vital functions (ish)

Apr. 28th, 2026 10:29 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Last week I:

  • finished weaving in the ends on A's gloves (before we hit site for the first event of the year)
  • read more She's A Beast
  • ate a bunch of food I didn't have to cook (current experiment: do Lichfield brownie bars only taste That Good in a field?)
  • explored Steeplechase LRP Centre when it had PEOPLE on it (and also when it didn't)
  • including seeing a green woodpecker!
  • and SO many birds of prey
  • made a bunch of unilateral decisions about where tents would go directly affecting two other departments in response to external constraints, and redesigned internal tent layout on the fly in response to different external constraints, and... it all worked???
  • rethought several steps in the lost property process and goodness that works way better and is much less stressful

and then today has been about half and half "sleep" and "endless lost property paperwork". And Now: To Bed.

3W4DW Day 3 Check-in

Apr. 27th, 2026 09:33 pm
althea_valara: Icon captioned "a woman bracing herself." (bracing)
[personal profile] althea_valara
I will be taking myself to bed once this is posted because I am rather meh.

1. one creative thing I did today



It was not a good day for fiber arts.

So, May is almost here, which means the current round of Nerdopolis is ending, and I have yet to make anything for it. I dutifully tried to make something today: a pocket tissue cozy.

First I tried a knitted one, using the suggested needle size. I didn't get far before deciding I hated it. I was going to drop down in needle size (...several sizes) and try again, but the yarn wouldn't cooperate and for once I didn't have patience to deal with it.

So I gave up on that, and tried a crocheted one, but I hated how that was coming out too, even though I had only done a few rows. Today was just not a day for yarn crafts.

I opened my [community profile] getyourwordsout Habit Tracker tonight to see where I was for the month and well, it's bad. But I did write one day, and that is one day more than I would have done if I wasn't attempting GYWO. I'm gonna try to get some more writing done in the next few days.

2. one thing I'm proud of today



My job is a set-your-own-hours contract position. I love it, honestly. It's perfect for my lifestyle right now.

I usually set a goal of working 3 hours a day, but Mondays are not good days for me and I often fail to meet that goal. Today I not only met it, but exceeded it. I finished the current sheet I was working on, because I wanted it done. So I'm ahead of schedule for the rest of the week now, which may mean I don't end up working 4+ hours of Thursday or Friday again. That'll be nice!

Also felt therapy went well today, but that's all I'll say on a public post.

3. video game progress



Hahahaha nope. I had vague plans to play some Tactics after dinner, but mom needed help/needed me to listen to her rant about Facebook, and by the time we were done it was 8pm. And I'd have to hook up my Switch again because I brought it up to dogsitting, and well, TOO MUCH LIKE WORK.

I thought about messing around in FFXIV but was too tired for that, and besides, would rather save FFXIV energy for new patch tomorrow. I plan on doing the alliance raid first thing in the morning! And then MSQ after work/lunch.

Okay, I did play some WordScapes today, but I usually do, so ??? -- I'm of the opinion that casual phone games DEFINITELY count as gaming, but there's not much to report about an ongoing casual game. Though I will complain that some of their goals are ridiculous. Dear WordScapes: you are a WORD GAME. Folks like me are going to play maybe 20-30 minutes a day, tops. Why are you making it so the best achievements take considerably more time? ....okay, yes, I know: they want money, and think the way to get it is to have you play more. Well. I paid my $2.99 to remove ads from it ages ago, and I'm too good at the game to require hints (no seriously, I have like 15 rocket hints collecting dust, and it's NOT because of fear of using them like fear of using Elixirs in RPGs) so there's nothing to entice me to spend money. I'm happy with my 3-5 puzzles before bed.
althea_valara: A screenshot of Alisaie from Final Fantasy XIV. (alisaie)
[personal profile] althea_valara
Because of Three Weeks for Dreamwidth, I've discovered the [community profile] fanmix_monthly community which sounds fun! But I admit I would be terrible at making fanmixes, because my primary fandom is Final Fantasy, and the only music I listen to is... Final Fantasy. You see the issue there? lol.

