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You have lain perfectly still, because the slightest motion would dissipate the fragments of your slumber. Now, being irrevocably awake, you peep through the half drawn window curtain, and observe that the glass is ornamented with fanciful devices in frost work, and that each pane presents something like a frozen dream. There will be time enough to trace out the analogy. You may almost distinguish the figures on the clock that has just told the hour. Such a frosty sky, and the snow covered roofs, and the long vista of the frozen street, all white, and the distant water hardened into rock, might make you shiver, even under four blankets and a woolen comforter. Yet look at that one glorious star; its beams are distinguishable from all the rest, and actually cast the shadow of the casement on the bed, with a radiance of deeper hue than moonlight, though not so accurate an outline.

In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them. There is your earliest sorrow, sadly beautiful.

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.

This Week's Question: What is your favourite thing to make?

If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

susandennis

My foot still hurts but it hurts WAY less and is on the mend. It's always surprising to me, the absence after something has hurt for so long. It's like a little gift. Or a big gift, if you are my foot.

I love a little Hazelnut flavor in my coffee now and again. The other day, at Safeway, I picked up a small box of Hazelnut flavored coffee pods. I brewed one yesterday for elbow coffee. I think I knew this but had forgotten. Those Hazelnut pods are HAZELNUT!!!! I wanted a hint and they are like a tsunami. BUT I drink my coffee black so, honestly, only wash my mug once in a great while so this morning's coffee had the perfect hint of Hazelnut. Win?

This morning I got up and put the comforter and pillow cases into the washing machine and changed the sheet with the help of Biggie which made it, of course, way more of a chore but it is done. And the comforter will be done in another hour. My washer has this lovely heavy bedding function. It probably does nothing special but I love having it.

Then I went to the pool and had a wonderful swim.

I have nothing on the calendar this week at all. There are baseball games every afternoon on the radio. Yesterday, they had a 'new' announcer for a few innings. I thought we had all of the worst baseball announcers already but wait, there's more! This guy was, apparently, a Mariner pitcher for a minute just before the pandemic. He talks way too fast and says absolutely nothing interesting. It hurt my ears. He said that he would be on the TV broadcasts for some games this year. Fine by me since I mute those anyway. Geesh.

I have 20 more bunnies to make before Saturday. Shouldn't be a problem. There are 2.95 done already.

I have my good book to read and tons of stuff on TV. There is a new (to me) Dawn French comedy on Paramount+ called "Can You Keep A Secret". I have two more episodes to watch. It's kind of hilarious in a very Dawn French way. She gets me.

When my brother was here, we got rid of a lot of shit and shifted and organized the rest. I could not have done it without him and it's still reaping such rewards. It's just a joy to be able to find stuff, to easily put stuff away and to have it all look so nice. My utility room went from a claustrophobic mess to a joy and the storage room... perfection. Yesterday, I shifted some stuff around so easily. I do love this apartment. But even more so now.

When the closet got redone, I took down the cat cam since I moved their beds but now Biggie has a new spot so I think I need to put it back. EASY to do since it's just on the shelf in the storage unit with the correct cable and wall wart. Soooooooo organized am I.

dolorosa_12

I'm really tired, and don't feel in any way prepared for the upcoming working week, but I've been trying to mitigate that with a very lazy Sunday. I had grand plans to plant the first of the spring seeds and start germinating seedlings in the growhouse, I had plans to go out for a walk with Matthias (the weather today is gorgeous), but instead I've spent the whole day vegetating in my wing chair in the living room, watching the tail-end of the Winter Olympics from the corner of my eye, watching Olia Hercules cook borshch on a BBC cooking show, scrolling around on Dreamwidth, and so on.

Matthias and I saw Marty Supreme at the community cinema earlier this week, and we'll be heading out to see Hamnet tonight, so it's definitely been a film-heavy time by our standards. I'm anticipating a lot of cathartic crying tonight.

I've continued to make my way through mythology/fairytale/folktale retellings recommended by you on a previous post. This week it was Girl Meets Boy (Ali Smith), a slim little novella in conversation with Ovid's Metamorphoses, concerned with fluidity in gender, gender presentation, sexuality, and so on. It felt very, very, very of its time and place (the UK in the 2000s), but that's not to say that its specificity was a bad thing.

I also read The Swan's Daughter (Roshani Chokshi), a lush, surreal fairytale of a book in which the titular daughter (one of seven sisters born to a power-hungry wizard and his swanmaiden wife) finds herself caught up in a competition to win the hand of the kingdom's prince in marriage. Chokshi's previous books have been very melodramatic and earnest, and she's relished the opportunity here to shift the tone to something much more humorous and knowing, while still digging into her favourite big themes: the tension between love and vulnerability, genuine love requiring an embrace of uncertainty, and the interplay of love and monstrosity made literal.

It reminded me so much of one of my very favourite books — The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (Patricia McKillip) — although the latter is portentous and serious where Chokshi is whimsical and humorous that I picked up the McKillip for yet another reread. I've written about it here before, so suffice it to say now that it remains an incredible book — sharp and perceptive, devastating and beautiful.

I'll leave you with this fantastic link to a Shrove Tuesday tradition in which contestants dressed in costumes race through central London while flipping pancakes in pans. It's as delightful as you might imagine.

pauraque

This early PC platformer is of no small historical interest, as it was the first game released by everybody's favorite totally uncontroversial and non-resented game publishing company, Electronic Arts. Like most of their titles then and now, it wasn't developed in-house; Michael Abbott and Matthew Alexander get the design and programming credit for this one.

grid of construction scaffolding with gaps and chains hanging down to climb

grid of construction scaffolding with gaps and chains hanging down to climb

But you don't need to me to tell you the illustrious history of EA (or, as it was briefly called at its inception, "Amazin' Software"—and I can't tell you how disappointed I am that we don't live in the timeline where they kept that name). I guess you also don't technically need me to tell you about this ridiculous game and my memories of playing it while being unable to identify most of the characters and objects it contains, but I'm going to go ahead anyway.

In Hard Hat Mack you play as a construction worker. I did understand that much. In the first level you have to collect pieces of a beam and use them to fill in the gaps, and then grab a wandering jackhammer to hammer them into place. ( This is where my understanding of the game began to break down; I thought the jackhammer was a tornado. )

Hard Hat Mack is... well, it sure is a game. You can find it on abandonware sites, but I couldn't really get it to run well on any version or emulator I tried. The DOS version (which I had as a kid) runs too fast in DOSBox by default, but when I reduced the clock speed I found that it lagged badly when multiple objects were moving, which made the second level pretty much unplayable. We probably shouldn't hold our breaths for EA to offer a re-release, and maybe that's for the best.

adore

Was reading a fic and laughed out loud at it.

Am delighting myself writing Dollshops & Deathmages. I'm halfway done and happy with how it's shaping up.

Had an excellent peach kombucha to drink.

Have the house to myself for a glorious while, because my relatives are travelling.

Am enjoying a k-drama tremendously. Undercover Miss Hong. It's halfway aired, let's hope the rest of it is just as good. (You know those silly Hollywood action movies where there's a guy doing some kind of secret operation, and women who are in the narrative all have crushes on him, and he's too busy doing Important Stuff to notice? Imagine if it was the heroine doing stuff too Secret and Important to pay much mind to the men growing feelings for her, and you have Undercover Miss Hong. Trust k-drama to make something assuming *I* am watching the way other media industries make things assuming men are watching. And it features strong female friendships!)

Three out of the five things I have put down here are related to stories. 역시, whenever I'm happy, stories are usually at the heart of my happiness.

quixotic posting in

malagraphic

( Read more... )

flareonfury posting in

fandom_icons

Below are some icons I made as alternates for

tvmovie20in20 Round 23 and

ships20in20 Round 5 with The Hunting Party.

[100 icons] The Hunting Party

Preview:

"A secret prison. A killer escape. The hunt is on......"

senmut

10trueloves - 5/10 written

Random Plot Bunnies in Progress

~ Fulcrum and Rex time travel to before Anakin runs to Mace. - NEEDS CANON REVIEW
~ Sequel to Retrieval - 93 WORDS
~ An Atin universe that is more like The Second Clone War or Mine, All of Them - 3 chapters written, each about 1k words

Potential Bunnies Pending Further Bouncing

~ Rachel and Joe meet with BOTH finally aware in Closing Up Shop
~ Drizzt's fallout/Vierna's reactions in the Divining Destiny universe

Finished

nothing

hafnia

What is my favorite place in the world?

