Miss H was on annual leave last week, and while expressing my jealousy about this fact, I suddenly realised that the end of my leave year was actually not very far away and I had quite a lot left to book. Which, when I checked, turned out to be 18 days(!) despite all the frivolous days I've already taken off after concerts etc. And once I allowed for no leave during Welcome, no leave during graduations, and realistically no leave during the testing for the big system changeover this summer, my calendar did not actually have all that many spaces in it!

So I booked off a week in August (coordinating with Miss H, so hopefully we can manage a small adventure or two), most of a week right before Welcome, and the week after graduations. Except then my boss came and apologetically asked if I wouldn't mind moving that one if I didn't have any specific plans, because that's when the big system changeover is due to happen and she's concerned enough about everything falling over as a result (sadly only too plausible an outcome) that she's given me the second week of graduations off instead! Since I was basically just picking random weeks, I said yes of course. And I still have three days left, which I can carry over if I don't use them in time. Annual leave! I'm so excited! Except for the point yesterday when I realised that having booked time off doesn't mean that I don't have to go to work all the rest of this week, and the whole of June, before I get any of it...

Title: The Bachelor
Fandom: Viola come il mare
Author: veronyxk84
Pairing: Viola Vitale/Francesco Demir
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Word count: 250 (Ellipsus)
Spoilers/Setting: Set in an alternate late S2.
Summary: Francesco leads a poll for the most desirable bachelor in Palermo, but the only vote he really wants is Viola’s.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction created for fun and no profit has been made. All rights belong to the respective owners.

Challenge: #515 - Avalanche

—
( READ: The Bachelor )

☙ ☙ ☙
 

Title: Buried in red tape
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Gwen, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,550 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 515 - Avalanche
Summary: Gwen needs to find something in the archives, but of course, it has to be somewhere hard to reach.

( Read more... )

Made some throw-together pasta - fettucine, tomatoes and garlic (fried together), a couple of shredded basil leaves, a small tin of tunafish (chilli and mango), and a tablespoon of feta cheese to salt it and give it that cheesy richness.

Not bad.

I made bean soup for dinner. The soup is pretty basic, in fact, but the addition of a picada - a Catalan nut-herb mix not unlike pesto - apparently makes the soup.

And then I'm thinking of making some blondies - dulce du leche blondies - since I have the ingredients and baking is usually pretty easy. And I think blondies freeze well, so I could bake a whole tray and freeze some and defrost them later. Maybe even make some pecan pie squares.

Hockey training got cancelled due to rain: also, I wasn't going to go because I pushed my back/butt muscles a bit too much (we drew 2-2 against a more skilled team, even if they weren't as young) and I need to rest them. Maybe even take a nice long bath with salts...

So many things to do, only one night to do them in!

1. I had a WFH day today so that we could take the car in to hopefully finally get the window fixed. They said it might be ready to pick up this evening, but it's already 5:30pm and they haven't called, so I doubt it's happening.

2. The other day I got an email from our favorite neighborhood pizza place saying they were doing some sort of collab and would be having butter chicken pizza from the 15th through the 25th. I kept checking the website and while other locations listed it as available, the two near us did not, so we walked over the other night in hopes of getting some, but it had all sold out. Toay we went over right when they opened at 11am and were able to get a couple slices each. It's so good! Hopefully we can get it at least once more before it's gone.

3. We got our primary ballots filled out and I took them over to the dropbox today. Really hope we don't end up with two Republicans in the governor's race, but at least it's looking like the second one is polling low enough that even with the five million Dems splitting the vote, we should at least see a Democrat vs Republican race in November. Fingers crossed! (And maybe smomeone can get some legislation in to end the jungle primary system or, even better, to do ranked choice.)

4. Chloe's keeping an eye out.

FK Fic Fest 2026

Welcome to our 2026 fkficfest Forever Knight game!

This is our 17^th annual game. We're marking the 34^th anniversary of FK's premiere, the 30^th of its cancellation, and our continued regard for it and each other!

We're playing challenge style this year.

• We've created a common pool of 13 prompts to share. Each story must use at least 1 of the official prompts: ( List of prompts )
• All fest fanworks should be in queue on our AO3 collection or DW community by the end of Saturday, July 18, to be sorted and scheduled on Sunday, July 19, and then released throughout that week, starting Monday, July 20. (All Pacific Time.)

( Timeline ) ( Mod ) ( Gameplay ) ( Posting )

Thank you very much for playing! Yay, us! Yay, Forever Knight!

G Flip & The Beaches: Lez Go! (Live)

I already posted the lyric video for this, but it's even more fucking wholesome live. It really shows off Jordan's voice; she and G Flip sound amazing together.

You know how sometimes you enter a fandom by the fanfic doorway?

That's me these days.

I mean, it was me back 20 years ago reading my way through Mulder/Scully fic in the X-Files fandom, which I hadn't watched since around S2. (The alien 'oil' freaked me out at the end of S2 and I never ended up going back. Horror and suspense are not my oeuvre.)

But I have very fond memories of reading my way through...golly, I can't even remember the fic archive anymore. But there were a number of "Virtual Seasons" and some fics that were very good - full episode types. Some better than others, obviously, but I still carry the gist of them here and there.

Anyway, more recently, I've read a Heated Rivalry fic or two, but my latest 'go through all the fic' obsession is Avatar: the last Airbender but specifically Zutara fic. And since I haven't seen the series all the way through (I watched Book 1 and maybe got a little way into Book 2, but never got to Book 3), then the AU doesn't bother me. Not that AU has ever bothered me when I'm talking about a pairing I like.

For this, I'm mostly blaming Pinterest, which has turned out to be more addictive for me than Tumblr. I go to FB because I want to know what's going on in my 'real life' friends lives; I go to Threads because it keeps me up to date with world events...and educated about the milieu of life beyond my experience. I scroll through Insta for pictures and sometimes 'turntables' of information and crafts and art and oddities.

But Pinterest has turned into my fandom exploration space. Mostly because all the Tumblr theories end up there, but algorithm'd, not just off a friends feed.

And, after a decade of Maria/Steve and maybe 700 fics, about 1/6th of which I either wrote myself or inspired, it's so nice just to wander into a fandom, plonk myself down, and get to read the best of some 8000 fics without having to create anything myself!

It's true that I've belonged to other fandoms with pairings with a decent amount of fic about my favourites (BBC Merlin: Arthur/Gwen had a reasonable amount, and Bridgerton: Kate/Anthony still has its proponents), but this is ~8000 worth of fics where people have extrapolated four seasons (and a lot of tie-in material) of a non-canon relationship and come out with some beautiful results!

I don't read much in the fandoms I write anymore - as I had to say in the 3weeks4dreamwidth friending meme - "specifically [insert female character here]" because so few of thoe fandoms had a focus on the (usually secondary) female character.

It's true that I'm not getting much sleep, cos I'm too busy reading 100,000 word fics. But this? This is fun.

I feel like I haven't had fun in fandom for a while...

Title: Out in the Cold
Fandom: MacGyver (1985)
Rating: G
Content notes: None apply
Summary: icons from the MacGyver episode "Out in the Cold" (yes, imma cheat and just steal that for titling my post XD) starting with him enjoying his skiing, realizing there's gonna be an avalanche, him under the snow, Pete trying to find him, then rescue!


( Out in the Cold )

I'm feeling very domestic at the moment. I hosted a guest!! shreena stayed overnight, which meant having to remember what you do when there's someone else in the house, and that visitors need things, etc. But I don't think I forgot anything major.

I also got the tragic hot water situation resolved - my boiler suddenly stopped working, and I had to wait nearly a week for the plumber (he could have come on the day, but unfortunately I was in the office by the time he messaged, and had things on in the evening, so it would have been fairly inconvenient). Fortunately the only thing I use it for is washing up water (the shower is electric and I haven't needed to run the central heating even when it's cold never mind in alleged-late-spring), so I didn't think it would be that big a deal. It really was, though!

My washing up bowl isn't big enough to fit a dinner plate into; I'd boil a kettle and pour it in and start washing, but then need to rinse whatever I'd just washed off, and inevitably the cold water went everywhere all over the side around the sink and also into the sink water, so the hot water was lukewarm in minutes; I couldn't refill the kettle once I'd started using the last lot of boiling water because the sink was too full of water to get the kettle under the tap at any kind of useful angle; after about three items the water would be too disgusting to keep using... every single round of washing up was an exercise in extreme frustration, and I had a significant backlog that I was going to clean at the point where I realised the boiler wasn't working. I ate a lot of sandwiches and some takeaway.

However! Fortunately it was just a faulty sensor, and now I only have to fight normal levels of unwillingness to do the washing up and not also all of the logistical complications as well.

And then this morning I finished the current tranche of books in progress and now have a replacement set full of SHINY NEWNESS. The final stages of any batch are always a bit of a slog, because what's left is one fun book and all the things I hadn't been enjoying much which therefore hadn't been finished earlier. But right now everything in there looks exciting! In six weeks I'll find out which were the disappointments...