Harlequin Ducks are special enough to get their own post
Jan. 17th, 2026 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraquePresenting my first lifer of 2026: Harlequin Duck!
They usually winter on the sea coast and are rare in landlocked Vermont, but occasionally one will stop off on Lake Champlain for a while and all the birders come running. The lake is at least an hour drive for me so I can't always just drop everything and go when there are interesting waterfowl, especially if it's off some remote point and you can barely see the bird through a scope anyway.
Then last year there were these two male Harlequins who decided it would be fun to hang out at a lakefront park in a little cove right by the parking area, posing and diving about ten feet away from people. Wonderful! Except! This happened immediately after I had major abdominal surgery and could not get out of bed, let alone drive to the lake. I did look for the ducks several times when I was recovered enough, but I never saw them.
But this week... guess who's back?? It's assumed that these are the same birds since they're so rare and even more notable to have a pair of males, right at the exact same spot.
( more photos and rambling about ducks )
They usually winter on the sea coast and are rare in landlocked Vermont, but occasionally one will stop off on Lake Champlain for a while and all the birders come running. The lake is at least an hour drive for me so I can't always just drop everything and go when there are interesting waterfowl, especially if it's off some remote point and you can barely see the bird through a scope anyway.
Then last year there were these two male Harlequins who decided it would be fun to hang out at a lakefront park in a little cove right by the parking area, posing and diving about ten feet away from people. Wonderful! Except! This happened immediately after I had major abdominal surgery and could not get out of bed, let alone drive to the lake. I did look for the ducks several times when I was recovered enough, but I never saw them.
But this week... guess who's back?? It's assumed that these are the same birds since they're so rare and even more notable to have a pair of males, right at the exact same spot.
( more photos and rambling about ducks )
Weekly proof of life: mainly media again
Jan. 17th, 2026 02:44 pmumadoshiI finished Chuck Wendig's Wanderers (which according to the acknowledgements clocks in around 800 pages in hard copy) and wound up in that all-too-familiar place of "that was interesting, but I don't think I'm going to bother with the sequel". (Although by definition, I imagine the sequel must be telling a very different kind of story.) No idea why it is that I can often tell only partway through a book that I probably won't pick up its sequel and yet still want to finish the current one.
I also just read Inside Threat, the sixth of K.B. Spangler's Rachel Peng [see icon] novels. There's one more planned, and then that's it for this novel series; I think she's still intending to write a third Hope Blackwell novel (some of the events of that probably-someday book directly influenced what happened in this one, but the whole 'verse is a very twisty pretzel in terms of chronological vs. publication order). And this reminds me--I don't think I ever mentioned here that Act III of the A Girl and Her Fed comic, the core of the whole thing, wrapped up a few months ago, ending the series. (IIRC, Spangler does have ideas that could eventually turn into a fourth act of the webcomic, but has no current plans to pursue doing it. It sounds like AGAHF and the associated works understandably got harder and more exhausting to do over the last decade as the real-world US political situation got worse and worse and worse.)
There isn't a whole lot I can say about a sixth novel in a series, but Spangler's descriptions of the series when she's doing promo on Bluesky always entertain me. Yesterday she posted "It's book launch week! Spend the weekend catching up with my bargain basement cyborg hivemind. Murder, mystery, and a detective who just wants to be left alone with her poetry and bad romance novels"; here's her "what's this series about?" Bluesky thread from a few days ago.
So once again: highly recommended, and it's entirely possible to just read this set of novels without reading/knowing the comic. It means not knowing a lot of things about the world overall, but they're things that Rachel herself doesn't know at this point (and doesn't learn about until Act II of the comic, which starts after her books have wrapped up). I enjoy the comic and other material very much, but the Rachel books are by far my favorite.
And that bit got long, so just quickly:
--I'm a few more chapters into Braiding Sweetgrass and haven't picked up a next novel yet.
--scruloose and I are current on the new season of The Pitt and four episodes into Pluribus, and just watched the season 2 premiere of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. (Now to just hope this season covers past vol. 10 of the manga, since after we finished season 1 in 2024, I read volumes 7-10 before deciding to stop reading ahead and stick with the anime. It'd be nice to get at least a bit of new-to-me material this season, given that. Anyone know offhand how many episodes S2 will be?)
--And I've technically started a new (!) video game, in the form of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (on Switch), but am not very far at all yet.
I also just read Inside Threat, the sixth of K.B. Spangler's Rachel Peng [see icon] novels. There's one more planned, and then that's it for this novel series; I think she's still intending to write a third Hope Blackwell novel (some of the events of that probably-someday book directly influenced what happened in this one, but the whole 'verse is a very twisty pretzel in terms of chronological vs. publication order). And this reminds me--I don't think I ever mentioned here that Act III of the A Girl and Her Fed comic, the core of the whole thing, wrapped up a few months ago, ending the series. (IIRC, Spangler does have ideas that could eventually turn into a fourth act of the webcomic, but has no current plans to pursue doing it. It sounds like AGAHF and the associated works understandably got harder and more exhausting to do over the last decade as the real-world US political situation got worse and worse and worse.)
There isn't a whole lot I can say about a sixth novel in a series, but Spangler's descriptions of the series when she's doing promo on Bluesky always entertain me. Yesterday she posted "It's book launch week! Spend the weekend catching up with my bargain basement cyborg hivemind. Murder, mystery, and a detective who just wants to be left alone with her poetry and bad romance novels"; here's her "what's this series about?" Bluesky thread from a few days ago.
So once again: highly recommended, and it's entirely possible to just read this set of novels without reading/knowing the comic. It means not knowing a lot of things about the world overall, but they're things that Rachel herself doesn't know at this point (and doesn't learn about until Act II of the comic, which starts after her books have wrapped up). I enjoy the comic and other material very much, but the Rachel books are by far my favorite.
And that bit got long, so just quickly:
--I'm a few more chapters into Braiding Sweetgrass and haven't picked up a next novel yet.
--
scruloose and I are current on the new season of The Pitt and four episodes into Pluribus, and just watched the season 2 premiere of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. (Now to just hope this season covers past vol. 10 of the manga, since after we finished season 1 in 2024, I read volumes 7-10 before deciding to stop reading ahead and stick with the anime. It'd be nice to get at least a bit of new-to-me material this season, given that. Anyone know offhand how many episodes S2 will be?)--And I've technically started a new (!) video game, in the form of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (on Switch), but am not very far at all yet.
On track for Jan. 21 reveals!
Jan. 16th, 2026 09:06 pmsholio posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
biggleseventsWe are past the deadline, and every gift is either turned in, or the creator has an extension. We are looking good for reveals on Jan. 21 (Wednesday).
In the meantime, you can polish your gift, work on treats, or simply relax and look forward to the reading ahead of us!
In the meantime, you can polish your gift, work on treats, or simply relax and look forward to the reading ahead of us!
(no subject)
Jan. 16th, 2026 07:29 pmdustbunny105We're allegedly getting snow tonight but we were allegedly getting snow yesterday and didn't, so I'm pretty skeptical. Just as well if we don't, I guess, since I wanted to go to the farmer's market in the morning and I'd rather not deal with the way people here drive in the snow.
Not really a snowflake challenge entry
Jan. 16th, 2026 10:03 pmdhampyresaPrompt 8 for this year is "Talk about your creative process." which made me realise it's been a while since I've had a Story Song. Usually when I have a story I'm working on I have a song that goes with it, that echoes some aspect of the plot, setting or character (dynamics) and yet lately... Nothing. Maybe that's why everything has been feeling so empty and been so hard to write?
ANYWAY all this is a long-winded way to ask for music recs.
ANYWAY all this is a long-winded way to ask for music recs.
When They Burned the Butterfly
Jan. 16th, 2026 04:52 pmhebethen posting in fffridayHappy Friday!
This was a weird ride, to be honest. It's a fairly meaty book -- in an alternate Singapore where gangs can channel divine powers through oath tattoos that bind them to their god, the daughter of a nouveau middle-class shopkeeper discovers her mother's secrets, her own sexuality, and how far she's willing to go for revenge -- and I found it immersive in the worldbuilding and compelling in the storylines, but the pacing is absolutely bizarre. It kind of goes about its business for 80% of the pagecount, suddenly accelerates in the next 15%, and then breaks the sound barrier to crash-land the final 5% with a resolution that feels to me almost like the author ran out of energy and just summarized the rest.
If you're craving dark f/f with plenty of violence and tragedy, it might be worth a gander -- I'm deeply curious as to whether anyone else feels (or will feel) similarly about the pacing.
This was a weird ride, to be honest. It's a fairly meaty book -- in an alternate Singapore where gangs can channel divine powers through oath tattoos that bind them to their god, the daughter of a nouveau middle-class shopkeeper discovers her mother's secrets, her own sexuality, and how far she's willing to go for revenge -- and I found it immersive in the worldbuilding and compelling in the storylines, but the pacing is absolutely bizarre. It kind of goes about its business for 80% of the pagecount, suddenly accelerates in the next 15%, and then breaks the sound barrier to crash-land the final 5% with a resolution that feels to me almost like the author ran out of energy and just summarized the rest.
If you're craving dark f/f with plenty of violence and tragedy, it might be worth a gander -- I'm deeply curious as to whether anyone else feels (or will feel) similarly about the pacing.
Fanworks Stats Meme
Jan. 16th, 2026 12:30 pmmuccamukkFrom snickfic and slippery_fish.
I'm going to go off both my fic journal (feast_of_fanfic) and my AO3 page (![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
Muccamukk). The DW has a handful more fic, and a slightly different rating/tagging system, but should be roughly the same.
