mrissa | Network

Prompt 8 for this year is "Talk about your creative process." which made me realise it's been a while since I've had a Story Song. Usually when I have a story I'm working on I have a song that goes with it, that echoes some aspect of the plot, setting or character (dynamics) and yet lately... Nothing. Maybe that's why everything has been feeling so empty and been so hard to write?

ANYWAY all this is a long-winded way to ask for music recs.

glinda

This week I've been working on making a good start to one of my resolutions, to start a new recipe notebook. (When I first started learning to cook in an organised fashion, while I was going my post-grad, I took a nice notebook I had and wrote down all my succesful recipes in it. It's a multi-coloured decade's worth of recipes that I refer to regularly even now that I'm a vegetarian and many of the recipes aren't one's I'd ever cook now.) I've been meaning to start a new one for a few years now, but never got round to it, because, well I had my tablet and most recipes I was cooking that weren't in actual cookbooks were on the internet and it was just easier to look them up, but it's really come home to me in the last year when I've gone to look something up and it's just gone. (Not even random people's food blogs, but places I'd expect things to be like the guardian or the good food magazine page.) So I've started in on recipes from my 'cook new recipes' challenges from the past few years, and a significant percentage of them are lost to link rot and paywalls.

But the other thing I've noticed - and part of what makes me want to keep the project up - is that my handwriting is really rusty. I've had to make fairly heavy usage of my tippex mouse because I keep missing letters out of words, not even in the analogue version of typos just I'm so out of practice of writing by hand that I'm half-forgetting how to form the letters properly. I used to have a problem with missing out letters when I wrote essays because I was writing so fast to keep up with my brain - the main reason I switched to typing, as it's much easier to keep up with the speed of thought/ideas that way - but I'm just copying out recipes here. Though on the plus-side, forcing myself to slow down, to form the letters properly is making it a more meditive experience than I expected it to be.

I've always prided myself on having nice handwriting. Ever since we did a unit on the Victorians and spent that whole term perfecting copperplate script I've written a minorly adapted version of that. (I adjusted some letters to be more easily read by modern eyes, so I wouldn't get marked down for mis-spelling words because my teachers that didn't recognise my old-fashioned letters.) All through secondary and university my preferred method of studying was to make notes and the rewrite my notes and I still have piles of notebooks about the place in neat multi-coloured copperplate. So it's both weird and minorly upsetting when my handwriting isn't neat despite my best efforts. No doubt with regular practice it'll improve but at the moment I'm falling a low way short of my own high standards for my handwriting.

It's a ridiculous thing to be having feelings about, I am aware, but nonetheless, I am having them. My handwriting isn't as nice as it used to be - less smooth, more effort for less pleasing results - and it annoys me. I'm feeling a little rusty here, it's a thing.

Current Music: Radio 3 - Unclassified

petra

Stand With Minnesota.com has mutual aid opportunities and testimonals of what happens when the president decides he doesn't like a state and sends in ICE to harass everyone.

If you donate 25 bucks to any listed org, tell me about it, and I will write for you in any of my fandoms. Anonymous comments signed with a username are welcome, and I explicitly 100% do not want anything that doxxes you.

Stay safe out there and help each other.

Current Mood: determined
Current Music: When I look around me, I can't believe what I see

hebethen posting in

fffriday

Happy Friday!

This was a weird ride, to be honest. It's a fairly meaty book -- in an alternate Singapore where gangs can channel divine powers through oath tattoos that bind them to their god, the daughter of a nouveau middle-class shopkeeper discovers her mother's secrets, her own sexuality, and how far she's willing to go for revenge -- and I found it immersive in the worldbuilding and compelling in the storylines, but the pacing is absolutely bizarre. It kind of goes about its business for 80% of the pagecount, suddenly accelerates in the next 15%, and then breaks the sound barrier to crash-land the final 5% with a resolution that feels to me almost like the author ran out of energy and just summarized the rest.

If you're craving dark f/f with plenty of violence and tragedy, it might be worth a gander -- I'm deeply curious as to whether anyone else feels (or will feel) similarly about the pacing.

violsva

In the spirit of enjoying the process more than the product, I've been picking up an old hobby this month: collecting alphabets.

I was feeling a bit nostalgic for language learning in December, and I thought that in January I might study Arabic or Mandarin, since I already have textbooks for those, and maybe I should try to keep up my French ... and then I watched Kpop Demon Hunters.

In university I taught myself Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, because it's really cool. It was invented by King Sejong in 1443 specifically so that peasants could learn to read without having to learn Chinese characters.

한글 (Hangeul) doesn't look like an alphabet if you're used to western ones, but each of the character blocks is actually made up of separable letters. So (simplification) ㅂ is b or p, and 비빔밥 is bibimbap, and you can see ㅂ in four places in that word, three times at the beginning of a syllable (upper left) and once at the end.

The thing is, my goal is not actually to learn Korean. If I wanted to be able to have a conversation or watch a movie in Korean, I would need to take a class so I could actually hear it spoken and make sure I was pronouncing the sounds correctly and practice using it with real human beings. It's awkward having both an interest in languages and social anxiety.

If I had done that in university, I might have remembered the alphabet over the intervening 15 years, instead of forgetting 90% of it because all I used it for is sounding out signs.

But I like being able to sound out words, even if I never pick up the vocabulary properly. It makes me feel like I am part of a multicultural society. So I got a Korean textbook from the library, and I'm going through it focusing on learning to read, but also finding out interesting things about Korean language and culture as I go. (Two sets of numbers!)

I thought I still had Korean flashcards I'd made in university, but it turns out they're actually from when I tried to learn Arabic. When I think I've gotten what I can from this book maybe I'll try Arabic again.

About this time last year I read a book on statistics and then one on combinatorics, making notes and doing the math exercises. They didn't stick as much as I hoped they would, but I enjoyed studying them anyway.

unicornduke

I am two years overdue on moving my pictures from my Camera Uploads folder on my dropbox to my external harddrive/online only dropbox folder. So far I've done about 50GB, around 6 months and have just moved up to the end of March 2025. Since the Camera Uploads folder is mirrored on my computer harddrive, it takes up a ton of space if I haven't moved things out of it in a while. In an ideal world, I'd do the transfer every two months. I ought to go looking through and print some photos out, which is something I enjoy doing every couple of years.

I have hung two pieces of art in my crafting room using command strips. I have decided that's how I'm going to hang most things since the plaster and lathe walls don't exactly hold things well. I have a whole crate of used frames for art prints and posters which my aunt gave to me. Some need new cardboard backing but I'm excited to hang art! I think I will make some collages of photos and art as well. Main struggle is getting things to stay in place . Also had an absolute galaxy brain moment the other day when I started winding the warp to go on my loom: the warping board can be clamped to the front beam of my loom and it is the perfect height to wind a warp. The best ergonomics for winding ever. Previous places I have put it: on the floor leaning against a table, on my crafting chair arms, on the couch. All of those require leaning over or sitting on the floor. This is such a good change.

We spread another two loads of straw this morning to empty the trailer before it got windy and I reassembled the chainsaw. It's usable if cranky, which describes most equipment on this farm. It was having issues cutting, would more or less just stop once it got partway into the log and it seems like the bar was the problem. We ran through all the other things, sharpened chain, tightened it, cut maple instead of the pin oak, etc. I switched to an alternate bar and it actually started cutting. Spent some time this afternoon cutting up a maple tree that will be burner wood probably and also my dad got a call that the guy brought a load of oak logs. I wanted to replace the rim sprocket on the chainsaw because it's getting worn but the piston stop I bought is plastic, it was taking too much force to remove the clutch drum and I was worried about the plastic breaking and getting into the piston which would be a big pain to get out. The small chainsaw is still out of order, so we might take that to someone to fix, it runs for 15 seconds and then shuts off no matter what, so mystery. I wonder about finding a small engine repair course of some sort, we have chainsaws, weedwackers, pumps, generators, snowblowers all here on the farm. They break a lot. Could be our maintenance. We are running for more straw tomorrow afternoon.

