There are ten initial pinch hits and they will be due at the same time as assignments, on February 6th, 10PM PST. [Countdown] [In Your Timezone]

To claim a pinch hit, you can comment on this post (comments are screened) with your AO3 username and the pinch hit # that you want or you can reach out via email at rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com. While you can comment anonymously, please remember that you won't be able to get notified or see the reply.

( Pinch Hit #1 (fic): Short Term 12 (2013), Red Band Society (US TV), Degrassi the Next Generation, Roseanne (TV 1988), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth, Blossom (TV 1990), Alexa & Katie (TV), Emily Price/Victoria Sands (Animal Control) )

CLAIMED! ( Pinch Hit #2 (fic, art): 1000xRESIST (Video Game), Dispatch (Video Game), Hades (Supergiant Games Video Games), Misericorde (Visual Novel), Original Work, The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson, House of the Dragon (TV), Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021) )

( Pinch Hit #3 (fic): NoPixel (Web Series), Video Blogging RPF, 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs )

( Pinch Hit #4 (fic, art): 魔尊也想知道 - 青色羽翼 | Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know - Cyan Wings, ゆりでなるえすぽわーる | Yuri de Naru Esupowaru | Yuri Espoir (Manga), 화산귀환 | Return of the Blossoming Blade (Webcomic) )

( Pinch Hit #5 (fic): Psychonauts (Video Games), Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry, Dragon Ball, Tekken (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) )

( Pinch Hit #6 (fic): 전지적 독자 시점 - 싱숑 | Omniscient Reader - Sing-Shong, 내가 키운 S급들 - 근서 | S-Classes that I Raised - Geunseo, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, Cage of Roses (Visual Novel), Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer, 恋与深空 | Love and Deepspace (Video Game) )

( Pinch Hit #7 (fic, art): The Devils Series - Joe Abercrombie, Katabasis - R. F. Kuang, The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- (Video Game) )

( Pinch Hit #8 (fic): Disco Elysium (Video Game), Long Live the Queen (Video Game), Galaxy Princess Zorana (Video Game), Crossover Fandom (Long Live the Queen/Galazy Princess Zorana) )

( Pinch Hit #9 (fic): Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett, The Seventh Victim (1943), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), In a Lonely Place (1950), Harper (1966), Columbo, Sette note in nero | The Psychic (1977) )

( Pinch Hit #10 (fic): aoen (Band), &TEAM (Band), Dark Moon: The Grey City (Webcomic) )

01-04 stranger things
05-08 good trouble
09-15 wheel of time
16-16 babylon 5
17-25 comics
26-28 pluribus
29-41 interview with the vampire



H E R E at spankulert.

Speaking of Treasure. Treasure debuted in 2020 with Boy, also a good song, with ten. Two members left in 2022. Not all the time, but often the leader has the most ridiculous hair (Check out King Kong - he's the one in the neon green). Bona Bona turned into one of my favorites.

( Read more... )

Not much going on here. I think I will spend New Year's Eve going to Jack London for dinner (poss. Everett & Jones?) and then go to my favorite Irish pub for drinks and live music.

TNX debuted in 2022 with six, under P Nation, originally called The New Six. One left in 2024. The song remains sort of connected in my mind with T5's Move - only through the name. I can't remember where we heard this one first.

Last challenge of the year! When you see this, write a 3-sentence story for one or more of the following prompts:

- the darkest night
- the brightest morning
- transformation

You can use the prompt with the exact wording, or in a way where it's clear you've drawn inspiration from it.

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And a reminder, Worderlands has a discord now. Join us.

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Also, I hope you all had amazing holidays and have a happy new year!

Hello! I’ve got a rather niche one particularly for Arabic speakers/historians - my writing is set in the medieval crusading period, where European/Catholic individuals would often use expressions of annoyance/surprise/exasperation that are largely religious-based, such as ‘oh sweet Christ’, 'dear God', ‘Christ’s bones’, ‘Saint Jude’s eyes’ etc etc. (One can then make as crude as you like while focusing a lot around divine/saintly body parts!).

I also have a few Levantine Arab Christian characters with mixed Arab/European heritage and I'm wondering if the above sort of religious-based swearing might have been used also in the Levant (particularly if they've taken some verbal influence from their European father), or if would come across as jarring to use these more western-associated idioms in a Middle Eastern setting?

Also: I've done some research around Arabic idioms already, but it would also be great to hear of any Arabic phrases (either in Arabic or transliterated) of annoyance or surprise similar to 'oh Christ' or 'for God's sake' that might be used? (I know ‘ya Allah’ is one such phrase but I’m trying to diversify) Similarly, any other recommendations of non-religious exclamations (of the ‘damn, bugger, blast’ varieties) would be very helpful!

I didn't participate in Yuletide this year, but I did write a gift for a friend:

Ghost of Christmas Fork-In-The-Road for springbeetle, Hermitcraft/Life Series
2.6k, gen, Grian&Grian, Hermitcraft s11 / Nice Life crossover
Summary: What if there were two Grians, one an admin who organizes death games and the other a prankster and builder on a mostly-vanilla server, and one of them put the other in a cage.
Notes: I had a lot of fun with this. I wish I had had space for an appearance by trivia bot (maybe could have figured something out if I had more time) but that just has to be an AU for if Hermitcraft Grian arrived a little earlier.

Life series seasons I have now written fic for:( Read more... )

I managed to get out for my yoga classes Saturday and Sunday mornings. Saturday afternoon I spent a lot of time faffing and failing to go to the public skates I'd tentatively pencilled in; eventually I dragged myself out for the last one and unsurprisingly I felt much better for having done so. It was much easier to drag myself there on Sunday, and I had a bonus surprise meeting with a work colleague, and a lovely long chat while we skated.

Then it turned out Charles's usual lift to hockey practice (alternate Sunday evenings) had fallen through, so I said I'd take him. I had the bright idea of asking the coach if there was room for me to hop on too as a one-off addition to the class, and so I got a bonus 2-hour ice hockey practice. Oh, that felt so good.

Yesterday I switched things up and took Nico swimming in the early afternoon, which I found surprisingly tiring, and went to yoga in the evening. I got chatting to a fellow student afterward, and it turns out she also works for the university on the same site as me, and knows some of my colleagues, because Cambridge is Like That. We swapped some class recommendations and may stay in touch.

I'm really glad I picked up the hot yoga pass, it's been fun to do regularly and if nothing else it's ensured I left the house pretty much every day. If money were no object I might consider a more regular membership, but it's pretty expensive when not on a promotional pass. Plus between my hockey commitments and the additional gym sessions I want to add in January, I'm really not sure I have the time. Maybe I'll think about it again after the university season is over.

Tomorrow I'll see out the old year with one last yoga class, and then go to the last public skate of the year at the rink in the early afternoon. I'm vaguely planning a movie night with Tony and the offspring, watch the fireworks broadcast from London, and then probably zonk.

Aside from exercise I've mostly been reading, with a side of listening to hockey podcasts fall in love with Heated Rivalry.

Darth Real Life is still on my heels, but:


Katabasis - R.F. Kuang

Two different and both clever and sensitive explorations of what the aftermath of the novel might have been like for Alice and Peter:

The Next Step

The Raven's Paradox



The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle


In that clear unpeopled space: the Unicorn's long way to her forest. Has the poetry, the beauty and the character growth of the book.


Lord of the Flies - Willliam Golding

I Remember (Don't Worry) : in which Ralph encounters Jack years post novel. Disturbing in the way the book is, yet with some glimpse of hope.


Penny Dreadful

mimics the lampllight's struggle with the dawn: After a night of victory, Vanessa and Hecate, separately, search for their footing. Missing scene from the second season's finale, with both women and Malcolm expertly drawn.



The Radiant Emperor Series - Shelley Parker-Chan


The Calligraphy of Disgrace: in which we get another take on these novels' entertainingly screwed up soulmates relationship, with an AU twist.


Frederician Historical Fiction

Five times Amalie saw Luise, and one time Luisa saw Amalie: in which the "Five Things" format is expertly used to portray the relationship between the Melanie Wilkes of the Hohenzollern court and her sharp-tongued sister-in-law.

Courting the Chamberlain : in which we find out how Frederick the Great's lover got married to the resourceful Caroline Daum.

The Ring of the Nibelung - Wagner

Loyalty only to me: Hagen learns many lessons from his father over the years.


Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh

Again two different takes on a novel's aftermath, the first focused on Magnus, the other on Avi, which also doubles a great take on his development across several timelines.

Some Desperate Hope

Salvation from falling into the sea of misguidances

This year I made 3 vids. That's fewer than ever before. But it was a year, so, yeah. 

Tango & Cash
It's All Coming Back To Me Now ~ the flesh and the fantasies, all coming back to me

L.A. Confidential
Los Ageless ~ in Los Ageless the mothers milk their young

Deadpool & Wolverine
Something Good ~ something tells me I'm into something good


My favorite vid this year
All of them, really. 

Least favorite vid
None really, I'm happy with them all.

Most successful
I think, all festivids recips liked their vid. 

Vid most under-appreciated by the universe in my opinion
None, I think, they were all well liked.

Most Fun Vid
It's All Coming Back To Me Now was a lot of fun to make, it cracked me up! The silly action stuff, the over the top use of music. Loved it!

Video with the single sexiest moment
It's All Coming Back To Me Now probably. But also, every time Deadpool and Wolverine "fought".

Hardest Vid to Make
All of them in a way. It's getting harder each year to actually sit down and vid. Maybe it's my attention span or concentration skills, I don't know. But it's been getting harder lately.

Most unintentionally telling vid
At this point it's all intentional :D Gotta pick It's All Coming Back To Me Now!!

Past years:

Meme 2024
Meme 2023
Meme 2022
Meme 2021
Meme 2020
Meme 2019
Meme 2018
Meme 2017
Meme 2016
Meme 2015
Meme 2014
Meme 2013
Meme 2012
Meme 2011
Meme 2010

That's it!! I think I've exorcised the worst of the fandom fever with this one. It combines a lot of happy images (I don't care if it's all tell-don't-show until the kissing begins, it's telling nice things!! XD). It makes me happy to make them happy, too. The previous angsty fic didn't come out easily, with a new-to-me (well, new-to-the-entire-fandom really 😆) PoV that didn't make it any easier. This one was only hard to edit because of all the happy noises I made rereading :D

And I'm finally able to hear my abandoned kn8 fic making sad kaijuu meeps again, phew. While K-9 is very most certainly in my top fandoms at the moment (and I'm looking forward to requesting it in candyheartsex in 2 days :D) (and also offer it, but, well, I also know how to keep my expectations in check for a fandom in which members can be counted on one hand XD) (wow totally got lost in my parenthesises here) ANYWAY I CAN ALSO THINK OF OTHER PROJECTS wooohoo who knew there were other things going on out there?!

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Housewarming | K-9 | Fujimaru Jin/Hizuki Ren/Kagari Yukito/Oboro Yuushirou | 2.4k words | rated T

Summary: They didn't originally intend to move into the basement together.

Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3.

Final list of the year.  8 books finished this month, bringing my total for the year to 82 - 7 above my goal.

Firstly, I continued to read for the Goodreads Challenges.  Here my intention is simply to broaden my reading, but only choose something which specifically interests me, so I'm never going to complete all the sections within a challenge.  For the Fall Challenge I achieved 5 out of 12, the first three being simply to read books over the months.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Short books category.  I'm really glad I read this - it crops up every so often.  The correspondence between the young American lady and the English bookseller is great and very entertaining.  Thoroughly recommended to anyone looking for a short read.

The Cat who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa
Cosies category, cat sub-section.  I do like a good cat book and for me this worked better than some of the others I've read this year.  While the human characters have the main part, the cat has their own role to play.  This is the second in the series and the first is now on my list for next year.


After which came all my Christmas reads:

Murder in Wintertime: Classic Crime Stories edited by Cecily Gayford
The last few books in this series haven't been as good, but this year I really enjoyed the selection.

Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan
Written in 1948, I found this disappointing.  Normally when reading a mystery I will speed up towards the end, but this time I didn't.  And to me the solution was poor and unconvincing.

The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights edited by Bridget Collins
I'm not always a fan of spooky stories, but these I really enjoyed.  Our library has the book from the previous year, so that's also on my list.

Murder for Christmas edited by Thomas Godfrey
Lots of classic short stories.  Some of which I'd read at least a couple of times before (good ones) and several I didn't know.  An excellent collection.

Death Comes at Christmas edited by C.L. Taylor
A modern collection of short stories which on the whole I enjoyed. Published last year, so worth looking out for.

Death in Ambush by Susan Gilruth
This year's British Library Crime Classics Christmas mystery.  I normally treat myself to this for Christmas, but wasn't impressed.  Too many boring domestic details, a narrator too sure of herself (think early Hastings) and bizarre behaviour from the police detective.

For completeness, I'm also including the two audiobooks I've recently finished:

The Murder of Mr Ma by SJ Rozan and John Shen Yen Nee read by Daniel York Loh
Set in 1920s London amongst the Chinese community, I eventually enjoyed the book.  It will not surprise regular readers of my posts that Lao, the narrator, annoyed me considerably.

The Four Deadly Seasons by David Hewson read by Richard Armitage
The third book in Hewson's Venetian Mysteries series.  The premise is that there's an until now undiscovered autobiography by Vivaldi.  The ramifications are both convoluted and deadly.  I've stopped listening to a number of books Armitage narrates, since I haven't been enjoying them, but this is one series I do enjoy and get caught up in the story.

Is there anyone around who does Fanlore stuff that would mind editing a factually incorrect statement on my page and fixing a link? I'd do it myself but that's probably a guideline/etiquette breach.

Hi everyone. Sorry I've fallen off the posting again.

Here are some Yuletide recs:

Imperial Radch/Translation State - Ann Leckie: a perfect preservation (so we’ll never fall apart). If you haven't read Translation State yet, then I strongly recommend not reading this fic until you've read canon. Otherwise, recommended. (I was the recipient.)

The Lottery - Shirley Jackson/The New Yorker RPF: Why one small American town won’t stop stoning its residents to death

Goose of Soulmate Enforcement trope/Original Fic: #footscraygoose (Especially recommended for people from Melbourne)

Prophet - Sin Blaché & Helen Macdonald: Wrong Choice

The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie: k2, p2, yo, k2tog

Columbo, Princess Bride (1987)
The Princess Murdered

France's language watchdog has told government officials to use French fetish terms... (News Satire): Les immortels au service de la petite mort

Chalion/Les Mis: The Truth that Once Was Spoken

I got into documenting neighborhood birds in 2025. What I did was take pics on my phone (if the zoom could capture them) and try to trace them on my journal (since I can't actually draw). Technology!

Planner: 2025 Laconic (A5)

Photos here!

22 recs in As You Like It, British Airways, Cabin Pressure, Cadfael, Dogsbody, Enigma, Flower Fairies, The Good Place, Georgette Heyer, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, Ludwig, The Prisoner, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Time Master, Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully & Yes Minister at my journal.