Gifts everywhere!
Nov. 2nd, 2025 12:11 pmTrick or Treat:
Beware of Gurathin Bearing Gifts (Murderbot, gen, 580 wds)
Fun and playful with some nice little cultural details, and a tantalizing hint of a future mission to come.
Fandom Giftbasket:
Jala, Tujula, and Fraught Understanding by
This is lovely, a possibly-late-in-series vignette with a little bit of cultural exchange (via food/drink) and a little hard-won wisdom/acceptance.
Keepsake by
A really enjoyable, very slightly AU slice-of-life on Port FreeCommerce in which Ratthi takes MB shopping for the first time. Great in-character interactions and a lovely ending!
Zayd & Marwan by
Murderbot, Mensah's kids, and cats. Cute and fun!
So. November. (Holidays etc. | Cake? | Cat interpersonal dynamics)
Nov. 2nd, 2025 02:23 pm(It's really just as well we have our harvest celebration in October, but as always, I do envy the placement of it between Hallowe'en and Christmas in the US just in terms of not having the stretch between seasonal holidays. [I say, as if US Thanksgiving isn't horribly fraught in so many ways.] I don't know why I have such strong feelings about this. I had them before I stumbled into wanting seasonal decor at home for more than just Christmas and started feeling all adrift in that sense at this time of year.)
(This probably isn't why some people have non-holiday decor that can be swapped in and out, thus having more options, but it's a nice side effect, I imagine. *contemplates* Please feel free to tell me about your non-Hallowe'en decor! Full-on harvest stuff is not terribly seasonal here, but surely there are other options?)
Anyway. It's noticeably cooler here now, and still bright outside rather than all gray-skewed like my mental picture of the season, but the month is young.
If there are things you love about November, please share?
Last time we ordered groceries, I got a bag of Granny Smith apples with intentions of baking, and that...uh, that hasn't happened yet. Hopefully today after I get some work done, assuming nothing horrible has happened to them. (I worry about overestimating the durability of things like apples. And cabbage. We also have a cabbage. >.> It's been around longer.)
As for what to bake...well, I have my eyes on two Smitten Kitchen cakes and two RecipeTin Eats cakes (all new to us), and there's also an a cake we made last year, or just doing baked apples or crisp. We'll see.
In cat news, the other night Sinha was being a tremendous pest to Jinksy (as is typical), and unexpectedly, Jinksy remembered (???) how to scruff him! He scruffed Sinha a couple of times a couple years ago, and it's pretty much the only thing that's ever actually made Sinha back the fuck off, but then that was it. Maybe he won't go another year or more without remembering about it again. (It's such a complicated feeling for us, because Sinha makes the most pathetic keening noises and gets really upset about it [and the other night it took an hour or so of him racing around the house grumbling to himself before he settled down, which was awkward since we were trying to sleep], so it's a bit heartbreaking, but we are absolutely in favor of Jinksy standing up for himself and saying, "NO. You will STOP.")
Reading (back)log
Nov. 2nd, 2025 01:06 pmKJ Charles' The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal (historical M/M) is a neat setup, where the narrator has been partnered for years with a paranormal investigator and has written famous accounts of the cases they faced, and is now much more privately writing about their personal history and the cases that instigated and shaped their romantic partnership (with, of course, many references to cases he's already written about for the public eye).
Dweller on the Threshold is my second read by Skyla Dawn Cameron, in which a woman inherits a probably-haunted house early in the covid pandemic. It's creepy and well-done and much weirder than it initially seemed likely to be (although to nowhere near the degree of weirdness that her The Taiga Ridge Murders, which I read late last year, turned out to be).
Dreadful Company (Vivian Shaw) was a quick, fun read. It's the second Dr. Greta Helsing novel, and it left me in the odd-feeling (but not uncommon for me, really) position of having enjoyed it without feeling any particular need to seek out the following books.
