Bienvenidxs a Latam!

Mar. 21st, 2026 09:23 pm
maevedarcy: van gogh's sunflowers (van gogh)
[personal profile] maevedarcy posting in [site community profile] dw_community_promo
I've been looking for communities that want to center Latinx culture in their posting but haven't found any so I made one!

[community profile] latam is a new community for people to come together to talk about latinamerican music, films, food, culture, fandom, and more!

Everyone's welcome, no matter where you're posting from! And you can also post in your language (official languages of the community are Spanish, Portuguese and English!)

Come make friends! We have a friending meme going on right now :)

A quiet Saturday

Mar. 21st, 2026 11:59 am
sholio: (B5-station)
[personal profile] sholio
I posted some more Babylon 5 fic in the last couple of days: a new Londo/G'Kar fake dating fic plus a new chapter of the B5 catacomb WIP.

It's been a year this month since I started watching the show - my first post under the B5 tag was posted March 3, 2025 after watching the first couple of episodes. Still completely gone on it! I regret nothing!

In other news, NYT gift link to an article about Paul Brainerd, creator of Aldus PageMaker and inventor of the term "desktop publishing." This was a fascinating nostalgia read for me because, while I had no idea of the actual history, this guy (and Adobe and Apple) created the professional world of my young adulthood. My first job out of college in (I think) 1998 was working in the layout department of a newspaper that had just recently (last few years) gone from paste-up to an all-Mac layout room using a program similar to PageMaker from a third-party software maker that no longer exists. PageMaker - which I also learned to use in the college computer lab, and later at work - was the direct predecessor of InDesign, widely used even today. It's interesting to think back on those old newspaper days and how thoroughly they shaped me and continue to shape me. The computer/layout/marketing experience I got as a layout artist in the late 90s and 2000s has been immensely useful for my current self-publishing career.

It continues to be horrendously cold. We've been sitting under a high-pressure ridge and have had gorgeous sunny days that are absolutely freezing. It was -20F when I got up this morning and it's 0F out there right now. My husband's (uni-age) students are over here today because they wanted to help him dig out an ancient non-working snowblower that someone gave us ages ago from a snowbank and try to get it working again. (We do actually have TWO other snowblowers. This is just for fun.)

I took this picture on a walk up our driveway to the highway to get the mail a couple of days ago:

a long expanse of snow-covered road with piles of snow on each side

At least at this time of year, the sun warms it up SOMEWHAT during the day - in January it can sit at -40 24/7 for weeks; at this time of year we're still experiencing 20-40 degree increases during the day .... which is still barely enough to push us above 0F. The 10-day forecast shows that it will be glacially (haha) warming up, but still may not have crawled into above-freezing temps by the end of the month. UGH, I'M READY FOR SPRING.

Post of links and music

Mar. 21st, 2026 05:52 pm
dolorosa_12: (persephone lore olympus)
[personal profile] dolorosa_12
Rather than share each item individually, I'm just going to link to [personal profile] goodbyebird's mostly good news links roundup. There's some fantastic environmental and sociopolitical news there.

I'll add to all this with the news that you can now walk around the entire coastline of England. It's worth reading the article in full, because this undertaking is extremely impressive and future-focused.

Another good news story, via 2022 Ukrainian Nobel laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk: the tropical plants in the greenhouse of Kyiv's Hryshko Botanical Garden survived Russia's winter bombardment of energy facilities, thanks to the concerted efforts of staff and ordinary Kyivan citizens.

I've basically been immersively living in these two songs for the past week:



Fingers say what?

Mar. 21st, 2026 11:10 am
brithistorian: (Default)
[personal profile] brithistorian

I talk with my hands. This amuses A. to no end: She's the one who's part-Italian and yet I'm the one who can't talk without gesticulating. Whether I'm talking about sending an email (fingers typing on a keyboard), sending a fax (hands palm-down, fingertips guiding the paper into the machine), or chopping vegetables (left hand moving the knife up and down, right hand advancing the the vegetable toward it), I don't even think about it, but my hands accompany my words.

