"Wiry and white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellèd snow ..."
23 February 2026 21:39![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nineweavingOur Narnia lamp-posts look sheer magic in the snow.
Though I do worry about this tree. It hope it springs back.
Still, its leaves of snow are lovely.
How much snow did you get? And was there hot chocolate?
Nine
yes what? yes ma'am
23 February 2026 19:35lauradi7dwIn my Southern childhood it was presumed that a younger person would add "ma'am" or "sir" out of politeness in some contexts. If the elder asked you a question, just answering yes or no would be considered rude, for example. My parents weren't strict about it, but I had teachers who were adamant, and would pointedly say "Yes what?" if one just said "yes," for example. I'm watching the Kdrama "Our Blues" (2022) that has an enormous ensemble cast. In episode 16 a kid says something to her grandmother. Her grandmother repeats it back, in a stern tone, and the kid changes it to the honorific form. I know that people are supposed to use honorifics to old people, but the three-line exchange hit me as exactly like the yes yes what yes ma'am sequence.
If you ever need to know, you can use ma'am or sir that way instead of saying "what."
Like "Laura!' "Ma'am?' My mother's been gone almost four years. I'm not sure I've done that since she died.
If you ever need to know, you can use ma'am or sir that way instead of saying "what."
Like "Laura!' "Ma'am?' My mother's been gone almost four years. I'm not sure I've done that since she died.
double poem day
23 February 2026 17:11ursulaTwo of my poems were published today! They're both science-and-technology poems about immigration in the US in the past year. Secondary Filters is up at Strange Horizons, and an audio version of Leaning on the melting point is on the PoetTreeTown Soundcloud.
"Lumos." (Harry Potter) G
23 February 2026 15:43lannamichaelsTitle: Lumos.
Author:
lannamichaelsFandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Series: Part 1 of Leontes Granger
Pairing: Hermione Granger/Neville Longbottom
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld
Summary: Leontes Granger is sorted into Gryffindor.
( The boy!Hermione fic )
Sifting through centuries for moments of your own
23 February 2026 14:55sovayThe snow has plastered our windows like blinds. This morning it scudded so thickly down our street that the air itself couldn't have been any clearer: it made walls instead of veils of the late streetlight. The yew trees look like calcified humps of stalagmite. It's still blowing around out there, bending the whippier evergreens of the neighbors' yard like a wind sock. I can hear a commuter train whistling dimly from over Route 16. I am informed we have broken the previous state record for snowfall in a day set by the 1997 April Fool's Day Blizzard which had itself surpassed the Blizzard of '78. Our porch is drifted ankle-deep.
Bundle of Holding: Mists of Akuma
23 February 2026 14:10james_davis_nicoll
A bundle for Mists of Akuma, the tabletop roleplaying campaign setting of Eastern fantasy noir steampunk from Storm Bunny Studios for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.
Bundle of Holding: Mists of Akuma
That educational privilege meme thing
23 February 2026 18:16oursinAnd I'm not at all sure it's culture-neutral, hmmmm?
Okay, I had parents who had books in the house and read to me and once I could read took me to the local library to get tickets for the children's department.
No children's museums that I recall but visiting the rather dull local one attached to the public library, and visits to local sites of historical interest.
My primary school was not, I think, particularly distinguished - suspect that the year there were a whole four of us passed the 11+ was Memorable - but there were some good teachers.
I don't know how one calibrates into all this my mother knowing the teacher of Infants 1 and asking her about whether I could go to school once I had turned 5 (having an autumn birthday) and her saying, oh, send her along, on account of my mother thinking I was entirely ready.
And then the Head saying I should do the 11+ technically a year early - (which was not a given, people did get kept back)
Going to a fairly academically-intense girls' grammar school, where I did get the odd spot of class-hassle, I realise in retrospect (including from horrid Mrs B of the really weird ideas about sex), where I was marked out as university material and my parents exhorted to keep me on the sixth form -
Which they were entirely happy to do.
So yes, I was I suppose supported on my academic journey. But some of that was external factors, like the existence of that extinct phoenix, full student grants.
Snow shows no sign of stopping
23 February 2026 11:45conulyAnd I am trapped at work!
I mean, the buses are running, but nobody else is coming in, and it’s not a job you can just shut down for the day.
I mean, the buses are running, but nobody else is coming in, and it’s not a job you can just shut down for the day.
A Brief Survey of Canadian Political Thrillers
23 February 2026 10:02james_davis_nicoll
You may be surprised to learn that "Canadian thriller" is not an oxymoron.
A Brief Survey of Canadian Political Thrillers
I am not naked right now
23 February 2026 09:30lauradi7dwI have seen a few posts based on a prompt with some questions. The last question is something about what's the last time you spent most of the day naked. Is that something people actually want to know about their followers? My immediate thought was of Diane Arbus's photos of folks at nudist camps in the mid 1960s. The one that stands out in my mind is someone sitting on a leatherette sofa. I don't object to nudity but I do object personally to the icky feeling against one's skin of that kind of surface (still true if you're wearing shorts or a bathing suit or whatever - you don't have to be naked). The weather doesn't matter. Hanging around naked all day sounds uncomfortable to me, not fun. So I'm not naked now, but I'm not wearing as many clothes as usual. We are in the midst of a possible blizzard (apparently you can't declare it a definite blizzard until after the fact, because you need at least three hours of a certain measured level of sustained winds). The snow is denser/heavier this time than some of the fluff (even deep fluff) from earlier this winter, meaning tree limbs and wires are at risk. Since it was predicted that many people would lose power, there have been lists of preparations (charging things, etc.). One of them was to turn your heat up so that if you lose power it would take longer to get to a really cold feeling interior. I keep the house at 55 F because of guilt about wastefulness and carbon emissions. This requires wearing layers while I'm hanging around the house. I turned the thermostat up by 10 degrees late last night, to what I gather is normal baseline for some people. I'm lucky (so far) with the electricity so I'm about to turn the thermostat back down. In the meantime, I am wearing just a t shirt on top (not two or three more layers), and when I rowed this morning I was uncomfortably sweaty. I have become acclimated to my indoor climate. I feel overheated in a lot of public places, but I don't spend as much time there, I guess. By contrast, the ringing room at Old North is cooler than my house during the winter. My hands still get stiff and dry in the winter, though.
