Streets are filled with --

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.

This year, I reaped from the bountiful fields of The Culture, which I've wanted for so long.

Re-in-vent the Revent (E, 1.9K)
FOTNMC/Zakalwe. Mind fucking, in every sense of the word, with bonus interference from Sma and as she tries to stop Zakalwe from blowing himself up too many times by throwing him at the Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints. What could possibly go wrong? I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS.

Professionals (T, 1.9K, crossover with John Wick)
John Wick passes an S.C. interview. Was there any doubt he wouldn't? No, no there wasn't. A glorious shoot-me-up that ends with Skaffen-Amtiskaw sticking its face into Sma's recruitment drive. What could be better, except maybe John's first mission for the Culture???

And some other recs:

Everything's Jake (State Farm Insurance Commercials, G, 3.4K)
Psychological horror and State Farm Commercials; surely the pearly-white smiles are too pearly...

please please please (let me get what i want) (A Knight's Tale, T, 4.7K)
Wonderful Chaucer voice and wonderful romp through London!

The Murderer is Among Us Now (Poirot/Among Us crossover, G, 1.5K)
It's all in the title. It's amazing. All of Poirot's neuroses... on Zoom.

The Bamboo Spinner (Tang Dynasty RPF, G, 1.1K)
Atmospheric worldbuilding that serves as excellent backstory for the poet Li He.

Land of Steady Habits (Oh Hello, E, 4.6K, mind the warnings)
I confess that I don't know the canon for this one, but the writing - a la Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - blew me away.

I had quite the embarrassment of riches this Yuletide: 5 gifts! All of them wonderful.

A few in John Wick:

A Suitable Interest (2614 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: John Wick (Movies)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Marcus/John Wick
Characters: John Wick, Marcus (John Wick)
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Suits, Banter, Consensual Power Imbalance, Semi-Public Sex, Age Difference, Tape Measure, Breathplay, Yuleporn, Voyeurism, Mentor/Protégé
Summary: Marcus Watches John get dressed.

This is the clothing porn of my dreams, with a generous dash of mentor/protege thrown in. Gorgeous descriptions and very witty banter.

Night Spirit (1169 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: John Wick (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: John Wick, Avi (John Wick)
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Pre-Canon
Summary: “Sit with me,” Mana rasped, and patted the bar stool beside her. “Bring the bottle and another glass, and sit with me. Sit with babulya and she’ll tell you a fairy tale.” 


Here's a lovely worldbuild, outside-perspective, nearly-noir fic that is very in keeping with the spirit and aesthetic of the movie. Very mythological.

A Fresh Start (1738 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: John Wick (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Helen Wick/John Wick, Aurelio & John Wick
Characters: John Wick, Helen Wick, Aurelio (John Wick)
Additional Tags: Pre-John Wick (2014), John prepares
Summary: It was something Marcus has suggested when John had said his goodbyes. You can never be too careful, he’d said, never know who might stab you in the back. Always have an out.

He’s retired. His remaining accounts firmly closed, debts settled.

Still.

John in the movies has such a great sense of preparedness and readiness even in retirement, and this fic fills in the blanks of how he went about it. A wonderful worldbuild, and with such lovely cameos from the people in John's life.

Two in Discworld/Thief of Time:

Wayfinding (1918 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Lu-Tze (Discworld), Marietta Cosmopilite
Additional Tags: Backstory, Yuletide Treat
Summary: All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, including the one to enlightenment. It's just that some people choose to walk a different way.

Lu Tze finds his Way, in the best possible way. Some serious laugh-out-loud moments and excellent, excellent Pratchett pastiche. Cut-me-own-throat's cameo made me cackle repeatedly, and Lu Tze's understanding by the end of the fic is a lovely tie-in to how he works so well for the History Monks.


Promotion (385 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Lu-Tze (Discworld), Rinpo (Discworld)
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat
Summary: "The Abbot was quite clear on his instructions. Until he returns to Oi Dong, he wishes for you to act as Abbot in his stead."

Lu Tze gets promoted to Abbot. Need I say more?

And one in Breakfast with Scot:

Love Is A Contact Sport (6091 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Breakfast with Scot (2007)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Eric McNally/Sam Miller
Characters: Eric McNally, Sam Miller, Billy Miller
Additional Tags: Backstory, Romantic Comedy, Media Scandal, Forced Proximity, Mutual Pining, Awkward Flirting, Falling In Love, Self-Discovery, Real Estate Porn, Injury Recovery, Internalized Homophobia, Closeted Character, Hockey, enforcers gonna enforce, Everyone Thinks They're Together, Public Display of Affection, Yuletide Treat, trapped together for a weekend
Summary: All of Canada is looking for Eric, but Sam is the one who finds him.

