Monday Media - December 29 Edition
Dec. 29th, 2025 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lebateleurGames: I am now the proud owner of Warhammer: Dawn of War Onslaught and Wyrmspan, and am going through the rulebooks ahead of playing them with Geek BBQers in the new year.
Music: Alas, I skipped both yesterday's pub session and today's house session to focus on end-of-year adulting, so didn't do much with music this week. Nor do I dare to practice at home, given how bone dry the apartment is.
Podcasts: N/A
Roleplaying: None this week, but ma soeur did get me a ridiculously funny D&D themed mug, which I have been enjoying with an obscene amount of tea.
Television: We wrapped of The American Revolution, which was excellent overall, as have been the conversations with the GC and other friends who've watched. It's amazing how differently this history--and various aspects of it--are or are not taught depending on what school district you grew up in.
We kicked off the weekend with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which was great fun to see in theaters and just as fun to watch at home. Doric and Holga are such great characters, as is Simon, but Xenk will always be my forever character from this movie.
The Fellowship of the Ring, which is a permanent winter movie for me (just as the book is a winter read). The characters look nothing like the characters in my head, but oh my god did Jackson get the look of the world down cold. And National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is one of those childhood movies that, like The Princess Bride, I could probably recite in real time.
The GC & I weren't planning on watching AEW: World's End this past Saturday, but then one of the Geek BBQers offered to host, and it turned out to be a really solid PPV with tons of good matches. I loved seeing Babes of Wrath and FTG get their wins; the Darby Allen/Gabe Kidd match was intense, Mox's storyline is coming out of the doldrums at last, and Joe, Swerve, and MJF are guaranteed fire whenever they're in the ring, let alone when they're in it together. It was a small watch group, only six people at its height, and one of them was a curiosity attendee who'd never watched wrestling before. But she is also a TRPGer and former gymnast who got it immediately, and it was a ton of fun watching her get into what AEW is about. On top of that, we got to commune with bonus cats.
The GC and I started Max Headroom: a rewatch for me and new show for the GC. Max Headroom is sadly, criminally, largely forgotten today...probably because of how freaking prescient it was. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely A Lot of vintage '80s elements in this series, but. This show really did predict the future in a lot of uncomfortable ways. Cambridge Analytica-style micro-segmenting of audiences? Yup. Novel digital technologies that literally kill people? Yup. Megacorporations covering it all up for profit? Yup.
"Wow," said the GC when we were about 15 minutes in, "this is just Cyberpunk 2077." And it is. "Wow," said the GC after Max Headroom made his first on-screen appearance, "that's just...Jim Carrey." And I'd never thought about it before, but he's right. Or more accurately, Jim Carrey stole his entire shtick from Matt Frewer's Headroom and no one acknowledges it. We started with the show (I can't find my copy of the movie) but we're already two episodes in and it still really holds up.
Video Games: It's been a bit of a rough week, so I've leaned heavily into two of my major comfort games: Botanicula and Thank Goodness You're Here. We also got--but have not started playing yet--Sea of Stars
これで以上です。
Music: Alas, I skipped both yesterday's pub session and today's house session to focus on end-of-year adulting, so didn't do much with music this week. Nor do I dare to practice at home, given how bone dry the apartment is.
Podcasts: N/A
Roleplaying: None this week, but ma soeur did get me a ridiculously funny D&D themed mug, which I have been enjoying with an obscene amount of tea.
Television: We wrapped of The American Revolution, which was excellent overall, as have been the conversations with the GC and other friends who've watched. It's amazing how differently this history--and various aspects of it--are or are not taught depending on what school district you grew up in.
We kicked off the weekend with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which was great fun to see in theaters and just as fun to watch at home. Doric and Holga are such great characters, as is Simon, but Xenk will always be my forever character from this movie.
The Fellowship of the Ring, which is a permanent winter movie for me (just as the book is a winter read). The characters look nothing like the characters in my head, but oh my god did Jackson get the look of the world down cold. And National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is one of those childhood movies that, like The Princess Bride, I could probably recite in real time.
The GC & I weren't planning on watching AEW: World's End this past Saturday, but then one of the Geek BBQers offered to host, and it turned out to be a really solid PPV with tons of good matches. I loved seeing Babes of Wrath and FTG get their wins; the Darby Allen/Gabe Kidd match was intense, Mox's storyline is coming out of the doldrums at last, and Joe, Swerve, and MJF are guaranteed fire whenever they're in the ring, let alone when they're in it together. It was a small watch group, only six people at its height, and one of them was a curiosity attendee who'd never watched wrestling before. But she is also a TRPGer and former gymnast who got it immediately, and it was a ton of fun watching her get into what AEW is about. On top of that, we got to commune with bonus cats.
The GC and I started Max Headroom: a rewatch for me and new show for the GC. Max Headroom is sadly, criminally, largely forgotten today...probably because of how freaking prescient it was. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely A Lot of vintage '80s elements in this series, but. This show really did predict the future in a lot of uncomfortable ways. Cambridge Analytica-style micro-segmenting of audiences? Yup. Novel digital technologies that literally kill people? Yup. Megacorporations covering it all up for profit? Yup.
"Wow," said the GC when we were about 15 minutes in, "this is just Cyberpunk 2077." And it is. "Wow," said the GC after Max Headroom made his first on-screen appearance, "that's just...Jim Carrey." And I'd never thought about it before, but he's right. Or more accurately, Jim Carrey stole his entire shtick from Matt Frewer's Headroom and no one acknowledges it. We started with the show (I can't find my copy of the movie) but we're already two episodes in and it still really holds up.
Video Games: It's been a bit of a rough week, so I've leaned heavily into two of my major comfort games: Botanicula and Thank Goodness You're Here. We also got--but have not started playing yet--Sea of Stars
これで以上です。
(no subject)
Dec. 29th, 2025 09:33 pmgoodbyebird+ I thiiiink I'm up to date on my comment replies? My inbox turned into a right mess with all the holiday emails thrown in, sorry if I've skipped over you.
+ Tis the time for End of Year Lists, and I enjoyed Every Sapphic Book I Read This Year by![[youtube.com profile]](https://youtube.com/favicon.ico)
Lesbiature.
