[sticky entry] Sticky: Hearthkeeping Sticky

Jun. 16th, 2016 02:34 pm
axael: Two dragons, red and purple, coiled around eachother, guarding a candle. (Dragons Entertwined)




Writer, editor, fangirl, gamer, dragon, roleplayer, idealist, and book lover. She/her.

Find me as Desiderii at  [archiveofourown.org profile] desiderii (Ao3), [tumblr.com profile] fandomentanglement (tumblr), [livejournal.com profile] desiderii (livejournal), bluesky, squidgeworld, and pillowfort.
Please DM me if you wish to connect with me on discord or another social media I've not listed.

I have a Personal Prompt Meme on Ao3, if you'd like to leave me a prompt or three.

My musebox is here at [community profile] seaofdreams.
I don't post often, here as axael. Historically, I've used this account only as my point of communication for various communities, Big Bangs, and DWRP. Still, this is my main personal blog on the internet, so I hope you enjoy. Cheers!

Regarding friends-locked posts: I write towards a public audience when posting to DW, so most of my posts are stuff that I would tell anyone, even if they seem fairly personal. Anything actually personal will be friends-locked, though I don't anticipate writing overmany entries that qualify. Even so, if we're following each other, feel free to DM me if you'd like to be granted access on the off chance I do write f-locked posts in the future.
  • Current Mood: Image :)
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

[sticky entry] Sticky: Masterpost Roundup Sticky

Jan. 7th, 2025 06:27 pm
axael: A guitarist holding their guitar to catch the lightning (Defy the Sky)




Masterpost Roundup

If every challenge has a masterpost, then—of course—this necessitates a masterpost of masterposts.


Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #15

Jan. 31st, 2026 06:10 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 29th

❄ Challenge #15 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

How'd Your Challenge Go?


How Did the Fandom Snowflake Challenge Go? Did you get all you wanted to get from it? Are there things you're going to carry with you for as long as you can? Are you going to continue to challenge yourself? Continue to connect? We can't wait to hear.

    I always enjoy the snowflake challenge. :) This year, I did fall behind, because I missed a few days because of staying up too late playing video games during the tail end of the Legion Remix. Last year I tried not to skip any, but I ended up only doing like half of them. This time I looked at what I knew I could sit down and give a good one or two paragraphs to right that moment and then just. Did those, when I could. And I skipped the ones where I didn't have a good idea or it needed more time than I had. And...you know??? I think it worked out pretty well. I'm doing this one only a couple days past its posting (aw yiss). And I don't feel like I'm behind.

    Last year I just...wrote SO much for the first two or three things and then burnt myself out for the rest of the challenge. This year I made a concerted effort not to do that. These are nibbles, more-or-less focused on one idea.

    I do plan to go back and do the...three I skipped? /checks list. Sweet. Three. The 'fandom promo/primer' one I already have written, I'm just selecting the fics I would rec to a newbie. I've been granting wishes since the granting wish challenge went up, so I'm not......actually sure how to do that one. I might just skip it and grant wishes silently. I don't actually like keeping track when I'm just noodling around being social. The hardest one for me this whole time has been this Big Mood (Board) thing where you post up three things in a...hrm. /ponders. So I've DONE that before, lol lol. I have a whole little shrine of references for Jingyi, because I rped him for a while in dwrp. But I could not for the life of me think of just one thing/character/etc. that I could do that for that wasn't one I'd already made at least one music playlist for. So I'm still stuck on that one. I'll have to think about it.

    Anyways, I'm very pleased! I'm hoping to keep up posting, a bit. I honestly just forget to post, which is why I like the little prompts and the low pressure. I'll definitely be doing the summer one, and try and post stuff up for the GYWO challenges during the year. And I really do want to involve myself with DW community stuff, it's just enough of a change in my social media use that I need to adjust to new habits. So, we'll see how that ends up going.

    Either way! <3<3

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #13

Jan. 29th, 2026 03:59 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 25th

❄ Challenge #13 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Community


TALK ABOUT A COMMUNITY SPACE YOU LIKE. It doesn’t need to be your favorite, or the one where you spend the most time (although it certainly can be). Maybe it’s even one that you’ve barely visited. But talk about that space and how it helps support fannish community.

