welcome to camp telophase

I got TWO this year! :D And they both kinda of fit together thematically: pauses in the action, one after, one before.

Faith, for Mugen no Juunin | Blade of the Immortal. Takes place after the events of Blizzard, but no spoilers. A quiet, meditative piece, which allows a bit of rest and healing to characters who desperately need it.

Liberty, a short piece which takes place some time after the events of Di Renjie | Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, which you don't want to read if you haven't seen that movie yet and plan to. It's got one of the excellent qualities of fiction, which is that it's satisfying in and of itself, but leaves you wanting more.

I love both of them! Thank you, dear authors!

(And my recipient likes their work, yay! :D)

All in all, a nice start to the day.

ETA: The titles fit togehter themtically, too!

ETA2: In a way, I find commenting on works to be the hardest part of challenges like these, because I feel that all I can write is either weirdly gushing or awkwardly stilted, and in both cases seems like I'm not genuine. When all I'm really trying to do is to put :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D!!!!!! into words, and trying to pull out something specific that I like to show the creators that I appreciate the work they put into them.

I'm on antibiotics for a UTI at the moment, and on the second antibiotic because after the doc cultured the, er, sample, they found that the bacterial culprit responsible for this was resistant to the one she'd put me on, so I had to switch to another. And this other one requires that I take it with food twice a day, and not take it with vitamins, because there are a few vitamins and minerals that interact with it in odd ways if they're taken together. Same with caffeine. I poked around the intartubes and found that the reason you're not supposed to take it with caffeine is that it increases the effects of caffeine. So I ahve declared that one caffeine-containing drink in the morning won't hurt me, and indeed it seems not to have. (I had tea; mostly so that caffeine withdrawal wouldn't provoke a migraine so that I wouldn't have to go searching for yet MORE drug interaction info.)

Also, I can't take NSAIDs on it. Bah.

IN other news I decided not to do fandom A for my Parallels fanwork, and instead fo fandom B (I matched on two). Which is good, because it gives me a chance to practice a style I've really wanted to try. Here's hoping I don't screw it up! :D

Parallels reveals are up, and I can now admit that I did this artwork of Tanyu from Mushishi for jan, aka ambientlight. Not that I think anyone who knew my work and that I was participating and who looked at it wouldn't spot I did it, but hey! (And, wow, the original is indeed SO MUCH BETTER in real life. I no longer have access to my awesome-but-elderly scanner, since I've upgraded to an iMac that won't take a SCSI card, bah.)

My two (eee! two!) awesome gift!fics were from opalmatrix (for Mushishi) and spicy_diamond (for Otoyomegatari). Thank you both, again! :D

Hey! I got TWO, count 'em, TWO awesome stories for the Parallels fic exchange!

Shining Silver, Shining Gold
Fandom: Mushishi. A lovely story about Tanyû observing Obon. It captures the tone of the manga, and gives us a little insight into Tanyû's character and past.

On the Matter of Barbarism in the Field
Fandom: Otoyomegatari (The Bride's Stories). Henry Smith*, the anthropologist conducting fieldwork with the Eihon household, encounters a bit of culture clash. Delightful, hilarious.

And my recipient likes my work also, so that makes the day even better! So much thanks to the writers of the stories I got! I just wish I were better at explaining what I liked about them. And now you should go read them!


* Oh-ho-ho, I see what you did there, mangaka! Subtle!

Parallels fic/art exchange thing done. Not saying anything more, because it might make it easier to ID me. :) I will have Commentary after the reveal, but probably not about what you might think. It'll be about dealing with creative and technical issues, which I hope to resolve tonight.

Car into body shop, rental car gotten.

Tickets to David Sedaris purchased--he's coming to FW in November. We have nosebleed-section tickets which are probably obstructed-view, but it's not like we have to see him to enjoy him reading, and we didn't want to spend $70 on a ticket when we could get what were just about the last two $22 tickets available. Stomp is coming in April, and I'm taking Toby to that whether he seems reluctant or not, because he loves percussion. Lewis Black is showing up in September, which Toby wouldn't mind going to, however he's not sure he wants to go $40-70 worth, as that's the range of tickets. They don't appear to be selling out as fast as David Sedaris (which may tell you something about Bass Hall patrons), so he can think on it for a bit.

Toby loves his early-birthday Strawberry Stack Cake. I don't hate it as much as I thought I would, with that much strawberry in it. :) The cake part isn't as fluffy as your usual cake is; it's much more like a moist, chewy sugar cookie. Not saying it's a bad thing! It needs to be that texture to stand up to the jammy bits.