the carnival of you and me

Yesterday I squeaked a flashfic into the last fan_flashworks round (prompt: Finger) with eight minutes to spare. Much much thanks to mergatrude for last minute read-through... and then today gave it another light edit before archiving to AO3:

Title: Life as a persimmon (1393 words) [Teen]
Fandom: 내 손끝에 너의 온도가 닿을 때 | The Time of Fever (2024), 비의도적 연애담 | Unintentional Love Story (TV 2023)
Relationships: Go Hotae/Kim Donghee
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, High School, Episode 4 after the infirmary kiss, Angst, The Shadow of Past Trauma, Internalized Homophobia, fantasies, Community: fan_flashworks
Summary: He practically sleepwalks out the main door. No one stops him. Why would they? He’s Kim Donghee, star pupil, responsible and studious with perfect attendance. He doesn’t cause trouble. He never defies authority. Until ten minutes ago, that’s who he was. Now, he’s the boy who kissed Go Hotae.


(CNTW because I need to go and look up what counts as "Underage" and also figure out how old they are. Or I could just keep CNTW-ing. ;-p)

The new fan_flashworks prompt is Sorry, so I expect there's more TToF angst in my future. \o?

ION, in the interests of helping out future me, I started my candyheartsex fic today, and I already don't know where it's going. Wish me luck?

IOON, I have too many audiobooks on the go, and no good earphones. Bah! Am I going to splurge on Shokz OpenFit Air thingummies?

Late but very heartfelt thank yous to mific and nnozomi for the lovely cards! So much appreciated, seriously. <3 <3 <3

Pandemic life
( Vigilance. )

Previous poll review
In the Cartoons? poll, the most popular animated media was TV cartoons for adults (57.8%) but TV cartoons for kids, anime, old school 2D movies, and stop-motion weren't far behind.

Happy New Year! won the ticky-boxes, followed by hugs, followed by a tie between Yuletide and "fannish joy and connections". Thank you all for your votes!

Reading
In ebook, some really great Yuletide fic, then a chance remark by mergatrude sent me falling back into World Ain't Ready by idiopathicsmile (Les Mis modern high school AU with fake dating), which consumed me for several days. It's just really, really good, even if reading so much Grantaire POV is... not great for my mental health. What can I say, I'm very suggestible.

Some more of the Guardian novel by priest for the read-along on sid_guardian. (I think I'm up-to-date with comments? The perils of having four separate Firefox windows open. /o\)

In audio, I finished a relisten of The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. I think what drew me back was Keema and Jun being so determined to keep their promises, and simultaneously bringing each other joy after having been so lonely. Then I started How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, read by Susan Bennett, recced by princessofgeeks -- despite the distinct lack of children in my life. Just out of curiosity.

I interrupted that (ha!) to listen to The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun, read by Vikas Adam, Graham Halstead, and Cassandra Campbell... which was ridiculous. It's a m/m romcom about the anxiety-ridden star of a reality dating show falling for his production handler, and involves such things as

(very brief spoilers)

secret practice dating, and secret practice sex.

I didn't exactly feel their pain, but it did make a laugh and exclaim incredulously. (World Ain't Ready is better, and I'm now listening my way through the serial-numbers-filed-off audiodrama adaptation, Keep It Steady, which is great but imo loses something without the internal narration... and argh, is not yet finished! Don't leave me hanging, Keep It Steady!) (Aside: is it obligatory these days for romcoms to end with at last one of the pairing getting therapy?)

Kdramas
I'm three-quarters of the way through A Virtuous Business and loving it. So sad J's not around to watch it with me -- I think he'd have liked it a lot.

Occasionally dipping into The Time of Fever and Unintentional Love Story, though they're so short I'm in danger of wearing certain scenes out (ie, reaching the emotional equivalent of semantic satiation). La la la...

My to-watch list is out of control, but I don't seem to have much focus.

Other TV
We finished Ludwig, which was fun. (I'm trying not to dwell on the plotholes.) (Wow, that was weeks ago. I've been writing and rewriting this post for so long.)

