Thursday, January 8th, 2026 11:42 pm
Storm Goretti has finally brought us some snow. Not much, just a light covering, but it really was getting ridiculous, it seemed like everywhere else in the country had snow, while we were surrounded by it, but resolutely dry.
Not any more. Let's see what the morning brings.
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Thursday, January 8th, 2026 03:26 pm
Title: Weather the Swarm
Author: bluerosekatie
Fandom: Bionicle - All Media Types
Pairing/Characters: Whenua & Onepu & Nuparu
Rating/Category: Gen
Prompt: Bionicle - All Media Types, Whenua & Onepu & Nuparu, The Kirikori Nui attack.
Spoilers: Slight Metru Nui arc spoilers.
Summary: Makuta makes his first move against the Onu-Matoran.
Notes/Warnings: Fic is archive-locked to avoid AI scraping.
Read it on Ao3 here!
Author: bluerosekatie
Fandom: Bionicle - All Media Types
Pairing/Characters: Whenua & Onepu & Nuparu
Rating/Category: Gen
Prompt: Bionicle - All Media Types, Whenua & Onepu & Nuparu, The Kirikori Nui attack.
Spoilers: Slight Metru Nui arc spoilers.
Summary: Makuta makes his first move against the Onu-Matoran.
Notes/Warnings: Fic is archive-locked to avoid AI scraping.
Read it on Ao3 here!
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 02:52 pm
A new comic from Ignite Press by Stephanie Williams, Letizia Cadonici (main artist) and Juliet Nneka (alternate covers.) At the turn of the century, Etta, a young Black woman, studies both science and a book of old remedies she inherited from her mother, along with some dire warnings she doesn't heed.
This is a really interesting historical fantasy with elements of cosmic horror and dark academia. Each issue has alternate covers in very different styles. I like both of them.
I'll be following this one.
Content notes: So far racism is part of the world and why the characters make some choices, rather than violent or constantly present on-page. The rabbits are used in experiments that are not cruel - Etta tests a healing ointment on one that has an injury - but they seem likely to eventually turn into zombies or get possessed by cosmic horrors or merge with eldritch plants.
This is a really interesting historical fantasy with elements of cosmic horror and dark academia. Each issue has alternate covers in very different styles. I like both of them.
I'll be following this one.
Content notes: So far racism is part of the world and why the characters make some choices, rather than violent or constantly present on-page. The rabbits are used in experiments that are not cruel - Etta tests a healing ointment on one that has an injury - but they seem likely to eventually turn into zombies or get possessed by cosmic horrors or merge with eldritch plants.
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Friday, January 9th, 2026 09:44 am
Thanks to my podcasting co-host's connections, we got screeners for the first six episodes, and here is my low-spoiler review as per the rules of the embargo.
TL;DR it has a huge heart, and a series about rebuilding democracy and the infrastructure of a functional society in the wake of imperial decay and environmental devastation is exactly what the world needs right now. It overtly follows in the footsteps of Prodigy, as a jumping in point for a young new fan, and the relationship between Holly Hunter as the Academy chancellor and Sandro Rosta as a new cadet who is skeptical of Starfleet and the Federation (and with good reason!) is a real gift.
I'm reluctant to commit to this, because recency bias is a thing, but it's absolutely my favourite live-action series of the streaming era (and you guys will recall that I loved Discovery and wrote a lot of fic for it!), and I think it's very possible I love it more than Voyager. Certainly it has the best opening six episodes of any Trek bar TOS.
TL;DR it has a huge heart, and a series about rebuilding democracy and the infrastructure of a functional society in the wake of imperial decay and environmental devastation is exactly what the world needs right now. It overtly follows in the footsteps of Prodigy, as a jumping in point for a young new fan, and the relationship between Holly Hunter as the Academy chancellor and Sandro Rosta as a new cadet who is skeptical of Starfleet and the Federation (and with good reason!) is a real gift.
I'm reluctant to commit to this, because recency bias is a thing, but it's absolutely my favourite live-action series of the streaming era (and you guys will recall that I loved Discovery and wrote a lot of fic for it!), and I think it's very possible I love it more than Voyager. Certainly it has the best opening six episodes of any Trek bar TOS.
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 05:26 pm
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Thursday, January 8th, 2026 09:50 pm
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angelofthenorth hadn't seen Glass Onion, so we're watching it tonight.
Turns out she hadn't thought of roasting cabbage until I served it -- along with roasted mushrooms and carrots and Christmasy things I'd stashed in the freezer: salmon wellington for those two and veggie pastry parcels for me -- tonight.
