March 2026 in Review

Posted on April 1, 2026 by Thistle

March is my birthday month! It feels weird to say that today, when my birthday was literally a month ago as I wrote my Feb wrap-up, heh.

  • Tarot of the month (full year, month by month, drawn Dec 2025): Queen of Wands. This is a card of ferocity, passion, and confidence. Which is interesting because 1) I was really lacking those things as I entered the month, and 2) I had a really strong ah-ha moment as to WHY I was lacking them late in the month. When we unravel the trauma-knots that have held us back for decades, it’s so very freeing. I hope I’m ending the month as the Queen. // This version of the Queen of Wands comes from the Sapphic Magic Tarot Deck (no affiliate link).
  • Song(s) of the month: Bird Set Free (Sia); War (YUNGBLUD); Pearl Three (Stiffs, Inc)

General Life Stuff
Summer came early to south Texas this year. I mean, it always gets warm in March, but the 90+ range is not fun all the way back in early March! Ugh. But there were good things, too. I discovered a book series I really like (and which I’m currently listening to for the third time). There were lots of new GOS3-related drops. I changed to a new therapist and instantly clicked with her. I managed to get all five of my cats to the vet without any of them freaking out about being put in the carrier and scratching me by accident while they tried to get away. On the more negative side: I had a whole fuck-ton of emotional revelations come up, forcing me to face the truth of what I’ve been living through for the last several decades and name it for what it is. (I will not be getting into that here; it’s too raw. Fellow escapees will understand.) I had a bajillion doctors appointments and as usual still don’t know what is causing my symptoms. Which were much worse over the last few months because insurance changed and I had to get off my rheum meds, which led to a really bad inflammation flare up (facial rashes, joint pain, general pain…).

Goals
Not a huge ton of progress on these once again. A few bits of admin are taken care of, and I’ve either watched or culled a bunch of things from my watch list that have been there too long, and all that’s left are things I don’t currently have access to. I’ve finished acquiring my photobooks from various trips on some really good deals (free books for my birthday month from different companies!). However, while I’m not accomplishing much in the way of crossing things out on my list, I am continuing to work on the big things – daily German practice, getting rid of things I don’t need, applying for jobs (I reworked my resume this month to hopefully get more hits!), writing, etc. But it’s a long waiting game. You can only do so much when you’re waiting for paperwork to make its slow way through the courts.

Writing
When Prime posted our first look at S3-Crowley this month, it came with the caption “absolutely feral.” And a one-shot basically just dropped into my head fully formed. Within two days, I had a new 4k-word story written and posted up on ao3, and people went wild for it. (Obviously, as the fandom would say in a very particular tone.) I also wrote the first 14k words for my Summer Omens Big Bang, which helps me to fulfill two of my writing goals this year – to writing something in my Paranormal Podcasters series, and to participate in a Bang. Win-win!

Writing is still tough, but a bit earlier than back in November through January. I think the thing is that I’ve written almost 800,000 words of fiction about these characters and this world over the last 2.5 years – including five full length novels set in canon and four full length AU novels – and my brain is itching to create something new. Which is a good sign. One of the things I want to do this year is to branch back into original fic, and I think I might be ready to do that soon. Though perhaps I’ll wait to see how S3 affects my brain, and also to get everything settled re: divorce, moving, etc.

Favorite Photos

Exciting stuff
Does it count that I finally have a mediation date for my divorce? All the writing stuff has been exciting, as well as the screenshots and teasers about GOS3. MURIEL IS COMING BACK! Muriel is my favorite non-Aziracrow character in Good Omens and no one knew if they were going to be in the new season. Quelin Sepulveda, who played them, has been tightlipped about her involvement, and she “took a social media beat” a few hours before the screenshot with Muriel on it released. I was more excited about that screenshot than I would have been about a trailer.