And then we watched two seasons of The Morning Show, starring Jennifer Anniston, Reese Witherspoon, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Billy Crudup, and many more. Season 1 looks at the Me Too movement from a whole range of angles, really interesting. Season 2, set at the start of 2020, is a hot mess. There's a lot of "these people are sleep-deprived, self-involved nightmares under three million tons of pressure and constant scrutiny" rather than being issue-based, and yeah, the whole thing just kind of blunders along. We're passing on season 3 and trying season 2 of Bad Sisters Shrinking instead.

My sister and I rewatched Snow Cake, a 2006 film starring Alan Rickman, Sigorney Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss, a random scattering of Canadians including Callum Keith Rennie (the reason I own it on DVD), and the actor who plays Stevie in Schitt's Creek (I knew I recognised her, but I had to look her up). Such a strange little movie.

The Doctor Who Christmas special was more fun than I expected. Occasional moments of great banter.

One episode of Saint-Pierre, a new Canadian procedural, which didn't quite hold my interest.

Fandom
My candyheartsex assignment looks really fun. My request went out for pinchhit, which made me feel uncomfortably visible and also had me second-guessing my DNWs. So a million thanks to whoever picked that up!

fandomtrees went live this yesterday morning. I completely failed at making anything for anyone, but I got some amazing gifts. (Will post about them separately.)

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, some local politics (argh!), a Conspirituality episode with Rebecca Solnit, Keep It Steady.

Writing/making things
I don't know if it was Yuletide reveals or messing up my arms, but I've lost all my steam. My flashfic stalled out, and my fandomtrees fic feels like a lead weight. I'm having trouble focusing for sustained periods, and my intuition for narrative structure appears to be offline. Because it's summer? Idk.

Food
My freezer is so full of dumplings that I can't make any more (most recent batches are chicken&cabbage&coriander&seasonings and bokchoy&celery&tofu&carrot&herbs), BUT I just went to the farmer's market and bought two large bunches of coriander, and some garlic chives. Oops! (I mean, there's still space in the other freezer drawer...)

I made a batch of salsa so strong that I ended up adding more tomatoes and splitting it in two, but then I stupidly added more Tabasco to use up the rest of the bottle, so it's still pretty spicy.

Link dump
Dismantling ‘kind’ colonialism by Tina Ngata | Mason Durie: An independent Māori voice is needed by Tā Mason Durie | Bullying in East Asia by aini | Eru Kapa-Kingi: It’s the system that’s radical, not me by Dale Husband | Reimagining what it means to be a gang by Denis O'Reilly | The 50 must-see TV shows for 2025 | The Wired Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance (I only skimmed it, but my main takeaway was to download the torproject browser) | Jennifer Aniston and Billy Crudup on The Morning Show, singing "Not While I'm Around" | Adrian Visits Waitress to Sing "She Used To Be Mine" Live On Stage (an oldie, but it always makes me tear up, and I mostly re-find things via Dreamwidth, so I'm linking again) | Everything is Racist with Wyatt Cenac, episode on LEGO (pilot for a podcast that didn't get picked up) | Wyatt Cenac's comedy special "Brooklyn" LoFi version on Youtube.

Good things
Communicating with my SIL-to-be's niece through the international language of Kdrama posters. Cycle lanes. Sunshine. Moments of chill. Salsa and corn chips. Crosswords. Cats.

I decided not to do a letter, but here's my sign-up. Treats are welcome!

( General likes and DNWs )

( Fandoms: Unintentional Love Story, Guardian (TV), My Mister, While You Were Sleeping (TV 2017), Something in the Rain, The Spear Cuts Through Water )

When last we left me, it was mid-December, and I really wanted to write maggie33 a Yuletide treat to thank her for introducing me to the Korean BL drama The Time of Fever and its sequel, Unintentional Love Story.

The Time of Fever is a 6 x 20-minute-episode drama about two high-school best friends pining for each other. It's gorgeously acted and shot, and the characters have a lot of interiority: Go Hotae has just lost his father and moved from Seoul back to his small hometown; he's an athlete, a terrible student, and very sweet. Kim Donghee, bright, artistic, and abused by his father for being gay, comes to live with Hotae and his mum. He tries hard to conceal his crush on Hotae. We get to see Hotae's growing awareness of Donghee.

In the sequel, Unintentional Love Story, they're the background couple. Kim Donghee runs a cafe and is still hiding his feelings. Go Hotae pursues him determinedly.

( Have some pics! )

So I wrote maggie33 a little get-together fic set during ULS.


Title: Playing with Matches (2520 words) [Teen]
Fandom: 내 손끝에 너의 온도가 닿을 때 | The Time of Fever (2024), 비의도적 연애담 | Unintentional Love Story (TV 2023)
Relationships: Go Hotae/Kim Donghee
Additional Tags: Canon scenes, Vignettes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Together, Kim Dong Hee's internalized homophobia, and Go Ho Tae's complete lack of it, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Ho Tae has been smacked around by angry girlfriends dozens of times and barely felt a thing. He’s taken handbag bruises and cuts—and acquired dozens of tattoos, too—all the while believing he has an unnaturally thick skin. His nerves are permanently deadened after so much swim training at school, he’s reasoned, or his father’s passing severed something crucial in his heart, rendering him numb.

But Dong Hee’s punch—which is serious, yes, but doesn’t have much force behind it—lands like a blazing meteor smashing through Ho Tae’s chest.


vaudevilles was kind enough to cast her sharp beta eye over it, despite not knowing canon at all. <3

Writing that first fic opened a floodgate. Obviously, you can be in a fandom without making fanworks! However, I personally find that writing fic is like holding up a magnifying glass in sunlight: it can start a fire. I started having so many thoughts and ideas about these boys. Conveniently, there were other requests for Time of Fever in Yuletide, so I speed-wrote another thing, the fic that made me giddy and obsessed.


Title: The Best Thing for Everyone (8726 words) [Teen]
Fandom: 내 손끝에 너의 온도가 닿을 때 | The Time of Fever (2024), 비의도적 연애담 | Unintentional Love Story (TV 2023)
Relationships: Go Hotae/Kim Donghee
Characters: Kim Donghee (The Time of Fever), Go Hotae (The Time of Fever), Yoon Taejoon, Go Hotae's Mother
Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Set between canons, Internalized Homophobia, Angst, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Tattoo Shaming, Forbidden Love, Crushes, Mutual Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Male Friendship, Donghee still has nightmares about his dad, Unresolved Ending, this pairing grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and I couldn't be happier, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Hardly aware of what he was saying, Donghee blurted, “I can’t hang out with you tonight. I have a prior commitment.”

“What kind of prior commitment?” Hotae seemed skeptical. And expectant, like he thought they’d pick up where they left off —

But where they left off had torn Donghee’s heart out and betrayed Auntie’s trust. It could never happen again. “A date. I have a date tonight with Cha Jooheon.”


teaotter and vaudevilles both gave me such valuable beta feedback for this. *showers them with gratitude* I finally finished it two days before deadline (well, I was still editing right up till reveals, but I uploaded it two days before deadline). Then I was like, well, I have 48 hours... and celli has been requesting Good Manager (AKA Chief Kim, one of my tiny Kdrama fandoms) in various exchanges and events for the last several years, and I've never actually managed to write for them, and apparently I'm on a roll? Plus, oh, I have the crackiest idea!! Who needs to be sociable with visiting family anyway?

So I wrote a thing in 24 hours, teaotter betaed it overnight (*Even More Gratitude And Also Sparkles*), and I spent Christmas morning looking up extra Nietzsche quotes (/o\!) and editing. :D :D :D


Title: The Yul3000 (2128 words) [Gen]
Fandom: 김과장 | Good Manager (TV)
Relationships: Kim Sung Ryong/Seo Yul (Good Manager)
Additional Tags: Crack, AI Character, Brief appearance by Yoon Ha-Kyung, First Kiss, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Kim Sungryong put a hand on Seo Yul’s shoulder to stop him barging in. “Welcome to our safehouse. Before you go any further, there’s something you should know.”


And that was my Yuletide up till reveals. Let this stand as both a lure and a warning to future!me. Also, ahhhhh, I need Time of Fever icons!

I matched on Battle Creek for Yuletide. This is a buddy cop show very much in the vein of Due South, starring Dean Winters and Josh Duhamel. Lots of friction, great ensemble. They only made one season, but it has a complete season arc, as well as some fun cases of the week. Andrew and I rewatched it as canon review, and it still stands up. I highly rec it.

I wrote a fairly classic slashfic where they kept getting trapped together in various spaces, keeping Milt on the back foot as much as possible. But I started with a different trope...


Title: Hooked on a Feeling (5720 words) [Teen]
Fandom: Battle Creek (TV)
Relationships: Russ Agnew/Milt Chamberlain
Characters: Milt Chamberlain, Russ Agnew, Holly Dale, Meredith Oberling
Additional Tags: Background/minor pairing
Summary: Russ took the drink, gulped it down in one long breath, and said conversationally, “I just bet Holly two hundred bucks I could get you into bed.”

Milt laughed. That had to be a joke.


Thanks to mergatrude's encouragement, a lot of beta help from cyphomandra, and some quality additional Russ snark from corvidology, I was happy with how this came out, and there was still lots of time. So I embarked on some treats.

First up, I'd seen the request for Jennifer Crusie's Dempseys series (Welcome to Temptation and Faking It). As a long-time fan of Crusie's solo work, I really wanted to give that a try, so I listened to the audiobooks (wow, so Midwestern, so white, and the gender dynamics have not entirely aged well) and then, because I was still working on my Battle Creek fic, I listened to some more of her audiobooks, and then listened to Welcome to Temptation again. This went on way too long, but I needed to keep the voices in my head. Anyway, I finally wrote a little coda/epilogue where I doubled down on Crusie's tendency to give her characters rescue dogs.


Title: Honeymoon in Apple-Green, with Paintbrush (1935 words) [Teen]
Fandom: The Dempseys Series - Jennifer Crusie
Relationships: Sophie Dempsey/Phineas Tucker
Characters: Phineas Tucker, Sophie Dempsey, Dillie Tucker
Additional Tags: Domestic Fluff, Parenthood, Honeymoon at home, Yuletide Treat
Summary: This was their honeymoon: Sophie painting Dillie’s new bedroom to match the kitchen, as Dillie had requested, and Phin installing ceiling fans, smoke alarms, and bookshelves in every room. They were planning a real get-away in New Orleans after the mayoral election, just the two of them, but it was only common sense that right now the better part of valour was not leaving Stephen Garvey alone with the Temptation campaign trail. Besides, Sophie was enjoying renovating her farmhouse and spending time with her new daughter.


Thanks to mergatrude for beta! I was so happy with the response to this, btw. All my recips were lovely, generous and enthusiastic, which definitely brought the Yuletide cheer -- along with my lovely lovely gifts, of course!

Next up, I wanted to try a fandom that wasn't 10+ hours long, and I'd seen petra's tantalising request for "English for Pony-Lovers", one of the episodes in John Finnemore's anthology radio play series, Double Acts, on my reading page. I'm also a long-time fan of Finnemore, so I leapt in.

"English for Pony-Lovers" is a half-hour play about a German woman having an English lesson from a young woman from the north of England. In the course of the lesson, several secrets are revealed including the fact that Elke, the German woman, has assumed a fake identity online to befriend her daughter. There are delightful fannish content and language-learning jokes, and the whole thing is a joy. I was very happy to attempt writing these characters.


Title: Present Simple (Freundschaft ist Magie) (4326 words) [Gen]
Fandom: John Finnemore's Double Acts
Characters: Claudia (Double Acts), Elke (Double Acts), Lorna (Double Acts)
Additional Tags: Fandom, Fannish heartbreak, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Cross-language conversations, Angst with a Happy Ending, Humor, Yuletide Treat
Summary: These were the facts: Mama knew about Claudia’s fannishness, and she knew about Esperanza. Objectively, it made zero sense for Mama to be Esperanza, but how else could Mama have found out? Unless—

Could the real Esperanza have come to Tuttlingen to find her? If she’d shown up when Claudia was at school, and Mama had learned of Claudia’s fannish activities—her fannish friends—and decided that people on the internet couldn’t be trusted, or that Claudia should be focusing on her schoolwork instead of writing fanfiction, then what? Would she intervene?


trobadora gave me wonderful beta for the German and German-English confusion sides of things, saving me from several Google-Translate-inspired gaffes; and mergatrude and cyphomandra both listened to the canon so they could beta. (cyphomandra was taken enough with it to write a hilarious treat of her own in Yuletide Madness: [AO3] Pferdeäpfel posted a new work (don't forget to use the creator's workskin!).)

I initially made Claudia too young, so the Double Acts treat involved extensive rewriting, which took a while and meant imposing more on my busy betas. It was already halfway through December! But even so, I knew there was at least one more treat (and ideally two) that I had to write...

[To be continued.]

Yesterday, after months of reckless keyboarding without serious consequences, I made a tactical error and retrospectively compiled a media log for 2024, and now my arms are mad at me.

So I'm overwhelmed with all the end-of-year/start-of-year things I was going to post about, including maybe dabbling in the Snowflake challenge for the first time, and I can't do any of them. Argh!

So, for starters, I'm not going to post about the things I wrote for Yuletide all at once; I'll do one or two a day until I go back to feeling bulletproof.

But first, I really just want to thank my betas, who were all fantastic. I seriously wouldn't have managed as much -- or been as only mildly freaked out by reveals -- without their absolutely stellar help at a time when they were all super busy too. No one betaed all the things (and only corvidology knew the canon in advance), but all were fantastically helpful and smart. In alphabetical order, thanks to corvidology, cyphomandra, mergatrude, teaotter, trobadora, and vaudevilles! *showers you with a thousand years of gratitude*

Also, I think I earned some kind of Yuletide badge, because cyphomandra betaed my story and ended up writing her own (hilarious!) treat for the same fandom, to which I had just introduced her. But more about that when I have more arms...

Previous poll review
In the Barnacles poll, 29.4% of respondents have had the same residential address for five to ten years, 23.5% for ten to twenty years, and 17.6% for more than twenty. I guess Dreamwidth attracts people who like stability? ;-)

In ticky-boxes, hugs won by a mile with 62.7%, distantly followed by bluetooth perfection and Scrabble-playing sasquatches with 29.4% each. Thank you all for your votes!!

Reading
In ebook, I've been haphazardly reading Yuletide fic, drafts of my own fic, and the Guardian novel for the read-along. In audio, I failed to get into Larmorna Ash's Dark, Salt, Clear, bounced off Rainbow Rowell's Slow Dance (because the prose was very plain and I was having enough trouble with that in my writing already), and accidentally started a relisten of The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez, read by Joel de la Fuente. The first part is great! I'm now in the part with the Second Terror, and I've slowed down a lot. (How is this comfort listening??)

Kdramas
I watched a little more of Behind Your Touch, but I kind of drifted off. Now I've started A Virtuous Business, which is set in the early 90s, and is about four women selling lingerie and sex toys in a small town. It's building some lovely female friendships, as they work to overcome all their cultural and personal-character repression. I'm only an episode and a half in, but it's so charming and well done that I can already tell I'll finish it.

Other TV
We finished: A Man on the Inside (fine but didn't wow me); Star Trek: Lower Decks (still my favourite Star Trek, but regarding the ending, ditto); The Old Man season 2 (good! so sad it's been cancelled); and season 3 of The Lincoln Lawyer (actually worked better for me than season 2, despite the body count).

We also watched Black Doves (Netflix), a Christmas-themed spy-thriller. There is violence, but there's also Ben Wishaw as a gay disaster "trigger man" (professional assassin) who gets to have gay friends and a hilari-disastrous romantic complication.

The first couple of 10-minute episodes of Cheaters (BBC), and the first couple of episodes of Ludwig, a murder mystery starring David Mitchell, also UK.

And a Netflix doco called Is That Black Enough For You about the history of Black cinema in the USA, which was excellent and absolutely worth the time. (And aside from the history, and the highlighting of how very white most studio movies are, wow, it made me long for more films where charismatic people are just telling an interesting story.)

Guardian/Fandom
I've just caught up with the Guardian novel read-along and am starting to think about fandomtrees. Also, I'm theoretically starting another fan_flashworks streak. I didn't manage any Yuletide recs, but I have read a few things here and there. Looking forward to making some belated year-end posts.

And of course, I can't wait to flail at you about my new fandom! :D

Audio entertainment
The Tech Won't Save Us podcast's episode about Australia banning teens from social media, a couple of episodes of Trevor Noah's What Now?, a New Scientist Podcast episode about Google's new quantum computer and whether it proves the multiverse exists (I need to relisten, because I can't remember what the answer was), and otherwise mostly just Writing Excuses.

Writing/making things
I have a flashfic ready to go, but I'm holding off posting it till after Yuletide author reveals, just to be on the safe side. I've started another flashfic for the same fandom. I feel like I have a decent amount of creative momentum atm and I might actually manage to finish one of the things I started for last year's fandomtrees for this year's one.

Life/health/mental state things
I think I need to schedule some (as yet unspecified) highlights into my calendar, but the baseline is pretty steady and chipper atm.

House

Insects. Laire, don't read this!

I appear to have two colonies of ants battling it out in my kitchen. What this means in practice is that my counter is regularly littered with ant parts, and every so often I wipe a skirmish off the wall with a vinegar-soaked cloth. I suspect in the long run I'll have to call an exterminator, but in the meantime, they're keeping each other occupied and not bothering me too much. *knocks on wood, please, please, please don't let them find the cat food bowl*

Food
The low-FODMAP Korean dumpling recipe I found actually turned out really well, despite my fudging the amounts (some were 1/2 what was specified in the recipe; some were 1/3). My latest attempts at prawns (with water chestnuts) and lemon cheesecake (with cream cheese instead of ricotta) seem less successful, but it's a learning process. Everything's still edible, and that's what matters.

Link dump
Baba Is You: a puzzle game about changing the rules on Steam (mentioned in a podcast, I can't even remember which one now, and linking here solely so I can close the tab) | Dusky Grouse Sounds on AllAboutBirds - listen to the second one! (via sophia_sol) | Radio NZ interview with David Baldacci (good interview) | argh, I still have six million tabs open, but I want to finish this post!

Good things
New fandom fizz! Halle's persistent determination to sleep on my feet even when I make her her own hot water bottle. To-do lists, plans and goals. Fandom. Dreamwidth. A Close Encounter with the Black & White Ruffed Lemurs, and then wandering the almost-deserted zoo on Christmas Eve. Canon review of beloved things. Dumplings. Andrew. My house. Friends. All of you!

First thing first, I received an adorable Good Manager (AKA Chief Kim) double-kidnapping fic for Yuletide, brimful of bickering and trust issues, and Seo Yul being suspicious and unimpressed. It brought (and is still bringing) me So Much Joy! I've had an excellent year generally for gifts, and this is the icing on the cake. :D :D :D


bounce back and hit (1457 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: 김과장 | Good Manager (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Kim Sung Ryong/Seo Yul (Good Manager)
Additional Tags: Pre-Slash, Kidnapping, Comedy, a little light action
Summary: Seo Yul wakes up a little bit kidnapped, tied up next to Sung Ryong. He's not impressed.


Go, read, enjoy!!

In other news, no one warned me that Yuletide would make me Utterly Deranged! Because of my fear of deadlines (one of the reasons I haven't signed up before), I finished my assignment pretty early, and then I segued straight into writing a gift. And another gift, and another... I wrote five gifts in the end, bringing my total Yuletide output including my assignment fic to about 25k. o.O I started the last one on the morning of the 24th and sent it to beta that evening. (Yuletide go-live is on the 25th in Aotearoa / New Zealand, at 10pm.) I was still tweaking and editing and re-titling 10 minutes before reveals (and telling Andrew, yes, I will make dumplings, I just need to fix one more thing).

I was going to thank my betas by name here, since I couldn't on the gifts themselves, but then I realised one of you would be a clue as to the fandom, for those who know us, so I'll leave that till author reveals. In the meantime, let me shower you all with gold sparkles and chocolates and tiny notional festive candy dinosaurs. You know who you are! And I am so grateful!! <333

Also in the meantime, and most pressingly, I need to restore some order to the lamentable state of my house, read some more Yulefic, fold some dumplings, and try to give my family members a modicum of attention, having spent Christmas afternoon at my sister's place desperately trawling through lyrics in CD liner notes in search of an alternate title for one of the treats. :D

Previous poll review
In the Decor preferences poll, 65.2% of respondents lean towards comfortable clutter, and equal numbers prefer clear surfaces or say books are their only clutter (15.2%). Colours are more popular with 73.9%, versus 15.2% who like neutrals.

In ticky-boxes, "curling up on a comfortable couch with a mug of hot chocolate" beat hugs, 80.8% to 75%! Beta and tigers came third equal with 46.2%. Thank you all for your votes!

Reading
I gobbled up Blood Sweat Glitter: a roller derby romance by Iona Datt Sharma. It was delightful and then suckerpunched me hard in the feels. A+ rec, especially if you like their previous work. ( More books )

Kdramas
In theory I'm watching Behind Your Touch, about a vet who can read animals' and people's minds when she touches their posteriors, but in practice I'm still on episode 1.

Andrew and I finished episode 4 of Snowdrop and are calling it. Andrew thinks the lead is a terrible spy (I pointed out he's doing exactly what River Cartwright would do, lol), and I'm concerned about the underlying political messaging, which I presume is what the controversy was about, plus some of it is just downright confusing. And things seem to have escalated dramatically despite there being twelve episodes to go?? (Okay, maybe I'll watch a bit more by myself. I'll see.)

Other TV
( TV and movies. )

Guardian/Fandom
*waves from the Forest of Yuletide*

Fannish 50 Blogging Challenge | fandomtrees masterlist if you feel like treating (spreadsheet is here).

Audio entertainment
It Could Happen Here episode about South Korean (amaebi was so right about the sniggering /o\), more Trevor Noah, some Marc Maron, Writing Excuses, and half an episode of Cover to Cover.

Writing/making things
I chopped 230 words out of the final scene of my Yuletide fic, and I'm much happier with it now. It's done! Not touching it again. (I lie -- I'll probably read through everything one more time before reveals.) The second of my treats is back at beta after a rewrite. I managed a triple drabble about Zhang Shi for fan_flashworks.

Next up: something for the new fan_flashworks round, Joy, and another Yuletide treat about which I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm back in the Writers' Hour groove and it's working for me, even if I seem to spend three times longer revising than I do drafting. It doesn't matter. Let the good times roll!

Life/health/mental state things
I think I'm okay. Regular writing definitely helps. More sleep would help, too. I do feel like I've lost a bunch of support structures over the years, specific people as well as activities like Zumba that I thought of as prozac substitutes, and that this is affecting my resilience. And the pandemic nixes some activities I might replace them with, such as group singing. tl;dr, I probably need to make an effort to overcome my excessive introversion and find more friends, especially since one of my weekly lunch-date people is planning to move away. Parasocial relationships can only take you so far.

Tech
Is it common for android phones to glitch with Bluetooth earphones? I'm not sure which is the problem, but I've had issues with both sets of earphones. Like, sometimes it spontaneously rewinds or the volume goes right down when I'm not touching the controls. And the buttons (on the set with buttons) are pretty unreliable. I just want to watch stuff on my exercise machine without accidentally knocking my phone onto the floor -- is that so much to ask?

Link dump
Translating as a Heritage Speaker: Explorations and Reflections - essay by Lauren Kim | Loop-and-Twist: an Ancient Form of Nalbinding by SallyPointer (via sophia_sol) | Australia has passed a social media ban for under 16s, which has implications for digital privacy and censorship (AO3 link) | What I Saw Providing Gender-Affirming Care to Trans Kids in Tennessee (MSN, via minoanmiss) | Gender-affirming care affects a small minority – so why the public consultation? and Submission guide for puberty blocker restrictions (Aotearoa NZ).

Good things
Dumplings, salsa, some things other than food. Healthy routines. The internet making it easy to reach out to people. Cat. Boy. Friends. Fandom. Wriiiiiiiting.

Oops, I said I'd link to my fandomtrees tree, and then I totally forgot. It's here.
I requested:

• Guardian (TV) - ridiculous number of pairings, familiar to those who know me
• Guardian (novel) - Shen San/Shen Wei only
• Small Gods of Calamity by Sam Kyung Yoo - Kim Han-gil/Shin Yoonhae, Kim Han-gil & Choi Wonshik, Kim Han-gil & Azuna, Dajung & Lee Junhee
• Good Manager (AKA Chief Kim) (2017) - Kim Sung-ryong/Seo Yul, team (especially Choo Nam-ho and Yoon Ha-kyung)
• While You Were Sleeping (2017) - Han Woo Tak/Jung Jae Chan/Nam Hong Joo

It's all here!

And while I'm posting, a meme via mergatrude: describe yourself using 5 things that are probably in your purse/backpack at any given moment

1. hand sanitiser and face masks
2. pen and notebook
3. sunglasses and sun screen
4. fold-away shopping bags and carabiners
5. hair sticks

/totally cheating