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Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Elizabeth Taylor - Taylor Swift

Entry tags:

sometimes it doesn't feel so glamorous to be me

I meant to post last night, but I fell asleep on the couch right after dinner and slept for almost 2.5 hours! So I didn't post, or organize my laundry, or take out the recycling, or watch the Rangers (lose) or any of the other things I intended to do last night. Losing that hour of sleep because I had to go into the office hit me hard, I guess, since I also didn't go to bed earlier as intended on Monday night. *hands*

I did frost the cupcakes after work on Monday - I made a 3x batch of the Smitten Kitchen American buttercream since it would use up the whole box of powdered sugar and make measuring less difficult, and only had a little left over once I piped all 72 cupcakes. They disappeared rapidly at work - a lot of people were in and they enjoyed them! As always, people ask if I bake professionally and I'm just like, "nope! Then it wouldn't be fun!"

I also got a couple of Teams messages asking for confirmation that I was the one who brought them so they could be trusted. Only one person opined that the SK ones were better than the Sally's ones, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to do a double batch of the Sally's, with the SK frosting, for Christmas. My co-workers also suggested that if I'm ever invited to give a spontaneous talk, it should be about the different types of frosting that you can make and the pros and cons of them. I may have given them a preview of such a talk. *g*

I also confirmed that there are no nut allergies on the team, so I am planning to do candied pecans as my gift this year. They are SO GOOD. I mean, I've never made them, but my brother-in-law makes them for the holidays and they are seriously addictive. I just ordered some mason jars to put them in, and I think that will be a nice gift. I just have to order the pecans from Costco.

Assistant J is corralling the party planning committee this year, but the COO has decreed who the caterer will be (we are combining the legal dept party with all the operations departments' parties this year at her suggestion), so that should curtail some of their insanity in terms of party planning. I hope. I told J that with the food selection taken care of, they could concentrate on decorations, games, and music, which they were all into last year.

Anyway, as always, people are happy to see me when I show up, but I already told my boss I won't be back in until the day of the party and she is okay with that. Whew.

*

Morticia Addams/Gomez Addams icons

You bewitched me. I proposed that very night

Crossposts: https://digthewriter.insanejournal.com/434250.html

Entry tags:

[ART] Cafe Meow - Harry/Draco

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Current Mood: productive
Current Music: Chargers vs Commanders on tv

Entry tags:

the game changed on this play

Since I'm going to the office on Tuesday and my whole team is supposed to be in, I am finally going to be able to get some feedback on funfetti cupcakes. So today, I baked both the Sally's Baking Addiction recipe (black and white cupcake papers) and the Smitten Kitchen recipe (yellow and red cupcake papers) (pics), and I think the Sally's recipe is the winner. I particularly like that it uses melted butter instead of having to cream the butter and sugar, so it can be done easily by hand. (For Christmas, I will double the recipe, so I'll use the stand mixer anyway, but overall, I do like a recipe that can be made without one.) My plan is to make the SK frosting attached to that recipe (doubled, and potentially tripled if necessary since I have 72 cupcakes to frost (38 Sally's, 34 Smitten Kitchen - overall they made 40 and 36 mini cupcakes, respectively, but I ate 2 of each). Normally, I would go for cream cheese frosting for funfetti, but both my nephews have said they prefer buttercream, and since this is specifically for them (and to replace the vanilla cupcakes I've been making but have been unhappy with), I figured I'd go with their preference. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, I am so sad HGTV cancelled Bargain Block - I still have the last couple of post-New Orleans episodes to watch, but then it will be all over and I will miss Keith and Evan a lot. I heard they also cancelled Married to Real Estate, which I also enjoy but still have a couple of seasons I haven't seen, and that Unsellable Houses is probably also going to get canned, which is a shame because that is my other favorite HGTV show and I have already watched all that is available. On the plus side, it seems like Home Town will be coming back, and I do enjoy that one, plus the new season of Help! I Wrecked My House (now in Park City, UT) has started (though I haven't watched it yet). And of course, my Elementary rewatch continues.

*

Entry tags:

Six Sentence Sunday

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due South: Real Life series by MSSalieri (Real Boys & Real Worlds)

Fandom: due South
Characters/Pairings: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, Ray Vecchio, Diefenbaker, Frannie Vecchio, Margaret Thatcher, Armando Langoustini, Victoria Metcalf
Rating: Teen
Length: 60,820 (whole series) Real Boys is 22,820, Real Worlds is 38,000
Content Notes: Author "chose not to warn", but I don't think any AO3 warnings apply.
Creator Links: MSSalieri (aka Troyswann, Salieri): MSSalieri on AO3 and Salieri's old site on Wayback
Themes: Uncommon settings, Friends to lovers, Action/adventure, AU: Science Fiction, AU: robots & AI, Fandom Classics, Worldbuilding

Summaries: for Real Boys:
Ray looked out from between his fingers. The creature was there, on the other side of Mr. Thug, and it had lots of silvery fur and teeth that would be gleaming really nicely if the 'liner hadn't gone and taken most of the light with it. Between Mr. Thug and Ray, there was a pair of tall boots. Tilting his head back, Ray looked up, up past the red jacket all the way to the head, which was wearing a wide-brimmed hat. On the face under the hat there was a small smile.

"What the," Ray said. "Who the."

for Real Worlds:
"His existence is a violation of Armistice Statute—"
"God laws."
"Yes."
It took only one long stride for Ray to get into Thatcher's space and to her credit she didn’t back down. "You're gonna quote God laws at me?" He jabbed her with a stiff finger. "Who's playin God here, huh? You wave the fucking God laws at me while you got Fraser strapped to a table somewhere so you can put his fucking brains in a blender and take what he is? Look in a fucking mirror, lady."
"For some reason I can't fathom, Mr. Kowalski, I like you, so I'm going to give you a piece of advice." Her chin came up. "You might watch your words. Unless you want to join Fraser on charges of sedition."
"What?" Vecchio was incredulous. "You're yankin me, right? Fraser’s a kitchen appliance, but he's man enough to be brought up on charges? How the Jee does that compute?"

A sequel to Real Boys:
Three years raising sheep on Clementine, and it all comes crashing down in a skip storm, some consequential psychosis, a kidnapping and a global catastrophe. He may be the universe's punching bag, but Ray will fight for freak love. He's getting Fraser back, God Laws be damned.

Reccer's Notes: There are very few AUs that put the due South characters into spaaace! This is a fusion with the Bladerunner universe where Fraser's an android looking for the killers of his AI father and partners up with Ray Kowalski, a futuristic but very recognisable CPD cop. Salieri's a marvelous writer who takes aspects of the Bladerunner universe and expands on them with extraordinary worldbuilding to tell a complex and riveting tale. There's a gradually developing relationship between Ray and Fraser, nefarious villains, and anti-android laws that wrench the boys apart so that both Rays have to fight to get Fraser back. A triumph, and a due South classic. Here's a quote from a comment by Moth: "The other day I was talking to a friend about Philip K. Dick adaptations and I said that it was funny how one of the best adaptations out there was a due South fanfic. So I went and searched for it to see if it lived up to my memories and it actually exceeded them. This is the best type of AU, one that transplants the canon characters, storylines, and themes to a new universe, while also commenting on the both the canon as well as the nature of fiction." It's also a bloody good read!

Fanwork Links: Real Life series on AO3
Podfics of both stories: Real Boys read by Zabira & Real Worlds read by Luzula
Fanart for the series is here (scroll to the end)

Entry tags:

dc,
movie: superman

242 Icons - Lois Lane (Superman [2025])

over here

Crossposts: https://digthewriter.insanejournal.com/434142.html

Entry tags:

FIC: Not everything sleeps.

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Nail Polish Blogosphere: Only Once-verse, by Sineala and woodpusher.

Fandom: Nail Polish (Industry) (the AO3 tag, probably worded to disambiguate from at least two bands by that name. I’m calling it Nail Polish Blogosphere, since the characters are using and reviewing rather than manufacturing the nail polish.)
Pairings/Characters: Gen; OCs
Rating: General Audiences
Length: Only Once: 449; Only Once Remix: 1,960
Content Notes: modern in-universe folklore, nail polish connoisseurship, possible unreality, the sad beauty of transience
Creator Links: (AO3)

Sineala; (Dreamwidth)

sineala; (Tumblr)

sineala; (AO3)

woodpusher
Theme: Uncommon Settings, Folklore & Fairytales, Friendship, Magic, Social Media
Summary:

Sineala: The story of the most beautiful nail polish in the world.

woodpusher: Like a good manicurist, this story fills in some plot holes and smooths some rough edges from Only Once.

I was trying to boost my readership so welcome to the newly gifted.

Comments are welcome!

Author’s Notes: ( Cut_for_length. )

Reccer's Notes: ( Cut_for_length. )

Fanwork Links:
Only Once, by

Sineala for

Lysimache; Yuletide Madness 2011
Only Once Remix, by

woodpusher for

Sineala,

Meltha,

kuramas30,

Viridian5,

Qem, and

Lysimache.

Current Mood: itchy
Current Music: Don't Think Twice - Mike Ness

Entry tags:

i could've done better, but i don't mind

Ugh, I woke up at 3:30 this morning coughing my lungs out and didn't really sleep much after that. It's that itchiness in my throat and chest that make me think allergies, especially given that I haven't really been around people except at the dentist's office yesterday, so I don't think it's covid? But who knows at this point? My quest to get this year's flu/covid shots has been derailed a couple of times but I am off again next Friday, so that is going to be my next attempt.

In more fannish news, I read that Dungeon Crawler Carl has been optioned for tv, and now I want a Carl vid to Mike Ness's version of "Don't Think Twice."

*

Crossposts: https://digthewriter.insanejournal.com/433822.html

Entry tags:

FIC: In a glance, the whole world changes.

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Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate Answer the Web's Most Searched Questions | WIRED by charlielover

Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Pairings/Characters: Stede/Ed and Stede/Ed/izzy
Rating: G
Length: 2252 words
Creator Links: charlieloverboy
Theme: Uncommon settings, unconventional format & style

Summary: FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
Video title: “Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate Answer the Web's Most Searched Questions | WIRED”
From WIRED Entertainment

Reccer's Notes: This fic is written like it's the transcript of a WIRED interview, the ones where the celebrities answer google's most searched for questions about them. It's a modern AU where Ed and Stede are rock stars and its implied that Izzy is Ed's manager. I'm not sure how the author did it, but they got the tone and how most celebrities speak in these interviews spot on, while also telling us a narrative about Ed and Stede and heavily implying Ed/Stede/Izzy.

Fanwork Links: AO3

Current Mood: full
Current Music: Between Two Lungs - Florence + the Machine

Entry tags:

The breath that passed from you to me

Rabbit, rabbit! Gotta start the month out right!

According to the dentist, my teeth are mostly fine but another old filling has started to crack so he wants to take it out and put a crown on it. Since I have money in my FSA because I didn't order new glasses, I said let's do it! So as long as he gets the approval from my insurance, I should be having that done on 10/22. I'll probably still have to pay about $500 out of pocket, but that's better than the whole $1500. As always, he marveled about the Maryland bridge I have, which has been in place since 1994; even when I got it, my dentist at the time said it would probably only last 5 years, so it's quite impressive. "Those dentists back then knew what they were doing!" he told me today, and I wanted to be like, "1994 wasn't that long ago," but it was 31 years ago apparently. That just seems wrong.

Anyway, I could barely stay awake on my way home, so I crawled into bed and ended up sleeping for THREE HOURS, which I was not expecting. I will take it though.

I made pancakes for dinner, but as I was mixing up my wet ingredients, I put what I thought was vanilla in the mixing cup, but as soon as I smelled it, I knew it was the wrong bottle. It turned out to be fior di Sicilia, which is lovely and smells like an Italian bakery, but is not what I wanted in my pancakes. Whoops. The vanilla bottle is the same size, so I have now rearranged that shelf so the vanilla remains in front and the fior di Sicilia is back behind a bunch of stuff. I also redid my wet ingredients - it was only an egg and some milk, so not a huge loss to start over.

