the deep moans round with many voices

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Master List of Elizabeth Culmer's Fiction
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FANFICTION:

General Disclaimer: These stories are based on characters and situations created and owned by other people and corporations. I make no money from this borrowing of intellectual property, and intend no copyright or trademark infringement.

Organization: This list is organized primarily by fandom; within each fandom, it's arranged first by associated story cycles and then by writing date. Word counts and writing dates are approximations.

Content/Warning Policy: 1) I am not consistent about warnings! I use them when I remember, for a few relatively broad categories of potentially problematic content, but if something is off-page, non-explicit, or generally backgrounded, I probably won't think to note it in the metadata. Read at your own risk! 2) The things I try to warn for are explicit sex, rape, murder, torture, cannibalism, incest, depression/suicide, familial dysfunction, and occasionally also societal dysfunction (aka dystopia). Sometimes I just slap a general content warning on all my fic for a given fandom and don't label each individual fic. I also don't generally warn for violence, unless the violence in a fic is dramatically out-of-step with the violence in its source canon. 3) I don't use any content rating system unless I'm posting to a site or community that requires or encourages ratings, because I find movie-style ratings counter-intuitive when applied to written fiction, and not particularly useful for anything other than denoting the presence of explicit sex, which I already note in the metadata.

Quality Rating System: I've marked my favorite stories with asterisks, on a scale of 1 to 4. The more asterisks, the more I like the story. This doesn't necessarily mean that stories without asterisks are bad, just that I don't like them as much. Also, I am not claiming to be an arbiter of taste; you may love stories I dislike, and vice versa. I am just providing a heads-up about the ones that I think are best written and/or most interesting.

Where To Read: What I post on my journal tends to be the equivalent of a beta draft. If I have cross-posted a story literally anywhere else (except Tumblr; fic content there is just a mirror of fic content here), read the version that isn't on my journal. Versions on AO3 are definitive. If there is no AO3 version, read the ff.net version. If there is no ff.net version, read the FictionAlley version (only applicable for HP fic). Failing that, read the journal version, because that's the only one there is.

Harry Potter Fanfiction

Naruto Fanfiction

Angel Sanctuary Fanfiction

Chronicles of Narnia Fanfiction

Homestuck Fanfiction

MCU fanfic (assorted)

Minor Fandom Fanfiction
(currently includes BtVS/A:tS, The Dark Is Rising, the Darkangel trilogy, Enchanted Forest Chronicles, FF7: Mercverse AU, Inception, and Star Trek: AOS)

Miscellaneous Fanfiction
(Currently includes: American Gods, An Ash-Blonde Witch, Arthurian Mythology, Batman, the Bible, the Black Jewels series, the Bourne trilogy, Charlotte's Web, Code Geass, Death Note, Discworld, Doctor Who, Girl Genius, The Girl with the Silver Eyes, Glee, Gormenghast, Hamilton, Hexwood, The Homeward Bounders, Howl's Moving Castle, Labyrinth, Lord of the Rings, Lucifer (comics), Mad Max: Fury Road, Merlin, the Oz books, Ranma 1/2, Rise of the Guardians, Sailor Moon, Saiyuki, Seaward, Shakespeare, Star Wars, Tam Lin (Pamela Dean), Vorkosigan Saga, White Collar, Wolf Hall, X-Men, and Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Crossover Fanfiction
(I do not cross-list crossovers and fusions under their component fandoms; this is the only place to find them. Currently includes: the Anita Blake series, ASoIaF, Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Black Jewels series, BtVS, Cardcaptor Sakura, Chronicles of Narnia, the Darkangel trilogy, The Dark Is Rising, Discworld, Doctor Who, Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Ender's Game, Gundam Wing, Harry Potter, Hikaru no Go, Homestuck, Inception, the Indiana Jones movies, Leverage, Lucifer (comics), MCU (various), Merlin, Naruto, the Oz books, Sandman, Stargate: SG-1, Star Trek: AOS, Vorkosigan Saga, Welcome to Night Vale, and a couple other things that only appear in memes rather than actual fic.)

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ORIGINAL FICTION:

These stories are all mine! *grin* I use the same warning policy and quality rating system as for my fanfiction.

