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Thursday, December 4th, 2025 02:20 pm
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Thursday, December 4th, 2025 11:38 am
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Monday, December 1st, 2025 12:50 pm
It was just U and me this morning, she went Upper and I Lower Packrat. It was 45° to start but I was reasonably comfortable in eight, mostly thin, mostly polyester layers, which I detest otherwise for exactly the reason they're useful now. U encountered several small mixed flocks, always fun even when nothing unexpected is found. I sure didn't! But I did hear a Greater White-fronted Goose flying over, so that was my excitement for the morning. ( The list: )
High pressure, no rain for a while, just cold.
High pressure, no rain for a while, just cold.
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Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025 11:43 am
Purrcy is not supposed to be on the mantlepiece, which is quite high (5ft I guess), but very occasionally he's spotted mice up there so we're not really stringent at keeping him off, even if we could.
Every afternoon Purrcy jumps onto his little platform next to my study chair and demands Pets! Attention! & of course I obey. There are SO many purrs.
So early in November I stalled out on reading a bunch of new SFF because they're all books about social change through war, and I can't think that way right now.
And then it was Nov.11th, so I thought about WWI. I read:
Five Children on the Western Front, by Kate Saunders. Saunders noticed that the boys from Five Children and It & the other Psammead books were headed for the Great War, and wrote about it. To keep this being a story for children, she added a younger sibling, Edie (Edith), who's really the focus of the narrative along with the Lamb (Hilary). He's 11 in Oct. 1914, as the story begins when the Psammead re-appears in the gravel-pit the same day Lieutenant Cyril is heading off for the Front.
In the Five Children and It the children make wishes, most of them with hilarious unintended consequences. This book is more like The Story of the Amulet,[1] with the children helping the Psammead, who has lost almost all his magic. It turns out that he used to be a god in the ancient Near East, and he needs to repent of many of his careless, destructive, godly deeds lest he be stuck in a magicless world forever.
The book is structured around the Lamb and Edie learning a story from the Psammead's history that he *should* feel ashamed about, and then being granted a wish that lets them see a scene from the present day that's a parallel to that story.
Saunders uses this structure because writing about *children's* silly wishes in the context of WWI would be obscene. She's showing the Great War as the massive, unintended consequence of (thoughtless) wishes by the great & powerful, men who have godlike power over the lives of people like Cyril, Robert, the rest of the young men of Europe, and all the people who care for them.
I think you really have to have read the Nesbit books to get the full experience of reading this one. It's definitely not "more of the same", any more than WWI is "more of the same" of the Edwardian period. OTOH, the characterizations of teen/young adult Cyril, Anthea, Robert & Jane don't IMHO follow from their characterizations in the books. Saunders has made all four of them less conventional, especially Anthea (going to art school) and Jane (prepared to fight both society and Mother to become a doctor).
I think this would be a very good book for a child who's loved E. Nesbit but has gotten a bit older & more thoughtful, started to wonder about things like the passage of time and how things change. It's a good introduction to the way WWI ushered in the massive changes of the 20th century. But warning: it WILL make you cry.
[1] It turns out I never read The Story of the Amulet as a child, only Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet. So I just started reading it now, and yikes on bikes! that's a LOT of racism & antisemitism, wow. I don't know if I can finish it TBH, though it does make The Magician's Nephew a LOT clearer. Lewis was writing a homage to Nesbit, but I have to give him credit, a little: his treatment of Calormen, especially in The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle, is *worlds* less racist than anything Nesbit wrote. And note that Nesbit was a founder of the socialist Fabian Society, while Lewis, though apolitical, was *definitely not* socialist. Nesbit, at least in what I read of Amulet, is *more* imperialist than Lewis, though that may partly be due to the passage of time.
Every afternoon Purrcy jumps onto his little platform next to my study chair and demands Pets! Attention! & of course I obey. There are SO many purrs.
So early in November I stalled out on reading a bunch of new SFF because they're all books about social change through war, and I can't think that way right now.
And then it was Nov.11th, so I thought about WWI. I read:
Five Children on the Western Front, by Kate Saunders. Saunders noticed that the boys from Five Children and It & the other Psammead books were headed for the Great War, and wrote about it. To keep this being a story for children, she added a younger sibling, Edie (Edith), who's really the focus of the narrative along with the Lamb (Hilary). He's 11 in Oct. 1914, as the story begins when the Psammead re-appears in the gravel-pit the same day Lieutenant Cyril is heading off for the Front.
In the Five Children and It the children make wishes, most of them with hilarious unintended consequences. This book is more like The Story of the Amulet,[1] with the children helping the Psammead, who has lost almost all his magic. It turns out that he used to be a god in the ancient Near East, and he needs to repent of many of his careless, destructive, godly deeds lest he be stuck in a magicless world forever.
The book is structured around the Lamb and Edie learning a story from the Psammead's history that he *should* feel ashamed about, and then being granted a wish that lets them see a scene from the present day that's a parallel to that story.
Saunders uses this structure because writing about *children's* silly wishes in the context of WWI would be obscene. She's showing the Great War as the massive, unintended consequence of (thoughtless) wishes by the great & powerful, men who have godlike power over the lives of people like Cyril, Robert, the rest of the young men of Europe, and all the people who care for them.
I think you really have to have read the Nesbit books to get the full experience of reading this one. It's definitely not "more of the same", any more than WWI is "more of the same" of the Edwardian period. OTOH, the characterizations of teen/young adult Cyril, Anthea, Robert & Jane don't IMHO follow from their characterizations in the books. Saunders has made all four of them less conventional, especially Anthea (going to art school) and Jane (prepared to fight both society and Mother to become a doctor).
I think this would be a very good book for a child who's loved E. Nesbit but has gotten a bit older & more thoughtful, started to wonder about things like the passage of time and how things change. It's a good introduction to the way WWI ushered in the massive changes of the 20th century. But warning: it WILL make you cry.
[1] It turns out I never read The Story of the Amulet as a child, only Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet. So I just started reading it now, and yikes on bikes! that's a LOT of racism & antisemitism, wow. I don't know if I can finish it TBH, though it does make The Magician's Nephew a LOT clearer. Lewis was writing a homage to Nesbit, but I have to give him credit, a little: his treatment of Calormen, especially in The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle, is *worlds* less racist than anything Nesbit wrote. And note that Nesbit was a founder of the socialist Fabian Society, while Lewis, though apolitical, was *definitely not* socialist. Nesbit, at least in what I read of Amulet, is *more* imperialist than Lewis, though that may partly be due to the passage of time.
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Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025 04:24 pm
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Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025 01:56 am
So to combat the general feelings that we're rapidly heading into he'll in a handbasket I'm attempting December's 31 days of gratitude challenge.
Pretty simple rules:
Commit to writing in a gratitude journal daily for 31 days in December. Just 5-10 minutes each day listing what you're thankful for can transform your mindset, improve relationships, and boost happiness. No special skills needed — just a notebook and willingness to appreciate life.
* Write Daily: spend 5-10 minutes writing 3-5 things you're grateful for each day.
* Be Specific: instead of "I'm grateful for my family," write "I'm grateful for my sister's encouraging text today."
* Feel It: don't just list items - truly connect with the feeling of gratitude as you write.
* Mix It Up: include big things and small moments, people, experiences, and personal qualities.
* By hand: write it in a dedicated journal or on a piece of paper by hand. The physical act of writing is important here.
Pretty simple rules:
Commit to writing in a gratitude journal daily for 31 days in December. Just 5-10 minutes each day listing what you're thankful for can transform your mindset, improve relationships, and boost happiness. No special skills needed — just a notebook and willingness to appreciate life.
* Write Daily: spend 5-10 minutes writing 3-5 things you're grateful for each day.
* Be Specific: instead of "I'm grateful for my family," write "I'm grateful for my sister's encouraging text today."
* Feel It: don't just list items - truly connect with the feeling of gratitude as you write.
* Mix It Up: include big things and small moments, people, experiences, and personal qualities.
* By hand: write it in a dedicated journal or on a piece of paper by hand. The physical act of writing is important here.
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Monday, December 1st, 2025 02:38 pm
Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with AuroraT, who volunteers as an administrative volunteer for Open Doors.
How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?
I'm an administrative volunteer with the Open Doors Committee, which helps import at-risk digital archives to AO3 in order to preserve fanworks that might otherwise be lost. I'm responsible for project management, walking an archive and its archivist through our lengthy import process. We put a lot of effort into keeping track of the metadata for each work and respecting creators' privacy, so a lot of what I do involves managing spreadsheets and communicating with the archivist, other committees in the OTW, and other teams in the Open Doors Committee. I also write documentation for the committee, updating or writing down our procedures and information about the archives I'm managing.
What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?
There's a lot of variety in what an import project requires, so my weeks tend to vary a lot. Sometimes, I'll spend one of our weekly meetings working on a single task, such as preparing the documents we need to initiate a new import or cleaning up a spreadsheet. Other times, I'll jump around from task to task: emailing a different committee, discussing a procedure change with other admin volunteers, responding to feedback on documentation I wrote, creating the AO3 collection where we'll add the works we imported, answering a ticket from a creator wanting to claim works we previously imported, and so on.
What made you decide to volunteer?
I'm a huge supporter of the OTW's mission to preserve fanworks and fight censorship, and I had been watching calls for volunteers for positions I was qualified for in order to contribute to those efforts. I'd recently gotten much more into fanwork preservation when I began working at a library with a zine collection, where I was managing cataloguing and shelving a backlog of donated zines. Project management and working with spreadsheets is a lot of fun! When I saw the application for the administrative volunteer position, it seemed in line with my interests and skills, so I applied.
(Coincidentally, and unbeknownst to me when I applied, the library I was working at is one of Open Doors' partner institutions for our Fan Culture Preservation Project, which helps connect donors with physical fanworks to libraries and archives with zine collections. Some of the donations I was processing were facilitated with the help of Open Doors!)
What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?
It's absolutely task management. Our process for importing an archive is over a hundred steps long and some of those require a lot of prep work and communication between people. And that's not even including documentation or other administrative work! Thankfully, through the miracle of digital checklists and automatic reminders, as well as the detailed procedure instructions Open Doors has written over the years, it's not too difficult to keep on top of everything. Plus, I have my lovely fellow committee members to help out when I need it :)
What fannish things do you like to do?
I read a lot of fanfiction these days, especially longfics—the one I'm currently reading is over 430k words long and still being published. I also really like to leave long comments on the fics I read. It's a lot of fun to get that sweet, sweet AO3 email that the author responded to me! Recently, I started writing fanfiction for the first time in several years. Joining a new fandom really helped get those creative juices flowing.
Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out previous Five Things posts.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
Sunday, November 30th, 2025 12:41 pm
December looms which means I have 3.5 weeks to get my flat in order so I don't spend the time I have off work stressing about going into the new year totally disorganised. Challenge accepted!
#ORJENISE100 I've started on these but not finished any yet.
HOME: have maintained tidy kitchen, bathroom, hall, landing, stairs which is a win. I'm chipping away at the bedroom but plan to push on with this a couple of nights next week. Aiming to have it at least tidy by close of play 7 December.
HEALTH: pretty good!
LIFE ADMIN: a little financial jiggery pokery.
