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défi:pumpkin autumn challenge

Pumpkin Autumn Challenge : Lovers' kiss (Yoshida Akimi)

Catégorie : Le Cercle de la Com'thé (Fête - Gourmandise - Récomfort - Joie - Diversité - Singularité - Empathie - Vivre ensemble)

Première partie, Boy meets girl: Rikako et Tomoaki ont tous les deux la réputation de coucher avec tout ce qui bouge ; quand ils se rencontrent, cela arrive presque par accident, cela se passe mal, mais ils continuent de penser l'un à l'autre. Seconde partie, boy meets boy : Takao, l'ami d'enfance de Fujii, a toujours été amoureux de lui, mais un nouveau garçon arrive dans le lycée et tente de le séduire ouvertement. Troisième partie, girl meets girl : Eri, la soeur de Rikako, est amoureuse de Miki, la meilleure amie de Rikako, qui est amoureuse d'elle. Le tout avce des citations de Verlaine et Rimbaud au début de chaque chapitre.

Ce ne sont pas des histoires à la suite, c'est le même moment, raconté de trois points de vue différents (et aussi, tout le monde est au courant de l'histoire hétéro, et les filles sont au courant de l'histoire gay,j et personne n'est au courant de leur histoire à elles, ce qui a... un certain réalisme). J'aime cette structure, c'est intéressant.

Mais à la fin, je n'ai pas été happée ; je n'aime qu'une romance sur les trois, et encore, pas à fond, et ma préférence va à l'ambiance globale et aux relations en tant que groupe.

Quelques avertissements que je n'avais absolument pas vus venir : Viol sur des mineurs, inceste (pas entre les ships du manga, en backstory)

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ST:LWD s2

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Sons of Feanor Genderswap-While-Maintaining-Canon-Gender-Attitudes-And-Norms Manifesto

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Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

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Monday, September 08: Colorado Wood Stork

This summer we've had a birding celebrity here in Colorado. A wood stork!

Wood storks are typically a tropical bird, so while they're common in places like Florida, they're almost unheard of in Colorado! The last one seen here was back in the 1930s.

This one has been pretty comfortably hanging out in the same pond up in the Broomfield area, and lots of people have been excited to go get his picture.

We found him! (My cell phone pictures are not amazing. We did see two guys out with serious business cameras. Maybe someday. Even with little cell phone snaps, I was happy to get to see him.)

Though it wasn't why we came, we were also surprised by there being so many pelicans. (Plus some egrets on the far side.)

The park is just a little neighborhood park, with a path around a large pond. We parked in the neighborhood, and went for a walk.

Eight more pictures:

A squirrel with a snack.

Looking at the pond, as I said above, the much more obvious thing was...

A bunch of pelicans. Just so many pelicans. (There were two large groups, pretty sure 30-some total on the pond.)

Zooming in on the pelicans... there's a white bird on the far side along the shoreline. It was obviously bigger than the egrets we'd also seen around, so we were hopeful that was our sought-after wood stork.

'Twas! :D

Pelicaaaaaans.

I love him and his weird head feathers and his huge bill... He was neat to watch.

Bella was less enthusiastic about birdwatching.

One last picture of the wood stork.

It was fun to see our celebrity visitor, and I'm glad we got a chance to go up and see him before he leaves. (As far as I know he is still there, but it's likely he'll migrate away before too long.)

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Farmer's Market -- 20 September 2025 (Festival of Honors, Year 233)

Leek-mushroom turnover, lemon tart, hard kiwifruit, American persimmons, bell peppers, purple UFO peppers, shennadoah pears, honeycrisp apples, pink pearl apples.

I'm going to try making salsa morada with the UFO peppers, and see if applesauce made with the pink pearl apples has a pink tingle to it.

Current Mood: chipper

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rambles about life

(no subject)

THE LAPTOP IS HOME!

Turns out the problem was my VPN not playing nice with my wireless. The problem has been solved, all the drivers have been updated, and the laptop works again :D Now, maybe I can actually get a little writing done this weekend.

Current Mood: contemplative

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Edits, edits, always pondering edits

The Cursed Witch post-beta editing is going slowly. Soooooooooooooooooooo slowly. Not because I'm not putting in the time! I've put in *checks* 18h31. Just for Chapter 2. Out of ten chapters. I've spent 43h51 on this round of editing so far, and I'm not even a quarter of the way through.

I can never write a story in this way again.

It doesn't matter that the changes do seem to be making the story better and more interesting (although I'm still concerned about pace). It's just hard to work on ideas I had 2 years ago when I have more ideas, concepts, life questions I want to dive into now. But mainly, if I'm aware of how much work is ahead of me, and that I won't be able to take on much of anything else during that period, I suspect I just won't start. I don't have any genius ideas that feel worth that much effort. Just a lot of concepts I think are pretty cool.

The main thing is that doing structural edits at this very late stage of the story is likely too much, too late. I suspected it would be, but now I sure as hell feel it! I guess if I had the kind of brain that can work on this for several hours in a day, it would matter less, because I'd still have time to explore all of the fun things, but I can't right now.

I've been trying to teach myself to be a bit more chill about how I edit during the *checks* 191h57 (sob) and 50 millions (actually 4 or 5) rounds of editing, but clearly I don't know how to be chill about editing. Did I mention it took me 30 hours to write the first draft, and that I always say I prefer writing to editing? Something is skewed here.

I don't think a "better editing process" is what I need right now. I think more work in the early phases is where I should look next. ( Read more... )

I started alternating these edits with more lighthearted activities, like a fic I'm writing for a new fandom :) Obviously, that means editing will take even longer but it's keeping the insanity at bay, which is great! I recommend that! XD Unfortunately, I also feel like my writing is flat and lifeless at the moment. I know this kind of feelings ebb and flow over the seasons, and I just have to (gently) push through.

Progress is being made!! :) It's just a little bit harder to feel good about it at times. Step by step.

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défi:pumpkin autumn challenge

Pumpkin Autumn Challenge : Liddell au clair de lune (Uchida Yoshimi)

Catégorie : Les songes maudits de Carmilla (Vampire - Manoir - Nuit - Surnaturel - Gothique - Horreur - Nouvelle)

Un manga des années 80. Vladimir, le personnage point de vue, revient à Chicago après un voyage à travers le monde. Là il retrouve son ami Hugh, qui a toujours été étrange, et est encore plus obsédé qu'avant par son rêve récurrent, où il rencontre une petite fille dans un manoir.

Une partie du livre est un groupe d'américains universitaires et riches qui parlent de plein de choses, de l'évolution, de pouvoirs psy, du Japon, de ce qu'est un paus d'origine, de l'environnement, parfois c'est en rapport avec le scénario, parfois juste de la caractérisation ou les préoccupations de l'auteur, et ils sont tellement brillants ! et tellement snob ! j'adore ces conversations, elles sonnent très vrai.

Une autre est Hugh qui cherche désespérément l'origine de ce manoir, et des preuves de son existence dans le vrai monde, et Vladimir, qui a probablement un crush sur lui même si ce n'est pas central, qui l'accompagne à défuat de pouvoir l'arrêter et se retrouve happé dans cette histoire aussi.

C'était très intéressant, mais c'est le genre d'histoire où la fin n'est pas là pour expliquer, elle est là pour qu'on décide soi-même de quelle façon on veut recoller tous les morceaux, incluant les conversations dont j'ai parlé, cela demande une certaine quantité d'analyse, que je ne suis pas sûre de vouloir fournir, plus créée pour les gens aussi obsédés par ce manga que Hugh par sa maison de rêve.

Mais voilà, "intéressant" est la conclusion que je donnerais, cela ne ressemble à rien d'autre.

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lecture/reading

La solitude du cirque ~Jean-Paul Tapie

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Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

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Tuesday, September 02: Castlewood Canyon (yes, again)

I am so far behind... T_T

Waaaaay back at the beginning of the month, we went back to Castlewood Canyon, wanting to see the rest of the "Cave" trail, which had been closed earlier in the season for nesting turkey vultures. The turkey vulture nesting was definitely a success, judging by how many of them we saw!

As always... Bella!

And we got to see a couple deer! I know that we have just... so many deer, but I'm still always happy to see them. This one was obviously young, still with little fawn spots, though it was most of the way grown.

Sixteen more pictures:

Wandering up the short stretch of road between the parking lot and the trailhead, there were some milkweed that were absolutely COVERED in aphids. But they also had lots of happy ladybugs having a massive buffet, haha.

Looking up from lower on the trail.

The rock wall that was roughly where the trail was closed off last time. I like being able to see the space behind the front "section" of the rock.

We were able to continue on, now that the nesting closures have been lifted.

It wasn't... quite as impressive as hoped. Still didn't find the alleged caves, haha. The cliffs are really pretty, though.

Unfortunately the sun was at just the worst angle for all of these pictures looking up at the cliff, haha. But I liked the dramatic dead tree and the tall bit of the rock.

Again with the sun making it look like a dream sequence.

Turkey vulture!

Something was drilling into this fallen log, ha.

As we were heading back, Alex looked over to the side, and...

The little deer! Mostly grown, just a little small, but still with white fawn spots! So cute. (Yes, this is almost the same picture as above the cut.)

And a second deer, nearby the first.

Bella was very excited to see the deer. (I think I've mentioned before, but she does enjoy "watching" TV sometimes, especially animal programs. There was a wildlife rehab show we used to watch sometimes, and her favorites to watch were seals and deer, haha.) She doesn't seem to want to chase them or anything, just wants to go see them, ha.

That second deer, staring back at Bella. It didn't seem overly concerned.

Speaking of successful turkey vulture nesting... Not sure how easy it is to see, but aaaaall those little black specks in the sky are vultures. SO MANY.

A fairly nice chunk of a shed snake skin. Probably a bull snake... but not nearly as impressive as the one my mom found last weekend!

Another ladybug on milkweed.

A very impressively active wasp nest over the bathrooms, ha.

Bumblebee on a sunflower!

Still more trails to explore, but glad we got to do the rest of the sort of "horseshoe" of this trail, and glad we had a chance to get out for the day.

Current Mood: sorry wrong icon
Current Music: It's the bloody Surprise!

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holidays

Give you joy of the day

I can't celebrate Talk Like A Pirate Day without remembering the time Talk Like Stephen Maturin Day was proposed as an alternative on Making Light, which was probably the best thing to ever happen to that website.

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low-effort

LEP 19.9.

My other birthday present -- an Elgato capture card -- arrived today and I'm honestly delighted by how much of it is packed in cardboard. The only plastic thing in the package was the capture card itself, having a plastic casing, and a die-cut sticker I slapped on my PS2 b/c why not. The clamshell the card and cables were in was cardboard, and even the ribbons holding the cable rolls closed were cardboard instead of plastic.

Current Mood: thoughtful

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rambles about life

(no subject)

Laptop broken :( Which is not unexpected - I'm hard on laptops - but I'd like to keep this one running for a while longer, if I can. The repair shop said they'd have a diagnosis for me this afternoon or first thing tomorrow, and I'm really hoping for this afternoon.

(Not having a computer for a few days really isn't the end of the world. I have plenty of books, a functioning TV, video games...I can entertain myself. But I have Issues around letting other people handle my computer, so it's making me twitchy. Also, dropping it off for repair required me to explain that I fucked around with the regedit two years ago and broke something I didn't bother fixing because I didn't know what I was doing, which is just embarrassing.)

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lecture/reading

[BD] Huertos muertos

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défi:pumpkin autumn challenge

Pumpkin Autumn Challenge : La Marche Brume (Stéphane Fert)

Catégorie : Chaudron, Foudre, et Clair de Lune (Fantastique - Magie - Sorcière - Potion - Infusion - Herboristerie - Amour - Famille)

Un jour, la Brume est apparue et s'est mise à dévorer le monde entier. Des sorcières ont créé une petite communauté qui arrive tant bien que mal à la tenir à distance. Un jour, elles adoptent une orpheline qui vient de la Brume, la nomment Tempérance, et l'élèvent parmi elles même si elle ne sembler pas huamine. Mais la Brume vient la chercher, et Tempérance va devoir faire ses proches choix.

Il y a plein de choses que j'aime bien dans cette BD, et elles voisinent avec plein de choses sur lesquelles je suis plus réservée. Le dessin est très beau, très agréable, mais parfois, j'ai du mal à reconnaître les personnages les uns des autres, il suffit d'une coupe de cheveux. Le worlbuilding a beaucoup de potentiel, en particulier la Brume et le fonctionnement de la magie, mais il se base assez lourdement sur les équivalences femme=magie=nature=Bien et homme=science=technologie=Mal, ce qui me fait lever les yeux au ciel ; mais cela pourrait être subverti dans la suite ? La romance a du potentiel, mais elle est trop rapide pour moi. J'hésite, je lirai le tome 2 si la bibliothèque l'achète, mais je ne l'achèterai pas moi-même.

Current Mood: discontent
Current Music: Mr Jones - Counting Crows

Strolling through.

The highlight of the day was sending out a pair of novel queries, the first in a while. Beyond that, not much. I got the flu and TDAP boosters yesterday, so my arm's sore enough I didn't want to move it a whole lot, certainly not for weightlifting, so all it was in the gym was the treadmill.