I am delighted to have been able to share such wonderful things.
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 03:29 pm
Now that we are back in the swing of the year, my days are marked by doctors' appointments. I preferred being outside the calendar. I did dream briefly and unexpectedly of Alexander Knox, playing one of those harrowed, abrasive, obdurate figures on the other side of some internment or imprisonment that made me think he would have been anachronistically great as E. T. C. Werner. Have some link-like things.
1. John Heffernan falls into the category of actors of whom I have somehow become very fond without actually seeing all that much of them, which normally happens with character faces in the '40's. I am unlikely even to see his latest project, the freshly announced Amazon TV version of Tomb Raider, but since his character is described in the promotional dramatis personae as "an exhausted government official who finds himself tangled up in Lara's unusual world," it's nice to know I would almost certainly develop a disproportionate attachment to him if I had the chance. You can tell I am otherwise a solid generation of actors behind the times since I was impressed by the casting all in the same place of Jason Isaacs, Bill Paterson, Celia Imrie, Paterson Joseph, and Sigourney Weaver.
2. This song transfixed me a few nights ago on WHRB: Barbez, "Strange" (2005).
3. I meant once again to praise the Malden Public Library for ordering me a sun-bleached, peach-orange, jacketless first edition of Leslie Howard's Trivial Fond Records (ed. Ronald Howard, 1982), about whose selected nonfiction I have been intensely curious since discovering its existence in 2008, but the problem with reading some of the broadcasts he made for J. B. Priestley's Britain Speaks in 1940 is that one runs into passages like:
Democracy today, to survive at all, must be as militant as autocracy, and what the world is desperately in need of now is not the gentle, philosophic democracy of Jefferson, but the outspoken, militant and ringing democracy of Roosevelt, representing the righteous anger of the free people of the world aroused against the cynical arrogance of the totalitarian feudalists.
1. John Heffernan falls into the category of actors of whom I have somehow become very fond without actually seeing all that much of them, which normally happens with character faces in the '40's. I am unlikely even to see his latest project, the freshly announced Amazon TV version of Tomb Raider, but since his character is described in the promotional dramatis personae as "an exhausted government official who finds himself tangled up in Lara's unusual world," it's nice to know I would almost certainly develop a disproportionate attachment to him if I had the chance. You can tell I am otherwise a solid generation of actors behind the times since I was impressed by the casting all in the same place of Jason Isaacs, Bill Paterson, Celia Imrie, Paterson Joseph, and Sigourney Weaver.
2. This song transfixed me a few nights ago on WHRB: Barbez, "Strange" (2005).
3. I meant once again to praise the Malden Public Library for ordering me a sun-bleached, peach-orange, jacketless first edition of Leslie Howard's Trivial Fond Records (ed. Ronald Howard, 1982), about whose selected nonfiction I have been intensely curious since discovering its existence in 2008, but the problem with reading some of the broadcasts he made for J. B. Priestley's Britain Speaks in 1940 is that one runs into passages like:
Democracy today, to survive at all, must be as militant as autocracy, and what the world is desperately in need of now is not the gentle, philosophic democracy of Jefferson, but the outspoken, militant and ringing democracy of Roosevelt, representing the righteous anger of the free people of the world aroused against the cynical arrogance of the totalitarian feudalists.
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 10:10 pm
- As usual (and as I hoped for),
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomtrees has a one-week delay, so now I have a much better chance of finishing more than one thing, heh. Here is the latest admin post with the trees that still need gifts. - Also, candyheartsex sign-ups have closed, and three more people in my fandoms signed up after I had already gone to bed! Can't wait to find out what my actual assignment will be.
Today's writing
I worked a little on one
fandomtrees treat, started planning another, and did some brainstorming for candyheartsex. It's still all slower going than I'd like, but I'm feeling much better, so there's that.WED Question of the Day
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19
If I have multiple works I want/need to finish by the same deadline, I ...
View Answers
write and finish them one after the other
11 (57.9%)
work on multiple things in parallel
7 (36.8%)
something else
1 (5.3%)
When I'm working on things without deadlines, I ...
View Answers
work on one thing until I finish or give up
6 (31.6%)
work on multiple things in parallel
13 (68.4%)
something else
0 (0.0%)
When I have tickyboxes, I ...
