* Balcony (girl, you gotta)
* Paint windows
* Repay loan (0/2)
* Clear room & set up desk
* Invite friends over
* Invite family over
* heating cables + lights
* Hang framed pictures
* 12 baths (3/12)

* Trip mom
* Hiking somewhere pretty
* Dentist
* One month of daily meditation (0/30)
* Yoga x 40 (0/40)

* Ten rec posts 3/10)
* Four icon posts (3/4)
* Re-up spankulert icons to dw
* At least twelve entries into Community Thursdays (01/12)
* Finish up starterpack.
* Complete fifteen games (1/15)
* Steam game completion to 35% (start at 27%)
* Steam NO BUY for the year (DLCs exempt) (damn you, excellent Esoteric Ebb demo! I've now bought 3 games grrr)
* 5x5 board games (0/5)
* Fifteen physical books (00/15)
* Three fan-mixes (0/3)
* Oi! remember picspams?? (0/3)
* Paint ten figs (0/10)
* Finish five Procreate pieces (0/5)
* ONE vid damn you, just do it dot gif
* Run a couple of icon challenges (0/2)
* rec_cember

- London -
Biscuit Museum/Peek Frean's museum.
The Museum of Brands

+ 🗣️ New Aldous Harding album. I repeat: new Aldous Harding album.

+ Retreated to my bedroom for a quiet space to finally get a post out. Brough my holiday incense leftovers and now everything smells amazing. There's just nothing else that smells this good to me.

+ Finally did one voluntary social call since coming home. Met my good friend K, the one I didn't get around to last free trip. It's always such a lovely time. Miracles of miracles, it was actually sunny and warm that day. (we've had two full days with white on the ground. This morning greeted me with a hail storm. ~MAY~)

We may be meeting up next week so I can finally see her new house. There's a bunch of springy lambs visible from her window!

+ Friend J got a new Guinea pig and is sending me all sorts of cute pictures and videos 🥰

+ Redid the pin badge banner on my bedroom door, for more springy vibes. ( Wish I had more floral pins, but I feel nicely covered when it comes to work and life vibes. )

+ The online store with the biggest selection of tarot decks and books announced they were shutting down, so whups there goes another shopping spree. I really did want to put a whole lot more time into my new decks first, but that's how it goes. I'll finally have my hands on the supremely queer and joyful Supernova Tarot though!! Absolute delight in a box, cannot wait.As well as Kate Forsyth's Plant Oracle. I'm just really craving florals and animals lately. But mostly it was new books, including a year long work book. So that'll be interesting to tackle. Structure would do me good.

+ I've officially sent in my resignation at work. Wish I could roll around in relief, but of course all I'm feeling is overwhelmed and stressed about having to find something new. Still better than the toxic soup I was drowning in.

Turned to my tarot for a small soothing work reading.



Ah yes, 8 of Swords, my second in line stalker card. Confronting inner barriers, awareness of self-limiting beliefs, a shift of perspective for potential liberation. And Death, the end of one phase and the beginning of another. Embracing inevitable changes. As the foundation I pulled The Hierophant: spiritual wisdom, tradition, embodying guidance and mentorship.

The next couple of days I did three one card pulls, and well, let's just say [it's the same picture dot jpeg].



small
a seed already has the energy to begin
and then takes time in the dark underground,
supported and nourished by the soil, the matrix.
to have a foundation, to root.

•

Peppermint can dispel the mental chatter that prevents us from being present. They can allow our minds to be cool and clear. Peppermint offers perspective on how we see ourselves and how we engage with the world, showing us a way through the many layers of selves around which we build stories.

Peppermint is an excellent ally for transition.

•

No amount of clarity or visualization is possible without distancing oneself from the noise of the world. It can be challenging to take ourselves out of the flood of distractions we deal with minute by minute.

Seek out a place of stillness to hear what you need; time to meditate.

All in all a clear message. To honor it, after I'm done here I'll be brewing myself a cup of peppermint tea and tidying a bit, followed by a bath using a small Aromatgerapy Associates bottle I know contains peppermint. Then hop in bed with the window open to feel the breeze and do a body scan meditation (extremely likely to be followed by a nap heh). Bonus, this matches up perfectly with the exercise for my current Embodied Ecosystems Tarot task.

