Playing with words

Losing the Time War

2023-05-16T05:09:28Z

Hello all! I hope you are well! Just surfacing from hibernation to post a couple of things about This is How You Lose the Time War:

It was one of my favourite books of 2020 and I wrote a fic for kingstoken for Chocobox 2021. Like most book fandoms, it's fairly niche - the fic has had about 200 hits and at least 20 of those are me. 😅 But I guess it has had a resurgence of sorts because of a Trigun fan with the handle Bigolas Dickolas Westwood on twitter:

https://amalelmohtar.com/i-tried-to-title-this-post-for-twenty-minutes-and-failed/

TLDR: BNF of an anime tweeted about loving the book, and it went viral. So much so that the publisher noticed and the book is now on sale for $8.79 on amazon (Still! I just checked!) and was charting up to #3 on the amazon bestseller list. Which for a four year old queer sci-fi novella is crazy and awesome. Please read it! It's sooo good and deserves all the love! I bought a print copy just because I adore it so much that I needed it as pages and not just as an ebook. Really one of those books that makes you re-read and savour the words. Seriously, it's one of the reasons I love epistolary as a format: people might not talk in poetry IRL but they certainly can write it to each other and it is just so beautiful.

Then! I got a notification yesterday that somebody made a podfic of my fic! It's available here on AO3:

[Podfic of] The indelible stain of you within me (17 words) by wilfriede0815, Podfics by Juuls
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Blue/Red (This is How You Lose the Time War)
Characters: Blue (This is How You Lose the Time War), Red (This is How You Lose the Time War)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Missing Scene, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Audio Format: Streaming, Audio Format: MP3
Summary: A missing chapter/letter

Podfic of The indelible stain of you within me by NRGburst.

So now I am trying to learn about commenting etiquette for podfic so I can say something useful and nice, but I thought that I should get the word out too! It was recorded for voiceteam , which is a podfic comm, in case any of you are interested! :D

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January media

2023-02-06T09:45:22Z

Books/Webcomics:
Made a goal of 50 books for the year and have already made a good start towards that! All of the ones I read this month were in series, which I didn't do on purpose - in retrospect, my choices seem based on a philosophy of Pirates Float My Boat. 🏴‍☠️⚓

( Books )

TV:
I finished a couple of series in January: S1-5 of 911 and Andor. I've also been rewatching Castle, which I can honestly say, I find a lot more fun than Mentalist. 911 feels a lot like Grey's Anatomy to me, with the Crazy Storylines built around the theme of the ep. I can also see why everybody on tumblr (and I think somebody on my reading list) ships Eddie/Buck - they're like Wednesday/Enid on Wednesday: sure they have obligatory hetero romantic interests but it's pretty obvious the cornerstone of their hearts, the person they have Intense Emotions for, is actually the "best friend"? (The writers seem to acknowledge this with Eddie and Buck being mistaken for a couple in series too, LOL.)

Andor was honestly amazing - how does it exist in the same Universe as that last movie that Shall Not be Named because it was so bad? Or Obi-Wan which was all hype, overacting, and plotholes big enough for the Death Star to slip through. Andor just had so much to say about societal control and politics, about human flaws and love in spite of that, and its characters are so real, even the Imperial bad guys. The impenetrable bureaucracy too, hahahaha too real! Plus how the tension started out as a trickle of unease that kept ramping up as things got revealed! I am just despairing at how the next season won't be coming for about two years, but I'm sure it will be amazing too. I will probably re-watch this soon, but next on my TV list is Interview with the Vampire.

Any thoughts on these series, oh reading list? Or pirate-y book recs? LMK!

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December media

2023-01-03T11:55:40Z

Books

Well, I only read 20 books this year, which is a far cry from my usual, but I have discovered that I can read ebooks again if they are on my iPad, since the text is as big as a regular book! ( December books )

TV

( December TV )

Whew! I've been seeing snowflake posts pop up, but I will try to comment and post later! Just wanted to jot this all down while I still remember!

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Day trip to Osaka

2022-12-28T07:39:52Z

'Twas the day after Christmas, so nothing to do
but take the expressway and bid home toodle-loo~

Just kidding - Kid #2 watches a lot of YouTube and wanted to check out the Glico man and eat food from certain shops, so we left first thing in the morning and basically wandered around and ate all day. It was great!😁

( Cut for pics )

Hope you are all having a great holiday! I've been chilling at home reading now that I have two weeks off work, so I might even have a book post up before year end! 🙌

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It's my favourite part because you'll see~

2022-12-02T03:58:40Z

Okay, so this is actually a reaction post in retrospect but:

My favourite authors (Ilona Andrews) have had one of their books (Clean Sweep) adapted into a webcomic on Tapas, so my sisters and I all downloaded the app a few months ago so we could ~~keep throwing money at them for more awesome content~~ support them in this new way! So I actually have been reading, just not the reading I used to do? ( Tapas recs )

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Three things

2022-11-23T00:40:04Z

So! I know it's been ages since I've done a reaction post but I wanted to share about the following things:

1. Neil Gaiman's Masterclass on Writing is FREE if you have Hoopla through your library! I've been watching the episodes and getting my notes together to maybe actually get the book written. One of the pieces of advice he gives: "You learn more from finishing a failure than you do from writing a success."