I also found out why I hadn't been informed of certain family developments: they're all on the family group chat. However, everyone else is using the iPhone's proprietary message system. Last week I turned that off to just get text messages, thinking that might help with coordinating movie theater seats - if an iPhone message wouldn't get sent, maybe a text would. Then the other people arrived and I didn't think about it for several days, until my dad gave me a call the other day about recent ongoing developments. I tried turning that feature back on, but it didn't bring in the backlog of things that'd been shared, so I'm still at a loss for how things are going. I'm also really tempted to turn it back off, just to see what happens. Except given how my phone's already largely incapable of getting internet-based message services, there's not much of a difference to be made.

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fannitude

(no subject)

Par petits bouts, j'ai fini de regarder la première saison de Miraculous Ladybug. Qu'est-ce que je peux dire, c'est assez fun, mais je ne crois pas que je m'en ferais un fandom. Ne serait-ce que parce que j'arrive tellement en retard dessus. C'est un peu beaucoup répétitif jusqu'ici, j'espère que ça va commencer à changer dans la saison 2 ?
Pour l'instant je m'amuse à relever les différences subtiles qui indiquent que ça se passe dans un un univers paralèlle (outre la différence majeure que, y'a des superhéros et des superméchants magiques). Genre, Paris a l'air plus petit et beaucoup moins peuple (14 élèves dans une classe de 3ème au lieu de 34 ??) et sans aucun touriste (le Trocadéro quasi désert ??)
Septembre qui compte 31 jours, Hidalgo qui a pris cher, la ligne 33 St Lazare-Austerlitz qui n'existe ni sur mon plan papier ni sur le site de la RATP mais les bus ça peut changer, les lignes de métro 17 et 20 très en avance sur le programme, le Stade des Princesses...

Too French, Didn't Read: Malu started watching Miraculous Ladybug and is bugged that their alternate universe Paris is a tad off ~~shut up it's fiction and tongue-in-cheek clichés!~~

Current Mood: blah

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personal

Still too tired

I got home about an hour earlier today and slightly less disgusting. It got back up in the 90s F today with humidity to spare, but about time work as winding down, some wind blew in what was supposed to be rain but which was a temperature drop of about 10F in an hour, though that still left it in a more comfortable but still quite warm 80s range.

Managed to clean my dishes that had been sitting for two days. Was going to try to cook something but realized the eggplant from the mail had started to go bad, so screw it, I'll wait for the weekend. I have to work this Saturday but only a half day and I get to sleep in.

I'm still just feeling so brain-cooked and frustrated. I want to be creative, but I always just feel like I'm in trouble for not doing enough to entertain the friends I have who care what I do.

I got a little notebook in the mail. Plan to use it for prayer journaling due to the whole brain-is-too-slippery-and-overheated feeling.

I also wrote in my little Japanese study notebook I started before I moved here in 2024 for the first time since. Something about my old boss's approach to "encouraging" me to learn Japanese just made me pissed off for over a year. At least I am doing something, but I want to do things that don't just feel practical without being too tired to function.

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dreamwidth: community thursdays

Community Thursday

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

Over the last week...

Commented on booknook.

Signal boosts:

fan_writers continues to see a lot of active discussions around meta about writing, if that is of interest to you! :)

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défi:pumpkin autumn challenge

Pumpkin Autumn Challenge : Alan Turing (Osada Kaoru, Matsuo Yutaka)

Catégorie : Latte : Une variations sophistiquée et crémeuse (Une couverture aux couleurs d'un latte à la cannelle et à la cardamome, marron, beige)

Une biographie d'Alan Turing. Dans l'histoire, Joan Clarke (qui était proche d'Alan Turing et lui a été brièvement fiancée) raconte à sa petite-fille ce qu'elle a connu d'Alan. C'est donc destiné à la jeunesse, exprès, que ce soit le contexte historique ou les explications scientifiques, destiné à quelqu'un qui n'a pas de grandes connaissances sur l'époque.

Au début, cela me semblait trop naïf, mais finalement, il faut prendre en compte le public visé, ce n'est pas si mal, sans devenir quelque chose que je recommande particulièrement à tous les gens qui ont passé le collège. Je me demandais, vu le titre complet, si le manga aurait quelque chose à dire sur l'AI moderne, qui pase le test de Turing mais n'est pas du tout ce que Turing aurait imaginé, mais non, cela n'en parle pas du tout. Peut-être est-ce le mieux, plutôt que d'en parler n'importe comment.