lastofhisname | Reading

The 5 Calls campaign to stop the military escalation in Venezuela.

I'm pulling my head out of fandomspace and freaking out about my real life!space to address this absolutely unnecessary clusterfuck that absolutely no one asked for except Donald Trump and his pet Ghoulstapo assholes.

I wasn't able to make any of the protests today because of family issues, but I'm sure there will continue to be protests as the fuckery continues, so I'll make it to one eventually.

Cue "I can't believe I still have to protest this shit" shit.

Current Mood.

rachelmanija

My New Year's resolution is to attempt to review every full-length published book that I read this year. We'll see how it goes. For my first full-length read of 2026, which is obviously highly symbolic, I have of course carefully selected a beautifully written novel with deep themes and social importance.

Just kidding! I randomly picked up a trashy beach read novel from the 80s, purchased at a thrift shop, while in the bathroom, got surprisingly engrossed in it, and took it out of the bathroom to read on the sofa. Which, to be fair, is probably symbolic of both the year to come and my reading habits in general.

Above an exclusive men's store on Rodeo Drive there is a private club called Butterfly, where women are free to act out their secret erotic fantasies.

I have a thing for "fancy sex club/brothel with highly-paid sex workers who like their jobs and fulfill your erotic fantasies." So I bought this book (50 cents, at a thrift shop) and actually read it even though it's in a genre I almost never read, which is the fat beach read about rich people's sex lives written in the 1980s.

Butterfly follows three women who patronize the club, Butterfly. It's named for the beautiful little butterfly charm bracelets women wear to the store to identify themselves to the staff as patrons of the club, so they can be whisked upstairs to have their sexual fantasies satisfied (just by men, alas), whether that means recreating a cowboy bar complete with sawdust on the floor to a bedroom where a sexy burglar breaks in to a dinner date where you argue about books, yes really. The women are all accomplished and successful, but have something missing or wrong in their lives: the surgeon can't have an orgasm, the pool designer deals with on the job sexism, and the lawyer is married to an emotionally abusive asshole. Their time at Butterfly leads, whether directly or indirectly, to positive changes in their lives.

( Spoilers are almost certainly not what you're expecting. )

This novel, while dealing seriously with some serious topics, is also basically a fun beach read. I read it in winter with a space heater and hot cider, which also works. I'm not sure it converted me to the general genre of 80s beach reads, but I sincerely enjoyed it.

Content notes: Child sexual abuse, child sexual slavery (not at the Butterfly sex club, everyone's a consenting adult there), forced abortion, emotional abuse.

osteophage

Although normally spoken about as a cohesive whole, different aspects of the indie web ethos can wind up in tension with each other, which raises the question of which one ultimately takes priority. On the one hand, we have the general interest in onboarding, i.e. helping more people onto the indie web; on the other hand, the issue of onboarding can place some strain on other commonly touted ideals. At the end of the day, which form of independence matters most? And what does the answer entail for our understanding of who the indie web is “for”?

Note: this post uses the term “indie web” for convenience, but if you prefer some other similar term, you’re still invited to the conversation.

Crossposted to Pillowfort and my personal site.

( Read more... )

sabotabby

Mostly everyone is dormant in the podcast world during Void Week, but Tech Won't Save Us got out a cool one: "How Effective Is Australia's Social Media Age Limit?" with Cam Wilson. Cam has been on the show before, before the ban was implemented. It's now only a week or two into the ban, so early to say if it has done anything good for kids, but he talks a lot about the technical challenges, privacy concerns, and the political and economic interests shaping the ban.

I am flat-out against bans like this (though I will listen to opposing POVs) for a bunch of reasons:

1) The disastrous effect it has on queer and trans kids outside of major urban centres.
2) The fact that there is no equivalent ban for chatbots (meaning that lonely, isolated kids will increasingly turn to chatbots rather than other kids for company).
3) The privacy violations and additional surveillance for adult users (i.e., having to upload their face or donate more information for data-mining to prove their age).
4) My general shitlib opinions about free speech, which includes kids.
5) The methodology of the research that suggests social media is bad for kids. To be clear, I think social media is bad for kids, but I don't think the research is very good at proving it.
6) The lack of anything that addresses the real problems that lead to harmful social media practices, which include inaccessibility of public spaces for youth (and older people!), helicopter parenting/overscheduling, policing of parenting (i.e., parents being disciplined for allowing their kids to roam free), algorithmic instead of chronological timelines and post promotion, the infestation of ads/chatbots/surveillance tech in all social media spaces.

Cam doesn't talk enough about the first two issues imo, but he does have very interesting things about the privacy concerns and especially about how other, non-banning solutions, would have produced better results. For example, forcing these companies to build versions of their platforms that were safe for kids would provide an off-ramp from the block and, by extension, make us aware that a safer, better experience is possible for all of us. He also walks us through the process of the ban, its initial aims, what the final legislation looks like, and the way in which campaigns can gain steam very quickly, become watered down by corporate interests, and ultimately declare total victory based on one or two points.

At any rate, it's interesting to listen to, and I hope he does a followup later on so we can see how it worked out on the ground and if it had any positive effects at all.

numb3r_5ev3n

[Image with Caption: A black cat spotted atop the stones at Stonehenge during the Winter Solstice Celebrations. This is considered to be a good omen for the coming year.]

Current Mood.

rachelmanija

I wrote three stories this Yuletide. The first two won't make much sense if you don't know the canons. With the third, all you really need to know is that mushi are magical creatures and Ginko solves people's mushi-related problems.

28 Years Later

Memento Mori. Dr. Kelson creates his masterpiece.

I really liked the movie, which is extremely different from the first one (also extremely different from the second, which I don't care for) and also extremely different from the brilliant trailer, which introduced me to the astonishing recording from 1915 (!) of actor Taylor Holmes reciting Kipling's poem "Boots." It's a post-apocalypse movie that's partly a coming of age story, partly an action/horror movie, and partly a beautiful and moving drama about life, death, and remembrance. And then there's the last two minutes, which are basically parkour Trainspotting.

I actually matched on The Leftovers, but I liked the 28 Days Later prompt so much that I wrote that instead.

Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey

Hunger. Both Lessa and Kylara are Searched for Nemorth's final clutch.

I just really enjoy writing in this canon. I love the dragons and McCaffrey created a lot of very interesting characters even if she often ended up not knowing quite what to do with them.

Mushishi

A Turn of the Wheel. Ginko encounters an unusual mushi in a village known for pottery.

Mushishi is an incredibly beautiful anime and manga with a dreamy, wistful atmosphere. I saw a prompt for mushi infesting a piece of pottery and could not resist. This story was also inspired by having recently visited Japan in the summer, a time of year I very much do not recommend for a visit if you can possibly avoid it. It's like living in a sauna. Now imagine doing a kiln firing in that sauna.

rachelmanija

2025: A horrible year! Except for reading.

I see that I got increasingly too busy to actually write reviews, and also that the better a book is, the harder and more time-consuming it is to review. I will try to review at least some of these this year, and also to be more diligent about reviewing books soon after I actually read them.

The Tainted Cup & A Drop of Corruption, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Very, very enjoyable fantasy mysteries set in a very, very odd world whose technology and science is biology-based magic and kaiju attack every monsoon. The detectives are a very likable odd couple thinker/doer in the tradition of Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin or Hercule Poirot/Hastings, except that the eccentric thinker is a cantankerous old woman.

The Daughter's War, by Christopher Buehlman. This is a prequel to Blacktongue Thief; I liked that but I loved this. A dark fantasy novel in the form of a war memoir by a woman who enlisted into the experimental WAR CORVID battalion after so many men got killed in the battle against the goblins that they started drafting women. War is hell and the tone is much more somber than the first book as Galva isn't a wisecracker, but her own distinct voice and the WAR CORVIDS carry you through. You can read the books in either order; either way, the ending of each will hit harder emotionally if you've read the other first.

Arboreality, by Rebecca Campbell. I like to sell this in my bookshop as a mystery parcel labeled, in green Sharpie, "A green book. A mossy, woodsy, leafy book. A hopeful post-apocalyptic novel of the forest."

