Beware: The Chibis Have Taken Control!

I do most of my fandom blogging and fic posting over on tumblr these days, so feel free to come find me there. I do still post personal things and fic exchange related things over here, though, so if you'd like to friend me here, that's fine, too. ^_^

Pfft. Suddenly this wasn't at the top of the page and I couldn't figure out why. Just realized it was post-dated to 12/4/21... and we're now a month past that. XD WOW. To think that was once a day so far in the future it might as well be forever. *shakes head fondly*

ETA (4/16/2022): It just occurred to me that it might be helpful to add this somewhere. This year, I finally changed my DW and LJ usernames to match the rest of my social media usernames. This WAS the blog known as 'rchan' for anyone who is now confused. ^_^

Dear Yuletide Author,

I squeaked my sign-up in last minute, so I haven't had a chance to write my letter yet. My plan is to get it done this weekend (by 10/26). In the meantime, you're welcome to peruse my letter tag, if you like. For canons I've requested before, I will probably request similar things, and for the front matter of the letter, anything through the DNWs will most likely be the same.

Thank you for your patience!
a grateful recip

( Previous ETAs )

ETA (10/31, 11:21 PM EDT): AUTHOR, IT'S DONE. THE LETTER IS FINISHED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE! \o/

First and foremost, I'd like to offer up a huge "Thank You!!" to you for writing a story for me. I know how difficult it can be to put any part of your creative process into the hands of another individual, so I will do my best to treat that trust with the care and respect it deserves. ^_^

And for the record, gifting is turned on and treats are welcome. ^_^

AO3: eirenical (chibi1723)
tumblr: eirenical

Notes on rating, kink and general likes and dislikes (DNWs):

( Rating and kink )

( Likes )

( DNWs (do not wants )

Specific Requests:

1. All Seeing Eye - Rob Thurman -- Jackson Lee Eye, Hector Allgood, Tessa "Tess" Lee, Meleah Guerrera (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags)
2. Ephemera Series - Anne Bishop -- Danyal (Ephemera), Lee (Ephemera) (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags
3. Great Cities Series - N. K. Jemisin -- Padmini Prakash | The Avatar of Queens (Great Cities - Jemisin), The Avatar of Atlantis (Great Cities - Jemisin), Manny | The Avatar of Manhattan (Great Cities - Jemisin), The Avatar of New York (Great Cities - Jemisin) (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags; or it may use exceptions I explain in the form)
4. 沉香如屑 | Immortal Samsara (TV) -- Ying Yuan | Tang Zhou, Yu Mo (Immortal Samsara), Yan Dan (Immortal Samsara) (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags; or it may use exceptions I explain in the form)
   
5. 回到过去拥抱你 | Over Again (2019) -- Gao Silin, Zhang Ziyang, Guo Sijia (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags
6. 南风知我意 | South Wind Knows My Mood (TV) -- Fu Yunshen, Ji Silang, Zhu Jiu (South Wind Knows), Fu Xizhou (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags; or it may use exceptions I explain in the form)
7. Thermos Flower Series Commercials -- Zhu Yilong's Character (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags)

You are free to utilize any prompt I toss out there or none of them. If reading what I like about the characters/worlds sparks a fic idea in your head, feel free to ignore the prompts and run with it. ^_^

Also, length of babble in no way indicates my fandom preferences. (i.e., some of these I literally just finished a full re-up of canon before sign-ups so I ended up having a LOT more to say about those canons than some of the others, but it in no way means that I care less about the others. Some are just fresher in my mind.) I promise I'm equally excited about the possibility of all of these requests. ^_^ Some of these are also cribbed from earlier letters, because I just honestly can never get enough of them, so here we are. ^_^

( 1. All Seeing Eye - Rob Thurman ) -- Contains Yuleporn prompts; COMPLETE

( 2. Ephemera Series - Anne Bishop  ) -- COMPLETE

( 3. Great Cities Series - N. K. Jemisin ) -- COMPLETE

( 4. 沉香如屑 | Immortal Samsara (TV) ) -- Includes Yuleporn/Crueltide Prompts, COMPLETE

( 5. 回到过去拥抱你 | Over Again (2019) ) -- Yuleporn prompts included, COMPLETE.

