+ Been doing a poor job of lighting my Christmas incense, but I remembered today and the place smells cozy.

+ Know what you need right now? Funny animal pictures. Know where to find a whole gallery of them? Right here! Delighted to find there's an annual Comedy Wildlife Photo contest.

+ Humble Bundle is running a package with Vegas Pro 22, Sound Forge Pro 17, Music Maker 2024, and movie Studio 2024 Suite. The minimum is €48.56, and it supports the World Central Kitchen. Annoyingly, I cannot for the life of me find whether or not I can avoid the fuck out of Vegas' AI features (preferably deleting them entirely), but I've been missing a video editor for ages now. I know I never finish my vids, but definitely not if I'm missing the software.

+ Speaking of bundles: there's a Wholesome Snacks games bundle! And I know we could all use a wholesome snack or two. So I'll do a tiny giveaway, just comment which game you'd like and I'll do a random draw.

On Your Tail - You are Diana, a young detective who is obsessed with uncovering the small town's secrets. By day, you enjoy the cozy life, by night, you use stealth, observation, and deduction mechanics to secretly follow suspects and gather clues to crack the case!

NAIAD - An ethereal and meditative river journey game! You embody Naiad, a curious water spirit who awakens in a remote spring and embarks on a long, winding journey down a mysterious river to the sea.

Spirittea - After accidentally drinking mystical tea, you gain the ability to see and interact with mischievous spirits. Your job is to restore and manage an old spirit bathhouse, serving the quirky spirits, gathering resources, and building relationships with the fully voiced townsfolk, all while trying to solve the local town mystery.

Little Known Galaxy - A colorful cozy space adventure and life simulation game where you manage a spaceship and explore the galaxy. You take on the role of a new captain and work with your crew to improve your ship, explore new planets, and solve the mystery of an ancient relic.

SUMMERHOUSE - A small-scale, extremely zen building game and a love letter to lost summer afternoons. There is no management, no goals, no combat, and no failure states. You are invited to simply sit back and doodle whimsical castles, cozy cottages, and romantic ruins in tiny diorama settings.

+ I've just re-downloaded Disney Dreamlight Valley to see what the holiday decor is like. I am going to Christmas to the max dammit (says the one not bothering to decorate her own damn apartment). Also picked up a DLC for Rimworld and CK3 now that the holiday steam sales started.

+ My brother invited me out to help decorate their tree yesterday though! And both the cats vocally and physically greeted me. They live in constant Stranger Danger, making it extra heartening whenever they don't run for the hills.

+ It's not pouring rain outside hallelujah, this is a sign I should go buy butter chicken, isn't it? And find some holiday costumed Pokemon on the way, you say?

Sadly, the promotional efforts for season 3 of Interview With The Vampire/The Vampire Lestat are ramping up to the extent that I may have to mute the fandom on bsky now. I've already learned one thing I wish I hadn't, and knowing much less about this story (the movie wasn't exactly comprehensive or very memorable), I'm hoping to get hoodwinked and shocked repeatedly. Please wreck me emotionally 🙏

I've reached out to the mod of intw_amc to see if we could maybe host episode reaction posts and whatnot. I'd love to have a spoiler free zone to roll around in with other fans.

Anyways, here's the latest - and last for me - interview: The Vampire Lestat showrunner reveals Louis' 'heartbreaking' expanded role in season 3 (exclusive).

Rolin Jones: "What I can say is it was very clear we had a very, very beautiful actor in that role"

[picture of Louis absolutely covered in blood]

Me: *nodding so vigorously my head's about to fall off*

⌈ Secret Post #6923 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #988.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

My grandmother passed yesterday morning. She's the last remaining of my grandparents. While dementia did claim all of her a year past, I guess it still hit me. I'll probably be a bit less responsive on here for a while.

⌈ Secret Post #6922 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #988.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

+ Watched Wake Up Dead Man today, and out of the three I can safely say it’s my favorite. The setting, characters, theme, all hit home for me. Honestly one I wouldn’t mind rewatching.