As I move into April: I’ve finished with all my backlogged blog posts, and my reading tends to slow significantly as I entered the time of year when I’m really depressed about the heat. I’m likely to have little time as I deal with cats, divorce, health, doctors appointments, potential moving plans, etc. Not sure how often I’ll post here, but I’m not gone, just… floating elsewhere a bit.

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Shifting Gears, by Jazz Forrester (audio)

Posted on March 30, 2026 by Thistle

As the CEO of her late father’s company, Eleanor/Nora Cromwell works far too much. Her friends insist she needs rest, and Nora wants to take the company down an environmentally-friendly route. Two birds with one stone, she rents a cottage in a small town in rural Canada to do research on real estate development that can fund her ambitious projects. She doesn’t expect to fall in love – with the town, with the people who live there, with the gorgeous town mechanic…

This is essentially a Hallmark movie, complete with a well-known trope: big-city-protagonist moves to the country with Big Ideas that the town doesn’t actually want, and comes to realize that small-town life is what she’s always been missing. Complete with romance. Only two major differences: 1) it’s’ a lesbian romance, and 2) this get far spicier than any Hallmark movie ever dreamed of. Heh.

Since I began reading fanfic in 2023, I’ve forgotten a lot of the reading guidelines that I stuck to during my years of blogging. A few times this year, I’ve mentioned finishing books out of one obligation or another, and this one is no exception. (What obligation? I’d bought it and couldn’t return it. Silly, I know.) It wasn’t a bad book, but the two primary premises are things I dislike.

First, there’s the whole glorification of small-town life. I’ve lived in every size of city between population 700 and population 5 million, and small towns are not my thing. There are a lot of insidious tendrils that lurk in small towns, and when country life is glorified, it often doesn’t acknowledge those bits. (This is, btw, the same in any story that stratifies big city life over small towns, though historically, fiction has skewed more toward rural nostalgia than vice versa. Think: the pastoral movement.) Second, the entire relationship between Nora and Dani is grounded in blatant dishonesty, and yet is called romantic. Maybe it’s the neurospicy in me, but I can’t get behind dishonesty forming the cornerstone of a relationship, especially when said dishonesty, once revealed, is far easier to forgive than it ever would be in real life. Lies (including deliberate obfuscation) are simply not okay on this scale and in this context, imo.

Setting that aside, the book has some good points in its favor, too. I liked what Forrester did with Nora’s name as the book progressed, and how it changed (multiple times) throughout. While the small town’s tolerance for the queer community was idealistic, I still love seeing that and hope that many communities, big or small, can have this in the future. Other than the dishonesty thing, I enjoyed the relationship between Nora and Dani, especially since neither woman fell into blatant gender roles, as happens too often when people write gay fiction. (Looking at you, book!Heated Rivalry…) The spicy sections were gorgeously written, and didn’t feel cringy like some of the lesbian scenes I’ve read in the last year have. I think I would actually enjoy reading more from Forrester – just not a book based on premises that touch on personal pet peeves.

Performance: This audiobook was read by Krystal Hammond, and she did a good job at it. I enjoyed the various voices she used for a huge cast of characters, and she read the spicy bits without any awkwardness that would normally pull me out of scenes.

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Transatlantic Reunion Cruise, 2025

Posted on March 23, 2026 by Thistle

Okay! I’m finally up to my last travel post, heh. This one goes all the way back to fall of 2024. After going on the mini-cruise with Stephanie, I decided to book a transatlantic crossing over Halloween 2025. It would be my second transatlantic voyage, going the opposite direction and on a different cruise line. The trip got mentioned on my WhatsApp chat with the cruise group from Oct 2023, and suddenly, this became a reunion trip. Eight folks altogether signed up. A bunch of us used a TA to get rooms side by side, so we could open the dividers on the balconies and hang out as a group, and all eight rooms were very close to each other even if only five were in-a-row.

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Europe, summer 2025 [part 6 – The Ineffable Con]

Posted on March 19, 2026 by Thistle

Honestly, I’m not even quite sure how to approach this post. This long weekend was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Something like 120 fans gathered together at a hotel in a tiny town in the UK, at least half in cosplay, at least 80% of them (and probably a lot more) falling into the queer, gender-whatever, and/or neurodivergent camps. It was the most welcoming and wholesome and affirming environment I’ve ever been privileged to be part of.

