Writing - January 2026

Jan. 31st, 2026 01:31 pm
smallhobbit: (writing)
[personal profile] smallhobbit
January has got off to a good start, with 14,800 words, which surprises me.

For More Joy Day I wrote The Absolute Limit a Sherlock Holmes ficlet for [personal profile] sixbeforelunch  and also for Snowflake for [personal profile] brumeier A Werewolf in Scotland

For [community profile] whatif_au Fake Relationship Challenge Miss Marple's Nephew

And for [community profile] allbingo Public Domain Challenge Combatting the Enemy which is a Spooks (MI5) 1920s AU.

Those two turned out longer than my usual challenge works.

I've also been writing one or two three sentence fills for [community profile] threesentenceficathon every day, and I've prepared the first few drabbles for next months [community profile] small_fandoms drabblethon.
rionaleonhart: goes wrong: unparalleled actor robert grove looks handsomely at the camera. (unappreciated in my own time)
[personal profile] rionaleonhart
My housemates read Educational Experiences, my 'the Cornley Drama Society have an orgy' Goes Wrong Show fic, in the wake of which we had an incredible discussion on the subject. The fic itself fades to black, but we had a lot of ideas about how disastrously a Cornley Drama Society orgy might actually play out, all of which delighted me!


Discussing the hypothetical Orgy That Goes Wrong. )


For something non-orgy-related, I saw a poll on Tumblr asking 'Would you give your blorbo a gentle kiss on the forehead?', and I'm surprised by how few people are saying no! (At the moment, with around 1,000 votes, it's at 92% yes to 8% no.)

As I noted in the tags of my reblog, I'm not sure a gentle forehead kiss would be received well by most of my blorbos. Squall would find it unbearably awkward. Light would hate it and, moreover, would not deserve it. Robert Grove would in theory be fine with a forehead kiss, but he would interpret the gentleness as weakness; he'd probably start trying to coach me on giving a more powerful and therefore objectively better forehead kiss. A proper forehead kiss should ideally knock your opponent to the floor. ('Wait, the person I'm kissing is my opponent?' Yes. The forehead kiss is a power struggle that you must win.)

due South: Ch-ch-changes by mizface

Feb. 1st, 2026 12:41 am
mific: (DS blue)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: due South
Characters/Pairings: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, Ray Kowalski & Ray Vecchio, Diefenbaker, Buck Frobisher, Maggie McKenzie
Rating: Mature
Length: 26,124 for the main fic, 28,647 for the series
Content Notes: Creator chose not to warn. This has at least a hopeful ending, but the fic is about zombies and Ray kills and eats at least one victim, plus there are some slightly gross descriptions in places. Way less gore etc. than most zombie stories, though.
Creator Links: mizface on AO3
Themes: Crack treated seriously, Friends to lovers, Friendship, Complete AU, Zombies, (Not really) character death, Epistolary fic

Summary: Ray Kowalski thought he had an okay existence: he had a place to call home, didn't have to worry about a job, and nobody bothered him. If it wasn't for the fact that he was a zombie, things would have been pretty good.

Then he met very much alive Benton Fraser, and his whole world was turned upside down.

Reccer's Notes: And the trifecta of cracky fantasy creatures: zombies. This story's based on the movie Warm Bodies, which also takes the cracky zombie premise kind of seriously, in a romantic way. Zombies are usually shown as mindless ravening hordes, but in this story both Rays have been zombified but haven't completely lost themselves. Here, zombies are called "the infected", and both Rays begin to mysteriously improve across the story, regaining more speech and cognitive ability. Apart from the relationship with Fraser that develops - and we also access Fraser's POV from his journal entries - there's a nice friendship between the Rays. There's one major story, followed by a number of short fics adding to the 'verse. A rather lovely and poignant take on zombies, that more seriously explores a possible at least partial recovery from that state, and developing relationships.

Fanwork Links: Ch-ch-changes, and the series

SGA: Be Cool by Hth

Jan. 31st, 2026 11:37 pm
mific: (McShep his fault)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Katie Brown, David Parrish, Elizabeth Weir, Bates
Rating: Explicit
Length: 6499
Content Notes: No AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Hth on AO3
Themes: Crack Treated Seriously, First time, Friends to lovers, Humor, In vino veritas

Summary: Rodney toked pot that one time, but it never made him one of the cool kids.

