Network

Current Mood: productive

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New Fic: A Strategic Discussion of No Importance (Maybe)

A Strategic Discussion of No Importance (Maybe) (765 words) by Selenay
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Metaphor: ReFantazio (Video Game)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Eiselin Hulkenberg, Leon Strohl
Additional Tags: Slice of Life
Summary:

"Admit it. You're a fan."

"I'm a what?" Hulkenberg asked, immediately wondering if she could throw herself out of a window before she had to endure this particular conversation.

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Dreamwidth Book Club

bookclub_dw is a monthly reading club where community members take turns choosing a book to read for the month and then moderating a discussion about the book at the end of the month.

We are currently voting on the book for January 2026 here: https://bookclub-dw.dreamwidth.org/995.html

Current Mood: open-handed
Current Music: Mister Sandman, man me a sand

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More Joy Day poems & drabbles offer

For More Joy Day (Jan. 8, 2026) it is my tradition to offer poetry and drabbles to anyone who is interested.

Here is my list of fandoms. Your OTP, weird crossover pairings, bananas tropes -- hit me up and I will see what I can do!

Prompt formatting:
Drabble/Poem/Author's Choice, Fandom, Character | Pairing | Group, Trope/Prompt.

Current Mood: grateful

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Happy New Year 2026

I really hope 2026 is a much better year for the world.

But I really, really want to wish my friends on Dreamwidth a great year ahead. May all your problems be solved, and you find friends and fun to make you happy. 🥂🍾

(photo by Cody Chan)

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book report

Spin State, by Chris Moriarty

I picked this up knowing nothing about it except that it was science fiction, and I spent the entire book trying to figure out where it was going, but in a good way. It starts out with a raid, so I was thinking military SF, but then it quickly transitions into a mystery, and from there we go through some spy shit, a bit of romance, a Mission Impossible-style heist, a miner's strike, and, finally, cyberpunk. It's quite a ride. It's got unremarkable queerness (people are queer! it goes unremarked upon!), the protagonist is a woman of color of........complicated origins, and there's a fascinating relationship between her and an AI. Cohen, as he calls himself, is hundreds of years old, controls dozens of networks, and has expensive tastes.

In part, this book is about memory, what your memories make you, and who you are without them, and at times I felt like it was messing with my memory because it seemed to be skipping over important things in the investigation and in the spy shit. Like how did Li get her Beretta back? They took her knife, but left her with that gun and the ammo for it? No. It's also the kind of science fiction that comes with a ten page bibliography at the end in case you want to read up on quantum entanglement, but just tosses you into the world, dumps a bunch of new terminology on you, and lets you figure things out on your own. Which I mostly did, but it's a bit of an uphill trudge at the beginning.

This is the first in a trilogy, a fact I discovered when I was 82% through this one, and happily my library had the other two ebooks, as well, so I checked out the second book as soon as I was done with this one.

Contains: sexual assault, attempted rape—brief and not lingered upon; (sexual?) slavery—underpins a side relationship in the book.

Current Mood: ha -- h'm
Current Music: The Folgers incest commercial

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Recommendation: The Worst Part of Waking Up (Hornblower amalgam)

The Worst Part of Waking Up (6571 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hornblower (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: William Bush/Horatio Hornblower
Characters: Horatio Hornblower, William Bush
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, dying declarations, First Kiss, (is also the), Last Kiss, (or it should have been damnit), Everybody Lives, (as embarrassing as that is for some), When He Made This Bed He Wasn't Expecting to Wake Up In It, Episode: e07 Loyalty (Hornblower)
Summary:

At the end of Loyalty, Bush is too late to save Hornblower. With his dying breath, Hornblower requests a kiss from Bush…

…only to wake up a week later and discover he's going to live after all. Damnit.

*

Listed as Hornblower (TV) but 100% by someone who has read and despaired of Book!Horatio.

