Feeling a lot of whelmed

I’m in one of those states where you feel overwhelmed by a bunch of different tasks, none of which should be all that daunting on its own, but then if you start working on one, you feel the crushing weight of how much you’re not working on all the others.

A partial list:

• Yuletide 2021 letter/offers
• Last-minute Kickstarter promotion
• Finishing the next Leif & Thorn arc (currently 40+ strips, for most storylines that would already be finished)
• Various blog updates + link roundups
• Researching kidney donation (there’s a lot of extensive screening and recovery involved, none of which I have even started, and yet my brain has decided to feel pre-emptively exhausted just learning about it)
• Reading a stack of library books
• Reading a backlog of subscribed fic updates
• Updated Leif & Thorn book cover art (was supposed to be just changing the scale, then I was like “but what if I also fixed this minor annoyance, and that other one, and redid a thing that’s always bothered me, and”)
• Prodding for BICP printing-related status updates
• Drawing some art I’ve owed people for months
• Figure out TikTok?
• I should actually clean this living room at some point, huh

…well, I was kinda hoping it would help to write that all down, but so far, not much.

Here’s a nice relaxing Marshmallow Fluff photo instead. A true role model for how to be chill.

Speaking of that last-minute promotion: I have a Kickstarter!

It’s the fourth volume of Leif & Thorn, and it’s doing great. Passed the funding goal earlier this week. Now on track to set a new funding record for the series, and a new all-time record for the number of backers I’ve gotten on a project.

Deadline is Friday at midnight. Pass it on.

Multifandom works roundup, “everything pre-Kickstarter” edition (PPG, BNHA, and more)

Leif & Thorn

Pronoun Dex (comic | Hermosa/Dex | G)

Sweet snacks (art | Leif, Thorn, WiB, Tiernan | worksafe)

A kiss on the hand is worth… (art | Leif/Thorn | worksafe)

Volume 4 Cover – Blazing Stars (art | Leif/Thorn | worksafe)

This guy seems fishy (art | Paikea | worksafe)

Hunters in bottles (wallpaper | Dex/Hermosa, Del, WiB, Kale | worksafe)

Watercolor Ivy (art | Ivy | worksafe)

My Hero Academia
ShigaDeku (art | Shigaraki/Izuki | worksafe)

Powerpuff Girls
The Powerpuff Fangirls (art | Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup | worksafe)

Spooky Month
Spooky Month BFFs (art | Pump/Skid | worksafe)

General/Miscellaneous

Webcomic Woes 34 – What do you think a comic *is*? (comic, G)

Webcomic Woes 35 – them old making-an-ebook blues (comic, G)

This Week in But I’m A Cat Person:

Annotated chapter 7, where I talk about the background of Miranda’s latest plans.

This Week in Leif & Thorn:

Hermosa is back in his own home, but confined to the building…blocked from talking to his fugitive spouse…and dealing with the world’s worst babysitter.

Multifandom fic recs (Hellsing, Thursday Next, Labyrinth, Harry Potter, Murderbot)

• Hellsing | Alucard(/Anderson), Walter | G | Arsenic
  Alucard with hangover? Alucard with hangover.
  fic:one-shot,series:hellsing,genfic,trope:amnesia

• Hellsing | Alucard, Seras, Integra | T | Alucard and Seras go shopping
  They go shopping bois, that’s it.
  series:hellsing,genfic,fic:bite-size

• Labyrinth (1986), Thursday Next | Jareth/Sarah, Toby, JurisFiction | T | The Man With Thistle-down Hair
  Usually trapped in fanfiction, on holiday in a Susannah Clarke novel, one of the many fanon Jareths becomes involved in a literary crisis.
  series:labyrinth,crossover,fic:one-shot,series:thursday next,metafic,pairing:jareth_sarah

• Labyrinth (1986) | Jareth/Sarah | T | Anthropomorphism
  Sarah is studying at university in Australia. She tells a story to a friend from her residence hall about an anthropomorphic personification she once met.
  pairing:jareth_sarah,series:labyrinth,fic:chaptered

• Labyrinth | Jareth/Sarah, Sarah/OCs, ensemble | T | Unlock This Door!
  “That can’t be a hollow promise, Sarah. You actually have to mean it. You are exchanging proffered friendship to me for your brother’s freedom.”
  fic:chaptered,series:temeraire,pairing:jareth_sarah,pairing:sarah_others

• Labyrinth | Jareth, Sarah, Worms | T | Formal Separates #2
  It was worth a shot. Maybe one of the instrument cases had a hidden panel. She ran to the nearest wall and started pressing various parts, frantically scrabbling at the paneling. Nothing. She turned to the next wall and though better of it. Well, we can rule out that one over there; there’s only hallway behind it……of course!
  series:labyrinth,genfic,fic:one-shot

