Lake Lewisia #1362

Jan. 28th, 2026 07:08 am
scrubjayspeaks: Town sign for (fictional) Lake Lewisia, showing icons of mountains and a lake with the letter L (Lake Lewisia)
[personal profile] scrubjayspeaks
She collected extinct foods--not expired, thank you, though she recognized the natural overlap in the two categories--whose manufacturers had abandoned them as outdated relics or failed experiments. Her huge chest freezers and pantries contained foods in mint-condition packaging, sorted by date of last production, ranging from Squeezafroos (June 3, 1993) to canned Cream of Carp soup (February 25, 1904) to limited edition Forager Style Spam (September 12, 1938). With one bite, she would be transported by more than mere nostalgia to another age, somewhere along the timeline of each lost food, and she could wander as a gustatory time traveler for however long the taste lingered on her tongue.

---

LL#1362

fic: of wild honey

Jan. 28th, 2026 09:56 am
lirazel: Anne Shirley from the 1985 Anne of Green Gables reads while walking ([tv] book drunkard)
[personal profile] lirazel
Because I never brought it over here! Here's the Yuletide fic I wrote!!!

Can you believe it took me 39 years of life to write The Blue Castle fic? I'm very proud of this--it's a love letter to the book and the characters, and I'm so glad that Yuletide gave me the nudge to write it. Yuletide!!!!

of wild honey (7940 words) by Lirazel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blue Castle - L. M. Montgomery
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Barney Snaith/Valancy Stirling
Characters: Barney Snaith, Valancy Stirling, Cecilia "Cissy" Gay, Abel Gay
Additional Tags: Yuletide, Yuletide 2025, 5 Things
Summary:

Abel held up his hands, helpless. “She’s sitting in my house holding Cissy’s hand this very minute! She gave me her valise before I left the house, and I thought sure she’d send an errand boy to fetch it back tomorrow. But no, not an hour ago she walked right up to my door, determined as you please, and I do believe she intends to stay despite how the whole damned ruck of Stirlings must be throwing a tantrum as we speak. The spunk of the girl! The ways of Providence are strange.”

Life was full of surprises, but in Barney’s experience, people generally weren’t. Oh, people had surprised him before, in his callow youth, but that was because he hadn’t understood who they really were. Once you got down to someone’s true character, you could see that they’d been who they were all along. People mostly kept doing just what they’d been doing their whole lives, what they’d been brought up to do. Of course he’d met a handful of those who bucked tradition and struck out on their own, but he hadn’t expected to find one in Deerwood.

“Is it Providence?” he asked. “That seems as clear a demonstration of free will as anything I’ve ever heard.”

Five times Valancy Stirling surprises Barney Snaith.

Dialect – Full Serpent

Jan. 28th, 2026 09:00 am
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Posted by Robert Barry


Dialect

Full Serpent

Andrew P.M. Hunt makes music for small speakers and close quarters, a tender kind of futurism

Full Serpent by Dialect

In just the first three weeks of 2026, the world has become more uncertain than it has been in the entire past twelve months. Low temperatures in Kiev, protests in Minneapolis, marches in Nuuk, Greenland. Is anyone else wondering where the world is heading? Overwhelmed by this news, it would be best to hibernate and wait out what is overwhelming us.

Andrew P.M. Hunt – one quarter of one of the best contemporary “guitar” bands, Ex-Easter Island Head, and at the same time an exceptionally creative solo artist – returns with an EP lasting just twenty minutes. Released a year and a...

The post Dialect – Full Serpent appeared first on The Quietus.

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Posted by John Doran


Ahead of the first ever vinyl reissue of Djelika, Mary Chiney provides ten entry points into the work of the master kora player from Mali, tracing a lineage that stretches back 71 generations

The word "fusion" was an insult to Toumani Diabaté. Throughout his life, the maestro of the kora, the 21-string West African harp-lute, rejected the term with a polite but steely firmness. "Fusion means confusion," he often told interviewers, his voice low-pitched gravel, possessed of a gravity that seemed to pull the room toward him. "I don't do fusion. I do a meeting. When you meet someone, you talk to them. You don't become them."

This distinction is the key to unlocking the strange, sprawling, and intimidatingly beautiful world of Toumani...

The post The Strange World Of… Toumani Diabaté appeared first on The Quietus.

