draconic_flare | Reading

I looked at more bicycles today, and saw some with Japan's over-wheel center kickstands. At first I thought they had O-locks too, but I didn't see any more, and now I wonder if I mistook rim/caliper brakes for an O-lock. I saw two bikes that were locked to something, but most are freestanding; maybe half have a cable lock through a wheel, so someone can't trivially ride off with it; the rest have no visible lock, maybe just counting on low crime and looking like rusty pieces of shit.

I went to a pho stall and pointed at a photo that looked nice. It turned out to have "duck blood tofu", blood coagulated into big cubes with a consistency like that of tofu. I ate one cube and part of the other. It was not deeply repulsive; if I hadn't known it was blood I might have eaten it without blinking. Knowing... I decided to stop and see if my stomach would revolt from new food or a surplus of iron.

I forget if I've talked about it in the travel series, but a distinctive feature of Japanese housing is balconies. I think basically every unit above ground level has one, even if it's shallow, a space (1) to hang your laundry outside and (2) so someone can install and maintain your heat pump compressor without risk of death or needing special safety equipment.

I haven't been looking up much, distracted by traffic and shops, or blocked by covered walkways, but today I did look up (starting from a park.) Album. And no, balconies are not ubiquitous here, and compressors are often just extruded from walls, with no obvious access.

( Read more... )

malurette posting in

ladiesbingo

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

delphi

Fandom 50 #3

Continuing my list of fifty Canadian songs I love from the past fifty years, 1979's is one that's probably popped into my head at least one morning a week since I was five:

Wondering Where the Lions Are by Bruce Cockburn

Watch on YouTube

mindstalk

Japan drives on the left, so in streams of people, they tend to walk on the left. Unless they're walking on the right to face oncoming traffic, or are standing on the escalator in Osaka (which for some reason went to the right), or randomly ended up on the right. But mostly they're on the left.

Taiwan drives on the right, so people walk on the right, and after 3 months of doing things the Japanese way, it takes effort to adhere to local custom, and I still find myself going on the left "to be polite."

You might wonder why I just don't fall back to US habits. But the US rarely has pedestrians dense enough to need stream efficiency, outside of some escalators and airport slidewalks. Even where sidewalks are congestion, like in Manhattan, my impression is mostly of interleaved chaos.

( Read more... )

tally posting in

add_a_writer

Name: Tally

About Me: After going through a few years of really dire health problems, I'm finally back at a hundred percent and I'm getting back into Dreamwidth and back into writing! I also do some drawing/painting.

About My Journal: I post a lot about writing, reading, my various fandoms, and some artwork as well.

What I Write: Fantasy, sci-fi, and horror! I love deep worldbuilding and lore and creating magic systems! Occasionally, I'll dabble in romance or erotica. The current novel I'm working on is a high fantasy adventure with enemies-to-lovers!

What I Don't Write: Slice of life stuff, or most genre fiction besides the ones I mentioned above.

What I Read: My favorites are the same genres I write in, but I'll give just about any type of book a read!

Could I Edit Someone Else's Work: Sure!

What I'm looking for here: To connect with other people who like to chat about writing—the process, the progress, the pitfalls, all of it! I've connected with a couple of writers on Dreamwidth so far, and joined a few writing communities on here, and it's been great! Looking for more of that same camaraderie. Ideally we'd check out each other's journals from time to time to comment and connect!

dame_grise posting in

addme_fandom

Name: Sam
Age group: 50+
Country: USA
Subscription/Access Policy: Anyone can subscribe. I've not been super active lately for reasons. If you give me access, I'll check you out and may give it back. I have one access level which is mostly for people who can put up with my mental and physical health whining.

