Daily Check-In
January 25th, 2026 20:29![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mecurtin posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandom_checkinThis is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Sunday, January 25, to midnight on Monday, January 26 (8pm Eastern Time).
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
Poll #34118 Daily check-in poll
This poll is closed.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 26
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 26
How are you doing?
I am OK
15 (60.0%)
I am not OK, but don't need help right now
10 (40.0%)
I could use some help
0 (0.0%)
How many other humans live with you?
I am living single
10 (38.5%)
One other person
11 (42.3%)
More than one other person
5 (19.2%)
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
Snowflake Challenge Day #13
January 25th, 2026 19:24kingstoken
Challenge #13
TALK ABOUT A COMMUNITY SPACE YOU LIKE. It doesn’t need to be your favorite, or the one where you spend the most time (although it certainly can be). Maybe it’s even one that you’ve barely visited. But talk about that space and how it helps support fannish community.
Here a few communities I enjoy:
- Holmesian Mantelpiece - this one is over on Tumblr, and its a community for all Sherlock Holmes fandoms. We have fun sharing fanworks and voting on daily trivia
-
fancake - is a great reccing community, every month is a different theme, and members share fanworks related to the them- Fanlore Discord - if you're a fanlore editor come join us on the discord, we chat mostly about editing articles, etc, but also greater fandom stuff
-
holmestice - if you're looking for a Hollmes related exchange I highly recommend holmestice, they run two exchanges a year, one in the spring and one in the winter, and its open to all Holmes adaptations. I got a lovely Rathbone Holmes fic last round, plus a nice Granada treat.Holly Poly 2025 Post Deadline Pinch Hits
January 25th, 2026 19:43maevedarcy posting in pinchhitsEvent: Holly Poly 2025
Event link:holly_poly
Pinch hit link: Details and claims in this post
Due date: February 1st
#2: Riverdale (TV 2017), Glee (TV 2009), Person of Interest (TV)
#4: Dead by Daylight (Video Game), Borderlands (Video Games), Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions
#7: Disco Elysium (Video Game), Final Fantasy VIII, The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
#17: Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga), LEGO Ninjago (Cartoon 2011-2022), Miraculous Ladybug, Bungou Stray Dogs, Nanatsu no Taizai | The Seven Deadly Sins - Suzuki Nakaba (Anime & Manga)
Event link:
holly_poly Pinch hit link: Details and claims in this post
Due date: February 1st
#2: Riverdale (TV 2017), Glee (TV 2009), Person of Interest (TV)
#4: Dead by Daylight (Video Game), Borderlands (Video Games), Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions
#7: Disco Elysium (Video Game), Final Fantasy VIII, The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
#17: Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga), LEGO Ninjago (Cartoon 2011-2022), Miraculous Ladybug, Bungou Stray Dogs, Nanatsu no Taizai | The Seven Deadly Sins - Suzuki Nakaba (Anime & Manga)
vital functions
January 25th, 2026 21:59kaberettReading. ( Scalzi, Tufte, Duncan )
Writing. Introduction continues to take shape. Word count hasn't gone up much, but that's partly because I am doing a reasonable job of Whacking Down A Bunch Of Words and then reassessing and deleting...
Listening. More of The Hidden Almanac. I continue to fret about not keeping super great track of it, which is in part because I seem to be extremely prone to going to sleep if it winds up on in the car...
Playing. We are finding an Exploders Inkulinati run alarmingly straightforward. Learning Continues.
Sudoku also continues to eat my brain. :|
Cooking. Dinner tonight included: another attempt at the Roti King cabbage poriyal, this time with more coconut, which I think has worked v well; a... loose attempt at a generous interpretation of Dishoom's gunpowder potatoes (no lime, no spring onion yet, no leaf coriander, not new potatoes...); and some pomegranate molasses-tamarind-yoghurt-chaat masala goop to sit some paneer in.
Earlier in the week I ticked a couple more things off the Cook (Almost) All Of East project (kung pao cauliflower; mushroom bao); this evening I have also had a first stab at recreating the Leon spiced tahini hot chocolate, which was Very Acceptable.
