Grrl Power #1445 – Pinocchi-oh no!

Mar. 23rd, 2026 10:00 am
[syndicated profile] grrlpowercomic_feed

Posted by DaveB

Maxima obviously has extraordinarily strong bones and ligaments and tendons etc – like, “make a space elevator cable out of that stuff” strong, so when she cracks her joints, it sound a bit like the 1812 Overture. The version where they fire actual cannons to go along with the symphony.

Fun fact, in panel 2, I had planned to draw Cora with her arm somehow extended out so she was covering herself from “4th wall camera angle” POV, but… there just wasn’t a natural angle that didn’t either look like she was intentionally being modest, which she wouldn’t be, or didn’t look like I had grabbed a 3D model by the elbow joint and just yanked it into position with no thought to how humans actually move their limbs. So, poor planning on my part. Instead I’m pretending like she put up a modesty filter than only Maxima can see somehow.

Technically, they’re on P.T.O. – I know it’s called “leave” in the military, but they’re a domestic branch, so a lot of people on the team call it P.T.O. – so Maxima can’t officially get upset at Sydney or Harem for having a topless watch party with “friends of the team.” Honestly, she’s not so much a stick in the mud that she’d even care, especially while coming down from her battle royale adrenaline high. If Harem and Cora sit down at the dinner table later with their knoks out (which is British slang, I assume for “knockers” that I heard once on… Blackadder? Or Red Dwarf. Definitely one of the two.) then Max might at least tell Harem to go teleport a shirt on. (She can’t teleport things to her, but she’s trying to learn to teleport small things that one of her is holding to another her. No luck yet.)


Ah! I thought I had more time till March. I’m bad at looking at dates apparently. The new one is underway. I should have a draft ready to go for the next Monday comic?

Here is Gaxgy’s painting Maxima promised him. Weird how he draws almost exactly like me.

I did try and do an oil painting version of this, by actually re-painting over the whole thing with brush-strokey brushes, but what I figured out is that most brushy oil paintings are kind of low detail. Sure, a skilled painter like Bob Ross or whoever can dab a brush down a canvas and make a great looking tree or a shed with shingles, but in trying to preserve the detail of my picture (eyelashes, reflections, etc) was that I had to keep making the brush smaller and smaller, and the end result was that honestly, it didn’t really look all that oil-painted. I’ll post that version over at Patreon, just for fun, but I kind of quit on it after getting mostly done with re-painting Max.

Patreon has a no-dragon-bikini version of of the picture as well, naturally.


Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.

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[personal profile] siderea
Boston locals! Blue Heron, an acapella early music ensemble, is throwing a three-day shindig to celebrate Guillaume de Machaut (died 1377), May 1-3, mostly involving talks about Machaut's works, talks about his lyrics, talks about the illuminations in the manuscripts his works come from, concerts of his music, and also a little ars subtilior tacked on the end just because.

More info https://www.blueheron.org/machaut-weekend/

Affordability note: They have a free ticket option as part of the "Card to Culture program" for people with EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare(!) cards*, and a discounted "low cost" option.

Of note, the "Opening Festivities: Keynote, Performance & Sing-Along" on Friday night includes (emphasis mine):
a keynote talk by one of the world’s leading scholars of 14th-century music, Anne Stone (CUNY Graduate Center), performances of pieces in several of the genres represented in Machaut’s oeuvre, and a sing-along of the Kyrie from the Messe de Nostre Dame.
Which: huh. Huh. The Kyrie, huh? Wow. Now that is certainly a choice. I commend their bravery. Were I in better health, I would consider showing up just to be in on the shenanigans.

If you're curious what the Kyrie from Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame sounds and looks like, here you go.

* There is no separate ConnectorCare card like there is for MassHealth. They mean your regular insurance card, which if it's a ConnectorCare plan should say so on it, or so the Mass Cultural Council, whose program it is, thinks.

Foxfibre [text/ag]

Mar. 23rd, 2026 01:01 am
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[personal profile] siderea
The YouTube algorithm pseudorandomly served me this, thereby answering the question I'd had on a distant back burner forever, "Hey, didn't I hear something about colored cotton cultivars once upon a time? Cotton that you didn't need to dye? Like back in the 90s?"

