lucymonster | Network

And very heavy on the dudes. I'm not sure if women don't go into this sort of thing, or if they're just too classy when they do it, and thus don't get onto the playlist. Though I guess it would be strange for lesbians to sing an ode to Jingle Bell COCK. (Emphasis all theirs, and totally unnecessary. We know where the song was going.)

Anyway, in honor of this, I'm posting three belated Christmas videos. The last is Boynton and totally SFW.

Watch on YouTube

This one won't let me embed it.

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and mild. It rained again last night.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few house finches and sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/26/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/26/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/26/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

oursin

Charles Dickens exhibition to shine light on powerful women in author’s life: 'Novels only ‘reinforced Victorian stereotypes’ of meek women to give readers what they wanted, says curator'.

Oh, come on.

Query, did readers (as opposed to various gate-keepers in publishing houses, Mudie's and other circulating libraries. etc) want meek women?

(Do I need to cite Victorian novelists who did quite well out of women who were not meek.)

I would also contend that any input from women in Mr D's life was going to filtered through a lot of his Own Stuff, and the article actually points out some of the things like His Mummy Issues.

There is no-one in the novels at all like Angela Burdett-Coutts, whom one suspects very unlike saintly Agnes Wickfield (and married a much younger man at an advanced age), in fact as I think I have complained heretofore, he was happy to work with this renowned philanthropist while the women philanthropists in his novels are mean and merciless caricatures.

One can make a case that he did worse than 'dilute' the women he knew when portraying them on his pages.

Also I am not sure what the 'debate' is over his relationship with Ellen Ternan!

rocky41_7

This year I read 63 books, which will sound like a lot to some people, and not very much to others, but it's a lot for me at this point in my life. I was a huge reader growing up. Like, regularly getting called to the front of the classroom to fork over the book I'd been reading under my desk during the lesson. But in high school I got into internet and fanfiction and then I was moving around so much that books were never a priority item to haul along with me and I just sort of...stopped reading.

But I've gotten back into it--I've had an active library card again since 2023, which I initially got solely to check out Nona the Ninth XD--and it's been such a joy. I've never been an audiobook person, and I still prefer physical books, but having Libby and audiobooks in my car has made my work commute SO much less unpleasant.

I wanted to reflect on what I've read this year, so I compiled this list of titles and ratings. Asterisks by books I did not finish, generally because I disliked them too much (that's another thing--I've been trying to accept giving up on books I'm really not enjoying more), with the exception of Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, which wasn't bad, just for too young an audience for me to enjoy. Unrated books I either found too hard to pin a rating to or just didn't get around to rating.

I feel like I got a great spread of books this year, though I've failed to whittle down my TBR list at all thanks to very compelling recommendations. I'm really looking forward to another year of stories!

The actual written reviews can be found on my Dreamwidth or Storygraph.

hamsterwoman

B is back and appears to have somehow given me his jetlag, because I was awake around 5 a.m. and then got up about half an hour later so he could make me coffee and eggs, since he was making himself some.

I’m consequently a bit bleary for anything productive, but might as well post some Yuletide recs:

( recs for Ballad of Wallis Island, Doctrine of Labyrinths, D&D:HAT, The Odyssey, Philosopher's Flight, R&G Are Dead, Some Desperate Glory, Summer in Orcus, and a couple of 5 min fandoms )

*

I think new fandom developments are unlikely in the next 5 days, so I might as well do the year-end fandom meme:

Fandom end-of-year meme: ( fandom meme #1 )

philomytha

Merry Christmas! And Happy Yuletide! I have had a startlingly straightforward time here, with lots of singing and cooking and family but no drama at all.

And I have three wonderful gifts in Yuletide, two that appeared in the main collection and one total surprise that showed up at the very last minute in Madness, all of them so beautifully tailored to my likes, I can't praise them enough.

Happiness In Time Of Joy, a Wimsey fic, some utterly adorable missing scenes just before Lord Peter and Harriet get married, featuring Gherkins being himself in full measure.

Double Exposure, another Wimsey fic, 17k of fantastic Peter/Harriet/Bunter casefic, with ghosts of WW1 and excellent period details and a beautiful get-together for my OT3.

