"Exhale" as a Noun

Apr. 22nd, 2025 06:29 pm
labingi: (Default)
[personal profile] labingi
Silly question but when did "exhale" become a noun? I've been seeing it everywhere in fan fic lately, everywhere an "exhale," not one fic with an "exhalation"--or a "he exhaled." I figured it was a fan fic thing.

Then I saw an "exhale" in the poem "Forgotten Portraits," on my son's AP test study list.

The dictionaries are pretty much still telling me "exhale" is a verb.

This is, of course, all my language snobbery and utterly irrelevant, but when did this happen? What memo did I miss?
jjhunter: Watercolor of daisy with blue dots zooming around it like Bohr model electrons (science flower)
[personal profile] jjhunter
Let's take a breath for poetry. It is April, and as good a time as any for a collaborative poetry fest. Please find below a starting stanza or two of a brand new haikai (what's a haikai, you ask? Think extended haiku: alternating stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7). Comment with a following stanza to build on that seed. Someone (most likely me) will respond with another stanza, and so on and so forth throughout the day.
===

daffodil focus
bell song, valdrome, pheasant's eye
live stained glass glory

_

THERE IS MORE PET SHOP OF HORRORS

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:05 pm
spindizzy: Raven looking shocked and horrified. (WHAT?!)
[personal profile] spindizzy
I AM SCREAMING

SEVEN SEAS STARTED RELEASING A NEW TRANSLATION OF PET SHOP OF HORRORS IN FEBRUARY

AND THERE'S TWO NEW SPIN-OFFS

AND I LITERALLY ONLY JUST LEARNED ABOUT IT TODAY OH MY FUCKING GOD I AM FIRING MYSELF AS A FAN HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS

(no subject)

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:41 pm
marina: (:D happy Gracie!)
[personal profile] marina
Well, it's been 2 weeks since my last post, so here's an update.

mentions of health issues )

*

In job news, something pretty huge and happy-making has happened???

One of the 4 companies I interviewed with has gotten back to me (after like 7 stages) to say they want me to work for them and they'll send me a contract offer in the next few days (which is standard). Fingers crossed, nothing certain until papers are signed etc, but. BUT.

It's been over a year, and finally I have a job offer.

At least one company wants to pay me a decent salary with all the nice perks and everything.

Now, if I had no other offers and was not in the running for any other position, I would take this one IN A HEARTBEAT. I would take it and be SO GRATEFUL.

But since I am still somehow in the process with 3 other companies, I'm in the weird position of mentally wondering which one I'd choose if they were to make me an offer.

Company #2 - I've finished all the interviews, and they're supposed to get back to me tomorrow on whether they want to check my references, which usually takes 1-2 days and is more of a formality. There's good reason to assume that if they say yes to me tomorrow they'll make me an offer next week.

Company #3 - I'm doing my final interview with them on Thursday, a big presentation, and after that they'll let me know if they're interested, no reference checks. If they want me they'll just make an offer.

Company #4 - the actual company of my heart, that all other considerations aside I would probably choose to work for because I love their product so much - I'm doing my final interview with them on Monday (next week). Of course they have the WORST HR process, so I actually have no idea what their next step is and whether there's something else they'll want to do before deciding yay/nay after Monday.

Now I'm mostly stressed because Company #1, that's already told me they want me, will probably try to pressure me to finalize a contract with them before Company #4 has a chance to decide whether they want me, sigh.

All of these potential roles are so good. None of them are "I can live with that" compromises. All of them are amazing, it's more a question of specific types of amazing, and of course I ideally want the combination that works best for me.

It is utterly surreal to be in this position after a year and 2 months of being unemployed. UTTERLY SURREAL.

But you know, maybe all the other companies will reject me and only Company #1 will remain, which will still be perfectly fine and even great.

Or maybe I somehow manage to fuck up this whole thing and will be left with nothing ////o\\\\ IDK it's just too good to be true at the moment.

Phew. Deep breath. The next 2 weeks will be continued stress, especially since I have a big presentation on Thursday and on Monday, but then... then. I don't know. Maybe, just maybe. *fingers crossed*

Today’s book lists

Apr. 22nd, 2025 12:11 pm
fred_mouse: drawing of person standing in front of a shelf of books, reading (library)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

From [Book Jockey Alex’s] blog:

general thought: Look, I get that the USA has a stranglehold on some aspects of publishing, and that someone writing from North America about books published in English is going to get a lot more options set in the USA. But for me to pick something set there to spend my precious reading time, the summary has to be spectacular. Ditto ‘class warfare (near) future dystopia’. I’m here for the escapism, dammit. In the Reactor article there were books more relevant to my interests later on, but I nearly noped out when the first five or so were so dire.

Overall - I didn’t quite make it through these lists. I found it near impossible to focus on the descriptions to see if there was something I was going to like; then I just skimmed to see if there was anything jumped out at me. Also, two of these are from 2020, so there were several I’ve either got on the wishlist, or have read. Of the ~80, I added four to the wishlist, but only one is a ‘really want to read’, and that’s because it is one of my must read authors.

The Spinoff’s best NZ books of 2024 - I found the summaries much more readable than the previous, and yet I added zero books to the reading wishlist.

The Best Books We Read in 2024—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2025 by Words without Borders - books in translation. Another one where the summaries/reviews were interesting reading, but none sparked an interest in actually reading the books.

Read Palestinian Speculative Fiction Reading List by Sonia Sulaiman - to be fair here, I’ve read five booklists already, and I’m starting to flag. But this is the last one, and then I can close the window, and I’m very invested in that. So, I’m expecting to be unmotivated by any of the books, and that is not actually a commentary on what is written. … and then I started reading and discovered it is a stack of links. For now, I’ve shoved it into the ‘reading plans’ tab group, which is where anything online short fiction gets put until I have the oomph to read it.

Haikai Fest: "Circadian Cueing"

Apr. 21st, 2025 08:29 pm
jjhunter: Gray-faced sheep with dreambubble reading 'dreamwidth' against a blue background; sheep's body is 'opal' (opal dreamsheep)
[personal profile] jjhunter
Let's take a breath for poetry. It is April, and as good a time as any for a collaborative poetry fest. Please find below a starting stanza or two of a brand new haikai (what's a haikai, you ask? Think extended haiku: alternating stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7). Comment with a following stanza to build on that seed. Someone (most likely me) will respond with another stanza, and so on and so forth throughout the day.
===

even single cells
know the daytime sync and sleep
for wake tomorrow

_

Quick rec

Apr. 21st, 2025 02:22 pm
cesy: "Cesy" - An old-fashioned quill and ink (Default)
[personal profile] cesy
I’ve just done basic CPR training in 15 minutes with British Heart Foundation’s free digital tool RevivR. All you need is a smartphone or tablet and a cushion. It's boosted my confidence in first aid, and reminded me of stuff I learned on previous first aid courses.

https://revivr.bhf.org.uk/?shar=1

Music Monday

Apr. 21st, 2025 08:21 pm
alisx: A demure little moth person, with charcoal fuzz and teal accents. (Default)
[personal profile] alisx

🎵 Attack Attack! (US), “Spitfire

Leave a comment.+

last! frost! date!

Apr. 20th, 2025 06:11 pm
watersword: A young woman swinging on a hill (Stock: spring)
[personal profile] watersword

Yesterday was the first really nice day we've had since, like, October, and it was also the spring workday for garden #4. My bed there is now nicely topped up with compost and I will put asparagus and rhubarb in when I get back from the Obligatory Family Event next week. (I also got a bunch of numbers from fellow gardeners and am going to try to organize an expedition to a local native nursery.)

Today was a little chillier and windy, but I got out and planted four kinds of peas (Snak Hero, Cascadia, Mammoth Melting, and a sweet pea mix) and pruned the rosemary in my plot in garden #1. Providence is so beautiful in the spring, and everything has started blooming practically overnight, trees foaming with white and pink and gold, daffodils and tulips and violets glowing.

Tomorrow is the election for the board for the group backing garden #3, I am not running and no one can make me.

