you are all magnificently helpful - thank you <3
Jan. 16th, 2026 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettToday's frivolous low-stakes question is: if following a recipe, to what extent do you consider "mixed lettuces", "mixed greens", and "mixed leaf salad" synonymous?
kaberettWell, we're finally here [me, pols]
Jan. 16th, 2026 06:57 pmsidereaThis was it. This was the week that America admitted America is going fascist – which is to say has gone fascist, i.e. has had its government seized by fascists with broad fascist support for imposing fascism which it is now doing with zeal, i.e. has an acute case of fulminant fascism.
I've been watching this bear down on us for a half a century, so it's slightly dizzying to finally have everybody else come into alignment. One of the basic exigencies of my life has been moving through the world being reasonably certain of a bunch of things that I knew the vast majority of my fellows thought were insane to believe. Over the last ten years, more and more people have been noticing, "what are we doing in this handbasket and where is it going?" but – as evidenced by the behavior of the DNC over the last year – it's taken the secret police gunning Americans down in the streets (since I started writing this: and throwing flashbang grenades at or into (reports vary) passing cars carrying little kids) for the greater liberal mass to come around.
Obviously, it would have been nicer for the realization It Could Happen Here to have not required It Happening Here to be the conclusive rebuttal of their pathological skepticism. But one of my favorite sayings is, "There's three kinds. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves," (Will Rogers) and this is why. Clearly America needed to piss on the electric fence for itself. I try to be philosophical about it.
I just felt, if only for myself and posterity, I should note this long-in-coming nation-wide realization has finally been attained.
I'm not getting too carried away, though. It's hard to be too jubilant when the problem that brought us here is still very much with us, by which I don't mean the fascism itself, I mean the terrible mentality on "my" "side" that causes that pathological skepticism and other catastrophic thinking faults that brought us to this pass and lead to the fascists getting away, quite literally, with murder.
I've been watching this bear down on us for a half a century, so it's slightly dizzying to finally have everybody else come into alignment. One of the basic exigencies of my life has been moving through the world being reasonably certain of a bunch of things that I knew the vast majority of my fellows thought were insane to believe. Over the last ten years, more and more people have been noticing, "what are we doing in this handbasket and where is it going?" but – as evidenced by the behavior of the DNC over the last year – it's taken the secret police gunning Americans down in the streets (since I started writing this: and throwing flashbang grenades at or into (reports vary) passing cars carrying little kids) for the greater liberal mass to come around.
Obviously, it would have been nicer for the realization It Could Happen Here to have not required It Happening Here to be the conclusive rebuttal of their pathological skepticism. But one of my favorite sayings is, "There's three kinds. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves," (Will Rogers) and this is why. Clearly America needed to piss on the electric fence for itself. I try to be philosophical about it.
I just felt, if only for myself and posterity, I should note this long-in-coming nation-wide realization has finally been attained.
I'm not getting too carried away, though. It's hard to be too jubilant when the problem that brought us here is still very much with us, by which I don't mean the fascism itself, I mean the terrible mentality on "my" "side" that causes that pathological skepticism and other catastrophic thinking faults that brought us to this pass and lead to the fascists getting away, quite literally, with murder.
The Last Astronaut (David Wellington)
Jan. 16th, 2026 06:34 pmjs_thrillI wanted more books about people exploring dangerous and mysterious alien spaceships! And I found some! This one was well written, and an engaging read, but I did wind up feeling like it answered too many questions and wrapped things up too neatly for good cosmic horror. I want them to end with me having some degree of feeling unsettled and pondering things.
This has more explicit gore/body-horror than Ship of Fools did, in case anyone is seeking/avoiding such things.
i would give this 4 stars
This has more explicit gore/body-horror than Ship of Fools did, in case anyone is seeking/avoiding such things.
i would give this 4 stars
Slipping on into ICE [curr ev, pols]
Jan. 16th, 2026 06:14 pmsidereaThis is blackly hilarious and absolutely worth a read.
Leftist journalist Laura Jedeed showed up at an ICE recruiting events to do scope it out and write about what she found. What happened next is... eye widening.
2026 Jan 13: Slate: "You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof." [Paywall defeater] by Laura Jedeed:
Leftist journalist Laura Jedeed showed up at an ICE recruiting events to do scope it out and write about what she found. What happened next is... eye widening.