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Posted by Patrick Clarke


Ian Wade meets Peaches in Soho to discuss the 13 records that have shaped her life and work, from Lil' Kim to Laurie Anderson, disco to krautrock

Photo by The Squirt Deluxe

With Peaches’ new album No Lube So Rude arriving next month, the temptation to call it a comeback seems, well, rude. Sure, it’s her first release in 10 years, but that’s not to say she hasn’t been busy. There have been films, a succession of features on other people’s records as well as her own exhibition Whose Jizz Is This? In Hamburg. There have been anniversary tours as her seismic debut The Teaches of Peaches first reached 20, then 25 last year, and three documentaries about her career. Her influence...

The post The Reaches of Peaches: Peaches’ Favourite Albums appeared first on The Quietus.

Reading and laughing

Jan. 28th, 2026 08:27 am
vriddy: Person holding a stack of books so high their face can't be seen (books)
[personal profile] vriddy
I went to bed at a reasonable time yesterday evening and started a new book with delighted anticipation. "Reading time! I'll get to fall asleep peacefully with my brain tummy full of stories <3" I thought. The way my tbr pile works is that I add recs to my library queue and most of the time by the time the book gets to me 1) I've completely forgotten what it was about and 2) there's a good chance I'll enjoy it because I did add it based on a rec that intrigued me to start with.

To set the scene further: in winter, the cat often climbs onto my stomach while I read because the blankets are thicker and fluffier.

ALAS! The book I started was Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie!!! I'm only about 70 pages in AND I LAUGHED SO HARD!! SO HARD!!!! Poor cat quickly abandoned me since it must have felt like a rodeo machine thing up there, but I was nearly crying and my non-existent abs were aching by the time I stopped reading.

Not the most restful way to fall asleep, I'll be honest. But oh my god. As much as I sometimes wince with some of her specific choices, Skye's internal voice is just. Just. Incredible. I'm not finished yet so no spoilers please :D But I'm fairly sure I picked up the rec from someone here so thank you to whoever mentioned it on their journal :D Wow. Like I laugh and cry and gasp often when reading, but I can't remember the last time I was non-stop guffawing like this from a book.

Edit: Finished the book and I stand by my rec! (The cat had to endure another round of stomach rodeo but I'm sure given time she will find it in her generous (?) heart to forgive me.) The book jacket says the story is about the complexities of family, queerness, race, and community. Definitely! It felt like a love letter to Philadelphia as well (I've never been). Impeccable narrator voice. Black queer woman protag. Many excellent relationships between women. And did I mention how much I laughed? I did. Though it doesn't mean the story isn't poignant or painful, sometimes even while laughing.

Backengrillen – Backengrillen

Jan. 28th, 2026 06:22 am
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Posted by Robert Barry


Backengrillen

Backengrillen

A garbled and rushed melding of doom metal and free jazz born from the ashes of Refused’s recent demise

Backengrillen by Backengrillen

On 21st December 2025, Swedish post-hardcore stalwarts Refused played their final gig in the group’s hometown of Umeå. A sweaty and teary affair, Refused unleashed a rolling broadside over a brisk 90 minutes, unfurling the entirety of the band’s dedication to weighty and outspoken hardcore in a fierce and conclusive salvo.

As tastefully monochrome images of the band embracing were dragged and dropped onto social pages, you would assume that after thirty-plus years of sonic vitriol the group might sit back for a bit of R&R; a bit of fika maybe? Maybe this would have been the right move considering the...

The post Backengrillen – Backengrillen appeared first on The Quietus.

Two More Bingos for a Blackout

Jan. 27th, 2026 06:35 pm
cornerofmadness: Angel in drag holding up cards (Default)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness posting in [community profile] lyricaltitles
I have blacked out my card. I think I missed sharing one row but my card has all the link outs to all stories. Here are the last two bingoes I know I haven't shared.

