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disney

2025 Disneyland Trip #76 (12/8/25)

We went down to Disneyland for dinner tonight. I very foolishly did not get my Disney backpack out of the other car before we took it in for repairs, so I don't have the sip and savor pass for the Festival of Holidays booths, and decided on Disneyland rather than DCA, but that ended up being a bit of a mistake as we got there right before the parade started and the park was suuuuuper crowded because the lower two levels of passholders only have a few more days before being blocked out for the rest of the year.

( Despite the parade crowds, we still had a good time )

(no subject)

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251208.html

Many wonders are visible when flying over the Earth at night.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251208.html

Current Mood: accomplished

Entry tags:

fic,
highlander

FIC: Contingency Lines 1/? (Highlander: the Series)

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Rec: We Better Make a Start (Stranger Things, Steve/Eddie)

It is summer! It is finally, finally summer! I am wearing a cotton dress and the window is open and there's sunshine outside. I slept without a heater on and when I got up in the morning to let the dogs out, I didn't need to grab a jumper against the chill. It is warm and bright and man, November was so grey and chilly I'd almost given up on the sheer happiness that comes from warm weather and fresh air.

Also, we've got through November month end, so it's just three weeks until Christmas break, time for work to slow down and life to be good. (By "slow down", I mean there are still tasks to do but we can take our time, iron out the little issues and turn off the laptop at 5.30pm without guilt or looming deadlines. December really is my favourite time of year.)

...having said that, we're out of dog food so I'll have to go to the shops tonight. Fingers crossed 6pm on a Tuesday will be quiet, because weekend shopping has already hit that Christmas crowds thing where it's all a bit much.

In the spirit of sharing things that bring you joy, I've been enjoying Steve/Eddie Stranger Things stories lately, and I have to rec this one. It was recced by

runpunkrun and it's an absolute joy. Himbo!Steve and teenage make-out sessions and Steve and Robin as BFFs:

We Better Make a Start (11087 words) by thefourthvine
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Himbo Steve Harrington, First Time, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Are Best Friends, Podfic Available
Summary:

As soon as Eddie gets to the counter, Steve turns to him and says, “Back me up here. Kissing is no big deal, right?”

Steve Harrington is talking about kissing. Eddie’s brain shorts out. “Uh,” he says.

And then I discovered this podfic of it, which is an utter delight. I listened to it driving home last night and honestly wished my commute was longer so I could keep listening:

[podfic] We Better Make a Start (45 words) by reena_jenkins
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley
Additional Tags: Podfic, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Post-Season/Series 04, Himbo Steve Harrington, First Time, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Are Best Friends
Summary:

As soon as Eddie gets to the counter, Steve turns to him and says, “Back me up here. Kissing is no big deal, right?”

Steve Harrington is talking about kissing. Eddie’s brain shorts out. “Uh,” he says.

Hyperacute Interdynamics

https://xkcd.com/3178/

Our models fall apart where the three theories overlap; we're unable to predict what happens when a nanometer-sized squirrel eats a grapefruit with the mass of the sun.

https://xkcd.com/3178/

Blorgh?

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Salvage Crew and Pilgrim Machines by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

Salvage Crew and Pilgrim Machines

4/5. A pair of related scifi novels largely narrated by sentient ships in a plausible corporatist space future. The first book is a sort of survival horror first contact situation, and the second is philosophical space exploration and consideration of mortality on the personal and galactic scale.

I like these. They manage that trick of feeling old-fashioned in the best way. Particularly the big ideas exploration book – it’s giving Niven or Vinge or Baxter or similar, except, you know, not variously phobic and -ist. Actually, several of the characters are Buddhist, which offers a really interesting lens on some more classic science fictional topics.

I’m a little suspicious about why these books didn’t take off, TBH. He got buzz early on, then seemed to fall off the map. I’m pretty plugged into new and interesting SFF, and I’ve only heard about him from one person. I have a suspicion this is because he openly talks about how he uses AI. E.g., in the first book here, he had AI generate hundreds of short poems on various themes, and he picked several for his AI ship to “write.” He is transparent about how he prompted and why he did it that way. I suspect this got some sort of AI stink on him, professionally, which is a real shame.

