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ysabetwordsmithThis year I'm doing Community Thursdays. Some of my activity will involve maintaining communities I run, and my favorites. Some will involve checking my list of subscriptions and posting in lower-traffic ones. Today I have interacted with the following communities...
* Posted "How to cope with broken resolutions and the mid-January slump" in![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
goals_on_dw.
* Posted "Finding Art in 2026" onart.
* Commented on the January 28 post inawesomeers.
* Posted "How to cope with broken resolutions and the mid-January slump" in
goals_on_dw.* Posted "Finding Art in 2026" on
art.* Commented on the January 28 post in
awesomeers.
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ysabetwordsmithgs_silva made a post pointing to the Patreon post in which he answers one of my questions about Maurice. It's just such a unique backstory for the character, and I love it. :D
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merriamwebster_feedMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 29, 2026 is:
reciprocate • \rih-SIP-ruh-kayt\ • verb
To reciprocate is to do something for or to someone who has done something similar for or to you. Reciprocate can also mean “to have (a feeling) for someone who has the same feeling for you.”
// It was kind of my friend to give me a ride to the airport, and on the flight I was thinking of how to reciprocate the favor.
Examples:
“She entered the post office and greeted Tommaso, who reciprocated with a smile, then Carmine, who stroked his beard and shot her the usual skeptical glance.” — Francesca Giannone, The Letter Carrier (translated by Elettra Pauletto), 2025
Did you know?
“Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” “do unto others as you would have them do to you,” “share and share alike”: such is the essence of the verb reciprocate, which implies a mutual or equivalent exchange or a paying back of what one has received. Reciprocate traces back to the Latin verb reciprocare (“to move back and forth”), which in turn comes from the adjective reciprocus, meaning “returning the same way” or “alternating.” Indeed, one of the meanings of reciprocate is “to move forward and backward alternately,” as in “a reciprocating saw.” Most often, however, reciprocate is used for the action of returning something in kind or degree, whether that be a gift, favor, or feeling.
pronker posting in fancakeFandom: Lord of the Rings
Pairings/Characters:
Celeborn/Haldir of Lothlórien, Celeborn/Galadriel | Artanis, Orophin/Rúmil of Lothlórien, Boromir/Théodred, Aragorn | Estel/Elrond Peredhel, Arwen Undómiel/Éowyn, Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee, Elladan/Elrohir/Erestor (Tolkien), Gandalf | Mithrandir/Saruman | Curunír, Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf, Sauron | Mairon/Witch-King Of Angmar, Éomer Éadig/Faramir (Son of Denethor II), Gollum/Gríma Wormtongue, Elrond Peredhel/Glorfindel, Denethor II/Théoden Ednew
Rating: Mature
Length: 7,126 words
Creator Links: AO3 Profile
Theme: Crack Treated Seriously
Summary: Théoden and Denethor hunt the elusive Slash Fairy after she makes them... do things. Over and over. Featuring the horses of Middle Earth, with music by Fountains of Wayne, Celine Dion and Kenny Loggins.
Reccer's Notes: This month's theme is "ideas that are very, very bonkers, but approached with the utmost dedication to making it work within whatever passes for reality in that fandom." Author's dedication is key in this humorous tale of slash spreading like a glorious spready thing in the LOTR world and you'll believe that Denethor and Théoden-King need each other whether they realize it or not. The fairy is merely the mechanism. Just check out the other pairings and revel the night away! I especially liked that femmeslash was included, and also horses.
Fanwork Links: The Slash Fairy Cometh
Pairings/Characters:
Celeborn/Haldir of Lothlórien, Celeborn/Galadriel | Artanis, Orophin/Rúmil of Lothlórien, Boromir/Théodred, Aragorn | Estel/Elrond Peredhel, Arwen Undómiel/Éowyn, Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee, Elladan/Elrohir/Erestor (Tolkien), Gandalf | Mithrandir/Saruman | Curunír, Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf, Sauron | Mairon/Witch-King Of Angmar, Éomer Éadig/Faramir (Son of Denethor II), Gollum/Gríma Wormtongue, Elrond Peredhel/Glorfindel, Denethor II/Théoden Ednew
Rating: Mature
Length: 7,126 words
Creator Links: AO3 Profile
Theme: Crack Treated Seriously
Summary: Théoden and Denethor hunt the elusive Slash Fairy after she makes them... do things. Over and over. Featuring the horses of Middle Earth, with music by Fountains of Wayne, Celine Dion and Kenny Loggins.
Reccer's Notes: This month's theme is "ideas that are very, very bonkers, but approached with the utmost dedication to making it work within whatever passes for reality in that fandom." Author's dedication is key in this humorous tale of slash spreading like a glorious spready thing in the LOTR world and you'll believe that Denethor and Théoden-King need each other whether they realize it or not. The fairy is merely the mechanism. Just check out the other pairings and revel the night away! I especially liked that femmeslash was included, and also horses.
Fanwork Links: The Slash Fairy Cometh
mrissaReview copy provided by the publisher. Also the author is a dear friend, and I read an earlier draft.
I'm so glad we're finally closing in on the day when the rest of you can talk about this delightful weird book with me. If you've been reading John's short stories for all these years, rest assured that this book has the same heart and the same absolutely fresh take on the world and its structures. If you haven't, what a treat you have ahead of you! Go forth and read!
This book, though. Okay. Ellie looks after the structure of the universe far more than most of us with physics training. She regularly visits the skunkworks, an extra-universe space that allows for tweaking and re-coding the laws of this and other universes. John puts the physics in metaphysics here--there's a whole community of people dedicated to this work in a way that's a lot more like a branch of engineering, architecture, or software design.
Unfortunately, most of that community has been poisoned against her by her self-righteous, violent, and gaslighting-prone sister Chris. And when their mother dies, Ellie is left scrambling against changes in the laws of physics themselves. She's not sure who she can trust. Thank goodness for her hulking cousin Daniel, the most food-focused metaphysician you'll ever meet.
So yeah, you'll be intrigued, you'll be hooked, but you will also be hungry. Maybe it's that John and I have similar taste in food (the bao! the brussels sprouts! WHAT DID YOU DO TO THAT EGG TART, CHU), but I was on the edge of my seat mostly to find out how Ellie and Daniel would beat Chris's machinations but also a tiny bit to see what food item Daniel would come up with next. I always knew that cooking was crucial to the maintenance of space-time. Soon the rest of you can see why. Highly recommended.
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sovayIn the midst of this week, we are in a block of doctor's appointments, but following this afternoon's I climbed up to the railings behind the Salem Street Burying Ground and hung over them with my camera, an operation which still put me in snow to mid-calf. Its winter-drifted gravestones date from the late seventeenth through the late nineteenth centuries, with one modern interpolation for the unmarked, enslaved dead. I should go back for their slate-carved winged skulls in spring.
The current sunset is one of those violet riots, but at the time of this photo, the clouds above the fan of trees were just starting to flush gilt-grey. That attenuated stretch of the Mystic that always looks more like an industrial canal than a river was a glaucous freeze at its margins and flat-skimmed snow down its center. I cannot believe I never encountered Socalled's Ghettoblaster (2006) until its twentieth anniversary. Then again, only forty years after the fact did it occur to me that I would have accepted The Last Battle (1956) much more readily if Lewis had made it Ragnarök instead of Revelations.
The current sunset is one of those violet riots, but at the time of this photo, the clouds above the fan of trees were just starting to flush gilt-grey. That attenuated stretch of the Mystic that always looks more like an industrial canal than a river was a glaucous freeze at its margins and flat-skimmed snow down its center. I cannot believe I never encountered Socalled's Ghettoblaster (2006) until its twentieth anniversary. Then again, only forty years after the fact did it occur to me that I would have accepted The Last Battle (1956) much more readily if Lewis had made it Ragnarök instead of Revelations.
ysabetwordsmith430,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools Are the Oldest Ever Found
The finding, along with the discovery of a 500,000-year-old hammer made of bone, indicates that our human ancestors were making tools even earlier than archaeologists thought.
( Read more... )
The finding, along with the discovery of a 500,000-year-old hammer made of bone, indicates that our human ancestors were making tools even earlier than archaeologists thought.
( Read more... )
thistleingreyAcross several weeks of wandering---
Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club (2020): many words proportional to ambiance/plot, such that I began almost to resent how often my finger had to tap the screen. Though I appreciate how the setting lets Osman juxtapose well-observed characters who wouldn't otherwise acknowledge each other---the members of the old-folks community are more interesting than the middle-aged and younger adults---I couldn't have read this story a few years ago. OTOH, I did finish reading it.
Rena Rossner, The Sisters of the Winter Wood (2018): paused since more than a week ago in ch. 19 (22.5%). I ran out of curiosity there. If I want the story to be doing a bit more than it does, that's a me-problem.
Nell Irvin Painter, Old in Art School (2019): paused at 5% to save up Painter's voice, for times when I'm pickier. Painter retired from teaching at Princeton to undertake a BFA and MFA at RISD. My classes are remote, my degree smaller and briefer, and I'm not 67 yet (Painter's age upon pivoting), but it's lovely to find an aware fellow-traveler in her text.
I've reached 68% in Grace Cho's Tastes Like War, up from 20something %.
I've DNFed Sherry Thomas's A Ruse of Shadows at 4%, which may be a record---it's within the reprise of recent events. I ran out of curiosity there.
I've dipped into Carolyn Lei-lanilau's Ono-Ono Girl's Hula (1997), whose short publisher's page erases her and me as potential readers: "If you think you know something about what multiculturalism means in real life, read Carolyn Lei-lanilau and think again." Eh, bite me. The title indicates performance outright, so being irritated by yet another trifle constructed for mainstream readers is a me-problem. Either I'll get over it before the library wants the book back, or I won't.
I'm currently at 10% of Skull Water by Heinz Insu Fenkl (2023), a continuation of Memories of My Ghost Brother.
Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club (2020): many words proportional to ambiance/plot, such that I began almost to resent how often my finger had to tap the screen. Though I appreciate how the setting lets Osman juxtapose well-observed characters who wouldn't otherwise acknowledge each other---the members of the old-folks community are more interesting than the middle-aged and younger adults---I couldn't have read this story a few years ago. OTOH, I did finish reading it.
Rena Rossner, The Sisters of the Winter Wood (2018): paused since more than a week ago in ch. 19 (22.5%). I ran out of curiosity there. If I want the story to be doing a bit more than it does, that's a me-problem.
Nell Irvin Painter, Old in Art School (2019): paused at 5% to save up Painter's voice, for times when I'm pickier. Painter retired from teaching at Princeton to undertake a BFA and MFA at RISD. My classes are remote, my degree smaller and briefer, and I'm not 67 yet (Painter's age upon pivoting), but it's lovely to find an aware fellow-traveler in her text.
I've reached 68% in Grace Cho's Tastes Like War, up from 20something %.
I've DNFed Sherry Thomas's A Ruse of Shadows at 4%, which may be a record---it's within the reprise of recent events. I ran out of curiosity there.
I've dipped into Carolyn Lei-lanilau's Ono-Ono Girl's Hula (1997), whose short publisher's page erases her and me as potential readers: "If you think you know something about what multiculturalism means in real life, read Carolyn Lei-lanilau and think again." Eh, bite me. The title indicates performance outright, so being irritated by yet another trifle constructed for mainstream readers is a me-problem. Either I'll get over it before the library wants the book back, or I won't.
I'm currently at 10% of Skull Water by Heinz Insu Fenkl (2023), a continuation of Memories of My Ghost Brother.
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ysabetwordsmithToday is sunny and cold, but less frigid than yesterday.
I fed the birds. I refilled the suet feeder. I've seen a flock of sparrows, two starlings, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel at the corncob.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 1/28/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 1/28/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I refilled the hopper feeder.
I've seen a male cardinal and a wren.
EDIT 1/28/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I am done for the night.
I fed the birds. I refilled the suet feeder. I've seen a flock of sparrows, two starlings, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel at the corncob.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 1/28/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 1/28/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I refilled the hopper feeder.
I've seen a male cardinal and a wren.
EDIT 1/28/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I am done for the night.
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twistedchickWe got 6-8 inches of snow, and a lot of cold, but we're still here. Power works, gas works, water works. I'm going out now to try to take down the plowed wall next to the cars. It only took 2 days to see a snowplow -- but the area is still closed down through tomorrow, so not surprising.
Not looking forward to more from next weekend.
ETA: Both cars have 2.5 feet of ice and snow along the side next to the lane. I couldn't budge it.
If the SU can't either, we may have to phone the incel across the street to dig it out for an exorbitant fee. If we didn't have the possibility of another storm, with wetter snow, this coming weekend I'd let it sit, but I will still have that doctor's appointment next week.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Not looking forward to more from next weekend.
ETA: Both cars have 2.5 feet of ice and snow along the side next to the lane. I couldn't budge it.
If the SU can't either, we may have to phone the incel across the street to dig it out for an exorbitant fee. If we didn't have the possibility of another storm, with wetter snow, this coming weekend I'd let it sit, but I will still have that doctor's appointment next week.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
sage( books (Pratchett, Robert) )
yarning
no yarn group Sunday due to the ice storm, such as it was. We didn't get as much freezing rain as forecast, but we got enough to make it unsafe to drive here, where we utterly lack the infrastructure for it. I've been making more hats for the children's shelter. A ridic number of hats. Like, twenty.
healthcrap
after the shingles shot, I didn't feel right until *Sunday*. Thanks for the sympathetic words on my last post. (We'll do it all again for shot #2 in a couple of months.)
#resist
+ https://standwithminnesota.com
+ https://projectreliefme.com (mutual aid in Maine)
+ Jan 30-31: ICE OUT OF EVERYWHERE shutdown and protest
+ Feb 17th: #50501 Protest: Impeach, Convict, Remove, Defund
+ March 28: No Kings Protest #3
+ There's a drive for knitted or crocheted balaclavas for the Minneapolis protesters, so I'm looking into doing that, except I've used nearly all my appropriate worsted weight yarn that's not earmarked for money-making projects. Not sure what to do. Anybody got a yarn stash they don't need? Or I guess I could go to walmart, which, sadly, is cheaper than Michaels. Or I could order an equivalent $ number of balaclavas from amazon and have them sent there. Hmm.
I hope you're all doing well & keeping up your spirit in spite of all the horrors. Much love! <333
yarning
no yarn group Sunday due to the ice storm, such as it was. We didn't get as much freezing rain as forecast, but we got enough to make it unsafe to drive here, where we utterly lack the infrastructure for it. I've been making more hats for the children's shelter. A ridic number of hats. Like, twenty.
healthcrap
after the shingles shot, I didn't feel right until *Sunday*. Thanks for the sympathetic words on my last post. (We'll do it all again for shot #2 in a couple of months.)
#resist
+ https://standwithminnesota.com
+ https://projectreliefme.com (mutual aid in Maine)
+ Jan 30-31: ICE OUT OF EVERYWHERE shutdown and protest
+ Feb 17th: #50501 Protest: Impeach, Convict, Remove, Defund
+ March 28: No Kings Protest #3
+ There's a drive for knitted or crocheted balaclavas for the Minneapolis protesters, so I'm looking into doing that, except I've used nearly all my appropriate worsted weight yarn that's not earmarked for money-making projects. Not sure what to do. Anybody got a yarn stash they don't need? Or I guess I could go to walmart, which, sadly, is cheaper than Michaels. Or I could order an equivalent $ number of balaclavas from amazon and have them sent there. Hmm.
I hope you're all doing well & keeping up your spirit in spite of all the horrors. Much love! <333
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writerlibrarianTeacher stuff
I’m giving my second class today. We are week 3 and things are going fine, I’m ahead in writing the material needed (2 weeks ahead). I’m enjoying being busy again but not too busy.
Reading
I finished these:
The Apothecary Diaries v.1. It was really good. I read it in French and got v.2 from the library. It’s in my PAL.
Heaven Official’s Blessing v.8. The series is done. I’ve gotten the first volume of the manhua. It is also in my PAL.
Faux-semblant/Smoke screen. Horst and Enger second book in the Alexander Blix and Emma Ramm series. This is Nordic noir at its best for my taste. Yes there is violence but it’s not graphic violence, the investigation has multiple branches, both characters are strong and not helpless. The rhythm and pace of the story grabs you at the first chapter and lets you go at the last line. It’s a page turner and no sleep night type of read. The French translation is well done. The third book is not available in French yet but is in English. I will wait for the French edition.
La course contre l’amour de Valentina Tran. This is a romantic YA graphic novel just in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s part magical realism, part romance, part coming of age story. It’s well written, beautifully drawn. I spent a really nice evening reading it.
Watching
I finished Love Between Lines and it was so so good, Green flag, HE. Loved it.
I started an old one The Spirealm so far I like it (4/38 episodes). I got the translated novel on my Kindle too. It’s creepy enough but not too creepy. It probably will be an open ended ending. I haven’t been spoiled.
Crafting
Last Friday was our first crafting evening of 2026. I worked on my fox 🦊 crosstitch. This coming Friday is knitting. I’m making progress on the baby blanket I have one month left to finish it. The baby is arriving in March.
I’m giving my second class today. We are week 3 and things are going fine, I’m ahead in writing the material needed (2 weeks ahead). I’m enjoying being busy again but not too busy.
Reading
I finished these:
The Apothecary Diaries v.1. It was really good. I read it in French and got v.2 from the library. It’s in my PAL.
Heaven Official’s Blessing v.8. The series is done. I’ve gotten the first volume of the manhua. It is also in my PAL.
Faux-semblant/Smoke screen. Horst and Enger second book in the Alexander Blix and Emma Ramm series. This is Nordic noir at its best for my taste. Yes there is violence but it’s not graphic violence, the investigation has multiple branches, both characters are strong and not helpless. The rhythm and pace of the story grabs you at the first chapter and lets you go at the last line. It’s a page turner and no sleep night type of read. The French translation is well done. The third book is not available in French yet but is in English. I will wait for the French edition.
La course contre l’amour de Valentina Tran. This is a romantic YA graphic novel just in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s part magical realism, part romance, part coming of age story. It’s well written, beautifully drawn. I spent a really nice evening reading it.
Watching
I finished Love Between Lines and it was so so good, Green flag, HE. Loved it.
I started an old one The Spirealm so far I like it (4/38 episodes). I got the translated novel on my Kindle too. It’s creepy enough but not too creepy. It probably will be an open ended ending. I haven’t been spoiled.
Crafting
Last Friday was our first crafting evening of 2026. I worked on my fox 🦊 crosstitch. This coming Friday is knitting. I’m making progress on the baby blanket I have one month left to finish it. The baby is arriving in March.
