karlht | Network

Ryan North & Chris Fenoglio, Star Trek Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way: ( coffee or raktajino? )
Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption: ( kings! what a good idea! )
Susanna Clarke, The Wood at Midwinter: ( short )
Sharon Shinn, Alibi: ( teleportation and creeping fascism )
Sacha Lamb, The Forbidden Book: ( Yiddish fantasy )
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Days of Shattered Faith: ( imperial overreach )

conuly

I don't care that Biden pardoned his son, seriously. As far as nepotism goes, this is relatively a non-event.

But what I do care about is that so many other people who are just as deserving of pardon haven't been. Fuck that fucking shit.

ao3_news_feed

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/30622

OTW logo with the words 'Spotlight on Legal Issues'

As many of you are aware, H.R. 9495—also known as the "nonprofit killer"—passed in the U.S. House of Representatives last Thursday, November 21. OTW Legal has received a number of comments from understandably concerned users, and we'd like to take this opportunity to provide more information about this bill as it makes its way to the U.S. Senate.

Section 4 of H.R. 9495 would give the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury unilateral power to revoke the 501(c)3 status of any nonprofit, with minimal due process, simply by claiming it is affiliated with terrorism. The bill allows the Secretary to limit the disclosure of evidence against an accused nonprofit and places the burden of proving its innocence on that nonprofit—meaning a nonprofit could be forced to defend itself without being told why it has been accused in the first place.

You can read the text of the bill here.

While this bill is unlikely to pass in the current U.S. Senate, many organizations anticipate its return under the incoming presidential administration and U.S. Congress. If H.R. 9495 is ultimately passed into law, there is a danger that it could be enforced biasedly or used to further political agendas.

This bill poses a direct threat to the nonprofit sector as a whole, including many fannish nonprofits. Concerned U.S.-based fans can and should contact their senators and urge them to vote no on H.R. 9495. If you live outside the U.S., you can help spread the word by sharing this, our posts on social media, or resources from other organizations fighting for internet freedom, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Action Center.

Our Legal committee is keeping a close eye on this bill. Based on where it stands right now, we don't see an immediate risk to the OTW or AO3 but we will inform you if this changes.

Is there a new law that might affect fans or fannish activities in your country? Send us a message about legislation you think we should know about. (Submitting a concern doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in a future Spotlight on Legal Issues post.)

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.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/30622

prettygoodword

This week sort of has a theme: words I noticed while rereading The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. I may have previously run a few of these, possibly even from past readings.

lambrequin (LAM-bri-kin, LAM-ber-kin) - n., (N.Am.) a short ornamental drapery for the top of a window or door or the edge of a shelf.

Also, any border pattern with a draped effect, using in ceramics and architecture, and originally, a heavy scarf worn over a medieval helmet. Taken around 1720 from French, ultimately from Middle Dutch *lamperken/lamperkijn, diminutive of lamper, veil.

Thanks, WikiMedia!

---L.

rmc28

I'm on the roster for this Saturday's Warbirds game against Shockwave, a newish development-level mixed rec team. Should be a good game for my first time out with Warbirds, and as a bonus I've a couple of friends on the other team. I'm roughly equal parts excited and nervous, and I'll probably have my usual attack of nerves during the warmups and then be fine once we're under way.

It's my first full game, rather than a scrimmage or draft tournament, with a mixed team, and also my first full game playing forward rather than defence. I'm not the only woman training with Warbirds but I am the only woman on the roster for this game. I won't be entirely surprised if I'm the only woman on the ice (referees and mixed rec teams both skew very male).

18:30, Cambridge Ice Arena, free entry, if any locals want to come see me in action.

med_cat posting in

holiday_wishes

Greetings, everyone!

This is my 6th season in this comm on DW (I skipped 2020 and 2022...and yes, I'm a co-mod here with

doranwen ).
Hard to believe this DW comm has been running since 2017!

This comm is one of the things I enjoy most during the holiday season.

I'm a critical care nurse, married, with two children.

My most important wish:

1. Whatever you celebrate this season: Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Yule, Pancha Ganapati, Bodhi Day, Winter or Summer Solstice, Human Light, Festivus, any variations of those or any others, or just the month of December--enjoy! Spend time with friends and family, share the holiday joy, and make some good memories.

Try not to stress too much; remember that picture-perfect holidays and ideal families (and perfect lives) exist only in non-realistic fiction :)

Four things I would like:

2. More participation in the

1word1day comm (people to post, weekly or occasionally, as well as read and comment). Do you like words? Especially interesting, themed, or unusual words? Come check us out.

3. Do you like poetry? If so, please come and take a look at the

greatpoetry comm. It has a very large archive of poems, indexed by author (from 10+ years of the LJ greatpoets comm). I'd love to see more people post poems and requests there, as well as read and comment.

4. (A long shot) I've had a layout I really liked on LJ (same username), made by Nika of nika-design. Unfortunately, the CSS gets all messed up when I try to transfer it to DW. So if anyone here is good at CSS and working with layouts, I'd love my LJ layout customized for my DW.

5. If anyone here makes badges/buttons, I would like a badge/button (no larger than 2-3 inches across) that says "Es wird convergieren", with an integral sign in the center or in the background.

(Yes, there is a story to this phrase, which I can tell you if you wish! It's a funny story.)

Things for friends and good causes:

6. Please help someone else, if you're in a position to do so (some ideas: contribute to a charity of your choice/food bank/Angel Tree/send a card to those who want mail/volunteer your time to help someone).

7. If you like to send cards, join the Angel Card Project on FB (www.facebook.com/groups/theangelcardproject) and send some cards to those who want mail. If you're feeling overwhelmed at present, the group is active year-round with sending birthday, get-well, encouragement, etc. cards. Send as few or as many as you want :)

8. Take a look, and if you can, like/follow/contribute to these two charities:

a Greek cat rescue "God's Little People Cat Sanctuary"

www.facebook.com/@godslittlepeople/

and

a school and orphanage in Uganda, The Kafunjo Community Project:

(they have a website and a FB page)

9. Do you like ginger cats? Or perhaps you have a friend or a family member who does?

My good friend

lindahoyland is selling a beautiful 2025 wall calendar, featuring her 5 ginger cats!

All the profit from the calendar sales is donated to the God's Little People Rescue Sanctuary (in #8 above). They arranged the adoption of one of Linda's cats, Filipos Apollo.

You can browse the calendar here: www.lulu.com/shop/rose-moss/gorgeous-ginger-cats/paperback/product-e7rkzzg.html

10. And, in conclusion:

Please, love one another, take care of one another, and take care of yourself as well.

If you care about someone, let them know.
If you haven't seen someone or heard from them, get in touch.
If you have a dream, or cherished plans--pursue them!
Life is...very fragile; and nothing is ever guaranteed--except today; that's why they call it "the present".

All the very best to everyone, this holiday season and in the coming year! I look forward to granting some wishes :)

goodbyebird

Nabbed from

rionaleheart
TV questions: pick five TV shows you like (in no particular order) and answer the following questions. Don’t cheat!

1. Interview With The vampire
2. Wheel of Time
3. Sarah Connor Chronicles
4. Yellowjackets
5. The Mandalorian

( Me and by goldfish brain having to scroll up to see what fandom each number is for every single question. )

+ Random icon button gave me a Star Wars icon, so that's today's fic pick for #Rec-Cember!

Star Wars
when you lay me down you'll only bury bones by

onespaceace (18,959 words)
AU where Mando couldn't save Grogu at the Seeing Stone (Chapter 14: The Tragedy). This grabbed me beginning to end, both the POVs and the character interactions were *chef's kiss*

Luke jerks awake with a gasp, and immediately gags.

Artoo whistles a question behind him, but he can't give a better answer than the groan behind his clenched teeth. He shuts his eyes and swallows hard a few times until he's sure he isn't about to throw up in his lap.