So I gotta get off my butt and just finish failing, I suppose. One cannot edit nothing, as I often tell my kiddo when they are bemoaning The Absolute Trash they have written and wanting to just scrap everything. Taking one's own advice is so annoying though; I'd much rather take his. :P

In the Masterclass he also mentions quotes (about fairytales and the reality of defeating dragons) and an anecdote that I recognized (the one about wasps and what constitutes bravery) and so

2. I went and re-read Coraline, which is the first proper book I have read in a while! I think it helped a lot that it was paper and you know, an easy read. Creepy in a good way and OMG I am actually Coraline's parents now even though I used to be her. LOL But it leads me to believe I should get back into reading books again via the ones on my shelf instead of ebooks, just because I think they'll be easier on the eyes.

3. I watched Wakanda Forever with my kiddo and we loved it! I know opinions out there are mixed. But I think they did a really solid job of it, considering they probably had to scrap whatever the original plan was before. And to me, that sense of "it wasn't supposed to be this way" bewildered grief made a lot of sense for Shuri's struggle throughout, and maybe it was meant to be cathartic for the audience too? I thought it was a great coming of age story, and I really liked the parallels (and shocking mirrors) in it. Yes, they could have done more development - I thought there would have been more Riri and Shuri screentime together, considering the way they act in the trailer? But all in all, I loved seeing so many women have their own journeys and literally one hopelessly outclassed Tolkien white guy again, hahahaha. The music is amazing too - Rihanna has two songs on the soundtrack and ugh, they are beautiful.

Anybody else watch it and have thoughts?

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Full Tilt

2022-11-11T22:14:24Z

Surprise bitch fic! LOL So it only took me a year, but seeing as how I couldn't even look at screens for weeks there, I think I did ok. LOL
Lookee this art too guys! 🥰
eller if you read this, I am happy to fix any egregious chess errors - I did my best. 😅

Full Tilt (16000~ words) by NRGburst
Chapters: 2/2 of Playing the Rush
Fandom: The Queen's Gambit (TV), The Queen's Gambit - Walter Tevis
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Characters: Benny Watts, Beth Harmon, Jolene (The Queen's Gambit)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Rating May Change, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mutual Pining, Poker Lingo, Actual Chess game
Summary:

adj: a player’s state of impaired judgment due to emotional agitation

TQG x Rounders: Benny gambles his way to Moscow AU Part 2

Cover art by mniiv/MN_art

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Snowflake #10/11

2022-01-22T15:43:20Z

Challenge #10 In your own space, rec a fanwork (fic, art, vid, playlist, anything!) you did not create.

😅 Well, I recced 24 fanart from various fandoms in Snowflake #9 here, and I made some AU Gendrya recs for Snowflake #3 already! Here's a shout out for fancake too, which is a recs community here on DW you might want to check out! This month's theme is Essential Starter Recs, so in that spirit, these are my can't miss canon AU fics for Game of Thrones! GoT type action-y clashes and twists, amazing dialogue and characterization and attention to detail. Warning for canon-typical violence.

the fury by nymja (Game of Thrones, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, E, Major Character Death, 138333 words) - This is my favourite fic ever according to my AO3 history, so I have to start with it! Yes, I have added more than 250 of those hits myself, thank you. This is not yet complete but a new chapter just got added a week or so ago and there are only 8 more chapters to go!

If you prefer Braime, every GoT fic by astolat is similarly Epic for the same reasons. (Between 1765 and 30000~ words)

But if you are like me and you usually prefer shorter fics, here are some highlights from my recs tag and/or AO3 Bookmarks from last year, sorted by length, all from various fandoms.

Life Lessons by ambiguously (Loki TV 2021, Loki&Frigga, Loki/Sylvie, T, No Archive Warnings, 100 words) Longing and Angst and Love being the reason for both. Ouch. So good.

echoes never ceased by afterism (The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes&Sam Wilson, G, No Archive Warnings, 401 words) - SOOO funny! Their dialogue/banter is SPOT ON.

Starring Matt Damon by saiditallbefore (Marvel Cinematic Universe, Loki & Matt Damon, G, No Archive Warnings, 480 words) - Such Cracky fun. How DID Matt Damon end up starring in that little production on Asgard?

I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) by boasamishipper (Ted Lasso, Keeley Jones/Roy Kent&Phoebe, T, No Archive Warnings, 727 words) - Hilarious Halloween fic. The unexpected twist will make you LOL because it is sooo in character.

A Thousand Shades and One by Rodo (Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes/Viscount Tewkesbury, G, No Archive Warnings, 1590 words) - Language of flowers, a 5+1 format and epistolary all in one. This fic is as sneakily sweet as it is cleverly done, just like the canon.