Wandrers Nachtlied, a total surprise in Yuletide Madness, a 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' fic - which I've requested many years and never got before - with such a clever play on the non-linear narrative of the film, but with the Clive/Theo made even more central to it all, a gorgeous look at them both.

Every year I am totally astounded by the work people put in to making such generous and thoughtful gifts. Thank you, dear anonymous authors!

rmc28

We had our usual quiet Christmas Day: stockings, family zoom, salmon-elevenses, roast bird dinner with my brother Jonny, a silly film (Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon). I even managed to drag the children out to the park for an hour or so before dinner, including some table tennis and frisbee.

One of my personal Christmas traditions is watching the Nutcracker, usually in a cinema broadcast, and I just couldn't make that work this winter. So I was really charmed to find a broadcast of the Royal Ballet's production on iPlayer; the advantage of watching it at home is that I can have a quiet chat with my brother alongside without bothering anyone else.

This morning I woke up nice and early and headed out for another of my booked hot yoga sessions, followed by dropping in on my old friend Shaun for a long-overdue catchup. This afternoon has mostly been reading and TV, and the evening will probably continue the same way.

prisca posting in

fic_promptly

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xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3186/

Building Inspectors HATE This One Weird Trick

https://xkcd.com/3186/

profiterole_reads

In no particular order. This is content I've read and watched in 2025, not necessarily content released in 2025.

Books

1. The Moonstone Covenant by Jill Hammer: f/f/f/f heroic fantasy. This standalone novel about four wives investigating the death of Olloise's parents and ending up in the middle of a political plot is beautifully written, like old-school fantasy.

2. The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons: f/f/m heroic fantasy. This standalone novel about a team having to steal a dragon's hoard has an amazing plot and fun characters.

3. On Silver Shores by VT Hoang: m/m urban fantasy with an intersex protagonist. This novel about a half-siren detective and an analyst investigating rebel werewolves gave me intense feels.

4. Sugar & Vice by Allie Therin: m/m murder mystery/urban fantasy. This series about an empath and a specialist investigating murders in a world where empaths are tracked down has the slooooo~west burn.

5. Letifer by TD Cloud: m/m murder mystery/urban fantasy. This novel about a human cop and a vampire enforcer secretly teaming up to investigate serial killings is perfect for fans of Vampire: the Masquerade and Kindred: the Embraced.

6. Five to Love Him by Alexa Piper: m/m urban fantasy. This novel about a hive's mate has the most adorable fluff, as well as a couple of very hot sex scenes. I love stories about beings who have one consciousness and several bodies.

7. [French] Ainsi soient-illes by Auriane Velten: urban fantasy where angels are agender and use écriture inclusive (gender-neutral language) probably invented by the author + a trans female protagonist. If you loved the story of the manga Angel Sanctuary, go for this novel!

8. Everyday Aliens by Polenth Blake: collection of science fiction short stories with many non-binary characters. These brilliant stories are very experimental, told from the aliens' strange POVs, and are reminiscent of Bogi Takács's writing.

9. [Spanish] Herederas de Safo by ‪AM Irún: f/f adventure. This novel about a museum curator and an insurance agent having to recover one of Sappho's amphoras is a nice mix of adventure, humour and romance.

10. The Ministry of Guidance and Other Stories by Golnoosh Nour: collection of contemporary short stories with some f/f, m/m and bi f/m. These modern, even rebellious, stories offer a daily look at the Iranian culture.

TV shows

( Cut for length )

spikedluv

I had a chiropractic appointment Wednesday morning. I hit Price Chopper while I was downtown and CVS for mom. I returned a book to the library in the afternoon and stopped at Stewart’s for gas and milk.

I visited mom, did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, went for a walk with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, scooped kitty litter, and showered. I stirred up a cabbage salad for Christmas dinner. We had leftover chicken for supper.

I watched some HGTV programs. Secrets of the Zoo was my evening background tv.

Temps started out at 35.4(F) and just kept going down.

I wasn't online at all today, but I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas (or a fabulous Thursday)! We had breakfast at mom’s and dinner at Pip’s sister’s house.