Anyway! They are doing a prompt fest! Folks leave a comment with a fandom (and optionally, characters) and others comment with a song that reminds them of that.

My comment is here, and I'm looking for non-Final Fantasy songs that remind you of Final Fantasy XIV characters (except Zenos, I can't stand him.) I thought I'd post here because there's a handful of you following me who are FF fans... maybe you have some ideas?

tada

Apr. 27th, 2026 10:18 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Headline: hooooooome.

3W4DW Day 2 Check-in

Apr. 26th, 2026 09:30 pm
althea_valara: Icon of my cat, Raina, stretching in the sun. Caption reads "life is good." (life is good)
[personal profile] althea_valara
Not much today because a good portion of the day was spent getting ready to go back home and then getting there, but YAY I'M HOME! I had a fun "vacation" with the dog, but glad to be back in my own space.

1. one creative thing I did today



Worked on a swatch for a knitted tee. Just a row or two, but I touched it.

When I got home, I did some searching on Ravelry to find something for a Nerdopolis challenge. For those new around here: Nerdopolis is a crafting tournament in which we get themes to craft to. One of the themes this month is "deep space objects", so I've been looking for stuff that is reminiscent of spiral galaxies.

I found a great hat that I wanted to knit, but (a) I wasn't sure I'd have time because it was densely knit worsted weight AND double-layered, (b) I went to purchase it and it said "This designer is not taking payments at this time." Tried their Etsy store, and it's closed. Ah, well. I had previously started a crocheted doily that I might finish, but I wasn't digging it, so I dunno. The end of round is coming, though, so I'll need to make SOMETHING.

2. one thing I'm proud of today



I cleaned the house before I left, to my satisfaction. Also left a note to say how good the dog was, here's some things they should know about, and thanking them for trusting me with their home and dog.

3. video game progress



I logged into FFXIV just so my console would be ON (I had shut it down completely before I left), which meant I did the PlayStation 5 OS upgrade and new TOS agreement. Now the console is asleep, or will be soon. I'm purposely leaving it sleeping so when patch hits tomorrow night, it gets updated and I won't have to wait for it before I play on Tuesday morning. I didn't do much in game, just checked retainers (they sold a bunch of things! That's what happens when you don't log in for over a week) and spent some poetics on HW relic materials.

and that's it for today.

event: achieved

Apr. 26th, 2026 11:59 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Still some tidy up to do, but. Did.

3W4DW Day One Check-in

Apr. 26th, 2026 07:21 am
althea_valara: Photo of my cat sniffing a vase of roses  (Default)
[personal profile] althea_valara
I meant to post this last night, but I was le tired. My schedule has gotten all messed up from dog watching; I've been crashing at 9pm and getting up at 6am. It's only 7:05am and I've already had coffee and a bagel. That's UNHEARD of for me to eat that early!

Anyway: during the gear-up to the start of 3W4DW, I had decided I would post daily during the celebration with some check-ins. Here's the check-in for day one. We will ignore it is now day 2.

1. one creative thing I did today



Not much, but I worked on a swatch for a tee I'm going to knit! Actually, I already started the tee, but (a) I misread the pattern, (b) the icord edge was really tight and making everything look sloppy, so I decided to start over, this time doing a proper swatch instead of just diving in.

I also asked [community profile] smallweb for some advice. Actually, I'm interested in non-techy answers, too, so I'll ask here as well:

Currently, my Final Fantasy XI fanscripts are laid out as one expansion's entire mission line on one page, though I have horizontal rules between each mission, and also have "jump to" links at the end of each mission to jump to a different mission. Example page: https://altheavalara.neocities.org/ffxi/rotz

I'm banging my head against those jump-to links. I'm working on documenting the next expac in the series, so I need to put the jump-tos in to be consistent, but... I hand-coded them, and that is a pain. I was trying to figure out if I can automatically insert them with Jekyll magic, but I'm stumped (Jekyll is my static site generator).

So now I'm wondering if it would be better to split the expansion into separate pages for each mission. I could possibly use Jekyll magic for pagination, then. It would mean a LOT more pages on the site, but may be easier to handle? There's benefits and drawbacks to both methods. As a reader, what would you prefer?

2. one thing I'm proud of today



I started cleaning up! I'll be going home today and would like to leave the house pretty much how I left it, so I gathered dirty dishes and garbage and took care of that. I need to run the dishwasher and handwash some dishes, but I'm proud of the start I made instead of leaving it to last minute.

Also, I posted my list of community recs again, as I said I would when 3W4DW started. Go me for following through on a plan.

3. video game progress



Well, being away from home means less video gaming. I pretty much just played WordScapes on my phone. Not much to report there. But I also answered some questions on Mastodon from someone who had FFXIV Free Trial questions, and reposted my starter guide from Bsky to Mastodon... which I might have already done in the past, but whatever, it's reposted.

(no subject)

Apr. 25th, 2026 08:51 pm
ysobel: (Default)
[personal profile] ysobel
Another bug dream last night - cw for insecty badness

Read more... )
althea_valara: Photo of my cat sniffing a vase of roses  (Default)
[personal profile] althea_valara
Colorful image that says 3weeks4dreamwidth friending meme
Friending Meme! Come make new friends!


OKAY FOLKS it is time for another round of Althea's List of Interesting Dreamwidth Communities! I last posted this during [community profile] snowflake_challenge this year, so just a few months ago, but I've stealth added some more since then.

Rules:
1. Share freely! This post is public for that reason.
2. If you know of a good comm and want to see it featured, comment and I'll very likely add it.
3. I refuse to add comms that full of bigotry and hate. That seems to not be a Dreamwidth thing, but I am sure they are out there. I'm here for supportive / fun places!

And now, here's the list! They are roughly in reverse chronological order to when they've been added, so newer ones are at the top. EDIT @ 12:22pm: I've redone the list to be broken down roughly alphabetical by category, which should make it easier to manage!




Dreamwidth



Non-official communities to help make your time on Dreamwidth more rich.

  • [community profile] 3weeks4dreamwidth is a thing in which people post/interact more on Dreamwidth, to show love for the platform. ♥

  • [community profile] addme_fandom A friend finding community, but with a specific fandom focus! Interested in a particular fandom right now and want more people to talk about it with? Here’s a good place to find fellow fans!

  • [community profile] addme_fandom is a place to find friends who share your fannish obsessions.

  • [community profile] findingfriends : Similar to the addme communities but with a more in-depth approach, including things like posting style and what sort of interactions you’re looking for. Takes more brain power than the addme comms, but I imagine that the connections result in a higher level of compatibility.

  • [community profile] followfriday recommends people/communities to follow each Friday.

  • [community profile] getting_started is a community with resources for those new to Dreamwidth.

  • [community profile] moodthemeinayear is what it says on the tin: the folks there are working on creating custom Dreamwidth mood themes over the course of a year.

  • [community profile] reddit_refugees offers resources for newcomers to Dreamwidth.

  • [community profile] snowflake_challenge runs in January, and is a way to celebrate fandom and meet interesting people on Dreamwidth.

  • [community profile] sunshine_challenge Like snowflake_challenge but runs in the summer months (northern hemisphere, but our Southern Friends experiencing winter are welcome too!)

  • [community profile] twitter_refugees is for folks migrating to Dreamwidth from Twitter.


Bingos



Creative or commenting challenges based on a bingo card.

  • [community profile] allbingo - They do all sorts of bingos, mostly writing-related but I think they've had some crafting ones as well. There's new challenges monthly!

  • [community profile] comment_bingo is a bingo challenge community for commenting on all those fanfics you read.

  • [community profile] genprompt_bingo - for the writers! They generate bingo cards of prompts, with all the prompts being gen. You can, of course, write a shippy fic from the prompt – it’s just the prompts themselves that are gen.

  • [community profile] ladiesbingo is a bingo challenge to make works focused on the relationship between women, whether gen, femslash, or familial. I'm currently having great fun trying to fill my bingo board!

  • [community profile] lyricaltitles is a bingo fest for fanfiction and original fiction centering around using songs for inspiration!

  • [community profile] vid_bingo is a community for vidders to use bingo card prompts to inspire vids


Prompts



Writing or creative challenges that are prompt-based but not bingo cards:

  • [community profile] 100words is a drabble community for fiction of all kinds. They post weekly challenges there.

  • [community profile] 1character is a writing challenge where you choose a character and prompt set, then write one line sentences to fill each prompt.

  • [community profile] 25poemsamonth is a community where a 25 prompt table is posted at the beginning of every month and then, members have until the beginning of the next to fill as many prompts as possible.

  • [community profile] fan_flashworks is a multifandom comm that posts one prompt for the week you use to write a short fanfic.

  • [community profile] ffprompts posts monthly prompts for the Final Fantasy video game franchise. As a big fan of this series, I'd love to see more fills for the prompts happening!

  • [community profile] fic_promptly is created for leaving prompts and answering prompts. All fandoms are allowed, as are original work and real-person work. Fills can be fics or poems. There is no minimum/maximum word count.

  • [community profile] inspiredby posts writing prompts monthly.

  • [community profile] kittens_and_spitefic 's goal is to prompt fan content by acting like a total troll and pretending to bash what you want to see up one side and down the other. Commenters then engage with the supposed "troll" by spamming them with cat (and other animal) macros and/or content that caters to everything the original poster professes to hate.

  • [community profile] sweetandshort is a low-pressure community for creating small fanworks / original works each week.

  • [community profile] threesentenceficathon People leave prompts, other write short fills of 3 sentences or longer.


Writing



Writing-related communities that aren't Bingos or Prompts.

  • [community profile] 10trueloves is a writing challenge where you pair a character with ten others (IIRC, they don't have to be romantic pairings, but I'm not sure – check the comm rules for more info!)

  • [community profile] getyourwordsout is a writing challenge community where you can challenge yourself by wordcount of number of days written per month.

  • [community profile] makezines is for folks doing just that!


Icons



Icon-creating challenges and other icon communities.

  • [community profile] iconthat is another icon challenge community.

  • [community profile] your_favourites is an icon making community that migrated over from LiveJournal. Looks like they have themes for members to create icons for, and then take a vote for best icon. I've joined it in hopes of finding more icons to add to my own journal.


Books



Read-alongs and other book communites:

  • [community profile] booknook posts a weekly Read-in-Progress check-in posts on Wednesdays.

  • [community profile] queerbookclub is a no pressure book club dedicated to fiction books of all genres that are queer in some way! each month we take suggestions on what the next month's book should be and we vote on it. if you're not interested in the book for the month, that's perfectly fine!

  • [community profile] readingtogether - has seen some activity the past few months. It's not like a normal book club where everyone reads the same thing - instead everyone reads their own thing and posts their progress.


Crafts and General Creativity



  • [community profile] everykindofcraft is what it says it is.

  • [community profile] get_knitted posts daily check-ins. The folks there are GREAT about commenting on each other's comments. It's not just for knitting, either - there are people there who do scrapbooking and jigsaw puzzles.

  • [community profile] justcreate - has weekly check in posts where you can update everyone on your creative progress. All kinds of creativity are celebrated there, including fiber arts, drawing, writing, and more.

  • [community profile] nacramamo is National Craft-Making Month, and is gearing up now to kick off in October. The challenge is to work on some kind of craft every day for 31 days.

  • [community profile] communal_creators is a community for creative types! A mini-round for time pledges will be happening this spring. ANY kind of creativity is welcome! We have people writing (both fic and original), knitting, crochet, vidding, storyboarding, baking, making websites... if it's creative, you're welcome here.

  • [community profile] drawesome - has drawing challenges. I haven't taken part yet because I am a very sucky drawer, but I hope to start there in the future.


Culture



Communities focusing on a specific culture.

  • [community profile] c_ent is for Chinese Entertainment, and comes highly recommended by a few people.

  • [community profile] latam is a new community for people to come together to talk about latinamerican music, films, food, culture, fandom, and more! Everyone's welcome, no matter where you're posting from! And you can also post in your language (official languages of the community are Spanish, Portuguese and English!)

