darkemeralds. Network

mific posting in

Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Ilya Rozanov
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: christianpuppetshow HR art on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: Gorgeous colours in this nearly single-colour painting of Ilya by the lake, bathed in sunset.
Link: Drawing Ilya at sunset, backup link here

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fandom: heated rivalry

smartbitches_feed

Posted by Amanda

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2026/04/links-quilting-podcasts-more/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=172122

An illustrated image of a desk space with a computer, stack of books, reading glasses, and a mug. Happy Wednesday!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes. It was a very chill day. My partner bought me one of those Kindle/phone/gaming stands, that will prop your device up in front of your face, leaving you with the ability to snuggle under the blankets with your controller or page turner.

Also how did April go by so quickly?

…

Sarah: I was a guest on the Reading Smut podcast, a new romance-focused show from the hosts of Reading Glasses.

…

Last year’s Cherrywood Quilting Challenge was themed “the abyss.” They have a virtual gallery of all the amazing entries, and a calendar for the traveling exhibit. Some beautiful work on display! The 2026 challenge has started and the theme is “storytime.”

…

Pam G. sent in this link on “Labyrinth: Muppets, Bowie, and the Pain of Impending Adulthood.” It’s very much in our house of wheels.

…

Lastly, Sarah and I were having a similar discussion about reading levels and romance, AND LO AND BEHOLD, this popped into my Reddit feed. It’s such an interesting convo around historical romances and anti-intellectualism.

…

Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2026/04/links-quilting-podcasts-more/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=172122

smartbitches_feed

Posted by Carrie S

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2026/04/after-dark-at-the-movies-1000-women-in-horror/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=171643

This piece of literary mayhem is exclusive to Smart Bitches After Dark, but fret not. If you'd like to join, we'd love to have you!

Have a look at our membership options, and come join the fun!

If you want to have a little extra fun, be a little more yourself, and be part of keeping the site open for everyone in the future, we can’t wait to see you in our new subscription-based section with exclusive content and events.

Everything you’re used to seeing at the Hot Pink Palace that is Smart Bitches Trashy Books will remain free as always, because we remain committed to fostering community among brilliant readers who love romance.

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2026/04/after-dark-at-the-movies-1000-women-in-horror/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=171643

ysabetwordsmith

Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?

Mood busy

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recurring posts

galadhir

Here we are again - 7.55 in the morning and workmen all over the house. I mean, it's our own fault, we booked them to come and change our windows. The windows that came with the house are now over 20 years old, and on many of them the double glazing is compromised, and on several of them the wood surroundings are moldy and black mold is beginning to creep into our bedroom.

This was a situation that needed something doing about it even before we had the heat pump put in. But the heat pump people said that if we were going to be properly efficient with the heat pump we should make sure the windows were insulated to standard, which our rotten old windows were not. So that precipitated us to finally do something about them.

In theory therefore we are pleased that they are here and doing their thing. However, 'an Englishman's home is his castle' etc, and this always feels like an invasion. Plus there is a lot of banging going on, plaster is raining down on us, and we're afraid to go to the toilet in case they take the window away while we're in there.

They're here for four days. I wonder how we'll hold up. Our tempers got frayed very thin during the heat pump installation but we managed to hold on to them. I hope it will be like exercising a muscle - we'll do even better for the practice - and not like having Covid, where the damage mounts up.

Still, I am looking forward to windows you can see out of and window frames you can't put your hand through. Plus a new front door with stained glass panels. Worth waiting for? I hope so.

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mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Elizabeth Weir, Teyla Emmagan, Radek Zelenka
Rating: Mature
Length: 13,319
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Rachael Sabotini on AO3
Themes: Arranged marriage, AU - royalty, Diplomatic marriage, Politics, Mutual pining

Summary: "It is your duty to the empire to marry Rodney McKay."

Reccer's Notes: This is an interesting romantic romp set in a somewhat steampunk AU where John is married off by his cousin the empress Elizabeth, to Rodney, a leader in the neighbouring nation. John is part of treaty agreements to negotiate peace. Consummating his marriage proves difficult due to Rodney being a workaholic, anxious about never having had sex with a man before, and, that common marriage of convenience trope, as John can end the marriage after a year and a day if he chooses. There are obstacles and pining and inadequate communication, but eventually John makes a place for himself in Rodney's labs, proves his loyalty, and we get the happy ending. A fun read!

Fanwork Links: The Spare

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vriddy

I just finished proofreading the latest draft that has aaaaall the changes that came from beta-reader feedback *stares into void* As usual, this is the only step of my process in which my word count gets smaller, although not that much (just by 1%!). Final (#2) draft stands at 58k words.

Unfortunately I've also reached the stage where I hate everything because clearly I'm a garbage person who can only write garbage stories etc etc etc *sigh* I wish that wasn't part of the process. Every time I finish reading a book and the author in the acknowledgements goes "Thanks to my spouse for talking me off the ledge whenever I started hating this story/stopped believing in it/etc" I grumble "WHERE IS MY SPOUSE!!!" lol. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks for the yucky feelings to scatter before contacting the kind souls who volunteered to beta-read. I was thinking of giving folks 5 weeks to beta again? I realise this might be smack-bang in the middle of end of academic year shenanigans for students and teachers though, so I'll have to ask and see if I should wait to align the timeline... I would prefer that over getting the feedback at random times over many months if possible, because I know my brain is going to start working on stuff as soon as the feedback comes in.

I also have a pretty graph!

A graph showing daily progress on scenes completed, time spent, over 17 days

A graph showing daily progress on scenes completed, time spent, over 17 days

I'm never tracking daily again!! Lol. I guess it's not really actionable. It reflects the rest of my life more than the writing. "Here I wasn't home... here I was sick... here something stressful was happening..." I like the idea of weekly tracking more, just like I like yearly challenges like

getyourwordsout more than once-off events like NaNoWriMo: even if it never feels like I'm doing enough, it's good to see that consistency even small pays off over time. Daily tracking is never consistent!!

You can also see how I went crazy last weekend, like "Fuck the plaaaaan I'm finishing THIS WEEKEND even if it KILLS ME LEROYYYYYY JENKIIIINS" and then it killed me and I wasn't anywhere near finished, but really burnt out instead. I did One Last Push this morning because the end felt so within sight. But the bad feels are still here :C And I had to change the graph to add more days and I'll have to write myself a tutorial about that because I fuck things up every time I try to tweak something.

What comes next? Well, for the witch, contacting beta-readers, getting feedback, praying there are no more structural issues lurking (but if there are, so be it), let the feedback simmer. Starting in a couple of weeks.

More immediately, I'm taking a few days' breather then I'm going to start on the Soul Thief structural edits. I have the detailed plan, what needs to change, what needs to go, 15 new scenes to write for all the missing bits... I'm guessing it'll take a few months. I'm looking forward to it, though, and hopeful I'm truly solving the major problems early before any beta-reader takes a look!

I find it interesting, carrying the hopelessness of the Cursed Witch together with the joy/excitement/hope about the Soul Thief. Obviously, that one is incomplete so it still could be anything. This is one of the reasons I always want to find ways to write more. It's not just because "moar words moar better rawwwr", but if I have other projects in various stages to immediately lose myself into, I don't dwell as much on the bad, nor feel it as much. In 2020 and 2021, for Several Reasons (tm) I was writing about 20k words/month, and I think writing so much really fed into itself well: like, sure, damn, that story didn't work out the way I hoped it would. But rather than think "~~I am~~ This is crap" I could simply believe that the next story would be better, because I'd already started it, and if nothing else I wouldn't repeat the exact same mistake(s) with it.

Mood staring into void
Location Void edge
Music perhaps yelling comes next??

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dine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

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ysabetwordsmith

These are the content notes for "Where You Find Light."

( Read more... )

Mood busy

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ysabetwordsmith

These are the location notes for "Where You Find Light."

( Read more... )

Mood busy

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simplyn2deep posting in

1word1day

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Futz (verb, noun, verb phrase)
futz [fuhts]

verb (used without object)
1. to pass time in idleness (usually followed by around ).

noun
2. a fool; simpleton.

verb phrase
3. futz (around) with to handle or deal with, especially idly, reluctantly, or as a time-consuming task: I spent all day futzing with those file folders.

