Robocat

genprompt bingo

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 17:55:35 GMT

A Moment of Calm Contemplation	Attempted Bribery	Injury	Illness	Blood
Loss of Faith	Dissociation / Multiple Personalities	Flesh and Bone	We're Surrounded!	Warm Blooded / Cold Blooded
Pain	Documentation	Wild Card	Repeats and Repetitions	Power Corrupts
Trauma	Office	Slum	Character Death	First person narration
Conflicting Obligations / Oaths	Sensual Pleasures	Five Things	War	Awkwardness

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Fri, 27 Dec 2024 17:52:35 GMT

I just got back from Christmas with my dad and the food's put away, the mail's been dealt with, and Tem, aka THE MEEZE is curled up next to me and I don't feel like moving so let's have some thefridayfive !

( FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD )

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Random questions! :D

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 21:38:25 GMT

It's thefridayfive time!

( Read more... )

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I'm stupid! I'm stupid!

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 18:23:18 GMT

In the immortal words of Starscream (title).

Dear self, why do you choose fandoms where the canon has a shit ton of combat and death, and then you have to write multi POV combat scenes (the absolute BANE of my existence) and worse than that...you have to kill off characters?

Dear self, why did you literally just make these dudes up last night and have backstory about each that could fit on a dime, but you're still crying as you kill them off?

Is it because it's spooky how little squiggles on a screen can break your heart?

Is it because you're afraid that the scene that absolutely hurt your soul to write...won't have the same effect on the reader? Or are you afraid that it WILL?

Is it because you're a little afraid how easy it is to destroy a human body? We all walk around like we're invincible, because the realization about how fragile we are, how a pencil could penetrate your heart, or the smell of a combination of two wrong chemicals, how these would cripple us in mortal fear if we recognized it every day?

Is it because you fear never being given a chance yourself to be 'real' to someone else? That you fear being someone's 'character development' NPC?

Anyway had to kill off three characters I just made up last night. Anyone have some fluffy prompts appropriate to a military scenario to write so I can write them some fluff to feel better would be appreciated.

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Some Friday Five

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 01:59:22 GMT

Procrastigrading and too tired to work on my story so let's do some thefridayfive

( Let's answer some questions! )

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Let's get some headcanon about trauma.

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 23:49:19 GMT

What up, fannish friends?

I'm here to do some fannish_50 for goals_on_dw content where I promise 50 posts of random fannish stuff.

( Let's take silly canon SRSLY )

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It has been, as they say, a minute

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 18:29:53 GMT

Yeah so 2024 is winding down and what a horrible few years it's been.
Let's recap: ( Blather under the cut bien sur )

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IDK I feel like making a post

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 16:14:18 GMT

I need a space where I can talk about stuff that is a little...eeeeeee.

( SO MUCH RANTING AND WHINING )

( Another cut for more rambling about aspects o' life )

Anyway, the holidays are upon us and I have to go make cookies. I'm trying to recreate my great grandmother's date filled molasses cookies and..failing abjectly. It's one of those old-timey recipes that has no instructions, just a list of ingredients and the word 'bake'. I thought I knew what I was doing around a cookie recipe but this one is telling me otherwise! So today's attempt is to just use a recipe I found online for spiced molasses like cut out cookies and use that instead. Because my dad said he really missed those cookies and godDAMMIT I will make them.

Anyway I never know how to stop these things, it's like once I get going I can't shut up.
So, ask me your bee related questions so I can have a next post full of happy BEE CONTENT!

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OOOF

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 20:37:40 GMT

Okay I had a whole post written last week but it would have been...a downer. So I just didn't post it. I didn't want my DW to be basically forcing people to do emotional labor, like I was using y'all for my emotional health. Gross.

( emotional whiplash with a happy ending, tw animal )

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In which the author bursts into tears over a dictionary

Fri, 07 Feb 2020 14:31:17 GMT

Yesterday was a bad day.

This is is going to sound astonishingly trivial to some and it probably is, and I have no excuse.
( pedantry and depression )

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Hey maybe I could actually post something, idk

Sun, 02 Feb 2020 02:10:05 GMT

So, I did something I rarely do: saw a movie in an actual movie theater.

Along the way, I was reminded WHY I don't see movies in movie theaters.

OTHER FREAKING PEOPLE.

I don't mind people sneaking snacks in, but goddam, do you have to a) bring in snacks in crinkly packaging and b) chew with your mouth open?
( babblinb about 1917 )

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Another year ending....

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 03:53:05 GMT

So (I say to the absolutely nobody still following me), another year is over.
( tw real world death )

If you want to follow me in a place less full of words, my Instagram is here. Lots of cat pics.

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OH FUCKING KAY THEN

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 20:10:35 GMT

So, it's been a shit month. And I have alternately wanted to write about it, in that idea that writing will get it out of my head so I can maybe make some sense out of it, and NOT wanted to write about it because that whole fear of just being...overwhelmed by the whole thing.
( medical shit )

IN FUN SEXISM FACTS: So, there's the 'rule' that after a radical hysterectomy, you're not supposed to drive for six weeks. SIX WEEKS?! SO I asked asshole gyn at the office what is up with that--why one can ride in a car just fine, but just not...drive it.

WELL it turns out that that rule comes from this idea that women wouldn't be able to stop in time. If you have to slam on the brakes, she explained (and please enjoy the irony of this sexist shit coming out of the mouth of a female), the abdominal pain from your healing incision might slow your reaction time.

BITCH I DROVE MY ASS TO THE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL WITH 8/10 PAIN. What an insult to women, and our actually better-than-men pain tolerance.

Anyway, it's March, so enjoy that sexist fun fact or something. And pray I have heat. And if you have any advice re; medical stuff, please lmk.

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Lady Bits Apocalypse

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 01:14:09 GMT

This is all medical talk--feel free to skip.
( Talk of gyn, mild ref to sexual assault )

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It's freakin' COLD

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 15:05:30 GMT

Reader, I am cheezed off at weather. Everyone in the US is basically smothered in snow, and what did we get out here? A THUNDERSTORM. Seriously. Thunder. Rain. More rain. I want snow, dammit. Rain is ugly and gross. Snow is at least beautiful.

And then a 20 degree drop in temperature. Which means about a half inch of glaze ice on the roads. Needless to say I ain't goin' nowhere.

Rumor has it today is the most depressing day of the year--everything is bleak looking, no leaves on trees, etc, and holiday decorations are down and those holiday bills are rolling in and...yeah. Today's supposed to be the worst day. So be kind to yourselves, guys.

We're a few weeks out from Chinese New Year (5 Feb) and I, for one, can't wait. This year is Year of the Dog, which I am, and anyone will tell you that your zodiac year is basically a shit show of a year, which...yeah. It was. So BRING ON THE PIG because I'm tired of it being my year to anger the zodiac gods. Pig is also good for prosperity, btw, both financial and in family (however you choose to define it). SO, you know, maybe consider giving a red envelope to your friends. And if you are Pig, stock up on jade or red undies.

( tw: sexual predation and moral quandary )

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Still here!

Fri, 18 Jan 2019 02:38:27 GMT

May finish the Snowflake challenge--it did seem to slide even closer into stuff I feel uncomfortable doing (talking about my writing process, etc) so...maybe not. We'll see. BUt if you see me still doing it in July, well, just pat me on the head.

Anyway, I've been spending most days at the ambulance company, riding with the day guys, who, as it turns out, are 100% cooler than the evening crews. They're actually, even, really grateful I'm there to help transport. It'll have to change when the semester starts again, but there are worse ways to spend some down time.

Speaking of, I just got back from a Cat First Aid and CPR class. At the cat cafe. I'm...so predictable. And I hope I never have to do any of it in real life. But it's nice to know I can if I need to.

They apparently got, in addition to a stew of kittens, a couple of cats that were surrendered when their owner died. One of them was a crusty old calico named Meagan, who hissed and snapped at everyone, all the other cats are terrified of her (despite the fact she weighs about 7 pounds and walks with arthritis). Meagan took over my lap. And tried to attack my practice cat, because clearly it was a Rival. Poor thing. I'm thinking of going back to offer to give her some reiki and to work at socializing her. I'd take her home, but I'm not sure she'd be into my four rowdy boys. No matter what, I hope someone sees through her crusty growly exterior and gives her a great life. You could see already that she was a real sweetie--when she's comfortable.

I have a bunch of gross/cool EMS stories and steaming hot gossip, but I'm pretty sure none of you actually care. :(

Meanwhile, everyone's a flutter about snow we may be getting this weekend. No one has a clue how much we're getting, but it'd be the first Big Snow of the Year and to be honest, I'm kinda stoked for it? I think I read somewhere that 21 Jan is normally the most depressed day of the year in the northern hemisphere, because the fun of Christmas is over and stuff looks just...dead and bleak. Snow might help. Also, it's Wolf Moon, so that's hopefully a good turnaround, too.

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Tue, 08 Jan 2019 22:14:53 GMT

( Family medical update: everyone's okay(ish) )

Anyway, day behind, again:

Day 7

Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or check out some fanworks that are new to you. (The recs from Day 2 might be a good place to start.) Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Right. I read my bookmarks!! I'll see a fic in a different fandom that I know the source material of, and just...never get around to reading them. So, just reading my actual doggone bookmarks is a New Thing. I read a great Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries fic that I saw somewhere here on the Snowflake Challenge, and a hilarious 'Allo 'Allo fic.

ALSO, I learned how to brioche rib knit. I'm making a scarf, mostly because I wanted a boring project for this technique. New again!

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So behind, so very behind

Tue, 08 Jan 2019 01:52:41 GMT

TALES OF EMS: ( Also, Baz the tabby went for his annual checkup today. He's fine, but tired now, because I swear that rabies shot poops them out! )

Anyway, how's about that Snowflake, a day or so late:

Day 6

In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your wish-list if you feel comfortable doing so. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Check out other people's posts. Maybe you will grant a wish. If any wishes are granted, we'd love it if you link them to this post.

Not sure I can come up with three, but, let's try!

1. I started a comm, meta_warehouse , and it could use some love! Join, answer the monthly challenge, sure, but what I'd really love to see is posting your own meta to the comm. Have some great meta you wrote in the last year or so? Do me a solid and post a link to it on the comm, to help getting that place active!

2. I really want to get back into k-drama, but it's been, well, an entire technological revolution since last I watched. Anyone got some leads on ways to watch good Korean dramas?

3. I am in LOVE with enamel pins, especially cat-themed ones. Have any good enamel pin vendors to rec? I love supporting artist creators!

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Sun, 06 Jan 2019 01:29:21 GMT

( Your daily tea )

Here's your Snowflake

Day 5

In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I was at a loss thinking, because I'm, like some people, a returnee to Dreamwidth so I was freaking out. But I got this!

1. fan_flashworks A super well-run writing prompt challenge. Long running, and stable modship, and they're now trying their hand at bingos! A great community!

2. Literature-Lady A really fun sassy feminist take on Western history. Prone to awesome historical tweetstorms.

3. Rachel Maksy on Youtube Formerly the Pinup Companion, a vintage style vlog. Come for the interesting content, stay for the HILARIOUS editing. If there's every any YouTube creator I'd love to meet/hang out with, it'd be her.

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Just a random post

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 18:04:00 GMT

So, in case anyone moseys over here from the snowflake_challenge , I thought I'd post, well, something.

So, let's dig into what all I'm reading currently.

About 1/3 of the way through Altered Carbon, the first novel. I'm writing a conference paper talking about the Netflix show and comparing it with Blade Runner 2049 in issues of--surprise!--gender and embodiment, and I thought it'd be good to be able to at least have some familiarity with the source text, especially since I'm realizing that the nuclear family is a theme in both of the ones I"m comparing and I want to see if it's a change from the book or not. It's actually a really good read--the writer's got some poetry in his prose, for sure!

I'm also about halfway through Color: A Natural History of the Palette, which is a fun read through how colors for art and textiles came to be, world tour style. So we go through a bit of Aboriginal art, and the whole cultural clusterfuck that was, on the chapter on ochres, and in South America and the conquistadors, about cochineal. It's really fun, even if, like me, you don't paint or dye or do much with color except like looking at it.

ALSO, the Way of the Five Elements, which is less a book you read at one sitting and more one of those things you go through a week at a time. It's winter, so I'm in the Water chapter. It introduces the element and then gives you a series of acupressure/acupuncture points that relate to that element, and how those points work with the element. If you're interested in TCM, it's a good introduction to that theory. It's one of the first TCM books I've read that goes into how TCM was actually a result of Chairman Mao's Communist China--traditional medicine cost too much and required too much training, so he instituted an invigoration of the old knowledge, of herbs, acupuncture and all that--as a way to cut costs for healthcare. I'm no fan of Communist China, but it's a mindset shift I think the West really COULD take if we're to unfuck our healthcare system--you know, making programs of health maintenance instead of 'sick' care.

I'm also listening to an audiobook about the Crusades, How the Crusades Changed History, because I used to be a Crusader nerd (my dissertation was about gender and the Crusader era) and it's fun to hear stuff I thought I'd forgotten and be like, oh yeah, I know that.

I try to have at least one nonfiction and one fiction book going at a time. I'm pillaging a few Goodreads challenges for ideas--currently up for the 'Smart is Sexy' challenge, lol.

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Let's talk about stuff!

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 02:08:08 GMT

Life update:

Shit is hitting the fan with the ambulance company. ( Sunday SUNDAY Sunday!!! )

Day 3

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Okay, first off, I skipped yesterday because, I'll be honest, I haven't read much fanfic in the last year, and I'd just be reccing stuff I'd already recced in past Snowflake Challenges. I will try to fix that, but *empty hands emoji*

But anyway, have a link to my favorite interview ever. It's an extract from one of my favorite books on masculinity, written by arch feminist Susan Faludi. In this extract, she basically interviews Sylvester Stallone. I mentioned nerding out about gender last post, I think, so here's some

Y'all, this was LIFE-CHANGING for me. I remember reading her book on a plane out to a conference, and I remember sitting bolt upright, just..transfixed. Because, wow, I can't look at Stallone as big dumb grunty caveman anymore. He's a wounded guy, who's very open about his wounding (his father sounds like a NIGHTMARE), and then you go back and watch his filmography and you can't see anything else.

Like, you watch the Expendables, and you see, yeah, this big hur hurr macho guys, but you also see how lonely and broken they are, how they are unable to make meaningful relationships or lives. (You see this in Statham's storyline most clearly). You also see that that masculinity of constant toughness is incredibly difficult to maintain (Stallone broke his own neck doing stunts, and has done so many steroids to try to keep up looking like, well, not a guy old enough to be my dad). And just about every villain is tragic masculinity.

As someone who's a Butlerian gender nerd, this is my jam. And butter. And crumpet YES talk loudly about how gender's social constructs are not just traps for women, but for men as well. Talk about how class and gender constrain and constrict selfhood. Yes, yes, YES.

And I think this is why the movies he writes himself have a strange staying power--Rocky, the Expendables, especially. There's a tragic understanding of gender in there--it's not just flexing goombahs.

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Snowflake because I am nothing if not flaky

Wed, 02 Jan 2019 01:50:17 GMT

Hi, everyone. First, the personal update( happy crappy holidays to me )

ANYWAY

Day 1

In your own space, talk about your Happy Place—the things that give you joy, calms you or keeps you sane. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
My happy place. Well, I am thinking about this as the things I missed the most when I was Sick, and that I'm still struggling to get back.

Reading: the ability to read a novel, to get so engrossed in a story that I forget being sick/in pain. It's always been what made reading magical to me. I had kind of a shitty childhood (nothing special, just banally shitty), and reading was my escape. I plowed through high fantasy and space opera the most, and to this day, anything that offers a comprehensive, engrossing world, that is not a BIT like the real world I live in? I am all about it. This past year, I went on a bit of an historical fiction binge as a Happy Place--for some reason, early 20th Century is my current jam--I'm reading the Alice Network right now and I'm completely digging it.

The sad thing is, that a lot of the stuff I used to love...I can't read anymore. Anne McCaffrey's Pern stuff, and the Ship series, were just my damn LIFE, when I was a teen. Like probably everyone who read those books as teens, I had my own Pern OC (I liked Blue dragons for some reason), but..oy. Anne McCaffrey. Talk about someone who would not have survived the #metoo movement! It breaks my heart, and I hope I can get my head into a space where I can love the works but not the author. Though I'm finding myself doing quite the opposite. Despite my Lovecraft joke, I can't read him much anymore, and when I found out Alice Walker was a big fan of David Icke's new Nazi anti-Semitic treatise....ugh, can't read her, either.

I think that's a challenge we're going to have to face in the next few years--finding a way to acknowledge the problems of authors, but appreciating their work, and even loving it. Because, well, I mean, let's face it. None of us are perfect. Even Obama was a big anti-gay marriage guy, once upon a not so long ago. We're human and fallible and expecting perfection and rightthink 100% of the time is creativity-crushing.

I also like movies, mostly, well, trashy macho movies. I've watched (and I'm not proud of this) literally every Death Race movie ever made. Because, well, another happy place for me is the study of masculinity and how society makes and shapes masculinity into a trap almost as sucky as the trap it makes for women, and how people navigate the trap. It's my jam. Most of my conference papers in the last few years have been about gender in movies--I'm doing on in April about Blade Runner 2049 and Altered Carbon. So, nerding out about gender? Definitely my happy place.

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I am the worst at keeping up

Sun, 16 Dec 2018 18:12:04 GMT

Will respond to comments later.

( Some EMS drama, no gross medical story. )

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So, hey, Wednesday, how YOO doin?

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 00:56:45 GMT

So here's a weird thing.

( brief anecdote )

Anyway, also had the incredible urge to listen to Johnny Cash's version of Nine Inch Nails' song "hurt".

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Saturday CATURDAY

Sat, 08 Dec 2018 18:58:05 GMT

For those new-ish, I have four cats. All boys. The oldest is Ferris a purebred Russian Blue who was dumped at the shelter because he had a scar on his neck (their loss, my gain). Ferris has IBS, but we've got it managed: he gets the 'sensitive stomach' formula dry food, and I mix a bit of pumpkin in with his wet food It makes me angry that people would find either of those two reasons would be enough to consider him 'unadoptable'. He's shy but a total sweetheart--getting him to the vet is a challenge because he's afraid of just about everything. The vet has done examinations with Ferris clinging over my shoulder.

Next oldest is Baz, my big white-chested tabby. Baz is the sass-master, with one of those really expressive faces (normally in the range of 'I am so done with this'). Baz fell through a screen door this summer and disappeared for four days--right before his birthday! I was an absolute incoherent idiot of a wreck, and I spent every night wandering the streets yelling his name. He managed to find his way back, finally, and has had NO desire to go out since (though he still surveys the outside world from the window!

Tem Tem is my half-tabby, half-Siamese mix. Fun fact: unlike most cats, whose eyes glow greenish at night, blue eyed Siameses' glow red. It was super freaky the first time I saw it, let me tell you! Tem Tem is mostly blind, and is one of those weird cats that has no reaction at all to catnip. What he DOES love are those greenie teeth-cleaning cat treats, and any rolling toy that makes noise. He has a foam ball that he will bring to the top of the stairs, push it so it bounce bounce bounces down the whole flight of stairs...then run downstairs, pick it up, and bring it back up to do it all again! It's cute, EVEN at three in the morning!

And the newest is Rodya, aka the Robeast (a Voltron ref for the old school types). He's all black, and for some reason doesn't really seem to want to hang out with the other guys much. Instead, he wants to hang out with me. If I'm in the house, he's near me, on me, or under foot. He also sleeps harder than any cat I've ever had. ALSO, he adores cold cuts, especially turkey. He has literally done a backflip when he saw me making a sandwich once, and I mean, of course, I had to give him turkey after that because a kitten doing backflips is amazing.

If you want better visuals, here's my mostly-cat instagram: greyestcat.

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