Ren the Ghost

so i defaulted on fandom5k. there were a couple of requests i was like 65% enthused about, but as i am now i don't want to commit to something i'm less then 90% enthused about. especially for a 5k fic! so yeah. i think it was the right call. (i still owe comments on my fandom5k gifts from the last round OTL)

battleshipex is staring up again soon, and i've definitely got my eye on it :D

i have a barebones sign-up to justmarriedexchange rn.

on friday, i streamed Cult of the Lamb for a few hours on my new twitch channel bogwyrm. i haven't streamed nor played COTL in like a year, and i forgot how much i love it. depression blinders, you know?

but i like streaming bc i like even the illusion of company (even if nobody's actually watching), it just makes gaming more fun to me, you know. and COTL is one of my favorite games. i started a new playthrough bc it's been so long and just... so much fun! i'm gonna try to stream again tomorrow (monday) bc then i'm going to my mom's place and i can't stream there. i would love it if you felt like stopping by! <3

anyway, i hope y'all are having/had a fun weekend! <3

so! some things! i'm super out of the loop on DW (haven't even checked my noticifactions in a A While, so my apologies if i've missed something. i hope you all have been doing good! <3

• I hit 2 of my deadlines! And I had enough brain power to remember to request an extension a third, and managed to get that in on time, too! Still open is the fandom5k one, I really don't know what I'm going to do with that...

• I've been watching a lot of Josh Johnson's standup comedy on YouTube, and it's very fun and cozy. Highly recommend!

• I've updated my wishlist with a bunch of things, because I was feeling daring. I'm most excited about finally managing to add an amazon gift card. I have no idea if it will actually work, though!

• In regards to the various writing challenges I'm doing, it's going. One of them is total anon required, so I can't talk about that at all, but for the others: on the Hot Wet Queer Summer challenge, I've got a decent start, I think. I'm going kind of vintage gothic vibes? So it's faux-historical, and hopefully some cosmic horror will make it's way in there. For the Sexy Werewolf challenge, I think I need to start over. I'm A) not happy with my current version adn B) the current version should be a full-length novel, which is a bit ambitious in a single summer. I'm thinking of changing gears entirely and doing something way, way shorter. Choices, choices...

• I highly recommend the Solo Leveling fic Dragon Ascending by Aeraneth, even if you've never consumed Solo Leveling. There's so much world building! So much character development! It's a beautiful thing and I adore it, and it's making want to write SL fics, too. I haven't been around the SL corner in so long, it's kind of funny LOL. But I just really love this fic! <3

• I've been feeling a bit tapped out lately writing-wise (which makes sense: I finished writing a 70k novel not that long ago and have tossed myself into More Writing for all the challenges and exchanges and whatnot) and so right now I'm writing a self-indulgent Teen Wolf (pre-steter) fic just for me. It's very soothing XD and I mean, sure, deadlines are looming closer and I'm just ignoring those things... but it's fine. Sometimes you need to write something silly without pressure to recharge the creative juices, and oh boy, is my brain delivering. Deadlines be damned.

• I've barely read 10 books this year (my mental health was and contiune to be meh) but I recently read The Husband Hoax by Saxon James, which was a fun and relaxing read.

• A writing challenge I've been doing on Discord for literal years now is Bookdun: it's a six month challenge where you get split into three teams, and at the end of the season, the team with the most points win. 10k words = 1 point. (I have 15 points right now, which is my highest ever!) You can join at any time, but a new season starts in July (technically I thinks like Jun 29 or 30) and runs through December, if you want to try going in when the battle's just starting. I'm quillpunk on discord, if you want to poke me about it, and I'm happy to talk it up more here, too. And it's perfectly fine to be lurker that literally just updates point for the challenge, that's basically what I've been doing the whole time. There's no need to participate in the server beyond that :)

