mistresscurvy

Happy Pride!

2026-06-01T14:45:06Z

We made it to June!! A minor miracle this year, it feels like. It is beautiful out today, if a bit chilly for this month, but I am determined to be as gay as possible this month in a variety of ways. I'm watching gay movies, I'm gonna write and read some gay fanfiction, and I'm going to try to go out there into the world with gay abandon. What else is there, really.

This weekend my beloved Arsenal played in the men's Champions League Final and lost in crushing fashion in penalties. While that was obviously very sad and it took me almost a full day to completely recover from the adrenaline rush and then crash of watching the match, I feel genuinely fine about it now--we won the league, nothing can really hurt me. I'm very sad for the players, but they returned to England yesterday for a trophy celebration parade in front of like 800,000 fans lining the streets of North London, so I hope they've recovered. I went to an Arsenal bar at 10 am on Saturday (the game started at noon) and by the time I got there it was already too packed for me to deal with, so I went to another location where I was able to get a bar seat, thank god. I'm glad that I did decide to watch it out at a bar rather than at home by myself, even though we lost, but it did make me resolve to try to find a new place for me to watch at least some of the games next season. Arsenal is probably the main love in my life that I don't have an in-person community for; I follow a couple of podcasts and am a member of a few discords and so forth, but I don't have a local friend who also cares the way I do, and I'd like to figure out how to change that in the future. I think it would make this fandom even better for me.

I will say that something that helped immensely post-match was going to see The Mandalorian and Grogu with akaharriet and our friend Jon. Was the movie "good"? Is it possible that every performer in the movie actually cannot act? Both of those questions are irrelevant, because we had a great time, even though literally nothing happens and Jeremy Allen White plays a character I genuinely would not have believed is real before seeing the movie. The baby was adorable and there's a twenty minute silent film in the middle of the movie that's actually quite compelling.

Yesterday I recovered from the adrenaline crash and did some needed housework while half-watching most of The Boroughs on my iPad, and if you're looking for a current day Stranger Things vibe only set in a retirement community, look no further! It's an easy watch and the cast is insanely good. I also watched In the Mood for Love for the first time (that was NOT done while doing housework lol), and boy that movie really does longing like no other. Incredibly beautiful people wearing incredibly beautiful clothing looking like if they don't kiss each other they'll die, and yet they simply can't. Good gravy. And then the day ended with Hudson Williams and Heated Rivalry winning (literally) all the things at the Canadian Screen Awards, and a guy named Bill getting into my bluesky mentions with opinions about the Lymond Chronicles and Connor Storrie (I assure you he is wrong). A pretty good Sunday!

Now I should probably do some work, but first I'm going to answer some comments and figure out how to make my month gayer. I hope you all had nice weekends!

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A New Leaf

2026-05-28T19:40:09Z

Hello! I knew it had been a long time since the last time I posted here, but I have to say that I wasn't expecting to discover that it's been since January 2024. Many things have happened since then! A fair number of good or fun or exciting things, and a whole lot of bad shit that doesn't really merit mentioning here.

The reason I wanted to try posting again is that I've been reflecting on the fact that while I spend a lot of time keeping track of my cultural interests - I have movie and podcast spreadsheets and a book blog/calendar and all of the important sports games I watch are automatically added to my phone's calendar and so forth and so on - I feel like I'm spending less time engaging with most of them in a social way. I have checklists rather than experiences. These have been great coping mechanisms for years at this point, and I don't actually want to throw them away. I know why I perfected them during the pandemic, and I understand and appreciate the comfort that those lists and so forth gave me. But I'd also like to try to do something more.

I've been thinking a lot about how different those lists and spreadsheets are from how I used to use DW (and LJ before DW). It's come up for me because in the past week, Arsenal won the Premier League for the first time since 2004, which was before I followed them as a full fan of the team, someone who feels a real sense of ownership and connection to the club as a whole and this specific squad. I've been that kind of Arsenal fan since at least 2013, and probably closer to 2010, but I don't actually know offhand. And that's been bothering me, for reasons I can't easily articulate. I know when I first became aware of Arsenal as a concept - it was when I was in college in the early 2000s, and my college boyfriend played soccer and followed various leagues and I started going to a lot of games with him, and I read Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby. That all was enough to mean that Arsenal was the team that I knew something about, so as my soccer interest increased, they were the Premier League team I gravitated toward, and it grew from there.

So many of the other pieces are lost to my memory, though. I can't remember whether I watched Arsenal matches at Mr. Dennehy's, an Irish sports bar in the Village that no longer exists, or if I only watched Red Sox games and international soccer there. I know how I found the site Arseblog and started listening to the podcasts they put out every week, and without them I know I wouldn't have developed my current level of obsessive, occasionally debilitating connection to the team, without question. I know that I was enough of an Arsenal fan in 2013 to want to write a 1D AU in which Louis played for Arsenal, but I am sure that I would read various things I wrote about the league and that fictional version of the team with an incredibly critical eye now, because I know so much more at this point.

None of this really matters, of course. I don't need to attempt to prove the depth of my fandom or justify to anyone that I deserve to care this much about a team that plays its matches 4,000 miles away. But I also like that for a number of years I can in fact go back to this journal and find out what I was thinking and feeling about many other things, because it's still in there. I suspect that a lot of the answers to these questions about Arsenal specifically are actually on my twitter, which was never a place that was meant to maintain an archive of a life. The fact that this history is largely lost to time, especially since I no longer speak to my college boyfriend, is fine! But it's late spring, which always makes me think about passing years and how old I am now vs how old I was at the start of various other summers, and that plus my team actually achieving a thing I never knew if I would see happen is making me reflective and, it must be said, a bit melancholic.

So! I have decided to write about it a bit, and I am hoping to continue to write about Arsenal and other parts of my life. I would like to feel like I am doing slightly less marking time, and slightly more experiencing my day to day life. I am still active on tumblr and bsky and so forth, and I've been writing fic this past year, which has been lovely, but I would like to see if I can resurrect this part of my life, too. We shall see!

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Yuletide Reveals

2024-01-02T22:21:09Z

Hello! This year I wrote a treat for The Eagle!

The Worth of a Man (1802 words) by mistresscurvy
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Marcus Flavius Aquila/Esca Mac Cunoval
Characters: Marcus Flavius Aquila, Esca Mac Cunoval
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, First Time, Topping from the Bottom
Summary:

After the wall, Marcus tried to accept the blessings of his life.

I had a great time writing this; I saw the prompt on the pinch hit list and it percolated in my brain for about a week, and then I wrote and edited the whole thing on Christmas Eve after my brain was suddenly like, "Hey, here's your in for this story." It was very nice to end the year with a writing experience like that, and I'm hoping to follow that up with more writing this winter!

Also, this morning on twitter I saw this review about The Eagle, and guys it really really is that gay. Like if you haven't seen it since it came out in 2011 (jesus christ) you may have convinced yourself that it can't have been THAT textual but yes, it is in fact both text AND subtext.

Anyway, I had hoped to write a 2024 resolutions etc. post today, but that will have to wait until tomorrow! I didn't manage any additional Yuletide recs this past week but I'm hoping to continue to post more and engage more on this journal about the media I'm reading/watching/listening to. Here's hoping!

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Yuletide!

2023-12-26T14:23:00Z

Happy Boxing Day! I'm grabbing a spare minute this morning while I drink tea (and before the next wave of relatives arrive in a couple of hours) to post about my Yuletide gifts! This year I received two, and they're both WONDERFUL.

somehow i could find my way back (1540 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Good Omens (TV) RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Michael Sheen/David Tennant
Additional Tags: Character Bleed, Fix-It of Sorts
Summary:

They're prepared for as many takes as they need.

They get it in one.

The character bleed in this is everything I could have hoped for, and I loved the sense we get of their longtime friendship and how they work in tandem with their two RL relationships as well.

you'll find us in the meadowland (7924 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Edgin Darvis/Xenk Yendar
Characters: Edgin Darvis, Xenk Yendar
Additional Tags: Post-Movie, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Hair-pulling, reverse cowboy, hand necklace
Summary:

He was standing at Xenk’s desk, tucked into the corner and lined by shelves stacked with holy texts. Not his most valuable, of course - he wouldn’t be so careless as to keep the most precious of his collection here - but any one of them would feed a hungry man for a few days, at least.

And yet this man wasn’t hungry, and he was no ordinary thief. Xenk judged this not only by the strong slope of his shoulders and broad back and the fine weave of his coat but also by the fact that he had recently been awarded the highest honours the Lord of Neverwinter could bestow.

No, Edgin could want for nothing; even he could not have spent his rewards so quickly. There was only one explanation. This was an affliction of the soul.

The Xenk voice in this fic is INCREDIBLE, and the story perfectly captures the elements of their dynamic that I loved so much in the movie.

I am hoping to be able to read and rec a number of fics each day before reveals go up, so hopefully this post is just the start this week. Happy Yuletide reading!

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2023 Yuletide Letter

2023-10-21T20:16:57Z

It's Yuletide time! Hello and thank you so much for whatever you end up writing in one of these six fandoms! They are all universes and characters I adore, so simply getting the chance to read a new story involving them makes me absolutely THRILLED.

In general, I have nominated characters and fandoms that I want good things for, so to that end, I am not interested in receiving a story that involves non-canonical death, non-con, unhappy endings, or angst/miscommunication that isn't resolved by the end of the story. Having said that, I like many other kinds of stories, so if there is a story of your heart in one of these fandoms involving my requested characters that you have been dying to tell, please write me that story! Beyond the hard DNWs I've listed above, please feel free to ignore any of my fandom-specific requests, unless they are inspiring and helpful to you.

Also, if you enjoy writing porn and are writing a fic that involves a romantic/sexual relationship, I am definitely here for that, but if that's not your thing, no worries at all!

I am mistresscurvy pretty much everywhere (DW/LJ, AO3, tumblr, bluesky), and most of my fannish commentary/output is unlocked, so if you are interested in poking around to get a sense of who I am and what I like, feel free! :D Also, I am open to receiving treats.

Fandom requests!

( The Queen's Thief, Good Omens RPF, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, The Bear, Sports Night, Taskmaster RPF )

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Winter of our Discontent, etc.

2023-03-28T20:51:33Z

That subject line is pretty dramatic for how I'm feeling, but hey! I'm still finding my feet again regarding this whole journaling concept.

So, back in October when Musk bought twitter and it became fairly clear that he was in fact going to ruin it, I thought, "Well, I'll stay here until it literally no longer loads when I open the app or when whatever's going to replace it launches." And five months later, I'm still existing there in a sort of no-man's land - it technically still loads, although not in Echofon because he fucked killed it, and every week the site becomes less and less usable, but every potential replacement has thus far failed, so I'm just...living in a graveyard. Which, you don't have to tell me that sounds dramatic - I know! But it feels that dramatic to me, too. Some of the replacements haven't literally crashed and burned as soon as they launched, but none of the ones that technically do exist (like mastodon) have the feeling of reaching critical mass that I've been waiting for, and I don't want to go somewhere else alone. So I've been back on tumblr, which scratches a bit of the itch but isn't actually a twitter replacement, and if I want to get into discord, I know some of the places I could go there. But the big issue with both tumblr and discord for me (and to a lesser extent reddit) is that I'm not really in a proper, initial cap Fandom at the moment - I'm watching a bunch of stuff, and I'm reading a bunch of stuff, and I really like the new FOB album, and I have a couple of Stranger Things fic ideas I might poke at, and I'm counting down the days until I can play the heck out of The Tears of the Kingdom when it comes out in May. I've got STUFF I'm into, I just don't have the all-encompassing obsession at the moment that I feel works best for those platforms. And I don't really know how to make discord or tumblr or reddit work for me for that other stuff, especially since the other main topic I might want to post or talk about is, like, life.

Last week I searched my fandom gmail because I wanted to figure out when I had met some of my LJ friends relative to when I had met others - I couldn't figure out the chronology, and luckily at this point I have somehow had my fandom gmail for fifteen years, so it was extremely easy for me to nail that down. And it made me really miss the heights of journaling culture, and email threads, and that specific bygone era on the internet. I know everything about those days wasn't perfect - believe me, I remember the drama all too well - and I also know that we can't recreate it now; people do most of their fandom stuff on their phones now, and journaling doesn't really fit that mold, and fundamentally it serves a different purpose than twitter did as of six months ago. But what I do know is that every time I go on twitter now, it feels more and more pointless, even when I'm actually having the interactions with my friends there that I want to have. And I don't know that I can just keep waiting for the replacement to come, or that staying there is better than seeing what I can (re)create for myself here.

I don't know! I'm just sick of checking twitter on my phone and refreshing to see that there are 10 new tweets, only three of them are ads and four of them are replies to SOMETHING but I don't know WHO because they've taken away the actual @ address in @ replies, and the other three feel swamped by all of the nonsense, and god only knows how many other tweets from people I follow are actually just trapped on the For You tab. Twitter has always been the place where the bad news lives, and that's still definitely true, but it used to be at least theoretically possible to find the stuff I actually care about on there. And that's not how that feels now.

None of this is to say that I'm deleting my twitter or something - I will literally be linking to this post on twitter in the next five minutes - but man. I gotta change something. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way, and I have no fucking idea how to 'solve' this or what comes next, but I've stopped really trying to tweet at this point, and I miss having that outlet and I also miss the conversations I could have, so here we go. A bottle into the ocean.

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Women's Euros 2022!!

2022-06-21T18:27:14Z

Hello! As you may have seen on twitter, I will be in England for the Women's Euros starting in just two weeks! I may or may not manage to write up a primer post for various teams, BUT the great news is that even compared with the World Cup three years ago, there is so much more information out there about teams beyond the USWNT. So perhaps I will do more of a "you should follow these journalists/outlets" links roundup rather than try to outline 16 teams, especially given that I only really have a good grasp on 5 or 6 of them rather than the whole field.

In addition to thinking that this will be a really fun tournament for people to follow and watch on television (on ESPN in the States!), I also have a bunch of tickets to the tournament that are currently unclaimed! Here they are, with the number of tickets available and whether I will be attending noted:

Games I'm going to

Monday, July 11, 8 pm England v Norway @ Brighton: 3 tickets available! Come see this great (sold out) match with me and experience the home team crowd :D

Tuesday, July 12, 8 pm Germany v Spain @ Brentford: 2 tickets available - a fun night out in London featuring a perennial favorite against one of the most exciting young squads in the tournament!

Games I'm not going to but you totally should

Friday, July 15, 8 pm N. Ireland v England @ Southampton: 4 tickets available (this match is sold out through UEFA)

Saturday, July 16, 8 pm Finland v Germany @ Milton Keynes: 6 tickets available

Friday, July 22, 8 pm Quarterfinal @ Leigh: 4 tickets available (this match is sold out through UEFA)

The reason I'm attempting to sell the tickets this way is because there is no official reseller for this tournament through UEFA or a secondary site like stubhub, and I thought I would be in London for my entire trip and instead I will be up north for the second half of it. However, I will be able to transfer the digital tickets easily via an email address through the UEFA Mobile Tickets app, which everyone needs to use for entry to this event. Any payment would be handled separately via PayPal or Venmo or the like, but I am much less concerned with getting full face value for any of these tickets vs. making sure they get used - if anyone is interested in any of these tickets (or if you know anyone who is) who may not be able to afford a ticket, please let me know. The face value for the tickets ranges from 10 pounds for the Quarterfinal to 40 pounds for the N. Ireland v England match.

That's it! Two weeks until some fantastic women's soccer kicks off!!!! CAN'T WAIT.

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Yuletide Reveal!

2022-01-01T23:06:25Z

Hello! So I did a Yuletide!

A Christmas Surprise (1102 words) by mistresscurvy
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: American Girls: Samantha - Various Authors
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Nellie O'Malley/Samantha Parkington
Additional Tags: Christmas, Future Fic, New York City
Summary:

Christmas in New York City, 1919

I had a lot of fun writing this - it's a classic childhood fandom for me, in that I hadn't read the books in probably 25 years, but in rereading them I found I had retained all of the most important stuff, in terms of feelings and general overall tone. It was also somewhat therapeutic writing an inherently optimistic character looking toward the future at the end of a very difficult decade (complete with its own, not quite done pandemic as well). Not a lot of that got into the story itself, but I really enjoyed writing in a very different fandom than my most recent ones.

Going forward into 2022, I would like to write more than I did this past year, and also to do more longform journalling, in an attempt to feel like I have a stronger grasp on my days than I did last year. I'd like to do this both for the media I'm consuming (beyond my book blog) but also just in general; I do understand why the last two years feel particularly blurry, and even the past five years in total, but I think cultivating that focus and interest again could be very good for me (and possibly even interesting to read, lol). It's easy to feel that way on New Year's Day, so we'll see how it goes.

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2021 TV Christmas Movie Recs!!!

2021-12-15T22:17:11Z

HI ALL

So this year I am coping with, you know, everything by watching a bunch of TV Christmas movies! I haven't actually watched as many as I had hoped to so far (six movies plus a bunch of hour long episodes), but if anyone is looking for good options, I have opinions!

Most of the movies below are from this year, although a couple of the Lifetime options are a few years old. Hallmark movies are actually incredibly annoying to stream - even if you have cable access to the channel, you can only stream a movie for like three days after it originally premiered in a season. BUT movies run multiple times over the course of the season, and there are decent free trials that are worth checking out, namely on frndly tv, where you can DVR movies during their second airings. This is also worth doing because Hallmark movies are 75 minutes of movie and 45 minutes of truly unending ads. Lifetime's app is more user-friendly in terms of streaming movies if you have cable access, but if you don't have cable at all frndly tv will get you Hallmark and Lifetime - those two channels plus netflix are the biggest players.

OKAY HERE ARE THE MOVIES.

( MOVIES I HAVE SEEN )

Here are the rest of the movies I'm planning to watch this December!

Hallmark:

The Christmas House 2, 12/18 @ 8 p.m.

There are gays in this one!!!

Lifetime:

Snowed Inn Christmas, streaming

A very well regarded one from a couple of years ago that I just haven't gotten to yet.

Under the Christmas Tree, 12/19 @ 8 p.m.

Lesbians plus Ricki Lake!!!! I am IN.

Tello (to buy):

Christmas at the Ranch

It's lesbians finding love on a ranch during Christmas!

Amazon (to buy):

Dashing in December

It's gay dudes finding love on a ranch during Christmas!

Netflix:

A Castle for Christmas

The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star

The Claus Family (this one is Dutch!)

A Boy Called Christmas

HBO Max:

8 Bit Christmas

I will report back on the rest of these!!!! Please let me know if you have watched any other TV Christmas movies not on this list that I should check out <3

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Yuletide Letter 2021

2021-10-22T21:25:08Z

Hello darling writer! Thank you so much for whatever you end up writing in one of these four fandoms! They are all universes and characters I adore, so simply getting the chance to read a new story involving them makes me absolutely THRILLED.

In general, I have nominated characters and fandoms that I want GREAT THINGS FOR, so to that end, I am not really here for stories that involve non-canonical death, non-con, unhappy endings, or angst/miscommunication that isn't resolved by the end of the story. Having said that, I like many other kinds of stories, so if there is a story of your heart in one of these fandoms involving my requested characters that you have been DYING to tell, THAT IS THE STORY I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TELL. So beyond the hard DNWs I've listed above, please feel free to ignore any of my fandom-specific requests, unless they are inspiring and helpful to you.

Also, if you enjoy writing porn and are writing a fic that involves a romantic/sexual relationship, I am definitely here for that, but if that's not your thing, no worries at all!

I am mistresscurvy pretty much everywhere (DW/LJ, AO3, tumblr, twitter), and most of my fannish commentary/output is unlocked, so if you are interested in poking around to get a sense of who I am and what I like, feel free! :D

Fandom requests!

( The King: Eternal Monarch, The Queen's Thief, Great Cities Series, Rocketman )

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Yuletide Letter 2020

2020-10-25T22:08:36Z

Hello darling writer! Thank you so much for whatever you end up writing in one of these five fandoms! They are all universes and characters I adore, so simply getting the chance to read a new story involving them makes me absolutely THRILLED.

In general, I have nominated characters and fandoms that I want GREAT THINGS FOR, so to that end, I am not really here for stories that involve non-canonical death, non-con, unhappy endings, or angst/miscommunication that isn't resolved by the end of the story. Having said that, I like many other kinds of stories, so if there is a story of your heart in one of these fandoms involving my requested characters that you have been DYING to tell, THAT IS THE STORY I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TELL. So beyond the hard DNWs I've listed above, please feel free to ignore any of my fandom-specific requests, unless they are inspiring and helpful to you.

Also, if you enjoy writing porn and are writing a fic that involves a romantic/sexual relationship, I am definitely here for that, but if that's not your thing, no worries at all!

I am mistresscurvy pretty much everywhere (DW/LJ, AO3, tumblr, twitter), and most of my fannish commentary/output is unlocked, so if you are interested in poking around to get a sense of who I am and what I like, feel free! :D

Fandom requests!

( The King: Eternal Monarch, Romance is a Bonus Book, Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, The Princess Bride RPF, Rocketman )

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Yuletide Letter 2019

2019-11-03T00:07:32Z

Hello darling writer! Thank you so much for whatever you end up writing in one of these six fandoms! They are all universes and characters I adore, so simply getting the chance to read a new story involving them makes me absolutely THRILLED.

In general, I have nominated characters and fandoms that I want GREAT THINGS FOR, so to that end, I am not really here for stories that involve non-canonical death, non-con, unhappy endings, or angst that isn't resolved by the end of the story. Having said that, I like all kinds of other stories - smut, kink, casefic, domestic curtain fic, etc. - so if there is a story of your heart in one of these fandoms that you have been DYING to tell, THAT IS THE STORY I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TELL. So beyond the hard DNWs I've listed above, please feel free to ignore any of my fandom-specific requests, unless they are inspiring and helpful to you.

Also, if you enjoy writing porn and are writing a fic that involves a romantic/sexual relationship, I am definitely here for that, but if that's not your thing, no worries at all!

I am mistresscurvy pretty much everywhere (DW/LJ, AO3, tumblr, twitter), and most of my fannish commentary/output is unlocked, so if you are interested in poking around to get a sense of who I am and what I like, feel free! :D

Fandom requests!

( The Untamed, The Untamed RPF, Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, Bon Appetit Test Kitchen RPF, Good Omens RPF, Rocketman )

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Thursday Recs

2019-07-11T19:27:45Z

Hi Dreamwidth!! Twitter is down and that is not okay, so I have come here to idk catch up on my longform version of twitter lol. Someone else on my feed has started a Thursday Recs thing, so I figured I would recommend two fics that I've read in the past couple of weeks, both of which are FANTASTIC.

Grounds for Divorce, HP, Harry/Draco, 120K, Explicit, soul bond.

It's just. It is a classic, classic story, with so many of the aspects I love best about the soul bond trope (intense physical need warring with emotions, a slow build romance that neither of them can fully trust, UST out the wazoo), but the author explores the characters and the trope in ways that made me feel like I'd never read a Harry Potter fic before. The Harry in this fic is just a joy, and learning who Draco is at the same pace that Harry does is just the best, and you guys the sex is SCORCHINGLY hot. Truly some of the best sex in fic I've read in forever. Basically, if this is a pairing you read, or even if it's not usually your pairing but you're not diametrically opposed to it, block out an evening or two and just give yourself over to this fic, because it is WORTH IT.

we weren't just pretend, Rocketman RPF, Taron/Richard, 10K, Mature, Taron is Richard's plus one to Sophie's wedding.

This is such a wonderful kind of RPF story, the sort that drops you into these lives with their histories and depths and allows you to discover who they are and why this is what they're going through, and it's also almost a fake boyfriends fic except it isn't except for how it is, and Richard's pov is heartbreaking and also so extremely relatable. The voices in this one are exceptional, and the sex gave me a LOT of feelings.

FIC IS GREAT YOU GUYS, GO READ SOME.

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Women's World Cup Primer

2019-06-07T18:00:47Z

Hello hello! As you probably know if you follow me on twitter, today is the start of the Women's World Cup!!! This year it's taking place all over France, and I am very jealous of everyone who is going and perplexed at past!me who for some reason didn't prioritize going to the tournament over something else like idk paying my mortgage. But! Luckily in the U.S. almost all of the games are being broadcast on either Fox or Fox Sports 1, so that's how I'll be watching it. In the U.S. the games are happening in the morning through the mid-afternoon, and after today's single match we get two weeks of multiple game days during the group stage.

This is a 24 team tournament, which means that there are six groups of four teams. Out of those six groups, all of the first and second place teams will move onto the knockout round, and four of the six third place teams will also join them, so there are a total of 16 teams in the knockout round. I'm going to highlight the USWNT because well they're mine sorry not sorry about it!!! But tbh, while I know SUBSTANTIALLY more now about women's soccer outside of the U.S. than I did four or even two years ago, for most teams I would just be stealing from other writers or making shit up, truly. Also, on that note, my club team is Arsenal Women, so a bunch of the non-USWNT teams that I'm the most excited about are teams that have players I've seen at club level for them, namely The Netherlands, England and Scotland.

( The USWNT aka my babies )

In conclusion: this team is very, very good, and I expect them to do very well in this tournament and for people to be 'shocked' at how well they perform...and they still may not win it, and could quite easily go out in the quarterfinals. That's much less to do with how good they are (extremely) and more to do with how high the overall quality is going to be at this Cup. The women's soccer landscape has changed pretty dramatically in the past four years, and while I understand and support American fans rooting on the US to win every time, they won't win every time, or even be considered as one of only one or two favorites anymore, and that's a good thing.

( Some of the other contenders )

That is basically it! I am dying to talk about any of this tournament with anyone, so PLEASE, if you have any opinions about which teams you like or don't like or which players are extremely good or which players are extremely cute and/or queer, HIT ME THE FUCK UP. And if you're looking for recommendations on further reading or listening, please let me know--I have a bunch of journalists/podcasts/website recommendations for anyone interested. YAY WORLD CUP YAY

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So. GAME OF THRONES

2019-04-22T20:26:20Z

Am I going to write up actual post-episode responses now? Is this a thing that's happening? I GUESS MAYBE IT IS.

( Here be spoilers (for GoT and also Saving Private Ryan) )

Anyway. THOSE ARE MY VERY DISJOINTED FEELINGS. HOW ARE ALL OF YOU FEELING.

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Media update and things!

2019-03-18T20:40:45Z

Hello DW! I am having a rough Monday and so have decided to try writing about some things because why not. First some thoughts on TV I Am Watching, and then some RL blah under the cut.

Since my last post, I have started watching The Magicians and Schitt's Creek, and rewatching Game of Thrones. Here are my non-spoilery thoughts!

The Magicians (through 1.4): this show is utter nonsense but it is ENJOYABLE nonsense thus far, and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about how we tell stories that are built explicitly on knowledge of other iconic cultural works and how shorthand works in fic vs. television shows and books that are transformative works whether they admit to it or not, AND ALSO I am ready for this show to crank up the gay. On a different note I was completely unprepared for Abigail from Hannibal to be in this show and OH BOY.

Schitt's Creek (through season one): I love everyone and everything about this show, including the mayor, who is TERRIBLE but in precisely the right way idek. I just. They are all my precious children, I will be taking no questions at this time, etc.

Game of Thrones (through 1.4): Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, I had forgotten how SLOW the pacing in the first season is, and how dated a bunch of the storytelling is, both in terms of how extremely male gaze-y it is (which, to be clear, it's gotten a BIT better about but still isn't GREAT) and also how racist everything involving the Dothraki is. Again, not a new critique or observation! There were plenty of people commenting on both of these issues back when the series began, and for good reason. But it's also strange to start at the beginning again, and meet these characters for the first time, BEFORE all of the terrible things start happening to so many of them, and yeah idk. The first season isn't even one of the REALLY BAD seasons in terms of Bad Shit! But there's so much bad shit still to come, and it's pretty overwhelming to contemplate.

( RL nonsense and some whining )

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Media roundup and mood discussion!

2019-02-22T19:31:11Z

Hello DW!

This past week has been the most February of February moods for me--I've been sort of inexplicably sad and tired, and when I've tried to unpack whether that's because I'm bored or because I'm depressed or because I'm lonely or because of some combination of all three or because it's February or because it's February in fucking 2019, I don't really come away with a firm answer, lol. Right now I'm actually leaning toward a combo of bored and February as the root causes, tbh, especially since once things at work started to get extremely busy yesterday and today I felt LESS bad, so. I hate not feeling motivated and like even if there was something I was motivated to do what's even the POINT, and it's interesting because I've been feeling like my changing relationship to fandom in the past 3-4 years is like yet another indication of impending doom. Which, okay, is obviously an overreaction, I know! But I do think that there's a kind of anxiety paralysis that comes from me not being completely absorbed by something, and desperately trying to find the thing to hook my brain into.

And like, on the one hand I AM very much in a fandom rn--I've seen three hockey games in person in the past week, and I'm seeing another tomorrow, and it certainly takes up a TON of space in my brain--but for me it's not the other kind of fandom that I really want or need it to be at the moment. It is much more about the consumption of something rather than the creation, and while I do love (some of) the experience of being a sports fan, and the way it is participatory, it feels more passive than what I actually crave, and what my brain remembers getting from how I participated in past fandoms. Some of that is surely tinted by the same bizarre nostalgia it's possible to have for 2011 or 2013 or even 2015, when it didn't feel like we were all frantically participating in an all-night dance-athon desperately trying to keep going because that was the only way to keep the monsters at bay. But I do think that more than missing how I remember fandom as being, I miss who I remember being in a fandom, in terms of how I engaged with it.

So yeah! That's what's been going on in my brain recently. And since we all know how much I love a project, and hate the idea of just...living my day to day life and discovering what's going to happen next or something, I've been thinking a lot about the various different non-book medias that I've been seeing lots of chatter about on my feed, and which ones I want to try to get into or catch up on. This list may sound like a fandom audition list, and it is kind of that, although not entirely--the vast majority of my fandoms have been RPF, and music RPF specifically, and while I don't think it's impossible that I'll suddenly fall into a tv fandom as a writer, it's more that I'm trying hard to engage more with pieces of art and storytelling themselves first, rather than the discourse and THEN the actual source material. This is especially challenging because I'm actually very bad at consistently watching either scripted tv shows or movies these days! It is simultaneously too passive and also way too demanding for me at times, plus I've been spending a lot of the time I would have to watch a show playing BOTW instead (which, NO REGRETS). But this is where I am at. Anyway, here are the shows I haven't watched but that I've heard a lot about and want to watch for a variety of reasons, plus the movies from the past year that have been on my 'no really you should probably watch this' list:

TV

The Magicians (especially since by my tl's response to it I gather things have gotten real gay)
Schitt's Creek (see above)
Guardian (see above)
The Umbrella Academy
Avatar (I KNOW I KNOW)
The Dragon Prince
Game of Thrones (I have watched a bunch of this but I missed a couple of seasons at some point and wanted to catch up in time to watch season eight in real time)

Movies

Get Out
Shape of Water
Phantom Thread
Nanette
The Meg

SO YEAH. Basically I would like to be spending more of my life feeling like I'm actively choosing to do things and less like I'm desperately scrambling to find distractions that can pass the time until...some undetermined thing happens in the future that makes me feel less at sea. I don't know that having a list of media to consume like this is necessarily the best method for dealing with this, but I don't know that it's NOT, so hey. I'll give it a shot.

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Skiing and reading and things!

2019-02-07T18:30:31Z

Hello DW! On Tuesday I went skiing with my dad in the Poconos, where it was VERY warm (mid-fifties for most of the day) but because it had been so cold over the weekend the snow held up pretty well. I go skiing with my dad 2-3 times a season, and it's probably the main 'new skill' I've really picked up as an adult--I skied when I was in my early teens but didn't at all for at least a decade, and then 8 or 9 years ago started going again. I'm still not very good; the hardest slopes I ever ski are blues (medium difficulty) on a mountain that's not very big, but I'm definitely better than I remember being as a kid, and I think it's good for me to have something that I enjoy doing at the level that I can currently do it. Every year I think that this is the year I'll get much stronger/take skiing lessons/go to Colorado and ski for a week, but even if I never do any of those things, my current level is Good Enough, you know?

Unfortunately yesterday and today have been a bit ehhhhhhhhhh because I have the slowest moving cold of my LIFE and on top of that I had a really bad migraine yesterday afternoon/evening. It's incredibly difficult for me to figure out which medications to take for a headache when I have a headcold, and yesterday I waited way too long before taking my actual migraine medication. Today I feel less terrible but still not GOOD and man the thing about chronic pain is that when you feel normal it's hard to imagine how bad it all feels and when you're in the middle of it it's like you can't trust that you'll ever feel better again. I do not care for it!!!

I have been getting some book reading done this year, as chronicled on my book blog, but for the last week or so I've just been (re-)reading all of astolat's Transformers fic since she's in the process of also posting new fics in that fandom about once a week at the moment. This is definitely a fandom where I knew very limited amounts about the canon before reading (basically, only the vague recollections I have from when I was a kid in the '80s), but the themes and pairing dynamics are working SUPER well for me and because I've read all of it before it was very helpful for getting through yesterday's middle of the night post-migraine hangover where I'm exhausted but can't sleep more. For the past month, most of the time I would usually earmark for reading books has been taken up by playing more Breath of the Wild or watching hockey or listening to podcasts, so I'm a bit behind on my reading goals for the year. I'm definitely looking forward to starting Any Old Diamonds and the Shadow and Bones trilogy next, though.

I've also been poking at my writing ideas folder to see if anything starts to come loose there. I don't really have a fandom that's DEMANDING I write for it at the moment; I have a couple of original novel type ideas kicking around, but thus far I haven't been able to tackle that challenge yet. We will see! I have great hope that this weekend both my cold will have resolved itself and I will no longer be in this migraine cycle, and so maybe that folder will be a bit more approachable.

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Making fewer goals

2019-01-15T20:42:13Z

So yesterday I tweeted about a conversation I had with my therapist about setting fewer goals for myself, and the difficulty I had in even conceptualizing how that could be achieved, since my default problem solving mode is to make a plan, which is another way of framing goal setting. And the fact that I even thought of this as a problem to be solved--I set too many goals and therefore need to fix this--rather than as something to let go, or simply not do, connects with an essay and a tweet I read in the past month. The other tweet is easy to digest, and is an Onion headline: New Study Finds Solving Every Single Personal Problem Reduces Anxiety, which for me at least directly relates to how I feel about Anne Helen Peterson's piece on burnout.

The conversation with my therapist really threw me for a loop, I have to say; I had been thinking about both the article and that Onion headline on and off since I read them, but I hadn't mentioned either of them directly to him. I was talking about how disorienting I found being away over New Year's Eve, and missing the sort of cultural re-set of having New Year's Day be this kind of ultimate Sunday evening before going back to work and starting over with this arbitrary sense of a new chance, and how I already feel a bit behind on the year as a result. But I never don't feel behind; I'm always playing catch up, I always have a full list and a full schedule of things to work on, and I fantasize about a mythical blank slate but don't really grapple with what that would actually mean or feel like.

I started creating detailed lists and goals and agendas when I was a teenager, and it was an extremely smart and understandable coping mechanism given what I was dealing with at the time, and my ability to plan has definitely helped me in so many ways throughout my twenties and thirties. But the reflexive way I do it doesn't always help, and the fact that I plan out of a genuine fear that if I don't then I'll never do anything ever is pretty self-fulfilling.

I am having a hard time not deleting this post, less out of fear or embarrassment and more because I haven't solved this problem within four paragraphs and so what's the point. Possibly that indicates something! Who can say.

Anyway, after therapy yesterday I decided not to sign up for Get Your Words Out again this year, which I had been thinking about doing even though I wasn't really sure why. I did write some last year, but I certainly didn't come close to hitting the monthly word count I had pledged to do, and the writing I did do wasn't prompted by having made that commitment. I don't want to only limit my future goals or plans or whatever to only the things I know I'll complete, for multiple reasons, but if I want to write more this year (and I do), then I think I need to find a different method for making that happen.

I've been meaning to post to DW for the past week, and this definitely wasn't the way I thought that I would re-enter this space, but I also think this is probably the most honest way I could. I'm glad that I have a space where I feel like I can explore this kind of thing ♥

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Solo, or MAKE IT GAY YOU COWARDS

2018-05-31T21:11:49Z

I saw Solo over the weekend, and on twitter I said that it "was a reasonably entertaining pre-canon fic to watch, with a Han characterization that doesn't match mine but I didn't hate. I definitely have notes, but I enjoyed it. (One of my biggest notes is MAKE IT GAY YOU COWARDS but tbh that note should always be assumed unless explicitly stated otherwise.) And now I really want to write a post about this movie and the Harry Potter play and how officially sanctioned fic could learn a thing or two from the stuff written for fun." This is the first half of that post, since I decided that I should just deal with one fandom at a time. From here on in there will be spoilers ahoy for Solo and all of the Star Wars movies (including Rogue One).

( Read more... )

In conclusion, despite all that I said above, I did actually ENJOY watching the movie. The fun bits were really fun! Enfys Nest is an awesome character, and I would watch an entire movie about the Cloud Riders. I really like watching stuff set in the Star Wars universe! And it's not nearly as bad as any of the prequels, BY A LONG SHOT. But it's a movie and story that didn't need to exist in a totally different way from how most fic doesn't NEED to exist. Fic, whether it's a prequel or missing scene or sequel or AU or WHATEVER, answers questions asked by the text in some way. Sometimes that question is simply BUT WHAT IF THEY WERE GAY! Sometimes it's something else, or something else AND it's gay. And weirdly enough sometimes there's not ANY gay stuff. But the original trilogy didn't actually leave any unanswered questions about Han's past that mattered, and apparently this was one case where if you're not making it gay, there's really no point at all.

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Theatre Review: Lobby Hero

2018-04-23T21:25:53Z

A couple of weeks ago I saw the New York production of Lobby Hero, a play which I went to entirely because Chris Evans is in it. I am happy to report that Chris is my favorite part of the play, but unfortunately he didn't have to be particularly good to earn that award (although he is), because man does that play not work for me.

Partly that's due to the general lack of interest I have these days in stories that are about White Men and their wacky adventures living pointless lives and undergoing moral dilemmas that are almost entirely of their own making. The thing about Kenneth Lonergan is that he's such a technically gifted writer in multiple ways: he writes beautifully crafted lines that are a sheer joy to say as an actor (there's a reason This Is Our Youth ends up being done in scene study classes again and again and again), and the structure of his plays is exactly right--every conversation is interrupted at precisely the highest moment of tension, and the audience is constantly drawn into each scene with a sense of inevitable dread, because we know he'll pay it off, and he does.

The problem is that the payoffs never actually matter, because the entire story is fucking pointless. None of the characters are real; part of why Chris's performance manages to be so good is because while his character is also paper thin, it's an archetype of a cop that is immediately recognizable. His Bill isn't a real person, but that's because everything about that kind of cop is inherently performative, and Chris embodied it so beautifully. Bill is a terrible character who makes terrible (and somewhat unbelievable) life choices, but I could at least enjoy watching him be so terrible.

The rest of the characters are all there to do and say things because that's what the story needs them to do. I understand the appeal of putting on this play right now; it deals with issues like police brutality, and the incarceration of black men and their inability to get adequate representation in court, and sexual harassment of women particularly in male-dominated industries, and whether it's moral and just to act unethically as an individual if you know that the system itself is far more unjust. All of those topics are worthy of exploration in theatre! But it ends up feeling like a bad college seminar where you're given a hypothetical situation to debate and that one dude does what that one dude always does and ends up dominating the conversation for twenty minutes making arguments that he thinks are totally novel and crushing but it's actually just regurgitated nonsense parroted from reddit or Ayn Rand.

The play was first produced in 1999, but I would be shocked if Lonergan hadn't first starting writing this play years earlier, possibly even before This Is Our Youth came out in 1996, because it feels even more dated than that. The lead character joined the navy in part because his 'old man' had been a hero in the navy during the Korean War, and while you can certainly make the timeline work in terms of his age and all that if you work a little, it just feels off. I knew 27 year olds in 1999, and they didn't feel like that guy to me. I assume that part of what we're supposed to feel about the themes and issues being explored in the play is that even though the play is twenty years old, we're still fighting the same wars; instead, all I came away feeling is that even twenty years ago white dudes needed to stop talking.

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General Update!

2018-03-01T22:45:35Z

So uh, hello! Boy I had such ambitions in early January. I was going to read so many books! Write so many words! Produce so many posts! And none of that happened, at all. I didn't write anything, and I didn't read any books (and even most of my fic reading was comfort rereads), and I definitely didn't make any more posts here. And now it's March, and so much has happened in two months and also nothing has happened, it's been winter both literally and metaphorically and time in general no longer seems to work correctly, and I'm waiting on some news that I can't do anything about but will affect me immensely depending on what it is, and I am TIRED.

But! I still want to do the stuff that I wanted to do at the beginning of January, and there's nothing keeping me from STARTING AGAIN now, and the fact that I failed once doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't try again, on multiple levels. So! I'm going to try again! I have submitted my GYWO word count for February even though I am very very behind because I am where I am and there's nothing to do but go forward.

That's pretty much it! If we're lucky I'll post again before the beginning of May. Baby steps.

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Media Monday!

2018-01-08T21:45:31Z

Hello hello! So this is a catch-all kind of post for anything I do or see that's not reading, basically. Part of why I wanted to have a weekly post for this kind of thing is that I see a lot of theatre, but I don't tend to process many of the shows in writing, and I watch a lot of sports, but I don't always write about that, and I think there's value for me in that. So here's what I watched and experienced this weekend!

- The thing I focused on for the entire weekend was the U.S. Nationals in figure skating, which was VERY EVENTFUL. One of the biggest shocks is that I actually agree with all of the federation's decisions in terms of which skaters we're sending to the Olympics!!! What a concept!!! But we're sending the right three women and men, and I am so excited to see all six of them perform, and then we have an absurdly strong ice dance team as well, and I will cheer for the pairs team enthusiastically while waiting to watch the actual medal contenders. I am such a huge Winter Olympics fan, and this year NBC is actually broadcasting EVERY EVENT live (in addition to the standard evening digest program), and basically I am going to spend sixteen days in February watching as many hours of everything as I can and I CANNOT FUCKING WAIT. So uh, get ready for more of that!

- On Friday night I went to see the Penguins play the Islanders, and fuck I love watching hockey live. Most sports are better in person than they are on television (except for pro football, which is for my money much better televised than it is in person), and I think that hockey really really benefits from seeing it live. Anyway, I had a great seat for not very much money because of how cheap Islanders seats are, and it was a great game and my favorite player played exceptionally well, and everyone I interacted with at the arena was a delight, and it was one hundred percent worth it to go out after work in the freezing cold and deal with a very long subway ride home afterwards to experience that game in person, which is about the highest praise I can give anything in January.

- On Saturday I spent a good three hours discussing Call Me By Your Name the book and CMBYN the movie, and how they were different and the same, and how they told the same story in completely different ways. I haven't reread the book recently, so I'm going to do that this month and then see the movie again, because I'm really curious to see how it informs my experience of the movie.

- On Sunday I went to part of a LOTR watch party, and I saw most of Two Towers and ROTK up through the lighting of the beacons. I watched all of them last January as well, because at that point I really needed to revisit a narrative about coming out of the darkness against all odds, and it was interesting to me what resonated differently for me this year verses last year. I am so much more functional and hopeful than I was a year ago, and I'm also full of more rage and a greater desire for vengeance, and the combo of those two realities leads to interesting places! I don't feel like I deal particularly well with negative emotions overall, and I want to see if I can explore them more in writing--I'm not entirely sure how yet, but I think that would probably be a good thing for me, overall.

- Also on Sunday Arsenal played in a match and I didn't watch it and I'm glad because it was terrible and oh my darling babies what the fuck are you doing.

That's it! This week is going to be pretty lowkey in terms of seeing movies or theatre or much in the way of sports because next weekend is MYSTERY HUNT and I need to get ready for that. But I do plan on catching up on The Good Place! I'm four episodes behind and I think I'm going to watch them on the train up to Boston.

How were your weekends? <3

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Friday Fic Recs! Mostly Yuletide edition

2018-01-05T21:26:35Z

Here are some of my favorite fics that I've read in the past couple of weeks!

First off, here are my Yuletide and Hockey Holidays gifts!

Holiday Cheer (1164 words) by Anonymous

This is a Folgers Coffee fic, so uh BUYERS BEWARE. I really loved the sense of secrecy here, and in general this fandom is one where the more wrong it is, the more I like it :D

Cause Tomorrow We'll Be Owning the World (2051 words) by rawrimmapanda

So this is a hockey rarepair, but it's a CLASSIC setup of a real life best friends from childhood who get traded onto the same team again for the first time since they were kids, and they played together in Europe during the lockout, and basically this is a threesome situation that takes barely any squinting to see AT ALL. I really enjoyed this take on how they would all react to the trade news.

And now for some other fics, mostly Yuletide but some in other fandoms!

run all the lights (8586 words) by Fahye

This is a Captive Prince/Fast and the Furious AU and it is so so good. Just. The perfect fandom crossover, and Damen and Laurent's relationship in this universe works so well.

Victory Condition (37190 words) by astolat

I've read and enjoyed all of astolat's Transformers fic, but this one fucking blew me away. It's enemies who end up in the equivalent of a Canadian Shack fic, but then it involves poetry and revolution and moral ambiguity and self-sacrifice disguised as selfishness and basically it's everything I want. Also the sex is SO FUCKING HOT which like takes some doing given that they're, you know, Transformers. I loved this fic.

Kings Destiny (6199 words) by kitsunealyc

A Captive Prince future fic that both deals with some of the stuff that the canon leaves frustratingly (to me) open-ended and also develops a bit of mythology and history for the cultures that I really enjoyed.

A Curious Thing (3318 words) by ouroboros

Bill and Ted! They're totally in love, but Ted needs a visit from future!Ted in order to see the light.

Take Me Home (Home Where I Belong) (12421 words) by th_esaurus

This Call Me By Your Name RPF is beautifully written and also grounds the possibility of Armie having a wife and also having a boyfriend in a really believable way. I lost myself in this fic.

Gaudete (2411 words) by Jay Tryfanstone

Lymond Chronicles fic! Specifically, Francis/Richard in the middle of The Game of Kings, and it works so well and feels so true to the canon and Dorothy's style, which I'm very impressed by.

Mr Webster's Wager (27385 words) by Fahye, emilyenrose

Oh my god, this Society of Gentlemen Francis/Ash fic is SO INCREDIBLE. I love how it took the premise of the original short story and just RAN with it, and the voices of both characters are so good and the sex is so hot and also so many feelings!!!!! GOD.

The Opposite of Regret (1398 words) by Sanj

Lions of Al-Rassan is one of my favorite books and Jehane and Ammar are two of my favorite characters, and this missing scene fic just nails them both. It's bittersweet and beautiful and funny, just like the canon.

'Round in Circles to You (8341 words) by eleanor_lavish

Mark Strong and Colin Firth have been in love for SO LONG and I love love love how this story builds that history and then introduces new things for both of them and then Taron!!! So so good. Exactly what I want from RPF.

The Proposal (2043 words) by rosefox

Fabulously written book!Princess Bride fic, with a wonderful Fezzik and Inigo.

Home-keeping Hearts (1135 words) by inlovewithnight

One of my favorite movies last year was God's Own Country, and this future fic is the perfect epilogue of my heart, and exactly how I imagine their lives going. If you haven't seen this movie yet, go watch it and then read this fic.

YAY FIC \o/

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Things I wrote and also a plan!

2018-01-05T18:09:52Z

Hi everyone! It's been a while, huh. Some things have happened and for a variety of reasons, I'm starting off 2018 with the intention to start using this journal again. This may or may not include posting more locked personal posts a la 2012, but I definitely want to start recording things that I'm creating or consuming and in general just be a more active community member in fandom again, in a format that has functional archive capabilities unlike both twitter and tumblr. So! Here is the basic schedule of what I want to post weekly:

Monday: What media did I watch/listen to/experience this past weekend

Tuesday: Books! Will mostly be a link to my book blog, which I also intend to get back into this year

Thursday: What have I written this week, and what have I posted, if anything

Friday: Fic recs

These will more or less be digests of things I tend to write about on twitter, but again, I want to have a better sense of all of this going forward. Also, I am a pretty consistent kudos-leaver, but I want to get back into the habit of leaving comments as well, and engaging with other creators, be they in fandom or otherwise.

So! This is technically going to be a Thursday writing post, even though it's Friday. In the last two weeks, I posted two stories, one for Yuletide, and the other for Hockey Holidays. My Yuletide fic was Call Me By Your Name RPF:

Pitted (2955 words) by mistresscurvy
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer, Armie Hammer/Other
Summary:

Being jealous of a peach was fucking ridiculous, and yet here he was.

This fic feels like the most me thing I've written in years. I had originally planned on writing a long, complicated story in which Armie Hammer was basically Elio only in real life, and then when that didn't exactly happen I wrote a (terrible) fic for the other fandom I matched on, which was CMBYN the book, and then in the week before Yuletide posted I had a conversation with oliviacirce about all of this and suddenly realized that the fic I was meant to write was about Armie Hammer attempting to fuck a peach, and specifically failing at it. I loved writing this so much, and it's what made me really want to focus on writing more in 2018.

And then I wrote this for Hockey Holidays (locked to AO3):

The Loophole (17721 words) by mistresscurvy
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin
Characters: Mario Lemieux, Sergei Gonchar, Marc-Andre Fleury, Pittsburgh Penguins Ensemble
Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Arranged Marriage, Courtship, Knotting, Misunderstandings
Summary:

"The lawyers have found a pretty good loophole," Pat said.

"It's not a loophole, it's a long-standing cultural tradition," Mario said, glancing at Sidney.

"It's a fucking loophole," Pat reiterated. "But it's a great one."

This is the longest thing I've written in two years, and it was a challenge at times for a whole host of reasons, but I'm really proud of it and I'm really glad I finished it. Getting into hockey rpf doesn't even crack the top ten list of weird things that happened to me in 2017, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't involve some soul-searching. It's a very different way of engaging with sports fandom for me, and a huge amount of it was motivated by unrelated-to-fandom spite towards a person who I've known for twenty-five years who is completely dead to me now, and well, here I am. This fic could be my last fic in the fandom or I could end up writing 200K more this year. Neither would particularly surprise me.

Speaking of word goals, I've signed up to do getyourwordsout this year, and I'm aiming for 300K, which is both extremely aggressive and also achievable, I think. That means I want to write about 822 words a day, or 1K 25 days out of every month, which is how I'm viewing it, since I can write most days but not all, realistically. I've got a bunch of projects I'm interested in working on, and a shiny new plan, and I'm already a bit behind but it's early enough in the year that I'm not too worried about it. So we'll see how that goes!

That's it for this week's Thursday post! There will be a recs post up later today.

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