Help me flist, you're my only hope!

I need music recs! (It's for a vid.)

Can people rec me some fun, bouncy pop music, preferably 80s music or something with that general kind of style (light pop with a brisk beat) with a friendship/"working together"/"having fun"/"people doing stuff together" vibe to the lyrics? The big problem I'm having is, it's not that I can't come up with plenty of that kind of thing, it's that coming up with ones that aren't love songs is difficult, and I need something that isn't a love song. It can even technically be a love song, as long as it's not so obviously a love song that you couldn't make a gen vid to it.

I have some ideas already but I'd love more ideas for songs that I overlooked, haven't heard, or just didn't think of.

Writing in 2018 (original fiction edition)

The general theme for my creative life in 2018 was "diversify." I launched a bunch of new projects and series, and two new pen names (well, one new one plus revitalizing an old one) ... and ended up feeling like I was going 50 different ways and reminding myself, oh right, I don't multitask well! Oops. So basically, I did about half what I wanted to in 2018 (my webcomic suffered in particular). But I have a lot of different things to work on now, so 2019's theme is going to be focusing on the most important of them and making some progress on those.

Still, despite feeling like I didn't get as far as I wanted to, I was actually wildly productive in 2018! I had 5 novels out, and 2 anthology stories, and wrote another novel and a novella that'll be out in 2019.

Here's my 2018 list of publications.

Zoe Chant
This is a paranormal romance pen name shared between several authors. We were trying to keep this under wraps for awhile, but we are now publicly discussing that we're a group of writers, so I can talk about my Zoe projects in public posts.

• Pet Rescue Panther (Bodyguard Shifters #2) - Feb. 2018
• Bear in a Bookshop (Bodyguard Shifters #3) - April 2018
• Day Care Dragon (Bodyguard Shifters #4) - Nov. 2018

The next book in the series, Bull in a Tea Shop, will be out in the first half of 2019; I'm currently writing it. Yes, I'm still having ridiculous amounts of fun with these.

Lauren Esker
This is my personal pen name for paranormal and sci-fi romance.

• Metal Wolf (Warriors of Galatea #1) - June 2018
• "Heart of Stone" - MMF short story in the anthology Two Mates for the Dragon

The Galatea series is my first foray into sci-fi romance. The rough draft of the second book, Metal Dragon, is mostly done, and at the very least I plan to have both that and the third book, Metal Pirate, out in 2019.

Layla Lawlor
My actual name; I finally kicked off getting some of the non-romance stuff out there! I'm really happy with that, even though I didn't get as far along as I wanted to.

• Wayward Myths (Gatekeeper #1) - July 2018
• "Gilt and Glamour" - short story in the anthology It Happened at the Ball
• Kismet: Sun-Cutter - ongoing webcomic

The second Gatekeeper book, Echo City, will be out in 2019; I also plan to work on the 3rd book in the Gatekeeper series, and shift some focus onto Kismet, which is getting to the point where book 2 is starting to wrap up.

Mar Delaney
My new F/F pen name for tropey lesbian romance. I have a completed novella, Moose Madness, for this pen name, but it's part of an anthology and won't be out 'til early next year, so technically Mar didn't get officially deployed in 2018. But I'll have at least one novella out as Mar in 2019.

2018: Fandom and Misc.

I know 2018 wasn't much of a year for a lot of people, but it brought me many good things.

People

I met rachelmanija, magistrate, sartorias, and scioscribe in person (and allanh, separately) and it was AMAZING. I have known all of these people online for years except scioscribe, and I discovered that I had actually loved her fic in two different fandoms under two pen names in years gone by and in one case I had always kind of wondered, whatever happened to that person? Well, now I know and she's still writing fantastic fic and I got to hang out with her. ♥ The group of us also made plans to start a publishing house for tropey lesbian fiction which kiiiinda hasn't really gone anywhere but it got me to start the Mar Delaney pen name so that's a thing now.