ETA: Goddamn it, I am informed no one has volunteered to lead the infrastructure committee, which is what I care about anyway. But I only care about a subset of things in infrastructure (benches and the pollinator garden) and what I have said before still applies: I don't want to be in charge of shit! I am very good at it but it is very bad for me! This is not how I want to spend my one wild and precious life!

Haikai Fest: "Small Child Adventures"

Apr. 20th, 2025 07:05 am
jjhunter: a person who waves their hand over a castle tower changes size depending on your perspective (perspective matters)
[personal profile] jjhunter
Let's take a breath for poetry. It is April, and as good a time as any for a collaborative poetry fest. Please find below a starting stanza or two of a brand new haikai (what's a haikai, you ask? Think extended haiku: alternating stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7). Comment with a following stanza to build on that seed. Someone (most likely me) will respond with another stanza, and so on and so forth throughout the day.
===

every wooded path
The Lost Forest, every hole
home to mystery

_

Caseficexchange 2025 Letter

Apr. 19th, 2025 03:04 pm
musyc: Text: Pay no attention to my browser history, I'm a writer, not a serial killer (Writing: Serial killer)
[personal profile] musyc
Dear [community profile] caseficexchange creator:
Thank you! I'm looking forward to your fic or art!

[archiveofourown.org profile] Musyc || [tumblr.com profile] willhavetheirtrinkets|| Exchange App


For all my requests, fandoms I've requested a lot over the years have more detail, but I love all my fandoms equally. I recycle my prompts from exchange to exchange, but this doesn't mean I'll only be happy with those specific prompts! I'm just not great at coming up with new ideas. I'd love it if you picked one, but they're only suggestions! If you hit the vibes of my likes, that's all I need. Check out my all purpose letter for a lot of detail if you want more information on what I enjoy.

Both art and fic are beloved as treats for any of my requests! Art likes.

Things I generally love in any of my requested fandoms:
◈ happy endings ◈ angst or hurt/comfort with happy ending ◈ missing scenes ◈ mysteries (whodunit, cozy, etc.) ◈ 5/n times (+1/n) ◈ outsider pov ◈ friends supporting each other ◈ friends annoying each other (affectionate) ◈ parties and/or gifts ◈ noodle incidents ◈ slice of life ◈ trapped together

Casefic tropes and ideas I love:
◈ Howcatchem over Whodunit
◈ Rashomon-style conflicting narratives (each member of the team tells the story slightly different)
◈ Race against time to: stop the criminal from criming again; stop the execution before the wrong person dies; solve the case before another agency takes over; etc.
◈ Clue-style house party/locked-room mystery
◈ Heists for justice
◈ Characters having an unknown-until-now hobby/interest/skill that leads to a crucial clue
◈ Absolutely positively officially forbidden to XYZ so we're going to do it when no one's looking
◈ Separate cases all turn out to have connections to each other
◈ Even criminals have standards (so they're going to help the heroes)
◈ Friendly competition (team gets a reward) and minor sabotage (how *did* the battery fall out of your phone tsk tsk)
◈ Secondary characters in the spotlight (lab rat/squintern-focused types of stories)
◈ Generally humorous shenanigans

Crime tropes I'm fine with:
◈ Sexual assault/rape (adult)
◈ Murder (adult or child)
◈ Kidnapping (adult or child)
◈ Serial/signature killers

For all fandoms: I'm fine with canon-typical levels of injuries or violence, including that suffered by requested characters. Explosions, GSWs, druggings, kidnappings: All good.

Requests )

