catten yarn

Nov. 7th, 2025 09:50 pm
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
Not my catten but [personal profile] isis's catten's contribution! So very soft. :3



Not much yet as it's a slightly tricky spin, mostly in that one has to pay attention instead of watching anime while spinning on inattentive mode. :D It feels different of course (silkier/floofier), but the spinning technique, like huacaya alpaca, is surprisingly similar to cotton in some ways!

BTW, [personal profile] isis, Cloud has been sniffing my hands VERY SUSPICIOUSLY ahahahaha.

QOTD: Fishing with kites!

Nov. 7th, 2025 09:25 pm
brithistorian: (Default)
[personal profile] brithistorian

“In Polynesia, they used kites to fish, flying baited lines over the water to catch fish — a method that's also still around." (Lindsey Johnson, “A Brief History of Kites,” in Make:, #93, p. 53)

After reading this quote, I had to look into kite fishing more. Not only is it still around, I found someone in Dauphin Island, Alabama (near where I grew up) who's kite fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. It's possible (though I make no guarantees) that if I had been introduced to kite fishing, I would have found fishing more interesting than I did and wouldn't have given up on it.

AO3 Meme

Nov. 7th, 2025 09:44 pm
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
[personal profile] petra
Thanks to [personal profile] jenab and [personal profile] senmut!

As of today, with 1325 works:

1. What rating do you write most fics under?

General Audiences - 623; Teen and Up - 274 is the second, which is not even close.

2. What are your top 3 fandoms?
DCU (292)
Star Wars (187)
Cabin Pressure (64) (almost all limericks from Sept 2025)
Honorable Mention: Slings & Arrows (63), which is at least not all five-line poetry

3. What is your top character you write about?
Obi-Wan Kenobi (137)
Bruce Wayne comes in second at 131 but I never did a Kinktober in DCU fandom, and I've done two in Star Wars mostly-Prequels fandom.

4. What are the 3 top pairings?
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker (85)
Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne (43)
Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker (22)
Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker (21)
Gene Hunt/Sam Tyler (20) (included for variety)

5. What are the top 3 additional tags?
Drabble (474)
Limericks (202)
Poetry (85)
You don't get a non-format one till Identity Porn (22), Psychic Wolves (19), and Oral Sex (18).
swan_tower: (Default)
[personal profile] swan_tower
Nine years and eight months ago, I earned my black belt in shōrin-ryu karate.

Today, I became a second degree black belt.

It was supposed to happen sooner. But right when the head of my dojo began saying that maybe it was time for me to prep for testing, a pandemic started. Which put a dent in my training. And even once classes began again, various factors meant I wasn't able to go regularly. And then 2024 was, in hindsight, a rather abysmal year for my health. And and and, spring of this year rolled around, and I realized I was in danger of it being ten years since my previous test, and dammit, I did not intend to let that milestone pass without me at least trying to take the next step.

There were more than a few hurdles along the way. I've had wrist problems for years that meant I hadn't been doing kobudo (weapons training), but you're expected to do that as part of your test. So starting in August I began a crash course, scraping the rust off the sai kata I was expected to perform -- not too bad; it was one I used to know well -- and, uh, learning from scratch a long and difficult bo kata that I did not know in the slightest. I went so gung-ho on that, in fact, that I managed to give myself a repetitive stress sprain in my right ankle five weeks before the test (bear in mind that sprains take about six weeks to heal . . .). And then, to put the cherry on top of that sundae, I caught my big toe against the mat nine days ago and basically re-activated the hellacious sprain I had in that joint some years previously.

As I put it to several people, by the time I got to the test, I felt like I was being held together by chewing gum. Not even duct tape: that would have been an upgrade.

But these higher-level tests can only be done when our dojo's founder is in town (he moved back to Okinawa a few years ago), and his next visit will likely be for the seminar in April of next year. That would be past the decade mark I was determined to beat. So, come hell or high water, I was going to drag my sorry carcass through the test -- and I did! And, barring a couple of utterly bone-headed errors brought on by nerves (which got knowing nods of "yep, that happens" from other black belts later), I did acceptably well. I faced down literally an international panel of seven sensei -- Shihan being in from Okinawa, and also we have a contingent of Germans from one of our sister dojo here for the fall seminar -- whose collective belt rank totaled well over forty degrees, and I achieved ni-dan status.

You don't get a new belt, of course. It's still the same black belt as before. But there's kind of a joke that a truly experienced black belt becomes a white belt again, because over time the black threads fray and break, revealing the white canvas core underneath, so that a truly high-level sensei's belt can be tattered indeed.

And this afternoon, after I passed my test . . .

. . . I glanced down at my belt . . .

. . . and I found a tiny frayed spot on the corner of one end where the white canvas is peeking through.

I consider it my ni-dan badge. ^_^

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/u7LBNv)

October 2025 Monthly Media

Nov. 7th, 2025 08:45 pm
cinaed: This fic was supposed to be short (Default)
[personal profile] cinaed
  • * = Rewatch/reread

    Anime/Cartoons

    • Bob’s Burgers 16.01-16.04
    • Helluva Boss 1.01-2.12

    Books/Short Stories

    • I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman 
    • The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer by Skip Hollandsworth 
    • Lone Women by Victor Lavalle  
    •  Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel 
    •  The Stolen Luck by Shawna Reppert
    • The Safe-Keeper’s Secret by Sharon Shinn 

    Manga/Comics/Light Novels

    • One Piece 108-109 
    • Oglaf (ongoing webcomic)
    • Order of the Stick (ongoing webcomic)
    • Wilde Life (ongoing webcomic)

    Movies/Documentaries

    • The Big Conn (2022)
    • Kpop Demon Hunters (2025) 

    Podcasts

    • Midst: Unend 
    • Not Another D&D Podcast

    Theater/Concerts

    • Julius X (Folger Theater) 

    TV Shows/Web Series

    • Dimension 20: Cloudward Ho 17-20
    • Only Murders in the Building 5.05-5.10
    • Survivor 49.01-49.06
    • Tales Unrolled 23-24

    Video Games/Board Games

    • The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles 

anr: (twd: carol/daryl: nine lives)
[personal profile] anr
In the Low Lamplight (1194 words) by anr
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Carol Peletier
Characters: Daryl Dixon, Carol Peletier
Additional Tags: 5 Times, season 2/3 interlude, Pining, Sharing a Sleeping Space
Summary: Her smile is quick and fleeting, barely touching on her lips before disappearing again into her usual frown of grief and anger and stubborn survival, but pretty too, in that way he's been noticing more and more often lately.

(aka, Five times Carol smiles at Daryl.)



anr: (st: chrissy/eddie: are you okay)
[personal profile] anr
Too Soon to Tell You 'I Love You' (802 words) by anr
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chrissy Cunningham/Eddie Munson
Characters: Eddie Munson, Chrissy Cunningham
Additional Tags: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, No Vecna, Kissing, Drug Use, Cheating
Summary: "Killing me, sweetheart," he swears into their kiss, "murdering me dead."

She arches into him, her fingers slipping under the hem of his t-shirt. "Good."

(aka, Five times Chrissy and Eddie kiss.)



Fiction (short takes)

Nov. 7th, 2025 07:54 pm
rivkat: Dean reading (dean reading)
[personal profile] rivkat
Kelli Storm, Desolate: Mia is a witch in a world concealed from but intertwined with mundanes; her ADHD makes her powers unpredictable. When things are going badly for her at high school, she accidentally sends herself back in time, which creates further problems both magical and romantic. This was too YA-ish for me, but I think it could work for an actual teenager who would empathize more with the emotional stakes.

Patricia Lockwood, Will There Ever Be Another You: A memoir-ish thing about surviving covid with a brain injury, dealing with a husband’s illness, and trying to write a TV show based on her previous book Priestdaddy. It conveys the hallucinatory disjointedness of brain fog, but for that reason was mostly inaccessible to me.

KJ Charles, All of Us Murderers: In 1905, the reclusive heir to the family fortune calls his potential heirs to him, offering everything to whoever marries his young ward. One of the heirs has ADHD and thus has found it difficult to keep a job, especially after being discovered in flagrante with his lover—who turns out to be the heir’s personal secretary. Everyone else in the family is a nasty piece of work, and then strange things start happening in the gothic pile in which they are trapped by mists. It’s fast-moving and very (gayly) gothic.

Caitlin Rozakis, The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association: After her five-year-old daughter is attacked and turned into a werewolf—a severe breach of werewolf law—the protagonist, her daughter, and her husband move to a tony Connecticut suburb full of magical creatures, where her daughter may be able to get an education among people who understand her. But the new school is full of traps—high-stakes testing, Mean Girl moms, financial shenanigans, and a pesky prophecy that might involve her baby girl. I liked the fact that the issues were driven not so much by magic but by people trying to game the system (as rich Connecticut denizens are known to do).

T. Kingfisher, What Stalks the Deep: Another short Alex Easton novel, this time set in America, where a strange sighting in an abandoned mine heralds something very creepy indeed. Avoid if “gelatinous” is a no-no for you.

Deborah Tomkins, Aerth: Novella about an underpopulated, cooling world that discovers Urth, on the other side of the sun, which has similar languages and human beings but is hot and overpopulated. The noninterventionist, consensus-based culture of Aerth seems healthier than the headlong rush to authoritarianism of Urth, but that doesn’t stop its inhabitants from feeling choked by their obligations, and there might be a few secrets in its past too, though Tomkins isn’t very interested in that except as background. It wasn’t for me.

The End of the World As We Know It, ed. Christopher Golden & Brian Keene: A collection of stories set in the world of Stephen King’s The Stand. (They all seem to have agreed to go with the date of 1992 for the plague instead of the initial 1982; there are therefore fewer anomalies/more actual engagement with the world in 1992 than in the revised version of The Stand, though I did note a character who was not online using “FAQ,” for an anachronism in the other direction.) Most of the stories are set during the collapse and therefore don’t add a lot, and more of the stories than I’d hoped are set in the US. There’s one story set in Pakistan that is quite interesting—this is all Christian nonsense to them—and one UK story that really gets the vibe right.

Naomi Novik, The Summer War: Novella about a girl—daughter of an ambitious lord—who accidentally curses her brother when he leaves her behind after renouncing his family because of his father’s homophobia. In her attempt to fix the curse, she allies with her remaining brother and tries to navigate a political marriage, but otherworld politics complicate matters. It’s a pleasant variation on Novik’s core themes: Epic people can be very hard to live with; power must be used to serve others or it is bad; loving other people is the only thing that can save us.

T. Kingfisher, Hemlock and Silver: A king seeks out an expert on poisons to treat his daughter, Snow, who is mourning the deaths of her mother and sister Rose and keeps getting sicker. There are apples and mirrors and magic in the desert, as well as a little romance among the very practical people. It’s nice that the healer was a scientist even dealing with magic, and the imagery is genuinely creepy at times.

Melissa Caruso, The Defiant Heir: Second in a trilogy. Amalia, heir to an Italianate ruling family, continues to fight against the planned invasion of her empire by the neighboring mages. I could wish for a bit more Brandon Sanderson-style working out of the magic system, but it was still a fun read.

Freya Marske, Sword Crossed: Luca, a con man on the run, becomes the sword tutor of Matti, heir to a noble house. (This is romantasy without magic—just nonheterosexist family structures and different gods than were historically in place.) Their connection is problematic because Matti needs to get married to save his house, and he hired/blackmailed Luca into being his “second” in the expected challenge by a disappointed suitor. So falling in love with Luca is really inconvenient. Marske’s best work is handling the arranged marriage—they like each other fine and Matti’s intended has rejected the suitor who won’t take no for an answer. But I wanted magic! If you are fine without it, then this is probably more enjoyable.

Will Greatwich, House of the Rain King: Really interesting, unusual single-volume fantasy. In the valley, when the Rain King returns, the water rises until a princess comes from the birds to marry him (and die), and then they recede. A priest, an indentured servant, and a company of foreign mercenaries all get caught up in the struggle to make the Rain King’s wedding happen. There are also undead guarding treasure as well as fairies and marsh-men, who have their own roles to play.

Nghi Vo, The City in Glass: Short novel about a demon whose city is destroyed by angels; her parting curse sticks with one angel, who keeps hanging around as she slowly decides whether and how to build/love again. Dreamy and evocative.

More plushies

Nov. 7th, 2025 09:51 pm
therealtrash: A Lenyx doodle (another one of my ocs) (Lenyx)
[personal profile] therealtrash posting in [community profile] softtoys
I have a family of plushies. yes, they're family. Two fathers (blue monster and a owl) and tree childs (a octopus, a dog with straw hat and a bracelet as necklace and a silly animal i don't really know what is). I love them all. I don't know if one of them belongs to some collection, but i know that they belong to my collection. ❤️

Plushie family
Dog
purpleyin: Black background with three hands holding together (two hands are light skinned and one hand is brown) (holly poly)
[personal profile] purpleyin posting in [community profile] holly_poly
Less than 11 hours left to submit your nominations for this year's Holly Poly - see our countdown link. We currently only have 20 fandoms left to approve though we expect more to come in still. Out of those left to approve, we have a number of nominations we need clarification for.

If we haven't heard anything about these nominations by 11:00AM GMT November 14th, they will be either corrected based on our best guess or rejected and signups will open as scheduled.

All comments for this post are set to screened, meaning only the mods will be able to see them. You can also e-mail us at holly.poly.exchange@gmail.com if you prefer.


Fandoms for this post:

Danny Phantom x DC
DCU
DCU x Marvel
Fate/Grand Order
Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
LIS: True Colors
Life is Strange 2
Marvel
Original Work
Very Good - Block B (Music Video)


Read more... )



Collection: https://ao3.org/collections/holly_poly_2025
Tag Set: https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/25541
Tumblr: https://holly-poly.tumblr.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/holly_poly_ex
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/holly-poly.bsky.social
Google Groups - Holly Poly Updates: https://groups.google.com/g/holly-poly-updates
Google Groups - Holly Poly Pinchhits: https://groups.google.com/g/holly-poly-pinchhits


Daily Check In.

Nov. 7th, 2025 06:12 pm
adafrog: (Default)
[personal profile] adafrog posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Friday to midnight on Saturday (8pm Eastern Time).


Poll #33813 Daily poll
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 26

How are you doing?

I am okay
16 (64.0%)

I am not okay, but don't need help right now
9 (36.0%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans are you living with?

I am living single
9 (34.6%)

One other person
12 (46.2%)

More than one other person
5 (19.2%)




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

dropping balls

Nov. 7th, 2025 04:04 pm
finch: (glitch)
[personal profile] finch

I ended up dropping one of my classes this term. It was a social media for business class that I added just because I thought I needed to be half time, but it ended up being an enormous time-suck. Everything had to be done in groups, but my group almost immediately fell to infighting. I got left out of email chains, the professor just told me to "trust my team leader" when I expressed concern that I'd gotten a 0 grade based on what my team leader finalized, and basically life is too short to put up with that.

It was a late drop so I've got to take the W on my paperwork but I am beyond caring.

Meanwhile Bug is getting bullied at school by some of her classmates, but the administration seems to be working hard to fix it so we're just doing our best to support her and give advice and in general like... ugh, tweens. But she also has really good days at school, and doesn't have a ton of friends but has some good ones. I'll probably make a longer post about family stuff behind a lock, if I can get my head straight long enough to put words together.

I just wanted to post something because I haven't in a bit.

[ SECRET POST #6881 ]

Nov. 7th, 2025 06:53 pm
case: (Default)
[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6881 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #982.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Check In: Day 7

Nov. 7th, 2025 05:13 pm
glitteringstars: (day to day)
[personal profile] glitteringstars posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Hi everyone! How is writing going today?

Profile

delphi: An illustrated crow kicks a little ball of snow with a contemplative expression. (Default)Delphi (they/them)

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