arduinna

My mother died in March. That feels like basically the only thing that happened this year, but of course it's not. Theoretically you stay in full mourning for a parent for a whole year (which hasn't ended yet); I haven't quite managed that, as done properly it's really quite intense, no social gatherings or live music for example, but it has definitely been the major theme in my life. And helping Dad to figure out what his life will be like as a widow.

I continued to be a student rabbi, making it through to the halfway point of my studies. I took on more and more complex rabbinic work, and got to know the incoming first year students. (We're the grownups now, there is actually only one finalist ahead of my cohort.) My much awaited and also somewhat dreaded trip to Israel got cancelled, due to the decision point coinciding with the particularly scary time when Israel was actively at war with Iran. I did some other short travel, even making it to Germany and Sweden.

Significant events:

Mum went from being officially terminally ill but mostly coping at the beginning of the year, to the drugs not working and being in a lot of pain in January-February, to actively dying. March-April was all the immediate aftermath of her death.
I had a few days with jack in Skegness, which I remember basically nothing about because it was in the middle of the final weeks of Mum's life. I think we stayed in a cute tiny house and did a bit of walking in the countryside. I have more memories of our trip to Norfolk in May.
I spent a very intense and overwhelming week in Germany at an Abrahamic faith retreat.
doseybat and verazea got married on a lightship on the Thames, and my partners had a Jewish blessing of their 20-year-old marriage, both on the same weekend.
I did a completely absurd amount of travelling for the High Holy Days, first day Rosh HaShanah in Southampton, second day in the Isle of Wight accompanied by the intrepid cjwatson, Shabbat Shuva in Stoke, Yom Kippur in Cornwall where I had to respond to the first fatal antisemitic attack in this country in my lifetime, Succot back home in Cambridge, a very flying visit to Sweden for the Shabbat during Succot with ghoti_mhic_uait, and back for Simchat Torah and returning to college.

( other wrap-ups )

Previous versions: [2004] [2005] [2006] [2007] [2008] [2009] [2010] [2011] [2012] [2013] [2014] [2017] [2018] [2019] [2020] [2021] [2022] [2023][2024] Amazingly this is my 19th review of the year; I've been going since 2004 but there were a couple of years in the middle I missed out.

Current Music: Nine Inch Nails (feat Judeline): Who wants to live forever

ride_4ever

My #49 Fannish Fifty links to the #49 Fannish Fifty of my fanpair,

verushka70. And how's that for being fairly literal about the pairing thing, matching Fannish Fifty numbers.

For her extensive post about Canadian Tire acquiring Hudson Bay Company's intellectual property -- including the iconic striped blanket design -- and about the partnership between Canadian Tire and the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund (the retailer has guaranteed at least $1 million a year to support Oshki Wupoowane -- The Blanket Fund --with the money being used to support grassroots Indigenous organizations and Indigenous cultural, artistic and educational projects) click here.

Also: direct link to Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund home page.

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Location: near the lake they call Michigan

kuwdora

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Current Mood: awake

goodbyebird

I'm running a Fallout icon battle here. You can sign up with caps until midnight tomorrow (I've supplied plenty to choose from but any s1 or 2 caps will do), but join in any time after.

Our boos deserve more icons!

wallwalker posting in

100ships

Another catch-up post!

Honey in the Sun (608 words) by Wallwalker
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Rating: General Audiences
Prompt: 98 - Honey
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rinoa Heartilly/Quistis Trepe
Characters: Rinoa Heartilly, Quistis Trepe
Additional Tags: Hair Brushing, Backstory, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Community: 100ships, Vignette
Series: Part 60 of Fills for 100ships - Jan 2022 to ?
Summary: Rinoa caring for Quistis's hair.

Table link: Here (60/100)

This puts me at around a year since I fell into Scum Villian’s Self-Saving System fandom, which is neat! I typically am in a fandom for less than a year, or wander on as it dies down but delightfully SVSSS has staying power insofar as there are still folks actively and frequently creating fic in it and so there’s more for me to enjoy (an potentially podfic in the future). And as it’s a relatively closed canon I don’t need to worry about stuff happening that makes me less interested in the canon. But aside from the SVSSS fervor of this year, I have also dabbled in some other fannish spaces as well.

