Taking matters into my own hands
Nov. 27th, 2025 12:47 pmI did get enough of everything for leftovers but I'll be damned if I'm eating left overs without decent stuffing. So after I finished eating the good bits, I got in the car and went to Safeway and bought already chopped up onions and celery and some stuffing mix (I already had the chicken broth and butter on hand). In under 15 mins I had better than just decent stuffing.
I have enough for the left overs and plenty more for the freezer. It's delicious.
Thanksgiving travesty righted. By Me.
Thanksgiving dinner is cooking
Nov. 27th, 2025 03:15 pmAnyway, we've got chicken, creamed spinach, possibly creamed corn, maybe beets of some sort, maybe couscous, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (with marshmallows, contributed by a guest), stuffing, cornbread, cranberry sauce, and pies. I'm debating making some soup as well, buuuuuuut I think we may have enough food and not enough bowls. Oh, and there's green beans. Oh, and brussels sprouts and a salad.
(Maybe I should've made baked beans? I wonder if I have time to make baked beans. Oh, but the chicken is in the oven. Hm. Can you make not-baked baked beans? Is that a thing?)
A Fable of Summertime...
Nov. 27th, 2025 08:04 pmFirst up, we’re all the way back to the summer, for my August album, which was Fable by Ainsley Hamil. (I really thought I’d at least started this post, I definitely remember sitting down in the days after the gig with the album on and the intent to write about it. I suspect I probably started writing it into the ‘create entries’ page and lost the draft.) I mostly know Ainsley Hamil as a Gaelic singer - competed for the Gold Medal at the Mod a couple of time - and this album is split pretty evenly between songs in Gaelic and English, with a Burns number thrown in for good measure. Personally I think if we’re talking traditional Gaelic modes, she’s better suited to puirt-a-beul than the strictures of the Gold Medal - I’ve seen her do puirt live and she’s very good, it’s not easy to keep up that level of articulation at that speed especially not in the middle of a gig! She has such a rich, warm singing voice, it’s a pleasure to listen to her sing, and always so tempting when the album finishes, to just stick it on again for another play through!
Unusually, I was listening to this album extensively because I was going to a gig, rather than going to the gig because I’d been listening to the album a lot. My local art centre hosts a folk music festival in a tent on it’s lawn every summer. (Not in one intense weekend but two bands per session, two sessions a night, five nights a week across two months.) Living near by and being a regular gig go-er, I go to a lot of these sessions, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, sometimes pre-planned, others spur of the moment because I walked past and thought ‘oh they’re good’ and stayed. The Ainsley Hamil gig was planned fairly far in advance, as a friend texted me just after the programme came out and asked if I fancied it, and as I did and it was a day I was on a helpful shift, we booked it and went. As it was her idea, and I’d agreed on the basis that I remembered what I’d heard of Hamil’s latest album being good, I thought I better swat up beforehand.
(It’s a lovely album, but gosh, live really is her forte, she was such a compelling and warm presence on stage, making her music come alive. In both Gaelic and Scots, her delivery on the album is more precise and probably more technically correct, but live she was so much more natural and felt much less constrained.)
The View from T'Khut
Nov. 27th, 2025 02:23 pmChapters: 1/8
Fandom: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Spock/Nyota Uhura, James T. Kirk/Spock, Sarek & Spock (Star Trek), Spock & Spock Prime
Characters: Spock (Star Trek), Spock Prime, James T. Kirk, Nyota Uhura, T'Pau (Star Trek), Sarek (Star Trek), Vulcan Characters (Star Trek), Crew of the Starship Enterprise
Additional Tags: Vulcan Culture (Star Trek), Vulcan Mind Melds (Star Trek), Vulcan Language (Star Trek), jj abrams should be ashamed of himself, Vulcan history, Vulcan mythology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, symbiotic red algae
Series: Part 1 of The View from T'Khut
Summary:
Part I: The Absent World. The planet vanishes, but her people go on.
Part II: An Archaeology of Loss. The world-death left a scar in spacetime, and a void in the heart of the Federation.
Part III: Time and Darkness. In which Ambassador Spock fires unexpected shots.
This story was a very long time coming. I have had the title for it for over a decade, and this summer I realized what story went with that title. It is complete but being posted in parts over the next few weeks and runs about 50K words all told.
Thanksgiving
Nov. 27th, 2025 09:03 amThis will be a drama/dilemma for a while, I think. Stay tuned.