Daily notes

Apr. 19th, 2025 10:23 pm
fred_mouse: line art sheep with dream bubble reading 'dreamwidth' and feminist fist icon (dreamsheep-feminism)
[personal profile] fred_mouse
  • morning: today is an ow, stay in bed day, except for the fact that it is family dinner night; how that gets handled is for future me (although by the time this gets posted, future me might already have made notes on this)
  • today's digital decluttering is my 'goal setting' tab (16 tabs); plus a separate window with two potentially relevant web pages. Most of these are things that can be closed, but also I've ended up with a stack more small to do list items as follow up. At the end of the process, I had four tabs still open. One requires about an hour of follow up, one requires reading a book, and the other two are likely to be kept for the time being.
  • made bikkies, with help from Eldest, although they had a time based commitment so were only helpful at the start. Only filled the two good trays (I need more of these and to rationalise the assorted collection of trays, because these are the only ones I really like using, and they are a sad shadow of the ones I remember from my childhood which I really really wish I could replace) and put the rest of the mix in the freezer for some random future time. This happened because I've had several items on the counter for multiple days, and Youngest wanted to use some of the equipment, which meant that the oven would already be on. And then they were 'I'm about to do this and then the oven would be available, now is the time for the biscuit making'. And I grumbled and swore and got up and it wasn't fun but at least it is more done than it was.
  • family dinner went well, we went through some of the stash of stuff. This included me pulling out a box of puzzles, of which we kept one or two and the rest have gone with Middlest to see whether or not their household are interested in any. I'm assuming that they are going to bring them all back, and then I'll see about rehoming them - I'm planning on taking them to gaming, because I think at least one of the D's might be interested at least in having a play

2024 reading

Apr. 19th, 2025 01:48 pm
fred_mouse: drawing of person standing in front of a shelf of books, reading (library)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

Last year I captured all book acquisitions in storygraph and made a list of books I own to prioritise reading in librarything. And then I confused matters by creating two other storygraph tags: 2024-aquisitions---read and 2024-aquisitions---dnf. I had allowed for adding acquired books to the librarything list by only putting ~50 books on at the beginning of the year.

At the start of writing this post, there were books in the storygraph 'acquired' list that had been read, so I needed to transfer those; I also decided that renaming it was useful because it wasn't grouping properly. Now, in storygraph, I have 78 unread books (including 11 that are in progress at various levels of abandoned forgotten about), 2 DNF and 17 read for a total of 97.

The librarything list ended up with 98 books, 36 of them with 2024 entry dates, and thus theoretically new to me in 2024. I've put reviews/ratings on 13. I've finished Passing Strange in the last week, but haven't reviewed it yet, and have 7 in the wilderness of 'in progress'.

There is obviously a significant overlap between these two lists. I didn't put everything acquired in the librarything tag, because I was capturing that in storygraph.

I was going to look at these in some detail and make commentary on my reading habits and so on and so forth, but actually, I don't think I care to. The numbers are interesting, but not really a surprise, because I know that I rarely keep to a plan and I also have a dreadful track record of reading books I own.

Going forward: I intend to do the same data capture in storygraph; I have not done the same thing in librarything. Instead, I have a tag for [community profile] thestoryinside and I pick a set of books each month that meet the current selected categories, and that is causing me to read some of the books languishing on my shelves (I'm trying to remember not to put recent acquisitions on that list).

Meme: 20 questions for fic writers

Apr. 18th, 2025 02:42 pm
lannamichaels: "(but I digress)" written in black text on textured background (but i digress)
[personal profile] lannamichaels


Via [personal profile] sophia_sol most recently! And this reminded me that I haven't done the April hits meme yet, oops.

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

1,158

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

3,109,186. Caveat that this includes a lot of co-written fics, including a very long one where I didn't write much on it overall. Knocking out the stuff I didn't write myself probably removes about a million words.

3. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Scenes From An Inconvenient Espionage Love Story. - Les Mis/James Bond - 2,581 kudos as of this writing
2. Earthlings Gonna Earth. -- The Martian -- 2,450 kudos
3. Things To Do In New York City When You're No Longer Brainwashed. - Avengers - 1,478 kudos
4. The Family Dursley. - Harry Potter - 1,310 kudos
5. Interstitial. - The Martian - 1,104

4. What fandoms do you write for?

Complicated question, but my actively working on WIPs are Vorkosigan fandom and Harry Potter at present. Other fandoms on WIPs started in the last 3 years's folders in scrivener (2023-2025): Discworld, Westing Game, The Parent Trap, Pride & Prejudice, Hero Elementary (a spitefic sequel to the spitefic Hero Elementary fic I've already posted), and Glass Onion.

