Heated Rivalry S1: I feel somewhat ambiguous about this. On the one hand, I totally get the hype – it's live action gay romance that's both smutty, mildly kinky and also emotional, which is a combination that mainstream TV rarely offers. And, regardless of whether it's actually fanfic with its serial numbers filed off or not, it feels very fanfic-cy, so naturally it appeals to the fandom audience. And I'm very much part of that, so I did enjoy it. The sex scenes were super hot, and I liked the feels!

Having said that, for something that's supposedly enemies/rivals-to-lovers, the rivals part feels very unsatisfying to me. We don't see them being at each other's throats (even figuratively speaking) for any significant amount of time before they hook up, which is what I need for the trope to actually feel rewarding. And I don't enjoy established relationship stories, so my interest peaked in episode one and two and then dramatically dropped. It was revived briefly at the very end of the season because I like 'people find out' stories, but I don't really see the show holding my attention through further seasons.

On a shallow note, I find the protagonists painfully unattractive, Ilya in particular, and not interesting enough to make up for it. My favorite episode was Scott's episode because François Arnaud has more sex appeal in a single lock of his hair than the other male cast combined (serious, how has he got even hotter since The Borgias?! it's extremely unfair!), and also because Scott just appeals more to me as a character. I could take or leave Kip, but the coffee shop romance was very cute.

Overall, this sounds more negative than I felt watching the show. I had fun, I was entertained, but I wasn't as into it or fannish about it as I would have liked to be.

Mozart/Mozart S1: This got terrible reviews – a big magazine dubbed it the worst TV show ever, which made me think the reviewer hasn't watched many TV shows. Mozart/Mozart is… fine. It's the typical faux-history drama that prioritizes drama over historical accuracy. It doesn't pretend otherwise – it even says so in the opening credits – and IMO if that's not your thing, you should probably steer clear of it, rather than say "oh no, this show does what it's set out to do, but I don't like that genre, so it's bad" – that's like watching splatter horror and complaining about gore.

It was fun, the acting was good, Maria Anna is a likable protagonist, her brother is a troubled genius who annoyed me at time but ultimately came through for her, and the show is doing a good job as showing them both as victims of their circumstances. I really liked the ambiguity of both Leopold's portrayal, who loves his kids but in his attempt to do what's best alienates them, as well as Marie Antoinette's – she's wasteful and decadent and scheming, but also vulnerable and trying to escape a terrible situation. And I was very very much into Maria Anna's and Salieri's storyline – now that's an enemies-to-lovers romance for me to sink my teeth in with them genuinely working against each other despite their attraction, and so much betrayal and misunderstandings. I did feel sorry for him, because everyone was pulling him in different directions. And he did come through for her at the end! I have lots of feelings about him and them as a ship. ♥

The one thing I didn't like was the weird infusion of modern electro-pop during some (but not all? and there was no pattern for when it would happen?) of the performances, which seemed really unnecessary and felt jarring.

Considering its negative reception, I highly doubt that we'll get a second season, which I'm somewhat sad about, but at least it ended in a mostly good place.

jazzyjj posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

in_seclusion

Well, there went 2025.

What a weird year. It's been busy in many ways, but slower in even more. My health has gotten better in some ways, and remained quite ill in most of it, but I'll take the better where I can.

( physical health update )

It's been a hard year of undoing and unlearning everything I've grown up with. But the space left by that undoing has been filled with the things of what I am growing, the person I am becoming. I have discovered new things I like doing now that I have the energy to explore it, now that I have the energy to devote to myself and the things that I want to do, instead of what everyone has told me to want or do. And I've allowed myself to stop doing things when I don't feel like doing them anymore, and to concentrate on the things I want to do.

