dreaming about | the things that we could be

Holding patterns.

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 05:25:57 GMT

I am absolutely the kind of person who can't pivot to another task until I've finished the previous one. I want to draw so badly, I know what I want to draw, I know what I need to draw, but I can't draw until I finish reading LOTR first. I'm past the halfway point, I'm in the Frodo and Sam chapters of TTT now, but until I reach the Appendices and take all the deets I need from them, I can't pivot. I know what changes I need to make to the outline but not yet. I know what I want to draw for when I announce my hiatus from Dinluke things on the art blog but not yet. Not until I finish this book and remember the original canon. AND IT IS DRIVING ME FUCKING NUTS. What's keeping me from reading this book at a good clip is the pixel pony game and it is killing me. At least I got one more week to reorganize my game to help me free up more time that I desperately want and need.

Is it SAD if I realize how fucking hyperactive I am during spring and fall, and turn into a slug during summer and winter? Because wow has my brain been ON IT lately.

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A Quick Note On A Family's Culinary Preferences

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 22:20:58 GMT

Had a conversation with my aunt about kimchi and the foods my 90+ year old grandma used to eat before her teeth fell out. It is absolutely fascinating how my grandma's kimchi-making style created my food preferences. She made Jeolla-do kimchi, which goes heavy on salt and seafood and is generous with the red chili peppers, and I've been chasing that flavor profile ever since. My aunt mentioned buying whole red peppers and grinding them up in a blender, then adding them to gochugaru, which boosted that flavor. Everyone my aunt knows, including herself, misses that kimchi. I know I do. The kimchi at the supermarket, at Costco, that my mom makes, doesn't taste like grandma's and I doubt any kimchi ever will, but damn I would like to try to catch that flavor profile.

I'm writing this down because I don't have other places to put this, not yet. It sure does explain my absolute obsession with other kinds of jeotgal. I am insanely stupid about salted seafood on a bed of steaming white rice, and this explains a LOT.

UPDATE: Mentioned this conversation to my mother and she said she didn't like grandma's kimchi because it was so salty. Now that I know what kind of kimchi my grandma makes, this explains why I have never been a fan of her kimchi. It's too mild and mid for me. Guess I do have to learn to make it myself.

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taps mic Is this thing on?

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 08:23:53 GMT

(rewriting a post to remove all the incriminating incoherent ramblings because no one did anything wrong here, except me who ruined my own post and now has to start over)

First and worst thing is that last September (like, days before 2025 Los Angeles Comic Con), I accidentally permanently deleted almost everything I created after 2022 including almost all documents and all of the art I made after that year. A few things - I didn't realize how badly I slacked off on backing up my files and didn't back up shit for 3 years and I assumed I did when I decided to try to get rid of the OneDrive folder once and for all, not realizing that Microsoft had routed EVERYTHING to save to the OneDrive folder to make you use their cloud services (and I saw some insidious shit on Blacksky where someone posted about a listing for a laptop with terabytes of storage.... CLOUD storage, to OneDrive, and that was what most of the price tag was for) meaning when I deleted the folder, I deleted my Documents, Music, and Pictures folders. I didn't have any Music files. I had ALL of my fic documents and artwork in the Documents and Pictures folders. That the Videos folder was located elsewhere was the only thing that kept me from losing my mind. That and being able to recover my DinLuke fic Scrivener project, although I discovered most of the project had been wiped clean of everything and somehow all that survived was the outline for the chapter I was working on. The only artwork I had left were whatever was posted to Tumblr and Imgur. The only notes I had left were on GDocs. But I lost 3 years of fanworks. I lost 3 years of DinLuke. I lost everything I created for the little pop-up shop project I was working on. I lost 3 years of DinLuke (and other files that for some reason somehow I never backed up anywhere or is buried so deep in a backup that I'd have to spend a lot of time getting it out).

I'm still a little numb to it. I'm still incredulous about it. But it's gone. And I guess it's led me to burning out on DinLuke and Star Wars. I do intend to come back. I really want to finish this story. I want to see it play out... though I thought the same about the Dragon Age Inquisition fic that is... sitting quietly in a drawer with other unfinished stories. Well, at least I got to write a lot of stories in this sandbox before my spectacular fuckup took all the wind out of my sails.

But this isn't just that I fucked up with my piss poor habits (I know my A+ Cert teacher from the community college would be horrified at me for this). I guess it's been on my mind for a while, or at least since I had to follow up Captain America: The Winter Soldier with Avengers: Age of Ultron, since I watched Star Trek Into Darkness, since I watched The Last Jedi, since Disney started rolling out all these CG/live-action remakes of their classics, since Warner Brothers did... allathat, since TikTok became a dominant force in social media and pop culture, since Book Tok and the publishing industry began pursuing original retellings of popular white cishet ships (Reylo and Dramione being the biggest offenders), since I just lost so much interest in TV and film. The first two seasons of The Mandalorian had me believing I could be watching the start of something new and refreshing, but I don't know what direction this Mando'verse is taking, where the story is all about Star Wars for the sake of Star Wars. Star Wars has lost its way again. So many things lost their way.

But listen. Kendrick and Drake went to war and I watched a master of his craft enjoying what he's doing. But listen. Andor told a story of imperialism and revolution at a time when the American Empire is starting to collapse. But listen. I have not stopped thinking about Sinners since I saw that movie in theaters.

But listen. On the 25th anniversary of The Fellowship of the Ring coming to theaters, I went and saw the extended trilogy over 3 wonderful days, and I have not known peace since.

( Let me explain. )

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Time is a fucking circle.

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 07:23:09 GMT

Privated the two previous posts because I was venting a little too much and too personally, and that's not fair to people who have done no harm. I'll vent instead about how hard it is to let things go.

Like the pixel pony browser game I play. I found it after wandering away from Howrse.com and its ultracompetitive P2W model and came across an advert while dabbling in a different pixel pony browser game. Most other games do daily care but this one does weekly care, which is amazing for my time, and it also feeds into my Black Stallion fantasies. I've been playing it since 2014 and I have not missed a single week/rollover since. But I can feel how much time it is taking from me now, time that I want to dedicate to so many other things, and I know I have to slow down. I have to take a step back. But it so damn hard to pump the brakes and do just that. I'm competitive and I take pride in the years I spent building up bloodlines in this game, and I can't let go. But I need to let some of it go. I keep telling myself to start cutting down the number of pixel ponies I keep. The numbers I have now are not sustainable if they're detrimental to my mental health.

Like, I am distressed by how much time this game takes away from time I could spend on drawing, on writing, on reading, on crafting. DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM HERE???? I can't give up completely because I know I will grow bored and the game is a nice break/change of pace from the other things I like to do, but I really need to make changes. I need to make such drastic changes. I just don't know when I'll finally put my foot down.

Later, when I have actual time, I will rewrite one of my privated posts because it does matter how much I've burned out on The Mandalorian in large part due to my catastrophic fuckup. I don't know why I didn't back up anything after 2022 but the price I paid is so damn high. All that art, including art I was making for a little dinluke shop, is all gone. All because I wanted to get OneDrive out of my laptop for good but didn't realize Microsoft intentionally directed all of my files into their OneDrive folder so that it would connect to the cloud (and so that they could extort money out of me to buy space for their cloud so that they could take my fucking files like the hell you will, you corporate shitbags). I'm still shocked I didn't lose my Videos folder. If I had, I might've just... factory reset my laptop, I guess, and started over completely. Because what would've been the point. I hate what this world has become.

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A(n) (Re)Introduction

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 07:51:48 GMT

Entry created on March 4, 2026.

Here lies the Dreamwidth journal of shirozora, who has been wandering the Internets since 2000 and chose this monikor sometime between 2001-2003, or whenever Kingdom Hearts came out and seized my imagination. I have gone by many names and passed through many websites and forum boards and archives. Here is where you can (still) locate me in the year of our nightmares 2026.

TUMBLR: trashquisitor-shirozora (main) / shirozora-draws ([fan]art) / shirozora-writes (fanfics)
BLUESKY/BLACKSKY: @shirozora.blackskycomra.de
DISCORD: shirozora
PLURK: @shirozora
AO3: shirozora

Twitter: @shirozora (defunct)
Instagram: @shirozora_draws (defunct)
LiveJournal: shirozora (defunct)

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Fall Ceaning

Mon, 06 Sep 2021 01:46:12 GMT

Finally - finally - updated my Dreamwidth in all sorts of ways. New layout, new link labels, tweaks to the profile, the fucking works. 'tis a seed account and I'm a ride or die, so I will keep this place up and running for as long as I can.

Will likely start utilizing this place more to store my many thoughts as The Suns comes to a close and I start outlining/plotting The Stars. It will be wild if I start posting the threequel the same month I started my very first Star Wars fic.

Am I ever gonna shut up about The Storm being my first Star Wars fic? NO I WILL NOT. I ENDURED YEARS OF FUCKING HELL AFTER 'THE LAST JEDI' CAME OUT AND I WILL NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT THE SHOW THAT MADE IT WORTH IT TO COME BACK TO THIS GODDAMN FRANCHISE.

And I will have so many words later about my approach to Luke's trauma, what Din offered as a way to start working through that trauma, and what Din is withholding from him and Grogu and everybody else because oh my good dear friends (aka people who are reading this fic series who are not on Dreamwidth therefore they don't follow me and won't see this entry, meaning the folks who are reading this post won't give two fucks about any of this nonsense) am I gonna wreck that tin can tin man to open the third act.

NaNoWriMo 2021 can't come soon enough.

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It's a Nonstop "You In Danger" Zone

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 04:40:01 GMT

(crossposting from Tumblr)

In a war between me, my brain, and my guts, I am l o s i n g.

"But. But Mummy AU?"

And an unholy chorus shouts back:

"WE DO A PART THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. DOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEET."

Should I watch the Mandalore episodes of TCW? Should I dig around for some Legends takes on that darn planet? Or do I breeze through the wiki, declare proudly, "FUCK IT, JUST DO IT," and make shit up?

Or do I just NOT touch the Mandalore plot even though part of my brain has been going feral over Luke in Mando armor for months???? Do I paint it black and green (do I actually paint it black and green and post some concepts)?

I just want to get into the pain. I barfed up a potential plot on Discord months back and that plot has never left me. It watches me while I work, write, draw, eat, sleep. It haunts me. I looked at the next chapter of The Suns and thought, "If we get to follow Luke around on Tatooine, why not bring Din back to Aq Vetina? What if he finds something worse than memories of screaming and black smoke and B2 battle droids??"

Open with a rescue mission and then it's Yavin IV (bc I'm a fucking lazy fuck who wants to prioritize Feelings over Research) and then I have to do Research because once upon a time Luke joked about hiring Din to find Jedi relics and I INTEND TO MAKE GOOD ON THAT PROMISE.

And I keep thinking, "If I can write a sequel to my own damn fic, I can write another sequel, too." There are thoughts and images that I want to write and I want to draw because my brain is a nightmare in a bone cage inside a meatsuit and it will not let me know peace.

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The unfinished things.

Mon, 19 Jul 2021 07:33:33 GMT

I still regret never finishing the Tron/Princess Bride AU.

The Dean/Cas Big Bang 2010 fic is finished, just not fully edited for posting. I think there are 3 chapters left, maybe 4? The first draft tops off at over 200k and the last chapters are absolutely monstrous. How can they not be, when this utter clown was rewriting Season 1?

It fucking kills me that there are three unedited chapters of the Dragon Age fic and I stopped because I was exhausted, stalled out, and out of ideas. I was rewriting a LOT of war table missions and weaving together both Samson and Calpernia's arcs. I even threw together a "Hawke, Fenris, Dorian, and Scout Harding go to the Hissing Wastes and Shit Happens" scenario. I split up all the companions and gave everyone something to do to explain how Maxwell and his chosen party ended up in Val Royeaux to, among other things, "bargain" for Dorian's birthright. I had that scene written up. I have the full Here Lies The Abyss chapter written up. I have the full aftermath written up. I stalled out at the beginning of Bull's quest and the DLC.

The only way I can move forward with the FFXIV fic is to play the goddamn post-Heavensward MSQ. But I'm not doing that am I.

And every time I think about that Dean/Cas bookshop AU, I fucking laugh.

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The Unbearable Unbearableness of Perception

Sat, 17 Jul 2021 17:55:19 GMT

(crossposting from my write Tumblr)

 
Keep meaning to use this side blog for more than just posting fic links but I'm always busy or distracted or I forget or fall asleep in my chair. Don't trust Tumblr to be as meaningful a platform for rambling in all directions. I figure this is an ADHD thing. Nothing like your doctor telling you, "So I notice you can't stick to one thought when we talk, maybe you should get that looked at."

The unbearable struggle of not wanting to say anything and spoil the whole story vs. wanting to spill the beans on absolutely everything but risking losing interest in the project now that it's not threatening to boil over.
 

The original thought was, "What if we do a fake Season 3 and Din keeps running into this Jedi while running around the Outer Rim doing tasks, running away from Bo-Katan, running away from the Darksaber, looking for the missing members of his covert?" Except I failed because it wasn't "keep running into this Jedi", it became "ran into this Jedi and then got stuck on a planet with him because of shit weather" and then "WHAT IF HE WAS DOING A JOB FOR KARGA" and I browsed around for a species because "human-shaped" is too  damn boring. 
 

And then I failed again a second time because now I'm writing a third encounter and the whole story is still one whole encounter and not "keeps running into the Jedi" and is it really "keeps running into the Jedi" if it's "Peli misunderstood the whole situation and panic dialed Din into detouring to Tatooine"?
 

Whenever I get comments, I wonder if readers pick up on things, on callbacks and mirroring and role reversals. Someone caught onto an impending role reversal, which got me so freaking excited like yes! I did not fail! Like, that's the fucking feeling you should be feeling, you garbage billion dollar studios. Why are you so terrified of your audiences figuring out what happens next? I
 

I got 3 whole chapters to edit and illustrate, and then what? Mummy AU, my beloved? Or the very random dots that keep trying to connect as a follow-up to The Suns. I really have nothing smart or clever or brilliant or logical set up for whatever happens on Mandalore (stays on Mandalore). I just know what I want, and what I want is a situation that strips Din Djarin of all of his armor, all of his purpose. He's a background bounty hunter who tripped and fell but really just blew up and blasted his way into becoming a Main Character (this is what happens when you double-cross some ex-Imp warlords which, to be fair, you have every right to because fuck the Imps amirite) and I have spent 1 story about him bonding with the Jedi who took in the child he gave up everything for, and I am now spending 1 story on that relationship and on his relationship with the child and how his status as the Star Wars Capybara once again saves Mos Pelgo while also kicking Imp butt. But all throughout there's that undercurrent of "he has the Darksaber, he is expected to help his people, he is expected to join Bo-Katan's quest to reclaim Mandalore" and that has got to be suffocating. 
 

And  I just want to write a situation where all choice is taken from him and he is broken, and the recovery sets him back on the path to Mandalore but his thoughts are clear and he isn't suffocating anymore. But... that can't be all there is it, right? Right? Because I don't know Legends and I've never seen Clone Wars/Rebels, and all I fucking know about Mandalore the planet and Mandalorians the people/culture I've been getting from the Wookieepedia and also from the Mando Show. I keep saying I'm bullshitting my way through Star Wars lore, don't  
@
 me, but lbr, it is fucking intimidating. It is even more intimidating seeing other people's works and thinking, "My god, I really don't have the brain space for that."So maybe I should go do the Mummmy AU after wrapping up The Suns to give myself a freaking break. Figure out how to make this galaxy work and how much I ought to steal from KOTOR. The kind of alternate reality where Darth Nihilus is Imhotep/Scorpion King, the Mandalorians are the Medjai, and I'm still working out where the Separatists/Clone Wars fall in this timeline where the Empire never happened but Palps is Chancellor and once upon a time, Anakin Skywalker disappeared while on a mission to find the key to Republic victory. 

This is just... a smidge of all the thoughts that trip and collide and fall all over each other. Would not believe the decidedly less SFW thoughts I've been having lately about this hypothetical Part 3 to Dangerous Dreams. Or the very fun, very exhausting "How do I unfuck and rewrite ST to be much less offensive than the shit job RJ and JJ did with it?"

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New master post, who dis?

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 09:06:50 GMT

I removed the old master post because that fic list is outdated and AO3 is the place to be. The new master post is all about The Storm, The Suns, Star Wars, and dinluke.

Going to start using DWJ more so that I can archive posts for easy searching. I have thoughts but don't want them lost or buried in this fast-paced world.

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DANGEROUS DREAMS & Din/Luke Masterpost

Sun, 06 Jun 2021 00:15:49 GMT

DANGEROUS DREAMS

Fandom: The Mandalorian, Star Wars
Ship: Din/Luke

The future of Mandalore is in his hands, no matter what Din Djarin actually wants. While picking up jobs to pay off a new gunship, he runs into the Jedi again and learns that he too holds the future of his kind in his. In the shadow of a fallen empire and the light of a nascent republic, they begin to rebuild what was lost— their peoples, their cultures, their histories, and each other.

The Storm

Din Djarin needs a new ship.

Greef Karga makes him a deal - do some work for the guild and he'll get a brand new gunship. One such job takes him to a planet with a volatile storm system to track down a double-crossing bounty hunter. What he doesn't know is that the bounty hunter is there to loot an ancient Jedi temple. What neither of them know is that someone else is also on the planet searching for the temple.

And then the storm rolls in.

The Suns

Din Djarin is searching for the Armorer.

While chasing a lead through the Outer Rim, he receives an unexpected comm that brings him back to Tatooine. There, he finds the child he sacrificed everything for and the Jedi who found a place in his heart. They're on a quest of their own and he decides to join them. It would only be a few days and then he'll be back among the stars.

It would not be a few days.

Between Planets

Din Djarin goes to Takodana for information.

And Luke Skywalker goes to Adelphi for a rendezvous.

Set after the events of The Suns.

The Stars

Din Djarin is at a crossroads.

As the wielder of the Darksaber, he is bound to Bo-Katan Kryze's quest to reclaim Mandalore from its Imperial occupiers. His heart however is with the child and Jedi hiding away from an increasingly volatile galaxy.

While rallying his scattered people to the cause, Din is asked by Greef Karga for a favor — one job, to pay back an associate who saved Greef’s life years ago. Din agrees over Bo-Katan’s objections and promises to return to help her reclaim Mandalore.

And then he disappears.

DIN/LUKE AUs

Sweater Weather

For two months, Din Djarin has been delivering the same order from the same restaurant to the same address every several days. The customer is a newcomer to Nevarro, a PhD student who seems out of place in the city but has become part of Din's everyday life. Then Luke changes their routine with a small gift and the uneventful, mundane life Din made for himself and his adopted son Grogu starts to unravel.

Parhelion

There is something new about this year's Festival of Light.

A Sweater Weather short story.

Meteors

Din can and will beat Luke at lightsaber combat, and Luke really likes that.

Gravity Well

Over twenty years after Chancellor Palpatine's failed takeover of the Galactic Republic, Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker-Naberrie is asked to join a diplomatic mission to Mandalore to help negotiate a trade agreement with the new Mand'alor. While he is assumed to join as an observer and mediator in these talks, his real mission is to investigate rumors that the Mand'alor's child is powerful in the Force and offer a future for the child within the Jedi Order. The already difficult task compounds when he keeps failing to gain an audience with the mysterious Mand'alor, but distraction comes in the form of a strange, faceless Mandalorian palace guard he keeps encountering at night, someone he keeps gravitating towards despite himself.

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So.

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 07:52:05 GMT

I didn't even make a "Welcome to 2021" post. Fuck.

The real madness is watching what's been happening to my art side-tumblr since I started posting again. The archive timeline is a fucking tragedy. A years-long slump where I was posting one or two things per year. Then I started playing FFXIV and decided to make it my mission to also post my art assignments to rebuild momentum, to rediscover myself. And the FFXIV stuff... has been a struggle. I enjoy it, I do, but I also realized how much I hated playing with total strangers and I was forging halfway connections with these characters. I was interested enough.

And then the Mandalorian Season 2 happened. Like. I was enjoying the ride. I felt a ways about reading fic, not so much writing it. I didn't feel any real compulsion or desire. There are ships but the most popular pairing was Mando x Reader which.... yeah. Sorry, but no. The whole thing with Cobb Vanth was hilarious and I would love to meet Omera again but I wasn't really feeling it. Wasn't really feeling any of the ships at the time.

And then the season finale happened and it was like... it was like watching the very first episode and being blindsided by the Baby Yoda | Grogu reveal. Like what the fuck?

But then an X-Wing appears when Din & Co. were facing death on the other side of the reinforced bridge doors and everyone lost their goddamn minds because those motherfuckers DID THAT.

I have so many things to say about it, because I have so many things to say about how much the Sequel Trilogy (re)ignited my interest in Star Wars before utterly destroying it. The Mandalorian went a long, long way to repairing that but my god. My fucking god. I could not believe how badly so many people needed that. How much people wanted to see him at his zenith because there were, what, 30 years between ROTJ and TFA and the ST just fucking ruined Everything.

But this show, this goddamn show said, "Hey, remember why you even cared?"

And after Season 2 ended I felt. Restless. I needed something. What did I need?

"So Grogu has TWO dads now."

Oh.

Oh.

I already wrote a fic. I already wrote a 45k Star Wars fic and posted it and watched it blow all my other statistics out of the water. I've been staring at my AO3 stats while this motherfucker climbed past damn near every other fic I ever wrote. The feedback, the reactions, have been fucking astounding. My art side-blog is doing fucking crazy numbers. Hell, my art side-blog is fucking busy. There are multiple art posts. I've been drawing tons of faanrt again.

What the fuck, y'all?

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books books books

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 09:21:11 GMT

I have a fucked up relationship with books and reading.

Elementary through high school, I read books. I read a ton of books. I stood out in elementary because of all the books I read, the speed at which I read, the level at which I read, and the comprehension I had after reading them all. Middle school, high school, I slowed down. Increased school workload was definitely a part of the slowdown. My parents--my mom--was a much bigger part of it. When I was younger, we had this habit of meeting family friends at restaurants and then going to Barnes & Noble/Borders to chill. I wanted to read everything I could get my hands on but I also keenly aware that I would hate myself forever if I went home without finishing a book. But my parents didn't want to keep buying me all these books. We already had so many books. Why can't you just read a book until it was time to leave and go? No, we're not buying these books. You don't need them. Stop asking.

Mom also fought with me over what I read. She wanted me to read the classics. She wanted me to read "human stories" because they were "real stories about real people". I wanted to read fantasy all the time. If not fantasy, I'll read history.

She fought a losing war to get me to put down books and socialize. She kept inviting family friends and classmates and their moms over for playdates. I wouldn't play. I read books.

I hit college. A lot of things happened in college, like an academic meltdown because 1) Mom found out Dad was cheating and I would not engage with her bc my entire goal was getting the fuck away from her, 2) I was never properly diagnosed with clinical depression but it was a possible diagnosis, and 3) well Mom has ADHD symptoms and my brother took medication for ADHD and I'm pretty sure I've been displaying ADHD symptoms throughout MY ENTIRE FUCKING CHILDHOOD, and when you're not in a strict, structured environment like public school.......................

Anyway, I started reading fanfiction full time (and nonfiction for assignments... and I still have most of my books, and I still think I'll eventually read through them all). I must've gone a full decade without reading any new original fiction (because you bet your ass I reread The Hobbit for Reasons). I knew I should read original fiction again but Fandom had a stranglehold on me and I had this... lingering reluctance to obtain new books because Mom would disapprove (even if they could be ebooks, not hard copies).

Well I became utterly disillusioned with Fandom, started hating every IP and didn't want to engage, and any new fanfiction I'd find couldn't.... satisfy me. I got so tired of engaging in a Fandom anew. I spent the end of 2018 and all of 2019 and went into 2020 writing Star Trek AOS fics. I fully intend to go back and finish my Dragon Age Inquisition fic, a truly daunting task. I still have my old ass FULLY WRITTEN BUT NOT EDITED Supernatural Dean/Cas Big Bang 2010 fic to finish revising and posting. I want to go back with fresh eyes and an older brain, and finish what I left behind.

And I need to reset my brain. I need to restart. I need to undo 10 years and rewire myself to engage with original fiction and write my own. It's time. I'm in my 3rd decade and it's time.

What have I been reading since COVID-19 hit and took my job?

In From The Cold, by J.T. Rogers
Bonds Of Brass, by Emily Skrutskie
Silent Hall, by N.S. Dolkart
Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor
Silver In The Wood, by Emily Tesh
Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee
The Last Sun, by K.D. Edwards

What's next?

Huntress, by Malinda Lo
Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee
Akata Warrior, by Nnedi Okorafor
Drowned Country, by Emily Tesh
The Hanged Man, by K.D. Edwards
Ash, by Malinda Lo
Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee

We're gonna fucking READ.

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Even I forgot that I still go here.

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 07:00:51 GMT

Friendly reminder to myself that I do indeed still go here.

Still slogging through this old ass Trekfic.

I read this ebook on a whim because "gay spies in love during the Cold War" sounded really interesting but there was a fucking reason why it had the "Captain America" tag. Someone just stripped out all the copyrighted shit before posting it. I'm still laughing forever over the fact I didn't register that one of the characters was Tony Fucking Stark until I saw a stony tweet days later. I kept thinking that character was modeled on Dorian Pavus. I forgot stony exists. I almost saw the appeal of stucky but even in origific format I wasn't comfortable with it. There's this general sense of utter unease and I couldn't shake it off.

Also it seems so stupidly quaint to look back and think "the greatest threat was the USSR stopping the US from launching their own space satellites". The entire fucking state is on shutdown right now. I'm officially working remotely this coming Monday. The company I work at is considered "an essential service" so we're still open for business, meanwhile my mom's store is going to close for a month (all the smaller stores at the supermarket are closing for a month) so she's got nothing to do for a month. My brother's restaurant is closing for several weeks. He isn't working for several weeks.

Y'all this is fucked up.

I forgot my stupid mood themes are still stuck on Photobucket. Fuckinng hell I hate it there.

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BEHOLD THE HELL BRAIN

Sat, 15 Jun 2019 17:24:05 GMT

*writes with an absolute straight face*

A shot rings out and a soldier topples over. Everyone drops to the ground while more shots find their mark and a blast shakes the ground. Someone somewhere is laughing maniacally.

"You!" the alien leader screams. "How are you here?"

Leonard raises his head and looks around him wildly, then Sulu shoves him back down as another blast rocks the earth. Then the helmsman drags him up to his feet and pushes him forward. "Run!"

Leonard follows Uhura and Spock across the town square, ducking whenever he feels searing heat pass by. The alien soldiers are all shouting and firing their weapons at—is that—what is he staring at?

"Eat shit!" a walking, talking raccoon shouts while firing a huge blaster rifle at the soldiers from the shoulders of a walking tree. "Yeah, how do you like the taste of that!"

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OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK

Sun, 09 Jun 2019 06:07:25 GMT

what have i done

says the brain that thought it would be a really fucking great idea writing a Princess Bride AU for Tron and fucking wrote and finished The Mummy AU for Dragon Age. says the brain that still has two different outlines for a Stardust AU for both Supernatural and... some other fandom I know I swear I know I was thinking up one for another fandom jfc

what have i done

says the brain that is still writing a canon-compliant Star Trek fic but is now brainstorming a hideous idea based on Chris Hemsworth playing George Kirk and Thor, and the sheer joy I got out of watching Carol Danvers go binary on the Kree. it is a hideous, hideous idea involving the plot points of Thor Ragnarok and Captain Marvel and the TOS episode "Conscience of a King" and the 2009 Star Trek.

Oh, and the Guardians are in this one, too.

and when the internal logic is sound? oh dear god does the brain fucking go

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27 years since it all began, 10 years since the rediscovery, 6 years since I wrote the plot.

Sun, 19 May 2019 16:44:48 GMT

I do things like look at my writing statistics, like what fandoms and what characters and what ships. Mostly what fandoms and what ships have I written for, and it's a tidy little group of disasters. Since 2008, I've written a fic for a ship in every fandom I've been in and by "fic" I mean "actual fucking plot and shit" -- except maybe Doctor Who but I never felt really comfortable with any Who ships -- and since 2010 I really mean "fucking actual fucking plot and shit" and you can see it in my later output on AO3... except for Star Trek.

The '09 movie that relaunched my love obviously falls before 2010 (and was my birthday movie and was the most exhilarating experience ever) and I really fucking hated Into Darkness. I never saw Beyond in theaters because 1) it's like Paramount tried to bury that fucking movie which was really fucking fantastic and blended TOS/AOS a whole lot fucking better than Into Darkness ever fucking could, and 2) I'm generally really horrible at getting out in time to see movies because mom ingrained in me this belief that I should only see movies with other people and she hates movies I like to watch so I never went out.... ha ha boy did that fucking change with the later MCU movies and Into the Spiderverse jfc it is so fucking hard unlearning her fucking bullshit.

But I'm falling out of love with the MCU and Dragon Age is just full-on stress and I'm just too tired/busy to pick up something new. Why not look back on the stuff I started but never finished? Why not see if I can wrap that shit up? Look at this monstrous SPN fic. I should finish it. I put so much into it so I should fucking finish it.

And look at this Star Trek plot. Remember what you tried to do? Do you still want to do it? Do you really want to reopen that can of worms? We're a different person now. We know better, and by "know better" I mean fuck the rules, fuck the gatekeepers, fuck your sense of inadequacy. We have never fucking written a proper plotty Jim/Bones fic and that ship is still one of your fucking favorite ships and you have this entire plot lined out so let's pick it up again, let's pick it up and fucking go.

I did start a TOS marathon. I haven't finished it yet because 1) I'm fucking busy and 2) the voices were crossing over and AOS is not there yet. They don't have that maturity and class and polish yet. They're still young and raw and rough n' tumble. Let's bridge the gap. Let's rewrite your memory of Into Darkness. Let's use everything you learned since you wrote that Tron fic three fucking times.

Because I have the screenplay now. I have Memory-Alpha and Memory-Beta. I have friends who know classic Trek and can advise me. I have friends who tell me what to keep an eye on when writing about advanced photon torpedoes (missiles, they're missiles, they're fucking missiles). I have tools at my disposal and a movie that still infuriates me and a plot that haunts me and a ship I never gave my proper due to.

I have over 88,000 words and I just reached the third act and I just finished the scene I dreamed about writing for six years and when I'm done I'm rewriting all those words again to give this story its polish and I don't care if I'm six fucking years too late because I have the story I wanted to tell for so fucking long.

And maybe I'll be done in time for the next NaNoWriMo and my next attempt at writing in my original world.

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I can't understand my icon descriptions anymore.

Mon, 04 Mar 2019 19:46:00 GMT

What do any of them mean????????? I have to pull up the thumbnails to know what I want. I also don't have enough "fuck this" and "I'm tired" icons. No lying down and staring into the endless void that is existence because the older you get the more you scream internally.

Trekfic has crossed the 40k mark and I'm like "How do I post this anywhere????" It's been six fucking years, what's my excuse? We've gone and done Beyond and Discovery is on TV and so is that Orville show l m a o we've moved on, we've moved the fuck on but I haven't because I'm a bitter petty old asshole with nine million and one grudges who needs to rewrite shit because it's much healthier than seething forever.

I'm still slowly posting my 2010 DCBB fic tho so there's that. I miss space and joy and brilliantly cast people wrapped up in brilliant aesthetics and all the potential within their grasp. I guess I miss that effortlessly effervescent potential of 2009 before reality hit and dragged everything down.

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And this is just the OUTLINE.

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 11:21:03 GMT

20k words worth of outlines. Yes, outlines. Because I wanted to try out this phase outline method but needed a structure to build off of first. So, a bullet point outline hitting all the key plot points and then a phase outline that'll guide me through each beat as I write. The goal and hope is to shorten the writing time by a lot by removing guesswork and the hemming and hawing that comes with working off a bare bones outline or no outline whatsoever. It sure as heck did keep me from committing plot holes and other errors.

I'm six years late but this fic is six years' worth of anger finally shoveling itself out of my head forever. Honestly, if not for the rampant racism and sexism and general lack of awareness I would've allowed this movie to exist but this damn movie committed too many crimes and nothing the excellent Star Trek Beyond did could help me forgive it. So we rewrite and we reinvent.

Jim Kirk's mom has a role now and she and Jim are very bad at being mom and son but dammit they are trying. TOS characters like Janice Lester and Roger Korby have different roles now, and boy did I have a fun time explaining how this side of fandom works to a Friend who obsesses over little details like differences between the Enterprise models from movie to movie and didn't understand the appeal of rewriting something that already exists and is canon. I mean, fuck's sake the idiots turned Carol Marcus into a weapons specialist just to get her involved in a real shitty Wrath of Khan remake that failed to understand why WOK worked in the first fucking place. It's an alternate reality and the Narada showing up to blow up the Kelvin unprovoked created such a ripple effect that Jim Kirk and Bones McCoy switched eye colors. Why not have fun and reimagine TOS characters? It's not like I'm turning Korby into a black market weapons dealer or anything. That's Mudd's role.

In a way I'm glad I took this long to go back and write the actual damn fic. I have a better understanding of how I write shipfic and how to do better, and I also already have a "friends to lovers" fic under my belt. That's the nice thing about the phase outline; I get to add in scenes that wouldn't have a place in bullet point outlines and I can map out these developments and arcs to a degree I've never done before. We're not keeping this shit locked up in our heads anymore. It's bad for everyone. Instead I get to drop in a few words here and there about Sulu's boyfriend, remind myself where Jim notices that Spock and Uhura are having relationship issues and how, and all the ways Jim and Bones are space married without them realizing it while everybody else does because that's one of my all-time favorite tropes. It's my goddamn jam. I can't fucking wait for Winona's 1-on-1 with Bones and Jim (in that order) and she's already figured it out because everyone say's Jim's his father's son but he and Winona both know he is definitely his mother's.

Been rereading my Trekfic bookmarks while I'm at it and been (re)watching TOS while I'm at it with periodic visits to '09 because different voices, different aesthetics, different feel, same vision. What I think STID should've done is show that vision going awry as a long-term consequence of the Narada's fuckery and Jim being at the heart of the attempt to course-correct it. Which is what my fic is all about. But the trick is to not let that eat him away. Determine your own future, kid.

Meanwhile AOS 4 is in development hell while the TOS timeline is going all in on TV again. This is why you need my kind of fandom, Friend. Stop analyzing the shit out of starships and reinvent everything.

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It's 2019

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 08:22:49 GMT

but really it's 2006 and also 2009 which is why I'm digging deep into a Zutara blog and rereading every single jimbones fic I bookmarked.

Also this year didn't want to end and it went on for too fucking long and things that happened this year felt like they happened last year or several years ago and oh god why is time like this why is anything like this fucking why

also Mr. Sunshine transformed my 2018 NaNo project and my original fiction in general and Black Panther was so fucking revolutionary and revelatory that I stopped writing Dragon Age to write a 50k Wakandafic and then Spider-Man: Into The Spider-verse happened and holy fucking shit best superhero film, best comics film, best film of 2018 much!? but also I picked up too many fucking games but two of the games = WE'RE STAR TREKKING AGAIN, BITCHES so there's that

also I need to draw more. good yearlong resolution amirite

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~don't look back~ (definitely look back)

Sun, 30 Dec 2018 07:33:18 GMT

December's been nothing but a trip back in time. Rereading old bookmarks, rereading old fics, trying to finish old fics, and now I've stumbled on some beautiful Zutara meta and remembering that feeling again.

Shipping utterly destroyed TLA/TLOK for me. What a toxic fandom and what a toxic age for me to discover it. You'd think Kingdom Hearts was bad but good god. The shit I said, the shit people said, all turned into a fucking cesspool of poison and I have never been able to think kindly on it since. I will never see Season 3 of ATLA and I will never watch more than the first two episodes of ATLOK and I will always be fucking bitter about fandom taking it all away from me. But because I'm a fucking idiot it took me too many fucking years to finally understand that fandom is not worth ruining things you love and ruining friendships and staining your image over some goddamn fucking ships. Fucking sucks that I learn shit so slow.

