karanguni | Entries tagged with yuletide

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.

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 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.

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

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!

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

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!

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, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Culture, Edo Era Intellectuals RPF )

I have made out like a bandit this Yuletide. I'm so happy.

Thank you for writing for me! I hope you have fun this Yuletide – everything in this letter is optional, and I am an omnivorous reader, so I'm looking forward to whatever you come up with! 2021 has been a wild extension of 2020, so please just have fun!

( Barakamon, Britain's Lost Masterpieces RPF, Edo Era Japanese Go Players RPF, Edo Era Intellectuals RPF, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Culture )

Another year, another Yuletide friending ~~mine~~ meme. Feel free to use/ignore some of these optional prompts as thread starters:

( Prompts and template )

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.

Dear Yuletide writer,

Thank you for writing for me! I hope you have fun this Yuletide – everything in this letter is optional, and I am an omnivorous reader, so I'm looking forward to whatever you come up with! 2020 has been a year and a half, so don't let anything in this letter stress you out. Happy Yuletide!

( The Culture, Edo Era Japanese Go Players RPF, 17th Century CE Japanese Arts & Sciences RPF, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street )

Posting this a little before reveals for anyone who wants to come around and meet new Yuletide people. Please comment only after authors are revealed!

Here are some optional ~~details~~ prompts if you don't want to freeform your comment:

( Sample Answers )

I didn't read all that widely this year, unfortunately, but here are some fics I really enjoyed in my canvassing:

ephemeral thing! do you address me? (1641 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Dialogues - Plato, Symposium - Plato, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
On the eve of the City Dionysia, Aristophanes receives a menacing visitor.

A sparkling gem of a thing in with Alcibiades and Aristophanes. My Greek history is very patchy, but even with it being made of swiss cheese, this was a clever and witty read.

What's Real (2380 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle
Proginoskes has been lost to Meg. She has to find him.

A nice evocation of the canon series, this reminded me why I love L'Engel so much; I'm probably going to reread the books because of it.

Person to Person (11565 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: John Wick (Movies)
Wherein Winston and John (but mostly Winston) learn to talk honestly.

A long, slow burn with an excellent, human Winston voice.

Check out the other John Wick fics, Discworld, and Breakfast with Scot I got as gifts; they are all wonderful.

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.

I got five fantastic fics (!) in the Yuletide main collection this year; I am so incredibly zonked from two days of Christmas and end of year related social obligations and writing to the very last minute this year that recs for them will come tomorrow. I'm astonishingly tired, and non-gift collection reading is also delayed until then, though I've taken a peek at some of my fandoms' fics and been very :D.

Hoping everyone had a great Christmas/holiday season!

Yuletide: I picked up a canon, adjacent to my usual canons, for Yuletide this year and was blown away by the quality of the translation. I'm actually very excited for reveals so that I can enthuse about this to the world.

December /JanuaryTalking Meme: I am very late to this party, but give me a topic for a date and I'll talk about it! Go all the way into January if you want.

I leave you all with Mary Oliver, who I was rereading last night and who has reignited old, dormant, enormous emotions. She is a deft hand at nature, both Mother and human. Here is her reading it.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

– Mary Oliver

Dear Yuletide writer,

Thank you for writing for me! I hope you have fun this Yuletide – everything in this letter is optional, and I am an omnivorous reader, so I'm looking forward to reading whatever you come up with! Enjoy yourself!

( The Culture, Thief of Time, John Wick, Breakfast With Scot, Edo Era Japanese Go Players RPF, Keicho Embassy RPF )

The White Lady (The Witcher)
Hilarious noir AU with Roach as the POV character. Amazing voice! Also, NOIR ROACH.

Don't you know you're life itself? (The History Boys)
Such a good slice-of-life of the boys grown up; great voices all around.

Small Favours (The Mummy)
JONATHAN. I cackled all the way through.

Achilles' Hell (John Wick, rated E)
Hot, hot loyalty porn with bonus age-gap and ASSASSIN LOGIC.

Exceeding Set Tolerances (The Culture)
I could read more than just 1.8K of sentient warship, but if 1.8K is all I'm going to get, I'm going to read the hell out of it.

On the Ice (The Left Hand Of Darkness)
Perfect scenes from Genly and Estraven's time on the ice, with some great humanity to the character voices.

The Harvest of Orhoch (The Left Hand Of Darkness)
Mythology and history from Gethen, in such keeping with the book.

* Hello to any new folk! There've been a scant few additions to my circle, I think: drop by and say hi, one way or another!

* Back to work, alas, alas. Then again: all my boss and I did in the absolutely empty office was talk rubbish about hockey and do nothing, so that wasn't too bad. I feel utterly braindead from going in, though.

* Yuletide recs will have to wait until tomorrow or the weekend, methinks; I am a bit dead, though I've put some effort into exploring the wilds of the collection and commenting where I can. I wonder if I've hit any fics from y'all on the flist! Have I? I doubt it – I sense that, down a certain space opera and judging from the rouge appearance of people's names in kudos lists, that we don't quite share read/write fandoms as much these last few years.

* I am hastily, drunkenly nominating for Chocolate Box, but I am the world's worst exchange participant outside of Yuletide. Sorry, mods...

* Stealing another low-key you-do-me-and-I'll-do-you meme from

thefridayfive:

1. What is your favourite food?
2. What is your favourite food preparation method?
3. What is your favourite cuisine or style of cooking?
4. Do you have any dietary restrictions and if so what are they?
5. If you could introduce the whole world to one ingredient to improve their culinary experience, what would that be and why?

Streets are filled with --

Picking up what others have left behind

Yuletide 2025

Yuletide 2024

Dear Yuletide Writer 2024

Yuletide Reveals!

Dear Yuletide Writer 2023

fannish 50 - #1: yuletide edition

Dear Yuletide Writer 2022

(no subject)

Dear Yuletide Writer 2021

Yuletide Friending Meme

Yuletide 2020

Dear Yuletide Writer 2020

Yuletide Friending Meme

Yuletide Recs

Yuletide Gifts

Yuletide 2019

Yuletide, Running, &c.

Dear Yuletide Writer 2019

Yuletide Recs 2018

(no subject)

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