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It's the Ides of March and every year on this day I remember that I am in the Raffles fandom. I don't have the bandwidth to write something new so I will post something I wrote a couple of years ago for this day.

Raffles and Bunny celebrate their anniversary at the opera.

References to 'Va tacito e nascosto' - 'Go silently and stealthily' from Guilio Cesare by Handel. Shifting POV.

( Read more... )

mcbrat

The whole time I was cleaning my windows people came to pray at the flower patch

Embedded in the parks sod below

There was an older woman who stood

Knelt

Bowed

And took photos and photos of the flowers from all angles

It was as if she had seen many flowers before (see the decorum)

But these had been stunning and ripe to her heart

Probably the first of the season to make their way

Into the part of the heart reserved for soft small fragile things

I washed my windows more softly and small

When I saw it happen each time

I was half naked practically hanging out of my window on the fourth floor overlooking the park

The park completely overlooked me!!

Because the tiny purple and pink and periwinkle ground irises shown flush and fleeting

I had my four windows to attend to— I was not offended.

I thought to cry onto the windows and wipe them clean

But I was wise and grabbed a pitcher

I thought to step out to the windowsill further

But I was wise and tied myself to my life

I thought to scrape the chipping paint also, and wash the outsides, and take a razor blade to the bits of paint someone negligent smudged on the ancient glass, and to recaulk the window settings and to give them all a thick coat of waterproof paint, I thought to ask the landlord what the windowsill color is so I can do that this spring

But I was wise and thought twice— remember this home is not yours.

Maybe I can beg the landlord and take pictures

Maybe he’ll even compliment astonished at how clean and glistening I could render a chipped and rotting window

Or maybe I will just live with wood that takes on water

I did my best today and that is enough

The flowers cannot see my chipped paint

Inside it looks immaculate

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: bed
Current Music: roomate strumming

kaberett

Reading. I continue to work my way through the She's A Beast archives, to a degree that is not necessarily ... uh ... optimal, in terms of all the other things I want to do...

I slowed down on LIFTOFF, on account of resuming reading from the start with A, and then this evening I tripped and fell and am. More. of the way through it. again.

Finished What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall. Ultimately the argument is that the queerness is a function of community -- the role that food plays in eating together -- though he also tries at various points for "enjoying food is queer" (among other things), which I do not think I am the target audience for. (Having said which I am now wondering what it would take to convince me of that line of reasoning, and Ideas Are Stirring. Hmm.) Overall a mixture of anecdotes from culinary history and fiction to fill in events that went unrecorded; he does hold space for people to be complex and flawed, and I appreciated the history that was actually history, but -- alas, this did not really work for me.

Writing. Words. Continue. To be. Eked out.

Watching. The 2026 Migraine World Summit is ongoing and eating a lot of my time and brain; thus far nothing has made me actually vibrate with fury and I've had a couple of useful joining-the-dots moments, so mustn't grumble there, really. And I have finally watched the talks from last year's Day 2 that I missed due to time changes, and have started transferring my digital notes from last year into my notebook...

Playing. Inkulinati: we continue Not Dead Yet in the Exploders run on Master difficulty.

The Ridiculous Colours Game.

Sudoku... appears to have let go of my brain for now?

Cooking. This evening I have been attempting to remember how to make Spätzle, and got there eventually (part of the difficulty being that this is the first time I've made them since acquiring a dedicated Spätzlebrett, and I needed to reestablish correct consistency of the dough...)

Eating. This morning we engaged in a Weekend Morning Ritual of going down to the local fancy bakery and getting brunch from them. We also got Treats for Afternoon Tea; I am delighted that they'll supply me with cardamom buns that I don't have to actually make myself.

I have also been Craving Brownies, but not enough to actually make them myself (and also The Oven Is Broken), and consequently have eaten them courtesy of both Wagamama (ritual Thursday night takeaway) and London Zoo (Saturday afternoon tea).

Exploring. London Zoo! Saw creatures! Maybe I will even go back and edit in more details about the creatures! Creatures: good.

Several bimbles around local front gardens (etc) to enjoy Spring Flowers.

Growing. Harvested (and consumed!) more salad. Transplanted some garlic. Wrangled some more weeding. Have yet to sow any more things but really want to have Actual Plants this growing season so, uh, maybe that can be a priority for Breaks From Migraine World Summit, not that that's worked so far...

Observing. THE BAT.

And then for brunch this morning we took our breakfast slightly further than usual to a different park bench, this one surrounded by daffodils, and then additionally wandered a little way down the New River (neither new, nor a river) to see if the coots were doing things yet (which I have also been checking every time I go to the pharmacy to pick up meds). The coots aren't, BUT there were TEN EGYPTIAN GOSLINGS peeping about the place!!! At least one of whom was Extremely keen on coming All the way down the bank and plapping along the edge of the bricks, presumably because they were warm and felt nice on feet? Certainly two very gentle attempts to chase it back towards its parents got them contemplating hissing at me, and only persuaded it to maybe do the thing for about thirty seconds at most, so I gave up on that and just stood back and watched them for a bit, and then was very relieved that the foolhardy baby did upon parents Alarm Calling (as best we can tell about A Passing Dog) go FWEEP FWEEP FWEEP all the way back up and into the bundle of its siblings. An unexpected and very welcome delight.

mekare

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dame_grise

Can anyone give me a crash course on making stickers to sell POD from the hundreds of photos we have of my cat? Please and thank you. Not this cat, but I don't have an icon for Wilbur!cat.

Current Music: Easy from Hazbin Hotel

mekare

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tyger

On the bright side of things, I'm pretty sure the walls are finally DONE. I'll take another look in the daylight, since I did to a couple of small fixes (and a sand) this evening, but I think they're done now. Hopefully.

On the other hand, today has been A Fucking Day, omfg.

Started off with this morning thinking I'll do a quick coat of one of the walls while the cats were eating breakfast. Had to add some more paint to the tray, but whatever that happens.

And then I somehow fucking broke the tray. Split it up the middle! Luckily not the whole way, most of the deep part was okay, but holy shit there was a VERY FRANTIC session of painting fucking ALL THE WALLS to get the paint out of the tray and NOT on the floor. I did okay at that, I think? Spill was pretty minimal, considering. But yeah, all the walls, including some of the upper walls, just in the middle but... yeah. Paint!!!

This was of course all before fucking breakfast for me. Ugh.

And then! This afternoon! I was playing Terraria with everyone, which was nice, and Sushi was whining about food (despite it being like. 45min until kittydinnertime at that point), and he decided he was going to bite my monitor in protest of the extremely unfair "dinner is the same time every day, beanboy" position I took. First couple of times it was just him being a dick as usual, and I shooed him off, but then! He fucking BIT THROUGH AND CRACKED THE SCREEN.

Yeah.

Monitor is dead, it'll turn on, and show picture for a second or so, and then black screen. Nothin'. Soooo gonna have to get a new goddamn monitor. I'm using my old one right now, and ugh. It works but it's nowhere near as nice. ;;

I also broke the handle of an old rusty paint scraper I've been using to clean paint trays, but that's no big deal. Amusing that the handle broke down first, honestly. But given the day's track record I absolutely did not do any real cooking, or anything else that involved things I cannot deal without because woooow. What a fucking day.

Bed now! Tomorrow will probably be better! Or at least less full of paint, bleh. Though if I am done with the walls that does mean I'm back to cleaning/sanding/filling again, nooooo...

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: Birthplace

kalloway

Many swords, again... worked on archiving and got a decent bit done. Close to a half-dozen new fandom pages? Felt pretty good. ^_^ I've refined my workflow and while I don't know if it's actually going any faster, it feels faster. Before, I would code up five or so pieces, put them on Neocities, and then put them on DW. Now I'm just doing one at a time, putting it on Neocities then immediately putting it on DW and logging it. Makes it a little easier to pause, if nothing else.

I do wish I'd put a little more forethought into how I'm logging what I've done, but I don't think there's any perfect solution there. After a point it'll be much easier, like when I'm just cruising through AO3 by fandom when there's only a few dense fandoms left. Right now I'm all over the place and logging things into composition books is getting kind of gnarly.