Anyway, knowing that I got out before bryke fucked over their own story is satisfying enough. Reading beautiful meta and remembering why you Ship That is a balm for the soul. I can't reach far back enough to remember what kind of ATLA fic I was planning to write and I don't need to because there is a beautiful fic that's everything I wanted and needed.

But I am reaching back for my trekfic because it's not that old, I still can't forgive Into Darkness for existing and butchering the AOS, we'll probably never get a fourth Trek unless TPTB and the Chrises figure shit out, and some ships I will fucking sail forever.

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i fucked up

Fri, 28 Dec 2018 12:01:32 GMT

If you guys can chip in a bit so that I can get at least $20 in my account AFTER fees, I'd be so grateful.

teal deer: I have Mom 10000% convinced I absolutely need a JavaScript cert in order to guarantee a job (she continues to be fucking delusional about this shit but that's for another day) and she's been hounding me for 2+ months. I didn't check the website thoroughly and told her the exam was for free, but of course it's not for free, nothing is for free. The damn exam costs $95 (I can take it twice) and I don't have that kind of fucking money when I also have bills to pay and am also currently jobless because I decided to get into UX design. So I set up a ko-fi to help me and I thought I did get the money.... except turns out some of the purchases I made that I thought was charged to my debit card WAS CHARGED TO MY PAYPAL so no I don't have enough money and Mom expects me to have passed the exam before New Year's Eve and Idk what the fuck to do. I know I should just tell her I made a mistake and the exam actually costs money but then I'd have to put up with her belittling bullshit about how I should automatically know how to adult since I'm over 18 years old, how could I fuck this up again, and I can't deal with that.

So if anyone can help me out I'd be grateful. Honestly I don't even need all $35 I'm asking for. I'm just doing that to guarantee $20 after Paypal deducts their fee. Please help me. I just want to pass this stupid exam so that Mom can shut up about it and I can focus 100% on applying for jobs :(

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But hear me out.

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 11:06:53 GMT

On the upside, I am older and more cynical and too jaded to let a thousand doubting voices in my head stop me from adding Star Trek to my gang of longfics (and no, we're not doing Star Wars because that's just a whole can of worms I'm not touching). I also have a battle plan for tackling the writing bit.

Downside is, well, fuck me, we're really doing this aren't we.

( We are reeeeeaaaaaally doing this, aren't we. )

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are you KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW BRAIN OMIGOD

Sun, 16 Dec 2018 10:49:43 GMT

How the ever-lovin' fuck did my one-off side blog ranting nonsense about Star Trek Into Darkness and, apparently, Agents of SHIELD get 37 fucking notes on a post written at a time when I was dumber and stupider in every possible way. I read it just now and the contents don't scream "MORE THAN 10 PPL PLEASE LIKE LIKE THIS".

But wonders of wonders, I found a more thoughtful post that managed to get 11 notes on it that discussed the Trek longfic I wanted to write, which is nice because.... well.... um....

Been six long goddamn years but one day I was looking at my AO3 works and counted completed longfics (more than 10k words) for Dragon Age, Black Panther, Mass Effect, Tron, and a we-are-slowly-getting-there Supernatural WIP from 2010 but nothing for Star Trek. Combine this with me dabbling in Star Trek Fleet Command and Star Trek Timelines and, well.

*digs old plot and old words out of the dirt and dust*

Now, where were we?

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BEEN WAITING TO DO THIS SINCE.... 2014 MAYBE?

Fri, 07 Dec 2018 10:36:28 GMT

So PROBABLY the image should be the minimum width which is 760px but dear god the giant gray gap in the header due to my fuckoff widescreen laptop was driving me nuts so I intentionally made a brand new header that would fit right in..... that was like.... over an hour searching for pics and textures and remembering how to make banners happen. Also I had to sit around and think "what have been my obsessions lately????" because Fandom is a dumpster fire and I am bitter about EVERYTHING.

Pity this isn't a responsive layout. Oh yeah, I learned enough CSS to get a better handle on what to tinker with in code. That was neat.

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dreaming about | the things that we could be

Holding patterns.

A Quick Note On A Family's Culinary Preferences

*taps mic* Is this thing on?

Time is a fucking circle.

A(n) (Re)Introduction

Fall Ceaning

It's a Nonstop "You In Danger" Zone

The unfinished things.

The Unbearable Unbearableness of Perception

New master post, who dis?

DANGEROUS DREAMS & Din/Luke Masterpost

DANGEROUS DREAMS

The Storm

The Suns

Between Planets

The Stars

DIN/LUKE AUs

Sweater Weather

Parhelion

Meteors

Gravity Well

So.

books books books

Even I forgot that I still go here.

BEHOLD THE HELL BRAIN

OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK

27 years since it all began, 10 years since the rediscovery, 6 years since I wrote the plot.

I can't understand my icon descriptions anymore.

And this is just the OUTLINE.

It's 2019

~don't look back~ (definitely look back)

i fucked up

But hear me out.

are you KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW BRAIN OMIGOD

BEEN WAITING TO DO THIS SINCE.... 2014 MAYBE?

taps mic Is this thing on?