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Jan. 4th, 2026 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badfalconIf there's a ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tennisslash community here on DW, but it hasn't been updated in like 15 years, where do we stand on posting my latest fic to it? Like, what's the etiquette here?
tennisslash community here on DW, but it hasn't been updated in like 15 years, where do we stand on posting my latest fic to it? Like, what's the etiquette here?
Book Review: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Jan. 4th, 2026 10:02 ambadfalcon⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars)
Every Heart a Doorway is a small book that carries an astonishing amount of emotional weight.
At its heart, this is a story about children who have been somewhere else - worlds that loved them, shaped them, and made sense in ways this one never quite does. Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children offers care, understanding, and the quiet acknowledgement that returning is often its own kind of loss.
What Seanan McGuire does so beautifully here is refuse to frame those experiences as delusion or escapism. The portal worlds matter. The longing matters. The grief of being shut out of a place where you belonged is treated with seriousness and compassion.
The writing is sharp, spare, and deeply empathetic. In a very short space, McGuire creates characters who feel fully realised, each carrying their own kind of ache. Themes of identity, belonging, queerness, and neurodivergence are woven into the story without spectacle - simply allowed to exist.
There's darkness here, and tragedy, but also a fierce insistence that every child's story is real and worthy of care. This is fantasy as emotional truth, and it lingered with me long after I finished.
Every Heart a Doorway is a small book that carries an astonishing amount of emotional weight.
At its heart, this is a story about children who have been somewhere else - worlds that loved them, shaped them, and made sense in ways this one never quite does. Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children offers care, understanding, and the quiet acknowledgement that returning is often its own kind of loss.
What Seanan McGuire does so beautifully here is refuse to frame those experiences as delusion or escapism. The portal worlds matter. The longing matters. The grief of being shut out of a place where you belonged is treated with seriousness and compassion.
The writing is sharp, spare, and deeply empathetic. In a very short space, McGuire creates characters who feel fully realised, each carrying their own kind of ache. Themes of identity, belonging, queerness, and neurodivergence are woven into the story without spectacle - simply allowed to exist.
There's darkness here, and tragedy, but also a fierce insistence that every child's story is real and worthy of care. This is fantasy as emotional truth, and it lingered with me long after I finished.
Reading: Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher
Jan. 4th, 2026 12:33 amchomijiSelena arrives at the tiny train station in the town of Quartz Creek with a backpack, a rolling suitcase, her dog Copper, and a postcard from her aunt, suggesting a visit. When Selena had finally decided she could not deal with her emotionally abusive fiancé any longer, that postcard gave her a destination. But when she reaches the town, after two and a half days of travel, she discovers that Aunt Amelia is dead, and has been for a year.
Selena has hardly any money, and it would be so easy to return to her poisonous partner and let him run her life, but she hesitates. And as she's hesitating, she meets a variety of kind but eccentric townspeople who suggest that there is no reason why she can't simply take over her aunt's house, known as Jackrabbit Hole House. Even in a town where it's far more common for a house to have a name than not, this one is puzzling. Jackrabbits, one of the residents informs her, don't live in holes.
Despite all the minor issues that one might expect in a house that's been all but abandoned in the U.S southwestern desert for a year, Selena finds the place surprisingly comfortable. Her next-door neighbor Grandma Billy keeps her supplied with eggs and other miscellaneous food, and the local church has a potluck supper multiple times a week. She also discovers, when she goes to buy Copper some dog food, that Aunt Amelia left several hundred dollars of credit at the local store, which the store owner insists is Selena's now. With Grandma Billy's help, Selena even starts to recover her aunt's vegetable garden.
Everything is fine until she starts hearing voices. Then there's that creepy statuette in the main room. And one morning, she finds she's not alone in her bed.
( Cut for more, including some spoilers )This is the Southwest of Kingfisher's collection Jackalope Wives and Other Stories, where spirits, gods, and shapeshifters co-exist with vintage pickup tricks and ecotourists. Kingfisher seems at her best in this setting, and Selena's predicament is genuinely frightening at times.
The book is also, however, rather familiar. The outline of the story is very similar to Kingfisher's The Twisted Ones (2019), in which a young woman named Mouse travels with her beloved dog Bongo to inventory her late grandmother's house and finds all manner of creepiness. She deals with these manifestations with the help of eccentric locals. The Twisted Ones is actually a more complicated story, probably because it's a pastiche of a 1904 horror short story called “The White People," by Arthur Machen. Snake-Eater is also shorter: 267 pages to 399 for The Twisted Ones.
To me, Snake-Eater is the more engaging story. In the acknowledgments, Kingfisher reminisces about growing up in the Southwest. I knew she had moved there recently, but I didn't realize that she was a returnee when she did so. That may be why this story feels more full of life than the earlier work.
I think I'll be re-reading this one. I've never bothered with that for The Twisted Ones.