DIGITAL DECLUTTER: got email down to 11,500 then it went back up to 12,000 but currently back to 11,700. Need to set aside 30 mins a day to deal with archived folders. No progress on phone images recently. May just need to leave this to Xmas hols!
GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: just have the three living room windows boxes to do. Still not made it into the back garden Lots of tidying to do in the tiny back gardenmnor taken the compost to the allotment, also have to sort out houseplants. More tasks for Xmas hols.
COOKING/EATING: last week was still about eating down deli items and living on sandwich lunches. Onn the plus side my fridge is almost empty for my next Oddbox which arrives on Friday and I am currently defrosting some stuff from the freezer to see me through next week and I plan to make a giant curry tomorrow.
READING/LISTENING: nope.
WATCHING: still watching Pluribus and Robin Hood. I like how they've pitched this iteration with Henry II gallivanting in France, we get Eleanor of Aquitaine scheming, plus Sean Bean is a pretty decent Sherrif caught between a rock and a hard place. Since I subscribed to Acorn TV I've had detective shows on in the background. Have just hammered through Hinterland which would lead you to believe Aberystwyth is the murder capital of Wales - it led me to check 34 homicides in the whole of Wales in 2021/22. It was a good show with a compelling storyline through all 3 seasons but was grim viewing. I'm ready for an overload of saccharine Hallmark Xmas movies now.
CREATING/LEARNING: I've been to one Monday and a couple of Friday crochet sessions. I think I'm going to pass or only do 1 Monday a month and focus on the Friday lunchtime ones. I've almost finished my freestyle beanie hat and the Xmas garland is coming along. We did granny square Xmas trees on Friday which are cute and simple - finished one in class and made 5 more at home. Also made some simple stars at home. Focusing at the moment on fast makes that can be completed in 15-30 mins and have been raiding Pinterest and YouTube for free patterns. I also bought a giant load of wool (thank you Black Friday sale) from Wool Warehouse so I can make a start on the totally mad granny square blanket next year. I seem to also have acquired lots of wool over the last year - obviously bought for specific projects but I did not label them at the time (yet another task for the Xmas hols).
CATS: all good.
VOLUNTEERING: still can't get back into allottment Insta but did chase up the other things I needed to do. Will miss next committee meeting tomorrow as it's the AGM for the 23 sites at work tomorrow night.
SOCIALISING: online catch up with friends last Thursday which was good.
WORK: did 3 late night's last week with a colleague as we're both inundated. Productive but long days and it did mean last week was all about work and nothing else! No work-life balance at all. Which I will remedy in December and in to 2026!
#ORJENISE100 I've started on these but not finished any yet.
HOME: have maintained tidy kitchen, bathroom, hall, landing, stairs which is a win. I'm chipping away at the bedroom but plan to push on with this a couple of nights next week. Aiming to have it at least tidy by close of play 7 December.
HEALTH: pretty good!
LIFE ADMIN: a little financial jiggery pokery.
DIGITAL DECLUTTER: got email down to 11,500 then it went back up to 12,000 but currently back to 11,700. Need to set aside 30 mins a day to deal with archived folders. No progress on phone images recently. May just need to leave this to Xmas hols!
GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: just have the three living room windows boxes to do. Still not made it into the back garden Lots of tidying to do in the tiny back gardenmnor taken the compost to the allotment, also have to sort out houseplants. More tasks for Xmas hols.
COOKING/EATING: last week was still about eating down deli items and living on sandwich lunches. Onn the plus side my fridge is almost empty for my next Oddbox which arrives on Friday and I am currently defrosting some stuff from the freezer to see me through next week and I plan to make a giant curry tomorrow.
READING/LISTENING: nope.
WATCHING: still watching Pluribus and Robin Hood. I like how they've pitched this iteration with Henry II gallivanting in France, we get Eleanor of Aquitaine scheming, plus Sean Bean is a pretty decent Sherrif caught between a rock and a hard place. Since I subscribed to Acorn TV I've had detective shows on in the background. Have just hammered through Hinterland which would lead you to believe Aberystwyth is the murder capital of Wales - it led me to check 34 homicides in the whole of Wales in 2021/22. It was a good show with a compelling storyline through all 3 seasons but was grim viewing. I'm ready for an overload of saccharine Hallmark Xmas movies now.
CREATING/LEARNING: I've been to one Monday and a couple of Friday crochet sessions. I think I'm going to pass or only do 1 Monday a month and focus on the Friday lunchtime ones. I've almost finished my freestyle beanie hat and the Xmas garland is coming along. We did granny square Xmas trees on Friday which are cute and simple - finished one in class and made 5 more at home. Also made some simple stars at home. Focusing at the moment on fast makes that can be completed in 15-30 mins and have been raiding Pinterest and YouTube for free patterns. I also bought a giant load of wool (thank you Black Friday sale) from Wool Warehouse so I can make a start on the totally mad granny square blanket next year. I seem to also have acquired lots of wool over the last year - obviously bought for specific projects but I did not label them at the time (yet another task for the Xmas hols).
CATS: all good.
VOLUNTEERING: still can't get back into allottment Insta but did chase up the other things I needed to do. Will miss next committee meeting tomorrow as it's the AGM for the 23 sites at work tomorrow night.
SOCIALISING: online catch up with friends last Thursday which was good.
WORK: did 3 late night's last week with a colleague as we're both inundated. Productive but long days and it did mean last week was all about work and nothing else! No work-life balance at all. Which I will remedy in December and in to 2026!
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Sunday, November 30th, 2025 02:42 am
Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means ![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.
The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.
( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )
Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.
On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.
karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.
( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )
Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.
On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.
Sunday, November 30th, 2025 12:00 am
Purrcy likes all the people who visited for T-day, and no-one extra was staying overnight here, but it was just ... a lot of feet, and voices, and hands. Today has had to be very clingy and relaxing, to wind down.
