rynling: (Mog Toast)
[personal profile] rynling
I wrote a short fluff story about Barret and Cid for the Romancing Barret fan week event on Tumblr (here). The story is called “Good Old-Fashioned Grunt Work,” and it’s on AO3 (here).

This is me getting way back on my bullshit about “engineer husbands,” which started with Setzer and Edgar from Final Fantasy VI. I actually deleted those stories from AO3 because they only had a small handful of kudos, but maybe I should repost them. Maybe.

One of the most common pieces of advice for creatives is that you shouldn't worry too much about the reception your work receives. To a certain extent, that's true. Art exists for its own sake, as well as the joy of the process for the creator. Speaking personally, my own sense of self-worth has very little to do with how many likes or kudos my work gets, which is (almost entirely) stochastically random.

At the same time, we live in a society. I don't judge my work by its numbers, but other people do. It goes without saying that people will adjust their behavior toward you depending on how they view your rank in their community, and reception metrics are the most visible indicator. There's also a snowball effect in which people are more likely to "like" or share or comment on something that already has high numbers. So for me, it makes sense to weed out and delete my more poorly received stories from the archive.

Speaking of deleting things, I also uninstalled FFVII Rebirth from my Steam Deck. I've tried to play the game twice now, and both times I've gotten bored after the opening section in Nibelheim + Kalm. I loved FFVII Remake, but maybe Rebirth is just not for me.

Hello

Jul. 9th, 2025 01:54 am
jayregee: (Warning Whine Alert)
[personal profile] jayregee posting in [community profile] addme
Name: Regis

Age: 46

I mostly post about: I am Bipolar. So, it varies. My mood, life and fandoms seem to be the main topics of conversation. Plus, my homosexuality is on topic so my post can get to be adults only. Since it's FRIENDS ONLY there are no warnings.

My hobbies are: making icons, video games, my movie collection. (PHYSICAL MEDIA RULES!)

My fandoms are: Doctor Who, various yaoi anime, Friday the 13th and other horror movies, mystery TV shows like Perry Mason and Columbo. I am also big on the MCU AND DCU.

I'm looking to meet people who: Other gay men and allies. I do not have much a support system at home. So being bipolar I tend to need someone to listen. Even if they do not comment. Also, if I get to be too much, just skip the post. LOL!

My posting schedule tends to be: daily/weekly/monthly/sporadic/etc I try to get at least 3 posts a week in unless we didn't pay the internet bill.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Homophobes, racists, MAGA and other Trump supporters.

Before adding me, you should know: I can be a whiner from time to time. It's my way of getting my feeling out. If that isn't for you, I understand.

We did it :)

Jul. 9th, 2025 01:20 am
allekha: Garnet lifting Pearl, both smiling (Happy Garnet/Pearl)
[personal profile] allekha
After a morning of wondering if the seller would work things out with the title company in time, a lunch break full of signing lots of documents and asking questions about them (we got a refund on one of the fees, always good to ask), and an afternoon of wondering when our wire transfer would go through, suddenly a bunch of savings blipped away from us, and we were able to go pick up our house keys 😊

We went over tonight to get started on cleaning the place - it's been empty for a while, and it's covered in dirty footprints and spiders - and in the midst of thinking about a bunch of things that we need to fix up and work on, I stepped into the backyard for a break. A foggy moon was rising over the trees, and the yard was covered in fireflies that must be enjoying all the plants that were left wild, blinking so quickly it looked like the bushes were glittering.

It was a very stressful process, and there is a lot going on in general, but I feel really happy right now.

(And bonus, a big paper that we've been working on that represents two years of work got accepted today after our second round of revisions!)

Nice to Meet You ♥

Jul. 9th, 2025 01:07 am
melanindollxo: (melanindollxo - 6)
[personal profile] melanindollxo posting in [community profile] addme
Name: Jasmine ♥

Age: 30s



I mostly post about: my life, thoughts, my wins & lessons. I like to think deeply and analyze situations or people, and take time to reflect. I'm very much into self-growth, and focusing on a healthier lifestyle may include recipes, as well as currently watching and reading. Overall, it's a special place to connect with others.



My hobbies are: reading, dancing/listening to music, binge watching random shows, meditating, yoga, knitting, buying notebooks and not using them fully, researching vitamins, online shopping, baking, cooking and juicing.



My fandoms are:not really into fandoms too much anymore, however, if you enjoy it, I don't judge since I have moments.



I'm looking to meet people who: I'd love to make some new friends on here, as a LJ vet. I'm looking for anyone who wants to connect, enjoys commenting, and is active. I'm open-minded and pretty down-to-earth.



