delphi: An illustrated crow kicks a little ball of snow with a contemplative expression. (Default)
[personal profile] delphi
[personal profile] kingstoken's 2026 Book Bingo: First Person POV

The Red Chesterfield by Wayne Arthurson is a 2019 crime novella (with a touch of magical realism) about a bylaw enforcement officer, M, who finds a body while investigating an abandoned chesterfield. The incident leaves M shaken and drawn into more than one mystery as the chesterfield keeps appearing and a regular on M's route disappears. But the book is less interested in answering "whodunnit" than it is with looking at characters' decisions about getting involved in crime and drama and how priorities around family, romantic relationships, career, community, truth and justice can shift the usual narrative shape of the genre.

This is one of those books that I want to take apart with a little eyeglass screwdriver to see how it works. It's an absolute marvel of efficiency. It's only 99 pages (that exact number being by design, I suspect) with large text and several half-page chapters, but it's packed with story. It covers a lot of ground without feeling like it's moving as fast as it is. We get to know so much about who M is as a person but from a deep enough position that we skip a lot of high-level markers or exposition. This story is built on implication and inference, and the reader's principally assigned to solving the protagonist rather than the plot.

I really enjoyed this one, and I'm looking forward to checking out the author's other work.

An Excerpt )

Instant vid rec.

Friday, 23 January 2026 03:21 pm
goodbyebird: Community: Shirley and Anna bump fists. (Community fistbump)
[personal profile] goodbyebird
The Black Phone is a film that's vaguely been on my list of things to see for a few years now, but I never got around to it. This vid slaps though! Highly recommend watching with the lights dimmed and headphones on. Such good build and atmosphere.

House by [personal profile] evewithanapple.

Also, while I'm not in Heated Rivalry fandom, I am a fan of excellent vidders. And I know for a fact these vidders are most excellent. *firm nod*

Gimme Sympathy by [personal profile] tafadhali.
We're so close to something better left unknown

Blow by [archiveofourown.org profile] bingeling.
You taste like cigarettes.

Go get your boys!

(and I won't do today's Snowflake Challenge, but you're all awesome and enrich my life in a myriad of ways ❤️)

A Reckoning of Swords 21-23

Friday, 23 January 2026 08:42 am
kalloway: (KoA Arthur 1)
[personal profile] kalloway
A bit of archiving, a lot of something. I realized that despite it being two and a half years since I started the new site, I hadn't moved any of my FFVII fic. Not a bit. I have now moved my two Crisis Core fics and will work on the rest sooner than later. But then again, I also had no Kingdom Hearts until I was nudged. (I think some of it is the sheer size of those categories? And knowing this is still a multi-year effort. Even if I manage five fics (or chapters thereof) a day for an entire year, that's only 1825 items, which is nothing compared to the ~2500-not-counting-chaptered-stuff on AO3 + all the original fic I couldn't post there because AO3 sucks and everything I've written since mid-2023. So, like, catching up is task for the bastard child of Hercules and Sisyphus.)

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned some of the everything about my 2003 NaNo novel, too. How I went to archive it, realized I'd always meant to finish editing and expanding it a bit, but actually re-write it - meant to do it last year and, uh, last year happened. Anyway, dead set on doing it this year! Except the main copy was on the website that's gone. Oh, well, surely it's on my journal! Nope! Okay, to the Wayback Machine! Nope! I dug out the old php files and dumped it into some private entries for my future use.

Main things to do with it:
- less padding smut
- remove friend's cameo character
- words we don't use anymore
- remove some of the real-world canons and substitute some fictional ones*
- tighten up the expies a bit
- yeah idek it just needs a lot and that's okay

*the main reason for this aside from unlimited plot potential with the fictional fandoms is the story is set in 2003 and had plenty of commentary on things like Guilty Gear which made sense in 2003 but are a little jarring in the Year of Our Dude 202X.

I don't know if it'll end up being 50k words still, or shorter or longer. My original thoughts on the story were that it was too short for NaNo, and it possibly was hence a lot of weird padding and things just being... weird.

I also have one KH fic and one FFVII fic that I didn't archive on AO3 for Reasons and I'll have to eventually make decisions with those, too...

Fannish webpage templates

Friday, 23 January 2026 08:24 am
ceu: (mulan)
[personal profile] ceu posting in [community profile] smallweb
I made a template for media/fic recs (depending on what you're looking for) that allows users to select if filters are inclusive or exclusive, and filters automatically for results. It uses Javascript, so if you want to do advanced customizations you might need a little bit of familiarity there. But you don't have to if your needs are pretty similar to the default settings, and I explain (pretty thoroughly, I like to think) how to use the code in the documentation: https://fan.kingdra.net/recs/

Installation is done directly through the live previews, and also available on Github: https://github.com/aroceu/recs-template

Image preview:



This code is usable on Neocities, Nekoweb, and anything similar!

A while back, I also wrote up CSS to make fics downloaded from AO3 as HTML files look prettier. If anyone is importing their fics from AO3 to Neocities/Nekoweb/wherever as HTML files and want to make them look nicer than the default styling, you might be interested: https://fan.kingdra.net/ao3css/

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions, run into any bugs, whatever! ♥

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #12

Friday, 23 January 2026 09:25 am
scribblemoose: (_snowflake 2026)
[personal profile] scribblemoose posting in [community profile] snowflake_challenge
Introduction Post* Meet the Mods Post

Challenge #1*Challenge #2 *Challenge #3*Challenge #4* Challenge #5 * Challenge #6 * Challenge #7 *Challenge #8 * Challenge #9 * Challenge #10 * Challenge #11

Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #12 )

And please do check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.

And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Interview With The Vampire community

Friday, 23 January 2026 10:14 am
goodbyebird: Interview With The vampire: Louis is smoking, literally and metaphorically. (IWTV louis)
[personal profile] goodbyebird posting in [site community profile] dw_community_promo


[community profile] intw_amc is the community for all things Interview With The Vampire on AMC. Come share your squee, theories, recs, and fanworks!

(no subject)

Thursday, 22 January 2026 09:51 pm
marginaliana: Love (Love)
[personal profile] marginaliana
Why can't I be into the gay hockeys? Why must I be tortured by a tiny fandom that was in its prime 10 years ago? And yet the heart wants what the heart wants.

Iceberg (1075 words) by marginaliana
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sorted (Website) RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James Currie/Ben Ebbrell
Characters: James Currie, Ben Ebbrell
Additional Tags: The Last Bite special, bow ties
Summary:

The Last Bite live weekend special: Saturday night, the Community Case Files segment. Drinks before dinner - Kush has made Bloody Marys and given them a ridiculous name. Ben unfastens his bow tie. James has an emotional revelation.

Book review: A Memory Called Empire

Thursday, 22 January 2026 06:04 pm
rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] fffriday
I realized as I was approaching the end of this book that it is the third unfinished series sapphic SFF centering the machinations of an empire that I've read lately (the others being The Locked Tomb and The Masquerade). A Memory Called Empire is the first book in the Teixcalaan series by Arkady Martine (narrated by Amy Landon in the audiobook) and tells the story of Mahit Dzmare, a diplomat from an as-yet-unconquered satellite state of the Teixcalaanli Empire entering her role as ambassador for the first time--after the previous ambassador went radio silent. 

For fans of fantasy politics, I highly recommend this one. Mahit enters a political scene on the cusp of boiling over and is thrown not only into navigating a culture and society she's only ever read about, but having to piece together what her predecessor was doing, why he was doing it, and what happened to him. It's a whirlwind of not knowing who to trust, what to lean on, or where to go.

Martine creates such an interesting world here in Teixcalaan and the mindset of a people who pride themselves on being artists above all and yet exist as ruthless conquerors within their corner of space. Furthermore, Mahit herself is in a fascinating position as someone who's been half in love with this empire since childhood, and yet is all too keenly aware of the threat it poses to her and her home. Mahit does well in Teixcalaan--she loves the poetry and literature they so highly prize, she's able to navigate Teixcalaanli society and see the double meanings everywhere, and she's excited to try her hand at these things. And yet--if she plays her cards wrong, it will end with her home being gobbled up by Empire, and as Mahit herself says: Nothing touched by Empire remains unchanged.

I really enjoyed her characters too--3-Seagrass stole the show for me--and they all have believably varied and grounded views and opinions, with the sorts of blind spots and biases you would expect from people in their respective positions. There's character growth and change too, which is always fun to see, and I'm excited to see how that progresses in the next book.

If I had a complaint, and it's a minor one, it's that the prose is sometimes overly repetitive and explanatory, as if Martine doesn't quite trust her audience to remember things from earlier in the book, or understand what's being implied, which occasionally has the effect of making Mahit look less intelligent than her role would demand. However, it didn't happen often enough that I was truly annoyed, and I think the book gets better about it as it goes on.

On the whole, a fun, exciting read (although it takes its time to set up--expect a slow start!) that left me actually looking forward to my commute for a chance to listen to more. Already checking to see if my library has the next book available.

Recent Reading: A Memory Called Empire

Thursday, 22 January 2026 05:44 pm
rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7
I realized as I was approaching the end of this book that it is the third unfinished series sapphic SFF centering the machinations of an empire that I've read lately (the others being The Locked Tomb and The Masquerade). A Memory Called Empire is the first book in the Teixcalaan series by Arkady Martine (narrated by Amy Landon in the audiobook) and tells the story of Mahit Dzmare, a diplomat from an as-yet-unconquered satellite state of the Teixcalaanli Empire entering her role as ambassador for the first time--after the previous ambassador went radio silent. 

For fans of fantasy politics, I highly recommend this one. Mahit enters a political scene on the cusp of boiling over and is thrown not only into navigating a culture and society she's only ever read about, but having to piece together what her predecessor was doing, why he was doing it, and what happened to him. It's a whirlwind of not knowing who to trust, what to lean on, or where to go.

Martine creates such an interesting world here in Teixcalaan and the mindset of a people who pride themselves on being artists above all and yet exist as ruthless conquerors within their corner of space. Furthermore, Mahit herself is in a fascinating position as someone who's been half in love with this empire since childhood, and yet is all too keenly aware of the threat it poses to her and her home. Mahit does well in Teixcalaan--she loves the poetry and literature they so highly prize, she's able to navigate Teixcalaanli society and see the double meanings everywhere, and she's excited to try her hand at these things. And yet--if she plays her cards wrong, it will end with her home being gobbled up by Empire, and as Mahit herself says: Nothing touched by Empire remains unchanged.

I really enjoyed her characters too--3-Seagrass stole the show for me--and they all have believably varied and grounded views and opinions, with the sorts of blind spots and biases you would expect from people in their respective positions. There's character growth and change too, which is always fun to see, and I'm excited to see how that progresses in the next book.

If I had a complaint, and it's a minor one, it's that the prose is sometimes overly repetitive and explanatory, as if Martine doesn't quite trust her audience to remember things from earlier in the book, or understand what's being implied, which occasionally has the effect of making Mahit look less intelligent than her role would demand. However, it didn't happen often enough that I was truly annoyed, and I think the book gets better about it as it goes on.

On the whole, a fun, exciting read (although it takes its time to set up--expect a slow start!) that left me actually looking forward to my commute for a chance to listen to more. Already checking to see if my library has the next book available.

Dragonfly Cafe

Thursday, 22 January 2026 04:44 pm
olivermoss: (Default)
[personal profile] olivermoss


Laptops in a coffeeshop... like it's ten years ago or something. This place has been around in Portland forever, but I hadn't actually gone until recently. It really feels like stepping back in time, sometimes. The amount of people with earbuds in having phone conversations sometimes is nutty. At least, I hope it's phone conversations with people and not with AI.

Where do you get your coffee beans?

Thursday, 22 January 2026 12:38 pm
firecat: red panda, winking (Default)
[personal profile] firecat
*sigh* I was just reminded that Peet’s Coffee is owned by a larger corporation now (has been for some time). I‘d rather support a smaller company. If you make coffee from ground beans at home, what is your go-to source? Bonus for fair trade and all those other green, good-citizen buzzwords.

A Tale of 2 Vibes

Thursday, 22 January 2026 12:06 pm
olivermoss: (Default)
[personal profile] olivermoss
In last night's post-game interview, here's the screengrab I took of Vince Dunn:


Here's the one the official account went with to promote the interview:


The vibe difference is hilarious to me. Vincess Dunn versus The Dunndertaker

Profile

spindizzy: Cartoon of me wearing a mask and looking tired (Default)
Susan

About

Hi! I'm Susan, I write for [community profile] ladybusiness and The Lesbrary, and I do transcripts for Fangirl Happy Hour.

If you want to throw money at me, I have a patreon!

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

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