astranoir | Network

A dash of snow came down around two thirty and again around six. Not enough to stick around, but enough to notice it wasn't rain. It was one of the more exciting moments of a day brought low by a cold. The ENT doctor yesterday and two rapid tests this morning are decent enough confirmation I can accept that's all it is, which is as cold a comfort as I can get these days.

I can't remember when I bought them, but the tonics I got from the herb farm at the farmer's market seem to be doing a better job of calming my throat down than anything else I've tried. As that's all I want them for, I'll stick with what seems to be working. Anything for a good night's sleep. There's only so many pots of tea you can drink in a day.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Music: nothing now

tielan

I think I waited too long to investigate the Solar Battery situation. The guy has not replied to my emails or my texts.

Actually, most people are rather bad at responding to my emails and texts. GRARGH.

Anyway, looking at other solar battery quotes, his looks very cheap, which...I'm mostly okay with tbh.

I'm thinking of this as a stop-gap measure, really

until I can set up a longer-lasting nickel-iron battery - the kind that old Nikola Tesla came up with, and which work for 100 years. Yes, it takes a little maintenance, but I'm more worried about losing access to electrical technicians than I am about having to replace the electrolyte solution once a month.

Yes, that says where my priorities and fears are right now. Frankly, I'm more worried about robustness of our supply-demand chain (newsflash: it's about as robust as your grandmother's crystal in a quarry) than I am about having to do things manually.

--

My garden is open on the 21st-22nd March, for guests, and it's seriously 'underdone' right now. Everything is wild (it's that time of year when the weather is hot and the rain is happening, and EVERYTHING GROWS). I had some friends by last weekend to put together some garden beds, and they're done and set, and now I just have to fill them.

And that's where this weekend and the teenager I'm hiring to do the work comes in.

A pile of woodchips is being delivered this afternoon.

We dig out the back paths (carefully! there are pipes in there!), discard the runner grass, and put it in the garden beds (bottom).

We dig out the chicken yards and all the lovely soil that's down there, and put it in the new garden beds (top).

We fill the back paths with the woodchips, then the chicken yards, then the chicken tunnels, then the banana circle, then the composts...

And all this after going for a 5km run on Saturday (maybe I shouldn't have committed to the run).

Then, Sunday morning is a Crop Swap!

OOF.

--

Yesterday, I made the sudden realisation that I've been writing Maria Hill (all my agents, in fact) like they were Australian SAS, not US Special Forces. An operative goes out and is given the trust to deal with the situation as needed rather than having to go up the chain of command as US Forces (even special forces) have to do.

The difference is rather telling.

I wonder how recent this doctrine is

- the military doctrine of minimising possible fuck-ups by ensuring that decisions have to be approved up the command chain. I wonder if (pragmatically) there was a significant cultural difference between the WWII Howling Commandoes and the way the US military worked (at least pre-2025) such that Steve would have found it distinctly difficult to work with the modern US military units, who are trained not to go off-road and make their own decisions: the YT video says that even units like Navy Seals and Delta Force are reliant on communications and up-chain decisions to go/no-go.

Anyway, it's a thought.

Not to mention, I can use this in my novel: if the MC is more inclined for an Aussie SAS mentality (although she is American) and doesn't quite fit into the paramilitary organisation she's working with (which runs off a US military authority mentality) then I can make that work.

--

Finally, Jima-wu, our remaining chicky-babe, is still with us. Survived and thriving. Back to what she was before the sickness, still on medication, and will be for a few more days.

*sigh* I'm still sad about Nien-go, and a little tired. It's a lot going on right now.

copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810916703572819968

A screengrab of the NYT app, featuring two older people sitting together on a bed, clearly in a romantic embrace; the headline beneath reads "For a simpler workout, try combining moves."

The New York Times got some images and headlines mixed up in their “for you” scroll recently with fascinating results.

(The actual article was about sex after sixty and the headline belonged to an article about weightlifting.)

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810916703572819968

kaberett

I currently have a bit of a special interest happening, right. So I spent a bit of today's therapy session talking about it, as one does, and then meandered around to one of my current Big Topics[1], and made it all the way through to the wrapping-up stage of proceedings!

... when My Favourite Metaphor About Therapy abruptly suggested itself to me and I had. A Moment.

Which is how I found myself explaining that, in a thematically appropriate coincidence, said favourite metaphor is "emotional heavy lifting, with trained spotter".

To which came the response: "... can I. borrow that."

And thus: A Good Grade In Therapy.

[1] social anxiety. it's the social anxiety.

sister_raphael

Pic to follow

I've braided and luceted cord and punched holes in all of the leather I have already cut for the little drawstring pouches I'm making, so more of that today.

I found a few other luceted cords which were leftover from other things which may be long enough for the teeny, wee pouches, so I've added them to the pile of cords and will start putting pouches together tomorrow.

I'm a little sick of the judgy people on social media asking what thread type I'm using when I've been very clear the the pouches are predominantly not for reenactors. Instead of linen or silk, I'm mostly using crochet cotton, which is 100% a natural fibre and better than synthetic, but the fact of the matter is, using silk luceted cord pushes the price way up to where it's more than regular non-reenactors will pay, and since I'm using up leather and stuff I've already got AND it's pretty, I don't mind at all. There's no call for the "I'm relieved it's not nylon" when I've been very clear about what I'm making.

It turns out I have some leftover luceted wool cords, so some will have those, but most public would be happy with a leather thong.

Assembling is now my next pouch job!

buttonsbeadslace

The downside of Spanish's very straightforward spelling system is that some words that differ from each other in spelling (and sometimes pronunciation) in English and/or their original languages, end up being spelled and pronounced identically in Spanish.

Mild example:
Recently we were talking about neologisms in class and I had to look up information about the prefix "eco-". In Spanish, eco- as in ecology and echo- as in echolocation, which come from two different Greek roots, are spelled and pronounced the same.

Spicy example:
A while ago, when we were talking about Catalan holiday traditions on the walking tour, our fearless leader wanted to tell us that the Catalan people have a very "scatological" sense of humor, and of course then he had to explain this word, which turns out to also have another very different definition in Spanish. Because. It's merged with eschatological. That pesky Greek χ!

Example that made me and all my classmates bluescreen in class today:
"El lasaña no sabía bien."
(ETA intended meaning: "The lasagna didn't taste good."
What it looks like it should mean: "The lasagna didn't know better.")

This one apparently is justified because the Latin roots of Spanish sabor (flavor) and saber (to know) are actually related- through the idea of having "good taste". But I was not emotionally prepared to learn this at 11:30am today after spending all morning struggling through the eight different uses of the simple and compound conditional tense.

copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810899075745595392

Oh sure -- it's slow going because it's low priority, so some weeks I don't do much of it, but currently I'm in June of 2020 so I'm catching up.

It helps that I post way less now than I used to, and also that I now reply to comments in the comments rather than in new posts. Most of what I'm doing is skimming for things I either should delete or want to make sure get archived (essays, story ideas, etc) so I skip past a lot of the old "reply to comments" posts but there's still a lot to skim through.

And sometimes I get distracted re-reading my old stuff :) If you see me reblogging myself these days it's usually because I found an old gem from five or six years ago and think it would be fun to reintroduce it. Not even always my stuff, though usually, but old memes and Tumblr injokes and similar.

I'm trying to add tags to a few specific things, as well -- things I want to make sure I keep, like things I would be mad about if Tumblr suddenly vanished, are all tagged "archive". There are some posts from before my ADHD diagnosis that are so obviously about living with undiagnosed ADHD that I've started adding my "sam has adhd" tag to those as well, since that will be a nice library of resources.

I don't so much get unexpected feelings from old posts, although the six months I just got through, January to June 2020, were a trip to read as I dealt personally with my TBI and we all dealt collectively with the pandemic. I suspect I have SDAM, a condition where emotion is uncoupled from autobiographical memory, which is common in people with aphantasia. It means that even if I'm rereading moments from my life where I was full of strong feelings, I don't re-feel those strong feelings now. I might have new feelings about those events, and sometimes I do (mostly cringe for stuff I said that I regret now), but it's pretty rare.

I'm looking forward to catching up to present day and going back through the Archive tag; I feel like there's possibly a book of essays in it somewhere, or at least a whole new wing of my website.

Anyway, there's a little over 2000 days to go! If I can keep up my pace of roughly 10 days per day, five days a week, it should only be about another year, accounting for vacations and such.