Reccer's Notes: Okay, I'm stretching it a little thin in terms of the prompt, but any excuse to rec this charming, hot, and funny fic. The cracky premise is that Colonel John Sheppard, the military commander, is the drug czar of Atlantis, and Hth actually does sell it, while still keeping Sheppard in character. I'm very fond of "under the influence" stories, and this is lovely, as Sheppard inveigles Rodney to smoke pot with him and Rodney transforms from a pining nerd to being almost as cool as Sheppard. As so often, they've both been secretly attracted to each other for ages, and a bit of disinhibition (hitting Rodney harder as he's less used to it) speeds things along. It's a favourite story of mine with great dialogue, and a very fun read.

Fanwork Links: Be Cool

more spring flowers

Jan. 31st, 2026 10:39 am
bookscorpion: This is Chelifer cancroides, a book scorpion. Not a real scorpion, but an arachnid called a pseudoscorpion for obvious reasons. (Default)
[personal profile] bookscorpion posting in [community profile] common_nature


my spring flowers are in full bloom now, and there's more to come still

Weekend Cooking: Pickled Oysters

Jan. 31st, 2026 06:36 pm
snowynight: colourful musical note (Default)
[personal profile] snowynight
 To Pickle Oysters.
 
Take Oysters and wash them cleane in their own Liquor, and let them settle, then strain it, and put your Oysters to it with a little Mace and whole pepper, as much Salt as you please, and a little Wine-Vinegar, then set them over the fire, and let them boyle leisurely till they are pretty tender; be sure to skim them still as the skim riseth; when they are enough, take them out till the Pickle be cold, then put them into any pot that will lye close, they will keep best in Caper barrels, they will keep very well six weeks.

From The Compleat Cook by W. M. (1658 UK)

Wrap up.

Jan. 30th, 2026 10:24 pm
hannah: (Rabbit hug - fooish_icons)
[personal profile] hannah
Challenge #15

How Did the Fandom Snowflake Challenge Go? Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.


It got me back into the habit of daily posting, which I find comfortable and familiar, so I'd say it went well. I didn't do every day's challenge and I didn't follow along with other people much, and I still found myself trying to get a little bit of the day down and a little bit of myself outside of my head on a regular basis, both of which are genuinely helpful. Blogging's a lot like riding a bike: you don't forget how to do it, but you need to rebuilt your stamina. And, of course, you have to want to keep at it. Now that I've gotten back into it, I feel like I do.

I'm sure if I looked back at past years, I'd be saying much the same thing. That's a trick about journaling in general and blogging in particular - you can look back and see what you've put down, and even though you might not remember the choices behind those words, you remember enough to recognize the part of you that said them. Hopefully, at any rate. I don't particularly want to go back and look at this time last year, or the year before, or the one before that. I want to keep moving forward like this for a while longer before looking back. That's another trick about this kind of thing. You build your own momentum.

This year I've spent more time than usual thinking about what's come before and how long I've been doing this. I'm not against having done it for so long or to keep doing it for as long as I can manage to keep the momentum going. Just something to consider as a neutral statement and a fact of the matter. A statement I can look forward to making this time next year, to be around to keep making it.

Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

A couple political/religious comments

Jan. 30th, 2026 07:05 pm
muccamukk: Heavy earphones hanging on a 1940s microphone. Text: the werste lay that euer harper sange with harp or with ony other Instrumentys. (KA: Werste Lay)
[personal profile] muccamukk
Because I haven't seen many people note it, U.S. politics, specifically the church protest )


Also in the news today: Melissa Nathan, Justin Baldoni and Johnny Depp's Crisis PR attack dog, she of all the rat fucking and smear campaigns, is (shockingly!) in the Epstein files quite a bit. She did crisis PR for both Jeffrey Epstein, and the Alexander brothers (currently on trial for rape).

Of course, there's still an army of bots in YouTube comments sections insisting that Baldoni did nothing wrong, and is just the nicest guy, and it's all that evil witch's doing. Etc.

New Year's Resolutions Check In

Jan. 30th, 2026 06:09 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Text says New Year Resolutions on notebook (resolutions)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] goals_on_dw
We have almost reached the end of January! \o/ By now, most New Year's resolutions that are going to hit roadblocks or fail completely have already done so. About 95% crash and burn before the end of January. If you're still going, you've passed the roughest part. If you're having trouble or you've given up, there are options.

Read more... )
mistressofmuses: Image of nebulae in the colors of the bi pride flag: pink, purple, and blue (Default)
[personal profile] mistressofmuses
Poor Clickbait has finally passed on to the greenbean fields in the sky.



He was the first katydid Alex caught last summer. August 6th was the first day I heard a katydid clicking in the trees, and Alex caught him later that same night.

