Happy Yuletide!

Dec. 26th, 2025 11:51 pm
trobadora: (Discworld: Hogfather)
[personal profile] trobadora
The holidays have been calm and quiet for me so far, but I've spent them with my mum, so somehow almost all the time was filled up anyway. *g* Tonight I finally found the time to properly settle down with my Yuletide gifts! I got three of them, two in the main collection and one in Madness. ♥ ♥ ♥

Here they are:
  • Nicky and Gwarha from Ring of Swords, completely spot on, in an episode mentioned but not described in detail in canon:
    Veni, Vidi, Arrivederci (1516 words)
    Fandom: Ring of Swords - Eleanor Arnason
    Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
    Relationship: Ettin Gwarha/Sanders Nicholas
    Content Tag: Pre-Canon

    Summary: The purple jungle adventure, from Gwarha's point of view.

  • The Nantucket Trilogy, a few generations later - future history my beloved:
    Portraits of the Past (1371 words)
    Fandom: Nantucket Trilogy - S.M. Stirling
    Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
    Relationships: Kenneth Hollard/Raupasha, Kashtiliash/Kathryn Hollard
    Characters: Raupasha (Nantucket Series), Kashtiliash (Nantucket Series), Original Characters
    Content Tags: Post canon, Canon as Seen Through The Lens of History

    Summary: A new exhibit opens at the Athenaeum...

  • More Nantucket Trilogy - a Raupasha drabble about her arrival on Nantucket:
    Her New Future (100 words)
    Fandom: Nantucket Trilogy - S.M. Stirling
    Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
    Relationship: Kenneth Hollard/Raupasha
    Characters: Raupasha (Nantucket Series), Kenneth Hollard
    Content Tags: Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational, YUMADRIN 2025, Drabble, Post-Canon

    Summary: Raupasha reflects on the future.

I'm so pleased! So far I'm having a fantastic Yuletide. :D

Now I'm looking forward to diving into the rest of the collection! How's everyone else's Yuletide so far?

[ SECRET POST #6930 ]

Dec. 26th, 2025 05:09 pm
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[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6930 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #989.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
And very heavy on the dudes. I'm not sure if women don't go into this sort of thing, or if they're just too classy when they do it, and thus don't get onto the playlist. Though I guess it would be strange for lesbians to sing an ode to Jingle Bell COCK. (Emphasis all theirs, and totally unnecessary. We know where the song was going.)


Anyway, in honor of this, I'm posting three belated Christmas videos. The last is Boynton and totally SFW.





This one won't let me embed it.

Birdfeeding

Dec. 26th, 2025 01:22 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy and mild.  It rained again last night.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few house finches and sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/26/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/26/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/26/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.
tozka: A bit of green landscape against a riotous blue cloud-filled sky (van gogh landscape)
[personal profile] tozka

Happy Friday! Here's some links-- deliberately focused on positive things, to give some end-of-year cheer.

Media of Various Types

Food & Crafts & Art

Social Media

RSS Feeds

  • mixed color (RSS) a great blog about embroidery, sewing, dying, etc!
  • Winnie Lim (RSS) writes very enjoyable blog posts about life and the things that happen therein
  • sortition social is a community RSS feed reader! It selects a random feed from their (user-submitted?) database and added to the timeline for 7 days

<- previous linkspam | link library | all link posts ->

oursin: Photograph of Queen Victoria, overwritten with Not Amused (queen victoria is not amused)
[personal profile] oursin

Charles Dickens exhibition to shine light on powerful women in author’s life: 'Novels only ‘reinforced Victorian stereotypes’ of meek women to give readers what they wanted, says curator'.

Oh, come on.

Query, did readers (as opposed to various gate-keepers in publishing houses, Mudie's and other circulating libraries. etc) want meek women?

(Do I need to cite Victorian novelists who did quite well out of women who were not meek.)

I would also contend that any input from women in Mr D's life was going to filtered through a lot of his Own Stuff, and the article actually points out some of the things like His Mummy Issues.

There is no-one in the novels at all like Angela Burdett-Coutts, whom one suspects very unlike saintly Agnes Wickfield (and married a much younger man at an advanced age), in fact as I think I have complained heretofore, he was happy to work with this renowned philanthropist while the women philanthropists in his novels are mean and merciless caricatures.

One can make a case that he did worse than 'dilute' the women he knew when portraying them on his pages.

Also I am not sure what the 'debate' is over his relationship with Ellen Ternan!

2025 Favourites

Dec. 26th, 2025 05:39 pm
profiterole_reads: (Nightrunner - Seregil and Alec)
[personal profile] profiterole_reads
In no particular order. This is content I've read and watched in 2025, not necessarily content released in 2025.

