highlyeccentric

The checkout line at this Walmart was going to be very slow: ahead of us were four grown-ish children and their mom, and their cart was packed to overflowing.

“How about you bring the car around for my dad,” I suggested. “You guys wait, and I’ll text when I’m through.” My husband nodded, and the two of them headed out.

Between me and the family with the packed cart was an older couple; behind me was a younger couple. All of us had just a few things—I had a laundry basket, a bathroom scale, and a shower curtain for my dad’s new living situation.

Lining the checkout alley were tempting items to impulse purchase: Goya adobo seasoning, both con and sin pimienta, Goya canned beans, Jarritos sodas, Sanchis Mira Turrón de Alicante—nougat candy from Alicante, Spain. We who were waiting had a long time to contemplate these items. The couple ahead of me grabbed a shaker of adobo seasoning. The couple behind put a couple of the sodas in their cart. I stared at the nougat candy. Would it be like torrone, the Italian version of nougat candy that my grandmother used to have? That candy came in small boxes with pictures of famous sites in Italy or of women in traditional regional dress.

I added a package of the candy to my cart. The family with the very full cart was through; the older couple ahead of me were putting their items on the conveyor belt.

“Necesitan bolsas?” the cashier asked. No, they didn’t need any bags. The cashier wished them a Feliz Navidad, and it was my turn.

“Hi, how are you, you want the shower curtain and the scale in the laundry basket?” the cashier asked. She wished me happy holidays and switched smoothly back to Spanish for the couple behind me.

Sanchis Mira Turrón de Alicante turned out to have the same flavor but a completely different texture from the Italian torrone my grandmother used to get. The Italian torrone was thickly chewy, a workout for the jaw; the turrón was hard and broke into dangerous sugar splinters. Ah well. Maybe I’ll have better luck with my next impulse purchase.

Current Music: Rio Mira: Adios Morena

jazzy_dave

James Kaplan "3 Shades of Blue:Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans & The Lost Empire of Cool" (Canongate)

I was expecting this to be more about the making of Kind of Blue, which should be a desert island disk for pretty much everyone, but those two recording sessions get only a few pages here.

It's actually a triple biography of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans, although Miles (who, after all, lived a lot longer and was responsible for bringing the other two together) gets most of the space. The author combines lots of sources to try to tell the story coherently, but especially in the case of Davis, it is hard to sort fact from fiction. Just as he took credit for others' compositions, Davis also had a truth optional approach to remembering his own life. Mostly he comes across as a very unlikable character--yet--during the author's own interview with Davis many years before he had any idea about writing this book, Davis charmed him. And there are anecdote after anecdote in the book about good things Davis did for people, such as his mentorship of Wallace Roney. Of course, all this is interspersed with Davis's addiction to heroin, cocaine, Heinekin bee, you name it. Likewise, Coltrane and Evans were serious drug users, a habit Coltrane managed to finally kick, only to die at age 40 of hepatitis and cancer. Evans was an even worse addict, who only managed to kick drugs for a few years before returning to them for the last few years of his short--but not so short as Coltrane--life.

Miles struggled on, constantly trying to keep up with the times, leading to the creation of jazz fusion and the incorporation of electric instruments into his music, exemplified by the best-selling Bitches Brew album. Despite the book's length, however, much of it seems sketchy and there's a lot left out. Miles great In A Silent Way album gets hardly a mention, and it would have been nice to see the author's reportage on Miles final recordings, including his version of Cyndi Lauper's Time after Time!

Still, this is recommended, and it will point you to some great recordings that you can easily stream, or better still, purcahse as a CD or vinyl. At times this seems more like a well-done compilation (sort of like the tape-splicing to create Bitches Brew) that it does an original biography, but it reads well, informs quite a bit, and tries to stick to the facts or when that can't be done, at least provide perspectives on all sides of a story.

A good read overall.

cyphomandra

I'm now on day 90 of Blue Prince and have solved quite a lot of puzzles, but I still have more to go, plus all the trophies that require me to get to room 46 in a certain time/under certain conditions (for those following along, I have done the sanctum, opened one door of a certain colour, and begun the blue tents). I am starting to run out of steam though, and I think it's time for a break.

