ceitfianna | Reading

I don't actually ship Rex/Echo, but that doesn't stop me from wanting a Lord King Bad Vid to For Good for the very simple reason that Rex is going to be with Echo like a handprint on his heart.

I feel like this needs a good bunch of Bad Batch, which I have not seen, in much the same way that I have only seen Wicked on stage once, and haven't seen the movies.

I also can't listen to the song without tearing up because I've sung it at too many funerals.

Clearly I am highly qualified to care about this vid. I must've gotten someone else's inspiration particle.

Current Mood: ludicrous
Current Music: Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun

petra

Back in the day, the 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the U.S. Army made the rounds of the internet.

The one that stuck with me hardest:

87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.

This came to mind because I thought of a great tag that will baffle the good wranglers at the AO3, but which I will apply to the story forthwith, despite its having made me giggle for longer than 15 seconds.

Then I started wondering.

These are the fanworks on AO3 tagged with Skippy's List. Happily, various people have written Clone Wars versions so I don't have to.

Current Mood: giggly
Current Music: The next day he saluted a Good Humor man, an usher, and a nun

umadoshi

An important task, given that I'm switching away from Spotify to Qobuz at this time of year: sifting through someone else's curated Trans-Siberian Orchestra playlist and pulling only about a third of the tracks from that to my own new holiday playlist. (There is a way to import Spotify playlists, but I haven't actually investigated it yet.)

My playlist is awfully random, really. I'm picky about Christmas music, but not in a way that follows much rhyme or reason. I like some boys' choir stuff. I mostly prefer older Christmas songs to more modern ones. But in practice, a lot of what I listen to is single-artist holiday albums, often by artists I don't really listen to otherwise. (The examples in my playlist so far are Annie Lennox and Sting and Idina Menzel, and maybe Mary Fahl counts, since I haven't heard any of her other solo work, just the old October Project albums where she was the lead vocalist.) If you have recs along those lines, feel free to throw them my way!

(Am I still entertained by the fact that Tori Amos put out a seasonal holiday album, uh...[*checks notes*] seventeen years ago? [WHY did I just date-check that?] Yep. Am I listening to it right now because it turned out that I enjoy most of it? Also yep. Still funny.)

(Would-be-funny-if-not-completely-horrifying: Every once in a while I remember Tom McRae saying that in the earliest days, his label thought his song "You Cut Her Hair" could be released as a Christmas track. "You Cut Her Hair" deals with the Holocaust. Very seasonal. Yes. o_o)

I guess it must've been back on the weekend that we made Smitten Kitchen's Mom’s Apple Cake, which was the first apple cake I was looking at a few weeks ago, but at the time we didn't have a tube pan on hand. (You can use a bundt, which we did have, but...I didn't opt for that.) It's very good. It's also LARGE. (Some went into the freezer.)

We cracked out the Burlap & Barrel Royal Cinnamon for it, and the cake is very cinnamony, but that presumably is at least equally due to the part where the cake calls for a tablespoon.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Tori Amos - What Child, Nowell

bjornwilde posting in

ways_back_room

If your character had the option to hibernate for Winter would they?

petra

I do not keep up with DC Comics canon anymore. I haven't for a long-ass time. But people on my Tumblr dash do, and they share just enough to confuse me.

I remember when Bruce Wayne adopted Tim Drake because I immediately wrote a story about it in which a) they have sex and b) they have issues. I mean -- so many issues.

The punchline of that story has always been, for me, that Bruce has no goddamn business adopting the 16-year-old son of people he knew.

20 and a bit years on, Tim is 16 again despite the theoretical passage of time in comics, various other characters aging, and assorted other nonsense, and DC Editorial has him ( Cut for spoilers )

There was also a page that went by on my Tumblr dash recently that drew Tim with Shoulders and Muscles, from who knows when, which was also #notmytimdrake, but in a way that made my brain convinced that Bernard was cheating on Tim with Kon.

Current Mood: baffled
Current Music: What's next? The fourth? The fifth?

rachelmanija

Thirteen-year-old Ali gets a chance to spend the summer with her aunt Dulcie and five-year-old cousin Emma at the family's long-abandoned lakefront property - over the strong objections of Ali's mother, who hates the lake. Ali is delighted to babysit Emma and get out from under her mom's over-protective thumb. But why do both her mother and Dulcie act so weird about the lake and their past there? Who's the mysterious girl who was ripped out of old family photos? And what's up with Sissy, the strange girl who hangs out at the lake and encourages Emma to behave badly and blame it on Ali?

Sissy's real identity won't come as a surprise to any readers over the age of 10, but there are some genuinely chilling moments and Hahn's trademark realistic family dynamics and exploration of guilty secrets and how parents' childhood trauma gets passed down to their children. I actually got stressed out reading about Ali trying to protect Emma while Dulcie blames Ali for all the weird stuff going on and accuses Ali of refusing to take responsibility for anything. (In fact, Dulcie and Ali's mom are the ones who are failing to take responsibility and projecting it on the kids.)

A good solid middle-grade ghost story with unusually complex family dynamics.

rachelmanija

A sensitive, well-written novel about a young girl coming of age at the end of the world. 11-year-old Julia lives in California suburbs with her doctor dad and fragile mom when the Earth's rotation begins to slow, and gradually gets slower and slower and slower.

Days and nights stretch out. Birds fall from the sky. Some people become severely ill, apparently from disruption of circadian rhythms. Crops fail. But life goes on, and Julia experiences all the ordinary milestones - a first love, her parents' marriage breaking up, becoming more independent - against a backdrop of larger loss and change. It

This is an apocalypse novel almost entirely without violence, apart from some light persecution of a scapegoated neighbor. There's some death, but it's all from natural or accidental causes. It's science fiction but marketed as literary fiction, and feels a lot more like the latter. The book has that melancholy, nostalgic, sepia vibe of looking back on times when you knew something was wrong but were young enough to be focused mostly on yourself, and knowing you'll never be that innocent ot experience the same time or world again.

umadoshi

The season's first storm is heading our way, although our bit of the province is expecting way more rain than snow. (Now it rains. But I think it mostly hasn't been too cold yet, so hopefully the rain will help the water table etc. recover some more after the summer/fall drought.) Maybe

scruloose can get the hoses indoors (or drained, if that's the plan) when they get home from work, before the weather arrives.

I've finally gotten weary enough of my natural hair color to buy permanent OTC dye, as opposed to the semi-permanent attempts I've made since it became obvious that covid has settled in for the long haul. ( TL;DR: purple permanent dye has been purchased but not yet applied )

C&Ping and expanding on a bit from Bluesky last night: ( an Advent calendar + supplementary chocolate )

petra

This Tumblr post has Salman Rushdie's account of meeting Umberto Eco and Mario Vargas Llosa after each of them had trashed the other two in the press, and discovering that they got along extremely well in person.

OT3!

Having read none of them save a little Vargas Llosa en español, I can't begin to write it, but I can Want it.

*puts it in the Maybe Someday Yuletide tag*

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Cuddle up with William S. Burroughs, leave on the light for bell hooks

umadoshi

I wonder how much of an entry I can write on my phone before it gets too annoying. Still a bit amazed that the best-for-me swipe keyboard I've found is literally still in alpha. (I almost always strongly prefer to use tech/programs that are solidly out of beta, and yet.)

Bucky the Christmas tree has been revived from cold storage! I do still miss some elements of having a real tree, between the traditions and the evergreen scent, but it sure is nice not to have the time constraints of "how long will it look alive?" when deciding to put it up/take it down. And I'm also finding that I like the feeling of This Is Our Tree. Hello, Bucky, old chum. Good to see you again. You look well!

Anyhow, as of yesterday* he's in his place, built-in lights all aglow. No ornaments yet. Plenty of time for that.

*Ginny is not what you'd call a Christmas fan, so I told myself firmly that there was no call to put Bucky up on Saturday right before she and Kas would be coming over.

