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Dear Yule Goat

We've matched! Out of all the gin joints in all the fandoms in all the world, you had to walk into mine. This, alone, is enough to fill me with immense fondness for you and your works.

This will be my fourth year doing Yuletide, and every year, I am more and more amazed at what the participants in this challenge can pull off. I've never had a disappointing Yuletide morning, no matter how closely my writer followed my prompt or how much they took it off into their own fantastic directions. My suggestions are just that: suggestions. I would rather receive a story that someone was passionate about than one written out of slavish adherence to specifications. Write whatever you need to write to have a good Yuletide.

That said, if you're LOOKING for some guidance: I'm agnostic regarding femmeslash, slash, gen, and het. I'm very into fanworks that interrogate the text, that poke at it and extrapolate and build in new details that may or may not be comfortable to read about. I also like banter, science, history, and literary references. If you have any more questions about my preferences generally, please consult my dear internet bring me a pony tag, which contains my previous fannish challenge letters (including, uh, the one that I apparently didn't write last year. Whoops).

On to the fandoms!

(Fandoms to come.)

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Hockiest. Weekend. Ever.

Hello gang! I have not posted here for a while. I blame

Tumblr,

Work, and, for the last ~~three days~~ ~~week~~ two weeks (it was a long two weeks, okay? Computer shenanigans happened.) or so,

BEING DEAD OF SHEER JOY BECAUSE PATRICK KANE SCORED A SPINORAMA GOAL THIRTY FEET FROM MY FACE.

Yes, by the grace of the NHL schedule, the Stars played the Blackhawks at home on a Saturday night, and because bienenalster is a glorious enabler, we drove up to Dallas to watch. This was the best decision I have made all year, and I am including the one about putting mochi bits into Nutella. It took a while to recover from my unfortunate demise, but, like Jesus, I have risen to preach the good news of Brandon Saad’s hockey sense.

But first, we had to try to assimilate Coworker J into the glories of hockey by throwing the Aeros at her.

( THURSDAY: A Fan is Born )
( SATURDAY: In Which It Is Totally Okay to Pity the Dallas Stars, But Only For 97 Seconds )
( SUNDAY: In which I learn how to skate backwards, and Kris Foucault learns about pendulums. )

NEXT TIME, OR WHENEVER TECHNOLOGY STOPS HATING ME: PICTURES!!

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Yuletide Reveal!

Another Yuletide has come and gone, and I wrote in a fandom that isn't Young Wizards this year!

Postcards from After the End for Kass. Newsflesh Trilogy, Georgia Mason/Shaun Mason. They sent their posts and articles via blind relay. They sent their very rare postcards much the same way.

I'm very much afraid that it wasn't my best effort, but my recipient liked it, and that's what matters. Also, it has hockey references, because apparently that's how I roll now and forever. The zombie apocalypse has to happen first, but the Maple Leafs do, eventually, win the Stanley Cup again.

In return, I received TWO OUTSTANDINGLY AWESOME WORKS, BOTH FROM MY ASSIGNED YULE GOAT. Y'all, I don't know how they did it, but belford deserves all the praise in the world and you should go give them some.

The first present was Bigger Than You Think an interactive story of exploration, which was a CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE VIDEO GAME COMBINING XKCD AND ITALO CALVINO. I almost burst out crying Christmas morning, I was so happy with it. Also, it wasn't quite The Fic That Won Yuletide (I think the Twisted Princesses fic that got linked on i09 did that), but it was up there, and I am happy that it was FOR MEEEE.

The second present was Tropesis, in Young Wizards, which was The Winged Defender/The Lone Power in the time before entropy. I know I said I loved the video game, but this one hit me where I LIVE, and I think I love it EVEN MORE than the video game. Go read it, it's beautiful.

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The Houston Aeros: apparently, you can do things with ice besides put it in tea

OKAY, SO. Tuesday,

puckling asked me, in the name of opposition research, which players on the Houston Aeros she should watch out for when she goes to the Aeros-IceHogs game on Friday. Then, because I mentioned that some of the Aeros are pretty decent, facewise, she demanded proof, which I promised to provide as soon as I could get to a place with an internet connection. HERE YOU GO, PUCK.

Disclaimer: Last season, I didn't really get into the Aeros, because I already spend six months of the year weeping over the inadequacies of a Houston sports team and my dance card in that regard is FULL. But they play pretty good hockey, and they're right there, so I started listening to/attending games this season. My knowledge is recent and limited and has largely been acquired against my will, because the road to Aeros fandom dead-ends in the Minnesota Wild, and I cannot root for Zach Parise. I JUST CAN'T.

( Rambling and pictures ahoy! )

OKAY AND NOW THE TEA-SHOP PEOPLE ARE KICKING ME OUT SO I HAVE TO GO BACK TO MY INTERNET-LESS HOME, BUT PUCKLING, THESE ARE THE ONES TO WATCH OUT FOR.

Current Mood: excited

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Ce n'est pas a Yuletide Letter

But one will reside here before too long! Until that happy day, here are my signups:

This Is Where It Starts Commercial

Ben Watkins
Meng Ling

I'm really intrigued by the notion that the only way the pinnacle of a sport can be reached is when two talented individuals meet and decide that they'd like to pound each other into the floor (in one way or another). That said, I'd really like a slash story that focuses on Watkins' and Meng's rivalry and how it shapes their relationship with the sport and with each other. Futurism would also be awesome, but isn't necessary. Have fun!

xkcd 1110 (Click and Drag)

Pick a quadrant. Write me a story. If you offered this, I'm sure you've got one in mind. If you need suggestions, I give a few in my Dear Yulegoat letter.

Young Wizards - Diane Duane

Lone Power (Young Wizards)
Machu Picchu | Winged Defender

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Why, you might ask?
I don't know, but I feel it
and it burns.

Winged Defender/Lone Power, please.

Community

Abed Nadir
Troy Barnes
Annie Edison

They all grow up, but not at the same pace. Abed/Troy/Annie.

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For andthenextday

For

sixteenwins, I put up a week of posts as my stake. I lost, horribly, and

andthenextday won, magnificently, and requested a week of the Los Angeles Kings hugging each other and having terrible facial hair. The results are below the cut.

( andthenextday is a time-traveling terminator. )

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TAE KWON DORKS: An Incomplete, Irreverent, Possibly Irrelevant Guide to Olympic Taekwondo

The Summer Olympics are here, and while everyone else in the United States is huddled around the TV to watch the gymnasts defy gravity and Michael Phelps win another Fort Knox-equivalent of gold medals, I'll be clutching my laptop, watching the only event that really matters to me: taekwondo.

Olympic-style sparring is fast, intense, and highly skilled. It combines explosive movement with the strategy of chess. It's fun to do and fun to watch, and unless you yourself are a high-level competitor or lucky enough to live in a city that's hosting a tournament, the Olympics are the only time you can really see the world's best in action. Basically, I spend the Summer Olympics flailing incoherently over TKD. I invite you to join me.

( The Basics )

( Who to Watch )

( How to Watch )

( Appendices, Footnotes, and Further Resources )

Hopefully, this giant primer has piqued your interest in my favorite sport. Taekwondo is big and complicated and wonderful and I love it, and I hope you'll watch it and talk to me about it. Thank you for reading!

These patriotic BAMFs thank you for your time. And I thank

jamethiel for reading over this and telling me where it was boring.

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THE NOT-VERY-EPIC TALE OF KARLSSON AND ELLER

So. This is Erik Karlsson.

And this is Lars Eller.

And if you'll give me a moment of your time, I'll tell you why

87711988 should write about them boning for

hockeyrarepairs.

( Good-looking Nordic Boys and Backstory, HO! )

( The Just-The-Good-Bits Version )

Okay, back to my

hockeyrarepairs fic, which is basically an excuse for me to write both sides of an epic chirp-off and hope that I'm as funny as I think I am. We shall see.