God. Uh. Hmm.

I want to toss some far-flung locales on here, but I haven't been there in over twenty years and God only knows if they're still nice, so. I guess we'll go with the places I have known well and loved.

It's a toss-up between:

The Salt Lake City Public Library, at least as I remember it circa 2010 (which, God, was a long time ago...!) — I went to a bunch of poetry readings etc here and always loved it and felt very in my element whenever I was there, and the rooftop garden is super neat.

Cape Perpetua, because it's fucking beautiful.

Swan Lake, Montana, because I spent just about every childhood here from the time I was 4 to the time I was 14.

Mesa Verde, because it's just fucking cool.

SF MoMA, because I adore it and have a lot of great memories of visiting different exhibits there (for several years in a row I had business stuff that took me to San Francisco at least once if not twice a year, and I always hit up SF MoMA when I went).

Anyway yes, I am Indecisive, you are welcome :D

maythe4th posting in

maythe4thbewithyou

Assignments have been sent out. You can check the email associated with your AO3 account, or look at your assignments page here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YOURUSERNAME/assignments

If you have questions or think you have been assigned something you didn't offer, please contact the mods in the comments of this post (comments are screened) or email us at maythe4thmod@gmail.com. Please do NOT discuss identifying details of your assignment in public: this is a secret exchange. Any questions for your recipient can be asked via the mods. We are happy to pass along questions.

Assignments are due on or before 23:59 UTC on 25 April 2026. The minimum requirement is 500 words or a 500 x 500 pixel artwork on unlined paper matching one of your recipient's tags and not containing any of their listed Do Not Wants.

If you missed signups, pick up a pinch hit, or have an extra request you'd like to make, the Grab Bag post is open for all requests.

~~We have three initial pinch hits. Please reply to this post with your AO3 name and the PH number if you want to claim one. (Comments are screened.)~~ Pinch hits are due 25 April 2026. All pinch hits are claimed! Thank you, pinch hitters!!

( Pinch Hit #1 CLAIMED )

( Pinch Hit #2 CLAIMED )

( Pinch Hit #3 CLAIMED! )

maythe4th posting in

maythe4thbewithyou

Sometimes you miss nominations and don't think about asking for your Babu Frik/Jacen Solo tag before the deadline. Sometimes you can't fit all the requests you want into your sign-up. Sometimes you see something you wanted after sign-ups have closed. Sometimes you want to leave an anonymous request for a pairing you have no intention of admitting you ship. Sometimes you want a crossover request that would be outside the bounds of the regular exchange nominations but you know in your heart that Vader/Dobby is the greatest ship of all time and space. Sometimes you pinch hit and would like to throw your hat in the ring to ask for the story of Grogu and Anakin's excellent adventures.

This post is for those extra requests, one request per comment, no limit on the number of comments you leave. You can provide as much or as little detail as you want; if you would like your treat to be gifted to you, you should include your AO3 name. Fills to the grab bag can be posted to the regular collection, but should be labeled in the tags or the notes that the fill is for a grab bag request. In cases where the requester has chosen to remain anonymous, these can be gifted to the mod account, or they can be posted without a recipient.

You do not have to have signed up for the exchange to leave a grab bag request.

maythe4th posting in

maythe4thbewithyou

We will be running matching shortly. If you are unmatchable (as in you have no one to create for who has requested what you are offering) we will contact you via the email associated with your AO3 account to ask you to add offers. Please check your email and your spam filter.

flareonfury posting in

fandom_icons

The below icons are for

ships20in20 Round 5 with The Hunting Party various ships.

