October!

Oct. 3rd, 2022 10:57 pm
spacetimeconundrum: Benton Fraser petting Diefenbaker as they sit by a campfire at night. (campfire)
Spooky season is upon us once again! (aka I'm very good at updating this regularly, aren't I?)

Updates on the latest in my world:
Writing: regrettably, this was simply not my year to finish a dSC6D Big Bang fic, however I *did* just finish up a complimentary piece for the collection, so keep your eyes peeled for that when the big reveal comes soon.
Vague hopes of getting a sequel to the werewolf firefighters fic I wrote earlier this year done in time for Halloween. We'll see.

Adventures: Canada!
I actually just got home from my first ever visit to our neighbors up north (and in fact the first proper TRIP I've taken since before the pandemic). Flying again was... nerve wracking, but Vancouver was beautiful and I'd love to visit it again in the future. My inner due South nerd was amused to have run across a store entirely dedicated to RCMP merch (I didn't buy anything, but I did get a good laugh at the Mountie uniform apron). There were so many trees, pre-season NHL hockey, tiny boat rides, and probably more walking than was strictly kind to my knees.

Sewing:
Schemes are afoot for a Halloween costume. I actually purchased part of it, thinking I'd save myself time and effort, but the pants weren't quite up to standard quality or fit-wise, so I'm going to remake them properly.

Hope you're all safe and well!
spacetimeconundrum: Benton Fraser petting Diefenbaker as they sit by a campfire at night. (campfire)
I blinked and it's been half a year since I posted here, sorry.

Between jobs at the moment, but work has been reasonably steady this year, so things are fine enough there I suppose. I've already got feelers out there for the next gig, so I've been trying to put any time off to good use - not cleaning, like I really ought to be doing, but writing.

I've sorta fallen head-first into a new fandom this year, having finally succumb to the siren call of repeated tumblr gif exposure to the wiles of 9-1-1 and its cast of extremely compelling (pretty) firefighters. So of course the inevitable happened - I wrote werewolf fic about it:

Of Monsters and Firemen - T, 17.5k; Evan Buckley/Eddie Diaz; in which I take the season four finale and add werewolves to it because I can. (There's also some nice 'best friends to lovers' and hot firefighting action, if that's your jam.)

Speaking of werewolf stories, I also wrote a prequel story about Fraser's first full moon as a werewolf to slot into my due South werewolf series -

Subatomic Particles Bursting in Air or Lycanthropy - T, 3.9k; post Fortitude Pass angst, a bit of Victoria Metcalf backstory too.

Neither of these are the story I planned to be writing (taking another attempt at the due South Big Bang this year) but words are words and I'm not unhappy to have written them.

Hope you're all well and staying safe out there.


spacetimeconundrum: head of husky in 3/4 view with snowy sunset background (diefenbaker)
Happy 2022 everyone! I hope you're all staying healthy and warm out there this January.

I don't think I've made a secret of the fact that this past year was a bit of a rough one for me (and many of you too, I'm sure) mental health-wise.* And yet, according to AO3, 2021 was somehow my most productive year so far in terms of writing: 58,500 words! That's basically a whole novel's worth of fiction! So for fun, let's look back on all the things I wrote in 2021:

Not the Time Dad- Due South, Gen, 600 words, Benton Fraser, Bob Fraser, Diefenbaker, werewolves, awkward conversations
Bob picks an inconvenient moment to drop in on his son.


Short scene / entry into my Due South, but Make Everyone Werewolves series that I wrote in May, in an attempt to shake free of writer's block (I hadn't been able to write anything since late November at that point.) It worked, because I was finally able to start making progress on my C6D Big Bang fic after this. And any excuse to write Bob Fraser should be embraced, really.

A Canadian Werewolf in Las Vegas- Due South, T, 29.7k, Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, Ray Vecchio, Victoria Metcalf, werewolves, Las Vegas, established relationship, kid!fic, family feels, road trips
“It’s… look, there’s no good way to say this. It’s Victoria. She’s in Vegas, in Intensive Care..."


Originally the idea for this story came to me in the summer of 2020, but I lacked the time and energy to get more than a few scenes written before that year's C6D Big Bang, so I put it on the agenda for 2021 instead. Written in concentrated bursts while working an obscenely stressful job this summer, I'm incredibly proud of this story, even if it's gotten far less attention than a few of my others this past year. It's about the unexpected shapes family can take, forgiveness, and yes, werewolves. (It's also part of the aforementioned werewolf AU series.) Plus, it's pretty funny in places, or at least I think so. (If you haven't jumped into this one yet because kid!fic and/or Victoria aren't your jam, I get that, but I promise this story isn't what you're expecting it to be.)

Icing the Pack - Due South, G, 6.9k, Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, Ray Vecchio, hockey AU, werewolves, didn't know they were dating
Ben Fraser is an NHL defenseman in Chicago. When his best friend is traded to Florida for a late round draft pick and a scrappy right winger a few years from retirement, he isn't expecting his entire life to change. Or the secret his new teammate is hiding...


Written in August immediately after I wrapped up work on A Canadian Werewolf in Las Vegas because I was still buzzing with writing energy and wanted to use it, this was the product of a Discord conversation where I asked my friends there what I should write. The suggestion I got was "werewolf hockey player Ray K and suspicious teammate Fraser", which, if you know me well, you also know that this was something I absolutely HAD to write immediately. I had a lot of fun writing it and am particularly proud of the jump scare. You don't really need to know anything about hockey to enjoy it, but it can't hurt.

A Little Less Conversation (A Little More Action) - Due South, T, 9.6k, Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, Elvis, Renfield Turnbull, Francesca Vecchio, Harding Welsh, accidental marriage, fake/pretend relationship, modern setting
Ray and Fraser accidentally get married. Well, as accidentally as one can deliberately go through all the required steps to marry someone and then somehow be surprised by the result. It's complicated.


Also written in August, after leaving the terrible job that was making me miserable, this turned out to be the most popular out of anything I wrote in 2021. Another product of zany Discord discussions, this story started as a joking comment about how I wanted to write an accidental marriage plot that snowballed into a fully formed story in nearly record time. I'd already written one Vegas-set story, how about another? I also set it in the vaguely present-day, instead of the late 90s, because marriage equality is way more fun, especially when you're trying to write a silly 'oh no, I accidentally married my best friend in Vegas' storyline. Ray and Fraser succumb to peer-pressure, Turnbull bonds with a stripper, feelings are felt, there's a shower scene, it's a good time.

Drop It Like It's Hot
- Due South, M, 11.6k, Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, Renfield Turnbull, Bob Fraser, curses, magical realism, first time, crack treated seriously
What do you get when you mix two Mounties, a Chicago police detective, a half-wolf, and an opinionated ghost with a bit of cursed pottery? A little romance, if you're lucky.


My entry into this year's due South Seekrit Santa, and the reason I couldn't write this post until after New Year's. I wrote this for Wicked3659, who is a good friend and frequent enabler (she's already convincing me to write more silly things for this year, so you all have that to look forward to), and requested some magical case fic for F/K. I gave her a cursed vase, ghost shenanigans, and possibly the steamiest scene I've ever written (again, so far).
Read more... )

Hockey!

Sep. 25th, 2021 01:00 am
spacetimeconundrum: Benton Fraser, hockey player, in the penalty box. (hockey Fraser)
Realized it's been a hot minute since I updated here.

Since my last post, I've been busy:

- I saw my family for the first time in over a year and a half! It was really good to see them. Hopefully we'll have time to head over again soon.

- Mom sent me home with a new sewing machine. It belonged to my great grandmother, who was an excellent seamstress, and has been sitting unused in mom's sewing room for more than a decade. It's very fancy and I've been working on new sewing projects as a result. I'll post some pictures at some point soon, but so far I've made two shirts and a sundress.

- Work! I ended up finding another temp job almost immediately after leaving the Terrible Job I Had To Run Away From, so that was nice. It might be wrapping up soon, but I'm feeling a little better about my decision to leave the other thing and my prospects of finding more work in the near future.

- Wrote another thing; I posted it to the bulletin board, but in case you haven't read it yet: archiveofourown.org/works/33594559 A Little Less Conversation (A Little More Action) - due South, Fraser/RayK - accidental marriage, fake/pretend relationship, Elvis, modern AU. Ray and Fraser accidentally get married. Well, as accidentally as one can deliberately go through all the required steps to marry someone and then somehow be surprised by the result. It's complicated.

- I joined a hockey league! Yes, in a fit of madness, I decided to JUST DO THE THING and sign up for an adult beginners league and play ice hockey again. Last time I played ice hockey was literally 20 years ago, so it's gonna be a learning experience. I had my first practice tonight and it... was an adventure. I'm going to have to retrain my brain on a lot of the skating skills, because it turns out there are a few pertinent differences between roller skates and ice hockey skates *cough*toestops*cough* but hey, I'm not gonna let a few deeply embarrassing falls stop me from having fun! I wasn't the worst player on the ice, and I also wasn't the only woman, so I'm feeling pretty good about how this is gonna go.

spacetimeconundrum: Benton Fraser, hockey player, in the penalty box. (hockey Fraser)
Officially unemployed again. Planning to visit family later this week. I'll be good to see everyone again.

In other news: writing has happened!

Finished my dSC6D BB fic before the deadline, which means it WILL be posting in October and it WILL be eligible for a complimentary work. Final wordcount was more than 29k. No, I don't know how I managed that.

And finally, coming off finishing the BB fic, I still had some writing energy buzzing, so I took suggestions off Discord (some of which I think I'll end up writing later), but this was the most immediate result: Icing the Pack (Fraser/RayK, 6900 words) If you like hockey and/or werewolves, this may be the due South fic for you. I wrote it in two days, so it could be terrible, it could be great. I lack the perspective necessary to evaluate that. Let me know if you enjoy it.

Hope you're all staying safe and well out there.

spacetimeconundrum: White wolf sleeping in a field of grass and flowers. (Default)
Checking in. Life, as it tends to, has continued on, and things are for the first time in a year and a half, beginning to resume pre-pandemic activities. It's been a weird month.

- Roller derby is (kinda) back - we're starting slow, no contact for the first month, with plans to gradually re-introduce contact in the following month. We're skating outdoors and wearing masks when possible, but mostly relying on the efficacy of the vaccines that have been widely available since mid-April and the fact that the case rate in CA has dropped precipitously as a result. I'm still feeling a bit like a feral cat whenever I go out, but it's been so, so good to see my friends again.

- Writing is happening - I've been making actual progress on my BB fic, hopeful that this means I'll have it finished in time for the deadline. Fingers crossed. I'm making Fraser suffer many indignities, it's fun.

- New job has been challenging. It started okay, then they asked me to do something new on a tight deadline and I had an absolutely miserable week that made me want to quit everything, and then there was this last week, which was notably better. I don't know. Hopefully it continues to get better. Keeping my eyes open for other jobs that might pop up in the meantime, because that seems like the sensible thing to do.

- Took my first concrete steps towards making a return to hockey by buying myself a new pair of ice hockey skates. I last played in high school, literally 20 years ago now, and after watching absolutely ridiculous quantities of NHL hockey over the long months of The Plague Year, I found myself feeling a pretty strong itch to go back to it. I'm tentatively planning to join a local beer league in the fall, ideally one with a schedule that meshes well with my roller derby commitments, provided I can assemble all the gear I need by then, and the job situation is stable enough to support the cost. I'm sort of hoping the decade+ of roller derby will translate into decent skating skills that will compensate for how absolutely terrible I'm going to be at puck handling at first.

Better?

May. 7th, 2021 06:18 pm
spacetimeconundrum: head of husky in 3/4 view with snowy sunset background (diefenbaker)
Started a new job this week. Yes, that means I was successful in my efforts to find more work after the last temp job ended! This one should be longer term, maybe even permanent, depending on how it goes. It's a bit different than my usual fare, and in many respects that's what I've been wanting to do - transition to different, more challenging work, but on the other hand, not sure how I feel about it just yet? I'm assuming it'll get less stressful once I've settled in more and gotten more familiar with everything.

Second vaccine dose is this Sunday, so I guess that means I'd better get a few things I've been procrastinating on done tomorrow in case I have a stronger reaction to this shot. First one was mostly a sore arm for a couple days, maybe a little more tired day-of. This means I'll be fully vaccinated and can go see my family again soon! ...except I have no idea how the new job thing is gonna impact my ability to leave town for a few days yet. Sigh. I'll figure something out. Hopefully I can just say to the new job, "hey, I haven't seen my family in over a year because of the pandemic, I'm gonna need a few days this summer" and they'll understand.

Actual writing happened! It's not much, but it's something: archiveofourown.org/works/31065011
"Not the Time, Dad" - more from my dS werewolf verse, just Fraser having an awkward conversation with his dad, as you do.

spacetimeconundrum: Benton Fraser, hockey player, in the penalty box. (hockey Fraser)
Long time, no post. It's been... well, it's been rough, but today is a good day. Since last update:

Read more... )
spacetimeconundrum: White wolf sleeping in a field of grass and flowers. (Default)
Been a hot minute since I posted anything here. In part, because there hasn't been much to say; not been making much progress on writing or art at the moment, and not been in a great place, mentally. HOWEVER, I have accomplished some sewing, so, may I present what I've dubbed the Mountie Coat, inspired by Fraser's very nice peacoat, shown here:
Still from due South episode The Edge, Benton Fraser standing outside, wearing his blue uniform overcoat and stetson. In the background, Ray Vecchio is falling over in the snow.

I've wanted a coat like his for roughly 20 years now, since I first watched the show, so, since I've got nothing better to do right now, I decided to Do Something About That and make myself a coat!
:Coat pics follow... )

2021

Jan. 1st, 2021 01:44 pm
spacetimeconundrum: White wolf sleeping in a field of grass and flowers. (Default)
Happy New Year!

Discord due South virtual NYE party last night went well, we shall have to do that again sometime. Husband and I split a bottle of inexpensive but tasty champagne, as is becoming our tradition, and I wore a sparkly flapper dress around the house, because if we're going to repeat the awful bits of the 1920s, we ought to at least get some of the fun bits too.

The dSSS entries were revealed this morning, and I did fairly well on my guesses, earned myself a lovely banner:
Guess the Creator: SpaceTimeConundrum 2nd Place
My contribution and everyone else's brilliant creations can be found here: archiveofourown.org/collections/dsss_2020

My goals for 2021:
- avoid the plague
- find work
- get a dog

The bar for being better than last year is so low, let's all work to make sure we actually clear it though!

Voice

Dec. 20th, 2020 02:09 am
spacetimeconundrum: Benton's Fraser's Stetson, cradled in his arm. (Fraser's hat)
December's Grading Hell has officially ended in our household, thank goodness, and I was able to finish my dSSS gift in time (was a near thing, because I ended up having to help husband stay sane and keep working through the grade calculation madness)!

So naturally, today, instead of working on the mini comic I'm making for a second gift exchange I optimistically signed up for, and only have half done, even though I only have three more days to finish it, I did some experimentation with recording Dramatic Readings of a couple famous Tumblr posts. My thought being - I'd really love to record podfic, but since this isn't something I've tried before, it seemed like a good idea to try something small to figure out the software and other technical aspects of it.

Conclusions: Maybe this is a thing I could do? I have neither great equipment nor a particularly good space to record clean audio in, but the resulting recordings weren't unlistenably bad either, and the software is reasonably straightforward. (Listening to my own voice over and over again while editing was a definite twitchy moment though, that'll take some getting used to.) I'll probably make my first real podfic attempt using my own fic, but depending on my success there I may or may not be convinced to tackle others' fic (there are quite a few delightful podfics of dS fic out there that I've enjoyed, but there are also a great many amazing fics that have yet to be podficced, and I'd love to contribute there).

All of this of course, being a project for AFTER I get this comic completed, so stay tuned!
spacetimeconundrum: head of husky in 3/4 view with snowy sunset background (diefenbaker)
My 2020 Treat Yo Self present has finally arrived!
Torso-only photo of woman wearing purple Arizona Coyotes jersey, featured in the center of the jersey is a large kachina-style coyote head with mountains and cactus design along the bottom third of the sweater..
It's so pretty, I'm delighted!
spacetimeconundrum: White wolf sleeping in a field of grass and flowers. (Default)
Turns out the reason they were being vague about how much longer the job was going to continue was because the answer was... it wasn't.

*heavy sigh*
spacetimeconundrum: White wolf sleeping in a field of grass and flowers. (Default)
So. That election sure did happen, huh? My reaction has been basically "thank fuck" combined with exhausted dread for the mediocrity to come. Next couple months at least are gonna be ROUGH in this country, that's for damn sure. The Gritty memes were pretty solid though.

Temp gig has been kind of a grind and really stressful, but I'm glad to have the paycheck for as long as it lasts. (How much longer will it? A few more days, a few weeks? Who knows! They're being vague and mysterious about it!)

Finished my dS C6D Big Bang work by the skin of my teeth just before the deadline. That goes live on (American) Thanksgiving I believe, so there's that to look forward to. (It's art AND fic, oooooooh!)

Speaking of the upcoming holidays, I recently realised that, as of Thanksgiving, it will have been a full year since we've seen any family in person. That's... less than ideal. I really ought to see about organizing some sort of group video chat family game night or something, since we're not gonna be eating turkey and cranberry sauce together. (tbh I guess we won't be eating turkey at all since the spouse hates it and I'm not particularly attached to it as a food. Maybe we'll get some pumpkin pie though. mmm... pie...)

One bright spot - twitter.com/ArizonaCoyotes/status/1329247391518638080
In a blatantly obvious bid to recoup lost revenues, the NHL released new remixed versions of retro jerseys this week, and the Coyotes opted to release an updated version of my absolute favorite hockey jersey ever (the last time I bought a jersey, literally 20 freaking years ago, it was the original green version of this). So, yeah. I bought the thing after my husband looked at me and said, "just buy the damn jersey; it'll make you happy and you should get one nice thing this year." Which, fair enough. And now I'll be very stylishly attired in a year or two when it's finally safe to go to hockey games again. Will post pics when it arrives.

That's about all the ranting and rambling I have in me this evening, so have a good night everyone, and stay safe out there!

An Update

Oct. 24th, 2020 11:24 pm
spacetimeconundrum: White wolf sleeping in a field of grass and flowers. (Default)
Cause for mild celebration - I have acquired a new (temporary) job!

After months of searching, employment came knocking in the form of a call back from an agency I'd previously applied to and heard nothing back from. It remains to be seen how long this project will last (I was told anywhere from 2 weeks - early December perhaps), but even a brief stint of real paid work will keep the wolves at the door at bay a little while longer. The on-boarding process with the new agency has involved a great deal of unpleasant hoop-jumping, but I've tried to remind myself that this is also a foot in the door; if I prove myself to be valuable or at least non-flaky on this project, they're more likely to consider me for future projects. A week in, I'm hopeful that I've done a decent job on that end, but it's honestly extremely hard to evaluate your own performance when everything is remote and both your bosses and coworkers are faceless names on a computer database.

I've been spending my weekend finalizing my ballot, because as per usual, California has a number of propositions up for vote that require actual research in order to decide which box to check and I know next to nothing about most of the people up for local offices. In a bit of irony, I've mostly been bombarded the last few weeks with emails and political text messages concerning races that are occurring in states I no longer live in. Special shoutout to those foolhardy campaigns who spent money for election data that is several years out of date. Everything for CA has been confined to the truly astonishing number of campaign mailers that have been stuffed in my mailbox for the past several months. (Protip for future campaigns - if I've seen your name in my mailbox more than once, odds are I now hate you and have been shoving all of your mailers into a box to be shredded later. Stop sending me shit.)

Congress continues to be useless. Clearly, they're not gonna get anything stimulus-related done before the election. This is gonna be an ugly winter in the United States regardless of how the election turns out.

A very good friend of mine who lives in another state is running for public office there and seems to be doing well in his race, so fingers crossed that he's successful.

I remember thinking as a kid that 2020 would be the first election year I'd be eligible to run for president, but now that we're here it seems absurd to even contemplate such nonsense; there's no way I would want or be qualified to perform such a job and yet, if pressed, I'd say I'm definitely more qualified than the current holder of said office, so maybe one of these day's I'll actually make good on my constant grumbled threats to run for public office and do it. (Obviously, starting smaller than the presidency.)

Stay safe out there everyone!
spacetimeconundrum: Benton's Fraser's Stetson, cradled in his arm. (Fraser's hat)
My week could be best summarized by the following:

1) bleh, it's hot and sticky

Heat wave plus no job means I haven't put on actual pants in well over a week. This is fine. I need to up my hydration game though.

2) more hockey than you can shake a stick at

My team embarrassed themselves (repeatedly) and Colorado sent them packing home from the NHL bubble on Wednesday, so that means I'm just recreationally watching now, as opposed to before when there was much more shouting at my computer screen.

3) art!!!

Fraser and Ray K's hypothetical wedding photo - tumblr / AO3

Hawks and Hands illustrations - tumblr / AO3 (more hockey, whoops)




spacetimeconundrum: White wolf sleeping in a field of grass and flowers. (Default)
I made a shirt:
Torso-only photo of woman wearing yellow button-down short sleeved shirt. Shirt fabric has pink heart-themed cartoon owls all over it.

Not sure if I'm going to make another shirt next, or another dress. Have materials for both. In the meantime, I've been entertaining myself by writing (you've all seen that post I'm sure), watching unreasonably large quantities of hockey, and drawing.

There will be dS art-request art and some hockey-themed pieces soon. I have about four drawings that need color / finishing. Stay tuned.



spacetimeconundrum: White wolf sleeping in a field of grass and flowers. (Default)
Apparently I went into some sort of writing fugue state yesterday and this is the result:

Synonyms for Disaster  - https://archiveofourown.org/works/25821961

Summary:
Angry skinny Polish werewolf detectives from Chicago with experimental hair.

Tags: Fraser/RayK, werewolf AU, angst with a happy ending, Stella/RayK divorce, unhealthy coping mechanisms, not talking about it, frankly a lot of swearing

It's a companion piece to my earlier fic, Pack as a Metaphor -
https://archiveofourown.org/works/24410722


If you're a fan of werewolves, or Ray Kowalski generally, you'll probably like it.

 

spacetimeconundrum: White wolf sleeping in a field of grass and flowers. (Default)
Operation: Sew Something So At Least You're Doing Something has produced a tangible RESULT!

Behold, a dress )

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