schneefink

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.

I hope all of you had as good a weekend as I did :)

On Saturday I went to two beautiful Christmas markets with my flatmate and her mom – no snow since it had 12° all weekend but I did see a rainbow – and bought myself a plush squirrel that was too fluffy to resist. Then half of our D&D group played a Christmas one-shot that featured zombie suicide pigeons, a reindeer with a breath weapon, and a +2 Good frying pan. We also took out the bad guy's minions with blankets. I played a swordfighter, which was slightly frustrating occasionally because it's way less versatile than playing a spellcaster but by the end (almost 3am) I appreciated the advantages too.

On Sunday I went to three more Christmas markets and then went to a birthday party where we had a lot of fun playing board games. MSZ, who is a very good cook, decided that she wanted to make authentic Ramen so she and LK spent half the day preparing the broth and porkbelly and eggs and so much other stuff there was barely space left on the table, and it was delicious. I ate so much.

On Monday I spent slightly more time than planned reading fic, and In the afternoon I made a 30-seconds-video for the retirement party of my favorite teacher in high school: it was quite difficult to put into words just how much I admire and respect her and how much she meant to me, but I tried.
In the evening I celebrated Christmas with my parents, which means good food and a lot of singing. I got (among some other things) a puzzle, I haven't solved a puzzle in years and I look forward to it.

On Tuesday, more good food, and Yuletide! I requested "Elemental Logic" for three years and this year I got an amazing fic for it. It's so good, it's such a great Medric character study and has such good Medric/Emil and so much wonderful family feelings :)

Oh Good, He's Nineteen (7304 words) by nimblermortal
Fandom: Elemental Logic - Laurie J. Marks
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Medric/Emil, Zanja/Karis, J'han/Norina
Characters: Medric, Emil, Zanja, Karis, J'han, Norina, Leeba
Additional Tags: Found Family, parenting, Introspection
Summary: It's winter in Shaftal, and Medric and Emil's pleasant getaway is disturbed by the arrival of their.. family? Perhaps?
Medric thinks of his affair with Emil as an Autumn Romance, two soldiers broken by war finding comfort in each other's arms. The arrival of their - husband and wives? - forces him to come to terms with whether he is a soldier, just who Leeba is to him, and how it can be possible that he is, in fact, nineteen.
Canon Knowledge Required: probably yes

My recipient liked their story as well, so all is good.

Tomorrow we're meeting with family friends for more good food, and I also have plans for the rest of December that I'm looking forward to (apart from the studying, and the cleaning, etc. etc.) Maybe we will even get a few snowflakes again, who knows.

Hi! Thank you very much for writing a story for me! :D

Things I like:
* I love friendship/team/found family fic. Characters who grow to like each other, trust each other, and eventually would do many things for each other, yes please. Especially when they're in slightly different positions/places/there are obstacles etc.
* Related to that, navigating relationships: how do they deal with daily life, how do they support and comfort each other at the end of the day, how do they solve conflicts, what happens if there are conflicting loyalties? I'm a big fan of loyalty, betrayal, (self-)sacrifice, and related tropes in general.
* Some other things I love: h/c, competent characters, hugs, plot, happy or at least optimistic endings, …

Things I don't like for Yuletide:
* Stories with a very dark or hopeless ending
* Explicit rape or abuse
* Character bashing
* Stories focusing on harlequin romance tropes or explicit sex
* Different world AUs, like coffeeshop AUs or Harry Potter fusions. I love the canon worlds of all these fandoms so I'd prefer to read fic taking place there. What-if AUs are cool.

Have fun! The prompts below are guidelines, I hope they help you think of ideas.

( Spiderlight – Adrian Tchaikovsky )

( Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky )

( The Bright Sessions (Podcast) )

( Elemental Logic series – Laurie J. Marks )