petra: Text: Eternal Quest - See Quest, Eternal. Quest, Eternal - See Eternal Quest. (DWJ - Eternal Quest)
[personal profile] petra
Oh, boy, emails from everyone's favorite dead sex criminal calling Trump the worst person he knows, and the Trump defense is "But look how transparent we are!"

I have Ben Vereen singing Mr Cellophane with Muppets to console me, because now I want a vid of 47 to that song once the files are released -- not necessarily that version, but it's my favorite one to watch.

*

In other news, the comment threads on Ask A Manager's post about what to do if ICE comes to one's workplace made me cry with both rage, for the obvious reason, and hope, because people really are trying to help each other through all of this governmental horror.

(no subject)

Nov. 12th, 2025 07:45 pm
marginaliana: A cat typing on a laptop. (Cat + computer)
[personal profile] marginaliana
When we watch old Taskmaster episodes on Channel 4 there are only two types of ads these days: the sponsor ads for Tesco Whoosh and then the endless, endless gambling ads.

I know from friends and relatives that online gambling is everywhere in the UK, that almost everyone does it at least somewhat. And I suppose I should be comforted by how often the ads mention the website's 'how to not get obsessed with gambling' features. But there's nothing else being sold anymore (there used to be ads for washing machines at least!), just the chance to throw your money away on online slots - and how sad is that, that I want to be sold something else if only to feel like capitalism can at minimum create objects that you can use?

And then today I did see an ad for something else!

It was Chat GPT.

The Nameless Land by Kate Elliott

Nov. 11th, 2025 12:05 am
renay: photo of the milky way from new zealand on a clear night (Default)
[personal profile] renay posting in [community profile] ladybusiness
I'm pretty stoked that I finished a series I started the same year I started it. Don't look at the fact it's only two books. It still counts, okay!? Read more... )

Book Poll

Nov. 10th, 2025 10:36 am
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 124


Which of these books would you most like to see reviewed?

View Answers

Red Rising, by Pierce Brown. SF dystopia much beloved by many dudes.
18 (14.5%)

Lone Women, by Victor LaValle. Fantastic cross-genre western/historical/horror/fantasy.
32 (25.8%)

The Lout of Count's Family, by Yu Ryeo-Han. Korean isekai novel.
20 (16.1%)

The Haar, by David Sodergren. Cozy/gory/sweet horror about an old Scottish woman and a sea monster.
26 (21.0%)

The Everlasting, by Alix Harrow. Very unusual Arthurian AU time-travel fantasy.
55 (44.4%)

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones. Fantastic historical horror about a Blackfeet vampire.
37 (29.8%)

Best of all Worlds, by Kenneth Oppel. Another absolutely terrible children's survival book, what the hell.
20 (16.1%)

The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker. Coming of age at the end of the world; Ray Bradbury vibes but girl-centric.
23 (18.5%)

Surviving the Extremes, by Kenneth Kamler. A doctor for people in extreme climates/situations analyzes their effects on the body.
33 (26.6%)

When the Angels Left the Old Country, by Sacha Lamb. A Jewish demon and angel leave the old country; excellent voice, very Jewish.
52 (41.9%)

An Immense World, by Ed Yong. Outstanding nonfiction about how animals sense the world.
44 (35.5%)

Combat Surgeon: On Iwo Jima with the 27th Marines, by James Vedder. What it says on the box.
14 (11.3%)

Slewfoot, by Brom. Illustrated historical dark fantasy set in early American colonization.
8 (6.5%)

Animals, by Geoff Ryman. Animal zombie horror, at once deeply sad and utterly bonkers.
21 (16.9%)



Anyone read any of these?

