Sympathy for the Devil

Sep. 23rd, 2025 10:34 pm
cornerofmadness: (lucifer)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness



As many of you know, there is another woman in Texas with my exact birthdate and name (what ARE the chances) with my same illnesses and for years United Health care had her on MY insurance and did jack shit. And in 2021 when I fell I found out there was a medicare supplement attached to my name (so I knew Other Dana was on SSI) I have fought this for the last 4 years.

So today, I had to call Riverside Hospital because they billed my Blue Cross insurance from 2 years ago. I get them and she says 'oh yes we saw we made a mistake. We've resubmitted it to your EverCare insurance.'

I'm like that is a medicare supplement. I DO NOT HAVE this insurance.

Riverside - oh...really?

Me - really.

I give them my real insurance and ask for the Evercare number. She gives me United Health Care (who owns EverCare) phone number and I'm like thanks but I meant the member number because half the time you call you can't get through the automated system without it.

So I call United Health care and explain why I'm calling. She says 'I have never heard of this. Let me get you to someone better.' She does and I explain it again and say this is messing up MY insurance and Other Dana's too since they keep calling ME.'

She is appropriately horrified and instead of saying I'll look into it and hanging up she says, stay on this line. I'm calling my supervisor. I agree (I have tuesday mornings off) They come back and say 'we can't take your phone number off this account because you're not the actual member BUT will you wait while we call Other Dana?' Fuck yeah I will.

At the end of this not only is my phone number off (and this is what we get for only using phone numbers/birthdays these days) the damn insurance I have the phone number and the name of Other Dana's caregiver at his request so if it gets fucked up again (which it could because again we have the exact same name and birthdate) I can call him and tell him because Other Dana keeps getting denied stuff because they call ME and I tell them I'm not in Texas.

But at the end of this I have a lot of sympathy for Other Dana in spite of all the years of drama because in spite of being the same age with the same illnesses, I'm not in need of a caretaker (my smart ass friends asked 'are you sure?') I don't need home health. She is very obviously incredibly ill and I feel bad about that.

Fannish 50 time.

I wish I had friends in Japan still. Because OMG, Hazbin Hotel is getting its own Maid Cafe in Osaka for a few weeks and there is SO MUCH merch for this both maid cafe merch and kimono merch. And it doesn't look like it'll be available anywhere else. Argh. I would kill for any of it (but especially Husk/Angel in the kimonos)

I admit it, I am into collecting bullshit I don't need but desperately want (in fact today, looking for a lost lab experiment I found a bag of The Crow cards from the 90s movie. I didn't remember I had them and I have NO idea what the hell they're doing at work). If I had room I'd have a room that was nothing but collectibles on display (I have enough of them) Heck my parents have a room like that so I come by it honestly.

If you want to see the merch here are some links

the announcement

her and her twin are high energy but I like this look at the merch

Come On, Angel dressed as an Oidon That is too perfect (no Dana, you aren't writing an AU for this)

team rwby ( 197 ╳ rwby volume 9 )

Sep. 24th, 2025 03:00 pm
vaporwaving: (Default)
[personal profile] vaporwaving posting in [community profile] dwrp_icons
CANON: RWBY
CHARACTERS: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long
ADDITIONAL INFO: Taken from RWBY volume 9, episodes 3 + 4
CREDIT TO: [personal profile] vaporwaving



here @ [personal profile] vaporwaving

Wednesday @ 12:46 pm

Sep. 24th, 2025 12:46 pm
alisx: A demure little moth person, with charcoal fuzz and teal accents. (Default)
[personal profile] alisx

Updated my 2019 MacBook Pro to Tahoe and, ah. There goes the battery . . .