He was the smallest of the three that we had last year, and the "fussiest." He would make little tiny territorial clicks at just about everything; water running in the sink and cereal bags crinkling were big for him, haha. He acted like he wanted to make sure everyone knew that he was the toughest katydid in the room!

And it turns out he was! Typically broad-winged katydids like ours only live a couple months as adults; the two from last year both died in October, I think, and the two others from this year died in late October/early November. When Clickbait was still going strong, I thought it would be really cool if he made it all the way to December, but I didn't expect it. Then he did. Then I thought "Christmas? Christmas katydid?" And he was here at Christmas! "All the way to the new year??" And he made it to the new year!

I was very sad he finally passed, though a little glad he waited until I was home from the hospital. (I returned late on Thursday; he passed on Saturday morning.) He clicked all the way up through the end, with plenty to say even on Friday night! But he didn't eat his Friday night beans, and then he went down to the bottom of the cage, which is always how it goes at the end. :(

It's hard to even say "aw, poor guy" because he lived more than twice, approaching three times as long as expected! He was just about two weeks shy of hitting six months, which is wild!

I'll miss him. He was a fun little guy to have, and the overnights are just a little too quiet without him click-click-clicking like mad. I hope that some of our katydid eggs (most of which were probably sired by Three, but some of which were sired by Clickbait) will hatch, and we might have some of his progeny roaming around.


(Eating green beans, his truest love.)




For me: I am recovering! The process of trying to gather everything required for the leave application has been the biggest frustration and time sink and stress of the last week. (There will probably be a bigger post about how much I hate government paperwork later.) For now, it at least feels like things are improving. Food has mostly been sitting well, though I'm still trying to be really cautious. (Lots of soup. Lots of yogurt. Some toast.) I would commit minor crime for a pizza or something, but I think that'll have to be a few days out, still. My guts are still not right, but seem to be slightly better than they were. My incision sites still look pretty gross, but are healing well. Trying to walk more, as advised, to deal with the fact that I am still just bonkers bloated.

Thank you so, so much for all the kind thoughts and comments. I'm going to try to respond to at least the most recent ones. I am also going to try to get caught up on the weeks of stuff I've missed here, but it'll take me a while. I hope everyone else has had a better few weeks than I have!

Icon Progression Post-2025

Jan. 30th, 2026 05:46 pm
abyss_valkyrie: made by <user name=magicrubbish> (Default)
[personal profile] abyss_valkyrie posting in [community profile] icontalking
  

Woohoo!I made my icon progression post here!

12 Yuletide Recs

Jan. 30th, 2026 05:09 pm
reeby10: an old school error pop up that says 'canon error' at the top and 'apply fanfic? ok' (fanfic)
[personal profile] reeby10 posting in [community profile] yuletide
A bit late, but I have 12 recs in 8 fandoms: Cherry Magic, Khemjira, Moby Dick, Never Let Me Go, The Old Kingdom, Perfect 10 Liners, Thai Actor RPF, and ThamePo Heart That Skips a Beat.

See them here.
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
[personal profile] full_metal_ox posting in [community profile] fancake
.Fandom: Chen Qing Ling, Mo Dao Zu Shi
Pairings: M/M, F/M, F/F, poly…this one earns AO3’s Multi glyph. Cut for length: Continue. )

Characters:: Cut for length:
Continue. )


Rating: Teen And Up Audience
Length: 75,126; 132 chapters
Content Notes: This is a raunchy parody; a lot of kinks are implied, and characters will be slipping off for papapa in combinations you may not agree with. Expressive and strategically placed use of eldritch glitchtext.

Creator Tags: Chatlogs, chatfic, Texting, Comedy, Canon Compliant, Crack, Memes, Humour, the untamed - Freeform, God Idek what to tag, Humor, meng yao is best bitch, i am afraid of when lan xichen finally snaps, xue yang is a highly cursed person, nie huisang is still mvp tbh, more relationships and characters to be added probably, tagging everyone was Hell, chatroom fic, Polyamory, Lots of it, ok maybe, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Just have fun everyone!!!, Additional: please do not eat or drink reading this enough people have choked x-x

Creator Links: (AO3) [archiveofourown.org profile] Hades_the_Blingking; (Tumblr) [tumblr.com profile] swaglexander-the-great

Theme: Crack Treated Seriously, Crack, Epistolary, Fandom Classics, Fix-it Fic

Summary:

The Untamed universe is exactly the same, except everybody has magical crystals that have a suspiciously familiar messaging system. The story is pretty much the same as the show, except everyone lives!! (so minor changes).
or
in which Wei WuXian tries his darndest to date Lan Zhan, Jiang Cheng possibly has a aneurysm, Jin ZiXuan is still the most awkward human alive, and Xue Yang makes me write some VERY cursed things. Written in chatfic format! :3

Comments are very much appreciated! ^.^b


Author’s Notes:

Listen, I know the premise of this fic is actually insane, but it somehow works really well.
The 'message crystals' they have work on some form of minor telepathy - they don't 'type' as such. That's all the explanation we are getting :3 Format best viewed on a desktop, but it doesn't matter too much I don't think!

