yuleswaps 2025 announcement <3

Oct. 23rd, 2025 02:01 pm
kindness_says: (yuletide - swap all the things)
[personal profile] kindness_says in [community profile] yuletide
Hello! A few people have been wondering in the Yuletide Discord whether we would have swaps this year... tl;dr it was dicey, but YES!

You may thank [personal profile] morbane (even more than usual ;)) for following up on everyone's behalf; Livi and I had been having an extremely slow/distracted convo about it since early September, but as always, knowing people are waiting on us motivated me LOL. But neither of us will be your primary mod this year! It will be the lovely Helen ([personal profile] patrokla), who started helping out last year. <3

Here is the lil statement I made in Discord, very slightly modified for DW:

Hi everyone! Official announcement (and thank you, Morbane, for playing go-between while we worked things out behind the scenes :)) -- yuleswaps WILL go forward this year, we hope, and we're sorry for the delay!

Indeed I (Kat/Kindness on AO3/[personal profile] kindness_says) had some commitments in Sept/Oct and did not think I'd be able to prioritize swaps this year, and Liviania/[personal profile] anialove is also pretty busy irl atm -- but Helen/[personal profile] patrokla (a great longtime swapper who joined our team last year) is stepping up to give it a shot in spite of their own busyness! We're meeting tomorrow in hopes of getting sign-ups open by the end of this weekend and matches out in early November so as to stay roughly on the usual timeline. Perhaps ambitious, but we will try!

If anybody else was interested in running swaps, Morbane absolutely was speaking for me that we're not offended, and please feel free to DM me comment or email (yuleswaps at gmail) if you're interested in helping out. ESPECIALLY if you are at all code-savvy/great at answering emails efficiently/bursting with ideas for future improvement. <3

You might hear from me again, or you might not! I will def be helping on the backend, for at least this year/as long as I can, and we really appreciate your patience if we're a little slow or clunky this year as we try to sustain/transition. I also apologize to anyone who didn't get fully covered after January (haven't done 2024 cleanup yet... will try if there's time)!

I have LOVED running swaps, well mostly I have anyway ;) for the past 15 (!!) years. Back in the day I did not read coal but was always charmed when friends occasionally sent me screenshots of anons thrilled about swaps, and I similarly really enjoyed skimming like...1-2 years' worth of this discord not long after Morbane emailed me (was very tempted to answer some super old questions but refrained lol). Your enthusiasm has absolutely been the thing to make all the time and headaches worth it.

<3 <3 <3

So that's that!

Love/candy/books/drinks always,
Kat

P.S. For any newer Yuletiders who are interested (or just confused as to what Yuleswaps is), here is last year's sign-ups post, which links to our FAQ, etc. This year's sign-ups post will come soon, if all goes to plan!

Last Day to Sign Up for 2025

Oct. 24th, 2025 10:08 am
yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods in [community profile] yuletide_admin
Sign-up instructions
Collection
Letters post

Countdown to Sign-Ups Closing


Some notes/reminders:
  • If you don't select characters in a request, it's your author's choice which character or characters to include from the tag set. Please don't say you want a particular character more than others when you have not selected character tags.

  • Please check the additional tag you've selected makes sense for the characters you've selected. For example, "One or more characters (giver's choice)" doesn't make sense if you select several characters and you really want at least two to interact.

  • Please check you can access the email associated with your AO3 account. Mods may use this to reach out to you with questions.

  • If you are open to treats, feel free to say so - it isn't greedy! It's just letting people know that you haven't disabled the treat setting.


Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app

Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.

pauraque: drawing of a wolf reading a book with a coffee cup (customer service wolf)
[personal profile] pauraque
Two years ago, Angela thought things were changing for the better as she reconnected with her teenaged son and estranged husband. But then her son's sudden, unexplained suicide tore her life apart again, just as her mother's suicide had in her own childhood. Struggling with her grief, she returns to the house of her long-deceased grandmother, who was a Louisiana Creole vodou practitioner. Angela never believed in magic, but the more she discovers about her family's tragedies and the other strange events in this small town, the more it seems that her grandmother may have awakened a powerful and malevolent force that has been stalking her family for decades, and that only Angela can put it to rest.

I've read and enjoyed some of Due's short stories before but this is my first time reading one of her novels, and it didn't disappoint. Her deceptively plainspoken prose style belies its incisiveness; a hard-hitting line can sneak up and get you right in the gut. She has a great ear for dialogue and inner monologue. The book uses many POV characters to explore the plot from different angles, and every one feels like a fully realized person with their own voice. I especially appreciated her ability to write teenagers who sound like genuine teenagers and not an adult's idea of how a teenager thinks and feels.

It's a longer book and takes some time to set up all the moving pieces. But once it gets going, the plotting is tight and reveals happen exactly when they should, gradually building from weird events that could have a rational explanation to full-on supernatural horror that shatters Angela's beliefs about reality and herself. The scary parts of the book are scary not just because of what's happening, but because of what it means for these specific characters and their understanding of their world.

The one element that didn't hold my attention was the love triangle between Angela, her estranged husband, and her old high school boyfriend. It's not poorly written or anything, and it makes sense for the character and her arc, I'm just not the right audience for this kind of romance subplot where the lead has to choose between love interests. (Though I do think the author knew what she was doing in allowing her horror protagonist to be sexual and not punishing her for it, and was intentionally playing against sex-negative horror tropes and against stereotypes of Black women's sexualities, so in principle I appreciated what she was doing even though the way she did it wasn't my cup of tea.)

I was kind of ambivalent about the ending, which felt like punches were maybe pulled a little too much?
spoilersOnce Angela wins the battle against the evil spirit, time is turned back to before her son's death so that she can do things differently and save his life. I understand wanting to give her a happy ending after all she's been through, but I think it might be too happy and I felt it undercut the horror. We'd already established by then that Corey (the son) ended his life because he knew the evil spirit was about to force him to kill Angela, so it was actually a heroic end and an earned redemption for him, considering that his reckless attempts to use his great-grandmother's spells were how things had gotten so bad in the first place. I think it would have been enough for Angela to meet Corey's spirit when she meets her grandmother's and to get a chance to say she understands now what he did for her. Like, I'm not trying to be mean to the characters, I just felt it would have been more consistent with the themes of the book to reaffirm that sometimes the consequences of your actions can't be undone and you can't just use magic to fix everything.

But aside from that, I enjoyed the read and I'd like to check out some of her other books.

Game: Kentucky Route Zero

Oct. 23rd, 2025 09:19 am
runpunkrun: chibi me with pigtails and fangs, text: punk (punk & disorderly)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
Kentucky Route Zero is a creative and thoughtful interactive story about debt, grief, and the relentless march of capitalism, but also creation, repair, and community. There are enough dialogue choices that I felt like I was actually engaging with the characters, who all have their own thing going on, and you're even given some choices about who you can hang out with or where you go next. Some choices will give you a deeper engagement with the story and some just add further texture to this world.

Because it's a story more than a game, you can explore the environment and talk to the people you meet and accomplish tasks you're assigned, but it generally plays out the same regardless of your choices. There aren't any puzzles to solve except for the mystery of wtf is going on, and you'll do most of that on your own time.

The stylized art contributes to the mystery because you'll want to know more, but can't. You view this world from a set distance and because you can't zoom in to inspect the details, there's a kind of remove to it, like you're in a movie and just have to go where it takes you. It's best experienced in a dark room because it's literally too dark to see if there's any light around you.

The story is messy, with the past sliding through the present, and many questions are left unanswered as you attempt to deliver some antiques to an address you can't find. You start out with Conway, a big rectangle of a man, and his old dog, who you can name Blue or Homer—I went with Homer—and along the way you meet people who join you and bring their talents and troubles with them.

The dialogue between the characters slowly reveals their histories and concerns, and at times you can even talk to the dog as a way to talk yourself through what you're thinking. The dog doesn't talk back, but all the other characters have distinct personalities, and I felt like I was building real conversations—and relationships—between them through my choices.

However, I had a real problem with something that happened about halfway through the game that made me feel used, and it colored the rest of the play for me. I could have just stopped there, at the end, and parted with it unhappy, but I couldn't shake the feeling I was missing something and so the next night I started it up again and gave it a second chance, with Blue.

I still have a big issue with that aspect of the game (it involves alcohol, an alcoholic, and a choice that isn't a choice), but my second playthrough picked up a lot of things I didn't see the first time, and I'm glad I gave it a second try. It's definitely a unique story, filled with wondrous things.

Recommended, probably, if you like worldbuilding, games with low stakes—you can't really make mistakes here, though I somehow managed—interesting characters, found family, and a world that's punched through with mysteries: abandoned mines, hidden caves, a moldy computer, an underground river, and of course the secret highway—Kentucky Route Zero.

I've got content notes down below, feel free to ask me for more details. I played this on my Android tablet through my Netflix subscription.

Now for my chronological thoughts as I was playing. Vague spoilers for the game throughout.

Homer )

Blue )

Contains: (metaphorical) amputation (maybe); alcohol and alcoholism; debt, foreclosure; dementia and the impending loss of an old friend; repeated references to the death of a child; dead horses, on screen; an old dog who has seen better days but keeps on seeing them; some sounds (mainly discordant electronic ones) made me very anxious, but there's nothing abrupt, loud, or jump-scary.

Accessibility: The game has white text on a black background, which you can't change, but you can change the size of the text and remove some glitch effects. You also can control FPS on the video and turn on captions for the audio.
[personal profile] karios in [community profile] yuletide
Are you interested in text adventures, CYOA, Twine games, or other sorts of interactive fiction? Do you want to let your writer know you'd be happy to receive something along those lines? Are you looking for someone to write IF for? This post is for you.
 
