lotesse | Reading

so now I'm spending some part of my evening with another coworker instead of by myself, which means I can't just summarily turn off the TV. Other people are weird when they want the TV on even if they aren't watching it, but since they think I'm weird for preferring blissful silence I guess sometimes I have to compromise.

Which means that the other day my entertainment choices were either a long and frankly tedious piece on the JFK conspiracy theories, or HP1. Welp, JFK won't get any deader, and practically speaking, JKR won't get any richer. The choice wasn't really very agonizing, is what I'm saying. I feel like maybe it ought to have been, but no. (That place does not have enough channels. If I'm going to be stuck watching TV for even part of the night I really need to figure out how to get my phone on the screen.)

All this led me to realize something that I somehow don't think I ever thought about before, which is that the plot of book 2 doesn't make any fucking sense, like, right from the start. How exactly did Lucius set it up so that he'd happen to bump into the Weasley family? What if they hadn't gone shopping that day? There clearly was a lot of planning that went into this, so what was his backup? Really, none of those plots hold together if you look at them too hard. And that's not too unusual for fiction, but I'm not particularly inclined to be charitable about it.

**********

( Read more... )

conuly

Watch on YouTube

But never fear, he no longer has a bear living in his crawlspace. He now has two bears.

torachan

1. I stopped in the bagel shop on my walk this morning because I saw through the door that they have a new white chocolate peppermint latte and that was irresistible! I also got a pumpkin sandwich cookie (cream cheese frosting inside) and that was also very tasty. And on the menu they have a Thanksgiving sandwich, so I asked the guy at the counter how long they would have it for and he said this week and maybe next week, so since Carla will be home tomorrow (picking her up at the airport later tonight), I'm going to get us that for breakfast.

2. I got an email today from the library saying they will be closed for the weeks of Christmas and New Year, so I went and put a bunch of books on hold so I can have plenty of books to tide me through. Not that I don't have a bunch of books at home or ebooks and such, but I always like to have a physical library book going as well.

3. When I got home from my walk this morning there was a strong cat pee smell in the living room, which is a bad sign since there are no litterboxes in that room. I managed to pin it down to the warming bed by the front window. Nothing was wet or even damp, but it definitely smelled like pee. I think someone sat on it with a damp butt and the warming function enhanced the smell. D: But using enzyme spray and running it through the wash seems to have gotten the smell out, except for the foam siding, which can't be washed and had to be thrown away. So now it is a warming cushion instead. After I did that wash, I noticed the smell seemed to have also seeped into the drapes that hang right next to it, so I had to wash those, too, and ended up just working from home today because of too much laundry lol. Thankfully I did not have anything pressing that required going into the office.

4. Look at this guy!

senmut

10trueloves - prompt table and claim one character to do ten relationships with

Claiming Dinah Lance

01.	Surprise.	02.	Trust.	03.	Noise.	04.	Tears.	05	Mask.
06.	Fight.	07.	Accident.	08.	Overprotective.	09.	Broken.	10.	Loss.

sonia

runpunkrun asked if I've read any good books lately, and I've been lucky enough to find several. Ongoing booklog at Curious, Healing.

The one I want to highlight today is Kitchens of Hope by by Linda S. Svitak and Christin Jaye Eaton with Lee Svitak Dean
Subtitle: How transforming ourselves can change the world

This book out of Minnesota is a celebration of immigrant success stories and food from around the world. I haven’t tried any of the recipes yet, but I loved the photos and stories of how people connected with each other and found new places to thrive.

Highly recommended – I’m giving copies for the holidays this year.

Photography of the cooks and their dishes by Tom Wallace

sweetsorcery

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3176/

Some tires are marketed as 'all-shape tires,' but if driven in a climate with both inverted catenary falls and triangle falls, they wear out really fast.

https://xkcd.com/3176/

petra

I do not keep up with DC Comics canon anymore. I haven't for a long-ass time. But people on my Tumblr dash do, and they share just enough to confuse me.

I remember when Bruce Wayne adopted Tim Drake because I immediately wrote a story about it in which a) they have sex and b) they have issues. I mean -- so many issues.

