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[yuuago]

☆ So, I've decided: No more exchanges for the rest of the year, or until my mood improves - whichever comes first. (It's likely the year will end first, but who knows!) It's not fair to commit myself to things when I'm so down in the dumps that I can't guarantee my usual quality. I'm also not going to raise my writing goal beyond 50K. I was hoping to reach 100, like last year, but it's starting to look like... nope. But! That's fine. I'll finish some ongoing things, start some projects where I'm the only likely audience, and write some of the weird things I've requested in exchange letters but secretly actually wanted to write myself. That sounds good. It's disappointing to recalibrate my expectations like this, but I'll get over it. Focusing on my own strange and obscure tastes is likely to be a lot of fun, so that'll make up for it.

☆ Yesterday, my city held a unity walk* and vigil for the victims of the mosque shooting in Quebec. I'm really, really glad that I was able to go, even though leaving work early means that I'll have to go in on my day off to make up for it. There was kind of a... tentative air to everything; activism of the "marching and waving signs" variety is not typical in my city. But a lot of people came out - more than I expected, considering it was held during work hours. I'm glad.

☆ On February 3rd, Bandcamp is going to be donating 100% of their share of profits to the ACLU; a lot of musicians on that site have also volunteered for extra donations. More details can be found over here. Well, looks like I should poke through and find myself some new music... 8) If any of you have Bandcamp favourites you'd like to point me to, I'd love to hear about them. As for me, here are some albums I've loved: For War Within by Haiku (light acoustic + pretty female vocals); Time's End by Theophany (remix/reinterpretations of the music from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask); and At the Shelter: First Awakening by Nest (solo kantele versions of music from their regular ambient/neofolk albums).

☆ Goals for this weekend are as follows: Finish exchange story, read a lot, make sure to not stay glued to the news, get a lot of fresh air and sleep, and try not to scream.

Comments

[st_aurafina]

Thank you for the Bandcamp recs - I could use some new music while they're making donations to ACLU.

[yuuago]

o7 Glad to be of service~

I've already added a ton of stuff to my wishlist. Narrowing it all down is going to be hard, hah.

[merit]

Exchanges can be fun but if they're just causing angst then it is best to focus on what makes you happy! and I have actually written fics where I've requested prompts multiple times. The joys of tiny fandoms...

[yuuago]

Yeah. <3 It isn't the exchanges per se so much as it is just... not wanting to deal with deadlines when real life is so stressful right now.

Tiny fandoms are like, the epitome of "If you want it to exist, you have to do it yourself". Which can be both a good thing and a bad thing in some ways. :V

[kiraly]

I'm with you on the "taking a break from exchanges" thing. I'm struggling so much with my Chocolate Box fic, and I haven't even thought about treats yet. (You'd think the low word limit would be more freeing, but I'm always more constrained by my need to write a complete story than by any word count goal.) Plus I really want to have time to work on finishing some of my WIPs, and not have any deadlines to worry about for a while.

And I'm glad you got to go to the walk! Even if it had a tentative air, it's good to show your support.

[dhampyresa]

Thanks for the Bandcamp recs! A bit late, but my favourite is The Mechanisms, who make tragic musicals based on fairy tales (Once Upon A Time In Space), Greek Myths (Ulysses Dies At Dawn) and Arthuriana (High Noon Over Camelot). Writing this I notice that the Norse myths based one (The Bifrost Incident) is out and I need to listen to it!