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Firefly, Road

Dec. 30th, 2025 05:40 pm
ranunculus: (Default)
[personal profile] ranunculus
Carrie and I did a nice ride this morning. Firefly was very eager to get out and was a good girl.  I was riding bareback as I really don't think the saddle fits her, and I don't want her to think all saddles are painful. Since I'm very out of shape  (and so is she) I got off and walked for about 1/3 of the trip.  She is very wary of any footing that might be muddy.  Water is no problem, but mud she is not fond of.  After our ride Carrie held her while I did some back tracings to send off to the saddle shop.  I'm planning to buy a saddle from a company that specializes in fitting horses.  It won't be cheap, but if it fits both Firefly and me it will be worth it. 
This afternoon was my second day of grading the road.  It is always amazing how much gravel and dirt move around during a year. I did a little work on the road day before yesterday, trying to fill in pot holes and get a tiny bit of slope on about 200 feet of heavily traveled road that is otherwise quite flat.  During the year car tires move gravel out of the most commonly used tire tracks and push them to the side.  Then it rains and the materials on the side hold the water on the road. Instant pothole.  If there is a slope down to the outside, the water has a chance to run off.  I got a lot of pot holes filled, but several of them were a bit, um, squishy. That is because there were leaves on the road and they do not make good pothole filler material.  So today, after lots and lots of cars had driven over that section and compacted things, I graded again and hopefully got enough gravel in them to stabilize everything. 
This year, with all the early grass growth, a lot of the ditches were blocked by grass and clover. Because we have had some torrential downpours that has led to erosion.  Grass is also not a very good road surfacing material so some time was spent separating the grass from the gravel.  Scraping out the ditches also recovers  gravel that has washed off the road.  Tricky business right now though, it is so wet that keeping the blade from digging all the way down to the clay layer is hard. 

petra: CGI Obi-Wan Kenobi with his face smudged with dirt, wearing beige, visible from the chest up. A Clone Trooper is visible over one shoulder. (Obi-Wan - Clones ftw)
[personal profile] petra
Roguish charm (111 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Hondo Ohnaka
Characters: Hondo Ohnaka, Obi-Wan Kenobi
Additional Tags: Limericks, Seduction, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Gift Fic
Summary:

A cycle of limericks for the space pirate and the Negotiator.

良いお年を!

Dec. 31st, 2025 10:49 am
nnozomi: (Default)
[personal profile] nnozomi
Mostly an ordinary post, I didn’t mean to make it the last one of the year. I am very grateful to all my DW friends for companionship and interaction over this year as well; wishing everyone good health and good fortune all the way around in 2026, with much love.

Jiang Dunhao song of the post: 少女, a cover in Chinese of an OST song from a slice-of-life Korean drama called Reply 1988, new to me but apparently very good. The song itself is sweet and gentle and sits really nicely in his voice.

Tickled that there’s a Chinese song called 夏日漱石; it took me much longer than it should have to figure out that it’s not actually named after the venerated Japanese author (whose name is 夏目漱石; spot the difference). Cheeky!

Listening to the Dvorak 8th Symphony, an old favorite which I have played more than once and listened to a zillion times. This one conductor mentioned in passing once that the development of the fourth movement feels like a war, and ever since there has been a detailed story in my head for it (timestamps for this recording, which has a score). The movement begins at 26:14, with a trumpet fanfare hinting at martial events to come; at 26:40 is the pastoral cello melody, the innocent young shepherd from the village. Happy village life continues until 29:12, when you can hear the army on the march, and from there the war begins, with more and more violent clashes until the victorious brass sounds at 30:37. At 31:08 the original cello melody returns, but it’s more wistful now, looking back on what was before things changed, especially so from 32:30 and 33:39. At 33:58 there’s a kind of coming to terms with how things are now. In the coda at 34:30 the village is happy again, but it never feels quite genuine again, especially with the frenzied trombone slide in the last few bars reminding us of what the brass can mean. …I’m sure Dvorak had nothing of the sort in mind, I don’t know where any of this comes from, it just works that way in my head!

I have slightly fallen for this Japanese professor called Ito Tsukusu (or Tsukushi, except I think that was an error, or Jinn) whom I’ve never met and probably never will; he supervised the various elvish languages for the Japanese subtitles on all the Lord of the Rings movies, and studies philology and Norse sagas and other things Tolkien would have approved of, and talks (in this very long and fascinating National Geographic article, which I won’t link here because it’s in Japanese) about getting a C.S. Lewis-esque sense of “Northernness” from the Grieg Piano Concerto as a child, and reading the Anne of Green Gables series in the original English as a sixth-grader with limited English skills and being fascinated by the language as much as the story (quoting from Anne of Ingleside, “’Transubstantiationalist,’ said Jem proudly. ‘Walter found it in the dictionary last week...you know he likes great big full words, Susan...’”) and then becoming devoted to everything Tolkien-related (and spending a year in Iceland to learn Icelandic: “…when I came back to Japan I was speaking English with an Icelandic accent and Icelandic grammar”), and now researching how Norse myths show up in manga and anime, as well as the triangulations of Tolkien in WWI with Wagner’s Ring in Japan and…I’m tempted to write to him just because.

