These are frustrating scenes.
The heroine waits. How to convey how frustrating it is without annoying the reader. . . .
The heroine waits. How to convey how frustrating it is without annoying the reader. . . .
Tags:
(Whoever hellseries on AO3 is, this is for them, because it was their comment on https://archiveofourown.org/works/75916086 that made it happen.)
Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning Millay
Says the reader to the poet, “Your verse fine and wild
My attention has caught, and my senses beguiled”
Says the poet to the reader, “Are you going my way?
I am Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning Millay
You’ll not find me in found verse; the sonnet for me
Is the path of a poet determined to be free”
And she’ll pull you on behind
And down among the Muses you will ride
Some say that her love life is skid marks and swerves
But she’ll tell you in earnest it is Beauty she serves
She is changeable weather with a quicksilver soul
Edna St. Vincent’s not the kind you can control
But she writes like an angel with a devil’s sense of style
With heavenly precision and a wicked knowing smile
She says “They all will know some day
The name of Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning… Millay”
“Come down, come down, dear reader,” said the poetry patrol
“For they’ve taken young St. Vincent for the stealing of souls
She was speed racing Sappho, the Brownings, and Poe
Oh, come down, dear reader, to her final folio”
Now her body is broken and her breath is enjambed
She’s off to be the laureate of lays for the damned
But she smiles to hear you say
“I love you, Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning… Millay”
Vincent, by all opinions, could pour power into a poem
And take your breath and your heart before she took you home
Now too many poets — I won’t name names — they just came to play
They didn’t have a soul like St. Vincent Millay
She left us all longing, in spite of our pleas
But she reached out her hand and she left us with these
She gave us her visions, she gave us her poems
And the Muses swooped down to carry her home
And the name we still reverence today
Is Edna St. Vincent Black Lightning… Millay
In 2025 I posted reviews of 44 games, of which 10 were replays, 1 was a revision of an old review, and 33 were games I hadn't played before.
( and here they are )
(I made sure to number them because when I went back to number my book post I realized I had shorted myself four books! It was actually 51!)
My ongoing gaming side-quest is to play games from different countries. This year my new countries were Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Peru, the Philippines, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, and Taiwan, bringing my total to 28. (At least the way I'm counting. I realize that "what is a country?" is a fraught question, but it's also a question that's way above my pay grade so I'm trying not to sweat it for such a low-stakes project.) My list of potential games to play includes 31 more countries. There are still lots and lots that I haven't yet identified a game for, including some seemingly low-hanging fruit, but since I'm keeping it to titles that would be of interest to me outside this project, the search for options can take longer.
My game list is a bit silly right now because I decided to add every game I could remember playing... ever. I love revisiting childhood games, and I enjoy searching for obscure titles and figuring out how to get them to run, so I'm okay with the list just being long. I actually do think it is possible, in principle, for me to review every game I played as a child, while attempting to do the same for books would be totally absurd. I've read a lot more books than I've played games, I started reading at a younger age, and I think I'm much less likely to forget a game than a book simply because I have a strong visual memory. Anyway, for future reference (I know I'll want to know next year) I currently have 280 games on my list.
Of the games I played for the first time in 2025, my favorites include: Until Then, Disco Elysium, Engare, I Did Not Buy This Ticket, The Last Door, and The Drifter.
( and here they are )
(I made sure to number them because when I went back to number my book post I realized I had shorted myself four books! It was actually 51!)
My ongoing gaming side-quest is to play games from different countries. This year my new countries were Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Peru, the Philippines, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, and Taiwan, bringing my total to 28. (At least the way I'm counting. I realize that "what is a country?" is a fraught question, but it's also a question that's way above my pay grade so I'm trying not to sweat it for such a low-stakes project.) My list of potential games to play includes 31 more countries. There are still lots and lots that I haven't yet identified a game for, including some seemingly low-hanging fruit, but since I'm keeping it to titles that would be of interest to me outside this project, the search for options can take longer.
