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[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #997 ]

[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #997 ]

The first secret from this batch will be posted on February 14th.

RULES:
1. One secret link per comment.
2. 750x750 px or smaller.
3. Link directly to the image.

More details on how to send a secret in!

Optional: If you would like your secret's fandom to be noted in the main post along with the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. If your secret makes the fandom obvious, there's no need to do this. If your fandom is obscure, you should probably tell me what it is.

Optional #2: If you would like WARNINGS (such as spoilers or common triggers -- list of some common ones here) to be noted in the main post before the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret.

Optional #3: If you would like a transcript to be posted along with your secret, put it along with the link in the comment!

Entry tags:

fic,
writing

I Finally Wrote a Fic!

It's a tiny ficlet of 250 words so unfortunately not enough to fulfill a prompt on either of my bingo cards. I'll be posting it tomorrow for

halfamoon.

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Weekly proof of life: mainly media

In movie news, Cineplex has a listing for Zhu Yilong's new movie, Scare Out, which is apparently opening in Canada on Feb. 17. I refuse to let myself be excited about this, after having so much hope about Dongji Rescue last summer. But maybe it'll open here and I'll be able to see it! At least the 17th is before the crunch at work starts.

Reading: To shake things up a bit from Kurosagi, this week I reread the first two volumes of Hikaru no Go. In both of these cases, I'm pretty much relying on Goodreads to tell me when I get to volumes I haven't previously read. Awkwardly for my sense of "what even is time?", this means that I now know that I first read vol. 1 of Hikaru no Go in 2006 and vol. 1 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service in 2008.

My sense of how far I got into Hikaru no Go is completely nonexistent, since I know I read some number of volumes at some point, and I saw some of the anime (long enough ago that I know we were still living in the co-op we moved out of over fifteen years ago), and

scruloose and I (much later) saw the c-drama in its entirety. It's all rather a jumble. But seeing the c-drama did inspire me to finish buying the manga, and I guess its time has come!

I did wind up reading all of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and the upshot, given my uncertainty about finishing it to begin with, is unsurprisingly that I doubt I'll pick up the second book. I think it's very safe to say that LitRPG is not my thing. I did wind up liking the book more overall than I would've thought back around the 40% mark or so, though.

Watching: We're caught up on The Pitt and one episode behind on Frieren. We've also seen the second episode of Midnight Mass, which has a lot of animal harm; I don't have any triggers that I'm aware of, but it was enough to be upsetting.

Playing: I think I've finished Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven, which is to say that I've finished the main plot and done a few wrapping-up things, leaving me free to idly manage the cult and do dungeon runs, but that's usually when I wander off.

Weathering: We're having some of what I would call Normal Snow for the second time this week. The first time, a few days ago, I realized I've started to basically think in terms of "winter days that are cold but not much is happening outside" and "snowstorms", without much in between, but that's probably a result of leaving the house so rarely as much as it's a byproduct of climate change.

Current Mood: confused

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Speed running fandoms??

I’m annoyed at how fast fandoms move now. I remember that when Matt Reeves’ Batman movie came out, I was seeing a lot of fan works for it for a few months, then … nothing. But why??

Don’t you ever feel the urge to just be insane about a piece of media for years? For decades even? I’ve been a POTO fan for 18 years!! The love is still going strong. But this seems to be the exception rather than the rule now.

Entry tags:

admin,
c: loveless

Challenge #083: Loveless

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Roundup: Judgement

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[#082: judgement] Bridgerton: "Yours, Cressida"

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[#082: judgement] Greek Mythology fic: who stirs up sweet passion in the gods

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Stuff I Love, Top Ten Edition, week 1: books!

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dance

How to Like Ballet, Part 2

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Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Dashboard - Modest Mouse

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January Writing Roundup

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Locus List

Some good news:

Both Queen Demon and the Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute anthology, made it on the Locus Recommended Reading List:

https://locusmag.com/2026/02/2025-recommended-reading/

with a lot of other excellent books and stories, including a new section for translated works.

You can also vote on the list for the Locus Awards. Anybody can vote here with an email address: https://poll.voting.locusmag.com/ though they have you fill out a demographic survey first with how many books you read per year, etc.

Of course a lot of great work did not end up on the list, like I was surprised not to see The Witch Roads and The Nameless Land duology by Kate Elliott, which I thought was excellent.

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Subscriptions & Backlogs

I'm still enjoying watching Naruto Shippuden, but the pacing is starting to get to me... I'm in the Tenchi Bridge arc right now and it just feels like everything has been moving so slowly for so long. I'll get through it, I'll get through it... but I am kind of wondering if maybe it would just be a better idea to read the manga. But then I miss out on the voice acting and the color and the fight animation! Hmm. It's something I'm thinking about.

I've also been meaning to catch up with Kai-Hen Wizards again! I missed when it returned from hiatus, so there are about 20 chapters or so right now that are subscription locked... but the subscription is only like $2 a month, so I think I'll get it soon for a month, catch up on Kai-Hen Wizards, and then drop it. I'll probably even be able to do it during the free trial period of a week.

I've also decided to cancel my subscription to marquee.tv, an excellent site that has a lot of opera, ballet, and theater performances recorded that you can watch with a subscription. I just wasn't using it! I'm trying to get a handle on my backlogs in general, of video games and books and shows and etc., and I just wasn't using this subscription, though I'm really glad that it exists as a service.

Other subscriptions I currently have include DCU Infinite and Dropout, both of which I also need to use more often... but I do actually use them, at least. Other than that, there's Crunchyroll of course, and Amazon Prime... one day I will cancel Amazon Prime, but I just! keep! buying! things! from Amazon. I've gotten better at curbing my spending, but I still use it often enough that it feels worth it... but it would be nice if I could stop buying shit on Amazon often enough that a Prime subscription would be worth cancelling.

So now my biggest backlog items are video games and books. I need to get in the habit of reading on my phone instead of playing games or browsing ffa when I'm bored! The video games... well, I'll get to them eventually. Right now my main focus entertainment-wise (especially wrt my TV) is Naruto Shippuden, so I expect to make more headway with the video game backlog once I'm done with Naruto.

PXWLF Day 1

I started with the main/downtown section of the festival and boy do I have regrets. There is a reason I usually mind the outskirts of the festival for interesting photos and experiences.

The Portland Winter Lights Festival is a 2 week thing with over 200 art installations and events. Last year they ranged from giant metal fire breathing dragon at the waterfront to 'store that happens to sell a few glow in the dark items is open late'. Also, last year I saw a drag king performance based on I Saw The TV Glow. It is a highly varied experience, and the website is deeply unhelpful. I can tell you already that some of the images this year are concept art and not actually was what done. There is cool stuff, but to find it you just need to keep hopping around hundreds of sites and hoping.

I've had a good time at the festival in the past. One year it happened during that extended snowstorm/power outage Portland had and I remember trudging through deep snow to see the fire powered light events, a truly surreal experience.

Anyway, the main downtown space can get crowded and people can get pushy. I don't have a sense of balance so people pushing me side to make a hole for their group is A Problem for me. Some lady wanted to push through a line I was in, rather than go around. I asked her to cut behind me instead of in front for a specific reason, and she had a expletive filled crash out at me.

I hopefully got at least 2 good pictures, but yeah, there is a reason I usually skip the main area. I am *hopefully* hitting the Electric Blocks and some east side stuff tonight, then I'll start sorting through lists to see what else I want to hit. The only exhibit up on St John's is... an art exhibit that's been there year round for years.

Also, damn, just like I need a dedicated Mike Bennett folder I need to start a PDXWLF folder.

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Blockout (1989)

The splash screen of this game credits California Dreams, a familiar publishing label used by Logical Design Works for many of their home computer releases in the '80s and early '90s. As a kid I assumed these games were made in my home state of California, but nope. Almost all of them were developed in Poland by P.Z. Karen Co., a studio that primarily produced games for the Western market. (Another interesting title they developed was 1991's Solidarność ["Solidarity"], "a political simulation of the Polish underground freedom movement that culminated in the Solidarity trade union in 1980", which I have never played, though I am a little tempted.)

rectangular well with a wireframe grid has begun to fill with colorful tetris pieces as a wireframe piece waits to be dropped from the top

rectangular well with a wireframe grid has begun to fill with colorful tetris pieces as a wireframe piece waits to be dropped from the top

But today we're talking about Blockout. It's 3D Tetris. Instead of a side view, you're looking down into a well into which you must drop the wireframe pieces. In addition to using the arrow keys to move the pieces, you also get six rotation keys (clockwise and counterclockwise around three different axes of rotation). The rest of the gameplay is just as you'd expect; if you manage to fill a layer of the well, that layer disappears like a Tetris row, etc.

( I did have the DOS version of this game as a kid, but what I mainly remember is watching my mom play it. )

Blockout is free to download or play in your browser if you want to find out if your spatial reasoning abilities are more like mine or more like my mom's.

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Deep blankness is the real thing strange

That was a week that felt a bit odd, which may have been quite a bit down to my not sleeping as well as have latterly been doing.

Also not getting out for accustomed daily walk as often as usual because RAIN.

Somewhat stunned by phonecall from friend with whom I am collaborating on various projects who has recently had some rather devastating health news.

Resumption of contact with two other friends: one of whom I had contacted after receiving what turned out to be, as I had suspected, spam email from her hacked account.

Having the February blahs, pretty much.

Blue Lock the Movie: Episode Nagi

Blue Lock the Movie: Episode Nagi was a lot of fun!

Of course I was excited that they dedicated a whole movie to my OTP, Reo/Nagi! <3 There were also some nice Isagi/Bachira scenes.

It's available on Crunchyroll (new to me, but it's been available to the high-tier subscribers for a long time).

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Day 7: Fic Self-Rec - Quantum Leap - Donna Elesee, Verbena (Bena) Beeks

Title/Link: Cold Feet
Fandom: Quantum leap
Character(s): Donna Elesee, Verbena (Bena) Beeks (and appearances by Sam Beckett and Al Calavicci)
Rating: Teen and Up
Prompt: The Lover
Summary: Donna gets cold feet.

Current Mood: hung over

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Heated Rivalry meta

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DAY 6 - FIC - DANGANRONPA - SHIROGANE TSUMUGI

Day 6 - Her Own Personal Code

Title: Out of all candidates, why you?
Fandom: Danganronpa v3
Characters: Shirogane Tsumugi centered + featuring the rest of the cast
Rating: T
Summary: There are some really awful dehumanizing shows out there. Thank God Danganronpa™ isn’t one of them. It’s the best of the best and therefore they need the best cast as well. Or Tsumugi's long audition day.

This was an already written piece that really fit with the theme. This story is set in an AU that assumes certain end game revelations are true, so very spoiler-ish.

Story in ao3