I virtually attended Citrus Con this year, I think because I saw someone talking about it on Bluesky, and it was a very right-time alignment for reminding me how I used to be really into manga/anime. I’ve been keeping up with anime somewhat through watching with friends but not seriously keeping track of what I might be interested in or reading manga. So now I’m getting caught up.

Lurking in the Citrus Squad discord led me to discovering Korean webcomics. Now I’m in a bunch of tiny fandoms, following 23 ongoing webcomics and keeping tabs on 13 that are on hiatus. As someone who wants fanvids of all the things I love, this has also meant getting a TikTok account because that’s where the edits/vids fandom is for Korean webcomics, so that’s also been a new experience. I haven’t started vidding webcomics yet but I’m definitely observing what I think works, or doesn’t, and hoping that I figure out vidding still images effectively for myself in the next year. This has also meant learning new pronunciation and proper nouns for podfic, which is a bit harder coming from webcomics than Kdramas because at least with dramas I have the show audio to try and mimic, but for webcomics by the time I start recording something I have possibly been pronouncing words incorrectly in my head for a while. So I’m starting to learn phonetic interpretation of transliteration of Korean better (I hope).

I’m now also dipping my toes in the world of Korean webnovels, in addition to having been consistently reading (or listening to) danmei over the course of the last year. I anticipate finishing 2ha in the coming year, and getting to enjoy catching up on the fandom without fear of spoilers. And once that happens I’ll probably get back into Critical Role as my primary audio-accompaniment to the hours and hours of physical therapy I have to do every week. But I am interested in webnovels as long-form story telling, enjoying what I’ve read so far, and curious to check out more of the fan translations particularly for genres that interest me (Korean hunterverse webnovels have been a good match for tropes I like).

I started doing embroidery last year, so that’s a creative thing I’ve been doing this whole year. I’ve done a few fannish pieces this year, but hope to do more in the next year. (Last year was Perihelion polar fleece, MDZS bunnies, and Utena shadow girls, this year was a humpback whale for Lays of the Hearth Fire, SVSSS bingqiu, a Ghibli-esque train and rice fields image (ongoing), and a character for a gift swap - perhaps I should do an embroidery specific post with pics at some point). My plan for what’s next is a Moshang thread painting fanart piece.

Podfic

This year I posted 62 podfics totaling 91 hours. That’s ~20 hours more than last year, which makes sense as I did more long podfics than normal - SVSSS is very good for long fic. I went into the year intending to record 2 ~120k fics, I wound up adding to that several in the 30-90k range.

I recorded in 20 fandoms, primarily Lays of the Hearth-Fire, Scum Villian’s Self-Saving System, Summer Hikaru Died, and S Classes That I Raised.

Personal Favorite: Embers by alfgifu and Tarnished Gold by Prim_the_Amazing tying for first place in this category as two of my long projects this year that I particularly loved

Completed goals

- Record the rest of the Embers series by alfgifu

- Record some long SVSSS fic - and how! I did 5 podfics of at least 40k each. This was more than I was even anticipating when I set this goal last December. SVSSS fandom has been such a joy <3

- Participate in VoiceTeam

- Continue making cover art for all my podfic

What’s next (future goals)

- VoiceTeam participation

- Continue making cover art

- If particular author completes a particular SVSSS WIP - ask for permission & if granted record (preferably as part of PodficBigBang, but idk if author will be finished timely for that and I’m waiting to ask for recording permission for when they’re done)

- Podfic for Blind Go (if I get permission from author of fic I’m thinking of for it)

- Get all my stuff duplicated to SquidgeWorld so I have diversification off AO3 (I’ve been sidetracked onto other projects and this one has been backburnered so idk when it might realistically happen, maybe this is a 2027 thing)

- Get all my stuff backed up onto the audiofic archive - happily I might be able to rely on the kindness of others and not do this myself since I keep failing to do it.

Vids

I made final drafts of a total of 13 vids this year. I have 3 vids in-progress at the moment. I don’t have any dominant fandom this year, a selection of Festivids fandoms and some anime.

Personal Favorite: expert in a dying field (my VidUKon GPOY vid, I do enjoy wallowing in my tropes)

Viewer favorite (views/kudos):

Both YT and AO3 agree on the same vid this year: Vigilante Shit

Most fun: Intricate Rituals

Hardest to make: Rust - I signed up for this fandom for Festivids last year knowing the show was ongoing, turns out I don’t like trying to make a vid for an actively ongoing canon, I don’t enjoy constructing a vid when not entirely sure what I’ll get out of the last episodes of a season. Suffice to say I now know I prefer to vid a canon once a season is complete (even if there will be future seasons).

Things I learned this year: I feel like I’m getting better at audio editing (thank you sandalwoodbox!).

Completed goals:

- I sent vids to some cons

- keep growing diversity of my music collection but also listen more to songs of artists I’ve liked so I can be familiar with them/know them well.

Ongoing goals:

- make another collaborative vid w/ sandalwoodbox (we did a tiny bit of work on this but still very much ongoing)

Future Goals:

- Make and send AMVs to AMV Contests?

- Make a webcomic vid?

Fic

I wrote one fic for Yuletide this year, so just a little bit once again, but I felt better about my writing process this year and I want to see if I can keep writing over the course of the next year. I feel really rusty but like I could enjoy it if I got back into writing regularly like I used to. I had an idea for an additional fic but didn’t write it. Hopefully I’ll do more in the new year without needing Yuletide as encouragement to write.

falena

So, guess what fandom completely took over my brain? Well, looks like I'm in good company, judging from the honestly frightening number of stories that gets posted to the Ao3 each day. I've been trawling the tag whenever I have a bit of time, like the good obsessive fangirl that I am, and I'll share my findings with you. :D Also, a heads-up, I'm going to be locking my rec-cember posts tomorrow or the day after. I don't like to have a lot of public posts on this journal.

All stories are Shane/Ilya, even when the story doesn't focus on the relationship. As usual, I live for AUs. Assume spoilers for The Long Game for all of these, I've read the books a couple of times but not recently so I can't quite keep the timeline straight in my head.

Gen

love takes miles 7K words, mixed media. Ten years of Hollanov as seen through fandom. This is clever and so much fun!

how do you feel? 10 K. * Shane Hollander, interviewee, throughout the years.* Fantastic Shane character study.

Missing Scenes

wanna get stuck in your head . 31 K. He only realizes he’s doing it when it’s too late to stop. He’s standing in the drink aisle of the grocery store, checking the expiration dates on the cans of Coke, mentally cross-checking them with Boston’s away game schedule, and the reality hits him like someone shook one of those cans and popped it open. A snap. A fizz. A mess. Shane is making space for Ilya. A series of missing scenes expanding on the episodes/books, lovely Shane exploration.

Ep 2 The Wrong Conclusion. Hayden & Shane. 505 words. “Um,” Hayden started, and his whole face was flushed red. Shane couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Hayden look so flustered. “Lily sent you a dick pic.” I have a soft spot for Hayden Pike. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but a good friend.

Ep 3

u might want to get tested . Explicit. 5.3K words. Lily: U might want to get tested Jane: Hilarious. Fuck you. Fantastic voices. Perfectly in character. And hilarious. I actually LOLed a few times while reading.

Ep 4

Too Nice. Explicit. 3.3 k. Hollander's parents weren't mean enough to him, Ilya decides. He's an only child, too — that has to have played a part. Almost certainly, nobody ever sat backwards on Hollander's chest and farted into his mouth while he tried to get away. Nobody ever poked his lower lip when he was sad and said a bird will come poop on this if you don't put it away. And definitely, nobody ever said my son can be lazy, right in front of his face, right in front of the owner of the new team that picked him first. This is hot, but what I like the most is Ilya's POV on Shane.

Ep 5

measure of a man Shane&Rose. 1.2k. “Nine.” Her voice is flat with disbelief. “Rose.” He drags a hand over his face.“Nine. Like—inches? No metric nonsense? God, I kind of wish it was metric nonsense. That can’t be right.” I love Rose teasing Shane but also helping him out. Such great banter and characterisation.

Ep 6

Keep Pace. I've seen quite a fair bit of fic about Yuna Hollnader, this is the only one I found focussing on David. Absolutely perfect, feels straight out of canon.

Future fic and/or stories set after The Long Game (aka book 2)

Tad Too Tight . 803 words. Being married on the same team can be proven difficult. Especially for rookies that don’t know the extent.

Dig Two Graves 28 K. The Montreal Voyageurs won't stop slinging mud at Shane in the press, so Shane and Ilya decide to get revenge the best way they know how. This is extremely angsty, be warned. Mind the tags!

two-man advantage. 4.7K. Two-Man Advantage: At Home with Hockey’s Biggest Power Couple, by Matthew Cooper. Their on-ice rivalry turned into the NHL’s most unexpected love story. Now, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov say they have no plans to slow down. The GQ profile fic. I love external POvs in the form of a magazine article.

AUs

I'm Reading Your Lips (You're Speaking My Language) . 30 K. Explicit. Despite an inauspicious start, when Russia’s Ilya Rozanov learns that Canada’s Shane Hollander is fluent in Russian at their first World Junior Championships tournament, it changes everything and sets them on a different course. Instead of being branded as rivals from the very beginning, Ilya and Shane start off as friends. And, after all, a little friendly rivalry never hurt anyone, did it? I like how having Shane a heritage Russian speaker changes the dynamic between our guys.

WIPS

I dont' usually rec unfinished stories but these are so good, I'm keeping all my fingers crossed for them to be actually finished!

Concussion Protocol AU. Instead of Shane, it is Ilya who suffers a concussion during the Boston-Montreal game in April 2017. This is a total angst-fest! I love how the author is exploring properly in jury recovery and what looking after someone with that sort of problem entails. And the psychological repercussions for all involved.

Half Agony, Half Hope by CorvidCordelia 26K so far. Au. Three years after Shane broke it off (not that there was anything to break off), he gets a concussion and the Metros bring in Ilya to fill in for him. A breakup and makeup fic inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion. I live for update notifs for this fic! It's that good.

Home Ice Advantage .Shane gets traded to Boston AU.

The Pitt

Since one of the WIPs I found only because I recognised the author's name from *the Pitt, I give you their Kingdon fic: Frank Langdon and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by CorvidCordelia. Groundhog Day AU. A fannish classic, and when it's done well like in this case it is super-satisfying!

oursin

What I read

Finished Pointed Roofs - gosh, how bizarre is that German girls' school? It seems more like somewhere that parents send their little darlings to until marriagable age, and actual education is not a priority.

Simon R Green, Which Witch (The Holy Terrors #3) (2025), enjoyable popcorn read.

Which could also be said for Simon Brett, Death in the Dressing Room (A Fethering Mystery, #22) (2025), phoning it in a bit perhaps.

I thought Janice Hallett, The Killer Question (2025), was doing the opposite of phoning it in and straining too hard. This might be the thing one sees when a writer has done Something Fresh and Exciting but there comes a point when that is hard to sustain and there is a feeling that they have scurried around a bit and it feels kinds of effortful.

Matt Houlbrook, Songs of Seven Dials: An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London (2025) (which is, I may point out, well after the epoch of Seven Dials in which I have shown interest....). It's very good, very readable, if I had been sent it for review I might have made a few quibbles - e.g. on the basis of the evidence he adduces about the changes going on in the area, even if the mixed race couple the Kittens hadn't brought a libel suit against entrenched wealthy interests, wouldn't their cafe have had to close eventually anyway? Also was reminded of those lecture by Gayle Rubin on the leather community in San Francisco and how very specific local contingent factors meant that certain phenomena could arise, also very much within a specific time. Also that cities (if they are places where things are still happening rather than historical relics) tend to see changes all the time and there is a fluidity around spaces.

On the go

Still on the go, Diary at the Centre of the Earth, which I am enjoying a lot.

Exasperatingly, because of the e-reader issue and because Some Men in London 1960-1967 alleged it was not properly authorised I had to reauthorise my reader via Adobe Digital Editions, as a result of which a large number of my books have been removed from the ereader, including that one, removing my place markers when I reimported it.

Up next

Should probably get on to Anthony Powell, Hearing Secret Harmonies (A Dance to the Music of Time #12 (1975) for the final meeting of the book-group next month.

lullabymoon posting in

inkingitout

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machinistm

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Current Music: L'anarchie des jours heureux - La Bronze

profiterole_reads

Wicked 2 (my local cinema finally showed it!) was great, but a little too long. Since it's the sadder half of the story, it's obviously less enjoyable.

But at least they love each other! <3

rydra_wong

* I supported one of my best friends who was in an abusive relationship, which got extremely scary before the end.

* I finished and posted the first fanfic I've written since the Epic Psychiatric Misadventures 16 years ago which reduced my brain to scorched earth, and I think it's one of the two best things I've ever written:

a word you've never understood (Prophet, post-canon, Adam/Rao, 9143 words)

* I started playing Dark Souls, and I beat Ornstein and Smough.

* I did some RL stuff which I can't talk about here without doxxing myself, but which was my tiny contribution to trying to make the UK suck less.

* I discovered I could go for a "run" (very slow run-walk intervals) ending up by a spot in a brook where I could quickly change and dunk myself, and this enabled the dunking to be viable much later into the year than you might think (context: my brain's idiosyncrasies means that a few minutes of cold water immersion is FREE DOPAMINE, so this is the bribe for the "run").

Other than that, the year's been a shitshow of injury, endless IC flare-ups and consequent pain and sleep deprivation, endless exhaustion, endless terror and worry about my friend, and the inevitable slide into depression by the end of the year as a result of all the aforementioned stressors. Hopefully it will be transient, and my meds cocktail and many many years of practice will suffice to haul me out.

sometimes dutifully falling and getting out, with perfect fortitude, saying “look at the skill and spirit with which I rise from that which resembles the grave but isn’t!”.

It's been a shitty year. I lived.

newredshoes

The plan for this morning involved a lot more tidying up, but Gingko has decided she's sleeping on top of me on the couch, so plans have rightfully changed. I keep meaning to write more — this has been my sparsest year ever with an online journal, which I've been keeping regularly since 2000 (holy shit). ( End-of-year navel-gazing )

I don't know — all these sentences are starting with I, but I don't really know if I have much to say right now! I read you all every day, though, and I am trying to get better about actually replying to comments and commenting on your posts, because online journaling like this has been an important part of my life for *whisper-screams* twenty-five years. I'm not going to try a graceful sign-off; here are the first sentences of each month in 2025, minus March, which apparently I just skipped, and honestly, given March, who wouldn't?

On the flight back from Jamaica, I was randomly selected for an incredibly thorough drug testing. Miss Ma'am has been FULL OF BEANS the past week or so; I keep trying to give her a predictable schedule and peaceful environment, but that can be difficult when she's just so big and so curious. I got hailed on this weekend! It has to be shared, it has to be recorded: My newest ride-or-die c-ent blorbo has a tragicomic history of style felonies, including big Cyrillic calligraphy tattoos (since lasered off), a bellybutton piercing, innumerable hair crimes and a pink handcuffs scandal!!!

That I got Juneteenth off work was a surprise yesterday around lunchtime, so I am very glad to have a recovery Thursday. I AM 41. I've now become a person who commutes to work by bike, and the thing that annoys me most, it turns out — is dudes on e-bikes. After a WHOLE bunch of teeth-gnashing and angst about an entirely unrelated thing, I am now asking myself: After many years away, should I sign up for Yuletide? I am a professional; I should know better than to wake up and immediately check the news. I kept wanting to write up entries and being too tired to do so; so much has happened. Okay, I really thought my crafting hyperfixation of the month was going to be beading on a loom.

geraineon posting in

cnovels

It's already Jan 1, 2026 where I am, so wishing everyone a very happy new year and I hope that this year will treat you much better than the last.

This is also your weekly read-in-progress post~

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*

cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Jen

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/hey-all-these-lyrics-i-forgot-2025

Should all baking skills be forgot?
And never brought to mind?

Could all that schooling be for naught?

For all
dang
time.

For allll da-aang tiiime, my dear
For old brain wine!

La DAAAA da daaaaa da
something, something...

For bald hang(over) time!

*****

Hey. You. Yes, you.

I LOVE YOU, MAN.

And you, too, lady.

Have fun tonight, guys, but please remember to always decorate responsibly.

Thanks to Anthony B., Lori D., Dimitra S., Cynthia P., & Jenny C. for helping us sing in the new yar.

*****

And from my other blog, Epbot:

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/hey-all-these-lyrics-i-forgot-2025

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: happy

sineala

What I Just Finished Reading

Eric Poulin, Here Comes the Pizzer: The Found Poetry of Baseball Broadcasts:

lysimache got me this for Christmas, so I have now finished twelve books this year and I nearly didn't finish this one. Stupid migraines. Anyway, this is baseball broadcast found poetry. The poetry skills on display here are of varying quality -- like, only a couple of people are actually doing anything unusual with the text -- but I still think it's charming.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday! Time to probably destroy the universe. We are instructed to read Ultimate Endgame before Ultimates.

( Sorcerer Supreme #1, Ultimate Endgame #1, Ultimates #19 )

What I'm Reading Next

A new year! I have no idea what to read. Once again, I need fewer migraines.

Current Mood: tired

muccamukk

People Change by Vivek Shraya
Quick relisten to the audiobook looking for inspiration for a talk I was giving. I've got to say that while I love Shraya, this isn't my favourite project of hers. It could've either been an essay or a full-length book, but the pamphlet length didn't really dig in enough, but also felt a bit repetitive. I do like several of her core points about resistance to change and the lack of ceremony for it, though.

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom
I really love this book, and have read it three times now and written a paper about it, and then everyone in my book club hated it. Woe!

Magical realist auto fiction about a trans girl who runs away from home to end up on the streets in ~~Montreal~~ The City of Smoke and Lights. There she deals with magic, lateral violence and falling in love, and joins a vigilante girl gang to fight back against men attacking her community. It's whimsical, earnest and full of feelings, and I'm very charmed.

Hopefully Thom writes more novels. She wrote this in her twenties and seems to have gone back to poetry.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
Reread for school. I still really enjoyed this. It's meant to be educational, and can be a little didactic in places, but I (being content with my assigned gender) thought it did a really good job of explaining the challenges and joys around changing gender expression in our moment. Also, the author is a giant nerd, which I appreciate (the highschool GSA turning into a The Lord of the Rings movie fanclub remains intensely relatable). I'm glad it's out there for kids who are feeling gender, but can't put words to exactly how or why. Which I guess is why it's one of the most banned books in North America, and has been for the last five years.

A Short History of Trans Misogyny by Jules Gill-Peterson
We got assigned a couple of chapters of this for school, and to be honest I skimmed them (not having realised how long they were, and not managing my time very well). However, I circled back and reread the whole book towards the end of term, and got a lot out of it.

Gill-Peterson is a leading historian of trans feminity, the ways governments have tried to suppress it, and the ways it's flourished despite that. A lot of her work has been around John Money's gender clinics, and how race and gender interacted in the mid 20th century, but this takes a wider look at gender variance across the former British empire, from the 19th century up to the present moment.

It came out a few years after Kit Heyam's Before We Were Trans, but approaches similar types of history from a different angle. While Heyam is talking more about the instability and variability of gender, especially in the British Empire, Gill-Peterson is more interested in how imperialism forced those variations into narrow categories in order to control them. Heyam's common history centres on how gender categories have always been porous (albeit in different ways), and Gill-Peterson's on the commonality of challenges regardless of self-categorisation.

I especially liked the final chapter, about how we might reframe the current gender conversation. To the point where I would take pictures of the pages, highlight lines, and add them to the group texts, getting responses like, "I don't know what you're talking about!" and "What?" But, in context, those lines are bangers! Trans-exclusionary feminism is coming from a scarcity mindset! So there.

selenak

1. Your main fandom of the year?

Still 18th Century history, Prussian-Austrian-Hannoverian-French edition, with the occasional ancient history interlude. Though ancient history might take over as the primary runner next year!

2. Your favorite film watched this year?

It's a race between a surprise "came for one character, remained for all of them" movie, none other than Thunderbolts*, and the superb thriller September 5, which manages among other things to do something Steven Spielberg tried to in one of his movies and does it better.

3. Your favorite book read this year?

This year I am truly spoiled for choices. I both read some books that have been around for a while as well as very recently published ones, and for the most part, enjoyed or even loved most of them. I think it's a race between Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik and Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh.

4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?

For complicated real life reasons:

Watch on YouTube

5. Your favorite TV show of the year?

While tv had some let downs for me this year - *cough* Strange New Worlds *cough* - it also had some great new discoveries and some lovely continuing faves. I feel I can't answer this question fairly unless I firstly differentiate between "favourite miniseries" and "favourite continuing show", and in the second department "favourite new-to-me- show" and "favourite returning favourite". So: Favourite miniseries - there were several excellent ones, but really, for "took my breath away with each episode and performance, and format, tells a concluded story and THANK GOD DOES NOT APPEAR TO GET AN UNNESSARY SEQUEL": Adolescence . Favourite continuing series familiar to me - look, Andor had a superb conclusion and I really appreciate the scriptwriters on social media doubling down on just who the Evil Empire is in rl these days, but it's not Andor for the simple reason that while I was not upset about the writing for Bix as I've seen other people be, it really wasn't up to the rest of the show's standards. And it's not Wheel of Time, either, even though I went from like to love in this season and still feel like shaking my hand at the injustice of fate because of the cancellation. So: It's Foundation all the way. I loved the third season and will happily say more about why on the January Meme.
Favourite new to me show: Pluribus, aka Vince Gilligan did it again.

6. Your favorite online community of the year?

Still

rheinsberg.

7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

The play Born with Teeth by Liz Duffy Adams, which I saw in London in August: really intense and clever on stage Shakespeare/Marlow slash fiction, with Ncuti Gatwa and Edward Bluemel superb in the roles; delightful in itself, but also, I now have a new playwright to keep an eye on!

8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

Strange New Worlds, season 3. Alas.

9. Your fandom boyfriend of the year?

I would never compete with Lois Lane, but this year's Superman is an incredibly endearing version of Clark Kent, and arrived just at the right time.

10. Your fandom girlfriend of the year?

Demerzel from Foundation, and I got two great stories starring her as Yuletide gifts. Runner up: Kleya from Andor, and Juliette Binoche in what just may the definite Penelope performance in The Return .

11. Your biggest squee moment of the year?

( Spoiler for Wake Up, Dead Man ensue: ) Runner-up: ( Spoiler for Demerzel's backstory in Foundation )

12. The most missed of your old fandoms?

I'm missing - and probably I'm employing rosy glasses here - the way media could be discussed without one part of the viewership crying "Woke!" and other crying "betrayal" if their ship of choice doesn't become canon. (Latest example: Stranger Things. Which btw I'm enjoying, but one look at fandom discussion and I ran.)

13. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?

I'm currently eyeing Severance.

14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?

The Vampire Lestat, aka season 3 of Interview with the Vampire. Can't wait to find out what this particular creative team will do with both the present day rock star Lestat frame and the memoirs part, plus unless I'm mistaken it looks like they're already incorporating bits of The Queen of the Damned. And speaking of Anne Rice adaptations, I'm also very curious what Tom Ford will make of her historical (non-supernatural historical) novel Cry to Heaven, starring Nicolas Hoult.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Bad Wiessee

mific posting in

stargateficrec

Shows: SGA
Rec Category: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Characters: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Original characters, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, Sam Carter, Evan Lorne
Categories: M/M
Length/Words: 04:11:31 / 46,642
Content notes: No AO3 warnings apply. Contains imprisonment, state-imposed amnesia, and mind-altering devices that act very like torture.
Author on DW:

librarychick_94
Author's Website: maisierita on AO3, librarychick_94 on AO3
Link: Forget Me Not [fic] on AO3, Forget Me Not [podfic] on AO3
Why This Must Be Read: The story may well be widely known, so this is just as much to recommend the podfic that librarychick_94 completed recently. This is a wonderful story and an excellent podfic, an epic work at over four hours. Librarychick_94 reads with great pace, nuance, and characterisation and it's a really gripping listen. The story itself I found unputdownable when I first read it - one of those fics that keeps you up into the small hours to finish reading. Despite having had their memories wiped as a judicial punishment by an off-world civilisation, Rodney and John remain very much themselves. Rodney, as a scientist, has higher status in the prison complex, with his own apartment, and John is assigned to him as his servant. The worldbuilding is intriguing, and the ending very satisfying. Both the podfic and the fic are highly recommended!

( snippet of the fic under here )

prettygoodword

haymow (HAY-mou) - n., a pile of hay stored in a barn; the place in a barn where hay is stored, hayloft.

This word makes more sense if you know that mow has a now largely obsolete (except in regional dialects) meaning of "a stack of hay, grain, or beans in storage" as well as a place in storage for such a stack. (This sense of mow is a homonym of mow as in to cut down, with a different etymology.) A haymow is, thus, a mow specifically of and for hay.

---L.

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: amused

maevedarcy posting in

gamechangerhr

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fred_mouse

Previous: 2024, 2023

I don't yet have the reading wrap up; I'm doing this earlier than I did last year, because I'm working my way through 'end of the year' tasks that I brainstormed, and right now I have the oomph to be typing.

These are in reverse chronological order; links are to reviews, if I wrote one.

Long works

Nest by Inga Simpson
Within Prison Walls: Being a Narrative of Personal Experience During a Week of Voluntary Confinement in the State Prison at Auburn, New York by Thomas Mott Osborne
The Deep Dark by Lee Knox Ostertag
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Points of Departure: Liavek Stories by Patricia C. Wrede, Pamela Dean
Firebird by Elizabeth Wein
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

Short stories

Model Collapse by Matthew Kressel
Dragonsworn (Part 1) by L Chan
Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200 by R.S.A. Garcia
Stitched to Skin like Family Is by Nghi Vo
Where Oaken Hearts do Gather by Sarah Pinsker

andrewducker

Watching A New Hope with Gideon for the first time*, and while we were watching Ben Kenobi fight Darth Vader he kept saying "I really hope Darth Vader loses". I didn't say anything, but I couldn't help feeling bad...

*We started playing the Lego Skywalker Saga over Christmas. I thought he might enjoy seeing the movie and so far he's riveted. Sophia has refused to join us. Mostly on the grounds of "Not enough girls", which was her main objection when she tried watching it with me about two years ago.

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February 2023

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Year in review 2025

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January Posting Meme 2026

sigh of course I forgot to promote.

98: Honey - Final Fantasy VIII - Honey In the Sun (Quistis/Rinoa)

Year in Review

Rec-cember Last Day: Heated Rivalry (Again)

Wednesday we had a fox checking us out

2026 Inkingitout sign up reminder

Someone please hire this kid

Wicked 2

This year

The time will pass anyway.

Happy New Year + Read-in-progress post

Hey, All These Lyrics I Forgot...

OK this is adorable

Wednesday Reading Meme

Last Reading Wednesday of the Year (November Edition)

End of Fannish Year Meme: 2025

Forget Me Not - podfic and fic (by Maisierita, read by librarychick_94) (M)

haymow

"Artists canceling Trump-Kennedy Center shows are traitors!"

16 Heated Rivalry icons

2025 5 star reads

Life with two kids: A day long remembered

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February 2023

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