+ I actually spotted the Beehive Books illuminated version of Carmilla in a local bookshop! I didn't know their fancy editions were becoming that widespread. I backed their very first kickstarter back in the day, happy to see they've expanded. Their editions are works of art. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for a sale so I can snap it up.
+ Finally installed Vegas Pro 22 I got from Humble Bundle, and there were separate ticky boxes for Vegas Pro and Deep Learning Model. I'm assuming that's their AI bullshit? If so, GOOD. Maybe I'll venture into discord again, most vidders have abandoned ship here and I'll very likely be in need of moral support. These gay vampires won't leave me alone and I may just have to do something about it. (this is 98% likely to never result in a finished vid, my track record is very conclusive)
+ Big shoutout to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lgbtrainbow for letting me do one icon at a time. Such a fun but also easy way to go about iconning. Though I now have three colors laying in wait for when they come back around lol. I am ready to pounce. Please join us and icon All The Gays.
(I may actually have an icon post before the year ends whee)
In the meantime I've written up not one but two tutorials based on earlier PSDs, because once again I'm having to re-learn how to make icons.
❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 29
Stranger Things
love is a battle i can win by![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
palmviolet (24,653 words). Christmas 1994. Nancy faces her fears. The sense of found family and friendship in this <3
She taps the end of her ballpoint on her lip and looks idly around the terminal. The bank of seats she’s sitting on is empty. But as she watches, actually, someone comes down to sit a few seats away from her. It’s a woman, short-haired, in men’s trousers and a collared shirt. She’s got sharp eyes and freckles dusted over her cheeks; the shirt, open at the throat, shows off the hint of warm brown collarbones.
She doesn’t sit for long. Soon enough she spots someone entering the terminal and she jumps to her feet, the sort of raw delight emanating off her that’s hard to look at. She rushes forward and embraces the person. Another woman. And it’s 1994, and the world’s come a long way, but not long enough for them to kiss here in public, but Nancy can tell that they want to. She can just tell. And she doesn’t know where this sense came from, where she learned it or when. How does she know? How does she know that’s what they want to do?
Not because she’s felt that way herself. She remembers the few times she and Jonathan were apart for any length of time, the way she’d feel itchy and unsettled the whole duration and yet still strangely reluctant to see him return. She wouldn’t kiss him in the airport, though she’d kiss back if he kissed her. It was a problem of knowing neither how to live with him nor how to live without him; it was a problem they all experienced with each other, moving away from New Hawkins in dribs and drabs as they did. Joyce calling Jonathan four times a day and forgetting the time difference, waking them just as they went to bed. Nancy doing the same to Mike and Holly, just in the mornings.
She checks her watch. It’s eleven twenty-eight; she puts her notebook away and gets her things together, passing the two women on her way out, and she has to avert her eyes. She can’t look at them. Her cheeks are furiously hot.
+ Tis the time for End of Year Lists, and I enjoyed Every Sapphic Book I Read This Year by
+ I actually spotted the Beehive Books illuminated version of Carmilla in a local bookshop! I didn't know their fancy editions were becoming that widespread. I backed their very first kickstarter back in the day, happy to see they've expanded. Their editions are works of art. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for a sale so I can snap it up.
+ Finally installed Vegas Pro 22 I got from Humble Bundle, and there were separate ticky boxes for Vegas Pro and Deep Learning Model. I'm assuming that's their AI bullshit? If so, GOOD. Maybe I'll venture into discord again, most vidders have abandoned ship here and I'll very likely be in need of moral support. These gay vampires won't leave me alone and I may just have to do something about it. (this is 98% likely to never result in a finished vid, my track record is very conclusive)
+ Big shoutout to
lgbtrainbow for letting me do one icon at a time. Such a fun but also easy way to go about iconning. Though I now have three colors laying in wait for when they come back around lol. I am ready to pounce. Please join us and icon All The Gays. (I may actually have an icon post before the year ends whee)
In the meantime I've written up not one but two tutorials based on earlier PSDs, because once again I'm having to re-learn how to make icons.
Rec-cember Day 29
Stranger Things
love is a battle i can win by
She taps the end of her ballpoint on her lip and looks idly around the terminal. The bank of seats she’s sitting on is empty. But as she watches, actually, someone comes down to sit a few seats away from her. It’s a woman, short-haired, in men’s trousers and a collared shirt. She’s got sharp eyes and freckles dusted over her cheeks; the shirt, open at the throat, shows off the hint of warm brown collarbones.
She doesn’t sit for long. Soon enough she spots someone entering the terminal and she jumps to her feet, the sort of raw delight emanating off her that’s hard to look at. She rushes forward and embraces the person. Another woman. And it’s 1994, and the world’s come a long way, but not long enough for them to kiss here in public, but Nancy can tell that they want to. She can just tell. And she doesn’t know where this sense came from, where she learned it or when. How does she know? How does she know that’s what they want to do?
Not because she’s felt that way herself. She remembers the few times she and Jonathan were apart for any length of time, the way she’d feel itchy and unsettled the whole duration and yet still strangely reluctant to see him return. She wouldn’t kiss him in the airport, though she’d kiss back if he kissed her. It was a problem of knowing neither how to live with him nor how to live without him; it was a problem they all experienced with each other, moving away from New Hawkins in dribs and drabs as they did. Joyce calling Jonathan four times a day and forgetting the time difference, waking them just as they went to bed. Nancy doing the same to Mike and Holly, just in the mornings.
She checks her watch. It’s eleven twenty-eight; she puts her notebook away and gets her things together, passing the two women on her way out, and she has to avert her eyes. She can’t look at them. Her cheeks are furiously hot.
2025 Family Hawaii Trip: Part II (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday)
Dec. 28th, 2025 11:27 pmdorchadasThis is the second of three posts about our 2025 Hawai'i trip. The first post is here.
I'm getting more used to Hawai'i. I don't bat an eye at all the surfer dues and beach bunnies wandering into shapes in their swimwear, nor do I think "But it's December!" when I walk out into another 25ºC sunny day. I suspect a big portion of it, though, is that this is my ideal food situation--Japanese food is plentiful and easy to get, and if I wanted to live on fish and rice and pickles and fruit, it would be very easy for me to do so here. Not cheap, of course, because nothing on Hawai'i is cheap, but easy.
