Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Icons
Apr. 8th, 2026 09:08 pm"Some secrets cannot be contained...." for
"I'm Keiko Miura. And you may call me Doctor Miura...." for
"If we can’t put the greater good before our own desires, we risk losing everything....." for
Spring Has Sprung!
Apr. 8th, 2026 04:31 pmI've gotten the feverfew, oregano, and thyme settled in those new spaces, with the last bed ready for the tulsi seedlings whenever they're big enough to transplant. The nights are still getting quite cold, so I'm waiting a while longer before making the little things have to brave the weather. It's supposed to be a temperate variety that can handle our cooler temperatures, but I've previously only grown the more tropical tulsi, which makes me a little more cautious than I maybe need to be. I'll be curious to see how the varieties differ.
The elecampane officially survived the winter, which I'm very happy to see! I thought for sure I had lost it. It's much slower to wake than the rest of the garden. I'm not sure if that's just how it is, or if it's a function of the place where it's been planted. It seemed to lag behind other plants in growth last year, too, but I imagine the second year will tell me quite a bit about how it feels where it is.
There's plenty of maintenance work to do in the garden, but in terms of plants, it's back to a waiting game. All the big plant sales and swaps won't happen until May, and none of the seedlings are quite ready for transplant yet, so I shall bide my time and be patient. I still haven't quite decided where everything will go, or what else I'll buy when the sales come along. There's a real risk I'll run out of space, but at least the soil is amended and weeded and ready to go. Hurrah for warmer days!
[ SECRET POST #7033 ]
Apr. 8th, 2026 05:28 pm⌈ Secret Post #7033 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.

( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 14 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1004.
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.
Post-Deadline Pinch Hits
Apr. 8th, 2026 10:39 pmDue Fri 10 Apr 17:00 CEST (in your timezone | countdown) negotiable. To claim, comment on this post with your AO3 username and the pinch hit you want to claim.
PDPH #1: ( Imperial Radch, Murderbot - Wells, Alliance-Union, Chanur, Machineries of Empire, Teixcalaan )
PDPH #3: ( Phantasy Star, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Live a Live, Infinite Space, Legend of the Galactic Heroes )
PDPH #5: ( The Lost Fleet, Sins of a Solar Empire, FTL, Mass Effect, Hyperion Cantos, SG-1, Babylon 5 )
PDPH #6: Claimed!
Spring Drabble 08/30: The Professionals, Thaw
Apr. 8th, 2026 09:26 pmTitle: Thaw
Author:
Fandom: The Professionals
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Tags: Drabble, Spring
Rating: G
Word count: 100
Summary: Everything is dripping
Author notes: Spring defiance from under the crushing forces of capitalism = a drabble a day in April. This one for
Thaw on AO3
( Thaw )
***
Question to the readers and watchers
Apr. 8th, 2026 01:48 pmSince I definitely dragged us down a less happy path, I'm going to invite a question here:
Regardless of creator intent, what CANON had a positive, lasting impression on how you shape the world around you?
(context was some unsavory authors came up)
Answers can be from ANY STYLE OF FICTIONAL MEDIA, though so far I am getting a lot of Books in my discord discussion.
My own may seem simplistic, and maybe childish, but Anna Sewell's Black Beauty had me questioning the social strata ALL AROUND me from a very young age, in the Deep South.
as warm as the sun from up above
Apr. 8th, 2026 04:16 pm*
I walked four kilometres (plus a little bit) today, to the hairdresser and back. It is a delightfully sunny, warm Spring day, and I regretted even putting on a cardigan to go out. Stuffed it into a bag on the way home.
*
My plantses are growing. Three green courgettes and two yellow (I broke the third, sigh); three pumpkins, a dozen sweetcorn stalks. A sole cauliflower and about four feeble kales, which is disappointing as I got a lot of tasty crunchy cake last year and would like to do more this time. The mange tout I planted in the garden have done nothing at all, but I have put out framework for beans and will plant them this week.
Worm Dirt Harvesting
Apr. 8th, 2026 08:01 amI think I'm reaching the stage where there's something of a steady-state for managing my new-ish worm bin bench. To begin with, by myself I generate around 1 batch of kitchen scraps a week that can go into the bin. My kitchen scraps mostly include spent coffee grounds, banana peels, apple cores, and vegetable trimmings from whatever I happen to be cooking that week. Eggshells now get handled separately, and citrus goes into the yard compost outside because citrus is toxic to worms.
( photos and description below the cut... )
Interest check
Apr. 8th, 2026 11:27 amWe're in April already! I figured I'd check to see if there's interest in running 3 Weeks For Dreamwidth again this year, and also ask if anybody would like to host some activities in their journals or communities.
Also a good time to start thinking of posts you might want to make, for your hobbies or fandoms or those book reviews you've been meaning to make. After all, the whole point of the fest is to get more activity on DW.
Feel free to sound off and idea storm in the comments :)