Fiction

Uketsu, Strange Houses: ( floor plans )

Jim Butcher, Out Law: ( Harry helps out Marcone )

Freya Marske, Cinder House: ( ghost Cinderella )

Seanan McGuire, Through Gates of Garnet and Gold: ( Wayward children reunite )

Kai Butler, The Earl and the Executive: ( space Regency m/m romance )

Olga Ravn, The Employees: ( weird crew )

James Islington,( the first two books of an engaging trilogy about a Marty Stu )
Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry: ( yep, that's what I expected )

Vajra Chandrasekera, Rakesfall: ( reincarnation sf )

Isaac R. Fellman, The Two Doctors Górski: ( Yeah, it's Dark Academia )

Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, The Salvage Crew: ( a human in a ship's body but not Anne McCaffrey )
Barbara Truelove, Of Monsters and Mainframes: ( monsters in space )

Jim Hines, Slayers of Old:( BtVS, but retired )

Neal Shusterman, Scythe: ( remember that Star Trek episode where they wouldn't use birth control? )

Meet the Snowflake 2026 Mod Squad!

akamine_chan created The Fandom Snowflake Challenge back in 2012 as a way to remind herself “why I loved fandom so much”. Over the years the challenge itself has come to mean a lot to many of us, so by way of introduction some of the mods for this year have written about what Snowflake Challenge means to them and why they are excited about it.

( Meet the Mods )

As you can see the challenge means so many things to the mods, and to everyone who has participated before, and will hopefully also be meaningful to anyone joining us for the first time this year. You’ll find us all wading through comments, welcoming everyone, answering questions, keeping the peace, so if you need anything, don't hesitate to flag one of us down.

Tomorrow starts the first of the fandom challenges, so hope you all are ready for some fun times! Feel free to do any challenge that strikes your fancy (or all of them), or leave a comment on someone else’s challenge response at anytime.

You can promote the challenge by copy-pasting the information from the text boxes below:

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

Entry tags:

2026,
master post

2026 Snowflake Challenge Master Post

Use this post to help you navigate your way through the challenge. Take a look at the comments for each challenge, say hello to friends and strangers, follow the links and check out a vid, or a fic, or a fanmix, a podfic or some art, or create something yourself. Have fun!

Introduction Post

Resources

RSS feed for LJ users: make sure you're logged into your LJ account. Click here; at the top of the page click Add it to your friends page and you're all done. Remember that the RSS feed is on a delay, so you won't see new posts right away.

The Fandom Snowflake Challenge Collection at AO3 is here. Any fanwork that you create for or because of the challenge can be added.

Other places you can find us:

Pillowfort: Snowflake Challenge where we'll be tracking hashtag Snowflake Challenge 2026.

Mastodon: Snowflake Challenge where we'll be tracking hashtag snowflakechallenge2026.

The Challenges

Coming Soon!

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2026,
introduction

Welcome to the Snowflake Challenge 2026!

We're in the final hours of 2025, so I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to Snowflake 2026 season. We're so happy you're all here, little snowflakes. I wish for every single person in the community an exciting, fulfilling, and joyful start to the year. Whether you're staying cozy amidst the chill of winter or enjoying the peak of summer in the southern hemisphere, there are so many ways to celebrate the fun and uniqueness of you, your fandoms, and your online communities.

We will be posting challenges on every odd-numbered day in January, starting tomorrow. To participate, comment on the community challenge post. We encourage you to include a link to your own challenge post and to include some details/teasers in your comment about what you wrote to encourage visitors, but you can also simply say that you did it/include a link. There is no deadline so feel free to complete challenges when and how you see fit. This is a fun and lighthearted challenge with an open invitation to participate and very few rules!

Welcome to Snowflake 2026; let the games begin!

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books

Reading Wednesday

It being Void Week and NYE, I fully forgot that it was also a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, my dudes.

Just finished: Nothing.

Currently reading: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. 700 pages and two years into Hans Castrop's stay at the Berghof, which our guy does not want to leave. And who can blame him? It seems a very chill life. Hans and Joachim (but mainly Hans) take up visiting the people who are bedridden and dying, which results in at least one awkward incident of a teenage girl developing a huge crush on him. Clavdia and Joachim both leave (the latter after a very lengthy conversation in untranslated French, most of which I didn't understand; the former to go into the military even though he is not fully cured). Settembrini also leaves, but not to go very far, instead to move in with his friend/arch-nemesis/wait are these two gay for each other, Leo Naphta. Meanwhile, Hans' uncle/cousin/foster brother James Tienappel comes up for a bit to try to convince Hans to leave, before realizing that all of these people are mental and Hans is mental and then he nopes out without saying goodbye and before he can be diagnosed with tuberculosis, making him the wisest character in the book so far.

As is the style of the era, there's a digression on art and painting styles where the sanatorium's director, Behrens, has been painting Clavdia, and according to Hans is quite bad at it, but he has to compliment the guy's technique anyway, and this is quite good.

