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Dear Care and Feeding,

I just learned my son has been doing something truly vile.

The warmer weather has been back in our area for a little over a month now. Many of our friends and relatives have swimming pools (we do, too). Last weekend, we were at my sister’s place and had been in the pool for a good three hours when it came time to leave. Before we went home, I asked my 7-year-old son, “Noah” if he needed to use the restroom, and he said, “No.”

On the drive back home, I joked that Noah must have a bladder of steel since he’d had no fewer than three iced teas while he was in the pool! Noah replied that no, he just urinated when he was in the pool, so he didn’t have to get out and use the bathroom. I was horrified and asked if this was something he had done before. He said, “All the time.”

I laid down the law with him. I made clear that this was never to happen again. I explained how harmful and disrespectful it was to everyone in the water around him and that it throws the pool chemicals out of balance. Noah agreed not to do it again, but I’m not sure I completely trust him. I got the sense he didn’t seem to think he did anything wrong. What can I do to make sure he keeps his word?

—Parent of a Pool Pisser

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Current Mood: busy

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recurring posts

Philosophical Questions: Morals

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

Do people in wealthier countries have a moral obligation to help those in poorer countries?

If you want to hold all the money, you have to pay all the bills. If you don't want to pay all the bills, make sure other folks have enough money to pay their own.

Also, there is no Planet B. Climate change affects everyone -- but the people in wealthy countries who are causing it have thus far suffered less than people in poor countries who haven't caused it. If you don't make it feasible for them to stay in their own countries, they will leave so they don't die, and wash up in wealthy countries. This is already happening some, but you have seen nothing yet. It will be like the waves of the sea beating the shore, over and over again, until people think they would give anything to make it stop. And then it will stop. And then people will wish, just as desperately, to have that many people ever again as the losses pile up and there aren't enough hands left to hold up civilization.

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meme

I am presently experiencing life at several WTFs per hour

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Pinch hits: 4, 8, 10, 11, 13, 19, 20, 21

In addition to our remaining pinch hits, we have three new pinch hits that need an investigator.

Quick links: Rules and guidelines · 2025 Collection · Mod contact: gumshoeagency@gmail.com

This batch of pinch hits are due on Friday 18 July at 11:59pm Eastern time. [ In your timezone ]

Pinch hits must comply with the exchange's rules. Pinch hits must meet the minimum assignment requirements of a completed work of a minimum of 3,000 words for fanfiction, a minimum of 10 panels for a comic, or a recording of a completed fic of 3,000 words minimum with "casefic" was one of its tags. Works must include a fandom, character/ship and be of a medium that the recipient has requested. You must have an AO3 account to participate.

Please take note of the mediums as some requests have a combination selected.

To claim, please either reply to this post or email gumshoeagency@gmail.com with your AO3 name and the pinch hit number you want to claim.

Comments are screened, so if you reply anonymously, please include an email in case I need to reach out to you. You will not be able to receive a reply from me if you comment anonymously on this post.

( PH 4 (comic, fic) - 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga), 鴨乃橋ロンの禁断推理 | Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri | Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective (Manga), NoPixel (Web Series) )

( PH 8 (fic) - Severance (TV), The West Wing )

( PH 10 (fic, podfic) - Gilmore Girls (TV 2000) )

( PH 11 (comic, fic) - Tokyo Babylon, 崩坏：星穹铁道 | Honkai: Star Rail (Video Game), 恋与深空 | Love and Deepspace (Video Game) )

( PH 13 (comic, fic) - 終ノ空 remake | Tsui no Sora Remake, A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?!, Tsukihime (Visual Novel & Anime) )

( PH 19 (comic, fic) - Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005) )

( PH 20 (comic, fic) - Bones (TV), DC's Arrowverse, Constantine (TV), Lucifer (TV), Buffyverse (TV), Supernatural (TV 2005) )

( PH 21 (comic, fic) - The Defenders (Marvel TV), Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016), Crossover Fandom (The Defenders TV/MCU) )

Thank you!

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June s219 - Language of Flowers, The Pitt (TV), "Marigolds"

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Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: A super space
Current Music: "Lust" - Tori Amos

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show: ironheart

Iron Falls with a Thud

Watch on YouTube

I finally got through the first three episodes of Ironheart that premiered on Wednesday. I find it very dull. I think the main problems for me are the characters, performances, and plot. The special effects are okay. It's not, and I want to be emphatic about this, it's not bad because it's woke.

( Mild spoilers behind the cut )

Ironheart is available on Disney+.

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[News] Injunction granted to block Alberta's anti-trans bill

LGBT organizations Egale Canada and Skipping Stone have won an injunction against Bill 26, a law meant to ban gender-affirming care for youth in Alberta. [CBC, Egale Canada]

They initiated litigation against the government of Alberta in March. More info here.

This is a temporary stop, and unfortunately the injunction only covers the trans healthcare issue, not all the other trans-relevant issues the UCP has been trying to push through. However, it buys us some time, and that's very important.

I expect we'll be talking about this at the next local pride meeting, trying to see if there's any clear next steps for what we can do (or what Wood Buffalo Pride can do, rather).

Happy pride month.

( Copy of CBC's article )
( Copy of Egale Canada's press release )

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Book review: "The Monster Baru Cormorant" by Seth Dickinson

The day after finishing The Traitor Baru Cormorant I had to rush over to the library to pick up book 2, The Monster Baru Cormorant, which I finished earlier today.

Spoilers for The Traitor Baru Cormorant below!

The second book of a fantasy series of any kind often bears a very difficult burden. It is most often the place where the scope of the story grows significantly. A conflict which before was local to the protagonist's home and surrounding area may expand, often to the extent of the known world. New players are often added to the cast, bigger and scarier problems and challenges arise. The protagonist may have gone up in the world, wielding new power and influence, with new responsibilities. As a result, this is where many series lose their footing; a tightly-woven book or season 1 may give way to a muddled, watered down part 2 as the writers struggle to juggle this expanded focus.

The Monster suffers from none of those things. It is the place where Baru's story expands—in The Traitor, her focus was almost entirely on Aurdwynn; it was the full field of play and outside players mattered only as they influenced events on Aurdwynn. In The Monster, Baru has become a true agent of the Imperial Throne of Falcrest, and with these new powers, the entire field of the empire is opened up for her play, and it is fascinating to watch.

In The Traitor, Baru was narrowly focused on managing the situation in Aurdwynn; everything she did was to that end. In The Monster, Baru can do whatever she wants, and we get to see her finally on the open field. Even where she flounders and flails, it's delightful to watch the machinations of her mind constantly at work. Her cleverness rows against her bursts of sentimentality to produce some impressively chaotic effects, but she is as slippery as an eel to pin down, even when her rivals think they've gotten the best of her.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: accomplished

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Bingo

I have made bingo down the G column of my 6-2-15 card for the Pride Fest Bingo, plus 7 extra fills. That covers Row 5 also.

G1 (support) -- "Fatherhood Is Support" (standalone)
G2 (aroace) -- "Preparing Every Nook and Cranny" (Polychrome Heroics: Finn Family and Mallory)
G3 (found family) -- "Born and Found and Made" (standalone)
G4 ("I'd rather eat cake") -- "The Bond with a Dog" (Polychrome Heroics)
G5 (belonging) -- "Worthy of Love and Belonging" (Polychrome Heroics: Kraken)

B3 (activism) -- "The Result of Your Own Bad Behavior" (Monster House)
B5 (unlabeled) -- "Emodox" (A Poesy of Obscure Sorrows)

I3 (rainbow) -- "Along These Sympathetic Fibers" (Peculiar Obligations)
I5 (community) -- "When Warmth and Gentleness Are Needed" (Clay of Life)

N1 (growth) -- "Tomato Seedlings in Tin Cans" (Daughters of the Apocalypse)
N5 (comfort) -- "All It Takes to Be Invulnerable" (Polychrome Heroics: Marionettes)

O5 (validation) -- "Choose to Be Gentle" (Arts and Crafts America)

Current Mood: accomplished

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Bingo

Current Mood: cold boy summer
Current Music: I'll take your breath away

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PTSD Reaction to Sarah McLachlan - due South story, INCOMPLETE, story amnesty

I ran across this Tumblr post about being entitled to financial compensation for having a visceral reaction to hearing "Carry On My Wayward Son" in public, and I made a silly addition, as one does.

Then something stirred in my deep memory and I remembered I'd made the joke I'd just made before.

Here, this is from my gdocs. It's the first two-and-a-bit pages of a story I wrote in 2012. I have no idea what the plot was going to be.

Title: PTSD Reaction to Sarah McLachlan (abandoned WIP)
Fandom: due South
Pairing: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Rating: Teen and up
Summary: It took Ray two weeks on the trail to feel like if Fraser got abducted by aliens, he wouldn't necessarily die within the next ten minutes.
Notes: This is my experiment with writing a post-Call of the Wild story and I chickened out right when the plot kicks in, but the RayK voice makes me happy.