My farm business stuff is progressing. I haven't really talked about it much, but it is happening. My parents attorney did all the paperwork for me, so now I have the EIN and operating agreement, which I'll need to set up banking accounts and go to other businesses for things. My parents are currently footing the expenses until that's all set up, but we are considering it an operating loan for now. I need to do research on the banks/credit unions and figure out who will be good to work with. We are getting back to weekly farm transition meetings so much discussion of things is happening. I am taking a six week webinar on farm insurance. thrilling stuff

copperbadge_feed

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/805920029834084352

basinke:

elljayvee:
basinke:
elljayvee:
crimeronan:
crimeronan:
i got a 100% on this bostonian-to-english quiz but i grew up near boston….. i’m curious what you guys get. there’s a couple things in here i didn’t even know are regionalisms + a couple things i hadn’t heard before but could parse pretty easily from context. tag/reply with what you got and if you’re familiar with the area or not!
#didn’t know these were regionalisms? i’ve never heard any of these phrases in my life (via @worldwarthree)
GENUINELY before today i thought fluffernutter and american chop suey were part of National American Culture ™. i was so puzzled by those questions that i googled both bc i was like “ohhh, this quiz maker thinks some american things aren’t as widespread as they are….. they’re assigning regional markers to things that aren’t regional…… every american will instantly recognize these….”
and then i discovered both of these things are, in fact, particular to the new england region.
& went. What.
This summer, I will have been married to a man from Massachusetts for 25 years. You learn things.
I…know a lot of people from Boston?
Pittsburgh PA Translator
My kids did better on this than they did on the Boston one. For some reason.
yaaaaaas

Boston, which is my happy place:

Pittsburgh, a spiritual sibling to Chicago:

Didn’t nail the PGH test as hard but yinz’ll forgive me for mispronouncing Wholey’s. I mean you’ll give me shit about it forever but you won’t hold it against me.

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/805920029834084352

cupcake_goth

I’m still am suffering bronchitis. I did some digging in MyChart, because I’ve suffered this bronchitis thing at least once a year for the past few years, and mine and Mr. Loomy’s suspicions were correct: the clinic doctor I saw over the weekend, who was abrupt and didn’t listen to either of us, prescribed me less than half of the dosage of prednisone that I’ve had previously. No wonder I’m not getting better. I went back to the clinic last night, and while the (different!) doctor didn’t say anything bad about what his coworker did, his facial expression made his opinion clear. I’m now on a massive dosage of prednisone that slowly tapers and antibiotics. I tapped out from work again; look, me trying to be better about self care!

If I’m going to be a sickly invalid, I want laudanum. And a trip to the seaside where someone will push me around in a fancy wheelchair. Then more laudanum.

—

Yesterday I turned off the Ask Anonymously option on my Tumblr. I’ve been inundated with spam, porn bots, and unkind-to-hateful messages, and I don’t have the spoons to deal with any of it.

marina

I've officially completed all my birthday activities for this year, so I can like, breathe again.

There was recreational axe throwing, joint TV marathons, dinners, gifts and hugs. I chose not to have any kind of party or gathering this year, so just saw friends individually or in small groups, and it worked out OK. I also celebrated

roga's birthday (and will continue to tomorrow), so it all kind of worked out with multiple events.

How have you been doing, friends?

I'm feeling a bit better than I hoped to, at this time of the year.

ETA: I have cautiously started looking at social media again, in very very limited quantities, and as twitter seems like... not the place, I now have a bluesky. IDK IDK. But if you're on there I may also be on there sometimes too I guess.

cosmicjellyfish

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Current Mood: melancholy
Current Music: birds, again

hamsterwoman

Some fannish catching up!

1)

fandomtrees still has 3 trees below the minimum number of 2 gifts, and is thus at risk of delaying reveals again (currently scheduled for Jan 17 reveals), with the decision on delaying to be made the morning of 1/17. Needy trees are mastershield's Tree (f:astro boy, f:balan wonderland, f:kingdom hearts); kalloway's Tree (f:brave nine, f:crossovers, f:fire emblem, f:granblue fantasy, f:gundam, f:kingdom of heroes, f:super robot heroes) whoremoantreatments' Tree (f:advance wars, f:bleach, f:hypnosis mic, f:kuroko no basket, f:pokemon, f:tales of berseria, f:the world ends with you). (List kept updated here.) All of these are open to fic, and the minimum fill for fic is only 100 words, if anyone knows these fandoms and can help out.

(My tree has above the minimum number of gifts but is here, and I’m eager to see what’s on it :)

2) I should’ve mentioned this earlier, but it’s been a crazy couple of weeks.

lunasariel is hosting a sync read of To Shape a Dragon’s Breath in her DW here. Currently it’s her, me, and

cyanmnemosyne reading along, but contrary to the name, we don’t actually have to be all synched up to participate, so if (like me) you’ve been meaning to read this book for a while, or if you’ve read it already and want to follow our impressions as we make progress through it, come join! I am currently just past halfway,

lunasariel is 10-20 chapters ahead of me, and Cyan has just recently started. (And yes, my thoughts on this book are ~50% on the chemistry. Actual Periodic Table of Elements chemistry, I mean, not chemistry between characters, although I’m enjoying that too.)

3) Snowflake catch up!

Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

The problem with doing Snowflake every year for the last, uh… 10 years, I guess? – is that for repeated questions like this, which are about ME as opposed to about my fandoms or projects or objects, which can accumulate it is much harder to come up with something new to say! Both of these questions fall under that category, and so were more challenging than most for me to answer. But let’s see if I can come up with something without repeating myself.

Challenge #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.

I do want to stick to fandom-related things I like about myself for this one, so, hm. Last time I answered this question seems to be in 2017 (and my things were “good fannish role model for my children”, “thorough and detailed in talking about what I’m reading/watching”, and “conscientious beta”) and the first time in 2016 (my answers were “good fannish baba/matchmaker”, "committed to fannish crack”, and “conscientious about fandom participation”) – and I do still feel those things are all applicable to me and I still like them. But I’ve done a bunch of new things in the last 9 years, from attending conventions to paying attention to the Hugos to signing up for Yuletide, so let me focus on those new things and see if I can extract three new things I like about myself fannishly from them.

( things I like about myself viz conventions, fanfic, and Hugos )

Challenge #8: Talk about your creative process.

This is another one I’ve done before, in 2019 and in 2015, but looking at even the 2019 one, I talked about fannish poetry and graphics, but not about fannish prose/fanfic. So clearly that’s what I should talk about, but what IS my process?

( Fanfic process )

petra

Do you like to sing socially? Do you like traditional music and music in the style of trad music?

Youth Trad Song is a youth-focused but not youth-exclusive event focused on singing with an awareness of social justice issues underlying the trad song community. It's happening the last weekend of March, 2026, in Connecticut.

Registration has closed, but they have a lot of openings left, so get your name in for the waitlist ASAP!

( But money )

Current Mood: musical
Current Music: The moon o'er the combers looks downward to find us

muccamukk

From

snickfic and

slippery_fish.

Go to your Works page on AO3, look at the tags, and see what the answers to these questions are. (Or any other site that has tags)

I'm going to go off both my fic journal (

feast_of_fanfic) and my AO3 page (

Muccamukk). The DW has a handful more fic, and a slightly different rating/tagging system, but should be roughly the same.

What rating do you write most fics under?
DW: Teen.
AO3: Teen and Up Audiences.