Today's main excitement was a dental appointment. Everything looks good, apparently. Now to hope once again that this won't be the time I get covid out of it despite the precautions we manage to take.

Current Mood: okay

rachelmanija

Another mystery with light horror/urban legend elements and a heavy use of images by the mysterious and pseudonymous Uketsu. If you like creepypasta, you will like this.

An abandoned blog with sketches of a woman's future child may reveal a horrifying secret. A child's drawings of his apartment building worry his teacher. A mountaintop murder has a clue in a sketch by the murder victim. How do the images reveal the solutions? Are these three weird stories related?

I enjoyed this very much. It's exactly as fun and bonkers as the first Uketsu book I read, Strange Houses, but feels more confident and assured. It also reads more like a normal novel, with actual scenes rather than solely relying on interviews and exposition.

I'm excited to read his next two books (forthcoming in English) Strange Buildings (originally published in Japanese as Strange Houses 2, which the translator says is more dark/disturbing than the first two) and Strange Maps, which the translator says is more of a classic mystery.

Content notes: Child abuse, animal in danger, brief but graphic violence.

Spoilers!

( Read more... )

denise posting in

dw_news

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

petra

I am reading Retrograde, an Old Guard story, off a recommendation from the Rec Center newsletter. It is charming, and I am more than happy to forgive it its comma splices for the well-told tale of Nicky waking up at a different point in his own history every time he dies.

What made me pause to cry laughing was actually a footnote in the fic that "'Snails" is a minced oath for "God's nails," as cited in Green's Dictionary of Slang from 1599.

I haven't giggled this hard at something snail-related since the Barricades Con did a snéance (a snail séance) to ask Victor Hugo a few burning questions.

I am also sad all over again that they didn't name the sequel 2 Old 2 Guard, and that it wasn't good, but that is a Doylistic set of concerns, and when I am enmeshed in the story, I don't care so much.

Current Mood: shakespearean
Current Music: Arm in arm in arm in arm

petra

Also open to people for whom it is Not Dark Outside in the Southern Hemisphere.

Let me know if you'd like a holiday card, with or without short verse or prose, or a short piece of fiction in your inbox.

Even if you know I have your address, if you want a physical card, I would appreciate your leaving it in a comment on this post -- all comments are screened -- so I don't have to hunt for it. I'm in the US and have a pile of domestic and international stamps just waiting to come see you.

Please format your request like so:

I would like [a physical card/just a physical card, no fiction/just a piece of fiction or verse sent digitally], please.

If you want a physical card:
Envelope Name
Address formatted the way your country likes them done

Card Name (if different from envelope name):

If you want some words:
Please write me a [drabble or poem], [silly or serious or smutty or author's choice], for [one or more of these fandoms (the fandoms I know)] on the theme of [my favorite trope(s)]. Please avoid mentioning [winter holidays I don't celebrate].

Optional if you want to reciprocate:
I'm planning on sending holiday cards and don't have your address. Please provide it [at this link or in a reply comment].

Current Mood: festive
Current Music: I want a la-la-la-la-latke every Cha-Cha-Chanukah night

petra

There is currently a meme going around Tumblr of looking at the AO3 to see which of one's fanworks has the fewest hits. Mine is currently a drabble of Shakespeare/Marlowe titled from Stephen Sondheim.

As Jack points out, said fanwork could only be more on-brand for me if it involved mentor/student or one person/everyone else.

BRB, contemplating Kit/everybody and/or Will/everybody.

~~Oh thank goodness, I have the right icon for this post!~~

Current Mood: silly
Current Music: I am somewhat imperfectly me

petra

It is definitely time for the ceremonial Watching of the Comfort Movie.

RIP, Tom Stoppard. And may you not have to do it all over again and again and again, because life is neither a rehearsal nor a play.

Current Mood: exanimate
Current Music: Postulate

umadoshi

Reading: Since last weekend, I've finished reading Rebecca Mahoney's The Memory Eater and read Susan Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone and Aster Glenn Gray's The Wolf and the Girl, and

scruloose and I finished listening to Network Effect. (One Murderbot audiobook left to go! At least until whenever the new one comes out next year.)

