Scratching Post

I totally missed that Yuletide signups had started. My fight with the new LJ format issues means I tend not to go there as much anymore. My fight with DW constantly either reloading a page or locking it up entirely means I haven't been there as much either.

Hint: The world uses a lot more mobile devices now, make your damn site compatable.

Anyway, I am honestly thinking of not signing up for Yuletide this year. I'm not seeing as many fandoms that I like to read and/or write for as usual, and don't know if I'd have the time to offer anything either. I obsess about what I'm obsessed with, and right now that includes:
- Avengers fic
- Specifically Bucky/Darcy fic (I don't know, it just works for me)
- Working out
- Training for the upcoming run
- Regretting working out and training when my body protests with far too much pain
- Stressing about work

This may change, possibly soon, but that's where my head is at right now.

I was lucky enough to be gifted with two Yuletide treats this year! One for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, and one for Fraction's Hawkeye comics!

Know What This Means? (200 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Hansel (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters)
Additional Tags: Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational, Yuletide 2014, Double Drabble, Magic, Canon-Typical Violence, Minor Character Death, Post-Canon
Summary:

Hansel gets a surprise on a hunt

Just Passing Through (100 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hawkeye (Comics)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kate Bishop, Natasha Romanova, Bobbi Morse, Jessica Drew
Additional Tags: Drabble, Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational, Mild Humor, Friendship, Rescue, Pretending, Commiseration
Series: Part 29 of Yuletide Drabble Invitational 2014
Summary:

Natasha wears a non-expression. "We're always armed."

I truly & utterly cannot remember, likely due to being swamped at work and being sick on top of that, so my apologies for asking a truly stupid question:

When are the Yuletide entries due?

Mine is like 80% done, maybe more, but want to make sure I have cushion room for when I inevitably decide to change something with it.

Please and thank you?

Yuletide fic is almost done! Like at least 80% as of today. It would have been more, but I got one of those annoying cluster headaches that wouldn't go away so...

Once I wrap that one up and post it for the reveal, I can work on finishing up the drafts for hc_bingo - all but two of what I want to post are at least in "almost finished/polished" draft format, so there's that. Just not fully liking one other, and honestly haven't started on the one that I was so excited to get the prompt for because, really, that's how I roll... *headdesk*

So, yeah... That's me on the writing front? If I could just write at work at lunch instead of playing Bejeweled the entire time, maybe I'd actually be done with these challenges and back to trying to finish my huge long fic that no one will read. :)

Reveals are up! I had the immense pleasure of writing a Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters fic for credoimprobus. Seriously, so much fun writing this one - the prompt was so awesome and gave me an excuse to write a fic that had been floating around in my head since I saw the movie.

Magisch (12559 words) by cat_77
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hansel/Mina (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters)
Characters: Hansel, Gretel, Ben, Edward, Mina (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters)
Additional Tags: Mpreg, mention of canon character death, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language
Summary:

His time with Mina was magical. As a witch hunter, this may prove problematic.

Woke up and cannot immediately go back to sleep due to far too much on my mind.

This is the first year in my 30+ in which we did not go to one of my relatives for Christmas Eve. Instead, all of the way too many cousins were doing things with their own expanding families and the like, so we got together here with wolfie74's mother and the boys' father. The boys' father usually comes over for Christmas Day, opens presents with us, then takes the kids to his side of the family for their festivities. Due to the massive amounts of snow and ice and the possibility of being snowed in, we did everything tonight instead and he left with them before it got worse. It was a little odd after so many years of doing it differently, but it does mean the possibility of sleeping in come morning for the first time in years.

wolfie74 seems to have really loved her gifts. The boys actualy actively searched for things with meaning to them this year (versus the Chocolate Fountain Year, the Operation Game Year and more) and I found a handmade doll on Etsy of her fave Doctor that she cooed over, amongst other things. She got me things for our upcoming trip and a shirt that's technically in her fandom but the art kinda makes it looks like Natasha as well and makes me both want ALL THE KIDFIC and want to change one of my last two hc_bingo stories that I'm struggling with to kidfic as well.

Her mother gave me something I am still struggling to figure out how to react to, but in a positive, heirloom, you-are-family kind of way. My mother both listened about a WWII history book I wanted in memory of my great-great aunt, and got me bracelet a friend made at a craft show because "it has stars and moons and celestial stuff you like."

And, finally, I peeked at LJ when I first woke back up and couldn't fall asleep and Yuletide has posted! Dude - I got three stories to enjoy in the morning while contemplating survival in the vast cold and white. So excited! Will post more when I am coherent and awake enough to do so about those!

There is apparently an entire section for the Hawkeye comics over at Yuletide. I did not know this existed, or I probably would have played in that sandbox a bit earlier.

Goodbye, productivity...

[PS - if you read none other, read Know You're Not Alone. Insta-rec for perfect Kate-voice and a tie-in to the comic that just came out.]

And I get to fess up to which stories I wrote...

Variables (2876 words) by cat_77
Fandom: Alphas
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Bill Harken, Cameron Hicks
Summary: Some things you can predict, others you guess at and hope for the best.


Duty (637 words) by cat_77
Fandom: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sabriel/Touchstone
Characters: Sabriel (Old Kingdom), Touchstone (Old Kingdom)
Summary: Sabriel believes she has a duty. Touchstone would like to argue the point.

I have been gifted with a wonderful Alphas story! Binary Data is a view of Gary's world and how he sees not just everything around him, but has a fair idea of how everyone else sees it as well.

Go read. 'Tis awesome.

Have also been gifted with the most wonderful thing since the original Atari that we gave my dad when I was about ten: an iPad add-on with like 100 of the old games. Oh yeah, time be a wastin' soon. *g*

Now wolfie74 and I are off to complete our Christmas Day routine: eat Chinese food and watch Sherlock of the Holmes.

Merry Christmas to those that celebrate, Happy Sunday to those that do not. I hope your day(s) are filled with joy and all sorts of fun. :)