The very lengthy dialogue between Settembrini and Naphta, which is a seduction of sorts wherein both weird old guys try to convince Hans (and Joachim, who is there too) of their philosophical points of view. Settembrini is a Renaissance humanist, Naphta is a Jewish convert to Catholicism who really, really likes this newfangled communism thing. Settembrini later pulls Hans aside after Naphta goes on and on about revolution and is like, stay away from that guy unless I'm around. Hans asks why, is it because of the revolution stuff? Settembrini reveals that no, he is secretly A Jesuit, and Hans is like, OMG A Jesuit, which has to be the funniest part of the book so far.

No one believes me that I'm enjoying this.

Anyway, friends, happy New Year! May we all survive.

Current Music: Nine Inch Nails (feat Judeline): Who wants to live forever

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anniversary

Year in review 2025

My mother died in March. That feels like basically the only thing that happened this year, but of course it's not. Theoretically you stay in full mourning for a parent for a whole year (which hasn't ended yet); I haven't quite managed that, as done properly it's really quite intense, no social gatherings or live music for example, but it has definitely been the major theme in my life. And helping Dad to figure out what his life will be like as a widow.

I continued to be a student rabbi, making it through to the halfway point of my studies. I took on more and more complex rabbinic work, and got to know the incoming first year students. (We're the grownups now, there is actually only one finalist ahead of my cohort.) My much awaited and also somewhat dreaded trip to Israel got cancelled, due to the decision point coinciding with the particularly scary time when Israel was actively at war with Iran. I did some other short travel, even making it to Germany and Sweden.

Significant events:

Mum went from being officially terminally ill but mostly coping at the beginning of the year, to the drugs not working and being in a lot of pain in January-February, to actively dying. March-April was all the immediate aftermath of her death.
I had a few days with jack in Skegness, which I remember basically nothing about because it was in the middle of the final weeks of Mum's life. I think we stayed in a cute tiny house and did a bit of walking in the countryside. I have more memories of our trip to Norfolk in May.
I spent a very intense and overwhelming week in Germany at an Abrahamic faith retreat.
doseybat and verazea got married on a lightship on the Thames, and my partners had a Jewish blessing of their 20-year-old marriage, both on the same weekend.
I did a completely absurd amount of travelling for the High Holy Days, first day Rosh HaShanah in Southampton, second day in the Isle of Wight accompanied by the intrepid cjwatson, Shabbat Shuva in Stoke, Yom Kippur in Cornwall where I had to respond to the first fatal antisemitic attack in this country in my lifetime, Succot back home in Cambridge, a very flying visit to Sweden for the Shabbat during Succot with ghoti_mhic_uait, and back for Simchat Torah and returning to college.

( other wrap-ups )

Previous versions: [2004] [2005] [2006] [2007] [2008] [2009] [2010] [2011] [2012] [2013] [2014] [2017] [2018] [2019] [2020] [2021] [2022] [2023][2024] Amazingly this is my 19th review of the year; I've been going since 2004 but there were a couple of years in the middle I missed out.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

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BtVS: Homeless [Challenge 482: On The Road Again]

Title: Homeless
Fandom: BtVS
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Buffy.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 482: On The Road Again.
Spoilers/Setting: End of Season 7.
Summary: With Sunnydale gone, all Buffy can do is move on.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.
A/N: Double drabble.

Homeless

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Location: near the lake they call Michigan

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Fannish Fifty Challenge 2025: # 49: Canada Fandom: HBC, Can Tire, Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund

My #49 Fannish Fifty links to the #49 Fannish Fifty of my fanpair,

verushka70. And how's that for being fairly literal about the pairing thing, matching Fannish Fifty numbers.

For her extensive post about Canadian Tire acquiring Hudson Bay Company's intellectual property -- including the iconic striped blanket design -- and about the partnership between Canadian Tire and the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund (the retailer has guaranteed at least $1 million a year to support Oshki Wupoowane -- The Blanket Fund --with the money being used to support grassroots Indigenous organizations and Indigenous cultural, artistic and educational projects) click here.

Also: direct link to Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund home page.

Current Mood: awake

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January Posting Meme 2026

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

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sigh of course I forgot to promote.

I'm running a Fallout icon battle here. You can sign up with caps until midnight tomorrow (I've supplied plenty to choose from but any s1 or 2 caps will do), but join in any time after.

Our boos deserve more icons!

Entry tags:

year in review

Year in Review

This puts me at around a year since I fell into Scum Villian’s Self-Saving System fandom, which is neat! I typically am in a fandom for less than a year, or wander on as it dies down but delightfully SVSSS has staying power insofar as there are still folks actively and frequently creating fic in it and so there’s more for me to enjoy (an potentially podfic in the future). And as it’s a relatively closed canon I don’t need to worry about stuff happening that makes me less interested in the canon. But aside from the SVSSS fervor of this year, I have also dabbled in some other fannish spaces as well.