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810899075745595392

reeby10

Reading

I started reading We Need Your Art: Stop Messing Around and Make Something by Amie McNee. I bought it awhile back bc I follow Amie on ig, but I finally picked it up as hopefully an alternative for The Artist's Way that I can relate to better.
I started reading Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This is the current book for my work's DEI book club. It's something I've had on my tbr for years, so it's nice to have an excuse to read it finally! It's very interesting, though it is pretty long.
I read some more on Demon Fish by Juliet Eilperin. Still haven't made it that far, but I am enjoying it so far.
Ficwise, I'm still mostly reading JunDylan. Currently doing some rereading because I got stuck in a rut of fics that were ok but not satisfying :/

Watching

The roommate and I watched more of MuTeLuv. We made it through the third story, which was thankfully much less gross in the second half. Fourth story was good, though I could have done without the het romance at the end, it really just did not work for me. Fifth story was good as well. It was nice to see JanJingjing for the first time, plus Leng! We've got two stories left now.
The roommate and I watched more of Running Man Thailand. Second episode was also great. Loving Tay even more :D
The roommate, best friend, and I watched the latest episode of Cat for Cash. Oh, the family drama! I enjoyed that a lot actually. Already got some spoilers for the next episode that make me kind of sad though...
The roommate, best friend, and I watched the latest episode of Duang With You. The relationship is really progressing! Surprising since we're only halfway through, so I can't wait to see what drama there is to come lol
The roommate, best friend, and I watched the latest episode of Only Friends: Dream On. AouBoom are fucking killing it!! I am obsessed with their kiss in the car scene, jfc. The ArnoldTua storyline also has me very interested, especially with fucking Boston showing up and definitely having history with Tua.
The roommate, best friend, and I watched the latest episode of Yesterday. I am sooo curious about what happened with Lalit. Things seem to, somehow, be getting even more complicated on all fronts.
The roommate, best friend, and I watched the latest episode of My Romance Scammer. Love seeing how much Tim and U are willing to do for their relationships. For U it's working so well! For Tim, well, preview shows it all falling apart and I am dreading and looking forward to it equally lol

Listening

Lots of LYKN. They did the first two stops of their North American tour this week, so there have been a million fancams to watch. Kinda sad about the roommate and I deciding not to do the NYC show (standing room only for the whole theater was just not doable for us), but it is making me even more determined to make it work for the Chicago show in August.

Writing

Nothing.

Learning

Nothing.
I have started doing some planning for what "courses" I want to study for the next quarter though. So far I'm keeping Thai, with some new resources added, and dropping Japanese for now, since Thai is more of an immediate desire to learn. Otherwise I'm thinking maybe song writing? Or embroidery, since I have a kit? Or drawing? Or something active, like dance or yoga? Or something about anthropology or environmentalism? Idk, I have a huge brainstorming list, so I really need to narrow it down and see what resources I can find.

bomberqueen17_feed

https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/810896578043904000

flower-of-the-desert:

themoonandmyman:
It’s really interesting to me to see all the different reads of the ‘we didn’t even kiss’ scene, because I interpreted it quite differently.
I didn’t see it as Shane being upset or angry with Ilya or him being traumatised by the lack of affection (I’ve genuinely seen this take.) - I saw it as Shane being upset/angry with himself for wanting more. He types out the text, deletes it, and then says ‘fuck’- because he’s started to realise he wants more, whatever ‘more’ is, and cannot have it.
At this point in the narrative, Shane is still in denial about his feelings, still not putting a name to them. The feelings are there- he just can’t articulate them. For me, it perfectly compliments the scene where Ilya is staring himself down in the mirror during the Rose Landry shit- Ilya is angry at himself, not Shane.
Neither one of them thinks they could have more with the other, because it’s an impossible situation- it doesn’t stop them wanting.
It’s crucial as well to note that neither of them really blames the other- that’s why each time there’s a setback, they’re incredibly quick to forgive. They both understand what the situation is.
I feel like saying Shane was led on or taken advantage of completely strips him of his agency. They both take what they can get of the other, whenever they can get it, because it’s a comfort to both of them.
Shane is never put in a situation he doesn’t want to be in, with Ilya. He’s a grown man who can make informed choices, he’s not some starry eyed groupie trailing after Ilya for scraps, and Ilya never once manipulated him.
On the neither of them blames the either point, it’s further emphasized I think by the scene during the texting montage after Vegas when Ilya asks “Still mad about Vegas?” and Shane smiles and shakes his head fondly instead of showing any anger or frustration.

https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/810896578043904000

bomberqueen17_feed

https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/810885628766093312

yeah yeah i’m still stuck in winter depresh Dissociate Via Writing mode which i do annually but at least it gives me things to think about

i now have three different google docs with like fifteen tabs each with tens of thousands of words in them and i’m not sure how to connect them but it’s starting to come together. and i just realized.

god damn it. i have to write a high-speed car chase now.

fuck. shit. damn. i don’t even care about cars. fuck.

at least i can watch this scene (featuring a song i have loved a long time) for inspiration. Incidentally it is a fantastic example of diagetic soundtrack music.

https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/810885628766093312

muccamukk

The Battle Against Enshittification

dw_dev: AI and Dreamwidth.
Great post from

mark about exactly how DW could use AI (potentially spam filtering), and how it will never use it (feeding your posts into the maw).

404 Media: 'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back.
Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.

The Verge: Grammarly is using our identities without permission.
When users select the 'expert review' button in the Grammarly sidebar, it analyzes their writing and surfaces AI-generated suggestions 'inspired by' related experts. Those 'industry-relevant perspectives' include the likes of Stephen King, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Carl Sagan, among many others.

Wired: Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI 'Expert Review' Feature.
I'm sure everyone enjoys getting sued by Stephen King.

The Flytrap: Sex Workers Versus the Algorithm.
Mostly about payment processors, but also about filtering: the endless dance around content bans requires constantly coming up with new ways to craft video titles and content that are frustrating not only for adult performers, but also their customers.

The Guardian: The world wants to ban children from social media, but there will be grave consequences for us all.
Age-verification systems require collecting sensitive data to support the biometric information. In no time, the internet will become a fully surveilled digital panopticon.

Canadian Politics
(I'm actually saving fewer links about this, because it's mostly pretty disheartening. And I can't deal.)

TheBreach: Pierre Poilievre is misleading the public about refugee healthcare (Video: 3 minutes).
Desmond Cole fact checks his misinformation and explains how blaming the most vulnerable distracts us from fighting for good health care for all.

The Tyee: Advocates Hope a Ruling Will Change RCMP Treatment of Indigenous Witnesses.
But critics say the Canadian rights tribunal didn’t go far enough after finding police discrimination.
Nominally good news, but so much about this case pisses me off. $7k each? Seriously? Reminder that the one person who got state protection in all of this, the guy who (allegedly) abused all those people, is John Furlong. Fuck that guy.

The Breach: A notorious RCMP unit shaped B.C. universities’ reaction to Palestine encampments.
From Fairy Creek to university campuses, CRU-BC is positioning itself as the go-to police force for repressing dissent.
Category: jackbooted thugs.

Kind of Cool, Actually:

HeatherCoxRichardson: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter | Reckoning with Jason Herbert Podcast (Video: 1:43 hours).
Words cannot express how validating this was. Lo! How many long years have I said that AL:VH is the most historically accurate Lincoln movie? HCR agrees.

The Tyee: What Can You Do with Used Plastic and 3D Printers? Meet Two Pros.
Not sure how scalable this is, but it's a cool project.

The Narwhal : In northeast B.C., fresh food is scarce. This First Nation hopes geothermal energy could change that.
Cool project to restore food security after Site C fucked it up, hopefully they can get funding.

NorthernBallet: Northern Ballet's Gentleman Jack | Costumes (Video: 2 minutes).
I've really been enjoying the promo clips for this new ballet. I hope there's some way to watch it online.

copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810826131449233408

A photograph of my new Detroit Pizza pan, an aluminum pan blackened by seasoning, with a ziplock bag lying in it; inside of the bag is a folded-up printed page of instructions with color highlighting.

I decided to upgrade my pizza making again and bought a real authentic seasoned steel Detroit Pizza pan, and the thing came with two full pages of instructions. It’s like having a pet.

I put the instructions in a bag so they can stay with the pan, because one of the rules is “DO NOT use olive oil to grease the pan, canola or vegetable oil ONLY” and I will definitely forget to do that if I don’t see the instructions yelling at me every time I take the pan down to make pizza.

(The other important order is “Never, ever let it go anywhere near moisture or water” and like okay GREMLIN PAN calm down.)

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810826131449233408

copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810808511913197568

themainspoon:

themainspoon:
themainspoon:
There’s so many horror games about having to try to weed out and deal with inhuman imposters, but I want one where the script is flipped. You are something inhuman, you are an imposter, and if you want to survive you have to blend into a world that is trying to hunt you down and destroy you. You aren’t human, but you must masquerade as one and infiltrate their world, or you will die.
I actually think we need to start inverting more Horror premises/tropes.
Like “You have to venture into the scary insane asylum!” VS “You’re a patient who was admitted by force to an asylum, and you are very clearly in real danger, but everyone is pretending that you’re just deluded, and are essentially leaving you to die because they don’t really see you as a person.”
I feel like there’s a lot of Horror tropes built off of the fear of the other, when in reality it’s actually often the other who is in danger. Maybe we could start recognising that more.
Interesting how the first half of the post has picked up popularity while the second part, which perhaps clarifies the idea of the original post, hasn’t.
It’s been interesting to see what media people are recommending based on the first post alone. A lot of recommendations for games/franchises like World of Darkness, Carrion, Kill All Humans, Among Us, etc. It’s interesting because these are games that put you into the shoes of the violent other that has to infiltrate, without actually challenging the idea that the other is a threat. They actually parrot the ideas of the other as violent.
Funnily enough, the people recommending the comedy game Octodad understand the post much better than most of the people recommending horror media. A few mentions of Am I Nima, which isn’t finished yet but does look like it could be what I am describing, so brownie points to the people recommending that.
But everyone saying stuff like “This is just being Trans/Autistic/Etc” really gets it, like really really gets it. Horror always communicates the fears and anxieties of the people who create it, this post was basically: “What if instead of communicating the fear of the other, we communicated the fears of the others, which are actually vastly more legitimate than the dominant groups fear of the other. We should recognise that it is overwhelmingly the others who are the ones who actually suffer and die, all for the perceived "saftey” and “comfort” of the dominant group.“
This idea is about transphobia, it is about ableism, about anti-imigrant rhetoric and white supremacy, about queerphobia, it’s about all of it. It is horror from the perspective of minority groups. It is the twisting of a trope built upon reactionary fears and narratives in order to critique them, it is a direct allegory for all those experiences you are describing.
Overall, it’s just interesting to see who gets it and who doesn’t.

What I find fascinating is that in the 1990s, this was a media trope. Maybe not a common one but I can think of at least two shows where a protagonist was committed to an asylum – or were they? Were they insane or were they being imprisoned for being truthful? And the endgame was always yes…they were seeing the truth and were punished for it.

Riker in TNG and Buffy in BTVS are the ones I can name but there must be more. Perhaps "In The Mouth of Madness”? In any case, someone saw this and reacted, thirty years ago. Wild to feel like Riker in an asylum in 2026.

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810808511913197568

copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810795104459718656

While my undergrad is roughly academically equal in rank to Michigan State University, it is true that I did not attend MSU and I know little of its customs. I didn’t actually mean to present myself as an alum when I bought a damn sweater at a thrift store; I just liked the logo and I knew my beloved, the Hodag, an alumnus of the MSU J-school, would be amused.

But it’s such a comfortable sweater and I look fucking great in it, and I can tell Hodag likes to see me in their school colors. So I have this sweater with an MSU logo and a SUPER COOL zipper sleeve pocket (see picture) and I wear it everywhere.

And recently someone passed me on the street and was like “EYYYYYY MSU! fuckin awesome!”

I have stolen Sparty valor.

Who are our rivals? I gotta go pick some fights to justify my awesome sweater.

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810795104459718656

copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810735517566189568

teaboot:

I was too busy laughing to take a picture but my son answered the door last night ready for an adventure 😭😭😭

For a second I thought this was a cat mail carrier and was blithely prepared to accept “receiving my mail from a cat” as a call to adventure.

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810735517566189568

copperbadge_feed

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thesassycat:

You can only reblog this today.

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810717948427812864

copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810644950011330560

Ahahahaha that is classic, thank you so much for sharing that with me :D Of course hodags don't like to cook, it must be very hard to turn on an oven when you're shaped that way....

Anyway I'm glad you've been enjoying reading! My fiction and fanfic output is less than it used to be so I'm attempting to compensate by amusing people more :D

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copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810628420688117760

radiofreemonday:

Welcome to Radio Free Monday for the week of March 9, 2026. RFM posts links to peoples’ personal fundraisers asking for community assistance, on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, and the Fediverse.
==== Ways to give ====
Tumblr user Moogle is raising funds for housing, after being kicked out by their abusive family in January. Their friend, Tumblr user thecottageinthedark, is helping with fundraising. Read more, reblog, and support the fundraiser here.
Tumblr user Terrie02 is sharing ways to support the community of Columbia Heights in Minneapolis MN USA. They’re paying rent for families, helping get them food, and helping them get safe transportation. Read more, reblog, and support the fundraiser here.
=======================
This has been Radio Free Monday. Submit items for my attention through this link (use English for your submission-text, please. If necessary, use Google Translate.)

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810628420688117760

copperbadge_feed

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copperbadge:

Steve’s butt is very disappointed in someone.

[From Avengers #23, 1999.]

Still gotta reblog every so often.

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copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810558110556176384

lady-of-vitreous-sight:

lady-of-vitreous-sight:
ungrounding exercises.
what are five things you can’t see? can you breathe in and out really really quickly for me? what are your biggest fears and what are the fastest ways they might occur? slouch in your chair put your hands on your head and picture yourself using your psychic powers to kill everyone. shoot the nearest dog.

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/810558110556176384