( hobbies update )

PS I am also on the lookout for a good ube cookie or ube crinkle recipe for a friend in Osaka, will try a black sesame and chocolate cookie for another friend's birthday, and need a good earl grey and brown butter sugar cookie recipe for Raia! Any reccs, please send them my way!

tw: emotional abuse, trauma processing, family dynamics

( eldest daughters never miss a chance to learn the hardest lessons again and again )

( turns out i was emotionally abused in 2023, who knew (everyone) )

Still: ( my friends have loved me back to life in the realest ways )

( there was some growth this year, for i do not wish to be in a lesbian sitcom IRL )

( the hodgepodge that is my spirituality, and how i learned to embrace it )

( mental health updates )

2025 has been such a strange year. I am not sorry to see it end. I am exhausted, physically, emotionally, mentally. I have yet to sit down with myself and think about 2026 and what it might bring. All I know is that in the coming year I want to continue being intentional about the direction of my life and my relationships. I want to learn to take up space without fear, to be able to say straightforwardly what my wants and needs are, knowing full well I will be fine if others cannot meet them, because I can meet them myself. I want to develop a self-identity, self-esteem, and assuredness so strong I no longer fear seeing my ex and remembering all the ways I made myself vulnerable for her in hopes that she would care for me and instead hurt me. ~~Yeah that shit still stings girl trauma and emotional abuse is a bitch~~. I want to develop all those things for myself, to know I can carry myself and care for myself now and in the future. I want to love and be loved, to learn what love is like when it is safe, kind, and gentle - to be seen, heard, understood, and chosen for who I am. I want to learn kind lessons instead of tears. I want to trust in the hands of the Universe and know that I will be rewarded, that I will live up the name I keep closest to my heart. Maybe emblematic of all my wishes, I also have a new tattoo: a north star in a small galaxy on the wrist of my dominant hand. It is a reminder that I am my own North Star: may I always guide myself back home to me.

I burn a piece of paper every night in this period of in between - the 13 magical wishes to give to the universe during Rauhnaechte. I pray in my heart and in my mind in a shrine hidden in a park in Shibuya, asking for guidance and clarity, asking that I may be granted leave to return and offer my gratitude in person.

Maybe that's all I hope for 2026: that I will be treated gently, that my wishes will be heard, that my prayers be answered, my love found and returned.

Such simple wishes from a woman simply trying to live. 2025 returned to me my humanity. May 2026 return me to myself.

There are many things in play in the background; the wheels of time continue. These nameless days are coming to a close, and soon I will join the world again in its business, its loneliness, its camaraderies, its joys, its shared pains and sorrows. These days have been difficult, balancing between despair and hope, standing still and moving forward. I am going at my pace. May everyone close the coming year in peace, and carry only good wishes into the coming year.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Current Mood: pensive
Current Music: Kill Me - Hayley Williams

rmc28

Shoresy is a Canadian comedy show about an ice hockey team, currently available to stream on ITVX. It is very crude (swearing, sex & toilet humour) and very funny, and it loves hockey. The episodes are short, around 20 minutes, and the seasons only have six of them, so it's relatively fast watching.

(ITVX insists on checking in with me at the start of each episode that I really want to watch "very strong language and adult humour". This made it great for watching in bed because if I fell asleep, it wouldn't keep playing past the end of the current episode.)

Anyway, despite the aforementioned crudity, it is often weirdly wholesome. There's a lot of little repeated catchphrases, I think maybe the show's own meta-commentary on how much of hockey discussion is cliché-ridden, but like Terry Pratchett wrote, sometimes things become clichés because they are true. Hockey brings people together. Hockey players give back. By the community, for the community. Go till you can't go no more. Episode 3.6 in particular manages to capture how a high-stakes hockey game feels, and is probably my favourite of the entire four seasons.

So anyway, this weird crude funny show got past my usual reluctance to watch TV on my own, and even to rewatch some of my favourite parts. I gather season 5 started showing in Canada on 25 December, but no idea if it too will come to ITVX.

(Trivia point: the executive producer of Heated Rivalry is Jacob Tierney, who also produced Shoresy. I didn't realise this until I'd started watching, but ok, this guy loves ice hockey, just like Rachel Reid does, no wonder he chose to adapt her books.)

cornerofmadness

I woke up feeling lightheaded, slightly headachy and hella tired (this is not the good augering part) This is when Mom tells me that the couple I don't like are coming up tonight. UGH. As I told

evil_little_dog that I planned to 'go out with friends' when they came up but now I'm sick (and really I am) so mom says just stay upstairs then and don't bother with them.

But they blew my parents off. WOO HOO. Twice now this holiday. My parents might go to my aunt's house (where they're staying as she's actually prejudice woman's real aunt) in the morning. I'm a late riser so I get out of going (in theory) but even if I don't it'll be a short trip because the Steeler game is tomorrow and they want all visitors out (which should tell everyone what they need to know. You rate under football) And they leave monday so I am hoping this is a sign for the coming year where things that upset me are removed from my presence.