I was able to let go completely and have E&P do almost everything for T-day because of a combo of pain & exhaustion from pain. We ate at 5, so early in the day there was dining room table clearing, and giving bills to me in my study to look at and pay. And I remember asking Dirk to bring me the shoulder-shaped ice pack, and later him coming in to ask me a question and all I could was just ... stare at him, because even as the pain went down the exhaustion from it surged forward and there was nothing left.
So Purrcy & I had to lie in bed a lot of the time. I couldn't really fall asleep, but I continued binge-reading.
This week's binge-read was Sarah Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths 4-book series, now re-issued under her Katherine Addison pen name, the better to pull in fans of The Goblin Emperor and the other books in The Chronicles of Osreth. I found them a quick read and enjoyable enough, though partly because I could see how many elements there are in these early works that she re-worked for the Osreth books, and which elements she decided meh, don't have to do that again.
Reused elements: stories within the story; labyrinths; lower-class people having important POVs; palaces being full of servants who know stuff & who you'd better get to know; theatrical costumes are a great way for a woman to get upper-class clothing even if she's not upper class; aristocrats are mostly assholes.
Element she realized she didn't need to reuse: POV character who's an asshole. OMG Felix is *such* a yaoi character, I now see why when Melusine came out & I was hearing about it 2nd hand your opinions were *so* divergent. Because on the one hand, he's just the Maximum Poor Little Mew Mew ... on the other hand, when "sane" he's a total jerk and bully toward Mildmay & anyone else in range of his tongue.
So the series as a whole feels like her working out, can I develop Felix's backstory enough to show how he was shaped into a charismatic abuser, and then can I believably show him becoming a better person? And I dunno if I'll read the series again, because it just is too many chapters from Felix's POV. I 1000x prefer Maia and Thara, both of whom absolutely abhor picking fights, *shudder*.
I was able to let go completely and have E&P do almost everything for T-day because of a combo of pain & exhaustion from pain. We ate at 5, so early in the day there was dining room table clearing, and giving bills to me in my study to look at and pay. And I remember asking Dirk to bring me the shoulder-shaped ice pack, and later him coming in to ask me a question and all I could was just ... stare at him, because even as the pain went down the exhaustion from it surged forward and there was nothing left.
So Purrcy & I had to lie in bed a lot of the time. I couldn't really fall asleep, but I continued binge-reading.
This week's binge-read was Sarah Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths 4-book series, now re-issued under her Katherine Addison pen name, the better to pull in fans of The Goblin Emperor and the other books in The Chronicles of Osreth. I found them a quick read and enjoyable enough, though partly because I could see how many elements there are in these early works that she re-worked for the Osreth books, and which elements she decided meh, don't have to do that again.
Reused elements: stories within the story; labyrinths; lower-class people having important POVs; palaces being full of servants who know stuff & who you'd better get to know; theatrical costumes are a great way for a woman to get upper-class clothing even if she's not upper class; aristocrats are mostly assholes.
Element she realized she didn't need to reuse: POV character who's an asshole. OMG Felix is *such* a yaoi character, I now see why when Melusine came out & I was hearing about it 2nd hand your opinions were *so* divergent. Because on the one hand, he's just the Maximum Poor Little Mew Mew ... on the other hand, when "sane" he's a total jerk and bully toward Mildmay & anyone else in range of his tongue.
So the series as a whole feels like her working out, can I develop Felix's backstory enough to show how he was shaped into a charismatic abuser, and then can I believably show him becoming a better person? And I dunno if I'll read the series again, because it just is too many chapters from Felix's POV. I 1000x prefer Maia and Thara, both of whom absolutely abhor picking fights, *shudder*.
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Saturday, November 29th, 2025 07:24 pm
Finally committed to buying myself some solid gold flatback earrings that I can keep in, and got the Maison Miru pavé lightning bar pair, which are almost identical to the Mateo bypass studs, except not diamonds, and about 20% of the price. (Christ, when I bookmarked those earrings, they were almost a hundred dollars cheaper.) I have managed to get them into my ears all by myself (look, I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 30, and push pin flat backs are even harder), and I am pleased to report that they are delicate and sparkly and I look forward to wearing them for the foreseeable future.
It's a shame that Saturday is my long cardio session at the gym, because damn does my hair look great on Sundays, when it is clean but the curl has fallen out juuuuust enough that the ringlets don't look fake. (My natural curl texture in the front is, genuinely, Shirley Temple curls. It is absurd.)
I have made cranberry-apricot cake and poppyseed cake and am restraining myself from making a miso-maple cake. The cod with artichokes and saffron broth did defeat the bag of artichokes that had been in the freezer since the dawn of time, but I actually think the broth isn't great — oddly bitter? — and won't be making it again. (I have leftovers and will eat them, but I won't be happy about it. Thank goodness I didn't waste the second cod fillet on this.) The pesto + white beans, on the other hand, were delicious and will become a new staple.
Sir Tom Stoppard's death is extremely upsetting and I am watching "Shakespeare in Love," "Enigma," and "Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead" and reading Arcadia, The Invention of Love, and The Coast of Utopia about it. And re-reading the cricket bat speech from The Real Thing.
Friday, November 28th, 2025 05:30 pm
It's pretty cold these days, for here, but I managed to get myself up to Inspiration Trail dawnish. I'm not sure whether or not I'm glad I bothered. Fog on the ground and not too much wind, but the first time I got to the gate I turned back at once. I even started driving down the hill, but as soon as I'd rounded the first curve it was clear! So I went back, hung out for a while, saw no improvement, and decided to walk down to the dip to at least check out the mud. I didn't stay long; the mud was worse than I can tolerate, the fog was dripping from the trees like rain, and there wasn't enough activity to keep me there. Nine usual species. I'm not submitting a list.:) Again, as I drove down the hill the sky was clear. Sigh. To make up for it I went to Cesar Chavez in the afternoon, under clear skies. Not so very many more species (15) but very much more interesting ones. First bird I heard was an American Pipit, so that was fun. My reason for going there was to see what was offshore in North Basin with all the birds on it; I took a very good look and I still don't know. It's a long, flexible floating pipe, maybe? with a big, orange, heavy-looking.. something at the north end. There were about 120 Western Gulls, one Ring-billed Gull, and a few Double-crested Cormorants roosting on it. It certainly makes the gulls easy to sort through for something different. ( The list: )
Of course I intended to look for the Burrowing Owl, and two very kind ladies helped me find it. Once you see it, it's obvious, but until you do, it's invisible.:)
Of course I intended to look for the Burrowing Owl, and two very kind ladies helped me find it. Once you see it, it's obvious, but until you do, it's invisible.:)
Friday, November 28th, 2025 11:42 am
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Monday, November 24th, 2025 04:52 pm
AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post overviews some of these upcoming changes.
In this round of updates, we continued to streamline creating new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.
None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.
In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.
New Canonicals
The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:
- Alternate Universe - Cakeverse | Cake and Fork
- Best Friends to Lovers
- Friends to Strangers to Lovers
- Lovers to Strangers
- Broken Ribs
- Canon-Typical Incest
- Consensual Incest
- CFNF | Clothed Female Naked Female
- CMNM | Clothed Male Naked Male
- Characters with Two Penises
- Hemipenes
- Choking Kink
- Fleshlights
- Group Chats
- Honeypot Missions
- Identity Crisis
- Impalement
- Implied/Referenced Breeding Kink
- Impostor Syndrome
- Just the Tip
- Lavender Marriages
- Mating Cycles/In Rut
- Meet-Ugly
- No Character Bashing
- NTR | Netorare
- Older Bottom Characters
- Younger Top Characters
- Younger Top Characters/Older Bottom Characters
- Pacifiers
- Parentification
- Screen Reader Friendly
- Talking About Feelings
- Tragic Backstory
In Conclusion
While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:
While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.
You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:
- Past "No Fandom" Additional Tags Updates & 5 Things Said by Wrangling Volunteers
- Past Fandom-Specific and "No Fandom" Tag Wrangling Change Posts & Announcements
For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.
In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.
Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven’t gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Lastly, we're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least two months from now to give us adequate time to do so.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
Monday, November 17th, 2025 08:27 pm
PhoenixSong.net, a Harry Potter fanfiction and fanart archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).
In this post:
- A bit of background explanation
- What this means for creators who have work(s) on PhoenixSong.net
- And what to do if you still have questions
Background explanation
PhoenixSong.net is being archived at AO3 to help ensure that the works will remain available. AO3 will also give its users the ability to review and respond to reviews, which hasn’t been the case at PhoenixSong.net for a while now.
The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Sherylyn to import PhoenixSong.net into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all images currently in PhoenixSong.net will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.
We will begin importing works from Phoenixsong.net to the AO3 after November. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.
What does this mean for creators who have work(s) on PhoenixSong.net?
We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.
All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors. We will then permanently close down the site.
Please contact Open Doors with your PhoenixSong.net pseud(s) and email address(es), if:
- You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
- You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
- You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
- You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
- You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
- You have any other questions we can help you with.
Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your PhoenixSong.net account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the PhoenixSong.net mod to confirm your claims.)
Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:
- importing your works to the AO3
- adding your works to the new collection PhoenixSong.net
If you still have questions...
If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.
We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of PhoenixSong.net on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.
We're excited to be able to help preserve PhoenixSong.net!
- The Open Doors team and Sherylyn
Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.
Friday, November 14th, 2025 05:25 pm
AO3 is turning 16! It's been another year of growth for AO3. Since this time last year, we passed both eight million and nine million registered users! We also passed 14 million, 15 million, and 16 million fanworks on the site, including one million works in Mandarin Chinese—the first non-English language to reach this milestone!
AO3's committees have also done a lot of important work this year! Accessibility, Design, & Technology published multiple important code releases, including security improvements like sending you an email when you or someone logged in to your account changes your username, password, or email as well as new features like allowing you to use CSS custom properties in site skins or add tags to your collections!
AO3's Tag Wranglers published four updates on "No Fandom" tags, which are tags that are not associated with any particular fandom. Many of the new tags they've made canonical (marked common) include commonly requested ones like Breeding Kink, Mind Break, and Rivals to Lovers. Check out the full list of new and modified No Fandom tags!
OTW Open Doors announced the import of five fanwork and two zine archives to AO3, including fanworks related to fandoms such as Harry Potter, Inuyasha, and Star Trek: The Original Series. You can look through all old import announcements by browsing AO3 news for the Open Doors tag.
Policy & Abuse published a series of important Terms of Service (TOS) Spotlight news posts that answered common questions about violations of AO3's TOS. Check them out here:
- Non-fanworks
- Ratings & Warnings
- Fandom, Language, and Other Tags
- Offensive Content
- Harassment
- Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement
- Commercial Promotion
We're so excited about all the wonderful things that have happened this year and we can't wait to see what future years bring!
Prompt!
To celebrate AO3's 16th birthday, we want to prompt you to post a fanwork featuring 16 in some way! This could be a work about Season/Series 16 of a show, or a character with 16 in their name like Android 16 (Dragon Ball), or even a character celebrating their 16th Birthday. We encourage you to get creative! When you post your works on AO3 or social media, tag them #AO3Celebrates16!
Comment!
If you don't feel like creating a work, that's okay! Instead, celebrate this anniversary with us by commenting on 16 fanworks and recommending your favorite in the comments!
Thank you for celebrating 16 years of AO3 with us!
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
Tuesday, November 25th, 2025 03:32 pm
U had some time so we went looking for a eastern Warbler that had been around for a couple of days. We did not find it, although someone did late morning. I made a list for Estuary Park, though it was hardly worth it, but then we went to Crab Cove and had a great time. Only four species of duck, including Surf Scoter and Red-breasted Merganser, but nine kinds of Sandpiper; U had her scope and found two Ruddy Turnstones and one Black Turnstone in a mass of Black-bellied Plovers, so that was fun. ( The list: )
And every so often a short line of Brown Pelicans would fly over.:)
And every so often a short line of Brown Pelicans would fly over.:)
Wednesday, November 26th, 2025 05:26 pm
Purrcy looks very *intent* but not necessarily *intelligent* because ... there was a MOTH! Flying much too high for him to even try grabbing, but a riveting prey item nonetheless. This was from a few weeks ago.
Turkey day is upon us!
E&P drove down from Boston yesterday during the day yesterday, though the last part had to be in the dark because the traffic got so heavy from Danbury on, and it was raining.
I'm feeling really good about having surrendered the spatula, because the fact is I'm going through a period where I'm in pain a lot. I guess I haven't mentioned this before, but in the past month or so I've developed tendonitis in my left shoulder, the one that works the cane, and also the one that controls the mouse--because I've got such long-standing pain and weakness in the *right* hand.
The pain often (usually?) wakes me up after not-quite-enough sleep, and it really drags me down.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elayna just mentioned Essentrics, which I can stream on NJ-PBS, and I'm going to try doing that 3 times a week and see if it helps. Otherwise I feel as though I'm gradually accumulating chronic pain vampires that are gradually sapping my ability to function. And I've got to find a way to beat them back other than "lie in bed for hours a day, under a heating blanket & cat, reading".
Menu this year, as last:
- roast spatchcocked chicken, plus turkey legs & thighs
- roasted garlic gravy
- Our Stuffing Recipe™
- roast veg, asst.
- "Indian Pudding"
- Our Cranberry Sauce™
- salad
- pumpkin pie, apple pie, whipped cream
Alas, my brother has a bad cold and won't be joining us. It's not COVID & not the flu, so there's that, but he's too snotty to travel. Since he won't be around I think I won't make turkey gumbo tomorrow, I'll just make stock, do the gumbo on Saturday.
Turkey day is upon us!
E&P drove down from Boston yesterday during the day yesterday, though the last part had to be in the dark because the traffic got so heavy from Danbury on, and it was raining.
I'm feeling really good about having surrendered the spatula, because the fact is I'm going through a period where I'm in pain a lot. I guess I haven't mentioned this before, but in the past month or so I've developed tendonitis in my left shoulder, the one that works the cane, and also the one that controls the mouse--because I've got such long-standing pain and weakness in the *right* hand.
The pain often (usually?) wakes me up after not-quite-enough sleep, and it really drags me down.
elayna just mentioned Essentrics, which I can stream on NJ-PBS, and I'm going to try doing that 3 times a week and see if it helps. Otherwise I feel as though I'm gradually accumulating chronic pain vampires that are gradually sapping my ability to function. And I've got to find a way to beat them back other than "lie in bed for hours a day, under a heating blanket & cat, reading".Menu this year, as last:
- roast spatchcocked chicken, plus turkey legs & thighs
- roasted garlic gravy
- Our Stuffing Recipe™
- roast veg, asst.
- "Indian Pudding"
- Our Cranberry Sauce™
- salad
- pumpkin pie, apple pie, whipped cream
Alas, my brother has a bad cold and won't be joining us. It's not COVID & not the flu, so there's that, but he's too snotty to travel. Since he won't be around I think I won't make turkey gumbo tomorrow, I'll just make stock, do the gumbo on Saturday.
Tags:
Wednesday, November 26th, 2025 12:32 pm
There was an obviously computer-printed "hand-written" letter in our letter box from someone claiming to want to buy houses in "your suburb" which emphasised multiple times that the house can be in any condition and that they're not a real estate agent.
So they're obviously targeting easily-fooled people who want to sell their run-down houses but find the process scary and are vulnerable to the promise of some random stranger just giving them a big pile of cash as quickly and easily as possible.
Now that itself could be the scam: offer unfairly low prices and know your target is unlikely to complain. But idk it feels like part of a scam scam not just a sincere if shady attempt to actually buy people's houses. I tried looking up real estate scams but it's all about scams aimed at people buying houses, which makes sense, since that's the more natural situation where you can take people's money and run.
I guess it could be one of those nigerian prince type scams: Offer a high price for the house, well above market value, make the seller think they're the one taking advantage of a dumbass woman, but oh no she needs a little deposit first to handle some unexpected fees, if you could just help out with a tiny proportion now she'll be able to pay the full amount any day now...
Either way, I reported it to consumer protection, since they might be able to do something with the phone number.
So they're obviously targeting easily-fooled people who want to sell their run-down houses but find the process scary and are vulnerable to the promise of some random stranger just giving them a big pile of cash as quickly and easily as possible.
Now that itself could be the scam: offer unfairly low prices and know your target is unlikely to complain. But idk it feels like part of a scam scam not just a sincere if shady attempt to actually buy people's houses. I tried looking up real estate scams but it's all about scams aimed at people buying houses, which makes sense, since that's the more natural situation where you can take people's money and run.
I guess it could be one of those nigerian prince type scams: Offer a high price for the house, well above market value, make the seller think they're the one taking advantage of a dumbass woman, but oh no she needs a little deposit first to handle some unexpected fees, if you could just help out with a tiny proportion now she'll be able to pay the full amount any day now...