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shannon Chakraborty. The heroine is a middle-aged, single mom pirate dragged out of retirement for one last adventure, the setting is a fantasy Middle East, and it's just as fun as the description sounds.

The Bog Wife, by Kay Chronister. When the patriarch dies, the oldest son summons a wife from the bog to bear his children. Only the family is now in modern Appalachia rather than ancient Scotland, they're living in miserable conditions, and the last bog wife vanished under mysterious circumstances. Is there even a bog wife, or is this just a very small cult? (Or is there a bog wife and it's a very small cult?) A haunting, ambiguous, atmospheric novel.

The Everlasting, by Alix Harrow. This is probably my favorite book of the year. It's a time travel novel that's also an alternate version of the King Arthur story where most of the main characters are women, and it's also about living under and resisting fascism, and it's also a really fantastic love story with such hot sex scenes that it made me remember that sex scenes are hottest when they're based in character. (If you like loyalty/fealty kink, you will love this book.) It's got a lot going on but it all works together; the prose is sometimes very beautiful; it's got enough interesting gender themes that I'd nominate it for the Otherwise (Tiptree) award if I was a nominator. An excellent, excellent book.

King Sorrow, by Joe Hill. I've had mixed experiences reading Joe Hill but this book was fantastic. It's a big blockbuster dark fantasy novel that reads a bit like Stephen King in his prime, and I'm not saying that just because of Hill's parentage. Five college kids (and a non-college friend) summon an ancient, evil dragon to get rid of some truly terrible blackmailers. King Sorrow obliges, but they then need to give him another name every year. It's an enormous brick of a book and I'd probably only cut a couple chapters if I was the editor; it's long because there's a lot going on. Each section is written in the style of a different genre, so it starts off as a gritty crime thriller, then moves to Tolkien-esque fantasy, then Firestarter-esque psychic thriller, etc. This is just a blast to read.

Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones. Another outstanding horror novel by Jones. This one is mostly historical, borrowing from Interview with the Vampire for part of its frame story, in which a Blackfeet vampire named Good Stab tells his life story to a white priest. It's got a great voice, it's very inventive, it has outstanding set pieces, and it's extremely heartbreaking and enraging due to engaging with colonialist genocide, massacres, and the slaughter of the buffalo.

Hemlock & Silver , by T. Kingfisher. A very enjoyable fantasy with interesting horror and science fiction elements.

What Moves the Dead, What Feasts at Night, What Stalks the Deep, by T. Kingfisher. A set of novellas, the first two horror and the third mostly not, with a main character I really liked who's nonbinary in a very unique, culturally bound way. I particularly liked that this is lived and discussed in a way that does not feel like 2023 Tumblr. They're also just quick, fun, engrossing reads.

Lone Women, by Victor LaValle. An excellent historical fantasy with elements of horror, based on Montana's unique homesteading law which did not specify the race or gender of homesteaders, allowing black women to homestead. So Adelaide flees California for Montana, dragging with her an enormous locked steamer trunk, too heavy for anyone but her to lift, which she never, ever opens...

We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough. What can I say? I really enjoy a good twist, and this has a doozy. Also, a great ending.

Pranksters vs. Autocrats: Why Dilemma Actions Advance Nonviolent Activism, by Srđa Popović. How to fight fascism with targeted mockery and other forms of nonviolent actions designed to put your opposition in an unwinnable situation. This costs five bucks, you can read it in less than two hours, and it was written by the leader of one of the student movements that helped overthrow Slobodan Milošević. This is not a naive book and it is very much worth reading.

Under One Banner, by Graydon Saunders. Commonweal # 4. Don't start here. I liked this a lot, hope to write about it in pieces when I re-read it, and was surprised and pleased to discover that it is largely about the ethics of magical neurosurgery and other forms of magical mental/neurological care/alteration.

Troubled Waters, by Sharon Shinn. A lovely, character-driven, small-scale fantasy. I wish this book had been the model for cozy fantasy, because it actually is one, only it has stakes and stuff happens. Also, one of the most original magic systems I've come across in a while.

Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. An outstanding first-contact novel with REALLY alien aliens.

Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. I guess the premise is spoilery? ( Read more... ) That's not a criticism, I loved the book. Funny, moving, exciting, and a perfect last line. This is probably duking it out with The Everlasting for my favorite of the year.

I also very much enjoyed American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett, The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman, Dinotopia by James Gurney, Open Throat by Henry Hoke, When the Angels Left the Old Country, by Sacha Lamb, Elatsoe by Darcy Little Badger, The Bewitching & Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Sisters of the Vast Black, by Lina Rather, Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, Liberated: The Radical Art and Life of Claude Cahun, by Kaz Rowe, Into the Raging Sea, by Rachel Slade, The Haar by David Sodergren, The Journey by Joyce Carol Thomas, Strange Pictures/Strange Houses by Uketsu, Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig, and An Immense World, by Ed Yong.

I'm probably forgetting some books. Sorry, forgotten books!

Did you read any of these? What did you think?

denise posting in

dw_maintenance

Привет and welcome to our new Russian friends from LiveJournal! We are happy to offer you a new home. We will not require identification for you to post or comment. We also do not cooperate with Russian government requests for any information about your account unless they go through a United States court first. (And it hasn't happened in 16 years!)

Importing your journal from ЖЖ may be slow. There are a lot of you, with many posts and comments, and we have to limit how fast we download your information from ЖЖ so they don't block us. Please be patient! We have been watching and fixing errors, and we will go back to doing that after the holiday is over.

I am very sorry that we can't translate the site into Russian or offer support in Russian. We are a much, much smaller company than LiveJournal is, and my high school Russian classes were a very long time ago :) But at least we aren't owned by Sberbank!

С Новым Годом, and welcome home!

EDIT: Большое спасибо всем за помощь друг другу в комментариях! Я ценю каждого, кто предоставляет нашим новым соседям информацию, понятную им без необходимости искать её в Google. :) И спасибо вам за терпение к моему русскому переводу с помощью Google Translate! Прошло уже много-много лет со школьных времен!

Thank you also to everyone who's been giving our new neighbors a warm welcome. I love you all ❤️

sabotabby

It being Void Week and NYE, I fully forgot that it was also a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, my dudes.

Just finished: Nothing.

Currently reading: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. 700 pages and two years into Hans Castrop's stay at the Berghof, which our guy does not want to leave. And who can blame him? It seems a very chill life. Hans and Joachim (but mainly Hans) take up visiting the people who are bedridden and dying, which results in at least one awkward incident of a teenage girl developing a huge crush on him. Clavdia and Joachim both leave (the latter after a very lengthy conversation in untranslated French, most of which I didn't understand; the former to go into the military even though he is not fully cured). Settembrini also leaves, but not to go very far, instead to move in with his friend/arch-nemesis/wait are these two gay for each other, Leo Naphta. Meanwhile, Hans' uncle/cousin/foster brother James Tienappel comes up for a bit to try to convince Hans to leave, before realizing that all of these people are mental and Hans is mental and then he nopes out without saying goodbye and before he can be diagnosed with tuberculosis, making him the wisest character in the book so far.

As is the style of the era, there's a digression on art and painting styles where the sanatorium's director, Behrens, has been painting Clavdia, and according to Hans is quite bad at it, but he has to compliment the guy's technique anyway, and this is quite good.

The very lengthy dialogue between Settembrini and Naphta, which is a seduction of sorts wherein both weird old guys try to convince Hans (and Joachim, who is there too) of their philosophical points of view. Settembrini is a Renaissance humanist, Naphta is a Jewish convert to Catholicism who really, really likes this newfangled communism thing. Settembrini later pulls Hans aside after Naphta goes on and on about revolution and is like, stay away from that guy unless I'm around. Hans asks why, is it because of the revolution stuff? Settembrini reveals that no, he is secretly A Jesuit, and Hans is like, OMG A Jesuit, which has to be the funniest part of the book so far.

No one believes me that I'm enjoying this.

Anyway, friends, happy New Year! May we all survive.

toothpastepancake

Happy New Years Eve, everyone! 2025 has been… filled with a lot of ups and downs, but it ended up being the best year of my life so far. I'm so grateful I stayed alive to see it!

In 2025, I finally started treatment for a 20-year-long treatment-resistant depression that actually worked. I had tried every widely available drug, including off-label usage, and still could only think about how much I wanted to die every day. Finally, I started a newer one, Auvelity in combination with ketamine treatment, and that's the thing that worked. Now I don't want to die! It can still be hard sometimes, but I am so, so proud of myself for hanging on and getting through it. I'm so glad I'm not 24/7 death anymore.

In 2025, I learned a goal that I have always wanted to: self-host my own websites. Goodbye Neocities! I just built my own personal website in Ruby on Rails. I self-host Archive of our Own and expanded the code to have new features. I host a bunch of different websites. I have always wanted to have the ability to do these things, but I never saw myself as capable enough to even try. A lot of this is due to encouragement from my wonderful friends—you know who you are. If you have helped, encouraged, guided, cheerleaded, or even listened to my ramblings on these silly nerd topics—thank you. Seriously.

In 2025, I found people who I trust to truly love and care for me. This is a feeling I haven't had since I was about 18. Many of my friends before were highly judgemental and mean to me--they also didn't even notice when I disappeared from my old social media accounts. (I don't have irl friends because I'm housebound lol). I feel like I have a solid group of friends now. I'm so grateful for each and every one of my friends—and for you all too even if we've never talked before!

In 2025, I got an amazing bird who I love to bits and pieces!! Gotta get her in for a nail trim. Love you, Saira.

In 2025, I wrote 127.8k words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the most productive year of writing I have ever had. A lot of it is because I started doing fic exchanges this year, and I've had so much fun with those!!

My 2025 has been great. I hope you have all had a wonderful 2025, and will have a wonderful 2026.

rachelmanija

I read these offline and have not commented on most of them yet on AO3, but I wanted to rec them before reveals because they're great.

Don't need to know canon

"17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future" - Jon Bois. I only know this canon from Yuletide stories, and all I really know is that in the very far future, it's a post-scarcity world where everyone is immortal. It reliably produces lovely stories that feel kind of like the more personal/emotional xckd comics. Here is another one.

What Rock Collecting Will Look Like in the Future. Funny, bittersweet, cool worldbuilding; I was surprised and delighted to learn that fordite is real!

James Hoffman's Coffee Videos (Web Series)/Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft/"A Study in Emerald." All you need to know is that a coffee guy reviews coffee online, and this is him reviewing eldritch coffee.

I'm ranking 5 coffees from beyond this world (literally). "I feel a bit as if the coffee tasted me and not the other way around." Hilarious, dead-on coffee notes, dead-on Lovecraft; makes me want to try some of the coffees despite the risk of growing gills or being possessed by Elder Gods.

Tower Wizard - Hourly updates on the life of a wizard who lives in a tower, like "The little cat plays with a leaf. The wizard carefully checks that it's not a dangerous reagent, then returns it to the little cat." His best friend is an ex-paladin, and they eat a lot of interesting food. That's it, that's all you need to know.

Ruins and Roads. A charming original fantasy story, magical and cozy and bittersweet.

True Detective - season one. All you need to know to read this story is that Rust and Marty used to be cops, and they were both seriously injured when they reunited to investigate a weird case that might or might not have supernatural elements.

burned in kind. An outstanding post-series casefic and get-together with a flawless Rust voice, A+ hurt-comfort, and a creepy maybe-supernatural maybe-not case. If you know the series, this is 100% not to be missed; if you don't, you might still really like it as a standalone spooky mystery with excellent characterization.

World War Z - Max Brooks. You just need to know that there are zombies.

little stone. Zombies in 9th century Latvia! An atmospheric story about grief and loss in a time far from us; the protagonist's emotions are raw and vivid. Note: child death.

Need to know canon

House of Hollow - Krystal Sutherland

You Live in a Hollow House. Creepy, unsettling horror with an excellent use of color and image embeds.

Meeting Halfway. Creepy, unsettling horror with a touch of sweetness.

numb3r_5ev3n

[A Tweet from David Malki which reads, "If a croque madame speaks to another croque madame about something other than a croque monsieur, that's called passing the béchamel test."]

rachelmanija

Here are some Yuletide recs, sorted for your reading pleasure by whether or not you need to know the canon.

Do Not Need to Know Canon

Chalion/World of the Five Gods - Lois McMaster Bujold

a knock at your front door. I think all you need to know to read this story is that there are five Gods - the Mother, the Father, the Son, the Daughter, and the Bastard - who are definitely real but rarely interfere in human affairs. They can, however, make people saints - able to do limited miracles - if they need to. This story deals with the Father, the God least-explored in canon, and is set in modern-day Chalion. It's got a clever look at what modern Chalion might be like, a very likable main character, and some beautiful writing.

FAQ: The "Snake Fight" Portion of Your Thesis Defense - Luke Burns

If you've never read the canon, I've linked it above. It's extremely short and you will be glad you did. There are other "Snake Fight" stories and they're all fun.

Snake Logistics for Spring Defenses. Some students are just begging for a black mamba.

Need to Know Canon

Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey

find the true. Mirrim and F'lar have a chat at a Gather. I enjoyed this conversation between two characters who I don't think ever exchange words in canon. Good characterization, good atmosphere.

Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin

to be useful, if not free. My gift! A backstory/canon diverge AU for Serret, the enchantress in A Wizard of Earthsea. Beautifully written, beautifully structured.

The Long Walk - Stephen King

There's No Discharge in the War. Stebbins in a time loop. Long, intense, often horrifying, sometimes very moving, and cleverly constructed story about Stebbins and the other Walkers.

"The Lottery" - Shirley Jackson; New Yorker RPF

Why one small American town won’t stop stoning its residents to death. Isaac Chotiner interviews the guy who runs the lottery in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." If you've never heard of him, he's a journalist who's very good at letting people hang themselves with their own words. The story is dead-on, hilarious, and chilling.

Lyra series/Caught in Crystal - Patricia Wrede

Three Things That Might Have Happened to Kayl Larrinar. My treat! A very satisfyingly bittersweet canon divergence AU for Kayl's Star Cluster, full of camaraderie and atmosphere.

Mushishi

I want to taste the shadows, too. A lovely little casefic/character study about Adashino, the guy who collects mushi-related stuff. It really feels like an episode of the anime, especially the final portion.

Some Like It Hot

Anchors Away. A short and very sweet post-movie coda.

Watership Down - Richard Adams

There is no bargain. Five encounters with The Black Rabbit of Inlé. An exploration of how the Black Rabbit is different things to different rabbits in different circumstances, very well-done, sometimes moving, sometimes chilling. The Black Rabbit is Death, so warning for rabbit death.

What have you enjoyed in the collection?

zesty_pinto

I am typing on a train bound for Niagara Falls.

Slowly.

The train is around an hour late, halfway up and fresh out of Albany station

I have had three hours of sleep since staying in a hotel before taking the train, not for discomfort nor noise but because of another train trip that had a three hour delay.

We initially put some thought into this trip to Niagara by thinking ahead a little more. The Maple Leaf starts at 7am so we'd leave a day earlier to get a room somewhere further up that would pick us up at a later time. We would pack for the winter in a way simolar to Montreal but lighter by wearing a lot of our heavier clothes. We would leave the car in a station that was fairly accessible. Etcetera.

So when you play D&D you know what it's like when you roll a nat 1? This trip has started off with a load of them.

Firstly, we managed to time our departure from home right at the peak of the ice storm that was chilling and slipping up the roads. This made a normally safe drive to the station a lot more treacherous.

The train arrived a bit late and we slipped around a bit desperately trying to clamber our way to finding our seats.

Then came the delays. Holy shit.

So we arrived at Moynihan at 8pm for a 8:45 departure. Easy, right? Well how about when the delay gets to 9:10? 9:30? 9:33? 9:50? 10:20? 10:50? 11:40?

So we waited as the delay extended continuously and it kept getting more and more ridiculous. It tookcuntil an hour and a half of delays before an announcer said the problem was getting the train from the railyard. I will also add by the way that we were the only people going this same destination that had delays. Seriously, all other trains going to Albany had come and passed.

At this point, Michelle was looking up options and we found a Metro North line in Grand Central that could get us there, so instead of perform the eternal wait, we rushed through the subway lines and the notoriously maze-like Times Square to finally get to Grand Central and a much more prompt commuter line that was moving at a snail's pace but was moving in general. At close to midnight we were surrounded by MTA guys on their way home and we watched as the Amtrak schedule get longer and longer, finally leaving that damn station at 12:57.

In the end, if we stuck along we would have gotten to Poughkeepsie by 2:48, which with foot high snow banks on the sidewalks, would have meant we could not get our room that we booked to relax more (wegot in the hotel by 2:30 and was told we could not get in after 3am).

So yeah, three hours of sleep. Got some sandwiches and trying to relax while not falling asleep since it would lower my body temperature in this cold train and give me a cold

This train was also delayed btw but like by 40 minutes.

Will post about Christmas next time, maybe while in Canada if I can get over typing with a touchscreen that can't handle my fat fingers.

sabotabby

This week's podcast is such inside baseball metapodcasting, but it's one where I've literally emailed the podcasters asking for it, and apparently so did many other people. Bad Hasbara has finally, finally covered the fall of Jesse Brown in "A Jesse Brown Christmas ft. Rachel Gilmore." (I've linked to the video here in case you want to see dogs that I assume appear on screen at some point; here is another audio link).

Of all the public figures who got October 7th brain, Jesse was the saddest for me personally. He was someone I respected a lot as a journalist. He broke the Me to We scandal, which I'd been on about for years, he broke the Jian Ghomeshi story, which friends of mine who are in media circles had been whispering about for years without the clout to speak up, and as the show details, he produced "Thunder Bay," which is one of the best journalistic deep dives that this country's media has done in ages. If anyone could be relied on to be sensible and level headed and critical, it was him. Until his brain melted.

I've had personal correspondence with him (to his credit, he does read everything you send to him and responds, in detail) and that just made me sadder, because as they describe here, a younger Jesse would have eviscerated older Jesse for his backwards logic. In fact many of the journalists he helped make prominent do exactly that, including the fantastic Robert Jago, who you hear at the end. He never really struck me as a person who started from a conclusion and worked backwards to find (or fabricate) evidence, so even when he did questionable shit, like interview people who were against safe injection sites or insist that an immediate return to school during a covid spike was a good idea, I at least listened to what he had to say. Unfortunately, his post-Oct. 7 brainworms throw all of his earlier reporting into question.

This podcast, featuring one of his main targets, is over 2.5 hours long and doesn't even get into everything. (The specific incident I wrote to him about isn't mentioned.) It's really good. Mostly it's very cathartic as a story about someone you thought was cool turning out to, in fact, not be very cool at all, and how you cope with that. I seriously hope he's listening and reflecting.

rachelmanija

The Yuletide collection is live!

Enjoy browsing the collection! Leave kudos and/or comments if you enjoy a story! Comment here to recommend stories, and/or recommend them at the

yuletide comm!

I have three stories in the collection. Can you find them?

I shall now spend the rest of the day cuddling with my cats and reading Yuletide stories.

sabotabby

Just finished: Nothing.

Currently reading: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Well, we're a third of the way in! After coughing up blood repeatedly for the last half a dozen chapters and blaming it on acclimatization to the altitude, our feckless hero has finally seen a doctor (at the TB sanatorium!) and gotten himself formally diagnosed. So now he's stuck up the mountain indefinitely. He's very chill about it though, as the lifestyle—five meals a day, cheap accommodations, lectures, and interesting conversations—is way more fun than going to work. Also he has fallen for another patient, Madame Clavdia Chauchat (great cat name if you have a new adoptee in your life), who despite being Russian, married, uncouth, and outside of his social class, reminds him of a boy he had a crush on as a kid. Our bisexual king Hans Castorp!

Of course I can't help but read modern interpretations into this, and the parallels to the disability community online, the relief of diagnosis after you've experienced mysterious weird symptoms and then connecting with other people who are quietly suffering. Hans Castorp would have loved the internet.

Can a book be both boring and engrossing? Yes.

zesty_pinto

Welcome to the two weeks where no one wants to do anything.

I'm not saying that to make it seem bad, hell, I just want to game or something.

To be honest though, I'm just as good ready to sleep. Sleep's always this thing where I need to figure out how to do it properly. Why is sleep getting harder to figure out the older I get?!

Anyway, past few weekends have been us trying to go out and around. Tried to catch the seals in Sandy Hook, and found none. We later found out that the seals were around the day before and the day after LOL This is why I will never gamble, I suck at taking the odds.

Ironically, this was during a weekend we were also thinking of looking at bald eagles at a very famous dam in MD, but we canceled because packages were coming in. I think most of the packages are accounted for though (but I also swear to god I think I say the same thing every time I put an update).

I have started work on preparing my secret santa and since it's an in-law that likes novelty and trendy things, I'm doing something silly and doing a scavenger hunt.

More amusing: it is a scavenger hunt hosted by The Rat. Meaning:

- a very poorly written document were all the words are phonetic and driven by autocorrect.
- all clues are from the perapective of a rat.
- lots and lots of rat images thrown in like it was a geocities page for a rodent enthusiast that watches too much brainrot.

Speaking of gifts, I gave up on the 400 800. The lens is big and expensive as hell and the images I was getting out of it were so meh that I finally gave up and decided to spend a fuckton more.

Two thousand dollar lens? Why not 7k dollar lens?

SIGH.

Anyway, it was more like 5k after selling the old lens but it's f4 and so far it looks sharp as hell. I don't know if this fixes everything but whatever. Michelle felt guilty since she pushed me onto this lemon so now I have a new lens and it looks soooo much better but I guess we'll see with some field tests to confirm.

I spent so much this year man I feel jaded from cost, to the point where I can't even feel angry or sad just tired.

The new lens really does seem hot as hell though, barring the frame limitations and lack of teleconverters.

The weight is more but it really isn't that much more, so eh.

I gifted my coworkers!
I sent gifts to my friends!
I made quiche with my leftover thanksgiving ingredients!

More to do:

-I was asked if I want to make something for the in-laws chrostmas dinner. I still have all this vegan parm so did a quick look and found vegan latkes which I think should be nice to garnish with parm.

-playtested a game that a coworker made that I promised I'd do ages ago. It wad actually fun. Just need to send the feedback.

-field test the new expensive lens within the return window so I don't feel any regretsies about my 7k dollar commitment.

-finish the scavenger hunt stuff by packaging the things and labeling appropriately.

-I need to eat a lot of quiche. I have like two whole quiches my god

Okay, off the post and now to work on things.

sabotabby

I am drowning in unfinished and partly finished tasks so this will not be as detailed or vivid as my usual solstice descriptions. Also I have very few good photos because my hands were occupied and I didn't have a proper camera, so you'll have to make do with blurry impressions, I'm afraid.

The Longest Night was cold as balls, but tradition is tradition, and actually more of my friends made it out than is usual. We had the lanterns I made and they went over very well, which meant that basically we got drafted into the parade itself. There were new giant puppets (one in particular that I'll comment on in detail) and for the first time in years, the fire sculpture has returned to Alexandra Park. Giant puppets and lanterns are very important to me, but is it really solstice without a big art project that people worked very hard on getting lit on fire? I don't think so, and the fact that this happened again feels hopeful for the year to come.

( pictures but they're not great )

I'm hoping to have better pictures to share that other people took, as it was pretty well photographed. I do have one of me that

rdi took but this is a public post.

You can get a decent idea of the vibe (and how the fish and Mari Lynd looked in action!) in this video, if you have Instagram.

This post has photo and video of the Fire Finale.

As always, it was a beautiful night, and it looks like the sun is up, so we did a good job.

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thelastofhisname

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December 2025

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5 Calls | Stop the Military Escalation with Venezuela

Butterfly, by Kathryn Harvey

Which Part of the Indie Web Ethos is the Bigger Priority?

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Black cat spotted at Winter Solstice celebration at Stonehenge.

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Books I Especially Enjoyed in 2025

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Yuletide Recs!

Mommy Daddy You and I

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