January 2026

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Friday, February 20th, 2026 11:04 am
 Avoiding the temptation to just read a little more canon... 

 How goes it out there?
Friday, February 20th, 2026 03:43 pm
What would be involved in setting up a fake VPN service to gather intelligence on a criminal organisation?

Would this essentially be a VPN where the relay saves a copy of the traffic? Everything I've found to read on the internet assumes more knowledge of tech and jargon than I have. Could a choice of servers in different countries be faked? A UI seems easy enough, but what about the ISP it connects to? If it was simply a gateway to a real VPN, would the real VPN notice? Could it at some point send a second copy elsewhere without being noticed?

This could be a scheme the character is pondering near the end, so it doesn't have to work - it could simply be trying to find solutions to some of the concerns. He has a habit of staring out the window late at night mulling over such things. He really wants to be able to build a phone case with a rechargeable listening device but we've gotten lost on the physics of discretely charging it from the phone.

There's the social infrastructure to make it appear legit, website & fake reviews and social engineering to get them to bite. I've already written this for a different operation, not in great detail but enough for my purposes. If faking a VPN is feasible, I'd probably replace the existing scheme in those scenes with this one. But the marketing email may be more along the lines of "Police and governments can't subpoena a service they don't know exists" with a link to the dark web.

Please be careful with how much detail and tech-speak you throw at me, my health is poor and I am easily overwhelmed. If this is a rubbish idea, please be kind in putting it down.

Thank you for any help.

Friday, February 20th, 2026 05:28 pm
This is only locked in case the details I share are identifying.
I've added a tag so that you can find the posts easily.

I am still teaching the "French as a foreign language" beginners. My poor students will have an evaluation after the holidays, but I think 2 of them will be promoted to the intermediate class afterwards.

The search for new volunteers also continues. There have been several false hopes. I have only found one volunteer for sure. Another one is in the process of joining us and has taught elsewhere before, so I think there's a good chance she won't disappear on us. What seems to be working the best are specialised websites (like JeVeuxAider.gouv.fr here in France), not social media. I expected the opposite. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The ad at the library hasn't provided any results either.
Friday, February 20th, 2026 10:23 am
 Escaped from the meeting, thankfully!

 Trying to convince myself I don't need to reread the whole last third of canon when I am writing a Canon Divergence AU and can just :: wave hands ::

 How goes the pursuit of the words and/or Friday quitting time, fellow Rushers?
Friday, February 20th, 2026 03:45 pm
I have been listening to the Big Finish parts of the big multimedia Doctor Who thingy from back in 2020.
... the chatty bits afterwards are all people saying how weird it is recording at home in their little improvised studios and I may have wound myself up a bit about that era. It's so weird everyone being upbeat about the technology and cheerful about needing to call people who could work from home and then just talking about the acting of it all.

https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-time-lord-victorious-short-trips-master-thief-lesser-evils-2260
https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-time-lord-victorious-he-kills-me-he-kills-me-not-2257
https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-time-lord-victorious-the-enemy-of-my-enemy-2258
https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-time-lord-victorious-mutually-assured-destruction-2259
https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-time-lord-victorious-echoes-of-extinction-2262

are the ones I listened to. they did a skip between enemy of my enemy and mutually assured destruction which the chatty bits insisted works quite well because one ends with setting out to work together and the next begins with everything on fire and you can in fact accurately guess all the context you need from there.

I'm going to listen to this one next https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-time-lord-victorious-genetics-of-the-daleks-2354 but I am not doing great at finding all the parts and listening in order so I think that was meant to be listened already.


I like the ambition of a big interlinked story but I mislike the experience of not knowing what is going on so you see the problem. I liked the parts of the story but I do not quite get how to get all the parts. The Big Finish bits work well together and I feel I understand the shape of the set up but. Well. Puzzlement ensues as soon as I zoom out a bit. Big picture is... not.

Which is fine, it's like reading comics crossovers when they never arrive in order and the shop doesn't get all the parts.
... which was never my favourite thing either.

So! I have no complaints about the stories I have got, they were fun to quite good, but the stories I don't got are... trickier.

Enjoyed these, liked hearing the Torchwood audio actors be in different parts, but on the whole prefer to collect All The Things.




(also the power tools in the hall thing was still ongoing today but I listened to the audios mostly successfully anyway, so that was progress. though I look forwards to them being done.)
Friday, February 20th, 2026 09:03 am
 Posting before I am trapped in a meeting.  May everyone else evade meetings and find words (except for fun ones like "Per my last email...")!
Friday, February 20th, 2026 08:18 am
 I am thinking about non-work words, have a piece I need to finish by tomorrow.