On with the show


Reccer's Notes: Despite the author’s disclaimer, I read this just fine on a $10 3G flip phone.

This freewheeling bawdy Muppet Song turned epic saga got a lot of the fandom through quarantine; I admit to shoehorning it into the “serious” category, but an author (who isn’t writing for pay) doesn’t sustain a story through four years and 132 chapters without putting something resembling thought into it; a skeletal outline of the canon plot (with more survivors and a lot more innuendo) remains faintly visible.

Fanwork Links: Grandmaster of Meme-onic Cultivation, by [archiveofourown.org profile] Hades_the_Blingking.

FandomTrees Reveal: assorted fic

Jan. 30th, 2026 01:33 pm
sanguinity: Frederick and Anne from Persuasion 1995 against a full moon (Persuasion - Frederick Anne moon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
In my last public update I said I made a bunch of things for [community profile] fandomtrees and I would post later, then never circled back. Here I am, circling back!

First time in Fandomtrees )


Top Gun (1986), All to Pieces
Carole/Goose/Maverick, sexy pre-canon threesome.

A friend fell hard into Top Gun fandom last year, and I read literally everything she writes more or less as she writes it, so I've been reading a lot of Top Gun fic in draft lately. So I figured I could write a sexy little threesome flash fic for the first movie. I was living in a Navy town at the time that the first movie came out, so I enjoyed dropping some hometown detail into the story.


Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, In Case of Dog
Edgin/Xenk, pomegaverse getting-together fluff.

A friend fell hard for Edgin/Xenk when the movie came out, and has been frustrated by how quickly the fandom dried up. I've watched the film twice in the hopes of writing something for her, but the magic never happened. So when I saw this Edgin/Xenk request (from a stranger, not my friend), I decided to give it a go and see if I could make my friend happy, too.

The request asked for "unusual curses", and I had Pomegaverse on the brain, just having finished writing a Pomegaverse story. (That is, a story in which someone turns into a Pomeranian because they got stressed out, and can't turn back again until they get lots of cuddles and affection.) And I thought, That certainly qualifies as an unusual curse! and also Edign would bitch SO MUCH about having to take care of Pomeranian!Xenk. The biggest trick was making it not-furry while I was making it yes-slashy, but it worked out, I think. It was stupid fun to write, and I hope it's stupid fun to read, too.


Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Pillars of Their Community
Roberta/Susan, Roberta/Dez, post-canon drabble sequence.

At this point, it was clear reveals were going to be delayed for unfilled trees, so I started looking for fandoms that I could read/watch quickly and maybe create a drabble for. I'd never seen Desperately Seeking Susan and had the vague idea that it wasn't any good (mostly because I'd never seen a film in which Madonna was any good, sorry), but [personal profile] china_shop was requesting this and I respect their taste, so I gave it a shot.

Happily, this was a very enjoyable film! Madonna basically plays Madonna, and isn't the main character, either, so that all works out. I had 80s-nostalgia all the way through. I worry about all the post-concussion syndrome everyone is going to have after all this. The original ending is MUCH better than the ending that was showed in the theaters. Also, I spent the entire film looking at Dez and thinking God you're pretty and where do I know you from?? and it turns out that he's Aidan Quinn! Captain Gregson from Elementary! Who apparently was a dish when he was young.

Anyway, have a drabble sequence for three of the four main characters, speculating on how they're getting on after the movie. (I wrote a fourth drabble for the fourth character, too, but didn't publish it, because I couldn't quite decide if it was brushing up against the recip's DNWs.)


Dracula's Guest - Bram Stoker, A Kind of Kinship
The Guest/Young Officer, hurt/comfort first-kiss.

Again, looking for quick-to-consume canons in unfilled trees, this is a short story set in the Dracula universe. Many people consider it to be deleted material from the Dracula novel, and it may in fact be (with Jonathan Harker as the unnamed guest), but the requester asked for it to be treated as its own story with its own characters, and I was more than happy to do that. Victorian military slash, easy-peasy, my fic-career-to-date was all but made for this.