Origins: The Ineffable Con was started back in 2019 and has been run most years since. One of the original founders (Rachel) joined forces with an attendee (Bethany) to run the second con and all those since. In true fandom fashion, the two got married a few years back, with a GO-themed wedding. They are the OG GO Ineffable Pair (excluding Aziracrow, obviously), and they handle this con with buckets of love. TIC is not only a fandom convention, but a fundraiser for Alzheimer’s Research UK in memory of Terry Pratchett (over £70k since it began!). All profits go towards the foundation, and there are auctions and raffles and donations to help out.

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The Will Darling Adventures, by KJ Charles (audio)

Posted on March 16, 2026 by Thistle

When I read Copper Script, I posted about it on BlueSky, and a bunch of my GO friends thought it sounded like it could be GO fanfic. Ironic, given that I see that in a lot of the tradpub queer books I read, but not that one. But then one friend asked me if I’d read Slippery Creatures by the same author, saying it was extremely GO-coded, and obviously I had to check that out. She wasn’t wrong. Will Darling has just inherited an antiquarian bookshop packed with disorganized shelves from an uncle who didn’t like to sell books. Kim Secretan is a posh, disgraced aristocrat currently involved in shady dealings that may or may not be legitimate. There are a bunch of catchphrases that mirror the book/show and the characters, and a lot of little touchstones. Couldn’t say if it’s deliberate or a coincidence, but it tickled me, and I ended up reading all three of the books back to back.

Slippery Creatures
In this first book, Will Darling has just inherited his bookshop when he starts receiving threats from both a shady organization and the war office. He refuses to cooperate with either, because he doesn’t have the information they seek – it died with his uncle. When a thug shows up to trash his shop, looking for the information that Will supposedly has, he’s rescued by a passerby – Kim Secretan, a well-dressed, posh man who is intrigued by the puzzle Will has found himself a part of. Only Kim isn’t who he says he is, and this game of intrigue, sex, and Shakespeare turns into lies, betrayal, kidnapping, and murder. While I didn’t like this book as much as Copper Script, I really enjoyed it, and I think the only reason I didn’t like it more was because it was all from Will’s POV rather than alternating. Of course, that was necessary for all of Kim’s shady nebulous dealings.

The Sugared Game
This story picks up a few months after Slippery Creatures. Kim has disappeared again, leaving Will annoyed and frustrated. And bored. He goes out for a night with his friend Maisie, only to find himself at a very shady nightclub…and then Kim shows up again, asking for his help in taking the club down. As usual, Kim isn’t telling the full truth, but as the two of them get closer and Kim’s personal life begins to unravel, Will finally starts to discover just how deep this mystery runs, and how much it’ll hurt the people he loves. I loved this book so much, far more than the first one, and didn’t hesitate for a moment before I snatched up the third book in the series and began to read again. Seeing the vulnerable side of Kim, seeing him truly open up, was absolutely the best, as well as to watch Will go into feral-protective mode. *melt*

Subtle Blood
Okay, I’m going to whine a lot now because this series is over and I want ten more books of it. I have not been so obsessed with a series of books in AGES and these are just phenomenal! In this book, Will and Kim are trying to lay low, but Kim’s brother is accused of murder and then Will is framed for another, so they’re all dragged back into shadowy cat-and-mouse games with aristocrats and/or psychopaths. It’s rather exciting and there still wasn’t nearly enough by the end. Sigh.

To note: There are a couple little mini-stories that the author put out at one point, but I have no idea if they’re still available and I’m going to do everything I can to get my hands on them. [Update: I went looking, and they’re all available on the author’s website, hurrah!] And I might end up diving into fanfic that isn’t just Good Omens… While I originally said that I liked Copper Script better than Slippery Creatures, the trilogy won me over completely, and I might just slip back into re-listening to them for a bit…

Performance: All three books were read by Cornell Collins. I did enjoy his narration, though I had to listen to it a lot slower than usual because he mumbles in places and I find it difficult to follow at times, especially when the prose is dialog-heavy. He does a great job at all the accents though.

