Reading

Current Mood: grumpy

Entry tags:

school life

Final Projects Progress Report

Intro to Human Services:
Interview with a Human Services professional: Done
Reflection paper on interview, due Friday, Dec 5: ~~Not~~ started
Personal mission statement, due Friday, Dec 12: Not started

Social Problems:
Research a particular topic as a social problem: Done
Do a creative project based on your research: Mostly done, needs touch-ups
Write a paper about your research topic and your creative project: Not started (has a very detailed template I can probably just fill out as the paper)

Ceramics:
Interview with a living ceramicist: Done
Reflection paper on interview, due Sunday, Dec 7: ~~Mostly done~~ Done!
PowerPoint Presentation on interviewed ceramicist, due Sunday, Dec 7: Not started

I'm going to try and get the one interview reflection done tonight, and then take a break. (I'd aim for both, but they're both minimum two pages, and I'm not sure I have enough juice for that.) I want to go ahead and make the Paid Time for Mood Themes announcement on

moodthemeinayear, but alas, I must use my brain power for this, instead 😩

Edit: First reflection paper is done! Time to dig out my notes from the other interview and contemplate at least starting the second one.

Edit 2: Intro to HS reflection paper started, basics of getting paid time for mood theme completion posted to

moodthemeinayear 👍

Current Mood: ecstatic

Entry tags:

mood theme year

Incoherent keysmash goes here

Ah. So. Um.

I have just been officially gifted a whoooole bunch of Dreamwidth points to reward as I see fit to participants at

moodthemeinayear, just to encourage more creativity and participation and stuff. With instructions to ask for more if I run out, and also to encourage anyone who makes a qualifying mood theme to consider submitting it to be site-supported. (And also I'm maybe being informally recruited to be the/an official Dreamwidth mood theme uploader person???)

I need. To take some time to think about how I would award these points.

(Initial idea: One month of paid time for anyone who completes just the Minimum Track, three months for anyone who completes the Medium Track, and one year for anyone who completes the Maximum Track, but like. Given that the community is supposed to be low-stress and low-pressure and allow participants to drift in and out, maybe I should instead do "One month of paid time for each Part/eighteen moods completed"? And then throw in some bonus paid time for anyone who completes the Maximum Track and/or submits a mood theme to be site-supported? Hrrrmmmmm...)

Current Mood: creative

Entry tags:

art,
mood themes

Cloudy Daze Mood Theme

Dunno when I'll be able to submit it for consideration as an official mood theme, but in the mean time, here's a preview: ( 117 Cloud Moods )

Anyway, if you want to get a jump on things, here's a downloadable .zip of all of the above moods, plus a super secret alternate version of Quixotic!

Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

Current Mood: productive

Entry tags:

school work

Social Problems Projects

For our final project in Social Problems, we have to pick something we think is a social problem, find research on it, then turn our findings into a creative project with accompanying one-page paper.

Luckily, the paper has a very thorough template where pretty much all I'll need to do is write one sentence per prompt and I'll be done; I think I've done okay with picking my problem and doing my research, so now what I need to do is to turn said problem into a creative project.

The problem I've chosen is infosec/(lack of) privacy in the age of Big AI; I think I'm going to make a board game about the dangers of not having secure information?

I'm planning to go very simple: A space-by-space game board (think Candyland), and movement by D6. Part of me really, really wants to go over-the-top and come up with a token system (when you land on a marked space, you draw a card, and based on that card you either pay or receive a Privacy Token; the goal would be to make it to the end of the path with the most tokens, and if you lose all of them, you're out of the game), but that's probably too ambitious for right now.

Honestly, I'll take something closer to a Snakes and Ladders approach, where landing on a marked card has you moving forward or backwards extra spaces depending on whether the space has good or bad infosec practices. I may still need to look up some game theory to figure out how often I should place which spaces, but it's much less than if I go with the cards-and-tokens route. Probably less fun as well, but this isn't exactly the only final project I have to do this semester...

Anyway! Time to come up with a list of good and bad infosec practices and think about where they'd need to appear on a board game!

Current Mood: full

Leftover Feelings

My brother's family is out of state for Thanksgiving, so my parents and I didn't really plan anything big. My dad ultimately made reservations for us at a hotel restaurant to eat at their Thanksgiving buffet, and it was pretty darn good; I ate enough to fill me up, but managed not to make myself sick, so I'm taking the win!

I also made sure to leave a thank-you card for the staff; while normally I figure that's the least I can do for someone whose work I'm taking advantage of on a federal holiday, today it came with an extra observation: I noticed that a lot of the attendees were elderly and/or disabled, which makes me actually appreciate the existence of Thanksgiving dining-out opportunities. It's probably pretty damn hard to make a Thanksgiving meal by yourself if you've got a twisted ankle or are over eighty years old! So, while I'd written the card ahead of time and didn't really have room to write more, it may be something I include if we do this again: A specific thank-you to the workers involved for making it so some people are able to have a nice Thanksgiving meal, without inadvertently harming themselves. An important lesson for me to remember.

