eirenical | Network

This is Juhno’s new drama on Netflix. It’s short, just eight episodes. And my elbow still hurts and it took me two days to write this post, but I really wanted to tell you about this drama. Because it was amazing and I loved it. 😍

Junho is Kang Sang Ung, a public servant who gains a power of super strength based on the amount of cash he’s carrying. But that cash disappears after he used his power. Since he’s just an ordinary guy it becomes a big problem for him to maintain enough money to use his abilities to help people. But he has a wonderful girlfriend, Kim Min Suk, who is practical and efficient, and who always supports him. He also meets two other people with supernatural abilities - Byeon Ho In, a lawyer with the ability to pass through solid matter with the help of alcohol, and Bang Eun Mi, a telekinetic powered by calories. They start working together to protect their normal lives, and lives of ordinary citizens from villains who seek to destabilize the world.

This drama feels like subversion of superhero genre to me. Or maybe deconstruction would be a better term? Every superpower comes with a price, and often a steep price. And it has a limit you can’t cross, because you might lose your superpower. But it’s absolutely not dark and gloomy, as it might seems from that description. On the contrary, it’s optimistic, touching and uplifting. It made me smile a lot. And it made me cry twice. Once during the 6th episode and once during the finale.

Spoilers for the ending, if you want to know if it’s happy or not.

It’s the happy ending. All the villains get punished, all the good guys live.

One small minus is that the villains were rather annoying to me. Hot, yes, because Kang Ha Na and Lee Chae Min are both very hot, but so annoying that I wish that they had a bit less screentime.

But Juhno is fantastic. And Kim Hye Joon as his girlfriend is wonderful. And Kim Byung Chul as a superpowered lawyer is wonderful, too.

And yes, this drama is not perfect, and the script could be better. But I was so invested in an emotional side of things that a few logistic plot holes didn’t bother me at all.

A few things that I really liked, with major spoilers.

I was very impressed that Sang Ung told his girlfriend about his newly-acquired power. Despite his father telling him sternly “Keep it a secret and don’t tell anyone”. And Sang Ung nods, but later is all ‘nah, me and Min Suk don’t keep secrets from each other’. And he tells her instantly.

And I loved the friendship that developed between Sang Ung and Ho In and Eun Mi. So heartwarming.

And when the final fight between the one of the main villains and Kang Sang Ung started to drag on, I was sitting there rolling my eyes a little over predictability of this all. And then there was that moment when the villain had the upper hand and he asked “Who’s going to help you now?”, since Sang Ung used all the cash he had with him. And then all those ordinary people Sang Ung was saving started to throw money at Sang Ung through their windows, and cheering him on. And I lost it. I cried and cried. I don’t care that it was cheaply sentimental and OTT. It worked for me, it was beautiful and I loved it.

tinny

I was unfortunately not very consistent about writing down things in December. Once I realized on December 6 that I'd already forgotten three things again that I'd failed to note down, my motivation dropped considerably for the next two weeks. Which is why there are now only

( 8 (+2 related) things I learned in December )

passingbuzzards

Recently I spent about two months playing through the Evolution storyline in Fallen London, which I LOVED—easily my favorite writing I’ve seen in the game so far, genius storytelling, really compelling main character, gorgeous atmosphere, the major plot twist totally blew me away—and have been wondering ever since about the two endings that weren’t the one I chose, because that final decision was just so fraught! Anyway, the other night I finally mustered to stick my head into r/fallenlondon to ask whether someone there might be able to share those other endings, and somebody did, and we ended up having a really lovely discussion about them, during which I wrote up some of my core thoughts about the endgame in Irem.

Copying it all here so it’s saved somewhere I’ll actually be able to find it again:

( [BIG MCLARGEHUGE SPOILERS for Evolution, DO NOT click this if you will ever play this game] And maybe the decision you make _does_ shake the foundations of the world, but you make it for petty, human reasons, out of love. )

nnozomi posting in

guardian_learning

部首
心 part 10
总, general/always; 怼, to flame; 恋, love ( pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=61

词汇
长途, long-distance; 延长, extend ( pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-4-word-list/

Guardian:
什么东西总会有变化的, everything always changes
他是不是失恋啊, do you think he has a broken heart?
[no 长途 or 延长]

Me:
谈恋爱并不简单。
如果没有时间写作业，到下次延长也可以。

tinny

I had expected the first Snowflake Challenge to be "update your intro", so I did that. :D It wasn't quite that, though. The first part of the challenge was "introduce yourself", so I guess close enough. :D Snapshot of my current dw profile page:

tinny profile 2026

I only updated the icon comms and changed a few icons in the color bars. Nothing much new, really.

