Kantayra can tie Ra. Can't I, Ra?

I have officially reached that time of spring when I have way too much to do, and I start thinking "I should totally quit my job because I don't have time to work on top of everything else," because that's naturally the thing that would have to give. 😝 The ephemerals are all coming back almost faster than I can keep track, and the library has decided to simultaneously deluge me with every book I've put on hold over a 5-month period at exactly the same time that I finally ordered in a bunch of other books to read. 😔 Also, somehow I have to find time this week to get my skates sharpened? One of the fun paradoxes of figure skating is that it's hard to find breaks in your skating schedule long enough to get your skates sharpened. Like, I can't do it in the morning before work, because I'm busy skating. And I can't cut out of work. And I can't do it the one evening the skate-sharpening place is open after work, because I have skating at 6 in the morning the day after and need to be awake at 4:45, so I can't stay up late. You see the dilemma. Ah well, somehow I will figure (ha!) it out before my edges get dangerously dull.

Here's stuff that happened this week:

• Exchanges due in March/April (the_mane_event, kinkluckydip, smut4smut, wickedloveex, worldbuilding_exchange, unsent_letters_exchange + mystery things I am pinch-hitting or treating for): I'm at 13/13, all done writing! 😊 I also finished the one hard edit/partial rewrite I wanted to do, and I'm much happier with the result now. These will all be revealing over the next few weeks, so I'll do some light edits for typos and whatnot, but I feel very accomplished at getting it all done!


• the_mane_event: I have a gift! I don't know why this shocks me, but it does every time: 'Oh right, there is cool stuff to read, too!' I received this lovely Killing Eve fic of Eve/Villanelle: love binds me. My good luck with excellent gifts continues! I'm also mostly through the other things in the collection I know well enough to understand and leave feedback on. I'm hoping to finish up my reading today. This really was such a cool theme, focusing on hair: so much pretty art and interesting metaphors in the fics.


• Exchanges due in May/June (hurtcomfortex, pickmeupexchange, idproquo, caseficexchange + mystery pinch-hits and treats): I'm still at 0/4 on this. I did sign up for caseficexchange, and I have a tentative request I'm thinking of gaming for, but I want to do some canon review first. If it works out, though, I think it will be tons of fun! I want to get one of my assignments done this week: there's one where I have pretty much the whole fic in my head, I just need to write it out. There was another one I was trying to write first, but I feel like my idea is kind of 'meh' on that one, and I have tons of time, so I'm putting that on the back burner in the hopes that I get better inspiration.


• Potential other exchanges to add to my docket for May/June:
  
  
  • Pretty much sure I'm in for: seasonsofdrabbles, prisoner_exchange, diegetic_exchange - unless zero other people turn up for all my fandoms, I really want to do all these (and nominations indicate that others are interested)
  
  
  • Things I'm iffy on but will sign up if there are cool requests: whumpex, saturdaymorningex
  
  
  • Other stuff that hasn't gone through nominations yet, but I'm hopeful for: summerofhorrorexchange, justunrequitedex, ahorseofcourseexchange
  
  
• Femslash Salad Bar: Nope, nothing on this! I might end up finishing it in next year's run, lol. 😝


• The Untamed: I'm through episode 40! That means that, unless something drastic comes up, I'll finish this week or next week. 🥺 I do not want it to end! I still love it so much! (I do have other items on my viewing docket, but this one will be hard to replace. I do plan to read MDZS too, but my reading docket is also full so that will be a while. I don't know if I can go without my WWX fix for that long!)


• Unit One: Finally finished it, only six months late and one horrific medical nightmare later! Yeah, I was watching this mostly because I didn't have any other ideas back in September and Mads Mikkelsen is pretty. He continues to be pretty! But this show was starting to lose it toward the end (and, even at its best, was just a solid procedural), so best that it ended when it did.


• Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by MXTX: I got about two chapters into this and am really loving it (all the fandom/fanfic in-jokes 😝) but then I needed to take a break due to incoming library books (which have actual deadlines to read by)...


• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir! This book has been on my radar for years, and I finally got it. I'm not quite halfway through, but am really enjoying this too. I will say, though, that I am much more in it for the plot and puzzles/mystery than the characters, at this point. I know there's tons of F/F shipping for this series, and I can see why, but I'm not sold on that yet. We'll see if it ends up being a book I'm fannish for or just a fun read: still tbd. I am putting the sequel in my library queue, though, for sure. I'd just like to finish SVSSS before reading it.


• Ephemerals! Bloodroots are now at peak season. The first wild ginger, false rue anemone, and marsh marigolds are just starting to bloom. The early rue is really close too, and bluebells are starting to come up. Exciting times, all!

Also: I passed 100k posted to AO3 for the year last week! 😊 A lot of that is still unrevealed, but its time will come. I don't know if I'll make 200k, since I'm definitely slowing down, but we'll see.

Goals for this week: 1) Finish at least 1 May/June fic. 2) Work on ideas/canon review/research for 2 more. 3) Watch more (and maybe finish?) The Untamed. 4) Finish Gideon the Ninth.

Yay, competition is over, now I never have to think about it again! I'm back to writing things, so here we go!

• the_mane_event, kinkluckydip, smut4smut, wickedloveex, worldbuilding_exchange, unsent_letters_exchange, hurtcomfortex + unnamed things I am pinch-hitting or treating for: I actually got something done last week! So now I'm at 11/13. Reveals for the_mane_event & kinkluckydip got pushed back due to lingering PHs, so I didn't do my final editing pass on those - probably this week. I'd also like to finish off my 2 outstanding assignments this week, in which case I would pick up an additional pinch hit (assuming no one else snatches it up before me).


• New assignments: I ended up signing up for pickmeupexchange last minute because I liked a bunch of the prompts! So I'm expecting to see what I got for that today. I've signed up for idproquo and may tweak slightly today as sign-ups close.


• Upcoming exchanges: I got my nominations in for caseficexchange and am very excited to sign up for that one, especially since other people had already nominated several of my fandoms! Also sign-ups for everythingisfemslashex open soon - I'm less sure how that one will go; I had to nominate most of my own fandoms, so that leads me to believe that I might have a hard time finding matches. But you never know!


• Femslash Salad Bar: All right, let's put one of these on my docket, too. It's getting ridiculous how I can't get things done without a deadline. (Watch: I'll finish one of the new assignments instead of this. That is my prediction!)


• Now through Episode 28 of The Untamed and super obsessed and hunting down fanfic like mad. Fantastic, pretty show whose only flaw is that the actors are obviously not playing their instruments. 😝


• Spring ephemeral season is about to start here, so Friday I'm taking the day off work and going to the Arboretum. It's still very early in the season here, so I'd be surprised if anything but the snow trilliums are up. The skunk cabbages are blooming at my local park, but the Arboretum doesn't have particularly good habitat for them (running streams) so they only have 1 that I know of and it blooms much later. I did see some false rue anemone just starting to pop up yesterday (still in dark-brown/red stage), so we're getting there, but it will be a while before that blooms. Possibly some early heads of bloodroot too (it is really hard to see without getting off the path and potentially hurting the plants, lol, so yeah: not risking that!). The virginia waterleaf has the biggest leaves so far (other than a few skunk cabbages) but of course that won't bloom until late May - it just likes an early start. Still: spring! My plant friends are back! ❤️

I really miss the days you could go into a library or book store, and they had a gazillion books on the shelves, and you could just browse. Online browsing does nothing for me, and I cannot count the number of times I picked up a book that looked initially promising, but reading two pages saved me from wasting my time, or I found something wonderful that I never knew existed or would've thought of. I'm finding the process of throwing something in my library queue and then having to wait 4+ weeks to see if it's even a contender, really frustrating. But oh well! It just means I'm not reading much of anything at the moment.

Goals for this week: 1) Finish my 2 outstanding assignments. 2) 1 fic for Femslash Salad Bar. 3) Finish up Unit One and watch more of The Untamed. 4) Start thinking about the new assignments that are about to come in.

