schneefink

Christmas! I can sit here in my pajamas, Christmas cookies next to me, my head full of (mostly Christmas) songs, and read Yuletide stories :) That's almost all I did yesterday (and church music and delicious food and card games), it was fantastic.

I got an amazing story for Yuletide!
The Pivot (1678 words) by salable_mystic
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, but depression and a suicide attempt
Summary: Gregor Vorbarra is 26 when he decides that jumping off a balcony is how he will best serve Barrayar.

It's a very intense story. In a good way, just be prepared for majorly depressive thoughts.

I also got a lovely Madness treat! At Home (100 words) by elstaplador
Fandom: Galaxy Quest (1999)
Summary: Laliari tries to get her head around this alien concept of 'acting'.

And I got some comments&kudos on my fics already :)

I have a long list of stories to rec and many tabs open for stories yet to read that I'll hopefully get around to in the next few days. There's some minor stuff I have to do, a friend will be staying over for a few days, and then I'm visiting family for New Year's. I'll most likely do the rest of the December meme questions in January.

Yuletide deadline is in two weeks! I have a first draft, but haven't touched it in a week. I don't like editing -.-

Yesterday the Pens had an afternoon game, so D. and I watched it live! With some connection problems, that was annoying, but we had pizza. And they won, despite all the injuries, which is nice :)

For the December meme, a question by kate: Do you write things you want to read, or do you read things that are different from what you write? Any tropes/premises/worlds that are favorites, in reading and/or in writing?

Both.

I'll read pretty much anything if it's well done, tropes/pairings/fandoms, and I've discovered many great things by following recs or authors I know into the unknown.

Favorite tropes to read: many, and it depends on the fandom. Sometimes I like harlequin fic, sometimes I prefer trope subversion. I like alternate history AUs and different world AUs a lot (mundane AUs less, but they can also be written very well.) I like stories that center around close-knit communities, like teamfic.

I read a ton of things I haven't written yet, but that I might write in the future. I have many more ideas for stories than I actually end up writing, sometimes because of time or energy and sometimes because I think I'm not good enough to write it yet. For example porn: I enjoy reading explicit fic (if the sex scene has a purpose in the story), but I don't like writing sex scenes because I don't think I'm good at them (yet.)

Today I was finally smart enough to take painkillers against my weather-induced headaches. I don't know for sure where I got my aversion to non-prescribed medicine, but sometimes it's really annoying.

I wrote over 500 words of Yuletide fic! And that's with constantly editing it because I wasn't happy. (Current step: try to make long sections of narration seem less boring by adding a few lines of dialogue.)
I have almost 1k words, and I'm not even a quarter through my outline. But it's a detailed outline, so I think I'll be okay.

(Still a tiny bit concerned that it's not my recipient's favorite fandom. Oh well.)

The downside of writing Yuletide fic, it makes me feel like I've accomplished something even when I'm brilliantly procrastinating on uni stuff.

I'm also working on progressing from "eat three meals a day" (took me long enough) to "eating something when I'm hungry." Small steps.

I'm currently procrastinating on going to sleep, I thought I was over that.

I'm tiiired and I'm procrastinating on going to sleep because my brain is being weird, so have a post full of random things.

Why are people posting Yuletide letters already? It's not a bad idea to start writing them especially if you know that you won't have much time next week, but it's making me feel stressed. I wanted to rewatch Galaxy Quest, finish reading "Barrayar", and go through the tag set to see if I've missed anything... oh well, still some time left.
(A friend got me a copy of Galaxy Quest but in such a high resolution that my laptop doesn't want to play it properly. I really need to declutter it soon.)
I looked through nominations and I was very happy to find some things that had been accepted, & I know what I hope I'll be matched on! Fandoms where I don't want any particular stories myself but would be happy to write one.

I did not stay up to watch the Pens game against Dallas, which was good because Duper :( But he's back on his feet! I watched the new In the Room and grinned broadly the whole time. This team. Olli and Kappy! Sid and Duper! Suttsy and Kuni discussing D-pairings and calling Despres "Desi"! (Did they assume Scuds would play top4? Ahaha Olli is sooo much better.) Suttsy and Duper mic'd!
Islanders tomorrow, I won't watch it live either but afterwards. It'd be fantastic to break the Isles' streak.
(Btw the Oilers are so bad, if they get McDavid it would be terrible and hilarious.)

Today was the first day of a two-day "voice and movement" workshop at uni. Six hours today, seven tomorrow. Sooo tired. But it was ok, some of it very interesting. Debating taught me not to be afraid of speaking to people and to stand comfortably, singing taught me breathing, but presentations and making contact with the audience is something I have less practice in.
I was told several times that I look very strict, huh. I thought I was not smiling but still friendly.

The whole week I was looking forward to watching Bab5 yesterday, but then another friend came to visit too so we watched Star Wars 3 instead (I tried not to look too unhappy about it.) Wow does that movie have a lot of pretty cloud backgrounds and dramatic face shots and people being stupid (also the Jedi philosophy is still very weird.)
I also got LK's excellent salad recipe (completely different from how we usually make salad at home) that I'm looking forward to trying out.

I'm not very happy with the progress I made on my thesis this week, but at least I got my phone repaired and met my new Russian conversation partner. He seems nice, I'm looking forward to it.

There are some things I should get done for debating and some other things that I'm not feeling up to right now, but whatever.

I haven't been as enthusiastic about One Piece recently. I'm not sure if it's because the last two arcs are not that good or if they're just not as good as Marinford. In the latter case, it will be very hard to make anything as amazing as Marinford again. But I really enjoyed the most recent chapter!
( Spoilers for chapter 698 )

And before I forget: Have some very late Yuletide recs.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, by fennellaevangela
The Bloggess tries her hand at running a kitten livestream.
"The Bloggess" fanfic, whee! I hadn't dared hope someone would ask for it. A series of blog posts that could have happened just like that.
Btw, I got the Bloggess' book "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" for Christmas and I started laughing when I read the chapter titles. It's also a very warm book about living your life differently, and I enjoyed it very much.

On Being Female, by Nomad
Discworld: It began, as did so many bewilderments small and large, with a declaration by Captain Carrot.
This fic, in which Carrot is a member of the Dwarf Women's Guild, has great Vimes and Carrot voices. I love how it approaches the female dwarves and societal change, and it's also very funny.

Perigee, by radondoran
Isaac Asimo's Robots: The Universe's most boring assignment becomes a lot more interesting.
This is a very good Powell&Donovan adventures-with-robots story, with an interesting robot, a solid adventure, and Susan Calvin. (Susan %"§$&$"%/& Calvin, I love her so much. That reminds me, has anyone written Susan Calvin meeting Granny Weatherwax?) The romance wasn't necessary imo, but it was barely there and didn't distract at all.

The Emissary, by Beth Winter
Spirited Away: The construction of a new power line across a mountain range has stalled due to unexplained accidents. The woman inspector from Tokyo says that her job is to make sure the work is done in harmony with nature. Ogino Chihiro has a mystery to uncover and a mission to undertake.
This is probably my favorite Spirited Away futurefic I have found. It shows how modern humans and the spirit world can live together in peace, and how Chihiro might find her way between both worlds to help them. I also like the outsider POV.