My game list is a bit silly right now because I decided to add every game I could remember playing... ever. I love revisiting childhood games, and I enjoy searching for obscure titles and figuring out how to get them to run, so I'm okay with the list just being long. I actually do think it is possible, in principle, for me to review every game I played as a child, while attempting to do the same for books would be totally absurd. I've read a lot more books than I've played games, I started reading at a younger age, and I think I'm much less likely to forget a game than a book simply because I have a strong visual memory. Anyway, for future reference (I know I'll want to know next year) I currently have 280 games on my list.
Of the games I played for the first time in 2025, my favorites include: Until Then, Disco Elysium, Engare, I Did Not Buy This Ticket, The Last Door, and The Drifter.
Tags:
The NHL dropped it's dress code for this year. I was sad to be getting into hockey after the mandatory suits thing stopped, everyone was sure they'd go back to dressing terribly. Instead we get stuff like this:
Now there's weekly fashion round ups and players getting reps for amazing fits, and McCann (above) for his hat collection.
Now there's weekly fashion round ups and players getting reps for amazing fits, and McCann (above) for his hat collection.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Howdy! My screenplay takes place in rural North Dakota in November 1996, and two teenage characters are fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I know the bat'leth as a weapon was introduced in the show long ago, but when did replicas and toys become widely sold? Would it be realistic for a working-class young woman to have a mini bat'leth she could use as a knife in that year? I also read that the mek'leth (smaller Klingon scimitar) was introduced in DS9 and also appeared in First Contact. How early were replicas of those available to fans?
Thanks a million to you all! Would also love to hear any other miscellaneous stories or details of the TNG+DS9 fandom of the 90s, to give some extra oomph and care to an underrepresented community :)
Thanks a million to you all! Would also love to hear any other miscellaneous stories or details of the TNG+DS9 fandom of the 90s, to give some extra oomph and care to an underrepresented community :)
Challenge #1
The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.
I've been wanting to use this space more, and it's been a long time since I posted regularly so this challenge looked like a fun way to ease back into it -
Hi, I'm Dances (not my wallet name, that's on a need-to-know basis.) I'm a queer trans Desi guy in his late thirties living in a suburb of one of the larger Northern cities in England, Manchester. I moved here about seven years ago as I wanted to be nearer some family who were more accepting of my transition than my parents were and are.
I recently finished studying for an undergraduate degree in Sociology, and am now doing a CILIP certified part-time postgrad course focusing on being a librarian. (I know the public field in the UK is dying after years of austerity - as much as I love public libraries, I'm more interested in something like academic or health librarianship or related fields, I don't have the temperament for public facing work.)
I'm also long-term disabled due to a small pile of mental health issues - so far I've been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and ADHD, and spent years trying to be seen for a autism diagnosis but the paperwork was lost somewhere and I gave up. The diagnosis wouldn't mean any extra support, as far as I know; it also further limits my future emigration options as many countries refuse to grant residency to folk with that diagnosis.
Talking of, I have a fiance (he/him, sey/sem pronouns.) Sey live in (Deep South state) in the US. Neither of us are blessed with extra cash so IRL visits have been extremely limited over the past seven and a half years of online dating; sey're hopefully coming to visit me this year and I am bouncing out of my skin with excitement :D We plan to marry once I've finished my current postgrad, though immigration stuff is hellish even with our US and UK passports and borders shouldn't exist.
Tags:
The afternoon's mail brought my contributor's copy of Not One of Us #85, containing my poem "The Avalon Procedure." It is the Arthurian one, in debt to and argument with Bryher. It belongs to the outsider issue which kicks off the 'zine's fortieth year of alienation, characteristically incarnated by the short fiction and poetry of Steve Toase, Devan Barlow, Lauren Hruska, and Gwynne Garfinkle among others. The threshold shadow of the cover art by John and Flo Stanton is an excellent advertisement, or harbinger. Pick up a copy or contribute to the strangeness yourself. I remain so glad it sneaked into our reality.