Eating. Finally managed to get a meal at the Viewpoint restaurant at Whipsnade (we keep not going at a time when it's open); mildly disappointed by the sourdough pizza, probably because I have a vague memory of a previous incarnation having aspirations to Fancy Restaurant, which I think the current set-up doesn't. Still v pleasant to eat food I didn't cook sat looking out over the Downs, though.
Exploring. ZOO.
Growing. I do not understand where the sciarid flies keep coming from but I am so, so, so over them. I am SO over them. WHY is the lithops container SUDDENLY FULL OF THEM.
That issue aside: lemongrass continues to have Leafs! If (if!) it keeps going like this I'm going to wind up needing to dispose of a bunch of plants via Freecycle/Freegle, goodness. Physalis still not doing anything visible. Ancho chillis almost but not quite All The Way Ripe.
It is almost certainly time to start sowing More Things but I think perhaps I will hold off until after I've had a chance to apply some nematodes...
[ SECRET POST #6960 ]
January 25th, 2026 15:19case posting in fandomsecrets⌈ Secret Post #6960 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 23 secrets from Secret Submission Post #994.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Snowflake Challenge #12
January 25th, 2026 12:20annavereChallenge #12
Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life.
I really owe so much to fandom. Without it, I would be in a very different and much lonelier place today. This exercise in appreciation will be under a cut. ( Read more... )
Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life.
I really owe so much to fandom. Without it, I would be in a very different and much lonelier place today. This exercise in appreciation will be under a cut. ( Read more... )
FAKE: Not Needed [Challenge 486: Feeling Blue]
January 25th, 2026 17:52badly_knitted posting in drabble_zoneTitle: Not Needed
Fandom: FAKE
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Dee, Ryo.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 486: Feeling Blue.
Setting: After the manga.
Summary: Ryo is feeling a bit down now that Bikky is growing up.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Double drabble.
Not Needed
I'm back! (Also, Indian weddings are insane.)
January 25th, 2026 21:06swingandswirl In previous years, I would fall off the posting wagon for a week, then two weeks, then months and more. I'm determined not to do that this time, so have an update on what I've been up to before I slowly catch up on snowflake_challenge over the course of the next week!
- The weekend of the 17th/18th was my city's major literary fest. I only went to three panels (one with a Supreme Court judge, one with a historian who is the grandson of two major Independence-era politicians, one with the author of a legal handbook for women) since the others weren't really my jam, but I enjoyed all three.
- I got bookses! Defying the Odds (about Dalit entrepreneurs), Reclaiming Bharat (about the unexpected rebuke India delivered to Modi in the 2024 election), The Lion of Naushera (about a little-known Muslim hero of the 1947 war with Pakistan), One Way To Love (a contemporary romance about a young Indian Muslim couple), Engineering A Nation (about M. Visvesvaraya, a pioneering colonial-era engineer and administrator), and Swadeshi Steam (about one man's effort to create an Indian-owned shipping company and break the British monopoly on maritime trade).
- The fest was also on Sunday, but I did not go (I regret this, in retrospect) because I needed to prepare for a trip.
- What was this trip for, you ask? To attend the wedding of my dad's cousin's son. I have never met this dude, or his bride, in my life. But because I'm Indian (and because Stepmum had the sense to stay home with the dogs so Dad had a free plus one), and also because that branch of the family is LOADED, I was invited. (Seriously, y'all, this wedding was nuts. Three days at a five-star resort, accomodations all paid for; we just had to get our butts there.)
- This was a fancy enough wedding each event (welcome dinner, haldi ceremony, sangeet, muhurtam (actual ceremony), and reception came with dress codes. With specific colours. Luckily, I could use clothes I aready owned for the sangeet, muhurtam, and reception, and I found a cheap burgundy flapper dress for the welcome dinner and a yellow kurta for the haldi, the latter of which I got many compliments on ^_^
- The wedding was as fun as an event I have zero personal stake in could be. The bride's family is North Indian, so while the ceremony itself was as traditionally Tamil Brahmin as could be, there was also a baraat and a sangeet, which were fun to look at from the sidelines. The ceremony itself I can only presume was lovely, since the same thing happened as most Tamil weddings I've been to - we couldn't actually see jack on account of all the photographers/videographers/idiots with phones. I wish they'd done what a buddy did and had TV screens up so we could actually SEE S and S getting married. The reception was a lot of fun, too - some great speeches, and the MCs were hilarious.