Now I'm going to watch the new episode of Slow Horses and then later, the season premiere of Abbott Elementary.

*

Current Music: ”The World Is Just Awesome”.

Entry tags:

Hilda the Plus-Size Pinup: Here I Am, by Missy.

Fandom: Hilda the Plus-Size Pinup
Pairings/Characters: Gen; Hilda
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 100
Creator Tags: IN SPACE!, Drabble, wonder, Yuletide Treat, Yuletide Madness, Drabble Invitational
Creator Links: (AO3)

Missy; (Dreamwidth)

bring_me_sugar

Theme: Uncommon Settings, Drabble, In Space, Old Fandoms, Sense Of Wonder, Small Fandoms

Summary: Hilda makes it to space - the universe is vast, but she's one with it.

Author’s Notes: For Topaz_Eyes.

Reccer's Notes: Hilda takes her exploration of The Great Outdoors to the next level. This is a gift-wrapped illo-op; I’m envisioning her in a brilliant red Latex Space Suit with an emergency backflap—in homage to her winter longjohns.

Fanwork Links: Here I Am, by

Missy for

Topaz_Eyes, for Yuletide Madness 2020.

Entry tags:

Round 179: Uncommon Settings

Photograph of the full moon encircled with added text: Uncommon Settings, at Fancake.

Our theme for October is uncommon settings!

These are places you don't commonly see represented in fanworks, either in a specific fandom or fandom in general.

The tag for this round is: theme: uncommon settings

If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.

( Rules! )

( Posting Template! )

( Promote this round! )

Reblog on Tumblr | Reskeet on Bluesky | Retoot on Mastodon

Entry tags:

due South: A Balanced Diet by seascribble

Fandom: due South
Characters/Pairings: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, Diefenbaker
Rating: Teen
Length: 1929
Creator Links: seascribble on AO3
Themes: Food and cooking, First time, Friends to lovers, Domestic

Summary: Ray is actually starting to like oatmeal.

Reccer's Notes: Set towards the end of the quest to find the Hand of Franklin and afterwards, once their relationships's established, this story weaves together scenes featuring Ray Kowalski, Fraser, Dief, and food of various types - some delicious, some less so, and all telling the tale of their relationship. Lovely.

Fanwork Links: A Balanced Diet (or, Four Vaguely Interrelated Vignettes about Ray, Fraser, and Food)

Entry tags:

SGA: Vanilla by Punk

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Madison Miller, Jeannie Miller
Rating: G
Length: 1552
Creator Links: Punk on AO3
Themes: Food and cooking, First time, Humor

Summary: Rodney doesn't know whether he should go for the ice cream or Sheppard's mouth.

Reccer's Notes: A charming first time story where Rodney's lust for a real-vanilla ice cream cone is transmuted into lust for John, with Jeannie berating and cheering them on from the sidelines. Fun, and an excellent outcome for everyone except the ice cream!

Fanwork Links:
Text on AO3: Vanilla
Podfic read by Punk: Vanilla [podfic]

Entry tags:

Mo Dao Zu Shi: Grandmaster of Recycled Cornettos, by Anonymous.

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi
Pairings/Characters: Gen; Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian, Wen Chao, Wen Zhuliu
Rating: Mature
Length: 1,113
Content Notes: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Anonymous Author, Cornetto body horror, Cornetto torture, Cornetto autocannibalism, Cornetto necromancy
Creator Tags: alternative universe, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Cornetto gore

Theme: Food & Cooking, AU: Anthropomorphic, Crack, Humor, Horror

Summary: Jiang Cheng is an oreo cornetto who had his flavor core melted by the Flavor-Melting Cornetto, Wen Zhuliu. To save his brother, Wei Wuxian gave his flavor core to Jiang Cheng. Somewhere out there in a Chinese convenience store cooler is an oreo-topped cornetto with chocolate flavor inside, an example of false advertising.

After being thrown off by the second-rate kornetto, Wen Chao, in a place where other cornetto fears to be dumped in - the public park trash can- Wei Wuxian learns a forbidden cultivation, the power to recycle discarded and melted cornettos.