My posting schedule tends to be: Most likely weekly, and I'll be a pretty active commentor =)



When I add people, my dealbreakers are: not into the haters, homophobic, racists, politics-focused types - I spread love and that's what I appreciate in return.



Before adding me, you should know: I'm Canadian & pretty new to DW but definitely not new to journaling since I used to be on LJ for years. I comment and I am not shy. I'm looking to interact with anyone 21+. I spread love, I enjoy uplifting others, helping ppl through healing, and just being a genuine person. Feel free to add me ♥



Some of my posts may be nsfw, I'm raw & explicit sometimes, we're adults going through adult things lol.

Fannish Tuesday

Jul. 8th, 2025 10:39 pm
cornerofmadness: (Riza and Hayate)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
I have no idea where the time is disappearing to but it's making me anxious.


Today I got a hair cut. I'm not too sure about it but my hair was such a mess I had to get rid of it. Don't get me started on the color. It WAS violet and last week it turned this color...for the second time with two different purples from two different companies. My hair dresser said well you can get color safe shampoos with violets and then it dawns on me, omg I think MY color safe shampoo is auburn. gah.




The author's virtual meeting today didn't go well for me. I couldn't concentrate. My total word count is what I usually write in a 25 minute session. Sigh. But hey if you write chillers or thrillers and want to join PM me and we'll talk (ditto if you'd like to join my by email writers critique group)


So it's Fannish 50 tuesday and I'm back to the women of fandom. I'm now going back to my older fandoms in no particular order. I'll be starting with Fullmetal Alchemist but it's SO hard to pick one female from all the great ones in this, Riza Hawkeye, Winry Rockbell, Izumi Curtis, Olivier Armstrong Gracia Hughes just to name a few. Riza and Winry are probably the two more or less main characters and the best well rounded (along with Izumi)

I'm going with Riza for this because a) she was my favorite b) even though this was written by a woman, Winry was written for the male gaze and had a lot of that loud screamy nonsense as part of her character. (I still can't believe this started over 20 years ago. My god!) A lot of Winry's traits were very common back then when targeting the main audience teen boys.

Riza on the other hand is quiet authority. She is amazingly competent and loyal and smart. That she is deeply emotionally intimately entwined with Roy is clear in all the things she does (and she is not blind to his faults). I DID want more out of her back story with her father and why she follows Roy into the military. I wish she had had time to give Riza's back story more flesh.

It's clear that the rest of Roy's men know to obey her, that she's the default secondary ruler of their little group. Riza's hand gun expertise is pretty cool but on the other hand she barely has a life outside of work and that is sad. Arakawa said in an interview somewhere that Roy and Riza would never get the chance to be together and that's pretty sad too.

Even sadder, Bing brought up like ONE picture of Riza that wasn't fan art (okay okay I know it's old but really?) Google had a few more. I chose this one with her and Hayate.


I miss writing her. I miss the heyday of the Roy/Riza communities

(no subject)

Jul. 8th, 2025 03:03 pm
chromaskies: (Default)
[personal profile] chromaskies posting in [community profile] addme
Name: B or Bee (either is fine)

Age: 36

I mostly post about: Anything and everything, really. Questionnaires, creations (see hobbies :)), mind contents, articles,

My hobbies are: Sewing, jewelry making, self-care, fitness (beginner), cozy video games, photography (also very beginner), macrame, collecting stickers (I'm starting a sticker album!), restaurant/brewery adventures, Hello Kitty/Sanrio collecting (very minor hobby as I don't have money to go hard on it lol....or the space to) and finally researching/learning different topics is fun too.

My fandoms are: While I'm not super into fandom, I do like to make icons from games. A couple that I'm playing are Animal Crossing: New Horizons/Pocket Camp and Stardew, but I wouldn't say I'm into shipping or anything like that. I guess light fandom? I dunno lol.

I'm looking to meet people who:Hobby/creative friends who want a friendship and won't just quit on me when I go through a rough time. While I'm getting better, I do still deal with low mood, but having friends I can turn to when it get's heavy is wonderful. I will do the same for you.

My posting schedule tends to be: Coming back from a bit of a hiatus, I'll probably start posting weekly, until I get back in the swing of things, but I want to post every other day or every third day.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Mean people, those who are vicious with friend cuts, Trump supporters/the whole make America great movement,

Before adding me, you should know: See my "Looking to Meet People" please. Other than that, I can't really think of anything else.

Tiring day but I survived

Jul. 8th, 2025 05:29 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I had to present on my work for my team and some other people this morning, and it felt impossible to pitch it at a level that would reach both the people who know next to nothing about the work I lead on and the people who have been most intimately involved in doing it with me.

I missed a section, even with notes, which I think could've made it make a lot more sense. But also my line manager sent me a message immediately to say I spoke very well? I don't get it but I hope she's right!

How do spiders see?

Jul. 8th, 2025 03:03 pm
rynling: (Default)
[personal profile] rynling
Is a spider's vision stitched together like ours?
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/a0v8wy/is_a_spiders_vision_stitched_together_like_ours/

So, it's reasonable to suppose that information from the spider's primary and secondary eyes is integrated in the spider's brain, and in whatever way a spider has visual experience - which is certainly inconceivable to us - it experiences all its eyes in a single integrated frame. I think you'd kind of need a reason to suppose that spider vision is not integrated.

It's very cool that there are people in the world studying things like this. And, personally speaking, I would love to have secondary eyes. I love perceiving light and motion, no joke.

I'm doing this research for the story I want to write for the Bloodborne zine (here) btw. Sign-ups for contributors are open until June 20 if you're interested.
wychwood: John and Rodney making identical hand gestures (have fun!) (SGA - McShep clicky fingers)
[personal profile] wychwood
I have indeed played lots of ME:A (up to 34% completion, apparently). Also done many other things but all while lacking any desire to put any effort into documenting them! However, I have visited the Stourbridge Glass Museum with Miss H last Thursday, which felt more art-gallery-ish than really museum-y to me, but did have some lovely glass things. There's a big historic gallery, which has lots of... glasses and vases and things, mostly in categories by technique and with plaques that talk about the local connections and the like, and a big 20th century and contemporary gallery with lots of cool and fun modern art glass, with some glasses and vases and the like as well. They also have a "hot shop" with actual glassmakers working, which was my favourite part. I bought a ladybird suncatcher which is hanging on my window and looking very cheerful even behind the slatted blind.

Then on the Saturday we went to Thinktank, the science museum, to see the Space Vault exhibition and also TWO shows in the planetarium because we are suckers for a planetarium. Unlike the Leicester Space Centre we did not get to vote on any trivia questions, but we did learn about summer stars and also the Artemis project. The exhibition itself was full of space-and-astronaut objects that mostly weren't actually very exciting (a piece of broken insulation! a manual! some gloves!) but they did a good job of contextualising the artefacts and adding audio and visual components (although the audio was frankly not loud enough to actually listen to, given the volume in the rest of the floor) and I enjoyed myself. Although, as with last time I went to Thinktank, it was obscenely hot and humid, so I started dragging fairly quickly; possibly I am cursed.

Otherwise I have mostly been preparing for GRADUATIONS, mostly the part where I have to be on campus every day. I made what eventually turned out to be twelve portions of pasta bake, now largely filling my freezer, to be eaten for lunches etc, and attempted to mentally adjust to the prospect. Today was the first day, and so far I have done one ceremony (the first of the season!); I'm signed up for a second already, so we'll see how it goes...

Mixed blessings...

Jul. 8th, 2025 02:17 pm
wildeabandon: picture of me (Default)
[personal profile] wildeabandon
I have not, as yet, managed to find any work for over the summer, and am now slightly doubtful whether I'm going to be able to at all - it's quite rare for a contract to be shorter than a couple of months, so unless I get something starting in the next couple of weeks I'm probably not going to have enough availability.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, if I don't have any income at all this year, then my savings will be pretty much entirely exhausted by the end of the year. On the other hand, I am quite enjoying being a gentleman of leisure...

Music

Jul. 7th, 2025 11:33 pm
cornerofmadness: (Default)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
Since all I did today was laundry and write (and deal with family drama I don't want to share publicly), I'll just jump into music monday (and probably come back later to share the story)


So I'm still working through the Alphabet (and keeping myself to the last 5 years) and I'm up to N. Feel free to share your N song. Looking forward to them.

I don't have many Ns )


Also I have a little book review right here, mostly for [personal profile] spikedluv Murder She Wrote a Body in Boston


Here's another fast writing story

Title: I Can See Forever In Your Eyes

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel


Summary: Husker has been afraid to fall in love again. Angel, however, is making him rethink that.

at the above link or under here, written for Overlord Husk week )

Some literal ups and downs

Jul. 7th, 2025 07:47 pm
allekha: Two people with long hair kissing with a heart in the corner (Default)
[personal profile] allekha
Skating has been going well, despite ongoing boot issues (and I'm probably not going to get new ones from Graf before they go on summer vacation). I'm finally getting my free leg in front in spins! I conquered the stupid cassette tape crossover mohawk pattern!