What are your top 3 fandoms?
DW: Band of Brothers, Marvel 616 & tie of Babylon 5 and The Pacific.
AO3: Band of Brothers, Marvel 616 (then several subcategories thereof), The Pacific.

What is your top character you write about?
DW: Don't tag for characters.
AO3: Richard Winters (BoB)

What are the 3 top pairings?
DW: Nixon/Winters (BoB), Steve/Tony (Marvel), Band of Brothers Rarepair.
AO3: Nixon/Winters (BoB), Steve/Tony (Marvel), Andy/Eddie (The Pacific).

What are the top 3 additional tags?
DW: Drabbles!, PWP, Canon-Era H/C.
AO3: Canon Era, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon.

Did any of this surprise you? e.g. what turned out to be your top tag.
Only giving each fic one genre each on DW skewed the tags much differently from AO3, for the last question. I've also posted a bunch of drabbles to DW that didn't make it to AO3, so that probably also moves the numbers (like tying B5 with The Pacific). If one includes HBO War and Marvel comics each as one fandom, it would go HBO War, Marvel Comics, Babylon 5.

It also leaves out some of my most popular fic, which are for fandoms I didn't write for as much, but got a couple one hit wonders that sailed to the top of my stats page.

(Any word on DW figuring out what's wrong with the AO3 user profile logo? I gather it's some kind of import problem.)

Code for anyone who wants to gank:

dreamshark

Democrats in Congress don't have a lot of options for fighting the ongoing authoritarian makeover of the US Government, but for the next two weeks there is an opportunity to fight back, be it ever so tenuous. Congress is currently trying to pass a series of funding bills to avert government shutdown with a deadline of Jan 31. After last week's horrifying events in Minneapolis they managed to get enough Republican support to pull Homeland Security funding out of its "minibus" bill so it could be debated separately. Actually Defunding Homeland Security isn't likely to happen, but the Democrats hope to attach policy riders that restrict the behavior of federal agents in American cities. Or insist on the right of local governments to prosecute ICE agents for murder. Or ban masked agents and require body cameras. Something, anything.

Anyway, it's pretty easy to message your Congressional delegation, so I did that. They all have comment forms on their websites. I actually did use "Defund Homeland Security" as my subject line, but did a little quick research on how to word the text of my comment so that it was specific and coherent. Here's what I came up with.

I am a constituent, and I am writing to instruct Representative ..... to vote NO on the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 4213) unless it includes specific policy riders that mandate body cameras and behavioral oversight for ICE and Border Patrol agents. This may be our only chance to reign in the unconstitutional and illegal behavior of these Federal agents. DO NOT BACK DOWN! This is very important to me!

In the case of senators the action on the table doesn't have a name yet, so I was instructed to refer to the FY2026 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. But either way, I imagine the intent is clear.

maevedarcy

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reeby10 posting in

fandom_on_dw

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sonia

I received a notice about this and checked it against classaction.org, so I think it's valid.

Visit www.KaiserPrivacySettlement.com to submit a claim.

Their website is god-awful slow to bring up a Next button when you enter your settlement number, to the point where I had tried it in two other browsers and called the phone number (no human available) before I went back and saw it had finally showed up.

The parties in the lawsuit John Doe, et al. v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., et al., Case No. 3:23-cv-02865-EMC (N.D. Cal.) (“Action”) have reached a proposed settlement of claims (“Settlement”) in a pending class action against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. (“Defendant”) and certain related entities. If approved, the Settlement will resolve this Action wherein Plaintiffs allege that Defendant’s websites and mobile applications disclosed their confidential personal information due to third-party software code. Plaintiffs allege that this code was embedded across Defendant’s platforms, including the secure patient portal, and transmitted information to third parties when users navigated these platforms. Defendant firmly denies the allegations, denying any liability or wrongdoing, and denies that Plaintiffs are entitled to any relief arising from this Action. Defendant also maintains that Plaintiffs have not suffered any damages arising from this Action.