I was rereading some of the Chalet School books online, as one does, and ran across a character quoting from their idea of a quaint old book, called Barbara Bellamy, Schoolgirl; out of curiosity I looked it up and it exists and is certainly quaint. May Baldwin, the author, wrote many other things including A Schoolgirl of Moscow, which I found on openlibrary.org and adored. Published in 1911, it describes Nina Hamilton’s eventful few months living in Russia with her businessman father, her aunt Penelope, and her maid Anna. It only kind of has a plot, which is enough to make it clear that even in 1911 it was possible to see 1917 coming on the horizon; in between conspiracies (the conspirators are young and attractive if rather obsessive), there are bits reminiscent of those interwar children’s books where Jane and Jim tour somewhere in Europe with their erudite Uncle David and learn all about the relevant history and geography (I will say that the description of Russian Orthodox Easter is genuinely moving). I like it that Nina (who starts out speaking French with all her classmates because she doesn’t know Russian and they don’t know English) takes the language seriously and learns fast (…Nina protesting against an alphabet which contained thirty-six letters and three ways of writing them, and the ‘class-lady’ insisting that it was not so bad as a word spelt one way and pronounced in two different ways, acccording to meaning, such as ‘tear,’ or spelt different ways and pronounced the same, such as ‘way,’ ‘weigh,’ ‘wae.’ I’m not sure what “wae” is doing in there.) Anna is the comic relief but also has a lot of interesting points to make for herself (demanding to have her profession changed on her passport from “maid” to “gouvernante”), and Aunt Penelope is a triumph, a classic maiden aunt but also one with her own unique opinions and, when she decides to take action, remarkable boldness and originality. “I like a woman who is ready to die for her country!” announced Miss Hamilton.

Reading Pericles with yaaurens and company; typically I got distracted by a character who literally never appears on stage and is mentioned about twice, Philoten, the daughter of hapless Cleon and villainous Dionyza, who constitutes an excuse for her foster sister Marina to be murdered because she’s not as pretty or as good at anything as Marina is. Now I want to know what Philoten thought about the whole thing! I want an AU where she and Marina get wind of Dionyza’s plans and run away together like Celia and Rosalind!

I saw a signboard the other day offering “Gee Pie hot sandwiches” and only got it when I read the extra text saying “Taiwanese-style fried chicken!” Gee Pie i.e. 鸡排 i.e. jīpái, duh. A-Pei thought this was hilarious. I tested her on the classic Japanese “G-pan” and “Y-shatsu” and confused her completely: she came back with “G胖 [G-páng/G-fat]? Y虾子 [Y-xiāzi/Y-shrimp]???” G-pan are in fact jeans (ジーンズ・パンツ [jeans pants] to ジーパン jiipan to G-pan; Y-shatsu are men’s dress shirts, ワイトシャツ [white shirt] to ワイシャツ waishatsu to Y-shatsu (and you can have a Y-shirt in any color, the “white” is no longer a meaningful descriptor). A-Pei and I decided that G胖 are the jeans we buy when we need to go up a size!

Photos: Bionic cat (no, just me being a bad photographer), kumquats and…grapefruits? pomelos? in various stages of ripening, canal trees, and seasonal reds.



Be safe and well.

Yuletide Recs

Dec. 31st, 2025 12:17 pm
luthien: (Xmas: Yuletide)
[personal profile] luthien
Here's a bunch of recs from this year's Yuletide, starting with my two gifts, for Bookish and Murderbot:

What They Imagined (1629 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bookish (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gabriel Book & Trottie Book
Characters: Trottie Book, Gabriel Book, Jack Blunt, Felix (Bookish)
Additional Tags: Character Study, Introspection, Slice of Life, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Queer Families, Post-World War II, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Cuddling, Attempts at historical accuracy regarding early to mid century wallpaper trends, Timeline What Timeline
Summary: Jack asked the question on a Tuesday.

In which Trottie reflects on war, wallpaper, family, and the meaning of home.

Comment: A lovely character study of Trottie and her personal history, both in relation to Book and otherwise, and with some great period wallpaper (and other) details.


new (100 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Murderbot (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ayda Mensah & Murderbot (Murderbot)
Characters: Ayda Mensah (Murderbot), Murderbot (Murderbot)
Additional Tags: Episode 6, Missing Scene, Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational
Summary:

On the flight back to the habitat, Ayda was short of breath, not just from fear about what might be waiting for them, but from what they’d done.

Comment: This drabble captures Ayda Mensah perfectly in 100 words.
 

Recs for Dungeon Crawler Carl – Matt Dinniman, Soulmate Goose of Enforcement, Galaxy Quest, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams, Hornblower (TV), Knives Out (Movies), Princess Bride, Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch, Slow Horses (TV) under here )
hekateras: (incog1)
[personal profile] hekateras posting in [community profile] wipbigbang
Project Title: Midday Vision
Fandom: Original Works
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76745961
Summary: A young man stays out of the heat.
Warnings: None
Characters: Original characters
Pairings:
When I Started: 2021
How I Lost My Shit: The WIP pile.
How I Finished My Shit: Done is better than perfect!!!

GreatGrayOwl of Celeste

Dec. 30th, 2025 07:01 pm
[personal profile] ismo
The Sparrowhawk spent over two hours counting money this morning. They had complicated stacks of money to count separately. He got home just in time for me to take the car and drive to my mammogram. One of the things I spent the morning on was a surprise questionnaire that I had to fill out before I could e-checkin for my appointment. It wasn't optional. It was also stupid, as it asked some questions that I couldn't possibly know the answers to, but wasn't allowed to skip, thus leading to the collection of false information. I highly resented the whole thing. Filling out surveys amounts to them making me work for them without pay. I just don't believe any more that surveys will lead to extra knowledge and thus benefit me in the end. I think this is all BS and I'm not sure what the point is. The medical establishment is making me very irritable these days.
The technician was not very nice, unlike most technicians I've met. She treated me like a lump of playdough. But she was efficient and expeditious and had me back out the door in record time, so I'll give her that.

My plan was to quickly recover from post-Christmas fatigue and clean up all the leftover detritus, put everything back in its place, and move cheerily onward into the new year. Well, it hasn't happened yet. A couple of first steps have been made. The Sparrowhawk washed one load of sheets. The recycling has been taken to the curb to be picked up tomorrow. All in good time . . . At least I didn't have my car totaled by running into a wolf, like a family member of one of Madame's other friends! I prefer that others suffer interesting catastrophes, so I can watch from afar while continuing my slow slog into a better year . . . .

Daily Check-In

Dec. 30th, 2025 06:02 pm
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
 
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Tuesday, December 30, to midnight on Wednesday, December 31. (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #34021 Daily Check-in
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 22

How are you doing?

I am OK.
10 (47.6%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
11 (52.4%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single.
9 (40.9%)

One other person.
8 (36.4%)

More than one other person.
5 (22.7%)




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.
 

Book Review

Dec. 30th, 2025 07:05 pm
kenjari: (Default)
[personal profile] kenjari
Shield of Winter
by Nalini Singh

This is the 13th Psy-Changeling novel and the Psy world is undergoing a monumental shift. The Silence that repressed Psy emotions has fallen and there is a rot on the psychic plane infecting Psy and driving them into violent frenzies. The Psy must re-awaken their dormant empaths or perish. One of these empaths is Ivy who has long been free of Silence. When Ivy is recruited to a pilot empath training program aimed at defeating the rot and infection, Vasic is assigned as her protector. As they work together to combat the rot and help to stabilize society, they also forge a connection that breaks Vasic out of Silence and blossoms into a deep love.
I really enjoyed this one a lot. The stakes for the socio-political plot were very high, which made everything feel more urgent and made the emotional currents run deeper and stronger. I really liked how the development of Vasic and Ivy's relationship was echoed in the discoveries the Psy were making about the empaths' roles in keeping the psychic plane healthy. Vasic and Ivy were also so great together - they were both willing to fight so hard for each other and to go to great lengths to take care of and protect each other.

Dreamwidth Book Club

Dec. 30th, 2025 07:17 pm
seleneheart: (Simon Mirielle)
[personal profile] seleneheart
I have created a community - [community profile] bookclub_dw - that will run like an in-person book club. One member of the community will have host duties for the month, which includes choosing the book for the comm to read that month and moderating a discussion about the book at the end of the month.

There is more information at the sticky post here: https://bookclub-dw.dreamwidth.org/257.html

I used to belong to a book club and really loved being pushed to read things that weren't on my radar, and have a chance to sit around and chat about the experience. I'm hoping to create something similar with this community.

I'm open to suggestions about the procedures and guidelines for how the community operates - please have a look at the community and then come back here to this post to give me feedback.

I plan to start with the first book in January - looking forward to it!
rahirah: (su_editor)
[personal profile] rahirah posting in [community profile] su_herald
Lorne: "Angel, please do not do this thing. We'll find some other way."
Lilah: "There is no other way."
Lorne: "You know, not speaking would be a really good look for you."
Angel: "How's that?"
Lilah: "Looks about right."
Angel: "What's next?"
Lorne: "What's next is we reconsider this. Angel, you're messing with primordial powers of darkness here!"
Angel to Lilah: "Next?"