Leave a comment.+

rahirah: (su_editor)
[personal profile] rahirah posting in [community profile] su_herald
Xander: Who sponsored career day today? The British Soccer Fan Association? Giles: We had a, a rather violent visit from the Order of Taraka. Xander: You wanna talk Order of Taraka? We just met the king *freak* of the... (sees Kendra) Hello. Giles: Oh, forgive me. Uh, Xander, Cordelia, this is Kendra. Uh, i-it's rather complicated, but she's also a Slayer. Cordelia: Hi. Nice to meet you. Xander: A Slayer, huh? I knew this 'I'm the only one, I'm the only one' thing was just an attention-getter.

~~Buffy Episode #22: "What's My Line, Pt II"~~



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Drama/Trauma in the Laundry Room

Sep. 23rd, 2025 07:14 pm
halfshellvenus: (Default)
[personal profile] halfshellvenus
Somebody, and by that I mean someone furry, started scratching the side of his head two weeks ago, and got a deep sore going before we could get him to the vet to be coned. :(

I bought a cone a couple of years back, but I never took it out of the packaging, and it turned out to basically be labrador-sized. No good for a medium-sized house cat! Our vet was closed the day we wanted to take our cat in, and when they re-opened we discovered they couldn't see him for 4 days. Yikes. I took him to Banfield Pet Hospital (inside PetSmart) to be coned and given antibiotics, because that was the urgent issue. He got the cone off within 5 minutes of being home. HalfshellHusband took him back, and he got the cone off before even leaving the store. So the vet made a soft harness out of some stretchy cloth, and that did the trick.

We took him to our own vet on Monday, for a more thorough examination. They found no underlying cause for his original scratching other than that he gets itchy during the change of seasons, so that was good. But they undid the harness, which means the cat got the cone off again later that night. Holy moly! They gave instructions to burrito him (Hah!) to subdue him, as if they didn't routinely tranq him on office visits (including that very day). By then, a soft cone had come from Amazon that was easier to get on-- this outer-space-themed flower-type thing:


Not our cat

He is able to eat and drink with the soft cone, but also has gotten out of it three times and is sometimes able to still get one of his hind feet into scratching position! I have another, bigger soft cone to try the next time he escapes the current one, but what a headache this all is. He has no idea that he'll be wearing that cone for another 2-4 weeks, which will be fun for all of us. \o?

In Idol news, I was able to come back in (at least for now) due to a lucky spin of the Wheel of Chaos. But [personal profile] rayaso got poisoned, so he's out. That's disappointing. :( There is also no poll this week, so no one seems to be reading or commenting on the entries. Mine is here, if you'd like to take a look. I went with humor, which has been the case for most of this season. Not last week, though! This entry was a pain to format, too, and the HTML that used to let you change font so easily doesn't seem to work anymore. Nor does CSS. I gave up on shifting the typeface styles, but that was after I'd wasted a good 60+ minutes on it.

I WILL get around to TV recs at some point, but let me quickly say that Amazon's The Devil's Hour is really intriguing, and you should give it a try!

gardnerhill: (Default)
[personal profile] gardnerhill posting in [community profile] holmestice
Name: gardnerhill
Contact email: Link sent to form.
AO3 username: gardnerhill
Treat preference: Yes please! My AO3 preferences are Automatically agree to your work being collected by others in the Archive and Allow anyone to gift me works

I will create:

Details behind the cut. )

I'm at Eaglecon in LA

Sep. 23rd, 2025 06:28 pm
elf: Computer chip with location dot (You Are Here)
[personal profile] elf
Eaglecon is Cal State LA's student-focused science fiction convention.

It's very small - mid-week, two days only, 8 programming items the first day and 6 the second. Mostly one-hour events with 15 minute breaks between. Programming is over for the day by 4:30; there is no late-afternoon/evening schedule. Daytime student event.

I'll post later about the convention itself. General LA-related thoughts:

1) It mostly feels like home (SF Bay Area) except there is only one garbage can in each room - not three (trash, recycling, compost).

2) I am the only person I can see wearing mask.

