Life lived in dot points

Nov. 4th, 2025 08:13 pm
fred_mouse: pop funko of Jodie Whittaker as Doctor Who (thirteenth doctor)
[personal profile] fred_mouse
  • I submitted my preliminary candidacy proposal today. I still have to present it, get reviewer's feedback, and resubmit, but it is one hoop closer to done.
  • I received confirmation that my application to work with a larger project has been accepted. I have until Monday to tell them what my milestones, deliverables, and KPIs are, and while the first two are okay, the last one is supposed to have at least one from a list I can't find
  • I caved and bought an ebook bundle from StoryBundle: this trilogies bundle - I bought it for the Natania Barron (which I acquired book one while travelling, and then lost when I was 1/3 in) and the Jane Yolen (I believe I know where book 1 is, but I didn't know it was a trilogy). I have no expectations for the rest, but it was cheaper than trying to buy either of the trilogies (definitely in hard copy, but possibly still cheaper than them in softcopy, with the cost of ebooks)
  • I was running ahead on the quilting, I then did none in the weekend just gone, so I think I'm a block behind, but I've also done some of the assembling, so I've worked ahead as well. progress is progress
  • the little chamber orchestra has a performance on Sunday, and Youngest (who has not been able to attend a rehearsal all semester due to uni scheduling conflicts) came along and can play at least some of it, which helps bolster the currently light on cello section (we have a new cello player. This was their fourth session with us; I'm not sure they had met any of the other cello players before last night).
  • I have managed to lose the blanket that lives on the red couch. I have zero memory of it ever being anywhere else, so I'm a bit :( about it. But I used it as the reference object for a course I'm doing (I'm doing two tiny courses, on the future of data and the future of communication, each ~10 hours, while attempting to do a stack of other things. As is the way, I'm too slow moving for it to be only 10 hours, given that I spent nearly two this afternoon doing 1/6 of the work)

The Monday Yap: 11/3/25

Nov. 3rd, 2025 09:57 am
haunted_cherries: A screenshot from the manga version of Jujutsu Kaisen of the character Toge Inumaki (toge scream)
[personal profile] haunted_cherries
Song on repeat: The Night Belongs To You Mashup (Arcadia Edition mixed by pixlate) - Sleep Token (b/c what do you mean someone made a mashup of all the Sleep Token songs that can make me cry on command ESCUSE ME I AM IN PERIL)

Quote on repeat: "And suddenly it's December, and you're not 17 anymore, and you haven't been 17 in a long time." - Margaux Poetry

All that aside:
Read more... )

emotional support fiber

Nov. 2nd, 2025 06:56 pm
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
weaving WIP

I slightly less half-assedly fixed the warp on the Clover Sakiori loom (Japanese).

weaving WIP close-up

I didn't bring a comb for the weft and was using a tapestry needle, but catten remains unlikely to mind imperfect weaving.

Also, further adventures in dyeing wool yarn. I'd like to test on dyeing combed top for cotton, ramie, and silk (mulberry/bombyx, eri, tussah, and maybe a small sample of my treasured stash of muga); and then try some on alpaca or mohair after I've processed some more.

dyed yarn

Later in the season, in natural dyes, I might experiment with the traditional hoary old standby of onion skins; rose hips (several of my roses shrubs produce them); and find out if windfall figs from the no-longer-quite-so-baby fig tree do anything interested as dyes. Osage orange, common madder, true and false indigo, hibiscus, and elderberry grow in Louisiana so making a dye plant plot might be entertaining. That or I sacrifice e.g. a bunch of beets lol. For personal use, I don't care about consistency (I prefer chaos ball colors) and I'm not that fussed about reliable fastness. "Throw it in a pot and also an ~appropriate mordant" for personal experiment promises to be very entertaining.

Happy November!! 🍂

Nov. 2nd, 2025 03:57 pm
haunted_cherries: leona kingscholar's official art from twisted wonderland (leona 2)
[personal profile] haunted_cherries
After reading Ellipsus’ latest blog post, I’ve decided I’m gonna give this writing thing another shot and try to finish my chaptered WIP. At this point I don’t even care if I’m the only one that reads it, I just wanna see it done b/c it’s haunted me for long enough. xD

Fingers crossed. 🤞❤️

Fandom Gift Basket!

Nov. 2nd, 2025 12:58 pm
scintilla10: hug by the snowy light of the street lamps (Stock - joyful hug)
[personal profile] scintilla10
The perfect thing for a cozy Sunday morning: [community profile] fandomgiftbasket opened!

My basket was packed full of fun, colourful icons, which is doing so much to make my heart happy. ♥

I made multiple gifts for this round -- I'll post about them soon.

I always love this event, and I'm always happy to see it running! :D

emotional support fiber: weaving

Nov. 1st, 2025 05:04 pm
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
This is beginner mode weaving on a Clover Sakiori tabletop ~portable loom. It has an unbelievably easy warping setup based on the reeds, with what I think of affectionately as typically beautifully overengineered Japanese design and terrific documentation; I don't read Japanese but the pictures + diagrams are extraordinarily clear. I'm US-based so tariffs are a vexed situation, but these tend to run ~$200 USD plus international shipping off eBay. I do also own a Lojan Flex rigid heddle loom, but I like the ease of warping so much better on the Clover Sakiori. I'm also that extremely boring person who just wants to plainweave forever; if I want to embellish fabric, I will embroider.

I half-assed the warp and it shows, but at the level of "can I set this up at all," the answer is yes. Also, catten is unlikely to be a HARSH critic of a tiny little catten blankie to shed all over, so.

warping a Clover Sakiori loom

weaving WIP on a Clover Sakior loom



Just look at those warping layouts! I'm too lazy to check the trigonometry, but I'm betting it's correct.

I'm struggling with weaving (English-language [1]) vocabulary so I can't describe the action further. This YouTube playlist by Renee Johnson Studio shows it in action, though.

[1] There is probably random Korean terminology buried in my head because of my mom, but it's not helpful in sussing out help in English...

I need to lie down now but it was a good day for exploratory weaving.

Happy Halloween!! ^ o^)/ 🎃

Oct. 31st, 2025 10:55 am
haunted_cherries: raidou kuzunoha from shimegaten (raidou)
[personal profile] haunted_cherries


TRICK OR TREATING TIME IS UPON US!! >:D This is going around on Pillowfort, so figured I'd post it here too, just in case!!

Rules:

➤ Make a "Trick or Treat!" post if you want people to come ToT'ing at your fort.
➤ If you see someone else's ToT post - leave a comment with either a Trick or a Treat.
➤ Treat is something nice (funny image, compliment, candy emoji, candy pictures).
➤ Trick is something a little less nice but can't be really awful (no jumpscares, gore, flashing lights, things that you know might upset someone, like if they're scared of spiders, don't leave a spider pic). OK stuff might be Halloween "monsters", a rock, etc.
➤ If you're not sure if something is appropriate - don't do it.
Optional: What's your costume?

Happy Halloween!! Stay safe out there, and enjoy your discount candy!! 🍬🎃

*This is OK to post/steal to your own journal!*

ten years and done

Oct. 31st, 2025 11:20 am
taichara: (Grandshelt Knights)
[personal profile] taichara
The JP server for Final Fantasy Brave Exvius shut down last night; GL server was last year.

Time to pack up all my blorbos and my unfinished world theories and stuff them in a pocket to poke at when I'm less Something[tm].

unpopular opinions

Oct. 30th, 2025 06:02 am
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
Saying that the creative process of creation/conception for a story/novel MUST START with character/goal/motivation is complete fucking nonsense. You will usually need it in the END PRODUCT (modulo weird edge cases like Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men), but that doesn't have to be the inception.

cf. composing music, where this would be like saying to a composer: you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with a melody or you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with a harmonic progression or you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with instrumentation etc. No??? You can start in any of a number of places and still wind up with music???

There are times you need to start with $XYZ because of the use case (if writing for a string quartet, that constrains your instrumentation, ranges, techniques).

But when writing music, I can START in ANY of these places (not a complete list) (and have done so at various points):

- instrumentation
- tempo
- time signature
- harmonic progression
- a rhythm
- a vibe
- key/mode/etc
- melody or leitmotif
- structure/form (e.g. theme and variations, ternary form)
- a transformation (e.g. diminution, retrograde)
- articulation(s) to feature
- trolling ("What if I rewrote Swan Lake's theme in 5/4?")
etc

You're not going to be able to tell which one from the RESULTING MUSIC as an end product.

For that matter, watching web/comic creators talk about story ideation is fascinating. A bunch of them start with "I drew this cool character, but who are they? what is their story?", which is absolutely not my process since I don't visualize, but it's a perfectly cromulent process!

[music] Trailures and Other Fiascoes

Oct. 29th, 2025 10:18 pm
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
I committed a mini-album on Bandcamp of Trailures and Other Fiascoes (= "failure trailers"). Hybrid orchestra instrumental music because mopey foxmoth can't sing.

(I know voice lessons exist but for medical reasons, sore throat for over a year; singing is contraindicated.)



(This is accumulated composition/production from the past few months; I'm bowing out of a bunch of things currently due to ongoing health stuff. I don't want to discuss health details further, thanks!)

emotional support dyeing?

Oct. 29th, 2025 10:43 am
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
hand-dyed handspun yarn

A test batch to see how the colors come out. Next I start measuring out and doing this more systematically.

Three-ply handspun wool yarn.
kalloway: (MSG Zeta Char)
[personal profile] kalloway
I am signed up for WritingMonth and so can you! If you want to be buddies, I'm 'kalloway' there as well. ^_^ My goal is 100 stories but that is 100 very short stories. Last year I managed 80 despite my life being absolutely on fire so maybe I can manage the full 100 and I think a We Didn't Start The Fire joke goes here or something.

Did the pre-signup for a secret santa in the one little gunpla discord I'm in. Offered to subsidize a local friend for the next month if necessary. (probably necessary) Gonna try to toss some cash at the food pantry. (obstructed more by their hours being counter to mine than anything - obviously a me-problem) Still debating how much I want to do with [community profile] holiday_wishes, though I suspect the annual 'I can give more!' will envelop me at some point even if I want to humbug.

Comic-con is on the 22nd so I suppose I need to actually start sorting through things. I'm burning some vacation time the week before so at least I'll be mildly rested and hopefully so tired of looking at my stuff that I just toss it in the bags of whoever walks by our table. Or something.

Finished watching the quarter's JFF films and will, as always, aspire to watch the next batch before the last possible minute.

"fandom". fucking lol.

Oct. 29th, 2025 09:48 am
taichara: (pissing off strangers)
[personal profile] taichara
Every time I feel even the slightest frisson of "I should at least post more and those posts should be more ~fandom", (ao3/dw/tumblr-centric) (transformative) fandom reminds me why no, actually, "fandom" can fuck itself, lol.

The last two months or so have been especially remindering!

What with

- the Relationshipping/Mod Cabal discord server horseshit (that poor recip) and the circling of the wagons to protect all those fuckhole exchange mods

- the sniveling cowardly and greedy fuck rampaging across [community profile] fandomgiftbasket (because they want their gifts nownownow)

- the other sniveling cowardly fuck (who clearly thinks too much of themselves and of fandom) who decided to scurry away to FFA to sniff instead of actually engaging with opinions (ahahaa did you think one of us wouldn't see you)

just off the top of my head --

Yeeahhhh I'm good. I'm going to keep on just randomly posting to show I'm not dead and periodically adding stuff to [community profile] loneknight, and fuck ~*Fandom*~. Always knew it was a cesspool; seeing more and more accelerating evidence of that these days.

(that said, props to the folks who also decided the sniveling fuck having a tantrum on [community profile] fandomgiftbasket can fuck themselves, and all tossed in to fill baskets. you folks are good folks yo.)

Lol. Fukkin lol.
sixbeforelunch: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson from the Grenada adaptation (holmes and watson 3)
[personal profile] sixbeforelunch
It annoyed me that that meme was missing J of all letters. I asked [personal profile] kingstoken for a prompt and she gave me "jelly beans". I looked them up on Wikipedia and learned something new about early 20th century slang. And then I wrote a thing.

Jelly-bean McQueen

Sherlock's American informant was knowledgeable, but Watson found his dialect quite unintelligible at times. "I've heard him called Jelly-bean McQueen," the informant said, "And by golly it fits. That boy's a Jelly-bean if ever there was one."

"A what?" Watson asked.

"A Jelly-bean," Sherlock said.

"I am familiar with the confectionary, but what has it to do with our suspect?"

Sherlock tutted. "Really, Watson, you must keep up with the slang of the modern times. A Jelly-bean is young man made of more flash and style than substance, and generally quite idle. A fop. A dandy. Naturally."

"Oh, yes. Naturally."

---

(Per Wikipedia this slang came into use in the 1910s and 1920s, so it just fits the timeline of ACD-era Holmes.)


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