Goes Up in Smoke by fourteenlines (The Queen's Gambit, Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, M, No Archive Warnings, 2119 words) - Perfectly pitched angst from the part the series sorta skipped over.

sweetheart, they're suspecting things by sbsq (The Queen's Gambit, Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, E, No Archive warnings, 2489 words) - from FWB to something a little more defined, one tryst at a time. This is smutty as hell and so well written!

Okay, and now the meatier ones!

A Tie We Cannot Break by MissMorwen (MCU/Marvel 616, Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, E, No Archive Warnings, 11147 words) - Soulmarks AU with lots of pining! Sadly this one hasn't been updated in ages, but I live in hope because it is as gorgeously written as the author's other BuckyNat works.

The Year in Biscuits by greyathena (Ted Lasso, Ted Lasso/Rebecca Welton, T, No Archive Warnings, 14082 words) - So in character, and with that gorgeous slow-burn sense of fate leading them to each other with loving inevitability and understanding. This gets not just the characterization/dialogue spot on but also captures the exact tone of the TL series.

pawn and knight (watch your words) by ShadowSpellchecker (The Queen's Gambit, Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, G, No Archive Warnings, 43547 words) - This isn't done yet and hasn't been updated for months (*sobs*) but it was my favourite fic last year. Soulmarks AU with lots of attention to Real World detail and Beth and Benny warily circling each other in the chess world and colliding more and more often as Beth grows older.

Challenge #11

In your own space, Interact with someone.

Well, this isn't my first snowflake, so I've done this loads already (on both my DW and other's) so I consider it done! 🙌😁It's honestly one of the best things about Snowflake - it's like a giant potluck party all month! 🥰

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Encanto icons

2022-01-19T14:14:20Z

GIF ones are sized for DW and won't work on LJ! Stills should work everywhere! 🥰 Please credit me if used!

( Cut for a flashing GIF )

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Snowflake #9

2022-01-18T06:40:49Z

Challenge #9: Fandom Wrap Challenge

What are your top five fandoms for 2021 based on the amount of time you interacted with them?
1. The Queen's Gambit (by a landslide)
2. Ted Lasso
3. MCU
4. Game of Thrones
5. Shadow and Bone

( Cutting the rest! )

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Snowflake 6/7/8 (possibly more of a snowball here...)

2022-01-17T04:19:23Z

Challenge #6

In your own space, Create something.

Took me awhile to find the time to sit down and make something for this challenge, but yesterday I made some Squid Game icons! 🙌 Feel free to gank 'em! Also feel free to make requests for your faves - obviously mine is slightly overrepresented. hehehe

Challenge #7

In your own space, tell us about 3 fandom resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy. (One or two is fine, especially if you're in a smaller fandom!)

The B^2 Checkmates Discord server is where I go when I need a beta or to factcheck something from the sixties! I also rely on members in a couple of other fandom servers for dialect checking Kentucky/American-isms! The Ted Lasso one in particular is really friendly, plus they have a great music bot and emojis.

Also have to mention CreatorHub, which is a Discord server for GIFmakers on tumblr. They have loads of GIFmaking resources/tutorials and experienced members to ask for help if you have issues with your GIFfing! They do check to make sure you are a GIFmaker on tumblr before they let you in, so if you are interested, submit on tumblr here.

Challenge #8

In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, a gift of your time to the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well.

Last year was really amazing for me in terms of transformative works of my fics? I already wrote about that in the Acknowledgments section of my Fandom 2021 in Review post here.

I also helped start that B^2 server up above, although technically it was on Dec. 16, 2020! 😅 But it didn't really grow until 2021 - we were basically just setting up and bouncing off each other at first and happy to be in a place where we could have an actual conversation instead of re-blogging each others' posts on tumblr.

Also: this fic. I didn't think I had the fortitude to write it, but I did anyway. 🙌

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Squid Game icons

2022-01-16T12:52:05Z

GIF icons are sized for DW and won't work on LJ (but should work on AO3!) Stills should work everywhere. Please credit me if used! 😊💜

( Some of these might be spoilery, so cutting )

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Trope Bingo card

2022-01-16T11:04:56Z

New trope_bingo card for the next few months!

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS	CELEBRATORY KISS	FULL BODY	FOOD AND COOKING	MINOR CHARACTERS
FRIENDS TO ENEMIES	MIND GAMES	MIND CONTROL	BIRDS OF A FEATHER	TWENTY-FOUR HOURS TO LIVE
MENTORS AND PUPILS	ARCHITECTURE & DECOR	FREE SPACE	FAMOUS LANDMARK	TRIOS
YELLOW	ROLE REVERSAL	NON-CANONICAL RELATIONSHIP	SUPERHERO	MOVIE POSTER
DAY AT THE BEACH	MASKS	SEINFELDIAN CONVERSATION	DEAL WITH THE DEVIL	EPISTOLARY

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Snowflake #5 The Impossible Dream

2022-01-10T13:39:51Z

Challenge #5

In your own space, talk about an idea you wish you had the time / talent / energy to do.

So I think rodo named this aptly: The White Whale challenge. Who knows - maybe I'll find the motivation one day to throw myself back into research and get the work done on these, but LBR - I doubt it! 😁So this is probably more of a "Let it go" post! ❄️ Although! I have to admit that I actually did finish a longfic in 2020 after not writing it for 8 years, so never say never! 😅

The Original YA fantasy book - I had this all researched and roughly planned out, and wrote a few chapters, only to stop. I tried to finish this for Nano one year and still got only a little further before giving up again.

A Third Path - Anakin/Padme. This was a Canon AU diverging right at the end of AotC, and I was going to explore the idea of Anakin becoming a Grey Jedi instead of going all Darth and their little family running across the galaxy far far away to keep the twins out of Palpitine's hands. I left it on a cliffie too, oops. Sorry, totally my bad! 😅

Honestly, I think that once that kind of blazing itch inside your brain has fizzled, it's really hard to get it stoked again? What do you guys think?

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Snowflake #4

2022-01-08T11:54:39Z

Challenge #4

In your own space, make a list of things that you wish existed in fandom or elsewhere, and/or that you'd like someone to create or do for you.

Well, I already have my holiday_wishes list here (generally for comments, transformative works, photoshop resources) and my fandomtrees list here, and my new chocolateboxcomm letter which I posted yesterday has my newest fanfic/fanart wishes spelled out so please have a browse! 😅 Fandoms include Arcane, Ted Lasso, Squid Game, MCU, Murderbot Diaries, Spirited Away and This is How You Lose the Time War. If you can fill any of my AU prompts from yesterday, I would also be super grateful! 🙌🥰One sort of odd wish that isn't for fic or art: if you could link any good Squid Game meta or communities, I would appreciate it!

In less specific fandom wishes: I do wish some of the things that are making it harder to enjoy fandom would just settle down already. Like Tumblr needs to hurry up and fix itself and its tag issues.😭Also some fandom Drama hopefully gets sorted out soon.😖

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Dear Chocolatier

2022-01-07T11:56:18Z

Hello! Thank you for creating something for me! 🥰

Here are my AO3 and tumblr links if you want to get an idea of what kind of fics/visual styles I like! Anything shippy is going to be awesome and make me squee! Hugs, leaning on shoulders, brushing hair - anything where they are showing affection and/or attraction, please! Reinterpretations of scenes from canon are a fave too! I am okay with any rating - G to E.

Some general DNWs:
Graphic gore, Scat/Watersports, A/B/O, Mpreg, Cheating on a partner, High School AUs, misogyny, major character death, non-con sex, character bashing or humiliation, incest (unless it's already established in canon), non-requested pairings, hurt without comfort, unrequested pairings, owner/slave, teacher/student or employer/employee dynamics. No oral sex where one partner is choking/gagging either, please.

Things I love:
canon-AU, 5+1 and missing scene type fics, worldbuilding details, female characters acting with agency and awareness, badass couples being badass together. I love action, angst with a happy ending, fluff and soulmate AUs, fairy tale/literary/mythology references/AUs, epistolary formats. More loves: humour, witty banter, pining, family bonding, everybody lives!, respecting boundaries, sexytimes, feminist themes, competency, respectful relationships.

Canon specific prompts:

( Arcane )

( Ted Lasso )

( MCU )

( What if...? )

( Spirited Away )

( This is How You Lose the Time War )

( Murderbot Diaries )

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Snowflake #3

2022-01-07T08:53:01Z

Challenge #3

In your own space, put some favorite characters into an AU, fuse some favorite canons together, talk about your favorite AU/fusion tropes, or tell us why AU/fusions aren’t your cup of tea.

I've written a few canon AUs and a couple of fusion/crossovers, and I like reading them as well. Sometimes it's just therapeutic giving the finger to canon and running with a wild idea like hey, WHAT IF NOBODY NEEDLESSLY DIES THIS TIME. 🙌😉Or transplanting your favorite characters into modern circumstances just to see the same fun dynamic and clever little canon references surface, because they're still them and they'd spark off each other the same way in any universe! (I am big on Soulmates AUs, as you can probably tell.)

My absolute favorite AU author is scrubclub who has done Gendrya (Game of Thrones) AUs a bunch of inventively different ways and all of them are a delight! Her best (IMO) is the enemies to lovers HP AU which I have recced a billion times because the wonderful details drawn from both canons are what make it really special. The story breathes with such authenticity and unapologetic fun like beater bat puns. Her other stories are great for the same reason - the Superheroes AU oneshot gets their superpowers (and the banter) just right, and her Modern/Political Westeros AU also works in that Game of Thrones style House maneuvering and background while they deal with tabloids and evidence obtained via cell phone instead of "little birds."

My current OTP is Beth/Benny from TQG and I'm actually writing a canon AU where Benny gambles his way to Moscow now! But for this challenge, here are some other B^2 brainstorm ideas:

1. Harry Potter AU where Beth Harmon, the new year 5 Ravenclaw prefect would just love to wipe that superior smirk off of Benny Watts’ face, the insufferable year 7 Slytherin prefect. She'll do anything to finally lead Ravenclaw to victory for the House Cup as well as crush him at wizard's chess, because they also have a long standing rivalry there ever since he decimated her only set when she was only a first year. Also, his perfect blond hair is just unfair.

