the Dalaverse

Challenge #3: Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favorite character, anything at all.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Dear Fandom,

You've changed. That isn't a bad thing. I'd go so far as to call it a good thing.

I remember when we met - properly, that is. Not the shy glances, not the vague hellos, the genuine, meaningful introduction. When I announced myself. I'd better remember it; I did it several times. You had to, in those early days. Everywhere we met, even if I already knew someone there, I had to introduce myself all over again. There was some fun to be had in that.

I remember when it was just us, you and me. At least, it felt like that. When I didn't dare speak your name and hid behind euphemisms and vague half-truths. When the party was small enough you could fit it onto one dance floor. When I think back on it, the excitement of being private and secretive, of having something all to myself, was a powerful feeling.

You're not my secret anymore. You've come roaring out into the world, with everyone aware of you and many people taking you seriously. There's power in that, too. I know I've known you longer than most people out there. It's still not something I want to explain. I don't think I should have to, and even with so many people knowing about you, I'd rather keep things quiet. They know you their way. I know you mine. The way I know you isn't just the way I remember you; it's the way I'm constantly getting to know you. There's things I can say about how you used to be - the phrases, the trends, the arguments of the day, the sudden new shiny thing appearing out of nowhere - and most of those things are pointless, because there's always going to be arguments and trends, with some of those arriving new and some simply wearing new clothes and I love that I've gotten to know you well enough to recognize which is which. To parse where the impulse comes from. To perceive the motivations. What's happening now would've happened back then and it'll happen in the future.

That's part of what I love about you that I've only recently fallen in love with. I couldn't have loved it back when we met. I didn't know you well enough.

I miss the thrill that came from knowing you, just from knowing you. But people meeting you for the first time are feeling that same thrill themselves. I've learned enough to know that. I've learned enough to love that people are always falling in love.

Best,
Hannah

Back at work, but thankfully 1. I don't have to commute, and 2. we are having no-meeting week, so I can just cross one major task off my list every day without adding new things like meeting notes or whatever.

I think the thing I've enjoyed most about the ancillary explosion of joy around Heated Rivalry is the two hockey podcasts that engaged fully and open-heartedly with it (well, and the proliferation of "Ilya gets added to the WAG chat" fic). Normally hockey podcast bros are not a species I have time for (aside from not being good at podcasts or audiobooks in general), but the Empty Netters dudes were super adorable in their reviews, and they also interviewed Ksenia Daniela with great excitement and are scheduled to have Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie on soon.

I also enjoyed What Chaos's less in-depth but still positive look at the show, and they have a couple of interviews with Jacob Tierney available that I haven't watched yet. I was also very pleased when, during a discussion about Shane's ginger ale habit, one of the dudes started talking about a restaurant(?) that lets you choose ginger ale or 7Up for your Shirley Temples, and I was like, "gotta go with ginger ale on that" and then the guy was like, "and the ones with ginger ale are great!" Because that is the legit truth, my friends. I'm not saying I won't drink a Shirley Temple with 7UP, but I am saying that the ones with ginger ale are 1. how we made them when I was a kid, and 2. better. I was reminded of how we ordered one every night at the free cocktail hour on that cruise we went on back in 2015, which definitely made an impression on the staff. *g* (Princess Donut also approves.)

So I feel like those were a great extender of joy, if you are in need. It's really lovely to see some cishet hockey dudes becoming fans of m/m romance.

In other fannish news, I just read that Sebastian Stan may be in Matt Reeve's The Batman, Part 2 and I don't want to get my hopes up or get fixated on a specific part for him to play, but like, wouldn't he be a fantastic Harvey Dent/Two-Face??? GIVE IT TO ME.

Scarlett Johansson has also been rumored to be involved somehow, and she'd have to be like, Poison Ivy, right? Though maybe they're going with more of a Mask of the Phantasm type thing and she'll be Andrea Beaumont? But I am not sure I buy Battinson as having a girlfriend before Selina, and also, why would you try to compete with Mask of the Phantasm? It's so good, you're just setting yourself up for not measuring up. (I guess she could be Talia, but I hope not.)

I guess we'll see what materializes! I'm kind of sad that they are not in continuity with James Gunn's Superman, because that would be fun to see.

*

The last few days, I've been going through and saving Livejournal Scrapbook photos. Pretty much all of it's from college, when digital cameras were still a new toy, both for me and the world. When you had to find a place to upload the photos before sharing them somewhere else, and LJ Scrapbook was something of a game-changer because you didn't have to deal with a third party. It was all the same party. Everything else I got imported over when I made this journal, but the scrapbook doesn't have an equivalent here and I can imagine the headache people want to avoid. So I'm saving them to a hard drive instead, and looking back at those four years.