There isn't much recorded about Force visions anymore - at least, not anywhere that Luke has looked - but he knows that what he saw wasn't a dream. Not really. Shaking, he presses a hand to his throat, running his fingertips over the unmarked skin there, where he swears he can still feel the impossible heat of blaster fire. There's no way of knowing if what he saw has already come to pass, but there's a twisting deep in his gut that tells him they're too late. He can't tell if it's the Force reaching out to him, or simply his own fears, but the cry for help that echoed across the galaxy to him had jolted him from meditation hours ago. There is every chance the child is long gone; their Mandalorian defender long dead.

But Luke, for all his faults, has never learnt to quit while he's ahead. Until he reaches Tython, until he finds the child, there's still a hope that he can't quite abandon.

Current Music: Mother Mother - Forgotten Souls

china_shop

Let's get ambitious!

Finish my Yuletide assignment and the treat that's at beta, and write two more treats. Then ~~call it quits~~ check there's no other prompts I want to write for.

Review my WIP folder and get back to some of them, ie, try to post something for Guardian this month.

Make something for each round of fan_flashworks in December. (The new/current prompt is "apart".)

oursin

Happy birthday,

commodorified!

sovay

Rabbit, rabbit! I am having some trouble with December: it doesn't feel that we had a year since the last one, except that too many things have happened. My Klimt calender this month features Rose von Rosthorn-Friedmann, who does look like a winter dusk.

Having been reminded by

selkie that I had not seen it since the Cambrian radiation of late 2015, I rewatched The Maltese Falcon (1941). I have decided the best thing about Elisha Cook Jr. in the part of Wilmer is that he actually is rather pretty and so very terrible at any of his ostensible duties, from escorting a guest without losing his guns to searching a freighter without setting fire to it. One can easily imagine his place in Cairo's catalogue of grievances against Gutman's mishandling of the treasure hunt: involve the adventuress if you must, bring in the private investigator if you're sure he can be bought, but couldn't you have left the psycho himbo at home? I am charmed that in 1934 Theatre Arts Monthly set Cook after Hepburn in their "Roster of New Faces" and declared, "The theatre will be poorer if a newly-signed film contract takes him from the stage." I regret to inform the theater that I personally appreciate its pocket being picked.

I don't even remember the chain of thought that led to me realizing that last year I outlived Alan Turing and this year it was Walter Headlam. ("Congratulations?" offered

spatch.) Time, man.

Hestia settled as movie cat during the second half of They Drive by Night (1940).

Current Music: Midwife, "Killdozer"

pattrose posting in

holiday_wishes

Hello, my name is Patt. I am 72 years old. My user name here is PattRose. Also on AO3. I write mostly in The Sentinel fandom and love the characters so much. I’ve been writing for 25 years and have made some great online friends.

I hope I’m doing this right.

1. I would love some icons for the Sentinel. Or any nature icons.

2. I’m a big fan of the Marvel universe, especially Iron Man. If you could rec stories I would appreciate that.

3. I would love kudos on my latest stories. Actually on any of them. Almost human is also a fave of mine.

4. I would absolutely love a new screensaver for my computer. Iron Man preferably.

5. Does anyone know how I go about getting more icons for an unpaid account. It only lets me have 15. I know, I am old. 😁

6. Any donation to AO3.

And that’s it for me. Thank you for reading.

azurelunatic

We had a feast! It was good!

There's a shirt I need to hunt up out of my incoming laundry box.

The goat is up for the year, and someone is live-streaming it; the patches of pixelization seem to be placed where people and vehicles would otherwise be clearly visible on the roads around it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXIsDUtQIhQ (Keeping track of the goat is a Tumblr seasonal hobby.)

We have leftovers.

I finally got my pill boxes filled, a day or two before the absolute absolute last minute. Next time I should probably not include the four-times-a-day boxes in the filling lineup; I think those slowed things down considerably. I dropped fewer than usual pills, I think. I also put on GBBO to watch. Belovedest asked if I had a spare empty flash drive while I was in the middle of a particularly obnoxious bit of filling; I let them know the problem and then looked afterward.

