Yuletide Letter posted

Oct. 17th, 2025 08:26 pm
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
[personal profile] petra
Bloody Jack Adventures - L. A. Meyer, The Expanse - James S. A. Corey, Galavant, Rivers of London - Aaronovitch, Slow Horses (TV)

I am contemplating cross-listing The Expanse TV and Slough House the books, as I have also experienced those. Thoughts, anyone in either set of fandoms?

Wednesday Reading Meme

Oct. 15th, 2025 05:35 pm
sineala: Detail of Harry Wilson Watrous, "Just a Couple of Girls" (Reading)
[personal profile] sineala
What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

Captain America #4, Iron and Frost #1, One World Under Doom #8 )

What I'm Reading Next

I have read eight books this year. I do not have enough brain to read anything except, apparently, a couple comics a week.

Two Purrcys; life update; KJ Charles

Oct. 14th, 2025 09:59 am
mecurtin: Daniel agrees reading is fundamental (reading)
[personal profile] mecurtin
Purrcy was inside, enjoying the sun and breeze, when suddenly there was a human outside! Taking pictures! And it's Mommy! Hi Mommy!
Hi fuzzzy baby! What a loving face you have

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby looks eagerly through the screen toward the camera taking his picture from outside the house. It's a sunny day, he's sitting a white window ledge, his pupils are just slits. One front paw extends towards the camera, he looks intent and happy.



It was a really chilly night a couple days ago, so there was a VERY cuddly #Purrcy next to my legs & feet all night. Very choice.
#cats #CatsOfBluesky #Caturday

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby lies on his side looking at the camera, with his front paws curled up against his chest and his back paw extended toward the viewer. He is endlessly adorable.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby lies on his side looking at the camera, with his front paws curled up against his chest and his back paw extended toward the viewer. He is endlessly adorable.



There is too much. I will sum up:

I'm having to reduce social media AGAIN due to The Horrors, but also I'm promoting stuff the Oct.18th No Kings protests, so I see more than is good for me. PLEASE come out if you can, we need this to be overwhelmingly large, peaceful, joyful. Wear yellow, it's the color people seem to be settling on as the No Kings "movement" color.

They say that old people need less sleep but in order to actually feel rested I need 10 hours of sack time -- in part because I have to get up to pee so often. So I've started putting myself to bed at 10 (!!) and using my Happy Light in the morning, which is definitely needed at this time of year if it's going to rain like this, I was starting to feel Depression creeping back in. At least that's going back into its cave, hissing.

One reason I need so much sleep is because I'm often in pain, from sciatica or otherwise. I frequently have to lie down to stop it hurting, and all I can do is read, so I read a LOT. SO MUCH.

All of Us Murderers, KJ Charles: Trademark KJC steamy m/m sex with great characterization as Zeb Wyckham, called to the family pseudo-Gothic manse, tries to patch things up with his ex Gideon while dealing with his horrible relatives and their bizarre demands. I was never able to suspend my disbelief, because this is set in the 20s yet WWI doesn't seem to have happened.

I think of it as taking place in an "Agatha Christie AU", because IIRC Agatha Christie's stories written in the 20s & 30s mostly happen in a world where WWI doesn't seem to have happened (when you look at timelines, backstories, etc). I strongly prefer Dorothy Sayers, all of whose Lord Peter novels have the long-term effects of the War as at least subtext if not text. And Gaudy Night is a useful witness to the coming storm, whereas Christie's "The Moving Finger", written during WWII and featuring an injured pilot, seems to take place in Jo Walton's Small Change universe, which is actually that of Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar.

But I digress! The point is, All of Us Murderers didn't work for me, because I couldn't feel like I knew when it was actually *set*.

Yuletide Letter 2025

Oct. 12th, 2025 07:44 pm
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
[personal profile] petra
Dear Yuletide Creator,

Thank you for signing up to create something for me! Overall, I prefer to give positive encouragement rather than tell you what not to write, because I am interested in a story you are passionate about. I have suggestions for different fandoms, so read on if you want more than what I put in my sign-up.

General info )

Signups: Bloody Jack Adventures - L. A. Meyer, The Expanse - James S. A. Corey, Galavant, Rivers of London - Aaronovitch, Slow Horses (TV) )

Fisher Space Pen

Oct. 10th, 2025 09:46 pm
sineala: A close-up photo of an uncapped fountain pen, a 1955 Sheaffer Sentinel Snorkel in burgundy. (Fountain Pen)
[personal profile] sineala
I know it's weird to delurk with a random pen review but, whatever, hi. I have a bunch of half-finished posts from like six months to a year ago that were going to be about the book I read or the game I played but then I got like twenty migraines in a row and the plot details became less memorable. I am still getting like twenty migraines in a month but a pen review has no plot. I have no idea if I will keep posting anything at all (possible topics: more pens, fandom, more dead languages) but I'm here now and I have enough caffeine that I can't feel my current migraine.

Also, this isn't a fountain pen -- it's a ballpoint pen -- so the people reading this who aren't fountain pen nerds might actually want one. It's the Fisher Space Pen! I really like it!

The Young Wizards fans among you might be interested, although I actually didn't buy the one I probably should have bought. More details below.