Huh
Jan. 3rd, 2026 09:28 pmlannamichaelsThe male!Hermione Granger/Neville Longbottom fic that I started in October but didn't really start actually getting into it until December 23, has now reached 30K words in the file. o.O o.O o.O That includes notes and some cut stuff, so the actual fic is more 29something. But.
I don't know where this thing is going, but it's a fun ride. I've got a summary but no title, and also I think it may end up a series, who knows. But it's fun to dig into what makes Hermione Granger herself, how much of her is being an smart ugly girl vs. what she might be like an an smart ugly boy.
It also revealed my conflation of Shaekespeare, because when I first conceived it in October, I was going to name her Demetrius since I'd thought Hermione was from Midsummer Night's Dream, but no, that's Helena and Hermia. Hermione is from The Winter's Tale.
I have been in productions of both Midsummer and Winter's Tale. But that was back in the dawn of time.
So since I was going to extract for Sunday Six last week but completely forgot about it because I was doing other stuff on sunday, here's not 6 sentences, but in honor of 30K (?????!!??!!?), here's my favorite bit so far:
In January, something strange happens, though. A Hufflepuff, Leontes thinks she's one of Dean's friends, asks him on a date. He does what he's practiced: he covers his heart with his hand and puts every bit of drama into his voice that he's learned from the drama club that he's still, somehow, involved in, and declaims, "I wish I could, dear lady! But I'm afraid my heart is sworn to the service of the cruel Lady NEWT. I can only begin to think of others once my torment is complete. I pray you forgive me for my unchivalrous conduct, but I cannot accompany you to Hogsmeade in the manner in which you request. I must toil instead, these seven years, until my work is done."
She laughs and there's no tension or awkwardness as she leaves him and Neville alone, but Neville's looking at him askance.
"Do you mean that?" he asks. "The whole bit about not dating until after the NEWTs?" Neville had dated a lot in fourth year but hasn't gone to Hogsmeade with anyone except as a friend this year. Leontes has kept his mouth shut about it, reminding himself that it's okay for Neville to go on dates and so it's not okay to congratulate him on putting his OWLs and his Prefect duties ahead of that, because that would make Neville think that Leontes did not, actually, think it was fine to go on dates. Which it is. Even though it does distract from the important things. People can have different priorities and that's okay. It's fine. It's acceptable behavior.
That said, Leontes thinks it's fantastic that Neville isn't dating this year. This is an important year! A vital year! Dating can wait.
"I suppose," Leontes says. "University is also going to be grueling so I may wait until after that, but I'm certainly not going to do it before the NEWTs. And who knows? I might end up with more free time in university for things like that."
Neville, an unreadable expression on his face, takes out his magical planner without a word and flips forward pretty far and then writes something down and then puts it away.
Leontes eyes him, mystified.
"How's Binns doing?" Neville asks, adroitly changing the subject, and Leontes relaxes. Everything's fine. Nothing to worry about. Priorities are definitely established and correct.
Fast-forward:
NEWTs come, inevitably.
The last NEWT of them all is Potions. Leontes waits outside after he finishes for Neville to finish up, then Neville suggests lunch and they wander down to Hogsmeade. Neville leads him into Josephine's, where there's a table waiting for them in the back. They talk lightly about the NEWT -- "awful", "extremely" -- until halfway through the soup course, when Leontes snaps out of the post-examination fugue, looks around, takes in the single candle flickering in the middle of the table and the overall atmosphere of the most romantic restaurant in Hogsmeade.
"Oh," he says. He looks around again, just to make sure. "Why didn't you say anything?"
Neville lowers his spoon. "You said not until we finished the NEWTs. We've finished the NEWTs. Well?"
"Ah," Leontes says eloquently. "Oh. Well. All right, then."
[things keep on changing for better or worse]
Jan. 3rd, 2026 10:19 pmainsleyToday started off really well! Woke up and decided, hey, that fic recced on bsky looks good, I should read that! Then I watched a vid! All before I even got up to feed the cat!
Then I saw the news, and that's enough said about that.
I had some good fic-writing thoughts while I was on my walk, and hoped to have a chance to something up, but alas. I did check off all the major items on my to-do list today (and one of them was re-starting a huge project that I've been procrastinating for decades while the project scope snowballed) and found a book online I thought I'd have to travel to see (a family tree/history put together by a distant cousin).
The fic I was thinking about is a hockey story I've wanted to write as a second chances romance for more than a decade, but thought it was too big for my skill level. My skill level won't grow if I don't write it, and I'm mostly just writing it for me, anyway. These days my brain doesn't want it to be second chances, and therefore it's no longer a romance, but I'm kind of interested in poking to see what it does want to be.
Definitely did too much, but the choices continue to be not overdoing and never making progress or staying within my known limits, which hasn't been working out well.
Then I saw the news, and that's enough said about that.
