I misunderstood the point of this ride

Have you ever been excited about something to the point that you're balking at getting started, because you don't want the anticipation to be over quite yet? Yeah, that's me right now. My Yuletide assignment is a delight and I'm about to do my usual deep dive canon review. Whee, I say.

I'm very sleepy this morning because I was up a little late getting cat pee out of clothing. Again. I have a system now, although I really hope I may not have to use it too much more? Sigh. Poor Eugenides. I guess that's one way to convince me to get rid of extra gift bags and odds and ends cluttering up my closet floor that I was probably never going to use.

Also I rode to work on my bike in the rain this morning, which might have something to do with it. It's ... really difficult to convince myself that I should take the crowded, steamy bus (with, no doubt, at least a couple people flouting masking rules) when I can get here so much faster on my own, with a little endorphin boost to boot. Even if it means getting soaked.

Back to fannish things ... remixrevival (and Remix Madness) revealed creators a few days ago! What a fun exchange; I could wish the time of year were a little more convenient, but still, it's definitely something I'll want to do again (and may try and nudge others toward). I love how collaborative it feels, how it both allows me to pay homage to other fans' creative work, and stretch myself in directions I might not have come up with on my own. Similar to my enjoyment of Big Bangs, but with more choice on my part, and a bit more parity too.



( change you like a remix etc )

Now to try and wake myself up to work properly. I don't know how I can feel the effects of a rainy day from my new office, with fluorescent lighting and no windows, but my body knows. More coffee please.

Well hello! Thank you so much for writing for me this year!

Of note: I am a relatively detailed and prolific prompter! Some people really enjoy working from prompts; some don’t. ODAO, and if you’d rather strike out in a different direction, please know that I’ll be delighted by that, too. Not to go all nonbinary Pollyanna on you, but: for me, Yuletide is primarily all about everyone having as much fun as they possibly can and sharing their love of something with a like-minded fan (a rare experience, for many of these rare fandoms). I am genuinely more invested in your enjoyment than in any of my ideas below. They’re there for fun and in case you want them.

But enough of that. I’ve requested, as is my wont, a bunch of books (two series and two stand-alones--at least, so far), as well as a podcast and a Netflix show. Some I’ve requested before (many times, even), and a couple are brand new to me. I love them all. I’m on the edge of my seat, waiting to find out which one you love too! Happy Yuletide, and I hope you get the experience you want out of it. <3 Let's get to the good stuff!

You can find me at Lilith and reflectedeve if you like! (My twitter is locked and little-used.) And should it come up for some reason, my pronouns are they/them.

I am opted-in to these mini-challenges: Wrapping Paper, Make The Yuletide Gay, ... and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

General Likes | DNWs | The Girls I’ve Been | The Locked Tomb
Wayfarers | The Witch Family | Unwell | Sex Education

( All of the above! )

I do believe I will be cutting down on my exchange participation in the future. I decided to try a whole bunch of new ones this year, and I have enjoyed the heck out of them, but goodness. This is a lot, and I'm not able to produce as much as I'd like for a given exchange because of a deadline coming up for another, etc. It's been an adventure!

Real life hasn't had any compassion for my self-inflicted busy schedule, of course. As of mid-August, I've transitioned to a new job within my existing office - essentially a career change, moving from purely administrative work to marketing & publicity - and have been teaching myself all its requirements (since it's been vacant for more than a year) while simultaneously training a temp to do the many and varied pieces of my old job. I've also had a huge deadline crunch within the scope of my new position because of the timing of all this, so I've celebrated becoming a salaried/exempt employee with ALL THE (NOT) OVERTIME. And my poor kitty was diagnosed with diabetes. On the bright side, giving insulin shots is much, much easier for me than anticipated; on the less well-lit, we are still trying to find the right dosage and it's painful to watch him struggle.

All this and, you know, an ongoing pandemic, the Texas abortion ban, the general state of the world, and so forth.

I'm so tired. :(

Thank goodness Yuletide season is starting. All these other exchanges I've been doing are fun, and they've been great stretches for me in various directions. But there really is something special about Yuletide. Maybe it's the size, or the traditions, or the timing (the way it has basically taken on a good deal of the childhood love I had for that particular holiday season, replacing other problematic things while giving me similar warm fuzzies).

I've done my nominations and I have some preliminary request and offer ideas. I can't wait to see the final tag set.

Anyway, hi out there, folks. I still miss having my less exchange-based fandom community to interact with on the regular ... although then again, that's also one of the best things about Yuletide. So many friends and old familiar faces participate. Hope to see you "there." <3

Hey there! First of all, I am so sorry that I flubbed the deadline and didn't get back to my AO3 sign-up in time to enter the link to this letter. (I misremembered the time! It was a very silly thing to do!) Hopefully, it's easy to find?

Anyway. Thank you so much for making something for me! All these multifandom f/f exchanges are making me feel positively spoiled, in the best way. <3

I tend to be an enthusiastic prompter; please don't feel locked in, as my ideas are mainly there to offer inspiration if it's needed (or desired). I'm going to love whatever you do, especially if you avoid my DNWs.

Regarding the fest's theme, I've mostly requested consensual sexual content, though in a few cases I've also included "Other M/E Content" for potentially dealing with topics like trauma and death/grief. I haven't requested "Violence," but canon-typical violence is always fine by me in the service of the story - I just am not interested in a heightened focus on it, if that makes sense. Also, I'm a fan of both plotty stories and PWP and would be thrilled with either (and with either an M or E rating, too).

General Likes | Art Likes | Smut Likes | DNWs |
Fingersmith | The Locked Tomb | Wayfarers | Sailor Moon | X-Men

( All the details are in here! )

Hello there! I’m so excited this exchange exists. Thank you in advance for creating for me!

I’m the kind of person who will try to give you lots of prompts and info, but believe me, if your inspiration pulls you off in another direction I will be absolutely delighted by that too! I can’t wait to find out where you go with all this. This is my first time participating in a freeform exchange, so I’m especially curious about how that’s going to work!

I kind of figured I shouldn’t request absolutely every freeform that I might conceivably enjoy for a given pairing, so I tried to keep it to the ones that I found most thematically intriguing/aligned with what I’m craving right now. (And … apparently I’m really feeling a certain amount of push/pull and humor right now, though not necessarily for ALL my requests? A whole lot of banter and such going on, here.) I’ve added a few more that I’d find fun for each request below, just for kicks - obviously nothing you need to adhere to.

I really hope you have fun with this, whatever you wind up making! Thank you so much!

General Likes | Art Likes | Smut Likes | DNWs
The Expanse | The Locked Tomb | Sailor Moon | Sex Education | X-Men

( All the details are in here! )

chocolateboxcomm creator reveals were more than a week ago, but my pandemic brain fog/disjointed awareness of the passage of time has been a lot, lately. I had a ton of fun drawing for the exchange as usual!


( My contributions! )

My GIFTS, though. likeadeuce wrote me The Only Hell Ma Guthrie Ever Raised, a deeply delightful piece of classic New Mutants comics gen that was exactly the kind of balm I needed. The best kids! Shenanigans! Magneto and Emma Frost being, respectively, stern and snarky! And then there was this intriguingly tropey piece of Locked Tomb smut, Fingerbones, by DachOsmin. D/s-inflected necro/cav ritual sex set at the very start of Gideon the Ninth, my gosh.

Cabin fever shows some signs of breaking, as the weather has been warming up (I got to go back to commuting to work by bike last week, which was such a relief). At least, to a point. Semi-quarantine continues to be painful and lonely, and there was an awful scare in my family (non-COVID-related) last week that has me even more shaken right now, which I didn't even really realize was still possible. So I've buried myself in a reread of the Murderbot Diaries over the last few days. I'm excited to write my first fairy tale retelling in years for once_upon_fic (and my goodness, aren't I grateful for the generous writing period, in this time of deeply unpredictable creative energy/exhaustion). And the BFF has convinced me to try and take up Tumblr again, luring me with talk of upcoming The Expanse fic. I hadn't been back over there in three years, so it's a bit surreal.

Speaking of both Murderbot and tumblr, I'll leave you with this truly stunning Murderbot animatic/fanvid which gave me ALL THE FEELINGS, good lord. Made by a 20-year-old, I have wasted my life.

Talk about some warm fuzzies, here. fandomtrees revealed yesterday, and um ... I GOT PODFICCED! :D :D :D I can't stop flailing, oh my gosh. I didn't realize quite how much I wanted this, even when I requested it, but it's like ... IDK, like having someone draw fanart of your original characters or something. My words in someone else's mouth! They sound so much better that way! ;)

hot ice and wondrous strange snow
October Daye; Raj/Quentin, G, 35:10
Written by me, read by Elle_dubs
In which there is a party, an extra-fake trial marriage, an unexpected indoor snowstorm, and a Prince of Cats who is not particularly impressed with self-denial based on possible future expectations. (Spoilers for the entire series up through A Red-Rose Chain.)

I also got several yummy-looking recipes! There's tons of good stuff scattered under peoples' trees in general: fic, art, fannish graphics, recipes, book recs, music recs, fic recs ... worth browsing through. I've only just started.

Apart from several recipe and book rec sets of my own, I made two pieces of fanart:

Harrowhark/Gideon smooches for crookedspoon!

( And Utena language of flowers art! )

Yeah, I love fandom, you guys. (Also, psst, chocolateboxcomm sign-ups close tomorrow at 11:59 PM EST! 300 word minimum, or a clean pencil sketch on unlined paper, and it's always amazing!)

Happy New Year, friends! It's all very symbolic, I know, but I'm going ahead and embracing the relief of leaving 2020 behind. It was a terrible year for me on every level, and I really have no positive spin to put on it. Good riddance.

On a brighter note, Yuletide reveals! I had really wanted this to be the year of treating, but alas, pandemic malaise wouldn't allow for it. Still, I enjoyed writing my assignment:

entre'acts
Wayward Children Series - Seanan McGuire
Alexis Chopper/Jack Wolcott, T, 6.4K
When home is a horror movie world, happily ever after isn’t really part of the package; happily in-between, within the pauses in the tale, are where life is lived and where peace can be found.

My recipient, Cakemage, wanted Jack and Alexis to have a chance to be happy, and requested (situationally-appropriate) fluff. It was a good challenge, and ultimately I decided to craft a series of missing scenes set in between and after the events of Down Among the Sticks and Bones and Come Tumbling Down, with a tiny bit of catharsis around Jack and Jill at the end, as well.

Also, here is a tiny batch of ( initial recs in Carmilla, The Locked Tomb, Monstrous Regiment, and Humans Are Space Orcs (meme). )

More later, I hope, but now I'm going to get to work on my chocolateboxcomm sign-up. If you're meant to spend New Year's Day on the sort of pursuits you want to continue throughout the year, I feel good about my choices.

I hope 2021 is good to you all. (Or else!)

femslashex reveals are up! I had a lovely time creating this year, as always.


ardor (Carmilla, Carmilla/Laura, T)
"... with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips traveled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs ..."
for KannaOphelia

Floriography (This Is How You Lose The Time War, Red/Blue, G)
Another form of esoteric, archaic epistolary communication ...
for Shadaras

stay put (Wayfarers Series, Rosemary/Sissix, T)
One advantage of mammalian girlfriends: they’re so WARM.
for Stonestrewn

I also received an absolutely delightful Original Fiction story from TheseusInTheMaze, about a witch in trouble who transforms into a cat to escape, only to land in the very inviting lap of a visiting queen ... and quite understandably, struggles to find the will to change back: Shapes, and Their Influence.

I'm deep in Yuletiding now, naturally. And also, this looks like it could be a lot of fun ... I think I might put up a "tree." (You should too! I'm hoping to do some treating.)



Life is ... really, really difficult right now, in a quiet, grinding way. I am going to indulge in as much fannish holiday nonsense as I can possibly manage, because egad, do I need an escape.

I am so very pleased with my femslashex assignment. It's exactly the sort of thing I want to be working on right now - the biggest challenge will be settling on one idea (and not overextending)!

Trying to turn my brain to Yuletide nominations is proving to be a little bit of a struggle just at present. (Honestly, I'm having a really hard time focusing on anything with more than surface attention. It's part of being out of steam for what a 5-alarm fire the whole world is and has been this year, and I hope I get a second wind soon.)

( Some things I'm considering. )

Well, I have time to ponder, I guess. Hopefully I'll have more brain-space this weekend.