All Original Fiction

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My various bingo cards: Cotton Candy Bingo, Round One (blackout!); Cotton Candy Bingo, Round Two (blackout!); Genprompt Bingo, Round 12 (blackout!); Genprompt Bingo, Round 15; Ladies Bingo; Daredevil Bingo; Domestic AU Prompt List

Batch the first, more to come. :)

All prompts drawn from the 2022 iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon (post one and post two), hosted by the wonderful rthstewart. Come play with us!

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( 1. ) For kalira: any, any, tea makes everything better, written 1/15/22

Relevant Applications (100 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives

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"Tea most certainly does not make everything better," Jon snapped, "which is trivially easy to demonstrate: consider a stack of papers or an electronic device; under what circumstances would they be improved by the application of tea?"

"Oh that is hard, let me think -- no, wait, a toddler could solve it!" Melanie sniped back; "The relevant circumstance is when the statements and tape recorders are evil, just like the ones we handle every day but you won't let me destroy."

In the break room doorway, Martin paused, sighed, and turned around to gather more supplies; some situations also required biscuits.

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( 2. ) For anonymous: Any, any, children's hospitals and colour theory, written 1/15/22

Civic Responsibility (220 words)

Fandom = Addams Family. Nine sentences, oops! (Contains references to Covid-19)

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"Red is an ideal color for a children's hospital," Morticia remarked approvingly as she scrolled through the selection of gory and horror-themed memes that Pugsley had thoughtfully emailed to her. "Vibrant, eye-catching, and the way this design resembles a trail of spilt blood is a wonderful reminder that life is a constant, glorious battle. What better way to rouse a passion for renewed health?"

"A passion for renewed health is a little abstract for most people, but children haven't yet had their natural morbidity squashed into saccharine conformism and love to see their parents wrong-footed by reminders that life is inherently bloody and precarious," Wednesday said, her voice slightly flattened by the Zoom interface.

"All the better, then!" Morticia said. "There's never enough healthy morbidity in the world -- even now, surrounded by plague on a worldwide scale, the majority remain obstinately oblivious rather than taking the opportunity to indulge in a cathartic, years-long gothic swoon."

She tapped one glossy, ebon nail against her lips, considering. "Perhaps I should talk to your father about endowing some renovations or new services at the local hospital, on condition that we get full control over the interior design elements. I hear the staff are dreadfully overworked these days, and I'm sure they could use some support, to say nothing of a rousing color scheme."

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( 3. ) For syrena_of_the_lake: Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Cimorene, adventures in organizing a dragon's hoard, written 1/15/22

Delegation (210 words)

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The trouble with the King's Hoard (the Capital Letters were not only implied but pronounced) was, firstly, that it had been gathered over centuries and consequently had more time than any individual hoard for items to accumulate and to spoil (or have their spells start to fray, whichever was more applicable), and secondly, that it had been gathered and partially reorganized by multiple dragons during those centuries, which meant there was neither rhyme nor reason to be found.

Kazul's hoarding tended toward fancy weapons and rare magical items, but apparently other dragons were more interested in intricately woven carpets, or jewelry (Cimorene was unsure if the big gaudy items and the small delicate items came from two dragons or one with wide-ranging tastes), or silk paintings from Cathay, or fragmenting papyrus scrolls, or inconveniently large sculptures, or any number of mismatched themes -- many of which required special conservation skills that Cimorene did not have.

"We're hiring a director and turning the Hoard into a museum," she announced to Kazul at breakfast; "We'll pay the salary out of ticket sales, and trust me, once we publicize a list of what's in here, every scholar in the world will pay an arm and a leg for a chance to respectfully poke around."

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( 4. ) For rthstewart: Any, any, "no plan survives contact with the enemy", written 1/15/22

Cost-Benefit Analysis (50 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives

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"Of course we didn't plan everything," Annabelle said with a friendly smile. "Even the Mother can't control every variable, particularly when the other Dread Powers are in play; the effort would be far too costly and almost certainly doomed to failure."

"We prefer to focus on finding the right enemies."

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( 5. ) For elementalraven: Narnia/Journey to the center of the earth, any, Bism runs deeper and deeper still, written 1/15/22

Ouroboros (110 words)

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In another life, Rilian travels down: down from the Sunless Lands that were his prison for unknown changeless years, down through the fiery dance and pulsing joy of Bism, down through the deepest crevices where heat and light gush up through stone like blood, down past where anyone has ever traveled and returned.

