Dear Yuletide Writer,

THANK YOU.

You've signed up to write for one of my four favorite fandoms in all of December right now, so thank you. Whatever you write, I'm sure I'll love it.

Some basics

I'm incredibly easy in terms of what I'll read. Please, no positively depicted incest, and I'm not super into crossovers for any of these fandoms; otherwise, go wild.

This is definitely my year of threesomes, so a clarification on what I mean by saying A/B/C would be nice: I am okay with any interpretation of OT3 for characters A, B, and C, from "A, B, and C are all mutually together in a negotiated poly relationship with respectful boundaries" to "A is dating both B and C and B and C hang out a lot and get donuts" to "A and B are dating, C likes to watch" to "mess of late-teenaged emotions and cultural confusion leads A, B, and C to have a lot of sex in multiple combinations but no one's sure what's going on" to "they are all best friends, but sometimes the road is long and a prostitute would cost too much". I put faith in your steady hands!

Further investigations into my fic preferences can probably be carried out on my tumblr, nextian, particularly my fest fic recs tag. I haven't used this Dreamwidth since 2011 but it's still got all my previous fic recs, book recs, and etc on here. My previous Yuletide letters can be found on my yuletide tag.

I'm in Yulechat occasionally under the handle "Emma". I'll be hippoing, so make sure not to ask me to find you a beta.

And now onto the canons.

( fa la la! fa la! la! la. )

Thank you again, Yulewriter. I appreciate everything you do. Have a very happy Yuletide!

Last set before reveals! Just a few this time.

( Chinese Mythology, KKBB, Community, Homestuck, Demon's Lexicon, and others )

I probably have about fifty tabs open right now and I haven't even gone back and touched my bookmarks. And now the archive is down for maintenance. But oh well, RECS SET TWO.

( Brick, Kick-Ass, Spindle's End, lots of others, and a huge amount of Oglaf )

Two recommendations:

1. Echo Bazaar: Timesuck, or excellent timesuck? I am an intriguing and observant lady, an admirer of art and beauty, a little heartless, magnanimous, melancholy and hedonistic. I'm connected with the Bohemians and the Church, and I'm searching for a card game where I can play for my heart's desire with the stake my soul. I'm the protégé of a mysterious benefactor, I'm having recurring dreams and intense nightmares, I'm seducing a honey-sipping heiress and a young jewel thief, I'm trying to immortalize prisoner's honey and Jack of Smiles in verse, and everything I just listed is an actual stat in the game.

2. A little over one day left to register for Yuletide! If you need an AO3 invite, I have one left.

I'm going to miss this icon.

Reveal time! I wrote:
parthenogenesis, the Girl Who Owned a City, for dictator_duck,
Lovelace and Babbage vs. The Christmas Death Spider From Beyond The Atlantic, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, for hradzka,
On the Initial Conditions of a Partnership, Gentlemen of the Road, for giddygeek, and
Five stories the Reader never began, If on a winter's night a traveler, for me livrelibre.

Under my cut are a lot of thoughts on the process. Yes, I wrote this ages in advance. As an apology for tl;dring all over everywhere, here is a pdf of Gentlemen of the Road formatted for ereader (courtesy of elf, who betaed for me) and here is the CD "Elvis Perkins in Dearland," which contains Doomsday, which is my favorite song of the moment. Think "Holland 1945" meets "Prenzlauerberg."

( four stories, three-day deadlines, two turtledoves, and a chatlog about crack crossovers. )

My third set of recs. The thing about these is that I haven't even been reading through the archives, this is just what I've gotten from other people's recs. Should I stop? I should probably stop. But it's more fun to rec before reveal.

( a billion fandoms again, now with extra White Collar )

My little brother found my journal a couple of days ago. If there are some really weird anonymous comments on here, that is why. It is usually best to ignore him. YOU HEARD ME, ELI.

*

Yuletide has arrived, and we totally killed the servers. At least one of my stories is surpassed wildly by the other fic written to the same prompt. But I'm lucky in that because it's the one fic I would rather have read than written. So I am not even all that jealous.

