schneefink

I was recced "Black Sails" multiple times (most often by rydra_wong) and always thought that I would watch it one day, but it sounded a bit too dark for my current preferences. But DD decided she wants to watch it, so I started watching it with her. We were both told that season 1 is bad (but at least short) and that the show gets a lot better later.

We're now halfway through season 1 and we both like it? I don't think it's bad at all so far. Now we're both very nervous about how the second half of season 1 may screw things up. I already want so many of these characters to succeed but there are so many things that could go very wrong.

A new TAZ:Balance live show was put online, and man I missed these characters. Even though I tend to forget how often they are jerks, and sometimes (like this entire episode) it's just silly, they're also so much fun. My favorite parts of the Dallas show were ( spoilers )
I'm not listening to TAZ:Amnesty yet because in my experience TAZ works better for me when I binge it, but I'm planning to catch up soon.

I'm also not caught up with Critical Role, I'm a few episodes behind (in the middle of 15) because the episodes are long and I don't do as much other stuff where I could easily listen to it in the background and it's (unsurprisingly) not as captivating yet as the finale of a multiple year campaign was, but it has a lot of potential.

I am caught up on "The Bright Sessions", which seems to alternate between really emotional episodes and those that are a bit lighter/quieter. ( 52-54 episode notes )

New Bright Sessions episode! It's not always the easiest story to listen to, and I avoid it when I'm in a bad mood, but it's also really good. Someone on ff_a put it pretty well, imo: "The way she writes Damien, Mark/Damien, Wadsworth and Joan, it's all so, how do I describe it. Incisive? Like there's such awareness of all the ways that things are dysfunctional and toxic and wrong, and it's written without a drop of apologism, so then when she does just explore in depth all the delightfully iddy aspects of these characters and relationships, it doesn't feel like she's actually romanticizing anything. My id gets so, so piqued and indulged, but my brain and heart don't get skeeved out and actually appreciate how the writing doesn't encourage any of the fucked up my id hungers for." And thankfully not all relationships are fucked up, imo there's overall a good balance of fucked up stuff and WAFF.

( Spoilery notes for episodes 46-48 )

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 )