"These clocks are like Time herself. Magnificent edifices, but secretly fragile. In need of constant attention . . . Forgive me. My pet subject, Time." I didn't realize until I opened the jewel case that Sigil (2023) was dedicated to the memory of Murray Melvin: it was his last recording for Big Finish, released posthumously. It starts like a classic M. R. James with a series of weird and hauntological misfortunes attending a three-thousand-year-old bronze bird ever since its ill-omened excavation in the Victorian era and then it twists much more cosmic, with a pure sting of Sapphire & Steel. I can't tell if it was designed as a farewell, but it makes a tantalizing final communiqué from Bilis Manger, a gorgeous, wickedly silken and knowing performance from Melvin whose voice caresses a stone circle because it's "an ancient timepiece" and can put a harvest-withering contempt into a statement like "I've never owned a scatter cushion in my life." There's a sort of promotional interview at the end of the CD, but it poignantly does not include Melvin. The last we hear of him is in this definitive character, so much time echoing backward and forward in his voice that was then eighty-nine human years old and still made you think there could be younger barrows, meadows, stars. "What could murder a murder of crows?"
I had no idea about this historical reenactment at Prospect Hill, but I am happy to read of its turnout in the new snow. I have not gotten the sestercentennial onto my mental calendar. I am still not convinced of this decade at all.
"These clocks are like Time herself. Magnificent edifices, but secretly fragile. In need of constant attention . . . Forgive me. My pet subject, Time." I didn't realize until I opened the jewel case that Sigil (2023) was dedicated to the memory of Murray Melvin: it was his last recording for Big Finish, released posthumously. It starts like a classic M. R. James with a series of weird and hauntological misfortunes attending a three-thousand-year-old bronze bird ever since its ill-omened excavation in the Victorian era and then it twists much more cosmic, with a pure sting of Sapphire & Steel. I can't tell if it was designed as a farewell, but it makes a tantalizing final communiqué from Bilis Manger, a gorgeous, wickedly silken and knowing performance from Melvin whose voice caresses a stone circle because it's "an ancient timepiece" and can put a harvest-withering contempt into a statement like "I've never owned a scatter cushion in my life." There's a sort of promotional interview at the end of the CD, but it poignantly does not include Melvin. The last we hear of him is in this definitive character, so much time echoing backward and forward in his voice that was then eighty-nine human years old and still made you think there could be younger barrows, meadows, stars. "What could murder a murder of crows?"
I had no idea about this historical reenactment at Prospect Hill, but I am happy to read of its turnout in the new snow. I have not gotten the sestercentennial onto my mental calendar. I am still not convinced of this decade at all.
No Man's Land: Volume 2 by Sarah A. Hoyt
The second of three volumes. This is not a trilogy of separate stories, but dictated by the limits of modern-day binding technology. Spoilers ahead for the first volume. Also, do not read this one first because you will be baffled.
( Read more... )
The second of three volumes. This is not a trilogy of separate stories, but dictated by the limits of modern-day binding technology. Spoilers ahead for the first volume. Also, do not read this one first because you will be baffled.
( Read more... )
Tags:
Annalee Newitz, Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind: ( history and present )
Luke Kemp, Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse: ( not what I hoped )
Justin F. Jackson, The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines: ( so shockingly, racist! )
Elliott West, Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion: ( this too )
Nicole Eustace, Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America: ( um ... )
Charles S. Maier, The Project-State and Its Rivals: A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: ( history as forces )
Mary Louise Roberts, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France:( it's complicated? but also racist; rape and rape myths )
Caroline Fraser, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers: ( Helter Smelter (her joke, not mine) )
Ada Palmer, Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age: ( lots'o'quotes )
Elliott Kalan, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense: ( good instructions )
Luke Kemp, Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse: ( not what I hoped )
Justin F. Jackson, The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines: ( so shockingly, racist! )
Elliott West, Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion: ( this too )
Nicole Eustace, Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America: ( um ... )
Charles S. Maier, The Project-State and Its Rivals: A New History of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: ( history as forces )
Mary Louise Roberts, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France:( it's complicated? but also racist; rape and rape myths )
Caroline Fraser, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers: ( Helter Smelter (her joke, not mine) )
Ada Palmer, Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age: ( lots'o'quotes )
Elliott Kalan, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense: ( good instructions )
A Virgin unspotted, the Prophets foretold
Should bring forth a Saviour, which now you behold.
