cornerofmadness, posts by tag: snowflake - LiveJournal

So I called the vet again and got Ms Surly this time who was appalled that I was not told to bring Rocket in immediately yesterday (I think I talked to the young one yesterday, the one Surly bit the head off last time when Rocket skinned his tail).

Good news - leg's not broken. Bad news - they think it's an abscess. They kept Rocket overnight for pain meds and high dose antibiotics. They might have to keep him tomorrow too as I got to work all day then to the interview then to the doctor. Honestly it's the best place for him as he refuses to stay inside.

However, he is a FIV + cat and an abscess is going to be bad, potentially fatally so. And since this is the apartment's cat, think anyone else around here is going to help foot the bill? Yeah no. Ah well, I can't let him suffer so I'll deal.



Challenge #11

In your own space, create a fanwork.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Title:
The Sweet and Uncertain First Steps


Summary: Hunter is attending school for the very first time and he is nervous, overwhelmed by the questions swirling in his head. Can he do this? What is his magic? Is he falling in love?

Rating: teen

Notes: Written for the getyourwordsout tarot card challenge. My cards are :
Two of Cups - Union, attraction, combination, affection;
Six of Swords - Adaptation, adjustments, science, travel;
Seven of Swords - Dishonesty, presumption, sneakiness, assumptions
And for the allbingo prompt of I wanna be loved by you.


Challenge #15

Fandom Snowflake Challenge's 2023 Fandom Wrapped!

Your top 5 fandoms for 2023 were:
1. The Owl House
2. Prodigal Son
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the series
4. Fullmetal Alchemist
5. Star Trek (all versions

Your top 5 fandom spaces (Discord, Twitter, etc.) in 2023 were:
1. AO3
2. Dreamwidth
3. Livejournal
4. Bluesky
5 Twitter

The top 5 things you did to contribute to fandom in 2023 were:
1. writing
2. reading/commenting
3. cheerleading
4. charity auctions like [Bad username: fandomtrumpshate]
5. supporting exchange communities

Your top 5 most appreciated fandom contributions were:
judging by kudos it was

1. Burning from Within

2. Job Offer

3. Meaning in the Misery

4. Rescue Me

5. A confession of pain

They're all The Owl House except 5 which is Prodigal Son. Also I'd like to think my fandom trumps hates stories were well appreciated too

I'd be pissed. So my phone is out again (for those maybe visiting from Snowflake I live too rural for reliable cell phones and frontier landline goes out every time it rains) They said you need to be home between 8-5 (ha, like I would be, the problem isn't in here, it's out at the road) and at 530 I get a text saying we know it's past your scheduled time. Can we come tomorrow?

Think about this. If I didn't know better, I'd have taken off work for them not to show up? And expect me to take off tomorrow too? Nowadays Frontier uses a bot to schedule this. 6 months ago I'd be arguing with a real person. Now it just schedules it without a big production BUT it thinks I'm in the city with 20 techs roaming around. They have no idea I'm an hour from everything.


I couldn't schedule anything. PCP is out til april. Can't even get hold of my oncologist. Even the vet has nothing unless I cancel a day's work and I've already lost days to weather. I might have to call other vets because I think Rocket broke his paw. He has a knot on his head too. Did he fall off something in the rain? Bounced off a car? I don't know (For those who don't know, Rocket was abandoned here and everyone at the apt takes care of him. I do the bulk of it). Sigh. In the back of my mind, he's FIV+ and it could be a bone cancer that broke (I had a dog do that, the tumor snapped his leg) It's 2 weeks out on his apt and no we have NO emergency vet within 100 miles.



Challenge #14

Try something new. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.



I haven't had time to start anything new, properly. I mean I have things I'd love to try but so far 2024 has been 300 years long and awful. Instead the one thing I have been doing new thanks to the Popsugar reading challenge is reading new genres...with very mixed results. I do read widely so the ones I don't read are ones I generally don't care for.

The two I've had to read are memoirs and contemporary fiction. I am generally not that interested in celebrities (these are specifically celebs) and it's funny how little I care about contemporary settings. You give me a couple trying to get a coffee shop or book store off the ground, hard pass. Put an orc in there and I'm all over it (Thank you Legends & Lattes)

So I read in the memoirs: Making It So: A Memoir by Sir Patrick Stewart, El Deafo by Cece Bell and Talking to My Angels by Melissa Etheridge.

