A Passing Thought
Jan. 8th, 2026 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzy_daveIs it in our DNA?
Or is it that uncertainty about the future and the undiscovered country that informs our conclusion that we don't give an eff anymore?
Dear Candy Hearts Confectioner
Jan. 7th, 2026 08:38 pmsnickfic( Likes and Dislikes )
( Oasis RPF- Fic, Art )
( Kyle Murchison Booth stories - Fic )
( Riddle-Master Trilogy – Fic )
( True Detective: Night Country – Fic, Art )
[ SECRET POST #6942 ]
Jan. 7th, 2026 06:26 pmcase posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandomsecrets⌈ Secret Post #6942 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 17 secrets from Secret Submission Post #991.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
(no subject)
Jan. 7th, 2026 02:02 pmgreghousesgfSnowlake, challenge 3 and 4
Jan. 7th, 2026 01:31 pmhamsterwoman
Catching up on the last two days, because ugh, work. Who thought that was a good idea? XP
Challenge #3: Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.
I love reading people’s responses to this challenge (particular highlights on my flist were
muccamukk’s beautiful analogy and author_by_night’s poem “To Fandoms I’ve Only Observed”), but I’ve done this a bunch of different ways for past Snowflakes and was struggling for a new angle. I thought about an abecedarian poem (as I’d done for characters at one point), but had a harder time coming up with a “balanced” list of fandoms in ABC order, about which I’d have about the same amount to say. I finally did settle on an abecedarian idea, just not a poetic one, so: (all links go to AO3 works-in-fandom pages, with a few exceptions)I love fandom ( because fandom is )
Obviously some letters were harder to fill with fandoms than others, but all of this is true, and these are all reasons I love fandom :)
Challenge #4: Rec Your Last Page: Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!
Maybe I should go through my billions of open tabs and see if there’s something in there worth reccing? (and take the opportunity to close some, lol)
Relevant open tabs (and the reasons I have them open):
fandomtrees spreadsheet of needy trees. Reveals are targeted at Jan 10, but there are still 39 trees short of the goal of at least 2 gifts. (Mine is not one of the needy trees, but it is here.) (Open because I was checking how likely reveals were to be delayed.)( and 10 more links, from general to specific )
30 icons shane hollander | heated rivalry
Jan. 7th, 2026 03:01 pmsweeticedtea posting in fandom_icons
Isekai Office Worker: The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter
Jan. 7th, 2026 08:32 pmprofiterole_readsI've read the first five tomes of the manga and it got boring after a while, so we'll see if I watch the entire season or if I drop it when the focus moves away from the relationship.
It's available on Crunchyroll.
Book Meme 2025
Jan. 6th, 2026 11:07 pmbearshortyI read 40 books this year, which is less than in the last few years. As I was reflecting on the books I read this year, I think part of it is that the books were just ok. There weren't really books that I loved a lot. I liked many of them - there are a lot of good and interesting books that I read, didn't like some, was disappointed in a few. Overall it was ok year but my reading is slowing down over the last few years.
( Book List 2025 )
( Book Meme )
[ SECRET POST #6941 ]
Jan. 6th, 2026 06:58 pmcase posting in fandomsecrets⌈ Secret Post #6941 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #991.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Movies: We Bury the Dead, Red Rooms
Jan. 6th, 2026 12:21 pmsnickficWe Bury the Dead (2026). After an American experimental weapons accident kills every human and animal on Madascar, an American woman (Daisy Ridley) comes to help identify bodies and search for her husband who was on a work retreat there. Also sometimes the dead don't stay dead.
As someone who is pretty over zombie movies, I liked this one quite a bit. First of all, it's Australian, and boy can you feel it. This is not your Hollywood zombie blockbuster or even your Danny Boyle zombie blockbuster. For starters, we spend relatively little time running from or fighting zombies. In fact, these are the most ambiguously threatening zombies I can remember seeing in a long long time, and I liked how much that complicated the story. It's also beautifully shot with great atmosphere and a score that really adds to the mood of the whole thing. And I really appreciated how our understanding of the central couple's married relationship gets more complicated as the film goes on.
That said, ( spoilers )
This movie feels like it invites comparison to 28 Years Later, if only by accident, given the timing. I know 28 Years Later has a lot of fans, and I didn't hate it, but overall I liked this a lot better for the indie feel, the focus on a female character, and honestly because I liked the cinematography better.
Anyway, it's out in theaters now. If it sounds fun, I recommend it!
--
Red Rooms (2023). A French-Canadian film about two female true crime fans following the trial of a man accused of raping and murdering underage teen girls. This movie is beautifully made, and with really visible care and precision. The director knew what he wanted to make, and he went for it. The result is moody and fucked up without ever feeling exploitative (to me); this is very much about the groupies, not about the man on trial, and we never seen the horrifying footage at the center of the trial.
It's also shippy as hell. Our main gal Kelly-Anne is a wealthy model and computer hacker who professes herself to be "not bad with numbers," who's obsessed with the trial for reasons that are to some extent left to the viewer, while Clementine is a less well-heeled diehard apologist for the man at the center of the trial and is convinced he's innocent. Somehow out of these two, it's Clementine who feels like the more well-adjusted person; it's questionable whether Kelly-Anne has any friends at all, and yet maybe Clementine becomes one. As a friend of mine described it, "Clementine’s more open neediness draws out a reciprocal vulnerability from Kelly-Anne."
High rec from me. If any of this sounds appealing to you, definitely check it out.
