duskpeterson: The lowercased letters D and P, joined together (Default)
[personal profile] duskpeterson

The royal sactuary is arguably the most important chamber in the palace. It is here that, in former times, a sanctuarian priest held daily rituals designed to uplift the spirits of worshippers and – I am sorry to say – crush the spirits of slaves. The Emorians, rightly appalled by the Koretians' treatment of their slaves, built part of their new palace over the burning ground just outside the courtyard, which lay within easy sight of the sanctuary.

Despite its despicable misdeeds of the past, Koretia's priesthood has survived to the present day. The Jackal, who is also High Priest of Koretia, holds annual services to honor the slaves who served and died in Koretia; these services are often attended by the few slaves who survived their treatment. Some of these slaves remain dead in mind but come willingly to this service, drawn here by the Jackal, who is the god of death and who therefore watches over their spirits in the Land Beyond. To witness these dead-in-mind men and women gather around the Jackal is a deeply moving experience - a living monument to the Koretian belief that the gods can transform evil into good.

The royal sanctuary was desecrated at the time of the Emorian invasion of 961; the sanctuary was used to stable horses in the years that followed. After the Emorians withdrew from Koretia in 976, the chamber remained empty for many years. In 987, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the liberation of Koretia's slaves by the Emorians, the chamber was rededicated under the name of the Royal Sanctuary of the Living Dead. It is now a memorial to the suffering of Koretia's former slaves.

Conveniently for visitors, the royal sanctuary can be visited separately from the rest of the palace. The sanctuary now has its own entrance, unconnected to the royal residence or any other portion of the Koretian palace.


[Translator's note: The Royal Sanctuary plays a dramatic role in Death Mask.]

mugged by a magpie

Jun. 4th, 2025 11:34 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Picture me: sat on the sofa, opposite the French doors, vaguely paying attention to what was going on at the bird feeder, mildly amused by the extremely ungainly magpie.

The magpie that inspected the water bowl (that someone had thrown off its stand) and the feeder (that was empty) and the me (on the sofa) and Came To A Decision.

It did a tiny hop-skip-flap over and landed, very deliberately, on the workbench just the other side of the glass. It turned its head from side to side to get a good look at me from both eyes.

And then, having glared at me, it started yelling.

And kept yelling until I was up off the sofa and clearly heading for the door, whereupon it retreated to a safe distance, i.e. the garage rooves, and Continued Observing.

I sorted out the water dish. I got the crates of Misc Birdseed out of their cupboard. I sorted out the feeder. I sorted out the other feeder.

I went back inside.

Some time elapsed.

Eventually I got sufficiently puzzled about why the magpie hadn't come back yet to actually notice that I'd left the crates of seed out, and their cupboard door open.

I heaved myself back off the sofa.

I returned the seeds to their cupboard, and shut the cupboard's door. I returned myself to the sofa, shutting the patio door behind me.

Not terribly long after that, the magpie returned, and drank, and nibbled suspiciously (I had changed which food was in which feeder position), and appeared satisfied at least to the extent of not yelling any further...

... right up until the squirrel showed up to claim a portion of the restock.

I am absolutely delighted to have made this neighbour's acquaintance.

reading wednesday

Jun. 4th, 2025 02:11 pm
tozka: Dawn (from Buffy) reading a book with a starry background (buffy dawn with stars)
[personal profile] tozka
2025 Reading Log | 35/200 yearly goal (+2 from last update)

I've gotten sucked into a fanfic-reading frenzy (Naruto, of all things) so my book-reading has been sparse these past few weeks. However, I did read two books since my last Reading Wednesday post!

First, I decided to read the Oz books (including the post-Baum books by Ruth Plumly Thompson) as a kind of reading project thing, and I of course started with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

I've read it before, but the last time was (I'm pretty sure) back in 2007 when I got my first ereader and put a bunch of public domain books on it.

It's a charming book, and I especially liked the intro from Baum in the beginning that spells out the aim of the book: to be a modern fairy tale for kids that isn't focused on morality lessons. And it does that!

Chatter about Wonderful Wizard of Oz, including spoilers )

Besides that, I also read a novella by KL Noone called The Pooka's Share. It's a m/m urban fantasy romance between a paranormal police officer and a pookah (Celtic shape-changing spirit) with surprise (to me, because I hadn't read the summary) BDSM elements. A cute story! Perhaps spent a bit too much time on the worldbuilding when this is just a one-off and short to boot, but overall good.

Word: Banjax

Jun. 4th, 2025 03:55 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: letters (letters)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
I haven't don't one of these since April, but I've come across some new-to-me words.

Wednesday's word is...

