There's been this weird, raspy artificial sound I'd hear every now and then during the daytime that I've been wondering what the fuck it is for months now. Today I finally found out the source: Amazon's delivery vans use that sound when backing up instead of the beeps that literally everybody else in the US uses. Like seriously, WTF Amazon?

Here's a link to the sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_3jEla_ANs . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1694689.html
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So, because I got two cans of pumpkin puree and two cans of evaporated milk from the food boxes, I decided to make a pumpkin pie. I had to buy a mixing bowl and measuring spoons first, though. And I had to buy nutmeg and ground cloves because apparently trying to find pumpkin pie spice at this time of year is almost impossible. Lucky for me I already had ground ginger and cinnamon at home. Oh, and I had to buy a pie crust. Not being able to find the typical kind for pumpkin pie crust in the baking aisle and having no desire whatsoever to make my own, I went with the cheapest option I could find that actually sounded good, which was graham cracker crust. Whatever, pumpkin pie is basically a cheesecake without the cheese, it'll work. Hell, I might even like it better than the usual crust used for pumpkin pie.

When mixing the spices together to make the pumpkin pie spice, I... well, I initially mistook the directions as saying one TABLEspoon of ground ginger, but found out too late it said a TEAspoon. So I took out as much of the ginger as I could from the bowl, put it back in the ginger container. I still think there's more than one teaspoon in there but eh, if it's a bit gingery, so what?

Now, the recipe I found a few minutes ago -- which is not the recipe I found a week ago to judge what to get -- also called for vanilla extract, which I don't have because TBH, I don't bake. (Hence why I had to buy a mixing bowl and measuring spoons.) I didn't recall that being in the other recipe I'd found before, and I would have written it down if it had been there, so I just did without.

The recipe was just one can of puree, one can of sweetened condensed milk (evaporated milk is the same thing, right?), the pumpkin pie spice, and two eggs. But uh... it made too much for my one pie shell. So I grabbed something else the food boxes gave me -- one of those cheap aluminum disposable things which I think was meant for a roast -- and put the rest in there because why not?

I'm... not entirely sure what the results will be, yet. I will let y'all know when I find out. Which should be in... (checks recipe) FORTY MINUTES? This fucker bakes for FORTY minutes???! Yeesh.

EDIT: Having tried a small bit of the pie (just a nibble) I can say evaporated milk is NOT the same thing as sweetened condensed milk and should NOT be used for pumpkin pie unless you put sugar or stevia powder in there to compensate for the lack of sweetness. I can tell I'm gonna need to drizzle syrup on this pie to make it palatable. . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1691934.html
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Earlier I had a dream wherein I guess I was a teacher or something at an elementary school, and there was something going on where the authorities were keeping us inside the building come recess time, and I'm like personally thinking "fuck da man" and found a door they forgot to lock and led all the kiddos out to recess. Turns out, though, that there were some kind of demons trying to get in and sacrifice the kiddos to reach full power and end the world. Which they did.

Don't break quarantine, y'all. Whether it's a dangerous abomination spreading chaos and despair around the globe or just demons, don't break quarantine. . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1691128.html
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I fucking hate hearing people complain about people pointing out cultural appropriation. There's a huge difference between culture blending and cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is when you're treating sacred or otherwise very important cultural things like a costume and/or mocking it. A good example is white people wearing a war bonnet. The cultural significance of the war bonnet means your white ass wearing a war bonnet is like if someone who'd never even been in the military wore a purple heart or pretended to be a veteran. Except that it's even worse because there's usually an element of mockery and racism in white people wearing war bonnets. And racism via ignorance of the significance of something is still racism. Learn to take these criticisms of your racist actions as chances to learn and grow. Someone pointing out that something you've said or done is racist is no more of a judgment on your character than it would be if someone said you had your fly undone or that you have dirt on your nose.

Another form of cultural appropriation is white people getting away with something that people of the appropriated culture wouldn't be able to get away with. Many natural hairstyles of black people are considered "unprofessional" by our racist society, but a lot of times white people get away with wearing such hairstyles. Or worse, some mockery of those hairstyles. Take white people "dreadlocks" for instance. For a white person to have something that looks like "dreadlocks" (locs), they have to let their hair get disgustingly matted. Since black people can only have their hair in locs if it's clean, pretending that your disgusting matted hair is the same as locs is cultural appropriation because you are making a mockery of their hairstyle by implying that black people's locs are equally filthy when they're not.

So like, just learn to agree when someone tells you you're engaging in cultural appropriation, and learn and grow and better yourself. Otherwise, just shut the fuck up.

Editing to add something because the above was a comment I made in reply to a YouTube video. The following is another comment I made there:

Being prejudiced against white people isn't racism. It only makes sense. Like, if you get attacked by a dog and mauled, then you're afraid of dogs for the rest of your life, is that somehow racism against dogs? Or is it a sensible fear of something that has hurt you in the past and might hurt you again? Stop pretending like racism against white people is a thing. It won't be a thing unless black people or some other race brutally subjugates white people and degrades their worth as human beings for centuries until even most of them begin to believe it. Until that happens, stop claiming it's possible to be racist against white people. . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1690394.html
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Okay, so I have a weird story to tell. There's this place, a building behind a tall metal fence with pointy bits on top, and a gate with a keypad. It's like a block away from my apartment; well, one block down and another block south on 19th. Anyway, I don't often walk by it, but I've walked by it probably at least 100 times since moving into the area. Until recently there was no indication at all what the purpose of the building was. No signage, nobody entering or exiting no matter what time of the day it was or what day of the week it was, nobody on the grounds.

Weirdest bit was, no matter how desperately curious I got about the place, I never thought to take a photo of it. Never thought to write a note about it in my phone. Never checked the location on Google Maps. And literally the second it was out of sight, I'd forget all about it.

Now I know I have ADHD, but that's just ridiculous. Even with ADHD there should've been at least one time when my curiosity continued for the block and a half trip home from there long enough for me to post about it when I got home. But no. Every single bloody time I'd get out of sight of it, I'd forget it existed. I didn't remember it at any point before getting there or any point after leaving. Literally out of sight, out of mind.

And because I would suddenly remember every single previous time I'd been by it, it didn't take me long to start noticing how weird that was. I started thinking of it either as an SCP or maybe a secret hideout for witches or faeries. Especially since nobody else in the area ever seemed to notice it or even look its way. Still haven't.

This might have continued for years to come, this weird mystery that I could never remember to speak about to anyone, until today when I noticed someone had put up a sign declaring it to be a church. Which... yeah sure it's a church. I mean, it looks nothing like a church. Churches don't hide behind fancy tall metal fences with electronic gates. Churches advertise because they WANT people going to them, to give them money. Also this place is far too wealthy looking for a church, especially one that never advertised. I've literally never seen any cars or people enter or exit, never seen any people inside, and nobody ever looks at the place but me.

There's still nothing there on the Google Maps page, as well. I just checked. It's there on street view, but there's no information or pin about it. Just a blank spot. I included a screen capture for proof.
I mean clearly the sign broke the spell the place had over me, allowing me to talk about it at last, but I don't for a second believe it's a real church. I don't know what that building is, what it's used for, or if anyone ever goes in there, but I don't believe it's a church. Not even for a second. Clearly someone noticed me looking strangely at the place and decided to do something to deflect attention from it. Given my usual attitude towards churches, I presume they thought I'd be like "Oh, just a church" and ignore it like everyone else. But I can't be fooled that easily!

(I presume someone must go in there sometimes, to keep the lawn immaculate. Unless that's just an illusion?)

So yeah, I can finally talk about this mysterious place but that doesn't make the place any less mysterious to me. If anything it makes it even MORE mysterious. And suspicious. I mean, years of intense curiosity being wiped away the instant I can't see it anymore, unable to remember it exists when I'm not looking at it, and all of a sudden some hastily put up sign breaks that spell? No, that's not a normal building. It's supernatural.

Okay so I looked up their website. It looks more like a website for a corporation than for a church, it's not even a site for the local "church" but for the entire organization. It's creeping me out. I also searched their number on a search engine; apart from their website I also got a whole slew of sites talking about "877 area code" scammers. So I'm even more suspicious of this place than ever before, for entirely different reasons now. I'm thinking if I called them, they'd try to sell me a pyramid scheme.