The problem is what to do next! I do want to get back to FFVII, but I also want something new. I tried Alan Wake II, which I picked up as a free game - it's survival horror, set in another of those terrible small US towns, and I am currently stuck on a boss battle in chapter 2 that had an abrupt difficulty spike. My character moves unbelievably slowly and can only take 2 hits, plus I don't have the resources to upgrade my weapons yet, and while I think I can probably get through this eventually without downgrading the difficulty, it feels less like a game puzzle I can't solve yet and more like bad game design, arrgh. I do like Saga (my current character) but it has been a while since I played horror and I have also so far proven myself to be pretty terrible with jump scares. Typing this up has made me think that maybe I just downgrade the difficulty and see if the story still works for me.

I got Ghost of Yōtei for Christmas, and I also got Cyberpunk 2077 back from the person to whom I'd lent it, so those are both alternate possibilities. BUT. I also got another free game this month, and it's Lego Horizon Adventures, so last night after having my face bitten off in the Overlap for about the fortieth time, I switched gears and sent Lego Aloy out into the world, woo hoo. They have definitely detraumatised the storyline (your first mission is to retrieve some of the Nora who've been kidnapped by cultists, who are cruelly transporting them somewhere in cages and refusing to let them have bathroom breaks; everyone is rescued without casualties) and the fixed camera angles are a bit irritating, but we have already successfully hidden in red grass, shot flaming arrows into shrubbery to clear puzzles, and climbed our first Tallneck, woo hoo. And I say "we" because there is a co-op mode and my son, who's watched me battle through bits of Horizon was very excited to join me. He has put his character (who is supposed to be Rost) in the Sun King Avad skin, tho', which is throwing me a bit :D (most of the voice cast are those from the original game).

jazzy_dave

Gabriel García Márquez "Until August" (Penguin)

10 years after García Marquez’s death, this novel is believed to be his last and according to the preface by his sons, a heroic battle against memory loss which he felt was the ultimate threat to his creativity. “Memory is at once my source material and my tool. Without it, there is nothing.” The book contains a sample at the end of his self-edited pages. The premise is Ana Magdalena Bach makes an annual overnight trip to place flowers on her mother’s grave on the anniversary of her death. One year she has a one-night stand fling with a man she meets in the hotel bar, and she makes this part of the yearly tradition too. She becomes almost predatory as she selects her man for the night, but it often is a matter of happenstance. She is able to resume her’ normal’ life with her husband Domenico when she returns, but ironically begins to suspect him of infidelity.

Because it is such a short novel and Ana is the focus, this relationship isn’t fully explored, but operates as a foil to her flings. We get 4 years of her ‘tradition’ and on the 5th year, when she has turned 50, something is revealed to her about her beloved mother and the ending has a dramatic turn that makes the story worthwhile.

rekishi

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

jazzy_dave

Shirley Jackson "Hangsaman" (Penguin Classics)

This is a weird book, in the very best sense of the word. Natalie Waite is a young woman about to go off to college. We are introduced to her in her family setting, with her intellectual and domineering father, her boring and normal mother, and her unimportant brother. All of these descriptives are Natalie's point of view because there is no escaping Natalie's point of view in the book. Though it's not told in first person, there is almost no difference between the omniscient narrator and Natalie's point of view. It's an extremely interior book. And Natalie has a weird mind.

At first her mind seems "normal" in the sense of being quirky but I thought that most readers would identify, especially if they remember the teenage years, the fantasizing and odd thoughts that come to mind at that formative age. When Natalie goes off to her small liberal arts college and is faced with living with hundreds of other young women of varying character and morals, things devolve quickly. She develops an odd relationship with a girl named Tony (I actually couldn't tell if Tony was real or imaginary) and things get weirder and weirder.

I loved it.

The book isn't scary, but it's slightly creepy to witness someone's mind changing (disintegrating?) so rapidly. This book deserves to be talked about, such as a reading group.

maju

My daughter bought me a mini trampoline for Christmas, but it didn't arrive until today. We were very excited to get it, but now we're worried that I won't be able to use it because my chosen location, the garage, does not have a very high ceiling and neither does the basement, which could be an alternative location, and I wouldn't be comfortable using it anywhere in the main part of the house because it's too warm. I've had a couple of mini trampolines before that I used in the house so it didn't occur to me that ceiling height might be a problem. My daughter suggested her office because it's not as warm in there as in the rest of the house, but that wouldn't be very convenient because of course she is in there working most of the time. The trampoline is not yet assembled because it needs two people to unfold it but my daughter is busy and my son in law is at the library with the girls. I've done an exercise routine (twice in a row) already today so I'm not in a great hurry to get the trampoline set up apart from the fact that I want to see if it's going to work.

