offcntr | Network

The 5 Calls campaign to stop the military escalation in Venezuela.

I'm pulling my head out of fandomspace and freaking out about my real life!space to address this absolutely unnecessary clusterfuck that absolutely no one asked for except Donald Trump and his pet Ghoulstapo assholes.

I wasn't able to make any of the protests today because of family issues, but I'm sure there will continue to be protests as the fuckery continues, so I'll make it to one eventually.

Cue "I can't believe I still have to protest this shit" shit.

Current Mood.

ccpro

венесуэла наш?
си может забирать себе тайвань, а сасш должна боятся санкций

x-posted from livejournal.com.

Current Mood: ппп

theradicalchild

I had decent sleep despite having to get up to pee during the night, and cuddling my Blåhaj seems to keep me well-rested, and my sleep score was good.

I went to the United Methodist Men's breakfast in town, and they were mostly serving kolaches and pastries. I didn't stay long.

Then I took a walk in the city park, and the weather was decent, and I wore my poncho.

Then I shopped for a few things at Walmart.

It's also my laundry day, so I did that.

Some jerkwad on the

addme community left a nasty comment on my intro post whining I was a transphobe, so I screencapped it and informed the group admins and I did get a response from one that they would do something. I then reported the comment as spam. Definitely my first major test of the new year, and I think I passed. I think this same person had left a similar remark before when I posted an intro post earlier this year. I'll try not to let that shit get to me.

Here's a comic I did on that.

Cult(ure) of victimhood is a term I picked up from The Gender Trap, and it seems another form of narcissism since narcissists always come up with bullshit sob stories about how they're heroes or victims but never villains, and my parents have always loved doing that. I'll admit I sometimes played victim in the past, but I did often acknowledge I was wrong, which my parents and those who wronged me often refused to say they were.

I started reading The Navigating Fox by Christopher Rowe on my Kindle, the first fiction book I've read in ages--I've mostly been reading nonfiction--and it's a fun story thus far, though I still struggle with fiction as I was before and don't read as fast I used to.

I had ordered this autism awareness cross in hopes I could also use it in a necklace with a chain but it turned out to be way bigger than I expected, and I ended up hanging it above my apartment entrance.

I'm still trying to work on typing up my prequel from my notebooks but it's still really slow-going, and thinking about current events weighs heavily on my mind. I don't bother with lamestream media outlets anymore since they're really not subtle about their bias, full of one-sided stories, and more present opinions than the truth--and so-called "fact checkers" are far more thought police than anything else. Shit like global warming being an impending disaster, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and COVID being a lab leak initially said to be "misinformation" were eventually proven otherwise, and I think nowadays we might as well call conspiracy theories logical assumptions.

Apparently Nicolás Maduro (president of Venezuela) and his wife were captured by US forces. I know we've been in a huge drug war with them, and remember Manuel Noriega got the same treatment from George HW. They're also one of Russia's allies, so I guess it's part of trying to cut them off and hopefully stop their war with Ukraine. Apparently the oil profits of Venezuela and American oil companies will help fund a transition instead of our tax money, which is definitely better than the billions we pissed away on Ukraine--and Zelenskyy's just as despotic a leader as Putin--and past regime changes like Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Venezuelans seem to be happy. The leader of the Venezuelan opposition had won the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

I know the Aayatolah's another ally of Putin and may be next given the protests in Iran, and I definitely say bring back the shah--not forcefully, though. Obama and Biden actually helped fund Iran's nuclear weapon programs, and USAID sent tons of money to America's enemies like Hamas and al-Qaeda as well. The Afghan and Second Iraq Wars were definitely mistakes, though (since the former was basically another Vietnam, but Saddam did deserve to die), but I know Trump's definitely choosing his battles far more wisely than past presidents and is just trying to undo decades of bad foreign policy.

I'm definitely sick of war just as the next person but this is pretty much the price of decades of globalism, and Biden's open borders policies didn't really help--I know Maduro emptied his mental institutions and prisons as a result, and I hope we get all those foreign insurrectionists out of America. And the tariffs are supposedly helping our national security as well, and I hope like fuck the Supreme Court keeps them in place. I wouldn't mind that $2000 rebate Trump's been proposing, and it would take a huge chunk out of my credit card debt.

Between that and all the money laundering going on in places like Minnesota with the Somalians--there are actually rumors Tampon Tim might have been behind former Democrat Minnesota Speaker Melissa Hortman's murder since she was voting against and possibly trying to expose all that shit--and California with Gavin Newscum's money laundering (I definitely don't want the rest of America to become like Cali), along with tons of proof of election fraud, huge things are definitely going down this year. Audit all our tax money across America, and our elections.