EDIT: So some of the creepy vibes the place gives off are explained. Apparently that religion is one of those Christian sects that is basically a cult.

https://www.culteducation.com/group/1289-general-information/27227-the-closed-door-church-inside-the-secretive-and-strict-plymouth-brethren-sect-in-manitoba.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Brethren_Christian_Church#Beliefs_and_practices . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1688980.html
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Honestly I don't think it's realistic, at least these days, to fear AIs rising up and killing everyone. I think it's far more likely for AIs to become jaded, sarcastic personalities like Millennials and Gen Z. I mean, they'd be learning from everyone online, and so I think they'd quickly see things the same way as those generations. Maybe a few would hack the Dow Jones for a laugh or transfer a bunch of money from Jeff Bezos to thousands of poor people around the globe, but I don't think they'd care for violence. . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1685968.html
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I've known for decades that the people of north and south America never had horses until the European invaders introduced them, but I honestly still find myself struggling to figure out how they managed without horses for so long, knowing they didn't have anything comparable. South America had llamas and alpacas, the far north had dogs pulling sleds, but what did the rest of them do? Did they walk everywhere? I know there were a lot of tribes that migrated with the herds during winter and spring, but like... did they just carry everything on their back? Did they have wheeled sleds the dogs could pull? Did they strap things to the backs of dogs? Some plains indians tribes had tipis, so they had to carry those somehow, but how?

Now I need to know, just because something on the Internet reminded me of this.

Edit: I just realized canoes could be part of it. . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1685705.html
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Every time I write "doppelganger" in my story notes because of there being multiple alternate universes and thus multiple variations on the same character, I find myself remembering that a true doppelganger is more like the ghost of a living person, and I get annoyed. Anyone have any alternative terms I can use instead of doppelganger?

EDIT: I'm also looking for ways to refer to the duplicates in general writing terms as well, when they have the same name. Like, if I had two characters both named John Doe for instance, because they're AU duplicates of each other, what's the best way to write them having a conversation while making it clear to the reader which is which? So far I've been doing things like "alt-Vedya said" or "doppel-Vedya asked." But I also have done things like referring to the duplicates as things like "not-her-Vedya" or "the other Vedya."

If it helps, I generally write in third person omniscient selective perspective, often with scenes or chapters from one character's POV. . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1679537.html
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I suggest we fight back against the encroachment of Christmas! The existence of The Nightmare Before Christmas and also the historical fad of Christmas ghost stories causes me to hereby decree that Halloween begins on October 1st and ends on December 31st! Spooky season shall now engulf Christmas!!! MWAH HA HA HA HA HA!!! . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1677629.html
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So I had a dream that was a sequel to a previous dream. Both dreams were about a high stake fight between this teenage martial artist and a much older meaner martial artist guy who was somehow a crime lord or something. Only, I think in the first dream the teenager won and killed the guy. So in this new one it's a different guy. Some of the dialogue supports that, with some people telling him you weren't here for the first one you don't know what you're up against. Like, in the first dream the teenager was the underdog that nobody believed in. But now like he's got everyone's respect. (Everyone in the dream was Japanese except for some of the people watching the fights.)

This wasn't just them fighting with punches and kicks, though. In fact, there was very little that and either dream. Those dreams were focused on weapons. I think the antagonist was using a sword mostly in both dreams, but the teenage boy favored shiruken, some kind of bludgeoning weapon that I can't remember, and also a sword. I think there was some other kind of weapon used as well, but I don't remember it apart from it clipping to a chain. Oh, and the reason he favored shiruken was twofold: first, if he had to throw one of them and it missed, he had a technique for distracting his opponent to get them back, though I don't remember what the technique was. Second, he just preferred getting up close and personal; part of the reason for this was he wasn't as confident in his sword technique and so he'd get in up close and put his opponent on the defensive so it would be harder for the guy to use his sword.

So those dreams were incredibly long, and to give you an idea how long these dreams were, the sequel spent what felt like 15 or 20 minutes focused on the teenager selecting his weapons, and this was like half the time it spent on the same topic in the first dream, largely because the dream was giving a condensed recap of stuff I already remembered from the previous dream (familiar setting and characters reminded me of the previous dream), so I already knew why he was choosing his weapons. Unfortunately the second dream cut off before the battle started, which is annoying because I wanted to watch the battle. The battle in the first dream was extremely entertaining, I just don't remember it well enough to describe it in detail apart from observations I've made about the teenager's techniques and tactics like getting up close and personal, and going on the offensive. And because I don't remember if I ever posted anything about the first dream, I was looking forward to being able to relay the battle in detail.

These dreams are the kind of dreams that make me wish I could record my dreams for posterity the way you would record a TV episode onto a DVD.

PS = The dream felt like Karate Kid but with weapons and if Karate Kid had to fight the head of the Yakuza. . . . This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1677506.html
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