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Well, today was... something.

☆ There was a call to help sort and pack food and clothing donations for the BC wildfire evacuees, so some of us left work for a while to work on that. It was ridiculously hot out, but that's all right. We were able to get a lot of boxes packed, at least. It was put on a truck that's heading to BC overnight - not sure where specifically, but I'm assuming the Kamloops area. Other trucks have already left, driving through the night to get there. I don't know if we'll be doing more of this tomorrow, and even if we are I don't know if I personally will be able to go, but at least we could put something together.

☆ PokeGo: I participated in my first raid battle over lunch! There were a bunch of Mystic players over by the gym near my work, at just the right time. The battle was... interesting... I've been meaning to do a proper entry about how I feel about the new system and so on, but I'll have to save that for another day. Anyway, it was nice! They were very friendly! They organize via Facebook, mostly, it turns out. I have no plans to resurrect my Facebook account, but who knows, maybe I'll run into them again. But the most important part here is that I had an unplanned social interaction and Did Not Die. ;V

☆ Music rec: Started listening to Le Vent du Nord recently, after chancing to hear their stuff on the radio. They're a folk music group from Quebec; very much to my taste. Ahh, so good! Currently stuck in my head is "Élise", which is lovely.
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A few other songs that I've liked: Noces tragiques, Toujours Amants, Le Coeur de ma Mère, eh... well, everything I've heard by them was good, actually. :D The first song I came across was actually one that I can't find on youtube - "Chaise Artente", from Têtu, their most recent album.

I finally hatched a Chansey! Hooray!

Took me long enough, eesh. But today was a good day for it. Niiiiice long walk, bright evening sky, and I only quit because it was starting to get too dark. Still needed the autumn coat, but that wasn't so bad. Ahhh, I could've walked for ten kilometres if it hadn't started to get too dark to see. (As it was, it was 6km at least.)

Anyway.

There are a lot of pokemon that I'm waiting on that I'll only be able to get by hatching or walking for candy. What a pain. Oh well, at least it's warm enough to start doing that now. (Yeah, I totally assigned that Chansey as a buddy right away. That sucker is going to become a Blissey ASAP.)

Almost have the gold walking badge for 1000km, though. Well, okay, I'm 93km away from it, but that isn't too bad. I'm kind of curious to see if I can get it by the end of May - it would take slightly over 2.5km per day to do that, which is entirely doable.

There are SO many blank spaces in my pokedex... but the same stuff keeps appearing over and over. Which means that I'm probably going to have to wait until the next event to catch anything interesting. On the one hand, frustrating. On the other... I've almost reached my pokemon storage limit, and I've been having difficulty deciding what to weed out, so it's to my advantage - for the time being.

(Hmmm, I wonder when the next event will be....)

I like to imagine that if I lived in the Pokemon world, I'd have the most awesome team ever, with a totally badass Decidueye and all of my other favourites.

...But speaking realistically, I'd probably be one of those people with nothing but a level 5 Caterpie.

You better believe that Caterpie would have maxed-out friendship, though. Hell yes.

THEN AGAIN, nothin' wrong with a Caterpie. You can do a lot with a Caterpie. By which I mean it doesn't take much to evolve it into a Butterfree. Level 10 isn't such a leap. And Butterfree is fucking awesome - I always have one on my team. Sure, you probably wouldn't want to use it against most major opponents, but it's awesome for catching and grinding because of all its status-altering powders. Get yourself a Butterfree, and you're on your way to building a great team. Plus, I think they're adorable, okay. They're seriously one of the most underrated pokemon ever.

But when I actually consider it, I prooobably wouldn't want to evolve it. In, y'know, this theoretical scenario where I am one of those people with only one pokemon. I mean, it's three feet tall. THAT'S A REALLY BIG BUG. Better to leave it as a Caterpie, then you can cuddle it. <3

☆ Semi-absence from everything will continue for the foreseeable future because of reasons (mainly it's just that I haven't been feeling well). Thank you for your patience. I might not reply to everything, but I do read everything you guys say/post. It's always nice to see you around.

☆ I've been playing Pokemon Sun in order to distract myself from everything. I now have a Decidueye. It's pretty badass. Huge adorble grassy ghost archer owl. <3 Love it. Unfortunately, I ruined my hands through excessive grinding. Again. And I STILL haven't found a female Salandit... I went back and looked for one for over an hour, and nada. Alas.

☆ Discovered two completed fic drafts in my physical wip folder. I'm confused as to why I never actually typed these up. Maybe I was going to add more, but then just... didn't? Who knows. One is a Fury Road rarepair thing, and the other is some SSSS CC/OC nonsense. Guess I'll just finish them and be done with it. I also unearthed a SSSS fic that I think was originally supposed to be Sigrun/Emil, but now I'm not sure, so it's going to be repurposed into a genfic. Debating whether or not to include some horror. It's one of those "trapped in a derelict building after a book-hunt goes wrong" plots.

☆ It snowed this morning. On the one hand: eugh. On the other hand: we need precipitation, and snow in particular. Okay, fine. I'll take it.

☆ Wow, is it ever nice out! I'd forgotten how good it feels to be able to wear a normal amount of clothing, rather than winter gear. Went out today with minimal layers and it felt great. SO FREEING. (Of course, this mild weather is not exactly season-typical, and that is worrying, but whatever. I'll enjoy this while it lasts.)

☆ Real life is kind of a pressure cooker right now (to put it mildly) so I've been spending some time offline, trying to deal with that. Success has been... uh... varied. But! Hopefully with the weather turning, and the days getting longer, it'll be easier to deal with things. (That sounds kind of weird, I guess, but - it's just hard to get motivated when it's freezing and pitch black out, you know?) On the upside, one recent RL-related positive is that my optometrist appointment went well; I don't need glasses. What a relief. I don't need yet another thing to worry about right now. And also, I've made an appointment for a driving lesson... on Friday. Probably would have been useful to practice more before paying for something like this, but eh, in other ways it's better to just go to a professional. I might end up paying for a whole set of them, who knows. (I neeed to get my license, good lord.)

☆ Chocolate Box fics have been revealed!* And I received three wonderful gifts! I feel so spoiled. <3 I haven't had a chance to look at the rest of the collection yet, but I'm sure everything else is awesome too. In particular, I have my eye on the SSSS stuff (apparently there's a great Signe/Michael fic in there, I can hardly wait). And there's over 30 fics in the YOI section, so there's bound to be something to my taste. And of course I always look at the art, no matter what fandom it is. :) Anyway, my gifts were as follows -
+ Keep it Close. A Redtail's Dream, Jonna/Riikka, G, 3.2k. Pining with eventual get-together! *_*
+ Like a feather on the ice. Yuri on Ice + Hetalia crossover, Phichit + Thailand gen, G, 3.9k. Phichit has a mysterious friend and this is basically the crossover I've been wanting for a while, haa. <3
+ Not Your Style. Yuri on Ice, JJ/Leo, 18+, 2.4k, set a year or two before canon. *_* There is nothing I do not love about this; it's the kind of fic I've been wanting to read with them for quite a while now. <3

☆ Fests/Exchanges! I'm still on hiatus from signing up for things, and will be for the foreseeable future, but that doesn't mean I haven't been keeping an eye on things. Signups for smutswap start next week (Schedule). I threw some things in the tagset, so who knows, maybe there will be requests I can treat. Also, the Porn Battle Prompt Stack is starting up over at pbam; prompts are open until February 22. On the fence as to whether I'll toss some prompts in there - I do have ideas, but I'd feel bad for prompting without writing anything. We'll see.

☆ Gen2 is coming to Pokemon Go soon (according to details over at pokestop) and oh my gosh, I can hardly wait. The game has been so grind-y lately, it'll be nice to work with something completely new. Though I expect that some of the game changes will cause it to be kind of buggy at first. We'll see...!

☆ I've started listening to an audiobook version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (unfortunately, Philosopher's Stone wasn't available at the time) and ohhh man, it's reminded me of how much I used to love that series. I haven't read the books in ages, and now I'm feeling so nostalgic. Looks like I'll end up listening to the entire rest of the series, probably. xD There is SO MUCH that I've forgotten about how these stories go! I mean, yes, I've seen the movies and so on, and rewatched some of the early ones a few years ago, but it just isn't the same. And now there's a part of me craving Hogwarts AUs for so many other series that I like. (Especially for A Redtail's Dream, because Fred and George make me think of Joona and Jonna. The thought of those two as wizards is just too funny.) Though as usual my preferences lean more toward fanart, hm.

State of the Chocobox: I have... a draft. It's, uh. Well, it sure is a draft. FFF. I know that I still have plenty of time to beat it into shape, but I'm kicking myself just a little. This always happens when I'm writing characters/canons that I'm not 100% confident about, though - so, anything other than Hetalia and most of SSSS, honestly. I'm sure that once I get it all scrubbed and polished, my recip will love it. Kind of a bummer, though. Last year, I wrote a ton for this exchange, and a total of 14k in the month. This year... uh, no. Unfortunately not.

I've been trying to draft letters for both White Day Exchange and WorldbuildingEx, But I'm having a little bit of difficulty. I keep coming up with stuff that I want to write, but I can't think of anything to request. So... miiiight sit both of those out after all, heh. Upside is, I ended up jotting down a to-write list, so that's okay.

I received a mysterious package notice in the mail. Very Exciting! No idea what it might be, because I'm waiting on several things right now. Secretly hoping it's the Team Mystic t-shirt that I ordered to replace the one that I seem to have... lost? The last time I saw it was when I was in Victoria, so I must have accidentally left it there - which is uncharacteristic of me (I hardly ever leave things behind in hotel rooms) but there ya go. And so once again I will be able to show this particular nerdery to the world. Yes. <3

Speaking of PokeGo, I'm starting to really wonder how things will shake out once spring hits. Things slowed down over the winter for obvious reasons - even touchscreen gloves can only make playing so bearable when it's -25C and worse - but there still seem to be some active players here. The city hall gym changes hands on a regular basis, ditto for the more active gyms closer to home. I usually don't see anyone playing, not like I did in the beginning, but considering I'm usually out at around 6 AM it's hardly surprising.

☆ Received my Chocolate Box assignment. Excellent. It's someone I was thinking about treating anyway, so that's convenient. It's not a pairing that I can write effortlessly, though, so it'll be challenging - but like, in a fun way. I'm looking forward to canon review aaaand possibly research, depending on how I go about this. Hopefully whoever was assigned to me will have a good time too. There is a spreadsheet specifically for the Yuri on Ice requests, so I might use that to get some ideas for treating. With my other fandoms, well, they mostly have only a few requests, so it shouldn't be hard to sift through those.

☆ Silent Night exchange went through without any final pinch hits. There was one minor issue, but we fixed it. What a relief! And now... treats, until the 15th. Let's see if I can get one or two done - especially for aRTD. For a SSSS + aRTD exchange, it doesn't have much aRTD, but considering it's the smaller fandom of the two, that's to be expected. My experience helping with this one does solidify that I don't think I'd ever want to run an exchange, though. I much prefer being in the backup position. A "consulting moderator", if you will. ;p

☆ Speaking of Stand Still Stay Silent - yikes, chapter break is upon us, and wow, what a cliffhanger. I'm rather surprised at the turn the comic has taken; I figured something like this was possibly in the cards, but not necessarily something that would happen at this point. (Later, maybe, but not now.) I have no idea where, precisely, it's going to go, but I'm interested in the ride. Luckily for us, the chapter break will only be about a week. ...I kind of have a vague desire to write some horror-genre/darkfic stuff dealing with the current situation, but considering I don't have any concrete ideas, and I generally suck at horror even though I love it, well... maybe not.

☆ I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing Pokemon Sun last night, aaaand now my neck hurts and my hands hurt and my back hurts and oh dear god, now I remember why I don't play video games much any more. My posture sucks and the way I sit when I'm using the 3DS is even worse and it's also not kind to my RSI issues aaaand I have only myself to blame. BUT at least I've finally made it off tutorial island. Me 'n my Dartrix are ready to take on anything, yeaaaah! I can hardly wait to evolve this sucker into Decidueye. THEY'RE SO COOL. I remember that some people thought it looked kind of weird when the design was first revealed, but... it's a giant grassy Robin Hood-ish ghost-owl. I'm so in love. ...But I'm going to limit myself to only one hour of play from now on, max, because ow.

☆ Since exchanges are upon us, I should probably slap down some due dates.
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Can I just, like, fast-forward to January 2nd? Is that possible? I hate this time of year, it's never a good time for me. IF IT WAS UP TO ME I would opt out of this but it is Not up to me because I live in this house so I just have to... put up with the bullshit and fuss and stress and overstimulation and supper with unpleasant guests and my parents whining about "communists" (AKA Canada's halfassed attempt at socialism). Also, angst. So much angst. (tl;dr I miss my grandmother)

There is not enough wine in the world for me to put up with all this, you guys.

But at least I have the new Pokemon to distract me. Tipsy Pokemon-playing = A++.

I suddenly remember that the reason I never finished Pokemon X is because I kept fiddling around with Pokemon Amie instead of actually playing the game. Luckily for me, the version in Sun/Moon is not quite so involved.

And also I have This Tendency to grind like hell in the beginning in a vague attempt to level my entire team Evenly. Which is ridiculous because you knoooow that I'm going to swap that damn Yungoos out as soon as I have an opportunity to do so. But yknow.

And this is why I haven't made it off Tutorial Island even though I've been playing... much of the evening.... uh.

Did you know that it's hard to make good decisions about pokemon moves when you're drunk



because it's really kind of hard

Also I wanted to have an entire bottle to myself but that would have been a Bad Idea so it's probably good that I didn't.