I've also been doing lots of writerly stuff locally with ellenmillion and that's really been a lot of fun. ♥

Books/Comics

2018 was definitely the Year of the Cherryh; I've been reading my way through her back catalogue and loving it. I rediscovered old favorites, fell in love with new ones, and generally was delighted to find out how closely her id dovetails with mine when it comes to groups of prickly outsiders becoming each other's family.

I also reread Death Gate and fell back in love with that, read a bunch of Cable comics (see below) and (re)discovered the gorgeous 1920s-noir-with-cats webcomic Lackadaisy.

Movies

I didn't watch a lot of movies in 2018, and by far my favorite was Black Panther. I went from being generally unenthralled by the trailers and profoundly IDGAF about the over-hyping, to, okay FINE, it's worth all the hype and then some. XD It was amazing; I bought it on both DVD and digital, and I can't wait for the sequel.

I also really enjoyed Deadpool 2 and it kicked off a few weeks of industriously reading my way through 30 years' worth of Cable comics, of which there is A LOT. I had zero interest in that character throughout all my X-Men-reading years and now suddenly I love him ... just in time for Marvel to kill off the comics version. Dammit. Oh well, he's died plenty of times; he'll be back.

(Comics, man.)

TV

Fell head over heels in love with Punisher and Iron Fist and the Netflix MCU in general ... just for them to cancel it. *shakes tiny fist at Netflix*

Fandoms

You know, I feel like I could write a whole essay about how I used to only have one thing at a time that I had really intense write-all-the-fanfic feels about. And then somehow in the last few years I started getting to where it wasn't just one at a time, and the last couple of years in particular, it feels like I keep picking fandoms up without putting any down.

That being said, some fan crushes are more intense than others, and for whatever reason I've fallen for Iron Fist hard (and the Netflix MCU in general). It's swept me away in a bigger way than anything has since Agent Carter, I think. I am writing ALL THE THINGS! I can't wait to write more things! And I'm cautiously looking forward to the new season of Punisher later in January; I don't want to let it ruin the happy feels I have for the first season, but based on early spoilers, if it's good, it will be so much my thing.

And I'm just all-around WAY happier than I was at this time last year. I did not have a good 2017 (although I learned a lot about myself and I think grew as a person), and I know a lot of people didn't have a good 2018, but I'm ending this year on a really good note, feeling satisfied with my life and eager to set my plans in motion for 2019.

2019 plans

Focus more on Kismet, publish 4-5 novels (see previous post for which ones I'm focusing on), and get back to doing art on a regular basis ... those are the main things. And fanfic. Write all the fanfic. I'm planning to do some longer ones, a series of standalone Iron Fist ones that are part of a coherent continuity (I really wish I'd done that with Agent Carter post-cancellation; it would make it easier to write fic for it now without having to reinvent the wheel every time) and maybe a long WIP in some fandom or other, because I miss doing those.

Thanks for being great, everybody. ♥ I look forward to hanging out with all of you, online and in person, in 2019.

(no subject)

I've developed a sort-of-tradition over the last couple of years of writing and posting New Year's fic in whatever my main fandom happens to be on New Year's Eve, and this year's offering is, unsurprisingly, Iron Fist: Ball Drop in Times Square.

Our neighbors are going wild with fireworks this year. It's like there are competing fireworks displays all up and down the valley. (We're out of town on the highway.) Did we miss a memo?! Maybe it's just because it's so unusually warm; it's gone from -20F a few days ago to 30F now, so it's actually possible to be outside and enjoy them without freezing. Orion bought some to shoot off later, so we'll be adding our own noise to the fest.

Happy New Year!

Sneaking in with a few more Yuletide recs

Just a few more recs before author reveals!

Homemakers (Rivers of London, 5600 wds, canon pairings + gen)
This is lovely and sweet and well characterized, and also really well put together as a story; I really admire the way everything comes full circle by the end, plotwise and emotionally. Contains Lies Sleeping spoilers.

True Friends (Watership Down, 1500 wds)
A lovely reunion-in-the-afterlife story that I really enjoyed.

And Now ... A Word From My Sponsor (4000 wds, Jessica Jones/Daredevil, Trish & Karen)
Great precanon fic with the two of them getting their lives back together, moving beyond their difficult pasts, and becoming friends.