Sam and Eric get-together backstory that has lovely bits of both of them throughout. There are lines in the fic that read right out of the movie, and Eric's mental voice is pitch-perfect: far from just a stupid bruiser, but also so confused at the brave new world he's ended up in.

This year, the YULEGOATS GAVE ME RELIGIOUS THINGS and I love them. Two things in the main collection with a Madness treat yet to come, but here we go! My main assignment:

The Final Lullaby of Sofia Mendes (3384 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
Rating: Mature
Characters: Emilio Sandoz, Sofia Mendes

Emilio learned past tense from songs of regret, future tense from songs of longing, and present tense from songs of love.
Sofia learned the command form from lullabies.

I can't quite gush any more than I did in the comments, but if you've read The Sparrow, you probably know how hard it is to write for this canon. Well, my author hit it right out of the park. Major spoilers, but if you've read JESUITS IN SPACE, please do check this one out!

And then my treat:

You Need A Big God. (1402 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Om (Small Gods), Brutha (Small Gods)

Om and Brutha, afterwards.

Small Gods! SMALL GODS! And Brutha being essentially perfectly himself. :D GO READ IT NOW.

I'm a little braindead from staying up too late last night, so recs will wait till tomorrow methinks. I've written 6 (!) this year, most of which will probably be IMMINENTLY OBVIOUS to anyone who knows me...

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu

Tools of the Trade (9095 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 昭和元禄落語心中 | Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (Anime)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Yotaro/Konatsu
Characters: Konatsu (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu), Yotarou (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu), Kikuhiko | Yuurakutei Yakumo, Yuurakutei Sukeroku, Miyokichi (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Kiku/Miyo/Suke OT3, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide Treat
Summary: All they needed was a prop for the show. But sometimes, those old tools can seem to have a life of their own.

So here's 9K of something far different from the heart-string-ripping of the anime: it's a mundane/supernatural AU in the best of ways. Yotaro is a wonder, and Konatsu both practical and heartfelt. 

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Than Dreamt of in Your Philosophy (1775 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin
Additional Tags: Crueltide, Supernatural Elements, Lovecraftian
Summary: Stephen could not even have said what woke him, after - he only knew that something had called him and he had gone, up to the deck, barely decent.

So, Lovecraftian/weird fiction has been a sleeper runaway this year for the stuff I've read, and this here. My god. The mystery of the seas combined with just perfect, perfect back-forth dialogue between Stephen and Jack. Subtle and perfect and bless the Tom Pullings cameo. Bless this whole fic, really.

Tang Dynasty RPF

A Change of Season (3456 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Táng Cháo | Tang Dynasty RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shàngguān Wǎnér/Wǔ Zétiān
Characters: Shàngguān Wǎnér, Wǔ Zétiān
Additional Tags: Misses Clause Challenge, Chromatic Source, Chromatic Yuletide, Palace Intrigue, strong women of history, corridors of power, Poetry, Love Poems, Mentor/Protégé
Summary: Shangguan Wan-er could think of no reason for the Empress to summon a palace slave to her presence. No good reason. It would be the first meeting of two of the most powerful women of Chinese history.

Hngngngngngn I'm not even halfway through the historical RPF this year but this one is just. It's Wu Zetian, for one. And has poetry, and court politics.

HP Lovecraft

The Long Summoning (2410 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Misses Clause Challenge
Summary:Time isn't real. There is only what you need, and what it costs.

I think I said in my AO3 bookmark, "holy crap this is good." Holy *crap*, this is good. 

Batman vs. Superman

Precision (4197 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lex Luthor/Bruce Wayne
Characters: Clark Kent
Summary: Precision. Like a knife sliding through flesh and muscle, avoiding bone and striking a beating heart.

If I chant "this is the Lex/Bruce I have waited a lifetime for" three times in the mirror, will I get more fic?

Day 10: In your own space, post a rec for fannish and/or creative resources and spaces. Tell us where you go to dig up canon facts for your fandom, or where you get all the juicy details about your favorite ship. Where do you like to hang out and squee like a squeeing thing?

Resources:

I'm a writer, and by and large my biggest resource is... other fic in that canon. I rarely do research outside of canon except in technical spaces, and that's all Google. That said...

Hikaru no Go: I read the Ki-in's Japanese website, and (am very belatedly) collating some of the more interesting (admittedly Iyama Yuuta related) stuff on this Tumblr tag.

Vorkosigan Saga: the wiki, with caveats that I only trust it as far as I have time to throw on the books.

Speaking of Tumblr – it is satan's asshole for many things, but it is extremely useful for gathering random facts/pieces of inspiration. I tag that stuff as useful.

I adore writing for prompts or challenges, and while I haven't written for a comm in a long, long while, I always try to do Yuletide. I also check out kink_bingo and related comms for inspiration when I need it. TV Tropes is a natural secondary source. *g*

Back when I was really active on DW/LJ? I had some great people in my circles who would write amazing fandom manifestos. darkeyedwolf is one that springs to mind at once.

Ships:

I love echoing fanon, so this is entirely a recs list for some of my favourite fandom writers:

elvaron: FFVII, Vorkosigan Saga

roachpatrol: Homestuck

thehoyden: Hikaru no Go, hockey RPF

lightgetsin: FMA, every single damn thing they write

ship_manifesto is another great place. Like for this Tezuka/Fuji piece of great hilarity.

Hangouts:

I haven't for ages, so if anyone has chatty DW comms? Please tell me! Yulechat is really all that I hang out on, and only at EOY. The entirety of The Culture fandom seems to live there, so.

Day 3: In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator.

Oh boy.

My best received fics happen to be the fics I had the most fun writing, always and without exception. Ones like:

• Naruto: Model Behaviour (finance AU Kakashi/Iruka)
• Discworld: 'Tis Impossible To Be Sure Of Any Thing (Moist, Vetinari)
• Hikaru no Go: Machine Learning

Fun things flow, and things with flow write better and read better and lend better to just... everything. They might not be the most "hard hitting" of fics, and they might not be fics that ventured to say something important, but they are important and hard hitting to me (and hopefully some people out there!) because they stretched the imagination and were fun; they were play!

My personal favourites?

FFVII is my homeground, and Empery - a Tseng backstory AU - stands out in my memory. While it's not my best written piece anymore, or the subtlest crayon in the box, it helped me find my headspace on a lot of issues, including bicultural things and post-colonial things, and I just remember sitting down at 12 in the morning and writing it all in one long, electric go. A similar fic, Year One (Reeve and Midgar), also hits the list for similar reasons, though I like it better as an objective piece of work. If you like Midgar worldbuild, I can rec that one in all good conscience!

That said, I'd written in FFVII for so long that I never really quite feel like an... independent? Or mature? writer in that fandom - so much of what I write is derivative of derivatives, and while that's not a bad thing, it's not my own voice, per say. Batman Beyond (and DCU in general) is where I hit my stride, and Counting Down The Hours (Terry, Bruce, looking into the past) lives on in my memory of being lyrically strong and emotionally plugged-in.

Without a doubt, though, collaborative works are where I feel I learned the most, was pushed the most, and had the most fun. Executive Reform (FFVII/Pacific Rim apocalyptic AU) was born from a prompt from Elemental, is the gen fic I never knew I could write, and was somehow the seed inspiration for Crim drawing amazing doujin. It's strange, it's tiny, it doesn't get read by many people, but I love it to the bottom of my black heart and it's been a joint fandom bus effort.

And what an ingrate would I be if I didn't mention Nasdack, the FFVII/FFXII stockmarket AU (Tseng/Rufus, Tseng/Balthier, Tseng/Rufus/Balthier???) that I swore nobody would read but me and pendency. It was born out of the '08 crash, written on what I'm pretty sure were the dregs of the dregs of whatever energy she and I had leftover from real life, the desire to see Balthier fuck anything that moved and a good few systems that couldn't, and was just one giant route from beginning to badly defined, never written end.

If you do decide to try and give this a go, ignore the AO3 order and start with:

Is that a trust fund in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? (18393 words) by karanguni
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: FFXII, FFVII
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Balthier/Tseng/Rufus, Tseng/Rufus, Tseng/Balthier, Balthier/Rufus
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Real World, Stockmarket AU
Series: Part 4 of Nasdack
Summary:

'He's a Bunansa. You're a Shinra. Tell me how this will go well, Rufus.'

Tseng's in New York, Balthier's in London, and Rufus is in the sky as the world burns around them. Hedging on futures can be such tricky things.

Then:

There is No Witty Euphemism For Dividing And/Or Conquering (15382 words) by karanguni
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: FFXII, FFVII
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Balthier/Tseng, Tseng/Rufus, Balthier/Rufus
Characters: Veld, Reno, Elena, Rude
Additional Tags: Stockmarket AU, Alternate Universe - Real World
Series: Part 13 of Nasdack
Summary:

Tseng's in New York, and so is the fledging Shinra-Bunansa empire: whether that is the point or the problem is anybody's guess. Hedging on futures can be such a tricky thing.

