somniloquence

It's been so long again! I swear I am going to do my Bear season 3 and Grand Unified Theory of Season 3s soon! Really, I will! Today is not that day, though.

It feels so weird to not be doing Yuletide this year. I literally don't understand what to do with myself, because this time of year is always spent with 1) birthday fic panic and 2) Yuletide panic. But this year, I was up against the dreaded "there is nothing I want/can write that anyone else wants/offers" and I'd either end up not being able to get matched (this has happened to me before) or having to find something popular that I could match on and being stuck.

Also, last year was one of those rare years where I got my dream assignment (I've had those a few times and it's so fucking great), and it was also kind of my dream assignment because I'd wanted to write it for a looong time and one of my dearest friends requested it, so I knew all of her happy places and it just worked out so perfectly... Those have been my fave Yuletide fics, I look back on them so fondly because I not only got to write someone else's dream, but my own came true as well. And those years, so so rare, where you not only get to write your dream but someone else writes you your "someday, my prince will come" true love fic?? Hard to top.

So in a way, that kind of helped me make the decision to skip this year, but it just feels so wrong after so many years! I have to see if I can find some way, somehow, to actually write a birthday fic. My b-day is on Thanksgiving this year, and it's a milestone one, so I was feeling...incredibly weepy about it. I used to love Thanksgiving, not because of the meaning of the day (with its baked-in colonialist racism) but just because of the food and I always loved it when sis_r and I had our birthday on it, because it was like best food AND birthday cake. I'm ashamed to say I got super weepy about being alone this year, knowing I'd be sick because I have chemo the day before, in front of my ex, and he texted me a few hours later and said "It's official and there's no arguing, you're coming over for thanksgiving." His wife is an amazing cook, they live a few blocks away, so...it's something. I won't be lonesome all day, at least. It's not the same without my sister, of course, but what is.

I am starting a new drug regimen today (copyeditor life complaint: WHY can no one get this right? It's regimen, not regime (system of government) or regiment (military unit); this drives me nuts), some of which is forced by my insurance, grrr, but I've been plateaued on my most important number marker for whether I can achieve a remission for over seven months, and my oncologist told me about stuff we could do. I chose this new drug (it's also a thalidomide analog, but I guess a kind of next gen one that is supposed to knock residual myeloma cells out) first, and said if that doesn't work, we could escalate to the next treatment, which is less ideal, and so on. I'm a little scared, I took my first pill today and it has some more intense possible side effects than Revlimid, but I'm keeping my Apple watch on in case I like, keel over or something.

They won't accept the most-used drug for multiple myeloma first-line treatment, Velcade, which I've had injected into my tum-tum fat weekly for over a year and a half, so now I guess I will only be going once a month to the clinic, which is odd. I mean, it's okay, in that I'm so tired and have been waffling about stopping treatment because of being le tired, but at the same time, I finally finally had movement on my number and it was so close to the magic zero for remission standard, and now I don't know what will happen.

Plus it took forever because at first insurance denied coverage of the thalidomide-based pill, and so I haven't been taking the other most important drug for these few weeks, which means I don't know what will happen now to my M-spike number. Arg! I hates it so much, precious. I had been hoping to talk with my doc about getting rid of dexamethasone, but it's a requirement for insurance coverage of this new drug.

And it might all be moot anyways! I have to go on Medicare Nov. 1, and I'm in limbo till I get my Part D and Part G information. That has added a lot to my stress, since I had a deadline of October 31 to get this new medication, and it costs 18k a bottle for a three-week supply. America! There's a new Medicare law that starts in 2025 that will help me with this (well unless Assface wins the election), but for November and December, I'm not certain how I will be able to pay for it, because most of the financial aid has been given out in January and February. That's a future me problem though.

I've been so lonesome and bored that I decided to try out this thing I'd read about, where people go to cafes and bars and read books for an hour--it's basically a reading club, but you can read whatever you want. This one is an offshoot of a larger group called Silent Book Club. I went to a coffeehouse near me and it was super crowded, so I ended up in a corner by myself and didn't have anyone near to talk to, so half the fun of it was mitigated, plus I felt weird and awkward as hell. But it was nice to get out of the house, and OMG, get back to reading for leisure instead of work. I haven't read a book of my own choosing for years and years, since I started copyediting fiction basically. It's such a busman's holiday, but I'm getting less and less work these days so I really wanted an impetus to get back to reading for pleasure. I recommend it, if you're looking for something to prod you to get out.

