We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far

AO3 meme borrowed from castiron.

1. Most Hits: Let Me, as always, with 43,564.

2. Second Most Kudos: Witness and Testimony, also as always, with 2,325.

3. Third Most Comments: Tinsel Show with 72, being a multichapter and also my longest work.

4. Fourth Most Bookmarks: One Turf Shall Serve with 73, which might be higher on the other metrics too if it hadn't been first posted elsewhere for an exchange.

5. Fifth Most Words: Where Both Deliberate, which is the end of a series, with 11,923.

6. Fic With Second Fewest Words (That's Not a Drabble): Rouges Gallery with 105.

7. Seventh Most Common Relationship: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, tied with 8 works.

8. Eighth Drabble Posted: Excluding drabble collections, Your Stare Was Holding.

9. Ninth Most Common Character: Lestrade (Sherlock Holmes), tied with 9 works.

10. Tenth Mature and/or Explicit Fic: Tenth posted? We'll go with that. Just How This Would End.

11. Eleventh Most Recent Completed Fic: Blossoms in Ashes, for Yuletide 2023.

12. Twelfth Most Recent Story in Your Sixth Most Common Tag: Where Both Deliberate again, because I used to write a lot of case fic but haven't in a while.

Not looking for my favourite title because seriously, I've had to come up with 293 titles, it's a miracle I haven't repeated any. Also, I suspect I appreciate my puns more than anyone else will.

A one page RPG about avoiding people at a Regency party

It is one of the most anticipated nights of the London Season. You are at a fine ball, surrounded by the wealthy and titled, wearing a gorgeous (and extremely expensive) outfit. Hundreds of candles light the room, and a small orchestra is playing a minuet.

You hate it and you want to leave.

Let us be frank: some gentlepersons simply would not enjoy the glittering spectacle of a grand Society occasion—or at least not every night. This game envisions an unwilling, unimpressed, somewhat grumpy participant at the sort of grand rout one sees in hundreds of Regency romance novels, as many of us who read them must admit we sometimes would be.

It is hot, it is loud, it is unpleasant, and someone has just stepped on your foot. Can you find a single moment of privacy at this event?

You will need: A standard deck of 52 cards and a six-sided die.

Free PDF available here!

This is not actually the game I expected to post first. The first game I wrote was The Haunted Ruin, currently in playtesting, but that is somewhat large and I will be charging for it and playtesting and editing take time. And then I had an idea for something a lot smaller, so I accidentally wrote a one-page RPG to test uploading things to itch.io before the large project. So that worked out well.

candyheartsex authors have been revealed, so here is the gift I wrote for VanaTuivana:

Title: the eldritch light of sundown
Rating: T
Fandom: Original
Characters: Superhero, Supervillain
Warnings/Enticements: Injury, Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss
Summary: “Look, Nick? Can I call you Nick? Or Nicholas? I swear this isn’t a trap or something, I don’t know what you’re afraid of, but can you at least give me a Tylenol before the interrogation? And maybe do something about the stab wound, I don’t know? It feels serious. I can talk while you’re stitching it up or whatever.”
Wordcount: 2830 words

On AO3

I had a lot of fun with the characters and worldbuilding for this one (basically putting the X-Men and a warlock of the Great Old One in a jar and shaking).

And I received if I need your help by goseaward which is a great Band Sinister AU, it is exactly what I wanted and I really love how it's done, highly recommended.

threesentenceficathon is still running, but I wrote one (1) fic and one (1) prompt and then stopped. I'm not sure why, writing in general has been going well, but oh well. Here it is.

( Narnia )

Recs, all about cats:

Narnia, any, "self portrait"

And my prompt: Any, Any cat, starving!!

So the problem with using New Year’s as a time to take stock and make plans or to set a pattern for the year to come is that generally I spend New Year’s celebrating Christmas with whichever part of my family I didn’t see earlier in the month. So I’m not in a familiar space and often I don’t even have my laptop with me, which has, for example, the .txt file where I keep track of my reading.

Luckily this month that wasn’t complicated.

Recent: I listened to the audiobooks of Allie Therin’s Roaring Twenties Magic series again, while sewing. This was exactly what I needed and I enjoyed it very much.

That’s it, that’s all I finished this month.

I did reread “Christabel” on the subway one day, and I bought waayyy too many books and read some scholarly introductions to 18th century literature.

Current: I’m almost done rereading The Ironmaster’s Tale.

I am about halfway through Isabel Cooper’s Blood and Ember, which is the conclusion to a fantasy trilogy. I’m enjoying it, but I won’t finish it before I need to renew it.

But at least I can renew it, while The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper and Freya Marske’s Swordcrossed (both of which I’ve just started) have holds on them and I also probably won’t finish them before they have to go back. Oh well, I can put more holds on.

Future: I might just reread Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots. That sounds like it’d be great right now. Also there was an excellent Yuletide fic for it.

Beyond that I might try to space things out a bit more. I may be hitting a point where I can only focus on one or two books at once, which would be weird.

Posted later here because like hell was I dealing with html tags on a touchscreen keyboard. But also I have now given my sister her Christmas present so I have posted quilt pictures on tumblr!

Post delayed by a vacation and then PMS. More thoughts than usual, though, and anyway it's definitely in time for Reading Wednesday.

Recent: Finally finished My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, but fast enough that things did not really sink in, or not all at once. It was good, interesting cultural differences and similarities, probably won't read the sequels.

Reread Steadfast, by Mercedes Lackey. This is not a good book, people. I knew that when I started it. In terms of pacing and plotting and unnecessary digressions and historical accuracy and giving agency to characters it is very very badly done. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Which is maybe what I need, given how much I get tied into knots about the free fanfic I write for fun needing its theme to be supported by a coherent narrative arc.

I read some of T. Kingfisher's commentary on fairy tales in The Halcyon Fairy Book and most of Lace Making by Eunice Close (published by a tiny Canadian press in 1975, don't go looking for it). I tried to reread The Bacchae for catharsis purposes, but it was a not-great Victorian translation and I didn't get very far. I did find out that Alan Cumming played Dionysus twenty or so years ago and the trailer for that is on Youtube.

Read A Phantom Lover by Vernon Lee, which was good for what it was but I did have to force myself to it. On the drive with consultingpiskies I finally managed to articulate that I am just not up to unfamiliar fiction right now, and maybe that's okay.

I read all of May Morris: Arts & Crafts Designer at the library, which is the book of an exhibition of her work and was absolutely gorgeous and also gave me feelings about her relationship with her father, so that was great. And on the theme of the English Arts and Crafts movement, English Embroidered Bookbindings by Cyril Davenport, which might have been improved with more practical knowledge of embroidery but was generally good.

Also read Meet Me on the Other Side by Sparklepocalypse, RWRB 1890s cowboy AU. I could be nitpicky about a couple historical attitudes but basically this is just a really good romance novel and I liked it.

Current: Rereading Swordheart by T. Kingfisher. I really want to know more about the Temple of the White Rat's embroiderer(s). Like, maybe Zale does their own embroidery, but in that case I would have expected them to take a project along for the wagon ride. For a while I was carrying this around with me everywhere, but now that I am getting to the climax things are going more slowly.

Just gave 3/5 of my library books back unstarted due to the fiction realization above. I have two digital craft books to flip through, and also some from the Antique Pattern Library, and Chats on Old Lace and Needlework by Mrs. Lowes. Look, basically what I want to do right now is get overwhelmingly caught up in craft projects and never talk to anyone ever again. I won't, because there is Christmas shopping to do and people I am trying to make friends with and so forth, but that's probably where my head's going to be all month.

Various RWRB fanfics going on still. Oh, and there's been more Madame C—. Thank god for Madame C—.

Future: I still have The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor by Shaenon K. Garrity and Christopher Baldwin out from the library, which really does seem fun but I don't know if I have the brain for it. I would also like to get through more of my AO3 Marked for Later list before Yuletide adds a bunch to it, but, well. (I didn't sign up for Yuletide this year, not because I didn't think I could manage it but because I suspected I would hate the process, and that was a good decision.)

If all else fails I will relisten to the Roaring Twenties Magic audiobooks while sewing.

I've been having trouble sitting down to actually write this. It's almost as if I'm under a lot of stress right now. I wonder what uncontrollable near-future political event that could be about.

Recent: I reread a horror novel at the start of the month which will become evident after Trick or Treat author reveals.

Finished How To by Randall Munroe and Unmarriages by Ruth Mazo Karras. Also Biggles Buries a Hatchet, all basically good, discussed in last post.

Got a lot of knitting done while reading M. R. James on The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts, which was perhaps not the M. R. James I would expect to read in October, but nonfiction is easier right now. It's very affected by being written immediately post-WWI.

On which note, just now finished The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal by K. J. Charles, right under the wire before it has to go back to the library. Enjoyed it and also very much appreciate the list of referenced Victorian ghost stories in the Acknowledgements.

Also lots of Kinktober.

Current: Still skimming through Painting Nature in Watercolour with Cathy Johnson, whose style I like. Writing style, I mean, but also the watercolors.

I read a third of The Silvered by Tanya Huff and liked it enough to put it on hold again even though my ability to focus on new long fiction isn't really there.

Rereading Steadfast by Mercedes Lackey. Mrs. Pollifax is still continuing slowly.

Have I made any progress on the paper books I have out from the library? No.

Oh, I skimmed the beginning of The Blue Castle recently because I had a fic idea, and I will need to read some Victorian medievalism to get a voice for that.

Future: The Halcyon Fairy Book by T. Kingfisher will probably come in soon. I also want to find another nonfiction book to read at North York Central library to distract from jobsearching. I have a giant list of options, which doesn't necessarily help.

Otherwise not sure whether I will be fine reading normally or want lots of comfort reading. I am looking forward to starting a long RWRB historical AU.

Recent: Mostly fanfic, but I did finish Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and had a bunch of thoughts. I don't think there was much attention paid to the order of the poems when I studied some of them in university, and that felt very relevant when actually reading the whole thing. (Although he did change the order occasionally, so.)

Tried and didn't get anywhere with a bunch of things, which is frustrating but I suppose to be expected right now.

Current: Randall Munroe's How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, which is sitting in the kitchen and gets picked up whenever I'm waiting for my tea to steep. More comfort rereading.

Started Biggles Buries a Hatchet, but it's set in, or at least near, a gulag so it's not going very fast.

Did a lot of reading in Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages at the library, which has been great. Oh, and I read two academic articles, on Rapa Nui history as indicated by genetics and palaeolithic textiles. I miss my pensive citadels.

I'm flipping through a lot of craft books, usually ones I've read before or at least by familiar authors, and those probably won't go in the books file but they're very relaxing.

Also, mom went through the some of the old newspapers in the kitchen, which means I dug out (and then immediately spilled tea on) two magazines I'd been reading and maybe I will get back into those.

Future: I gave My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness back to the library early August when it became clear I wasn't going to finish it then, but I just picked up the hold again today.

I need to reread a certain Victorian horror novella for exchange reasons, so probably Thursday I will sit down and do that and make notes.

And then I've got a fantasy novel with a trope that is Exactly my thing on Libby, but we'll see how that goes. And if it doesn't, I got Swordheart by T. Kingfisher for my birthday yesterday so I can reread that.

So for reasons that may be evident from my last post this summer was not a great time for reading or for anything else. Except crafts. Last week I did so much crochet I bruised my fingertip. (Tumblr quilt posts here and here)

Recent:
A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard started good but got more irritating over time, and I ended up skimming the last few chapters.

Very much liked Patchwork: A World Tour; I still really want a general history (specifically one starting before 1700), but this was very diverse and very pretty.

I read the first of Jewelle Gomez's Gilda Stories, which was very well done, but the author's note was more evidence that debates over moral storytelling are not limited to modern tumblr.

In August I finished another Biggles book, and now the next time I feel like Boy's Own Adventures I can get on to the resolution of Von Stalhein's arc and widen my fanfiction options.

And then I deliberately picked up Circle of Magic: Sandry's Book for comfort reading, which it provided. Also more craft books and more RWRB fanfic.

Current:
Just finished Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger in audiobook for more comfort reading. I remember liking but also being annoyed by a paranormal romance about how great small towns are, and it probably says something very clear about me that Horrible Things Happening in Nice Small Towns are, conversely, very comfortable.

Terry Pratchett's Interesting Times, because I wanted to reread a Discworld book and I knew I'd only read this one once ... but unfortunately there was a reason for that. Which of course is going to be true of anyone who wrote that many books over that much time.

Sarah Caudwell's The Shortest Way to Hades, which is great. One of the nice things about this series is that I can think things like, "Ah, what an interesting choice to refer to Euripides' Helen in this particular narrative. What might that imply for the main mystery plot?" (I'm less than halfway in and don't know if I'm guessing right yet.)

My current purse book is The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman, which will probably go slowly but which I am enjoying very much when I remember it's there.

And a facsimile copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

Future:
The library for some reason hasn't got any of K. J. Charles' recent releases.

I have another Christie audiobook lined up. In print the Caudwell will probably take me a while yet. But it's occurred to me that autumn is coming up, and this year I want to actually read The Haunting of Hill House.

This is what I posted on tumblr on the 2nd:

So I'd just got back into writing after nearly four months and then Family Stuff happened. Which of course hasn't been great for reading either, but it's nice having a habit of doing book posts.

Recent: So I finished most of what was Current on the last post and tried but didn't continue a bunch of others. Apart from that it was mostly a month of skimming through craft books and other things that won't count for my tracking purposes.

I did want to mention that Isabel Cooper's Nightborn gave me a bunch of feelings about vocations.

That said, I went to like five used book sales this month, and am again out of shelf space.

Current: Two rereads: Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon, because if there's any time I deserve to reread a cute children's fantasy novel about being a wicked witch it's in the bus on the way to the hospital*, and Spectred Isle by K. J. Charles in audiobook in the evenings.

Also the latest the_comfortable_courtesan tie-in novella, and Patchwork: A World Tour by Catherine LeGrand. And today I read another section of Unmarriages while I was at the library. It's much less crowded there now that exam season's over.

Future: I'd like to pick up One Night in Hartswood again. Oh, and K. J. Charles has a book coming out on the 18th.

*Not the worst possible reason to be spending a lot of time in the hospital, but obviously that leaves a lot of space for things being Not Great.

--

...and then on the 3rd things got worse. Now they're slightly better again, but still:

I never know if or how to talk about personal things online, but I've known many of you guys for about a decade now so I'm not going to not talk about it.

My dad's in the hospital, and he's stable right now but matters are very uncertain. Also whatever happens, he's still 83. So it's difficult.

The Quaker request, rather than sending prayers, is to hold one in the Light. My dad and I are both nontheists, but I appreciate messages of support.