ewx | Network

nanila posting in

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

ysabetwordsmith

This year I'm doing Community Thursdays. Some of my activity will involve maintaining communities I run, and my favorites. Some will involve checking my list of subscriptions and posting in lower-traffic ones. Today I have interacted with the following communities...

* Posted "Tutorials" on

getting_started.

* Posted "Gaming" on

girlgamers.

* Posted "Ostara" on

goddessfolk.

* Posted "Birdfeeding" on

birdfeeding.

Current Mood: busy

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260318.html

A lone tree stands in a quiet meadow in

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260318.html

ysabetwordsmith posting in

getting_started

soc_puppet has posted "Finding Friends and Things to Do on Dreamwidth" and "Uploading Images to Dreamwidth" on

newcomers.

Current Mood: busy

grayestofghosts

The internet (or, well, maybe, mostly social media) is quickly becoming unusable for me because of the rampant amounts of antisemitism literally everywhere. It is honestly worse than my experience with transphobia online and I say this as a trans person.

My other thought right now is about the indieweb as an alternative and there seems to be significant problems to the point that I'm thinking of writing an essay. As with most things in tech there seems to be a major disconnect in what people want and what tech people want to do. So much of the face of the indieweb is retroweb material built by high school and college kids who can design beautiful retro aesthetic layouts because, frankly, they have so much free time on their hands and no real responsibilities. We know right now probably more than ever that grown up adults with jobs and such have interesting things to say and especially because the indieweb does not generally have straightforward monetization opportunities, they should be able to publish simply without sacrificing all of their precious free time.

And in saying this I think there needs to be more focus on really simple text-based websites that people can just bang out if they have something to say and just need somewhere to put it. The competition with non-indie sources is really fierce for this niche but I think at least some people can be pulled, especially given the privacy garbage happening on social media. While I know the back end of, for example, Ao3 is quite complex, the front end being well-formatted text shows that sites that are simply well-formatted text are worthwhile in themselves. I feel like Zonelets is probably the most complexity one can realistically ask of people, and even that might be too much because it is still Javascript. But still having packages like that for people who aren't super tech-minded to be able to deploy simple, text-based static websites that are usable on mobile to a host of their choice should probably be the priority.

Current Music: "Dawn over the Metropolis," 猫シ Corp. & t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者

skygiants

Because Becky Mahoney and I know each other, I boosted a Bluesky giveaway for her upcoming vampire novel Thrall (coming out next month!) in the spirit of friendship and then was somewhat surprised to discover that I had in fact won the giveaway -- surprised but delighted, obviously, since I've loved all of her previous books even when they weren't LUCY CENTRIC DRACULA RIFFS!! focused around a COLLEGE PIRATE RADIO STATION!!!

The central character of Thrall is Lucy Easting, who has just transferred into beautiful, isolated, mountainside Rollins University from community college, in a bid to get away from her stressed and depressed mother and live a life she's excited about for a change.

Alas! her first college party results in a couple of neck puncture marks, a marked tendency to experience severe migraines in sunlight, and a tragic susceptibility to the ominous vampire voice in her head that occasionally takes over her consciousness and directs her towards uncharacteristic action.

Fortunately! the college is full of prospective allies who are willing to take a chance on Lucy despite her regrettable thrall situation, including but not limited to the host of the local college late-night radio show, who has been a target of the vampire since her sophomore year and has been using the airwaves to try and fight back; Lucy's RA, a determined young woman with very nice arms, who came to the school to investigate after a terrible fate befell her high school ex-boyfriend Jonathan; and the very nice, normal party host who has no previous vampire experience but feels just terrible about the whole situation and is not about to relinquish responsibility for sorting the situation out! it was her party!!

It's a really charming book on a number of levels, but my favorite thing about it as a Dracula riff specifically is how much it's thematically invested in Lucy as a side character -- the narrative is consistently very clear that the vampire is not particularly interested in Lucy; he's obsessed with Athena the radio show host and everything else he's doing is part of his elaborate cat-and-mouse game with her, including incidentally overturning Lucy's life as a by-the-by -- and how Lucy makes the book her own story anyway by sheer force of determination not to be cut out of it. Lucy's energy really drives the book: she wants to live, and she wants to live a life on her own terms, and she's not about to let one horrible encounter take that away from her.

Also, I think it's not a huge spoiler ( but I guess is technically a mild one: lesbians! )

sonia posting in

gluten_free

I would like to have more high-protein snacks on hand, and the usual suggestions don't work for my digestive system (nuts, soy, dairy, beans). Does anyone have recipes to recommend? I'm thinking something like mini-frittatas made in muffin cups. Some kind of meatballs would be an option, but I'd prefer something that was less fuss to make. Thanks!

I did a quick search before posting and found this recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/231480/muffin-pan-frittatas/ Looks reasonable, although I wouldn't put in milk or cheese. At least it gives me proportions and baking time.

kitewithfish

I am keyboardless, forgive my brevity.

What I've Read

After the Storm by perennial - This beautiful fic is Don John and Hero from Much Ado About Nothing, in an alternate universe where John revenges himself on Claudio by marrying Hero. Long and slow, this fic look at who John might be if given enough rope, and who Hero might be if she didn't have to marry that credulous shithead.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/31038242

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher A sweet romance, a little too long. Doing some lifting to set up the following books in the series.

The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison - A reread for me for xing bookclub!

What I'm Reading Now
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - This is fine? Not sure if I am reaching for the orientalism or if the book is just doing that, but the key problems are repetition and repetition. 700 pages of, Dracula is around still and he's a dick.

What I'll Read Next
My Real Children Jo walton

goodbyebird

+ London, San Francisco and Beijing achieve ‘remarkable reductions’ in air pollution.
“This report shows that cities can achieve what was once thought impossible: cutting toxic air pollution by 20-45% in a little over a decade,” said Cecilia Vaca Jones, executive director of Breathe Cities, one of the organisations behind the report. “This isn’t just happening in one corner of the world; from Warsaw to Bangkok, cities are proving that we have the tools to solve this crisis right now.”

+ Fifty years after New Zealand stopped whaling, humpback population showing signs of recovery.

+ Two pairs of beavers released in Cornwall.
Beavers became extinct from the wild in England more than 400 years ago due to hunting for their pelts, meat and glands.
The charity said beavers were increasingly recognised as one of nature's most important keystone species - animals whose presence shapes entire ecosystems.

+ The river otter’s remarkable comeback.

+ European Parliament Votes Overwhelmingly For "The Full Recognition Of Trans Women As Women".
Significantly, the vote gathered support not only from left-leaning groups but also from the majority of the European People's Party, the largest and most powerful center-right bloc in the European Parliament. The center-right support drew sharp criticism from the far right: the Patriots for Europe group, which includes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz and French far-right leader Marine Le Pen's National Rally, voted against the resolution and denounced its exclusion from negotiations over the text. The European Conservatives and Reformists, the group of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia, also voted against. But their combined opposition was not enough to block the resolution, which passed with support from a broad cross-ideological majority.

+ Ireland’s basic income for the arts scheme becomes permanent.

+ Why comics needs its own Criterion Closet, an inside look at THE STACKS.

+ stop counting. what you love matters..
Cardiff University's Dr Lucy Bennett put it well in that same piece: "Once taste is turned into a scoreboard with ratings, competition then inevitably follows." Which, yes — but I'd push that further. Competition doesn't just follow. It replaces something. In the war to protect a number, the actual shows get swallowed whole. Nobody in these review threads is talking about what made "Ozymandias" so devastating, or what any of these subsequent shows did differently. They’re just defending territory. The number had stopped being a representation of the thing and had become the thing itself.

+ Marvel Comics has the optimisation sickness.
The current status quo at Marvel seems to be that if a storyline is successful they'll publish too many comics about it and it will get derailed. If a storyline isn't successful enough they'll publish too many comics about it and it will get derailed.

+ The Secretive Company Filling Video Game Sites With Gambling And AI.
Chris Button, an Australian tech journalist and former contributor, wasn't pleased to see his old profile alongside the AI authors. All of his former articles were edited to include closing sections pointing to casino and betting guides. He attempted to have his author profile removed by emailing the new management of GamesHub, but he never received a response. However, he no longer appears on the Meet the Team page. Button is disappointed with what the site has become. "Seeing GamesHub transformed into a site promoting gambling is devastating, not just for those who wrote for the site, but for the industry the publication championed", he said.

+ Friendly reminder that The Importance of Being Earnest is available to watch for free a little while longer. Chaotic fun, highly recommend.

maevedarcy posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

ysabetwordsmith

Earth's changing climate is harming crop diversity exactly where the security of global food production needs it most

A new study warns that if global warming surpasses 1.5°C, vast regions could lose critical crop diversity, heightening the risk to worldwide food security.

Researchers predict that about one-third of global food production may be in jeopardy due to higher temperatures, underscoring how climate change is expected to reshape agriculture, especially in vulnerable low-latitude countries.

You know what? I think they're barking up the wrong tree here. Humans have done FAR more damage to the foodstream than climate change has so far. I'm sure climate change will get around to that, but it's late to the party. Humans have already discarded many traditional crops because they don't lend themselves to commercial growing, drastically limiting the typical diet.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

shivver

I'm usually in a good mood -- I'm definitely an optimist -- but today, I'm just really happy.

( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny, less cold, with a light breeze. This is a huge improvement. :D

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I did a bit of work outdoors.

