First, thank you so much for writing me fic! Yuletide is always one of my favorite times of the year, and I think this year is going to be amazing.
General likes/dislikes:
Basically, I love all types of fic: character-focused, long and plotty, PWP, gen, het, slash, angst, fluff, anything you want to write. I love things focused on the characters, how a character would react to an unexpected situation. No character bashing.
For romance, I love pining, cluelessness, good drawn-out romance, and watching characters get hit by the clue-bus. I'll read any rating you want, from the most gen to the most hardcore, so go nuts.
I'm pretty open to kinks so long as it's written well and doesn't involve bodily fluids. But please no Alpha/Beta/Omega-verse, knotting or dub-con/non-con. I like my characters to want to be involved.
And if you kill someone please warn me, though I'd prefer everyone to live.
I've been stuck now so long, we just got the start wrong. One more last try, I'ma get the ending right.
Fandom: Merlin Pairing Merlin/Arthur Music: You Haven't Had Enough, Marianas Trench Vidder:hllangel Notes: While I was working on this, I dubbed it "Creeper!Merlin" in my head. I hope the story comes through the way I want it to. I've never done so much work with color in one vid in my life, but I like the result, and I hope it fits the story.
This was my original assignment, and I was thrilled with the matchup. I fell in love with Bomb Girls last spring, and have now dragged my girlfriend into this teeny tiny little fandom and show. If you haven't watched it, you should. S2 is about to start and I couldn't be more excited. This fic picks up where s1 ends, and attempts to bring Kate back to where she belongs, and attempts to give some insight into the relationship between Betty and Gladys, which is fast becoming the bedrock of the show, for all that they butted heads at first. Thank you eumelia for the beta on this one, even though I ran out of time to incorporate some of your excellent suggestions.
2. The Ultimate Cash Crop for jazzypom, Nextwave (comics), Gen, in which poinsettias are surprisingly similar to broccoli.
I was literally about halfway through my first reading of Nextwave after repeatedly seeing Flatbear recommend it and finding most of it in the dollar bin at my LCS. I hadn't finished writing my original assignment yet, but when this pinch hit came up I had to claim it because NEXTWAVE is utterly brilliant. The style here is unlike anything I've written (trying to imitate Warren Ellis will do that to a girl), but I'm really pleased with the results, and I'm very glad that Jazzypom was as well.
This was inherently a selfish gift, because the idea for this one had been rattling around in the back of my head since a night this summer when I couldn't sleep and laid in bed writing notes on my phone until I did eventually fall asleep. Tangerine gave me the perfect excuse to finally put the nail in the coffin of my childhood and write this. Again, I am really pleased with the results, and I'm surprised that this didn't happen sooner - through the wonders of google I was able to track down one other DQMW slash fic (Sully/Jake, what even?), but if this show had been even a few years later, this pairing would probably be pretty overwhelming. I am overall happy that this went over as well as it did.
Though I got to read my own fic right away, I've finally gotten some downtime to start reading through the Yuletide archive, and here are some of the wonderful things I've found (starting with my own gift):
The last good kiss you had (was years ago) by Anonymous for ME! Fandom: Political Animals Characters/Pairings: TJ/Douggie; TJ Hammond, Douggie Hammond, Elaine Barrish, Margaret Barrish. Rating: Teen and Up Warnings: Incest/Twincest Summary: TJ's fifteen and a hundred thousand people have just found out he's gay.
I asked for TJ feels and TJ backstory, and wow did this deliver. We get a glimpse into the total orchestration of TJ's coming out, which is controlled but not exactly voluntary. We get to see the way it changes his life, and how much he treasures small things, like the perfect summer that he and Douggie reminisce about in ep 6. Wonderfully done, Anon. I love it.
Changed by Anonymous Fandom: Iron Man: Armored Adventures Characters/Pairings: Arthur Parks & Tony Stark, guest appearances by Howard, Natasha and Clint Rating: General Summary: Arthur Parks has gone into hidinng, but he can't forget about the one person who had reached out to him when he needed it. And then he needs help again...
I have a total weakness for this series, where Tony is tiny and likes to adopt all the supervillains. This is a great look at how Tony's penchant for adopting supervillains affects one of them - namely Arthur Parks, the living laser. Very well done.
How to Teach Your Human by Anonymous Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon Characters/Pairings: Toothless, Hiccup Rating: Gen Summary: Dragons are matriarchal. Toothless has someone he wants Hiccup to meet. It goes about like you might expect.
Toothless more or less kidnaps Hiccup and takes him home to meet his mother. Written from Toothless' perspective, and we see how well Toothless (doesn't) understand Hiccup, except for a few words. There's fantastic miscommunication, and a nice glimpse into dragon "society". Totally adorable and well written.
Constant by Anonymous Fandom: Avengers RPF Characters/Pairings: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, cameos and mentions of the rest of the cast. Rating: Gen SummaryScarlett and Chris have a history. It's just not the history most people expect.
This is a cute window into a longtime friendship between Chris and Scarlett. We see them with amazing chemistry on screen, so now we can imagine the type of friends that they are off of it.
There's Kinks in This Yarn, but It Still Knits Up Fine by Anonymous Fandom: Knitting (anthropomorphic) Rating: Mature Summary: The diary of a circular needle who just cannot STAND the thought of knitting another *(@#ing scarf. Luckily, KnitLife.com exists.
This is exactly what the summary says. Total crack, utterly hilarious, and worth a read if you've ever picked up a pair of needles and some yarn.
One of the best things about Yuletide are the gems that come out of the Yuletide-only fandoms. Fic like this is a perfect example. The author has built a world where Tags are "people" with relationships and cliques and customs of their own, fics are drinks, and not everyone gets along. Like the knitting fic, it's total crack, and well worth the read.
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This entry was originally posted at dreamwidth. Please comment wherever you see fit.
Title: Not Myself Today Author:hllangel Artist: everythingshiny Word Count: ~35,000 Rating: NC-17 Characters/Pairings: Steve(f)/OMC, Steve/Danny, Kono, Chin Notes: Written for the hawaii_bigbang Round 2. Thanks so much to donutsweeper. Without her, this fic would never have been finished. I started it over a year ago in a "challenge accepted" way, and it quickly spiraled out of control. At one point I thought it might be 12,000 words, tops. Thanks also to everyone who encouraged me though the year it took to finish. This would have stayed a WIP in googledocs forever, otherwise.
Warnings: Genderfuck, internalized homophobia
Summary: Steve has a lot of issues and the Universe has a perverse sense of humor. So does Kono for that matter. When Steve wakes up with the wrong body, he has to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. Kono's known all along.
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Nothing’s broken, nothing hurts, but his body doesn’t feel like it’s his anymore and he’s not sure what the hell is going on with his voice."
I've been thinking about the end scene of Lekio (2.18) a lot since Monday night.
For the most part, I try not to dig into meta about Hawaii Five-0, because to be honest, I don't feel that there's all that much under the surface, and I know that when I do start digging into issues regarding women/race/sexuality, I tend to get angry. There are some massive problems with the show, and I like this one to stay bright and shiny so I can enjoy my Gay Hawaiian Cops.
Well, it actually happened a few weeks ago, but I only found out about it yesterday.
I knew her several years ago, when I was just out of college, tutoring failing kids at my old high school and trying to figure out what to do with my life. She was a high school student, on the outskirts of the main cliques, and always in the library (where my tutoring program was based). Once I left that job and moved to Dallas, then back to San Diego for law school, we drifted apart, but we were still friends on Facebook, and talked occasionally. Once upon a time she was the sender of a very badly-timed text message. Yes, that kind of bad-timing, but my then-girlfriend and I made up for it the next morning.
When I knew her, she identified as male and bisexual, and was struggling to figure out how to tell her fairly conservative parents that she was bi. She started her transition once we fell out of touch, and I never really knew her. From the information I'd found out over the last few years, she was optimistic about the future, accepted in her transition, and working on LGBT education for everyone around her. She was a member of her school's very well known marching band, and a big fan of Doctor Who. (I gladly take some responsibility for that one.)
When I first saw the news, it was via a mutual friend posting that she'd gone to the memorial service over the weekend. There was no mention of how she died, or when, just that there was a memorial service.
My first thought was, "please let it not be suicide."
It wasn't.
She was hit by a car on her way home one night.
This doesn't make her death any less tragic, but it makes me hate the world we live in, where the first thought is that she is yet another victim of societal bullying of LGBT individuals, youth or not.
I hate that it's a relief that she didn't kill herself.
It shouldn't be a relief that she was hit by a car at age 19.
Her death is a tragedy, personally, and for our society at large. When is this going to stop? This bullying of the LGBT community, this fear for our youth? There's more visibility, more acceptance, but we keep hearing horrific stories about how far the bigots will go in the name of "christianity" and "religious tolerance" and "family values" which anyone using the term clearly doesn't have.
I am angry, and I am horrified.
Most of all, I am sad.
Rest in peace, my friend. I, and the world, will miss you.
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This entry was originally posted at dreamwidth. Please comment wherever you see fit.