- Getting to see family was lovely, even if Favourite Cousin S and her husband couldn't make it. I did get to spend time with dad's-sister Aunt S and dad's-cousin Aunt S, and no-longer-tiny Cousin S, which was great, and get to reassure various members of Dad's family of my continued good health. I also got to talk to various family members about the diaspora experience, which provided fodder for Amita fic, so that was nice, lol.
- The food, sadly, was kind of disappointing, because who has a destination wedding in Goa and serves practically no Goan food? My family, apparently. (Okay, in fairness, Tamil Brahmins are strict vegetarians so I don't know if they could have been convinced that anything Goan, which is famous for its fish and pork, was vegetarian even if it was.) That said, the food they did serve was excellent, as befits a Taj hotel. The best part was aloo paratha for breakfast, especially since they had a different Goan curry each morning to eat it with. No Goan food at lunch or dinner, alas.
- The actual wedding feast was catered by the ne plus ultra of traditional wedding caterers that the family bussed in all the way from Chennai. (They would have flown them in, but aviation is a shitshow right now and cooking implements are HEAVY.) No naan and butter chicken here - we were served a traditional Iyengar elai saapadu, on a plantain leaf. Yes, I stuffed my face.
- A big difference between Indian, or at least Tamil, weddings, and Western ones? There are also gifts FROM the host family to the guests. Being a family member means I got a sari (a gorgeous green silk one I have to find an excuse to wear). All guests also got something called a 'bakshanam' - basically, a hamper of sweets and savouries to take home with them - as well as a couple more standard favours. Given that my poor carryon suitcase was already full, this presented an interesting packing dilemma, lol. Thankfully I'd taken a collapsible duffel with, so it was all manageable.
- I left on Tuesday, came home late Friday, and spent the weekend being a giant lump. Love my family, but that was entirely too many people and too much time walking on grass in high heels, lol.
Aaaand that was my week. Hopefully all y'all's was less nuts.
snowflake_challenge over the course of the next week!- The weekend of the 17th/18th was my city's major literary fest. I only went to three panels (one with a Supreme Court judge, one with a historian who is the grandson of two major Independence-era politicians, one with the author of a legal handbook for women) since the others weren't really my jam, but I enjoyed all three.
- I got bookses! Defying the Odds (about Dalit entrepreneurs), Reclaiming Bharat (about the unexpected rebuke India delivered to Modi in the 2024 election), The Lion of Naushera (about a little-known Muslim hero of the 1947 war with Pakistan), One Way To Love (a contemporary romance about a young Indian Muslim couple), Engineering A Nation (about M. Visvesvaraya, a pioneering colonial-era engineer and administrator), and Swadeshi Steam (about one man's effort to create an Indian-owned shipping company and break the British monopoly on maritime trade).
- The fest was also on Sunday, but I did not go (I regret this, in retrospect) because I needed to prepare for a trip.
- What was this trip for, you ask? To attend the wedding of my dad's cousin's son. I have never met this dude, or his bride, in my life. But because I'm Indian (and because Stepmum had the sense to stay home with the dogs so Dad had a free plus one), and also because that branch of the family is LOADED, I was invited. (Seriously, y'all, this wedding was nuts. Three days at a five-star resort, accomodations all paid for; we just had to get our butts there.)
- This was a fancy enough wedding each event (welcome dinner, haldi ceremony, sangeet, muhurtam (actual ceremony), and reception came with dress codes. With specific colours. Luckily, I could use clothes I aready owned for the sangeet, muhurtam, and reception, and I found a cheap burgundy flapper dress for the welcome dinner and a yellow kurta for the haldi, the latter of which I got many compliments on ^_^
- The wedding was as fun as an event I have zero personal stake in could be. The bride's family is North Indian, so while the ceremony itself was as traditionally Tamil Brahmin as could be, there was also a baraat and a sangeet, which were fun to look at from the sidelines. The ceremony itself I can only presume was lovely, since the same thing happened as most Tamil weddings I've been to - we couldn't actually see jack on account of all the photographers/videographers/idiots with phones. I wish they'd done what a buddy did and had TV screens up so we could actually SEE S and S getting married. The reception was a lot of fun, too - some great speeches, and the MCs were hilarious.