I got my official Hazbin merch today, the holiday poster and key chains (all sold out now) and the season 1 DVDs. I am happy to have that (luckily I'm too tired for my why you don't own downloads rant)

It's time for science saturday

One Protein Is a Better Predictor of Heart Disease Than Cholesterol

Powerful Anti-Cancer Drug Discovered Inside Japanese Tree Frog.

Garlic Mouthwash Could Be The New Gold Standard. Here's Why. I need to send this to my research student who is working with mouthwash

New Drug Stalls Alzheimer's Development in Breakthrough Trial

Cats meow more at men to get their attention, study suggests

A huge surprise': 1,500-year-old church found next to Zoroastrianism place of worship in Iraq

Tiny implant 'speaks' to the brain with LED light

See the 100,000th photo of Mars taken by NASA's groundbreaking Red Planet orbiter

( Christmas pictures of the house )

You can click the eggs if you want.

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Svengoolie

sallymn posting in

1word1day

contemporaneous [kuhn-tem-puh-rey-nee-uhs]

adjective:
existing, beginning, or occurring in the same period of time

Examples:

Some economic data, such as last month’s unemployment rate and consumer-inflation numbers, can’t be compiled retroactively, the Labor Department has said, because they rely on contemporaneous surveys. (Nick Timiraos and Matt Grossman, Wholesale Price Gains Hint at Muted Rise in Fed’s Preferred Inflation Gauge, The Wall Street Journal, November 2025)

These moments of reckoning - in which something that once felt exciting begins to seem noxious, mephitic, dangerous - are important to heed. (Alex Ross, At Ninety, Arvo Pärt and Terry Riley Still Sound Vital, The New Yorker, November 2025)

In addition to contemporaneous comics, architecture, and music, the film explores the influence of the space race on everyday life of the 1960s. (Ben Sachs, Lewis Klahr’s Sixty Six is a masterful journey through inner space and the American past, Chicago Reader, May 2017)

It gave the explanation, gave sanity to the pranks of this atavistic brain of mine that, modern and normal, harked back to a past so remote as to be contemporaneous with the raw beginnings of mankind. (Jack London, Before Adam)

Origin:
'living or existing at the same time,' 1650s, from Late Latin contemporaneus 'contemporary,' from the same Latin source as contemporary but with an extended form after Late Latin temporaneous 'timely.' An earlier adjective was contemporanean (1550s). (Online Etymology Dictionary)

erinptah

Sudden awkward realization that Malcolm’s daemon has been “Asta” all along, I just took the spoken version as “Aster” with a British accent.

Have to go edit some roundup posts now…

(And here I was appreciating the celestial symbolism in how “Aster” means “star”!)

—

Spent some time this evening reviewing AO3’s character tags for His Dark Materials, along with The Book of Dust. There’s a handy tag format that only really picked up after I originally canonized most of them, “Petname | Fullname Character’s Pet”, as in “Alpine | Bucky Barnes’s Cat“. So I redid most of the daemon character tags to match that, as in “Asta | Malcolm Polstead’s Daemon“.

Some of them, it feels like overkill — not a lot of fans are likely to forget which Pantalaimon or Hester we’re talking about. But it’s really useful for the daemons whose names only came up briefly. Or maybe were only established outside the actual canon (e.g. author interviews, TV credits). Kyrillion, Jal, Grizal, Sergi…

The review also turned up some minor characters who weren’t canonized before because I couldn’t find info on them, and some characters who got newly-established full names after they were canonized. Also, at least one where the canonical had a typo. Whoops.

I have not audited the relationship tags to make sure they all match up. (Except the one with the typo.) To avoid overloading the servers, there’s a limit on how many tags each wrangler is supposed to rename per day, and doing the rels tonight would blow way past mine.

So that’s a future project.

—

I put most of my post-LBS reaction feelings as addendums in the liveblog roundup post, so I didn’t end up making a new microblogging thread about them.

( Just a thread for this one more thing. )

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/27/the-december-comfort-watches-2025-day-twenty-seven-alita-battle-angel/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58897

Alita: Battle Angel is a $170 million dollar production from 2019 that feels and plays like modern CGI effects were superimposed on a cheap, janky science fiction film from 1985, the sort of $6 million, B-movie-level schlock that was put out at the time by Cannon Films or New World Cinema, two of the most notable “make ’em cheap, make our money in home video” studios of that era.