3) Temperature's nice. I brought only a light denim jacket and it's been fine, a little warm at mid-day but okay even then, and it keeps the sun off my arms.

4) My prep would've been different if I'd known the room had a microwave and fridge. (I could've called to check; was not up for it.) Today on the way back to the hotel, I stopped into a Chinese supermarket and picked up some kind of beef-veggie rice bowl & frozen steamed buns with sesame filling, both of which can be heated up in the microwave.

5) Lots of Chinese stores nearby, with signs in both Chinese and English. I read zero Chinese but I can recognize the word "no" (の) in Japanese, and I didn't see it. It's common enough that I'd expect it of there are a lot of signs, so I am assuming the language I'm seeing is Chinese.

6) I may stop in to the Chinese supermarket on the way out tomorrow and grab short-grain rice. It's hard to find short-grain rice in American supermarkets. I will have to see how packing goes and if I can leave space for a 2-lb or 5-lb bag of rice.

Wednesday Icons

Sep. 24th, 2025 06:07 am
magicrubbish: Harry Potter (Harry Potter)
[personal profile] magicrubbish posting in [community profile] icons
 Preview
     




 See the icons here @ [personal profile] magicrubbish 

Grr. Argh.

Sep. 23rd, 2025 06:57 pm
jennaria: Sanzo from Saiyuki, aiming his gun at the viewer (Sanzo's pissy)
[personal profile] jennaria
I am not dead, but I currently hate everything. (Personal stuff, which is sufficiently embarrassing that I'm not going into detail. I am just flopped on the floor and screaming into a pillow. Metaphorically.)

I keep meaning to write up a review of the new SUPERMAN movie (which I did not hate), and K-POP DEMON HUNTERS (which I also did not hate), and perhaps plans for NaNo. But it ain't happening today. I am posting to vent, in a small way, and also I realized I hadn't posted since July, and here it is late September. So: not dead, vexed, grr.

if i could, i would let it go

Sep. 23rd, 2025 07:15 pm
musesfool: jar of flower petals, spilling (but there is this)
[personal profile] musesfool
Baby Miss L is super into Halloween and has two Hello Kitty dolls dressed like skeletons that dance! She might be a skeleton herself this year! Her costume has not been finalized, but there is time.

As I've mentioned, I was never big into Halloween - it was my mom's birthday, so a lot of the time I was home celebrating with her - but it's fun to see the baby into it.

Today is the 12th anniversary of my mother's death. That is a whole seventh grader! It makes me sad that my parents will never know Baby Miss L.

*

Claudius | I, Clavdivs

Sep. 23rd, 2025 06:01 pm
parhelicon: a parhelic circle. the sun appears eclipsed, with a corona around it, and a luminous ring that has a sundog reflection near the edge of the icon. the sky is intense blue. (Default)
[personal profile] parhelicon posting in [community profile] dwrp_icons
CANON: I, Claudius
CHARACTERS: Claudius
ADDITIONAL INFO: Young adult (mostly)
CREDIT TO: [personal profile] parhelicon





75 icons @ [personal profile] parhelicon

OKARUN AND AIRA > DANDADAN

Sep. 24th, 2025 06:56 am
quixotic: Fandom | Children of Dune (Two sides of the same coin)
[personal profile] quixotic posting in [community profile] dwrp_icons
CANON: Dandadan
CHARACTERS: Ken Takakura (Okarun) and Aira Shiratori
ADDITIONAL INFO: 116 icons from episode 9-11
CREDIT TO: [community profile] malagraphic



here @ [community profile] malagraphic
quixotic: Fandom | Woman of Tomorrow (sirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp)
[personal profile] quixotic posting in [community profile] dwrp_icons
CANON: The Summer Hikaru Died
CHARACTERS: Toshiki Tsujinaka and Hikaru Indo
ADDITIONAL INFO: 156 icons from episode 2. CW: some body horror
CREDIT TO: [community profile] malagraphic



here @ [community profile] malagraphic
douqi: (gong qing 2)
[personal profile] douqi posting in [community profile] baihe_media
Yao Yao is a collection of short stories with historical settings, each featuring a central relationship between a human and a, well, yao (妖, often loosely translated as demon, spirit, etc). To avoid setting off the little voice in my head that keeps going 'but they aren't exactly demons or have a one-to-one analogue to supernatural beings in the Anglo world', I'm just going to carry on calling them yao for the duration of this review.

Most of the stories in the collection have tragic or bittersweet endings. Because I'm Old (and am well past my mournful 'literary youth' phase), my favourites were two stories with unambiguously happy endings: 'Carry Me to the Heights of Success' (请君为我步青云, pinyin: qing jun wei wo bu qingyun) by Liuli Wangguan (琉璃王冠, literally 'crystal crown'), where a lazy cat yao and a layabout scholar do their level best to sponge off each other (the cat yao also ends up opening the fantasy Chinese version of a cat cafe at one point, which was brilliant), and 'The White Pigeon' (白鸽, pinyin: baige) by Renjian Feiliao (人间废料, literally 'mortal dross'), where a girl escapes her rich and oppressive family with the aid of her newest stepmother, a pigeon yao. The latter is heavier in tone and subject matter than the former (and also has some nicely creepy scenes), but still has moments of levity (mostly courtesy of the pigeon yao's himbo brother).

Of the stories with tragic endings, the two I liked best were 'At the Fourth Tolling of the Bell' (第四响, pinyin: di si xiang) by Qingjiu Yi Dao (清酒一刀), literally 'wine and a slash of the blade/a blade'), about a rabbit yao who tries to reverse the fate of a human girl with great cultivator potential, and ends up paying a heavy price for it, and 'Sorry, Little Snake' (小蛇勿怪, pinyin: xiao she wu guai) by A-Sheng and Xiaoshan (阿生和小山, though I'm not sure whether they're actually two people or just one person who happens to have chosen a pseudonym that makes them sound like two people) about a green snake yao who plots revenge on the swordswoman who injured her, only to realise too late that it was all part of a plot to assassinate the malevolent emperor. The latter also contains quite apposite references to the well-known legend of the white snake

Of the other stories, 'The Light of Ten Thousand Households' (万户人间, pinyin: wan hu renjian) by Yan Zhong (檐中, literally 'in the eaves') and 'Mount Changming' (常明, pinyin: chang ming) by Zhu Yixuan (朱奕璇) I thought were fine, but both had an inscrutable near-goddess type being as one half of the relationship, and I usually find those hard to get invested in. 'The Beginning of the Tribulation' (大劫之始, pinyin: da jie zhi shi) by Jiu Mo Jun (九墨君) and 'Worldly Thoughts' (思凡, pinyin: sifan) by Qingzhou Congshi (青州从事, literally 'official of Qingzhou') did some interesting things with historical and mythological figures (in the former case, imperial consort Su Daji, who is often portrayed as a malevolent fox yao in folklore; in the latter case, the Jade Rabbit, Chang'e's pet and companion on the moon), but I felt they were a bit uneven and needed clearer direction. The same critique also applies to The Hawthorn Tree (山楂树, pinyin: shanzha shu) by Jian Xue (溅雪, literally 'spilled snow'), about an empress and a very young, very new imperial consort who doesn't seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation she's in. 'Lady Kite' (as in, both the bird and the toy; 鸢娘) by Helan Xie (贺兰邪) had some intriguing world-building. The protagonist is an indentured servant in an establishment that grants people their dearest wish in exchange for their souls, which are then made into kites. However, it felt a bit overstuffed — there were too many ideas going on in it, which meant most of them ended up under-developed.

Since this is a print-first collection, with no online equivalent, none of the stories is expressly romantic (nobody actually says 'I love you' out loud, etc), but it would take a huge act of reading in bad faith to interpret them as anything other than that.