Worked a bit more on MG Tallgeese Flugel, but mostly worked on stuff for 30 Minute Label Day. Definitely not a prize-winning display, but a fun one. And that's honestly what I want - a fun display and one people can interact with. Like, I'll offer to let people touch, gently, and check out articulation and details and whatever. There's not much that can be broken beyond repair, if anything. Need to get back to my [Redacted] contest entry, too, as that's coming due very soon.

Goal for the week is getting my desk cleaned up. What even is going on here?!

kaberett

highlights included:

the lion ROARING
glasswing (Greta oto) pupae: tiny, bright leaf green, with sparkly metallic bits (gold and silver)
the rhinoceros ratsnake (Gonyosoma boulengeri): has a NOSE. why is its NOSE pointy? no(se) idea!
turquoise gecko (Lygodactylus williamsi)

otherwise everything is still Migraine World Summit (though I have once again learned a useful thing today! neck pain can be a prodrome symptom!) and Special Interest.

wychwood

Wow, that fortnight went fast. I was busy, and when I wasn't busy, I couldn't face anything more demanding than lying around reading. This week had four choir rehearsals on two projects and a concert, but also I had two days off work. On Thursday I went out for birthday brunch at a very fancy place and then to The Coffin Works, which is one of those weird niche local museums - in this case, a factory that made not coffins, but coffin furniture; handles, plates, linings, etc, and also shrouds. It was as much fun as these tiny museums usually are! Which is to say, a lot.

Newman Brothers itself only sold to undertakers, as one would expect, but they aimed at the richer end of the market, and apparently their handles were the ones used by the Royal Warranted undertakers for about fifty years, including for Churchill, George V, Queen Mary, George VI, the Queen Mother, and Princess Diana. When they shut down in 1999, apparently the current holder bought up the entire stock, and the museum is hopeful that the Queen's coffin had them too! But they can't prove it.

It's also really interesting seeing how significant Birmingham was as a manufacturing centre - according to the Pen Museum, Birmingham produced 50% of the world's pen nibs in the 1850s; when the Newman Brothers factory opened, there were fourteen factories in Birmingham making coffin furniture; apparently there were several hundred different clock and watchmakers... I tend to think of, you know, the big automated factories, and gigantic industries like mining and smelting and so on, but Birmingham was just absolutely full of these small operations, making a terrifying percentage of the world's small metalwork components. It's such an interesting picture.

tyger

Very tired day again. Annoying!

What's also annoying is that I found a goddamn zucchini literally the size of my forearm - I really REALLY wish that was an exaggeration but I went to the extent of taking a picture of them side by side to compare, and no. It is forearm sized - this morning, so I was all 'yup, GOTTA buy more cocoa', but I checked my bank account and I don't have enough to order a bulk amount and won't until probably Friday. Ugh. So I just got some at the supermarket, which is annoying but I had to go and get milk anyway so at least there's that. Gotta wash the pans before making more bread, though. >>;;; Fuck I hate doing dishes.

I did, however, have a goddamn brainwave, and moved one of the nice comfy chairs from its usual spot looking at the tv, so it instead looks out the window, and consequentially gets the good afternoon sun :3 :3 :3 So I flopped out on that with it extended all the way back and dozed for half an hour or so this afternoon, A++ will do again. (Though of course Sushi wanted to play underneath it while I was moving it, so that was a bit nerve wracking... sigh. Cats.)

Got a coat done on the walls, plus a little bit of rollering on the upper walls, since they were a bit blotchy still. Probably gonna need a third coat at least, maybe more in some places, but have to wait for it to properly dry to be able to tell and then I was just. Very sleepy. So I am going to bed now yes.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Birthplace

umadoshi

I have worked. Uh. A lot. Over the past three weeks. o_o But now it's the weekend, and I don't currently have a rewrite to work on, and March Break lies ahead; the spring crunch isn't finished, but it's on hiatus for the week, and a normal workweek is a breath of fresh air at this point. (Also I'm taking a couple of days off during it.)