( Read more... )
Should bring forth a Saviour, which now you behold.
( Read more... )
Tags:
* The Murder Between Us by Tal Bauer - I don't have to have Tal Bauer fomo anymore! A lot of m/m fans love his work, but most of the summaries were off-putting to me. No more fomo, I do not like his style. Melodramatic AF
* Snake Eater by T Kingfisher - I want to read more by Kingfisher. I liked this, but I DNF'd her earlier work Paladin's Grace. She's just going to be hot or miss for me and that's okay. Is it just me or ( Spoilers )
* 3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi - My first Scalzi book. I've heard odd things about a few of his books so I never read them. This was more of a novella and it was an Amazon First free read so I nabbed it. At first I thought it started with an expo dump, but then things begun to click. It stayed with me a bit, I kept thinking about it. I liked it.
* The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish - Another established m/m author I'd never read. It was overstuffed, tried to do to much, wound up a mess. The sex scenes involving an AFAB trans person were great and didn't feel like the writer was trying to explain things to me, the reader. But yeah, pass.
My DNF pile for the year includes Paladin's Grace, Him and Check, Please. I nearly DNF'd The Murder Between Us, but decided to push through even as I rolled my eyes more and more. Not finishing a book makes me feel like I have too many open tabs, so I finished it just so my brain could close that tab and not think about it, try to keep the plot fresh in my mind.
* Snake Eater by T Kingfisher - I want to read more by Kingfisher. I liked this, but I DNF'd her earlier work Paladin's Grace. She's just going to be hot or miss for me and that's okay. Is it just me or ( Spoilers )
* 3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi - My first Scalzi book. I've heard odd things about a few of his books so I never read them. This was more of a novella and it was an Amazon First free read so I nabbed it. At first I thought it started with an expo dump, but then things begun to click. It stayed with me a bit, I kept thinking about it. I liked it.
* The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish - Another established m/m author I'd never read. It was overstuffed, tried to do to much, wound up a mess. The sex scenes involving an AFAB trans person were great and didn't feel like the writer was trying to explain things to me, the reader. But yeah, pass.
My DNF pile for the year includes Paladin's Grace, Him and Check, Please. I nearly DNF'd The Murder Between Us, but decided to push through even as I rolled my eyes more and more. Not finishing a book makes me feel like I have too many open tabs, so I finished it just so my brain could close that tab and not think about it, try to keep the plot fresh in my mind.
Tags:
I guess I might finish another book before year’s end, but this feels close enough to be pretty safe. NB I have reviews for most of these books in my books tag.
How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/reading patterns/etc?
Books read: 25
Pages read (roughly): 7450
Relative to past years, more murder mysteries, more rereads (five), more older stuff (four before 1940). Less straight horror. Probably more textually queer stuff? I read a lot on airplanes. I took almost the whole summer off from reading and watched movies instead.
I had a mountaineering phase kickstarted by that one Jon Krakauer book, which also meant reading way more nonfiction than usual. Apparently the key to reading nonfiction is to have specific topics you want to know about, rather than just being like “I want to Learn Things.” Who could have foreseen!
What are your top 3 books that you read this year for the first time?
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Yes, it really is that good, just like everyone says.
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge. Beautiful prose, top-notch worldbuilding, and some great horror moments.
A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear. A shot STRAIGHT to the id.
What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
Maybe The Secret of Chimneys, an Agatha Christie novel that I probably read at some point but had forgotten basically all of. The other thing I’d forgotten: how fun Christie is when she’s really on her game. This was a rollicking delight.
Which books most disappointed you this year?
It was disappointing to realize how much worse the sexism was in the Pern books than I remembered. Just absolutely soaking in it. Ugh.