Big competition is this week, and already my brain cells are atrophying into a state of panic! I landed all my jumps at my exhibition Sunday and practice this morning, though, so 🤞. Fortunately, my last event is on Wednesday, so I get a bit of time to devolve into a jellyfish at the end of the week. I eagerly await being able to starfish on my floor and not have to do any more jumps. But! The one good thing is that all the schedules are wonky this week due to this competition, so I don't have to wake up at 4:45 in the goddamn morning (4:45 is always "goddamn" morning!) at all this week! I can sleep in until work starts at 8 every day! (This is unholy amounts of luxury for me.)

So, yes. My goals this week will be the absolute bare minimum, along the lines of "try not to die or let my brains all dribble out my ears." This is a lofty ambition for competition week! 😝

Here's what I did last week:

• the_mane_event, kinkluckydip, smut4smut, wickedloveex, worldbuilding_exchange, unsent_letters_exchange, hurtcomfortex + unnamed things I am pinch-hitting or treating for: Last week I left off at 8/12, with a goal of reaching 9/12. And I did get one of those original 12 done! But then a treat sprung fully-formed into my brain, so I wrote that too. So it's technically now 10/13. For one of those remaining 3, I had the goal to come up with my idea, which I did! And it is a lot of fun, and I'm about halfway through writing it. Not sure if I'll get it (or anything) written this week, but that's okay. The one thing I have to do this week is recheck my undisclosed-number-of-fics-that-is-greater-than-zero for kinkluckydip, since those go live Friday. So that's the only goal I'm giving myself this week.


• Things of mine that have revealed recently:
  
  
  • au5k: I didn't sign-up or pinch-hit for this, but I did see that someone requested "Everything's exactly the same except Hannibal is a tentacle monster" which is one of the greatest prompts I have ever seen, so I treated. My fic is Tentacular and is exactly what it says on the label. Seriously, this is another one where I rushed to AO3 as soon as I saw the prompt, because 1) I wanted to read it and 2) I figured it must exist because eldritch!abomination Hannibal is so obvious in retrospect, but, alas, there was none, and I simply could not let that stand! 😞 Also, I just realized that I posted this back on Valentines Day, so that answers the question of what I did on Valentines Day: posted Hannigram tentacle porn on AO3. LOL, this tracks. 🤣
  
  
  • goreswap: For this one, I wrote what was technically my first Killing Eve fic (although not the first attached to my name, due to the anon period)! Super Fun! I wrote Eve/Villanelle Squeamish. I really enjoy writing these two; they are just absolute batshit.
  
  
• Upcoming things: idproquo is in sign-ups this week, and I intend to do so! I got my weirdo nominations in. everythingisfemslashex, I am watching to see if anyone else nominates things relevant to my interests - I will throw in any remaining nominations I need to make then. caseficexchange is not doing anything yet this week; I'm just super excited about it. It will surprise no one whatsoever that I'm hyped to see if the Ace Attorney fandom goes big for this one, right? I usually widely offer but don't actively game for AA in exchanges, since it's one of my solid staples at this point, but for case fic I might have to make an exception and game if there are some amazing requests. 🤩


• Femflash Salad Bar: I didn't have time for this at all last week, oh well. After this week, I'll put it back on my docket. This just proves, though, how bad I am at getting things done with self-imposed deadlines. When I had an external deadline, I got 7 fics in 1 month. Last month, with only my own drive, I put all the hard deadlines for other things first, and got 0 fics done for this. I will definitely have a lull at the end of April, though, and hopefully these will take top priority.


• Still addicted to The Untamed! I'm through episode 18 now, so closing in on halfway. We seem to be getting closer to the "16 years ago" part, which is cool because I really want to know what happens in present day. Not that I'm not enjoying the past scenes! But I already know how those turn out, roughly, and the present day left off on the cliffhanger where Lan Wangji - I think - realized that the masked flute-playing zombie-controlling dude is actually Wei Wuxian come back from the dead, and that is a mean mean place to leave me hanging for, like, 20 episodes! 😝 Also, I know the cnovel was a huge success and everything, but part of me wishes that the real reason that the show was made was because someone asked the wig-maker "How many pretty wigs do you want to make?" and the wig-maker's answer was "All. ALL THE WIGS!" 🤣 Because, seriously yo, that is a lot - A LOT - of stupidly pretty wigs!


• I also read "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison because it's a short story and online for free and kept cropping up in exchanges. I went in with reservations, though, because I'm not big on post-apocalypse or AI stuff. And, yeah, still not big on that stuff. It's definitely well-written but not particularly my jam. Still worth the read, though, just so that I know what's the what!


• I've got the last season on Unit One out of the library again. This was the one that I was watching when I got interrupted by The Events, and I think I've got, like, six episodes left, so I figured I'd finish it off. Plus, Mads Mikkelsen PRETTY!

Goals: 1) Final proofread/edits for kinkluckydip. 2) Sign up for idproquo. 3) Nominate for everythingisfemslashex. 4) Watch pretty TV shows, as much as I can with my insane competition schedule. 5) Do not let my brains dribble out my ears!

So, one of the fun things about hormones is that they cause stupid mood swings. Despite being super productive this last week, I also had stupid unhelpful breakdowns that I was failing at adulting (even though I really obviously am not). Do not recommend! Anyway, I'm doing well, and here's where I am:

• worldbuilding_exchange, wickedloveex, smut4smut, unsent_letters_exchange, the_mane_event, and kinkluckydip are the things that I'm currently signed up for and assignments are out. I have also claimed pinch hints for some things that will remain undisclosed and also have some treats planned for things that likewise will remain undisclosed. Also, also some of the assignments/treats that I've completed are intentionally not yet posted, because there are several recipients who might be starting to notice my existence, and few things are as deanonymizing as "Whee! I already had your whole gift completed in the sign-up period! Here, have it the first day of the exchange! And also I refuse to redate any of my fics because I'm anal about the fic date matching my actual posting date, for weird reasons only my brain understands!" So, in lieu of all that, I'll be vaguing more than usual for a bit here. All in all, I have 11 things currently planned to write (and 1 extra Pinch Hint that I'll only let myself pick up after I get through most of that backlog). As of my previous post, I had written 1 of those 11 things. This week I bumped the number up to 5/11. I'm about halfway through 2 more and have just started another 1. So that is good progress - my goal was only to get through 1.5! I would like to be 8 or 9 out of 11 by end of week.


• goreswap is revealing this week, so I have to double-check my stuff there for final edits. I seem to recall everything being pretty well cleaned up for that one, so it'll just be those few random typos that hide until the very last minute, no matter how much editing I do beforehand.


• hurtcomfortex assignments are coming out shortly, so that'll be a new one to add to the list! Assignments aren't due until June, though, so I'm not putting that in my "March writing bucket" (yet - watch me get super inspired and finish that one first 🤣). Also, I have no clue how tasty the Initial Pinch Hits will be. (Hopefully not, because I would like to have less than 5 open assignments at some point in my life.)


• fangfrenzyficexchange, fluffityfluffexchange, idproquo, and everythingisfemslashex are in various sign-up/nomination stages at some point in the upcoming week. I assume I'll do at least the latter two, not too sure about the first two. Will noodle.


• Femslash Salad Bar: I got halfway through 2 fics last week, but didn't finish either. My goal was to finish 1...and I don't quite think this counts. However! I will set the goal to finish 1 for good this week, yet again.


• I suspect that I'm going to have a little bit of a lull upcoming. I've started doing some canon review for a couple of my current assignments, and I have a library queue of a bunch of books/DVDs I've been meaning to absorb for potential exchange offers. A couple of the offers I'm making currently I'm starting to run out of ideas for, so I'd like to rotate in some new ones potentially. So those are my thoughts. (On the off chance someone is actually reading this post 🤣 and has any suggestions for me, please leave them! I'm currently limited to Amazon Prime in the US, Kanopy, and "whatever books/DVDs my library has", but I will check things out!)

Goals for Next Week: Finish at least 3 of my current outstanding exchange fics (stretch goal: 4). Finish 1 of those Femslash Salad Bar fics and actually post it. Final edits for goreswap. Finish up canon reviews currently in progress.

Let's get right into writing (whee, for homophones!):

• Femslash Salad Bar: In the most shocking and surprising twist of all time, I did not somehow complete 6 whole fics and post them in under a week, all while I had a pounding period headache. I know everyone else is as agog as I am. I did, however, complete 3 more, so I had a total of 7/10, which ain't horrible. Links to all that I finished are above. My original plan was to split the 10 fics with 2 each across 5 OTPs (Alana/Margot from Hannibal, Bedelia/Miriam from Hannibal, Eve/Villanelle from Killing Eve, Franziska/Maya from Ace Attorney, and Persephone/Maggie from Whyborne & Griffin). However, it was immediately obvious that my Alana/Margot and Bedelia/Miriam ideas would go way longer, and my Persephone/Maggie ideas were much shorter and also (so I thought) my Franziska/Maya ones, so I realloted. The shorter ideas inevitably got written faster, though, so of the 3 outstanding fics, 2 are Alana/Margot and 1 is Bedelia/Miriam. I hope to finish those up this March. But also! 3 fics is not enough for my whole Bedelia/Miriam idea, so I'm going to be expanding that series into more fics, and also I'd kind of like to add more chapters to my Franziska/Maya fic, so my goal is to do those 2 things in time with the schedule for Femslash Big Bang (which I did not sign up for), just to give myself a sort of deadline. I hope to knock out at least 1 of the 3 pending fics this week. So more news pending!


• worldbuilding_exchange, wickedloveex, smut4smut: I'll be working on these assignments this week and hope to finish at least 1 (although ideally 2) this week.


• unsent_letters_exchange & hurtcomfortex: I've already signed up for these, and am offering some slightly more unusual fandoms (along with my regular staples), so there will be some added suspense when assignments go out! I already have multiple matches across different fandoms for both, so no guarantees what I'll get.


• the_mane_event: I posted my nominations for this, and need to sign up this week. This one has a quick turn-around time, so I'll probably write it as soon as assignments go out. Should be fun!


• I did skip all the flash exchanges over the last week. I realized belatedly that I had scheduled all my volunteer hours at my figure-skating club last weekend, and also my synchronized skating team skated our routine at an exhibition, so I had zero free-time this weekend. Oops! But good that I remembered before I signed up, right? 🫠


• There are 2 new exchanges starting their nominations process, both of which I'm sorta considering: fluffityfluffexchange for fluff (obviously) and fangfrenzyficexchange for vampires. Neither of which are super relevant to my fandoms at the moment, so I might skip them, but I'm watching what other people nominate just in case.


• Rare Kink Buffet is currently in prompting mode, and I'm watching for anything in my fandoms, but nothing is catching my eye so far. I am not super big on 'any fandom' type prompts. My brain just works 'characters/fandom first, then prompts from there'. Hence why I don't do a lot of things like bulletproof, etc. But maybe something will pop up that's in one of my fandoms and directly relevant to my interests. I won't be super disappointed if I sit this one out. I have more than enough to do otherwise.

In other news: I've finished Killing Eve! I have thoughts!

( My Thoughts )

Goals for Next Week: (This is a new section I'm trying!) Complete 1 sign-up. Complete 2 fics (stretch goal of a 3rd). Next weekend I have a synchro competition, so no writing anticipated then. Wish me luck!

ETA: My total 2025 word count as of the end of February was 72K words. Looking good for 100K this year, woo-hoo!

I posted all the things I was procrastinating posting last week! I am very proud of myself for this. I think one of the thing I like about exchanges is that I can post-dump my draft onto AO3 when I'm tired, and then ignore it for a while because it's not yet reveals, and then come back later and do my 3+ read-throughs to fix any wonkiness. For some reason, this doesn't fill me with the dread of impending deadline the way posting a draft to AO3 does. Why not? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Brains are weird!

candyheartsex gets it own bullet list this week:

• OMG, I have an adorable fanart gift! Seriously, look at Phoenix and Pess! They are adorable together, and I am in love! 😍 I have requested art many times in the (far-distant) past, and this is the first time I've gotten it, and it's better than I could ever have imagined! I am so in awe of people who can draw such good art.


• I am currently reading my way through the collection and commenting/kudosing everything I like. My plan goes like this:
  
  1. Go through every fandom I know enough to understand what's going in, in alphabetical order, and open up all the works where I even remotely comprehend the characters/summary.
  
  
  2. Except in the previous, I skip Original Works because there are too many. I do Original Works next.
  
  
  3. Sort by word count with lowest first to find all the art, and comment on all of that that I haven't already.
  
  
  4. Sort by lowest hits, and try to find things I can read canon-blind to comment on those.
  
  I'm currently halfway through the S's on #1. There are a lot of big fandoms that start with S, lol.


• You know how I said I wanted to write 14 treats, but I'd only gotten 1 done, but I was hoping to get at least a couple more? Well, I didn't write 14, but I did write a lot of treats this last week. I feel very accomplished. 😊

Other stuff I've done:

• Now I'm behind on Femslash Salad Bar again, because I spent all last week on Candy Hearts. So that will be my top priority this coming week. I don't have any other fics due this month, so I'm feeling good about my odds for finishing this (infamous last words).


• There are a couple prompts I could write for valentines_boxes and femgiftboxes, although not as many as I was hoping for. Those aren't currently in a time crunch, though, so I have time to noodle on some of the fandoms I'm less comfy with. I did end up sitting out a couple of the flash exchanges, because I would've only been able to match on OWs, and I have enough fandoms that I'm excited about right now that OW doesn't appeal to me as much.


• worldbuilding_exchange: I signed up, and there are already a couple of other recips I'd be excited to write for! I am looking forward to this one. I do enjoy a good world-build. 😊


• wickedloveex: I need to sign up for this soon, in the next day or so. I just have to line up all my offers, since there were a bunch of interesting nominations that were not mine.


• smut4smut: I really need to do some work on my freeforms for this, because sign-ups are going to sneak right up on me, and it always takes me way longer to sign-up for exchanges with freeforms.


• hurtcomfortex: I've got my nominations in, and it looks like other people in my fandoms are nominating too, so high hopes for this one!


• unsent_letters_exchange: Getting ready to nominate for this one. I love experimental fic formats, so I'm really looking forward to this exchange, too.

So far I am enjoying S3 of Killing Eve, maybe more than S2 (or, at least, the end of S2). I should finish this sometime next week, and I have to think of what series I'll watch next.

Ugh, my building has a mouse infestation. I've caught 10(!) in my traps already. D: And my neighbors all have hefty tallies, too. Exterminator is coming on Wednesday. Mice in my kitchen is now my new DNW.

Stuff I wrote this week:

1. My goreswap assignment! I had so much fun writing this one, and it's a pairing I'm definitely going to be writing again.


2. 2 PHs, for 2 different exchanges. Both fandoms I wouldn't have thought to write outside of the prompts, so I was very glad to see these come up and poke at my brain.

Exchanges/Sign-Ups/Etc.:

• Nothing popped up for highadrenalineexchange that I could write, so I'm sitting that one out. Which gives me some capacity for:


• Femslash Salad Bar! I have several femslash pairings that aren't be requested as often as I'd like, so I figured this would be a good way to focus some time on them.


• I also signed up for Lunar New Year's Wood Snake Exchange, which is scary because there are a lot of art prompts, and I think I might offer some art, since many prompts are animal-only (namely snakes), and that's something I can actually make a go at. I do love cute snakes! 😍🐍


• au5k - I still haven't finished that treat I desperately want to write. I should hurry up on that, since there's not much time left, and lots of other things coming up.


• candyheartsex - I haven't written as many treats as I would have liked. (Largely because the number I would have liked - 14 - was absurd. We'll see if I fit any others in. I'd like to get at least 1-2 more!


• threesentenceficathon - I haven't written anymore for a while. I might pop in before prompts close, if I feel like it, or not. I felt like I got a good few days out of this one, so I'm okay if that was my one burst of inspiration.


• worldbuilding_exchange - I've got my nominations in and am planning my sign-up. This one will be fun! And I have loads of prompts that are more worldbuilding focused, so I'm really excited to see what I'll get for this one, too.


• wickedloveex - My nominations are in for this one too, so just waiting for sign-ups, which aren't for a while yet.


• fffx - I have all my fics in for this one, and there are no more pinch hits, so I should be safe, right? I'm excited for this collection to go live. There are some interesting-looking fandoms/tags in there.


• Still noodling on Femslash Big Bang. I'm thinking about getting a Tumblr account, just because I do have some art, now that I've started drawing up again. TBD!

Non-exchange stuff:

• Still loving Killing Eve! I'm near the end of S2 now.


• Lots of progress on 'How to Survive Camping' this week, and it has gotten so gooooooood!


• I've started up drawing again. Focusing mostly on animals for now, and having loads of fun. I need to figure out how I want to do coloring. I've been doing the line drawings on paper, then scanning, and then trying coloring both on paper and of the scan. It's more fun to color on paper for me, but that doesn't scan as well (loses a lot of vividness) as opposed to digital coloring. Decisions, decisions...


• I've started up origami again too. I'm doing mostly flowers at the moment. Nothing too rigorous or difficult, just enjoying having another fun distraction for my brain. Also: whoa boy, do some sites have lousy instructions! I've ended up on sites with overkill instructions instead, just to stay on the safe side. The former technical writer in me weeps at some of these.

Right, so, in a conclusion to the epic saga that will surprise absolutely nobody, I ended up claiming the fffx pinch hit that I promised myself I wouldn't look at, wrote it, and posted it. My only hope is that no more PHs get posted that I can claim, because I clearly have zero will power.

People did end up signing up for things I could write for goreswap, yay! So I signed up for that, got my assignment (which is a FANTASTIC prompt I noticed last-minute and added another offer to game for it!), and currently am writing my way through that. It is tons of fun to write so far! I'm maybe 1/3 of the way through, hoping to finish up this week.

No one has requested any of my fandoms yet for highadrenalineexchange, so the jury's still out on that one. There's one Original Work prompt I like that was requested (and I nominated the prompt in the first place, as a safety in case I signed up), but I'm not sure if I'm hyped enough about writing it yet that I would sign up if that was my guaranteed match. I'm still noodling on it (and hoping for more requests to show up that I could choose from).

I've started the au5k treat that I knew I had to write the moment I saw the prompt. I'm hoping to finish this one up this week too, and then I'm wondering if I should just post straight-up or wait to double-check that this recip doesn't come back as a Post-Deadline Pinch Hit, in which case I could easily claim them. Decisions, decisions... Oh well, I still have time.

A couple of new things on the horizon: I threw in my nominations for wickedloveex since it's a new exchange and the theme is basically "every single pairing kantayra has ever loved". worldbuilding_exchange is also starting back up, and I have several fandoms where I care about worldbuilding waaaaay more than I care about ships (and some fandoms where I care about both!), so I'm excited for that one. I am also debating creating a Tumblr account solely so that I can participate in Femslash Big Bang, because there is a bang-length femslash fic for a super rare pair that I absolutely want to write, and I know that I will never make the time to write it if there's not a challenge motivation for it. On the other hand, not so hot about having to create a Tumblr account. :/ Maybe one isn't required? But I can't find any way to ask the mod that doesn't presume I already have a Tumblr account, lol. I'll think about it... Also, maybe I'll ask around if there are other challenges I could write this for that are DW- or AO3-based.

I am now wondering if I should set a goal of writing 100k this year. I say this only because it's not yet the end of January, and I've already written 30k. :P The last time I hit 100k (and it was almost 200k) was back in 2020. Yay, Covid, I think? o.O In any case, this reinforces my opinion that I tend to write a lot during stressful times. So I have no idea how long this'll last, but it's great escapism for the moment!

Fandom-wise:
- I didn't read any more on How To Survive Camping this week. I will finish at some point, but I'm not super invested, especially when compared to...
- Killing Eve! I started watching this and am through the first season. This show has been on my radar for some time, because Eve/Villanelle clicks all my shipping boxes. I'd heard spoilers for the final season, though, and that kind of turned me off, since I do not like character deaths in my pairings. And also I heard people say it was "basically a comedy", and I'm not sure why that discouraged me, because I think exactly the same thing about Hannibal TV, but there you are, my brain is not logical. However, S1 was amazing, and I love Eve/Villanelle so much, and I continue to think that comedic gore/murder is incredibly funny, so Villanelle is absolutely my fave! ♥ Also, I had been pronouncing Villanelle's name wrong in my head this whole time: turns out it's "Villa Nell" not "Villain Elle", oops! Not sure if I'll watch the final season when I get to that. Decision pending!
- I grabbed a bunch of my old art supplies out of storage. Every so often, I do this thing where I think "I should get better at drawing!" but then I end up only drawing animals and plants, which I am already pretty good at, and not people, which is where I need the most work, because I honestly don't want to stare at people for that long, even if it's my own drawing, lol. So this time I'm thinking I'll just let myself draw cool animals and plants, since my fingers have clearly made their decision on this subject. Also, it seems like it would be fun to learn how to create digital art, since that didn't become a thing until well after I was out of art class, so I might research how to do that. (Beyond, y'know, mouse doodles in MS Paint during boring meetings at work, which are fine for random doodles, but drawing with a mouse is so grossly inferior to drawing with a pencil/pen, it's not even funny.
- I'm thinking of playing around with origami again. This idea came to me after reading The Neuroscience of Navigation and how origami helps train your brain for 3D rotation of objects. I haven't done it in...probably decades now? I can't even remember! So it should be fun to play with for a bit.
- I'm also thinking of taking up juggling again. Spoilers: I am not good at juggling. At my best, I could juggle three balls maybe 5 or 6 times, and 4 balls 1-2 times if I was SUPER lucky. I was better at contact juggling and used to have a pretty cool butterfly, but last time I tried that, I had totally forgotten it, so I might start that up again too. (Where are my old balls for this? Fuck if I know!)
- I also need to sign up for my spring skating competitions, blargh! So much money for so much stress! (Competitions are fun at exactly one time: the moment of elation as you step off the ice, when you crazily think "whee, I want to do this again!") I've got all my jumps back after my bout of Covid over New Years, though, so I don't really have any excuses.

I've been filling more prompts and PHs. There are two more I want to write for fandomtrees, which will now for sure make the reveal date of January 18, since everyone has 2 fills. So, uh, wish me luck on getting that done in time.

I've been meaning to join threesentenceficathon, but other priorities have prevented me from doing so, so far. Maybe when I finish everything else I want to write. So...like...May? 🤣

I need to buckle down and write my candyheartsex assignment. My idea is half-formed, and I wish it were shorter, but it's not, so I still need to let it percolate a bit before I can do my recip's request justice. There are a bunch of treats I want to write for this exchange, too. I completed 1 treat while it was still nominations period, but ideally I'd like to fit in another 5-6. (I may have a problem with wanting to write too many treats.)

Speaking of which, there's an amazing prompt in au5k, and I absolutely want that fic to exist, and I want to write it as a treat, but goddamn it, there are so many exchanges already! 😭 (And I'm refusing to look at one of the fffx PHs that just dropped. I have already done enough for that exchange; I do not need to write another 5k...or 10k... (Help!))

I did finish 'Murder After Christmas', which was an enjoyable enough ride. I found it a bit dither-y in the middle, and there were far too many characters who would, like, confess to random shit they didn't do. But I liked the ending, and it was a good light-weight, over-Christmas read. People who are hardcore into mysteries would probably be more the target audience than me.

So far, this is just a safe shelter, in case I need an account at some later date. All my entries are still on My LiveJournal and all my fic is on My Fic Journal. Toodles!