...banjax.


1. ruin, incapacitate, or break.


I found this new-to-me word in the Inspector Rebus I just finished (Saints of the Shadow Bible).

"...Reckons we banjaxed the Saunders case to keep a good snitch on the street."

I would also like to add this saying (also new-to-me) from the same which is very Rebus.

Fair exchange is no robbery

That is definitely going to be the title of my next hard-boiled detective fic. It's great.

flea antics 3

Jun. 4th, 2025 02:54 pm
paperghost: (Default)
[personal profile] paperghost
Cat was at the vet while I was working. Fleas are gone, she has thyroid and bladder issues. Fast metabolism is why she's so skinny. So she's old as fuck but not at death's door quite yet. Also may not have dementia? Apparently her bladder issues just make her uncomfortable and act weird.

Book Bingo: June 2025

Jun. 4th, 2025 02:59 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: books (books)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
This bingo card was created by [personal profile] kingstoken. More about the challenge here: https://kingstoken.dreamwidth.org/109837.html



LBGTQ+: Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Derby. An interesting life. This is a long work, however, and at times was a slog just because of the length. 500+ pages.

Multiple POV: The Guest List by Lucy Foley. Of course, you can't think of a Multiple POV book when you want to, so I googled it and got this, and my library had it on audiobook. It's a modern And then there were none with everyone coming to a wedding on an island. No one is likeable. Really, they're all sort of awful. And it wasn't clever. And public school boys bullying someone to death is too cliche for me. But it held my attention enough to finish it. 10+hours. Ensemble narrator cast.

Anthology/Collection: The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón. An excellent collection of poetry by the US Poet Laureate. I listened to audio verison in her own voice, which I recommend. I included some of my favorites in an April post: https://stonepicnicking-okapi.dreamwidth.org/598098.html

Friendship: Seafire by Natalie C. Parker. This was my 'blind date' book I got at the library in February. It was a YA fantasy book of a kind of Mad Max world on the water. The main characters are young women who are captain and crew of a ship which is renegade/rogue, fighting against the warlord who controls the area. It was good. The world building was interesting. I'm not going to read the next in the series but I enjoyed it. Friendship is definitely a main theme. [I am also trying to do as many squares as I can of [personal profile] garonne's 2025 Book Bingo here: https://garonne.dreamwidth.org/58219.html so I think this qualifies as G-B-3: Set at sea.]

Movie/TV-tie in: Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. This was the first book on the 'Reading List for 4th graders' sent Minisculus' teacher, and I decided to make a Mother-Son book club. It's a sweet little book about a girl in Florida. They made a movie out of it. Winn-Dixie for unfamiliar is a grocery store chain and the girl names the stray dog (like Annie and Sandy) after the grocery store she finds it in. Minisculus, of course, reads manga and Percy Jackson. But he needs more torture in his life :) [also for G-I-1: children's book]

Bleh

Jun. 5th, 2025 01:34 am
tyger: Xemnas' Avatar Kingdom chibi. Text: Xemnas (Xemnas - chibi)
[personal profile] tyger

While I did tidy a little bit, mostly I did fuckall today too, which is fine. I'm not gonna try and push myself at all this week. Also I slept like crap again, and it was FUCKING FREEZING so getting out of bed was... difficult... >>;; I probably would've slept until like 5pm if Mama wasn't home, honestly.

Tomorrow we're gonna go look at a display cabinet I might be getting, so I have to be awake in the morning, boooo. Hopefully it'll be less cold! My ankle is uh. Yeah. Not so great in the cold.

(no subject)

Jun. 4th, 2025 09:01 am
fred_mouse: Western Australian state emblem - black swan silhouette on yellow circle (home state)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

We've had a bit of rain - nearby weather station recorded 10.2 to 9am yesterday, and 21.6 to 9am today. I haven't looked attotal for the last week, but in terms of June rain, that is good, but not unusual. It is, however, still raining.

ETA: From http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_009172.shtml mean June rainfall is 151 mm while median is 156 mm, usually 13 days of rain. It is the second wettest month.

News & Views

Jun. 3rd, 2025 05:17 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: ChopSuey (chopsuey)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
1. The interview on Thursday is the big thing.

2. I have finally started actually writing my casefic for the exchange.

3. School is winding down for the boys. Their last day is 18 June.

4. I realized that the book that Minisculus and I are reading was made into a film (Because of Winn-Dixie) so I have my movie-tie in for the book bingo.

5. 13 June is FESTA day, which is the day BTS debuted (so BTS birthday). All but SUGA will be out by then.

I wish I could make this look this easy.

Goodbyes are hard

Jun. 4th, 2025 01:28 am
tyger: Blurry Roxas at the base of the skyscraper from Deep Dive.  Text: nobody (Roxas - nobody)
[personal profile] tyger

Day pmuch went as planned, for me, honestly. Went into the office to get my stuff/drop off their stuff, went to lunch with everyone, etc. etc. Everyone is sad to see me leave, which is always nice. Boss was the most upset seeming, actually! :( He's usually got a lot of enthusiasm - subtle like, he's also very reserved, but definitely there. Buuut that was all gone today, he was definitely sad. :( :( :(

That's really what got to me the most, honestly. Just. Uuuugh no it's fine, Boss, you did what you could! It's not your fault!!!

ANYWAY I'mma miss those motherfuckers, they were a super great bunch to work with! :(

Daily notes

Jun. 3rd, 2025 08:14 pm
fred_mouse: blurry image of cast metal mouse shape in a fruit bowl (pear)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

Today:

  • 'tis wet. Very wet. be careful of water on the roads wet (not flood warnings, but the 'if you have a road that floods, it will' levels of wet)
  • driving tour for G attempting to hit as many items from their wishlist as possible. Beach and Bell Tower were possible; Fremantle Markets, caves, and whatever I've forgotten were not. We headed for Woodman Point, which is one place where I know that there is a car park right on the beach, so that G didn't have to walk very far (say, 10m total). Then drove what could be an interesting walking tour of Old Fremantle (markets, oval, gaol, arts centre, 2 * high schools), a drive past Heathcote, up the freeway, loop the loop around the Bell Tower, and then out to the aeroport.
  • relaxed afternoon, doing bugger all.

Yesterday:

  • Having a somewhat lazy day, after the hectic pace of SwanCon over the weekend (by which I mean that I was in bed well before midnight, and in fact did zero carousing, including failing to go to the Dead Dog). Slept in, dropped G in Innaloo, had anniversary lunch with A in Gwelup.
  • Other notable tasks of the day include bringing the washing in before it rained, running (and hanging up) two loads of washing, and setting the table back to 'every day' arrangement after having people to dinner on Friday. Every time I do that I think 'should do this more often' because there are so many fabulous people I don't get to catch up with nearly often enough.

Music Monday: Anxiety by Doechii

Jun. 2nd, 2025 03:46 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: record player (recordplayer)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
I have an interview (via Zoom) at 9:30 am on Thursday!!! Thus, the song of the week is:


umadoshi: (lilacs 02)
[personal profile] umadoshi
It was not a productive weekend for me--awkward, because I had great intentions of getting an initial dent into my next rewrite. I did at least make it as far as reading through the translation and making some notes, but that was very much it.

The one thing I managed was a fair bit of reading:

I finished Vivian Shaw's Strange Practice (a fun read, and I'll probably move along with the series at some point--I think I may even already have the second book--but I don't feel any urgency about it) and followed it up in rapid succession with Copper Script (KJ Charles) and Titan of the Stars (E.K. Johnston), both of which only came out last week. (Two books within a week of their shared release date probably isn't actually a record, but it's certainly not my norm.) Both were great, in very different ways. I knew Johnston had two books coming out in pretty quick succession this season (Sky on Fire releases next month) and that one of them has a planned sequel, but somehow I assumed right up to the end of this one that it was the July book. But no! It's this one! (Unless they both do.) I expect it'll be a fairly different book, and will be very interested to see how things play out.

I'm also still picking my way through The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. (Kobo thinks I'm 78% done.)

Watching: [personal profile] scruloose and I saw the S2 TLOU finale last weekend, and at some point I'll probably ask around for broad and specific spoilers for the game, and that may impact how I feel about it. (Bella Ramsey knocked it out of the park, though. What a fantastic cast all around.)

We're also up to date on Murderbot. My inability to remember any plot specifics at all from All Systems Red (given that it's the only book in the series I've read more than once) is both a bit funny and annoying.

Eating: The Zuni method of dry-brining and roasting a chicken was a success again. Unrelatedly, I got [personal profile] scruloose to pick up an extra-dark maple syrup from a local producer, and we tried and enjoyed it last weekend. (This jug doesn't explicitly say "extra-dark" or anything like that, so it's possible it's not actually the one I heard mentioned, but it is very dark and they acquired it at the store that had been named, so I'm kinda assuming.)

Growing/Weathering: The lilacs have bloomed! It was windy enough yesterday, and rainy before that, that I was a little scared all the blossoms would blow right off, but that doesn't seem to have happened. I hope I remember to actually go outside and get some to bring inside.

The Sensation lilac [see icon, although that's not a pic of ours] is in pretty dire need of pruning, poor thing. The thought of actually making a(n approximately-)dated list of when to do specific garden things has passed through my mind, and if I'm lucky I'll actually try to assemble it. I think at least the last couple of years running we've looked up when to prune lilacs and then I've been thrown by the fact that our other one is a Bloomerang and presumably follows different rules.

Well that's that.

Jun. 3rd, 2025 01:12 am
tyger: Roxas, from Deep Dive.  Text: (un)Natural light (Roxas - (un)Natural Light)
[personal profile] tyger

So.... I got made redundant today. (People keep telling me I shouldn't call it 'being fired' but like. C'mon.) SO THAT WAS A SURPRISE.

I'm not SUPER upset about it or anything, but I wasn't expecting it at all. Also I really don't wanna look for a job or anything uuuuugh.

Gotta go into the office one last time tomorrow to drop off the laptop/swipeycard, and pick up all my desk decorations and stuff, and go and get lunch with everyone. Coworker C also got made redundant, which sucks way more for her - she's older and she has kids, so getting a new job quickly is both more important and harder :( :( :(

Anyway, aside from that my day was pretty nice actually. Weather was still good (it's apparently going to get feral again soon), so went for a walk with Mama, and was basically just a potato otherwise. I feel like I deserve a potato day! Or two!

update: The Artist's Way

Jun. 2nd, 2025 02:42 pm
fred_mouse: text icon reading '100 day project' (100-day-project)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

I have made zero progress on The Artist's Way in the last, hmm, three? weeks (maybe four, maybe more? I have stopped tracking). I do intend to keep working through it, but I've been doing the cycle of find the book, put it somewhere to progress later, forget, lose the book. My general thoughts

  • the morning pages are working. I'm doing them in 750words, and that makes it easier in some ways and harder in others. The later in the day I do them the more grumpy I am about doing them, because they really do work for me if I can clear my mind in the morning.
  • the artist's date idea doesn't work for me. I suspect if I didn't already have space carved out in my life for me to just do my thing, it would make a huge difference, but as it is there is more stress in trying to Do The Thing.
  • I hate the principles, I stopped reading them daily because I kept wanting to argue with them. Too culturally Christian, and too USian alien mind set (I have the same reaction to a lot of self-help type books out of the USA).
  • I understand the point of the affirmations, and I have a document of them I can read whenever (I just keep it open, but I should do something more accessible with it), but I find doing that daily beyond tedious. I had it in my daily to do list; I'm taking it out as part of my going-back-to-study paring down (post pending, still making the choices on that)
  • In the bits I've read, I've felt quite othered, because I don't have a strong feel of myself as a blocked creative.

Long term, I intend to at least read the rest of it. I don't think I want to try and do as many of the exercises. I did a decent job of the week 1, and I might have of the week 2, and I have a log document that I'll leave open. But I think that reading the book and ignoring the exercises might be the best way for me to get anything out of it now. Possibly stopping at the end of each chapter, looking at each question, and allowing max 5 minutes on each writing task (if I feel like writing at all) and then not trying to do a bit every day.

the tl;dr: I didn't like this enough to try and work on it daily.

Daily notes

May. 23rd, 2025 02:39 pm
fred_mouse: bright red 'love' heart with stethoscope (health)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

Backdated entry

Three of us got our annual flu vax today; this was slightly less organised than it might have been, and if I'd realised that the web page wasn't going to send the bookings through correctly (we got our confirmation SMSes after we got home) then I might have just tried walk-in (which the sign out the front says they are doing). Very much appreciate that for this month and next flu vax is free for everyone so we don't have to do the 'who is covered' thing. Reminder for Aussies -- flu vax! Get one if you haven't!

addendum Youngest attempted the walk in option, it was even less organised, which I didn't realise was possible.

monthly site donation

Jun. 1st, 2025 10:48 pm
paperghost: (Default)
[personal profile] paperghost

I decided that every month or every decent paycheck when my hours are decent, I'll donate to a website I use often. I decided for my first month it'll be Side7, and I bought some credits at the store. :D

For next time I'm thinking about Marapets, Furaffinity, or Dreamwidth.

KMS

Jun. 1st, 2025 08:50 pm
paperghost: (tasty)
[personal profile] paperghost

>going to shop after work
>household shares a car so my mother has to pick me up, drop me off at home, and immediately go back to her job
>get items I need
>one of the items I got is defective and I don't notice until I'm at checkout
>cancel checkout and leave because I don't have time to get a replacement
>order it online
>they give me the defective item I put back

.......................................................................................................................

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unclutter: pairs of antique shoes (Default)
uncluttering one day and one thing at a time

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