Reading

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books:vlad taltos

The chaotic Dragaera reread continues

.... but much more slowly. I reread Vallista this past week, and that book sure hits different in a few ways after reading Tsalmoth!

( Spoilers for both Vallista and Tsalmoth )

Vacation

I am waiting in the VIP lounge for my flight to Sao Paulo which connects to Rio. This is my first time south of Mexico -- and even back then we only went from Calexico to Mexicali.

We have one night in a hotel before boarding our cruise. I don't know how good my WiFi will be, so Happy Winter Gift Giving Holiday. I hope to report a bit on my travels.

I am heartbroken to read about the two mass shootings. I know my Boston friends may have friends or loved ones who are attending Brown or are alumni. It's terrible. My uncle was around for the shooting at Virginia Tech, and there are still reverberations being felt on that campus ~ 20 years later. I hope Brown finds a way to heal.

Bondi Beach is a different heartbreak. Australia did so well with gun violence in the ~ 30 years since it's last mass shooting. It must have been such a shock in a way that the U.S. just isn't shocked any more. Hurrah for the police who found and disarmed the IED that was due to go off. And the stories of help and heroism from ordinary people is touching. But, as is true of any civilian shooting incident, it should never have happened.

May the rest of 2025 be better and lead into a 2026 that's kinder.

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secret santa 2025

Bonus Secret Santa Fics: Yoshiko

For those following the 'writing-springs' channel on the community discord, one of our members has a penguin called Yoshiko who successfully completed 44 words in the Sprints on Discord. This is (via two other member of our com 💜) a gift from them:

Yoshiko's Secret Santa One (44 words)

They watched the penguin waddle away.

"Do you think he'll be ok?" Natasha asked.

"Not going soft on me, are you?" Clint teased.

"Never!" she laughed.

"Good," Clint pulled her close and kissed her forehead. "He'll be fine. So will we. Merry Christmas,Tasha."

Yoskhio's Secret Santa Two & Three (22 and 22 words

“Clint… what’ve you done.” Natasha's voice was as cold as ice.

“Surprise?” He said, holding the huge penguin plush out. His smile was so sincere, she felt her irritation evaporate.

“I love you.” she said, fondly exasperated. It was as cuddly as it looked.

“Hey, I missed you.” He said, pulling her towards him with a grin.

“I missed you, too.” She purred, wrapping her arms loosely around his neck. Their kisses were heated, hands skimming over each other, everything feeling hazy–

“Shit, the stove!”

“Oh, not again!”

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Rec-Cember: Two recent short Murderbot gen fics

As I don't have the bandwidth for a lot of reccing tonight, here are two quick recs of short Murderbot friendship gen from the last couple of days that I enjoyed. Both of these are more bookverse than show-based.

Ransom by

BoldlyNo (400 wds, Gurathin-centric)
Augment-based ransomware! What a terrible/brilliant idea. This is short but complete-feeling and satisfyingly whumpy.

The Truth, Bitter as It Is by

HonorH (900 wds, Gurathin & Murderbot)
An even worse truth comes out about Ganaka Pit. I went into this fic worried that it would be terribly depressing, but it's not; it is much sweeter and kinder than it has to be.

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A couple of links

amperslashexchange just announced a collection delay and still needs pinch hitters! See if there's anything you can pick up here - there are some with bigger fandoms as well as some small fandoms.

Romance author Fern Michaels died recently, and I enjoyed reading this old article from early in her career (NYT archive article from 1978, not sure if it's paywalled). I didn't know that Fern Michaels started off as a writing duo of two different women! Apparently the one who eventually became "the" Fern Michaels took over the pen name later, but at the point this article was written, they only had three books out. The article is not at all disrespectful, and I was interested in the details of how the two women chose to position themselves in the market, which reminded me of our brainstorming process for Zoe a bit:

“There used to be a market for the little 60,000‐word romance with no plot,” Mrs. Anderson said, “but our publisher has become very demanding.”

Fern Michaels's books usually end up containing about 250,000 words.

Mrs. Anderson credits the success of the books to the authors’ attitude about women. As she put it:

“We don't have women love men who brutalize, beat and brand them. Our women don't put up with that.”

Anyway, I enjoyed this look at the state of the genre circa 1978, as well as the very early days of an author (or authors) who became a powerhouse in the 1980s-2000s romance scene.

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year-end roundup

Year in review and next year's plans

I normally do this at the end of the year, but I'm doing it early this year because I'll be out of town 'til the 27th, and I don't really expect much to change; all my publications for the year are publicated. See the tag for previous years' updates!

This year's cover grid:

3 full-length novels, 2 novellas, 1 collection. That's honestly much better than I was expecting; I spent most of the year clawing my way back from burnout, and the final two books were slammed out at the end of the year when suddenly my creative brain came back online.

( Checking in with last year's plan )

( Next year's plans )

( Edited to add: one more thing )

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fanfic:babylon 5

Babylon 5 fic: Movie Nights

I finished something I started a while back!

Movie Nights (2735 words) - Babylon 5, seasons one to five
Summary: Just a bunch of aliens getting hooked on each other's trashy serial media.

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fanfic:mash

MASH Christmas fic

This is actually something I wrote last winter, February or so, when I was bingeing MASH. I figured that although I could post it at the time I wrote it, I could also wait and post it at actual Christmastime.

Goodnight Moon (1816 words) by Sholio
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: MASH (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Charles Emerson Winchester III, B. J. Hunnicutt, Minor Characters
Additional Tags: Christmas, Missing Scene, Episode: s09e05 Death Takes a Holiday
Summary: Hawkeye makes a discovery. (Missing scene for 9x05 "Death Takes a Holiday," the season 9 Christmas episode.)

(no subject)

Daily updates for Rec-Cember are going about as well as anything daily usually does for me, so I think I'll switch to weekly posts - say Thurs or Fri. That sounds like a plan.

I think what I'm finding is that writing one rec is actually not much less work than a batch of them, and the batch style is more fun for me because I don't feel like I have to come up with as much to say about each individual fanwork. Even though I know I could just yeet the link on DW and flee. Why are brains.

I'm really enjoying the event, though!

(In other news, it is cooooooold, and I am struggling with motivation for Christmas. Maybe I need to write some Christmas/holiday/winter fic. I went to a holiday concert this weekend with

ellenmillion and it was lovely! I need more of that kind of thing.)

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Rec-Cember Day 4-6: 3 Babylon 5 recs [2 fic, 1 fanart] + a commenting success story

I figured that I'd group these together as they're by the same author. I wanted to talk about this anyway, because this is one of the more gratifying experiences I've had with leaving comments on older fic. Basically, I commented on a long WIP that hadn't been updated in several years, and the author not only wrote the rest of it but ALSO, to my delighted amazement, posted another long fic in the same universe, and started posting some new fanart too. It was wonderful. ♥ Never be afraid to comment even years later; sometimes you not only make someone's day but get lovely fanworks in return.

( 3 Londo/G'Kar Babylon 5 recs (by the same creator) cut for spoilers )

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tv:stranger things

Stranger Things 5x01-04

We finally got around to watching the first Stranger Things new episode drop! Somehow I had remained completely and utterly unspoiled for it, to the extent of having even forgotten that there was a new season until suddenly a post with "stranger things spoilers" arrived on my Tumblr dash and I immediately blocked the tag. So I knew literally nothing.

( Random spoilers in no particular order )

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books:vlad taltos

Rereading Dragaera

For reasons not worth exploring at this juncture (i.e. a friend asked which book to start with), I reread Jhereg earlier this week and then promptly tore through Yendi, Dragon, Taltos, quite a bit of Tsalmoth, and am now reading Issola. (Look, they're short books, okay.)

( Spoilers and speculation about Where It's All Going )