It's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.

( 24: Gamer )

Here are the character notes for "A Human Scale, Full-Featured Settlement" Part 4 Last 13.

( Read more... )

Here are the character notes for "A Human Scale, Full-Featured Settlement" Part 3 Group of 11

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All That Means or Mourns by Ruthanna Emrys. I really love how Ruthana Emrys thinks about community and connection and the natural world. "Transformed by a broad-spread fungal infection that connects humans with nature, one woman feels closer to the world than ever, but further from the people she loves the most…"

Here are the character notes for "A Human Scale, Full-Featured Settlement" Part 2 Ecovillage Founders

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Here are the character notes for "A Human Scale, Full-Featured Settlement" Part 1 Soups.

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This poem came out of the May 7, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from siliconshaman and wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "Crisis" square in my 5-1-24 card for the Superhero Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Big One and Kraken threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.

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I think that I've said this elsewhere: whatever you're celebrating or otherwise observing at this time of year, I hope that the Occasion(s) will be kind to you and yours.

Leaving it at that for tonight.

The 2025 Yuletide collection is revealed (and I managed to finish this with a slight delay), and many of us love to read more than just our own gifts and treats. If gamification is your thing, why not enhance your Yuletide reading experience with a fun challenge?

Yuletide Reading Bingo
Yuletide Reading Bingo 2025 (Permanent link to the 2025 version)

Yuletide Reading Bingo 2023 (Permanent link to the 2023 version)
Yuletide Reading Bingo 2024 (Permanent link to the 2024 version)

With this bingo card generator, you can generate your own Yuletide Reading Bingo Card and try to finish it over a timespan of your choice. If you like, you can challenge yourself to not only reading the fics, but also commenting on them. Last year, I saw people making reclists based on their bingo cards, which is such a cool idea to keep track of the fics they read for each square.

There are no fanfic/fandom/Yuletide-negative or bashing items in the lists. This bingo card is meant to be a positive experience and celebrate fanfiction and fanworks in general and Yuletide in specific.

Screenshot of the Desktop Version

Screenshot of the Mobile Version

How to Play

Generate a new bingo card until you're (mostly) happy with the results. If some fields are duplicates or contain items you don't want to have in your card, you can then re-roll every single bingo field separately by clicking/tapping on it.
Once you have a card that fits your reading habits (or that takes you out of your comfort zone, if you want to challenge yourself), take a screenshot of the card to keep it.

Closing the page and reloading it will reset the card.

Cross off the bingo fields on your screenshot as you read (or read and comment on) fics that you think count for a field.

Items like "Fandom with over 500 works" mean works in the fandom tag, not in the collection. There are specific versions for the number of works in the collection.
Items like "Fandom with over 1,000 works" doesn't mean qualifying works. There are specific versions for the number of qualifying works.
Items like "Highest number of hits in fandom" or similar however mean in this collection, not in the fandom tag.

If a work you read has a tag that's similar but not identical to a tag on your card, let it count. There were some almost-duplicates that I trimmed.

The Lists

• Canon (options like canon released this year, book fandom, etc)
• Category (the AO3 categories and their platonic versions: F/F, F & F Gen, etc)
• Challenge (the unofficial mini-challenges like Yuleporn, Crueltide, Wrapping Paper, etc)
• Creator (only if you checked the "After Reveals" box; options like favourite author, mutuals, etc)
• Discovery (various ways you could've found a fic)
• Fandom (options like previously ineligible fandom, uncategorised fandom)
• Length (wordcounts from drabble to 30k)
• Meta (a fic's front-end and stats, also "citrus scale for rating" xD
• Protagonist (and side-characters, and POV; new list in 2025 that adds items like "female/non-binary/gender-neutral/male protagonist", various POVs and such)
• Reader (your relationship with the fic; is it your comfort fic, or your first fic in a fandom?)
• Style (chatfic, iambic pentameter, custom workskin, stuff like that)
• Tag (roughly 1,800 tags from the 2024 main collection; more than 100 additional tags Madness)
• Trope (roughly 100 tropes)

What do the Checkboxes Mean?

