A Goose

My sister-in-law is staying over this week, so I mopped the entire living room and kitchen and heated vanilla oil in beeswax, and the whole place smells lovely. There's a lot of floor, so it was a chore, but the results were satisfying. Now we're all sitting around watching cooking shows.

Current reading list:

• Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher - a friend recommended this and I'm enjoying Stephen and his socks. Also, I really like the fantasy setting so far. Love that the Rat God is in charge of, essentially, public attorneys and social workers. I was a chapter in before I realized that T. Kingfisher is the penname of Ursala Vernon and I went oh yeah, that tracks.


• Misfit Mage, book 1 by Michael Taggart - this one has a really fun, exciting start that turns harrowing pretty quickly. I'm about midway and it's gotten a bit sleepy in terms of the action, though. Curious to see how it will pick up.

Well. Fuck.

Now that it's done, I'm having big "did I really expect different?" vibes, but dang. I'd hoped for different. I'd honestly expected nothing in 2020 and was so thrilled and relieved when he wasn't brought back into office. I think I wanted to believe it was a sign that things could improve again.

Alas, cults of personality and government corruption simply don't work like that. I'll count my blessings that we got a four year slow down on the - *gestures at the GOP everything* - and brace for the next stage.

There's a part of me that feels even less prepared because I'm already so emotionally fried. I spent Wednesday alternating between crying and moving furniture around my office in a bid for control.

But there's another part that feels like -- well, I know what not to do now. I spent 2016 to 2020 glued to every change and update and batshit insane claim; tracking every warning and threat and burning myself out with dread over how much worse it was going to get. (And bad it did get.) Re-reading my personal journal from 2018 is a distressing view into how deeply I'd fallen apart. (Thank you, therapy, thank you for my life.)

Not a lick of it helped me. Not a lick of it helped anyone else. The most productive things I did were make donations, call my reps, vote in midterms, and vocally support protesters -- ALL of which I could've achieved without obsessively monitoring Twitter every hour of every day. So, my goal now is to figure out how to "stay in the loop" without letting it eat my entire life and brain.

Otherwise - I'll do as I planned in my last post, and work on expanding my life and activities. I will write and read and create and spend time with the people I care about. The rest will come as it comes, terrible and good alike.

In the years since I last posted here, I:
( Read more... )

I’m sure there’s a lot I’ve forgotten or will come back to me later. I thought of this journal out of the blue and felt it past time for a catch-up post. Hello again to anyone still kicking around here!

Word Count since 10/4: 2,192
Total Word Count: 17,987
[last update]

So far, I'm only managing to do a chunk of writing every third day, but that's still way better than from a few months ago. My goal was to have done 3,500 words by today. I haven't gotten there yet. I'm going to try to write out another burst before I call the weekend done.

( Snippet from Chapter 2 )

My current in-progress, self-indulgent work. It's all the things I'm currently into, which yes, primarily means ikesai style setting and A/B/O aka omegaverse. Also yes, this is heavily inspired by Scum Villian Self-Saving System.

My goal is to write at least 500 words a day in a ramp-up to November. I'll be posting up little snippets each day I'm successful. Really, the main point here is to give myself some sort of accountability, even if it's only to myself.

This post is of the entire first chapter, which sets up the plot.


Working Title: Redeeming the Alpha Warlord
aka: "Sold into the Warlord's Harem, by Trina L Prinket"
Rating: Mature
Setting: Original transmorgrification fantasy novel
Tags: omegaverse, A/B/O, fantasy, m/m, m/f, f/f, multiple pairings, harem, transmorgrification, lots of child characters, mpreg and pregnancy in general, gender fuckery
Warning: Mentions of rape but nothing explicit

Summary: Gaming forum user Tanksout69 (Ian, to his friends) becomes obsessed with a shitty omegaverse novel supposedly inspired by his favorite game and won't rest until he gives the auhtor a piece of his mind.

( Read more... )

I've been bitten by the danmei (aka Chinese Boys Love genre) novel bug and have been chewing my way through an ever-widening collection of them.

Ones that I've finished:

- Modao Zushi, aka Grand Master of Demonic Cultivation: I ended up watching the live-action adaptation, The Untamed, on random impulse while browsing Netflix，and I didn't realize it was related to that BL story that my Twitter feed had been raving about for months until three or four episodes in. The fun part of catching it after a couple of friends already had meant I was able to live-chat at them while I was reading it, which made it even more fun. This story is great on several levels and I could rave about it for ages.

- The Scum-Villian Self Saving System: honestly a lighter and easier read than MDZS, being both shorter and with less major side characters, this one is just fun. It evokes and plays with a bunch of old-school BL tropes, often using them to tease the reader or subvert expectations. (MDZS has some of this too, unsurprising given that they're by the same author).

- Heaven Official's Blessing: Whew boy, this is a BEAST of a novel. It's technically four books and is a dense, fast-paced read with hordes of side characters. It's one of those rare stories where I think it's vital to NOT read spoilers -- not because it'd ruin the surprise, but because spoilers would only confuse you further. So much happens and all of it is interconnected in unexpected and compelling ways. I've heard there's a live-action version in progress and I have no idea how they're going to translate it to that format.

- Fox Demon Cultivation Manual: I love this one for hitting all of my personal favorites (foxes!! Demons! Conflict among divine beings! A pro-active if often ridiculous lead character! Mysteries! An old gay side character! Toxic family issues!) That said, unlike the other three, it's actually a side story to a larger series that hasn't, sadly, been translated by anyone. As such, it has some "the actual plot is happening elsewhere" vibes, particularly with side characters who appear briefly and then run off before any of their issues are explored or resolved.

Ones I'm currently reading:

- The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua: historical mystery novel, very political. It's still being translated, but what's currently up is awesome and worth the time. It's broken up into the major cases that the lead characters handle, so you can get a good bite of the story with each section. The live-action adaptation, "The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty" is also good and worth watching, and the differences between the two are kind of fascinating.

- Thousand Autumns: very much wuxia setting, with all the dramatic battles scenes and hyped-up powers and techniques. It's essentially an "enemies to lovers" story, but a low-key version where the evil one rescued the good one with the goal of converting him to evil, and now they're traveling around together, discussing the failures of the world from their conflicting ideological positions, and having periodic knock-down, drag-out fights. That said, there isn't much in the way of flirting or attraction at the moment, so I'm curious of how the 'lovers' part comes in.

This link popped up on my twitter feed in a conversation about fandom antis, their origins, and their current ranging impact on the fandom experience: Of Fandoms And Complete Shitshows

It's worth reading through, as are the comments, but there are a couple things I always dwell on when it comes to write-up of this topic:

( blah blah fandom blah )

My ability to focus at work has dried up, but as long as I can strong-arm myself to sit down in front of the sewing machine, I'll be aces. I've got a week to finish this costume. I CAN DO IT.

US political stuff isn't helping my focus, it never does. I follow a handful of journalists and commentators on twitter and it keeps me abreast of things so I'm not restricted to TV news. Which is good, because it's genuinely upsetting to watch news channels report on presidential events like the entire administration isn't a giant steaming pile of traitors. The downside though is that it's... whew, it's hard to hear about, and gets my fuss brain all worked up.

Other stuff, other stuff -- gaming tomorrow and Sunday. Managed to watch more RWBY. Got more writing done for my FATE game and put together some exciting backstory stuff that my players may or may not ever discover.

But again, I'm on a tight deadline for the costume and it's my main goal. It's for a friend and I've already blown past two previous deadlines for it. Not again! I will get it done!

Video game stuff:

I've been sporadically continuing my replays of various Kingdom Hearts games, just not in any real order.

( Cut for the uninterested )

***

Tabletop gaming stuff:

Most of the people from my Sunday D&D game ended up dropping out, so it's pared down to just 4 of us (including the DM, who also plays a party character). While that sucked, it landed us with a better team dynamic than we had in a larger group.

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***

General life stuff:

My betta fish was having health problems, but I got him tended to and he's doing better. I went a little wild upgrading the tank filtration system and adjusting feeding schedules to see if I can prevent it from happening again.

I've got relatives coming into town in May, initial plans to visit friends out East in June, and a trip in Vegas at some point between now and Summer. It'll be good to go on a trip again, since it feels like it's been a while (even though I drove out to Texas for a week just a few months ago). Maybe part of that is because it's been so long since I was on a plane.

( Travel memories )

I feel like I'm finally walking out of the fog of a "slow brain" month and surveying the wreckage. Time to see what I can get back up to speed with.

Goals for this week:
( NEVER GIVE UP )

I could keep going, but if I can get these done, I'll be in better position than I was before.

Lets go!