Passing For Normal

The forecast was saying the afternoon would be clear, but we were still expecting some rain in the morning, but while there was some on the drive down, it had stopped by the time we got there.

( Read more... )

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2. If you haven't recently downloaded everything from LJ you might want to back up, you may wish to do so now.

To catch up on the past two days...

After I posted on New Years Eve, it took awhile for RK to pick us up, but he finally did, and we went to Liz G's.

It was me and mashfanficchick, RK, Liz G and Robyn, so only five of us, but it was a nice group. We watched the movie Wake Up Dead Man, the third in the Knives Out movies. I never saw the first two, but it wasn't necessary for this one. It was a lot of fun.

We had lasagna and mozzarella sticks before the movie, I should have said, and chips and onion dip and pigs in blankets.

Anyway after the movie we played Jackbox games on the TV.

Then at 12:00 we counted down and yelled Happy New Year, there was sparkling cider (that's non alcoholic) and of course herring in wine sauce though only [Bad username or unknown identity: :mashfanficchick"] and I had it. I called Middle Brother, and wished him Happy New Year. While we were talking the Kid called me and we talked for awhile.

The FWiB called a little later and we talked. That was nice.

Then we had ice cream sundaes and played more games. Finally RK drove us and Robyn back. We got back at around 2:40.

We stayed up longer just hanging out so I actually could have done my journal, but since I had said I would wait, I did.

Today we slept very late indeed. I woke up at 12:00 something not feeling well, and stayed up for awhile til I felt better, then went back to sleep til 3ish.

I got my coffee and puttered on the computer til mashfanficchick got up. Then we had bagels, the special gluten free ones the Kid made mashfanficchick for Christmas, with lox and cream cheese.

The rest of the day was devoted to a combination of hanging out, making chocolate, and eating. I Teamed the FWiB, for an hour and a half, and I called Middle Brother, who is fine.

Finally around 11:30 I got f=dressed (had been in my pajamas all day) and Ubered home.

And guess what!? THE DOOR IS FIXED! I had to actually use my key fob to get in! Finally after all these months of complaining and calling the city, it's fixed!

So that's my New Year's.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2. Friends.

3. The Kid.

4. Middle Brother.

5. The new mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

6. The lock is fixed!

Snagged from starterpack... If anyone has any other end-of-the-year memes, let me know. I love filling those things out.

End of year fic meme (plus a bonus question)

Fics Posted This Year: 35 (1 is currently hidden at AO3 for fandomtrees) Here's my 2025 tag at harpiewriting Which is actually funny because I turned 35 in 2025.

Total word count: 10,357

Fandoms written in: Charmed Reboot, Doc, MCU, SkyMed, Wednesday, X-Men '97, X-Men Movieverse, X-Men Comics, X-Men: Evolution

Fandoms I wouldn't have expected to write this year: Pretty much all of it since it's been a few years since I've written anything but I would say especially the Charmed Reboot, Doc, SkyMed and Wednesday.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?: Since I haven't written this much fic since 2011 (which was my last "high" year with only 29 works, 2016 only had 9 and I haven't actually written a fic in five years back in 2020), yeah I'd say I'd written more fic than I thought I would.

What's your own favourite story of the year?: I think it's a tie between Alpine (MCU, Bucky/Wanda & Billy & Tommy), Kissed by Flames (X-Men: Evolution, Amara/Jean), and Gloves Off (X-Men: Evolution, Rogue/Scott). Alpine because I love writing domestic fluff for Bucky & Wanda, and it was unexpected (as was how much I fell for the ship, although maybe I shouldn't have been surprised since I do love both characters). Kissed by Flames is because I've been wanting to either write a Amara/Jean fic, or read one since one of the last times I rewatched Evolution so to finally make one was amazing. Gloves Off because one my favorite things about Falling Slowly (my Rogue/Scott fic) was the idea that I had that she and Scott would have solo Danger Room sessions and it felt AMAZING writing Rogue/Scott again for the first time in years.

My best story of this year: I have no idea.... maybe one of the above under favorites?

Most popular story of this year: Believe it or not my Wednesday/Tyler drabble I love you has the most kudos (29), my Doc Amy/Jake drabbles Love Token (14 kudos) & Coffee (13 kudos) have the second and third highest kudos.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: I have no idea, honestly, I wrote a lot of rare pairings this year and most of my stuff is drabbles so it's kinda understandable for people to pass them by. Plus for my MCU & X-Men related stuff, those are huge fandoms, so they probably just got lost in the shuffle of AO3.

Most fun story to write: Definitely a tie between Alpine (MCU, Bucky/Wanda & Billy & Tommy) and Baking Cookies (MCU, Wanda & Billy & Tommy), I think I enjoyed them because it was just mostly domestic fluff & humor.

Sexiest story/story with the single sexiest moment: I wouldn't say sexist story, but it's what I meant for His Lighter (XMM, Pyro/Jean) and also for Blizzards & Christmas (MCU, Betty/Darcy), both just kinda hint of what was to come.

Hardest story to write: I would say Coffee (Doc, Jake/Amy) mainly because I struggled with trying to find a song of Chappell Roan that I could use for the fic challenge, where I needed to write fic inspired by a song and I wanted to do one by her because at the time I was kinda obsessed-ly playing/listening to her album and didn't want to use another artist - I already knew I wanted to try my hand at Amy/Jake so that part was easy. I just took tiny lines out her "Coffee" songs to influence the drabble. Technically Amy drinks some sort of ice coffee type thing but it's actually important clue for her early in the show for their relationship so I'm actually proud of tying the story to the song.

Did you take any writing risks this year?: Uh, no? Other than actually trying & sitting down to write something? Or I guess I wrote several rare pairings (MCU: Darcy/Jessica, Darcy/Betty, Matt/Jessica, Bucky/Wanda, Bucky/Mel, Bucky/Yelena, Bob/John, Kate/Yelena | X-Men: Kitty/Wanda, Emma/Madelyne, Madelyne/Scott, Jean/Wanda, Jean/Pyro, Tabitha/Scott, Ororo/Scott, Scott/Rogue | Doc: Amy/Jake | SkyMed: Hayley/Wheezer). I think technically my Abigael/Mel (Charmed Reboot) wouldn't be considered a rare pairing, since it's in the top five of the Charmed Reboot fandom, but apparently that ship only has less than 200 works on AO3, and that fandom is fucking small geez. Only my Wednesday/Tyler (Wednesday) drabble would probably be the only non-rare pairing I did this year.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?: Write more. Write more than just drabbles hopefully. Complete a few tables at least. I want to try my hand at more rare pairings that I like and hope people like them too. Maybe join a "Big Bang". I also like to work on the stories listed in the next question.

Stories I haven't yet written, but intend to:

I want to write the next part of my first words spoken (can open a heart), my Supergirl (TV series) Kara Danvers/Maxwell Lord Season 1 Soulmates rewrite AU fic series. I keep putting it off and it's apparently already been five years since the last one. I don't know what it is about the next few episodes/back half of Season 1 to write about.

I also want to work on the sequel to Falling Slowly. It's only been 15 years (oh god that makes me weird and utterly sad). I don't what it is about Seasons 3 & 4 of XME that just kinda stops me from writing for it. Same thing seems to be happening with me for my Kara/Maxwell Season 1 Soulmates rewrite AU.

Like I said above, I'd love to work on more rarer pairings in my fandoms but I also want to work in a few fandoms I haven't touched yet (besides reading fics or reblogging gifs on tumblr).

Stories I have started writing, but never finished:

I would love to work on my WIP Hearts and Souls fic (only the cover art was ever posted). I think I might just need Heart and Souls (1993 film) refresh watch and I could probably finish it. I have over 16k words written for it so far.

My Big Wolf on Campus fic "Wolf Pups" which is a Becky/Tommy fic no one asked for but me. It has over 6k words so far and probably about halfway done? Maybe? I don't know, haven't read it in awhile.

I might have a few other WIP fics that are on my computer that I'd like to finish or that I completely forgot about. I think I just always gets stuck at the re-reading & editing stage for those.

Joined the Fannish 50 of goals_on_dw challenge again. Did not quite make it last year, since I only had I believe 30 posts, but hopefully this year will be better - I think I'm starting earlier and I want to keep active on here so I think *fingers crossed* I'll make it this year.

I also signed up for inkingitout (for the first time) for 75,000 words. Am I sure I can reach that amount of words? Um, not really since I'm still rusty, but I technically wrote over 10k words of fics in 2025 without really trying, I figure I can at least try for more. Also they count blog posts which I usually end up rambling in anyway so that should help.

I haven't quite decided if I'll participate in a 2026 Big Bang yet, which would definitely help with the word count challenge. If any, I'd probably lean towards the marvel_bang since I've been writing the most in that fandom, but I'm still undecided not that their 2026 challenge info has dropped so I probably have awhile to figure out if I want to do it or not. I'm also thinking of the next smallfandombang & but again I'm unsure of what fandom to even do or if I'd even feel inspired to do anything.

I did find out that adventdrabbles isn't doing another year which sucks (even if it's completely understandable and I could always go back to previous prompts for inspiration) since I only found out about the community this year (er... I guess last year technically). I am thinking of doing something similar for 40daysofdrabbles (which was originally Lent - if only loosely- inspired anyway) community I started. I don't think it'll take much to post a prompt each day in for only 40 days, since I have mostly succeeded on getting online nearly everyday the past month or so (minus the week I was away) even if it was only for hour or so. Or maybe others will help volunteer for certain days. I don't know. If anyone is interested in this idea let me know and I'll definitely do it.

I am thinking of joining crackthewip - I have several WIPs that has definitely been gathering dust on my computer that I should probably finish & publish. I think I like the lower stakes than the wipbigbang which I was thinking of - plus there's no word minimum which is awesome.




Plus of course I want to work on the tables I've already gathered. I'd at least like to finish a couple of them this year at least.

I'll be honest. I hold out very little hope for this year being better than last year. I did the Meriam Webster's thing on bluesky, you screenshot their gif and whatever word you get sets the tone for your year. I got moribund. Are you fucking kidding me? Why is that even a choice? Is it literally just spitting out every word in the dictionary.

But moribund feels right for the 2020s which if I'm continuing to be honest sucked donkey dong. 2020 - covid 2021- nearly lost my leg and took a year to learn to walk again 2022-23 weren't as horrid 24 - lost my uncle 25 - lost my last uncle. So while I'm hoping moribund is NOT my word of the year, it feels right.

Right about now is when I do my good things jar (okay usually it's next week when I get back to Ohio but I know what's in it) it has three things, presented my sabbatical research (at work and at my conference), got a story into an anthology (i'll give you that info tomorrow) and I went to an all inclusive resort for the first time in Mexico. Pretty slim pickings for good things. Mostly 2025 was me trying to not lose my sanity.

So resolutions? Eh, I don't really make them. I've given my writing goals. In addition to that I'd like to see if I can come up with lunches that don't spike my blood sugar, I'd like to get more active but what I need more than anything, a cleaning schedule for my home because this cannot go on as is.

I'm still thinking about doing snowflake_challenge. I got really sideways with this challenge a couple years ago and lost my taste for it. But a lot of my list is doing it...sigh

But here, let me share some cool things about me and my writing

one of the first of probably several archive things I'll end up doing. Got this one from lucy_roman
from AO3

Total works on archive - 894

Works written in 2025 - 74

Longest fic written in 2025 The Porn Star Murders Hazbin Hotel

Fic with most bookmarks (also most hits and kudos)Hope is The Thing With Feathers The Owl House

Shortest fic - Needs Unmet Helluva Boss


And here are my writing stats. I have no complaints here: Original fic count 38,727
Fanfic count 359, 707 for a writing total of 398, 434. My only complaint is I wanted 50K of original fic. sigh.