Yellface was cross with me for blocking her path with the various debris of my endeavors.

There are various appointments tomorrow. Whee.

breakingcatnews_feed

https://www.gocomics.com/breaking-cat-news/2024/12/02

Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn on Mon, 02 Dec 2024

Source - Patreon

https://www.gocomics.com/breaking-cat-news/2024/12/02

rmjwell

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

rhi

Thanksgiving mostly went well, although I'm apparently allergic to something in the barbecue joint's smoked turkeys. Damn it. Oh, well. Next year, my co-cook says she'll go back to roasting a bird so I can share the main dish instead of having to bring my own.

But it's December 1st, my least favorite month, so this year I have two Advent calendars to play with.

The Penzey's calendar had black pepper today, which went into the feta sauce pasta for dinner. (There may well be recipes posted this month. Ask if you want one.)

As for the Diamine Inkvent, today's fountain pen ink was Baltic Breeze. I'll be putting the ink description behind one cut for the interested, and the daily writing from the ink color and/or name as prompt behind another so y'all can skip either or both. And then I'm gong to go write some words on fic, because I do try to finish some chapters and/or stories in December.

Baltic Breeze:

( About the ink itself. )

Today's words:

( Baltic breezes & vampires )

PS -- to the nameless person I'm betaing for: I'm halfway through it, but lost the first six pages of comments twice, blast it. I forgot bloody Word quit doing autosaves if you don't give it AI access. :sighs: So, doing it again on paper. I repeat, halfway through. Should have it to you Tuesday? Wednesday latest.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Dead Can Dance, Desert Song

lovelyangel

Yuki
Kimi wa Meido-sama, Episode 9

Here is what I watched last week.

( A Bunch of Shows Behind the Cut )

umadoshi

Advent is upon us in the senses of both the liturgical calendar and the first of the month. Posted elsenet:

For Advent this year, I ordered a single every-day candle because I saw it on the Gingerbread World site when ordering scruloose's Advent calendar*, so I'm burning that instead of my Advent wreath.

*Which didn't actually work out due to a mix-up**, but C does have nice boozy chocolates.
‪
My own calendar is from a local chocolatier. I bought it knowing that some of the chocolates have alcohol (not my thing), so scruloose is kindly helping me with those ones. We split today's spiced rum ganache.

(This is the Advent candle I have.)

**Probably tomorrow we'll find out if we're getting a refund for the price difference between the Advent calendar we ordered or if they're shipping the correct item out to us (it's the same calendar

scruloose got last year, so they know they like it, and they're not attached to having tasty booze chocolates only on intended days). The person who answered my email about it--VERY promptly--asked which we'd prefer, and our answer was "it depends on whether having one shipped will mean another shipping charge". Either is fine, and it was a very understandable mistake, given the name of what we ordered and the name of what arrived.

Reading update: I'm moving right along with Murderbot. I did opt for chronological order (except I didn't read the first [chronologically] short story until after finishing Exit Strategy, and I'm now partway into Network Effect. After the short stories, I discovered that I don't own Fugitive Telemetry, even though I have everything else. Thankfully, I was spared paying sudden full price for its ebook by finding that our library system has the ebook and it was miraculously available when I needed it! (When I checked it back in the very next day, there was already someone waiting for it.)

I can't keep the titles straight for the life of me, other than "the first one is All Systems Red and the second one is the other title that starts with 'A'." I've just had the series Goodreads tab open on my phone for a week so I can ID the next installment every time I finish one.

I keep forgetting to mention that the

sid_guardian comm is doing a readalong of the novel--two chapters per post (going by the chapter count/breaks in the official English version), and the most recent post is ch. 7-8 of the first book.

I'm currently intending to stick to lurking rather than participating at all (because reasons), but I'm enjoying reading the discussions so far.

Speaking of things I'm not participating in: the annual fandom love meme is happening now, and even though (AFAIK?) comments are all anonymous anyway, I feel the usual need to say "hey, friends, I'm not participating, but it's not that I don't love you!" Even the thought of going near it sends my anxiety through the roof. I'm glad it's such a good thing for so many people, though.

(My anxiety contains multitudes. This particular thing is snared in the same tangle that means I never participate when people say "I'm sending cards! Give me your address if you want one!" [again, that obviously works for a lot of people, which is nice to see], and that makes my birthday a bit of a minefield for me. Brains! So great! Everyone loves brains!)

Current Mood: okay

redbird

We had company yesterday: Alan and Jeanne, who are visiting from California, and Elly, who they are staying with. Alan is one of my oldest friends; I met him at a party in

roadnotes' apartment in 1983 (so, more than 40 years ago). I've known Elly almost as long, and she lived next door to us for several years; I've "only" known Jeanne for about half that long.

We had the party with food, and without masks: everyone took covid tests Saturday morning, and we opened one kitchen and one living room window for ventilation with a bit of a cross-breeze, and ran two air purifiers. (Normally, one of them sits in Adrian's room.)

Good conversation, about a variety of topics, some more serious than others--some life catch-up, which included both health and health health insurance, and random other topics including travel, cats, memorably bad weather, and geography, both natural and the built environment (mostly streets and street names, not fanous or unusual buildings).

Molly was delighted by the open window, and by attention from more people.

We had pizza delivered for dinner, from Veggie Crust. At Elly's suggestion, we tried the portobello mushroom pizza with pistachio pesto. The pesto tasted mostly of basil, but it's a good combination, which we may get again.

Adrian baked chocolate chip pumpkin bread, and Elly made a custard pie. The pie is very rich, and I realized a few minutes after our friends left that the pie was still in our fridge. I'm not even going to try to finish it, because it's very rich (neither Cattitude nor Adrian can eat it, because there's a lot of cream in the custard).

[We have spent today quietly at home, by ourselves, because even the best socializing can be tiring.]

musesfool

Rabbit, rabbit!

Baby Miss L's birthday party was fun, though she was not particularly into it to start. After some baby tylenol to ease her teething pains, she got more into the spirit. It was a dinosaur themed party and she worse an adorable dress with a pink dinosaur on the top and a pink tutu for the skirt.

The cupcakes worked out, though my ganache solidified more quickly than I expected, so I ended up using a spoon to frost them instead of dipping them. *hands*

The ride home made me very sleepy and I'm considering just going to bed now, but I probably won't. I don't wanna work in the morning.

*

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: San Fran vs Buffalo

astrogirl

Time, inexplicably, keeps right on marching on, faster than ever, and somehow it's already December, so here is the November book log. There's enough stuff here where I kind of found myself going, "eh, it just didn't quite live up to my expectations" that I'm kind of wondering if it's the books or if it's me, but then, I already wonder that a lot even about the books I like, so whatever.

One change here is that I've stopped including links to the books on Amazon here, something I honestly don't know why I was still doing, anyway. You know how to look up books if you're interested in them, and Amazon hardly needs the traffic from me.

( 76. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison )

( 77. The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager )

( 79. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 edited by Diana Gabaldon )

( 80. Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton )

( 81. On Record: 1983 by G. Brown )

( 82. Gravity Falls: Lost Legends by Alex Hirsch )

( 83. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout )

Karl T.

Fiction

Oh, honestly!

H.R. 9495 and the OTW

lambrequin

Playing with the boys

"Holidays are about light at the darkest time of the year"

Forgotten souls, we can't lose aim.

Writing goals for December

(no subject)

Ghosts don't even try to haunt me

I’m new here.

And life returns to some kind of normal...

Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for Mon, 02 Dec 2024

Burlesque Picture of the Day, 2024-12-01: Ariyana LaFey!

Back on the Inkvent posts

Anime Autumn Week 9

Sunday-night mishmash: Advent begins | Murderbot progress | Guardian novel PSA | Anxiety

visit from old friends

bowling balls, shirtless, tables, you name it

November Book Log

Profile

December 2023

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