The punchline of that story has always been, for me, that Bruce has no goddamn business adopting the 16-year-old son of people he knew.

20 and a bit years on, Tim is 16 again despite the theoretical passage of time in comics, various other characters aging, and assorted other nonsense, and DC Editorial has him ( Cut for spoilers )

There was also a page that went by on my Tumblr dash recently that drew Tim with Shoulders and Muscles, from who knows when, which was also #notmytimdrake, but in a way that made my brain convinced that Bernard was cheating on Tim with Kon.

Current Mood: baffled
Current Music: What's next? The fourth? The fifth?

senmut

AO3 Link | Remember Who You Are (300 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sinners [2025]
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Annie Moore & Mary [Sinners]
Characters: Annie Moore, Mary [Sinners 2025]
Additional Tags: Triple Drabble, Female Friendship, Community: ladiesbingo
Summary:

Annie and Mary say good-bye before Little Rock

Remember Who You Are

It wasn't that Annie didn't like Mary. Far from it, given their lives kept tangling. Annie was one of the only ones who didn't think the girl should be pushed to be white. Every time she thought about Mary and Elias, she did feel uneasy, as something lingered in the dark of the night about the pair.

"Mary."

"Annie."

Now why was the girl already on the defensive, unless…

"Are you needing my special tea, honey?"

Annie watched the defensive give way to worry, then embarrassment, before Mary shook her head.

"I know what not to do, thank you," Mary said firmly.

"Good." Annie beckoned her to come into the house so she could keep working. "Was surprised to see you out here."

"Wanted to say goodbye, given you've been around for so much of my life. Mama — I don't suppose you'll keep an eye on her for me?"

"I'll do the best I can, but she's always thought I was a devil tempting her milk-son."

Mary laughed, bitterly. "She's got too much church in her, but it would mean a lot."

Annie nodded to all that, trying to ferret out if the shadows on their lives, cast by the twins, was all that had ever unnerved her about Mary. Nothing was stirring in her second sense of people, so maybe she'd have to try harder with a ritual later.

"I try to keep an eye on all of our people, Mary. Even when they shun me for being what I am." She then tipped her head to the side. "Little Rock calling?"

Mary looked down, then back up with resolve. "Stack thinks it's for the best, fresh start where no one ever knew me in the black community."

"You keep yourself safe, Mary, and remember, always, who you are."

alas_a_blog_feed

Posted by Ampersand

https://amptoons.com/blog/?p=27728

This cartoon is by me and Nadine Scholtes.

This cartoon was inspired by an exchange I read on Twitter (as it was called back then) and saved. Unfortunately, the account no longer exists, so I can’t link to it. But “Rebecca53109068” wrote:

Stop saying “defined by.” My race/culture is a part of who I am. It’s a part of my identity and I’m proud of it. Native Americans feel the same, and so do many other folks. Just because it means nothing to you doesn’t mean it should be dismissed or ignored.

Question: why must you pretend I’m not Black in order to treat me fairly and judge me by the content of my character?

This is not at all a new debate. Back in 2003, in Jennifer Richeson and Richard Nussbaum conducted a study, comparing white people’s reactions to being exposed to messages “advocating either a color-blind or a multicultural” view.

Relative to the multicultural perspective, exposure to the color-blind perspective generated greater automatic racial bias… , the present findings echo the vast majority of non-experimental research in education finding that multiculturalism yields more positive outcomes for intergroup relations than color-blindness.

More to the point of this cartoon, Adia Harvey Wingfield wrote:

Many Americans purport not to see color. However, their color blindness comes at a cost. By claiming that they do not see race, they also can avert their eyes from the ways in which well-meaning people engage in practices that reproduce neighborhood and school segregation, rely on “soft skills” in ways that disadvantage racial minorities in the job market, and hoard opportunities in ways that reserve access to better jobs for white peers.

Colorblindness, in a society with racism, perpetuates racism. And if there was a society with no racism, then that society wouldn’t need colorblindness. There is no context in which colorblindness makes sense.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. They all so two people – BOB, a white guy with glasses, and JOE, a Black guy wearing a tan zip jacket – talking as they walk on a suburban sidewalk.