2. A Hunger Games AU where Benny is the cynical, alcoholic District 3 mentor and Beth the brand new tribute who is brilliant, stubborn and impulsive and absolutely determined to win to get back home to her mother Alma, a single parent. Benny struggles to groom her into a tribute sponsors will love instead of loathe, although he can't help but wish that she had a chance of winning instead of dying like all the others because she reminds him uncannily of himself.

3. Nobody has written a shared scars Soulmates AU for them yet, so let me just PUT THAT ENERGY OUT INTO THE UNIVERSE TOO! 😁😁😁

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Snowflake #1 and 2

2022-01-04T07:17:37Z

Challenge #1

In your own space, update your fandom information!

Done! I pruned my interests a bit and added the ones acquired this year. The Master List should also be complete now (and thank you for the nudge about that; I do get lazy about updating it! 😅)

I think my Master List sticky post pretty much explains what fandoms I am into, and if it doesn't, my 2021 in review one one post down on my journal should! 😊If you like Ted Lasso or The Queen's Gambit, please comment so I can friend you! Those are the two fandoms I'm most active in now, though I am a constant MCU/Disney/Ghibli consumer as well.

Challenge #2

In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

1. Read more. I missed my goodreads goal this year and I hope to actually hit it next year!

2. Finish the second half of Playing the Rush. It's at 5000 words and promises to be 5000 more and it's been stuck there for a month.😅I haven't abandoned a fic for years, so I don't think I'm in any danger of that, I just get Distracted and need to get my butt in gear.

3. Try to recover my borked harddrive.

4. Reinstall my old library for iTunes. Yes, I know they want me to just give in and sign up for Apple Music instead of going to the trouble. I bought all those CDs though, and dammit, I have a right to just import music I bought already.

5. Actually watch some of the things on my to-watch list! Especially Reply 1997, Someday or One Day, everything on my Netflix list.

6. Keep B2 fandom active. I know we're tiny but I don't want us to die. 🖤🤍

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Fandom 2021 review

2022-01-03T06:10:01Z

Obviously my main fandom this year was The Queen's Gambit! ♟️I posted 10 fics and 1 meta on AO3 this year, and 6 fics (and the meta) were TQG. 32 out of 40 edits/GIFsets posted to my tumblr: also TQG. Ted Lasso and MCU squeaked in there too, and the TL stuff shows up in the top 5 of my tumblr year in review post because Big Active Fandom but it's pretty obvious where my fannish heart lived in 2021, I think! 😅

Fanworks:

The Queen's Gambit:
An Exchange of Kings (23333 words)
Skittles (4889 words)
Coda (1600 words)
the touch placebo (1372 words)
Playing the Rush (7464 words)
Joy and Harmonny for the Season (5008 words)

Snowflake Day 10: Again (1805 words)

MCU:
Vested Interest (2090 words)
Truth (556 words)

Howl's Moving Castle:
In which a new bargain is struck (and a dream comes true) (1333 words)

This is How You Lose The Time War:
The indelible stain of you within me (547 words)

AO3 Stats:

So I posted about half the words from the previous year, but TBH I think my stats in 2020 were inflated because I was unemployed and had so much more time on my hands to make stuff. 😅

Meme via china_shop : (or as my daughter would say, "Mehmeh") 😂
( Cutting because this thing is THOROUGH )

Media posts:
January February March April May June July August Sept/Oct Nov/Dec

Only read 50 books this year, which is half of last year's total, but pretty average when I look back further. And I forgot to mention a couple of things like Miraculous Ladybug S4 and the specials, and Yuri!!! on Ice, but whew! That's a wrap on 2021!

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Catching up! (More Squeeing, Nov/Dec media post, Last B2 NYCD fic)

2022-01-02T15:29:12Z

Wishing you all a wonderful New Year! 🥳🙌 This will be another many updates at once post because so much has happened but I've been too busy to sit and compose a post!

First! Thank you to spikedluv for more DW points via holiday_wishes ! So much appreciated!!! 🥰

Second cool thing: I've won a few Discord Nitro giveaways ever since I started entering lots of them? Law of averages, so I've been cruising along with Nitro Classic (which is basically just Extra Emoji Powah - it's the discount version of Nitro) and I have a few months of classic credit stored up now. Then a couple days ago I basically won the jackpot: one year of Nitro Boost! 🙌🥳This is the fully souped up version of Nitro that costs $100! So I can boost the little B2 server again, which is awesome! (It means all members on the server can use more of our custom emoji and stickers and our icon can be a GIF one, plus a few more perks.)

Third: I spotted a new gift on AO3 and went rummaging through the tags at fandomtrees and ooooh! Can't wait!

And finally, the person translating my fics into Vietnamese has finished An Exchange of Kings now and the link is here!

