T-Shirt Tuesday Tales: My Guilty Reading Pleasure...

T-shirt tales—Because every t-shirt tells a story, don't it.
And I have so very many of them. Shirts. And stories. ---- Tell me more. or Read all t-shirt tales

SUMMARY: ... pronounced "obsession".

Posted on Tumblr April 19, 2021. Written primarily for others in the world of fan fiction and particularly fans of these specific books...

Ack! I missed my Captive Prince anniversary date (3/16/20). 

Title: My Captive Prince   (and AO3 and Tumblr and reading and writing and fanfic and......)  History  (roughly reconstructed): The long version

• [Read about the t-shirt somewhere below...]

Reading background before CP:

• My whole life: Reading reading reading. Owning thousands of books, a large part sci fi/fantasy. Two bookcases full of books yet unread. Subscription to Asimov’s magazine, my favorite. And more.
• fiction with “real” sex: had read a few gratuitous not well-written paperbacks, when bored back in the ‘70s. Never wanted to read more.
• fan fiction: had read only a few amateur things, not well-written, I think Star Trek, in the mid-’80s [yes, on paper]. Never wanted to read more.
• Encountered OTP and “slash” terms maybe 2010, read a couple--shrug. “Just more fan fiction.” Never wanted to read more.
• Romance fiction: Might have read 3 or 4 dozen over the years. Most I didn’t like or even gave up in the  middle because of not good writing or plotting.

Writing background:

Started pursuing fiction writing in mid-’80s, attended conferences and lectures and a year in a weekly critiquing class at a local JC, and started a writers’ group [in person, yes] and participated for years with my own things. Sent out story after story to markets--lots of rejections, but then started getting higher and higher awards in the Writers of the Future competition and some *nice personalized* rejections from editors. 

Drove to Idaho from CA for a week-long writing workshop in1995.  In 1998, spent 6 weeks in Seattle at Clarion West.  I sold a couple of short stories and a poem to paying markets (pro and semipro). Then I discovered dog agility in 1996 and somehow that led to the end of  my writing pursuits, to which I had devoted most of my attention for 15 years. Doh. But, still: Books. Fiction. Writing.

Footnote: Also started this blog to be about my dogs in dog agility. Pffft.

(Now I've done no agility since 2014. Nor writing since 1998...  but wait for it...)

Early March, 2020: Finding images. Pandemic!  While using Google image search for something like “captive prince chains”--Don’t ask--amazed and surprised how many images came up.  Kept searching and searching for days--so many cool images! Including the Japanese cover for this book. Which hit all the right buttons for me. 

March 16, 2020: Ordered the book Eventually it became clear, aha! the book is titled Captive Prince. Jackpot! Because I...was searching for captive princes... don’t ask. I read the synopsis, looked possible, and ordered only the first and only as an e-book. Because--what if it’s as badly written as 50 Shades of Gray? Or worse?

March 16/17, 2020: Reading reading reading can't stop! OMG it matched so so so many things in my own internal fictional world!  and a bonus: amazing UST from the beginning, too. That I never knew that I even needed to have in fiction. OK, then.

Footnote: My internal fictional world: Hrm. might or might not ever discuss.

March 18, 2020: Ordered the next 2 ebooks as fast as my fingers could fly.

March 19, 2020: Fourth book! Desperate for more Captive Prince or other works by the author. ...Desperate barely begins to describe it. And then I found The Summer Palace and Other Stories. fourth book in the group. Ordered as an ebook. Read that, too.

March 20, 2020: Images like crazy. OMG searching again. Started collecting links to many many many of the online fan art, now that I knew what was going on. And so much of it excellent ... (but this was just fan stuff; how could it be excellent? do artists do this sort of thing just for fun?)...

And started reading the series again. And again. And again. And again and again and....  [link, brief mention at the beginning] then, reading things I started finding on Tumblr, and then...

