Tuesday, July 8th, 2025 01:48 am
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Coming our FIRST challenge at the end of the month: Hodge Podge! What's Hodge Podge? Well, Hodge Podge is a low-pressure challenge in the new challenge comm Dreams and Mayhem where the fandoms YOU LOVE are all welcomed!

es, that's right! We're a multi-fandom challenge where each week players will fill prompts to score points by writing fics or poetry or even make graphics like icons or wallpapers or moodboards! The choice will be up to you once the game opens and we are underway!

So if you like to have fun and have a fun competition, do come and join us please! Sign-ups are opened July 3rd through July 19th!!!

Dreams and Mayhem sign-ups are on the 
Hodge Podge page! Please see the example HERE for how to sign up!

Monday, July 7th, 2025 04:07 pm
 image

Writers: looking to do the ethical thing and avoid AI images in illustrating, promoting, and selling your work?

There are many places to find public domain and free to use images. Always double-check the license before you use an image and remember to credit your source with a citation and/or link.

Pexels: photographs uploaded by contributors – does not allow AI. I found the photo for this post on Pexels. My blog post citations are usually a link on the photo itself or at the bottom of the page/post.

Unsplash: photographs and art uploaded by contributors – does not allow AI. Make sure you select the “free” license.

Public Domain Image Archive: out-of-copyright historical images.

Artvee: public domain paintings, posters and illustrations.

Smithsonian Open Accessimages and data from across the Smithsonian’s 21 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.

Getty Research Institute: images of Getty-owned artworks in the public domain.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: public-domain artworks in the Met collections. Be sure you select “open access.”

New York Public Library Digital Collections. Be sure you select “search only public domain.”

Wikimedia Commons: lots of free-to-use and public domain images.  This is my other go-to for blog posts.

Remember, if you want custom artwork and book covers, there are tons of real, live artists you can commission to create for you! And as a fellow creator, you should not have a problem paying artists for their work. 

PS: please don’t use AI to write, either…nurture your own voice! We want to hear it.

This article was first published on my writing blog

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

Image credit

Monday, July 7th, 2025 03:10 pm

Fannish Fifty 2025: Post #19

A stag with grand antlers standing on a dark field under an overcast sky, the animal's gaze is fixed off screen


WE DO NOT SOW

for the Iron Islands, for Pyke, for House Greyjoy


“ Tooth and nail, tooth and nail
Murky water covers all
Tie a noose around your tail
Murky water covers all ”




{ listen here }

other songs of ice and fire
{ prev mix } & { next mix }


Read more... )
Monday, July 7th, 2025 06:24 pm
Because of all the mix-ups with permits and so on, we were offered an additional "free" activity. We picked a trip to the Polccoyo rainbow mountain area. It turned out that there are two rainbow mountains in Peru of which Vinicunca is the more spectacular, touristy, and better known. Different mineral compositions in the soil - particularly copper - cause the geological layers exposed in rainbow mountains to reveal stripes of bright colours. Our guide for the day, Olmer, was obviously from the Polccoyo area and felt very passionately about it. He explained that it was being opened up to tourists in a bid to stave off a proposed investment from a Canadian mining company who wanted to establish a copper mine in the area.

It was beautiful and remote and while there were two or three parties of tourists, it was easy to feel alone in the landscape. B. and I were a bit dubious that it could both retain its character and generate enough income to hold off the allure of mining company big bucks.

Photos )

The road up to Palccoyo went along multiple switch-backs from tarmac to dirt track, and past alfalfa farmers on the lower slopes (the alfalfa feeds the guinea pigs which are a local speciality - if you are interested they taste a bit like duck) to alpaca farmers on the higher slopes (alpaca is genuinely nice meat, quite lamby but more restrained). On the way back down I tried to photograph alpaca from the taxi resulting in a lot of blurry photos of alpaca of which these are the best.

Photos from the taxi )
Monday, July 7th, 2025 06:09 pm
I have a couple of pinch hits that revealed that I must still post here on Dreamwidth. Writing's been agony again. I taunted myself by saying "well why do you NOT WRITE AT ALL ON PURPOSE for ALL OF JULY then, since you ain't writing anyway? Save yourself the anguish? See if you actually care?" then huh saw the sign-ups for [community profile] littleblackdressex were open and my favs had already been nominated, thus immediately played myself by signing up. First exchange sign-up of the year though! \o/

Otherwise I'm down to a writing goal of 100 words a day, which I wouldn't have been able to accept before getting blocked again (*pokes pokes* what's going on with ye) because I just know how much better I can do. However, after a long string of 0 days, actually 100 words a day is fantastic, yes. And something I can make myself sit down for. I'm fully prepared to reduce the goal to 50 words next if that's what it takes to make progress.

I still enjoy my stories! I get inspired reading other books!! What is going on!!!!

It is somewhat painful that this fic is the first thing I actually finish since my hurt/comfort + PHs exploits, but it is what it is. I guess crack just gotta crack, sometimes. There must be something deeply meaningful to ponder here.


Silent Killers | Wind Breaker | Hiiragi, Suou | 1.8k words | rated T | Crack treated seriously

Summary:
There's more than one way to commit murder in Furin.

Or, three times Suou is interrupted trying to talk to Hiiragi, and one time it's too late.
Read it on Dreamwidth or on AO3.
Monday, July 7th, 2025 08:49 am
Work will be horrible this week. And next week. Either that will mean that I don't have the mental energy to write anything, or else I'll be so stressed out that I'll write loads as a form of escapism. Not sure which yet, whee! 🫀

In any case, I knew this was coming and am in a decent spot to weather the storm either way. (Although it would've been nice if I'd gotten a bit more done this last week.)

Here's where I am with everything:

  • Exchanges due in May/June ([community profile] hurtcomfortex, [community profile] pickmeupexchange, [community profile] idproquo, [community profile] seasonsofdrabbles, [community profile] diegetic_exchange, [community profile] fandom5k + mystery pinch-hits and treats): Still done at 12/12. I'm debating moving [community profile] fandom5k to the next batch, since that doesn't reveal until late July and everything else here is already revealed. We'll see. But, yes, [community profile] pickmeupexchange & [community profile] hurtcomfortex both are in the anon period right now, and I got a couple of lovely gifts:

    • Butterfly, my gift for [community profile] hurtcomfortex: A delightful Hannibal/Will fic taking place post-series, cool take on the fall, and lots of nice tension and Hannibal and Will being dark, fucked-up weirdos just the way I love. ❀️

    • Leave the Bow Tie On my gift for [community profile] pickmeupexchange: A fun Garak/Bashir romp for Star Trek DS9, with undercover dating, public sex, and hot xeno galore! Such a great, breezy read, I really lucked out here! ❀️

  • Exchanges due in July/August ([community profile] caseficexchange, [community profile] nonconex, [community profile] justmarriedexchange, Terrible Temperature Troubles flash + mystery pinch-hits and treats + future stuff): I am now at 3/6. Yes, that means I foolishly picked something up that I am not yet finished with. But it was so SHINY! I could not resist! 😭 I'm currently halfway through that, and trying to avoid grabbing something ELSE shiny. My goal this week is to finish the current shiny thing and finish one other thing, so that I would be at 5/6. I'll also need to do a final editing pass for Temperature Flash since that goes live this week. And I'm not going to pick up my next shiny thing until I have a draft complete this time, dammit self!

  • Potentials for July/August: I skipped [community profile] littleblackdressex - nothing caught my eye. I'm pretty sure I'll be skipping [community profile] raremaleslashex for the same reason. [community profile] enemiestoloversex is starting up, and given how much I love that trope, I really REALLY hope that there are some compatible requests in it! I will do [community profile] seasonsofdrabbles in early August. [community profile] rarepairexchange & [community profile] iddyiddybangbang are debatable. Also, [community profile] scaldinghotcibingo looks really tempting, but given how faily I've been with Femslash Salad Bar, I'm hesitant to pick up another prompt list. But...it's also only just 3 fills, so I should be able to do that, right? I will noodle on it.

  • Nothing new with Femslash Salad Bar, take 100. 😝

  • I didn't get any further in BNHA last week, because I was doing canon review for something else. This week I will try to get back at it!

  • I finished Noblesse! It was good! The final battles were actually refreshing and involved, like, strategy across multiple locations and stuff. I was pleased with that, since the last couple had just been werewolves punching each other in the face a lot. Very enjoyable series, and I've already been requesting/offering it.

  • I don't have anything I'm currently reading right now, but I think I'm going to take a little break, just to see how the next few weeks fall out with work and then my skating competition. I have several items on my wait list at the library that might come through in not too long, so maybe I'll just wait on those. (Unless, of course, I randomly change my mind entirely. Always a possibility!


Goals for this week: 1) Survive work. 2) Finish The Shiny Thing That Ate My Brain. 3) Finish 1 other assignment. 4) Edits for Temperature Flash. 5) Watch some BNHA.
Monday, July 7th, 2025 01:30 pm
Sunshine-Revival-Carnival-4.png


Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.