• NSFW is basically what it says on the tin. If you tick this box, the NSFW tropes will be added to the mix. If you also ticked the Tags box, NSFW tags will be added.
• Tags is also what it says on the tin. It's a list with currently roughly 1,800 tags from the Yuletide 2025 main collection. Around 300 of them are currently marked NSFW and can only be generated if you ticked both the NSFW box and the Tags box.
• After Reveals includes items that only make sense after creator reveals, such as "work by last year's recipient" or "creator is your Tumblr mutual".

Leaving the NSFW checkbox unchecked should remove all NSFW tags and tropes, but you could still come across content you find objectionable. Leaving the Tags checkbox unchecked removes all tags, but you could still come across tropes you find objectionable.

This bingo generator can be used to generate totally safe-for-work or family-friendly bingo cards, but it was created by an adult with an adult audience in mind.

If you run into any issues or come across any bugs, please let me know.
If you find something that should be in the NSFW category, but isn't, please also let me know. It's possible that I missed a few tags when I worked through the list of over 2,000 tags in the 2025 main collection. Please don't ask me to remove content you find objectionable.
If there's anything unclear, feel free to ask! I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible, but please understand if it takes a while; it's a busy time for all of us. :D

Just FYI, the platform I'm using, Perchance, added AI options for their generators two years ago. This is a regrettable decision that I don't condone, and I'd like to emphasise that this generator is 100% handcrafted chaos.

This generator is based on my Fanfiction Reading Bingo I made as a little practice piece. It's responsive, which means it should work on desktop and mobile. The mobile layout isn't ideal yet; I'm trying my best to make it better (but I'd also still consider myself a newbie and I'm learning by doing).

The background image is an edited version of this photo by Stijn Verplancke on Unsplash.

I hope you'll find as much fun in using this generator as I found in making it! <3

Have a lovely Yuletide!

What if there’s no ethical way to have unlimited access to every book, film, and record ever created? And moreover, what if that’s not something we should want?

What if we simply decided to consume less media, allowing us to have a deeper appreciation for the art we choose to spend our time with? What if, instead of having an on-demand consumer mindset that requires us to systematically strip art of all its human context, we developed better relationships with creators and built new structures to support them? What if we developed a politics of refusal — the ability to say enough is enough — and recognized that we aren’t powerless to the whims of rich tech CEOs who force this dystopian garbage down our throats while claiming it’s “inevitable?”

Tapes and other physical media aren’t a magic miracle cure for late-stage capitalism. But they can help us slow down and remember what makes us human. Tapes make music-listening into an intentional practice that encourages us to spend time connecting with the art, instead of frantically vibe-surfing for something that suits our mood from moment-to-moment. They reject the idea that the point of discovering and listening to music is finding the optimal collection of stimuli to produce good brain chemicals.

—Why I Quit Streaming And Got Back Into Cassettes by Janus Rose

"Good tidings we bring, to you and your kin. We wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!"



Thanks for following along with the advent dragons, I appreciate the comments very much :)

2025 Dec 24: ScienceDaily [press release?]: "Scientists reverse Alzheimer’s in mice and restore memory":

By examining both human Alzheimer's brain tissue and multiple preclinical mouse models, the team identified a key biological failure at the center of the disease. They found that the brain's inability to maintain normal levels of a critical cellular energy molecule called NAD+ plays a major role in driving Alzheimer's. Importantly, maintaining proper NAD+ balance was shown to not only prevent the disease but also reverse it in experimental models.

Continuing from the article:

NAD+ levels naturally decline throughout the body, including the brain, as people age. When NAD+ drops too low, cells lose the ability to carry out essential processes needed for normal function and survival. The researchers discovered that this decline is far more severe in the brains of people with Alzheimer's. The same pattern was seen in mouse models of the disease.

[...]