Sir Pat's memoir was actually very captivating, dealing more with his acting career than his love life and I appreciated that. El Deafo is a graphic novel about growing up hearing impaired in the 1970s and I thought it was good too. I'll stick with Etheridge's music. I was bored by that memoir. I have one more to struggle through for this year's challenge but it's one of queerness which could be interesting (technically I could have used Etheridge's for that but I needed one for female rockers...) I plan to tackle Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Contemporary - I'm currently making my way through K-pop Confidential by Stephan Lee for the k-pop prompt I have zero interest in idols but this isn't bad so far (other than making me hate the inhuman expectations the companies have of the idols)

I did read The Golden Hour by Niki Smith which is a graphic novel set in Kansas dealing with the aftermath of gun violence in a school (more of a woman being shot by a stalker than a school shooting), it deals with PTSD (and farm life) pretty well. It was a good read.

The other contemporary graphic novel I read was In Real Life by Cory Doctorow which was good but not that memorable




How about a little twist on music monday? Every week a new letter represented. You've seen this challenge before. So the group/solo act has to start with the letter of the week and if you want you can borrow this for you blog or drop your music into the comments here. Let's have some fun with this. Share some music with me

Letter S this week ( There are a ridiculous amount of S bands. I can't include all my favesCollapse )

In Logan there was a Full Wolf Moon Misfit Market and I wanted to go. But it was meant to be raining and for some reason I thought it was outside. The FB page was sparse with info but the vendor names led me to believe this was going to be fantasy/pagan related.

Logan is only 50 miles. It's certainly closer than Huntington (my closest mall) and Columbus but it feels SO. Much Further because the other two you're on straight shot roads but Logan is on a straight shot too...if you love curves. You really can't set cruise and go. So it feels so much further.

I said screw it, you're going. I couldn't find it at first because it was inside a building with NO numbers, no name, nothing but a tiny sign pointing at it. I'm glad I went. It benefited the animal shelter and the vendors were cool. I got some beautiful dice and picked up a tip. Okay on her end, she was short circuiting her partner's dice sales. There were metal ones. I've been eyeballing them in the past. I had them in my hand thinking these are heavy and I said so. She admitted not only are they heavy they tend to chip stuff up, especially dice towers. While I don't have a tower, I'm thinking good to know and no than you.

I found a locket with gears (nothing I couldn't have made on my own) but also had a mini first aid kit inside them (they sold survival jewelry and I'm a little miffed I didn't buy the fire starter too). As I'm the ship's doctor with my air group I had to have this. I found another metal/rock pendant must have. Silver and stones are my weakness. I got a flower agate hunk for Mom for Mother's day.

So all and all it was good BUT I had no idea another friend of mine was going and I missed her. She got to play with the animals. I didn't know they even had them there (that was a bit of a fail on their part)

The dice goblin gets another set


The dice Mom got me for christmas

Challenge 5

Search in your current space, whether brick-and-mortar or digital. Post a picture (a link to a picture will be fine!) or description of something that is or represents:

( cutting for lengthCollapse )


9. Something only someone in your fandom would understand - The Prodigal Son crew might get it.

If I put one book on hold, it takes the library 6 weeks to get it but every time I put a few books on hold they ALL come at once. Five books. Also why did I put five books on hold?

Had the worst coffee drink ever at my coffee shop. Maybe it was because I was there an hour before closing or something (very crowded too) but it was 90% milk and my lactaid didn't help (usually it does, plant milks often have too much fat or sugar for me) And the Mexican restaurant's chile rellenos while yummy was also hot AF, way more than I usually get so my stomach is pretty unhappy. Things are home are getting pretty horrible too so stress is real and my plan for the weekend is probably rained out. sigh.

I'll talk more about this on my Sunday writing talk but a) there isn't 20K of loose pieces of that steampunk mystery because apparently once upon a decade ago I had started combining things so there were repeats. b) I found MORE pieces under yet another title. So I now have another 20 pages to sort through. That's exciting.