I'm playing as Niko because some of the darker-haired versions of the player character look sort of like him. And it's kind of fun to imagine him in some kind of pokemon AU, heh. (He would have ALL the cutest pokemon) (even the ones that aren't so great for much) (because he's a cute flake) (the cutest) Also I would never choose a grass starter but Niko might AND SO this is clearly the solution to my internal conflict about the possibilities re: grass vs water starters. Because Rowlet is fucking adorable AND I WANTED ONE but I was Unsure because what even are grass pokemon anyway, we just don't know.

This is solved by not playing as me.

Somehow.

Yes.

Also, I love Hau, A++ cutest rival ever, I want to squish his adorable little face.

I should go to bed. Maybe. Probably. Ugh. UGHHHHH. At least tomorrow is... not christmas and is also Off so maybe I can like. Write. Because I promised some random person that I would Work On A Thing so I should. Work. On the thing. Yes.

orz

☆ Threeee moooore daaaays until I'm off work! (Yes, I'm counting down, of course I am.)

☆ Qichi is an A++ individual. (Seriously, dunno where I'd be without you, mate.) We managed to slap this zine fic into something usable. I think. Speaking of which, I still haven't heard back from the Silver Linings organizer after I mailed them to see what format they would like things sent in. Which is kind of bothersome. And they don't have a time zone listed on the requirements page... Argh, frustrating. But at least it means I'll be able to get a few more revs in tomorrow night, before I send the thing off into the void.

☆ In PokeGo news, last afternoon, I stuck my Flareon in the library gym. It is now almost 10 PM on the day after, and it's still there! Holy crap! That's the longest I've been able to hold a gym, like, ever. I'm amazed. That's a decently high-traffic area, so it's really surprising that my dear Suvi hasn't been kicked out yet. I guess training the gym up a few levels before I left helped. Though admittedly, I think another factor might be that the area is not frequented by the high-level players who usually kick me out of the City Hall gym (and the Fire Station gym... and the grocery store parking lot... and the post office, and-). I don't think I've seen their names in this particular location. ...We'll see what happens tomorrow. 8)

☆ Chocolate Box Exchange noms have opened early! I'm so excited. (Deets over at chocolateboxcomm, for those who didn't do it last year.) I expect I'll be creeping the tag set for the next couple of days. At the time of this posting, it feels kind of like I took a big marker and scrawled "Yuuago was here" all over my fandoms, but I expect that will change very soon. (The Hetalia pairs are full of rare Norway stuff, the YOI section is basically half Guang Hong and/or Phichit, and there are a bunch of random gen duos in the SSSS section... heh heh heh.) Also, speaking of YOI: I'm so glad that this pairing was approved: Phichit Chulanont/Phichit Chulanont's Phone ;p Just as canon as Victor/Yuuri, Y/Y?

☆ I made fudge tonight. :9 DELICIOUS. It's a good thing we store this stuff out on the porch, else it wouldn't last long at all. Mmm. ...Mind you, if it doesn't last until Christmas, then all that means is I have a built-in excuse to make another batch, right?

☆ In PokeGo news, caught another Christmas Pikachu, hooray! And... the 10km egg that I was hoping would be a Lapras or a Scyther turned out to be an Electabuzz. Boo. I already had one of those. Sigh! :'| Ah well, I always need more electric pokemon, and it has very good CP and nice Defence, so... at least I'll keep it around. Still. /Shakesfist ONE OF THESE DAYS....

☆ It turns out that I have the 23rd-27th off. NICE. Usually I don't get that long unless I deliberately block out the time for it, but I didn't do that this year, so I expected that I'd get hardly any break at all. This, on the other hand, is very acceptable. I'm pleased. Maybe I'll get some last-minute writing done. Or relaxing, for once. That would be nice. xD

☆ My good pal Dziwaczka has suggested a drunken YOI rewatch some time after the final episode airs. This sounds amazing. I hope it happens. 8) Ahh but I wish I could get together with friends to actually watch it in person... Alas. Oh, well. It might not be the same as the days of gathering in the basement with friends and popcorn to watch VHS fansubs, but it'll have to do. 8)

☆ Ahh! My submission for the Silver Linings Hetalia Zine is done! HOORAY! Done like dinner, and thrown to the beta. I hated the first draft so much, and I'm so glad that I was able to transform it into something not just decent, but pretty acceptable. I'm happy with it. Feels good! Anyway - it's a Norway & England genfic set during WWII. Can't go into more details, but I'll be sure to drop the relevant links later, when the zine's finally published. It's a charity zine, so nobody's profiting from this.