tangerine's dream

I haven't posted anything substantial since May 2022. Whoops. I might get into why that is someday, but until then... I have at least been reading dreamwidth regularly, and I've been pretty fannish in recent years, though all of that energy has been directed at anyone who has had the misfortune to speak to me directly. So I'm going to try to redirect some of those feels here, because there are a lot of feels. A lot.

tldr of last two years: Asian BL dramas (mainly EarthMix) and kpop (mainly ATEEZ).

Anyway! I did want to rec everything I received from Yuletide because I have been very lucky. So sliding in at the last possible second before reveals... I received two stories in the main collection this year, both from EarthMix series:

does not waver, does not change (9616 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Midnight Series: Moonlight Chicken พระจันทร์มันไก่ | Moonlight Chicken (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jim Jaruek Nueangna-uam/Wen Wongsakorn Thunapakarn
Additional Tags: Marriage, Post-Canon, Marriage Proposal, canon typical homophobia
Summary: The truth was that Jim never thought he'd get married; he had never thought it would even be possible. Now it is.

Follow the Light of the Sun (1076 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: พินัยกรรมกามเทพ | Cupid's Last Wish (TV)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Korn Thapakorn Chaiphitak/Win Sawin Warodom
Additional Tags: Soft boys being soft, Slice of Life
Summary: Korn & Win’s journey had just begun.
::
It was as if they’d skipped over that terrible year of mourning, of not seeing, of not speaking, and were once again together, Korn waking to their pre-dawn alarm with Win clinging to him, warm and sleepy, working together through the bustle of the day, and finally Win laying his head in Korn’s lap and looking up at the stars of Chonburi through the branches of their tree.

And then something in the Madness Collection! Which I believe is a first for me!

Us today (719 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Midnight Series: Moonlight Chicken พระจันทร์มันไก่ | Moonlight Chicken (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jim Jaruek Nueangna-uam/Wen Wongsakorn Thunapakarn
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Domestic Fluff, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Waking up with Wen by his side was one of Jim’s favorite things.

I'm also gonna toss what I received in the 2023 collection here because it continues the theme of EarthMix:

I still wish for you (5473 words) by hkafterdark
Fandom: นิทานพันดาว | A Tale of Thousand Stars (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tian Sopasitsakun/Phupha Viriyanon
Additional Tags: Weddings, Post-Canon
Summary: It takes a village to celebrate a wedding. Apparently.

You Are My Home, My Home For All Seasons (1344 words) by peeking_skeleton
Fandom: นิทานพันดาว | A Tale of Thousand Stars (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Tian Sopasitsakun/Phupha Viriyanon
Additional Tags: Fluff, Alternate Canon, what if, Set During Tian's Time In America
Summary: Tian is stuck in New York for the holidays alone. Until a surprise arrives.


(And bonus rec from Yuletide 2022 that has nothing to do with EarthMix and entirely to do with a fandom I will love forever: a fic from From Eroica with Love called Ceasefire, which is a delightful Klaus/Dorian casefic (archive-locked).)

Hi! Thank you for writing for me in Yuletide. I am super excited to receive a story from you! I've included prompts, but please feel free to ignore them if something else sparks your imagination.

( General Likes and Dislikes )

My requests:

( Moonlight Chicken )

( Mama Gogo )

( A Tale of Thousand Stars )

( Blueming )

What I Just Finished Reading: My annual re-read of the Bedwyn Saga by Mary Balogh plus various fics in fandoms I don't write in because I am also writing more than I have in a year, and I find that helps somehow?

What I am Currently Reading: The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian. Someone recommended this at Escapade, and I always come away from Escapade with a list of things to read and watch.

What I Plan to Read Next: Wizard's Holiday by Diane Duane. I'm determined to finish the rest of the Young Wizards series by August.

Challenge #15

In your own space, create your own challenge. Leave a comment to this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This is a challenge I'm currently trying to live, with varying levels of success. I call it... Do The Thing. I'm a creature of habit and rarely try something new, but those times I do, it usually works out way better than I was expecting. As an example, I like to go for walks, and I've lived in the same area for over a decade, and I always took the left path. But last summer, I went right... and the right walk is way better than the left walk! Full of super cute birbs! And a hiking trail that I get semi-lost on 95% of the time, but I followed it all the way to the end at least twice!

Fannishly, I'm basically the same. I circle things for ages before finally deciding to Do The Thing. Maybe read that story someone recced to me months ago, or join that exchange I've been eyeballing for probably years, or subscribe to that journal that shows up in my network sometimes.

So, yes, I am trying to Do The Thing, and it's going all right.

Challenge #13

In your own space, share a favorite memory about fandom: the first time you got into fandom, the last time a fanwork touched your heart, wild times with fellow fans (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

You know you've been in fandom for a long time when this question really stumps you because there are so. many. options. Fandom has been very, very good to me when it comes to making good memories. I think, because it's on my mind due to being delayed again, I'll talk about my very first Anime North and what I remember of it. Which isn't a lot, it turns out, because at the time both Placidia and I were working midnights, which meant we were both Really Sleepy. I'm a little foggy what year this was (somewhere between 2003 and 2007) but I have a very clear memory of watching my very first AMV Contest and being... awed. Sitting at the back of the crowd, almost delirious with exhaustion at 7 pm, both of us mesmerized. We haven't missed an Anime North since (ignoring, like, ~Current Events~) and we always make time for the AMV Contest. I can't wait to watch another one.

