Nature and Bunnies!
Jan. 24th, 2026 04:43 pmThese are all taken with my phone, but some of them turned out okay, and I figure it's a good time for nature and bunnies?
( Ten pictures: Some nature, one cat, one rabbit, the northern lights )
( Ten pictures: Some nature, one cat, one rabbit, the northern lights )
Fandom Snowflake, Challenge #8
Jan. 23rd, 2026 10:18 amChallenge #8
Talk about your creative process.
I... actually do have a creative process? Weird. I've never really thought too hard about it, but here it is:
And then, of course, my actual writing process is um. Literally turn off thinking/editing brain, sit down for a writing session on my "work" laptop for an hour or so, pound out somewhere between 500 and 3,000 words, walk away for a while. Rinse, repeat. I am not very complicated.

Talk about your creative process.
I... actually do have a creative process? Weird. I've never really thought too hard about it, but here it is:
- Have an idea. Where do ideas come from? I do not know. The aether. Wherever. Mostly I think of a situation and go lmao it would be so funny if that happened. "Funny" stands in for many, many different emotions, though. Not necessarily funny things.
- Go for a long drive. No, longer than that. No, even longer. Minimum amount of drive time I need for an idea to percolate enough to write is around 2h. For a short idea/short portion of a longer idea. The longer the idea in general, the longer the drive needs to be. I just need something where I can turn off my brain, and just ruminate, yanno? Nothing else does that for me.
- (Optional) Talk out the idea with a friend. Sometimes if I can't go on a drive this works. Sometimes it doesn't. But this is sooooort of my version of creating an outline. Just a very wordy outline with input from another person. Otherwise, at this point in my life, I do no planning. Just vibes.
- Hope that the idea is sticky enough to still be around when I feel like writing again.
- Eventually my hobbyfocus (get it? get it??) circles back around to writing. So I sit down and write as fast as possible to get as much as possible out of my head before my focus shifts to, idk, knitting.
And then, of course, my actual writing process is um. Literally turn off thinking/editing brain, sit down for a writing session on my "work" laptop for an hour or so, pound out somewhere between 500 and 3,000 words, walk away for a while. Rinse, repeat. I am not very complicated.

Reading Whatever's Day (Holiday Reading Recap, Part II)
Jan. 22nd, 2026 12:17 pmCanada Reads 2026 short list is out. Thoughts? Feelings? I've only read one book and didn't like it. Very excited that Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a champion. I could stare at her face until I die.
Cinder House by Freya Marske
This was getting hyped up by someone at my bookclub, and I probably should've known better (not because they don't have great recs, just that I'm more miss than hit on fairytale retellings), but it was a novella, so I thought I'd give it a go. I indeed should've known better.
It's a cute idea: the step mother murders both Cinderella and her father on the first page, and the rest of the story is about Cinderella's ghost haunting the house. I appreciated a lot of the little twists on the story (which seemed pretty closely linked to the Disney version, but I also haven't read a tonne of other versions, so maybe not). There's some neat worldbuilding around how society treats magic, and the author did a good job incorporating the history and politics of the country without info dumping. I liked how the glass slippers worked.
Unfortunately, I had a difficult time connecting with it, and I'm trying to work out how to describe why. The story had a certain smugness to it, maybe? Like it was aware that it was telling the version of the story that would appeal to someone who thought a bisexual ghost polycule was the solution to every love triangle, where of course the other woman was a secret badass, because this is the kind of story that has Awesome Women who Subvert Tropes. Which is something that I ought to enjoy, and have enjoyed in other contexts, but not here. Maybe it was just that it should've been a novel with a few more subplots to hold it up, but either way the emotional beats never felt all that earned to me. What should've been crowning moments of awesome kept feeling like they were happening because this was the kind of story where they had to happen? It's all very clever, but never felt like it had any grounding in real emotion.
I thought this was a first outing, but it looks like Marske has written a bunch, so maybe she's just not my thing.
Leave Our Bones Where They Lay by Aviaq Johnston
Found this in a library display of books advertised as short reads to help you make your year-end goal, which made me laugh.
