Streets are filled with --

I have absolutely lost my mind over Initial D and there is going to be so much Takahashi Ryousuke on this journal in the next few weeks, so help me god.

Not sure how it's NYE 2025, but here we are. This year's Yuletide was the year of the 10K+ fics (!!) for me, starting off with my own brilliant gifts:

Variations on the Theme of Family (Watchmaker of Filigree Street/Bedlam Stacks), 11K.

A wonderful look at Keita and company throughout the years, including Merrick adopting basically everybody – as he well should. Everyone finally gets a break, and we get Thaniel's par for course slightly bewildered outsider perspective on Keita and Merrick's relationship and history.

A Game of Chess (Dreamlands Express, Cthulhu Mythos), 14K.

An incredibly constructed fic with some of my favourite Mythos figures (Randolph! Walter! Nyarlathotep!) on the Dreamlands Express, with pitch-perfect worldbuilding for the train (Henri!) and in general. Toss in some delicious pre-slash and it's delicious from beginning to end.

Some recs:

charles wallace murry vs the middle school time loop (Kairos Series - Madeleine L'Engle), 11.8K

Charles Wallace gets stuck in a loop of horrible Wednesdays in school, unable to make friends or feel like he fits in. A story of Charles Wallace, but also of the universal story of how hard it can be to make a place for yourself when you feel utterly misunderstood, and of grit, and then the child-like wonder at finding that there's a spark in everyone. Just incredible. A fic I really needed this year.

Away with the Fairies (Time Team, Shakespeare-y Fae), 8K

Just a HILARIOUS romp and pastiche perfect episode of the Time Team trying to do their 3 days in the middle of a fae ring with a group of slightly thirsty (you read that right) fae who want them elsewhere.

Body of Knowledge (Ghost in the Shell), 1.5K

The Tachikomas discuss Batou's crush on the Major, and then try to set him up. Wildly good character voices, philosophical thought experiments, and then hilarious downloading of what miiiight just be the Archive into their brains. For research purposes.

Dear Fic In A Box creator,

Please forgive any disparity in section lengths: some fandoms I can copypasta more than others, but I am excited for everything I'm requesting!

( Read more... )

Writing and I were not quite friends this year, but after a whirlwind 2023 I managed to get some (very last minute) works into the collection... and turned out liking some of them better than I have a lot of other things I'd written in 2022. Hooray?

All of my recs are in #yuletide-recs on the Yuletide Discord server, because I am lazy. I'll collect them later, with hope.

My main assignment was (zero surprises here) The Culture - Curator(ship) (GCU Arbitrary POV on Sma, ~2k), in which I finally made myself read State of the Art and thoroughly enjoyed how terribly idealistic Diziet is.

Treats:

• Yamaguchi Akira Pseudo-Edo Scifi Art - Prime Time (Gen, ~1.5k, no need to know canon) - many, many thanks to rachelmanija for putting me onto this 5-minute fandom, which exploded my brain. This was one of those fics where I sat in the bath for an hour just letting A Feeling run through my brain over and over again, then promptly emerged mentally screaming EUREKA and ran to type it all out before I lost all the threads. This is also the nth time in a row that I've written Timey-Wimey stuff for Yuletide, which is hilarious because I find timey-wimey stuff really hard to write and read. But it felt good, it came out easily, and people despite its nicheness seem to like it! A fun Japanese history/alternate history flex, with lots of random "ooh let's throw this random reference" in. I wish I had more time to go into Terrible Tokugawa Politics in the tradition of what it means to be 洛外, but that and art history cannot be done with less than five days to the deadline 8D
• Hikaru no Go - The Other Side (Kuwabara-POV, ~5K) - HnG, my beloved, back in the tagset for one final year. I mulled over the many requests for far too long and this is the weird, maybe-one-day-Hikaru-can-explain-Sai-because-magic-is-everywhere AU result. Kuwabara is a lot of fun to write, it turns out. And my Touya Kouyou disease continues to spread.
• Lilywhite Boys - KJ Charles - Plans (Jerry/Alec, ~2K, porn) - Determined to hit four fics, I stared into the void until the void stared back at me. I've been terrified of writing Lilywhite Boys for a long time because pastiche and I for this time period don't quite mesh, but the temptation to treat another tagmod was too strong 8D Again, rachelmanija shoved me over the line by screaming prompt ideas at me until something clicked.

And that's it! I'm happy to have tripped over another Japanese fandom this year, and delighted by Yamaguchi's art.

Dear Yuletide writer,

Thank you for writing for me! I'm a generally omnivorous reader and excited to read anything that you come up with – everything in this letter is optional. Have fun!

AO3: karanguni
tl;dr: I happily opt into gen, porn, unusual media types, and crossovers with fandoms I have read/written/requested before; ignore or take as many parts of this wall of text as you want! My AO3 account has gifts enabled for treats.

( The Bedlam Stacks, The Culture, Heike Monogatari, Hikaru no Go (Anime), Ghost in the Shell: SAC, Sex Therapy )

Fence is very excellently hosting another year of the hAPPy Birthday Exchange flash at https://archiveofourown.org/collections/hAPPy_birthday_flash_exchange_2/profile - just 100 word totally optional* assignments to celebrate the AO3 app's 2nd Everything Birthday! Signups close in a little more than 24 hours.

• no one cares if you default

Fandom-wise, I'm doing some major rewriting of backend code to make the app less financially $$$ to maintain this year, but have otherwise been completely AWOL from fandom save for a single exchange that my workload did not enjoy me doing. I haven't so much as peeked at DW /o\ I'll probably send out snail mail to folks whom I have mail addresses for soon, though! If you want some mail, DM me somewhere you can receive it.

Being sick sucks! That is all. snowflake_challenge today: In your own space, add something to your fandom’s canon. I'm going to do a fannish fifty speedthrough of everything I can think of that might add delight or chaos.

• The Bedlam Stacks: Merrick finds a botanical elixir that makes him fall asleep and not age for long periods of time. Sleeping Beauty!
• Hikaru no Go: Touya Kouyou gets to meet Sai, who has been reincarnated with amnesia
• The Culture: Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints fights Zakalwe. Zakalwe is a ship.
• Final Fantasy VII: Tseng is actually from Wutai. Bonus points if he's a double-agent who becomes Turned By Shinra.
• Discworld: Moist becomes King, and Carrot becomes Commander of the Watch. God, I'm not even sure if I want that.
• Vorkosigan Saga: on-screen Jole/Aral. Yes, this is just canon. Yes.
• Naruto: Kakashi goes blind. Permanently.
• Batman: Dick Grayson is actually happy. Gasp! Sorry, this is too unrealistic. I'll bait and switch: Dick Grayson comes to train Terry in Batman Beyond.
• Prince of Tennis: Atobe is disinherited.
• The Administration: Kier gets insanely, madly rich, and Toreth is still with him.

Today's snowflake_challenge wants us to Scream Into the Void. Get it all out.

I scream into the void a lot as-is. Here are some vaguely fannish Screams:

( 5 generally lighthearted screams )

Today's snowflake_challenge prompt is In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for your fave character, ship or fandom, which I shall shamelessly steal for purposes of Fannish 50 as well.

Whenever someone says manifesto, my first and only thought is the Prince of Tennis fandom manifesto for Tezuka/Fuji, from the glory days of LJ. It hasn't necessarily aged well, but then again, how are you supposed to age 13-year-old tennis-obsessed boys who can summon dinosaurs and defy the laws of physics?

So I guess I'll speed date what few character/ship/fandoms float to the top of my mind:

( Character - Final Fantasy VII - Tseng )

( Ship - Prince of Tennis: Tezuka/Fuji )

( Fandom - The Culture )

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
                               A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
                               Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

-- The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot

New year, new snowflake_challenge. I don't have a personal sticky besides one for the app, but hullo to anyone wandering by! Feel free to add/remove yourself at will.

Transformative works policy: my blanket allow statement is on my AO3 profile. I'm happy for transformations as long as I'm credited, and would love to be told if anyone does something cool! Over the years I've been very lucky to have people podfic, translate, and riff off of stuff I've written; fandom is very generous ♥

Current passion:

• Fandom writing-wise, I'm running down my usual exchange behaviour with Yuletide wrapping up. I've got FFFX to go, and then will probably go into stealth mode until FIAB next year, barring any exchange that someone might lure me into in the summer so that I can let my Hikaru no Go rewatch/Touya Kouyou freak flag fly.
• Fandom project-wise, I'd like to get the autoao3app off of Firebase databases, and revamp the Yuletide app to be one consolidated thing going forward.
• IRL craft: trying to use up my fabric stash for garment sewing, and finish up a couple of projects that are on needles for knitting
• IRL "other": the goal for Q1 2023 is to get out any side project that isn't work-related into the public domain
• I'm attempting to read a little bit more and am 1/1000th through The Priory of the Orange Tree
• I have a vague thought of getting back into actively learn-practicising Japanese

Where to find me: here, there, anywhere as karanguni. I'm primarily on AO3, Dreamwidth, and the EAD/Yuletide Discords (please recommend me more Discord servers for chill hangs!).

Anything else: if people want accountability partners/general check-ins, I'm looking for some myself!