(no subject)

Nov. 10th, 2025 01:21 pm
camwyn: Me in a bomber jacket and jeans standing next to a green two-man North Andover Flight Academy helicopter. (Default)
[personal profile] camwyn
Had colonoscopy last Friday. I'd been dealing with off-and-on post-nasal dripcough, nothing serious, for some time before that. Got home, largely did okay, but by morning I was coughing and miserable and uggh and wound up with a fever. Haven't gone into the doctor's in person but when I did an e-visit and described my symptoms (including things being green that are not supposed to be green I got a prescription for amoxicillin and 'come in for an in-person exam if this doesn't make the symptoms go away'.

So, sinus infection, as far as I can tell.

I am deeply grateful for the fact that my office is WFH on Mondays and Fridays and for the fact that the office is closed tomorrow. I am in that state of recovery where I am no longer feverish and have just enough energy to sit up and do desk stuff and deceive myself into thinking I am in better shape than I actually am. As much as I want to be at the Vets Against Stupid Ass Orange Tin Plated Dictators With Delusions Of Godhood protests tomorrow to back up the veterans, it would not be a good idea for me to push myself that much. I will be sleeping a lot, assuming the cat allows me to do so.

Monday DE: Everybody out!

Nov. 10th, 2025 01:25 pm
splash_of_blue: I'm a girl from the Rift City (Default)
[personal profile] splash_of_blue posting in [community profile] ways_back_room
Mrfl. Mondays.

What issue would your pup attend a protest or counter-protest for? What would be their role? (Legal support, guarding other attendees, first aiding, providing food/drink, leading cheers, making up the numbers, etc. etc.)

Bonus points for creative sign-writing suggestions for their cause!
petra: Cartoon of Shakespeare saying, "Read my latest, it is god damn glorious." (Beaton - Shakespeare)
[personal profile] petra
Ever wondered how I churn out so much rhyming poetry?

Meet my beloved RhymeZone.com, extensive rhyming dictionary.

Also endorsed by Florence Welch and Seth Meyers, quite recently, in a charming interview.

Strange Houses, by Uketsu

Nov. 9th, 2025 10:25 am
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


This is such a fun, unique book. The opening grabs you immediately: Uketsu shows an architect friend the floor plan of a house that his friends are considering buying. The architect spots a number of odd elements that aren't just bad planning, but suggest a very carefully planned and bizarre MURDER HOUSE!

The floor plan of that house and two more come into play repeatedly as Uketsu and his friend investigate, unraveling a truly weird and sometimes spooky mystery via a series of interviews. This book breaks all sorts of rules - it's entirely told rather than shown, a lot of it is exposition, the author appears as a character, and that's not even mentioning the very large role that floor plans play - and I could not put it down.

Is the solution to the mystery absolutely nuts? Sure. Is the book a whole lot of fun to read? Absolutely. Will I recommend it to my customers? You bet!

Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion, who has a nice afterword about translating it.

Apparently Uketsu is a Japanese YouTuber who only appears wearing a mask, like Chuck Tingle if his thing was drawings and creepy mysteries rather than horror and getting pounded in the butt. I can't wait to read Uketsu's other book, Strange Pictures.
chanter1944: a house and road blanketed in snow (Wisconsin winter: buried in snay)
[personal profile] chanter1944
Wet, slushy, sloppy snow is not out of the ordinary. Neither is bracing wind. Bleh! Very glad I made the last outdoor farmers market of the year this morning, before the weather went the expected route on us.

I do *not* envy anyone running the marathon tomorrow...! The snow isn't expected to stick, but still.
aberration: NASA Webb image of the Carina nebula (carina)
[personal profile] aberration
So, um.

… guess who’s off their meds?????????????????????


I mean, don’t go off your meds if they’re working/make you feel better.

But yeah guess who’s off their meds, warnings for talk about taking antidepressants, and stopping them )
petra: Text: "Gotta be one around here somewheres. Try the liberal call, boy." (Bloom County - Liberal Call)
[personal profile] petra
Waking up to the news that the SCOTUS had issued a stay, pausing the lower court's requirement that SNAP be fully funded, really made my rage spike first thing in the morning. Then I learned that it was Justice Jackson (D) acting unilaterally, and I was confused as all fuck.

This Substack has an attempt at an explanation that makes it make sense: Justice Jackson issued the stay for right now on partial funding to pressure everyone -- lower courts & SCOTUS -- to come to a final decision on full funding faster.

I am so pissed off that millions of people can't buy food because of this stupid political keep-away game, but at least there is a method to the apparent madness of Liberal Justice Stays SNAP Payment Order. Mind you, it's goddamn complicated, so the chances of anyone in the media explaining it clearly in a soundbite aren't great.

As the courts battle it out, people in the US are going hungry, and food banks and food pantries are stressed to the breaking point. If you make a donation of at least 25 USD to a food bank or food pantry, you can prompt me to write for you. Please flood my inbox with requests!

AO3 Meme

Nov. 7th, 2025 09:44 pm
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
[personal profile] petra
Thanks to [personal profile] jenab and [personal profile] senmut!

As of today, with 1325 works:

1. What rating do you write most fics under?

General Audiences - 623; Teen and Up - 274 is the second, which is not even close.

2. What are your top 3 fandoms?
DCU (292)
Star Wars (187)
Cabin Pressure (64) (almost all limericks from Sept 2025)
Honorable Mention: Slings & Arrows (63), which is at least not all five-line poetry

3. What is your top character you write about?
Obi-Wan Kenobi (137)
Bruce Wayne comes in second at 131 but I never did a Kinktober in DCU fandom, and I've done two in Star Wars mostly-Prequels fandom.

4. What are the 3 top pairings?
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker (85)
Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne (43)
Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker (22)
Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker (21)
Gene Hunt/Sam Tyler (20) (included for variety)

5. What are the top 3 additional tags?
Drabble (474)
Limericks (202)
Poetry (85)
You don't get a non-format one till Identity Porn (22), Psychic Wolves (19), and Oral Sex (18).
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
The rumor that I posted this one just to be able to tag it is False; the things I will do for Jack and Té are numerous.

In which Obi-Wan is a tortoiseshell cat (27 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Whomever It May Concern
Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Additional Tags: Limericks, Isekai and Transmigration, Animal Transformation, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Pussy, Obi-Wan Kenobi has a pussy, Cat Obi-Wan Kenobi
Summary:

Obi-Wan gets isekai'ed into a kitty cat and gets laid.

Thad

Nov. 5th, 2025 09:20 pm
marginaliana: Taliesin Jaffee with drawn on devil horns (Taliesin devil horns)
[personal profile] marginaliana
Various:

--Seeing how small the voter turnout was in Cambridge makes me depressed but also reminds me that my umpty hours of reading all the candidates' web pages before I vote is actually worth something. Anyway, everyone on the city council is someone I voted for except Tim Flaherty who is not the worst I guess.

--Asked my coworkers for book recommendations along particular lines the other day and was presented with a perfect example of 'everyone wants to tell you about their favorite book, whether it meets the brief or not.' *sigh*

--Critical Role c4 ep 4 - surprising probably zero people who know me, I now intensely ship spoilers )

--Also CR-related but without spoilers: damn, Alex is real hot. I have two (2) spooky boys as my favorites now, apparently. Plus Aabria who can do spooky or literally any vibe in the universe tbh.

Thursday DE

Nov. 6th, 2025 09:48 am
bjornwilde: (Default)
[personal profile] bjornwilde posting in [community profile] ways_back_room
What is your character most envious about? 

Call for Volunteers 2026

Nov. 5th, 2025 02:34 pm
tjs_whatnot: (Default)
[personal profile] tjs_whatnot posting in [community profile] snowflake_challenge

It’s coming up at that time of the year again and we wanted to let you know that the Fandom Snowflake Challenge will be happening again in January. We are very excited about hosting another round! To make the upcoming round as awesome as it can possibly be we are looking for volunteers to help us out! Here are the details on what the requirements and expectations of volunteer mods are for you to consider.