(no subject)
Jan. 6th, 2026 11:42 amgreghousesgfUpdating
Jan. 6th, 2026 09:14 ammarthawellsThis is a very common scam now, one of the many scams aimed at aspiring and new writers.
***
I'm still sick, ugh
***
Nice article on Queen Demon on the Daily KOS:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/1/5/2361356/-The-Language-of-the-Night-Martha-Wells-takes-on-colonization
One of Wells’ most compelling gifts as a writer is the way she interrogates trauma, and trauma is very much in evidence in her recent works, especially in both Murderbot and The Rising World. Where the Murderbot stories form an enslavement narrative as personal journey and healing, the Rising World series applies a wider cultural lens to trauma and loss.
Kai has seen his world ripped apart twice: the way to the underneath, the world of his birth, is shut off; the world of his above existence, the world of the Saredi, is also gone, both of them murdered by the Hierarchs. (You could argue that the third traumatizing loss-of-world is losing Bashasa, but that lies in the gap between past and present narratives.) In the past narrative, a vanquished Kai himself is imprisoned in the Summer Halls until Bashasa frees him and he joins the ad hoc rebellion.
Media Log: Jan 2026
Jan. 6th, 2026 08:00 amraptureofthemoonRead and Reading
I manged to finish 10 books in 2025. These first two were my last reads for the year; the Moraine was my first read of 2026:
Goddess of Filth by V. Castro
The writing is fair. The story was enjoyable, overall, but I feel like it didn't really deliver at the end. The characters came off as one dimensional, some of the flashbacks felt clunky and I think there was really too much story trying to be delivered in a shorter format. I'm curious if it might have been better fleshed out as a longer novel.
The Haunting of Gillespie House by Darcy Coates
The popcorn read. I admit, I picked it up partly because Gillespie is a family name on my mom's side. It's a quick read. Not much depth to the main character, nothing readily unique about the prose, creep factor is extremely mild. Lifetime Movie Horror. I don't know if Coates' cozy horror style is going to appeal to me, but I may try one more book from her.
Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine
The premise was interesting enough for me to buy the book new. I like Moraine's writing style, in general. It's obvious this was inspired by/driven by the pandemic. Good atmosphere and suspense. It's a definite case of unreliable narrator. I think pacing was a bit of an issue in places and there wasn't a whole lot of character development, but overall, an interesting read.
Currently Reading:
The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John Bacon
Not really a review. I'm over 100 pages in and both enjoying the history and shaking my head at the hubris that lead to so much tragedy on the Lakes.
Alice by Christina Henry
Just started. 30 pages in and, so far, yes. I like the writing style and the atmosphere and I'm interested to see where it goes. This is my first Christina Henry. I have Good Girls Don't Die sitting on my shelf and I thought about starting that one first, but the madness won me over.
Watched and Watching
I watched some movies while I was off: Scrooge (1979), A Muppet Christmas Carol, Krampus (all three of these at a friend's house during a holiday watch party), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (a longtime favorite I watch pretty much every winter, if not multiple times per year), Christmas Vacation (this might be my dad's favorite Christmas movie).
And there's been plenty more YouTube videos about maritime disasters as well as plenty of Minecraft videos.
But I'm not really in "watch mode" right now. Even while watching YouTube, I'm likely to be working on the stencil for my bathroom revamp or building something in Minecraft. I just can't put my whole mind into absorbing things passively, at the moment.
Playing
I've been revisiting the Dishonored series, specifically Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider. (Though I may have to return to the first game because I don't think I finished my run last year.) This series is both bleak and hopeful, which feels apropos of the time. It's probably apropos of anytime, honestly.
This is one game that when I return to it, I realize how much I missed the atmosphere. The whole thing is a work of art. I'd love to have some of the oil paintings you see throughout the world. Where I would put them is anyone's guess...
And Minecraft, of course. Still exploring, still building. I even started the tree for a forthcoming Christmas Village. Whether I'll work on it year round is a question.
PSA
Jan. 6th, 2026 11:19 amganimedeAs of December 29th, LiveJournal made a rather major change but only announced it in
ru_news as it only seems to apply to those with Cyrillic Services. The post in question is here, and thanks to Google Translate, this is the content: ( Important Changes )What it boils down to is that anyone in Russia has to either pay or get verified with their government ID, and they can no longer see any post from anyone who doesn't have Cyrillic Services. It seems as though the LJ owners (Rambler, who are owned by Sberbank) are wanting to isolate the two halves of LJ from each other - the Russian side and the non-Russian side. There are rumours (again!) that they are also wanting to get rid of the non-Russian side, either by selling it to someone else, or closing it down. However, due to sanctions, they're going to be limited in selling it to an organisation outside of Russia. I know that there have been warnings about LJ's imminent demise before but it is always better to be forewarned and prepared, just in case. Given that LJ has a history of doing things without warning, you can guarantee any sale or shutdown will happen suddenly too. Back up your LJ if nothing else!
tng season 1 icons
Jan. 5th, 2026 10:12 pmsixbeforelunch posting in fandom_icons
Onward for 36 icons featuring beardless Riker and Enterprise glamor shots.
[ SECRET POST #6940 ]
Jan. 5th, 2026 05:44 pmcase posting in fandomsecrets⌈ Secret Post #6940 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #991.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
End of Year Writing Meme 2025
Jan. 5th, 2026 08:58 pmthisbluespiritThe usual writing meme for the year. (Last year's post is here.)
( Cut for length )