wychwood: road sign is excited (gen - \o/)
[personal profile] wychwood
Christmas was good but also SO MUCH. By the end of Boxing Day lunch I was trying to work out how much longer I had to stay in company, but I ended up in my mother's living room where she was silently playing a game on her new tablet and my sister's fiance was silently playing a game on his phone, and I just sat there silently reading on my phone for an hour and felt much better.

Family updates:
  • my sister is engaged! this came as a surprise to me and the brother who doesn't live near her, although mostly because we thought they were already engaged (there have been casual discussions about weddings going back some years)
  • my sister's endometriosis op in the autumn revealed that she does not in fact have endometriosis, but she did have a nasty tumour-y thing which was not cancer but apparently also not not cancer and now she is down one ovary and fallopian tube, which is particularly upsetting for her because all of this was part of the fertility investigations they've been working on
  • my middle nephew is dating a boy! He is definitely the least surprising candidate for this out of my niblings. Apparently he is not presently interested in labels, only in dating the person he likes, which seems perfectly reasonable to me, particularly since he's fourteen
Apparently I made a good decision to leave when I did on Christmas Day since several family members were already pretty drunk, and it sounds like it got significantly worse after I left! Not in a bad way - my family are generally very well-behaved drunks, they just enjoy themselves - but at least one person apparently needed considerable help to get upstairs to bed. Mum said "they were singing all sorts of things to Dad's guitar! Oasis and Simon & Garfunkel and lots of things!"; I said that sounded nice and she said "IT WASN'T" (I gather they were fairly raucous...)

Both my parents stayed home from the Boxing Day walk this year, which meant that for the first time in years I was not solely responsible for the cooking, and was surprisingly stressful (Dad: "Oh yes we can cook all six of those things in the last half hour before lunch!" Me, silently: YOU CAN FIT A MAXIMUM OF TWO THINGS INTO THE OVEN, AND I DON'T BELIEVE YOU HAVE ACCESS TO TIME TRAVEL). However my mildly panicked promptings did cause enough things to happen early that it wasn't a disaster (three or four things were cooked while we were eating and brought up as additional items, but that's fine). They didn't want to cook things early and let them get cold waiting around, which is very reasonable, but also if you are trying to cook:
  • three trays of sausage rolls (vegetarian spanakopita; sage and onion; cheese; chorizo; black pudding; "Chinese takeaway" (with five-spice, hoisin and soy sauces); homemade by my sister's fiance and apparently all very delicious - obviously I only had the spanakopita ones)
  • two trays of cheese potatoes
  • two sticks of garlic bread
  • a tray of pigs in blankets
  • three small trays of brie and cranberry parcels
  • a pack of chicken goujons
  • a small tray of beef and stuffing Yorkshire puddings(?!?)
  • a Greek omelette / fritatta thing
you cannot in fact do them all at once even if you have a four-oven Aga. Something is going to be lukewarm and this is simply a fact of reality. Particularly since the temperature starts dropping when you keep opening and closing the door, cooking lots of frozen items in it, etc etc, so the cooking times on the packaging become more and more distant from reality (the 17-minute brie and cranberry parcels had I think 35 minutes in the end and were only barely beginning to brown then).

Mum was pretty down about food things because - well, ok, she has pretty much spent six months during her chemo eating the exact same meals every day at the exact same times, which has been working for her, but means she does not yet have any real idea how to calculate the appropriate medication for meals with different food in them, or how to arrange them around eating at different times, or how to schedule everything so that she can still eat her before-bed weetabix to prevent any overnight hypos. I'm fairly sure this is a one-time problem, because by next year she'll have varied her diet and activity sufficiently to be able to work it out better. But right now she's feeling very confronted by how not-"normal" her life is, and it's been no fun for her.

But everyone had enough to eat and there were left-overs, so it was a success. Then I came home and did nothing and talked to no one and hopefully tomorrow I will have energy to start on my to-do list backlog.

but now that's how i'm getting paid

Dec. 27th, 2025 05:55 pm
musesfool: gold star christmas ornament (follow that star)
[personal profile] musesfool
Christmas was lovely! On Christmas Eve, it was just me, my sister, and my brother-in-law, so we ordered in and watched a godawful Hallmark Christmas movie with Teri Hatcher in it. Then they went to bed and I did a Die Hard rewatch - I hadn't seen it in some number of years and for all its flaws, it is still a good time.