In not so cool things: tumblr is basically totally non-functional for creators right now. 😭 It's probably them trying to fix their banned tags issue, but now any tagged post doesn't show. 🤨 So I'm not making any more GIFsets until they figure out WTF they're doing. Really sad that I might have to redo the tags on all the sets I've posted - that is at least a hundred sets.😭 I have two more weeks of work, so maybe after that?

November/December media

TV shows: So much quality content! I have been very happy with the TV offerings lately. I think I'll be trying Wheel of Time next, since the people in the Gendrya server are talking about it. (I read the books ages ago, so I don't think I'll be offended by the "narrative diversions" that husbands everywhere are complaining about!😂)

Squid Game- I totally get all the hype over this series - it was sooo good! I started it one night, just to see why everybody was talking about it and flooding my dash with people in tracksuits. Watched two episodes, and then binged the rest the next day! It is very intense though - I can see why people just can't take the strain of it, and the seemingly cynically violent narrative. This show breaks your heart on purpose? I do like what it says about capitalism and human nature in the end though. I have caps for icons, so I will be working on those sometime!

explained S3- There was a chess ep and one on dogs! Awesome season!

The Mind explained- The last ep on brainwashing was uncomfortably relevant. 😖 Radicalization in small groups: it can happen to you! I want to watch the one on personality again - the different traits are really interesting!

Lost in Space S3- I can't believe it's over! And I liked where the characters ended up, mostly, although I am sad it wasn't a little bit shippier for the pairings I was rooting for. 🥺

Arcane- OMG this show blew me away! I think I actually like the love triangle on this show because it's such a fresh take on the trope and sooo heartbreaking?! Plus what a corruption arc! And the character designs and artwork and music were all just stunning together! Definitely going to re-watch just to be wowed all over again.

Hawkeye- I did not expect this show to make me ugly sob because I'm going to be honest: I went into this not giving a damn about Clint. My fave was Natasha and I have been bitter for literally YEARS. This show had everything though - humourous banter, great character arcs/plot, awesome action sequences and emotional catharsis like whoa. 😭😭😭 So well done, and it totally blew away my expectations. Plus the holiday setting was perfect - my kiddo and I watched it all over Christmas and it felt so sublime!

The Witcher S2- I liked it for the most part although Jaskier should have had more songs! Having Ciri a lot more central at last was great, and I also like the time spent with more of the minor characters like Fringilla, whose choices and struggles I find a lot more relatable than say, Geralt's? Although I don't like what they did with Yennefer since it was so contradictory and also not in the books?! 🤨(Yes, I am the annoyed husband here: what was that?!)

Movies: Only watched a couple. I'm hoping to see No Way Home in theatre soon though! It comes out here on the 7th!

Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings- This was such a fun romp and I kind of ship Katy/Shang-chi now. I loved how they were so solidly each other's person.

Don't Look Up- I found this so depressingly realistic that I had to stop watching in the middle for a day. Like maybe it's satire but it felt terribly plausible.

Books:

Scythe, Thunderhead and The Toll by Neal Shusterman

In an overpopulated world where an ubiquitous, omnipresent AI has solved all mundane human problems like death and disease, there have to be those who must reduce the population instead. This was such a neat dystopian concept and I think the first book in this series was definitely the strongest, although all of them have several gut punch twists. The weakest part of the series was the romance - I just didn't feel it between the two main (young) protagonists. (Maybe I am over YA romance? IDK.) The third book is strangely structured too, because one of the minor characters from the second book gets a leading role for most of the first third of it - it's a jarring change when you're so used to his chapters being the occasional interlude instead of the main focus! I have a bunch of fic bookmarked for this, but for the mentor scythes, who had the most tragically separated for eternity soulmates story ever. It still makes my heart break a bit to reflect on it. 🥺

A Psalm of Storms and Silence by Roseanne A. Brown

Ooooh this was such a good finish to this duology! I feel like anything I say will be spoilers for the first book, but the great worldbuilding continues out into the world around the city in the first, with a wonderfully diverse range of characters, and some realistically motivated characters? Like at first it seems like the author is playing to a romantic trope, but noooope, character was motivated by something deeper! 😅
A great YA fantasy read - I'm reccing this series to my kiddo for sure.

Finally, here's my last fic of the year for newyearcntdown

Title: Cold Hands (Cold Feet) (Joy and Harmonny for the Season Chp 3)
Fandom: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Characters/Pairing: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, Jolene DeWitt & Benny Watts, Benny Watts & D.L. Townes
Word Count/Rating: 2424 words, T
Summary: Counterpart to the previous chapter: Whatever did Benny get Beth for Christmas?
Link to AO3 here

This was expanding on the backstory of the last chapter of Exchange too - I wasn't planning to write that in when I first saw the prompt, but the more I thought about that other meaning of Cold Feet, the more I wanted to add it. I was originally going to write eight stories for this community and only finished three, but I am keeping the option open to post a couple more on AO3 even though the community on DW won't be open for cross-posting!