• Labyrinth (1986) | Jareth/Sarah | T | Fading
  There is a forfeit to be paid when you offer yourself to another. He is paying that forfeit now: a slow decay into nothing, a rest he’s at first so ready for. She doesn’t need him to fade the way she used, and when he sees her again after so long, he doesn’t particularly want to. But villains, he knows, aren’t here to get what they want. Villains are here to die.
  series:labyrinth,pairing:jareth_sarah,fic:chaptered

• Labyrinth, Harry Potter | Augusta Longbottom, Jareth | G | Lost Property
  There’s going to be a very unhappy Goblin out there if Neville’s got that sword…

  And where there are goblins, there are Goblin Kings.
  genfic,fic:one-shot,crossover,series:labyrinth,series:harry potter

• The Murderbot Diaries | Murderbot, ART, OCs | T | about what
  redacted note: The SecUnit and Archambeau are still unaccounted for. I don’t think they ever will be, so let’s preemptively put this report in the folder of useless reports.
  trope:outsider.pov,series:murderbot diaries,fic:one-shot,genfic,kink:identity porn

• The Murderbot Diaries | Gurathin | T | Inventory
  Gurathin had put off watching Bharadwaj’s documentary, but when he finds it playing on the transit ring, he can’t look away.
  series:murderbot diaries,genfic,fic:one-shot

• The Murderbot Diaries | Murderbot, Mensah’s family | G | Fair Trade
  Murderbot is getting along with Mensah’s family members better than she’d realized.
  series:murderbot diaries,genfic,fic:one-shot,trope:kidfic

• The Murderbot Diaries | Murderbot, ART, Mensah, PresAux | T | Stupid Unreliable Magic
  Murderbot has never had a soulbond, (~can~ never have a soulbond. The feature that prevents it is not so easily hacked as a Governor Module.) and it really wishes everyone would stop talking about them, because it doesn’t want them and it’s not interested at all, thankyouverymuch.
  pairing:art_murderbot,series:murderbot diaries,pairing:mensah_murderbot,kink:soulbond,fic:one-shot

• The Murderbot Diaries | ART, Murderbot, team in absentia | G | Some Sort of Celebration
  Murderbot’s humans celebrate its birthday whether it has one or not.
  fic:one-shot,series:murderbot diaries,genfic

• The Murderbot Diaries | Murderbot, Mensah, Gurathin | T | Neurofeedback
  “Constructs have coding so deep and fundamental, that I think it must be similar to what humans call instinct. And the company had gone in that deep when fucking me over, just to be thorough. I’ve spent months trying to unfuck my brain, in between everything else, and I’m beginning to think it’s just not possible.”
  genfic,series:murderbot diaries,fic:one-shot,trope:hurt-comfort,trope:trauma

• The Murderbot Diaries | ART, Gurathin, Murderbot, Ratthi, Pin-Lee | T | Never ruin an apology with an excuse.
  Gurathin had been typically quiet in the meetings. The many meetings. Gurathin was always quiet. But he’d requested all the available footage and transcripts they had, especially the ones of Amena’s conversations. And he’d spoken to her. That should have alerted him. That wasn’t like Gurathin.
  genfic,fic:one-shot,series:murderbot diaries

Who’s got two thumbs and can do Zoom calls normally again?

I gave New Computer another update — this time making a point of backing up a bunch of stuff, just in case I had to do another reinstall from scratch.

Not only did the process go fine, the camera works again!

(This update was only released a couple weeks ago, and the camera-breaking update was a couple months ago, so it’s not like I could’ve just done that from the start. Someone on the development end had to fix what they broke.)

…so, ah, fingers crossed that it’ll fix the other weird problem, where the computer spontaneously decides it wants to reboot into a diagnostic scan. Which always finds no problems, just like all the previous scans.

Plot twist: I paid more attention to when these happen, and the last 3 times were on Thursday afternoon. So this past Thursday morning, I shut down the computer completely, then headed out to work.

I get home, and it’s on this screen again. Something in here didn’t just reboot the OS, it autonomously powered the machine on.

I mean. What even does that?

The camera-fixing update was later that evening, so I guess we’ll find out “did it also fix the spontaneous diagnostics?” next Thursday.

---

Had an extensive dream that was an AU of The Secret Garden, but Mary Lennox was a tween necromancer, Gideon the Ninth style.

…and now that I think about it, the parallels are there? Not to Harrow, I mean to Gideon’s backstory of “was a small child when a fatal affliction swept through the whole group around her, later retrieved after being discovered surrounded by bodies.”

Maybe I’ll request it for Yuletide, or something.

---

It’s that magical time of year when I put Kickstarter logos in all my social-media icons, re-re-proofread all my ad copy, and anxiously look up how much it costs to ship a 5-pound box to Germany.

(Just over US $70.)

That’s right, it’s the final-week prep for Leif & Thorn volume 4.

Please click that link and hit the “Notify me on launch” button, if you haven’t already!

And folks, I am so close to the weight where, if someone wants All The Leif & Thorn Books, the cheapest method is to pack them in a Flat Rate box. 4 books isn’t quite there — but at 5 books the flat rate is cheaper, and at 6 it’ll be much cheaper, and once we get up to 9 it’ll be astronomically cheaper.

