horselizard | Reading

Irritatingly, the medlar jelly recipe I used last time I made the stuff, over at the RHS, is no longer extant (web.archive.org link!). Herewith my own readily findable copy of the thing, plus my notes on what I'm actually doing this time around.

(For amusement: I apparently first found the medlar sticky toffee pudding recipe in 2023...)

( Recipe as written )

( Notes )

rionaleonhart

Interesting watching experience: I recently checked out the 3D animated series The Amazing Digital Circus, because 'a bunch of people are confined against their will together and have to fight not to lose their minds' is a concept I can never quite resist.

Watching the first episode, I wasn't sure whether I was going to carry on with this show. I wasn't a big fan of the visual style, and it was pretty strange and a little stupid. It wasn't quite clicking.

Then, twenty minutes into the episode, one of the characters commented on the villain's actions: 'This is dumb and weird.'

'Well,' said the villain, 'uh, y-yet... you're still watching it!'

Rarely have the characters on a screen looked quite so directly at me. Yes, I thought this was weird and stupid! And, yes, I was somehow still watching nonetheless. Evidently this show knew exactly what it was doing. I think that moment singlehandedly convinced me to carry on with the rest of it.

The last time I was so personally attacked by a fictional character, incidentally, was in Die Hard 4, when I mentioned how pleased I was that McClane was bleeding just before this exchange:

Farrell: I'm not a doctor, but you're hurt.
McClane: Yeah. Sexy, right?
Farrell: No!!

(McClane is correct and Farrell understands nothing.)

Anyway, I've now seen all six episodes of The Amazing Digital Circus to date, and I ended up having a good time! There are some interesting themes and surprisingly good character moments, and I appreciate the show's willingness to go for the unexpected punchline rather than the obvious one. But, uh, I don't know whether I'd recommend it.

I particularly enjoy the dynamic between Jax and Pomni, because 'cynical arsehole and the person who makes them a little less cynical' apparently remains a combination I'm guaranteed to ship even when one of the characters is a jester and the other is a rabbit twice her height.

kaberett

... Nor shall I say what objects of vision must be agreeable or disagreeable to it; for from what I have already said about the other senses, it is easy to grasp that light that is too strong will injure the eyes and moderate light must refresh them; and that, amongst the colours, green, which consistss in the most moderate action (which by analogy one can speak of as the ratio 1:2), is like the octave among musical consonances, or like bread among the foods that one eats, that is, it is the most universally agreeable.⁴⁰

⁴⁰ What the basis of this remark is is unclear, and although various writers have made suggestions about the relations between colours and sounds, the attempt to quantify green on a par with an octave certainly cannot be sustained. It is worth noting that Descartes will later advice Elizabeth to rid her mind of sad thoughts by reflecting on the greenness of a wood (Descartes to Elizabeth, May/June 1645, AT iv. 220).

(trans. and footnote courtesy of Stephen Gaukroger.)

kaberett

[cn time-restricted eating.]

( Read more... )

cosmolinguist posting in

thissterlingcrew

I thought this might be useful for anyone else who's resisting racism and xenophobia that's taking the form of "legitimate concerns" about asylum seekers. Most people have very little understanding of what seeking asylum in the UK is like, and the protests get a lot more media than the reality of these people's lives.

A few weeks ago, a group of asylum seekers living in hotels in Greater Manchester put out this statement, which is long but really eloquent on the miserable reality they face. It's available as a PDF here but I'll put the text ( behind a cut )

rionaleonhart

House has been one of my favourite shows for a very long time; it's strange that I've never written more fanfiction for it! Here is my first attempt at House fanfiction in, er, nineteen years.

It's really struck me, on my current House rewatch, that Wilson and Cameron seem to be friends. They get along well; they have some good conversations. In the episode 'The Right Stuff', House doesn't question the idea that Cameron would call Wilson socially. I've always found the interactions between Wilson and Cameron interesting, but somehow I've only just registered that there seems to be a real friendship there; it's endearing!

Anyway, I made them sleep together.

Title: The Unseen Third
Fandom: House MD
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Wilson/Cameron, unrequited Wilson/House and Cameron/House
Wordcount: 1,900
Summary: Wilson and Cameron spend a night together. It’s no secret that they’re both thinking about House.
Warnings: Infidelity, by which I mean Wilson cheating on his wife as per usual.

