infinitecrabs ([personal profile] infinitecrabs) wrote in [community profile] doodle4doodle2025-12-07 09:03 pm

All assignments are in!

All assignments and pinch hits are in!! Reveals are currently set to happen on schedule, on Friday December 12th @ 10pm PST (countdown to reveals).

If you would like to use this remaining time to treat:

Good luck, and I'll see you at reveals!!

rocky41_7: (Default)
rocky41_7 ([personal profile] rocky41_7) wrote in [community profile] booknook2025-12-07 04:33 pm

Book Review: Brahma's Dream

Title: Brahma's Dream
Author: Shree Ghatage
Genre: Fiction, historical fiction, family drama

Brahma's Dream by Shree Ghatage was a book I snatched out of a pile of stuff my sister was giving away last year, but she'd never gotten around to reading it herself, so she couldn't give me a preview. Brahma's Dream is set in India just before it gains self-rule, and concerns the family of Mohini, a child whose serious illness dominates her life.

This is one of those middle-of-the-road books that was neither amazingly good nor offensively bad, and therefore I struggle to come up with much to say about it. That makes it sound bad, but it isn't--I enjoyed my time with it. I thought Ghatage did a good job with exploring life on the precipice of great political change, although the history and politics of 1940s India is more backdrop to the family drama than central to the story. I liked Mohini and her family; because the nature of her illness necessitates a lot of rest and down time, Mohini is naturally a thoughtful child, as her thoughts are sometimes all she has to amuse herself. However, she never crosses the line into being precocious, which was a relief.

Neither did I feel like the book leaned too hard on Mohini's illness to elicit sentimentality from the reader. Obviously, an illness like hers is the biggest influence on her life, and on the lives of her immediate family, and there are many moments you sympathize with her because she can't just be a child the way she wants to be, but I didn't feel like Ghatage was plucking heartstrings just for the sake of it.

Reading the relationships between Mohini and her family was heartwarming, especially with her grandfather, who takes great joy in Mohini's intellect and is often there to discuss the import of various societal events with her. 

Ghatage's descriptive writing really brings to life the India of the time, with the colors, smells, sounds, and sights that are a part of Mohini's every day.

It reminded me of another book I read about a significant event in Indian history (the separation of India and Pakistan) told through the perspective of a young ill girl, Cracking India

On the whole, this was a sweet, heartfelt book. It's not heavy on plot, but if you enjoy watching the story of a family unfold and the little dramas that play out, it's enjoyable.
eatdrinkmerrymod: (Default)
eatdrinkmerrymod ([personal profile] eatdrinkmerrymod) wrote in [community profile] eatdrinkmakemerry2025-12-07 04:30 pm

All Pinch Hits In! Reveals tonight

All pinch hits are in! Thank you to everyone who helped with the pinch hitting effort <3

Reveals will happen tonight at 9pm PST, 4.5 hours from this post. If you have any last-minute edits to make, now is the time!
tyger: Xemnas' Avatar Kingdom chibi. Text: Xemnas (Xemnas - chibi)
Tyger ([personal profile] tyger) wrote2025-12-08 01:57 am
Entry tags:

Sunday~

Not a whole lot today, really. Played Terraria with people, which was nice! Not very long this time, 'cause people had to go to sleep earlier than normal, but this is what you get when you're playing with people over the internet! Freaking time zones...

Played some solo Terraria too, and went for a walk with Mama... poked around online looking for present ideas, too, but no dice there. :/ So I said I'll go with Mama out shopping tomorrow morning, bleeeeeh. Dislike! But also a good idea, so.

Also, Sushi goes to see the vet again tomorrow, so we'll see how she thinks he's going! Hopefully he'll be free of the Cone of Doom, but we'll see hahahahaha. She said it'd be ~2 weeks for that and it's only been a week and a half. But also Sushi would LOVE him some freedom from Cone of Doom, he is so very very sad about it.

sallymn: (words 6)
Sally M ([personal profile] sallymn) wrote in [community profile] 1word1day2025-12-07 11:00 am

Sunday Word: Couchant

couchant [kou-chuhnt]

adjective:
1 lying down especially with the head up; crouching
1 (Heraldry) represented as lying on its stomach with its hind legs and forelegs pointed forward.


(click to enlarge)

Examples:

We see Kim getting dressed or undressed, lounging poolside or couchant on beds or 'in my closet in Miami trying on clothes.' (Stephen Burt, Kim, Caitlyn, and the People We Want to See, The New Yorker, July 2015)

As a boy I first scaled this lion couchant by scrambling up the gritstone box of its nose and grabbing handfuls of its mane, namely long, wiry grasses. (Tony Greenbank, Cafe with a view - and a mugful of memories, The Guardian, January 2016)

The centre, which is in the light, is occupied by a couchant lion growling, his one paw on a bundle of arrows, the symbol of the United Provinces. (Sarah Knowles Bolton, Famous European Artists)

It may be seen in various forms on a number of monumental effigies and brasses, usually with the couchant white lion of the house of March as a pendant, but on the accession of Richard III the lion was replaced by his silver boar. (Hope, Sir W H St John, Heraldry for Craftsmen & Designers)

Ahead could be discerned the famous rock, although viewed from an altitude and 'end on' its well-known appearance as a lion couchant was absent. (Percy F Westerman, The Airship Golden Hind)

Origin:
Heraldic couchant ("lying down with the head up") is late 15c, from the French present participle of couch c1300, 'to spread or lay on a surface, to overlay,' from Old French couchier 'to lay down, place; go to bed, put to bed,' from Latin collocare 'to lay, place, station, arrange,' from assimilated form of com 'with, together' + locare 'to place,' from locus 'a place' (Online Etymology Dictionary)

tyger: Angry Watanuki.  Text: this IS my calm face!!! (Watanuki - Calm Face)
Tyger ([personal profile] tyger) wrote2025-12-07 03:29 am

Saturday!

No work on the chook run thing today, because weather. Damnit, weather! We're getting SO CLOSE!!! Maybe tomorrow...

I DID do some knitting today, though! :D Plus I de-furred a pillow that's been a favoured Sushi-bed which was. A lot of fur. Mama's got an extremely handy tool for it - it's meant for de-pilling clothes, but it works great on furry stuff, much better than its actual intended use. Pillow is still fairly pilled, but very very little fur left. :D

Also helped out with putting the Christmas tree up, which is of course making me realise how little time there is until Christmas, fffff. Time, why are you like this???

...speaking of, time to go the fuck to sleep. Yes.

bedes: An icon of Kabru from the Dungeon Meshi manga, smiling bashfully (kabru)
Azure / Bede ★ ([personal profile] bedes) wrote in [community profile] animatedfanfiction2025-12-05 11:50 pm

My Delicious in Dungeon Fics

Title: Things All Humans Do
Fandom: Delicious in Dungeon
Relationship: Kabru & Laios Touden
Rating: G
Words: 300
Tropes: Autistic Character (Kabru & Laios Touden)
Notes: Part 1 of the series "How to Act Like a Human". It is a set of fulfilled prompts for the People with Disabilities Drabblefest.
Summary: In an effort to help Laios' struggles with social interaction, Kabru explains one of its less-talked-about aspects.
AO3 || SQWA || Dreamwidth || Personal Site


Title: Baby Doll
Fandom: Delicious in Dungeon
Relationship: Kabru & Milsiril
Rating: G
Words: 400
Tropes: Autistic Character (Kabru), Ableism, Infantalization
Notes: Part 2 of the series "How to Act Like a Human".
Summary: Milsiril takes the news that Kabru is to be Laios' royal advisor about as well as one could expect.
AO3 || SQWA || Dreamwidth || Personal Site


Title: Micromoments of Shame
Fandom: Delicious in Dungeon
Character: Kabru
Rating: G
Words: 400
Tropes: Autistic Character (Kabru), Character Study, Internalized Ableism
Notes: Part 3 of the series "How to Act Like a Human".
Summary: Kabru sometimes wondered if other people tried as hard as he did to socialize. (Even though he knew, of course, that couldn't be the case.)
AO3 || SQWA || Dreamwidth || Personal Site


Title: Self-Hatred by Proxy
Fandom: Delicious in Dungeon
Relationship: Kabru & Laios Touden
Rating: G
Words: 200
Tropes: Autistic Character (Kabru), Character Study, Internalized Ableism, Ableism
Notes: The final part of the series "How to Act Like a Human".
Summary: Some say that what you hate in others are things you hate in yourself.
AO3 || SQWA || Dreamwidth || Personal Site


Title: An Excerpt From the Biography of the Devourer of All Things Horrible 
Fandom: Delicious in Dungeon
Relationship: Kabru/Laios Touden
Rating: G
Words: 1,762
Tropes: Unconventional Format, Time-Period Appropriate Sexism, Time-Period Appropriate Homophobia, Implied Racism
Summary: Some words from King Laios Touden's biography, regarding the debated existence of Kabru of Utaya.
AO3 || SQWA || Dreamwidth || Personal Site
merrileemakes: A very tired looking orange cat peering sleepily at you while curled up on a laptop bag (Default)
Merrilee ([personal profile] merrileemakes) wrote in [site community profile] dw_community_promo2025-12-06 08:46 am
Entry tags:

New community: Voice in my ear

[community profile] voiceinmyear, a community to share any kind of audio-based narrative entertainment. Here you can recommend, critique, signal boost or otherwise enthuse about:
- podcasts, both fiction and non-fiction
- audiobooks
- podfics
- audio essays - YouTube or other video formats are fine as long as it can be enjoyed without visuals
- apps, platforms or websites to access or discover any of the above.

Just created and I'm keen to post some content soon, but also thrilled if anyone else wants to jump in and share some aural joy.
tyger: Terra.  Text: Terra (Terra)
Tyger ([personal profile] tyger) wrote2025-12-06 02:30 am

Graaaaah

So we FINALLY heard back from the window people. Our windows are currently scheduled for the 19th... OF JANUARY. :|

So we've got PLENTY of time to get things organised, but wow it would have been nice to not have to rush as much as I did! It is in fact a lot more annoying to go through things now that they're moved rather than as part of the moving process! SIGH.

Still, today I got rid of a bunch more old paperwork, so that's something! The sensitive information has been torn up and put in the chook coop, which is gonna destroy it WAY quicker than waiting for room in the compost bin. Pretty pleased I thought of that!

Tomorrow, I think, I'll pick up my knitting, and-or the jigglypuff. Weather's warm enough that I don't want to pick up the blanket again right now, I'mma need it soon. Probably. Though maybe I should start it, so that I can summon the nice weather... We'll see how it goes, anyway. Definitely need to take a break from sorting things, and coincidentally I'm done with the hanging files (at least for now), so yeah, making stuff!

gs_silva: My character cheerfully saying hi (Default)
gs_silva ([personal profile] gs_silva) wrote in [community profile] webcomics2025-12-05 08:05 am

New webcomics

I recently joined DW and I've been mirroring my webcomic here on my blog, hoping I'll get a little more interest without putting too much effort in. Reviving this community would be great. Anyone still around and interested?
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote in [community profile] common_nature2025-12-04 11:42 pm

Photos: House Yard

Today I took pictures of icicles and snow, mostly in the house yard, some down the driveway.

Walk with me ... )
rocky41_7: (Default)
rocky41_7 ([personal profile] rocky41_7) wrote in [community profile] booknook2025-12-04 06:28 pm

Book Review: The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp

Title: The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp
Author: Leonie Swann (trans: Amy Bojang)
Genre: Fiction, mystery, murder mystery, crime thriller

Book # (checks notes) 13! From the "Women in Translation" rec list has been The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann, translated from German by Amy Bojang. This book concerns a house full of elderly retirees who end up investigating a series of murders in their sleepy English town.

This book was truly a delight from start to finish. I loved Swann's quirky senior cast; they were both entertaining and raised valid and very human questions about what aging with dignity means. It did a fabulous job scratching my itch for an exciting novel with no twenty-somethings to be seen. Now Agnes, the protagonist, and her friends are quite old, which impacts their lives in significant ways. However, I felt Swann did a good job of showing the limitations of an aging body--unless she's really in a hurry, Agnes will usually opt to take the stair lift down from the second floor, for instance--without sacrificing the depth and complexity of her characters, or relegating such things merely to the youth of their pasts.

The premise of this book caught my attention immediately, but after a lifetime of books with riveting premises that dismally fail to deliver, I was still wary. I'm happy to report that The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp fully delivers on its promise! Swann makes ample and engaging use of her premise.

The story itself is not especially surprising; if you're looking for a real brain-bender of a mystery or a book of shocking plot twists, this is not it. But I enjoyed it, and I thought Swann walked an enjoyable line between laying down enough clues that I could see the writing on the wall at some point, without giving the game away too quickly. There are no last-minute ass-pulls of heretofore unmentioned characters suddenly confessing to the crime here! The main red herring that gets tossed in the reader is likely to see for what it is very quickly, but for plot-relevant reasons I won't mention here, it's very believable that Agnes does not see that.

Agnes herself was a wonderful protagonist; I really enjoyed getting to go along on this adventure with her. She had a hard enough time wrangling her household of easily-distracted seniors even before the murders started! But the whole cast was endearing, if also all obnoxious in their own way after decades of settling on their own way of getting through life.

Bojang does a flawless job with the translation; she really captures various English voices both in the dialogue and in Agnes' narration. The writing flows naturally without ever coming off stilted or awkward.

I really had fun with this one, and I'm delighted to here there's apparently a sequel--Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime--which I will definitely be checking out.
yourlibrarian: SPNHoliday-caffeinekitty (HOL-SPNHoliday-caffeinekitty)
yourlibrarian ([personal profile] yourlibrarian) wrote in [community profile] common_nature2025-12-04 05:36 pm

Snowy Sights



A big flock (larger than we captured here given their frequent movement) of common starlings were circling about this week. It seemed like we might be a food stop on their way to someplace else.

Read more... )
bluerosekatie: 3D render of a Bionicle character wearing a purple mask. (Default)
bluerosekatie ([personal profile] bluerosekatie) wrote in [community profile] smallfandomfest2025-12-04 12:14 pm

Fanart, H2O: Just Add Water (tv), Cleo/Lewis, Kissing out at sea

Title: Cleo and Lewis
Artist: bluerosekatie
Fandom: H2O: Just Add Water
Pairing/Characters: Cleo Sertori/Lewis McCartney
Rating/Category: Gen, Het
Prompt: H2O: Just Add Water (tv), Cleo/Lewis, Kissing out at sea
Notes/Warnings: N/A

Link to art on my DeviantArt
Read more... )
tyger: Yuuko, burning a feather.  Coloured manga scan. (Yuuko - fire)
Tyger ([personal profile] tyger) wrote2025-12-05 02:57 am

Sorting continues...

So, Mama and I worked on the chook shed thing this morning, until Mama Needed a break (she got lightheaded, I suspect because she'd also mown the lawn this morning and only had some toast), and it's... getting there? We attached the last pole and put the door hinges on! Maybe we'll finish some time this year!

I also went through more of my stuff and got rid of some more things! Lots of HS-era stuff. Also sorted some more stuff into art binders, so I'm able to get rid of two hanging files in my one hanging file drawer, which is nice! Not that they were big ones, but still. Progress! (The biggest one at the moment is manuals/warranties, which is uh. Well. I HAVE gone through it and done a cursory search, and I DID throw some stuff out, but... Probably need to do a more involved one at some point. A lot of it's manuals for stuff I still use though, so it's not a high priority.)

Anyway, probably back to the hanging files tomorrow, I just kinda ran out of brain. So many decisions!!! Did some colouring in after that, and then Terraria this evening, where I'm just building minecarts across the map and that kind of extremely simple work, which is good when out of cheese error. Yes.

merricatb: Image of Sun and Mun (Sun/Mun)
merricatb ([personal profile] merricatb) wrote in [community profile] smallfandomfest2025-12-04 05:58 am

Fanfic, Sense8, Sun/Mun, Coming out of the sensate closet

Title: Invisible Friends
Author: MerricatB
Fandom: Sense8
Pairing/Characters: Sun/Mun
Rating/Category: Teen & Up
Prompt: Sense8, Sun/Mun, Coming out of the sensate closet
Spoilers: Entire show
Summary: With her cluster's encouragement, Sun formally recruits Detective Mun to their cause.
Notes/Warnings:
Read on AO3

pauraque: butterfly trailing a rainbow through the sky from the Reading Rainbow TV show opening (butterfly in the sky)
pauraque ([personal profile] pauraque) wrote in [community profile] booknook2025-12-03 04:25 pm
Entry tags:

RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

It's Wednesday! What are you reading?
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
full_metal_ox ([personal profile] full_metal_ox) wrote in [community profile] little_details2025-12-03 03:36 pm

Resource: Domestic Medicine.

https://domestic-medicine.com/

This website is an unromanticized purview of historical health care, with an emphasis on household and community practices shared and recorded by women, along with the overlaps of medicine and cookery.

Author Stephany Hoffelt’s credentials: Continue. )

(Content note: Hoffelt, with her lived experience, research into historical context, and insistence upon practical results, has a whole catacomb apiece to pick with both the patriarchal medical establishment and the proponents of a Magical Pagan Witch Sisterhood who got burned by the millions for providing safe and reliable herbal abortifacients.)