A Song in the Trees

The OTW board got around to replying to a message I sent in July 2023. It was about as helpful as most of their replies to questions were at the last board meeting, i.e. they told me nothing. Do not recommend bothering. When I was filing that away, I also noticed that no action has been taken on any tickets I've sent in about AO3 works this year, dating back to January. They're not high priority items but also shouldn't be huge time sinks to deal with, so I'm a little concerned.

Anyway, in more fun things:
AMBER GLENN GPF CHAMP. 💜 I cannot wait to see her in Boston. My mom, who is far less into FS than I am, must have seen the video somewhere, because she texted me the same thing last night.

The Morrowind fic is still at the 'denial' stage of the slow burn. I sure did learn some things reading up on toxic plants and volcanic minerals for the last chapter and have also sure done some squinting at the blurry 2002 clothing textures. Half tempted to try to make a hi-res texture replacer of my own for them, because the AI upscaled ones sometimes get weird results from things like folds or laces.

I DNF In the Shelter of the Pines, the 18th-century Japanese biography of a politician. I think I have a high tolerance for historical rich people antics, but by the time I was maybe a third of the way through, I just could not continue to read about everyone endlessly fawning over this guy. Gobs of silk and delicacies and swords and books were exchanged at this shogun's visit and another priest was impressed by his Buddhist learning and hey look, time to exchange nauseatingly expensive gifts again! I have instead started reading Frankenstein, which I never happened to read, and to be honest, I almost DNF that as well. Then I got to the part where we head another level deep into the embedded narrative and hear from Frankenstein's creation, which has so far been the most interesting part for me.

Made while watching the end of Canadian nationals, which was, uh, well those sure were men on the ice 😓 At least Euros had some good ups this weekend; I was heartbroken for Katya not making the free skate but ecstatic for Loena finally winning the title.
( Resources for (writing) figure skating/Yuri on Ice )
( Heian Era )

So, I talked with the HR person, and she said they wanted me to start on January 3rd. As I started asking more questions, she started to get the feeling that this was maybe a little ambitious if they want me in person full-time, since I would need to move from several states away with Christmas and New Year's in the way. I still do not know if they need me in person full time or not. I told her I could start then if it was remote/hybrid, but it sounds like there might be tax issues and she needs to contact the department and... anyway, she said she would email by the end of the day but she didn't, so it seems like things might be complicated 😅 Hopefully that gets sorted soon. Benefits and pay sound good, though the hours start a bit early for me. And this place is very close to a rink that has skating time pretty much all day!

(Z is kind of having a hard time, so I am hoping to get the okay to do remote/hybrid, at least at first, so I can be around to support him as he finishes his thesis.)

One thing I've been curious to try for a while is absinthe, so I used this as an excuse to buy some. I'm not an alcohol person, but I do like licorice and herby things, and it looks pretty in those ~*~evil green fairy~*~ paintings. The bottles at the store were dusty, but they had a few, and it turns out I do like it. The bottle even came with a cheap version of the fancy-dancy spoons, which I have yet to use because who buys sugar cubes, I've just poured in the water and sugar.

In other news, I have finally decided to sit down and learn How Does Self-Publishing Work because someday might as well be now and I might as well try it out. Though I am writing something that's a bit less precious and more market targeted than my existing origfic that all needs editing and/or rewriting anyway, and I'm learning a lot more about How To Plot from it, so there's that if nothing else comes of it. I have a checklist of things to do after it's written, so that needs to happen first! I've made good progress on it, though.

I do find it kind of interesting how from what I've found, some self-pub spaces (esp. romance/erotica) emphasize the ability to DIY/ignore a lot of stuff more than others. Like one place would tell you that you could reasonably get started with $50 to buy some stock images and set up a website/mailing list, and another pushes more of 'you need a developmental editor, you need a copyeditor, you need to pay someone else a lot for a cover, you need to pay to copyright your work' to the point where you could be spending closer to $1k if you did go for everything, and people post reports where they spent even more on their first book! I really wonder if there is some difference in genre tolerance for amateurish attempts, or if it's a difference in business-mindedness/just get the damn book out attitudes (and who is actually making money off this endeavor).

