Laughter Through Tears

alias_sqbr made a whole list of fandom things to do during the plague.

This Pride & Prejudice comment fic written in response to one of them looks interesting.

allbingo is having a food fest for the month of March, and they have several fun public cards.

fan_flashworks prompt for the week is circle.

I've been fulfilling my radio needs here because listening to YouTube brings up too many news video suggestions.

NaNoWriMo is over and I need to kickstart my reading habits. I tried to read Ancillary Justice but I'm having trouble getting deep enough in to be swept away, I might put it off until I have some extra mental energies. I have a number of books saved to my Kobo account that I have not yet bought, and I have a stack of TPBs. And, of course, my over-full book shelves full of smart books that I am perpetually too tired to read.

One of the last books I finished was Shira Glassman's The Second Mango but the new releases (from which she actually gets royalties) aren't on Kobo and I'd probably had to get them through Amazon or something. There are four novels in all and one short story collection, I think. But I have a lot of other options.

1. N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season is A Smart Book and also has geological tectonic magic, which is fascinating and extra appealing to me. On the con side, the excerpt I read gives me the impression of dense prose and a difficult narrator voice.

2. T. Kingfisher's (Ursula Vernon) Bryony and Roses is also an award-winner and yet it is also a fairy-tale and has that UV-brand deadpan humor that I find so comfortable.

3. Mary Robinette Kowal's Shades of Milk and Honey is a magicky regency romance, and my familiarity with the author's style means it promises to be a non-offensive f/m pairing, possibly in the vein of Sorcerer to the Crown (which was anj instant favorite). Also likely to be light and comfortable.

4. The Golem and the Jinni is that Jewish fantasy novel I have ostensibly always wanted, and also fairly well-reviewed (although it doesn't have the kind of gushing following some others on my list do). A bit of an unknown quantity.

5. The Lies of Locke Lamora. People having been raving about this book for as long as I can remember. Am I in a lovable rogue mood? Who knows.

6. Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow which was recommended to me by someone and indeterminate time period in the past. Yay, memory! I downloaded the preview for this on a whim and it gives me a comfortable feeling of a heroine with trust issues.

7. Or I could just get the next in one of the series I'm reading. I have a bunch of those I haven't finished, and that might help me get into a good reading routine.

8. I also have the TPB of Monstress (from Marjorie Liu) sitting on my shelf. And one of the Marceline Adventure Time books, and some Star Wars stuff. They are good for reading in bits and pieces, generally, but less convenient to carry in my purse (I have a purse. I'm a person who carries a purse now.).

Decisions are unusually hard for me lately. Or, like, more than usually hard.

Oh my invisible pink unicorn, it's been a good fic crop this year.

( Six fics in six fandoms. )

There is more that I haven't gotten to/finished yet, but is bookmarked for later perusal.

And of course!

( I participated in Yuletide for the second time this year. )

Cut for sanity.

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There's other things I might do. Amnesty is technically until January. The question is, do I want to lay this behind me, or keep at it until the bitter end?

...For which I am emphatically not signing up.

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Looks like I have my work cut out for me.

Should I post:

• A Glitch retrospective?


• A spoiler-free review of Long Live the Queen?


• A spoilerrific review?


• Which fandoms are returning in the next few weeks that I'm super psyched for?


• All about the four projects I'm doing this semester?


• All about the fairy/ghost/vampire story I've started working out?


• An overview of finished and unfinished fic I wrote in 2012?


• A spammy post full of YouTube videos?

A bit more than two weeks after I bought it, I finally have a hooked up and working washing machine. As for the dryer, we're not talking about that right now. In honor of this, and of the fact that I always seem to be dwelling on lists of things I haven't done yet, here's a list of Stuff I've Done:

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Oh hey I'm not doing too bad. I should make a habit of this.

It's follow Friday! How much do I suck at this game? A lot, that's how much.

Here, have a occasionalmanatee_feed. Also, have a video of a manatee yawning.

( Manatee and dugong facts )

I desperately want to make pomegranate muffins. I'm not sure what else should go in them, though.