Today's non-work to-do list:

- crosspost at least a couple kink meme fills to DW
- work on purimgifts fics
- at least 200 more words on either Forsaken Road or broken beaten damned
- at least 100 words on any kink meme fill or Fandomweekly prompt of my choice
- cook some actual dinner. There's chicken in the fridge and I need to do something with it.

The local coffee shop is running a really good sale, so I can get myself a treat if I stay on top of all of my work stuff (so far, so good, but it's going to be a long day). Dark chocolate mocha and a nice sandwich, maybe.

Title/Link: Time Heals
Fandom: Quantum Leap
Character(s): Donna Elesee, Original Female Character
Rating: G
halfamoon prompt: the scholar
ladiesbingo prompt: midnight
genprompt_bingo prompt: eclipses and other astronomical events
Summary: The loneliness and unhappiness she'd felt from his sudden, never-explained leaving had finally dissipated. She only pitied him; he'd missed out on watching his bright daughter grow up to be a brilliant young woman.

Oh my god. Oh my gooooood.

I have finally finished my fic for my FTH recipient, polished it off, and posted it. It is done. It is done, at long last. I felt so bad for needing an extension, and I was getting so stressed out about it. I hope that my recipient likes it, and I'm just, like, really glad that I can do other stuff now haha. I stopped signing up for things because I needed to spend every spare moment of time and creative energy trying to finish.

I flop now. Bed time. Work tomorrow.

And then: more Olympics!

This year I made 2 vids for festivids.

As a gift for Vialana I made this vid for Clue. I hadn't seen the movie until last Spring after seeing a really good high school theater production of it. I rushed to see the movie version and have been thinking of vidding it ever since.


AO3

Last year while screening fandoms for Festivids rarity I stumbled down a classic Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies rabbit hole. I methodically when through a chronological list of Bugs Bunny shorts from 1944-1963, scouring online sources for copies, adding info to a lengthy spreadsheet. Armed with a year's worth a work I had fun making this vid for tafadhali


AO3

So, further to my post from yesterday, not only did I post the fic, but I managed to flesh it out to over 500 words, so it now qualifies for a fill on both my bingo cards!

Here is the post on halfamoon.

And on AO3: Baby Sis

A People's History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian tells the story of five young women living in a slum in Bangalore, which has been scheduled for demolition.
And while that is the throughline of the story, what the book actually does is present deep character studies of each of the five girls (and some of their relatives), weaving their backgrounds together to track their lives.
It took me a while to get a hold of the type of story I was reading, and be able to keep track of the different threads, because each section is very short and the narrative jumps back and forth through time a lot. The use of past and present tense also doesn't always feel right for the timeline, which made it confusing in places.
But I loved the first person plural POV, which binds the girls together into a close unit, and I grew to love all five of them (and various of their relatives) over the course of the book.
By the end, it all came together beautifully in a way that had me hugging the book to my chest after finishing it, and I felt like all the characters were good friends.

I was planning to type up some older ficlets I'd found in my notebook, including one for no_true_pair, and when I opened the doc, found an all but complete one already typed up! So here's one I had mostly prepared much earlier but apparently gave up on for some reason.

For the Sept 2024 round of No True Pair, and also for 51pluscrossoverfandoms, 100fandoms & allbingo Crime Classics.

Subdivisions (1073 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, The Chronicles of St Mary's - Jodi Taylor
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Death (Discworld) & Madeleine "Lucy" Maxwell
Characters: Death (Discworld), Madeleine "Lucy" Maxwell, Leon Farrell
Additional Tags: Crossover, Alcohol, Drunkenness, Community: no_true_pair, Community: 51pluscrossoverfandoms, Community: 100fandoms, Community: allbingo, Max would like it to be known that none of this would happen if Peterson could drive straight, Death just wants to talk
Summary: Max continues trying to cheat Death, even when Death just wants to buy her a pint.

It's a tiny ficlet of 250 words so unfortunately not enough to fulfill a prompt on either of my bingo cards. I'll be posting it tomorrow for halfamoon.

Listening to a Redwall audiobook on my way to work may have been a mistake. I am now sitting at my desk thinking longingly of how nice it would be to be a little mouse with a big library and some nice snacks and very little need to go outside during a cold winter, instead of wrangling terribly designed databases.

(I do have snacks, to be fair. We're having a "congratulations, you graduated" party. But it is not the same thing.)