Since the time was moved back, and we’re already too full from breakfast to enjoy dinner (which is at 1pm), we decided to eat breakfast at home and consider the meal at mom’s a ‘mid-morning snack’. In the end, I was the only one to go because Pip wasn’t feeling well and we both agreed that he should not be around mom. I wore a mask while I was there to be on the safe side.

I did a load of laundry, hand-washed dishes, ran a load in the dishwasher, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter.

I read more in Boyfriend Material. Secrets of the Zoo was once again my evening background tv.

I know I checked the temperature when I got up, but I can’t recall what it was, and didn’t really pay attention to it during the day. It was mid-30s most of the day with some wind. There was some sun in the afternoon, which was a nice surprise. It started going down pretty substantially after 4pm, which isn’t a surprise because we’re supposed to have a low of 6 overnight. o_O And there's snow in the forecast. *sad face*

Mom Update:

Mom was doing well both Wednesday and Thursday. She sounded stronger and looked better. Also, she was able to get up and around AND dressed, so that’s a good sign. I mentioned to someone else that it seems like she’s been more determined to feel better since we got the bad news.

One thing the doctor did tell her is that the effects from the radiation should last about 6 weeks, so we’re 4 weeks in. That might also have given her a lift to know it's almost over.

vriddy

Friend told me that Uncategorized Fandoms don't show up on your AO3 dashboard, and now I'm mournfully looking at my K-9-less dashboard, like poking at a scab... but also wondering if I'll have written enough for the fandom to show above the cut when it does eventually get wrangled XD

Show of trust | K-9 | Fujimaru Jin/Hizuki Ren/Kagari Yukito/Oboro Yuushirou | 1.6k words | rated T

Summary: Oboro and Fujimaru are down, while Ren and Kagari are left to face off an ever-growing mob of sin users on their own.

Read it on Dreamwidth on AO3.

cahn

Merry Christmas and happy Yuletide!

At some point I'll post more about the Christmas part of it (summary: very long day, ended up being fine but was not so sure it would be earlier in the day), but bc of RL holiday commitments I may not get around to yuletide recs (I will try my best, though!) and I wanted to make sure I mentioned my amazing Yuletide presents, especially since the fandoms weren't wrangled for, uh, well, all three of them, but two of them didn't even have Unspecified Fandom and so didn't show up in the fandoms list for a while. Although they're there now, all hail the Yuletide mods and fandom wranglers!!

In the order in which they were received:

Courting the Chamberlain (3740 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sieben Jahre - Tanja Kinkel, 18th Century CE RPF, Unspecified Fandom
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Caroline Marie Elisabeth Daum/Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Caroline Marie Elisabeth Daum, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Ludolf von Katte, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Additional Tags: Complicated Relationships, Character Study, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Male-Female Friendship, Yuletide Treat, Backstory, Unspecified Fandom - Freeform
Summary:

How Caroline Daum ended up marrying Frederick the Great's lover: or, how to find yourself a suitable match in Frederician Prussia.

So instead of requesting 18th CE RPF this year, I requested fic for the 18th CE RPF German novel Sieben Jahre which is all about, well, Frederick the Great and his brother Henry/Heinrich (my problematic fave!) and their entire super dysfunctional family, and all the fascinating people around them!! Caroline Fredersdorf shows up very briefly but is awesome and memorable, and one of my prompts was for her backstory -- and I got this great story, both tender and hilarious, about how she ended up getting married to the King's chamberlain and lover Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf! It doesn't require any book knowledge, although knowing enough of the 18th CE history to know that Fredersdorf was, in fact, Fritz's chamberlain and lover is probably useful :)

I also got two (!!) Tiptree stories! (!!) James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) is one of those writers who had a fundamental effect on me as a young SF-reading adolescent. Yuletide rules allowed nominating anthologies this year, so I jumped on that because I love all these stories so much. And I adore how both of these stories interrogate the original stories' assumptions and open up new ways of looking at them!

That the Deity Who Kills for Pleasure Will Also Heal (6260 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (anthology) - James Tiptree Jr., On The Last Afternoon - James Tiptree Jr.
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Characters: Original Characters
Additional Tags: Rape, Explicit Sexual Content, Ecocide, Agoraphobia, Background Human Sacrifice, Background Harm to Mice, Penis Fencing, Perhaps Something Will Be Saved From the Wreckage, Post-Canon
Summary:

Mysas says you’re gods from the sky, like the elders warned us. I think you’re just people. Gods wouldn’t look so frightened all the time, or sweat so much...