Main Fandoms: The Scarlet Pimpernel, Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss
Other Fandoms: Les Misérables, Jekyll & Hyde (musical), Revolutionary Girl Utena, Rose of Versailles, Le Chevalier D'Eon, Leijiverse anime, The Owl House
Fannish Interests: I like to read and write fic. I've been binging Hazbin Hotel fic on AO3. I used to RP a lot in big games, but I don't have the stamina. I would love to find a parter or two who wants to RP Hazbin Hotel, especially if they can play Lucifer.
OTPs and Ships: LuciLillith, Enjolras/Grantaire, Utena/Anthy, radioapple (guilty pleasure, though appleradio is hotter)

Favourite Movies: Doctor Zhivago, Red Cliff, Moulin Rouge, Love Actually, Die Hard, Legend, Stargate
TV Shows: Star Trek anything, Babylon 5, Firefly, Stargate SG1, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf, Dr. Who, All Creatures Great and Small, The Good Witch, Lucifer
Books: War of the Flowers (Tad Williams), Good Omens, Man of His Word series, Incarnations of Immortality, Vorkosigan Saga, El Dorado (Baroness Orczy), Mordant's Need series (Donaldson) Tailchaser's Song (Williams), etc. I'm a book whore.
Music: Indigo Girls, Billy Joel, Blackmore's Night, Lilliac, Within Temptation, Dar Williams, musical theatre
Games: TES: Skyrim, Spyro, Fable
Comics/Anime/Misc: Watchmen, Freakangels

Current Music: All Bets Are Off: Husk's Villain Song by MythicTune

mindstalk

Discussion on Youtube opened my eyes to something: the US, tofu is largely considered an alternative to meat, something used by vegetarians and vegans. But in Asia, according to the comments, it's often complementary to meat. Most famous example in the US might be ma po tofu, recipes for which are often "2 parts tofu, 1 part ground pork." At Philly's SE Asian market, one of the skewers I bought was a mix of fish cake and tofu. And just now, I had some miso noodle soup, that was pork slices, meatball, fried egg, and tofu (not much tofu, less than anything else).

Whether Asian cooks are motivated more by "meat is expensive, stretch with tofu" or "tofu is good for you", I don't know. Today's tofu didn't seem abundant enough to count as stretching...

kitewithfish

Weekly reading journal for march 11 2025

I am! On! Vacation! Muahahahahaha.

(Happy 11th of March to the few, the happy few, Due South fans out there!)

What I Have Read
Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers - I finished this is a fevered rush on a plane, so take my review with a grain of salt. This was fun, it was sincere, it was unpretentious, it was a good time! I wish there had been a little more substance to the ending as the emotional core of Cameron's journey, but I am not upset by it! I did call the main revelation but not all of it! And I'm not sure what I would recommend this book for, exactly, but I had fun.

Chivalric Academia by OldShrewsburyian This fic! Is a delight! The writing is just a pleasure to read - funny and clear, gently ironic and sincere by turns. It's a Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth modern day academic AU where they are both new faculty at a small college. She hates him, he gets his handcut off, they fall in love. Brienne is written with such absolute conviction and commitment, Jaime is always dancing between hiding in the shadows and baring his soul in stupified awe of her. Wonderful, go read it especially if you like Dorothy Sayers. https://archiveofourown.org/works/57674458

Daniel Molloy's Incredible Showstopping World-Famous Model Train Extravaganza for Children and Easily-Awed Vampires (Please Knock) by
Ariaste - I read this bc Ariaste is now posting the sequel as a weekly fic. Its wonderful and porny and like Chivalric Academia, involves people who want to be together figuring out how to make it work.

What I'm Reading
Sword Heart is still slow because it is so so sweet and tender.

What I Will Read Next
The grief of stones
My real children

kitewithfish

Weekly reading journal for march 11 2025

I am! On! Vacation! Muahahahahaha.

(Happy 11th of March to the few, the happy few, Due South fans out there!)

What I Have Read
Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers - I finished this is a fevered rush on a plane, so take my review with a grain of salt. This was fun, it was sincere, it was unpretentious, it was a good time! I wish there had been a little more substance to the ending as the emotional core of Cameron's journey, but I am not upset by it! I did call the main revelation but not all of it! And I'm not sure what I would recommend this book for, exactly, but I had fun.

