unclutter | Member Posts

I mailed out the monthly mail yesterday, including to Canada since CanadaPost is still running (for now). Fingers crossed.

Would any Star Trek friends like a couple of brochures from Riverside Trekfest XXVIII? These turned up while sorting stuff at the 'rents and given some of their travels and stopping at every tourist trap they could in the past, they must've ended up in Riverside, Iowa once. (I'll post anywhere in the world. First come.)

Got almost all my physical zine stuff organized and made a post about it on

makezines. I think the only thing missing is The Home for Unwanted Robots and that might take some digging. But this was one of the goals for the weekend, so yay.

I also did a bunch more painting on my SD Heroes Strike Freedom, and then built like 2/3 of the white Alto. He'll get finished up today, surely, and then have his wings added on tonight? I don't know if I'll get to Plutone over the weekend, but I'll definitely get started on Flauros.

duskpeterson

All of the fiction below is free.

E-BOOKS (html, epub, mobi, pdf, and xhtml)

Law Links: Novel and Side Stories (The Three Lands). Few events are more thrilling in a young man's life than a blood feud between two villages. Or so Adrian thought. ¶ Torn between affection toward his traditional-minded father and worship of his peace-loving, heretical priest, Adrian finds himself caught between two incompatible visions of his duty to the gods. Then the Jackal God sends Adrian a message that will disrupt his world and send him fleeing to a new and perilous life. ¶ Mythic historical fantasy (secondary world, late antiquity). Reissued omnibus, with new front matter and back matter; no changes to the story texts.

Death Mask: Novel and Side Stories (The Three Lands). For eighteen years, he has survived in an army unit where few soldiers live more than two or three years. Now he finds himself in circumstances where his life is a living hell. Will the soldier who defied death find that life is too great a challenge? ¶ Soldiers, spies, slaves, rebels, assassins, gods, and men who set out to break him . . . The Lieutenant of the Border Mountain Patrol will learn that his greatest test is himself. ¶ Mythic historical fantasy (secondary world, late antiquity). New omnibus, with typos corrected and a new novelette:

Light and Love (Death Mask side story): In a world where two people who love each other must enter into the role of antagonists, what will preserve their love? ¶ Tryphena is a maiden. To her brother falls the responsibility of choosing her husband. ¶ Then war comes, and with it arrive a wise goddess of death and destruction, an enemy soldier of uncertain character, and a masked god who can turn evil into good. ¶ Who will rule Tryphena's heart and conscience? And how can she and her brother prevent war from breaking out between them?

BLOG FICTION

Tempestuous Tours (Crossing Worlds: A Visitor's Guide to the Three Lands #2). A whirlwind tour of the sites in the Three Lands that are most steeped in history, culture, and the occasional pickpocket. ¶ Mythic historical fantasy (secondary world, late antiquity). Latest installments:

( News )

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kaberett

Analogy of the day: car reversing sensors. Warn of impending, potential tissue damage, as distinct from actual tissue damage. Sometimes panic about A Plant, or The Bike Rack. Sometimes totally fail to miss the six-inch tall bollard that makes things go crunch in a way you don't notice until later.

Book purchase of the day: The Painful Truth, Monty Lyman, recced by a friend as popsci/popmed and one I'd nearly wound up buying yesterday anyway (... and a National Trust baking book to go with it).

Book purchase of the tomorrow, probably: Fitzgerald's Clinical Neuroanatomy and Neuroscience 7^th ed (2015), recommended via a NYU med student reading list (Cambridge's all appear to be paywalled and I'm sulking).

Links for further perusal: introductions to the nervous system on Biology LibreTexts and Health LibreTexts.

Reorganisation: possibly I am going to want to rewrite the introduction again (though the words do keep being useful), but crucially while murbling at A I think I have concluded that actually the reason the structure doesn't make sense is that neuroanatomy doesn't want to be the middle section, it wants to be an appendix. But I'll want to, er, know slightly more neuroanatomy before actually settling on that...

duskpeterson

The lower floor of the royal residence is guarded at its entrances, for obvious reasons. It houses only servants these days, but in past years, it was fully as active as the upper floors.