![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
sashagee is already trying to convince me to move here, half joking and half serious. There's a variety of problems with that. For example, there already aren't enough jobs for the people who do live here--over half of all native Hawai'ians live outside of Hawai'i--which puts a damper on any attempt to build a life here. My sister wanderluster_kp, who makes more than I do as a veterinary surgeon, is almost priced out of buying a house. She could afford it, but it'd lead to either an hour-long commute if she lived further away or having to completely give up travel if she bought something closer, andshe's not really willing to do either of those things. She also told us that the public schools here are not super great, which is something we have to really worry about now that we have Laila, and the Jewish community is almost nonexistent (0.5% of residents). But man does the food perfectly fit what I want to eat.
( Friday )
( Saturday )
( Sunday )
I'm getting more used to Hawai'i. I don't bat an eye at all the surfer dues and beach bunnies wandering into shapes in their swimwear, nor do I think "But it's December!" when I walk out into another 25ºC sunny day. I suspect a big portion of it, though, is that this is my ideal food situation--Japanese food is plentiful and easy to get, and if I wanted to live on fish and rice and pickles and fruit, it would be very easy for me to do so here. Not cheap, of course, because nothing on Hawai'i is cheap, but easy.
sashagee is already trying to convince me to move here, half joking and half serious. There's a variety of problems with that. For example, there already aren't enough jobs for the people who do live here--over half of all native Hawai'ians live outside of Hawai'i--which puts a damper on any attempt to build a life here. My sister wanderluster_kp, who makes more than I do as a veterinary surgeon, is almost priced out of buying a house. She could afford it, but it'd lead to either an hour-long commute if she lived further away or having to completely give up travel if she bought something closer, andshe's not really willing to do either of those things. She also told us that the public schools here are not super great, which is something we have to really worry about now that we have Laila, and the Jewish community is almost nonexistent (0.5% of residents). But man does the food perfectly fit what I want to eat. ( Friday )
( Saturday )
( Sunday )
David Wiesner picutre book reviews: Flotsam, Free Fall, June 29, 1999, Sector 7
Dec. 29th, 2025 04:30 pmjuushikaBig delta in relative qualities here! Which mostly comes down to my preference for picture books to be numinous/wondrous and my desire for almost nothing ever to be funny. Anyway, interesting author; I don't expect to dig deeper but I'm glad I checked him out.
Title: Flotsam
Author: David Wiesner
Published: Clarion Books, 2006
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 40
Total Page Count: 553,745
Text Number: 2078
Read Because: saw this pop up a ton when looking at reviews of Tuesday, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A wordless picture book about a boy who finds a camera on the beach and develops its wondrous photos. I bounced off of Wiesner's Tuesday, but this works for me. The art is more dynamic; there's more narrative than just a subversion of an image of American normalcy. This is wonder as a participant act: to inherit and pass it on through curiosity, discovery, and generosity. (Reading a library copy feels particularly appropriate.) It reminds me of Van Allsburg's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, which isn't a comparison I make lightly; if I'd found it at the right age, I would probably have an even stronger reaction.
Title: Free Fall
Author: David Wiesner
Published: HarperCollins, 1991
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 553,775
Text Number: 2079
Read Because: reading the author, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Of course I'm an easy sell on "enter the book" as a flight of fancy, and Wiesner's typical wordlessness prevents this from reiterating the usual downfall of that premise, more pure wonder than didactic or smug. This lacks the throughline, intent, and therefore the effectiveness of Flotsam, and is objectively less successful. But the imagery is remarkable & I'm a sucker; this might be my favorite Wiesner.
( June 29, 1999 )
( Sector 7 )
Title: Flotsam
Author: David Wiesner
Published: Clarion Books, 2006
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 40
Total Page Count: 553,745
Text Number: 2078
Read Because: saw this pop up a ton when looking at reviews of Tuesday, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A wordless picture book about a boy who finds a camera on the beach and develops its wondrous photos. I bounced off of Wiesner's Tuesday, but this works for me. The art is more dynamic; there's more narrative than just a subversion of an image of American normalcy. This is wonder as a participant act: to inherit and pass it on through curiosity, discovery, and generosity. (Reading a library copy feels particularly appropriate.) It reminds me of Van Allsburg's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, which isn't a comparison I make lightly; if I'd found it at the right age, I would probably have an even stronger reaction.
Title: Free Fall
Author: David Wiesner
Published: HarperCollins, 1991
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 553,775
Text Number: 2079
Read Because: reading the author, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Of course I'm an easy sell on "enter the book" as a flight of fancy, and Wiesner's typical wordlessness prevents this from reiterating the usual downfall of that premise, more pure wonder than didactic or smug. This lacks the throughline, intent, and therefore the effectiveness of Flotsam, and is objectively less successful. But the imagery is remarkable & I'm a sucker; this might be my favorite Wiesner.
( June 29, 1999 )
( Sector 7 )
Book Review: Underneath Everything by Marcy Beller Paul
Dec. 29th, 2025 03:19 pmjuushikaTitle: Underneath Everything
Author: Marcy Beller Paul
Published: Balzer + Bray, 2015
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 553,705
Text Number: 2077
Read Because: no idea how I found this one, ebook borrowed from Multnomah County Library
Review: The tumultuous social life of a high school senior
whose popular/outsider status and rotating relationships all come back to a messy friend-breakup. In a world where Burton's The World Cannot Give and Ojeda's Jawbone exist, this is a little redundant, mostly in a more cakes! way. It's almost without plot or stakes beyond friend group dynamics, an admirable commitment that pulls in the scope but is frequently infuriating, falling apart in the reveals and climax-that-isn't. I simultaneously buy the toxic, homoerotic dynamic and the crucial importance everything has at this age, and feel like, that's it, that's the big drama?; the writing needs to be better to sell this nuance. But I'd love nothing more than to collect fictional toxic female friendships that experiment with breathplay, so, can't fault that.