…when we get to 10, they won’t all fit in a single box. But that’s a future problem.

(Not that I’m going to do this, but: there would be something really satisfying about drawing enough to fill 9 books, and then stopping the comic, just so it’s a perfect fit for the boxes.)

Multifandom fic recs (Enterprise, Madoka Magica, Jeeves & Wooster, Discworld, original)

• Enterprise | T’Pol/Archer | G | Five Times Jonathan Archer Married T’Pol, and One Time She Married Him
  Pretending to be married is often the best way to pacify a suspicious or belligerent alien – but maybe Jonathan Archer should stop pretending to be married to T’Pol.
  fic:five times,series:star trek,pairing:archer_tpol,trope:marriage,kink:identity porn,amazing

• Star Trek: Enterprise | Archer/T’Pol | G | The Fever
  How does Archer react when there’s a sick Vulcan on the Bridge?
  series:star trek,pairing:archer_tpol,trope:hurt-comfort,fic:one-shot

• Enterprise | Archer/T’Pol, Hoshi | G | The Vulcan Lesson
  Jonathan solicits Hoshi’s help in interpreting a Vulcan word. Its meaning surprises him.
  pairing:archer_tpol,series:star trek,fic:one-shot

• Star Trek: Enterprise | T’Pol/Archer, kid | G | The needs of the many
  One of the doors off the room opened slightly and a child’s voice said, “Mommy, is Daddy all caught up now?”
  pairing:archer_tpol,series:star trek,fic:chaptered,trope:kidfic,trope:timetravel

• Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Hitomi, team | G | Hitomi would like a refund on the universe, this one seems broken
  In an alternate universe, using a doppel has… side effects. Mostly invisible ones.

  Mostly invisible, to magical girls at least.
  fic:one-shot,series:puella magi madoka magica,trope:eldritch horror,genfic

• Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Charlotte/Mami | T | Sweet Doll for a Sweet Witch
  Charlotte felt lonely. Keeping a magical girl could prove a nice distraction.
  series:puella magi madoka magica,pairing:mami_charlotte,yuri,trope:trauma,fic:one-shot

• Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Sayaka/Kyoko, Homura | T | The Night Homura & Sayaka Saved Christmas
  Homura and Sayaka are forced to team up in order to foil Kyubey’s most devious plan yet.
  trope:christmas,pairing:kyoko_sayaka,yuri,series:puella magi madoka magica,genfic

• Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Hitomi, Kyuubey, ensemble | T | wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero
  In one timeline, Hitomi was brought along for the ill-fated attempt to restore Miki Sayaka from her witch.

  This was a spectacularly bad idea, but not entirely for the reasons you’d assume.
  series:puella magi madoka magica,genfic,fic:one-shot,trope:apocalypse

• Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | holy quintet | G | The Quad
  “I don’t know. One day, they just started getting all touchy, and started calling me their e-lane.’ It’s weird.”
  genfic,series:puella magi madoka magica,crackfic,fic:one-shot

• Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Homura/Madoka | G | A Red Umbrella
  Homura has been looping time for the past year, and she’s exhausted. She’s so exhausted she hasn’t even noticed that Madoka is in love with her and being really obvious about it.
  series:puella magi madoka magica,fic:chaptered,pairing:homura_madoka,yuri,trope:timetravel

• Jeeves & Wooster, Bill & Ted | Jeeves, Bertie, Bill, Ted | T | Jeeves and the Bogus Guests
  Bill and Ted visit 1920s London. That’s it, that’s the plot.
  series:bill and ted’s excellent adventure,pairing:jeeves_wooster,genfic,fic:one-shot,crossover

• Jeeves – P. G. Wodehouse | Jeeves/Bertie, friends | T | An evening with Ephraim
  In which Bertie throws a queer party without Jeeves’s help, which goes exactly as smoothly as you’d expect.
  pairing:jeeves_wooster,kink:identity porn,series:jeeves & wooster,fic:one-shot

• Dresden Files, Discworld | Harry, Tiffany, Maeve, Nac Mac Feegle | G | The Cheese Stands Alone
  The Winter Knight gets stuck between a rock and a hard place. No, not the one near Slice.
  crossover,series:discworld,genfic,fic:one-shot,series:dresden files,trope:outsider.pov

• Monstrous Regiment | Maladict/Polly | T | The Yunk and the Restless
  Polly spends the night in a nest of vampires. It involves questionable accents, even more questionable nightclothes, and a certain amount of confusion over quite how she ended up classified as Maladicta’s ‘yunk lady’.
  pairing:polly_mal,series:discworld,yuri,fic:one-shot,trope:vampires

• original | T | Unknown Number
  – Ok you’re saying that you’re me
  – From another timeline
  – contacting me by fucking TEXT MESSAGE
  fic:socialmedia,genfic,original,trope:genderplay