Habit Tracking: Week 22 (May 24 - May 30)
Jun. 2nd, 2026 09:10 pm
Feeling sort of spiky and unpleasant this week, so this felt like an appropriate sticker. This was a freebie sticker from PhaseMoth. Ignore some wonky coloring - I should know better than to pick my colors in dim light, but they looked like they matched... and then I saw it in natural light and realized that no, no it did not, ha, so changed my mind.
As bleh as I started the week feeling, it really was a bit better than last. While Monday's holiday didn't give me a long weekend, mom and Taylor did have it off, so it was a good chance to hang out there. I didn't get everything done that I meant to, but I got a decent amount done, despite having most of my weekend spoken for. Also got to see my dad a second time before he headed back to Arizona. I did get mostly caught up on my reviews, got a little ways into my needed DW catch up, read quite a lot, kept up with my at-work walks. The dermatology results were mostly a relief, even if there's more to do and insurance to deal with.
This week's reading selection!
Goals for the week:
- I did finish reading All Systems Red
- I got together with Taylor
- I did not call my insurance company
- I did figure out some plans for mom's birthday
- I worked on my reviews
- I did not work on my reading page
- I did not put my laundry away
- I did read (and nearly finished) A Necessary Chaos
- I did not clean under the sink
- I went to breakfast with my dad
Habit tracking:
- Work - 5/7
- Household Maintenance - 1/7, but a couple extra days of minor stuff
- Physical Activity - 6/7
- Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
- Non-fiction Writing - 3/7 - two days of over 1000 words, one day of over 500, and one additional day of less than 500
- Meta Work - 4/7
- Personal Writing - 4/7
- Other Creative Things - 1/7
- Reading - 7/7 - I finished All Systems Red and read most of A Necessary Chaos; for my ebook side-read I finished Tough Guy and started Before the Broken Star; Taylor and I finished What Stalks the Deep, read "Emergency Skin," and started Butterfly Effects; Alex and I read some of Camp Damascus
- Attention to Media - 6/7 - Sunday my coworker had The Lion King playing on her phone because it was slow, lol; Tuesday had storm chasing and then game videos in the background; Wednesday - Thursday more game videos; Friday more storm chasing and game videos; Saturday paranormal and then game videos.
- Video Games - 2/7 - Taylor and I played through more Final Fantasy XIV, doing a couple of the Endwalker role quests.
- Social Interaction - 7/7
Total words written: 2782 words on reviews
Ysayle Dangoulain | Final Fantasy XIV
Jun. 2nd, 2026 09:55 pmCHARACTERS: Ysayle Dangoulain
ADDITIONAL INFO:
CREDIT TO:





104 icons @
MyNoise.net
Jun. 2nd, 2026 10:33 pmI also feel like, "Here is a page with a zillion soundscapes. Which do you choose first?" is a personality test.
( My answer, if anyone's curious )
Which ones call to you?
Daily Happiness
Jun. 2nd, 2026 07:28 pm
They've been getting more and more common in the neighborhood in recent years, so I knew they were around, and it's one reason among many I would never allow any of our cats to free roam outdoors (I worry enough about Tuxie). But this guy was just doing his thing, trotting along the sidewalk and even looked both ways before crossing the street. There were several other people out dog-walking, but not a lot of cars yet (it was around 7am). He didn't seem interested in any of the dogs or people, and I lost sight of him after a couple blocks. I wish they weren't around because it's not good that their habitat has been so encroached upon, and it's not safe for smaller animals, but I am glad I finally saw one in person. It made my day.
2. I checked the Hyundai website and the incentives for this month are not as good as May, but it's not that much lower, so we've decided we're going to go ahead with a new one, since the used prices aren't significantly lower unless we go for one with a lot more mileage on it. Right now we're planning on going back to the dealership this weekend so we may have a new car soon!
3. Stretch!

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Tuesday, June 2
Jun. 2nd, 2026 05:35 pmEVE: About what?
ANGEL: About what happened back there with us.
EVE: Angel, it's not like this is the first time I've had sex under a mystical influence. I went to U.C. Santa Cruz.
~~Angel Season V Episode #93: "Life Of The Party"~~
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.
[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

- Untitled (Cordelia/Xander, unrated) by buildarocketboys
- Louder Than Words (Spike/Reader, unrated) by writtenbyafan

- One Death Away (Xander, Tara, T) by The Screw Loose
[Chaptered Fiction]

- Adore. With a Twist Ch. 2 (Buffy/Spike, E) by therealrealman
- Faith, and How I Fell Ch. 25 (Buffy/Faith, M) by Willowhand
- Families Ch. 4 (Faith/Kendra, unrated) by 19BBY
- The Watcher’s Foundling Ch. 4 (Buffy/Spike, M) by voidslayerworks98
- Double Life Dark Heart Ch. 12 (Buffy/Giles, M) by Jazer94
- Rounding the Bases CH. 12 (Ensemble, E ) by VladimirHarkonnen (TheLightdancer)

- Indecent Proposal, Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, E) by rocker
- Seducing the Slayer, Chapter 21 (Buffy/Spike, E) by CheekyKitten
- Model Partners, Chapter 12-31 (COMPLETE) (Buffy/Spike, M) by ChronixCreature

- Knock Me off My Feet, Chapter 4 (Buffy/Spike, T) by VeroNyxK84
- Who is Bob?, Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, G) by ChronixCreature
- Partners In Crime, Chapter 1-4 (Buffy/Spike, G) by LadyInQuest
- With the gales of November remembered, Chapter 11 (Buffy/Spike, E) by zinjadu
- Da Capo al Fine, Chapter 4 (Buffy/Spike, M) by EnchantedWillow
- Unexpected Aspects of a Five-Year Reunion, Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, G) by ChronixCreature
- Finality, Chapter 16 (Buffy/Spike, G) by flootzavut
[Images, Audio & Video]

- Artwork: Spike by rabbitmotifs
- Artwork: Buffy renaissance (Buffy, Spike, Giles) by n0nsum
- Artwork: Buffy & Spike by dymentiontraveller
- Artwork: buffy summers as carrie (1976) by dymentiontraveller
- Artwork: Faith Lehane by linmandoade
- Artwork: more fanged four kitties :]]] by xaeyrnofnbe
- Video: Devil Town (Buffy & Dawn) by rebornautumn
- Video: Buffy & Spike Edit by lxvespxffy
- Video: Say Yes - Elliott Smith (Willow/Tara) by arentyounaturallybuffbuff

- Artwork: Doctor!Buffy x Patient!Spike by Harlow Turner
- Manip: Cowboys Don’t Fall in Love (Buffy/Spike) by VeroNyxK84
- Manip: Today was a Fairytale [Banners] (Buffy/Spike) by ChronixCreature
- Manip: Highway to Hell (Buffy/Spike) by EnchantedWillow

[Reviews & Recaps]

- Thoughts on Rewatching S3E01, “Anne” (3/3) by btvsfemslashenjoyer
- Go Fish by cookiedough87

- PODCAST: Episode 155: Lies My Parents Told Me by Myth Taken
- PODCAST: One year anniversary on the Hellmouth Charisma’s best of Hot Takes by The Bitch Is Back
[Fandom Discussions]

- the road to redemption can be a rocky path... by fallintomidnight, charmedslayer
- there's character arcs that span both shows by fallintomidnight, charmedslayer
- season 3 finale!! tell me all your thoughts pls!!! by fallintomidnight, charmedslayer
- re: Faith by fallintomidnight, charmedslayer
- Y'know the Halloween episode where everybody becomes their costumes? by paint-me-in-watercolour
- Something I will never get over is how Giles just leaves. by ornitharts
- No matter what good Spike did especially when he didn’t even have a soul, it was never really enough. by lxvespxffy
- Spike being one of those people by evilvampire
- another way that drusilla mirrors buffy by quu
- seeing red was not out of character by rabbitmotifs
- The First appearing to Buffy as Willow by vampirewillowrosenberg
- everyone hating Xander for leaving Anya at the altar by the-undead-poets-society
- I hate Faith more than the next person but I do love in this year’s girl by desicat-writer
- Buffy and Spike being too freaky [/affectionate] and unconventional to have a so-called “normal” romance by williamssummers
- me and my friend are like halfway into season 1 of buffy so these are my impressions so far. by touyas-unpaid-lawyer
- A song for three buffyverse characters of your choice? by 5bi5
- platonic bangel by camellcat
- The demon Sweet by future-crab
- returning to Buffy... made me really appreciate the visual effects by future-crab
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU where Buffy doesn’t kill Jesse by libraryogre
- I think the most frightening episode is normal again by song-in-my-head
- Actually not shipping Bangel is really funny by ohlioness

- Movie novel & soundtrack. by ceecee1909
- James Marsters (Buffy/Angel) Q&A Panel - Fan Expo Philly (May 2026) by Halloween-Year-Round
- Season 6 is something else by grimnirsimp
- This is really good! by CandidateHefty329
[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

- PUBLICATION: On Buffy, “Helpless,” and Feeling Helpless by Nathan Tavares, Reactor Magazine
Critical Role
Jun. 2nd, 2026 06:40 pmOn Monday and Tuesday evenings, by the time I make it home from work, my brain is done for the day so watching something new-to-me is off the table. Then I have D&D on Wednesdays and Fridays, so watching anything longer than an hour or two isn't possible. Which means Thursday is my only real day to watch things after work, but it's also usually my day to run errands so... yeah.
Theoretically, I should have time on the weekends, but I've been using them to catch up on sleep lately.
Luckily, things seem to be calming down at work again as the big rush from May grads is dying down, so I'm hoping that I'll get to the point where I can start watching an episode or two throughout the day when I'm working from home and not on phone calls. I'm not holding my breath it will get to that point this week, but hey. Anything's possible.
Exploring My Limits
Jun. 2nd, 2026 02:35 pmBut by four in the afternoon I was thoroughly done and packed up an hour before actual closing. Crowds happened out by then so I don't think I missed anything serious. It was amusing that when I was packing up and my booth mates offered to help I had to work hard at saying yes and pointed out that I could, of course, do it all myself if I had to. One of my friends at the booth did a hands on her hips-type gesture and said, "You know that's a trauma response, right?" Yeah, I've had that pointed out before. And I'm still not quite sure how I acquired it, but I'll own it.
Several friends dropped by the booth either previously arranged or just by chance. So that was nice.
Monday I pretty much decided to vegetate. I've been able to cut back the pain meds to just Tylenol and have a couple of the oxycodone left over that I didn't need. But everything is just more tiring than usual and the most relaxing position for my arm is resting on the arm of my recliner, slightly elevated and on a padded surface. Most of the initial pain seems to be due to bruising from the operation and that is definitely going down consistently.
The one work-around that is actually going very well is using longhand plus speech-to-text to get Lesbian Historic Motif Project blogs written up. In fact, it's going so well that I need to remind myself to use this method all the time.
I have added one more bit of historic trivia to The History of Related-ivity which required consulting with the author of the source material as to how they wanted to be cited. The next serious task for that project is to come up with cover art for the book. Otherwise it's pretty much ready to go except for assigning ISBNs and maybe soliciting a couple of cover blurbs. I think I'm aiming for a August 1 publication date or thereabouts.
10 Doctor Who and Blake's 7 icons
Jun. 2nd, 2026 10:36 pm


01-05: Doctor Who (First Doctor era)
06-10: Blake's 7
Here @
dickinsons
all the feels, not far from my front door
Jun. 2nd, 2026 01:49 pmAnd then I started walking down the hill to get some eats and then a bus to Lambert House. I passed three people at a bus shelter doing whatever, and then two of them, men, started walking down the hill close behind me.
They turn left, but then one comes back toward me saying something like, "Why do people have to be so weird?" Well, you know what happened next: it got weirder. For me.
He seemed like some goofy dude, maybe homeless, maybe a few cards short of a deck, and he made it clear as flatteringly as he could that he'd clocked me. Yes, despite my brand new expensive face. And then he asked for dating advice, saying that he's into heavier women.
"Treat them like people, not things," I said. Sage advice, said he, or words to that effect. He mentioned that he's Hispanic and would that work in his community?
Uh, what? "I hope so," I said. Did I mention to him that I'm a huge lesbian? More or less.
Before peeling off, he insisted on doing a bro-y fist bump. Misgenderers come in two principal flavors: overtly nasty, and bro-y. Why do have people have to be so weird, indeed?
I don't think I was in any danger: it was rush hour on a busy arterial on a sunny day. But yeah, this kind of thing is to be expected in my (formerly) bohemian neighborhood.
The good news about Lambert House is that a) nobody was disruptive at trans group, and b) the board member/IT guy approved my plans to modernize the front desk DB, with some reasonable suggestions. I'll be getting on that.
Typical fandom problems
Jun. 2nd, 2026 09:34 pmMe, not thinking, trying to tempt them into writing more HC: You could write a crossover!
A few months later, they start writing a crossover, I volunteer to beta. So of course to understand the story I need more information, and they start sending me links and stuff...
Me, finally: oh. This was a trap. /o\
xD
Also celebration
Jun. 2nd, 2026 10:33 am

An anniversary tradition
Jun. 2nd, 2026 09:51 amThe process is actually pretty simple: mix turmeric with isopropyl alcohol (93%) at a ratio of 1:4--I did one tablespoon of turmeric to four tablespoons alcohol. Brush the mixture over sheets of paper, in this case, 9x12" mixed media drawing paper, 70# weight. Allow to dry--fairly quickly, I'd fired a bisque kiln the previous night, and the studio was warm. Dust off any loose granules of turmeric, and you're ready to go.



Arrange various items on your page to block the sunlight in interesting patterns. If you use pressed leaves, you'll need to weigh them down with a sheet of glass. Otherwise, you can tape the corners of your page to a board so the wind doesn't mess up your art, then put your shadow-makers in place.



Take them outside and leave them in bright sunshine for an hour.



Bring everything back indoors and remove your resist items. You can already see that the exposed turmeric has faded considerably. This will continue if you don't fix the image, which you do with a baking soda bath. I mixed two tablespoons of baking soda with two cups of warm (90° F) water. Poured into a 9x13" cake pan, this made just enough to bathe and fix four prints.



The baking soda bath will also change the color of the image, making it darker and redder. It's a gorgeous process, and I suspect we'll be doing it again, possibly even teaching a session at our book group.





76 Doctor Who icons
Jun. 2nd, 2026 01:17 pmTeasers:

icons here @ my journal
And I thought 'expanding one's mind' was part of the agenda
Jun. 2nd, 2026 06:01 pmAnd surely that would include realising that things were not always the exact same way they are today?
This seems so weird to me. I grew up on reading books that had lingered for however long on the shelves of the children's dept of the local public library - which were all bound in that standard hard-wearing public library binding so one did not have any sense of shiny newness or otherwise - along with my mother's old books, some of which were works of a yet more previous generation which she had loved in her youth.
And that's before we get into the oddness of the Alice books and the talking animals and so forth.
Do they have no imaginations? Are they only supposed to identify with recognisable experiences?
Read somewhere about (in this case I think actually adult readers) who could not deal with subtext, foreshadowing, and other Litry Devices.
I was a bit beswozzled by this chap, too, though perhaps from a rather different direction. I devoured classic novels as a teenager. In a world of distractions, can I relearn how to read them?.
Sometimes books have their time and it is past. And sometimes they are just not the right thing at that moment.
And I also think of times in my past when I had fairly long commutes and other stretches of otherwise dead time that I could fill up with doing perhaps rather dutiful reading of those things One Ought To Read, and whether this is not only my experience. And then one's life shifts and these spaces go away.
Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files: War Cry #4
Jun. 2nd, 2026 12:13 pmTV Tuesday: TV Plus
Jun. 2nd, 2026 10:59 amOpen to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10
Do you feel you have any habits tied to watching TV?
If yes, when did these habits start?
In childhood
1 (16.7%)
In adolescence
2 (33.3%)
As a young adult
1 (16.7%)
With a family or friends
3 (50.0%)
After a change in your life
1 (16.7%)
When you became part of a fandom/fannish about something
3 (50.0%)
After TV changed
1 (16.7%)
Something else mentioned in comments
0 (0.0%)
What do the habits relate to?
Watching the show
3 (50.0%)
Preparing to watch the show
2 (33.3%)
Post-show viewing
1 (16.7%)
Being alone
0 (0.0%)
Not being alone
1 (16.7%)
Eating or drinking
0 (0.0%)
Games/activities during the show
2 (33.3%)
Location
0 (0.0%)
Scheduling
3 (50.0%)
Something else mentioned in comments
0 (0.0%)
Are the habits...
Comfort related
2 (33.3%)
Entertainment related
3 (50.0%)
Socializing related
3 (50.0%)
Tradition related
2 (33.3%)
Practical in nature
0 (0.0%)
Have the habits ever been documented in some way?
Are the habits something you hope to pass on/share with someone else?
Are any habits related to particular events?
Yes, season premieres
1 (16.7%)
Yes, season endings
2 (33.3%)
Yes, when a show ends its run
1 (16.7%)
Yes, for certain guest stars
0 (0.0%)
Yes, annual events (awards, sports etc.)
1 (16.7%)
Yes, holiday viewing
0 (0.0%)
Yes, rewatches
3 (50.0%)
Yes, something else mentioned in comments
0 (0.0%)
No, none of these
2 (33.3%)