View Answers
tick one
5 (27.8%)
tick them all
6 (33.3%)
tick whichever ones I like
15 (83.3%)
something else
2 (11.1%)
Tally
( Days 1-5 )
Day 6:
alightbuthappypen, badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilmeDay 7:
badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, shadaras, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora Day 8:
china_shop, trobadoraLet me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 08:46 pm
The snow did indeed all melt on Tuesday, but this evening we're under Storm Goretti, and it's been coming down good and proper - huge wet flakes, a couple of centimetres in the last hour or so already. We don't seem to have much of the high winds or anything, though; it's been quite peaceful (well, except for Miss H's family, who were driving back from Worcester and are stuck on a road behind some lorries).
Currently in limbo as to whether I'll be in the office tomorrow or not; the forecast thinks it'll keep snowing for a couple of hours but then move towards sleet, and this stuff is so wet it won't take much to melt it. I'll have to see what it looks like in the morning. I've packed everything ready, regardless - although actually I didn't really need to, because the swimming pool has pre-emptively cancelled the morning swim, so I don't need most of it anyway...
The washing machine is behaving itself again. The repairman has broken his ankle and couldn't come and look at it, but suggested something to check; we tried it without any result but then did some laundry to see whether it would cooperate or not, and so far so good! I did four loads yesterday, so the pile is looking much more reasonable.
Life is incredibly quiet and mundane and some day I will finish the November booklog, but mostly things are just... restful, right now. A good way to start the year.
Currently in limbo as to whether I'll be in the office tomorrow or not; the forecast thinks it'll keep snowing for a couple of hours but then move towards sleet, and this stuff is so wet it won't take much to melt it. I'll have to see what it looks like in the morning. I've packed everything ready, regardless - although actually I didn't really need to, because the swimming pool has pre-emptively cancelled the morning swim, so I don't need most of it anyway...
The washing machine is behaving itself again. The repairman has broken his ankle and couldn't come and look at it, but suggested something to check; we tried it without any result but then did some laundry to see whether it would cooperate or not, and so far so good! I did four loads yesterday, so the pile is looking much more reasonable.
Life is incredibly quiet and mundane and some day I will finish the November booklog, but mostly things are just... restful, right now. A good way to start the year.
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 08:30 pm
Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page
Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!
I think my actual last page was APOD, which my feed reader seems to be showing a few days behind the times. And that's a pleasing thing to recommend, on the slim chance that someone hasn't encountered it before: it's interesting and beautiful.
For something that's probably more obscure, though I hadn't visited for a while, Hidden Europe is equally fascinating. The magazines got me through lockdown - deckchair travel in my back garden - and now the articles are going online one by one. People, places, train travel.
Tags:
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 12:26 pm
So yesterday I was checking my calendar to make sure I was keep track of things and had a "wait...what?" moment when I realized that I fly off to the east coast for a couple weeks...um...next Monday. And that means I"m popping down to Monterey for a family ting on Saturday. And that means...
So I spent a large chunk of yesterday evening drawing up my compulsively -detailed itinerary/schedule and making some additional reservations. I got the plane tickets months ago, but my plans also include some Amtrak travel, a rental car, and a motel room. I didn't want to leave any of that to chance (despite it being off season) but I hadn't previously nailed down exactly when I was doing the non-NYC parts of the trip.
The conjunction that inspired this trip is a friends large-number birthday (hi Lauri!), the Emma Stebbins exhibit at the Heckscher Museum (which I did a podcast interview for), it having been too long since I've seen my brother and family in Maine, and the chance to meet my grand-niece (also in Maine). Alas, the grand-niece contingent had since decided to do the snowbird thing for several months and won't be in scope on this trip.
So I'll be in NYC for 7 days (including two planned-but-not-yet-calendared events) then Augusta ME for 4 days. Currently it's looking like no blizzard, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed as that would make the driving parts annoying.
Unlike most NYC trips, I have plenty of unscheduled time this trip, and I'd love to meet up with folks if it works out.
So I spent a large chunk of yesterday evening drawing up my compulsively -detailed itinerary/schedule and making some additional reservations. I got the plane tickets months ago, but my plans also include some Amtrak travel, a rental car, and a motel room. I didn't want to leave any of that to chance (despite it being off season) but I hadn't previously nailed down exactly when I was doing the non-NYC parts of the trip.
The conjunction that inspired this trip is a friends large-number birthday (hi Lauri!), the Emma Stebbins exhibit at the Heckscher Museum (which I did a podcast interview for), it having been too long since I've seen my brother and family in Maine, and the chance to meet my grand-niece (also in Maine). Alas, the grand-niece contingent had since decided to do the snowbird thing for several months and won't be in scope on this trip.
So I'll be in NYC for 7 days (including two planned-but-not-yet-calendared events) then Augusta ME for 4 days. Currently it's looking like no blizzard, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed as that would make the driving parts annoying.
Unlike most NYC trips, I have plenty of unscheduled time this trip, and I'd love to meet up with folks if it works out.
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Thursday, January 8th, 2026 07:59 pm
Do you have a Doctor Who community or a journal that we are not currently linking to? Leave a note in the comments and we'll add you to the watchlist (doctor_watch).
Editor's Note: If your item was not linked, it's because the header lacked the information that we like to give our readers. Please at least give the title, rating, and pairing or characters, and please include the header in the storypost itself, not just in the linking post. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Off-Dreamwidth News
Blogtor Who's video of the day for yesterday was a clip from 1987's "Paradise Towers"
Nicholas Whyte reviews "Doctor Who: The Adventures After"
Blogtor Who's video of the day for today is Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue in conversation with Professor Linda Williams and Mark Kermode
Details of Doctor Who Magazine #625, on sale now
(News via![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
doctorwhonews_feed and blogtorwho_feed among others.)
If you were not linked, and would like to be, contact us in the comments with further information and your link.
doctor_watch).Editor's Note: If your item was not linked, it's because the header lacked the information that we like to give our readers. Please at least give the title, rating, and pairing or characters, and please include the header in the storypost itself, not just in the linking post. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Off-Dreamwidth News
Blogtor Who's video of the day for yesterday was a clip from 1987's "Paradise Towers"
Nicholas Whyte reviews "Doctor Who: The Adventures After"
Blogtor Who's video of the day for today is Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue in conversation with Professor Linda Williams and Mark Kermode
Details of Doctor Who Magazine #625, on sale now
(News via
doctorwhonews_feed and blogtorwho_feed among others.)If you were not linked, and would like to be, contact us in the comments with further information and your link.
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 01:55 pm
My day so far.
Early this morning from my front window. I wanted to show how foggy it was. I liked seeing the snow residue. I waited and waited to get a pic of any bird that might visit the feeder but finally got tired of waiting. Just imagine it with a bird. Soon after I took this picture I left to drive to Berdella's for group. The drive was beautiful. Lots of nice scenery on back country roads. I love fog in the morning especially when you can see sun shining through it.
I had Berdella and Jan try the "closed eyes self portrait" (blind drawing) with me today. I wish I had remembered to get a pic of theirs too. I think this is the best I have done yet with getting features in nearly the right spots. This was on a bigger piece of paper. Next I want to try one where I look at a scenery photo. Then maybe I'll color it in afterwards with watercolor. That should look pretty neat. But now I must get busy with some cleaning - Johnny and Alison are spending the weekend and the house needs spiffed up. Plus I want to take Rainy for a walk. It's a fully blue sky sunny day now. 47F.
Early this morning from my front window. I wanted to show how foggy it was. I liked seeing the snow residue. I waited and waited to get a pic of any bird that might visit the feeder but finally got tired of waiting. Just imagine it with a bird. Soon after I took this picture I left to drive to Berdella's for group. The drive was beautiful. Lots of nice scenery on back country roads. I love fog in the morning especially when you can see sun shining through it.
I had Berdella and Jan try the "closed eyes self portrait" (blind drawing) with me today. I wish I had remembered to get a pic of theirs too. I think this is the best I have done yet with getting features in nearly the right spots. This was on a bigger piece of paper. Next I want to try one where I look at a scenery photo. Then maybe I'll color it in afterwards with watercolor. That should look pretty neat. But now I must get busy with some cleaning - Johnny and Alison are spending the weekend and the house needs spiffed up. Plus I want to take Rainy for a walk. It's a fully blue sky sunny day now. 47F.
Tags:
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 02:01 pm
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 10:25 am
Time to reflect a little on the media I read and watched in 2025. My reading goal for 2025 was “Reading Joyfully”. I think this worked out ok – I started out putting a lot of pressure on myself about it and stressing out, but then I backed off and used it as an excuse to think about how reading fits into my life these days.
I was somewhat hoping I could get back to really engaging with new to me SFF, and for the most part that didn’t happen. There were a couple of weeks in there where I was sleeping way better than I generally manage these days and I read several new to me books! It was great! So I think part of my problem is that I’m just not well rested enough to engage with new to me stuff very much. Which is sad, but pushing isn’t going to make me happy either.
Then after the thing with the flood damage, when the whole house was a mess, I was struggling to focus on much of anything. I ended up just reading a ton of fic, so much fic.* Which has been delightful. The comfort of the same thing again but different this time is really not appreciated enough by critics. This reading phase has been very joyful!
