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Wintertime Woes Post-Deadline Pinch Hits Due Jan 17

Event:

wintertime_woes_exchange, an exchange for unhappy endings
Requirements: 500 words, or a sketch on unlined paper
Pinch hit link: https://wintertime-woes-exchange.dreamwidth.org/5688.html
Due date:January 17, 11:59PM UTC

~~PH 5 - fic - Thunderbolts (Movie 2025), Moon Knight (TV 2022), Dragon Age (Video Games)~~

PH 6 - fic - Deltarune (Video Game), Team Fortress 2, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison, Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon), The Electric State (2025)
https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/wintertimewoes2025/user/Kaz3313

To claim, please comment at the pinch hit post linked above, or email wintertime.woes.exchange@gmail.com. Thank you very much!

Entry tags:

books

Leech, by Hiron Ennes

I was so disappointed by this book.

Part of this is on me: I had somehow gotten it in my head this was modern day and was looking forward to seeing how "hivemind took over the entire medical profession undetected" aspect of the premise would play out. The setting is not modern day, it's set some indeterminate amount of time (over 500 years) after some sort of apocalypse (fair, and an interesting setting itself) and people are aware to varying degrees aware that there is Something Wrong TM with the Institute.

The main part of the disappointment is that the book keeps bringing up concepts and then... Not Doing Anything with them. Spoilers from here on out. Our PoV character loses access to the hivemind fairly early on. Helen's miscarriages and/or the twins having supernatural powers never goes anywhere. The baron seems aware that he is hosting pseudomycota and even might be working with it? Let's never speak of this again! The idea that "If you’re born in Verdira, you die in Verdira" is brought up and we get told what happens is someone born there tries to leave, but that goes nowhere. /End spoilers

It is so disappointing and frustrating. It all just goes fucking nowhere!

Also I found the written accent annoying.

I did enjoy the hivemind parts, I guess.

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podfic,
podfic:bts

BTS podfic: More Hesitation

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2026,
challenge 06

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #6

Introduction Post* Meet the Mods Post Challenge #1 * Challenge #2* Challenge #3* Challenge #4* Challenge #5 *

Sorry for the delay! It's been... a day. But no matter! Hopefully you had some time to catch up, to talk with new friends... or to nap. 😍

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 #6 ) 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

Current Mood: accomplished

Success!

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Current Mood: quixotic
Current Music: some ambient drone

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sticky: media eaten in 2026

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birding,
ccc

1/11/2026 Valle Vista Staging Area Riche Loop

I parked about 9 and was pleasantly surprised that it was not horribly cold. No wind helped, and I went in my jacket over four thin layers (silk, wool, poly, but still). I hadn't been there in well over a year, yikes! It was a lovely morning, but semi solitude even up on Riche Loop didn't last long on a Sunday. I chose Sunday for lack of school traffic and the Loop because I would get a look at the reservoir without going all the way out, but neither worked as well as I'd hoped. But there were Western Bluebirds in the parking lot and California Thrashers were singing, and I was quite happy. ( The list: )

A pair of coyotes were hunting at the bottom of the trail where it most closely approaches the reservoir, but I waited and moved slowly, and they each wandered away from the trail enough for me to pass. I'd thought that after I walked the Loop I'd take the other trail at least to the bridge, but there were so many people by then I went home. I'll try to go again soon, school traffic be damned.

NFL playoffs

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Entry tags:

watched: the residence

🎬 The Residence: Created by Paul William Davies. With Uzo Aduba, Giancarlo Esposito, Molly Griggs, Ken Marino. Inside the White House's staff residence and the lives which workers share with the First Family. 🔗

Binge rewatched The Residence today and I liked it much more this time around (tho I still think it's a bit too long).

In my first watch, I was too anxious to get to the solution and it became frustrating when they went on tangents. Knowing the solution and watching it again was much more fun. I enjoyed the humor more and caught some things about the murder motive that I missed the first time around.

I wish they'd do another season, or even a movie! I love the Cordelia Cupp character.

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tv:babylon 5

B5 color theorizing

I FOUND IT AGAIN. I read a post on Tumblr a while back on a particularly nicely done instance of color symbolism with Londo on B5, and I finally found it. (More beneath the cut.)

( Spoilers for the whole show )

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tree trunk library

We were walking the dogs yesterday and I took a photo that got 405 favorites and 226 boosts on Mastodon:
( A little free library in a tree trunk, and the book I took from it )

Neighborhoods always feel better with Little Free Libraries.

[ SECRET POST #6946 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6946 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 46 secrets from Secret Submission Post #992.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Current Mood: accomplished

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Snowflake Challenge: #4 Rec

An old-fashioned ornament of two young girls bundled up in coats and walking side by side is nestled amidst pine boughs.

Snowflake Challenge, #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page

YouTube recommended this to me last night and it was the last thing I watched before bed so I think this counts:

Watch on YouTube

I'm a little sad that a protest song from 1966 still feels so relevant. (YouTube recommended this just after I watched a modern protest song about ICE.)

Also, it's always weird to see John Denver without glasses. His glasses were so iconic, I think of them as a part of him.

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Romancing McShep Happy-ending Fest 2026

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snowflake challenge: 2026

Snowflake Challenge #3

Challenge #3: Fandom Love Letter

A total cheat. This is not my love letter, but New York Times reporter Taffy Brodesser-Akner's. The entire article (sans photos) is behind the cut. It’s also HERE, hopefully as a gift link.

( Why on Earth Have I Seen the Same Broadway Show 13 Times? An Investigation )

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A Prayer for the Crown Shy, by Becky Chambers

Mosscap and Dex's adventures continue from where they left off. They visit human places, including Dex's large and confusing family. Mosscap has a brush with mortality. Dex does not return to being a tea monk, their vocation still up in the air.

I enjoyed this novella for much the same reasons I enjoyed the first one, though I missed the tea service, which was my favorite part of the first book. Mosscap does turn out to be fallible and learns from Dex as much as Dex learns from it, which was nice. My favorite part of this book was the glimpses of the world, which still seems like an extremely nice place to live in.

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2026 Three Sentence Ficathon

it's [almost] heeeeeeeeerrrre

threesentenceficathon begins 17 January.

Schedule is here.

Dust off those prompts!

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snowpocalypse

also have not finished reading one (1) actual book this year so far though i have purchased sixteen

Friday morning we had about 8-10cm of snow and public transport wasn't running, so I worked from home. All the main roads around me were clear pretty much throughout, but side roads etc didn't get clear - and then everything half-melted and refroze so anywhere that still had snow got pretty miserable. The pavements on my way to church yesterday had about 3-4cm of lumpy ice, and it was not a fun time, although it also didn't feel particularly dangerous as long as I walked carefully.

At ten minutes before Mass we had six people in the building including me, the priest, and one other altar server. As we went in we'd hit about twenty, and by the end of the homily we were up to 45, which is a bit under half the usual number (although there were a lot of unfamiliar faces, possibly coming to a closer church than they would usually attend?). I was very surprised by the number of latecomers; I left home half an hour earlier than usual, to be sure of getting there OK, and it's not like anyone didn't know there was ice everywhere. I can understand not coming in those conditions, but just, idk, leaving at the usual time? that seems weird to me!

Anyway, it's warmed up a lot today and has been raining for a couple of hours; remnants of the packed ice will no doubt hang around for a while, but hopefully most of the pavements will be more-or-less clear tomorrow morning when I leave for work.

Dad's off to France again this week, so I'm back over there next Monday for the week. My chances of ever catching up with the laundry are receding into the distance and I'm starting to feel stressed about the weekend after, since I'll be there until Sunday morning, then into a double choir rehearsal, then back in the office on the Monday. Probably it will be fine but I need to do a lot of thinking about food planning etc at some point this week. I was having such a nice relaxing time too!!!

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Pegasus Bridge, Normandy

The spousal unit and I spent 5 days in Normandy, France last year touring D-Day sites as well as Mont Saint Michel and a bit of Paris. We stayed in Bayeux (Tapestry!) and spent two days touring the British and Canadian becahes and sites, and then the American sites. We were able to go back and spend a full day at Pegasus Bridge and the Merville Gun Battery.

We had lunch at the Ham and Jam creperie right across the street from the sadly closed Gondree Cafe. It's so sad now to think of the US going to war with its French and British allies because Drump psychologically needs to invade Greenland.

NGL it was awesome to see the inspiration for my stories in real life and to realized that yeah, I got pretty damned close. I cried a few times, thinking of how much I wrote, how hard I worked at it, and wondering if I would ever get that again. Wonderful. And so personally devastating too.

A few pics below.

Château de Bénouville

Posters on Av. du Commandant Kieffer, Bénouville, France which crosses the Caen Canal where the original Pegasus Bridge stood and Operation Tonga

Major John Howard Avenue, Pegasus Bridge Sign, and Marker where Horsas crashed

Wally Parr's Number 1 gun "I didn't know it was going to be a quiet war."

Ultra report on Operation Tonga

And last, the gravesite of Lt. Den Brotheridge (maybe not the first casualty of D-Day). As it turns out, there's a very different tradition between American vs Canadian/British fallen. Americans are collected in single, solemn, uniform sites; Canadian and Britsh are interred where they fell. So Normandy is dotted with scores of tiny church graveyards with Canadians and British who died there.

The stained glass windows throughout Normandy churches, including the cathedral in Bayeux, are a mix of traditional Catholic iconography and signs and insignias of the D-Day operations, including parachutes, flying horses, St George and the Dragon, eagles, and service insignia, all in stained glass.

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On the way out

No, don't panic (if you're still here and reading) not out, out as in dead. but on Tumblr someone commented, essentially, whoa, rthstewart is retiring? I didn't know she was that old. Yep. I'm old. Yep, I'm retiring 12/31/26 and will return to fic and chasing wolves and bears in American national parks. I am reminded of the Bujold quote, "Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards". None of those really apply. In my field, reputation probably matters more than honor and if I don't stop soon, I won't outlive the bastards.

( about health )

Once you reach a certain age, I think we'd like to think there will be parties, balloons, and celebration of a 40+ year career. That there will be some sort of capstone. But, that doesn't seem to be the reality. ( short work blather )

So that's all the news here.

In other news, I realized I never shared a particular highlight. I finally made it to Normandy! It was magical. I'll post some pics of my time (2 DAYS) at Pegasus Bridge, Bénouville.

Here are two pics of the doggos! Kili and my Christmas present, Big Book of Bread, which is fabulous

.

And Kili and Komo at Christmas