Requirements and Expectation of Volunteer Mods


General Volunteer Requirements:


All volunteers will have the opportunity to help us mold the challenges by helping come up with what challenges we offer and when we offer them. 


Volunteers must be willing to interact with a lot of people who have different interests and levels than you and some of them, you might be the only interaction they receive. You must be able to offer support and encouragement or alert other mods to the need. 


We have 4 levels of involvement that can fit most people's availability. 

1) Poster and First Comment Responder

2) Comment Responder

3) Other Site Organizer 

4) Graphics


Poster: We have 19 posts scheduled (15 challenges, one introduction, one meet the mods, one wrap up post and the friending meme.) You can sign up for only one if you'd like, or more if you're able. 


Responsibility of  Poster: create the post using the template provided. Seek feedback if you'd like. Post into the community, and then notify us in the mod community so we all know it's there.  Then you are the first responder to that post. You don't have to answer every comment or read every post after. But you'll be the one getting the notifications as the challenge progresses so you'll have the sole responsibility of cheering on the stragglers.


Second Responder, Third and (hopefully) Fourth Responder Responsibilities

✔️Help poster respond to comments on the community post (we get an average of 150 participants per challenge) 

✔️Take turns commenting on each post of our participants. 

✔️Communicate with other volunteers throughout the month.


Other Site Organizers Requirements


We need volunteers familiar with other fandom spaces that aren't Dreamwidth if we want to have a presence in these spaces. This will require adapt each Dreamwidth post to making a post on your site, which may include fixing links, removing or altering HTML, sharing a small quote and linking to the Dreamwidth post, tagging appropriately, and/or removing or altering images to your site's specifications. You should be prepared to post the above 19 posts listed under Dreamwidth Poster and you should also be prepared to make additional posts as needed on your site to share any applicable graphics, share your site specific tags, or otherwise interact with your site participants. 


Depending on your site, you may need to keep track of a tag, reply to comments on your post, keep track of reblogs, keep track of direct messages, or otherwise monitor your site for participant entries. You need to interact with participant entries in some way, such as commenting, reblogging, Liking, or whatever is possible on your site. Ideally, each site should have an additional volunteer (or volunteers) to help with posting and commenting on your site which might involve creating site specific templates, communicating outside of the Dreamwidth mods community, and other mod duties (like answering asks, checking an inbox, or maintaining a community.

 


Graphics:


We'd love to have someone with graphic abilities to help us create some banners and icons. Only requirement other than making awesome pretties is to supply the coding needed to post it.


It really is a lot of fun, made more so by the inclusion to as many people from as many fandoms and spaces as possible. 




rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


This book is very hard to describe without spoilers, so I'll just cover the setup. Aspiring actress/current waitress Jess is having a bad night that gets much worse when she finds a scared little boy who's run away from his father. Things get extremely strange from there. This book is a wild ride.

I read it in a single sitting, so it's very propulsive. It's also very dark/bleak, despite some absurdist humor arising from the premise. I enjoyed it a lot while I read it, but it's now months later and it hasn't quite stuck with me the way some other books have. Nestlings is still my favorite of his.

Content notes: Child abuse/harm is central to the story. So is an accidental needle-stick with a possibly contaminated needle.

Spoilers! Also contains some light spoilers for Stephen King's Firestarter.

Read more... )
renay: photo of the milky way from new zealand on a clear night (Default)
[personal profile] renay posting in [community profile] ladybusiness
As we end the year, I'm resisting the capitalistic urge to have my favorites list out in December for Content Reasons. Those of us dedicated to the ways of book blogging know that personal lists are best out in January because there's always a chance a book picked up in the dead space between holidays and the new year hits different. I will link to best of lists in Intergalactic Mixtape (because I am weak, and I love them), but that's it. I will not create my own!

To distract myself, while I was redoing my bookshelves, I made a list of books where I thought, "Wow, I would love to be able to read that again for the first time."