- Getting to see family was lovely, even if Favourite Cousin S and her husband couldn't make it. I did get to spend time with dad's-sister Aunt S and dad's-cousin Aunt S, and no-longer-tiny Cousin S, which was great, and get to reassure various members of Dad's family of my continued good health. I also got to talk to various family members about the diaspora experience, which provided fodder for Amita fic, so that was nice, lol.
- The food, sadly, was kind of disappointing, because who has a destination wedding in Goa and serves practically no Goan food? My family, apparently. (Okay, in fairness, Tamil Brahmins are strict vegetarians so I don't know if they could have been convinced that anything Goan, which is famous for its fish and pork, was vegetarian even if it was.) That said, the food they did serve was excellent, as befits a Taj hotel. The best part was aloo paratha for breakfast, especially since they had a different Goan curry each morning to eat it with. No Goan food at lunch or dinner, alas.
- The actual wedding feast was catered by the ne plus ultra of traditional wedding caterers that the family bussed in all the way from Chennai. (They would have flown them in, but aviation is a shitshow right now and cooking implements are HEAVY.) No naan and butter chicken here - we were served a traditional Iyengar elai saapadu, on a plantain leaf. Yes, I stuffed my face.
- A big difference between Indian, or at least Tamil, weddings, and Western ones? There are also gifts FROM the host family to the guests. Being a family member means I got a sari (a gorgeous green silk one I have to find an excuse to wear). All guests also got something called a 'bakshanam' - basically, a hamper of sweets and savouries to take home with them - as well as a couple more standard favours. Given that my poor carryon suitcase was already full, this presented an interesting packing dilemma, lol. Thankfully I'd taken a collapsible duffel with, so it was all manageable.
- I left on Tuesday, came home late Friday, and spent the weekend being a giant lump. Love my family, but that was entirely too many people and too much time walking on grass in high heels, lol.
Aaaand that was my week. Hopefully all y'all's was less nuts.
Traumatic Experiences Pinch Hits - Due February 10th 8PM PST
January 25th, 2026 08:59flowing_river posting in pinchhitsEvent: Traumatic Experiences
Event link:traumaticexperiences
Pinch hit link: Current Pinch Hit Post
Due date: February 10th at 8PM PST
traumaticexperiences is a (psychological) trauma themed multifandom exchange. You must write a fanfiction that is a minimum of 1000 words. We have 1 new pinch hit and 7 returning pinch hits that are due on February 10th at 8PM PST.
Assignment Requirements
PH 2 - Dredge (Video Game), Trigun (Anime & Manga 1995-2008), 間の楔 | Ai no Kusabi (Anime)
PH 5 - Dial M for Murder (1954), Home Before Dark (1958), The Country Girl (1954)
PH 6 - Given (Anime), 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime), Wind Breaker (Anime), Outlast (Video Games)
PH 7 - Four Assassins (2011), RoboCop (Movies 1987-1993), Half-Life (Video Games), Crossing Jordan (TV 2001)
PH 8 - The Defenders (Marvel TV), Charmed (TV 1998)
PH 10 - The A Word (TV), I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Video Game), 崩坏：星穹铁道 | Honkai: Star Rail (Video Game)
PH 13 - The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Fall (2006)
PH 15 - Dragon Age (Video Games), Succession (TV 2018), The Owl House (Cartoon), Breaking Bad, House M.D.
For more details/to claim, view the pinch hit post.
Event link:
traumaticexperiencesPinch hit link: Current Pinch Hit Post
Due date: February 10th at 8PM PST
traumaticexperiences is a (psychological) trauma themed multifandom exchange. You must write a fanfiction that is a minimum of 1000 words. We have 1 new pinch hit and 7 returning pinch hits that are due on February 10th at 8PM PST.Assignment Requirements
PH 2 - Dredge (Video Game), Trigun (Anime & Manga 1995-2008), 間の楔 | Ai no Kusabi (Anime)
PH 5 - Dial M for Murder (1954), Home Before Dark (1958), The Country Girl (1954)
PH 6 - Given (Anime), 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime), Wind Breaker (Anime), Outlast (Video Games)
PH 7 - Four Assassins (2011), RoboCop (Movies 1987-1993), Half-Life (Video Games), Crossing Jordan (TV 2001)
PH 8 - The Defenders (Marvel TV), Charmed (TV 1998)
PH 10 - The A Word (TV), I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Video Game), 崩坏：星穹铁道 | Honkai: Star Rail (Video Game)
PH 13 - The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Fall (2006)
For more details/to claim, view the pinch hit post.
Honey days, honey daze
January 25th, 2026 14:05dolorosa_12It's been a good weekend after a tiring and emotionally difficult week. Saturday was filled with the kind of icy clear wintry skies that I love, and it was wonderful to wander around the market gathering vegetables, eggs, and other bits and pieces, before retreating to the house. I made a batch of ginger-, lemon- and honey-infused water to use as a sort of tisane on cold nights, and lay around catching up with podcasts and Dreamwidth comments. On my walk out to the pool this morning, almost every second window had a cat slumbering on the windowsill, and the hedgerows were filled with clouds of twittering sparows. I put in even more effort than usual in the pool this morning and at the classes in the gym yesterday, and my body feels pleasantly tired. Now, I'm sitting in the living room with softly foggy skies outside and a whisky-scented candle, while a ![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
noorishbynoor Bahraini-style dal simmers on the stove in the kitchen for tomorrow's dinner. Everything feels sleepy and slow.
I'll start things off with some very good news. Some of you may recall my post last week about Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, with suggestions of ways to help. This included a fundraiser to buy large, expensive batteries for Kyivan families so that they had reliable sources of power in the wake of constant blackouts, and loss of heating and hot water in their homes. These batteries cost $3400 US apiece, and when I posted about the fundraiser last Saturday, the organisers had bought two so far. As of this week, they now have nine, and you can see some photos of Anastasiia Lapatina, the journalist who organised the fundraiser, with the delivered batteries, in her latest Substack newsletter update. Thank you to everyone who donated or spread the word of this fundraiser: you contributed to this, and you can see concrete proof of your actions. It's a small thing in light of the overwhelming horrors going on all over the world, but it is genuinely, unambiguously helpful. The fundraiser is ongoing, so please feel free to continue to share my original post or donate if you are able. Other concrete ways to help are the Ukrainian government's fundraising initiative for air defence or Come Back Alive's fundraising campaign for drones to use as air defence against other drones — helping civillians cope with the attacks on energy infrastructure is good, but preventing those attacks from happening at all is obviously better.
Reading this week has mostly been rereads, with the only reread of note being Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month poetry and short fiction collection. This was a project she undertook in 2010, when a friend spent the month of February sending her different samples of honey each day, and she wrote a poem or short story in response to the look, smell and taste of each sample. Each creative piece of writing is preceded by a description of the sensory experience of that specific honey, vividly captured so that the reader is brought along for the ride. Although this is an early piece of El-Mohtar's work, it has all the hallmarks that I've come to expect and appreciate in her later writing: lyrical, fairytale storytelling, with each item in the collection an exquisite, self-contained gem. Her writing is always a rich feast for the senses — one does not just read her stories and poetry, but rather tastes, smells, and touches the little worlds she creates within them — and this collection really plays to those strengths.
I'm also about a quarter of the way through Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan's adult fiction debut, in which a young woman with terminal cancer is offered a chance to save her life if she elects to be transported into the fictional world of the wildly successful series of fantasy novels of which she and her younger sister are fans. The only catch — she finds herself in the body of one of the series' villains, who is slated for execution, and must therefore rely on her knowledge of the series' plot, and wider genre knowledge in general, in order to wriggle her way out of things. Rees Brennan herself was diagnosed with cancer in her thirties, and went through a long, painful recovery, and the fear and rage of that experience is conveyed with real vulnerability, deftly sitting next to the book's gleeful, quippy humour. It's written with real affection for both transformative fandom and the way that experience of collectively engaging with fiction transcends the sometimes questionable quality of the source material (if a work of fiction is meaningful, that's all that matters), and I can tell it's going to be a wild ride from start to finish.