Thanks to a few of the things on sholio's post today I have some community recs

candyheartsex a multifandom gift exchange with a low minimum and a focus on relationships, both platonic and romantic/sexual

traumaticexperiences a (psychological) trauma themed multifandom exchange that will be run on Ao3. Matching will be done on fandom, relationship/solo character, and freeform. You must be 18+ to participate and maintain anonymity until creator reveals.

And one I'm actually in is allbingo and I'm hosting, the public domain fest bingo. come join us.



And for anyone still on LJ and haven't backed up your old blog somewhere else the news is looking bleak. I haven't fully read up on it. I do crosspost there for the few friends who haven't joined me here on DW but it looks like Russia isn't playing games with it any more. You can check out more here on bluesky. and a bit more here on DW about the importing.

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

For those unsure what the heck the Snowflake Challenge is, it's a DW event through the month of January where they post a prompt every other day on snowflake_challenge, and you can respond on your journal to whichever ones you want, at your leisure. (If that's unclear or you're curious for more details, feel free to ask me. I was very confused for a long time about how it worked.)

Anyway! Hi, I'm snick. I'm a fandom old who came to fandom via Buffy the Vampire Slayer a bit after the show had ended. My fannish evolution was something like:
1. Got into Buffy fandom, made my first fandom friends, wrote my first fanfic
2. Got into Supernatural, discovered kink memes, wrote my first porn
3. Got into hockey RPF, learned how to write. As mentioned above, I wrote before that, some that I'm still very proud of, but I feel like I really came of age as a writer in hockey fandom.

Since then I've spent time in the MCU, I got more into horror movies and sometimes into their fandoms, and I got into the band Oasis and have written a bunch of fic about that. I also got more and more into multi-fandom exchanges as a way to fill in the gaps (with mixed success) when I kept getting into smaller, less active fandoms.

These days, this journal is mostly for movie and book reviews and locked personal posts, but I do occasionally post unlocked about my writing or fannish events, that kind of thing. Every so often I even post news or meta about my fandoms, although that doesn't feel like what people do here on DW anymore, alas.

And to answer the other question, I'm doing the Snowflake Challenge because I really like seeing more activity on DW. I'm hoping for some prompts this year that will give me excuses to write about fandom stuff I'm excited about, which as mentioned above I rarely get around to doing. And I look forward to reading everyone else's posts and hopefully interacting with them more. <3

Here are my answers to this week's Friday Five!



1. Do you mostly drink tap, filtered, or bottled water?

At home, filtered, always. When out and about, I try to have a reusable water bottle with me, or ask for filtered water at restaurants, but sometimes I am forced to buy bottled water. 







2. Is it safe/recommended to drink tap water where you live? If not, why?

Nope! I live in a developing country and while the water where I live is decent quality, it's still not potable. Most people use some kind of water filtration/purification system, or buy purified water from commercial vendors. 

3. What does the tap water taste/smell like where you live?

Neutral, with a slight hint of chlorine from the purification process if it's from the municipal supply. I'm lucky to live somewhere with excellent groundwater. 

4. Do you collect rainwater? If so, what do you use it for?

Rainwater harvesting is done by the municipality here and is standard. (I live somewhere prone to droughts.) It's used to replenish the water table. 

5. Do you/have you ever had restrictions on water use where you live? What did you have to change about your lifestyle?

I have been lucky enough to never have had restrictions on water use, because my building has a borewell, so we were almost never dependent on municipal water supplies. There was a period of time where we supplemented the water from the borewell buy buying water commercially, but the thing with living in a drought city is that you're naturally careful about water use - to this day, I only take Navy-style showers, and have a deep and abiding hatred for golf courses. (Seriously, they should not exist in climes drier than Scotland. Why the fuck are there so many in Arizona?!) Seeing California ideas of 'restricted' water usage after growing up with people lining up to fill pots when the water tanker came was a trip, let me tell you. 