I virtually attended Citrus Con this year, I think because I saw someone talking about it on Bluesky, and it was a very right-time alignment for reminding me how I used to be really into manga/anime. I’ve been keeping up with anime somewhat through watching with friends but not seriously keeping track of what I might be interested in or reading manga. So now I’m getting caught up.

Lurking in the Citrus Squad discord led me to discovering Korean webcomics. Now I’m in a bunch of tiny fandoms, following 23 ongoing webcomics and keeping tabs on 13 that are on hiatus. As someone who wants fanvids of all the things I love, this has also meant getting a TikTok account because that’s where the edits/vids fandom is for Korean webcomics, so that’s also been a new experience. I haven’t started vidding webcomics yet but I’m definitely observing what I think works, or doesn’t, and hoping that I figure out vidding still images effectively for myself in the next year. This has also meant learning new pronunciation and proper nouns for podfic, which is a bit harder coming from webcomics than Kdramas because at least with dramas I have the show audio to try and mimic, but for webcomics by the time I start recording something I have possibly been pronouncing words incorrectly in my head for a while. So I’m starting to learn phonetic interpretation of transliteration of Korean better (I hope).

I’m now also dipping my toes in the world of Korean webnovels, in addition to having been consistently reading (or listening to) danmei over the course of the last year. I anticipate finishing 2ha in the coming year, and getting to enjoy catching up on the fandom without fear of spoilers. And once that happens I’ll probably get back into Critical Role as my primary audio-accompaniment to the hours and hours of physical therapy I have to do every week. But I am interested in webnovels as long-form story telling, enjoying what I’ve read so far, and curious to check out more of the fan translations particularly for genres that interest me (Korean hunterverse webnovels have been a good match for tropes I like).

I started doing embroidery last year, so that’s a creative thing I’ve been doing this whole year. I’ve done a few fannish pieces this year, but hope to do more in the next year. (Last year was Perihelion polar fleece, MDZS bunnies, and Utena shadow girls, this year was a humpback whale for Lays of the Hearth Fire, SVSSS bingqiu, a Ghibli-esque train and rice fields image (ongoing), and a character for a gift swap - perhaps I should do an embroidery specific post with pics at some point). My plan for what’s next is a Moshang thread painting fanart piece.

Podfic

This year I posted 62 podfics totaling 91 hours. That’s ~20 hours more than last year, which makes sense as I did more long podfics than normal - SVSSS is very good for long fic. I went into the year intending to record 2 ~120k fics, I wound up adding to that several in the 30-90k range.

I recorded in 20 fandoms, primarily Lays of the Hearth-Fire, Scum Villian’s Self-Saving System, Summer Hikaru Died, and S Classes That I Raised.

Personal Favorite: Embers by alfgifu and Tarnished Gold by Prim_the_Amazing tying for first place in this category as two of my long projects this year that I particularly loved

Completed goals

- Record the rest of the Embers series by alfgifu

- Record some long SVSSS fic - and how! I did 5 podfics of at least 40k each. This was more than I was even anticipating when I set this goal last December. SVSSS fandom has been such a joy <3

- Participate in VoiceTeam

- Continue making cover art for all my podfic

What’s next (future goals)

- VoiceTeam participation

- Continue making cover art

- If particular author completes a particular SVSSS WIP - ask for permission & if granted record (preferably as part of PodficBigBang, but idk if author will be finished timely for that and I’m waiting to ask for recording permission for when they’re done)

- Podfic for Blind Go (if I get permission from author of fic I’m thinking of for it)

- Get all my stuff duplicated to SquidgeWorld so I have diversification off AO3 (I’ve been sidetracked onto other projects and this one has been backburnered so idk when it might realistically happen, maybe this is a 2027 thing)

- Get all my stuff backed up onto the audiofic archive - happily I might be able to rely on the kindness of others and not do this myself since I keep failing to do it.

Vids

I made final drafts of a total of 13 vids this year. I have 3 vids in-progress at the moment. I don’t have any dominant fandom this year, a selection of Festivids fandoms and some anime.