Author: Marcy Beller Paul
Published: Balzer + Bray, 2015
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 553,705
Text Number: 2077
Read Because: no idea how I found this one, ebook borrowed from Multnomah County Library
Review: The tumultuous social life of a high school senior
whose popular/outsider status and rotating relationships all come back to a messy friend-breakup. In a world where Burton's The World Cannot Give and Ojeda's Jawbone exist, this is a little redundant, mostly in a more cakes! way. It's almost without plot or stakes beyond friend group dynamics, an admirable commitment that pulls in the scope but is frequently infuriating, falling apart in the reveals and climax-that-isn't. I simultaneously buy the toxic, homoerotic dynamic and the crucial importance everything has at this age, and feel like, that's it, that's the big drama?; the writing needs to be better to sell this nuance. But I'd love nothing more than to collect fictional toxic female friendships that experiment with breathplay, so, can't fault that.
Book Review: The Haunting by Margaret Mahy
Dec. 29th, 2025 03:08 pmjuushikaTitle: The Haunting
Author: Margaret Mahy
Published: Scholastic, 1982
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 135
Total Page Count: 553,400
Text Number: 2076
Read Because:osprey_archer's review; borrowed from Open Library
Review: Following the death of a great uncle who shares his name, our protagonist becomes convinced he's being haunted by the lonely little boy with once his uncle's friend. I'm enamored of minor middle grade novels that seem to come from nowhere to blow me away. MG has an enviable willingness to get weird and fantastical, which, here, is remarkably phrased and then foiled by an enduring (and plot-relevant) quirky familial domesticity. And then the twist! Which is logical but thematically atypical for the genre, and so satisfying. I love to end the year with one of my favorite books of the year.
Author: Margaret Mahy
Published: Scholastic, 1982
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 135
Total Page Count: 553,400
Text Number: 2076
Read Because:
osprey_archer's review; borrowed from Open LibraryReview: Following the death of a great uncle who shares his name, our protagonist becomes convinced he's being haunted by the lonely little boy with once his uncle's friend. I'm enamored of minor middle grade novels that seem to come from nowhere to blow me away. MG has an enviable willingness to get weird and fantastical, which, here, is remarkably phrased and then foiled by an enduring (and plot-relevant) quirky familial domesticity. And then the twist! Which is logical but thematically atypical for the genre, and so satisfying. I love to end the year with one of my favorite books of the year.
Death's End by Liu Cixin (2010)
Dec. 29th, 2025 04:43 pmpauraqueAfter the events of The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, this conclusion to the trilogy expands the perspective on the Earth-Trisolaran conflict beyond our two petty solar systems to a galactic, interdimensional, and finally universal scale. (Yes, this is the sort of book where rather than wondering if your favorite character survives, you wonder instead if there will be a habitable universe for them to survive in by the last page.)
This book took me a long time to read, not only because it's 600 pages but also because I kept stopping due to real life distractions. I also don't have the book anymore because it had to go back to the library. So I'm afraid this post is going to be more vibes-based than going into a ton of detail, even though seventy million things happened in the book that would each be worthy of detailed discussion.
My ultimate impression of the book (and of the series as a whole) is that there are a lot of things that the author and I will just never see eye-to-eye on, but I don't mind setting that aside because I like the way he explores his ideas even if I disagree with their fundamental basis.
( cut for length )
This book took me a long time to read, not only because it's 600 pages but also because I kept stopping due to real life distractions. I also don't have the book anymore because it had to go back to the library. So I'm afraid this post is going to be more vibes-based than going into a ton of detail, even though seventy million things happened in the book that would each be worthy of detailed discussion.
My ultimate impression of the book (and of the series as a whole) is that there are a lot of things that the author and I will just never see eye-to-eye on, but I don't mind setting that aside because I like the way he explores his ideas even if I disagree with their fundamental basis.
( cut for length )
Genre romance
Dec. 30th, 2025 07:40 amlucymonsterLook, I'm not a video essay person, and I was only ever a casual Twilight fan. A three-hour Youtube video essay by ContraPoints titled simply "Twilight" did not immediately strike me as a must-watch. But my sister recommended it to me, and my sister is literally always right about things I will like, so I watched it in parts over a series of evenings and...yeah, my sister's record remains unblemished.
This video is entirely about Twilight but also not even a tiny bit about Twilight. ContraPoints is a former philosopher who has this way of integrating serious philosophical, psychological, moral and religious concepts with "shallow" artefacts of pop culture, taking the latter seriously and the former playfully to create genuinely perspective-shifting works that are also straight-up FUN. This time we're talking about womanhood, identity and sexuality and the ways these themes are developed in a literary genre that is overwhelmingly written by and targeted towards women. There's a lot going on here (again, three hour video essay) and I definitely recommend watching the whole thing if that sounds like the kind of thing that interests you, but it all basically revolves around the central argument that romance functions as a genre by playing out tensions within the reader's own psyche, and has little to do with her actual romantic behaviours or preferences. Which I already more or less knew, as someone who spends a great deal of time writing smutty shipfic about a man with whom I doubt I could bear to spend five minutes in real life, but this video really drills down on why that's the case in a way I found both intellectually satisfying and personally illuminating.
So now, feeling freshly validated and emboldened in the mainstream het romance reading fad I'm going through right now, I bring you guys a few of my most recent adventures:
Book Lovers by Emily Henry is a delightful "fuck you" to the stereotype of the frigid forever-alone career woman. Nora Stephens is a high-powered New York literary agent who keeps getting dumped by her boyfriends as they run off to live their tropey country romance tree-change fantasies. Charlie Lastra is a blunt, surly senior editor who pisses her off on their first meeting by being rude about her star client's book. Nora's beloved younger sister convinces her to do a getaway in a small North Carolina town that turns out to be Charlie's hometown, where he is currently staying to help his ageing parents. Despite their rough start, they quickly develop a sharp, bantery rapport that makes it clear Charlie is extremely into Nora's self-sufficiency and ambitiousness. I really enjoyed the clever, funny chemistry between them and the fact (I don't think this even counts as a spoiler - the book is at no point subtle about where it's going) that Nora gets a happy ending that complements rather than compromises her career. Also, Charlie is a dreamy male lead with a sparkling sense of humour, a wardrobe of high-quality neutral basics, and attractively dramatic eyebrows (he's described as Cary Grant meets Groucho Marx, which caused my brain to immediately land on Peter Gallagher and stay there unmoving for the duration of the book.)
