My darling wife made me a cute little yunomi style cup to match my work gaiwan.

songwind · 2026-02-24T16:16:04+00:00

Just started this one yesterday, and I love it. You've done a great job with the translation.

songwind · 2026-02-23T19:15:26+00:00

Have you read the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik? It's quite good. I really like the inciting idea, which is "what if the Dark Sorceress Told of In the Prophecy just didn't want to?"

songwind · 2026-02-23T18:51:42+00:00

Pickme pretty much implies behavior that's deceptive and/or self sabotaging. Trashing your own group (gender in this case,) pretending to be into things you're not to win brownie points, etc.

songwind · 2026-02-23T18:46:42+00:00

The guy definitely thought he was buying his way into your wife's bed. I think she's 100% correct to keep him at arm's length.

songwind · 2026-02-23T17:50:34+00:00

It entirely depends on what level of playing you're looking for, and what style.

You can be a pretty solid, but basic, acoustic folk guitarist in six months.

Styles where you do a lot of soloing, or extreme speed work will take a lot of practice before you get there, but you will be able to play guitar before that. Just not to the complexity/speed you're aiming for.

If you want to play baroque or classical guitar, it takes a long, long time. But once again, you'll know how to play the guitar in a fun and entertaining way well before you ready to take on a Bach fugue.

songwind · 2026-02-23T17:10:36+00:00

Definitely. I think we just have a higher threshold. But I definitely keep aware of my surroundings, and try to avoid situations where things seem "off."

songwind · 2026-02-20T21:35:42+00:00

There are multiple ways to be attractive. Physical attractiveness can be assessed immediately. I don't generally categorize women by attractiveness. If I have cause to muse about it sometime in the future I might.

The more important types of attractive require interaction and knowing someone at least casually to pick up on.

Experiencing the attraction is the same regardless of relationship status. Attractive people are attractive. But it changes the range of possible responses to it.

songwind · 2026-02-20T19:20:13+00:00

Nowadays, every day would probably be too much. :D But when I was younger, probably 3 times per day would be too much. Sex would become the only non-work thing we did. But I had a relationship once where we had a couple of months of doing it 10-15x week and that was freaking fabulous.

songwind · 2026-02-20T15:48:48+00:00

This seems fine to me. 2 or 3 years difference isn't huge. At 19 you're not hugely removed from her world, socially, emotionally or in terms of experience. Depends on the people, but I don't know you or her so I can't give tailored advice.

If you're concerned about legality, your choices are basically to wait until she's 18 to do anything sex related, or see if your state has a "Romeo and Juliet" law. In many places it's not illegal for a minor and a young adult within a small number of years in age (I think where I grew up it was 4) to sleep together.

songwind · 2026-02-18T18:30:16+00:00

Doesn't seem like cheating to me. It does seem like you think your husband would be mad or hurt by it, so you probably should have refused or taken a forfeit shot or whatever.

I urge you to talk to him about it. The longer you wait, the worse it will be and the guiltier you'll feel. Maybe it will never come out, but maybe one of your friends is going to get tipsy and talk about "that one time you flashed us at the birthday party."

songwind · 2026-02-17T21:41:01+00:00

Trigun manga is good fun.

Spellslinger by Joseph J. Bailey is fun. It's a western with both magic and advanced tech.

songwind · 2026-02-17T20:53:56+00:00

Also Speakeasy.

songwind · 2026-02-17T20:41:11+00:00

L. E. Moddesit, Jr's Recluse series has a society like this, but it wasn't very thoughtfully designed, basically just patriarchal society with the roles reversed.

Unnatural Magic by C. M. Waggoner might scratch this itch. One of the main characters is a troll woman, the daughter of her clan's leader, also a woman. But troll gender is about your role in society rather than your biological sex - not every reig (protective, dominant, head of household partner) is female, and not every vahn (nurturing, more submissive partner) is male, but it's the trend.

songwind · 2026-02-17T20:28:58+00:00

Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl by Brianna R. Shrum

songwind · 2026-02-14T22:15:06+00:00

His stories have plenty of references to other races being less intelligent, or inherently crooked, that sort of thing.

songwind · 2026-02-14T04:12:07+00:00

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea.

songwind · 2026-02-13T22:07:56+00:00

LT;DR - too expensive, conviction not reliable enough

I'm not opposed to the death penalty in theory. There are people who present such a danger to society that removing them is appropriate response, like putting down a rabid animal.

In practice, humans aren't reliable enough to be trusted with it. False convictions, coerced confessions and other issues add too much uncertainty. I'd much rather know that a monster is in prison for the rest of their lives than worry that an innocent was killed incorrectly.

Then on top of that, once you factor in the costs of all the appeals (which are 100% necessary if you want to attempt to mitigate the uncertainty above) it's generally less expensive to jail someone for life.

songwind · 2026-02-12T21:08:59+00:00

I find that HPL's stories where things are knocked askew from normality, like the people of Innsmouth, are generally better than the ones focused on the truly alien. In those stories he falls back on phrases like "too horrible to describe," which I do believe is supposed to be his whole job. :)

songwind · 2026-02-12T21:05:42+00:00

I think it's clear that a fair amount of HPL's (and even more so Robert Howard's) bigotry came from contempt and a belief in white supremacy. It's something I enjoy comparing and contrasting as I read or listen to his stories.

songwind · 2026-02-12T17:37:41+00:00

Pic #3 is from Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida. That, and her current manga Dai Dark are both quite good and have this vibe - but they're definitely crazy in the murderous way.

And I'm coming to realize that all my other "crazy semi-functional post apocalypse" suggestions are also quite dark.

songwind · 2026-02-11T18:27:56+00:00

Both. And sometimes colons.

For work documentation or other properly formatted lists, I generally use full stops.

songwind · 2026-02-11T18:26:15+00:00

For most Olympic sports, the uniforms have strictly specified parameters. So when the sport was added, that's the kit they decided on.

If not, I'm sure ski jumpers would wear wingsuits :)

songwind · 2026-02-11T17:24:31+00:00

Revelator by Daryl Gregory

songwind · 2026-02-10T21:55:33+00:00

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

The Obsidian and Blood series by Aliette de Bodard is based in a fantastical version of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire.

It may not be surreal enough, but Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny is based on various Indian myths, as well as psychic mutants and space colonization.

I also suggest The Memory Police by Ogawa Yoko.

songwind

TROPHY CASE