Fisher Space Pen )

it burnnnsssss us

Oct. 9th, 2025 10:12 am
beradan: Icon: image of Captain America taken from the comic book Captain America: The Fighting Avenger (Default)
[personal profile] beradan
Got a SAD lamp for this year, in the spirit of "it may or may not be what's wrong with me but it probably won't hurt."

It is. Very bright. Very early in the morning.



and completely unrelated, but I'm not making a separate post for it: my rent went up 25% this year (previously mentioned in locked post) and I applied for a new job out of state and did not get it, so...I am trying to figure things out. I am applying for subsidized housing. I might be able to move in with a friend in a year or so if her current roommate and roommate's girlfriend move out in a year or so, but I'm reluctant to commit to that without knowing that they will in fact be moving out. I canceled all my subscriptions and most of my charitable donations and that plus putting off a couple of moderately large household item replacements should cover most of the "extra" rent (above 1/3 income), but it's not sustainable long-term. Assuming other bills don't go up too much. *gestures at the world* *shrugs*

It is so fucking expensive here and I am so sick of both the housing market and the hiring market assuming that all adult households are composed of a romantically involved pair of adults both working full-time.

petra: CGI Obi-Wan Kenobi with his face smudged with dirt, wearing beige, visible from the chest up. A Clone Trooper is visible over one shoulder. (Obi-Wan - Clones ftw)
[personal profile] petra
There are now 8 days of limericks in the Kinktober 2025 series. The Blindfold poem is even more deliberately vague about the pairing than the others. I would love to know how people read it!

babble and recs

Oct. 6th, 2025 11:08 pm
donutsweeper: (Default)
[personal profile] donutsweeper
I haven't had a ton of free time lately but have been trying to get started on my yuletide letter. Other than All Souls (which will be my 7th time requesting) all my requests will be new which is exciting! New fandoms! Except that means coming up with the prompts from scratch which is not easy. Usually I am repeating 2 or 3 fandoms so I can reuse and reword things.

Also, I'm kicking myself because I totally forgot to take pictures of my most recent craft project- I had been working on a rug (back to knotted kind, from a set of old blue sheets) and my parents asked for it but they'd need it before they headed out of state (they snowbird every year now) so I rushed to finish it before we headed to their house for break-the-fast after Yom Kippur and finished with a half hour to spare and documenting it totally slipped my mind. Oh well. They loved it which is the important thing.

I don't know if anyone's followed the SciShow vs the knitting community controversy but...
cut for lengthFor those unaware about a month ago on SciShow Hank Green did a video called "Physicists Don't Understand Why Knitting Works" that was... well, not great (and the info provided didn't match the clickbaity title at all). There was some true science presented in it, including some recent studies that were quite interesting, but it was presented in a way that, well, kind of implied actual crafters didn't know or even think about much about the hows or whys it's done the way it's done and if that's not enough it did so in a kind of pat-on-the-head dismissiveness of women's work kind of way. It also was just riddled with errors (from mistaking nalbinding for knitting, to not seeming to realize the difference between woven garments and knitted ones, to even misspelling the word 'stitch' numerous times, etc etc)

There were some great videos posted in response to it though, Kristine Vike did a great Scientist and Knitter reacts to SciShow's knitting video and JillianEve started a new channel, Evie Unraveling, to do her own I Remade the SciShow Knitting Video (with accurate SCIENCE) (there are numerous other good reaction vids, these were the two by people I followed already).

Previously, SciShow pinned a not very good correction/we hear you had issues with out content comment to the vid in response to backlash but I noticed a few days ago that SciShow actually pulled their vid and put up an apology youtube community comment which was pretty decent. Long story short (too late) I thought the whole controversy was interesting and that some of you might find it so as well. (As a note, I've still unsubscribed, I'd noticed a few errors/bad takes/odd ways they'd presented things in previous videos but hadn't really known enough about most subjects to question their ability to teach me things but I learned long ago that if I'd been following someone to learn from what they present and they do a topic I know something about and notice issues with what they present then it means it's likely there's been plenty of things I hadn't noticed so I can't rely on them anymore.)

And last but not least, here's 2 weeks of [community profile] recthething recs! (MDZS/Untamed fic and Batman, Clue, Doctor Who, MDZS, Merlin, and Supernatural tumblr art):
The fic:
the cat distribution system by ScarlettStorm (38k)
Summary Snippet: Wei Wuxian gets a cat, and then a boyfriend, both of which are a surprise. (great fic with great art from the 2025 MDZS Reverse Big Bang, also 2 podfics have been done of this fic, linked in the endnotes)

the tumblr art:

Batman/DCU
- Nightwing written in Nightwing (very cool effect)

Clue (the movie)
- “Okay, Chief, take 'em away. I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife.” (excellent art of the cast)

Doctor Who (Classic)
- Delgado!Master doodle (love this)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Dadji and his pride and joy (Adorable LWJ and a-yuan and bunnies)

Merlin
- Tenderness (perfect title for this terribly tender Merther moment)

Supernatural
- Dean Winchester <333 (excellent rendition)

Sad news from April 2025

Oct. 4th, 2025 09:48 pm
petra: Text on a blue background: "The only way to go on is to go on." (DWJ - The only way to go on)
[personal profile] petra
Somehow, I missed that William Finn passed on April 7, 2025, until I found out from an AO3 comment.

His work regarding death, loss, and grief is extensive; this is my favorite.

And if that made you cry, let this one, sung by the man himself, make you laugh.

May his memory be a blessing.
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