deemoyza | Network

I don’t know how I keep timing these so that I finish my audiobook and my paper book one right after the other. This weekend I also wrapped up The Black Fantastic, an anthology compiled by Andre M. Carrington. Thank you to pauraque for bringing this one to my attention! This is a collection of “Afrofuturist” stories by Black authors. If you want more detail, Pauraque has done individual reviews of each story which you can read here; I won’t get that specific.

With the usual caveat that all anthologies vary in quality, I enjoyed this one. There were a lot of very different stories, from some really fantastical stuff to ones that are just a little bit to the left of the world as it stands. On the high end of things, pieces like A Guide to the Native Fruits of Hawai’i by Alayna Dawn Johnson, where the protagonist grapples with her decision to collaborate with a group of vampire invaders to prey on the locals (and the metaphor of vampirism for the way Hawaii is treated by wealthy Americans is not lost in the shuffle); or The Orb by Tara Campbell, which was both strange and unexplained, choosing to focus not on the “why” or “how” of the situation but again on the moral quandary of its main character.

On the lower end, ones like The Ones Who Stay and Fight by NK Jemisin, which felt…narratively unclear, to say the least. It is either a satire of the kind of utopia writers create where its status as utopia is essentially dependent on eliminating any disagreement or contact with the outside world…or it’s a whole-hearted endorsement of that view. And if I can’t tell which, I tend to think the author’s failed at their purpose; or Ruler of the Rear Guard by Maurice Broaddus, which seemed to end just as it was getting to the plot.

Overall, I had fun with this anthology. SFF short story collections, done well, are such a scintillating showcase of creativity and I felt that here.

althea_valara

(copied from Bsky. Click pics to embiggen.)

So I wasn't a finalist this year in the FFXIV Fan Fest art contest, but I'm still proud of what I made. Here's the story of how I came to knit Alphinaud.

colin-ryan #ffxiv #knitting

A close-up of a knitted doll of Alphinaud, focusing on his face.

[Image Description: A close-up on the face of a knitted doll of Alphinaud from Final Fantasy XIV. He's got blue eyes, pointy ears, and a mess of white hair.]

Last May, my depression flared up. Lots of little things were going wrong, and I lost confidence in myself. I needed to do SOMETHING to regain my confidence, so I decided to knit Alphi.

Knitting is my safe space. It's the one area of my life where I am fearless and unafraid to try new things. Because it's just yarn, folks - if you make a mistake, you rip out and redo it. The yarn doesn't mind! (well, most of the time).

So I knew I'd be knitting SOMETHING, and settled on Alphinaud because I adore his character. He keeps moving forward, even when things go wrong or are especially hard. He doesn't give up. I could use a bit of his courage, and hoped knitting him would help.

Knitting his body was the easy part. The pattern is my own design that I've knit at least 10 times before, so it was just a matter of doing it again and making slight changes as Alphinaud is on the slimmer side. It took 22.5 hours over the course of 20 days.

A knitted doll of Alphinaud, sans clothing.

[Image Description: A knitted doll of Alphinaud from FFXIV. He's NAKED! SCANDALOUS! He's got blue eyes and pointed ears. His white hair cap has been knitted and sewn on, but the strands of hair haven't been placed yet in this picture.]

The clothes would be trickier, as I'd be designing them from scratch based on his in-game Sage outfit.

I started with a boot. I wasn't sure how to do the flaps at first. I tried doing foldover flaps but could not wrap my head around the logistics needed for the fold. I scrapped that and then tried flaps separately. That worked better!

I was testing different yarns, though, and the yarn I had tried was too gauzy held singly. So I scrapped that attempt and tried again with the yarn held double. It worked better, but made a tight boot that could stand up on its own. Oops!

Eventually, I gave up on the boot and started on his white tunic. I tried knitting the split hem first, but it was NOT going well.

So I put the tunic aside and knit his pants. This wasn't too bad, because I'd previously made pants for other dolls so it was just a matter of a few alterations to be true to his in-game pants.

This brought me to end of July 2025. Life improved. I had regained my confidence and gotten busy with stuff, so Alphinaud went to the wayside for a time.

Then in late January, the Fan Fest Art Contest was announced! Now, I actually did consider making some other things for it, but some quick calculations told me I didn't have the time. So back to Alphi I went.

His white tunic was first. I goofed on my first attempt by not making an opening at back that would allow it to pass over his head. So I ripped and redid it.

I knit the tunic top down, ending with a point made by decreases on both front and back. It was then time to make the "tails" of the tunic.

Here I made a collosal error: I went off memory, and did not double check the reference picture. I thought there were three tails on both front and back. I dutifully knit them. WRONG!

So I had to rip out all that work and redo the tails. This took a lot of contemplation and experiment to get them right!

