Fierce Rawthorne

A note, first: I feel much better about the Stucky now, a week after I started writing this entry! But the fact remains... I don't think I have ever been so crabby about posting something in my entire fanfic career. I was so mad at it for several days straight that all I could do was laugh at myself for how stupid I felt. (Part of feeling like shit about it is definitely all the hours I've been working since July plus training the new people leaving me no mental space to think very hard about writing. Bah.)

I didn't want to post all in one go because I didn't want the longest fic I've ever finished and one I'd spent an entire year working on - more than a year, really, since I started outlining it in May 2023 - just immediately disappearing in a busy ship tag. This has happened to me nearly every time I write a popular ship and is thus one of the reasons I usually don't bother with big fandoms. I wind up disappointed every single time. This is a me problem and I understand that but sometimes you just have to let yourself be annoyed about stuff.

Anyway, I planned out posting four chapters a week for a month working up to my WIP Big Bang full reveal date that's now next weekend - thinking cool, that gives me time to do some final editing before posting on Fridays and Saturday, and hopefully collect some subscribers. Except after a week I would just look at the binder and think, "I don't even want to open this." (Plus, every time I'm in the mood to edit at home, the old lady kitty wants to sit on my lap - and she is old so I am not going to deny her cuddles.)

So now I am still several chapters behind in my posting BUT once I got to the chapter where Steve and Bucky actually start to have feelings, it picked up a lot more subscribers, which eased some of my annoyance. Also we're finally done training people at work for a while, so even though I'm still on twelve-hour shifts for the next week or two (the second shift person is out on a medical leave), I'm not trying to talk for several hours straight or figure out training projects.

Enough of all that: For the last couple months I have been writing - like half a sentence at a time - a Matt/Ben based on those pictures of them as teens with the matching pukka shell necklaces, and yesterday my writer's block lifted like a black cloud being blown away, so I finished this!! The first Matt/Ben thing I have written in probably twenty years.

- Cobra Kai S5 has dropped, and I have not watched it yet because I know the stupid spoiler and ugh, that shit makes me angry when any show/movie does it but ( even more so for CK. ) Ugh. It makes me not even want to spend my time watching it. This is why I don't like to get into things fannishly until they're over.

- anyway, prior to that trainwreck, I did upload my post-TKK1 story: ooh, when you bite your lip (Daniel/Johnny, 8k, PG-13.)

- also started posting the TG:M physical therapy AU as a WIP, new chapters Wednesdays & Saturdays: your body keeps the score (Maverick/Rooster, 3k up so far, PG at the moment but will eventually be NSFW.)

- the PT AU overall is nearly complete, I am on the back half of the epilogue and only have to wrap up a NSFW bit and write the rest of the ending. Once I'm finished I'll update the chapter count to be correct (it's only ? at the moment because I wanted to be sure it would be 14 before I labeled it).

- I have a ticket to see Clerks 3 on Thursday, crossing my fingers no one dies in it or I will be driving to Jersey to have words with Kevin Smith.

- my bedroom TV died at 2AM this morning and while I could potentially live without a living room TV for a stretch, I need background noise to fall asleep at night (sleep timer FTW) and... is everything a smart TV these days? I need two USB ports and a power cord, that's it. Or even just one USB port, since the cheap DVD player is just backup for when the internet is out and I can't stream Death in Paradise to fall asleep to.

- the TGM discord I joined continues to be a delight, and I am somewhat fascinated to report that figuring out wild crossovers to pair up characters played by the same actors remains a thing across fandom generations.

Second Pfizer shot update: Much busier than when I went for my first dose, since we are now in the 65+ phase as well, but still moved quite smoothly and everyone working the vaccination site was again in a good mood. My arm hurt a bit immediately post-shot for about an hour, then about twelve hours after that it really ached, same as the first time. I felt really run down/heavy for most of the day after, but didn't get the whole fever/chills side effect, and then the day after that I felt back to normal. Very grateful that I was able to get in an early group - my dad is going for his second dose on Thursday (he just turned 69) and we're planning on mid-March for being able to eat dinner together again a few times a month (probably without my sister, as she's much further down in the vaccination scheme & I refuse to be around her unless we're both masked because of her uncontrollable bad choices).

Attended a couple Escapade panels via Zoom last weekend despite my desire to Never Be Perceived Via Video, and it was nice to listen to people chat about Shetland (and hilarious to listen to the monsterf****** panel) and to see some of the same faces I remembered from previous cons. It's been more than ten years since I last went to Escapade in person - I went in 2004, 2006, and 2007, I think? At least those are the years that have my name in them on the fanlore pages, haha.

I'm sad I didn't get to see dine at all this year but we were probably attending different panels! (Dine, if Ruth and I ever get to take our pandemic-postponed Portland/Seattle trip, we'll visit you then!)

Other than that, I have nothing to report besides fic links:

Finished/posted the rest of the Venom in a jar story! out of a million, wrapping up at a little over forty-four thousand words - honestly did not expect to write my second-longest fic ever when I started it last year. And people seem to be enjoying it, which is so lovely. Venom fandom has been very nice to me even though it's not as active as it was when the first movie dropped, and the second movie keeps getting pandemic-delayed.

Speaking of Let There Be Carnage, I feel very "oh no please don't fuck up all the things we liked about the first movie" about it. The same screenwriter (a woman!) is back, so that's good, but I have held a pointless grudge against Andy Serkis for years that I just can't let go of, lol. Also are they going to address that the Carnage symbiote is the Venom symbiote's offspring? Probably not, since the first movie didn't use Riot being Venom's offspring either.

January I felt very blah about writing, which tends to happen after I've banged out a bunch of words for Yuletide, so I gave myself a few weeks off from writing and it helped. And now I'm back on my Venom bullshit! (Was I ever really off? Probably not.) Aside from the jar story, I also finished a Valentine's Day story in the holiday series, and two things for Symbruary prompts - a little addition to the jar!V fic for the warm/cold prompt, and a non-sexual age play story for the play prompt.

In other fandom news: For Chocolate Box, I wrote some Marcus/Esca domestic fluff for The Eagle. I would have liked to do some treats, but see above re: January blahs. CB was sort of struggle last year as well, so I just need to remember that I'm usually suffering from exchange burnout when it rolls around and stop signing up.