conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Prudence,

A few days after Christmas, my oldest sister (“Clair”) sent a text message to me and my siblings (four of us total) saying “due to what happened on Christmas Day, I am taking a break from my family”—nothing more, no explanation, no response to us texting back “what happened?”. Christmas was at my house, and I could not think of anything bad that happened, and my other siblings were at a loss also. In talking to my mom a few days later, she mentioned that Clair was upset that we didn’t get her grandkids (ages 5 and 7), my grandnephews, anything for Christmas and that she and her family were topics of discussion and unwarranted questions were being asked about them and she didn’t like it. I can’t for the life of me imagine why.

Her son and his wife and kids moved back to the area three months ago and other than some baby gifts when they were newborns, no gifts have ever been given to them, so the expectation caught us completely off guard. As for being the topic of discussion and questions? How could we help ourselves when Clair was charged with vandalism a week before Christmas when she found out the married man she was seeing had no intention of leaving his wife for her, and she keyed and spray painted his car. Plus, why did her son, with supposedly a good job and a house, just up and move back with no explanation and remain unwilling to give one? And why is her unemployed daughter not applying where her uncle works, as they are hiring for entry level positions? Could it be because she knows she will fail the drug test?

This brings me to last weekend, when our cousin “Emily” and her husband were travelling near our area. They stayed the night at my house, so I invited my mom and other siblings, except for Clair (remember, no contact), over for supper. Yesterday, Clair found out about Emily’s visit and sent me a message demanding to know why she wasn’t made aware of Emily visiting and not being invited for supper. I mentioned her “break from the family” and she said “that’s not what I said,” so I sent her a screenshot of her message and said “I don’t know how to take it any other way except that you don’t want anything to do with the family.” Today she sent another message to the family saying she wants to be included in family things, but she and her family are “off limits for questions and conversations.”

Am I being unreasonable in thinking this requirement is ridiculous? In the past, she has had no issues in making my and my sibling’s families the topic of discussion, good or bad.

—Not Buying It


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Posted by Dustin Rowles

After the death of Alex Pretti last week (yes, that was somehow only last weekend), I thought Jon Stewart -- along with SNL -- brought a little too much humor to a gunfight. But in discussing the release of 3...

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sovay: (Lord Peter Wimsey: passion)
[personal profile] sovay
My poem "Reap the Rules" has been accepted by Reckoning. It is my first sale to the journal; it is a particular honor that it was selected for the conflict-themed special issue It Was Paradise. I wrote it last summer after the U.S. strikes on Iran. It is a prayer dedicated in cuneiform to the oldest goddess I know in that region. The title is a mondegreen from Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane's "Coins for the Eyes" (2022) which was about all I listened to while writing. Curse tablets do not seem to be going out of fashion any time soon.

I feel as though I remember to check out Festivids even less reliably than Yuletide, but this year has been a bonanza of which my socks-blown-off favorites look like "There Is No Ship" (Steerswoman), "ASSHOLE" (Looney Tunes), "Queen Bitch Cartagia" (Babylon 5), and "So It Goes" (Foundation). Honorable mentions to "It's a Sin" (Murderbot) even though I can't separate that song from Derek Jarman and "Hard Knock Life" (The Canopener Bridge) for introducing me to its fandom and illustrating the concept of storrowing perfectly.

My sleep has gone extraordinarily off the rails, but the snow in our back yard is criss-crossed with rabbit tracks. Hestia has broken three of the slats in my blinds in order to provide herself with a better view on Bird Theater.
cimorene: A small bronze table lamp with triple-layered orange glass shades (stylish)
[personal profile] cimorene
I have written some rather harsh things about John Dickson Carr, and I stand by them and by being a hater.

But I wanted to be able to articulate just what it has that bothers me about them, so I started reading some more of his work. I found a GAD blogger who loves the guy and picked ones he mentioned. I quite liked the first Sir Henry Merrivale mystery I read (originally published under the pseudonym Carter Dickson), 1943's She Died A Lady. Then I read 1944's Till Death Do Us Part, which is the first mystery I've ever read with a setup to rival Christie's The Clocks. The setup takes longer: about 30% of the novel. But it is fantastic.

In The Clocks, as you know, Bob, a war-hero sort of young man who later acts as sidekick to Poirot is walking down a residential street when a door opens and a young woman runs out screaming. She just arrived to this house and found it empty except for a dead body; she's a typist and was hired through a secretarial bureau. He goes in with her and they find the corpse in a room that also contains a whole bunch of different clocks for some reason (six maybe?). The owner of the house then returns. She's blind, she didn't hire the typist, she has no connection with the victim and doesn't know how he got there, and she also doesn't own the clocks.