I will also add, they got Nathan Fillion to read the first audiobook. Normally I do not like these celebrity narrators, but actually, it’s kind of brilliant? He has this bro-y cynical depressive emotionalism that hit just right for the ship narrator of that book.

Content notes: Corporate hellscape stuff, body horror.

XRISM Finds Chlorine, Potassium in Cas A

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/casa-lg/

This composite image of the Cassiopeia A (or Cas A) supernova remnant, released Jan. 8, 2024, contains X-rays from Chandra (blue), infrared data from Webb (red, green, blue), and optical data from Hubble (red and white). A study by the XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) spacecraft has made the first-ever X-ray detections of chlorine and potassium in the wreckage.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/casa-lg/

Something old, something new….

Posted by fanhackers-mods

https://fanhackers.tumblr.com/post/802385985750138880

Something old…

Coming together in a hotel ballroom with the rebels in the cause of a women’s art/communication system, the researcher feels a tiny thrill of danger. The community is open to anyone willing to participate, but closed to anyone who might jeer, or worse, blow the whistle. A man in a ten-gallon hat approaches and wants to know what is going on. There is a gleam in his eye: he sees only women about. Not all of them are pretty - some of them are middle-aged, or overweight, or both. They all return his bravado with suspicion.

Lois, in her late forties and looking very prim, looks up from her place at the registration table and smiles the smile of PTA mothers everywhere. “It’s a meeting of a ladies’ literary society,” she answers very properly.

“Mighty nice,” the ten-gallon hat responds.

As he walks away, another voice at the table whispers: “And terrorist society.”

Beneath the grins and the giggles and the pajama party atmosphere, the ladies gathered here know they are engaged in an act of rebellion. They have stolen characters, settings, plots off the home and movie screens, fleshed them out, created new characters for them to love and given the characters permission to love each other.

– Enterprising Women (1992), by Camille Bacon-Smith

Something new…

Technology and art have always existed together, with new technologies like photography (and later Photoshop) being hailed as the death of painting (and later photography), yet all of these forms continue to be used. However, generative AI introduces new questions around creative agency that fans are currently grappling with in terms of, for example, whether a story written by a large language model could be considered a valid form of fan fiction (see Cisternino and Radillo, this issue). Certainly, it is, as we have seen, quite possible to ask these models to produce derivative text that recognizably draws from media sources to transform them into a new text. Chiang (2024) suggests, however, that generative AI is not likely to become a new technological medium for artistic creation in the way that, say, photography is, because it does not allow for creative expression and choice-making as these other technologies do. He suggests that it is not the quality of the output that matters but the intent of the human originator to communicate—something that with AI exists in the prompt but is then filtered, mediated, and diluted by the normalization of the language models. A thousand works of fan fiction may have the same characters, setting, and basic plot, but the choices the author makes reveal something unique about their affective response to the material—something AI cannot do in its current form.

– “Fans and AI: Transformations in fandom and
fan studies” (2025), by Susanne R. Black and Naomi Jacobs

https://fanhackers.tumblr.com/post/802385985750138880

November 2025 Newsletter, Volume 206

Posted by callmeri

https://www.transformativeworks.org/november-2025-newsletter-volume-206/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=273657

I. SPOTLIGHT ON FANLORE

In November, Fanlore ran the Fanlore No Fault November challenge: a catch-up event for earlier badges editors missed! The challenge ran from November 16 to 30, with many editors participating and earning badges from previous months.

Curious about editing Fanlore? Check out the New Visitor Portal and Tutorial for getting started!

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

On November 14, we celebrated AO3’s 16th anniversary! \o/

Accessibility, Design & Technology continued to prepare emails for translation and improved how the download and chapter index menus behave with each other on smaller screens.

AO3 Documentation updated the Contacting the Staff FAQ.

Open Doors finished importing Oz Magi, an Oz annual gift exchange, and Stayka’s Saint Seiya Archive, a Saint Seiya archive. They also shared an annual roundup of the fanzine collections created in the last year for fanworks imported through the Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) and announced the upcoming import of a Harry Potter archive, PhoenixSong.

In October, Policy & Abuse received 5,061 tickets, setting a record high for the third month in a row. Support received 3,043 tickets. Tag Wrangling wrangled over 600,000 tags, or over 1,380 tags per wrangling volunteer.