• 2 of the challenges I'm doing now are on itchio, and require itch accounts. To that purpose, I now have one. Better yet, I've been exploring, and found some cool authors writing some very cool things on there. On my profile, I've collected links to them, fun porjects and collections! Becuase itchio has collection functionality, which I never knew. And I found some extra cool ones! XD

• I can't remember if I've mentioned WritingHabit.app on here, but it's a writing browser app. And aomng other fun stuff, it has a leaderboard (daily, monthly, yearly) and it's very fun climbing it :D My username is roboticalshark on there <3

Okay, I can't think of anything more right now. But hopefully I'll see you soon! <333

Like five minutes after posting my wishlist, I realized that it's December. (And then my internet died and I couldn't fix the wishlist, so I just went to bed, LOL.) Which means my paid account is expiring this month. I just... where did my time go? I had months left, months ago!

...Okay, I connected those dots now but still! It's December! 2024 is almost over. How??????

I'm reading Biggles and the Camels are Coming, and I just got to the part where Algy goes on a flower-bombing revenge spree, and it is absolutely hilarious to me.

Also, I accidentally deleted everything in my entire inbox again o(〒﹏〒)o

Just remembered my paid account expires this month :((( My icons... I don't want to lose my icons but... money... but... ahhhh I don't know what to do :((((

New expiration date is in July September October November! <333 Thank you very much! :D

Ok wait no I realized. That I actually want to post something today. Because it's leap-year! And a Feb 29 won't come back around for a while!

So.

Ehem.

Anybody else watching So Help Me Todd? I've binged it and I high-key adore it? Like, there's just so much warmth and energy in the performances and the way the characters interact with each other and it's just delightful. I made a quick post about it on Mastodon and I still wanna gush, so I am gushing and you can not stop me.

The humor of the show is just kind of heartwarming. Like, a lot of it isn't outright jokes, or jokes at anybody's expense, but rather just the way the characters interact with each other and about each other—we're having fun with them, not at their expense. They joke with each other, they get excited together, they run off to save the day supporting each other, and it's heartening and also amusing when antics occur because antics do occur.

A big part of the show is Todd (titular character) and Margaret's (his mother) relationship, and it's both entertaining and got a lot of heart. They start off the show kind of separate but then increasingly get pulled closer together as they start working together and grow to understand each other better and also understand how they might have hurt each other in the past, and move beyond it.

Like, it's lovely?

They grow closer over the course of the season (season 2 is airing now, I think) and grow more comfortable with each other and in turn their interactions become more amusing. Also they love each other. Everybody just treats each other well, and wants what's best for them, and it's great, I honestly love it.

Also, shout-out to the line "Permission to treat witness as hostile daughter!" from Margaret when she's—interviewing? Cross-examining? I don't know, I'm not a law person—her daughter Allison who's acting as a witness during a trial thing (Margaret is a lawyer, Todd is a private investigator who starts working as an in-house investigator at her firm, Allison is an ER doctor).

Also also, season one seemed to set up a love triangle between Todd, Susan (his ex who is now an attorney and works at the same firm) and her fiancé Peter, but also there's a whole episode that just seems to be "oh my god Peter is so great" and look what I'm saying is OT3.

Please hold, I have to switch to HTML so I can do the spoiler thing. (Everything was already formatted in Markdown, *flops down on the floor.*)

The Love Triangle

Okay so season 1 ends with Susan and Peter eloping in Las Vegas, so like they're married now. And I don't know what this means! I want OT3 goodness and there are a lot of casually queer characters in the show but do I dare hope? [Insert keysmash here.]

Like, Todd has a few other casual love interests over the season, some amorous encounters if you will, but they don't end up going anywhere and he's still single by season end. Which is more than fine, actually, because the season's end is really lovely, a great moment in Todd and Margaret's relationship, and also Todd finds out Susan is eloping and he doesn't chase her down to confess his love or whatever which I just really really appreciate.

But now I have Feels™ and I don't know where to put them, LOL.

Look, this show has just burrowed under my skin okay, I've had it on repeat in the background while I'm writing stuff for... awhile now. I feel like, I don't know, it's just kind? Conflicts aren't pointlessly dragged out, and the characters are allowed to help each other and support each other and be kind to each other.

It's got energy, it's got warmth, it's got humor—and I'm just really excited for the new season (and also low-key terrified they'll the drop all the balls, LOL.)

Every once in a while, I accidentally hit the mark all button on my inbox and then hit delete. Lately this has been happening more; because my fingers are ridiculously stiff right now. It's been below freezing pretty consistently for like 2 months now and I have dropped so many things. I fail to grab so many things. It is. Annoying :(

Anyway, so nominations have opened for space_swap. At the moment I intend to do this exchange! I'm gonna request The Darkness Outside Us because that book gave me Emotions, okay (I mean, I find it highly unlikely anybody will actually offer that, but I'll put it on the table and nobody can stop me.)

Also, booknook is officially open for business! Basically, I was looking for a book comm, found nothing that wasn't basically dead, and got overwhelmed by my Well I'll Just Do It Myself Then impulse. Now here we are. Is this the right course of action? That's knowledge out of the reach of mortal men and quite frankly I'm feeling pretty darn mortal right now, LOL.

In other news, I'm rewatching Stargate: Atlantis right now and having fun :D I'm on season three; this is the furthest I've gotten in a rewatch in years. At long last, I'm catching up on episodes I don't even remember!

Sharing my Steam wishlist both because I've only just figured out how, and also as a reminder to myself to not Buy All The Things. So much on sale. So little budget. Ahhh.

And I'm doing surprisingly good on this month's budget, so I've only gotta hold on a little bit more! Then! I could buy something in January without wrecking anything! Just a little more! I'm almost there!

Like, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Stray, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Resident Evil 4 and Baldur's Gate 3 (and Cyberpunk, and No Man's Sky and I've gotta stop listing them, I'm just making the temptation worse, LMAO) are all on sale and I just. I'm so bad at games, just fundamentally not good at all, but I want. I crave.

Ahhhhh.

Although funnily enough I've held out against the urge to buy Baldur's Gate 3 for so long that I kind of don't want to buy it now either, LOL. Like, I just got used to 'not wanting to buy it because yikes that's a lot of money' and hey, maybe in 5 years it'll be on a bigger sale! I like sales! So now I'm like; well, it's on sale. But is the sale big enough? It's still more than 50 bucks so... maybe not, LOL.

Anyway, it's almost a new year! I hope everybody's having a delightful time. I'm gonna cuddle up with a movie and snacks~ XD

Somebody bought me three (3!) books from my wishlist!

This is awesome!!! I'm so excited! XD

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Also, fics:

• I accidentally wrote a 12k fic (Blade: Trinity) for smallfandomfest. I am utterly bamboozled.
• And I managed to wham out a quick ficlet (Call of Duty) for hcfest. (I was so worried I'd miss it, since it's basically just me doing it, LOL.)

Both fics are posted on both AO3 & SqWA!

It is fascinating to me that you can get better at art without, you know, doing the art.

About a week or so ago I painted for the first time in like a year (side-note; I'm legit worried about my paint... some of them are getting pretty old) and actually, that is hands down the best damn thing I've ever painted. In my life. Like, I painted another thing on the same day and that sucked, but that was less an art thing and more a blobbing paint on the board and seeing what turned up kind of thing.

Anyway! I painted an ocean with a sky, and I had a pretty good idea in my head of what it should look like. I gave up on the sky pretty quickly—while it was also probably the best sky I've ever painted, it's not what it looks like in my head and I got tired of making it worse. But the sea. My friends, I am in awe. Objectively, is it good? I could not care less. There is actual movement. There is perspective. There are waves in the water. I have never painted anything as good as this in my life.

And it's just very cool that despite not painting for so long, and barely doing any drawing beside that, not only do art skills stick with you, but they can improve. It's such an internal process, so much "oh that's a cool cloud" and "the way the sunshine glitters sure is pretty".

Art is so cool!