What Stalks the Deep is the third of T. Kingfisher's Sworn Soldier novellas, which due to the increasingly-horrifying prices of ebooks (in particular novellas, IMO) I borrowed from the library. OT1H, that's deeply annoying, because I generally really like Ursula Vernon's writing and would like to simply buy everything, if only to support her (and yes, I do know library borrows do contribute to that as well); OTOH, I avoided spending something like $20 on a NOVELLA and was (briefly) spared the need to decide what to read next, because when this became available at the library, it became my obvious next read once I'd finished Dreadful Company. Also, I enjoyed it; I wouldn't recommend reading it without at least reading the first book in this set, and if you've read and liked the previous ones, you'll presumably like this one too.
(Before my many-years-ago-now decision to spend a year [ha!] reading mainly/only from books I'd purchased but never read--which has pretty much been ongoing ever since, because I keep buying books--I almost never had to think about what to read next, because I had several hundred holds on hard copies at the library, and basically would just put something on hold and immediately suspend the hold for a year or two [whatever the maximum was], and then frequently scroll through the list and re-suspend books if I caught them in the window between them being automatically unsuspended and actually heading my way. Whatever books I didn't catch in that window arrived for borrowing at the library, so I'd pick them up and read them, whatever they were.)
Also
Current reading/watching: I'm a few chapters into Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (V.E. Schwab), and on the non-fiction front, a little ways into Anne Lamott's Almost Everything: Notes on Hope.
Meanwhile,
Spice Cake recipe
Nov. 1st, 2025 09:46 pm"Intensely Flavorful, Super Moist Spice Cake" -- I used GF flour, so I'm not sure about the moist, but it's not dry, that's sure. Seriously, this cake is autumn on your plate.
How is it November Already?
Nov. 1st, 2025 09:19 pmOnce again I'll be doing
Also, I am now on holiday from work for a fortnight. I very much need it. *basks*
emotional support fiber: weaving
Nov. 1st, 2025 05:04 pmI half-assed the warp and it shows, but at the level of "can I set this up at all," the answer is yes. Also, catten is unlikely to be a HARSH critic of a tiny little catten blankie to shed all over, so.



Just look at those warping layouts! I'm too lazy to check the trigonometry, but I'm betting it's correct.
I'm struggling with weaving (English-language [1]) vocabulary so I can't describe the action further. This YouTube playlist by Renee Johnson Studio shows it in action, though.
[1] There is probably random Korean terminology buried in my head because of my mom, but it's not helpful in sussing out help in English...
I need to lie down now but it was a good day for exploratory weaving.
Random Guardian screencap
Nov. 2nd, 2025 08:47 am
Alphabet Fic Game
Nov. 1st, 2025 10:13 amA. Autumn Gold. Saiyuki/Saiyuki Gaiden. Fear is the end of the battle and you can't find your captain.
B. Burn. Original Work. The revolutionary hides her face to conceal her identity. The princess silences her voice to preserve her purity. They know each other. And they don't...
C. The Colors of Lorbanery. Earthsea. The woman who had once been Akaren stayed inside her house for several days, changing.
D. Dorset: Portal to the House. Piranesi/Grand Designs. Maggie and Olabisi plan to transform a ruin containing a portal to the House into a cozy home with an artist's studio. But the ruin's status as a scheduled monument and the unique challenges of its proximity to the House endanger their project.
E. Eilonwy Wanderer. The Prydain Chronicles.. Eilonwy travels Prydain in search of her place in life.
F. Five Times Balerion Saved Rhaenys and One Time She Saved Him. A Song of Ice and Fire. A butterfly flaps its wings, a kitten chases the butterfly, and a girl and her cat get a different destiny.
G. The Goddess of Suffering Scam. The Lies of Locke Lamora. In the early days of the Gentleman Bastards, Locke impersonates a self-flagellating acolyte of the Goddess of Suffering, and Jean stands by as the muscle in case the mark catches on. You know what they say about the best-laid plans.
H. A Hatching at Half-Circle Sea Hold. Dragonriders of Pern. “That’s a rather extraordinary proposal, Menolly,” said the Masterharper.
I. IP, YEVRAG NIVEK. The Leftovers. Kevin Garvey makes another visit to the hotel.
J. The Journey. Annihilation - movie. Lena explores the beach by the lighthouse.
K. Kilo India Tango Tango Echo November. Original Work. When the Marines are sent to protect Springfield, MT from an alien invasion, a grizzled staff sergeant finds a whole lot of kittens in need of tender loving care.