Also, wow, I hated Wild Spaces by SL Coney. Haaaaated.
And I reread Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys and didn’t enjoy it as much the second time around. There felt like too many characters, too thinly characterized. I still love Aphra and the worldbuilding, though.
Did you reread any books? If so, which one was you favourite?
I reread several this year, but the one that I enjoyed the most and definitely the one I spent the most time with was Moby Dick. The langague, gosh. Good enough to eat. Having reacquainted myself with the story, I think I’m going to keep just dipping in and out of it every so often. I found and bought a physical edition I really love, the Canterbury Classic "Word Cloud" edition that is just a pleasure to read and makes dipping in very appealing.
On a related note, I think this year was the tipping point to me becoming a prose snob. The prose in Moby Dick is so rich and chewy and worth reading and rereading. Sometimes it's basically impenetrable, but even so! Incredibly rewarding. And then I open so many new novels and quit on the first page because the prose is so artless.
It's not like I want every novel to be Moby Dick, which also happens to be a timeless work of literature: hardly a fair comparison for a random novel I pick up at the library. However, there are lots of authors out there writing prose that is graceful and evocative in their own ways. Frances Hardinge and Stephen King come immediately to mind, for two very different living examples.
I just cannot be fucked anymore with prose that doesn't show some skill. Life is too short. I suspect this might lead me to reading more classics, which I'm not mad about.
What's the oldest book you read?
The Unafraid, a 1913 adventure romance by Eleanor Ingram (with a textual gay side character!), is the oldest that I read for the first time. For rereads, Moby Dick was published in 1851.
What's the newest book you read?
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett, published this year.
Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
My most emphatic DNF was the second book in the Briardark series by SA Harian. I reread the first book just to remember what all was going on, then got like fifty pages into the second one and was like, actually I don’t care about any of these characters or the cosmic horror mystery.
Some others I started and wandered off from:
- The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
- The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
- Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
- The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis
- Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby
- Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
- Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott
What was your predominant format this year?
Still mostly dead trees around here, although I did listen to a mountaineering book and part of Moby Dick on audiobook, and I read a couple of ebooks during my travels.
What's the longest book you read this year?
Moby Dick, with 561 pages in my edition.
Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
I wanted to read more outside my usual fiction genres, which I really didn’t manage to do other than for a couple of specific items on the to-read list. Speaking of, here is all I read from the to-read list. Honestly five books from the January tbr is pretty good for me lol.
Moby Dick
The Iskryne books (I read the first two)
The Book of Lamps and Banners (Cass Neary #4)
something by ECR Lorac
Any goals for 2025?
My immediate list of stuff I want to tackle or finish is:
Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
The Count of Monte Cristo?
Something… literary, maybe?? Maybe My Brilliant Friend or something by Anne Rivers Siddons.
The Draegaera books (starting with Jhereg)
Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle
The Coldfire Trilogy
Ammonite
Dublin Murder Squad
American Elsewhere
Perdido Street Station (reread)
A Zelazny collection (reread)
The Folly of the World
Maplecroft by Cherie Priest (Lizzie Borden + Lovecraft?!)
Craft Sequence – Max Gladstone
I would say the main theme here is "ambitious," for me if not the author. A lot of older stuff, or stuff that is beloved that I haven't tried, or stuff I've just been meaning to get around to. A couple of those are already on my shelf, and it'd be nice to knock them off the TBR.
How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/reading patterns/etc?
Books read: 25
Pages read (roughly): 7450
Relative to past years, more murder mysteries, more rereads (five), more older stuff (four before 1940). Less straight horror. Probably more textually queer stuff? I read a lot on airplanes. I took almost the whole summer off from reading and watched movies instead.
I had a mountaineering phase kickstarted by that one Jon Krakauer book, which also meant reading way more nonfiction than usual. Apparently the key to reading nonfiction is to have specific topics you want to know about, rather than just being like “I want to Learn Things.” Who could have foreseen!
What are your top 3 books that you read this year for the first time?
