awesomeers | Member Posts

Dogs Build Their Vocabularies Like Toddlers

Basket the Border collie seems to have a way with words. The 7-year-old dog, who resides on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, knows the names of at least 150 toys — “froggy,” “crayon box” and “Pop-Tart,” among them — and can retrieve them on command.

The number is average. Most dogs can learn 100-200 words, typically 150-160. However, a majority of those are verbs like "sit" and "fetch." Nouns are less common, but most dogs learn a bunch of things like "food" and "leash." Having a vocabulary that is mostly nouns is uncommon.

Why a collie? Because people used to teach them the names of the sheep. "All in" is useful, but "Cut Molly" (out of the herd) is even more so.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today's theme is Led Zeppelin.

fanmix_monthly -- Mixtapes & Fanmixes
A fanmix is a compilation of songs inspired by a fannish source.
[Active with multiple posts in January.]

landoftheiceandsnow -- We Come From The Land of Ice and Snow
Led Zeppelin fanfiction archive.
[Active with one post in December.]

tfc_musicianships -- We Jammin'. We Are The Underground
Musicians, engineers, and others of the scene.
[Active with one post in January.]

thefreaksclub -- TFC // The Anti-Thesis Social Network
Everything related to darker alternative subcutlures. Discussion on books, the occult, music, & more.
[Active with multiple posts in January.]

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This poem came out of the October 7, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

siliconshaman and

chanter1944. It also fills the "Black / Orange" square in my 10-1-25 card for the Fall Festival Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Practical Magics.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

andersenmom

WayV are a part of NCT, and sing mostly in Mandarin. This might be where the disconnect comes with Ten, because he's part of this group. I don't actually remember what brought us to this one. It might have been a Halloween themed compilation, because this definitely has that vibe. I really like this song, and most of the others I've heard I like too.

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Dreaming - Kang Daniel

svgurl

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Challenge #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page
Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

I'm currently attempting to write a platonic Hanahaki fic, so I've been looking up different flowers and their meanings. The last website I was on was Alamanc - Flower Meanings, though the website itself is based off The Farmer's Almanac and has other information, such as gardening tips and recipes.

svgurl

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

Where do I even start? Fandom has been such a big part of my life and even when I thought I left, I seem to keep finding my way back and don't have any regrets over that. I remember discovering FFN and then LJ and creating my own in 2007. How weirdly nervous I felt about writing my first fanfic because while I used to write stories as a kid, I felt exposed and self conscious since it was my first time dealing with established characters and also my first fic happened to be m/m. I was 19, fairly sheltered growing up, and a lot naive. Smallville was a big fandom but I felt really welcomed. Sure, I landed myself in some drama now and then, and have said/done things that I wish I hadn't, but I made so many friends. Had way more wonderful, meaningful interactions, than ugly ones. Got to try things and learn things that I wouldn't have thought to if I hadn't joined in on fandom. Improved my writing naturally with practice. Got some great feedback - both kind and useful, over the years.

I was mostly in the one fandom so when the show ended, I gradually grew away from it, and life getting busier coincided with it. I did go back to reading fanfic but I thought I was done writing it. Until 2020. When the pandemic started and I began WFH, I suddenly felt the urge to write. Not just write but for my original fandom (Smallville), for my original ship (Clark/Oliver). I didn't know how I would fit in anymore or how to make friends. I felt like I was worse at it than I was back then.

But fandom may have changed, in look, in pace, in location, but it was still as welcoming as ever. I was able to reconnect with old friends. Find new friends. And even in recent times, get closer to a friend because of our shared fandom/ship! I got to run an AO3-based exchange (

rarefemslashexchange is on its fifth year! :D) and it always delights me both when new people join in and I can recognize older usernames.

I know I'll always be a little withdrawn - after all these years, I'm still shy about giving my real name online, but the people here have been supportive and accepting of the parts I'm willing to share. The community aspect and how all of us, so different from each other, and in various places all around the globe, can connect and meet and talk to people we would've never run into otherwise. It's a gift. It brings me joy. And I'm so glad I can be apart of it. I hope I can continue to be for as long as possible. :)

momijizukamori

A new year means time for one of my six posts a year here, lol. I'm most active on Bluesky at the moment but 90% of it is reposting TKRB fanart and replying to friends.

2025 was weird in that I kept being like 'wait how is it [date] already???' but also there is stuff where I'm like 'wait that was this year????'. Time, man. Anyway!

