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acet posting in

Name: Hi I'm Ace!

Age: 30s

I mostly post about: life, coding, activism, politics, idk things? I'm just getting back into "Real Life" blogging so am setting up a new journal. My pervious one was

theladyunicorn and I think I had another potentially ~immortalaussie before that but those were well over a decade ago.

My hobbies are: reading, writing, fandom, collecting old books, web design and development, collecting and dropping hobbies, candle and jewellery making, gaming, doing to much, volunteering

My fandoms are: My main fandom is BTS at the moment but I dabble in a lot of things. If you're after fandom specific posts that will be over at my other new journal

thequirkyfan which I'm also still setting up.

I'm looking to meet people who: Cool and want to be friends

My posting schedule tends to be: Who knows!

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: I strongly believe that Love is Love, Anti Genocide, BLM, Disability Rights, and all of that stuff and I ask that you are too

Before adding me, you should know: At the moment I imagine a lot of my stuff will be public unless its super personal etc. I will use content warnings as appropriate as I will talk about mental health, health problems, disability and weight loss etc

heathercoxrichardson_feed

Posted by Heather Cox Richardson

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-16-2026-46f

luzula

OMG. I have FINISHED my current longfic! About a third of this was written after November 2024, which is when my writing slowed down a lot because of, well, emotional competition from other things in my life. I am VERY proud nevertheless to have finished it, and honestly I can't tell the difference in quality between my writing before and after (my beta said the same). It just took a longer time. And speaking of beta reading, I am very grateful to

garonne, as always. <3

Far Frae the Bonny Hills and Dales (108912 words) by Luzula
Chapters: 22/22
Fandom: Flight of the Heron - D. K. Broster
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham, Ewen Cameron/Alison Grant
Characters: Keith Windham, Ewen Cameron, Alison Grant (Jacobite Trilogy), Lachlan MacMartin, Margaret Cameron, Lord Aveling (Jacobite Trilogy), Earl of Stowe (Jacobite Trilogy)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Grief/Mourning, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Penal Transportation, Slow Burn
Summary: Ewen is brought to trial in Carlisle and convicted, but sentenced to another fate than the scaffold.

writtenwordsaloud posting in

fandomcalendar

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kaffy_r

Music Meme, Day 19

A song to drive to:

Years ago, Bob and I, and Drs. Bob and Gonzo (respectively the husband of Dr. Gonzo, and his wife, our 300-pound Samoan Attorney*) went on a legendary road trip from Chicago up through Toronto and east through Quebec, New Brunswick, and down to Nova Scotia to visit my mother, thence over to Maine and down to New York to visit Dr. Bob and Gonzo's families. After that, we headed west back to Chicago.

It was a hell of a ride, and we ruined Bob and Gonzo's poor little 4-goat-power Ford Escort. But oh, the memories! Gonzo and I being mistaken for Times Square working girls by a NYPD patrol officer while the two Bobs were behind us in a porn shop, perusing available material ... introducing the doctors to the Bay of Fundy in Halls Harbor and other small ports, introducing them to my beloved mum and my amazing brother ... dealing with Gonzo's mother, who we learned to llove despite everything ....

And driving. Driving on the flat land between Chicago and Toronto, stopping at an open bar in Toronto for breakfast after driving all night. Dr. Gonzo discovering how much fun it was to drive 80 mph (she'd worried about that, until we were passed by an RCMP car going even faster). Dr. Bob discovering how much he loved driving up and down hills in Maine, shouting "Banzai!" as he did.

Going up and down small hills, then longer hills, higher hills. The hills everywhere on our trip were part of the fun.

My first big hill came accompanied by this song; heading down faster and faster, while the Boss told us about the girl he's in hopeless love with, while the bass and keyboards anchored the song that threatens to go off the rails with his longing, with the multi-part ending not letting go until absolutely necessary.

To this day, I remember the joy of going faster and faster to this song. It's probably lucky that I don't have easy access to it while driving these days.

Here's the original from his breakout album.

Watch on YouTube

And here is the song sung live, in all its overheated glory.

Watch on YouTube

Here are links to the previous days of this meme. Day 17, and Day 16 cover the waterfront.

* Ed Sunden gave our beloved bass playing lawyer the sobriquet Dr. Gonzo, naming her in honor of Hunter Thompson's sidekick from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the amazing Oscar, Zeta Acosta, an attorney, writer and activist in his own right.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Bruce Springsteen "She's the One"

jazzfish

Just finished Lord of the Rings. This may well have been the first time I read the Appendices all the way through (though I did skim the ones on the calendars and the alphabets).

Two takeaways from RotK:

First, the Scouring of the Shire hits different when you're under occupation. It's also perhaps the most fantastical part of the book, since it posits that the citizenry were nearly all ready to rise up and just needed a push, as opposed to a third of them cheering on Otho and Sharkey and a third of them just hunkering down and hoping it would all pass them by.

Second, the meme take on Denethor as 'doomscrolling in the Palantir to Sauron's algorithm' is ... remarkably apt.

Now ebooks for a couple of days, and then once I'm home the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. UT is, as I recall, mostly-complete fragments with some commentary. The twelve-volume History of Middle-Earth reverses the proportions, and is thus less interesting to me. UT also contains a version of the Quest of Erebor ("The Hobbit") as told from Gandalf's perspective, which should be neat.

All quiet on bus stop patrol. Tuesday had a couple of plateless SUVs and a couple of blocks-away whistle choruses; Thursday and yesterday were quiet. It's nice to be out in the snow in my black wool coat and hat, though, and nice to get some smiles from folks driving past.

soemand

Spent the day gathering kids’ songs for our upcoming travels, checked on the sailboat in storage, and now we’re getting ready for a little dance party tonight with the kiddo. A full, sweet day.

loganberrybunny

Public

Kemi Badenoch tonight: "On this I agree with Keir Starmer." This being calling out Trump's latest pronouncement on Greenland-related tariffs. You don't often see her saying that about the PM! That said, I think we may be getting quite close to a tipping point within Labour now: the Starmer approach of trying to maintain cordial relations with the White House was reasonable for a while, but when a European ally's territory is under direct threat? Then it ain't, and I think most Labour MPs will want more open condemnation of Trump from Starmer now.

Also, US Supreme Court, will you please get on with it with your tariffs ruling? At least we'll know where we are then, even if it is "This Court asks, 'How high, Mr President?'"

By the way, for my overseas readers: the Greenland thing is top story tonight on every serious UK news source. It's a huge deal here in a way that the Minnesota protests (though reported) are not, because of its direct effects on Britain.

Current Mood: thirsty

sonia

How to Temporarily Disable Face ID or Touch ID, and Require a Passcode to Unlock Your iPhone or iPad by John Gruber.

Just press and hold the buttons on both sides. Remember that. Try it now. Don’t just memorize it, internalize it, so that you’ll be able to do it without much thought while under duress, like if you’re confronted by a police officer. Remember to do this every time you’re separated from your phone, like when going through the magnetometer at any security checkpoint, especially airports. As soon as you see a metal detector ahead of you, you should think, “Hard-lock my iPhone”.

umadoshi

I finished Chuck Wendig's Wanderers (which according to the acknowledgements clocks in around 800 pages in hard copy) and wound up in that all-too-familiar place of "that was interesting, but I don't think I'm going to bother with the sequel". (Although by definition, I imagine the sequel must be telling a very different kind of story.) No idea why it is that I can often tell only partway through a book that I probably won't pick up its sequel and yet still want to finish the current one.

I also just read Inside Threat, the sixth of K.B. Spangler's Rachel Peng [see icon] novels. There's one more planned, and then that's it for this novel series; I think she's still intending to write a third Hope Blackwell novel (some of the events of that probably-someday book directly influenced what happened in this one, but the whole 'verse is a very twisty pretzel in terms of chronological vs. publication order). And this reminds me--I don't think I ever mentioned here that Act III of the A Girl and Her Fed comic, the core of the whole thing, wrapped up a few months ago, ending the series. (IIRC, Spangler does have ideas that could eventually turn into a fourth act of the webcomic, but has no current plans to pursue doing it. It sounds like AGAHF and the associated works understandably got harder and more exhausting to do over the last decade as the real-world US political situation got worse and worse and worse.)

There isn't a whole lot I can say about a sixth novel in a series, but Spangler's descriptions of the series when she's doing promo on Bluesky always entertain me. Yesterday she posted "It's book launch week! Spend the weekend catching up with my bargain basement cyborg hivemind. Murder, mystery, and a detective who just wants to be left alone with her poetry and bad romance novels"; here's her "what's this series about?" Bluesky thread from a few days ago.

So once again: highly recommended, and it's entirely possible to just read this set of novels without reading/knowing the comic. It means not knowing a lot of things about the world overall, but they're things that Rachel herself doesn't know at this point (and doesn't learn about until Act II of the comic, which starts after her books have wrapped up). I enjoy the comic and other material very much, but the Rachel books are by far my favorite.

And that bit got long, so just quickly:

--I'm a few more chapters into Braiding Sweetgrass and haven't picked up a next novel yet.

--

scruloose and I are current on the new season of The Pitt and four episodes into Pluribus, and just watched the season 2 premiere of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. (Now to just hope this season covers past vol. 10 of the manga, since after we finished season 1 in 2024, I read volumes 7-10 before deciding to stop reading ahead and stick with the anime. It'd be nice to get at least a bit of new-to-me material this season, given that. Anyone know offhand how many episodes S2 will be?)

--And I've technically started a new (!) video game, in the form of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (on Switch), but am not very far at all yet.

Current Mood: blank

vriddy

dolorosa_12 wrote a post about the Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure which includes helpful suggestions for concrete action.

ruuger

I have been feeling a bit left out because I have been posting fic again recently, but haven't got a single spam bot commenting on my fic, wanting to make art for me :(

But it finally happened!

I posted a Mandalorian h/c fic (quelle surprise) this afternoon, and I just got a comment telling me how much they like the fic and someone commented about wanting to turn it into a comic "so more manga readers could enjoy it).

I'm finally one of the cool kids!

For some reason I'm always ignored by the spammers and scammers. All my friends on Instagram are getting fake celebrities messaging thems, but I've never got a single fake Pedro Pascal slipping into my DMs.

Seriously, though, this is a PSA to those few people who might not yet have heard of the scammers that are currently targeting AO3 users. What makes them more insidious is that they are not anon and leave comments that seem fairly legit, making it easy to think that they're a real user who has enjoyed your fic. But the tell is that they want you to contact them outside AO3, either via email or Discord, often under the pretense of wanting to make fanart or you fic (or to just give you more feedback). If you get comments like this, do not respond to them, just delete the comment, block and report the user.

lovelyangel

U.S.S. Athena
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Episode 1

(Spoiler-free Commentary)

The premiere episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is available for free viewing (for I don’t know how long) at YouTube. I made time to watch it last night.

I had been hopeful for a good showing, and I was not disappointed. I’ve always loved Holly Hunter (since Broadcast News... and, yay! The Incredibles!) and want her to be a big success here. Also, I’m a fervent Trekkie – from way back to the actual broadcast years of the original series in the 1960s.

In the episode, Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti were fabulous, as expected. The cadets were the expected variety of races, temperaments, maturity, composure, and intelligence; they have room to grow.

(One odd thought... if you take the academy’s chancellor and most? all? of the academy’s recruits into space... wouldn’t losing them all at once be catastrophic for the academy? I guess we’d better hope that only a small percentage of cadets are on the Athena at any one time. Dunno.)

I don’t have the time nor the budget to subscribe to Paramount+, so I won’t see the remainder of season one until much later. But I’ll continue to monitor reviews. There are always lots of review articles online. I did follow review articles of Foundation and Murderbot when I was watching those series. There are plenty of Starfleet Academy reviews online currently.

There was one article I enjoyed: I Love That Holly Hunter Can’t Sit in a Chair Normally on ‘Starfleet Academy’ at Gizmodo. And I too love that about Captain Ake.

What was quite interesting was the comments section of the article. Apparently a large number of Trekkies really dislike the new show. Reading their complaints was interesting. I hope the producers of the series ignore that feedback and simply continue on their chosen path.

On the other hand, a couple of comments did resonate with me.

I LOVED her doing all that! I'm 5'2" myself and while I don't often get the chance to be in chairs like her character's, I could see myself doing that on occasion. I almost certainly did as a kid. As for those having a "problem" with this show, I am a long-time Trek fan, having started watching as a kid right after it went into syndication in the 1970s (I'm just one year older than the franchise), and I love every iteration. Are they all perfect? No. Do some of them challenge Roddenberry's vision? Of course. Are they woke? You better believe it, from day one 60 years ago! But they never stray so far that you can't recognize the ultimate message: We can be better. We can do our best to be kind, understanding, tolerant, collaborative and uplifting. If you don't like that, fine; don't watch. But don't tell me Starfleet Academy is not Trek, because it very, very much is, and it proved that in the first two episodes right off the bat.