2026 Jan 13: Slate: "You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof." [Paywall defeater] by Laura Jedeed:
At first glance, my résumé has enough to tantalize a recruiter for America’s Gestapo-in-waiting: I enlisted in the Army straight out of high school and deployed to Afghanistan twice with the 82nd Airborne Division. After I got out, I spent a few years doing civilian analyst work. With a carefully arranged, skills-based résumé—one which omitted my current occupation—I figured I could maybe get through an initial interview.Click through to read the whole thing.
The catch, however, is that there’s only one “Laura Jedeed” with an internet presence, and it takes about five seconds of Googling to figure out how I feel about ICE, the Trump administration, and the country’s general right-wing project. My social media pops up immediately, usually with a preview of my latest posts condemning Trump’s unconstitutional, authoritarian power grab. Scroll down and you’ll find articles with titles like “What I Saw in LA Wasn’t an Insurrection; It Was a Police Riot” and “Inside Mike Johnson’s Ties to a Far-Right Movement to Gut the Constitution.” Keep going for long enough and you might even find my dossier on AntifaWatch, a right-wing website that lists alleged members of the supposed domestic terror organization. I am, to put it mildly, a less-than-ideal recruit.
In short, I figured—at least back then—that my military background would be enough to get me in the door for a good look around ICE’s application process, and then even the most cursory background check would get me shown that same door with great haste.
[...]
I completely missed the email when it came. I’d kept an eye on my inbox for the next few days, but I’d grown lax when nothing came through. But then, on Sept. 3, it popped up.
“Please note that this is a TENTATIVE offer only, therefore do not end your current employment,” the email instructed me. It then listed a series of steps I’d need to quickly take. I had 48 hours to log onto USAJobs and fill out my Declaration for Federal Employment, then five additional days to return the forms attached to the email. Among these forms: driver’s license information, an affidavit that I’ve never received a domestic violence conviction, and consent for a background check. And it said: “If you are declining the position, it is not necessary to complete the action items listed below.”
As I mentioned, I’d missed the email, so I did exactly none of these things.
And that might have been where this all ended—an unread message sinking to the bottom of my inbox—if not for an email LabCorp sent three weeks later. “Thank you for confirming that you wish to continue with the hiring process,” it read. (To be clear, I had confirmed no such thing.) “Please complete your required pre-employment drug test.”
The timing was unfortunate. Cannabis is legal in the state of New York, and I had partaken six days before my scheduled test. Then again, I hadn’t smoked much; perhaps with hydration I could get to the next stage. Worst-case scenario, I’d waste a small piece of ICE’s gargantuan budget. I traveled to my local LabCorp, peed in a cup, and waited for a call telling me I’d failed.
Nine days later, impatience got the best of me. For the first time, I logged into USAJobs and checked my application to see if my drug test had come through. What I actually saw was so implausible, so impossible, that at first I did not understand what I was looking at.
Somehow, despite never submitting any of the paperwork they sent me—not the background check or identification info, not the domestic violence affidavit, none of it—ICE had apparently offered me a job.
According to the application portal, my pre-employment activities remained pending. And yet, it also showed that I had accepted a final job offer and that my onboarding status was “EOD”—Entered On Duty, the start of an enlistment period. I moused over the exclamation mark next to “Onboarding” and a helpful pop-up appeared. “Your EOD has occurred. Welcome to ICE!”
I clicked through to my application tracking page. They’d sent my final offer on Sept. 30, it said, and I had allegedly accepted. “Welcome to Ice. … Your duty location is New York, New York. Your EOD was on Tuesday, September 30th, 2025.”
By all appearances, I was a deportation officer. Without a single signature on agency paperwork, ICE had officially hired me.
The Charm, Such As It Is, of the Charmera
Jan. 16th, 2026 10:23 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
scalziwhatever_feed
Kodak did a brisk business over the holidays with their meme camera, the Charmera, which is tiny enough to fit on a key chain and takes deeply lofi photos, especially in low light. But it cost $30 and as it happens I do need a keychain, so I thought I would try one out and see what I thought.
Inasmuch as every camera must be inaugurated with a picture of a cat, here is the very first photo out of the camera:
And here is a picture of me, with said camera, in my bathroom mirror.
These pictures are pretty terrible! But admittedly they are also inside my house where the lighting is not great. What happens when we go outside?
Nope, still pretty terrible.
Which is to be expected, as this thing comes with a 1.6 megapixel sensor (1440×1080), and the sensor itself is likely the size of a pinhead. You’re not taking pictures with this camera for high fidelity. You’re taking them for glitchy lo-res fun, in as good of lighting as you can get. This also had video, at the same resolution, but you know what, I’m not even going to bother.
In addition to the primary color mode the Charmera has other “fun” modes including ones that add frame and goofy pixel art to your picture, which, you know, okay, why not. You need to bring along your own micro memory card, and it’s a real pain in the ass to get it in, so you will probably never take it out (you can connect it to your computer via USB, which is also how it’s charged), but once it’s in you can take effectively infinite number of pictures because the individual image files are so small.
The UI is not great, the little screen on the back of the camera is too tiny to be of much use, and quite honestly I’m not sure what the use case of this thing is, other than to have it, and possibly give it to an 8-year-old so they can run around taking pictures without running the risk of them damaging anything valuable, like your phone or a real camera.
But, I mean, as long as you know all that going in, yeah, it’s kind of fun. And for $30(ish) bucks, not a huge outlay for trendily pixellated photos. I’ve made worse purchases recently.
— JS
Museum Visit
Jan. 16th, 2026 05:47 pmhrjBack in September, on my podcast, I aired an interview with Karli Wurzelnbacher who had curated a museum exhibition on sculptor Emma Stebbins at the Heckscher Museum on Long Island. So one of the conjunction of excuses to make this trip out to the East Coast was a chance to actually see the exhibit. Yesterday I took one of those typically complex assortments of transit peculiar to NYC to get there and had a wonderful time viewing everything.
The Heckscher is quite a small space--just five rooms and all of them in use for the show. In addition to quite an assortment of Stebbins' sculpture, there were displays of her drawings, biographical information, and a large number of photographs of works that are no longer extant (or no longer locatable), especially those documented in a scrapbook that her sister had compiled for her.
There was also a good amount of space devoted to her partnership with actress Charlotte Cushman (the exhibit used the word "wife" to my delight), as well as the rest of the expatriate artist community in Rome that they were part of. There were sculptor's tools on display and a video showing the process of mocking up a clay model, creating a cast, then using that to transfer the shape to marble.
In addition to enjoying the show, I was able to meet Karli face-to-face (although I didn't think to get a selfie with her). All in all, a lovely little adventure.
The Heckscher is quite a small space--just five rooms and all of them in use for the show. In addition to quite an assortment of Stebbins' sculpture, there were displays of her drawings, biographical information, and a large number of photographs of works that are no longer extant (or no longer locatable), especially those documented in a scrapbook that her sister had compiled for her.
There was also a good amount of space devoted to her partnership with actress Charlotte Cushman (the exhibit used the word "wife" to my delight), as well as the rest of the expatriate artist community in Rome that they were part of. There were sculptor's tools on display and a video showing the process of mocking up a clay model, creating a cast, then using that to transfer the shape to marble.
In addition to enjoying the show, I was able to meet Karli face-to-face (although I didn't think to get a selfie with her). All in all, a lovely little adventure.
This Year 365 songs: January 16th
Jan. 16th, 2026 05:44 pmjs_thrill Today's song: Fresh Cherries in Trinidad
I did not enjoy listening to this song! I think maybe a version without the ding ding ding duh duh duh ding ding of the casio keyboard would be good, but I was not a fan of this version.
The titular Trinidad turns out to be a town in California.
I did not enjoy listening to this song! I think maybe a version without the ding ding ding duh duh duh ding ding of the casio keyboard would be good, but I was not a fan of this version.
The titular Trinidad turns out to be a town in California.
A thought I'm struck by
Jan. 16th, 2026 10:12 pmcosmolinguistI did not expect that being lucky enough to have stable housing in my 40s would mean that I would spend it helping other fortysomething neurospicy queers get out of marriages gone bad.
We have me the failed foster (successful adoption! angelofthenorth always insisted on correcting me when I call myself this, heh), then P, now her.
It's ridiculously heartwarming seeing them both flourish and become more comfortable and themselves. (I imagine I must have too, but I can't see that and I have the complication of transition too old photos of me now look weird for the same reason old photos of my dad do: no beard!).)
Old Skills a Little Rusty
Jan. 16th, 2026 10:13 pmglindaThis week I've been working on making a good start to one of my resolutions, to start a new recipe notebook. (When I first started learning to cook in an organised fashion, while I was going my post-grad, I took a nice notebook I had and wrote down all my succesful recipes in it. It's a multi-coloured decade's worth of recipes that I refer to regularly even now that I'm a vegetarian and many of the recipes aren't one's I'd ever cook now.) I've been meaning to start a new one for a few years now, but never got round to it, because, well I had my tablet and most recipes I was cooking that weren't in actual cookbooks were on the internet and it was just easier to look them up, but it's really come home to me in the last year when I've gone to look something up and it's just gone. (Not even random people's food blogs, but places I'd expect things to be like the guardian or the good food magazine page.) So I've started in on recipes from my 'cook new recipes' challenges from the past few years, and a significant percentage of them are lost to link rot and paywalls.
But the other thing I've noticed - and part of what makes me want to keep the project up - is that my handwriting is really rusty. I've had to make fairly heavy usage of my tippex mouse because I keep missing letters out of words, not even in the analogue version of typos just I'm so out of practice of writing by hand that I'm half-forgetting how to form the letters properly. I used to have a problem with missing out letters when I wrote essays because I was writing so fast to keep up with my brain - the main reason I switched to typing, as it's much easier to keep up with the speed of thought/ideas that way - but I'm just copying out recipes here. Though on the plus-side, forcing myself to slow down, to form the letters properly is making it a more meditive experience than I expected it to be.
I've always prided myself on having nice handwriting. Ever since we did a unit on the Victorians and spent that whole term perfecting copperplate script I've written a minorly adapted version of that. (I adjusted some letters to be more easily read by modern eyes, so I wouldn't get marked down for mis-spelling words because my teachers that didn't recognise my old-fashioned letters.) All through secondary and university my preferred method of studying was to make notes and the rewrite my notes and I still have piles of notebooks about the place in neat multi-coloured copperplate. So it's both weird and minorly upsetting when my handwriting isn't neat despite my best efforts. No doubt with regular practice it'll improve but at the moment I'm falling a low way short of my own high standards for my handwriting.
It's a ridiculous thing to be having feelings about, I am aware, but nonetheless, I am having them. My handwriting isn't as nice as it used to be - less smooth, more effort for less pleasing results - and it annoys me. I'm feeling a little rusty here, it's a thing.
But the other thing I've noticed - and part of what makes me want to keep the project up - is that my handwriting is really rusty. I've had to make fairly heavy usage of my tippex mouse because I keep missing letters out of words, not even in the analogue version of typos just I'm so out of practice of writing by hand that I'm half-forgetting how to form the letters properly. I used to have a problem with missing out letters when I wrote essays because I was writing so fast to keep up with my brain - the main reason I switched to typing, as it's much easier to keep up with the speed of thought/ideas that way - but I'm just copying out recipes here. Though on the plus-side, forcing myself to slow down, to form the letters properly is making it a more meditive experience than I expected it to be.
I've always prided myself on having nice handwriting. Ever since we did a unit on the Victorians and spent that whole term perfecting copperplate script I've written a minorly adapted version of that. (I adjusted some letters to be more easily read by modern eyes, so I wouldn't get marked down for mis-spelling words because my teachers that didn't recognise my old-fashioned letters.) All through secondary and university my preferred method of studying was to make notes and the rewrite my notes and I still have piles of notebooks about the place in neat multi-coloured copperplate. So it's both weird and minorly upsetting when my handwriting isn't neat despite my best efforts. No doubt with regular practice it'll improve but at the moment I'm falling a low way short of my own high standards for my handwriting.
It's a ridiculous thing to be having feelings about, I am aware, but nonetheless, I am having them. My handwriting isn't as nice as it used to be - less smooth, more effort for less pleasing results - and it annoys me. I'm feeling a little rusty here, it's a thing.
When They Burned the Butterfly
Jan. 16th, 2026 04:52 pmhebethen posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fffridayHappy Friday!
This was a weird ride, to be honest. It's a fairly meaty book -- in an alternate Singapore where gangs can channel divine powers through oath tattoos that bind them to their god, the daughter of a nouveau middle-class shopkeeper discovers her mother's secrets, her own sexuality, and how far she's willing to go for revenge -- and I found it immersive in the worldbuilding and compelling in the storylines, but the pacing is absolutely bizarre. It kind of goes about its business for 80% of the pagecount, suddenly accelerates in the next 15%, and then breaks the sound barrier to crash-land the final 5% with a resolution that feels to me almost like the author ran out of energy and just summarized the rest.
If you're craving dark f/f with plenty of violence and tragedy, it might be worth a gander -- I'm deeply curious as to whether anyone else feels (or will feel) similarly about the pacing.
This was a weird ride, to be honest. It's a fairly meaty book -- in an alternate Singapore where gangs can channel divine powers through oath tattoos that bind them to their god, the daughter of a nouveau middle-class shopkeeper discovers her mother's secrets, her own sexuality, and how far she's willing to go for revenge -- and I found it immersive in the worldbuilding and compelling in the storylines, but the pacing is absolutely bizarre. It kind of goes about its business for 80% of the pagecount, suddenly accelerates in the next 15%, and then breaks the sound barrier to crash-land the final 5% with a resolution that feels to me almost like the author ran out of energy and just summarized the rest.
If you're craving dark f/f with plenty of violence and tragedy, it might be worth a gander -- I'm deeply curious as to whether anyone else feels (or will feel) similarly about the pacing.
20 icons of Ashile Sun and Li Changge from The Long Ballad for ships20in20
Jan. 16th, 2026 10:57 pmtinnyThis set took me much longer than it should have, considering this is my fave pairing right now. But once I sat down to finish it, I had fun again! It's for round 04 at ships20in20.
Enjoy!
Teasers:
( 20+3 icons of Ashile Sun and Li Changge from The Long Ballad )
Every single comment is treasured. All icons shareable! Concrit welcome. Check out my resource post for makers of textures and brushes I use.
Previous icon posts:
Enjoy!
Teasers:
( 20+3 icons of Ashile Sun and Li Changge from The Long Ballad )
Every single comment is treasured. All icons shareable! Concrit welcome. Check out my resource post for makers of textures and brushes I use.
a birthday has been had
Jan. 16th, 2026 11:01 pmmarinaI've officially completed all my birthday activities for this year, so I can like, breathe again.
There was recreational axe throwing, joint TV marathons, dinners, gifts and hugs. I chose not to have any kind of party or gathering this year, so just saw friends individually or in small groups, and it worked out OK. I also celebratedroga's birthday (and will continue to tomorrow), so it all kind of worked out with multiple events.
How have you been doing, friends?
I'm feeling a bit better than I hoped to, at this time of the year.
ETA: I have cautiously started looking at social media again, in very very limited quantities, and as twitter seems like... not the place, I now have a bluesky. IDK IDK. But if you're on there I may also be on there sometimes too I guess.
There was recreational axe throwing, joint TV marathons, dinners, gifts and hugs. I chose not to have any kind of party or gathering this year, so just saw friends individually or in small groups, and it worked out OK. I also celebrated
roga's birthday (and will continue to tomorrow), so it all kind of worked out with multiple events. How have you been doing, friends?
I'm feeling a bit better than I hoped to, at this time of the year.
ETA: I have cautiously started looking at social media again, in very very limited quantities, and as twitter seems like... not the place, I now have a bluesky. IDK IDK. But if you're on there I may also be on there sometimes too I guess.
(10 out of 20) State Visit - Stargate Atlantis (PG)
Jan. 16th, 2026 04:03 pmgoddess47 posting in sweetandshort
Title: State Visit
Author:
goddess47Character(s): John Sheppard, Rodney McKay
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: PG
Length: 279 words
Warnings: none
Notes:
For
mcsheplets prompt #144 - season 4For
sweetandshort January 2026 prompt - harmonySummary:
"Hey, Rodney, your girlfriend wants to know if you can come and play?" John teased.
State Visit on AO3
(no subject)
Jan. 16th, 2026 01:38 pmdark_heroine posting in addmeNane: Kim
Age: 45
Age: 45
I mostly post about: Everyday life, thoughts, feelings. My version of a walk-a-bout in this season of life. I have made a lot of changes in the last few months, and I have a re-new excitement for...things, everything. I do have my moments of gloom and doom because human, but I don't get stuck there.
My hobbies are: Reading, running, exercising, gaming, movies, music/concerts, anything that induces frisson. Who doesn't like free dopamine?
My fandoms are: Star Trek , Star Wars, X-Files. I was born in the 80's.
I'm looking to meet people who: anyone with an open heart and an open mind.
My posting schedule tends to be: I am going to try to post every day, since I do have a physical journal that I jot things down.
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: don't be mean. You can be angry, sad or whatever you are feeling, but when you take it and turn it around on me, we're done. I've been a punching bag for far too long and for far too many people in my life. Not going to tolerate it.
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: don't be mean. You can be angry, sad or whatever you are feeling, but when you take it and turn it around on me, we're done. I've been a punching bag for far too long and for far too many people in my life. Not going to tolerate it.
Before adding me, you should know: I'm human, just like you. Searching for connection.
Snowflake (days 7-8) and other fannish catching up
Jan. 16th, 2026 12:46 pmhamsterwomanSome fannish catching up!
1)fandomtrees still has 3 trees below the minimum number of 2 gifts, and is thus at risk of delaying reveals again (currently scheduled for Jan 17 reveals), with the decision on delaying to be made the morning of 1/17. Needy trees are mastershield's Tree (f:astro boy, f:balan wonderland, f:kingdom hearts); kalloway's Tree (f:brave nine, f:crossovers, f:fire emblem, f:granblue fantasy, f:gundam, f:kingdom of heroes, f:super robot heroes) whoremoantreatments' Tree (f:advance wars, f:bleach, f:hypnosis mic, f:kuroko no basket, f:pokemon, f:tales of berseria, f:the world ends with you). (List kept updated here.) All of these are open to fic, and the minimum fill for fic is only 100 words, if anyone knows these fandoms and can help out.
(My tree has above the minimum number of gifts but is here, and I’m eager to see what’s on it :)
2) I should’ve mentioned this earlier, but it’s been a crazy couple of weeks.lunasariel is hosting a sync read of To Shape a Dragon’s Breath in her DW here. Currently it’s her, me, and cyanmnemosyne reading along, but contrary to the name, we don’t actually have to be all synched up to participate, so if (like me) you’ve been meaning to read this book for a while, or if you’ve read it already and want to follow our impressions as we make progress through it, come join! I am currently just past halfway, lunasariel is 10-20 chapters ahead of me, and Cyan has just recently started. (And yes, my thoughts on this book are ~50% on the chemistry. Actual Periodic Table of Elements chemistry, I mean, not chemistry between characters, although I’m enjoying that too.)
3) Snowflake catch up!
The problem with doing Snowflake every year for the last, uh… 10 years, I guess? – is that for repeated questions like this, which are about ME as opposed to about my fandoms or projects or objects, which can accumulate it is much harder to come up with something new to say! Both of these questions fall under that category, and so were more challenging than most for me to answer. But let’s see if I can come up with something without repeating myself.
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.
I do want to stick to fandom-related things I like about myself for this one, so, hm. Last time I answered this question seems to be in 2017 (and my things were “good fannish role model for my children”, “thorough and detailed in talking about what I’m reading/watching”, and “conscientious beta”) and the first time in 2016 (my answers were “good fannish baba/matchmaker”, "committed to fannish crack”, and “conscientious about fandom participation”) – and I do still feel those things are all applicable to me and I still like them. But I’ve done a bunch of new things in the last 9 years, from attending conventions to paying attention to the Hugos to signing up for Yuletide, so let me focus on those new things and see if I can extract three new things I like about myself fannishly from them.
( things I like about myself viz conventions, fanfic, and Hugos )
Challenge #8: Talk about your creative process.
This is another one I’ve done before, in 2019 and in 2015, but looking at even the 2019 one, I talked about fannish poetry and graphics, but not about fannish prose/fanfic. So clearly that’s what I should talk about, but what IS my process?
( Fanfic process )
1)
fandomtrees still has 3 trees below the minimum number of 2 gifts, and is thus at risk of delaying reveals again (currently scheduled for Jan 17 reveals), with the decision on delaying to be made the morning of 1/17. Needy trees are mastershield's Tree (f:astro boy, f:balan wonderland, f:kingdom hearts); kalloway's Tree (f:brave nine, f:crossovers, f:fire emblem, f:granblue fantasy, f:gundam, f:kingdom of heroes, f:super robot heroes) whoremoantreatments' Tree (f:advance wars, f:bleach, f:hypnosis mic, f:kuroko no basket, f:pokemon, f:tales of berseria, f:the world ends with you). (List kept updated here.) All of these are open to fic, and the minimum fill for fic is only 100 words, if anyone knows these fandoms and can help out. (My tree has above the minimum number of gifts but is here, and I’m eager to see what’s on it :)
2) I should’ve mentioned this earlier, but it’s been a crazy couple of weeks.
lunasariel is hosting a sync read of To Shape a Dragon’s Breath in her DW here. Currently it’s her, me, and cyanmnemosyne reading along, but contrary to the name, we don’t actually have to be all synched up to participate, so if (like me) you’ve been meaning to read this book for a while, or if you’ve read it already and want to follow our impressions as we make progress through it, come join! I am currently just past halfway, lunasariel is 10-20 chapters ahead of me, and Cyan has just recently started. (And yes, my thoughts on this book are ~50% on the chemistry. Actual Periodic Table of Elements chemistry, I mean, not chemistry between characters, although I’m enjoying that too.) 3) Snowflake catch up!
The problem with doing Snowflake every year for the last, uh… 10 years, I guess? – is that for repeated questions like this, which are about ME as opposed to about my fandoms or projects or objects, which can accumulate it is much harder to come up with something new to say! Both of these questions fall under that category, and so were more challenging than most for me to answer. But let’s see if I can come up with something without repeating myself.
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.
I do want to stick to fandom-related things I like about myself for this one, so, hm. Last time I answered this question seems to be in 2017 (and my things were “good fannish role model for my children”, “thorough and detailed in talking about what I’m reading/watching”, and “conscientious beta”) and the first time in 2016 (my answers were “good fannish baba/matchmaker”, "committed to fannish crack”, and “conscientious about fandom participation”) – and I do still feel those things are all applicable to me and I still like them. But I’ve done a bunch of new things in the last 9 years, from attending conventions to paying attention to the Hugos to signing up for Yuletide, so let me focus on those new things and see if I can extract three new things I like about myself fannishly from them.
( things I like about myself viz conventions, fanfic, and Hugos )
Challenge #8: Talk about your creative process.
This is another one I’ve done before, in 2019 and in 2015, but looking at even the 2019 one, I talked about fannish poetry and graphics, but not about fannish prose/fanfic. So clearly that’s what I should talk about, but what IS my process?
( Fanfic process )
Defund Homeland Security! Something you can do (time sensitive)
Jan. 16th, 2026 12:59 pmdreamsharkDemocrats in Congress don't have a lot of options for fighting the ongoing authoritarian makeover of the US Government, but for the next two weeks there is an opportunity to fight back, be it ever so tenuous. Congress is currently trying to pass a series of funding bills to avert government shutdown with a deadline of Jan 31. After last week's horrifying events in Minneapolis they managed to get enough Republican support to pull Homeland Security funding out of its "minibus" bill so it could be debated separately. Actually Defunding Homeland Security isn't likely to happen, but the Democrats hope to attach policy riders that restrict the behavior of federal agents in American cities. Or insist on the right of local governments to prosecute ICE agents for murder. Or ban masked agents and require body cameras. Something, anything.
Anyway, it's pretty easy to message your Congressional delegation, so I did that. They all have comment forms on their websites. I actually did use "Defund Homeland Security" as my subject line, but did a little quick research on how to word the text of my comment so that it was specific and coherent. Here's what I came up with.
Anyway, it's pretty easy to message your Congressional delegation, so I did that. They all have comment forms on their websites. I actually did use "Defund Homeland Security" as my subject line, but did a little quick research on how to word the text of my comment so that it was specific and coherent. Here's what I came up with.
I am a constituent, and I am writing to instruct Representative ..... to vote NO on the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 4213) unless it includes specific policy riders that mandate body cameras and behavioral oversight for ICE and Border Patrol agents. This may be our only chance to reign in the unconstitutional and illegal behavior of these Federal agents. DO NOT BACK DOWN! This is very important to me!
In the case of senators the action on the table doesn't have a name yet, so I was instructed to refer to the FY2026 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. But either way, I imagine the intent is clear.
Arisia
Jan. 16th, 2026 02:41 pmadrian_turtleIs anyone I know going to Arisia this weekend? I'm thinking of going for a day but haven't decided which day. Masking is the only way I feel safe going to this kind of event, but masking also makes it harder to make a long relaxed day of it because I can't go out to a restaurant with half a dozen friends for 90 minutes in the middle of the day. Even so, I'd like to see people if that's possible.
Mommy, what's abolition?
Jan. 16th, 2026 02:25 pmadrian_turtleWe went to the Boston rally against ICE last Saturday. One of my study partners asked afterwards if it made me fired up with solidarity, and inspired to resist more strongly? Not really. Not this time. But my presence made the crowd a bit bigger, and I hope a bigger crowd inspired others incrementally more.
I saw a kid near the T station, on the edge of the crowd, and heard her ask, "Mommy, what's ab abol abolish?" She was of an age to be fairly new to reading, so she had to sound out the word on the "Abolish ICE" signs. Her mother said abolishing was when you got rid of something completely by making a law against it, like the abolition of slavery. It made me wonder about little kids tagging along when when Bostonians marched for abolition in the 19th century.
I saw a kid near the T station, on the edge of the crowd, and heard her ask, "Mommy, what's ab abol abolish?" She was of an age to be fairly new to reading, so she had to sound out the word on the "Abolish ICE" signs. Her mother said abolishing was when you got rid of something completely by making a law against it, like the abolition of slavery. It made me wonder about little kids tagging along when when Bostonians marched for abolition in the 19th century.
Heron fic: Form'd for Idleness and Ease
Jan. 16th, 2026 11:20 amsanguinityStill catching up on things I wrote in 2025, although I believe this is the last of them.
Most people who might care have seen it already, but for the sake of completeness: I wrote a Flight of the Heron story for the "Pomegaverse" square of Keep Fandom Weird Bingo.
What is Pomegaverse? According to Fanlore's page on Pomegaverse:
I haven't made a serious effort at the rest of that bingo card, but as soon as I saw that square, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it:
Of course, this all demands an answer to the question of how the war proceeds if soldiers keep turning into lapdogs every time they get stressed out. (The Highland Charge continues to be effective -- perhaps even more so! Culloden... either gets that much horrific, or fizzles out for want of soldiers still standing.) I have no immediate plans to actually do this, but I am a little bit tempted to follow this mechanic through all five meetings of the book, just to see what happens.
Most people who might care have seen it already, but for the sake of completeness: I wrote a Flight of the Heron story for the "Pomegaverse" square of Keep Fandom Weird Bingo.
What is Pomegaverse? According to Fanlore's page on Pomegaverse:
In these works, a human character experiences so much stress that they transform into a Pomeranian dog. They can only revert back to their human form if the stress is relieved via receiving love and affection from other people.
I haven't made a serious effort at the rest of that bingo card, but as soon as I saw that square, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it:
Form'd for Idleness and Ease
Keith & Ewen
Pomegaverse, Animal Transformation, Bad Things Always Happen to Keith, Let's Get That Man Some Affection For a Change, Or At Least a Mini-Vacay as a Beloved Lapdog
Captain Keith Windham's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day just got worse. Ewen, of course, is a perfect gentleman about it all.
Of course, this all demands an answer to the question of how the war proceeds if soldiers keep turning into lapdogs every time they get stressed out. (The Highland Charge continues to be effective -- perhaps even more so! Culloden... either gets that much horrific, or fizzles out for want of soldiers still standing.) I have no immediate plans to actually do this, but I am a little bit tempted to follow this mechanic through all five meetings of the book, just to see what happens.