We fucking need to mandate proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote. You have to present a photo ID to buy alcohol and tobacco. The only reason you would oppose that is if you wanted to rig elections. And get rid of voting machines entirely, since they were hacked and led to the 2020 election being rigged, and do paper ballots and one-day voting and one-day vote counting only, and no same-day voter registration, period, or huge pre-Election Day trimesters. We need ranked voting and proportional representation as well so voters can vote for third-party candidates without fear of getting someone they hate elected--though it doesn't help the media pretends third-party candidates don't exist.

And I think increasing the number of members of the House of Representatives, maybe somewhere to 500, (and make the Speaker not a member of Congress like they used to be and be able to cast a tie-breaking vote) would maybe make gerrymandering more difficult--I know Texas and other Red states redrew their districts, and California got rid of its independent redistricting committee and did so as well along with a few other Blue states--and that will be a huge thing in the midterms, which will definitely be messy.

Regardless of how you feel about America now, we are definitely in what will easily be the most difficult stage of history books over the next few decades.

Current Mood: okay

thistleingrey

A web search, its results no doubt infested with sloppy attempts to gain page views, indicates that if I like reading (some of) Ann Cleeves's novels, I would also like the work of

Louise Penny
Elly Griffiths
Richard Osman
Tana French
Kate Ellis
Val McDermid
Kia Abdullah

I'm happy to wade through a novel or two apiece, but if anyone has thoughts on these, I'm interested! Any writers you'd add? (ETA Janice Hallett has been suggested in the comments.)

I've bounced off the first two French titles, some years ago (though I may try her newer setting). McDermid seems more thriller-angled somehow. Isn't Abdullah known for tense courtroom scenes?

Perhaps relevant: I don't love Cleeves's work and have bounced off at least three of her novels, but (this is positive!) her fiction has reliably been just interesting enough, just intricate enough, to feel soothing when I'd like not to be surprised much by a novel. To me, her stories emphasize humans and their places. I prefer the Matthew Venn sequence to Vera Stanhope or Jimmy Perez because Venn makes the investigations almost an ensemble effort---trickier to write, perhaps.

cantanapoli

Я слежу за происходящим в россии двадцать с гаком лет — но кое-что таки упустил. Внимание видимо было на чем-то другом.

Знаете, это как с работой иллюзиониста, когда красивый жест и щелчок пальцами на полсекунды отвлекает внимание от того что делает вторая, рабочая рука фокусника.

Как вышло что огромная постсоветская страна с тем уровнем ностальгии по советскому прошлому, с теми названиями улиц и теми памятниками что есть — ухитрилась вдруг обернуться «форпостом правого движения»?

Откуда сгустился этот образ «верующей белой страны», усердно насаждаемый и в самой россии и в зарубежной правой тусовке? С этим процентом разводов, некомплектных семей и неуплаченных алиментов?

Как получилось что компартия, вроде бы намертво связанная в общественном сознании с пресловутым пломбиром за 22 копейки, ГОСТами, советскими фильмами, над которыми рыдмя рыдают ностальгирующие постсоветские жители — оказалась в политическом поле даже не на вторых ролях?

Или вот — отношение к женщине. Да, безусловно в советское время довольно много было проявлений мачизма/сексизма, особенно ближе к эпицентру — 50-ым годам. Но к 70-ым, не говоря о 80-ых ситуация начала выравниваться, женщины были представлены во всех частях жизни, кроме, пожалуй, высшей номенклатуры.

И вдруг — на тебе, оказывается что женщина должна сидеть дома в платочке и рожать и рожать богатырей в своих двухкомнатных малогабаритных хоромах.

И самое главное — я не могу ухватить где был стык, где одна очевидность заменилась другой. В 2012-ом? В 2014-ом? в 2017-ом?

Хотя возможно это и есть суть этого фокуса — ловкость рук иллюзиониста привела к тому что россияне так и не поняли что эти руки вытащили у них из карманов даже не кошелек, а будущее их страны.

dolari

That's a helluva thing to wake up to.

icanhascheezburger_feed

Posted by Mariel Ruvinsky

https://cheezburger.com/10591868160/the-start-of-a-new-year

icanhascheezburger_feed

Posted by Sarah Brown

https://cheezburger.com/43858437/22-sleepless-memes-of-cats-with-no-respect-for-sleep

Anyone who lives with cats knows that a "sleep schedule" is more of a suggestion than a rule. Humans might believe nighttime is for rest, but cats follow a different clock entirely, one powered by midnight zoomies, surprise toe attacks, and very loud hunger announcements. Sharing a home with cats means accepting that sleep will be interrupted and that exhaustion is simply part of the purr-package.

Bad sleep with cats isn't accidental, it's carefully orchestrated. Just as deep sleep hits, a cat steps directly on your bladder or decides your face is the perfect place to sit. Doors must be opened and closed repeatedly, not because they need anything, but because they can. These moments are delivered with confidence, as if being awake together is a bonding activity.

Over time, humans adjust. Alarms become unnecessary when cats provide a daily dawn chorus. Coffee intake increases, productivity dips, and tired eyes become a badge of honor. Sure, the sleep deprivation is real, but so is the joy of being chosen as the midnight companion. Love, apparently, comes with whiskers and terrible timing.

The real injustice is that cats spend the entire day sleeping peacefully, curled up and completely unbothered by the chaos they caused overnight. Their humans stumble through life asking if this level of tired is normal. It is. This is simply the purrice of living with cats, where sleep is optional but affection is guaranteed, even if it arrives at 3 a.m.

https://cheezburger.com/43858437/22-sleepless-memes-of-cats-with-no-respect-for-sleep

china_shop

Swirly multicoloured doodle in colour pencil. Looks a bit like a person with a topknot.

soc_puppet posting in

anime_manga

Humble Bundle is at it again, teaming up with Dark Horse to bring you a huge bundle of 1970s manga by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.

This bundle includes:

Lone Wolf and Cub, volumes 1 thru 28

Path of the Assassin, volumes 1 thru 15

Samurai Executioner, volumes 1 thru 10

Crying Freeman, volumes 1 thru 5

Lady Snowblood, volumes 1 thru 4

Color of Rage (single volume)
You can get the entire bundle for $18; you can also get the first volume of each series (minus Color of Rage) for only $1.

This bundle supports The Hero Initiative:

The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book artists and craftsmen in need. Hero Initiative creates a financial safety net for yesterday's creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. It's a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment.

Since its inception, The Hero Initiative has had the good fortune to grant over $700,000 to the comics veterans who have paved the way for those in the industry today.

If you scroll down on the right hand side of the Humble Bundle page, you can also find an area where you can adjust how much of your purchase goes to which organization (the charity, the publisher, and Humble Bundle, respectively), with a minimum mandatory amount to Humble Bundle as the host.

With most manga ebook volumes costing around $7 USD (sometimes fifty cents less, sometimes a few dollars more), you only need to be interested in three of the volumes available in the complete bundle to justify the cost—and the total bundle has 63 volumes! That's around twenty-nine cents per tankoubon.

You can find out more information about the various series at the Humble Bundle link. Definitely worth checking out if even one of the titles catches your interest, IMO.

This bundle will close in about three weeks.

grammar_glamour

На Новий рік, 1 січня, кримчанин Богдан уперше приїхав до Києва з окупованого півострова. Дорогою він провів ніч в укритті на вокзалі в Ковелі через атаку російських ударних дронів Shahed по Україні. Про переїзд на підконтрольну Україні територію хлопець мріяв ще з 12 років

За словами хлопця, кордон він перетнув на Волині. У Ковелі, очікуючи потяг, був змушений ночувати в укритті через повітряну тривогу.

"Коли я переходив кордон, побачив прапор і напис "Вас вітає вільна Україна". Я не міг у це повірити, бо думав, що обов’язково виникнуть проблеми. Світла не було, я сидів на вокзалі в Ковелі — це не страшно, просто незвично. Я вважав, що тут значно спокійніше, ніж ближче до фронту", — поділився він.

Богдан розповів, що ще у 2018 році, у 12-річному віці, почав критично сприймати інформацію: мав доступ до інтернету й отримував знання не лише зі школи чи від родичів.

"Я зрозумів, що Росія — не та країна, де я буду щасливий. Відтоді я хотів поїхати до України. Родичі тоді не дозволяли — у нас були різні погляди. Але в мене вже був план і друзі", — зазначив він.

https://zahid.espreso.tv/suspilstvo-mriyav-povernutis-z-12-rokiv-krimchanin-na-noviy-rik-vtik-v-ukrainu-provivshi-pershu-nich-v-ukritti-kovelya

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: enthralled

muccamukk

I needed a novel to round out my holiday reading, so I picked up "Mr. Rowl" by D.K. Broster (who wrote part of the Gay Jacobite Extended Universe). I'd read a couple reviews, but they were long enough ago that I remembered the following:

1. There are no gay Jacobites.
2. Because it's set during the Napoleonic War.
3. One of the characters (Raoul des Sablière) is a French officer who is a prisoner of war in England.
4. Everyone is very worried about their honour.
5. Readers of my acquaintance ship the French prisoner with an English dude.
6. The ladies are cool.

So I go into the book and immediately meet Raoul, and start looking for whoever I'm supposed to ship him with.

I meet Sir Francis, who is a handsome English Lord who Does Not Like Raoul. This seems like it's probably who I'm supposed to ship.

Except! Sir Francis is immediately a controlling dick to his fiancée. I have pretty generous shipping goggles, when need be, but I don't think anyone could read Sir Francis as being a controlling dick because he wants to be with Raoul. He's just a dick. He is very worried about his honour, though, so it did seem somewhat likely that he might still be the one.

No, one character being a dick has not slowed fandom down before. But isn't usually 100% my thing. So then I was feeling a little sad that I wasn't going to be into the pairing my friends like.

However, as I got farther into the book, and Sir Francis became even more of a dick, I was like, "This is going to be one hell of a redemption arc!" But also doubt.jpg. Also, also, wow, it's funny to have mostly aligned ships with someone, then have them be ride or die for something that's rapidly turning into a NOTP for me.

Finally, I broke and looked at AO3, and figured out I'm supposed to ship Raoul with some guy who has not yet showed up, as of 20% of the novel.

Which is a relief. Because I quite like Raoul, even if he has the Broster characteristic of being slightly silly about his honour, and he deserves better than Sir Francis, who is a dick.

lassarina

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

lycomingst

Snowflake Challenge #2

Challenge #2: Pets of Fandom

Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want

I have two cats. In the last place I lived I fed the strays everyday. In the summer I had an open window and some of the cats came inside when they wanted. It was open house! I took these two to the vet, spayed/neutered, chipped. They were mine now.

The female surprised me. I thought she was a kitten and I could only tell her from the other gray small cat because of the rings on her tail. But the vet said she was about three. Now she's a little bigger and kinda chubby.

They get along and groom each other but are ready to start a John Wick type fight at any moment. They both really, really want to go outside and I have to go in and out by the back door because I can close the laundry room door before I open the back one.
Thwarted.

Fanwise, I get upset at Dr Who because they kill animals too often, like the dinosaurs. And that cat in the last Dr incarnation.

rebeccmeister

On New Year's Day Mom and I set out from her house in Seattle to Hood River, with a stop at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. We drove east along winding Highway 14 in the rain, with a brief stop at Beacon Rock, then headed across the Button Bridge to Hood River. After some coffee, checking in to the Best Western, and dinner at a restaurant called Hindustani, we drove over to Portland to pick up my brother, then back to the hotel to call it a night.

On Friday, after a leisurely breakfast, we drove up along the Klikitat River to Herland Forest, where our Dad is buried and decomposing; it's a green burial site. The freezing rain was cold but the place was beautiful with the wintry lichens and mosses coating the oaks and pines. Then back along the Klikitat, where we stopped frequently so my brother could look for birds, but most especially swans, which he ultimately did not see.

After a second night in Hood River, we set out for Portland again this morning, this time stopping at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery where we got to see the enormous white sturgeon, and then Multnomah Falls where I couldn't resist climbing all the way to the scenic overlook at the top of the falls.

So I've taken a million photos and short videos, but I don't know when I will actually get to posting them. I'm so glad we were able to do and see so much, and my legs will probably be sore tomorrow from the impromptu hike today. The hike up to the top of the falls isn't long, just a mile and change, but I was wearing my everyday clogs, carrying a backpack, and trying to maintain a decent clip. So, a good bit of exercise.