In the deepest bend of the deepest tunnel, chasing the faintest glint of light, he swings his borrowed axe until he breaks through a shell of diamond to a sky of velvet black, bestrewn with its own living jewels who welcome him in echoes of his mother's voice.

The roots of the earth are nourished by stars.

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( 6. ) For scytale: any, any, no such thing as too many kittens, written 1/15/22

Roxy Lalonde's No-Frills, No-Fee Cat Café (165 words)

Fandom = Homestuck

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Listen, you have had a Very Difficult Year, and if defeating (or helping defeat) A) the alien fishqueen who destroyed your planet, B) an unbeatable universe-killing monster, and C) your own alcohol addiction, not to mention creating a whole new universe and recycling your poor battered homeworld doesn't entitle a lady to some choice rewards, you don't know what would.

And by rewards, you mean kittens.

Possibly slightly unwise numbers of kittens, but you are going to be a responsible cat owner this time around and get them all (well, mostly all) spayed and neutered at the appropriate ages, and make sure they have lots of space and enrichment and microchips to find them if they sneak out and get lost, and look -- you just want to make your home a comfy, welcoming place where all your friends can drop by whenever they want (or need) and there will always be fresh food, soft pillows, cool video games, and a purring cat for their laps.

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In more current writing news, am still hung up on the evil teacup story, but I have set it aside for the moment to percolate (I'm having trouble managing the tone shift from "this is a bad relationship" to "this is a supernatural horror story" and suspect I may need to add some more stuff to the lead-in) and am once again working on tiny fills. So, expect some more posts of this nature in days to come. :)

Batch the fifth. :)

All prompts drawn from the current iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon, hosted by the wonderful rthstewart. Come join the fun!

Note: The first ficathon post is now closed to new prompts (though still open for fills and replies!), and you can find the new, second post at https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/168256.html.

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( 25. ) For undeadrobins: any sci-fi/space fandom, any, from the point of view of a spaceship, written 2/9/21

Precious, Fragile Things (345 words)

Fandom = The Murderbot Diaries

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Perihelion is unsure it grasps the concept of privacy that its crew considers so important -- how can it not be aware of them when it forms the floors they walk on, the air they breathe, the feeds they manipulate? -- and while it can file visual input unexamined and backburner other data streams when a crewmember moves from a 'public' to a 'private' space, it still knows more about them than, it thinks, most humans would find comfortable to contemplate.

It's noticed that a lot of its guest passengers (on the sedate, in-system trips that are all it's permitted to take at this stage in its development) deliberately don't contemplate Perihelion's pervasive awareness, which makes understanding privacy even harder -- surely if a concept is central to someone's function, it shouldn't be so easily pushed aside.

"Dad says that's one of the way AI and humans are different," Iris tells Perihelion when it raises the question, matter-of-fact in the way Perihelion has categorized as 'explaining something so obvious to humans that the explanation has a greater than .5 probability of leaving Perihelion even more confused': "We can't compartmentalize whole processes like you, but we can shove things down and ignore them, no matter how central they are, if confronting them might break us; that doesn't work forever, and it can kind of screw us up, but it's like..." -- she trails off, then brightens -- "like a quick patch for a hull impact, just enough to get us through a voyage and back to dock where we can do a full repair."

Perihelion considers this analogy, finds it lacking on several technical levels, and files it for further interpretation. "Hull impacts are unpleasant," it tells Iris; "I'm looking forward to the installment of my defensive array."

Iris pats a bulkhead fondly, eyes tipped up toward the ceiling as if Perihelion's self can be said to be any more concentrated in that small stretch of its body than any other section; "I love you too, Peri, even if you are nosy and violent."

Perihelion flickers its lights in her face.

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( 26. ) For eagleoftheninth: Any, any, 'only those with heart as light as feathers can cross over the Bridge of One Hair', written 2/9/21

None* Shall Pass (*See Fine Print for Details and Exceptions) (175 words)

Fandom = Enchanted Forest Chronicles

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"That is complete and utter nonsense," Morwen said firmly, "starting with the fact that a heart as light as feathers doesn't change the fact that the rest of the human body tends to weigh substantially more than nothing, and ending with the fact that this bridge is clearly made of multiple hairs -- I can see the braid pattern even without my glasses."