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On Superstition and Cookery

So the Flyers are facing elimination tonight, and I decided that I would make Chocolate Chip Comeback Cookies to take with me to the hockey bar tonight. (This isn't quite as weird as it sounds. We usually order in food, and one guy's bringing cheesesteaks tonight.)

My usual chocolate chip cookie recipe makes four dozen. Of the four dozen cookies I backed this afternoon, one dozen burned, one dozen fell on the floor after the wire rack overturned, and the remaining two dozen are the sorriest looking cookies I have ever made in my entire life. They are EPICALLY pathetic.

Needless to say, the Chocolate Chip Comeback Cookies will not be coming with me to the bar. If I knew a way to ritually burn cookies, I would do that instead.

*whimper*

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Just When I Think I Can't Love Ilya Bryzgalov More...

He goes and does stuff like this:

When asked what he would have done if he hadn’t become a professional hockey goalie, Bryzgalov didn’t hesitate.

“Astronaut,” he said quickly.

The media pack sort of blinked back at him. No one was sure whether he was kidding. He wasn’t.

“No, seriously,” he added.

At which point Bryzgalov began a long dissertation about the American space program versus the Soviet/Russian space program and which was superior. He noted that the first two animals in space were Russian dogs, which led to a strange exchange between Bryzgalov and a reporter about who had lost more monkeys in space -- the Americans or the Soviets/Russians. Bryzgalov conceded that too many monkeys had lost their lives in that vocation.

“The problem with monkeys,” Bryzgalov quipped, “they push the wrong buttons.”

WHY IS THERE NOT VIDEOTAPE OF THIS? My soul cries out for Bryz's opinion on the Soviet space program. How does he feel about the historical blind spot in which Valentina Tereshkova resides? Does he agree with Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the motivations behind the initial Soviet push? I NEED TO KNOW.

My soul also cries out because of last night's game. I don't really want to talk about it. Bryz was good, everyone else was inexplicably bad, Laviolette needs to yell at everyone, and it should never happen again. THE END. (Except to add that I kind of want to stab this guy with his own pen. "Bryzgalov played well, sure, but Philly doesn't need 'well.' Philly demands A GOALTENDING GOD." Jackass.)

I've been talking a lot (for me) about hockey fandom, but I've also been writing, in an incredibly distracted, ADD sort of way, three stories:

( Cut because I bored even myself with this bit )

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HOCKEY BARS ARE WONDERFUL

Tonight, in honor of the Flyers' assault against the Penguins, I decided to abandon my solitary ritual of a livestream and GChat and venture out into the wilds of my city's only hockey bar.

THIS TURNED OUT TO BE AN EXCELLENT DECISION.

( Spoilers of Awesomeness and Drunkenness both )

THIS HAS BEEN A DRUNK PLAYOFFS POST, I HOPE IT DIDN'T SUCK TOO MUCH. GRACIAS Y'ALL. BLACKHAWKS MANANA POR VICTORY.

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Ilya Bryzgalov, Master of the Universe

WHO WAS THE NHL'S FIRST STAR LAST WEEK... AND THEN AGAIN THIS WEEK?

THIS GUY.

And this is reason enough to get off my ass and post my primer on Ilya Bryzgalov, and Why You Should Love Him.

Disclaimer: I got into hockey about two months ago. I wrote this because the alternative was babbling about my Bryzgalov Feelings to

jamethiel until she got sick of me. I may have gotten things wrong. Proceed With Caution.

( Early Career: Russia and the AHL. In Which Not Much Happens, At Least According to the English-Speaking Internet. )

( Anaheim Ducks and Phoenix Coyotes: In Which a Personality Begins to Emerge. )

( Philadelphia Flyers: In Which Someone Finally Gives Bryz a Mic, and The World Rejoices. Except Philly. )

( Sidebars )

This magnificent human being thanks you for your time.

Current Mood: nostalgic

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Fannish History Meme

Because my Dai Stiho Friend/Ship fic won't procrastinate itself, here, have my fannish history meme.