~~Angel Season III Episode #61: "Forgiving"~~



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Join the editor team :)

some things make a post

Dec. 30th, 2025 11:59 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett
  1. The paragraph from one of the pain books about Soup continues excellent for dramatic readings. I appear to have not quoted it here? I shall have to remedy that in the morning.
  2. My Shit Beard Hairs (I think I'm up to... 10ish of them, fairly reliably?) are increasingly white, which makes them increasingly hard to remove in targeted fashion (which I care about solely because the sensory experience of Isolated Hairs is Bad, Actually). I am amused by all of this.
  3. I am nearly up to halfway through December in my DW catch-up. Will I manage to be actually up to date by the end of the calendar year? PROBABLY NOT, because I am about to hit Year In Review season, when for some reason you all get very talkative!
  4. Absolutely have not set up my notebook for next year yet, and indeed am several days behind on physio log (augh). Executive Function Is Hard, Actually. This is the other factor that is likely to derail getting caught up on DW tomorrow...
  5. Successfully offloaded some leftovers at a Boardgames And (Fake) Leftovers gathering (with air purifier, and carrageenan nose spray). Tragically, left behind the tea strainer that we'd been using to fix the problem of Cork In The Port...

(no subject)

Dec. 30th, 2025 06:53 pm
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
I'm planning to attempt the ginger cookie recipe that hasn't quite come out right for me in the past (they didn't spread they way the picture indicated they should) with baking soda instead of baking powder and see if they turn out better.

(I'm unclear if there's a difference between UK self-raising flour and US self-rising flour. iirc most the recipes for making self-rising flour involve adding 1.5 tsp baking powder and 0.25 tsp salt to 1 cup flour, but the chocolate chip cookies I made the other day used baking soda so I figure it's worth a try.)
[syndicated profile] clarkesworld_feed

Posted by Madeleine Vigneron

This episode features "Home Grown" written by Madeleine Vigneron. Published in the December 2025 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine and read by Kate Baker.

The text version of this story can be found at:
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/vigneron_12_25

Support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/clarkesworld/membership
trobadora: (Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu - back to back)
[personal profile] trobadora
I haven't been having a great time and was in desperate need of a distraction, so first I took approximately fifty billion Guardian screencaps and made a picspam/quiz (hoping to see more people play!), and then I found a short drama to watch:

江湖夜雨终似梦 | Realm's Night Rain Dreamlike

It's a wuxia drama that takes quite a bit of inspiration from Word of Honor and is full of wuxia tropes besides. Two jianghu wanderers run into each other - one is on a revenge quest, the other is trying to fulfil a dead man's last wish by delivering a letter. I've seen people call them "budget Wen Kexing and budget Zhou Zishu", but that's rather reductive, not the least because both characters have elements of both Word of Honor characters. *g*

Anyway, I enjoyed this quite a bit! Jiang Hu (yes, that's what he's called) and Yeyu are both very fun characters with a great dynamic that shifts multiple times in multiple ways, and the plot and the revelations hold together pretty well. If I have one criticism, it's how brutal it is to the female characters. But one thing I appreciated was that the villains weren't all one-dimensional, and more than one of them got a backstory showing how they got to where they ended up, too. Well worth a watch.

This is on Youtube in 24 episodes, or 12 episodes or a compilation - the total runtime is 4 hours and 20 minutes.

Unfortuntately the soundtrack on Youtube is missing the background music in various places (and the compiled video seems to be missing some of the dialogue too?), but the subtitles are pretty good!

Ending spoilers: Highlight to read! *No happy ending here, alas. Both main characters die together.*

Btw, about the title - this is one of those "quote/saying in the title; characters named after it" kind of things - the first four characters are from a poem, and are also the main characters' names: jianghu ye yu - literally "night rain in (or of) the jianghu". That sort of allusion makes the whole thing basically untranslatable, and the English translation is made even more opaque by rendering "jianghu" as "realm". *g*

Jiang Hu quotes the relevant lines at the end of the last episode: 桃李春风一杯酒,江湖夜雨十年灯 - from a Song dynasty poem, 寄黄几复 "Writing to Huang Jifu" by 黄庭坚 Huang Tingjian.

I looked around for translations, and this page translates these lines as:
Each of us held a cup of wine and talked amid spring wind with peach and plum blossom,
For ten years we missed each other before lamps during night rain outside.

And a Reddit comment explains the meaning of the relevant lines in partiuclar in the context of the poem:
(Remembering the old time,) enjoying wine while watching the flowers of peach and apricot trees.
(Now,) tempered by the mundane life, 10 years flew by; I often stare at the light, (thinking of you.)

I'm not sure how you'd translate the entire title - "when the night rain in the jianghu ends (or when Jiang Hu and Yeyu end), it seems like a dream"? Maybe? Idk, this is way beyond my rudimentary Chinese. Anyone with better knowledge have any thoughts?

Spy X Family Season 4 Delayed Release

Dec. 30th, 2025 05:34 pm
fennectik: Anime (Anime)
[personal profile] fennectik posting in [community profile] anime_manga
Welp-

Spy x Family Season 4 Gets Disappointing Release Date Update

"In a surprising turn of events, TV Tokyo has refrained from officially renewing Spy x Family for a fourth season. While many expected an update to come out following the release of the Season 3 finale last week, the official X (formerly Twitter) page of the anime instead announced a special event, set to take place on November 8, 2026."


