Streets are filled with --

Yuletide 2025

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 20:02:53 GMT

In a rather cursed year, Yuletide has been a nice end of season bright spot. I received a delightful Bedlam Stacks fic – The Question of the Chicken and the Egg - that dives into Merrick and Keita's relationship over time. It's perhaps my favourite thing about Bedlam/Watchmaker, and the fic covers some very beautiful moments between these two amoral Company boys.

Some other recs from my limited readthrough:

The Way of the Househusband is striking it out of the park this year, with both delightful loyalty porn ("as you are") alongside :fire: burning hot three-way porn ("I Want to Be With You Night and Day "), with Tatsu watching from the side included :eyes:

Antique Bakery is back in Yuletide, my friends, and this fic serves up Ono and Tachibana off on a trip to Hokkaido ("Obscura")

Wimbledon: Peter is too idiotic to realise his best friend is into him, because of course ("The Best Part of 1996"

Cthulhu Mythos/Dream Cycle: Randolph Carter is going to bring all the horrors to the yard ("Onwards the rite "), and damn right, he's a better dreamer than yours

Then, a now-perennial Yuletide classic, Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defence crossed over with Rivers of London. You know where this one is going, and you know you're going to click on this fic.

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Dear Yuletide Writer 2025

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 03:16:22 GMT

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.

( Initial D, Kamusari Series, Heike Monogatari, The Bedlam Stacks, The Culture )

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Fic In A Box 2025 Letter

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 15:39:07 GMT

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... )

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hAPPy Birthday 4 flash exchange

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 16:43:06 GMT

It's here again! The hAPPy Birthday flash exchange is a super low-stakes flash to celebrate the autoao3app turning a year older.

The minimum word requirement is just 100, you can default with 0 penalty at any time, and signing up is ridiculously easy because you can just stick in the link to the app with all your previously requested fandoms under Creator's Choice of Previously Requested Fandom and walk away knowing that if you offer CCOPRF in turn only to find you can't write anything for your recip, you can just smash the default button guilt-free and browse the many, many CCOPRF fandoms for treat opportunities. We're sitting at over 2100 fandoms in CCOPRF (!) right now!

Signups close in less than 24 hours at 11pm US Eastern!

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Fandom Trumps Hate

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 09:44:15 GMT

RL has been wildly busy and I've got a lot of finagling to try and get the AO3 app working better in these Latter Days of AO3 server struggles, but hi flist! I threw together a hasty fic offer for Fandom Trumps Hate - listing here!

Come bid on me or anyone else for charity!

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how about i draw you a diagram / after you remember who calls the shots around here

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 23:49:09 GMT

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.

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End of year meme

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 20:35:15 GMT

Every January it's "write a few entries for a few days before I disappear" season! Hope everyone is well &c.. Here's an end of year fandom/writing meme, stolen from snickfic and tweaked here and there:

( End of year meme )

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Yuletide 2024

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 18:14:58 GMT

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.

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Dear Yuletide Writer 2024

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 01:06:46 GMT

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!

( Heike Monogatari, Inu-Oh, The Dreamlands Express, Hikaru no Go (Anime), The Bedlam Stacks, The Culture )

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FIAB 2024 Letter

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 02:02:16 GMT

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... )

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hAPPy Birthday 3 Flash

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 20:57:06 GMT

It's here again! A birthday celebration flash exchange for the automagic app: 100 word minimum, super easy to request anything you've ever requested before, and default with 0 worries. :D https://archiveofourown.org/collections/hAPPy_birthday_flash_exchange_3/profile

Pssst the app now lets you group your/anyone's request history by fandom so it's even easier to browse/participate: example

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Yuletide Reveals!

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 21:05:44 GMT

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.

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Wed, 27 Dec 2023 04:58:00 GMT

Happy Yuletide and end of season, everyone! I've been super MIA. Incredibly MIA. 2023 has been so Much MIA. Not bad - just much! Hope everyone's having a decent year-end. :)

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Dear Yuletide Writer 2023

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 02:30:10 GMT

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!

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

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FIAB 2023 Letter

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:21:05 GMT

Dear Fic In A Box creator,

Please forgive the disparity in section lengths; new-in-2023 requests are going to be shorter because I don't have the ability to shamelessly copy-pasta from had-more-energy 2022 me, but I earnestly like all of my fandoms equally!

( Read more... )

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hAPPy Birthday 2

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 02:24:21 GMT

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.

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snowy #5 fannish 50 #6

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:37:24 GMT

Today's snowflake_challenge: In your own space, tell us about 3 creative/fannish resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy. Oh no. UHHH.

I hang out on Exchanges After Dark on Discord to keep in the vibe of exchanges (I'll have to dig around to see if an invite link is public; maybe others know better than I do!)
.....
..................

(whispers) help me

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snowy #4 fannish fifty #5

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 04:26:31 GMT

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.

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Sun, 08 Jan 2023 05:10:40 GMT

Sick day programming. Snowy fannish fifty will resume after.

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snowy #3 fannish fifty #4

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:09:44 GMT

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 )

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fannish 50 #3: coding for fandom

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 03:19:11 GMT

snowflake_challenge seems delayed for day 3, so I shall ad lib for Fannish 50 and talk about coding for fandom.

I tried and failed to engage with fandom coding early on, when AO3 was getting spun up (got recruited at my university to join AO3 coders! Then gave up very rapidly as I was both very busy and not yet very hip with coding) and when the LJ-DW shift was occurring (will I ever understand S2 themes? No, because it takes too much CPU!). But 2017 (!!) rolled around and I coded the first-ever Yuletide tagset app because I could not stand for the life of me looking at a large AO3 tagset in the UI. The rest is history!

( Some of that history: )

Along the way, I've tried out new exchanges and managed to learn to write again. I now even manage some fannish joy every now and then! I have so much love for the people who reached out and helped me back into fandom via this stuff: Morbane and Fence and Firebird and everyone else. Then there are the crazily generous donors who show up every year to toss a coin to their ~~Witcher~~ coder to keep the app (and my spirits) up. Then on top of that are the amazing writers and recipients I've met in the course of trying exchanges other than Yuletide. It's been an super fun ride, and one I hope I get to keep riding for the foreseeable future. ♥

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snowy fannish 50: fandom manifesto

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 04:31:13 GMT

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

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fannish 50 - #1: yuletide edition

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 02:13:58 GMT

I'm giving fannish 50 a try! Today's topic is Yuletide, since it's fresh on my mind.

New this year for Yuletide:

Learned how to code a Discord bot - recommend!
Finished my assignment before December (!) - recommend!
Wrote all my treats in the last week before reveals - do not recommend!

Wrote/Received this Yuletide:

I showed up as The Usual Suspect in Tang Dynasty RPF (Li He, whooo), The Culture (Led and FOTNMC are my current jam, it seems!), and The Bedlam Stacks (Merrick & Mori, I stan)
New fandoms were Batman: Wayne Family Adventures and my first proper Cthulhu Mythos (Dream Cycle) fic. The Silver Key is actually so good as a piece of writing about losing your imagination.
Received an excellent Heike fic from yhlee and a very cool Star Trek/Left Hand of Darkness crossover from keerawa

Cutting Room Floor this Yuletide:

Sniped the Kamusari Series from my requests; delightful worldbuild, but I couldn't find the will to figure out what to prompt for it. But! Magical-ish forests! Funny main character! So soothing to read. Gimme more, Miura Shion!
No new canons this Yuletide D: I normally at least pick up an East Asian history adjacent thing, but IRL was v. overwhelming. lnhammer's astoundingly good poetry prompts did get written and with great justice, though, so the wheel turns sometimes!

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Mon, 02 Jan 2023 20:36:03 GMT

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!

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year's end

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 01:42:42 GMT

This week I discovered that you can just add !markdown to the start of a DW entry to type in pure markdown. So much of my life has now changed.
I'm going to try to read The Priory of the Orange Tree. This thing is massive.
Anyone have Yuletide recs? My brain's fizzed out a touch and my reading ground to a halt, but what recs I did scrape together I put out in the yuletide comm itself

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