umadoshi: (kittens - Sinha - napping)
[personal profile] umadoshi
One link, which hopefully won't be paywalled: "Rachel Reid's wild Heated Rivalry ride" at The Globe and Mail. The whole "local girl makes good" element of the HR show taking over the world is a very nice cherry on top of the whole thing, and I really liked this profile.

Reading: I'm maybe 30% into Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl and wavering about continuing. I've gotten better about DNFing things, and this time I actually have the book out of the library, so the good old financial sunk-cost fallacy isn't in play. But I still don't like DNFing.

I've also read some more of Braiding Sweetgrass and reread vol. 2 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

Watching: Crunchyroll wasn't in the mood to work when we attempted to watch last week's ep. of Frieren, so we're two episodes behind on that. (Annoyingly, Netflix keeps saying it thinks we'd love the show, but only has season 1.) Hopefully we'll get caught up on the most recent ep. of The Pitt tonight.

On top of those currently-running things, we're now one episode into Midnight Mass.

Playing: Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven continues to delight me.

Weathering: There's another storm heading in, due to arrive tonight, but it looks like it's veered enough that our local forecast is now for a somewhat more reasonable amount of snow than I'd been hearing before yesterday evening or so. Apparently it's also bringing fairly high winds, so there's the usual "will the power stay on?" worry. (Our neighborhood has been really lucky on that front this season, and [personal profile] scruloose and I are pretty well prepared, so it's not a huge worry.)

Working: I turned in the final volume (!) of Pet Shop of Horrors on Friday and immediately tried to switch to the next volume of Now That We Draw, since that's due mid-week, but my brain was Not Having It; I suspect it was the sheer tonal dissonance as much as anything. But then yesterday, what with the storm warning and all, I basically did the last four-fifths of the book in one sitting to make sure I at least had a workable draft, and now my brain is pretty crisped. (It's not a very text-heavy or tricky rewrite, and the translators make it pretty painless, so four-fifths is a lot at once but not the feat it would be with some series.)

So now I have a draft with just a couple tweaks still to be made and a final read-through to be done, and I'm tempting fate a bit by not trying to get that all off my plate today, but I think letting it rest for a day before reviewing it is extra important given that I did the draft so fast. So I'm gambling a bit, but also have something I can submit with caveats if need be, if we do lose power for three days or something.

Sleeping: Sleep has been distinctly Not Great for the last few (?) nights. I've been doing decently at getting to bed in a timely fashion and mostly not taking forever to fall asleep, but I've been having even weirder and more stressful dreams than usual and it's all been very restless.
kingstoken: (Soft Crowley)
[personal profile] kingstoken posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Good Omens
Pairings/Characters: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: T
Length: 5437 words
Creator Links: iamtheenemy (Steph)
Theme: Inept in love

Summary: Crowley gets orders to seduce Aziraphale to the dark side. It goes about as well as you might expect.

Reccer's Notes: Crowley gets orders from Hell to seduce Aziraphale, and Crowley can't really bring himself to try, despite some half-hearted  attempts.  That's the first half of the fic, the second half is the two of them after the almost apocalypse, and it's very sweet, even if Crowley's brain stops functioning a few times. 

Fanwork Links: AO3
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
[personal profile] full_metal_ox posting in [community profile] dmbj_tombraiders
…what form is the Fire Horse (17 February 2026 to 5 February 2027) going to take in the DMBJ fandom bestiary?

London exhibition trip

Feb. 1st, 2026 05:46 pm
dolorosa_12: (being human)
[personal profile] dolorosa_12
Matthias and I got back from London about an hour ago. We had a great time, but the Saturday portion of the trip was beset by an almost comical calvacade of chaos. (It's worth noting that we planned everything over a month in advance, with military precision — National Rail website and Google Maps open, planning every event with ample time in mind.) In list form:

  • The restaurant where we were booked to eat on Saturday night sent Matthias an email at 6am on Saturday saying that 'due to circumstances beyond our control,' they were 'closing permanently' as of Saturday.

  • When we opened the National Rail website to check that our train was still running (something we had checked and confirmed, as trains on this line on weekends are not always a given due to various pieces of track work), it showed no trains going to London at all. After some trial and error entering different start and destination points, we realised we'd be able to go to Cambridge North, then get on a train going to London Liverpool Street, get off at Tottenham Hale, and get the Tube on to our original destination. But this was going to make us late to our first booked exhibition at the British Museum.

  • I tried to phone the British Museum to check if being late would be a problem, but their phone box office is only staffed Monday-Friday.

  • Every seat on the train filled up at Cambridge North, and by the time we got to Cambridge main station, which was packed with a scrum of people wanting to go to London, all available standing spaces were filled. At each new station, I could see the crowds of people (for whom this is normally a very uncrowded train in to London) visibly spotting how full the train was and their faces falling in horror. We got later and later as more and more passengers tried to Tetris their way in at each new station.

  • We ran through the Tube, then found our way partly blocked by the weekly protest about Gaza, which I'd forgotten always started around Russell Square.

  • The British Museum had massive snaking queues to get through security. (Our original itinerary had us arriving there about forty-five minutes early, with time to get through the queue, which we knew would be long on a Saturday, drop off our bags, and amble into the first exhibition.) By the time we made it in, dropped our bags and coats in the cloakroom, and got to the first exhibition, we were half an hour later than intended.

  • We then whipped our way through the two exhibitions at absolute breakneck speed, so that we wouldn't be late to our lunch reservation (where I had had to provide card details when booking, so I knew they would charge me if we didn't show up). Half an hour per exhibition wasn't really enough time, but I'm impressed we managed it at all!


  • Lunch and the next exhibition at the Tate Modern were both fine, and happened as planned (I was particularly pleased that we managed to walk from Bloomsbury to the Tate, make it inside before it started raining, and emerge about an hour and a half later to find the rain had moved on, just in time for us to walk for forty minutes to our hotel! I now return to the ongoing chaos:

  • I always have a list of restaurants lined up that I want to try, so when we got the email cancelling our previous reservation I had another one in the list. This one didn't take reservations at all, but said that if no tables were available, you could get a drink at their bar or give your number to waitstaff and they'd phone you when a table became free, but I had forgotten that a) this was a stupid thing to risk in Soho on a Saturday night and b) that this place had become massively overhyped on social media, so when we got there, there was a queue of about fifteen groups lining up outside the door — no chance even to get inside and get a drink as promised! — and it was about to start raining again.

  • Some very quick work with my remaining list of restaurants and I managed to snag a booking for a place at 6.30pm at a pasta restaurant I had wanted to try. The only problem — at that point it was 6.25pm, so we sprinted down the street in the rain, and made it there in time to take the reservation.

  • And then they accidentally gave my dinner to a woman at the table next to us, and her dinner to me! This was rectified in about fifteen minutes, but it was definitely the crowning glory in a day that was characterised by chaos from start to finish.


  • Sunday, in contrast, was calm and lovely — breakfast in a little cafe with views of the Thames, the Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Britain (spectacular — if you have the ability to be in London before it closes, go if you can), where we inevitably bumped into a former colleague of Matthias and her husband, lunch in a sort of upmarket food court a minute away from Liverpool Street Station, and then a much less crowded train ride home.

    I'm glad we went, but that was a lot more everything than I had expected! And I still haven't managed to try the hyped viral Thai restaurant in Soho...

    Vid recs

    Feb. 1st, 2026 06:24 pm
    selenak: (Holmes and Watson by Emme86)
    [personal profile] selenak
    Festivids went online. I can't create vids myself, but I love watching them. Here are some which especially caught my eye this year:




    Babylon 5 : I loved all three of this year's B5 vids, but Marching On really is a love letter to the entire show, and I adore it.


    Conclave : The Devil you know : in which there is scheming, rise and fall, and gorgeous cinematography. Captures the spirit (and performances) of the movie really well.


    Elementary: Read my mind: my favourite incarnations of Holmes and Watson get a superb outing in this one.


    Foundation: So it goes: captures the grandeur, the insanity, the messed up parent/mentor/child (protegé) relationships really really well. (No material from the third season used as far as I can tell, if anyone hasn't watched it yet and doesn't want to be spoiled.)

    Knives Out Movies: Now you know: Sondheim/Knives Out OTP! Witty and moving take on all three leads, their stories and the connecting elements.

    Star Trek: Prodigy: Find your people: which is what our young heroes do so very well in this lovely show - and in this vid.

    The archive is live!

    Feb. 1st, 2026 02:05 pm
    maevedarcy: (nabrielise)
    [personal profile] maevedarcy posting in [community profile] holly_poly
    Hi everyone,

    The collection is now live, fanworks are revealed! You should also receive e-mails with links to your gifts. If you have multiple gifts you may receive nested e-mails, so be sure to check your Gifts list on AO3 to make sure you don't miss anything.

    The archive is now open again, so please feel free to post any additional treats that you may wish to create (this also applies to anyone who needs to post a treat for eligibility reasons.)

    Don't forget about our Pinch Hitter Treats post.

    Remember to kudos/comment on your gift and thank your gifter within 2 months! (Per our rules, this is a requirement to participate next year)

    As always, if you have any questions or issues, please e-mail us at holly.poly.exchange@gmail.com.

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    Why I Reject Fascism

    Feb. 1st, 2026 11:58 am
    jjhunter: profile of human J.J. with goggles and a band of gears running down her face; inked in reds and browns (steampunk J.J.)
    [personal profile] jjhunter
    Fascism is a form of social cannibalism; it will eat us everywhere it takes root, and it cannot help our species long survive.

    Fascism cannot fight climate change, because fascism will not admit limits to its control, not even self-evident limits imposed by basic properties of physics.

    Fascism cannot save our children, because fascism is too busy eating them first. Fascism cannot save white people from their own fears of slave rebellions and economic overturns, because fascism will eat them too when fascism has finished eating the rest.

    Everywhere fascism goes, it steals and gluts itself on the labor of the people it targets. It divides, and it eats, and it masturbates over its hollow assertions of power and purpose and ascendance.

    Most human societies have strong taboos against cannibalism. The ones that don’t have equally strong limits on when it is socially appropriate, or they themselves don’t long survive.

    Why do we allow cannibals to walk among us and openly pick their targets to maim and hurt and murder for their dinner tables?

    ___
    Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

    Update

    Feb. 1st, 2026 04:50 pm
    lexin: (Default)
    [personal profile] lexin
    So, we’re through with January. Good.

    I’m a bit tired, I don’t know why. My CPAP machine mask seems to leak, but there’s no obvious reason why. It’s a mystery.

    Cats

    Opal had a big sore on her back where she was biting herself all the time that Smokey was ill. I’ve taken her to the vet and the only suggestions she made was that I put her on a special food for stomach and skin. So, I did. And it seems to be working, albeit slowly. It’s down to one inch across from more like four. As I said, progress.

    Little Geraint has gained weight; when he came to me, he was thin as a rake, and his fur was in an appalling condition, all over mats. Since I started to brush him, he’s been pulling the mats off himself, as if he couldn’t be bothered before and now, he has someone looking after him, he’s prepared to meet them halfway. For a couple of weeks my carpet was covered with mats of fur, but he seems to have succeeded and now his fur just needs to grow in again, which I hope will happen in the spring.

    Health

    I’ve been to the hospital for my tummy troubles and they’re threatening me with a colonoscopy. I’m not looking forward to that at all. Really don’t want to play, I’ve had one before and they suck.

    I also saw my psychiatrist, and he suggested we play around with my mood drugs. So I’ve cut one in half and we’ll see if that works as he hopes it will. Fingers crossed.

    Gaming

    I’m concentrating on Skyrim and I have a character who’s reached level 49. He’s now finding NPC’s dead in ditches, which is distressing when they’re vendors who had been useful. So far, two have been killed by dragons.

    GO LIVE SOON!

    Feb. 1st, 2026 01:42 pm
    maevedarcy: (nabrielise)
    [personal profile] maevedarcy posting in [community profile] holly_poly
    Thanks to our amazing PHers, all works are in and we're currently going through the last few approvals.

    The collection has been temporarily closed to avoid the known AO3 reveals bug. Treats can be posted after go live!

    Remember that we have a Pinch Hitter Treats post, where you can find PHer requests and try to fill one if you want.

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    Round 183: Inept in Love

    Feb. 1st, 2026 08:45 am
    runpunkrun: combat boot, pizza, camo pants = punk  (punk rock girl)
    [personal profile] runpunkrun posting in [community profile] fancake
    Photograph of two kingfishers perched on a branch. One is surrounded by a cloud of pink love hearts and the other has a single question mark over its head. Text: Inept in Love, at Fancake.
    Bring out your failboats! Our theme for February is inept in love.

    These fools are unlucky in love—whether it's due to inexperience, obliviousness, social anxiety, or their own terrible choices—or are so in love they can't function properly. This trope is sometimes called "Idiots in Love," but as "idiot" is an ableist term, I ask that you don't use it in your recs, and just as there are all kinds of love, this theme is for all kinds of relationships.

    The tag for this round is: theme: inept in love

    If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.

