Monthly Listening: Nov/Dec 2025
Dec. 30th, 2025 16:10![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adevyishI’ve been battling migraines on and off for the past several weeks, so this is an iosyscore-free zone as much as Maltine Records is trying otherwise.
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adevyish
Picture Book Advent Wrap-Up
Dec. 29th, 2025 22:38osprey_archerAnd Picture Book Advent draws gently to a close. A note for my future self: although traditionally Advent ends on December 24, I think it would be nice to have a final picture book for the morning of Christmas. (My sister-in-law’s large extended family does a BIG Christmas, so we’ve simply ceded Christmas Day to them and have our own little family Christmas later on, which leaves Christmas morning open.)
Because of the way the dates of Advent fell, I had only two books left to review. First, The Wee Christmas Cabin at Carn-na-ween, by Ruth Sawyer, illustrated by Max Grafe, a picture book version of a story I first read in Sawyer’s story collection The Long Christmas. After a lifetime helping out in one cabin after another, with never a home of her own, old Oona is at last driven from her final house on Christmas Eve… only for the Good Folk to build her a house, and grant her wish that every white Christmas hence, the hungry and the lonely will be able to find her home for succor.
A lovely story. Another solid example from Sawyer that the spirit of Christmas is “generosity” and not “copious evergreens.”
And second, The Christmas Sweater, Jan Brett’s new Christmas book this year! Theo’s Yiayia knitted an extremely gaudy Christmas sweater for his dignified pug Ari. Hoping to win Ari over to the cozy warm sweater, Theo takes her for a snowshoe in the woods… only for a fresh fall of snow to obliterate his tracks! But fortunately, Ari(adne)’s sweater caught on a twig near the edge of the woods, so they can follow the unraveled yarn back home.
From the dedication, it looks like one of Brett’s children married into a Greek family, and this book is an homage to that family connection. I particularly enjoyed Ari’s expressive face, and indeed all the dogs running around in the snow in this book.
Because of the way the dates of Advent fell, I had only two books left to review. First, The Wee Christmas Cabin at Carn-na-ween, by Ruth Sawyer, illustrated by Max Grafe, a picture book version of a story I first read in Sawyer’s story collection The Long Christmas. After a lifetime helping out in one cabin after another, with never a home of her own, old Oona is at last driven from her final house on Christmas Eve… only for the Good Folk to build her a house, and grant her wish that every white Christmas hence, the hungry and the lonely will be able to find her home for succor.
A lovely story. Another solid example from Sawyer that the spirit of Christmas is “generosity” and not “copious evergreens.”
And second, The Christmas Sweater, Jan Brett’s new Christmas book this year! Theo’s Yiayia knitted an extremely gaudy Christmas sweater for his dignified pug Ari. Hoping to win Ari over to the cozy warm sweater, Theo takes her for a snowshoe in the woods… only for a fresh fall of snow to obliterate his tracks! But fortunately, Ari(adne)’s sweater caught on a twig near the edge of the woods, so they can follow the unraveled yarn back home.
From the dedication, it looks like one of Brett’s children married into a Greek family, and this book is an homage to that family connection. I particularly enjoyed Ari’s expressive face, and indeed all the dogs running around in the snow in this book.
Bookposting catchup
Dec. 29th, 2025 22:58silveredeye"Silvereye, are you trying to bookpost your way through most of the year so you can do a yearly book meme when 2026 rolls around?"
Maybe; you can prove nothing; it's basically a holiday tradition for me at this point.
Maybe; you can prove nothing; it's basically a holiday tradition for me at this point.
Post-Christmas mishmash | Recent media
Dec. 29th, 2025 15:47umadoshi(As is so often the case, I'm generally up to date on reading my DW circle, but not doing at all well with commenting.)
I guess at this point we're well into the liminal last bit of the year. (I said toscruloose earlier that I still try to hold "Christmas is twelve days, dammit" in my heart, but it's hard, especially when our observance of the the holiday at all is so low-key.) We had masked visits with both sets of parents (mine on Christmas Eve and scruloose's on Boxing Day), and in between, Christmas Day was just the two of us and the cats and the Netflix fireplaces. My mom sent us home with Christmas stockings and some gifts (also very low-key; we still keep nudging for just not doing presents at all), and the latter included a hard copy of the most recent edition of Garner's Modern English Usage, which was a delightful surprise.
We actually had a white Christmas, which has never been a sure thing and is getting rarer and rarer at terrible speeds, but now ice and rain are arriving, to be followed by a cold snap, so I'm really glad we don't need to leave the house anytime soon. (See also: will we lose power? Very possibly! >.< But we're pretty well-equipped to deal with it.)
I'm feeling like I should be looking ahead or setting small goals or trying to find specific things I want to focus on, but so far I'm not really scrounging the brain for it. Anyone want to tell me about how you're approaching it?
(I do think I'll sign up for a GYWO wordcount goal again, despite having written almost literally zero words this year, but at this point I have the grim suspicion that the words may stay gone until a new full-on fannish obsession hits me, and that's so infrequent for me. ;_; I have so many Guardian WIPs and fragments. [And while I'm enjoying seeing all the fannish glee over Heated Rivalry, I don't currently feel fannish about it myself {which, honestly, I'm okay with}.])
Recent media, mostly books: All Is Bright, Llinos Cathryn Thomas' "read over Advent" novella, which was lovely; The Dark is Rising (book), which I'm glad to have finally read; I don't know if/when I might read the books that follow it; Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher; Widdershins by Jordan L. Hawk; KJ Charles' Masters in this Hall (which I should've checked the series info about first, as it's the third Lilywhite Boys book and I haven't read the second. Oops); and Brigid Kemmerer's A Curse So Dark and Lonely.
scruloose and I finished listening to System Collapse, so we're out of Murderbot books. Yesterday (?) we listened to the four-minute audiobook sample of The Thief, which I might be able to work with? But wow, the voice sounds so much older than Gen to me. (Also, Kobo, four minutes is a reasonable sample length, but it literally cuts off mid-word.)
I watched the season finale of Heated Rivalry pretty promptly on Friday morning, for fear of being spoiled, which meantscruloose, who hadn't seen any of the show previously, pretty much watched it too while feeding the cats and having their own breakfast. (I did give them some background info first.) As noted above: not feeling fannish, but I thought that was really well done overall, and the actors seem like an absolute delight.
And we've watched two movies since starting vacation (Wake Up Dead Man and Sinners), which brings me up to a whopping four [4] movies this year.
I guess at this point we're well into the liminal last bit of the year. (I said to
scruloose earlier that I still try to hold "Christmas is twelve days, dammit" in my heart, but it's hard, especially when our observance of the the holiday at all is so low-key.) We had masked visits with both sets of parents (mine on Christmas Eve and scruloose's on Boxing Day), and in between, Christmas Day was just the two of us and the cats and the Netflix fireplaces. My mom sent us home with Christmas stockings and some gifts (also very low-key; we still keep nudging for just not doing presents at all), and the latter included a hard copy of the most recent edition of Garner's Modern English Usage, which was a delightful surprise.We actually had a white Christmas, which has never been a sure thing and is getting rarer and rarer at terrible speeds, but now ice and rain are arriving, to be followed by a cold snap, so I'm really glad we don't need to leave the house anytime soon. (See also: will we lose power? Very possibly! >.< But we're pretty well-equipped to deal with it.)