Tag Wrangling also continues to create new “No Fandom” canonical tags and announced a new batch of tags for November.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

TWC continues to prepare for the two upcoming 2026 special issues: “Disability and Fandom” and “Gaming Fandom”. The submission deadline for the two 2027 special issues, “Music Fandom” and “Latin American Fandoms”, is also quickly approaching on January 1.

In November, the OTW filed an Amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the Supreme Court should clarify the rules surrounding who can challenge a trademark registration application. In a case involving whether someone should own the trademark “Rapunzel” for dolls of the character Rapunzel, the OTW argued that the Trademark Office should consider the interests of the public—including fans—in deciding whether to award private ownership over a word or symbol that may be in the public domain.

Legal also worked with Communications on a news post about recent legislation and have responded to a number of comments and queries on this post and other issues.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board continued work on annual turnover and meeting with all committees. They made progress on the OTW Procurement Policy and expected to get it finalized soon. They, along with the Board Assistants Team, also continued to work with Volunteers & Recruiting and Organizational Culture Roadmap on the ongoing Code of Conduct review.

Development & Membership has been catching up on post-Drive tasks.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

December 5 was International Volunteers Day! As a volunteer-run organization, the OTW would not be possible without the support and diligence of our volunteers. We thank all our volunteers, past and present, for the work they’ve contributed to the OTW.

If you’re curious about volunteering for the OTW, we recruit for various positions on a regular basis, and recruitment will next open in January.

From October 25 to November 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 287 new requests, and completed 270, leaving them with 63 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of November 22, 2025, the OTW has 983 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Fanlore Volunteers: Luana and 2 other Chair-Track Volunteers
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Anderson, Araxie, corr, Aspenfire, Klm, Mothmantic, Nova Deca, vanishinghorizons, and 1 other Volunteer
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: 90Percent Human, Aeon, Alecander Seiler, ambystoma, Astrum, Atlas Oak, batoidea, Bette, Bottle, bowekatan, Bruno, Chaosxvi, Destiny, DogsAreTheBest312, Dream, elia faustus, Ellexamines, Elliott W, Gracey, jacksonwangparty, Jean W, Kalico, Keira Gong, Kiru, lamonnaie, Lavender, Loria, Lucia G, LWynn, Max, Nikki, Nioral, noctilucent, Our Hospitality, Primo, Rie, Salethia, Sapphira, sashene, Schnee, Scylle, sneakyowl, soymilk, Thaddeus, TheCrystalRing, thewritegrump, Water, Wintam, yucca, and 1 other Tag Wrangling Volunteer
New Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator
New TWC Volunteers: Lys Benson (Copyeditor)
New User Response Translation Volunteers: Cesium (Translator)

Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Irina, Paula, and 2 other Import Assistants; 1 Administrative Volunteer, and 1 Fan Culture Preservation Project Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Communications News Post Moderation Liaison
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Julia Santos (Tag Wrangling Supervisor); blackelement7, pan2fel, and 7 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: weliuona and 2 other Translators
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Alisande and 2 other Volunteers

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/november-2025-newsletter-volume-206/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=273657

Entry tags:

Will you be there when the flames are high?

I had an epic, long, convoluted mess of a Wheel of Time dream last night - maybe because I saw a video from the costume exhibit on Insta right before bed idk - clearly this means today's fandom has already been chosen!

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 8

Wheel of Time
the children we once were by

QuickYoke (18, 083 words). Moiraine and Siuan, before the Tower. Both stories gripping tightly. Book!verse. Actually a prequel to a 60k fic, but I'll have to save that treat for later! Rec-Cember waits for no one ;)
When she turns a cramped corner in the crawlspace, a needlepoint of light greets her. It's small as a distant star in an otherwise ink black sky, but it is there. Moiraine shuffles forward and presses with all her might. The sound of a faint click, and an opening in the wall slides up to let her out.

Moiraine squeezes through and collapses on the other side, breathing heavily. When she sneezes, a plume of dust shivers off of her like a second skin. The floor beneath her is polished marble in a deep blue and gold pattern. Moiraine would recognise it anywhere. The air around her seems to hum, as though a glass had been struck with the flat edge of a knife and the sound is forever on the brink of fading. With dread rising in her throat, she looks up and climbs to her feet.

Early afternoon light streams through the windows of the throne room, tall and bursting in radiant patterns to mimic the rays that shine through them. Every surface is polished until it feels like standing upon a pane of glass or perhaps still water. The squared pillars and the arched midnight ceiling reflect perfect inversions of themselves down into the ground, so that it is less like walking through a chamber and more like being hung between the infinite space between mirrors; she is an insect suspended in a sea of abyssal amber.

The throne itself is ensconced atop a low-slung dais. Plain and unadorned but for an enormous disk of pure gold that enshrines the head of whosoever dares sit there in a halo. The chamber is empty, but still she wraps her arms around herself, glancing about for sign of any royal guardsmen lurking in the usual places. There are none.

Entry tags:

cats,
tv

TV, bird tv, fire tv

I intend to watch the three released episodes of Heated Rivalry so I can know what everyone (my wife) is talking about, but I haven't got to it yet. I am obviously spoiled by Tumblr posts but I haven't watched the bits between the gifsets.

I rewatched Derry Girls over the last two weeks while attempting to knit this nephew sweater (made it to first sleeve cuff again, finally!). That show is so good, and it's so frustrating, because there's nothing more that's like it! All the main adult actors are also so good, but none of them have a long back catalogue of other comedy to watch! And of course the writer, Lisa McGee, needs time to write more things.

I have a long list of things I've been intending to watch and rewatch, but it feels like I don't have enough emotional bandwidth, or attention, or something, for starting new long things that are going to be dramatic.

So I've been watching a ton of non fiction instead:

➡️very old Folding Ideas and Hbomberguy videos

➡️Mentour Pilot's back catalog of aviation disaster explainers (previously I was familiar from watching over

waxjism's shoulder)

➡️Defunctland episodes that aren't too Disney-focused (a mention on Tumblr reminded me and I've only seen a few before)

➡️KyleHatesHiking videos about true crime, accidents, and missing persons cases related to hiking and outdoor sports (recommended by my sister last week)

➡️BobbyBroccoli science scandal documentaries (there's a new movie on Nebula, but otherwise I've watched them all before)

Meanwhile Wax is filling our bird feeders (seed and tallow ball) sometimes multiple times a day and the bird traffic is constant. Sipuli will sit by the window watching them like tv. Tristana is happy to sit in a chair facing the woodstove and watch the fire like it's a tv, sometimes for hours.

(no subject)

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251207.html

It is still

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251207.html

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Links are up past their bedtime

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shiny mathy rocks

(no subject)

We're on the final boss fight of the campaign. Said boss is hovering over a deep pit -- bad for melee, unless they have some form of flight.

My character rolls the highest initiative.

She is a L20 owlin monk. She has flight. She also has a) 70 feet of movement per turn, and b) magic items (and a feat) that gives extra damage for distance moved in a straight line just before the attack. Oh, and a potion that does bonus

First roll hit a nat 20.

Rolling 20 means damage dice are doubled; if you would normally do 2d6, on a crit you roll 4d6. Between the damage roll (doubled), the extra monk ability I always like to throw in (also doubled, plus poison for a round), and the bonus damage for straight lines (doubled), I did 119 points of damage.

I also have a feat that says if I get a critical hit, all attacks against that creature have advantage until my next turn.

So... a pretty good start.

I love this character.

(...I got a crit the next turn too.)

Entry tags:

Daily Happiness

1. I walked to the donut shop again this morning and this time tried one of their holiday offerings, a gingerbread donut with biscoff cookie topping. It was really good!

2. The Christmas tree is pretty much finished. If we see some sort of topper we like, we might buy one, but otherwise the decorations are done.

3. Ollie is very curious about what Tuxie is doing out there.

Current Mood: productive
Current Music: Rangers vs Vegas on tv

Entry tags:

adventures in cooking

trying to change momentum

This weekend seemed especially short. I woke up this morning with a headache and spent a couple of hours just lying down with my eyes covered, waiting for the Excedrin to kick in. Then I planned to make cranberry orange scones but my heavy cream was frozen, so that was delayed until it was liquid enough to pour. The funny part is that the recipe wants it to be almost frozen when you use it, but not quite as frozen as mine was.

Anyway, after waiting a bit, I made the scones and they turned out well (pic - that is also my new grey "spatter" pattern quarter sheet pan, lined with parchment).

I didn't make the glaze because I'd planned to sprinkle the scones with cranberry orange sugar, but then I forgot to do that. *hands* They still taste good!

I also made that garlic and bread soup again, but I got distracted and burned my croutons. *sadhair* Soup is still delicious, though. I wish I'd remembered to buy some arugula so I could have soup and salad, but alas, I didn't think of it when I was putting my grocery order together.

Speaking of grocery orders, when did Costco stop selling the 3 lb brick of Philadelphia cream cheese? I need it for the frosting for the red velvet cupcakes for Christmas, but I guess I will have to spend a little more and get what I need from Stop and Shop instead. *hands*

*

Current Music: Nusantara Beat - Tamat

Entry tags:

After I gave you the best 17 days of my life!

Melissa McCarthy hosted SNL again, and as always she was hilarious. Figured I'd share the holiday themed one!

Watch on YouTube

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 7

ST Voyager
Crossing the Line by

orphan_account (1,686 words). Excellent Janeway and Seven of Nine in this. Set after Dark Frontier.
She has leaned on Chakotay before, and taken his arm more times than she can count. She has hugged Kes like a mother, even if Kes is beyond their reach entirely now. She has put a steadying palm on B’Elanna’s shoulder, and leaned over Tom at the controls; she has put her arm around Harry, and placed her hand on Neelix’s as he hands her a mug of coffee. She has collapsed against Tuvok before and wept, deriving comfort of her own from his willingness to be close.

All of this is different, of course. Different relationships, different boundaries. But, in the end, it is the same. She is Captain to these people, but in the Delta quadrant, Captain cannot afford to be synonymous with distance.

The difference with Seven is that she is distant from everyone besides Kathryn. That’s a responsibility.

Entry tags:

fandom: movies

Movies: M3GAN 2.0, Jurassic World Rebirth, Death of a Unicorn

M3GAN 2.0: I really liked this for the relationship between Gemma and Megan alone. I mean, Megan literally being inside of Gemma and controlling her body? Damn. Also Megan's commentary on Gemma's sex life and what gets her hot... They really went there. I love that for this franchise.

Some seriously hilarious moments and some surprsingly good characterization for a franchise horror comedy. Cady's tendency to react violently is still there and that makes so much sense. Gemma and her new work and how lost she is into her work again even though it's something else this time. Her animosity toward Megan; the thing she made, the thing she failed to do correctly.

Also loved the way tech bros were portrayed. Two very different types but with both I was just thinking: Yep, that fits.

Jurassic World Rebirth: It's a solid action movie without much of an emotional impact but some cool characters. Loomis is righteous but not in an annoying way, and I loved how much he loved the dinosaurs. I also liked Xavier: he is an idiot but also brave and fun. And I was a big fan of Bennet being pragmatic as fuck. Dolores is such a cute gimmick but I'm not even sure what she was doing in this story, there was no point in having her. Also, some fun and some very tense moments.

Death of a Unicorn: This movie felt very random and uneven at times, the characters felt meaningless. Still, it had some really fun moments, especially with the staff and the rich family. The whole "unicorns fall over for Ridley"-thing has to be the shittiest survival strategy every portrayed in a movie and the "bring back the dead"-scene at the end was such bullshit. All in all, disappointing with some cool moments.

Entry tags:

The Montessori Child: A Parent's Guide to Raising Capable Children...

The Montessori Child

4/5. What it sounds like, focusing mostly on the 6-12 age range, and a bit on the teenage years. A good survey book that passes lightly over a lot of things and gives good recommendations for where to look for deeper info. The sort of book that will say in passing that of course a child’s gender may not be as a parent wants or expects and a parent should follow the child’s lead. Good information delivered in a paragraph whereas the people who need it the most probably need a full book on it. Useful to me largely in that it made me realize that I already know most of this, at least in general. Good to know some things have stuck after all the parent ed Cb’s montessori school does.