Reading

Current Music: Miss Congeniality

Entry tags:

snowflakes and sunshine

sunshine 3

Challenge #3 - Journaling prompt: What are your favourite summer-associated foods?

Creative prompt: Draw art of or make graphics of summer foods, or post your favourite summer recipes. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

journal prompt:
During summer I'm partial to a solero especially the exotic flavour. I'm not all that keen on ice cream so it's quite a thing for me to actually like one, I prefer ice pops and ice lollys.

While I make it more during the summer mushroom and leek spaghetti is something that I tend to eat year round because it's so quick and easy to make which is always a bonus for someone with my disabilities and I can use pre-slice frozen veg to make too.

creative prompt:

I'm pretty sure I made summery/seasonal icons of foods during the old sunshine and I'm also quite sure I've done some for

fan_flashworks too. I'll look throuhg my icons tag and stock tag later on and come back with some linkys.

Current Music: Murder She Wrote

Entry tags:

snowflakes and sunshine

sunshine 2

Challenge #2 - Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.

Creative: Write a love poem to anyone or anything you like

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

journal prompt:

Although the season starts in February and ends in October I love watching rugby league throughout the summer and make sure to either record games or watch them on the telly whenever I can, I do try to get to Leeds a couple of times a year to go to Leeds Rhinos home games in the league and sometimes challenge cup. I used to go to Wembley most years but have bailed since they changed challenge cup final from May/August bank holidays to a random weekend in June. I love both Super League and NRL. Watching league whether it's a the ground or on the telly makes me happy and I'll happily listen to radio commentary too.

creative prompt:

I don't do poetry.

Current Music: Murder She Wrote

Entry tags:

snowflakes and sunshine

sunshine 1

I wasn't really planning on doing things for

sunshine_revival but I am for now :)

Challenge #1 - Journaling Prompt: Light up your journal with activity this month. Talk about your goals for July or for the second half of 2025.

Creative Prompt: Shine a light on your own creativity. Create anything you want (an image, an icon, a story, a poem, or a craft) and share it with your community.. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

journal prompt:

I'm quite active on DW and post most days, under f-lock because that's what I've always done form my earliest days on LJ in 2002 or so and haven't really wanted to changed that other the years either. Basically, the windows are open and doors on the snib so just come in for a bit if you want to :)
There is a handfull of public posts and the one's tagged welcome to cat's dw are probably the main ones to read with it having the intro post and my sort of but not quite policy on public posts too. I think those are some of stickys too actually, been a while since I looked logged out.

creative prompt:

I'm severely dyslexic and I write fan fic, make icons and wallpapers, occasionally I'll make videos and fanmixes/fic playlists. All of these can be found over at

alittleimprobable and if you want a specific fandom, character or whatever then the tags list is the place to look but I do not tag by pairings because those took up way too much space and more so for the one and done fandoms than the fandoms I write in more frequently. As always, feel free to subscribe to any tags that are of interest to you and of course posting frequency varies from several times a week to maybe one or two a month. I do also crosspost to Squidge and AO3 but tend to be slower at that and not everything I create ends up getting posted to the archives anyway.

During an early round of

communal_creators one of my chosen projects was to work on a dolls wardrobe for Sam, one of my two Barbie dolls and I recently got around to posting the photos and doing a bit of a write up of the project more generally. I do have enough left over to make a wardrobe for Daniel but I haven't got around to it as yet because the first one was quite time consuming. It's this way :)

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Arctic Monkeys - Pretty Visitors

Entry tags:

Wednesday Reading & Recent Books

After blacking out my bingo card for Book Bingo, I haven't been updating my recent reading, so here we go.

What I just finished reading:

Night of the Dragon

Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa The third book in the Shadow of the Fox series. The ending was satisfying, but took some twists and turns that I didn't expect. I realized that I had to give up my Western concept of what a good ending to a story was, and understand that the culture referenced here has a much different understanding of life and death than what I do. Highly recommend the entire series.

The Lost Story

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer I really, really love this book. Think The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe mashed together with Stranger Things and set in the mountains of West Virginia. Some of the twists and story beats I saw coming a mile away, but some of them surprised me.

Confounding Oaths

Confounding Oaths by Alexis Hall I DNF'd this one after reading the prologue and two pages in. My issues with it: first person, set in 1815 but written in the modern era, yet tries to sound like it was written in 1815. Also told from the POV of Puck (the fairy) and tries to be humorous and arch.

What I'm Currently Reading: Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer. I've seen this one recommended in a lot of places, and I'm aware that it's the start of a second trilogy by her. I've looked at the first trilogy and don't think I plan on reading it.

What I Plan to Read Next: I have a hold for The Half King by Melissa Landers, so that one should come up next.

Entry tags:

sunshine revival challenge

sunshine revival challenge #2

Tunnel of Love

Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.

Since this is what I did most of last Sunday, I'll talk about how much I love baking. I love to bake. It's something I've done since I was a child. My mom was the one who taught me, with box mixes and canned frosting to begin with, before I moved on to making cakes from scratch. I remember taking a whole tray of cupcakes for a surprise party our class planned for our teacher in elementary school (okay, it was the girls. I vaguely remember us thinking the boys couldn't be trusted to keep their mouth shut so we left them out. I think we were, like, 10 or 11?). I also remember making birthday cakes and father's day cakes for my dad. I remember taking things for all sorts of class parties throughout the years really. When we had a project in elementary school on teaching the class "how to do something", I chose baking a cake and I remember switching from mix to wanting to do a scratch cake. My dad carefully measured out the ingredients in the morning before school so it would save me time. So much of my baking memories are tied to my family.

Baking is something that calms my mind. There's a precision to it that I appreciate. I'm someone who likes really exact instructions, which is why even though I have learned to like cooking, I do like baking more. You stick to a recipe and outside of mild variables, like the oven timing, it should come out right. And I like the results too! I have a sweet tooth, but I do like when people around me enjoy my baking. I am not great with taking compliments, but I like hearing them (who doesn't, right? lol)! I do like pretty things so it's been fun learning and practicing decorating as well.

People have made jokes about me starting a bakery in the past, and while there are many reasons I wouldn't, I do just like some thing just being an enjoyable hobby. And I will keep doing it. It's a nice way to spend an evening or a weekend. Doing what I love and sometimes, for the people I love. Because they're the reason I learned to do this in the first place. :)

( cupcakes )

Current Mood: scared

Oh here we go

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The Day in Spikedluv (Tuesday, July 8)

I was at mom’s by 6:30am. Before I headed to mom’s, I did a load of laundry, hand-washed some dishes, scooped kitty litter, and dropped Grant off at the garage.

I stayed until 3pm (again, giving mom a couple of hours by herself before my sister arrived). I stopped at the library on the way home to drop off a book and found a surprise book waiting for me, as I hadn’t yet received the notification. I also stopped at Stewart’s (for gas and milk).

I grilled Italian sausage for Pip’s supper (I’m not a fan), hand-washed more dishes, hung up Pip’s uniforms (last night’s load of laundry), dried the dog sheets (this morning’s load), emptied the dishwasher, and took a shower.

I finished the Clare Fergusson book and read two cozies, the next two in the Inn at Holiday Bay series, on my Kindle app.

Temps started out at 73.2(F) and reached 81.4. It was overcast all day even though we weren’t forecasted to get any rain. I hate not having sun, but it would’ve been much hotter if we had.

Mom Update:

Mom was tired today. ( more back here )

Entry tags:

Wednesday Reading Meme & Books 53 - 57 of 2025

What I Just Finished Reading: Since last Wednesday I have read/finished reading: Silence in the Library (A Lily Adler Mystery) by Katharine Schellman, The Falcon at the Portal (An Amelia Peabody Mystery) by Elizabeth Peters, I Shall Not Want (Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries) by Julia Spencer-Fleming, and Portent in the Pages & Poison in the Pudding (The Inn at Holiday Bay) by Kathi Daley.

What I am Currently Reading: I just finished reading the last book last evening, but today I’m going to start Necessary as Blood (A Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James Mystery) by Deborah Crombie.

What I Plan to Read Next: Heir, Apparently by Kara McDowell, unless something else comes in at the library that eclipses it.

Book 53 of 2025: Silence in the Library (A Lily Adler Mystery) (Katharine Schellman)

I enjoyed this book! ( spoilers )

This was a good book and I've already requested the next in the series. I'm giving this one five hearts.