April 22, 2020: Joined AO3. Because a link to this came up in Tumblr and it caught me; I wanted to read more. Fanfiction?! Writing quite good--storytelling, too [not the same thing]. How could that be? Do good writers do this sort of thing just for fun? This one, a modern AU (alternative universe) playing out the same three novels, yet keeping true to the original characters and story arc.

Footnote: Not sure whether readers would enjoy these fictions 

nearly as much if they haven't already read the CP originals. However, whatever.

April 23, 2020: Tumblr and Twitter. I’ve had accounts for years, but have barely done anything in either--mostly just following links. On this day, I sent an online junkie friend a request for help in how to find people and things in both places because I was struggling and craving more art and more fiction and it had become clear that the world veritably teems with Captive Prince artifacts.

Footnote: Friend is not a drug junkie. She's an online junkie of sorts.

Most of Spring and Summer 2020: Reading more and more fanfic AND learning SO much about fanfic and about the vocabulary for that and for M/M fiction and for sex-related things and how to use and navigate AO3...so much to learn.

Footnote: The m/m fiction essay was written by a friend who is also quite a successful author. No self-publishing here that I'm aware of. A smart woman; always has been. I found it, as a writer, to be interesting on its own subject (who's qualified to write what).

May 4, 2020: My first Tumblr comment.  Have been reading CaPri fanfic voraciously for a few weeks, and finding more in Tumblr. No interest in commenting; I just wanted to read and stay anonymous. Might have clicked Kudos. Or not. But on this date, I posted my first comment to someone's post. Somewhat reluctantly, because I wasn’t interested in discourse. But the fiction was so good. My 2nd comment on something wasn’t until July 2. After that, commented regularly.

May 7, 2020: Clothing! Found Forest Elf Fancies artist! And asked for this custom t-shirt from his existing Vere and Akielos designs.  (Never have I had t-shirts for characters from specific fiction among the 250-ish that I remember ever having in my greedy little hands.)

 May 18: Arrived!  Yowza! I am all in now.  ...As if full immersion, week after week, of nothing but Damen of Akielos and Laurent of Vere didn't already have me all in.

Yes, it's a selfie of me in a mirror,
reflected in a mirror again.

July 16, 2020: AO3 bookmarking. On this date, I created my first AO3 bookmark--a bunch, actually, probably of things I’d read. Erk, I'm falling unwillingly/willingly into another universe and community. Resented it a bit, but still--wanted to be able to re-find the stories.

On Tumblr, unknown 2020 date: "Follow"ed my first person. Wasn’t ever going to do more than a few, because: I already have FaceBook, thank you very much. 

Footnote: As of April 19, 2021, I’m following 37 people, almost all of whom post frequently related to CaPri.

Unknown 2020 date: started reblogging tumblr posts from others. Fiction, images, links, comments, quotes, observations, all about Captive Prince. Partially to share, partially to keep my favorites in my Tumblr feed for easier retrieval.

Footnote: As of April 20 '21, I have reblogged over 200 items-- so, not quite as quick-retrieval as I had envisioned way back then.

The rest of 2020: Reading reading reading AO3 and Tumblr related to CapRi. My other reading life slammed to a halt back in March. How is there such good writing so many times in fan fiction? How is there so much good sex? Forget about all those hundreds of unread books I already own--

Around January 1, 2021: Tumbler participation. Gulp. First added a comment to a discussion on Tumblr. Don't want the discourse! Leave me alone!

Around January 14, 2021: First posted an original thing (a short observation) on Tumblr. Started posting like this more often. Maybe weekly on average? OMG started plotting Captive Prince stories in my head! I’m too busy for this sort of thing! Don’t give in! Feb 12, 2021: Apparently I gave in. Posted my first original short fiction on Tumblr. Although it's written as a prequel to another writer's short fic. Have done two more since.  Plus, observations (like this one), discourse...  

Am I ...  writing? ... fiction? What could possibly be next?

