how big, how blue, how beautiful
Jul. 8th, 2025 12:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Fandoms: 崩坏:星穹铁道 | Honkai: Star Rail (Video Game)
We’ve opened our eyes and it’s changing the view.
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🐺Lucian Remembers Sonja's Death🧛🏻♀️[Fanvid]
Jul. 8th, 2025 12:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Fandoms: Underworld (Movies), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans - Fandom, Michael Sheen - Fandom
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Marshall's Video
Jul. 8th, 2025 12:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Fandoms: Original Work
After a night of drinking, Hallie gets a text message from her date, Marshall. Strangely, it's a video. Although she's confused, she opens it.
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[Fanvid] "Amen" by Amber Run
Jul. 8th, 2025 12:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Fandoms: Sherlock (TV)
It's stressful right now, and when things are stressful, I like to spend entire days obsessing over specific clips of beautiful shows like this one.
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第四年第一百八十天
Jul. 8th, 2025 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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卜 bǔ
占, to occupy; 卡, to get stuck/card/car; 卧, to lie down ( pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=25
词汇
为, to act as/become; 为了, in order to; 变为, to change into; 称为, to be known as ( pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/
Guardian:
龙城大学还真是卧虎藏龙啊, Dragon City University really has a lot of talent in hiding
你是为了钱还是为了名, did you do it for money or fame?
Me:
等一下,你卡住了,我再打视频。
为了拥有你,我什么都敢做。
(no subject)
Jul. 8th, 2025 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
THAT being said, I really need to put a cork in the new exchange signups for a bit. Summer of Horror and Temperature Flash both reveal somewhere around this weekend, as well as that being the Casefic submission deadline. I have a pinch hit, I have things to edit, and I haven't even started Just Married.
Today it's rainy AND smoky, a wonderful combination.
Studies
Jul. 8th, 2025 06:36 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)

This bookcase, in Bologna’s International Music Museum and Library, is itself a work of art — the doors are paintings depicting shelves of music books, rendered by Baroque artist Giuseppe Crespi.
Below: In 2014, designer József Páhy devised this bookish façade for a housing estate in Kazincbarcika, Northern Hungary. That’s a teddy bear on the bottom shelf.

how do I step back from a friendship with an intensely negative and argumentative coworker?
Jul. 8th, 2025 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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Over the course of our friendship, Morgan has opened up more and more about the interpersonal problems they’ve had with our colleagues. They describe scenarios where collaborative projects get stalled because other stakeholders stop communicating with them, coworkers they were getting lunch with on a weekly basis suddenly stop responding to chats, and other frustrations with navigating bureaucracy that interferes with their work. It’s hard to tell if Morgan is becoming increasingly disgruntled or if they are now very comfortable with telling me their unfiltered feelings.
I’ve also had to navigate some fairly horrendous problems as a new employee, so it’s been nice to have a coworker who understands and sympathizes with our (somewhat) dysfunctional workplace culture. Morgan has made it very clear to me that they are only here for the time being and have already decided that this is not the city they would like to stay in long-term. Personally, I want to retire here and have worked very hard to improve my situation. It feels very different for me today than it did a year ago, which is why it’s become increasingly difficult to navigate Morgan’s constant negativity.
Morgan can be a lot of fun to talk to, but they’re in an increasingly bad mental space at work. They frequently come to my office to gripe for an hour or two in spite of how busy I am; I’m always actively working and trying to concentrate when they pop into my office. To my fault, they ask if it’s a good time to chat and I always say yes because they’ve been so hurt by our coworkers pulling away and I’m afraid of upsetting them. On top of this, they’ve become increasingly argumentative with me when they’re looking to talk. Again, I would say this is my fault because they are looking to vent and I’m always trying to provide solutions, so I think it’s taken as invalidating Morgan’s feelings.
Morgan is in such a bad mental space at work that seemingly any type of feedback or dialogue that they disagree with comes off as an attack. One of the issues they’ve had with multiple colleagues is that they invalidate Morgan’s feelings. Morgan has described situations where they complained about something to a colleague and rather than agreeing with and consoling Morgan, they essentially said to look on the bright side. For example, Morgan was upset about a change made to their office and the coworker responded with, “At least you have your own office.” Morgan has many examples of conversations like this and cites it as a workplace culture issue. In addition, Morgan holds on to comments like this (that took place months and months ago) and often refers back to them as examples of how bad things are. At this point, I am very afraid of upsetting Morgan because I like them, and their hyper-sensitivity is a bit triggering in light of all the reparative work I’ve done for my position and unit.
One more detail about Morgan that I think plays a factor is their odor. Morgan has a strong mildewy smell wherever they go. The odor fills a room and I can often tell if they’ve recently been in a space because of the smell. I believe Morgan maintains good hygiene practices, but that they are unaware of the fact that a lot of their clothing has developed a pungent mildew odor. Depending on how strongly they smell, it can be very difficult to spend extended periods of time with them. I’ve avoided spending time with them outside of work, like inviting them to my home, because the smell is so off-putting and am wondering if it has contributed to their interactions with coworkers.
How do I take a step back with Morgan without further inciting them?
( Alison's answer )
- how do I step back from a friendship with an intensely negative and argumentative coworker?
Plot Bunnies! Nooooo I don't need another one!
Jul. 8th, 2025 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

I'm drawn to the idea of Rodney being ordered back to Earth. Only he doesn't want to leave, so he doesn't go back to Earth.
Why not? Because various Pegasus cultures step in. They recognize his value and put up a bidding war for McKay.
I want to see the SGC have to enter the Pegasus bidding war to get Rodney back (because we know the SGC will come to realize that Atlantis can't or won't function without him).
Which begs the next question. What would John do to get him back? The brain ponders...
*weeps* I don't need another bunny right now. How about you? Got any plot bunnies that are jumping up and begging for attention?
Do you side-eye them and pretend they aren't there? Kick them under the bed? Give up and feed them chocolate?
Notes on Native Ferns
Jul. 8th, 2025 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I recently attended a class on Ferns at a local botanical garden. The class was a mix of botanical info, caring for ferns in a garden context, understanding how they function ecologically in the wild, and recognizing any ferns you might come across locally--I was mostly interested in the last two points so that's what these notes reflect.
( Read more... )'Cause they will run you down, down to the dark
Jul. 8th, 2025 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
[edit] Taking a walk informed me that the sidewalk of the street at the bottom of our street has been spray-painted with a swastika, visible efforts to scrub it out notwithstanding. The sentiment is far from shocking, but the placement is rather literally close to home.
Toady is Tuesday and Other Helpful Reminders
Jul. 8th, 2025 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The only good news is that my family and I are getting a lot done around the house. Mason, at 21, has been aggitating for a new bed. To be fair to him, he was still sleeping on the bed we bought him as a toddler. His feet literally hung off the edges as he's grown. Shawn, my incredibly thrifty and clever wife, saw that someone on our local Buy Nothing group was offering up a mattress and box spring. My parents have been trying to get me to come down to LaCrosse for over a month now to pick up an old bed frame. So, clearly the stars had begun aligning.
Step one, was getting Keven to help us get the mattress and box spring to our house. We don't have a truck or a minivan or anything with any real cargo space, so we have to rely on what my brother-in-law likes to call Big Brother's Roadside Assistance. Mason and Keven went to the Buy Nothing address with the truck on Sunday and hauled it back to ours. Shawn, Mason and I struggled it into the living room because Keven needed to tap out. He says he feels fine since his diagnosis, but it's clear that his strength isn't what it used to be. I mean, he's also 70? So, there's a little bit of all of that going on.
At any rate, we sent Keven home as we always do these days with food. Shawn had made him a nice lasagna from their mother's recipe, but also froze it knowing that Keven's chemotherapy is coming up this week (tomorrow, I think.) And he might want something easy the day of or, even more likely, the day after.
After Keven left, my family and I started to negotiate what came next. Should we try to take apart Mason's bed the same day? Should we wait? What did we need to accomplish the next step? It was determined that Mason--who was up early to do the hauling--nap on the mattress on the living room floor while Shawn and I went to Target and JC Penny's in order to get fitted sheets, etc., for a full size bed. We actually had a full-size bed at some point, so we had SOME of these items, but we didn't have a mattress topper. So, Mason face planted and we shopped.
When we came back we still didn't really want to tackle the job of dismantling and hauling everything up our stairs, but Mason wisely pointed out that there was no good reason to wait. Shawn and Mason took apart the bed. I helped haul things to the garage--where we decided to store the old bed in the meantime, with the hopes of also passing it off on Buy Nothing (Shawn had already taken a picture of the stripped bed to show it off.) I also started dinner while all this was happening because my family gets notoriously cranky when we are hangry. Then, it came time to haul the box spring and mattress up the stairs and I do not know how we managed it, but the three of us did it. Mason is currently sleeping on the box spring and mattress on the floor, but we have an appointment to pick up a U-Haul truck on Friday for a trip to LaCrosse to collect the last item in this scavenger hunt!
Last night, Shawn got a ping on Buy Nothing. A young family was ready to move their toddler into a "big boy bed," and ours looked perfect. We made arrangements (I hauled everything back OUT of the garage and set it up near the alley so it would be easy for them to throw things into their truck.) We got a reply after delivery from the mom that read, "Thanks again! He just kept saying 'my bed is so huge!' Over and over as he was getting ready for bed tonight." Which makes everything worth it.
As part of all this, of course, we discovered a bunch of boxes we had stored under Mason's bed which we now have to figure out what to do with--but honestly, they'll probably end up in the attic with all the other things we'll need to sort "someday."
All and all a very productive set of days.
Today I recorded the next podcast with Ka1lban today, in which we talk about American Flagg. As often happens, I wonder what of substance we'll have to say and then suddenly we're having a deep discussion about corporate greed or whatever. Good times!
But, man, all I want to do is nap now!
How was your weekend?