patk | Reading

So this is for

rec_cember, a month-long reccing event that I mentioned a couple of days ago! I don't currently know if there will be roundups or some other way to see what other people are reccing. Weekly check-in posts have been mentioned, but that's all I know about! Anyway, I signed up for daily reccing, so I'll see how long I can keep it up. I will also occasionally round these up over at

recthething.

(BTW, as per the previous poll, there was enough interest in cutting Babylon 5 spoilers that I will do that, as well as anything else significantly spoilery in my recs for other fandoms.)

I'm starting off on easy mode and reccing a short Murderbot TV-verse fic I read the other day that I enjoyed!

Rubberducking by

writingmonsters (Murderbot TV w/some book elements, Gurathin + Murderbot, gen, 979 wds)
Rubber duck debugging (or rubberducking): a debugging technique used in software engineering, wherein a programmer explains their code, step by step, in natural language—either aloud or in writing—to reveal mistakes and misunderstandings.

A cute little slice-of-life genfic in which Gurathin talks through a programming problem by using Murderbot's drone as a sounding board.

sholio

I genuinely can't believe I finished this BUT I DID.

book cover with a magpie holding a Christmas ornament in its beak

The cover is .... there. It may need work.

Anyway - another Fated Mountain Lodge novella arrives for the holidays to answer the question everyone is asking: will the lodge's reservation system work any better this time than it has in the previous four books?

Download from Bookfunnel if you'd like a copy! It comes out on Dec. 7, so the link will stop working then.

https://dl.bookfunnel.com/lzcdk6pga8

Under the cut: a brief history of how this book came to be written.

( Click for details )

clavally

It's the moooost wonderful time of the yeeeeeeeaaaaar!

Welcome to Advent 2025!

1. Up first is our gaming dice. First, before any day, they included a nice green cloth bag to keep all our dice in. Last year's was red. For the actual day we got a full set of mini-gaming dice. Clear with green numbers

2. Diamine Inkvent Calendar: A small bottle of ink called Celestial Skies. It is a very pretty blue shimmer ink. I thought about posting a photo of a sample of writing with it, but you can't really see the sparkles in the photo, so it seemed kind of pointless.

3. Cult Pens: Pentel Orenz 0.2 mechanical pencil. It's a pretty green color. Normal cost: $8.23

4. Nothing yet, BUT I do have one coming which should be here Thursday. At the very last second I bought a chocolate calendar from Cacao and Cardamom. I was debating about getting the calendar from them last year, so I'll be really interested to see how it is. In any case, I figure I'll double-up on days until I'm caught up once I get it.

New for this year: I decided I would post a picture each day of my haul, so enjoy today's photo!

clavally

Yes, I actually have a new book review. It was like I kept forgetting to read, but suddenly I don't have a lot to watch, so it occurred to me I have a few books I haven't finished yet.

Title: Weyward
Author: Emilia Hart
Genre: Fantasy

Review:

Character: 7
Atmosphere: 7
Writing Style: 8
Plot: 7
Intrigue: 8
Logic/Relationships: 7
Enjoyment: 8

Total= 51/7 = 7.3 or 4 stars

Overall thoughts: This book is a combination of three different stories of women across time. I do like books that do that, so this appealed to me for that reason. They're basically all witches or discover they are witches. Some of the themes in the book were a little heavy-handed, but if you can look past an underlying current of "Men are evil" then it's fine. It makes sense for the story, anyway. Not sure I can say anything else without being too spoilery. It was a lot about women coming into their own power, though. It was good. Not the best book I've read this year, but good.

grey853

Title: Niggle
Author: Grey/Grey853
Fandom: Due South
Pairing: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Rating: Explicit
Tags: male slash, explicit language, explicit sexual content, casefic, alternate universe-canon divergent
Word Count: 14,773
Summary: Fraser has a tendency to niggle and live in his own world. Ray gets frustrated. Can they find a way to work together without driving one another crazy?

Link:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/75027586

Snippet:

″I think it’s time we talked about what happened earlier today.″

Ray sighed, wishing like hell they could just forget about it. ″Do we have to? We were having such a good time, eating and just talking about last night’s game. You haven’t niggled once since you got here.″

″Niggled?″

″You know, niggle, that thing you do where you question everything I say. It’s where you argue about the stupidest stuff.″

″I have no idea what you’re talking about. We discuss things and often disagree, but that’s not niggling. That’s just having a conversation. I rather enjoy our discussions.″

″I’m not saying I don’t like how we’re able to give and take, but sometimes you go too far. This thing with the littering is a perfect example.″

″How so?″

Ray took a long swallow of his beer and then poured the rest down the sink. He had a feeling if he finished it, he’d be too loose and he didn’t want that. He had to keep control of his temper and his words. He wanted to say what he needed without revealing too much.

″Let’s have a seat and I’ll try to explain.″

″Very well.″

Fraser walked over and sat down all stiff and prissy.

Well hell. Ray knew what that meant. ″I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.″

″You didn’t.″

″Did, too.″

″Well, how do you expect me to feel, Ray? You say that my conversational style is niggling, which by it’s very nature has a negative connotation. I’m at a loss. I had no idea you felt that way.″

″Look, I really don’t want to make you feel bad, but you’ve got to understand what I’m sayin’. You’ve got to rein in this zeal you’ve got to arrest any and everybody for the smallest infraction. That might work in a small town, but here it’ll just fill up the jails and get you blacklisted and me along with you.″

Fraser didn’t answer right away, but eventually said, ″It doesn’t work in small towns, either.″

″Say what?″

″My zeal, as you call it, has gotten me shunned more than once during my earlier assignments. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been reassigned so frequently.″

Current Mood: good
Current Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Current Music: "Go Easy on Me" by Adele

tarlanx

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

runpunkrun

It's time for the
✨ holiday love meme 2025 ✨

my thread is here

or just comment on this post if that's more your style

mific posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Tolkien: Lord of the Rings
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Elrond
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: leucisticpuffin on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: This is a lovingly detailed depiction of the garden at Imladris (Rivendell), with a somewhat younger Elrond sitting, reading. The notes are interesting as well, giving additional detail. I like the warm tones, and of course the amazing gardens and scenery.
Link: Elrond in the flower garden at Imladris

denise posting in

dw_news

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

sholio

I signed up for

rec_cember, a new reccing challenge comm for posting recs in December. I am going to at least TRY posting bite-sized daily recs, but my track record at daily anything is pretty dismal, so it might turn into weekly posts. I'll make an effort to do roundup posts over at

recthething as well.

This will probably be mostly Murderbot and Babylon 5 (also Biggles? is there any point to posting Biggles recs, in a fandom that small where everyone has probably read anything they're interested in already?). I've actually got a B5 question. I still hope to drag some of you into watching it with me if possible, but I don't want to spoil any potential watchers for major developments in the series, which is really best unspoiled (if you are inclined to enjoy things that way) and doing recs in this particular way is probably going to be spoilergeddon.

So I am curious if people care about this or not.

Poll #33891

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 28

Would you like me to put Babylon 5 spoilers under a cut?

Yes please, that would be appreciated.
6 (21.4%)

I would prefer that you don't, so I can read everything without clicking a cut.
2 (7.1%)

No preference/answer too complex for your binary boxes.
20 (71.4%)

(Results are viewable only to me, so you're not committing yourself publicly to watching the show or anything. I would just like to know if there's any particular reason to be careful about spoiler-cuts or if it doesn't matter all that much at this point.)

grey853

Title: Bugs
Author: Grey/Grey853
Fandom: SG1
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: Teen and up
Summary: Jack has a lot of explaining to do to get back into Daniel's good graces.
Tags: male slash, explicit language, romance
Word Count: 1,567
Link:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/74960746

Snippet:

″Why are you here, Jack?″

″I thought you might be hungry, that’s all.″

″Don’t give me that. Why are you here?″

Jack had the decency to blush slightly and glance away. He cleared his throat before he finally met Daniel’s eyes. ″I miss you.″

″You see me every day.″

″I see you, but I don’t ‘see’ you.″

″And who’s fault is that?″

Jack held his gaze, but shook his head. ″I don’t want to argue.″

″Neither do I.″ And Daniel realized that was the truth. As angry and upset as he’d been when Jack first called it off, he’d worked through that phase. At the present, he was just sad that his friend and lover had so casually thrown away such a good thing between them.

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Current Music: SG1 theme music

mific

It's that time of year again! Mine are more like New Year cards as I'm slow to start making them.

If you're on my card list but your mailing address has changed, let me know - replies to this post are screened.

And if you're not on my seasonal cards list and would like to be, also drop me a reply below, with your preferred postal name and address. I send them all over the world, so no worries about that.

mific posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Tolkien: Lord of the Rings
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Boromir
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: traditional art (pastels)
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: electracution on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: A lovely pastel drawing of Boromir. I love the use of minimal colours, and the few very effective white highlights. Aced the likeness, too.
Link: Boromir

clavally

So, remember me telling you about the chocolate calendar? So, late last night/early this morning I was looking through my email to see if I had missed a shipping notification. I found one and was horrified because it was dated the 17th and when I clicked on the tracking thing, it said delivered and had a picture of it in front of my house. This perplexed me, because it certainly isn't in my house. I was starting to think porch pirates got it, but I was still looking back and forth from the emails and suddenly noticed the delivered date was from last year. So, only as I was looking I realized the order number was the same as this year. I was confused about this until FINALLY it dawned on me that when I went searching for an email confirming my order and found one, it was the one from last year.

I never ordered a calendar this year because I tricked myself into thinking I had already ordered it. >.<

This is mildly depressing. I've been scrambling to see if I can replace it with anything, but most decent advent calendars are sold out. I picked up one that is liquor-filled chocolates. Who knows, maybe I'll find something else I can slot into the 12 days of Christmas ones.

Anyway, I am mortified that I screwed that up and then was complaining to the company about not getting a package I never ordered. Social anxiety ftw!

siria

( Murdaugh: Death in the Family )

( Slow Horses, S5 )

( This Is Going to Hurt )

melagan

I couldn't resist. I'm all for spreading more kindness around.

✨ holiday love meme 2025 ✨
my thread here

(click on the banner and join in!)

mific

I was up early yesterday and it was lovely, so I decided to take some pics. It's all very lush as we've had a fair bit of rain, mixed with sunny days as hot as midsummer. I think it's going to be a hot one, this year. I tried to include slightly more panoramic shots this time to give you some idea of my small garden which is almost all in pots and wheelibeds, as my rented unit has largely concrete and asphalt around it. Click on each pic for full size.

( pics under here )

sage

✨ holiday love meme 2025 ✨
my thread here

melagan

Watch on YouTube

clavally

To all my US friends, I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving, for whatever that would mean for you. For everyone else, happy Thursday, and I hope the day is stress-free and fun.

We are delving ever so close to the beginning of Advent calendar season. Monday starts day one.

So far, in my possession, I have the Cult Pens stationery calendar that I liked so much last year. I have the gaming dice calendar again, too. New this year is the Diamine Inkvent calendar, which is basically 25 days of fountain pen ink. I decided I wanted to expand the colors and types of inks I have available to ink any new pens.

Now, I was supposed to also have the chocolate advent calendar I did last year. I ordered it on Nov 7th and have been waiting ever since for it to show up. I emailed them once over a week ago, and they said I should have it by Thanksgiving, and yet.... I just emailed them my order number and told them I haven't even gotten a shipping notification yet. I guess we'll see what they say tomorrow. It is making me lean towards saving enough money to buy the REALLY high-end Dandelion Chocolate calendar next year instead.

Ah well, if nothing else, hopefully they'll give me a refund.

Time to go to my sister's for dinner/lunch/whatever. Stay safe out there!

Profile

patk

April 2013

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
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14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

Page Summary

sholio - Rec-Cember Day 1: Rubberducking (Murderbot)
sholio - Happy December! Have another free book!
clavally - Advent Day 1
clavally - Book Review: Weyward
grey853 - DS Story: Niggle
tarlanx - Fandom Update
runpunkrun - drop by and say something nice
mific in fanart_recs - Elrond in the flower garden at Imladris by leucisticpuffin (SFW)
denise in dw_news - Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!
sholio - How is it almost December
grey853 - SG1 Story "Bugs"
mific - Seasonal Cards
mific in fanart_recs - Boromir by electracution (SFW)
clavally - Pre-advent part 2...part 3? idk
siria - 2560 / Murdaugh: Death in the Family; Slow Horses, S5; This Is Going to Hurt
melagan - Holiday love meme!
mific - Late spring - lush garden
sage - Holiday Love Meme!
melagan - I almost forgot to share this Thanksgiving classic
clavally - Happy Thanksgiving Pre-Advent Calendar Post

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