xiphias | Reading

This is a painting by Édouard Frédéric Wilhelm Richter, who I had never heard of. As well, it's an example of "orientalist" painting, which I had also never heard of. Seems to be depictions of the east (starting at the middle east), as imagined by a painter whose online bio does not mention having ever visited the east.

Some interesting detail work in the expanded version.

james_davis_nicoll

All that stands between Alessa Li and freedom from Hellebore Technical Institute for the Ambitiously Gifted is a single carnage-filled rite of passage, or as the unspeakable teachers call it, dinner.

The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw

duskpeterson

The best place to start your visit to the royal sanctuary is at Jackalfire Grove, just outside the door leading to the sanctuary. At one time, this grove of jackalfire trees was smaller, overlooking the so-called burning ground, where some of the worst events in Koretian history took place.

It is here, from the time of Koretia's earliest days, that god-cursed men and women were stoned to death. It is here that, in recent centuries, disobedient slaves were burned alive. And it is here that, during the ninth, the King of Koretia was slain by a rival in one of the many blood feuds that rent the fabric of Koretian society.

All of these atrocities – stoning, burning alive, and blood feuds – were abolished by the Emorians during their occupation of Koretia. Their abolition was confirmed by Koretia's present ruler, the Jackal, when he ascended the throne. Yet only two generations have passed since the outlawing of the most pernicious aspect of the Koretian gods' law. Many residents of Koretia's capital still remember the festive crowds that used to gather here when a god-cursed man or woman was stoned, or when a slave was burned alive.

Not surprisingly, most Koretians today avoid visiting this grove. Paradoxically, the Jackal encourages visits here, especially by families with children who like to play amidst the trees. It is his way of turning evil to good.

Before leaving, be sure to pluck a twig or leaf from one of the jackalfire trees. Bring it with you to the royal sanctuary.

[Translator's note: One of the terrible events in Jackalfire Grove occurs in Death Mask.]

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: impressed

james_davis_nicoll

A timid immortal cyborg searches for valuable plants in a Tudor England torn between Anglicans and Catholics. What could possibly go wrong?

In The Garden of Iden (Company, volume 1) by Kage Baker

james_davis_nicoll

Rather than use a group of interchangeable mooks, the hostiles had two brutes (one who was accurate, one with multiple attacks), a mage with a couple of decent multi-target attacks, and a mage adept at protective spells. It worked pretty well, esp the part where the healer kept the other NPCS upright. It would have worked even better had she not been prioritizing their boss, who is currently enthralled by an artifact of doom and not much good in a fight.

goljerp

So we have ranked choice voting in primaries in NYC for city positions. Which, on the one hand, is good? I guess? On the other hand, I've heard a lot of people at my shul say, "I don't want X to be elected, so I'm going to rank Cuomo."

The thing is, we can choose 5 people in the ranking, but there are lots more running. Even if you eliminate the non-serious ones (like Paperboy Love Prince, I am not making that up), there are at least 8 other candidates. But people are afraid of X, and Cuomo is polling well, so they want to rank him.

The thing is, Cuomo would be terrible as mayor. He's known to be a corrupt bully, resigned over sexual misconduct, and it's probable that he's only running for mayor as a first step for a nationwide office. And, to make things worse, he's under legal pressure from the US DOJ, which under our current leader is extremely politicised -- he'll be just like our current Mayor, serving at the whim of the white house, just what we don't need.

So, no, I'm not going to rank X, but I'm also not ranking Cuomo.

james_davis_nicoll

Watch on YouTube

sorcyress

Today was the day off to fuck around! Like, the single day I have to recover from burnout of the past school year and be ready for the upcoming several weeks of _stuff_. I'm sure that's fine, I'm sure that's how brains work.

Anyways, I spent the first ninety minutes of the day or so wandering around the various Alewife parks/reserves. There's a lot of good nature over there! I saw multiple turtles and a well posed squirrel and a pretty moth and some ducks! Also lots of green, which smelled overpoweringly of flowers and nature and that's weirdly good despite being a sensory nightmare.

Then I went home and played a _lot_ of days of Stardew Valley,

( the next two paragraphs are boring unless you're also into Stardew! )

In the real world, I wrapped up the evening by hanging with Ruthie and The Toddler for a bit. It was a good evening! A dinosaur drove a truck, which is entirely a correct thing for toddler toys to be doing. And the bedtime story was Magic School Bus and the Hurricane, which was great fun.

Tomorrow has many plans. Here are some of them:

*Call Tuesday, work out final plans/timing for the next few days

*Possibly create A Snack for the pride party

*Go to the grocery store

*Write an entire pre-Pinewoods todo list

*Clean the bathrooms

*Photograph free stuff so I can put it on Facebook and maybe even get it out of the house before I go

*Laundry is a Friday plan. So is packing for mine and Tuesday's adventures and maybe if I'm really good packing one (1) bag for Pinewoods.

Huzzah or whatever!

(And maybe after my dance party I can play a few more days of Stardew).

~Sor

MOOP!

jazzfish

I'm ... approaching done with coursework? I just turned in the practicum report and timesheet. Left to do: finish and polish a groupwork report (due tomorrow); record a five-minute presentation that someone else will stitch together with the rest of the group's presentations (gonna try to get that done by end of Monday); final exam for final class (before end of day next Thursday). Oh, and submit my Application For Credential, I should do that tonight or tomorrow.

It feels a bit of a relief, and a bit of "what next?" and a lot of frustration at the state of the world / economy for having gotten worse since April 2023 when I decided to hide out for two years. It feels more like an Accomplishment than I expected it to, but not much like one. But then very little ever feels like an Accomplishment, except in deliberate retrospect.

Counseling last week and this has been a lot of deep diving into my inability/reluctance to be proud of things I've done. This is gonna require some retraining of my brain. I grew up inculcated with a firm belief that the standards were different for me. Doing something 'normal' is not worth mentioning (though failing to do it is deeply shameful), and doing something extraordinary is worth at most "i knew i could do that, i am Living Up To My Potential." The agon of the Gifted Child: you must do Great Things because you are Gifted; but because you are Gifted, anything you do is no more than what's Expected Of You and thus insufficiently Great.

A couple months back, on the death of Val Kilmer, a friend wrote "The most important moral lesson of Real Genius is that failing to live up to your gifted-kid potential is praxis." I appreciate this a great deal.

adrian_turtle

I have bifocals now. After more than 10 years of changing back and forth between reading glasses and distance glasses, I have to learn a whole different set of reflexes for looking at things. When to move my eyes. When to move my head and NOT my eyes.

I was fine with carrying reading glasses with me, even though it meant I couldn't just go out with what fit in my pockets. But it's tricky to change glasses while wearing an N95 mask and a broad-brimmed hat, especially when I don't have a table or even a lap where I can put down the pair I'm taking off. So I spent a lot of time in the wrong glasses. Unable to read the bus schedule on my phone or unable to see the bus stop sign telling me which direction the bus is going. Unable to find my way into the supermarket, or unable to read package labels. I appreciate how labels are color-coded and otherwise designed for the convenience of people who cannot read! But it's frustrating how often I bought the wrong thing, or had to ask for help.

Adjusting is ... not great
I woke up with a migraine 5 days in a row.
I stumbled and fell on a trolley platform yesterday. I very nearly fell off the trolley platform, so it was much more upsetting than it might be. I wasn't really hurt, but it was scary. It wasn't even one of the transit stops where the footing is particularly bad.

But the bifocals are great! They're great in the ways I had thought they would be. Even better, because my old distance prescription wasn't right. I can read my phone and read the labels on groceries and also see street signs. I can even see leaves in trees!

The problem is that I don't know how to look where I'm going, literally. When I wore plain distance glasses, my eyes were often aimed at the ground I was about to walk on. Especially when I was walking on rough ground, and most of the pavement in this neighborhood counts as rough ground. The line of the bifocals hides that "3 steps away" ground, and the "next step" ground I can see through the reading window feels harder to focus on than when I just walked around in reading glasses. Is this a solved problem? I presume some of you wear bifocals and look where you're going...do you tuck your chins or something?

james_davis_nicoll

Raven: A Gothic Horror RPG – the core rulebook, scenarios, & GM Screen in both English and Spanish versions!

Bundle of Horror: Raven

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: delighted

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: curious

james_davis_nicoll

So many different ways of measuring history and the passage of time...

Counting the Days: Five SFF Approaches to Calendars

james_davis_nicoll

For what purpose has someone summoned a ten-story-tall mountain spirit to Aftzaak, City of Books?

Magus of the Library, volume 8 by Mitsu Izumi

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: annoyed

sorcyress

I did it! I finished cleaning up my room! I was able to play School's Out For Summer at about 6:50pm or so, which is plenty good as these things go. *THUMP* goes the brain. I would like to do absolutely nothing! But things are coming up!

Here's some good things coming up in the near future:

*I'm going to go to Keuka (in the finger lakes in NY) with Tuesday's family! This appears to be the kind of vacation where you just chill out and read books and go for walks and things. I'm excited! I don't really know how to have that kind of vacation, so it'll be a good chance to try things out.

*I'm doing a road trip from Keuka to MD with Cameron (Tuesday's sibling) which sounds like it will be quite a nice time, honestly. I've road-tripped with Tuesday a fair amount, and ker mom a few times, so I'm excited to do it with another member of the family.

*Almost immediately after, I'm road-tripping back up from MD to Boston (and then ESCape) with mom and Wicked Auntie Robin. Mom and I are definitely compatible road trip buddies! I think Robin will be a good third!

(I recently got a kickstarter which is "gay games to play in the car with your girlfriend while she drives you to go camping" so I'm excited to have some road trips to play the gay games!)

*ESCape is going to be amazing, obviously. I'm the official scottish teacher! I get to MC in the evenings and teach two classes! AAAAH! Good aah, but also stressed aah.

*Once I'm back from ESCape I get to actually breathe for a week or so, which is going to be my play video games time. I am _extremely_ looking forward to it.

And then there's some other stuff in the back half of the summer. That's good too!

~Sor

MOOP!

redbird

I went downtown to try on the sandals I'd bought and had delivered to the Clarks store. They didn't fit, so I returned them, which basically meant picking them up, bringing them to the counter, and telling the cashier I was returning the soes.

I stopped at the Copley Square farmers market on the way home and bought a loaf of bread, a few cucumbers, and a pint of strawberries. Part of why I did this today rather than tomorrow was so I could stop at the market.

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

Bartender Geek

pedagogy and rhetoric a specialty

New to me

The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw

FIC: The Royal Sanctuary: Jackalfire Grove (Tempestuous Tours)

"Build a House"

In The Garden of Iden (Company, volume 1) by Kage Baker

Last night in Fabula Ultima

NYC Mayoral race (politics)

That should buff right out

Life, rest, mostly Stardew

time marches on, time standing still

focus

Bundle of Horror: Raven

My workplace just sent me this

I was just wondering this

Counting the Days: Five SFF Approaches to Calendars

Magus of the Library, volume 8 by Mitsu Izumi

Classy Republican Responses To Political Violence

Summer!

the sandals didn't fit.

Hey Canada!

Profile

November 2018

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags