Spacing in Korean

Feb. 26th, 2026 09:44 pm
[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

The role of a Scotsman, John Ross (1842-1915), in creating it.  Although he was a Christian missionary who spent over half his life in China, he was apparently a gigachad.

The following video is densely packed with solid information and moves rapidly, so you have to pay close attention to follow it.

En masse / all things considered / by and large / for the most part/ generally speaking, etc., what is said here about Korean also applies to Chinese and Japanese.  Hanzi/kanji/hanjaphiles may not be happy to hear me say that.

See the candid comments by speakers of Chinese and Japanese.

And this from a Swedish speaker:

I'm Swedish and funnily enough, we have the same issues with spacing that Korean does. So much so that we even have a word for it, 'särskrivning' – roughly meaning 'writing separation'. Even funnier is the fact that the very word used to describe the error or adding spaces to compound words, is frequently also the victim of the phenomenon it describes. 'Särskrivningar' is the compound of 'sär-' – meaning separate or split – and 'skrivning' – meaning writing.

If only Peter Stephen Du Ponceau (1760-1844) had lived a century later, perhaps his preternaturally prescient understanding of the  Sinographic writing system would have had a synergetic, beneficial effect on the development of Chinese characters, as John Ross did on the Korean writing system.

 

Selected readings

rolanni: (Default)
[personal profile] rolanni

What went before: Wednesday. Snowing and partly sunny.

Despite the distress it will of course cause his fandom, I am forced to report that Rookie the Cookie is a Schmuck. Or possibly only a Jerk. He's been knocking stuff off the shelves in the Tech Room -- notably, bottles of liquid toner, which apparently make a lovely thud-SMACK sound when they land (honestly, it's a very distinctive sound; I can recognize a toner bottle hitting the floor from two rooms away). I expect he doesn't really know that I can't easily pick the damn' things up right now, but -- aargh. Get a cat, they said, they'll be fun. Get a Maine Coon Cat, they said. They're very interested in their people and like to engage.

In other news, despite having felt somewhat better last night, I'm back to Square One (minus the THC) this morning. It occurs to me that I better line up a ride to my appointment at Thayer tomorrow afternoon, which -- aargh x 2. I hate bothering people to do stoopid stuff for me.

I've written to my PCP regarding pain management -- the idea being that, going in the front door with back pain (yes, I'm doing my PT homework) needs to be supported by another approach, because even my therapist said that this will keep happening, only as my core gets stronger, an episode will last ... less long. What I want, of course, is The Grail: something that will kill the pain, or get it down to manageable levels, and neither make me sick or fuzz me out, so I can write. And so I'm not a danger to myself or to the cats. That's important, too. As is eating. It's ridiculously hard to eat when you're in pain.

The cats are taking good care of me -- well. Firefly and Tali are checking in regularly to administer lap-sits and purr therapy.

Rookie's knocking shit off the shelves in the Tech Room.

In addition to pain management brainstorm, I arrived at the opinion that I should also figure out ways to work even when I'm feeling this bad. So! I have moved Writing Operations to the comfy chair in my office (which has been Back Pain Central), rigged up the laptop with my favorite keyboard, and brought the WIP, and the portable hard drive here, too. So, hopefully, I'll be able to continue with fixing stuff that's already been written, and that this episode of painful nonsense will vacate before I realio, trulio need to start producing New! Copy!

So, that's the somewhat muddled news from the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory.

How's everyone doing?
#
So, that was no fun at all.

I don't want to get ahead of myself but I may have gotten around the Horn. Of course, I'm shaky because I haven't eaten anything for 3 days except peanut butter crackers (Note to self:  Buy peanut butter crackers; the damn things are lifesavers.) to buffer the meds.

I do have a ride lined up for my appointment this afternoon, so that's good, and my intention is to actually have breakfast and then come back to the comfy chair, do some work on the WIP, and not push things. And eat snacks. What a time to be out of hummus. Bad planning, past me.

Firefly is on my lap and purring.

I'm almost done my Russian Caravan tea Christmas present (Note to self: buy more Russian Caravan tea).

And that's that's the fascinating Thursday report from the cat farm and confusion factory.

Dictated to my phone.
#
Did some work on the WIP, actually ate food. Steve Symonds gave me a ride to and from the hospital for my test, so that's taken care of. Managed to get the cat fountains changed out, which has been really bothering me. I'm such a bad cat mom. Talked to the accountant, and -- ouch. Not unexpected, but still. Ouch. I'll pick up the papers on Monday, when -- fingers crossed -- I hope to be Fully Operational.

In the meantime *whispers* my back is not hurting, which places as a Minor Miracle, and what I really want to do is go curl up (figuratively) and read Local Custom.

May I just say what a great job we did with Local Custom? The gradual unfurling of the leaves of character, the! worldbuilding!, the things that are said so very plainly and yet don't mean the same thing to the person you're talking with and -- I swoon. No, really.

Damn, I wish I could write like that.

Also? There's a description -- a Very Detailed Description -- of a counterchance board. I. Had. No. Idea.

So, anyway, I see the tax stuff, and that I have to Move Monies in order to satisfy the IRS and the State of Maine, but yanno what?

Imma go read.

Everybody have a good evening. I'll see you tomorrow.

No...really. I will.

Tali collecting overdue ear scrubbles:


mythicmistress: The sun shining through Stonehenge (Default)
[personal profile] mythicmistress posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Megamind
Pairings/Characters: Megamind/Roxanne Ritchi, Minion, Metro Man
Rating: M
Length: 168,535 words
Creator Links: impatientseamstress
Theme: Inept in Love

Summary: Roxanne Ritchi just wanted her shoes replaced.
Marrying her Supervillain in a surprise Vegas elopement was not part of the plan. It wasn't part of Megamind's plan either... Unfortunately, all of Metro City is way too excited to finally see them together for them to admit the truth. But they can solve this...somehow

Reccer's Notes: Oh, Megamind and Roxanne were being SO STUPID about each other, in the "I love her/him, but she/he couldn't possibly love me back" way. They managed to argue themselves into getting married, for crying out loud! (Didn't help that EVERYONE IN METRO CITY was shipping them...) There's also some fun worldbuilding done for what a world with superheroes, supervillains, and damsels would look like.

Fanwork Links: Rings (locked to AO3 users)

The Friday Five for 27 February 2026

Feb. 26th, 2026 03:10 pm
anais_pf: (Default)
[personal profile] anais_pf posting in [community profile] thefridayfive
Feelings…

1. What made you happy this week?

2. What made you sad?

3. What made you angry?

4. What are you looking forward to in the next week?

5. What are you not looking forward to?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

Odds and ends

Feb. 26th, 2026 06:14 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

I've posted occasionally about Maria Sibylla Merian, this sounds like an interesting book on her and her art.

***

The funding to save the area surrounding the Cerne Giant for the National Trust has been raised: any further donations will go to habitat creation and increasing access.

***

Exhibition: North Staffordshire Miners’ Wives Action Group Archive (formed in response to the 1984 miners’ strike,members have been actively campaigning for over 40 years).

***

Martyrdom, Misrepresentation and the ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’ (I was at uni with a Loveless descendant). And I discovered that the Internet Archive has a recording of the BBC Home Service broadcast of Miles Malleson and H Brook's Six Men of Dorset.

***

More rather horrifying reports coming out about the surrogacy industry: Embryo couriers, student egg donors and cut-price surrogates. Journalist Alev Scott investigates northern Cyprus’s booming baby business — where Brits head for cheap treatment, gender selection and lax legislation.

***

Researching Love Letters:

The National Archives is hosting the exhibition 'Love Letters', exploring 500 years of expressions of love. This exhibition captures the voices of paupers and monarchs, reflecting friendships, romance, and more. But why does love appear in government documents?

***

Recovering “Lesbian” Voices in the Middle Ages: Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Germanic Mystics.

***

The Rohonc Codex: Hungary’s Mysterious Manuscript That No One Can Read

***

Yay: Senate House Library secures future of priceless LGBTQ+ collection with support from the Heritage Fund

Boo: County Durham WWI ledger bought at car boot sale for £20 set to sell for over £1k at auction: The museum-quality register lists the names of 900 men who signed up in just three days in December 1915

lirazel: Janice Rand from Star Trek TOS in pink ([tv] justice4janicerand)
[personal profile] lirazel
I do a lot of work where my hands are occupied but my mind is not (hello, rehousing!!!) and may main exercise is walking so I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I am always looking for more.

My favorite ongoing podcasts are In Bed With the Right, Know Your Enemy, If Books Could Kill, Maintenance Phase, Panic World, and A Bit Fruity. These are the shows I listen to every episode of and (most of them) support on Patreon so I get extra episodes. Oh, and On the Nose from Jewish Currents.

There are a number I also like but don't listen to every episode of, just dipping in and out as they interest me. These include Behind the Bastards, Hoax!, HyperFixed, Search Engine, Straight White American Jesus, Culture Study, Decoder Ring, American Hysteria, Strongwilled, 5-4, and The Dream.

Then there are my classic favorites that I haven't listened to in a while but loved madly: You Must Remember This, You're Wrong About, and You Are Good.

One limited run I listened to lately was What Happened in Nashville, about the unregulated fertility treatment industry through the lens of a big scandal that happened in my hometown and found it interesting.


Things I like in a podcast:

+ Culture and/or history and/or current events through a leftist/feminist lens. It's really important to me that these are serious thinkers or deeply insightful people, even if what they're talking about is lighter fare
+ People who take culture and internet culture seriously but want to deeply critique it
+ Stuff about religion--not in the sense of being religious but in the sense of talking about how religion works in the world
+ Stuff that is well-researched
+ Stuff about moral panics
+ I tend to be drawn to podcasts that are created by people who are first and foremost either writers/journalists or scholars (with the exception of A Bit Fruity, all my favorite current podcasts are created by people in those categories)
+ Anything Michael Hobbes is involved with lol
+ Oh and my guilty pleasure is anything about cults (other people listen to true crime stuff, I listen to cult stuff)

Things I don't like in a podcast:
+ Humor podcasts (a lot of these people are very funny, but none of these podcasts are comedy podcasts)
+ Generic culture/pop culture stuff (by which I mean the sort of overviews of just what's going on in the world of pop culture)
+ Fiction (I'm sorry, but Welcome to Night Vale is the only one that ever truly worked for me)
+ Pure news podcasts
+ Interview podcasts that focus on celebs
+ Honestly anything about celebrities, I just don't care
+ Self-help stuff
elisem: (Default)
[personal profile] elisem
 Whoops! It was John Henry Newman's birthday the other day, and I missed the opportunity to post this again. It can be sung to at least one version of John Henry, though things may have to be adjusted here and there. Here ya go:


When John Henry Newman was an Anglican
He went down to the Holy See
Said I wanna see the Pope 'cause I got a crazy hope
That they're gonna make a Catholic out of me, Lord, Lord,
They're gonna make a Catholic out of me.
 
When John Henry Newman was a young man
He wrote about a Kindly Light
He called it "Pillar of Cloud," and if you sing it real loud
It'll lead you through the gloomy night, Lord, Lord,
It'll lead you through the gloomy night.
 
John Henry Newman was at Oxford
He was a deacon and a curate too
He got to be a vicar but decided it was quicker
To scribble down a tract or two, Lord, Lord
To scribble down a tract or two.
 
John Henry Newman up at Oxford
At St. Mary's chapel on the side
He told them in a lecture that it was his conjecture
The middle way was fine and wide, Lord, Lord
The middle way was fine and wide.
 
John Henry Newman got in trouble
Reading monophysite lore
"This bit about "securus" -- it doesn't reassure us
I think I better think a little more, Lord, Lord,
I think I better think at Littlemore. "
 
John Henry Newman had a buddy
Father Ambrose, he liked Rome
They liked St. Philip Neri, so in the vale of Mary
They built themselves a home sweet home, Lord, Lord,
They built themselves a home sweet home.
 
John Henry Newman got converted
And it made him feel alive
But he lost a few subscribers the day he swam the Tiber
On 9 October '45, Lord, Lord,
On 9 October '45.
 
John Henry Newman bought a ticket
John Henry Newman went to Rome
But though he got ordained, he did not remain
He packed his bags and headed home, Lord, Lord,
He packed his bags and headed home.
 
John Henry Newman went to Oscott
To have a little toast and jam
And in a blaze of glory to build an Oratory
They later moved to Birmingham, Lord, Lord,
They later moved to Birmingham.
 
John Henry Newman took exception
To what he heard Kingsley say
Newman said "I showed ya ; I wrote an Apologia
And it's Pro Vita Sua all the way, Lord, Lord,
It's Pro Vita Sua all the way."
 
John Henry Newman got promoted
And they gave him a big red hat
They put it on his head, and everybody said,
"Mercy, will you look at that, Lord, Lord,
Mercy, will you look at that."
 
When John Henry Newman was an old man
He was a little on the quiet side.
He got a telegram from heaven on August eleven
And laid down his missal and he died, Lord, Lord,
He laid down his missal and he died.
 
John Henry Newman in his coffin
On compost did recline
He said "I have chosen, by completely decomposing,
To leave not a relic here to find, Lord, Lord,
I will leave not a relic here to find."


There. That was written by me some while ago -- September 20, 2010, I guess it was. Enjoy!

52/359-360: Ban the Balm!

Feb. 26th, 2026 06:44 am
rejectomorph: (Default)
[personal profile] rejectomorph
Another day slipped away and I have no idea what became of it. I think it rained more than expected, but I also slept more than expected, though all my uncles are dead and none were named Bob. Still, sitting here this morning as day grows brighter but I don't is no surprise and pretty much what I ought to have expected. I'm supposed to put together a shopping list today, to be ordered tomorrow, but I think I'd just as soon be nuked, if not for the fact that such an event would be detrimental to the local cat population. Once again my tendency toward nihilism is stymied by the memory of cute little furballs purring.

This being so close to shopping day I am almost out of tasty unhealthy foods for breakfast, but I rummaged blindly in part of the refrigerator I can't see and found a can of cinnamon rolls, which I baked forthwith and have partly devoured, accompanied by a cup of cold coffee with a big shot of fresh cream. The coffee probably precludes any chance of a nap anytime soon, but it was tasty enough to have made that sacrifice worthwhile. In fact I'm contemplating having a second cup, the anti-Morphean damage having already been done.

The local weather forecast is quite peculiar. The latest update is predicting a high of 72 today, when yesterday's forecast was predicting that today's high would be only 68. Even more alarmingly, it is predicting a high of 76 for tomorrow. I don't recall signing up for this. In fact I'm quite sure I didn't. I have clearly been drafted, without advance warning. This is what happens when you allow climate scientists to run amok and send all the snow to the east! I intend to write a very sharply worded letter to Oprah, insisting that she do something about it. Spring in February! The very idea!

Photo cross-post

Feb. 26th, 2026 12:02 pm
andrewducker: (Default)
[personal profile] andrewducker


Nice sunset.

(And lovely that the sun is up when I wake the kids at 7am and the sky still looks like this when I get home at 6pm)
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

Hunting the Falcon

Feb. 26th, 2026 11:15 am
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage That Shook Europe by John Guy and Julia Fox

A history/biography.

Read more... )

Book Review: Post Captain

Feb. 26th, 2026 08:04 am
osprey_archer: (books)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
At the beginning of Post Captain, right on the cusp of a big sea battle, peace is inopportunely declared. Fortunately for Jack Aubrey, he is extremely flush with prize money, so with his particular friend Stephen Maturin he rents a country house, enters local society, and meets a family of pretty sisters (plus one beautiful young widowed cousin).

I had just settled in for a reverse Austen novel, told from the point of view of the naval captain rather than his young lady, when Jack’s prize agent absconds with all his money. Jack, eleven thousand pounds in debt, flees to the continent with Stephen in tow - just in time for war to begin again!

This is all in the space of about four chapters. At this point I concluded I had better not settle in for anything at all, as we were clearly in for an ever-shifting picaresque novel.

In this book:

Stephen disguises Jack as a bear so they can flee from hostile France to still-neutral Spain.

Jack is subsequently so ill that Stephen has to nurse him back to health, which takes place entirely off page, because O’Brian could not care less about hurt/comfort.

Other things O’Brian can’t care less about? Spy plots. Stephen has become a hotshot spy for British intelligence and spends months in Spain gathering intelligence, which entire trip O’Brian disposes of in three paragraphs.

However, Stephen’s spy shenanigans allow O’Brian to skip the entire sequence during which Jack gets not-engaged with a girl whose mother won’t let her enter an engagement with a man who is eleven thousand pounds in debt, but emotionally they’re basically engaged.

So if O’Brian has cheerfully skated over hurt/comfort, spying, and romance, what IS he writing about?

Well, at one point Stephen declares that he has “a horror of appearing eccentric,” and asks worriedly whether it would make him look weird to practice swordplay on deck. (It will not, the captain of the marines assures him.)

(A few chapters later Stephen, the man who has a horror of appearing eccentric, shows up on Jack’s new ship wearing a wool onesie and carrying a glass hive of bees. The bees promptly invade the morning cocoa.)

Stephen and Jack almost have a duel but then it just kind of fizzles. They seem to have simply forgotten about the duel without, at any point, formally deciding not to duel.

The debt collectors catch up with Jack but fortunately he’s out with a bunch of officers from his ship so they turn the tables on the debt collectors and impress at least two of them into the navy. Ha-HA, take that debt collectors!

Oh, and obviously we DO finally have a sea battle at the end. We may not need spying or hurt-comfort but we MUST have a sea battle.

SGA: Do Over by crysothemis

Feb. 27th, 2026 12:37 am
mific: (McShep his fault)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: Explicit
Length: 18,910
Content Notes: No AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: crysothemis on AO3, nny (villainny) on Audiofic Archive
Themes: Inept in love, Friends to lovers, First time, Humor, Pining

Summary: John never sleeps with anyone twice.

Reccer's Notes: Rodney (who's attracted to John) bumps into a few women, and then Ronon, leaving John's quarters. He clumsily asks John about these goings on, and mostly accidentally challenges John to have sex with him (because why not with Rodney if everyone else gets to?). It doesn't go swimmingly so Rodney demands a do-over, then another do-over, and another, because there's always something wrong with their encounters. This is partly as Rodney's bisexual and he mistakenly thinks John must be as well, and Rodney also manufactures "mistakes", until they're both entirely hooked and John's joining in with the pretense enthusiastically. It's hot, funny, and clever - a great read.

Fanwork Links: Do Over
And there's a podfic by nny

siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1897060.html

[Content Advisory: info that may be US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within. Actual status is unclear to me.]



Cuba has been effectively under siege by the US since at least January.

The US has cut off all Cuba's access to fuel imports. The situation is getting increasingly desperate. And a bunch of things just happened today. Yesterday, by the time I post this.

The US seized Venezuela January 3. Venezuela had been one of Cuba's two primary sources of oil, and once the US had control of Venezuela, the US halted shipments of Venezuelan oil to Cuba. Cuba's other main supplier of oil was Mexico, and on Jan 27, Mexico announced it was suspending oil shipments to Cuba. The Mexican president was evasive when asked point blank if the Trump administration was pressuring them into it, but Mexico has a critical trade deal with the US coming due for renegotiating, and dare not antagonize Trump.

Two days later, Jan 29, Trump issued an EO threatening any country that ships oil to Cuba with tariffs.

Apparently, there has been, since around that time, an undeclared US naval blockade of Cuba, to prevent oil shipments from getting through. The Trump administration hasn't admitted it, but Jan 23, Politico published a report that three anonymous sources in the Trump administration said that the administration was considering a "total blockade on oil imports" to Cuba, and a few days ago the NY Times published an analysis of ship movements in the Carribean indicating that there was indeed a naval blockade.

Cuba has received no foreign oil since its last shipment from Mexico Jan 9th.

As of Feb 3, the Financial Times was reporting that a consultancy was reporting that Cuba had "15 to 20 days" of oil left. Feb 5, the UN Secretary-General spokesperson issued a statement about a humanitarian disaster looming in Cuba.

Cuba of course did what it could to ration oil, but without enough of it, things began to fall apart. They started running out of fuel for cars, public transit, trucks to ship in food, garbage trucks to take the trash, and tractors to harvest crops. Cuba primarily generates electricity from oil-burning power plants so the electrical grid started failing and they started having blackouts. People have been cooking with whatever they can burn in the streets; there is no reliable refrigeration. Of course, they are also running out of food, and have difficulty accessing water. All elective surgeries have been canceled.

Feb 8, Mexico sent a delivery of humanitarian aid – 814 tons of food and hygeine supplies – to Cuba, to arrive later that week. This doesn't violate the US sanctions. Probably.

Feb 9, Cuba notifies all airlines that fly to Cuba that Cuban airports are running out of fuel and they will no longer be able to refuel in Cuba; Air Canada announces it's suspending flights to Cuba and sending empty flights to rescue Canadians in Cuba. Canada has been the largest source of tourists to Cuba, and the tourism industry is one of Cuba's main sources of foreign currency, without which it basically can't engage in international trade.

Also Feb 9, Mexican president Sheinbaum publically called the US's sanctions on Cuba "unjust" ["muy injusto"] for how they impacted the people of Cuba and pledged to keep finding a diplomatic solution with the US to get to ship Cuba oil.

Feb 13, the Ñico López oil refinery in Havana, Cuba, had a fire. The Cuban government reports that it was swiftly contained, and that the refinery continues to function, but that an investigation was opened into its cause.

Feb 22, shipping analysis firm Windward announced that they'd detected a Russian tanker (subsequently identified as The Sea Horse by Kplr) headed from the Mediterranean to Havana, likely carrying oil, putting it on a track to directly challenge the US Navy's blockade. It is due to reach Cuba in early March.

Feb 23, Canada announced it would be sending some sort of relief supplies to Cuba, but was cagey about just of what those supplies would consist.

Today, Feb 25:


The commenter VisualEconomik EN on YT argued today that Russia is unlikely to go to the mat for Cuba, for a variety of reasons, including that Russia is economically over-extended by its war in Ukraine; he also contends that Russia and China have no more patience for Cuban mismanagement and despite the tactical military advantage having turf within 100 miles of the US coastline, they're kind of done with dealing with Cuba's government. As to whether this is true, I can't say, but it sounded reasonable. This is good news if true, because otherwise, if either wanted to back Cuba against the US, this could be the match that sets off the powderkeg.

News sources and further reading below, in chronological order of publication [6,690 words] )

This post brought to you by the 226 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Just One Thing (26 February 2026)

Feb. 26th, 2026 08:25 am
nanila: me (Default)
[personal profile] nanila posting in [community profile] awesomeers
It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

Garden Tips

Feb. 26th, 2026 12:42 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] everykindofcraft
I've been doing some garden crafts lately, so I thought it would be fun to gather project links that might inspire other folks...

Read more... )

Talking Meme Month - day 25

Feb. 25th, 2026 08:57 pm
hafnia: Animated drawing of a flickering fire with a pair of eyes peeping out of it, from the film Howl's Moving Castle. (Default)
[personal profile] hafnia
talk about a TTRPG system other than Dungeons and Dragons

Easy — there's a number of them I like. Blades in the Dark and Monster of the Week/Thirsty Sword Lesbians/Apocalypse World/every other PbtA game out there come to mind, as do some lovely GMless indie ones (Stewpot! Rusalka! Fiasco! The Quiet Year!), BUT.

Honestly, okay, the top complaint I get about tabletop?

"I don't want to play online, I don't want to play with strangers, and I don't know anyone offline that wants to play with me, where do I even start?"

The answer for that is:

SOLO GAMES.

There's a bunch. I'm not talking about the weird D&D hacks, either, though those do exist (and I don't recommend them!). Solo tabletop as a genre has expanded a lot and there's a bunch of wonderful stuff out there now. I've played a few, but my favorite, by and large, is Thousand Year Old Vampire.

In TYOV, you play as a vampire made sometime in history. You pick when, give yourself a handful of possessions, and then roll dice and respond to prompts to figure out what happens to you. Do you survive and thrive, or do you die? What do you remember, what do you forget, and how do you adapt to being a vampire? It's extraordinarily well-done, and unlike a lot of journaling games, which can feel like writing prompts, it manages to capture the experience of roleplay extremely well. I played it for the first time a couple of years ago, and ended up documenting what happened to a Roman peasant girl as she lived through the collapse of the empire and into the Middle Ages. Some of the choices I was faced with and things that my character had to do were among the hardest I've ever made as a player, and it required a great amount of consideration and thought to move from point A to point B. The game broke my heart (in a good way), and I highly recommend it. It is, to this day, one of my favorite games. ♥



In non-Talking Meme Month news: reveals happened for the January round of a remix exchange I'm involved in, so I now have something new on AO3 that is (surprise!) not rated E.

And I Awoke on the Cold Hill's Side (rated T, 7.5k words) is a love letter to growing up queer in Salt Lake. It's set around the time that I would have been in undergrad. It's not perfect (what is?), but I hit the mark for what I set out to do, and, well, yeah. People familiar with the valley can probably pinpoint exactly which warehouse I'm talking about for where the party toward the middle of the piece takes place.

...I also have another piece up that is, uh, rated E. Slaying the Dragon (E, 14k words) is about grief and how we recover from it and come back to ourselves. It's set in the same universe as The Road Through the Mountains, though it's obviously not the same characters or set-up, and no familiarity with it is required. ♥


Not much happening. Have thus far been ghosted or rejected by every job I've applied to. I feel mostly okay about that. I have some freelance work lined up for the fall (we're drawing up contracts), so I am perhaps less worried about money coming in than I should be. Still noodling on various and sundry stuff; been dealing with some pretty awful chronic pain things lately so that's taken most of my focus, and I'm trying to like, gently remind myself that I can in fact take this time to simply Be and not worry about, you know. Everything.

talking about FOSS/software stuff, probably not interesting to most people. )

(no subject)

Feb. 26th, 2026 05:13 am
[syndicated profile] apod_feed

Ever wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun? Ever wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun?


Profile

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Anna the Piper

November 2025

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