First Bingo
Title: Forget Our Memories, Forget Our Possibilities
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Characters/Pairings: Angel Dust
Rating: teen
Warnings: references to sexual and physical abuse, drug use, angst

Artist: Linkin Park
Prompt: Lyric with "remember" or "forget"
Song: Come Don’t Say


Title: I Need to Go Home (And Salvage What's Left of My Soul)
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Characters/Pairings: Angel Dusk/Husk
Rating: teen
Warnings: drugs and alcoholism
Artist: Seether
Prompt: A chart topper
Song: Lost All Control


Title: Remnant of Hope
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: The Amazing Digital Circus
Characters/Pairings: all the circus members
Rating: teen
Warnings: whump

Artist: Nox Arcana
Prompt: an instrumental song
Song: Remnant of Hope



Title: Love For Sale
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Characters/Pairings: Valentino/Angel Dust
Rating: teen
Warnings: injuries, blood, hurt/comfort

Artist: Cole Porter & Ella Fitzgerald
Prompt: Song from a soundtrack
Song: Love for Sale



Title: Can't Ever Keep From Falling Apart at the Seams
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Characters/Pairings: Angel Dust/Husk
Rating: teen
Warnings: abuse (physical and mentally), wounds, hurt/comfort


Artist: Duran Duran
Prompt: 90s song
Song: Come Undone



Row Bingo



Title: There'll Be a Hot Time in Old Town Tonight
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Characters/Pairings: Angel Dust/Husk, Cherri Bomb/Sir Pentious
Rating: teen
Warnings: unwanted touching, someone gets punched for it

Artist: Bessie Smith
Prompt: Pre-1900 song
Song: There'll Be a Hot Time in Old Town Tonight


Title: Wake Up Your Dream
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Characters/Pairings: Angel Dust/Husk
Rating: teen
Warnings: anxiety, mental hurt/comfort

Artist: Julie & the Phantoms
Prompt: Lyric with "sleep" or "wake".
Song: Wake Up



Title: Something to Make My Heart Beat the Faster
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Characters/Pairings: Husk/Angel Dust
Rating: teen
Warnings: injuries, blood, hurt/comfort

Artist: Ella Fitzgerald.
Prompt: a pre-1950s song
Song: All the Things You Are, originally written for a 1939 musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein and covered by many.


Title: You Had Some of the Best Times You'll Never Remember With Me, Alcohol
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Characters/Pairings: Husk/Angel Dust, Cherri Bomb
Rating: teen
Warnings: injuries, blood, hurt/comfort, drunkeness

Artist: Brad Paisley
Prompt: a 00 song
Song: Alcohol

Title: No Matter How Strong, I'm Gonna Take You Down
Author: [personal profile] cornerofmadness
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Characters/Pairings: Angel Dust, Henroin
Rating: teen
Warnings: injuries, blood, murder of a parent

Artist: Rufus Wainright
Prompt: an angry song
Song: Dinner at Eight

Find my card here.
musesfool: image of a snowflake (nothing but winter in my cup)
[personal profile] musesfool
Today was super annoying because I had a very weird internet outage. Spectrum acknowledged that there was an outage in my area even! But it was only partial? Or intermittent? Just fucking weird. I could get to my work-related sites fairly frequently (outlook, sharepoint), but literally nothing else would load except for some reason gmail. Like, no news sites. No bank. No shopping sites. Bitwarden timed out trying to log into my password vault. I couldn't get anything at all to load on my personal laptop until I plugged in my phone to use it as a hotspot, which was greyed out and not allowed on my work laptop. Finally, around 4 pm when Spectrum said the outage was over but I still didn't have full service, I chatted with them and somehow their reboot of everything worked (even though I rebooted the modem and router several times on my own without any luck), so I was able to get full access to the internet on both laptops and on my TV. *hands*

In other news, I found that a stint overnight in the fridge greatly improved those cupcakes. I wasn't impressed by them at room temp (texture was super spongy), but they're really good with the extra time in the cold! So if you need vegan cupcakes, the KAB recipe is recommended, especially if you make them ahead of time.

Meanwhile, it looks like we might get a nor'easter this coming weekend? A big storm potentially, though with less snow and more wind. No warming of temperatures anyway. Oy.

*
rachelmanija: (Default)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


The sequel to The Darkness Outside of Us. I enjoyed it! It's both interestingly different from the first book and is satisfying on the level of "I want more of this," which is exactly what one wants from a sequel.

Literally everything about this book is massively spoilery for the first one, including its premise. I'll do two sets of spoiler cuts, one for the premise and one for the whole book.

Premise spoilers )

Stop reading here if you don't want to be spoiled for the entire book.