L. The Life of a Cell. Annihilation - movie. The being that leaves the Shimmer carries with it some of both Lena and Dr. Ventress.
M. Men Sell Not Such In Any Town. "The Goblin Market" - Christina Rossetti. I have fruit that shatters like glass and fruit that must be spooned up like pudding, fruit that tastes like caramel and fruit that tastes like roasted meat, fruit that glitters and fruit so translucent you can see your fingers through it and fruit that glows golden at twilight, fruit like silver coins and monstrous hands and autumn fog, fruit that loses all its flavor unless you eat it straight off the tree as it tries to coil around your tongue.
N. No Reservations: Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia/No Reservations. I’m crammed into a burrow so small that my knees are up around my ears and the boom mike keeps slamming into my head, inhaling the potent scent of toffee-apple brandy and trying to drink a talking mouse under the table.
O. one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan. The Stand - Stephen King. Flagg rewards Lloyd for doing a good job.
P. Professor Xavier's Haunted Mansion. X-Men comics. The ghosts of dead (or temporarily dead, or dead in another timeline) X-Men and villains haunt the halls of Professor X's mansion.
Q. The Quiet Rebellion of Tardigrade Sela Writings. "The Author of the Acacia Seeds" - Ursula K. Le Guin. You are no doubt familiar with the major genres of tardigrade literature.
R. The Realm of Persephone. Greek mythology. Persephone takes Hades blackberry picking.
S. The Story of Marli-Hrair and the Black Rabbit of Inle. Watership Down. What lies on the dark side of the moon? Ask the Black Rabbit. He knows.
T. To See a World in a Grain of Sand. The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick. Jane was the first to notice that a ragtag band of refugee meryons had made a camp behind a sofa in the student lounge.
U. An Unexpected Catch. Dragonriders of Pern. Lessa and other Benden women visit Southern Weyr to help out with a fishing tradition; things don't go as planned.
V. Vintage Year. The Fall of the House of Usher - TV. Verna visits Arthur Pym in prison.
W. The Woman Who Watches the King. Piranesi. For some, the House is a prison. For some, it's a place of healing.
X.
Y. You're Wrong About Misericorde. The Dark Tower. You're Wrong About podcast. Sarah tells Mike about the lost horror movie that became an urban legend. Digressions include the chemical formula for mescaline, Sarah imitating Ethan Hawke imitating a Yorkshire prop witch, and where the fat goes after it gets vibrated out of your body by a $19.99 girdle sold on late-night TV.
Z.
We all seem to be getting stuck on X and Z. But I also almost got stuck on J, the only letter where I couldn't select from multiple possible stories.
Silksong: 100 hours
Nov. 1st, 2025 02:14 pm( Approaching endgame, spoilers )
Whumptober Alt: Organ Theft (Murderbot)
Oct. 31st, 2025 10:16 pmAlt Prompt: Organ Theft
Murderbot & Tarik, 800 wds (bookverse, post-System Collapse)
Also on AO3: Grand Theft Human
( 800 wds under the cut )
November writing goals
Nov. 1st, 2025 07:16 pmGoals for November!
- post at least one media update (in my head, I still call these "weekly updates", lol)
- write my Yuletide assignment fic
- maybe a treat or two? or flashfics for things in the Yuletide tagset that I like but no one requested ;-p
- finish the thing I'm currently working on
- write something else
- don't stuff up my arms again
- if LWS have another 24-hour sprint, go to some of that
Today I went for a walk and saw a huge eel and some cute dogs and lots of trees. I did a little alibi editing on my WIP, posted a Slo-Mo Rewatch post to
(Will I keep posting tiny daily life updates? Who knows?!)
Hallowe'en
Oct. 31st, 2025 09:43 pmHappy Hallowe'en and blessed Samhain, as applicable! It's a quiet one here. The wind and rain were wild for much of the day, but did calm down in the late afternoon, as hoped. Reports from online locals indicate that a lot of people got way fewer trick-or-treaters than usual (if any), although some spots seemed to get normal levels.
We don't really know what our neighborhood "normal" is, either in the area in general or along our condo corp's road, since for the last few years we've just been setting out the candy and refilling as needed. Some or most of it has generally vanished, but that doesn't say much about numbers vs. the likelihood that at least a few kids take it by the fistful. But tonight
I've mostly been chilling on the main level with the cats, who've been barred from the ground floor for the evening. (We had the window open during that span of time when more kids might've been on the move out there, but I heard only the occasional young voice echoing over from the main road.) After finishing up at Dayjob for the day, I put on my Hallowe'en onesie, and
I hope you're all having a fun/peaceful time of it.
My 1000th fic on AO3!
Oct. 31st, 2025 02:53 pmOut of Time (2300 wds, Algy & Erich, gen)
The first one should probably be read first, if you haven't already.
And there it is, and here's to the next 1000!
Rare Pair Recs
Oct. 31st, 2025 12:08 pmyou and you are heart in heart (2,289 words). Even now, two months after Paris’ defeat outside the walls of Verona, unrest still fermented. The peace treaty which had once hinged on Benvolio’s execution now hinged on Benvolio and Rosaline’s wedding.
And there was a lot of other good fic that you should check out. Here are some I liked:
Taking Chances Together (1254 words)
Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Spock/Nyota Uhura
Additional Tags: post s2e1 Amok Time, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary:
A musical collaboration turns into more...
In Splendid Sunshine Dressed (1868 words
Fandom: Casablanca (1942)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Rick Blaine, Victor Laszlo (Casablanca), Ilsa Lund
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Getting Together
Summary:
Rick is invited back into Ilsa's life... but what about her husband?
Here's to We (1233 words)
Fandom: MASH (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lorraine Anderson/Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Friends to Lovers, Character Study, Epistolary, Margaret Backstory Typical Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Episode Tag: s06e21 Temporary Duty, Episode Tag: s07e19 Hot Lips is Back In Town, 12x100
Summary:
Snapshots of Margaret and Lorraine's relationship from 1932-1952: growing up, growing apart, and finding their way back.
I Prayed For You (2445 words)
Fandom: MASH (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Father Francis Mulcahy
Additional Tags: Developing Relationship
Summary:
Francis gave something away in hopes of comfort. BJ held that comfort close, even in the late hours.
Or Father Mulchay's trip takes a bit longer than predicted, long enough for some reflection on something developing. (For the 2025 RarePair Exchange!)
How the Halcyon Song Lingers (1348 words)
Fandom: Little Women (2019 Movie - Gerwig)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Theodore "Laurie" Laurence/Amy March
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Parenthood, Married Life, Fall Vibes, Domestic Fluff
Summary:
A glimpse of family life with the Laurences, as Amy and Laurie go for an autumn stroll with little Bess.
Heart's Got Everything to Do With It (6700 words)
Fandom: Tin Man (US TV 2007)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Wyatt Cain/DG
Characters: DG (Tin Man), Wyatt Cain, Azkadellia (Tin Man), Jeb Cain
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Kiss, Queen DG
Summary:
It was like the Quest had never ended at all; DG had just run out of signposts to follow. Well, except maybe one....
Heart Murmur (2856 words)
Fandom: MASH (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Reunions, Cunnilingus, Hawkeye Pierce's canonical ED
Summary:
The woman who took the stage was a brunette, fading peroxide-blonde tips neatly tucked into a bun and graying at the temples. She looked better in a pantsuit than she ever had in fatigues, and she’d looked damn good in fatigues. Someone in the crowd wolf-whistled. She tapped her note cards to the podium with a glare that could jump start spontaneous combustion.
Margaret looked the same as ever, even brunette—like she was fully prepared to crush a man into dust for seeing her as less than she was.
The Broadwood Grand (4827 words)
Fandom: Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Colonel Brandon/Marianne Dashwood (Sense and Sensibility)
Additional Tags: Tags Contain Spoilers, Romance, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Friendship/Love, Romantic Friendship, Love Confessions, Falling In Love, Piano, Family Fluff, POV Third Person Limited, Requited Love, Requited Unrequited Love, Present Tense, Regency Romance, Inspired by Jane Austen, Inspired by Music, Happy Ending, Extended Scene, Canon Compliant
Summary:
Marianne Dashwood’s heart is an ocean, deep and vast and rich with life. He has seen it shimmer with the sunlight of affection, roil with the storms of heartbreak, and reel into the calmness of acceptance; but the breeze will blow when it chooses to blow, and Brandon—ever ready with his sails—would wait forever for good winds.
