gullyfoyle: (Default)
gullyfoyle ([personal profile] gullyfoyle) wrote2025-12-30 10:43 pm
Entry tags:

concrete wormhole

Light and shadows and lines that caught my eye today at work. I may drop by on New Year's Day if it's sunny and try this again when hopefully the blue car won't be there. perspective shot of vacant parking garage
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
AurumCalendula ([personal profile] aurumcalendula) wrote2025-12-30 10:40 pm
Entry tags:

Nancy Drew Games

Her Interactive (and other places) have their seasonal sale going on (although annoyingly it's only 35% off this year instead of 50% off like before), so I picked up some older games I didn't have anymore (I used to get these from the library all the time) and some newer ones I hadn't played yet.

Nancy Drew #32: The Sea of Darkness:
Read more... )

Nancy Drew #27: The Deadly Device:
Read more... )

I'm currently poking at Warnings at Waverly Academy and trying to remember if I liked The Haunted Carousel and The Secret of the Old Clock enough to buy them.
torachan: (Default)
Travis ([personal profile] torachan) wrote2025-12-30 07:24 pm

Daily Happiness

1. Just one more work day this week!

2. Today was mostly dry with a brief bit of rain late morning, but starting tomorrow we're supposed to have several wet days, possibly a whole week. I'm hoping it will be lighter than last week and mostly overnight. We'll see!

3. We had curry ramen for dinner tonight and it was so good. Carla discovered this one brand last year that has a bunch of different flavors, all of which she likes, but I've only tried the curry and now it's all I'm interested in having lol.

4. I finished this cute winter cats puzzle today.



I'm going to challenge myself with a 1000 piece one next, so we'll see how that goes.

5. Jasper really loves this lumpy basket in the bathroom lately. We got it several months ago to put the hair dryer in and no one cared about it at first, but then after washing the bathmat, I put it on top of the basket and suddenly everyone wanted to be in there (well, mainly Ollie and Jasper). Lately Jasper has been sleeping in there most nights, too.

dialecticdreamer: My work (Default)
dialecticdreamer ([personal profile] dialecticdreamer) wrote2025-12-30 09:53 pm

Dissonance and Disharmony (part 1 of 1, complete)

Dissonance and Disharmony
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1290
[30 December of 2016]



:: A consultation brings Graham home in an exhausted, dispirited mood. Elisabeth helps. Prompted by [personal profile] callibr8, with my thanks! ::



Graham patted Reticence on the arm as they appeared on the teleport pad in the garage. Rain hammered the roof a story above them, muted but determined. Graham signed fluently, despite the tiredness that made his movements slower. “Hungry? There’s a snack station out here now and we’ve disabled the beeping noise in favor of a simple colored LED. Red means it needs attention, green means that the timer just went off. That’s a mini freezer next to the mini fridge. The former has meals and ice cream, including some vegan flavors that came out very tasty. Help yourself,” he finished, then paused to scrub at his face with both hands. “All I want is my bed and a kiss goodnight from my wife, and I am too tired to care which order they happen in..”

Reticence lifted an eyebrow and signed, “I’ll take some ice cream to go, thanks.”
Read more... )
queervanilla: (Closed eye baby Mel)
QueerVanilla ([personal profile] queervanilla) wrote in [community profile] betaplease2025-12-31 11:49 am

Beta Need - Arcane - Meljayvik - Explicit/R18/NSFW

Fandom: Arcane
Characters/Pairings: Meljayvik
Rating & Warnings: Explicit. Features D/S, Mommy/Daddy kink, Pup kink
Estimated Fic Length: over 8k
Notes: Need help with grammar, phrasing, and some sentence structure. 
ranunculus: (Default)
ranunculus ([personal profile] ranunculus) wrote2025-12-30 05:40 pm

Firefly, Road

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. 

althea_valara: Photo of my cat sniffing a vase of roses  (Default)
Althea Valara ([personal profile] althea_valara) wrote2025-12-30 07:58 pm

things that I have signed up for, so I don't forget!

I have signed up for some things starting in 2026!

1. [community profile] getyourwordsout

I signed up for the lowest habit goal. I'm still not sure I will write all that much, but I'd like to, at the very least, finish my WIPs, and having SPREADSHEETS! will likely help with that. I've joined the discord and requested access to the group, so now we just wait to start.

2. The Story Graph's January Pages Challenge

I've long complained of a lack of reading. I'd like to read more, both to expand my horizons and just for fun. The Pages challenge sounds perfect for me: the goal is just one page a day. I think I can manage that!

3. [community profile] snowflake_challenge

No signups necessary, but I'll likely be doing this again.
nnozomi: (Default)
nnozomi ([personal profile] nnozomi) wrote2025-12-31 10:49 am

良いお年を!

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.
luthien: (Xmas: Yuletide)
luthien ([personal profile] luthien) wrote2025-12-31 12:17 pm
Entry tags:

Yuletide Recs

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 )
mahmfic: (Default)
Megan ([personal profile] mahmfic) wrote in [community profile] addme2025-12-30 07:24 pm

(no subject)

Name: King / Megan

Age: 37

I mostly post about: Exchange letters. Real life: parenting, health issues (ex chronic migraines, epilepsy, depression, anxiety, hubby has hardcore depression, my kid has ADHD, my mom had cancer, and my dad has dementia), friendship, family, my cat, and general rl happenings. I'll talk about fandom and writing stuff too.

My hobbies are: Writing fanfiction, adult coloring books, listening/reading to audiobooks

My fandoms are: My main ones right now are Star Wars (primarily Clone Wars and Bad Batch right now) and Star Trek (primarily DS9).

I'm looking to meet people who: Overall, besides the deal breakers I'm open to friending anyone. It's cool to see different lives and views (except below).

My posting schedule tends to be: I'm trying to be better with updates. My plan is to post every Tuesday. Sometimes there will be dear creator letters for exchanges.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Conservatives. I feel bad saying that. I have conservative friends irl but I don't want to see it online if that makes sense. If you're a Christian who constantly talks about Christianity I'm not interested. It's fine if you're Christian, but if every conversation you make it about the Bible and Jesus that's annoying to me. If you hate people who like Harry Potter and think all fans are transphobic etc. I'm a Hufflepuff so if that bothers you then nope. Additionally in regards to fanfiction and creating, if you think that if someone writes about X then they must support X irl. Damn there's more deal breakers than I thought.

Before adding me, you should know: I'm nonbinary/genderfluid (he/him pronouns but she/her is fine too) and bisexual. I'm open with health stuff (see above for examples). Been married for almost 15 years (refer to him as hubby) and have a 7 year old (refer to her as Huttlet). I'm a geek/nerd/whatever. I post with bullet points/list for my sanity with each point being a different topic. Posts have a gif at the top. Posts are crossposted/imported from livejournal.
annavere: (Joe Dawson facepalm)
annavere ([personal profile] annavere) wrote2025-12-30 07:48 pm
Entry tags:

The delicate intersection of book and fic

So, a while back I found a Highlander/Dune crossover. "How interesting!" I said to myself. I skimmed it, and the story looked promising but I couldn't make heads or tails of it without the classic sci-fi context. "No matter!" said I. "The book is on my TBR pile. I shall put a pin in this and return at the appropriate juncture!"

So having finished Dune, I returned to my AO3 marked for later and sat down to read the crossover.

And it still didn't make a lick of sense. In fact, it might have made even less sense.

Turns out it wasn't a Dune crossover. It was (from what I can tell from the wiki page) a Dune Messiah crossover.

It was tagged for Dune Series, rather than the first novel, so this is my mistake, not at all the writer's! But, uh, I'm not sure I am invested enough to want to read about the downfall of Paul Atreides, so it is very possible I am never going to read that fic after all.

Anyway, at least I finished Dune. Before the new year, even. *Waves little flag*
kenjari: (Default)
kenjari ([personal profile] kenjari) wrote2025-12-30 07:05 pm
Entry tags:

Book Review

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.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-30 06:19 pm
Entry tags: