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But today is not that day.

I had an appointment with my GP yesterday, and after listening to my lungs and gently touching my face to check how inflamed my sinuses were (very, I winced away from her fingers every time), I have won yet more fucking steroids and antibiotics. I spent the night in a huge amount of discomfort (understatement), and I don’t know if that’s because of the heavy-duty antibiotics, or if last night’s dinner at a restaurant had something wrong with it. I felt unwell enough that I took today off, even tho’ I’m starting to feel a tiny bit anxious about how often I’ve had to tap out of work because of my health.

We also went over my MRI results, wheee. Bursitis in both hips, mild scoliosis, a few discs that have started to bulge, and more spinal stenosis than expected. In other words, my back is absolutely messed up. I spoke to one of of the patient advocates/scheduling specialists at the neurology/back branch of Virginia Mason (I’ve been in back and forth calls with them for a few weeks); consultation appointments are being scheduled six months out, and they can’t even start scheduling appointments for August until March. I’m less than thrilled.

Ugh. Bodies are stupid.

schneefink

I finished books 1-7 of Dungeon Crawler Carl in two weeks, and more importantly I managed to drag both my gf and DD into it too - I think that's one of my strengths :) I had a great time.
( spoilers )

Slight downside, DD and I haven't started our Hades 2 1.0 playthroughs yet, since we planned to start at the same time and she just got to book 6 of DCC ^^ Hopefully soon though.

Instead I played a few runs of Vampire Survivors again. Good for occasional short play sessions that don't require much brainpower (though it is easy to forget to look at the time...) I don't unlock something every run but almost, which feels very cool and like I'm getting somewhere even though I have no idea what to do/where to go for actual game "progression." I might look it up at some point, idk.

(I also considered exploring the new Minecraft updates - I want to find a happy ghast! And ride a nautilus!, among other things - but I lost one set of good armor/tools in the End and another in the Nether a few months ago, and both are very possible to retrieve but I haven't found the motivation yet to either get one of them or make myself new gear. Possibly keepInventory would have been a good idea after all.)

Speaking of games, specifically board games: in early January with L and two of her friends we played Wingspan, which was a lot of fun, and then we tried out Earth, which we also enjoyed a lot. That one we tried first in single player, and then we decided to try the version where you play in teams but quickly switched back because it gets a lot more tactical quickly. The third long game the three of them played was Forest Shuffle - I detect a theme ^^
We also played a quick game of Pandemic. And this reminds me that L and I didn't get a chance to play Hanabi yet, hopefully soon.

It's also been ages since I gave an update on my group's TTRPG games and our current Stars Without Number campaign! We got to level six, which means I can now do "normal" teleports without Committing Effort and it feels fantastic. And I got some other cool abilities too, like imprinting on a party member to teleport back to their side even when they are out of sight.
( Recent adventures )

runpunkrun

Photograph of two kingfishers perched on a branch. One is surrounded by a cloud of pink love hearts and the other has a single question mark over its head. Text: Inept in Love, at Fancake.

Just in time for Valentine's Day,

fancake's theme for February is Inept in Love! This round is for all those dingdongs who just do not know what they're doing when it comes to romance or even expressing their feelings for a best friend or family member.

If you have any questions about this theme, or the comm, come talk to me!

glitteryv posting in

recthething

Every Thursday, we have a community post, just like this one, where you can drop a rec or five in the comments.

This works great if you only have one rec and don't want to make a whole post for it, or if you don't have a DW account, or if you're shy. ;)

(But don't forget: you can deffo make posts of your own seven days a week. ;D!)

So what cool fancrafts/fanvids/other kinds of fanworks/fics/fanart/podfics have we discovered this week? Drop it in the comments below. Anon comment is enabled.

BTW, AI fanworks are not eligible for reccing at recthething. If you aware that a fanwork is AI-generated, please do not rec it here.

rmc28

Books on pre-order:

Platform Decay (Murderbot 8) by Martha Wells (5 May)
Radiant Star (Imperial Radch) by Ann Leckie (12 May)
Unrivaled (Game Changers 7) by Rachel Reid (29 Sep)

Books acquired in January:

and read:
1. The Shots You Take by Rachel Reid
and previously read:
1. Time to Shine by Rachel Reid

Books acquired previously and read in January:

Claiming the Tower (Council Mysteries 1) by Celia Lake [Dec 2025]
Alchemical Reactions by Celia Lake [Dec 2025]

Borrowed books read in January:

The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles 3) by Rick Riordan [3]
Demigods & Magicians by Rick Riordan [3]
The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase 1) by Rick Riordan [3]
The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase 2) by Rick Riordan [3]
The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase 3) by Rick Riordan [3]
9 from the Nine Worlds by Rick Riordan [3]
The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited

james_davis_nicoll

Federal Ranger Cracka Buckshore's efforts to keep irate parents from lynching handsome Fodo Bathin are complicated when Cracka, Fodo, and everyone else on the planet are kidnapped and taken to an artificial universe.

Golden Sunlands by Christopher Rowley

oursin

(This may get updated over the course of the day)

After struggling to get Zoom link downloaded and operating etc, managed to get into first session I wanted to attend, Foundling Hospital in early C20th, good grief, practices had not changed much in a century had they? Recipe for trauma in mothers, children, and the foster mothers who actually bonded with the children until they were taken away to be eddicated according to their station in life.

Then switched to a different panel and was IRKED by a lit person talking about the Women's Cooperative Guild Maternity: Letters from Working Women (1915) which they had only just encountered ahem ahem - was republished by I think Virago? Pandora? in 1970s - and women's history has done quite a bit on the WCG since then so JEEZ I was peeved at her assumption that the working women were not agents but the whole thing was being run by the upper/middle class activists who were most visibly involved. And wanted to query whether working women thought it was very useful to have posh laydeez able to put their cases re maternity, child welfare and so on in corridors of power, rather than deferentially curtseying??? (I should like to go back in time and ask my dear Stella Browne about that.)

Also on wymmynz voices not, or at least hard to trace, in the archives, I fancy this person does not know a) Marie Stopes' volume Mother England (1929), extracts of letters she had from women about motherhood and b) based on 1000s of letters surviving and available to researchers. I could, indeed, point to other resources, fume, mutter.

Update Well, there were some later papers I dropped in on and enjoyed (and was able to offer comment/questions on; but I was obliged to point out certain errors in a description of Joanna Russ's The Female Man (really I think if you are going to cite a work you should check details....) (and I suppose Mitchison's work was just outside the remit of what they were talking about, so I was very self-restrained and failed to go on about Naomi.)

rmc28

The opening ceremony isn't until tomorrow evening, but women's ice hockey starts in about half an hour with Sweden facing Germany. Regrettably I have to do my day job, but I do have two monitors in the office ...

oursin

Happy birthday,

coffeeandink!

dine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

lassarina

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

out_there

Last year's stats (again, posted in Feb)

( 2025 )

isis

What I've recently finished reading:

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo, which was enjoyable, although I really dislike the structure of having one POV in first person past and the other POV in third person present, it just feels weird to me. Basically a whodunnit with fox spirits. I liked the old lady the best!

The Hyena and the Hawk by Adrian Tchaikovsky - the conclusion of the Echoes of the Fall trilogy, and really not so much about the hyena and the hawk, but it does make for a nice alliteration. This was a great ending for the series, really fascinating worldbuilding, and as usual (for Tchaikovsky) it plays with the concepts of Us and The Other, and how to bridge the gap of understanding in order to appreciate The Other as Persons. Speaking of which,

What I'm reading now:

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which so far (20% in) is very much like Alien Clay except also very much not like it.

What I'm watching now:

We're about halfway through Pluribus. It's very slick and clever, a bit slow, I'm not sure if I like it, but I will watch the whole season, anyway. I am particularly charmed by all the random extras looking very much like regular everyday people. Also, Albuquerque! That's not too far out of my backyard...

What I'm playing now:

Still Ghost of Tsushima. I've rescued my uncle and am on to the second part of the story!

out_there

I thought I'd already posted about this and squeed in public, but apparently I downloaded it, listened to it, and started using it as a regular bedtime story, and never actually posted about it!

dangercupcake did a podfic of one of my favourite xiyao stories of mine, "Like a Long-Time Painted Smile" (which I think of as the Lan-furen AU). No lie, it is a story that I enjoyed writing and it is one that I've read over a few times since publishing it, but it's so nice to hear someone else read it for me. (And it does work for putting me to sleep. I easily go from enjoying the scene to just drifting off.)

podfic of "Like a Long-Time Painted Smile" by out_there (220 words) by dangercupcake
Chapters: 11/11
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lan Huan | Lan Xichen/Meng Yao | Jin Guangyao
Characters: Lan Huan | Lan Xichen, Meng Yao | Jin Guangyao, Lan Qiren, Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Nie Mingjue, Xue Yang | Xue Chengmei, Nie Huaisang
Additional Tags: Fear of intimacy comes in many forms and JGY has all of them, Marrying an eligible bachelor can be the start of a happy ending, Lan Xichen is the most eligible bachelor for good reason, Fix It Fic, set during the time skip, Bottom Lan Huan | Lan Xichen, Lan Furen - Freeform, background wangxian - Freeform, A happy ending means JGY and NHS remain friends, Nie Mingjue Lives, Podfic, Audio Format: Streaming, Audio Format: MP3, Podfic Length: 5-6 Hours
Series: Part 47 of MDZS/The Untamed Fanwork, Part 88 of Podfic
Summary:

Meng Yao marries into the Lan. Everything changes.

kaberett

( Read more... )

oursin

What I read

Finished The Doxies Penalty - I wonder where my copies of the first two in the sequence have got to? should like to revisit.

Kent Haruf, Plainsong (1999) - I think I mentioned when reading another work by Haruf that I had been intrigued by an essay in a collection by Ursula Le Guin about his novels, so I was looking out for these at 'taking a punt' prices. I feel that, um, admire the writing, the subtle subdued effects etc etc etc but not impelled to rush out and acquire everything he ever wrote.

For a massive change of pace, Megan Abbott, El Dorado Drive (2025) which was good if grim noirish about sisters who were brought up in comfort and then the economy crashed, getting caught up in a rather creepy pyramid-type scheme.

Then another change of pace, Julia Quinn, Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Bridgertons, #4) (2004) as it was on Kobo promotion and I felt maybe I should given these a whirl, but not massively taken. Kind of slow.

Then yet another Dick Francis, Decider (1993), pretty good, even if we have yet another dysfunctional privileged family (this one owns, or at least, is in the process of inheriting, a racecourse), at least one of whom is a raging psychopath. The competence-porn in this one involves architecture, in particular restoration of ruined buildings, with a side-trip to erecting a big top and how circuses deal with potential fires etc (plot-relevant).

On the go

Somebody somewhere some while ago was mentioning Somerset Maugham's Cakes and Ale (1930), which I literally read in my schooldays and never since, and had it mentally on a list to look at again, so downloaded it from The Faded Page and am well stuck in. Love Our Narrator being bitchy about Literary Circles, not so much enthralled by the actual plot.

Up next

Dunno. It's that time of year when I really have no idea what I want to read. Maybe that book about the Bigfoot Community?

james_davis_nicoll

This all-new Human Gorilla Heists Bundle presents .PDF ebooks from Human Gorilla Creations that help you create tabletop fantasy roleplaying adventures of thieves and thievery.

Bundle of Holding: Human Gorilla Heists

james_davis_nicoll

Aisha's unique senses could help the empire escape the ecological crisis the empire has inadvertently engineered. Too bad dynastic security requires her death.

The Girl from the West (Kokun, volume 1) by Nahoko Uehashi (Translated by Cathy Hirano)

tassosss

Well, I didn't do as many snowflake challenges as I was planning. I ended up spending most of January working on edits for book 2. The exciting news is that I've put the first two chapters up to preview!

You can read them here for free (6k words): https://dl.bookfunnel.com/5i63i06kka

Title: Chapters 1-2 of Surviving Peace
Genre: Science Fiction
Rated: PG-13/Teen for violence and swearing - not more than you would see on tv.
Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, Spoilers for my first book The Dementia (so you know what's going on), Captured/Prisoners, Interrogation, Found family, Fresh Dystopia,

Also also! If any folks out there are interested in being an early reader please let me know!

I'll give you a free advance ebook in mid-Feb, and in the endless chase for reviews, would love it if you leave a review wherever you buy books and/or Goodreads. Surviving Peace comes out March 18. (This whole marketing thing, I swear.)

luminousdaze posting in

nexticon

Congratulations! 🎊✨🏆
Thank you to all participants & voters.
The points tally when needed is in a comment on the voting post.

≛ Round #90 Winners ≛

icon"

1st Place
by

wickedgame

icon

2nd Place
by

wickedgame

icon

3rd Place (Tie)
by

picnicnic

icon

3rd Place (Tie)
by

tinny

Mod's Choice
by

kingstoken

Current Mood: 🙂
Current Location: 🌎

Go ahead - fascinate me!

Someday I will post about something other than my health

Dungeons and other games

Fancake's Theme for February: Inept in Love

Community Recs Post!

To read pile, 2026, January

Golden Sunlands by Christopher Rowley

Online attending conference

Olympics!

(no subject)

just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and flowers

What Are You Playing Wednesday

Writing Roundup 2025

wednesday reads and things

Podfic: "Like a Long-Time Painted Smile"

[food, healthwork] VEMGETABLES and NUTS and--

Wednesday was agreeably surprised first thing with Brahms' Double Concerto finale

Bundle of Holding: Human Gorilla Heists

The Girl from the West (Kokun, volume 1) by Nahoko Uehashi (Translated by Cathy Hirano)

Chapters 1 and 2 of Surviving Peace available

Round #90 ≛ Results

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