nor so wide as a church door

I have not in any way had a meaningful amount of time free to go through the archive, which means this weekend is going to be SO WORDS MUCH STORY VERY YULETIDE. But! I have had time to read (and then gleefully reread) both of my gifts:

the moon a black hole in the blaze of night (4142 words)
Fandom: Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ravenna/Snow White (Snow White and the Huntsman)
Characters: Ravenna (Snow White and the Huntsman), Snow White (Snow White and the Huntsman)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Misses Clause Challenge
Summary: There is no king, this time. When Ravenna tries to capture Snow White's kingdom, she is rescued by an armoured queen.

My main gift, and a GLORIOUS story that took my "Snow White is the one leading the army and breaking Ravenna out of her box" prompt and worked BEAUTIFUL MAGIC with it. It somehow manages to be simultaneously really in-character for Ravenna but also give her basically the happiest possible ending, and I love it.

AND:

Blood on the Dance Floor (2066 words)
Fandom: Banlieue 13 (Movies)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tao/Lola, background Leïto/Damien Tomaso
Characters: Tao (Banlieue 13), Lola (Banlieue 13)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, First Meetings, Foreplay, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Two fighters lay down their arms long enough to share a dance.

The Lola/Tao treat I have ALWAYS WANTED but NEVER EVER EXPECTED to actually get, because asking for ladyslash where the women in question were never actually in the same movie can be something of a fool's errand. BUT SOMEHOW IT WORKED THIS YEAR. \o/ Lovely, a nice match to the tone of the movies, and with an ending full of potential.

And now: so many more fics to read! *rolls up sleeves*

Maybe I'll just try to work my way up to posting twice a month, and see how that works out. /o\

femslashex happened! I wrote a Sinbad (Nala/Rina) treat for muccamukk, which is to say I've had an idea sitting half-written in my head since last femslashex, having watched Sinbad at all solely after reading muccamukk's letter that year, and then she asked for it again and this time I was able to write the story down fast enough to meet the deadline. \o/ One of these days I'm going to have to get around to a set of Sinbad posts - it's such an adorably terrible show! Things I enjoyed large parts of but really want to tweak are always the ones I get most fannish about. I'd do a recs post except I still haven't read everything I have open in tabs, but basically if you haven't checked the collection for anything in your fandoms, you totally should.

And since the last time I posted, there's been:

( Sleepy Hollow! Spoilers, obvs. )

( Korra! Spoilers, obvs. Also probably don't click this if you're generally pretty happy with the show this season. )

( Elementary! Spoilers, obvs. )

Not caught up yet on SHIELD; I'm also watching Forever and portions of Flash mostly for the hell of it, no real commentary to offer there.

I'm doing NaNoWriMo, but not precisely by the rules, because I'm counting words I write for Yuletide; so far this is working out well, and I may even wholly avoid bears this year. (My recipient and I could not have more divergent approaches to Yuletide if we were trying! This has proven exciting but wholly manageable, and as a bonus I should have plenty of time to edit my assignment/work on treats. \o/)

Late to the party, because I'm pretty much late to every party, but! I wrote fewer fics this year than last year, and yet more total words, because:

The Silver Bracelet (40425 words) by Damkianna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sinbad (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gunnar/Sinbad
Characters: Gunnar (Sinbad), Sinbad (Sinbad), Cook (Sinbad), Nala (Sinbad), Rina (Sinbad), Anwar (Sinbad), Tiger (Sinbad)
Additional Tags: Reunions, Treasure Hunting, Unreliable Narrator, Misunderstandings, Gods, Ghosts, Curses, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform
Summary: It was strange, to be back in Basra. Post-canon: the crew of the Providence goes on a new adventure.

My assignment fic for movies_michelle, after very-much-needed edits, cracked 40k words! She asked for Gunnar/Sinbad and found family, and suggested the possibility of a reunion with Nala, and I grabbed all three of those things and SPRINTED INTO THE WILDS with them for forty thousand completely ridiculous words. movies_michelle was very gracious about her surprise novel, and even left me a comment when she was only partway through, just so I'd know she didn't hate it. ♥ She and I both only just watched Sinbad this year, and I'm really glad I offered it, because this story was great fun to write!


I also had time for a single treat:

a lonely hunter (1630 words) by Damkianna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Twisted Princess (Disney Fanart)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Snow White (Twisted Disney Princesses - Jeftoon01)
Additional Tags: Non-Graphic Violence, Body Horror, Unreliable Narrator, Yuletide Treat
Summary: The huntsman is kind to Snow White, in the forest.

Twisted Princesses is rapidly becoming one of my favorite treating fandoms; I'm not confident enough in my ability to write horror on command to actually offer it, but when I get an idea that I think I can pull off, I love to write it. Maybe if I do it enough, I'll actually get good at darkfic someday!


As it turns out, the incredibly generous Niki wrote me BOTH my main gift, Home, and my fabulous Snow White and the Huntsman treat, Mirrored; and russian_blue wrote me One Spark, about Lola on the roof. I am so pleased and amazed that they chose to take the time to write me such wonderful stories! TELL ME WHAT I DID TO DESERVE THIS SO I CAN DO IT AGAIN.

Drive-by post to say: SO EXCITE. There were some actual bears this year, because my December got eaten by RL, but I made the deadline with time to spare and had the chance to make some edits! And now I have a gift that I'm SUPER LOOKING FORWARD TO (I can't help it, I love to shake presents) and a Madness treat and I'M JUST SO HAPPY. YAY YULETIDE.

omg what if my recip hates their gift oh god more edits augh help



ETA: Now it's two Madness treats! AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES.