* Big thing this year - top surgery! Was early June, and everything went smoothly, so all the initial healing has been done for a few months and it's now the long tail of like, nerve regrowth and scar remodeling. I was also extremely lucky in that my health insurance covered basically all of it!
* Related to the above, I did my first truly shirtless cosplay at Dragon*Con, which was also my first time trying to do fake facial hair - Goro Majima from Yazuka for an 'oops all Majima group with friends'. We also got badge ribbons made to hand out for the first time.
* After years of refusing to care about 2.5D stuff, I made new sword friends at Katsucon who convinced me to give it a go and two months later I had watched basically all the Musical Touken Ranbu back catalogue and I now own more blu-rays that I'm sure I want to admit. Half the songs are like 'these lyrics are so dumb but this melody line slaps so hard'
* I bought a kit to copperplate 3d prints - I've only done a few small things so far, so my technique still needs a lot of refinement, but it's very neat to be able to basically turn things into actual metal.
* I took an intro blacksmithing class! It was offered through the community education program at a localish vocational high school and was very resonably priced. It was really need and got me interested in learning more, even if most of my creations from the class are extremely janky-looking (no, we didn't get to make knives, being at a school meant no weapons)
* Went outside the US for the first time in... probably close to a decade? Only as far as Montreal to visit family for Christmas, but look, the world's been weird. Managed to forget cellphone roaming was a thing, but we spent most of the time inside watching movies and playing with cats anyway.
* Got around to setting up my lathe, and turned one extremely messy test piece out of some scrap pine I had, then realized I needed better safety gear before getting more into it. So more to come on that this year hopefully.
* Signed up for an e-learning course on sewing machine servicing and maintenence, in part because the place I used to take my machines to closed and in part because I want to Learn All The Things.
* I finally saw Labyrinth. Yes, the 1986 Jim Henson film. Yes, I somehow managed to have not seen it before. It was delightful, I want most of Jareth's clothes, and afterwards we watched the making-of featurette filmed at the same time as the movie and it was super-cool to see all the stuff that went into the puppets and effects.
* Bought a smart ring in September, which feels hopelessly tech-bougie of me, but I wanted some fitness/heartrate tracking and the one I have (Oura) is particularly good at tracking sleep as well as having good privacy policies. We'll see how useful it ends up being.

ysabetwordsmith

Thanks to a donation from

fuzzyred, there are 10 new verses in "An Inkling of Things to Come." What if it rained diamonds for a week?

Current Mood: busy

shewhostaples

Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page

Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

I think my actual last page was APOD, which my feed reader seems to be showing a few days behind the times. And that's a pleasing thing to recommend, on the slim chance that someone hasn't encountered it before: it's interesting and beautiful.

For something that's probably more obscure, though I hadn't visited for a while, Hidden Europe is equally fascinating. The magazines got me through lockdown - deckchair travel in my back garden - and now the articles are going online one by one. People, places, train travel.

ysabetwordsmith

This year I'm doing Community Thursdays. Some of my activity will involve maintaining communities I run, and my favorites. Some will involve checking my list of subscriptions and posting in lower-traffic ones. Today I have interacted with the following communities...

Posted 10 Products to Help You Keep Your 2026 New Year’s Resolutions at

goals_on_dw.

Posted "Reading Challenges" on

25book_pwd.

Posted "Reading Challenges" on

50books_poc.

Commented under 01/07/26 on

abc_onceupon.

Commented under Hi There by

dr_zook on

friending_memes.
-- and under the comment thread by

tamena.
-- and under the comment thread by

forestofdreams.
-- and under the comment thread for

autumninpluto.
-- and under the comment thread for

adoptedwriter.

Commented under "Love Note to Quadrants" on

100quadrantedships.

Commented under "Love Note To The Sedoretu" in

40sedoretu.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy, chilly, breezy, and wet. It rained earlier, and has been spitting rain occasionally.

I fed the birds. I haven't seen any though.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/8/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 1/8/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

Now dozens of sparrows are suddenly mobbing the hopper feeder.

EDIT 1/8/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen some sparrows, and a larger dark-colored bird that may have been a starling or a grackle. The light was too low to tell exactly, even though it was on the metal tray feeder.

It's been spitting rain off and on. Heavier rain is forecast for tonight.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

andersenmom

From the

snowflake_challenge Community.

Hi. I'm Jill, she/her pronouns. I'm a mother of three grown children (the youngest is in his freshman year of college), one enby, on female, one male. I've been married for 23 years. We're still getting used to being empty nesters, and it's only been like five months. It feels so WEIRD.

I decided to do the Snowflake challenge this year because I miss actually writing. I haven't done much, I feel like; I started tracking days I wrote instead of words I wrote because it felt more doable. I miss writing, and I don't know why it's not going. Still, anything that will get me typing and thinking about what I want to write will help! Challenges have been a huge boost to me in the past, so I hope this one opens some doors I haven't tried yet.

