frenzy | Network

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My Outgunned game is a spy thriller of sorts. I thought it would be fun to skip the usual "characters start together, get briefed, plot their mission together" and so on, I'd start with three of the five breaking into an apartment. They are 14-year-old Diane Dean (the driver), 18-year-old Concordia Butterstein (unsanctioned intrusion and asset acquisition expert) and 70-year-old Jethro Winthrop (the smooth talking fellow who hired the other two because they offered the best value for price)

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In War and Peace, Count Bezukhov has died, leaving - after some deathbed wrangling over his multiple wills by grasping relatives - his illegitimate and bewildered son Pierre a wealthy noble, which surely will cause no one any problems. Interesting, in terms of narrative structure and the famous first line of another Tolstoy novel, that this is followed by an immediate smash cut to a different unhappy family, the Bolkonskys.

Poking along in Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls and Other Writings; the "other writings" in this collection apparently include his 1920s-30s trial reporting, but I'm still on his 1930s-40s comedic gangster stories, which so far have universally ended with an impromptu marriage, except for the one that ended with the doll seducing and drowning the gangsters who killed her husband. I'm not sure that Runyon supports women's rights but he does support women's wrongs.

Also started another short story collection, China Miéville's Three Moments of an Explosion; I'm two stories in, both of which have had the feel of picking up an idea and turning it around to see the way light reflects off of its different facets - only just long enough to see each different flash of light - and I'm really liking it so far. The title story is flash fiction about urban exploration in a future with "rotvertising" (brand logos coded into "the mottle and decay of subtly gene-tweaked decomposition" or detonation) and time-dilating drugs; the second is a child's-eye view of a future where long-melted icebergs return to float over London while coral blooms across Brussels.

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

The category(ies) you choose are up to you. You can give top 10 Fics you read last year, the top 10 songs to create to, the top 10 guest stars on your favorite show, top 10 characters in your favorite book series, top 10... well, you get the idea.

So I watch a lot of Brit tv and these are 10 actors that I delight in coming across in a show. In no particular order.

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I got fitted with my first pair of hearing aids a month ago. Some of my friends complain about theirs. I'm having an excellent experience and am so glad this technology exists. I had no idea how bad my high-frequency hearing loss was until it was compensated for. Our dishwasher makes a soft chime when you press a button! Who knew? (Not me.)

Current Mood: pleased

I wanted something a little rough looking to go with this because the octopus is so shiny. Didn't have anything that fit the bill which was the right size, and I wanted to make this a bit longer of a necklace. So I used groups of metal bead ends along with some blue E beads for the ocean angle.

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Name: fleur or mike
Age group: 21 - 29
Country: USA
Subscription/Access Policy: only given to those i know are 100% anti-censorship and adults. i do not tolerate politics or discourse

Main Fandoms: identity v
Other Fandoms: star trek (TOS), fire emblem three houses, fire emblem awakening, vocaloid, elder scrolls, star wars (OT)
Fannish Interests: writing, creating AUs, worldbuilding, headcanons
OTPs and Ships: joseph/alva, joseph/aesop, norton/orpheus

Favourite Movies: star wars OT
TV Shows: murder, she wrote
Books: epic poems
Music: okamep
Games: identity v, skyrim
Comics/Anime/Misc: angel beats

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A vast megadungeon from Expeditious Retreat Press for D&D, AD&D, and other tabletop fantasy roleplaying games.

Bundle of Holding: Halls of Arden Vul (from 2022)

A Bad Idea comic by Matt Kindt, Ramon Villalobos and Tamra Bonvillain. A swords and sorcery parody/pastiche about a group of badass, backstabbing, greedy, terrible people tasked with saving a peaceful city from invaders. I picked this up based on the art, which is spectacular - I especially love the unusual color palette.

Unfortunately, the story is both cliched and kind of edgelord, and I didn't care about any of the characters. Also, the art is extremely gory - the panel above is mild. So I won't be continuing this series, but I may look into what else Ramon Villalobos, the artist, has done.

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Current Mood: curious

Crowdsourcing opinions: what's an email service you like/recommend? I want to leave Gmail and only use it for signing into websites because nowadays it's all Gemini this Gemini that.

I saw an amazing Tumblr post about a Chinese poet who was so brilliant and her man so mediocre 😭 the love story she didn't deserve. She made a poem puzzle that yields more poems the more you look at it. So cool!

Historic medical event: I had an online consultation with a gynaecologist and she said my periods are definitely not normal. No hesitation, no excuses, just straight up "That's not normal. Have you had an ultrasound done?" And when I said I never have, she said I needed to get one done, along with a blood test. And that once I got tested, the results would give her some idea of where to go from here.

First time a doctor has said heavy painful periods are not normal, and that we need to find out causes.

She prescribed that I'm got to get tested for my complete blood count, fasting blood sugar, free testosterone, total testosterone, liver function test, serum creatine, fasting lipid profile, HDA1C (haemoglobin A1C), fasting insulin, HOMA IR (for insulin resistance), Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, prolactin. And I've got to get an ultrasound of my abdomen and pelvis.

I saw an Instagram post by The Period Lab about what to get tested in your bloodwork if you have bleeding more than 8 diva cups over your entire period (I bleed that amount in ONE DAY) and there's a lot of overlap, but also other things not included in my prescription that I want to get done as well: