hermionesviolin

wickedgame posting in

Fandoms: 9-1-1: Lone Star, Black Lightning, Dynasty, Heated Rivalry, Mako Mermaids, Mr. Robot, Namib, Nancy Drew, Narcos, New Girl, Romil & Jugal, Skymed, Stranger Things, Supergirl

rest HERE @

mundodefieras

spikedluv

I hit Price Chopper and Agway while I was downtown. I picked up fixings for lasagna and lots of dog treats (that won’t last as long as they should *side-eyes Pip*).

I did a load of laundry, hand-washed dishes, went for several walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I hit the library when it opened in the afternoon to pick up a book (and got two for my efforts!), then also stopped at Stewart’s. We finished up the leftover beef veggie soup (that I made with the leftover chuck roast) for supper.

I added ~1,000 words to my fic for

smallfandomfest!! And I did it at McD’s! This is the first time I’ve gone back to McD’s in weeks! Possibly even months. (When was that time I was told the heat was fixed, only to show up and it was still freezing? That was the last time I was there.) The heat was not only working today, it actually got TOO hot at times, lol! But I wasn’t going to complain about that.

I tried the Apricot tea today. It wasn’t bad, but it won’t be one of my favorites. Why is tea so soothing when you don’t feel your best? Speaking of not feeling my best, I’m still in the drawn-out stuffed/runny nose stage with the fun addition of a sinus pressure headache from time to time. (I spoke to Pip’s employee who went to urgent care; he was diagnosed with a major sinus infection, so not exactly what Pip had. Weird that he got that, Pip got what he thinks is the flu, and I’ve got this half-assed maybe-a-cold thing going on. It seems like I have to have gotten what Pip had, so maybe the flu shot was good for something, in that it mitigated the symptoms?!! IDK)

I read both fanfic (and even left comments without procrastinating!!!) and from a book! I also watched more Secrets of the Zoo. AND I placed an online order with another Christmas GC, which included a pretty box to hold tea bags for myself!!

Temps started out at 12.9(F) and reached 30.7. Once it hit that high, at around 1pm, it turned right around and started going down again. At 3pm it was already 21.7. The temps drop so quickly this time of the year.

Mom Update:

Mom sounded good when I spoke to her. Sister A had visited her earlier (and pulled out another puzzle), which was nice. (Sister A’s visits will be curtailed when school starts up again on Monday, though.) She told me that eating was going okay, but she’s been relying on the protein shakes mostly. (Makes me wonder why she hasn’t made herself something like the instant mashed potatoes again.)

oracne

While the church for my choir's New Year's Eve performance was not absolutely jammed, it was pretty full, including the balconies, and judging from comments from friends as I exited through the sanctuary, it was an excellent and meaningful performance. Jean, who used to sing with us, said she had cried through the entire part three. Whoa. It was also special because for one of our regular soprano soloists, Jess, it was her fiftieth performance as a soloist.

Rebecca and Jess are founders of Variant 6, my favorite local small vocal ensemble. Rebecca is on the left, Jess on the right, in gold:

Watch on YouTube

"Laudamus Te" from last year's NYE Bach B Minor Mass.

Watch on YouTube

After the performance, I was too wiped out for dinner; luckily, a bus came pretty quickly. I got home, ate dinner, removed my eye makeup, and crawled into bed. Surprisingly, after my afternoon coffee, I managed to get to sleep fairly soon. I don't recall hearing many fireworks (apparently, someone saved their illegal firecrackers for the night of New Year's Day...a lot of them).

New Year's Day, I had decided our menu was nachos and another small trifle. The nachos had cheese, pre-cooked chicken seasoned with adobo and mild salsa, and spinach. The trifle was in a glass loaf pan: more cinnamon graham crackers for a base, a layer of spiced peaches (from a jar), a thick layer of whipped cream, pumpkin snaps, blueberries, and a drizzle of the sugar syrup from the peaches. It all turned out great!

January 2, I hung out with

drinkingcocoa and family.

Today is laundry and more Flight Rising. I have to go back to the dayjob on Monday, so I might do some cooking today or tomorrow as well.

princessofgeeks

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sabethea

Challenge #1

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

Hi, I’m Sabethea, often known in fannish places as iamisaac. I’ve never done the snowflake challenge despite being in fandom for upwards of 25 years (which gives you a sense of how old I am) so it felt in a way as if it were time.

I used to write a lot and I’d like to write more but these days I’m more of a reader. I read an awful lot of fanfic - if you’re in the Merlin fandom and write anything long, you’ll probably have had a comment from me, as will a lot of Teen Wolf writers, though not for a while. I try and comment on every long fic I read, unless I didn’t really like it (but if I liked it enough to finish it, I’ll kudos it anyway because if you’ve written 40k words and I’ve read them, you deserve some recognition of that).

I sometimes have ideas for fics, which I post on tumblr, because I don’t have the energy to write them myself and no one runs feats where you offer prompts in the same way they used to, these days. And occasionally I will read one of those one word prompts on tumblr and write a ficlet, but usually I’m too tired and disabled. Even writing this post has exhausted me.

I love fandom, though, and have met some of my best friends through it, one of whom I was chatting with just this morning, even though we’ve both left the original fandom well behind us. :)

badfalcon

This week's Book Blogger Hop question is Which genre are you eager to jump into more this year, and what draws you to it? and for me, it's more about finding my way back to old favourites, rather than something new

I want to read more horror and science fiction

As a teen and into my early adulthood, horror was everything to me. I grew up on Anne Rice and Stephen King — the lush, gothic obsession of Rice, the slow-creeping dread and very human horror of King

Sci‑fi has always pulled me in with scale.

I love big ideas and big worlds, but especially what it feels like to live inside them - the people, the found families, the hope that keeps flickering even when things are strange or frightening. I enjoy hard sci‑fi just as much as space opera, and I’ve always had a soft spot for stories that take the science seriously without losing their sense of wonder.

I've dipped a toe back in recently and really enjoyed Andy Weir, which reminded me how much I love this genre when it’s grounded and curious. And sitting patiently (or maybe not so patiently) on my TBR are Becky Chambers and Martha Wells, both of whom feel like exactly the kind of character‑driven sci‑fi I’m craving right now.

A lot of this love was shaped by what I watched as much as what I read. Stargate, Star Trek, and Doctor Who all taught me to associate science fiction with optimism, connection, and possibility.

Horror is a slightly different pull.

I grew up on Anne Rice and Stephen King, and I think that shaped my tastes more than I realised. What stayed with me wasn’t just fear, but atmosphere - stories that linger, that sit heavy in the chest, that care about obsession, grief, belief, and the slow creep of dread rather than constant shocks.

That’s probably still what I want now. Horror that unsettles instead of overwhelms, that lets emotion and character do as much work as the scares. I don’t yet know what that looks like in contemporary horror, and that uncertainty is part of the appeal. I've been really enjoying Mira Grant and T Kingfisher recently.

But I'm excited to start exploring both genres again and see what kind of stories are waiting for me!

Current Mood: determined

dine

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full_metal_ox posting in

common_nature

Taken on 2 January 2026 at 19:44 U.S. Eastern Standard Time.

The lunar halo of mackerel clouds, darkly dappled by the spaces between, keeps the moon from being reduced to just another circle of warm white light in the electric constellation of the apartment complex—which has usually been the effect when I’ve tried to take a picture. (That startling peacock-blue color was a happy artifact of my cheap-ass flip-phone camera!)

You can see how the moon continues an arc formed by the walkway lights—somewhat resembling the head of Scorpius, with the stairway light standing in for Antares.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: enthralled

dialecticdreamer posting in

journalsandplanners

Does anyone else in this group create their own planner? Not a BuJo, in that it's got a framework and elements of a commercially sold planner.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: enthralled

elisem

(Whoever hellseries on AO3 is, this is for them, because it was their comment on https://archiveofourown.org/works/75916086 that made it happen.)

Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning Millay

Says the reader to the poet, “Your verse fine and wild

My attention has caught, and my senses beguiled”

Says the poet to the reader, “Are you going my way?

I am Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning Millay

You’ll not find me in found verse; the sonnet for me

Is the path of a poet determined to be free”

And she’ll pull you on behind

And down among the Muses you will ride

Some say that her love life is skid marks and swerves

But she’ll tell you in earnest it is Beauty she serves

She is changeable weather with a quicksilver soul

Edna St. Vincent’s not the kind you can control

But she writes like an angel with a devil’s sense of style

With heavenly precision and a wicked knowing smile

She says “They all will know some day

The name of Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning… Millay”

“Come down, come down, dear reader,” said the poetry patrol

“For they’ve taken young St. Vincent for the stealing of souls

She was speed racing Sappho, the Brownings, and Poe

Oh, come down, dear reader, to her final folio”

Now her body is broken and her breath is enjambed

She’s off to be the laureate of lays for the damned

But she smiles to hear you say

“I love you, Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning… Millay”

Vincent, by all opinions, could pour power into a poem

And take your breath and your heart before she took you home

Now too many poets — I won’t name names — they just came to play

They didn’t have a soul like St. Vincent Millay

She left us all longing, in spite of our pleas

But she reached out her hand and she left us with these

She gave us her visions, she gave us her poems

And the Muses swooped down to carry her home

And the name we still reverence today

Is Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning… Millay

mrkinch

U suggested we make another try for the Summer Tanager at Booker T Anderson and we were there by 9. It was quite a different experience than two days ago, fewer and different birds, and perhaps a few fewer American Robins, but we still dipped on the rarities. Fun things were a Great Egret that flew in and landed on a tall light standard (the creek isn't big enough to support much Egret food so I don't think it's there often) and a red-breasted Sapsucker. We call U the Sapsucker Whisperer, if there's one around she'll find it. ( This list: )

Then we went to Meeker Slough exactly at high tide, a very high tide in fact. The marshes east of the trail were deeply flooded, which is always interesting. The Spotted Sandpiper was not on the shore, where all the rocks and most of the mud at the edge of the channel were under water, but was hanging out on a half-submerged log. A large flock of Black Skimmers would either roost on an offshore spit or fly around in their loose lines, which are so cool to watch. We didn't see a Ridgway's Rail but we heard one, and amazingly I found a Wilson's Snipe, which made me very happy. ( That list: )

So it was lovely morning, not too cold, not raining, and good birds. Good way to start the year.

ainsley

Just finished watching Heated Rivalry and am having a lot of feelings, as one does. Not entirely sure what some of the feelings are, just yet, but I think I'll spend some time this weekend poking at them to see if they're amenable to identifying themselves. It's so wonderful that this beautiful brilliant show exists and is creating so much joy at a time when it's so needed.

Right before this, we watched The Pitt, which felt like it was starting to rearrange me as a person in a really good way, and this might be a little, as well.

It's been so long since I've had a fannish conversation, so long since I've had a fandom, that I almost don't even know what to say about anything (not sure I ever did! mostly i just showed up and stuck around). Hopefully there will be plenty of conversations about both of them so I can join in sometimes :)

aurumcalendula

I attempted the ginger cookies with baking soda as the leavening agent (using roughly the proportion used in chocolate chip cookies), since I figured between the brown sugar in the recipe and ginger juice I was using in place of ginger liqueur, it should have enough acid to react with it.

They turned out reasonably like the recipe photos (they actually spread!) and taste pretty good even though I managed to forget the ground ginger (between the ginger juice and crystalized ginger pieces they do still taste like ginger).

( photo under the cut )

torachan

1. More rain than expected today, but we still managed to have a nice lunch at Universal Studios. We are definitely still in the exploration phase there, as there are a lot of things we still don't know. For example, today we found out that the fake buildings in Simpsons Land apparently hide a giant indoor dining area (two floors!). We didn't actually go in this time, but I'm curious to see if it's themed as well.