Amyloid and tau abnormalities are among the earliest and most significant features of Alzheimer's. In both mouse models, these mutations led to widespread brain damage that closely mirrors the human disease. This included breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, damage to nerve fibers, chronic inflammation, reduced formation of new neurons in the hippocampus, weakened communication between brain cells, and extensive oxidative damage. The mice also developed severe memory and cognitive problems similar to those seen in people with Alzheimer's.

[...]

This approach built on the group's earlier work published in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences USA, which showed that restoring NAD+ balance led to both structural and functional recovery after severe, long-lasting traumatic brain injury. In the current study, the researchers used a well-characterized pharmacologic compound called P7C3-A20, developed in the Pieper laboratory, to restore NAD+ balance.

The results were striking. Preserving NAD+ balance protected mice from developing Alzheimer's, but even more surprising was what happened when treatment began after the disease was already advanced. In those cases, restoring NAD+ balance allowed the brain to repair the major pathological damage caused by the genetic mutations.

Both mouse models showed complete recovery of cognitive function. This recovery was also reflected in blood tests, which showed normalized levels of phosphorylated tau 217, a recently approved clinical biomarker used to diagnose Alzheimer's in people. These findings provided strong evidence of disease reversal and highlighted a potential biomarker for future human trials.

Note, potential conflict of interest: the head of the lab, Dr Pieper, above, has a serious commercial interest in this proving out:

The technology is currently being commercialized by Glengary Brain Health, a Cleveland-based company co-founded by Dr. Pieper.

The actual research article:

2025 Dec 22: Cell Reports Medicine [peer-reviewed scientific journal]: Pharmacologic reversal of advanced Alzheimer's disease in mice and identification of potential therapeutic nodes in human brain by Kalyani Chaubey et al. (+35 other authors!):

Abstract:

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is traditionally considered irreversible. Here, however, we provide proof of principle for therapeutic reversibility of advanced AD. In advanced disease amyloid-driven 5xFAD mice, treatment with P7C3-A20, which restores nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) homeostasis, reverses tau phosphorylation, blood-brain barrier deterioration, oxidative stress, DNA damage, and neuroinflammation and enhances hippocampal neurogenesis and synaptic plasticity, resulting in full cognitive recovery and reduction of plasma levels of the clinical AD biomarker p-tau217. P7C3-A20 also reverses advanced disease in tau-driven PS19 mice and protects human brain microvascular endothelial cells from oxidative stress. In humans and mice, pathology severity correlates with disruption of brain NAD+ homeostasis, and the brains of nondemented people with Alzheimer's neuropathology exhibit gene expression patterns suggestive of preserved NAD+ homeostasis. Forty-six proteins aberrantly expressed in advanced 5xFAD mouse brain and normalized by P7C3-A20 show similar alterations in human AD brain, revealing targets with potential for optimizing translation to patient care.

Full text here: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(25)00608-1

What are you thankful for this week?
· Photos are optional but encouraged.
· Check-ins remain open until the following week's post is shared.
· Do feel free to comment on others' check-ins but don't harsh anyone else's squee.

Hello, Yuletiders–as you may have noticed, the anonymous setting on the Yuletide collection, which should hide all author names until reveals on January 1st, does not seem to be working as expected, and shortly after our planned works reveals, we had an unplanned reveal of author names. We’re very sorry for this unexpected breaking of anonymity!

We’re reaching out to AO3 to help us resolve the problem. In the meantime, we have updated all works manually, and author names should now be hidden again. If you notice we have missed any, please reach out to us privately at yuletideadmin@gmail.com.

Again, our apologies–and we hope you enjoy the collection!

Yuletide Madness is scheduled to reveal at 9 PM UTC on 25 December, but this may be delayed if necessary to ensure author anonymity.

ETA: We know many of you have received email notifications to say, "The collection maintainers of Yuletide 2025 have changed the status of your work [work] to anonymous..." This is a result of us updating them manually to hide author names, in order to achieve the same effect you would expect from reveals in an ordinary Yuletide. Sorry for the confusion! You can safely ignore these notifications; we will reveal author names on January 1st, manually if we have to.

---

Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.

