little cloud

I put up a couple of fic things in the last week, both Star Wars:

Somebodies, a Rey & Rose fic set immediately post-TLJ

A second massive chapter to While You Wait, a big Poe/Finn/Rey thing I drafted in November which is now thoroughly jossed by TLJ. I have lots of weird feelings about it because this was a fic where I pushed myself a lot, and the results are not perfect. It also might have felt better if I'd gotten it all done before TLJ came out, but there are advantages to doing it this way, too, like it validates some of my characterisation and changes some other things, and now I get to put Rose in the final section.



I finished reading A Companion To Wolves! It kinda lost me towards the end. The iddy wolf soulbonding was fun but the book seemed pretty confused about how it felt about war and the "exterminate all trolls" mission. I also would have liked it more, I think, if Isolfr seemed at all attracted to either of the guys he ends up mated to. Still, I liked some of the Isolfr pairings earlier in the book, the psychic wolf stuff is great and I now have plenty of ideas for Lupercalia.



Aaaaand hey, fellow Terra Ignota fans, my copy of The Will To Battle finally arrived... with the cover ripped. Badly. I'm grumpy and the seller isn't returning my emails so I started reading it anyway. I already like how the face frontispiece is disquieting with declarations from only six hives, and some of the leaders changed. What the fuck is happening. The character list was illuminating but I groaned at "Achilles - a hero" and "Patroclus - his lieutenant" MAKE THEM FUCK, YOU COWARDS.

There are moments when these books feel like Ready Player One but with Enlightenment philosophy, when Mycroft trails off into "I should of been thinking of him, but instead my mind wandered to Hume, who... [paragraph about how great Hume was and how he had the best ideas]." My most common refrain while reading the first book was "WHY DON'T YOU JUST GO MARRY VOLTAIRE THEN?" But it's also so ambitious, and so much more than that.

Hey, it's Yuletide reveals time! I wrote a bunch of fics and I got a great gift! Let's go.

Five fics I wrote

What she learned in whispers for lifeisyetfair
The Traitor Baru Cormorant
Tain Hu gen about her upbringing and how she became the revolutionary she is in the novel

My initial assignment - I was intimidated by writing this fandom at first, because it's such a good book and I always feel pressure to imitate the original author's style when I'm writing stuff based on books, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.


Night in the City for loveoftheimpossible
Night in the Woods
Mae visits Angus in Bright Harbor

I played through Night in the Woods in early December and it left me with a LOT of thoughts about all of Mae's friendships, and about the themes of small town decline and the "things will be better when we move to the city" queer trope, and how Mae's mental illness intersects with all that, and this fic let me pour all of that out into writing. I think it turned out really well.


Taboo for PaintedYertle
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Kyon/Haruhi, Kyonism story

I was excited that someone else requested this fandom this year, and I REALLY wanted to write for it, so I wrote this treat. In hindsight the prompt took me to some strange places and maybe it really should have gone in the Madness collection. I did enjoy writing it, and I'm glad to have had a play with the Kyon-is-God approach to the series, which was always fascinating but I couldn't fit into fic before.


Better when you duel for idleflower
Shoujo Kakumei Utena
Kozue gen

I love writing Utena fic and I love that it's such a perpetual Yuletide thing! This prompt about Kozue fascinated me, and I hadn't written her before.


Love conquers all terrain for syrupwit
Shoujo Kakumei Utena
Unrequited Wakaba/Utena; Wakaba dreams of becoming a jeep

Look. I just couldn't ignore the prompt 'Wakaba dreams of becoming a jeep'. It's TOO GOOD.


And one I didn't

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire by kyjin for ME
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Kyon gets caught lying; the next day he finds he can't lie.

I feel so lucky to have gotten Haruhi fic for Yuletide, AND based on a prompt for something I've wanted to see for years, AND it all hangs together wonderfully. It reads like a one-off episode of canon and I adored it.



This was a GREAT Yuletide, I had so much fun writing and I'm really looking forward to it next year. Also, there is a post-reveals friending meme going on! I'm loving it, and excited to do a couple more exchanges next year.