straightforwardly

► The Trick or Treat collection is open! It’s massive (only one fanwork away from 900!), so I’m still making my way through it . I’m planning on making a full rec list when I’m done, but I don’t know when that’ll be, so I’d like to take a quick moment to rec my gifts, because they were all fantastic. (I don’t know what gods I pleased to have such great luck in my exchange gifts lately, but whatever I did, I hope it keeps on working. *_*)

[art] Dryad (0 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Forest Spirit - Character, Moss-Covered Unicorn
Additional Tags: Nymphs & Dryads, Unicorns, Autumn, Ridiculous Disambiguation, Extra Treat, Art
Summary: A forest spirit, just chilling with her moss-covered unicorn.

Art! I got art! I was so excited when I shook the collection and realized I’d be getting art, and it definitely did not disappoint. Plus, it has the Moss-Covered Unicorn of my dreams! ♥ Go look at it—it’s an original piece, so you really don’t need any outside knowledge to fully appreciate it.

Sleep in the Arm of a Lonesome Rock (2815 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Lalli Hotakainen & Onni Hotakainen & Tuuri Hotakainen, Team (Relationship)
Characters: Lalli Hotakainen, Tuuri Hotakainen, Onni Hotakainen, The Crew (Stand Still Stay Silent)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Trick or Treat: Trick, Major Character Undeath, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Family, ToT: Monster Mash
Summary: “You people can’t make me come with you!”

Except, clearly, they could.

This is amazing. *_* It’s a ghost story, but also packed full with Hotakainen family feelings and Emil & Lalli feelings and some lovely creepy moments, which means that it’s basically made for me. (...I say, about a fic which was literally made for me.) And that ending was just… Stars in my eyes, forever.

When You Wake (1041 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lalli Hotakainen/Emil Västerström
Characters: Lalli Hotakainen, Emil Västerström
Additional Tags: Fluff without Plot, Cuddling & Snuggling, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary: Lalli falls asleep in Emil's dream and wakes up on the floor of some Old-World building. At least Emil is there too, even if there's no cake.

This, on the other hand, is pure fluff. <3 Which is something that I’m always up for when it comes to Emil/Lalli. (As well as horror...and angst...and okay, I’m basically always wanting Emil/Lalli in any form I can get it in.) It’s not canon-compliant anymore, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s still a sweet, cozy read. ♥

Then, as though I didn’t have enough things to be overjoyed about, I got a message on tumblr on Halloween from someone telling me that they’d drawn me something for Trick or Treat, but since they hadn’t managed to figure out how to post something to AO3, they posted it to tumblr instead. (So I got two pieces of art! Truly, my cup runneth over.)

It’s Emil/Lalli (!!!), and focuses on hands, and can be found here. :D

So those are my gifts. Go forth, and pour comments and kudos and love down on them all. <333

► Speaking of Stand Still Stay Silent, and in regards to the latest updates (810-11): ( very slightly nsfw? )

► Darkest Night fic reveals happened the other day! And by the other day, I mean “about a week ago”, oops. Author reveals are tomorrow, and I’ll probably post about it again then to talk about the fic I wrote / my general experience with the exchange (spoilers: it was positive!), but first, I want to heartily rec my gift!

From the Ashes (8046 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Lalli Hotakainen & Tuuri Hotakainen
Characters: Lalli Hotakainen, Tuuri Hotakainen
Additional Tags: Faustian Bargain, Resurrection, Comes Back Wrong, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Finnish Mythology & Folklore
Summary: There is a way to return Tuuri. Lalli takes it, even knowing the cost.

There’s a lot of excellent fic in the collection (go check it out if you haven’t already!) but this one is easily my favorite. I feel like I won the exchange lottery. ♥

► Speaking of gifts… recently (as in, actually recently, not a week ago), someone cross-posted the fic they wrote for me for the 2015 round of the Pokemon Holiday Exchange to AO3. (Not sure why they put it in the Anonymous Collection—there’s nothing actually wrong with it. I liked it!) Rereading it actually brought back a lot of my old Pokemon main game-fandom feelings in general, and my Dawn feelings in particular. I still do love her an awful lot.

It also inspired me to go back and look at what my sign-up for that year had been, and…I really like a lot of the prompts I left there? Looking at them actually made me feel vaguely inspired. I don’t know for certain if I’ll ever actually go back and write for that fandom again, but I’ve saved them for future reference, just in case.

► And one thing that isn’t directly or indirectly about gift-fics… My older brother’s been playing Freedom Planet lately, and the following exchange happened the other day when I asked about the gender of the character he was playing (paraphrased): ( beneath the cut )

I mean. I’m still not jumping to play it, but I’m amused by how well he knows me.

So… when I signed up for iddyiddybangbang this year, it was with the intention of writing the Valdemar fic that I dreamed up for the first round of Iddy Iddy Bang Bang (before I decided not to sign-up because I didn’t have the time for it just then). And I still do like the idea a lot! But Stand Still Stay Silent is pretty much eating my brain right now, and when the first check-in happened and I realized that I hadn’t done so much as canon review for said Valdemar fic, I… well, first I said, “shit”, and then I considered dropping out, and then yesterday it occurred to me: if I’m finding it hard to concentrate on writing fics for something that’s not SSSS, then why don’t I just… write an idfic for SSSS?

So I started to brainstorm just what my dream iddy scenario for SSSS would be. And it went something like this: ( possible SSSS spoilers for up to 776 )

(Posting this before I forget about it, again.)

I’ve… kind of been making icons for Stand Still Stay Silent lately? I can’t even remember the last time I made icons, but I used to be really obsessed with them, even to the extent of buying a paid account on LJ just so I could use more of them. It’s strange remembering that, considering that nowadays I only have one icon uploaded and never change it.

Anyways. At some point during my SSSS readthrough I was struck by how well a certain panel would look as an icon… and then I started saving pages… and then I started making them. I’m not actually done with all the pages I wanted to icon, not even close, but as I already have 50+ made (and am not actually certain that I won’t lose interest at some point and wander off), I figured I should share what I have now.

( many images beneath the cut )

► I’d promised myself no more exchanges until Trick or Treat because I was feeling rather burned out, but now I’ve found myself eyeing darkestnightex... and brainstorming possible requests… and maybe also nominating stuff for those possible requests. Um.

► I was reading through Stand Still Stay Silent again (...actually, I’ve already reread all of it, if I'm being perfectly honest;;;;), and noticed that in chapter four, there was some interesting potential foreshadowing( spoilers for 750 )

On another note… I’ve also been thinking about ( more spoilers )

Finally, the cover image for chapter sixteen is gorgeous and heartbreaking and I love it. ♥