(Any word on DW figuring out what's wrong with the AO3 user profile logo? I gather it's some kind of import problem.)
Code for anyone who wants to gank:
snickfic and slippery_fish.Go to your Works page on AO3, look at the tags, and see what the answers to these questions are. (Or any other site that has tags)
I'm going to go off both my fic journal (
feast_of_fanfic) and my AO3 page (- What rating do you write most fics under?
DW: Teen.
AO3: Teen and Up Audiences. - What are your top 3 fandoms?
DW: Band of Brothers, Marvel 616 & tie of Babylon 5 and The Pacific.
AO3: Band of Brothers, Marvel 616 (then several subcategories thereof), The Pacific. - What is your top character you write about?
DW: Don't tag for characters.
AO3: Richard Winters (BoB) - What are the 3 top pairings?
DW: Nixon/Winters (BoB), Steve/Tony (Marvel), Band of Brothers Rarepair.
AO3: Nixon/Winters (BoB), Steve/Tony (Marvel), Andy/Eddie (The Pacific). - What are the top 3 additional tags?
DW: Drabbles!, PWP, Canon-Era H/C.
AO3: Canon Era, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon. - Did any of this surprise you? e.g. what turned out to be your top tag.
Only giving each fic one genre each on DW skewed the tags much differently from AO3, for the last question. I've also posted a bunch of drabbles to DW that didn't make it to AO3, so that probably also moves the numbers (like tying B5 with The Pacific). If one includes HBO War and Marvel comics each as one fandom, it would go HBO War, Marvel Comics, Babylon 5.
It also leaves out some of my most popular fic, which are for fandoms I didn't write for as much, but got a couple one hit wonders that sailed to the top of my stats page.
(Any word on DW figuring out what's wrong with the AO3 user profile logo? I gather it's some kind of import problem.)
Code for anyone who wants to gank:
The Huntress, by Kate Quinn
Jan. 16th, 2026 11:41 amrachelmanija
In this engrossing historical novel, three storylines converge on a single target, a female Nazi nicknamed the Huntress. During the war, we follow Nina, one of the Soviet women who flew bomber runs and were known as the Night Witches. After the war, we follow Ian, a British war correspondent turned Nazi hunter, who has teamed up with Nina to hunt down the Huntress as Nina is one of the very few people who saw her face and survived. At the same time, in Boston, we follow Jordan, a young woman who wants to be a photographer and is suspicious of the beautiful German immigrant her father wants to marry...
In The Huntress, we often know what has happened or surely must happen, but not why or how; we know Nina somehow ended up facing off with the Huntress, but not how she got there or how she escaped; we know who Jordan's stepmom-to-be is and that she'll surely be unmasked eventually, but not how or when that'll happen or how the confrontation will go down. There's a lot of suspense but none of it depends on shocking twists, though there are some unexpected turns.
Nina and Jordan are very likable and compelling, especially Nina who is kind of a force of nature. It took me a while to warm up to Ian, but I did about halfway through. Nina's story is fascinating and I could have read a whole novel just about her and her all-female regiment, but I never minded switching back to Jordan as while her life is more ordinary, it's got this tense undercurrent of creeping horror as she and everyone around her are being gaslit and manipulated by a Nazi.
This is the kind of satisfying, engrossing historical novel that I think used to be more common, though this one probably has a lot more queerness than it would have had if it had been written in the 80s - a woman/woman relationship is central to the story, and there are multiple other queer characters. It has some nice funny moments and dialogue to leaven a generally serious story (Nina in particular can be hilarious), and there's some excellent set piece action scenes. If my description sounds good to you, you'll almost certainly enjoy it.
Spoilers! ( Read more... )
Quinn has written multiple historical novels, mostly set during or around WW2. This is the first I've read but it made me want to read more of hers.
Content notes: Wartime-typical violence, gaslighting, a child in danger. The Huntress murdered six children, but this scene does not appear on-page. There is no sexual assault and no scenes in concentration camps.
A very insubstantial post, but hey, there's a Heated Rivalry link
Jan. 16th, 2026 01:02 pmumadoshiAs so often happens, I had several things I meant to post about and now they've mostly evaporated.
But I do know my tabs situation is staggering out of control. (Reliably over 1700 for at least the last couple of weeks.) Odds that I'll get to replying to all the posts I've read but opened in a tab to reply to later on...are currently very slim.
Have a link: Sarah Kurchak wrote about Heated Rivalry for TIME recently: "Heated Rivalry Handles Autism With Love, Care, and a Touch of Awkwardness".
But I do know my tabs situation is staggering out of control. (Reliably over 1700 for at least the last couple of weeks.) Odds that I'll get to replying to all the posts I've read but opened in a tab to reply to later on...are currently very slim.
Have a link: Sarah Kurchak wrote about Heated Rivalry for TIME recently: "Heated Rivalry Handles Autism With Love, Care, and a Touch of Awkwardness".
We're growing a forest
Jan. 16th, 2026 04:32 pmrattfanAnother general call for extras popped up, so I updated my photos. The details of the Thing to be Filmed are very scant, but surfing and board shorts were mentioned, as in: Can you surf and do you have a problem with appearing in board shorts? No, and no, though I'm a confident ocean swimmer, so hopefully that works in my favour! I decided to dress in what appeared to be the desired garments and now we wait to see if they want one of those this time! Be warned, you will see partially unclad Rattfan if you click the link. Nothing to trigger the Internet censors.
photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNJMTB35YXYd0cKRpLOD0OtPN6WUzEd8Ov0uu1UkDIiZ0y1-L2kv8ciEMTNH4wNxg/photo/AF1QipNI23zPDa_7UzMfXipq7t23OmD9_NCJzlRYPrEh
I've done another gardening session with the Swamp volunteers. There's very little in the way of live weeds in my Spot now, so I went to the 'social' session that happens once a month! This time of year, it's watering the young native seedlings [native to this specific area] which have been planted in open ground beside the Swamp, to become a proper forest in a year or so. This will be done fortnightly, not monthly, from now on until the rains come again. It just happened to be the task for what they call the Busy Bees. Sometimes they do other tasks. A dedicated team does the watering on the off fortnight Sunday. The water is brought up by vehicle in a large tank and decanted into watering cans, carried two per person if they have reasonable strength, over the planting area until everyone is watered.
I was supposed to go gaming tonight, but [again!] somebody cancelled and it had to be put off. This is a relatively new social trend, I find, that of the last minute cancelling. It became very prevalent last year. I suppose I should be grateful that I found out several hours in advance, rather than minutes. When I'm on my way out the door and somebody does it right then, that does piss me off. I think a functioning adult should be able to work out if they want to go to something and if they can fit it in to their schedule, then TURN UP if they have responded in the affirmative, always allowing for sudden death or disablement/illness. Theirs or someone else's.
But hey, that's just me. And I never wanted to be the adult in the room!
photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNJMTB35YXYd0cKRpLOD0OtPN6WUzEd8Ov0uu1UkDIiZ0y1-L2kv8ciEMTNH4wNxg/photo/AF1QipNI23zPDa_7UzMfXipq7t23OmD9_NCJzlRYPrEh
I've done another gardening session with the Swamp volunteers. There's very little in the way of live weeds in my Spot now, so I went to the 'social' session that happens once a month! This time of year, it's watering the young native seedlings [native to this specific area] which have been planted in open ground beside the Swamp, to become a proper forest in a year or so. This will be done fortnightly, not monthly, from now on until the rains come again. It just happened to be the task for what they call the Busy Bees. Sometimes they do other tasks. A dedicated team does the watering on the off fortnight Sunday. The water is brought up by vehicle in a large tank and decanted into watering cans, carried two per person if they have reasonable strength, over the planting area until everyone is watered.
I was supposed to go gaming tonight, but [again!] somebody cancelled and it had to be put off. This is a relatively new social trend, I find, that of the last minute cancelling. It became very prevalent last year. I suppose I should be grateful that I found out several hours in advance, rather than minutes. When I'm on my way out the door and somebody does it right then, that does piss me off. I think a functioning adult should be able to work out if they want to go to something and if they can fit it in to their schedule, then TURN UP if they have responded in the affirmative, always allowing for sudden death or disablement/illness. Theirs or someone else's.
But hey, that's just me. And I never wanted to be the adult in the room!
Music Thursday
Jan. 15th, 2026 11:29 pmmuccamukkBased on how sad a lot of this album was, I had been wondering if William Prince was okay, but he sounds like he's doing well? This song is so pretty, anyway.
Babylon 5 2x07 "Soul Mates"
Jan. 15th, 2026 10:19 pmsholioI rewatched this one tonight, mostly for the Timov of it all, but also ...
( Spoilers for the episode )
( Spoilers for the episode )
Airdrop deadline reminder - take 2!
Jan. 15th, 2026 09:50 pmsholio posting in biggleseventsWe are closing rapidly on the new Airdrop deadline: Fri, Jan. 16, 23:00 UTC. Your fic should be posted and complete by that time, although you can still edit, proofread, and add to it afterwards.
Comments are screened, so please let me know if you will need an extension! If you have to drop out, you can simply click the default button next to your assignment. You don't need to give a reason, and there's no penalty as long as you default before the deadline.
Good luck and happy writing!
Comments are screened, so please let me know if you will need an extension! If you have to drop out, you can simply click the default button next to your assignment. You don't need to give a reason, and there's no penalty as long as you default before the deadline.
Good luck and happy writing!