schneefink

Happy New Year!

Together with several friends I spent New Year's Eve at an AirBnB a few hours from Vienna, having raclette and playing board games and making tiny animal good luck charms for each other and others out of colorful modelling clay. I also brought one of those ~wire-looking head massagers, which was a big hit. It was raining lightly at midnight but we went to the lake for a toast and to watch the fireworks anyway, and then we continued playing games until 3am.

We'd booked an extra night, which was great because it meant we could have a very relaxed brunch the next day and then two people left but the rest of us had a nice stroll around the small town and more games and then raclette again because we had so many leftovers and then I wanted a reading break so D and F tried out a card game for two people and we also just sat around and chatted and cuddled, a very nice evening.

It was a wonderful way to start 2024. Today the travel home went well and now I will meet up with LB for a spontaneous dinner+movie night at his place so that is even more good things.


I wrote Yuletide fic:
Dreaming of a Rainbow (A Day of Fallen Night – Samantha Shannon)
1.2k, Kuposa pa Nikeya/Noziken pa Dumai, 5 things
Summary: Five times Nikeya dreamed of Dumai.
Canon knowledge required: Yes

Notes: I enjoyed getting more into Nikeya's head. My recipient asked for that and to see how Nikeya fell in love with Dumai and tbh I could have included more of the latter but by that point I was already attached to the five moments I'd chosen and I think it turned out fine.

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

( General likes and dislikes )

( Dice Disasters )


( Tales of the Otori )


( The Final Architecture )

I'm feeling better, but still not 100%. I didn't go running this weekend, breaking my thus far perfect streak in 2023, and I know I had a good reason but I'm still annoyed. I'll just have to make up for it later.

Another streak I mean to keep up: monthly fanwork recs. For March, four fics from Yuletide 2019 and 2020.

( 4 fics for Eagle of the Ninth, The Mummy, Some Like It Hot, Queen's Thief )

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.

Yuletide time! My only "problem" with my assignment is that the letter made another fandom sound super interesting so now I want to check that out before I plan what to write. (I was planning on finishing my current WIP before I start on Yuletide canon review but so far progress on that hasn't been great, unfortunately.)

I'm the last remaining initial pinch-hit, which made me very self-conscious about my prompts. Disclaimer, the reason why I only made a promo post for Phoenotopia: Awakening and not the other two is not because I want fic for that fandom more; it's just that Dice Disasters sadly isn't available in full anymore, and while I really want fic for Harsh Cry of the Heron I wouldn't be able to recommend the series without a bunch of disclaimers. (Thinking about it, reading the original trilogy might not even be strictly necessary for my prompts, idk.)

Speaking of WIPs, a few days ago I saw a comment on a fic that was last updated less than two months ago asking why the author abandoned the story, whut? First of all, rude, and second, I've seen fics be continued after approximately a decade. That probably doesn't happen too often tbf but two months??, come on. (And if it's been a decade it's still a rude comment.)

A few days ago I read a (different) fic with on the surface very nice descriptions, but the sentence rhythm was so weird I almost didn't continue reading. I generally only pay attention to sentence rhythm when it's either very good or very bad and both I don't see that often, but it's always interesting. It's one of the things I try to work on when I'm feeling ambitious while writing, sometimes it's hard but it's satisfying to improve a little.

I got Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night fic for Yuletide :D

Show Him the Sky by silveradept
4.7k, post-canon (background hints of Gebel/Miriam)
Summary: Gebel returns to himself abruptly from the crystal corruption. While Miriam and Johannes offer him the possibility that they have won, he must be on his guard that this is another trick from the demon that has tormented him for so long. Can he even trust that he is who they say he is?
Canon knowledge required: Yes

A wonderful Gebel-centric fix-it fic that gave me even more feelings about Gebel than I already had, and the ending is perfect.


And I wrote three stories:

A New Area for marsdragon, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
2.5k, gen, post-canon
Summary: Eventually, all the demons are dead. Miriam never thought about what she would do next.
( Notes )

Ritual of Cooperation for marsdragon, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
14.1k, missing scene/adventure
Summary: An alchemist and a demon hunter walk into a hell-raised castle together.
( Notes )

Inside the Secret Lair for azurefishnets, Carto
100 words
Summary: Cartographers love finding hidden places. Not everyone is happy about that.
( Notes )

This was the most fics I ever wrote for Yuletide so far, the most words, and also the earliest I finished my assignment. I had fun!
Recs still to come (probably. Hopefully.)

The Yuletide schedule was posted and nominations start in a little over a month – what is time??

Usually during the year I keep a list of fandoms I could imagine nominating/requesting for Yuletide, but this year it's empty of serious contenders so far. Last year I got amazing fics for two fandoms I'd requested before (Innocent for The Inheritance Trilogy and Three Times Morgan Acted on His Feelings (And One Time He Didn't) for Bloodrights), so this year I'd prefer something else. Hm. So far I had great luck requesting things several times (I also got fic for Elemental Logic the third year I requested it, Oh Good, He's Nineteen, and it was totally worth the wait), so maybe I could reread "Harsh Cry of the Heron" and request Tales of the Otori again? Or maybe I'll think of something else I'll discover or that I'm overlooking right now, or maybe I'll get inspired by other people's nominations.

As for offering: I've participated in Yuletide every year since 2014, and in 2015, 2017, and 2019 I wrote Steerswoman fic (Dark Blue Skies about Willam, Corvus, and Abremio, The Wizard's Tower about Rowan and Reeder, and Things That Make You Think Different about Steffie.) So I kind of want to offer Steerswoman again, to keep up the streak ^^ Maybe I'll nominate Fletcher in the hopes that I'll finally either write or get the Fletcher atonement story I've wanted for years.

I got two(!!) absolutely fantastic Yuletide fics this year! They both require some level of canon knowledge, so to increase the chances of more people reading them and the authors getting the appreciation they deserve, I'll add a brief overview of the necessary canon knowledge here. (Feedback on if it's enough or not would be helpful.)

Three Times Morgan Acted on His Feelings (And One Time He Didn't) by misura
Fandom: Bloodrights - N. Lee Wood
2.3k, gen, post-canon
Summary: Antonya, Kerrick and Morgan face the big and small challenges of the new future.
Why I love it, short version: The character voices and relationships are perfect and this is exactly what I wanted from post-canon fic for this book.
Necessary basic canon knowledge: ( Bloodrights )

Innocent by thearrogantemu
Fandom: The Inheritance Trilogy - N. K. Jemisin
7.3k, gen, canon-divergent AU
Summary: Deka fell silent, and I saw him trace the sigil on his forehead with a finger in an almost unconscious gesture.
“That made her angry,” he said after a long moment, “and so… She wanted to hurt me like I’d hurt her. She asked our mother to have my mark filled in before I was sent away. So she would have nothing to fear from me, she said.”
I let out a long sigh. Was this the girl who’d refused to choose between her innocence and her brother’s life? Oh well.
“It was nice while it lasted,” I said aloud.
Why I love it, short version: It's such a cool AU and so well done, and the character voices and relationships and especially complicated family and revenge and loyalty etc. feelings are fantastic.
Necessary basic canon knowledge: ( The Inheritance Trilogy )

Today I took a look at the Yuletide sign-up summary and was very excited to see that someone else requested my tiny bookfandom!! I thought nobody else had read that book!
aaand then twenty minutes later I realized that I accidentally looked at the page for 2019 instead and the sign-up I saw was my own. *facepalm*
I'm refreshing the app with my bookmarked fandoms often in the hopes of seeing new letters :) Meanwhile I haven't posted my own yet because I want to reread that other book in case I think of more prompts, but I'm planning to do that soon.

Starting this week I'm determined to get to the office early, leave on time, and then get some work for uni done. Today I mostly succeeded at that, and it felt good. There is definitely room for improvement, but I did better than I did in the past several weeks so it's a big step in the right direction. Now I just need to keep doing that, fingers crossed.

Finally continuing with this list: have some more Yuletide recs from 2017 and 2018.

( 4 Yuletide 2018 recs: American Gods, Succession, Versailles, Natsume Yuujinchou )

( 4 Yuletide 2017 recs: The Good Place, Akatsuki no Yona, The Fire's Stone, Noblesse )