Books

1. The Moonstone Covenant by Jill Hammer: f/f/f/f heroic fantasy. This standalone novel about four wives investigating the death of Olloise's parents and ending up in the middle of a political plot is beautifully written, like old-school fantasy.

2. The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons: f/f/m heroic fantasy. This standalone novel about a team having to steal a dragon's hoard has an amazing plot and fun characters.

3. On Silver Shores by VT Hoang: m/m urban fantasy with an intersex protagonist. This novel about a half-siren detective and an analyst investigating rebel werewolves gave me intense feels.

4. Sugar & Vice by Allie Therin: m/m murder mystery/urban fantasy. This series about an empath and a specialist investigating murders in a world where empaths are tracked down has the slooooo~west burn.

5. Letifer by TD Cloud: m/m murder mystery/urban fantasy. This novel about a human cop and a vampire enforcer secretly teaming up to investigate serial killings is perfect for fans of Vampire: the Masquerade and Kindred: the Embraced.

6. Five to Love Him by Alexa Piper: m/m urban fantasy. This novel about a hive's mate has the most adorable fluff, as well as a couple of very hot sex scenes. I love stories about beings who have one consciousness and several bodies.

7. [French] Ainsi soient-illes by Auriane Velten: urban fantasy where angels are agender and use écriture inclusive (gender-neutral language) probably invented by the author + a trans female protagonist. If you loved the story of the manga Angel Sanctuary, go for this novel!

8. Everyday Aliens by Polenth Blake: collection of science fiction short stories with many non-binary characters. These brilliant stories are very experimental, told from the aliens' strange POVs, and are reminiscent of Bogi Takács's writing.

9. [Spanish] Herederas de Safo by ‪AM Irún: f/f adventure. This novel about a museum curator and an insurance agent having to recover one of Sappho's amphoras is a nice mix of adventure, humour and romance.

10. The Ministry of Guidance and Other Stories by Golnoosh Nour: collection of contemporary short stories with some f/f, m/m and bi f/m. These modern, even rebellious, stories offer a daily look at the Iranian culture.


TV shows

Cut for length )

A story about wishing

Dec. 26th, 2025 02:21 pm
dolorosa_12: (christmas candles)
[personal profile] dolorosa_12
I finished up work at midday on 24th December, caught the train home, and walked straight up the hill to meet Matthias for food truck lunch and drinks in our favourite cafe/bar. He had spent the morning trundling around town collecting all the various bits and pieces of food that we'd preordered, and after we returned to the house, I set about enacting my plans for the twelve ensuing days of holiday: cooking, eating, reading, TV, and nothing more strenuous than swimming, yoga, and long walks. So far, everything's gone wonderfully: cold seafood dinner on Christmas Eve, a fantastic roast dinner for Christmas Day (we'll be eating the leftovers for at least the next four days), watching our way through the last season of Stranger Things in the living room lit only by the wood-burning stove, candlelight, and our various sets of string lights, reading nothing more demanding than Rumer Godden children's Christmas books, romance novels, Christmas romance novels, etc. Today we blew the cobwebs away with a 2.5-hour walk through the fens. The air was cold, the sky was clear blue, and the river water was still, and abundant with water birds, and everyone we met seemed relaxed and happy. We finished up with coffee in the market square.

Yuletide has been wonderful so far (initial terrifying moments when the mods somehow manage to open the collection with all author names revealed notwithstanding). I've been working my way backwards up through the alphabet — I do this as I feel most people read in descending alphabetical order and have run out of steam by the end, and I want to ensure authors who wrote for fandoms in the last quarter of the alphabet get love for their work too — at a leisurely pace, being more selective than in previous years in terms of what I choose to read, and I'm having a great time so far. My two fics have been well received by both their intended recipients, and other readers, which is always my main aspiration.

And then there's my own wonderful gift! I have been asking persistently for this fandom, and these two characters for the past eleven years — every single year in which I've participated in Yuletide, plus in several other exchanges as well — and no one ever wrote them, so when I saw what my gift involved, I almost danced around the room with happiness. And the fic itself is the fic of my dreams for these characters, and this fandom. What I always want from fanworks is more of the stuff that drew me to the specific characters in canon, and my author most certainly delivered in this regard: pitch perfect character voices, with a well-crafted little fic that reminded me all over again of all the specific things I love about these two characters individually, and together. I'm so happy!

Thrive (1030 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pagan Chronicles - Catherine Jinks
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Isidore Orbus & Babylonne Kidrouk
Characters: Isidore Orbus, Babylonne Kidrouk
Additional Tags: Found Family, Bologna, Healing, House Hunting
Summary:

Isidore and Bayblonne settle in Bologna.