Ten thousand afternoons later, space travelers make contact again.

Post-canon for "On the Last Afternoon," dealing with what it means to be human; and the battle between humans and the ecosystem, and where does one draw the line? This can be read without knowing canon (it takes place generations after canon, in fact), although it's definitely very much in dialogue with the very different mindset of that story. (Sorry, I can't find an online version of the canon story.)

Remembering the Director of the Seventh Recitation: Oral Histories from the Imperial Archive (3597 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (anthology) - James Tiptree Jr., The Women Men Don't See - James Tiptree Jr., The Last Flight of Dr. Ain - James Tiptree Jr.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Characters: Ruth Parsons
Additional Tags: Oral History, Post-Canon, "Main Character Death" Just In the Sense That Everyone Dies Eventually, Background Ruth Parsons & Althea Parsons, Vietnam War, Lunar Forestry
Summary:

Five memories of Ruth Parsons, afterwards.

Post-canon for "The Women Men Don't See," with some worldbuilding taken from "The Last Flight of Dr. Ain." Just a really interesting set of interviews with a diverse set of aliens and humans and fascinating worldbuilding, about a potential future for Ruth Parsons and her life, that has a lot of thoughts about axes other than the women/men axis. Just really great. This can definitely be read without knowing "Flight," and while helpful to know "Women," it's not necessary, I think, to enjoy it. (The canon story is archived here, although the formatting is a little weird.)

goodbyebird posting in

rec_cember

I'll post the final check-in for the event on the 1st of January, so if you're planning any big Top Reads of the Year post or some such, we'll get those in there as well! I hope you're all having a cozy time <3

Current Music: NYAA WA - Woy Woy

sabotabby

This week's podcast is such inside baseball metapodcasting, but it's one where I've literally emailed the podcasters asking for it, and apparently so did many other people. Bad Hasbara has finally, finally covered the fall of Jesse Brown in "A Jesse Brown Christmas ft. Rachel Gilmore." (I've linked to the video here in case you want to see dogs that I assume appear on screen at some point; here is another audio link).

Of all the public figures who got October 7th brain, Jesse was the saddest for me personally. He was someone I respected a lot as a journalist. He broke the Me to We scandal, which I'd been on about for years, he broke the Jian Ghomeshi story, which friends of mine who are in media circles had been whispering about for years without the clout to speak up, and as the show details, he produced "Thunder Bay," which is one of the best journalistic deep dives that this country's media has done in ages. If anyone could be relied on to be sensible and level headed and critical, it was him. Until his brain melted.

I've had personal correspondence with him (to his credit, he does read everything you send to him and responds, in detail) and that just made me sadder, because as they describe here, a younger Jesse would have eviscerated older Jesse for his backwards logic. In fact many of the journalists he helped make prominent do exactly that, including the fantastic Robert Jago, who you hear at the end. He never really struck me as a person who started from a conclusion and worked backwards to find (or fabricate) evidence, so even when he did questionable shit, like interview people who were against safe injection sites or insist that an immediate return to school during a covid spike was a good idea, I at least listened to what he had to say. Unfortunately, his post-Oct. 7 brainworms throw all of his earlier reporting into question.

This podcast, featuring one of his main targets, is over 2.5 hours long and doesn't even get into everything. (The specific incident I wrote to him about isn't mentioned.) It's really good. Mostly it's very cathartic as a story about someone you thought was cool turning out to, in fact, not be very cool at all, and how you cope with that. I seriously hope he's listening and reflecting.

james_davis_nicoll

An assortment of stories from the late fantasy magazine Unknown, presented in a one-off A4 work.

From Unknown Worlds edited by John W. Campbell, Jr.

potentiality_26

Arcane
Critical Role (I've started campaign four but I'm already way behind)
Fallout (only S1 so far)
Frankenstein
Murderbot
The Pitt
Wake Up Dead Man
Wicked (only part 1 so far)
The Witcher

I also finally read the Scholomance book series.

Please poke me for opinions, or share your own!

dolorosa_12

I finished up work at midday on 24th December, caught the train home, and walked straight up the hill to meet Matthias for food truck lunch and drinks in our favourite cafe/bar. He had spent the morning trundling around town collecting all the various bits and pieces of food that we'd preordered, and after we returned to the house, I set about enacting my plans for the twelve ensuing days of holiday: cooking, eating, reading, TV, and nothing more strenuous than swimming, yoga, and long walks. So far, everything's gone wonderfully: cold seafood dinner on Christmas Eve, a fantastic roast dinner for Christmas Day (we'll be eating the leftovers for at least the next four days), watching our way through the last season of Stranger Things in the living room lit only by the wood-burning stove, candlelight, and our various sets of string lights, reading nothing more demanding than Rumer Godden children's Christmas books, romance novels, Christmas romance novels, etc. Today we blew the cobwebs away with a 2.5-hour walk through the fens. The air was cold, the sky was clear blue, and the river water was still, and abundant with water birds, and everyone we met seemed relaxed and happy. We finished up with coffee in the market square.

Yuletide has been wonderful so far (initial terrifying moments when the mods somehow manage to open the collection with all author names revealed notwithstanding). I've been working my way backwards up through the alphabet — I do this as I feel most people read in descending alphabetical order and have run out of steam by the end, and I want to ensure authors who wrote for fandoms in the last quarter of the alphabet get love for their work too — at a leisurely pace, being more selective than in previous years in terms of what I choose to read, and I'm having a great time so far. My two fics have been well received by both their intended recipients, and other readers, which is always my main aspiration.

And then there's my own wonderful gift! I have been asking persistently for this fandom, and these two characters for the past eleven years — every single year in which I've participated in Yuletide, plus in several other exchanges as well — and no one ever wrote them, so when I saw what my gift involved, I almost danced around the room with happiness. And the fic itself is the fic of my dreams for these characters, and this fandom. What I always want from fanworks is more of the stuff that drew me to the specific characters in canon, and my author most certainly delivered in this regard: pitch perfect character voices, with a well-crafted little fic that reminded me all over again of all the specific things I love about these two characters individually, and together. I'm so happy!

Thrive (1030 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pagan Chronicles - Catherine Jinks
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Isidore Orbus & Babylonne Kidrouk
Characters: Isidore Orbus, Babylonne Kidrouk
Additional Tags: Found Family, Bologna, Healing, House Hunting
Summary:

Isidore and Bayblonne settle in Bologna.

I will share it again once authors are revealed, along with other recs from the collection. I hope everyone else who's participating in Yuletide has had an equally good time with this year's exchange.

( Another December talking meme response )

I'll finish up this post with a reminder that

fandomtrees is going to open for fills soon. It's easy to browse the tags to see what people have requested. If anyone is interested, my tree is here.

shroomystar posting in

vocab_drabbles

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sartorias

I hope everyone got as much peace, joy, and good surprises as possible during the year's end festivities!

It was very quiet here; last night son and I watched the third Knives Out film together. Tightly written, really well acted, but there were plot holes, and not nearly the tightness and humor of the first one.

LOVING the rain, so very needed.

Hoping my daughter can visit today--she had to work yesterday.

So! It's Boxing Day, pretty much uncelebrated here in the US (who has servants???) but! Book View Cafe is having its half off sale!

Giant backlist, and lots of new books since last year's sale. Go and look and if you've got some holiday moulaugh, buy some books! We all need the pennies, heh!

teach me the art of war

Network

Navigation

Jenn's chosen playlist yesterday was gay Christmas themed

Birdfeeding

I don't think this was just about the audience appeal, srsly

Reading: A Year in Review

Yuletide recs, end of year fandom meme

feasts of the day

Christmas Day and Boxing Day

Friday, December 26 - Old & New

Truly Universal Outlet

2025 Favourites

The Day in Spikedluv (Wednesday, Dec 24 & Thursday, Dec 25)

New K-9 fic: Show of trust (Ren/Oboro/Fujimaru/Kagari)

(no subject)

No check-in for today

podcast friday

From Unknown Worlds edited by John W. Campbell, Jr.

My Recent Viewing

A story about wishing

[#175 Specious, Blue Lock] would you wash my back this once?

End of Year . . .

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December 2025

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