+ Now, you'd think I was done playing with my cards? lol nope. I just recently received The Intuitive Goddess Tarot, and decided to do their seven card chakra spread. ( Sparing you all my card blather. )

+ We're still open for offerings and requests at 3W4DW Tarot Reading, for anybody who's been thinking about joining in.

+ If you've ever wanted to give paid time a try on Dreamwidth, or would just like to top up your account, please do put your name in the hat. Multiple donors have signed on, we'd just like you to get something nice while supporting Dreamwidth ❤️

+ Tonight I'll play some more with the Star Wars Icon Pass It On. Stop by and drop some images for us to play with and make some shiny icons ✨

( Very belated SW icons recs/praise for May 4th, but hey, SO MANY PRETTIES. You should take a look, trust. )

Some of these iconners and their pages are lost to the sands of time, but many are still right here on Dreamwidth, and there's loads more icons to choose from. Very much recommend stopping by their communities and digging through their posts, and remember: if you snag an icon, let them know ❤️

Btw the Star Wars Icon Pass It On will run throughout the weekend, come join in! icons for all your space faves :D

It's May 4th, how about an impromptu icon pass it on?

+ Reply to a comment that has an image with the icon made from that image plus a new image for the next person to work with.
+ You can also start your own comment thread, supplying your own starter image.
+ Only one starter thread per person, but you can answer as many image prompts as you want (you leave an image yourself every time you post an icon).
+ It doesn't matter if someone else has already made an icon for an image, make your own, let's create a sprawling comments section of pretties! (want to icon an image you supplied? Once again, go for it!)
+ All Star Wars canon welcome, be it movies, shows, comics, games.
+ We'll keep it going for a week, until end of Sunday May 10th.

You can find various images here.
I'll post the first image in the comments below to get us going ♥

I joined in on lowering the urn for my grandmother yesterday. Unbeknownst to me, I had signed up for a full day of eating and talking at my aunt's. So now my brain is proper parboiled and I've reverted to couch potato. Making this the perfect time for: a real mishmash of links to clear out my tabs.
eta wipe-out and my period got together on crushing me and here I am, 2 days running, glued to said couch. (the weather is so nice outside, ugh *glares balefully at state of self*)

+ renay posted her 50th Intergalactic Mixtape 🥳 So many great links to find within, highly recommend. There's a reason it got nominated for the Hugos.

+ Why Angine de Poitrine's viral microtonal math rock KEXP session, Ireland's permanent basic income for artists, and Albert Einstein are three sides of the same human triangle.

+ Massive Attack / Tom Waits - Boots on the Ground. Really powerful music video.
Film created by Massive Attack (working with US photo artist thefinaleye). This montage work portrays a momentous American epoch that is yet to be named, and comes in the aftermath of the largest public protests in American history - focused on opposition to ICE raids, the militarisation of domestic forces, and state authoritarianism.

And Bette Midler did ALL YOU FASCISTS (Bound to Lose) <3

+ The passive income trap that ate a generation.
Where it went wrong is that the whole movement confused "build a good product that scales" with "build any mechanism that extracts money without you being involved." I don't think that confusion was accidental. I think the confusion was the point. Because if you're teaching people to build real businesses, you have to sit with hard, boring questions about whether anyone actually wants what you're selling. But if you're teaching people to build "passive income streams" you can skip all of that and go straight to the fun tactical shit. How to run Facebook ads, how to set up a Shopify store in a weekend, how to write email sequences that manipulate people into buying things they don't need.

+ What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos' private retreat.

+ Italy Suspends Defense Agreement With Israel Amid Mounting Public Pressure to Cut Ties.

+ A French city cut its marine pollution — and its seagrass bounced back.

+ NASA has an official Artemis II gallery. Go look at the pretty pretty spaaaace.

+ Japan’s Zine Boom: Self-Made Magazines Take Off in the AI Era.
Japan’s current zine boom is a bit of a divergence from these subcultural scenes of the past. Rather than zines being the extension of some other cultural practice, zines themselves are the focal point of the new movement. Zine content spans all manner of genres and interests: a kid’s self-published children’s books, a young mother’s child-rearing tips, an old couple’s poetry chapbook.


Giving up on the rest of the tabs to see if I can make it into the bath 🤞

Tomorrow is BandCamp Friday, meaning the artist gets a lot more of the money when you purchase their music. So I figured I'd recommend some recent-ish albums for y'all to check out.

War Child Records - Help 2.
Insupport of War Child's vital work delivering immediate aid, education, specialist mental health support, and protection to children affected by conflict around the world.

HELP(2) features an incredible line-up of contributors including Anna Calvi, Arctic Monkeys, Arlo Parks, Arooj Aftab, Bat For Lashes, Beabadoobee, Beck, Beth Gibbons, Big Thief, Black Country, New Road, Cameron Winter, Damon Albarn, Depeche Mode, Dove Ellis, Ellie Rowsell, English Teacher, Ezra Collective, Foals, Fontaines D.C., Graham Coxon, Greentea Peng, Grian Chatten, Kae Tempest, King Krule, Nilüfer Yanya, Olivia Rodrigo, Pulp, Sampha, The Last Dinner Party, Wet Leg and Young Fathers.

My World Is The Sun - Dominique Fils-Aimé
I've been listening to this a bunch the last couple of days. Soothing and emotional. Most likely my purchase tomorrow.

Anjimile - You're Free To Go
A songwriter that's new to me. Introspective, queer, aching, joyful. Reminds me it's been way too long since I've listened to Tracy Chapman.

Fantasy Life - Begonia
A voice I fell in love with the second I heard it. Soft, playful, great lyrics.

Altogether Stranger - Lael Neale
Indie pop tinged with strangeness in the best way.

The Former Site of - The New Pornographers
Complex arrangements and playfulness, but with a somber backbone.

And while I have you here I'm going to be a big sneaky cheeky and solicit your help in choosing my song for April. I have three I just can't decide between. Be my tie breakers? 🙏

trying times
make something up
wish you could see me i'm killing it

(it was fucking snowing today, big fat snowflakes if you can believe it)

That's right, iiiiit's 3weeks4dreamwidth time, and despite it starting on a Saturday it's still starting off strong. I'm very banged up from work so I won't be doing much this weekend. I did however offer tarot readings at tarot, for anybody who wants to stop by and offer/request a reading. (let me play with my pretty pretty cards 🙏)

I absolutely love tarot for the rich visuals and just how many different readings/thoughts it can prompt. And many people use tarot for creative work, storytelling, roleplaying... and so here it is, the prompt meme! Featuring The Mystical Dream Tarot & The Citadel: A Fantasy Oracle.


The Mystical Dream Tarot & Citadel Oracle
Prompt Meme
(no pic of Citadel Oracle as I'm reusing the old banner)

+ Post your creations either in the comments, or your own journal.
+ If you want it added to the masterlist, also link your creation in the Prompt Fills thread.
+ All works should be new for this meme, and not something you’ve already created/posted elsewhere.
+ Any and all works welcome. Poetry, meta, stories, memories, art, whatever comes to mind. Wanna crochet? That's fucking amazing. You do you.
+ Please use NSFW/trigger warnings in the comment title/masterlist comment if they apply.
+ I'll reply with the cards drawn to your comment. Feel free to ask for a new prompt if the first one falls flat (new comment). Do give the prompt a day to linger though, an idea might just jump out at you throughout the day. The cards tend to do that ;)
+ Taking prompt requests until Sunday, May 10th.

Right click + show image in new tab = full size image of your pull

Handy Dandy Request Format
<b>Deck:</b> <b>One/Three Cards:</b> <b>Text:</b> Y/N (trying to intuit from the image itself can be a lot of fun)

Handy Dandy Promo Code
<center><a href="https://goodbyebird.dreamwidth.org/570245.html"><img src="https://goodbyebird.dreamwidth.org/file/1357051.jpg"></a> <big>The Mystical Dream Tarot & Citadel Oracle <a href="https://goodbyebird.dreamwidth.org/570245.html">Prompt Meme</a></big> Open to all fanworks. Come play with us!</center>

Remember, this event is specifically for #ThreeWeeksForDreamwidth, so keeping your creation exclusive to Dreamwidth for the next three weeks is highly appreciated ♥

+ They landed safely huzzah! Science!!

