EXCHANGE INTERFACE

Quilts are getting along. One was easy - done and dusted, just need to get the label and the sleeve on, and I can do those pretty easy.

The other...I started quilting it, and then realised the quilting was awful - wrinkly and a problem and not good.

So I unpicked it. All of it. UGH.

I want to do handsewing on it, but I won't have time between now and Sunday. So I think I'm going to be doing some stitch-in-the-ditch quilting to settle it all down., and then add the handsewing at my leisure.

--

Got two fics in for Zutara Week 2026, have to finish the other half of the first, and I had an idea for a third story, but I don't think I'll manage all of it during ZK week. Given all this work stuff and the quilting stuff...

Next week gadget! NEXT WEEK!

--

During September, I've decided I'll go see stepbro2 and SSIL up in their country town, and maybe visit some friends who settled on a property up by the Northern Rivers.

Working this Saturday - about 4 hours. I get time off in lieu, which is better than nothing but also...kind of annoying. I didn't have that much on anyway, and can spend the day in my room, crafting and waiting for a ping of notifications.

Project Manager acknowledged the holiday. Still haven't received notification that my contract is being renewed though, but I can't imagine they have anyone else positioned to do my job yet...

All my holiday tours are paid for. Once I have the renewal of work contract, I shall go ahead and book/check my places to stay.

--

B2's strata management (HOA, but less about aesthetics more about practicalities) is wanting another payment for the 'collective kitty' for works around the building. I am personally of the opinion that this is being driven by a retiree who has invested in an apartment in the building and doesn't really care if the works are too expensive for the owner-occupiers, because she can just raise the rent on her renters and unless they want to be kicked out.

Anyway, that stresses B2 out and she comes and stresses on us...

(I tend to hide out in the study when that happens, I love B2, but she is very loud and present and I'm not always up for that. B1 seems to enjoy her being here...except when B2 is stressing on B1.)

And she won't accept assistance from the parentals (which I understand, because financial assistance to the parental generation tends to mean they feel they have a right to have a say in your life which...even I - living pretty much in a way they don't criticise as much - don't want that).

--

Will try to join in with sunshine_revival but I feel...out of it. I'm not involved in any of the fandoms that most people are involved in, and my characters and pairings are all out of joint (mostly thx to TPTB, who never seem to see in my favourites what I see in them).

I have adjusted my sign-ups and profiles and stuff to state that I'm against AI. But even putting those statements out there feels like waving a flag telling people to kick me, I'm so used to having my fannish preferences weaponised.

There's no room for in it for my brain, no space in my schedule for watching, no community to drag me along with them.

And also, I've become resigned to the fact that I will never get stories about the characters that I want. That my interests are not anywhere near the interests of the majority of viewers, and because what counts is eyeballs (or reader pages, or whatever) then the characters I love - or the archetypes I want to see - are not going to appeal to most people.

It's a little demoralising, and makes it hard to write.

Not to mention the state of the world is steadily wearing on us all. Not just the AI (fuck AI) but also the world and all it's harms. All the hopeful stories I had for analogues and spin-offs of our world are presently crumbling while watching Ukraine, Gaza, the authority of the current US Administration, the right-wingers, Christian Nationalism - not to mention all the tech issues.

*sigh*

I can't remember if it was John Green or someone else (might have been Hank Green) who said during the 2020 election process that he was hesitating over starting a new book, because a 2nd Trump administration would create a very different world to one in which 45 only managed one administration. He was, as it turns out, exceedingly prescient on that front.

After TS's endorsement, it occurred to me that I am now a childless cat lady 4eva. I mean, I knew I was one already, but the '4-eva' bit is important.

Yesterday was a very active day. (Where 'active' is relative: I spent it mostly meal-prepping some salad jars.) I decided against bible study, one part 'very annoying stitch', one part respiratory issue that doesn't seem to be going away.

Slightly sore throat. Slightly raspy breath. I got some twinges in the upper lungs, but that might also be the way I'm sitting. Or the medications, which say "don't take if you have asthma" which I don't on a medical grade, but I do have a puffer for when I get respiratory issues (which have been flaring on and off for the last five years).

I didn't go to sleep with painkillers, it's more twinges than discomfort. Anti-inflammatories and anti-biotics, yes, but I wanted to see how I'd go without painkillers. I didn't sleep really well; sort of so-so. So maybe I'll do some lighter painkillers tonight?

Today, with the help of B1, I have sown the lower lawn with clover. She doesn't like clover (because it takes over), I like it because it's hard for the chooks to kill. And it's a legume that pulls nitrogen from the air and puts it in the ground.

The south lawn has been somewhat de-lawned by the roaming of the chooks over the last six months, and I am planting things that might do better at growing and re-growing over the coming years. It's not good for the soil to be bare too long, and clover should do a decent job of covering things over.

--

Not one but two new readers going through and not only reading but commenting on my fic has made me go back through my MCU/Maria Hill stuff over the last dozen years. It's always interesting to see what prompts people to leave comments. Also, interesting to watch the way things shifted over the years.

I'm still bitter; I'll always be bitter. But it was a good run in fandom, and I made plenty of my current swathe of friends out of it. *mwah*

--

Missed out on nominating for ToT exchange, so I won't sign up, even though I never either receive an MCU:Maria Hill fic, or get assigned one, I still feel...out of place? Not quite there? Weird? ...when signing up when I haven't nominated. (Also: dozens of MCU pairings/characters, none that I'm really interested in.)

Need to work out what I want for Yuletide. Even though the last couple of years have been 'only just squeaked my assignment in'. I'll still play; it's still fun and sometimes a challenge.

Goal for writing this year is to finish The Nullifae: Agent of Change (or whatever I've called the first book) and start the first-person rewrite.

--

Smokey cat is about to start bothering me. Oh wait, no, she's settled down. Anyway, it's time to have lunch.

I'll admit, I burned out on the 'extended universes' of Star Wars back in the late 90s. Too many book series, some with excellent worldbuilding but a lot of them not about characters that I wanted to read about.

It's also...a lot? A lot of a lot? All from Disney? Bread and circuses? And I wonder how much of this is taking advantage of a sort of a 'relief/rush to normal' after the year of 2020.

I am pretty eager to see the Rogue Squadron movie - mostly because Patty Jenkins of Wonder Woman is directing it. I am hoping we get more non-males, non-whites, and non-human characters than were in the original Rogue Squadron. (But Mirax. Oh, I want a really snarky non-white Mirax Terrik whom Corran still 100% falls for and adores! Actually, I want the movie to be about Mirax. Just call it Rogue Squadron: The Smuggler's Daughter and I'm in!)

That said, really what I want (what I really really want) is a Wraith Squadron series. ( why can't Disney hire me for these ideas? )

Frankly, don't talk to me about the Marvel TV universe. I'm still bitter about a lack of Maria Hill. My salt could supply an entire ranch's worth of cattle licks. We all know this.

Additionally, I have trouble watching TV shows anymore. Doesn't matter how good it is, or how well-recommended it comes, or even who's in it. The only way you're going to get me to watch a TV show these days is by sitting me down with someone else and some snacks and anchoring me to the seat to watch it.

I think my binge-watching days are done; I have not the patience or the time for it no more. I was discussing this with a friend in the car on the drive up to hockey on Thursday night (we didn't make it; there was a truck accident on the freeway and we would have arrived with all of 10 minutes to spare) and she said, "Well, you are doing a lot of things, T."

And I thought about it and...she's kind of right. I have a lot less brainspace given all the things I've been involved in the last dozen years. I think Season 3 of Merlin, and Season 3 of Sanctuary were the last times I watched anything through - no, wait, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to the Season 2 midpoint, circa 2015. But I joined a writing social group (that turned into more of a social group than a writing one) in 2011, started doing more quilting around 2012, bought a house in 2014, joined a local church, started working on a permaculture garden...

That's a lot of things on the brain. And I've gotten into movies since then, but not TV series.

I'm reasonably certain that 80% of people reading this were innit for the fandom and, well, I'm not doing fandom or shows or movies so much lately.

I have not even looked at the trailer for Cats. And given how everyone's responding, I don't think I will. I loved the poems, I loved the musical, but...that was a long time ago.

Sarah Bessey (author of Jesus Feminist) sent out her Field Notes (kind of a newsletter) and I read it on my phone in bed on Sunday morning. And then watched the trailer for Mulan at her "it doesn't seem to suck...yet" advocation. I am...cautiously optimistic. (They didn't make Shang white did they? Please tell me they didn't make Shang white!)

In spite of never having watched Veronica Mars I find myself kind of wanting to watch the new season. Do I have to have backwatched to get what's going on, do you think? (Wait, is it even available on the subscription platforms I have? Answer: nope. So moot point.)

So far, the bits and pieces I've seen at SDCC have piqued my interest in:

• Stumptown
• Thor (Jane Foster)
• Falcon and Winter Soldier

Whether that interest translates into anything more? Another beast entirely.

Okay, so I would have been interested in Stumptown anyway. Just from the trailers, it looks very much like it was written for my personal id - from the main character down to the fact that the main character is played by Cobie Smulders.

Haven't heard anything about hawkeye, just the graphic that people have put up from SDCC. Not sure if it's going to be about Clint or about his daughter Lila, although I'm wishing they'd go with an Asian twenty-something hard-living, hard partying, give-no-fucks Kate Bishop, and have Lila growing up/becoming in the process.

But overall, the media/fannish detail is going to be few and far between from me.

Today I am wearing my Captain Marvel jacket over a black shirt, grey trousers, and under a black woolen coat.

ps. Cobie's dress-with-cape that's presently in her instagram story, where she's walking down a hotel hall at SDCC with it floating out behind her? *sigh*

I am wanting fic about one of my first fandoms where I actually interacted with other people and made friends. Unfortunately a) it's been 30 years since the first book was published, b) the author discouraged fanfic by saying "I'd rather read your original stories, why don't you write those instead" and the fandom was small enough and fledgling enough that people took it to heart, c) nobody wants to write the pairings/characters that I want to see.

And point c) is basically every fandom I ever joined, only a thousand times worse, because at least the other fandoms where I shipped the 'nobody likes it but you' option had a hundred thousand other fans, and maybe a couple of hundred were 'oh, that's an idea, I like that'.

*sigh*

Headaches. I mean, it's not even 48 hours after I got the implant out, but headaches at the right temple.

( stuff )

*sigh*

--

( we're back in fandom limbo )

--

( work )

Ugh. Life.

beatrice_otter asked: Any ways your faith has affected or been affected by your fannish experiences? (Only if you're comfortable talking about stuff like that in public.)

( Faith things )

So, I received my CB assignment and...we matched on one thing.

One thing that I can write with ease and comfort, and could quite probably put way more than the minimum 300 words into.

However, that one thing stuck out from all the other things that my CB recip had chosen in her sign-up. It was basically the scarlet poppy in a field of daisies. So I've mailed the organiser to check that the recip actually chose it and didn't make a slip of the mouse when they selected the pairings.

Still waiting; must remember to mail them again tonight to follow up.

--

Things that have been bothering me in the last year of exchanges:

In other news, has it become common to require people to fill all the requests in an assignment they're given? I had someone do this in the Pacific Rim Secret Santa, and I just got a query from someone who was concerned that they'd been assigned two fanart requests and one fanfic request when they'd offered fanfic only.

You are given multiple requests, you only have to fill one.

Also, OPTIONAL PAIRINGS ARE OPTIONAL. This cannot be said often enough in general exchanges.

Finally, can we stop reading Dear Author letters as passive-aggressive? Please? They're not rules, as such, as said the crew of the Black Pearl in Pirates of the Carribean; They're more...guidelines. It would be nice we didn't treat the requests in them like someone is going to FIRE ZE MISSILES if we aren't precisely on point with that story, and assume the worst of people who are saying, "If you can do this, it would be nice," in a non-threatening, non-assumptive manner.