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Tattoo Tour: Atlas Moth (21)

Posted on March 13, 2026 by Thistle

A month back, the tattoo artist that I’ve gone to most often (Devony at Thieves of Virtue) put up a flash sale for Friday the 13th + Valentine’s. Pre-drawn designs with no changes, at a reduced rate, with only five slots available. Other than my last two tiny cat-tributes on my back over the fall, it’s been a good long while since I got a bigger tattoo. This one wasn’t super big and the price was a good deal, so I went ahead and booked. The design I chose was an atlas moth with florals around it, to go next to the other moth Devony did for me a few years back.

The 13th came around, and it happened to be the same day Rainstorm had their tattoo, and also the day the GO season 3 date was announced, so fun times! I was in such a good mood, and excited because Devony had told me she could integrate the new design in with the other moth. We worked with the size and placement so that there would be overlap but not too much, and she verified that I liked the color palate (which I didn’t see until day-of, and also which was perfect!). I was a little concerned that some of the flowers would be tattooed right on the edge of my elbow crease, especially as part of that original moth was so incredibly painful when it went on.

However, the really good work I put into exfoliating, hydrating, and moisturizing the skin in the weeks leading up to the appointment seemed to do my skin good! I had almost no pain at all, in either the outlining or the color/shading. The parts closer to the outside of my elbow hurt worse than the soft skin of the crease, but even then, it was barely anything. This was one of the easiest tattoos I’ve ever gotten and I’m completely in love with it! There’s just enough room wrapping around my arm that I could put another moth or two with continued florals to make it a whole sleeve without encroaching down on my gaysychain bracelet. If at all possible, I’d like to get this done before my move to Europe so I can have the same artist do the whole thing!

Thankfully, we know now that I’m allergic to the second skin, so the post-tattoo inflammation was nowhere near as insane as with the moth. I did get a little redness and soreness (potential mild infection) in the area around the elbow crease, mostly because the skin kept sticking to itself in my sleep as I’d bend my arms up. I started keeping K-tape on the upper arm while I slept to keep the lower part from at least not getting skin-to-skin contact, and that helped. Still, it was NOTHING like the really bad reaction I had with the purple moth.

(a collage of screenshots from a video showing the whole thing – hard to get a full photo as it wraps around the arm!)

A month after getting it, there are a few raised white spots that are probably from too much moisture. I have a tendency to get these on any of my heavily-shaded tattoos, so I’m not too worried about them. I’ll need a few touchups later, but generally this one came out really good!

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Europe, summer 2025 [part 5 – London part 2]

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Thistle

Part 2 of London! Sorry for the lengthy posts, y’all. I had a really good time in London and I don’t want to forget all the little things, so I’m just gonna go long!

When I last left off, Rainstorm and I had an amazing day at the Ritz. On Day 5 of our trip, we decided to wander around the Mayfair, Soho, and Bloomsbury areas. On my post-transatlantic trip in May 2024, the two of us had sat on the correct bench in Tavistock Square, which was the filming location stand-in for Berkeley Square in S1 of Good Omens. Obviously, we had to go back and redo this now that we were a couple! Plus, I wanted to look around the general Bloomsbury area for Virginia Woolf reasons. Saw a lot of fun things – including an Aziracrow sticker someone had put on a rubbish bin in the park and which I know was still around many months later because someone else posted about finding it – and explored another couple queer bookshops.

Eventually, we changed direction and went back down to St James, where we found a shady spot on a hill and I read more of our current story-in-progress to Rainstorm while they alternated between laying with their head in my lap and taking photos of ducks. It was a lazy day (which still involved healing a twisted ankle), and post-read, we wandered up to the Waterloo stair thingy and then up Regent St. We ate at Oshpaz, an Uzbek restaurant that I’d eaten at during my first trip to London in March 2024, and which became a setting for a scene in one of my fics. Then we headed to Her Majesty’s Theatre, where we had tickets for Phantom of the Opera (also a place I passed on my first trip, and used in a scene in a different fic). I’d seen Phantom once before, waaaaaay back in 2010 in Austin, but it was lovely to see it in the original theatre. Great experience!

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Gwen & Art Are Not in Love, by Lex Croucher (audio)

Posted on March 9, 2026 by Thistle

Gwen and Art have been betrothed since birth, as seems appropriate given their namesakes. But they hate each other. It’s almost time to set the wedding date, however, so they’re forced to spend a summer together. Very quickly, Gwen discovers Art kissing a man, and he discovers her old diaries pining over the kingdom’s only female knight. Maybe they can help each other out… assuming they can survive the kingdom’s (and their parents’) political machinations.

I’ll be honest: If I hadn’t had a reading challenge prompt of “sapphic knights,” I would not have continued this book for very long. It wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t my type of book. I’ve never been into the whole king Arthur, Camelot, Knights of the Round Table type tales. And while this story is set several generations after all that, it’s still deeply centered in those cultural moors. And unfortunately, the story never won me over. Gwen is too milquetoast, and Art is obnoxious. I liked her better, but I don’t know if that’s because I liked the narrator (Sarah Ovens) better than Art’s (Alex Singh), or because I prefer milquetoast to obnoxious as a personality. Either way, the story fell flat to me. This is why I generally try not to join reading challenges – I tend to make too many reading decisions based on what I’m supposed to read rather than what I’m enjoying. Oh well.

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Copper Script, by KJ Charles (audio)

Posted on March 6, 2026 by Thistle

Police detective Aaron Fowler doesn’t believe that it’s possible for graphologist Joel Wildsmith to accurately read people’s characters and actions from their handwriting. He’s convinced that the man is pulling a con. Joel has no love for the police, but he’s insanely intrigued by Aaron’s handwriting. He’s determined to prove he’s not pulling a con, and if the tests Aaron presents to him allow them to spend more time together? Eh, neither is complaining. Except that one of the tests leads the two of them to suspect that a very powerful man high in the police force is doing very, very bad things…

Back in December, I listened to A Thief in the Night by this author. It was a short novella, under 3 hrs, a fun little romp. I saw a few others by the author that intrigued me, and this was one. I was expecting another romp, but this one was a lot meatier. It was a romance and thriller mixed into one, but also addressed a lot of heavier topics: homophobia, the value of / problem with policing and laws, the issues that injured veterans face and how little support they receive, the bias against women in the workplace, etc. This was a historical setting, allowing each of the themes to carry more obvious weight than they do in today’s society, where such biases are often more subtle, though just as insidious. Quite clever of the author, really.

The romance parts fit right in without feeling forced or out of character. I think if I read another book by Charles and it’s just as good as these first two, I may have just found myself a new author to add to my favorites.

PS – Isn’t that cover art gorgeous??

Performance: The audiobook was narrated by Cornell Collins. He has a lovely voice that I quite enjoyed, but I struggled to tell who was speaking from time to time. The characters’ voices were too similar, and when mixed with internally spoken dialogue, I often had to go back 30 seconds and relisten a few times to figure out who said what, and what was spoken aloud.

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February 2026 in Review

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Thistle

February was a rough month. Let’s get to it.

  • Tarot of the month (full year, month by month, drawn Dec 2025): Page of Cups – This is essentially the embodiment of childlike innocence with regards to emotions, a person who experiences the full range of emotion without more complex factors to dilute them. It can be a card of NRE (friendship or otherwise), but it can also be a sign to experience your emotions rather than analyze them. // This version of the Page of Cups comes from the Linestrider Tarot (no affiliate link).
  • Song(s) of the month: Rain (Sleep Token); Birds (Imagine Dragon)

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