With an army of broken wafer cones, torn cornetto wrappers and puddles of melted ice cream, Wei Wuxian makes a name for himself as the Founder of Recycled Cornettos.

Watch him as he calls on all the discarded cornettos to exact revenge on the Wens.

Reccer's Notes: The atrocities of the Sunshot Campaign…if everyone were sapient Cornettos. (Presumably inspired by the donghua’s jarring and anachronistic injections of Product Placement into the narrative, which became a running gag among the fandom.)

I’ve tagged this as Humor, because some readers will receive it thus, but there’s a quote by

glorious-spoon on Tumblr that I think summarizes my own reaction:

i don't usually go for crack fic, but there's something really beautiful about fic that takes a cracky premise and plays it utterly straight, to the point of genuine human pathos that's only enhanced by the sheer ridiculousness of what's actually happening

(Source (glorious-spoon’s own Tumblr is locked): https://phoenixcatch7.tumblr.com/post/795027167614550016)

Fanwork Links: Grandmaster of Recycled Cornettos, by Anonymous.

Current Music: “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You)”, by Tony Orlando and Dawn.

Entry tags:

Mo Dao Zu Shi: proof by contradiction, by chinxe; podfic by GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets).

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi
Pairings/Characters: M/M; Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian; Jiang Cheng vs. Lan Wangji; Jiang Cheng & Lan Wangji; Jiang Cheng & Wei Wuxian; Jiang Cheng, Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 2,024; 19:36
Content Notes: No Archive Warnings Apply, Jiang Cheng the F-bombardier
Creator Tags: Post-Canon, Humor, brother-in-law-ly bonding, jc is an angry grape who won't admit he and lwj are friends, but (and u didn't hear this from me) they kinda are
Creator Links: (Fic)

chinxe; (Podfic):

GodOfLaundryBaskets

Theme: Food & Cooking, Fandom Classics, Humor, Podfics, Post-Canon, Working Together

Summary:
Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji cannot stand each other on the best of days, which is why them being forced to work together can only end in disaster and/or attempted murder.

Right?

Author’s Notes: For Bendisa.

This was written as a thank you present for mei (marimoflower on twitter)!

… if you couldn't tell, jc + lwj is one of my favourite dynamics to write...love me a pair of emotionally constipated dumbasses...

Reccer's Notes: Jiang Cheng, sneaking into the Cloud Recesses kitchen to cook for his ailing brother, finds Lan Wangji there with the same intention; in a glorious duel/duet of sniping pettiness, Wei Wuxian’s brother and husband contend, and then cooperate, to commit lotus rib soup.

Fanwork Links:
Fic: proof by contradiction, by

chinxe for

Bendisa.
Podfic: [Podfic] proof by contradiction by

GodOfLaundryBaskets for

sisi_rambles.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: We Belong - Pat Benatar

Entry tags:

To the doubts that complicate your mind

Pet-sitting over the weekend was ok, not great. Bleu was a good boy and a sweetheart. Brie was fine when we were inside, but once she got out, it took a couple of hours - repeatedly - to coax her back into the house, because even though she was happy to climb into my lap on the couch, she flinched away whenever I stood in the doorway and called her to come in. Even just sitting in a chair and propping the door open and putting down treats to lead her in took a while. So that was not great. Additionally, because of the cat, I had to take a ridiculous amount of allergy medication just to breathe and my throat and chest were itchy the whole time.

On the plus side, the pizza I ordered was delicious!

I took yesterday off and scheduled a grocery delivery, which never arrived. Apparently none of the drivers would take it? I don't know what that even means, but I took that personally. I cancelled the order, and then today, put in an Aldi order which arrived on time and only cost half as much. *hands*

I'm off again tomorrow for a dental appointment. We are battening down the hatches for a govt shutdown at work, but should be okay if it doesn't last too long. Otherwise, there could be furloughs.

If you, like me, want to escape into fanfic, here's this month's recs update:

unfitforsociety has been updated for September 2025 with 10 recs:

✭ 9 Batfamily and 1 Batfam/Spiderman crossover

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