drop ★ pop ★ candy

Where am I at with all the projects? Definitely nowhere I thought I'd be in early December. Let's have a look at the "vague current plan" back then:

• Let [the Cursed Witch] Rest - I've sure been doing that! Though not the "not too long" bit.

...Actually that's it I did nothing else on that list, and half the rest will have to change. In fairness, I knew all the sequel-related stuff would have to be temporarily shelved about a week later: I was deep in the kn8 edits, and could tell it would take longer than anticipated. I wanted the time away from the witch so my subconscious could ✨ work its magic ✨ about the remaining problems, but once most of the story left my "active" memory, outlining or planning a sequel felt nearly impossible.

Then K-9 happened. Lol. I mean, this was and continues to be fun, and I'm surfing that delightful fandom wave for as long as I can. 🏄 Did I mention our fandom tag was canonised? Teeheehee.

I'm writing a lot of short fics in too many fandoms and I think that's doing me good for now. Mostly because I want to keep myself distracted away from *waves wildly*. It means I'm rereading manga chapters here and there, rewatching episodes bits. I'm still reading a lot of new manga at the moment, and unfortunately feeling fannish about more and more of the tiniest, non-existent fandoms. It's just!! There's so much awesome polyship potential everywhere!!!! They just huh write themselves, or should!!!!! Or I wish someone else did so I could just read it... XD At least, a few of them have English translations out there so maybe some readers will have the same vision and eventually find the fic, but there's also a BL horror manga (the true monster isn't really the creature...) that doesn't, despite calling my name and whispering OT3 into my head louder and louder....... Ah well. Fan does as fan must.

But anyway! Writing short is doing me good, I think, and writing varied too. But I still have plans for the big original projects:

• I want/must do the pacing check for the cursed witch in January. At the very, very least, do the full re-read and take notes on where to break down the new chapters. But ideally I'd like to do that work itself, too, because...
• ...I signed up for an editing course/workshop/cheeralong in February and I plan to begin again the structural edits for the soul thief then. I'm hoping the peer support/challenge will help me get past the "blergh I already did 2/3 of this before but stopped at an awkward point." It's been a year now, so hopefully the reset will work out ok...

But I'd really like to have this round of Cursed Witch edits feel like they're a better shape, with chapters properly broken down and cliffhangerised. Also I hope to keep writing ficlets as a pressure valve for launching myself into yet another MASSIVE EDITING/BIG LENGTH round.

That's the current plan! Let's see in a month how it totally didn't work out that way!! XD

 Name:  Ciacconne 

Age: Mid 30s. 

I mostly post about: My life, health, and fandom. 

My hobbies are: Writing, reading, gaming, and art. 

My fandoms are: HP, FF16, FF7, Frieren, Slayers, Gintama, Kekkai Sensen, YGO. 

I'm looking to meet people who: wanna talk about life and fandom stuff. 

My posting schedule tends to be: Daily. 
 

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Antis. 

Before adding me, you should know: I post about my health, be it mental or physical, 

Challenge #6
Cheating big time! But finding the Top 10 books I read this year was too daunting (even when I cheated and counted a whole series as one 😍). So here, have a few Top 10s. These are all books I've read this year (mostly). I didn't count re-reads (of which there were many and would have skewed the results drastically).

( Queer Male Romances  )
*and yes, I loved that their were two re-tellings of Pride and Prejudice in there. ❤️❤️

( Mixed Bag )

Title: Empty Wardrobes
Author: Maria Judite de Carvalho
Translator: Margaret Jull Costa
Genre: Fiction, literary

I collect false treasures in empty wardrobes.

This quote by Paul Eluard opens book #14 from the "Women in Translation" rec list, which continues to fatten up my TBR list. This is Empty Wardrobes by Maria Judite de Carvalho, translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa. This novella, originally published in the 1960s, is about the ways in which women are subsumed by the men in their lives, or otherwise are buffeted about with less control over their lives than they ought to have.

The forward by Kate Zambreno is a wonderfully complementary piece. She talks about the anger she feels going to a woman's funeral and hearing the dead woman sanctified by men in her life who did nothing but take from her, who can speak of her only to praise what she did for others, and can say nothing about what the woman herself was. 

Sometimes you can read a book and just know the author was angry when she wrote it. This is one of those. The book uses the phrase "discreet rage" about one of its characters, and I think that sentiment succinctly describes the whole book. The protagonist, Dora Rosario, is ten years into widowhood, and she has devoted her entire life to mourning her unremarkable husband as much as she had previous devoted her life to supporting his every opinion regardless of whether or not she agreed with it. Now, a decade on, her mother-in-law reveals something about Dora's late husband that changes her entire perspective.

I would like to believe we are moving away from the world portrayed in Empty Wardrobes (though not with as much success as I'd like), but this is a stark reminder of how even a few generations ago, in the Sixties, a woman's identity was so controlled by her husband's. There are only two men in this book--Duarte, Dora's dead husband, and Ernesto, the longtime partner of a side character--and they both, through social structures, exercise incredible control over the lives of the women around them without any respect or even knowledge of their impact.

The three main women in this book--Dora, her daughter Lisa, and the narrator--each take a different approach to the male romantic partners in their lives, and none of them comes out the better for it (well, perhaps for Lisa, but I personally doubt it will last), because the ultimate problem is societal attitudes about the way men and women are meant to relate to each other. 

It's not a long book, and I can't say much more without spoiling things, but I also think it does some fabulous things with its narration and perspective, and the way it doles out information. Really an excellent framing that allows for a lot of fluidity and filling in gaps with your own visions while remaining clear in the nature of the story it's telling. 

This book was only translated into English in 2021, which is a shame, because I think it would have struck a nerve much earlier, but we have it now! Costa does an excellent job with the work too; the writing is full of punchy phrases like the above, and she captures some realistic dialogue--characters repeating themselves, responding in ways that don't quite match up with what was asked, etc.--while keeping it natural-sounding.

I collect false treasures in empty wardrobes.

This quote by Paul Eluard opens book #14 from the "Women in Translation" rec list, which continues to fatten up my TBR list. This is Empty Wardrobes by Maria Judite de Carvalho, translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa. This novella, originally published in the 1960s, is about the ways in which women are subsumed by the men in their lives, or otherwise are buffeted about with less control over their lives than they ought to have.

The forward by Kate Zambreno is a wonderfully complementary piece. She talks about the anger she feels going to a woman's funeral and hearing the dead woman sanctified by men in her life who did nothing but take from her, who can speak of her only to praise what she did for others, and can say nothing about what the woman herself was. 

Sometimes you can read a book and just know the author was angry when she wrote it. This is one of those. The book uses the phrase "discreet rage" about one of its characters, and I think that sentiment succinctly describes the whole book. The protagonist, Dora Rosario, is ten years into widowhood, and she has devoted her entire life to mourning her unremarkable husband as much as she had previous devoted her life to supporting his every opinion regardless of whether or not she agreed with it. Now, a decade on, her mother-in-law reveals something about Dora's late husband that changes her entire perspective.

I would like to believe we are moving away from the world portrayed in Empty Wardrobes (though not with as much success as I'd like), but this is a stark reminder of how even a few generations ago, in the Sixties, a woman's identity was so controlled by her husband's. There are only two men in this book--Duarte, Dora's dead husband, and Ernesto, the longtime partner of a side character--and they both, through social structures, exercise incredible control over the lives of the women around them without any respect or even knowledge of their impact.

The three main women in this book--Dora, her daughter Lisa, and the narrator--each take a different approach to the male romantic partners in their lives, and none of them comes out the better for it (well, perhaps for Lisa, but I personally doubt it will last), because the ultimate problem is societal attitudes about the way men and women are meant to relate to each other. 

It's not a long book, and I can't say much more without spoiling things, but I also think it does some fabulous things with its narration and perspective, and the way it doles out information. Really an excellent framing that allows for a lot of fluidity and filling in gaps with your own visions while remaining clear in the nature of the story it's telling. 

This book was only translated into English in 2021, which is a shame, because I think it would have struck a nerve much earlier, but we have it now! Costa does an excellent job with the work too; the writing is full of punchy phrases like the above, and she captures some realistic dialogue--characters repeating themselves, responding in ways that don't quite match up with what was asked, etc.--while keeping it natural-sounding. 

Games: I played a bunch of Hive.

Miscellaneous: No podcasts, one longform article:

Why I Wrote Dirty Linen

Music: I didn't go to yesterday's pub session because Newest D&D Homebrew Campaign had a D&D session scheduled, which was cancelled at the last minute. Alas.

Roleplaying: See above. :-/

Television: We watched the first two episodes of Max Headroom S2, which predicted AI-generated avatars of deceased loved ones and parodied certain aspects of religion in ways that ::cough:: would not make it onto TV in 2026.

I also watched the final three episodes of Heated Rivalry. ( Thoughts, in no particular order. )

Video Games: I finished Samorost 2, which is a mechanically simpler game than Botanicula and thus tricky to play after it, as I had to rethink the way I approached the puzzles. It's still a super fun game; I love everything Amanita Design puts out.

I wanted to play Downwell next for a change of pace, but fucking windows insists on rendering it in a tiny 3" x 4" box in the center of the screen, making it all but unplayable. I've thus settled on a Pentiment replay (in which I am once again on a collision course with the church from the get-go) and am also toying with the idea of a Darklands replay as well, given the clear debt the former owes this game...provided windows cooperates.

これで以上です。

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Title: Alone
Author: goddess47
Character(s): John Sheppard, Rodney McKay
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: PG
Length: 265 words
Warnings: none

Notes:

For mcsheplets prompt #126 - runaway

For sweetandshort January 2026 prompt - alone


Summary:

John just needed to breathe.



Alone on AO3

Challenge #6: Top 10 Challenge

top 10 lists ... hard for me ... i'm probably gonna be basic and make a list of my top 10 genshin characters that's NOT zhongli. they're not in a particular order though, i like these characters equally

1. Nahida
2. Furina
3. Kaveh
4. Xiao
5. Hu Tao
6. Ororon (he me fr)
7. Columbina
8. Lauma (we ignore that i modded genshin just to recolour her as sylvie)
9. Yae Miko
10. Arlecchino

Dinner last night was great, I had spaghetti and clams at LoCoco's with a couple of glasses of this great wine and bread and a cannoli.

link: https://i.imgur.com/lRnnZ3v.png

Next Image: I am Groot

Wu Lei x2 | Our Times


https://tinpix.de/2026/wulei_i808euxvb.png
https://tinpix.de/2026/wulei_i8vlmj8.png
https://tinpix.de/2026/our.times.101_23.37colb.png


( alt )

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Superman 2025 x3

( alt + urls )

THE K-9 FANDOM TAG WAS CANONISED ON AO3 WE EXIST FOR REAL!!!!!


I made a feed :D ao3_k9_fandom_feed

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

https://images2.imgbox.com/6e/f3/nr6jPVQy_o.png

Next: Rochelle from Win or Lose

I love this stupid show so much. It's a shame that I've run out of episodes; it brings me so much joy. Still, at least there's fanfiction! (And rewatching. I've now seen the episode '90 Degrees' four times in the course of approximately a month, on account of showing it to everyone I know.)

There's something very nostalgic about how loud and ridiculous Robert is; writing him brings me back to writing Jeremy Clarkson, back in my Top Gear days. They're both a lot of fun to write!

Thank you to apiphile, who helped to inspire this fic; I wrote a couple of lines as a joke in response to one of his comments, and then I just kept going!


Title: Broken Hearts and Broken Bones
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Robert/Chris
Wordcount: 2,300
Summary: Robert attempts to seduce Chris. His techniques leave a little to be desired.


( Broken Hearts and Broken Bones )