Apparently more than 40 days of posting every day wasn't enough to ingrain the habit, as my one-day "no, really, it's okay if I take a break" amnesty for myself promptly turned into 20 days barring a couple of brief Yuletide interruptions, during which my brain started sliding right back to "eh, that's not important enough to post" about things, and "eh, I'll post something tomorrow".

Partly I blame tv, of which there is suddenly far too much - and there's more starting up over the next couple of weeks. I'm already behind! I'm going to have to start weeding things out pronto. It's so hard to break my old conditioning that I should watch all the genre tv I like even somewhat, because what if there's never any more, and what if I don't know what other fans are talking about (only you can cure fannish illiteracy!), and and and. But there's always more, and the options are either to watch ALL the tv and not have time to do anything else, or watch some of the tv and maybe be able to get into discussions or read(/write) fic or watch(/make) vids, too.

Also, though, I've been way more social than usual in the last few weeks, both fannishly and otherwise. I used to know more fans in the Boston area, but we drifted off in different directions years ago and lost touch, so mostly I just hang out with the same very tiny crowd with occasional out-of-town visitors (not helped by my sky-high levels of introversion and homebody-ness *g*). But it's good to meet people, which is what I/we have been doing lately. Good dinners, good conversations, faces to go with names on the internet. Win! It just also takes up a lot of my social energy that would otherwise go into interacting online.

October has also been Wedding Month; I had a post-elopement reception to attend two weeks ago for a dear niece (and her equally dear new husband <3), and last weekend was a friend's wedding, which I'd been looking forward to all summer and which more than lived up to expectations. Both were huge fun, but also pretty social-energy draining.

But really, a lot of it is the tv. I get home at night and there's hours of catching up to do, and then I'm too tired to do anything else.

Still, some stuff I can't give up:

Person of Interest, because oh my show. ♥ ♥ ♥ I've seen that other people are having some issues with this season so far, so mostly I'm just ignoring other people's posts and the chat comm, and avoiding the IRC chat (woe); POI is my happy place and I want to keep that. (So in this one case, please don't comment to point out all the things I should be unhappy about. *g*) ( I get that people think it's weaker this season, and I just kinda don't care (spoilers through 3x04) )

Elementary: still fun, although I'm still not fannish about it and probably never will be. But I'm always happy to realize my DVR recorded it and I have it to watch. <3

Haven, which never pissed me off last year the way it did some people, and which this year has been making me incredibly happy. ( ♥ ♥ ♥ (and spoilers through 4x06) )

Grimm, which is back this week (yay!) and which I expect to continue making me happy *g* Certainly the commercials are. <3

The Voice, about which I'm not at all fannish, but which I enjoy a lot. My favorite part is the blind auditions, where I'm not invested in anyone (and don't even watch the backstory bits, so I don't know what sad stories people have), and everyone has an equal shot, and I can just enjoy it all no pressure. But it's still fun even when I have to ff through stressy bits, or worry about people being knocked out. Some of the battles so far have been amazing.

Stuff that I'm sticking with for now, but that may wind up being cut:

( Sleepy Hollow )

( White Collar (spoilers for season premiere) )

( Once Upon a Time (spoilers through 3x04) )

Stuff I've either given up on, or probably will in the next week or two:

Agents of SHIELD; it's entirely possible that by the end of the season it will have shaken out into something I'd like more, but right now it's not there. I just don't care about any of the characters, and several of them actively annoy me. Which makes me cranky, dammit, because MCU is one of my fannish happy places, and I wanted this to be part of that for me. Hmf.

Likewise Blacklist; I liked it a lot right out of the gate, and that hasn't changed, but I don't particularly like any of the characters as people, ( and... )

And also likewise ( Once Upon a Time in Wonderland )

I feel like I'm forgetting a dozen different things, but I've been writing this for days, and need to post it to clear my mental queue so I can maybe start posting other things.

And now there is new POI to watch!

Thank you so much! The thought of a story in any of these fandoms is already making me happy.

I'd really like something that falls on the warm / happy / fluffy / vanilla end of the spectrum, if possible. If that isn't something you can do, I understand! Just please no deathfic or loss of a loved one, including pets; and no terminal illnesses of any kind as an h/c or angst trope. Thank you. <3

I love all six (!) of these fandoms unreservedly, so if you have a yen to explore the universe, or bring in additional characters I didn't list, it's all good.

If you want more information about my requests, read on - but please don't worry if your ideas go in a different direction. Optional details are optional! I would much rather read the story you wanted to write than the story you felt you were obligated to write because of something I said. As long as it's for one of these fandoms, and uses the characters, you totally win at Yuletide. \o/

( my fic tastes )

Why I love these fandoms

(Alphabetical, not ranked by preference! I love them all. :)

( Burn Notice )


( The Equalizer )


( Forever Knight )


( Haven )


( Kung Fu: The Legend Continues )


( Valdemar Series – Mercedes Lackey )

In short, yay, Yuletide!

Today was kind of a cranky day all around, involving a total lack of hot water at home (that eventually turned out to be something that cost me a boatload of money, rather than something my landlord would have to pay for, joy), going into work early for a meeting that didn't go as smoothly as it should (not my fault, at least, but it made for a kinda frustrating morning), staying at work late for work that never actually came in, and getting the bill for said hot-water-fixing dealio. So bah.

But on the other hand, I have hot water again, woo!

And Maru and Hana continue to make me happy as they bond in ever sweeter ways <3

And there is new Person of Interest tonight! \o/

Also, there is this boy here, who never fails to crack me up:



Yeah, that's pretty much my life. If I'm eating it, he wants some of it -- the crunchier and saltier the better. The completely crazy eyes are because he'd just spent about 20 minutes chasing Tostitos all over my living room and begging me to throw more for him, before he decided he'd have more luck if he came closer. IDEK.

I still haven't watched this week's Blacklist or Sleepy Hollow, and I'll probably miss SHIELD tonight, too; work's too crazy and I'm too tired. But I'll watch POI (yay!) and The Voice, at least. So possibly there will be more posting later. (Or possibly not. *g*)

I don't even know where today went. I meant to spend it doing at least vaguely productive things around the house, but not so much.

( This originally said I'd watched the first 10 minutes of OUaT, but it turned into vague live-blogging of the first 40 minutes )

ack, midnight, posting

ETA: I kept watching, so I'm just gonna add the last 20 minutes' worth here.

( final 20 minutes of OUaT )

And that is that snow globes are not forever. Heh.

Many many many years ago -- like, probably more than 30 years ago -- my favorite aunt found a musical snow globe somewhere that reminded her of me, and gave it to me for a present. It was a wizard, casting a spell from a book he was reading, surrounded by glitter instead of snow. It was so cool! (Things like that were way harder to find then.)

It was really more suited to teenage me, but I kept it all this time, tucked away on a shelf. A few days ago, I idly noticed that the water level seemed to have dropped a bit, which was odd - but I figured I just hadn't looked at it in ages and was misremembering.

Then today I was over near it, and realized that the wizard was at a slightly odd angle, and reached for it to find that the globe part was a little loose, and suddenly there was a bit of water on my hand.

Whoops.

Turns out that the hard plastic supports inside the base eventually wear out! So the globe had been slowly going off-kilter, and then the rubber bit that the wizard stood on had also gone off-kilter, and water was seeping ever so slowly into the base.

Ah well -- 30-plus years is a pretty good run for something like that. *g* I drained all the water out into a baggie (I didn't want that glitter going down my drains), then set him back up o the shelf to take some pictures to remember it by:

( one wizard, slightly damp )

So now he is gone, alas, after probably protecting the heck out of my space for all these years. <3

Before I move on to POI, I wanted to suggest a new acronym for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- ASHIELD. Nice symmetry with MUNCLE. *g*

So Person of Interest s3 premiered last night! \o/ ( And I have things to say about it. )

( ETA after posting, because I forgot something )

Ack out of time, again, how does midnight always come so fast! In short, *flail*!

(I need more POI icons, hm.)

Right after I saw on the yt-admin feed that noms had closed, I got an email from TV Shows on DVD that I was not expecting at all:

We've added a news item for "Salvage 1" to the site. Here it is:

The 1979 Show Starring Andy Griffith, Joel Higgins and Trish Stewart - 4:11 PM 9/23/2013
"Salvage 1 - Hard Water" has been announced for release on DVD. We've got the early info for you, at the TVShowsOnDVD News!
URL: http://www.TVShowsOnDVD.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=18996

This is why it's worth checking off all the old shows you never thought you'd see again on their site. Good lord. I'd given up any hope of ever seeing that show again!

As the news release points out, the two-part episode they're releasing is an incredibly stupid thing to put out first, as it was the aired "finale" (looking around, there were four unaired eps that wound up airing years later on Nostalgia TV). They should be putting out the pilot instead. But hey -- at least it's something!

And then I went searching around, and discovered that the pilot and several wow, maybe all! of the eps are on Youtube.

I should totally have nominated this. Okay, granted, I haven't seen this show in -- er, wow, 34 years? Eep. So I have no idea how well it's aged. But I adored it way back in my mid-teens (it helped that I was crushing madly on Joel Higgins *g*), and it was weird and wacky and wonderful, about a junkyard owner who wanted to go to space, and built himself a spaceship so he could go collect all the salvage that's just floating around out there. And hey, maybe I wasn't the only person who watched it!

Ah well -- I'll try rewatching via youtube for now, and if it's worth it, maybe I'll put it in for next year's YT.

... Okay, wow, the person who put all these up also put up "Deadman's Curve: The Jan and Dean Story", which I watched when it aired on tv in 1978 (... because I was crushing on Richard Hatch *kof*) and wanted to watch again for years after that. I doubt I'll be watching this one again, because really, but still -- I'm kinda glad to know it's not lost.

(But I must take this moment to say: oh come ON, syfy channel, if NBC can dredge up Salvage 1, why can't you give us s2 of Invisible Man? sigh.)

This was going to be a post about the latest ep, but turned into more general Korra ramblings, with no specific spoilers at all.

( Korra ramblings )

I've been hearing about Wattpad for the past year or two, generally in the context of "there's this GIGANTIC ARCHIVE that all the kids are using now, it leaves even ff.net in the dust". And earlier tonight, I was link-hopping and saw it mentioned again and thought okay, I actually want to look into this now. So I did; I went to Wattpad to see what was what. And, ugh, it's one where you have to log in to see anything. I hate that; you shouldn't have to be a member unless you want to post content. But by now I was really curious, because lord knows the non-logged-in front page was kinda useless. So I made an account and logged in, and went searching.

... Okay, seriously, why do people complain about the AO3's search*, when this is what's out there as the shiny new face of awesome?

There is a search bar, at least, into which you can type keywords. You can also pick a category (of which "Fanfiction" is one - you can't narrow any kind of fannish category beyond that), a length (... in "pages", not words, and I have no idea how many words make up a page in Wattpad terms), and a language. You can also tick a box for "completed" or "mature".

That's it. Typing in a fandom name while filtering for fanfiction will probably get you at least some fanfic in that fandom, but will also potentially bring up non-fanfic, people whose names match your fandom's name, summaries that include your fandom's name, etc. (This is not a good place to be a Supernatural fan, in other words.) And there's no way to filter down from your results; all you can do is go page by page.

This is awful; we had more control over archive searches 10 years ago on basic, early-days automated archives like AA or efiction.

I know it's not purely a fanfic archive; it's meant to be a clearinghouse for all writing everywhere. But it has to be miserable trying to find something in *any* category. Is this seriously something that pro writers think is awesome and a great way to reach readers?

Searching is bad enough that I'm starting to think that those stories that have nearly 2 million reads get them just by virtue of being the first results to show up.

Man. I do not think I'll be using this account much. Or at all. I honestly feel bad for the people who think this is the best thing there is.

*This was a rhetorical question.

---

Unrelatedly, I think this makes 30 posts in 30 days. \o/ I've never managed to do that, ever. I may keep using the tag just to see how long I can go without breaking the streak. *g*

Maybe I need to give this show another shot. For deep and philosophical reasons.

(I watched the pilot last year, and it didn't grab me enough to keep going.)