I had some good fic-writing thoughts while I was on my walk, and hoped to have a chance to something up, but alas. I did check off all the major items on my to-do list today (and one of them was re-starting a huge project that I've been procrastinating for decades while the project scope snowballed) and found a book online I thought I'd have to travel to see (a family tree/history put together by a distant cousin).
The fic I was thinking about is a hockey story I've wanted to write as a second chances romance for more than a decade, but thought it was too big for my skill level. My skill level won't grow if I don't write it, and I'm mostly just writing it for me, anyway. These days my brain doesn't want it to be second chances, and therefore it's no longer a romance, but I'm kind of interested in poking to see what it does want to be.
Definitely did too much, but the choices continue to be not overdoing and never making progress or staying within my known limits, which hasn't been working out well.
conulyI thought I outgrew this behavior a good two decades ago, but I guess illegal wars really get my dander up.
The conversation, such as it was, was long and pointless, but it did have this amusing, paraphrased exchange:
Them: I didn't say that you should say "ones of them", I just said that even though it sounds wrong it's technically grammatical! Go to ChatGPT, it'll tell you the same thing!
Me: No, it won't, here's the screenshot.
Them: Well! That doesn't count because it doesn't cite a rule! I did check before posting that you should go to ChatGPT, you know!
(They spontaneously claimed elsewhere that they understand the idea of descriptivist linguistics, but I think they don't understand how much of language has yet to be described, even in very well-studied languages like English.)
The conversation, such as it was, was long and pointless, but it did have this amusing, paraphrased exchange:
Them: I didn't say that you should say "ones of them", I just said that even though it sounds wrong it's technically grammatical! Go to ChatGPT, it'll tell you the same thing!
Me: No, it won't, here's the screenshot.
Them: Well! That doesn't count because it doesn't cite a rule! I did check before posting that you should go to ChatGPT, you know!
(They spontaneously claimed elsewhere that they understand the idea of descriptivist linguistics, but I think they don't understand how much of language has yet to be described, even in very well-studied languages like English.)
2025 Reading Reflection
Jan. 3rd, 2026 09:15 pmkitewithfishYear End Reading Meme for 2025
How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/etc?
102!
Themes - eh, mostly sci fi, fantasy, and history.
What are your Top 3 books that you read this year?
The world is too big and full of books for just three!
Fiction:
Return of the King – yeah, yeah, we know, Tolkien is great, but like, I didn’t realize that this book was going to be so full of the heartfelt need to rest and respite after war and suffering and babe, I loved that. Excellent conclusion of the trilogy.
Lent by Jo Walton – The first half of this novel is a history of Girolamo Savonarola up to his death, and the second half of the book is about what happens after he dies. It’s phenomenal and weird and I loved it.
The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed – I’m fresh off this one and I found it a fascinating look at memory from a cyberpunk future that almost and didn’t happen.
Nonfiction:
The Power Broker – yeah, this book was 50 years old last year and I read it and it explained New York and also gives a reasonable look back at how American politics developed. It's also just masterfully written and makes other books look lazy and slow about their level of research.
The Other Olympians – Michael Walters - My god, transphobia is literally just recycled Nazi bullshit. Literally, just, it’s Nazi rhetoric about gender roles! This book makes me so happy for trans people in the past and also women’s athletics and also I hate Nazis with new and enduring facets after I read this book. Why could you not just let people be happy, you fucking fascists.
The Revolutionary Temper – Robert Darnton – Slow history! Watch society slowly build up from thinking of their king as the ultimate source of justice to the ultimate impediment to justice. Love it.
What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
Conclave – a very simple thrillers style novel but really pleasant to read and added a lovely depth to the film.
Which books most disappointed you this year?
Into the Drowning Deep – because I had hopes. But the worst book I read and finished this year was Mercenary Librarians.
Did you reread any old faves? If so, which one was your favorite?
Misethere – I seem to be re-reading this one annually! I also re-read The Goblin Emperor and the Murderbot Diaries
What's the oldest book you read?
Persuasion by Jane Austen
What's the newest book you read?
Of Monsters and Mainframes
Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
The Familiar – Stupid love interest
What was your predominant format this year?
Audio, at 42% - which makes sense, my eyes are getting tired
What's the longest book you read this year?
The Power Broker – So long that almost all of it was read in 2024
What books from your TBR did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2026?
Hm, Pass – Maybe I will return to this question.
Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
Yup, and exceeded.
(Adding this question myself) What author did you read the most?
Dorothy Sayers! I read 8 books by her this year!
How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/etc?
102!
Themes - eh, mostly sci fi, fantasy, and history.
What are your Top 3 books that you read this year?
The world is too big and full of books for just three!
Fiction:
Return of the King – yeah, yeah, we know, Tolkien is great, but like, I didn’t realize that this book was going to be so full of the heartfelt need to rest and respite after war and suffering and babe, I loved that. Excellent conclusion of the trilogy.
