foxinthestars

Yuletide draws closer and closer -- nominations are done (mine went through without a hitch), and the tagset is now open for viewing. Lots of good stuff this year! (People even squeezed in the animated and chibi-animated versions of MDZS. ::shrug::)

So, now it's time to sift through and figure out what I want to request, what I want to offer, and what I can stuff into my proverbial mouth before sign-ups end (ie, within the next 2 weeks).

I definitely want to finish Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, and this might be a good chance to catch up on the specifically-nominated Ascendance of a Bookworm anime since I never watched the second season. That might be as much as or more than I can manage, but we'll see how it goes.

I'm doing Yuletide again. I've become quite committed to doing it every year as a personal tradition. (Like, it and one other exchange per year seems to be about right.)

Still planning my offers, and taking it as a push to explore some canons I'd been meaning to get to or thought would be good to see but never had. I should probably keep mum about what those are, but it's been fun, and I'm down to one thing I want to dive into before I finalize my plans.

I guess I can say some things I've looked into but decided not to offer, though.

I had been meaning to read A Redtail's Dream and am now about halfway through. Really liking it, but the Finnish cultural context is vital to it, and I don't know enough about that to competently write fic. So, crossed off the offer list but still open in a tab to finish reading soon. In general I have this annoyance where if I go into a comics store/section, I want to want something, but I can never find anything I actually want; webcomics are probably just a better place for me to look.

Also due to this I got around to playing the Stella Glow demo on my 3DS. Looks interesting (and very very anime), but I finally crossed it off the list due to the money and time commitment that playing it through in time to write something would entail. It's on my wishlist now, though.

Anyway, my Dear Author letter should be posted early next week. It'll mostly be prompts recycled from previous exchanges, but what the heck.

Merry Christmas everybody!

It's been a quiet day here, other than the whole presents thing.

The standard list of what I got:
-Encouraging my recent dabbles in music, I got two pennywhistles, a pendant ocarina, and a Legend of Zelda sheet music book.
-some silky/furry fox pajamas
-A Mystery Science Theater DVD box set ("Volume XXXIV," including "Viking Women & the Sea Serpent," "War of the Colossal Beast," "The Undead," and "The She-Creature")
-Andes Creme de Menthe chocolate thins (a family tradition)
-from my cool big sis and sister-in-law, a Nozomi Project necklace. "Beauty from brokenness," they say, made from broken pottery from the tsunami in Japan. It's blue-on-white, very pretty.
-and "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D," so that I in my Zelda obsession can finally experience an apparently-classic game I missed, and so that I actually have a 3DS game to play on the Limited Edition Hyrule Gold New 3DS I got.*

And, for Yuletide, I got a Mushishi fic plus a Moribito fic as a treat. I've also gotten very nice comments on the story I wrote, including one from the recipient, so I'm pleased with how that came out (can't say more as yet, of course).

Hope everyone else is having a great day!


*When I get around to it; I still haven't finished Minish Cap and I kind of had this idea to not play two games in the same series or genre back to back and was thinking after Minish Cap I might finally get to PopoloCrois since they're coming out with the Story of Seasons crossover next year. I love getting games like that, I'm just a slowpoke about getting around to playing them.

Happy New Year, everyone!

The changing of the calendar also means that Yuletide is over, authors are revealed, and so at last I can brag about the stuff I wrote!

For the main Yuletide collection, I only did one story, but I felt like it was enough. I was re-matched to my recipient from my very first Yuletide, re-kindled my love for the fandom they introduced me to lo those years ago, and finished the story I'd been wanting to do in that fandom for almost that long:

As Many Lullabyes (11628 words) by foxinthestars
Chapters: 7/7
Fandom: Psychic Force
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Keith Evans, Burn Griffith, Sonia (Psychic Force), Richard Wong, Brad Kirsten, Carlo Belfrond, Regina Belfrond
Additional Tags: Crueltide
Summary:

After the horrors he's been through, Keith can never seem to fall asleep. As the years pass, everyone has their own way to help.

Everything else I did was for the Yuletide Madness collection, eleven pieces in all, so I'll put them behind a cut:

( Yuletide Madness ficlets (and one fanart) for: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow; Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander; Dana Knightstone games; Hyouka; Juuni Kokki | The Twelve Kingdoms; Mushishi; The Paper Bag Princess - Robert Munsch; Princess Tutu; Snowpiercer; Sovay (Traditional Song) )

I had a great time writing this year, and I hope any fellow Yuletiders reading did, too! I have a few prompts and ideas tucked away for New Years Resolution stories, too, lest life become too ordinary too soon.

Happy 2015!

Oh, yes, I never did post about how this past Yuletide came out.

I received a lovely story based on Uchouten Kazoku:

Wishing Well (3160 words) by augusta_brie
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 有頂天家族 | Uchouten Kazoku | The Eccentric Family
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Shimogamo Yajirou, Shimogamo Yasaburou, Shimogamo Yashirou, Shimogamo Yaichirou
Additional Tags: idiot blood, Family
Summary: Each brother has taken a turn visiting Yajirou's well.

And I wrote a Moribito story:

( Ao3 link and commentary )

Now someone wrote me a New Years' Resolution story that I've procrastinated about reading in an unconscionable manner. I'm better at giving than receiving in these things... -_-;;

Hope my fellow USians had a Happy Thanksgiving, and wishing everyone a happy Buy Nothing Day!

I also haven't posted since I got my assignment for Yuletide. It's funny, I agonized about whether I might be assigned X or Y that I had offered --- and of course got matched on Z. I can see how it happened in hindsight, tho, and it worked out well; it's something I like, and as far as the prompts, my recipient gave me a lot of freedom (I daresay they're a peach to work with compared to myself and my high-concept genfic thing), so I think I'll have fun with it. Doing some canon review, and then I'll have a go...

It is comforting to remind myself that I'm a single 1,000-word 'fic away from being clear of my obligations for this, but Yuletide is kind of a bunny factory, there's a temptation to get carried away...

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Glad you signed up for Yuletide, hope you’re having fun, and thanks so much for offering to write a story for me --- for my very first Yuletide!

( Me, myself, and prompts for Allison & Lillia, Saiunkoku Monogatari, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and Natsume Yuujinchou )

(BTW, I don’t know if we’re supposed to do this for Yuletide, but I have anonymous comments enabled, so if you want to, you can use that to ask me questions here without revealing who you are.) (Okay, turns out we're not supposed to do that...)