Dept. of Remembrance
Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rWell Done, Thou Good and Faithful Servant
The Rev. Jesse Jackson has died at the age of 84. We were driving north on Ashland Avenue when the word came over the radio. I gasped, and did that "Nooo!" thing that's so cliche, but proof that cliches have their roots in truth.
I knew he was old; I knew he had progressive supranuclear palsy; I knew he could no longer walk or speak, this man whose oratory raised the hopes, dreams and resistance of so many black, brown, and marginalized people. I knew he was going to die. But I didn't want it to happen.
I knew he was a complex man. I knew he was vain. I knew he was a little apt to enlarge himself in many instances. I knew he'd made antisemitic comments years ago; I knew he felt sidelined by Barack Obama's presidential campaign, after doing the hard work of paving the way for a black president with his own two surprisingly successful campaigns in 1984 and 1988. I knew he'd had a child out of wedlock.
But he didn't let his vanity outpace his love for others. He relearned humility and other lessons after each misstep. I knew he acknowledged and supported his natural daughter. I knew he was a gifted organizer as well as an orator, I knew he visited Cook County jail every Christmas when others might have - indeed had - forgotten those men. I knew he walked the walk as well as talked the talk. And there's another cliche that has its root in truth.
I met him three times. Once, on the street, heading for Grant Park, the night Obama won the presidency in 2008. He took my questions, brief as they were, and answered me in as thoughtful a way as one can in about 30 seconds. I met him a second time when he spoke to students at Niles West High School in Skokie, a significantly Jewish community. I met him a final time, at a Wilmette synagogue, where he spoke, his voice already being conquered by his illness. He would never have remembered me, but I remembered him.
I'm not black. I'm not really poor. I have privilege that he never had. But I remember his "I am Somebody." I remember. And I cry.
I'm not a Christian believer, not really, not for years. But I can hope that if the God he tried so hard to honor is there somewhere, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson reaches the seat of the Lord, that Lord will look to him and say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
Here is what an excellent Chicago writer, Neil Steinberg has to say about Rev. Jackson, who was, and is, quintessentially Chicago. And here is a link to a local CBS News special on him.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson has died at the age of 84. We were driving north on Ashland Avenue when the word came over the radio. I gasped, and did that "Nooo!" thing that's so cliche, but proof that cliches have their roots in truth.
I knew he was old; I knew he had progressive supranuclear palsy; I knew he could no longer walk or speak, this man whose oratory raised the hopes, dreams and resistance of so many black, brown, and marginalized people. I knew he was going to die. But I didn't want it to happen.
I knew he was a complex man. I knew he was vain. I knew he was a little apt to enlarge himself in many instances. I knew he'd made antisemitic comments years ago; I knew he felt sidelined by Barack Obama's presidential campaign, after doing the hard work of paving the way for a black president with his own two surprisingly successful campaigns in 1984 and 1988. I knew he'd had a child out of wedlock.
But he didn't let his vanity outpace his love for others. He relearned humility and other lessons after each misstep. I knew he acknowledged and supported his natural daughter. I knew he was a gifted organizer as well as an orator, I knew he visited Cook County jail every Christmas when others might have - indeed had - forgotten those men. I knew he walked the walk as well as talked the talk. And there's another cliche that has its root in truth.
I met him three times. Once, on the street, heading for Grant Park, the night Obama won the presidency in 2008. He took my questions, brief as they were, and answered me in as thoughtful a way as one can in about 30 seconds. I met him a second time when he spoke to students at Niles West High School in Skokie, a significantly Jewish community. I met him a final time, at a Wilmette synagogue, where he spoke, his voice already being conquered by his illness. He would never have remembered me, but I remembered him.
I'm not black. I'm not really poor. I have privilege that he never had. But I remember his "I am Somebody." I remember. And I cry.
I'm not a Christian believer, not really, not for years. But I can hope that if the God he tried so hard to honor is there somewhere, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson reaches the seat of the Lord, that Lord will look to him and say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
Here is what an excellent Chicago writer, Neil Steinberg has to say about Rev. Jackson, who was, and is, quintessentially Chicago. And here is a link to a local CBS News special on him.
111 ☆ step 1 of 1000 of my decluttering project
Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 06:27 pmtinkatonI acquired a new bookshelf over the weekend! It's just a cheap Ikea shelf basically made entirely of particleboard but the most important part is that it was free lol. I spent a while cleaning off the smaller shelf I wanted to replace and everything was soooo dusty because I literally never touch anything on it. Like solid layers of dust lmao it was bad!! But I cleared everything off it and put the new shelf in its place so now I have two large shelves instead of one large shelf and one small shelf. 🥳 I'll probably try to make space for the small shelf somewhere but that's a project for later.
The problem now is that I don't know how I want to organize anything lmao. I have a shit ton of manga from middle school/high school taking up space that I should probably get rid of, but I don't want to. 😩 But also 20 volumes of Fruits Basket takes up a lot of space!! (Also pissed at my younger self for not buying the last few volumes of several series like Fruits Basket back when they were released.) I guess I can start with the stuff I was never super attached to but I know that will leave me with more books than I should be holding on to haha.
I did also buy some book easels and a cheap plastic tiered display shelf so I'll finally be able to display some of the figures and special editions of books I just have stacked in a huge pile because I had no shelf space. It's hard being a maximalist with no room to put anything!!
Oh I almost forgot, for people who have a lot of trinkets and figures and stuff displayed, how do you keep it all clean? I haaate dusting but I cannot let things get as bad as it was on that small shelf after not touching it for years. Do I just get an actual feather duster and bat at all the figures every so often or what lmao.
The problem now is that I don't know how I want to organize anything lmao. I have a shit ton of manga from middle school/high school taking up space that I should probably get rid of, but I don't want to. 😩 But also 20 volumes of Fruits Basket takes up a lot of space!! (Also pissed at my younger self for not buying the last few volumes of several series like Fruits Basket back when they were released.) I guess I can start with the stuff I was never super attached to but I know that will leave me with more books than I should be holding on to haha.
I did also buy some book easels and a cheap plastic tiered display shelf so I'll finally be able to display some of the figures and special editions of books I just have stacked in a huge pile because I had no shelf space. It's hard being a maximalist with no room to put anything!!
Oh I almost forgot, for people who have a lot of trinkets and figures and stuff displayed, how do you keep it all clean? I haaate dusting but I cannot let things get as bad as it was on that small shelf after not touching it for years. Do I just get an actual feather duster and bat at all the figures every so often or what lmao.
What I was watching... um... in summer?
Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 08:33 pmthisbluespiritI've had this post stashed away since late November, meaning to come back to it and write something more sensible about The Stone Tape that wasn't how much I wanted to icon Jane Asher's face. The reviews were already at least a couple months out of date, I think. Then life intervened and alas, I have even less brain now than then, so I should get on and post it anyway.
Eye in the Sky (2015)
This was one of the later things I pulled off Jeremy Northam's CV. The JN tumblrs reckoned it was a good one - and it was.
It's about an international military and political operation to capture the three top leaders of an Islamist extremist group in Somalia, with various layers of people involved via video conference - the UK Colonel in charge (Helen Mirren), the US soldiers running the 'eye in the sky' (Aaron Paul, Phoebe Fox), the Somali agents on the ground (esp. Barkhad Abdi), and a small group overseeing it from a meeting room in Whitehall (Alan Rickman as General Benson, Jeremy Northam as the Minister in charge, Monica Dolan as PR), plus various others who need to be consulted, including Iain Glen as the Foreign Secretary. And right there in the middle of it all, is Alia (Aisha Takow), a child who lives close to the target house.
( Cut for more details )
Smartly made modern film, but also exactly the kind of knotty moral problem and intelligent writing you'd have got in a Play of the Month.
Talking of which...
Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape (BBC 1972)
I this via Talking Pictures, after having heard of it forever, and it was great! I really loved it. The creepy concept, the scientific approach - I really wished I had screencaps so I could icon Jane Asher in it (she was wonderful generally, not just icon-able) and everything. The way that the misogyny was used was also great, and took me by surprise because I had felt my one other Nigel Kneale did give way to a 1960s/70s misogynistic trope that I had seen too often by that point, but perhaps the "seen too often" part was more of the problem, because this just made me sit up and do the, "Oh. oh" moment for real. Highly recommended if you like any brand of creepy UK 70s TV. (It IS creepy/disturbing, though. This is not a chirpy watch that will end well, please do note). It starred some other people who weren't Jane Asher, too, like Iain Cutherbertson and they were all also good, I just didn't want to icon them and their face and their red hair in quite the same way. XD
So glad I finally watched it & I enjoyed it even in summer, when I so often can't manage TV downstairs.
Official Secrets (2019)
EitS having been so good, when I realised that this one (featuring one of the 2 brief cameos that are all JN has done since 2016) was also directed by Gavin Hood, I checked for a cheap copy & obtained it poste haste. I really liked this too, and watching them close together made me think even more highly of both - this is the story of a real incident from 2002, while EitS is a theoretical piece behind its tension, but underneath, they're both smartly done morality plays with excellent casts. (Incidentally, there are 3 actors who feature in both - Monica Dolan, John Heffernan and Jeremy Northam).