Reactor Mag has an excellent article up on it: Entirely Too Many Thoughts About Wake Up Dead Man.

Btw does anyone want some screengrabs to make icons from uploaded to capshare? (Not the very best quality possible, but serviceable) If so, specific characters?

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 17

Gilmore Girls
They Go Just as Quickly as They Come by petpluto (2,004 words). Richard dies. Emily goes on living.
At first, its emptiness wasn’t as pervasive. She accepted the house, and the stillness.

It hadn’t been so long. Not really. Richard had spent longer away on business trips. The house was empty, but not unfamiliarly so. But there came a time when, if Richard had been away on a business trip, he would have been back from it. And the emptiness pressed in until it is all she can see, all she can feel.

The house is empty.

She doesn’t wander the halls. She doesn’t throw herself at his portrait. She does not have a portrait made. She doesn’t shutter the windows and regress. She doesn’t dress in all black. She isn’t part of some maudlin tale, some piece of fiction Rory and Richard had once fawned over together. She is a graduate of Smith, after all. She still belongs to any number of groups, of charities and clubs and associations. She fills her days, just as she did before.

The house, though, is still empty, when she returns to it.

⌈ Secret Post #6921 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 24 secrets from Secret Submission Post #988.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Rec-cember Day 16

Scott Pilgrim
Afternoon Delights by wakeupnew (1,033 words). A good Wallace and Scott interaction never fails to cheer me up.
There is a bang.

The door, he realizes fuzzily. Possibly -- hitting something?? Definitely opening really loudly. He really wishes it wasn't doing that. He should probably start locking it while he's sleeping.

"I thought your shit had supposedly been gotten together, guy," says someone, who flings himself down on the sofa that Scott uses for a bed, hard enough that the cushions bounce under both of them. "What are you doing asleep at 3:00 on a sunny Saturday afternoon?"

"Frrrrsleeping," Scott groans indignantly, and then Wallace plucks the pillow off his head and out of his arms. Scott tries to grab it back without opening his eyes, and his hands mostly just flail ineffectually against Wallace's jeans.

"Whoa there, tiger," Wallace drawls. "I have a boyfriend now; let's keep it PG." He drops the pillow on Scott's chest. If it's possible to drop a pillow with force, Wallace does it. "You know, considering that you're the all-time evil-ex-fighting champion and the best fighter in the greater Toronto metropolitan area, it was very easy to pull that away from you."

⌈ Secret Post #6920 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 35 secrets from Secret Submission Post #988.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Name: Soda (she/her)
Age group: Late 20s
Country: United States
Subscription/Access Policy: At this point, anyone is free to subscribe to my journal and comment on my posts. That said, I would prefer to interact with users who are at least 20 years old. I will not respond to comments by minors, and I will not subscribe to their journals or add them to my access list.

Main interests: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 and Splintered Fate mainly), Pokemon
Other interests: Anime, manga, western cartoons, comics, video games (mostly action platformers, puzzle games, RPGs, strategy games, and life/farming sims)
Fannish activities: Fanart, fanfiction, OCs, character design and development

Other Info

• Like anyone, I have topics and things that make me uncomfortable, as well as some major squicks that I do not like to see under ANY circumstances. Please respect that.
• Journal is SFW with a hard PG-13 rating; illustrations and written works may include things such as mild violence, blood, and swearing, and some sensitive topics may be present such as those surrounding mental health, grief, and trauma. 
• Besides my fannish interests, I like to post about the general going-ons in my life as well as show off any cool stuff I may have gotten.

+ Managed to finish up nearly all my Christmas shopping today, huzzah. My brother is getting a bunch of cheeses and some spreads and crackers, I just need his gf to send me a picture of his comics shelf so I can order him a book to round it out.

I do need to do wrapping though. To think I used to love doing that back in the day.