Left to right, you will see the former bedchamber of the High Lord, the former receiving chamber of the council, a former service chamber, the former and current royal receiving chamber and dining chamber, and the royal sanctuary. The last requires extended commentary.

corvidology

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

musyc

Final update on Mr Holmes! He has been officially adopted! His foster mom fell in love with him basically on sight and she and her partner have given Mr Holmes a forever home. I am so grateful that he found a loving family and a comfortable life for the rest of his years.

Picture book readings:
Home is a Wish - Julia Kuo, author and illustrator
Dealing with a big move to a new home, and the worries that come with that. Cute but not memorable. 5/10

A Cat Like That - Lester L. Laminack, author; Nicole Wong, illustrator
A chubby cat and his wanderings around his town. Illustrations were a bit off for me, but I did like the little map that showed the cat's movements. 5/10

Pavlo Gets the Grumps - Natalia Shaloshvili, author and illustrator
Pavlo is a grumpy kid/kitten that doesn't want to play. Mom and friends help with his big feelings. Okay, but nothing special. 5/10

Midnight Motorbike - Maureen Shay Tajsar, author; Ishita Jain, illustrator
I liked the story and setting of this - Amma and daughter take a motorcycle ride through India at night when it's too hot to sleep - but the illustrations were very muddled. Lovely story, not a joy to look at. 4/10

We Are Lion Dancers - Benson Shum, author and illustrator
Lovely book about children watching lion dancers and learning how to do the dance themselves. 7/10

Scamp - Anden Wilder, author and illustrator
Cute story about a little girl who is almost more cat-like than her cat. 7/10

Another Word for Neighbor - Angela Pham Krans, author; Thai My Phuong, illustrator
Gorgeously written, excellent vocabulary, lovely illustrations. This was a winner of a book, where a new family with two kids moves next to an older man who just wants quiet. They make friends and they make pho! 9/10, would definitely buy.

Safe Crossing - Kari Percival, author and illustrator
This was adorable. Environmental education and citizen outreach, plus a diverse set of characters. There is a touch of a sad moment when the unfortunate realities of salamanders and frogs crossing a road gets explained but it's not huge, and treated with compassion. 9/10, would absolutely buy.

Reading goal #9!
Ben Aaronovitch - Masquerades of Spring
If you had set me down and said this is Aaronovitch's Yuletide fic, I would not have been in the slightest bit surprised. This read like a Folly-based Jeeves and Wooster AU, which is not a criticism! It was a frothy book, very enjoyable and fun. 8/10

DNF: Manda Collins - Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem. Five chapters in and I kept picking something else to read, so back it went!

Currently checked out:
Boyd and Beth Morrison, Lawless Land
Evie Woods, Lost Bookshop

tyger

So I watched most of the Shibuya arc this evening. It would've been all of it but uh look at the time where did it go whoops >>;; Anyway, the animation is excellent, but the arc is brutal so I am uh. Feelings. Yes. Sigh.

Other than that, an extremely lazy day. Didn't get out of bed properly until like... 5. I had a LOT of cuddle time with Sushi (I called out for him right before bed last night and he finally came in, so he's fine), and, well. I am weak to cat snuggles, so. ^^;;;

My parents are away for a few days, which is how I was able to do that - Mama refuses to let me stay in bed that long unless I'm actually sick, which I'm not. It was nice to do it, even though I know it's a pretty bad habit, hahahaha.

Anyway, back to bed now, I'm not on holiday so I really shouldn't screw up my sleep schedule if I can help it... Because I'm so good at that...

Current Mood: drained
Current Location: Birthplace

stonepicnicking_okapi

Found this Youtube channel yesterday. Very cute crafting.

Watch on YouTube

umadoshi

For those who have go-to versions of common things like, say, meatloaf or brownies or curried chickpeas, how many recipes do you try before settling on one? Is there a point when you say "THIS. THIS is my [x]", or do you sometimes try new versions even when you have one you love? (Possibly this is a "once you've actually cooked a lot, you can look at a recipe and have a fairly good idea of what the different seasonings might add up to"?)

(I didn't help enough with any of the meals under the cuts to tag this post with YKYC, alas.)

( meatloaf! (well, meatloaves) )

( belated notes on a batch of black beans a month ago )

Current Mood: tired

kalloway

I had really ambitious plans for the year re: zines and while I'm sure I'll fall a little short, I feel like there is still plenty of hope.

The original plan was one zine per month, while also basically doing updated/edited versions of all my old zines at the rate of also ~one per month. This sounds like a lot and it both is and isn't. (Right now it sure is!)

At some point, I'll probably take an extra long weekend or two and do some more catch up. (I have no real vacation plans again this year because look at the world on fire; I might as well make zines.)

Anyway- so far for 2025:
Dragon Stories (Jan) - done, copies available
Rimokon #2 (Feb) - partly done
Tiniest Tales #1 (March) - done, copies available? (might have to print more)
Cemetery Zine #0 (April) - partly done
Lost Dawn & The Box of Dreams (May) - partly done
Chic Musique #9 (June) - I know I had some vague notes for this but ???

Reprints:
Gods of Agassia (Jan) - from 2023, done, copies available
No Creature With Wings (Feb) - from 2007, needs edit + fix art/covers
Chic Musique #1 (March) - from 1998, will need to be retyped and reformatted, graphics might be tricky/will do my best
Chic Musique #2 (April) - haven't even looked at
Rimokon #1 (May) - haven't even looked at
Knocking Boots (June) - haven't even looked at, will probably just need an edit?
The Small Fandom Survival Guide (Unassigned) - from 2009, eight-page Yaoi-con panel extra, probably just needs a quick edit

Weekend plans include catching myself up through February, which just means an edit + fixing art on No Creature and, uh, writing like ~~ten~~ six more pages of a twelve page zine. Not actually impossible! (Big pictures, the secret is big pictures!)

paperghost

Shit, I've been posting daily haven't I lol. I mean that's not bad? More activity for this site...

I went to the mall today, didn't buy anything but lunch. Consooming makes me feel bad and shit is more expensive. I was at Spencer's and Hot Topic, saw some merch that resembled AI slop. Sigh... More importantly, I wanted to check on Kawaii Kollection / the import shop since tariffs hit after I went there months ago. It's alive and fine, there was even new merch. I was very tempted to get some very nice quality MLP keychains, but the $10 price tag made me feel guilty -_- So maybe another time. Japanese MLP merch is very nice quality, there was more stationary and pens than toys but the official art is lovely.

There was also a little less of the Filly Cuties merch, lol. I guess some curious people got a few boxes besides me. I was tempted to get Lynn, but I still feel burned by how Cedric was missing blocks and I couldn't finish mine. Didn't want to risk it again.

Honestly, I don't know if I want to go back anytime soon. On my way in and out I was stopped by some of those mini booths trying to sell you something, and they always draw you in with a conversation and heavily discount the item when you say it's too much lol. When I came in I had this Israeli woman selling a steam iron compliment my hair and offer to straighten/curl it, the item was originally $320 but she knocked it down to $99... But ma'am, that's still out of my budget and I rarely do my hair. She also thought I was a decade younger than I was, lmfao. That happens every time I play the "guess my age" game in real life.

"How old are you?"
"How old so I look?"
"23 or 24?"

You keep thinking that, hun...