Posted by Laura James

https://lbj20.blogspot.com/2025/12/commonplace-book-supply-chains-hope-cool.html

Yes this:

https://social.coop/@luis_in_brief/115696408257250551

Helen Toner on generative AI and where it might go, which is a rare article on foundational models and the real world. Hard to pick highlights, but here goes:

Two things are true about AI, I claim:

1. AI models keep getting better and better

2. AI models keep sucking, and the things they keep sucking at are kind of confusing

... So the bold claim in this talk is: maybe AI will keep getting better and maybe AI will keep sucking in important ways.

... Relatedly, pushing AI-for-good forward will matter: I didn’t say this in the talk, but related to the previous point—jaggedness raises the stakes for anyone hoping to use good AI to counterbalance against bad AI, so to speak. Two major examples of this are using AI to automate alignment or other safety research, and using AI for societal resilience measures like biodefense or cyberdefense. If AI progress is not jagged, it might make sense to just hold off and wait for AI to get better before trying to push hard on these. If progress is jagged, then it’s important to push these forward as hard as we can now, in the hope that they end up being one of the more advanced pointy parts of the jagged frontier, not one of the lagging hollow parts. 

... We should be thinking more about human-computer interaction dynamics, human factors, user experience, user interface. What does the trust between those parties look like? How do you maximize the benefit that you’re able to get from those AI systems by designing that human-AI system well? As opposed to just skipping to the end and assuming, well, at some point the AI is going to automate all of it, so who cares about the human-computer part.

... For a long time, I have not found a very helpful to talk about timelines to AGI, because I think people use just such different metrics and definitions for what they mean by that. I tend to think more in terms of how crazy are things going to get, how soon? And you can use different metrics for crazy, and I find that maybe a more productive and more interesting way to think about things. 

Ryan Broderick has some interesting observations[paywall, worth it] about the internet and Gen Z:

And I think offline shock has a strong connection to aesthetic disappointment: “Why doesn’t my life look as good as this image I found online?”.... 
    
     What ties these two online meltdowns together is the breakdown of the online life and the offline one. In the case of the cozy living room, it’s the extremely uncomfortable revelation that their less online peers have friends (lol sorry). Or housing, I guess? And in case of the Pitchfork lists, it’s the idea that all the metrics X stans use to define their favorite artists — views, sales, streams — can’t make them actually cool. Not “popular,” but cool. Both of these little online misadventures are about the crushing realization that it’s very hard to be authentic online right now. And this is why I think when Gen Z makes traditional art — film, music, etc. — it can come off as cosplay. The feeling like all of the options they could possibly make have been mapped out for them already. Like Lego blocks they can piece together as they please. And it’s why I’d argue the defining art form of Gen Z is incomprehensible brainrot. Which I do consider art and, incidentally, is the most authentic thing I’ve seen young people make. 

Martha Lane-Fox notes "we have created a public sphere that deters exactly the kind of thoughtful, capable, values-driven people we need to lead it." 

We are living in a culture where accountability has morphed into instant annihilation. Yes, leaders must answer for their mistakes. But the speed at which scrutiny now turns into spectacle is breathtaking. Westminster is the most extreme example: five prime ministers in six years, 16 housing ministers in a decade, entire departments resetting their leadership teams almost annually. 

...Trust is now at structurally low levels. ... In that environment, even good policy struggles to work. Too few people believe in institutions strongly enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. Every decision becomes fraught. Every reform gets bogged down. Cynicism quietly becomes the national operating system.

A deep dive into the COVID Inquiry in the UK and how it is not helping us get ready for future crises. HT Rachel Coldicutt. 

A core issue is that the inquiry is deeply flawed in ways that risk being counter‑productive — ie, it risks being anti-useful. It is actively drawing demonstrably wrong conclusions, including making strong conclusions on issues that are ultimately political value judgments best assessed by the public, as well as drawing strong conclusions on issues that one will never be able to have confidence on. It is blocking the space that should be occupied by the vitally needed effective process to get us ready for next time.

... The system’s incentives appear aligned more with internal process preservation than with the rapid learning required after a national crisis. 

... The core issue is that the inquiry is itself a striking manifestation of the very problems it should be trying to address, whilst simultaneously being deeply unclear about what it is actually trying to address.

... It goes to the heart of the matter: a late-Victorian, hierarchy-obsessed model of government combined with a legal-permanent bureaucratic state laid on top is fundamentally misaligned with the complexity and speed of 21st-century crises.

I have a big backlog of links about the current state of open which I may one day synthesise. In the mean time, I came across Erlend Sogge Heggen writing:

Since its inception the free and open source software movement has lacked a theory of change beyond the liberation of computer code. Liberation of human beings by way of a liberatory technology was always a secondary and oftentimes incompatible concern for Open Source, since laborers having agency of their work (and how it may be exploited) is in conflict with the inviolable liberties of an Open Source computer program.

The result has been an ineffectual "open source revolution" that maintains the status quo of our modern day hellscape by facilitating an upwards transfer of wealth and power, amassed by the hyperscalers who are now entering their final, fascistic form. Open source "won" by aiding and abetting the already dominant owner-class.

... Anti-fascistic software..is made possible by pro-labor licensing. 

... The intellectual property landscape is grossly outdated and biased towards big business, but the market still depends on the continued rule of law to function. That systemic dependency can be subverted against itself and used in our favor by reformulating acceptable use for the people's software at a grassroots level.

Ethical licensing is hard, but far from impossible. While we cannot easily encode anti-fascism into our licenses, what we can easily do is discriminate against big capital, the underlying engine of fascism and authoritarianism. 

Glyn Moody knows open source. He notes an interesting potential:

More recently, many leading AI systems have been released as open source. That raises the important question of what exactly “open source” means in the context of generative AI software, which involves much more than just code. The Open Source Initiative, which drew up the original definition of open source, has extended this work with its Open Source AI Definition. It is noteworthy that the EU has explicitly recognised the special role of open source in the field of AI. In the EU’s recent Artificial Intelligence Act, open source AI systems are exempt from the potentially onerous obligation to draw up a range of documentation that is generally required.

... Article 3 of the CDSM Directive enables these [research] institutions to text and data-mine all “works or other subject matter to which they have lawful access” for scientific research purposes.  ... the use of open source licensing is critical to this application of Article 3 of EU copyright legislation for the purpose of AI research.

... What’s noteworthy here is how two different pieces of EU legislation, passed some years apart, work together to create a special category of open source AI systems that avoid most of the legal problems of training AI systems on copyright materials, as well as the bureaucratic overhead imposed by the EU AI Act on commercial systems.  

... public AI systems provide a way for the EU to compete with both US and Chinese AI companies – by not competing with them... But public AI systems, which are fully open source, and which take advantage of the EU right of research institutions to carry out text and data mining, offer a uniquely European take on generative AI that might even make such systems acceptable to those who worry about how they are built, and how they are used. 

We all need hope.  

I went to one of the Society for Hopeful Technologists events in November, and we worked on the draft Charter. Looking forward to seeing how this develops in 2026! 

Bonfire ("Public Interest Social Networks") did a crowdfunder. I love that they focus on community first, and the tools communities need to get together and do stuff; I also love that are working within a network of different projects, not just building yet another thing. One to watch. 

Jack McGovan writes about a project to bring public diners/canteens to Scotland - what if dinner was public infrastructure?:

While charity or pay-what-you-can models offer a way for the needy to eat, they’re a symptom of a failure in social policy. That’s why the food charity Nourish Scotland are pushing for the reintroduction of public diners to Scotland: diners subsidised by the state to provide affordable, nutritious, and filling meals that are accessible to everyone regardless of their financial status.

Alex Deschamps-Sonsino writes about how design is not going to save us - because it hasn't helped much so far. (She's also looking for work, and will be an amazing thoughtful design leader for someone!)

I'm not sure I'll be able to go, but I am excited that there's a community and a conference around rewilding gardens to support nature. Rewilding agricultural land is not always a great idea, but gardens are different. 

Dark Forest OS. 

https://lbj20.blogspot.com/2025/12/commonplace-book-supply-chains-hope-cool.html

The Yuletide collection is live!

Enjoy browsing the collection! Leave kudos and/or comments if you enjoy a story! Comment here to recommend stories, and/or recommend them at the yuletide comm!

I have three stories in the collection. Can you find them?

I shall now spend the rest of the day cuddling with my cats and reading Yuletide stories.

Recs: in general

The main Yuletide collection has just opened, with Yuletide Madness to follow shortly, so it's time to think about recs (recommendations)! It's traditional to kudos or comment on works and tell their anonymous creators that you liked them. It's also traditional to tell other people about the Yuletide stuff you like. There are many different ways to share your recommendations for works.

On AO3 itself
You can bookmark a story and add the bookmark and its notes to the Yuletide Recs collection. (Note: This is not the same as the main Yuletide collection.) Detailed tutorials can be found here and here.

In Discord
At the Yuletide Discord, you can post recs with very brief comments in the #yuletide-recs channel.

Here at Dreamwidth
You are welcome to post recs to this community Please follow the guidelines:

• Any individual post to the community must contain recs for at least 3 separate works.


• You can put the full text of your recs post in a post to the community, OR you can post your recs on some other platform, then put the link in a post on the community or in a comment to this post.


• If your post is long, consider cut text code (DW) or details code to compress your text.

Recs: central/index post

THIS POST can also serve as a hub for recs. You're welcome to reply with your recs (especially useful if you don't have a Dreamwidth account). Or you can ask for recs that follow a theme, or just make a comment linking to a recs post elsewhere. Collect Your Recs Here!

Yuletide 2025 Collection Is Live Here!

Enjoy 1539 works in 992 fandoms! (The number will go up as wranglers canonize fandoms - this will take a little time, though.)

The reveals process takes a little while to work in a collection of this size; if a story in the collection is still a mystery work an hour after opening, please let us know.


Finding works
You can find your own gifts on your AO3 gifts page: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YOUR-NAME-HERE/gifts, or by searching the box at the top of the collection works page for the full name you signed up with, or by checking your email if you get email notifications from AO3. Note: your email notifications may bundle together, and it might look like you only got one gift, when in fact you got more.

You can browse the collection by tags or by fandoms. Some fandoms are new and may not show up immediately (wranglers are working on this) or where you expect them; please check labels such as Original Work, 19th Century Historical RPF, Object and Concept Anthropomorphism, and Unspecified Fandom. More info about Unspecified Fandom here.


Anonymity
Yuletide is an anonymous exchange until creator reveals January 1. Please don't give away what you've written. When logged in, you can, if you want, reply to comments on your own works, and you will show up as Anonymous Creator until the authors of the collection are revealed.


Commenting!
Please comment on your gift(s) to let your writer(s) know you appreciate them. We also recommend commenting far and wide to spread the comment joy around! You may enjoy the challenge of a comment bingo card.

AO3 changed default comment settings last year. If you want to make sure people can comment on your gifts when they aren't logged in, you may need to change a setting on your work. More information here, under 'Your comment settings'.


Recs
Making work recommendations is a tradition. Please see more information at the participant community (yuletide) about where you can post your recs.


Madness
For those still writing, the 2025 Yuletide Madness collection will stay open for new stories to be posted for 24 hours. It will close for posting, and open for reading, at 9pm UTC 25 December. If you're looking for prompts, there's a roundup of links here.


Problems
If there is something wrong with your gift or you have another concern, please contact the mods at yuletideadmin@gmail.com.

---

Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.

What you eat could decide the planet’s future

What we put on our plates may matter more for the climate than we realize. Researchers found that most people, especially in wealthy countries, are exceeding a “food emissions budget” needed to keep global warming below 2°C. Beef alone accounts for nearly half of food-related emissions in Canada. Small changes—less waste, smaller portions, and fewer steaks—could add up to a big climate win.

( Read more... )