I started the tails bottom up. Doing the silver stripes was easy. The problem was that the angle of the tails' bottoms did not match the angle of the tunic bottoms. I would need to determine how to account for that angle.

The answer, after much trial and error: SHORT ROWS! I knit the bottom of the tails first, then did short rows to turn a corner and square off the top, then did decreases along the top to match the angle of the tunic. WHEW!

I finally finished the white tunic on February 26, and went on to the boots, which I reknit in heavier weight yarn. That worked better!

I did not finish the boots until March 2nd. Time was running out - the deadline was the 6th. Would I finish in time? I still needed to do his coat, gloves, and place/style his hair, at the very least.

I started his coat next. Thankfully, I've made doll coats before, so had some idea of how to do it, so I didn't waste much time figuring things out.

Even so, I did not finish the coat until 6:17pm CST on the 6th. EEP! Just a few hours left to deadline!

I took a break for dinner, then went back to it. I started placing hair, spending 40 minutes on it and stopping at 8pm.

I had previously done the first glove when taking a break from the coat, but needed to knit the second. That took 1 hour 13 minutes, finishing at 9:14pm CST.

Finally, I finished the hair. It took me another 1 hour 16 minutes. I finished at 10:30pm CST - 3.5 hours before the midnight PST deadline.

I'd done all the knitting I could. I had planned on doing smaller details as well, but there just wasn't time. Still, I felt he was recognizably Sage Alphinaud. Time for photos!

Unfortunately, photos took some cursing and extra time. To get decent photos in the horizontal layout required took me another hour and a half.

I submitted my official entry just after midnight CST - about two hours before the deadline. Here's those pics. They are not great, so I am not surprised I did not make finalist.

My Official FFXIV 2026 Fan Fest Art Contest Entry

[Image Description: My official Fan Fest entry photos, showing a knitted doll of Alphinaud in his Sage outfit. There's three pics, a larger one on the left showcasing his front, with two smaller pics on the right showing him from the side and back. He's got white hair in a braid, pointed ears, and is wearing a white tunic, blue coat, black pants and white boots and gloves. A charm on a silver necklace completes the outfit.]

Am I disappointed? Of course. But still: proud of myself. I perserved and worked hard and got it done to my satisfaction. Here's some close-up glamor shots taken today!

[Image Description: A knitted doll of Alphinaud from FInal Fantasy XIV. He's got a mess of white hair, pointed ears, and blue eyes. He's wearing a white tunic with tails. The tails have silver stripes at an angle. He's also wearing a blue coat, black pants, white boots and white gloves that are open on the back of the hand.]

A close up of a knitted doll, showing off his glove.

[Image Description: A close of up a knitted doll of Alphinaud, showing off his glove. It is white with an opening on the back of the hand. The doll's "hand" is a simple gathered tube without a thumb, so the glove is pretty simple too.]

A close-up of a knitted doll, showing off his knitted boots.

[Image Description: Close up photo of a knitted doll of Alphinaud. You can see the bottom of his black pants in the photo, but the subject of the photo is his white boots. They go halfway up his leg, and have two flaps about a quarter of the way down.]

A close up on knitted Alphinaud's tunic.

[Image Description: A close up of the tunic for my knitted Alphinaud. It's white, featuring a garter stitch panel on front with two pointed tails. The tails have silver stripes set at an angle.]

The back view of a knitted doll of Alphinaud.

[Image Description: A knitted doll of Alphinaud, from the back. He's got a mop of white hair on the top, with a neat braid falling down his back. He's wearing a blue coat and white gloves. You can just see the tails of his white tunic peeking out from underneath the coat.]

Alisaie supervised during this process as I had previously knit her--five years ago, so my gauge changed. This meant Alphinaud turned out smaller as I had tightened up some over the years.

Alisaie supervises the knitting of her brother.

[Image Description: A knitted doll of Alisaie from Final Fantasy XIV, sitting in a gaming chair. She is supervising the knitting of her brother. So far, just his head is knit to just under where his nose would be. His blue eyes have already been placed. The knitting is on four small double-pointed needles arranged in a square.]

Here's the twins together - and yes, Alisaie is LIVID at being the bigger, more "rugged" twin.

bethanwalker

colin-ryan

[Image Description: Knitted dolls of Alphinaud (left) and Alisaie (right) from Final Fantasy XIV. Alphinaud is in his Sage outfit from Endwalker and is wearing a blue coat, white tunic, black pants and white books and gloves. Alisaie is in her Shadowbringers outfit and is wearing a short red dress, thigh-high knitted boots, and a beige bolero trimmed in white fur. They were knitted five years apart so my gauge changed in that time, and Alphinaud turned out smaller than his sister. Yes, Alisaie is LIVID at being the more "rugged" twin.]