Either way, I reported it to consumer protection, since they might be able to do something with the phone number.
Monday, November 24th, 2025 03:38 pm
The last rain was four days ago, so U and Chris took Upper Packrat and I took Lower. But as so often happens, the best birds were in the parking lot trees when we were starting out. They were full of birds, a Hutton's Vireo, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Oak Titmice, Bushtits, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Lesser Goldfinches, Dark-eyed Juncos, and at least four Townsend's Warblers. It was busy up there.:) We also heard Hermit Thrushes and all five local Woodpeckers. Then as we moved on to the trailhead, a covey of eleven California Quail were foraging in the road and at the edge of the underbrush! None of us had ever seen more than two birds at once in the lower Nature Area, and they were very bold, only taking cover when a Northern Flicker flew over. ( The list: )
There were almost no birds at the Lake, but when we got back to the bridge by the Little Farm we saw the California Quail again! They were quite a surprise, given the amount of foot traffic there.
There were almost no birds at the Lake, but when we got back to the bridge by the Little Farm we saw the California Quail again! They were quite a surprise, given the amount of foot traffic there.
Tags:
Monday, November 24th, 2025 04:52 pm
AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post overviews some of these upcoming changes.
In this round of updates, we continued to streamline creating new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.
None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.
In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.
New Canonicals
The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:
- Alternate Universe - Cakeverse | Cake and Fork
- Best Friends to Lovers
- Friends to Strangers to Lovers
- Lovers to Strangers
- Broken Ribs
- Canon-Typical Incest
- Consensual Incest
- CFNF | Clothed Female Naked Female
- CMNM | Clothed Male Naked Male
- Characters with Two Penises
- Hemipenes
- Choking Kink
- Fleshlights
- Group Chats
- Honeypot Missions
- Identity Crisis
- Impalement
- Implied/Referenced Breeding Kink
- Impostor Syndrome
- Just the Tip
- Lavender Marriages
- Mating Cycles/In Rut
- Meet-Ugly
- No Character Bashing
- NTR | Netorare
- Older Bottom Characters
- Younger Top Characters
- Younger Top Characters/Older Bottom Characters
- Pacifiers
- Parentification
- Screen Reader Friendly
- Talking About Feelings
- Tragic Backstory
In Conclusion
While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:
While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.
You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:
- Past "No Fandom" Additional Tags Updates & 5 Things Said by Wrangling Volunteers
- Past Fandom-Specific and "No Fandom" Tag Wrangling Change Posts & Announcements
For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.
In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.
Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven’t gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Lastly, we're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least two months from now to give us adequate time to do so.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
Monday, November 24th, 2025 01:23 pm
It feels like I'm in a flat out and uncontrolled gallop to the end of the year and that whooshing sound is all the deadlines I'm failing to meet on both work and personal fronts!
As I was away from 13-17 November (lovely break, lots of napping and oodles of good food) and frankly lost most of last week was recovery this is more of a look forward than 'what I did over the last fortnight'.
#ORJENISE100 still need to catch up with the prompts I missed!
HOME: I've maintained the cleared areas of the flat, am making very slow progress on my bedroom and am ignoring the living room until the first week of December.
HEALTH: pretty good!
LIFE ADMIN: nope.
DIGITAL DECLUTTER: email has gone up a bit as I need a couple of hours to sort out a few folders, no progress on phone images recently. In fact, I've added to them by taking lots of screenshots. GAH!
GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: just have the three living room windows boxes to do. Lots of tidying to do in the tiny back garden (which will likely have to wait to Xmas hols) and I still have lots of bags of compost to take down to the allotment and bulbs to plant. Fingers crossed for a few fine hours this weekend.
COOKING/EATING: ate like royalty at Horbling, waddled home and lived off leftovers for a few days and then was seduced by Sainsbury's 3 for £10 offer on deli items so have been eating those with large veg portions. Won't really need to think about cooking until the weekend.
READING/LISTENING: nope.
WATCHING: Started new show Pluribus which I'm undecided about and quite liking the new Robin Hood
CREATING/LEARNING: back to crochet sessions on Monday evenings and Friday afternoons. Currently making a super simple beanie hat, and crochetings Xmas trees and stars to do a small garland for the flat. Apparently we'll be doing an Xmas challenge on Friday.
CATS: all good.
VOLUNTEERING: a few minor things I need to chase up following our first post AGM committee. We let a plot holder take over our social media and she has changed the email and passwords and now forgotten them so we can't get back into our Insta account. Grrrr.
SOCIALISING: yes - went for a roast this Sunday past in Greenwich with visiting friends from the US andravurian. Good company, good convo and delicious food.
WORK: I'm at the point where I'm wondering if I could retire sooner rather than hanging on to 2030!
Temperatures have dropped here - when we drove to Horbling on 10 Nov it was a balmy 15 degrees and sunny and we were in t-shirts. Temps dropped last week and now nights are 0 or -1 and days are 5 to 6 degrees.
Winter is Coming. Brrrrrr.
As I was away from 13-17 November (lovely break, lots of napping and oodles of good food) and frankly lost most of last week was recovery this is more of a look forward than 'what I did over the last fortnight'.
#ORJENISE100 still need to catch up with the prompts I missed!
HOME: I've maintained the cleared areas of the flat, am making very slow progress on my bedroom and am ignoring the living room until the first week of December.
HEALTH: pretty good!
LIFE ADMIN: nope.
DIGITAL DECLUTTER: email has gone up a bit as I need a couple of hours to sort out a few folders, no progress on phone images recently. In fact, I've added to them by taking lots of screenshots. GAH!
GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: just have the three living room windows boxes to do. Lots of tidying to do in the tiny back garden (which will likely have to wait to Xmas hols) and I still have lots of bags of compost to take down to the allotment and bulbs to plant. Fingers crossed for a few fine hours this weekend.
COOKING/EATING: ate like royalty at Horbling, waddled home and lived off leftovers for a few days and then was seduced by Sainsbury's 3 for £10 offer on deli items so have been eating those with large veg portions. Won't really need to think about cooking until the weekend.
READING/LISTENING: nope.
WATCHING: Started new show Pluribus which I'm undecided about and quite liking the new Robin Hood
CREATING/LEARNING: back to crochet sessions on Monday evenings and Friday afternoons. Currently making a super simple beanie hat, and crochetings Xmas trees and stars to do a small garland for the flat. Apparently we'll be doing an Xmas challenge on Friday.
CATS: all good.
VOLUNTEERING: a few minor things I need to chase up following our first post AGM committee. We let a plot holder take over our social media and she has changed the email and passwords and now forgotten them so we can't get back into our Insta account. Grrrr.
SOCIALISING: yes - went for a roast this Sunday past in Greenwich with visiting friends from the US and
ravurian. Good company, good convo and delicious food.WORK: I'm at the point where I'm wondering if I could retire sooner rather than hanging on to 2030!
Temperatures have dropped here - when we drove to Horbling on 10 Nov it was a balmy 15 degrees and sunny and we were in t-shirts. Temps dropped last week and now nights are 0 or -1 and days are 5 to 6 degrees.
Winter is Coming. Brrrrrr.
Saturday, November 22nd, 2025 08:51 pm
I'm going through the free university mini-course Media and Power from the University of Iowa, and am going to try and take notes as I go. (Yes I do intend to get back to the Ursula K LeGuin book. One day. Shh)
So far there has been A Lot of focus on US political reporting, which is very reasonable but is not actually my preferred area of focus.
( Read more... )
This handbook guides students through concepts, content, and exercises that help them develop media literacy by understanding media and power. The authors want students to not only gain the ability to critically analyze the languages and discourses – textual, visual, audio, and code – that people use to create and interpret media content, but also to understand the overarching context: media possess immense power in contemporary societies around the world.
So far there has been A Lot of focus on US political reporting, which is very reasonable but is not actually my preferred area of focus.
( Read more... )
Tags:
Saturday, November 22nd, 2025 06:50 am
Shout out to anyone who wants a holiday card this year.
I plan to start writing ALL my cards this week and post by next weekend which means I'm 3 weeks ahead of final posting dates so they should arrive on time even for folks overseas!
If I already have your address you'll be on the list but please feel free to drop contact deets below to make sure - post is screened.
Today (Saturday) I am attempting to deal with the utter chaos in my bedroom, repot some houseplants and batch cook for next week - so being able to sit down and have some time to write cards would be most welcome!
I plan to start writing ALL my cards this week and post by next weekend which means I'm 3 weeks ahead of final posting dates so they should arrive on time even for folks overseas!
If I already have your address you'll be on the list but please feel free to drop contact deets below to make sure - post is screened.
Today (Saturday) I am attempting to deal with the utter chaos in my bedroom, repot some houseplants and batch cook for next week - so being able to sit down and have some time to write cards would be most welcome!
Tags:
Friday, November 21st, 2025 11:19 am
This covers August through beginning of November
At least one of the links was from coth; most I have no idea - some of them have been in my 'read later' for a very long time. There were also stories from All of Tor.com’s Original Short Fiction Published in 2022, which I'm guessing I've started working through before, but didn't remember what I'd read previously (18 short stories, 13 novelettes, 1 translation) (and didn't finish this time either)
Loved it!
- Smoke and Sweetness by Zhui Ning Chang, from Jan 2025 - gentle, sweet, slice of life with touches of whimsy and sadness, set in a floristry
- Fruiting Bodies - Kemi Ashing-Giwa, from Jan 2022 - very much body horror, in a far future on a different planet. Not quite zombies.
- The Chronologist by Ian R MacLeod, from Feb 2022 - atmosphere and character and kind of an apocalypse
- The Last Truth by Anamaria Curtis, from Feb 2022 - bittersweet, about how how losing oneself a memory at a time leaves nothing behind.
Not bad
- Bone by Karl Gallagher, from May 2025 - heavy on the science, clunky on the rest.
- If a Digitized Tree Falls by Ken Liu and Caroline M. Yoachim, from Sept 2025 (novelette) - snatches through time, as the ways in which the world is modelled by digital tech changes, and AI assistants evolved. I found myself distracted and unmotivated to finish, although it is beautifully written
- Model Collapse by Matthew Kressel, from Oct 2025 - very clever body horror about the AI takeover.
Not for me
- Saving the Gleeful Horse - K J Bishop, from March 2010. - creepy. But I managed to get distracted part way through, and then had to come back to finish it.
- Synthetic Perennial by Vivianni Glass, from Feb 2022 - normally I like myself some surreal / magic realism details, but I just found this one disorienting. Not for those with medical trauma.
- Hush by Mary Anne Mohanraj, from March 2022 - I get what this one is saying, but it is just a tad too real w.r.t fascism and racist supremacy. Unreliable narrator who thinks they are one of the good guys didn't help.
- The Long View by Susan Palwick, from April 2022 - this went too close to farce for me. Seemed to be both attempting to be Meaningful and Funny.
DNF
- Victory Citrus Is Sweet by Thoriay Dyer, from Sept 2022 - couldn't deal with the narrative voice
- Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man by Rich Larson - sometimes I'm in the mood for gritty noir cyberpunk, and today is not it.
- The Sisters of Saint Nicola of The Almost Perpetual Motion vs the Lurch by Garth Nix, from July 2022 - DNF - While I like Nix's novels, I often bounce from their short fiction, and this was no exception
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