What gets me to stop for more than a moment of sighing over my hair or an attempt to mimic William Eggleston are the pictures of my childhood house. Some were because I was playing around with a toy, and a few were - as best I remember - from people asking to see something, because taking pictures and sharing them had suddenly become a breeze. If someone wanted to see a bookshelf or a bathroom sink, you could suddenly do that without any significant trouble. You still had to connect the camera to the computer and upload the photo and embed it, but that wasn't anything more than a small inconvenience. The inch-high barrier was more than enough to make everything shared a deliberate choice, not an impulse.

There's some red eyes, there's a lot of blur, there's less in focus than I'd thought. There's a weird feeling of nostalgia for the small trouble of the steps between taking and sharing the picture, because now there's no thought to it whatsoever, and that's not helping anyone. The forced lack of impulsivity is something I'd like to see again. A few more inch-high barriers would do a lot of people a lot of good.

Going through, most of what I took was of a low enough resolution that checking the page's info and saving the images from there means I'm not losing anything, and what few are of higher resolution are easy to save one at a time. What's strange is that while most of it's generic file names - 39526589_31 or 88612_100, things like that - without anything else to identify it, a small handful have the original metadata, telling me I used an Olympus digital camera in November of 2007. I can't tell where or how that happens, and it's a strange, pleasant surprise whenever it does. The reminder of the reminder.

Challenge #2: Pets of Fandom

Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!

I've never kept pigeons, but I can say I've cultivated them.

I live in New York City, and it's pigeons wherever you go. You can't avoid them, and it's disappointing most people don't take the time to look at them, pay attention to them, get to know them. They're remarkably congenial, to the point of being accurately called friend-shaped. Which in no small part comes from them mostly being feral domesticated animals, originally kept by people for a variety of reasons from food to companionship who then got let out into the urban wild when people decided they didn't want to take care of them anymore. But it's easy for pigeons to remember what people are there for, when people stop to take the time. If you've ever had your pupils dilated at the optometrist's, I highly recommend finding a pigeon in some sunlight and taking in the genuinely dazzling iridescence of their feathers.

During the worst of 2020, when there were a lot fewer people around the neighborhood, pigeons would often come to my window, mostly to hang out on the AC unit. A nice place to stop for a while. Not thinking much of it, I started leaving seeds out for them, and they learned soon enough it was more than just a place to stop. I liked seeing them, and they liked the seeds, so I'd keep replenishing the tray outside. There were a few months in there - not many, but a few - that I'd get a seven AM wake-up call from the local birds who wanted to be fed, and those birds were the best alarm clock I've ever had. Certainly the sweetest. With few reasons to get out of bed in the morning, it was a nice feeling that one of those reasons was for small animals who were happy to see me.

I'd also take bike rides to get out of my apartment in the afternoons to get some fresh air, and there's a nearby park corner where it didn't take too many days of bringing seeds for a flock of pigeons to recognize me and fly on over whenever I'd come by. But even before they recognized me on sight, they were quick to trust to eat out of my open hands. Very soft feathers, and very warm bodies under the feathers. Some people gave me grief about it. Some people gave me shit about it. A few people, mostly under the age of ten, were delighted and thrilled to get some birdseed of their own and give feeding the pigeons a try themselves. Even if those kids hadn't ever come by, I'd have kept up with it as long as I was doing the rides. I'd seen worse behavior from them, and I didn't need to explain myself. The pigeons didn't rely or depend on me. They weren't my responsibility. They were simply my genuine pleasure.

The world reopened, people moved back into the neighborhood, the tray stopped getting stocked with seeds, I started going to a nearby gym, and my phone serves as my alarm clock. But I still sometimes carry birdseed around, in case there's a chance for another moment with the birds.

I keep thinking I will have more brain to post about stuff but it keeps not happening, even with 2 weeks of vacation (back to work on Monday *sob*), so here are some brief thoughts about a variety of things:

- Miami Mika!!! Hopefully he is also Milano-Cortina Mika because after the bullshit snub of Jason Robertson by Team USA (in favor of JT Miller??? REALLY??? I've watched him play - badly (he's injured) - all season so idk what Bill Guerin is thinking there [I can see a role for Trocheck, who seems like a slightly less egregious choice to me than Miller, but still pretty bad, and I like Trocheck), I am in the bag for Sweden (or Finland) and hope Team USA doesn't even make the medal round.