( 6. 南风知我意 | South Wind Knows My Mood (TV) ) -- Yuleporn, and Yuleporn/Crueltide Prompts included. COMPLETE.

( 7. Thermos Flower Series Commercials -- Zhu Yilong's Character ) -- COMPLETE

Holy cow, as usual, that's a really long letter. O_O I just tend to get excited. ^_^ Hopefully you found something at least a little bit helpful in there, somewhere. If you didn't, however, they really were just thoughts and suggestions. So, if any of the details I provided don't work for you, feel free to toss them out the window and write what's most comfortable for you. If you are happy and excited about what you're writing, I'm sure I will love it. Passion comes across and I do not in any way want to dampen yours. ^_^ Go with your gut. The fact that you're writing something for me is plenty enough to have me thrilled and excited and bouncing for joy. ^_^

Happy writing! ^_^
A grateful recipient

Well... looks like I've missed the last two years. Oops? I have done some writing this year; more than some, not as much as others, but a decent amount? I've also written some meta, so I've included that, too.  Maybe I'll get around to doing 2022 and 2023 at some point?

All links go to their respective tumblr posts so you can peruse tags and warnings at your leisure before actually clicking to AO3 to read the fic.

As always, heed the warnings!

Key: ! = Rape/Dub/Noncon elements | $ = Grievous Bodily Harm | M=mature | E=explicit
Date		Title		Fandom	Words
1/10		From the Mud of Adversity		MLCB	2,365
6/2		Full Circle		MLCB	2,684
8/17		Let No One Be Forgotten		DMBJ	4,951
9/1	!M	Things Left Behind		MLCB	1,280
9/7	E	Done Playing Games		MLCB	2,201
9/13	!E	Worship		MLCB	2,453
11/4	E	Like Father, Unlike Son		MLCB	3,168
11/24		Homecoming		TOTW: Walled In	2,052
12/25		A Grief Shared		MLCB	1,301
				Subtotal	22,455
Tumblr Fic
5/3	M	Pingxie shibari fic		DMBJ	565
5/17	M	photoshoot modern au threesome		MLCB	1,038
8/30	M	fake divorced		MLCB	560
11/23		Xiaoge hypothermia		DMBJ	462
				Subtotal	2,625
Tumblr Meta
3/3/24		left on read		MLCB	1,480
				Subtotal	1,480
WiPs
12/23/23	E	storytelling au [snippets]		MLCB	40,213
4/11		LLH birthday fic [snippet]		MLCB	1,565
4/28		lotus fic 2		MLCB	432
11/8		pegging fic [snippet]		MLCB	2,024
				Subtotal	44,234
				Total	70,794

In an effort to distract myself, I thought I'd bring this over here from tumblr.

RULES: Create your own post and list the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask leave you a comment with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it.

I’m reasonably certain I was tagged by @elenothar this time?

This is not an exhaustive list, because guys… guys I have so many WiPs. TT^TT But these are the ones that I might actually pick up and do more work on.

If you’d like to do this, please consider yourself tagged!

DMBJ:

1. Laire fic heiping smut outtake
2. piaopiao fic
3. Time Swap AU
4. Wu Xie behind the Door AU
5. Xiaoge buried in cats fic
6. Composite Events II
7. ___ fic (name removed to preserve anonymity)
8. Jaded 2
9. Dollhouse HeiPing prequel thoughts

Granting You a Dreamlike Life

1. Awards Show Aftermath
2. brothel au thoughts
3. Chapter 3 – The Floating Life
4. Fusheng lives BUT AT WHAT COST
5. LFS Mei Gao Mei fic
6. Nightmare Art
7. Retribution
8. Soul of the City
9. threesome fic

