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tinny

Here are the icons I made in June and July - most of them are HPI, and most of them were made for

land_of_art. Hope you enjoy!

Teasers:

( 58 total, most of those HPI )

Comments are love - and concrit, too. <3 Take and use as many icons as you like, credit is appreciated. Texture and brush makers: here in my resource post.

Previous icon posts:

mekare

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ldybastet

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staranise

😔 Another month when I have to ask for help with rent again. (My landlord lets me split it into two payments, but uh the second payment is coming up fast)

A GoFundMe for keeping my business (and me) afloat.

ldybastet

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anehan

This week I'm starting to really see the effect of being on holiday. My brain is starting to wake up, so not everything needs to be an easy read anymore.

Recently read

Mina V. Esquerra, What Kind of Day. DNF at 56%. For some reason I was utterly bored. Also, Naya (the FL) was annoying. Meh.

Ginn Hale, Lord of the White Hell: Book 1 & Lord of the White Hell: Book 2. Heavy-handed at times, both in world-building and in characterization, but I enjoyed these nonetheless. Still, by the time I had finished these I was more than ready to leave Kiram behind, so it's a good thing the next part of the series switches protagonists. Yay, more Elezar (bastard though he is).

William Marx, The Hatred of Literature. Very much NOT an impartial, dispassionate account.
If the accusation of immorality leveled at literature is among those that continue to elicit a response and still today serve to justify the banning of various books, it is because this accusation primarily concerns childhood and education and raises the image of readers who are defenseless before the representation of evil ... The ethical judgement an individual is supposed to be able to exercise in a real situation ... is considered to be lacking when that same person is confronted with a literary text: literature apparently deprives the reader of moral autonomy, which is why readers should be emancipated from literary custody.

I think "which is why readers should be emancipated from literary custody" is my new favourite. Marx is often so delightfully sarcastic.

Tero Tähtinen, Kuunkajoa lootuslammella (Moonlight in the Lotus Pond). An essay collection on Chinese literature.

Lynn Flewelling, Luck in the Shadows. Queer fantasy from the 90s. Lately, I've found two new-to-me fantasy series from the 90s, both of which first drew me in because of their queer protagonists and both of which I ended up loving for more than that. The first was Melissa Scott's Astreiant series; the second is this, the Nightrunner series.

Back in the 90s, I was still reading exclusively in Finnish, so books that had no Finnish translation never appeared on my radar. And then, later, I never even heard of either the Astreiant or the Nightrunner series, until very recently. With Astreiant, I saw a couple of recs on Bluesky this spring, but I can't remember how I heard about the Nightrunner. Somehow it just appeared in my want-to-read shelf on Goodreads. It's a mystery. But it begs the question: how many other fantastic older fantasy books am I not reading simply because I've never even heard of them?

Luck in the Shadows, the first part of the seven-part Nightrunner series, features the swashbuckling adventures of Alec and Seregil, a pair of spies who try to uncover treasonous plots and oppose the rise of old evil, guided by their wise old wizard handler. It's got a very 90s feel, for obvious reasons, which I felt was a draw rather than a deterrent. :D

The epub file has a lot of errors though: mostly random dots in the middles of sentences, but also missing quotation marks, sentences that start with a lowercase letter, and so on. Sloppy proofreading work, worse than what you'd usually find.

Currently reading

Lynn Flewelling, Stalking Darkness, the second part of the Nightrunner series, because I'm hooked.

Heli Rantala, et al., Kirjojen kaipuu, a book on book culture in early 19th century Finland. Really interesting so far, especially reading about the way reading and acquiring books was very much a social activity back then, in part because of the difficulty of sourcing books at all here in European periphery.

Up next

I think that, if I were smart, I would read something else than the next part of the Nightrunner series, because these are long books and I've noticed that reading too much of the same thing has diminishing returns on enjoyment. But I'm not sure I'm that smart.

geraineon

I rather not really talk about irl now so here are some non-irl things that has been kinda interesting:

Bathrooms!

