(no subject)

Nov. 24th, 2025 04:45 pm
ysobel: (Default)
[personal profile] ysobel
Back in 2018-19, Loki spent about 9 months in a cone, because he wouldn't stop killing his tail. cw: mention of medical saga )

And then randomly, he stopped. Since then he does still attack his tail sometimes (occasionally seeming extremely annoyed by it) but without making it bloody. I sort of get the impression he doesn't really understand that his tail is even attached to him, let alone part of him. Sometimes he shoves his tail down, stalks to a different bed, and gets upset that it followed him. Sometimes it feels like, to him, he bites the wiggly thing and then it bites him back.

But regardless, he wasn't doing serious damage.

Until last week.

We noticed a spot on the underside of his tail that he seemed to have licked bare. Then it bled a bit. So Friday was Vet Day. They shaved the area, cleaned it up, and gave him an antibiotic shot because it looked like he had just ... chomped way too hard.

So he's back in a cone. Hopefully it's just for the 10-14 days recommended by the vet. But. It's a different spot, but he does have history with, erm, tail issues.

If he continues with his tail the way he did in 2018... cw: mention of potential medical procedures )

Right now the dogs are banished from my bedroom so that Loki can have easier access to food/water and to litterbox. They are confused by this. Loki has been extremely clingy, jumping on my lap pretty much every time I'm in there and sleeping on me probably 80% of the night. I don't actually mind providing extra cuddles! But I think all of us will be happy when things go back to normal...
[syndicated profile] fanhackers_feed

Posted by fanhackers-mods

Continuing my desire to shout out literary scholars, I give you Anna Wilson’s 2016 TWC essay, “The role of affect in fan fiction.”   The essay is about the openness of love and other strong emotions about characters and texts in fandom – a strong contrast to academia, where experts often strive to be (or at least appear) unbiased, objective, and dispassionate.  Wilson quotes from a number of Yuletide asks that show great enthusiasm for characters and texts from classical history:

I have a thing to confess, and that thing is: I love Marcus Tullius Cicero. No, seriously, I adore him. I’m fascinated by his intelligence, his ambition, his—grandness, I suppose you could call it; he’s a historical figure who is genuinely larger than life. (Emilyenrose)

And 

I love Callicratidas!…I love him for his straightforwardness and integrity and honour, for his vigour without rashness (well, mostly) and obedience without obsequiousness, for being a man of principle in a morally bankrupt world undergoing rapid, profound social change, and I can’t help but adore his total lack of people skills. (tevildo)

But the particular parts of this essay I want to tease out are the ways these Yuletide asks invite the prospective fanfiction author not just to interpret and extend the canon, but to invent things, to make new things with these old texts.

So, for instance, Wilson discusses how Rumpleghost asks for a Yuletide story based on Demosthenes’s legal speech “Against Conon,” noting that Rumpleghost’s letter “takes a character-focused approach that opens up the speech to fannish imagination but likewise balances this with historical detail.”  Rumpleghost tells her Secret Santa that:

because the only information we have about Ctesias’s character is from the speech and most of that is slander, you can go totally wild in making him be whatever you want, though I would love it if you based him on details you found in the text.

Hence the title of my post: you can go totally wild in making him be whatever you want is actually the subtext of a lot of fanfiction, even though fans talk a lot about good fic seeming canonical and hewing closely to canon.  Wilson shows that fandom is doing something more complicated: while Rumpleghost would love it if the characterization is based on details from the texts, those details are the basis for going totally wild.  Wilson explains that:

The request fleshes out the bare bones of the story about these two men gleaned from the legal speech, suggesting a story about "the days they first meet at the army camp on garrison duty, where Ctesias and his friends are drunk every day and Ariston is a little:|:|:|-faced dude, follow flirtiness/hijinks/confrontation/sex there!” The request overall conveys deep affection for these characters and a profound affective investment in the antagonistic relationship that Rumpleghost imagines between them (“Ctesias being lazily charmed by Ariston’s snarky little existence”), while there is an unspoken shift away from the aspects of the speech typically studied in the classroom (such as its legal, ethical, political, and linguistic elements) onto its affective content: Ariston, the speaker, is “prickly” and “pompous” with “incredible self-righteousness,” while Ctesias is “a provocative douche,” and the speech shows “what grumpy, similar little guys they could be."  

Wilson thus argues that the letter “establishes the fannish discourse from which fan fiction can emerge.” The fanfiction writer is here being encouraged to fill up the dry details of canon with affective life as well as meaningful (and pleasurable) tropes and themes. 

–Francesca Coppa

Chasing Mice And Digging Holes

Nov. 24th, 2025 01:47 am
lupestripe: (Default)
[personal profile] lupestripe
Friday was another day of moving on, which meant locking up the house in Pudsey. I always struggle with this and what made it harder this time was that someone had put a jumper over the front gate. I'm assuming someone lost it, but it made me somewhat uncomfortable, so I had to move it onto the wall. Still, with that job done, I was soon on my way to Liverpool where I was due to meet Procyon that evening. 

He picked me up at Lime Street station after an enjoyable journey where I spoke to the lady next to me from Leeds to Manchester. This seems to be happening quite a lot on trains these days, largely because I'm on my own a lot and they are so rammed. Once I got to Liverpool, Procyon and I headed into the city to try and grab some food. We swerved the Christmas Market on account of me having all of my luggage with me and settled on Fat Hippo, a place I had wanted to try in Leeds but discovered was a chain. This was fine, although I was expecting them to offer to replace Procyon's burger after he had taken a bite of it and his patty had slathered out onto the floor, but clearly not. The waitress was new and maybe that was why, but I am not sure. Anyway, I had a decidedly average chicken burger and some hand cut chips that weren't too dissimilar to the fries that Procyon had ordered. Still, the blue cheese dip was decent at least.

Continuing the average experiences, we then headed to Brewdog so I could collect the stamps in my Visa 3.0. Even though I have very much fallen out of love with the brand, as with Newcastle last week, if I happen to be in a city with a bar then I would probably visit. Alas, not many other people had done the same, as the bar was rather sparsely populated, perhaps being one-third full. Still, I managed to pick up my free birthday beer and we had a nice chat.

It was then back to Procyon's to drop all my bags and offer him a piece of my delicious unicorn cake. This had been given to me by Patter in Newcastle last week, but we didn't get chance to share it. This meant that it was left to me to eat the whole thing, which apparently serves 18 people. Consequently I was glad of the help, and the raccoon obliged. I wish he'd had more really, as I ended up leaving about a quarter of it in my hotel room in Manchester this afternoon, but it was quite sweet so you couldn't eat much of it. I also gave him some cheese, ham and chicken that I hadn't eaten from the week as I had over shopped.

One of the reasons I was in Liverpool was to try the bars of the Baltic Triangle. Many of these are craft brewery taprooms so unfortunately they shut early. The main place Procyon wanted to take me to was Kiosk, an underground bar full of kistch things that can best be described as flammable. The guy who owns it, along with his assistant, is somewhat cooky and that just added to the whole light experience. It's the sort of place where you share tables and get to meet strangers over a pint, and although we tucked ourselves into a corner, the atmosphere was no less reveling. We toyed with going to other bars, but this place shut at midnight whereas most of the others in the area were earlier. I am glad we didn't go early as we got to experience the last orders vuvuzela and the time's up horns, which added to the madness of the evening.

After this, we went to a place that looked like an arts centre, but turned out to be a banging club of the sort that give me a headache. Therefore, we headed home after picking up some Worcester Sauce flavoured crisps en route. When back at the raccoon's place, we chatted some more and I showed him the Harry Enfield Scousers characters that I don't think he understood.