The fact that these collabs end up crossovers more often than not is a strange quirk of fandom that I will roll in till the day I'm too old to type. Good times!


(As I dug back through my AO3 to find all of this stuff, I've got to point out that AO3 isn't where the story begins: as much as I'd like to imagine I was always a decent writer, I started off with a Mary-Sue more-or-less self-insert Lord of the Rings fic on FFN. If that's not wince-worthy enough, I even stuck in little A/Ns involving the words "slash" and "yuck." I'm grimacing even thinking about it now, but that's really the fic that opened my eyes: I got flamed about flaming slash, and it made me think about why I'd said "yuck," and here I am like a million years later. I also got defended - people stood up for my (really shitty) writing, and told me to keep going even if haters were going to hate, and I wonder what might've happened to me if I never did get that boost of encouragement. I might never have written another word. My whole life would have been different – and that's... not really an exaggeration? I've met my best friends through fandom and fic; I've become an excellent academic writer (with third-party whatevers to prove it) because of writing fic; the way I think changed because of writing and fandom.

But that's not so much a rec as self-reflection. *g*)

HO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS, IT'S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR.

I got the very wonderful Ivan, By, and Illyan which, in case the title isn't indicative, is a Vorkosigan fic that delves quite happily into the little ImpSec-y warrenholes that connect those three. Go have a gander!

In other recs:

The Martian - We Could All Use A Little Change

Okay, there's going to be a weird amount of a/b/o in this recs list, but bear with me in this first one, because this is not the a/b/o you thought you were going to read. This is a/b/o FOR SCIENCE, this is a/b/o in the solitary vacuum (sort of) of space, this is Mark Watney TALKING TO HIMSELF through heat suppressants and itching and a serious aversion to potatoes. This is on-point, in-character, out-of-your-world voice greatness, and even if you know NOTHING ABOUT THE MARTIAN, take a dive into this one for some seriously awesome genre-savvy hilarigood times. A+ CANNOT RECOMMEND MORE.

Vorkosigan Saga - Vorkosigan's Viper

No seriously. I don't normally like a/b/o. But here we have an initially cracky Ges Vorrutyer who starts off as Aral Vorkosigan's omega and ends up cutting people down in fine canon form. Wonder what might've happened if Ges ever took a walk on the slightly less politically fucked up side? Then give this one some of your day, because it straddles the wonderfully uncanny valley of what-if and dumps into "why not?" AU land, and yes yes yes. Some of the best Ges and Aral, I think.

Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises) - i give myself up to this shining place

This is such a hard damned fandom to write for, not just because of the mishmash of historicity, literary everything, and magical realism, but because to get the Ghibli pastiche down right in Miyazaki's final work is just staggeringly intimidating. This fic stands up to all of that, gives Naoko a wonderful dreamscape of her own, and is just a great tone-poem of a tribute.

Vorkosigan Saga

The Hollow Men. – My lovely gift! A wonderful introspective Simon fic, in which Simon reflects upon the chip, himself, and even bumps into an early Aral. Wonderful, wonderful.

The Use of Negative Space – early Aral, and Ges, and oh.

Discworld

Re-wind – Jeremy Clockson. Lobsang. Time! Clocks! Footnotes! What more could you ask for?

Justice League

But Nobody's Counting – Wally, doing things for others, being competent and warm and wonderful. Also with a generous side-helping of magnificently in-character Bats.

Xi You Ji/Journey to the West

A Peaceful Journey – perfect Monkey, perfect Dragon, perfect tone.

While I scribble endlessly at Endless Fic, allow me to distract you with that which has distracted me.



Layer Cake, 1:40 of Craig/Gambon drug-dealer con-man awesomeness with a side-serving of Tom Hardy as a double-firsts Cambridge cocaine cutter. WHY ARE YOU EVEN STILL READING THIS?

Narratively and thematically it's an in-between the Coen Brothers and Snatch. Surprise, surprise! Because Snatch was produced by Director Matthew Vaughn, also of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels fame and - sort of/not really weirdly - Stardust. He's the reason why half this movie looks like amazing still photography.

I could make comments about how much I love the OST (STARSAILOR) asjklfjal and go on about dialects of English and how they make my head spin around in happy circles, but then I COULD PICSPAM LIKE THE SHALLOW, SHALLOW PERSON I AM RIGHT NOW:

( You really really really really want to click this link. )

Please go watch this film as I expire on the cutting room floor of its goodness.