Personal Favorite: expert in a dying field (my VidUKon GPOY vid, I do enjoy wallowing in my tropes)

Viewer favorite (views/kudos):

Both YT and AO3 agree on the same vid this year: Vigilante Shit

Most fun: Intricate Rituals

Hardest to make: Rust - I signed up for this fandom for Festivids last year knowing the show was ongoing, turns out I don’t like trying to make a vid for an actively ongoing canon, I don’t enjoy constructing a vid when not entirely sure what I’ll get out of the last episodes of a season. Suffice to say I now know I prefer to vid a canon once a season is complete (even if there will be future seasons).

Things I learned this year: I feel like I’m getting better at audio editing (thank you sandalwoodbox!).

Completed goals:

- I sent vids to some cons

- keep growing diversity of my music collection but also listen more to songs of artists I’ve liked so I can be familiar with them/know them well.

Ongoing goals:

- make another collaborative vid w/ sandalwoodbox (we did a tiny bit of work on this but still very much ongoing)

Future Goals:

- Make and send AMVs to AMV Contests?

- Make a webcomic vid?

Fic

I wrote one fic for Yuletide this year, so just a little bit once again, but I felt better about my writing process this year and I want to see if I can keep writing over the course of the next year. I feel really rusty but like I could enjoy it if I got back into writing regularly like I used to. I had an idea for an additional fic but didn’t write it. Hopefully I’ll do more in the new year without needing Yuletide as encouragement to write.

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Rec-cember Last Day: Heated Rivalry (Again)

So, guess what fandom completely took over my brain? Well, looks like I'm in good company, judging from the honestly frightening number of stories that gets posted to the Ao3 each day. I've been trawling the tag whenever I have a bit of time, like the good obsessive fangirl that I am, and I'll share my findings with you. :D Also, a heads-up, I'm going to be locking my rec-cember posts tomorrow or the day after. I don't like to have a lot of public posts on this journal.

All stories are Shane/Ilya, even when the story doesn't focus on the relationship. As usual, I live for AUs. Assume spoilers for The Long Game for all of these, I've read the books a couple of times but not recently so I can't quite keep the timeline straight in my head.

Gen

love takes miles 7K words, mixed media. Ten years of Hollanov as seen through fandom. This is clever and so much fun!

how do you feel? 10 K. * Shane Hollander, interviewee, throughout the years.* Fantastic Shane character study.

Missing Scenes

wanna get stuck in your head . 31 K. He only realizes he’s doing it when it’s too late to stop. He’s standing in the drink aisle of the grocery store, checking the expiration dates on the cans of Coke, mentally cross-checking them with Boston’s away game schedule, and the reality hits him like someone shook one of those cans and popped it open. A snap. A fizz. A mess. Shane is making space for Ilya. A series of missing scenes expanding on the episodes/books, lovely Shane exploration.

Ep 2 The Wrong Conclusion. Hayden & Shane. 505 words. “Um,” Hayden started, and his whole face was flushed red. Shane couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Hayden look so flustered. “Lily sent you a dick pic.” I have a soft spot for Hayden Pike. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but a good friend.

Ep 3

u might want to get tested . Explicit. 5.3K words. Lily: U might want to get tested Jane: Hilarious. Fuck you. Fantastic voices. Perfectly in character. And hilarious. I actually LOLed a few times while reading.

Ep 4

Too Nice. Explicit. 3.3 k. Hollander's parents weren't mean enough to him, Ilya decides. He's an only child, too — that has to have played a part. Almost certainly, nobody ever sat backwards on Hollander's chest and farted into his mouth while he tried to get away. Nobody ever poked his lower lip when he was sad and said a bird will come poop on this if you don't put it away. And definitely, nobody ever said my son can be lazy, right in front of his face, right in front of the owner of the new team that picked him first. This is hot, but what I like the most is Ilya's POV on Shane.

Ep 5

measure of a man Shane&Rose. 1.2k. “Nine.” Her voice is flat with disbelief. “Rose.” He drags a hand over his face.“Nine. Like—inches? No metric nonsense? God, I kind of wish it was metric nonsense. That can’t be right.” I love Rose teasing Shane but also helping him out. Such great banter and characterisation.

Ep 6

Keep Pace. I've seen quite a fair bit of fic about Yuna Hollnader, this is the only one I found focussing on David. Absolutely perfect, feels straight out of canon.

Future fic and/or stories set after The Long Game (aka book 2)

Tad Too Tight . 803 words. Being married on the same team can be proven difficult. Especially for rookies that don’t know the extent.

Dig Two Graves 28 K. The Montreal Voyageurs won't stop slinging mud at Shane in the press, so Shane and Ilya decide to get revenge the best way they know how. This is extremely angsty, be warned. Mind the tags!

two-man advantage. 4.7K. Two-Man Advantage: At Home with Hockey’s Biggest Power Couple, by Matthew Cooper. Their on-ice rivalry turned into the NHL’s most unexpected love story. Now, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov say they have no plans to slow down. The GQ profile fic. I love external POvs in the form of a magazine article.

AUs

I'm Reading Your Lips (You're Speaking My Language) . 30 K. Explicit. Despite an inauspicious start, when Russia’s Ilya Rozanov learns that Canada’s Shane Hollander is fluent in Russian at their first World Junior Championships tournament, it changes everything and sets them on a different course. Instead of being branded as rivals from the very beginning, Ilya and Shane start off as friends. And, after all, a little friendly rivalry never hurt anyone, did it? I like how having Shane a heritage Russian speaker changes the dynamic between our guys.

WIPS

I dont' usually rec unfinished stories but these are so good, I'm keeping all my fingers crossed for them to be actually finished!

Concussion Protocol AU. Instead of Shane, it is Ilya who suffers a concussion during the Boston-Montreal game in April 2017. This is a total angst-fest! I love how the author is exploring properly in jury recovery and what looking after someone with that sort of problem entails. And the psychological repercussions for all involved.

Half Agony, Half Hope by CorvidCordelia 26K so far. Au. Three years after Shane broke it off (not that there was anything to break off), he gets a concussion and the Metros bring in Ilya to fill in for him. A breakup and makeup fic inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion. I live for update notifs for this fic! It's that good.

Home Ice Advantage .Shane gets traded to Boston AU.

The Pitt

Since one of the WIPs I found only because I recognised the author's name from *the Pitt, I give you their Kingdon fic: Frank Langdon and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by CorvidCordelia. Groundhog Day AU. A fannish classic, and when it's done well like in this case it is super-satisfying!

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2574 / Fic - The Pitt

The King and Lionheart
The Pitt | Jack/Robby, AU | ~21,000 words | Thanks to

sheafrotherdon for betaing,

trinityofone for audiencing, and written for

lissatxt for inspiring this whole thing.

"A good chunk of the Cardiology staff overheard the exact moment when Robby learned that he, Michael Robinavitch, M.D., was actually properly Michael Avraham Felip Robinavitch Bellpuig i Renaldi, Prince of the Blood and Duke of Castelcicciano, and the heir to the throne of the sovereign Kingdom of Vesperia and Its Islands."

Or, let's mash up The Pitt and The Princess Diaries.

Because of formatting, this is only available on AO3.

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Wednesday we had a fox checking us out

What I read

Finished Pointed Roofs - gosh, how bizarre is that German girls' school? It seems more like somewhere that parents send their little darlings to until marriagable age, and actual education is not a priority.

Simon R Green, Which Witch (The Holy Terrors #3) (2025), enjoyable popcorn read.

Which could also be said for Simon Brett, Death in the Dressing Room (A Fethering Mystery, #22) (2025), phoning it in a bit perhaps.

I thought Janice Hallett, The Killer Question (2025), was doing the opposite of phoning it in and straining too hard. This might be the thing one sees when a writer has done Something Fresh and Exciting but there comes a point when that is hard to sustain and there is a feeling that they have scurried around a bit and it feels kinds of effortful.

Matt Houlbrook, Songs of Seven Dials: An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London (2025) (which is, I may point out, well after the epoch of Seven Dials in which I have shown interest....). It's very good, very readable, if I had been sent it for review I might have made a few quibbles - e.g. on the basis of the evidence he adduces about the changes going on in the area, even if the mixed race couple the Kittens hadn't brought a libel suit against entrenched wealthy interests, wouldn't their cafe have had to close eventually anyway? Also was reminded of those lecture by Gayle Rubin on the leather community in San Francisco and how very specific local contingent factors meant that certain phenomena could arise, also very much within a specific time. Also that cities (if they are places where things are still happening rather than historical relics) tend to see changes all the time and there is a fluidity around spaces.

On the go

Still on the go, Diary at the Centre of the Earth, which I am enjoying a lot.

Exasperatingly, because of the e-reader issue and because Some Men in London 1960-1967 alleged it was not properly authorised I had to reauthorise my reader via Adobe Digital Editions, as a result of which a large number of my books have been removed from the ereader, including that one, removing my place markers when I reimported it.

Up next

Should probably get on to Anthony Powell, Hearing Secret Harmonies (A Dance to the Music of Time #12 (1975) for the final meeting of the book-group next month.