In Till Death Do Us Part the narrator (a playwright of crime thrillers) and his brand new fiancée go to a county fair. His fiancée first appears to have some sort of confrontation with the fortune teller (witnessed in silhouette through the tent), then accidentally shoots said fortune teller with a target rifle from outside the tent just as he was saying to the narrator, "I'm the famous criminologist from the Home Office and there's something I've got to tell you!" He is carried away by the doctor, but sends for the narrator to tell him that his fiancée is a murderess who has gotten away with poisoning two husbands and a past betrothed by injection of prussic acid so they looked like suicide, and that he wants the narrator's help to catch her. This is part of the setup but it's also a twist at like 30% of the book so )

praying mantis

Feb. 3rd, 2026 03:23 pm
mllesatine: some pink clouds (Default)
[personal profile] mllesatine
This praying mantis visited me last september on my fourth floor balcony. I'm not sure if it was a male or female, I think it was male. A saw the same mantis for a few days. I have some hope that this means that a female mantis laid eggs (called "Oothek") and I might see the babies in the spring.

I posted my pictures to a German site (https://gottesanbeterin-gesucht.de/). Check out the map of the last few years. There are two distinct populations in Germany (East and West) but barely any sighting in the south or north.
sisterdivinium: mother superion and jillian salvius from warrior nun being close hehe (Default)
[personal profile] sisterdivinium posting in [community profile] halfamoon
Title: Does this hurt?
Fandom: Warrior Nun
Characters: Jillian Salvius, with Mother Superion and Camila (Yasmine is in the background).
Rating: G
Notes: Done with Chinese ink and graphite.
Summary: It's not what she was supposed to be doing but Jillian finds herself patching up the sisters after their missions.

Over here, at my journal.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A moment of foolish charity drags impoverished Altair Jones into a deadly struggle.

Angel With a Sword (Merovingen Nights, volume 2) by C J Cherryh

Hornblower, episode 4

Feb. 3rd, 2026 08:28 am
osprey_archer: (Default)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
Next up in the Hornblower movieverse: The Wrong War (originally The Frogs and the Lobsters), featuring Horatio Hornblower’s involvement in the ill-fated attack French royalist landing at Quiberon. (“Quiberon! There was a D. K. Broster book about that!” I crowed.)

Enjoyable as usual, although the slashiness quotient was low (very little Kennedy, Bush hasn’t appeared yet). Once again the film is telling pretty much the same story as the book but changing the thematic valence: in the book, the point of Quiberon seems to be that the strict discipline of the marines saves the day (for the British retreat, anyway, the undisciplined Royalists are screwed), whereas here, Captain Pellew saves the day by disobeying his orders to stay at one beach and instead heads to the other to pick up the possible survivors.

(Basically I think the Hornblower movies were made by people who are really more sympathetic to the liberte, egalite, fraternite of the French Revolution than the ideals of the Royal Navy circa 1800: obedience, order, discipline, respect for rank, etc. etc.)

Also, the filmmakers decided that it was time for Hornblower to have a romance (with a girl), and have therefore introduced the character of Mariette, a French peasant girl who became a schoolteacher following the Revolution. This led (I imagine) to some version of the following conversation:

FILMMAKER #1: But what will we do with Mariette in the later films?

FILMMAKER #2: Don’t worry about it! We’ll kill her at the end of this one.

I did not care for this ending, so I have taken the liberty of rewriting it, starting from the scene in Mariette’s house where Hornblower begs her to run away with him while the townsfolk outside riot.

HORNBLOWER: I won’t leave without you!

MARIETTE: Climb out ze window!

HORNBLOWER climbs out the window. MARIETTE leans out the window looking after him, but does not move to climb down.

HORNBLOWER: Jump!

MARIETTE: (with tears in her eyes) Nevaire can I leave la belle France! Vive la Republique! Adieu, ‘Ornblowaire!

MARIETTE shuts the shutters. HORNBLOWER looks like he wants to climb back up and argue, but suddenly the yelling is getting much closer, and he must flee.

HORNBLOWER makes it to the bridge literally seconds before the British blow it up. The British retreat to the beach, where they are rescued by the Indefatigable.

HORNBLOWER stands by the rail, staring out at the receding coast of France. KENNEDY comes to stand beside him.