Then, last week, I slipped on the stairs and fell the equivalent of three to four steps onto one foot. Be careful about stairs, everyone, that's not the first time in my life I've hurt myself on them.

I tried to look up sprain types out of curiosity and I... am not sure I actually sprained it because the pain was primarily in the front of my shin. Either way, I learned a month ago at my workplace that RICE is not really evidence-based, but we don't have much of an alternative that is. I did ice it at first to help with the pain, and I spent a day hopping around the house; heat seemed to help after the first few days when it started feeling all bruised. It's almost back to normal now, and I'm definitely looking forward to spending time on an ice rink again with the heat we've been having.

Z and I had a relaxing weekend of packing, making a snickdoodle cake, and on the second try (first ended with an anxiety attack) traveled out a bit to a pick your own lavender farm. The lavender plants were up on a beautiful hill overlooking a valley below with a swimming pond looking temptingly close.

lavender laying in basket
We thought we had two bundles, but they only charged us for one. (We also thought we had two varieties, but we were told they were both 'true blue' at different stages.) They smell amazing.

And finally, we are sooooo close to closing on the house. In fact, we were told we were going to close tomorrow! And then today I got a call saying that there were last minute issues that everyone involved was trying to wrap up. So we may or may not close tomorrow. We will learn in the morning. (I also had a stressful time because I don't have a bank branch locally, but my bank's website said you can't wire transfer the amount we needed. Turns out they can if you just call them and carefully spell out every name to the operator. At one point the operator had me on hold, I put their hold music on hold because the lawyer was calling and I wanted to let them know I had figured it out after all, and also a meeting I needed to be in was starting.)

So, may or may not have a house tomorrow, we'll see! Would really like to move in before Battleship starts, especially given that I already took time off for doing so 😅
rynling: (Cool Story Bro)
[personal profile] rynling
I'm putting together a slideshow about the contemporary glorification of Japanese wartime imperialism in otaku media, and.

Like obviously I don't think it was in any way good for Japan to commit genocide on the Asian continent, or that it was fun times for Japan to force its own citizens into a military that was, by all accounts, nothing less than hell on earth. Obviously. But listen. The aesthetic of that era was sick.

Read more... )

I say with nothing but sincerity that I'm against authoritarianism in all forms, but also I'm starting to think that progressive movements need better propaganda.
coffeeandink: (utena (fairytale ending))
[personal profile] coffeeandink

Ghost Quartet is a band: Dave Malloy on keyboard, Brent Arnold on cello, Gelsey Bell and Brittain Ashford on various instruments, and everyone providing vocals. Ghost Quartet is a song cycle, a concert album performed semi-staged, a mash-up of "Snow White, Rose Red," The One Thousand and One Nights, the Noh play Matsukaze, "Cruel Sister", "The Fall of the House of Usher", the front page photo of a fatal train accident, and a grab bag of Twilight Zone episodes. The ghost of Thelonious Monk is sometimes invoked, but does not appear; whisky is often invoked, and, if you see the show live, will most certainly appear. "I'm confused/And more than a little frightened," says (one incarnation of) the (more-or-less) protagonist. "It's okay, my dear," her sister/lover/mother/daughter/deuteragonist reassures her, "this is a circular story."

Once upon a time two sisters fell in love with an astronomer who lived in a tree. He seduced Rose, the younger, then stole her work ("for a prestigious astronomy journal"), and then abandoned her for her sister, Pearl. Rose asked a bear to maul the astronomer in revenge, but the bear first demanded a pot of honey, a piece of stardust, a secret baptism, and a photograph of a ghost. (The music is a direct quote of the list of spell ingredients from Into the Woods.) Rose searches for all these ingredients through multiple lifetimes; and that's the plot.

Except it is much less comprehensible than that. The songs are nested in each other like Scheherazade's stories; you can follow from one song to the next, but retracing the connections in memory is impossible; this is less a narrative than a maze. Surreal timelines crash together in atonal cacophany; one moment Dave Malloy, or a nameless astronomer played by Dave Malloy, or Dave Malloy playing Dave Malloy is trying to solve epistemology and another moment the entire house of Usher, or all the actors, are telling you about their favorite whiskies. The climax is a subway accident we have glimpsed before, in aftermath, in full, circling around it, a trauma and a terror that cannot be faced directly; the crash is the fall of a house is the failure to act is the failure to look is the failure to look away.