1. It was rainy this morning but I managed not to get rained on. When I woke up, I could hear the rain and was not looking forward to going out in it for my morning walk, because then I'd get my shoes wet and have to wear wet shoes later, but I looked at my phone and the weather app said it was supposed to stop raining in five minutes and be dry for at least half an hour and it did and it was! I did get dripped on a bit by trees, but that was fine. And then later in the morning we went to Disneyland and it rained on the drive down, but stopped by the time we got there and was dry all afternoon and evening. We're still supposed to get some more rain here and there over the next few days, but at least it seems to be more sporadic.

2. We had a really nice time today at Disneyland. The rain helped keep people away (especially in the morning), plus although it's still officially the holiday season through the weekend, the crowds are just not as wild as they were in the lead-up to Christmas.

3. The shopping center where the newest Tokyo Central is in Irvine formerly had a Persian market called Super Irvine. I had originally assumed they went out of business or something and that's why the space was for lease, but it seems like the property owner had wanted to completely raze the building and start from scratch, and the Super Irvine just moved to a new location, which just opened a couple months ago. We watched a video walkthrough recently and it looked really neat, so we've been wanting to check it out. There are a bunch of Persian shops in Westwood, which is very close, but nothing this huge (and because it's so large, it has a lot of other international stuff as well as just Persian). Irvine is just a short drive from Disneyland (especially on a day like today with no traffic), so we decided to go down there before going home, and had a lot of fun checking it out.

4. I don't really do resolutions, but there are a couple things I want to do this year. One is to try doing a wider variety of things. I like routine and it's very easy to get stuck in a rut and do something familiar, whether it's going to the same places or eating the same foods, but there are so many other things I want to do also, so I want to try and change that. So we'll probably go to Disneyland less often this year, but we go ridiculously often, so even if we go only 2-3 times a month that's still, objectively speaking, a lot lol. And it was nice today; we hadn't been in two weeks, and it felt fresher and less like just doing the same old thing.

The other thing I want to do this year is get a tattoo. I have wanted to get a tattoo forever. I have always thought they were cool and wanted one, but the problem is I don't have any strong feelings about what I want. Maybe something cat or dragon related. Maybe something rainbow/queer. idk. I have to think about it. But I'll be fifty this year and it seems like a good time. Also I find the whole process really overwhelming, in terms of finding someone and the design phase, etc. Anyone who has tattoos and has advice/suggestions about anything, please feel free to comment!

5. I wish Gemma wasn't always so suspicious of me, but she is very cute when she's suspicious.

Owing to a combination of factors—reading a ton of fan fiction, loads of rereading (which I don’t track), lots of reading in Russian, lots of Fallen London—my number of new-to-me books for the year was lower than usual, but here they are:

( Books read in 2025 )

Also some stuff I read a solid chunk of but did not finish (I don’t formally track these but was reminded since I went to go through my Kindle to check if there was stuff I forgot to add to Goodreads):

( Books partially read in 2025 )

Still really want to finish writing up at least a few thoughts about the Steerswoman books, which were 10/10 INCREDIBLE and included what might be one of my favorite plot developments I’ve ever come across in anything, and also about the last book in Vernor Vinge’s Zones of Thought series, which left me really wanting to write a fix-it fic (so maybe I should do that instead, except I’m fairly certain that it would have an audience of exactly 0, lol). Also should jot down some thoughts about Dead Hand Rule, which was so much fun! Maybe this month sometime if I can muster the spoons (optimism, always optimism).

Happy New Year to everyone <3

At some point I may just have to admit that writing motivation and energy is not the same in my late 40s as it was in my 20s and 30s. But not quite yet. My 2025 total was a tiny bit higher than the year before (by 1 fic and 1,600 words); and I have signed up for getyourwordsout yet again.

For the first time in quite awhile, I had no crossovers in the list; but I did manage to write three fic outside of exchanges. Three were slash, three were gen, four were poly, seven were het, and the plots included a lot of canon divergences, fix-its, soul mates, get-togethers and other tropey indulgences. Also, something I just noticed - all but one were movie fandoms this time. Huh.

