solarcat | Network

Title: Alone And Lonely
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Jonathan Willaway.
Rating: PG
Setting: Beyond the Mountain.
Summary: Jonathan Willaway has never been particularly sociable, but being alone doesn’t suit him either.
Word Count: 300
Content Notes: Nada.
Written For: Challenge 501: Amnesty 83, using Challenge 30: Solitary.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
A/N: Triple drabble.

( Alone And Lonely... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: awake

ysabetwordsmith

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Poem: "The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds"
Poem: "Embrace My Fate"
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds Order
Poem: "The Spectrum of Your Being"
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Vocabulary: Bricolage
Today's Adventures
Science
Birdfeeding
Meteor Shower Calendar
Philosophical Questions: Life
Edible Landscaping Order
Meme
Photos: House Yard
Water
Birdfeeding
Books
Follow Friday 2-20-26: Active Communities on Dreamwidth Winter 2025-2026 A-I
Energy
Birdfeeding
Community Thursdays
Photos: Flowerbeds
Books
Birdfeeding
Hard Things

Safety has 49 comments. Food has 53 comments. Wildlife has 39 comments. Food has 67 comments. Robotics has 146 comments.

Last week's half-price sale in Not Quite Kansas went well. All sponsored poems have been posted, so you can find those via the title links on the sale page.

The 2026 Rose and Bay Awards are now open for excellence in crowdfunding. It's time to vote for your favorite projects!

The award period for eligible activities spans January 1-December 31, 2025.
The nomination period spans January 1-January 31, 2026.
The voting period spans February 1-February 28, 2026.

These are the handlers for the 2026 award season:

Art: gs_silva Nominate art! Vote for art!
Fiction: fuzzyred Nominate fiction! Vote for fiction!
Poetry: gs_silva Nominate poetry! Vote for poetry!
Webcomic: curiosity Nominate webcomics! Vote for webcomics!
Other Project: curiosity Nominate other projects! Vote for other projects!
Patron: fuzzyred Nominate patrons! Vote for patrons!

"The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds" belongs to Not Quite Kansas and needs $34.50 to be complete. Raymond and Gideon get attacked on the way home from research.

The weather has been variable here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of sparrows, several starlings, one male and two female house finches, one female and two male cardinals, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel. I flushed the great horned owl from the ritual meadow when I went out there. A skein of geese flew overhead, going north. Currently blooming: crocuses.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

These are the notes for "The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds."

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the October 2020 Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from

wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "demons" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, an unprovoked attack, hellhounds, violence, gore, unexpected rescue, playing with prey, fatally injured opponents, minor injuries to main characters, awkward discussions, willing sacrifice, intimate magical healing, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them. The rate is $0.25/line, so $5 will reveal 20 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses. So far sponsors include:

fuzzyred,

355 lines, Buy It Now = $44.50
Amount donated = $10
Verses posted = 13 of 118
Amount remaining to fund fully = $34.50
Amount needed to fund next verse = $0.25
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $0.75

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

astronomypicofday_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260222.html

What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260222.html

ysabetwordsmith

Here are the notes for "Embrace My Fate."

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

torachan

1. We had a very nice morning at Disneyland today. A little warm (I wore a sweatshirt when we got in and had to take it off about halfway through, so then I had to lug it around the rest of the time, which was annoying) and a little crowded, but we ate a lot of good food and had a good time.

2. Poor Tuxie looks like he got in a scuffle again. Yesterday he came to the door with one eye partially closed and the fur between his eye and ear on that side scraped up. He's looking better today (eye fully open) and unlike some times before where he disappeared for a few days to hunker down, he has been spending his time in our yard as usual, so hopefully he's doing okay. I do wish he wouldn't get in fights. :-/

3. Jasper is just hanging out.

ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the October 6, 2020 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from

librarygeek. It also fills the "How do you want to do this?" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, sorting through a lair acquired by combat, reference to past abuse, cursed artifacts, damned souls, worry, magical body modification, restraint for safety, awkward emotional discussions, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

I picked out what I wanted from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds. This catalog has the Safe Seed Pledge, meaning everything is non-GMO/toxin-free. My partner Doug further notes that they have the best, easiest ordering system of all the catalogs we use. Call up the Smart Order Form and when you key in the product number, the rest autofills, tells you if it's still in stock, and lists the price. \o/ Somegeek earned their coffee today!

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

github in

changelog

Branch: refs/heads/main Home: https://github.com/dreamwidth/dreamwidth Commit: f27c478d43d0c489b0252e384b0927475a31eda7 https://github.com/dreamwidth/dreamwidth/commit/f27c478d43d0c489b0252e384b0927475a31eda7 Author: momijizukamori momijizukamori+bugzilla@gmail.com Date: 2026-02-22 (Sun, 22 Feb 2026)

Changed paths: M bin/upgrading/en.dat M cgi-bin/DW/Controller/Talk.pm M cgi-bin/LJ/Global/Defaults.pm R htdocs/delcomment.bml R htdocs/delcomment.bml.text M htdocs/js/commentmanage.js M htdocs/js/jquery.commentmanage.js R htdocs/talkmulti.bml R htdocs/talkmulti.bml.text R htdocs/talkscreen.bml R htdocs/talkscreen.bml.text A views/delcomment.tt A views/delcomment.tt.text A views/talkmulti.tt A views/talkmulti.tt.text A views/talkscreen.tt A views/talkscreen.tt.text

Log Message:

Convert miscellaneous Talk pages to TT (#3497)

Convert talkmulti, talkscreen, and delcomment to TT
Clean up text strings
Fix routing and JSON returns
Fix string path
Clean up some minor errors

ysabetwordsmith

These are the notes for "The Spectrum of Your Being."

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

torachan

Today is Anaheim Ducks Day at DCA and I specifically made a reservation for today rather than Saturday (our usual), not because either of us care anything about hockey or the Ducks, but because last year we just happened to be there on that day and had an amazing burrito that they only serve on Ducks Day lol.

( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the September 1, 2020 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from

librarygeek. It also fills the "How do you want to do this?" square in my 9-1-20 card for the I Want Fries With That! Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, a headless chicken running around, a fight with bit character fatalities, moderate injuries to a main character, messy medical details, an imprisoned demon, torture, binding magic, demonic healing, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

conuly

I didn’t guess that I’d be stuck with the roads closed until at least noon tomorrow.

Well, I’m getting paid every hour I’m here, at least.

kaberett

Reading. Finished The Rose Field (Pullman)!!! I am Making Arrangements for it to Leave My House. ( Read more... )

ANYWAY. I finished it. It Is Done.

Then read the first few pages of Dead Hand Rule (Gladstone; latest in the Craft Wars) before deciding that actually I need to reread at least the end of Wicked Problems in order to remember what's going on...

Writing. Progress continues both glacial and extant.

Listening. My relisten-while-actually-awake of the first chunk of The Hidden Almanac continues, slowly.

Playing. We have finished an Exploders run on Hard in Inkulinati. I am contemplating, given how smoothly that went, whether I want to have a try at Very Hard...

Cooking. It's not quite "this week's breakfast dal, and a loaf of bread", but it does sort of feel like it was. Partly because for reasons we did not get our usual box of veg on Monday last week, which meant that we were scrabbling around using up Shelf Things and the occasional Supermarket Discount Item...

NO WAIT, I also DID make buckwheat pancakes, and inspired by lnr combined Tinned Pear and Stem Ginger with Vanilla Essence and also Ground Cardamom to go in same. V good. Will repeat.

Eating. My mother acquired for us, as A Special Treat, a variety of Baked Goods from The Fancy Bakery In Eddington: my favourite is still the fig-and-?ricotta, but the blueberry-and-?ricotta is also very good, as is the fougasse. A was extremely pleased with the pain aux raisins. AND my mother made some excellent baba ganoush, eaten with said fougasse.

This week also feat. rainbow bagels (which we got to watch some of the manufacturing process for!) as well as misc other foodstuffs from Shalom Hot Beigels.

A has some coffee and butterscotch cake (leftovers from a test bake!) from Flour Arrangements; alas by the time I got my act together to actually collect Excess Test Cake the apple pie and lemon had both all gone...

Exploring. I got to spend a little time in the City of London Cemetery, which is currently ablaze with (among other things) purple crocuses; we also (on our second attempt) managed to go on A Snowdrop Walk Around Anglesey (with thanks to aldabra for reminding me that it is That Time Of Year still!). Snowdrops excellent. May or may not get around to sharing some photos. (Our first attempt at A Snowdrop Walk Around Anglesey Abbey wound up mutating into a poke around the back of Churchill and Astronomy to peer at bulbs and other plants misc, which was also very enjoyable even if I did once again fail to take A to see the Barbara Hepworth.)

Growing. ... I bought a bag of snowdrops In The Green at Anglesey, to go into the ground around the cherry tree at the allotment? The lemongrass seedlings haven't all died?

jadelennox

I take a lot of pictures of three classes of things:

Cats: This pictures are good on any camera, including my agéd single-lens SE.
Birds: These pics are shit on the aforementioned handheld phone.
Moss and lichens and bugs: These pics are fine on the phone, but could be much better.

My real constraint is my hands and arms. I can't hold my arms above my head, I can't hold a phone still very long, the non-ergonomic controls and shape of a phone are shit, I realistically can't carry a tripod on a hike, and I can't bear weight on my shoulders or the back of my neck for any length of time. (I recognize that this collection of constraints means my pictures will never be great, and that's okay.)

So, questions:

Are there any cameras that have particularly good ergonomics, are particularly light, or have a good reputation for accessibility?
I believe I could get a remote shutter trigger & a remote focus, so I could prop the camera somewhere and get a good pic from a less painful angle; do you know how to choose a hand-friendly one? (Not finger-fiddly, easy to attach & detach, easy to click buttons.)
On a modern camera, is it possible to get lenses good enough for bird pics that are not, you know, heavy? Last time I had an SLR I was taking pictures on film, so that tells you how out of date my knowledge is.
What's the lightest tripod that works well for people with shit fine motor control and no finger strength? I can sort by weight on hiking sites, but hikers put up with a lot of fiddly controls that I can't handle.

(I'm only looking for advice from your experience or from the experience of people you trust. Please don't GoogleKagiGoPT it for me!)

nicolagriffith_feed

Posted by Nicola Griffith

https://nicolagriffith.com/2026/02/22/just-12-years-late-hild-finally-makes-the-nyt/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=98423

I was sad when Hild was not reviewed in the New York Times on publication. A year later, when it wasn’t even mentioned as a paperback, I felt a bit wistful, then shrugged. It had had plenty of other excellent notices.

So I was surprised and sceptical yesterday when I started to get emails, comments, and social media messages saying: ‘Hey, wow, great review of Hild in the NYT!’

I did a search—couldn’t find it anywhere. Then a reader finally sent me this:

So, hey, it’s true! (Though I still can’t find the link, which is weird. EDIT TO ADD: here it is. It looks as though it’s part of a newsletter.) So February is turning into a great book month for me: She Is Here is published, Spear, after four years as a hardcover is finally available as a paperback, and now, only a doze years late, Hild finally gets her NYT spotlight.

Life is good.

https://nicolagriffith.com/2026/02/22/just-12-years-late-hild-finally-makes-the-nyt/

http://nicolagriffith.com/?p=98423

ysabetwordsmith

Homo erectus fossils in East Asia rewrite the timeline of human migration

A new analysis dates three Homo erectus skulls from central China to about 1.77 million years ago, making them the oldest securely dated hominin fossils in eastern Asia.

That older age shifts the arrival of early humans in the region back by roughly 600,000 years and compresses the timeline of how quickly our ancestors spread across Eurasia.
[---8<---]
The same layer holds stone tools and animal remains, tying the skulls to a specific moment nearly 1.8 million years ago rather than the younger dates long cited.

Current Mood: busy

fthmods in

fandomtrumpshate

We have started posting auctions, which means that we have started sending emails with your auction link and the link to submit edits!

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