–– MartinC

and:

I liked her character, immensely. And look – I’m 70, and I know they’re targeting a generation that’s several removed from me, but it’s still Trek … and I love it.

And I’ve got to say … when they brought the Athena (god, what a gorgeous starship) down to San Francisco, with Rufus Wainwright singing “you’d better wear some flowers in your hair,” it was practically a religious moment for me. I feel sorry for anyone who can’t share that joy.

–– Zaphod

Haters probably didn’t like Lower Decks or Prodigy or Strange New Worlds either. Well, let them sulk elsewhere. I like all flavors of Trek. (Admittedly, I have some reservations about Enterprise.) Haters include non-Trekkie White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. SMH. Let Miller know that Star Trek has been “woke” for 60 years.

james

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ruuger

I haven't been doing the Snowflake Challenge this year, but the latest challenge popped up on my f-list, and I had to do it.

Challenge #9
Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

( If you've been following me for any length of time, you know where this is going )

Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring an image of a wrapped giftbox with a snowflake on the gift tag. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and cold. Yesterday we saw several skeins of geese, but they were mostly flying east or west rather than north; go figure.

I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows and a male cardinal.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/17/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

.

Current Mood: busy

silveradept

It's time for another

snowflake_challenge, and this one is geared more toward those of us who like to talk about the building blocks, the character types, and the storytelling pathways that link and underlie any given specific story being told.

Challenge #9

Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

( Discard the momomyth and understand that Tropes Are Tools )

Current Mood: weird
Current Music: Dove - Cymande

maju

My daughter and the girls have gone to visit a friend who lives an hour or so away, west of us and therefore closer to NYC. Just as they were leaving it started to snow lightly and as time passes the snow is getting heavier. Presumably the snow ploughs will be out and they won't have any trouble getting home again.

Yesterday I actually sat down and started getting the edge pieces of the puzzle in place, and I'm going to work on the puzzle some more this afternoon while it's quiet. My motivation for getting started was that my youngest daughter gave me this puzzle for Christmas and I don't want her thinking I'm not going to do it.

machinistm

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Current Music: It's You - Peter Peter

brithistorian

I am reminded of a statement by the former mayor of Bogotá, Antanas Mockus, a politician who employed artistic strategies in his office: "When an artist goes to prison, they take a piece of chalk and draw a line some centimetres from the wall to define their space, so they can have a bit more restrictions (sic). But by making those restrictions they in fact liberate themselves." A line can be a border and simultaneously an assertion of freedom. Being able to decide on your own limits, your strengths and weaknesses, is always empowering, offering a certain degree of sovereignty even in the direst situation.

Joanna Warsza, "Open Mic: Joanna Warsza on the Art of Open Group," *Artforum," October 2025, p. 110.

I've been thinking about this since I read it an hour or so ago. I think the quote from Mockus helped Warsza to set up for presenting her idea, but I don't think Mockus (at least as presented in this quote or — as I think is likely — in this translation of his quote) appears to quite understand what was going on in those prison cells. I don't think the artists wanted to "have a bit more restrictions (sic)," but instead, as Warsza put it, to "decide on [their] own limits."

When I was younger and studying poetry in school[^1], I never really understood why someone would choose to write poetry once prose had been invented, which seemed to me to be a superior method for conveying ideas. It's only later, as I learned more and started producing art of my own, that I learned the potential value of working within a set of restrictions, whether self-imposed or those of a traditional form. And looking back, I wonder if this value of restriction is something that my teachers could have explained to me, or if it's something that I had to figure out on my own in order to understand it.

[^1] Confession: I never really liked or (apparently) understood poetry.

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A Head Full of Ideas that were Driving Me Insane....

...and a Mouthful of Cotton Candy

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January 16, 2026

Fic: Far Frae the Bonny Hills and Dales (Flight of the Heron)

HAZBIN HOTEL: DiVEEnation - A Vees-Centric Tarot Zine

Dept. of Memes

scouring, etc

Something 🎶🏡

An achievement for Trump, I suppose

Link: Require a passcode for your iPhone/iPad

Weekly proof of life: mainly media again

Signal boost: Ukraine

My first phishing spam on AO3!

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

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Snowflake challenge #9

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Snowflake Challenge 02026 #9: Tropes Are Tools

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QOTD: On limitations in art

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