House hunting and some reading. Not in that order

I feel like this week has been devoid of good posts because it's been delightfully social and therefore my reading time has been limited.

Or, has it? I haven't read too much in the way of actual printed traditional books, but I have read or started to read some delightful works on AO3!

Some recs!

A Degree of Compatibility by astolat Fandoms:Transformers Animated (2007) Arranged Marriage

Author’s Summary: ”And what’s the price for a Decepticon leader’s help these days?" Optimus said. "Head of his captor on a pike?”   The Councillors started falling over each other hurriedly protesting, no, no, of course not, how could Optimus think, never—and Megatron laughed over them all and said, “It’s not your head I want to mount. I have demanded you as my consort.”“Okay, well, that’s—unexpected,” Optimus said, blankly.

Why I Love This: This an arranged marriage fic that is also absolutely about finding out that you are 100000% down for what your arranged spouse is down for. This is absurd and wonderful and leans very hard into the idea that Optimus Prime is actually not just a Good Person TM opposing the evil forces of Megatron, but, like, an actual badass in a way that only Megatron has noticed.  It’s got a lot of Optimus being utterly dense about his own wants and desires until he is suddenly very much not. Quick read, and I have never seen this movie and never will!

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Have I gushed about You Could Make A Life ? Because it’s a kind of wonderful novel about falling in love with your teammate in the NHL, only to discover that, wow, he’s actually even more into than you are.  And then becomes a story about being together, coming out, navigating a marriage when you’re the one hitched to a rising star, and negotiating a place for yourself anyways.  I'm recc'ing it now because I have been reading a companion story WIP this week called Impaired Judgment (and other excuses), which just hit a major story turning point and its damn great. 

You Could Make A Life started out as an original work that was posted on AO3, and while all the characters are original creations, it’s very much a loving and deeply critical nod to NHL hockey,  and its fandom and fanfic. So it’s not going to have a recognizable Big Hockey Name With the Serial Numbers Scratched Off in it, but it’s definitely something that I got into because of hockey fandom. While also being a stand alone work! The novel’s publication came about because of crowdfunding that I supported and I still support the author (I think!).

The author is still writing and posting works in this broader NHL-inspired universe on AO3, and only takes down works as they get near to publication – a lot of them never will. And that’s perfectly fine. All of the series are worth reading on their own, there are lots of small character crossovers that are not gimmicky or even really noticeable unless you have read something else, and it’s just…. It’s really good gay hockey writing. Or ace hockey writing! Or polyamorous hockey writing! She's also a safe author to trust, mostly, with a WIP - she updates carefully and reasonably often. Because she's Canadian, she's a professional author based primarily on crowdfunding, which is amazing. 

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Real life update - I am going to talk to someone at the credit union today about getting preapproved for a home loan. This is coming faster than I expected, mostly due to the financial help of my husband's family. I had thought we'd be another ten yearrs getting together a down payment. I'm both really excited about the idea of having a place in the Greater Boston Area that's MINE, ALL MINE, and not moving again, and also deeply creeped out by the idea of having to sell a kidney for the mortgage. We shall see how things work out. It's all of a sudden rather intimidating to actually go and see how much money a bank would be willing to just... give us, on the promise that we'll pay it off later. That's terrifying.