Shining Hearth 2026

Oct. 31st, 2025 07:30 pm
arethinn: feminine face with green eyes and pointed ears, wearing a headpiece of leaves with a seven-pointed star (otherkin (faerie glass))
[personal profile] arethinn posting in [community profile] otherkin
Announcing the sixth annual Shining Hearth, a free online gathering of Elves, Fae, Sidhe, and adjacent folk! It will be held on March 27-29, 2026, the fourth weekend in March, on our Discord server. (If you are unfamiliar with Discord, we have a guide for newcomers here. (PDF, 3.37 MB) As always, we plan to have workshops and discussions, games and watch parties, music, and of course plenty of time just to hang out and chat. You can get all the details and sign up for our newsletter on our website.

As with last year, we're starting out with an expanded schedule framework, hoping to have more offerings at times of the day that are more accessible to those attending from the eastern hemisphere. To do so we will need to have presenters willing to present at suitable times, staff to do presenter check-in duties and moderate chat, and streamers to host video watch parties or run games!
If you are a member of any otherkind spaces that are focused on those regions (or just have a high population of non-North-Americans) where you could assist with outreach, or have any other brainstorms, we welcome any suggestions and advice. If you're in Europe/Africa/Asia/Australia/wherever yourself, we encourage you to consider applying to present or be staff, or volunteering to stream a movie (or similar item) or host a game session.

Please note that the event and server are 18+ only. For more information about our policies, see the FAQ.

Important dates:
Presenter sign-ups: November 14, 2025 - January 16, 2025
General registration: January 1 - March 26, 2026
Staff sign-ups: January 31 - March 2, 2026
Schedule posted: mid-February 2026
The gathering: March 27-29, 2026

Feel free to ask any questions here or email staff (at) shininghearth.net. We hope to see ye elfae folk there!

Boston-area Kitchen Clean-Outs

Oct. 30th, 2025 09:24 pm
lb_lee: Mori making a ridiculous face. (mori)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Mori: So. Nobody's getting food stamps next month. And I needed to take a day to just... scream into my pillow and rant about the nature of evil, but it's cool! I'm better now! And I'm doing something about it! Maybe I could do something... FOR YOU!

See, we've discovered that we are a really good courier when it comes to getting stuff into free boxes! We've also discovered that we are good at helping people clean out their kitchens (and other rooms, but right now, food is the important thing). We've helped people do this and can give references!

So: is your kitchen full of herbs, spices, teas, drinks, or food that you are never going to get to? (Teas and herbs/spices are SO useful to people, and so often forgotten!) Does looking into your cabinets stress you out? We can help with that! We can help clean out your kitchen, disappear the bad stuff into the compost, and transport the good stuff to local free pantries so that hungry people can eat it! You get cupboard space, your neighbors get fed, I get to prove to myself the government can't break my spirit, and everyone wins!

This is an open offer for the general Boston area, but because we are a pedestrian and stuff like canned goods are heavy, we are most useful in the Arlington, Cambridge, Medford, and Somerville areas. We will be limited in how much we can carry, but we have two VERY sturdy 20 liter backpacks, a tote bag, and a heart filled with determination and spite.

Help us feed our neighbors! Spread the word to anyone around who might find this useful!

(I don't require pay for this. It is free, because I am MAD.)

Comic: So Wiggly, So Fluffy (2024)

Oct. 29th, 2025 10:41 pm
lb_lee: Rogan drawing/writing in a spiral. (art)
[personal profile] lb_lee
This was the winner of the fan poll for this month! Images behind cut.

Sneak just wants to pet zer headmate. Why won't Rawlin let zer??? )

Database maintenance

Oct. 25th, 2025 08:42 am
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

lb_lee: A clay sculpture of a heart, with a black interior containing little red, brown, white, green, and blue figures. (plural)
[personal profile] lb_lee
We are presenting a slideshow and talk on spirited/many-selved family portraiture at the New England Graphic Medicine Summit, on Friday, October 24, at 10 AM! Attendance can be virtual via Zoom or in-person at the Richard E. Griffin Academic Center, 670 Huntington Ave., Boston. Come say hi, and let's paint the con multi!

(Many thanks to [personal profile] dreamer_marie for being our test rehearsal audience!)
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