Stories for a winter's night

So, let's see what happened in 2019, shall we?

( January )


( February )

( March )

( April )

( May )

( June )

( July )

( August )

( September )

( October )

( November )

( December )

And that's it. 2019 at a glance. Nine fics or parts of fics put up here with three officially posted over on A03. So much better than last year!

( Real Life under the cut )

On a more positive note, I have been working on "Bleeding Daylight" and I'm hoping to have something put together by the end of next month. I won't be posting anything until after the Big Bang is totally over, but I figure that'll give me a good time to rework what I have, fill in the sub-plots, get the ending done, and get the whole thing edited at a leisurely pace. .... I may post some snippets here early as teasers should anyone want to read them. I do tend to find that posting things even in a limited way prevents me from going back and making all sorts of changes.

Life goes on and I am feeling a new Red Tape Stories fic coming on! Hospital bureaucracy is the absolute worst! And insurance bureaucracy is only slightly better.

( Hospital stuff first )

So that's the hospital red tape. Now onto the car. As mentioned in my last post I got into a car accident and my poor vehicle was declared irreparable.

( Insurance woes )

So yeah. Red tape and bureaucracy and people not doing their jobs. I am just tires and I think that once the Big Bang is done I'm going to write a new Red Tape fic. Maybe forcing the Bots to get insurance and the question if it's vehicle or life. Oh! And do they need drivers' licenses and plates? Yeah, the bunny is forming quite nicely!

So, updates. I've spent the month working on my RBB entry. I'm about halfway through with the main plot and fighting the urge to start posting to get feedback. I really need to figure out how to find a beta. Having someone to bounce the chapters off of would help ease my mind on things. See, there's this little voice of doubt in the back of my mind. It's busy reminding me that we have fewer than half the artists that we have writers meaning that there's a really good chance that some of us whon't get artists. And since I'm writing two rare pairings in a currently-rarely-used corner of the fandom, the voice is trying to convince me that I'll be one of the ones who's left without a partner in this endeavour. ... But it's a stupid voice and I'm trying to ignore it.

( Life stuff under the cut )

So I am finally starting to feel better and have gotten back to writing a little. I am currently working on a fic request "Smokescreen/Swindle - The Good Old Days" for Ultharkitty and then I will start on "Anything with G1 Lambos and/or Bumblebee" for Aerylon. I've also been contemplating jumping fandoms and trying my hand on some Fallout 4 ficcage.

Yes, a game has eaten my soul and I have been lost to it. Now, yeah, I know that fans from the old, pre-Bethesda days of the game have issues with it and yes, it does have some pretty hilarious (and sometimes oh so frustrating) bugs, but I'm enjoying a pretty much open sandbox survival game. I love the moral options and that you have so many paths that you can follow. I mean, yeas, I absolutely adore the Bioshock series, but it really is a bit of a railroad. In Fallout you really can do just about anything. Including killing and eating annoying NPCs apparently. No, I haven't tried that yet, but it is an interesting option to have. And I will admit, it has been very tempting to do something horrible to Knight Rhys and Marcy Long -- honestly, more Rhys than Long.

All that being said, I do with that there were more than four dialogue options. I would love to be able to ask Preston about the Brotherhood or the Children of the Atom (yeah, I know, minor characters but still a semi faction). I would love to be able to let Rhys know that I was a lawyer/soldier and probably do have a rudimentary understanding of Latin mottoes (in my mind Nate was a Marine). I would love to be able to have a minor breakdown after the first fight with the Deathclaw and to be able to do more to comfort Nick. ... Basically there are a ton of questions/actions I'd like to take that the game doesn't allow for. One noted example is when you run across the Gunners who are running a toll on a bridge. Your only options are to pay or kill them. Why can't I just acknowledge the cost, apologize for stepping in their territory, and then leave? I mean, yeah, they're likely to still shoot me, but then I can kill them in self-defense rather than have it be murder. Why can't I offer to hug Nick or Cait? And why can't I ask Codsworth how he stayed sane for all these centuries?

So, yeah, there are a lot of questions and that's leading to a lot of bunnies that might lead to a Fallout 4 Novelization fic. They're probably a dime a dozen, but I figure it can't hurt to try. Maybe it'll be an idea for June Camp NaNo or for the real NaNo in November. the Adventures of Nora Rigg, Sole Survivor and former JAG lawyer (hey, it's as good an excuse as any for how she's so good with those guns!)

In other news, work is trying to kill me and I am doing the work of four separate people/positions so I'm more than a little stressed and that is effecting my writing output. That means that the above plans are going to be slow in coming. But they are started, so that's a start, right?

And lastly, I may actually post a picture of myself for the first time at some point later this month because I am allowing a section of my hair to go silver and I will (if all goes to plan) have a Rogue-like stripe in my hair by mid-May. I'm not exactly comfortable with photos of me but if this works I'm really going to want to share!

So I went and fell on the ice on the way into work this morning. I missed the massive patch of black ice that building maintenance failed to salt and I fell backward onto my rump. And apparently I'm not the only person who's fallen. So I end up stick at work with a twisted knee, and banged up elbow, and a feeling like someone has beaten me and I get to spend the day filling out injury reports. I friggen HATE injury reports. Don't get me wrong, I get them and the need for them. After all, if I had done some serious injury to myself I need to have a paper trail for when I apply for workmen's comp or whatever.

There is one good thing about this though. I think that I may have a bunny for a new Red Tape story. What would happen if Bayverse Ratchet was suddenly required to fill out injury reports for all the casualties that come into his bay? What if those reports needed to be done in triplicate? Yes, I think I may have another story idea. Pity it always takes stupid at work to make me want to write the Red Tape stories.