I hope you enjoyed reading this journey. I had a blast working on this (and also headaches at time) and would do it again in a heartbeat. I WILL make more dolls in the future. Deciding who will be the fun part!

Congratulations to the Fan Art finalists! You are all amazingly talented. And to all the players and fans: keep forging ahead. It's worth it.

Current Mood: accomplished

althea_valara

wavesagainstrocks has a post inquiring on how you do fandom, specifically, do you flit from fandom to fandom or do you stick with one at a time?

I left a thoughtful answer because I found the question interesting! They'd like to hear others thoughts, so if you have some, why not go leave a comment?

rosa_heartlily

A year ago I was remembering my sister-in-law (10 years, now...), prepping for meetings, not making speg bol, and musing about Forspoken.

Today started with some more pages for my virtual pilgrimage.

After dealing with some work stuff, it was off to the hospital for Husband's eye test. It took over 2 hours in all. We have more appointments to look forward to... And we managed to mostly avoid the rain.

The boys are watching Liverpool fail to beat PSG... There's still 30 minutes to go but they need 3 goals.

But it meant I got to defeat an Archdemon at Weisshaupt and watch an episode of The Rookie. The latter was a real mix of humour, drama and pathos - a lot to pack into one episode.

Now I'm heading for another early-ish night.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: bedroom

lassarina

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althea_valara

I am not a finalist in this year's Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest Art Contest. :(

TBH, I'm really not surprised. Though I'm very proud of the work I did (103 hours spent on it!), I know there's LOTS of talented folks out there, and also, I finished it way late (two hours before deadline) so had to take night photos in my room and they are THE PITS. So, so crappy looking.

I'm gonna get better pics of the item tomorrow and post then. I'd share my official entry pics, but they don't do the item justice... plus, my item is vertical, the pics had to be horizontal pics, and that ALSO added to the crappiness of the pics.

But hey! I finished the thing! The contest got me off my butt to finish an item I had started last year (some of you who have been around

get_knitted the past year can probably guess what I made. The rest of you will just have to wait for the better pics tomorrow.)

Current Mood: disappointed

rocky41_7

On Sunday I finished The Tainted Cup, the first book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett. This is a fantasy murder mystery with an element of political thriller.

The main character is Ana Dolabra, an eccentric but brilliant investigator, and I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen a woman fill this role. The wacky but effective investigator is of course a very well-known stock character, but has always been, in my experience, a man. I found Ana delightful; strange but not off-putting, and without coming off like the author was working to hard to make her quirky.

However, our point-of-view protagonist is Din Kol, Ana’s put-upon assistant, on whose shoulders falls the managing of her many idiosyncrasies. They’re a fun team to watch work, and in this first book we get to see their working relationship unfold, as they’ve only recently teamed up at the start. Din is fine, but mostly I appreciated him as a lens for Ana.

Bennett’s fantasy world is characterized by fantastical use and manipulation of plants and the human body. Din, for instance, has been modified to be an “engraver”—someone with an eidetic memory. For obvious reasons, this serves him well as aid to an investigator.

I think Bennett does a good job of throwing you into the world and letting you use context to figure most of it out. I get bored with SFF novels that feel the need to hold your hand, as if you might be a first-time SFF reader who never encountered a magic system before, so I was relieved when Bennett just started telling the story and letting me figure the world out as it went along. I’d rather be a bit lost at times than be toddled along, but I never felt lost here.

The novel touches on some things that I feel are pretty keenly relevant, like the ability of the wealthy to avoid justice and their willingness to inflict suffering on the rest of society to better their own position (and then justify it to themselves).

I don’t read a ton of murder mysteries, so I may not be the best judge of this, but I also felt that Ana worked well. It’s a tough trick writing a character who’s meant to be much smarter than the rest of the cast (perhaps even than the author!), and it can fail a couple of ways: the supposed “brilliant” deductions are obvious to the average reader, making the rest of the cast look painfully dull for not seeing them; or the machinations are so obtuse with so little evidence the reader simply won’t believe the detective could have figured that out without an ass-pull from the author. I didn’t think Bennett fell into either of these traps and every detail Ana referred to in one of her deductions was something that had been mentioned before.

I enjoyed this book and I plan to read the next one. Very interested to see where Ana’s adventures take her next!

rosa_heartlily

A year ago I was looking forward to a week off work, watching HIGNFY, doing stuff in both gardens, finishing Forspoken (somewhat unexpectedly!), wondering how to fill the time until my birthday, and hanging on to my palm cross.

Today started with some more pages for my virtual pilgrimage. I'm imagining the travelling, which I didn't so much the first time round.

I reported on credit card as stolen and got my banking app re-activated - but I'll leave the installation until my new card comes. The other credit card still needs to be contacted.

The Oversight Team meeting went well. Another 'conversation' with Copilot beckons!

Now I'm watching the end of The Other Bennet Sister. A wonderful scene between Mary and her mother, where we learned a little more about the latter's struggles. And now Miss Bingley is doing the right thing! I love Mary's relationship with Mr Hurst, too. But I still take issue with what they did with Charlotte.

Current Mood: good
Current Location: bedroom

rosa_heartlily

A year ago I was doing the to do's (including repairing Son's jacket and paying Husband some attention), playing Forspoken, and enjoying a random mention of Primal on FGS.

Today I skipped church to catch up on my weekend. I cleaned the living room and bathroom, then I turned my attention to the garden. And it started raining. *heavy sigh* At the first sign of a break, I scurried outside. Half-way through, it started raining again but I stuck at it, correctly guessing that it was going to be one of those days.

So, the next phase is partly done - I'm expecting some more plants soon. I'm still weighing up what the other planters in the front should be - long and straight, or corners? And one long trellis planter, or three small ones?

I've played some Veilguard - I've made progress with Harding's story. Next stop Weisshaupt.

Now I'm watching a couple of episodes of Watson.

But it feels like I got my weekend back.

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: bedroom

skygiants

Scorched Earth is described on its website as a piece of dance theater about a detective reopening an Irish cold case, a description which fascinated us so much that we made a second patently absurd decision to once again park in NYC just exactly long enough to see a show before continuing on our multi-state travel.

If you'd forced me to describe what I expected from this show, I would have hazarded something like 'Tana French book, adapted as a ballet?' Not at ALL correct. The cold case is not a mystery, not full of twists: we've got one detective, one suspect, one victim, one piece of land (and one ambiguously metaphorical donkey.) The ninety-minute show begins with a series of projected documents explaining the history of Irish Land Dispute Murders before establishing a more-or-less regular pattern: short interrogation scenes between the detective and the suspect, interspersed with bursts of emotion and memory, some dramatized and some in dance.

Sometimes -- often -- this worked extraordinarily well. The land under dispute is represented, personified, by a dancer in a ghillie suit who slithers in and out of the central interrogation/morgue table* like a giant muppet, or the Swamp Thing and dances a violently romantic duet with the suspect -- and it could have looked so silly, as I'm describing it it sounds silly, and instead it was haunting and evocative, perfectly elucidating the narrative themes of the show while also just being a gripping and powerful piece of performance.

*remarkable piece of set design, that table; afterwards we all agreed it was the hardest-working table in show business

Other times, the balance felt a little off; the dialogue would tell us something and then a duet would be danced and I'd think, well, you didn't need to tell us both ways, one or the other would have worked fine. Or I'd start to admire the dialogue for its spareness in suggesting the complexity of a dynamic -- who's from here, who isn't, who has rights to land, who doesn't, what's worth punishing on behalf of the community, what isn't -- and then it say it again more explicitly and I'd be like, well, okay, but you didn't have to. What I'm saying is that I think the show probably could have been just as powerful at sixty minutes as at ninety minutes. But I wasn't at all unhappy to be there for ninety minutes! I was compelled the whole time! If the show sometimes told me things about the situation more times or more explicitly than I needed to hear them, it did an admirable job of not telling me what to think about them, and trying to decide what I did think about them left me plenty to occupy my mind.

A lot of the creative team seem to have a history with Punch Drunk and have worked on Sleep No More explicitly, and it was interesting for me to compare/contrast -- the style of expressive choreography is notably similar, but Sleep No More is a piece of theater that has almost no dialogue, that draws a lot of its power from being oblique and ambiguous to the point of fault. Finding that exact right point of convergence for dance and theater seems to be an ongoing challenge and point of interest for the people coming out of the Punch Drunk school and I'm very curious to see other explorations of it.

seleneheart

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Blurb:

Bono met his wife in high school, Park says.
So did Jerry Lee Lewis, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be, she says, we’re 16.
What about Romeo and Juliet?
Shallow, confused, then dead.
I love you, Park says.
Wherefore art thou, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be.

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love—and just how hard it pulled you under.

I checked out this book from the library based on the author's name alone!

The book is a great examination of first love between two teenagers. When holding hands feels monumental and daring. How sharing music leads to falling in love.

TW warning though: the book is searing indictment of the poor choices facing divorced women with children when the father doesn't fulfill his responsibilities. Abusive men. Predatory men, although he doesn't succeed - Eleanor gets away from him.

It was most likely banned because of its exploration of the burgeoning sexual awakening between two teenagers and its unfavorable opinion of abusive men.

DNF Note: I started In God We Trust (All Others Pay Cash), which is the series of essays that A Christmas Storywas based on. I had no patience for the misogyny and casual ageism in the first few pages.

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: The Format - Holy Roller

rosa_heartlily

This time last year I was wrangling meetings, using Copilot, hoping for pretty flowers, enjoying new skills in Forspoken, and pondering my relationship with CS Lewis.

Today I got scammed. That's all I'm going to say about it because the more I tell the story the more stupid I feel. Unsurprisingly, the bank are not going to refund me. I made the payments. I was not under duress. I was just stupid, despite all the professionals I've spoken to today trying to reassure me otherwise.

Apart from the money, I lost an entire day to the nonsense of trying to sort it out. There are two bright spots. Firstly, it didn't happen closer to pay day; I could have lost a lot more. Secondly, I've changed some of my passwords, which I probably wouldn't have done if I'd just put the phone down when the scammer called.

In my efforts to distract myself, I watched Emma whilst eating the chippy tea Son treated us to, and the boys watched Liverpool win at home. After tea, I finally got round to some Veilguard. I've recruited a powerful ally through persuasion, again. I don't fancy fighting her...

And now I'm finishing Robots of Death. Someone's interfering with the robots' programming. Sooo far-fetched...

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Location: bedroom

halfcactus

https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/150938.html

1. What was the last book you read (or are currently reading)?
Last read manhwa: On My Way to Meet Mom, would recommend! It's a 30-chapter story about an orphan boy in a post-apocalyptic world (where there are more aliens than humans) who discovers the concept of family one day and sets out to find it. Very comforting because the boy is so ordinary! He is small and round and human and that is enough reason for him to be deserving of love. It's gen through and through, which I like, and acknowledges that gender and gendered family roles are human constructs, which I also like. And the character designs are so good!!! Beautiful fantasy elements too, like whales in the sky.

Last read book: A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid, an 80-page essay about Antigua, post-colonialism, white tourism, and global power dynamics. Hits pretty close to home and written quite lyrically. Would also recommend!

Currently reading: The Fellowship of the Ring audiobook (narrated by Andy Serkis)—I'm not sure how sustainable the audio format is for my attention span but it got me further than all past attempts to read the text with my eyes. I now see the appeal of Tolkien. I still can't visualize anything, though...

2. What was the last movie you watched?
This morning's groupwatch—we meant to watch the Journal with Witch live action movie, but the subs were machine-translated from Chinese which was painful, so we switched to 100 Meters on Netflix. It's about what running means to athletes, the years and years of training and self-doubt all for these races which are over in 15 seconds, and what those 15 seconds mean. On paper: good concept! I can see this being a nice, thoughtful manga. In practice, it had some really interesting textures and breathtaking moments, but I thought the storytelling was poor and did not maximize the animated form. None of the characters also ever really have inner lives, and because of that, the main character's speech at the end feels unearned.

3. What television series are you currently watching?

Loving Strangers (cdrama): I stopped watching this for a while and then got back to it because I was feeling tired and 委屈, and this show is nothing but characters who are tired and 委屈.

How Dare You!? (cdrama): 14 eps in, I don't have very strong feelings about it but it's a group watch and there are enough interesting plot points that I'd like to see through. The show is kind of uneven, some sets of episodes are paced better than others. I really liked the first ED so I was very sad that they changed it to the more "serious" one.

Pursuit of Jade (cdrama): One of my oomfs said this got her out of a cdrama slump and true enough I managed to watch 2 eps in a row. XD I am not very enthused that the FL, a small village butcher, is Secretly Proficient in Martial Arts and has Secretly Important Parents (deceased).

Witch Hat Atelier (anime): So beautiful and worth the wait! Not sure how much the anime covers and how long I'll stick with it, but I'm pleased that its impact is mainstream enough that I have a common interest with IRLs again.

4. What are some of your favorite blogs or communities online?
My fav community is the HnG server where we groupwatch non-HnG-related things and people share pictures of their local birds and flowers. :') Also the gaming channel in the NiF server, it's like the only channel I check haha. Also all the bookish people in my Dreamwidth and Storygraph circles because how else do I know what books exist! I read A Small Place because I saw two of my Storygraph mutuals (one of them is, naturally,

aartichapati) finish it recently.

My favorite blogs are mostly defunct. </3 Some old blogs that are still up but no longer active: Lazy Evaluation Ranch, a personal farm blog; Hanzis Matter, a blog "dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in western culture"; Source Code in TV and Films; and Said the Gramophone, a music blog (still updates every December).

5. What social media do you belong to and check often?
Twitter and Bluesky... I also have an Instagram but as usual I've stopped checking it 😂

vriddy

I was growing really antsy about the missing notifications because day after day the tickets were piling up yet the problem didn't seem to get acknowledged anywhere (not in the known issues on the support page, not on

dw_maintenance, no replies to those tickets... I even went to check the dreamwidth github issues but crickets there too :C).

