How. how. HOW have I busted Phil's screen again already!?

Or, Idk, maybe not the screen? I mean, I hope it's the screen, since that's what I know how to fix, but I guess it might not be? Hadn't considered that until just now, tbh. It just won't light up. The actual glass is fine and if I tip it off-- as I can, since it's come loose from the backing layers somehow-- I can hold it up to the light and use it as... well. Not as normal, obviously. But I can use it. Which is good, since I'll need to get a ride to work in the morning and then clock in once I get there and Phil is my means of doing both.

I went ahead and ordered two spare screens this time.

I have officially finished two books within a single week. You may clap uwu

Legitimately, I haven't been on a roll like this for months, I am so happy. Making decent progress in my brick of a book too, though I'm a little behind where I want to be. I'll catch up tomorrow. I may just prioritize this one for the next couple of days, Idk. It's just that the end of the year feels like it's coming up fast and I've still got twenty books to go to hit my goal. To think, I believed back in January that I'd easily finish ahead... I guess we'll see!

Speaking of goals, I don't think I've mentioned it at all but I've finally, for the first time in years, managed to stick to an exercise routine for over a month. I'm actually making gains, which is more than I can say for myself since... jeeze, since the first time I got covid. My arms are still kinda squishy at rest but I noticed today that my biceps are actually more visible when I move them, not just when I flex. Exciting!

And speaking of... Okay, I don't actually have a good segue here. Just wanted to mention that I finished the cancer charity blanket squares from one of the mini-skeins. Would've probably done both but it took me a long time to pick a pattern. I actually got three squares, not two, out of the one skein! Two of them are basic granny squares and the third is a lacy square that I free-handed. The plan for tomorrow is to repeat that for the second skein. I should have just a little yarn left over from each of them and I think I'll make a couple little flower motifs to send along. Idk if they'll be of use for the project but I figure they can't hurt. Worst case, they don't get used for it, which is the same thing that would happen if I didn't make them.

I've been rewatcing Beast Wars while I work. I mean, I was actually already rewatching Beast Wars before this but today, I had it on while I worked. This is the first time in a long time that I'm watching the full series again and I've been really enjoying it. Which I expected, of course, but there was an anxious little voice in the back of my head telling me that I might have outgrown it too much to enjoy it anymore. And, sure, there's a lot that I see now that I didn't as a kid or a slightly older kid or even as a younger adult. There's a lot that doesn't hold up, in terms of writing and production. But there is still so much there to appreciate and enjoy. The biggest problem I'm running into is the loneliness, lol. I'm sure I've said this before but I'm a very social watcher. I like to talk to people about what I'm watching. But, of course, no one is watching with me. Alas. Maybe I can crawl into the fandom tags on Tumblr when I'm done and beg people to talk to me, lol.

Icy cold take coming through: I hate spambots.

Any kind of spambot, really, but my hatred today has been ignited by spambots that pollute fandom spaces. I barely check my fanfiction.net alerts anymore because they've overrun the place. If you've not been there in a minute, this may be shocking, on account of it's incredibly ridiculous. But, nonetheless, it's true! I and others I know who still have accounts there have been inundated with floods of poorly-written, cookie cutter gushing over our work and offers to "collaborate" on art pieces and comics based on it. Or "commission offers" as if legitimate artists frequently reach out to fanfic writers to find clients. This gushing frequently has nothing to do with the works themselves, as if they weren't obviously enough fake. I think my favorites overall are the ones that send DMs saying they loved my story. Which story? Y'know, mine! 9__9

I'm more or less used to having to clear out at least a couple dozen of these when I check my FFN account messages. Doesn't stop them from being annoying, of course, but I don't have enough hope to be disappointed anymore, at least. I'm not used to dealing with these among my scant AO3 comments, on the other hand. So when someone commented on a fic asking if they could share a thought, I was excited at the idea of talking to someone about the fandom or the characters or the rarepair it featured. And I was only a little bit wary when they asked if I wanted to talk off-site. Wouldn't be the first time I exchanged Skype or Discord or something with someone I met there, though I wasn't fully prepared, based on bad past experiences, to do so willy-nilly this time. So, I asked what it was they wanted to take off-site and they came back saying only that they wanted to discuss an illustration and that's when the disappointment slapped me in the face. I double-checked, saw that they were a new, empty account and blocked. Ugh.

What really gets me about these, I think, aside from the obvious, is that I have had actual, real people who were interested in expanding on my work before. Several of my femslash drabbles have been translated into French; another has been translated into Chinese; a longer EEnE one-shot has been translated into Spanish. Someone asked permission to translate something into Russian and another someone for permission to do a podfic of something else. Neither of those people got around to doing those things but they were real people and they asked. As for artwork specifically, someone once did an illustration for that same EEnE fic that was translated and I only found out when I stumbled across it in the fandom tags on Tumblr because they were too shy to tag me. Someone else once wrote a fic based on a post I made. And, I mean, I know it's not just me. All the time, I see translations, illustrations, fics inspired by fics, by fanart, by discussion posts and idle questions. Heck, I did a short fic once inspired by fanart. I did another-- maybe two others-- based on posts I saw. Fandom is community and plenty of fanwork is collaborative, one way or another. Of course people do commission artists for illustrations of their fics-- I've done that too-- and maybe even for fics to accompany their art, Idk. But real people aren't out here, as a general rule, offering to let you give them money in exchange for ~collaborating. And it really sticks in my teeth that the people behind these bots are sending them out to do this like it's the way fandom works.

Finished the book I was reading last night. I can't remember the last time I finished a book in two days that wasn't, like, a hundred, hundred-fifty pages or something. Feeling pretty good about that, ngl, especially after the last couple months were very barren as far as reading goes. I've now finished thirty-one books and I've got two more I'm reading now. One is a bit of a brick and will probably take me the month, not least because I'm juggling books, but the other is of similar size and layout to the one I finished last night. Not that that guarantees anything, natch, but I'm hopeful I can keep this momentum going.

Writing is going decently the past few days, too, though I'm still struggling to finish anything. Seems that break I took helped! Reading is probably helping, too, tbh. Got the brain juices going, y'know? Aaand sleeping properly is probably not hurting. On that note, g'night, everybody!

Got the living room furniture all moved around. As annoying as it is to have had to do it, the new arrangement does look pretty nice. The only real problem is that we don't have a good place for our craft cubbies anymore. We're gonna have to move them either into the hallway or the guest room. Which is also pretty annoying but not the worst, I guess.

Had a nice day out with my sister and her kids. Finally got to take y recycling and drop off my small box of donations at Goodwill. I was hoping we could arrange to get one of the furniture pieces I saw on Marketplace but it turns out that she recently picked up a new coffee table and it's still in her van until they're ready to place it inside, so there's no room. She'd otherwise have been amenable, so I'll just have to hope none of what I've been looking at goes before next week. I ended up holding off on getting Travis's new tank stand because when it came time to just settle, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm really glad of that now since so much that I like the look of has been put up now.

Anyhow, aside from that errand, we went for lunch and ice cream. The kids were all in good moods and well-behaved. For the most part. Not gonna hold it against the little one for getting fussy when it got close to nap time, natch. We also stopped at Michael's so I could get the black yarn I need to finish that one scarf and mittens set. We did a lot of browsing, particularly of clearance, and the older two each picked out a coloring book. I found two copies of a Transformers sticker picture activity booklet and grabbed those too. Not sure why I grabbed both, tbh, even though they were super cheap. I usually roll my eyes and move on from merch like that because it always pays dirt to the female characters. Still, I knew the older two would enjoy it and having two does make it a little more fair. Maybe I should get some fan-made sticker sheets and let them use those...