    I've shifted my focus a lot in the last couple of years from fannish things to writing things, so the spaces that are particularly fan-oriented I don't frequent as much anymore. Shoutout to the Stargate discord (fantastic people and a watch party every Sunday), and the dwrp plurk sphere (plurk being my favorite social media structure, tbh), and honestly tumblr (nothing else is quiet like it, 33rd most popular social media in 2026 or not, lol). I haven't been back to these places in a bit, though, in favor of discord servers dedicated to writing as my current community of choice. (I have like... *counts them* Uh. Four I frequent daily/weekly. Plus two bigbang ones. Not counting the several massive ones that I mute because they're too busy, lol.)

    I think, however, I would like to talk about roleplay forums. Not any one in specific, but just as, hrm, as a bit of an abstract concept. Not dwrp, because that is it's own beast, and prone to jamjars (which is still awesome, but cannot capture the vibe of a forum.) Forums are out there, still, and some of them are elaborate as all get out. A friend of mine was roleplaying at a pokemon site that had all sorts of like...point-buy systems and battle in prose and he had his little characters traipse through this world and it's...

    I know no better media than I do ones that I've roleplayed, and my first instinct when I love a thing is to find out how to explore it, in depth, by puppeting characters around the world in which it is set. I started with Pern Mu* and I've never looked back. I've prodded Tolkien (briefly), Wheel of Time (back in the day), and have had a character ride a dragon in a dozen different little weyrs over the years. I've spent a great deal of time in the Black Jewels universe, and ventured into Digimon and Pokemon with a friend, though those didn't quite stick. I attempted Gundam, once (and perhaps never again...), and dabbled in worlds with friends where I'd never actually read/watched the original media for it. There's a different focus, too, when you're on a forum and (likely) roleplaying a fandom OC, because it's not about the book characters, at that point, it's about exploring the edges of how the world is built and finding the seams and interesting implications. It's about putting yourself into that world for as long as you want, with other people who are just as excited about it as you. It lets you live there. I could write so much meta about the book, game, and movie worlds that I've inhabited over the years, about all the little details that you don't think about have been implied by the big things that define the world.

    I just love it.

    I don't have an active forum that I play on right this second, but whenever my schedule lets up, you bet I'm going to be finding one. :)

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintry forest the text snowflake challenge January 1 - 31 in white cursive text
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #12

Jan. 26th, 2026 02:01 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 23rd

❄ Challenge #12 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Fellow Fan Love


Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life. Appreciate them in bullet points, prose, poetry, a moodboard, a song... whatever moves you!

    I'm going to talk about two people who have enhanced my life because of fandom, rather than enhancing my fandom life. Though they both do enhance my fandom life, simply by being friends with whom I know I can talk about fandom stuff, but...

    Percy and Meadowlark! Since time isn't real, I don't actually remember how long I've known them, so surely it has been forever.

    Percy, though, started out as a friend of a friend before I very firmly claimed them as my own. :) A college buddy was writing BBC Sherlock fic, and where I was one of their beta readers, Percy was the other. We got to chatting and we turned out to be quite compatible! We ended up meeting when they came out to visit our mutual friend, too. They started betaing my fic—and they're still my long-standing beta reader, though only if the fic isn't too spooky, lol. They send me interesting bits of fandom off of social media that I'm not on, and I get to absorb their second-hand-fandom joy for ones that were never on my radar before (delightful). They listen to me rant about niche headcanons and help me spool out fic ideas that I may or may not end up writing, but are always fun to brainstorm.

    Meadowlark is one of my roleplay forum friends. I had a years-long deep obsession with a particular book series, and I would hunt through the avidgamers/proboards/zboards forums for places to set up new fandom OCs and putter around with other people equally as obsessed with the worldbuilding of this fandom as I was. (The characters? Eeehhhhh. The world though. Hell yes. I still want to write eight billion AUs for all of my other fandoms using it, lol.) I don't believe either of us have anything to do with that particular fandom anymore, but our writing styles mesh well and she's an excellent roleplay buddy. I ended up moving close by, and when we met up to chitchat, we hit it off. I've actually managed to hang onto her, too, which is absolutely a heckin' triumph.

    It's just so interesting to me how much fandom has brought into my life, including literal whole-ass people. Especially since I discovered it what I consider 'late' for all that I've been a fangirl since I first learned to get excited about Nancy Drew novels. And maybe it's cliche, but this kind of friendship always reminds me of Wicked, because I listened to the soundtrack on repeat back when it came out and it's now baked into my brain.

      Like a comet pulled from orbit (Like a ship blown from its mooring)
      As it passes a sun (By a wind off the sea)
      Like a stream that meets a boulder (Like a seed dropped by a bird)
      Halfway through the wood (In the wood)
      Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
      I do believe I have been changed for the better
      And because I knew you
      Because I knew you
      Because I knew you
      I have been changed
      For good.

      -For Good from Wicked (Broadway 2003 version~)

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring an image of a wrapped giftbox with a snowflake on the gift tag. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #9

Jan. 22nd, 2026 06:40 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 17th

❄ Challenge #9 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Favorite Trope(s)


Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works.

    So. My absolutely hands-down favorite is the one I wrote up last year that I called "Where You Go, I Go." Also known as loyalty kink, lol. I wanted to do something a bit different this year, and I immediately came up with one I absolutely love.

    Mutual Pining

    I just adore it when two idiots just fuckin' love each other so much and for whatever reason they aren't or can't be together. But oh how they want to be. They're drawn together. There's that little buzz beneath their skin when they are in the room with one another, a hyperawareness that lights them both up from the inside.

    The stories that use mutual pining all seem to be about finding one another, or overcoming whatever is keeping the two apart. It's very different, I think, that the basic meetcute to falling in love to getting together type of romance arc. They don't have to fall in love, they're already in love, which changes the dynamic (and also, not gonna lie, leaves a LOT open for the many shades of 'where you go, I go.' Ahem.) so that the getting together is much more about choice and revelation. It's a shift in a previous relationship to a new relationship, rather than starting right out with the characters as romantic interests.

    I think part of why I enjoy it is that when they're pining, they already know so much about each other. You get the illustration of all the ways these characters fit together, on the page, to the point where it's clear why romance. One character will do something and the other will react, and you get to roll around in the yearning and the affection, and a good writer really will pull out all the stops and make you feel it in your chest. So delicious. Contrasting this to most romances, where the 'falling in love' plots do not often sufficiently explain themselves to my aromantic satisfaction (lol).

    Another facet is that there is that unique element of something new and exciting that you and this person who you've gotten to know and already like outside of a romantic context get to do together. It's like coming home, in my mind, which always reminds me of my favorite lines from a fic: "He loves like something you live in." The romance is an edifice that has stood before and will stand after. There's no falling in love or falling out of love. It just exists, waiting to be inhabited.

    I've been contemplating, though, that I don't...honestly think I've read/watch/etc. any really good books/tv/movies with this kind of mutual pining? At least not that I recall. Though this is something I've only started to recognize specifically as something I enjoy in the past decade or so. I mean, there's the 'will-they-won't-they' suff, but that's really not the same thing, imho. So...heck yeah, if anyone has any recs for mutual pining out in the wild of original fiction? I'd love to read it. And, of course, as always, hit me up with any fic whatsoever. I do have endless MDZS Wangxian fics that hit the spot, and I have been nibbling my way through Codywan stuff, I just love this trope so much.

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring an image of a wrapped giftbox with a snowflake on the gift tag. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #8

Jan. 22nd, 2026 06:10 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 15th

❄ Challenge #8 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Creative Process


Talk about your creative process. :)

    There are a handful of ways I can approach this, so I'll just...do a little thing for each type of process my brain immediately called up.

  • Idea Process:
      Idea ⇨ Build Something ⇨ Tinker until all the pieces are moving.

      I always start with a seed idea, where I get really excited about one small concept. Like everyone has a representation of their magic that orbits their head or parkour dragons or what if the magic system is backed by an eldritch entity. Whatever it is, that's what I wrap my idea around. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get anything functional out of an idea. (One of my notes just says chintacles. Where was I going with this? No clue.) I'll write stub first chapters, sketch an outline, or run through a scene from later in the book in my head, just to kick the tires a bit and see if the whole thing falls apart. Not everything is viable, lol, even if it's awesome.

      I write with an eye towards the mechanics of a story, because I'm a tinkerer-type. I build something and then I spend almost as much time editing as I did writing, because I very much tinker with whatever it is. I will start with a foundation of a story or world and try to make sure that all the pieces move and function properly within the whole. And I really do consider a story to be something that NEEDs moving pieces along a timeline. I do a lot of testing and trying and revising and doing something new with new ideas.

  • Drafting process:
      Write Draft Zero ⇨ Make Human Readable ⇨ Get Feedback ⇨ Edit/Redraft ⇨ Go.

      So my drafting process is much more concrete. I go in waves. While I'm writing draft zero, I do little revolutions where I'll read a bit from the last session and then keep going, so I'm always editing a bit as I go. that said, draft zero should never see the light of day. I pretty much must have at least one pass after that (preferably with some time between writing and editing) to make the dang thing human-readable. I am very prone to word salad, or writing chunks where I'm the only person who could possibly know what I was trying to say, and I can only catch those if I've stepped back and I'm approaching my work as a reader/editor.

      After that, I toss it to the wolves to be savaged. I do this so I can't try and 'get away' with stuff that I know needs to be fixed, lol. My brain does this weird 'it's good enough, right?' even when I know there's issues. Feedback helps push me into trusting my gut and ripping out and replacing whatever needs it. Then I will do the actual edit, sometimes taking out huge chunks and redrafting, when the issue is on the structural level. I...am much less precious about my work than I used to be, lol. Into the bin it goes, if it's not working.

  • Overall, though, honestly? My creative process represents a safe place to dump my extra brain cycles, rather than get anxious about things for no reason. When I have a project or two, I always am just like...calmer? Chiller? Happier? Even if my brain is just meandering through something I will never write, it's still an enjoyable thing for me to have my brain doing.

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #7

Jan. 14th, 2026 02:16 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 13th

❄ Challenge #7 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Self-Positivity


LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

    Hrm. This is...definitely a challenge! Three things is more than enough, lol.

  • I like that I can get lost in an activity, like reading a book, or doing some kind of craft, or programming something, or writing a story. I enjoy that I can look up howevermany hours later and go 'where did the day go?' I think that's fun, and I like being able to focus like that, just on what comes next, just on what fits next. To have an uncomplicated joy of something.

  • I like that I can be a safety bubble. For conversations or in social settings, etc. I like that people feel safe around me and that I can give them confidence or reassurance just by being around and doin' my thing. I like being able to put people at ease.

  • I like that I can pack a mean stage manager's kit! Well, my kit is my purse, backpack, luggage, or whatever, but it's the idea that, in this very limited amount of space, I can put in a ridiculous amount of contingency planning for inconveniences. To the point where I have something in there for most tiny eventualities. There is an especial small joy in having something *weird* in my bag that is precisely what I need just now for this random circumstance. I like that it's something I do kind of by automatic at this point, but that it's also skill that I've learned to do well with over time. :) :)

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintry forest the text snowflake challenge January 1 - 31 in white cursive text
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #6

Jan. 11th, 2026 11:32 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 11th

❄ Challenge #6 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Top Ten


The category(ies) you choose are up to you. You can give top 10 Fics you read last year, the top 10 songs to create to, the to 10 guest stars on your favorite show, top 10 characters in your favorite book series, top 10... well, you get the idea.

    Welcome to my Top Ten Songs I'd Like to Share With You Today (in no particular order):

    These first two are a pair of Glitch Hop songs, which is...a bit like electroswing but with glitch and dubstep. These two songs in particular are thematic to the Cyberpunk Mafia movie script I've been developing idly whenever it distracts me.

  1. Illectrix - Vintage Funk.
  2. Howla & WBBL - Viper.

    I listened to 'lovesucker' on repeat far too many times last year, but like...??? Apparently there is a whole genre of 'my girlfriend is a literal monster and I am SO into that.' It's like a toxic relationship but she's literally going to eat him? I have no idea, but they're all a lot of fun.