One Kiss is All it Takes (1470 words)
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker
Additional Tags: Getting Together, First Kiss, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker Needs A Hug
Summary:
After what happened on Bespin, Lando visits Luke in the infirmary.
Church and Mountain and London
Oct. 31st, 2025 06:01 pmConclave, by Robert Harris: It's always tricky to read a book after watching the movie made based on it, but in this case it felt like both a good book to the movie, and that the movie was a good adaption of the book. It was very difficult not to see the characters from the movie while reading, even the main character who was the only one who got a different name in the movie. The book had a few details the movie couldn't fit and otherwise some minor changes, and I think if I felt more fannish about it comparing them would be very interesting but I'm not quite invested enough.
Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer: A gripping personal account of a Mount Everest expedition that ended in disaster.
Reading this was a bit strange because I kept getting a feeling of déja vu, but I can't recall reading similar books. I think I was probably remembering a couple of documentaries I watched as a kid (several of them featuring Reinhold Messner, probably - for some reason for some time I thought he was "just" the best Austrian (actually South Tyrolean/Italian) climber and didn't realize he had so much global fame.) Very little in the book I found actually surprising, though some of the details were even harsher than I'd expected, like how difficult it even is to eat that high up.
Funnily enough I kept thinking about the post-main-story snippet for the Superstition series that recalls how Jacks almost broke up with Luc because Luc decided he had to climb Mount Everest after retiring from the NHL, something Jacks considered extremely risky and irresponsible. And with good reason!
The book did a good job showing how a couple of not-so-egregious-on-their-own mistakes that under ideal conditions would have barely mattered added together under not-ideal conditions led to disaster. One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was the interplay between "on the mountain" and "the outside world." Reading a little more about the reception of the book afterwards, it's shocking how the survivors have seemingly had to justify their actions for the next years and decades and how fixated other people who weren't there and had little if any personal connections became on who was to blame.
Slow Horses, by Mike Herron: I actually don't remember where I got this recommendation - I might have just seen it in the "new books" category from the library? It's been a while since I read a spy thriller and I was in the mood for one for some reason.
It took me a while to get into this, and at first I was not even sure I would continue because I dislike "everyone is miserable and nobody likes each other" settings. But fortunately it gave me enough hope it would get better (and eventually did get slightly better) until the exciting spy and action parts kicked in, and those were indeed fun. I put a hold on the next part of the series just in case.
Whumptober Alt: “I hear you’re alive, how disappointing.” [Biggles]
Oct. 31st, 2025 12:25 am“I hear you’re alive, how disappointing.”
Biggles & EvS, 600 wds, enemies-era
( 600 wds under the cut )
Write Every Day: Day 31
Oct. 31st, 2025 07:55 pmSo, I talked through some of the main problems I ran into while writing the book, and how, instead of going, “Ack, problems, I quit!” I tried to say, “Ah ha, problems, that means things are getting interesting.”
I often think of Houdini in this context. If he came out wearing, say, a light windbreaker, and said he would now endeavor to get out of it - nobody’s fascinated. But if he’s got on a straitjacket and padlock and lets us throw him into the Hudson River - then we’re talking.
When a writer has a problem, the reader feels it, and then, when the writer identifies and addresses that problem - this feels like originality and innovation.
– George Saunders, via Substack
My day 31: I added another 639 words to my WIP, mostly at writers' hour. I think it's nearly done, but I spent the rest of the day reading the next Dorothy Sayers
Thank you all so much for being here, for this half of October -- it's been such a pleasure to get your check-ins! I'll post the final tally in a couple of days to allow for time zones. :-)
Reminder:
The tally
( Tally )
Day 29:
Day 30:
When you check in, please say what day(s) you’re checking in for. You can join in or take a break at any time; you’re always welcome back. And please let me know if I’ve missed you.