Starting a garden journal
Apr. 8th, 2026 08:58 amFor Christmas Husband gave me a nice Critical Role notebook as 'something to go with', so I have been vaguely pondering what to use it for. I have now decided to have a go at making it a garden journal.
I have no idea how one does that. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm basically just putting stuff in there and seeing where it goes. I don't even know how long I'll be able to keep it up,* but we're having a go anyway. So far I've put in a list of what's in the different beds off the top of my head, I've put a todo list of tasks I'd like to get done during the spring (lol!),** and I've put in a number of ideas for how I would like to do the terrace pots and a list of other plants I might like to try and plant.
It occurs to me that it might also come in handy when we go to the garden center because I can take it with me and look up what I was considering, which feels far more attractive than a note on my phone, and I could potentially also put in things that I saw at the garden center that might be interesting later on, especially if I remember to also bring a pencil.***
This decision coincides, or is probably partially born from, the effort Husband is currently making to get through a vast stack of garden magazines that have piled up. We tried putting them in a specific place, so that they weren't always lying around on the dining table. This worked splendidly for me because it was more tidy, and not at all for him because the magazines tended to just accumulate and he'd never actually get around to looking in them. So now the magazine storage situation is a bit unclear. Anyway, he's making his way through them, tearing out the pages he wants a closer look at, and I got trough after him and do the same.
On one page, I was mainly interested in a small bit in the bottom third, so in a fit of inspiration I cut it out and glued it into my journal. I had a bit of leftover hobby glue that was still good, so I used that. I discovered that the paper is really too thin for this to be an ideal solution, but on the other hand, I'm kind of enjoying the tactile way the paper has gone a bit crinkly now where it has dried. Might acquire more unsuitable glue and do it again.
---
*But it is giving me some opportunity to use highlighters. I have far too many highlighters. But they come in so many colours, and you obviously have to have one in each colour. I mean, obviously!
**If I do a third of them, I'll call it a success.
***Not a pen. A pencil. And definitely not a mechanical one. An old fashioned one that you have to sharpen. I've been favouring them for years now. I think it has something to do how it feels to write with it.
April check-in poll
Apr. 7th, 2026 05:23 pmThere were seven posts in the community in the last two months.
On February 3,
rydra_wong posted a link to Naomi Kritzer's Bluesky thread about ways to donate and otherwise help people in Minneapolis, Springfield, OH, or wherever else ICE invades
On February 14,
petra posted about public comments about gender-affirming care for minors
On February 20,
lyr posted about [reporting GoFundMe pages that help the murderers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti]{https://thisfinecrew.dreamwidth.org/324071.html)
On February 28,
chestnutpod posted about logging in Oregon's old growth forests
On March 7,
sathari posted about a global women's general strike
On March 9,
petra posted about mandatory conversion therapy for trans immates
On March 11,
flamingsword posted about protecting LGBTQ kids from a proposed change in HHS policy
Please use this poll, or leave a comment, to let us know what you’ve been up to, or are planning.
In the last couple of months, I...
called one or both of my senators
6 (40.0%)
called my member of Congress
5 (33.3%)
called my governor
1 (6.7%)
called my mayor, state representative, or other local official
3 (20.0%)
voted
3 (20.0%)
did get-out-the-vote work, such as postcarding or phone banking
3 (20.0%)
sent a postcard/letter/email/fax to a government official or agency
6 (40.0%)
went to a protest
6 (40.0%)
attended an in-person activist group
3 (20.0%)
went to a town hall
1 (6.7%)
participated in phone or online training
0 (0.0%)
participated in community mutual aid
6 (40.0%)
donated money to a cause
9 (60.0%)
worked for a campaign
2 (13.3%)
did text banking or phone banking
0 (0.0%)
took care of myself
8 (53.3%)
not a US citizen or resident, but worked in solidarity in my community
0 (0.0%)
committed to action in the current month
2 (13.3%)
did something else--tell us in comments
1 (6.7%)
As usual, you can comment on the pinned post or DM me if you want a tag added or other help with the community.
[ SECRET POST #7032 ]
Apr. 7th, 2026 03:54 pm⌈ Secret Post #7032 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.

( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 21 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1004.
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.
Spring Drabble 07/30: MCR, Yellow
Apr. 7th, 2026 06:42 pmTitle: Yellow
Author:
Fandom: My Chemical Romance/Bandom
Pairing: Gerard/Mikey
Tags: Drabble, Sibling Incest, painting
Rating: T
Word count: 100
Summary: There’s yellow paint on Gerard’s wrist.
Author notes: Spring defiance from under the crushing forces of capitalism = a drabble a day in April. This one for
Yellow on AO3
( Yellow )
***