I've already used the small table we set up in the basement a couple of days ago to do some sewing (I repaired a dress of Aria's) but since then it's been taken over by Violet as a staging area for the short animation videos she likes to make on my phone. I should have foreseen that I guess. When I use the table for puzzles I'll be working on a felt puzzle mat so it won't really be a problem because I won't be leaving the puzzle out all the time, but it's slightly annoying to have to clear off the table before I can use it.

summersgate

Snowfall.

We took a walk to the creek this afternoon. Cold and still windy. Rainy got snow balls on her legs but we made it quick. 3 views of the creek that you have seen before: ( Read more... )

smallhobbit posting in

100words

Title: Jeeves' Solution
Fandom: Jeeves & Wooster
Rating: G

( 'Jeeves' I wailed )

ysabetwordsmith

Scientists stunned by a massive hydrothermal field off Greece

Scientists have uncovered an extensive underwater vent system near Milos, Greece, hidden along active fault lines beneath the seafloor. These geological fractures act as pathways for hot, gas-rich fluids to escape, forming clusters of vents with striking visual diversity. The discovery surprised researchers, who observed boiling fluids and vibrant microbial mats during deep-sea dives. Milos now stands out as one of the Mediterranean’s most important sites for studying Earth’s dynamic interior.

This is fascinating, but it is not surprising. Most seams leak. If you want to find vent systems, identify underwater faultlines and check them for leaks.

Current Mood: busy

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.

This Week's Question: What are your crafting goals for 2026?

If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

osprey_archer

I’m doing the Reading Meme one day early this week, as tomorrow is the last day of the year and therefore the day for the Year In Review.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I am freeeeeeeee of my vow to read Christmas books for Advent, and therefore… accidentally read one more book with Christmas in… Marilyn Kluger’s Country Kitchens Remembered: A Memoir with Favorite Family Recipes, about the farm kitchens she remembers from her childhood during the Depression, not only her own family’s but her grandparents on both sides. Like any good farm kitchen memoir, the book documents the different foods of each season, which means of course a Christmas chapter, but also chapters about the new peas of spring, the corn on the cob fresh cut from the stalk literally minutes before lunch, the frost-nipped persimmons brought in during the Thanksgiving grouse hunt… Good eating and good reading.

But then! Then I truly broke free with Ngaio Marsh’s Spinsters in Jeopardy! Set in summer in the south of France, Inspector Alleyn and his lady wife Troy co-star in a mystery featuring a drug racket run by an erotic murder cult. You know I love a cult! Also featuring their six-year-old son Ricky, a surprisingly well-observed child. A shocking number of writers of adult fiction couldn’t write a convincing kid to save their life.

And I also slipped in my December Unread Bookshelf book by the skin of my teeth: E. Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet. I got this soon after I read Five Children and It, then it languished for so many years that I forgot why I was putting it off, but as I read it I remembered: I find these children so stressful! They are forever doing things like “setting off firecrackers inside the house,” which is how they set fire to the old nursery carpet which results in the bringing in of the magic carpet.

What I’m Reading Now

I’ve started Rumer Godden’s Thus Far and Now Farther, which so far is what I expected Elizabeth and her German Garden to be: a charming memoir about a woman in an isolated location with her children, her governess, and her vast army of underpriced labor making a charming garden.

What I Plan to Read Next

No plans! Only vibes! Okay, actually I do have plans, but I am contemplating if I ought to jettison them in favor of vibes. Maybe 2026 should be the Year of Vibe Reading? I have been trying to come up with a good New Year's Resolution...

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: enthralled

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and cool. It spit snow a bit yesterday but didn't amount to anything.

I fed the birds. There was a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches perched in the forest garden waiting to be fed. :D

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/30/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/30/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

.

Current Mood: busy

rachelmanija posting in

yuletide

A set of recs with commentary at my DW, sorted by whether or not you need to know canon. For most of these, you don't.

The canons are "17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future" - Jon Bois, House of Hollow - Krystal Sutherland, James Hoffman's Coffee Videos (Web Series)/Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft/"A Study in Emerald," "Tower Wizard" - Bluesky, True Detective - season one, World War Z - Max Brooks.

turlough posting in

yuletide

Recs for Cherryh: Finisterre, Brother Cadfael, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Yes, Minister in my journal

Current Mood: contemplative

rachelmanija

I read these offline and have not commented on most of them yet on AO3, but I wanted to rec them before reveals because they're great.

Don't need to know canon

"17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future" - Jon Bois. I only know this canon from Yuletide stories, and all I really know is that in the very far future, it's a post-scarcity world where everyone is immortal. It reliably produces lovely stories that feel kind of like the more personal/emotional xckd comics. Here is another one.

What Rock Collecting Will Look Like in the Future. Funny, bittersweet, cool worldbuilding; I was surprised and delighted to learn that fordite is real!

James Hoffman's Coffee Videos (Web Series)/Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft/"A Study in Emerald." All you need to know is that a coffee guy reviews coffee online, and this is him reviewing eldritch coffee.

I'm ranking 5 coffees from beyond this world (literally). "I feel a bit as if the coffee tasted me and not the other way around." Hilarious, dead-on coffee notes, dead-on Lovecraft; makes me want to try some of the coffees despite the risk of growing gills or being possessed by Elder Gods.

Tower Wizard - Hourly updates on the life of a wizard who lives in a tower, like "The little cat plays with a leaf. The wizard carefully checks that it's not a dangerous reagent, then returns it to the little cat." His best friend is an ex-paladin, and they eat a lot of interesting food. That's it, that's all you need to know.

Ruins and Roads. A charming original fantasy story, magical and cozy and bittersweet.

True Detective - season one. All you need to know to read this story is that Rust and Marty used to be cops, and they were both seriously injured when they reunited to investigate a weird case that might or might not have supernatural elements.

burned in kind. An outstanding post-series casefic and get-together with a flawless Rust voice, A+ hurt-comfort, and a creepy maybe-supernatural maybe-not case. If you know the series, this is 100% not to be missed; if you don't, you might still really like it as a standalone spooky mystery with excellent characterization.

World War Z - Max Brooks. You just need to know that there are zombies.

little stone. Zombies in 9th century Latvia! An atmospheric story about grief and loss in a time far from us; the protagonist's emotions are raw and vivid. Note: child death.

Need to know canon

House of Hollow - Krystal Sutherland

You Live in a Hollow House. Creepy, unsettling horror with an excellent use of color and image embeds.

Meeting Halfway. Creepy, unsettling horror with a touch of sweetness.

anghraine

I've been happily chewing on TOS for the last, uh, several months over on Tumblr (still laughing at myself that all I needed to finally get fannishly obsessed with ST was watch the first season ever; even the first few episodes aired at all were really enough to ensnare me, though it was actually the distinctly flawed S3 that made me completely obsessed, while J and I are currently at S6 of TNG in our ST marathon of ultimate destiny, and it's been a ... messier experience, let's say #justicefordeannatroi). But I've wanted to post more over here and I was lured by a meme from

shadaras (and now, several others on my f-list!).

Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? Use one fic per line. ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'A' and 'T.' Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count!

My rough rules for myself: fics posted (even as WIPs) got precedence over fics that I've titled but have only posted in scraps or not at all, and fics that represent some particular significance for me took precedence over those that might be better or more complete but not as prominent in my own mind (if none fit that, I generally favored complete over WIPs).

A - Anomaly

Austen: canon-compliant Darcy/Elizabeth fic about Darcy being demi/grey-ace (complete).

B - Beneath a Pale Moonlight

Legend of Korra: AU in which the old theory that Amon/Noatak and Tarrlok were actually working together in S1 is (or rather, will be) true, but their pre-Amon backstory is the same; the fic is a one-shot about how that alliance could have been struck pre-S1 (complete).

C - climb a mountain and turn around

The Borgias: Modern USA AU in which they're not a crime family, just cutthroats in the publishing industry; the broader AU is abandoned, but I did finish the one-shot dealing with the fracturing relationship between wannabe novelist failson Juan Borgia and his overachieving twin sister Lucrezia (complete; there are some hints at the canon Cesare/Lucrezia incest, but it's mostly focused on Juan and Lucrezia).

D - Distaff Lines

Star Wars: fic about relationships among the Skywalker women, though it only got to Shmi Skywalker and Beru Whitesun (WIP).

E - The Edge of Darkness

Legend of Korra: AU ft. f!Tarrlok, but centered on Noatak/Amon and his relationship with his sister (the specific fic linked, dealing with their dynamic until Noatak's escape, is complete, but the series it belongs to is a WIP).

F - First Impressions

Austen: m!Elizabeth/f!Darcy re-telling of P&P (complete).

G - the gift of men

Tolkien (book only): Eldarion/OFC one-shot and canon-compliant sequel to LOTR, focused on the young Eldarion and his politically-motivated, but affectionate-turned-loving marriage to Faramir and Éowyn's younger daughter, who dies of old age long before he becomes king (complete; features an assortment of Fourth Age headcanons).

H - her earnest desire of being loved

Austen: brief, canon-compliant one-shot/P&P sequel about the first baby steps in the relationship between Elizabeth and Georgiana as sisters-in-law (complete).

I - in tongues and quiet sighs

Star Wars: Rogue One AU in which Jyn and Cassian live and are together, but centered on the relationship between Leia and Cassian and the undercurrents involving their more or less shared language; it was an attempt to take the "Space Spanish" trope that at the time was applied without differentiation to almost any character played by/adjacent to a Latine actor, and make it fraught and messy rather than blandly eroticized and often rather racist (complete, one-shot within a wider WIP universe).

J - The Jedi and the Sith Lord

Star Wars: the third of the main Lucy Skywalker fics (my long f!Luke AU), but the first to explore drastic long-term consequences; I felt it was pretty evident that Darth Vader's daughter would be a considerably harder sell than a son, given ... uh, everything about the OT Empire, so the immediate test from ESB is less urgent for Vader than capturing and turning her to the Dark Side before Palpatine writes her off altogether, and this is the fic about Lucy's captivity as experienced both by Lucy and Anakin, and the effects on both and their relationship (the fic is complete, the series is not).

K - kiss away everything I'd planned

Legend of Korra: an Amorra (Amon/Korra) side-story in an AU in which Korra is the Avatar in the iceberg, but she's broken out by siblings Tarrlok and Noatak decades "late" (compared to Aang). Azula is Fire Lord at this point in addition to many other changes, but this one is just a small side-story about Korra and Noatak's romance after all three flee Yakone into the blizzard (this one-shot is complete, the larger fic very much is not).

L - Love, Pride & Delicacy

Austen: a P&P femslash Darcy/Elizabeth AU that is not the direct re-telling of P&P that First Impressions was going for, but considering what I think are likely consequences of the change in their actual social context, with the RL homophobia and gender roles etc etc (it also includes racebending, insofar as it doesn't assume the Fitzwilliams must be 100% white). Catherine Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet have barely met in person, though Elizabeth has already gotten an earful from Wickham, but it follows the initial changes following from Darcy's absence in Hertfordshire as well as their romance (WIP I'll actually continue).

M - Man of Sorrows

Star Wars: AU of Revenge of the Sith in which Anakin dies in the Battle of Coruscant, but persists as a Force-ghost still very much prone to attachment (as complete as it will ever be, if fairly ephemeral).

N - The Natural Daughter of Somebody

Austen: technically canon-compliant prequel in which the common fanon that Darcy's father had an illegitimate child near in age to him is true, but the child is not Wickham; it's Mrs Gardiner, here an oblivious young girl visiting Pemberley (as she mentioned in P&P that she had previously) and having a chance encounter she doesn't fully understand with Mr Darcy's glamorous half-sister, who is fully aware of the connection (complete).

O - One More Tomorrow

Legend of Korra: the sequel to The Edge of Darkness, the f!Tarrlok & Noatak sibling drama fic above. Like the first, it focuses heavily on Noatak, now shifting into the Amon identity and projecting his sibling baggage onto his non-bending "brothers and sisters" he recruits as followers, only to be confronted with the reality of his actual sister he abandoned to their abusive father's mercies years earlier when she arrives in Republic City as the new, ambitious councilwoman representing the Northern Water Tribe (WIP that I'll definitely return to, halted after Amon captures Taraka and strips her bending).

P - per ardua ad astra

Star Wars: a Rogue One Jyn/Cassian AU in which Jyn, Cassian, and Bodhi escape Scarif (+ Jyn seizing Kaytoo's head) in their Imperial shuttle, with Cassian still very severely injured, only for the shuttle to get caught in the Death Star's tractor beam. Jyn exploits the Imperial paraphernalia and an established false identity of Cassian's as an Imperial captain, as well as his very real injuries, to pass herself off as an Imperial aide-de-camp desperately trying to escape the Rebel attack with the only people she managed to save. She's resourceful enough to squeak them past security in that guise, and Bodhi enough to disappear into the influx of stormtroopers brought onboard, while Cassian recovers enough to step into his own role, forcing all three to scrape by undercover on the Death Star and infiltrate actual Imperial social groups as the ANH plot plays out, including the destruction of Alderaan (WIP, though a long one with some major points of tension resolved; they've just reached Yavin 4).

Q - The Quality of Mercy

Star Wars: an old ROTJ sequel that aggressively rejects everything outside the PT and OT, particularly what I've always found the strange, underbaked treatment of Force Ghost!Anakin and Luke as an embodiment of PT Jedi dogmatism, but ended up having some odd similarities to the sequels—it ostensibly centers on Han and Leia's younger daughter, Padmé Organa, a steady young Jedi on good terms with her entire family, but the real ghost haunting the story is her difficult, brilliant, restless older sister Lyra, who has become increasingly more of a merciless, self-righteous zealot as a Jedi while also increasingly fixated on her Skywalker ancestry, alarming not only Padmé, her parents, and Luke, but also Anakin himself (complete in itself, though the larger universe it's part of never got anywhere near as filled out as I'd envisioned: news at eleven).

R - Revenge of the Jedi

Star Wars: also very old, an AU of Return of the Jedi inspired by some discarded earlier concepts like Luke's twin being a new character, a more gradual redemption for Anakin entangled with his evolving relationship with Luke, and Leia gathering and taking up leadership of the remaining Alderaanians, but also weaving in material from the PT even though it's of course drastically AU: Padmé still exists as Leia's mother, for instance, and her death was still pivotal for Anakin, but they were platonic best friends and she was reciprocally in love with Bail Organa (complete in an unresolved sense: I had planned a sequel that I never wrote and had some side fics I never finished, and a lot of the ideas for it actually got funneled into the Lucyverse later, but Revenge itself was meant to work on its own even if it doesn't wrap up the OT plot).

S - Since We Were Children

Matchmaker: a canon-compliant one-shot about the initial friendship between Francesca Haughston (then Lady Francesca Fitzalan), her brother Dominic, and their much more prestigious and wealthy neighbor, Sinclair Lilles, the future Duke of Rochford (the friendship is a canon detail from Candace Camp's Matchmaker series of Regency romances). I believe this may be the only fic I've written where mine remains the sole fic for the fandom; the quartet has four romances, but the real attraction is the one that develops along its strange, winding route through the whole series and its backstory, the love story of Francesca and Rochford. We meet them as two hypercompetent 30-somethings: childhood friends turned youthful sweethearts turned estranged former betrotheds turned friends still transparently deeply in love as beautiful fashionista widow Francesca Haughston, who conceals her ongoing financial straits via "gifts" she receives from the grateful parents of youths she expertly shepherds and matchmakes for (she's the matchmaker of the title), and Sinclair now the discreet, virtuous, scholarly, and immeasurably reliable Duke of Rochford. Camp, unfortunately, rarely trusts in the strength of her own characters to carry the interest of the story rather than melodrama, which unfortunately infects the quartet finale centered on them, but there's still a deeply compelling quality about their dynamic that got me interested in imagining how it all began (complete).

T - To Live Forever

Eddings: a 2.7k canon-compliant one-shot sequel to the Belgariad/Malloreon (and my sole Yuletide fic) that's essentially a guided tour through the post-Malloreon world as seen by a later Angarak scholar traveling through Maragor etc, as she looks for proof of the historicity of canon figures like Garion, Polgara, Belgarath and so on, while it becomes increasingly clear that she has a deeper agenda for seeking them out (complete).

U - until the last chance is spent

Star Wars: this is another Lucyverse fic, a one-shot set early in The Imperial Menace (after the destruction of the Death Star), but really all about Rogue One and how their sacrifices fit into the psychological space of this AU and into the relationship between Lucy and Leia in particular. I actually waited to see Rogue One before I decided if I was going to try and accommodate it in the Lucyverse, but it was such an ideal OT prequel for me that I promptly decided HELL YEAH and vented my RO feelings here (complete).

V - the voices of the sea

Tolkien: this is a 1.8k one-shot from one of my (multiple >_>) f!Faramir AUs, the one in which the Númenórean throwbacks of LOTR are all genderbent. In this one, Míriel (Faramir) discovers Boromir's death as a follow-up to an earlier one-shot centered on Aranor's (Aragorn's) grief after finding him dying. Míriel is, of course, no warrior and wouldn't be camped at night on the Anduin or any other body of water, but I still wanted to figure out a way for the mystical vision to occur and make sense as something carried via water, so instead had the idea of her vision of Númenor's destruction ft. Tar-Míriel being the appropriately watery conduit for the vision of Boromir's death (complete).

W - whatever we deny or embrace

Star Wars: unusually, this is a Tumblr link, because I have yet to figure out how to shift the older version to the revised version on AO3, but in any case, it goes to the last section of my Jyn/Cassian femslash AU (with links to the previous ones), ft. some Baze/Chirrut and Luke/Bodhi (the premise is that the entirety of the Rogue One main cast is queer in some way, ranging from lesbian Cassia to grey-ace gay Bodhi). Unusually for a multi-chapter loving genderbent fic of mine, it's complete!

X - x machina*

Star Trek: this requires more explanation (issuefic of ultimate destiny!), but the asterisk is there because it's not actually posted and I've only written the earliest section (though outlined a lot), so it's very much "in the works" and I wasn't sure it quite counted for the spirit of the meme. But: it was basically inspired by how deeply annoying I find the "how could you possibly think TOS Kirk is anything but (binary) transmasc lol top surgery" Tumblr/AO3 thing, when I think binary trans man is easily the least probable trans reading of a character who we're told was, at age 13, one of nine boys/men to survive and witness a genocide; who argues onscreen that gender difference isn't actually real, but who actively leans into pretty explicitly feminine roles and makes them work where he's viscerally repulsed by comparable masculine ones (e.g., his revulsion from the role of strong masculine ideal father-figure in "Charlie X" vs manufacturing motherhood in "The Changeling," Helen's coolly unsentimental sexy dude Lothario fantasy of him in "Dagger of the Mind" as a violation of the real Kirk vs his actively sultry, calculated Lauren Bacall-type femme fatale flirtations to escape trouble in too many episodes to count); and who literally ends up in a woman's body (played by a very good actress—the only actor to really capture Shatner's Kirk), proceeding to argue while in that body and deliberately dressed and made up in femme-androgynous style (for 1969) that everything that defines him as a unique individual can be contained in that body. Despite all this and copious evidence that the 23rd-century Federation hasn't progressed as far with bigotry around gender and sexuality as the show tries to suggest it has with other bigotries, transfem Kirk is vanishingly rare in the fandom and nb!Kirk of any kind is barely more common, even via the obviously available sci-fi tropes/mechanisms. But binary defined-exclusively-by-masculinity Kirk is everywhereeeee (including among the crowd who describe anything Kirk does around gender as "butch" including declaring himself a mom but seem like they'd crumble into dust before suggesting he could be transfem for real). ANYWAY, I decided to be the change I want to see rather than just complaining, and write the "Turnabout Intruder" AU of my dreams in which Kirk and Spock (who is very much the "I am not a man" Spock) do succeed in running away hand-in-hand, Kirk is navigating being stuck in the body of his abusive ex yet also mysteriously more comfortable with it in some ways (helped by promptly dying his hair, wearing contacts, and changing his make-up to cover their trail), the Kirk-Uhura brotp is front and center, and realizing Janice-as-Kirk may well have poisoned the well at Starfleet, Spock instead manages to surreptitiously reach out to the VSA about the bodyswap machine and get Kirk sanctuary on Vulcan in the interim (the AU assumes no convenient time-out on the effect with Kirk and Janice light-years apart; instead they just get some minor though intriguing-to-the-VSA effects on their DNA). The title, of course, is a reference to the deus ex machina trope, but also to the literal bodyswap machine that serves as a deus ex machina for both Kirk's and Janice's gender treks in their different ways despite all the fuckery involved (let's just say that Janice isn't waxing their chest any time soon while Kirk is basically "I'm whatever gender gets me the Enterprise back and couldn't care less what pronouns make it happen").

Y - Yours, Et Cetera

Austen: this is an epistolary side-fic to First Impressions, my m!Elizabeth/f!Darcy retelling of P&P listed above, because my earliest phase of structuring First Impressions involved just writing the letters for that universe and I'd had an idea of actually finishing all the letters happening in the background as a separate fic (though entirely consistent with it). I never actually finished them, though I had fun enough with what's there, so it's a forever unfinished hiatus piece at 3k.

