Okay, wow. So much has changed for me since the last time I posted. I’d wager alot has changed for many of us these past couple of years though.

So I mentioned in a previous post that I was planning to be a freelancing proofreader and ebay seller…. Let’s just say that plan didn’t go so well for me. I had a six month period of time where I wasn’t really making any money beyond a few bucks from selling manga on ebay. Then a six month period where I was getting a few interviews for full time proofreader jobs but not landing a job, and working a transcription job that uhh… was definitely paying less than minimum wage.

So as I saw my savings dry up and my health insurance costs spike- I learned some really frustrating facts about the US healthcare system that still make me angry if I think about them too long- I started deciding I wanted a job that will let me work anywhere and in any country. And it turns out, the best option for that is in Information Technology. So while I tried to figure out if I wanted to risk going into debt for a boot camp or try learning on my own I went back into fast food management when someone I was asking for a reference offered me higher pay if I’d come back for a few months till I got the full-time job I was looking for. I did, and quickly remembered why I’d left, but that enabled me to have money until I landed an apprenticeship style job that put me in a low code developer job. Which unfortunately doesn’t give me the knowledge I need to jump into a job that is available anywhere but does give me more options than the fast food job was giving. I’ve got my foot in the door in tech and now I’ve just got to swing over to the high code jobs. I also had to move because the job I now work requires you to be near a specific office as we’re technically hybrid workers, regardless of whether or not we work with people in completely different offices or not.

So yeah, thanks to the massive upheaval that’s been going on, I haven’t actually been upkeeping this site this past year. And I probably will only be doing a little bit of upkeep this year as well.

I’ve learned UiPath, and the Power Platform. A little bit of Vb.net programming language. Bascially enough to build little software bots, mostly ones that incorporate Excel. And while those might be enough to get me jobs, they may not be enough to get me jobs in many other countries, as those programs are pretty niche parts of IT right now.

As I’m currently trying to learn enough to move into a developer role that is more common, my focus won’t be much on this site. I do want to continue fixing the non AO3 fic recs for MDZS so that that tumblr sideblog and this site are mirrored, and I may see if I have to do any projects involving websites for my learning if I can incorporate it here. Come to think of it, a bot that can check my tumblr and format the stuff there to here… But yeah, unfortunately, even though my lists of fic recs not published here are still pretty long[again], I don’t know how much attention I’ll be putting here.

I’ve also started actually putting stuff up on my Youtube channel, right now, I mostly do Youtube Shorts of my cats, but I’ve got many not exactly fandom ideas I’d like to do with my channel, including some reactions to websites I used to play on.

So yeah, I still plan on working on this site, but it may be as ever, fairly slow and tedious coming from me.

But I’m excited about the year to come.

Happy 2023!

Alright! So, once again. Not dead not sick not abandoning the site! I’m currently in the process of trying to set up my life as a work at home editor/proofreader plus ebay seller and in my free time got sucked into the danmei fandoms on tumblr really hard so I haven’t been focusing as much on this site. I plan to come back to this and do some reworking on the site, and also I recently discovered that you can make a Ton of sideblogs on Tumblr so I may begin mirroring this site on Tumblr sideblogs. We’ll see.

As you may have noticed if you have seen the post that’s been circulating on tumblr for over a year now, there have been a lot of concerns about fanfiction.net and the fact that the owners of ff.net seem to be abandoning the site in favor of their original works site fictionpress.com. In fact if you have work currently only on ff.net I would like to make a heavy recommendation to you to go ahead and crosspost it to Archive of Our Own if you have that capability [If not I recommend you ensure your work is copied somewhere just in case ff.net does go down in the next few years like we are expecting]. If you do not have an AO3 account and don’t want to wait a few months for the invite request just let me know! I never use my invites so I’d be happy to send you one!

And while on the subject of contacting me, I’ve been having some issues with the fact that I simply have too many outlook email addresses and it’s become extraordinarily clunky to go through them. So I have dedicated a new email specifically for all my fandom things and that’s elijahdnorth@protonmail.com. If you want to get in touch with me about all things fandom that’s the best place to go aside from tumblr these days.

So! I mentioned that I need to rework a few things on the site. No need for alarm, the site isn’t going to massively change. I just plan on going over each fandom page and checking all the links to make sure I haven’t ended up with a lot of bad links and also trying to see how many of the fanfics are crossposted elsewhere. Most of the links on this site up to a certain point in time are ff.net links so I’d like to see if I can find them elsewhere for the eventual death of ff.net.

Another reason I’d like to go back and just check over the site is that I began this site a long time ago, and I have learned a lot over the period of time since then, and there are certain attitudes that I was raised with that I tried to be very vague about when I started the site because I was beginning to realize they weren’t acceptable, but took a few years to just realize how wrong they were. And I’d like to go over the site and ensure that even in the vagueness I used to use those attitudes aren’t left on my site. I’m very grateful fanfiction exists because it really helped me see the hatred I was steeped in. So I want to make this site a better place.

Anyway, sorry about getting super serious on you. Hopefully you’ll be seeing more of me working on this site in the future.

