Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write a context-free sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)

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( General Information )

Okay. On to specific fandoms!

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( The Darkangel Trilogy )

( Books of the Raksura )

( FAQ: The 'Snake Fight' Portion of Your Thesis Defense )

( Rusty Quill Gaming )

And that is that. Thank you again, and happy writing!

I meant to do this yesterday, but I had social interaction comedown and ran out of spoons. So I will tell you about my Yuletide gift today instead!

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You and Me, Alone Together (1228 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Moon (Books of the Raksura), Fern (Books of the Raksura)

Summary: In a world where Moon wasn't the only survivor of the Tath attack, his Arbora sister still has nightmares.

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...And I still don't really have enough spoons to explain adequately why this is great and you should read it immediately, but trust me, okay, you want to go read this immediately. It is a wonderful character study and a simultaneously heartbreaking and hopeful AU. ♥

Things I have done Thursday and Friday:

1. Wrote and mailed all my holiday cards. (No cute doodles this year, alas. I am tired and my hands are sore.)

2. Bought gifts for Dad, Mom, and Nick. Also bought a birthday present for Mom. As part of this project, I signed up for a $1.99 one-week trial of Amazon Prime, which I will promptly unsubscribe from by next Thursday. I used to be able to get a whole month's trial for free, but times change. (This is my yearly plan to get free holiday shipping for basically nothing. It's super effective! *evil grin*)

3. Finished rereading my Yuletide source canon. (Yes, this is hideously late. Sue me.) In conclusion, it has not been visited by the suck fairy in terms of content (aside from the general "needs more women!" issue that applies to most work from that time period *sigh*), but the writing is significantly clunkier than I remembered on a word-and-sentence level. Also I had entirely forgotten massive chunks of plot stuff, though I'd retained the entirety of the thematic arc... which is fair, since I'm pretty sure the thematic arc was the author's main point of interest.

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Things I intend to do on Saturday:

1. Poke at Cat and Susan for gift suggestions. Order stuff if they provide ideas. Failing any clearly expressed desires on their parts, I will buy them interesting books from the local co-op bookstore. (Yes, Ithaca has a co-op bookstore. It's Ithaca. What ELSE were you expecting???)

2. Start writing my Yuletide fic, in which I intend to make a stab toward addressing the "needs more women!" thing, along with general thematic arc thoughts and explorations.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write a context-free sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)

---------------

( General Information )

Okay. On to specific fandoms.

---------------

( The Darkangel Trilogy )

( Saga of the Skolian Empire )

( Books of the Raksura )

And that is that. Thank you again, and happy writing!

Things in no particular order:

1. More car trouble struck this weekend, by which I mean that sometime between when I got home from work on Friday and when I got home from work on Saturday (I didn't drive Saturday, because I got a pre-work haircut and for various logistical reasons that works better when I walk and catch a bus than when I drive), the hard plastic sheet/shield that runs under the engine from the front fender came loose and is now dragging on the ground. Ugh. So I walked and bused to work on Monday, and this afternoon I'm taking the car in to Goodyear for repair. The guy I talked to on the phone says it shouldn't take more than an hour to fix, maybe only half an hour, depending on exactly how and where/why it came loose.

2. I should get in my Yuletide nominations today, shouldn't I? I'm not sure what I want to nominate this year. Definitely the Saga of the Skolian Empire, because I still want my Lisi-centric fic so I need to make sure both the fandom and the relevant characters are available. I think maybe the Books of the Raksura? Unless somebody else has already taken care of that. The question is what other tiny fandom of the heart I want to ensure is available, and with what specific characters. I might go for the Darkangel Trilogy again, since I am always game for more fic in that fandom (and definitely more minor-character-centric fic), but I dunno. I'm trying to think of things I've been fannishly passionate about this year, and which other people are unlikely to nominate so I need to cover them. (I am quite sure someone has already covered Murderbot.) Hmm. Possibly N. K. Jemisin's Dreamblood Duology? I'd enjoy spending some more time in that world, and it sure as hell meets the rarity qualifications...

Well, I will keep thinking about that this afternoon.

3. I've been poking at yet another old Homestuck oneshot WIP (this seems to be my season for clearing out old ficlets, I guess) and I have finally hit the emotional crux of the story. The thing is, I'm not quite sure where to go from here. Like, there's a certain action inherent in the prompt I'm working from, but I'm not quite sure how to verbally/emotionally get there from here, nor how to do another emotional pivot after that. Ah well, I'll keep plonking away and if the initial attempt is terrible, that's what edits are for.

4. I finished the test for my other CE tax course, which means I'm now at 26 credit hours (not counting tax update and ethics) for the year. The requirement is 13, so I am in very good shape, and I think I may get through another course or two before the cutoff at the end of November. Learning is good! I also need to look into taking the exam to move up a level in company internal rankings, because reasons, but that's annoying and also involves logistics, so. Maybe tomorrow. (It's definitely something I want a working car before attempting, since the test has to be done in an office under supervision, and I'd rather not deal with bus schedules on top of that.)

5. I still need to reply to comments on my remix, but at this point I've been putting that off for so long it's turned into a kind of looming dread. Which is dumb, but brains and emotions aren't logical so whatever. I will find a way to talk myself around that block sooner or later.

...

6. I think I'm going to go eat lunch and then take the car in to Goodyear.

Today is Yuletide reveal day! Here is the story I wrote this year:

The Stolen Colors of Oz (5268 words) by Elizabeth Culmer
Fandom: Oz - L. Frank Baum
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Button-Bright, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Adventure, Misunderstandings, Colors, Giant Spiders, Negotiations, Whimsy

Summary: The chief difficulty with having lost his Magic Umbrella, Button-Bright reflected a few days after his arrival in the Emerald City with Trot and Cap'n Bill, was that it was harder to get to far-away places without it. On the other hand, having to travel through all the in-between places on his way from here to there did mean he got to see a lot of interesting things he might otherwise have missed.

(Written for moon_custafer)

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So, thoughts! moon_custafer and I actually matched on two fandoms -- the other being Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees -- but in the event I only had the time and spoons to write for one of them. (I might try writing a New Year Resolution fic for the other prompt, because I did have a good idea for it; it's just that Mirrlees has a trickier narrative voice to imitate under deadline pressure. *wry*)

Anyway, these two prompts gave me a perfect excuse to reread a number of books I have loved for a very long time, which is always welcome. And then I figured the best response to a prompt about A) people in Oz making adjustments that allow very different people with very different needs to live comfortably together, and B) Button-Bright as a vehicle for exploring that, was to write a story in which Button-Bright helps resolve a conflict between some people with superficially conflicting needs and also gets some insight into the ways his approach to the world is slightly askew from many other people's attitudes. (In other words, tell your parents you're alive, child! They must be worried out of their minds.)

( go read the fic before you read this part )

Anyway, I would have liked to make the story another thousand words longer, and go into a bit more detail about the cave, the spiders' army, the Farbers' army, and the general appearance of the colorless regions, but I think what's on the page works well enough. *wry*

We ended up having leftover Chinese for dinner last night rather than make jambalaya, because Mom over-ordered takeout on Saturday. Nobody minded; it was still delicious. :)

Our family had volunteered to usher at the 9pm Christmas Eve service, so we got into the car at 8pm and arrived in time to finish tidying up after the 7pm service and setting up for the new influx of people. The service itself was nice. I mean, they generally are. Beacon (...did I ever mention that my childhood congregation, which had spent decades wrangling over whether to call itself Unitarian Universalist, or just Unitarian, or a Congregation, or a Church, etcetera ad infinitum, finally did an end run around the issue by renaming itself Beacon: Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Summit? Because they did, a year or two ago) has a pretty set format that doesn't change much from year to year.

Afterwards we came home, drank champagne cocktails, and talked about this and that until maybe 12:30am, at which point I shut myself up in my childhood bedroom to finish the expanded version of my Yuletide assignment. I got it successfully tidied and posted around 3am. Then I crashed.

We had breakfast at about 9:45am this morning -- apple cinnamon muffins, bacon, softboiled eggs for everyone except Vicky (who dislikes cooked eggs), and fruit of choice (pineapple for Vicky, banana slices in orange juice for Mom and Dad, a clementine for me). Then we did gift-opening from about 10:30am onward, after which we participated in cleanup to various degrees and then went our separate ways.

I have commented on my Yuletide gift, which is lovely (I will make a rec post about it later), and now I'm going to take a nap since Susan will arrive around 3:30pm and past that point my day is booked pretty solid with socializing, dinner, and a movie-with-family.

I hope you all have an excellent day whether you're celebrating anything in particular or not! :D

It wasn't an official graduation because the semester doesn't end until the 14th, but pffft, whatever. I could bomb both my finals and I'd still be fine. (My grade point average would be unhappy, but I'd still pass, no sweat.)

Anyway, it was 6:00pm in the gymnasium of TC3. My parents drove up from NJ and picked me up from the rental company office. There were a few speakers, and then all the unofficial graduates walked up on stage, handed a little name-and-info card to the speaker, who read our names, majors, and any relevant accomplishments (this is where my new membership in Phi Theta Kappa, the two-year college equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa, came into play), after which we shook hands with the college president and received a pin since we aren't officially done and couldn't get our actual diplomas.

(Apparently the diplomas will be mailed in late December.)

Then Mom, Dad, and I went out for a celebratory dinner at The Antlers in Varna, which was quite tasty and has left me with enough extra food for another meal and a half. Mmm, delicious! Then they dropped me off back at the rental company office so I could drive the Camry home, since I needed to clear that parking space for New Hire 2 tomorrow morning. (On Saturdays, I park in Mom Boss's space, since she's not there and obviously New Hire 2 and I can't both park in space #56.)

So that was nice. :D

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In work news, today we rented a studio, which is always nice. We had verbal confirmation from a group of boys that they want to rent a 6-bedroom apartment, but they didn't make it in to the office before I closed at 5:00pm. Hopefully tomorrow! We also had two weird package glitches, which I will attempt to resolve tomorrow.

In other college news, I am about 1/3 done with my final State and Local Government class essay. I have a time set for my Spanish oral final (an ~5 minute phone call conversation) and have printed the sample written final so I can practice on it and be ready when Prof. G uploads and opens the actual written final. As I said above, I could bomb both and be fine, but I'd prefer to do well as a point of personal pride. *wry* (And also for my grade point average and future plans, of course. But mostly my pride.)

In fannish news, I am just about done with my final bit of Yuletide canon review, after which I get to pick which of my prompts to write, bang together an outline, and dive in. :) I am really hoping I have enough time and spoons to write both, because I think both lend themselves more to short fics than to something really long and plotty, and also because I love both canons dearly and would like to A) get a chance to play around with them and B) make my recipient extra specially happy when the archive goes live. :)

1. Thursday night I went to my induction ceremony for Phi Theta Kappa, which is the two-year college equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa (more or less), because why not. There were indifferent sandwiches, pretty good cupcakes, two good introductory speakers, and indifferent main speaker, and an unexpectedly dramatic moment after we'd all gone up front and signed the chapter membership book and been arranged on risers, when a mother was overcome with pride for her daughter's achievements. I felt a bit of a fraud for having taken the whole thing so lightly, but what the hell. Go proud student and proud mom!

2. Today we had sleet all afternoon, ugh. It eased off into cold rain as evening fell, and nothing stuck to the ground anyway, but it was still thoroughly unpleasant.

3. I showed and rented a three-bedroom apartment this afternoon, go me!

4. I wrote ~350 words toward a prompt fill, which are not terrible by any means but have made me realize that I am approaching the prompt from the wrong direction, so now I get to start all over again. *sigh* At least this time I know where I'm going instead of just kind of flailing around to see what clicks.

5. I am on the final lecture of my Italian Renaissance Great Courses series, and should definitely be able to return it to the library by Sunday.... only three weeks late. *headdesk*

6. I'm continuing to reread potential Yuletide canon material, and discovered I was sadly misled by the list of which books Character X appears in -- one of them seems to have made it onto the list solely because Character X is namechecked in one sentence placing them at Event Y that takes place at the end of the story. Gnrgh. Well, it's not like I didn't enjoy rereading that book despite the mixup. It's just a little annoying from a time-management perspective, you know?

7. I did a bit more background world-building and outlining for an f/f urban fantasy tetralogy with vaguely Lovecraftian flavor that I occasionally toy with writing. It still needs a lot of work before it becomes writable -- for example, at the moment one of my two antagonist groups is basically "evil conspiracy trying to drain/store magic for unnamed nefarious purposes," which is too flimsy for even a 1000-word ficlet. *wry*

The other antagonist group also needs a bit more solidity, but that plot thread is on much more stable footing -- probably because it has hooks into a lot of other emotional and character stuff instead of just sort of being there to make Required Plot Events happen. (These things happen when the central figure of the other antagonist group is your protagonist's estranged mother.) I'm sure I'll figure out a way to hook the Evil Conspiracy of Evil in on that level too, eventually -- probably via the protagonist's love interest, for balance and mirroring and stuff. But anyway, the upshot of today's work is that my protagonist (Sephy) now has a defined day job, I know how she and her love interest (Thorn) meet, I know how and why Thorn gets on the radar of the Evil Conspiracy of Evil, and I figured out the setup for why Sephy and Thorn start book 2 on shaky relationship ground. \o/

Stuff I have done so far today:

-bought cheese, crackers, and tiny clementines for after-service coffee hour

-helped set up for coffee hour instead of attending the church service (it's technically more work/energy, but less socially stressful, so, you know *makes equivocating gesture*)

-worked from 11:45 to 12:45 on coffee hour cleanup

-took the Camry to Goodyear to get the burned-out tail light replaced; the workers discovered the two plate lights were also burned out so I got them replaced as well

-bought a sheet of trash tags from the Meadow St. Tops (since my Tops, up on Triphammer, has mysteriously stopped carrying City of Ithaca tags *hands*)

-drove to the Triphammer Tops to do my grocery shopping (because I know that store's layout better, and also the two locations have slightly different items available)

-picked a tiny handful of raspberries and ate them outdoors because I could

-changed my linens

-took my two peppers that are attempting to flower outdoors in hopes that they'll manage to set fruit before I have to bring them indoors full-time over the winter

-arranged a phone date with Vicky

-continued refamiliarizing myself with one of my matched Yuletide fandoms

-wrote half of my to-do lists for next week

-listened to a full half-hour lecture from Etruscan history & culture Great Courses audiobook, and a lecture and a half of my Italian Renaissance Great Courses CD set (one's on my phone for around the house and while out walking; the other is for while I'm driving)

Now I intend to finish washing my lunch dishes and go take a nap, after which I will continue being productive, goshdarnit! :)