Anyway, in March, it will be twenty-four years since my first published fic was finished; my goal for the next two years is to finish my last four WIPs before I hit the quarter-century mark as a fic writer. Might as well dream big!

( On to the list of fic! )

This year really doesn’t feel much like a year has passed, y’know?

Not just in the “how has it been a full year? Wasn’t last January like ten minutes ago?” way, which… I mean, yeah, that too, but it always feels like that, ha. 2025 just felt really disconnected, even more so than I expected. Maybe it’s the abnormally warm weather, but Christmas hardly felt like Christmas, and still sort of feels like it didn’t happen (despite having a nice one), and it definitely doesn’t feel like we’re moving into a new year!

(Sure, there’s no literal reason that the move from December 31 to January 01 is a more meaningful change than any other day. But at least sometimes I feel a sense of closure when one year ends, and some enthusiasm for another one starting. That feeling is so completely absent this year, ha.)

I have stuck with habit tracking for another year, and I plan to do so again this upcoming year. I mostly plan to track the same habits, with one change. A couple years ago, I separated 2nd+ draft writing out from the rest of my writing, because I wanted to see how different my pace was for first vs second drafts. Now I’ve been having a terrible time getting anything written at all, much less to the point that additional drafts are a consideration, so that’s just kind of… a wasted category. Instead, this year I think I’ll split it into fiction vs other writing. I still count my other writing as writing: writing reviews, or other things that require a bit more effort than a typical journal entry. But for now, I think that’s a more worthwhile distinction for me to be able to look at.

A lot of my intentions for this year are pretty similar to last year. It doesn’t feel like a “new” year, and there’s not a lot that I truly want to do differently. The things I succeeded at are things I want to keep doing, the things I didn’t are things I want to try to do again.

I do still have the same feeling that I did last year, where the general State of the World meant that it feels… petty? inconsequential? to be worrying about little individual goals and things. The world definitely isn’t feeling better right now, but I’m trying to look at this the same way I did last year:
Setting these intentions is a way to say that I do have plans to stick around, and do more than stagnate. The things may be small, but… whether things get better or worse on the grander scale, at least I will have done good and worthwhile things on the smaller scale. Reading good books and going to good places will be good regardless.

That said…

( Here are the intentions I’m setting for 2026: )

20 intentions for the year, some of which are repeats, some of which are new. I still anticipate time management being the biggest struggle, since so many things take time and energy, and I can’t do all of them at once. That’s nothing new! The battle is ongoing.

Happy New Year!

I'm still looking backwards into the old year for the moment, though. I only just recently remembered that I still need to do my usual year-end fic round-up post, and, of course, there's also the book log post for December. The former will probably have to wait until I have a little more time and energy, maybe tomorrow, but here's how my 2025 reading year ended:

( 81. The Wine-Dark Sea by Patrick O'Brian )

( 82. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn )

( 83. Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography by Rob Wilkins )

( 84. Christmas and Other Horrors: A Winter Solstice Anthology edited by Ellen Datlow )

( 85. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick )

( 86. Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic )

( 87. A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers )

( 88. The Age of Calamities: Stories by Senaa Ahmad )

( 89. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud )

( 90. Doctor Who - the Scripts: The Power of the Daleks by David Whitaker )

Last year was a bit of an unusual reading year for me. My fiction:nonfiction and new read:reread ratios were unusual, as was the fact that I read either very long books or very short books, and nothing in between. And virtually all of my reading was in English, which is outside the norm for me.

How many books read in 2023?
In 2025, I read 101 books cover-to-cover, i.e., I read every chapter, glossary, index, author’s note, etc. in the volume.( Read more... )

Number of in-progress books as of December 31:
I currently have 110 books tagged as in progress LibraryThing, and about half a dozen going this week.

What do you want to read in 2026?
There was something I was super excited about just the other day, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was now. Without doubt, it will occur to me at 3:00 am in the morning, at which time I will update this entry.

Happy New Year, everyone!

これで以上です。

I had a fantastic Yuletide this year. I got two great gifts. I managed to write FOUR things for the main collection, a personal best! (The closest I've come previously is three in the main collection and one in Madness, and that was back in 2013.) I got really nice comments on them, even the one for a fandom I didn't think anyone would know. <3 And then I had so much fun browsing the collection this year, and I found some really wonderful fic. Perfect experience, no notes, can't wait to do it again next year.

Interestingly, everything I wrote this year was for fandoms I watched or reviewed specifically for Yuletide. Like, the two movies are two I pulled out of the Yuletide tagset and put on my to-watch list. I always enjoy making those lists from the tagset, but I don't think they've ever borne so much fruit directly before. (Then again, most of my old standbys that I don't need to review, like Oasis and Re-Animator and Scream, are now too big for Yuletide. That's probably a factor.)

First, my assignment:
stave my soul, Moby Dick, Ishmael/Queequeg, 2.7k. A ghost story. Last year I really wanted to reread Moby Dick and write Yuletide treats, I got about a third of the way in, and then I bogged down and didn't finish. This year, I wanted the same but even more, to the point that I not only offered it instead of planning to just treat, but I got very brave and culled my offers until nearly all my matches were Moby Dick.

I got assigned to whalebone (yes, really) and wrote this in a few days. The idea came to me pretty much fully-formed, and it should have been relatively easy to write once I got a handle on the narrative voice, but it was one of those times where I was finding writing very hard and was really mad at my past self for putting me in the situation, to the point that I wished I'd defaulted before the default deadline.

But! I did manage to write the fic more or less exactly as I'd planned. And this was by far my most popular fic this Yuletide, with more comments than I've gotten in a week on anything since 2020.

--

fires of love, Moby Dick, Ishmael/Queequeg, 2.2k, omegaverse. Then I turned around and wrote a treat, and it was Moby Dick omegaverse. In fact, qkind's prompt for this last year was the number one reason I wanted to reread the book, and I was very happy that they prompted it again this year.

The big appeal here was describing an omegaverse scenario in Ishmael's inimatable prose, and I had a great time trying. In fact the first writing I did for Yuletide was some paragraphs of this that I got in the shower. Ishmael discoursing about omegaverse gender stuff was a hoot to write. This might be my favorite Yuletide fic I wrote this year.

I don't know if I'll write more Moby Dick; I feel like I've gotten those two high-concept fics out of my system, and I don't have any other burning ideas. I really have to get in the right frame of mind to tackle Ishmael's voice, and it's like I'm holding my breath the whole time and have to eventually come up for air. On the other hand, I definitely think there's room for more Moby Dick horror in the world, if nothing else.

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a restaurant called karma, Red Rooms (2023), Clementine/Kelly-Anne, 5.6k. This is an independent French-Canadian film about two serial killer groupies attending the trial of a man accused of raping and murdering several teen girls. I'd been meaning to watch this for a while, but seeing a Yuletide request was what finally got me to do it, and then I wrote this post-canon getting-together fic in like a week. This is the first fic in the tag, so I wasn't expecting much of a response, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how many people know it and have commented on the fic. <3

It was actually almost 2k longer at one point; the day before reveals I wrote 2k of porn, then woke up Christmas Eve morning and decided the porn took the fic way off track, and I took basically all of it out and made the fic fade to black, all before 1pm. I don't know if I've ever done that before. It was not my favorite time-crunch editing session ever! However, I ship the hell out of these two now and I hope more people write them.

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wreck, Crash (1996), James/Catherine, 1.1k. James gets in a new, more serious accident, and he and Catherine enjoy the aftermath. This was a quick little PWP of them being fucking weird together. I don't know if I really hit the "if he likes cuckolding, he'll LOVE being rendered impotent by a car crash" button as hard as I wanted, but hey, it's 1k, it's fine. And it turns out I and one other person in Yuletide inaugurated the James/Catherine tag on AO3, which blows my mind.