 
(I copied and pasted this directly from last year which was also copy pasted from previous years. Let me know via comment or discord ping if any of the links broke or anything else needs editing.)
 
 
What is IF?
 

Interactive Fiction (IF) covers everything from text adventures through to visual novels, by way of all sorts of experimental works. It can be mostly a game, or mostly a story; it can be a way to immerse the reader, or to play around with the concepts of storyteller and audience; it can be an exploration of chance, or of fate; it can be a straightforward story, or something else entirely. From Healy's post:
 
 
[IF] is a term used for games which are made up primarily of text, like Adventure, Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and other text adventures, or more experimental hypertext works like My Father's Long, Long Legs, or even visual novels. Interactive fiction these days is generally divided into two groups based on how you interact with the game: parser-based IF, and choice-based IF.
 
 
Parser-based IF, more commonly known as text adventures, are controlled by typed in commands, like "GET KEY", "OPEN DOOR", "GO NORTH", "LOOK UNDER BED", and stuff like that. Not every command you type in will work, though, so they're hard to get used to if you haven't tried them before. To make things easier, here's a card of most of the common commands. Some good parser-based IF to try first would be Ryan Veeder's So, You've Never Played a Text Adventure Before, Huh?, Admiral Jota's Lost Pig, Andrew Plotkin's The Dreamhold, and Adam Cadre's Photopia.
 
 
Choice-based IF is simpler; you just pick from a number of options. This can be done through hyperlinks and other clicky selections, though more rarely you may have to type a number from a list. Good examples of choice-based IF include Anna Anthropy's Star Court, Alan DeNiro's Solarium, the various games hosted by Choice of Games, and most every given visual novel.
 
 

Writing IF for Yuletide

 
IF is considered opt-in for Yuletide - please don't write it for people who don't want it. If you aren't sure whether it would be welcome or not, ask a mod to check with the intended recipient.
 
You are still required to follow the normal rules, such as focusing on requested characters (unless the recipient has said you needn't include them all).  

It can be hard to figure out what word count an IF story really is - what you've written is full of code that doesn't count, and what your recipient sees may vary in length depending on their choices. If you're posting to the main collection, try to overshoot the minimum requirement a bit, just to be on the safe side. Say a minimum of somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 words. Or probably about 10 to 15 minutes play through.
 
If your post to the main AO3 collection is under 1,000 words (e.g. you're just linking to an online playable version elsewhere), please drop the mods a note so they know it isn't someone posting something under the minimum, and provide them with an estimated word-count.




If you're writing a treat, unless it includes over 1,000 words of text and you're also sure your recipient would be happy with it as a main gift, please post it to Madness

Your recipient does need to be able to access what you've created! Please link to a suitable IF interpreter if required, or if possible make a web-playable version.
 

Requesting IF for Yuletide
 

If you would be happy to receive IF this year, please leave a comment below, following this template:
 

 
 

IF Canons Nominated for Yuletide

 
Plenty of IF canons get nominated for Yuletide! While it's still important to ask before writing IF for someone, someone who consumes IF already will probably be more interested in getting it. (Some of these canons were adapted into other mediums, so it's possible that someone who's interested in one of those isn't at all into the IF side of things. Thus why it's important to ask.) Consider requesting or offering one of these if you're interested in IF for Yuletide. For 2025 moontyger thoughtfully composed a list of IF canons in the tagset, available here: Interactive Fiction in the 2025 Tagset!
 
Some IF Tools

 
A * means they can make web-based games.
 

Parser-based

Inform*: One of the biggest development tools for making parser-based IF. Has an English-like code. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Quest*: Another big IF development tool. Has a click-and-point editor with the option to check out the code. For Windows and web.
TADS*: A long running engine for writing interactive fiction, though generally not as easy to use as Inform. The latest version can make web-based games, although they need to be hosted on a non-https address or on the IFDB.
 

Choice-based

Twine
*: Very popular tool for making choice-based IF. Has a visual editor, with some code-y bits for variables and the like. Can be extended with some Javascript passages. Available for Mac and Windows, and Twine 2 is web-based. See this comment for more notes.
ChoiceScript*: Used by the fine folks over at Choice of Games. Uses simplified Javascript to make games. It's very stat heavy. Requires a text editor. See this comment for notes.
Ren'py: Engine for making visual novels. Uses a simple scripting language. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and can make games for all those platforms.
Inklewriter*: A completely web-based engine for making CYOA-style games.
 

Aurendor D&D: Summary for 10/22 Game

Oct. 23rd, 2025 12:10 am
settiai: (Siân -- settiai)
[personal profile] settiai
In tonight's game, the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

Write Every Day: Day 23

Oct. 23rd, 2025 04:44 pm
china_shop: Close-up of Zhao Yunlan grinning (Default)
[personal profile] china_shop
The demise of writing matters, because writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. This is as true for professionals as it is for students. In “Writing Is Thinking,” an editorial in Nature, the authors argued that “outsourcing the entire writing process to [large language models]” deprives scientists of the important work of understanding what they’ve discovered and why it matters. Students, scientists, and anyone else who lets AI do the writing for them will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.

– Derek Thompson

My day 23: I messed around with a new pairing, to see if I can add to my Yuletide offers. (Going by the sign-up summary, I'm not convinced I'm currently matchable.) As yet, inconclusive but promising. I also wrote some of a Dreamwidth post, which I'm sure I'll finish eventually.

We had a howling gale this morning. The trains were cancelled, and everyone had been advised to stay home. It seems to have blown itself out now (*knock on wood*) without any of the expected power outages (*knock on wood again*), and as far as I know, my roof is still attached (*and once more, just to be on the safe side*). Phew!

The tally
Tally )

Day 21: [personal profile] alightbuthappypen, [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cmk418, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] ysilme

Day 22: [personal profile] alightbuthappypen, [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] trobadora

When you check in, please say what day(s) you’re checking in for. You can join in or take a break at any time; you’re always welcome back. And please let me know if I’ve missed you.

US Politics: Food bank writing offer

Oct. 22nd, 2025 09:59 pm
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
[personal profile] petra
If you donate at least $25 in cash or in-kind to a food bank at any point between now and the end of the Trump Administration, and you either share a fandom of mine and want a drabble or fannish poetry, or you want original poetry, drop me a comment, and I will write for you.

Repeat customers welcomed with open arms.

Please format your request: Fandom or Original; Drabble or Poem; Character(s) and/or Pairing if any; Optional Prompt.

For example: Sesame Street; Drabble; Cookie Monster/Cookies; Food is not a sometimes luxury.

If you didn't make the donation in US dollars, please check the exchange rate on your donation at a currency converter to confirm that it qualifies. No receipt necessary regardless of which currency you donate in; this is on the honor system.

Please publicize this post.

Once I have received and fulfilled my first request, I will edit this post to add a collection on the Archive of Our Own with what I have written.

Fannish Stuff

Oct. 22nd, 2025 08:42 pm
settiai: (Brain -- chatona)
[personal profile] settiai
I swear that it feels like time's speeding by the last few days, to the point where I haven't been able to get anything done. It's because I've been having to nap in the afternoons to make up for my lack of sleep at night, so it's not like I don't know why I feel like I have no spare time, but still.

D&D starts in about ten minutes, so that's going to take up the right of my night. Tomorrow, I have to finish up my Yuletide letter and sign-up whether my brain likes it or not. It's taking forever because I'm requesting multiple new fandoms this year, so I'm having to write those sections of the letter from scratch, but I'm running out of time so I've gotta get it finished.

Then I desperately need to finish my fic for the Dragon Age Reverse Bang by Saturday at the latest. It's due on Sunday, and both my artist and I are scrambling to finish up. The fic's one of those ones that decided to keep growing and growing on me, as isn't uncommon with that fandom, which hasn't exactly helped.

Come on, brain. Cooperate for just a few days. Please?

Season's Treatings mini-challenge

Oct. 22nd, 2025 07:09 pm
suzy_queue: Several houses have their lights on during a twilight evening (Winter: Snowy Streets)
[personal profile] suzy_queue in [community profile] yuletide
Do you love receiving or writing end of year holiday stories? Are you prompting a snowed in Hanukkah celebration or an Australian New Year's beach party? Season's Treatings may be for you!

This mini-challenge is all about November, December and January holidays, traditions, and cultural celebrations big and small and all over the globe--and perhaps some fantasy worlds, who knows. If you want to prompt it, someone may want to write it.

When you comment, please include:

AO3 Name:
Letter Link (if applicable):
Holiday(s) Requested:
Fandom and character(s):
Prompts:

When you upload, tag it as Season's Treatings so we can all find them.

Wednesday Reading Meme

Oct. 22nd, 2025 05:00 pm
sineala: Detail of Harry Wilson Watrous, "Just a Couple of Girls" (Reading)
[personal profile] sineala
What I Just Finished Reading

Once again, nothing. I have had a migraine for 48 hours and counting. (It comes and goes, which is why I am typing this post now. But you can tell I have one, because I clearly don't understand narrative enough to be reading comics and/or am too tired to type much.)

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

Fantastic Four #4, Ultimate Spider-Man #22, Ultimate Spider-Man Incursion #5, Ultimates #17 )

What I'm Reading Next

Hey, whoever it was who wanted me to review the sequel(s) to Fourth Wing and I said I wasn't going to do that because only the first book was on Kindle Unlimited and the library ebook waitlist was long and there was no way I was paying money for anything in this series?