2. The bathroom sink was draining slow, but I got a bottle of Drano at the store this morning on my walk and that seems to have fixed it.

3. Chloe hardly ever lounges on my bed lately (she prefers Carla's bed or her warming bed), but she was hanging out there this afternoon.

dancesontrains

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Challenge #1

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

I've been wanting to use this space more, and it's been a long time since I posted regularly so this challenge looked like a fun way to ease back into it -

Hi, I'm Dances (not my wallet name, that's on a need-to-know basis.) I'm a queer trans Desi guy in his late thirties living in a suburb of one of the larger Northern cities in England, Manchester. I moved here about seven years ago as I wanted to be nearer some family who were more accepting of my transition than my parents were and are.

I recently finished studying for an undergraduate degree in Sociology, and am now doing a CILIP certified part-time postgrad course focusing on being a librarian. (I know the public field in the UK is dying after years of austerity - as much as I love public libraries, I'm more interested in something like academic or health librarianship or related fields, I don't have the temperament for public facing work.)

I'm also long-term disabled due to a small pile of mental health issues - so far I've been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and ADHD, and spent years trying to be seen for a autism diagnosis but the paperwork was lost somewhere and I gave up. The diagnosis wouldn't mean any extra support, as far as I know; it also further limits my future emigration options as many countries refuse to grant residency to folk with that diagnosis.

Talking of, I have a fiance (he/him, sey/sem pronouns.) Sey live in (Deep South state) in the US. Neither of us are blessed with extra cash so IRL visits have been extremely limited over the past seven and a half years of online dating; sey're hopefully coming to visit me this year and I am bouncing out of my skin with excitement :D We plan to marry once I've finished my current postgrad, though immigration stuff is hellish even with our US and UK passports and borders shouldn't exist.

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3189/

They're not generally used for crewed spacecraft because astronauts HATE going around the corners.

https://xkcd.com/3189/

sixbeforelunch posting in

journalsandplanners

I don't know how interesting this will be to people other than me. I'm not the most artistic or creative person, not by a long shot, but I've decided to share my current primary planner anyway. This set up served me really well last year. This year I've made a few minor improvements, and it's possible that some of these ideas will be useful to other people.

The journal I'm using is the Panobook from Studio Neat. I love the wide landscape layout and the dot grid, and I can vouch for the quality of the paper. I use cheap ballpoint pens (I might experiment with fountain pens at some point, but I haven't yet), and also cheap markers. Neither bleed through these pages. The cover is sturdy, and the spiral binding is resilient. It's 50 sheets, 100 total pages long, which is enough for the entire year and then some. I stay on one side of the page, and then when I get to the end, I flip it over and start writing on the reverse side, so the spiral is always on the left side as I use the notebook. You could obviously just use both sides of the page as you go, but I found this works better for me. (If you're a lefty, in theory you could do the opposite and keep the spiral on the right as you go. The pages have no set orientation.)

( Image heavy below the cut. CN: brief mention of weight tracking. )

torachan

Since I have another four day weekend, I asked Carla if she wanted to do something else one of the days, and she said she wanted to go to Universal again. The forecast has more rain for Saturday and Sunday, so we decided to go today since it was supposed to be clear all day (as of yesterday) and then no rain until around 3pm (as of this morning).

( Read more... )

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Elizabeth (the delinquent, ecumenical)

December 2025

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stuff wot I'm reading

Network

multifandom icons.

The Day in Spikedluv (Friday, Jan 2)

Happy New Year!

argh

Snowflake Challenge #1

New Genres in the New Year

lend us your ears. we promise to return them within seven to ten business days

Full Wolf Supermoon, 2 January 2026.

more Heated Rivalry thoughts

Planner question

another random Heated Rivalry thought

filk: Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning Millay

1/2/2026 Booker T Anderson Jr Park // Meeker Slough

[friday i'm in love]

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Daily Happiness

Snowflake Challenge: day 1

Conic Sections

my 2026 planner and tracker

2026 Universal Studios Trip #1 (1/2/26)

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December 2025

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