Lent by Jo Walton – The first half of this novel is a history of Girolamo Savonarola up to his death, and the second half of the book is about what happens after he dies. It’s phenomenal and weird and I loved it.
The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed – I’m fresh off this one and I found it a fascinating look at memory from a cyberpunk future that almost and didn’t happen.
Nonfiction:
The Power Broker – yeah, this book was 50 years old last year and I read it and it explained New York and also gives a reasonable look back at how American politics developed. It's also just masterfully written and makes other books look lazy and slow about their level of research.
The Other Olympians – Michael Walters - My god, transphobia is literally just recycled Nazi bullshit. Literally, just, it’s Nazi rhetoric about gender roles! This book makes me so happy for trans people in the past and also women’s athletics and also I hate Nazis with new and enduring facets after I read this book. Why could you not just let people be happy, you fucking fascists.
The Revolutionary Temper – Robert Darnton – Slow history! Watch society slowly build up from thinking of their king as the ultimate source of justice to the ultimate impediment to justice. Love it.
What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
Conclave – a very simple thrillers style novel but really pleasant to read and added a lovely depth to the film.
Which books most disappointed you this year?
Into the Drowning Deep – because I had hopes. But the worst book I read and finished this year was Mercenary Librarians.
Did you reread any old faves? If so, which one was your favorite?
Misethere – I seem to be re-reading this one annually! I also re-read The Goblin Emperor and the Murderbot Diaries
What's the oldest book you read?
Persuasion by Jane Austen
What's the newest book you read?
Of Monsters and Mainframes
Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
The Familiar – Stupid love interest
What was your predominant format this year?
Audio, at 42% - which makes sense, my eyes are getting tired
What's the longest book you read this year?
The Power Broker – So long that almost all of it was read in 2024
What books from your TBR did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2026?
Hm, Pass – Maybe I will return to this question.
Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
Yup, and exceeded.
(Adding this question myself) What author did you read the most?
Dorothy Sayers! I read 8 books by her this year!
"Mr. Rowl" so far
Jan. 3rd, 2026 05:27 pmmuccamukkI needed a novel to round out my holiday reading, so I picked up "Mr. Rowl" by D.K. Broster (who wrote part of the Gay Jacobite Extended Universe). I'd read a couple reviews, but they were long enough ago that I remembered the following:
1. There are no gay Jacobites.
2. Because it's set during the Napoleonic War.
3. One of the characters (Raoul des Sablière) is a French officer who is a prisoner of war in England.
4. Everyone is very worried about their honour.
5. Readers of my acquaintance ship the French prisoner with an English dude.
6. The ladies are cool.
So I go into the book and immediately meet Raoul, and start looking for whoever I'm supposed to ship him with.
I meet Sir Francis, who is a handsome English Lord who Does Not Like Raoul. This seems like it's probably who I'm supposed to ship.
Except! Sir Francis is immediately a controlling dick to his fiancée. I have pretty generous shipping goggles, when need by, but I don't think anyone could read Sir Francis as being a controlling dick because he wants to be with Raoul. He's just a dick. He is very worried about his honour, though, so it did seem somewhat likely that he might still be the one.
Which has not slowed fandom down before, to be fair. But isn't usually 100% my thing. So then I was feeling a little sad that I wasn't going to be into the pairing my friends like.
However, as I got farther into the book, and Sir Francis became even more of a dick, was like, "This is going to be one hell of a redemption arc!" But also doubt.jpg. Also, also, wow, it's funny to have mostly aligned ships with someone, then have them be ride or die for something that's rapidly turning into a NOTP for me.
Finally, I broke and looked at AO3, and figured out I'm supposed to ship Raoul with some guy who has not yet showed up, as of 20% of the novel.
Which is a relief. Because I quite like Raoul, even if he has the Broster characteristic of being slightly silly about his honour, and he deserves better than Sir Francis, who is a dick.
1. There are no gay Jacobites.
2. Because it's set during the Napoleonic War.
3. One of the characters (Raoul des Sablière) is a French officer who is a prisoner of war in England.
4. Everyone is very worried about their honour.
5. Readers of my acquaintance ship the French prisoner with an English dude.
6. The ladies are cool.
So I go into the book and immediately meet Raoul, and start looking for whoever I'm supposed to ship him with.
I meet Sir Francis, who is a handsome English Lord who Does Not Like Raoul. This seems like it's probably who I'm supposed to ship.
Except! Sir Francis is immediately a controlling dick to his fiancée. I have pretty generous shipping goggles, when need by, but I don't think anyone could read Sir Francis as being a controlling dick because he wants to be with Raoul. He's just a dick. He is very worried about his honour, though, so it did seem somewhat likely that he might still be the one.
Which has not slowed fandom down before, to be fair. But isn't usually 100% my thing. So then I was feeling a little sad that I wasn't going to be into the pairing my friends like.