I'd never read any of The Dark is Rising [series] before, but a while back I got the whole set in an ebook bundle, and this week I remembered to actually ask around about which part of people read seasonally (or if it's the whole thing) and confirmed that winter solstice is indeed the season in question. So I expect to take a stab at reading The Dark is Rising [book] in a few weeks.

Seasonally related: Llinos Cathryn Thomas has a new seasonal novella out, All is Bright, which I understand can just be read like any other book but is written to work as an Advent countdown, one chapter a day. Hopefully I'll remember to start that on Monday, alongside whatever else I pick up next.

Watching: Having finally finished Network Effect,

scruloose and I dipped back into Silo season 2 last night. Three whole episodes down now!

I also succumbed to anticipatory fandom hype and watched the first two episodes of Heated Rivalry. I can't say I'm in love, but it looks like it's only six episodes total, so I expect I'll keep on with it. [Content note: the sex scenes are fairly graphic, at least by my fuzzy impression of standards for a mainstream show.] I have zero familiarity with the book, so no idea what's going to happen or how it is as an adaptation.

[Via The Rec Centre: "How ‘Heated Rivalry’ Became the Internet’s Favorite Show — Before It’s Even Aired".]

Householding: We've ordered a new upright freezer for the garage, since the current one is still being cranky. Once we've swapped the new one in (ETA: next weekend),

scruloose may take a stab at repairing it; that might've been the first step if it had been an appliance that's not full of food that needs to stay frozen, but with no idea what we would've done with said food during the attempt and troubleshooting and repair, and given how busy they've been lately, it wasn't a good choice right now. If they're able to fix the old one, we should be able to rehome it with someone who needs one.

Cooking: We did indeed make the Smitten Kitchen Roast Chicken with Schmaltzy Cabbage last weekend, and it was really good. I've been pleased about how many vegetables it turns out I can find palatable in some situations, but I think this was the most actual enjoyment I've had from one. (The cabbage didn't do as well as a leftover the next night as the chicken itself did, but was still fine.)

Current Mood: hungry

petra

✨ holiday love meme 2025 ✨
my thread here

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: A glorious burst of heavenly song

umadoshi

A day off without sleeping in at all feels so expansive! (

scruloose had to be out a bit early all this week, so I've been getting up a bit earlier too to do my supervision part of the clowder's breakfast routine.) But I took the day off mainly to try to get some manga work done, so going back to bed after that seemed counterproductive. Somehow it's not even 10 AM yet? Incredible. (Could I have used the sleep, though? Oh yes.)

Happy day-after-Thanksgiving to the USians* observing this emotionally-complex holiday. I enjoy the food chatter from afar. Someone on a cooking feed on Bluesky posted about doing a stuffing flight, and now I really want a stuffing flight, although the specific types they'd made didn't sing to me. ^^;

*I've been seeing the edges of Discourse about this term on Bluesky, and several people complained about the pronunciation/having no good pronunciation options, which made me realize that to me it's strictly a term for writing, not saying. It works fine visually. *shrugs*

First Yule scent of the year: But Men Loved Darkness Better Than Light (2009 vintage). I'd forgotten how much I love this one.

Last year I had a pretty good streak of wearing Weenie scents, and then in November

scruloose's breathing was a bit rough, and we didn't think it was the BPAL, but I didn't wear any through the Christmas season. (It turned out not to be what was causing the problem, which has been IDed and dealt with.) So maybe this year. (As always, the Weenie and Yule updates tempted me dreadfully, but the added horror of current crossborder shipping gave me extra armor against getting in on a decant circle.)

I'm finally listening to the new Florence + The Machine album; listening to new music takes even longer now than it used to, and I've never been quick about listening or bonding. Given the season, after this album I'll probably switch to Christmas music while working. As long as it's good (wholly subjective, obviously, along with if you're a Christmas person and if seasonal music doesn't hit all the wrong buttons in general), Christmas music is kind of ideal for when I'm trying to just get some work done--it doesn't require the attention that beloved favorite music or new-to-me music does, even if it's not a recording I'm familiar with. Handy!