Sadly, the story dropped into the "uncategorized fandom" hole; it never appeared on the Fandomtrees fandoms list and it doesn't appear on my dashboard's list of fandoms, either. Which means almost no one is ever going to see it. I'm considering sticking a Dracula-novel fandom tag on it just so the thing is fucking visible somewhere, but I am happy to take advice.


Head On (1998), that secondhand living, it just won't do
Ari & Alex, siblings post-canon

[personal profile] plicate's tree was very late to fill, and this movie was available streaming on Kanopy through my library, so I gave it a go even though I had my doubts about my ability to write 1990s Greek-Australian gay subculture. In fact, I spent most of the movie convinced that I was going to strike out, there was no way I could write for this.

But after sleeping on it, I did see my way into a short, tender, siblings-talking-about-boys story which encapsulates some of my hopes for Ari. Here's hoping that Ari finds a good boyfriend someday. Here's hoping Ari can be a good boyfriend someday. Or, if "boyfriends" is not something Ari is ever gonna be interested in, let's reach for "hookups where everyone has a good time and no one gets beat up." (Get it together, Ari! We're rooting for you!)


In the end, I had fun making things, I read/watched some new cool stuff, and I believe I can say that I was not a net drain on [community profile] fandomtrees. Hooray!

Sunsets and Woodpecker

Jan. 30th, 2026 03:29 pm
yourlibrarian: Crow Silhouette (NAT-Crow Silhouette - yourlibrarian)
[personal profile] yourlibrarian posting in [community profile] common_nature


This photo wasn't the year's first sunset but rather the first one that was really a "wow". Loved the colors.

Read more... )
wychwood: John and Rodney making identical hand gestures (have fun!) (SGA - McShep clicky fingers)
[personal profile] wychwood
I was on campus yesterday for an in-person meeting, so worked from home today, and am now entirely discombobulated and have no idea what day it even is. Although the nice thing is that when I check, it turns out to be Friday, which is the best possible option!

Our bin collection day has moved from Wednesday to Thursday so I had to put the bag out on Wednesday night when I got back from choir (I mean, obviously I should have put it out before choir, but I forgot because I'm not used to it yet!). For once I'd actually had to put a bag in my outside bin - having been away at Mum's put me all out of sync, and I had to admit last weekend that I couldn't keep piling things up and needed to start a new bag. So I went out to fetch it to add to the gigantic rubbish pile outside the other block, only to find that it had vanished??!?

I have to assume that one of my neighbours put it out for me, which is obviously very kind of them but also extremely weird, because are they just checking my bin every week or something?? I haven't put anything in there for several months, not since we switched to piling the bags up for collection.

Still, this is much nicer than the disgusting bin neighbours.

This week has been terribly unproductive, although I have listened to an entire audiobook and one and a half radio dramas. Hopefully next week will be better, but I still haven't worked out what to do for my birthday - Mum isn't feeling up to even a short expedition, but I could still go over and/or have lunch with Dad... I'm having dinner with my choir buddy S (also to mark our 22nd anniversary of joining the chorus and making friends!) and then choir, with the second new conductor candidate, so that'll be interesting.

Also have various other social things suggested or partly arranged to follow up on; I need to pull myself together and get them sorted, ideally spaced out so I don't end up with everything happening all at once as usual. I did have lunch with two friends yesterday, so that was good! Socialising with nice people: fun actually, who knew.

(no subject)

Jan. 30th, 2026 11:56 am
greghousesgf: (Bertie Smile)
[personal profile] greghousesgf
here's a meme:

1. What’s your favourite hot beverage? How do you make it?
tea. sometimes bags and sometimes loose

2. When was the last time you saw an original hand-painted painting?
there are some in my apartment



3. Is there a book you’ve seen made into a film and been disappointed with the result?
Pretty much every book I loved when I was a kid

4. How old is the oldest book you own?
I don't know

5. It’s the 60th anniversary of the game ‘Twister’ – have you ever played it?
sure

6. In 1869, Harper's Weekly published the first picture of Uncle Sam with chin whiskers. Do you know anyone with a beard or a moustache?
Lots of guys

7. Is there a subject at school which you disliked, but you would consider learning now?
I don't think so

8. How often do you read fiction?
pretty often

9. This year is the 40th anniversary of the release of the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – have you ever seen it?
Yes but I'm not charmed by entitled dickheads so I'm not a fan

10. Have you ever owned a Tamagotchi?
no