There are two recordings available. Ghost Quartet, recorded in a studio, has cleaner audio, but Live at the McKitterick includes more of the interstitial scenes and feels more like the performance.

In Greenwood Cemetery, there were three slightly raised stages separated by batches of folding chairs, one for Dave Malloy, one for Brent Arnold, and one for Gelsey Bell and Brittain Ashford, with a flat patch of grass in the center across which they sang to each other, and into which they sometimes moved; you could sit in the chairs, or on cushions in front of the first row, or with cheaper tickets you could sit in the grass on the very low hills above the staging area, among the monuments and gravestones, and, presumably, among more ghosts. The show started a little before sunset; I saw a hawk fly over, and I could hear birds singing along when the humans sang a capella. It was in the middle of Brooklyn, so even after dark I couldn't see stars; but fireflies sparked everywhere.

A Sunshiny writerly ways

Jul. 6th, 2025 07:31 pm
cornerofmadness: (Default)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
My cousins came today and stayed for like 6 hours so I am socialed out and my brain ain't coming up with witty writing stuff so I'm combining it with Sunshine challenge #2

Sunshine-Revival-Carnival-4.png

Challenge #2

Tunnel of Love
Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.
Creative: Write a love poem to anyone or anything you like



Now that I'm a college professor and not seeing patients any more, I have one thing I like about summer. I'm OFF WORK. Other than college sucks. Yeah I love to garden and swim but you can do both of that indoors and that's my preference. I'm heat intolerant. Summer literally makes me sick. Yeah I'm an autumn/winter kinda lady.

Yes I can appreciate all the good things that comes out of summer but yeah not really for me.



But I do have something about love written...or at least sex... have that story I wrote in a week 15K + here is chapter one. I'm proud of this one If Anything's Worth My Love, It's Worth a Fight It's Hazbin Hotel and it's naughty





Open Calls


Eldritch Prayers (Cthulhu Mythos Poetry Anthology)

Anomaly August 2025 Window science fiction stories under 300 words in length

Unseen Agreements Speculative stories that explore hidden bargains, mysterious contracts, and eerie agreements by Canadian authors

Dark Age Press August 2025 Window For Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Horror on the Range Horrifying Wild West Stories

Common Bonds 2 Stories that belong in the fantasy or science fiction genre, have a clear aromantic MC, & centers around a non-romantic relationship

Tractor Beam Volume 3 Speculative Fiction, Soilpunk (they're claiming to pay 1000$)

Ten Manuscript Publishers Open to Direct Submissions in July 2025

SQUID Online: Now Seeking Submissions.


22 Young Adult Publishers that Accept Unagented Submissions



From Around the web


How Authors Can Promote Books Using TikTok and Instagram

Juxtapositions Can Make Great Sentences

Generate Greater Book Profits in 4 Easy Steps

Gazingly (Lovingly) Into the Abyss—Introducing Horrormance, the New Genre-Blending Sensation so...apparently I've been reading and writing this without knowing it had a title

How to Subtitle Your Book to Encourage Sales

Story Development: The Overlooked Revision Opportunity.

Plot Holes? I Prefer to Call Them “Opportunities for Interpretation”

How Writers Can Stay Hopeful in a Tough Publishing Climate


From Betty

Constructing a Compelling Romance

Should Your Fantasy World Resemble Earth?

Adding Dance to Your Fictional Culture

The Gravity of a Single Word: Why Writers Must Choose with Care

Write Your Manuscript Like an Endurance Athlete Trains

The What Ifs of Building Believable Alternate History

How to Avoid Apostrophe Abuse


The Living, Breathing Novel

The Emotion Amplifier Playbook for Antagonists

Three Hidden Reasons Writers Procrastinate

How does a comp title help a self-published book’s marketing plan?

A Writer Can Rely on the Unreliable Narrator POV

Supper

Jul. 6th, 2025 10:11 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

After a lunch I couldn't do more than pick at, and a difficult conversation that both did and didn't surprise me, regarding the particulars of the factually-inaccurate version of me that I already knew lived in someone else's head, and then having to talk to my parents (without being able to tell my mom "that is none of my business" all the time like I wanted to)... By the end of all that it was 8:30 and I was too exhausted to go seek out food even though I needed more food.

So when [personal profile] angelofthenorth offered to make me scrambled eggs on a couple of crumpets... "there's cream in the fridge...with tarragon...and cheese..." I wanted to say no (she's made so much of the food I've eaten lately!) but apparently my facial expression answered for me.

It was delicious and it helped so much.

My head still feels like a browser that has too many tabs open, but at least my body can crash now.

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