Alright, just a few quick things. First off, I’ve started a page for other people’s recs of non-AO3 fics for The Untamed/CQL/MDZS fandom. If you know of any, send them to me, I’ll list them up there.

I did a few small edits on the Harry Potter Crossover page, not a lot, there’s a couple things that got moved from link dump, still a whole lot more to do, but I’m finally getting a move on on those.

I did some rearranging, Random Links has been renamed Interesting Links and the bulk of the links are going to still be there but I’ve put up two separate under pages: one for Tea Links and one for Interesting Articles. I may put an underpage for How To links later.

I took a couple of x-over links off the Harry Potter page as well as an old link for a missing story on AO3.

In other news, have I mentioned my cats? Well, I have the CatBerries which recently upped to four, as my mother rescued a stray from her workplace so we have BlackBerry, StrawBerry, DewBerry, and now Blueberry! I’m naming thematically and having fun.

That’s it for now.

Happy Holidays!

Yosh!

Alright, the Bleach Link Dump is all placed into Title, Author, Summaries. The page is still disorganized but the only link standing by itself is one for someone else’s rec page that I really enjoyed.

I think I will be moving on to the Mo Dao Zu Shi page now.

Also!

I decided to go ahead and start a Ko-fi page here in case anyone feels like motivating me to work even more on the rec pages or help pay for the web cost. If you follow me on Tumblr you probably have an idea of why I decided to go with this longshot. heh. I’m struggling a bit, and working on this blog makes me feel like I’m doing something without the need to go punch things. But unfortunately, this is a fan site and does not pay my bills. So. yeah.

If you like any of the fic recs feel free to shoot me up with a comment! I’d love to know more about the folks that stop by, especially since right now I’m only getting spam comments and the occasional Rule 34 mention.

….

yeah. even just a hey I like this particular fandom the most!.

anyway!

have a freaking great day!

So I should be asleep right now, but I thought I’d leave a quick note. I’ve done a little editing on the Manga/Anime rec page. It still has quite a bit to go, but it’s getting closer to what it needs to be. It’s mostly in alphabetical order right now and most of the links were bato.to links so they probably won’t work-another thing I’ll need to fix there.

I’ve gotten sucked into the MDZS fandom very strongly so I’m going to have another huge list to add on whenever I get around to adding that page.

I also discovered that Tumblr rec blogs are a thing, so I’ve set up a page for those. I will be putting more detail into those later.

I’m also planning to set up a separate Tumblr blog specifically to share edits updates for here, much like I do here. Those may end up being more common as I have a tendency to prefer going into great detail here but we’ll see. I haven’t even set it up yet and have just been posting mentions on my regular tumblr.

I’m about to fall over so I’m going to close out here. Hope all you folks out there stay safe.

Alright, once again, not dead!

I’ve been doing a little bit, a very little bit on editing. Okay, so almost miniscule.

I honestly don’t have a lot of energy right now. I think I’m getting affected by the will-sapping ness of Covid19.

I intend to do some more editing here soon.

Currently I need to replace the hard drive on my PC, which is where I do most of the editing and once I get that up and running I wll hopefully be able to get the site back up to date. Cross my fingers, anyway. I currently have a ton more stories I need to add to the recs, and on the bigger rec pages I plan to add genres as I’ve mentioned in a previous post.

Ta.

Urgh. I did not mean to do an update on April 1st, but don’t worry this isn’t a prank post.

So, my plans to move to the Republic of Korea did not pan out.

That’s a very short way to say that I didn’t get my paperwork in order before COVID-19, which considering someone else I know doing similar in Bulgaria ended up being sent home, it works out, I guess?

So, I’m still working in fast food right now. Who would’ve ever guessed we would be considered essential workers right along with health care workers, huh? I’m still feeling pretty salty about that.

I’m currently trying to organize my paperwork so I can teach online, instead, especially since I live with my parents who are both over 60, I really don’t want to be the one that brings COVID-19 to them. (It doesn’t help that my boss’s attempt to keep everyone from panicking about it is to try to downplay the seriousness of this disease.)

I’m hoping that I will get to work on this site a bit more once I get everything figured out.

I am currently also being sidetracked by a series that I recently discovered that has three adaptions from the original novel: a comic, an animated show, and a live action series! I’m not a big fan of BL. I read it occasionally, and I will admit to a few slash ships I find to tend to have very good writers. But I don’t often go for BL stories as they all too often tend to focus on smut. However, I am fond of wuxia when I can follow it. Sometimes they just get so involved in the cultivation I cannot follow what’s happening in it anymore.  So, I use Mangadex to find new comics to read, and I came across this one that looked like wuxia. It was BL, but I really wanted something to read and it looked like it might be funny and so I decided to give it a read……
Then I HAD to read the novel. Then I HAD to watch the animated series. When I finish it, I HAVE to watch the live action series.
I went in for the wuxia and fell in love with the characters, the setting, the plot, all of it, [except maybe those chapters where the main ship got together{I really just find smut annoying most of the time} still the “everyday” thing was so ridiculously in character].

It was an absolutely stunning universe. I did not expect myself to fall in love with Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation so much. I’m really grateful https://exiledrebelsscanlations.com/ decided to translate the novel. It’s really good. No, it’s not just good. It’s absolutely beautiful.