Christmas morning, my niece and her husband came over so Baby Miss L could unwrap the first set of presents - she still gets bored with it and wants to play with whatever she's opened instead of opening the next gift, so it's a process - and she LOVED the 30 second dance party button, as I knew she would. I am SO HAPPY I saw it somewhere (Wirecutter, maybe?) and ordered it, and that it arrived in time for me to see her play with it. (The adults got a kick out of it too, but it was hilarious watching her run up and press it each time it ended.) She liked the dinosaur cape and the books (especially "The Little Book of Cheese," which is in the same series as "The Little Book of Pasta," which I got for her last year and which she LOVES - apparently she will just bust out with "FARFALLE!" at any given moment), but did not care about the wings at all. Also when Alyssa told her I would be there, she said, "books!" so she knows I am the books and clothes aunt. *g*

The while elephant swap was pretty hilarious too, and my niece Nicki ended up with the cat-shaped measuring cups and spoons that were my contribution. I got a waterproof bluetooth speaker I'm going to have to set up in the bathroom to have tunes in the shower.

The funfetti cupcakes were a big hit. (I made sure to put cream cheese frosting on the ones for my sister; she tried one with the American buttercream and made the same face I made when I tasted it - it's disgustingly sweet.) There's picture of this year's selection here.

As for gifts, I received a handful of gift cards, a KRYPTO squishmallow from Baby Miss L, a pair of earrings made from chips of vintage pyrex, a stand mixer tree ornament, a copy of Dorrie's Anytime Cakes, some candles, and a pair of super warm and fuzzy grippy socks. I also bought myself a new winter coat, a new 9 x 13" pyrex baking dish, a new vibrator, some new bras, and a new pair of black ankle boots, so I'm doing all right in the gift department. *g*

Yesterday, I got home early and vegged out for most of the day. And then it snowed, just like they said it would!

Today, I made a new batch of dough and tomorrow I'll finish baking off the fig cookies for this year. I also want to try those orange cranberry rolls now that I have room in the fridge to let them rise overnight. I still have so many eggs left over, though, so I see at least one frittata in my future, plus at least one batch of Nadiya's egg wraps, which are delicious and I recommend them highly!

Now I should look into having dinner and maybe watching the Rangers game.

*
kalira: cartoon representation of Kalira (pale skin, long brown hair, fangy smile, with thumb and two fingers raised), wearing a black tank top and cardigan, on a galaxy in ace flag stripes/colours (Default)
[personal profile] kalira posting in [community profile] smallfandomfest
Title: Rally the Pack
Author: [personal profile] kalira
Fandom: Princess Mononoke
Ship/Characters: San & wolf brothers
Rating/Category: T/Gen
Prompt: Princess Mononoke, San, pack is everything
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: A curious cub ventures close to human children playing at the forest's edge, and San learns anew where her trust must lie - and where it never may.
Notes/Warnings: pre-canon with indeterminately young San and wolf brothers (for whom I have used the names Shou and Niiya, spinning off San read as three)
Wordcount: 850

Read on AO3

photo: spotted on my morning walk

Dec. 27th, 2025 02:37 pm
tozka: white flora on a light blue background (winter flower on blue bg)
[personal profile] tozka
A puffy snowman sticker on a bright red pole. The snowman has a top hat, red scarf and little red mittens. It’s smiling!

📍Phoenix, Arizona - December 2025 / All Photos / Pixelfed

Happy liminal spacemas, couches!

Dec. 27th, 2025 03:40 pm
petra: Married vampires sitting next to each other, not touching (IWTV - Lesbian Bed Death)
[personal profile] petra
I am going through my traditional "How many fests and challenges can I imagine in a week?"

I don't think I'm doing Psychic Wolves this year.

On the other hand, Té suggested a fest of blorbos touching the Rockstar Lestat and now I want it.

[personal profile] hannah points out that, if we want to know what Tom Cruise's Rockstar Lestat would have looked like, we have but to consult this video of Cruise in a jukebox musical singing "Pour Some Sugar On Me."

...it's been a really long time since I was sexually attracted to Tom Cruise, but apparently [personal profile] hannah has the secret sauce.

