Network [djkittycat]

So here it is: the rest of autumn spread out before us, post-Hallowe'en and pre-Christmas with (in Canada) mainly the gray blur of November in between.

(It's really just as well we have our harvest celebration in October, but as always, I do envy the placement of it between Hallowe'en and Christmas in the US just in terms of not having the stretch between seasonal holidays. [I say, as if US Thanksgiving isn't horribly fraught in so many ways.] I don't know why I have such strong feelings about this. I had them before I stumbled into wanting seasonal decor at home for more than just Christmas and started feeling all adrift in that sense at this time of year.)

(This probably isn't why some people have non-holiday decor that can be swapped in and out, thus having more options, but it's a nice side effect, I imagine. *contemplates* Please feel free to tell me about your non-Hallowe'en decor! Full-on harvest stuff is not terribly seasonal here, but surely there are other options?)

Anyway. It's noticeably cooler here now, and still bright outside rather than all gray-skewed like my mental picture of the season, but the month is young.

If there are things you love about November, please share?

Last time we ordered groceries, I got a bag of Granny Smith apples with intentions of baking, and that...uh, that hasn't happened yet. Hopefully today after I get some work done, assuming nothing horrible has happened to them. (I worry about overestimating the durability of things like apples. And cabbage. We also have a cabbage. >.> It's been around longer.)

As for what to bake...well, I have my eyes on two Smitten Kitchen cakes and two RecipeTin Eats cakes (all new to us), and there's also an a cake we made last year, or just doing baked apples or crisp. We'll see.

In cat news, the other night Sinha was being a tremendous pest to Jinksy (as is typical), and unexpectedly, Jinksy remembered (???) how to scruff him! He scruffed Sinha a couple of times a couple years ago, and it's pretty much the only thing that's ever actually made Sinha back the fuck off, but then that was it. Maybe he won't go another year or more without remembering about it again. (It's such a complicated feeling for us, because Sinha makes the most pathetic keening noises and gets really upset about it [and the other night it took an hour or so of him racing around the house grumbling to himself before he settled down, which was awkward since we were trying to sleep], so it's a bit heartbreaking, but we are absolutely in favor of Jinksy standing up for himself and saying, "NO. You will STOP.")

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What do I do? I feel empty, useless. I feel my engine revving, dying for a place to roar off to and work work work to make things better, to fix things, to stop Orbis from dying, but I'm just spinning my wheels in place.

I don't even want to cry anymore, even though I can't seem to stop.

Someone, please, just fix this.... fix this

Music:: The chittering of the voices in my mind

Mood:: I don't I will for a long time

location: The depths of hell

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Fandom: Dark Shadows

Pairings/Characters: Barnabas Collins, Roger Collins, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Angelique Bouchard Collins, Elliot Stokes, Julia Hoffman, David Collins, Hallie Stokes, Maggie Evans, Willie Loomis

Rating: T

Length: 102,807

Creator Links: SusanRains | Archive of Our Own

Theme: Mystery & Suspense

Summary: Four strangers converge on Collinsport. But maybe one of them is coming home.

The vicious killing of two young boys has Barnabas convinced that a vampire preys upon Collinsport. His suspects are four newcomers: three strangers, and an enemy from his own past, long believed dead.

Reccer's Notes: Though it may be read separately without much fuss, this fic follows Lunatic Yarn, recc'd a few days ago. Blood Levy details the goings on of the ever-put-upon Collins family as they struggle to maintain their reputation while wringing a little love and enjoyment out of ~Life. It's a fine mystery using all the familiar TV show performers, the main ones in their regular roles, while various supporting performers Author has envisioned as original characters. Beginning with sudden action, continuing in an eerie atmosphere, well, could we expect anything else?

Fanwork Links:
Blood Levy (Dark Shadows 1971) Book 3 - Chapter 1 - Carey Kasdot (SusanRains) - Dark Shadows (1966) [Archive of Our Own]

Music:: birdsong

location: comatose in bed

Mood::

contemplative

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I wound up reading fourteen novels/novellas in October! Here's what I've read since my last reading check-in.