The mower has been picked up for its spring tuneup.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I picked up more junk from the parking lot.

I've seen a lot more sparrows and house finches, plus a fox squirrel.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I started trying to unearth the edge of the sidewalk bordering the parking lot on the south side. It is exhausting, and must be done before the stump-grinder guy arrives early tomorrow. D:

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I hacked away at the east end of the sidewalk. There are still several feet of the middle buried.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I continued hacking at the sidewalk edge.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I did more hacking at the sidewalk edge. I think it's about as good as I can get it. There's a big patch in the middle that I couldn't clear due to roots and brush, but at least the edge is more-or-less visible at both ends.

I've seen a male cardinal at the hopper feeder.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3221/

'Well, there's speculation that it's due to a mantle hotspot.' --a geologist who's trying to cover up the fact that they didn't hear your question

https://xkcd.com/3221/

petrea_mitchell posting in

agonyaunt

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

ffutures

This is a bundle offer of Deadpool from Akers Games, a baseball simulation dice game.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Deadball

I am (a) British and (b) not a sports fan, and have no interest whatever in baseball statistics. I am obviously not this game's target audience. If you are, have fun.

spiralsheep

Film the collective most wanted to see together but missed was Queer as Punk, 2025, which I mention because some of you might also be interested in a queer Malaysian punk movie.

Film: All That's Left of You, 2025, is an unexpectedly gentle and also thoughtful film about a Palestinian man and his family, told episodically from 1948 to 2022. I usually resent any film over the 2hr mark but this deserved and filled the 2hrs 25mins it took to tell these stories. The cinematography is decidedly beautiful, with Palestinian lives and homes being lit in warm colours. I hadn't read any spoilers so I'd no idea where these stories were heading beyond forwards in time from the Nakba through the First Intifada, and I was surprised by the later themes which I thought were extremely well handled despite their difficulties. An aspect of the film-making that drew my attention very early on were casting decisions for the two occasions during which we see close-ups of members of the Israeli military being abusive, when the actors chosen looked as much like the Palestinian lead as possible, so the first could have been his brother and the second a close cousin (a more diverse population was shown but the casting in these two incidents was clearly intentional).
Conclusion: I recommend watching All That's Left of You if you enjoy heartfelt family-themed films (also rated 12A - about PG-13 - despite the surrounding violence [/ reminder that European film ratings tend to be higher for violence (and lower for sex) than US ratings ]). 5/5

Film: Colours of Time / La Venue de l'avenir, 2025, is a lightweight middle-of-the-road French film exploring recent history through the lens of one family, and was clearly sponsored by the Normandy tourist authority (and good for them!). The casting suited the plot as well as the characters, the lighting was good, and all the very mainstream music - from acoustic to electronic dance - was spot on. Cliches are racked up constantly, but each is well done and forgivable (except possibly Monmartre as a romantic pre-suburb village, which was wholly unnecessary nostalgia that didn't rly work as commentary on the present and was balanced by the equally saccharine Ooo They've Got Electricity scene). The Obligatory Pride in French Arts Culture is offset by making it mildly amusing. Beekeeping featured as the vaguest form of token environmentalism. There is the most improbably upbeat and escapist take on teaching as a career. Warning for the usual pervasive French misogyny, albeit dialled down as this is intended to be a sweet story. Nonetheless I noticed the Stressed Businesswoman Who Just Needs a "Date" trope, and although the Women's Magazine Culture is Lol Lowbrow trope was offset by humour, there was also Historical Women Were All Sex-Workers. Also warning for glamourised recreational drug-taking. The best laugh line was "I got hit on by Victor Hugo!" and I'm absolutely not going to spoil the context, although for balance there was also a dreadful pun about cat/chat room filters.
Themes: family, love, nostalgic history. 5/5

Film: The Blue Trail / O Último Azul, 2025, is a Brazilian film, that I saw with the original soundtrack and subtitles (there seems to be a terrible dubbed trailer about too?). In a near-future dystopia, 80 year old people are bussed away to a "colony" for old people so they don't impair the economic activity of younger people... according to pervasive government messaging. Unfortunately for the protagonist, Tereza, the age limit is lowered to 77 only a few weeks before her 77th birthday. She is mandatorily retired from her job at an alligator processing factory (warning for animal death and dismemberment) and sent home to her small shack to await the inevitable. However, Tereza has other ideas and decides to flee in pursuit of her desire to fly. Along the way she meets a drug-taking riverboat courier who shows her a wild snail that excretes blue "drool" which induces visions in humans when used as eyedrops. Various snitches try to turn her in to the authorities, and her dream of flying crashes. But Tereza meets another riverboat traveller, on the rainbow-coloured Caridad (Charity - aka loving kindness), who might have an alternative dream for our heroine. But what will the visionary wild snail reveal about this, and how much will Tereza's renewed life cost her and the animals she inevitably continues to exploit (more warnings for animal death)?
Themes: exploitation, of people and animals and the environment; but also love and redemption (which has its price, like all redemption). Possible lesbian and/or female friendship themes but these are choose your own adventure interpretations.
Conclusion: beautiful, disjointed, occasionally upsetting, and partially individually redemptive. 4/5

oursin

What I read

Finished Victoria's Secret - still slightly meh about it - could possibly have engaged a bit with a longer history of 'Monarch has favourite/s who are not Quite Our Sort', even if historically the gender issues in play here were different??? Also had a bit of feeling that QV was not entirely NOT treating John Brown in the light of A Very Large Faithful Dog devoted to her to which she was also devoted and which she insisted on imposing upon people who hated dogs.... Thought it was good on her awful childhood, though.

Clare Pollard, The Modern Fairies (2024) - telling stories about women telling stories, i.e. the precieuses at the time of Louis XIV, the stories they were telling and their stories and how those reflected one another.

Susan Ertz, Woman Alive (1935), my attention having been drawn towards it by a mention of its having been republished. I have a copy of the first edition, Ertz being one of the early C20th middlebrow women novelists in whom I have had an interest going back decades, but not sure whether I ever actually read this. It is sf Of The Period, in which someone is cast forward into The Future by sciento-psychic means, this is his account. And okay, is not (unlike a cluster from around the same time) about the dystopic crushing iron heel of fascistic misogyny, is about the dysoptic outcome of a war in which germ warfare has killed all the women. Except one who has survived courtesy of mad scientist neighbour's experimental process.

Points for her being a young women of education, character, and something of a backstory conveying a certain cynicism, but she still concedes to the agenda of marrying and going forth and having babbyz, though I think everyone is a bit optimistic that she will pop out multiple daughters and even so, we do not think this will Save Humanity. (Also, no-one seems to suggest she should have Plurality of Mates, surely that would be advisable?) But then it just stops with our narrator pinging back to his present day.

Most recent Literary Review

Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington (1988), which I really enjoyed and am now looking out for more of hers - think I have copies of some somewhere?

Robert Barnard, Death of a Literary Widow (1979)- everybody in it is a bit of a caricature, not just the American academic.

Emily Tesh, The Incandescent (2025), because I have been hearing well of it. Pretty good, but is it just having Read A Lot that made one character look like a honking parade of red flags?

On the go

I think I am actually giving up on I Am A Woman, I don't think Being A Sad Lesbian is enough to provide a rounded character? Maybe it gets better?

Nibbling at various things. Realise that it is 2 weeks to next Pilgrimage discussion and I do not want to read Honeycomb too far in advance.

Up next

No idea.

cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Jen

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/someday-well-find-it-and-press-charges-2026

First there was the Rainbow Erection:

Then there was the Rainbow Ejection:

And now, presumably a good 30 minutes later, our nation's bakeries give us this:

The Marshmallow-Topped Drippy Rainbow Wang... Confection

(AND IT STILL RHYMES!)

Thanks to Myra D., Aimie T., & Diana W. for making us wonder just how long bakers can keep this up.

*****

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/someday-well-find-it-and-press-charges-2026

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Prudence,

I’m a 21-year-old college student living in a house with five other students. There are three women and three men. We’re having an issue keeping our kitchen clean, and I am the only one who consistently cleans. I keep the floors and counters clean, wash the piles of dishes in the sink, wash dish towels, etc. Anytime I’ve asked people to chip in, they never follow through. I’ve tried not doing the cleaning, but then the kitchen gets disgusting and I end up caving.

I’m not completely innocent when it comes to not always washing my dishes immediately and being messy, but I feel like I clean more often than anyone else. A general chore chart doesn’t work, and I am tired of feeling like my roommate’s mother. How can I get them to take some initiative and do more of the heavy lifting that always falls on me?

—Not a Mother to Five at 21

( Read more... )

Richard Kettlewell

Just One Thing (19 March 2026)

Community Thursdays

(no subject)

Tutorials

The Internet Is Becoming Unusable and Thoughts for the IndieWeb

(no subject)

Request: High-protein snacks

Weekly reading meme for March 18 2026

Fire is under control, celebratory linkspam? :D

[MULTIFANDOM] vampiremedia's April Drabblethon!

Science

Just really in a good mood today

Birdfeeding

Landscape Features

AAM: how do we hire people who won’t be alarmed by our cardboard coworker?

Another Bundle - Deadball

In which there is Britain's biggest rural film festival

Wednesday saw a HERON standing in the eco-pond!!!!

Someday We'll Find It... And Press Charges

(no subject)

Profile

January 2026

Most Popular Tags

Expand Cut Tags