Also, I now want vampires:

+ the New Burbage Festival (OMG DARREN NICHOLS) (Slings & Arrows)

+ on G-ERTI (they can only fly at night) (Cabin Pressure)

+ working for Oracle (Birds of Prey and a half)

+ visiting Chicago in the era of the Mountie (experimental hair for all who will) (due South)

+ what-ho'ing Bertram Wilberforce Wooster

+ in the world of the Five Gods (hello, is this The Bastard, I have your king shit devoté on hold) (Chalion)

+ dealing with the Light and the Dark, and falling somewhere between (Dark is Rising)

+ eating hockey players

+ being in the future and baffling Aral Vorkosigan with being a) not soldiers and b) hot AT THE SAME TIME (Vorkosigan Saga)

+ and Muppets (Lestat as lone "human"?)

+ in Narnia (Aslan would shit a lit. brick)

+ becoming Black Ribboners (time for a sing-song around the harmonium! NOT LIKE THAT, LESTAT) (Discworld)

+ in Night Vale (it's Tuesday)

+ mad, in a coma, AND back in time -- the Life on Mars trifecta -- let's see Lestat trying to eat Gene Hunt

+ calling Car Talk

+ hiring Neal Caffrey to do a spot of forgery (White Collar)

+ with war horses who correspond with Copenhagen and Marengo, gaily (Warhorses of Letters)

+ fit as a fiddle and ready for love (would they love or loathe Lockwood and Lamont?) (Singin' in the Rain)

+ come on Darth Vader gold glitter looks Great on you

+ choosing the lesser of two weevils (Aubreyad)

+ ...okay i just died a little over quentin coldwater fanboying the vampire lestat (The Magicians)

+ side-eyeing and being side-eyed by Magneto (X-Men)

+ and I had a good belly laugh at Lestat meeting Felix Harrowgate: battle of the asshole first-person narrators who think they are special

+ Zaphod! Beeblebrox! would so get it on with Lestat! (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

+ How do you reckon vampires get on with thalergy? Let's Find Out (The Locked Tomb)

+ How do you reckon vampires get on with constructs? Send Lestat to Preservation! (Murderbot)

+ okay hear me out Grantaire is weak for opinionated blonds but what if he met The Wrong One (Les Misérables)

+ it's already a doctor who episode innit but let's get some harkness up in this joint

+ Awful Sykes has a crush and so does Torquil (Archer's Goon)

+ RIVERS OF LONDON which body of water can we blame everyone on

+ Last Week Tonight: Our main story concerns The "Vampire" Lestat (of course John does quote fingers)

+ Jacky Faber met our hero at some point in her meanderings. I bet they shared a stage.

+ James Flint. BWAHAHAHA. WOULD HIT THAT. (Black Sails)

+ Falsettos: writes. itself. Louis IS the gay plague.

+ did you ever want to see Lestat fuck a muppet wearing leather? I DO I DO (Farscape)

+ truly Julian Bashir needs his not-boyfriend to run interference or he's gonna get eaten (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

+ and then I hit Battlestar Galactica (reboot) which seems like a Terrible place to be a vampire but they'd have fun eating Gaius

+ Pern! is in the future! it can have Vampires if it wants 'em! Weirdest Harper Ever.

+ What happens with MCU? I couldn't begin to tell you. But there must be a clever answer.

+ Community: the study group goes to a concert and they all crush, each in their own way. Annie gets... scary.

+ I very much want Ray Person singing The Vampire Lestat across Iraq, but given the givens it makes me want to cry right now. (Generation: Kill, RIP James Ransone)

+ Scott & Bailey -- the teenage girls and Aunt Rachel bond over their crushes

+ Pamela Dean's Tam Lin has immortals. I want to see them emoting at Rice's.

+ And our wailing wonder, Lestat de Lioncourt. // Why, thank you, Sandi. (QI, the other guests are Phill Jupitus and Sue Perkins, because it's a Musical Episode)

+ ST: TOS -- Chekov and Sulu both have posters.

+ Does Venom want one? And how!

Finally saw Zootopia 2!

Dec. 27th, 2025 04:00 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Before I say anything, A would like you to know how extremely annoying it is that they played those "Arabian Nights" riffs every time the snake (Barry) appeared, and it would be annoying even if the plot Read more... )

They wouldn't shut up about it, so there we go. They're not wrong.

Read more... )

Yaoi Christmas

Dec. 27th, 2025 10:45 pm
haitangkitty: (sakura cutie)
[personal profile] haitangkitty


Yunjin<3


New BL:

Burnout Syndrome EP. 5


Dead man and the angel's kiss,
money and status all gone when asleep, when dead,
they could they leave the human world and hierarchies behind and enter a fantasy realm of love where work doesn't exist.
Jira bringing comfort and tenderness to Koh despite all the bickering. 
There is sexual tension, Koh could buy sex but doesn't want to.
These small moments between them possible because of art, human creation that transcends mortal boundaries


Heated Rivalry EP. 6 (final)

Beefy dudes being tender with each other... not what i usually watch but surprisingly i've enjoyed it very much. Very warm finale for a steamy series! But i gotta say coming out to your parents/getting caught always makes me anxious. 