All that aside, one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is the leftovers! And since we didn't make our own Thanksgiving meal, we have nothing left over. So I took it upon myself to make a double-batch each of green bean casserole and stuffing. (Also because Dad has been accumulating stuffing kits for months now, and if we don't make it for Thanksgiving, when the hell is any of us going to make it, huh? I didn't want there to still be four boxes of Stovetop stuffing plus two bags of some other more complicated to make brand of stuffing in the cupboard come Christmas, dammit!) And now there's plenty of leftovers of each for us to graze on over the next few days ✌

Entry tags:

2025,
pinch hit

New Pinch Hit - Claimed!

The pinch hit has been claimed; thank you to everyone that reached out! Y'all are great <3

Hello hello! We have one new pinch hit in need of a loving home. Assignment is due Dec 2nd @ 11:59PM ET though this can be negotiated. If you'd like to pick this pinch hit up, either DM one of the mods on Discord (SassySnowperson or nightingalesighs) or comment down below with your AO3 username. Comments are screened.

( Tooka 1 - Claimed! )

Current Mood: frustrated

Entry tags:

mood themes

Grumble grumble grumble

So the mood themes I've submitted to be site-supported already I did so in a somewhat haphazard and convoluted way (directly asked Denise about it in a

dw_news post, emailed from there). I thought it would be most polite this time around to go through official channels, rather than just digging up the emails I used last time and being all, "Hey, remember me? I made another mood theme!"

The official Dreamwidth Github wiki currently says that mood themes need to be emailed to Denise for review, but critically does not provide an email for Denise. Or any other way to contact her. The tags labeling her as staff seem to be broke. I tried submitting a support ticket about it, but was told that it would be easiest for me to just create my own Github account and submit the potential new mood theme as an issue.

I've got a Github account; I made one last year, as a possible way to submit my mood themes then, and decided it was waaaaay too complicated. I logged in again to give it a good faith effort, and good gravy, I can understand why I noped out last time! There's a shit-ton of how-to documentation to go through, and I really don't think all of it applies to me just. Submitting my silly images. But I also don't want to skip all of it, because I'm sure I'll miss out on something important if I do?

Anyway. I'm probably going to ask a friend if it'd be too cheeky of me to just try and join the DW Volunteers Discord and ask if someone would be willing to walk me through the process, because that's where I'm at now.

Entry tags:

2025,
pinch hit

Post Deadline Pinch Hits - All have been claimed!

All PHs have been claimed! A huge thank you to all of those reached out; you guys rock!

Hello hello! The deadline has passed and we have 3 post deadline PHs in need of a good home. PHs are due Nov. 29th 11:59PM ET. The deadline can be flexible if need be. To claim a pinch hit, you may comment down below (comments are screened) or contact Sassy or myself on Discord (SassySnowperson and nightingalesighs respectively). Please tell us the number of the PH + AO3 username when reaching out.

( Tooka 1 - Claimed! )

( Tooka 2 - Claimed! )

( Tooka 3 -Claimed! )

Current Mood: giddy

Entry tags:

Community Challenge 2025

Hey hi!

The past two years, you may remember that we did a community challenge to try to complete a bingo board. Well, we're bringing it back for 2025 with a neat new twist: there are levels! So far we have completed our Padawan level, and have unlocked Knight; how many levels can we unlock? Gotta keep making treats to find out!

Below is our 'Knight' BINGO board filled with tropes and tags that will show up in the works we create together. Our lovely Bingo mod, Senket, will keep track, and working together, let's see how far we can go! There are more regular challenge updates over on our Discord server so if you have been thinking about it, maybe now is the time to pop in!

'Knight' level bingo board of community challenge

'Knight' level bingo board of community challenge

All works turned into the collection will count, including treats and gifts to the collection.

One work can count for multiple squares.

Please include the tag you wrote on the fic itself. We won't be reading all the works to figure out if it includes a particular tag!

75 fics - At least 75 fics in the collection
15 Art Pieces - At least 15 art pieces in the collection
50 M/M Works - 50 works where the main ship is an M/M pairing
25 M/F Works - 25 works where the main ship is an M/F pairing
15 F/F Works - 15 works where the main ship is an F/F pairings
5 Polyamory Works - 5 works where the main ship involves three or more people
3 'First in the tag' works - at least three works in the collection were the first in the ship tag
30 Rated T - 30 works rated 'Teen'
15 Rated M - 15 works rated 'Mature'
15 Getting Together - 15 works tagged with 'Getting Together'
10 Established Relationship - 10 works tagged with 'Established Relationship'
10 Pre-Relationship - 10 works tagged with 'Pre-Relationship'
20 Fluff - 20 works tagged with 'fluff'
15 Hurt/Comfort - 15 works tagged with 'Hurt/Comfort'
10 Angst - 10 works tagged with 'angst'
5 AU - Setting Change - 5 works with the 'AU - Setting Change' tag
2 Crossover Eras
No Order 66 - 1 work tagged with 'AU - No Order 66
5 Fake Relationship - 5 works tagged with 'Fake Relationship'
Mystery/Exploration Mission
Master/Padawan - 1 work tagged with 'Master/Padawan'
Force Bond - 1 work tagged with 'Force Bond'
3 Inappropriate Use of the Force - 3 works tagged with 'Inappropriate Use of the Force'
Treats for 50% of participants - At least half of participants have more than one gift in the collection

FAQ

Isn't this kinda a lot for one person to do? - Yes, it's a community challenge, all things will be counted collectively.