  3. Haiden Henderson - lovesucker.
  4. Arrows in Action - Cheekbones.

    So I have three Jason Todd playlists (lol) and the first and second are (mostly) complete. The first playlist is the arc of the epic 'Jason Returns' fic that I am not actually going to write and White Knight was so perfect for the characterization I was going to explore. Then, I needed a song that was the turning point between the Revenge Plot and what comes after and Kairos was the perfect song for that. :) :) :)

  5. Henri Werner - White Knight.
  6. The Eden Project - Kairos.

    These two are from my 'Best Plinky Sounds' playlist, which is just a collection of piano-featuring music that I find particularly compelling.

  7. Jordan Critz - Starry Night
  8. Tony Ann - Icarus

    Last but not least: Saturn and Highway Five are both favorite songs because they always makes me cry a little. I will try and sing them (especially Highway Five) and just choke up.

  9. Sleeping at Last - Saturn
  10. Marian Call - Highway Five

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintry forest the text snowflake challenge January 1 - 31 in white cursive text
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #5

Jan. 10th, 2026 06:20 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 9th

❄ Challenge #5 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Wishlist!


In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts.

  • So, I'm doing the little challenge for myself of attempting to read a book a week. Who knows if I will actually manage this, but I think I read maybe four or five books last year and three of them were in the same series, so literally anything will be an improvement on that, lol. To that end: scifi and fantasy book recommendations. Please rec to me your favorite books of the last...five years or so? I enjoy found family and books where the author clearly loves all the characters but that doesn't mean the characters can stand to be in the same room as one another. I also would love any recs for novels translated into English that you found particularly compelling. (Also preferably scifi/fantasy. :)) I developed a fondness for translated-from-Chinese ones, but I haven't poked around anything recently.

  • Hi! Yes! Please rec me fanfiction. I will read any length, and my primary reading fandoms are: Star Wars, SVSSS, BBC Merlin, MDZS, Batfam, Teen Wolf, Stargate, Leverage, The Sentinel, ATLA, Murderbot, Witcher, Game of Thrones, and Fandom-inspired Original Works. I love outsider PoV and Original Characters, and longfic that is...internally consistent enough that I don't necessarily need to know canon. I adore fusions and crossovers and crack treated seriously. (May I direct your attention to my favorite Yuri on Ice+FMA fusion, seated alongside my beloved Dresden Files+Welcome to Nightvale Time Travel Epic.) Also, if you have any time travel fics, I would adore them. I have eaten through a huge chunk of the Star Wars and MDZS ones but I keep finding more and I love them immensely. I will at least attempt a canon I am canonblind for.

  • I would love it if you dropped me your Ao3 or other fic site so I can poke around and maybe chat about your fanfiction that you're writing? Mine is [archiveofourown.org profile] desiderii as an example of what I write/enjoy, though since I mostly write longfic and everything that's up is old and getting older, I'm not asking for comments (lol). Just. Share with me what you do! If you write fic, what's your current fandom and what's your favorite fandom you've written for?

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Snowflake Challenge #4

Jan. 7th, 2026 06:30 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 7th

❄ Challenge #4 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Rec the Contents of Your Last Page


Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

    Let's be real, I mostly read all the fic. So let's see what my most recent page (or two) of my ao3 account has for us, shall we? I decided to pick one from each fandom rather than just do like ten of SVSSS, because that one has been particularly tasty this past week. That and I went on a bender of going down the Steve/Eddie tag for Stranger Things because I had a hankering.

    In no particular order:

    • Towards the Sun (138594 words) by MuffinLance. ATLA, Gen, part one of...who knows how many parts, but MuffinLance just completed this. Zuko was tossed in a hole after trying to kill Ozai and never joined the Gaang So...what happens after Aang defeats Ozai later and they drag Zuko out and prop him on the throne? This is interesting in a 'we love all these characters but they're not all going to align' sort of way. Zuko- and Azula-centric. Has some of the best chaotic situations. Shit goes down, and then just keeps going, holy shit.

    • Purchase Price (3549 words) by IHopedTheredBeStars. Murderbot, Gen, with the summary: "In a gambling club on a corporate station, a ComfortUnit's life takes a sharp turn." The central character is the OC ComfortUnit, so it's a delicious outsider PoV on Muderbot's nonsense. Charming.