When I looked up both films online the first description is always "underrated" and the Guardian apparently ran a piece for Keira Knightley's 40th earlier this year recommending a top list of her films to watch, and put Official Secrets at no. 1.
Official Secrets isn't as tightly contained as EitS, as it's based on a real UK whistleblower incident from 2002, but which ended up not having much effect, so it's a really unusual thing to tackle (& as faithfully as this - they had a lot of the real people involved in the production in some way or other). As before, it's a large but excellent cast (Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Adam Bakri, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Indira Varma & more).
( More under here, although not really spoilery )
Anyway, after watching both, I got excited by clearly liking a director's stuff, so I looked up what Gavin Hood had done since - and the answer was nothing, dammit! (Before that he did Wolverine and Ender's Game, which are not tightly done morality plays. I mean, I assume not?? But I might need to investigate the first half of his CV more closely sometime. He has something upcoming lurking on imdb, which sounds more similar, but I'm not sure if that's real, or just a production hell mythical something or other.)
Eye in the Sky (2015)
This was one of the later things I pulled off Jeremy Northam's CV. The JN tumblrs reckoned it was a good one - and it was.
It's about an international military and political operation to capture the three top leaders of an Islamist extremist group in Somalia, with various layers of people involved via video conference - the UK Colonel in charge (Helen Mirren), the US soldiers running the 'eye in the sky' (Aaron Paul, Phoebe Fox), the Somali agents on the ground (esp. Barkhad Abdi), and a small group overseeing it from a meeting room in Whitehall (Alan Rickman as General Benson, Jeremy Northam as the Minister in charge, Monica Dolan as PR), plus various others who need to be consulted, including Iain Glen as the Foreign Secretary. And right there in the middle of it all, is Alia (Aisha Takow), a child who lives close to the target house.
( Cut for more details )
Smartly made modern film, but also exactly the kind of knotty moral problem and intelligent writing you'd have got in a Play of the Month.
Talking of which...
Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape (BBC 1972)
I this via Talking Pictures, after having heard of it forever, and it was great! I really loved it. The creepy concept, the scientific approach - I really wished I had screencaps so I could icon Jane Asher in it (she was wonderful generally, not just icon-able) and everything. The way that the misogyny was used was also great, and took me by surprise because I had felt my one other Nigel Kneale did give way to a 1960s/70s misogynistic trope that I had seen too often by that point, but perhaps the "seen too often" part was more of the problem, because this just made me sit up and do the, "Oh. oh" moment for real. Highly recommended if you like any brand of creepy UK 70s TV. (It IS creepy/disturbing, though. This is not a chirpy watch that will end well, please do note). It starred some other people who weren't Jane Asher, too, like Iain Cutherbertson and they were all also good, I just didn't want to icon them and their face and their red hair in quite the same way. XD
So glad I finally watched it & I enjoyed it even in summer, when I so often can't manage TV downstairs.
Official Secrets (2019)
EitS having been so good, when I realised that this one (featuring one of the 2 brief cameos that are all JN has done since 2016) was also directed by Gavin Hood, I checked for a cheap copy & obtained it poste haste. I really liked this too, and watching them close together made me think even more highly of both - this is the story of a real incident from 2002, while EitS is a theoretical piece behind its tension, but underneath, they're both smartly done morality plays with excellent casts. (Incidentally, there are 3 actors who feature in both - Monica Dolan, John Heffernan and Jeremy Northam).
When I looked up both films online the first description is always "underrated" and the Guardian apparently ran a piece for Keira Knightley's 40th earlier this year recommending a top list of her films to watch, and put Official Secrets at no. 1.
Official Secrets isn't as tightly contained as EitS, as it's based on a real UK whistleblower incident from 2002, but which ended up not having much effect, so it's a really unusual thing to tackle (& as faithfully as this - they had a lot of the real people involved in the production in some way or other). As before, it's a large but excellent cast (Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Adam Bakri, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Indira Varma & more).
( More under here, although not really spoilery )
Anyway, after watching both, I got excited by clearly liking a director's stuff, so I looked up what Gavin Hood had done since - and the answer was nothing, dammit! (Before that he did Wolverine and Ender's Game, which are not tightly done morality plays. I mean, I assume not?? But I might need to investigate the first half of his CV more closely sometime. He has something upcoming lurking on imdb, which sounds more similar, but I'm not sure if that's real, or just a production hell mythical something or other.)
7+3 rainbow heated rivalry icons for lgbtrainbow
Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 09:02 pmtinnyBecause those rainbows really work best when viewed as a set, here's my submission for the fourth special round at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lgbtrainbow:
I didn't watch many lgbtq+ things that I liked last year, but Heated Rivalry exceeded all my expectations. \o/
( 3 alts )
lgbtrainbow:I didn't watch many lgbtq+ things that I liked last year, but Heated Rivalry exceeded all my expectations. \o/
( 3 alts )
Local tragedy
Monday, February 16th, 2026 08:03 pmribirdnerdAnother Rhode Island mass shooting today. This time at a high school hockey game in the city I grew up in, Pawtucket. I spent a lot of time there watching our high school team many years ago. It's so hard to believe we have two mass shooting in Rhode Island since December.
Bot on the Loose
Monday, February 16th, 2026 07:16 pmseleneheartThere is another comment bot scraping through due South fic, a different one than last month.
"Your story carries a sophisticated commanding presence that unfolds naturally and continues to create deep lasting resonance I believe this could bring a fresh twist to your story. Want to explore it? Let’s connect dis: f r e y o1 2 4 (Make sure to search without adding any spaces)"
So heads up all my due South friends. I've already reported it to the Abuse team, but this one doesn't have a user name. I hate to block anyone but registered users from commenting on my fic, but that may be where we are now.
"Your story carries a sophisticated commanding presence that unfolds naturally and continues to create deep lasting resonance I believe this could bring a fresh twist to your story. Want to explore it? Let’s connect dis: f r e y o1 2 4 (Make sure to search without adding any spaces)"
So heads up all my due South friends. I've already reported it to the Abuse team, but this one doesn't have a user name. I hate to block anyone but registered users from commenting on my fic, but that may be where we are now.
Textures and Icons
Monday, February 16th, 2026 03:39 pminnitmarvelous_ogDoes anyone have any advice on applying texture to icons? It's the latest thing I need to learn how to do with making icons!
senior kitty woes
Monday, February 16th, 2026 01:16 amdani_meowsHaving a senior kitty with a disease is stressful.
And I don't mean the helping him clean his bum. Or the apoetite stimulant. Or the ordering of several different exoensive cat food varieties to see which ones please his majesty today.
He suddenly was super lethargic. Gums were still pink, his breathing was normal. Mine was not.
And suddenly it hit me.
Hes old. He has kidney disease he could die.
Obviously, age does not have to be a factor, Miso was only five when he died a year and half ago a grief that sometimes hits me just as hard as it did that first day.
I do not want to think about the day thats coming. I want to enjoy the silly Jasper things he does.
I do not want to borrow the grief that will come sooner than I would like. Both Mushi andvSebastian turn 15 this year. Bitsy turns 10 and Nori my youngest turns 6. Time is marching on.
I do not want to dwell and yet...
And I don't mean the helping him clean his bum. Or the apoetite stimulant. Or the ordering of several different exoensive cat food varieties to see which ones please his majesty today.
He suddenly was super lethargic. Gums were still pink, his breathing was normal. Mine was not.
And suddenly it hit me.
Hes old. He has kidney disease he could die.
Obviously, age does not have to be a factor, Miso was only five when he died a year and half ago a grief that sometimes hits me just as hard as it did that first day.
I do not want to think about the day thats coming. I want to enjoy the silly Jasper things he does.
I do not want to borrow the grief that will come sooner than I would like. Both Mushi andvSebastian turn 15 this year. Bitsy turns 10 and Nori my youngest turns 6. Time is marching on.
I do not want to dwell and yet...
(no subject)
Sunday, February 15th, 2026 08:53 pmlycomingstFor dreamsdare's February "Things I Love" post.
I decided to skip Challenge 1 because I recently had done a top ten movies and there were no more additions.
Challenge 2:
Make a Top Ten list for your favourite series and tell people exactly why you love it. This can be in any format - tv series, book series, radio plays, movie sequels, something else not mentioned here. Your series can be as short as two vaguely linked pieces of media and as long as... well, the sky is your limit. Whatever you like!
( Read more... )
dreamsdare's February "Things I Love" post.I decided to skip Challenge 1 because I recently had done a top ten movies and there were no more additions.
Challenge 2:
Make a Top Ten list for your favourite series and tell people exactly why you love it. This can be in any format - tv series, book series, radio plays, movie sequels, something else not mentioned here. Your series can be as short as two vaguely linked pieces of media and as long as... well, the sky is your limit. Whatever you like!
( Read more... )
Dept. of Here Came the Sun
Sunday, February 15th, 2026 05:04 pmkaffy_rHe Woke Up
I awoke at about 6:15 p.m. to feed the cat, and after a night of night sweats (further, deponent saith naught because, eeuww, TMI) and dread about which Bob would greet me when he woke, I couldn't get back to sleep. I got up and tried to catch up on far too many emails. "Catch up on" quickly devolved into pitching most of the 650+ emails into the aether,
Then I thought about updating Bob's doctors on the newest situation - him being home. I finally did that, but not before fearing that Bob wouldn't easily wake, or maybe he'd regress to not waking up at all, when I brought him coffee.
