ride_4ever | Network

This has been an overwhelming school year, so… yeah. Too much to retell for the moment.

Media consumed recently-ish:

music
Super-obsessed with British singer Ren’s breakthrough song “Hi Ren” from late 2022. I just came across it earlier this month, however. It’s far more than a song; it’s performance art. Theatrical in the best way.

Watch on YouTube

When it comes to music I love, I find enjoyment in reaction videos--a YouTube staple nowadays where someone records themself listening to a song for the first time. So after stumbling across this song, I went down that rabbit hole as well. Fascinating how the creative types (musicians and so on) immediately see the duality portrayed in the song as part of the creative process, whereas a lot of non-creator types see it as a commentary on mental health. (It’s both.)

Related side note: one of the more popular music reactors on YouTube is an opera singer whose channel is called The Charismatic Voice. Recommended, if you’re interested in that.

( cut for more music )

books
Tangled Up in You, by Christina Lauren, is a modern-day retelling of the movie “Tangled,” which was Disney’s retelling of the Rapunzel story. Fun and emotional; I liked it enough to read a few more novels by the writer(s)*. But this one was the best by them.

*Apparently two writers working together, using their first names to make a joint author name.

Matt Dinniman has a book series known as Dungeon Crawler Carl--sort of a role-playing game story, although it’s an original ‘game’ / series. I’ve read… the first two, I believe. I think that’s all that is available through the online library options for now. At any rate, the books are surprisingly moving for an RPG type of tale. I think there are several more published, and that the story is ongoing.

Currently reading an older novel: Gore Vidal’s Burr, published in the 1970s. The Hamilton revival led me to this; plus, I had never read a novel by Vidal, so that gave me two reasons to try it. I’ll get back to y’all and let you know what I think after I finish.

television
The only show I’ve watched this school year was season two of Andor, which I liked but didn’t love. It’s not going into my “must be purchased in physical media” list. See my previous post for some of the reasons why.

sanguinity

Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

Note: I'll be away from email for the next two days, so check-in posts will go up a couple hours later than usual. If that proves inconveniently late for you, just go ahead and drop your check-in on the most recent post whenever is convenient for you. (Just make it clear what day you're checking in for!)

My check-in: No writing yet! A little later this evening, I hope!

Day 20:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 19:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

( More days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

musesfool

I logged off yesterday around 4:30 and started the process of making whipped ganache, and as per usual, the amount of time it takes to get the temperature of the ganache down to 75°F is RIDICULOUS even when I put the bowl on the window sill with the window open (there is a screen) and a cold breeze coming in. I guess the one good part about how long it took was that I was able to make and eat dinner in the middle of it, so I didn't have to do the whole thing hungry. Then I loaded those dishes into the dishwasher and started separating eggs to make vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. And got some yolk in with the whites so had to start over. And then cracked an egg and it was frozen, so unusable for my purposes.

I did eventually get 4 egg whites in a bowl with a cup of sugar and set it over the pot of simmering water so I could whisk it until it heated to 160°F because aside from my own fear of salmonella, the whole point here was to celebrate my pregnant co-worker so I absolutely needed to make sure everything was safe. It's always amazing to me how they double in size as you whisk and heat them and eventually they hit the temp, so I whipped them into stiff peaks (not by hand), which took about twice the amount of time it normally does (physics! always working against me!), but did eventually happen. All was well as I added in the butter, but then I added the vanilla bean paste (gotta have the specks!) and it curdled. So I had to reheat it to melting, chill it, and whip it while adding another 1/4 cup of butter, but it did eventually whip up beautifully. Both frostings piped like a dream, too, since they were not cold. Pics are here. And they were much appreciated by my co-workers! At the end of the day, when I went into the lunchroom to put the leftovers in the fridge, I found someone packing them up to take home. She was like, did you want them? And I was like, no, I was just going to put them in the fridge for tomorrow. I'm pretty sure she did not know I was the person who made them, but that's okay.

Work itself was fine - we spent most of our team meeting eating cupcakes while everyone else talked about their cats - but I was 3/4 of the way there this morning when I realized I'd left my ID badge in my old bag (I got a new bag for work recently, and used it for the first time today, and I think I like it. It is quite large but the strap is the perfect length for a large crossbody, imo), but thankfully they have guest ID cards so I was able to go about my day without interruption. I did make myself a note to remember my ID card next month when I go in. (well, unless there is a LIRR strike, but there probably won't be.)

***

Today's poem:

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

—Ellen Bass, from Mules of Love, 2002.

***

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: switching btwn the Mets and the hockey

rilina

Spring is springing around these parts! I have decked out my back porch hayracks with pansies, alyssum, and daffodils, even though I know I'll be pulling them out in a month for summer flowers. The spring color is worth it after a long winter. I'm growing zonal geraniums from seed under the grow lights in my home office, so the summer containers will be much cheaper than the spring ones. Maybe next year I'll finally grow my own pansies to save some money.

Meanwhile, it's a veritable daffodil party in the yard. The succession starts with the cheery mini yellow Tête-à-Tête, followed by the tall white and yellow Ice Follies, then the fluffy double Lingerie, and finally some demure yellow and orange Cornish Dawn. In the backyard, there's a little stand of Golden Echo under our cherry tree. None of the newly planted purple tulips are open yet, though they are showing a hint of color. A couple of the old yellow and red tulips have popped up despite everything, though they've also mostly been beheaded by squirrels or rabbits. The early crocus met a similar fate, though I got to enjoy them for a few days before they disappeared overnight into a critter's belly. I should probably stick with daffodils.

In the fall I also planted some blue Siberian squill, which was all very pretty until I learned that it's terribly invasive, so I went outside and dug it up while it was blooming. Sigh. Hopefully I got ahead of that problem.

Spring also brings some less welcome ephemerals, namely lesser celandine, which is really nasty stuff. There are two giant patches in the backyard. I realized what it was too late last year (there's a short window to treat it because it's an ephemeral), so I've been doing my best to eradicate it this year, though I suspect it will be a multi-year effort that involves herbicide. I am mostly opposed to herbicide, but I make exceptions for invasive plants, since stopping their spread feels like the greater good. (I do spot apply it with a foam brush since that's a more controlled application than a spray.) I've been pulling out black swallow-wort ever since I moved here--that's just mechanical removal by digging--but last year I also used herbicide to kill a tree of heaven and a white mulberry that had sprouted up on the property line. There's something else on the property line that is suspiciously green and cheery for this early in the spring, so I suspect I may need to deal with that soon. The folks on the other side of that property line really neglect their side yard, which is where most of our invasives come from. Though I did convince them to cut down the white mulberry by pointing out that it was growing way too close to their foundation.

One of the gardening people that I follow in Instagram has said she's no fun at parties because she knows too much about invasive plants. I kinda get it.

What signs of spring have you been enjoying?

snopes_feed

Posted by Rae Deng

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thune-save-america-act/

The legislation, which would require proof of citizenship to vote, has stalled.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thune-save-america-act/

svgurl

My card for the

whatif_au bingo challenge.

Fake Relationship	The Staff	Medical	Decade Specific	Radio/Podcast
Politics	Food Service	Magic	Workplace	Dystopia
Fairy Tale	Air Travel	WILD CARD	Soulmates/Soulmates: Pet Edition	Tourism
Royalty	Ocean	Sentinel/Guide	Music	Reversals
Time Travel	Sports	Characters as Celebrities	No-one Dies	Superhero

ranalore

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

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: I'm surgically implanted into my armchair right now

omens posting in

writethisfanfic

Hello, how's it going today?

Poll #34507

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 1

View Respondents

Have you had a chance to write today?

View Answers

Yes!
1 (100.0%)

No!
0 (0.0%)

Not yet!
0 (0.0%)

Not happening..
0 (0.0%)

Racing to finish my library book before it's due so I haven't started yet :P

stonepicnicking_okapi

1. Last Thursday I fell at a new client's house. I missed a step from the house to garage. Went down like a sack of potatoes. I sprained my ankle. I have not sought medical care of any kind. It is less painful every day but it looks horrible. I feel like a 19th century surgeon is going to come of the wings with a saw and cut it off. The swelling is going down but the bruise seems to be moving across the foot, like jumping to the base of my toes after a couple of days. It's really disturbing. The colors. I've got range of motion but damn, it's definitely an ugly thing.

But I was asked to be a regular, so though I thought I made a horrible impression, how can I keep your spouse from falling if I can't keep myself upright, I must not have. The Tuesday client did not ask me back, though. I have my Friday guy again. So, it comes and goes as usual.

