taevachi | Reading

I'll be honest. I hold out very little hope for this year being better than last year. I did the Meriam Webster's thing on bluesky, you screenshot their gif and whatever word you get sets the tone for your year. I got moribund. Are you fucking kidding me? Why is that even a choice? Is it literally just spitting out every word in the dictionary.

But moribund feels right for the 2020s which if I'm continuing to be honest sucked donkey dong. 2020 - covid 2021- nearly lost my leg and took a year to learn to walk again 2022-23 weren't as horrid 24 - lost my uncle 25 - lost my last uncle. So while I'm hoping moribund is NOT my word of the year, it feels right.

Right about now is when I do my good things jar (okay usually it's next week when I get back to Ohio but I know what's in it) it has three things, presented my sabbatical research (at work and at my conference), got a story into an anthology (i'll give you that info tomorrow) and I went to an all inclusive resort for the first time in Mexico. Pretty slim pickings for good things. Mostly 2025 was me trying to not lose my sanity.

So resolutions? Eh, I don't really make them. I've given my writing goals. In addition to that I'd like to see if I can come up with lunches that don't spike my blood sugar, I'd like to get more active but what I need more than anything, a cleaning schedule for my home because this cannot go on as is.

I'm still thinking about doing

snowflake_challenge. I got really sideways with this challenge a couple years ago and lost my taste for it. But a lot of my list is doing it...sigh

But here, let me share some cool things about me and my writing

one of the first of probably several archive things I'll end up doing. Got this one from

lucy_roman
from AO3

Total works on archive - 894

Works written in 2025 - 74

Longest fic written in 2025 The Porn Star Murders Hazbin Hotel

Fic with most bookmarks (also most hits and kudos)Hope is The Thing With Feathers The Owl House

Shortest fic - Needs Unmet Helluva Boss

And here are my writing stats. I have no complaints here: Original fic count 38,727
Fanfic count 359, 707 for a writing total of 398, 434. My only complaint is I wanted 50K of original fic. sigh.

Thanks to a few of the things on

sholio's post today I have some community recs

candyheartsex a multifandom gift exchange with a low minimum and a focus on relationships, both platonic and romantic/sexual

traumaticexperiences a (psychological) trauma themed multifandom exchange that will be run on Ao3. Matching will be done on fandom, relationship/solo character, and freeform. You must be 18+ to participate and maintain anonymity until creator reveals.

And one I'm actually in is

allbingo and I'm hosting, the public domain fest bingo. come join us.

And for anyone still on LJ and haven't backed up your old blog somewhere else the news is looking bleak. I haven't fully read up on it. I do crosspost there for the few friends who haven't joined me here on DW but it looks like Russia isn't playing games with it any more. You can check out more here on bluesky. and a bit more here on DW about the importing.

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Death in Paradise

yuuago

+ Signups for

crackthewip have started! The goal for this event is to finish a work in progress; posting closes June 30. I really like this event, so I'm glad it's running again. I think I will try to finish the rarepair WIP I started a few days ago. Maybe something else too, if I have time. Though I'm at the point where I'm like, "What do I even have in the WIP folder, anyway?" Going to have to, uh, take a look through that mess and see what's what.

+ I made bread for the first time! The recipe I used was Classic White Sandwich Bread by King Arthur Flour. It turned out pretty okay! Not perfect, but like, it's definitely edible bread. Turned out more heavy and dense than my liking, but I am going to assume that's to do with my exceptionally Beginner kneading. The instant yeast came in a package of 3, so I am definitely going to try to make bread 2 more times before deciding whether I enjoy making bread or not. Jury is currently out on that front, but I do feel pretty pleased with myself for actually trying it.

+ The set of Beam Paints watercolours I received the other day is just as nice as I'd hoped it would be! They're very vibrant and pigmented. Because the tin doesn't have a mixing surface, I have to be careful and mix directly on the paper - which is not bad, just a technique that I typically do not use. And just as I expected, the travel brush that came with the set is very, very good - perfect size for the postcard-sized sheets I prefer to work with. I'm so happy I decided to buy it; I mean, yeah, my tubes are nice, but this was a wonderful little treat and the quality is amazing.

+ Livejournal: A reminder to back up your LJ and/or import it to DW if you haven't already. Recent dust-ups in the RU side of LJ have led to speculation about the site's future. There is a thread about it by Rahaeli on Bluesky over here. I think I backed up everything the last time stuff looked shaky, but I'm going to have to check to see if I downloaded fics by my friends who didn't make the import. (I think I did, but where the heck did I save them? Who knows.)

+ I love the start of a new year. It feels so good to put together my annual to-do list and figure out all the new things I want to try, plus the stuff I already enjoy that I want to do more of. Happy 2026!

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

These questions were written by

tabular_rasa.

1. Do you mostly drink tap, filtered, or bottled water?

2. Is it safe/recommended to drink tap water where you live? If not, why?

3. What does the tap water taste/smell like where you live?

4. Do you collect rainwater? If so, what do you use it for?

5. Do you/have you ever had restrictions on water use where you live? What did you have to change about your lifestyle?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**

kalloway

The Updating of Things-
- Lemonade Cafe - front page updated
-

lemonadecafe - sticky post updated
-

spring_renewal - noAI on profile, added schedule to my organizer for April, will update instructions/guidelines then
-

octobercest - noAI on profile, and just opened up the community to be a fest all year, because sure why not
- printed out a new copy of canon-level pages for quick refresher reasons
-

no_true_pair - note in organizer to post schedule later in month, added noAI to profile
-

small_fandoms - already updated, dates for Drabblethon in organizer

Archiving-
- four new pages on the Lemonade Cafe and ten fics posted! (Also on

lemonadecafe.)

General-
- unsubscribed from a handful of communities (just freeing up some mental bandwidth)
- cleaned a bit in the bathroom and the linen closet (+ a tote bag filled with towels to donate to the animal shelter)

cornerofmadness

This is the bingo I'm hosting if you want to join us over at

allbingo for the Public Domain Fest

Love for Sale	Three Little Words	On the Sunny Side of the Street	King of Jazz	Vile Bodies
Sing You Sinners	Cakes and Ale	Livin' in the Sunlight Lovin' in the Moonlight	Outside the Law	Beyond the Blue Horizon
Madam Satan	The End of the World	FREE SPACE	Years of Grace	Body and Soul
The Sound of Love	Dancing on the Ceiling	Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)	Ash Wednesday	Something to Remember You By
You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me	The Song of Love	I've Got a Crush on You	Free and Easy	Just a Gigolo

Current Mood: lazy
Current Music: Captain Marvel

himbeersaft

A quick entry before we're heading off to the airport.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
I hope you had a lovely evening yesterday and that this year brings nothing but good things and lovely memories!

I have a few resolutions that I hope I'll be able to keep:

For one, I want to waste less time on mindless scrolling online. I've already kicked Twitter off all my mobile devices and logged out of it on my PC too. I also want to use Reddit much less, as it's full of bots and boring political talk anyway.

Instead, I want to pursue more productive endeavours: read more classics, pick Ancient Greek back up, learn skills that people my age should have (like sewing).

And most importantly, I want to cultivate a more positive mindset. I know I tried that last year too, but then I fell into a negative spiral because of certain fandom developments. No more, I say! From now on I a) won't actively engage in fandom anymore (which also means reading absolutely no fanfic, which I haven't been doing for months anyway), and b) block everyone who says something I don't agree with about a character I like. In the past I was always doubting my own interpretation of said characters if I saw someone depict them in a to me incomprehensible way, but now I know that it's not me, it's them. So if I don't see any strange takes, no one can limit my enjoyment of things.

Lastly, I also want to keep writing. After this months-long slump, I'm feeling more creative again. I won't be able to write while I'm away, but afterwards I want to return to my usual evening sessions.

May 2026 be productive! :)

Current Mood: energetic

ireneultramarine

I finished reading When We Dead Awaken in the afternoon, which feels like an omen for 2026. Posted some first thoughts on Tumblr; I'll sleep on them and post more on DW next year. Crazy how the year passes like so!

Happy new year! I wish you all health and peace. Peace be with you, peace to the world.

cornerofmadness

So it snowed a couple inches last night but I HAD to get my meds. Have I mentioned my parents live up a large hill? (My own road is even steeper but if I slip there so what, there's no one on it, here I'll skid out into the main road.)

So off I go, get halfway down, spin and now gravity is sucking me down the hill sideways. Well this is fun. Brakes don't work so well when you're going sideways. I did try to ditch it into the forsythia. Luckily I did get stopped before I was on the main road or in the hedgerow. Also luckily no one was coming. Other than that, the trip was fine and now we have the last do your goddamn job for 2025

1. I got pizza at our favorite place, XXL pepperoni (also not doing their job I did NOT check before leaving) Want to know how much pepperoni there was? NONE (I fixed that in post)

2. I get to CVS. They have my meds NOT my needles. Why not? oh we can't tell you that here we cant see that information in this system (it's a lie. I know they can. Mine has this system and they can but this place is huge so they don't want to waste time). I get in the 'we can tell you why we fucked up' line, takes forever. I said maybe you didn't transfer it. No we did. Then WHY isn't it filled? She shrugs, doesn't answer and says can you wait 15 minutes? yes I can. (I know why, everyone is doing what I'm doing, using the last day before the deductibles reset tomorrow and they're swamped.

I get my damn needles, I go to Home Goods, clean up on the Christmas discards (they're all over valentine's day which isn't too bad. Dollar Tree has all the gardening stuff out. yeah sure.

What I Just Finished Reading:

Poorly Made and Other Things - Horror anthology by one person set in his Edenville series. It was pretty good.

To Die Once - a Maisie Dobbs mystery which I haven't read one of these in a while and this is...slow. It's way more about the effect of war on the English people (who were still recovering from WWI) than it's a mystery

Tell Tale Treat - another paranormal mystery with another protagonist ripe for being bitch slapped, wasn't a bad mystery

What I am Currently Reading:

Keeping the Secret - a short thing about the WAVS in WWII

Murder Made Her Wicked - historical mystery set in Wellsley, really good so far

The Witching Hour - by Heather Graham. Missing children but no one will do a search of the woods because there's no proof other than the FBI things its there (a paranormal FBI team) eye roll. might DNF this arc (but this is the series that did what I tried to do in the early 90s with paranormal mystery and I was laughed at)

What I Plan to Read Next: It's a bunch of new reading challenges time so that

Speaking of that

kingstoken is having a reading challenge and you can find it here.

I forgot to mention I finished

evil_little_dog's book challenge this year

( You can find it under here )

And have December's reads

Wytches, Volume 1 horror graphic novel

Ripped Tide mystery

Haunted Cemeteries of Ohio nonfiction

Death at the Door paranormal mystery

To Die But Once. historical mystery

The Poorly Made and Other Things

Happy New year's my friends

We're spending it playing cards and watching it snow more.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Dick Clark's NYE

not_sophie

Gotta take a break to get back to my original genre of Inomata. Since the world has taken her from us, though, there is only so much of her left in the world beyond our memories. Makes me a little sad, since I was always inspired by her art and designs. Oh well, this one is from the Tales of Berseria Illustrations Book, and interview in question took place on August 26, 2016. There are more interviews in this book than just Mutsumi Inomata's, but I'll get to them later, let's stick with our first love, shall we?

( Read more... )

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 ❤️

kalloway

Well, I went ahead and fixed the factually incorrect stuff on my fanlore page. I've actually had a fanlore account since, like, 2018, apparently, but never used it. My page is still hilariously something but... shrugemoji, I guess. I did drop a bunch of pages onto a watchlist which should at least help me catch things faster than noticing them like six months later. (I still get emails from the Gundam wiki which I made an account for and made exactly one edit to, fixing the color of Gai Murakumo's eyes.)

Since it the Season of Updating Things, I thought to finally put up a new transformative works policy instead of my very angry 'no, don't' from June. I am still technically upset about the whole thing; I suppose that's part of what a revised policy will help mitigate. I have, however, learned that some people have very thorough, comprehensive policies! Not just a concise paragraph, which I thought was expected/the norm. I've received some very good advice and suspect I'll spend a few days letting it all roll around in the back of my mind. (I suspect I just wrapped my head around the idea all wrong?)

I finished up Calibarn, aside from one clip that absolutely shattered before I'd even put any pressure on it, let alone the sort of pressure that would normally damage plastic. I cemented it back together and will give it most of a day to cure before trying again. Worst case, I glue a fixed position. It's on its weapon, which may get ditched for display anyway since there's a plan for Calibarn...

The quest for flat surfaces continues. I still feel like the dining room should be easy to conquer so that's where I've mostly started.

himbeersaft

I've been playing a lot of SWTOR the past days and while I'm still having fun doing dailies and dynamic encounters, I did notice that the game feels kind of unsocial now. Not only is it mostly dead, but there's not much talking going on at all. Even Vaiken Spacedock, which was always the most populated place in the whole game, has very little talking. I mostly noticed it on Dantooine though. During the dynamic encounter grind too no one ever said anything. There wasn't even anyone saying we should group up. Which is quite sad.

Maybe everyone is just talking in the guild? Maybe I should join one too? But I actually don't feel like it. I don't plan on getting that invested in the game, and apparently most guilds nowadays have requirements on how you have to contribute. Honestly, I just want to play the way I want and not do [Zone X] just because someone else is telling me to.

Today is the last that I can play for in a while anyway. We're going to Wales tomorrow morning and will only be back on the fifth at night.

I'm more worried about the current Genshin event. I won't be able to get from 4500 to 6000 points on my tablet, as I'm just so bad when not playing on my PC. I hope the game will still be on on the sixth. Otherwise I'll have to log in on the fifth at night, because I can't afford to waste those primogem rewards.
I'm not enjoying the event at all though. Hoyo needs to stop with those saurians. Natlan was a fail, they just need to accept that.

Seeing that the new year is almost here, I want to try again to reduce spending time online. To begin with, I think I'll delete Twitter from my tablet. Even though I curated my feed to only show me Asian Genshin art and cats, there's no point scrolling so much on that app. I really ought to pick Ancient Greek back up and do other, more productive things.

I'm still going to come here though. The site is kind of dead anyway. ;)

There also this post about my reckoning with fandom I've been meaning to make, but that'll have to wait. All I'm saying is that I'm so glad I stepped away from it all.

That said, have a good start to the new year and may 2026 bring nothing but joy and good times! :)

Current Mood: cheerful

cornerofmadness

Normally around now I'd be doing my year in review of all the stories I wrote but I don't think I'm going to do that this year. Almost no one here is in my current fandoms and I ran a lot of the stories here so those who were going to read them probably have already. I haven't seen anyone else doing any end of the year stuff yet either so I'm sure I'll be doing something.

Instead I thought I'd throw it open to everyone what's your most current fandom that's eating your brain. Talk about. Tell us why. I don't care if it's one you've been faithful to for 30 years or one you found this weekend, let's hear about it.

Here's mine. The Amazing Digital Circus What? You expected it to be Hazbin Hotel right? Well that's true but I've talked about it a lot. While I am not as actively writing TADC (nor do I plan to) I love this weird animation. I will say much like other shows I love (Prodigal Son, Hazbin) that it took until episode 3 for me to really get into it. That's the same here and that's why I'm putting that episode here. It's still my favorite.

TADC is interesting because you have such personalities in it, Kinger whose mind is so damaged he can't function except in the dark where things are quieter, Ragatha of the toxic positivity and people pleasing. Zooble with body dysmorphia, Gangle with depression, Jax with some kind of trauma that has made him an asshole and into this comes Pomni, the latest person sucked into the game that is the circus, who turns into the group therapist after a fashion. Running the game is Caine, the AI that is having his own psychotic episode.

It's 3-D animation which I generally do not like but the story telling is very interesting once it hits its stride. It's also free over here on Youtube (I know, I know)

Watch on YouTube

I did get my meds in theory. It was the doctor who missed the request in the system. She fixed it within the hour. But there was a lot of snow today. Probably more tomorrow but I'll have to go to CVS regardless as tomorrow my insurance ends.

I did a lot of work on my classes. Still so much more to do. Ugh, I always do this, put it off to the last minute.

You can click the eggs if you want.

Current Mood: stressed
Current Music: Evil Lives Here

kalloway

Is there anyone around who does Fanlore stuff that would mind editing a factually incorrect statement on my page and fixing a link? I'd do it myself but that's probably a guideline/etiquette breach.

cornerofmadness

I went to bed at 2 AM. It was 64 degrees out (in the Pittsburgh area!) so I opened my windows (Dad likes this place to be an oven) when I wake up at 9 it's 34. By ten its 24 and the sustained winds were over 20 mph with gusts up to 30-40 mph. Mom and my plan to go to the Phipps conservatory was done. Too windy. It was meant to snow (that didn't happen until after 8 pm as it turned out)

But the good omens continue as my parents are both really pissed at prejudice woman and hateful husband. Turns out PW's aunt HAD to go to the doctor today (or get billed for that nursing home rehab stay) so rather than delay their trip home to NC a few hours they pushed taking her onto my 83 year old mom. They didn't even ask ME to do it. They just fucked off south expecting Mom to do it (she did. In that cold. In that wind. Both old ladies are okay) and they didn't even leave early because they were both drunk last night and hung over and only left 5 minutes after mom got to her bestie's house. They could have taken Aunt S2 to the doc. Dad is very protective of mom and he is furious as is mom.

It's also another round of do your damn job. CVS tells me that my insulin is ready but not my wellbutrin. FInally I get cranky and call them and say where is that. Oh, that is out of refills. OMFG
1. I called my doc about that 2 weeks ago so her nurse did NOT do her job
2. CVS did NOT call me once since friday when I called in my refills
3. CVS AI bullshit phone system said there WAS refills

But in doing your job right and going above and beyond goes to whatever Amazon driver showed up in the dead of night and put both of the lightweight envelopes I got (a usb hub in one, my dexcom pretty patches in the other) half under the planter on the front stoop so they wouldn't blow away (we gave them high praise) contrasted with the UPSP dipshit who delivered my Hazbin poster to the man door of dad's detached garage....

I'll be hosting the public domain bingo in January over in

allbingo if you want to come look at some cool creative prompts (but woo boy, this is taking me a lot of time to put together but it's fun though)

Still not getting my story done. Sigh. Power went out a few times today too (wind galloping).

But I did blow off the hill (almost literally) to the post office to get my holiday gift from JK, a super cute p.oed. handmade Husk plushie, some Husk pins and Hazbin stickers. Fun stuff.

Music Monday. This week's prompt is prompt #7 a song you like with no words

( Music under here )

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Killer Grannies

himbeersaft

Yesterday I finally caught up with the SWTOR story by finishing the 7.8 quest. The reveal at the ending was shocking, I honestly didn't expect them to bring Darth Jadus back. More Sith is always a good thing in my opinion, the xpac focused too much on the Mandalorians in my opinion.

I'm now a bit worried though that Darth Rivix might have been working for Jadus this whole time. He's been acting quite suspicious this whole time after all. Sure, he's Sith, so you could explain his behaviour with that, but at the same time I have a bad feeling about him now. While understandable if he turned out to be a traitorous weasel, I would be disappointed. I'd have loved having my Sith flirt more with him. So I hope my fears prove unfounded and he's simply fiercely loyal to the Empire and Empress Acina. It would be ashamed losing another cool Sith, and I had really hoped we'd eventually get him as a permanent companion.

As for the rest of the story. I still miss being more Sith and pushing people who annoy me around, but I'm decently happy with the choices I was given. People on r/swtor complained about not being able to be meaner to that couple on Tatooine, but while I agree, it didn't annoy me that much. I was still rude to them, even though a Sith would have either killed that Force sensitive or brought her to Korriban. But I've accepted that we can no longer play evil characters in videogames. There was this good post also on r/swtor where someone pointed out that the mood has shifted so much in the past ten years that writing or roleplaying someone with less than a pure character nowadays means that you must actually share their evil proclivities. Which is obviously dumb and untrue, but it's another of those cancerous ideas that tumblr has spread all across Western society.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to the next story patch and hope it comes out soon.
Now I'm trying to unlock the Dantooine daily area. It's cool, I like those dynamic encounters, but you do need several people for them. At least I can't solo them. I think I'm on the last quests before unlocking the area, but we're heading into the city centre to run some errands, so it'll have to wait until we're back.

Unrelated, but a quick update on my Strudelhofstiege progress: I'm more than halfway through now. Woohoo! I won't make it before the end of the year, but I do hope it won't take me much afterwards. Though I get the feeling I won't be able to read a lot while we're in Wales.

Current Mood: accomplished

yuuago

+ Wood Buffalo Pride is crowdfunding for gender-affirming gear (binders etc) for those in the community who can't afford it. I know everyone's rather tapped out at this time of year, but if anyone's able to contribute, I'm sure it'd be appreciated. The drive ends on January 04, 11:59 PM.

+ Had a writing session with

kanadka today. Felt good to work on something! The fic I have in progress is kind of dumb, but I'm really enjoying it. Definitely a 'just for me' kind of thing. (Well, and also for the one person who consistently posts work for this rarepair, apparently. One of those situations where it isn't for them specifically but I kind of have them in mind while working on it.)

+ Gotta' admit it. I'm coming down with a cold. All week I've felt oogy, for lack of a better word, but with the amount of sneezing and nose-blowing I've been doing today, I have to admit defeat. This is driving me mad because why do I have to get sick while on vacation, argh. Well, looks like I'm not going to judo tomorrow. :V And like, I'd planned to spend most of the day tomorrow relaxing and watching movies anyway, but this is... not what I had in mind.

cornerofmadness

I was thinking about writing communities and how I feel like I'm missing one at this point. I don't like this feeling. Other than that twice a month zoom meet up I feel like I have no community (and even there I feel like an interloper but if not for me, there would be almost no one there) My friend and I tried to restart the local group on Nov. It was a miserable failure (other than us enjoying each other's company so it wasn't a complete waste of time)

So I was curious, do you feel like you have a good writing community? I'm not talking about the writing every day sort of thing. I shared plenty of them. I think the closest I come to on DW is

ushobwri and

getyourwordsout. Both are good communities.

And there is every chance the emptiness is in ME and nothing I put into it will fill that hole. And I'm not even sure I have words to articulate what I'd like to see in a group (and it could be that I'm looking for a street team of alpha/beta readers but I'm not even sure that's it either)

So do you have a good one? Is it open? I'm curious.

Open Calls

Gramarye: Now Seeking Submissions

Verify You’re Not Human The main character of the story must be therian (identify as a non-human animal) with a strong focus on what that means

Obsidian: The Dark Space Novelette Anthology Darker 9000-25000 word stories about exploration, isolation, and the harsh conditions of space

Sapphic Spec Fic Anthology of Identity and Purpose Stories that explore sapphic identity and purpose through the lens of fantasy and speculative fiction

Black Horror, Then & Next Stories that recognize the legacy of Black horror, its literary milestones, cultural roots, and innovative voices, while pushing the genre into new, daring territory. (for Black authors only)

Newsela Original Fiction For Elementary-High School 1,500–5,000 word genre works that are targeting Upper Elementary, Middle School, and High School readers

Sci-Fi Ireland Science Fiction where if the science/technology element was removed the plot would not function
Note: To submit, you must be living on, or were born on, the Island of Ireland

23 Publishers Accepting Memoir Submissions

The Knight Before Christmas Christmas romances

From Around the Web

Notes from the Editor’s Desk: December 2025

An Argument for Writing Short Stories

When We Believe

Five Common Motivation Issues and How to Address Them

160 Christmas Writing Prompts

My Open Letter To That Open Letter About AI In Writing And Publishing by Chuck Wendig (in case you missed it last week the Nebula awards decided to allow AI writing and Publisher Weekly wrote how to use Ai and the authors went nuts (as they should have)

15 Rules for Negotiating a Large Book Sale

How to Make an Author Website in 8 Steps

Rules for Capitalizing Titles and Chapters.

Amazon Metadata Mistakes Every Indie Author Must Avoid

Self-Publishing Your Book: Quick Guide (Updated 2025)

Why Selling Direct Beats KDP for Long-Term Author Profits

17 Exciting Fantasy Novel Ideas for Authors

From Betty

How to Avoid Melodrama in Your Writing

Avoiding the Planet of Hats

Five Common Ways Fights Get Contrived

How to Write Scenes With Lots of New People

The Value of Writing Shock and Avoiding Valueless Trauma

Is Your Novel Ready for a Film Adaption? How to Begin the Process of Adapting My Story for Film

The Complete Guide to Self-editing for Writers Part 2: Practical Tools and Techniques to Strengthen Your Manuscript Before Outside Feedback

Current Mood: sad
Current Music: Killer Relationships

yuuago

So, I ordered a set of watercolours from Beam Paints back in November, and it just arrived today. Two shades of green, two yellow, one red, and one dark blue. It's actually bundled with a Kaweco Sport fountain pen, and comes in the pen tin along with a travel paintbrush. It's quite a nice little set and I can hardly wait to try it out.

The Kaweco pen (plastic, medium nib) is very different from the Pilot Metropolitan (metal, extra fine nib) that my pen-enthusiast acquaintance loaned me. It's quite small; narrower than the Pilot pen, and when capped it's roughly 10 cm; with the cap off and stuck on the back, it's roughly 13cm. VS the Pilot, which is 13.5 capped and roughly 15 uncapped. The Kaweco pen is much, much lighter, which I appreciate because honestly, my hands are rather weak and I've always had issues with heavy pens. I would never write anything extensive (such as fic) with the Pilot pen, but I could potentially see myself doing so with the Kaweco pen. Mind you, I'm not about to give up the cheapass Bic rollerballs that I use as my main fic-writing medium.

The Kaweco pen came with one cartridge tucked backward inside of it; apparently this is standard for this pen. Probably due to shifting in transit, there was a godawful mess; ink everywhere. I had to clean things out a bit before using. Since there was spillage, I'm not quite sure how long that cartridge will last, but I'm going to eventually buy a converter regardless, so it doesn't matter so much.

The travel brush is quite nice; good weight, feels like good quality. It's a really versatile size and I can see myself using it a lot.

...Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to actually use any of the paints, which were the entire reason I bought this set. But hopefully I will get to it within the next few days. I'm super looking forward to trying it out. :V

cornerofmadness

I woke up feeling lightheaded, slightly headachy and hella tired (this is not the good augering part) This is when Mom tells me that the couple I don't like are coming up tonight. UGH. As I told

evil_little_dog that I planned to 'go out with friends' when they came up but now I'm sick (and really I am) so mom says just stay upstairs then and don't bother with them.

But they blew my parents off. WOO HOO. Twice now this holiday. My parents might go to my aunt's house (where they're staying as she's actually prejudice woman's real aunt) in the morning. I'm a late riser so I get out of going (in theory) but even if I don't it'll be a short trip because the Steeler game is tomorrow and they want all visitors out (which should tell everyone what they need to know. You rate under football) And they leave monday so I am hoping this is a sign for the coming year where things that upset me are removed from my presence.

I got my official Hazbin merch today, the holiday poster and key chains (all sold out now) and the season 1 DVDs. I am happy to have that (luckily I'm too tired for my why you don't own downloads rant)

It's time for science saturday

One Protein Is a Better Predictor of Heart Disease Than Cholesterol

Powerful Anti-Cancer Drug Discovered Inside Japanese Tree Frog.

Garlic Mouthwash Could Be The New Gold Standard. Here's Why. I need to send this to my research student who is working with mouthwash

New Drug Stalls Alzheimer's Development in Breakthrough Trial

Cats meow more at men to get their attention, study suggests

A huge surprise': 1,500-year-old church found next to Zoroastrianism place of worship in Iraq

Tiny implant 'speaks' to the brain with LED light

See the 100,000th photo of Mars taken by NASA's groundbreaking Red Planet orbiter

( Christmas pictures of the house )

You can click the eggs if you want.

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Svengoolie

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taevachi

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