spacetimeconundrum

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!

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... )

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.

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.

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:


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... )

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!

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*

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!

I made a shirt:


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.

All entries are Fraser/Kowalski unless otherwise noted. Some fics are listed under multiple subject headings.


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( CPD Fraternization Rules Would Not Approve )
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( It Happened One Night (On Stakeout) )
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( Ray Moves to Canada )
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( Weddings, Kid!fic, and Family Feels )
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( Oh, Victoria )
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( Body Swaps and Gender Changes )
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( Sex Pollen )
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( Crossovers )
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( On the Question of Sexuality )
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( You Look Like You Could Use a Backstory )
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( Time Travel )
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( This is Not Happily Ever After )
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( Gen Fic )