Z - zone of omission*

BG3: this is the f/f/f/ fic I nicknamed "the worst OT3": cleric of Mystra!Tav/f!Gale/Mystra, inspired about equally by a wise post from my friend venndaai about how every BG3 companion would be a bit better if genderbent (goth priest m!Shadowheart, dashing Blade of Frontiers f!Wyll, etc) that hit especially hard for Gale (middle-aged ambitious lady wizard nerd with the allure and talent to attract Mystra herself and all the f/f drama there, a compelling mix of real kindness and little moral fiber, and a need to chew down magic boots to keep the world from exploding? <3) + the intrinsic hilarity of cleric of Mystra/Gale + the wildly suggestive way a cleric of Mystra can talk about Mystra herself in emphatic agreement with early Gale. The title is a pun on the cleric spell "zone of truth" because all three people involved (Larissa, Gaila, Mystra) have a strong habit of lies of omission that aren't exaaaactly false, but. This is one I've talked about and posted a few scraps for, but it's still far too primordial for AO3 or anything like that, so I wasn't sure about "counting" it.

And that's every letter, for 24/26 or 26/26, depending on how you count them :D BEHOLD MY STUFF

We won't talk about how long this meme has been in my drafts, lol, so I think most people I'd ordinarily tag have already done it. If you've gotten far enough to see this and haven't done it, though, consider yourself tagged!

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: This Is Who You Are (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

rachelmanija

Don't need to know canon

"17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future" - Jon Bois. I only know this canon from Yuletide stories, and all I really know is that in the very far future, it's a post-scarcity world where everyone is immortal. It reliably produces lovely stories that feel kind of like the more personal/emotional xckd comics. Here is another one.

What Rock Collecting Will Look Like in the Future. Funny, bittersweet, cool worldbuilding; I was surprised and delighted to learn that fordite is real!

James Hoffman's Coffee Videos (Web Series)/Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft/"A Study in Emerald." All you need to know is that a coffee guy reviews coffee online, and this is him reviewing eldritch coffee.

I'm ranking 5 coffees from beyond this world (literally). "I feel a bit as if the coffee tasted me and not the other way around." Hilarious, dead-on coffee notes, dead-on Lovecraft; makes me want to try some of the coffees despite the risk of growing gills or being possessed by Elder Gods.

Tower Wizard - Hourly updates on the life of a wizard who lives in a tower, like "The little cat plays with a leaf. The wizard carefully checks that it's not a dangerous reagent, then returns it to the little cat." His best friend is an ex-paladin, and they eat a lot of interesting food. That's it, that's all you need to know.

Ruins and Roads. A charming original fantasy story, magical and cozy and bittersweet.

True Detective - season one. All you need to know to read this story is that Rust and Marty used to be cops, and they were both seriously injured when they reunited to investigate a weird case that might or might not have supernatural elements.

burned in kind. An outstanding post-series casefic and get-together with a flawless Rust voice, A+ hurt-comfort, and a creepy maybe-supernatural maybe-not case. If you know the series, this is 100% not to be missed; if you don't, you might still really like it as a standalone spooky mystery with excellent characterization.

World War Z - Max Brooks. You just need to know that there are zombies.

little stone. Zombies in 9th century Latvia! An atmospheric story about grief and loss in a time far from us; the protagonist's emotions are raw and vivid. Note: child death.

Need to know canon

House of Hollow - Krystal Sutherland

You Live in a Hollow House. Creepy, unsettling horror with an excellent use of color and image embeds.

Meeting Halfway. Creepy, unsettling horror with a touch of sweetness.

tamaranth

this blog post was written but apparently never posted, and I am not logging onto my werk laptop just to post it now -- this is a placeholder for end-of-year

04SEP25: Eeb Allay Ooo (???, 20??) -- Netflix
( Read more... )
05SEP25: The Materialists (???, 2025) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
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11SEP25: Maria (???, 20??) -- Netflix
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12SEP25: Patience (???, 20??) -- Wilton's Music Hall
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19SEP25: Spinal Tap 2 (???, 20??) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
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25SEP25: Mindhorn (???, 20??) -- Netflix
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27SEP25: Iphigenia in Tauris (Gluck) -- Blackheath Halls Opera
( Read more... )

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