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Joy and Harmonny for the Season (Prompt 2!)

2021-12-12T23:17:50Z

Joy and Harmonny for the Season (2567 words) by NRGburst
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, Beth Harmon & Jolene
Characters: Beth Harmon, Benny Watts, Jolene (The Queen's Gambit)
Additional Tags: Fluff, holiday fic, Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Post-Canon
Summary:

B^2 over the holidays. Prompt fics for newyearcntdown.

A little more Beth vs Benny in this one-shot! hehehehe Prompts for fic 2 were Hiding and Snooping for Gifts. There are some Bible verse references in this, and some canon/character compliant negativity towards Christian religion, but no offense is intended.

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More good things!

2021-12-06T02:17:12Z

It never rains but it pours and I'm really loving this, universe; keep it coming! 😁🙌

The holiday_wishes comm is just amazing - I've gotten some points towards my account here from two people now, and I didn't even get to thank them because DW doesn't send you a link when they do that! So thank you very much, kind elves! 🙇‍♀️

And I won another nitro giveaway a couple of days ago! So I will have Sweet Emoji Powah for another month after this one expires! *dancing* I can't believe I won - I'm only in that server because they have cute emoji, so it was a totally unexpected windfall! 😅

The lovely person fantranslating my B^2 fics into Vietnamese contacted me yesterday and said they had put up chap 1 of An Exchange of Kings (Openings and Tactics). Link is here! I really wish I could understand the nuance of the language - I am dying to understand how they translated the title, since it's actually an impossible concept in chess (but I wanted that metaphor of them both resigning at once and then playing out a new, unfamiliar kind of game instead).

Finally, this morning I got a notification that somebody had gifted me a Tedbecca fic as a prize for participating in a comment-a-thon last month! I started late and only got out 7 comments, so I didn't expect anything, actually, I just wanted to contribute to the fun! 😅 But one author whose fics I love still wrote me (and two others) a story with that kind of perfectly pitched angst of getting what you desperately want and knowing it might get snatched away at any second. 🥺🥺🥺 It hurt so good and feels so hopeful in the end and Ted is such a beautiful person in it and I love it to bits. 🥰🥰🥰

A prelude (1239 words) by greyathena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ted Lasso (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ted Lasso/Rebecca Welton
Characters: Ted Lasso, Rebecca Welton
Additional Tags: Pregnancy, discussion of things that can go wrong, and options, But ultimately fluff, snip of a larger fic
Summary: Rebecca shares some news.

Anyway, I hope you guys are all doing well! Work is craaaaazy for the next two weeks for me and I've committed to 8 things (probably mostly B^2 holiday fics, although one prompt is dying for a Tedbecca set) for newyearcntdown. First fic is here for the prompt Snuggle (Huddle for Warmth):

Joy and Harmonny for the Season (750 words) by NRGburst
Chapters: 1/?
Fandom: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Characters: Beth Harmon, Benny Watts
Additional Tags: Fluff, holiday fic
Summary: B^2 over the holidays. Prompt fics for newyearcntdown.

Sooooo I will probably be late posting my November media (SQUID GAME and Arc of a Scythe squeeeing, basically) and Squid Game icons that I had planned but once the 16th hits I shall be basically on winter break so 😁😁😁 y'all have been warned.

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Lucky week?

2021-11-30T00:39:42Z

Some really awesome stuff has happened all in the past few days and I just want to put up a post going squeeeeeeee 🥳

First: I won a contest for Discord Nitro a couple of days after my gift nitro ran out! So I am back to being able to use fun emoji! Yayyyy

Second: kingstoken made me this banner for Love is a Wild Thing after seeing my holiday_wishes list and it's so perfect! I couldn't have chosen a better motif to represent the fic and I am just 😍🥺😭

I have been bookmarking wishlists that I think I can fill an item on but I think I've overbooked myself for the first three weeks of December so any post office trips etc. will be after the 23rd! If you have a list, feel free to drop the link in the comments if you don't mind an elf being a little late! 😁 I tend to send Japanese-y goodies out, although I also R&R fics and make icons if we have shared fandoms!

Third: Check and Mate is now available in Vietnamese! Link to the translation is here and they plan to also do An Exchange of Kings! This is the first time I've had somebody translate my fanwork - they contacted me off ffnet out of the blue. I'd had no idea people were even still reading it! 😅

Now just to get all the stuff I'd promised to get done done! Whew! I can already feel the Holiday rush of post office trips and 忘年会 (lit. Forget The Year Party - sometimes I love Japanese lol) and I love the whirl of good spirits in this season so much! I feel like people here feel hopeful about meeting again too? Our vaccination rate has now surpassed Canada's despite being 6 months late to the game and COVID infections are down to 6-11 people a day even in super populous prefectures. I know Omicron is now looming, but just give us a month to see our friends again, please?

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All too unwell

2021-11-14T16:30:39Z

I love that we got so many Vault tracks on Red (Taylor's Version)! I am mostly listening to them, actually - I feel like her vocal control and maturity shows a little too much in the re-recorded tracks? This album is all about the headrush, spinning-out feeling of falling wildly in love and then getting your heart absolutely crushed. The desperate edges in her younger self singing these feel more authentic to me still, but maybe it's just because I'm so used to hearing them? So my fave tracks to play on repeat right now are New to Me ones: The Moment I Knew, Come Back...Be Here, Nothing New, Better Man, Message in a Bottle and All Too Well (10 minute version).

Actually the last track (and the accompanying short film) is mostly what I want to talk about, because it's brought up a lot of talk about age gaps in relationships in a couple of different places for me, and I had some very different conversations about what the film depicted:

Taylor cast these two very deliberately - the ten year age gap is the same as the one between her and Jake Gyllenhaal, and this song is famously autobiographical about their relationship when she was 20. Back when ATW was the 5 minute version, it seemed like a song about great love found and lost, but it's morphed into something a lot darker and expository in its new iteration. So he's been trending on Twitter since the album dropped.

Jake Gyllenhaal calling Tom Holland ‘kid’ for the entirely of the far from home press tour

Tom Holland being the same age as Jake’s girlfriend… pic.twitter.com/SCvaihqKcF
— jess (@ripcowstoenails) November 13, 2021

Sorry for this one #RedTaylorsVersion pic.twitter.com/hLJpFD5T4S
— Meredith Cash (@mercash22) November 13, 2021

"I'll get older but your lovers stay my age." OUCH. Taylor dragging him full out, spelling out a few more memorable incidents (like him standing her up on her 21st birthday), this noticeable relationship pattern of his and his emotional withholding power games.

In fact, the film's main point is the starkly unbalanced power dynamic in the relationship. Older Guy (Dylan O'Brien dressed and styled like 2011 Jake G) is always the one in the driver's seat, not including or acknowledging his much younger girlfriend (Sadie Sink) when with his friends, and then gaslighting her when she explains how horrible that made her feel before finally being the one to break things off. And the thing TS seems to be pointing out is: this kind of power imbalance isn't actually a rare occurrence with age gap relationships, and it's one some men seek out deliberately.

I think age gaps aren't necessarily problematic; it's the power/experience/financial gap that is. I think this post sums it up pretty well:

The thing about All Too Well is not the age-gap itself, but the age gap at that particular stage in life. Because a 10 year age gap between a 20 year old and a 30 year old is not the same way as a 10 year age gap but between, say, a 30 year old and a 40 year old. With 30-40, we’re talking about two people who can consider themselves in similar stages of life, they are both full adults. But someone who is just turning 20 and someone who just turned 30 are two people who are in completely different stages of life.

When you’re 20, you’re just entering that awkward phase between being a late teen and a young adult, and trying to figure out how the fuck adulting works. When you’re 30 (I imagine, since I’m not 30 yet), you’ve already more or less have the hang of it. You can’t expect a 20 year old to experience life the same way as a 30 year old, no more than you could expect it the other way around. Expectations are different, needs are different, thought process is different, literally everything. I’m sure there must be some couples that make it work, and good for them! But they’re exceptions, not the rule. In most cases, the relationship is clearly too unbalanced to be called healthy.

On a personal note, my mother was in Uni when she met my (24 years senior) father, who had gone back to Hong Kong after his divorce expressly for the purpose of finding himself a young, new wife. She never finished her degree: he took her back to Canada, where he isolated and abused her (and us kids) for almost 15 years. And my SIL is mid-divorce right now from her 10 years older husband, who she met while he was coaching her club at Uni. You know the thing I remember most about her talking about him? "Kenka shinai," she said, absolutely beaming. (We) don't fight. It took her literally years to realize it was because she was just doing everything he told her to. And yes, he followed the pattern too: they're getting divorced because he was cheating on her with his new girlfriend, a university student.

I'm glad Taylor is speaking up about this? Like it's a dynamic that our culture and media reinforces as Absolutely Fine and even Ideal - see how hard it is for a 40-something year old actress to be cast as a love interest for a 50 year old actor. 🙄 And I am absolutely not saying all men are serial predators, or that all age gap relationships with this specific age gap are doomed. But I'm glad she's putting the full truth out there now that she can look back at the relationship from a distance and go, "yeah, that was fucked up." Just look at her new album cover. It's her in the driver's seat now.

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Trick or Treat reveal and recs

2021-11-08T01:22:06Z

This was me! I actually matched on a pairing but this prompt struck me so much more: What was it like to be caught in the Hex, especially for Monica?

Truth (556 words) by NRGburst
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: WandaVision (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Geraldine (WandaVision), Monica Rambeau
Additional Tags: trapped in the hex, Character Study
Summary: Geraldine knows her life is in real Technicolor. She's just not sure if it's true.

Recs:
Fics:

( Fic recs: mostly MCU, 1 Howl's moving castle, 1 Ted Lasso )

Fanart:

( Fanart recs (2 WandaVision, 1 Game of Thrones) )Such a wonderful exchange! Can't wait to see what you f-listers made! 🧡🖤🎃

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