chocolatepot | Network

I didn't finish anything over the past seven days, due to a combination of late days at work, a bunch of after-work obligations, and heroic attempts to complete the crosswords in two collections I own with an eye to sending them to the recycling center once I do.

What I Finished Reading This Week

Nothing.

What I Am Currently Reading

Of Dice and Men – David Ewalt
I've got one chapter to go before I finish.

A Fate Inked in Blood – Danielle Jensen
I read another 50 pages this week.

When the Tides Held the Moon - Vanessa Vida Kelley
This novel's premise is intriguing, but boy does Vida Kelley love their adjectives.

What I’m Reading Next

I acquired no new books this week.

これで以上です。

ysabetwordsmith

Bossage - noun.

From the "there must be a word for that" department comes bossage. This architectural term refers to uncut and unfinished stones that act as placeholders for decorative and practical elements that will be carved later. Did you ever think about how carved decorations were placed on a building? Did they just get stuck on? No, a bossage was used.

I am reminded of how some writers will put "Maincharacter" or "Towndescription" so they can search-and-replace later.

Current Mood: busy

likeadeuce

Watching as many adaptations of 'Wuthering Heights' as I can get my hands on, professional tennis, or updates on the baby monkey at the Japanese zoo that's having trouble making friends.

How are you?

shipperslist

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

sineala

What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing, unless you count rereading Avengers: Endless Wartime for the 616 server book club. Am I counting that? I guess so. Fuck it. It's really bad.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Iron Man #2, Sorcerer Supreme #3, Ultimates #21, Wiccan Witches Road #3 )

What I'm Reading Next

I am hoping at some point to have enough brain energy to make it through a real book. I am also hoping to have enough brain energy to write some kind of update about my brain. Neither of these things have happened yet, but I now have enough energy to occasionally reblog things on Tumblr.

Current Mood: tired

james_davis_nicoll

The Good Society Bundle featuring Good Society, the Jane Austen-inspired tabletop roleplaying game from Storybrewers Roleplaying.

Bundle of Holding: Good Society (from 2024)

ysabetwordsmith

How far back in time can you understand English?

It’s a thousand years of the English language, compressed into a single blog post.

Read it and notice where you start to struggle. Notice where you give up entirely. Then meet me on the other side and I’ll tell you what happened to the language (and the blogger).

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

amberleewriter

Over the last 20 years I have operated under an "unnofficial" (read unrecorded because that wasn't added to charts back in the day) diagnosis of bipolar 2. What I am coming to discover during therapy is that a diagnosis of ADHD with Autism spectrum is (AuADHD) likely the correct fit. While the CBT and Social Rhythm Therapy work I found and did major self-work on the last 20 years has helped keep a lot of my symptoms in check through the last year of perimenopause, since the year before COVID and the end of my cycle those old systems just aren't cutting it anymore.

Some book suggestions from online groups, my therapist, and a good friend from college who is a school psychologist and ADHD himself are helping me understand why I can't dig myself out of this hole I am in and what needs to be done to build a "new me" that works for the last part of my life.

Most of these kinds of posts are basically for me as I go through some of the suggested inventory/listing/questions that these books present. I find that I start reading these, get to questions, and then I'm not really writing stuff in the same place or in somewhere I can easily access to collate information and then make action tasks or points of further inquiry. Since this journal exists, and I tend to write a lot on the computer, time to use my crutch here as an input location!

I'm starting with discovery areas in ADHD for Smart Ass Women. This is written by Tracy Otsuka who has ADHD and is a coach for women with ADHD. She rather fell into the field after her child was diagnosed with ADHD and was subsequently diagnosed herself. I have to say that of the "getting unstuck" things I started reviewing in the last two years the inventory/method she gives to get clear on who you are and to leverage the gifts of ADHD to propel you forward is probably the most clear and easy set of things I've found. It all makes sense. It gives clear examples. It gives online locations where you can take inventory tests that then give lists of what she is talking about instead of you having to struggle to figure it out yourself (when you may downplay or see a strength as a weakness thanks to years of being told to get smaller, shut up, or that you are generally too much).

If you want to read my stuff you can click the cut or just pass.
( Read more... )
I think this has been a really productive exercise and while I do think I need to pursue some parts of it more the overall work and structure seems sound. I need to follow this particular book through for the therapy issues and other information then I will start working on the emotional part of this - the masking problems I've got decades of to undo.

But everyone has to start somewhere.

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny, chilly, and calm -- much nicer than yesterday! :D

I fed the birds. I haven't seen any yet though.

I put out water for the birds.

The snow crocuses are open again.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I trimmed the north edge of the wildflower garden. Previously I did the west edge.