Went to a wedding for another of Z's friends this weekend. It was outside at a pretty farm, with some friendly dogs running around the whole time. Unfortunately, we all dressed for 'late August' and got very cold weather for this time of year. It wasn't so bad when we were moving around, but once we sat down for dinner and the wind picked up, those of us without jackets or blankets were freezing cold. On the plus side: good and very sweet speeches (even though I didn't know the couple); vegetarian options for dinner!; cake was co-made by groom and one of his relatives and was delicious, with lemon and poppy seeds.

When they started the music, it was originally at a reasonable volume and I thought, did I really haul earphones around all that time for nothing? And then they turned it up again, so Z and I moved to the back. And then they turned it up again, and I gave up and went for the earphones. We had a good time dancing, but I got tired of all the activity before Z did, so I wandered off to somewhere quieter to play fetch with the dogs and read fic on my phone while he enjoyed seeing his friends.

The drive back was on a much prettier route. Z and I agreed that when the pandemic ends, we really should take a day trip out to some of the places we drove by. When my parents and I went to see the eclipse a few years back, we enjoyed stopping at random small-town museums and old mills and stuff like that.

After we got home, I sent off another job application, and another today. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, I have a new data analysis job to work on, and my own stuff. I buckled down and did some work on that one persnickety coding issue yesterday, and actually made real progress on it! My two basic tests pass! The code is kind of a mess and there's something else going awry in the next test, but I was quite pleased given how difficult this problem has been.

Also got inspired on an old YOI fic I decided to finish. While I'm not signing up for Trick or Treat this year (the change + the weird vibe of new mod suddenly popping up to make an abrupt change to something that has caused a lot of dumb wank already are not for me), I did finally get a rareshipsonbingo card set:( cut for size )

Read: Finished Crazy for Kanji. Found a small mistake (word defined as 'spinning silk' really means 'spinning [any kind of fiber]' - and, relevantly to the meaning the author is trying to draw from this, most silk is reeled, which is another, entirely unrelated word). There was also a bit of weird exoticizing, and for some reason the author quoted someone saying in 1997 that Chinese character are totally on their way out. Uh, sure, that's why they added more jouyou kanji and why Chinese people still write with them. But, overall, I enjoyed it. The author's joy of kanji is infectious and such a refreshing attitude compared to how kanji usually get taught. Some of the kanji games were fun, too. I also enjoyed the section comparing Taiwanese vs Japanese signage.

It inspired me to study some radicals today. Fortunately, most of them are either obvious or I osmosed them at some point, but I never realized that ⻖meant different things on either side of the compound. Or what it meant at all. I always just called it the 'beta' radical because it looks like β.

Reading: Haven't started anything new yet, but I am trying to finish Genji before Christmas. It's not that I don't enjoy it - it's just a slow read and veeeery long. Also made a tiny bit more progress on Skate Boys in Japanese.

Reading next: I have enough new unread books that I might just pick one at random! Tokyo Ueno Station will be next in print.

Making progress: I finished the books my committee member recommended (v. helpful) and talked with him about changes to my experiments. He approved! \o/ Just need to write everything up... also going to talk with my advisor on Wednesday, so I'm going to try and have it done by then.

Still missing skating. R linked me to someone who might still have off-ice skates in stock. The price makes me go hmmm, but I am considering it. In the meantime, I have done some jumping practice (and spinning practice) in the park in the mornings when nobody's around, both rotation exercises and 'let's try to do a toe loop on grass with sneakers'. I certainly felt it in my legs.

I am finally starting to run out of the food I stocked up on at the nice grocery store that I can't get at the walkable one, and I can't go to the nice one (I'm not taking a bus right now and Z's car's battery seems to be kaput), so I've put in an online order for those things with a generous tip. The site says it might even get to me tonight, so I guess the rush has died down.

I've been getting back into the (non-academic) writing habit and it feels good. I posted three stories in a row - a YOI fic for spring_renewal, a Papers Please fic for a flash exchange, and a Hikari no Densetsu fic for bethefirst - and even got out a quick Chris amv for vexercises. It feels nice to make things again - now to finish some others.

Still have a cold, but went skating this morning and got some practice done. I seem to have unlocked something in spins recently - I can consistently get two or three revolutions on one foot now without feeling like I'm about to fall over - and I thiiiink my mohawks might be getting better. Or I've just stopped caring if they're bad. Not sure which. And there's nothing like doing spirals through a public session to make you feel like you're Sasha Cohen, ha.

Never done the snowflake challenge, but it seemed fun, so: Day 2 - In your own space, talk about your fannish history.
( Cut for length as I went on for a while )

This year's fic stats:
Total number: 45 on my main account, plus some snippets and short things that haven't been crossposted yet.
Total word count: 202,585 words on AO3
Ship/character breakdown: Category breakdown first:
21 Gen
19 M/M
3 F/M
2 F/F

8 were Chris/Victor, 7 were Victuuri, 5 were Yakov & Victor, and then it's a smattering of other things. Victor was tagged in 23 of the fics, just over half. (36 of the fics are for Yuri on Ice, so he shows up in almost two-thirds of those.)

Specifics:
Best/worst title? Worst: various boring ficlet titles - 'Hearsay', 'Flagged', 'Nursing Wrath' (really had no idea what to call that one), etc. I like 'Birds of Different Feathers' and 'Merrily, Merrily, Maritally' is fun to say, and so is 'Step and Dress Alike Express'. 'Melancholy Madness of Poetry Without the Inspiration' is one I keep going back and forth on - it's a bit long/not easy to say, but it's vivid to me.

Best/worst summary? Best: 'You spend a day at work, checking papers, checking pictures, listening to yet another sob story. Today is a good day, because it does not end with a terrorist attack.' Worst... there are several blegh ones I don't really want to choose between, like the one for 'Read the Page of Destiny', which I struggled with. I still have a habit of trying to write really short summaries.

Best/worst first line?
A couple I like:
"You are fortunate enough to live in that odd middle ground where you are far enough from work that the walk is drudgery in winter, yet not so far that you can take the public transport to save time."
"The war has been devastating to the Southern Water Tribe in many ways – culturally, structurally, and spiritually – and they can't do everything they need to rebuild by themselves."
One I don't:
"It wasn't in the least unusual for Yakov to get calls expressing interest in his coaching."
(there are some that aren't that exciting, but not a lot that I would call terrible)

Best/worst last line?
A few I like:
"At least they are free, and plentiful enough even for his dreams."
"You know that means tomorrow will be a different story."
"The water between them moves, gently, as they talk, push and pull, and they stay there all the night long."
"Imagined them on the podium under the bright lights at the Olympics, both of them beaming, though he didn't really bother coloring in the medals."
"No matter how much he combed his hair, the crimped waves stayed."
Ones I don't:
(see various fics where I throw my hands up and have the characters fall asleep together)

General questions:
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted? I wanted to write more origfic this year and edit more of what I have. ...oh, well, there's this year. Not that surprised by the wordcount. Writing is my main hobby nowadays and I've learned what gets me into the groove.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year? Papers, Please fic! Tale of Genji fic! (According to nonnies, it has the most dignified and refined descriptions of a tentacle dick that you'll ever read, lol.)

What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest. I still really like 'Bonnie and Blythe', the one where Yakov and Lilia adopt mysterious bb!Victor. Also 'Workaday', a short Papers, Please fic that I'm happy with. I like the tone and rhythm of 'Pulling Tides', an Avatar fic about Katara 'communing' with Yue. 'Melancholy Madness (etc etc)' makes me happy to work on even as I worry over it.

Okay, NOW your most popular story. 'Cupiditatem' - which is not what I would have expected. It's Yuuri/Yuri with me not thinking too hard about Yuri's age in the fic - but it's also sex pollen, so. I think people just really like sex pollen. After that, it's 'Bonnie and Blythe'.

Story most underappreciated by the universe? Small fandom fic aside (I was thrilled to get a single comment on one of my Betrayal in Antara fics!), 'Melancholy Madness (etc etc)' finally equaled the hit count on the other fic I wrote with the same ship after six chapters \o/ Other one was sex pollen for an exchange. And not a WIP. Oh, well. The regular readers seem to like it. I was pretty pleased with 'Sea-Deep Till Morning', a gen Yakov & Victor fic, but it didn't get many hits at all. But it did get nice comments, so I can't really whine about it.

Story that could have been better? I think 'Read the Page of Destiny', about Yakov teaching bb!Victor and bb!Georgi, needs something more, but I'm not sure what. It just felt kind of clunky in some way.

Sexiest story? 'Merrily, Merrily, Maritally' (crossdressing clothing kink roleplaying fun) and 'Second Skin' (more clothing kink + Yuuri getting off on wearing Victor's costume, specifically)

Saddest story? On my main? I didn't write anything that sad this year. Maybe 'Melancholy Madness (etc etc)' with its focus on burnout and a healing relationship that needs to stay hidden and isn't a panacea? Or 'Workaday', a Papers, Please fic.

Most fun? 'Common Tongue', where Yuuri can secretly speak Russian. 'Spell My Name with a', the one tagged with 'Character's name spelled as Victor' :p The Olympic condoms drabble and the Genji fic.

Story with single sweetest moment? 'Feather in Hand' (human-hating Executive lets bb!Haruitsuki see his youkai form), 'A Problem Shared' (three friends look out for each other after a battle), and dunno which moment but 'Bonnie and Blythe' has some cute ones.

Hardest story to write? 'As the Crow Flies', because it's a very complicated relationship in my mind and we haven't seen that much of it in canon. I also had trouble putting the scenes in my head together into a story.

Easiest/most fun story to write? 'Never Say Never', Antara fic based off of one of the in-game songs. 'Blue and Deep' is cute and took me back to my study abroad in Japan. 'Pulling Tides' just flowed out. 'Hearsay' was fun to put in a Genji-esque style.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters? I think 'Bonnie and Blythe' did, for Yakov and Lilia, and made me more attached to them. Certainly I've written most of my gen fic featuring either of them since starting that, and I've become more confident in writing Lilia (she's one of those characters who are vivid enough to make a strong impression, but has little enough screen time that I find it tricky to write her).

Most overdue story? 'Hiding From the Lights' is something I should have cross-posted last year. 'Every Stroke Anew', although written for RSOI, was based on a scene I had started writing... maybe last year, even, and didn't know how to continue.

Did you take any writing risks this year? I participated in a charity zine. Wrote weird ships because I like them. Wrote more complicated relationships that I don't think I would have been willing to try a couple of years ago. Wrote spirit/human sex (that was fun). Wrote two WIPs, one of which needs to be finished, aha. Wrote various kinks that are not really my kinks in particular (the mirror sex, the hair bondage, and the Amazon position ones turned out to be fun). Does second person count as a writing risk?

What are your fic writing goals for next year? First, what were they last year? I don't even remember.

Take 'Bonnie and Blythe' to Ao3 and finish it: check
Write something longer than 20k: check twice over
Maybe a sequel?: maybe this year?
More editing and origfic: ...maybe this year.

This year: post my not-Victuuri bang fic, maybe write a sequel to that one fic, finish my WIP, and edit/write more origfic. Maybe put something up on Amazon and see if I can get a little skating money from it. It would be really fun to write some interactive fiction for an exchange or something, but I don't know if that will happen.