( The Unseen Third )

marginaliana

When we watch old Taskmaster episodes on Channel 4 there are only two types of ads these days: the sponsor ads for Tesco Whoosh and then the endless, endless gambling ads.

I know from friends and relatives that online gambling is everywhere in the UK, that almost everyone does it at least somewhat. And I suppose I should be comforted by how often the ads mention the website's 'how to not get obsessed with gambling' features. But there's nothing else being sold anymore (there used to be ads for washing machines at least!), just the chance to throw your money away on online slots - and how sad is that, that I want to be sold something else if only to feel like capitalism can at minimum create objects that you can use?

And then today I did see an ad for something else!

It was Chat GPT.

kaberett

( Read more... )

kaberett

I will grudgingly concede that the ridiculously overengineered parsnip risotto from The Modern Vegetarian is actually very tasty and it's very obvious that without the THREE DIFFERENT PREPARATIONS OF PARSNIP it would also be significantly less Parsnip. It is not, however, sufficient to convince me to update The Risotto Rule. But, as I say, it's very tasty and we have at least another day (possibly two?) of it, which I am cheerful about as a concept!
Blessedly my repeat prescription request had made it to the pharmacy by the time I swung by to pick up A's IOU and a new thing, so I won't need to make any more trips there ~~this week, at any rate~~.
Chillis in the greenhouse that I really need to bring home before I lose the gamble on frost are looking happy still despite a week+ of neglect.
Through hunting duvet covers (the one I bought for myself when I first moved out of the Den of Christians and into My Own Flat, in very early 2014, has tragically failed catastrophically) I have been reminded of the existence of incredibly gaudy (watercolours of) tulips, and I'm probably not going to spend slightly silly money on watercolour stripy tulips, but I'm very glad they exist.
We are continuing to Really Enjoy playing Inkulinati together, and I now definitely have enough grasp of the mechanics to collaborate on What We Wanna Do Next. One level fits quite neatly into some of the slightly awkward chunks of time in our week; I am looking forward to tomorrow's. <3

kaberett

Celebrating. Anniversary. <3

Reading. ( Ravindran, Link, Stocks )

I have also: been skimming a variety of pain-related academic publications, and: printed out not one but TWO translations of Treatise on Man for the coming week's work reading.

Playing. Things!

Gently pootling along in I Love Hue.
Inkulinati! Delighted by having made it along the High Combat route on the second map page of my journey with... really minimal damage sustained; also very pleased that having worked through most of the Academy and now having made Progress on my Journey I now have enough of an understanding of mechanics that Proper Shared Activity is viable. (... had a Very satisfying Pushing A Helmeted Dog Off Its Level when it had considerately broken down a neutral gate for me.)
Fluxx! A particularly ridiculous game, that spent a whole bunch of time Draw 1 Play 1 and then suddenly exploded into Draw 3, Play All, Rich Bonus, Poor Bonus, Party Bonus, and Inflation, among others.

Cooking. Um. Three things from [the Roti King cookbook]9https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/466240/roti-king-by-sugen-gopal/9781837832118)! Surprised by how Very Into the beetroot thingy I was, and the pumpkin stew Grew On Me over the several days we spent eating it.

Also a tomato salad from East, which I was meh about -- but hey, that's one more thing crossed off that particular cookbook list!

Eating. This weekend we have had Many Avocadoes (which are a Special Treat), and also A made me blueberry pancakes for breakfast this morning.

OH and a variety of Things To Share from The Artful Duke in Bromley: macaroni cheese not particularly exciting but also very definitely not Cold Sad Soup, and therefore very welcome; sweetcorn "ribs"; three bean chilli nacho Situation; halloumi fries with hot honey. This occasioned the realisation on my part that "hot honey" is upselling for "sweet chilli sauce", which I find very amusing.

And a big pile of tomatoes my mother sent us home with, along with a chunk of Schwarzbrot :)

Exploring. Bromley "zoo"!

Making & mending. ... I got one of A's mildly problematic fountain pens writing earlier today and then promptly made it stop again. Gonna keep poking at the nib. (Tines were misaligned. Fixed that but/and they are now also a bit too splayed for capillary action to work properly; I think this predated my starting to mess around with it...)

Growing. The Mystery Habanero fruit are getting bigger. I am extremely impatient about how much bigger I need to wait for them to get before I can taste one to see how bad an idea eating it neat was.

All the various patio saffron are coming up, but the trough do not seem to have any interest in flowering this year, so I am going to need to Have A Think about what to do to make them happier. Honestly the answer is probably "buy another bag of bulb compost and bury 'em deeper".

siderea

YES YES YES.

SciShow did a collab with Tom Lum and ESOTERICA and delivered a deep dive into the history of the relationship of chemistry and alchemy and the politicization of the distinction between the two: "In Defense of Alchemy" (2025 Oct 17).

I cannot tell you how much I loved this and what a happy surprise this was. It ties into a whole bunch of other things I passionately want to tell you about that have to do with epistemology, science, and politics (and early music) but I didn't expect to be able to tie chemistry/alchemy in to it because I had neither the chops nor the time to do so. But now, some one else has done this valuable work and tied it all up with a bow for me. I'm thrilled.

Please enjoy: 45 transfiguring minutes about the history of alchemy and chemistry and what you were probably told about it and how it is wrong.

Watch on YouTube

siderea

I have been dealing with some health stuff. I recently got a somewhat heavy medical diagnosis. It's nothing life-threatening, and of yet I have only had the mildest of symptoms, and seem to be responding well to treatment, but it's a bummer. My new specialist seems to be fantastic, so that's good.

Meanwhile, I have also finally started having a medical problem I've been anticipating ever since my back went wonky three years ago: my wrists have finally started crapping out. Because I cannot tolerate sitting for long, I have been using my laptop on a rig that holds it over me on my bed. But this means I haven't been using my ergonomic keyboard because it's not compatible with this rig. I'm honestly surprised it's taken this long for my wrists to burst into flames again, but HTML and other coding has always been harder on my arms than simple text, and the research and writing I've been doing on Latin American geopolitics has been a lot of that. And while I can use dictation for text*, it's useless for HTML or anything that involves a lot of cut-and-paste. Consequently, I've gotten really behind on all my writing, both here and my clinical notes.

So I ordered a NocFree split wireless keyboard in hopes that it will be gentler on my arms. It arrived last night, and I have been relearning how to touch type, only with my arms at my side and absolutely not being able to see the keyboard.

You would not believe how long it took me to type this, but it's all slowly coming back. Also, I feel the need to share: I'm doing this in emacs. Which feels like a bit of a high wire act, because errors involving meta keys could, I dunno, reformat my hard drive or crash the electrical grid.

Here's hoping I get the hang of this before I break the backspace key from overuse or accidentally launch a preemptive nuclear strike on Russia.

* If, you know, I don't too dearly value my sanity.

rionaleonhart

For each of my major fandoms, I do a short writeup talking about how it fits into my fandom history. A fandom qualifies as 'major' if I've written five fics for it, or ten thousand words across at least three fics.

My Yugamu/Takumi 'uh-oh, there's only one bed, better cut my own arms off' fic means that The Hundred Line now qualifies!

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy

Kodaka and Uchikoshi have worked, separately and together, on a lot of stupid videogames I've really enjoyed (Danganronpa, Zero Escape, Somnium Files, Master Detective Archives), so I've eyed The Hundred Line with interest since it was first announced. From the announcement trailer, it looked promisingly full of teenagers suffering, but I was a little uncertain about whether I'd get along with the combat; I often don't have the patience for strategy games.

A demo came out before release day, so I gave it a try. It was absolutely stupid, which was exactly what I wanted from this game, and my fears that I'd find the combat tedious turned out to be unfounded. I was sold. I picked it up as soon as it released.

I played The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy at the age of thirty-six. Or, to be more accurate, I started playing it at the age of thirty-six. Six months and one birthday later, I am still playing it. I'm at a hundred and ninety hours of gameplay, despite skipping most of the battles. This game is ludicrously huge.

The Hundred Line absolutely delivers on its twin promises of a) containing a lot of teenagers suffering and b) being extremely stupid, so I'm having a good time! In many ways, it feels like an effort to create a game and then cram all the possible fanfiction for that game into the game itself. I feel slightly redundant as a fanfiction writer, but apparently that's not going to keep me from writing.