So, not dead, in case you were wondering. Also not in the Republic of Korea yet. Basically I’m being a slowpoke about everything lately. So this is mostly just a post to say, I will be continuing to edit a little by little. Probably very little lately, I’ve been covering third shift at work while we try to hire people. I live in a semi-rural area on top of a mountain. There aren’t a lot of people who want to work third shift. My boss is hoping to get me off third shift by Thanksgiving. I really hope she’s right. The reason this is important is that while on third shift I’ve picked up the habit of sleeping for ten hours a day. So I’m only awake for a few hours so editing will probably only be for a few minutes at a time. But I’m going to try to get back to working on it again, especially since my list has grown again. It doesn’t help that I’m whiling away time on Tumblr, either.

Ah well, I’m not Yoda. I can try.

Salutations! So I created a Buzz Lightyear of Star Command page. I could have sworn I already made one, but I was unable to find it, so there is one up now. Right now it only has works from one author on it because I pulled the stuff off bookmarks and the rest should be in my alerts and favorites on ff.net. I also finally got around to cleaning up the ridiculous link dump I had left on the Fullmetal Alchemist page, as well as adding a few stories to the Noblesse page.

I have noticed that I have a bad habit of not putting ratings on stories from Archive of Our Own, so if ratings are an issue for you, watch out for those. Speaking of the Archive, it’s pretty cool that it got nominated for a Hugo Award. I’m going to have to remember to keep an eye out and see where that goes. I’m also curious if any of the stories I like have been some of the ones nominated, but I haven’t got around to checking into it.

In personal news, I’m officially set to get my TEFL certification, although the class won’t start until next month, so I should have plenty of time to edit Reading Recommedations. Despite my bold statement as of my last blog post, I hadn’t gotten much work done on it. That’s why there are still way too many link dumps up. I’ve not been getting on my desktop much, and I just can’t edit as successfully on my laptop. How does that song go? “Excuses, excuses, you hear them every day.” I’ve found that having a dirty workroom/office is not conducive to wanting to be on my PC. Spring cleaning has begun now so I’ve since ensured that is no longer an issue.

All of that means I should actually get around to editing again, especially since just the little bit I did today reminded me how many great stories out there I should totally reread. Not to mention, I’ve already started another giant list in my bookmarks page again. The Dragon Ball page is going to be a great deal larger soon, as are the Marvel pages.

So, some stuff done, lots more to go.

Hello! So, in wonderful news, I have officially received my diploma in the mail. I am now bonafide certified as a Bachelor of Arts, English. Woot woot! That means that I will now actually have time to work on this site!

Of course, that means that in just the past few days when I was relaxing over not being in school anymore, I managed to accumulate a good number of stories that I enjoyed. So the pages will be getting more recommendations added to them

In less interesting news, I have been contemplating the decision to stop using a pen name and just go by my real name on here.  My plan is to get a certification for teaching English as a foreign language, and hopefully get a job in either South Korea or Japan. I have been thinking about putting that on a blog, and hey this one’s here, but then again, this is my space for enjoyable fanfiction stories.

Also, the only reason I even use a pen name online is because when I was growing up, MySpace was in that stage where everyone knew it wasn’t a good place to put your stuff, because the whole world could see it! (le gasp) Looking back on that attitude that I remember hearing so much, I find it so very ironic. I think part of it was also because I live in a semi-rural area, so much was made of the idea of the online stranger danger. “Don’t put yourself in a position where that person can find you in real life.” This really makes me wonder if children in school still get those lectures. I mean, I know really little kids who have Facebook accounts; do they get to hear those lectures about not telling strangers how to find them, or is there some weird absorption thing where kids just know these things, like how you hand a two year old a phone, and they can unlock it in a few seconds? The previous sentence was really long, really weird, and needs editing.

Also, there was also the fun of figuring out a pen name. D’North is a pun. It is a very stupid pun that makes very little sense, but I liked it. I’m from the southern part of the United States, so I am very much not from the north, or of the north. However, my middle name is a derivative of a name that means “Man from the north.” My mother and grandfather also have that name, so the name is quite traditional.  Also, in one of Brian Jacques’s Redwall books, there is an otter tribe that were called NORT, which is short for something I can no longer recall. I was very fond of those characters at the time I was attempting to devise a new pseudonym as I had realized my previous one had romantic connotations that made me sound lovesick, and as an ace decided I was not standing for that. I was just going to go with D’Nort but then googled it so as to prevent any unfortunate connotations with it. After being relieved I had checked the urban dictionary, I decided to go with North as it had connections to my name.

I think I may keep using D’North after all. I am quite fond of my middle name due to its familial connection, and I think I can still have fun with it for now.

Anyway, I will be editing once more, and guess what? I am on a Star Wars kick again. I have grown overly fond of Vader redemption fics, especially those that include characters such as Piett and Veers.  I am also attempting to write my own works again, so we’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, Elijah D’North, B.A. signing off.

Does it count putting the B.A. up if it’s your pseudonym?

Oh well, Elijah D’North, signing off.