This sounds like an insult, I’m aware, and I’m not sure there’s an easy way to assure anyone that it’s not. I am not saying this film is prettied-up crap. I am saying it has a vibe, and the vibe is: the other movie you rent from a video store on a Friday night, once you’ve gotten the actual movie you came for from the “New Releases” shelf. You know, the one starring that TV actor whose series ended three years ago, and the Playmate of the Year from a decade back. The one that you had to decide between it and a Chuck Norris flick. That film. This is that film. It’s that film, on a whole lot of steroids and Muscle Milk. You can thank Robert Rodriguez for that. More on that in a second.

To call Alita a rehabbed 80s video store second pick is slightly anachronistic. The manga upon which based, in which an android warrior left on a junk heap searches for clues about her identity, debuted in 1990 and would eventually encompass nine volumes. It caught the attention of James Cameron, who apparently heard of it from Guillermo Del Toro(!). For a while Cameron was committed to directing it, but eventually picked another project instead, which would eventually become Avatar, a little indie film that struggled at first to find an audience but would eventually become a cult favorite. Cameron’s attention as a director was thus diverted, but he was still on board as a producer, and after some time another director was found: Robert Rodriguez.

Robert Rodriguez fascinates me a little because he is either a true cinematic polymath, or he’s a weird little control freak, or maybe he’s a little bit of both at the same time. He directs movies. He also writes them, which is not that unusual for a director to do. But then also edits them, acts as director of photography, operates the cameras, composes the scores, does production design, sound design and produces visual effects. It’s possible he acts as crafts services on his sets, too, I just haven’t found the IMDb listing for it.

Rodriguez rather famously got his start in film with El Mariachi, the 1992 action movie he made for just $7,000, if you don’t count the hundreds of thousands of dollars Columbia Pictures put into its post-production and the millions it spent marketing it. But hey, they were the ones to spend that money! Rodriguez himself only spent $7k! When the legend is more interesting than the facts, go with the legend.

No matter what, however, the movie was made for next to nothing, and Rodriguez wrote, directed, shot and edited the film, setting the tone for future projects. He worked fast and tight and lean, and in this, he absolutely resembled the filmmakers from the New World Cinema and Cannon Films eras, who were given not a lot of time and not a lot of money to get their films into the can and into theaters. Prior to Alita, only one of Rodriguez’s films had a budget over $50 million (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, for $65 million), and nearly all of them made their production budgets back at the box office.

Is there a drawback to Rodriguez’s “fuck it, I’ll do it all myself” sort of sensibility? From a financial point of view, not really. From a creative presentation point of view… well, let’s just say Rodriguez does not lack for style, but you can feel when a corner is being cut, and he’s not always 100% percent in control of his film’s tone or his scripts. He’s mostly good, mostly fast, and mostly cheap, and also sometimes you get the feeling that along the way he says “good enough, print it” and moves on. If you’re a movie exec at a studio, you probably love this, because you know what? He’s probably right! And for what he spends on a movie, even when he’s not, you’re not out much. But that’s how you get the “second pick at the video store” vibe out a movie.

Which brings us back to Alita: Battle Angel. Rodriguez here is rather uncharacteristically credited only once, as director, but he also apparently did an uncredited pass on the script, paring it down from James Cameron’s original 180-page behemoth to something that could be watched without your bladder exploding before the third act (the final script is credited to Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis). The resulting script, however it was completed, is, charitably, disjointed. The progression Alita (Rosa Salazar) has from discarded android foundling to bounty hunter to rollerball athlete to avenging angel is telegraphed more than explained, and the forces she finds herself arrayed against, from bloodthirsty cyborgs to evil billionaires, never really gel into compelling menace. This is very definitely a “things happen because now is the time in the plot where they should happen” kind of movie. Corners, they be cut here!

If this bothers Rodriguez as a director, he gives no sign of it. He just keeps doing his job, shoving the story along, plot point to plot point, action set piece to action set piece. And you know what? His shoving mostly works! You’re not really given all that much time to wonder about the plot holes and omissions, because here’s Alita fighting cyborgs! Then kicking the ass of a whole bar full of cowardly bounty hunters! Then she’s off playing rollerball! (It’s not called rollerball, it’s “motorball,” but come on, there are roller skates and blood.) Rodriguez isn’t here to make much of his own mark visually — this is Jim Cameron’s (and the WETA effect house’s) world. He’s just here to direct traffic, with the biggest budget he’s ever had. He directs traffic just fine. It’s good enough. Print it.

What’s printed is all very heightened and melodramatic and maybe a little bit silly. It has the pulse and feel of a live action anime, because it pretty much is. In the janky 80s version of this film, all of the fight scenes would have been fought in a small dark room with chain link in it for some unfathomable reason, and the rollerball scenes would take place in a disused warehouse in San Pedro. Because it’s the 21st century and this movie has money behind it, we get the the widescreen CGI version with lots of destruction and chrome. The sets very much still feel like sets, though, just bigger, or at least extended by computers. Realism is not what they’re going for here.

Then there’s Rosa Salazar, who plays the title character. As with the Na’vi characters in James Cameron’s Avatar, Salazar’s Alita isn’t Salazar herself, it’s a performance capture. Salazar was on-set, acting the role, and then she was entirely painted out and replaced with a CG version of her character, one that has big anime eyes that skate her right up to the uncanny valley — which is the point for Alita, as she is not actually a human being but a cyborg. With that as a given, Salazar handles the progression from shy confused girl to badass warrior pretty well; what the script sort of slides over in terms of progression is given to her to perform. She provides the most nuanced performance in a film that does not exactly prize nuance.

(The other acting in this film ranges from perfunctory (Christoph Walz as the deceptively kindly doctor who finds Alita) to scene-chewing (Jackie Earle Haley as an improbably buff cyborg) to fluffy (Keean Johnson, as Alita’s love interest, whose hair in this film appears to have been stolen from a lesser Stamos brother). It is also weirdly packed with slumming Oscar winners, with Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali joining Walz in the “too much gold hardware for this film” category. Everybody’s gotta eat, I suppose.)

None of this is brilliant filmmaking, even if it is efficient, and much of it isn’t even necessarily good, but damned if I can’t stop watching it. This is a movie I put on when I want my eyes to see something that I don’t necessarily need to reach my brain — which again sounds like an insult but is not. Sometimes you have a day when you are just plain done, and you want something with pretty lights and cool action scenes and easy-to-follow emotional cues. If doesn’t entirely track on the level of plot or storytelling, well, you’re not in a state to complain about it anyway.

When you’re having one of those days, a little Alita will cure what ails you. Sometimes that second-pick video is the one that hits the spot.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/27/the-december-comfort-watches-2025-day-twenty-seven-alita-battle-angel/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58897

aethel

1. Fanlore: I was looking over new pages and saw one for Gerard Way/Patrick Stump. I thought I would add some livejournal links, but couldn't find much: gerard_patrick, which turned out to be a barely-used slash community for a different Gerard and Patrick, and two purged usernames not on the Wayback Machine so I can't verify whether they are Bandom communities (patrickxgerard and gerardpatrick). Were there ever any communities, primers, or reclists for this pairing?

Someone also created a new page for KJ Charles fandom and included a discord invite.

2. 2025 reading progress: 112 books.

Since my last post, I've finished four more novels, including one by a new-to-me author: The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi. It's a fantasy novella set in a desert, brutal, anti-authoritarian, possibly Marxist. I need to get my hands on the sequels. Most recently I finished After Hours at Dooryard Books, Cat Sebastian's latest novel. It is set in New York City 1968, but resonates with the present political moment. Nothing dramatic happens to any of the characters, at least not once they are introduced--they all have tragic backstories. Just 300+ pages of people minding a bookstore and not talking about their feelings while American history happens around them. I was genuinely riveted.

Currently reading: Native Nations and Slippery Creatures.

3. I read a new Starsky & Hutch fanfic: Cal's Lounge, Two Thirty-Six AM by triedunture. Highly recommend. It does feature the characters' very dated understanding of sexuality that I've seen mentioned on Fanlore pages--I don't know how accurate it is for real-life 1970s, but it is probably very in character for Starsky & Hutch.

luzula

Please check in here! It is late and I had a little alcohol, so I am too tired to write a proper post. Did not write. Will edit in the tally later. As for my farm news, we drank my homemade cherry wine, which came out great.

quillpunk posting in

booknook

r/fantasy MegaSale 2025

Dec 26-27

All books 99¢ or free. Each sale or download benefits the Mary Cariola Children's Center.

https://megasale.yrliu.com/

overmore posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

susandennis

Hazel has come into my apartment 3 times this week to ask me to fix her tablet. Three times I have said that I would all she has to do is bring it to me. No tablet yet. She downloads shit and then gets warnings from malware. I think if I ever see the tablet again, I'll find her solitaire games that she can play offline and then turn off her wifi access.

