bimo | Network

This poem came out of the February 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

see_also_friend. It also fills the "Violent Behavior" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.

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Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the July 1, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

gothfvck and

see_also_friend. It also fills the "Resist Oppression" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.

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Current Mood: busy

hafnia

End of the year meme, of course. 2024 is here. Kind of awful that I said "fewer funerals to attend" as the thing I wanted, and then...well, yeah, this year happened.

( beneath the jump. )

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musesfool

I just cleaned off the kitchen counter and put the last bowl/spatulas in the sink to soak (the dishwasher is already running, and all the cupcakes are cooked and 4 out of 5 frostings are made (I just finished the strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream) - tomorrow I will make the ganache and possibly also a whipped ganache (I've never done it with butter in it - does that make it more buttercream-ish?) just to change things up a bit.

Today, I baked the strawberry (doubled to make 80), apple cider (60), and funfetti (doubled to make 80) cupcakes - there could have been more funfetti, but not enough to fill a whole pan, so I didn't bother. I added cinnamon bits from King Arthur to the apple cider ones and dipped them in maple cinnamon sugar, which is a change, one that hopefully people will like.

I also discovered that the cupcake carriers I've had sitting in a box under a chair in my living room for a few months are the wrong size (they are for standard-sized cupcakes) so I only have 10 mini ones and I need 13, so I will use the some foil lasagna pans for my brother and sister and one of the kids - they'll get a few more cupcakes out of it, since the carriers hold 2 dozen but the 9 x 13" tray fits about 30. *hands* I'm just glad I still have a pack of them left to use; otherwise, I'd have been up a creek.

Tomorrow is Pipe-a-palooza 7: The Pipening! (yeah, it's kind of shocking to me I've been doing cupcakes for 7 years now - I started in 2019 - but I like it more than the chocolates [and it's also less time-consuming than the chocolates were] and I can't do ice creams anymore due to logistics, though they remain my all-time favorite of the homemade Christmas gifts I've done over the years.) Wish me luck! It's always the hardest part for me. Hopefully I will remember to take pictures to share afterwards.

Whoops, I started this entry an hour ago and got distracted by stuff like packing my overnight bag and refilling my water bottle etc. so I'm just gonna hit post now and work up the energy to go wash my hair.

***

( 6-day plan, day 5 )

***

Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: Ranges vs Caps on tv

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kaberett

Slightly to my surprise, earlier today I got a text from my GP saying approximately "yes your serum ferritin is now 'normal', but also, uh, by this we mean '15, with a reference range of 13-150, after six weeks of supplements', so... keep taking the supplements and we'll retest in six weeks!!!"

It is possible that the reason this actually got flagged at all was in fact that I've got a slightly elevated white cell count, and had I just had normal serum ferritin I'd have had to submit the "uhhh sooooo..." eConsult. Which I'd been gearing up to do, because the serum ferritin result showed up in the NHS app sooner than anything else!

Unfortunately, I had been working myself up to mentioning some Possible Additional Signs Of Concern in said eConsult (the various unimportant bleeding, like "there is usually old blood when I blow my nose BUT/AND I am very much using a steroid nasal spray every day") and I now have a solid excuse to keep putting it off for another six weeks, but hey. No longer officially anaemic! Pity about what's going to happen when I run out of supplementary iron, huh!

wychwood

Christmas is here aaaaaaah I am somehow not mentally prepared for Christmas Eve to be tomorrow.

However, all my preparations are sorted except for the things I need to do on Christmas morning, and I have done the tragic washing up so my house is ready for me to mostly abandon it for a couple of days.

Choir went pretty well - our Christmas concerts have had real issues with falling audience numbers for the last few years; we used to sell out four or five concerts, but lately it's been more like "two or three half-full". So this year they obviously decided to try something new, and we did three different, although overlapping, concerts with different vibes - two were basically sold out, and the third was all but the top tier, which only had about 50 people in it, but was probably still better turnout than any of the concerts last year. So it looks like that has worked, and we can expect more of that in the future.

We did a lot more "popular" music - White Christmas, Mariah Carey, the JoBros, Shakin' Stevens... I'm kind of torn, because I'm not really good at that sort of thing, and I'm not really sure why you would want to come and see us do "Like It's Christmas" rather than a rock or pop choir, whereas we can do you a genuinely excellent rendition of O Magnum Mysterium or Stars or something like that which plays to our strengths. But the audiences really seemed to enjoy it, and most of the songs were quite fun to sing. And we did do Darius Battiwalla's arrangement of "O Holy Night", which is gloriously over-the-top (the bit where the fortissimo orchestra drops out from under the chorus!).

Our conductor kept encouraging us to "bop" while singing the more fun pieces, but I really wasn't sold - the community choir were doing something similar, and frankly I thought it looked messy and distracting no matter how often he claimed it was essential for the music. I think you do actually need to do properly synchronised movement if you want it to look good (NB: I absolutely do not want to do properly synchronised movement either! this is not why I am in a choir!).

Tomorrow I'm going for brunch with Miss H and then over to my parents', probably to help with last-minute prep before the rest of the family arrive! I won't see them, though, because I'll be off to church before they get there. That will be a Christmas Day treat.

goodbyebird

Alas, no

rec_cember entry today, buuuut...

I know tons of you are deep in the Heated Rivalry hole. Did you know a kinkmeme was happening? And a SECOND kinkmeme? Now you do!

GQ has an article out with some rather saucy images.

I've spotted some icons by

wickedgame here.

Lastly, I'd recommend using the Explore/Site and Journal Search feature; I haven't seen DW be this vocal about a show for ages. I'm sure you'll find fellow fans to chat with.

Go forth and be fannish 🥳

snickfic

I will probably see a couple more movies before the end of the year, and I’ll update the numbers accordingly, but I think otherwise my answers will pretty much stay the same.

NB I have reviews for most of the movies in my movies tag.

What TV shows did you watch a season of this year?
Creepshow, which wasn’t even good! It just had good guest stars! My trend of one full season of TV a year continues apace.

What TV shows did you DNF this year?
Severance. I got it out of the library, and I still didn’t want to finish it.
Legion. I watched one episode and then got distracted, but I’d like to try again. I do love Dan Stevens.

How many movies did you watch this year? Any trends in genre/viewing format/etc?
I had a Regal subscription for over half the year, so I had a HUGE uptick in new releases watched. Movie stats overall this year (not counting rewatches except where noted):

2025 movies: 30 (plus one that’s technically 2026)
Older movies: 34

Movies seen in the theater (new and old): 33
Movies seen otherwise: 32

I also rewatched two 2025 movies in the theater, three older movies in the theater, and six older movie at home, for a total of 38 total visits to the theater this year. That is definitely the most I have ever been to the theater in a year in my life, and I had a great time. I cancelled my Regal subscription because I thought I was burned out, but it’s been expired for five days and I already miss it, so I will probably resubscribe. I got way more use out of it than I did my Huly subscription last year and probably my Hulu and Netflix subscriptions combined (both of which I have since cancelled).

What were your movie trends for the year?
Most-watched actor: Jeffrey Combs once again, mostly due to rewatches at this point, but Doctor Mordrid, Dark House, and Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls were all new.

Most-watched genre: Horror by a mile, thriller a very distant second.

Most-watched country of origin: USA, but Australia was second with three, so that’s neat.

What are your top movies you watched this year?
In terms of the sheer amount of joy and delight I derived from it, it’s probably Red Sonja. This is by no means the best movie I saw this year, but apparently it was the movie I needed.

Some other fave first-time watches, from this year unless noted:
- Cuckoo (2024). Weird weird xenobio shit, casually queer, Dan Stevens chewing the scenery. What’s not to love.
- Companion. Smart, fun comedy/thriller(?). Just so tightly written, and everyone was great, most of all Sophie Thatcher.
- Clown in a Cornfield. Another movie way smarter than it had to be, and with so much heart.
- Sinners. Gorgeous.
- On Swift Horses. I’m not saying it’s good, I’m just saying Jacord Elordi was very pretty and sad and gay.
- The Long Walk. I didn't love it as much as the book, but it understood the assignment, and I respect that.
- Hell House LLC: Carmichael Manor (2023). For pure horror, this is the scariest movie I saw this year.
- Wake Up Dead Man. Despite the heavy themes, this was ultimately a good entertaining time, just like the previous ones. I want ten more. 🙏
- Silent Night Deadly Night. A late-year surprise. I went in knowing basically nothing, and I had such a good time. I NEED a sequel.
- Red Rooms (2023). French-Canadian movie about women obsessed with serial killers. Stylish, femslashy as hell, an extremely precise and careful movie.

Other movies you saw this year that deserve more love
- Strange Harvest, a microbudget cosmic horror true crime mockumentary. Yes.
- Him, which absolutely did not deserve to get panned so universally. It had style and ambition, which is way more than I can say for lots of movies I saw this year.
- Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, a cheesy low-budget fantasy/horror movie with a lot more heart than it has any right to given how broad the comedy is.

Biggest disappointments
- Death of a Unicorn. >:( What a soulless, half-assed attempt at a horror comedy.
- The Conjuring 4. Even Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga couldn’t save this piece of dreck. Worse than 3, and that’s saying something.

Movies you finally got around to seeing for the first time
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Omg Chelsea of Dead Meat wasn’t being ironic; Leatherface IS baby. ;__;
- The Shining (1980). Fuck off, Jack Nicholson.
- Candyman (1992). Maybe trying to do too many things at once, but I was pleasantly surprised by how central the question of race was, and the romance/corruption arc was good stuff.
- Crash (1996). We definitely emphasized a different word in the phrase “erotic thriller” than I expected going in.
- Brokeback Mountain (2005). I respect it for what it was and meant at the time, but I did not love it. Heath Ledger was incredible though.
- The Mist (2007). It was fine.

Movies that you had the most fun talking about, whether they were good or bad
Probably either The Ugly Stepsister or The Long Walk, both because they have clear themes about (gross generalization here) characters doing their best in crapsack dystopias and showing how messy that gets emotionally for the characters. Lots to chew on in both of them, although I would say The Ugly Stepsister goes harder (which is impressive considering the other movie is the one where people get brutally shot in the head on screen every few minutes). The logistics of filming The Long Walk were also super interesting.

Did you rewatch any old faves? If so, which one was you favourite?
I got to see Re-Animator in the theater. <3 On film, with a recorded video message from Jeffrey Combs beforehand which someone played on their phone and held up for the audience to see. <333

What's the oldest movie you watched?
A Bucket of Blood, a 1959 thriller/satire.

What's the newest movie you watched?
LOL technically We Bury the Dead, which doesn’t hit wide release until the beginning of January. I saw it at a mystery movie screening.

Did you watch any movies outside of your usual preferred genre(s)?
Red Sonja is sword and sorcery, which I don't really watch, but partly because it doesn’t really exist as a movie genre these days. That may explain why it only got one day of theatrical release and zero marketing, which is a crying shame.

I watched indie drama Die My Love for Jennifer Lawrence and regretted it. I watched indie feminist/fable 100 Nights of Hero and… didn’t regret it, I guess, but I did think it sucked a lot on multiple axes. Every time I venture out of my horror niche, I end up thinking I should just watch more horror. :\

Any movies you're excited to watch in 2025?
I am aware of and excited about a surprising number of movies coming out next year!
Scream 7
Ready or Not 2
Dune 3
Wuthering Heights
The Bride
Iron Lung

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brainwane

looking forward to the next episode of Pluribus

starting to read the scifi mystery Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

making note of the upcoming Grolier Club exhibition on the mechanization of printing: "The Second Printing Revolution: Invention of Mass Media", starting January 14

thinking about whether I could make some use of the new Rx Inspector tool from Pro Publica

spreading word of the Otherwise Award's year-end fundraising campaign to celebrate scifi/fantasy/genre fiction that expands or explores our notions of gender (I'm on the board)

teaching activists how to use Signal features -- usernames, disappearing messages, nicknames, etc. -- to preserve privacy and improve convenience

listening to episodes of KEXP's Runcast (music) and an Australian guy's One Man, One Hammock (rambling monologues) as I do chores

playing an ad hoc guessing game with my spouse where I look up random records on the Guinness world records website and ask him to guess, e.g., how tall the tallest chocolate fountain is

dithering on whether to write a year-end retrospective for my blog

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and cool, almost warm -- too warm for a jacket even. That's warmer than even the January thaw used to get.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I filled the trolley twice with twigs from the parking lot brushpile, then dumped them in the firepit in the ritual meadow.

I saw a flock of mourning doves in the trees around the ritual meadow.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit.

I've seen a fox squirrel running through the trees. I heard a woodpecker but didn't see it.

EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit. I think I've actually removed all the ones with berries that I want to burn, so the rest should be free for other uses.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ffutures

I wasn't expecting this today, but here's another RPG bundle in the run-up to Christmas. This is "the Cypher System horror game of an eldritch alternate Appalachia," which seems to be inspired by the work of authors such as Manley Wade Wellman - basically, small-town 1900s American horror - and by a series of podcasts describing an alternate history set against this background. I have no idea if the podcasts are readily available outside the USA.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Appalachia

I'm not really into horror much at the moment, but it's cheap, nicely presented and looks like a playable system. Mostly the mythology it draws on originates from Native American tribal sources and European legends. Since this is largely inspired by a podcast series I'm linking to it below, it might be worth checking it out before you decide if you want to buy.

https://www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/

brightknightie

The "Shakespeare Network" YouTube Channel has posted a "restored" 4K version of Patrick Stewart's 1999 TNT production of Dickens's A Christmas Carol, free to watch (#EducationalVideo #Exclusive #OpenLearning). They've been partnering with Stewart since the pandemic, when he shared a video a day of himself reading a Shakespeare sonnet. This isn't Stewart's famous one-man-show version of A Christmas Carol, based on Dickens's own script, but it's an excellent and faithful adaptation of the novel, which he produced as well as starred in, with supporting cast including Richard E. Grant and Joel Grey.

Watch on YouTube