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booknook. I'm not really sure why, maybe they want to do polls on it? Regardless, thanks! <3well, i defaulted on fffx. i've just been unsure about my assignment from the very beginning. like i got it and was like, oops. maybe i should have actually checked the requests in the fandom before i offered it. orz. i totally missed the whole swap thing too, my brain was just full of fog. and with the check-in, yeah. i defualted. i feel bad about it, but it is what it is. at least i did manage to turn in something for ficinabox.
also, i'm working on putting together my holiday wishlist. i still don't have the courage to post it on holiday_wishes, so i guess this is a tradition at this point. it'll be much the same as usual, but also! i'm planning to add some bookbinding stuff to my throne wishlist (it's basically just an amazon wishlist, but more private so it doesn't give away my address). i've been getting really into it: i just finished a notebook in my bookbinding workshop class (separate post coming about that at... some point. orz.) and i definitely want to keep going with this. i'm gonna bind so many fanfics, just watch me.
but alas, i've also spent like 400 bucks on bookbinding tools and such this year (tbf, like a third of that was the laser printer) and i don't think i can afford to keep throwing so much money at it. but the pretty cloth...... temptation, i tell you. so much temptation.
anyway, more proper posts about the aforementioned hopefully coming soon(ish) <3
this year has just been health issue after health issue and it's been exhausting. i genuinely don't know how i managed to publish a book in the midst of it all, lol.
in the midst of the other issues, at some point over the last few months, i fell out of the habit of taking my vit D supplement, and it built and built and built until i was so exhausted i could barely get out of bed, much less focus, or be social, or remember that DW exists, etc. but i'm taking it daily again, and things are (slowly, mind you) improving.
i managed to get in part of my assignment for ficinabox, and defaulted on the rest. i'm super pleased with it: i feel like all i've done concerning exchanges this year is just default on them. and i still haven't read any of the gifts i've gotten since before battleshipex. so if you're waiting on a comment from me, rest assured: i have simply not read/listened to it yet. i sure do hope i can get to that at... some point in a reasonable time frame, but honestly i can't promise anything. (i should really double-check which exchanges are comment mandatory, so i don't mess things up even more for myself orz)
i am signed up for fffx and yuletide_admin, too. not sure how that's gonna go, but so far i haven't thrown in the towel.
also, in a fit of procrastination, i made a Compendium of Big Bangs on 10001 Nightmares Party. then i had the brilliant idea of browsing the collection page on AO3, filtering for 'big bang', and i got another 100+ bangs to add to the list, lol. so that's something to look forward to! (genuinely, it's fun!)
i've been really, really wanting to do a big bang. the only one i've ever done is smallfandombang, which was delightful but limited to small fandoms and had a minimum of 10k words. (i was seriously considering signing back up this year but then i blinked and two months had gone by and i'm still kind of sad about that.) and i want to do a BIG bang. like MEGA big. i'm talking like 50k+ words minimum word requirement. or at the very least, a 30k words requirement. i want to be pushed to write and actually complete a longfic.
also, i think it says something about my state of mind and health that i've only recently realized that i at some point fully forgot about tinyfandomflash. the last prompt was almost a year ago. sigh. i do feel bad about that. the fact that booknook is managing to keep up the RIP Wednesday posts without me is a blessing, and i'm so grateful people are comfortable stepping up. i wouldn't want that to fall to the wayside <3
in the vein of 'i'm slowly, slowly, oh so slowly starting to feel like a Real Person again', i've dropped a bunch of new prompts on smallfandomfest. prompting is open for like another week, if you've got something for it. there are 7k+ total prompts in the bag to pick from now! i am both in awe and delighted by that.
when it comes to DW, i have 2k+ unread items in my inbox. i think i need to stop tracking comments on booknook—i do so for moderation purposes, but honestly i'm not able to handle the deluge right now. like, i'm super happy it's so active and the comments are thriving! but i can't keep up, and then it just keeps building...
so if there are any problems with booknook, anything that requires mod/admin action, (harassment, rule breaking, etc.) you'll need to PM me, or i will likely not spot it.
