Janet Miles

Can a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification? Should a community of otaku save their apartment building from gentrification?

Princess Jellyfish, volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura

The damn things continue to overlap

• surgeon appointment: nothing new, but the margins on what was removed aren't big enough, back in surgery - that's my Friday.
• the next step in the candidacy paperwork was in fact not my responsibility, and I now have an email to say I've passed that hurdle (here it is called 'Milestone 1').
• Last Monday rehearsal of the year was this week; I tried bowing for one line of very long/slow notes and ow, nope, not yet. Was, however, good support for the other viola player, including singing some of the bits where the viola has the melody. We had a new violin player! I hope they come back, they seemed to be having fun.
• Today was my last day on campus for the year. I will be working some over the shutdown, because I'm supposed to have my ethics drafted by mid January, and I still don't know what I don't know. Treated myself to curry and a fizzy drink for lunch.
• Finished Building a second brain (Tiago Forte), which I've gained some useful ideas from. Recommended if you are needing a way to organise the information that is coming in to your life; not elsewise.
• Youngest went bouldering with co-workers on Monday, and is learning yet again about not relying on hyperextended elbows to do the work (their grip strength isn't, and their forearms hurt "weirdly")
• have woken up twice this week having done Something Stupid in my sleep. Monday it was the right hip not quite in the right place (went back in during rehearsal, I staggered in looking awful, I gather) and today it is something with the muscles of the right shoulder and halfway down the back -- I could barely move the shoulder this morning, and it has settled down to 'about half the time one or more muscles are spasming'.

Rec time! Did you read/watch/listen to something you really liked and would love other people to know about, too? Don't have the time or energy to make a full promo post, or think such a small thing doesn't merit a separate entry?

Here's your chance to share with the class! Just drop a comment with a link and maybe a couple of words in description. No need to overthink things, it can be as simple as Loved this! or OMG, look at that!. (You don't need to keep it short, though, write as much as you want.)

Check out the previous entries, too!

Vegan Chicken Marsala Soup
Prep Time10 mins Cook Time30 mins Total Time40 mins Servings: 6

Ingredients

Tofu "Chicken"
1 Block(15oz) Extra firm tofu, drained and pressed*
2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
1 teaspoon Garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon Onion powder
1/4 teaspoon Turmeric
1 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Black pepper
2 Tablespoons Olive oil

For The Rest of the Soup
4 Tablespoons Vegan butter, divided
2 Tablespoons Olive oil
6 Cloves Garlic, chopped
1/2 a Sweet onion, diced
8 Ounces Baby Bella mushrooms, chopped
2 Tablespoons All-purpose flour
1 Cup Sweet Marsala wine or Marsala cooking wine
8 Cups Vegetable broth
8 Ounces Ditalini pasta or other small pasta
1-2 teaspoons Lemon juice
1/2 Cup Vegan Parmesan
Salt and Pepper to taste

( Read more... )

I sang in a concert tonight. We got to sing in a local synagogue with fabulous acoustics because the synagogue's event director joined the choir this session. It was great to be able to hear each other and know that the audience was hearing us sound better too.

I had a small trio part in a Serbian song, and then a solo verse in a Ukrainian song where there were 17 (!) short verses and we each had one, except the last one we all sang together.

It all came together! I was nervous, but it all flowed, and I'm getting better at being able to open up and sing even with an audience there. As the sessions go by and we all get to know each other and get more comfortable with performing, the ambient nerves settle down and I have an easier time managing my own nerves. I used to outright panic, and now I worry a fair amount beforehand, but by the time the concert itself rolls around, I figure I'm as prepared as I'm going to get.

So grateful to get to sing with this teacher and these singers every week. This is a big piece of what I came back to the Bay Area for.

.... but much more slowly. I reread Vallista this past week, and that book sure hits different in a few ways after reading Tsalmoth!

( Spoilers for both Vallista and Tsalmoth )

That's how my day is moving. Even working with timers I got so very little done and it was suddenly it was time to go to the endocrinologist. I could use another day down here but I'm afraid to go home friday. Thursday is meant to be nearly 60 and raining but then down to freezing again. I'd rather be home to avoid that.

I'm getting to that overwhelmed, gonna cry state. But at least I finally got the damn holiday lights out there (boy that little solar panel battery is something. They turned on immediately after being in a closet for a year. I put the garland on the other side of my porch, the one that's collapsing. I think at this point the garland is gonna be what's holding up the side rail if it get another heavy snow.


It looks like maybe, just maybe I can keep most of my meds and/or qualify for coupons. I make like 200$ too much a month to qualify for medical assistance. Let that sink in for a little while. We're doctors. We're college professors. Our pay is SO low we almost qualify for medicaid. And If I had kids I WOULD qualify. And oh, I signed up for the new insurance with the 9K deductible. It's costing 1100$ a month. Let that one soak in too. FFS. No wonder they won't hire help for my department.

My blood work is not great. My kidneys are working great but with my HGA1C sneaking ever higher. That's not great. I'm unhappy which is only going to make my sugar higher thanks to the stress. At least my hemoglobin is coming up. I still have too many tiny pale red blood cells but they're functioning better than last time. She did agree I'll probably have to start B12 shots. Cries. But at least the evolutionary bullshit adaptation for malaria is behaving itself for now.

From there I went to Gallipolis for dinner and the Christmas lights. I knew the Mexican place (since it's owned by the same brothers as the one in Jackson) would be giving out those envelopes for free stuff in January. I was laughing at the new offerings. One of them is punny. Juan Huge Burrito.

the lights were beautiful. They always are. I didn't upload the pictures yet. I will. but I haven't even showed you anything for months.


I forgot my tea advent again

Day 12 - Rocky Mountains - National Park Tea Black teas, raspberry leaf, raspberry flavor, sage leaf, and raspberry pieces. How did I miss this one? I had a sample box of these ones. either I had gotten a bad sample then because this was phenomenal very raspberry

Day 13 - Rooibos Sweet Sizzlin Cinnamon Herbal Tisane Rooibos, organic cinnamon pieces, sweet sizzlin cinnamon flavor and safflower petals. At least the cinnamon overpowers the rooibos funk.

Day 14 Apple Sage Black Tea black teas, apple pieces, natural apple sage flavoring and blackberry leaf. oddly weak sauce and boring. At least it didn't taste like sage

Day 15 Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Black Tea Blend Black teas from India, Sri Lanka, China and Taiwan and bergamot oil. They have a whole collection of literature inspired teas (Poe is my favorite) What says Dostoyevsky about this? Nothing but it is a nice complex earl grey

day 16 Snickerdoodle Rooibos Herbal Tisane Organic Green Rooibos, organic cinnamon pieces, sweet blackberry leaf and snickerdoodle flavoring. Needs more snickerdoodle/cinnamon


Fannish 50 ( Spoilers for The Amazing Digital Circus episode 7 )

This was the best of the gingerbread cuneiform. I put the good ones in the freezer to give to pals tomorrow at brunch and will eat the rest, or something. This is one of the maple syrup tables, which were lighter in colour and held the clarity slightly better. (More water, therefore harder texture? Not sure.)

I copied characters from Andrew George's excellent renderings of the tablets, as any photos I looked at were way too unclear. However, I freely skipped tricky characters or sections. Sîn-lēqi-unninni would be pissed.



ETA: Oh, I believe this text is taken from a fragment of the third tablet.

§rf§

Round-up of a bunch of recent baihe mini-dramas (with the usual dose of plausible deniability), all in vertical format.

1. My Bestie is Three Thousand Years Old (我的姐妹三千岁, pinyin: wo de jiemei san qian sui). A kind-hearted but penniless girl stumbles into a suspiciously long-lived ice queen CEO's life, and eventually they learn that their fates have been connected for thousands of years. Lightweight and very tropey, but fairly fun (especially if you don't think too hard about it). It aired originally on the Hongguo (红果) app, and can also be viewed on the Fanqie (番茄) app. It is available here with English subtitles. 89 episodes of two to three minutes each.

2. Met Her Majesty the Emperor While On the Run (逃婚路上遇女帝, pinyin: taohun lushang yu nüdi). A voice actress time-travels to the past, and finds herself in the body of a young woman who has sort-of accidentally murdered her new husband on their wedding night. She goes on the run, in the process of which she encounters and helps (and is helped by) the titular female emperor. The writing is pretty weak, and the production looks very low-budget, and I think you'd have the best chance of enjoying this if you turned your brain mostly off. It aired originally on Douyin (playlist here) and can be viewed here on YouTube with truly woeful MTL English subtitles and muted-out BGM. 59 episodes of two to three minutes each. Content notes: sexual assault and threats thereof, some ableism.

3. Two Empresses Dowager Reborn (两宫太后重生了，更改诏书换皇帝, pinyin: liang gong taihou chongsheng le, genggai zhaoshu huan huangdi). On the day her son takes the throne, Noble Consort Yu Lianruo has her rival Empress Chu Jiuyin put to death — only to be betrayed in her turn. When she wakes up, having been reborn just before that fateful day, she swears vengeance and gains an unlikely ally. For the optimum viewing experience, turn off your brain slightly (though not as much as for the previous show), ignore the whiplash pacing, plot holes and continuity errors, and focus on having a good time shipping the empress and the consort (plus the secret secondary f/f couple). Jiang Wuhan, who plays the empress, also plays the CEO in My Bestie is Three Thousand Years Old. It aired originally on the Hongguo app, and can also be viewed on the Fanqie app. It is available here with bad MTL English subtitles and muted BGM. 80 episodes of two to three minutes each. Content notes: sexual assault (of big bad) played for laughs, implied rape.

4. Be Her Persistence (犟骨, pinyin: jiang gu). Zheng Xingxing time-travels back to the late Qing Dynasty/early Republican Era, where she meets Jiang Jinghua, a young woman from a rich, abusive family. Together the two of them strike a blow against the patriarchy by setting up a school for girls and women. The costumes and props are surprisingly high quality, though I had questions about historical accuracy and especially plot accuracy — surely these girls shouldn't be so nicely dressed when they've barely got two coppers to rub together and are huddling in an abandoned temple for shelter? The same cannot be said for the writing, which goes from marginally serviceable (though rather didactic) at the beginning to an INCREDIBLE number of plot holes and dropped plotlines towards the end, which is a pity given the ambition and importance of the theme. Jiang Jinghua is played by Peng Yaqi, who also plays Song Jiayu in Be Her Resilience (以她之韧, pinyin: yi ta zhi ren), hence my title translation for this show. This aired originally on Xiaohongshu (playlist here). It is available here with bad MTL English subtitles and muted-out BGM. 44 episodes of two to three minutes each. Note: Peng Yaqi also plays Zheng Xingxing's grandmother (I don't know why, perhaps an anti-censorship measure?) but the show makes it very clear that the grandmother and Jiang Jinghua are not the same person.

How great would it be to talk with animals, through magic or technology or… whatever?

Five Books About Conversing With Animals

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: Does anyone have any plans for making Christmas gifts or cards?


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!

For Reasons, I need three colors of apples in my story. I'm looking for a bright, deep red; a strong yellow/gold; and an intense, bold green. (All when ripe, preferably.) Right now I've got good ol' Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith, but I'd like somethng more exciting (and more strongly colored) for at least two of them.

The setting is technically modern-day Illinois, but it's a post-apocalyptic scenario with a lot of supernatural stuff going on, so exotic varieties from other climes would be entirely feasible. I have a character who can be an apple expert if it's a variety so unusual that most USians wouldn't recognize it. Grafting, planting, import/export, and pretty much any other limitations can all be readily hand-waved by the aforementioned supernatural stuff.

TIA, Malus enthusiasts!

My final peice for my course.

All of my cold weather clothing is either military surplus or hand me downs from cousins in the oil fields.

I might need to figure this out. (This is JANUARY weather, not December!)

Starmen marooned in barbaric America!

Hard Landing by Algis Budrys

Chicken Artichoke Pasta
Prep Time 10 mins Cook Time 20 mins Total Time 30 mins Servings 6

4 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup green onions chopped
1 tablespoon garlic chopped
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast cut into bite size pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/3 cup water
14 ounces artichoke hearts drained
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons butter
10-12 ounces penne pasta cooked
3/4 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese

INSTRUCTIONS

Heat olive oil, onions, and garlic in a large skillet. Add chicken, salt, and red pepper flakes. Cook until chicken is cooked through.
Add water and scrape the bottom of the skillet. Add artichoke hearts and heavy cream.
Let reduce (cook 7 minutes until half as thick).
Remove from heat and stir in butter and parmesan cheese. Add pasta.
Serve with green onions, red pepper flakes, and parmesan cheese.

NOTES
Looking to mix it up? Try shrimp instead of chicken for a delicious alternative.
Or, for a vegetarian version, use mushrooms instead of chicken.
You can use marinated artichokes for even more flavor!

All Guardian drama, no archive warnings apply. :-)

Title: The Mouse and the Dragon (1559 words) [General Audiences]
Characters: Guo Changcheng, Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei
Additional Tags: Background pre-relationship Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Missing Scene, Episode 4, Guo Changcheng interrogates Shen Wei, zhao yunlan pov, Community: fan_flashworks, Prompt: Fish
Series: Part 1 of The rest of the SID team interrogate Shen Wei (episode 4)
Summary:

Zhao Yunlan watched Shen Wei closely. Could his unflappable demeanour survive Xiao-Guo’s naïve bluntness?

Title: Analysis and Verification (838 words) [General Audiences]
Characters: Lin Jing, Shen Wei, Wang Zheng
Additional Tags: Background pre-relationship Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Missing Scene, Episode 4, Lin Jing "interrogates" Shen Wei, Wang Zheng too
Series: Part 3 of The rest of the SID team interrogate Shen Wei (episode 4)
Summary:

Lin Jing stuffed his dark-energy detector into his pocket and arranged his sweatshirt to cover it as he headed next door. When he passed the boss in the hallway, they exchanged nods, and then Lin Jing was leaning into the interview room. “Professor Shen, I’ll see you out.”

Title: not close enough (300 words) [General Audiences]
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Flirting, Timeloop feels, Episode Related, Episode 6, Yearning, Triple Drabble
Summary:

Zhao Yunlan is across from him, slouching forward with sleeves pushed up, making inroads into Shen Wei’s space.

Title: Sartorial Evidence (550 words) [General Audiences]
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Shen Wei, Shen Wei's clothes
Additional Tags: Episode Related, Episode 4, Dixing Powers, Clothing, Shen Wei POV, UST, Zhao Yunlan touches Shen Wei A LOT, Community: fan_flashworks, Prompt: First Aid
Summary:

The morning after he’s found at a crime scene and taken to the SID to be interviewed, Shen Wei opens his armoire and—stops.

Title: Crudité (4183 words) [Mature]
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Episode 22, Post-Blindness Arc, Missing Scene, Porn Without Plot, First Time, vegetable sex, Oral Fixation, Non-Penetrative Sex, Unorthodox Seduction Techniques
Summary:

As the clatter of food preparation starts up in the kitchen, Zhao Yunlan folds his arms behind his head. Just how unambiguous does he need to be to override Shen Wei’s reservations? What will it take to get them what he knows they both want? If he’s as weird and over-the-top as his apartment, will that turn Shen Wei on or turn him off?

Title: Hard at work [General Audiences]
Relationships: Da Qing & Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Beginner Art, This is how Zhao Yunlan runs the SID, Ably assisted by his deputy, Episode 2, Fanart, Community: fan_flashworks, Prompt: Boss
Summary: Coloured pencil & ink sketch of Zhao Yunlan lying on the SID couch with cat Da Qing on the table next to him.


Title: The Gondolier of Dixing [General Audiences]
Characters: Chu Shuzhi
Notes: Beginner art (colour pencil, ink, a little digital messing about).
Summary: What if Dixing were flooded and became a city of canals?

These are all from the same auto-transcription closed captioning.

• rosary phone (rotary phone)
• content scripture (content description)
• gaming council (gaming console)

This was from a presentation by an Irish group who teach cyber safety in schools. I don't remember how pronounced the presenter's accent was, but ah, those sure are some interesting errors.