What I saw on the web on 2026.2.22
23 February 2026 07:33reblogarythm- One vaccine may provide broad protection against many respiratory infections and allergens
by Nina Bai
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2026/02/universal-vaccine.html
(in mice) possible human deployment in 5-7 years. yes please!
via discord - Welcome The Stranger
by Zohran Mamdani
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoU9Img_B40
if we must mix religion and politics, this isn't the worst way to do it
via rebecca solnit - Manitou Lake (Saskatchewan)
by Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manitou_Lake_(Saskatchewan)
in case you need an endorheic lake in the canadian prairies
via wondering about the hole in the saskatchewan river basin map
(no subject)
23 February 2026 08:06choco_froshCurrent weather: 35 degrees (according to the weather app., I haven't been outside; near-whiteout conditions.
It's Not A Cult - Joey Batey
22 February 2026 22:16troisoiseauxRead It's Not A Cult by Joey Batey, a debut folk horror novel about a band whose songs based on an invented mythology (the Solkats, small gods of wine stains and stubbed toes and untold jokes and bus stop fights and texts at three in the morning, etc.) inspire a literal cult following; I picked this up mostly because I know of the author for other work (he has a band, The Amazing Devil, and played Jaskier on The Witcher) and I'm not sure if it is, exactly, good— I suspect it might work better as an audiobook, because it has a rather distracting tendency towards draaaaawing out wooooords and phonetic spelling of accents ("updéeat")— but I did read the entire thing in one day. It's definitely a [Rod Serling voice] wouldn't that be messed up? kind of horror novel— very ambiguous ending, and a lot of ambiguity throughout; ( not a spoiler, exactly. )
According to an interview I read when this came on my radar a few months ago, either the novel itself or at least the idea for it (unclear?) pre-dates Batey's career(s) as an actor and musician, but it's a bit of context that I found impossible to shake in light of, a., the themes of artistry (specifically, as a musician) and fandom, and b., the way the narrative is entirely framed by camera lenses: if an action takes place on the page, it's because there's a camera pointing at it, from the narrator's coping mechanism of viewing the world through a camcorder lens rather than looking at things straight on, to vloggers live-streaming their every thought, filmed police interviews, etc., including some rather improbably convoluted executions of the premise.
According to an interview I read when this came on my radar a few months ago, either the novel itself or at least the idea for it (unclear?) pre-dates Batey's career(s) as an actor and musician, but it's a bit of context that I found impossible to shake in light of, a., the themes of artistry (specifically, as a musician) and fandom, and b., the way the narrative is entirely framed by camera lenses: if an action takes place on the page, it's because there's a camera pointing at it, from the narrator's coping mechanism of viewing the world through a camcorder lens rather than looking at things straight on, to vloggers live-streaming their every thought, filmed police interviews, etc., including some rather improbably convoluted executions of the premise.
The Jewish War: Second half of Book 1
22 February 2026 19:06cahnLast week: Some really interesting discussions on (among other things) Caesar Augustus, the temple in Egypt, and the destruction of the temple (in Jerusalem) as divine punishment and also free will.
This week: More Herod! Definitely went quite a bit faster than last week! Featuring lots and lots of family drama... the kind that includes a ton of bloodshed. I'll talk more about it in comments.
Next week:selenak can you give us a halfway point for Book 2? It looks a bit shorter but I'm also going to be crunched for time next week (and definitely won't be able to post until Sunday) so half a book is what it's going to have to be!
This week: More Herod! Definitely went quite a bit faster than last week! Featuring lots and lots of family drama... the kind that includes a ton of bloodshed. I'll talk more about it in comments.
Next week:
selenak can you give us a halfway point for Book 2? It looks a bit shorter but I'm also going to be crunched for time next week (and definitely won't be able to post until Sunday) so half a book is what it's going to have to be!I guessed people would call out, and I was right
22 February 2026 18:27conulyI didn’t guess that I’d be stuck with the roads closed until at least noon tomorrow.
Well, I’m getting paid every hour I’m here, at least.
Well, I’m getting paid every hour I’m here, at least.
The bones of houses show in the summertime
22 February 2026 15:13sovayI spent much of yesterday running pre-blizzard errands, but the local state of the parking spots is the truest gauge of the meteorology about to go down.
I have not yet managed to get hold of her memoir, but I deeply appreciate being notified of the existence of E. M. Barraud, who identified herself with chalk-cut hill figures, candidly described her relationship status as "technically single, but 'married' in a permanent homosexual relationship with another woman," published under her assigned initials and was known in Little Eversden where she worked for the Women's Land Army as John. She gave her wartime responses for Mass-Observation as both a man and a woman: "People are people, not specifics of a gender." I had never even encountered her poetry.
I have not yet managed to get hold of her memoir, but I deeply appreciate being notified of the existence of E. M. Barraud, who identified herself with chalk-cut hill figures, candidly described her relationship status as "technically single, but 'married' in a permanent homosexual relationship with another woman," published under her assigned initials and was known in Little Eversden where she worked for the Women's Land Army as John. She gave her wartime responses for Mass-Observation as both a man and a woman: "People are people, not specifics of a gender." I had never even encountered her poetry.