Although I've written a handful of fics for The Hundred Line, I haven't really immersed myself in the fandom. That said, I do poke through the 'yugamu omokage' tag on Tumblr every so often, looking for fanart depicting Yugamu as the wonderful weirdo he is.

Favourite character: I ship a lot of pairings in which one character murders the other, and a fair amount of my fanfiction explores violence and/or murder in a romantic or erotic light, so I'm delighted by the existence of Yugamu Omokage, whose entire character revolves around how horny for murder he is.
Favourite pairing: Yugamu/Takumi. Yugamu's so flirty and creepy; Takumi's unsettled but also genuinely cares about Yugamu as a person; it's a really fun dynamic!
Number of words written: 10,562

Snippet: Most of the time I'm digging up unfinished snippets from years ago for these posts, but here's one I actually scribbled down today! NB: this contains major spoilers for the 2nd Scenario ending.

( The Hundred Line unfinished snippet, Takumi, 2025. )

kaberett

( mild anaemia )

The other topic is Physio, and specifically a bunch of the stuff I've been doing courtesy of the (NHS) Lower Limbs Class I've been intermittently going to since the summer; I am finally managing to add Doing This Stuff Once A Week (Not At Class) into my routine, and in addition to just getting better at the exercises themselves I have noticed repeatedly this week that I'm finding getting up from e.g. being sat on the beanbag much easier.

( a little more on exercise )

marginaliana

Various:

--Seeing how small the voter turnout was in Cambridge makes me depressed but also reminds me that my umpty hours of reading all the candidates' web pages before I vote is actually worth something. Anyway, everyone on the city council is someone I voted for except Tim Flaherty who is not the worst I guess.

--Asked my coworkers for book recommendations along particular lines the other day and was presented with a perfect example of 'everyone wants to tell you about their favorite book, whether it meets the brief or not.' *sigh*

--Critical Role c4 ep 4 - surprising probably zero people who know me, I now intensely ship ( spoilers )

--Also CR-related but without spoilers: damn, Alex is real hot. I have two (2) spooky boys as my favorites now, apparently. Plus Aabria who can do spooky or literally any vibe in the universe tbh.

rionaleonhart

I can't believe I already have a fic called At Arm's Length. It would be the perfect title for this!

Title: Within Reach
Fandom: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy
Rating: 14
Pairing: Yugamu/Takumi
Wordcount: 3,300
Summary: As a bonding exercise, Sirei commands Takumi and Yugamu to share a room. Staying in the same room as Yugamu is, unsurprisingly, kind of a nightmare.
Warnings: Yugamu being creepy. Canon-typical mild body horror. Temporary amputation. The problem with writing about Yugamu Omokage is that you end up with bizarre warnings even when you're just trying to write a bedsharing fic.

( Within Reach )

kaberett

Published 9^th October: clinical practice recommendations for mixed pain. Apparently This Idea's Time Has Come, at least when it comes to, you know, starting to get shit published in Frontiers In.

(Today's work has included poking at both Pain Toolkit and Live Well With Pain, neither of which say The Thing. And also a third person, but they are a charlatan and I refuse even to link to them.)

Oh, and look, PainScience.com is being extremely relevant to my interests again, this time on the question of whether pain can become a conditioned response.

siderea

Americans, as I hope you know, on Nov 1st, the Federal government, being shut down, did not transmit the money to the states to pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka SNAP, aka "Food Stamps". In many states, SNAP money is supposed to hit recipients' EBT cards on the first of the month. It didn't. There is in the SNAP budget funds to cover emergencies, but Trump said he would not release it; lawsuits ensued, and as of right now, partial payments are going to be or have been made.

I commend the following video to you. It's longish - 26 minutes – but worth your time.

2025 Nov 1: Hank Green [

hankschannel on YT]: "This Shutdown is Different"

Hank Green, of vlogbrothers fame, invites Jeannie Hunter, Tennessee regional director of the Society of St. Andrew (aka EndHunger.org), on to his personal chanenel explain how the US's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka SNAP, aka "Food Stamps", actually works.