( It took Ray two weeks on the trail to feel like if Fraser got abducted by aliens, he wouldn't necessarily die within the next ten minutes. It wasn't the best feeling he'd ever had in his life, that dependence on somebody else for stuff like what to eat and how to pee without freezing off the family jewels, but he got used to it, worked through it, and got to thinking about how Fraser'd been depending on him and Vecchio for years for Chicago survival stuff. That thought took the edge off of the sheer unadulterated what the fuck of the Arctic. )

Where You Want To Be (by semivowel) (M)

Shows: SGA
Rec Category: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Characters: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan, Carson Beckett, Elizabeth Weir
Categories: M/M
Words: ~13,000
Warnings: no AO3-type warnings apply
Author on DW: n/a
Author's Website: semivowel on LJ

Links: part 1 on LJ & part 2 on LJ
(backups on Wayback) part 1 & part 2
podfic by constance_b on the Audiofic Archive

Why This Must Be Read: This is a classic, but it's never been reccd here and might be a bit overlooked as semivowel's fics are only on LJ. It's from John's POV as he finds himself increasingly attracted to Rodney after an AMTDI ceremony. There are adventures, and missions gone wrong, and through it all John pines and gives Rodney mixed messages and denies himself. But fear not, it all comes right in the end! A great read, and the podfic's also excellent.

( snippet of fic )

Current Music: Soul Asylum, "Somebody to Shove"

Waiting for you to call me up and tell me I'm not alone

After many travails and an extra plague year in transit, the latest of the Paleozoic Pals has made landfall from the Carboniferous.

My father adores his Diplocaulus salamandroides. My niece has been sent a picture of hers with its accompanying book, to be held in trust until her next visit. My mother has been presented with its enamel pin form, which is done in bands of lighter and darker purple instead of newt-like red and black. I had forgotten entirely about the stretch bonus of Bandringa rayi, whose spoonbill suggests the Amazon river dolphin of the Pennsylvanian period. I really am invested in the continued existence of the Paleontological Research Institution, which is one of the reasons I have gladly thrown in to its Kickstarters for almost ten years. The present being so very full of horror and stupidity, it is important that it can also produce such snuggable plush of the past.

Remaining PDPHs #4, 5, 16

There are three remaining pinch hits. To give pinch hitters more time to claim and fulfill these pinch hits, we are moving the target reveals date to July 5, but the collection will not open until these pinch hits are completed. We apologize for the continued delays.

The remaining post-deadline pinch hits are listed below. Comments are screened; please claim a pinch hit by commenting on this post with your AO3 username and the pinch hit number. These pinch hits are tentatively due July 4 at 11:59 PM UTC (7:59 PM EDT), deadline negotiable if you can claim one but need more time.

( PH 4 - 爆上戦隊ブンブンジャー | Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger (TV), 魔法つかいプリキュア！ | Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! | Mahou Girls PreCure!, 仮面ライダーギーツ | Kamen Rider Geats, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne | Phantom-Thief Jeanne (manga), Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne | Phantom-Thief Jeanne (Anime) )

( PH 5 - Grandia III (Video Game), Top o Nerae! Gunbuster, チョコボと魔法の絵本 | Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon | Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales (Video Game), 機動戦士ガンダム | Mobile Suit Gundam (TV 1979), Final Fantasy XII )

( PH 16 - 終ノ空 remake | Tsui no Sora Remake, Tsukihime (Visual Novel & Anime), Kara no Kyoukai | The Garden of Sinners )

Laser Danger

https://xkcd.com/3108/

To combat the threat, many airlines are installing wing-mounted spray bottles.

https://xkcd.com/3108/

Sinéad O'Connor - Troy (Live At The Dominion Theatre, 1988)

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Current Mood: thirsty

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🔊 Daily music

Watch on YouTube

Until the darkest night that I know
We won't give it up🎵
N.Flying - Chance

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Wednesday Fic: Possibly Poison

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Metamorpho, the Element Man #6 (final issue) - "Sacrifice of the Hero Sun!"

Anyway in this issue REX MASON DIES! That's right! I killed him in a fit of pique and I'd do it again! But like the murder on the Orient Express, I wasn't the only hand holding the knife! Steve Lieber laughed maniacally as he drew it! Lee Loughridge colored it in a blind red rage of fury! Ferran Delgado howled curses at a blood moon as he picked out the perfect font for the Stardust the Super Wizard joke! We're all taking it very badly, reader, and after you read this fantabulous final issue - so will you! -- Al Ewing

( Read more... )

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Fic: He Deserves the Applause (DCU (Comics)/What We Do In the Shadows (TV))

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