When trying to exit from the other direction, a dude tried to stop me to sell me sea salt scrub and lotion... I left without either. Like I said, this deters me from wanting to go back for awhile LOL!!! Not until August to get a seasonal candle from Bath and Body Works, but even then there's a strip mall across from that mall with its own location.

kaberett

Pain associated with sensory hypersensitivity, e.g. light and sound: is this primarily nociceptive (i.e. nociceptors are firing at a lower threshold) or a feature of central processing (i.e. brain goes "NOPE DON'T LIKE THAT" about stimuli the peripheral nervous system isn't reporting as Harmful)? Or, slightly more comprehensibly to people who are not currently spending lots of time thinking about this particular niche area, when normal light levels cause me pain, is that the nerves that go "YOU'RE LOOKING AT THE SUN AND IT'S A BAD IDEA STOP THAT RIGHT NOW" that are initiating those signals, or a... central... processing... issue... yeah okay maybe I should go to bed instead of trying to words this. BUT a quick shakedown of the internet revealed it's only in the last decade or so that nociceptive signalling relating to Loud Noise Bad has been demonstrated so that's cool.

stonepicnicking_okapi

So I tried to combine several things and it just didn't work.

I got this fun chocolate bar from the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was going to write a poem inspired by it, but my next prompt is insects and I looked up Shakespeare and insects and found an article on carrion maggots and worms and I don't have any maggot stickers and really this wrapper is just too pretty to put maggots with it even if I did have them, so I did a simple collage (only 5 elements) and I will write my maggot poem separately.

nanila

For those who might have been worried, I did indeed pass through Hamburg train station today on my way back home, and I have not been stabbed.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm26v7n5y4eo.amp

tyger

Yeah, I finished my categories, but do I get to stop doing audit? No, no I do not. Instead I must do other people's categories that they haven't gotten to yet, because we want the entire thing done as quickly as possible. Uuuuuuuugh, so. Boring. (And of course the first one I got asked to pick up is one of the really big ones, too, so that's gonna take a few days probably. Whyyyyy ;;)

Mainly been flopping after that, really. Nothing too interesting, mostly reading. Also Sushi got out again, uuuugh. My fault, I thought I'd locked the back door, but it apparently missed the catch - the snib was in the locked position buuuuuut he managed to get it open, so yeah. :/ He's still out, too, which is. Extremely frustrating, really! But he should be back by the time I get up, yes. >:

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Birthplace

arlie

I "upgraded" MacOS last night to Sequoia 15.5. They've "fixed" Safari like the proverbial cat.

My reading page on DreamWidth displays as a solid screen of light blue, roughly the same as my desktop background. It did briefly show me a screen or two of text - not the whole page - when I refreshed it, but new refresh attempts do nothing.

I was informed last night by Safari that there was a way to get rid of annoying features on web pages. It was identified by an icon, which I couldn't find anywhere else on the Safari screen, and whatever text it was labelled didn't seem to be in any of the menus either, though I didn't make a thorough search.

I now can't remember either the name or the icon, and would never have known how to get back a randomly appearing tip once I'd closed it.

FWIW, My reading page loaded properly in Safari after the post-upgrade reboot. (It was one of my many open tabs when I started the upgrade.) It only broke when I tried to access new messages.

I'm posting this message using firefox.

The improved version of Safari reports itself as version 18.5 (20621.2.5.11.8)

I'd previously been running last year's .5 version of MacOS. Probably 14.5 (The .5 versions tend to be the most stable, or at least did so when I worked at Apple, and the most hated of the year's misfeatures are likely to have been backed out, repaired, or made optional by the time the .5 release comes out.)

I don't know yet whether I'm on the latest Safari or not. I'll do the usual checks one does when one's software craps out once I'm a bit more awake. Meanwhile CrApple is welcome to do anatomically impossible acts with itself, also involving a splintery telephone pole or perhaps an already-deceased cactus.

At a guess, it's a version mismatch or similar, or failure under load - too many tabs for this MacMini to sustain on top of the latest dose of bloat. But it might be CrApple acting to disimprove the user experience of software that doesn't come from its paying partners. After all, using DreamWidth interferes with FaceBook's monopoly.

[Edit: it gets better. I was able to convince my reading page to load in a new Safari window, but the existing blue window is still blue, even on refresh. Same URL.

Also noted - a new icon on the right side of the title bar, which when left clicked reloads the page, and when right clicked gives a choice of reloading the page with or without content blockers. No tool tip of course; the only way to find out the purpose is to right click - or left click and successfully guess that the resulting behaviour constitutes a refresh.

Of course this icon may have been there for 3 releases - I don't tend to notice random curliques embedded in e.g. text input fields, assuming unconsciously that they are merely neo-baroque artwork.

[Edit 2: another website that had been in a tab at reboot showed as a completely blank page, without me attempting to refresh it. Attempting to refresh that tab didn't fix it. Copy-pasting the URL into a new Safari window got me the page contents in the new window, but the messed up one is a lost cause. Clearly users should be discouraged from having too many tabs at reboot - or perhaps from using the (default) feature to reopen existing tabs at Safari restart.]

fred_mouse

hex plant growing game - quick game, simple mechanics, simple win condition. You have to infer those from your interaction with the page; if it isn't clear leave a comment and I'll explain.

found at creator's post

I couldn't get the sudoko land to work - not sure if that is a brower or an extensions issue, but I didn't care to work it out.

paperghost

I think I might do my monthly donation to a website with whatever remaining money I have before my next paycheck. My hours at work were fixed but my paycheck earlier this week wasn't as good as it was for the last few months because I worked one 6 hour shift among them, so I should be back to having more leisure money next time. I think I'll either donate to Side7 or Marapets, but I haven't played the latter in a hot minute lol. I also do need to get a rename token because this username was something I pulled out of my ass when I was 17 / freshly 18.

svgurl

This is what I wrote for the

unsent_letters_exchange. :)

Title: my heart is with you
Fandom: DCEU
Pairing/Characters: Diana/Steve
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1983
Summary: Diana writes letters for Steve, until she no longer has to.

svgurl

These were the fics I received from the

unsent_letters_exchange. :D

Title: Please Mr Postman
Author:

Ultra
Fandom: Gilmore Girls
Pairing/Characters: Lane/Dave
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 2855
Summary: When Dave goes off to California for college, he and Lane agree to do the long distance thing, largely through letters... and a lot of pop and rock music references, of course

I was so excited to get Lane/Dave! Loved all the fun music references and the letters were very them. :D

Title: Please Mr Postman - Post Credits Scene
Author:

Ultra
Fandom: Gilmore Girls
Pairing/Characters: Rory/Jess
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1097
Summary: Inspired by Dave & Lane's letter writing, Rory writes to Jess.

The Rory/Jess references in the original fic was already nice but it was a lovely delight to get a followup fic with giving them a chance at a happy ending too!

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uncluttering one day and one thing at a time

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Page Summary

kalloway - Mishmash
duskpeterson - UPDATE: Light and Love (Death Mask side story) + Three Lands omnibuses + news
kaberett - [pain] notes
duskpeterson - FIC: The lower floor of the royal residence (Tempestuous Tours)
corvidology - For those who enjoy the silliness...
musyc - 2025 Reading #9 plus more
tyger - Fucking Shibuya arc...
stonepicnicking_okapi - Crafting: Becorn
umadoshi - Cooking question/log/notes: meatloaf | black beans
kalloway - State of Things: Zines
paperghost - mall
kaberett - today in idle reading about pain
stonepicnicking_okapi - Collage Journal: rsc
nanila - Marking myself safe
tyger - Nooooo endless void of audit hell
arlie - MacOS Sequoia 15.5 - Epic Fail
fred_mouse - Web browser clicky game
paperghost - hmmm
svgurl - fic: my heart is with you (diana/steve)
svgurl - unsent_letters gift fics (1 lane/dave, 1 rory/jess)

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