Yesterday, we got some small cucumbers and I was talking about using some of them to make oi muchim (a Korean cucumber salad with thinly sliced cucumbers in a gochugaru-seasoned dressing). I was talking about slicing the cucumbers, and she looked at my hands and asked "What's that?" I looked at my hands and saw that my right hand was flat, palm-up, while my left hand was palm-down, in a claw grip, moving back and forth over my right hand. And then it hit me: When I make oi muchim, I don't slice the cucumbers with a knife. I slice them with a mandoline. And without even thinking about it, my hands were doing to the correct motion for the action I would be doing.

I don't even notice that I'm doing this until she points it out, so I don't know if I could stop it if I tried.

mific: John sheppard looking sad or worried against stone wall, half out of frame (Shep - sad)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: Dave Sheppard, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan, Sam Carter, Radek Zelenka
Rating: Teen
Length: 7998
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: busaikko on AO3
Themes: Siblings, Family, Post-canon, Outsider POV

Summary: Dave Sheppard learns more about his brother and gets drawn into a tangle of secrets and truths.

Reccer's Notes: This is from Dave's POV, as he and John cautiously reconnect via emails, then more, after their father's funeral. I really like Dave here, separated from his wife and still in love with her, baffled by John and wanting to understand him better. They do gradually reconnect, and eventually some Trust shenanigans lead to Dave meeting all John's team and being read in about the Stargate program. The characterisations of Dave and John are excellent, with Rodney's relationship with Jennifer Keller, then with John, happening in the background. One of my favourite Dave Sheppard fics.

Fanwork Links: Just So Long and Long Enough on AO3
And there are two podfic versions: by juniperphoenix and by cookiemom6067

The Missing Middle

Mar. 21st, 2026 12:13 am
elf: We have met the enemy and he is us. (Met the enemy)
[personal profile] elf
Found a nice gaming article on Bluesky (Three Tiers of RPG Publishing), which led me to another article, which I found insightful and clever (and a bit sad, as accurate talk about economics these days tends to be), and then hit the bit that blew my mind.

They Killed Normal and Called It Progress: "Julia Roberts, Applebee's, Bandcamp, your manager, and the death of everything in between. (Also, Sweetgreen is the A24 of dining and I will die on this hill.)"
Have you noticed that the middle is gone from everything? Restaurants, companies, careers, music, retail, the economy itself. What replaced it is a barbell: one enormous weight on each end, nothing in the center, and most of us trying not to get crushed by the bar.

And the replacement does look better every single time, I grant you that. The A24 film is better than the $40 million adult drama from 2007, yeah, we can all agree on that. The Sweetgreen bowl is better than the Applebee’s chicken parm, sure. Your favorite Substack is sharper than the mid-list magazine that folded in 2019. Every replacement is a genuine upgrade. But every replacement serves fewer and fewer people.
That's not the mind-blowing part. That's the thesis, the baseline, the part that he spends half of the ~3000 word essay explaining, giving examples of, making neat comparisons across different industries.

It's amazing that it doesn't get boring because it truly is the same damn pattern )

Cat ...

Mar. 20th, 2026 10:10 pm
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
... Make better choices.


Yellface went into Mila's room, hid under a table, beefed with Mila in some fashion, and was hauled ignominiously out.


As for me, my rescheduled retina appointment went fine. Some of the issues have cleared up. Prognosis very good. I had to transfer between power chair and clinic chair three times. As I told them on the final occasion: I have a bad knee and a worse knee. Trying CBD ointment in addition to Voltaren, on the advice of my now-former primary care. (And I know who my new primary care is going to be, yay.)

It's possible that my retina appointments this year are cursed. On the last attempt, my car was so low on battery that it died at an intersection and there was a whole drama with a guy who scared the whole block and tried to open my car door. This time we got there okay, but Belovedest suffered a flat tire while out with [personal profile] alexseanchai later in the day. This wrapped up with Thorn having to come rescue that Toaster with a wrench that actually fit the nuts. (Cue penis measuring jokes.)

Pinch hits: 1-4, 7-13.

Mar. 21st, 2026 11:06 am
casemod: Spidercat. (pic#17783055)
[personal profile] casemod posting in [community profile] caseficexchange
We have six weeks left until assignments are due! I hope you're all having fun working out your clues for your cases. As for our pinch hits, we have four new requests joining our ranks!

Quick links: Rules and guidelines · 2026 Collection · Mod contact: gumshoeagency@gmail.com


This batch of pinch hits are due at the same time as our assignments on Friday 1 May at 11:59pm Eastern time. [ In your timezone + Countdown ]

Pinch hits must comply with the exchange's rules. Pinch hits must meet the minimum assignment requirements of a completed work of a minimum of 3,000 words for fanfiction, a minimum of 10 panels for a comic, or a recording of a completed fic of 3,000 words minimum with "casefic" as one of its tags. Works must include a fandom, character/ship and be of a medium that the recipient has requested, with the requested character(s) at the forefront participating in the investigation. You must have an AO3 account to participate.

We guarantee gifts for requests that feature a minimum of 3 unique fandoms.

Please take note of the mediums as some requests have a combination selected.

To claim, please either reply to this post or email gumshoeagency@gmail.com with your AO3 name and the pinch hit number you want to claim.

Comments are screened, so if you reply anonymously, please include an email in case I need to reach out to you. You will not be able to receive a reply from me if you comment anonymously on this post.




PH 1 (Comic, Fanfic) - The Defenders (Marvel TV), Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016), True Detective: Night Country (TV), Crossover Fandom (Knives Out/Murder She Wrote, Knives Out/Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Knives Out/Death in Paradise (UK TV 2011)</small> )

PH 2 (Comic, Fanfic, Podfic) - DC's Arrowverse, Boardwalk Empire, Rounders (1998), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré )

[ PH 3: Includes canon consumption tips. ]
PH 3 (Fanfic) - Death in Paradise (UK TV 2011), The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023), Lewis (TV) )

PH 4 (Fanfic) - Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold, Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene, Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mysteries - Franklin W. Dixon & Carolyn Keene, G.I. Joe (Cartoon), Jem and the Holograms (Cartoon), Crossover Fandom (Babysitters Club [Martin]/Nancy Drew Hardy Boy Supermysteries, Babysitters Club [Martin]/Nancy Drew [Keene], Jim Cartoon/Nancy Drew Hardy Boys Supermysteries, Nancy Drew Harcy Boys Supermysteries/Jem and the Holograms Cartoon, Nancy Drew [Keene]/Hardy Boys [Dixon]), Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (TV), Perry Mason (TV 1957) )

[ PH 7: Includes canon consumption tips. ]
PH 7 (Fanfic) - 神さまのいない日曜日 | Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi | Sunday Without God (Anime & Manga), Octopath Traveler II (Video Game), 少女たちの痕にくちづけを | Shoujo-tachi no Kizuato ni Kuchizuke wo | Kiss the Scars of the Girls (Manga), よるのないくに | Yoru no Nai Kuni | Nights of Azure (Video Games) )

PH 8 (Comic, Fanfic) - Winx Club, W.I.T.C.H., Heart of the Woods (Visual Novel) )

PH 9 (Fanfic) - Doctor Who (2005), Marvel 616, Legally Blonde - Hach/O'Keefe/Benjamin, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Crossover Fandom, Crossover Fandom (The Pitt/Criminal Minds, ER/Criminal Minds, Knives Out/Yellowjackets, Now You See Me/Leverage) )

PH 10 (Comic, Fanfic, Podfic) - Original Work, Twisted-Wonderland (Video Game), Katekyou Hitman Reborn! )

PH 11 (Fanfic) - High Potential (TV), Dimension 20 (Web Series), Veronica Mars (TV) )

PH 12 (Comic, Fanfic) - Buffyverse (TV), DC's Arrowverse, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (TV), Star Trek: The Original Series, Marvel Cinematic Universe )

PH 13 (Comic, Fanfic) - 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney, グノーシア | Gnosia (Visual Novel), 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) )


Thank you!

The Friday Five

Mar. 20th, 2026 09:09 pm
nanila: me (Default)
[personal profile] nanila
The preceding two weeks of Friday Five questions didn't pique my interest, but this week's are great. Love a bit of meta-blogging. Thank you for the opportunity to navel-gaze.

  1. What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

    I started off on LJ in 2001 because everyone was doing it. I created an account and then let it sit for a couple of weeks while I figured out what it was for. I think it was victorine who prodded me into posting regularly and then I just…never stopped.

  2. How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

    A few dozen in total. Most of them are dead, the LJ communities in particular. The only one I participate in regularly is DW community [community profile] awesomeers, because I'm one of the two people who puts up the daily “Just One Thing” posts. I find it easier to write a short comment about my day there than to write up a full post, especially during the work week.

  3. Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

    See above. I also enjoy [community profile] thefridayfive, and I like reading [community profile] threeforthememories during its annual spate of activity.

  4. How did you pick your user name?

    My current username is a play on my actual name. My original LJ name was “lilith” as that's the pseudonym I first adopted when I started interacting with online communities back in the 90s. Eventually I felt I'd outgrown it, and I've been nanila ever since.

  5. If you could change your user name, would you?

    That would genuinely be a big decision after more than 15 years of using this one, in a lot more places than DW and LJ. I'd have to do substantive additional navel-gazing to work out what it would be.

rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


This spooky ghost story has a central pairing that I feel like I may have requested as an original work: Widow/Female Fake Psychic/Ghost of a Female Bog Body.

My Darling Dreadful Thing is set in the Netherlands in the 1950s, which is a selling point all by itself as I love unusual settings. Roos is a young woman whose abusive fake psychic mother forces her to participate in her fake seances. But though Roos does not communicate with the spirits sought by the desperate, grieving customers, she actually does have a spirit companion, a bog body whom Roos has bound to her and named Ruth.

Roos is delighted when Agnes, a biracial (Indonesian/Dutch) widow, takes her as a companion and spirits her away to her neglected Gothic mansion in the middle of nowhere. The mansion is otherwise occupied only by Agnes's sister-in-law, Willamine, who is dying of tuberculosis, and has a marvellously bizarre Gothic history. Roos falls hard in love with Agnes, with whom she has a surprising amount in common.

But this whole story is being told in retrospect, as a series of interviews Roos is having with a psychiatrist who is trying to determine whether she's mentally fit to stand trial for murder. Something very bad happened at the mansion...

Read more... )

Very enjoyable, very gothic, very atmospheric. I'm excited to read van Veen's other two books. I looked her up to see if she's actually from the Netherlands (yes) and learned that she's one of a set of non-identical triplet sisters! I don't think I've ever read a book by a triplet before.
dolorosa_12: (pancakes)
[personal profile] dolorosa_12
The birds are singing, the evening light is beautiful, and my salad greens, herb, and cucumber seeds are sprouting in the growhouse. It's a lovely start to the weekend.

Today's Friday open thread prompt is courtesy of a suggestion from [personal profile] lirazel: what are some types of food that only taste good when handmade/made on a small scale (as opposed to the industrial scale supermarket version)?

My immediate response was 'what type of food doesn't taste vastly better when made on a small scale by hand?' but then I thought a bit more, and realised there were quite a lot of foodstuffs where the difference is non-existent (homemade chips where you chop up a potato and roast it in the oven or deep fry it are no more delicious than the fast-food equivalent), or where the effort involved to make it by hand far exceeds any reward in better flavour (condiments in particular: I'm not going to make my own soy sauce, harissa, dijon mustard, etc, you know?).

However, I'd say that beyond the 'too much effort required' category, in my experience most other types of food are better if they're made on a smaller scale. The biggest one for me is baked goods. There is no bread, cake, pie, biscuit, or pastry on Earth in which the mass-produced supermarket (or otherwise industrial-scale) version tastes better than, or even remotely equally good as, the homemade or expensive artisanal bakery version. (I admit to some significant bias here. I worked part-time from the age of 15-23 — the first years of my working life — in artisanal bakeries/patisseries, the first thing I look up in every place I visit is the most highly recommended bakeries/patisseries, and I'm just in general a massive baked goods snob, which is somewhat hilarious in that I'm a very good cook, and comically, catastrophically bad at baking.)

What are your equivalent foodstuffs, if any?
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
And every one of those recs is better than the books. Well, I've shared my opinion on the books, the problems and characterization are insufficiently balanced for dual viewpoints.

But anyway, that's not what I'm thinking about. What I'm thinking about is Fabian and his generically shitty parents who clearly don't care about him very much. Read more... )
beatrice_otter: Captain America (Captain America)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: MCU
Pairings/Characters: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers
Rating: Gen
Length: 15k
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] rosepetalfall 
Theme: siblings, family

Summary: Bucky’s dad always says what they do is important.

“We give people the dignity they deserved in life,” he says, seriously.

Uncle Danny laughs at that. “Jimmy-kid,” he says, “your old man has got some real trumped up notions of what it is we do. Death ain’t beautiful. We just help create the illusion that it can be.”

Reccer's Notes: This is a really interesting look at Bucky's life before the war, and his family, and all the things that shaped him. The OCs are very well drawn and I love the details and thematic resonance of the family business.

Fanwork Links: The Undertaker's Children
beatrice_otter: Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert (Javert)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Pairings/Characters: Cosette/Courfeyrac
Rating: teen
Length: 125k
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] AMarguerite 
Theme: siblings, humor, novel-length, epic works, old fandoms, book fandoms, small fandoms, AU, fork in the road, family, everybody lives, crack, female friendship, fixit, happy endings, just plain fun, politics, rare pairings,

Summary: Courfeyrac falls through the roof of no. 7 Rue de l'Homme Armé, taking down not only the ceiling, but the carefully built walls Valjean has constructed around himself and Cosette. Wacky hijinks ensue.

Reccer's Notes: This fic is madcap and fun in all the best ways. The shenanigans and hijinks are wonderful ... and at the core of those shenanigans and hijinks are Courfreyac and his siblings, as they draw Cosette into a quirky but loving family. (And also try to get everyone safely through cholera and a failed revolution.) I love all of the distinct and interesting characters, both canon and OC. I love the shenanigans. I love that Cosette gets a chance to truly blossom and form friendships. It's wonderful

Fanwork Links: Some Friendlier Sky
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Ballet Shoes
Characters/Pairings: Posy Fossil
Rating: General
Length: 5203 words
Author Links:
Theme: siblings, family, female characters, gen, book fandoms, old fandoms, small fandoms, future fic

Summary: "There was a terrific row when Nana found out I'd only written one letter so she's sent me to write to you all properly, only I don't have anything left to say now and I do think it's silly to have to copy out the same letter twice." Posy Fossil's letters to her sisters from ballet school in Czechoslovakia, 1936-1938.

Reccer's Notes: Ballet Shoes is a delightful story about three sisters in 1930s Britain, their guardian, and their nanny. At the end of the story, one goes off to Hollywood under a studio contract, one goes to live by an aerodrome to learn to fly, and the youngest (Posy) goes to Czechoslovakia to be trained as a ballet dancer. Posy, the youngest, loves her sisters but is also self-centered and focused on her dancing. This is the first time she's ever been away from her sisters since she was a baby, and the letters trace that relationship even as they're hundreds and thousands of miles apart. But no matter how far apart they are, no matter how different their lives are, they still love one another. [personal profile] deepdarkwaters captures Posy's character, and her relationship with her sisters, perfectly.

Story Links: With Love, Posy

(no subject)

Mar. 20th, 2026 04:22 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Carolyn: My friends think I’m stupid. I’m a high school junior, and I go to a highly academically competitive school, where it is expected by my peers that you are supposed to take at least three AP classes. My closest friends are taking five. They are constantly stressed, overworked and burned out. My peers believe the only way to get into a “good” college (whatever that means) is to take as many AP classes as possible and to get the highest SAT score as possible. This, I know, is ridiculous on so many levels, but I stay out of it.

Lately, however, my friends have been shaming me for only taking one AP class, and for taking one standardized test vs. the other. I am going to college for musical theater, and admissions for those programs rely primarily on auditions, not grades. So why on earth would I put myself through so much stress if it won’t affect my college admissions? I’ve tried to explain this to my friends, but they think they know better than I. Additionally, they equate my taking only one AP class with being stupid. In the AP class I do take, my friend consistently shuts down and mocks my ideas with her other friends.

I’ve tried to mention the reasons I don’t take too many hard classes, but it’s like talking to a wall. I’ve also explained that since I was diagnosed with ADHD a year ago, I am now more aware of what I can handle. When all else failed, I even mentioned once that I have an IQ of 135 (tested when I was diagnosed with ADHD). I am actually quite smart. My friends stared at me and said, “Yeah… I think they lied to you.”

This hurts my feelings and happens so often that I’ve even started to believe I am stupid, despite all evidence to the contrary. Now I’ve started subconsciously playing into the “token dumb friend” stereotype because that is all I’m surrounded with. Should I not respond and ignore it?
— Stupidly Smart


Read more... )

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