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fandomtrumpshate is running again this year, and signups are open! Details here

Signups end on February 08th.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the offers are this year. This is the 10th year it's run, and I have a feeling it'll be a big year.

In case there are any who don't know what it is: FTH is a multifandom charity auction in which people sign up to offer fanwork (art, fic, beta reading, etc). Others bid on them. The money raised is donated directly to charity.

The library ran an "Exploring Romance Subgenres" challenge, where the idea is (not surprisingly) to read works in different romance subgenres, one book each. I thought I'd post the list of what I read and some quick thoughts.

Here we go:

Holiday Romance: The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch. M/M. It's set in a sort of world in which "kingdoms" for each holiday exist hidden from the Normal World. Tl;dr the prince of Christmas is engaged to the princess of Easter, but falls in love with the prince of Halloween instead, which messes up the planned political alliance between Christmas and Easter. It was very silly, but I enjoyed it enough that I might pick up the next book in the series.

Sports Romance: Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey. F/M. The fan of a has-been golf star ends up working as his caddy with the goal of helping him win the PGA tour - earning some cash for herself and helping him get his mojo back along the way. The characters were pretty fun, but there were too many sex scenes for my taste, plus lots of stereotypical heterosexual nonsense. Also there wasn't enough sports in this sports romance (I don't even like golf but if I'm going to read/watch a sports romance, I want it to have More Sports. Then again I'm one of those people who wanted even more skating-related stuff in Yuri on Ice.)

Romantic Comedy: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Jall. M/M. The fuckup son of an aging rock star begins dating a squeaky-clean lawyer as a PR move. This one was so-so; the main character was kind of exasperating because he created a lot of his own problems. A lot of the time that I was reading it I kept feeling like, "You brought this on yourself, bro. Grow up, calm down, and think things through first." But I did like that he was actually pretty good at his job as an event organizer (?) for a small nonprofit, and that the job-related problems that came up had more to do with people responding to the media portrayal of him rather than him being bad at doing his actual work. I did like the love interest a lot; found him very sympathetic. There was this one bit where he mentioned having difficulty engaging with queer clubs and things because only thing he has in common with the people at them is his sexuality, and.... yeahhh, I've felt that before.

Paranormal Romance: The Only Purple House In Town by Ann Aguirre. F/M. A vampire who isn't good at being a vampire (for reasons that become very clear later) inherits a relative's house and moves in; she turns it into a boarding house and ends up leasing rooms to a varied cast of characters, including a handsome hawk-shifter that she used to go to school with. I enjoyed the premise but the execution was not my thing at all. It seems to be written for the sort of audience who really likes the subtype of "found family" narratives where everyone fits into very defined roles and tidy boxes.

Romantasy: Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree. F/F. An orc pursues her dream of opening a coffee shop, and discovers maybe her "heart's desire" isn't something but someone. Yeah, I know this is more "fantasy with romance", shh it's close enough. I've heard so much about people both loving and hating this book that I wasn't sure what to expect. It was... okay! A little saccharine, but I can see why people would find it appealing. I do remember seeing someone say that "even the points where the stakes are high don't actually FEEL like the stakes are high" and I think I would agree with that. It was nice over all though, the relationship was cute, and I liked some of the worldbuilding.

Dark Romance: How does it feel? by Jeaneane O'Riley. F/M. A scientist who studies moths accidentally enters fairyland, is captured by the Unseelie Prince, and gets caught up in the conflict between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. I'll be honest, I hated this. The beginning, where the main character is in the real world and doing scientist stuff, was all right, but after she fell through the fairy ring everything was just Not My Thing. There was nothing likeable about the love interest and a lot of their scenes together had the kind of stereotypical heterosexual nonsense that I find a real turnoff (like, it was more than the usual level of nonsense I would expect in a F/M romance novel). This is the beginning of a series but I will Not be checking out the rest or anything else by this author.

Western Romance: Wild and Wrangled by Lyla Sage. F/M. A real estate lawyer falls back into love with her ex, a ranch hand. This was actually quite nice, and kind of cozy. I found the argument 3/4 of the way through the book pretty tedious, but it resolved pretty quickly. This is another protagonist who creates some of her own problems, though I found her more sympathetic than the protagonist of Boyfriend Material. I did end up with a lot of questions about how things turn out, though; like, the protagonist's parents are huge snobs who hate the love interest, and while there is a big scene where shit goes down, the issue isn't resolved at the end. Like, okay, how's she going to deal with that mess? Who knows.

SciFi Romance: Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell. M/M. A political arranged marriage between two people from different planets doesn't go as smoothly as expected due to a third party working to make the interplanetary political situation explode. I really enjoyed this! I've seen it recced around a lot, both in its original form and after it was published, so I was kind of worried I'd be disappointed. Not so! One thing that made me like it so much is that there was so much to chew on aside from the relationship. Interesting worldbuilding, lots of plot both related and unrelated to the relationship, etc. I also liked the relationship - like, those two definitely have some stuff to work through, it's kind of a mess, but I'm confident they can manage it. I'm definitely going to read the sequel.

Regency Romance: The Duke at Hazard by KJ Charles. M/M. A duke's ring is stolen after a poorly thought-out tryst, and he takes it upon himself to track down the culprit and recover it, quickly enlisting the help of a disgraced gentleman that he went to school with. This was very fun! Again, part of what it had going for it is that there is a lot of plot aside from the relationship - yes, the developing feelings are important, but there's also the matter of the quest, and all the various subplots the duo get tangled in, etc. I really liked the way things wrapped up; it was very satisfying. This is an author I'd heard a lot about but wasn't sure I would ever actually read; I really liked this one though so I might seek out some more in the future.

Highlander Romance: Under Loch and Key by Lana Ferguson. F/M. I was kind of cheating with this one, as it's actually contemporary paranormal, but the love interest is a sexy Scottish dude so I'm counting it anyway: An American visits some estranged relatives in Scotland and, while there, encounters a handsome dude with a temper who (it turns out) is cursed to turn into a lakemonster at night. The premise was silly, but fun, and I could roll with it. There were more sex scenes than I prefer, but some of them were quite Inspired, leaning into the monsterfucking premise in a way that I hadn't expected (they weren't my thing overall, but at the same time I was kind of impressed). But there was some of the nebulous heterosexual nonsense that I'm not a fan of. ...Also a major plot point hinged on the protagonist finding a diary from the late 13th century, reading it, and discovering the secret to (potentially) end the curse. Unfortunately for me I find it much easier to accept the idea of a handsome were-Nessie than I can accept the idea that an untrained rando could successfully read a 13th-century Scottish manuscript.

Whew. That was a lot. ...I think I'm going to take a break from Romance Novels and read something else now. :V Fortunately there's lots of good books out there to explore, eh.

I'm really glad that I decided to aim toward a usage goal for Project Pan, rather than focusing on something specific. It's caused me to try a bunch of things I picked up over time that I wasn't so sure about.

For eyeshadows, the reasons I previously ended up not using certain shades much is because I had, I think, originally expected them to do something else, and was disappointed with the actual result. Like, I have one linen base shade that I think I'd originally hoped was more opaque, but is very sheer. At the time, sheer wasn't what I wanted. But now, I'm finding that it's exactly what I want in a base shade.

And then there's another one - Urban Decay Purple Haze. I think I had originally hoped that it would be a much darker, more vibrant purple. But the actual result is a medium greyish purple. That isn't what I wanted at the time; I was wearing full glam looks all the time back then - I think I had been hoping for something more like Urban Decay Flash. But I tried it today and it really suits my style now; I really like it. I think it might go into my regular rotation.

I also discovered that I don't hate waterproof mascara as much as I originally thought. It's still kind of a pain in the ass to remove it, but if you're patient it's not so bad. I don't think I'll make a habit of wearing it on the regular, but I'm going to use up the one tube that I do have.

It just feels really good to be experimenting with stuff like this again.

+ Finished reading Winter's Orbit. Hopefully will have time to write more detailed thoughts later, but the tl;dr is that I enjoyed it very much and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel. It's a romance novel but there's lots of non-romance plot, which is basically my preferred kind of romance novel.

+ Was working on fic today. Nothing special or complicated, but it still feels good to work on something. I feel very rusty, though. It's ridiculous that putting one word in front of the other is so hard. Guess the only way out is through, though!

+ Still considering signing up for FTH. One thing I'm waffling on is what to offer; Hetalia-wise my scope is narrower than it was the last time I participated in an auction. Not that I'm solid about sticking to my usual set of characters; some of the best auction fics I've written were for pairings I'd never thought about much until that moment. But there's always the chance that someone unfamiliar with my work will ask for something I'd have trouble delivering. I guess I'll just mention my usual characters in the description and see what happens. Aside from that, though, I'm not sure what other fandoms, if any. Promare, maybe? I'm due for a rewatch anyway.

+ Watched The Life of Chuck this evening. I thought it was a pretty good adaptation of King's novella. Admittedly, the first section was pretty stressful, what with the apocalyptic scenes and whatnot, even though I knew how the rest of it went. Overall I found it pretty sweet, though. I've seen it described as kind of schmaltzy, and like... yeah, I guess that's fair, it IS schmaltzy. I enjoyed it overall, though.

Went to the foot doctor yesterday. Turns out I have a heel spur and flat feet. The former is the cause of the intense pain I've been feeling for a while now, and the latter is probably responsible for the back pain I've dealt with for years.

He recommended some physio exercises for the heel issues, and some inserts for the flatness. Also recommended doing exercise that is less impactful on the feet. So I'm going to have to switch from walking to using the electric bike for a while.

It's possible to get custom inserts, but they are expensive and I might not need them. Will try the advice and see how it works out before I consider exploring that option.

Such a pain in the ass. I wish I didn't have to deal with shit like this.

Original art rec: Put the light out | Turn the light on by thisdisasterauthor @ tumblr

I put this in my tumblr queue almost a year ago and it finally spat out again today. And I still really like it a lot so I'm linking it here too.

Artist's summary:

Awhile ago I was hit by the similar but opposing natures of fire towers and lighthouses, and I wanted to explore that more. Both lonely, out of the way stations worked in isolation in sometimes extreme conditions, both tasked with protecting large swathes of people they will never meet or probably even see. Yet one is about spotting light in the distance and putting it out, while the other is about turning on the light within and shining it out.

+ Work has been bonkers for the last few days. Oh my fuck. It's like everybody in multiple departments decided they need me to do X, Y, and Z, and they need it done NOW NOW NOW. Thankfully my coworker will be back from vacation next week, but I've done more OT in the past few days than I've done in my entire time here.

+ The local library is doing an "Explore romance subgenres!" challenge. It's been kind of interesting to pick up stuff I wouldn't normally reach for, but on the other hand, some of the stuff I've been reading is very much Not For Me (picked up a few titles that ended up being very... well... stereotypically cishetero). Upside, I decided to read Winter's Orbit for the scifi romance portion of it, since I've been planning to read that anyway, so there is that.

+ So far that broad goal I've had to do less, or at least be mindful to not overschedule myself, ain't working out so hot. Whoops.