rafiwinters | Reading

It's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.

( 23: Chaos )

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Disparition - The Ballad of Magnus and Axel

senmut

Going early with this because of the holiday. 2018, how many (few) did I see?

SEVEN?! Okay, 3 of these were son's fault.

~ Love, Simon - I wound up unironically loving the way this played out. May have teared up a bit.
~ Solo: A Star Wars Story - Had been on the fence, fell for both Val and L3-37, GO ME FOR PICKING THE DOOMED ONES.
~ Venom - I had not kept up with comics, but I swear this version is almost like if every time The Maxx had been talking to himself, he'd been two people. I really did enjoy the film.

~ Bumblebee - LOL, I only just watched this in the past year. Twice. I really wish I had not waited but GO CHARLIE!
~ Aquaman - So I saw the reunion scene between Tom and Atlanna, and it hit my RexSoka buttons, so I watched it. Liked it a lot more than I had Wonder Woman!
~ Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - OMG, so freaking awesome! I LOVE THIS FILM.

and my fave:
~ Black Panther - So this is where I fell back in love with some of the MCU again. There's not a Wakandan I don't love, even the antagonists. This made me give a damn about the BP property in ways I had not thought possible, and proves that you have to have the right creative effort leaders!

senmut

Kastagir's Hotel Américain (3102 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Highlander: The Series
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Amanda Darieux/Rebecca Horne
Characters: Amanda Darieux, Rebecca Horne, Rachel Ellenstein, Sunda Kastagir
Additional Tags: Fun, Adventure, Thievery, Humor
Summary:

Rebecca visits Kastagir at his fancy new hotel. Then Amanda shows up. Antics ensue.

doodlemancy

2026 will be my first full year without untreated carpal AND cubital tunnel syndrome in my drawing arm since i was still a child. (long story short: symptoms started in teens but i didn't have access to a doctor, and then when i did in my early 20s, said doctor wrote down that i had Making Shit Up Disease and i got gaslit repeatedly for 11 years. turns out doctors are wildly misogynistic, who knew!)

it takes up to a full year to really see the complete results of carpal/cubital tunnel release, and my second surgery was in August, so i still have a ways to go before i really know where i'm at now, but as things currently stand: i can draw longer without pain, if i do flare up i seem to actually recover with rest, and pain relievers like, actually work. shit's crazy.

so basically, this next year has the potential to be very exciting for my creative growth. i've already progressed so much just since the middle of 2025.

my creative progress this year

i feel i have fully escaped the gilded cage of only being able to draw women and bishies. i can draw a man now. i know what those look like. i'm also better at bishies. just look at my Alucard.
used Art Fight to strengthen two skills: hard shading, and working monochromatic (both very important for my visual novel project)
i touched Blender. briefly. while high on post-surgery drugs. i didn't make anything or retain much but i did touch it finally
i got FASTER. through strategic use of a cute little timer. (this is not an affiliate link. i just want you to see my cute timer. look at the little cloud look how happy and gay they are) it's honestly nuts how much faster i can work now, even with color.
i got slightly better at more dynamic/daring poses and composition.
i built a personal reference library that's really helping me out.
i got so much better at Ren'py. like sooooo much better. not just code, but also working on Potion Stand Story DX taught me a lot about "animating" stuff in Ren'py, and how much you really can accomplish with a dissolve transition or just wiggling stuff. i'm very excited to apply what i learned from that to Iron Company.
i'm increasingly perverse about coding. it was a means to an end to make my visual novels happen and now i think about it in the shower or in front of the microwave.
i got better at writing. i used to joke a lot that i have one big beefy trogdor arm for dialogue and one little pathetic stick arm for prose, but i got better at prose, too, and i don't feel like i'll need quite as many images to carry Iron Company as i previously thought.

goals for 2026

(i'm gonna sound pretty critical of myself here but it's in jest and good faith. sometimes i gotta joke around with myself a little about my weaknesses before i can stance up enough to face them)

FIRST AND FOREMOST: i have got to tackle my biggest visual art weak spot, which is my total lack of confidence re: The Head/Face In Perspective/At Weird Angles. i bought a book. im thinking about buying a little mini medical model skull to keep on my desk. i gotta really solidify the planes of the face in my mind, maybe see if i can grasp the Reilly Method now too. it's an area of neglect and frequent frustration for me, and i'd like to leave fewer of my successes on that front up to chance. ;D doing the Friangle challenge was the first step. this has been my biggest stumbling block for so long, and now that i'm strong and powerful and don't wear out after an hour of drawing, i'm confident i can get better at it. i gotta draw my gay little characters smooching until i become a demigod.
here i am working on a visual novel where everyone carries guns, and as an artist i am gun-shy. hey, me! why fear the judgment of gun nuts? if they're looking to you for a Kouta Hirano level of gun-illustrating perversion, they're in the wrong place. you only need to learn to do this well enough to serve the story, and the bar for that is so extremely within reach, especially in the age of accessible 3D models.
the above paragraph but also for vehicles. LOL
i want to strengthen my understanding of light and shadow. frankly, it's weak. serviceable a lot of the time, but weak; when people compliment me on it i feel as if i've tricked them. at the very least, i'll make it a goal to apply quick hard shadows to more of my sketches rather than leaving them unshaded. there's so much that even simple shading can communicate that lines can't do alone.
i'm really hoping in the spring-- the part of the year where my mental health and creative drive tend to peak-- i'll find some time to learn Blender. there's so much more i could accomplish if i could make my own 3D models or at least modify/kitbash existing ones, it's just something that will require something of a Herculean effort for me to actually learn, because... ngl... sitting and watching a video tutorial drains my MP so fast, but Blender isn't something i seem to be capable of figuring out by just fucking around. crossing my fingers that i can direct my Spring Hyperfocus at it.
it would be neat to play around with composing music a little. that would be cool. idk if i'll have time for it but like, it's a possibility.
and
very important
this next one is soooooooooooooooooo important
I NEED TO CONTINUE TO TAKE BREAKS REGULARLY, stretch, and improve my ergonomics in general. back in 2024 when i was in physical therapy and had to draw in 10-20 minute sessions with 5-10 minute breaks in between, i not only had less pain, but i produced better work. to be clear, it was miserable. i hated it. for a person of Neuros Diverged in such a way as mine are, it is absolute torture to break the flow state on purpose. but. the results were undeniably better. AND, resurgence of CTS after surgery is unfortunately something that can and does happen (rarely), AND my back and neck are kind of fucked from depression-related inactivity. i gotta strengthen my discipline and my body. if i am so excited about my work that i can hardly tear myself away from it to stretch for 5-10 minutes, that's even more of a reason to try to maintain the (admittedly terrible and ungrateful) body that allows me to do the work.

i don't expect to meet every goal. it's fine if i don't. i'm super excited to try. i fucking love making stuff. frankly, things suck right now. my brain is bad, my body is still bad, the world is bad. i don't really need to get into it. but making stuff is good, always. it's my biggest emotional need, my driving force and my refuge from the Generalized Bad-ness. big ups to making stuff. shoutouts. accolades, etc.

anyway, play the new Iron Company beta which now includes Chapter 0. (new web version coming when i figure out how to pare it down to work within itch's limitations hahahaha aaaaaaa,)

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: Banjo Guy Ollie's Super Banjo Bros

ericcoleman posting in

filk

Heather Dale, Daniel Kelly, Talis Kimberley, Marc Grossman, Faithful Sidekicks, Steve Macdonald, Moss Bliss, Leslie Fish, Cheshire Moon, Chris Conway, Lambda Miners, Daoine Sidhe, Alexander James Adams, Randy Farran Rebecca Haden & Suzette Haden Elgin

Available on iTunes, Google Play and most other places you can get podcasts. We can be heard Wednesday at 6am and 9pm Central on scifi.radio.

filkcast.blogspot.com

dewline

From the Rachel Maddow Report team:

Current Mood: determined

skye_writer

Imagine, please, that I have flopped into a colorless void of a room, wearing a t-shirt that says "I survived my self-inflicted holiday bake-a-thon and all I got was this stupid t-shirt (and also lots of cookies)".

I made it. I don't feel like my sanity is wholly intact, but I made it!! I also made peppermint bark, 2 dozen plain shortbread cookies, 2 dozen orange spice shortbread cookies, and 40 Mexican wedding cookies, not to mention chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream for a chocolate cake. It took five days in total, but I did it.

The chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream was maybe the most difficult thing on the list? I ended up wasting 2 egg whites, either because I messed something up or because I wasn't patient enough, I do not know which. I tempered the whites, started whipping them on my stand mixer, and they turned glossy and white, but were still soupy as hell. After like 10 or 15 minutes of whipping. So I poured them down the sink, washed all the needed dishes I'd put in the sink, and started over.

I had the same problem a second time, but decided to wait it out and keep whipping the damn egg whites. It took something like 40 whole minutes to get them to the desired volume and stiffness. This after thoroughly wiping down every bowl and utensil with vinegar to get rid of fat residue. The recipe said whipping the whites to stiff peaks would only take "1-2 minutes", but apparently I don't get that kind of courtesy from my egg whites. (And honestly, it could have been the fucking humidity in the kitchen!! I don't know!!!)

Anyway, the buttercream turned out delicious, so there's that.

The peppermint bark was easy, thank god. Melt the bittersweet chocolate, add peppermint extract and salt, spread it on a tray, melt the white chocolate, spread it over top of the first, swirl artistically with a skewer, add peppermint candy bits, and put in the fridge to set. Break it into pieces and store it in a bowl in the fridge! Easy!!

The shortbreads were rather time-consuming, it turns out. They also involved rolling out dough for cookie cutters, which I am notoriously bad at. (I tend to roll too thin, which makes for very crisp cookies that are maybe not as delicious as they could be.) That said! I managed to get the hang of the rolling out eventually. Both batches of dough yielded 2 dozen cookies each, which I cut into stars, snowflakes, and scallop-edged rounds. I made the plain shortbread on Saturday, and then dipped them in a simple glaze on Sunday and decorated them with colored sanding sugar. The orange spice shortbread was baked on Sunday, and yesterday I dipped those in an orange glaze, and decorated them with orange zest and gold and silver sanding sugar.

The Mexican wedding cookies were also time-consuming, a little? (Yesterday was kind of all over the place, to be honest.) Though the nice thing about these cookies is that you bake all of them at the same time--all 40 of them, on two different baking sheets. They also had to be rolled in powdered sugar twice after baking (though I kept a half-dozen aside to stay plain for my Dad, who likes cookies but is also type-2 diabetic).

But now! Everything is ready!!! I just have to get all the cookies (and the bark) sorted into treat bags and into the plastic tins I got, and then all my efforts will be complete!! There will probably be leftover cookies, too, so I might enjoy some of those today as well. :D

My parents and I also sat down yesterday and got pretty much all the gifts wrapped and put under the tree! So we are pretty much ready for Xmas!! My brother and SIL and Dearest Nephew are coming up tomorrow afternoon, and it's gonna be a good time!! :D

minoanmiss

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silveradept

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Annwn - The Cutty Wren

mistressofmuses

A nice celestial sticker. Kind of leading in to the solstice, though this week ended the day before. This design is by Carly K./Mythic Management from her "Transcend" designs. My yellowish pen is definitely too orange for this color scheme, haha.

This was a very weird week. I started the week visiting Taylor and my mom, which was nice. Then we had the major wind storms, and the intentional power outages. In a way it was nice to have a couple unexpected half-days at work, but it very much threw everything for the week off. (I also did not succeed in using that extra time off to my advantage in getting other things done, heh.) I did get a few necessary things done: I wrapped gifts, mailed cards, and eventually caught most of the way up here. This time of year always somehow feels like I have way too much to do, though.

Goals for the week:

I did finish reading Mary
I started reading The Fragile Threads of Power, though have struggled to carve out enough time
I did not work on my reviews for the month
I did not work on my WIP outline
I did not make my phone call
Alex took care of taking the truck over to my coworker and his neighbor to get repair work done - huge relief!
I did get together with Taylor
I did wrap my Christmas gifts
I did finally get my cards into the mail
I was not able to attend my work webinar, because our power went out
I did attend our center meeting
I did not work on my reading page
I did figure out my list of what I'd need for baking, and more: actually got the stuff!

Tracked habits:

Work - 4/7 - I wound up with half days on both Wednesday and Friday due to power outages
Household Maintenance - 5/7
Physical Activity - 2/7
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
Wrote on 2nd+ Draft - 0/7
Meta Work - 4/7
Personal Writing - 3/7
Other Creative Things - 1/7
Reading - 7/7 - I finished reading Mary, and started The Fragile Threads of Power, plus read a bit of my ebook sideread; Taylor and I read What Moves the Dead, and started Silver and Lead; Alex and I read some of The Sun Dog
Attention to Media - 5/7 - Sunday I did have some reviews in the background while at work; Tuesday we had some news in the background and later watched a review; Wednesday was more reviews; Thursday we watched news coverage; Saturday watched some paranormal videos ad later a review.
Video Games - 2/7 - Taylor and I did a playthrough of Slay the Princess
Social Interaction - 5/7

Total words written: 0

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: my apartment

james

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onepageatatime

So, this year, I chose two reading challenges for myself, and I tried to choose them advisedly, so they would affect my year's reading, but not control it.

( Starting with recapping my 2025 reading challenges… )

I also found that this was a year where I was changing. And… there were times I resented the challenges that Early 2025 Me chose, because Current 2025 Me wanted to read other things but also wanted to complete the challenge she'd set for herself previously.

I suspect that I may not do any structured reading challenges next year. Or, maybe if I find some shorter-term ones. They aren't something I've traditionally done: 2025 was a first time. And I enjoyed it, despite my grumbling here. But… I also think I need less pressure on my reading life going into 2026. Let my interests take me where they will and push myself to make the decisions, rather than letting those choices be influenced as much by previous decisions.

( Finishing with reading streaks and page count goals )

yourlibrarian posting in

gardening

3 for the Memories' 2025 session will be open for posts on January 3, 2026 and will run for 3 weeks until January 24. Event participation is as follows:

1) Three photos only per person during each annual session. Members are encouraged to discuss the reason for their choices.

2) Photos can be hosted at Dreamwidth or elsewhere, and should not be larger than 800 px width or height.

3) All three photos should be in the same post. Cut tags should be placed after the first photo.

3 for the Memories is not a competition, and entries are not being judged. Rather, participants are encouraged to share photos they took in 2025 that they find meaningful in some way or which represent how they experienced the year.

Questions? Visit the announcement post at

threeforthememories

mergatrude posting in

gluten_free

Simply Wize are an Australian company who make a range of gluten-free products that are available in supermarkets and delis.

Their gluten-free puff pastry comes in a packet of four sheets and retail for AUD$11. These are about half the size of your standard frozen sheets of pastry.

Ingredients & Allergens
Starches (Potato, Tapioca, Corn), Water, Vegetable Oil (Soy), Egg, Stabilizers (415, 412), Anticaking Agent (460), Raising Agents (450, 500), Sugar, Salt, Soy Flour, Emulsifiers [322 (Soy), 471], Acidity Regulator (330). Contains Egg, Soy. May contain Milk, Sesame, Hazelnut.

I wanted to make a spinach pie (my recipe is loosely based on spanikopita) and so I rolled out two sheets so they were big enough to fit my rectangular baking tin (27.5cm x 17.5cm x 3.5cm). This made them quite thin and almost filo pastry-like. I did not blind bake, and made sure to drain the spinach really well so that the filling was not too moist. I brushed the top with a little melted butter and it cooked well, had a nice, golden colour and tasted like pastry should. It was not too flaky and the leftovers held together after being in the fridge and reheated.

Aside from the cost, the reduced size of the sheets made it a little awkward to use, but the taste and texture were good.

Mods, I note there is no "!: yeast-free" tag.

lydamorehouse

Image: Classice Yule Log with three white candles, bedecked with boughs and ornaments (surrounded by silver reindeer).

HAPPY SOLSTICE to all who celebrate. And those who don't? I hope you had a lovely Sunday all the same.

Our Solstice was much as it is most years--a quiet, family affair. We have some traditions, the first of which is making rosettes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosette_(cookie)). I have attached the Wikipedia article if you have no idea what a rosette is--it is, in fact, a deep fried cookie. Personally, if done well, I think they taste amazing, like sugar and AIR. Because, basically, the batter is ultra, ultra thin and you use a cookie iron to to crisp up a lot of vanilla and sugar-flavored nothing. Our recipe actually comes from a class I took on Christmas cookie making several years ago, but very likely (this being Minnesota) comes by way of Norway, though possibly Sweden or Finland.

The cookie making class is memorable because I was the youngest person in the room. I really figured that probably I'd be the oldest, since I presumed things like rosette, pizelles, krumkaka, etc., were the sorts of things that grandma would pass on and, maybe, it skipped a generation. Nope. It was me an all older ladies and on older guy who kept telling everyone that he took the class hoping to pick up a lady. (Yep, he was that old.) Anyway, me and all the older folks all had a lovely time and I was really only there for the hidden rosette knowledge because everyone agrees there is "a trick to it."

And, there is.

The trick is making sure the irons are hot first--but also not too coated in oil. But that little layer of hot oil will, in fact, help them come off. In fact, ours often just fall off the iron into the bubbling hot oil. So, we always have to have tongs to hand.

Mason and I making rosettes 2025

Image: me patiently waiting for the bubbles to slow down the appropriate amount. Mason in the forground. Our kitchen all around and a few exampes of the cookies drying on the paper towels. The irons come in a lot of shapes--star and flower/rosette shown. Not pictured is the Christmas tree.

We never want the rosette process to be arduous so we only make as many was we feel up to, call it good enough, and then I usually make a fun lunch like deep-fried shrimp. We have charcuterie for our Solstice dinner meal, light our Yule log (pictured above), open presents, and then take a bit of the Yule light upstairs in a safe, insulated container and keep the light burning for the longest night.

I like to joke: if the sun came up on December 22, thank a pagan!

Our Solstice gifts are always books. There is a version of the Icelandic Yule Cat where the present you must recieve is not new clothing, but a book. We decided to adopt that tradition. Mason got a Terry Prachett book (and a gift certificate for Uncle Hugos) because he's been on a Pratchett kick lately; Shawn got the last and final Phil Rickman novel The Echo of Crows; and I got Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Hew Lemmy and Ben Miller. My gift is one I asked for because I've really enjoyed their podcast by the same name.

Also as is traditional, someone's present must include the Solstice wrench. It has been Mason for many years, now, in part, I think because we started using it to baffle a child who could very distinctly tell the shake of LEGOs.

You can keep your King's Cakes, we have the Solstice Wrench!!

By chance our friend John J. sent along a bunch of other book-related presents and so we opened those at Solstice as well.

Shawn inspecting a gift

Image: Shawn inspecting a surprise gift (one of many!) from our friend.

A lovely time all around.

So, again, I hope you all had a lovely Solstice. If not, we can all enjoy the return of longer days. More sunshine! Hooray!

conuly

So, I'm reading something about an abusive relationship. So toxic, in every tiny respect. But the commenters! You've got a handful of them happily chirping things like "Oh, Abuser is trying so hard! He's really just controlling because he's worried, but look, he's trying to make Abusee happy!" and we've got another handful saying things like "I don't get why Abusee doesn't just leave. I mean, he's in public, is he scared of getting hit? In public? Like, geez."

Like... do you people know what sort of story you're even reading? Or, in the latter case, do you know anything about humans!?

Some people should not be allowed to comment on anything. WTF.

(Though, that having been said, the very first rule of running away and changing your name is never pick a fake name that has any connection to your real life. And because of this, our protagonist got kidnapped back by his abuser and his goon squad. Again. Well, the plot had to happen somehow, I guess, but still.)

***********************

( Read more... )

sabotabby

I am drowning in unfinished and partly finished tasks so this will not be as detailed or vivid as my usual solstice descriptions. Also I have very few good photos because my hands were occupied and I didn't have a proper camera, so you'll have to make do with blurry impressions, I'm afraid.

The Longest Night was cold as balls, but tradition is tradition, and actually more of my friends made it out than is usual. We had the lanterns I made and they went over very well, which meant that basically we got drafted into the parade itself. There were new giant puppets (one in particular that I'll comment on in detail) and for the first time in years, the fire sculpture has returned to Alexandra Park. Giant puppets and lanterns are very important to me, but is it really solstice without a big art project that people worked very hard on getting lit on fire? I don't think so, and the fact that this happened again feels hopeful for the year to come.

( pictures but they're not great )

I'm hoping to have better pictures to share that other people took, as it was pretty well photographed. I do have one of me that

rdi took but this is a public post.

You can get a decent idea of the vibe (and how the fish and Mari Lynd looked in action!) in this video, if you have Instagram.

This post has photo and video of the Fire Finale.

As always, it was a beautiful night, and it looks like the sun is up, so we did a good job.