    • the scorpion to the frog (66652 words) by zade Stranger Things, but Season 4. Steve/Eddie, where Eddie is a Vampire. This has a really fun dynamic and a lot of excellent tension and ambiguity, plus a cool Labyrinth take.

    • The Sneeze (7304 words) by Killbothtwins BBC Merlin, Gen. A very silly fic where Merlin accidentally does magic in front of Arthur and convinces him that he didn't know he had it in the first place. So Arthur and the Knights all try to help him out. Just. Charming and delightful and I always love the knights.

    • nearest to being alive (2200 words) by Jedi Buttercup Twisters (2024), OT3 Kate/Javi/Tyler. A little nibble for Yuletide, something of an epilogue for the show. I came out of the movie convinced they were a triad, so it was fun to see a little bit of how they might fit together.

    • Tarnished Gold (118837 words) by Prim_the_Amazing. SVSSS, OG Binghe/Shen Yuan(as Gongyi Xiao). Basically it's PIDW Binghe hits Huan Hua Palace while fully on his bullshit but instead of the canon characters, he gets Shen Yuan instead. :) :) So. This one was super good, with some fantastic emotion, and it's just... Binghe hits the cognitive dissonance of Shen Yuan not following the script Binghe built up in his head and it's just so tasty. I hit the end of this and it went immediately on my reread list.

    • For Me It Was Tuesday (17988 words) by BrilliantLady SVSSS, OG Binghe/Shen Yuan(Fox Demon). Basically just...a what if different transmigration for Shen Yuan. Very fun with a lot of excellent dialogue and tension and excitement. I know I said only one per fandom but I don't think I can really convey how much SVSSS I've read in the past week or so, lol.

    So!! There you have it! A lot of very good fic from the past week. Please enjoy.

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintry forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Snowflake Challenge #3

Jan. 6th, 2026 02:29 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 5th

❄ Challenge #3 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Love Letter to Fandom


Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.

    Dear Fandom,

    You've given me far more joy over the years than I had ever truly expected when I first found you. I've met so many people, and made fast friends with people I never would have met. At least two of my best friends I can point to and say 'fandom brought us together.'

    You've also given me the space and time and encouragement to create in a way that I didn't even know there was space for before I met you. Writing things for myself is just so wildly different from being able to write for people who love the thing just as much as I do.

    And I love how much room there is within you for all sorts of people with all sorts of interests. I cannot create what I create without the people who've dedicatedly created transcripts of all of the shows that I love or have compiled extensive wikis about who is who and who does what and what chapter something occurred in. Being able to enjoy the magnificent art of others, to see all the little nuances of character highlighted in ways that I would never have understood before...

    I honestly think you've made me better at understanding...most things, tbh. One of my favorite things is digging into meta, because analysis is one of my favorite hobbies, and I adore how many different points of view there are that can be explored through even the same piece of media. I have gotten more adept at doing the same by learning from everyone who has gone before me, and my worldview has expanded innumerable times. It's made me *better* in a more general sense, too, in a whole bunch of very small but very important ways.

    You've also helped me figure out myself. In big, massive ways and in small ways, I've seen myself reflected in fanworks and known myself is ways that ease my day and bring me comfort.

    Just...

    It's something precious to be protected, this sharing of joy. I have knowledge of many second-hand fandoms because listening to someone enthuse about their passions gives me such a sense of peace and pleasure. Every small spark of fandom excitement I encounter ignites a small spark within me as well, and brings light to my days. It's a community I cherish, and I'm glad to be a part of it.

    <3 Desi

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintry forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Snowflake Challenge #2

Jan. 3rd, 2026 03:14 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 3rd

❄ Challenge #2 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Pets of Fandom


Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!