"I know, but you shouldn't say so," the enchantress hissed, casting a desperate glance toward the young dairymaid (whose quest Morwen had decided to accompany out of professional interest, dairymaids being somewhat rare among the normal run of princes and woodcutters' third sons); "It mucks everything up if they start relying solely on cleverness and forget that manners and some basic moral decency are equally important."

"I agree, but if you can't come up with a better grade of intimidating blather, that sounds like your problem, not mine," Morwen said, and snapped her fingers to set a spark under Miss Eliza Tudor's paw before she could test her claws against the enchanted bridge.

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( 27. ) For anonymous: Inception, Ariadne/Arthur, fireworks, written 2/12/21

Own the Night (220 words)

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"And what, Mister Professional Doubt, do you think of my fireworks show now?" Ariadne said, half-shouting to be heard over the deafening blast of the mid-show pseudo finale: pinwheels and flashbangs, whistlers and falling stars, and a carefully timed curtain of golden dust sparklers trailing down over the well-groomed suburban lakeshore.

Arthur glanced over to the neighboring blanket where Eames, forged into the target's long-regretted high school what-if (bad timing, social awkwardness, unfortunate weather -- Arthur didn't remember and didn't particularly care what had kept them from getting together and getting over the infatuation like most people did, instead of slipping into obsession) slipped a scrap of paper from the target's back pocket under cover of an enthusiastic grope, then looked back to Ariadne with a rueful smile and shrug: "I stand corrected; the nostalgia factor worked, the bangs haven't startled the subject into waking prematurely, and while the lack of mosquitoes is unrealistic, I appreciate your consideration in leaving them out."

Ariadne flicked her fingers toward Eames and the target without turning -- mouthed 'progress?' with a tilt of her head that would read as flirtatious to any watching projections -- then relaxed at Arthur's nod; "There are more enjoyable ways to suck your blood," she said with a gleeful wiggle of her eyebrows, and leaned in to give him a hickey.

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( 28. ) For snacky: Six of Crows, Kaz/Inej, Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts, written 2/12/21

And a Following Sea (180 words)

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"Fair winds, Wraith," Kaz says, and dares to tuck his cane into the crook of his elbow and offer both hands (gloved, of course, here in Fifth Harbor, so close to a thousand sweating bodies and the hungry sea) to Inej; she sets her own slim fingers over his own and lets him press their hands together in what feels half like a too-solemn version of a Kerch farmer's greeting and half like a (too-revealing) suitor's plea.

"Unfair deals," she says in return, and Kaz allows the corner of his mouth to quirk in a smile at the joke.

When she smiles in return, and reclaims her hands, and glides away to her waiting ship, Kaz forces himself to turn aside and walk toward the harbormaster's office for the business that nominally brought him here; it won't stop him from wondering how many times Inej can leave before he bleeds to death from each new cut of loss, but he refuses to mourn in advance of a funeral -- especially when, beyond all his hope and understanding, she keeps coming back.

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( 29. ) For vialethe: Narnia, Susan &/ Edmund, at dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit

Eeling Contrary (190 words)

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"Beg pardon, but if I may steal a moment of my gracious sister's time," Edmund said, and whirled Susan away from the Terebinthian crown prince (and his entourage) without stopping to wait for a reply; as he threaded neatly through the crowded room, gesturing with his wineglass to ward off interruptions, he muttered under his breath, "I could read the cast of your countenance from a mile away; what incredible nonsense did you convince him to swallow this time?"

Susan smiled as if she hadn't a care in the world and said, "I merely explained the true origin of eels, which, as everyone in Narnia knows, are born when a hair from a horse's tail falls into river or pond; wouldst believe the poor man was convinced that, instead, eels are born when the first light of the spring moon falls on newly dampened mud?"

"Someday someone other than myself will call you out on your fabrications," Edmund said, but he knew Susan could read the laughter in his eyes just as clearly as he had read her contrarian glee, and resigned himself to many years more of running interference.

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( 30. ) For vialethe: Narnia, Peter & Susan, that old familiar body ache/the snaps from the same little breaks in your soul/you know when it’s time to go

Make Your Choice (150 words)

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"I think, when you're younger, it's easier to balance between two worlds," Susan says haltingly as she and Peter sit in the back garden -- he on the wall and she in the apple tree, flicking a blossom-heavy twig back and forth between her fingers -- "easier to believe six impossible things before breakfast, so to speak, and to accept that Narnia is still Narnia even after a thousand years instead of mourning what was lost."