( This )

Okay. Time to get back to writing!

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Things Hockey Fandom Has Taught Me

I'm not dead, I promise! I've just been spending a lot of time in the real world, and also on Tumblr, which requires much less thought than Dreamwidth. However, Tumblr is mostly for my RL friends, albeit a fannish subset thereof. I want to get back into the thinking and writing and squeeing thing in a space where shame is a completely foreign concept because:

I think I might be into hockey fandom now? I mean, I've still never seen a game or anything, but first

jamethiel wrote me up a little pimp thingie because I asked her to tell me why hockey fandom was awesome, and then

thefourthvine started reccing it, and now it's a week later and I seem to have woken up in a Canadian back alley covered in bruises and jerseys with strong opinions about Jonathan Toews. Help!

It's been an interesting trip, because this is the first time I've read a LOT in a fandom where I knew absolutely nothing. I have cousins who play hockey and a sort of vague hereditary obligation to cheer for the Flyers when prompted, but going into this I didn't even know how many periods were in a game. However! Hockey fandom has stepped in to fill the gap and taught me many things:

Sidney Crosby is a hockey-playing robot.
Patrick Kane is a horrible human being.
Jonathan Toews is a hockey-playing robot and a horrible human being.
No one pines like Geno Malkin.
Alexander Ovechin is a puckish matchmaking spirit of whimsy.
Duncan Keith has no teeth whatsoever, because he gave them all to Brent Seabrook as a declaration of love.
Carey Price is a stoner cowboy.
PK Subban is a big dumb puppy.
Claude Giroux and Daniel Briere are married and have three adorable French-Canadian children. They just haven't realized they're married yet.
Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews kinda know that they're married, but they keep fighting because the make-up sex is awesome.
Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook know that they're married, and spend a lot of time worrying about other people's marriages.
Everyone in the NHL is funny-looking except for Patrick Sharp.
NHL players are the worst at pranks.
Somewhere in the NHL is an entire team composed of players named Staal.
No one in the NHL in the entire history of ever can ever talk about their feelings. Ever.

Obviously this is an incomplete list. So, does anyone have any recs/advice on how to watch hockey without, actually, living in a state where hockey is a thing/owning a TV? Youtube has been helping me out, but it's a bit hit-or-miss.

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Yuletide Wrap-Up

Yuletide has come and gone for another year. I'm going to be a while longer slogging through the backlog of posted fic, though, because the Dread God Real Life has been very active lately, but here, have my reveal and a few recs.

I wrote Automotive Testing Procedures in the Young Wizards fandom. I'm pretty sure it was an easy guess for anyone who cared to take a swing at it, since my affection for Kit and Ronan and penchant for pretentious titles are dead giveaway tells in Young Wizards. I also received fic in Young Wizards, Remaking, a wonderful little slice of Tom/Carl that was exactly what I was hoping for when I asked someone to write me the fic their heart desired.

( Other fic I liked included: )

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Dear Yule Goat,

Hello! I just got done with a challenge that was very stressful for me, largely through my own fault, so let me tell you what I wish someone had told me: it doesn't matter what you write, as long as you write it. I love every single one of these fandoms to itty bitty pieces (in one case literally; one of the books has disintegrated), and no matter what you write, I'll love it. Take every single thing I say from here on as strictly or as loosely as you need to to have a joyous Yuletide.

In brief: I'm a multishipper and a multifandom whore. I love, in alphabetical order, femslash, gen, het, and slash. I'm a huge fan of fanworks that look at the canon from a new perspective and that build in new details about the world in which they are set. I generally prefer badinage and wit over angst and despair, but I can be persuaded otherwise. My absolute squicks are embarrassment, mpreg, and mentor-mentee sex. If you want details about my preferences generally, I urge you to consult the list at the end of this letter, my “dear internet please bring me a pony tag,” which collects all of my fandom exchange letters, and my Delicious and AO3 bookmarking pages, which are linked in the sidebar. If you want details about my prompts specifically, those are below the cuts.

