► Today, while I was visiting, my brother showed me parts of the Shadow portions of Sonic X Shadow Generations, and it was the most amazing time, oh my god. I was already inclined to get this game (high praise, since I can’t remember the last time I was interested in getting a new Sonic game!), but now I’m really excited to get my hands on it. (Though I am going to wait for a sale, because 50€ is oof.)

Mostly, I was shown the hub world, some of the stages, and a couple of the bosses—I’m mostly unspoiled when it comes to the actual cut scenes, and prefer to keep it that way. A few things I wanted to comment on: ( spoilers beneath the cut )

► In a complete shift of topic… I saw shadaras and eglantiere do a Yuletide meme that looked pretty fun, so I decided to do it too! I’ve “only” written 14 works for Yuletide on this account, so there’s a little less variety than with someone more proliferant than I am, but I feel like it’s still enough works to make this meme be worth it <3

Five Most Popular Yuletide Fics (by kudos)
( beneath the cut )

This isn’t a part of the meme, but out of personal curiosity, I looked at the years posted as well. The earliest fic on the above list was posted in 2013, while the latest was posted in 2016. (The last time I posted a work to the Yuletide collection in general was 2018, which, oof, that’s longer ago in the past than I realized.)

Five Personal Favorite Yuletide Fics

( beneath the cut )

I’ve finished my first pass through the Yuletide collection, and now come bearing some initial recs! (I do need to emphasize the “first pass” part—for whatever reason, a lot more fics than usual ended up on my marked-for-later list rather than being read straight away.)

Fandoms include: And Then There Were None, Beware of the Villainess, “Christmas Cottage” by Thomas Kinkade, Cotillion, A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and The Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defense

( recs beneath the cut )

Without extra commentary this year, mostly because I don't think I have the headspace for it.

This year, I didn’t separate out my gift fics from the rest of my recs — mostly because 3/5 (!!!) of the I Reincarnated into an Otome Game as a Villainess with Only Destruction Flags!* section was written for me, and my recs for that section looked a little sad without them. I did put stars in front of the titles of my gifts, though, to differentiate them a bit from the rest.

(* Honestly, requesting this fandom for Yuletide might have been one of the best decisions I made this year. The stories in that fandom all brought me so much delight on Christmas morning.)

( recs beneath the cut )

Time for my yearly Yuletide recs! I'm not quite finished with commenting on everything I read and loved, but I have finished reading, so I figured I'd get the recs post up now.

Of course, I need to start this off with the fic which was written just for me! ♥

Tuesday Afternoon (2172 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Gokusen - All Media Types
Relationships: Sawada Shin/Yamaguchi Kumiko
Characters: Sawada Shin, Yamaguchi Kumiko, OFC
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Totally Coincidental Meetings Ok, Dating, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Most afternoons, when he is free, Sawada Shin likes to go to a little café close to university.

I don't know if anyone on my flist has read the Gokusen manga, but if you have, definitely read this. It's just so lovingly written, and the characterization is perfect. ♥

(The rest of the recs are in alphabetical order by fandom.)

( more recs beneath the cut )

► So I just realized that there was a Dragon Friends Christmas Special podcast???? I managed to listen to it in the dying hours of 2016, and it was SO GOOD. So, so good. I mean, it was basically two hours of Freezo and His Christmas Adventures, so it’s not surprising that it was amazing, but still. That was a delight. ( cut for spoilers, and probably length )

► In the last few days, I also got a new phone, because my old one was dying a slow, drawn out death. I bring this up because, now that I have a new phone, I’ve decided to start checking out some of the visual novels/otome games that have gotten so much love on FFA, starting with Mystic Messenger. So far, I can definitely see why this one is so beloved, even though I’m still baffled at the thought of a visual novel fandom having so many fics.

I’m on Day Four right now, and I am in love. ( cut for the usual reasons )

►This entry’s getting quite long, but I don’t want to leave it off without doing one last thing. Reveals have happened over at Yuletide, which means that it’s time for me to talk about what I wrote. I wrote five stories, which is a Yuletide record for me— and that was such a nice surprise, considering that I'd barely managed to write/finish anything else this past year!( cut for length )

► I might actually get a second entry out today, because 1) I want to get my usual my-year-in-writing retrospective up, 2) the Fandom Snowflake Challenge has started and I’d like to do that as well, and 3) there was another end-of-the-year post I wanted to do, but forgot about yesterday. We’ll see if I get it all done— I still have a lot of real-life stuff that I wanted to do today too.

► Today's Christmas, which in my family means Mandatory Family Movie Night. This time around we went for a rewatch of The Lion King, and I swear, that movie gets sadder every time I watch it. ( cut for those who would rather skip this )

I mean. It's still an excellent movie. It's just that it's also really, really sad.

► On a completely different note... Yuletide fics are up! I got a really, really adorable fic for A Little Lily Princess.

A Cat on the Hearth (1764 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: A Little Lily Princess (Visual Novel)
Rating: Not Rated
Relationships: Jessie Abbott/Lavinia Herbert
Characters: Jessie Abbott, Lavinia Herbert
Summary: After their graduation, Jessie and Lavinia continue to dance around each other.

Yes, that's a post-canon Jessie/Lavinia fic. With cats. :D Or, more precisely, a cat.

I'll make my usual recs post sometime this week. Right now, I'm still working my way through the collection. There's been some pretty great fics so far, though.

It’s that time of year again.

This is a very much barebones and incomplete list of recs, as 1) I haven’t quite finished going through the archive, and 2) I know that there’s some on my to-comment list that I forgot to put on here. I wanted to get this out before the anonymous period ended, but there’s a good possibility that I’ll update it at a later point, once I have the chance to be more thorough.

Anyways. First off, here’s the gift I got this year!:

The Only Thing That Signifies (2004 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Cousin Kate - Georgette Heyer, HEYER Georgette - Works
Relationships: Kate Malvern/Philip Broome, Kate Malvern & Torquil
Characters: Kate Malvern, Philip Broome, Torquil (Cousin Kate - Georgette Heyer), Sir Timothy Broome
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It
Summary: What if Lady Broome had died a natural death?

This gift made me so, so happy. All I wanted when I finished reading this book earlier this year was for Torquil to have survived, and this fic definitely delivers on that. It’s just so heartwarming and sweet.

( find the rest under the cut )


Total: 21 fics in 14 fandoms.

Yes, I know reveals happened hours ago. But I wanted to post about it when it was 1 January here, so I waited until now. And by "now", I mean that I started on this after my family celebrated the clock hitting midnight, and that it's now almost one in the morning. I want my bed. >_>

This Yuletide, I wrote a total of four fics in three different fandoms: my assignment, two full-length treats, and one Madness ficlet.

( why don't you be the writer / and decide the words I say )

I still have one more wrap-up post for 2014 coming— the one pertaining to my fic-writing year as a whole— so keep an eye out for that one, if you'd like.

► Before I say anything else: I got a treat for Yuletide Madness! I definitely was not expecting that, especially since I'd checked my gifts page not that long before the collection was revealed and didn't see anything. AND IT'S A MIKORIN/SAKURA which handles the canon relationships + characterization really, really well. ♥

Reality and Stardust (1722 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 月刊少女野崎くん | Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mikoshiba Mikoto/Sakura Chiyo
Characters: Mikoshiba Mikoto, Sakura Chiyo, Nozaki Umetarou
Additional Tags: Post-Canon
Summary: "You understand him best out of all of us," Nozaki tells Sakura before she embarks on a spectacularly horrible plan to fool someone into thinking she and Mikorin are in a relationship even when they aren't.

► Pretty much my whole day has been dedicated to Yuletide. I stayed up until four in the morning reading fic last night, and finished my (first?) run through both the main archive and Madness today. I've gotten started on commenting on the fics-which-were-not-my-gifts which I liked, and I've also started compiling a rec list, so that should be popping ip sometime within the next day or so.

► Finally (and most importantly):

MERRY CHRISTMAS &/OR HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!

I hope your winter has been lovely. ♥