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Yes, it really is that good, just like everyone says.
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge. Beautiful prose, top-notch worldbuilding, and some great horror moments.
A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear. A shot STRAIGHT to the id.
What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
Maybe The Secret of Chimneys, an Agatha Christie novel that I probably read at some point but had forgotten basically all of. The other thing I’d forgotten: how fun Christie is when she’s really on her game. This was a rollicking delight.
Which books most disappointed you this year?
It was disappointing to realize how much worse the sexism was in the Pern books than I remembered. Just absolutely soaking in it. Ugh.
Also, wow, I hated Wild Spaces by SL Coney. Haaaaated.
And I reread Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys and didn’t enjoy it as much the second time around. There felt like too many characters, too thinly characterized. I still love Aphra and the worldbuilding, though.
Did you reread any books? If so, which one was you favourite?
I reread several this year, but the one that I enjoyed the most and definitely the one I spent the most time with was Moby Dick. The langague, gosh. Good enough to eat. Having reacquainted myself with the story, I think I’m going to keep just dipping in and out of it every so often. I found and bought a physical edition I really love, the Canterbury Classic "Word Cloud" edition that is just a pleasure to read and makes dipping in very appealing.
On a related note, I think this year was the tipping point to me becoming a prose snob. The prose in Moby Dick is so rich and chewy and worth reading and rereading. Sometimes it's basically impenetrable, but even so! Incredibly rewarding. And then I open so many new novels and quit on the first page because the prose is so artless.
It's not like I want every novel to be Moby Dick, which also happens to be a timeless work of literature: hardly a fair comparison for a random novel I pick up at the library. However, there are lots of authors out there writing prose that is graceful and evocative in their own ways. Frances Hardinge and Stephen King come immediately to mind, for two very different living examples.
I just cannot be fucked anymore with prose that doesn't show some skill. Life is too short. I suspect this might lead me to reading more classics, which I'm not mad about.
What's the oldest book you read?
The Unafraid, a 1913 adventure romance by Eleanor Ingram (with a textual gay side character!), is the oldest that I read for the first time. For rereads, Moby Dick was published in 1851.
What's the newest book you read?
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett, published this year.
Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
My most emphatic DNF was the second book in the Briardark series by SA Harian. I reread the first book just to remember what all was going on, then got like fifty pages into the second one and was like, actually I don’t care about any of these characters or the cosmic horror mystery.
Some others I started and wandered off from:
- The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
- The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
- Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
- The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis
- Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby
- Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
- Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott
What was your predominant format this year?
Still mostly dead trees around here, although I did listen to a mountaineering book and part of Moby Dick on audiobook, and I read a couple of ebooks during my travels.
What's the longest book you read this year?
Moby Dick, with 561 pages in my edition.
Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
I wanted to read more outside my usual fiction genres, which I really didn’t manage to do other than for a couple of specific items on the to-read list. Speaking of, here is all I read from the to-read list. Honestly five books from the January tbr is pretty good for me lol.
Moby Dick
The Iskryne books (I read the first two)
The Book of Lamps and Banners (Cass Neary #4)
something by ECR Lorac
Any goals for 2025?
My immediate list of stuff I want to tackle or finish is:
Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
The Count of Monte Cristo?
Something… literary, maybe?? Maybe My Brilliant Friend or something by Anne Rivers Siddons.
The Draegaera books (starting with Jhereg)
Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle
The Coldfire Trilogy
Ammonite
Dublin Murder Squad
American Elsewhere
Perdido Street Station (reread)
A Zelazny collection (reread)
The Folly of the World
Maplecroft by Cherie Priest (Lizzie Borden + Lovecraft?!)
Craft Sequence – Max Gladstone
I would say the main theme here is "ambitious," for me if not the author. A lot of older stuff, or stuff that is beloved that I haven't tried, or stuff I've just been meaning to get around to. A couple of those are already on my shelf, and it'd be nice to knock them off the TBR.
Challenge #1
The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.