+ Graveyard Keeper is free on Steam for a short while.

+ Mexico’s monarch butterfly population jumps 64%, offering hope for at-risk species.

+ Scientists watch sperm whales work as a team to assist a birth.

+ Forest growth in the EU outpaces harvesting.

+ Elusive nightjar birds making remarkable comeback, conservationists say.

+ Discovered the on board kiosk stocked my favorite potato chips this trip \o/

Following the current Artemis mission + rolling around in art and nature photography is keeping me going atm. Slingshotting in space!

+ The seagulls are napping and grooming on our windowsills a lot and it's been a treat. I often find myself watching Bird TV. With the stains on the glass they don't seem to notice us there, so you get a wild animal puffing up and resting 30cm from your face. Always a delight.

+ If like me you're still enamored with Project Hail Mary and need images to make icons from, theskyisnew's got you covered 👎

+ Sad Starfleet Academy got cancelled, though I strongly suspected that would be the case. What I didn't expect was that they'd already finished shooting season 2. So that's something. Probably a cliffhanger nightmare but I'll take it.

( Letter from Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau. )

+ Already considering rewarding myself with a purchase after the trip. The Embodied Ecosystems TarOracle is looking like a strong contender, both for the art/theming, and the chunky guidebook it comes with. But then there's the fanmade X-Files tarot I spotted that's calling to me. Hmm. (I finished season 1 btw. Mulder didn't know lycanthropy transferred through bites/scratches?? Press x-files to doubt. S2 will have Scully revert back to not believing in aliens, huh? I remember being extremely annoyed back in the day and surely that can't have been based off s1. Mulder's hot takes have been deserving of a defenestration sometimes multiple times per episode.)

+ 3weeks4dreamwidth is coming up, but I honestly feel there's not enough interest to make it work. I'm going to have to give it a think.

+ I'll be home in two and a half weeks so I'll just cling to that for now.

+ I'm back at work, though one day later than I expected to be. It'll be a shorter trip of only four weeks, so now I just need the fishery to be good. I'd love to come home without my brain leaking out my ears; it took me over two weeks to recoup last time.

+ 2026 is shaping up to be a great movie year. I highly recommend both The Testament of Ann Lee and Project Hail Mary, plus there's both Pillion and Dune 3 to look forwards to. I guess I can hope really hard they don't fuck up Ready or Not 2? (I'm definitely showing up either way, if only for the cast)

+ Other things to look forward to: Microsoft Flight Simulator is set to get its VR update sometime next month. So long as it's not borked on the base PS5, that's a day one purchase for me. There's a bunch of cities to fly around, a safari/hot balloon thing, helicopter rescue missions, etc. It might even be just the thing to let my mom play.

+ And on the subject of my mom: she'll be moving back home! My brother and his partner are splitting up, and my nephew is old enough that she doesn't see him that much anymore, so now she's looking for an apartment to buy. I'm really happy about it. Both for my own sake and for hers.

Now I just have to bee diligent with looking for places we can visit in England. Hoping we can do a fun two week vacation there in August.

Hey. Psst. Were you one of those kids that would find a pretty rock when out walking and you'd carry it with you for the rest of that adventure and put it in your pocket and whatnot? Go see Project Hail Mary at the cinema. Don't check out the trailer, just go.

(also featured: science! teamwork! nice knitted sweaters!)

+ London, San Francisco and Beijing achieve ‘remarkable reductions’ in air pollution.
“This report shows that cities can achieve what was once thought impossible: cutting toxic air pollution by 20-45% in a little over a decade,” said Cecilia Vaca Jones, executive director of Breathe Cities, one of the organisations behind the report. “This isn’t just happening in one corner of the world; from Warsaw to Bangkok, cities are proving that we have the tools to solve this crisis right now.”

+ Fifty years after New Zealand stopped whaling, humpback population showing signs of recovery.

+ Two pairs of beavers released in Cornwall.
Beavers became extinct from the wild in England more than 400 years ago due to hunting for their pelts, meat and glands.
The charity said beavers were increasingly recognised as one of nature's most important keystone species - animals whose presence shapes entire ecosystems.

+ The river otter’s remarkable comeback.

+ European Parliament Votes Overwhelmingly For "The Full Recognition Of Trans Women As Women".
Significantly, the vote gathered support not only from left-leaning groups but also from the majority of the European People's Party, the largest and most powerful center-right bloc in the European Parliament. The center-right support drew sharp criticism from the far right: the Patriots for Europe group, which includes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz and French far-right leader Marine Le Pen's National Rally, voted against the resolution and denounced its exclusion from negotiations over the text. The European Conservatives and Reformists, the group of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia, also voted against. But their combined opposition was not enough to block the resolution, which passed with support from a broad cross-ideological majority.

+ Ireland’s basic income for the arts scheme becomes permanent.

+ Why comics needs its own Criterion Closet, an inside look at THE STACKS.

+ stop counting. what you love matters..
Cardiff University's Dr Lucy Bennett put it well in that same piece: "Once taste is turned into a scoreboard with ratings, competition then inevitably follows." Which, yes — but I'd push that further. Competition doesn't just follow. It replaces something. In the war to protect a number, the actual shows get swallowed whole. Nobody in these review threads is talking about what made "Ozymandias" so devastating, or what any of these subsequent shows did differently. They’re just defending territory. The number had stopped being a representation of the thing and had become the thing itself.

+ Marvel Comics has the optimisation sickness.
The current status quo at Marvel seems to be that if a storyline is successful they'll publish too many comics about it and it will get derailed. If a storyline isn't successful enough they'll publish too many comics about it and it will get derailed.

+ The Secretive Company Filling Video Game Sites With Gambling And AI.
Chris Button, an Australian tech journalist and former contributor, wasn't pleased to see his old profile alongside the AI authors. All of his former articles were edited to include closing sections pointing to casino and betting guides. He attempted to have his author profile removed by emailing the new management of GamesHub, but he never received a response. However, he no longer appears on the Meet the Team page. Button is disappointed with what the site has become. "Seeing GamesHub transformed into a site promoting gambling is devastating, not just for those who wrote for the site, but for the industry the publication championed", he said.

+ Friendly reminder that The Importance of Being Earnest is available to watch for free a little while longer. Chaotic fun, highly recommend.

+ Dune Messiah traile dropped! I treated myself to one peek and one peek only. But I am vibrating.


+ The mountain in the middle of town is ah. On fire. 240 evacuated so far, including two of my friends and two of my friends' parents. Real windy outside. Not a good time.

Streaming for free here. I'm definitely watching this weekend :D

+ Very much had a plan to tidy my bedroom 100%, but then my dryer was like, "nah I'm not going to function" and I derailed completely. There's a couple more things I want to try to see if I can get it sorted, but if not I'll have to call for a repairperson ugh.

...so today I'm focused on cleaning the visible parts of my apartment instead lol.

+ Actually had lunch with a few of my friends today. It's been a while. Like, I didn't manage to meet a single one of them properly before Christmas even. How they all put up with a shut in like myself all these years, I just couldn't tell you. We tried a new noodle place, the food was excellent, I tried a marinated egg for the first time, and we were all laughing and enjoying ourselves.

One of my friends had helped clear out an apartment a couple of days ago, and when she saw the official and un-official guides for The X-Files in the donations box, she decided to grab them for me instead. Very sweet of her, and funny considering she did not know I'd just started watching s1 again.

+ Since AO3 seems to be fairly unstable atm I got some requests to do a new round of ao3_isdown, so come on over.

+ I've been fiddling with the idea for fannishtarot and running a Make Your Own Fandom Tarot event for a good long while now, gathering some quotes and such here and there. I think it would be such a rewarding way to deep dive into the tarot and also your own fandom(s) and fannish inclinations. Like, who or what would The Fool be to you in your chosen fandom? I think it'd be an excellent way to internalize a bunch of significators, etc. But I am not getting that started until I have a bunch more prep under my belt lol. I'd basically have to amass six months of posts beforehand, to make room for work schedules, travel, the occasional downtime/brain crash.

