role isn't a fictional character but a real person. (BTW, of course Portman and Moore don't look much alike, but that only helps enhancing the sense of disquiet as Elizabeth adopts more and more of Gracie's mannerisms, with the scene where Gracie gives Elizabeth a makeover with her own makeup and lipstick being a showcase in point.)

Meanwhile, Joe starts out on a quiet background note when compared to the two women, and then the story shows more and more how messed up not just the start of his relationship with Gracie was but how messed up their present day relationship still is. More than one review described Joe as a thirteen years old still locked in the body of an adult man, and before watching the film I assumed this meant Joe would be characterized as a manchild, but no, that's not what was meant at all. If anything, he's the most reasonably and responsibly acting adult in this film. But emotionally, it becomes clear he's never had the chance to process what happened, not least because his entire life is still built around keeping Gracie happy. He became a father years and years before growing up, and the scene where due to his teenage son for the first time sharing pot with him his quiet and calm facade finally cracks and some of that repressed emotion breaks through is incredibly good and heartbreaking.

Incidentally: making a movie which deals with an adult grooming a kid without getting voyeuristic with a young actor sounds near impossible - but May-December by showing us the aftermath and the long term effect everything had on Joe decades later proves it can be done. At the same time, we do get a visual reminder of just how young he was when Elizabeth gets sent video clips of teenagers auditioning to play Joe. (The audition clips don't show more than them introducing themselves with their name and age.) Elizabeth looks appalled, and the audience might think it's because it hits her how young thirteen really is.... and then a few scenes later, she's on the phone with her producer and tells him these guys are just wrong because they don't look sexy enough. Which tells you something about Elizabeth.

Despite how good this film is - with script, acting and cinematography all outstanding - , I'm not surprised it wasn't a box office success (while getting deservedly criticial praise.) It's hardly a subject lending itself to relaxation, and despite its three leads all being very attractive people, any sexual activity is basically the opposite of fanservice - like I said, it's an emotional horror show. Not something I'll rewatch any time soon, though I am glad I watched it once, and am full of admiration for what it achieves.

Anyone want some good news?

Jun. 7th, 2025 11:41 am
shadowkat: (Default)
[personal profile] shadowkat
Snagged from various places, mainly svgurl: 72 questions to ask a fan
(She says fangirl - but I just took Gender Identity Training (web module) this week and it kind of goes against the grain to use gender exclusive as opposed to gender inclusive language at the moment.)

Also, the Good News Report...

As always, good news is often in the eye of the beholder, but hopefully something makes you smile, outside of the link to the fan questions. Which I may or may not try to answer at a later date. I'm weirdly private about my fandoms.


1.Breakthrough in search for HIV cure leaves researchers ‘overwhelmed’
Exclusive: Melbourne team demonstrates way to make the virus visible within white blood cells, paving the way to fully clear it from the body.

Via the Guardian

"Exclusive: Melbourne team demonstrates way to make the virus visible within white blood cells, paving the way to fully clear it from the body."

2. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka sues Alina Habba, alleging ‘false arrest and malicious prosecution’. Alina Habba's criminal case against Ras Baraka collapsed quickly. Now, the tables have turned, and the Newark mayor is suing the prosecutor.

Via Democracy Docket

3.Judge says some migrants sent to an El Salvador prison must have a chance to challenge their detention. A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to provide hundreds of migrants sent to CECOT, a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, the opportunity to challenge their detention and removal. The ruling is related to deportations ordered under the Alien Enemies Act.

Via NBC News

This doesn't apply to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man whose deportation became a focal point of Democratic resistance to Trump's immigration policies.

4. The Trump regime has returned a Guatemalan man who was improperly deported to Mexico, obeying a federal judge’s order.

Via Politico

5. More than a century after the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, one of the most horrific episodes of racial violence in U.S. history, the city’s mayor announced a $105 million reparations package on Sunday. It is the first large-scale plan committing funds to address the impact of the atrocity. Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols on Sunday unveiled a $105 million reparations plan for the descendants of the Tulsa race massacre — the deadly 1921 attack by a white mob on a Black neighborhood.

ABC News

Via NY Times

the rest )

the_siobhan: (Professor Fly)
[personal profile] the_siobhan
Steroids are fucking magic, yo. They have returned my cat to his normal bitchy emotionally needy self. They have also taken most of the stabbing out of my foot so I can walk without limping, at least while I'm moving around the house. I cheated a bit and put some of the foot cream on my arm because I officially overdid it with the shovelling, and as a result I can now lift a water glass without wincing.

What a country.

Upper third of my yard is now graded and seeded. My daughter came over and helped. She's not getting a lot of hours at work so she has an open invitation to come over and help me move dirt from one place to another whenever she wants to make a few bucks and be given beer and dinner. It works out well for both of us.

Basement guys came back today - they said they figured they had about three hours of work to finish. More swearing in Polish ensued. In the end they were in my basement for eight hours, but they got it all done. They had to build entirely new frames to hang the doors from and there was at least one hardware store trip to replace borked parts in the storm door and BOY HOWDY did they have something to say about that, but everything is now perfect and the basement apartment has functional doors that work and close and lock and everything.

Next step: I got somebody to come over and have a look at finishing the wood work. This consists of:
1. The stairs from the kitchen door to the backyard. Currently about a three foot drop, which I have been climbing up and down but that's not a perfect long term solution. (Especially in winter.)
2. The stairs from the basement apartment into the yard, are flimsy, wobbly, and don't have any hand rails so they are definitely not code. They are also resting on a base of wooden slats that just randomly shift if you put your weight in the wrong spot. I have no fucking idea what Original Contractor was even thinking. They need to be replaced with something that will pass a city inspection and that also will not kill you when you try to use them.
3. I want to put some kind of a sound-proof bench over the sump pump, because that fucker is loud. Also I figure an exposed ginormous battery is possibly a safety hazard of some kind. So the guy who looked at it said they can build something that acts as a solid bench but you can flip the top up if it needs maintenance, which sounds perfect.
4. My original blueprints include a deck on the kitchen roof. That would be really nice if I can swing it, but we'll see how much this all costs. Mainly it would be an additional place for me to grow herbs and stuff so it's in the "nice to have" pile.



CUT FOR GROSS, SERIOUSLY YOU WERE WARNED )

Every time I see my doctor she asks me how the Not Drinking is going and every single time I'm all, FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK.

Fandom50: #15

Jun. 6th, 2025 07:46 pm
senmut: Screen shot of Mikaela dirty in the end of '07 TF, Warrior Goddess in blue above and below (Transformers: Mikaela)
[personal profile] senmut
Almost the end of a decade in 1989. Revolutions, crackdowns, changes in power ... look, 1989 left a mark on my psyche. Evidently I was escaping into the cinema as much as I was to the roller rink, judging from me opening 20 tabs even with me being picky. Going to narrow that down some. Okay, 11 in the final cut.

kinda grouped in genre broadly )

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