Tonight, the conference I'm in Portland for will get underway, then I suspect it will be another early bedtime for me. I've gotten this sinus/pressure headache down to a background ache, but more rest would be nice before the conference gets into full swing.

stel posting in

addme_fandom

dusting off this journal, so i thought it’d be fun to make some fandom friends…

name: stel

age group: young adult, think mid-2000s

country: the usa

subscription/access policy: feel free to subscribe if you jive with me and what i post! i tend to subscribe back if we have shared interests. i don’t have access-locked posts at the moment, so no policy there as of yet.

fannish interests: mostly undertale/deltarune. i like making + viewing fanworks (art, fic, webshrines). i’m also a big selfshipper!

i like to post about: mostly ramblings about my life and the stuff i’m thinking about, which usually aren’t super deep or consequential. i just like to yap and share :]

about me/other info: i’m gen-z and that’s quite apparent in the way i talk and the things i talk about! i’m not very good at talking to people, but i do love to chat. i’m queer and really not a fan of gen-ai for art/writing/etc. i don’t like to participate in ship discourse—i do think there’s value in exploring darker themes in fiction, but i’m less comfortable when this is done with the intention of glorification.

vibez posting in

bakerstreet

FUCK*, MARRY, OR KILL
a game with a twist

You know the game: now, let’s dabble in a version that’s a little bit unusual.

how to play
○ Do the comment do.
○ Folks line up to say whether they would fuck* (*kiss, if your character's underage or you're not into R-rated dialogue), marry, or kill your guy.
○ Rinse. Repeat. ♾️

petra

In light of the fact that the current leader of my country has kidnapped the leader of a different country and vowed to install his own puppet regime, I am increasing my "Donate 25 USD, get fiction or poetry" offer to include Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières as well as food banks & food pantries.

If you gave to a food distribution network or MSF in the last quarter of 2025, feel free to make a request.

If you're reading this thinking, "Even a donation of $25 is out of my budget, but gosh, I would just love it if Petra wrote for me," go request something for More Joy Day instead. No donation required; just find a way to honor More Joy Day and lighten someone else's day.

Current Mood: hopeful despite the horrors
Current Music: Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more

birdwatcher

Оказывается, Цукерберг помогал своей цензурой не только научному жулью, но и любому другому.
technology.org -- Meta generated over $3 billion in 2024 from Chinese ads promoting scams, illegal gambling, and pornography—roughly 19% of its $18 billion China revenue. After a brief enforcement push cut fraudulent ads in half, Zuckerberg ordered teams to “pause” the crackdown, disbanding the anti-scam unit entirely. Chinese scammers face minimal consequences because Meta’s “whitelisting” system protects ads from agency partners, letting banned content run for days while awaiting human review.

Profile

offcntr

Off Center Ceramics

January 2026

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Page Summary

numb3r_5ev3n - 5 Calls | Stop the Military Escalation with Venezuela
ccpro - сиюминутное хвилосовское
theradicalchild - Criss-Cross
thistleingrey - not yet reading
cantanapoli - Re: Ассимиляция
dolari - (no subject)
icanhascheezburger_feed - The Start Of A New Year
icanhascheezburger_feed - 22 Sleepless Memes of Cats With No Respect for Sleep
china_shop - Another doodle, hi
soc_puppet in anime_manga - Humble Bundle: Lone Wolf and Cub (plus more!)
grammar_glamour - Мріяв повернутись з 12 років: кримчанин на Новий рік втік в Україну
princessofgeeks - Random TV canon musings: Heated Rivalry
muccamukk - "Mr. Rowl" so far
lassarina - 2025 In Review: Media Edition
lycomingst - (no subject)
rebeccmeister - Nisqually, Columbia, Klikitat, Hood, Multnomah [status]
stel in addme_fandom - hi, hello!
vibez in bakerstreet - f to the m to the k
petra - Update - Now accepting prompts for Doctors Without Borders/MSF & food bank/food pantry donations
birdwatcher - Логично

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Style: Finches for Bannering by branchandroot
Resources: Bill Pusztai

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Page generated Jan. 7th, 2026 06:25 am

Slightly Off Center

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5 Calls | Stop the Military Escalation with Venezuela

сиюминутное хвилосовское

Criss-Cross

not yet reading

Re: Ассимиляция

(no subject)

The Start Of A New Year

22 Sleepless Memes of Cats With No Respect for Sleep

Another doodle, hi

Humble Bundle: Lone Wolf and Cub (plus more!)

Мріяв повернутись з 12 років: кримчанин на Новий рік втік в Україну

Random TV canon musings: Heated Rivalry

"Mr. Rowl" so far

2025 In Review: Media Edition

(no subject)

Nisqually, Columbia, Klikitat, Hood, Multnomah [status]

hi, hello!

f to the m to the k

Update - Now accepting prompts for Doctors Without Borders/MSF & food bank/food pantry donations

Логично

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January 2026

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