"To see it as an adventure as much as a duty," Peter suggests, his ragged nails picking and picking at the mortar between the bricks.

"Yes," Susan agrees, fingers stilling; "They can still bend -- but you and me?"

She snaps the twig. Peter stifles a flinch.

"This is our world now, the only one left to us," Susan says as she leaps down from the apple tree, "and I plan to make the most of it."

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More to come as I write them. :)

I don't think I've ever written so many fills for previous iterations of the ficathon? (I mean, I have probably written more words -- for example, the time I wrote ten interconnected fills for be_themoon that I then strung together into an 11K fic -- but not individual fills.)

Anyway! Here is the old ficathon post (still open for fills and comments! just not new prompts), and here is the new ficathon post (open for everything).

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( 37. ) For syrena_of_the_lake: Beauty and the Beast; wolves; whose woods these are I think I know, written 2/12/20

Dark and Deep (100 words)

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They are hungry, have been hungry for years; and yet the pack cannot split, grown children moving off to find their own territories, their own mates, as is the way of generations. Instead something stings their muzzles and burns their paws if they venture beyond the woods, muddles their senses until they circle back to the cold stone walls that no longer have a refuse pit to scavenge, traps them even as their prey dwindles and flees from the dark and cold growing under the trees.

These woods belong to death until the spell breaks or the final petal falls.

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( 38. ) For eagleoftheninth: Any, any, "all I do anymore is hurt," written 2/12/20

Clarity of Sight and Word (150 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives. Contains implied plans for self-harm.

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"Let's untangle that a little," Melanie's therapist said: "Do you mean that you're in pain, that you hurt others, or that you've hurt yourself?"

"Both? Both is good," Melanie said reflexively, and then winced at how thin her voice sounded making that joke; "Um, it's a meme, ignore that; but yes, I did mean that both ways, that I'm in pain and I keep hurting others; even now that I'm not... that I don't feel pressured into anger and violence, I still carved those reactions into habits and it's too easy to fall back into them, and it's not like my work situation has stopped being terrible."

"I notice you said nothing about self-harm," her therapist noted in a careful tone, and Melanie pressed her lips together and tried to think how not to sound like an immediate danger to herself if she mentioned her new hope for true escape.

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( 39. ) For sideways: Books of the Raksura, Stone/Azure, "if you start a war here today, you're not sleeping in my bower for the rest of the turn", written 2/14/20

In Love and War (150 words)

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"If I start a war?" Azure said, spines rising in affront; "Since when am I the undiplomatic one?"

"Oh, we're both undiplomatic, but apparently Cherish is head-over-talons for one of the younger Sky Copper queens and if you break that alliance over border hunting disputes and Zenith's general... everything... then he'll never forgive us," -- Azure snorted, to which Stone shrugged and corrected himself: "Yes, obviously that will only last a turn, but the point is the entire court will be miserable and I'll be staying in the consorts' bowers, not yours."

"Were we ever that young and overly dramatic?" Azure wondered, before snorting again and lowering her spines; "Yes, I know, you think I'm still overly dramatic, but I can at least promise to hold my temper for our son's sake -- possibly for other reasons as well," she added, and nipped the tendons in Stone's neck by way of demonstration.

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( 40. ) For sideways: Books of the Raksura, Consolation & Kethel, what does it mean to make a home, written 2/14/20

Homeward Bound (190 words)

Nine sentences.

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"I think-- I think it's not only people and not only a place. It's having the same people in the same place, taking care of it, so that we know we belong there and it belongs to us, and we can pass it on to our children," Consolation said uncertainly, trying to make sense of the vague half-explanations the consort, her father, had given when she was still too young to fully understand.

"Hard to find a place we can all fit," Kethel said. "Hard to stay for long."

Yes, because nobody wanted Fell around, and if they took a place by force they'd have to spend all their time defending it instead of learning to live by some way other than endless raiding, some way that didn't exhaust all the local resources until they had to move on or die. Consolation snarled at the old, familiar frustrations, until the backwash of her emotions crashed down through the flight's link and she yanked her anger back so she didn't swamp the others.

"We'll find a way," she told her kethel. "A home is worth a fight. It has to be."