I had a random conversation elsewhere about the frequency of bathing, how the bathroom is built, and how that is different in different places, inspired by this article about how an idol is leading a bathing cancel clique in Japan. My house is kinda old style so my bathroom has a large water container with a tap over it so there's the option to just dunk water over your body with a water scoop (very refreshing on a hot day) or use the more modern heater and shower head. Malaysian bathrooms are built to drain water efficiently because our toilets/bathrooms are wet rooms (tiled, with a drainage hole). I hated cleaning the bathroom in the U.S. because there's no drainage except in the bathtub so you have to mop the floor and then dry the floor. But here in Malaysia, I just apply water + soap to the floor liberally, scrub, and the water will drain.

Anyway, I ended up looking into bathing cultures in different places, and here are some interesting articles:

Bathing Practices as a Religious and Medical Encounter: Water, Climate and Health Across Monsoon Asia

The Peculiar Bathroom Habits of Westerners

Other fun links

And here are some links unrelated to the bathroom:

Draw a fish: Draw a fish! Then release it and let it swim among all the other drawn fish.

Radio-map: Listen to a radio station anywhere in the world!

china_shop

For the record, I had my 11th Covid jab today. (I'm only posting about it because this is where I look when I'm checking dates. :-)

china_shop

Three flashfics for

fan_flashworks, plus another instalment of my Chu Shuzhi/Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan post-canon 'verse.

Title: Behind another face (100 words) [General Audiences]
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Relationships: Zhang Shi & Shen Xi, Shen Xi/Zhao Xinci
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Complicated Relationships, Sharing a Body, Secrets, Drabble, Face challenge
Summary:

Zhang Shi meets Shen Xi.

Title: Take back the world (1288 words) [Teen and Up]
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Wang Yike/Zhang Ruonan
Additional Tags: Reference to canon rape, Aftermath of canon rape, Pre-Canon, Upsetting Dixing powers, Revenge challenge
Summary:

One day, everything falls apart.

Title: two are halves of one (851 words) [Teen and Up]
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Episode Related, Episode 22 after the blindness arc, First Kiss (for one of them), Crowd challenge
Summary:

A deep twist of desire makes Zhao Yunlan laugh. "After this—” He circles his chopsticks over the meal and has to clear his throat to keep his voice light. “Shen Wei, I think you should give me a thorough health check.”

Title: life in the silver lining (2732 words) [Teen and Up]
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Relationships: Chu Shuzhi/Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Complicated Relationships, The emotional implications of the existence of time travel, intimacy is hard, rated for themes
Series: Part 4 of Breakage and Repair 'verse (CSZ/SW/ZYL)
Summary:

“You’ve time-travelled before.” Shuzhi’s voice was low and raw. “What if the next time you go to Dixing, the Hallows open a portal to the past? Would you go and stop Ye Zun, and put everything back how it’s supposed to be?”

(Follows on from Raw Nerves, Old Scars.)

china_shop

Previous poll review
In the Reading preferences poll, 71.4% of respondents prefer standalone novels, and 55.1% like finished series. In terms of book selection, 61.2% prefer new books by favourite authors, 55.1% like discovering new authors, and 44.9% gaze helplessly at their TBR list.

In ticky-boxes, hugs won with 61.2%, followed by "carrying moonbeams home in a jar" and "teenage giraffes adopting more of a flamingo aesthetic" with 51% each. Thank you for your votes!

Reading
( Cut for length. )

Kdramas
Nothing But Love (AKA Nothing But You) (Cdrama). I love this so much, and it's so good for exercising to (lots of tennis players training and playing matches) that I'm slowing my rewatch, trying to make it last. I may have to start something else for my non-exercising viewing. Meanwhile,

tinny's made a Nothing But Love/You rec post, if you're curious.

Other TV
( Cut for length. )

Guardian/Fandom
So busy! All good things!

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, a lot of Letters from an American (for your regularly scheduled nightmare politics; bite-sized episodes in a calm, measured voice, with added historical/legal context), and a bunch of Keep It Steady (audiodrama adapted from a Les Mis modern AU) because a new episode dropped yesterday, so I backtracked a bit.

Writing/making things
I've been plugging away at a little "flashfic", but yesterday the

fan_flashworks deadline caught up with me, so I blatted out a different 850 words. I don't really have my teeth in anything atm. I miss it.

Life/health/mental state things
It's so cold, I think my brain has frozen. Not much goes in, and not much comes out either.

Food
I've got a theory it must be ~~bunnies~~ dumplings... that have messed up my arms, so I'm going to switch to using my cheapo dumpling press and see if that helps. (Boo! Folding dumplings is the fun bit.) I've recently made batches of pork and chicken, so I need to make vege ones next. I'm going to try a Moosewood sweet potato recipe my friend sent me.

Recently made: crispy tofu in various things, egg and tofu stir-fry.

Link dump
Forms of Resistance and Reasons to Believe It’s Working by

heathercoxrichardson (10:45, US politics; her whole channel is excellent).

Good things
Crispy tofu. New TV shows. Kudos and comments. Fanworks and outpourings of fannish love (and analysis and critique, too). People who post, people who comment, people who vote in polls, people who lurk. Wholesome kids' cartoons. Friday is forecast to be sunny. *hugs to you all*

Poll #33483 Obsessions

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 49

View Respondents

Current active fandoms

View Answers

none at the moment
8 (16.3%)

one
5 (10.2%)

a couple
15 (30.6%)

a handful
12 (24.5%)

a lot
0 (0.0%)

it's complicated
19 (38.8%)

there are a few things I dabble in on the side, but which I don't usually count
11 (22.4%)

I have blorbos but no fandom
4 (8.2%)

other
2 (4.1%)

ticky-box full of thirteen synapses in a bag of goo
17 (34.7%)

ticky-box full of dream parkour
23 (46.9%)

ticky-box of following an author (or narrator) up hill and down dale
19 (38.8%)

ticky-box full of goth butterflies and punk moths putting on a music festival at dusk
29 (59.2%)

ticky-box full of hugs
38 (77.6%)

nicki

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umadoshi

Three unrelated things that have been announced recently:

K.B. Spangler says that the sixth Rachel Peng novel is coming out in late October!
Discotek has announced that they're releasing Monster: The Complete Series, which is very exciting since AFAIK only the first chunk was ever released in a physical edition the first time it was licensed. (I think the whole series is on Netflix, but I want to own a copy.)
ANN reports that Minekura-sensei is not only resuming Wild Adapter after a nine-year hiatus but aiming to wrap it up in its eighth volume. If it's actually completed, I imagine that increases the odds of it being re-licensed in English. (I was more attached to Saiyuki, personally, but even though she resumed that last fall [and ANY of this is pretty miraculous, given my vague understanding of her health], I'm not even hoping for anything on that front. If I'm pleasantly surprised, that'll be awesome.)

(Not an announcement, but FYI for fellow Canadians, Z1L's Dongji Rescue has made it to the Cineplex site with the expected August 22nd date. That's...that's next Friday! Less than two weeks! At some point, there should be actual theatres and showtimes! *_*)

Current Mood: excited

starandrea

Me, yesterday: Did I get a new car because my old one failed inspection, or because I needed more room for plants?

My neighbor, today: This is your fault, you know.

*My new car is only nine years old, which is the newest car I've ever had. When I bought it someone asked how long I planned to keep it, and I stared at them in confusion. "Until it can't be fixed anymore," I said.

PS, the cannas are blooming and the dahlias are as tall as I am. Today I set up an auxiliary trellis so our passionflower vines would have more room to climb. They are v adventurous.

nicki

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umadoshi

Reading:

scruloose and I finished listening to All Systems Red and are now maybe a third of the way into Artificial Condition.