(Yesterday I deployed some for the first time this year. I didn't know Carole King had a holiday album, although it's never a surprise when a western musician does. *eyes Tori Amos holiday album* [Which I do listen to.] And now I've heard it once and never need to hear it again.)

Also on the music front, I finally cut off my Spotify subscription, and I'm trying out Qobuz after waffling between it and Deezer. Neither of them has native Linux desktop support or a Roku app, either of which would've weighted my decision significantly, and Qobuz allows you to actually buy music--apparently DRM-free, no less!--so I'm starting here.

Package-delivery updates cover such a bizarre spectrum. I currently have in my inbox: a) an update from a courier saying they've got my package and will deliver it this afternoon, with no indication of the sender, and I do not have a ship notification from anywhere that makes it obvious, so...I guess we'll see soon, and b) a Canada Post "Ship Notification for Item" (not to be confused with a "your item is out for delivery" notification) that didn't arrive in my inbox until a couple of hours after the CP person had already theoretically been by and attempted delivery. (Canada Post folks are better than others about actually attempting delivery, so I have to assume I just didn't hear the doorbell somehow, but the email timing remains bizarre.)

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Florence + The Machine - One of the Greats

petra

I posted 10 drabbles to the Wanksgiving fest, which is currently anonymous. If you didn't get me to write for you, and you spot something in there that you think was me, leave me a comment with an "I think you wrote this!" and a request and I will follow up with you when I am not mid-giving-thanks.

Current Mood: productive
Current Music: Thankfully short -- like Marvin

Profile

ceitfianna

November 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30

Page Summary

petra - Vids that will never be: A Clone Wars ship I don't ship but I would watch this vid
petra - It's not Rule 34 if it's not porn - Skippy's List, Clone Wars edition
umadoshi - Christmas music | Not-Christmas cake
bjornwilde in ways_back_room - Thursday DE
petra - #NotMyTimDrake
rachelmanija - Deep and Dark and Dangerous, by Mary Downing Hahn
rachelmanija - The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thomas Walker
umadoshi - Impending weather | Impending purple | No-longer-impending Advent chocolate
petra - Rule 34 Time - the author trifecta
umadoshi - Offhand mishmash: Bucky awakens | "Look, Ma!"
rachelmanija - Strange Pictures, by Uketsu
denise in dw_news - Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!
petra - Recommendation: Retrograde & my new favorite minced oath
petra - It's Dark Outside Cards - 2025
petra - I just gotta be me
petra - Tom Stoppard is like unto Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
umadoshi - Weekly proof of life: media, an appliance, and chicken and cabbage
petra - Holiday love meme
umadoshi - Day-off mishmash post: not my holiday | seasonal scents | music listening | package-delivery oddness
petra - Happy Wanksgiving!

Style Credit

Style: Wisteria for Nouveau Oleanders by branchandroot
Resources: OpenClipart and Siren

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Dec. 6th, 2025 12:09 pm

Companions

Reading

Vids that will never be: A Clone Wars ship I don't ship but I would watch this vid

It's not Rule 34 if it's not porn - Skippy's List, Clone Wars edition

Christmas music | Not-Christmas cake

Thursday DE

#NotMyTimDrake

Deep and Dark and Dangerous, by Mary Downing Hahn

The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thomas Walker

Impending weather | Impending purple | No-longer-impending Advent chocolate

Rule 34 Time - the author trifecta

Offhand mishmash: Bucky awakens | "Look, Ma!"

Strange Pictures, by Uketsu

Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!

Recommendation: Retrograde & my new favorite minced oath

It's Dark Outside Cards - 2025

I just gotta be me

Tom Stoppard is like unto Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Weekly proof of life: media, an appliance, and chicken and cabbage

Holiday love meme

Day-off mishmash post: not my holiday | seasonal scents | music listening | package-delivery oddness

Happy Wanksgiving!

Profile

November 2025

Links

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags