Snowflake Challenge #6

Jan. 12th, 2026 06:38 pm
soricel: (Default)
[personal profile] soricel
My ten favorite non-DW blogs:

Winnie Lim

Annie Mueller

Keenan

Tracy Durnell

Ava

Tiramisu

Draft Four (ugh, Substack, sorry...it's the only one I subscribe to)

Sasha Frere Jones (I don't actually read this regularly, but I always look forward to reading his end-of-year reflection compilations, heavy as they are)

And, because I can't think of two more...two places where I look for non-DW blogs:

Ye Olde Blogroll

People and Blogs





Names from Freeman Wills Crofts

Jan. 12th, 2026 06:19 pm
cimorene: drawing of a flapper in a red cloche hat leaning over to lecture a penguin (listen up)
[personal profile] cimorene
Sgt. Sheepshanks
Mr. Sheaf
John Weatherup
Alec Quilter
Ebenezer Peabody
Superintendent Goodwilly
Grosvenor Mairs
oursin: image of hedgehogs having sex (bonking hedgehogs)
[personal profile] oursin

That piece about people having AI spouses is online: As synthetic personas become an increasingly normal part of life, meet the people falling for their chatbot lovers.

NB we note that 'Lamar' says that the breaking point with his actual, RL, girlfriend was when he found her doing the horizontal tango with his best friend, but it's clear that there were Problems already there, about having to relate to another human bean who was not always brightly sunshiny positively reinforcing him....

what would he tell his kids? “I’d tell them that humans aren’t really people who can be trusted …

I'm not entirely persuaded that individuals haven't made up imaginary companions (even way on into adulthood) before - I seem to remember some, was it in Fandomwank back in the day, accounts of people being married on the astral plane to fictional characters?

This is not entirely 'wow, startling news' to Ye Hystorianne of Sexxe: The Phenomenon of ‘Bud Sex’ Between Straight Rural Men.

I am not going to see if I actually have a copy of the work on my shelves, or if I perused it in a library somewhere, but didn't that notorious work of 'participant observation' sociology, Tearoom Trade argue that many of his subjects were not defining themselves as 'homosexual'.

I also invoke, even further back, Helen Smith's Masculinity, Class and Same-Sex Desire in Industrial England, 1895-1957 about men 'messing about' with other men in Yorkshire industrial cities.

And there is a reason people working on the epidemiology and prevention of STIs use the acronym 'MSM' - men who have sex with men - for the significant population at risk who do not identify as gay.

I had, I must admit, a very plus ca change moment when I idly picked up Katharine Whitehorn's Roundabout (1962), and found the piece she wrote on marriage bureaux. In which she mentioned that the two bureaux she interviewed tried to get their subscribers not to be too ultra-specific in their demands - that if they met potential partners in real life they would be more flexible.

Was also amused by the statement that 'Men over thirty are always very anxious to persuade me that they could have all they women they liked, if they bothered'.

📣 K-9 fandom tag canonised!! 📣

Jan. 12th, 2026 03:51 pm
vriddy: Kagari and Fujimaru from the volume 2 cover, both looking at the viewer (kagari-jin)
[personal profile] vriddy
THE K-9 FANDOM TAG WAS CANONISED ON AO3 WE EXIST FOR REAL!!!!!


I made a feed :D [syndicated profile] ao3_k9_fandom_feed
linaewen: Girl Writing (Girl Writing)
[personal profile] linaewen posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Hello on Monday! How's the day going so far for fic? (If you haven't gotten started on your day as yet, how did yesterday go for writing fic?)

    - Excellent!
    - Terrible
    - Somewhere in between
    - Nothing doing

How much time have you spent on writing fic today, roughly?

    - None
    - 30 minutes or less
    - 30-60 minutes
    - 60-90 minutes
    - More than 90 minutes

In five words or less, how do you feel about that?
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


This is late because my site was down when I had the time to post on Saturday. Seven books new to me. Two fantasy, one non-fiction, one mainstream, one collection of poetry, and two thrillers.

Books Received, January 3 to January 9

Poll #34072 Books Received, January 3 to January 9
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Of Venom and Vengeance by Mikayla Bridge (July 2026)
4 (11.4%)

Bad Advice by Susan Carpenter (April 2026)
3 (8.6%)

The Innocent Canadian by John Delacourt (April 2026)
6 (17.1%)

Woodbine Grove by Ryan O’Dowd (December 2025)
2 (5.7%)

Rum Maniacs: Alcoholic Insanity in the Early American Republic by Matthew Warner Osborn (March 2020)
21 (60.0%)

Inside Passages by Heather Paul (April 2026)
3 (8.6%)

Existence in All Its Uncoverable Beauty by Calvin White (April 2026)
2 (5.7%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
28 (80.0%)

Snowflake #6

Jan. 12th, 2026 09:36 am
flamingsword: A warm mug of cocoa and a snowflake shaped cookie with the words Snowflake Challenge (Snowflake challenge)
[personal profile] flamingsword
Top 10 Challenge. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.


two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Top Ten 🔟’s
In no particular order
• You know who’s a 10? Elliot Spencer from Leverage. Even the Russian judge would have to give him the gold, in basically whatever he was competing in, and that could be anything. Walking competence porn.
• Dr. Samantha Carter from Stargate SG-1. I thought she was so cool that I got that haircut once. I should try to see if anyone local will try to recreate that 20000’s-era shaggy pixie cut.
• Chani and Muad’dib from Dune. I had crushes on the 80’s/David Lynch versions when I was a kid, but their modern adaptations aren’t half bad either.
• Cindi Mayweather / the Archandroid / Jane 57821 / Janelle Monáe. The Revolution Who Dances, the Dirty Computer, the Time-Traveling (possibly-multiverse-hopping), android of our dreams who will lead us past oppression and to the promised Wondaland - the place where creativity destroys oppression.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi, wandering monk of infinite suffering. You know, in all his Jedi-repressed buttoned-down-without-buttons glory, there is a certain je ne sais quoi about him that draws the heart of everyone who is trying, and failing, to hold back the tide of the worlds troubles from those he can’t admit the extent of his care for.
• Chidi Anagonye from The Good Place, because he cares. So much. About everything.
• Adorable Belle Dearheart AKA Spike AKA Killer from Going Postal of the Discworld books. I don’t hold with the smoking, so much, but she is a character after my own heart: fearless, rude, and an avatar of sarcasm.
• Cosmo Brown from Singin’ In The Rain. Funny and affable and cheerfully catty. So very queer-coded and visibly polyamorous with stars in his eyes for both Don and Cathy. Definitely a 10 out of 10.
• Garnet from Steven Universe, 7 foot tall lesbian alien rock. So very genderqueer, so very wise but constrained by the limits of her abilities.
• us. So much better than the fictional versions in our heads that we fear we are, or that we hope one day to become. Perfectly in this moment, because we are actually happening right now. Remember that sentient lives are always both a noun and a verb, because as much as we are a being, we are a doing, too.

So, who are your tens? Who are your problematic faves, your Han Solo problems, your “when they smile it makes me have a problem” characters?

Subscription tidy up

Jan. 12th, 2026 09:45 pm
fred_mouse: line drawing of sheep coloured in queer flag colours with dream bubble reading 'dreamwidth' (Default)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

I've done my approximately-annual tidy up of dreamwidth subscriptions. I've stopped following a set of blogs that haven't updated in ~2 years, left roughly half the communities I was in, and changed a few other details. The main exceptions on keeping people who don't post are people who comment often enough that I remember; at least one of those I've left their access but unsubscribed. The other exception is people who I'm very much hoping will turn up again one day (and one who, sadly, will never be back, but whose name makes me smile to see it in the list).

If, as happens with this, I've managed to remove your access and you are someone who does actually want to see the occasional locked post, please comment on this post. I'll put a locked post up shortly; it will read 'test' or some equally inane thing.