(This is a very brief review because I am Tired due to Life, but please feel free to ask me for more details of the stories you're interested in!)
ghostofnuggetspast: Silly pen sketch of a bemused head sitting in Sherlock's fridge next to a jug of milk. There are various containers of dubious contents. At least one contains eyeballs. (Default)
[personal profile] ghostofnuggetspast posting in [community profile] holmestice
Name: GhostOfNuggetsPast
Contact email: ghostofnuggetspast@gmail.com
AO3 username: GhostOfNuggetsPast
Treat preference: Treats enthusiastically accepted. Who doesn't like treats?

I will create:
A fanwork of the following type(s): art, poetry, podfic

In one or more of the following parts of fandom: ACD original stories, Granada TV Show; Ritchie Films; Sherlock BBC; Elementary; Rathbone Films; Sherlock & Co podcast. I can try others if you really, really want them.

For one or more of the following characters or relationships: Anything except romantic/sexual relationships with non-consenting people (i.e. children or mentally challenged) or between family members. Special interest in typical johnlock, maryjohnlock, and Sherlock & Co marijohnlock

I like working with one or more of the following categories: humor, limericks, audio drama (multiple voices), fluff, angst, jealousy, polyamory, magical/sci-fi elements, first times, slice of life, case fic, murder, alternate universes, and more. I'm good at summarizing. :)

With any of the following ratings: 1) suitable for general audiences; 2) non-explicit sexual content; 4) mild to moderate violence or depictions of non-sexual mature themes; 5) moderate to explicit graphic violence or depictions of non-sexual mature themes

I am willing to create for the following squicks and/or kinks: dubcon (between adults); light power play; alcohol/drug abuse, voyeurism/exhibitionism, public non-explicit sexual acts, clinical language.

I want to receive:
A fanwork of the following type(s):
art, fic, vids, graphics, podfic, music

In one or more of the following parts of fandom: BBC Sherlock or Sherlock & Co

For one or more of the following characters or relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson/Mary Morstan (BBC), Sherlock Holmes/John Watson/Mariana Ametxazurra (Sherlock & Co), John Watson/Greg Lestrade (BBC), John Watson/OMC, Sherlock Holmes/OMC

I like stuff in the following categories: Fluff; Angst; Alternate Universe; Romance; Hurt/Comfort; Friendship; Humor; Case Fic; First Time; Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Jealousy, unilock, Getting Back Together, light power play, John's a smooth talker and a happy slag, Sherlock's magnetic attraction

With any of the following ratings: 1) suitable for general audiences; 2) non-explicit sexual content; 3) explicit sexual content; 4) mild to moderate violence or depictions of non-sexual mature themes; 5) moderate to explicit graphic violence or depictions of non-sexual mature themes

I wouldn’t mind any of the following squicks and/or kinks: public sex, mild dubcon, multiple partners, vampiric or werewolf things (blood, animalistic behavior), Sherlockian corpse descriptions, clinical language,

Please include further details about what you’d like to receive: There are so many things I'd be thrilled to receive.
1. I think it would be cool to read, watch, or listen to a scenario that's poly, where loving one person doesn't mean you can't love another at the same time. How would that work out while keeping in character? Is that even possible?
2. Alternately, I am still interested in getting art of Sherlock in his genie belly dancing clothes and mendhi tattoos as described in "Shatter the Darkness (Let the Light In)" by MojoFlower. https://archiveofourown.org/works/651740/chapters/1186409
3. I'd love a new high quality Sherlock & Co banner for the Sherlock & Co Podsters Tumblr community. It needs a pigeon in it somewhere. The pigeon doesn't have to be highly visible.
4. If you're passionate about [X] and it generally fits my guidelines, I'll probably love it.

Special requests: none
icon_uk: (Cypher Warlock Doug Ramsey)
[personal profile] icon_uk posting in [community profile] scans_daily
Eleven and a half years into it's run, the ever-enjoyable X-plain the X-Men podcast has just reached it's demi-millenium as episode 500 dropped.

For those unaware of it, it is, in it's own words a look at "The ins, the outs, and the retcons of comics greatest superhero soap-opera" which started at the dawn of the Silver Age and has only just reached the end of the 90's. So the Morrison run awaits.

Hosts Jay Edidin and Miles Stokes have, IMHO, a great presenting and bantering style and between Mile's enthusiasm, Jay's critical analsyis (though each have aspects of the other) and the queer prism they bring to look at the media through, plus the sheer amount of research they must do, this has been one of my go-to podcasts for pretty much a decade (Plus they share my affection for the OG New Mutants, and a certain omnilinguist and his technorganic soulmate in particular, so how could I not be a fan? :) )

They've also had some excellent guests over the years, including Kurt Busiek, Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson.

The Anniversary episode is great fun. They bring in a professional expert on the industrial applications of magnets to discuss just how much of Magneto's infinitely varied magnetic powers might be based in reality (Answer: More than you might think, but not necessarily in the way you might think), then are themselved interviewed about the podcast itself, which is fascinating.

Anyhoo, well worth a listen if you fancy some affectionately, if sometimes slightly snarky, X-discussion and analysis.

(Look, this podcast managed to make me even vaguely invested in parts of 90's X-Force, and you have NO idea the barriers it was working against there... well, actually you might, but that doesn't make it less impressive)

[ SECRET POST #6836 ]

Sep. 23rd, 2025 06:24 pm
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[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6836 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 29 secrets from Secret Submission Post #976.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Question:

Sep. 22nd, 2025 06:09 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
What difference, if any, is there between telling somebody “stop” and “time-out”?

Tuesday Top Five: Fall Bucket List

Sep. 23rd, 2025 06:06 pm
nevanna: (Default)
[personal profile] nevanna
Although I’m always a little bit sad to see summer ending, I adore fall just as much! Here are some of my goals for the season.

1. Bake an apple pie! (I like pumpkin fine as an ingredient, but apples are my Autumnal Produce of Choice.)

2. Take a walk or have a picnic in a park while the leaves change!

3. Mend at least one of my sweaters!

4. Curate my wardrobe for Spooky Season, including a pair of wrist gauntlets that I hope to make out of a Halloween-themed fabric swatch! (I’m pretty sure that my former supervisor in the Children’s Room had a different Halloween-themed outfit for every day of October, which is a level of commitment to which I can only aspire, especially since I don’t like to spend too much money on clothing items that I only wear once a year. But if I get creative, perhaps I can manage two or three per week!)

5. Reread some of my favorite campus novels and spooky books, including The Secret History, Tam Lin, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, and Mexican Gothic. (I also have a separate and rapidly growing horror TBR list, which might be the subject of a future post.)

What do you love about fall?
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

A little while ago I got Stable cortical body maps before and after amputation via an NIH press release; today it was *Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia in people with chronic disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis...

... which dovetails neatly with the bits I just got out of The Painful Truth (Monty Lyman) about the bidirectional relationship between insomnia and pain, where each worsens the other but insomnia worsens pain more. (It's bedtime, so I'm not going to pick the book back up to get you those onward references just now.) With n = 5232, and their conditions including "cancer, chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and stroke", "CBT-I was associated with significantly improved outcomes" (for insomnia severity, and moderately improved outcomes for sleep efficiency and sleep onset latency).

What'll be next? WHO KNOWS.

italy: brief

Sep. 23rd, 2025 09:55 pm
tielan: Avengers team (AVG - team)
[personal profile] tielan
Italy and the cities there )

Right now, my roomie is using a fan, and I suspect plans to use it all night. On the plus side, at least I don't have to deal with the full-bore air-conditioning. They don't have that here in the UK in most places.
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