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and chilly. It snowed last night, just enough to leave a blanket of white over everything. Most of it has already melted away.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/16/26 -- I saw a mourning dove.

EDIT 1/16/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

olivermoss

* Babygirl has been sent back down to the AHL. I would be distraught, but I doubt he'll be there long.

* There is a team-building aspect to hockey, the inter-league weirdness and contracts that I am not looking into right now. There is a lot to the sport and I am trying to take a balanced approach... except when it comes to arena conversion videos. I will watch footage of areas switching back and forth between rink mode endlessly.

But, it is weird to me that Canada, who are so serious about player development, pretty much force NHL teams to roster Canadian draftees early or lose them to their juniors teams. And sometimes that means keeping then on the NHL roster and just scratching them every night, so no ice time. Top Canadian talent don't get a stepping stone between juniors and NHL the way other prospects do. We need to either not play them while they train and bulk up with no real play, or let them be penalty bait. We've gotten goals off of how hard other teams go after our youngest player, but that's not great.

alicevangeline

I was thinking about how, culturally, being smart is a good thing - although there are some folks who do not value education. I mean, we call it gifted and/or talented.

However, humility is also a good thing -- we are not better than anyone else, and have as much value as our fellow humans.

---
So I have a problem with admitting that I'm 'smart', and occasionally I recognize that other folks aren't grasping stuff the way I would, and my whole psychology does a little dance about 'we all have different strengths and weaknesses, maybe you have more experience with this topic.'

And the only reason I'm saying it semi-out-loud is that you might have this issue and probably more than I do, reader :).

I'll be real here: I am not smarter than you, and I'm not better than anyone, but there are people I am smarter than.
Honestly, being smart might be factual information, but I was raised to somehow not give myself compliments?

----

Anyway. What does it even mean? Is it 'can solve crosswords in 10 minutes' or program videogames ..... or here's my big Wonder that made me go on here - know that meme that's like 'hey gifted kids of the 80s, how's your AuDHD doing?' I think it's maybe getting things mixed up. I'd like to look up the differences between 'academically talented' or whatever the appropriate term is, and AuDHD .

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mrissa

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January 2026

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Page Summary

dhampyresa - Not really a snowflake challenge entry
glinda - Old Skills a Little Rusty
petra - US Politics: Minnesota under attack
hebethen in fffriday - When They Burned the Butterfly
violsva - Collecting Alphabets
unicornduke - four things make a post
copperbadge_feed - Boston, which is my happy place:
cupcake_goth - (no subject)
marina - a birthday has been had
cosmicjellyfish - Speaking of books
hamsterwoman - Snowflake (days 7-8) and other fannish catching up
petra - US Music: Social Singers in the Northeast - Youth Trad Song Weekend waitlist is open
muccamukk - Fanworks Stats Meme
dreamshark - Defund Homeland Security! Something you can do (time sensitive)
maevedarcy - Snowflake Challenge #7
reeby10 in fandom_on_dw - celebrity20in20 Round 19
sonia - Link: Kaiser class action lawsuit
ysabetwordsmith - Birdfeeding
olivermoss - (no subject)
alicevangeline - (no subject)

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Page generated Jan. 24th, 2026 11:06 pm

Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

The stories are made up, but the problems are real.

Network

Not really a snowflake challenge entry

Old Skills a Little Rusty

US Politics: Minnesota under attack

When They Burned the Butterfly

Collecting Alphabets

four things make a post

Boston, which is my happy place:

(no subject)

a birthday has been had

Speaking of books

Snowflake (days 7-8) and other fannish catching up

US Music: Social Singers in the Northeast - Youth Trad Song Weekend waitlist is open

Fanworks Stats Meme

Defund Homeland Security! Something you can do (time sensitive)

Snowflake Challenge #7

celebrity20in20 Round 19

Link: Kaiser class action lawsuit

Birdfeeding

(no subject)

(no subject)

Profile

January 2026

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