Starting this in the most cliché way possible, but I love my boyfriend. He means so much to be it's unreal. We first met last year over a commission, as I generally will write whatever as long as it's not my notp, so I was delighted to write an interesting rare pair for him twice last year. We started talking properly and being friends much later though, after I had some trouble with a friend and my ex later in the year, almost back to back, resulting in a breakdown on Tumblr, after which he approached me and we started talking more.

It had taken me so long to talk properly, and for more than just a few simple things. I felt that again, after a while, I was able to finally have friend that I could talk to about the stuff both of us liked, even if it wasn't something I was familiar with in the first place. And with bonding over liking the same character a lot, playing Sky: Children of the Light together for the first time, just finding little things to enjoy, it finally felt like peace. It took me a while to properly sort out my feelings as being on the aro spectrum does not help me a lot sometimes, but I was sure. He made me happy, and he was happy with me. I couldn't ask for more than that.

The other thing I love? I love writing. I has been one of the hobbies I've had the longest that have persisted everything else I've been interested in. It makes me happy, it brings me joy. I find so much comfort in it, even at times where it feels hard to do it, for whatever reason or problem I have in life. I love the hobby that brought me here now, writing this down. I wouldn't have met so many amazing people if it weren't for writing. It means so much to me.

Sunday, July 6th, 2025 05:08 pm
I made a mistake I think, trying to open up my challenge comm on 4th of July to sign ups because only 2 have signed up and I am sure the sign up advertisements I put are buried on people's timelines. *sighs*
Sunday, July 6th, 2025 03:35 pm
Sunshine-Revival-Carnival-1.png

Journaling Prompt: Light up your journal with activity this month. Talk about your goals for July or for the second half of 2025.

My first time doing a challenge like this! Looked fun and seemed to be a good opportunity to post some more stuff here! I'll be doing the journaling prompt this time around.



I have my creative bingo for 2025 as my goals when it comes to creative things. I've gone through 10 out of 25 goals here, which I think is pretty good considering some of those intertwine and would require me to finish some before others. I'm also a little behind on writing my two biggest goals, finishing 'Lifeless Stars' and 'A little more warmth', as those are both long fics.The latter does have a chance of being finished as even as a multi chapter fic, it is shorter in nature than my big one, and I plan to to finish it as of a part of an event that will be running this September for 2 months, so I am leaving it purposefully for later.

When it comes to the few goals where I'm meant to just start working on certain fics, those might take a while too. I might have to rework some of the aspects to fit new lore information we've gotten after a while. Most of the ideas are from 2023, we've gotten some new lore on a lot of characters, plus more new characters since then. I don't think they'll have a lot of impact on my writing overall, as it only might be minor stuff, but I'd still want to take things into consideration. My overall idea of what counts as 'start working on this specific fic' is to have at least one chapter done, or at least mostly done. I think that's fair in my head.

The overall goal is to have one column, row or diagonal finished by the end of the year. And depending on how many are done by the end of it, I will consider how I will approach this type of thing next year, as I think continuing this would be nice. Having an overall goal on what to work on does motivate me than having nothing at all.

Another unique challenge I wanna try and do is the all ships all week challenge, with a very specific goal: to write for a ship I previously have never done anything for or if I did, it was long ago when I was a kid. It's a way for me to break out of my single fandom habit and to revisit some old ships I used to love but never gave enough love through creation. I want to even do a post related to all of the ships, maybe a manifesto for all of them or a proper shrine on my website. I'm not sure If I will be using the proper prompts when they're revealed for 2025 since they're not mandatory, I might give one a try at least. For this, I just want to do some more experimental stuff, especially if it's for something old to me.
Saturday, July 5th, 2025 08:33 pm
Man I hope it's the fact that it's 4th of July Weekend is the reason I have had only TWO people to sign up for...

imgbox

Coming our FIRST challenge at the end of the month: Hodge Podge! What's Hodge Podge? Well, Hodge Podge is a low-pressure challenge in the new challenge comm Dreams and Mayhem where the fandoms YOU LOVE are all welcomed!

es, that's right! We're a multi-fandom challenge where each week players will fill prompts to score points by writing fics or poetry or even make graphics like icons or wallpapers or moodboards! The choice will be up to you once the game opens and we are underway!

So if you like to have fun and have a fun competition, do come and join us please! Sign-ups are opened July 3rd through July 19th!!!

Dreams and Mayhem sign-ups are on the 
Hodge Podge page! Please see the example HERE for how to sign up!

Saturday, July 5th, 2025 08:17 pm
#01 – Adamant#02 – Snow#03 – Lion#04 – Spark#05 – Amber
#06 – Lust#07 – Bronze#08 – Mint#09 – Arctic#10 – Black
#11 – Moonlight#12 – Sunlight#13 – Blue#14 – Navy#15 – Tea
#16 – Neon#17 – Twilight#18 – Blush#19 – Wine#20 – Nude
#21 – Rhythm#22 – Brown#23 – Linen#24 – Ember#25 – Thistle
#26 – Cherry#27 – Orange#28 – Vanilla#29 – Bone#30 – Harlequin
#31 – Cadet#32 – Chocolate#33 – Peach#34 – Lead#35 – Cream
#36 – Sand#37 – White#38 – Crimson#39 – Pink#40 – Ocean
#41 – Dove#42 – Platinum#43 – Yellow#44 – Earth#45 – Midnight
#46 – Pearl#47 – Frostbite#48 – Pumpkin#49 – Electric#50 – Purple
#51 – Coral#52 – Salt#53 – Crow#54 – Rainbow#55 – Cloud
#56 – Flame#57 – Red#58 – Ash#59 – Rose#60 – Slate
#61 – Green#62 – Ruby#63 – Olive#64 – Lipstick#65 – Spice
#66 – Grey#67 – Denim#68 – Rust#69 – Flirt#70 – Sunset
#71 – Sable#72 – Desert#73 – Jade#74 – Sage#75 – Buff
#76 – Jet#77 – Plum#78 – Leather#79 – Liberty#80 – Metal
#81 – Sepia#82 – Lavender#83 – Scarlet#84 – Crystal#85 – Chestnut
#86 – Shadow#87 – Lemon#88 – Mystic#89 – Silver#90 – Coffee
#91 – Seafoam#92 – Lime#93 – Punch#94 – Pickle#95 – Champagne
#96 – Copper#97 – Bittersweet#98 – Honey#99 – Candy#100 – Gold

This is downright the most ambitious think I have decided to put on my journal so far, but you know what? I think a fun challenge like this can be done, one way or another. table from [community profile] 100ships 

Saturday, July 5th, 2025 01:57 pm
Hello, I'm Q! This is my Creator Letter for the 2025 Rare Male Slash Exchange. First, thank you for your interest! Whether you're my assigned giftor or thinking of making a treat, I appreciate you so very much :)

This letter has my general DNWs and Likes, and then I have individual sections for each of my fandom requests for this year's exchange (and I don't have a preference between any of them, so don't think if one's section is longer than the other that I want it more!). I hope my provided details will give you some inspiration! I really look forward to whatever y'all create, I know I'm gonna love it <3

Details under the cut! )
Saturday, July 5th, 2025 08:56 pm
Sunshine-Revival-Carnival-4.png

Challenge #2

Tunnel of Love
Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.


Read more... )

Creative: Write a love poem to anyone or anything you like

Please forgive me for writing this at speed. It's about one of my closest friends <3

Read more... )
Saturday, July 5th, 2025 08:42 am

Book cover for Doctor Who The Shadow in the Glass by Justing Richards and Stephen Cole.  A blue cover with the faces of the sixth Doctor and Hitler behind a transparent globe.  Blue streaks emanate out from the globe.

I've no memory of reading this at all. The back makes it sound both interesting and memorable - a retired brigadier stumbling upon shenanigans from WW2 recruiting the sixth Doctor for help. Richards and Cole are both solid Doctor Who authors who I rate but none of it stirs a memory.
Friday, July 4th, 2025 09:45 pm
I'm a big fan of the "string of" plants: string of pearls, string of turtles, string of frogs, you name it. I have a string of hearts and a string of arrows among the various plants on one of my narrower windowsills.



They generally seemed pretty happy there. However, a series of calamities have befallen my houseplants over the last 11 months. Think scale, powdery mildew, mealybugs, and wildly fluctuating temperatures and humidity levels...sometimes in the course of a single day. So I was not pleased to find that some as-yet-unknown-to-me pest had started nesting in my string of hearts.

For some reason, I kept not doing anything about it. And for some reason, the string of hearts carried on living and growing quite happily in the face of my neglect. I started to wonder...



Turns out, those little globes aren't insect nests at all, but tubers. How cool--and cool looking--are these things? Better yet, I can clip some of them off, pop them in medium, and have a bunch of new baby string of hearts after they take root.

It's a constant battle between houseplants and books in this residence, and for the time being at least, it looks like the houseplants are in the ascendant.


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