If you are a fellow fiber freak or interested in agriculture or organic crops or the underappreciated problem of sustainable clothing production, you may find this as fascinating as I did:

2026 Mar 7: Good Yarn Bad Knits [goodyarnbadknits YT]: "The Yarn That Almost Saved The World"

A Profusion of Blossoms

Mar. 22nd, 2026 05:47 pm
[personal profile] ndrosen
We’ve had warm weather Saturday and today, and there is a profusion of cherry blossoms on multiple trees that had only buds or a few starting flowers recently.

The Red Queen’s Race

Mar. 22nd, 2026 01:04 pm
[personal profile] ndrosen
I finished an Office Action on what was my oldest Regular New (non-RCE) application of the biweek Saturday evening, just in time to have it credited for last biweek, and put my production for the biweek at an acceptable level.

Now I need to do well this last biweek of the second quarter. I have nothing on my Amended docket; I have an oldest Regular New (non-RCE) case, and an oldest Regular New Request for Continued Examination case.

Our God, our help in ages past

Mar. 22nd, 2026 11:59 am
marycatelli: (Dawn)
[personal profile] marycatelli
Our God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
Read more... )

A blessed Lent!

Mar. 22nd, 2026 11:25 am

vignettes

Mar. 22nd, 2026 10:54 am
marycatelli: (Default)
[personal profile] marycatelli
This week's prompt is:
bell 🔔

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term. Any (G or PG) definition of the word can be used.

Episode 2755: The Sting

Mar. 22nd, 2026 09:13 am
[syndicated profile] darths_and_droids_feed

Episode 2755: The Sting

If your players aren't that interested in your pre-planned read-aloud description text, then don't force them to listen to it.

Just move straight on to the bit where they poke around the room and die to the trap that would have been obvious if they'd listened to the whole description.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Never mind, I guess Rey is impatient or something. At least she's giving the rest of the Resistance a call so they can try and follow. No way is Poe/Jim going to let a chance for a heroic sacrifice space fight go by without jumping in himself. If the pyramid really is necessary to safely fly to the destination though, I don't foresee much success in that attempt. Maybe the pyramid can be used to send a copy of its navigational data? If there's a hardware mod involved though, Jim might be out of luck.

It's almost a shame Kylo's stuck on Phanastacoria. He acts so stupid about Rey, it'd be easy to get him to try and order the First Order to follow Rey. Watching the First Order guess and check their way in would be a valid method of safely following I think. I know Star Wars sensors are pretty good, but they've always seemed limited to looking through the emptiness of space. Who knows how well they'd do for hyperspace or for whatever this red stuff actually is, however. Or if there's even a First Order fleet we'll end up seeing.

The X-wing flying through the red stuff does look pretty neat though. It's pretty washed out on the red side, but that's probably because it's a still image. I think the X-wing could be much more readable with the contrast of a mostly static nebula-like background.

Transcript

"Dum superbit impius" [music, pols]

Mar. 22nd, 2026 12:31 am
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[personal profile] siderea
[requires both audio and video]

Jonasquin on YT (previously) has written a wholly original motet in the 16th century style after Desprez upon the cantus firmus "Seven Nations Army", for the words of Psalm 10, verses 2, 3, 7-11.

Comment would be superfluous.

2026 Mar 20: Jonasquin YT: "A 16th century motet for the US President"



Click through to the video on YT to see the translation in the description.

down with denouement

Mar. 21st, 2026 06:49 pm
marycatelli: (Default)
[personal profile] marycatelli
Denouement is dumb.

I know exactly what has to be revealed. It's not even that much, and only one character can do it.

But I didn't work where. Or with what other events happening about it to give the story shape.

Denouement is dumb.

A rather busy Friday

Mar. 20th, 2026 11:56 pm
wombat_socho: (Catholic)
[personal profile] wombat_socho
 There wasn't much going on at work, but I spent an hour and a half doing it anyway, which got me a little over ten hours for the week. Sure hope it picks up in April. Hell, I hope it picks up NOW. Where is everybody?

My regular clinician Julie is back from maternity leave (mom & baby doing well) and we talked a lot about my weird BP readings, which should have me passing out or at least being wobbly, but I'm not. We agreed that it would make more sense to take it sitting down at the desk instead of lying down in bed, so starting tomorrow, that's what I'll do.  

Lost two out of three to the Royals tonight, which balances the 2-1 series against the Brewers earlier in the week. 

This afternoon I had a couple Big Fish, O-rings, and Diet Coke at the BK before stopping at the post office, where I just found junk mail and the current StippleAPA but not the Ozempic the VA sent me. Gave the APA a cursory read-through and laughed at my fellow accountant going apeshit over comments I made that weren't directed to her. Welp. Got a couple weeks to think about it. 

Picked up more tea, English muffins, some pistachios and tater tots, which I had originally intended to have with the popcorn shrimp, but after consuming the fish sammiches I felt that would be wretched excess. So I'll eat them next week. 

Paid the Frontier bill and the Fission-chan credit card. Also, since I broke one of the latte cups I use for flax muffins, I hunted the original order down on Amazon, threw $50 from PenFed at the Synchrony card, and ordered replacements.

Chuck Norris died last night, and of course the jokes were all over X. So were the savage responses to a limp-dicked obituary in Variety. 

Cat ...

Mar. 20th, 2026 10:10 pm
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
... Make better choices.


Yellface went into Mila's room, hid under a table, beefed with Mila in some fashion, and was hauled ignominiously out.


As for me, my rescheduled retina appointment went fine. Some of the issues have cleared up. Prognosis very good. I had to transfer between power chair and clinic chair three times. As I told them on the final occasion: I have a bad knee and a worse knee. Trying CBD ointment in addition to Voltaren, on the advice of my now-former primary care. (And I know who my new primary care is going to be, yay.)

It's possible that my retina appointments this year are cursed. On the last attempt, my car was so low on battery that it died at an intersection and there was a whole drama with a guy who scared the whole block and tried to open my car door. This time we got there okay, but Belovedest suffered a flat tire while out with [personal profile] alexseanchai later in the day. This wrapped up with Thorn having to come rescue that Toaster with a wrench that actually fit the nuts. (Cue penis measuring jokes.)

The cost of literacy [medieval hist]

Mar. 20th, 2026 10:33 pm
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[personal profile] siderea
I knew that other contemporaneous cultures than those of Europe had unfathomably higher numbers of books than Europeans did, but I didn't know about this in retrospect obvious reason why:

2026 Mar 19: Dwarkesh Patel feat. Ada Palmer [DwarkeshPatel YT]: "Why Medieval Books Cost as Much as a House" (1 min, 7 sec):


Without papyrus, what you're writing on is a dead sheep. And if you think of the price of a head of lettuce and the price of a leather jacket, you're understanding the difference between a sheet of papyrus and writing on a dead sheep. So every page of a medieval book is as expensive as that much of a leather jacket. And a medieval book hand written costs as much as a house.

And so to have a library is to be not just rich but mega rich. So only the wealthiest cities contain anybody who has a library. The great library of the University of Paris, the library from Europe's perspective, has 600 books.

There's definitely more than 600 books in this room. Every kiosk at an airport selling Dan Brown novels has more than 600 books. This is nothing.

And at the same time as that, in the Middle East, sultans have libraries of over a thousand books or 5,000 books. There are libraries in Sub-Saharan Africa with thousands of books.* There are libraries in China with thousands of books. Because they in China have cheap paper and rice paper. The Middle East has papyrus.

Europe, and only Europe, is writing on a leather jacket.
* Three hundred thousand. It's been thirteen years and I am still not remotely over that fact. Every time I encounter it anew, my SCA persona gets acrophobic trying to imagine a library that big and has to sit down and put her head between her knees so she doesn't pass out.

Worldbuilding Ex 2026

Mar. 20th, 2026 09:24 pm
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[personal profile] desertvixen
Under consruction
siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
The previously expected ICE enforcement surge never materialized. Curious.

I wonder if this just means they're short-staffed. Or perhaps distracted.

(I also wonder if somebody made a judgment call not to try what they did in MN in MA, but have largely rejected the notion. It would not be to anybody's advantage if they did, on either side, but I'm not seeing a lot of good judgment in evidence anywhere.)

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