Yesterday work wrapped up early enough that I had an actual evening, so I was finally able to start Butterfly Effects, the fifteenth (!) InCryptid book. ("Finally" is a bit of a stretch, I guess, since it's still the release week, but this is a Sarah-narrated book. Mostly. SARAH.)

So my hopes for the weekend are pretty much: avoid napping (I don't find naps restorative and feel groggier after than before I started); finish reading Butterfly Effects; watch this week's The Pitt and hopefully the temporarily-streaming production of The Importance of Being Earnest with

scruloose; get

scruloose to redo my undercut; and (also with

scruloose) do a second round of advance-prepping ten or so bags of the dry ingredients for my breakfast banana bread while also baking up a new batch of loaves. I think that last will also require decanting cinnamons from bags into jars, so maybe we'll manage a bit of other spice decanting/sorting while we're at it.

Current Mood: groggy

paperghost

(Originally posted March 12th, I've considered cross-posting my shitposts or short form takes here, but I'm too tired and depressed. I tend to see DW as more "dignified" than a crude shitpost space.)

the on-and-off mlp drama between the channers and everyone else is complicated and simple at the same time. it’s not even unique to a 15 year old cartoon lol

1. g4 unfortunately catching the attention of 4chan was why it became popular. /co/ and later /mlp/ built the early foundations and spread it to other platforms before more people caught onto it
2. that being said, spaces grow and evolve, for better or for worse. you can’t project your worldview onto a big tent just like they can’t do that to you
3. you will also sound insane for trying to claim apolitical memes as dogwhistles (ex. the mares chant, snowpity or anonfilly) while not being able to explain why
4. but if your site’s culture is known for being aggressive and offensive, that’s going to put most people off and dislike you
5. the lasting consequences of the ye old tumblrpon war between the libfems and MRAs 13 years ago. you have one side that is “wholesome” but prone to canceling people or moving goal posts (ex. “molestia normalizes rape culture but 50 shades is totally fine”), versus… trolls and racists who have gotten worse post-/pol/ and will also harass people. horseshoe moment 🥁
6. which unfortunately turns into a recruitment tactic. if the inclusive “good guys” are incredibly toxic, why bother being a good guy? /mlp/ are the ones organizing or helping with social events and running websites, and you won’t be canceled for making an off color joke or an opinion. i actually like /mlp/ more when it isn’t racist lol
7. at the same time, /mlp/’s overly permissive culture turns their spaces into a nazi bar. see: aryanne, twitter, /mlpol/, the infamous mare fair photos. that’s the toxic side of “true” tolerance
8. BUT - would designating the people who aren’t complete psychos in that echo chamber and not exposing them to “outsiders” make things worse? what do we do?

the issue is choosing between social surveillance and having no standards. there’s a solution but nobody is going to like or do it. so this will go on.

I'm trying to write an actual blog post about this, but I'm too tired an unmotivated to write. This was mainly inspired by the amount of drama I came home to after Harmonycon last month, since it was first pony con and discovering how it was chuddier than I expected. I had fun with the "melting pot" atmosphere and even the with channers there, but then there were bad actors being racist idiots as expected.

Since this bullet point list is also a rough draft and fetal stage of a take, there's some nuances I left out. Not "all" cons or social events are by /mlp/ people, but some do collaborate or participate and run their own (ex. Mare Fair, Pone Voyage).

I feel like I've discovered a secret society after attending a /mlp/ adjacent room party. I've been debating on "investigating" Mare Fair since this year is finally banning Nazi content and trying to clean up their act, but that would cost roughly ~$600 (rounded up, not counting food) to go by myself lmfao. My credit card can handle it, but I've never traveled alone before...

stonepicnicking_okapi

I hope you've enjoyed!

tozka

1. I found a tiny snail on the wall INSIDE the house. How did it get there? Where is it going?

2. What I thought was a weird-looking vase revealed itself to be a crystal singing bowl. I can see why enthusiasts are SO enthusiastic about it. The sound sort of vibrates upwards and it's almost a physical feeling once it hits.

3. One week until I leave Chichester and head to Cardiff! If you have any recommendations for charity shops, used bookstores, small museums or other interesting places to while away time, let me know.

fred_mouse

two more radiation treatments to go; I have a mild (and itchy) looks-like-sunburn across a roughly 20cm square running between my armpit and my midline
the new medication I'm supposed to start after radiation is back ordered until May. need to contact the specialist on monday
general body health alternating between 'ow' and 'fatigue'. but i'm getting some stuff done
mental health - struggling with the cognitive load of daily treatments, but mostly chill.
i have started the 'reading fiction' part of my project; the first book has a lot of details, but suffers from coming out in 2020 and thus is showing a lot of the pre chatgpt tropes surrounding AI
I am knitting a tiny fifth doctor scarf as a decorative item; it is getting less and less accurate to the pattern as I go on. I only have six of the seven colours....
reading? not much.
walking home from the hospital? did it the once. have not had the spoons since. have been using the cane more than some.
other exercise? bugger all.
garden: birds have eaten all but one pomegranate. hoping that one gets ripe enough. guava are ~2cm across; I thought i had done a good job of thinning, but nope. have not thinned the feijoa even that much so argh.
family: youngest has a job contract signed; to be starting in ?august.

rmc28

I hadn't been on the ice since last Saturday (Huskies and Women's Blues practices were all Varsity squads only, and Kodiaks practice got cancelled by the rink) but I made it to and through Warbirds practice tonight. It was so worth it. I also got my Varsity notebook from Women's Blues: every team member gets a notebook, and everyone writes a note in every teammate's notebook, and we read them before Varsity to inspire us. Mine was very sweet and I love the team very much for making me welcome.

I need to leave the house in 7.5 hours to get back to the rink for Varsity. I'm playing in alumni game 1, getting cleaned up during alumni game 2, and spending the rest of the day in the scorekeepers box with a rotating cast of some of my favourite people. The three non-alumni games will be livestreamed

14:00 Mixed 2nds (Huskies v Vikings B)
17:00 Women's Blues
20:00 Men's Blues

I also had a little art session this evening before going to the rink, making signs for my Huskies teammates. The sign in Irish may well only be understood by the teammate who got me back into learning Irish this year - our class covered "how to cheer on your sports team" a couple weeks ago and I made careful notes - or maybe it will cause any lurking Gaeilgeoirí in the rink to make themselves known.

I think I'm wound down enough to sleep now.

stonepicnicking_okapi

A simple but nice cover of a birthday card for a friend featuring the tangerine stickers I saved from my Chinese New Year pack.

momijizukamori

Because it came up when I was talking to my dad yesterday, and I remembered I meant to post it here and then forgot - if you haven't seen the Super Bowl halftime show this year, you should watch it. Even if you don't know who Bad Bunny is, or aren't into his style of music. The level of sheer technical skill involved in the staging is next-level, and he very much had a point he wanted to make and most certainly made it.

Watch on YouTube

Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show

And if you are interested, someone one Bluesky shared their Bad Bunny 101 write-up, which has links to a bunch of other articles and listening suggestions. Reggaeton is probably not gonna be one of my top genres personally, but I feel like it's good to get out of my listening confort zone and try new things, particularly when it's like, a global phenomenon right now.

kaberett

In apparent celebration of Migraine World Summit, I have spent this evening having an unscheduled migraine attack for no obvious reason. I disapprove. (Because I've been doing a lot of audiovisual processing, captions notwithstanding? Because I had my screen much brighter than usual for a while playing a colours game?* Because oven't?)

Nonetheless I have watched and made digital notes on all of 2026 Day 2, watched and made digital notes on 3/4 talks from 2025 Day 2 (which I missed at the time), and made physical notes for 2025 Day 1 and 1/4 of Day 2. I am... sort of catching up.

I am really enjoying my pens. I also find myself with the problem of wanting lots of different notebooks and, also, to keep everything in One Single Solitary Notebook, For Convenience...

* NB I am a rocks nerd. My colour discrimination is ludicrously good. I am sorry that that link is weird and competitive about my ridiculous score, but not sorry enough to provide you with the bare link.

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uncluttering one day and one thing at a time

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