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( 41. ) For syrena_of_the_lake: Narnia/Enchanted Forest Chronicles crossover; any character; boundaries between worlds, written 2/14/20

Strike the Bell (885 words)

As you can see, this completely and utterly got away from me. *wry*

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( cut for length )

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( 42. ) For anonymous: any, any, fine print, written 2/15/20

Uninformed Consent (275 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives. Sentences = I gave up.

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"What annoys me is that I don't think the binding should work at all," Basira remarked idly to Martin. "I read the contract very carefully after I signed it. No matter how convoluted legal jargon can get, I'm certain there weren't any clauses that could be construed as, 'You can't unilaterally terminate your employment, attempts to stay away from the Institute make you sick, and if Elias Bouchard dies, you will too.' You could argue that I was verbally informed of all that so my signature implied consent, but none of the rest of you knew what you were getting into, so that doesn't really hold water."

"I'm pretty sure logic has nothing to do with it," Martin said, having had far more time to worry at the problem than was probably good for his mental health. "It's more down to fear -- the fear that you've overlooked something vital and now someone's revealed a bit of information that ruins your life. That's what the Eye does: awful knowledge revealed only when it's far too late to fix anything, you know?"

Basira hummed thoughtfully. "If our fear is what fuels the contract's effectiveness, what happens if we all stop being afraid?"

"I don't know. I don't think that's possible, not for all of us, all of the time, or even for all of us at the same time for just a minute," Martin said.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. Daisy knows where to get hold of some powerful drugs," Basira said. "But we'll set that aside as a last resort. For now, I think stopping the Stranger from ending the world is more important."

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Now I will revise my little speech for tomorrow's Board Minute during the Sunday service, maybe do a couple other tiny chores, and then go to bed early. :)

Aka, my continuing adventures in finger exercises. (Also this year I seem to be leaning heavily into drabbles. I mean, if you're already applying one stringent structural restriction, why not go for two? Challenge is good for the soul!)

As always, here is the link to the current ficathon, if you want to come play too. :)

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( 13. ) For anonymous: any, any, roadtrip, written 12/14/18 [AO3 version]

Bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky (150 words)

"The difference between America and Europe is that in America, a hundred years is a long time, and in Europe, a hundred miles is a long way," the graduate student sent to pick up Father, Mother, and Susan said with a cheerful smile; "So brace yourselves -- New York to Chicago is a long way even for us, though at least you're not aiming for California."

Now, two and a half long days later and still not quite at their destination, Susan stares out the automobile windows at the blue-gray vastness of Lake Michigan, as endless as Indiana and Ohio's rolling fields of maize and alfalfa or the weary, forested mountains of Pennsylvania, and knows with quiet exultation that this world is so much larger than she'd dared to dream -- and so, in consequence, is she.

England was an egg, Narnia a nest, but she is fledged and ready to fly.

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( 14. ) For sawthefaeriequeen: The Hero and the Crown, Tor/Aerin/Luthe, court gossip, written 12/19/18 [AO3 version]

There's a lake I know (200 words exactly)

"The most ridiculous part is that it doesn't even matter, dynastically speaking, who the children's father is," Tor said as he tossed a pebble into the Lake of Dreams and watched the ripples spread across its deceptively inviting surface; "Aerin has always had a better claim on the throne than I do."

"Yes, but people do prefer a world where they can fold concepts into neatly organized mental cabinets, rather like folding freshly laundered linens," Luthe said without raising his head from Aerin's lap, "and 'The king rules by right of inheritance,' is tidier than 'The king rules because the queen was unofficially disinherited and then vanished to fight a sorcerer,' to say nothing of 'The king and queen have rejoined the royal bloodlines,' being tidier than 'The king and queen have made the vaguely ominous wizard of the mountains into their mutual lover and thereby potentially diluted the bloodline.'"

Aerin snorted inelegantly; "If being ominous were a race, you wouldn't even be at the starting line, and in any case I don't see why I should worry about fitting neatly into people's preconceptions now," she said, and held out her hand to draw Tor back down to her side.

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( 15. ) For anonymous: Any fandom, any character, cold blooded, written 12/19/18 [AO3 version]

Taxonomy (100 words exactly)

"Technically speaking, dragons are cold-blooded," Kazul said. "We just happen to also breathe fire, and that internal source of heat means we can carry on regardless of the ambient temperature; hibernation is for the lower orders of reptile."