Short stories set inside a framing device: every season, an Inuit man travels into the wilderness to meet with a monster, and every season he must tell the monster a story. As he grows older, he struggles to find an heir to continue the tradition, but his immediate family is shattered, and won't go, so he ends up leaning on a young granddaughter. The stories are a mix of twists on traditional Inuit legends, and contemporary snippets of life in the high arctic, with or without supernatural elements.
The chapters are also interspersed with line art of traditional Inuit tools, and beautiful full page black and white photographs of lichen. It's physically a really beautiful book.
Both the frame and the stories examine how colonisation has affected Inuit society, and the ways families and individuals figure out how to recover their culture and even thrive. There's a mix of horror, humour, and quiet sadness. Johnson had originally published some of the short stories independently, so there isn't an explicit connection between the stories and the frame. However, they are arranged so that the stories fit with who's telling them, and match the tone of the frame story, so it never felt cludged together.
I loved the conclusion, and finding out who the monster was, and why we were telling it stories, and the tender relationships between all the characters. Really beautiful, hope Johnson keeps publishing.
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by Kate Reading
Third time through this (maybe fourth?), and I still get new things out of it every reread.
Our heroine is middle-aged mother who has recently been freed from a curse, and now has to figure out if she's going to take another shot at having a life, or if she's just going to sink back into helplessness (which is a valid choice, considering how the rest of her life has gone!). She goes on pilgrimage, mostly to get out of the house, and then the gods get involved.
It's all about trying to figure out how to make choices, especially when your history with making them has been utterly catastrophic. It's also coming to understand that the narrative of your life has been told by other people, and maybe they didn't have your best interests at heart, even when they said they did. I also love how unrepentantly horny our heroine is. She hasn't gotten laid in a good twenty years, and is starting to think she should do something about that.
There are also a handful of beats about how women navigate in a patriarchal society, for good or ill, that largely avoid the way that a lot of books in these settings shame women for wanting power. Some characters we initial dismiss turn out to be capable of heroism, if someone thinks to ask it of them.
I just really love this duology.
Wounded Christmas Wolf by Lauren Esker
(Know the author disclaimer.)
A new series, with slightly different rules for the shapeshifters, which I enjoyed, and am interested in seeing how it builds out in future books.
I enjoyed how cheerfully over the top the set up was, with a family matriarch who was so into Christmas that the kids all have Christmas-themed names, and there's aggressively Christmas-themed cabins on the property, which is also a Christmas tree farm. And that the natural reaction to the relatively normal-person hero is, "Holy cow, this is all a lot." Which it was, and all the characters admitted it was, but we're just rolling with it now.
We have a classic Esker hero who's not sure where his place is in the world, or if he has one. He's got a whole traumatic backstory to heal from, and just falling in love isn't going to be enough to fix him. (I thought the fire theme could've used a little more set up). And a heroine who's also at loose ends and second guessing herself. The sparking romance built naturally around their foibles and hesitations, and was really sweet. I liked what we met of the rest of the family, especially the heroine's dad, and look forward to them getting their own books.
This was getting hyped up by someone at my bookclub, and I probably should've known better (not because they don't have great recs, just that I'm more miss than hit on fairytale retellings), but it was a novella, so I thought I'd give it a go. I indeed should've known better.
It's a cute idea: the step mother murders both Cinderella and her father on the first page, and the rest of the story is about Cinderella's ghost haunting the house. I appreciated a lot of the little twists on the story (which seemed pretty closely linked to the Disney version, but I also haven't read a tonne of other versions, so maybe not). There's some neat worldbuilding around how society treats magic, and the author did a good job incorporating the history and politics of the country without info dumping. I liked how the glass slippers worked.