I will share it again once authors are revealed, along with other recs from the collection. I hope everyone else who's participating in Yuletide has had an equally good time with this year's exchange.


Another December talking meme response )

I'll finish up this post with a reminder that [community profile] fandomtrees is going to open for fills soon. It's easy to browse the tags to see what people have requested. If anyone is interested, my tree is here.

A holiday miracle

Dec. 26th, 2025 12:20 pm
shadowhive: (Ray Snowflake grin)
[personal profile] shadowhive
I hope everyone has had a nice christmas/holidays.

Xmas Eve my feed was flooded by the Heated Rivalry guys reading thirst tweets. I vaguely knew about it as a concept (a gay hockey show) so was kinda curious and I’m glad now tv are getting it next month so it’s an excuse to keep it once I’ve finished Welcome To Derry. But damn seeing those clips, I’m so enamoured by them. That doesn’t feel like the right word when one of them (Hudson) is saying the most unhinged things (which gets beeped a lot) while the other (Connor) is like ‘where’s the love, where’s the caressing’ and it’s just so funny. (Especially Hudson’s follow up) I need to watch the full thirst tweet vid but those clips alone made me need this show.

(Also it’s based on a book? Which is on kindle unlimited so I’ve got the to read)

After walking the pup we watched Muppet Christmas Carol which will always be a classic. I’m so sad they didn’t do more muppet adaptions of books (other than treasure island which I need to see again cause it’s so fun). But ahh the muppet show is coming back and so is rizzo the rat!

On the afternoon I watched Across The Spiderverse which I’d not seen before, despite getting the blu ray on sale last year. And damn, the animation for it is really so beautiful and the first they made every world a different art style too is so incredible. I’m excite for the next one especially as it’s a more direct follow up.

In the night time I managed to finally finish ficcing something, woo! Hopefully this means I can get back to writing (either tackling the WIPs of doom or the ideas in my head but I do wanna do gift fic then I have concepts)

It did mean I didn’t have the full focus for the ghost story for Christmas which is a bit of a shame so I might have to rewatch, but it was nice (and unexpected) to see Nancy Carroll (Lady Felicia from Father Brown) in it.

Xmas day was spent not doing too much. Gift wise I got the two Lego gift sets, a cute gingerbread train and a badnik crabmeat from sonic, along with Hellfire headphones (and the charm) and two hardcover books from mums friend (Murder On The Orient Express and Evil Under The Sun which, like Halloween Party are shiny). The big thing was the record player so that’s all set up now. I’ve only listened to two things (one side of James Marriott’s Bitter Tongues, to test it, and one side of the first disc of Sleep Token’s Even In Arcadia) but it does sound really nice.

However I have been hit by the neurodivergent need to know. Like how does a vinyl work? I know it’s to do with groves but how does that even work? How’s the sound get put on there like that? How does it translate? I’m gonna have to find if there’s a video or documentary about it.

The rest of the day was spent watching stuff, like the excellent Vengeance Most Fowl which is just an incredible film (Feathers McGraw is a generational villain) and then White Christmas before sticking it on bbc1 and tuning out a bit. Alas mum was sick from something (we think the wine cause it was the only thing she had that I didn’t, bar the chicken which the girls had and they were fine) so that sucked for her. Thankfully she seems better now which is good.

Also as an annoyance, my Xbox has decided it wants to throw a fit. Last night it didn’t recognise the expansion card (that has been plugged in since it came and was working fine yesterday) which would be enough to annoy me on its own but I’ve gone through fix attempts before bed and now it won’t even come on properly, ugh. (Edit: at least thay part is sorted)

I had considered watching Stranger Things but I knew Iw as too wiped so now the plan is tomorrow (unless I’m not tired tonight) so we’ll see. I’m also debating seeing Anaconda either tomorrow or next week but again, we’ll see.

Today is gonna be watching the new Puss In Boots, then the festive repair shop, pottery throw down and quiz of the year. And hopefully ficcing a bit or something too.

(no subject)

Dec. 26th, 2025 12:00 pm
oursin: hedgehog in santa hat saying bah humbug (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] theodosia!
ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the February 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from [personal profile] alchemicink, [personal profile] dialecticdreamer, [personal profile] kellan_the_tabby, and [personal profile] rix_scaedu. It also fills the "Taking It Slow" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the Big One thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It directly follows "When You're Lost, You Question Everything,"

Read more... )
but_can_i_be_trusted: (Default)
[personal profile] but_can_i_be_trusted posting in [community profile] 100words
Title: 'December's Joy'
Fandom: Original Fiction
Rating: G
Notes: Crossposted to [community profile] drabble_zone. Merry Christmas from [personal profile] but_can_i_be_trusted.

December's Joy )

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