I have a perfectly good cart for hauling shit. Packages from the lockers, groceries to and from the car, puzzles down to the puzzle closet... It had double wheels which enable it to roll oh so easily. It folds up and lives in my closet. Sure it's old and battered but still works like a charm. I've had it for years and been perfectly happy with it until
I do have a solid plan now for the storage room/closet rearrangement. I know what I want and I think it's doable with some Bro help. And it would mean that I would not need the Closet Reorganizer. I think Christian does not want to do it so is just 'being too busy'. Which is fine. If I'm wrong and I decide I want a professional, there are several closet places that have done work here at Timber Ridge and I'll just call one of them. BUT it would be lovely to skip that step.
I had a great idea/place to put one of those pull out shoe organizer cabinets. I had one all picked out and ready to order when I decided to burrow into the comments a little farther and discovered that probably my feet are too big. Most all of the ones I had my eyes on, said somewhere in the comments that it was great for kids shoes but anything bigger than an adult 7.5 was going to be too big to get the pull out to go back in. I wear a 9. Oh well. I couldn't even find one for big feet. Saved some money there!
Today they are doing a buffet for Thanksgiving dinner. It's from 11 to 1. Last year's power outage led them to a buffet scheme that works pretty well for the staff and for us. Easy to serve and really no waiting at all - even when they are serving everyone like today. As usual, I have extra meal money so I might just get two meals. One for eating and one for leftovers.
I remember once years and years ago when I was living on my own in Charlotte, NC, one of the nicer hotels had this marvelous scheme for Thanksgiving. It was buffet style and had all the usual Thanksgiving stuff plus a lot of nice, fancy extras but their main selling point was that the deal included a box of leftovers to take home! It was such a cool scheme. I had a group of friends and one year we all pitched in and got a room at the hotel overlooking the main street. We had cocktails in our room and then went down for dinner and then had dessert in our room while we watched the Christmas parade. And we all took home leftovers. It was a very grand Thanksgiving.

30 in 30: Marvel X-Men
Nov. 27th, 2025 11:19 amChapters: 1/1
Fandom: X-Men [Comics]
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Rogue [X-Men], Jubilation Lee | Jubilee, Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pryde, Laura Kinney, James "Logan" Howlett | Wolverine
Additional Tags: Drabble and a Half
Summary:
Wolvie needs a rescue
Rogue looked away as Jubilee set off a light show in the dark of the power going out. Kitty had definitely delivered on that, and everyone they were facing was dazzled. They had waited just long enough for the night vision goggles to go on, after all.
Rogue let loose, drawing all attention to herself, letting Kitty have time to get back — and their fourth member to sniff out where the man they'd come for actually was.
No one had to guess when X-23 found him, as father and daughter cut a path back to this point.
"You look like hell, sugah," Rogue called to her long-time friend.
"You look like the cavalry," he said, before shorting out the one robotic enemy with a well-placed claw-punch.
"Time to exit!" Jubilee called out, and while the few standing tried to stop them, they were no match for Wolvie and his girls.
The Images that Fucked You Were a Patriarchal Structure!
Nov. 27th, 2025 08:22 am(When I saw her in concert, she was very pleased with that line).
(Video has a thread of a butch teen being socially pressured to feminise. But there's a happy ending.)
iguana
Nov. 27th, 2025 08:42 amThanks, WikiMedia!
The green iguana is the one kept as a pet -- its native range is from southern Mexico down to Paraguay plus the eastern half of the Caribbean, but it's been introduced to many tropical areas of the world. The name is from an Arawakan language, probably but not provably Taíno, iwana (provably via Spanish iguana).
---L.
Nicked by M. T. Anderson
Nov. 27th, 2025 09:40 am
A pious monk is dispatched on a mission about which he has serious reservations: steal the bones of St. Nicolas.
Nicked by M. T. Anderson
Sushi Half-Tail
Nov. 28th, 2025 01:09 amYeah, Sushi did have to get part of his tail amputated. :(
( Got a bit long. )
Other than that I did pmuch nothing today. Brain all gone. Barely even napped, despite having a terrible night's sleep due to worried. Bleh. Brain, getting all worked up like this doesn't! Actually! Stop me worrying! As well as, you know, not helping the situation at all to be overtired. SIGH.
Anyway, now is for sleeping again, so hopefully I'll sleep better today...
thursday
Nov. 27th, 2025 08:13 am
I finished painting this group of the last of them last night. Now I think I will paint the backs black and write a word or little phrase or poem or something on the back (kind of like play "name the stone" game with them) before I screw on the hardware for hanging them. Some of them I like a lot and some I don't care for that much. Maybe titling them will help.
We already had our Thanksgiving dinner when Hazel was here on the 16th so today is just a simple day of rest from the kitchen and gratitude that I have a day of rest from the kitchen and don't need to go anywhere. This morning I made egg salad for sandwiches for lunch and we have some potatoes leftover from last Sunday that I think I'll fry up with onions, peppers, eggs and cheese for dinner. We have lots of eggs right now. Dave brought home an apple pie last night so there will be interesting food even if it's not a thanksgiving dinner. It snowed last night and there is a skiff of snow on the grass. Overcast. It's 29F, which I know isn't that bad but with the wind it feels cold today.
Grey day in the forest
Nov. 27th, 2025 11:47 am
The wind in the southwest, strengthening but very mild. A grey day, drizzle in the air. Not a great day for photography, but not a bad day for walking the sheltered paths through the conifer plantations.
( Read more... )
How Are You? (in Haiku)
Nov. 27th, 2025 06:32 am=
Signal-boosting much appreciated!
OTW Signal, November 2025
Nov. 27th, 2025 10:12 amEvery month in OTW Signal, we take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including issues related to legal matters, technology, academia, fannish history and preservation issues of fandom, fan culture, and transformative works.
In the News
A recent POP! feature highlights the growth of the “fan-art economy,” where fans are increasingly turning creative passion into sustainable work. The article delves into the music scene in the Philippines and the various ways in which fans are turning their love for music into art-fueled creative businesses that can sustain them. Fan communities are thus building their own systems of support—where illustrators, designers, and craft-makers create in dialogue with the fandoms they belong to. As the article notes, fan enthusiasm therefore grows to become the foundation for collaborative artistic communities.
These gatherings blur the boundary between commerce and community. Fans get to meet the artists behind the work, while creators get a firsthand witness to the excitement and appreciation their designs evoke. It’s a continuous loop of inspiration where music fuels fandom, fandom fuels art, and art fuels livelihood.
This shift also underscores how fandom frequently becomes an entry point into professional creative work. Concert photographer Cassilyn Anderson, profiled in SLUG Magazine, traces her artistic perspective back to her early experiences as a One Direction fan. Anderson stresses that her “eye” as a fan helps her center the emotional exchanges between bands and their fans as cultural snapshots worth preserving. The article highlights this saying:
In her work, Cassilyn says that she puts a deep emphasis on the experience of the fan. Capturing those moments of connection is what truly drives her to shoot the way she does.
Her story resonates strongly with ongoing conversations about the value of fan labor and the ways transformative creativity migrates between fandom and broader cultural spaces.
Another facet of the fan-art economy that is witnessing renewed interest is the zine—handmade, self-published magazines with long roots in counterculture and fan communities. A recent Times report notes that younger creators are embracing zines not just as a nostalgic medium but as a way to produce personal, expressive works outside traditional digital platforms. These small publications mix art, commentary, and identity in ways that are distinctly tied to one’s autonomy.
Their resurgence also speaks to a larger tenet central to the OTW’s work: the preservation of fan-made media in all its forms. While online archives play an essential role in safeguarding digital creations, zines remind us that physical artifacts remain a vital part of fannish memory. They carry the choices and contexts of the communities that produce them, becoming lasting records of how fans document their worlds.
OTW Tips
Are you interested in exploring fanzines? Look no further! The AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is dedicated to the digital preservation of select fanzine works and other fannish artifacts, with permission from the creators and/or publishers.
If you are interested in helping Open Doors and Zinedom transcribe works from fanzines or if you have any other FSHP-related queries, please contact the Open Doors committee.
We’d also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of any fanzines in which they may have been published on Fanlore. If you’re new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.
Thank you for your interest in preserving fannish history for future generations of readers!
We want your suggestions for the next OTW Signal post! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or news story you think we should know about, send us a link. We are looking for content in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in an OTW post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.
Updates to "No Fandom" Additional Tags, November 2025
Nov. 24th, 2025 04:52 pm
AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post overviews some of these upcoming changes.
In this round of updates, we continued to streamline creating new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.
None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.
In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.
New Canonicals
The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:
- Alternate Universe - Cakeverse | Cake and Fork
- Best Friends to Lovers
- Friends to Strangers to Lovers
- Lovers to Strangers
- Broken Ribs
- Canon-Typical Incest
- Consensual Incest
- CFNF | Clothed Female Naked Female
- CMNM | Clothed Male Naked Male
- Characters with Two Penises
- Hemipenes
- Choking Kink
- Fleshlights
- Group Chats
- Honeypot Missions
- Identity Crisis
- Impalement
- Implied/Referenced Breeding Kink
- Impostor Syndrome
- Just the Tip
- Lavender Marriages
- Mating Cycles/In Rut
- Meet-Ugly
- No Character Bashing
- NTR | Netorare
- Older Bottom Characters
- Younger Top Characters
- Younger Top Characters/Older Bottom Characters
- Pacifiers
- Parentification
- Screen Reader Friendly
- Talking About Feelings
- Tragic Backstory
In Conclusion
While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:
While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.
You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:
- Past "No Fandom" Additional Tags Updates & 5 Things Said by Wrangling Volunteers
- Past Fandom-Specific and "No Fandom" Tag Wrangling Change Posts & Announcements
For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.
In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.
Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven’t gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Lastly, we're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least two months from now to give us adequate time to do so.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
PhoenixSong.net is Moving to the AO3
Nov. 17th, 2025 08:27 pm
PhoenixSong.net, a Harry Potter fanfiction and fanart archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).
In this post:
- A bit of background explanation
- What this means for creators who have work(s) on PhoenixSong.net
- And what to do if you still have questions
Background explanation
PhoenixSong.net is being archived at AO3 to help ensure that the works will remain available. AO3 will also give its users the ability to review and respond to reviews, which hasn’t been the case at PhoenixSong.net for a while now.
The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Sherylyn to import PhoenixSong.net into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all images currently in PhoenixSong.net will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.
We will begin importing works from Phoenixsong.net to the AO3 after November. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.
What does this mean for creators who have work(s) on PhoenixSong.net?
We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.
All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors. We will then permanently close down the site.
Please contact Open Doors with your PhoenixSong.net pseud(s) and email address(es), if:
- You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
- You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
- You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
- You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
- You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
- You have any other questions we can help you with.
Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your PhoenixSong.net account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the PhoenixSong.net mod to confirm your claims.)
Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:
- importing your works to the AO3
- adding your works to the new collection PhoenixSong.net
If you still have questions...
If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.
We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of PhoenixSong.net on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.
We're excited to be able to help preserve PhoenixSong.net!
- The Open Doors team and Sherylyn
Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.
Celebrating AO3’s 16th Anniversary
Nov. 14th, 2025 05:25 pm
AO3 is turning 16! It's been another year of growth for AO3. Since this time last year, we passed both eight million and nine million registered users! We also passed 14 million, 15 million, and 16 million fanworks on the site, including one million works in Mandarin Chinese—the first non-English language to reach this milestone!
AO3's committees have also done a lot of important work this year! Accessibility, Design, & Technology published multiple important code releases, including security improvements like sending you an email when you or someone logged in to your account changes your username, password, or email as well as new features like allowing you to use CSS custom properties in site skins or add tags to your collections!
AO3's Tag Wranglers published four updates on "No Fandom" tags, which are tags that are not associated with any particular fandom. Many of the new tags they've made canonical (marked common) include commonly requested ones like Breeding Kink, Mind Break, and Rivals to Lovers. Check out the full list of new and modified No Fandom tags!
OTW Open Doors announced the import of five fanwork and two zine archives to AO3, including fanworks related to fandoms such as Harry Potter, Inuyasha, and Star Trek: The Original Series. You can look through all old import announcements by browsing AO3 news for the Open Doors tag.
Policy & Abuse published a series of important Terms of Service (TOS) Spotlight news posts that answered common questions about violations of AO3's TOS. Check them out here:
- Non-fanworks
- Ratings & Warnings
- Fandom, Language, and Other Tags
- Offensive Content
- Harassment
- Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement
- Commercial Promotion
We're so excited about all the wonderful things that have happened this year and we can't wait to see what future years bring!
Prompt!
To celebrate AO3's 16th birthday, we want to prompt you to post a fanwork featuring 16 in some way! This could be a work about Season/Series 16 of a show, or a character with 16 in their name like Android 16 (Dragon Ball), or even a character celebrating their 16th Birthday. We encourage you to get creative! When you post your works on AO3 or social media, tag them #AO3Celebrates16!
Comment!
If you don't feel like creating a work, that's okay! Instead, celebrate this anniversary with us by commenting on 16 fanworks and recommending your favorite in the comments!
Thank you for celebrating 16 years of AO3 with us!
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.