Busy Yuletide time

Since the pandemic some important financial deadlines were pushed from September to December. It was definitely necessary at the time, since everyone was so busy with subsidies etc. that the September deadline was impossible, but I really hope that they'll change it back next year because having the busiest time of the year in December and especially between Christmas and New Year's is not fun. At least we have plenty of chocolate.

I got a fantastic Yuletide fic! Learning to Fly, Phoenotopia Awakening (gen, post-canon, 6k.) I'm especially honored that the author checked out the game because of my prompts. I'm not sure how well the story works without canon knowledge, you're definitely not going to get many of the jokes, but I'm still going to try and give a brief summary of what I think is necessary to understand it because it's a great fic and deserves more comments.

Spoiler for the entire PHOA game:

Most of the people of Gail's village were kidnapped by aliens. On her journey to find them again she meets Bart, a member of the Stellanites, humans who left Earth during the apocalypse a few centuries ago and joined the Galactic Federation. (Bart is still on his space ship, they can only talk through a golem head Gail found and carries around with her.) She also meets and frees Leo, a human prince who was kidnapped and probably tortured by alien mercenaries, and meets Lisa again, her best friend who avoided being kidnapped because she'd moved elsewhere. Bart warns them that the Astral Empire is planning to attack Earth and directs Gail to find a lost mythical weapon to defend the planet. Gail finds out that the "weapons" are actually genetically engineered super soldiers, called Phoenixes, that were put into hibernation after they played a part in the apocalypse, and also that Gail herself is a Phoenix. The first Phoenix the Stellanites manage to wake up is later called Zero by Bart, and he helps them defeat some alien mercenaries, called kobolds, that were also after the weapon. We find out that the Phoenixes help Earth repel the attack by the Astral Empire, but the Empire is still a threat, and Gail still plans to find her friends and family again.

I haven't had time to go through much of the collection yet, much less comment, but both fics for Steerswoman and Elemental Logic are great.