But it would be SO cool. I just hope some people will join in.

+ My Dune tarot will be arriving tomorrow, and I'd love to play with it a bunch. Let me know in the comments if you want me to do one of the book's spreads for you.

+ I may be somewhat trying to cope with the Horrors by making a big purchase, but I done did it: I ordered those oracles and the workbook I was eying + a tarot deck that spoke to me very loudly and was limited in quantities. Hopefully it doesn't take too long before it arrives so I can dip in before it's back off to work. Tomorrow's big plan is tidying and washing my entire bedroom, laundring the curtains, and set up a nice altar space on the top of my dressing commode.

+ Finished Fallout s2 and I'm happy with how their storylines turned out.( spoilery comment ) There was a small cut scene at the end in case anybody missed that.

+ Steam NEXT Fest is happening, and as usual I've managed to try next to nothing. Two big recommends: Esoteric Ebb and All Will Rise. They're both text-heavy, your choices matter kind of games. I'm gonna try to get a game in of Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes, Wax Heads, Above The Snow, WOODROT, I'm Making A Monster, Dosa Divas, Bookbinding, Twilight Imperium, and the new Moomintroll entry before the time runs out (in that order). 100% I'm going to fail at that.

btw how I loathe having to keep my enthusiasm in check until I've had a scroll to look for AI usage.

+ Why all science fiction and fantasy writers are historians by Ada Palmer.

+ The SEA Is Whose?, Ethnic Entanglements in Southeast Asian SFF, an essay.

+ European bison arrive in the Iberian Highlands for the first time.

+ Botswana shows how smarter cattle herding can save lions, reopen ancient wildlife pathways.

+ youtuberecs is a fun community I just became aware of!

+ Soda Blonde released a new song/video, Suit & Tie, and I dig em both. Weird women in suits on the moors. Mud. Pretty horsie. What's not to like.

+ Forbrukerrådet is a Norwegian consumer council that's focused on making sure customers are treated fairly and not scammed, etc. Big big fan. And they've just released an ad on enshittifaction that is top notch.

+ Now there's daylight again and I've riffled through it plenty, here's my favorite cards from the Curious Travels Tarot.


You can't at all see the pearlescent shimmer the cardstock is infused with, but it is beautiful. Also this is a Claudia deck to me (I am not responsible for the connections my blender brain makes when I have a hyper fixation).

Spent last night going through my decks and if I see the opportunity to do so locally, there's a bunch of oracles and one tarot that just didn't work for me and I'd love to rehome. Very grumpy the one alternative shop that opened in town barely lasted a few months. Flip side my wish list has grown massive, and with some very much not mass market wants. Especially the Motherwitch Oracle, and both Wisdom of the Divine Feminine/Wisdom of the Shadow + workbook, and the Reclaim Oracle seems to align strongly with the kind of work I'd like to do.

For tarot decks there's less than a handful of strong wants, but it's not like my current decks can't cover that need. I'm really just being greedy there. (gotta keep reminding myself of that: girl your needs are MET). But also, so many fandom decks are happening. The Dune one already ambushed me.

Anyways, linkspam of Ew Gross/Boo Hiss? Yes?

+ AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations. (this is paywalled)
Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases.

+ AI data centre growth could put UK net zero targets under fresh pressure.
...how 140 data centres are currently seeking grid connections with a combined peak demand of 50GW. That figure is striking because it is higher than Britain’s recent peak electricity demand of 45GW.

I know there's a very big queue of centres wanting to get built here as well. As if electricity isn't extravagantly expensive as is.

+ Oh hey, a somewhat cheerful one! 'Breweries using AI could put artists out of work'.
Following conversations with the Free Trade Inn, in Ouseburn, the two venues came together to announce on social media they would no longer be accepting AI art, including on bottles and pump clips, in order to try to protect local artists from losing out on work.

I really do need 2026 to be the year the bubble goes POP.