Unfortunately, I had a difficult time connecting with it, and I'm trying to work out how to describe why. The story had a certain smugness to it, maybe? Like it was aware that it was telling the version of the story that would appeal to someone who thought a bisexual ghost polycule was the solution to every love triangle, where of course the other woman was a secret badass, because this is the kind of story that has Awesome Women who Subvert Tropes. Which is something that I ought to enjoy, and have enjoyed in other contexts, but not here. Maybe it was just that it should've been a novel with a few more subplots to hold it up, but either way the emotional beats never felt all that earned to me. What should've been crowning moments of awesome kept feeling like they were happening because this was the kind of story where they had to happen? It's all very clever, but never felt like it had any grounding in real emotion.
I thought this was a first outing, but it looks like Marske has written a bunch, so maybe she's just not my thing.
Leave Our Bones Where They Lay by Aviaq Johnston
Found this in a library display of books advertised as short reads to help you make your year-end goal, which made me laugh.
Short stories set inside a framing device: every season, an Inuit man travels into the wilderness to meet with a monster, and every season he must tell the monster a story. As he grows older, he struggles to find an heir to continue the tradition, but his immediate family is shattered, and won't go, so he ends up leaning on a young granddaughter. The stories are a mix of twists on traditional Inuit legends, and contemporary snippets of life in the high arctic, with or without supernatural elements.
The chapters are also interspersed with line art of traditional Inuit tools, and beautiful full page black and white photographs of lichen. It's physically a really beautiful book.
Both the frame and the stories examine how colonisation has affected Inuit society, and the ways families and individuals figure out how to recover their culture and even thrive. There's a mix of horror, humour, and quiet sadness. Johnson had originally published some of the short stories independently, so there isn't an explicit connection between the stories and the frame. However, they are arranged so that the stories fit with who's telling them, and match the tone of the frame story, so it never felt cludged together.
I loved the conclusion, and finding out who the monster was, and why we were telling it stories, and the tender relationships between all the characters. Really beautiful, hope Johnson keeps publishing.
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by Kate Reading
Third time through this (maybe fourth?), and I still get new things out of it every reread.
Our heroine is middle-aged mother who has recently been freed from a curse, and now has to figure out if she's going to take another shot at having a life, or if she's just going to sink back into helplessness (which is a valid choice, considering how the rest of her life has gone!). She goes on pilgrimage, mostly to get out of the house, and then the gods get involved.
It's all about trying to figure out how to make choices, especially when your history with making them has been utterly catastrophic. It's also coming to understand that the narrative of your life has been told by other people, and maybe they didn't have your best interests at heart, even when they said they did. I also love how unrepentantly horny our heroine is. She hasn't gotten laid in a good twenty years, and is starting to think she should do something about that.
There are also a handful of beats about how women navigate in a patriarchal society, for good or ill, that largely avoid the way that a lot of books in these settings shame women for wanting power. Some characters we initial dismiss turn out to be capable of heroism, if someone thinks to ask it of them.
I just really love this duology.
Wounded Christmas Wolf by Lauren Esker
(Know the author disclaimer.)
A new series, with slightly different rules for the shapeshifters, which I enjoyed, and am interested in seeing how it builds out in future books.
I enjoyed how cheerfully over the top the set up was, with a family matriarch who was so into Christmas that the kids all have Christmas-themed names, and there's aggressively Christmas-themed cabins on the property, which is also a Christmas tree farm. And that the natural reaction to the relatively normal-person hero is, "Holy cow, this is all a lot." Which it was, and all the characters admitted it was, but we're just rolling with it now.
We have a classic Esker hero who's not sure where his place is in the world, or if he has one. He's got a whole traumatic backstory to heal from, and just falling in love isn't going to be enough to fix him. (I thought the fire theme could've used a little more set up). And a heroine who's also at loose ends and second guessing herself. The sparking romance built naturally around their foibles and hesitations, and was really sweet. I liked what we met of the rest of the family, especially the heroine's dad, and look forward to them getting their own books.
Fandom Snowflake, Challenge #7
Jan. 22nd, 2026 11:18 amChallenge #7
LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.
Thanks! I hate it!
Okay, if this were like five years ago I literally would not be able to do this. But you know what? I'm turning 40 this year and I am pretty fucking great. Other people might not see that, but who cares because I know it as a truth.
So. First thing: I am great at writing banter. I love that I am great at writing banter. Short, long, whatever. Look at this shit: [link to GYWO comment], [link to another GYWO comment] [realizing no one can see those links if they're not also doing GYWO]
( Okay fine, have two examples under here. )
Second thing I like about myself: I'm a fucking amazing knitter. You want it, I can knit it. Cables, lace, whatever.
( Have a selection of my projects over the years )
Third thing: my body is pretty great. It's doing it's best, and even though it's best is sometimes not great, I still love it. I'm reaching the point where I'm not healing from injuries as well, but that's okay too because again, it's doing its best. So, yeah. No pictures or anything for this one.

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.
Thanks! I hate it!
Okay, if this were like five years ago I literally would not be able to do this. But you know what? I'm turning 40 this year and I am pretty fucking great. Other people might not see that, but who cares because I know it as a truth.
So. First thing: I am great at writing banter. I love that I am great at writing banter. Short, long, whatever. Look at this shit: [link to GYWO comment], [link to another GYWO comment] [realizing no one can see those links if they're not also doing GYWO]
( Okay fine, have two examples under here. )
Second thing I like about myself: I'm a fucking amazing knitter. You want it, I can knit it. Cables, lace, whatever.
( Have a selection of my projects over the years )
Third thing: my body is pretty great. It's doing it's best, and even though it's best is sometimes not great, I still love it. I'm reaching the point where I'm not healing from injuries as well, but that's okay too because again, it's doing its best. So, yeah. No pictures or anything for this one.

CONfab 2026 is official!
Jan. 21st, 2026 06:09 am
CONfab 2026 will be held in-person in Chicago, IL at the Springhill Suites Chicago O'Hare from October 22-25, 2026! More information about pricing, registration, and programming to come. We're really looking forward to seeing you in Chicago this fall!
Fandom Snowflake, Challenge #6
Jan. 20th, 2026 02:30 pmChallenge #6
Top 10 Challenge.
I can't even think of ten things that I eat regularly??? Never even mind fandom things??? Shit.
Top 10 Reasons to Watch Debris (and Write Me Fic)
- I love it, which, really, should be all you need to know because my taste is impeccable.
- It's bad scifi, but in the fun kind of way.
- There is so much chemistry between Bryan and Finola.
- There are so many secrets.
- Nothing is explained. Like ever. It is ripe for fic explaining things.
- The episodes are so totally out of order. I refuse to believe anything else. You, too, can join me in this conspiracy theory and try to sort out a reasonable order.
- I can watch it while I'm high. Most TV shows and movies and youtube and everything, when I'm high, I get intensely aware that everyone is acting. Like it ruins my suspension of disbelief so bad. There are two (2) shows I can rewatch when I'm high without my suspension of disbelief being ruined, and one of them is Debris.
- The ending is so open. So so so open. It is primed for another season or like. So much fic speculating where they were going.
- Multiverse shenanigans. Just, I can not describe them without major spoilers, but you will know it when you see it and you, too, will be like muchsthescream.jpg.
- The story of the penguin and the soldier. It will make you insane. You will listen to it and it will forever change your brain pathways. It will live rent-free in your head for all time.
Okay uh that was easier than I thought.

Fandom Snowflake, Challenge #5
Jan. 19th, 2026 10:43 amChallenge #5
In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your wishlist if you feel comfortable doing so.
Oh boy oh boy, a wishlist! I am so good at those! My brain does not immediately go blank when asked to compose one!
Okay, a selfish thing I want: art for each chapter of my & my friend's Lucifer hitman!au. I'm slowly working on commissioning it, and I've got I think three? Four? Chapters done. But slowly is the key word here and man is it expensive to commission art and like. Actually pay the artist fairly!
A less selfish wish: More! Debris! Fic! Give me more Debris fic! Long fic! Plotty fic! I am d e s p e r a t e for more Debris fic, especially fic that continues the story. Give me all the post-canon fic in the world. I just. I loved that show so much. The story of the penguin and the soldier makes me insane. I forget about the back half of the season all the time because that two-parter felt like a finale. I am convinced the episodes are out of order and if I just watch it enough times I can put them in an order that makes the developing relationship between Bryan and Finola make sense. I start rewatching every time I get high because that is all my high brain thinks about. It aired in March 2021 and I am still obsessed, almost five years later. Please god someone write me fic.
A third thing. Hmmm. I would like fandom to go back to feeling more interactive. It feels like before AO3 kudos became a thing, and we didn't have hit counters, that more people commented on fic even if they were just tiny short comments. It feels like people replied to day-in-the-life posts/tweets/whatever more. It feels like there were more conversations and less shouting into the void, regardless of whether it was you as the OP or you replying to someone else.
And I'm using "feels" deliberately here because it probably isn't true!! It probably isn't true. Fandom is bigger than ever, so it really can't be true, I don't think. But it sure does feel true! And, in the end, that is what is important to me. Feelings may not be facts but I think in lowstakes situations like this it's okay if they are.

In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your wishlist if you feel comfortable doing so.
Oh boy oh boy, a wishlist! I am so good at those! My brain does not immediately go blank when asked to compose one!
Okay, a selfish thing I want: art for each chapter of my & my friend's Lucifer hitman!au. I'm slowly working on commissioning it, and I've got I think three? Four? Chapters done. But slowly is the key word here and man is it expensive to commission art and like. Actually pay the artist fairly!
A less selfish wish: More! Debris! Fic! Give me more Debris fic! Long fic! Plotty fic! I am d e s p e r a t e for more Debris fic, especially fic that continues the story. Give me all the post-canon fic in the world. I just. I loved that show so much. The story of the penguin and the soldier makes me insane. I forget about the back half of the season all the time because that two-parter felt like a finale. I am convinced the episodes are out of order and if I just watch it enough times I can put them in an order that makes the developing relationship between Bryan and Finola make sense. I start rewatching every time I get high because that is all my high brain thinks about. It aired in March 2021 and I am still obsessed, almost five years later. Please god someone write me fic.
A third thing. Hmmm. I would like fandom to go back to feeling more interactive. It feels like before AO3 kudos became a thing, and we didn't have hit counters, that more people commented on fic even if they were just tiny short comments. It feels like people replied to day-in-the-life posts/tweets/whatever more. It feels like there were more conversations and less shouting into the void, regardless of whether it was you as the OP or you replying to someone else.
And I'm using "feels" deliberately here because it probably isn't true!! It probably isn't true. Fandom is bigger than ever, so it really can't be true, I don't think. But it sure does feel true! And, in the end, that is what is important to me. Feelings may not be facts but I think in lowstakes situations like this it's okay if they are.

Links Lists: The Angry Political One
Jan. 18th, 2026 04:30 pmMostly posting these without commentary.
Uncategorised Stuff:
CCF: Anger is beautiful. Anger is generative. Anger is ancestral. By Chantelle Ohrling, a justifiably angry defender of Turtle Island.
dolorosa_12: Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure: suggestions for concrete actions.
Technology and Media Criticism: ( L.L.M. slop, gender-based violence, transphobia. )
Canadian News That's Pissing Me Off ( Various human rights violations. )
The United States Immigration Stuff: ( No images of violence, but cutting for folks already burned out. )
Uncategorised Stuff:
CCF: Anger is beautiful. Anger is generative. Anger is ancestral. By Chantelle Ohrling, a justifiably angry defender of Turtle Island.
Technology and Media Criticism: ( L.L.M. slop, gender-based violence, transphobia. )
Canadian News That's Pissing Me Off ( Various human rights violations. )
The United States Immigration Stuff: ( No images of violence, but cutting for folks already burned out. )
Links Lists: The Fandom Recs and Fun Stuff Edition
Jan. 17th, 2026 08:25 pm(I've got so many links right now I'm splitting it up. The depressing shit one to follow in the next few days.)
magnavox_23: The One With All The Icons From All The Fandoms...
These are gorgeous! All the fandoms being: Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, Doctor Who, Xena: Warrior Princess, Reservation Dogs, Star Trek TOS, Heated Rivalry, Hazbin Hotel, Hellava Boss & What We Do In The Shadows...
With the Dawn by
SweetSorcery
Fandom: Kidnapped! (Davie/Alan)
Word Count: 1,300
Rating: General
Summary: Alan's own safety is worth very little to him, if it means leaving David behind ill and defenseless.
Notes: I've missed so much fic in this fandom, and was really happy to read this one from last year. The sweetest lil h/c missing scene from the book. Great voices for both of them, and very tender.
The Worst Part of Waking Up by
Sanguinity
Fandom: Hornblower (William/Horatio)
Word Count: 6,600
Rating: Teen
Summary: At the end of "Loyalty," Bush is too late to save Hornblower. With his dying breath, Hornblower requests a kiss from Bush… …only to wake up a week later and discover he's going to live after all. Damnit.
Notes: More very excellent h/c featuring Horatio Hornblower being Olympic levels of Bad at Feelings. Also extremely sweet, once he gets his shit together. I love the tag: "When He Made This Bed He Wasn't Expecting to Wake Up In It"!
ThatDisasterAuthor: Put the light out. | Turn the light on.
Gorgeous Lighthouse | Fire Tower art!
Tractor Beam: The Valley in Thaw by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall and Xiang Yata.
Beautiful graphic short story about a soil remediation robot and a band of humans who survived the apocalypse. More like this, please.
Humble Bundle: Fierce Women of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror.
Great selection, open for another couple weeks. You get epubs, not the weird kobo link thing.
CBC Books: The Canada Reads 2026 longlist is here.
I really wish they'd announce this earlier so you could take a proper shot at the long list before they drop the shortlist. I'm like half way through one of these. Lots of hockey books this year. Hmmmm.
University of Pennsylvania (for some reason?): "Introducing Myself", 1992 by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Extremely funny and extremely gender.
Fantastic Mr. Fox on Bluesky: A Recipe for Disaster.
This meme is such a whole entire mood.
These are gorgeous! All the fandoms being: Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, Doctor Who, Xena: Warrior Princess, Reservation Dogs, Star Trek TOS, Heated Rivalry, Hazbin Hotel, Hellava Boss & What We Do In The Shadows...
With the Dawn by
Fandom: Kidnapped! (Davie/Alan)
Word Count: 1,300
Rating: General
Summary: Alan's own safety is worth very little to him, if it means leaving David behind ill and defenseless.
Notes: I've missed so much fic in this fandom, and was really happy to read this one from last year. The sweetest lil h/c missing scene from the book. Great voices for both of them, and very tender.
The Worst Part of Waking Up by
Fandom: Hornblower (William/Horatio)
Word Count: 6,600
Rating: Teen
Summary: At the end of "Loyalty," Bush is too late to save Hornblower. With his dying breath, Hornblower requests a kiss from Bush… …only to wake up a week later and discover he's going to live after all. Damnit.
Notes: More very excellent h/c featuring Horatio Hornblower being Olympic levels of Bad at Feelings. Also extremely sweet, once he gets his shit together. I love the tag: "When He Made This Bed He Wasn't Expecting to Wake Up In It"!
Gorgeous Lighthouse | Fire Tower art!
Tractor Beam: The Valley in Thaw by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall and Xiang Yata.
Beautiful graphic short story about a soil remediation robot and a band of humans who survived the apocalypse. More like this, please.
Humble Bundle: Fierce Women of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror.
Great selection, open for another couple weeks. You get epubs, not the weird kobo link thing.
CBC Books: The Canada Reads 2026 longlist is here.
I really wish they'd announce this earlier so you could take a proper shot at the long list before they drop the shortlist. I'm like half way through one of these. Lots of hockey books this year. Hmmmm.
University of Pennsylvania (for some reason?): "Introducing Myself", 1992 by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Extremely funny and extremely gender.
Fantastic Mr. Fox on Bluesky: A Recipe for Disaster.
This meme is such a whole entire mood.