Yesterday I finished The Hands of the Emperor, which I think I read some of every day and still took me something like a week and a half even though I continued to really enjoy it all the way through. (I did find myself wishing that some of the emotional arc with Kip and his family had been shorter; [ROT13] uvf pbzcyvpngrq srryvatf nobhg uvf snzvyl abg ng nyy tenfcvat jub ur jnf be jung ur npghnyyl qvq jrer inyvq, ohg gung jnf n YBG bs cntrf qribgrq gb znal vafgnaprf va n ebj bs ehaavat vagb lrg nabgure crefba jub qvqa'g trg vg naq jnf qvfzvffvir be vafhygvat, be fbzrbar jub QVQ xabj jub ur jnf naq univat na vagrenpgvba, naq va rvgure pnfr gurer jnf gura lrg nabgure yratgul qryvirel bs rkcynangvba, naq vg jnf whfg...n ybg.

After finishing that last night, I completely at random started reading We'll Prescribe You a Cat (Syou Ishida), about which I have no particular feelings at this time.

Eating/baking: ( fruit, baking, salad (HelloFresh), sadness about still not liking tomatoes )

Current Mood: groggy

china_shop

Last night, Andrew and I and our tv-watching-with friend started The Sympathizer, a drama set just after the Vietnam war, about a Vietnamese double agent. It's structurally really interesting, and it has RDJ in multiple kind-of-gross roles, lol. Darkly funny, but deals with some really serious subjects.

Created by Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar, who are also showrunners. Yes, that Don McKellar.

It also, features Sandra Oh. I did not expect either of their names in the credits! :D

libitina

Shows to watch
Friday night - ~~War of Faith~~
Saturday 11am - Cancelled - The Heart Killers
Saturday 2pm - ~~My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho~~
Sunday 1pm - ~~Apothecary Diaries~~
Sunday 2pm - ~~Moon Embracing the Sun~~

Things to do
Have tea with Egyptian friend to exchange stuff ~~(Sunday night?)~~ (postponed)
~~buy some groceries and work snacks from Aldi~~
~~get cash / deposit a check~~
~~pick up my laundry~~
~~buy gas (for the car)~~
~~Ask neighbor if he will help clear the plants out of my alley and backyard (in exchange for cash)~~
~~gardening! (there still are some plants not in proper pots)~~
~~Keep sewing my red SCA dress~~
~~package up the dried herbs so you can harvest more herbs to dry~~
package up craft swap things to mail to people!
new: ~~put away the groceries~~
new: ~~put away the dishes~~
new: put away the laundry

Things to cook/eat
~~Clear room to put pickled things in the refrigerator~~
~~eat pickles?~~
start another jar of cucumber pickles
Do I want to try making cabbage kimchi? (not with this cabbage - use a fresher one)
marinate tofu for dinners (try making spicy tofu with the chinese soybean paste in the sauce)
~~eat butternut squash!~~
make paste to take to work for some book repairs!

nicki

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$radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)$

radiantfracture

Old Fairview: White Lake Observatory

Mile 12.1 (4.4) – Half a mile further along, the access to White Lake Observatory turns right. (White Lake itself is the alkali pond opposite the Twin Lakes turnoff.)

Because of their electrical systems, which interfere with the operation of the radio-telescope, cars are not allowed on the road to the radio telescope. The big dish itself towers above the other installations, listening eternally to signals from outer space. The maze of poles and overhead wiring back towards Oliver are another form of radio-telescope, which pick up very long radio waves. The observatory is well worth walking the three-tenths mile; what's happening is completely incomprehensible to the layman, but fascinating nonetheless.

(1975/77)

* * * * * *

This observatory still exists, under the rather grander name of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory. It is, so the government website tells me, "an internationally renowned facility for radio astronomy and leading-edge instrumentation." Until just now, I had no idea that it existed.

DRAO is still, naturally, a radio-quiet site, which must be more difficult these days than in 1975.

Dave Stewart, author of Okanagan Backroads, is quite right about its fascination. I am absolutely a lay person, and yet statements like this are weirdly thrilling: "The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is Canada's largest radio telescope. ... CHIME has no moving parts, but the Earth's rotation allows the telescope to map all of Canada's visible sky every day. CHIME was designed to survey atomic hydrogen from the largest volume of the Universe to date." No real idea why that would be important to do (feel free to explain!), but I'm glad it's happening here.

They have a Perseids viewing party next week!

§rf§

Source: https://nrc.canada.ca/en/research-development/nrc-facilities/dominion-radio-astrophysical-observatory-research-facility

edenfalling

Hello!

So since I last posted, I reached the gathering site in Alberta (a very swanky "cabin" in the Canadian Rockies, and I will not be any more specific than that, thank you very much). The get-together was WONDERFUL, which is unsurprising, but alas all good things must end so the vast majority of people left Sunday morning (July 20) in order to fly home (or in one case catch a bus to Banff). I drove northeast to Drumheller, leaving around 11ish, and that was the only day where I had to stop on the side of the road to pee in a ditch because Google Maps decided to route me via county roads through the middle of nowhere so I had no chance to find a gas station.

The Royal Tyrell Museum was EXCELLENT and I highly recommend a visit to anyone who has the chance. If you have the time, arrive in the morning to take a badlands hiking tour (this obviously did not work with my schedule), but the museum itself is still damn cool. I then spent the night in a "hotel" that was 7 rooms above an Indian restaurant. The room was fine! It was just kind of a surprise. But on the bright side, I bought a double order of garlic naan for an evening snack and proceeded to munch on that as car snacks for the next two days.

I also bought a t-shirt, a pair of socks, and a travel mug (no handle, has a tea-and-dinosaurs pun) from the museum gift shop. No regrets!

Monday the 21st I drove back south into the US and then took the Going-To-The-Sun Road from east to west through Glacier National Park. (I had previously acquired an America The Beautiful pass which gets you into ALL national parks, plus any sites managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA Forest Service, and US Army Corps of Engineers that charge an entrance fee.) Glacier is fucking BEAUTIFUL. Due to time constraints (and also weather; it was gray and drizzly during most of my visit) I didn't do any proper hiking, but I did get to walk upstream along Siyeh Creek for a little way.

I spent Monday night at a motel in Kalispell, west of Glacier, where I was able to wash a load of laundry. And I will post about the rest of my trip another day.

-----

In non-trip news, I am currently staying at Vicky's house while she is off on her own two-week road trip. She is circling through Chicago, Pittsburgh, NJ, DC, South Carolina, Tennessee, and then Chicago again on her way home to Minnesota. Meanwhile I am dogsitting Alfie, bringing in her mail, and generally making her house look lived-in rather than vacant.

What I get out of this is A) some distance from our parents, which is nice (I love them but it's still fundamentally awkward to live in their basement as a middle-aged adult); B) BETTER INTERNET (my parents' wifi works fine for anything word-based but is frankly tragic about images, gifs, and videos); and C) the company of one of the world's most adorable dogs. <3

In job search news, I have applied to two Not The IRS offices in the Twin Cities area (annoyingly you can't apply for a region -- you have to apply to each office individually). I have also updated my resume and tomorrow I am going to poke at LinkedIn until I can figure out how best to upload it and start refining my job search terms.

Also I may have fallen down a rabbit hole reading Ask A Manager columns, but shhh, we'll keep that as our little secret. ;)

Current Mood: gently tipsy
Current Location: minneapolis, mn

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Icon Drop June and July

Legend of Yunxi

Obon fic: キズ: Red Skies [Lime+Yue; R]

(no subject)

Obon fic: Sasaki to Miyano: Restroom of Terror [Sasaki/Miyano; PG]

Wednesday is on holiday

Some recent interesting stuff

Bathrooms!

Other fun links

Covid jab

Four recent fics (Guardian, various)

Me-and-media update

Parfume

Upcoming media things!

"we'll never be as young as we are right now"

Growing up

Weekly proof of life: reading + foodstuffs

Canada has come back to haunt me

Things to do this weekend

Afterward

More from Okanagan Backroads Volume One

a bit more trip reporting, plus a current life update

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November 2024

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