*grumble*
Feb. 6th, 2026 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goodbyebirdMitski is playing in London in May and I don't have enough internet to do so much as open the ticket site.
My plague of ill concert happenings, I swear.
My plague of ill concert happenings, I swear.
goodbyebird
Weekly proof of life: media intake | impending weather | manga work
Feb. 1st, 2026 02:07 pmumadoshiOne link, which hopefully won't be paywalled: "Rachel Reid's wild Heated Rivalry ride" at The Globe and Mail. The whole "local girl makes good" element of the HR show taking over the world is a very nice cherry on top of the whole thing, and I really liked this profile.
Reading: I'm maybe 30% into Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl and wavering about continuing. I've gotten better about DNFing things, and this time I actually have the book out of the library, so the good old financial sunk-cost fallacy isn't in play. But I still don't like DNFing.
I've also read some more of Braiding Sweetgrass and reread vol. 2 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.
Watching: Crunchyroll wasn't in the mood to work when we attempted to watch last week's ep. of Frieren, so we're two episodes behind on that. (Annoyingly, Netflix keeps saying it thinks we'd love the show, but only has season 1.) Hopefully we'll get caught up on the most recent ep. of The Pitt tonight.
On top of those currently-running things, we're now one episode into Midnight Mass.
Playing: Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven continues to delight me.
Weathering: There's another storm heading in, due to arrive tonight, but it looks like it's veered enough that our local forecast is now for a somewhat more reasonable amount of snow than I'd been hearing before yesterday evening or so. Apparently it's also bringing fairly high winds, so there's the usual "will the power stay on?" worry. (Our neighborhood has been really lucky on that front this season, andscruloose and I are pretty well prepared, so it's not a huge worry.)
Working: I turned in the final volume (!) of Pet Shop of Horrors on Friday and immediately tried to switch to the next volume of Now That We Draw, since that's due mid-week, but my brain was Not Having It; I suspect it was the sheer tonal dissonance as much as anything. But then yesterday, what with the storm warning and all, I basically did the last four-fifths of the book in one sitting to make sure I at least had a workable draft, and now my brain is pretty crisped. (It's not a very text-heavy or tricky rewrite, and the translators make it pretty painless, so four-fifths is a lot at once but not the feat it would be with some series.)
So now I have a draft with just a couple tweaks still to be made and a final read-through to be done, and I'm tempting fate a bit by not trying to get that all off my plate today, but I think letting it rest for a day before reviewing it is extra important given that I did the draft so fast. So I'm gambling a bit, but also have something I can submit with caveats if need be, if we do lose power for three days or something.
Sleeping: Sleep has been distinctly Not Great for the last few (?) nights. I've been doing decently at getting to bed in a timely fashion and mostly not taking forever to fall asleep, but I've been having even weirder and more stressful dreams than usual and it's all been very restless.
Reading: I'm maybe 30% into Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl and wavering about continuing. I've gotten better about DNFing things, and this time I actually have the book out of the library, so the good old financial sunk-cost fallacy isn't in play. But I still don't like DNFing.
I've also read some more of Braiding Sweetgrass and reread vol. 2 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.
Watching: Crunchyroll wasn't in the mood to work when we attempted to watch last week's ep. of Frieren, so we're two episodes behind on that. (Annoyingly, Netflix keeps saying it thinks we'd love the show, but only has season 1.) Hopefully we'll get caught up on the most recent ep. of The Pitt tonight.
On top of those currently-running things, we're now one episode into Midnight Mass.
Playing: Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven continues to delight me.
Weathering: There's another storm heading in, due to arrive tonight, but it looks like it's veered enough that our local forecast is now for a somewhat more reasonable amount of snow than I'd been hearing before yesterday evening or so. Apparently it's also bringing fairly high winds, so there's the usual "will the power stay on?" worry. (Our neighborhood has been really lucky on that front this season, and
scruloose and I are pretty well prepared, so it's not a huge worry.)Working: I turned in the final volume (!) of Pet Shop of Horrors on Friday and immediately tried to switch to the next volume of Now That We Draw, since that's due mid-week, but my brain was Not Having It; I suspect it was the sheer tonal dissonance as much as anything. But then yesterday, what with the storm warning and all, I basically did the last four-fifths of the book in one sitting to make sure I at least had a workable draft, and now my brain is pretty crisped. (It's not a very text-heavy or tricky rewrite, and the translators make it pretty painless, so four-fifths is a lot at once but not the feat it would be with some series.)
So now I have a draft with just a couple tweaks still to be made and a final read-through to be done, and I'm tempting fate a bit by not trying to get that all off my plate today, but I think letting it rest for a day before reviewing it is extra important given that I did the draft so fast. So I'm gambling a bit, but also have something I can submit with caveats if need be, if we do lose power for three days or something.
Sleeping: Sleep has been distinctly Not Great for the last few (?) nights. I've been doing decently at getting to bed in a timely fashion and mostly not taking forever to fall asleep, but I've been having even weirder and more stressful dreams than usual and it's all been very restless.
I'm doing it anyways because damn the man.
Jan. 30th, 2026 03:22 pmgoodbyebirdSnowflake Challenge is wrapping up today and awww, they didn't do the Make A Challenge thing this round. You know what, it's happening, can't stop won't stop.
Sooo... Supernatural, ey? This is what happens when you get a giga-fandom! (same thing giving me HR vid songs atm; shouting I don't even go here at my brain to no avail.
SPN has 139 entries tagged. Looking over potential rivals, television is at 92, assemble! 102, buffyverse 90, music 103, rec: vid 83.
Or do I hard mode it and go for IWTV? *g*
When you are logged in and go to Dreamwidth (home page), scroll down and you can see your tag cloud.
Are there any tags you feel don't represent you very well now? Are there tags you feel should be there?
Go into your tags, have a look at the numbers, and make a plan for 2026 to be the year you whip that cloud into shape 💪
Sooo... Supernatural, ey? This is what happens when you get a giga-fandom! (same thing giving me HR vid songs atm; shouting I don't even go here at my brain to no avail.
SPN has 139 entries tagged. Looking over potential rivals, television is at 92, assemble! 102, buffyverse 90, music 103, rec: vid 83.
Or do I hard mode it and go for IWTV? *g*
A young girl with eyes like the desert.
Jan. 30th, 2026 11:30 amgoodbyebird+ Yesterday was rough. Just walking around vibrating, had a cry in the storage room, absolutely hated the feel of washing my hands. Extremely over-stimulated. People being around all the time, and complete disruption of routines will do that eventually, which I did not appreciate learning. Thankfully I got a full nights sleep after I dozed off - got a sleeping pill from my dad to help out, still my brain was trying to scrabble back awake several times before I succeeded.
Fishery is somewhat more decent yoday, god I hope that holds up. January is supposed to be prime fishing season 😤
+ Today is Festivids Go Live Day \o/ hopefully it opens up earlier in the day for me, I absolutely cannot allow myself shiny new vids late in the evening. I just get too worked up.
+ Discovered I'd left some small fandom icons behind at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
forsquares, including Borgen, so I have one more masterpost to put up before I move on to re-uploading the existing spankulert icon posts to Dreamwidth. Those random black images are really starting to piss me off.
+ Also toying with the idea of fiddling with my journal layout. Gotta admit I'm too old for the piddly font size at this point, le sigh. Could be better for mobile as well.
+ Decided that yes, I will make myself a mood theme when I get home, thank you very much. Probably IWTV, and just the top/base moods, as I'd like to incorporate s3 as well. Making gifs is absolutely not in my wheelhouse, but imma give it my all.
+ Ugh a mail about Susanne Sundfør concert happening when I'll be at sea. I am having a sulk about it. Raye is performing in Oslo a few days before I get home. My bad concert luck is not letting up boo.
Fishery is somewhat more decent yoday, god I hope that holds up. January is supposed to be prime fishing season 😤
+ Today is Festivids Go Live Day \o/ hopefully it opens up earlier in the day for me, I absolutely cannot allow myself shiny new vids late in the evening. I just get too worked up.
+ Discovered I'd left some small fandom icons behind at
forsquares, including Borgen, so I have one more masterpost to put up before I move on to re-uploading the existing spankulert icon posts to Dreamwidth. Those random black images are really starting to piss me off. + Also toying with the idea of fiddling with my journal layout. Gotta admit I'm too old for the piddly font size at this point, le sigh. Could be better for mobile as well.
+ Decided that yes, I will make myself a mood theme when I get home, thank you very much. Probably IWTV, and just the top/base moods, as I'd like to incorporate s3 as well. Making gifs is absolutely not in my wheelhouse, but imma give it my all.
+ Ugh a mail about Susanne Sundfør concert happening when I'll be at sea. I am having a sulk about it. Raye is performing in Oslo a few days before I get home. My bad concert luck is not letting up boo.
Some links and such.
Jan. 29th, 2026 08:10 amgoodbyebird+ Refrained from making this post until I had the icon that's been living in my head made and uploaded. (I have now opened my laptop two whole times this trip)
+ Fishery is still bad. People are here aalllll the tiiiime. I want to shove my face in a pillow and banshee shriek. I want to be in a small, slightly chilly and soundproof box. Absolute and utter isolation for one, please.
+ Adding to that, one of the crew has started sitting at my (usually empty) back table for meals, so now it's active conversation time on top of it all. And boy does she want to talk about how the solar flares are affecting her, and what are my thoughts on the aliens, she thinks they're friendly (watches yt about aliens every day). Girl, I know you know I'm into tarot, but we are Not The Same.
+ I'm not sleeping enough and it's not helping.
+ Did a silly and signed up for Fandom Trumps Hate. Do people still want icons at all time will tell 🤷🏻♀️ Offered IWTV, Pluribus, and WoT with the fandom ticky boxes, "You're welcome to request specific pairings, characters, or scenes from those three fandoms. I am also willing to do icons from the following comics: Absolute Wonder Woman, Thompson's Birds of Prey, Wilson's Poison Ivy, Galaxy The Prettiest Star, Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow, Far Sector, Abbott, Ahmed's Exiles." Should maybe have specified a number, but I figured I'd wait and see the bid amount to decide.
+ The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction.
On the surface, this feels like it should be a good thing: More fic readers means more people in fandom, right? Instead, I read post after post talking about how distant writers felt from these newer readers—how impersonal and lonely the act of fannish creation has become. Anecdotes where readers gush about a fic on Discord, but make zero attempts to connect with the author. Screenshots of fic titles or passages with no URLs—and captions like, “I wish I could tell the person who wrote this how incredible it is.”
+ To Fandom, With Love. (previously at Bitch Magazine, published 2020, now re-uploaded)
I also made friends through fanfic—actual, honest-to-goodness close friends. Comments on each others’ fics turned into email correspondences that began with exchanging headcanons about our favorite characters, and expanded into mutual care and support—often around issues we’d first broached anonymously in our respective works.
+ Neil Young trashes Amazon, gives his complete musical catalog to Greenland for free.
“Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, a billionaire backer of the president,” he wrote. “The president’s international policies and his support of ICE make it impossible for me to ignore his actions. If you feel as I do, I strongly recommend that you do not use Amazon. There are many ways to avoid Amazon and support individual Americans and American companies that supply the same products. I have done that with my music and people who are looking can find it in a lot of other places."
+ There is no such thing as other people’s children.
+ Talking Greatness to Death. On Ryan Coogler's sins and the kinds of performances that attract vampires.
+ Does anybody want me to do a lil tarot draw for them? I can do A World Without Shrimp (feeling as though something is missing from your life, this spread can help you identify what you're craving), or Five By Five (general idea of how things are going).
+ Dropkick Murphy's performing Citizen I.C.E. live in Paris. Enjoy!
+ Fishery is still bad. People are here aalllll the tiiiime. I want to shove my face in a pillow and banshee shriek. I want to be in a small, slightly chilly and soundproof box. Absolute and utter isolation for one, please.
+ Adding to that, one of the crew has started sitting at my (usually empty) back table for meals, so now it's active conversation time on top of it all. And boy does she want to talk about how the solar flares are affecting her, and what are my thoughts on the aliens, she thinks they're friendly (watches yt about aliens every day). Girl, I know you know I'm into tarot, but we are Not The Same.
+ I'm not sleeping enough and it's not helping.
+ Did a silly and signed up for Fandom Trumps Hate. Do people still want icons at all time will tell 🤷🏻♀️ Offered IWTV, Pluribus, and WoT with the fandom ticky boxes, "You're welcome to request specific pairings, characters, or scenes from those three fandoms. I am also willing to do icons from the following comics: Absolute Wonder Woman, Thompson's Birds of Prey, Wilson's Poison Ivy, Galaxy The Prettiest Star, Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow, Far Sector, Abbott, Ahmed's Exiles." Should maybe have specified a number, but I figured I'd wait and see the bid amount to decide.
+ The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction.
On the surface, this feels like it should be a good thing: More fic readers means more people in fandom, right? Instead, I read post after post talking about how distant writers felt from these newer readers—how impersonal and lonely the act of fannish creation has become. Anecdotes where readers gush about a fic on Discord, but make zero attempts to connect with the author. Screenshots of fic titles or passages with no URLs—and captions like, “I wish I could tell the person who wrote this how incredible it is.”
+ To Fandom, With Love. (previously at Bitch Magazine, published 2020, now re-uploaded)
I also made friends through fanfic—actual, honest-to-goodness close friends. Comments on each others’ fics turned into email correspondences that began with exchanging headcanons about our favorite characters, and expanded into mutual care and support—often around issues we’d first broached anonymously in our respective works.
+ Neil Young trashes Amazon, gives his complete musical catalog to Greenland for free.
“Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, a billionaire backer of the president,” he wrote. “The president’s international policies and his support of ICE make it impossible for me to ignore his actions. If you feel as I do, I strongly recommend that you do not use Amazon. There are many ways to avoid Amazon and support individual Americans and American companies that supply the same products. I have done that with my music and people who are looking can find it in a lot of other places."
+ There is no such thing as other people’s children.
+ Talking Greatness to Death. On Ryan Coogler's sins and the kinds of performances that attract vampires.
+ Does anybody want me to do a lil tarot draw for them? I can do A World Without Shrimp (feeling as though something is missing from your life, this spread can help you identify what you're craving), or Five By Five (general idea of how things are going).
+ Dropkick Murphy's performing Citizen I.C.E. live in Paris. Enjoy!
Tags:
Weekly proof of life: reading, gaming (!), weather etc.
Jan. 25th, 2026 12:22 pmumadoshiThere's little I can say about the political landscape. The news is horrifying pretty much everywhere. US friends in particular right now, especially in ICE-besieged spots, you're in my heart.
Reading: I haven't picked up a new novel since I finished Inside Threat. I'm still slowly reading Braiding Sweetgrass. And for my first non-work manga read of the year, since I'd really like to get back to actually reading manga, I reread vol. 1 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, chosen largely because a newish Bluesky friend loves it and it's been so long since I read any of the series. Before the huge lull in it being published in English*, it and Yotsuba&! were the only manga I was actively keeping up with in terms of actually reading, as opposed to a few things that I've still been buying. (Looking at you, once-a-year release of Kaze Hikaru, which I will someday actually read.) But I've basically forgotten everything, so back to the start I go.
*Publication finally--technically--resumed with omnibus editions, and am I still mildly annoyed that to get vol. 15, I had to buy the fifth omnibus, thus rebuying vol. 13-14? Yes. Has any more come out since then? Nope.
Watching:scruloose and I finished season 1 of Pluribus, which got even weirder than we expected, and in ways we wouldn't have guessed. Really, really good. (Also Yona watched the season finale with us, very intently tracking everything that happened onscreen. No idea why she was suddenly so fascinated.)
Playing: I put in a bit more time with I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, and it's not really clicking for me; I think this style of game (RPG? A story that unfolds differently depending on your choices, Choose Your Own Adventure-style?) may just not be my thing?
In huge-for-me game news, Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven has dropped. It's the first really major expansion (priced as a full game, which makes sense given the scope) after several smaller expansions, and I'm overwhelmed by the number of new things I suddenly need to do to keep my little cult happy and thriving, but am having fun.
Weathering/Householding: It's currently very cold by local standards, esp. with the windchill, and tonight we have a lot of snow rolling in that's expected to keep falling all through tomorrow and possibly into Tuesday. Yesterday NSP (the power corporation) (*hisses*) announced that the grid is under an unusually heavy load (presumably due to people heating their homes?) and asked everyone to try to minimize power usage. It is very cold, yes, but not freakishly so, and public sentiment about NSP is...uh...very fucking negative, what with their profits and their constantly skyrocketing fees and their data breach and, oh, the rickety fucking grid that we are all paying through the nose for while fully expecting to lose power every time a breeze picks up. So we're putting off laundry, at least (one of the usual Sunday chores), and I'd had notions of actually baking something (!), but that may not happen; if it does, it'll probably involve something like mixing up cookie dough and only baking a handful in the toaster oven, or seeing about doing the actual baking with supper also in the oven (less likely; we'll probably just avoid the oven entirely).
("Please use less power" is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but the combination of garbage infrastructure and the level of energy poverty in this province makes it insult to injury.)
Reading: I haven't picked up a new novel since I finished Inside Threat. I'm still slowly reading Braiding Sweetgrass. And for my first non-work manga read of the year, since I'd really like to get back to actually reading manga, I reread vol. 1 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, chosen largely because a newish Bluesky friend loves it and it's been so long since I read any of the series. Before the huge lull in it being published in English*, it and Yotsuba&! were the only manga I was actively keeping up with in terms of actually reading, as opposed to a few things that I've still been buying. (Looking at you, once-a-year release of Kaze Hikaru, which I will someday actually read.) But I've basically forgotten everything, so back to the start I go.
*Publication finally--technically--resumed with omnibus editions, and am I still mildly annoyed that to get vol. 15, I had to buy the fifth omnibus, thus rebuying vol. 13-14? Yes. Has any more come out since then? Nope.
Watching:
scruloose and I finished season 1 of Pluribus, which got even weirder than we expected, and in ways we wouldn't have guessed. Really, really good. (Also Yona watched the season finale with us, very intently tracking everything that happened onscreen. No idea why she was suddenly so fascinated.)Playing: I put in a bit more time with I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, and it's not really clicking for me; I think this style of game (RPG? A story that unfolds differently depending on your choices, Choose Your Own Adventure-style?) may just not be my thing?
In huge-for-me game news, Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven has dropped. It's the first really major expansion (priced as a full game, which makes sense given the scope) after several smaller expansions, and I'm overwhelmed by the number of new things I suddenly need to do to keep my little cult happy and thriving, but am having fun.
Weathering/Householding: It's currently very cold by local standards, esp. with the windchill, and tonight we have a lot of snow rolling in that's expected to keep falling all through tomorrow and possibly into Tuesday. Yesterday NSP (the power corporation) (*hisses*) announced that the grid is under an unusually heavy load (presumably due to people heating their homes?) and asked everyone to try to minimize power usage. It is very cold, yes, but not freakishly so, and public sentiment about NSP is...uh...very fucking negative, what with their profits and their constantly skyrocketing fees and their data breach and, oh, the rickety fucking grid that we are all paying through the nose for while fully expecting to lose power every time a breeze picks up. So we're putting off laundry, at least (one of the usual Sunday chores), and I'd had notions of actually baking something (!), but that may not happen; if it does, it'll probably involve something like mixing up cookie dough and only baking a handful in the toaster oven, or seeing about doing the actual baking with supper also in the oven (less likely; we'll probably just avoid the oven entirely).
("Please use less power" is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but the combination of garbage infrastructure and the level of energy poverty in this province makes it insult to injury.)
so you're hovering at the surface.
Jan. 24th, 2026 03:40 pmgoodbyebird3amtarot is doing posts on grief atm, and as always I'm finding them a valuable read. Trying out one of today's spreads below.
( One spread below. )
( One spread below. )