spindizzy | Reading

quixotic posting in

malagraphic

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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 (courtesy of

ysabetwordsmith): When learning a new art or craft, do you prefer level-grinding the basics, skipping ahead to the cool techniques, or a mix of both?

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
Currently Reading my desk

umadoshi

I complain sometimes about time and the surreality of the passage thereof and whatnot, but this morning I had several minutes of genuinely wondering if the way the year is barreling toward its end meant the first Sunday of Advent had already passed without my even noticing. I'm not sure if something about the timing of US Thanksgiving threw me off, or if it's as simple as my not having put "Advent begins" on my calendar, which I think I usually note in advance. (In practical terms it'd be fine; as it happens, I'm planning to use a "burn a bit every day of December" Advent candle, which probably means not breaking out the wreath for the four Sundays. But still.)

I often have weird dreams and don't usually remember much about them, but until today I'm not sure I'd ever before woken up from a dream where I was watching a movie? In the case of this dream, I was at the theatre watching what was officially a Newsflesh film adaptation, but in the sense that (from what I know of it, never having seen it) the World War Z movie is based on that book, which is to say, really not at all. ("Lead" characters who were supposed to be Georgia and Shaun, yes, but nothing to do with [*checks notes*] characters-as-people, zombies, viruses, or politics, and possibly not journalism, either. I think there was some sort of lab creating humanoid/animal mixes of some sort, possibly giving them guns.) It went on for quite some time.

My dream-self was appalled, of course, but at least glad to think Seanan had presumably gotten a decent chunk of money for the rights. She's got cats to feed!

badly_knitted posting in

drabble_zone

Title: Prisoner
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Varian, Camden, and the Privateers.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 477: Lock And Key.
Setting: Before the series.
Summary: Captured and flogged by a band of sixteenth century English privateers, Varian must find a way to escape.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
A/N: Triple drabble.

Prisoner

Current Mood: tired
Currently Reading my desk

misfitmonarchy posting in

fandomcalendar

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umadoshi

Reading: I finished August Clarke's Metal from Heaven (really good, with gorgeous writing) and read Into the Broken Lands, which was my first Tanya Huff book in...probably a couple of decades, honestly. Also really good. (I have a bonus soft spot for her because she was GoH at the local SFF con one year when I went in high school.)

Currently reading: Rebecca Mahoney's The Memory Eater.

And

scruloose and I are close enough to the end of Network Effect that we could probably finish it tonight if we really tried; annoyingly, it's due back at something like 6 PM today, and we can't get it finished by then, so we're gonna have to renew it. >.<

Cooking/Baking: I mentioned having apples we needed to bake with early in the month, and what we wound up going with was the Easiest Ever MOIST Apple Cake from RecipeTin eats, chosen in large part based on our available springform pans. It's tasty (we took the last pieces out to thaw for this evening), but I can't say "moist" is one of the first words it brings to mind. (It's not dry or anything, just...a perfectly pleasantly-textured cake.)

Tonight's dinner plan is Smitten Kitchen's Roast Chicken with Schmaltzy Cabbage. (It calls for a green cabbage and we have a Savoy, but hopefully that'll be okay.) Last weekend when we were out erranding we bought said cabbage, some carrots, and some broccoli (all still in the fridge), and some spring mix (fortunately not still in the fridge), but then we had a HelloFresh box to get through.

Buying vegetables is presumably the first step to actually cooking them, and I made sure to at least mostly choose some that would last a while. >.> The Bee Wilson book I mentioned recently has a section specifically on learning/practicing different cooking techniques with carrots, so I'm hoping to actually make use of the bag of carrots with my own hands. We'll see how that goes.

Householding: The upright freezer in the garage has been making unhappy noises and needing to be poked at periodically to keep it running. Time to get a new one, I guess. >.< Everyone loves appliance shopping!

Current Mood: hungry

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Current Mood: tired
Currently Reading my desk

badly_knitted posting in

drabble_zone

Title: Weapon Safety
Fandom: FAKE
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Bikky, Ryo.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 477: Lock And Key.
Setting: Early in the manga.
Summary: Something about Ryo’s after work routine is puzzling Bikky.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Double drabble.

Weapon Safety

Current Mood: tired
Currently Reading my desk

smallhobbit posting in

drabble_zone

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veronyxk84 posting in

drabble_zone

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ysabetwordsmith posting in

fandomcalendar

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Current Mood: busy

trobadora posting in

sid_guardian

Zhao Yunlan sprawled on a couch, grinning at his phone. The background shows a purple sky with stars. Text reads, "Slo-Mo Rewatch. Guardian - half an episode per week @ sid_guardian.dreamwidth.org"

Hi, welcome to this week's instalment of the Guardian drama Slo-Mo Rewatch! Watch half an episode a week, and then come and chat about it here in comments. Or you can just jump into the comments without rewatching, of course!