PANEL 1

BOB: I’ve got the solution to racism: Colorblindness!

JOE: Where we all pretend not to see race? That won’t fix things like police brutality or the racial wealth gap.

PANEL 2

Bob raises a finger to make a point.

BOB: But is the problem really nonwhites being treated badly by police and employers and banks and landlords and so on?

PANEL 3

A close up on a pleased-looking Bob.

BOB: Or is the real problem that when whites like me hear about racism we feel implicated and we resent that?

PANEL 4

Joe folds his arms, annoyed, while Bob looks very smug.

JOE: I’m guessing you’re gonna say the second one is the problem.

BOB: Not out loud.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obsolete cartoonists’ lingo for fun but unimportant details in the art. I’m determined to bring it back. (“Gretchen, stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen, it’s NOT going to happen!”)

Panel 1: A flyer stapled to a tree shows a dog wearing a yellow bowtie, with the caption “LOST DOG.” The same dog, with a sneaky expression, peeks out from behind the tree.

Panel 2: A sun-headed and a moon-headed person are sitting at a bus stop in the background, both just reading their phones.

Panel 4: The dog from panel 1 flees as a butterfly net reaches for it.

The Benefit of Colorblindness | Patreon

https://amptoons.com/blog/?p=27728

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: indescribable

conuly

Honestly, if you ban somebody it ought to warn you before you comment on their posts so that if you forget or don't realize you don't end up in an awkward situation.

yuletide_admin_feed

Posted by morbane

https://yuletide-admin.livejournal.com/299287.html

There's a new post up on the Yuletide Admin comm regarding Oncoming default deadline. Please note that there may have been a delay between that post and this crosspost.

You can go through to DW to check the details:

Dreamwidth Post

If you have follow-up questions, they can be asked in the DW comment section using a DW login, OpenID with another login, or a signed anonymous comment.

https://yuletide-admin.livejournal.com/299287.html

pauraque posting in

booknook

It's Wednesday! What are you reading?

oursin

What I read

Finished O Shepherd, Speak! - as ever, Lanny manages to find himself at major historical events. A particularly fascinating thing considering that news story about Hitler's DNA - he is admitted to the bunker and takes a slice of bloodstained sofa-cover.... In the aftermath of WW2, he has been left money to work for World Peace and he and friends are working for this. One thing I do find a bit curious about Lanny's generally progressive line is that the civil rights question (was it being called that in the 30s/40s?) doesn't seem to feature: maybe because he was brought up in Europe and mostly lived there? His focus on the World Stage???

Val McDermid, The Skeleton Road (Inspector Karen Pirie #3) (2014): not sure this was really doing it for me - there was a point where it just seemed to be going on and on.

Have plunged into a re-read of Barbara Hambly's Silver Screen mysteries (getting myself back up to speed on the series with a new volume forthcoming): so far Scandal in Babylon (2021) and One Extra Corpse (2023). Possibly one reads for the evocation of Hollywood at that era rather than the actual mystery plots, but good, anyway.

On the go

Saving Susy Sweetchild (Silver Screen #3) (2024)

Still dipping into Some Men in London, 1960-1967.

Up next

I am feeling the siren call of The Return of Lanny Budd.

I also realise that I have managed to sign myself up for 3 bookgroups meeting in January, 2 online (Pilgrimage, first meeting, Dance to the Music of Time, concluding volume) and 1 in person (fairly) locally - have managed to fight off suggestion that we read the Mybuggery wot won the Booker, but am now committed to the extremely LOOOOONG new Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

***

Further to yesterday's mysterious email from Academic Publisher, have received a further and more official-looking email today:

You may recently have received a message from us with the subject line "Welcome to [redacted] GCOP".
This email was caused by a system error. You can therefore ignore it and do not need to take any action.
Apologies for any confusion the message may have caused.

***

✨ holiday love meme 2025 ✨
my thread here

twistedchick

What is remembered, lives. What is remembered in the military is used to teach future soldiers, sailors, airmen and Guards. What will be remembered of the officers involved in Hegseth's illegal orders?

rmc28

About ten days ago, my hockey-and-languages buddy Owen enthused about Percy Jackson to me on the journey to/from my game in Lee Valley. (Owen was riding along to provide photography services.)

I was like, I've never read the books but I'm pretty sure I've got Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief somewhere in my to-read pile. So I took a look and sure enough, I had ten Percy Jackson books in my kindle account. My emails tell me I bought them in May 2016, and I have no memory of doing so or why (except that they were all 99p so that might have had something to do with it).

I opened up Lightning Thief to see if it was as good as expected ... and got fairly instantly hooked. I've read the first series of five books, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, then I briefly borrowed and read the short story collection The Demigod Files, before moving on to the next series of five, Heroes of Olympus. I'm currently a few chapters into the second book in that series, Son of Neptune. I'm having a great time: the books are good reads and I'm reviving a lot of memories from my childhood Greek myths phase. The positive ADHD rep doesn't hurt either.

rachelmanija

Thirteen-year-old Ali gets a chance to spend the summer with her aunt Dulcie and five-year-old cousin Emma at the family's long-abandoned lakefront property - over the strong objections of Ali's mother, who hates the lake. Ali is delighted to babysit Emma and get out from under her mom's over-protective thumb. But why do both her mother and Dulcie act so weird about the lake and their past there? Who's the mysterious girl who was ripped out of old family photos? And what's up with Sissy, the strange girl who hangs out at the lake and encourages Emma to behave badly and blame it on Ali?

Sissy's real identity won't come as a surprise to any readers over the age of 10, but there are some genuinely chilling moments and Hahn's trademark realistic family dynamics and exploration of guilty secrets and how parents' childhood trauma gets passed down to their children. I actually got stressed out reading about Ali trying to protect Emma while Dulcie blames Ali for all the weird stuff going on and accuses Ali of refusing to take responsibility for anything. (In fact, Dulcie and Ali's mom are the ones who are failing to take responsibility and projecting it on the kids.)

A good solid middle-grade ghost story with unusually complex family dynamics.

conuly

Watch on YouTube

twistedchick

This is a prayer to Aphrodite. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for love and beauty. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for wine and roses. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for orgasm. This is a prayer for Resistance.

Turning my eyes from ugly times, I cry to the Goddess of Beauty. Beaten down again and again, I cry to She Who Enjoys.

“Aphrodite!” I cry. “You wear sea foam, You stand on a shell, You are surrounded by cherubim. Send, Great Goddess, Your cherubim to bring beauty back to the world.”

My Goddess lifts Her left foot, Her left foot covered in foam. She shakes off the foam and begins to dance.

This is a prayer to Aphrodite. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for mirth and irreverance. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for perfume and starlight. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for artists and lovers. This is a prayer for Resistance.

In a time of cruelty and hatred, I cry to the Goddess of Love. Out of sorrow and deep depression, I cry to She Who Stirs Passion.

“Aphrodite!” I cry. “You take many lovers, You admire Your own beauty, Your shining eyes light up the world. Turn again, Great Goddess, Your eyes upon us that we may remember why we Resist.”

My Goddess looks at Herself in a mirror. My Goddess takes joy in her own beauty. Slowly, She holds the mirror up to us and invites us to see what we can create.

This is a prayer for foot rubs and sex toys. This is prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for dancing and music. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for the reasons why. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer to Aphrodite. This is a prayer for Resistance.

-- by Hecate Demeter

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no the circle won't be broken

Reading

Switched shifts

I had no idea bears were so squishy!

Daily Happiness

New Comm

Wonderful book: Kitchens of Hope

Prompt Challenge - 10 True Loves (Ginger)

Inverted Catenaries

#NotMyTimDrake

Ladies Bingo: Shadows / Darkness

The Benefit of Colorblindness

I think I need to lie down now

Hey, can somebody who knows pauraque ask if they intended to ban me?

Oncoming default deadline

RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Wednesday managed a short walk besides attending symposium online

New Substack post

Wednesday reading: Percy Jackson

Deep and Dark and Dangerous, by Mary Downing Hahn

Merry Early Christmas!

Because there was no Yule prayer for resistance, I am posting this one now.

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