Origin: First recorded in 1905–10; apparently a euphemism for fuck;

Example Sentences
If you didn’t want to futz with the word blockchain but did want Bitcoin exposure, you could buy MicroStrategy stock.
From Slate • Feb. 3, 2026

More important: AI gives you easier access to settings, so you don’t have to futz with menus.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 11, 2026

You can futz with the bread, you can gild the cheese, but if the core is bland or watery or vaguely funereal, the whole enterprise collapses.
From Salon • Dec. 4, 2025

It was incredibly hot to wear silicone, so there wasn’t as much time to futz around.
From New York Times • Feb. 22, 2023

I’m so ambivalent about dieting and my body, but I’m also happy to futz with my double chin.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 15, 2020

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earthobservatory_iod_feed

Posted by Michala Garrison

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/belts-of-green-in-the-washington-suburbs/

https://science.nasa.gov/?p=1213894

A straight-down view of Greenbelt is centered on a square park, with smaller green spaces weaving through surrounding homes, businesses, a college campus, and government buildings.

July 30, 2023

Beyond the border of Washington, D.C., numerous suburbs spread across Virginia and Maryland. Many are accessible from the Capital Beltway (I-495), the highway that encircles Washington. An astronaut on the International Space Station captured this photo of the beltway’s northeast side where it passes through the historic city of Greenbelt, Maryland.

The photo was taken on July 30, 2023, a time of year when the region’s vegetation is lush and green. One of the more prominent green spaces in this image is Greenbelt Park. The park’s nearly 5 square kilometers (2 square miles) contain forested hiking trails, several picnic areas, and a campground. The land was once intended as a future extension of the city of Greenbelt, but it was acquired by the National Park Service in 1950.

Just north of the park, Greenbelt’s historic district is laid out in a crescent shape. The district is one of three planned communities that arose in the 1930s as part of the New Deal program, intended to provide work for the unemployed and to create affordable cooperative housing with accessible green space. Homes connect to walking paths, which in turn connect to one of the country’s oldest planned shopping centers.

A collection of buildings east of the beltway is NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, established in Greenbelt on May 1, 1959, as NASA’s first spaceflight complex. Several patches of forested land separate some of the buildings. The large green spaces north of Goddard are a mix of forested land and agricultural fields in the town of Beltsville, which include University of Maryland and USDA agricultural research sites. The main campus of the University of Maryland is visible just west of Greenbelt in College Park.

Other nearby tree-lined areas are visible as well. For instance, Hyattsville, just south of College Park, has been recognized as a “tree city” for more than three decades. In addition, trees line a large segment of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (MD-295), which runs north-south between Baltimore and Washington and bisects Greenbelt Park.

Astronaut photograph ISS069-E-39302 was acquired on July 30, 2023, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 1150 millimeters. It was provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 69 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

Downloads

July 30, 2023

JPEG (19.49 MB)

References & Resources

Greenbelt Museum, Greenbelt History. Accessed April 20, 2026.
National Park Service, Foundation Document Overview. Accessed April 20, 2026.
National Park Service (2026) Greenbelt Park, Maryland. Accessed April 20, 2026.
National Park Service (2018, July 2) Greenbelt Historic District. Accessed April 20, 2026.
The Washington Post (2025, December 10) In Greenbelt, Md., New Deal history meets co-op spirit. Accessed April 20, 2026.

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The post Belts of Green in the Washington Suburbs appeared first on NASA Science.

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/belts-of-green-in-the-washington-suburbs/

https://science.nasa.gov/?p=1213894

ysabetwordsmith

This poem came out of the August 5, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

dialecticdreamer,

rix_scaedu, and

jake67jake. It also fills the "Before the Fact" square in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by

janetmiles. It belongs to the Big One thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It is the first in a triptych, followed by "When You Learn to Read" and "No Faster or Firmer Friendships."

( Read more... )

Mood busy

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torachan

1. Today was my first day back at work at the office. Lots of meetings and not a lot else, but since I did all my catching up yesterday, that was fine. I'm planning to work from home tomorrow (and maybe Thursday?).

2. I asked Carla to make hummus for me today while I was at work, since I usually make some on the weekend to have for weekday lunches but hadn't gotten to it, and she did make it for me, but also first mistakenly opened a can of pinto beans instead of chickpeas, so she made refried beans and we had that with some more tacos for dinner as there's still plenty of carnitas and fresh tortillas from yesterday, and they were both delicious and the perfect amount for two servings. (Though we still have more taco fixings, so if there had been more, we could have finished them up later this week.)

3. There was a decent chance of rain today but it pretty much didn't rain. No rain at all in Gardena where I was, and Carla said there was a little dampness on the ground mid day but that was it. I really have had enough to rain for now, so I'm glad.

4. I spotted Tuxie in an unusual place the other day (in the neighbors' front yard). He seemed startled to see me, too, lol.

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thewayne

If you're into older rock, Dave Mason is a name a name that you'll either recognize right off the bat or you won't. But when you hear the people whom he's worked with, and what he's done, then you start to wonder if you haven't heard of him.

Here's the first two paragraphs from the Variety obit:
"Dave Mason, solo artist, a founding member of the band Traffic, writer of the classic rock songs “Feelin’ Alright” and “Hole in My Shoe” and sideman to the Rolling Stones, George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix, has died, according to an announcement from his publicist. He was 79.

Mason was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the other original members of Traffic in 2004. In the 1970s he enjoyed solo hits with “Only You Know and I Know” and “We Just Disagree,” and over the years he also performed or recorded with David Crosby, Graham Nash, Michael Jackson, Cass Elliot, Leon Russell and others."

Let me repeat some of those names. A founding member of Traffic. The Rolling Stones. George Harrison. Jimi Hendrix (he played 12 string guitar on All Along The Watchtower). Crosby and Nash. Michael Jackson. Momma Cass. He also was a member of Fleetwood Mac. Feelin' Alright was not a hit for Traffic, but it pretty much launched Joe Cocker's career.

AND inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

A singer, writer, and performer. Triple threat. Definitely a formidable and accomplished artist. Cause of death was not released, though two years ago he cancelled a tour due to unspecified heart issues.

A great one has taken his final bow.

https://variety.com/2026/music/obituaries-people-news/dave-mason-dead-traffic-feelin-alright-rock-hall-fame-1236727460/

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$radiantfracture: a white rabbit swims underwater (water rabbit)$

radiantfracture

A nice thing about being unable to focus is that I also can't focus on being miserable. Case in point: after a truly incomparable series of missed appointments and scheduling errors yesterday, I sat down wretchedly this morning, in true anxiety about my mnemonic capacity, to see if I could at least still recall two touchstone poems memorized in high school: Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, ("Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds") and "Kubla Khan".

The choice of sonnet is a bit mysterious to me now (the craft is exquisite; the marriage never materialized), but "Kubla Khan" makes perfect sense.

Writing it out again (all except the bit about the bouncing rocks in the middle, where I get hopelessly lost and always have) I could not help looking at "Kubla Khan" this time with my own fixations in mind, and before I knew it I had forgotten my forgetfuless and was happily sloshing around in the sacred river Alph.

( Anyway, some thoughts on Kubla Khan as it might fit into the epics course, interspersed with the Poem Itself )

The poem, sans interruptions, can be read here.

§rf§

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kaffy_r

Music Meme, Day 28

A song that you used to hate but love today

I think the very first song that blasted into my mind when I read this came from Led Zeppelin. When I was a teenager, and for years thereafter, I disliked the band. In large part that was because I didn't like Robert Plant's voice. I thought it was whiny.

In the decades since. I learned to really enjoy Plant's voice. His solo work stuck with me first and I thought, "Well, I may not like how he sang in Led Zep, but I do like his voice now."

And then something odd happened; I started looking back at Led Zeppelin's earliest stuff and listening to it, and I realized that Plant wasn't whining. He was wailing. And that wail worked beautifully for the work the band was presenting at the time.

And once I got over disliking Plant's voice during his Led Zeppelin days, I was free to appreciate the other members of the band. Jimmy Page was obviously in a class by himself when it came to the guitar; John Bonham may have played ever so slightly behind the beat, making his drums sound like brontosaurus lumberings, but it worked. And John Paul Jones knew how to work with Bonham.

Today I can honestly say that the first song I ever disliked performed by Led Zeppelin is now a song I think truly rocks. As in, when I hear it, my head starts to bang. Not healthy, perhaps, but understandable, I think at least some of you might agree.

Here it is.

Watch on YouTube

I hasten to add that Chicago bluesman Willie Dixon successfully sued the band over its use of his song, "You Need Love" in their hit. The suit was settled out of court and Dixon's name was subsequently listed as a co-writer of the Led Zeppelin song. Here's his original:

Watch on YouTube

And finally, here's a link to my previous meme posts. Just follow the bouncing links.

Mood mellow
Location the home office
Music Led Zeppelin "Whole Lotta Love"

Tags:

meme,
music

twistedchick

I am posting from the computer before my present one -- this one dates from the early 2000s, and is a bit slow. My good 2019 computer is in the shop getting a new keyboard -- apparently when one key is busted all of them are and the entire top of the laptop gets replaced. It's the down arrow that didn't work.

And because of that I have about 10 days either with only my phone (I will not describe going through 100+ new emails there; it is tedious) or this elderly one that I have purposely kept on an older operating system because this lappie has really excellent older software that simply doesn't work on the more recent op systems. So I am relaxing, watching old stored movies (Skyfall, anyone?) and doing offline sorting of books and papers and so on.

ETA: The guy at the shop said I could have them do the work in-house, for about 10 days, or they could send it to another shop where they would mail it back after about 5 days. I do not trust the current postmaster, or his cuts to service, or the possibility that it would end up sitting on a shelf somewhere and not come back, so I agreed to the 10 days or so.

I'm also feeling the losses, and letting myself feel them and letting them go through me instead of "braving it out" or trying to ignore them and having everything get worse later. I don't want worse later; now is enough. I can bear now. I am remembering so many little things, and big things, aond old things and it all just works.

It also means I'm sleeping a lot, around my meds schedule, which is less easy than it sounds. Basically, I have a BP pill and a blood thinner, each of which needs to be taken 2x a day about 12 hours apart, but not at the same time because the stress on my heart is too much. So I am carefully scheduling the one for 9 am and pm and the other for 10-11 am and pm, and that is working. Otherwise my heart bangs until it wakes me up, which is not fun.

I'm also handspinning silk roving in various colors; it's one of my favorite things to do while watching tv, because looking from the work in my hands to the set across the room keeps my eyes from getting stuck at the shorter distance. I did maybe 15 yards, three ply, today, which is 45 yards of single ply. You do the 3-ply by putting a big slipknot loop into the end of it, then continue to loop through the loop and twirl the spindle in the opposite direction of the single ply's twist. The result is useful, not so thin that it falls apart, and looks good. I am thinking of crocheting small keepsake bags from them.

That's about what's happening here, give or take a freeze warning or hearing the fox calling in the park half a block away late at night. I'm glad of that fox and its kin; they are welcome to come to my yard to eat mice whenever they wish.

thistleingrey

Jinwoo Park, Oxford Soju Club (2025): character-centric spy thriller from a Canadian publisher, which I picked up while glancing at a different library epub (by someone who blurbed Soju Club). Subject line is from ch. 5.

If you know which Korean surnames are border-straddlers, you'll find them well represented amongst Soju Club's associates, either directly or via central-casting allusions to kpop/kdrama stars' names (including the voice actress for Meitantei Conan's Korean dub, if I'm not mistaken). One character totes around a copy of The Golden Compass, thus named. The Oxford around Soju Club and another pub is barely sketched in, a liminal space for crossings, as though to assert that there's no need for the Arctic; southern England is unlikely enough.

Soju Club is the type of novel that, while layering secret-handshake refs that most readers wouldn't see (I caught the doublings related to Sacheon in Yeongnam, but I know I've missed a bunch), tries suggesting that it doesn't matter that gyopo Park did his homework for those resonances and evocations as though preparing for a Suneung he never took. If you catch the Korean bits, you won't catch the UK-related or NorAm-related ones.

All you need are the sense that you won't catch everything Park has learned while touring himself out of some boxes, and the fact that he did a master's at Oxford and then some writing/managing for computer games. The latter furnishes the novel's vignette-driven scrambled sequence: turn the page or tap the screen to find the next puzzle-segment.

I think that Park, with this debut novel, doesn't imagine the author to be dead.

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reading

rahirah posting in

su_herald

SKIP: It’s going to be really hard for you to accept but Cordelia has ascended to a higher plane.
ANGEL: I know. She’s back.
SKIP: Back?
ANGEL: Or at least something that looks like her.
SKIP: Whoa, wait. Nobody comes back from paradise. Okay, a Slayer once but—

~~Angel Season IV Episode #83: "Inside Out"~~

The Sunnydale Herald is looking for a new editor. Contributing to the Herald is a great way to get your Buffy on! Find out more.