HORNBLOWER: “I could not love her, dear, so well/loved she not la belle France more.”

KENNEDY clasps Hornblower’s shoulder in manly sympathy. They gaze together at their one true mistress, the sea.

FIN
melime: (Default)
[personal profile] melime posting in [community profile] halfamoon
Title: Guilty Pleasures
Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Character: Cassandra Pentaghast & Leliana
Prompt: Guilty Pleasures
Rating/Category: T/Gen
Summary: Leliana finds Cassandra reading the latest Swords & Shields.
Notes: With this prompt, my mind went straight to Cassandra's quest, Guilty Pleasures. The serious and responsible Seeker can't be caught enjoying the romance books of the guy she once arrested, right?

Guilty Pleasures
Finding Cassandra is trivial, even if she thinks that she's hiding. Not hiding so much that someone who did find her would have just cause to accuse her of hiding, but hiding nonetheless, at a spot in the yard that, while still out in the open, would only be visible by people passing by.

“You know, if you wanted Varric's book this badly, I could have taken it for you,” Leliana says, arriving quietly enough that her words are the first thing to betray her presence.

Cassandra nearly throws the books in the air, then holds it protectively against her chest, as if she means to hide the cover. The problem is, Leliana was at Kirkwall, she was witness when Cassandra first got her hands on Swords & Shields and all the excuses that she has for reading it. It's a terribly guarded secret, but at least Cassandra is far better at that with things that matter.

“I don't know what you're talking about. I… did the Inquisitor tell you to?” Cassandra asks, with a sigh of resignation.

“Oh no, she told no one, except for Varric. And then they were talking about it, loudly, in public. She's trying to understand what's so special about this story to make it a secret,” Leliana says, although she had found out through other sources before that as well.

She says it more to illustrate a point, if Cassandra wanted it to remain a secret, then she shouldn't have asked for the Inquisitor's help. The Inquisitor does get things done, but she's not always the best with expectations of privacy.

“I should have known. I should have known better than to let myself get carried away, but the last one ended in a cliffhanger and I just needed to know what happened to the Knight-Commander,” Cassandra says, as if she needs to justify her reading habits.

Leliana laughs. “Don't be silly, just read your books. The world is not going to end because you took an hour to yourself. It might still end, but it won't be for this.”

Cassandra looks around, but no one seems to be noticing them talking there, and to anyone out of earshot, they might as well be talking about some important Inquisition matter.

“I suppose I can stay here another few minutes. I only have fifteen pages to go,” Cassandra says, opening the book again.

Leliana leaves her be. Good on her, they all have such weight on their shoulders, they won't last long without a few guilty pleasures.
halfcactus: an icon of a manga shiba inu (Default)
[personal profile] halfcactus
1.
Boosting some initiatives that my oomfs are involved in:

  • For the rest of the year, Niq (guoldu) is donating 100% of his commission funds to the Portland Immigration Rights Coalition. He does great danmei/baihe-adjacent art (and has incredible range), you can commission him here.

  • ICE OUT Fundraiser: Heated Rivalry fandom fundraiser

  • WangXian Against ICE: MDZS fundraiser (the donation period is over, though)

    2.
    Misc. Links

  • The Sameer Project (Palestinian-led fundraiser): they recently announced that there's been a huge drop in donations in January, causing mutual aid groups to scale back their operations. They're specifically asking for donations toward the food and water campaign.

  • Queer Without Borders | Panorama Film Festival: international short films, free to watch on Youtube!

  • Reports from Unknown Places: short daily fictional reports. Don't you miss blogs? Also on Instagram (where the reports come with pictures/paintings)

  • The Slowdown: a podcast where they feature one poem a day. (I personally just read the transcripts and treat it like a blog.)

  • Yonezawa Yoshihiro On “Yaoi”: Why Did Girls Give Up Ordinary Love for Boys’ Love? (1991) - a translated article that has been rotting in my to-read list.


    3.
    Journaling:
    I have been keeping up with my daily planner but can't be bothered to cross-post pics here... In lieu of 3 weeks' worth of journal spreads, here are some food-y ones instead:
    2 picsjan 10: first groupwatch of the year; the leaves on neighbors’ roofs are now unromantically brown; the cmovie Her Story which i liked a lotjan 11: beef noodle soup, moon shrimp cake, beef floss and salted egg mushroom, from a chinese restaurant
    feb 24: yoga, 青春18X24 which i loved, the snowstorm on the other side of the world (with pics from friends)feb 25: the food and music from the wedding


    Because it's a daily journal and I'm too lazy to print photos (since most of my pictures are of food and the neighborhood egret), I've accidentally gotten a little better at drawing basic shapes, which is... good? It's kind of like getting regular drawing practice but without the pressure of a dedicated sketchbook since the main goal is personal note-taking.
  • Day 3 Theme - The Caregiver

    Feb. 3rd, 2026 06:03 am
    cmk418: (Gloria)
    [personal profile] cmk418 posting in [community profile] halfamoon
    Today's theme is The Caregiver.

    Here are some ideas to get you started: She spends time looking after others, often to the exclusion of her own needs. Whether this is an occupation like a doctor, or whether she's a parent or looking after her own parents, she thrives on taking care of other people. Or you could look at a character who was thrown into a caregiving role that might not want to be there and show how she navigates that path.

    Just go wherever the Muse takes you. If this prompt doesn't speak to you, feel free to share something that does. You can post in a separate entry or as a comment to this post.

    Want to get a jump start on tomorrow's theme? Check out the prompt list in the pinned post at the top of the page. Please don't post until that day.

    books read; fics written

    Feb. 3rd, 2026 01:01 am
    queenlua: (Default)
    [personal profile] queenlua
    i have been so miserably sick for nearly two weeks now. woe is me!

    ***

    during that time, in varying states of lucidity i have finished reading:

    * The Poet Empress by Shen Tao (good)
    * Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (terrible)
    * Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant trans. Douglas Parmée (LMAO???)

    if you would like further commentary on any of the above, lmk and i will pontificate accordingly~

    ***

    in varying states of lucidity i have also been dashing off fills for the three sentence ficathon. mostly variations-on-the-theme-of-Clair-Obscur-incest because empirically that is What The People Want & i aim to please: un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six.

    ***

    HOPE ALL Y'ALL ARE COUGHING A LOT LESS THAN I AM; take care; ta for now~

    Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

    Feb. 3rd, 2026 08:40 am
    icon_uk: Mod Squad icon (Mod Squad)
    [personal profile] icon_uk posting in [community profile] scans_daily
    In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

    Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

    The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

    Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

    It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.

    The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.

    A shout out to all in Minnesota who are doing a spectacular job of peacefully pissing off people in power (That came out more Stan Lee than I expected).

    More of the Epstein files were released, and I've lost track of what is being released to distract from what because it seems to be a Möbius strip.

    In what I think must be a first, Disney+ dropped all the episodes of their Yahya Abdul-Mateen II led "Wonder Man" series. One might suspect lack of confidence in their product in not even giving it a weekly release.

    On the plus side, The Muppet Show special airs this week, and I think we all need something like that right now.

    A documentary about the current FLOTUS also arrived to be greeted by reviews which were a gift to the sarcastic (My favourite remains "If they showed this as an in-flight movie, the audience would STILL walk out") and lots of photos of empty cinemas, though it did manage to get bums on seats in the US.

    The Grammy's happened but, since my musical awareness rarely extends beyond oompah-bands and/or Himalayan throat-singing I don't feel qualified to comment.
    burnhername: Faith pic with the word editor (SH editor Faith)
    [personal profile] burnhername posting in [community profile] su_herald
    JOYCE: So, what did you and Faith do last night?
    BUFFY: Nothing. Uh... (smiles thinly) Nothing really important.
    JOYCE: (gets a coffee mug) Don't worry. (grabs the coffee pot) I'm not gonna meddle in your slaying. (pours a cup) Just as long as you're careful.

    ~~Bad Girls~~




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    Join the editor team :)

    WTF

    Feb. 3rd, 2026 01:08 am
    soc_puppet: A crude pencil drawing on lined paper of what's supposed to be a dog; the dog's mouth and eyes are on one side of its face, while its snout is on the other. (Art time!)
    [personal profile] soc_puppet
    Downright astounding that I managed to forget about basting stitches for nigh on two decades.

    On the plus side, now that I've remembered them, patching the worn out inner thighs of my pants is much less of a headache!
    mific: (Heated rivalry)
    [personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fanart_recs
    Fandom: Heated Rivalry
    Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
    Content Notes/Warnings: none
    Medium: digital art
    Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
    Artist Website/Gallery: rombutan on Instagram
    Why this piece is awesome: A lovely double portrait of Shane and Ilya hugging. The artist has several more artworks in the fandom on their Instagram.
    Link: his dose of sunshine on Instagram, and reposted on tumblr here

    Profile

    glass_icarus: (Default)
    just another fork-tongued dragon lady

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