denny | Network

1. Tuxie was gone for three days but back this morning like nothing happened. He does this occasionally so I don't get worried, per se, but I am always glad to see him back and know he's safe. I wish he could tell us about his adventures when he's gone!

2. I have a tattoo!

I'll post another picture once it's healed. The yellow especially is very dark in the picture because it was the last color she did and it had a lot of blood welling up still. But it's exactly what I wanted and I'm very happy with it.

Overall the session took nearly three hours but the first was just discussing the design and prep, and the actual needling was about an hour and forty-five minutes. It's large, and since it's a wrap around, it's kind of fiddly, but since it's just color fill and not a lot of intricate line work or anything, it went pretty quickly overall.

It did hurt a fair bit, especially since there were some boney areas, but mostly I was just very tense from having to hold still. I felt like how I feel at the dentist, which always leaves me with a tension headache. I took some advil when I got home for the headache, but my leg itself didn't really hurt once she was done.

3. My usual Friday meetings were cancelled and the stuff I need to do tomorrow doesn't require accessing our system (which I hate doing from home because we're not able to use a VPN anymore and have to remote into a PC at the office, which is a pain), so I'm going to relax and work from home tomorrow.

4. I love getting pics of the cats looking up like this. It makes their cute faces even cuter!

dewline

All this horror and heroism in Minneapolis-St. Paul of late...in the cities that gave us Charles Schulz of all people.

Current Mood: melancholy

ofearthandstars

From a December post in

thefridayfive. I've been holding onto this one for a bit, waiting on life to give me some answers.

1. What is one thing about you that you hate?
I don't know if hate is the correct word, but I have been in a years-long struggle to feel like someone who is not anxious, worried, or scared. If I'm honest I think too many hard things have been placed on these bones, but these bones are also holding it all up still, at least for the time being. But those rare days where I don't wake up with my body already buzzing with anxiety and tension, well, I want to snatch them close and keep them all to myself.

2. What is one thing about you that you love?
I care deeply about, well... most things....our Lovely Planet and all of her Inhabitants, human and non-human, flora and fauna and mineral and waters, flowing or stagnant. I try very hard to walk through the world lightly without harming others. This is an impossible feat, really, but I try. And do you know what a joy it is to love the Earth and everything about her? It is a heady wine, at times.

3. If you had to change one thing about you what would it be and why?
I'd be less hard on myself, and live with more confidence. Please give me the confidence of a mediocre white man in a white collar environment. Though if I'm honest, I have learned there is a lot of power in being vulnerable with others.

4. What is one word that you would use to define yourself?
Grounded. More as in tree roots, tangled but strong, rather than centered or balanced in any way.

5. Imagine what you would look like in a perfect world...what do you look like?
I wouldn't be me if I didn't look like me, now would I? Or maybe, since we look different from day to day and year to year, maybe I'd just like to look healthy. Although "healthy" has so many harmful judgements assigned to it - here I mean... not sickly. I want to look both soft and hard and maybe vaguely androgynous - and honestly I'm already doing that pretty well, just sittin' here in my body. Or perhaps I don't want to look like anything - well, except, it would be nice if I could look like I knew what I was doing*.

*(I do not know what I am doing, at any given time.)

princessofgeeks

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princessofgeeks

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princessofgeeks

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anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

These questions were written by

frieliegh.

1. If you could change one life-changing event in the life of someone important to you, would you?

2. Which do you think is easier to do, being friends for many years, or being life partners for many years?

3. Have you ever walked away from someone you considered a friend?

4. If you had to choose between telling the truth and hurting a friend or lying and making them happy, which would you choose?

5. Which would you rather hear--the truth which will hurt, or the comforting lie?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

rachelmanija

Brom was a fantasy illustrator before he started writing his own books. They all contain spectacular color plates as well as black and white illustrations, which add a lot to the story.

Krampus opens with a prologue of the imprisoned Krampus vowing revenge on Santa Claus, then cuts to Santa Claus being chased through a trailer park by horned goblins, one of whom falls to his death when Santa escapes on his sleigh drawn by flying reindeer.

But he left his sack behind, which is promptly picked up Jesse, who just moments previously was considering suicide because he's basically a character from a country song: he's broke; his wife left him, taking their kid with her, and she's now with the town sheriff; Jesse never had the music career he wanted because of poor self-esteem and stage fright, AND he's being forced to do dangerous drug smuggling by the crime lord who runs the town with help from the sheriff. Santa's sack will provide any toy you want, but only toys; Jesse, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, uses it get his daughter every toy she's ever wanted, so now his wife thinks he stole them and the corrupt sheriff is on his ass again. And so are Krampus's band of Bellsnickles, who also want the sack because it's the key to freeing Krampus...

This book is absolutely nuts. The tone isn't as absurd as the summary might make it sound; it is often pretty funny, but it's more of a mythic fantasy meets gritty crime drama, sort of like Charles de Lint was writing in the 80s. Absolutely the best part is when Krampus finally gets to be Krampus in the modern day, spreading Yule tidings, terrorizing suburban adults, and terrifying but also delighting suburban children.

princessofgeeks

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rmc28

I am currently ill with my third cold since November. This is very boring, I am blaming uni open ice on Monday with all the students returned to Cambridge from all over the world. I am trying a radical new approach of "stop working, go to bed, do nothing but rest and hydrate and breathe steam at regular intervals". Attempting to push through the last two colds this winter just led to being subpar for days on end and missing a lot of hockey practice, and I really, really don't want that again.

The one hip bruise healed up enough by Saturday night that I could return to sleeping on that side, phew; the other is still making itself known, and is going a truly remarkable range of colours. (me to fanf: do you want to see my epic bruise? fanf: absolutely not)

Our trusty Pointer standard bike (not the cargo bike) failed catastrophically in December. fanf took it to the bike shop for assessment: minimum £350 to repair, it cost £500 new, lo these many years ago, a new bike of similar quality would be £700 now. We thought about it for a bit, and eventually I said Vimes boots theory also applies to bikes and so we'll order the good bike and hope it lasts at least another 15 years.

Warbirds (or Tri-Base 2 I guess these days) had a game in Peterborough Saturday night, and my teammate who lives nearby kindly drove me up, and gave me the cultural experience of visiting a huge Eastern European supermarket near the rink. We lost, again, but the bench atmosphere was good, the opponents were fun to play against, and I was reasonably happy with my play.

I joked in the car about Tony buying an expensive bike as soon as I left the country, and teammate said "uh, can't you use Cycle to Work?" and it turns out yes I can, and in fact the whole process was very straightforward. So now we'll pay for this bike in ten monthly instalments from my salary which brings tax savings but is also way easier to budget. The actual bike hasn't arrived yet, which is leading to some interesting logistics around work and school and who is where with what bike, but this too shall pass.

I may, or may not, be playing a game on Saturday for the uni. It's a challenge game against UCL, with players from both Womens Blues and Huskies, but there are way more players available than needed and the roster is still not out (eh, students). I hope I can kick this cold by then; if I'm not playing I'll do game ops as usual.

princessofgeeks

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diffrentcolours

I just gave my therapist a link to my Dreamwidth. Only the public entries, but we thought it'd be useful for her to see how I express myself in writing. Obviously I'm a bit nervous about this!

tamaranth

2026/009: Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead — K J Parker

...we dig up their filigree and cloisonné and their rusted-solid clocks, we conserve and steal their books, and we know deep in our hearts that there are some things -- a lot of things -- that human beings used to be able to do once upon a time but can do no longer: that as a species we've shrunk and diminished, and we'll never be smart like that ever again. [loc. 220]

I was a great fan of Parker's earlier work, but lost enthusiasm somewhere around Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City -- an enthusiasm that I have now regained, and look! one and two-thirds trilogies to catch up on! Not including the new trilogy that begins with Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead ...

The eponymous Sister is a former prostitute turned deadly assassin: our narrator, Brother Desiderius, is her partner -- in a strictly professional sense, of course -- and a talented forger. Unlike Sister Svangerd, he happens to be an atheist. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: impressed

torachan

1. We have been wanting to do a weekday trip to Universal Studios, but like Knott's, they have really limited hours during the off season and right now they close at 6pm on weekdays, which means dinner is not really doable due to traffic, so I'd suggested going for lunch today since I didn't have anything time sensitive at work until three, but the forecast was sunny and 80 degrees, so we decided to pass lol.

Instead we decided to get lunch from a place in Gardena we'd heard about recently from youtube (which Carla actually tried out herself last month and liked) and then she'd do some shopping while I went in to work. So we did that and had a delicious lunch of teriyaki chicken and beef with a Chinese chicken salad on the side, but when she semi-jokingly brought up going to Disneyland for dinner since we were already halfway there, I checked and there was availability, so we ended up doing that as well after work and had a very nice dinner down there, too. (And since the sun was down by the time we got there, the temps had gone way down.)

2. I'm getting my tattoo tomorrow! The appointment is for 2pm, so I'm going in to work in the morning and then heading over there straight from work.

3. Yet another cat getting cozy in Carla's new suitcase lol.

torachan

We weren't planning a mid-week trip but Carla came down to Gardena with me today so we could go to lunch and she could do some shopping while I was at work, and she semi-jokingly suggested going to Disneyland for dinner afterwards, and when I checked there was full availability for both parks, so since we were already halfway there I figured why not?

( Read more... )

princessofgeeks

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bella_luugosi

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

( Challenge #7: LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF )

rachelmanija

A Bad Idea comic by Matt Kindt, Ramon Villalobos and Tamra Bonvillain. A swords and sorcery parody/pastiche about a group of badass, backstabbing, greedy, terrible people tasked with saving a peaceful city from invaders. I picked this up based on the art, which is spectacular - I especially love the unusual color palette.

Unfortunately, the story is both cliched and kind of edgelord, and I didn't care about any of the characters. Also, the art is extremely gory - the panel above is mild. So I won't be continuing this series, but I may look into what else Ramon Villalobos, the artist, has done.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: awake

jack

Smoke LARP festival in London for two days.

Game 1 about dysfunctional committee running a large LARP event. This was hilarious and cathartic for a lot of people. Everyone had a character, the auteur overcommitted to the vision, the overly emotional over verbose writer, etc, etc who are over the top. And it's so easy to run with -- whenever someone asks "We can tear the fittings down for extra costumes?" you can say "Yes, obviously!"

Game 2 about Superheros matching Nemeses speed-dating style on a reality TV show style. The characters were all hilarious.

Game 3 about the Greek Gods running a gameshow, spiralling slowly out of control. 13/10 for Binney as the overworked madcap Hades. My favourite moment was seeing Hades getting increasingly many semi-anonymous requests handed over from the GM, and as Poseidon writing out a note in the same style and handing it over. And not discovering until the end that Hades had just taken it on board and "More death! Put Hecate in charge! Don't trust Odin! MORE SQUID!!!" had blended in perfectly with all the other notes and he'd gone on to do all those things. And second favourite when hades was waving the post-it representing the necronomicon for an unspecified plan, taking it and helpfully tearing it up before handing it back.

Game 4 Canterbury Tales. Set just before the End of the Wars of the Roses when the tales had just been printed. I had to leave early, with my fate hanging on the outcome, when we'd just heard a rumour that Henry had been slain and Richard captured by Henry's forces. It turned out later that Henry's widow and a putative Edward V Prince in the Tower had both proclaimed themselves, potentially leading to turmoil. But I'm pleased they both had a good chance, and that probably removed the problems hanging over my character from the previous politics 🙂

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Shiny Things!

Daily Happiness

Trump vs. Minnesota: A Realization

An Olde Frīġedæġ Fif

OMG

2 Heated Rivalry recs

another rewatch of Episode 5, Heated Rivalry

The Friday Five for 16 January 2026

Krampus, by Brom

fandom today: meta topic

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Heated Rivalry rec

Hello!

2026/009: Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead — K J Parker

Daily Happiness

2026 Disneyland Trip #3 (1/14/26)

Bliss

Snowflake challenge prompt 7

They're All Terrible 1-3

Hudson Williams interview

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