He woke up.
And he got up. And got dressed, and talked to me, and joked, and was there. All there.
Another episode gone? Well, we thought it was gone back in January, and it came back, but I'm choosing to believe in hope this time. And it was a delight to be able to tell people from that damned hospital, and from one of the rehab places I was gearing up to tour that we didn't seem to have a need for them. I will also cancel the tour of another rehab place that I'd set up for Wednesday.
I hope I'm not jinxing everything, but again, I'm choosing to believe in hope this time.
That doesn't mean our work is done. We have got to figure out what the fuck goes on in BB's body to throw him into confusion, weakness and aphasia, and why it was so bad this time. There has to be a reason, or even more than one reason. So that's on the to-do list. But Sunday is a day of rest, so I will rest, watching Bob at his computer, and urging me to read the political columns he's sending me. It feels like home again.
I awoke at about 6:15 p.m. to feed the cat, and after a night of night sweats (further, deponent saith naught because, eeuww, TMI) and dread about which Bob would greet me when he woke, I couldn't get back to sleep. I got up and tried to catch up on far too many emails. "Catch up on" quickly devolved into pitching most of the 650+ emails into the aether,
Then I thought about updating Bob's doctors on the newest situation - him being home. I finally did that, but not before fearing that Bob wouldn't easily wake, or maybe he'd regress to not waking up at all, when I brought him coffee.
He woke up.
And he got up. And got dressed, and talked to me, and joked, and was there. All there.
Another episode gone? Well, we thought it was gone back in January, and it came back, but I'm choosing to believe in hope this time. And it was a delight to be able to tell people from that damned hospital, and from one of the rehab places I was gearing up to tour that we didn't seem to have a need for them. I will also cancel the tour of another rehab place that I'd set up for Wednesday.
I hope I'm not jinxing everything, but again, I'm choosing to believe in hope this time.
That doesn't mean our work is done. We have got to figure out what the fuck goes on in BB's body to throw him into confusion, weakness and aphasia, and why it was so bad this time. There has to be a reason, or even more than one reason. So that's on the to-do list. But Sunday is a day of rest, so I will rest, watching Bob at his computer, and urging me to read the political columns he's sending me. It feels like home again.
Rest Easy, My Friend
Sunday, February 15th, 2026 05:42 pmseleneheartI have just heard that spikedluv passed away. There is information and a link to her obituary in the comments to her last post.
She and I worked together to mod thesnowflake_challenge for many years.
She was such a positive light in fandom and I loved how she discovered Murder, She Wrote in the past year or so. She was also on of the few people who wrote my favorite ship in Teen Wolf - Chris Argent/Peter Hale.
I will miss seeing her newsy update posts and pictures of her little corner of the world.
Godspeed.
spikedluv passed away. There is information and a link to her obituary in the comments to her last post.She and I worked together to mod the
snowflake_challenge for many years. She was such a positive light in fandom and I loved how she discovered Murder, She Wrote in the past year or so. She was also on of the few people who wrote my favorite ship in Teen Wolf - Chris Argent/Peter Hale.
I will miss seeing her newsy update posts and pictures of her little corner of the world.
Godspeed.
+cries in knitter+
Sunday, February 15th, 2026 02:24 pmalthea_valaraSo Final Fantasy XIV has these fan fests every few years, right? I cannot afford to go to one, BUT they run a fan art contest alongside it.
I entered the contest two fan fests ago, with a very poor crocheted rendition of the Fat Cat minion. Looks like I don't have record of it on Ravelry. Needless to say, I was not at all surprised when I wasn't even a finalist, let alone a winner.
I entered the 2023 contest with a feverishly-knitted doll, and am STILL thrilled at being a finalist for it. For those that don't feel like clicking through to see the picture: the doll is wearing the Valentione dress that was so popular from several events ago.
It is now 2026, we're gearing up for another Fan Fest, which means the fan art contest is ON. Deadline is March 2nd.
I had a great idea for it, but there was NO way I could get it done in time, so even though I ordered yarn, I reluctantly put that idea to the side. Still gonna do it someday, but not when I'm under deadline.
I had another tentative idea for it, but it would have required lots and lots of counting, and fiber artists aren't that great at counting. Plus, that idea was big enough that I wasn't sure I'd have time to finish it, either.
So I fell back to my third idea, which is really one that I had last year but didn't do. Am working on it today, after not touching it for five days (yikes!).