    Rules! )

    Posting Template! )

    Promote this round! )

    swingandswirl: text 'tammy' in white on a blue background.  (Default)
    [personal profile] swingandswirl
    two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text


    So I had to take a break from posting because my eyes decided to act up (After a Deeply Stupid Eye Injury back in college, my left eye likes to throw the occasional tantrum to remind me it's got its eye on me, boyo) but I'm back with challenge #7.

    Challenge #7

    LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

    Okay! Three things, huh? I'm going to go with one physical thing, one skill, and one emotional thing.

    1. I try really hard to be kind.

    Especially in the world we live in, where it's so easy to fall into snark, or into the trap of valuing nonexistent moral purity over imperfect action towards a better present and future, this is one of the things I like best about myself. So while I have certain bedrock principles I won't deviate from, I try very hard to give people grace, both IRL and in fandom. At the end of it, you've gotta be kind. 
     

    2. I am a good writer.

    There's a Discord I'm in with a writing vent channel, and it always discomfits me a little to hear people tear their own writing down. Now, am I a literary great? Ha, nope. But I am a skilled writer, enough so that I enjoy rereading my own work, lol. Perhaps once Snowflake is over I'll create a self-rec list?

    3. I like how my face looks.

    So I grew up in a deeply colourist society, although I've been lucky in that my immediate family has never held with that or given me crap for it. What I didn't like about my face was that I don't have the kind of open-mouthed smile that is considered classically beautiful. (My teeth are fine, just small.) Add to that some baby fat that stubbornly stuck around, and nope. It took the pandemic, and seeing my face on Zoom for hours on end to realize that hey, just because I don't photograph well, it doesn't mean there aren't nice things about my face - how my eyes crinkle when I smile, how animated my expressions get when I'm excited about something, how well bright red lipstick contrasts with my dark skin. So yeah. It took a while, but I can safely say that I love my face. 


    Road Trip Day

    Feb. 1st, 2026 09:53 am
    kalloway: (Lucifer 6 RoB)
    [personal profile] kalloway
    M, Boycritter, and I went down to the nearest Hobbytown (about an hour away) for Bandai Builders Day yesterday. This Hobbytown just became the only Bandai Builders certified shop in the state, so I definitely wanted to support them and their events. (Hobbytowns are franchise shops and each individual one is locally owned.)

    This event had a free 30 Minute Fantasy kit, unique to this event! We got there a smidge early, did our check-in (and skewed their demographics, ha!), and got our kits. It was a pretty simplified kit, so I think it only took about 15-20 minutes to build. We chatted with other folks who turned up and posed for some photos while working, lol. By the time we were done, other people were arriving and waiting for our seats. Yay for a good turnout! By the time we'd finished shopping, maybe 2/3 of their stock of the event kit was gone.

    (I picked up a 30MF accessory set, HG Abyss, HG 0 Gundam ACD, and HG Murasame Kai as well. M got a ton of paint for his tanks - though he did like the event kit and might pick up some 30MF stuff. Boycritter got a RG RX-78-2 Gramps and HG Sazabi.)

    From there we went up to the conveyor sushi place and ate ourselves broke. So tasty! I tried to be a little more adventurous and found a few things I really liked. Next time I want to try more. ^_^

    Details aren't entirely available yet, but there's some sort of 30 Minute Label competition in March and I'm interested, but that's also not a lot of time to come up with something, get a kit, and build. So I guess we'll see. But then again, I'd really like to enter for the fun of entering. Hmm.

    That New Year's Friending Meme

    Feb. 1st, 2026 09:49 am
    ofearthandstars: A single tree underneath the stars (Default)
    [personal profile] ofearthandstars
    I finally got around to the New Year's Meme at [community profile] friending_memes. I'm not sure my answers perfectly encapsulate where I am right now, but I thought I'd repost here in case anyone stumbles over this space in their network.