I've got laundry to hang out (in the kitchen, as outdoor laundry will not be possible until at least late March), and more reading to do, and then Matthias and I will be heading into one of the villages south of Cambridge for a Burns Night dinner in one of the gastropubs we frequent sporadically. I'm expecting tartan, bagpipes, and whisky, the latter of which will be a bit of a shock to the system as I have been refraining from alcohol for the past month. But it will be good fun!
noorishbynoor Bahraini-style dal simmers on the stove in the kitchen for tomorrow's dinner. Everything feels sleepy and slow. I'll start things off with some very good news. Some of you may recall my post last week about Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, with suggestions of ways to help. This included a fundraiser to buy large, expensive batteries for Kyivan families so that they had reliable sources of power in the wake of constant blackouts, and loss of heating and hot water in their homes. These batteries cost $3400 US apiece, and when I posted about the fundraiser last Saturday, the organisers had bought two so far. As of this week, they now have nine, and you can see some photos of Anastasiia Lapatina, the journalist who organised the fundraiser, with the delivered batteries, in her latest Substack newsletter update. Thank you to everyone who donated or spread the word of this fundraiser: you contributed to this, and you can see concrete proof of your actions. It's a small thing in light of the overwhelming horrors going on all over the world, but it is genuinely, unambiguously helpful. The fundraiser is ongoing, so please feel free to continue to share my original post or donate if you are able. Other concrete ways to help are the Ukrainian government's fundraising initiative for air defence or Come Back Alive's fundraising campaign for drones to use as air defence against other drones — helping civillians cope with the attacks on energy infrastructure is good, but preventing those attacks from happening at all is obviously better.
Reading this week has mostly been rereads, with the only reread of note being Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month poetry and short fiction collection. This was a project she undertook in 2010, when a friend spent the month of February sending her different samples of honey each day, and she wrote a poem or short story in response to the look, smell and taste of each sample. Each creative piece of writing is preceded by a description of the sensory experience of that specific honey, vividly captured so that the reader is brought along for the ride. Although this is an early piece of El-Mohtar's work, it has all the hallmarks that I've come to expect and appreciate in her later writing: lyrical, fairytale storytelling, with each item in the collection an exquisite, self-contained gem. Her writing is always a rich feast for the senses — one does not just read her stories and poetry, but rather tastes, smells, and touches the little worlds she creates within them — and this collection really plays to those strengths.
I'm also about a quarter of the way through Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan's adult fiction debut, in which a young woman with terminal cancer is offered a chance to save her life if she elects to be transported into the fictional world of the wildly successful series of fantasy novels of which she and her younger sister are fans. The only catch — she finds herself in the body of one of the series' villains, who is slated for execution, and must therefore rely on her knowledge of the series' plot, and wider genre knowledge in general, in order to wriggle her way out of things. Rees Brennan herself was diagnosed with cancer in her thirties, and went through a long, painful recovery, and the fear and rage of that experience is conveyed with real vulnerability, deftly sitting next to the book's gleeful, quippy humour. It's written with real affection for both transformative fandom and the way that experience of collectively engaging with fiction transcends the sometimes questionable quality of the source material (if a work of fiction is meaningful, that's all that matters), and I can tell it's going to be a wild ride from start to finish.
I've got laundry to hang out (in the kitchen, as outdoor laundry will not be possible until at least late March), and more reading to do, and then Matthias and I will be heading into one of the villages south of Cambridge for a Burns Night dinner in one of the gastropubs we frequent sporadically. I'm expecting tartan, bagpipes, and whisky, the latter of which will be a bit of a shock to the system as I have been refraining from alcohol for the past month. But it will be good fun!
3SF Miami Vice: In Darkness, Love Lives (sequel)
January 25th, 2026 05:09mxcatmoonTo fill the prompt, any, any, i fell in love with you in my passenger seat
Surprise sequel to Truth Lives in Darkness. Does that make it better, or worse? 😉
I really need to get to sleep...
In Darkness, Love Lives
( Read more... )
Surprise sequel to Truth Lives in Darkness. Does that make it better, or worse? 😉
I really need to get to sleep...
In Darkness, Love Lives
( Read more... )
Miami Vice 3SF fic: Truth Lives in Darkness
January 25th, 2026 03:29mxcatmoonExcuse me while I try to decide whether I'm posting these things in batches or one per post. 🤣 What do you think?
