July is Disability Pride Month.

These are some of my characters with disabilities. Series with disabled main characters include Clay of Life, the Draft Dawgs thread in Arts and Crafts America, Daughters of the Apocalypse, Frankenstein's Family, Monster House, The Moon Door, P.I.E., and Walking the Beat. Polychrome Heroics has a bunch, but they are scattered around various threads; some are ordinary disabilities while others relate to superpowers. You can ask for more disabled characters in any relevant prompt call. Today's Poetry Fishbowl theme is "Weaponized Incompetence and Malicious Compliance."

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Sometimes I find 100x100 icons I've made (often months ago) that I have very little memory of making and have never shared anywhere. So this is an attempt to release these into the world at large, lol. They're mostly Pokémon icons with some other stuff thrown in.

Credit is appreciated and I'd love to know if you use them! :) All of these are from last year.

( Under a cut just so this doesn't get too long! )

Drive-by ad before I go: I'm organizing a countdown event for the release of Pokémon Legends Z-A! If you're an artist or know artists who'd be interested, don't hesitate to check it out! 💚

Sunshine Revival Challenge #1: Light

Journaling Prompt: Light up your journal with activity this month. Talk about your goals for July or for the second half of 2025.

Creative Prompt: Shine a light on your own creativity. Create anything you want (an image, an icon, a story, a poem, or a craft) and share it with your community.. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.



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This is today's freebie. It was inspired by a prompt from torc87. It also fills the "I tried being reasonable. I didn't like it." square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the series One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis.

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Today is mostly sunny and warm, nicer than it has been recently.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus a pair of cardinals that flew away when I went outside.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 7/1/25 -- I refilled the hopper feeder.

EDIT 7/1/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 7/1/25 -- I watered the old picnic table and the patio plants.  Despite recent rains, things were wilting. :/

EDIT 7/1/25 -- I watered the new picnic table and septic garden.

I've seen a grackle and a robin.

I picked a 'Chocolate Sprinkles' tomato.

EDIT 7/1/25 -- I watered the telephone pole garden and seedlings in the savanna.

Fireflies are coming out.

I am done for the night. 

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED.  Thank you for your time and attention.  Please keep an eye on this page as I am still writing.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Weaponized Incompetence and Malicious Compliance!" I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for activists, rebels, traitors, exes, abuse survivors, refugees, runaway youth, slaves or other captives, slavers, housemates, siblings, parents, teachers, clergy, leaders, bosses, employees, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, alien or fantasy species, failure analysts, ethicists, other people who get into untenable situations, protesting, dragging your feet, breaking things, causing problems because you were told to, planning, throwing in the towel, escaping, running like someone left the gate open, adventuring, hitchhiking, quitting school, divorcing, disowning, betraying, teaching, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, expecting the unexpected, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, slave ships, slave quarters, abusive homes, trails, sailing ships, campervans or RVs, distant lands, the forest primeval, prehistory, liminal zones, schools, residential school-concentration camps, homeless shelters, hotels, churches, sharehouses, campfires, laboratories, supervillain lairs, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, stores, starships, alien planets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other places where the intolerable happens, unhappy relationships, crappy jobs, educational abuse, responsibility without authority is abuse, protest rallies, slavery or captivity, locks or chains, travel mishaps, sudden surprises, the buck stops here, trial and error, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Western Bingo Card 7-1-25

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

Weaponized incompetence has two modes:
* One is shirking a fair share of work by pretending to be bad at it: for instance, copper-digging men who try to con women into doing all the emotional labor. (Take care to distinguish this from people who don't know how to do things because they were never taught, or people who are genuinely bad at a category of thing.)
* The other is a form of activism, and indeed, one of the leading forms of resistance in slavery: doing work slowly, sloppily, breaking tools, playing dumb, etc. It's exactly how black people got a reputation for being stupid and lazy, because their ancestors were unwilling to be exploited and fought back in subtle ways.

Malicious compliance is following an order to the letter, expecting that to cause problems. It is a form of protest most often used when pointing out a flaw or proposing a better solution would be ignored or even punished.


Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One is developing its own neurovariant culture after rebelling against the Galactic Arms.

The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past, touching on slavery and rebellion.

Not Quite Kansas includes demons, who are masters of malicious compliance.

The Ocracies has a wide variety of countries crammed together, each with a totally different government. Sometimes people leave their homeland to find something they like better.

One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis follows Shaeth as he works on becoming the God of Drunks after quitting as the God of Evili.

Peculiar Obligations mixes Quakers and pirates, among other things. It's another setting where people strive against slavery.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. The supervillains are the most likely to practice weaponized incompetence and malicious compliance. Among the more relevant threads are Danso and Family, Dr. Infanta, Fortressa, Iron Horses, Shiv, and Trichromatic Attachments.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

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premonish (pri-MON-ish) - v., to warn in advance.


Although admonish now means something more like rebuke, especially after the fact, it originally meant warn beforehand--from Latin ad-, against + moneō, warn/advise. This much less known word replaces the prefix with pre-, here in the sense of before.

——L.

I had the nicest time last night at the pub trivia! I couldn't get any of my friends to go with me because they were all busy or too tired or didn't feel like it but I got on the same team with four very nice, cool women and we had a great time, didn't win but we did good. Two bonuses:

1. Just the composition of our team would have pissed off all the Trumpazoids. Let's just say I was the only straight white person on the team.
2. I knew a lot of answers they didn't so I was a good team asset.

In other news they're doing another damn inspection in the apt bldg. They make a big deal about not having anything blocking the windows, they said they mean screens but I have a large chair near the window that can't really go anywhere else (I do not have a big apartment). It's not actually blocking the window, it's just near it. Also it's hard to clean the apt with a fucked up leg. The bathtub is a real nightmare. In the early 80's I just had a shower stall where I lived and I actually strongly prefer showers to baths anyway. Last time I took a bath was when they were installing new plumbing in the bathroom and hadn't finished hooking up the shower head and that was about what? 13 years ago?? Anyway, gotta clean the kitchen today, and pay rent and go to physical therapy too. Hope I have the damn energy.
I like listening to this one podcast while I clean but they haven't done a new episode since June 12th and that was a really short one.

This is just going to be a short post but it's been bugging me and it's not worth actually posting on Twitter since getting into any kind of disagreement on Twitter is stupid lol. But anyway there's a tendency in fandoms for things to lean a lot towards one intepretation of a character situation (Spamton is a poor little meowmeow) then whip to the other extreme as a backlash to the first trend (Spamton is Satan incarnate). Another one I've seen is Sans being devastated by Papyrus dying turning into Sans making flippant jokes about how he doesn't care about his death at all. The overcorrection doesn't fix anything and isn't any more accurate, it's just too far in the other direction to feel superior to the people from the first one. It's annoying! Flattening someone into black isn't any better than flattening them into white, except at least white feels less vindictive.

I think there's also an element of defensiveness for going to black-flattening to try and ward off criticism of being "too soft" on characters ahead of time by painting them as much worse than they are. I'm not one of those dumb fans who ignores their faults! I'm OBJECTIVE!

Anyway as you can probably guess this is about Spamton, who I've mostly seen on the demonized side lately (seen him called the most irredeemable, vicious, evil, unspeakably cruel character in the entire game) particularly given what happened in Chapter 3 of Deltarune. Someone posted a list of his crimes from the Villain Wiki as a kind of "gotcha" about what a bad person he is and half of these aren't accurate or don't even apply to him. >:| If you want to accuse him of crimes at least accuse him of ones he actually did! It bothers me so much I'm just going to go through them here because doing it on Twitter would just start pointless arguing that'd be an even bigger waste of time.

( Overstatement is the name of the game )

The way people talk about Snowgrave lately you'd think Spamton shows up right when you get Noelle, puts a gun in her hands, and tells you to start blasting. :/

lj post

Fighting fire with fire: How prescribed burns reduce wildfire damage and pollution

Wildfires are becoming more intense and dangerous, but a new Stanford-led study offers hope: prescribed burns—intentionally set, controlled fires—can significantly lessen their impact. By analyzing satellite data and smoke emissions, researchers found that areas treated with prescribed burns saw wildfire severity drop by 16% and smoke pollution fall by 14%. Even more striking, the smoke from prescribed burns was just a fraction of what wildfires would have produced in the same areas.


And how long did it take white people to figure out what tribal folks have been doing for, oh, 20,000+ years?

Here is my card for the Western Bingo Fest over in allbingo. The fest runs from July 1-31. (See all my 2025 bingo cards.)

If you'd like to sponsor a particular square, especially if you have an idea for what character, series, or situation it would fit -- talk to me and we'll work something out. I've had a few requests for this and the results have been awesome so far. This is a good opportunity for those of you with favorites that don't always mesh well with the themes of my monthly projects. I may still post some of the fills for free, because I'm using this to attract new readers; but if it brings in money, that means I can do more of it. That's part of why I'm crossing some of the bingo prompts with other projects, such as the Poetry Fishbowl.

Underlined prompts have been filled.


WESTERN BINGO CARD

Bad Girls	Resist Oppression	"The Wayward Wind"	The Harder They Fall	Captive / Slave
Close-knit Community	"He’s all hat and no cattle."	Buffalo	"Cool Water"	Gambling
"Put me down!"	Dodge	WILD CARD	Redemption Story	Silver / Gold
"I tried being reasonable. I didn't like it."	Firefly	Defenestration	Immigrant	Horse
Black Hats / White Hats	I'll Get My Revenge	Independent Woman	Sunrise / Sunset	Emotionally Constipated Man

Beavers restore lands damaged by wildfire, human abuses, or other causes. 

This is especially useful with climate change causing more drought.  I recommend recruiting all available keystone species to resist the decline.  Good examples for Turtle Island / North America include beavers, buffalo, goldenrod, milkweed, oak trees, prairie dogs, redwood trees, salmon, sea otters, and wolves.  While not everyone has the resources to house any of those personally, you can still support organizations that aim to promote them.

New study finds apes feel more optimistic after hearing laughter, indicates 'evolution of positive emotions'

Laughter — closely tied to language and a sense of humor — has long been thought to be uniquely human.
But in a new study out of Indiana University, researchers have discovered that bonobos, the closest living relative to human beings, along with chimpanzees, tend to be more optimistic after hearing similar vocalizations during play with their fellow apes.


I imagine that the people who mistake laughter for uniquely human have never had a cat look right at them, shove something of a shelf, and then laugh.  Animals I have observed laughing include cats, dogs, horses, goats, and multiple species of birds.

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
New Year's Resolutions Check In
Gender
Early Humans
Moment of Silence: Acelightning
New Crowdfunding Project: Land of Eem
Birdfeeding
Today's Adventures
Staying Afloat
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Morals
Bingo
Poetry Fishbowl Report for June 3, 2025
Birdfeeding
Native American
Follow Friday 6-27-25: Hiking
Hobbies: Stage Magic
Today's Adventures
Birdfeeding
Goblincore
Ancient Life
Ceramics
Artificial Intelligence
Books
Exoplanets
Birdfeeding
Good News

"Philosophical Questions: Looks" has 40 comments. "Not a Destination, But a Process" has 144 comments. "The Democratic Armada of the Caribbean" has 93 comments.


sunshine_revival is setting up to activate July 1. See the schedule, meet the moderators, and use the master post to navigate the event. Meet new folks in the friending meme. Spread the word!




summerofthe69 is now open! You can see the calendar here and the current themes are Tetris 69 and Body Worship 69.


"In the Heart of the Hidden Garden" belongs to the Antimatter and Stalwart Stan thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It only needs $40 to be fully funded. Lawrence leads Stan to Criss Library.