Funnily enough though, one of the major clients who ditched me last year has suddenly come back in need of my services. Right when I had a book proofread that's due on Monday. Ha ha ha.

I have been rewatching so many older shows. So many of them, I'm like, man, I almost wish I hadn't revisited this. But I'm in S2 of Fringe and that's definitely not the case with this one--the ep Jacksonville, which I watched last night, is still my fave and even though I felt the show really fell down by S3, especially when they seemed to change the focus from Olivia to Peter (and also kept killing off characters I adored), it's still so good and I wish so much there'd been more support for it. Also wish they could have kept filming in NYC because it all felt so different when they moved to Vancouver. Excited to be coming up on White Tulip!

Dropped my ballot in the drop box (we're all mail-in in Washington) the other day, on my way to see Venom: The Last Dance. Happy about the voting, but wow, the movie was...not so good. I'm glad for the people who love the Venom movies, but they have just not done it for me at all. I was happy to see Mrs. Chen again, though.

It's been a busy week for me despite how this week between Christmas and New Year's is supposed to be a liminal week. But I did want to say that I got two gifts this year, I think one was the original gift but something was up with it, and I ended up being second to last on the 11th hour pinch hit list, and so that's how I got two gifts! Whatever might have been wrong was fixed apparently, so yay for two cakes.

Both were about Barbara Howard, my fave from Abbott Elementary, which if you haven't seen it, is just the funniest, sweetest, most delightful comedy on TV these days. And Barbara is just majestic (she's played by Sheryl Lee Ralph, who won an Emmy in first season for the role). I'm amazed that the pinch hitter was able to write such an amazing story in such a short time, it gave me exactly what I hoped for.

My first gift:
Off the Clock (1249 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Abbott Elementary (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Barbara Howard & Melissa Schemmenti
Summary:

“We’ve got olives,” Melissa cackles, flopping onto the pristine couch and jostling Barbara’s elegant sitting posture companionably. “We’ve got cheese. We’ve got salami.”

“And we have wine,” Barbara says with great relish, clinking their glasses.

--
Barbara and Melissa enjoy an uneventful evening in Barbara's home.

My second gift:
non-regional diction (1373 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Abbott Elementary (TV)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Barbara Howard & Melissa Schemmenti
Characters: Barbara Howard, Melissa Schemmenti
Additional Tags: Cruise Ships, Vacation, Spa Mode, besties, Family, Drinking
Summary:

Barbara and Melissa and vacation days in Spa Mode.

Go read them! Say nice things!

Man, there is a lot to do when you sign up for Yuletide! Letters post, posting about where your letters post is, all the subchallenges like Chromatic Yuletide where you have to also post your letters post, and I'm incapable of using spreadsheets so I can't even add things to the apps. Just lots of loose ends.

But I'm very pleased with my assignment this year. There were really only two people I had targeted to write for based on our fandom prefs, our concept prefs, and just general vibe, and they each had multiple fandoms I could handle, even if I had one in particular I hoped to match on. And I got one of the people I hoped for! So I was very excited about that--it doesn't happen very often. I just pray I can push through all the shit I'm going through to eke a story out.

I'm still really struggling with the effects of the treatments, and I haven't posted in a while because it's just felt so onerous. At some point, I promise I'll provide an actual update--my myeloma numbers have kind of leveled off, so right now I'm not sure how long/if I can make it to zero on the myeloma protein spike, which is the main thing they're striving for. I just really don't want to have to default on the story, so I hope this next couple months of treatments will be smoother.

But I'm still here, reading people's posts, even if I don't post much myself.

For Yuletide this year, I was once again assigned Kings, which is a fandom I've written for a few times for various challenges (and vidded for challenges, too). I was really happy that I not only wrote 8,080 words while in terrible pain and having a lot of work, but that I somehow managed to do an interpretation of one of the recipient's prompts, which was somewhat oblique but my story kind of achieved. I wish I could have written treats, but it's been a few years since I've done that.

All this, and love too, will ruin us (8080 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kings (TV 2009)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jack Benjamin/David Shepherd
Characters: Jack Benjamin, David Shepherd (Kings TV 2009)
Additional Tags: Snowed In, Cabins, Sharing a Bed, Huddling For Warmth, Caretaking, All the Classics!, Developing Relationship, Minor Injuries, Episode: s01e07 Brotherhood
Summary:

Everyone thought him pampered beyond measure, but this…this was where Jack felt most alive: soldiering had been the first place he’d known who he was, and hardship and deprivation had never been punishing, not when he was with his men, his comrades in arms. His brothers. And that was what David was, right now—his brother in arms. His brother.

I'm laughing a lot too about my main gift--reveals...well, revealed that it was written by przed, who has written for me before and for whom I've written twice. Maybe she and I should just start our own Yuletide subchallenge or something! przed, I loved my story, and I hope it gave you a good laugh when you got your assignment. 😍

Now on to write the finishing chapters of Reverie. I know no one cares about it, but goddammit, I'm not going to leave another WIP unfinished.

Last night I got a third gift for this year--what what?! I don't know what I did to deserve such a fantastic bunch of gifts this year but wow, am I appreciative. People keep taking my doofy little prompts (I'm terrible at concocting prompts!) and making such great stuff out of them.

We at Veridian Dynamics value your role in the spacetime continuum (334 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Better Off Ted
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lem Hewitt/Phil Myman, Lem Hewitt & Phil Myman
Characters: Lem Hewitt, Phil Myman
Additional Tags: Humor, Crack, Time Travel
Summary:

Inventing time travel was an enormous, wildly impressive scientific accomplishment.

Achievements like that sometimes came with... snags.

My Yuletide assignment is both pretty much what I expected and also not; there weren't many requests for this fandom (in fact, last year it wasn't even nominated for the first time in...many years) and I was hoping against hope for something else in which I've had a story burning a hole in my pocket for years. I did have an idea for something in my assigned fandom, but it will be challenging to make it fit for the recipient because their wants seem very specific, so we shall see what I can do. First, though, I want to finish a new chapter of Reverie, since it's been over a goddamn year since I updated it.

I'm really ashamed of that--part of the reason I've done WIPs on some things is that it was the only way I knew to make myself finish it, but it just seems events have conspired over and over to stall me out, not least of which was an armed right wing coup attempt when I was in the middle of working on a chapter, and of course Chadwick Boseman's death when I was writing another. I'm hoping that seeing Black Panther: Wakanda Forever might also help jump start things again, since Shuri is the other main character in my story (which in itself was also a problem, just because Letitia Wright is a problematic person and I have to try to separate my feelings about her vs. my love of Shuri).

Of course, as soon as I got started on trying to remember how to write, I got hit with a ton of work. Some of it was super fun, including three queer romances in a row that were just so much fun to read. But others were not so much fun: the magazine I work on contacted me a while ago at an email address I used when my computer died, and which I don't use much anymore because no one really sends to it now that I have a new computer and access to my regular account. I check it only once in a great while, and my client decided that since I hadn't responded withn like a week, he had to find another copyeditor for his next issue of the magazine, EVEN THOUGH he has my freaking phone number and has no problem with texting me when he's panicking and has done for the past 13 years, AND he did not even try to use my regular email that, again, I've used for over 13 years. Which is fine, whatever, it's just going to probably mean that when I proof the issue, I'll be tearing my hair out over stuff that needs changing because it wasn't done to the standards we've developed over the past umpteen years. The only stories that will be as clean as I want will be the small handful I worked on.

But the deadlines are always ridic, and now it's cutting in to my time for writing again. AND THEN he contacted me with no warning about a book that his publishing company is putting out that was "edited" by a couple of the legendary guys in this particular field, who of course might be the best at their work but they are not word people nor do they understand basic layout and publication design, and my publisher wanted it back in a week. Like, this thing is just walls of text in a terrible sans serif font written by people who don't know how to write. And my client is right, it badly needs proofreading, but it's giving me a headache and I keep looking at all the time slipping away from writing.

Lots of other life stuff is interfering, as well, but the less said about that, the better, because otherwise I'll cry all over my keyboard. I just wanna try to write this chapter, wrangle some kind of edit on it so it doesn't suck as badly as it will and mitigate some of the disaster that is my writing these days, and then start on Yuletide. Why is that so much to ask?

I nominated some things for Yuletide, even if I'm not sure yet if I'll participate (I'm really having a lot of trouble with it the past few years, because the pool of stuff I'm interested in keeps shrinking since they allow crossovers in the count, and my fandoms are filled with people who write like 50 words in my fandom as part of a huge collection with 500 other fandoms). I used my third slot for a friend, but now I'm kind of wishing I hadn't because I was hoping someone else might nominate Fast Color (the amazing 2018 movie with Gugu Mbatha-Raw that's a really fascinating take on superpowered women), but it doesn't look like anyone's taking up my request. Eee, someone did! Yay, something I can request!

Anyway, I nominated:
Better Off Ted
Phil Myman
Lem Hewitt
Ted Crisp
Veronica Palmer
(I would love it if anyone who's seen this added some characters)

Kings
Jack Benjamin
David Shepherd
Ephram Samuels

Selfie
Henry Higgs
Eliza Dooley
Charmonique Walker
Freddy

I actually have ideas I could write for a couple, although whether I could be lucky enough to get assigned someone who'd want them is always the question. I was hoping someone might nominate 12 Monkeys, too. Three nominations is just...really not a lot. Especially when the pool is constantly shrinking.

In other news, I've had a bunch of cool books to work on lately as well as some fun fanfic to read. It's just such a...relief sometimes to work on stuff that's really well written and the characters really draw me in. But it's also been a good excuse--the being busy part--to not work on my own fanfic, and I started finally getting back into writing Reverie but then stopped. I need to start again. That stupid thing has languished for over a year, and it's very hard to motivate myself to get back in when even the few people following the WIP stopped reading. It could vanish and it wouldn't matter, I think. (It's also hard because it takes place in Wakanda, and Chadwick Boseman's death made it so painful to keep writing my fantasy world of a place where T'Challa is still with us.)

I keep taking COVID tests and they keep showing negative, but I've felt like garbage for a few days now--but it's not high enough level to be a cold, and it's not low enough level to just be tired or something. I wonder if I picked something up at a restaurant, but whatever it is, it's just sort of...there.

Speaking of restaurants, the West Seattle Bridge, which was shut down two and a half years ago with no warning, the day after Washington's stay at home order was given, was reopened Saturday night on the 17th. I can't even tell you how happy I am about that--it was just such a freaking ordeal to go to medical appointments or even just to see people (all my friends live north of here) because you had to drive south and then north again and it involved all these drawbridges that were frequently up, and all the roadways were clogged with cars and buses because they weren't built for the sudden influx of traffic. Road rage has kind of become the order of the day, because everyone hated how hard it was to get out of here, and for some reason, the going out of here was harder than the coming in. I had dozens of trips to make for my eye care, and have had a lot of medical appointments at my clinic, and I would be filled with dread for days leading up to having to go out. They also shut down the bus near me during the pandemic, so driving was often my only option. But now we are reunited with Seattle and it feels so good. minim_calibre and I drove down to house o' meat (Outback) the other night so we could use the bridge. it was glorious--three minutes to I-5! Whee!

For Yuletide this year, I was assigned The Expanse. There are not exactly a lot of Amos/Chrisjen shippers out there, so I was pretty surprised to get it--when I went looking for fic after the first ep of season 5 and their ridiculous, sexy flirting, there was one story. One. So I thought it would be one of those offers that no one ever requests. Oh, how wrong I was (also, there were three fics about them when I looked again; there are two additionally where they're mentioned, but I never count those because they're the kind of fics with five hundred pairings and they're barely mentioned). Anyway, this was my story; I was honestly shocked to get any more comments than from the recipient.

Knight-Errant (2842 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Expanse (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chrisjen Avasarala/Amos Burton
Characters: Chrisjen Avasarala, Amos Burton, Bobbie Draper, Jim Holden (The Expanse)
Additional Tags: Flirting, Sexual Tension, Strange Friendships, Post Episode: s05e10 Nemesis Games
Summary:

"I am not some fucking damsel in distress. I have done—and will continue to do—this job successfully without being protected by the knight-errant Amos Burton, and I will do so again."

___

Also, I wanted to plug again my wonderful gift story, One Lifetime With You, which I totally knew was by killabeez because it was so good and clearly written by someone who knew the series inside and out and who had so much compassion for the characters, and I turned out to be right!

Thank you for signing up to write a story for me! I'm always very excited at this time of year, because I love gift-giving and receiving.

Some of the things I enjoy most: happy endings, romance, humor/banter, romantic ships (slash or het), gen or friendships, character studies, plotty fics with wonderful world-building, fluff or drama, capers and hijinx and shenanigans. I love first times and falling in love, people finding one another again after being apart, and relationships between equals. Friends to lovers and found families are my ultimate tropes. What I love about my fandoms are the canon universes they inhabit, so while I'm not really into mundane AUs, what-if AUs (canon-divergence) can be really cool.

I really appreciate story elements like hopeful or positive endings even if it's not necessarily a happy-ever-after, protectiveness (without possessiveness or jealousy), hurt/comfort, partners against the world, people who enjoy nurturing others. I'll always take the classics: time travel/time loops, competence kink, having to share a bed, huddling for warmth and/or stranded somewhere (blizzard! cave-in!), situations where one suffers or sacrifices for the other, rescues, everybody lives!, etc. Genre can be fun: someone discovers they have superpowers, or is trapped in a time loop or accidentally time-stranded.

My hard Do Not Wants: I would really appreciate not having BDSM/anything particularly sexual kink-oriented, ABO/mpreg, and that sort of thing (usually, if there are initials used for it, that's a safe bet I'm not into it), non-con of any type, emotional abuse, any kind of animal harm. I'm not into kidfic as a story focus, but some of my fandoms have characters with children, so having them interact with their kids is totally fine. I dislike jealousy, and related to that, love triangles. I've battled grief and depression for a while and dealt with cancer recently, so something that might make me more depressed or fic about illnesses or death would not be my first choice, but if that's the direction your story goes, I'm also not the kind of person who'd freak out about it. Please, no sportsball or characters spending a lot of time talking/thinking about sportsing.

Fandoms:
( The Adjustment Bureau )

( Fast Color )

( 12 Monkeys )

( Now and Again )

This year, I got a story for Better Off Ted, which is a show I've meant to watch for years but that minim_calibre finally convinced me to watch recently when we were socially distanced TV watching. I fell instantly in love with the science nerd characters Phil and Lem (Phlem!), who are kind of beyond adorable, and it was just in time to ask for it for Yuletide. (If you have Hulu and have never seen it, I highly recommend it, there are unfortunately only two seasons but like so many brilliant shows, was cancelled before its time.)

The Cake's the Thing (4018 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Better Off Ted
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Phil Myman & Lem Hewitt
Characters: Phil Myman, Lem Hewitt, Dr. Bhamba (Better Off Ted), Linda Zwordling, Ted Crisp, Veronica Palmer
Summary:

“No, no, it’s me. You’re as stalwart and virile as the atomic clock, it’s just… this mess in here is throwing my whole morning out of sync.”

“What’s the matter?” Lem asks, trying to crane his neck around Phil to get a better view of the problem.

“Doctor Bhamba is using our freezer again, and there’s an entire crate of Otter Pops smack dab in the middle of the prime cake real estate I carved out last night.”

On the gifting side, I managed to eke out a treat yesterday just before closing. So far it's a typical soul-crushing emotional experience (there's small fandoms, and then there's small). But I need to shake it off and start writing a chapter update for Reverie, because I haven't had one due to the aforementioned holiday fic exchange, so I've not only blown it for reliably having biweekly updates, now I've blown it for having monthly ones.