KJ Charles' The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal (historical M/M) is a neat setup, where the narrator has been partnered for years with a paranormal investigator and has written famous accounts of the cases they faced, and is now much more privately writing about their personal history and the cases that instigated and shaped their romantic partnership (with, of course, many references to cases he's already written about for the public eye).

Dweller on the Threshold is my second read by Skyla Dawn Cameron, in which a woman inherits a probably-haunted house early in the covid pandemic. It's creepy and well-done and much weirder than it initially seemed likely to be (although to nowhere near the degree of weirdness that her The Taiga Ridge Murders, which I read late last year, turned out to be).

Dreadful Company (Vivian Shaw) was a quick, fun read. It's the second Dr. Greta Helsing novel, and it left me in the odd-feeling (but not uncommon for me, really) position of having enjoyed it without feeling any particular need to seek out the following books.

What Stalks the Deep is the third of T. Kingfisher's Sworn Soldier novellas, which due to the increasingly-horrifying prices of ebooks (in particular novellas, IMO) I borrowed from the library. OT1H, that's deeply annoying, because I generally really like Ursula Vernon's writing and would like to simply buy everything, if only to support her (and yes, I do know library borrows do contribute to that as well); OTOH, I avoided spending something like $20 on a NOVELLA and was (briefly) spared the need to decide what to read next, because when this became available at the library, it became my obvious next read once I'd finished Dreadful Company. Also, I enjoyed it; I wouldn't recommend reading it without at least reading the first book in this set, and if you've read and liked the previous ones, you'll presumably like this one too.

(Before my many-years-ago-now decision to spend a year [ha!] reading mainly/only from books I'd purchased but never read--which has pretty much been ongoing ever since, because I keep buying books--I almost never had to think about what to read next, because I had several hundred holds on hard copies at the library, and basically would just put something on hold and immediately suspend the hold for a year or two [whatever the maximum was], and then frequently scroll through the list and re-suspend books if I caught them in the window between them being automatically unsuspended and actually heading my way. Whatever books I didn't catch in that window arrived for borrowing at the library, so I'd pick them up and read them, whatever they were.)

Also

scruloose and I finished Fugitive Telemetry, although it took us long enough that I had to check it out from the library a second time (which I'd rather avoid, given my understanding of how ridiculous the ebook/audiobook situation is for libraries >.<). When we circle back to listen to the first novel, we'll definitely have to be ready to actively focus on finding time for it.

Current reading/watching: I'm a few chapters into Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (V.E. Schwab), and on the non-fiction front, a little ways into Anne Lamott's Almost Everything: Notes on Hope.

Meanwhile,

scruloose and I are two episodes into season 2 of Silo.

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Scarlet Morning by N.D. Stevenson

Middle-grade illustrated novel by the creator of Nimona and that She-Ra reboot, about two teens abandoned on an island who join a pirate crew and learn more about how the world was shattered to turn the sea terrible, right before they were born. A breezy read, and the drawings were all really cute!

I didn’t realize right till the end that there would be a sequel so I went !?!?!?! over all my lore questions, as I enjoyed finding out more and more backstories with different revelations each time. Of course, I adored everything to do with Viola and Captain Chase <3.

The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories by Stephen Crane

Haven’t read any other fiction set in the midst of the Civil War battles, or anything else by Crane. The main novel here is written in a sort of abstract way, the soldiers only given titles in dialogue, our protagonist never thinking of the names of the sides or even about the war is over. A self-involved guy, that fella, who ultimately overcomes his cowardice by losing his mind in the moment of battle.

Found it amusing that this collection involved both the the Civil War novel (The Red Badge of Courage) and a short story about four men left adrift on a boat after their ship capsizes (The Open Boat) — the former was so popular and specific that people would assume Crane had served in the Union army when he’d in fact been born after the war, while the latter was inspired by Crane actually being adrift at sea when his ship to Cuba sank.

A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie

Did Christie title this with “Pocket Full” instead of “Pocketful” so that it would be distinguished from the very nursery rhyme it’s based off of? Seems possible. Anyway, we continue our adventures in Marple stories. While the cast is a mostly miserable lot, Miss Marple shines. The first time I’ve seen her so genuinely outraged over a murder, appearing in this book almost as if she were an avenging angel. Makes the ending lines quite satisfying.

It took me way too long to figure out who did it, because apparently I am still vulnerable to the obfuscation of that character type. The inspector and the housekeeper were my favorites of the ensemble cast, well-drawn.

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US urged to end arms sales to UAE as it backs genocidal paramilitary in Sudan.

Sen Chris Van Hollen and Rep Sarah Jacobs have reintroduced the Stand Up for Sudan Act - which would prohibit U.S. arms sales to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) until the UAE is no longer providing material support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan.

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https://operaramblings.blog/2025/11/02/the-far-side-of-the-moon/

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I don’t care if it is in character, pick another word! (And while it ought to be in character, she hasn’t exactly been dropping the big words every other dialog line. Or if she has, I didn’t notice?)

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Posted by Amanda

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/11/sbtb-bestsellers-october-18-october-31/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=162238

The latest bestseller list is brought to you by discount candy, crunchy leaves, and our affiliate sales data.

The Geographer’s Map to Romance by India Holton Amazon | B&N | Kobo
The Worst Guy by Kate Canterbary Amazon | B&N
Remember When by Mary Balogh Amazon | B&N | Kobo
A Bachelor Establishment by Jodi Taylor Amazon | B&N | Kobo
A Tale of Mirth and Magic by Kristen Vale Amazon | B&N | Kobo
Writing Mr. Wrong by Kelley Armstrong Amazon | B&N | Kobo
Morbidly Yours by Ivy Fairbanks Amazon | B&N | Kobo
Totally and Completely Fine by Elissa Sussman Amazon | B&N | Kobo
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo Amazon | B&N | Kobo
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Amazon | B&N | Kobo

I hope your weekend reading was fantastic!

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/11/sbtb-bestsellers-october-18-october-31/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=162238

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Watch on YouTube

Regarding the penultimate video (30 October): Whenever the bloke goes away, Astro goes into a heightened state of alertness. He comes into the front room every evening to inspect the adult humans. If he finds me alone, he will go and sit on the mat by the front door. He curls up and faces me with his ears back, half-closes his eyes, and stays there until I go to bed. He follows me upstairs and curls up on the landing. I don't know if he stays there all night, but I often find him there when I get up in the morning.

If he sees both of us in the front room, he will come and stand on me for a short while, make biscuits on my legs, and then transfer to the bloke's lap, where he rolls onto his back and flops out blissfully. It's as if he can't relax completely if Alpha Cat isn't present.

Comet, on the other hand, couldn't care less about us in the evening. He's only interested if Humuhumu is around and has left her door open so he can sleep on her bed. When she isn't here, he walks around the landing and gives occasional plaintive yowls.

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Posted by Amanda

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/11/sunday-sale-digest-55/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=162213

This piece of literary mayhem is exclusive to Smart Bitches After Dark, but fret not. If you'd like to join, we'd love to have you!

Have a look at our membership options, and come join the fun!

If you want to have a little extra fun, be a little more yourself, and be part of keeping the site open for everyone in the future, we can’t wait to see you in our new subscription-based section with exclusive content and events.

Everything you’re used to seeing at the Hot Pink Palace that is Smart Bitches Trashy Books will remain free as always, because we remain committed to fostering community among brilliant readers who love romance.

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/11/sunday-sale-digest-55/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=162213

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Posted by Elyse

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/11/2025-rhinebeck-recap/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=162128

If you were to ask me what day of the year I get most excited for, it isn’t Christmas or my birthday, it’s the New York Sheep and Wool Festival aka Rhinebeck. It’s the largest fiber festival in the world with about 50,000 people attending and it’s held in the Hudson Valley in fall when the foliage is gorgeous.

I hadn’t been able to attend since 2021 due to a lot of different things, but this year my best friend and I decided we needed to go in order to make some space for ourselves. She had been caring for her late mother during her battle with cancer for the last few years. I’ve been dealing with a landslide of aging parent issues, and to make that more difficult one of those parents is a narcissist.

Added to that is the fact that every day there seems to be some new kind of horror being reported in the news. I’m scared for my gay niece and sister. I’m scared for my trans friends. I’m scared for my job which is being impacted by tariffs.

It’s a lot.

I wasn’t sure what to expect at Rhinebeck this year, since other sheep and wool festivals have been smaller partly due to those same tariffs (most wool is processed outside the US) and a down economy making travel harder.

A line of people moves up a hill — One of the two lines to enter the festival.

I shouldn’t have worried. Once again I was reminded that fiber people are, by and large, incredibly kind and supportive of diversity.

Knitting and other fiber arts have a history of being forms of resistance. In WWI and WWII knitters used different stitches to encode messages into their work. After the 2016 election Pussy Hats were everywhere, and women’s marches were a sea of pink, knitted headwear. There’s also the fact that knitting groups appear innocuous but are a way for women and other marginalized groups to gather without scrutiny.

Rhinebeck wasn’t smaller this year: it was overflowing. In fact there were three “pre-Rhinebeck” events to allow vendors who didn’t make the list to show their goods: Cakepalooza, a Woolen Affair and Indie Untangled.

The lines were long, but people were incredibly patient and kind. I’ve noticed over the past ten months that people seem more comfortable being rude or hostile in public spaces but that didn’t translate over to this festival. People happily shared their space with others, complimented one another’s sweaters, and were patient even when the internet went down for some vendors and the wait times crawled by.

gold and blue skeins of yarns

The space was also incredibly welcoming and inclusive of queer folks. In my personal experience, my knitting groups have been pretty much 50/50 queer and straight/cis folks. From sweaters in various versions of the queer flags to people openly enjoying the space with their partners of all genders, it felt safe and welcoming to all. I live in an area where, unfortunately, people feel comfortable commenting or harassing queer folks in public, which has caused some of my loved ones and friends to withdraw more in public spaces. That was not the case here.

That said, the knitting community is still a predominantly White space. With the exception of a few notable dyers like Neighborhood Fiber Co., most of the vendors were White. There’s still work to be done in making our community more inclusive.

a little gray goat being walked on a leash

As we left the fairgrounds there was a group of MAGA supporters flying Trump flags and holding anti-immigrant and homophobic signs. I’m not sure if they assumed that the knitting community would be conservative or if they were just there to stir shit up, but I don’t think they were prepared for the heat they got. No one was violent, but pretty much every single car that passed them let them know what they thought. A man with an anti-immigrant sign started walking to the cars, thought better of it, and went back to his little group and sat down in a snit.

It’s been a rough year and I feel like a raw nerve sometimes. I didn’t realize how much I needed a space where everyone was kind and patient, where I didn’t witness any harassment, and where I could just relax without anxiety.

I’ve already booked my hotel for next year.

Have you attended Rhinebeck or other craft festivals and fairs? Which ones do you love?

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/11/2025-rhinebeck-recap/

https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?p=162128

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Mood::

determined

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Rabbit, rabbit! I got out of the house in time for the last of a clear apple-gold sunset. A skein of geese went unraveling through the smoke-blue luminous air and a very large moth tried to bang itself into my face. There were heaps of fallen leaves on the sidewalks to kick through and some crepe-orange ones still on the local notable maple. Someone's costume is my best hope for the cardboard sign in the street advertising extremely cheap sexual services.

Having run the car over for errands, I ended up spending the trick-or-treating hours of Halloween at my mother's house, which was inundated with a range of ages from toddlers to teenagers and the occasional adult who could be coaxed to take some candy for themselves. I am guessing a percentage of the colorfully wigged people were KPop Demon Hunters. I have no idea about the WWI Tommy in the company of a classical figure in gold laurels, but they looked like an entire short story in themselves. The Minuteman looked parentally hand-sewn, full marks for waistcoat and hat. The most extensive was the full-body tyrannosaur I came down the steps to hold the bowl of candy out for, explaining it was no trouble because I could see their short little arms. When the twins came by, one of them dashed into the house to hug me and all of her friends shouted at her for going across the threshold, which I understood was some kind of ground rule but sounded in the moment like the start of a fairy tale. The South Asian older relatives chaperoning their set of small children wore marigold garlands, perfectly Halloween-colored. There are a lot more kids in that neighborhood than there used to be and it's wonderful.

I remain underslept, but I really appreciate being introduced to Florence + The Machine's "Kraken" (2025).

Music:: Florence + The Machine, "Kraken"

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https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/11/01/asking-eric-thomas-traumatic-socks/

Dear Eric: My husband of more than 20 years gives me slipper socks with grippy soles. I hate them!

We live in a hot climate, so I have little use for them. They filled up my sock drawer and retraumatized me every time I touched them. I threw them away and they came back.

He gave me five more pairs at Christmas. They can’t be worn with shoes or out in public. They are synthetic so I cannot even use them to polish the furniture. I kept them for animal first aid.

I cannot be cool about these socks. They remind me of the horrible time I had in the hospital having emergency surgery. My husband couldn’t even manage to hug me or talk with me before my surgery.

I’m trying very hard to be graceful and grateful for any gift from my husband, but I want to throw these at him. He knows darn well I dislike them but has given them repeatedly to me. I have to use my good fabric shears to slice them up or he will “rescue them” from the garbage.

Is there a graceful way to handle the next installment of fluffy grippy socks? I tried to no avail telling him I get my grippy socks the old-fashioned way – at the hospital, in person!

– Sock Drawer Full
( Read more... )

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It's just after the end of October, and we'd love to have you check in and chat with us. How have things been with you since August? (having just realised we haven't had a check-in post for a while, oops, sorry!)

Did you sign up for or take part in any fandom activities in the past three months, or have you been working on any personal art projects? Are you looking at a bunch of end-of-year deadlines? Feel free to share upcoming art challenges that have got you excited, any frustrations you've been experiencing, possible goals for the next month, and so on. There's probably been a lot happening since it's been a while since we did this, so feel free just to give us the highlights!

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Congrats to those who took part in this challenge!

Entries submitted for Drawing Challenge #74 - Drawtober 2025:

Too many to list! So just follow the challenge tag to see them all.

As usual, this challenge as well as all of our previous challenges will remain open, so you can continue to submit entries to the community any time after the Round Up date. Be sure to tag your art post with the challenge name, so that it can be added to the list.

Thanks to all who participated in this challenge! :D

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I'm different now. I'm sitting in a voice and video chat where people are eagerly getting ready to meet up with each other and party, and guess what, the invite is still open, and normally I'd at least be tempted....

Sometimes I'd go if a partner went with me...

Not anymore

Music:: My incessant wailing

location: I wish it was in a land of instant medical cures

Mood:: I can't

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djkittycat

So. November. (Holidays etc. | Cake? | Cat interpersonal dynamics)

What Do I Do?

Dark Shadows: Blood Levy by Susan Rains/Carey Kasdot

Reading (back)log

Reading Update (Scarlet Morning, The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories, A Pocket Full of Rye)

End arms sales to UAE

Lepage's The Dark Side of the Moon

Collage Journaling: Dia de los Muertos

The word “perforce” does not belong in YA

SBTB Bestsellers: October 18 – October 31

1SE for October 2025

Sunday Sale Digest!

2025 Rhinebeck Recap

It's Octover

Rec-Cember

Many arms around the mast as your ship starts cracking

My husband knows I’m traumatized by grippy socks, yet he keeps giving them to me

Admin post: Community check-in October 2025

Admin Post: Drawing Challenge #74 (Drawtober 2025) - Round-Up Post

Different now

July

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				1 1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31