annavere | Network

(As is so often the case, I'm generally up to date on reading my DW circle, but not doing at all well with commenting.)

I guess at this point we're well into the liminal last bit of the year. (I said to

scruloose earlier that I still try to hold "Christmas is twelve days, dammit" in my heart, but it's hard, especially when our observance of the the holiday at all is so low-key.) We had masked visits with both sets of parents (mine on Christmas Eve and

scruloose's on Boxing Day), and in between, Christmas Day was just the two of us and the cats and the Netflix fireplaces. My mom sent us home with Christmas stockings and some gifts (also very low-key; we still keep nudging for just not doing presents at all), and the latter included a hard copy of the most recent edition of Garner's Modern English Usage, which was a delightful surprise.

We actually had a white Christmas, which has never been a sure thing and is getting rarer and rarer at terrible speeds, but now ice and rain are arriving, to be followed by a cold snap, so I'm really glad we don't need to leave the house anytime soon. (See also: will we lose power? Very possibly! >.< But we're pretty well-equipped to deal with it.)

I'm feeling like I should be looking ahead or setting small goals or trying to find specific things I want to focus on, but so far I'm not really scrounging the brain for it. Anyone want to tell me about how you're approaching it?

(I do think I'll sign up for a GYWO wordcount goal again, despite having written almost literally zero words this year, but at this point I have the grim suspicion that the words may stay gone until a new full-on fannish obsession hits me, and that's so infrequent for me. ;_; I have so many Guardian WIPs and fragments. [And while I'm enjoying seeing all the fannish glee over Heated Rivalry, I don't currently feel fannish about it myself {which, honestly, I'm okay with}.])

Recent media, mostly books: All Is Bright, Llinos Cathryn Thomas' "read over Advent" novella, which was lovely; The Dark is Rising (book), which I'm glad to have finally read; I don't know if/when I might read the books that follow it; Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher; Widdershins by Jordan L. Hawk; KJ Charles' Masters in this Hall (which I should've checked the series info about first, as it's the third Lilywhite Boys book and I haven't read the second. Oops); and Brigid Kemmerer's A Curse So Dark and Lonely.

scruloose and I finished listening to System Collapse, so we're out of Murderbot books. Yesterday (?) we listened to the four-minute audiobook sample of The Thief, which I might be able to work with? But wow, the voice sounds so much older than Gen to me. (Also, Kobo, four minutes is a reasonable sample length, but it literally cuts off mid-word.)

I watched the season finale of Heated Rivalry pretty promptly on Friday morning, for fear of being spoiled, which meant

scruloose, who hadn't seen any of the show previously, pretty much watched it too while feeding the cats and having their own breakfast. (I did give them some background info first.) As noted above: not feeling fannish, but I thought that was really well done overall, and the actors seem like an absolute delight.

And we've watched two movies since starting vacation (Wake Up Dead Man and Sinners), which brings me up to a whopping four [4] movies this year.

Current Mood: okay

chocolatefrogs posting in

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Next picture: Nyota Uhura (Star Trek: The Original Series)

oursin

Out for my walk today, went through the pocket park behind the house, and there was a lady with a small terrier (I think), that was going absolutely spare under some trees -

- and looking up I finally saw, right up at the very top where it had attained to, a squirrel, which was presumably the reason for the agitation.

Had some passing converse with the dog's owner anent this, who claims that he will never actually catch a squirrel, even though they are tame enough that if you go and sit on one of the park benches they will come and look you over.

Mostly the dogs that one sees being walked in the park are less vociferous, perhaps they have grown wise to the ways of squirrels.

So anyway, I passed on to the other somewhat larger park, and see no advance yet in what is supposed to be a development involving a pergola (???) and further eco-stuff but at least there is no longer unsightly work being done at that spot.

Have only very lately discovered that two objects which I vaguely thought, had I thought at all, were maybe bird-houses, are actually insect-houses. Much to my chagrin, I can find nothing about this on the park website which boasts of various eco and environment good stuff that goes on there (I am still trying to work out what the sparrow-meadow is, have not seen plume nor feather of a sparrow on my ambles).

However, I can at least point dr rdrz at this site where I perceive that insect houses are quite A Thing: designed to provide safe nesting, hibernation, and breeding spaces for beneficial pollinators such as solitary bees, butterflies, ladybirds, and lacewings'.

I assume solitary bees are a specific species, and have not actually been expelled from their hive for some vile transgression, to roam the earth etc etc etc like an apian ancient mariner.

ao3_highlanderseries_feed

Posted by Anonymous

https://archiveofourown.org/works/75858946

by Anonymous

While enroute to start a new life, a roadside breakdown changes Richie’s plans.

Words: 3854, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Highlander: The Series
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: Gen
Characters: Richie Ryan, Angie Burke
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Friendship, Moving On

https://archiveofourown.org/works/75858946

snickfic

So many delicious goodies. :') I hope to make at least one more recs post before writer reveals.

Two, Seven, Eight, Possibly in Michigan, 1.8k. The Beachwood Place Mall is not a great work environment. The canon is a bizarre 1983 short film about weird men in masks following women in shopping malls, possibly with the intention of eating them, which you can watch here; this fic is a series of incident reports and answering machine messages to and from a concerned perfume counter employee. IDK if it's possible to fully capture the fever dream quality of the film, but this takes a good stab.

an island made from fate, The Secret History, Camilla & Charles, 1.6k. Early on at Hampden, Camilla escapes a tedious house party and finds Charles. This is a great, elegantly written little character study of Camilla, who never got quite enough time in the book IMO, and really shows the fault lines of her relationship with Charles. Great stuff.

k2, p2, yo, k2tog, The Raven Tower, The Strength and Patience of the Hill and The Myriad, 1.2k. The Strength and Patience tells a story about a sheep, and The Myriad has quibbles. The story about the sheep is fun and feels very in keeping with the universe of the novel, and the reveal about why the Strength and Patience has chosen to tell this particular story is delightful.

la femme comme il (en) faut, Impromptu (1991), George Sand, 3.2k. George gets invited to a salon and attends despite her better instincts. I'm not familiar with the movie and found this via the historical RPF tag, but I really enjoyed this vivid portrait of the Parisian artistic community at this time period, and the last scene really elevates it, IMO, and ties the whole thing together. I love the subtle emotional arc of this, and now I kind of want to go find the George Sand biography the author mentionds in the notes.

More A Comment Than A Question, The Dispossessed, Laia Asieo Odo & Sadik, 2.3k. Every so often, Laia goes a little mad and hears a voice claiming to be from the future. It's been a long time since I read about these characters, but I enjoyed this so much. The device of visiting Laia at these various points in her life was very cool, and there's something so peaceful about this whole fic, too, the same sense of peace and simplicity I got from reading the novel years ago.

There's No Discharge in the War, The Long Walk - Stephen King, Stebbins, 12k. Stebbins walks, dies, walks again. Stebbins has always been a sneaky favorite of mine, and I love seeing him get a fic all his own here that fleshes him out and gives him his own unique horrific trauma! The author uses the time loop device to fantastic and creative effect, and it all adds up to a conclusion that I like more and more the longer I think about it. Absolutely spectacular work. One of my favorites this year.

Hyacinth Girl, Waking the Moon, Oliver Crawford, 7.6k. Oliver, before the Divine. The author tags this as "Tragic Backstory" and they are correct!! I read this book last year and yet feel as though I'm missing things in this fic; I can't quite tell how many of these elements were present in the novel and which the author invents here, but the result is gorgeous and heartbreaking. You've got fairy tale stuff, dysfunctional family, the Benandanti always menacing in the background, more literay quotes than you can shake a stick at, absolutely gorgeous imagery.

Knife, Rope (1948), Brandon/Phillip, 4.9k. Brandon and Phillip's class go on a camping trip, and Brandon discovers that Phillip is not just more wallpaper. This is obviously backstory to the movie but feels like a beautiful, self-contained little psychopathic romance on its own. Two weirdos falling in love via discussing murder scenarios!! I was compelled from start to finish.

princessofgeeks

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minoanmiss

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ysabetwordsmith posting in

goals_on_dw

Happy Snowflake Season to all! As we prepare to kick off the 2026

snowflake_challenge, please feel free to promote this event within your own circles. You are welcome to use any of these new banners for that. The community page also has icons.

This event may appeal to those with goals about blogging, reading, writing, arts and crafts, networking, making friends, having fun, and so on.

Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: excited

itsanonyx posting in

your_favourites

Challenge #229 - Favourites 2025

[January 04th 2026 (04pm Central European Time)]

Please let me know if you need an extension.

-

[HELP NEEDED] Special Challenge

♥

Current Mood: sick

susandennis

My brother arrives a week from tomorrow!! He's here for 6 days and I was a little worried that we might not have enough to do. I don't have any sports channels and he's no longer eating. But, then I organized my list of todo's.

I think we'll be busy enough. Plus I still have a week to add to the list. Plus he can watch me eat. That should make up for no sports channels. hahahaha

And, yep, my latest thing is writing on my fridge with erasable markers.

profiterole_reads

Why on Earth: An Alien Invasion Anthology, created by Rosiee Thor and Vania Stoyanova and written by 10 more authors, was a lot of fun. Teen aliens on a rescue mission crash-land on Earth.

This book is called an "anthology" but it's more of a collaboration (like my beloved Grimoire of Grave Fates). Rosiee Thor and Vania Stoyanova wrote the prologue presenting the aliens, then the other authors wrote stories about them encountering human teens, or sometimes just about humans dealing with the existence of the UFO. It's labelled as YA, but the writing feels MG to me.

The aliens choose their own genders, and don't necessarily stick with it. There are several enbies (among both the aliens and the humans), a trans boy, as well as some m/m, f/f and f/nb.

spikedluv

I did a load of laundry (bed sheets, so also stripped and re-made the bed), hand-washed dishes, vacuumed the bedroom rug (I used to think the old vacuum did okay on the bedroom rug, but it was even doing poorly there because the new vacuum just glides over it and I don’t have to go over a spot more than once to suck up the dog hair; such a treat!), cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and changed kitty litter (thankfully I’m done with the crap litter and back to the usual). I turned the last little bit of chuck roast into soup.

I finished Boyfriend Material and read some fanfic. I watched the Bills game. NGL, getting that two-point conversion would’ve been exciting as heck, but I wish they’d gone for the safe (safer) play. It’s no fun watching your team lose. *pouts*

Today I tried the Cinnamon Plum tea. It was pretty good, and not too cinnamon-y. But I also didn’t let it steep as long (as I did with the Cinnamon Orange) for the first cup, which might have helped.

Bad news: I felt myself starting to get stuffy today. I hope that whatever I catch from Pip is mild.

Temps started out at 1.8(F) (BRR!) and reached 32 (according to Pip; I missed it). There was actually a little bit of sun in the morning, but it didn’t last, sadly. Freezing rain started during the evening and we're supposed to get more overnight. (Spoiler alert: we did get more overnight. o_O)

Mom Update:

Mom sounded good when I spoke to her. I can’t wait until I can see her again. I want to see for myself that she’s looking as good as she’s sounding. My brother visited her in the morning and Sister A in the afternoon, so she did have some company, which is good.

susandennis

When I lived near Pittsburgh, I got to go to the opening of the new Three Rivers Stadium (baseball). It was a big huge fucking deal to get to go and I was thrilled. I heard this summer that they are talking about replacing the stadium that replaced Three Rivers. Ha!

This weekend I learned that they are retiring NYC Metro cards. I am a subway token girl. The tokens were a little smaller than dimes and clung to the bottom of your purse, especially when you were in a hurry. I was long gone from NYC by the time they retired tokens and now they are retiring the token replacements.

If ya live long enough...

It is still pretty dark and also foggy. Perfect for swimming but not in ice cold water. I wonder if we will be able to volleyball tomorrow. I'll go down to the pool/gym later today to find out. And probably do some time on those horrible machines. Oh! I just got a note from Erica (the fitness director) saying this morning the pool is 79 degrees which is, technically, within (bottom) the range for lap swimming but not for my lap swimming.

I do think I'm going over to the second hand shop this morning and see if I can score a purple or green sweater to unravel for hair. I know the goods will be better and more varietal at Goodwill BUT also there is a whole lot more stuff to tempt me at Goodwill so best to stick to Value Village.

But they don't open til 10 so I guess I'll get dressed first.

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Next: Scotty from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

minoanmiss

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purplecat

A LEGO Orrery - on top of a circular base containing cogs, sits a lego pillar with a large yellow ball. An arm extends out to one side ending in a circular platform with a smaller blue ball

You can't actually see it, I realise all of a sudden, but there is a tiny moon that circles around the Earth which is obscured, in this view, by the Earth itself.

innitmarvelous_og posting in

iconthat

LINK: https://i.imgur.com/tXPkvQB.jpg

Next: The Avengers (2012)

siria

I'm home for Christmas and the New Year, hurrah. I've drunk a lot of tea, there have been mince pies, I've spent nice time with the nieces. I also had the peak "Irish village at the holidays" experience of having to make small talk for a few minutes with a man whose wife is—known to even far-flung diaspora members like myself, but unknown to him—having an open affair with the parish priest. This is the kind of wholesome experience that you just don't get in other places.

( Generation Kill )

( Heated Rivalry )

linaewen posting in

writethisfanfic

Hello on Monday! How's the day going so far for fic? (If you haven't gotten started on your day as yet, how did yesterday go for writing fic?)

- Excellent!
- Terrible
- Somewhere in between
- Nothing doing

How much time have you spent on writing fic today, roughly?

- None
- 30 minutes or less
- 30-60 minutes
- 60-90 minutes
- More than 90 minutes

In five words or less, how do you feel about that?

skygiants

The Queen's Embroiderer: A True Story of Paris, Lovers, Swindlers, and the First Stock Market Crisis did quite a good job of giving me historical context around the lives of artisans and upwardly mobile bourgeois in 17th and early 18th century France and only a mediocre job IMO of convincing me of its central argument, but I was reading it for the former and not the latter so I can't say I was disappointed per se ...

As the author, historian Joan DeJean, introduces her narrative, she was browsing the National Archives when she came across two documents: the first, appointing Jean Magoulet as official embroiderer to Queen Marie-Thérèse of France; the second, decreeing that Magoulet's daughter Marie Louise should be put in prison and deported to New Orleans on charges of prostitution. DeJean immediately dropped what she was doing to Get To The Bottom Of This and went on a deep dive into the entire Magoulet family as well as the family of Louis Chevrot, the young man whose involvement with Marie-Louise resulted in the charges above.

In order to write this family saga, Joan DeJean has pulled out every relevant family document -- marriage licenses, birth certificates, guardianship statements, criminal charges, recorded purchases, etc. etc. -- and she does a clear and interesting job of explaining what we can learn from them, what these kinds of documents normally look like and what their context is, what the specific features of these family documents imply, and letting you follow her logic with your own brain. I appreciate this very much! I had no idea, for example, that it was standard in 17th-century France for the court to appoint a guardian for any child who lost a parent, even if they still had the other parent living, to ensure that their financial interests were protected, something that came up often in this narrative where a lot of kids were losing parents in situations where their financial interests were not particularly protected. It's a really good example of historical detective work, how you can draw a picture of a family through time through the bureaucratic litter they leave behind, and I appreciated it very much.

On the other hand, Joan DeJean also occasionally slips into writing like this --

In the course of their attempts both to get rich quick and to save their skin when they got into bad straits, the Queen's Embroiderers became imposters, tricksters, con artists nonpareil. They lied about everything and to everyone: to the police, to notaries, to their in-laws. They lied about their ages and those of their children, about their professional accomplishments and their net worth. They caroused; they philandered; they made a mockery of the laws of church and state. The only truly authentic thing about them was their extraordinary talent and their ability to weave gold and silver thread into the kind of garments that seemed the stuff of dreams. In their lives and on an almost daily basis, haute couture crossed paths with high crime.

Savage beauty indeed.

-- which made me laugh out loud every time it happened. So, bug, feature? who could say ....

Anyway, Joan DeJean makes a pretty good argument for most of the family gossip she pulls out about the Magoulets and the Chevrots, but the center of her argument about the Great Tragic Romance between Marie-Louise Magoulet and Louis Chevrot rests on a really elaborate switcheroo that I simply do not buy. In drawing out her family saga, DeJean has become obsessed with the fact that there seem to have been two Marie-Louise Magoulets, one being more than a decade older than the other, and, crucially, also more than a decade older than Louis Chevrot; ( I guess this is technically spoilers for a three hundred year old scandal )

But a.) context about material culture and craftsmanship is what I was here for and context is what I got, in spades, and b.) if you're going to invent a historical conspiracy theory, make it as niche as possible, is what I say, so despite the fact that I don't BELIEVE DeJean I still spiritually support her. Has she perhaps connected a few more dots than actually exist? Perhaps. But I still certainly got my money's worth [none; library] out of the book!

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