+ Also found a Christmas calendar at 40% off, so now I'll have something to open every day after all. It's from the Finnish brand Lumene and if half of it is as good as the eye cream I've already tried, I got a real bargain.

+ Very sad to hear about the loss of Rob Reiner, and it just keeps getting sadder as I read about all the wonderful things he did and stood for.

+ Please tell me more of you are watching Pluribus? The last episode was the best one yet, and I find myself suddenly willing to go to war for one of the characters. But that whole episode, oh man. Ten out of ten. I even double dipped and downloaded a couple of episodes so I can make some damn icons. *mutters about stupid streaming apps*

+ Also I am now watching watch alongs for IWTV on yt. I need more people to be blathering on about these vampires. Still taking a predictable chunk out of my fic reading time, and now I'm down to one buffer rec for Rec-Cember. Somebody tell me to shape up.

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 15

The Good Place
Free Netflix Subscription by Wildgoosery (10,103 words). Ah yes, the show that gave us an endless fun array of AUs to frolick in. And this is a delightful entry.
There’s a knock at the door. The weather here is perfect and mild — because of course it is — so they had left it standing open. This means that nothing obscures Eleanor’s view as an Amazonian gazelle of a woman steps theatrically into the doorway, one elegant arm sweeping up to rest upon the frame.

It occurs to Eleanor that this woman must have knocked on the outside of the house, then waited the exact right amount of time to make this entrance once Eleanor and Michael would be looking, but before they’d thought to shout “Hello?” or glance at each other or otherwise spoil the moment. Honestly, it’s pretty impressive, points for drama and also for wearing heels despite being damn near six feet tall.

“Ah, excellent timing!” Michael says, pleased. “Eleanor, this is your soulmate, Tahani.”

Tahani extends her hand, angled down and slightly curved. “Charmed,” she says, with the fanciest fucking accent Eleanor has ever heard in person.

“Soulmate! Wow!” Eleanor says. The position of Tahani’s offered hand makes her feel like she’s expected to take it in her own, bow over it, and kiss one elegant knuckle at a time, but she’s not really butch enough to pull off that kind of a Prince Charming maneuver, not even in flannel.

⌈ Secret Post #6919 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 47 secrets from Secret Submission Post #988.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

 

⌈ Secret Post #6918 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 58 secrets from Secret Submission Post #988.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 14

Bound
Devil Never Saw the Likes of Us by scioscribe (2,958 words). Never was I ever not a Tilly fangirl, and Bound is just one of those movies I love to bits. This fic absolutely nails them.
It started right on their doorstep. Violet got out of bed Saturday morning and tugged a silk bathrobe up over her shoulders.

It was new. Almost everything she had with her had been bought since they’d left the city, but this was so new she’d had to snap the tags off it before she pulled it on. It had this swirly peacock pattern on it, like streaks of paint, and paint felt sort of like their lucky charm.

She wasn’t much of a cook, but she could add water to a mix like anybody else, and she decided to make blueberry muffins. She liked the little pastel-and-foil cups you put them in to bake: everything had its own little splotch of color. The old apartment had been nothing but black and white and steel, lifeless and cold. This place—their place—was different.

She was just sliding the tray in the oven when she heard the knock.

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 13

Star Trek (2009 movie)
Lunch and Other Obscenities by Rheanna (9,717 words). Just a delightful exploration of different cultures colliding.
When Starfleet Academy's Housing and Accommodation Officer—whose name, according to the sign next to her door, was Diane Maza—arrived at her office the next morning, Nyota was already there, waiting.

"My roommate's a sex-crazed exhibitionist with a food phobia," Nyota told her. "You have got to reassign me."

Maza didn't react. She regarded Nyota for a moment with a coolly appraising gaze that seemed designed to silently communicate that she hadn't just seen everything, she'd seen everything plus some other shit as well, and therefore any attempt to shock a reaction out of her was doomed at the outset.

⌈ Secret Post #6917 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 70 secrets from Secret Submission Post #988.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.