idleleaves: (Default)
I still exist! Really. Life has been... hmm. A lot of ups and downs, but I think that's par for the course considering what the past couple of years, world-wide, have been like.

But. On a positive note: It's bonkers what proper medication can do.

So I've recently learned that it's shockingly common for girls and women with inattentive-type ADHD to fly under the radar, so to speak, during childhood and not be diagnosed until their 30s or 40s.

I'm one of those women. Diagnosed six weeks ago. I've been on meds for five of those weeks. They are life-altering, and I say that without hyperbole. I've struggled so hard and for so long to be a human, and all along there was this other thing that I'd never even considered until a medical student did the most thorough health history I've ever had done in my life.

Inattentive-type ADHD explains so much, people. So much. I'm starting to feel less like a failure and more like a person who just needs some help with neurotransmitters to get things working properly. And things are working properly. I don't think I've actually felt this good in years.

Unfortunately things aren't so great on the work front. The hospital decided that since I'm chronically ill, I deserve to have my full-time position cut down to two days per week. Which means I need a second job. Or, preferably, a brand new job in a different city.

I'm also currently extremely pissed at Instagram for taking down my account due to some nebulous terms & conditions violation that has never been specified. I was just starting to really get a foothold in the sewing community, and now I have to start from scratch. If I only had a few followers I'd message them from the new account, but I had about 1k and that's too many to contact.

I'm in the middle of setting up a small Etsy shop, too. I'm selling cotton skirts and scrunchies, with a few dog bandanas in there as well. The skirts are knee-length gathered-front-elastic-back and they have pockets, because of course they do. I'm able to do custom sizing with no upper or lower limit, too, and no extra cost for larger sizes.
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Challenge #5: Comment to someone you haven't ever interacted with before or introduce yourself to someone you've briefly interacted with and friend/follow them.

This is a terrible challenge for someone with social anxiety. I've subscribed to and granted access to a couple of new people in the past week, though, so I'm calling this one done.

* * *

I have two exchange fics due on the same day in February. Not surprising, as they're both Valentine's exchanges, but aieee.
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... loves his blanket nests.



Both he and his brother Crowley now have adoption applications filed on them; I'm just waiting to hear whether or not the adoptions will go through. The little ones could be leaving for their new homes next week!
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Challenge #4: In your own space, set some goals for the coming year.

I've already set one goal by signing up with GetYourWordsOut with a 'habit' pledge. It's not a word count goal; rather, it's based on the number of days you write in a year. My pledge is the 120-day tier, so about 10 days per month.

I'm also intending to get better at commenting/leaving feedback on fic. I let anxiety get in the way a lot of the time, especially when I read a stupendously good fic, and I need to not do that. Even "Nice work, I liked this" is better than no comment at all.
idleleaves: (omg awesome)
Some of these just about write themselves.

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As far as ficcing goes I'm a little off-brand, this week. Severed (GOmens, Aziraphale & Crowley, Mature, mind the tags) is not the type of thing I usually write, but it was for a kink meme prompt and I think it turned out all right, all things considered.

So on Tumblr I've been doing Six Sentence Sunday - where you post six sentences from a wip - and I'm thinking about dumping the words here, too. So here's another bit that's rather off-brand for me - a post-apocalyptic (but not that apocalypse) GOmens AU for another kink meme prompt.

* * *

It’s been quiet for months, now - a strange, unnatural silence that blankets London like a fog. The bookshop is nearly the only thing in Soho still standing; three of its windows are broken, but Aziraphale has more important uses for miracles, these days. Standing on the street in front of its doors, all he can see - in any direction - is blackened rubble, and skies that turn eerie orange at dusk.

They’d saved the world from one apocalypse; they hadn’t been able to save it from another. The war had taken so many - humans, that is - and fire, fallout, and food shortages had taken still more. Aziraphale has been doing what he can to help those who remain, but every day he inches closer to divine exhaustion, and he can’t allow that to happen. Winter is coming.


* * *

And now back to your regularly scheduled... uh... whatever it is that I usually write.
idleleaves: (Default)


Challenge #3 - Promote Your Favourite Communities, Fests, or Challenges

I'm not someone who tends to be part of a million fannish communities, but the ones I do love, I love like burning.

First, there's Still SynS, a flashfic-and-chat based community I started almost three years ago that used to be called Synchronised Screaming. It's less about the flashfic than it used to be, but it's still a wonderful place with wonderful people who enjoy screaming about fic-writing and other assorted things. I heart everyone on its Discord server so much. The best part is that while we do have a scheduled Saturday chat, anyone who's available tends to gather if someone flings up an "I'm around" note on their Tumblr.

Second, there's Ineffable Kink, a Discord server that was made for the Good Omens Kink Meme and has turned into a supportive community of excellent people. It's an easy server to sink into and get comfortable - even to the point of sharing works-in-progress, which is something I've never had the guts to do before save with a couple of very specific people. There's a looot of Good Omens talk, naturally, but also a few channels for other things.

As far as challenges/exchanges, there's always the 'slashy' swaps - My Slashy Valentine, Ardour in August, Sultry in September, etc. MSV was one of the first exchanges I ever did, and almost all of them have been excellent experiences in the end. They're hard exchanges in some ways - you never really know what you'll get assigned and it's hand-matching without people being able to choose what to offer (although you can specify some things you like to write and things you can't write), but I've never gotten an assignment I didn't like.
idleleaves: (canadian mittens)


Smashing the first two days of the Snowflake Challenge into one entry because I'm late getting started.

Challenge #1: In your own space, introduce yourself!
Challenge #2: In your own space, talk about your fannish history.


So - I'm Anna. I've been around fandom for about 2.5 decades and I don't intend to go anywhere anytime soon. No matter where you look for me - here on DW, on Tumblr, on Twitter, on Discord, on AO3, on the SWG - I'm always IdleLeaves. Hooray, consistency! Or maybe I'm just really terrible at coming up with usernames.

I started out in fandom lurking on alt.startrek.creative in the 90s; in the late 90s I got sucked into X-Files fandom and spent a truly astounding amount of hours reading at the Gossamer Archive. My first foray into fannish writing was terrible Final Fantasy VIII fic that I fortunately never posted. After that, I fell into a fandom I'd rather not mention anymore, and started actually posting fic to a mailing list in 2001. I don't necessarily write consistently - I'll go months without producing anything then write 10 ficlets in a month - but I'm always fannish, and always ready for the next idea.

My primary fandoms at the moment are Stand Still Stay Silent, Good Omens, and Tolkien. They're all long-term loves of mine and are unlikely to ever disappear from my radar entirely. I also dabble in the MCU, all flavours of Star Trek, Yuri!!! On Ice, and others, too, depending on whims.

I am absolutely someone who prefers to pay attention to what she likes and ignore the things she doesn't. I believe in don't-like-don't-read, kinktomato, and curating your own online fannish experience.

Offline, I'm a Canadian sewist, dancer, and photographer with a small herd o' cats. The cats have their own Instagram. I live alone with said cats, some plants, and far too much fabric and yarn. I post headless photos of the things I sew because I can't quite get around the aversion to having my face in a fandom space.
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Hello Chocolatier!

First of all, I promise I'm not difficult to please. I'll be delighted with whatever you write/draw for me, so please don't stress over it. I've listed some things I really love, below, but don't feel like you can't go with your own ideas if you have them. I have no idea how to prompt for art so I've just requested fic, but art treats are absolutely welcome.

General things I love:

★ relationships built on strong/intense friendship
★ strong/intense friendship in general
★ missing scenes from canon and/or reactions to canon scenes
★ all kinds of moods, from quiet to bittersweet to angsty to funny to intense to fluffy
★ hurt/comfort of any kind
★ slice-of-life and/or character studies
★ simple everyday non-schmoop romance
★ stoic characters cracking around the edges
★ casual touching and physical affection (between friends and/or romantic partners)
★ non-penetrative sex (don't feel like you have to include smut, though)
★ banter and/or banter during sex
★ storms
★ canon compliance is fabulous, but I also like canon-divergence AUs
★ relationships of all kinds - friendship, romantic, sexual, romantic yet non-sexual, walking the line between friendship and more, established relationships, first kisses/dates/sex/etc., and the list goes on

★ for Good Omens I also like literally any place in history you want to put them and/or them drinking together
★ for Stand Still Stay Silent I also like mage shenanigans and/or the aftermath of combat
★ for Silmarillion & Lord of the Rings I also like fourth-age settings and/or reunions
★ for Marvel I also like between- or after-mission quiet times
★ for A Redtail's Dream I also like snarking and more snarking

DNWs:

★ character bashing (breaking up a canon couple for a different ship is fine, but please don't bash and/or vilify the leftover character in the process)
★ homophobia
★ non-con, dub-con, infidelity (open relationships are fine), D/s, BDSM, kinks involving bodily fluids, humiliation, A/B/O, mpreg
★ non-canon character death (canon or OCs is fine), animal harm
★ marriage proposals and/or ceremonies
★ unrequested AUs, non-canon genders or pronouns
idleleaves: (Default)

For the first time in a long while I actually have fic to round up during a, well, monthly round-up. It's not quite the end of the month but it's close enough that I'm unlikely to finish anything else. So. In December I wrote:

Every Beautiful Thing - Reynir/Onni
Here, Alone - Reynir/Onni
Remember Me - Reynir/Onni
Literary Review - Sigrun/Tuuri
Your Heart, Still Beating - Sigrun/Tuuri

Be Still - Aziraphale/Crowley
Collide - Aziraphale/Crowley
Second Verse - Aziraphale & Crowley
Carry It Forward - Aziraphale & Crowley
Five Years - Aziraphale & Crowley

Cold, Wet, and (un)Sexy - Hannu/Joona

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Didn't write yesterday because KITTENS. I'm fostering a pair of 9-week-old babies for a local cat rescue - two boys, one ginger and one black. They are absolute little mischief demons so I called them Crowley and Loki.

I've missed fostering so much. These little ones are very well socialised so it won't be long before I can let them out of their little room and let them roam the rest of the house and interact with my cats. Liam is waiting outside the door of their room because he loves kittens and is thoroughly put out that I won't let him in to snuggle them already.
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Uh. Third fic in four days? Literary Review, Stand Still Stay Silent, Sigrun/Tuuri, Explicit - For the first time, Sigrun wants to choose the book Tuuri reads aloud from before bed. She makes an... interesting (i.e. filthy) choice.

It's absolutely the silliest thing I've ever written. I don't do humour well, usually, but this one just sort of... worked out, for me.

I've written 3330 words in the past five days and that's so far above my usual standards I'm considering the possibility that part of my brain was swapped out by aliens in the night. I know it won't last - it's not a sustainable writing pace when I'm back to work and dance classes - but I'm going to enjoy it as long as I can.

MSV!

17 December 2019 02:36 am
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Oops, my fingers slipped and I signed up for MSV 2020. It's been more than three years (... wow) since I've done a Tolkien exchange, but I've been on such a writing roll lately that I'm feeling pretty good about it. MSV and AinA and such are more of a risk for me because of the way sign-ups work, but I've had (mostly, all save one) good experiences in the past.
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Three fics in three days. Who the hell am I, again?

Second Verse, GOmens, A&C, Aziraphale rescues Crowley after a summoning.

I am running out of WIPs. I cannot believe I just had to say that.
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I'm not sure how this happened, but I wrote an entire 1020 word ficlet in about four hours today. I don't even know who I am anymore. Anyhow! Collide, GOmens, A/C, that missing night at Crowley's that everyone writes.

Comments so far have been really positive, so I'm delighted.
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✿ I fell down the stairs at work and sprained my hip. Am off for a couple of weeks, until the end of December, while it heals. I live in a walk-up apartment building and can't get anywhere without crutches, so... that's going to be interesting. I had a friend pick up my prescriptions today, but I don't like to depend on people for too much so I'm trying to figure out ways to do errands and such myself. Here at home I'm mostly nesting in the blanket fort I've made out of the sofa.

✿ I wrote two Reynir/Onni ficlets - Every Beautiful Thing and Here, Alone - to add to my ongoing SSSS ficlet collection. I also started Faith Like Wings, a Good Omens ficlet collection. I have one collection for each fandom, just for those little snippets that are too short to really be posted on their own. The Ineffable Kink Discord server (for people who lurk around the kink meme) denizens are wonderfully encouraging, so there'll be more added to the GO one sooner rather than later.

✿ Last year, in April, I stopped one of my psych drugs (with the agreement of my doc) because I didn't feel it was doing much for me. Coincidentally, that month I also posted the last ficlet I'd written until November of this year. I've had a few medication changes since then and on the whole I'm doing much better, but I'm wondering, really, if it was a coincidence after all, because in October we added that same drug back into the mix again. And now I'm able to write again. Hmm.
idleleaves: (fandom - ssss - lalli)
Well. I’m on a medical accommodation at work for the foreseeable future ramble ramble... )

In nicer news, though, I'm super-excited because I'm going to be able to meet a very close online friend (something that happens so rarely) in March. We met in fandom in 2001 - almost 20 years ago! - so this is ridiculously awesome.

And on a writing note, I finished a thing! It's just a little thing, but still - Your Heart, Still Beating, Sigrun/Tuuri, an addition to my One For the Books SSSS ficlet collection. I don't hate it, which is probably remarkable.
idleleaves: (total fail)
I've really been having trouble getting words on the page, lately; part of it is that I'm rusty from a year or so away, but most of it is that any small amount of confidence I had before is gone. I decided that writing a few snippets for anon prompt memes might be a good way to ease myself back into things - but so far they've gone over like lead balloons, so now I'm feeling worse about my writing than I even though possible. Ugh.

Every time I take a break from writing (it's always health reasons - sometimes my brain just cannot form words for months on end) I always fear that I've broken something inside my head that'll never be fixed again.

On a better note, my computer situation is sorted - the desktop is well and truly dead, but a friend had a nearly-new laptop she wanted to sell and offered it to me with an agreement to pay monthly instead of all at once, making it actually affordable for me right now.

I forgot how nice having a portable computer is, really. I'm currently on the sofa in a nest of blankets and pillows and oh, it's comfortable.
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... a reorganisation/excavation of my studio (i.e. my writing/photography/sewing/etc. room, i.e. the spare bedroom). In the beginning it was sort of procrastination from writing (which I am finding insanely difficult at the moment) but now it's turned into a project I really want to see through to the end.

The big surprise is that I've actually added a fair amount of art/craft supplies to the donation pile. I've never been good at letting those go, but I'm trying to be realistic about what I'm likely to use and what's likely to sit around forever waiting for a maybe. Like the ceramic coasters I used to make. Making them was calming and satisfying, but I no longer have a properly-ventilated space to use the spray sealants and such that I need to finish them. So... it doesn't really make sense for me to keep all the supplies. I'm saving the materials I used to make the decorated tops, but I'm going to give the ceramic tiles to someone who can use them and pass on the sealants and paints, too.

I'm also trying to go through my notebook collection - I've become very picky about notebooks as of late, because I've noticed there are certain traits that make me more or less likely to write in them (... about as much as I ever write in any of them, anyway, and don't try to tell me I'm the only one with a slew of blank notebooks). It's difficult, because notebooks, but if I have too many of them they just end up being one more collection that attracts dust and cat fur.

I'm not thinning out my fabric or yarn stashes. I'm fine with my yarn stash being large (it's significantly smaller now than it used to be, but still) and my fabric stash, as far as I'm concerned, isn't big enough. I have enough wovens, I suppose, but not nearly enough knits.

Ramble ramble ramble.
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I posted this on Tumblr last night but I'm posting it again here because... because akijsdl;fkjas. Yep. That's the reason.

Okay, but seriously, I’ve written in sizeable and/or fast-moving fandoms before. I’ve managed, before, to carve out a little space for myself where my mostly-mediocre words fit, and to be content with that. So what is it, exactly, about Good Omens fandom that’s spooked me to the point that I can’t seem to get past the scribble-a-few-notes stage on anything I want to write?

It probably doesn’t help that, at the moment, I don’t really know anyone who would absolutely want to hear me yammer on about ideas. That’s always been such a crucial part of fandom and ficcing, to me.

*slaps fic-notes with a five-pound river-dwelling rainbow trout* Urgh.


Not sure why I didn't choose a lake trout. They're bigger.

Hmph.

So Thanksgiving is tomorrow for those of us in Canada. I have the day off, and I also took last Thursday and Friday as vacation days to make myself a five-day weekend. Unfortunately I've spent the better part of my extended weekend either panicked, exhausted, migraine-y, or all three. Not what I'd hoped for. I'd printed and assembled quite a few sewing patterns in anticipation, and I've barely touched them. And writing, well. *points up*

I still have the rest of today and tomorrow, though, so I'm going to do what I can to make that time count. I hate feeling like I've 'wasted' time.

On a side note, I'm seriously considering trying to put together a book called Shit My Cat Does (in the same vein as Shit My Dad Says). I mean, Parker is a complete lunatic and Finn, Liam, and Autumn aren't far behind. I made them an Instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/fur.for.brains if you're interested) a couple of weeks ago and it's already got more followers than my personal account has after four years.

I also put my holiday card call up on Tumblr. Yes, already. I send cards all over the world so I need to get my arse organised early.

Right, well. I'm going to go do one of two things - continue to fight with fic, or continue to organise the studio/sewing room.
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