I'm feeling like I should be looking ahead or setting small goals or trying to find specific things I want to focus on, but so far I'm not really scrounging the brain for it. Anyone want to tell me about how you're approaching it?
(I do think I'll sign up for a GYWO wordcount goal again, despite having written almost literally zero words this year, but at this point I have the grim suspicion that the words may stay gone until a new full-on fannish obsession hits me, and that's so infrequent for me. ;_; I have so many Guardian WIPs and fragments. [And while I'm enjoying seeing all the fannish glee over Heated Rivalry, I don't currently feel fannish about it myself {which, honestly, I'm okay with}.])
Recent media, mostly books: All Is Bright, Llinos Cathryn Thomas' "read over Advent" novella, which was lovely; The Dark is Rising (book), which I'm glad to have finally read; I don't know if/when I might read the books that follow it; Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher; Widdershins by Jordan L. Hawk; KJ Charles' Masters in this Hall (which I should've checked the series info about first, as it's the third Lilywhite Boys book and I haven't read the second. Oops); and Brigid Kemmerer's A Curse So Dark and Lonely.
scruloose and I finished listening to System Collapse, so we're out of Murderbot books. Yesterday (?) we listened to the four-minute audiobook sample of The Thief, which I might be able to work with? But wow, the voice sounds so much older than Gen to me. (Also, Kobo, four minutes is a reasonable sample length, but it literally cuts off mid-word.)I watched the season finale of Heated Rivalry pretty promptly on Friday morning, for fear of being spoiled, which meant
scruloose, who hadn't seen any of the show previously, pretty much watched it too while feeding the cats and having their own breakfast. (I did give them some background info first.) As noted above: not feeling fannish, but I thought that was really well done overall, and the actors seem like an absolute delight.And we've watched two movies since starting vacation (Wake Up Dead Man and Sinners), which brings me up to a whopping four [4] movies this year.
(no subject)
Dec. 29th, 2025 08:11skygiantsThe Queen's Embroiderer: A True Story of Paris, Lovers, Swindlers, and the First Stock Market Crisis did quite a good job of giving me historical context around the lives of artisans and upwardly mobile bourgeois in 17th and early 18th century France and only a mediocre job IMO of convincing me of its central argument, but I was reading it for the former and not the latter so I can't say I was disappointed per se ...
As the author, historian Joan DeJean, introduces her narrative, she was browsing the National Archives when she came across two documents: the first, appointing Jean Magoulet as official embroiderer to Queen Marie-Thérèse of France; the second, decreeing that Magoulet's daughter Marie Louise should be put in prison and deported to New Orleans on charges of prostitution. DeJean immediately dropped what she was doing to Get To The Bottom Of This and went on a deep dive into the entire Magoulet family as well as the family of Louis Chevrot, the young man whose involvement with Marie-Louise resulted in the charges above.
In order to write this family saga, Joan DeJean has pulled out every relevant family document -- marriage licenses, birth certificates, guardianship statements, criminal charges, recorded purchases, etc. etc. -- and she does a clear and interesting job of explaining what we can learn from them, what these kinds of documents normally look like and what their context is, what the specific features of these family documents imply, and letting you follow her logic with your own brain. I appreciate this very much! I had no idea, for example, that it was standard in 17th-century France for the court to appoint a guardian for any child who lost a parent, even if they still had the other parent living, to ensure that their financial interests were protected, something that came up often in this narrative where a lot of kids were losing parents in situations where their financial interests were not particularly protected. It's a really good example of historical detective work, how you can draw a picture of a family through time through the bureaucratic litter they leave behind, and I appreciated it very much.
On the other hand, Joan DeJean also occasionally slips into writing like this --
In the course of their attempts both to get rich quick and to save their skin when they got into bad straits, the Queen's Embroiderers became imposters, tricksters, con artists nonpareil. They lied about everything and to everyone: to the police, to notaries, to their in-laws. They lied about their ages and those of their children, about their professional accomplishments and their net worth. They caroused; they philandered; they made a mockery of the laws of church and state. The only truly authentic thing about them was their extraordinary talent and their ability to weave gold and silver thread into the kind of garments that seemed the stuff of dreams. In their lives and on an almost daily basis, haute couture crossed paths with high crime.
Savage beauty indeed.
-- which made me laugh out loud every time it happened. So, bug, feature? who could say ....
Anyway, Joan DeJean makes a pretty good argument for most of the family gossip she pulls out about the Magoulets and the Chevrots, but the center of her argument about the Great Tragic Romance between Marie-Louise Magoulet and Louis Chevrot rests on a really elaborate switcheroo that I simply do not buy. In drawing out her family saga, DeJean has become obsessed with the fact that there seem to have been two Marie-Louise Magoulets, one being more than a decade older than the other, and, crucially, also more than a decade older than Louis Chevrot; ( I guess this is technically spoilers for a three hundred year old scandal )
But a.) context about material culture and craftsmanship is what I was here for and context is what I got, in spades, and b.) if you're going to invent a historical conspiracy theory, make it as niche as possible, is what I say, so despite the fact that I don't BELIEVE DeJean I still spiritually support her. Has she perhaps connected a few more dots than actually exist? Perhaps. But I still certainly got my money's worth [none; library] out of the book!
As the author, historian Joan DeJean, introduces her narrative, she was browsing the National Archives when she came across two documents: the first, appointing Jean Magoulet as official embroiderer to Queen Marie-Thérèse of France; the second, decreeing that Magoulet's daughter Marie Louise should be put in prison and deported to New Orleans on charges of prostitution. DeJean immediately dropped what she was doing to Get To The Bottom Of This and went on a deep dive into the entire Magoulet family as well as the family of Louis Chevrot, the young man whose involvement with Marie-Louise resulted in the charges above.
In order to write this family saga, Joan DeJean has pulled out every relevant family document -- marriage licenses, birth certificates, guardianship statements, criminal charges, recorded purchases, etc. etc. -- and she does a clear and interesting job of explaining what we can learn from them, what these kinds of documents normally look like and what their context is, what the specific features of these family documents imply, and letting you follow her logic with your own brain. I appreciate this very much! I had no idea, for example, that it was standard in 17th-century France for the court to appoint a guardian for any child who lost a parent, even if they still had the other parent living, to ensure that their financial interests were protected, something that came up often in this narrative where a lot of kids were losing parents in situations where their financial interests were not particularly protected. It's a really good example of historical detective work, how you can draw a picture of a family through time through the bureaucratic litter they leave behind, and I appreciated it very much.
On the other hand, Joan DeJean also occasionally slips into writing like this --
In the course of their attempts both to get rich quick and to save their skin when they got into bad straits, the Queen's Embroiderers became imposters, tricksters, con artists nonpareil. They lied about everything and to everyone: to the police, to notaries, to their in-laws. They lied about their ages and those of their children, about their professional accomplishments and their net worth. They caroused; they philandered; they made a mockery of the laws of church and state. The only truly authentic thing about them was their extraordinary talent and their ability to weave gold and silver thread into the kind of garments that seemed the stuff of dreams. In their lives and on an almost daily basis, haute couture crossed paths with high crime.
Savage beauty indeed.
-- which made me laugh out loud every time it happened. So, bug, feature? who could say ....
Anyway, Joan DeJean makes a pretty good argument for most of the family gossip she pulls out about the Magoulets and the Chevrots, but the center of her argument about the Great Tragic Romance between Marie-Louise Magoulet and Louis Chevrot rests on a really elaborate switcheroo that I simply do not buy. In drawing out her family saga, DeJean has become obsessed with the fact that there seem to have been two Marie-Louise Magoulets, one being more than a decade older than the other, and, crucially, also more than a decade older than Louis Chevrot; ( I guess this is technically spoilers for a three hundred year old scandal )
But a.) context about material culture and craftsmanship is what I was here for and context is what I got, in spades, and b.) if you're going to invent a historical conspiracy theory, make it as niche as possible, is what I say, so despite the fact that I don't BELIEVE DeJean I still spiritually support her. Has she perhaps connected a few more dots than actually exist? Perhaps. But I still certainly got my money's worth [none; library] out of the book!
Final December meme post, and some fannish links
Dec. 29th, 2025 13:24dolorosa_12Today's prompt from chestnut_pod brings this year's December talking meme to a close, and it's been a great run of questions. Many thanks to all of you who left a prompt! This final prompt is to talk about how I learnt to garden, plus any longstanding plant friends in my garden.
( Response here )
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomtrees is due to open for reveals on 10 January, but it will only do so when every participant has a minimum of two gifts each. This post on the comm links to a spreadsheet of needy trees — there are still a substantial number of participants with only one gift, or with no gift at all. My own tree is here.
And the new year means thatsnowflake_challenge will be rolling around again. I'm always so happy to see the consequent burst of enthusiastic activity on Dreamwidth!
chestnut_pod brings this year's December talking meme to a close, and it's been a great run of questions. Many thanks to all of you who left a prompt! This final prompt is to talk about how I learnt to garden, plus any longstanding plant friends in my garden.( Response here )
fandomtrees is due to open for reveals on 10 January, but it will only do so when every participant has a minimum of two gifts each. This post on the comm links to a spreadsheet of needy trees — there are still a substantial number of participants with only one gift, or with no gift at all. My own tree is here.And the new year means that
snowflake_challenge will be rolling around again. I'm always so happy to see the consequent burst of enthusiastic activity on Dreamwidth!Memories of a Shanghai Summer (沪夏往事) by Shi Ci (是辞): Review
Dec. 28th, 2025 20:23douqi posting in baihe_mediaMemories of a Shanghai Summer (沪夏往事, pinyin: hu xia wangshi) came to my notice the same way it (probably) came to the notice of about 90% of the Chinese-language baihe readership: it was licensed, in quick succession, for a full-cast audiobook, a (separate) audio drama, and then a simplified Chinese print edition. This was all the more striking because of the author's relatively low profile: she's not even contracted to JJWXC. She's also primarily a yanqing author: as of the date of writing, Memories of a Shanghai Summer is her only baihe novel. So that piqued my interest. The only other thing I knew about the novel is that it's set in the Republican Era and has a tragic ending (again, given the common trope about Republican Era stories, the second bit hardly needs saying).
The story is set, predictably, in a turbulent Shanghai. The central romance is between Xie Wanjun, a shrewd businesswoman straining every bit of ingenuity to compete in a male-dominated field, and Qin Shuining, a seamstress whose skills (particularly in making fancy qipao) are sought after by rich women. The two of them are refugees from the north, having evacuated to Shanghai just before the Japanese army invaded, and actually made a large part of the perilous journey together. Despite that shared life-or-death experience, however, their relationship at the start of the novel is (or at least seems) seems to be a mostly professional one: Xie Wanjun is one of Qin Shuining's many regular customers. Xie Wanjun does enjoy needling (see what I did there) Qin Shuining every now and then, but Qin Shuining usually handles it with complete equanimity and full professionalism.
( read more; some spoilers )
I read the Chinese original of the novel here on JJWXC. The mainland print edition of the novel contains a new post-ending extra set several years in the future, where Qin Shuining has reopened her dressmaking business and has an apprentice and adopted daughter.
The story is set, predictably, in a turbulent Shanghai. The central romance is between Xie Wanjun, a shrewd businesswoman straining every bit of ingenuity to compete in a male-dominated field, and Qin Shuining, a seamstress whose skills (particularly in making fancy qipao) are sought after by rich women. The two of them are refugees from the north, having evacuated to Shanghai just before the Japanese army invaded, and actually made a large part of the perilous journey together. Despite that shared life-or-death experience, however, their relationship at the start of the novel is (or at least seems) seems to be a mostly professional one: Xie Wanjun is one of Qin Shuining's many regular customers. Xie Wanjun does enjoy needling (see what I did there) Qin Shuining every now and then, but Qin Shuining usually handles it with complete equanimity and full professionalism.
( read more; some spoilers )
I read the Chinese original of the novel here on JJWXC. The mainland print edition of the novel contains a new post-ending extra set several years in the future, where Qin Shuining has reopened her dressmaking business and has an apprentice and adopted daughter.
Conclave
Dec. 28th, 2025 15:47osprey_archerA last-minute entry to movies I watched in 2025! When I popped into the library yesterday, there was Conclave sitting on the New DVDs shelf, so of course I snatched it up and took it right home and watched it.
Conclave is about a fictional modern-day conclave to elect a new pope, and I’ve been chomping at the bit to see it since it came out because… I guess I am just into movies about the Catholic church… I don’t fully understand this about myself. It may just be the aesthetic. Gold! Red! Shiny things! Lots of candles! One can criticize many things about the Catholic Church but by God they’ve got a look.
Anyway, cardinals converge on Rome, all wearing their cardinal gear, and if like me you enjoy things like aerial shots of cardinals carrying white parasols crossing the courtyard of a vast church complex, you will find great visual delight in this movie. And the movie doesn’t bog down in explaining things like the white parasols either. We don’t need to know why they’re part of the cardinal’s vestments.
The plot of the movie centers on the machinations to elect the new pope, featuring a bunch of guys who desperately want to be pope but also desperately need to pretend that they are being forced into pope candidacy against their will, because other people believe they are the best candidate. At one point in my life I would have scoffed at this hypocrisy, but having endured many years of Donald Trump on the public scene, I have come to believe that actually it’s quite politically useful for candidates to have to hang back until other people more or less drag them bodily into candidacy.
At the center of this is Ralph Fiennes, and I regret to inform you that I remember almost none of the character names from this movie, because I really struggle to tell people apart when they are all dressed the same and also all look pretty similar, in this case a bunch of old white guys with a smattering of old guys of other races.
Ralph Fiennes, as I was saying, is playing the guy who is in charge of making sure the election runs smoothly, and also perhaps awkwardly is one of the candidates - against his will, of course. (Perhaps slightly more sincerely against his will than some of the others.) I saw him about a year ago in the National Theater recording of Antony and Cleopatra, where he plays the sottish, running to seed, impulsive and still dangerous Antony, and his character here is just about the opposite in every way, which raised my respect for his acting ability even more.
He is calm, controlled, thoughtful, and deeply compassionate, a quality perhaps most clear in the scene where he points out to another cardinal that his hopes to be pope are toast. On the surface this action seems almost brutal, but that clarity allows the other cardinal to grieve his dreams in private, instead of hoping against hope and watching them get smashed in public.
An absorbing movie. I didn’t love it quite as much as I hoped to love it, but I greatly enjoyed watching it nonetheless.
Conclave is about a fictional modern-day conclave to elect a new pope, and I’ve been chomping at the bit to see it since it came out because… I guess I am just into movies about the Catholic church… I don’t fully understand this about myself. It may just be the aesthetic. Gold! Red! Shiny things! Lots of candles! One can criticize many things about the Catholic Church but by God they’ve got a look.
Anyway, cardinals converge on Rome, all wearing their cardinal gear, and if like me you enjoy things like aerial shots of cardinals carrying white parasols crossing the courtyard of a vast church complex, you will find great visual delight in this movie. And the movie doesn’t bog down in explaining things like the white parasols either. We don’t need to know why they’re part of the cardinal’s vestments.
The plot of the movie centers on the machinations to elect the new pope, featuring a bunch of guys who desperately want to be pope but also desperately need to pretend that they are being forced into pope candidacy against their will, because other people believe they are the best candidate. At one point in my life I would have scoffed at this hypocrisy, but having endured many years of Donald Trump on the public scene, I have come to believe that actually it’s quite politically useful for candidates to have to hang back until other people more or less drag them bodily into candidacy.
At the center of this is Ralph Fiennes, and I regret to inform you that I remember almost none of the character names from this movie, because I really struggle to tell people apart when they are all dressed the same and also all look pretty similar, in this case a bunch of old white guys with a smattering of old guys of other races.
Ralph Fiennes, as I was saying, is playing the guy who is in charge of making sure the election runs smoothly, and also perhaps awkwardly is one of the candidates - against his will, of course. (Perhaps slightly more sincerely against his will than some of the others.) I saw him about a year ago in the National Theater recording of Antony and Cleopatra, where he plays the sottish, running to seed, impulsive and still dangerous Antony, and his character here is just about the opposite in every way, which raised my respect for his acting ability even more.
He is calm, controlled, thoughtful, and deeply compassionate, a quality perhaps most clear in the scene where he points out to another cardinal that his hopes to be pope are toast. On the surface this action seems almost brutal, but that clarity allows the other cardinal to grieve his dreams in private, instead of hoping against hope and watching them get smashed in public.
An absorbing movie. I didn’t love it quite as much as I hoped to love it, but I greatly enjoyed watching it nonetheless.
fic rec
Dec. 28th, 2025 11:06sixbeforelunchThis one has a great premise, excellent characterization, and is a lot of fun.
Q Switcheroo (10660 words) by V_NUS
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: William Riker & Ro Laren
Characters: William Riker, Ro Laren, Geordi La Forge, Data (Star Trek), Q (Star Trek), Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, Miles O'Brien, Jean-Luc Picard, Worf (Star Trek:TNG/DS9), Guinan (Star Trek)
Additional Tags: Mission Fic, Canon Compliant, Takes place between Disaster (5x05) and Conundrum (5x14), POV Multiple, Bodyswap, Enemies to Friends, Bajoran Culture (Star Trek), Q Being Q (Star Trek), Minor William Riker/Deanna Troi
Summary:
Q Switcheroo (10660 words) by V_NUS
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: William Riker & Ro Laren
Characters: William Riker, Ro Laren, Geordi La Forge, Data (Star Trek), Q (Star Trek), Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, Miles O'Brien, Jean-Luc Picard, Worf (Star Trek:TNG/DS9), Guinan (Star Trek)
Additional Tags: Mission Fic, Canon Compliant, Takes place between Disaster (5x05) and Conundrum (5x14), POV Multiple, Bodyswap, Enemies to Friends, Bajoran Culture (Star Trek), Q Being Q (Star Trek), Minor William Riker/Deanna Troi
Summary:
Q is sick of listening to Commander Riker and Ensign Ro arguing. To fix this, he forces them to swap bodies-- and if anyone finds out what's happened, they'll be stuck as each other forever...
@thefridayfive 2025.12.26
Dec. 28th, 2025 22:03halfcactus1. You have the summer and plenty of money to travel abroad. Where all would you go?
Australia to visit a high school friend who recently got in touch with me after a decade of hearing nothing from e/o to tell me she's moved. :') Less realistically I'd like to go to the cool art/design museum countries (Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague). But really, I wish I had the money to see overseas online + offline friends (don't we all).
2. What foods would you be sure you got to eat?
Whatever has servings I can finish. And snacks! I don't really eat much when I travel bc I eat too slow and it stresses me out.
3. What landmarks would you be sure you got to see?
I'd watch at least one musical! And maybe find Gixi if she is accessible haha
4. What airline would you use?
A non-budget airline. :')
5. Would your knowledge of other languages influence where you went? (i.e., would you be more likely to go to France if you spoke French?)
Yes and no... Being able to speak Chinglish and understand the local accent makes Taiwan even more chill than it already is because I'm not panicking as much and can wander around more. The first time I went (2019—my Chinese would be at HSK1.5 level at best haha), I got myself and my brother on the wrong train and had to alight at the next station, a nice idyllic town just outside of Taipei where nobody spoke English. Managed to communicate enough to get back on track, which made the experience less scary, though I'd chalk most of that up to the platform uncle being very sweet and super invested in getting us on the right train. (He was more stressed than us when we missed the next train!)
That said, my travel list right now is Thailand and Vietnam (separately) and I'm not fussed about language barriers.
Australia to visit a high school friend who recently got in touch with me after a decade of hearing nothing from e/o to tell me she's moved. :') Less realistically I'd like to go to the cool art/design museum countries (Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague). But really, I wish I had the money to see overseas online + offline friends (don't we all).
2. What foods would you be sure you got to eat?
Whatever has servings I can finish. And snacks! I don't really eat much when I travel bc I eat too slow and it stresses me out.
3. What landmarks would you be sure you got to see?
I'd watch at least one musical! And maybe find Gixi if she is accessible haha
4. What airline would you use?
A non-budget airline. :')
5. Would your knowledge of other languages influence where you went? (i.e., would you be more likely to go to France if you spoke French?)
Yes and no... Being able to speak Chinglish and understand the local accent makes Taiwan even more chill than it already is because I'm not panicking as much and can wander around more. The first time I went (2019—my Chinese would be at HSK1.5 level at best haha), I got myself and my brother on the wrong train and had to alight at the next station, a nice idyllic town just outside of Taipei where nobody spoke English. Managed to communicate enough to get back on track, which made the experience less scary, though I'd chalk most of that up to the platform uncle being very sweet and super invested in getting us on the right train. (He was more stressed than us when we missed the next train!)
That said, my travel list right now is Thailand and Vietnam (separately) and I'm not fussed about language barriers.
Yuletide!
Dec. 28th, 2025 13:27daegaerI got THREE lovely fics in Yuletide, two Hut 33 and one Saiyuki Gaiden.
Keeping up with the Fanshawe-Marshalls (8160 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: Hut 33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Archie (Hut 33), Charles Gardiner, Gordon (Hut 33), Joshua Fanshawe-Marshall, Minka (Hut 33), Mrs Best (Hut 33)
Additional Tags: friendship if you squint, Canon Typical Shenanigans
Time flies like a knife (811 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hut 33, Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Minka (Hut 33), Archie (Hut 33), Charles Gardiner, Joshua Fanshawe-Marshall, Tenth Doctor (Doctor Who), Gordon (Hut 33)
Prince of Flowers (790 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Saiyuki Gaiden
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Konzen Douji, Original Characters, Tenpou Gensui, Son Goku (Saiyuki), Kenren Taishou
Additional Tags: gatherings and events, Gods, Attempted Kidnapping, Food, Temptation
Summary: At an event thrown by the Goddess of Mercy, Konzen and his charge encounter a very flowery deity.
All are well worth your immediate attention!
I wrote four fics - I'd say "See if you can guess which", but given the Great Revealing it wouldn't be much of a challenge (wouldn't be anyway - as always, I'm visible from space).
Keeping up with the Fanshawe-Marshalls (8160 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: Hut 33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Archie (Hut 33), Charles Gardiner, Gordon (Hut 33), Joshua Fanshawe-Marshall, Minka (Hut 33), Mrs Best (Hut 33)
Additional Tags: friendship if you squint, Canon Typical Shenanigans
Time flies like a knife (811 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hut 33, Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Minka (Hut 33), Archie (Hut 33), Charles Gardiner, Joshua Fanshawe-Marshall, Tenth Doctor (Doctor Who), Gordon (Hut 33)
Prince of Flowers (790 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Saiyuki Gaiden
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Konzen Douji, Original Characters, Tenpou Gensui, Son Goku (Saiyuki), Kenren Taishou
Additional Tags: gatherings and events, Gods, Attempted Kidnapping, Food, Temptation
Summary: At an event thrown by the Goddess of Mercy, Konzen and his charge encounter a very flowery deity.
All are well worth your immediate attention!
I wrote four fics - I'd say "See if you can guess which", but given the Great Revealing it wouldn't be much of a challenge (wouldn't be anyway - as always, I'm visible from space).
on becoming human
Dec. 28th, 2025 13:00in_seclusionWell, there went 2025.
What a weird year. It's been busy in many ways, but slower in even more. My health has gotten better in some ways, and remained quite ill in most of it, but I'll take the better where I can.
( physical health update )
It's been a hard year of undoing and unlearning everything I've grown up with. But the space left by that undoing has been filled with the things of what I am growing, the person I am becoming. I have discovered new things I like doing now that I have the energy to explore it, now that I have the energy to devote to myself and the things that I want to do, instead of what everyone has told me to want or do. And I've allowed myself to stop doing things when I don't feel like doing them anymore, and to concentrate on the things I want to do.
( hobbies update )
PS I am also on the lookout for a good ube cookie or ube crinkle recipe for a friend in Osaka, will try a black sesame and chocolate cookie for another friend's birthday, and need a good earl grey and brown butter sugar cookie recipe for Raia! Any reccs, please send them my way!
tw: emotional abuse, trauma processing, family dynamics
( eldest daughters never miss a chance to learn the hardest lessons again and again )
( turns out i was emotionally abused in 2023, who knew (everyone) )
Still: ( my friends have loved me back to life in the realest ways )
( there was some growth this year, for i do not wish to be in a lesbian sitcom IRL )
( the hodgepodge that is my spirituality, and how i learned to embrace it )
( mental health updates )
2025 has been such a strange year. I am not sorry to see it end. I am exhausted, physically, emotionally, mentally. I have yet to sit down with myself and think about 2026 and what it might bring. All I know is that in the coming year I want to continue being intentional about the direction of my life and my relationships. I want to learn to take up space without fear, to be able to say straightforwardly what my wants and needs are, knowing full well I will be fine if others cannot meet them, because I can meet them myself. I want to develop a self-identity, self-esteem, and assuredness so strong I no longer fear seeing my ex and remembering all the ways I made myself vulnerable for her in hopes that she would care for me and instead hurt me.Yeah that shit still stings girl trauma and emotional abuse is a bitch. I want to develop all those things for myself, to know I can carry myself and care for myself now and in the future. I want to love and be loved, to learn what love is like when it is safe, kind, and gentle - to be seen, heard, understood, and chosen for who I am. I want to learn kind lessons instead of tears. I want to trust in the hands of the Universe and know that I will be rewarded, that I will live up the name I keep closest to my heart. Maybe emblematic of all my wishes, I also have a new tattoo: a north star in a small galaxy on the wrist of my dominant hand. It is a reminder that I am my own North Star: may I always guide myself back home to me.
I burn a piece of paper every night in this period of in between - the 13 magical wishes to give to the universe during Rauhnaechte. I pray in my heart and in my mind in a shrine hidden in a park in Shibuya, asking for guidance and clarity, asking that I may be granted leave to return and offer my gratitude in person.
Maybe that's all I hope for 2026: that I will be treated gently, that my wishes will be heard, that my prayers be answered, my love found and returned.
Such simple wishes from a woman simply trying to live. 2025 returned to me my humanity. May 2026 return me to myself.
There are many things in play in the background; the wheels of time continue. These nameless days are coming to a close, and soon I will join the world again in its business, its loneliness, its camaraderies, its joys, its shared pains and sorrows. These days have been difficult, balancing between despair and hope, standing still and moving forward. I am going at my pace. May everyone close the coming year in peace, and carry only good wishes into the coming year.
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
What a weird year. It's been busy in many ways, but slower in even more. My health has gotten better in some ways, and remained quite ill in most of it, but I'll take the better where I can.
( physical health update )
It's been a hard year of undoing and unlearning everything I've grown up with. But the space left by that undoing has been filled with the things of what I am growing, the person I am becoming. I have discovered new things I like doing now that I have the energy to explore it, now that I have the energy to devote to myself and the things that I want to do, instead of what everyone has told me to want or do. And I've allowed myself to stop doing things when I don't feel like doing them anymore, and to concentrate on the things I want to do.
( hobbies update )
PS I am also on the lookout for a good ube cookie or ube crinkle recipe for a friend in Osaka, will try a black sesame and chocolate cookie for another friend's birthday, and need a good earl grey and brown butter sugar cookie recipe for Raia! Any reccs, please send them my way!
tw: emotional abuse, trauma processing, family dynamics
( eldest daughters never miss a chance to learn the hardest lessons again and again )
( turns out i was emotionally abused in 2023, who knew (everyone) )
Still: ( my friends have loved me back to life in the realest ways )
( there was some growth this year, for i do not wish to be in a lesbian sitcom IRL )
( the hodgepodge that is my spirituality, and how i learned to embrace it )
( mental health updates )
2025 has been such a strange year. I am not sorry to see it end. I am exhausted, physically, emotionally, mentally. I have yet to sit down with myself and think about 2026 and what it might bring. All I know is that in the coming year I want to continue being intentional about the direction of my life and my relationships. I want to learn to take up space without fear, to be able to say straightforwardly what my wants and needs are, knowing full well I will be fine if others cannot meet them, because I can meet them myself. I want to develop a self-identity, self-esteem, and assuredness so strong I no longer fear seeing my ex and remembering all the ways I made myself vulnerable for her in hopes that she would care for me and instead hurt me.
I burn a piece of paper every night in this period of in between - the 13 magical wishes to give to the universe during Rauhnaechte. I pray in my heart and in my mind in a shrine hidden in a park in Shibuya, asking for guidance and clarity, asking that I may be granted leave to return and offer my gratitude in person.
Maybe that's all I hope for 2026: that I will be treated gently, that my wishes will be heard, that my prayers be answered, my love found and returned.
Such simple wishes from a woman simply trying to live. 2025 returned to me my humanity. May 2026 return me to myself.
There are many things in play in the background; the wheels of time continue. These nameless days are coming to a close, and soon I will join the world again in its business, its loneliness, its camaraderies, its joys, its shared pains and sorrows. These days have been difficult, balancing between despair and hope, standing still and moving forward. I am going at my pace. May everyone close the coming year in peace, and carry only good wishes into the coming year.
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
2025 Movie Round-Up
Dec. 27th, 2025 16:24osprey_archerI’ve barely posted about movies this year, so I decided to do a quick movie round-up - very quick, as I’ve watched barely any movies this year! Some years are just not movie years, I guess…
The Balloonatic: a remix of a Buster Keaton movie set to the music of… okay I should have taken notes, I can’t remember the band, suffice it to say that it was a recentish band to which you would perhaps not expect Buster Keaton to be set. Smashing Pumpkins maybe? Lots of interesting cutting of the film which I don’t really have the technical vocabulary to describe, but just like - cutting what was clearly once one long shot into multiple shots? Kind of synced to the music?
I dragged the Brunch Bunch along to this showing, and we agreed that we’d see another if another came to town. But as we were just about the only people in the theater it is perhaps unsurprising that the theater has not booked another. Even an arthouse cinema has to have an audience.
Interview with a Vampire: I posted a bit of comparison to the book, but did not take time to note that this movie is an A++ example of complete commitment to an aesthetic, the aesthetic in this case being “decadent opulence spattered in blood.” This is an occasional aesthetic for me rather than one I would like to live in, but I admire the commitment.
The Shape of Water: This was a big disappointment, to be honest. Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth is one of my all-time favorites, so I went into this movie with high hopes, but honestly it just draaaaaaagged for me. Also highly doubt the ability of the fish-man from the Amazon to survive in the icy coastal waters of the Atlantic.
Kiki’s Delivery Service. A rewatch! Still one of my favorite movies, probably my top two Studio Ghibli with My Neighbor Totoro (but now I feel bad leaving out Spirited Away...) Love Kiki, love Jiji, love the richly detailed setting (which we dubbed “Francemany,” as it is clearly a mash-up of various European localities), love Miyazaki’s love of flying machines. This is an aesthetic I WOULD like to live in.
Also a couple of documentaries. Take Joy! The Magical World of Tasha Tudor is about Tudor’s life at Corgi Cottage, built and largely run in the style of a 19th century farmhouse, where Tudor lives with her goats, her doves, her corgyn (Tudor’s plural of corgi), her one-eyed cat Minou, and seven looms. (These are not all Tudor’s looms. Sometimes she gives house-space to a friend’s loom, if the friend doesn’t have loom room, a loom being a large contraption.) An inspiring example of building your own little world and living in it.
This theme is further developed in Take Peace: A Corgi Cottage Christmas with Tasha Tudor, an enchanting documentary perfect for anyone who has ever enjoyed Tasha Tudor’s Christmas illustrations, as the illustrations apparently draw extensively on Tasha Tudor’s own Christmas traditions or possibly vice versa, in a virtuous cycle of candlelit charm.
If you can’t find the documentary, the photo book Forever Christmas appears to have been made in conjunction, and includes some material not included in the film. Can’t believe they left out the sleigh ride!
The Balloonatic: a remix of a Buster Keaton movie set to the music of… okay I should have taken notes, I can’t remember the band, suffice it to say that it was a recentish band to which you would perhaps not expect Buster Keaton to be set. Smashing Pumpkins maybe? Lots of interesting cutting of the film which I don’t really have the technical vocabulary to describe, but just like - cutting what was clearly once one long shot into multiple shots? Kind of synced to the music?
I dragged the Brunch Bunch along to this showing, and we agreed that we’d see another if another came to town. But as we were just about the only people in the theater it is perhaps unsurprising that the theater has not booked another. Even an arthouse cinema has to have an audience.
Interview with a Vampire: I posted a bit of comparison to the book, but did not take time to note that this movie is an A++ example of complete commitment to an aesthetic, the aesthetic in this case being “decadent opulence spattered in blood.” This is an occasional aesthetic for me rather than one I would like to live in, but I admire the commitment.
The Shape of Water: This was a big disappointment, to be honest. Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth is one of my all-time favorites, so I went into this movie with high hopes, but honestly it just draaaaaaagged for me. Also highly doubt the ability of the fish-man from the Amazon to survive in the icy coastal waters of the Atlantic.
Kiki’s Delivery Service. A rewatch! Still one of my favorite movies, probably my top two Studio Ghibli with My Neighbor Totoro (but now I feel bad leaving out Spirited Away...) Love Kiki, love Jiji, love the richly detailed setting (which we dubbed “Francemany,” as it is clearly a mash-up of various European localities), love Miyazaki’s love of flying machines. This is an aesthetic I WOULD like to live in.
Also a couple of documentaries. Take Joy! The Magical World of Tasha Tudor is about Tudor’s life at Corgi Cottage, built and largely run in the style of a 19th century farmhouse, where Tudor lives with her goats, her doves, her corgyn (Tudor’s plural of corgi), her one-eyed cat Minou, and seven looms. (These are not all Tudor’s looms. Sometimes she gives house-space to a friend’s loom, if the friend doesn’t have loom room, a loom being a large contraption.) An inspiring example of building your own little world and living in it.
This theme is further developed in Take Peace: A Corgi Cottage Christmas with Tasha Tudor, an enchanting documentary perfect for anyone who has ever enjoyed Tasha Tudor’s Christmas illustrations, as the illustrations apparently draw extensively on Tasha Tudor’s own Christmas traditions or possibly vice versa, in a virtuous cycle of candlelit charm.
If you can’t find the documentary, the photo book Forever Christmas appears to have been made in conjunction, and includes some material not included in the film. Can’t believe they left out the sleigh ride!
A Guardian Meme
Dec. 28th, 2025 09:41china_shop(Feel free to snag and/or adapt for other fandoms! Also, being me, I made rules ("pick one", "favourite") and then immediately broken them. *g*)
1. A fanwork you've read/looked at more than three times
- [Vid] Open Ocean by![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
sakana17 (Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan - so gorgeous)
- [Vid] Lost It All bysalamandras (Zhao Xinci & Zhao Yunlan - a vexercise! I particularly love the first version)
- [Art] Getting Comfortable [Explicit] byfacethestrange (Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan art, a glorious gift for me, did I mention explicit?)
ETA:
- [Vid] Hallucinogenics by Jill, Kathy, Kay - Zhao Yunlaaaaaan!!
2. A resource you've used lately (or "lately")
- Dramatis Personae (with cast list) byextrapenguin
- SID Timeline byrheasilvia
- Guardian timeline byextrapenguin
3. A rarepair you would read
I'm fairly easy for trying out rarepairs. There are some characters I generally avoid "/" pairings for (in particular, Da Qing, Zhu Jiu, and Ye Zun come to mind), but I did read some delightful Lin Jing/Ye Zun fics overguardian_wishlist, so clearly even that isn't a hard line. (Da Qing might be, though.)
A rarepair that I'd actively like to read more of is Chu Shuzhi &/ Zhao Xinci.nnozomi wrote me one delightful fic for them [Mature], and it only whetted my appetite. *g*
( Continued behind the cut. )
1. A fanwork you've read/looked at more than three times
- [Vid] Open Ocean by
- [Vid] Lost It All by
- [Art] Getting Comfortable [Explicit] by
ETA:
- [Vid] Hallucinogenics by Jill, Kathy, Kay - Zhao Yunlaaaaaan!!
2. A resource you've used lately (or "lately")
- Dramatis Personae (with cast list) by
extrapenguin- SID Timeline by
rheasilvia- Guardian timeline by
extrapenguin3. A rarepair you would read
I'm fairly easy for trying out rarepairs. There are some characters I generally avoid "/" pairings for (in particular, Da Qing, Zhu Jiu, and Ye Zun come to mind), but I did read some delightful Lin Jing/Ye Zun fics over
guardian_wishlist, so clearly even that isn't a hard line. (Da Qing might be, though.) A rarepair that I'd actively like to read more of is Chu Shuzhi &/ Zhao Xinci.
nnozomi wrote me one delightful fic for them [Mature], and it only whetted my appetite. *g*( Continued behind the cut. )
More holiday reading and a December meme prompt
Dec. 27th, 2025 14:14dolorosa_12I went back to the pool this morning, after having been away for over a week due to being unwell, and then the sports centre's Christmas closure. It was almost completely empty when I started my laps, and had filled up massively by the end; this is a strange time of year, when I can never judge how other people are planning to fill their time.
( Another December talking meme prompt and response )
Other than the very low-effort books I mentioned in my previous post, I've read very little, although I am working my way through The Story of A New Name, the second book in Elena Ferrante's acclaimed Neapolitan quartet, and finding it as excellent as the first. This book covers our narrator's late teens and early adulthood, with that same mix of tightly observed specificity (the impoverished residents of a single block of apartments in 1960s Naples) and more universally relatable observations on the excruciating experiences of being a young woman.
I also read Motherland (Julia Ioffe), a memoir-history in the mode of Jung Chang's Wild Swans which follows the author's family through four generations of the twentieth century in what are now Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. Being Jewish people in that part of the world during the Holocaust, World War II, and the Soviet Union's existence and collapse was obviously not easy, and Ioffe's various ancestors navigated these treacherous waters with ingenuity, resilience, and persistence. As well as being a family history, Ioffe attempts in the book to write a social history of 'Russian' women (inverted commas very much needed, because she has a frustrating habit of treating 'Russian' as synonymous with 'other regions of the Russian empire,' 'Soviet', and so on), from the birth of the Soviet Union to current times. Here, although she highlights some extraordinary people and episodes in history, I feel the book is weaker, because (other than the women of her own family), she focuses for the most part on elites — wives of Soviet leaders, Stalin's daughter, wives and mistresses of Putin and his oligarchs, Yulia Navalnaya, and so on — and although her thesis is that such women offer a sort of mirror into the changing society, I can't help but feel that they're not exactly representative.
And that's it in terms of reading for now. I picked up a couple of silly sounding romantasy ebooks, I've still got two Rosemary Sutcliff books out from the library, and Matthias returned from today's grocery shopping with an unexpected book gift for me, but I'm not sure how many of these I'll make it through before the year's end. In any case, my focus is still the Yuletide collection at the moment.
( Another December talking meme prompt and response )
Other than the very low-effort books I mentioned in my previous post, I've read very little, although I am working my way through The Story of A New Name, the second book in Elena Ferrante's acclaimed Neapolitan quartet, and finding it as excellent as the first. This book covers our narrator's late teens and early adulthood, with that same mix of tightly observed specificity (the impoverished residents of a single block of apartments in 1960s Naples) and more universally relatable observations on the excruciating experiences of being a young woman.
I also read Motherland (Julia Ioffe), a memoir-history in the mode of Jung Chang's Wild Swans which follows the author's family through four generations of the twentieth century in what are now Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. Being Jewish people in that part of the world during the Holocaust, World War II, and the Soviet Union's existence and collapse was obviously not easy, and Ioffe's various ancestors navigated these treacherous waters with ingenuity, resilience, and persistence. As well as being a family history, Ioffe attempts in the book to write a social history of 'Russian' women (inverted commas very much needed, because she has a frustrating habit of treating 'Russian' as synonymous with 'other regions of the Russian empire,' 'Soviet', and so on), from the birth of the Soviet Union to current times. Here, although she highlights some extraordinary people and episodes in history, I feel the book is weaker, because (other than the women of her own family), she focuses for the most part on elites — wives of Soviet leaders, Stalin's daughter, wives and mistresses of Putin and his oligarchs, Yulia Navalnaya, and so on — and although her thesis is that such women offer a sort of mirror into the changing society, I can't help but feel that they're not exactly representative.
And that's it in terms of reading for now. I picked up a couple of silly sounding romantasy ebooks, I've still got two Rosemary Sutcliff books out from the library, and Matthias returned from today's grocery shopping with an unexpected book gift for me, but I'm not sure how many of these I'll make it through before the year's end. In any case, my focus is still the Yuletide collection at the moment.
(no subject)
Dec. 26th, 2025 22:40skygiantsEvery year I'm like "I should really read the Neon Hemlock novellas" and then perhaps I actually manage to get around to reading one of them, but this year I ... thought I had read all of them because I thought there were only four published but it turns out in fact now that I check there were several more than that. Well! I read four of them! They were all very gay and very tropey; under these subheadings, I enjoyed two of them quite a bit, one of them didn't hit for me, and the last one I found incredibly frustrating, for personal reasons.
The two I liked were No Such Thing as Duty, by Lara Elena Donnelly, and The Oblivion Bride, by Caitlin Starling. Both of these have a definite air of fanfiction about them: No Such Thing As Duty is a 'what if my favorite historical guy met a sexy vampire' fic, the favorite historical guy in question is W. Somerset Maughan. I have come to the conclusion that I'm really quite charmed by this sort of thing as long as the favorite historical guy in question is not a pre-existing big seller like Christopher Marlowe or Charlotte Bronte but someone who I actually have to look up:* the author's real victory is in making me Wikipedia their special historical guy and go 'whoa, sure, lot going on here actually'
*I'm aware this is very subjective and there are many people out there who don't have to go to Google to know basic things about W. Somerset Maughan. But they ARE a lot fewer I think than the people who don't have to go to Google to know basic things about i.e. Lord Byron. That said, if you are experiencing boredom at the idea of Yet Another Sexy W. Somserset Maughan fic, I'd love to know about it.
The Oblivion Bride meanwhile is a classic Lesbian Arranged Marriage fic that, per the author's note, appears to have grown out of a Dishonored fic the author wrote several years back. I don't know anything about Dishonored so I can't tell you much about that. What I can tell you is that she's a normalgirl cadet member of an important family who's been thrust into an important political position because all her actual aristocratic relatives have mysteriously died, she's an icy cold Murder Alchemist General and also Magical Detective who's marrying her by order of the prince to solve the mysterious deaths and keep the political assets in the hands of someone loyal to the throne; could they actually fall in love? The answer will shock you! Anyway, I like tropes, and I like lesbians, and I like that Caitlin Starling is never afraid to lean into her id; I was as happy to read this in novella form as I would have been on AO3.
The Dead Withheld by L.D. Lewis is the one that didn't quite hit for me -- it's a supernatural noir about a PI who can talk to the dead investigating the cold case death of her wife, and it is doing exactly what it says on the tin but something about it never quite grabbed me. Too short? Not enough oomph? Anyway, it might grab you!
and The Iron Below Remembers by Sharang Biswas drove me up a wall, in large part because the worldbuilding it's doing is extremely playful and interesting and fun -- it's set in an alternate universe where a South Asian empire was the major early colonial power instead of Rome, and their abandoned artifacts and technology power contemporary superheroes. The protagonist is an academic dating a superhero; the text is heavily footnote-studded and 50% of the footnotes are really fun and interesting little explorations of this alternate history. Unfortunately for me, the actual plot laid on top of this rich worldbuilding is all Gay Superhero Relationship Drama and the other 50% of the footnotes are gossipy anecdotes about the protagonist's sex life. This is certainly going to be a feature for some people but was, alas, a bug for me; every time I went through the effort to click through the annoying footnotes format on my digital edition I was really hoping to get a meaty paragraph about what happened after Siddhartha marched into the city of Rime and did not feel rewarded any time I got a smug half-sentence about shibari instead.
The two I liked were No Such Thing as Duty, by Lara Elena Donnelly, and The Oblivion Bride, by Caitlin Starling. Both of these have a definite air of fanfiction about them: No Such Thing As Duty is a 'what if my favorite historical guy met a sexy vampire' fic, the favorite historical guy in question is W. Somerset Maughan. I have come to the conclusion that I'm really quite charmed by this sort of thing as long as the favorite historical guy in question is not a pre-existing big seller like Christopher Marlowe or Charlotte Bronte but someone who I actually have to look up:* the author's real victory is in making me Wikipedia their special historical guy and go 'whoa, sure, lot going on here actually'
*I'm aware this is very subjective and there are many people out there who don't have to go to Google to know basic things about W. Somerset Maughan. But they ARE a lot fewer I think than the people who don't have to go to Google to know basic things about i.e. Lord Byron. That said, if you are experiencing boredom at the idea of Yet Another Sexy W. Somserset Maughan fic, I'd love to know about it.
The Oblivion Bride meanwhile is a classic Lesbian Arranged Marriage fic that, per the author's note, appears to have grown out of a Dishonored fic the author wrote several years back. I don't know anything about Dishonored so I can't tell you much about that. What I can tell you is that she's a normalgirl cadet member of an important family who's been thrust into an important political position because all her actual aristocratic relatives have mysteriously died, she's an icy cold Murder Alchemist General and also Magical Detective who's marrying her by order of the prince to solve the mysterious deaths and keep the political assets in the hands of someone loyal to the throne; could they actually fall in love? The answer will shock you! Anyway, I like tropes, and I like lesbians, and I like that Caitlin Starling is never afraid to lean into her id; I was as happy to read this in novella form as I would have been on AO3.
The Dead Withheld by L.D. Lewis is the one that didn't quite hit for me -- it's a supernatural noir about a PI who can talk to the dead investigating the cold case death of her wife, and it is doing exactly what it says on the tin but something about it never quite grabbed me. Too short? Not enough oomph? Anyway, it might grab you!
and The Iron Below Remembers by Sharang Biswas drove me up a wall, in large part because the worldbuilding it's doing is extremely playful and interesting and fun -- it's set in an alternate universe where a South Asian empire was the major early colonial power instead of Rome, and their abandoned artifacts and technology power contemporary superheroes. The protagonist is an academic dating a superhero; the text is heavily footnote-studded and 50% of the footnotes are really fun and interesting little explorations of this alternate history. Unfortunately for me, the actual plot laid on top of this rich worldbuilding is all Gay Superhero Relationship Drama and the other 50% of the footnotes are gossipy anecdotes about the protagonist's sex life. This is certainly going to be a feature for some people but was, alas, a bug for me; every time I went through the effort to click through the annoying footnotes format on my digital edition I was really hoping to get a meaty paragraph about what happened after Siddhartha marched into the city of Rime and did not feel rewarded any time I got a smug half-sentence about shibari instead.
fic rec
Dec. 26th, 2025 23:13sixbeforelunchFor anyone who read Mansfield Park and wished that poor Fanny had been given a third option.
Our Groves Were Planted to Console (17711 words) by ChronicBookworm
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mansfield Park - Jane Austen, AUSTEN Jane - Works
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fanny Price/Original Male Character
Characters: Fanny Price, Original Characters, Mrs. Norris (Mansfield Park), Edmund Bertram, Sir Thomas Bertram
Additional Tags: Courtship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Family Dynamics, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers
Summary:
Our Groves Were Planted to Console (17711 words) by ChronicBookworm
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mansfield Park - Jane Austen, AUSTEN Jane - Works
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fanny Price/Original Male Character
Characters: Fanny Price, Original Characters, Mrs. Norris (Mansfield Park), Edmund Bertram, Sir Thomas Bertram
Additional Tags: Courtship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Family Dynamics, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers
Summary:
Dr Grant receives a prebendary at Westminster before Mr Crawford can propose to Fanny. Fanny likes the new occupant of Mansfield Parsonage much better than the previous ones.
Quick Yuletide post
Dec. 27th, 2025 09:16nnozomiThings are a little up and down, but I got two really lovely Yuletide gifts, so making sure to note them here: What Abigail Did When She Housesat, a Rivers of London fic with wonderful Abigail and Indigo and an absolutely inspired original character of sorts creating the plot, and Names Give Us Away, which is exactly what I wanted with regard to Rachel Abramoff at the Crater School. Delighted with both of them <3 <3 <3
Best mid-holiday-or-otherwise wishes to everyone!
Best mid-holiday-or-otherwise wishes to everyone!