Today has been a whirlwind of awesome and I've spent half of it asleep - I haven't had a chance to delve properly into the Yuletide archive, but I have had the chance to read my gift:


Empress of Sand and Water (24166 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dune Series - Frank Herbert
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Paul Atreides/Chani/Irulan Corrino
Characters: Irulan Corrino, Paul Atreides, Chani
Summary: After the Harkonnen attack on the Atreides, Irulan is sent to Arrakis to represent the emperor's interests. She hears about this mysterious figure, this Fremen messiah, this Mahdi - and she wonders if this might be the turning point of everything. Canon-divergent AU of Dune.


IT IS THE MOST AMAZING FIC IN THE WORLD AND I LOVE IT. For the first Yuletide gift I will ever receive, this is the most tremendous and beautiful and fantastic story in the world; it is exactly what I wanted and someone wrote it for me and it's just. I CAN'T. ♥ If you are at all a Dune fan I urge you to give it a look (a long look, IT IS 24K WORDS), it is Irulan and Chani and Paul and things are the same but different and Chani is the Mahdi and it's PERFECT.

I can't have a real catch-up post until my folks come back from Italy, because I will be pretty un-caught-up until that happens; but there are a couple things that I've already finished and merely failed to post about.

( Revolution, 1.08-1.10. ) Odds are I'm going to keep watching this, but not because it's good.

( Chicago Fire, 1.01-1.08. )

( Beauty and the Beast, 1.01-1.07. )

Three other small things: I have a tumblr now (damkianna). Not because I'm making any kind of shift or am at all likely to prefer it; because lots of pretty pictures of ladies, and because I might as well have somewhere to dump the results of me screwing around in Photoshop.

In rl news, the sad and sudden death of our remaining cat was followed a day and a half later by the acquisition of two stray sibling kittens who needed a home. Currently unnamed, although siblings + one boy and one girl = Luke and Leia are strong contenders. They are tabbies, about eight weeks old now, and completely adorable. (They hide every time someone enters the bathroom we've set aside for them; but they've begun coming out to play while people are around, and relax relatively quickly when held.)

And: under my RL name, I may have actually managed to sell a short story. \o/ I'm lurching back and forth between REALLY PLEASED and terrified; but I really want the magazine to do well, and I'm glad I could contribute!

I finished my Yuletide assignment, but somehow I am still feeling BEARS. I have no idea how many times I've gone back to edit it, but if I did I probably wouldn't want to post the number. /o\

I just cannot keep up!

( Revolution 1.05; spoilers. )

The previews for two weeks out look so terrifyingly atrocious, my god. I'd ask how low this show can sink but I don't actually want to know.

( OUaT, which somehow got left out of the roundup last time. Spoilers for all aired eps. )

( Elementary! Spoilers for all aired eps. )

All told: I would like some more episodes please. :D

And I don't know how this happened, but ( The Three Musketeers (2011). ) I mean, I just. What. I loved it. HELP ME. Please don't watch this movie, you'll never respect me again.

I have a Google doc full of people's Yuletide and Festivid prompts that I might be able to fill as a treat, sorted by fandom, with the full text of the request and a link back to the DYW/DFV post each prompt came from. I ... I think I'm developing a system for this. \o/

So, ha, I fail. /o\ I hope everyone, with or without a holiday to celebrate during this part of the year, has an excellent time - and enjoys the VAST BOUNTY OF YULETIDE. :D

The bad: I did not in fact finish that next chapter of LttE by Christmas. The auxiliary good: I do have nearly 7k words of it! I am still working on it! /o\

The bad: I only finished one of the stories I planned for Yuletide. :( The auxiliary good: my recipient seems wonderfully pleased with the one I managed to get finished! (The slight wrinkle in the AO3 makes it BLATANTLY OBVIOUS which story I wrote, if you make even a little effort to figure it out, so if you want to preserve the spirit of author reveals, don't make any effort!) So I have once again failed to ruin Yuletide forever. \o/ I posted the story at like two in the morning on Christmas, and then spent the next three hours staring at the ceiling in my bedroom and accidentally thinking of things I really ought to edit before story reveals. The resultant lack of sleep was actually a really good thing, because at one of the places my father and I went caroling in the morning, I was the only soprano, and I could never in a million years have sung aloud alone if I had been firing on all cylinders. \o?

But enough nattering, there are Yuletide stories to read!

I cast my OTW election ballot this morning, and just wanted to add something to my last post, because rydra_wong has a point: I also am so so grateful to the people who came forward this election cycle and shared experiences that must have been really difficult to share - for many reasons, but in part because their willingness to do that allowed me to vote with a level of thought and care and deliberation that would not have been possible otherwise. My profession of love toward the OTW was not meant to invalidate those posts. Re: just about everything else, the_shoshanna is more articulate than I could ever be.

There's no way to segue from that to a squeeful book review gracefully, so I'm just going to go for it. ( Blackdog, by KV Johansen. ) I would like ALL THE FIC to fill in the timeskips and backstories plzkthx. By which I mean I'll probably acquire my own epic headcanon without even trying.

Which brings me to: yaaaaaaay Yuletide! :D :D :D :D :D

Oh, and:

28,953 / 50,000 words. 57.9% done!

I need to stop talking about how well this is going, or I'm going to jinx myself.