5. Do you respond to comments? why or why not?

Sometimes. I used to try to reply to all comments and I do not do that anymore.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I've done some stuff to characters but possibly the one that qualifies most here is not actually angst but one that someone asked me about the ending specifically for reccing for a specific person reason and I had to say "do not rec this to that person dealing with this stuff": Not Like I Faint Every Time We Touch. (Star Wars), which is Jyn Erso having a crush on Leia Organa, who is straight.

So it is not angsty! But also I tagged it "The Most Accurate Thing I Have Ever Written" and I am not one to overuse freeform tagging in that manner.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

So this is cheating but the Petyaverse has the happiest best ending in the world because it all built up to that (with diversions) and once I got to the end, it was all definitely over, so that was nice. Happiest for me, happiest for the characters, happiest for the ability to do a character and story arc!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yep.

9. Do you write smut?

Yep.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Yep.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yep! There was, apparently, a college newsletter in Alberta (?) -- somewhere in Canada, I think it was Alberta -- that had a segment called Tim (as opposed to Time) and they ripped off one of my LOTR fics. Just reproduced it entirely without attribution (but with the same title). To this day I have no idea why. Like, certainly it was to mock fanfiction, that goes without saying, but it also didn't seem to have any mocking? Did someone just submit it as a gag? As an original story?

Someone in fandom gave me some lawyerly things to say to them and I sent it to them and they took it down.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep!

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Yep!

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

I mean. I haven't read it in at least a decade, but Aragorn/Boromir really was something, wasn't it. Many fond memories.

15. What's the wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Teenage Single Dad Gregor Vorbarra, earliest notes date in the file is December 2016.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action and description.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I used to do this and then it was like, why. Why do this. When I could just write "X said in Y language" right after it. Also then you have to deal with translations. Plus getting someone to give you the phrase in the other language in the first place, or rely on Babelfish (but I date myself). Not worth it!

When I read a fic, by the way, I am never looking into the end notes for translations, and since I read a lot on my phone, I also can't hover for them. Either I can work it out by context or it's not actually important to the story or it's so incessant that I give up and close the fic. Those are the options. Me keeping the end notes open in another tab and going back and forth is not happening.

How does this mesh in with the glossaries I usually remember to add to fics in Yinglish? Absolutely it doesn’t but also Yinglish is English, right? Right? :P

(Also those fics are short and the Yinglish is the point, the glossary is just there to be helpful, but it's not like oh hey, this character is French, let's have a discussion in French.)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Wars.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

My favorite child is I scrolled through the entire stats list on ao3 for this question and I am settling on Hogwarts by Allen Ginsberg. It's probably my best pastiche and it was harder than the Fight Club one.

IDK. There's fics I like and fics I'm meh on and fics I dislike, but I can't really come up with an all-time favorite.

I keep wanting to turn this into "what's the most experimental" or "what was the hardest" but anyway, actually, here are the most personal ones -- because that's quantifiable and easy enough to answer: And Enoch Still Walks With God. (Highlander) (if I were posting that today I'd be brave enough to use Chanoch not Enoch but anyway), the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse (Vorkoisgan), and Waiting For Methuselah. (Highlander).

jjhunter: Ekwara jaunx wearing JJ's glasses; black ink tinted with brown watercolor to depict cute fuzzy cat/bear-like animal (Ekwara jaunx with JJ's glasses)
[personal profile] jjhunter
Let's take a breath for poetry. It is April, and as good a time as any for a collaborative poetry fest. Please find below a starting stanza or two of a brand new haikai (what's a haikai, you ask? Think extended haiku: alternating stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7). Comment with a following stanza to build on that seed. Someone (most likely me) will respond with another stanza, and so on and so forth throughout the day.
===

'May I pet your dog?'
Each side quivering in yearn-
Yes!! May sniff, get pet

_

Petition

Apr. 18th, 2025 02:58 pm
fred_mouse: text 'elder queers didn't riot in the streets for you to argue about kink at pride' on top of  the non-binary pride flag colours (elder-queers-non-binary)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

Change.org have:

Overturn the UK's New Legal Definition of a Woman

can be signed regardless of location.

June 2021

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