What if I already turned in a work but I didn't tag it the way the board shows? - That's fine! Feel free to go back and edit your fic to include the tag.

Help! I wrote a treat for someone and then couldn't gift it to them! - Sometimes this is a setting for newer accounts. Unless the participant has publicly said in their sign-up they don't want treats, ping the mods and we'll reach out to see if that's intentional.

I have a work I want to write, but I don't have anyone to gift it to :( - You can gift things to the collection without assigning a recipient by going to the collection page and clicking "Post to Collection."

If you have any other questions, please comment down below! Now, let's see what kind of cakes we can make together!

Current Mood: emotional disregulation argh

Finally watching Murderbot

Mom got AppleTV so she, Dad, and I could watch Murderbot together. We watched the first two episodes tonight.

And don't get me wrong! It's very good! I just.

It's very tonally different from the books? A lot more tense/intense? And since my ADHD means I have trouble switching away from the mood of whatever I just read/watched/whatever...

I am honestly glad for reasons other than story integrity that there's only ten episodes in a season for Murderbot.

Again, good show! Well adapted! Love the cast! Bad fit for me personally. I'll probably stick it out for the rest of the season, but when taken with my homework stress... This is just not a good time for it for me. I may have a conversation with my parents instead.

Entry tags:

2025

Five Hours to Deadline!

Hello hello!

As of posting, there’s a little over five hours to our deadline! Are you excited? We are! We also have a couple reminders for you and info on what comes next. There’s still time to ask for an extension if needed; please just reach out to either mod (SassySnowperson or nightingalesighs on discord) or leave a comment down below with your AO3 username. Comments are screened. The same goes for defaulting! If you need to, you can still default without a penalty right up until the deadline. To do so, you don’t even need to contact one of the mods—there’s a “default” button on your assignments page in the upper right corner. If you need an extension or to default please please please do so before the deadline. We don’t need a reason for either, nor will we be mad; we just want to make sure we can help where we can.

However, if you do not default or contact us and you have not fulfilled your assignment by the deadline, in other words: you’re a “no show”, you may be suspended from the next round of the exchange. Please, we would much rather work something out <3

Speaking of extensions, we have already granted a number of them and as such, if you don’t see a work under your “gifts” tab, do not fret! Your creator just needed a little more time to finish theirs up. We also see a lot of gifts roll in in the hours before the deadline so rest assured we will get you a gift.

These next few hours are also a great time to check your assignment—make sure it isn’t a draft (unpublished drafts do NOT count as a fulfilled assignment and we may mark you down as a no-show if you don’t publish your draft!) or that you have published the correct draft (and deleted the others!). Change those placeholder titles. Add any extra tags you thought of after hitting ‘post’. Just give everything a general once over to make sure it’s all in order!

What’s next?

Mods will start our checks to make sure everything meets requirements.

For you all though: Treats and Community Bingo! We lengthened the time between the deadline and reveals after everyone had such a great time with our Community Bingo last year and Senket has been hard at work on it this year. What is Community Bingo? Glad you asked! There will be another post with more details following this one. But these two weeks are the perfect time to go trawling through requests (AutoAO3 link here) and create some treats. As a reminder: treats do not have the minimum requirements of assignments, however they MUST still respect the recips DNWs. You may also treat the collection if you want to make something but there’s no one to gift it to. To post a treat to the collection, you may either use the “post to collection” button on the collection’s “dashboard” or “profile” tabs (this will bring up the “post new work” form) OR post a new work and use the “post to collection” field under the “associations” box. The collection name is ‘swrarepairs2025’ (if you use the “post to collection” option, the collection’s name will already be filled in.)

For our post-deadline pinch hits, those will be posted to the comm either later tonight after the deadline has passed or early tomorrow so please keep an eye out for those if you’re interested in picking up a pinch hit.

And lastly: a huge thank you to all of our participants thus far. As Sassy and I have been checking works, we’ve always been so blown away by all the things you all think up and all the enthusiasm y’all have for this exchange every year. We wouldn’t be doing this without you guys. So, thank you for being such a great community <3

- Rares Mod Team

Current Mood: pleased

Happier homework news

Human Services homework for this week is to watch a movie and do a strengths assessment for one of the characters; movie choice was left up to us, with a list of options provided. I picked my own, which means that I just got to watch How to Train Your Dragon for homework.

I am very pleased by this.