Challenge #13

Make a rec list of fanworks! Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

( my favorite books in 2023 + Jan 2024Collapse )

And while I am not doing lots of fandom recs this year (due to time and depression) let's have one now because there is so much good stuff out there.

( all kinds of fandoms under hereCollapse )

Challenge #12 - Tell Us about a Personal Win.

Tonight was one of them. It's the first time in almost four months I went out to do something fun. I went to a Cirque Mechanics (the small traveling cirque du soleil troupe) show Zephyr. I met up with friends and we went. It was just wonderful. I have long been fascinated at what a human body CAN do. I still want to know what has to be hiding in the one acrobat's top knot that she can be hoisted in the air and swung by her hair. I'm still stunned by the strongman of the troupe holding a may pole on his forehead (no hands) while another little acrobat is doing her thing ten feet up on that pole Or how one of the male acrobats could jump backwards through hoops or another of the male acrobats on this spinning hamsterwheel some twelve feet up on the OUTSIDE of the wheel jumping rope.

Why me going to this was such a win is I've been stuck in the house after discovering I have endometrial cancer. I had to miss all of my favorite things for halloween out of fear of falling/hurting myself on paranormal investigations or getting covid. Nothing was delaying my surgery and then post losing a few organs I had to stay pretty much doing nothing much for 8 weeks to heal.

Another win was the fact, I dealt with the cancer diagnosis well. I managed to get from diagnosis to post op in a month.

Other wins include the fact I sold two short stories and a novel last year. In fact the novel is out next month. You can read about it here. I do have some arcs for review for These Haunted Hills if anyone is interested.

Last year I wrote about 240K of fanfic and 64K of original fiction and this year I'm at about 15K combined for fanfic/ofic

For various reasons but I think it was fate because as I pulled into the parking lot 2 hours later than usual, a Spectrum work van pulled in behind me. I throw myself out of my car and ran up to him. I explained that the main company told me they didn't know how to find my apartment complex and wouldn't let me sign up. He looked at me like I was nuts.

"I hooked up that apartment right there." Pointing to the middle one in building A. "I'm trying to find NA2."

"AH! That's where things went wrong. They told me they couldn't figure out because I'm in building D but they only had ones marked NA. Either I'm NA 6 or 10 depending on which way they count it. 'HOW do I make them figure it out. I WANT YOU.'

"Ask for serviceability.' okay then. I will. Probably not to later in the week but I will damn it. I KNEW I had seen them here even if they're too wonky to know it (which doesn't inspire me much if I need repair services....)



Challenge #10

Five Things! The five things are totally up to you. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I decided not to go fandom for this one. Have instead my five bucket list destinations in no particular order.

1. Banff in the Canadian Rockies. Go look at it. It's gorgeous. The only part that is breaking my heart is I won't be able to hike it like I could have done prior to my injuries.

2. Italy - literally the whole country. Yes I want to do the big ones, Rome, Pompeii, Venice etc but I would want to also go to where my Grandparents are from, Alanno.

3. Edinburgh Scotland (and yes to Loch Ness and then off to the Skye and several other of the islands) I have always wanted to go there for the history.

4. Japan, not really sure where because getting there seems so unlikely

5. Hawaii, the only tropical place I've ever wanted to go.

have a couple bonuses

6. Iceland (though the volcanic activity is pretty scary right now)

7. Bath/Avebury/York in England.



How about a little twist on music monday? Every week a new letter represented. You've seen this challenge before. So the group/solo act has to start with the letter of the week and if you want you can borrow this for you blog or drop your music into the comments here. Let's have some fun with this. Share some music with me

Letter R this week ( okay there are so many Rs I can't hit them allCollapse )

How can so much of it slip through my fingers. I've done...still nothing other than look over my two galley proofs and get them back to their respective publishers. Ugh. How could I do so little? How did going to the library and the grocery store seem to eat up much of my day?

Challenge #9

Rec Us Your Newest Thing. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I have nothing that new. I can't stream so I'm out of the loop on many things. I have one show I'm really enjoying on Syfy Surreal Estate but it is not becoming that treasured obsession where I love playing in the fandom.

I have to go back a couple years to find that in both Prodigal Son and The Owl House, two shows that got killed in the second season (at least TOH got to wrap it up) for reasons literally no one understands. Disney admits canceling TOH was a mistake. Fox touted Son as the number one crime drama and then boom the day before the finale aired, canceled it taking the entire cast by surprise. Those were two that I highly rec to anyone. The fandoms are cool, Pson is cooling off but TOH is still pretty damn hot with daily comics among other things.

the other thing that I've gotten into lately is Critical Role. I got to watch Legend of Vox Machina at my brother's and I went back to listening. I had tried a few years ago and nope, at that point (mostly because if I'm at my computer I'm working either at the day job or writing at night) The problem with this is I can't get current because WOW most of these are 4 hours each and even the latest one which I tried recently is in the high double digits for episodes. This is such a huge time commitment (and so far Bells Hells isn't grabbing me like the other two) I might go back and try to catch up some more on The Mighty Nein as I like the characters better but if I'm doing that I'm not getting anything else done. Sigh. That said, Matt Mercer is very good at description and setting a scene and there is something to be learned there writing wise.

as I sit here on MLK day, I have no deep thoughts for the holiday but I can report my uncle came through his brain surgery well (he even called home afterward around 8 pm) SO thanks for all the well wishes. They got most of the tumor and the rest they're going to irradiate.

In theory school starts tomorrow. However it is snowing and it's going to be like 5 degrees tonight. Idiot cat is staying in even though he doesn't want to (got his butt kicked yesterday and before any newcomers to the journal get the wrong idea, Rocket is sort of the apartment complex's cat, someone abandoned him here and he lives in and out of all our places. He refuses to be in 24/7) He also tried to go home with the telephone dude today. Did I mention my phone was out again? Yep, it was but by some miracle my cell worked the last three days without me going to the top of the hill and sitting in the cemetery there.

Challenge #8

Talk about a current fannish project (fic, art, vid, crochet, funko pop village) (that you are creating or enjoying)

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.



Ah, an easy one. Sort of. I have plenty of ones I WANT to be working on both The Owl House and Prodigal Son and before I know it wipbigbang will roll around and I'll try to finish one of my ancient half-forgotten Buffy stories from 20 years.

But right now my big wip project is Hope is The Thing With Feathers

It's The Owl House, post canon and I wanted to really play with all the loose threads and all the trauma that happened (I mean for a kid's show in theory this is a traumatic plotline) I know scenes but not the whole plot because why plan? Honestly I almost never do WIPs anymore but this one was an exception (the whumptober ones always are) It's multi ship

Summary: It’s only been days since Belos was finally defeated. However, the now-what reconstruction of the Boiling Isles is every bit as terrifying as he and The Collector were, especially when there are those who want the Heroes of the Isles gone for good.

Of course I have to balance this while working on the current novel. It's been fun to write but it's taking me forever because I get distracted. It's a group of monster hunters in a rural college in the 1980s. I'll eventually need a Welsh sensitivity reader (ditto a biracial woman and Filipino male because why make things easy, and they'd all need to be relatively close to my age because the 80s were a different world). One day I'll have beta readers for this too.




How about a little twist on music monday? Every week a new letter represented. You've seen this challenge before. So the group/solo act has to start with the letter of the week and if you want you can borrow this for you blog or drop your music into the comments here. Let's have some fun with this. Share some music with me

Letter Q this week ( And here we goCollapse )

I had 4 hours to think. I had something I was very much looking forward to participating in but I thought it over. There was the displacement of the con mods by a more or less hostile take over after a couple disgruntled volunteers led a smear campaign with zero proof of anything. And I'm like why should I do this now? I loathe everything that happened so there's yet another thing I'm not going to get to do and the disappointment roll right on (at least I won't have to finish up that cosplay in a rush).

I'm also trying to decide on two winter shows that are freaking mid-week. One is 40 miles away in Athens (Cirque du soleil) and the other is 90 miles away in Columbus that I really want to do but I'd have to leave work FLY up the highway for this Renn faire in the Columbus Science Center at 6 pm and leave in time to go to my lab on friday...ugh (Now I'm feeling my age)

Challenge #6

In your own space, share a favourite piece of original canon (a show, a specific TV episode, a storyline, a book or series, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. . Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


This is timely as this week is The Owl House's 4 years old. This is my latest fandom (which sadly got canceled after the second season but was allowed to do 3 hours of S3 to wrap up the damn cliffhanger). My current icon is Luz, the main protagonist. This was a Disney animation (of all things) There isn't a character I didn't like. The world building and story line were far more sophisticated than I expected in a show aimed at the 13-16 crowd (Luz is 13) in fact, break downs of the episodes on Youtube I've used as part of my how-to write posts, that's how good the story telling was. Also the villain is one of the best, most believable villain I've seen in a long time (I'm jealous he's not mine)

What did I love about it? Everything. Luz is the outsider at school (well that's all but cliche at this point but still it resonates with many) but she's also a Latinx bilingual bisexual. And she ends up in another world (which is a trope I don't even like normally) and that's not the thing that hooked me. It really was we have a female character of color as the protagonist and she's bi. She ends up with a girlfriend (Amity) by the end of S1.

We also have her mother figure, Eda whose curse can be read as a chronic illness and her former/future lover, Raine is nonbinary and everyone respects their pronouns. Luz makes friends with Willow and Gus. Willow has two dads. Gus is a character of color. Eda's sister, Lilith is asexual. Willow is pan and one of my favorite characters, Hunter (who enters in S2) is bi as well. Hunter is also used to illustrate the dangers of gas lighting and parental abuse.

So we have a show with great rep where race and all sexualities are normalized. It's a shame it was canceled. Disney thought there was little interest. They admitted after Comicon last year that they made a mistake seeing the size of the panel attendance and cosplay. (I'm currently doing Eda in her PJs as we're around the same age but her normal day clothes include heeled boots I can't do because of my own disability also because it's fun to run around a con in bunny slippers) I DO have to wonder if certain political pressures on Disney for being so woke had a role in the cancellation. I am sorry to see it gone.

I hope that there is new life to it somewhere and I'll be honest unlike a loud section of fandom I don't really want it 20 years down the road with Luz et al's kids. There's a time skip that could be rich with stories or right after the time skip when they start college. Or maybe some books. Ah well. Until then there's always fanfic and fan art. There are multiple artists out there doing daily comics (they are impressive)

Somehow this day flew by with so very little done other than stocking up at Costco for the trip home. I'm utterly unprepared for the start of the semester and I could honestly not care. I'm going through the motions
in all things right now. I do need to pull up my submission files so I don't miss out on any open calls that sounds interesting while I'm sitting here numb. However in the good news department, people have REALLY stepped up for fandomtrees and only a handful are stuck with only 1 fill (I think all the zeroes are gone) and I have more gifts than ever before so thanks for that if you made me something!!

Challenge #4

IceBreaker Challenge! Tell us about yourself. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


Okay how about some random facts about me:

I wrote my first fanfic after seeing Star Wars in the movies for my 10th birthday. It was shameless Mary Sue.

I joined my first group fandom in either 82-83 for Elfquest back in the paper zine days. By the time the 21st century rolled around I was in a few dozen holts with more characters than I could count/remember

I played in the Old Post Office in Washington D.C., a sax solo (In the Mood) for President Bush (the first)'s inauguration

I am diabetic with a condition that causes arthritis (in more joints than I want to name). Also have about three more chronic conditions along with ADHD and depression

I am a published author

I was a foot/ankle doctor specializing in wound care until a hand injury let me with nerve damage and ended my career.

I now teach pre-meds and nurses at a small rural college literally on Bob Evans's farm

I'm a multi fandom, multi shipper

I love to hike (as slow as I am) but haven't really been back out since I fell and destroyed my knee in 2021 (mostly because people who say oh yeah we'll hike with you, no problem either stand me up or don't want to go as slow as I need to go which is a bit disheartening)

I love travel and especially to see museums

I might be in my 50s but I still cosplay and love it

Three months ago I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. They believe they got all of it with the surgery but there is 5 years of wait and see to deal with yet.

I'm willing to help people hurt their characters realistically (just DM me)

That should be plenty of ice breaking there.






How about a little twist on music monday? Every week a new letter represented. You've seen this challenge before. So the group/solo act has to start with the letter of the week and if you want you can borrow this for you blog or drop your music into the comments here. Let's have some fun with this. Share some music with me

The letter is P ( music under hereCollapse )