Read more... )

Since my massive reading slump in 2020, I've become a lot kinder to myself when it comes to re-reading. It's nice to spend time with familiar characters and worlds. I'm trying really hard to be gentle with my brain, which is overtaxed by the Horrors. An election year seems like the perfect time for a reread spree. It's very likely all of these books, and their companion/sequel novels, will be on my December TBR/2026 reading list.
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
[personal profile] petra
Thank you to [personal profile] sanguinity and [personal profile] ride_4ever for donating to your local food banks/pantries! This post has details on how to get me to write for you next by donating.

Party foul (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Slings & Arrows
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Darren Nichols/Geoffrey Tennant
Characters: Darren Nichols, Geoffrey Tennant
Additional Tags: Drabble, Shakespearean Comedy
Summary:

Darren and Geoffrey celebrate Halloween during university.


*

Still I think I've been overpaid (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: White Collar (TV 2009)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey
Characters: Elizabeth Burke, Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey
Additional Tags: Drabble, First Time
Series: Part 2 of Can't be bought or sold
Summary:

El, Peter, and Neal get naked.


*

In persistent music news, Golden from KPop Demon Hunters is chasing me around the city to a degree that I haven't experienced with a song since I spent a lot of time in doctor's office waiting rooms during the peak of Let It Go-a-rama. I heard it in two different places today. I'm not sure which is going to prove to be more persistent outside my head; I still don't know what all the words to Golden mean, and it's not because I don't know how to find out.

*

I have been listening to The Expanse via audiobook.

Spoilers for Tiamat's Wrath's first couple of chapters )
*

Goodbye and good riddance to Dick Cheney and Andrew Cuomo's NYC mayoral bid!
umadoshi: (autumn leaves 2 (dhamphir))
[personal profile] umadoshi
So here it is: the rest of autumn spread out before us, post-Hallowe'en and pre-Christmas with (in Canada) mainly the gray blur of November in between.

(It's really just as well we have our harvest celebration in October, but as always, I do envy the placement of it between Hallowe'en and Christmas in the US just in terms of not having the stretch between seasonal holidays. [I say, as if US Thanksgiving isn't horribly fraught in so many ways.] I don't know why I have such strong feelings about this. I had them before I stumbled into wanting seasonal decor at home for more than just Christmas and started feeling all adrift in that sense at this time of year.)

(This probably isn't why some people have non-holiday decor that can be swapped in and out, thus having more options, but it's a nice side effect, I imagine. *contemplates* Please feel free to tell me about your non-Hallowe'en decor! Full-on harvest stuff is not terribly seasonal here, but surely there are other options?)

Anyway. It's noticeably cooler here now, and still bright outside rather than all gray-skewed like my mental picture of the season, but the month is young.

If there are things you love about November, please share?

Last time we ordered groceries, I got a bag of Granny Smith apples with intentions of baking, and that...uh, that hasn't happened yet. Hopefully today after I get some work done, assuming nothing horrible has happened to them. (I worry about overestimating the durability of things like apples. And cabbage. We also have a cabbage. >.> It's been around longer.)

As for what to bake...well, I have my eyes on two Smitten Kitchen cakes and two RecipeTin Eats cakes (all new to us), and there's also an a cake we made last year, or just doing baked apples or crisp. We'll see.

In cat news, the other night Sinha was being a tremendous pest to Jinksy (as is typical), and unexpectedly, Jinksy remembered (???) how to scruff him! He scruffed Sinha a couple of times a couple years ago, and it's pretty much the only thing that's ever actually made Sinha back the fuck off, but then that was it. Maybe he won't go another year or more without remembering about it again. (It's such a complicated feeling for us, because Sinha makes the most pathetic keening noises and gets really upset about it [and the other night it took an hour or so of him racing around the house grumbling to himself before he settled down, which was awkward since we were trying to sleep], so it's a bit heartbreaking, but we are absolutely in favor of Jinksy standing up for himself and saying, "NO. You will STOP.")

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