The weather was sweltering recently but has cooled off slightly. It's been raining a good deal and drizzled again this evening. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a pair of mourning doves, a male cardinal, a fox squirrel, and at least 1 probably 2 bats. Currently blooming: dandelions, pansies, violas, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, wild strawberries, verbena, lantana, sweet alyssum, zinnias, snapdragons, blue lobelia, perennial pinks, impatiens, oxalis, moss rose, yarrow, anise hyssop, firecracker plant, tomatoes, tomatillos, Asiatic lilies, cucumber, daylilies, snowball bush, yellow squash, zucchini, morning glory, purple echinacea, narrow-leaf mountain mint, black-eyed Susan, yellow coneflower, wild bergamot, chicory, Queen Anne's lace. Cucumbers, tomatillo, and pepper have green fruit. The first 'Chocolate Sprinkles' tomato ripened and some other tomatoes are showing color. Wild strawberries, mulberries, peas, and blackberries are ripe. Black raspberries are winding down.

 
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Monday, June 30, to midnight on Tuesday, July 1. (8pm Eastern Time).




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
 

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

WILLOW: It says that Meredith and two other girls in the car were killed instantly. They were all on the Fondren High Pep Squad, on the way to a game.
BUFFY: You know what this means.
XANDER: That Fondren might actually beat Sunnydale in the cross-town body count competition this year?
BUFFY: She wasn't killed by vampires. Somebody did dig up her corpse.
CORDELIA: Eww! Why is it that every conversation you people have has the word 'corpse' in it?

~~BtVS 2x03 “Some Assembly Required”~~

---

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

• 
• Infected (Buffy/Angel, Giles, Scoobies, PG) by badly_knitted
• 
• Infected (Buffy/Angel, Giles, Scoobies, PG) by badly_knitted
• Knock, Knock (1997) (Xander/Spike, T) by scaryfangirl2001
• This thing we call failure (Buffy/Spike, G) by thegreenempty
• Meal Choices (Buffy, Xander, G) by arcanedreamer
• Poems: today doesn’t count: part 40 (Buffy/Spike, collection rated M) by modestlobster

[Chaptered Fiction]

• 
• [French language] Le monstre, c’est l’autre, Chapter 2/? (Spike/OFM, not rated) by BigBadAnt
• Meeting the co-parents-in-laws, Chapters 1-3/? (Buffy/Spike, Buffy/Faith, not rated) by Laqt15
• Chasing the Light, Chapter 29/40 (Angel/Lindsey, E) by CloudSeeker
• Botanical Hearts, Chapter 1/10 (Willow/Tara, M) by TNue
• The Sunnydale Imp, Chapter 66/77 (Scoobies & OC, T) by Bloodredtiger
• 
• I Spy, Chapter 12 Complete! (Buffy/Spike, R) by Geliot99
• The Pryce of Tyme, Chapter 14 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Joan963z, Ragini
• Troubling Deaf Heaven, Chapter 22 (Buffy/Spike, R) by JuneCurry
• Fracture, Chapter 5 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Holly
• 
• It's a Hellmouth After All, Chapter 3 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by Dusty, bookishy
• I Spy, Chapter 12 Complete! (Buffy/Spike, R) by Geliot99
• 
• Where The Pretty Maidens Dared, part 3 (ensemble, not rated) by ILLYRIAN

[Images, Audio & Video]

• 
• Vidlet: buffy/faith: kiss with a fist (worksafe) by dykekingofhell
• Artwork: been thinking about her lately, random doodles and concepts for designs with the au + faith (Willow, worksafe) by pzyii
• Gifset: [Buffy, Willow, Xander dancing at The Bronze - 2x03 School Hard] (worksafe) by starryeyesxx
• 
• Manip: Under the Summer Sun (Buffy/Spike, G) by honeygirl51885
• 
• Manips: Drive Me Crazy, Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, G) by cd85, Geliot99
• Artwork: Muse-eum, Chapters 1-2 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by HappyWhenItRains

[Reviews & Recaps]

• 
• Podcast: Buffy S2E2 "Some Assembly Required" Review by Major Slayage - A Buffy Rewatch Podcast
• 
• Willow's character analysis (some of it) by Cailly_Brard7
• What are your favorite and least favorite songs on the 5 soundtracks? by speashasha
• I'm watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time. Here are my thoughts on Season 1 Episode 9 by genZcommentary
• Season 4 first time watch by emmie_lou26
• I read Fray, so I wanted to ramble by lap-dog8141
• first watch- character thoughts by No_Check1294
• 
• PODCAST: Episode 68 - Unlimited Cake! (A New Man) by The Sunnydale Diaries

[In Search Of]

• 
• ISO: Podcast Recs requested by kylienw19

[Fandom Discussions]

• 
• Another easter egg about Spike by tryingtoforgetapples
• controversial opinion (apparently?): i love buffy season 4 by xaeyrnofnbe
• the writers really went… okay this sarcastic vampire guy who sort of helps her fight angelus will no longer be able to hurt people by socratesgirlnextdoor
• Buffy is either overwhelmingly kind (there is evidence to this), has a blind spot the size of Texas when it comes to Willow by femmedefandom
• 
• Rank the episodes by nightshade, multiple posters
• The set up scene for the Spin off that never was continued by multiple posters
• 
• What happens if a new slayer is called and she just doesn't wanna do the job? Does the Council kill her to trigger the next one? by HomarEuropejski
• Do you think any of the scoobies actually got a degree in the latter half of the show or after? by KENZOKHAOS
• Could Spike poison a person? by Nathanfatherhouse
• If you could see any Buffy The Vampire Slayer and/or Angel character as a vampire or something else; Who would it be, what would they be, and why? by Big-Restaurant-2766
• So confused on S6, E16 [Why did Xander break things off?] by opaladindefg
• What are your favourite metaphors in the show? by EstablishmentSad5063
• One Scene You’d Totally Remove — No Regrets by melbreddituser
• What if Harmony and her gang just bit/turned [Dawn]? by tc4eva
• Are there any people here who actually prefer the Angel show over Buffy? If so, why do you like it more? What are the things you think it does better than Buffy? by HomarEuropejski
• What do you think would have happened if season 1 was a full 22 episodes? by Dapper3031
• What are some of your favorite episodes? by JenYo
• Hypothetically - let's say James Marsters is cast as Angel and David Boreanaz is cast as Spike. Could they pull off the other one's role? by HomarEuropejski
• Buffy salary by Edinburghnurse
• Spike and the Trigger by aceofspades85262
• The Bitch is Back with Charisma Carpenter - Buffy and Angel first watch podcast by Rat_terrorist
• Rewatching The Body Advice by nuun123

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

• 
• CONVENTION: James Marsters, Juliet Landau, Julie Benz & Clare Kramer Fanboy Expo Knoxville 2025 Schedule by dontkillspike
• PUBLICATION: These 2 Dark Buffy Characters Actually Have a Connection That Most Fans Missed by Carolyn Jenkins, CBR.com
• PUBLICATION: Michelle Trachtenberg's 8 Best Moments As Dawn In Buffy The Vampire Slayer by Tom Russell, ScreenRant.com

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

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tantalus [tan-tl-uhs]

noun

1. a stand or rack containing visible decanters, especially of wines or liquors, secured by a lock; a case in which bottles may be locked with their contents tantalizingly visible

examples

1. A tantalus containing three kinds of spirit, all of a liqueur excellence, stood always on this table of luxury; but the fanciful have asserted that the whisky, brandy, and rum seemed always to stand at the same level. The Wisdom of Father Brown G.K. Chesterton

2. Carstairs made a gesture towards the tantalus on the table. Afterwards Kathlyn Rhodes

origin

Latin, from Greek Tantalos, from the Greek myth of Tantalus, a wicked king and son of Zeus; condemned in Hades to stand in water that receded when he tried to drink and beneath fruit that receded when he reached for it

sunshine_revival has posted a Friending Meme. The calendar of activities is here and the fest will open on July 1. Prompts will appear throughout July which you can fill with any creative activity. It's a great way to make new friends.  If your goals include setting seasonal goals, arts and crafts, writing, or making new friends then sunshine_revival can help with that. Use the master post to navigate the event.

sunshine_revival has posted a Friending Meme. The calendar of activities is here and the fest will open on July 1.  Use the master post to navigate the event.