2. Minor is 15 today. He had a good time on the trip, but he continues to try my patience. For example, I bought two T-shirts from the school store ($$$, one for him, one for me) and he was given them yesterday, put them on his bag and someone stole them by the end of practice. I've got to let it go or it'll drive me crazy.

3. Last Wednesday, the man who had me paint his floor had me weed his stone walkway. I have him tomorrow. We shall see what it brings.

4. I know I am in the pre-menopausal epoch of life and so my cycle is even more erratic than it was. But it will never cease to smack me upside the head with the mood swings. Like every single cycle of my entire god forsaken life, even now, I am wondering...am I depressed? am I crazy? So tearful, so nuttily tearful. And then a couple of days later...I will get an answer. And that answer is YES.

5. Minisculus went to a friend's house on Friday so I was alone with the boys' father and he chose to work all night. We really have nothing to say to each other. Not one thing. And reinforced by the stupid ankle and hormones, I just tipped into despair. I know my fantasies of a RL friend set (friend! not lover!) are just limerence. Just limerence. But I might take an art class at the local community college in the evenings this summer. Just to do something different and maybe make a friend. (but I have made a new ARMY e-friend and that's very exciting. I watched the first episode of The Untamed because of her. It's okay. I don't need to see more).

6. The weight loss is just not happening. I feel like I have no control of anything, hobbling around, eating everything in sight. I wonder if I should quit paying for this program I'm not observing. Then I think 'one more month.' Sometimes I think weight loss has to be a part time job to result in any progress (for me).

7. I am reading Ursula Le Guin's The Disposessed and the DW book club book A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin. And am listening to the latest 2 Shetland series audiobooks. I tried to listen to a Vera Stanhope audiobook (I am eagering anticipating the next Matthew Ven story which should be out in the autumn--all by Ann Cleeves) but I had to nope out of it. Too much Woman Pain and I've got enough of that. I had to put Rebus on hold as the Le Guin is overdue at the library. Will I ever get to my own TBR? Sigh.

But get off the bus, Gloomy Gus! There are still good things happening.

8. Am back to doing ficlets.

9. By pure chance, I happened upon a 4-pack of my favorite facial sheet mask brand Avatara on 50% off because they were seasonal Easter flavors and one of them is called Peep the Glow which makes me smile. Another is called Spring Sparkle. Fun find. I didn't even know they existed and I am sucker for seasonal stuff.

10. I splurged on a Michael's run and bought some ephemera packs. I may be sending y'all spring cards because why not? Spread some cheer. Stop gazing at my own sorry navel and think about somone else. And there's this poem. Sometimes, I like a poem just for a line and this title, it's very good. It deserves to be the title of hardboiled/noir short story.

No Moon Floods the Memory of That Night by Etheridge Knight

No moon floods the memory of that night
only the rain I remember the cold rain
against our faces and mixing with your tears
only the rain I remember the cold rain
and your mouth soft and warm
no moon no stars no jagged pain
of lightning only my impotent tongue
and the red rage within my brain
knowing that the chilling rain was our forever
even as I tried to explain:

“A revolutionary is a doomed man
with no certainties but love and history.”
“But our children must grow up with certainties
and they will make the revolution.”
“By example we must show the way so plain
that our children can go neither right
nor left but straight to freedom.”
“No,” you said. And you left.

No moon floods the memory of that night
only the rain I remember the cold rain
and praying that like the rain
returns to the sky you would return to me again.

snopes_feed

Posted by Jack Izzo

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-ear-image-assassination/

Cross-referencing the image with news photographs taken that day revealed several discrepancies.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-ear-image-assassination/

gelateria posting in

icons

CANON: House of the Dragon.
CHARACTERS: Alicent Hightower, Aemond Targaryen, Rhaenyra Targaryen, Jacaerys Velaryon, Baela Targaryen, Daemon Targaryen
ADDITIONAL INFO: Season 2, Episode 5
CREDIT TO:

gelateria

here at

gelateria

james_davis_nicoll

And I know 700 pages PDFs are a vote-loser.