I was excited to discover a sci-fi trilogy written by Gillian Anderson and narrated by her in the audiobook versions, so I started listening to the first instalment - A Vision of Fire.
Unfortunately, the narration was rather a disappointment, as it was delivered in a very flat monotone that was quite soporific and very much not in keeping with the pace and excitement of the story.
The opening chapter was also difficult to follow and full of a lot of impenetrable techno-babble, so I almost gave up before it really got going.
Things improved a lot with the introduction of protagonist, Caitlin O'Hara, a psychologist specialising in trauma in teenagers, who is brought in to try to help the daughter of a UN ambassador when she seems to be struggling after witnessing an assassination attempt on her father.
Things get really, really weird after that, but in quite an enjoyable way overall.
I really liked Caitlin, especially her relationship with her ten-year-old son, and her friendship with Ben, the UN translator.
The conclusion to the tale was absolute bobbins but a lot of fun, and I liked that this story was wrapped up in a satisfying way, while still leaving things open to develop further in the rest of the series.

pinchhitbingo is a meta event where you fill bingo squares by claiming and filling pinch hits for other fan events

fandomocweekly is a weekly prompt community for original characters based off existing fandoms

badthingshappenbingo is a bingo challenge where the prompts are based on bad things of all varieties that could happen to your characters/ship

allbingo is running a Valentine's Day Bingo Fest for the month of February. There are pre made cards or you can create your own based off the existing prompts.

threeisnotacrowd, a multifandom exchange for relationships between three people, is open for sign-ups until February 7th, 11:59PM GMT-3. Nominations are also still open and will close an hour before sign-ups do.

fourormore, a community for ships with at least four people, is running a Four Or More 2026 Valentine's Special, where you have until February 14th to complete the 3x3 bingo card created for the event.

smallfandomfest is running another round of Pimp Your Small Fandom.

likealighthouse is running fall out boy femslash febrary ficathon, an event for leaving and filling fall out boy lyric prompts for all your favorite femslash ships.

elasticella is running femslash salad bar, where you select two or more prompt tables and one prompt from each table will make up your final prompts for a fill

snowflake_challenge has a friending meme!



fancake's theme of the month is: inept in love. Click on the banner below to find out more.

Winter Olympics Winter Olympics

[vibrates]

Already watching the first women's hockey game, USA vs CZE. Hell yeah Hilary Knight, she's been a hero for so long. Most of the other players on Team USA used to be her fans. This is her fifth time at the Olympics.

Anyway I'm about to be so annoying across social medias.

My bingo card from the buddie-bingo-events

I am ExtraPenguin this is my space_swap letter!

(Will copypaste stuff tomorrow; this is me testing the sign-up form)

I think poetry often works better for me if it's read aloud. This was especially true with What by John Cooper Clarke. Short but enjoyable.

I picked up Just Kids by Patti Smith to give as a gift and decided to read it first. She details her early life in NYC when both she and Robert Maplethorpe where young artists trying to find their artistic voice. Their relationship, sometimes lovers and lifelong friends, is touching. I loved this and plan to look for more of her books.

My February food blog observes Black History Month, so last month I read the 1848 book Hotel Keepers, Head Waiters, and Housekeepers Guide by Tunis G. Campbell. A fascinating man, he was not only skilled in hotel management, but worked in many ways to help fellow African Americans both before and after the US Civil War.

My Real Children by Jo Walton is something I've been meaning to read for quite a while. A young woman's decision splits her life into two timelines. Walton is a wonderful writer and this book focuses on women and the choices they make throughout their lives.

My son, knowing that I've been reading Michael Palin's published diaries, gave me So, Anyway... by John Cleese for Christmas. Cleese details his life, from school and university to his partnership with Graham Chapman in his burgeoning career as a comedy writer, ending at the point where they join up with the other Pythons to create their tv show. A very funny, self-deprecating book.

So, today was my appointment with my boss for my employee review. Each of us get pulled into a room, sat down, and engaged in discussion about what we're doing well, what needs improvement, how we're doing numbers-wise, potential raises, ect ect.

I was really nervous. Turns out I didn't need to be, though.

I was told that he hopes I stay a long time, because I've been really wonderful to have on his staff, and he loves me. I'm reliable. He has received not one single complaint about me, and in fact, has heard only nice things from both clients and staff. My retention is great; people keep re-booking with me, and my schedule is always full. He says I appear very laid-back, with a good attitude and a personality that is a great match for the business.

Re: areas that could use improvement, he said that as of that moment he could genuinely not think of anything. Even though I've only been there around five months, I'm getting a modest raise and a cut of the year-end staff bonus as a reward for doing so great, even though part-timers like me don't usually get a year-end bonus.

I'm over the moon. It totally set the tone for me to be in a great mood for the rest of my shift. I expected to go in there and be blindsided by all kinds of things I wasn't doing well enough, so to hear that I'm appreciated and that my good work is being noticed was just a really nice feeling.

ushobwri is doing their yearly Let's Get WIP-ed Into Shape event, and I picked the Sonata sequels for mine! I'm pretty happy with what I've gotten drafted for broken beaten damned (the Daryan&Blackquill In Prison fic) so far, so I thought, why not share a few snippets along the way like I did for Sonata?

I'm an aggressive editor, so I can't guarantee that this scene will survive to the final draft intact. But I like where it's going, so I thought some of you might, too.

( 280ish words of Daryan handling going back to prison surprisingly well considering his usual (lack of) restraint )

Three years ago, I lost that Jacqueline Hill's episode in Angels. Now, I have it again! It's nothing, really, but I'm glad to say that, once again, I have all the available media related to her!

Watched Stromboli (1950). "We need more horrible women characters", they say, but they would not be able to handle Karin. There is a problem: TVCine (the channel I watched the movie on) aired a mutilated version that cuts 10-20 minutes from the original runtime! For shame! I was so excited about it (it's good btw). Also Ingrid Bergman very good and hair is gorgeous. Very important.

I received word today that an old friend from my Sentinel days, Yvonne McCool, passed away last month.  

I knew she'd been very ill but it still hits hard to know she's gone.

So...yeah. I have another skating competition at the end of the month. That I am already anxious about, because I have a new program that I haven't yet run cleanly (and only once on time). Somehow this dread keeps sneaking up on me! And I only ever have myself to blame. Why do I put myself through this again and again? Who knows!

Also, my synchro team has a competition the same weekend, so it'll be another horrible weekend where everything happens all at once. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!

Anyway, other fandom stuff:

• Exchanges due in January/February (fffx, Just The Tip flash, Fisting Flash, candyheartsex, seasonofdrabbles, threesentenceficathon + mystery pinch-hits and treats + future sign-ups): I am now at 11/12, so alas I no longer have 0 assignments. The one outstanding is for caseficexchange, unsurprisingly, and I already have my set-up in mind and the solution/culprit, but I have to work out all the details in the middle. Also, I am afraid of how long this might end up, but there is a long writing period, so even if it went, like, crazy 40k (which I don't think it will), I still have time. I might still do a couple things for SOD, if inspiration strikes, but I've done all the ones I knew I wanted to. I didn't do anything on threesentenceficathon, maybe this week? I remember this conundrum from last year: I have time to go all out on 3S or SOD or candyheartsex, but not all three. Last year I ended up doing Candy Hearts. This year so far it's been SOD. So I'm not sure what my goal is this week: Do a chunk of writing/treating on one of these, which one TBD!


• Exchanges due in March/April: I tentatively have no additional plans. There are a bunch of exchanges with schedules announced that I'll keep an eye on for treats/PHs (goreswap, Love You A Latte, spaceswap, wickedloveex, the_mane_event), but none that I'm planning to sign up for...unless some amazing prompt comes along and I really want a gift, too. I've got my eye on worldbuilding_exchange and unsent_letters_exchange, which I expect to announce schedules soon-ish (if they run), because I know I want to sign up for those. But thus far it's looking like a long writing period for Case Fic through April. One that I do know for sure is that fandom5k is opening nominations in late March/early April, and that's definitely on my docket.


• Heaven Official's Blessing by MXTX - I've finished most of the extras (I'm on the last one) and should finish this week for sure, but I'm not in a big hurry here and am knocking these off leisurely.


• When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill - I picked this up as a rare RL rec (and opposed to things I learn about via fandom), and it was...okay. The first 75% was, in fact, riveting and I couldn't put it down. The author did a really good job with the repressed, claustrophobic era of McCarthyism, and all the descriptions about how even the repressed group polices their own repression were really well done. However, the book fell apart for me in two ways: 1) Alex is supposed to be a genius at math and science (as was her mother), but they're both so...incurious, so that I didn't really buy it. And also nothing in Alex's thoughts or approach to the world reflected a mathematical and/or scientific disposition. Every so often there would be a line like "I love numbers so much!" but this was when Alex was post-calc taking analysis, where you will not see any numbers outside of e or pi or 0/1. Like, a mathematician wouldn't phrase things like that. And her "problems" were always vague (and probably shouldn't be phrased like that: proofs, surely?), which just led me to believe that the author wasn't a mathematician/scientist and didn't really know how to write one convincingly, so I ended up not finding that part of Alex or her mother's characterization believable. 2) After the dragons come back, the way the world was presented felt just...twee. It seemed like a lot of smarm and over-the-top "found families" bullshit, and I have very limited tolerance for those themes. I mean, anything would be better than the horrors of the sexism in the '50s, but the fact that I found the alternative presented so unappealing made the ending kind of a slog. Interesting book overall, though, and like I said, the dystopian double-thinky parts were really tense and gripping.


• The Deer and the Cauldron by Louis Cha - I didn't do anything on this last week, because I slipped in the previous.


• Dear Door - I didn't do anything on this one last week, either.


• The Night Manager S2 - I haven't been watching anything for a while now, but I picked this back up last week, because S1 was fun and I saw S2 was almost fully released, and I want to keep up with this one. So far it's good, tense spy stuff, exactly what I was expecting, and holy shit is it SUPER slashy! I mean, there was some of that in S1, but they really dialed it up this season! So that's been a pleasant surprise. I should finish up this week.

Goals for this week: 1) Get the middle of my Case Fic better blocked out and do some writing on it, so I have a better estimate of how long it will be and how I'll need to pace myself. 2) Some stuff of SOD/3S/Candy Hearts - whatever calls to me most. 3) Finish Heaven Official's Blessing, most likely. 4) Maybe read some of the other stuff. 5) Finish The Night Manager S2.

January Total: 25k (not including 3S, which I haven't counted up yet and will go into February's totals)