solarbird | Reading

I just measured my dining area table. It comes as both a disappointment and a relief that I don't have enough space, not even close, for that fabulous dining set by John Kirschbaum. Oh, and I probably can't afford anything by Elizabeth Gahan and still pay surgery-related expenses.

Speaking of expeneses, I do believe I've found a group that I want to camp with at Burning Man, no ambivalence necessary. Yes, I've dug out my packing list of doom.

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: Brit Hansen on KEXP's Expansions from Sunday night

conuly

Today's temperatures: Started below 20, "feels like" in the single digits. But not to worry, within a week we should be in the 50s!

And they just said that, with no commentary, like it's not absolutely bizarre to go from 19F - 56F within a single week in December.

And it's not just the high temperatures that are bizarre, the low ones are too. I can't speak to the decades before 1990, I guess, but NYC weather used to be temperate - we got more snow, but that's because the winter temperatures were in the snow range - close to the freezing point, not so warm it melted, not so cold that it just didn't happen.

rfemod posting in

girlgay

rarefemslashexchange is a multi fandom exchange focused on f/f ships with two or more female characters (canon or genderbent) and/or genderqueer characters that you feel would fit in a f/f exchange, with less than 250 works on AO3- completed, in English, using the otp:true filter. The minimum requirements are either a 500 word fic or a nice sketch.

Sign-Up instructions are here.

2025 Links

Tag Set | AO3 Collection | Rules & Guidelines

2025 Schedule

Nominations: December 1-10th (closes at 10PM PST)
Sign-Ups Open: December 13th
Sign-Ups Close: December 27th, 10PM PST [Countdown to sign-ups closing] [In Your Timezone]
Assignments Out: approximately December 30th
Assignments Due: February 6th, 10PM PST
Assignments Revealed: February 13, 10PM PST
Creators Revealed: February 20th, 10PM PST

james_davis_nicoll

The TRAVELLER 2022 UPDATE corebook, ALIENS guides, sector sourcebooks, and more.

Bundle of Holding: Traveller Explorations (from 2022)

A high-power 800-page adventure for Mongoose Traveller that uncovers the greatest mysteries of Charted Space

Bundle of Holding: Traveller Ancients

elisheva_m posting in

little_details

My female main character just told someone she's dyslexic. News to me, but that's how my characters roll <3 and it may perhaps help ground something else about her as a secondary consequence of childhood struggles with reading.

I've read a lot but it's all professional overviews and such, not enough from people who actually are. Right now I'm looking for small things I can tuck in which will suggest dyslexia to attentive, aware readers without spelling it out. She is 32 and those who are closest to her will be well used to working with her needs.

A few childhood memories can be tucked in as well.

Another question for those with dyslexia, if someone suggests reading novels out loud to her, would that be likely to work or might there still be difficulties with following everything? I understand there's a range of differences but I'd like to have her be fairly representative that way if I do include that sort of scene. Or maybe he suggests novels and she asks for short stories?

I'd like to do better than just 'trouble reading' and consequently struggled at school.

Her possibly relevant characteristics (things mentioned on the overview sites) which can't change - she is very adept physically and has excellent spatial awareness, reaction times, navigation skills and such. No dyspraxia or ADHD. If there's any executive dysfunction, it needs to be limited and compensated for well. She needs to be quick-witted, adaptable and confident she can hold her own in conversation with people who are trying to get the upper hand too.

But so far there's only one scene where she reads or writes anything and that can be altered. It's almost like she's been trying to tell me this all along.

I hope this makes sense. If you feel the need to tell me how wrong I am, please be gentle with your vehemence.

TIA for any help.

canyonwalker

"Global Bonus Holidays for [Company] Employees" read an email that was sent out 2 months ago.

I didn't get it.

I literally didn't get it.

I only learned about it today when a few colleagues and I were making smalltalk at the start of a meeting. "Are you going anywhere next week when we have the whole week off?" they asked.

"WhAt WhOlE nExT wEeK oFf?!?" was all I could reply.

Goddammit.

God DAMMIT.

I could have planned a vacation if I'd known about this TWO FUCKING MONTHS AGO. Instead I learn about it with less than a week to go. After Hawk made a conflicting plan... and even if we change that conflict, travel is 2x - 3x as expensive to book now as TWO FUCKING MONTHS AGO.

neonvincent

I decided to save this video for next year.

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: House in the woods at the edge of town
Current Music: Tinderly Twitch stream

james_davis_nicoll

2025: Scientists are astonished when the largest ever dinosaur fossil trackway does not lead into the House of Lords, Tate Britain breaks with English tradition by returning looted art, and in a shocking break from centuries of Catholic precedent, the new Pope is a Cubs fan.

Poll #33961 Clarke Award Finalists 2025

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 17

View Respondents

Which 2025 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
1 (5.9%)

Extremophile by Ian Green
0 (0.0%)

Private Rites by Julia Armfield
1 (5.9%)

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
11 (64.7%)

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
10 (58.8%)

Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock by Maud Woolf
0 (0.0%)

Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2025 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
Extremophile by Ian Green
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock by Maud Woolf

rionaleonhart

Time for a dream roundup!

( Dreams from October to December. )

Oh, wow, is Christmas really only ten days away? My brother's asked me to write him a story this year; I'd better get cracking.

downstrife posting in

addme_fandom

Name: Cobalt/Cob [/irl name if we get to know each other] (transmasc : he/him)

Age group: born in 2001, so mid 20s ig!

Country: France

Subscription/Access Policy: As long as you're an adult Im pretty open about it
I like to post about: Regular life logs, since I want to benmore active here to be less on Twitter, thoughts about whatever i'm watching/playing and art !! I am a concept art student so i spend 80% of my time drawing digitally or traditionnaly, and also cosplay stuff when they're worth being seen hehehe

Main Fandoms: Persona 4, South Park, AI : The Somnium Files, Homestuck, Star Trek TOS, Yaoi/BL

Other Fandoms: Final Fantasy VII, Danganronpa, TBOI, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Vocaloid, Code Geass, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and others you can find either on the interest corner of my profile or my strawpage !

Fannish Interests: Digital art, traditional art (doing fanarts yeah....), cosplay, sharing my headcanons and making self insert OCs

OTPs and Ships: Kirk/Spock, Tweek/Craig, Kyle/Stan, Kyle/Cartman, Randy/Gerald, Adachi/Dojima, Adachi/OC, Cloud/Sephiroth, Lelouch/Suzaku, Dave/Karkat, Eridan/Sollux, Karkzt/Gamzee, Yu/Yosuke, Joker/Akechi, Sherlock/John, Sherlock/Moriarty, Walter/Jonathan (SMT4)

Favourite Movies: Snatch, American Psycho, Man Bites Dog, Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather

TV Shows: South Park, Star Trek TOS, BBC Sherlock, Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul

Books: 1984, American Psycho and I dont read a lot im working on that....

Music: Nine Inch Nails, Ptite Soeur, Korn, KMFDM, Limp Bizkit, MSI (i downloaded everything.....), Bones and way more.... i love music so much (special mention to goth music, french experimental rap and industrial metal tho)

Games: Persona 4, Final Fantasy VII, AI: The Somnium Files, TBOI, PJSK

Comics/Anime: Code Geass, JJBA, Haruhi Suzumiya

Misc: Old tech in general, concerts, arts and craft

My blog is still kind of under construct as I discover more and more everyday about this platform, I'm always open to discover new people and new stuff so don't hesitate to come say hi ! :D

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Vulcan - Snake River Conspiracy

conuly

and I had to take a car, which I can not afford. At least the corner store hadn’t shut down and the cashier let me wait inside. Either he’s very friendly and chatty or he’s flirting with me, but the important thing is I still have all my toes.

canyonwalker

This evening is the start of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. We lit the first candle on a menorah to mark it.

Marking the start of Hanukkah (Dec 2025)

Marking the start of Hanukkah (Dec 2025)

...And when I saw "we", I mean Hawk. Hawk lit the candle and said the brief blessing in Hebrew. She grew up in a Jewish family. I'm just supporting her because I'm married into a Jewish family.