The male catkins on the hazelnut bush are beginning to open up, but the tiny red female flowers aren't open yet.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I trimmed the east edge of the wildflower garden.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I trimmed the south edge of the wildflower garden. I'll still need to clear the middle and rake off the loose leaves, but that's less urgent since the spring flowers will emerge near the edges. In the process, I uncovered the dark purple leaves of a penstemon that I planted last year. :D It won't bloom for quite a while yet, as these are usually late spring to early summer flowers, but already it makes a lovely accent in the bed. The leaves are only about half the size of my hand, but the whole plant is easily a foot across.

In the savanna, the first of the snowdrops have flower buds, but none have opened yet.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a large flock of sparrows, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I have many dozens of fruit tree seeds just starting to sprout in their bags of damp sand in the fridge. I decided to try putting some outdoors in water jug pots. I have the jugs cut, labeled, filled, and sown with seeds. I still need to tape the seams closed and move the jugs out to the parking lot. I put 5 seeds in each jug. The varieties are Pink Apple, Johnathan Apple, Ginger Gold Apple, and Yellow Pear.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I taped the seams, then moved the jugs to the parking lot. There I set them in a square with the handles facing inwards, then looped some salvaged string through the handles to secure them. This way, they're less likely to get knocked over. Finally I watered them a little bit.

Daffodils and snowdrops are sprouting in the parking lot. I need to try moving these so they don't get killed by later parking lot work.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a male cardinal.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

yourlibrarian posting in

everykindofcraft

How have things been going crafts-wise? Anything to share?

Last month we discussed shows about crafts, but so many people have learned them from another person directly. Is that how you learned any of your crafts? And have you ever taught someone else how to do a craft?

petra

A friend was talking about dissociation in show tunes, so I got my Anthony Warlow on this morning -- Jekyll & Hyde - Confrontation, in which he sings a duet with himself as Jekyll vs. Hyde, and City of Angels - You're Nothing Without Me in which a hack writer sings a duet of loathing with his noir protagonist.

Next up, The Nausea Before The Game / Love Me For What I Am from In Trousers, the former of which does a bang-up job with "Oh, I am supposed to be having sex with the person. Um. Sure. I can. Do that! It sounds like. An. Idea. A GOOD idea, I mean. As opposed to... not my thing."

And if you need to know whether Imelda Staunton can sing, the answer is Fuck Yeah. National Theatre's Follies, "Losing My Mind," a song of obsessive love with a moment of complete executive dysfunction.

*

I am not up-to-date on the great project of making musical theatre about anything. Do you have a favorite show tune about dissociation?

Current Music: Sometimes I stand in the middle of the floor

muccamukk

ETA: Code Tour: 2024-12-01 to 2026-02-25. Some longed for fixes in there. Hopefully we get a code push soon.

Fun Art & Stuff!

PBSVoices: How Navajo Weavers Keep an Ancient Art Alive (Video: 10 minutes).
This short film follows two Navajo weavers whose work preserves memory, identity, and ancestral knowledge.
Very cool! I don't know anything about Navajo weaving, and would love to watch a longer project about it.

spankulert: Icon post #122.
Including The X-Files, Star Treks: Starfleet Academy, Voyager + Discovery, Fallout and more.
Really nice to see the ST:SA icons!

NationalTheatre: Take Your Seats | Announcement | National Theatre at Home (Video: 30 seconds).
On Thursday 12 March (7pm GMT), lose yourself in the hit production of The Importance of Being Earnest at our free YouTube premiere. Can’t make it? The stream will remain accessible on demand, for free, for one week only.
FINALLY! I believe it will go up on the NT's subscription streaming site after that.

The Tyee: They Lit the Path for Women Photographers.
A couple of exhibit reviews for shows I can't see. LOLSOB.

Nanaimo News Now: Nanaimo’s Maffeo Sutton Park shines during ‘Lighting a Path’ public art exhibit.
Really cool way to do an art show!

Dead Language Society: How far back in time can you understand English?
I made it to like the fourteen hundreds. I'm sure most of you can get further back.

ecc-poetry/Elisa Chavez: What You Need to Be Warned (Or: Inventory and Appraisement of Neil Gaiman, Hereafter "Decedent").
I'm going to nominate this for a poetry Hugo. I'm haunted by the line: Even at your worst, you are replaceable.

Technology Bullshit:
The Conversation: This TikTok star sharing Australian animal stories doesn't exist – it's AI Blakface.
Fantastic. Just what Indigenous communities need: computer-generated Pretendians.

Electronic Frontier Foundation: So, You’ve Hit an Age Gate. What Now?
Advice for how to proceed with age verifications, since that's going to be part of our fucking lives now.

The Tyee: AI Is the Elephant in the Newsroom. How Are Journalists Reacting?
Ask yourself, why are you using the tool to do this? Do I have nine other things to do, and this will make my life faster? Or am I trying not to pay a journalist?

404 Media: This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby.
You might have to get a free account to see this? Anyway, nice that people are trying to code around other people's appalling privacy violations? Even if you don't get the app (which I haven't), good info about the stupid smart glasses.

Gender Bullshit (mostly men, tbh):
Comics Beat: Multiple women accuse Spider-Gwen co-creator Jason Latour of misconduct.
This is actually a few years old, but I'd missed it at the time (or forgotten it entirely). FFS.

Maureen Ryan on BlueSky: 'll just add, as someone who's been doing investigative reporting for decades, all publications doing real journalism (i.e., not a sockpuppet or Some Guy on the Internet)--they have MANY layers of editorial & legal review.
Thread about how real journalism is supposed to work. In this section due to the inciting incident.

The Politics of Dancing: Abuse is still rife in dance music: Here's how we break the cycle.
Great essay about structural problems.

The Tyee: SOGI Is Under Attack. Educators Say It’s Never Been More Needed.
It's a municipal and school board election year in B.C., and I think we're in for a fucking fight. PROTECT OUR KIDS!

kingstoken posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Ilya/Shane
Content Notes/Warnings: N/A
Medium: Pencil (I think)
Artist Website/Gallery: _deathofseasons_
Why this piece is awesome: Beautiful drawing of Ilya and Shane as Knights, and Ilya cradling Shane
Link: Instagram

mount_oregano

Spanish poet Antonio Machado was born in Seville in 1875 and died in February 1939. His health failed while he was escaping Spain as its government fell to the Fascists at the end of its Civil War.

Spain had long been divided. Although its Civil War began in 1936, Machado named this split “the two Spains” in his book Proverbios y cantares (Proverbs and Songs), Poem LIII, in 1917, and the name stuck.

Roughly speaking, one side of the two Spains was conservative, religious, rural, and traditional; the other progressive, secular, urban, and modernist. There were also differences between regions and between people with privilege and people condemned to poverty. The split ran deep and complex.

As Machado wrote in this poem, twenty years before the brutal war began, one Spain had a death grip on its position, the other was just waking up, and the future did not look good:

Ya hay un español que quiere

vivir y a vivir empieza,

entre una España que muere

y otra España que bosteza.

Españolito que vienes

al mundo te guarde Dios.

Una de las dos Españas

ha de helarte el corazón.

My translation:

There now is a Spaniard who wishes

to live and begins to live,

amid one Spain that is dying

and another Spain that yawns.

Child of Spain, as you come

into the world, may God help you.

One of the two Spains

is going to freeze your heart.

aurumcalendula posting in

c_ent

(24 × ~20 minute episodes)

The Unseen takes place in the present day in a fictional Southeast Asian country and follows blogger Shen Man as she teams up with detective Jiang Li to investigate a murder that appears linked to Shen Man's sister's suicide.

( Read more... )

( content warnings )

It's available on WeTV.

dancing_serpent posting in

c_ent

This month is almost over, so, let's hear it. *g* How did it go with your fannish creativity?

Did you manage to make a thing?

Created fanart or made vids? Wrote fic or meta? How about picspams, link collections, character mood boards, themed playlists, promo posts, or whatever else you create for fannish enjoyment?

Here's the place to share it with us! Leave a link in the comments, or elaborate on it as much as you want.

aurumcalendula posting in

c_ent

(31 × ~19 minute episodes)

Duet of Shadows is set during the 1920s in Shanghai's French Concession and follows detective Lin Lan and forensic doctor Qin Xin (and their collegues) as they investigate five mysteries.

( Read more... )

( content warnings )

It's available on iQIYI (albeit with AI subtitles, last I checked).

lsanderson

ICE

Singer, medical researcher, ICU nurse, outdoor adventurer. The Minnesota Star Tribune has a lengthy profile of Alex Pretti’s life before he entered the national spotlight as the second observer in Minneapolis killed by an immigration agent. “Outside of work, Pretti’s penchant for action translated to activism.” Via MinnPost
https://www.startribune.com/alex-prettis-journey-to-the-center-of-a-crisis/601575572?utm_source=gift

Stand With Minnesota, the mutual aid clearinghouse organized by Ashley Fairbanks that MinnPost reported on earlier this month, has raised over $20 million dollars for Minnesotans affected by Operation Metro Surge. The Guardian has a Q&A with Fairbanks, where she again emphasized the need for rent relief. “Everything else, we can rebuild. There’s other assistance. But with rent, no one’s coming to save them,” she said. Via MinnPost
https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2026/02/inside-minnesotans-moonshot-to-cover-rent-for-their-immigrant-neighbors/ ( Read more... )

james_davis_nicoll

What could possibly go wrong with playing along with an unhappy teen's delusions?

Babel no Toshokan by Tsubana

duckprintspress

1. What are you currently reading?

Don't You Like Me vol. 1 by Lv Tian Yi: it's fine but it's on hold because...
The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter vol. 3 by Yatsuki Wakatsu: yeah, volume 3. I might be mainlining this light novel juuuuust a little.
盗墓笔记 vol. 2 by 南派三叔

2. What have you recently finished reading?

Into the Split by Tris Lawrence: I don't usually count work reading for these but I just reread the entire novel in 3 days to do my final "clean-up" edit and damn it, I'm counting that. (reread)
The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter vol. 1 and 2 by Yatsuki Wakatsu: yeah I read two novels in four days, which is a lot for me. Vol. 1 is already covered by what I'd seen of the anime, vol. 2 focuses on the church stuff, and there's nothing deep going on here but, much like the anime, I'm just enjoying it. It's like eating candy, if by candy we mean mlm fuck-or-die fantasy isekai.
Apple and Honey vol. 1 by Hideyoshico: I'd accidentally already read vol. 2 a while ago and I liked it so here we are. It was fine, I liked the parts about the same characters, the side story was okay but more bittersweet than I was in the mood for.
Vampeerz vol. 1 by Akili: wlw with an interesting premise, but a lot's unanswered in this volume, and idk, the vibes felt off but I can't put my finger on why.
My New Boss is Goofy vol. 1 by Dan Ichikawa: I'd heard people talk about this as BL-adjacent so I wanted to check it out. I'd also seen a chunk of the anime (including everything in this vol. 1). And yeah, it's cute, with definite BL vibes without actually being BL.
The Way of the Househusband vol. 15 by Kousuke Oono
Kiss the Abyss by Mu Huo Ran: I wanted to reread this so I mainlined the entire series while on the way home from visiting my mom in NYC (we took the train home) (reread)
Moriarty the Patriot vol. 1 - 3 by Ryosuke Takeuchi: so while I was in NYC, mom decided to go with me to Kinokuniya, and she spotted this on the shelf, heard I'd liked it, and decided she wanted to read it, so she bought the first three volumes. It's been 2 years since I read them, so I reread 'um real quick before we left. It's really interesting to reread for me, because I really didn't like them the first time and was very skeptical, I didn't warm to the series until like vol. 5 or 6. But this time I loved them, now that I know what's going on. (reread)
Murderous Lewellyn's Candelit Dinner vol. 1 - 6 by Sumnagi: mom gave me a budget of $100 at Kinokuniya. I spent half of it on the first three volumes of this, promptly reread them, then finished the rest of the series. (reread)
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime vol. 8 by Fuse

3. What will you read next?

Novels: I got the next volume of Apothecary Diaries on Libby, so that'll be in the mix somewhere, otherwise mostly finishing my reads-in-progress.

Graphic Novels (Physical): I still haven't read any more of my borrows from the library, oops.

Graphic Novels (Libby): I did give up on Firefly Wedding, I just couldn't muster the interest to read the second volume. Stuff due before next Wednesday is next - Northranger by Rey Terciero and How Do We Relationship? volume 2 by Tamifull

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Page Summary

lebateleur - What Am I Reading Wednesday - February 25
ysabetwordsmith - Vocabulary: Bossage
likeadeuce - Still here
shipperslist - 2026 ABC challenge, 2026 release & all alliteration
sineala - Wednesday Reading Meme
james_davis_nicoll - Bundle of Holding: Good Society (from 2024)
ysabetwordsmith - Linguistics
amberleewriter - Getting a handle on being me
ysabetwordsmith - Birdfeeding
yourlibrarian in everykindofcraft - February Check-In
petra - Musical theatre about not being right in the head
muccamukk - Links List: Art, A.I., Misogyny (as separate categories)
kingstoken in fanart_recs - I’m coming to thee cottage by _deathofseasons_ (SFW)
mount_oregano - The two Spains, and what this poem might tell us about ourselves
aurumcalendula in c_ent - Drama Rec: 暗处 | The Unseen (2026)
dancing_serpent in c_ent - Did You Make a Thing?
aurumcalendula in c_ent - Drama Rec: 双姝美探 | Duet of Shadows (2026)
lsanderson - 2026.02.25
james_davis_nicoll - Babel no Toshokan by Tsubana
duckprintspress - WWW Wednesday

Fashion's been a Passion

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