But, the big news is she said that John (her husband who can't turn on his computer) has ordered her a big cellphone. Probably a large size, off brand smart phone. "he got the big one so I can see the numbers". Hazel cannot work a traditional handset because she forgets how. There is no way in the world she will be able to operate a cellphone. She will be in here every time she tries to turn it on. John does not know how to operate a smart phone. He can barely manage his feature flip phone. This is going to get ugly fast. I think my game plan is to show her to to call our IT guys here at Timber Ridge.

Elbow Coffee was not as bad as it has been and not as good. But, it is over for another week.

I'm just tired of old people.

I did my Safeway run and it is really cold out. I have no reason to test it further. I might puzzle a bit and then settle in with some TV and knitting.

fleetingmelody

( Read more... )

fleetingmelody

( Read more... )

fleetingmelody

( Read more... )

fleetingmelody

( Read more... )

fleetingmelody

( Read more... )

china_shop

(Feel free to snag and/or adapt for other fandoms! Also, being me, I made rules ("pick one", "favourite") and then immediately broken them. *g*)

1. A fanwork you've read/looked at more than three times
- [Vid] Open Ocean by

sakana17 (Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan - so gorgeous)
- [Vid] Lost It All by

salamandras (Zhao Xinci & Zhao Yunlan - a vexercise! I particularly love the first version)
- [Art] Getting Comfortable [Explicit] by

facethestrange (Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan art, a glorious gift for me, did I mention explicit?)
ETA:
- [Vid] Hallucinogenics by Jill, Kathy, Kay - Zhao Yunlaaaaaan!!

2. A resource you've used lately (or "lately")
- Dramatis Personae (with cast list) by

extrapenguin
- SID Timeline by

rheasilvia
- Guardian timeline by

extrapenguin

3. A rarepair you would read
I'm fairly easy for trying out rarepairs. There are some characters I generally avoid "/" pairings for (in particular, Da Qing, Zhu Jiu, and Ye Zun come to mind), but I did read some delightful Lin Jing/Ye Zun fics over

guardian_wishlist, so clearly even that isn't a hard line. (Da Qing might be, though.)

A rarepair that I'd actively like to read more of is Chu Shuzhi &/ Zhao Xinci.

nnozomi wrote me one delightful fic for them [Mature], and it only whetted my appetite. *g*

( Continued behind the cut. )

Guardian meme 1. A fanwork you've read/looked at more than three times 2. A resource you've used lately (or "lately") 3. A rarepair you would read 4. The rarest pair you've written/created for (gut feel is fine; no need to check numbers) 5. Novel vs drama, if you had to choose 6. The first fic you read in the fandom (if you can't remember, one of the first is fine) 7. Ye Zun ships - yay or nay? 8. The most recent Guardian fanart you looked at 9. Did you participate in any Guardian-specific events in 2025? Which ones? 10. Opening credits vs closing credits death match: which do you choose? 11. Are you into any Guardian-adjacent fandoms? 12. Did you make any Guardian fanworks in 2025? How many? What was your favourite? 13. List three of your favourites of your own Guardian works (or other people's, if you'd prefer). 14. Pick a screencap

ao3_news_feed

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/33951

International Volunteer Day

On December 5, people all over the world observed International Volunteer Day (IVD) to acknowledge the work of volunteer workers everywhere, and their efforts, dedication, and passion. Since its conception in 1985, IVD has invited us to recognize the ways in which volunteers contribute to communities and are at the forefront of many people-led initiatives.

Here at the Organisation of Transformative Works (OTW) we depend entirely on that drive, as our organization is 100% volunteer-run! Our volunteers handle our strategic planning, administration, infrastructure, development, any day-to-day tasks required in running a non-profit organization, and so on. Volunteers aren't just the backbone of the OTW, they are its whole skeleton!

Have you ever wondered what a day in the life of an OTW volunteer looks like? The answer is: It's hard to say! Depending on where in the OTW they are active, their tasks and responsibilities can look very different from those of the next volunteer. Volunteers also work a very wide range of weekly hours, depending on their position(s) and availability: anything from one hour to over twenty hours a week!

For this IVD, we wanted to give you a chance to get to know those volunteers behind the scenes of the OTW and its projects. That is why we sent out a call across our social media for you to send us your most burning questions.

Here are some of those questions with answers from our volunteers!

Questions for Specific Committees

Question for the Policy & Abuse committee:
How often do you deal with people who want to censor something on AO3? Is it a common complaint?
Committee Answer:
AO3 frequently receives complaints about "offensive content", which includes suggesting that we should remove or censor content that is allowed on AO3. In the past five years, complaints about offensive content have consistently been one of the top three types of Policy & Abuse tickets, albeit not the largest. The Policy & Abuse committee regularly publishes a breakdown of the previous year's tickets, which for 2024 can be found here. Information about 2025's tickets will be available in a newsletter early next year.
Question for the Volunteers & Recruiting committee:
What types of things can be done by volunteers? I say this as someone who'd love to volunteer at some point in the future, but have no idea if I have any skill that would actually be helpful.
Committee answer:
The skill sets required from our volunteers depend a lot on the role: There are roles that require some kind of formal education or in-depth knowledge of a specific topic, such as being a lawyer or a financial analyst. Other roles, however, are teaching all required skills during the training period, so for those roles it mostly depends on being the "type" for the role. For us in VolCom (Volunteers & Recruiting Committee), it's more of the latter than the former; for example, our volunteers need to enjoy documentation work and ticking off tasks from to-do lists while being able to do work autonomously. There are many roles in the OTW that look for a specific type of person more than a person with a specific set of skills, or the skills are very transferable: Skills such as project management, navigating tricky interpersonal situations, dividing big-picture goals into actionable items, etc. If you keep an eye on our socials and the news posts, you will see us recruiting regularly. Each role comes with a position description that explains both what the volunteers in this role do, and what is required of applicants, so just watch out for a role that matches your skills and interests!

General Questions across Committees

How many hours a week do you spend on your OTW volunteer work?
For myself on Systems, it varies. I usually spend at least an hour a day between checking in on alerts, tickets, and responding to any inquiries from other committees internally. It usually ends up being more, as some of those requests are more involved than others. Any time there's an outage or issue, the number of hours usually goes much higher. (FrostTheFox, Systems committee chair)
How do you manage your volunteer time, and do you do the same thing every day like with a day job?
What I do each day varies based on what events are coming up for Board and the OTW! We may be working on research projects, preparing for a public Board meeting, replying to questions from the public, or many other things. The variety is a huge part of why I enjoy what I do honestly. I wouldn't enjoy it as much if it was the same every day. Volunteering for the OTW is nice because by and large, you get to pick what ours and schedule you'd like to have. I personally try and block out sections of my time to work on OTW-related tasks and do occasional checking in outside of this time. (therealmorticia, Board Assistants Team committee chair)
What's your favorite part about volunteering at the OTW?
Assisting AO3 users, most notably Vietnamese and Chinese users, in my capacity as Support volunteer. Some weeks when the stress from my other OTW roles catches up to me, doing Support work and answering Support tickets remind me of the reason why I started this whole endeavour in the first place: I want to give back to fandom and help AO3 users navigate the Archive a little bit easier. (Anh Pham, Support committee)
What's the aspect of volunteer work with the OTW that you most wish more people knew about?
Sometimes the things you think will be simplest are the hardest, and vice versa. Personally, I've had to nix features I really wanted myself because they just wouldn't be practical given our volume of users and current resources. (Accessibility, Design, & Technology committee volunteer)
What does a typical day as an OTW volunteer looks like for you?
I volunteer as an Open Doors Administrative Volunteer and as an Open Doors Chair Assistant. Both are project management-oriented roles: I help manage archive imports and the committee itself! I start my volunteering time by checking on the status of my archives, answering questions as they arise, making sure archive import tasks are progressing along - it's always something different! I also work on various projects for committee management, such as documenting workflows and new procedures or running weekly working meetings. (Kayla, Open Doors committee)
What is your favorite animal? Alternatively, do you have a favorite breed of cat/dog?
Aside from cats & dogs, my favorite animal is a sloth. They’re mood and they sound really funny (look it up on youtube!). Favorite dog breed is airedale terrier, because my boyfriend has one and she’s hilarious. She lives with his mom now that he’s studying/working in my city, and I’ve only seen her a few times, so I’m convinced she thinks I’m some sort of weird extension of my bf that just randomly appears every 6 months or so. (kati, Translation committee)
Do you enjoy reading fanfic? If so, what's your favorite work on AO3?
I do! Finding a favorite was the hardest thing I've ever done and I had to dig through my bookmarks, anything by author hanville would make the cut, to be honest, but my absolute favorite is mosaic broken hearts with this is me trying as a really, really close second. (Camila Lopez, Tag Wrangling committee)
Do you write any fanfic yourself? What do you enjoy about it?
I write so many fics. @.@ It's a lot of fun to explore favourite characters in new ways, and to get to expand the worlds in which they live. I'm also cursed to have very few fandoms in which my favourite characters or ships have a lot of content, so I end up having to make it all myself. (Fun fact: I actually found my partner due to a rare pair!) (C, AO3 Documentation committee)
What fandoms are you (currently) in?
Well, Heated Rivalry obviously. I'm also really into Fallout, The Pitt, and Formula 1 RPF. (I'm not even a sports person. I don't know how I ended up in sports RPF, yet here I am.) (Whatsit, Policy & Abuse committee)
Do you feel glad or proud to see fanfiction in your mother tongue? I grew up in German fandom, and I owe some German fandom writers a lot when it comes to my own existence in fandom. I very much stay away from it now lmao. I can't handle anything remotely smutty written in German, and some peculiarities of fanfiction that I can tolerate in English are a dealbreaker in German, as well as grammar and punctuation. I do love that it exists - fanfiction and fandom in general is an amazing space that should not be limited by the language one speaks. (corr, Volunteers & Recruiting committee)