In 2025 I read even fewer books than I read the last several years (57) but unlike the last couple of years I don’t feel bad about it. Which was the real point of my reading joyfully goal. I’m more at peace with who I am as a reader these days and that’s really nice, even if I might never be the same kind of reader I was before the pandemic happened.
Another trend that defined my 2025 media was crossdressing girls. I love, love, love the trope of girls who disguise themselves and boys to go out into the world and do things that they wouldn’t be allowed to do. This is a trope that English language media hasn’t really been doing much with recently, but luckily for me it's popular in Asian dramas. It’s such a comfort trope for me, and I decided to really dive into this trope and watched many dramas featuring it. (And read a couple of books too)
I also continue to watch many silly Chinese reality shows, another thing that I find relaxing. Media has really was a source of comfort for me in 2025.
In terms of goals for 2026, I’m going to continue to not have a numerical goal for total books. I find those more stressful than fun. Having a theme for my media last year worked out really well though so for the first quarter of 2026 my media theme is going to be “comfort” . Then I can see I want to keep that theme or change at the end of the quarter. I also want to push myself a bit harder on reading Mandarin so I’m going to make it a goal to read six graded readers this year, which feels very doable.
*Me, very stressed out: I’ll just read this cute sounding fic in a fandom I’m not in. It will be relaxing. Me, several days, and I don’t know how many fics in that fandom latter: I guess I have a new fandom now, opps?
I was somewhat hoping I could get back to really engaging with new to me SFF, and for the most part that didn’t happen. There were a couple of weeks in there where I was sleeping way better than I generally manage these days and I read several new to me books! It was great! So I think part of my problem is that I’m just not well rested enough to engage with new to me stuff very much. Which is sad, but pushing isn’t going to make me happy either.
Then after the thing with the flood damage, when the whole house was a mess, I was struggling to focus on much of anything. I ended up just reading a ton of fic, so much fic.* Which has been delightful. The comfort of the same thing again but different this time is really not appreciated enough by critics. This reading phase has been very joyful!
In 2025 I read even fewer books than I read the last several years (57) but unlike the last couple of years I don’t feel bad about it. Which was the real point of my reading joyfully goal. I’m more at peace with who I am as a reader these days and that’s really nice, even if I might never be the same kind of reader I was before the pandemic happened.
Another trend that defined my 2025 media was crossdressing girls. I love, love, love the trope of girls who disguise themselves and boys to go out into the world and do things that they wouldn’t be allowed to do. This is a trope that English language media hasn’t really been doing much with recently, but luckily for me it's popular in Asian dramas. It’s such a comfort trope for me, and I decided to really dive into this trope and watched many dramas featuring it. (And read a couple of books too)
I also continue to watch many silly Chinese reality shows, another thing that I find relaxing. Media has really was a source of comfort for me in 2025.
In terms of goals for 2026, I’m going to continue to not have a numerical goal for total books. I find those more stressful than fun. Having a theme for my media last year worked out really well though so for the first quarter of 2026 my media theme is going to be “comfort” . Then I can see I want to keep that theme or change at the end of the quarter. I also want to push myself a bit harder on reading Mandarin so I’m going to make it a goal to read six graded readers this year, which feels very doable.
*Me, very stressed out: I’ll just read this cute sounding fic in a fandom I’m not in. It will be relaxing. Me, several days, and I don’t know how many fics in that fandom latter: I guess I have a new fandom now, opps?
Tags:
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 12:11 pm
Tags:
Thursday, January 8th, 2026 04:18 pm
snowflake_challenge prompt 4 asks the following: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page
Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!
Given that the last non-work website that I looked at was a somewhat grim political podcast, I'm going to reinterpret this as an opportunity to link a weird and wonderful piece of longform journalism that I've had bookmarked for a while: The snail farm don: is this the most brazen tax avoidance scheme of all time?
The title doesn't do it justice, and neither does my summary: a septugenarian who made his money in his family's shoe-selling business empire in the north of England, and has decades-long associations with the mafia in Naples (including hiding mafia members on the run in his properties in the UK) has for the past several years invested most of his time and energy in exploiting an elaborate UK tax loophole by which — if you claim to be running a snail farm on your property (including in residential blocks of flats or office buildings) — you pay no tax. In his telling, he's doing this purely to pass the time and keep his mind active in his later years. It's a wild ride.
This kind of written long-form journalism, essay or interview — with left-field subject matter and larger-than-life personalities — is my absolutely favourite type of nonfiction.