Yeah, so books 2 and 3 are on Kindle Unlimited now, so at some point when I can stand to read lengthy original fiction books again (I do not know when this will be) I am willing to read and review terrible fantasy books because I love dragons too much for my own good. Clearly.

So this will probably not be the next thing, but it's on the list.
musesfool: Rachel Roth (Raven)  from Titans (it will take all your breath)
[personal profile] musesfool
I'm off work today because I had to go get a tooth crowned. They've streamlined the process since early last year, when I had to go one week for the preparation and then back again a week later for the installation - they did it all in one day today, with about a 30 minute break between parts 1 and 2, where I just sat in the exam chair and read my book on my phone. This time I had to stop them a couple of times during the first part because they just spray water everywhere without sufficient suction so I felt like I was drowning a couple of times. The dentist warned me about it ahead of time and was apologetic about it, so I didn't feel like I was too much of a problem patient for stopping so I could, you know, breathe. One of the things I like about this particular dentist (there's a bunch of them at the practice and I've seen most of them over the last 5 years) is that he tells you what he's going to go ahead of time and answers questions, and then he tells you each thing he's going to do during the process right before he does it, and he gives you a heads up as to how far along in the process you are/how much more time it's going to take. Because it's unpleasant, at best. I mean, I was all numbed up for it (so numbed that my right EYE was feeling numb - the tooth being crowned is on the top right way in the back - which is a real fucking weird feeling), but ugh. I'm sure there are probably other crowns in the future - they want to get out all those old, old silver fillings, and he said this tooth did crack while he was removing it, so we caught it before it happened on its own.

I'm glad I didn't get new glasses this year - that left $950 in my FSA, which I had to supplement to pick up the rest of the cost, because I do not know what my insurance will cover as the dentist is out of network. I know I should find someone in network (and preferably near my apartment instead of in Manhattan), but as mentioned above, I like this guy and I think that is an important factor with any medical practitioner if you can get it.

So I came home and took a 3 hour nap because I didn't sleep much last night due to anxiety over all of this. Oh, and I mailed my ballot for Mamdani. I'm very curious to see if his lead in the polls translates to winning the election or if all the people who are scared because he's Muslim will turn out for Cuomo (or Sliwa, I guess, but I cannot take him seriously as a candidate). We have tended to pick terrible mayors recently, so it'll be interesting to see how this all turns out.

And I guess I mentioned reading up there, so yes, I am in the middle of a reread of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, which I am enjoying! ♥BLUE♥ remains my favorite.

*

Dear Yuletide Writer

Oct. 22nd, 2025 12:33 pm
isis: (yuletide)
[personal profile] isis
Thank you for writing a story for me! I am [archiveofourown.org profile] Isis on AO3. As long as you generally stick with things I like and avoid things I dislike, I will enjoy your story even if it doesn't take on any of my vague prompts, which are really just suggestions. All my prompts are mildly spoilery so you may want to take care expanding those sections.

If you're not feeling inspired about your assignment and want to try something else, the British Airways "May We Haveth One's Attention" Safety Video is literally a 5-minute fandom (okay, 5:22), Il Gattopardo | The Leopard (2025) is 6 1-hour episodes, and you can write my request for the Fractured Europe Sequence based only on the first 2 books (out of 4). For my Shardlake request, you need only the fifth book, but my request is spoilery and ideally you should read the book before looking at my request, which seems like a big ask!

Treats are enabled and welcome! I've included general art likes in the "nattering" section for artists interested in making Wrapping Paper treats (and if you draw me a treat I'll try to write you the story that goes with it!).

Likes: I like historical (if appropriate) and worldbuildy detail, scenery porn, what-if AUs, original characters (along with, not instead of, any requested ones, unless otherwise specified), pastiche of canon style, time travel, bodyswap, bodysharing, ghost/afterlife stories, mythological and supernatural elements, and magical realism. (These fantasy elements are welcome in canons that don’t have them, unless specified.) As you can probably tell from my specific fandom details, the setting and worldbuilding are as important to me as the characters, so I'm not a fan of AU that completely changes the setting, but if you have a brilliant idea, go for it; I would prefer "interesting" to "mundane" AUs, e.g., in SPAAAACE yes, coffeeshop no. (Coffeeshop in SPAAAACE, okay!). I would like happy endings and no major character death, though feel free to kill off original or minor characters as your story requires.

DNW: I do not want fic focusing on pregnancy or children (mentions of either are fine), A/B/O or BSDM dynamics, mundane modern AUs, or major character death (other than canon deaths). I do not want anything that contradicts the characters being cisgender as presented in canon, unless they are canonically not cisgender. I do not want fic that uses neopronouns (e.g. 'xie') – please use 'they' for nonbinary or agender characters, or whatever these characters use in canon. I do not want nonstandard capitalization or punctuation other than in the title. I very strongly prefer past tense; if you feel your story really needs to be in present tense for stylistic reasons that's fine, but I want it to be a conscious choice, not a default.

I do not want unrequested noncanon ships involving canon characters even in the background, other than those I've specifically mentioned I'm okay with. Canon ships, mentioned past relationships with OCs, and implicitly canon ships (such as people’s parents) are fine, as are OC/OC relationships. Please don't break up any specified relationships or put my requested characters in relationships other than the ones I've mentioned I like.

Other general nattering about my tastes - characters, crossovers, style, sex likes, art likes
Characters: The characters I've chosen are the ones I want the focus on, but the choice of what kind of story to write and who to include in it lies with you. Feel free to take things in whatever direction you like and/or include characters I haven't mentioned, including original characters, though please keep the focus on my requested characters (except as noted). For worldbuilding requests, feel free to use canon characters or original characters as you choose.

Crossovers: I love crossovers, but if you choose to write one, please make sure (either through checking my fic, tags [reading will find books, viewing will find movies and TV shows, games will find games, and some fandoms have tags as well; also you can check my Goodreads 'read' shelf for books, though I haven’t updated it in a while], asking my friends, or asking one of the other mods to ask me) that I know the other source. I have a particular soft spot for crossovers with real historical characters in historical-fiction fandoms.

Style: I generally prefer plot (as in, things happening; doesn't have to be elaborate or long – as contrasted with character studies), past tense, and lots of dialogue. But these are preferences, not hard DNWs, and if you have a brilliant idea that requires present tense and no dialogue, go ahead. My only hard preferences are for conventional pronouns (he/she/they as appropriate), capitalization, and punctuation. I'm happy with epistolary fic, journal entries, and other nonconventional formats, and if you want to create interactive fiction (second person is fine for this, or otherwise as you prefer), go for it! I have no preference on story length - make it as long (or as short) as it needs to be.

Sex and relationships: Explicit sex okay, non-explicit sex is okay, no sex is okay, but any sex should be in believable language for that era or fandom. UST, gen, het, slash, femslash, whatever. It's all good. I don't care for PWP, as I need at least a little context that establishes the world and those characters. I also prefer sex scenes that focus on emotions and perceptions rather than on the mechanics of what goes where: think M-rating rather than E-rating, and I'm totally fine with fade-to-black. I am rather vanilla in my preferences where kink is concerned: mouths, hands, genitals, toys, all are fine, but I am not interested in BSDM, bloodplay, watersports, spanking, or fetish play. I like kissing, touching, oral sex, penetrative sex, frottage, pegging, mutual masturbation, outdoor sex, indoor sex, and pretty much any position two bodies can contort themselves into. I am not interested in threesomes, moresomes, or poly fic in these fandoms. I am absolutely fine with a gen work in any of these fandoms.

Wrapping paper challenge art treats: I would love art for any of these fandoms! I like both serious portraits and funny little cartoons. I have a soft spot for art in which one character is doing something typical-but-alarming, and the other is rolling his or her eyes, or reacting with horror, or getting ready to douse them with a bucket of water, or whatever. Stylistically, I love interesting and experimental compositions, unusual perspectives, emphasis on textures such as hair and clothing, and scenery porn (Mountains! Trees! Cliffs with water crashing on them! Brooding ruins of an ancient castle!) and I like line drawings as well as full color. I really like stylized artwork that depends on a limited color scheme (my favorite colors are blues and greens; I also like black-and-white and grayscale), and not-too-detailed sketches that feel dynamic. I like art-pastiche such as playing cards and tarot cards, posters, and so on. If I receive any art treats, I will do my best to write a ficlet for the artist based on the art!

And now, on to the prompts!

British Airways "May We Haveth One's Attention" Safety Video: Any (Georgian Queen, Anne, George, Scots on Horseback, Worldbuilding)
I watched this homage to British costume drama (and airline safety video!) and was instantly charmed. Feel free to take it anywhere along the crack continuum that you like: is this a strange alternate world in which airplanes were invented much, much earlier? Did the historical characters time-travel forward, or the flight attendants time-travel in reverse? Did a real queen isekai into the filming of an airline safety video and just deal with it with royal aplomb? Why are Anne and George sitting in airline seats in the parlor? (Do they invite the flight attendants to their wedding?) And, the most provoking question of all: how did the Scots get seatbelts on their horses?

Additional DNW for this fandom: don't break up Anne and George! However, any other relationships here are fair game, and I'd be intrigued by something like Scot/flight attendant or Queen/pilot.

The Fractured Europe Sequence - Dave Hutchinson: Worldbuilding
I first read Europe in Autumn and Europe at Midnight nearly 10 years ago, when the "Xian Flu" was a far-fetched SF imagining and the "Global War on Terror" was not nearly so global. I'm re-reading these books now in preparation for reading the rest of the series, and let me just say it's landing rather differently.

The worldbuilding in this series delights and enthralls me! I would love anything about the splinter polities, about the Line, about the Campus or the Community or the Coureurs, on scales small (the discovery of an entrance to the Community) to large (a seemingly-stable country splitting into pieces). Past, present, or future; Europe, or beyond - what happened in Asia? In North America? while all this is happening in Europe? There are intriguing hints that the US has had a civil war, and that Texas has become its own country! The little bits of story with secondary characters hint at lots of things outside the scope of the novels that could be filled in. Or - and I don't know yet if these get answered in the books, but if it doesn't - how does mapping an alternate dimension make it spring into being? What was Mundt's "trick of topology"?

(Please note that as I write this letter, I've only read the first two books and about half of the third, but I will have read the entire series by Yuletime.)

Il Gattopardo | The Leopard (2025): Concetta Corbera di Salina
I enjoyed this costume drama set in the waning days of the Sicilian nobility and the rise of the Kingdom of Italy. I'm specifically looking for a canon-divergence AU here: please give Concetta a happy future. Maybe she runs off with Tancredi to America; maybe she runs off to Paris with Angelica! Maybe she gets married to Bombello after all, and it works out. Or perhaps she finds joy in her stewardship of the Salina estate, somehow, if you want to keep things closer to canon. I'd be intrigued with a crossover with historical RPF of the period, or any appropriate fandom I'm familiar with.

DNW a romantic relationship between Concetta and any of her siblings or parents, or Calogero, but I'm fine with her finding love with an OC, male or female, or a minor character ditto.

Warrior (TV 2019): Any (Ah Toy, Father Jun, Hong, Lai, Nellie Davenport, Wang Chao, Young Jun)
This show gave me vibes of Peaky Blinders set in the late 19th C San Francisco Chinatown Tong Wars, with a generous helping of Game of Thrones. I'd love a story about any of the nominated characters, particularly their backstory or an imagined future after the show (you are welcome to canon-divergence away canon deaths). Some specific things that interest me:
- How Ah Toy and Nellie navigate their romantic relationship (forbidden in multiple ways!)
- Lai's hero-worship of Ah Toy, her silent steadfastness, the way she blossomed at the vineyard
- Hong's ridiculous cheery attitude in the face of a thousand insults and injuries, his matter-of-fact approach to his sexuality
- Wang Chao's careful balancing act at the fulcrum of the warring tongs and the police
- The fraught father-son relationship of Father Jun and Young Jun

Please don't break up canon relationships. General DNW of unrequested noncanon ships involving canon characters applies here except for the following: I vaguely ship Wang Chao with Richard Lee (growing out of their developing understanding during their forced road-trip); Lai might be interesting with Penelope or Mai Ling, if you could figure out how to get them together, or an OC (male or female) or any other non-nominated character; Hong with an OMC or any non-nominated male character, before or after his time with Marcel. However, please feel completely free to write gen!

Matthew Shardlake Series - C. J. Sansom: Hugh Curteys
I read the first few Shardlake books a few years ago, and then read the rest of them in one fell swoop this summer. I feel like they just got better and better! Heartstone, where we meet Hugh Curteys, was possibly my favorite, because it contains one of my favorite tropes, and if you haven't read these books please stop here because MAJOR SPOILERS...

...I am absolutely weak for the "girl disguises herself as boy" plot, especially in historical contexts where women's lives are circumscribed by the prevailing social/religious attitudes. I really love the way Sansom has written Hugh here; he fully inhabits the character he has taken on for himself. Even once Shardlake figures it out, he still refers to Hugh with male pronouns, which implies to me that for Hugh, being male is not just his cover story but the identity he has chosen to live.

I'd really love a story about Hugh's new life in Antwerp working in the cloth trade, and I'm fine with it being set with him back in England talking to Shardlake, or epistolary, or just completely about Hugh with no involvement from Shardlake and the other characters. I'm fine with gen, or with him attempting a romance either with a man or a woman (original character) - it's up to you whether it goes well or disastrously, considering his secret and the setting. But please keep things firmly set within the historical context of these books.

Additional DNW for this fandom: No Hugh/Jack or Hugh/Matthew. I'm cautiously open to Hugh/Nicholas, and although there are not a lot of appropriate female characters in these books, if you can think of one, that's fine. Original characters are of course fine here.

Back in blue

Oct. 22nd, 2025 05:40 pm
rmc28: (cuihc)
[personal profile] rmc28

I am very happy to say that I'll be playing for the Cambridge University Huskies this season.

Fixture list (clashes with Kodiaks 2 games in italics)

  • 1 Nov 2025 21:00, Cambridge Ice Rink, Oxford Women's Blues
  • 15 Nov 2025 23:15, Oxford Ice Rink, Oxford Vikings B
  • 22 Nov 2025 20:30, Planet Ice Gosport, Southampton Spitfires B
  • 29 Nov 2025 21:00, Cambridge Ice Rink, Birmingham Lions B
  • 6 Dec 2025 21:00, Cambridge Ice Rink, Kent Knights
  • 24 Jan 2026 21:00, Cambridge Ice Rink, Oxford Vikings B
  • 7 Feb 2026 21:15, Planet Ice Solihull, Birmingham Lions B
  • 14 Feb 2026 21:15, Oxford Ice Rink, Oxford Womens Blues
  • 21 Feb 2026 20:15, Streatham Ice and Leisure, Kent Knights
  • 28 Feb 2026 21:00, Cambridge Ice Rink, Southampton Spitfires B
  • TBD: Varsity game against Oxford Vikings B

No guarantee I'll be on the squad for any particular game, and Kodiaks 2 will have my priority when there's a clash. But yay, getting to represent my university again.

Reading update

Oct. 22nd, 2025 09:55 am
asakiyume: (misty trees)
[personal profile] asakiyume
I added two new books to my reading mix: Breath Warmth & Dream, by Zig Zag Claybourne. I enjoy the author's social media posts (when I happen to see them, which isn't that often), and he and C.S.E. Cooney are big mutual fans. So I decided to try something of his, and so far, I'm enjoying it. It's told in a leisurely way, and I like the characters. Here, Khumalo, a powerful witch who's waiting for her daughter to return from a sea journey, talks with a beggar woman at the harbor:
“You’re so tall,” Orsys remarked.

“Do you like that?” Khumalo said kindly.

“I do.” When Orsys smiled, every wrinkle on her sun-bleached face moved like sudden lightning flashes, brightening the old woman’s visage immeasurably.

“How many people have come off ships hoping to see your smile, dear one?” said Khumalo.

I'm reading this as an ebook, which means the other ebook I've been reading, The Apothecary Diaries, is taking a temporary back seat.

Then there's also Butter, by Asako Yuzuki. I was intrigued by [personal profile] osprey_archer's review, but it's not a book I'd pick up for pleasure. However, it **is** the sort of book I'd read in my book group, and I had to pick the next book, so I've picked it. Only in the beginning pages, but enjoying it so far.

Neruda's Book of Questions isn't the sort of thing I read cover-to-cover; I prefer to dip in. How will I know when I'm done, though? What if there are ones I keep on missing? A Problem.

As I dip into it just now to find something to share, I'm coming across ones I *don't* like: they're opaque to me, or the images or juxtapositions don't speak to me.

But I like the bottom half of one:
Why do [waves] strike the rock
with so much wasted passion?

Don't they get tired of repeating their declaration to the sand?

And I like the whole of this one:
You don't believe that dromedaries
keep moonlight in their humps?

Don't they sow it in the desert
with secret persistence?

And hasn't the sea been lent
for a brief time to the earth?

Won't we have to give it back
with its tides to the moon?

He uses questions in the negative a lot.

SGA: When the City Wakes by esteefee

Oct. 23rd, 2025 01:35 am
mific: John sheppard head and shoulders against gold orange sunset (Sheppard orange)
[personal profile] mific in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Radek Zelenka, Elizabeth Weir, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan, Carson Beckett, Evan Lorne, Aiden Ford, Bates, Laura Cadman, Jack O'Neill, Harry Maybourne, Jeannie Miller, Original Non-Human Characters, Imaginary Creatures from Story and Song, Atlantis.
Rating: Mature
Length: 30,758
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply. The author warns for kidnapping and children in peril. "They aren't injured, and they are rescued. One of their kidnappers is kidnapped in the process and then returned to her friends." There's also a warning for passages with creepy clowns - see the endnote.
Creator Links: esteefee on AO3
Themes: Uncommon settings, Worldbuilding, AU: apocalypse/dystopia, AU: fantasy/magic, Friends to lovers, First time, Humor, Action/adventure

Summary: Major John Sheppard was starving, delirious, chased by monsters to the edge of the world, when he raised the City from the sea.

Ten years later, Dr. Rodney McKay comes to the peaceful City, bringing war in his back pocket.

Reccer's Notes:
This fits the "unusual settings" category as the world depicted in this fic is extremely strange, surreal, and quirky. I've reccd it before but in a different category, and it's a story that's well worth re-reading. Despite the tags for fantasy and dystopia, it isn't traditional fantasy/magic at all, and it mostly isn't a straightforward dystopia. Yes, it's post-apocalyptic and the rest of the world's very dystopic, but Atlantis herself is a solarpunk refuge in the chaos. The story is set after the detonation of a quantum unreality bomb which plunged Earth into fantastical chaos where very few laws apply consistently - certainly not those of physics, or normality. Weird monsters, fantasy creatures, and dangerous improbabilities now abound, although much reduced in Atlantis. The worldbuilding's terrific, and woven into this new world is a story where John and Rodney meet and become friends, and more. There's also plenty of plot, including a daring rescue. It's an excellent read, and highly recommended!

Fanwork Links: When the City Wakes

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