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
is this a real poll?
yes
6 (85.7%)
no
0 (0.0%)
mayhaps
0 (0.0%)
for sure! :D
5 (71.4%)
polls are eldritch abominations, congratulations, you've sold your soul :DDD
1 (14.3%)
super fun fun times
having a good time
1 (14.3%)
having a fun time
4 (57.1%)
there are no other options
0 (0.0%)
really, there are not
0 (0.0%)
the no other options part is extra fun <3
2 (28.6%)
do you know the answer to the universe
yes
1 (14.3%)
no
0 (0.0%)
mayhaps
2 (28.6%)
i heard a rumor but frankly i don't buy it
2 (28.6%)
the universe is a social construct
2 (28.6%)
Somebody bought me six months of paid account!! It turned out I did get it wrong, LOL; I forgot that DW has both Paid and Premium paid, and that a Paid account gets more icon slots right out the gate. So now I have more icon slots! Woohoo!!! I'm so excited!!
I've got a Network page too, that is so cool. I have no idea who most of the people popping up on it are, LOL, or where our wires are crossing. So cool. This is so cool.
Thank you very much for the gift! XD
Okay, so there are currently something like 3 writing games going on over on Mastodon. I'm a pretty frequent user of Mastodon, and really like it. It's simple to me, and with boosts turned off on my home timeline, everything moves kind of slow. Obviously faster then here, but slow for something like Mastodon. It doesn't cross into overwhelming, is what I'm saying. sweat
That said. The writing games.
So the writing games are the basic "here's a bunch of questions related to writing, answer with one a day and hashtag it" kinds. Some of these have been going on for months, with new questions for months. Personally, I'm not a fan just like, on the basic questions premise.
Like, the questions are all just very unhelpful. I don't think deep about my writing, or my characters, or my worlds. (I mean of course I think about it, but not in that way.) I don't have a lot of the answers these questions want, and I'm frankly uninterested in finding them. And it's just not fun to be faced with yet another question leading to yet another realization that hey "I don't know this".
It's alienating, and weird, and honestly kind of elitist in some strange way.
I don't know why I have this impression. I'm also not in a particularly charitable mood, and kind of don't want to interrogate that.
Obviously these questions work for a lot people, or the the writing games wouldn't have grown to such popularity among many of the writers on Mastodon. So like. I'm happy for you, but also please stop shoving it in my face.
Thankfully, Mastodon has really good filters! And now it's not in my face anymore! :D
But I think it basically boils down to 2 things, aside from the general "this is really just not my thing" thing.
1) There's no opportunity to catch up. These are endless; there's new questions and new answers literally every single day. Even though I'm not participating, that doesn't mean I'm not interested in what other people have to say. I am curious about other people's writing process, and it is fun to see them getting talked about.
But with no breaks, it is impossible for me catch up. It is impossible for me to read them. It is impossible for me to sit with any one response and think it over. It is, in a way, a very superficial interaction.
There's no space to breathe, and oh my god is it overwhelming.
It's to the point where, after months of getting inuended with these games, I am exhausted just thinking about it. I'd really rather it all just stopped, but of course that's not something I can ask.
I dawdled to getting the filters set up because the writing games have really turned into the main way people talk about writing on Mastodon. With them gone, it's really clearer than ever. And because I have those filters set to show that that's what they're hiding, I can see exactly how many of the posts on my timeline are just... that.
It's kind of a shame, how structured and pace-less those conversations have turned into. Very... passionless, I suppose.
I barely know what I mean by that.
2) I don't remember what the second thing was. Perhaps something about how the questions are all dependent on you being a certain kind of writer, doing things in a certain way, writing in a certain way, and somehow it all kind of feels like I'm repeatedly being told "your way of writing is wrong".
And now I forgot it again. I was on the track! Damn. XD
Second try to remember. Maybe it has something to do with... nope, I'm out of juice. If somebody else could think of the second thing for me, that'd be awesome XD, LOL.
Nevertheless, I have now filtered all the games and am having a much more pleasant, less stressful experience on Mastodon again. Cheers!
fandomgiftbasket needs more fills! Deadline is coming up tomorrow and as it looks right now, to me, it's probably gonna need to be extended again. I learned about this too late to sign up but I've dropped two fics on random strangers, which is very fun. I feel a bit like a bird just dropping flowers on people out of the blue, and it's very cool.smallfandombang, a big bang for small fandoms with a minimum wordcount requirment of 10k words. I signed up and am fairly (?) sure I know what fandom I'll do. Please yell about this with me.tinyfandomflash is still going! Up to 6 challenges now, attackable (cue sword popping up above your head) at any time.trope_of_the_month seems to be fairly new, and looks exciting!Y'all may or may not known I'm on Mastodon and have been using it regularly for over a year. I jumped ship from Twitter early, in that very first April when Mush (no I'm not fixing this typo) started... you know. Stuff. And I never went back.
(I also have an older account on another instance (what is an instance? don't worry about it. It doesn't matter.) that I do not remember creating, LOL.
Anyway, when people talk about Mastodon and the fediverse and try to get others into it, I think there's a kind of dissonance that can be a bit off-putting for folks that don't know anything about either. So let's try, for a second, to make it a bit simpler.
First of all, Mastodon isn't that amazing in and of itself; it's not the first creation of the fediverse (what is the fediverse? Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter.) and it won't be the last. It's really just another version of Twitter; you have a limited number of characters when you make a post.
That's it. That's all you need to know.
What that limit is can depend on factors, but unless you care about how high the character-limit is, you don't need to worry about that. (For example, I have a 5k character-limit on my account instead of the default 500 characters.)
You can reblog (ie boost) another persons post. You can lock your own post to follows-only. You can DM people. You can do all the things you can do on Twitter, with the added benefit of blocking entire subcommunities. Which is basically just what an 'instance' is. It's a subcommunity, just like a community on DW but you can block everyone in it all at once. Nice. It will 100% come in handy, because it's absolutely not all sunshine and daises.
When a person sets up a Mastodon instance (which is just a site running the Mastodon source code, like that's all an instance is, let's stop talking about it like it's special or something), they make choices. The only choice that matters for you is what other instances they instance-block. Meaning no interaction between instances.
It's like when one dude is on one side of the road and one dude is on the other side, and one of the dudes decides he dislikes the other dude and cuts the telephone line connecting them. Oops. No more bullshit. How sad.
People who like Mastodon and want others to join in (myself included), get very excited about all the cool stuff you can do on Mastodon and what this means for communities and... nobody cares, let's stop talking that. Mastodon isn't special. You can do that on any other fediverse service, too.
When explaining how the fediverse works, talk about emails get thrown around a lot. Sometimes somebody brings up discord servers, and it's mildly more approachable to some people.
None of that matters. Let's stop pretending it does.
All that this talk about emails and discords and other analogies do, is Other-ify Mastodon and the fediverse by extension. It makes it sound more difficult than it is, sound more complicated, sound more distinct. It's not. It's just a micro-blogging software you can self-host on your computer if you want. And that's very cool and all, but most people looking for alternatives to Twitter and Reddit and whatnot probably don't care about that.
The fediverse is not Mastodon. Mastodon is not the fediverse. That's all you need to know about either.
If Mastodon's design doesn't do it for you, that's cool. There are a gazillion alternative front-ends available as both apps and the web. You don't need to know about them if you don't care about that. Don't like how Mastodon functions at all? There are forks of Mastodon with added functionalities. And you don't need to know jack-shit about them if you don't want to.
Don't like Mastodon at all, but still want to 'connect' (i.e. simply talk to) the fediverse? Hook up with Firefish, Misskey or Akkoma. What are those things? It's micro-blogging software that can talk to other software. Most of the time, that other software is also a blogging software. That's all they are.
Mastodon is just a micro-blogging software.
If you want to give Mastodon or the fediverse at large a try, find a good starter village by asking somebody you know for an instance recommendation, hit up that place, and give it a try. It doesn't need to be complicated. (And bypass mastodon.online and mastodon.social entirely, because they're big (meaning loud and lots of stuff happening at once) and famously poorly moderated.)
(I do actually have recommendations for Cool Instances™.)
Hopefully I've at least somewhat succeeded in making Mastodon seem less special, LOL. (Because when people talk/recommend Mastodon, there is a tendency to talkt about it like it is special and Greater Than All Other Things™ and that's kind of alienating, actually. Like, it's just one of many, and you don't need to worry about any of it unless you want to.)
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timeasmymeasure