I'm Hannah wherever I can manage it, and I don't know if I'm a fandom old yet or if I got into fandom young enough I've just been around for a long time. I've certainly been doing this challenge a while, and I admit I look forward to it every year - it's a good way to ease into a new calendar cycle and, as a bonus, I usually pick up a couple new people to talk to before it's over. Because talking to people is the biggest reason I've stayed around this long.
The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.
I'm Hannah wherever I can manage it, and I don't know if I'm a fandom old yet or if I got into fandom young enough I've just been around for a long time. I've certainly been doing this challenge a while, and I admit I look forward to it every year - it's a good way to ease into a new calendar cycle and, as a bonus, I usually pick up a couple new people to talk to before it's over. Because talking to people is the biggest reason I've stayed around this long.
I'm starting 2026 with my first publication of the year! My poem about the death of David Bowie, "heroes," is in Not of One Us #85 (the outsider issue). (Coincidentally, this month is the 10th anniversary of Bowie's death.) The issue also includes work by Sonya Taaffe, Jennifer Crow, Devan Barlow, and more. The magazine somehow winged its way to me across the country in record time. I'm always so pleased to have my work in this wonderful publication.
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My year in summary
I posted 88k words this year across 31 fics and wrote more than 103k new words total. I posted 8 Oasis fics (including several very short ones), 5 original works, 2 Re-Animator fics, and 16 singleton fics for other fandoms.
Fandoms of my heart this year
Oasis, obviously. What a time to be alive.
I also rekindled some Re-Animator feelings earlier this year, between fic I was writing and getting to see the movie in the theater. On film, even!
Other fandoms I felt at least a little fannish about this year, whether writing, daydreaming, or what have you:
- The Iskryne books by Bear and Monette
- On Swift Horses, the 2024 movie
- Dune movies
( my year in fandom, in much greater detail, with a meme )
( other fannish things )
I posted 88k words this year across 31 fics and wrote more than 103k new words total. I posted 8 Oasis fics (including several very short ones), 5 original works, 2 Re-Animator fics, and 16 singleton fics for other fandoms.
Fandoms of my heart this year
Oasis, obviously. What a time to be alive.
I also rekindled some Re-Animator feelings earlier this year, between fic I was writing and getting to see the movie in the theater. On film, even!
Other fandoms I felt at least a little fannish about this year, whether writing, daydreaming, or what have you:
- The Iskryne books by Bear and Monette
- On Swift Horses, the 2024 movie
- Dune movies
( my year in fandom, in much greater detail, with a meme )
( other fannish things )
Tags:
Having read the book last Yuletide, I was delighted to match this year to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kanna_ophelia on The School on the Moor, a really excellently femslashy girls' boarding school novel. This first fic was an idea I'd had floating around for a while, but which was improved by taking inspiration from kanna_ophelia's request and adding more pining:
The Applecleave Church Plate and Other Treasures (1944 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The School on the Moor - Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tabitha "Toby" Barrett/Dorinda Earle
Characters: Tabitha "Toby" Barrett, Dorinda Earle, Algernon Barrett
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Getting Together
Summary:
And then I wrote another, completely new fic; I really wanted to do something with the Dartmoor setting, and dramatic schoolgirl adventures seemed a promising way to use it:
These Wild Affronting Hills (5686 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The School on the Moor - Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tabitha "Toby" Barrett/Dorinda Earle
Characters: Tabitha "Toby" Barrett, Dorinda Earle, Elfrida "Elfie" Rossall
Additional Tags: Rescue, Getting Together, Dartmoor
Summary:
kanna_ophelia on The School on the Moor, a really excellently femslashy girls' boarding school novel. This first fic was an idea I'd had floating around for a while, but which was improved by taking inspiration from kanna_ophelia's request and adding more pining:The Applecleave Church Plate and Other Treasures (1944 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The School on the Moor - Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tabitha "Toby" Barrett/Dorinda Earle
Characters: Tabitha "Toby" Barrett, Dorinda Earle, Algernon Barrett
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Getting Together
Summary:
Another trip to the Blue Tor hut-circle.
And then I wrote another, completely new fic; I really wanted to do something with the Dartmoor setting, and dramatic schoolgirl adventures seemed a promising way to use it:
These Wild Affronting Hills (5686 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The School on the Moor - Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tabitha "Toby" Barrett/Dorinda Earle
Characters: Tabitha "Toby" Barrett, Dorinda Earle, Elfrida "Elfie" Rossall
Additional Tags: Rescue, Getting Together, Dartmoor
Summary:
Elfie Rossall runs into danger on the moor, and it's up to Toby and Dorinda to rescue her—together.
Christmas itself was pretty quiet for me. Delia was in Eau Claire with her fiancé's family, and the Onas gathered with Alona's family. They invited Eric and me to join them, but Eric wanted to keep things low-key because he was still recovering from his surgery. So I made roast duck for the two of us on Christmas Eve:
any my traditional Christmas breakfast on Christmas morning:
In my family, however, Christmas isn't over on the 26th of December. My extended family gathers between Christmas and New Year's day:
My brother, who lives in New York, has been faithfully bringing his entire family out for family week for decades. We gather in various configurations: some go out to movies. Some of my nephews and nieces went to one of my nephew's house to get a lesson in throwing pottery. We gathered with my mom for lunch one day in the party room of her assisted living facility. We gathered in the evenings to eat hors d'ouevres, cook food together, and play games. And as always, we gathered at my sister Cindy's house on New Year's Eve and spent the day together, feasting on Chinese take out and sharing memories. All of the nieces and nephews had stories to tell of their memories of family week. My brother-in-law remarked how splendid it is to see the rich and deep relationships that the cousins share with one another, which have been nurtured by our family traditions of getting together every year to enjoy one another's company.
This year we had the additional joy of two new babies joining the festivities. M is a genuine extrovert who obviously had a wonderful time flirting with everyone, and when Fiona and Alone arrived each evening, there were plenty of eager volunteers to cuddle with her.
We genuinely enjoy each other.
I hope you all had as splendid a holiday as my family and I did.
This is my last collage of the year, but I intend to continue next year.
Image description: Top: members of a family, men and women, smile at the camera. Below: a table covered with a red tablecloth set for Christmas breakfast. Right: an older woman holding a walker (Peg's mom) stands beside a younger woman (Peg). Lower right corner: four young woman smile. Left corner: a silver candlestick with a gold lit candle with two glittering snowflake brooches.
Christmas
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
any my traditional Christmas breakfast on Christmas morning:
In my family, however, Christmas isn't over on the 26th of December. My extended family gathers between Christmas and New Year's day:
My brother, who lives in New York, has been faithfully bringing his entire family out for family week for decades. We gather in various configurations: some go out to movies. Some of my nephews and nieces went to one of my nephew's house to get a lesson in throwing pottery. We gathered with my mom for lunch one day in the party room of her assisted living facility. We gathered in the evenings to eat hors d'ouevres, cook food together, and play games. And as always, we gathered at my sister Cindy's house on New Year's Eve and spent the day together, feasting on Chinese take out and sharing memories. All of the nieces and nephews had stories to tell of their memories of family week. My brother-in-law remarked how splendid it is to see the rich and deep relationships that the cousins share with one another, which have been nurtured by our family traditions of getting together every year to enjoy one another's company.
This year we had the additional joy of two new babies joining the festivities. M is a genuine extrovert who obviously had a wonderful time flirting with everyone, and when Fiona and Alone arrived each evening, there were plenty of eager volunteers to cuddle with her.
We genuinely enjoy each other.
I hope you all had as splendid a holiday as my family and I did.
This is my last collage of the year, but I intend to continue next year.
Image description: Top: members of a family, men and women, smile at the camera. Below: a table covered with a red tablecloth set for Christmas breakfast. Right: an older woman holding a walker (Peg's mom) stands beside a younger woman (Peg). Lower right corner: four young woman smile. Left corner: a silver candlestick with a gold lit candle with two glittering snowflake brooches.
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
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