Guardian

1. Amnesia
2. baiyubai inspired fic
3. elenothar birthday fic 2021 (…………..oops? XD)
4. lighthouse keeper fic_cowrite (elenothar)
5. Mirror Mirror
6. Shen Wei college fic 01
7. Shen Wei noncon
8. Thermos Commercial fic thoughts

The Kinge’s Avatar

1. Ye Xiu noncon

Hair the musical

1. AlgeaIII_

Les Miserables

1. Muet14

The Untamed

1. Legacies Found

OK, so this year was the first time I ever defaulted on an exchange assignment. I had life things happening that made writing more difficult than I was expecting, and I realized that the best thing I could do was release my recipient from my own struggles so that they might get the fic of their dreams from someone else. It was a very hard decision, but it was the right one. My recip seemed very happy with their gift and it took a weight off my back that left ME free to take care of other things that I needed to.

I was worried, though, about how I would feel come Yuletide collection reveal morning. And it was... weird. I'll definitely say that. But with the weight of stressing about how my own stories were doing lifted off my back, a funny thing happened. For the first time in YEARS, I had the emotional and mental energy to READ. I read SO MUCH. I read in so many fandoms. I left the kinds of comments for people that I always love to see on my own fic. And I had So. Much. FUN. I even put together an AO3 bookmark collection with all of my favorites that I'd read. (...ngl, I'm pretty sure it was everything. The quality of everything I read was incredibly high. You all ROCK.) But because this is the first time that I've been this excited about the collection itself in so many years, I thought I'd make a proper rec post to go along with my AO3 collection.

---

So, first off, the AO3 bookmark collection: eirenical's yuletide 2022 recs.

I didn't really write anything there, though I may go change that after I write up the list here. And now... on to the list! :D

---

( 20 fic in Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper, Hair (1979), Ocean's 8 (2018) | Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies), Pleasantville (1998), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), Stand By Me (1986) |The Body - Stephen King, Superman Returns (2006), Tarot (Divination Cards), The Tarot Sequence - K.D. Edwards, Thermos 'Magic Cottage' Commercial | L'Oréal 'Time Engraver' Commercials, Velvet Goldmine (1998), Westworld (TV), 怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 | Explore with the Note & The Lost Tomb (TV), 怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 | Explore with the Note & The Lost Tomb (TV) | 盗墓笔记 - 南派三叔 | The Grave Robbers' Chronicles - Xu Lei, 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018), 镇魂 | Guardian - priest, 全职高手 | The King's Avatar (Live Action TV), 盗墓笔记重启 | The Lost Tomb Reboot (TV), 心宅猎人 | Psych-Hunter (TV), and 沙海 | Tomb of the Sea (TV) )

---

AND I MADE IT WITH 2-3 HOURS TO SPARE. :D :D :D

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these, even if they're no longer anonymous by the time you get to them. ^_^

Thanks for listening!

First and foremost, I'd like to offer up a huge "Thank You!!" to you for writing a story for me. I know how difficult it can be to put any part of your creative process into the hands of another individual, so I will do my best to treat that trust with the care and respect it deserves. ^_^

And for the record, gifting is turned on and treats are welcome. ^_^

AO3: eirenical (chibi1723)
tumblr: eirenical

Notes on rating, kink and general likes and dislikes (DNWs):

( Rating and kink )

( Likes )

( DNWs (do not wants )

Specific Requests:

1. 怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 | Explore with the Note & The Lost Tomb (TV) -- Dou Cheng, Zhang Buxun, Xie Yuchen, Zhai Xingyao
2. 盗墓笔记 - 南派三叔 | The Grave Robbers' Chronicles - Xu Lei -- Wu Xie, Zhang Qiling, Wang Meng, Wu Yiqiong
3. 人生大事 | Lighting Up the Stars (2022) -- Mo Sanmei, Wu Xiaowen, Wang Jianren, Yin Baixue
4. 琉璃 | Love and Redemption (TV) -- Qing Long, Teng She, Yu Sifeng, Luohou Jidu
5. 心宅猎人 | Psych-Hunter (TV) -- Jiang Shuo, Qin Yi Heng
6. Thermos Flower Series Commercials -- Zhu Yilong's Character