For more insight on what Hanukkah is (hint: it is NOT "Jewish Christmas" 😅) check out this gentile's guide to Hanukkah I wrote a few years ago.

dialecticdreamer

Exceptional Holiday
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1518
[21 December 2016]

:: A young woman is expecting to have the day off work for a nontraditional holiday. There’s enough of a snag that a stranger steps in to ensure that the problem gets cleared up. Part of the Polychrome Heroics universe, and written for the December of 2025 Giftmas event. Many thanks to the prompter for the wonderful idea. ::

“You called me shouting to get in on time today, after I had asked for today off weeks ago,” Summer Longacre declared, crossing her arms next to the small lectern labeled with a crisp sign which read, “Please wait to be seated.”. The name badge pinned on Summer’s uniform shirt held a strip of beige masking tape with her first name written on it in permanent marker.

Elaine didn’t look up. “Everybody works the entire week before Christmas because the diner is closed that day.”
( Read more... )

Current Mood: artistic

james_davis_nicoll

Now you can have the ebook (which you're only renting if it is DRMed), hard-to-shelve trade paperback, or the expensive hardcover.

brithistorian

NME (which seems have a much better of understanding on K-pop than Rolling Stone) has released a list of the [top 25 K-pop songs of 2025]! I scrolled to it, sure that I would have forgotten a lot of songs from earlier in the year, and was pleasantly surprised to see there were some I hadn't heard before, so it was like an early birthday present from NME!

I was also looking to see if NMIXX made the list — I've loved their new songs, and I was hoping that other people appreciated them. I was happy to see NMIXX's "High Horse" ranked #7 — four places higher than Blackpink's "Jump" (which I thought was highly overrated and wouldn't have ranked so high had it been by someone other than Blackpink). I then kept scrolling and was pleased and surprised to see H1-Key's "Summer Was You" ranked #6. Then I kept scrolling and was absolutely gobsmacked to see Huntr/x's "Golden" ranked #2 — I expected it to take the top spot, and was extremely surprised to find it in #2! So what was #1? I had absolutely no idea. I scrolled and was surprised and overjoyed to find NMIXX's "Spinnin' on It" at #1!

Watch on YouTube

james_davis_nicoll

cosmolinguist

Almost nothing has happened today, but that gives me a chance to talk about everything else that happened yesterday, hopefully before I forget.

I woke up and actually managed to get the train and tram to lift club. The last couple times I'd tried to make it there on public transport hadn't worked out, so it was nice to be able to make it. Especially because it's the last one of the year! At the end I gave George a hug that he said was so good it changed his life. "I'm a very enthusiastic hugger!" he said. "People aren't usually able to meet my energy!" But I guess I did. I love George, even if he does put me on a pedestal a little bit sometimes.

I got a lift home, with had the usual good chats with my pal D. I went right to Teddy's house to walk him, because our usual evening-walk had been swapped to morning walk this once. So this was not only the day that his human, Graham, was having his knee operation, he was having it as we were walking! I let Teddy lead me around the neighborhood for as long as I could but I had a big list of things to do so had to drag him home eventually. I had a good catch-up with Sylvia -- her sister was there, who is so effusive about how much of a help my household has been, aww -- but did have to scurry home so I could have a shower and be on to the next thing.

The next thing was D and I going most of the way to Liverpool to help a relative of V's who's cleaning out his mum's house. We've done this a few times and it's nearly done now. He'd saved me some apple-shaped dishes that I'd coveted the first time but left there; when I was looking through photos of the year for something parent-suitable I saw the photo of these dishes that I'd sent V in order to squee about them, and I was really sad that I hadn't taken them after all. I didn't expect them to have been put to one side for me but since they were I figured it was a sign and eagerly brought them home. They were greeted when I got here by angelofthenorth who recognized them immediately and has a couple herself. It was nice to feel so validated in that decision!

D and I spent a long time at the recycling center, separating stuff out into the appropriate bins. I was stymied by what to do with all the food: all the half-finished bags and jars that a well-stocked home cook had -- the jars all labeled neatly and everything. It was sad to have to get rid of it all. In the process I cut my finger on a bit of broken glass and had to ask the staff for first aid: one employee shouted to another in the scousest accent I've ever heard: "Alex! This man needs to wash his hands! He's got an injury!" They also gave me a little wound-cleaning wet wipe and a band-aid so it was okay.

I got home and needed a nap because we were going out again that evening. To see Karkasaurus and Petrol Bastard, which was such fun even if there was so much dry ice I could taste it and it felt like I was in beginning-of-horror-movie levels of fog. And like I said D got his Loop earplug stuck in his ear, but V got it out today so that's worked out okay. We ran into a number of people that we know there, from different things -- sign of a good gig -- and might have been led astray for a completely extraneous pint afterwards, by this person and her girlfriend and their Welsh friend. Said person continues to be delightfully tactile around me in a way that usually doesn't get to happen absent some romantic or sexual interest, and it's utterly delightful.

And then we left them to their reckless ways and got an uber home just before midnight which is why I didn't have time to talk about all of this in yesterday's blog post!

I did well to be feeling as okay as I am today; I think the fact that I continue to get insomnia when I'm drunk, which at least means I can drink water while I'm awake, keeps the hangovers from being as bad as I've been led to expect in my forties!

letzan

I want to shine an occasional spotlight on fandoms that are in flux. There are two kinds of fandoms here:

Fandoms that are growing rapidly, which are typically not in the top 20 now, and may never get there, but might be interesting for F/F readers to check out and encourage.
Fandoms that are losing ground on the top 20, and seem to be "post-peak." They may well peak again in the future, but it's a good moment to look back at the impressive amount of F/F which has been written so far.

I'd love for readers to help me signal-boost some recs for these fandoms. If you've read and enjoyed F/F fic in any of the fandoms listed in this post (either the new ones or the old standards), please send me some works you liked! I'll share all the recs I get in a future Week In Review post. Feel free to send recs on Tumblr as reposts, inbox messages, or DMs, and on Dreamwidth as comments or messages. (Let me know if you don't want to be credited for your rec.)

Fandoms that are growing rapidly

Each of these fandoms has at least twice as many total F/F works now as it did 12 weeks ago.

Dispatch (Video Game): This is a superhero workplace comedy video game, which was released in the past couple of months. The fandom is primarily M/M, but it's growing by about 20 F/F works per week. The top femslash ship is Blonde Blazer | Mandy/Invisigal | Courtney.
Pluribus (TV 2025): This is a post-apocalpytic SF TV show which premiered in November. Fic in the small fandom is almost entirely F/F, and the fandom is growing at about 10 F/F works/week. The top ship is Carol/Zosia (an author who is resisting the hive mind and the chaperone tasked to help her join it).
Pokemon Legends: Z-A (Video Game): This is a new RPG in the Pokemon universe. It's not predominantly F/F, but it's growing about 5 F/F works/week, spread over a couple of ships.

Fandoms that are losing ground

Each of these fandoms dropped on the chart by at least two places, comparing the average in the past twelve weeks to the twelve weeks before that.

Alien Stage (Web Series): This is a Korean animated web series in which aliens run a singing contest for abducted humans. The web series ran from 2022-2025. The fandom first appeared on the chart in 2024, and charted every week over summer 2025, briefly cracking the top 10. It's falling off the chart now, from an average weekly rank of 14.7 last quarter to 20.0 this quarter, presumably because the series ended. Fic in the fandom is about 1/4 F/F, and the top ship is Mizi/Sua.
The Owl House (Cartoon): a portal fantasy cartoon series that aired from 2020-2023, and has charted every week since mid-2020, 279 weeks in total. Its average rank fell from 13.4 to 16.8 this quarter, which is still pretty good for a show that ended over two years ago, but that chart streak is likely to end soon. The biggest ship by far is canonical F/F ship Amity/Luz.
Yellowjackets (TV): this thriller drama series about a group of teenagers stranded in the wilderness by a plane crash, has been a chart regular since 2023. The most recent season ended in April, so it's no surprise that the fandom has fallen out of the top five, from an average rank of 4.7 last quarter, to 7.2 this quarter. However, the current chart streak of 71 consecutive weeks is very likely to continue until the next and final season airs in 2026. Fic in the fandom is overwhelmingly F/F, and the top ships are still Shauna Shipman/Jackie Taylor, Lottie Matthews/Natalie Scatorccio, and Van Palmer/Taissa Turner, all of whom are members of the soccer team.