( Young Wizards )

( Newsflesh - Mira Grant )

( The Night Circus - Erin Morganstern )

( Fidelio (Op.72) )

( In General: )

Have fun with this, dear Yule Goat. I can't wait to see what you make.

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A Post of Many Things

1. Kaleidoscope authors have finally been revealed, which means that I get to tell you all that I wrote Experiments in Writer's Block in Y tu mama tambien fandom for

venturous! This was not an easy story to write; I came up with the central concept of "writer's block" early in the process, and it proved ominously prescient. That said, I am actually pretty happy with it, and I've gotten some really lovely feedback for it. If you enjoy young men dooming themselves to unhappiness through their own emotional barriers, I recommend you give it a shot. If not, well, I don't blame you.

2. Yuletide assignments are out! My letter, which I didn't post until a few days after assignments went out (oops) is here, with prompts in Young Wizards, The Night Circus, Newsflesh, and Fidelio, should you care to peruse it. The Fannish Exchange Gods, perhaps in compensation for the horrors they visited upon me during Kaleidoscope, have given me an excellent excuse to write a story that's been dying to be written by someone in this fandom for a long time. My only fear is Length; I don't think this one is going to stay short.

3. My Adventures in Tag Wrangling continue apace: I now wrangle Twilight. All of it. Because I have read two of the books (sober) and have seen all of the movies so far (shit-faced drunk) and that's more qualification than I have to wrangle some of my fandoms, and because no one else was taking them. This, apparently, is what the OTW does: makes you make it easier for people to read things in a fandom you completely hate, because you actually do believe that everyone has a right to write and read the Werewolf/Vampire/Spineless Self-Insert Character threesome of their heart. Fandom, what have you done to me.

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Kaleidoscope is Live! And Comes Highly Recommended.

The Kaleidoscope fics are live, and while I can't tell you which fic I nearly killed myself writing until next Saturday, I can recommend quite a few of them.

( Recs in Coffee Prince, The Inheritance Trilogy, Saving Face, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Mongolian History RPF under the cut! )

If those weren't enough, there's a list of all the fanworks, gifts and treats alike, here. Go give them some love.

Now, I need a favor in return: I'm about to embark on a three-day cross-country drive with my father. My type-A, ADD father, whom I adore but who also is not, shall we say, good at transitional periods, change, sharing, or driving for extended periods of time. We have audiobooks and NPR podcasts, but those only go so far. For the sake of our filial relationship, please, recommend to me any good, novel-length fic you've read recently, preferably on the AO3 for ease of Kindle-ing. I don't care about the fandom or pairing, though I have been heavily into the Avengers movieverse lately.

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Writing! It's very hard to love it, sometimes.

Oh my god, y'all. My hair has gone white overnight, my visage is gnarled and twisted, and my friends and relations no longer know my face, but my Kaleidoscope fic is done. Or rather, abandoned, because it works okay-ish and lacks major grammatical and stylistic errors and doesn't completely suck and at five hours until the fics go live (not are due, mind you, but go live), I feel that I have wrung every drop of blood from that particular stone. Writing this aged me. It isn't even like it was particularly long. I was just incredibly stressed out over figuring out what my recipient wanted, exactly, and reconciling my best guesses about that to a very, very tightly closed canon. I know for a fact that I was waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy overthinking the whole thing, but I have never freaked out over a challenge like this before. My brain has been reduced to .gifs.

( A challenge, as told in .gifs. Warning for abuse of bandwidth. )

Now, to go sign up for Yuletide so I can do it all again in a month.

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I went to the post office and I found this...

I can't do a proper Yuletide squee post yet, because I haven't done signups yet, because real life and Kaleidoscope have combined to eat me, but this was too good not to do a quick share before I run off to a meeting:

Proof that America is the land of slash and honey*: Even our government agencies write anthropomorfic.

*Note for the benefit of the slash: honey apparently makes a terrible lube.

Edit: ARGH HTML ARGH NEW POSTING WINDOW ARGH