I'm glad a western MM series got so popular! Heated Rivalry was overall a great romance. Good balance of romance, smut, and realism. It also had the trope of "slow burn with fucking" which i realized i really like but haven't read/watched that much. 


10Dance (film)


source

this has similarities with the two other BL's i wached: art and competition, my favorite subjects. 
passion, dedication, ruthlessness
challenging each other, being inspired by each other, 
being changed by the other
great critique is to be seen, to help you to succeed 
artists in love: so dramatic!

i think the acting and chemistry was great
there was a lot of amazing dance scenes i loved watching. 
it's been a long time since i've watched something that was full of PASSION!
i could've watched this for longer!
apparently it's based on a manga that hasn't even finished yet so i understand why at times it felt like there could've been more, but i'm not sure if tv series adaptation could have been as dramatic and emotional? idk. 


BONUS: 
Le sserafim did an incredible performance at Gayo Daejeon!
The intro is so cool! I've never seen anything like it. They also brought drag queens on stage!
I really love how they always show support to the queer community. 


goodbyebird: Stranger Things: a young Will Byers. (Stranger Things poor kid)
[personal profile] goodbyebird
Not to be pedantic, but I wouldn't say Will is a wizard or a sorcerer; surely this is warlock territory.

Also, sitting on a shiny new icon that a) I can't upload because it's for an icontest, and b) I'll have to delete another before uploading, well. *sullenly kicks rocks*

spoilery for 5x06 )

I wasn't a big fan of the first four episodes, but these two have been very entertaining indeed. Cool visuals! Emotional payoffs! Two thumbs up.

Birdfeeding

Dec. 27th, 2025 02:17 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy and mild.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/27/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/27/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/27/25 -- I raked more in the parking lot.  I had to make another line.  It's exhausting and inefficient and not even making the stumps all that much easier to see.

EDIT 12/27/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.

I am done for the night.
 

Yuletide Recs!

Dec. 27th, 2025 11:51 am
rachelmanija: (Autumn: small leaves)
[personal profile] rachelmanija
Here are some Yuletide recs, sorted for your reading pleasure by whether or not you need to know the canon.

Do Not Need to Know Canon

Chalion/World of the Five Gods - Lois McMaster Bujold

a knock at your front door. I think all you need to know to read this story is that there are five Gods - the Mother, the Father, the Son, the Daughter, and the Bastard - who are definitely real but rarely interfere in human affairs. They can, however, make people saints - able to do limited miracles - if they need to. This story deals with the Father, the God least-explored in canon, and is set in modern-day Chalion. It's got a clever look at what modern Chalion might be like, a very likable main character, and some beautiful writing.

FAQ: The "Snake Fight" Portion of Your Thesis Defense - Luke Burns

If you've never read the canon, I've linked it above. It's extremely short and you will be glad you did. There are other "Snake Fight" stories and they're all fun.

Snake Logistics for Spring Defenses. Some students are just begging for a black mamba.


Need to Know Canon

Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey

find the true. Mirrim and F'lar have a chat at a Gather. I enjoyed this conversation between two characters who I don't think ever exchange words in canon. Good characterization, good atmosphere.

Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin

to be useful, if not free. My gift! A backstory/canon diverge AU for Serret, the enchantress in A Wizard of Earthsea. Beautifully written, beautifully structured.

The Long Walk - Stephen King

There's No Discharge in the War. Stebbins in a time loop. Long, intense, often horrifying, sometimes very moving, and cleverly constructed story about Stebbins and the other Walkers.

"The Lottery" - Shirley Jackson; New Yorker RPF

Why one small American town won’t stop stoning its residents to death. Isaac Chotiner interviews the guy who runs the lottery in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." If you've never heard of him, he's a journalist who's very good at letting people hang themselves with their own words. The story is dead-on, hilarious, and chilling.

Lyra series/Caught in Crystal - Patricia Wrede

Three Things That Might Have Happened to Kayl Larrinar. My treat! A very satisfyingly bittersweet canon divergence AU for Kayl's Star Cluster, full of camaraderie and atmosphere.

Mushishi

I want to taste the shadows, too. A lovely little casefic/character study about Adashino, the guy who collects mushi-related stuff. It really feels like an episode of the anime, especially the final portion.

Some Like It Hot

Anchors Away. A short and very sweet post-movie coda.

Watership Down - Richard Adams

There is no bargain. Five encounters with The Black Rabbit of Inlé. An exploration of how the Black Rabbit is different things to different rabbits in different circumstances, very well-done, sometimes moving, sometimes chilling. The Black Rabbit is Death, so warning for rabbit death.

What have you enjoyed in the collection?

Today in Stories I Wish I Could Read

Dec. 27th, 2025 01:17 pm
petra: A blonde woman with both hands over her face (Britta - Twohanded facepalm)
[personal profile] petra
The reason I got a tumblr in 2013 was hockey RPF.

I have been watching my entire dashboard lose its collective mind over Heated Rivalry.

I tried to read this fic, which has in-universe fandom, one of my favorite tropes, and has a retrospective slant on what the development of hockey RPF in-universe would be like. Petra-nip.

I got as far as an in-universe primer for one of the characters, and was swamped with the combined nostalgia/trauma.

They're fictional! They can't possibly be sekrit racists or abetting rapists or not-so-sekritly shaking hands with Putin! They're not real!

And I can't do it.

I hope you are all having a wonderful time with your sinless imaginary hockey bros. I just keep thinking, "But if they were Real, they'd have Secrets that would make me Hate them."

I guess I will continue not engaging, because if I can't read an imaginary primer about an imaginary hockey player, I would be completely pants at watching the show. Primers are how I learned about real hockey players! It's a great starting place!

But not for me.

2025 Book Bingo

Dec. 27th, 2025 09:04 am
lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
[personal profile] lebateleur
Catching up on year end memes and housekeeping, here is my 2025 Book Bingo card. Or rather, my first completion--I whited out the board three times 🥳 Categories, titles, authors, and links to reviews are under the cut. Underlined categories indicate my two substitutions.



Read more... )


これで以上です。
creepy_shetan: color comic strip header artwork of Snoopy sitting on his doghouse, typing on his typewriter, with a speech bubble containing a red heart in quotation marks (Snoopy // what will you write today?)
[personal profile] creepy_shetan posting in [community profile] comment_fic
[ If you're interested in being a Tuesday-Thursday guest host, you can sign up here. Thanks! ❤ ]
↑↑↑ Available dates:
January 6 & 8
January 13 & 15
January 20 & 22


Hello, everyone! ^.^ Happy holidays, and welcome to the last Free for All of 2025. There are no themes to follow for prompts or fills. If, perhaps, you missed a prompt theme that you liked, or you've had any ideas that didn't really work with Tuesday's or Thursday's posts, then today's your chance to prompt 'em. Be free, and have fun! ✎

Just a few rules:
1. No more than five prompts in a row.
2. No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
3. Use the character's full name and the fandom's full name for ease in adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
4. No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here. Unfortunately, DW doesn’t have a cut tag, so use your best judgment when it comes to spoilers.
5. If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
6. If your story has possible triggers, please warn for them in the subject line!

Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt

Are today's prompts not catching your eye? No worries, because we have plenty of older prompts that just might do the trick! You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^

We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2025 collection.

If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)

If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word! [community profile] comment_fic


A friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.
merricatb: Image of Wolfgang Bogdanow (Wolfgang1)
[personal profile] merricatb posting in [community profile] smallfandomfest
Title: Nai-robbery
Author: MerricatB 
Fandom: Sense8 (tv)
Pairing/Characters: Wolfgang Bogdanow & Capheus Onyango
Rating/Category: Teen
Prompt: Sense8 (tv), Wolfgang & Capheus, Bonding over having loyal (and loud) childhood besties
Spoilers: Whole series
Summary: While visiting Capheus on an especially costly trip to Nairobi, Wolfgang reflects on the similarities between their childhood friends.
Notes/Warnings: N/A

Read on AO3

Miss Marple: Carol Singers

Dec. 27th, 2025 01:52 pm
smallhobbit: (Christmas tree 2025)
[personal profile] smallhobbit posting in [community profile] 100words
Title: Carol Singers
Fandom: Miss Marple
Rating: G

December 2025

S M T W T F S
 1234 56
789101112 13
14 15161718 1920
2122 2324 25 2627
282930 31   

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jan. 1st, 2026 09:17 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios