Collage Journalling: Lunar New Year

I did one Lunar New Year collage and wasn't satisfied with it so I did another one-page one. I have been waiting to finish my Year of the Dragon fic to post it. And I just did.



Bunny, how does your garden grow? (12404 words) by okapi
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Namjoon | RM
Characters: Jeon Jungkook, Kim Namjoon | RM, Min Yoongi | Suga, Park Jimin (BTS)
Additional Tags: Hybrids, Dragon Hybrid Kim Namjoon | RM, Bunny Hybrid Jeon Jungkook, Cat Hybrid Min Yoongi | Suga, Cat Hybrid Park Jimin (BTS), background yoonmin, Meet-Cute, Shy Jeon Jungkook, Fluff, Crack Treated Seriously, Crack, Fluff and Crack, Alternate Universe, Masturbation, magic semen, Gardens & Gardening, Year of the Dragon - Freeform, Inspired by Astrology, Falling In Love, Kim Namjoon | RM Is Whipped For Jeon Jungkook, Jeon Jungkook Is Whipped For Kim Namjoon | RM, Anxiety, POV Alternating, Cute Jeon Jungkook, Hurt/Comfort, Shapeshifting, Outdoor Sex, Oral Sex
Summary:

Dragon hybrid Namjoon, a newcomer to Bangtan Village, holds a Lunar New Year's party that ends up raining ash upon shy bunny hybrid Jungkook's garden.

Jungkook is furious at first, but Namjoon is earnest in his desire to undo the damage. As they work together, Namjoon and Jungkook discover something very curious about the garden...and each other...

For the DW story_works Year of the Dragon challenge. Namkook. Side Yoonmin. Animal hybrids.

Book Bingo 2024: February

Multiple POVs: Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka. [Translated by Sam Malissa] This was recommended by a Japanese ARMY in the Seom chatroom. My sister says there is a movie version with Brad Pitt. It took me about 9 weeks to read this. In many ways, I liked it. The concept is great: five assassin board a non-stop train. There's a snake, a suitcase of money, lots of quirky characters. And it's a closed setting which appeals to the locked-room mystery lover. My only qualm is that there is a lot of child violence and child-on-child violence (one of the assassins is 14 and he's a psychopath and it isn't pretty being in his POV). So that was the drawback. But if you like Pulp Fiction and Guy Ritchie films, this is the book for you.

Seasonal Read: Valentine Murder by Leslie Meier. I wanted a seasonal read that wasn't Xmas and Leslie Meier writes a cozy mystery series with titles for every American holiday. But, boy, was this a shitty book. I know there are better cozies out there. There are probably better seasonal cozies out there. I won't be ready any more about Lucy Stone of Tinker's Cove, Maine (USA). It's just weird. She has 4 kids. Her husband is a run-of-the-mill homophobe. The treatment of the gay couple is shitty (not super-shitty, just regular shitty, and one of them is a murder victim and the husband goes to the funeral and falls asleep, for real) and I was hoping her husband would be murdered by the murderer at the end (but he wasn't, he just got thrown off the roof of the library). bethctg is a librarian and this mystery is around the library and the board and the head librarian and the antique tankard in the library. That part was kind of okay. I like to imagine bethctg solving the murder instead of this lady. I also thought this lady's relationship with technology was weird. The book's only 12 years old but she was perfectly ok with her kids pretending to be big-boobed blonde and catfishing some stranger on the internet for funsies. Like that was no big deal. And she didn't understand how poor people could be addicted to the lottery. It was just yuck. It is possible to write humor about old people not understanding (or learning about) technology and new ideas, The Thursday Murder Club series does a good job of this with Joyce dabbling in bit coin and talking about instagram. But you have to be very subtle/clever/intelligent to make it work. And this really didn't seem true to life.

Banned Book: Another category I always struggle with, so I went with a children's book about a transgendered child. I am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings. I have read a few reviews. One about white washing, and I do think that's valid. She's a person of color in real life. The other is about setting up the gender binary, either you're a girl or you're a boy. Some people criticized the comment of 'girl's brain in a boy's body' And she's a girl because she likes dance and mermaids. But for what I wanted it for, which was a first conversation with Minor and Minsiculus with this topic, it was fine. And she wrote it herself (with help) so it's her voice and that's important.

( The full list 6 out of 25 )

All of Agatha: A Pocketful of Rye

This series of entries is commentary on my lifelong quest to read all of Agatha Christie's works in UK publication order.

I am still in 1953 with a Miss Marple (yay!). A Pocketful of Rye is interesting. I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Rosalind Ayers and she did an okay job with everyone except Miss Marple. There was something lacking there.

So this is another one with a nursery rhyme theme. And the bodies drop in quick succession (3). Miss Marple isn't in it as much as other books.

When London businessman Rex Fortescue dies after drinking his morning tea, Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Neele spearheads the investigation. An autopsy reveals the cause of death was poisoning by taxine, a toxic alkaloid obtained from the yew tree, and that Fortescue ingested it with his breakfast, while a search of his clothing reveals a quantity of rye in his jacket pocket.

BUT

I realized (or remembered) that the real story is Miss Marple and and Gladys (her former maid who is one of the murder victims) and the end of the last chapter is really rather poignant and telling:

The last words of the pathetic letter echoed in her mind.

You can see what a nice boy he is.

The tear rose in Miss Marple's eyes. Succeeding pity, there came anger--anger against a heartless killer.

And then displacing both of these emotions, there came a surge of triumph--the triumph some specialist might feel who has successfully reconstructed an extinct animal from a fragment of jawbone and a couple of teeth.

That's why I like Miss Marple.

Next up: Destination Unknown which I don't remember at all.

The State of the Ficcery: February 2024

Word Count for February: 25,697 [woot, woot, I'm out of the hole]

Writing: For the first time, I actually did 10 fills for sweetandshort 10 out of 20 challenge (as well as both picture prompts). Also I did a fill for story_works Year of the Dragon. And I finished my Jeeves fic. And two poems, one for holmes_minor and one for Edward Gorey's birthday. 6 Fannish 50 posts. And I finished the Snowflake Challenge (the last is satisfying).

Reading: 4 books. 3 for the bingo and 1 Agatha Christie. On the TBR: The Murder in the Mill House; My Plain Jane; Possession; Blacksad and others. I'm listening to Death in Captivity on Youtube.

Craft: 11 Valentines. 4 spreads. I started Minor's birthday cross stitch but Minisculus has said he wants one, and his birthday is in March, so I am going to set one up for him (he picked an ice cream design) and focus on that.

Personal: Regular yoga practice (I finished the second half of Yoga with Adriene's January 2024 30-day challenge); 2 hikes; regular exercise; NO weight loss (sadness!); I am doing fairly well with recording a daily gratitude. I did 14-10 intermittent fasting the entire time the boys' father was away. I like it for reducing my appetite, but I need to work harder at it. I want to work on portion control, reducing sugar intake, regular personal sun salutations (as opposed to a Youtube video) and getting a healthier nighttime routine.

Also, the mouse has returned! I saw him last night!

March will be St. Patrick's Day, 2 weekends of soccer tournaments for Minisculus, Minisculus' birthday, Easter, spring break.

Fannish 50: 2024: Everything is Murder edition: #7: The works of Edgar Allan Poe

I usually reserve Poe for Hallowe'en time of year, but my #1 fan on AO3 (named silenceinmolasses) did a podfic in February of my 14-chapter BBC Sherlock fic from Kinktober 2018. Sherlock and John go to a masked orgy to track down a serial killer (like you do). Lots of kinks sprinkled about, but I stayed faithful to the setting of the Poe story "The Masquerade of the Red Death."

[Podfic] The Masquerade of the Red Death (218 words) by silenceinmolasses
Chapters: 14/14
Fandom: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Mycroft Holmes, Greg Lestrade
Additional Tags: Podfic, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: M4A, Audio Format: Streaming, Kinktober, Alternate Universe, Friends to Lovers, Kink Exploration, Ridiculous Plot, Orgy, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, ass worship, Kinktober 2018, Shotgunning, Daddy Kink, Corsetry, Cock Worship, Praise Kink, Hand Jobs, Oral Sex, Drugged Smoke, Wrestling, Love Confessions, Pet Play, Rimming, Public Sex, Public Blow Jobs, Shibari, Exhibitionism, Voyeurism, Podfic Length: 1.5-2 Hours
Summary:

Written by okapi.

Author's summary:

On the hunt for a serial killer, Sherlock & John attend a masked orgy.

For Kinktober 2018. Friends to Lovers. Kink Exploration. Scooby-Doo type plot. Inspired by "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe.

( The list )