Written forthreesentenceficathon
Prompt: any, any, stroking someone's hair (non-consensual)
Title: Truth Lives in Darkness
Fandom: Miami Vice
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Rico, Sonny/Rico
Words: 156
Summary: In the dark, Rico indulges in forbidden things
Notes: I’m into the 4th season now on my rewatch, can you tell? Just finished "Child’s Play", and it only gets worse from here, so here comes the Rico angst…
Here’s a few words I wrote about Rico in that episode, if anyone is interested: Juggling Volleyballs (including screenshots)
( Truth Lives in Darkness )
Written for
threesentenceficathon Prompt: any, any, stroking someone's hair (non-consensual)
Title: Truth Lives in Darkness
Fandom: Miami Vice
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Rico, Sonny/Rico
Words: 156
Summary: In the dark, Rico indulges in forbidden things
Notes: I’m into the 4th season now on my rewatch, can you tell? Just finished "Child’s Play", and it only gets worse from here, so here comes the Rico angst…
Here’s a few words I wrote about Rico in that episode, if anyone is interested: Juggling Volleyballs (including screenshots)
( Truth Lives in Darkness )
Snowflake Challenge 2026: #12 Appreciation
January 25th, 2026 00:35mxcatmoon
Today's challenge is all about delivering appreciation where it's due. Who makes your fandom life better?
Challenge #12
Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life. Appreciate them in bullet points, prose, poetry, a moodboard, a song... whatever moves you!
( Read more... )
Challenge #12
Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life. Appreciate them in bullet points, prose, poetry, a moodboard, a song... whatever moves you!
( Read more... )
Miami Vice 3 sentence fic: Shattered
January 25th, 2026 00:04mxcatmoonWritten for threesentenceficathon
Title: Shattered
Fandom: Miami Vice
Author: Cat Moon
Words: 155
Rating: PG
Character: Ricardo Tubbs
Summary: Rico faces some devastating realizations over the course of being Sonny's partner
Notes: Major spoilers for season five -- like seriously. Angsty. I didn't want to write this. It gets better in canon, though. Kind of.
Prompt, any, any, I can fix him, no, really, I can / Woah, maybe I can't
( Shattered )
threesentenceficathon Title: Shattered
Fandom: Miami Vice
Author: Cat Moon
Words: 155
Rating: PG
Character: Ricardo Tubbs
Summary: Rico faces some devastating realizations over the course of being Sonny's partner
Notes: Major spoilers for season five -- like seriously. Angsty. I didn't want to write this. It gets better in canon, though. Kind of.
Prompt, any, any, I can fix him, no, really, I can / Woah, maybe I can't
( Shattered )
Three 3 sentence ficlets: Miami Vice
January 24th, 2026 22:53mxcatmoonThree Miami Vice ficlets written for threesentenceficathon
Note: # 3 is rated PG for suggestiveness. All are Sonny/Rico
1. Prompt, tea makes everything better
The Art of Tea and Preventable Heartbreak
“Try it,” Rico cajoled the exhausted man who was sprawled on his couch, leaking pain out of his pores after yet another failed relationship; one day, hopefully, he would figure out what Rico already knew.
Sonny peered skeptically into the mug of chamomile tea that was handed to him, but shrugged and chugged it down, obviously too weary and heartsick to argue.
Ten minutes later, Rico was spreading a blanket over his slumbering partner and resisting the urge to kiss his forehead.
( Read more... )
threesentenceficathon Note: # 3 is rated PG for suggestiveness. All are Sonny/Rico
1. Prompt, tea makes everything better
The Art of Tea and Preventable Heartbreak
“Try it,” Rico cajoled the exhausted man who was sprawled on his couch, leaking pain out of his pores after yet another failed relationship; one day, hopefully, he would figure out what Rico already knew.
Sonny peered skeptically into the mug of chamomile tea that was handed to him, but shrugged and chugged it down, obviously too weary and heartsick to argue.
Ten minutes later, Rico was spreading a blanket over his slumbering partner and resisting the urge to kiss his forehead.
( Read more... )
Minnesota In My Thoughts
January 25th, 2026 03:02![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
scalziwhatever_feedI’m away and mostly offline this weekend but I’m seeing the news. Minnesota, you deserve so much better than what this government is doing to you.
— JS