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston: For once, a reskinned Reylo novel that is only sort of a reskinned Reylo novel. Apparently Poston conceived this story as Reylo fic but pivoted to origfic before finishing or publishing any of it. But the MMC looks literally exactly like Adam Driver, down to the specific location of the moles on his face (I pulled up a headshot to check) and is named, I kid you not, Ben. Not!Rey's best friend is named Rose, and the company she works for is called Falcon House. Reylo-gone-pro continues to be the most shameless hustle in the world and I continue to love it.
Florence Day works as the ghostwriter for a famous romance novelist, and also has the ability to see literal ghosts. Benji Andor (Andor! Come ON!) is her gorgeous but hardass new editor who just denied her an extension on her last contracted novel, which she has been unable to complete due to having lost faith in love after a bad breakup. ( More thoughts, including major spoilers )
Forget Me Not by Julie Soto: My mixed feelings about Soto's work continue. I noped out of Rose in Chains early, finding it squicky on multiple levels; I liked the pairing in Not Another Love Song but not the execution; now here's a novel that is both well executed and really enjoyable, but with a romance that contains about as much chemistry as my academic transcript. (I dropped all STEM classes in high school the moment they stopped being mandatory.) In brief: Ama is an ambitious wedding planner who thinks all marriages are doomed because her mum has had sixteen divorces, and Elliot is a grumpy florist who ruined their former situationship by impulsively asking her to marry him. When they both get hired to co-design the same lavish celebrity wedding, old feelings resurface and blah blah you guys know the drill.
( More thoughts )
My Roommate Is a Vampire by Jenna Levine is a fun, silly supernatural romcom that I zipped through while I was on emergency backup brainpower during my Christmas travels. Because of that I don't actually have much to say about it, but I liked it enough to want to include it in the post anyway. Cassie, a broke artist, responds to a Craigslist ad from the enigmatic Frederick J. Fitzwilliam offering bizarrely cheap rent for a room in his extremely nice apartment; it turns out he is a centuries-old vampire who recently awoke from a 100 year coma and needs someone to help him get back in touch with the modern world. The story did not seem to care very much about its vampirism aspect; I got the feeling that Levine just wanted modern heroine/loosely Regency hero, and making him an immortal creature of the night was a convenient way to achieve that. Technically this is yet another Reylo fic turned pro, but I think it might take the prize for characters least recognisable as Rey and Kylo. If I hadn't gone in pre-informed I might genuinely not have guessed its origins.
This video is entirely about Twilight but also not even a tiny bit about Twilight. ContraPoints is a former philosopher who has this way of integrating serious philosophical, psychological, moral and religious concepts with "shallow" artefacts of pop culture, taking the latter seriously and the former playfully to create genuinely perspective-shifting works that are also straight-up FUN. This time we're talking about womanhood, identity and sexuality and the ways these themes are developed in a literary genre that is overwhelmingly written by and targeted towards women. There's a lot going on here (again, three hour video essay) and I definitely recommend watching the whole thing if that sounds like the kind of thing that interests you, but it all basically revolves around the central argument that romance functions as a genre by playing out tensions within the reader's own psyche, and has little to do with her actual romantic behaviours or preferences. Which I already more or less knew, as someone who spends a great deal of time writing smutty shipfic about a man with whom I doubt I could bear to spend five minutes in real life, but this video really drills down on why that's the case in a way I found both intellectually satisfying and personally illuminating.
So now, feeling freshly validated and emboldened in the mainstream het romance reading fad I'm going through right now, I bring you guys a few of my most recent adventures:
Book Lovers by Emily Henry is a delightful "fuck you" to the stereotype of the frigid forever-alone career woman. Nora Stephens is a high-powered New York literary agent who keeps getting dumped by her boyfriends as they run off to live their tropey country romance tree-change fantasies. Charlie Lastra is a blunt, surly senior editor who pisses her off on their first meeting by being rude about her star client's book. Nora's beloved younger sister convinces her to do a getaway in a small North Carolina town that turns out to be Charlie's hometown, where he is currently staying to help his ageing parents. Despite their rough start, they quickly develop a sharp, bantery rapport that makes it clear Charlie is extremely into Nora's self-sufficiency and ambitiousness. I really enjoyed the clever, funny chemistry between them and the fact (I don't think this even counts as a spoiler - the book is at no point subtle about where it's going) that Nora gets a happy ending that complements rather than compromises her career. Also, Charlie is a dreamy male lead with a sparkling sense of humour, a wardrobe of high-quality neutral basics, and attractively dramatic eyebrows (he's described as Cary Grant meets Groucho Marx, which caused my brain to immediately land on Peter Gallagher and stay there unmoving for the duration of the book.)
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston: For once, a reskinned Reylo novel that is only sort of a reskinned Reylo novel. Apparently Poston conceived this story as Reylo fic but pivoted to origfic before finishing or publishing any of it. But the MMC looks literally exactly like Adam Driver, down to the specific location of the moles on his face (I pulled up a headshot to check) and is named, I kid you not, Ben. Not!Rey's best friend is named Rose, and the company she works for is called Falcon House. Reylo-gone-pro continues to be the most shameless hustle in the world and I continue to love it.
Florence Day works as the ghostwriter for a famous romance novelist, and also has the ability to see literal ghosts. Benji Andor (Andor! Come ON!) is her gorgeous but hardass new editor who just denied her an extension on her last contracted novel, which she has been unable to complete due to having lost faith in love after a bad breakup. ( More thoughts, including major spoilers )
Forget Me Not by Julie Soto: My mixed feelings about Soto's work continue. I noped out of Rose in Chains early, finding it squicky on multiple levels; I liked the pairing in Not Another Love Song but not the execution; now here's a novel that is both well executed and really enjoyable, but with a romance that contains about as much chemistry as my academic transcript. (I dropped all STEM classes in high school the moment they stopped being mandatory.) In brief: Ama is an ambitious wedding planner who thinks all marriages are doomed because her mum has had sixteen divorces, and Elliot is a grumpy florist who ruined their former situationship by impulsively asking her to marry him. When they both get hired to co-design the same lavish celebrity wedding, old feelings resurface and blah blah you guys know the drill.
