mistressofmuses

For snowflake_challenge: "Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom."

Fandom has definitely been a net positive for me, though not in ways that are terribly unique, I imagine.

Because of fandom, I've made several lasting online friendships. Once upon a time, this was on Livejournal, then sometimes on tumblr, now here (and sometimes following across platforms) with people I'd never have met otherwise. For the most part anymore we don't share specific fandoms, but there's a certain understanding of sorts that comes with just being fannish, and has led to many of those friendships spanning years and years!

Arguably, despite Alex not being fannish himself, I wouldn't have met him without fandom, either. I only discovered Livejournal because people I found through fandom (authors I liked on ffdotnet, owners of fandom-specific personal sites, etc.) had Livejournals. Once it was clear that All The Cool Kids Had LJs, I started one as a personal journal (full of embarrassing teenage whining and angst), but it was absolutely fandom that first introduced me to LJ. (Then I continued my journal as I went away to college, and I eventually joined an advice community, read a post of Alex's in that comm, friended him, and then we became actual friends.)

Outside of the social sphere, fandom has given me the opportunity to have a creative outlet. Aside from all the teenage badfic (and early twenties mediocrefic) that languishes on that old ffdotnet account, I returned to writing fic in 2019/2020, and have really enjoyed that for the last several years. Fanfiction has given me a way to share some of the things I write, and actually have other people read it! Maybe not a ton of readers, but it's cool that there are any. Some people have enjoyed things I made!

("Yeses" looks like a garbage fake word.)

Continuing my cataloging of fanfiction ideas for personal posterity...

After narrowing down the top 20 fic ideas I'd selected, I whittled it down to eight that I want to actually try to get outlined:

Kingdom Hearts: Cyberpunk AU
This is one of those ideas that keeps coming back, ha. The KH series explores a lot of different themes that I feel like sync up well with cyberpunk as a genre, especially exploring identity and self and what it means.
The plot is regarding the nobodies of KH2 as clones of the “somebodies” in question, and people who want to control them vs. their desire for control over their own lives, plus how much it matters to the people that they’re clones of. The main trio are hired to investigate a supposed “break in” at Kairi’s father’s lab, and are told to get stolen tech back... but it turns out it was more of an escape than a break in, and some of those escaped clones include genetic material taken from Kairi and Sora. At one point I’d intended for this to parallel the canon as closely as possible, while shifting to a different setting and genre, but that’s not really my intent any longer.

Pros and Cons of this fic:

Pros: It’s a genre I like but haven’t ever tried to write for. I like the ways in which the themes intersect and think it will be fun, and as mentioned above, I think it's a really suitable genre. I hope that I can make this a fairly mid-length story, though that’s maybe debatable. I’ve thought about this one on and off for long enough that I have at least a little bit of a plan in place.
Cons: There are aspects of this that are very similar to the conceit of Potentials; that there are alternate versions of the mains. But that’s basically the canon, so I’m not too worried about that. I’m not extremely well-read in the cyberpunk genre, so I know it is possible that I could trip over in-genre issues/cliches that I’m unaware of. I do want it to suit the cyberpunk aesthetic, but I also want to try and make sure the thematic underpinnings are there too, but I think those are. Somewhat unfortunately, I’m given to understand that there are a lot of applicable themes that are explored differently and with different characters later in the KH storyline... after the point where I’d sort of noped out. I did at one point put this idea on hold in the hopes of catching up with canon and using those future bits as further fodder for this fic, but at this point I don’t think the canon catch up will ever happen, so I have to risk my story feeling as if it’s “missed” obvious connections.

Silent Hill: Documentary
This one is intended to be a longer SH fic. The main character is a young woman planning to do a documentary on the weird history of Silent Hill. She brings her brother along, an urban explorer looking for new places to explore, plus their mutual friend who is focused on a more traditional local history. The three quickly wind up drawn into bizarre happenings of their own within the town.
It’s probably the one that’s the most “game” like, as in it’s about a specific character coming to the town and experiencing the classic fog and otherworld horror aspects. It’s also fairly self-indulgent in terms of how much I want to look at my favorite bits of lore. Though because it is somewhat similar to the games, I wanted to incorporate some sense of the multiple outcomes that the games offer, which originally I figured would just mean having a couple different endings, though I wasn’t completely sure how I’d make that work for the story.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like maybe I should incorporate more of a choice system... as in ultimately making this a Choose Your Own Adventure story, to at least some degree. However, I’d need to figure out how to design it to both make the choices feel like they matter, while also not making any of the paths miss the bulk of the plot. I don’t want it to require a bunch of read-throughs to get all the bits, but also don’t want the choices to be meaningless.

Pros and Cons of this fic:

Pros: The fun and challenge of writing a CYOA story! The more I've thought about it, the more I find that to be an exciting thing to attempt. I also really enjoyed writing the last Silent Hill fic I did, and want to write another horror-focused story. It is fairly self-indulgent in terms of liking to explore all the fun settings and lore bits that I like, and I count self-indulgence as a positive. And I am really proud of one specific game setting that I adapted to the fic setting.
Cons: The challenge of writing a CYOA story! It’ll require some research on how best to structure those. It’s also a little bit of a “risk” because if the paths branch too much, it’s possible a reader would completely miss large parts of the story... which with a fandom that’s as small in terms of fic reading as SH, could mean it basically doesn’t get read at all. I also feel a bit like I already wrote my “better” SH fic idea in Outbreak, which makes me feel like this is a step backwards. Though I hope it’s more just different. (Outbreak did feel more unique, though.)

Silent Hill: "Ghost Town"
Another Silent Hill fic! This one was inspired by a very specific place we used to drive through (abandoned train tracks!) and some idle daydreaming about it. I was initially planning to nix this one, because the idea for it was so small... but in looking at it, I sort of found a plot that interests me more. Basically the idea is about the influence from Silent Hill spreading farther beyond its borders, in this case, via a missionary from the town who traveled out west, spreading the early cult’s message. Now there are still lingering traces of his presence and the corruption that it spread.

Pros and Cons of this fic:

Pros: Again, some more horror writing, which is something I find fun. I’m also pretty happy with the newer version of the plot, which has some shiny and new vibes still.
Cons: This one probably needs some research, because I want to make the history of the missionary feel appropriate to the time period. I think that is very doable, but again... needs research. Looking into spiritualism and occultism in the old west will be an interesting topic, but that still takes a lot of effort and time commitment for something that's not likely to have any real readership. I also would need to work to make it fit within the lore of the series, though it may just have to get a bit handwavey.

Kingdom Hearts: Angels and Demons AU
This story idea has been rattling around in my brain for several years now. I think it probably came about right around when the first season of Good Omens dropped, though it’s not at all based on it. The angels and demons of this story are more like... I don’t know, that CLAMP series “Wish” or something. That sort of... utterly not-accurate-to-any-religious-portrayal sort of thing that at least felt pretty popular in the anime of my teenhood. Really, I just like pretty people with wings. I’ve got Riku, Kairi, and Naminé as my angels, with Axel as a demon trying to thwart them, while they’re sent to watch over mortal Sora and Roxas, plus Xion when she shows up. Riku has a lot of particular angst because he’s afraid of falling. All three of the guardian angels wind up falling for their charges, and so does demon Axel. I need to sort out the ending, because I’m all about my happy endings, but I don’t want it to feel TOO contrived for everyone to get theirs.

Pros and Cons of this fic:

Pros: Pretty people with wings! This is one that has a lot of iddy potential that I want to really lean into. I’m perfectly happy for it to be basically blasphemy all around. I get to write a ship I haven’t ever actually written for (Axel/Roxas/Naminé/Xion) in addition to my usual.
Cons: I have some strong angst about how much I hate the over-prevalence of Christian iconography and such, and the whole general “culturally Christian” country we’re stuck with, and I feel like using angels and demons, even as just what amounts to romance tropes, is furthering it in some tiny way... but then again, it’s angels and demons having threesomes and moresomes with humans and each other, so this is pretty fucking blasphemous, and I kind of enjoy that.
The other big con of it for me is that second ship is going to be a HIGHLY controversial one to write in this fandom. Axel/Roxas is super polarizing - it was one of the absolute top ships in the fandom back when the second game came out (what with lines like “he made me feel like I had a heart” and all), but sometime after that, it became the pet target of the fandom antis. They have decided that it’s an unconscionable age gap (even though canonically both characters are fantasy!clones who have existed for the exact same amount of time, and even the "somebodies" they're clones of don't have an age gap of more than a few years), or the fact that there's arguably a "found family" vibe to Axel, Roxas, and Xion, that means Axel must be their "father", which creeps me out about 100 times more, to be honest. But that also means the ship gets derided as “basically incest” despite them... not being related. SO it’s quite possible that this would be the first fic I’d write that could be the target of some pretty nasty and vitriolic antis, which is a thing I’ve watched happen to people I know in the fandom, and that does make me nervous. I know I can archive lock and all, and if it bothers any of my “regular” readers, then they should mind the pairing tags.

Sparrow Hill Road x Alice Isn't Dead crossover
I love this idea, and I’ve wanted to write it for years now. Sparrow Hill Road was a really fun book (I liked the second and third books as well, though I enjoyed the first one being a set of self-contained short stories about Rose, rather than the bigger plot of the second and third.) Alice Isn’t Dead was a fun podcast. Both of them have great spooky road trip/liminal spaces vibes, and I think having the two of them intersect would be great! It’s not a long or involved plot, and would probably be a pretty short fic, with Keisha picking Rose up as a hitchhiker, and then encountering some sort of monster. Probably at least one mention of “your Alice better not be Alice Healy...”

Pros and Cons of this fic:

Pros: How great a crossover I think this would be! It’s also a short fic, which is nice. I had a pretty complete outline already, I think.
Cons: I need to do a canon refresh on both of these. It’s been a while since I read the book, and while I’m happy to set this fic sometime around that time (so not taking into account all those later plot developments), I still need to remember what all the norms for Rose *are.* Ghost abilities, limitations, timeline, etc. It’s also been a long while since I listened to Alice Isn’t Dead, and I feel like I have chunks of that canon I don’t remember as well either. But... for a fic that’s going to be a few thousand words, probably, it’s really hard to justify listening to a whole three-season podcast and reread a novel when I struggle so badly to find time for either of those things as it is.

Kingdom Hearts: Fantasy!Bachelorette
This was one of the AUgust ideas from the first round of the challenge that I did. The prompt was "arranged marriage," but the idea sort of went sideways, ha. I functionally wrote chapter one of this fic: Kairi is set to marry someone from Destiny Island to cement some sort of alliance. The idea of an arranged marriage is abhorrent in the culture of Destiny Island, so they send an assortment of eligible partners, trying to make sure Kairi has a choice. Hence... high stakes fantasy!The Bachelorette. Wakka, Tidus, Selphie, Riku, and Sora all have decided to offer themselves up as potential partners. They wind up disqualified one by one, until Kairi winds up with both Riku and Sora.

Pros and Cons of this fic:

Pros: this one is pretty light-hearted, and should be fairly fun and straightforward to write. I do already have a first chapter (though I’ll likely rewrite it, should I go with this one.) I think it should be a relatively direct story to outline, without too much in the way of subplots or complicated twists to keep track of.
Cons: I don’t generally *like* straightforward romance fics; I love romantic subplots, or some additional component to the romance that makes it interesting. This has the whole alliance type thing, but that’s really more of the b-plot for this one, which I don’t know if I’ll enjoy as much as I hope. It’s also several characters I’m not used to writing, whose characterizations in the KH series don’t necessarily match up well to their original canon characterizations from FF, which I am *also* not wildly familiar with. I feel like my wanting to match most of the others up with their canon love interests (Tudus with Yuna, Wakka with Lulu) is kind of a boring choice.

Kingdom Hearts: Holiday RomCom
A sort of dumb idea about “how would a holiday rom-com be made to appeal to me?” (Along the same lines as "what would Twilight look like if it were geared toward my id?") Because I don’t love holiday stuff and I don’t love rom-coms, I especially do not tend to care for holiday rom-coms. (Sometimes I like them in theory, because I get the appeal of fluffy, comforting romance! But in practicality, I’ve yet to find one I actually enjoyed.) So I tried to figure out what WOULD make me like one, and the answer is usually “poly romance.” So here we are.

Pros and Cons of this fic:

Pros: again, a fairly light-hearted story, probably of short to middle length, which would be a nice change from some of the much longer ones. This is also another one that’s really intended to just appeal to me, and leaning into that should be enjoyable.
Cons: it’s an example of something that I don’t typically care for, so I’m hopeful that I DO find a way to enjoy it. At the same time, I don’t want it to come across as being nasty toward the genre as a whole (though I don’t think it does; if anything, it might play some of the tropes almost too straight. But I do really hate when someone decides that a genre sucks so they’re going to “do it right”, because it’s almost always a really douchey take, haha.) This is also one that has a pretty obvious posting window, because I would want to make sure that I can post it at the holidays. However, that means I have to write it pretty significantly before the holidays, which is tough, because I struggle to keep up the holiday spirit at the holidays, so how do I try to feel it that early?

Kingdom Hearts: Worldhopping Fairytale Monstrosity
The big one! This one is my biggest source of idea debt, and has been in various stages of progress/at least thinking about it for close to two decades now. (Embarrassing!)
It started as my version of a Kingdom Hearts 3, but catering to my interest in traditional fairy tales in place of Disney stories.
Then it went through a big replotting in a foolish attempt to appease people in the fandom that I didn’t even know (because there were a handful of people who were at the time annoyed that the Disney side of the game was largely ignored when it came to fan fiction, with more of the fandom focusing on the main trio, the Final Fantasy characters, and the Nobodies).
Then it got another big replot when I decided to trim down on the parts that did not “spark joy” (because I am real burned out on Disney as a company and general entity, and writing “Disney worlds” into the fic felt like a drag the whole time, which wasn’t fun for me, and probably wouldn’t be fun for the people who wanted those worlds).
Then Kingdom Hearts 3 did come out, so this was now firmly in AU territory instead of “speculative continuation branching out from canon so far.” I’d always known it would stray into being an AU, but at this point it’s inescapably so. SO… the current thought is to leaning into that, and just making it an AU altogether, with canon events just not having ever happened.

Pros and Cons of this fic:

Pros: This idea won’t leave me alone. Almost two decades on, it feels like it’s worth going for, if I’m still wanting to work on it. While it hasn’t been something I’ve been “obsessively” thinking of the way I once did, it IS one of the stories that really captivated me at a few different points, and I miss that energy and excitement. Giving myself the freedom to just make it a full AU should be enjoyable.
Cons: This will be a very long haul. The last outline I did come up with I’d estimated would turn out around 150k words, which is roughly twice the length of the longest fic I’ve posted so far. Writing that out - twice, if I’m going to do two full drafts - is a dauntingly long process. This is also that huge source of idea debt in terms of how much energy I have put into it over years, and it really has reached the point where I either need to get the project done or turn that attention and effort to something else. I had sort of made peace with putting it aside, but as soon as I did, the interest flared up again, and I unshelved it.
I also have a few aspects that I’ve been wavering on and need to make decisions about. Originally I wanted to try and utilize fairy tales from all over the world, rather than just European ones. However, there’s a lot of pushback against western retellings of stories from other cultures. I certainly don’t feel like I’m doing anything world shattering, or that I’m a super exception who is doing these stories special justice or anything. It seems easier in a lot of ways to just not worry about it, and focus on the stories that I do have a bit more cultural context for... but is "easier" the way to go? Is it worth trying to incorporate at least a couple from other cultures? I’m still deciding.

Yesterday, I received my contributor bundle for the Set Sail zine!



Apologies for the terrible glare from my overhead light, but *eeeee!* The stickers! The pins! The print! (Of course, I can never ever use the stickers; that would be terrible!) But everything is so very cute - the merch artists made so much excellent stuff.

The zine itself looks fabulous - I'm really blown away by how many great artists we had. I haven't had a chance to read all of the fic, but I'm really excited to!



This is the header for the fic I wrote - it's definitely a cool feeling to see my writing in print, and also to see it paired with an artist's lovely artwork.

Hi there! Snowflake always provides a welcome reminder and opportunity to do some journal housekeeping. :) You can find two sticky posts at the top of my journal, one with some general info on my journal, and one as a directory of my fic.

Transformative Works Policy: I'm happy and flattered for people to create podfic, translations, and fanart or other works inspired by my fanworks, and I would really like a link to anything created!

Current Passion: No extremely strong passions at the moment... kind of in the process of looking for one! In general, writing tends to be where most of my passion goes, so just looking for the next project to really grab hold.

Where to Find Me: This is the platform that I'm the most active on, and the only one that really includes anything personal. I am also at mistressofmuses where I post my fic, and mistressofmuses, where I mostly reblog a variety of things that interest me.

Master List: This is a directory of all my completed and in-progress fic. I'm... mostly good about keeping it updated!

Anything Else: Nothing in particular I can think of. I'm always happy to make friends here on DW, particularly people who are active!

Literally me and Taylor over text right now, discussing the summary of the next October Daye book.

( Mild spoilers for the next book's summary and our stringboard theories )

The only real lingering booster shot symptom is the swollen/painful lymph node in my armpit on the side I got the shot on. That is welcome to quit aaaaany time, because it's very uncomfortable.

But because it got too late for me to want to actually write a post:



Challenge #9: "Fandom Wrap": list the top 5 for each category based on time spent

Fun fact, I have never used Spotify.

What are your top five fandoms for 2021 based on the amount of time you interacted with them?
1. Kingdom Hearts (writing fic)
2. The Witcher (silly, because I have never interacted with ANY of the canons. But a couple talented writers coaxed me toward some fic, and that's how that went.)
3. Leverage (reading lots of meta while I watched the first four seasons... and then stalled out)
4. The Magnus Archives (listened to most of the series, interact with one fangroup pretty often)
5. Good Omens (reading fic)

What are your top five fandom spaces in terms of time spent? (AO3, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Dreamwidth, and others)
1. Tumblr
2. Dreamwidth
3. AO3
4. Discord
5. Facebook

What are the top five ways you interacted in these fandoms? (Reading fanfic, writing, commenting, watching videos, chatting with friends, making art, or anything else you can think of).
1. Writing
2. Reading fanfic
3. Reading meta
4. Flailing with Taylor
5. Lurking on Discord and trying to decide if I want to wade back in...

What are the top five things you did to contribute to fandom in terms of time? Did you write? Comment? Send positive energy into the universe? Create art?
1. Writing fic
2. Commenting on fic
3. Reblogging art
4. Making fanmixes
5. ???

What things did you create that took the most time?
1. Unposted fic: All Strange Wonders
2. Step Right Up
3. In progress: Connections of the Heart
4. In progress: Island Territory
5. ???

Alex's Covid test came back negative! So that's good at least! He still feels sick, but at least it's (almost certainly) not that.

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I feel like I very frequently say I'm going to go to bed early, and I almost never do... but I swear I mean it tonight.

I very seriously almost dozed off at work - not quite, but very close, which is... not great!

Unfortunately, I'm kind of at the "well crap, nothing to say!" point, lol. (Which I know I said I just... wouldn't post if that was the case, but... I'm a little afraid that if I get out of the habit I might quit for longer than intended.

So...



Challenge #7: 3 fandom resources or communities you use or enjoy.

I don't have a lot of connection to the fandom I write for, which is something I... might try to remedy. Or maybe I'll be happier playing in my own corner of the sandbox away from potential drama, lol.

But there are a few communities here that I really enjoy:

fancake: monthly themes for fic recs.

writethisfanfic: fanfic specific, geared toward encouraging progress! There are low-pressure monthly posts where you can declare goals, which is sometimes enough accountability all on its own to help me push through, ha.

whatif_au: bi-monthly themed AU prompts, which can be written/posted/shared any time.

Honorable mention to two more writing/other art comms, which are mixed between fandom and original work:

ushobwri: You Should Be Writing - a supportive writing community for any type of writing. Posts generally twice a week to check in and see how writing is going.

justcreate: supportive community for any kind of artistic/creative work, whether that's fan or original, writing or art or textile craft or anything else!

Today's big accomplishment was cleaning Broccoli Cheddar Bomb's habitat. It's been... very overdue, so I'm glad it's done! Hopefully he's glad, too.

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Challenge #4: Wishlist for fandom

Add me to the absolute chorus of people who miss low-key community spaces for discussion. Dreamwidth is way better suited to that than most other spaces (except maybe discord, but in my experience it tends to move too quickly for me to engage in MUCH discussion). I've found a nice number of friends on here that I talk to in comments on our respective journals, and there are also some pretty active writing communities where people comment back and forth, even if we only share fandom-y stuff in a broad sense, rather than specific fandoms themselves.

And well, Snowflake is one of the events that best fulfills that wish already!

In general (though also personally) I'd love fandom to foster a more feedback-oriented culture again. Sometimes all you want to do is passively enjoy some fic, and I get it. But when comments and kudos and such are the only "payment" a writer gets, it's nice to get that! Sure it's not owed, but it IS nice to feel like you aren't posting to the void.

No real wishlist for me or my stuff - I hate asking for things. :P

I don't check my work emails on my days off anymore, but then I got a couple texts about "oh, I heard about the big news today, how are you?"

The company I work for has always prided itself on being a small, local company. We've expanded within Colorado, the biggest at what we do, but that's been a big *thing* the whole time. Local! Family owned!

But they announced (via an email sent today) that on December 31st, the owners sold the company to a group of investors. They don't "anticipate" that this will change things day to day for any of us. The investment group in question is from California, I think, though the email said our new CEO (who heads said group) will be "moving his family here from Canada." Apparently the goal is to expand nationally.

So... that's interesting. It explains a couple things that had been happening on the corporate side, for sure.

Not sure completely how I feel about it. I *literally* said in my year-end post ON THE 31ST that I wished this company felt like the same company it was when I started... but as of that day, I guess it really wasn't the same company anymore.

It's great that they say they don't think it's going to change things for most of us, but at the same time, who knows? I've seen the same said to a lot of friends in different fields when a company or organization changed hands or was merged/acquired/etc... just before the new owners decided they wanted to bring their own people in.

(Probably unlikely that I'm facing a sudden loss of job. Not because I'm irreplaceable or anything, but there'd be very little reason to get rid of the people who know our systems and have gone through the required state certifications.

But eventually?)

My bigger concern would be that this will simply continue our long, slow slide away from quality toward quantity/profit, which sucks and just gets more soul-sucking. This company was very good to me when I was in a rough spot, but I know the loyalty it instilled in me is one-sided. Still, I'm not looking forward to it likely growing more impersonal.

I could be proven wrong; maybe the new investors and the new CEO will know better how to run a company, rather than some of the questionable decisions they've made as they've expanded. But I'm not wildly optimistic.

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Aside from that rocky new year news:

snowflake_challenge is happening again, as it always does in January.



I have done the first two challenges so far:

Challenge #1: Update fandom info. I did this yesterday, and it is now stickied on my journal. I'll probably tweak it in the future (maybe to try and give a better sense of my non-fannish stuff, too) but I'm glad to have it up! I haven't had an "about me" type sticky in the past, though I kept meaning to, ha.

Challenge #2: Set goals for the coming year. I did this on January 1st. Some goals are fandom-related, some are personal. The most concrete ones are definitely regarding writing!

Not sure if I'll do all the challenges this month (I'll decide as they come up), but glad to have at least started it.

I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions, to be honest. Last year, the main goals I had were fairly open-ended, and that's the way I like them for the most part. I want the flexibility to adjust as I need, or ditch something entirely if I want to, without feeling like I "failed."

But one of the things I decided to start at the beginning of last year was habit tracking.

( Habit Tracking for 2022 )

My Goals and Hopes For 2022

Unsurprisingly, my most concrete goals are writing-related.

I joined two year-long writing challenges for 2022:

- getyourwordsout with a goal of 150k words
- inkingitout with a goal of 100k (so if I can't hit 150k, I still have a shot at hitting the smaller goal!)

Last year, I was very proud of how much I wrote - over 200k! - but less thrilled that it translated to very little that was completed and shared.

So this year, in addition to the yearly word totals that I'm aiming for, my main focus is going to be finishing some of my WIPs:

- Connections of the Heart - This was my 2021 entry for unconventionalcourtship, but is still not done. I have two chapters posted, two written in rough draft, and two yet to be written. My goal is to finish the unwritten chapters in a month (hopefully less!) each; so finish Chapter 5 by the end of January, and finish Chapter 6 by the end of February. (Again, hoping for sooner!) Then I hope to get second (postable!) drafts of Chapters 3/4/5/6 completed in about a week each, meaning second draft is done in March. After all the chapters have their second drafts completed, I'll start posting them, either weekly or biweekly, so it should be completely posted by either the end of April or in May.
(This means my posting hiatus will be longer, BUT means that after that, I'll be posting these while working on the next WIP, so there shouldn't be any future gaps to the tune of... six+ months.)

- Island Territory - my Vampire AU. It has one chapter posted, and three unwritten. This fic was historically a bit easier to write, so I'm hoping for one rough draft chapter every two weeks, then one second draft chapter every week. If the tentative schedule above holds, then by the time I'm done posting CotH, this one will be ready to post, and again, I can post either weekly or biweekly, and it should be completely shared by May/June.

- Part 3 of Bodyguard AU? - A bit afraid this one isn't going to happen. I wrote two connected oneshots back in 2020 for an AU challenge, but the overarching plotline wasn't really concluded. While I do remember where I was going with it, vaguely, I'm not sure how to wrap it up satisfyingly, and wouldn't want it to be more than another oneshot or maybe two. I MAY still try to make this happen, just because I feel bad it feels unfinished, but at the same time... I'd never actually intended there to be more, heh.

- All Strange Wonders - This one is a reward to myself for getting the others finished. Its second draft is done, so I'll just give each chapter an editing pass before posting. It's a Howl's Moving Castle fusion, and I actually really really like it. Once I start posting it, I'll probably post chapters weekly.

- Outbreak - The Silent Hill fic about a horrible illness. I actually wrote this back in 2016, then never posted it in the hopes that Taylor would beta it for me, but they just never had the time. Then Covid happened, and posting a fanfic about a horrific, mystery illness seemed in poor taste. As Covid has not gone away, and shows no sign of going away anytime soon, it's seemed less like a topic that's completely off-limits. Having talked about it here a few times, a couple friends have mentioned that it might be a useful way to process some things about living through Covid. I'm not sure how much rewriting will need to happen - I don't want to change it to parallel Covid more or anything, but it's true that I may have some new feelings about it, ha.

AFTER Connections of the Heart and Island Territory are done, and I start posting All Strange Wonders, only THEN do I get to write anything new, lol.

( Short cut for ideas for new things; not super relevant, but don't want to toss )

Non-writing Goals:

- I still haven't found a real form of exercise that I enjoy. We used to go out clubbing a lot, and dancing was great... but that's a terrible idea in an uncontrolled pandemic. I'm hoping this year to maybe try and start stretching at the very least. I've noticed loss of flexibility now that I have a desk job, and it seems like something that would at least help with some of the back pain that I have.

- Keep up with Dreamwidth. It may not be every day this year (that was a semi-accident last year, but then I got stubborn about it.) I don't really want to make a post if I don't have anything to say.
Along with that, I'd kinda like to at least occasionally write something a little deeper than whinging about work. I have a lot of ~feelings~ about things, and that's really what I wanted to return to journaling for! I like the daily record stuff too, but I should share some of the other stuff too.

- Find more fandom connection? Great timing, because snowflake_challenge is happening! But there's been a lot of talk (at least on tumblr) about what will happen to fandom if tumblr goes away, and the general consensus is "probably move to more private spaces." Twitter is where the critical mass has gone, but there are plenty of people (maybe especially Olds Like Me) who don't have any desire to deal with that toxic mess. Discord is popular, but it can be hard to access if you don't know people already, because you have to find servers/get invites to them/etc. Dreamwidth is probably never going to have the critical mass the way LJ did back in the day, or that twitter and tumblr have now. But it DOES have the type of interaction I've missed, and I wish more people WOULD come here, because it seems like the type of interaction that SO MANY people either miss having or haven't had but wish they did. I've had a better relationship with fandom (even though mostly with people who don't share my same fandoms!) in 2021 than I have in YEARS, because there are a lot of great, supportive communities here. In the past I've largely been a lurker, but... be the change you want to see, right?

- Read more! My TBR pile is growing way faster than I'm reading! It's a problem! Tentatively aiming for 25 books this year? I'd hoped for 20 last year and got closer than I'd realized. (10.5 read on my own, but 5 more read with other people, and later also realized I hadn't counted any ebooks, of which I read a few.) But roughly a book every other week should be doable if I just carve out time more reliably.

- Actually pay attention to more movies/TV shows, instead of solely using them as background noise. This is now a tracked habit!

Sorry for the real long post, lol. Had more to say than I thought!