You are free to utilize any prompt I toss out there or none of them. If reading what I like about the characters/worlds sparks a fic idea in your head, feel free to ignore the prompts and run with it. ^_^

Also, length of babble in no way indicates my fandom preferences. (i.e., some of these I literally just finished a full re-up of canon before sign-ups so I ended up having a LOT more to say about those canons than some of the others, but it in no way means that I care less about the others. Some are just fresher in my mind.) I promise I'm equally excited about the possibility of all of these requests. ^_^ Some of these are also cribbed from earlier letters, because I just honestly can never get enough of them, so here we are. ^_^

( 1. 怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 | Explore with the Note & The Lost Tomb (TV) -- Dou Cheng, Zhang Buxun, Xie Yuchen, Zhai Xingyao )

( 2. 盗墓笔记 - 南派三叔 | The Grave Robbers' Chronicles - Xu Lei – Wu Xie, Zhang Qiling, Wang Meng, Wu Yiqiong  )

( 3. 人生大事 | Lighting Up the Stars (2022) -- Mo Sanmei, Wu Xiaowen, Wang Jianren, Yin Baixue; )

( 4. 琉璃 | Love and Redemption (TV) -- Qing Long, Teng She, Yu Sifeng, Luohou Jidu )

( 5. 心宅猎人 | Psych-Hunter (TV) -- Jiang Shuo, Qin Yi Heng )

( 6. Thermos Flower Series Commercials -- Zhu Yilong's Character )

Holy cow, as usual, that's a really long letter. O_O Sorry about that, I just tend to get excited. ^_^ Hopefully you found something at least a little bit helpful in there, somewhere. If you didn't, however, they really were just thoughts and suggestions. So, if any of the details I provided don't work for you, feel free to toss them out the window and write what's most comfortable for you. If you are happy and excited about what you're writing, I'm sure I will love it. Passion comes across and I do not in any way want to dampen yours. ^_^ Go with your gut. The fact that you're writing something for me is plenty enough to have me thrilled and excited and bouncing for joy. ^_^

Happy writing! ^_^
A grateful recipient

Thought I'd drag this one over from tumblr, because I think I know different people here? ^_^

WiP Game

I was tagged by @onemuseleft, @miss-ingno, and @buriedbybooks to do this one, so I GUESS IT’S TIME. XD

Rules: Post the titles of your current works in progress. If someone sends one of those titles to you, explain the concept or post a snippet!

I think I’m going to stick with WiPs that are actually active, because I have a TON that are kind of… languishing about. OTZ

• (Hurt/Comfort Exchange fic: collection reveal is June 3, so I can’t discuss this one until then. Sorry!)

DMBJ:

• Laire fic heiping smut outtake
• Xiaoge buried in cats fic
• Wu Xie Time Travel Swap fic
• Wu Xie behind the Door AU
• piaopiao fic
• Jaded sequel
• The Adventures of Tiny!Wu Xie
• Snake Venom w/ bb!Xiaoge fic
• 2 noncon fic that are brewing for my Bad Things Happen bingo card but that I haven’t started actually writing yet

Guardian:

• Amnesia
• Thermos Commercial fic thoughts (…ok, not REALLY Guardian, but KIND OF?)
• Mirror Mirror

GYADL:

• Retribution
• Soul of the City
• brothel au thoughts
• Awards Show Aftermath
• Fusheng lives BUT AT WHAT COST
• LFS Mei Gao Mei fic
• threesome fic
• Novel Edited MTL

The Untamed:

• Legacies Found

If I've already answered for one on tumblr, I'll go ahead and link it. ^_^

I really do want to try to start using my DW journal more again. Starting to feel lately like there are things I just... don't want to discuss on tumblr. Or back off from making that publicly accessible, at least.

