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writethisfanfic2025-11-13 08:37 amWIP Challenge Check-in, Day 13 -- Thursday
- I thought about my fic once or twice
- I wrote
- I did some planning and/or outlining
- I did research and/or canon review
- I edited
- I've sent my fic off to my beta
- I posted today!
- I'm taking a break
- I did something else that I'll talk about in a comment
Thursday Discussion: It's almost the middle of the month already -- how are you doing so far with meeting this month's writing goals?
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atlas_obscura_places_feed) wrote2025-11-13 08:00 amPortus in Fiumicino, Italy
Many visitors landing at Rome's Fiumicino Airport will notice a peculiarly hexagonal lake just outside it. If it looks manmade, that's because it is: the Lago Traiano was originally carved out for Rome's main port. Although that is no longer the case, the ruins of the overlooked and appropriately named Portus have been excavated and are today open to the public.
Portus was first constructed by Emperor Claudius as a deepwater maritime port, replacing the nearby and today more well-known river port of Ostia. It was meant not only to create enough capacity to serve 1-million-strong Roman metropolis, but it was also meant to symbolize Rome's unprecedented control over the entire Mediterranean. The port's construction was quite a feat for the time, digging out a nearly 500-acre and 20-foot-deep basin out of sand dunes. The lake seen today was a second, equally ambitious basin constructed by Emperor Trajan.
Although Portus supplanted Ostia as Rome's primary port for a time, its importance ended as it silted up and Rome as a city declined. The area became a private estate, which passed into the hands of the Sforza Cesarini family, who eventually turned it into a wildlife oasis. Despite its remarkability, Portus has received less attention from archaeologists than Ostia, and consequently only a small portion of its huge area has been excavated. However, more research has been done in recent years, which hopefully will continue to reveal new insights into Roman trade and shipping.
yhlee) wrote2025-11-13 07:15 amemotional support spinning
I still love the wallaby blend best, but this is great too.
osprey_archer) wrote2025-11-13 08:07 amState of the Hobbies, Mark 2
In fact, I’ve been enjoying cross-stitching so much that I’ve finally managed to set up a morning tea routine: get up around 6:30, make tea, put one (1) chocolate-covered hobnob on my favorite little plate, and then cross-stitch till 7:15 when it’s time to get ready for work. Life is so much better when I get up in time for a gentle on-ramp to the morning, and yet until now I haven’t been able to convince myself to actually get out of bed in time.
I finished my Halloween cross-stitch in time for Halloween (want to find a better frame for it though), stitched a tremendously round little red Christmas bird as a break (amazing how fast you can cross stitch when the whole thing is just one color!), and am now working on a little Victorian Christmas tree which is for my ornament exchange with my friend Caitlin.
This little Christmas tree is WAY more involved than I expected, so I probably won’t finish my little cornucopia in time for Thanksgiving. But I have acquired the cornucopia pattern and will at any rate have it ready for NEXT year.
Other patterns on deck:
The absolutely adorable Puss in Boots from Veronique Enginger’s book of fairy tale cross stitch.
A Tiffany window inspired pattern of birds and bamboo and flowers from a book of Art Nouveau cross stitch. (I have the floss for this one but have been momentarily stymied in finding the right color fabric.)
And I’ve promised
troisoiseaux a Nevermore, garnished with ravens… I’m also taking a two-part embroidery class. On Monday I started my jellyfish, and next Monday I will hopefully finish the jellyfish. The backing fabric is a dark navy blue so the tentacles are pink floss, and the top is going to be gold and turquoise and dark royal blue beads.
Book projects: since the previous post, I finished the Newbery project, and then just this weekend finished the Postcard Book project! (Jules Verne was the last Famous Author postcard from the set.) Which means that I COULD start the E. M. Forster readthrough...
But I’ve decided to hold off until after Christmas, because I just had a brilliant idea for a Christmas project: a picture book Advent calendar! I have MANY Christmas picture books on my list this year, so I’ll get them from the library, wrap them up in brown paper (or newspaper or whatever paper I have available), and then select a surprise book each night to read.
I probably won’t end up posting about most of them because I often don’t have a lot to say about picture books. Although maybe a weekly round-up with a line or two about each book?
At the moment I’m actually a bit short of books (I thought the list was AMPLY long, but some of the books are only available in the archives etc.), so I may have to poke around to find a few more. We shall see!
And of course I AM planning some December archive visits to enjoy those Christmas books! In fact, I believe I can schedule an archive visit next week (not for Christmas books of course; a firm believer in saving Christmas season till after Thanksgiving), as registration is at long last winding up. Perhaps it’s time to begin A. A. Milne’s The Princess and the Apple Tree.
marcicat) wrote2025-11-13 07:49 amday 13
*not gonna lie, after I hit 10,000, I had that moment of 'oh, wait, now I have to do that again? and then half of that again? because that feels like a lot'
*also, what the heck, November? WHY ARE YOU SO CROWDED WITH THINGS I WANT TO DO BUT ALSO NEED TIME TO THINK ABOUT?
*anyway, that's about how things are going
*current total word count: 10,700ish (started that second file, it's rounding time!)
*last sentence written: It had a ship?
spikedluv) wrote2025-11-13 07:12 amThe Day in Spikedluv (Wednesday, Nov 12)
I had breakfast at Burger King this morning. I was talking to myself as if explaining the process as I was opening the ketchup packets because I often get ketchup on my fingers. So I’m on the last one and I’m like, push the ketchup away from the arrow thingy so when you rip it open you don’t get ketchup all over your fingers. Yes, success! And then I immediately dropped the ketchup packet into the pile of ketchup already on the tray. I clean up the mess that results from me having to pick up the ketchup-covered packet and then shake my OJ, only to get it all over because I hadn’t put the cap back on tightly. I was like, what even is this morning?!!
I typed in all of the transcript notes I’d taken for Top Gun: Maverick, and watched a Hallmark Christmas movie and some HGTV programs.
Temps started out at 32.4(F) and reached 41.2. Both temps again higher than forecasted by a few degrees; it’s not much, but I’ll take it. At one point we even had a little sun.
Mom Update:
Mom sounded good when I talked to her. ( more )
stonepicnicking_okapi) wrote2025-11-13 06:40 amPoet's Corner: two about November
---
November Night by Adelaide Crapsey
Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.
---
November for Beginners
Snow would be the easy
way out—that softening
sky like a sigh of relief
at finally being allowed
to yield. No dice.
We stack twigs for burning
in glistening patches
but the rain won’t give.
So we wait, breeding
mood, making music
of decline. We sit down
in the smell of the past
and rise in a light
that is already leaving.
We ache in secret,
memorizing
a gloomy line
or two of German.
When spring comes
we promise to act
the fool. Pour,
rain! Sail, wind,
with your cargo of zithers!
---
'Sail, wind, with your cargo of zithers' should be entered into the vernacular.
daily_otter_feed) wrote2025-11-13 11:00 amThey're Not Going to Move My Stuff, Are They? Tell Them Not to Move My Stuff!
Photo by keeper Amy via Cape May County Zoo, which says that “Mork's habitat is getting some maintenance done.”
fred_mouse) wrote2025-11-13 07:20 pmMore evidence of causation
a follow up to my october 14th post, where I reported having forgotten all my morning meds. I have, in the interim, been prescribed a new medication that has to be taken half an hour before breakfast, and also worked out that if I put all but one medication on the bedside table, I can take them when I first wake. Which has the added advantage of meaning that the paracetamol has kicked in by the time I try and get out of bed, and lo! but it is easier to get out of bed.
Sadly, the one that can't be taken at that point -- because it has to be taken after eating -- is the anti-inflammatory. And today, I gave up and came home after lunch, because making it to 2pm when the next paracetamol was due was too much (I actually took said paracetamol at 1pm, which is the absolute earliest it was allowed, on the 6 hour interval, which meant it kicked in enough for the drive home to be possible). And found the anti-inflammatory still in its little bowl, waiting to be taken. Which might mean I also forgot my asthma preventer, which might also be associated with my chest being a little unhappy (also, I have some kind of reaction to being in a specific room in the library -- the last two times I've developed one of those biting coughs)
Which says that the anti-inflammatory is doing amazing things, and I'm going to keep taking it. Sadly, the new med is because it is possible that some of the other symptoms are a side effect of taking it daily, rather than the 'max 5 days in 7' I was allowed with the stronger dose (that was once daily, the lower dose is twice daily).
grrlpower_comic_rss_feed) wrote2025-11-13 11:00 amGrrl Power #1408 – Celestial self-refilling Xmas stocking
It’ll probably be a few pages before we see Nthaniel again. He’s going to do a quick census of all humans in the universe. Or maybe just a statistically significant sample size.
I don’t know why the starforge is that close to the star. (Besides it looking cool.) I assume the solar panels also convert heat and every other form of radiation into electricity as well. If you’re wondering why everyone in space doesn’t have one of these, well, the startup time is a lot. They also contain a lot of materials that are hard to replicate, so a Starforge starter kit is really, really expensive. Like, GDP of a planet for like a decade. And granted, part of that is that the people who know how to make them don’t just put the specs out on Gal-net for anyone to try and build themselves. The galactic economy mostly revolves around energy, time, information, and entertainment, but it’s also well understood that if everyone had unlimited access to matter replicators and unlimited power, the economy would probably fall apart. So how did Dabbler get her hands on one? The short version is she got a good look at one and figured out how to build her own. It was fidgety and had a much longer start-up time than an industrial one that a multi-planet empire could afford, but she found a star out in BFE and let it do its thing.
Dabbler’s automated construction process didn’t build the entire base. Mostly it consumed a portion of that asteroid the base currently sits in, then constructed a few habital rooms, which she started stocking with computers and fabricators to accelerate the next steps, then made a huuuuuge cavern to stockpile base construction materials, set up a bunch of automated defenses, then went off adventuring for like thirty years and totally forgot about it. Then she came back, found the base all built, albeit a tenth the size of it is now, and that it had been taken over by space pirates who were mad at her because her automated defenses whittled them down to like 30% of their starting numbers. But they had built themselves back up to a respectable number, so it turned into a really fun side mission where she had to infiltrate their ships one at a time and hack the main computers so they’d accidentally target each other instead of destroying the base when she took it back. And by took it back, I mean a stealth mission that inevitably deteriorates to ultra violent room clearing when the stealth portion fails. Because Dabbler’s life is a video game. It’s obviously also a XXX hentai seduction game, because… you know.
And now that I’ve had five seconds to think about it, I think she’d be more into seducing the low-rank ensign pirates who have the Yellow Key in their inventory than seducing the grizzled captains who have main computer core access. Yeah. That feels right. Also… there’s less chance that the low rank pirate has gotten privileges with captured… stock. They’re space pirates. Dabbler is a fan of CNC, but not NC.
It’s a little odd that Cora is using the metric system, but I guess she’s doing conversions for the Terrans’ benefit. Unfortunately, they’re Americans, so if her conversions are off by a factor of ten… Actually they probably wouldn’t know. The metric system is kind of funny, though. 1 gram is supposedly 1 cm^3 of water. I assume fresh water at sea-level in 1 G of gravity at 4°C, which is for some reason when water is at its highest density. A lot of that in stuff that doesn’t really hit on a universal scale. The reason I say it’s funny is that while the metric system is all about powers of ten, a meter is defined as how far light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second. That’s not a power of ten, and come to think of it, a second is pretty arbitrary. I mean, not arbitrary. It’s 1/60/60/24/365.25, of a year of the planet that happens to be in the habital zone of our solar system. Hardly a unit that would be adopted galaxy-wide. Of course, a second has retroactively been defined as 9,192,631,770 vibrations of a cesium atom, which is probably a pretty stable constant, but still feels a little arbitrary.
It got me thinking, what would be acceptable galactic standard units? I think the main problem with the metric system is that a meter is not terribly human friendly. People like round numbers and I think 90% of adult humans are between 5 and 6 feet tall. Which is 1.524 to 1.8288 meters tall. I think most metric countries actually use CM for height, but my point is, I think CMs are too small, Ms are too big. Decimeters aren’t bad actually. They’re almost 4 inches, so “a hand” in horse-imperial. I mean, I think literally the only time “hand” is used is for measuring horse-shoulder height, which is odd. Now that I think about it, it’s super odd that a foot is the length of some arbitrary king’s foot, while a hand is the width of a hand. Yeah, I’m not defending the imperial system either.
Anyway, I do like a measurement based on the speed of light, which is really just the universal speed limit for massless particles. You’d think that would be a pretty stable constant – except, the universe is expanding, and that expansion is accelerating, so a light-year from 14 billion years ago is a very different measurement than is it now. Which means even a light year isn’t a constant. So I don’t know what an actual proper constant would be. Probably molecular vibration, which is only good for time and not distance. Even that will change with the heat-death of the universe, but for now, it’s probably pretty stable. If you don’t factor gravity in. Something in a tall building does experience time at a different rate than something at sea level because its affected by less gravity. Granted, it’s probably somewhere in the septillionth decimal place, but the difference between a planet with 1 gravity and 1.1 gravities might be in the billionth decimal place. So there goes that constant.
Basically I’m pretty sure the way it would work is the dominant military or cultural race, or just the first one to spread across the galaxy gets to dictate what their standard units are, and everyone else has to do conversions.
Kobold Sydney vote incentive! Is finally done!
So… you know, check it out. Oh, and as usual, Patreon has a scales only version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
prixmium) wrote2025-11-13 06:02 am
30 Days Hath November
It's Parent-Teacher Meeting week, and my partner homeroom teacher, a Japanese teacher (as in he is and speaks Japanese, not that this is his subject area), I think tried to kind of shield me from boredom by not suggesting that I actually had to come to every single one of these meetings, but wanting to not get into trouble, I clarified, and I have to go to all of them because "parents got mad last year when the international teachers didn't come".
I don't know why, as only one of them could speak to me. One lady kindly tried to engage me despite the language barrier, too.
So, mostly, it's just me trying not to be visibly falling asleep while reading an iPad of sometimes hilariously wrong translation from live audio. It's not half bad most of the time, but it's SO boring. I dissociated long enough to get a little bit of thinking done about next term for the class I'm currently responsible for leading the planning on.
Thinking about changing from The Frogs to The Birds as an example of Greek Comedy because the comedies do not hit the way the tragedies do. Context and all that. But I feel like the latter is at least a little more universally applicable, and it didn't make me instantly want to fall asleep even harder.
I'm paying a girl from a group on Facebook for women living in Japan to come to my apartment and help me get a good couple hours of tidying done without a bunch of hard labor on my part. I feel like it'll be worth paying someone to be my big sister about it for a couple hours.
I haven't fallen into desperate squalor, but I definitely feel things are piling up, and it's just a pain to have the NEED to do something to get more organized hanging over my head.
Went to the doctor yesterday and my A1C was 0.6 points better. I haven't changed that much except no longer drinking soda EVERY day and swapping it sometimes for tea with some sugar but, certainly, far less than is in a bottle of soda. I've been trying to eat more fiber consciously, but it's hard to do when you rely on things you don't have to cook a lot.
I've been to get hotpot a couple times in the last month because I had this strong craving for eating lotus root out of broth like that. It has a very correct texture, in my opinion.
Just over a month, and I will be visiting my best friend in Canada, which is half of what I live for.
beanside) wrote2025-11-13 05:25 amBut somehow it turned out to be that the world changed me
Then, it was off to the dispensary to pick up sleepy time pills. It still kinda amazes me that I can just walk into a very upscale store and buy weed. Not just weed. Specially formulated weed that does exactly what I want it to, in. pill form.
Of course, coming out of the store, two dudebros were enjoying their stash in the parking lot, in the car right next to me. I had to walk through the cloud of haze and stink. Instant migraine, let me tell you.
I came home and ate dinner and immediately went to lay down. My ADHD meds were wearing off, so I was getting a little jittery, so I decided to listen to some music on youtube. Which is where this song came for my entire life.
One of our friends went to NYC Commic Con, and sent out a message to us that she was in the panel for the Lost Boys Musical, and they were about to release tickets, and would we be interested in going?
I considered, and then said yes. We head up to Broadway in April to see the show. In the meantime, they've relased a couple of the songs, and so far, they've all been pretty much bangers. And I listened to them and liked them, but I must not really have listened to the lyrics? Because last night, Wild came on, and I guess with the earphones I could really understand the lyrics, because they were like a sledgehammer.
I feel like this is me now, just slowly scrabbling out from under years of caretaking. I'm finally to the point that I can love my family to death, but feel like I can matter too.
I may have listened to the song and Patrick Wilson telling me that I could be wild again a few times.
Tonight, I have to go get my roots touched up, which desperately needs to happen.
Okay, time to get myself moving. Everyone have an amazing Thursday!
merrileemakes) wrote in booknook2025-11-13 08:32 pmReview: Buzzing by Samuel Sattin with Rye Hickman
Buzzing
Written by Samuel Sattin with art by Rye Hickman
Description
A moving middle grade graphic novel about friendship, belonging, and learning to love yourself despite the voices in your head.
Isaac Itkin can't get away from his thoughts.
As a lonely twelve-year-old kid with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), everything from studying to looking in the mirror becomes a battle between him and a swarm of unhelpful thoughts.
The strict therapy his mother insists on doesn't seem to be working, but when a group of friends invites him to join their after-school role-playing game, the thoughts feel a little less loud, and the world feels a little brighter.
But Isaac's therapist says that exposure to games can have negative effects on kids with OCD, and when his grades slip, his helicopter mother won't let him play anymore. Now Isaac needs to find a way to prove to himself, to his mother, and to the world that the way to quiet the noise in his head may have been inside him all along.
Review
This book has the best depiction of intrusive thoughts I've ever seen. Issac's OCD is represented by cartoon bees that swarm his head, saying awful (and often repetitive things). The bees can become fewer in number when Isaac is interested in something and if something (or someone!) is really engaging they can disappear completely. Or if things are going badly, they can swarm Isaac and drown out almost everything else.
Isaac's friends are a great comfort to him and he's most animated and engaged when he's with them. In contrast, he shuts down when he's with his overbearing mother and hateful sister. The art does an amazing job of reflecting it, with the colour literally leeching from the panels when Isaac's family are present. As someone who grew up with a mental illness in a shitful Family of Origin, this all feels so real and believeable. The mother especially is a hall-mark 'doing my best' but actually ignores the emotional needs of both her children, constantly criticises them and has a sour comment for every interaction.
Unfortunately its this strong identify I have with Isaac that makes the ending fall really flat for me.
Spoilers here
After spending half the book despising Isaac, his sister suddenly decides to help him connect with his friends after his mother bans him from hanging out with them. And then at the end the mother puts aside her over-bearing self-absorbtion and starts taking an interest in Isaac and his hobbies, letting him hang out with his friends again and is generally a totally different person.danieldwilliam) wrote2025-11-13 09:42 amOn Generally Catching Up
What have I been up to?
Lots of things.
Youth Rugby - team going well. Had a big league win last weekend. Looking ahead to the National Cup semi-final the weekend after next. At home on the main pitch. Next weekend I'll be on a bus to the south of Scotland for several hours for a league game. Exciting times for the team.
Improv - I've just finished an eight week Introduction to Improv course with a local improv group in Edinburgh. It was superb. Really good course, well designed, well delivered. Also, unusually full of really interesting, engaging people who are good improvisors. I don't mean that it is unusual for people in an improv class to be really good at improv or fun and interesting to hang round with but pretty much everyone was cool and groovy and I could see myself on stage with them. So that was nice.
FAT Rugby - has been paused due to the clash with Improv but I'll be back to that next week. Looking forward to that.
TTRPG - or Bingly Bongly as MLW calls it. Finished one Cyberpunk 2020 campaign; Land of the Free. Started a second continuation campaign; Tales from the Forlorn Hope. Lots of fun. I've become a bit obsessed with my character. This is normal. I've enjoyed playing the system and role playing the character. It's provoked lots of thoughts about RPG systems. Playing with nice people. Sadly we only manage games fortnightly as the GM works shifts.
RPG Systems - I've been designing my own RPG system. Not in the hope of doing anything different or better than anyone has managed before. The aim is to learn how the systems work and how the game design process works by doing it. I'll cross reference to the separate blog for it later. So far it's spawned one sub-project. I have written about one third of a book on the Taxonomy of Magic Systems in Table Top Role Playing Games. Coming soon to a pdf on DriveThruRPG sometime in the 2030s.
Weight - nudged my weight below 100 kgs for the first time in years. Weight loss slowed a bit over the summer. I think it will pick up again once I go back to Fat Rugby. That extra bit of exercise will help. As will the discipline. If the annual bonus is decent I'll start ozempic in the New Year. I've demonstrated to myself that I can make the long-term changes in habit and lifestyle needed to lose weight and maintain weight. It would be better to lose that weight in six months rather than two years.
Reading - I appear to have started reading again. Well done Lois McMaster Bujold.
Other stuff - lots of family business going on. Not all of it bad but all of it busy.
What have you been up to?
poliphilo) wrote2025-11-13 09:18 amMy Response
I have two comments.
1. I'm an Aquarian. Aquarians have their heads in the clouds.
2. Is a line from G.K. Chesterton (who, incidentally the Church is thinking of making a saint) "If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly."
mekare) wrote in spacefungusparty2025-11-13 10:08 amS4 Episodes Species Ten-C and Coming Home
( Our fates are always interconnected. Maybe that’s the lesson, if there is one - that is true of all of us. We’ve lost so many, you and me, but we can’t do harm in their names or memories. We have to honour them. All of them… because they were beloved. Beautiful. )