    Very briefly: I lost my thirteen year old cat this past December to bladder cancer. She was the best cat, honestly, and I'm probably not going to have another for a long time. I miss her immensely, but I'm glad she was my cat. :) :)

    Please admire her:
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
    Writing and fandom-wise, though, I don't add a lot of pets into things. I'm prone to adding dragons, which is a whole different ballgame, ahha. I do have one eldritch pet in my novel that I'm (still) working on, Styx. She's a void-puppy and a good girl, but also a nth-dimensional extraplanar entity whose true form is a cloud of nebulous static that is inimical to life on earth. She likes laying in the sun and playing fetch with those tennis ball launcher stick things. For a dog-shaped hole punched out of the fabric of reality, her fur is really soft. I've been templating her off of black-coated German Shepherds.

    I hope everyone has a lovely day. :)

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintry forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Snowflake Challenge #1

Jan. 2nd, 2026 06:13 pm
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge — January 1st

❄ Challenge #1 on [community profile] snowflake_challenge.

Icebreaker Challenge: Introductions!


Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge and what you hope to gain from it.

    Happy New Year! It is I, Axael! A.k.a. Desiderii everywhere else on the internet except for dreamwidth, lol. I'm in my early 40s, and I only discovered fandom as the internet knows it a decade or so ago, though I've been poking around fandom in offline and non-mainstream in many different forms since I was bitty. I did a write-up last year that went in depth into where I cam from, fandom-wise. The only place I am currently online at the moment is here on dreamwidth and on ao3 as [archiveofourown.org profile] desiderii.

    Offline, I've started a bunch of new knitting projects and I'm resolved to read a book a week this year that's not fanfiction, just so I don't only read fanfic for another year in a row. Cozy cooperative games with friends has also been something that I've been enjoying, namely Stardew Valley and Voyagers of Nera. I'm also, unfortunately, having to adjust to no longer having a cat at my side, as mine passed just in December.

    As for why the challenge? Well, mostly I enjoyed it so much last year. :) It's something nice to kick off the year with, even if I can only manage half the challenges. Also, I am hoping to poke around more fandom on dreamwidth to see what can be seen in a way that I just wasn't up for last year. I've stopped looping back around to tumblr whenever I needed those dopamine micro-hits, but I do miss fandom people-interactions. I definitely don't want to go back to passively scrolling, though. So! Interaction! Older-style fandom! Saying hello!

    So: hello! :) :)

❄❄ Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost ❄❄
❄
two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintry forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Snowflake Challenge 2026 Masterpost

Dec. 28th, 2025 11:14 am
axael: Close up of half of an ice crystal snowflake (Snowflake Challenge)




Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

2026, wow! o_O I've decided to do the [community profile] snowflake_challenge again for January. :) I enjoyed it so much last year, even though I think I posted a grand total of six of the fifteen-or-so prompts. It was delight and brightened my winter immensely. So here we go again. :)


Snowflake Challenge: A close up shot of an owl ornament hanging amidst pine boughs..
Snowflake Challenge: Three men wearing santa hats standing on the beach at sunset
Snowflake Challenge: A mug of coffee or hot chocolate with a snowflake shaped gingerbread cookie perched on the rim sits nestled amidst a softly bunched blanket. A few dried orange slices sit next to it.
Snowflake Challenge: A pair of ice skates hanging on a wood paneled wall. Pine boughs with a few ornaments are stuffed into the skates.
Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.
A gold snowflake ornament is nestled amidst pine boughs

  • Current Mood: Image cheerful
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

7 Days, 7 Stories — Day 6 & 7

May. 2nd, 2025 05:53 pm
axael: (Ducks in a Row)

7 Days, 7 Stories: Day 6 & 7 — April 26th and 27th

🕮 Day #7 on [community profile] getyourwordsout.

My three-beat outline turned into four and a half thousand words of short story, of which I wrote over the course of two days. Since I was breaking the rules anyways, I decided to go ahead and edit it a little, too. Please enjoy!

( Read more... )
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

7 Days, 7 Stories — Day 3

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:48 pm
axael: A guitarist holding their guitar to catch the lightning (Defy the Sky)

7 Days, 7 Stories: Day 3 — April 23rd

🕮 Day #3 on [community profile] getyourwordsout.

Please enjoy!

In Choosing

The trick is

To survive the gauntlet thrown by my own choices
One step at a time: left, right, wrong, right
And time marches on, they say
Inexorable, challenged or unchallenged
Through an ordeal shaped by consequence.