So, here goes, I guess?

I've had this realization slowly percolating in the back of my mind over the past year or so and this morning it kind of solidified into a working theory. And it's weirding me out just a little because it's a major change in how I interact with media and I'm still not sure what to think about it.

I will own up to the fact that I am a shipper at heart. My gateway drug into a piece of media is almost always a ship. With The Untamed it was Wangxian. With Guardian it was Weilan. With DMBJ it's Pingxie. And once I settle in, I tend to multi-ship, but there's usually one main ship that's my go-to.

But what I've been noticing lately is that I fall out of love with ships, and that's usually my first step to falling out of love with the entire canon. But it's not quite as simple as that? It isn't even that I fall out of love with the actual ship. I fall out of love with the entire idea of shipping within that piece of media.

As near as I can tell, it's some weird intersection of me being aro/ace and my ADHD hyperfixation tendency that's doing it. I will be full bore hyperfixated on a ship for however long that lasts... but then at some point my brain remembers that I'm aro af and I don't REALLY have an interest in romance. And I start to lose interest in the ship that got me into the canon to begin with. And at that point, one of two things happens: either I find a new (usually minor or secondary) ship to hyperfixate on, or I slip totally to the side and hyperfixate on the character I headcanon as aro/ace. Sometimes this happens in a slow slide from one to the other.

In TUD, I hovered in Nielan for a while, then landed on Jiang Cheng. In Guardian, I slipped almost entirely away from the fandom, then circled back to land on Da Qing. And it's just... really interesting to me that this is how my brain is working right now. Because it never used to work that way before. O_o;;;

So, now there's a part of me that is living in constant fear of the fact that I'm going to fall out of love eventually with a ship that is currently consuming me. And I know it will be OK on the other side, because here I am, a little baffled, but otherwise OK... but there's a part of me that still mourns the love I had for those ships and those canons.

And I'm also realizing that I'm almost better off if I CAN'T hyperfixate and hyper-consume fandom stuff for a ship, or if the fandom isn't big enough to produce enough content that I can binge it like that, or if I land on a character, instead of a ship, and can multi-ship from the get-go. Like, in Les Mis (apart from my e/R phase... come on, most of us had one XD) I landed on Courfeyrac (and then Feuilly) fairly quickly, and multi-shipped them pretty much from the get-go. And even though I'm not really producing Les Mis content anymore, I'm JUST as in love with Courfeyrac and Feuilly as I was before.

So, I don't know what any of this means, really. I don't really think it has to mean anything. But I think I may start trying to pay more attention to loving individual characters and less... ships? Because I know THOSE loves will hold past the point where I lose interest in the ship. And that's reassuring. ^_^

Didn't get this done before the end of the year, but on the upside, it means I can include my and exchange fic I wrote that were revealed today. ;D Not my most prolific year, by far, but I do have one very large WiP that's literally two scenes from being done, so that's something? Anyway... enjoy?

Note: all links are to their respective tumblr posts except for "The Way to a Man's Heart," "To Drive the Dark Away," and "Cherished."  These are recently revealed exchange fic, and don't yet have tumblr posts (I've added brief tag summaries to those so you have some idea of what you're getting into before you click).  For all fic with a "!" or "$" tag, PLEASE read the tags and warnings before going on to the fic.  I do not use those warnings frivolously and there IS some "dead dove: do not eat" stuff in there.  Read at your own risk... or pleasure.  ^_~

		Key: ! = Rape/Dub/Noncon elements | $ = Grievous Bodily Harm | M=mature | E=explicit
Date		Title		Fandom	Words
1/23		Soup Is the Highest Expression of Love... but So Is a Venus Hand Trap In the Right Circumstances		Guardian	9,473
1/27		Nothing but Filial		Guardian	1,261
3/28-3/31	!M	Awakening		GYADL	15,018
4/25	$	beyond the end of the story		Guardian	5,988
4/29		A Man Obsessed*		Les Mis	1,349
8/11	E	the stories say more than that		DMBJ/TLT2	8,072
8/22		When Is a Curse Not a Curse? When It Becomes a Gift.		DMBJ/TLTR	16,289
9/5-9/25	!E	Reclamation		GYADL	21,835
12/7		The Way to a Man's Heart (Iron Triangle OT3, fluff fic, food as a metaphor for love, cooking)		DMBJ/TLTR	3,202
12/12	!	sometimes the cure is worse than the disease		DMBJ/TLTR	5,485
12/22		To Drive the Dark Away (E&C&C, C/C, MC2 (d/s undertones, nonsexual subspace), polyamorous!Courfeyrac (no cheating), canon era, holiday traditions and fluff		Les Mis	2,714
12/22	!E	Cherished (Dark!Wu Xie, Pingxie, captive Xiaoge, manipulation, gaslighting, dead dove: do not eat)		DMBJ	2,637
				Subtotal	93,323
Tumblr Fic
N/A		none this year
				Subtotal	0
WiPs
3/22		Nightmare Art		GYADL	2,158
6/8		Time Share fic [snippets]		TLTR	1,058
6/23		Legacies Found (total: 10,133; new since last year: 2,091) [snippets]		The Untamed	2,091
4/10		Mirror, Mirror [snippets]		Guardian	3,477
7/28		Lighthouse Keeper!Shen Wei fic (cowritten with elenothar ) [snippet]		Guardian	3,432
9/25		piaopiao fic		TLTR	353
10/15		behind the door au [snippet]		DMBJ	687
10/17		this jadeite is too big		DMBJ/TLTR	27,932
11/10		Fusheng lives BUT AT WHAT COST [snippet]		GYADL	609
12/7		elenothar birthday fic		Guardian	330
12/10		cure is worse than the disease sequel		DMBJ	276
				Subtotal	42,403
				Total	135,726

OK, I know it’s stupid late to be posting a fic snippet, and it's been a very long time since I've posted fic from this blog, but I need to do something to make myself feel better and tumblr is... let's just say I'm not trusting them to protect my stuff at the moment, so here we are.  Hopefully people will find it?  

This snippet takes place during the last chapters of “Ten Years Later” and will eventually follow the Iron Triangle as they recover from that separation.  Enjoy?  ^_^  (And yes, the below gif is mine; I did not repost it.  I’m just... hopefully temporarily locked out of my main blog. :P)



"What will you do?  When this is all over?"

Pangzi turned his head, catching just a glimpse of the man sitting beside him.  Pangzi didn't need more than that to know that he had his attention.  "Will you go back to the life you knew before? Always chasing the next tomb, the next mystery?"  He bumped their shoulders together.  "Or do you think you'll be ready to try something new?"

"Something new…?"

Pangzi nodded.  "He's going to need time when he comes out. Time to readjust.  To remember what it's like to be human and not… whatever it is that he became…"

"Behind the doors."

A soft sigh.  "Yeah.  We can't expect him to just pick up and go haring off into tombs with us again without missing a beat.  Even he may not bounce back from 10 years of solitary confinement so quickly.  So what will you do?  Leave him somewhere to work it out for himself while you go off having adventures?  Or…"

The barest quirk of lips gave him away long before the words emerged.  "Or try something new."

A quiet laugh followed those words—breathless, almost mirthless—but it cheered Pangzi to hear it just the same. It had been a long time since he'd heard his friend laugh, seen him smile.  The journey up the mountain had taken its toll on all of them, even him.  Pangzi nudged his shoulder again.  "Well?"

A deep breath, only slowly released, and with it, much of the tension in that lithe frame eased.  That tiny quirk of a smile widened, just a hint, just enough.  "Would it be premature to retire at my age?"

( The rest behind a cut so I don't kill anyone's reading page... )