  • [community profile] senzenwomen is a community regaling the histories of women in and around Japan, 1868-1945. Thanks to vriddy for signal boosting this fascinating community!


Nature



What it says on the tin.

  • [community profile] birdfeeding covers everything to do with birdfeeding, gardening for wildlife, and related topics.

  • [community profile] common_nature is a photo community to share nature pics from your area, and has been active recently.



Fandom & Gaming



Communities about fandom in general and in specific.

  • [community profile] allkindsofdolls is what it says on the tin. If you love dolls, check it out.

  • [community profile] anime_manga has seen some activity lately!

  • [community profile] bnha_fans is for fans of Boku no Hero Academia

  • [community profile] fandom_on_dw : Pretty much the same as above, honestly, but it’s good that there’s more than one place that hosts this kind of thing!

  • [community profile] fandomcalendar : This is a community dedicated to announcing fandom events, which can include fandom-specific friending memes.

  • [community profile] fictional_fans : A community for all fans and fandoms. If you’ve got a post you want to make about fandom in general, or a specific fandom that doesn’t have its own community, this might be a good place to check out.

  • [community profile] finalfantasy - of course this would be here, if you know me. It's been very slow there lately, but I'd love to see more activity there.

  • [community profile] indie_games sometimes sees activity, and in the past, we did a play-together of A Short Hike.


Social Justice



Because the world is a mess and we just need to fix it.

  • [community profile] fandomtrumpshate raises money for charity by creating fanworks.

  • [community profile] thissterlingcrew is the UK equivalent of the below.

  • [community profile] thisfinecrew is a social justice community focused on the USA. It doesn't get as much action as i once did but there are still informative posts there once in a while.

  • [community profile] womansplace is a community that holds dual purpose: 1) Celebrate characters who identify as women or who are aligned with womanhood in transformative fan works. Events include community recs, a prompt fest, and a vid exchange. 2) Raise funds via a vid auction


Other Communties



These didn't fit in the other categories but I feel are interesting enough to warrant being on this post!

  • [community profile] queerly_beloved : An anti-exclusionist queer space to get together and talk about all things queer, including intersectional matters. Hosts a weekly recommendations thread, but more and other content is very welcome!

  • [community profile] 1word1day posts a vocabulary word a day!

  • [community profile] agonyaunt - critiques letters to advice columnists and the answers the letter writers get. I love this community because it is filled with smart people that I am learning a lot from. I'm a person of a certain age, and I know because of the timeframe I grew up in I have a lot of inherit biases and whatnot. I try to be above those biases, but sometimes I don't recognize them. Reading the other commenters to agonyaunt helps me recognize those biases and better myself.

  • [community profile] awesomeers - they make a post for each day of the week in which they challenge the members to comment with Just One Thing you did today that you're proud of accomplishing. Of course you are free to post more than one thing if you'd like! I love the idea of this community, though I haven't been very active in it lately. I hope to change that, if only to congratulate other people. Also: we celebrate all accomplishments there, so something as simple as "I got out of bed" would be acceptable!

  • [community profile] bujo for bullet journalers.

  • [community profile] crowdfunding connects creators, patrons, and fans of cyberfunded creativity. Watch for the mid-month Creative Jam with a new theme each time.

  • [community profile] do_it - A community for posting to-do lists to make yourself accountable to others.

  • [community profile] holiday_wishes - active in the last two months of the year. People post their holiday wish lists there, and others fill them! I really was blessed one year - I got a bunch of cards, some yarn, some chocolate, and some other sweet treats. &hearts

  • [community profile] journalsandplanners - what it says on the tin: for those who use a journal or planner to organize their lives.

  • [community profile] reference_library is a place to gather helpful links and share them, run by sharpest_asp

  • [community profile] signalboost is for getting the word out to others about people needing help in some way.

Two more videos

Apr. 23rd, 2026 07:28 pm
batwrangler: Just for me. (Default)
[personal profile] batwrangler
​Taking desensitisation to the next level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXKxpTYRb9I

Giving new meaning to feeding the birds: https://youtube.com/shorts/iTrPDslstjk?si=1seASuqmRsdM0gTb​ (warning: nature red in tooth and talon)