Hunter turns out to be a great interview subject and the resultant conversation was fascinating. I highly recommend it - not just to understand what's at stake in the goverment shutdown, but for your own simple enjoyment of learning how things actually work, and also so you can more eloquently advocate for this system.

Watch on YouTube

kaberett

For reasons this also revealed that the hair stick that went missing after E4, that I was convinced that field had also eaten, to the point that I'd almost resigned myself to just fucking buying another one, had been lurking in (one of) the bag(s) I'd already checked like three times.

And. Upon leaving the carpark. We were greeted by this:

[a municipal garden bed drifted with autumn leaves, behind which a wall, behind which some trees, behind which a house]

Which, when you look a little closer, contains signs:

[zoomed in on the wall. there are two painted signs, A-road style, white on green, pointing left. the top one reads "POLAR BEARS/PENGUINS/GORILLAS". the bottom reads "GIRAFFE/HOUSE".]

( +5 )

rionaleonhart

I've resumed my playthrough of The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy: by far the longest game I've ever played, and also one of the weirdest.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is a game about teenagers being forced onto the front lines of a harrowing war they don't fully understand. At one point you come down with a disease called Super Smartass Syndrome, meaning you can't be a smartass or you'll explode and die.

I was not at all prepared for Moko's wrestling hero to be called Anal Boss.

Everyone canonically falls asleep huddled together in the rec room in one of the routes, because their bedding was destroyed in a fire, and I think that's very important.

( Notes on The Hundred Line. )

In conversation with Rei, the concept of Yugamu/Takumi arranged marriage fic came up. Yugamu goes, 'I know we're married, but I'm afraid I have to be true to my heart; I'm not going to kill someone I'm not in love with,' and Takumi goes 'g... good?' and is then very alarmed when feelings start to blossom.

On Tumblr, I once described The Hundred Line as 'a ludicrous child soldier simulator that feels like what happens when you've almost finished making your game and you accidentally drop it in a barrel of fanfiction', and I don't think I'll ever write anything truer.

I've now reached ninety of the game's hundred endings: only a tenth to go! I have been playing this game for a hundred and eighty-five hours. The developers are threatening to create DLC, because apparently they do not think this is enough.

I mean, they should release DLC, because there needs to be a route in which Yugamu makes out with and/or lovingly disembowels Takumi, but I think that's all we need for this game to be complete.

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horselizard

July 2024

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Page Summary

kaberett - [food] medlar jelly recipe
rionaleonhart - Look At This Cool Bee I Drew.
kaberett - [pain] today in Descartes: green is the best colour because it is most like an octave
kaberett - [embodiment] still a terrible hobby
cosmolinguist in thissterlingcrew - Greater Manchester Asylum Hotels Group: Our response to the protests outside hotels
rionaleonhart - Fanfiction: The Unseen Third (House, Wilson/Cameron)
marginaliana - (no subject)
kaberett - some good things make a post
kaberett - some things make a post
kaberett - vital functions
siderea - In Defense of Alchemy [sci/chem, hist]
siderea - Update, Or: J? Where the hell is the j? [me, heath]
rionaleonhart - Enemies With Benefits.
kaberett - [embodiment] notes various
marginaliana - Thad
rionaleonhart - Fanfiction: Within Reach (The Hundred Line, Yugamu/Takumi)
kaberett - [pain] huh
siderea - SNAP [curr ev, US]
kaberett - today, for reasons, we went to Bromley
rionaleonhart - Me! Of All People!

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Page generated Nov. 16th, 2025 10:38 am

every little thing she does is cabbage

Reading

[food] medlar jelly recipe

Look At This Cool Bee I Drew.

[pain] today in Descartes: green is the best colour because it is most like an octave

[embodiment] still a terrible hobby

Greater Manchester Asylum Hotels Group: Our response to the protests outside hotels

Fanfiction: The Unseen Third (House, Wilson/Cameron)

(no subject)

some good things make a post

some things make a post

vital functions

In Defense of Alchemy [sci/chem, hist]

Update, Or: J? Where the hell is the j? [me, heath]

Enemies With Benefits.

[embodiment] notes various

Thad

Fanfiction: Within Reach (The Hundred Line, Yugamu/Takumi)

[pain] huh

SNAP [curr ev, US]

today, for reasons, we went to Bromley

Me! Of All People!

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July 2024

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