Any of my reviews from 2025 that people especially liked?

james_davis_nicoll

                  2022   2024   2025   2026   
Novel             1151   1420   1078   1153
Novella            807    962    739    807
Novelette          463    755    394    414  
Short Story        632    720    610    507
Series             707    677    621    687
Graphic/Comic      340    457    265    362
Related            453    775    431    479
Dramatic, Long     597    763    610    650
Dramatic, Short    386    490    451    471
Game               --     334    298    357
Editor, Short      319    530    322    305
Editor, Long       182    254    162    234
Pro Artist         233    270    214    228
Semiprozine        312    338    334    324
Fanzine            243    286    243    224
Fancast            384    693    376    370
Fan Writer         368    363    329    308
Fan Artist         230    180    186    176
Poem                --     --    219    202
Lodestar           451    345    268    244
Astounding         416    349    341    290

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #7046 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 20 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1006.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

snopes_feed

Posted by Laerke Christensen

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/israeli-soldier-jesus-statue/

The photo circulated three days into a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/israeli-soldier-jesus-statue/

olivermoss

Wow, good to know, Rufus the Amazon AI. I've been sleeping on Wuthering Heights all these years

andersenmom

Weekly Score: 50% (12/24)

Goal 1: Increase my spirituality. 47% (9/19)

Review: I should have known I wouldn't be able to do any of my tactics while out of town. That was on me.

Goal 2: Write a blog article each week. 67% (2/3)

Review: This, too, didn't work out because I was out of town. But it did give me some ideas!

Goal 3: Make deck available for use. 50% (1/2)

Review: I thought I'd be able to do both days on this, but it didn't work out. But I did some work on it, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Intentions for the future: G1 - I intend to get up and do the morning things first thing. G2 - I'm going to try to write two posts this week, to make up for the one I have planned but didn't manage to write last week. G3 - I'd like to work on my room a lot this week. I feel like I have been moving things around without actually getting anything taken care of, and it's... embarrassing. So I need to actually get rid of some of the things I have.

Note: I have had a really rough three months, which is why I'm so late on these. I'll keep working on it.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Walk - NCT 127

kat_lair

***

Title: Forget-Me-Not
Author:

kat_lair
Fandom: Venom
Pairing: Venom/Eddie
Tags: Drabble, Dialogue-Only
Rating: G
Word count: 100

Summary: I could never.

Author notes: Spring defiance from under the crushing forces of capitalism = a drabble a day in April. This one for

stonepicnicking_okapi who wanted something for this pairing and spring flowers.

Forget-Me-Not on AO3

( Forget-Me-Not )

***

olivermoss

Trying to remember how to make icons feels like trying to pry open a rusty can of paint in the back of my mind. I've just gotten worse at it over the years. But, still, only so much you can do with a few pixels and some programs have gotten worse. I made icons with clear text in paint ages ago, paint can no longer do readable text that size.

I've made a few hockey icons, and hopefully will keep making some until I find ones I am happy with. I also cleaned out some old icons.

kitewithfish

General life of a reader update: I have finally purchased an e-reader outside the Amazon environment, just in time for Amazon to stop supporting my oldest living Kindle. (RIP, first Kindle, we hardly knew ye.) So, I get to try out the wonderful world of Kindle jailbreaking (so far, so good) and then I get to try to put KOReader on it! I have two Paperwhites currently – only one is getting nuked in Amazon’s upcoming changes – But if the process works on the older one, I might do the second. What a luxurious thought, to have multiple functional e-readers at once!

Also a great update for e-reader users: Jo Walton has a fun article about using her e-reader to keep up with her insanely prolific reading habits. https://reactormag.com/how-to-read-sixteen-books-at-once-at-all-times/

And I also found this very pleasant discussion from 2014 about how her e-reader changed her reading habits overall. - https://reactormag.com/how-having-an-e-reader-has-changed-my-reading-habits/

What I’ve Read
Chalice by Robin McKinley – This reads like the literary version of a fairy tale that I had just never heard of. But it’s entirely original and I think this is the pure distilled form of McKinley’s charm – a thoughtful and intelligent woman who becomes powerful thru her devotion to others, and a magically untouchable man who is worth her devotion, made touchable. This is a pure example of the trope of “the virtue of the king is the virtue of the land” except, you know, made a bit more modern and it’s more focused on women. It’s honestly great.

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel – This is a great book for just about anyone – I read it knowing a fair bit about certain kinds of textiles (both from a New England elementary education and because of Elizabeth Gaskill) and that got expanded on and refined. I adored the discussions about how trade in textiles shaped so much of global commerce. Postrel does not shy away from how awful that can be (chattel slavery and cotton go hand in hand for a reason), nor does she allow it to dehumanize the people engaged in it. It’s honestly a great work that covers a vast span of time and culture – I would be glad to read more from her.

The Invasion (Animorphs #1) by KA Applegate – I picked this up after one more Tumblr post talking about the book series’ respect for the reader and attention to the cost of war. It turns out to be just as good as I remembered, and written simply enough for the age I was when I first read them. (I picked up the first book at the Scholastic Book Fair because it has a lizard on it. On such small wheels our destinies turn.) This book has to do a fair bit of the scifi heavy lifting, introducing the human cast, the aliens, setting the stakes of the intergalactic espionage that is the main conflict, and establishing how the key technology (morphing an animal based on a DNA sample) works. The writing is clear and respects the audience – when people die, they die, but the characters also feel the age of the middle schoolers they are. I’m planning on doing a re-read/read thru and finishing the whole series, which I had bored of as a child as I grew out of the age group. I think that I’d like to see if the resolution is as interesting as the Tumblr Animorphs fans make it out to be.

Cultural Exchange and Comparative Semiotics (Xenoethnography #1 & #2) by Therrae (Dasha_mte) A re-read. Anthropologist works with Transformers, lovely.

Concubine by Kaasknot – Technically an MCU fic, in that it’s an AU of the version of Thor and Loki from those movies, but mostly unrelated and pulls more from the Poetic Edda. Arranged marriage between Loki, who grew up a runt prince on Jotunheim, and Thor, the spoiled prince of Asgard who has no love for his new concubine, leads to Loki isolated as the unofficial ambassador to Asgard. I wanted to like this more than I did. In short, this is doing court intrigue and politics and war, but like, in a boring way that makes Loki look dumb. Things work out in his favor when it would be more interesting to see them blow up in his face. The balance of self-indulgence v. complexity wavers too wildly for me to have sunk my emotional investment into either pole. Bah. 140K words and I kept waiting for it to get really good, and since I waited like ten years to actually read this, I feel a bit meh about it.

What I’m Reading
The Stars are Legion – Kameron Hurley. Picked up an audiobook based on a Tumblr post where someone had pointed our that it was amazing that this book’s reputation had managed to avoid controversy, given that it has zero male characters. Which, given that its about space wars and technology based on biological ships with squishy organs and vehicles that are also animals, I am so here for.

The Visitor (Animorphs #2) KA Applegate – This book’s got a Rachel POV and she’s not as confident as she seems. The book is also doing the kind of fatphobia of the 90s where they don’t even notice the fatphobia, but, well, I lived thru it once – it can hardly do more damage now.

What I’ll Read Next
My book clubs are on books I have not read! (Amazing work, y’all.)

SciFi/Fantasy Book Club
Sunshine Robin McKinley
Tomb of Dragons Katherine Addison

Necromancy Book Club
The Everlasting Alix E. Harrow
The Isle in the Silver Sea Tasha Suri
Platform Decay (murderbot 8) Martha Wells
Ancillary Justice Ann Leckie

I mentally still have a pin in my planned read thru of LeGuin's Earthsea books, and a friend was interested in doing a read thru of the Baru Cormorant Trilogy....

Profile

ride_4ever

April 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
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Page Summary

rose_griffes - You're the sheep, I'm the shepherd
sanguinity - Write Every Day: Day 21
musesfool - a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes
rilina - spring ephemerals
snopes_feed - Is John Thune 'no longer considering' SAVE America Act in Senate, as Rep. Anna Paulina Luna claimed?
svgurl - what if bingo challenge
ranalore - The crow, an augur
omens in writethisfanfic - Day 21 check in!
stonepicnicking_okapi - Views & News: Minor is 15 edition
snopes_feed - Image claiming to show Trump's intact ear after assassination attempt is fake. Here's proof
gelateria in icons - 85 icons of HOTD S02E05
james_davis_nicoll - The deadline for the bundle is pretty short this year
james_davis_nicoll - Hugo Finalist Votes 2022 - 2026
case in fandomsecrets - [ SECRET POST #7046 ]
snopes_feed - Photo shows Israeli soldier smashing Jesus statue in Lebanon
olivermoss - (no subject)
andersenmom - 12 Week Year WAM Week 04
kat_lair - Spring Drabble 21/30: Venom, Forget-Me-Not
olivermoss - (no subject)
kitewithfish - Wednesday Reading Meme for April 22, 2026

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