Preview:

The hunt is on......

word_never_said posting in

fandom_icons

50 total - The Pitt, Stranger Things, Bridgerton, Superman (2025), Fantastic Four (2025)

more here

stillpermanentt

word_never_said posting in

icons

50 total - The Pitt, Stranger Things, Bridgerton, Superman (2025), Fantastic Four (2025)

more here

stillpermanentt

magnavox_23 posting in

icons

20 Stargate SG-1 icons from 10x14 The Shroud

Check out the rest here. <3

magnavox_23 posting in

fandom_icons

20 Stargate SG-1 icons from 10x14 The Shroud

Check out the rest here. <3

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

susandennis

My friend, Martha, has always been a staunch supporter of my dolls and creatures. She has a bunch and has given away 5 times a bunch or more. When she saw this year's bunnies, she said they needed cotton tails and bows. I said fine, if she wanted to add them, that would be great. I made 40 and she picked them up yesterday. Turns out adding the butts and bows was far easier than she expected. She texted me the results. She has about 25 butts left so I'll make more this week and then put them out til they are gone.

The butts:

The bows:

The pool blinds are well and truly fixed. They go up and down 'like butta', it's such a relief.

I got brave this morning and tried that extra creamy oat milk with cherrios. FAIL. It does not taste like milk and it does not look like milk. Guess it's an oatmeal only situation which is fine. Better than nothing.

I have now fallen into another very odd for me book that is really turning into a great read. In this case, it may be the reader who 'sells' it but the story is compelling. Dark Ride by Lou Berney. Read by Johnathan McClain. His spot on portrayal of all of the characters is amazing. I don't understand how one person can read in such a way that you actually believe he's a 20 something male stoner, a 40 something black female temptress and a 20 something goth girl plus dozens of other bit players. He is now my new favorite reader ever but also, this book is fun.

About a decade ago the Mariners helped create and then took over Root Sports NW which was a regional sports network. It was available on cable, and then later, on various streaming services. It pretty much sucked but was the only game in town. They killed it dead at the end of last season. The Mariners this year have a full season deal with MLB.TV which I don't love BUT after one game, I can absolutely say is about 20 times better than Root ever tried to be. Whew. Even for a spring training game, it all worked. Closed captions - easy to snap on and off - nothing out of sync - no lags. No mess. Just baseball. Of course the announcers still suck, but, hey...

There's another game on today (they only televise a little less than half the spring training games, which is fine... viewers need to ease into the season like players.

Yesterday, I cleaned out some cupboards in the kitchen. I moved the dishes I use rarely or never into storage so now I can get to the shit I want more easily and emptying the dishwasher is way easier. So I think I'll go do that before I get dressed for elbow coffee.

dolorosa_12

I've been seeing this doing the rounds for a couple of weeks now, and have found everyone's different responses really interesting. I particularly appreciated people who are parents answering each question twice — once about their own experiences, once about those of their children, and teasing out the commonalities, continuities, and changes.

[This took me three hours to write so I'm not going back in and editing all the typos.]

Before I launch into my answers, I think providing some context is helpful.

( A lot of context )

Now, on to the questions!

( Meme questions )

Wow, that took a really long time to fill in! I had a lot to say! On balance, my entire experience of education as a child was a very positive one, due to various privileges that are presumably obvious from my answers to all those questions. The fact that I had an excellent education at pretty well resourced public (state) schools in a country where the divide between public and private schooling has continued to grow in the intervening years shows that good state education can be done, if it's adequately resourced. It's also left me with a bit of a chippy lifelong belief that (outside of disabilities that public schools are not resourced to support, and a small handful of other cases) private education shouldn't exist, and if it has to exist, it should be very rare.

Only after disaster can we be resurrected.

Network

Custom Text

Check-In Post - Feb 22nd 2026

Clicking into place

Sunshine on my window

Hard Hat Mack (1983)

Good things recently

[ ICONS ] MIKHAIL, XENOBLADE CHRONICLES 2

The Hunting Party Icons

Projects and Bunnies

Talking Meme Month - day 21

Assignments Out and Pinch Hits #1-3

Grab Bag

Sign Ups Closed

The Hunting Party icons for ships20in20

50 Multi fandom icons

50 Multi fandom icons

The Shroud - Stargate SG-1 icons

The Shroud - Stargate SG-1 icons

Check-In Post - Feb 21st 2026

Saturday

The education meme