    The Basics
    Name: [personal profile] ofearthandstars
    Age: 46
    Pronouns: they/their/them, sometimes she
    Country: United States

    The New Year
    Do you have any resolutions?: I don't do hard and fast resolutions, but I do spend time planning and setting goals and habits I'd like to develop out in my planner. I think a big focus for 2026 is trying to find and/or create more beauty and joy in my life. Also trying to maintain my health/improve my strength.
    Are there any new books, music, games, shows, etc. that you want to dive into?: Not specifically. I try to read at least one natural science/ecology/climate/environment book per month, and I enjoy science/climate/dystopian fiction, but I read a number of other genres as well. I started the year reading Greenwood by Michaal Christie and Nature's Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy. I keep up with my reading at both Fable and Storygraph.
    Are there any small or big events that you're planning for this year?: Sadly no, although I am hoping to plan to explore some new hiking trails.
    Any new interests/hobbies that you'd like to try out?: I'm trying to work to incorporate more art and creative writing in my life. I want to reteach myself to sketch well, I have let it linger a long time.
    Did you accomplish your resolutions from last year?: Last year went entirely off the rails work wise and home wise, but I mostly kept my head above water, so... yes?
    What were your favorite memories from the past year?: Hiking in Stone Mountain.
    Do you have any new years traditions?: I'm starting to feel hideously boring here - I think I try to spend the day doing what I'd like to do more of during the year. This year we met up with a friend group and were social.
    Is there anything you'd like to do more of in 2026?: More art, more writing, more confidence in my own abilities at work.

    The New Friends
    What kind of friend(s) are you searching for?: People who care about others, who stand against injustice, who love or feel a deep connection to nature, who are open-minded, love science and literature or learning in general, creatives, those learning from their past mistakes, those looking to heal old trauma, and those who simply are hanging on to get through each day. Though I'm not very picky, I do love fully and I want more connection in the world.
    What do you like to read about?: All manner of things.
    How often do you check your friends feed?: Currently, at least once a day, though I have leapt into periods of silence at time, I do always come back.
    Do you have any deal-breakers?: Bigotry, xenophobia/racism, transphobia or homophobia, climate-change denialism, flat-earthers and other conspiracy theorists. I am not anti-faith by any means, but fundamentalism or attempts to convert others grind my teeth. Also I have a huge respect for animals and other species we share the planet with and their rights to exist independently of humans without harm, so if you're regularly posting or discussing hunting successes, we may not mesh well together.
    Do you mind reading about fandom?: No. I am not particularly fannish in the sense that I don't write fanfic or create fan art, but I'm certainly not put off by it as it helps me to explore other words and perspectives.
    If so, what fandoms would you like to read about?: Okay, fine. OFMD is very fun.

    Currently...
    Reading: An Immense World by Ed Yong and The People's Library by Veronica Henry
    Watching: Stranger Things, The Pitt, Bridgerton, The Diplomat
    Playing: With art supplies.... (I need to work on my musical influences).
    Thinking about: How we survive a world which is going to change drastically under climate change without defaulting into authoritarianism/fascism and endless resource wars.
    Hobby/Interest: Watercolors, sketching, writing (in general, but more poetry would be a start), hiking, vegan cooking, books in most flavors, weight-lifting, ecology, social justice, climate justice, sustainable living, mutual aid.
    Planning for: The day he dies. The next bold hike. How to change and/or update a career mid-life.

    January Language Roundup

    Feb. 1st, 2026 09:21 am
    lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
    [personal profile] lebateleur
    Duo fuckery continues apace: in addition to retroactively resetting users' progress through courses (i.e., I completed Indonesian unit 17 in December 2025. After completing two more Indonesian units last month I somehow find myself at the start of unit 17 as of February 1st), the app has started only registering lessons completed toward the daily quests after 15 minutes of engagement. As no doubt intended, this rankles from a "But I want to hit the gamification metrics!" perspective. From a language learning perspective, sustained engagement—not collecting merit badges—is what produces results, so maintaining a daily streak (regardless of whether or not the app logs it as such) is what I'm focused on.

    Chinese — Finished 1/9 of Rookie Unit 8; legendary through Rookie Unit 3
    Dutch — Finished 1/2 of Explorer Unit 3; legendary through Rookie Unit 6
    Gaelic — Finished 1/3 of Explorer Unit 16; legendary through the Explorer Unit 10
    Hindi — Finished 4/5 of Unit 1; backburnered to focus on the letters
    Indonesian — Finished Explorer Unit 16; legendary through Explorer Unit 10
    Japanese — Finished 2/3 of Trailblazer Unit 8; legendary through Traveler Unit 20
    Korean — Finished 1/3 of Rookie Unit 6; legendary through Rookie Unit 5
    Latin — Finished 1/3 of Rookie Unit 6
    Manx — Finished 1/2 of lesson 10 of the Loayr Gaelg 2 textbook
    Welsh — Finished 1/3 of Rookie Unit 6; legendary through Rookie Unit 3

    これで以上です。

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