Current Mood: crappy
Current Music: Ohmymy - TWS

andersenmom

TWS debuted at the beginning of 2024, from Pledis under Hybe - so the same company as Seventeen - with six members. TWS Means 24/7 with us but is pronounced "To us." Their debut song, Plot Twist, reminded me a lot of Boyfriend's Boyfriend, happy and upbeat, and cute. The boys are cute, young, and have great smiles.

( 44 )

Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: Ohmymy - TWS

forestofglory

Time to reflect a little on the media I read and watched in 2025. My reading goal for 2025 was “Reading Joyfully”. I think this worked out ok – I started out putting a lot of pressure on myself about it and stressing out, but then I backed off and used it as an excuse to think about how reading fits into my life these days.

I was somewhat hoping I could get back to really engaging with new to me SFF, and for the most part that didn’t happen. There were a couple of weeks in there where I was sleeping way better than I generally manage these days and I read several new to me books! It was great! So I think part of my problem is that I’m just not well rested enough to engage with new to me stuff very much. Which is sad, but pushing isn’t going to make me happy either.

Then after the thing with the flood damage, when the whole house was a mess, I was struggling to focus on much of anything. I ended up just reading a ton of fic, so much fic.* Which has been delightful. The comfort of the same thing again but different this time is really not appreciated enough by critics. This reading phase has been very joyful!

In 2025 I read even fewer books than I read the last several years (57) but unlike the last couple of years I don’t feel bad about it. Which was the real point of my reading joyfully goal. I’m more at peace with who I am as a reader these days and that’s really nice, even if I might never be the same kind of reader I was before the pandemic happened.

Another trend that defined my 2025 media was crossdressing girls. I love, love, love the trope of girls who disguise themselves and boys to go out into the world and do things that they wouldn’t be allowed to do. This is a trope that English language media hasn’t really been doing much with recently, but luckily for me it's popular in Asian dramas. It’s such a comfort trope for me, and I decided to really dive into this trope and watched many dramas featuring it. (And read a couple of books too)

I also continue to watch many silly Chinese reality shows, another thing that I find relaxing. Media has really was a source of comfort for me in 2025.

In terms of goals for 2026, I’m going to continue to not have a numerical goal for total books. I find those more stressful than fun. Having a theme for my media last year worked out really well though so for the first quarter of 2026 my media theme is going to be “comfort” . Then I can see I want to keep that theme or change at the end of the quarter. I also want to push myself a bit harder on reading Mandarin so I’m going to make it a goal to read six graded readers this year, which feels very doable.

*Me, very stressed out: I’ll just read this cute sounding fic in a fandom I’m not in. It will be relaxing. Me, several days, and I don’t know how many fics in that fandom latter: I guess I have a new fandom now, opps?

silveradept

snowflake_challenge posted their fourth prompt, and I had to look at it a couple times before I started getting close to an understanding of what was being asked for.

On many of the fannish websites we use, our history is easily compileable into "pages". When we look back through those pages, sometimes we stumble upon things that we think are rather cool.

Challenge #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page

Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

( Here's where I admit I don't use fannish websites all that much. )

Current Mood: refreshed
Current Music: Infinte Rivals - Dive to Heart (Third Inception)

tjs_whatnot

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

Challenge #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page
( 7 Very Old Fics and 1 Very Recent )

svgurl

Challenge #2: Pets of Fandom
Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!

I don't have any pets of my own. Dogs are cute, but ever since I was a kid, I was more into cats. However, my parents didn't want a pet and to be honest, I'm self aware enough to know that I wouldn't be able to take care of one. The first apartment we lived in when we moved to California was nice in the sense that there were other people with pets my sister and I could play with. Our upstairs neighbor had four cats and two dogs! They were all very sweet.

My favorite fictional pet is definitely Salem from Sabrina The Teenage Witch. That sarcastic cat was really funny and definitely one of the best parts of the show. I also have a soft spot for Luna from Sailor Moon. I watched Homeward Bound way too many times and I love all three of them but Sassy was the best.

And of course, Shelby from Smallville (see icon). That dog was adorable and I was always happy when they let him pop in. He literally saved Clark's life! And he had good taste, because he liked Lois right away, even when Lois was ... apprehensive. My sister still calls him "Clarkie" though!

As far as my current fandom goes, I'm not trying to fall into stereotypes but I do stand by the belief that they should let Buck get a dog (so close in s8!) and Eddie get a cat. It would be adorable. :)

monksandbones

I just got back from the first curling game (and post-game beer) of the second half of the season for my Wednesday night Open League, and I have to do some dishes and go to bed very soon, but I must sneak in a little entry for today's

snowflake_challenge challenge #4 before I go.

Alas for the curling, my team lost. I made some shots, but overall I didn't play very well. Hopefully soon I'll get all the bad shots out of my body, and in the meantime, I'll dine on the sick shot I made to win our game for my Rookie League team last Sunday. Possibly I'm going to have to go to open practice ice one of these Saturdays, though!

Anyway,

snowflake_challenge. Challenge #4 is: Challenge #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page

Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

My last page, before I got to the challenge entry on my reading page, was the Greater Victoria Public Library page, where I was checking my position on the hold list for Heated Rivalry. I'm up to #2. Fingers crossed for this weekend! For most of you, my local library will not be your local library, and I'm sure I hardly need to say this for this crowd, but I do recommend your local library!

My other recommendations, perhaps at the "something a bit more eccentric" end of things, are some curling go-tos. For curling scores from all the events (ALL THE EVENTS) and rankings for all the teams with word curling rankings (ALL THE TEAMS), there's Curlingzone. Are their news reports up to date? No! Is their website user-friendly? Also no! But are the scores for, again, ALL THE EVENTS and rankings for again, ALL THE TEAMS there? OH HELL YES!

Also, for pro curling, there's the Grand Slam of Curling website, bringing you media and live and on-demand streaming from the Grand Slam of Curling pro curling tour, and the soon-to-be pro curling Rock League!

ysabetwordsmith

beavertech has posted the January batch of sponsored poems. :D

"So Many Words for Wood" on

first_nations_freaks

"The Infinity of Acorns" on

scienceworld

"Birds and Snow" on

the_magick_circle

"A Piecemeal Apocalypse" on

thefreaksclub

Current Mood: accomplished

sixbeforelunch

Snowflake Challenge: A mug of coffee or hot chocolate with a snowflake shaped gingerbread cookie perched on the rim sits nestled amidst a softly bunched blanket. A few dried orange slices sit next to it.

Challenge #3: Write a love letter to fandom.

John Green says of going to home games for AFC Wimbledon, "I'm with 8,000 people whose love is oriented in the same direction as mine." That, to me, is fandom. It's a group of people who have oriented their love in a similar direction, whether that's toward a show or an actor or a band or a character or a hobby or something else entirely. (Honestly, love oriented in the same direction might be foundational to almost all human-built institutions, and the problem with some of them is that the object of their love doesn't inspire pro-social behavior, but that's outside the scope of this post.) It doesn't matter what the object of the love is so much as the way that all that love aimed at a similar place amplifies itself, like vector multiplication.

The funny thing is, the way I do fandom these days, It's almost less about the object of the fandom and more about the idea of fandom, the love and the passion it inspires. Which is not to say that I'm not in some fandoms. I'm very active in Star Trek fandom, and love hanging out with people who love it with me. It's always fun to find people who share some of my other current interests like Sherlock Holmes, Murder She Wrote, Superman, and Jane Austen, or to reminisce happily with people who remember the loves that I'm less active in but still remember fondly like X-Files and Stargate.

But there are definitely people in fandom spaces with whom I share no fandoms, and I still enjoy their company, because they're doing the fandom thing too. That is, they're passionate about something, and so passionate that they want to talk about the thing, and make more of the thing, and put their joy and passion into the world so that other people can share it. Elsewhere on this year's snowflake, someone mentioned how much they love seeing someone be passionate about something, even if they don't share that passion. I like that. It is a joy to see humans be happy and excited about things they love, and to be unabashedly passionate about them.

Let people enjoy things has become a meme, almost a cliche, but that's because it so often needs to be said. Fandom at its best is a safe place where people are allowed to enjoy things without mockery or disdain, and in a world where that is all too often not the case, that's a very valuable thing.

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Own Your Awesome!

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Animal Communication

Follow Friday 1-9-26: Led Zeppelin

Poem: "The Two Cottages"

Fannish50 #45: WayV - Phantom

snowflake challenge #4

snowflake challenge #3

2025

New verses in "An Inkling of Things to Come"

Snowflake Challenge: day 4

Community Thursdays

Birdfeeding

Snowflake challenge #1

Fannish50 #44: TWS - Plot Twist, Ohmymy:7s

2025 in Review: Media!

Snowflake Challenge 02026 #4: Page File

Snowflake Challenge #4

snowflake challenge #2

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New Poems

snowflake day 3: a love letter to fandom

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