I wrote four fics this year, all three others being full pinch hits. One of my pinch hits was much longer than my actual story, sadly. I think it would be PRETTY EASY to guess mine for those who have been getting Yuletide bulletins on the filter, but, you know, other people are free to try. Since I didn't really make dark_agenda this year, I'm already planning one NYR. How healthy is that? Um, not very. But hell, why not.

*

My gifts:

Both for Gunnerkrigg Court, and both Annie/Kat to some degree, and both so lovely and sweet! I am so grateful to my authors, who both clearly read my letter inside and out and gave me exactly, exactly what I was looking for.

* Turn is -- it feels like Young Wizards fic, or at least the conclusion does. Annie and Kat are very Nita and Kit about getting together, which is a compliment, believe me, and the robot cameos and Reynardine's characterization are delicious. And they ended it with the antimony sigil!

* Conversations About Boys, which features these lines that I wish to frame on my wall, The older they got, the harder it was not to feel awkward when they were together. Not awkward-bad. Just awkward-awkward. Kat figured that it must be down to biology, or one of the more annoying, squishy-soft sciences. Annie's just worried that Kat picks bad boys. Out of concern! Kind, impartial concern, and also, TRUE LOVE. Teenaged, hilarious, sweet, and very them. And packed full of science metaphors.

Some things I've managed to read so far that I liked:

( a billion recs. eli, seriously, stop reading this entry )

Dear Yuletide Writer,

First and foremost, thank you so much for signing up to write for one of my hilariously small fandoms. I know that I take "small fandom" unusually seriously for a Yuletide recipient, and that I have offered you only one option with fic for it already in the Yuletide archive. (Gunnerkrigg Court.) I myself will be spending Yuletide wailing to the skies about whatever I'm trying to write, so, you know, I feel you.

Generalities. I have a confession to make: I almost always skim the porn. I know, I'm barely qualified for fandom! If you like writing detailed NC-17 style sex scenes, you are welcome to, because I will skim it with pleasure, but it's really in your best interests not to make it the only element of the story. Scat, watersports, non-con and ageplay turn me off, but otherwise kink's fine by me. What I really love, though, are slightly sweet, slightly violent relationship-revealing hijinks and/or adventures. Some other things I love: banter, weird identity issues, incompetent failed displays of emotion, talking past each other, good dialogue, women with agency, historical references, cons, heists, plans, pistols, swordfights, neckties, wonder, humor, cities, and robots. Further investigations into my interests can probably be carried out on my rec: book and rec: fic tags, and my previous Yuletide letters can be found on my yuletide tag.

I'm in Yulechat occasionally under the handle "Emma". I'll be hippoing, so make sure not to ask me to find you a beta.

I do strongly prefer slash for three out of my four requests this year -- but I have a somewhat broad definition of slash, ranging from homoerotic friendship to marriage in Vermont. I am fine with anything on the spectrum! You would honestly make me just as happy if you wrote the story where Amram and Zelikman share a bedroll on a cold night and nothing happens as if you wrote Zelikman going into pon farr. Anything that would fit at queerlygen would also qualify.

That said, let's start with the least specific request:

( to the specifics! )

yuletide nominations:

Michael Chabon - Gentlemen of the Road
China Mieville - Un Lun Dun
Gunnerkrigg Court
Lackadaisy
The Temptation of Adam (song)
David Benioff - City of Thieves

I'm requesting the first four, which means I need to find other braver souls to request the second two. Which means: promo posts!

( The Temptation of Adam: music link, lyrics, possible directions )

This was going to be my recs post, but the list just keeps growing, so ... maybe later. Instead, it's my Yuletide reveal.

I wrote four stories this year -- Existential Travel Guides, for National Treasure, was my primary, my pinch hit for Casanova UK was gravity caught my love around, and then I wrote two miniscule treats, All Heart, All Thumbs for Murdoch Mysteries and we stared for hours in our maker's face for Cloud Atlas.

( yuletide thoughts under the cut )