(For more answers from our volunteers, check out this work on AO3, where we'll post additional replies to each question!)

We are exceedingly grateful to all volunteers who have taken time out of their day to compose answers, and for the amazing work they do at the OTW on a daily basis! They are the lifeblood of the OTW, AO3, and our other projects!

If you too want to become part of the OTW and help out as a volunteer, keep an eye on our recruitment posts! And if you're afraid of missing a post, no worries: You can subscribe to our monthly OTW News by Email service for a neat summary of what's currently happening at the OTW!

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/33951

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alchemicink

December 2025

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sandrine - I'm alive! And have watched two TV shows!
jazzyjj in awesomeers - Just one thing: 28 December 2025
in_seclusion - on becoming human
rmc28 - Shoresy (seasons 1-4)
cornerofmadness - I hope this augers well
sallymn in 1word1day - Sunday Word: Contemporaneous
erinptah - La Belle Sauvage mini-follow-up
scalziwhatever_feed - The December Comfort Watches 2025, Day Twenty-Seven: Alita: Battle Angel
aethel - misc. updates
luzula - Write every day: Day 27
quillpunk in booknook - [Sale Promotion] # r/fantasy MegaSale 2025
overmore in fandomcalendar - multifandom: rewrite-a-fic 2026
susandennis - 2026 whine preview
fleetingmelody - Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.15
fleetingmelody - Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.14
fleetingmelody - Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.13
fleetingmelody - Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.12
fleetingmelody - Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.11
china_shop - A Guardian Meme
ao3_news_feed - International Volunteer Day

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Page generated Dec. 28th, 2025 04:32 pm

alchemicink

Network

I'm alive! And have watched two TV shows!

Just one thing: 28 December 2025

on becoming human

Shoresy (seasons 1-4)

I hope this augers well

Sunday Word: Contemporaneous

La Belle Sauvage mini-follow-up

The December Comfort Watches 2025, Day Twenty-Seven: Alita: Battle Angel

misc. updates

Write every day: Day 27

[Sale Promotion] # r/fantasy MegaSale 2025

r/fantasy MegaSale 2025

multifandom: rewrite-a-fic 2026

2026 whine preview

Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.15

Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.14

Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.13

Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.12

Helios Main Story - Chapter Twenty-One: Polar Star - Part 2.11

A Guardian Meme

International Volunteer Day

Questions for Specific Committees

General Questions across Committees

Profile

December 2025

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