Spy X Family Season 4 delay link
canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
[personal profile] canyonwalker
The mileage run I flew on Southwest Airlines this past weekend cinched my renewal of A-List Preferred ("A+") status. I saw that reflected in my account within 90 minutes of completing the flight—Southwest's long maligned IT seems to be improving, quietly— and today I got a "Welcome back" email.

I renewed A+ status with the help of a mileage run (Dec 2025)

Of course, it's not really welcome back... I never left! I've been A+ for all but a few months out of the past dozen-plus years. Maybe Southwest's long-maligned IT isn't so spiff now, after all. 😅

And in the summary of benefits they sent me they left off the absolute most-important (to me) A+ benefit: the ability to select extra-legroom seats at time of booking, for free.

So, was it worth it? Are the value of these A+ benefits worth the time and cost of the mileage run?

The MR had a hard cost of about $110 (cash out of pocket) plus soft costs of 9,000 mileage points (which have a substitution value ranging from $100-200) and several hours of my time. The value of these is not trivial. As for the value of A+ status next year... Frankly, I'm not sure.

What the A+ status is worth over the coming year depends on how much I end up traveling— with job and life changes expected that's hard to predict— and how Southwest's policies shake out. They're changing their whole customer-facing business model right now, doing away with open seating and free bags. Their austere new rules are sure to fuel a lot of customer outrage. If that translates into plummeting demand they may have to revert some of the policies. It remains to been seen how it all lands.

One thing I can tell you 💯 is that flying a mileage run was NOT my first choice! There are so many ways I would've preferred to renew A+. The MR was, like, my fifth choice.

  • First choice, my original plan, was to re-up A+ with a bonus from credit card spending. But then I realized 3 weeks ago that I had miscalculated the spending for the credit card bonus. The pisser is I was short just a few hundred bucks. I could've put that extra spend on the card easily, and at no cost to me; but by the time I caught the mistake it was too late.

  • Second choice was to have even one more business trip late in the year. I tried. Customers just dont' want to meet face-to-face anymore.

  • Third choice was to manufacture a leisure trip— to go somewhere and enjoy being there. My partner's health problems put the kibosh on that.

  • Fourth choice was to just buy status, without having to fly. Indeed, Southwest came through with a status-buying offer a week ago... but it was hideously bad. 😡


Next year I'll almost certainly be working on a plan like #1 again, earning A+ —if I choose to keep chasing status—with a the help of a credit card boost. While I'm already keeping careful track of spending for that bonus I'm not going to try to over-optimize it again like I did this year. I'll spend at least a few hundred over the threshold just to cover myself in case there's a discrepancy between my calculations and Southwest's. Because while this MR ended up being not too difficult and gave me a funny story to tell— being in Los Angeles just long enough to piss— I would've preferred notching the status without the expense and uncertainty.

petra: Two men in beat-up Elizabethan garb. (Ros and Guil - Extras)
[personal profile] petra
every exit an entrance somewhere else (1611 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - Stoppard
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Rosencrantz (Hamlet), Guildenstern (Hamlet), Tom Stoppard
Additional Tags: Meta, Death
Summary:

Death, a boat, et cetera.


*

Beautifully sums up what might well have happened to the spirit of Tom Stoppard posthumously. Made me cry.

(no subject)

Dec. 30th, 2025 05:47 pm
flemmings: (Default)
[personal profile] flemmings
As the current joke has it, I change from my daytime pyjamas to my nighttime ones and then back again. The fleece daytime ones were bought as night wear a while back but only now can I get into them. Mind, others (I am not the first) have worn loungewear as pyjamas and also as suitable leaving the house clothes, but I'm not yet quite dead enough to shame as to wear fleecy tartan patterns outside the house. Though when exactly I'll get to leave the house is another question. Nearly a week indoors on the sofa with beanbags has calmed the bitey pain in the lumbar but I'm wary of testing it in boots in case it all comes roaring back.

The little bobcats with their flashing blue lights trundled up  and down the sidewalks last night, leaving diagonal salt trails in their wake. But today the wind blew in, dropping windchill to forking freezing C and F,  and blew snow around tumultuously. Tomorrow the wind may drop and the sun may shine and I *might* get my library book back, before the polar vortex returns our overnight temps back to objectively hideous cold. And nothing happens on New Years Day of course.

So the Dead Days tick away,  leaving no trace and not disturbing the grasses.

Speaking Without Words

Dec. 30th, 2025 10:23 pm
lokifan: black Converse against a black background (Default)
[personal profile] lokifan
I never posted this here! :o

This was written in such a panic, haha, but it has a good rate of bookmarking on AO3 so I think it came out okay??? And I'm still so pleased I finally wrote cute werewolf fic.

Title: Speaking Without Words
Word count: ~10, 400
Characters/pairings: Noctis/Prompto
Rating: Teen
Summary: Being a werewolf wasn’t a big problem in Prompto’s life until he was about sixteen. But now Noct was definitely gonna find out - and then Ignis would find out.
Content notes: emotional hurt/comfort
Author’s Notes: This was written for [profile] maniikoi for the Promptis Exchange. Many thanks to the incredible patience and kindness of the mod, [personal profile] star54kar, and to [profile] sodsta for his beta-ing!

AO3 link

Speaking Without Words )

Podfic!

Dec. 30th, 2025 02:48 pm
scintilla10: Xenk wearing high collar and armour (D&D - Xenk in armour)
[personal profile] scintilla10
A new podfic of my D&D:HAT double drabble!

Healing Word [Podfic] (35 words) by blackglass, with
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Edgin Darvis/Xenk Yendar
Characters: Edgin Darvis, Xenk Yendar, Holga Kilgore
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Caretaking, Double Drabble, Non-explicit references to a bleeding head wound, Banter, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming
Summary:

A podfic of Healing Word by scintilla10.

"Xenk blinked up into Holga's face."

[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I had a fun afternoon going in to town with [personal profile] angelofthenorth, who wanted to visit an art gallery and a catering supply store. It's so wonderful to watch her get excited about having her own place. At a contemplative time of year anyway, and around the five-year mark of my unfortunately-timed ending my own marriage, our lives continue to parallel each other in so many ways. She is her own person of course but I can't help but think of my own story at times like this, and it makes me very grateful for what has improved for me in the last five years, even as the wider world has left so much to be desired.

Akso I bought a much-needed can opener for our house too, and if I can join her on her sojourn to John Lewis to look at kitchen knives, I might well end up getting us a set too.

Tomorrow the plan is either to go to Buxton and have fun or to go to the Trafford Centre (big mall, probably the most USian-feeling place I've encountered here) for John Lewis (which is a department store).

Purimgifts 2026: Banner Countdown

Dec. 30th, 2025 05:11 pm
autobotscoutriella: A picture of a sunset over a beach (sunshine challenge)
[personal profile] autobotscoutriella posting in [community profile] purimgifts
image host

Believe it or not, there's only three days left until our 2026 signups open!! Here's today's countdown banner, from 2023, and we can't wait to see all of you at signups in a few days!

SIGNUPS & NOMINATIONS 2-9 Jan (anywhere in the world)
DEADLINE 23 Feb (anywhere in the world)
REVEALS 2-4 March

Find us on Dreamwidth, Livejournal, tumblr, and the Archive of Our Own.

Sloth pays off (mostly)

Dec. 29th, 2025 01:59 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

[personal profile] angelofthenorth and I had planned to go to yoga this morning, but after a disrupted night I slept through my alarm and woke up to a text from her saying that she was going to get the 10:33 bus.

It was 10:28 at that point.

I texted back an explanation and canceled my booking.

Poor thing texted me again an hour later saying the instructor hadn't turned up -- he was listed in the app but not on the staff rota.

There have been all kinds of computer problems: when we went to the gym yesterday she mentioned to the staff that she couldn't book on to the yoga session this Friday without being asked to pay (it should be included in her membership). The person anticipated this problem before she got done explaining it and said a lot of people had encountered the same thing and they couldn't do anything about it there. Really annoying how our city council handed over so many leisure centers and libraries to a CIC that grew out of another council managing theirs; it means the in-person staff can't ever do anything if there's a problem like this or an issue like accessibility.

And while I have an email timestamped 10:28 canceling my booking, it's nestled in my inbox next to one also timestamped 10:28 saying I'm a no-show and I'm going to be charged £3. For a thing that starts at 11! I'm hoping that's just another computer fail too; it seems ridiculously unfair otherwise. I can't be bothered chasing it up now so if it isn't resolved in a few days I'll yell at them but here's hoping that unfucking the computers fixes this for me too.

petra: Leia Organa and Han Solo bickering in an icy hallway (Leia & Han - Hoth)
[personal profile] petra
[Podfic] Too close for comfort (23 words) by Flowerparrish Pods
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chewbacca/Han Solo
Characters: Chewbacca (Star Wars), Han Solo
Additional Tags: Drabble, Knotting, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming
Series: Part 25 of Bite-Sized Podfics (2025)
Summary:

[Audio Length: 1:05]

Han and Chewie get intimate.

Podfic of Too close for comfort by Petra.

*

Thanks, Flowerparrish!

impulse purchase

Dec. 30th, 2025 04:31 pm
asakiyume: (Iowa Girl)
[personal profile] asakiyume
The checkout line at this Walmart was going to be very slow: ahead of us were four grown-ish children and their mom, and their cart was packed to overflowing.

“How about you bring the car around for my dad,” I suggested. “You guys wait, and I’ll text when I’m through.” My husband nodded, and the two of them headed out.

Between me and the family with the packed cart was an older couple; behind me was a younger couple. All of us had just a few things—I had a laundry basket, a bathroom scale, and a shower curtain for my dad’s new living situation.

Lining the checkout alley were tempting items to impulse purchase: Goya adobo seasoning, both con and sin pimienta, Goya canned beans, Jarritos sodas, Sanchis Mira Turrón de Alicante—nougat candy from Alicante, Spain. We who were waiting had a long time to contemplate these items. The couple ahead of me grabbed a shaker of adobo seasoning. The couple behind put a couple of the sodas in their cart. I stared at the nougat candy. Would it be like torrone, the Italian version of nougat candy that my grandmother used to have? That candy came in small boxes with pictures of famous sites in Italy or of women in traditional regional dress.

I added a package of the candy to my cart. The family with the very full cart was through; the older couple ahead of me were putting their items on the conveyor belt.

“Necesitan bolsas?” the cashier asked. No, they didn’t need any bags. The cashier wished them a Feliz Navidad, and it was my turn.

“Hi, how are you, you want the shower curtain and the scale in the laundry basket?” the cashier asked. She wished me happy holidays and switched smoothly back to Spanish for the couple behind me.

Sanchis Mira Turrón de Alicante turned out to have the same flavor but a completely different texture from the Italian torrone my grandmother used to get. The Italian torrone was thickly chewy, a workout for the jaw; the turrón was hard and broke into dangerous sugar splinters. Ah well. Maybe I’ll have better luck with my next impulse purchase.

Gaming Update

Dec. 31st, 2025 09:29 am
cyphomandra: boats in Auckland Harbour. Blue, blocky, cheerful (boats)
[personal profile] cyphomandra
I'm now on day 90 of Blue Prince and have solved quite a lot of puzzles, but I still have more to go, plus all the trophies that require me to get to room 46 in a certain time/under certain conditions (for those following along, I have done the sanctum, opened one door of a certain colour, and begun the blue tents). I am starting to run out of steam though, and I think it's time for a break.

The problem is what to do next! I do want to get back to FFVII, but I also want something new. I tried Alan Wake II, which I picked up as a free game - it's survival horror, set in another of those terrible small US towns, and I am currently stuck on a boss battle in chapter 2 that had an abrupt difficulty spike. My character moves unbelievably slowly and can only take 2 hits, plus I don't have the resources to upgrade my weapons yet, and while I think I can probably get through this eventually without downgrading the difficulty, it feels less like a game puzzle I can't solve yet and more like bad game design, arrgh. I do like Saga (my current character) but it has been a while since I played horror and I have also so far proven myself to be pretty terrible with jump scares. Typing this up has made me think that maybe I just downgrade the difficulty and see if the story still works for me.

I got Ghost of Yōtei for Christmas, and I also got Cyberpunk 2077 back from the person to whom I'd lent it, so those are both alternate possibilities. BUT. I also got another free game this month, and it's Lego Horizon Adventures, so last night after having my face bitten off in the Overlap for about the fortieth time, I switched gears and sent Lego Aloy out into the world, woo hoo. They have definitely detraumatised the storyline (your first mission is to retrieve some of the Nora who've been kidnapped by cultists, who are cruelly transporting them somewhere in cages and refusing to let them have bathroom breaks; everyone is rescued without casualties) and the fixed camera angles are a bit irritating, but we have already successfully hidden in red grass, shot flaming arrows into shrubbery to clear puzzles, and climbed our first Tallneck, woo hoo. And I say "we" because there is a co-op mode and my son, who's watched me battle through bits of Horizon was very excited to join me. He has put his character (who is supposed to be Rost) in the Sun King Avad skin, tho', which is throwing me a bit :D (most of the voice cast are those from the original game).

Yuletide: My Gifts!

Dec. 30th, 2025 12:55 pm
scintilla10: Bruno has his arm slung over Boots shoulder (B&B - arms over each other)
[personal profile] scintilla10
I received two wonderful gifts for Yuletide! Hoping to spend more time reading in the collection over the next few days. :D

reach down and prove something
Pitch, Mike & Ginny, 1406 words, rated G
Post-retirement. Loved the glimpses into Ginny's career, and Mike as a constant presence in her life. So forward-looking and open, what a lovely future! I loved this.

Uno Reverse
Macdonald Hall + I Want to Go Home! (Gordon Korman), Bruno/Boots, Mike/Rudy, 2579 words, rated T
Matchmaking! Pining! Mistaken for a couple! Skating on the Rideau Canal on New Year's Eve! What an absolute delight.

Announcing Not One of Us #85

Dec. 30th, 2025 03:26 pm
lesser_celery: (Default)
[personal profile] lesser_celery
“Welcome to our outsider issue…[We have] a shadow man outside the door; someone alone in a shrinking room with hundreds of tiles, each containing a captive world; a humanoid found dead by someone who is not exactly one of us; a young woman told by her sister that she was dropped off to her now-family by aliens; and a taxonomist trying to act social at a party where she is better at classifying than relating.”

Contents:

The Orange Room, by Steve Toase
Chamomile (poem), by Devan Barlow
Little Islands, by Floyd Largent
Stray Angels (poem), by Jacqueline West
Not From Around Here, by Margaret Lesh
452 (poem), by Jennifer Crow
The Avalon Procedure (poem), by Sonya Taaffe
Organisms, by Lauren Hruska
Heroes (poem), by Gwynne Garfinkle
Art: John and Flo Stanton



We’ll be mailing the contributors’ and subscribers’ copies over the next week.

Temporary website address to view guidelines and subscription information: https://legacyliteraryservices.com/not-one-of-us/
PayPal address: wombatjb@comcast.net. Be sure to include your postal address when ordering.

Send submissions as attachments to wombatjb@comcast.net.

Finished Bee Speaker

Dec. 30th, 2025 01:08 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
I believe the theme of this book is "the road to hell" with a side order of "best laid plans". To be fair... )

***************************


Read more... )

Check-In Post - Dec 30th 2025

Dec. 30th, 2025 08:16 pm
badly_knitted: (Get Knitted)
[personal profile] badly_knitted posting in [community profile] get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


This Week's Question: What are your crafting goals for 2026?


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!



Wednesday Reading Meme on Tuesday

Dec. 30th, 2025 03:09 pm
osprey_archer: (books)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
I’m doing the Reading Meme one day early this week, as tomorrow is the last day of the year and therefore the day for the Year In Review.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I am freeeeeeeee of my vow to read Christmas books for Advent, and therefore… accidentally read one more book with Christmas in… Marilyn Kluger’s Country Kitchens Remembered: A Memoir with Favorite Family Recipes, about the farm kitchens she remembers from her childhood during the Depression, not only her own family’s but her grandparents on both sides. Like any good farm kitchen memoir, the book documents the different foods of each season, which means of course a Christmas chapter, but also chapters about the new peas of spring, the corn on the cob fresh cut from the stalk literally minutes before lunch, the frost-nipped persimmons brought in during the Thanksgiving grouse hunt… Good eating and good reading.

But then! Then I truly broke free with Ngaio Marsh’s Spinsters in Jeopardy! Set in summer in the south of France, Inspector Alleyn and his lady wife Troy co-star in a mystery featuring a drug racket run by an erotic murder cult. You know I love a cult! Also featuring their six-year-old son Ricky, a surprisingly well-observed child. A shocking number of writers of adult fiction couldn’t write a convincing kid to save their life.

And I also slipped in my December Unread Bookshelf book by the skin of my teeth: E. Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet. I got this soon after I read Five Children and It, then it languished for so many years that I forgot why I was putting it off, but as I read it I remembered: I find these children so stressful! They are forever doing things like “setting off firecrackers inside the house,” which is how they set fire to the old nursery carpet which results in the bringing in of the magic carpet.

What I’m Reading Now

I’ve started Rumer Godden’s Thus Far and Now Farther, which so far is what I expected Elizabeth and her German Garden to be: a charming memoir about a woman in an isolated location with her children, her governess, and her vast army of underpriced labor making a charming garden.

What I Plan to Read Next

No plans! Only vibes! Okay, actually I do have plans, but I am contemplating if I ought to jettison them in favor of vibes. Maybe 2026 should be the Year of Vibe Reading? I have been trying to come up with a good New Year's Resolution...

January sign up

Dec. 30th, 2025 07:59 pm
lilly_c: a t-rex wearing a christmas jumper and a santa hat (Default)
[personal profile] lilly_c posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
It's time to sign up for the January WIP challenge! Some people join the challenge mid month, or comment on check-in posts without signing up, which is fine -- I'm glad there's a way for the challenge to be useful in a variety of ways. For those of you who find the commitment of signing up useful, please leave a comment with the below information.

Sign-ups will be open until the end of January.


    Level of challenge: 1 chapter, 1000 words, 1 fic finished, whatever you like
    Fandom(s) involved: if you know at this point
    What you're looking for from the challenge: this could be as vague or specific as you like: someone to be accountable to, someone to remind you to write, someone to bounce ideas off, etc.
    What you could offer other participants yourself: ditto!
    How people should contact you: DW message, e-mail, IM etc.
    Time zone: useful for seeing who might be up for a writing session at a time convenient to you


Copypaste below:



The post for hosting the daily check-in is here and thanks to everyone who helps out with this. If you're interested in helping out and there are still slots available the post remains open until the last week of the month and we generally run our week Sunday to Saturday, I'm happy to chat via PM on DW for anyone who might need it.

If you have ever completed a fic through this challenge we have a collection on AO3 and on SquidgeWorld both collections are open and unmoderated. Should there be an issue with adding a work, let me know and I'll see if there's a fix for it.

Volunteers for January

Dec. 30th, 2025 07:59 pm
lilly_c: a t-rex wearing a christmas jumper and a santa hat (Default)
[personal profile] lilly_c posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
I'm on holiday from the 14th to the 21st and won't be around during weeks two and three.

Week 1: 4th to 10th
Week 2: 11th to 17th
Week 3: 18th to 24th
Week 4: 25th to 31st=

(no subject)

Dec. 30th, 2025 02:49 pm
thedarlingone: Daniel Jackson by a wall with inscriptions, captioned "alien graffiti" (alien graffiti)
[personal profile] thedarlingone
Streaming some Breath of the Wild! I just got my joycons working with my WiiU emulator so I can use motion controls now; I'm really excited about that.

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kitewithfish

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