Here is last week's half-episode. On to the second half!

Episode 6, from 22:44

Summary:

Zhao Yunlan returns to Zhou Weiwei and makes her admit the truth: she switched places with Mirror Girl, and that was who was engaged to Ji Xiaobai. Ji Xiaobai, having confirmed what he already knew, isn't interested in a replacement goldfish. Mirror Girl tells the Envoy about a phrase her father used to repeat.

Then Zhao Yunlan and Da Qing talk about Shen Wei being suspicious, break into his flat, find his file on the SID, and have to hide when Shen Wei arrives. Zhao Yunlan sends a smoke messenger to the Regent, and a banner with a spy camera to Shen Wei. Da Qing teases him about his interest in the Envoy. Shen Wei confronts the uni's chancellor about Li Qian withdrawing, and has a brief conversation with Zhao Yunlan. Zhu Jiu puts a new agent in play. Finally, at night, Shen Wei is mugged by two thugs.

Quote:

Da Qing: "In this world, two people can be very close, but have never seen each other. But maybe once they've met, they'll see each other every day. Destiny is unpredictable."

Zhao Yunlan: "Damn Fatty, I never knew that you were a poetic cat."

Detail:

Zhao Yunlan: 这个也很好看，衣服真漂亮。我想给我女朋友买一件，哪买的呀？
This [photo] is nice as well; pretty outfit. I want to buy one for my girlfriend. Where'd you buy it?

I remember from the early days that fandom had decided Zhao Yunlan was talking about the coat Mirror Girl was wearing in the photo, and had related it to the similar trenchcoat Shen Wei wears in later episodes. And that despite the fact that the English subs - all of them: the original ones and the ones that came later, Solo's and the Viki ones - say "shirt"! Of course the Chinese only says 衣服, clothes, and IIRC this concept originally came from the Chinese side of fandom.

Questions:

What's your favourite part in this half of the episode? Do you think Shen Wei is too harsh on Mirror Girl? Do you feel for Ji Xiaobai? for the human Zhou Weiwei? Why is Zhao Yunlan stepping up the investigation into Shen Wei? Do you think the spy camera is warranted? Why does Shen Wei respond to being mugged like that, when he could easily defeat the muggers? Any thoughts about how any of this relates to the novel?

(These are all just conversation starters - feel free to answer all, some, or none, and to say as much or as little as you like! You don't have to be keeping up with the rewatch to join in!)

And here is our schedule for the next batch of episodes - please do sign up to host a post if you can!

silvercat17 posting in

justcreate

What are you working on? What have you finished? What do you need encouragement on?

Are there any cool events or challenges happening that you want to hype?

What do you just want to talk about?

What have you been watching or reading?

Chores and other not-fun things count!

Remember to encourage other commenters and we have a discord where we can do work-alongs and chat, linked in the sticky.

I'm going to promote my blog post on the Ultimate Text Readability Trick because I had a friend need it today. The secret is CHUNKY OUTLINES (Instructions are text and screenshots, with alt text)

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Current Mood: tired
Currently Reading my desk

badly_knitted posting in

drabble_zone

This week's challenge is:

Lock And Key

Reminder of Rules

Entries should be 100, 200, or 300 words exactly, excluding titles and headers.
Please place the body of your entry behind a cut.
Tag with the appropriate Challenge, Fandom, Type, and Ratings tags. If a tag for your fandom doesn't exist, leave a request on the Tag Request post and I'll create the tags you need. You can request as many fandom tags as you want.
You don't need to use the challenge word or phrase in your drabble, though you can if you like.
Each challenge ends when the new challenge is posted, but if you're a few days late that's still fine.

NEW RULE: DOUBLE AND TRIPLE DRABBLES ARE ALSO ACCEPTED ;)

Have fun!

Current Mood: tired
Currently Reading my desk

rionaleonhart

More horrible adventures in the Silent Hill 2 remake! I've just reached Brookhaven Hospital, but this entry contains full Silent Hill 2 spoilers.

( Notes on the Silent Hill 2 remake. )

This is such a good remake! It's clear that a lot of respect and love for Silent Hill 2 went into it. It really feels like the original without being constricted by it; it modifies and expands on details in ways that feel true to the original game. I'm so impressed!