The trick is

To bear choice’s weight as it grows evermore heavy
Each cause an effect: right, wrong, neither, both
And time will tell, they say
Inexorable, repercussive and compounding
Consequences mass, heedless of virtue’s standards.

The trick is

To choose the manner of my own scarification
As is my right or my wrong: what blood to spill?
And time heals all wounds, they say
Inexorable, regardless of whose skin was rent
Each consequence borne on knit flesh, indelible.


Well! This is definitely a poem! Of some sort! I have been contemplating this topic a lot recently, because I've had to make a series of medical decisions for my cat. And I broke through some of my perfectionism, because of it, in learning how to make them. So. Good and bad. LOTS of big feelings, lol. I apparently can't write poetry unless I feel very strongly about something, or have phrase floating around in my head like a seapolished stone.

Return to: Axael's 7 Days, 7 Stories Masterpost
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

7 Days, 7 Stories — Day 2

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:44 pm
axael: (Batman)

7 Days, 7 Stories: Day 2 — April 22nd

🕮 Day #2 on [community profile] getyourwordsout.

3 Sentence Batfic: Hallucination

When Nightwing tried to grasp his shoulder and his hand went straight through, Jason wanted to chalk the incident up as a wish-fulfilling dream. Unfortunately, said incident had been both public and appropriately bat-dramatic, and four separate Red Hood goons reported it to him via text message before he’d even woken up for the day. Astral travel to assholes he had mixed feelings about was an easy diagnosis—though one without an obvious cure, since he’d loosened his own damn soul by accident in destroying that artifact two weeks ago.

I've always been enamored with the hallucination trope, and have been wanting to write my own version of it. This challenge gave me an excuse to write a deliberately abbreviated version!

Though...does this count as a fic? It feels a bit like a summary for the fic I wanna write. However, it's three sentences and has enough crunch that if I ever decide to make this into a proper fic, I have all the elements I need. :)

Return to: Axael's 7 Days, 7 Stories Masterpost
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

7 Days, 7 Stories — Day 1

Apr. 19th, 2025 06:01 pm
axael: Chell offers cake to GlaDOS (Cake for GlaDOS)

7 Days, 7 Stories: Day 1 — April 21st

🕮 Day #1 on [community profile] getyourwordsout.

Please enjoy this short story about a lost alien. :)
( Read more... )
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Music Rec of the Day: Super Villain

Apr. 19th, 2025 11:37 am
axael: A guitarist holding their guitar to catch the lightning (Defy the Sky)

Music Rec of the Day

April 19th, 2025

    Super Villain (ft. Kendyle Paige) by Stileto & Silent Child
This one keeps getting stuck in my head this month, and it's the headliner on one of my character playlists that I'm building up. It's so catchy. Also it's representative of a whole genre of playlists on youtube? I have well over 40 compilations that are villain-themed and I keep finding and collecting more. There's always some overlap, and there are a handful that kind of define the playlists as a whole. This is one of them. :) Please enjoy!
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

7 Days, 7 Stories Masterpost

Apr. 17th, 2025 04:51 pm
axael: A cat contemplating a flaming typewriter (Lackadaisy Editor)




7 Days, 7 Stories


I've been missing the unhinged creativity of having zero story, only vibes, so I was thinking I'd do some fun little warm-up type noodly short story sketches over the course of a week, for the Get Your Words Out challenge for April. (The challenge post is over here.)

Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Music Rec of the Day: Begin Again

Feb. 1st, 2025 12:03 pm
axael: A guitarist holding their guitar to catch the lightning (Defy the Sky)

Music Rec of the Day

February 1st, 2025

    Begin Again by Purity Ring
I have always loved posting music recs, and I've done *many* of them over on plurk. However, I have done none of them over here on dw! So that means I can rec all my music all over again, starting with Begin Again. I associate this song with Wangxian, and I was very gently obsessed with this song for...a not insignificant amount of 2020. This is actually the foundation-song to my MDZS in SPACE!!! fic that I am not actually going to write, beyond little vignettes to play with the worldbuilding I came up with. I had written the first chapter before I realized that it would be a *monster* fic, and that I didn't actually know how to end it. Alas.
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry
Page generated Feb. 23rd, 2026 05:24 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios