aphternoon | Reading

Recently Finished
The Girls Who Disappeared
On the 20th anniversary of a car accident where three girls mysteriously disappeared, the MC is assigned to do a podcast on it and goes to the town to conduct interviews, but strange things start happening. I didn't love the reveal of what actually happened, but overall this was interesting.

Mirage City
Fourth in the Evander Mills mystery series. I had no idea a new book was out until I saw it pop up on my goodreads feed. Looking back it seems like every book has come out in October, so I guess I should try and remember to keep an eye out around that time next year. I enjoyed this one a lot.

Murder on Harley Street
Most recent Cleopatra Fox mystery. Still enjoying this series.

The Final Curtain
Final book in the English translated series of Detective Kaga mysteries (and I believe final book in the original, too). I can see why the four books that were translated into English were chosen, if they knew they weren't going to be able to do the whole series, those ones all tie into each other somewhat. I liked these a lot, so I'm definitely going to try and see if I can find some of the ones that didn't get translated when we take our next trip to Japan (sadly they are not available as ebooks).

Murder at Merry Beggars Hall
New-to-me mystery series. And fairly new in general as the second book is just coming out next month. I enjoyed this a lot and am looking forward to the next one.

The Ghostkeeper
Graphic novel about a man who almost died as a child and can see ghosts ever since. He uses his powers to help ghosts deal with their issues and move on to the next life, but one day a ghost girl steals the key to the door to the next life and all the ghosts start flooding the town because no one is able to move on. I liked it.

My Home Hero vol. 17

torachan

1. It's the weekend! I had a pretty productive day today and finished up what I was working on earlier than anticipated, so I just ended up going home early (around 2:30), which was nice.

2. It was warm and sunny when I took a walk after work, but it's very overcast and chilly this evening, and we're supposed to have cooler weather for a bit. Tomorrow says it will be overcast all day, which would be nice as we are planning to be at Disneyland and I don't want it to be too sunny.

3. We got burritos and tacos for dinner. Very tasty! Not agreeing with my stomach too well tonight, but worth it.

4. Look at this sleepy boy!

comet_scout posting in

addme

Me:

Comet, or Ju, 27, Brazilian, but I only post in English.

I mostly post about:

I like posting about things I may be into at the moment, like a game I played or something I’ve found interesting, and some basic thoughts about them. Mostly I have been logging in my Solo TTRPG plays, my Doronai Nui adventures mainly. Sometimes a post about real life, but not much. The plan is to just blog about anything I feel like sharing.

My hobbies are:

I play video games, I solo TTRPGs, I draw, I drabble, some fandoming, and some light toy collecting. Want to read more.

My fandoms are:

My main fandoms are Bionicle (G1) and Transformers (G1, Beast Wars, Skybound, Prime, and some IDW), I also like No Man’s sky, and have been getting into The Dark Crystal. And a little bit of many things. I have been playing a lot of Vintage Story.

My posting schedule tends to be:

Sporadic. I’ve made an effort to post more frequently, but it’s more interesting when I actually have something that has been on my mind.

I'm looking to meet people who:

Post similar things or may like similar things. I’m not around all the time, and I’m a bit quiet, so I don’t mind people who are similar.

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3180/

The experimental math department's budget is under scrutiny for how much they've been spending on trains leaving Chicago at 9:00pm traveling at 45 mph.

https://xkcd.com/3180/

torachan

1. Still no word on when we will actually get the car back, but at least Carla popped in and got the stuff we needed from it so even if we don't have it back for this weekend, we can use the sip and savor pass at DCA.

2. I have really been enjoying Horizon Zero Dawn. And now that I have the Playstation Portal, I can easily pick it up for a short session at my desk whenever I want to. I've already put a lot of time into it and only barely got past the Proving and started on the main game, but that's because I just keep running around killing machines and collecting parts.

3. Jasper's gotta investigate that bag. You never know what might be inside.

musesfool

My brain, as the meme says, was soup yesterday - I was so wiped out by Tuesday's everything. I logged off and took a nap and even so I slept hard last night. So I think I made the right choice not to go back into the city for the farewell to the CEO event tonight. I already have to go into the office on Tuesday for our holiday party, which part of me would like to avoid as it is now a big huge thing that I, thankfully, did not have to manage. It sounds like the party committee is as crazy as ever, and Assistant J keeps asking me things and I'm like, you're going to have to talk to $SomeoneElse about that. Like, it's nice that he wants to inform me, but also I would like him to take some initiative and fix things or at least suggest solutions. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I did coordinate the Sesa, so hopefully that goes off without a hitch - only 20 people this time, but some of them haven't done it before, so that should be good.

I also kept thinking today was Friday and then being sad because it's not. I mentioned it to my boss who was like, "it can be Friday! take tomorrow off!" but I still have too much stuff to finish because as of next Friday I am off until January 5th.

Maybe someday I'll have something interesting to say here again, but for now, I don't. I am not very happy about what is happening with the Mets this hot stove season, but ugh. At least the Knicks are kinda good?

I did watch the Supergirl teaser trailer, and I'm excited to see what they do with it, but also it makes me feel like they aren't going to ever give us Kon, now. Or they'll use his animated!YJ personality instead of his much more fun comics personality. Sigh.

*

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Blush - Dessa

cemetaries posting in

addme

Hey everyone! My name is Leslie but I'm usually called Lilith online. Either works. I used to be on LiveJournal for years then fell away once Facebook became a thing. I am venturing back to LJ and I will also be posting here as well. I remember having really great connections on LJ and I am hoping to find that again.

Name:

Leslie aka Lilith. Either is fine.

Age:

45. I've always been an old soul and now my body is catching up.

I mostly post about:

I don't know yet. I think it's going to be mostly a diary kind of thing where I talk about my life and thoughts and dreams and goals and the nice stuff and the bad stuff. A little bit of everything that makes me ... me.

My hobbies are:

theater, acting, directing, doing tech, art, singing, writing, photography, anything NASA (I go to the Space Center a lot), thrifting, true crime, documentaries

My fandoms are:

Anything Broadway, Marvel, Wicked, paranormal shows, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Taylor Swift, etc

I'm looking to meet people who:

Are chill. Some things should be serious about some things, but also a sense of humor is great. I am very "woke" though. Please be aware I am "woke". I am also disabled and will talk about my illness and disability issues. And I am mom of an nonverbal son who is autistic and those subjects will come up. I am adult too so I'll bring up adult issues as well, like sex.

My posting schedule tends to be: daily/weekly/monthly/sporadic/etc

My goal is to post at least weekly, maybe twice a week. My illness can throw me for a loop and suddenly I can't sit up some days. So, it depends on my spoons.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are:

If you are conservative. We just won't connect or agree on things, and I am at the point in my life that I want peace. It's better to just move along. I'm also not Christian but I do have Christian friends, but I am not into Christian Nationalism. If you are, we won't be a good fit. I identify as pagan/witch. I'm also LGBTQIA+ and have a trans son.

Before adding me, you should know: I am unapologetically myself. I can be a strong personality and I will always say if I disagree with someone, but I won't be rude about it unless I am needing to match energy being thrown at me.

otw_news_feed

Posted by therealmorticia

https://www.transformativeworks.org/resignation-of-otw-directors-december-2025/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=273724

The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) Board of Directors is saddened to announce that Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm have resigned from their roles as Board Directors for personal reasons. Their resignations are effective as of December 11, 2025.

Erica was elected to her seat in 2024, and her term was set to end in 2027; her seat will be filled in the upcoming election as a one-year term. Kathryn was elected to her seat in 2023, and was already scheduled to be replaced in the upcoming election. In the meantime, both of their seats will remain vacant.

We would like to thank Erica and Kathryn for their service as members of the Board and for their years as OTW volunteers. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/resignation-of-otw-directors-december-2025/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=273724

torachan

1. Today was the last day of the heat spell. Whenever it's hot this time of year, it's always a very dry heat, and I do prefer dry heat, but ugh, too dry today. My eyes were stinging really bad this afternoon (and still a bit now). It seems the weather will still be warmer than I prefer for December for the rest of the ten day forecast, but at least it won't be hot. :-/

2. The car is still in the shop. The issue is that while they know something in the AC system is leaking, they can't find the leak, despite having used various methods. Carla spoke to the guy today and he said they're getting in some sort of specialized equipment tomorrow, so it may be fixed by the end of the day? We'll see. She did ask if we can go by and get some stuff out of the car and he said any time, so I'm going to drop her off there tomorrow before going to work so she can get my Disney backpack which has the sip and savor pass in it, so we've got that for Saturday if the car isn't ready yet.

3. I had a work from home day today. Tomorrow and Friday I've got to go in for sure as I have stuff to do in our system that is difficult to do remotely (it can only be accessed from within our network and that requires me to remote into a pc at work and just adds extra hassle), but the main thing on my to-do list today (aside from meetings) was just checking stuff in excel, so no need to go in, which was nice.

4. Molly!

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3179/

'That's definitely above the catch-and-release size minimum for planetesimals.' 'I'm going to throw it back anyway.'

https://xkcd.com/3179/

torachan

First post is here.

After lunch, I decided to try my luck on the Jurassic World ride. It's a water ride and I googled and the consensus seems to be that as long as you're not in the very front, you don't get too wet.

( Jurassic World, Simpsons Land, Minions, and more. )

Overall it was a very fun trip and I'm looking forward to going again on Christmas with Carla.

ladyunicorn22 posting in

addme

Hi folks, I hope you all are doing well. Not good at doing these intro things, but I'll give it a try. I'm Lesley. I'm in my late thirties, happily married and I have one cat child. I love books of all types, I'm currently making my way through the Dungeon Crawler Carl books, Tv shows including The Golden girls, How I met your Mother, Grace and Frankie and others. I love all kinds of music, and I enjoy baking. I welcome people of all backgrounds and stuff, I'm a Christian myself. as for what I write about in here, To be honest, there's only one entry in here, but I plan on changing that. I will most likely write about daily life things, and sometimes about what I'm watching/reading/listening to as well as mental and physical health stuff. I am totally blind, so sometimes I will write about that. If there is anything else you wanna know, feel free to take a peak at the profile. I will be writing in here probably every few days to every week. Depends on the mood I'm in. I hope all of you have a good day, and if you celebrate them, happy holidays

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: The sofa
Current Music: A very large fan

dandylover1 posting in

addme

Name: Georgiana or Georgie. Neither is my legal name, but they are what I use here and in most situations.

Age: Forty-two.

I mostly post about: Entries may consist of anything from short summaries of my day, to surveys, to essays on various topics, to interesting links and quotes that I find, along with my commentary on them. Lately, I have been writing reviews of opera recordings from the 1950's and earlier. I have no interest in politics and modern celebrities. I wish to keep my journal light and happy as much as possible.

My hobbies are: studying dandyism, Received Pronunciation, the Regency, and the Italian language, reading, writing, cooking, baking, playing cards and dice, and enjoying warm weather.

My Other Interests include: coffees, teas, antique menswear and accessories (usually Edwardian), chamber and classical music, old opera singers, plants and gardening, crafts, and history and nature documentaries. I love wit, wordplay, and sarcastic humour without vulgarity. I also love cats.

My fandoms are: I don't have any.

I'm looking to meet people who: are positive, who share my interests and can introduce me to some new ones, and who enjoy at least some elements of high culture. While the minimum age I will add is twenty-one, I tend to get along with those who are older than I, particularly seniors. I am also single and searching, but since this isn't a dating community, I'll just say that you can find more about that in one of the sticky entries in my journal. You can also find my Mastodon and Escargot.chat information there.

My posting schedule tends to be: It varies, from a few posts in a given week to a few in a single day. Often, I post what I call filler entries toward the end of the month. These are entries posted on one date but for another. I try to post a few entries per week.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: minors (I prefer at least over twenty-one), depression and/or anxiety (posted regularly), bad self-esteem, life drama, recreational drugs, religion or politics (posted regularly), a lot of bad grammar and spelling (unless you're learning English), and frequent obscenities. Please note that I am totally blind, so if you mostly post images, I won't be able to comment on them, as I cannot see them.

Before adding me, you should know: I have no time for political correctness, lies, or drama. While I always try to be civil during discussions, I share my opinion without reservations. If you are easily offended, please do not add me. I have a very dry and witty sense of humour. Otherwise, feel free to read my profile and/or posts and add me if you wish. I will most likely reciprocate. I also comment when I have something to say, but there are times when I don't read my friends' page for awhile, and I am trying to change that.

torachan

1. Carla made pesto and we had cheese ravioli with pesto for dinner. Since it's homemade, we can make it without garlic, and IMO, it tastes perfectly fine without. The ravioli were just Trader Joe's fresh ones where you just boil them for a few minutes, so it was super easy to put together. And delicious!

2. Another puzzle done. This one was fun, but went pretty fast. I'm definitely starting to feel like the 500 piece ones are less of a challenge (but still enjoyable to do).

I have a few 500 piece Christmas/winter ones that I'm going to do next, but then I think I'll tackle one of the 1000 piece ones and see how that goes.

3. Chloe! She is very much making use of the warming bed lately.

torachan

1. We had a nice dinner at Disneyland today, though it was way more crowded than I was expecting. (Though after thinking about it, I should have known! This week is the last few days the lowest tier of passholders can go before the blackout, and the second tier only has a couple more days than that, so everyone's trying to cram in a last visit.)

2. Gemma was so cutely writhing around with this carrot.

torachan

We went down to Disneyland for dinner tonight. I very foolishly did not get my Disney backpack out of the other car before we took it in for repairs, so I don't have the sip and savor pass for the Festival of Holidays booths, and decided on Disneyland rather than DCA, but that ended up being a bit of a mistake as we got there right before the parade started and the park was suuuuuper crowded because the lower two levels of passholders only have a few more days before being blocked out for the rest of the year.

( Despite the parade crowds, we still had a good time )

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3178/

Our models fall apart where the three theories overlap; we're unable to predict what happens when a nanometer-sized squirrel eats a grapefruit with the mass of the sun.

https://xkcd.com/3178/

fanhackers_feed

Posted by fanhackers-mods

https://fanhackers.tumblr.com/post/802385985750138880

Something old…

Coming together in a hotel ballroom with the rebels in the cause of a women’s art/communication system, the researcher feels a tiny thrill of danger. The community is open to anyone willing to participate, but closed to anyone who might jeer, or worse, blow the whistle. A man in a ten-gallon hat approaches and wants to know what is going on. There is a gleam in his eye: he sees only women about. Not all of them are pretty - some of them are middle-aged, or overweight, or both. They all return his bravado with suspicion.

Lois, in her late forties and looking very prim, looks up from her place at the registration table and smiles the smile of PTA mothers everywhere. “It’s a meeting of a ladies’ literary society,” she answers very properly.

“Mighty nice,” the ten-gallon hat responds.

As he walks away, another voice at the table whispers: “And terrorist society.”

Beneath the grins and the giggles and the pajama party atmosphere, the ladies gathered here know they are engaged in an act of rebellion. They have stolen characters, settings, plots off the home and movie screens, fleshed them out, created new characters for them to love and given the characters permission to love each other.

– Enterprising Women (1992), by Camille Bacon-Smith

Something new…

Technology and art have always existed together, with new technologies like photography (and later Photoshop) being hailed as the death of painting (and later photography), yet all of these forms continue to be used. However, generative AI introduces new questions around creative agency that fans are currently grappling with in terms of, for example, whether a story written by a large language model could be considered a valid form of fan fiction (see Cisternino and Radillo, this issue). Certainly, it is, as we have seen, quite possible to ask these models to produce derivative text that recognizably draws from media sources to transform them into a new text. Chiang (2024) suggests, however, that generative AI is not likely to become a new technological medium for artistic creation in the way that, say, photography is, because it does not allow for creative expression and choice-making as these other technologies do. He suggests that it is not the quality of the output that matters but the intent of the human originator to communicate—something that with AI exists in the prompt but is then filtered, mediated, and diluted by the normalization of the language models. A thousand works of fan fiction may have the same characters, setting, and basic plot, but the choices the author makes reveal something unique about their affective response to the material—something AI cannot do in its current form.

– “Fans and AI: Transformations in fandom and
fan studies” (2025), by Susanne R. Black and Naomi Jacobs

https://fanhackers.tumblr.com/post/802385985750138880

otw_news_feed

Posted by callmeri

https://www.transformativeworks.org/november-2025-newsletter-volume-206/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=273657

I. SPOTLIGHT ON FANLORE

In November, Fanlore ran the Fanlore No Fault November challenge: a catch-up event for earlier badges editors missed! The challenge ran from November 16 to 30, with many editors participating and earning badges from previous months.

Curious about editing Fanlore? Check out the New Visitor Portal and Tutorial for getting started!

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

On November 14, we celebrated AO3’s 16th anniversary! \o/

Accessibility, Design & Technology continued to prepare emails for translation and improved how the download and chapter index menus behave with each other on smaller screens.

AO3 Documentation updated the Contacting the Staff FAQ.

Open Doors finished importing Oz Magi, an Oz annual gift exchange, and Stayka’s Saint Seiya Archive, a Saint Seiya archive. They also shared an annual roundup of the fanzine collections created in the last year for fanworks imported through the Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) and announced the upcoming import of a Harry Potter archive, PhoenixSong.

In October, Policy & Abuse received 5,061 tickets, setting a record high for the third month in a row. Support received 3,043 tickets. Tag Wrangling wrangled over 600,000 tags, or over 1,380 tags per wrangling volunteer.

Tag Wrangling also continues to create new “No Fandom” canonical tags and announced a new batch of tags for November.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

TWC continues to prepare for the two upcoming 2026 special issues: “Disability and Fandom” and “Gaming Fandom”. The submission deadline for the two 2027 special issues, “Music Fandom” and “Latin American Fandoms”, is also quickly approaching on January 1.

In November, the OTW filed an Amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the Supreme Court should clarify the rules surrounding who can challenge a trademark registration application. In a case involving whether someone should own the trademark “Rapunzel” for dolls of the character Rapunzel, the OTW argued that the Trademark Office should consider the interests of the public—including fans—in deciding whether to award private ownership over a word or symbol that may be in the public domain.

Legal also worked with Communications on a news post about recent legislation and have responded to a number of comments and queries on this post and other issues.

IV. GOVERNANCE

Board continued work on annual turnover and meeting with all committees. They made progress on the OTW Procurement Policy and expected to get it finalized soon. They, along with the Board Assistants Team, also continued to work with Volunteers & Recruiting and Organizational Culture Roadmap on the ongoing Code of Conduct review.

Development & Membership has been catching up on post-Drive tasks.

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

December 5 was International Volunteers Day! As a volunteer-run organization, the OTW would not be possible without the support and diligence of our volunteers. We thank all our volunteers, past and present, for the work they’ve contributed to the OTW.

If you’re curious about volunteering for the OTW, we recruit for various positions on a regular basis, and recruitment will next open in January.

From October 25 to November 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 287 new requests, and completed 270, leaving them with 63 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of November 22, 2025, the OTW has 983 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Fanlore Volunteers: Luana and 2 other Chair-Track Volunteers
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Anderson, Araxie, corr, Aspenfire, Klm, Mothmantic, Nova Deca, vanishinghorizons, and 1 other Volunteer
New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: 90Percent Human, Aeon, Alecander Seiler, ambystoma, Astrum, Atlas Oak, batoidea, Bette, Bottle, bowekatan, Bruno, Chaosxvi, Destiny, DogsAreTheBest312, Dream, elia faustus, Ellexamines, Elliott W, Gracey, jacksonwangparty, Jean W, Kalico, Keira Gong, Kiru, lamonnaie, Lavender, Loria, Lucia G, LWynn, Max, Nikki, Nioral, noctilucent, Our Hospitality, Primo, Rie, Salethia, Sapphira, sashene, Schnee, Scylle, sneakyowl, soymilk, Thaddeus, TheCrystalRing, thewritegrump, Water, Wintam, yucca, and 1 other Tag Wrangling Volunteer
New Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator
New TWC Volunteers: Lys Benson (Copyeditor)
New User Response Translation Volunteers: Cesium (Translator)

Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Irina, Paula, and 2 other Import Assistants; 1 Administrative Volunteer, and 1 Fan Culture Preservation Project Volunteer
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Communications News Post Moderation Liaison
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Julia Santos (Tag Wrangling Supervisor); blackelement7, pan2fel, and 7 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: weliuona and 2 other Translators
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Alisande and 2 other Volunteers

For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/november-2025-newsletter-volume-206/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=273657

torachan

1. I walked to the donut shop again this morning and this time tried one of their holiday offerings, a gingerbread donut with biscoff cookie topping. It was really good!

2. The Christmas tree is pretty much finished. If we see some sort of topper we like, we might buy one, but otherwise the decorations are done.

3. Ollie is very curious about what Tuxie is doing out there.

siobhanhazel

Weekly Reading

Daily Happiness

(no subject)

Apples

Daily Happiness

we could share a flashlight

New to Dreamwidth

Resignation of OTW Directors, December 2025

Daily Happiness

Fishing

2025 Universal Studios Trip #1 (11/27/25) Part 2

What's up?

Seeking New Friends

Daily Happiness

Daily Happiness

2025 Disneyland Trip #76 (12/8/25)

Hyperacute Interdynamics

Something old, something new….

November 2025 Newsletter, Volume 206

I. SPOTLIGHT ON FANLORE

II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW

IV. GOVERNANCE

V. OUR VOLUNTEERS

Daily Happiness

Profile

December 2025

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