Chivalric Academia by OldShrewsburyian This fic! Is a delight! The writing is just a pleasure to read - funny and clear, gently ironic and sincere by turns. It's a Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth modern day academic AU where they are both new faculty at a small college. She hates him, he gets his handcut off, they fall in love. Brienne is written with such absolute conviction and commitment, Jaime is always dancing between hiding in the shadows and baring his soul in stupified awe of her. Wonderful, go read it especially if you like Dorothy Sayers. https://archiveofourown.org/works/57674458

Daniel Molloy's Incredible Showstopping World-Famous Model Train Extravaganza for Children and Easily-Awed Vampires (Please Knock) by
Ariaste - I read this bc Ariaste is now posting the sequel as a weekly fic. Its wonderful and porny and like Chivalric Academia, involves people who want to be together figuring out how to make it work.

What I'm Reading
Sword Heart is still slow because it is so so sweet and tender.

What I Will Read Next
The grief of stones
My real children

delphi

Another theatrical streaming plug:

The pro-shot of The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Ncuti Gatwa, Sharon D. Clarke, and Hugh Skinner, will be streaming on Youtube from March 12th to 18th!

Watch on YouTube

A bit from the show:

Watch on YouTube

National Theatre at Home has been one of my favourite streaming services for a long time now, with the way it bring UK theatre to someone like me (not in the UK, also not living in a place that gets much in the way of touring shows), and I'm really happy they're releasing this one for free on a bigger platform.

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stranger Things
Pairings/Characters: Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson
Rating: G
Length: 2,489 words
Creator Link:

insignificant457
Theme: Siblings, Gen

Summary: "See, the problem is this: in the past few weeks there's been a distressing increase in the thickness and darkness of the peach fuzz on his upper lip, to the point that it's becoming noticeable and also gross. He should be happy about it, really, because it's a sign of manhood, isn't it?"

Sometimes, not having a dad around really, really sucks. But recently acquiring a big brother does have its perks.

Reccer's Notes: As the author says, "They're brothers your honor." I love the way Steve and Dustin adopted each other in the show, and this fic feels like it could be a missing scene. The voices are spot on, and the vibes are good.

Fanwork Link: Problems of a Follicular Nature

mindstalk

Went to the Taiwan National Museum. I failed my research, I thought it was going to be a big art museum. It's a natural history and anthropology museum. Big hall on Taiwanese butterflies and moths, one on fossils especially rhinos. I went to skim-mode after that: 2nd floor has an indigenous peoples hall, and more fossils + geology. 3rd floor is "Discovering Taiwan", the history of local natural history studies, with a lot of Japanese role there. Basement is children's section, which might have stuff worth checking out; also has the normal toilets, vs. the squat toilets above.

( Read more... )

delphi

If anyone's interested in checking out some queer comedy theatre with a slate of great trans and gnc performers:

The Joy Who Lived: March 31st to April 12th

You can find a list of shows by date or you can browse by category. Shows are running both in person in Los Angeles and as live streaming events that are also available to view up to two weeks afterwards. I tuned in a while back for their fundraising show, a chaotic live runthrough of the Ocean's 11 script called Gender Heist, and it was a heck of a good time.

brainbeast posting in

addme

Name: You can call me whatever you want, as long as you call me 😎

Age: Old enough to know better. A former LiveJournal user from the 90s

I mostly post about: Life, random thoughts, work, observations, whatever comes to mind

My hobbies are: Reading, movies, sport (cricket, F1, hockey (real not ice), australian rules football, and a few others), science, psychology - I like a little bit of all things, realy - history to anthropology, I'm there

My fandoms are: Do dogs count?

I'm looking to meet people who: Kind people, open minded, those who enjoy learning, ahve passions in their lives

My posting schedule tends to be: sporadic

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: racists/sexists/fundamentalist religious nuts who believe their religion is better than others, genocide apologists, ignorant people, those who don't value science and intelligence

Before adding me, you should know: I have a pretty terrible sense of humour (by terrible I mean excellent) and I'm neurodiverse

capribornio

I am officially giving up on that book, for now at least. I will be back to reading The Murderbot Diaries, who flaws and all don't make me want to kill the author.

capribornio

Oh, and of course the Protagonist is the Specialist Girl to Ever Exist.

capribornio

Wow! It got Worse™!

capribornio

Aaaaaand now we're in the Straight Up Racism lifted straight from Brave New World. And one of them was written in the 50', and the other in 05' and Yet.