Challenge #10

In your own space, rec a fanwork (fic, art, vid, playlist, anything!) you did not create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Photo Finished (0 words) by BlitheFool
My Hero Academia | Explicit | Eraserhead/Present Mic
Additional Tags: NSFW Art, Fan Comics, Masturbation, Phone Sex

-- this is extremely NSFW, and I think about it often. Being friends with the artist means I got to see all the rough drafts and the entire comic unfold panel by panel. It's a fun (and funny), sexy, Mic-gets-a-lovely-surprise-from-the-BF-while-at-work kind of thing. It delights me.

[Fanvid] This Is Not A Love Song (0 words) by JinkyO
The Professionals (TV 1977) | Not Rated | William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Additional Tags: Fanvids, Subtitles Available
Summary: Escapade 31 Premiere - Feb. 19, 2021

-- when I saw this premiere at Escapade, my heart did that YES thing is does when I instantly love something. I instantly loved this. The song choice is spectacular and perfect for the vid. I still have barely watched any of this show, but the fanworks, man. The fanworks.

Solid Copy (14668 words) by thefourthvine
The Losers (2010) | Explicit | Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez/Jake Jensen
Additional Tags: Telepathy
Summary: Jensen shifted his gaze to Cougar. “I really thought that if I ever had to say the words ‘telepathic disaster,’ it’d be a lot cooler than this is turning out to be.”

-- in usual decade-behind-everything style, it occurred to me I might really like to read some Losers fic, particularly Cougar/Jenson, and applied my usual AO3 filters and this was one of the fics that tumbled out. I LOVE the telepathy trope, and I really super enjoyed this use of it.

In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, a gift of your time to the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

2021 from a creating fanworks POV for me was bad. Badbadbad. As productive as I was the year before, I was unproductive in 2021. I had so many ideas and wrote almost none of them. I skipped 95% of the exchanges I wanted to do. I dropped out of getyourwordsout. I made some nice progress on my Marvel Trumps Hate 2019 story, but it was still nowhere close to done.

I also did that thing rarepair writers cannot do. That thing where you look at your stats and bemoan how much work writing can be and think to yourself "why am I doing this?" Consciously, I know all this and have made peace with all this, but 2021 was not the year to let that resolve waver. Thankfully the answer, for me, always has been: cuz I want my favourite characters to smooch (...among other things). And I'm usually more than happy to do it myself. Because kisses.

All this to say, once it became obvious nothing else was really gonna happen, I really wanted marvel_bang to the one (big) thing I pulled off. I'm lucky that I usually go tandem for this thing, and my artist friend was also up for attempting to complete something. But man, I struggled, and I procrastinated, and I struggled some more. Then, eventually, as I ran out of runway, I just had to sit down and bang out Lose Your Head (NSFW link) and hope for the best. It took me six days to write the first 10k words and one day to write the last. I had no sense of pacing in the story. The actual words were a mess. I worried it was too depressing and there was too much hurt.

But you know what? It worked out. After a week of letting it sit, I reread it and it turned out I actually kinda really loved it? It hit all the buttons I wanted it to and it was precisely the story I wanted to read. nafs volunteered to beta and got it back amazingly quickly. The art by blithe turned out as lovely as it always does. The response to it was great.

I will consider that a win. 🥳

Challenge #5

In your own space, talk about an idea you wish you had the time / talent / energy to do. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I want to write a novel-length Rictor/Shatterstar story. I have been writing these guys since the late 90s, and the longest I've managed is one 60k story. I can do longer! I know I can! But it's just... finding the time when both my brain and my eyes are up for the challenge. I have three novel-length bunnies I indulge in sometimes when work and/or life is overwhelming, the most recent of which is a coming of age story that includes mutual pining, a roller skating scene and multiple occurrences of h/c, set in the late 90s.

Picture for a second:

• These two guys, best friends, one returned home after years away, one completely out of his element.


• Rictor, finally away from his (telepathic) leader, primed for some self discovery.


• Shatterstar, after months of ~feelings~, back in the company of the source of his ~feelings~.


• Roller skating! Unsteady, fun roller skating (while wearing jorts)!


• Road trips? Many!


• And then a bunch of other things I will think of later, I'm sure it'll be fine.


• The Canonical Ending

But yes, I mostly just want to write more looooooong ricstar stories and totally indulge myself.

Challenge #2

In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Fannish goals:

• Write at least 75,000 words this year. This is also my getyourwordsout pledge -- half of what I normally pledge, but twice the amount I wrote last year.


• Finish all my outstanding Marvel Trumps Hate stories, of which there are several.


• Get a line in both trope_bingo and hc_bingo -- I have gotten exactly one line once, and it haunts me that I cannot seem to do it again.

Non-fannish goals:

• Go for more walks, even if it is too cold or too hot or too wet outside.


• Vacuum more, even though vacuuming is The Worst, because dust allergies are even more The Worst, especially right now.


• Read more new books -- I am very good at re-reading books I know I like and very bad at reading books I have never read before, even though I know I would like them.