soricel | Network

this blog post was written but apparently never posted, and I am not logging onto my werk laptop just to post it now -- this is a placeholder for end-of-year

04SEP25: Eeb Allay Ooo (???, 20??) -- Netflix
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05SEP25: The Materialists (???, 2025) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
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11SEP25: Maria (???, 20??) -- Netflix
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12SEP25: Patience (???, 20??) -- Wilton's Music Hall
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19SEP25: Spinal Tap 2 (???, 20??) -- Greenwich Picturehouse
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25SEP25: Mindhorn (???, 20??) -- Netflix
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27SEP25: Iphigenia in Tauris (Gluck) -- Blackheath Halls Opera
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Current Mood: aggravated

ysabetwordsmith

This poem was written outside the regular prompt calls. It fills "The Last Command" square in my 1-1-24 card for the Public Domain Bingo fest. It has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. This is the third poem in the series Crystal Wood; it follows "Trees of Glass" and "Ghost Forests."

Warning: This poem is dark science fiction along the lines of ecological horror.

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Current Mood: busy

tamaranth

01NOV25: Frankenstein (del Toro, 2025) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
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05NOV25: Puccini and Bernstein, Parliament Choir -- Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street
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06NOV25: The Boys in the Band (Mantello, 2020) -- Netflix
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07NOV25: Bugonia (Lanthimos, 2025) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
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13NOV25: Frankenstein (del Toro, 2025) -- Netflix
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20NOV25: Clueless (Heckerling, 1995) -- Netflix
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21NOV25: Time (Luxmuralis, 2025) -- Old Royal Naval College
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28NOV25: Pillion (Lighton, 2025) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
( Read more... )Great article by Adam Mars-Jones about going to Cannes to see 'his' film
29NOV25: Wake Up Dead Man (Johnson, 2025) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
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Current Mood: thankful

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

1. Hello, Carolyn: My stepdaughter won’t allow me to see her children, 6 and 8. I bent over backward for 11 years trying to be supportive and generous to her and then her children, but she acts entitled and ungrateful. Last summer I blew it and told her off. That was the end of my loving relationship with her and the grandkids I adore.

I know it is largely my fault for not speaking up sooner on how I would like to be treated. My husband, a dear, won’t get involved in trying to repair the relationship. Of course, I have apologized to his daughter for being so harsh. Please help.

— Anonymous

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****

2. DEAR ABBY: My son died of cancer at 33. It was heartbreaking. My daughter-in-law, "Belinda," had grown distant before his death, and although they had a son through artificial insemination, I have almost never seen him. I helped with the weeding in my son's yard, but any time I came, Belinda always had the baby at the park or someplace else.

Now that my son is gone, she won't answer any phone calls or texts. We do have some contact with her family. They have asked her why she won't contact us, and she has no explanation. My theory is that Belinda was uncomfortable sharing our son, and it has transferred to the grandchildren. I say "grandchildren" because she used his sperm to have another child. We found out by accident that a baby girl was born. We were never notified. While I doubt this plays a big part in this, Belinda is bipolar.

As it stands, I no longer make an effort to have a relationship with my grandchildren. They are so young, and I anticipate difficulty in pursuing grandparents' rights because of their ages and their mother's attitude toward us. This is painful, as they are the only part of my son that remains. I feel helpless and have pretty much blocked out the fact that I have grandchildren. Do you have any advice? -- BLOCKED IN OHIO

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***

3. Dear Annie: My daughter, 31, left home at 19 to attend university. Within weeks, she began dating a boy she'd met through the school's Facebook group. Coming from our cultural background, we weren't comfortable with relationships outside marriage, but after two years, she moved in with him, mostly on her terms. They lived together for six years, bought a house, got a dog, eventually married and, two and a half years later, had my precious granddaughter.

My daughter has always dominated her marriage. Everything has to be on her terms. She's intelligent, determined and successful, but also bossy, pushy and demanding. Outwardly she can be sweet, but behind closed doors she often belittled her husband, and his laid-back nature just let her have her way.

About a year and a half ago, while I was babysitting, my daughter suddenly announced she no longer loved her husband and wanted to separate. I was shocked, but she bulldozed through the conversation and didn't let me say a word. Deep down, I was sure another man was involved. Within six months, the house was sold, assets divided and custody arranged, with little thought to the impact on their young daughter. My daughter was also left with the dog, which my son-in-law wanted no part of anymore.

It's been nearly a year since the split. My daughter appears to have a new partner, though she won't confirm it, only dropping hints to "familiarize" us with this new relationship, while her not-yet-ex-husband has turned to online dating. My granddaughter now splits time between them.

At her father's house, she still sees her other grandparents weekly. But with us, my daughter controls every visit and barely lets us into her life. We went from caring for our granddaughter regularly to limited contact with her and only when my daughter is present. She uses her daughter as leverage, essentially saying to us, "Accept my choices or lose contact."

Being around her feels like walking on eggshells. If I disagree, I'm met with silence, manipulation or explosive behavior. I cry every night, heartbroken over what feels like losing a limb. I feel for my son-in-law, who I believe was wronged, and I ache for my granddaughter, torn between two homes and two very different upbringings. Most of all, I am at a loss for how to move forward.

Deep down, my instincts tell me this new relationship won't last, but I don't know how to stand by my values and still hold on to my only grandchild. How can I stay in her life without surrendering completely to my daughter's demands? -- Heartbroken Grandmother

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*********

4. Dear Prudence,

“Sean” is my son’s former stepson. He married Sean’s mom when Sean was 6, and the same year my granddaughter was born. They got divorced when Sean was 12. Sean is 15 now. My husband and I have bent over backwards trying to stay in touch with Sean after the divorce. We called, texted, and sent gifts. We live out of state, so seeing both our grandchildren is hard.

Sean rarely responds to any calls, and his mother will not even tell us if he likes the gifts we send him, let alone make him say thank you. My son just shrugs and says that is the nature of divorce, and we are setting ourselves up for failure.

This breaks our hearts because we did our best to embrace Sean as our grandchild. He is still in our will with our other grandchildren. My husband thinks that we should stop trying so hard and step back. Sean is old enough to be able to decide if he wants a relationship with us or not. It isn’t like his mom monitors his phone, and Sean is always “busy” when we visit. He thinks we need to rewrite our will and take Sean out. I understand going through another divorce is hard, but Sean has even cut off his cousins, and those boys were as thick as thieves. What should we do? Wait? Push? Stepback? The divorce was mutual, as far as we know.

—Sean Doesn’t Say

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5. Dear Care and Feeding,

I gave birth to a baby girl a few weeks ago, and my mom has been coming to help for a full day once a week. She’s wonderful with my newborn: She changes diapers like a pro, she is great at getting her to stop crying, and she is respectful of rules that were different from when she had her kids (like the fact that babies are supposed to sleep on their backs, without blankets and stuffed animals in the crib). It’s a dream grandparent setup, really! Except for one thing. My problem is what she brings with her every time she comes over.

Every time Grandma arrives, she’s toting a box of stuff from my childhood. When we first got home from the hospital, she brought toys from when I was a toddler. Last week, it was art from the 4th grade. This week, it was photo albums from when I was a baby, and a bunch of my baby blankets. When I suggested gently that the albums of baby photos would be better off remaining at her house, she said she’d think about it.

Well, an hour later, she said, “I thought about it, and I worry that if I don’t bring them here to you, you’ll never see them again.” Which to me sounded like a threat! But the next thing she said was, “You look so tired, go take a nap,” as she removed my screaming daughter from my arms. So it’s not like I was in a position to argue.

My mother is in good health and lives alone in the four-bedroom house she raised my brother and me in. We live in a very small home with comically limited closet space (thanks, housing crisis). I can’t keep up with all the stuff she brings over. But I very much want to stay on as good of terms as humanly possible with her. So what do I do?

—Boxed In

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yourlibrarian posting in

tv_talk

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk

Are there shows that you’ve noticed have had a revival on social media or fan spaces in the last few years? Are there any you're glad to see coming back?

simplyn2deep posting in

1word1day

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Fireplace (noun)
fire·place [fahyuhr-pleys]

noun
1. the part of a chimney that opens into a room and in which fuel is burned; hearth.
2. any open structure, usually of masonry, for keeping a fire, as at a campsite.

Related Words
chimney, furnace, stove

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com

Origin: First recorded in 1645–55; fire + place

Example Sentences
The living area comes complete with a cozy fireplace and an expansive view of the backyard, which features a resort-style pool.
From MarketWatch

“The living room wasn’t big enough, and it featured a huge red brick fireplace that had doors on either side of it, leading to the backyard,” said Warwas.
From Los Angeles Times

The faces of the women, who are sitting in front of a grand fireplace, have been redacted with black squares.
From BBC

Hearing Nat King Cole croon about chestnuts roasting on an open fire dozens of times is one of the many reminders that fireplaces are luxuries most of us don’t have.
From Salon

I can relax by the fireplace, newly appreciating the relative safety of home.
From The Wall Street Journal

starryeyedknight posting in

little_details

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!

Current Mood: chipper

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: geeky

oursin

Firstly:

So, farewell then, PSC, whose advice to the sexually-bothered (rather than the lovelorn) has so oft provided fodder to oursinial musings. Guardian G2 today includes 23 of the best Sexual Healing columns

Not sure if they are The Greatest Hits rather than molto tipico of the kind of thing she addressed: in particular we note (as she stresses in the interview about the lessons learnt over 10 years of agony-aunting):

The female orgasm is still a mystery to some people
I’m still getting questions that show me people continue to think that the only “correct” type of female orgasm is one that’s purely vaginal and doesn’t involve the clitoris. For people to still think that, or to have that as the ideal, is extraordinary, but there it is. They just haven’t had the education to understand otherwise.

There is a waterspout off Portland Bill (where Marie Stopes' ashes were scattered). Volumes of the Kinsey Report on the Human Female are spontaneously falling off library shelves. The shade of Shere Hite is gibbering and wailing.

We also note the recurrent MenZ B Terribly Poor Stuff theme, what with the one who appears to regard his wife's bisexuality as a USP meaning *3SOMES* and two or three where one feels she did not interrogate sufficiently whether the male querent was actually gratifying his female partner before offering reassurance/solution e.g. 'My stunning wife makes no effort with our sex life' where we should like to know precisely what effort he is putting in, ahem.

However, there are also some of the wilder shores there.

***

Secondly, and could we have a big AWWWW for this: David Attenborough seeks out London’s hidden wildlife:

Filming the wildlife of London requires an intrepid, agile presenter, willing to lie on damp grass after dark to encounter hedgehogs, scale heights to hold a peregrine falcon chick, and stake out a Tottenham allotment to get within touching distance of wary wild foxes.
Step forward Sir David Attenborough, who spent his 100th summer seeking out the hidden nature of his home city for an unusually personal and intimate BBC documentary.

larryhammer

So Eaglet gave me a book, Dad Jokes by A. Grambs,* and I am annoyed. Not at the giving — it’s a perfect gift. Eaglet knows me well.

I am annoyed at the book itself.

People, this is not a good joke book. Weak wheezers, forced puns, tenuous connections, so many barely worthy of Uncle Benjamin from The Blue Castle. All too many pages evoke not even a single groan, only ugh — or in Eaglet’s idiom, a flat bruh. In fact, to compare we pulled out Eaglet’s own book, Laugh Out Loud Jokes for Kids by Rob Elliott, and opening either at random, the kids’ entries are better in every way.

I feel cheated, and disrespected as a dad. 1/5 do not recommend. (Not 0 only because there are a couple pages with something groan-worthy.)

* Copyright is by Alison Grambs.

---L.

Subject quote from In Your Eyes, Peter Gabriel.

letzan

High-level stats for week of 2025-12-16 - 2025-12-22

Total works categorized F/F on AO3: 10204 (+298 from last week)

Works I classified F/F: 5679 (+237 from last week) (2577 new, 3102 continued)

0.58% of all 971326 AO3 works I've classified F/F were updated this week

A few callouts this week:

Alien Stage returns, replacing The Amazing Digital Circus.
There's a Sapphic Stories 2025 prompt meme open through the end of the year, so think fast if that's something you'd like to jump on.
As expected, a number of winter-holiday-themed exchanges revealed this week.
For F/F content, your best bet is, of course, Yuletide 2025, with 141 works across a variety of fandoms.
Other holiday exchanges: The Worst Witchmas Exchange 2025 revealed with 27 F/F works. For fans who read German, the female-character-focused *innendienst Tatort exchange revealed with 11 F/F works. And the Tokusatsu exchange Another Toku Holiday Special (2025) revealed with 23 F/F works.

( Full top-20 table and description of methodology after the jump )

rmc28

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.

vriddy

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?!

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.

smallhobbit

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.

( Fall Challenge )

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.

( Annual challenge )

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.

kalloway

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.

cimorene

People really watch Benoit Blanc movies without having ever encountered any detective fiction other than Sherlock Holmes and feel fully qualified to comment on the connections that they think they've made.

Remember the terrible articles in the late 90s that repetitively and confidently asserted that Rowling had invented YA fantasy, or low fantasy, because they didn't bother to check a single library or bookstore?

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: giddy

halfcactus posting in

journalsandplanners

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!

jazzyjj posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

sonofgodzilla

Working during the Christmas and New Year period is like standing outside a building where everyone inside is partying hard. Whatever job I do next year, I'm going to make sure I quit before the last week of December. In the meantime: girls who are magical. Spoilers for the Kimi to Idol movie follow so please beware.

( Kimi to Idol Precure )

( To Love-ru )

( Happiness Charge Pretty Cure! )

( Smile Precure! )

( Comet-san )

And that pretty much makes up our magical girl quota for the year, friends. Onwards to, ah, 2006!

Current Mood: blah
Current Location: somewhere
Current Music: Savatage - Alone You Breathe (Acoustic Version)

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soricel

January 2026

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Page Summary

tamaranth - Monthly culture, September 2025
ysabetwordsmith - Poem: "The Last Command"
tamaranth - Monthly culture, November 2025
conuly in agonyaunt - Grandparents
yourlibrarian in tv_talk - TV Tuesday: Should Auld Acquaintance
simplyn2deep in 1word1day - Tuesday word: Fireplace
starryeyedknight in little_details - Medieval 'Cussing' in the Middle East
princessofgeeks - Heated Rivalry rec
oursin - This icon is doubly appropriate
larryhammer - “love, i don’t like to see so much pain / so much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away”
letzan - Femslash week in review: 2025-12-16 - 2025-12-22
rmc28 - Mellandagarna
vriddy - New K-9 fic: Housewarming (Ren/Oboro/Fujimaru/Kagari)
smallhobbit - Books - December 2025
kalloway - A Reckoning of Swords 0
cimorene - Object permanence issues
princessofgeeks - Heated Rivalry rec (Ep 6)
halfcactus in journalsandplanners - bird journaling :)
jazzyjj in awesomeers - Just one thing: 30 December 2025
sonofgodzilla - Monthly Magical Girl Media: October - December

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