♥♥♥♥♥

Book 54 of 2025: The Falcon at the Portal (An Amelia Peabody Mystery) (Elizabeth Peters)

Good book! ( spoilers )

I enjoyed this book and have requested the next in the series. I'm giving this book five hearts, despite my one disappointment.

♥♥♥♥♥

Book 55 of 2025: I Shall Not Want (Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries) (Julia Spencer-Fleming)

Good book! ( spoilers )

I enjoyed this book and have already requested the next. I'm giving this book five hearts.

♥♥♥♥♥

Book 56 of 2025: Portent in the Pages (The Inn at Holiday Bay) (Kathi Daley)

It’s been a while since I’ve read anything in this series, but I was looking for something easy to read after I finished the last book, so I looked through my Kindle library and chose this one. (Technically, I chose a different one that I DNF’d before I got more than a dozen pages into it, so this was my second choice.) This is the sixteenth in the series, to my surprise!

I enjoyed this book. It was a quick comfort read. I was happy to be reintroduced to the characters again. ( spoilers )

There wasn't a whole lot of suspense or concern for the characters, but it did what I wanted it to, which was help me kill a couple hours in an enjoyable fashion. I’m giving it four hearts, and I might even go on and read the next in the series.

♥♥♥♥

Book 57 of 2025: Poison in the Pudding (The Inn at Holiday Bay) (Kathi Daley)

After reading the other book, I decided to keep on with the series. This one was an enjoyable story, but a predictable mystery. Thankfully I read this series more for the characters and location than I do the mysteries. ( spoilers )

I'm giving this book four hearts.

♥♥♥♥♥

US mail stamps alert

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Entry tags:

promo post

more fandom events

flashexchanges is running size difference flash, a multifandom flash exchange featuring size differences. Nominations/sign-ups close on July 9th, 11PM UTC.

sedoretuex, an exchange dedicated to celebrating the sedoretu (a specific organization of a poly marriage created by Ursula K. Le Guin), is accepting nominations until July 12th, 11:59PM EDT. More info, including the schedule/FAQ can be found HERE.

raremaleslashex, a multifandom fic/art/podfic exchange focused on rare m/m ships, has opened sign-ups until July 13th, 8PM UTC.

relationshipping, a gift exchange for incest ships (ships that are not canonically related are welcome for incest aus too), is open for nominations until July 13th, 9:59PM EDT.

enemiestoloversex, a multifandom gift exchange focused on the "enemies to lovers" trope (though all ships are welcome, not just ones fitting that dynamic in canon), is accepting nominations until July 14th, 10PM UTC.

austenexchange, a fic exchange focused on Jane Austen works, is open for nominations until July 15th, 10PM UTC.

dreams_mayhem is running Hodge Podge, a multifandom challenge where each week players will fill prompts to score points by writing fics, creating poetry, or making graphics. Sign-ups are open until July 19th.

fallingforyoufallexchange, a fall multifandom freeform exchange centered around ships getting together, is open for nominations until July 21st, 8PM EDT.

scaldinghotcibingo is running Consent Issues Mini Bingo. Claims can be made until January 4th, 2026.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Mean Girl Murders

Entry tags:

fannish 50,
picspam

Fannish Tuesday

I have no idea where the time is disappearing to but it's making me anxious.

Today I got a hair cut. I'm not too sure about it but my hair was such a mess I had to get rid of it. Don't get me started on the color. It WAS violet and last week it turned this color...for the second time with two different purples from two different companies. My hair dresser said well you can get color safe shampoos with violets and then it dawns on me, omg I think MY color safe shampoo is auburn. gah.

The author's virtual meeting today didn't go well for me. I couldn't concentrate. My total word count is what I usually write in a 25 minute session. Sigh. But hey if you write chillers or thrillers and want to join PM me and we'll talk (ditto if you'd like to join my by email writers critique group)

So it's Fannish 50 tuesday and I'm back to the women of fandom. I'm now going back to my older fandoms in no particular order. I'll be starting with Fullmetal Alchemist but it's SO hard to pick one female from all the great ones in this, Riza Hawkeye, Winry Rockbell, Izumi Curtis, Olivier Armstrong Gracia Hughes just to name a few. Riza and Winry are probably the two more or less main characters and the best well rounded (along with Izumi)

I'm going with Riza for this because a) she was my favorite b) even though this was written by a woman, Winry was written for the male gaze and had a lot of that loud screamy nonsense as part of her character. (I still can't believe this started over 20 years ago. My god!) A lot of Winry's traits were very common back then when targeting the main audience teen boys.

Riza on the other hand is quiet authority. She is amazingly competent and loyal and smart. That she is deeply emotionally intimately entwined with Roy is clear in all the things she does (and she is not blind to his faults). I DID want more out of her back story with her father and why she follows Roy into the military. I wish she had had time to give Riza's back story more flesh.

It's clear that the rest of Roy's men know to obey her, that she's the default secondary ruler of their little group. Riza's hand gun expertise is pretty cool but on the other hand she barely has a life outside of work and that is sad. Arakawa said in an interview somewhere that Roy and Riza would never get the chance to be together and that's pretty sad too.

Even sadder, Bing brought up like ONE picture of Riza that wasn't fan art (okay okay I know it's old but really?) Google had a few more. I chose this one with her and Hayate.

I miss writing her. I miss the heyday of the Roy/Riza communities

Entry tags:

sunshine challenge

sunshine challenge 2025

text: sunshine revival july 2025, image: fluffy white clouds in a summer blue sky and the hint of power lines like white foss

sunshine_revival

I have been working on the challenges, all signs to the contrary, so I figured I’d better just get this post up even if it’s on my phone (always a fun experiment when there’s more formatting than usual).

I’m not really a journalling person, so it seems like I’ll be going with the creative prompts.

As always, this is also a hello post 👋

( Friending Meme )

( Challenge #1 )

( Challenge #2 )

Entry tags:

help

Boosty.to Withdrawals (Help)

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Crossposts: https://digthewriter.insanejournal.com/428569.html

Entry tags:

[drabble] smoke and bloom

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Fanfic Article in "Harper's"

Hi, dears! It's been ages since I made a post of any kind, and as much as I'm sure you're dying to hear of my RL adventures of the last few months (I was almost killed! Partner and I are getting married!), and as much as I'm sure you want to hear me rant about the murderous Donald Fucking Trump and his (quite literal) Death Eater minions, I'm afraid you will still have to wait awhile for those treats.

Today, I've stopped in to alert you an article on HP fanfiction (and how it's being turned into pro-fic) in the mainstream magazine Harper's Bazaar. It's called The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Dramione Fanfiction.

While I personally feel no urge at all to read Dramione fanfiction, I am no ship-basher. Love what you love. There are wonderfully-written, complex stories about just about any pairing you can name, and gen, too. So maybe I'll even dip my toe into what is apparently a super-viral Dramione fic that I never heard of until I read this article: something called "Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love" (or DMATMOOBIL to the initiated). The author's notes are already fun.

The Harper's article is fun, too, if a bit basic, and offers some interesting thoughts. Enjoy!

Stay cool (or warm, depending on your hemisphere). And continue to fight fascism with all you've got.

Current Mood: excited

Thrre niftinesses

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(no subject)

Does anybody need someone to copy-edit/proofread a blog post or article or TTRPG notes or something? I'll do like 1k for, I don't know, 10 bucks? I have a really hard time making shit up for portfolio reasons and setting up a Fiverr gig requires samples of your work. Gross.

I'm probably not even going to use that, because I'm pretty sure I can offer that sort of work on Ko-Fi and I hate the shit out of content mills, but all the same.

Today's D20 list (where I write down twenty things and then roll a d20 to see what I do next) is mostly research; so far I've compiled a few examples of printable item and spell cards for D&D, done the above, and found out the reason Inprnt wouldn't accept my files is that I've been saving JPGs in Apple's Display P3 color profile. I thought they weren't big enough, which is probably ridiculous, I have a fucking Canon DSLR.

I don't think I talked about this here, but back in May my mom stopped receiving her minimal basic income, so we're surviving on kindness and savings, and there's not that much in savings. If anyone wants to help out, my Paypal account is battlesinthemorning@gmail.com. Literally every bit helps. But I am also trying to do actual work without driving myself up the wall. It's hard because every time my mom asks my sister for money*, my mental health takes five steps back, but I'm trying.

* ( venting )

Entry tags:

The Day in Spikedluv (Monday, July 7)

My sister A had to be to work by 7am. I didn’t quite make it to mom’s before she left, but I was there just a few minutes after 7. Before I left home I managed to toss a load of laundry into the washer AND dryer, hand-wash some dishes, pack my lunch, and scoop kitty litter.

I left mom’s at 3:30pm (though my sister wasn’t going to arrive until 5:30pm – we’re trying to slowly wean her from having care/company all the time because she’s already said she’s going to miss having us there). I stopped at the library on the way home to pick up a book. After I got home I did dishes, folded a load of laundry, tossed another into the washer AND dryer (that’s an accomplishment!), did a load in the dishwasher, and shaved.

I watched the first two eps of Smoke, read some fanfic and started the next Clare Fergusson book, and went for a walk while at mom’s.

Temps started out at 73.0(F) and reached 93. It was hot.

Mom Update:

Mom wasn’t as tired as I thought she’d be after going to the graduation party yesterday. ( more back here )

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Dr. Pimple Popper

Entry tags:

fanfic,
music

Music

Since all I did today was laundry and write (and deal with family drama I don't want to share publicly), I'll just jump into music monday (and probably come back later to share the story)

So I'm still working through the Alphabet (and keeping myself to the last 5 years) and I'm up to N. Feel free to share your N song. Looking forward to them.

( I don't have many Ns )

Also I have a little book review right here, mostly for

spikedluv Murder She Wrote a Body in Boston

Here's another fast writing story

Title: I Can See Forever In Your Eyes

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Summary: Husker has been afraid to fall in love again. Angel, however, is making him rethink that.

( at the above link or under here, written for Overlord Husk week )

Entry tags:

It's too hot to come up with a witty title

Whoops, I completely forgot to mention in my last post that there was a Friday the 13th tattoo related flash and I wrote an Iron Triangle triple drabble for it: As Evening Slowly Slides Into Night. Summary: An evening, like many others, for the Iron Triangle. (And their shared big bed.)

The Hurt/Comfort exchange has (finally) opened! Lots of fandoms to peruse here. Authors will be revealed on the 11th. I got great Guardian art and a fic for The First Shot and, as always, there's just a ton of amazing things in the collection.

Battleship hit its signup cap within 36 hours of opening so now it's just a random prompt period for a few more days until teams are assigned and then it actually starts on the 12th I think. If you want the chance of getting stuff created (fic, art or podfic) for you, prompting is open to anyone. As prompting is a bit complicated, a few different people have written up guides on how to do it: guide #1, guide #2, and guide #3. All are tumblr posts but I checked them in a private tab and they all work when not signed into tumblr. You might not get anything, but, then again, you might so feel free to peruse the tagset (also linked in all the tumblr posts) and see if there's some fandoms and a few freeform additional tags (500+ ranging from the most E rated things to very, very G) that catch your eye and consider throwing in a prompt or two (or 50, the max).

I've only done 11 prompts so far and haven't decided if I want to do more or not. I tend to keep mine pretty simple as I find my eyes glaze over at huge walls of tags so I pick 10-20 and leave it at that with a few comments in the prompt box along with my DNWs but everyone does it differently. If you want to prompt and have any questions, I'd be happy to help.

Well into the ramp up of this year's Battleship it randomly changed its rules to no longer accept crochet art. I'd already started planning a project to fulfill the 'battlesheep' additional tag and decided to finish it anyway. Behold the 'fearsome' (major use of airquotes there) Battlesheep!! (And I now make up 12.7% of AO3's entire crochet tag between my main and birthday bash account.)

I still haven't gotten any of the links from Pocket posted to any of my research link posts, I really need to start working on that. Ugh. So much to do, so little time.

Last but not least, a single

recthething fic rec (MDZS/Untamed):

Burn with the sun, die with the sun (series). Summary: A collection of works in which Wen Xu picks Wei Wuxian off Yiling's streets and makes him an integral part of the Wen Sect. (An interesting AU series where shortly after getting his sword WWX is sort of thrown out of the Jiang/Madam Yu sends him to Yiling and tells him he can't return until he's tamed the Burial Mounds but after saving Wen Xu's life there he is taken in by the Wen, currently 3 works, 21k total)