- Speaking of hockey, I finally watched Heated Rivalry and I enjoyed it. I laughed, I cried a little, I predicted many lines of dialogue because I have written similar fic, and I'm probably one of the few people who wished for more hockey in the gay hockey show. I don't feel feral about it like most of fandom, but I kind of didn't expect to. It was lovely, though, and I'm glad it exists. Also, Connor Storrie needs to play Alexander the Great in something, or, since I texted devildoll immediately with that thought and she replied, "Achilles," he should definitely play Achilles in something. I am just saying. I would like to see ( minor spoiler )

- The Stranger Things finale. Without spoilers, I liked it. I have quibbles but overall I found it emotionally satisfying. Also, while I appreciate Joe Keery and love Steve Harrington's arc, I have never found him particularly hot, per se, but ( spoilers )

- I'm enjoying season 2 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I love Percy as a character and narrator, and I just enjoy spending time with him and his friends. ( spoilers )

- The Muppet Show returns!!! This is not a drill!!! I AM EXCITE!!!

*

Challenge #1

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

I'm Hannah wherever I can manage it, and I don't know if I'm a fandom old yet or if I got into fandom young enough I've just been around for a long time. I've certainly been doing this challenge a while, and I admit I look forward to it every year - it's a good way to ease into a new calendar cycle and, as a bonus, I usually pick up a couple new people to talk to before it's over. Because talking to people is the biggest reason I've stayed around this long.

Goodbye 2025, it's been a year.

It's been the year I finally went to Japan (2½ weeks in october, it was lovely, but damn, I hate long planerides.)

It's been the year when I saw the Crazy Christmas Cabaret for the very last time. They'll be missed. Now, to find a new december tradition. Also, I am considering whether it might be fun to go to London next december to see a panto, for comparison purposes.

It's been a year of twice having periods of no clean water (I'm grateful for my tiny prepping box with bottled water) and twice my stupid cat got bacterial UTIs (I still suspect the second round was a deliberate plot to get me to once again give her liquid snacks twice a day).

It's been quite possibly the least amount of writing I've managed in a year. Just two tiny drabbles, a Murderbot ficlet and a Mysterious Lotus Casebook three sentence fic.

It's been a year of reading 177 books and comics according to Goodreads. My favourites, in no particular order, were the manga The Apothecary Diaries (Maomao is a delight); Joakim Garff's Solisterne (a historical novel of Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard going on vacation together); Robert Jackson Bennett's The Tainted Cup & A Drop of Corruption (murder mystery fantasy said in a biopunk universe with kaijus);  Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen's Drømmenes pris (a biography of Lovecraft and analysis of his writings); and listening to the audiobooks of Pratchett's Witch novels - now that was pure nostalgia. Wyrd Sisters was the second full novel I ever read in English. Yeah, especially the early ones have flaws that are more obvious now, but - <3.

It's been a year of watching 24 movies and series. My two absolute favourites were animated: Flow (which finally came to Danish cinemas) and Kpop Demon Hunters.

I hope you all had a lovely New Year's celebration and started the year off the way you wanted.

I did a bunch of cooking yesterday - rice balls to eat at dinner (since I can no longer stomach eating at midnight, pun intended) and then the Smitten Kitchen orange cranberry buns, which were supposed to do an overnight rise in the fridge so I could have them for breakfast this morning (pics). Sadly, I did not find that they rose at all overnight and in fact they stayed cold for a long time before I finally baked them. They did puff up nicely in the oven and they are tasty, but I don't know why I never have success with sweet things rising overnight in the fridge - bread and pizza have worked fine for me, but this is like the third time I've tried overnight sweet rolls of some sort and it's always the same. Anyway, the recipe makes 12 so I have 3 in my freezer for future!me to enjoy at a later date. I still have a fuckton of cranberries in the freezer though, so I'll probably make them - or the scones - again soon.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this, but if you go see Marty Supreme, keep an eye out for my nephew! He's an extra in a scene in a pool hall (I think?). He got recruited when he was out at a bar with friends one night - a casting agent told him he had the right look (like he was from the 50s) for a movie she was casting, and he eventually got to be in it! He's pretty tall, so he might stand out, idk.

