Whoops, Chocolate Box reveals are here already! I have so many comments to leave, which I intend to do today. But first, I'm excited to share my all-X-Men slate of contributions. I've been feeling such a fannish resurgence for the last few months, so I ... pretty much could not resist.



( Mutant gal pals, and more! )

Also, the rarefemslashexchange archive is open now, and worth a look! I do believe I'm going to enjoy wrapping up my much-needed three-day weekend with a lot of fannish appreciation.

My ex asked me this weekend whether I'd finished my Yuletide story. No indeed, but it's moving along. (Though I will say - knowing that there's a relatively concrete neuropsychological reason why I struggle so much with time management does not magically solve the problem!)

This fall has been a lot. The hibernation urge is strong as we move into winter. That said, I haven't been entirely unproductive! femslashex reveals went up yesterday:


( Vulcan kisses and Fairy Tale AUs )

It was a fun exercise in drawing for fandoms I've been meaning to for ages, and never gotten around to. I should really do more TOS art (how were these my first??); the retro sci-fi costuming is so much fun! Also I've been loving all the canon Harley/Ivy comics I keep catching glimpses of on tumblr ... every once in awhile I feel so genuinely grateful for the way some segments of culture really have changed (or started to) from the norms of even a decade ago.

My own gift was this lovely little Sailor Moon S interlude, A Little More Time, by SugarFey - a depiction of Haruka and Michiru (with a little Setsuna) in between the two major arcs of that season. I've been having a lot of resurgent Sailor Moon feelings this year, and I was so delighted to get this gift. It's just the right mix of sweetness, hotness and angst!

It's very strange how thoroughly out of the habit of reading fanfic I am lately, even though I've participated in so many exchanges this year. I'm always excited to read my gifts, when I get fic, and writing now and then is a delightful and tantalizing challenge, but ... IDK. I do think Yuletide will be different (even though I never manage to read more than a fraction of the archive), because it's very much its own thing. So much variety! Such novelty! And reading the archive is just a favorite holiday tradition, of course.

The malaise is probably a combination of the fact that I don't have a "main" fandom, that the ones I'm most interested in lately are fairly rare, and that I mostly want to listen to audiobooks while I draw (or ride my bike, or do almost anything else). I should find myself some podfic. I'm sure there must be some for The Locked Tomb, at least?

I'm especially excited for multifandomdoodle. I would love to have more all-art exchanges; I crave ALL THE FANART even more than I used to. I go looking for some after almost every book I read lately (the genre ones, in any case). If I didn't hate running things like this, I would totally start a book fandoms fanart exchange.

chocolateboxcomm creator reveals were more than a week ago, but my pandemic brain fog/disjointed awareness of the passage of time has been a lot, lately. I had a ton of fun drawing for the exchange as usual!


( My contributions! )

My GIFTS, though. likeadeuce wrote me The Only Hell Ma Guthrie Ever Raised, a deeply delightful piece of classic New Mutants comics gen that was exactly the kind of balm I needed. The best kids! Shenanigans! Magneto and Emma Frost being, respectively, stern and snarky! And then there was this intriguingly tropey piece of Locked Tomb smut, Fingerbones, by DachOsmin. D/s-inflected necro/cav ritual sex set at the very start of Gideon the Ninth, my gosh.

Cabin fever shows some signs of breaking, as the weather has been warming up (I got to go back to commuting to work by bike last week, which was such a relief). At least, to a point. Semi-quarantine continues to be painful and lonely, and there was an awful scare in my family (non-COVID-related) last week that has me even more shaken right now, which I didn't even really realize was still possible. So I've buried myself in a reread of the Murderbot Diaries over the last few days. I'm excited to write my first fairy tale retelling in years for once_upon_fic (and my goodness, aren't I grateful for the generous writing period, in this time of deeply unpredictable creative energy/exhaustion). And the BFF has convinced me to try and take up Tumblr again, luring me with talk of upcoming The Expanse fic. I hadn't been back over there in three years, so it's a bit surreal.

Speaking of both Murderbot and tumblr, I'll leave you with this truly stunning Murderbot animatic/fanvid which gave me ALL THE FEELINGS, good lord. Made by a 20-year-old, I have wasted my life.

femslashex reveals are up! I had a lovely time creating this year, as always.


ardor (Carmilla, Carmilla/Laura, T)
"... with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips traveled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs ..."
for KannaOphelia

Floriography (This Is How You Lose The Time War, Red/Blue, G)
Another form of esoteric, archaic epistolary communication ...
for Shadaras

stay put (Wayfarers Series, Rosemary/Sissix, T)
One advantage of mammalian girlfriends: they’re so WARM.
for Stonestrewn

I also received an absolutely delightful Original Fiction story from TheseusInTheMaze, about a witch in trouble who transforms into a cat to escape, only to land in the very inviting lap of a visiting queen ... and quite understandably, struggles to find the will to change back: Shapes, and Their Influence.

I'm deep in Yuletiding now, naturally. And also, this looks like it could be a lot of fun ... I think I might put up a "tree." (You should too! I'm hoping to do some treating.)



Life is ... really, really difficult right now, in a quiet, grinding way. I am going to indulge in as much fannish holiday nonsense as I can possibly manage, because egad, do I need an escape.

Egad, I am so sleepy.

This ... is an unusually and especially intense holiday season in many ways. My partner had top surgery two weeks ago, so I've been spending a great deal of time a few towns over at their place, caring for them and helping my metamour around the apartment. (I also cooked half our Thanksgiving meal, but that's standard!) This weekend, one of my dearest friends is having a baby shower (my second nibling is coming soon), and the weekend after that, I'll be attending (and briefly cameoing in) an unusual theatrical production which will have emotionally high stakes for my entire family of origin. And I mean, you know. Yuletide, Christmas and Hanukkah presents and a lot of cross-state travel.

Is it 2020 yet?

Really, all of this (hopefully including that performance) is good stuff, it's just ... so much. All crammed together. Gah.

Anyway, I did want to share my femslashex piece! It's post-film Edith/Lucille from Crimson Peak, and I had the most splendidly self-indulgent time with all the crosshatching.


Click here to see the whole thing at the AO3!

I also received a lovely bit of Rachel/Kitty futurefic from Sheliak, A Future, Brick by Brick. My forever OTP. <3

And now it's back to what is totally my dream Yuletide assignment! If only I can stay awake!

(Aw, GeeWay, I missed your voice!) I very much enjoyed The Umbrella Academy adaptation on Netflix, I have to say. I mean, it certainly has some problems (pls stop fridging women, especially WOC, ugh), but having reread the comics last week, I really appreciated the additional depth the show gives pretty much every character. It sacrificed some of its delightful weirdness in the process (I missed the televator and the evil Eiffel Tower, although the latter at least got a mention), but I think it was, on the whole, a fair exchange. Especially for the developed relationship between Allison and Vanya, because I'm predictable.

chocolateboxcomm reveals are up today! I drew two things!

it's all been done (Good Omens, Crowley/Aziraphale, G) is an exploration of Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship (more gen than not, tbh) through the ages, something I've wanted to take a crack at forever. And titled after the BNL song, of course. (God, I hope someone vids the new Amazon miniseries to that song.) It was really marvelous to revisit the characters after such a long time, too! I'm rather pleased with how my Aziraphale design has developed.

binding spell (BtVS, Willow/Tara, G) is a surprisingly SFW shibari-themed illustration of Willow and Tara performing a steamy/romantic spell together, because of course. Aw, nostalgia. <3

I have utterly failed to read any of the fic yet, which is ridiculous, although to be fair I've been quite busy. Taxes, family drama, work drama, blah. But my person will finally, finally be back from Europe tomorrow night, so really, nothing can keep me down for long. And then when they head off for another month after only a week's stay, I'll have the archive waiting to comfort me.

Ooh, I have had a week. It's been long and tiring and mostly dark and rainy to boot, and I've been singularly unproductive in spite of just having taken on some new (creative) professional responsibilities. This is about as grateful as I've been for Friday in awhile, especially since the femslashex archive opens today at 8pm EST! There are currently 179 new pieces of f/f fanfic & fanart all ready to go; I'm so excited! (My own contribution will be here, though naturally I'll do a post here as well when I may.)

I'd say things have slowed down a bit, but that's not true so much as that I've been working more on deadlines than at my own pace. Here's a small roundup of exceptions and the like ...



( Revisiting Rachel Summers. )

Oh, speaking of X-Men comics, I've also been listening avidly to Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, which does what it says on the tin in an entertaining, clever and deeply nerdy way. Highly recommended.

Meanwhile, on a more contemporary note: ( A tiny Braeden tribute. )

Last but very definitely not least, my contributions to the little fanartremixexchange! Which deserved to be bigger, so I really hope the idea catches on! ( And for extra fun, I was matched with ataratah. ;) )

Huh, I've been doing a lot of color work lately; I suppose that's good practice? I'm never fully satisfied with any of it (except sometimes the flats), though; I might make an effort to go back to more of my b&w inks for the next little while. Coming up: tw_fallharvest, teenwolf_bb, allydiareversebang, and teenwolffemslashexchange. Um. Oops?

Another huge fanart roundup, courtesy of the summer where I only have the energy to manage job search stuff, draw fanart, and let my whole professional identity lie pretty much fallow. :D?

Okay, that sounded a little ... yeah. Actually, things are looking up in a big way! I have a pretty big deal second interview tomorrow, for a position I'm genuinely excited for which also pays better than I'd had any hope of, so. Fingers crossed. And I am having a ball with letting myself soak more or less exclusively in fannish material for a bit. :)

( America & Kmala's first date. <3 )

( A Teen Wolf collaboration with Ataratah! )

( Character death won't stop my shipping. )

( Revisiting six years ago. )

( Orphan Black & Sailor Moon doodles. )

This ... actually isn't quite everything, but I'll take a breath and save the rest for its own post. ;)

There will be time for life updates later, but for now ... have some relatively quick TV fanart drawn as warm-ups/procrastination on my real work.

I enjoyed last week’s episode of Teen Wolf, possibly because of the blessed absence of all the various characters from season 3A that I could never really care about (although of course the alpha twins will be back tonight, bah). The nightmare-within-a-nightmare thing was overdone, sure, but there was some good character stuff. I love the parents being in the know now ... seriously, could we maybe have the Melissa McCall and Sheriff Stilinski show? That would be a fresh take on all the teen supernatural business, to have it through the parents’ perspective. Yes please.

And there was even some silly stuff! Like the introduction of Kira and her father. I had the irresistible image of a show where the Nemeton, contrary to everyone’s expectations, did not turn out to be a magnet for evil killer beasties, just ... regular folks, albeit not quite folks, who start moving into the neighborhood. The creature from the black lagoon next door; the mermaid in your Geometry class (wheeling herself around, Lori Lemaris-style). Conflicts that would be more at home in a sitcom than a horror movie!

( You know; a supernatural beacon for supernatural creatures. )

I’m sure we’ll get our usual serving of grimdark instead. So glad I have some reliably fantastic shows as well ... I really haven’t seen nearly enough meta about Elementary 3.13 yet! I had a ( predictable reaction )

Well, there are other things I should be drawing, probably. Hope everyone’s weathering this bizarre winter well (if you’re in this hemisphere)! <3

Well, I finally got to one of those female-character-centric fanart prompts from a couple weeks ago ... were_duck wanted Allison/Lydia. Not a thing that takes much convincing, although for some reason it came out intensely fluffy. I guess I was just in the mood?

( Full image behind here! )

I'll definitely do more of those! Probably spaced out in between other projects. I always want to do more female character-centric fanart ... you could pretty much prompt me for it anytime.

Also, I was toying with the idea of going to see Man of Steel, but now I'm not, because I want THIS movie and it doesn't exist. (There is awesome fanart, though!) I have a lot of feelings about Superman, okay. And possibly even more about Lois Lane. Everything (canon) DC-related is making me want to stick my fingers in my ears and go LA LA LA, lately.

Appropos of nothing whatsoever, I stopped watching the fourth season of Community after the second episode. Should I give it another try? I mean, I'm going to want to watch the fifth season now that Harmon's coming back.