"I see," Cimorene said, and decided it was best not to ask where basking on sunny rocks came into the divide between the higher and lower orders of reptile, unless she wanted a lecture on her own similarities to the lower orders of mammal, such as, for example, the unsanitary family of mice she'd only just managed to evict from her kitchen.

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( 16. ) For syrena_of_the_lake: Star Wars, C-3PO, why exactly was he programmed not to impersonate a deity?, written 12/19/18 [AO3 version]

Protocol (175 words)

"I know you only claimed to be an incarnation of that customer's god to save me from a beating, but Threepio, you should never impersonate an aspect of the divine," Mistress Shmi says as she re-solders the snapped wires in Threepio's shoulder. He makes a noise of confusion, and her face softens; "It's disrespectful," she explains, "both to the divinity whose place you usurp, and to the people whose right to make their own choices you steal by assuming a false position of power; you make yourself their master and them your slaves, which no person should ever do to another."

"I see," Threepio says, because even if he doesn't quite understand Mistress Shmi's reasoning (just as he doesn't understand her aversion to proper forms of address), he can tell this is important to her, and so that night instead of shutting down for recharge, he takes an hour to carefully add a line to his central programming and restart until it's locked in almost as deep as the core around which the Maker built him.

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( 17. ) For sholio: Any fandom, any characters, dry heat, written 12/20/18 [AO3 version]

Adverse Working Conditions (100 words exactly)

"But you grew up in a desert -- aren't you used to the heat?" Kanaya's fellow trainees ask every time she complains about the oppressive internal climate of the brooding caverns. She does have to admit that the system is ingeniously designed, a combination of a natural geothermal upwelling that, as a side-effect, supplies several luxurious hot springs, augmented with some judicious plumbing and vents to improve both air and water circulation, but the point remains that eggs and grubs require water and while she's used to extreme heat, a desert is by definition dry.

Besides, humidity is terrible for fashion.

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( 18. ) For sholio: Any fandom, any characters, mood lighting, written 12/20/18 [AO3 version]

Mutually Assured Destruction (400 words exactly)

As you can see, this one got away from me a little. *wry*

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"So, cards on the table, anything said here will never leave this room, blah blah whatever," Terezi said as she dropped carelessly into a chair opposite Rose in the meteor lab's library. "What bullshit side effect did you get as the booby prize in the Seer package?"

Rose eyed her counterpart warily, then figured she might as well share; after all, if a fellow Seer (and occasional Dave-wrangler) couldn't understand, who in the multiverse possibly could? "Mood lighting," she said. "Appropriate to whatever sort of drama or nonsense is about to occur, occasionally with individual spotlights to pick out specific people's intentions or states of mind. It's annoying, distracting, and has caused Kanaya to assume I have some idiosyncratic form of color-blindness. You?"

"Text boxes," Terezi said, folding her arms on the table and propping her chin on her crossed wrists. "Did I ask to get constant peeks at people's shitty internal monologues, complete with non-sequiturs, tortured rationalizations, and a slew of intrusive thoughts I could have gone my entire life without knowing? No I did not. Did I get them anyway? Yes I did. They don't even have the decency to smell appetizing; the backgrounds are a particularly stale shade of yellow."

Rose raised her eyebrows. "Do I want to know what my text box says at the moment?"

Terezi countered with another question: "How masochistic are you feeling?"

"I see. Then I won't mention your lighting effects, either," Rose said. "On an almost but not entirely unrelated note, have you Seen anything useful about our arrival in the scratched session lately?"

Terezi dropped her face into the gap between her arms. "Ugh. No. You?"

"Alas, no."

Terezi made an indecipherable noise of frustration and the ambient purple light over her shoulders shifted further toward gray, darkening and desaturating in a mix of anger and depression. Then she lifted her head and grinned like she didn't have a care in the world. "Great conversation, very productive!" she said. "If you tell anyone--"

"You'll hang me? But why? We haven't spoken in days," Rose said.

Terezi's grin didn't change, but her lighting shifted a few points back toward full saturation. "I knew there was a reason I like you. Also, ask Kanaya on a date already. There is only so much mutual pining I can stand to read."

She swept out of the library before Rose could muster a reply.

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And now on to other internet housekeeping tasks that I've let slide for... uh... let's just say "a while" and leave it at that, shall we? *sigh*