Said in a discord:
I have finished the first of the five pieces I have left on this portion. It took an hour. Each of the remaining four pieces will take about an hour each. And that's not including [redacted 1] and [redacted 2], which are both rather big portions themselves and will take time. I know how to do [redacted 1] already, and have ideas for [redacted 2], but the actual work of knitting is.... well, WORK.
I'm not sure I can finish before the deadline. But I am going to try. It will mean knitting most of the rest of the day, and touching it every day until deadline.
I entered the contest two fan fests ago, with a very poor crocheted rendition of the Fat Cat minion. Looks like I don't have record of it on Ravelry. Needless to say, I was not at all surprised when I wasn't even a finalist, let alone a winner.
I entered the 2023 contest with a feverishly-knitted doll, and am STILL thrilled at being a finalist for it. For those that don't feel like clicking through to see the picture: the doll is wearing the Valentione dress that was so popular from several events ago.
It is now 2026, we're gearing up for another Fan Fest, which means the fan art contest is ON. Deadline is March 2nd.
I had a great idea for it, but there was NO way I could get it done in time, so even though I ordered yarn, I reluctantly put that idea to the side. Still gonna do it someday, but not when I'm under deadline.
I had another tentative idea for it, but it would have required lots and lots of counting, and fiber artists aren't that great at counting. Plus, that idea was big enough that I wasn't sure I'd have time to finish it, either.
So I fell back to my third idea, which is really one that I had last year but didn't do. Am working on it today, after not touching it for five days (yikes!).
Said in a discord:
12:21pm
so here I am, working on my fanfest entry. I am designing it myself and there's multiple pieces to it. I have proof of concept that two pieces fit correctly together, HUZZAH! but now I have to knit the other four pieces... aka, the fun part is done and now it's just work work work and blah. send me strength!
12:43 PM
it is a universal truth that knitters can't count to small digits. I was wrong, I do not have four pieces left, I have FIVE. and that's just on [redacted]. After this, I still need to do [redacted] and [redacted], oof
I have finished the first of the five pieces I have left on this portion. It took an hour. Each of the remaining four pieces will take about an hour each. And that's not including [redacted 1] and [redacted 2], which are both rather big portions themselves and will take time. I know how to do [redacted 1] already, and have ideas for [redacted 2], but the actual work of knitting is.... well, WORK.
I'm not sure I can finish before the deadline. But I am going to try. It will mean knitting most of the rest of the day, and touching it every day until deadline.
midterm elections
Sunday, February 15th, 2026 11:46 amtinnyI'm not even from or in the US, and don't usually post about the politics there, but I thought I should share this post by my flister mecurtin:
It's necessary to plan ahead to have the necessary momentum by the end of the year. Here's the full post:
Indivisible's 2026 Strategy Arc: Toward Enforcing the Midterm Elections
mecurtin:
"If it seems as though Trump plans to steal the midterm elections, you’re right. If it seems as though there’s no way to stop him, you’re wrong. But if you think the institutions we already have are up to the job of stopping him, you’re also wrong.
I’ve been attending Indivisible’s weekly “What’s the Plan?” meetings with co-founders Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin for almost a year now. Indivisible’s strategy for the whole year is built around the midterm elections."
It's necessary to plan ahead to have the necessary momentum by the end of the year. Here's the full post:
Indivisible's 2026 Strategy Arc: Toward Enforcing the Midterm Elections
RIP spikedluv
Sunday, February 15th, 2026 10:03 amkat_lair***
I'm incredibly saddened to learn about the sudden passing ofspikedluv earlier this month (obituary here and some comments on the latest post on her journal).
I don't actually fully remember when I first met her but I suspect it was throughsmallfandombang (I gather the participants are in the process of seeing if they can transfer the community control over), where I did some art on quite a few years, including on one of spikedluv 's fics. She was such a stable and active fandom presence, running and modding and supporting events and activities. She was a prolific writer and a poster, and I will miss her regular life, reading and watching updates on my flist dearly. She was a kind, big-hearted person, who loved her family and pets, and welcomed people into her life without reservation. She had a kind comment for me often, on fic and real life updates both.
It is difficult to accept how someone was such a big part of your daily life and now there is very little opportunity for closure. It doesn't seem likespikedluv had anyone close IRL who would've been able to update her DW about her passing. We don't know what happened. She posted on the morning of her death, and obituary only says she passed in a hospital. An accident? A sudden heart-attack? Knowing wouldn't make a difference to the outcome but it's a human urge to find a reason.
On that note, please make sure a trusted person has a spare key to your online life, just in case. AO3 offers an option to set up a fannish next of kin. This article is a few years old but good starting point for information re various platforms (note UK legal context)
***
I'm incredibly saddened to learn about the sudden passing of
spikedluv earlier this month (obituary here and some comments on the latest post on her journal). I don't actually fully remember when I first met her but I suspect it was through
smallfandombang (I gather the participants are in the process of seeing if they can transfer the community control over), where I did some art on quite a few years, including on one of spikedluv 's fics. She was such a stable and active fandom presence, running and modding and supporting events and activities. She was a prolific writer and a poster, and I will miss her regular life, reading and watching updates on my flist dearly. She was a kind, big-hearted person, who loved her family and pets, and welcomed people into her life without reservation. She had a kind comment for me often, on fic and real life updates both.It is difficult to accept how someone was such a big part of your daily life and now there is very little opportunity for closure. It doesn't seem like
spikedluv had anyone close IRL who would've been able to update her DW about her passing. We don't know what happened. She posted on the morning of her death, and obituary only says she passed in a hospital. An accident? A sudden heart-attack? Knowing wouldn't make a difference to the outcome but it's a human urge to find a reason. On that note, please make sure a trusted person has a spare key to your online life, just in case. AO3 offers an option to set up a fannish next of kin. This article is a few years old but good starting point for information re various platforms (note UK legal context)
***
014 - 2 gifs; 26.01 - jujutsu kaisen
Sunday, February 15th, 2026 02:40 pmaliensambaMedium: anime
Title: Victory Dance
Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen
Character: Itadori Yuuji
Prompt: Riverside Drive - let's go crazy
Warnings: General spoiler warning. It is from season 3 episode 5. Season 3 is currently airing.
Notes: 2 gifs for week 05 of "26.01 - Monopoly" at Fandom Empire.
( Read more... )
Title: Victory Dance
Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen
Character: Itadori Yuuji
Prompt: Riverside Drive - let's go crazy
Warnings: General spoiler warning. It is from season 3 episode 5. Season 3 is currently airing.
Notes: 2 gifs for week 05 of "26.01 - Monopoly" at Fandom Empire.
( Read more... )
wow i actually drew a comic and it's only february
Saturday, February 14th, 2026 10:27 pmjavertHey everynyan! It's me, Samifer, posting... on Dreamwidth...
I'd really like to get back into the habit of checking my reading page... :') Maybe next week... In the meantime I thought I'd use this post to write down some stuff I'd like to get done soon:
- Start working on commission stuff I've been putting off (sketch for one; concept for other)
- Make a page for Citrus Con 2026
- Crosspost stuff I haven't crossposted to teamflare
- I'm like 99.99% sure there was something else I meant to include but now I can't remember it anymore
My hope is that my next post here will be my Official 2026 To-Do List (No Pressure But Still It Would Be Nice To Get That Stuff Done)... Until then, to try to get into the habit of posting art here, I'd like to crosspost my entry for perfworldweek! It's a comic I've had sketched out since December, but I used the ship week as an excuse to finally finish it. I think overall it took me a week-ish to make, which seems fair enough for a six-pages B&W comic with shading and some backgrounds.
I've actually been getting back into making comics FOR REAL since Legends Z-A came out, which is nice. Not all of them have been multiple pages long but I did draw a two-pages one, and I have two other thumbnailed (one is another two-pages one, the other is four-pages) which is more than I can say I've done comics-wise since like. 2022 probably. So, you know! Progress!
Anyway, here's the comic. Putting it under a cut and all of that. Be warned that it contains spoilers for Pokémon Legends Z-A!
( troisième homme )
The comic has also been posted on Bluesky, Tumblr, and even AO3, if you want to check it out there!
Another thing that's on my 2026 agenda already is finally archiving my old French fic on AO3... I've made a pact with a friend who's doing the same thing. I don't know if it's going to help but it's nice to have someone to back you up. We're doing a buddy goal on the app Finch (no idea if anybody else who's subscribed to me here uses it, but it's one of those habit tracking apps... you take care of a little bird... it's not guit-trippy at all which is cool. It's actually helped me build some morning habits, I think???)
That's about all I've got for today... I hope you're doing well, as usual! You should definitely check out what's been made for the ship week, there's some good stuff in there! \o/
get a postcard to my year 11 self in her year 11 hell
Saturday, February 14th, 2026 08:35 pmwychwoodToday was a very exciting landmark: I went to the TIP. Miss H agreed to take me, because she is a wonderful person. We are now I think fourteen months into our bin strike, and while various people have very kindly taken my recycling for me during that period, my usual volunteer has been busy lately and I've accumulated rather a lot (mostly cardboard - the packaging for the new IKEA bookcase was particularly bulky) since mid-November. I also keep a box of "things to take to the tip" that aren't the standard recycling - electrical cables, lightbulbs, hard plastic, etc, which are a bit unfair to dump on other people, so that was a year or more of accumulation. My spare room is so nice now!!
One of my university friends used to celebrate "Bins Clear Eve", which was the day before the first rubbish collection after New Year, and it feels rather like that.
Otherwise there seems to be rather a lot of terrible things happening to my acquaintances; in the last week, deaths include one friend's brother, a second friend's stepmother, and the very unexpected death of an distant internet acquaintance. Also a swimming friend has had a bad prognosis for a while but now sounds to be likely in his last few weeks. I would like it if someone I know had a sudden and unexpected nice thing happen next week, please.
I keep trying to play computer games and then getting bored and wandering off. On the other hand, I have read a lot of books (most of them very frivolous). Partly it may be because it's so much nicer in bed than anywhere else, what with the cold spells so far this year. I did manage twenty minutes of Dave the Diver today;isis, I don't know if you ever did play it after you recced it to me, but so far it's both quite fun and making me feeling very concerned that he's being exploited by his "friend" Cobra *g* (the set-up is that he's on holiday when his friend calls him up with promises of fancy sushi that turn out to be an "opportunity" for him to spend his days diving for fish to turn into sushi and nights serving the sushi to customers... his "profits" go into repairing the bar, which appears to be co-owned by Cobra and the sushi chef). However, I am only one day in, so it could all change.
This has been a fantastically expensive month so far. Aside from purely frivolous expenditures (my 99p ebook habit does add up!! but not all that quickly) I renewed my passport on Thursday (they already sent me two emails to tell me to send the old one in! cool your beans, people, it was less than 24 hours! I posted it on Friday anyway!) and then bought a bunch of clothes today - hopefully replacements for things which are getting rather tatty. I wanted to get a hoodie from the Florence gig but I couldn't try it on and I wasn't sure it would fit, and £85 was too much to gamble on! So now I have ordered a less cool one from M&S but on the other hand it wasn't nearly as expensive. And if it's too small, I can return it.
Oh, but what is nice: I've been given the keys to my new garage! I should go and check I can actually open it (after first looking up the deeds to check which one it is, now I can't identify it by the combination of hardware around the lock...) before I get swept up in next week's choir-all-the-time and next weekend's exciting visit fromshreena and quizcustodet. Today would have been a good time to do it, since it's actually not raining for once, but, well.
One of my university friends used to celebrate "Bins Clear Eve", which was the day before the first rubbish collection after New Year, and it feels rather like that.
Otherwise there seems to be rather a lot of terrible things happening to my acquaintances; in the last week, deaths include one friend's brother, a second friend's stepmother, and the very unexpected death of an distant internet acquaintance. Also a swimming friend has had a bad prognosis for a while but now sounds to be likely in his last few weeks. I would like it if someone I know had a sudden and unexpected nice thing happen next week, please.
I keep trying to play computer games and then getting bored and wandering off. On the other hand, I have read a lot of books (most of them very frivolous). Partly it may be because it's so much nicer in bed than anywhere else, what with the cold spells so far this year. I did manage twenty minutes of Dave the Diver today;
isis, I don't know if you ever did play it after you recced it to me, but so far it's both quite fun and making me feeling very concerned that he's being exploited by his "friend" Cobra *g* (the set-up is that he's on holiday when his friend calls him up with promises of fancy sushi that turn out to be an "opportunity" for him to spend his days diving for fish to turn into sushi and nights serving the sushi to customers... his "profits" go into repairing the bar, which appears to be co-owned by Cobra and the sushi chef). However, I am only one day in, so it could all change.This has been a fantastically expensive month so far. Aside from purely frivolous expenditures (my 99p ebook habit does add up!! but not all that quickly) I renewed my passport on Thursday (they already sent me two emails to tell me to send the old one in! cool your beans, people, it was less than 24 hours! I posted it on Friday anyway!) and then bought a bunch of clothes today - hopefully replacements for things which are getting rather tatty. I wanted to get a hoodie from the Florence gig but I couldn't try it on and I wasn't sure it would fit, and £85 was too much to gamble on! So now I have ordered a less cool one from M&S but on the other hand it wasn't nearly as expensive. And if it's too small, I can return it.
Oh, but what is nice: I've been given the keys to my new garage! I should go and check I can actually open it (after first looking up the deeds to check which one it is, now I can't identify it by the combination of hardware around the lock...) before I get swept up in next week's choir-all-the-time and next weekend's exciting visit from
shreena and quizcustodet. Today would have been a good time to do it, since it's actually not raining for once, but, well.