( More thoughts )
My Roommate Is a Vampire by Jenna Levine is a fun, silly supernatural romcom that I zipped through while I was on emergency backup brainpower during my Christmas travels. Because of that I don't actually have much to say about it, but I liked it enough to want to include it in the post anyway. Cassie, a broke artist, responds to a Craigslist ad from the enigmatic Frederick J. Fitzwilliam offering bizarrely cheap rent for a room in his extremely nice apartment; it turns out he is a centuries-old vampire who recently awoke from a 100 year coma and needs someone to help him get back in touch with the modern world. The story did not seem to care very much about its vampirism aspect; I got the feeling that Levine just wanted modern heroine/loosely Regency hero, and making him an immortal creature of the night was a convenient way to achieve that. Technically this is yet another Reylo fic turned pro, but I think it might take the prize for characters least recognisable as Rey and Kylo. If I hadn't gone in pre-informed I might genuinely not have guessed its origins.
Yuletide Recs (Part 1)
Dec. 29th, 2025 08:17 pmthisbluespiritReading yuletide fic here and there suited my current state, and I've had a lot of fun with it so far, I actually have a whole batch of recs ready to go for once. (I still need to go back and pick up some fandoms, especially in the first half of the alphabet, and I've barely touched Madness).
( 22 recs in As You Like It, British Airways, Cabin Pressure, Cadfael, Dogsbody, Enigma, Flower Fairies, The Good Place, Georgette Heyer, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, Ludwig, The Prisoner, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Time Master, Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully & Yes Minister )
yuletide fic here and there suited my current state, and I've had a lot of fun with it so far, I actually have a whole batch of recs ready to go for once. (I still need to go back and pick up some fandoms, especially in the first half of the alphabet, and I've barely touched Madness).( 22 recs in As You Like It, British Airways, Cabin Pressure, Cadfael, Dogsbody, Enigma, Flower Fairies, The Good Place, Georgette Heyer, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, Ludwig, The Prisoner, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Time Master, Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully & Yes Minister )
Just one thing: 29 December 2025
Dec. 29th, 2025 08:09 amjazzyjj posting in awesomeersIt's challenge time!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
(no subject)
Dec. 29th, 2025 08:11 amskygiantsThe Queen's Embroiderer: A True Story of Paris, Lovers, Swindlers, and the First Stock Market Crisis did quite a good job of giving me historical context around the lives of artisans and upwardly mobile bourgeois in 17th and early 18th century France and only a mediocre job IMO of convincing me of its central argument, but I was reading it for the former and not the latter so I can't say I was disappointed per se ...
As the author, historian Joan DeJean, introduces her narrative, she was browsing the National Archives when she came across two documents: the first, appointing Jean Magoulet as official embroiderer to Queen Marie-Thérèse of France; the second, decreeing that Magoulet's daughter Marie Louise should be put in prison and deported to New Orleans on charges of prostitution. DeJean immediately dropped what she was doing to Get To The Bottom Of This and went on a deep dive into the entire Magoulet family as well as the family of Louis Chevrot, the young man whose involvement with Marie-Louise resulted in the charges above.
In order to write this family saga, Joan DeJean has pulled out every relevant family document -- marriage licenses, birth certificates, guardianship statements, criminal charges, recorded purchases, etc. etc. -- and she does a clear and interesting job of explaining what we can learn from them, what these kinds of documents normally look like and what their context is, what the specific features of these family documents imply, and letting you follow her logic with your own brain. I appreciate this very much! I had no idea, for example, that it was standard in 17th-century France for the court to appoint a guardian for any child who lost a parent, even if they still had the other parent living, to ensure that their financial interests were protected, something that came up often in this narrative where a lot of kids were losing parents in situations where their financial interests were not particularly protected. It's a really good example of historical detective work, how you can draw a picture of a family through time through the bureaucratic litter they leave behind, and I appreciated it very much.
On the other hand, Joan DeJean also occasionally slips into writing like this --
In the course of their attempts both to get rich quick and to save their skin when they got into bad straits, the Queen's Embroiderers became imposters, tricksters, con artists nonpareil. They lied about everything and to everyone: to the police, to notaries, to their in-laws. They lied about their ages and those of their children, about their professional accomplishments and their net worth. They caroused; they philandered; they made a mockery of the laws of church and state. The only truly authentic thing about them was their extraordinary talent and their ability to weave gold and silver thread into the kind of garments that seemed the stuff of dreams. In their lives and on an almost daily basis, haute couture crossed paths with high crime.
Savage beauty indeed.
-- which made me laugh out loud every time it happened. So, bug, feature? who could say ....
Anyway, Joan DeJean makes a pretty good argument for most of the family gossip she pulls out about the Magoulets and the Chevrots, but the center of her argument about the Great Tragic Romance between Marie-Louise Magoulet and Louis Chevrot rests on a really elaborate switcheroo that I simply do not buy. In drawing out her family saga, DeJean has become obsessed with the fact that there seem to have been two Marie-Louise Magoulets, one being more than a decade older than the other, and, crucially, also more than a decade older than Louis Chevrot; ( I guess this is technically spoilers for a three hundred year old scandal )
But a.) context about material culture and craftsmanship is what I was here for and context is what I got, in spades, and b.) if you're going to invent a historical conspiracy theory, make it as niche as possible, is what I say, so despite the fact that I don't BELIEVE DeJean I still spiritually support her. Has she perhaps connected a few more dots than actually exist? Perhaps. But I still certainly got my money's worth [none; library] out of the book!
As the author, historian Joan DeJean, introduces her narrative, she was browsing the National Archives when she came across two documents: the first, appointing Jean Magoulet as official embroiderer to Queen Marie-Thérèse of France; the second, decreeing that Magoulet's daughter Marie Louise should be put in prison and deported to New Orleans on charges of prostitution. DeJean immediately dropped what she was doing to Get To The Bottom Of This and went on a deep dive into the entire Magoulet family as well as the family of Louis Chevrot, the young man whose involvement with Marie-Louise resulted in the charges above.
In order to write this family saga, Joan DeJean has pulled out every relevant family document -- marriage licenses, birth certificates, guardianship statements, criminal charges, recorded purchases, etc. etc. -- and she does a clear and interesting job of explaining what we can learn from them, what these kinds of documents normally look like and what their context is, what the specific features of these family documents imply, and letting you follow her logic with your own brain. I appreciate this very much! I had no idea, for example, that it was standard in 17th-century France for the court to appoint a guardian for any child who lost a parent, even if they still had the other parent living, to ensure that their financial interests were protected, something that came up often in this narrative where a lot of kids were losing parents in situations where their financial interests were not particularly protected. It's a really good example of historical detective work, how you can draw a picture of a family through time through the bureaucratic litter they leave behind, and I appreciated it very much.
On the other hand, Joan DeJean also occasionally slips into writing like this --
In the course of their attempts both to get rich quick and to save their skin when they got into bad straits, the Queen's Embroiderers became imposters, tricksters, con artists nonpareil. They lied about everything and to everyone: to the police, to notaries, to their in-laws. They lied about their ages and those of their children, about their professional accomplishments and their net worth. They caroused; they philandered; they made a mockery of the laws of church and state. The only truly authentic thing about them was their extraordinary talent and their ability to weave gold and silver thread into the kind of garments that seemed the stuff of dreams. In their lives and on an almost daily basis, haute couture crossed paths with high crime.
Savage beauty indeed.
-- which made me laugh out loud every time it happened. So, bug, feature? who could say ....
Anyway, Joan DeJean makes a pretty good argument for most of the family gossip she pulls out about the Magoulets and the Chevrots, but the center of her argument about the Great Tragic Romance between Marie-Louise Magoulet and Louis Chevrot rests on a really elaborate switcheroo that I simply do not buy. In drawing out her family saga, DeJean has become obsessed with the fact that there seem to have been two Marie-Louise Magoulets, one being more than a decade older than the other, and, crucially, also more than a decade older than Louis Chevrot; ( I guess this is technically spoilers for a three hundred year old scandal )
But a.) context about material culture and craftsmanship is what I was here for and context is what I got, in spades, and b.) if you're going to invent a historical conspiracy theory, make it as niche as possible, is what I say, so despite the fact that I don't BELIEVE DeJean I still spiritually support her. Has she perhaps connected a few more dots than actually exist? Perhaps. But I still certainly got my money's worth [none; library] out of the book!
Writerly Ways
Dec. 28th, 2025 10:29 pmcornerofmadnessI was thinking about writing communities and how I feel like I'm missing one at this point. I don't like this feeling. Other than that twice a month zoom meet up I feel like I have no community (and even there I feel like an interloper but if not for me, there would be almost no one there) My friend and I tried to restart the local group on Nov. It was a miserable failure (other than us enjoying each other's company so it wasn't a complete waste of time)
So I was curious, do you feel like you have a good writing community? I'm not talking about the writing every day sort of thing. I shared plenty of them. I think the closest I come to on DW isushobwri and getyourwordsout. Both are good communities.
And there is every chance the emptiness is in ME and nothing I put into it will fill that hole. And I'm not even sure I have words to articulate what I'd like to see in a group (and it could be that I'm looking for a street team of alpha/beta readers but I'm not even sure that's it either)
So do you have a good one? Is it open? I'm curious.
Open Calls
Gramarye: Now Seeking Submissions
Verify You’re Not Human The main character of the story must be therian (identify as a non-human animal) with a strong focus on what that means
Obsidian: The Dark Space Novelette Anthology Darker 9000-25000 word stories about exploration, isolation, and the harsh conditions of space
Sapphic Spec Fic Anthology of Identity and Purpose Stories that explore sapphic identity and purpose through the lens of fantasy and speculative fiction
Black Horror, Then & Next Stories that recognize the legacy of Black horror, its literary milestones, cultural roots, and innovative voices, while pushing the genre into new, daring territory. (for Black authors only)
Newsela Original Fiction For Elementary-High School 1,500–5,000 word genre works that are targeting Upper Elementary, Middle School, and High School readers
Sci-Fi Ireland Science Fiction where if the science/technology element was removed the plot would not function
Note: To submit, you must be living on, or were born on, the Island of Ireland
23 Publishers Accepting Memoir Submissions
The Knight Before Christmas Christmas romances
From Around the Web
Notes from the Editor’s Desk: December 2025
An Argument for Writing Short Stories
When We Believe
Five Common Motivation Issues and How to Address Them
160 Christmas Writing Prompts
My Open Letter To That Open Letter About AI In Writing And Publishing by Chuck Wendig (in case you missed it last week the Nebula awards decided to allow AI writing and Publisher Weekly wrote how to use Ai and the authors went nuts (as they should have)
15 Rules for Negotiating a Large Book Sale
How to Make an Author Website in 8 Steps
Rules for Capitalizing Titles and Chapters.
Amazon Metadata Mistakes Every Indie Author Must Avoid
Self-Publishing Your Book: Quick Guide (Updated 2025)
Why Selling Direct Beats KDP for Long-Term Author Profits
17 Exciting Fantasy Novel Ideas for Authors
From Betty
How to Avoid Melodrama in Your Writing
Avoiding the Planet of Hats
Five Common Ways Fights Get Contrived
How to Write Scenes With Lots of New People
The Value of Writing Shock and Avoiding Valueless Trauma
Is Your Novel Ready for a Film Adaption? How to Begin the Process of Adapting My Story for Film
The Complete Guide to Self-editing for Writers Part 2: Practical Tools and Techniques to Strengthen Your Manuscript Before Outside Feedback
So I was curious, do you feel like you have a good writing community? I'm not talking about the writing every day sort of thing. I shared plenty of them. I think the closest I come to on DW is
ushobwri and getyourwordsout. Both are good communities.And there is every chance the emptiness is in ME and nothing I put into it will fill that hole. And I'm not even sure I have words to articulate what I'd like to see in a group (and it could be that I'm looking for a street team of alpha/beta readers but I'm not even sure that's it either)
So do you have a good one? Is it open? I'm curious.