Entire book spoilers )

Remembering Sly Dunbar by Wrongtom

Jan. 27th, 2026 02:45 pm
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Posted by John Doran


We say goodbye to the Jamaican drummer Sly Dunbar who died at the age of 73 this week, after helping steer the beats of reggae, working globally with everyone from Serge Gainsbourg to Grace Jones

It was at the school gates, while picking up a KPop Demon Hunters-obsessed five year old, where I heard the sad news that Sly Dunbar had left this mortal coil yesterday. This may seem like the last place you’d expect to find out about the passing of reggae’s most enduring drummer and, alongside bassist Robbie Shakespeare, one half of the most prolific rhythm section in show business, but such was Sly’s reach, his music permeated pop culture, supplying the back beat for everyone from Bob Marley...

The post Remembering Sly Dunbar by Wrongtom appeared first on The Quietus.

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Posted by Patrick Clarke


After gazing into his crystal ball, JR Moores rounds up the latest psych rock rackets 

Michael Hampton

Another year, is it? Already? What’s on your bingo card? For me? Maybe actual bingo. I’m old enough to remember when telephones were attached to the walls, like in Stranger Things, and the whole family would gather in front of the telly together to enjoy anything that wasn’t hosted by Cilla Black.    

Here are some predictions for 2026 in the world of psychedelia, other music, and beyond. Given the catastrophes that are already looming, they’re actually quite light-hearted. 

My Bloody Valentine will “drop” a brand new album… into the bin. And begin rewriting it from scratch. 

The Spectator columnist Bonnie Blue is going to headline Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Jools...

The post Columnfortably Numb: Psych Rock for January by JR Moores appeared first on The Quietus.

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Posted by Robert Barry


Tashi Dorji

Low Clouds Hang, This Land is on Fire

The Bhutan-born, North Carolina-based guitarist picks up an electric guitar for this initially somewhat softer take on his solo practice, albeit spiked with greater urgency as the record progresses

low clouds hang, this land is on fire by Tashi Dorji

One of the more enduring legacies of the World War II partisan movement can be found in its anthems of resistance and uprising. Unlike the brutal force of usual calls to arms, the Soviet war song ‘Katyusha’, its Italian version ‘Fischia il vento’, the French ‘Le chant des partisans’, and the memefied/commodified to death yet eternally poignant ‘Bella ciao’ occupy a softer emotional space, trading outward aggression for profound melancholy. Their melodies draw strength...

The post Tashi Dorji – Low Clouds Hang, This Land is on Fire appeared first on The Quietus.

Fandom miscellany as January wanes

Jan. 26th, 2026 11:53 pm
mossy_bench: Hilda/White with her hands on her hips, blank-faced (confused)
[personal profile] mossy_bench
Here be updates on fannish goals and other ramblings. (●'◡'●) It just struck me that I wouldn't have had the wherewithal/courage to write and publish a post like this a year ago, so I'm pleased as a recovering lurker!

Fic talk
I finished a draft of my fic! The one I complained about it in my last post. It is currently a bit over 6k. One of my goals this month was to get it done, so that is fantastic. :) The quality is pretty acceptable. Only minor revisions left, I believe/hope. And then I can finally start on this other fic I promised to write for a friend! My other writing goal this month was to write a total of 7k words, which I haven't, but the milestone above matters more to me.

I've also been trying to read (and ergo comment) more on fic. I'm making progress on my bingo cards (see here for links), but haven't gotten a bingo yet. I feel like I could've read more. Still, some is better than none.

A great podcast, except...
I also finished listening to Midst (well, the first storyline anyway). It was great and I'm very satisfied, except. EXCEPT. I was let down by the episode where Weepe (scumbag extraordinare) has to watch his former business partner and beloved friend expire because of his actions. I was so excited to see him go to pieces, and to wallow in his unrequited worship for this woman who represents everything he believes he can't be.

Unfortunately, the actual episode felt rather stilted, sluggish, and forced, in my humble subjective opinion. So close, but not quite there. I hope there is good fic, though it is a tiny fandom. It's like, the one itch that feels terribly unscratched.

Where is the toxic fic? (cw: talk of dubcon)
I did fulfill my goal of reading some Beyond Evil fic on AO3. I'm afraid there were slim pickings since I seem to want something different from most others in the fandom. The main ship has so much toxic potential but the fics are kind of wholesome—often in a believable way, to be clear. I'm not criticizing their quality.

However, I just want for Juwon and Dongshik to regress and be terrible in new and interesting ways. I want hate sex, breakdowns, toxic vows, insane bids for attention, unhealthy repression and self-denial, dubcon fucking, a mix of dread and attraction, desperate misplaced efforts at atonement. They're both WEIRD and they should fuck weird. The disappointment I felt when I filtered for Dubious Content and only found 22 complete works was immeasurable, haha. And of those, only a handful actually applied to the ship.

Still on my Hello From the Magic Tavern bullshit
Loved the most recent episode. The premise? Immaculate. The hosts are basically reenacting Orpheus and Eurydice as they try to escape (pizza) hell, except they've got 3+ escapees holding onto a rope behind them like toddlers, and one of the most annoying recurring characters from the show keeps trying to tempt them into turning around to look at something cool. They nearly got defeated by a revolving door. It was great.

Nominations Clarifications #1

Jan. 26th, 2026 11:35 pm
extrapenguin: Picture of the Horsehead Nebula, with the horse wearing a hat and the text "MOD". (ssmod)
[personal profile] extrapenguin posting in [community profile] space_swap
Dune (Movies - Villeneuve)
Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell

Please nominate according to the instructions. Thank you! Your fandom/remaining noms will not be approved unless you comply with the instructions.

Mugen Kouro | Infinite Space
Original Work
Phantasy Star
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (TV 2026)
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (TV)
Star Trek: The Original Series

Please disambiguate your nominations! This means adding the fandom in (brackets) to the end, e.g. Character: Alis Landale (Phantasy Star)

Star Trek
Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
We already have the fandom Star Trek: The Original Series in the tagset. Nominator of plain Star Trek, Kirk and Spock already exist there. TOS Movies nominator, would you mind being merged into regular TOS, as they're the same cast and continuity, or is there some big division I'm unaware of?

Lake Lewisia #1361

Jan. 26th, 2026 12:22 pm
scrubjayspeaks: Town sign for (fictional) Lake Lewisia, showing icons of mountains and a lake with the letter L (Lake Lewisia)
[personal profile] scrubjayspeaks
The winter Calvinball tournament will begin this week, so gather up your wickets, bats and rackets, ping-pong balls, and other traditional equipment, and see if you can find your way to the tournament area. That is the first rule change from last season: the last participant to find the Secret Field takes a penalty and must play the first inning while transformed into a random mammal. And I have just been informed that game announcers receive bonus points, so excuse me while I barricade my booth in preparation to defend my position.

---

LL#1361
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Posted by John Doran


Drew Daniel of Matmos has been creating dance music as The Soft Pink Truth for over 20 years, but recently he was forced to ask himself a difficult question: what utility does making music have while the world slides inexorably towards unmitigated disaster?

Drew Daniel aka The Soft Pink Truth by Josh Sisk

Like most of us over the past ten years, I am struggling with how to live my daily life against the backdrop of a global slide into genocide and fascism. Because this is a music publication, I will narrow that down a bit: since the decisive ascension of Trumpist politics in my country, I have struggled in particular with how to proceed as an electronic musician at all in...

The post Edith’s Diary: Drew Daniel on Creating Art under Fascism appeared first on The Quietus.

New Music Monday - 26 January 2026

Jan. 26th, 2026 09:05 pm
paradisedinermod: (Default)
[personal profile] paradisedinermod posting in [community profile] paradisediner
The regular weekly post for us to talk about any and all of our thoughts about the week's new releases.

Kiiikiii - 404 (New Era)
Hwina - Hello, Sara
Young Posse - Visa / Pilot 3
Billlie - Cloud Palace (pre-release)
i-dle - Mono (feat. Skaiwater)
8TURN - Bruise
POW - Come True (feat. Shin Onyu)
Lee Jiham - Forever Mine
WHIB - Rock the Nation
Onewe

New MVs are also added to an ongoing Youtube playlist.

Last week's MVs: 19 January

Feel free to add new comments in the replies for songs/MVs we missed.

[ Rec Something Wednesday | WIP Wednesday | Monthly General Chat | Comment Fest ]

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