However, as I got farther into the book, and Sir Francis became even more of a dick, was like, "This is going to be one hell of a redemption arc!" But also doubt.jpg. Also, also, wow, it's funny to have mostly aligned ships with someone, then have them be ride or die for something that's rapidly turning into a NOTP for me.
Finally, I broke and looked at AO3, and figured out I'm supposed to ship Raoul with some guy who has not yet showed up, as of 20% of the novel.
Which is a relief. Because I quite like Raoul, even if he has the Broster characteristic of being slightly silly about his honour, and he deserves better than Sir Francis, who is a dick.
Not Wednesday but still a Reading Meme!
Jan. 3rd, 2026 08:09 pmkitewithfishNot quite the Wrap Up for 2025 – I got busy the last few Wednesdays so I am making an effort to post about the books I finished before the end of the year!
What I’ve Read
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Xing Book Club – This was blast from the past, and one that held up amazingly. The beginning was every so slightly slow but also set up the world very well. I felt like Katniss is weirdly charming – she has so little concept of the world as a trustworthy place or people as kind, and that calculation serves to save her life in the Hunger Games. The ending of this book, with her beginning to understand what her approach has cost Peeta, is wonderfully sensitive and ambiguous.
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) – A very pleasant medieval murder mystery that is solved by a clever protagonist in favor of a humanist and quite funny resolution. Brother Cadfael is a well traveled Welsh brother in an English Benedictine abbey in 1138, when one of leaders of the order takes it into his head that they need the bones of a saint to make their abbey a really hopping spot. This book was published in 1977, and features a fairly liberal mindset towards the medieval caste system and a deeply humorous Welsh disrespect for the English. I picked this up as a break on the recommendation ofoldshrewsburyian (over at tumblr, but I see there’s a DW name and I think it’s the same person!)
A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan – Oh, I really felt excited about the book that this wasn’t! I really thought there would be natural history in it! To be fair, the author’s interviews make it clear that she’s going for an Indiana Jones-inspired plot, and she’s very much accomplished that!
However, it’s not as funny or charming as Indiana Jones, and I would not pick up an Indiana Jones novel. The structure of the book impeded my enjoyment – the narrator is an elderly version of the main character writing her memoirs, but the main plot is a rollicking adventure where the younger character is doing field research in a rural foreign country and uncovering black market dragon schemes. This results in the author functionally interrupting the interesting plot and deflating the narrative tension to offer Her Humble Opinion on her younger self’s actions. If I needed distance from an unlikeable younger version of the character, this would be a good break. However, the older version of the character is snide, bigoted, defensive, and Not Like Other Girls. The effect is charmless and kludgey, and makes me lament that the young promising character we meet in the past grows up into this unpleasant arrogant person.
Anyone who reads my book ramblings on the regular will have picked up that I am vastly irritated when authors deflate their carefully constructed tension or have unsatisfying pacing. So, please feel free to try this book and see if it works for you.
Misethere by Astolat – I had to do a lot of rather stressful family socializing the last few weeks, so re-reading a past favorite! A wonderful story about someone too clever by half and the Witcher that loves him.
What I’ve Read
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Xing Book Club – This was blast from the past, and one that held up amazingly. The beginning was every so slightly slow but also set up the world very well. I felt like Katniss is weirdly charming – she has so little concept of the world as a trustworthy place or people as kind, and that calculation serves to save her life in the Hunger Games. The ending of this book, with her beginning to understand what her approach has cost Peeta, is wonderfully sensitive and ambiguous.
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) – A very pleasant medieval murder mystery that is solved by a clever protagonist in favor of a humanist and quite funny resolution. Brother Cadfael is a well traveled Welsh brother in an English Benedictine abbey in 1138, when one of leaders of the order takes it into his head that they need the bones of a saint to make their abbey a really hopping spot. This book was published in 1977, and features a fairly liberal mindset towards the medieval caste system and a deeply humorous Welsh disrespect for the English. I picked this up as a break on the recommendation of
oldshrewsburyian (over at tumblr, but I see there’s a DW name and I think it’s the same person!)A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan – Oh, I really felt excited about the book that this wasn’t! I really thought there would be natural history in it! To be fair, the author’s interviews make it clear that she’s going for an Indiana Jones-inspired plot, and she’s very much accomplished that!
However, it’s not as funny or charming as Indiana Jones, and I would not pick up an Indiana Jones novel. The structure of the book impeded my enjoyment – the narrator is an elderly version of the main character writing her memoirs, but the main plot is a rollicking adventure where the younger character is doing field research in a rural foreign country and uncovering black market dragon schemes. This results in the author functionally interrupting the interesting plot and deflating the narrative tension to offer Her Humble Opinion on her younger self’s actions. If I needed distance from an unlikeable younger version of the character, this would be a good break. However, the older version of the character is snide, bigoted, defensive, and Not Like Other Girls. The effect is charmless and kludgey, and makes me lament that the young promising character we meet in the past grows up into this unpleasant arrogant person.
Anyone who reads my book ramblings on the regular will have picked up that I am vastly irritated when authors deflate their carefully constructed tension or have unsatisfying pacing. So, please feel free to try this book and see if it works for you.
Misethere by Astolat – I had to do a lot of rather stressful family socializing the last few weeks, so re-reading a past favorite! A wonderful story about someone too clever by half and the Witcher that loves him.
his mobility is untrammelled
Jan. 3rd, 2026 07:00 pmmusesfoolI keep thinking I will have more brain to post about stuff but it keeps not happening, even with 2 weeks of vacation (back to work on Monday *sob*), so here are some brief thoughts about a variety of things:
- Miami Mika!!! Hopefully he is also Milano-Cortina Mika because after the bullshit snub of Jason Robertson by Team USA (in favor of JT Miller??? REALLY??? I've watched him play - badly (he's injured) - all season so idk what Bill Guerin is thinking there [I can see a role for Trocheck, who seems like a slightly less egregious choice to me than Miller, but still pretty bad, and I like Trocheck), I am in the bag for Sweden (or Finland) and hope Team USA doesn't even make the medal round.
- Speaking of hockey, I finally watched Heated Rivalry and I enjoyed it. I laughed, I cried a little, I predicted many lines of dialogue because I have written similar fic, and I'm probably one of the few people who wished for more hockey in the gay hockey show. I don't feel feral about it like most of fandom, but I kind of didn't expect to. It was lovely, though, and I'm glad it exists. Also, Connor Storrie needs to play Alexander the Great in something, or, since I texted![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
devildoll immediately with that thought and she replied, "Achilles," he should definitely play Achilles in something. I am just saying. I would like to see ( minor spoiler )
- The Stranger Things finale. Without spoilers, I liked it. I have quibbles but overall I found it emotionally satisfying. Also, while I appreciate Joe Keery and love Steve Harrington's arc, I have never found him particularly hot, per se, but ( spoilers )
- I'm enjoying season 2 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I love Percy as a character and narrator, and I just enjoy spending time with him and his friends. ( spoilers )
- The Muppet Show returns!!! This is not a drill!!! I AM EXCITE!!!
*
- Miami Mika!!! Hopefully he is also Milano-Cortina Mika because after the bullshit snub of Jason Robertson by Team USA (in favor of JT Miller??? REALLY??? I've watched him play - badly (he's injured) - all season so idk what Bill Guerin is thinking there [I can see a role for Trocheck, who seems like a slightly less egregious choice to me than Miller, but still pretty bad, and I like Trocheck), I am in the bag for Sweden (or Finland) and hope Team USA doesn't even make the medal round.
- Speaking of hockey, I finally watched Heated Rivalry and I enjoyed it. I laughed, I cried a little, I predicted many lines of dialogue because I have written similar fic, and I'm probably one of the few people who wished for more hockey in the gay hockey show. I don't feel feral about it like most of fandom, but I kind of didn't expect to. It was lovely, though, and I'm glad it exists. Also, Connor Storrie needs to play Alexander the Great in something, or, since I texted
- The Stranger Things finale. Without spoilers, I liked it. I have quibbles but overall I found it emotionally satisfying. Also, while I appreciate Joe Keery and love Steve Harrington's arc, I have never found him particularly hot, per se, but ( spoilers )
- I'm enjoying season 2 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I love Percy as a character and narrator, and I just enjoy spending time with him and his friends. ( spoilers )
- The Muppet Show returns!!! This is not a drill!!! I AM EXCITE!!!
*
The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Saturday, January 3
Jan. 4th, 2026 12:33 amveronyxk84 posting in su_herald
BUFFY: Looks good, doesn't it? They're trapped in here. Terrified. Meat for the beast, and there's nothing they can do but wait. That's all they've been doing for days. Waiting to be picked off. Having nightmares about monsters that can't be killed. But I don't believe in that. I always find a way. I'm the thing that monsters have nightmares about. And right now, you and me are gonna show 'em why. It's time. Welcome to Thunderdome.
[Drabbles & Short Fiction]
- A Night In The Crypt (Spike & Dawn, Spike & Joyce, G) by carryingstarlightinherwake
- Ringing in the New Year (Fred/Spike, Angel/Wesley, G) by Greensword101
- Being There (Tara & Dawn, Tara/Willow, G) by carryingstarlightinherwake
- Could You Play Along With Me? (Warren/Andrew, T) by carryingstarlightinherwake
- Bedtime Story (Angelus/Dawn/Spike, E) by Kittenwritings
- Her Skates Match Her Stake (Buffy/Spike, Buffy & Dawn & Spike, T) by Grianbui
- i’ve been a really good dog, can i come inside? yeah, i’ve been such a good girl, can we go for a ride? (Giles/Jenny, G) by lenaluthorssuitcollection
- A Cuppa Kindness (Buffy/Spike, G) by Asokatanos
[Chaptered Fiction]
- Road to Forever, Chapter 15/? (Buffy/Angel, not rated) by twiddle3
- Descend into Solitude, Chapter 3/? (William/Buffy, T) by desicat
- Heartstrings, Chapter 12/? (Warren/Andrew, E) by Mishafer
- Faithless Love, Chapter 4/13 (Buffy/Spike, E) by IlliterateUnicorn
- All the Girls We Were, Chapter 19/? (Buffy/Faith, not rated) by Stokley
- In a New York Minute, Chapter 15/15 (Buffy/Spike, E) by captain_jazzhands
- Such A Shame, Chapter 2/? (Angel/Spike, T) by SatinAndSin
- Trust, Chapter 1/5 (Angel/OFC, Doctor Who xover, T) by ConstantCommentTea
- Nothing Else It Could Possibly Be, Chapter 4/? (Buffy/Spike, M) by hattiewithtea
- Munich to Millburn, Chapter 1/? (Buffy/Giles, E) by KatyAmberAuthor
- Never Too Late to Make Amends, Chapter 4/? (Buffy/Faith, M) by Strongermagikarp
- Sacrifices, Chapter 15 (Buffy/Spike, R) by GuinevereSummers
- Sacrifices, Chapter 9 (Buffy/Spike, R) by GuinevereSummers
- Once They Were Friends, Chapters 10-11 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Grief Counseling
[Images, Audio & Video]
- Vidlet: i’m the well they’re gonna drag you down | an Angel the Series edit (Wesley/Fred, worksafe) by pamiiap
- Gifset: buffy the vampire slayer (+ some angel) ● i’ll make a man out of you (ensemble, worksafe) by lopeirce
- Artwork: Faith Lehane (worksafe) by kinardnatural
- Artwork: [art request for pzyii] (Buffy/Willow, worksafe) by camellcat
- Artwork: Fallen Angel (Warren, worksafe) by garscrucible
- Artwork: Finished season one of BUFFY. Loved it (Giles, worksafe) by bubibobo
- Gifset: Buffy Summers + Outfits (37/∞) (worksafe) by clarkgriffon
- Artwork: listening to your heartbeat, to make up for the time your heart didnt beat at all (Buffy/Spike, worksafe) by spikedru
- Artwork: Buffy when the cops come to stop her from killing random people and turning them to literal dust with her school librarian (worksafe) by bubibobo
- Gifset: — “Me.” (Buffy/Angelus, worksafe) by plubirustico
- Artwork: big bad & little bit (Dawn & Spike, worksafe) by rabbitmotifs
- Fanvid: Lilah + Wesley | Loving You is a Losing Game by welcometocaritas
- Artwork: Cozy Holiday Briley Art (Buffy/Riley, not rated) by Kittenwritings
- Podfic: Truth in your eyes (hides the doubt on your lips) (Buffy/Faith, T) by blackglass, rasp (buries)
[Reviews & Recaps]
- season 7 episode 11 - showtime by socratesgirl
- S2, Episode 2 “Some Assembly Required” by The Bitch Is Back
[Community Announcements]
- Reminder if LiveJournal stops working by su_herald
[Fandom Discussions]
- i am so tempted to stop working on my current wip and start writing something where jenny calendar and anya hook up late season six by lilyelisabeth
- In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, there’s a special kind of cruelty and deep unfairness that comes with Buffy becoming the Slayer at just 15 years old by thoughtsbetweenrealities
- one of the biggest failings in discussions around the scoobies in s6 of btvs is the frequency with which that functionally, buffy is an orphan in contrast to willow and xander by userpitgirl
- [About how tara dying also feels Correct on a story level in a way that’s hard to articulate fully] by userpitgirl, lesbianmarrow
- i find the relationship between willow and buffy infinitely more interesting than the relationship between willow and tara by whatcomesnextbelovedpet
- did the trio ever find out who caused Once More With Feeling? by evil-baker-and-storyteller
- First time [AtS] watcher and very frustrated! by CheekSweaty9320
- Something I've often wondered about The First is it considered a higher being? by Rough_Plan
- If you could change any premiere of Buffy, which would would it be, what would be the change and why? by negratengoelalma
- I just finished watching Angel by GokiWeatherHamburger
- One of the few things I hate is that Anya and Xander broke up. They should have been endgame. by JoshLovesTV
- Is Spike the best match for Angel? by FoxIndependent4310
- Why are we fighting? Would it have been better with Drusilla? by FoxIndependent4310
- Christophe Beck's music really added so much atmosphere to the show in its first four seasons by jdpm1991
- Would Sarah Make a good Abigail Brand for the MCU? by Shieldlegacyknight
- Anyanka by PhotoInformal4239
[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]
- Exclusive Live Angel Panel with Stephanie Romanov, Christian Kane by Re-Vamped with Juliet Landau
Star Wars: Just Go Kill Palpatine by nevertheless_turtle
Jan. 3rd, 2026 06:10 pmmarginaliana posting in fancakeFandom: Star Wars
Pairings/Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Rating: Mature
Length: 11,604
Creator Links:![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
nevertheless_turtle
Theme: crack treated seriously
Summary: In Which Obi-Wan Kenobi is Shown Holofootage of His 12-Year Old Padawan in a Seedy Nightclub With The Chancellor of the Republic And Has A Proportionate Response.
Reccer's Notes: What I love about this fic is the way that Obi-Wan does put in a certain amount of forethought into his actions, but it just happens to be the wrong forethought. You can see where he's coming from and why it seems like the right idea at the time, and yet it still goes completely off the rails. :D Truly delightful.
Content warning for discussion of child sexual assault but no actual sexual assault.
Fanwork Links: Just Go Kill Palpatine
Pairings/Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Rating: Mature
Length: 11,604
Creator Links:
Theme: crack treated seriously
Summary: In Which Obi-Wan Kenobi is Shown Holofootage of His 12-Year Old Padawan in a Seedy Nightclub With The Chancellor of the Republic And Has A Proportionate Response.
Reccer's Notes: What I love about this fic is the way that Obi-Wan does put in a certain amount of forethought into his actions, but it just happens to be the wrong forethought. You can see where he's coming from and why it seems like the right idea at the time, and yet it still goes completely off the rails. :D Truly delightful.
Content warning for discussion of child sexual assault but no actual sexual assault.
Fanwork Links: Just Go Kill Palpatine
Counting
Jan. 3rd, 2026 12:19 pmoffcntrWe did our end of the year inventory this morning, which basically involves bundling Denise up in warm clothing with a clipboard and pencil, marking things down on the tally while I open every box and recite items and patterns. This will be necessary at tax time; in the meantime, it's a good snapshot of what I need to make to get ready for the new year.
Right now, I have exactly one dinner pasta bowl left. Three dessert plates. Five pie plates, six tall mugs. I have no covered casseroles, only one baking dish, a small square in woodpecker pattern. No small covered crocks, no tool crocks, no yarn bowls. One honey jar, one canister, one each of the three sizes of cookie jar. I'm entirely sold out of teapots, have been since Thanksgiving weekend. Down to one gravy boat, one covered pitcher, two creamers. I'm out of frog banks, though all the others are still good. Four incense dragons left. Three cat food dishes.
I still have at least one of every pattern of soup bowl, surprisingly, ditto todder bowls. Meanwhile, six patterns of stew mug are out of stock, and eight of painted mugs.
I would be frantically throwing pots right now, except I'm also down to less than one bag of clay until my ton order gets delivered, sometime next week. So in the meantime, I'm taking an enforced holiday, while figuring out where to start my next making cycle.
Right now, I have exactly one dinner pasta bowl left. Three dessert plates. Five pie plates, six tall mugs. I have no covered casseroles, only one baking dish, a small square in woodpecker pattern. No small covered crocks, no tool crocks, no yarn bowls. One honey jar, one canister, one each of the three sizes of cookie jar. I'm entirely sold out of teapots, have been since Thanksgiving weekend. Down to one gravy boat, one covered pitcher, two creamers. I'm out of frog banks, though all the others are still good. Four incense dragons left. Three cat food dishes.
I still have at least one of every pattern of soup bowl, surprisingly, ditto todder bowls. Meanwhile, six patterns of stew mug are out of stock, and eight of painted mugs.
I would be frantically throwing pots right now, except I'm also down to less than one bag of clay until my ton order gets delivered, sometime next week. So in the meantime, I'm taking an enforced holiday, while figuring out where to start my next making cycle.
Numbers
Jan. 3rd, 2026 02:06 pmoffcntrI use Square to process credit sales, and also track cash, to make it easier to rectify the books at the end of the day. They also send daily and monthly sales reports, which I basically ignore, as I record everything to my ledger from the app at the end of the day or weekend. They also send an annual summary, which I never realized, nor, indeed opened, until today.
It contains some well, duh information: my best sales day of the week is Saturday, best sales month is December. Some useful information: My total credit/debit sales were up over $5000 from last year, which may explain why my inventory is so hammered at the moment. And some huh information: best sale day of the year was Friday, August 1, the first day of the Anacortes Arts Festival. (I looked up last years, when it was Saturday of that weekend.) And the best selling item: Tall mugs. 232 of them.
Wow.
It contains some well, duh information: my best sales day of the week is Saturday, best sales month is December. Some useful information: My total credit/debit sales were up over $5000 from last year, which may explain why my inventory is so hammered at the moment. And some huh information: best sale day of the year was Friday, August 1, the first day of the Anacortes Arts Festival. (I looked up last years, when it was Saturday of that weekend.) And the best selling item: Tall mugs. 232 of them.
Wow.