Open Calls
Gramarye: Now Seeking Submissions
Verify You’re Not Human The main character of the story must be therian (identify as a non-human animal) with a strong focus on what that means
Obsidian: The Dark Space Novelette Anthology Darker 9000-25000 word stories about exploration, isolation, and the harsh conditions of space
Sapphic Spec Fic Anthology of Identity and Purpose Stories that explore sapphic identity and purpose through the lens of fantasy and speculative fiction
Black Horror, Then & Next Stories that recognize the legacy of Black horror, its literary milestones, cultural roots, and innovative voices, while pushing the genre into new, daring territory. (for Black authors only)
Newsela Original Fiction For Elementary-High School 1,500–5,000 word genre works that are targeting Upper Elementary, Middle School, and High School readers
Sci-Fi Ireland Science Fiction where if the science/technology element was removed the plot would not function
Note: To submit, you must be living on, or were born on, the Island of Ireland
23 Publishers Accepting Memoir Submissions
The Knight Before Christmas Christmas romances
From Around the Web
Notes from the Editor’s Desk: December 2025
An Argument for Writing Short Stories
When We Believe
Five Common Motivation Issues and How to Address Them
160 Christmas Writing Prompts
My Open Letter To That Open Letter About AI In Writing And Publishing by Chuck Wendig (in case you missed it last week the Nebula awards decided to allow AI writing and Publisher Weekly wrote how to use Ai and the authors went nuts (as they should have)
15 Rules for Negotiating a Large Book Sale
How to Make an Author Website in 8 Steps
Rules for Capitalizing Titles and Chapters.
Amazon Metadata Mistakes Every Indie Author Must Avoid
Self-Publishing Your Book: Quick Guide (Updated 2025)
Why Selling Direct Beats KDP for Long-Term Author Profits
17 Exciting Fantasy Novel Ideas for Authors
From Betty
How to Avoid Melodrama in Your Writing
Avoiding the Planet of Hats
Five Common Ways Fights Get Contrived
How to Write Scenes With Lots of New People
The Value of Writing Shock and Avoiding Valueless Trauma
Is Your Novel Ready for a Film Adaption? How to Begin the Process of Adapting My Story for Film
The Complete Guide to Self-editing for Writers Part 2: Practical Tools and Techniques to Strengthen Your Manuscript Before Outside Feedback
and mid the shadowy throng.
Dec. 28th, 2025 11:11 pmgoodbyebirdRec-cember Day 28
The Dark Is Rising
Watch for the Greenwitch by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
sharp_teeth mentioned in the notes)In the light from the bonfire the Greenwitch rose up, tall and ragged against the sky, like something from long ago. Not the fine past of the grail, of long spears and iron, thorny, intricate poetry and patterns. Not even the past, thought Jane, of neat sharp flints laid out on red velvet under museum lights, axes and arrowheads. Something older, like rough rock, the rings of yellow lichen spreading out through the years like ripples from a stone thrown into still water.
New K-9 fic: Making choices (Ren/Oboro/Fujimaru/Kagari)
Dec. 28th, 2025 07:59 pmvriddyNo birb here.
Making choices | K-9 | Fujimaru Jin/Hizuki Ren/Kagari Yukito/Oboro Yuushirou | 1.6k words | rated T
Summary: Had Kagari drawn his sword, it wouldn't have been so bad. But Fujimaru was taken down too early to say the word, and so Kagari didn't.
Read it on Dreamwidth on AO3.
Making choices | K-9 | Fujimaru Jin/Hizuki Ren/Kagari Yukito/Oboro Yuushirou | 1.6k words | rated T
Summary: Had Kagari drawn his sword, it wouldn't have been so bad. But Fujimaru was taken down too early to say the word, and so Kagari didn't.
Read it on Dreamwidth on AO3.
Yuletide
Dec. 28th, 2025 02:33 pmthisbluespiritI've been having a lovely yuletide, in the right sort of place to do reading through it, if not much else! So much so, there should be a recs post to follow soon. But first of all, of course, my lovely gift!
It was for Enigma, which I was excited enough about just for that, but it is also excellent - a really well-done layered look at Tom & Hester running into Wigram a few years post-canon. Plus, my recip turned up to leave a comment on my assignment, so Yuletide 2025 is a win! \o/ (Even more so, as that other Enigma ficlet I mentioned? The author replied to my comment to say that they'd watched the film because of my promo post, so double yay and bonus outside-of-Yule ficlets!)
After the End (1472 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Enigma (2001)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Tom Jericho, Hester Wallace, Wigram (Enigma 2001)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon
Summary: Summer 1949. An encounter in a Parisian park.
yuletide, in the right sort of place to do reading through it, if not much else! So much so, there should be a recs post to follow soon. But first of all, of course, my lovely gift!It was for Enigma, which I was excited enough about just for that, but it is also excellent - a really well-done layered look at Tom & Hester running into Wigram a few years post-canon. Plus, my recip turned up to leave a comment on my assignment, so Yuletide 2025 is a win! \o/ (Even more so, as that other Enigma ficlet I mentioned? The author replied to my comment to say that they'd watched the film because of my promo post, so double yay and bonus outside-of-Yule ficlets!)
After the End (1472 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Enigma (2001)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Tom Jericho, Hester Wallace, Wigram (Enigma 2001)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon
Summary: Summer 1949. An encounter in a Parisian park.
Just one thing: 28 December 2025
Dec. 28th, 2025 07:48 amjazzyjj posting in awesomeersIt's challenge time!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Hundred Line update
Dec. 28th, 2025 07:54 pmcaramarieH and I finished the initial run of The Hundred Line together, but he’s less available now so I started the next runthrough on my own. I thought he’d be sad if I did a Darumi-heavy route without him, so I very deliberately did not-that, while not knowing anything else. ( I think this is the Coming of Age route? )
2025 Family Hawaii Trip: Part I (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday)
Dec. 25th, 2025 11:48 pmdorchadas
We spent the week leading up to the new year in Hawai'i this year! We've been planning this for months, though originally we didn't know if it was going to happen at all. My sister wanderluster_kp lives in Honolulu and has for a few years now, but I've never gotten to go before--my family has been going to Hawai'i on and off for decades at this point, ever since Poppa and Gramma Kay would rent a house there, but for various reasons I've never gotten to go. Now's my chance.( Tuesday )
( Wednesday )
( Thursday )