In other things I keep meaning to mention, on Christmas, my sister opened up a couple of bottles of wine, and we found a red that we actually liked! It's called "Clara's Red" by Keuka Spring Vineyard in upstate New York (Finger Lakes region). It's on the sweet side for a red, and tasted like it was 85% of the way to already being sangria and had no musty basement smell or taste at all! Their 2021 Reisling was also really good, and she opened another of their white wines (I didn't make note of the type), which also tasted good. (Lest you think I was off my face on wine on Christmas, I only had a sip of each because my stomach was basically empty, which is a whole other thing - they somehow had not thought to provide anything for me or my other nephew for breakfast despite knowing we would be there? Idek. Eventually I had a couple of mini waffles [generally breakfast for Baby Miss L when she is there], but it was not enough to be drinking on.) Anyway, I wanted to put it here so I remembered it if I need to buy wine any time soon, and also as a recommendation in case any of you want to try a new wine.

*

Attending a New Year's Eve party with my parents and their friends that doubled as one of the friend's birthdays had me the youngest in the room. By multiple decades, in most cases. It was fun, for all that - I talked to some very old-school socialists about addiction, definitions of fascism, public transportation, architecture, technical versus technological, and made a few people laugh.

I should reach back out to the host and thank him for the invitation again.

Привет and welcome to our new Russian friends from LiveJournal! We are happy to offer you a new home. We will not require identification for you to post or comment. We also do not cooperate with Russian government requests for any information about your account unless they go through a United States court first. (And it hasn't happened in 16 years!)

Importing your journal from ЖЖ may be slow. There are a lot of you, with many posts and comments, and we have to limit how fast we download your information from ЖЖ so they don't block us. Please be patient! We have been watching and fixing errors, and we will go back to doing that after the holiday is over.

I am very sorry that we can't translate the site into Russian or offer support in Russian. We are a much, much smaller company than LiveJournal is, and my high school Russian classes were a very long time ago :) But at least we aren't owned by Sberbank!

С Новым Годом, and welcome home!

EDIT: Большое спасибо всем за помощь друг другу в комментариях! Я ценю каждого, кто предоставляет нашим новым соседям информацию, понятную им без необходимости искать её в Google. :) И спасибо вам за терпение к моему русскому переводу с помощью Google Translate! Прошло уже много-много лет со школьных времен!

Thank you also to everyone who's been giving our new neighbors a warm welcome. I love you all ❤️

December 2025 recs update:

unfitforsociety has been updated for December 2025 with 12 story recs and 1 vid rec in 7 fandoms:

* 5 Batfamily
* 2 Dungeon Crawler Carl
* 2 The Pitt
* 2 Star Wars
* 1 Slow Horses/Rivers of London crossover and 1 Ted Lasso vid

I haven't read much of anything from yuletide, but the two I did rec I will update with author names tomorrow.

I didn't do much fannishly this year - the recs continue, and I still reblog a metric fuckton of stuff on tumblr, but my brain hasn't sparked to write again, though I think it might be inching closer, thanks to, of all things, Dungeon Crawler Carl. I also loved loved loved The Pitt and am so excited season 2 is coming so soon!

Now, I've got a new episode of Percy Jackson and the series finale of Stranger Things to watch, and then I have to wash my hair.

I hope everyone is celebrating New Year's Eve in their chosen fashion. <333

*

I can say with some certainty that fandom's done more to influence my eating habits than anything else. Moving out of the dorms forced me to cook; people I knew from fandom helped shaped what I cooked and what I ate. The farmer's markets and keeping kosher are their own forces, and fellow fans are just as powerful.

Case in point: today I bought Duke's Mayonnaise because it was mentioned in a fic once. Because it's still something of a regional product, it took me a few months of checking around to find a place that carries it. But I did, again proving that if you can't find something in New York City, you aren't looking hard enough - and again proving that fandom is made up of taste-makers.

I'm thinking pasta and potato salads to work through the bottle I got, and buying another when tomato season rolls around.

The first lines of each month meme, 2025 edition:

( 2025 first lines from each month )
***

Yesterday I learned there's curtains you can buy that are controlled by an app. I didn't get into the massive security concerns of this scenario because one of my clients has some and she was paying me to figure out what was wrong with them, not get a lecture. Besides, no small number of the issues involved were laid bare when she explained she'd updated the app and the app said the curtains weren't found on the network.

I knew the first step of figuring out if it's a hardware or a software problem was first making sure the machine's connected to the network - if there was a motor that responded to commands sent by the app, it was essentially working from a more advanced and less secure remote control. To check and make sure the motor had power to run and could connect to the app to begin with, I looked for where the power supply was coming from. It wasn't plugged into anything, instead running on 12 AA batteries. I figured that swapping them out for fresh batteries to see if that'd get them back online would narrow down the possible problems before we'd have to see if the curtains need an update.

My client called the company helpline, and they said that given when she'd installed them, it was probably a power issue and to replace the batteries.

I'd also helped her with a miniature flashlight that wasn't working. When she handed it to me, I pulled at it, inspecting the object, seeing what parts were detachable to find out where its batteries would be located - and in doing so, I got them realigned and working again.

When I explained my problem-solving processes to her and working through the possibilities to try to figure out the issue at hand, she gave me what I hold as a high compliment: "You should've been a mechanical engineer."

Christmas was lovely! On Christmas Eve, it was just me, my sister, and my brother-in-law, so we ordered in and watched a godawful Hallmark Christmas movie with Teri Hatcher in it. Then they went to bed and I did a Die Hard rewatch - I hadn't seen it in some number of years and for all its flaws, it is still a good time.

Christmas morning, my niece and her husband came over so Baby Miss L could unwrap the first set of presents - she still gets bored with it and wants to play with whatever she's opened instead of opening the next gift, so it's a process - and she LOVED the 30 second dance party button, as I knew she would. I am SO HAPPY I saw it somewhere (Wirecutter, maybe?) and ordered it, and that it arrived in time for me to see her play with it. (The adults got a kick out of it too, but it was hilarious watching her run up and press it each time it ended.) She liked the dinosaur cape and the books (especially "The Little Book of Cheese," which is in the same series as "The Little Book of Pasta," which I got for her last year and which she LOVES - apparently she will just bust out with "FARFALLE!" at any given moment), but did not care about the wings at all. Also when Alyssa told her I would be there, she said, "books!" so she knows I am the books and clothes aunt. *g*

The while elephant swap was pretty hilarious too, and my niece Nicki ended up with the cat-shaped measuring cups and spoons that were my contribution. I got a waterproof bluetooth speaker I'm going to have to set up in the bathroom to have tunes in the shower.

The funfetti cupcakes were a big hit. (I made sure to put cream cheese frosting on the ones for my sister; she tried one with the American buttercream and made the same face I made when I tasted it - it's disgustingly sweet.) There's picture of this year's selection here.

As for gifts, I received a handful of gift cards, a KRYPTO squishmallow from Baby Miss L, a pair of earrings made from chips of vintage pyrex, a stand mixer tree ornament, a copy of Dorrie's Anytime Cakes, some candles, and a pair of super warm and fuzzy grippy socks. I also bought myself a new winter coat, a new 9 x 13" pyrex baking dish, a new vibrator, some new bras, and a new pair of black ankle boots, so I'm doing all right in the gift department. *g*

Yesterday, I got home early and vegged out for most of the day. And then it snowed, just like they said it would!

Today, I made a new batch of dough and tomorrow I'll finish baking off the fig cookies for this year. I also want to try those orange cranberry rolls now that I have room in the fridge to let them rise overnight. I still have so many eggs left over, though, so I see at least one frittata in my future, plus at least one batch of Nadiya's egg wraps, which are delicious and I recommend them highly!

Now I should look into having dinner and maybe watching the Rangers game.

*

My parents' apartment building is in a U shape, and on the roof, the bottom of the U is the social area - tables, chairs, plants, tiles. The two sides are closed off from general use - the water tower, electrical system access, stuff where you need it clear for safety.

I recently found out someone's been sneaking up onto the roof to smoke, and they've been doing it in the social area, or so close to it to make no difference. I figure that if they could smoke in their apartment, they would, so this is probably someone's kid, and it's easier to go to the roof to smoke than head out to the breezeway next to the building.

My concern's not any of that, but rather that they're doing it badly. When I was told about the sneaking, I remarked that they'd do better to sneak farther away from the social area so the smell doesn't linger. I said if it's cigarettes, they should do it over the breezeway so they can tap the ash away, and if they're really dedicated, they should bring along a tin of some kind to carry the refuse away with them to dispose of the evidence later. The smoking's one thing to protest, and what really gets to me is the person's total lack of tradecraft.

This hasn't been a week of tremendous productivity. I haven't minded. I finished a couple of fics and went back to editing an original work, I've been going to the gym, and I've done a fair bit of cooking - following recipes closely, modifying recipes slightly, sweeping the kitchen to follow a basic template. It's one of those weeks the world shrinks down somewhat, but given what's out there, I don't mind staying within narrow confines. Come Friday, I can go outside without much worry, but for tonight and tomorrow, I'd rather avoid what I can.

It's true I'll need to head out to buy flour, and it's also true there's a grocery store in my neighborhood that doesn't play music. As such, I'll happily give them my business throughout the year, and especially during December.