The Akielon Lion. Banner of the ancient-Greek-like Akielos, home of the Okton (sport of kings)
 and of Damianos (Damen), crown prince.
(Should be gold on red, but since t-shirts are only one color...) 

The gold starburst on blue of the Crown Prince of 14th-century-France-ish Vere, Laurent,
who makes an ally at castle Chastillon,
home of the finest hunting for "sanglier,
a northern breed that was larger, with longer tusks on the male."

Food Rewards?

SUMMARY: Me no eat, me run.

There's an interesting article here about dogs who won't work for food. The author makes a provocative claim:

Food is something every dog has every day. Unless they are ill, there should be no reason for our dogs to turn down any snacks we offer them. But many dog owners claim their dogs won’t work for them for food treats as a reward. How can this be? Dogs are scavengers by nature. Could it be something we humans are doing that puts them off sometimes?

After reading the article, it becomes clear that he's really addressing muggles^* with dogs, not "dog people," most likely not people who compete in dog sports. And he does raise good points for that set of people.

However, he seemed to imply that all dogs and owners fall into the same category, and I felt compelled to respond after reading the article and the follow-on comments:

To continue with what a couple of people have started: I have had four dogs with whom I compete in Dog Agility. They all have taken almost any kind of food reward in low-activity situations--say, working on trick training, no matter how active the trick is. But insert running and toys into the equation, and my mixed-breed (Jake -- sheltie? BC?) would push food out of the way to get to the toy, and my current border collie (Boost) will not take food at all in these cases (say, for downing on the table or stopping in the contact zone). Even a high-value treat like meat, she takes only if I insist and often just holds it in her mouth, doesn't swallow it. "Me not stop eat food, me want go!" Apparently the only negative connotation for the food is that they have to stop long enough to take it and swallow it, and they don't want to stop. I guess.

Even as a puppy, my border collie wasn't excited about dinnertime for months; was more interested in watching my other dog eat or in wondering where her toy was.

My agility instructors have all given instructions on how you can teach a dog to take a treat as a reward, because there are cases (such as those mentioned above) where you want a calm reward, not an energetic reward, and it's basically the process of making taking a treat a trick that is then rewarded with the toy, so eventually the value of the toy reward transfers to the food reward. I haven't pursued this much, but I've seen it work for others.

So, these are not typical dogs or typical owner, but they don't seem to fall into the categories in this post.

---

Tika, of course, places a higher value on food than on almost anything--she'll spend 30 seconds at the end of a dogwalk (in class) sniffing for microscopic pieces of food, or veer out of her way when running full tilt on course because some earlier human dropped a piece of kibble in the lawn somewhere.

What do the rest of you think? What's your experience?

---

^*muggle, of course, being from the Harry Potter books and means specifically "a person who lacks any sort of magical ability and was not born into the magical world," but is gradually being adopted to mean "a person who lacks a [fill in the blank] ability and is not part of the [fill in the blank] world"--for example, geocachers refer to nongeocachers as muggles.

geocaching, well, that's a whole nuther thing.

Dogs Got Wednesdays?

SUMMARY: How do they know what night it is?

I don't get it. It's 7:30 Wednesday evening, when we have been leaving for agility class in recent months. BUT.

We haven't been to class in 2 weeks. (Anyway we're supposed to be going on Tuesdays but have been rained out.)

We went for a long walk to the park and some frisbee in the rain instead.

They got a full dinner instead of the usual quick snack before class.

I don't do ANYTHING DIFFERENT on Wednesdays than any other day, and in fact did stuff LESS like an agility class night tonight than I would on a normal class night. Why are they in here nudging me and pestering me and telling me it's time to get going? What do dogs know from Wednesdays?

Renter says it must be because he always brings home Chinese food (and always the same Chinese food) on Wednesdays and they always get the same little Chinese food treat (a single bite) from him. Is that really it?
Dogs are amazing. And I can see it's going to be a long evening. They've stopped nudging but are lying there staring at me.

NO CLASS TONIGHT, YOU HEAR ME? If you can identify WEDNESDAYS, you're certainly clever enought to READ MY LIPS: "NO class tonight!!"
Looking to my left:

Looking to my right:

Database for Tracking Dog Agility Results

SUMMARY: What I track and how.

A reader asks what I track from my agility competitions, and how I track it. I'm a bit obsessive about some things, but in looking over other people's shoulders with their agility record books, I think I track the same sorts of things that detail-minded people track everywhere.

Available trackers

First, let me tell you what's available to the public at large that are used locally.

You can get very nice record books from DoggoneGood or from Clean Run (and probably other places as well).

Some of my fellow Bay Teamers are also creative in their record-keeping, and have made available their nifty trackers:

• Member Karey Krauter's one-page crib sheet for tracking your progress towards USDAA, NADAC (older-style NADAC--could be used for ASCA), and AKC titles. (Print and mark up.)
• Get member Holly Newman's nifty Excel spreadsheet for USDAA titles—you fill in the dates you Qed, it calculates what titles you've earned!
• Get member Dave Connet's spiffy Windows program for managing your Qs and titles in most venues, Agility Record Book, free software! Because he's a nice guy! (Though he does ask that you make a donation to a local animal shelter or rescue group. And runs only on Windows, sorry.)
• My paper tracking sheet, which I fill out at the trial (and later take home and put into my database, but you don't have to), is available here in Word format or PDF.

What I Track

You can see from my tracking form that I gather quite a bit of info. I track every run, whether I qualify or not, and whether it's even possible to qualify, because I am as interested in the things that we don't do well, not just titles. (Caveat: I don't do AKC, so any AKC-specific data isn't in my list.)

• Trial info: Venue, host club, location.
• Date of each run
• Level
• Class
• Jump height: This used to be just for my own info, but now USDAA in particular has rules about participating in the Championships at the heights you earned the Qs.
• Qualifying: Did I Q? Super-Q? Or not? Or is it a nonqualifying class? (e.g., DAM team Jumpers by itself isn't qualifying; runs at USDAA Nationals aren't qualifying.)
• Placement and number of dogs competing directly against us: This was originally for fun for me, but in USDAA you can use this to calculate your Top Ten points and to figure out the number of Snooker Super-Qs.
• Number of dogs running same course: Any height/any level; this isn't on my official tracking sheet, but sometimes I like to know that, although we competed against only 2 other dogs in our height and level, in fact 50 dogs of various heights and levels ran exactly the same course, so I can see where we fit more globally.
• Judge
• Faults or Elimination: I note just course faults, because my database calculates time faults using SCT and our time.
• Our time: This is most useful in Standard and Jumpers, but in Pairs Relay, your team's score is time plus faults, and Gamblers and Snooker it may help to determine your placement and also give you an idea of how much time you had left in which you might have done something different.
• Standard Course Time (SCT): In point-accumulation classes, this is the total time (e.g., opening plus closing in gamblers).
• Best time: I vary on this; sometimes I note the time of the 1st place dog competing directly against us; sometimes I note the fastest dog competing directly against us but maybe they knocked a bar or had a refusal. Sometimes I go to the back of my sheet and note the fastest times of all heights and levels on the same course to get that global idea.
• Yards: I wish I'd thought to track this from the very beginning, but I was more concerned then about whether we actually completed the course without faults and it never occurred to me to figure out whether our average yards per second (YPS) was improving, or where it fell in comparison to the rest of the world. (My database calculates YPS from Our time and Yards.)
• Points: For gamblers and snooker, I note our opening and closing points and the best opening and closing points (usually from the first-place dog, but sometimes in gamblers the dog with the best opening points doesn't get the gamble; I write what I want to write, as this doesn't actually have any effect on any titles.)
• Partner(s): Dog and human for pairs relay and DAM teams.
• Handler: Not on my official tracking sheet, but if someone else runs my dog (like when I was injured but still entered), I note that.
• Notes:
  • I always note what our faults were (e.g., "2 bars", "Aframe down"). I try to be specific about the circumstances, because that's what'll help me figure out what to work on to improve. (e.g., "I called her on top of both jumps", "I did running front cross on Aframe and she didn't bother stopping".)
  • I also note anything else that I think might help me--dog was faster or slower than usual (and maybe why); my physical problems; etc.
  • I also note things that I think are interesting and help me to put our success (or failure) in context, like "10 of 15 dogs Eed", "only 1 of 53 masters dogs got the gamble".
  • For snooker, I note our obstacle numbers--e.g., 1-4-1-0-1-7+2-5.
  • For Gamblers, I might note the opening time allowed and the point system used; might also note how many obstacles we did and of what type (e.g., 2 weaves, 2 contacts, 5 tunnels, 4 jumps). Quite a few people figure out how much they can do in a certain amount of time by counting obstacles; mostly now, though, I use other methods for figuring that out.
• title earned: I figure this out manually.

My database calculates time faults, yards per second, USDAA Top Ten points.

Having the data in a database allows me to obsessively calculate things like what Q percentage did I earn at a trial. And to search in every possible way and get results back (e.g., "Tika, USDAA, Jumpers, Masters, sorted by date... or sorted by YPS", or "All of my runs that have ever earned any Top Ten points").

What I Use

I use my own database in FileMaker Pro. It's not ready for prime time--it's a mishmosh of experiments, old stuff that doesn't work any more and I didn't bother removing it, assumptions about what I need to enter to make it work correctly. I hesitate to offer to let anyone else have it because I have a feeling that it would fail miserably in anyone else's hands and be a frustrating experience. But I enjoy it.

Happy Birthdays

SUMMARY: Lots of Finch agility birthdays. Celebrate with the flu.

Yesterday Boost turned 2 and I turned mumble hack hack cough. Sorry, that was the flu choking me up for a minute. Had a lingering cold for the last 2 weeks that finally seemed to be almost gone by the end of the weekend, then monday evening felt overly tired & sore & was approaching miserable by wake-up Tuesday. Abandoned computer almost entirely tuesday afternoon and went back to bed, something I almost never do--working from home, I can sit for a while then rest, etc. But nooooo.

Got my flu shot this year, too, back in Oct. They say it would be worse if I hadn't.

A little bit of a fever tuesday but not much. The three worst parts: (1)No energy, just want to lie down. Can only watch TV. What kind of hell is that? (2) Coughing, blowing nose, coughing coughing coughing. Yesterdayevening stomach muscles and between shoulder blades were getting to that sore place where you desperately want to cough to clear your breathing and desperately want not to because it hurts. Better today, so coughing must have slacked off some, but hard to tell otherwise. At the moment (3) worst part is excruciating pain moving through my joints which is not fever-like at all. Trying to decide whether to go see the doctor. Tuesday night shoulders hurt so bad could barely move arms. Wednesday moved into my knees and last night into my fingers. This morning could barely walk & it hurt, although that has eased some. Right now hands so bad can't wash w/out pain, can't grip anything. But--it's a miracle--or a curse--I can type some until I'm so exhausted from being exhausted that I have to go lie down again.

Don't want to miss this weekend's next chance at Tika's super-Q because my next chance isn't for another 6 weeks, and would just be so nice to finish before Tika's 6th birthday, which is the 14th of February. Plus this weekend has Grand Prix and Steeplechase and--since I've been obsessing about those--don't want to miss them.

But at the moment the thought of trying to do ANYTHING makes me want to crawl right back into bed. Bleaaaaahhhhh--- need to be better before tomorrow afternoon so I have the energy to pack the car.

Dogs are going nuts. Thank goodness the renter-housemate plays with them a little daily.

And now--back to lie-down state.