Current Mood: angry

capribornio

I'm rereading The Murderbot Diaries, so I can properly post on Mensahbot March (and Multiamory March as well). Books are... Ok, nowhere as good as I thought on first read. Biggest and most important is Characters that just seem to exist for the sake of the plot. They don't even get proper (or any) characterization before (and during, and after) being Used For Plot. The only characters that avoid this fate so far: Murderbot itself, Mensah, ART. Maybe Pin-Lee, Gurathin, and Ratthi, depending how Book 4 goes. (And Arada and Thiago in Book 5, but that's just my memory so they might not).

However! I feel like I owe an apology to the books for ever complaining, since I'm now also reading the Uglies series, and BOY. Best I can say about it is that someone was shown the SparkNotes version of 1984 and Brand New World, then told to throw a dart to pick an aspect of society to analyze, and then told "ok, you have to write a trilogy based only on this, and no you can't reread the SparkNotes". God. I feel like I'm still giving this franchise too much credit. Like reading a TvTropes page, except TvTropes is funny sometimes.

Current Mood: annoyed

oneinist posting in

addme

Name: Oneinist, or One (they/them)

Age: Middle aged

I mostly post about: So far I've posted general journals, a bit of poetry, and some prompts from the snowflake_challenge. I've posted in English and Japanese. I'm still figuring out what I want to post about. I have a Naruto/KKIR fandom Tumblr, but I haven't decided to what extent I'll be posting fannish content here yet. I feel like I might post thoughts on fandom? Or at least I would like to. I'll find an excuse to turn anything into a bingo board.

My hobbies are: I have too many hobbies, and I tend to cycle through them, but I also have some core ones like watching anime, reading Japanese BL manga and listening to BLCDs, cooking, baking, writing, journaling, drawing and crafting. My latest hyper-fixation is Obsidian (note organizing software), and along with it HTML and CSS. The intensity of it varies and sometimes I take breaks or have slumps from my main ones too.

My fandoms are: I'm only active in the Naruto/Boruto fandom, but I still enjoy a variety of fandoms/media. As an example, love Star Trek Voyager and Natsume Book of Friends too; I just haven't created anything for either. I grew up on 90s Sailor Moon anime, so that one holds a special place in my heart.

I'm looking to meet people who: Post about a mix of things that we both have in common and don't have in common, it doesn't have to be fandom related, and it's not a requirement to share fandoms. I enjoy reading about everyday life around the world, hobbies, thoughts and feelings. I'm hoping to build relationships slowly and steadily.

My posting schedule tends to be: I've sort of gotten into the habit of doing the justcreate check-in on Mondays, and at the same time I catch up on reading and commenting. I also post then if I'm feeling inspired. That being said, I don't want to stress myself out by trying to explicitly keep some sort of schedule.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: If you write mainly about Christianity from a practicing Christian perspective we are likely not a good match. I'm fine with more cultural or secularized aspects of Christianity like Christmas for example (I decorate extensively myself).

Before adding me, you should know: English is not my first language, and sometimes I misunderstand. I'm sure we can work it out though. I can also be a bit bad at asking questions (I process a lot through association, so my mind slips into "that reminds me of the time I..." as a way of connecting when I've read something). In all languages I write in, I struggle with missing letters and spelling. Because of that, I'm quite self-conscious about my writing, and I can only ask for a bit of patience and grace. My energy levels vary throughout the day as well as the year, and if I go from very chatty to not that chatty, it's me and not you.

Current Mood: nervous
Current Location: Home - Study Desk
Current Music: Nature sounds

Profile

Rori

The Void

Rori's Mind Palace

Reading

Taipei bikes and balconies

[bingo] line

Post and Jam: Wondering Where the Lions Are by Bruce Cockburn (1979)

more Taiwan notes

📝 Fantasy writer seeking mutuals ♥

Not Sure if I've Done One Here (or it's been forever)

tofu and non-vegetarian dishes

Wednesday Reading Meme for March 11 2026

Wednesday Reading Meme for March 11 2026

The Importance of Being Earnest - Streaming March 12-18

Stranger Things: Problems of a Follicular Nature, by insignificant457

Taipei, Mar 11

The Joy Who Lived

G'day

Books Read 2026

Books Read 2026

Books Read 2026

Books Read 2026

Books Read 2026

Hello!

Profile