 Do we maybe need to apply more coffee?
Friday, February 20th, 2026 09:03 am
Since this is, I think, relevant to the interests of more than a few DW friends: National Theatre will be streaming the Ncuti Gatwa Importance of Being Earnest on YouTube (free!) from March 12-18, before adding it to the National Theatre at Home streaming service!!!
Friday, February 20th, 2026 08:51 am
It’s been three months since I last posted a hobby update, partly because the hobbies have been on hiatus lately. It’s been cold and gray and dark, and after doing so well getting up early for tea and cross stitch in November and December, I’ve slipped back into my slovenly old ways of dragging myself out of bed at the last possible moment.

Also my right shoulder has been acting up, which has impacted my ability to play dulcimer or cross stitch. I have finished but one of the adorable cross stitch advent tags for next year’s Picture Book Advent. And actually I’ve only finished the cross-stitching part; it still needs to be sewn to a felt backing in order to become a true tag.

However, I did manage to decorate MANY paper hearts to brighten up my office door. In fact, I made so many that I took the overflow hearts home to decorate the Hummingbird Cottage, with the intention of making yet more, but then I ran out of steam… However, even this moderate sprinkling of hearts brightened the place up, especially since I’m the fortunate possessor of four Valentine-themed dish towels and six Valentine cloth napkins (black fabric with red and pink hearts, striking).

I have St. Patrick’s Day napkins too, but my search has so far not turned up any St. Patrick’s Day dishtowels. However, I’ve been cutting out paper shamrocks at a remarkable rate, so hopefully the plethora of shamrocks will overcome any defects in the dish towel area. Should perhaps consider a few leprechauns too?

I’ve also been looking through my trusty Irish cookbook and have been thinking it’s time to make lemon curd again, plus perhaps try my hand at brown bread ice cream. (Sprinkle brown bread crumbs with brown sugar, bake till toasty, then fold into softened vanilla ice cream. Crunchy and caramelly, apparently.) Plus of course I’ll be making my usual round of Guinness stew.

After St. Patrick’s Day, I’m thinking the office door will segue to a general spring theme that can last through graduation at the beginning of May. Flowers, probably. But what kind? Paper tulips and daffodils? A crabapple tree in full bloom? (I believe this could be stunning but would require me to cut out MANY pink flowers.) A torrent of general mixed flowers?

For the Hummingbird Cottage I’d also like to do some decorations on a more specifically Easter theme. I have a vision of cut paper pysanki eggs, which may be beyond my somewhat limited paper-cutting skills. But you never know till you try.
Friday, February 20th, 2026 07:12 am
Fandom: Duang with You
Mods please use the f: tv (category) tag
Rating: T
Length: 100 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: The title is from I FELT THE SUNLIGHT by Wang Xiaoni, translated by an unknown Chinese translator with Simon Patton. (Note re canon: I did previously read the novel, but I’m calling this the tv series that’s fresh in my mind.)
Summary: Duang, as always, is besotted.

Read more... )
Friday, February 20th, 2026 07:07 am
 Unfortunately all the words are work-related this hour!

 How goes everyone else?
Friday, February 20th, 2026 06:09 am
 My first negative hour posting, getting ready for the work day (and whatever crises are waiting on that computer).

 Is anyone else out there finding words or just trying to get prepared for the day?
Friday, February 20th, 2026 08:45 pm
Hiratsuka Raicho was born in 1886 in Tokyo, the daughter of a well-to-do senior government official who had studied in Europe; her birth name was Haruko. She graduated from Japan Women’s College (developing a lifelong interest in Zen meditation while a student) in 1906. The next few years were spent studying English and Japanese literature at various schools (including the Eigakujuku founded by Tsuda Umeko), where she studied writing with Ikuta Choko and Morita Sohei. In 1908 Haruko and Morita plunged into a rapidly developing love affair, culminating in an attempt at a love-suicide which it turned out neither of them could bring themselves to go through with. This created an enormous scandal (causing Haruko’s father to lose his job and estranging them until her children were born years later), especially when Morita wrote a novel about it.

In 1911, upon Ikuta’s suggestion that she found a literary magazine run entirely by women, she consulted with her sister’s friend Yasumori Yoshiko and formed an initial editorial board of herself, Yoshiko, Nakano Hatsuko, Kiuchi Teiko, and Mozume Kazuko. The funding for their first issue came from what would have been Haruko’s dowry, handed over by her resigned but supportive mother Tsuya. The magazine was christened Seito [Bluestocking], and Naganuma Chieko drew the illustration for the cover of the inaugural issue, which included a poem by Yosano Akiko and Haruko’s own essay on the theme of “In the beginning, woman was the Sun,” which became a classic of Japanese feminist literature on the spot. The essay called for women’s genius to be released from the strictures of a patriarchal society. It was at this time that she began using the penname Raicho, “thunderbird” or rock ptarmigan.

Other supporters included Hasegawa Shigure, Okada Yachiyo, Mori Shige, and Koganei Kimiko; contributors and assistants included Tamura Toshiko, Nogami Yaeko, Mizuno Senko, Otake Kokichi, Senuma Kayo, Kamichika Ichiko, Ito Noe, Mikajima Yoshiko, and Okamoto Kanoko. Raicho was the moving force, organizing an edition dedicated to discussion of Ibsen’s Nora and her ramifications as well as lecture series and other events. The Bluestocking women became notorious not only for their literary and activist work but also for the “Five-Colored Alcohol Incident” (in which Kokichi went out to a fashionable bar and drank fancy cocktails) and for their in-person observation of the Yoshiwara red-light district (where Raicho chatted with a woman who had attended the same elementary school), identifying them as “decadents,” modern feminists, New Women, distinct from traditional good girls. This era apparently saw a record number of “Noras,” daughters and young wives leaving home with no warning. Raicho took up the gauntlet without hesitation, adding translations of texts by Ellen Key and Emma Goldman to her magazine. Articles by the activist Fukuda Hideko and by Raicho herself earned publication bans from the government.

Raicho spent 1911 and 1912 in a relationship with the “boyish” Kokichi, who liked to affect masculine dress (there is relatively little to be found about this in histories of Raicho, especially in Japanese). In 1914 she moved in with the artist Okumura Hiroshi, nicknamed the “little swallow” because he was (gasp, shock, horror) three years younger than she was. She continued to insist on a common-law marriage until 1941, when wartime asperities made it more convenient to marry officially. In her eyes the relationship was a part of her refusal to engage in the “good wife, wise mother” style of marriage which restricted women’s freedom, but many of the older women in her vicinity, Akiko included, saw it as a feckless young artist leeching off the older and (somewhat) more together Raicho.

Distracted by pregnancy and Okumura’s illness, Raicho passed on editorship of Bluestocking to Ito Noe in 1915; the magazine lasted another year and a bit. Raicho herself later worked as a critic, raised two children (Akemi, born in 1915, and Atsufumi in 1917, both on Raicho’s family register rather than Okumura’s), and engaged in debates on motherhood with Akiko, Yamakawa Kikue, and Yamada Waka. In 1920, she founded the New Women’s Association along with Ichikawa Fusae and Oku Mumeo, fighting for women’s suffrage and greater support for mothers, specifically for an amendment to Article 5 of the Peace Police Law, which prohibited women’s political participation, and a law restricting marriage for men with venereal disease. The former demand was realized two years later (although the latter never came about). With the support of well-known male writers including Sakai Toshihiko, Mori Ogai, and Arishima Takeo, the new Association thrived and Raicho resorted to Western dress to save time amid lecture tours and articles. Three years later she cut her hair (or rather had Okumura cut it for her), becoming the image of the short-bobbed Modern Girl (although her original purpose was to cure her chronic headaches).

Raicho devoted herself after the war to working for world peace through women’s organizations, including opposition to the Vietnam War. She remained the main household breadwinner, albeit with financial support from her birth family. Okumura died in 1964, and Raicho followed him in 1971 at the age of eighty-five.

Sources
Mori 1996; Mori 2008; Tanaka
https://aaww.org/raicho-hiratsuka-beginning-woman-sun/ (English) Brief history of Raicho in comic form
[I can’t find a translation of her fundamental article online, but there is a lot of English material available concerning Raicho via a quick google]
Friday, February 20th, 2026 08:42 pm
Title: The one that got away
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,694 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 506 - Melt
Summary: Jack thought he had their alien under wraps.

Read more... )
Friday, February 20th, 2026 06:56 am
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!
Friday, February 20th, 2026 06:15 am
Anything to report?

I’ve only just woke up so it’ll be a wee while before I attempt any words.
Friday, February 20th, 2026 12:12 am
We seem to have pretty much gotten through our latest rewrite on this scene... now to see how it affects the rest of the story? Or perhaps go to bed. I haven't decided. What about everyone else?
Thursday, February 19th, 2026 11:33 pm
The good news is The Unseen definitely has enough shippy footage for me to make a femslashy fanvid! The bad news is now I need a song (and nothing's quite clicking at the moment).