Anyway, behold! A few of the (many, many) tickets about notifications were updated with the following:

"Our developers have been looking into this and finally figured out what was going on. There's a fix in, and notifications should start flowing again. I can't say if you'll get the old ones, but new ones should be fine."

I can't wait! Thanks to the "Recent Comments" page which I'm checking first like a kinda inbox, I'm fairly sure I'm not missing anything posted anywhere on my journal. Unfortunately, because I have a couple of active posts at the moment, the "Recently Posted" page isn't as useful to me and if someone replies a couple of weeks later to a comment I left on their journal, which is usually one of Dreamwidth's strengths, I'm unlikely to see it if the notification gets dropped :C

Glad a fix is on the way and hope it's coming to us soon!! To all the chit-chat and associated notifications!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😆 (Yes I'm constantly trying to get my inbox under control but not like this 😱 XD)

Edit: There is a

dw_maintenance post about it, now. One of the subthreads asks to share new, recent comments in which the notifications went missing.

rosa_heartlily

A year ago I was sympathising with a PM about system changes going directly to Live, making progress with the Solution Architect over documentation, applauding another PM about their approach to getting documentation, fighting P4W with LM, and being unconvinced by CS Lewis' arguments for the resurrection.

Today started with some progress with my virtual pilgrimage write-up - including more formatting tweaks. These things matter...

After breakfast, I stayed downstairs to work so that I was on-hand when my books arrived. I also managed to book Husband's podiatry appointment! 09:30 seems to be the optimal time - I shall bear that in mind for future reference. And the first consignment of plants arrived this afternoon; I've put the aquatic in the pond and I'm hoping for good weather over the weekend to plant the rest.

I watched another episode of AI Confidential - this time about driverless cars. There has been some very poor decision-making by the people in charge of their development.

However, I used Copilot to highlight where our project documentation isn't matching the expectations of the framework. It trashed two of the projects - one of them is VERY old (it was supposed to be a plug-and-play that would take a few weeks. At least 2 years on - if not 3 - it's nearly done...) but the other is more recent and the report that it lacked key documentation came as a surprise. When I checked myself, there it was! I asked Copilot to check again and it found the document. <_< It then flagged a worrying line in the test approach doc, which I queried with the PM and Tester and got a good explanation for; the Tester is going to update the document with a better explanation.

But it made me think a) I should run the check every quarter as good practice and b) we need something in the Governance doc about this particular thing. Rather than try to work out the best place for it myself, I asked Copilot, which had a couple of good options, then asked if including it was just a principle or a measurable target. Then it suggested some wording that it inserted into the document. I reviewed it and signed it off.

I probably would never have noticed the worrying line because I don't delve into the test approach - I leave it to the Testers to manage. I could have done the stuff with the Governance doc, but it would have taken a lot longer. So, Copilot as my PMO Assistant? Bring it on!

But Chat Buddy reminded me of all the sci-fi stories where AI runs amok - and the Doctor Who story I'm watching at the moment has killer robots. It's a bit like Brexit - some very good reasons for going for it, but some very unsuitable people in charge! I did write to my MP a week or so ago and they wrote back today saying the Government is taking the whole regulation thing seriously and are setting up a body to oversee it. Here's hoping...

I played a bit of Veilguard after tea. I cleared out the (current) rash of side quests in Minrathous, then hopped back to the Lighthouse to watch all of the Dread Wolf's regrets. I think I took it all in a bit better this time - it's quite the lore dump, watching them all in one go! But I don't know how you wouldn't - I'd got 4 of the wolf statuettes and the Inquisitor gave me the last one, but it was theirs that triggered the reveals. I hadn't gone out of my way to collect the others, I'd just done a lot of exploration.

And I've just watched the latest Have I Got News For You, which was very funny.

And now for bed.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: bedroom

vriddy

1. Tracking writing-related stuff daily so doesn't work for me and my brain. I track wordcounts only monthly for a reason!! Because I was planning to finish this proofreading within two weeks or so, I thought I would therefore update my little chart thing to track by day rather than by week so the chart looks more interesting. It does look cool! But tracking daily means I read high numbers as "This is what I am capable of" and any day in which I could only manage 15 minutes or so as a failure. May have to weeklify this chart after all.

2. Especially because, while finishing within two weeks would be convenient for a variety of reasons, I'm not sure the proofreading will go as fast as I hoped. My thought were: okay, the story is a third longer than it was last time I proofread it, but only the new stuff might sound janky! Well. It's been over a year since the last time I proofread, so sentences give me different feelings now. The first chapter hadn't changed a ton, maybe 600 new words, but I spent 3h on it anyway. Just like the average last round: proofread 10 chapters in a little under 3 weeks, average time per chapter 2h54. I have 14 chapters now. Grumbles, grumbles.

3. Thinking a lot about what I want to learn next. The last couple of years have been about "process" especially around editing, what works well for me in general, how to actually edit a big project, how to manage my stamina through it. Over the last couple of months, I've been learning about structure, and loving it. Like, there will be more to learn there for sure, but for the time being I need to put into practice my new learning until it comes more naturally. While this is happening, I really want to improve how I write sentences. Line editing, I guess? My writing feels very weak there right now, or not where I'd like it to be. It won't be something I apply on the witch (would require a complete rewrite), but it's something I hope to pay more attention to for the Soul Thief. Reflecting too on how I want to learn and how I could organise myself for it. For example, I got a copy of Le Guin's "Steering the Craft" a while back that sounds like it should fit the bill? But I found it very intimidating, and I'm not good at just doing exercises either. It's easier when learning happens as part of a real story. Anyway, whatever I end up doing next, it seems like I'm moving from a "learning process" to a "learning craft" kinda mood, for the next while!

skygiants

Made a extremely silly decision this past weekend, which was to break up our long drive to and from Philly by Exactly long enough to see one (one) show in NYC on the way down, and another on the way back. Literally put the car in a garage by the theater, went into the show, got the car out of the garage, and kept driving. And to make matters even sillier the show that we saw on the way down was Bad -- and we knew it was going to be! Or at least we had a reasonable suspicion! But were we not going to go out of our way to see Norm Lewis play Villefort in a Count of Monte Cristo musical? Of course we were. The path before us had simply been prepared.

Q: When you say it was bad, do you mean it was a bad musical as a musical, or a bad adaptation of Count of Monte Cristo?
A: Oh, both! Absolutely both.

Q: What made it a bad musical?
A: Well, the music. And the lyrics. They hit exactly every beat on the Musical Sheet while constantly feeling like less subtle knockoff versions of other songs you might know slightly better. The song you might know slightly better is not a subtle one, you say? Well, I guarantee you that songs such as "Dangerous Times," in which the full cast explain that they are living in dangerous times, and "How Did I Get So Far Away [From Me]," in which Mercedes sadly wonders how she has gotten so far away from herself, are less so. When the best you can say of a song is that it felt like pallid diet Frank Wildhorn -- as in, lacking the noted power and vibrancy of real Frank Wildhorn, composer of such deathless works as Death Note: The Musical -- then you know we're scraping the bottom of the barrel. And that's not even mentioning the frenetic stream of mediocre jokes.

Q: And what made it a bad adaptation?
A: I mean I know there are probably people in the past who have said that Edmond Dantès literally did nothing wrong but I want you to understand: in this show, Edmond Dantès literally does nothing wrong. His backstory takes up the entire first act, and by the time we hit intermission I was already like "huh, there's not going to be a lot of time in here for revenge schemes," but I didn't actually understand how dire the situation was going to be until ( this part of the Q&A gets into quite detailed plot spoilers )

Q: So do you regret your objectively silly decision to go out of your way to see this musical?
A: No I do not, not in the least, and I would have regretted missing it. There is something very nutritious in bad theater, I think. It forces you to consider what good theater might look like. Also, the surprise appearance of Lucrezia Borgia was one of the funniest things I experienced all weekend.

althea_valara

We're coming to the time of year when

3weeks4dreamwidth usually runs, and

goodbyebird posted an interest check post in the community to see if folks were interested in doing it and what their plans might be for it.

I will be posting an updated list of my community recs post. The last time I posted it was in January for

snowflake_challenge, but I've stealth added a few more since then. I'm ALWAYS on the lookout for good communities, so if you know of any and want to see it added to the list, let me know!

I also am giving some thoughts to posting daily during the duration, but I'd need something to post about. I'm considering the following:

1. one creative thing I did today
2. one thing I'm proud of today
3. video game progress? I play video games daily, so that would be something easy I could do

It's the time of night when I turn into a sack of goo, so I have no brain for anything else at the moment. Guess I'd better brush my teeth and go to bed.

Current Mood: tired

rosa_heartlily

A year ago I was ranting about proper names, uncertain whether cancelling a meeting was a good thing, chatting with a colleague in the sunshine and saying hello to someone from church who was walking past, and mixing up my meals.

Today started with progress on my write up of my virtual pilgrimage. Of course, I spent most of the time fiddling with the layout :D

I tried booking Husband's podiatry appointment but they hadn't been released onto the system *heavy sigh* We'll try again tomorrow.

There was an email from Royal Mail saying my books were due to be delivered today but offered the chance to reschedule, so I asked for them to deliver it tomorrow. Later, I got an email saying they'd tried to deliver the parcel but got no answer - so would try again tomorrow...

Seriously - can't these organisations organise a simple process?

In the office, I managed to get my LM to read through my project proposal and submitted it ahead of schedule. Yay!

I also set up a template project plan, after LM and another colleague had spent most of the day tearing their hair out over synchronising a university plan with a third party plan. LM left early and exhausted, so I'll share it with them tomorrow.

We had a very nice chippy tea that everyone enjoyed - calling that a win, too.

Now I'm watching a Doctor Who story that I actually remember from when I was a child - Robots of Death. Yeah, no prizes for guessing who the killer is! The Doctor has just said something like, 'People are always creeped out by robots. The more robots the more they're afraid of them, but the more dependent they are on them.'. And here we are, handing over control of our lives to AI...

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: bedroom

nanslice

cypher and I have been married a full year! That's wild! I mean, we've been together since 2019 and have been living together since 2020, but you know. Marriage! :D But yes, yesterday was our one year anniversary; we went to lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant that I'd never been to and they hadn't been to in over six years. It was delicious! I did get a flight of margaritas (mango, blueberry, and tamarind) and extremely tasty enchiladas (salsa verde for Will and mole for me). The vibes were immaculate! It was busy but still chill and everyone seemed to be in a great mood. It was just, ah, so nice.

Will baked this adorable cake! Extremely tasty, please admire!

And I had bought this super cute card set:

with card hits like this that you then decide which one you want to do and scratch it off to see what exactly it is!

(we didn't do this one, it's just an example)

We picked one that was free and only took an hour and scratched it off to reveal a "Try Not to Laugh" challenge! We did something similar, which was queue up some Real Facts videos by ZeFrank on the TV and laugh as much as we want. It was so nice! We're both really bad at watching things so it was nice to pile on the couch together and watch something funny but informative, haha. It was really, really nice to cuddle and laugh together. ;3;

Unfortunately not all is well in Nanland. My dog Selphie has been acting a little odd lately. Panting a lot, drinking a lot, peeing a lot, not having any energy. We ended up getting her an emergency appointment and at first, the vet assumed both diabetes and Cushing's but after bloodwork, it definitely looks more like Cushing's. She's gonna have to spend the day at the vet on Monday while they figure out her medication dosages and then she'll likely be on them for the rest of her life. ;3; But all my research tells me that after she's on medication she'll be doing so much better. Which is a relief! I miss my little hiking pal. ;3;

But in better pet news, a couple of nights ago I was watching youtube videos with Dale (my bearded dragon). Lil man climbed to my back, nuzzled his snoot into the hair behind my ear, and went to sleep. ;o; Aaaaahhhh I love him a lot. <3

And in gardening news! Radishes, beets, and turnips going strong, lettuces thriving, and tomatoes started. I feel like it's been kind of a slow start for gardening but I suspect last year we jumped the gun a bit for getting things started. XD; Gotta contain the enthusiasm for when it's actually warm enough!

Current Mood: cheerful

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Dee Moyza

April 2026

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Page Summary

rocky41_7 - Recent Reading: The Black Fantastic
althea_valara - Fan Fest Entry story and pics!
althea_valara - signal boost: how do you fandom? question
rosa_heartlily - Loving this mix
lassarina - I forgot how much I like making things
althea_valara - bummer :(
rocky41_7 - Recent Reading: The Tainted Cup
rosa_heartlily - Spinning plates...
rosa_heartlily - Hello, weekend
skygiants - (no subject)
seleneheart - Book Bingo: N5 | Banned Book | Eleanor & Park
rosa_heartlily - I'm not stupid? Oh, I think you'll find I am...
halfcactus - thefridayfive, 2026.04.10
vriddy - PSA update regarding the Dreamwidth notifications
rosa_heartlily - Using AI for good...
vriddy - Quickly jotting down a few proofreading-related notes
skygiants - (no subject)
althea_valara - gearing up for 3W4DW
rosa_heartlily - Getting stuff done
nanslice - Happy Anniversary to Us! Yesterday! And some other things!

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Page generated Apr. 14th, 2026 11:48 pm

Dee Moyza

sometimes sanity takes vacation time on me

Network

Recent Reading: The Black Fantastic

Fan Fest Entry story and pics!

signal boost: how do you fandom? question

Loving this mix

I forgot how much I like making things

bummer :(

Recent Reading: The Tainted Cup

Spinning plates...

Hello, weekend

(no subject)

Book Bingo: N5 | Banned Book | Eleanor & Park

I'm not stupid? Oh, I think you'll find I am...

thefridayfive, 2026.04.10

PSA update regarding the Dreamwidth notifications

Using AI for good...

Quickly jotting down a few proofreading-related notes

(no subject)

gearing up for 3W4DW

Getting stuff done

Happy Anniversary to Us! Yesterday! And some other things!

Profile

April 2026

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