The next morning was an early one, albeit one that was difficult to rise for, as I was due to visit my uncle and aunt in Liverpool's northern suburbs. This saw me leave Procyon's at around 9:30am destined for Moorfields station, from where I used the excellent Merseyrail system to head north. My uncle picked me up and after stopping at a Morrison's Local to get some deodorant, I was soon at his house. We are looking at writing a book together, so this discussion took up most of the morning, then my aunt had cooked me a wonderful steak pie with mashed potatoes and peas. The afternoon was spent watching football or talking, catching up mainly as I hadn't seen them in over a year. My uncle then drove me back into Liverpool so I could catch my train back to Manchester. I had booked the 17:19 service and feared it would be swamped by Nottingham Forest fans on their way back from Anfield, but fortunately most of them hadn't reached the station in time.

Animalz was my next destination and I was feeling somewhat apprehensive. Indeed that and the excessive drinking of the last two days had made my bottom something of a foghorn. This continued into the event itself unfortunately, where I had to fart discreetly. There was a tight turnaround between getting into my hotel and getting to the event and with one of my friends bailing, I needed to find someone who could help me get into my pet suit. Fortunately, Sy was obliging and I didn't delay him too long. Indeed, we were still in the queue about 15 minutes early and although I had my top half covered by a t-shirt I'll admit it was a thrill walking around central Manchester in my pet suit, despite the biting cold.

I wasn't going to stay too long at Animalz, maybe for three to four hours, but in the end I was there until past 2am from a 7:30pm start. Within the first half hour I was dancing on the stage and although I didn't get to do any dark room fun, I did enjoy chatting with loads of people I hadn't seen for a while. I hung around Sy quite a bit initially, and Skavi and Dorje came about an hour later. Then it was largely Stray all the way once he had gotten off his cloakroom shift at around 9:30pm. There were loads of other friends there too like Dirian, Ellie, Loui, Tommah and even Iffy, who I hadn't seen in over a decade. Quite a few were asking about Wolfie and why he wasn't there, so I had explain his foot situation a few times. That does seem to be getting better at least.

The only negative really was the insane prices of beer. £6.67 for a bottle of Budweiser, £7.12 for a bottle of Peroni, is obscene but I had to have bottles due to the pet hood. At one point, Stray kindly let me try his Smitzen paws and doberman hood, which are both incredibly heavy but also incredibly restrictive, making you morph into the character. I really loved wearing these, along with meeting his harem, while we went outside to take a few pictures too. As I say, it was a fun evening and we stayed long after it ended, but I do wish I had more body confidence. I would have liked to have played in the dark room but aside from arranging things beforehand - which I tried to do but then people didn't come to the event - I'm not sure what else I can do. The only form of intercourse I seem to be able to do is talking and I can't seem to get over that. It's all a little frustrating.

I was feeling quite tired towards the end but Stray insisted I went to a takeaway called Rody's, which saw me stay longer than intended. Lupin also kindly bought me a drink, so we didn't get to have food until much later. It seemed most of the furries had descended on here. I wasn't too hungry as my lunch had been huge, but I thought I should probably eat and Stray insisted he'd buy. In the end I had a hotdog with BBQ sauce which was okay - I didn't reckon much to the sauce - and some cajun fries which were delicious. I ate these back at my hotel room after saying goodbye to Stray and Lupin, while watching Stephen Manghan's version of Deal or No Deal. I hadn't realised he'd taken it over.

I had booked an extended checkout so treated myself to a lie-in. I got up around 2pm, ate a little more of my unicorn birthday cake, then had a shower. I've been needing shoes for some time so I thought I'd get to Clark's, which turned to be a greater battle than I'd expected what with the Christmas shoppers. Also, I had to go to the Arndale as the other Clark's shop was just an outlet store. That was absolute hell, but I did get my shoes, at a bargain price of £45 due to their Black Friday Sale. I am sure I paid over £70 for the same pair of shoes last October. They also kindly disposed of my old shoes for me, as I was getting a flight and I couldn't really take them back.

Then it was back to Manchester Airport for the usual procedure. I stopped at Greggs along the way to get some proper food and my birthday treat before making my way to my flight. This was all pretty standard stuff, although EasyJet has now been moved to Terminal 2 which is a far better experience. I didn't fancy alcohol so once I'd gone through security, I opted for a WHSmith meal deal and sat on a table looking for jobs. I saw Fox B and Orona but I couldn't drag their attention. I assume they were both travelling back to Berlin on the same flight as I. The flight itself was about 20 minutes late, but I got back to Spandau at around midnight after a wonderful nine days in the UK.

There are many hard decisions to come I feel. It's certainly true that nearly all of our friends and family are in the UK and I have a much happier time there. It's also true that being there will significantly reduce our overheads. However, the poor public transport, the general trajectory of society, and the outright racism I witnessed first-hand during the trip are all huge negatives. Ultimately, I don't know what we are going to do, and I have been feeling this for a few years now. I do hope the answers become clearer soon.

Photo cross-post

Nov. 23rd, 2025 11:12 am
andrewducker: (Default)
[personal profile] andrewducker


Gideon (5) just walked past me looking determined. I asked him if he was okay and he said "Yes, I'm going outside with the hammock."

"It's cold and wet out there," I replied.

So he found his boots and his jacket and the hammock, took them outside by himself, put the hammock together (also by himself), and is now happily playing Angry Birds in it.

No, I don't understand either.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

Events of note

Nov. 23rd, 2025 10:35 am
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
[personal profile] rmc28

bullet points for October & November
yeah it's 99% ice hockey )

And that brings me to this week! In which I got a cold on Wednesday and therefore skipped training Wed and Fri and worked from home Thu and Fri. I did shake off the cold enough to play my first game for Huskies last night (in Gosport, against Southampton Spitfires), and later today I'll be playing for Kodiaks 2 against Lee Valley Vampires. I am especially looking forward to this one, I love playing against teams full of friends.

Next weekend Kodiaks 2 have a double-header weekend of home games in Peterborough: Saturday night against Lee Valley Vampires and Sunday night against MK Falcons 2. And that wraps up 2025 for Kodiaks 2: after 6 games in 5 weekends in November, we have zero games in December.

conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Everybody knows a hot dog is not a sandwich... it's a taco.

(Taken from the comments here.)

*********************************


Read more... )
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Just picture it: Tres leches... confetti cake.

(It turns out I'm not the only person with this idea, which just shows how brilliant it is!)

************************


Read more... )

On Last Lines by Suzanne Buffam

Nov. 23rd, 2025 11:44 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
The last line should strike like a lover’s complaint.
You should never see it coming.
And you should never hear the end of it.


**************


Link

So...

Nov. 22nd, 2025 11:40 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Let's say, hypothetically I wanted to move a whole bunch of feeds I listen to en masse off of Spotify and onto something else, is there any way to do that other than manually looking at each feed, in alphabetical order, and searching it up elsewhere?

(no subject)

Nov. 22nd, 2025 09:55 pm
marina: (NO.)
[personal profile] marina
An exciting update since my last post: I broke my ankle! *facepalm*

anatomy of a work accident )
nilchance: original art from a vintage print; art of a woman being struck by lightning (Default)
[personal profile] nilchance
it's a new campaign start day! we're playing The Crooked Moon, a folk horror by the people behind Legends of Avantris. what I've seen of their work (I've been watching the Actual Play that inspired the module) has been really creepy and cool, so I'm very excited to be traumatized.

the character I'm playing is Jabo, a hobgoblin from the Forgotten Realms who dies and gets dragged to this terrible afterlife where he becomes a living skeleton. the whole concept of his character is that he's basically Johnny from The Devil Went Down to Georgia, except he lost the fiddle contest and therefore his soul. (I always liked the devil's solo best, personally, for all that Johnny's is apparently a lot more difficult on a technical level and he basically beat the devil's ass.) Jabo is a ruthless little con artist with a cocky streak, and I love him very much.

a song that makes me think of him:

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