The second part was "why do you do the challenge and what you you hope to gain from it"? Idk? I'll just see which challenges speak to me and then I do them. I did this in previous years as well, and it suits me fine. I usually just pick a few challenges that I like, no more than five, usually, and then I do those.

Here's my post from 2025: challenges 2-6 challenges 14+ and my own

Here's my post from 2024: only challenge 5, the icon scavenger hunt

Here's my post from 2023: challenges 5-10, 12 and 13

Lets see what this year brings, shall we? :D

What I'll also do this year is try and think about my creative process, and there's a new comm for that:

cultivativity

I'm looking forward to this, too!

cyphomandra

December was either gaming or Yuletiding. I did not read the Wells in December but I hadn't included them earlier, so here they are.

Libby Lawrence is good at pretending, Jodi McAlister
Looking for Alibrandi, Melina Marchetta
Behind Frenemy Lines, Zen Cho
Compulsory, Martha Wells (short story)
All Systems Red, Martha Wells
Artificial Condition, Martha Wells
Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, Martha Wells (short story)
Rogue protocol, Martha Wells
Exit strategy, Martha Wells
Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory, Martha Wells (short story)
Network effect, Martha Wells
Fugitive telemetry, Martha Wells
System collapse, Martha Wells

Libby Lawrence is Good at Pretending, Jodi McAlister. Uni theatre YA/new adult romance; Libby sleeps with the overly charming director just before he disappears (but just after he embezzles the group’s money); she doesn’t want to tell her best friend, who has her own issues, or any of the other theatre kids, as although she’s always previously been on the outside with bit parts, the replacement director’s cast her as the lead in Much Ado About Nothing. Messy but fun; the best friend part feels underdeveloped but the theatre stuff is good.

Looking for Alibrandi, Melina Marchetta. I kept feeling that I should have read this before, because it’s such an Australian classic. Josephine Alibrandi, Italian-Australian, is in her final year as a scholarship student at an exclusive Catholic high school; she fights with her mother (who has raised her on her own, despite her family’s disapproval of her single motherhood), goes out with boys, explores her family history and finally meets her father; it’s vivid, believable, and excellently characterised (Josie is prickly and stubborn and appealing, and her growth throughout the novel is great). Also has lots of Sydney in it.

Behind Frenemy Lines, Zen Cho. Kriya Rajasekar associates Charles Goh with the worst moments in her legal career - flubbing an interview, losing cases etc - and is appalled to discover she’s going to have to share an office with him when her boss/mentor takes her with him to a new legal firm. Charles, meanwhile, is appalled to discover he’s been anyone’s nemesis, and is increasingly concerned at how Kriya’s mentor is treating her. I enjoy Cho’s het romcoms (this is in the same continuity as The Friend Zone Experiment) but I don’t love them. This does have some great moments and I particularly like Charles, who determinedly dresses up in cosplay for his best friend’s lesbian sports-anime themed wedding (she and her wife bonded over their love for the fictitious Duke of Badminton series, which made me snort in amusement as someone who very briefly read fanfic for Prince of Tennis) and then takes the Tube to the venue.

I read all of the extant Murderbot books and shorts in a wild binge. I like them but do not feel fannish at all about them, although I can see why other people do. I like Murderbot and the voice is fantastic, but I find the humans rather interchangeable and I don’t like ART, who becomes increasingly prominent as the books go on. I will probably re-read these again at some stage and see if that changes.

trobadora

Third headache day in a row; this sucks. (Today is a bit better than yesterday, but I want it to go away! *kicks it*)

Today's writing

Just a little

fandomtrees work, but I'm really losing momentum here. :(

(I did finish my

candyheartsex letter last night, at least. Now I just have to hope someone requests something I can write ... Sign-ups are still open until tomorrow, btw!)

Tally

Day 1:

alightbuthappypen,

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

philomytha,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 2:

alightbuthappypen,

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 3:

alightbuthappypen,

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 4:

alightbuthappypen,

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 5:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 6:

china_shop,

trobadora

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)

rachelmanija

Once upon a time, the moon Panga was industrial and capitalist and miserable. Then robots suddenly and inexplicably gained self-awareness. They chose to stop working, leave human habitation, and go into the wilderness. The humans not only didn't try to stop them, but this event somehow precipitated a huge political change. Half of Panga was left to the wilderness, and humans developed a kinder, ecologically friendly, sustainable way of life. But the robots were never seen again.

That's all backstory. When the book opens, Sibling Dex, a nonbinary monk, is dissatisfied with their life for reasons unclear to themself. They leave the monastery to become a traveling tea monk, which is a sort of counselor: you tell the monk your troubles, and the monk listens and fixes you a cup of tea. Dex's first day on the job is hilariously disastrous, but they get better and better, until they're very good at it... but still inexplicably dissatisfied. So they venture out into the wilderness, where they meet a robot, Mosscap - the first human-robot meeting in hundreds of years.

I had previously failed to get very far into The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this novella. It's cozy in a good way, with plenty of atmosphere, a world that isn't quite perfect but is definitely one I'd like to live in, and some interesting philosophical exploration. My favorite part was actually Dex's life as a tea monk before they meet Mosscap - it's very relatable if you've ever been a counselor or therapist, from the horrible first day to the pleasure of familiar clients later on. I would absolutely go to a tea monk.

I would have liked Mosscap to be a bit more flawed - it's very lovable and has a lot of interesting things to say, but is pretty much always right. Mosscap is surprised and delighted by humanity, but I'm not sure Dex ever shakes up its worldview in a way it finds true but uncomfortable, which Mosscap repeatedly does to Dex. Maybe in the second novella, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy.

And while I'm on things which are implausibly neat/perfect, this is a puzzling backstory:

1) Robots gain self-awareness and leave.

2) ????

3) ~~PROFIT!~~ Society goes from capitalist hellscape to environmentalist paradise.

Maybe we'll learn more about the ???? later.

But overall, I did quite like the novella. The parts where Dex is a tea monk, with the interactions with their clients and their life in their caravan, are very successfully cozy - an instant comfort read. And I liked the robot society and the religious orders, as well as a lot of the Mosscap/Dex relationship. I'll definitely read the sequel.

dorinda

Happy New Year! Uh, belatedly! Time really got away from me...I fell ill right after Christmas, and am just now starting to play catch-up.

I got to write The Sting this year!:

What Wouldn't I Do For That Man (11779 words) by Dorinda
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Sting (1973)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Henry Gondorff/Johnny Hooker
Characters: Henry Gondorff, Johnny Hooker (The Sting), Original Characters
Additional Tags: Con Artists, 1930s, Gay Bar, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Nonverbal Communication, First Time, Post-Canon
Summary: Johnny strained for the faintly crackling feeling of awareness he'd gotten used to, looked for those tiny shifts of head, hands, stance—but nothing doing. Henry's attention was fully on the matinee idol and the idol's on him, murmuring in their own closed circle, while Johnny watched them like a stray through a cafe window.

Okay, so, this was new. He'd gotten on top of every knuckleball Henry had thrown him so far. You just had to watch, and then you'd see. Nobody ever said it was always going to be a goddamn delight.

Alphabetotter had some intriguing prompts, including an interest in Johnny discovering a really big intersection between the grifter and queer communities, and that snagged me by the imagination right away. There's a lot more historical context I find thought-provoking but didn't have any reason to include or at least explicate in the story itself, so maybe that'll have to come up another time.

sovay

Doubtful as it may be under present conditions to find encouragement in anything of military origin unless it's the USS Princeton in 1844, about twenty-seven seconds into the two minutes' patriotism of Warship Week Appeal (1942) I cracked up.

Two hundred feet exactly of no-credits 35 mm, the object in question is a trailer produced for the Ministry of Information, essentially the same concept as the film tags of WWI: a micro-dose of propaganda appended to a newsreel as part of a larger campaign, in this case a sort of public information skit in which it is supposed that Noël Coward on the Denham sets of In Which We Serve (1942) is approached by Leslie Howard, slouching characteristically on with his hands in his pockets and his scarf twisted carelessly label-out, anxious to discuss a problem of National Savings. "How do you think we can make an appeal so it won't quite seem like an appeal?" With limited screen time to realize their meta conceit, the two actor-directors get briskly down to explaining the mechanics of the scheme to the British public with the shot-reverse-shot patter of a double act on the halls, but the trailer has already dropped its most memorable moment ahead of all its instructions and slogans, even the brief time it rhymes. Diffident as one end of his spectrum of nerd heroes, Howard apologizes for the interruption, excuses it with its relevance to naval business, and trails off with the usual form of words, "I'm sure you won't mind—" to which Coward responds smoothly, "I'm delighted to see you. And I know perfectly well—as we rehearsed it so carefully—that you've come to interview me about Warships Week." He doesn't even bother to hold for a laugh as Leslie snorts around his unlit cigarette. It doesn't all feel like a bit. The interjection may or may not have been scripted, but Coward's delivery is lethally demure and his scene partner's reaction looks genuine; for one, it's much less well-timed or dignified than the smile he uses to support a later, slightly obligatory joke about the income tax, which makes it that much more endearing. It's funny to me for a slant, secondhand reason, too, that has nothing to do with the long friendship between the two men or further proof of Noël's deadpan for the ages: a dancer with whom my mother once worked had been part of the company of Howard's 1936 Hamlet and like all the other small parts, whenever her back was to the audience and the Hollywood star was stuck facing the footlights, she tried to corpse him. One night she finally succeeded. Consequently and disproportionately, watching him need the length of a cigarette-lighting to get his face back, I thought of her story which I hadn't in years and may have laughed harder than Leslie Howard deserved. If it's any consolation to him, the way his eyes close right up like a cat's is beautiful, middle-aged and underslept. It promotes the illusion that a real person might say a phrase like "in these grim days when we've got our backs to the wall" outside of an address to the nation.

Not much consolation to the MOI, Warship Week Appeal accomplishes its goal in that while it doesn't mention for posterity that a community would adopt the ship it funded, the general idea of the dearth of "ships—more ships and still more ships" and the communal need to pay down for them as efficiently as possible comes through emphatically. It's so much more straightforward, in fact, than I associate with either of its differently masked actors, I'd love to know who wrote it, but the only other information immediately available is that the "Ronnie" whom Coward is conferring with when Howard courteously butts in is Ronald Neame. Given the production dates of their respective pictures, it's not difficult to pretend that Howard just popped over from the next sound stage where he was still shooting The First of the Few (1942), although he is clearly in star rather than director mode because even if he's in working clothes, he is conspicuously minus his glasses. What can I tell you? I got it from the Imperial War Museum and for two minutes and thirteen seconds it cheered me up. Lots of things to look at these days could do much, much worse. This interview brought to you by my appealing backers at Patreon.

Current Music: The Advisory Circle, "Inner Activity"

landingtree

(Or 'Having liveblogged The Power Broker, part 2'? I feel like at this point it's just normal blogging. Anyway.)

( Notes become denser as book continues. )

anghraine

J and I recently re-watched "The Return of the Archons" (after concluding it was the peak Christmas episode for various silly reasons), and there's this small and wonderfully in-character scene when the away party has found sanctuary with a local ally during the Red Hour. They're able to hide in this private room with some bunks, allowing for all but one of the entire party to sleep in the meanwhile. We don't actually see the decision get made. We just cut to the crew members all in the beds and Kirk having taken off his coat to wrap himself in a blanket, protectively keeping watch over his resting crew members. We just get a few quiet moments of this interspliced with the insanity of the Red Hour outside, which he observes with quiet disgust between pacing quietly around the little room, adding some folded clothes to cushion McCoy's head, making sure the young ones are sleeping in their bunks, and checking on Spock (who is lying on his back and either meditating or simply awake the whole time, not needing the sleep but—given how easy the nonverbal communication between them is in this episode—likely aware that trying to convince Kirk to take the bed is not, let's say, a logical use of his time).

It's very cute, honestly, and the episode is so beautifully made that it has an incredibly warm, pleasant quality on a purely visual level. It's the kind of thing that I think gets the kind of kneejerk "oh he's such a father to his men" despite TOS Kirk's very consistent aversion from anything smacking of fatherhood (very obviously for gender role reasons, not reactionary nuclear-family-meets-gender-essentialism retcons from 20 years later reasons). But I definitely ended up thinking "I can't believe I've seen multiple posts straining to frame Janeway as some kind of maternal figure as captain when she doesn't have a parental bone in her body—she's not Team Mom she's Team Captain—and meanwhile Kirk has 100x more fretful mama energy as captain to the point that his long-suffering maternal authority becomes the actual premise of an actual later episode."

In conclusion:

captain, are we there yettttttttt

Current Location: Washington

troisoiseaux

Read Lovesick Falls by Julia Drake, a modern, queer YA retelling/remix of As You Like It in which best friends Celia, Ros, and Touchstone spend the summer working at an outdoor theater festival, navigating crushes and friendship drama. This one was slightly less my cup of tea than her first novel (The Last True Poets of the Sea, a modern YA take on Twelfth Night), mostly because of one major plotline in which main character Celia meets/befriends/briefly goes out with her celebrity crush Oliver, an actor on the endearingly bad TV show she and her friends are obsessed with, a trope I find so viscerally embarrassing it's fully a squick. (Like, people actually want to meet their celebrity crushes/idols/blorbos?! Can't relate.) Overall, I liked it a lot, though— more than I'd initially expected to when it seemed like it was taking more of a cutesy best summer ever! YA romance angle, because it was ultimately a bittersweet coming-of-age: ( ... ) As a retelling of As You Like It, specifically, Drake works in some fun nods to the original play, including a very grumpy cat named for the melancholy Jaques.

sovay

After a full week without water in the kitchen, the plumber cameth on half an hour's notice from the property manager and was horrified to hear about it, but he was swift and competent and we have a new and working faucet, which was all the problem turned out to be. Hestia made herself invisible in the bedroom throughout the proceedings. I washed a fork without first boiling water and it felt like a big deal.

I just finished reading David Hare's A Map of the World (1983), whose device of examining an interpersonal-political knot through the successive filters of the roman à clef, the screen version, and the memories of the participants reminded me obviously of similar exercises in metafiction and retrospect by Tom Stoppard and Michael Frayn, double-cast for an effect at the end approaching timeslip such as works almost strictly on stage. I did not expect to find some fragments preserved in an episode of The South Bank Show, but there were some of the scenes with Roshan Seth, John Matshikiza, Bill Nighy, Diana Quick. I wish I thought it meant there were a complete broadcast I could watch, but I'm not even finding it got the BBC Radio 3 treatment. More immediately, it reminded me of how many of the stories I read early were about stories, their propagation and mutation, their conventions, their shifting distances from the facts. "And, in time, only the bards knew the truth of it."

The problem with the denaturing of language is that when I say to

spatch that the political situation is insane, I don't mean it's a little far-fetched, I mean it is driven by wants and processes that are not rational and it is exhausting to be trapped inside someone else's illness.

Current Music: Fast Blood, "Rut"

nnozomi posting in

guardian_learning

部首
心 part 9
怨, resentful; 怪, strange/to blame; 怵, to fear ( pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=61

语法
2.14 Uses of 让
https://www.digmandarin.com/hsk-2-grammar

词汇
产品, product; 财产, property; 破产, bankruptcy; 遗产, heritage ( pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-4-word-list/

Guardian:
如果有一天我不辞而别，你可别怪我, don't blame me if one day I disappear without saying goodbye
如果告诉他，会不会让他陷入危险, if I tell him, will it lead him into danger?
他这个人偏偏对电子产品是一窍不通, he doesn't have a clue about electronic products

Me:
因为我们是闺蜜所以彼此给听抱怨。
你别让我生气！

trobadora

Dear

candyheartsex creator,

thank you so much for writing a story or creating art for me! I've requested and received all of these fandoms before - some I've requested for many, many years, and often with the same prompts, because when I really enjoy something, I immediately want fifty more takes on the same thing. *g* So don't worry about repeating things! I'll be absolutely thrilled about anything you can create about the relationships I requested.

Everything important is in the requests themselves, but if you'd like even more info, general likes etc., here you go.

My AO3 account is

Trobadora, and it's set to welcome treats.

General Preferences

( Likes & Dislikes/DNWs )

Fandoms and relationships

In somewhat alphabetical order - note that some sections are expanded compared to the sign-up form:

Jump directly to:

绅探 | Detective L: Huo Wensi/Luo Fei, Huo Wensi/Luo Fei & Qin Xiaoman
Grimm: Nick/Renard, Renard/Juliette, Nick/Renard/Juliette, Renard & Elizabeth, Renard & Henrietta, Elizabeth/Kelly
镇魂 | Guardian (TV): Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, Shen Wei & Ya Qing
Grimm/镇魂 | Guardian (TV) crossovers: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan & Renard, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan & Juliette, Shen Wei & Juliette, Nick/Renard/Juliette & Shen Wei, Renard & Shen Wei, Renard & Ya Qing, Renard/Ya Qing
Legend of the Seeker: Cara/Darken Rahl
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Anastasia/Jabberwocky
Sherlock (BBC): Sherlock/Moriarty, Sherlock/Moriarty & Eurus
Time Engraver Crossovers: Time Engraver/Zhao Yunlan, Time Engraver/Jiang Yang, Time Engraver/Luo Fei
天涯客 | Faraway Wanderers - priest: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu
山河令 | Word of Honor: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu, Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu & Luo Fumeng
长公主在上 | Eldest Princess On Top: Li Yunzhen/Gu Xuanqing

( 绅探 | Detective L: Huo Wensi/Luo Fei, Huo Wensi/Luo Fei & Qin Xiaoman )

( Grimm: Nick/Renard, Renard/Juliette, Nick/Renard/Juliette, Renard & Elizabeth, Renard & Henrietta, Elizabeth/Kelly )

( 镇魂 | Guardian (TV): Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, Shen Wei & Ya Qing )

( Grimm/Guardian crossovers: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan & Renard, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan & Juliette, Shen Wei & Juliette, Nick/Renard/Juliette & Shen Wei, Renard & Shen Wei, Renard & Ya Qing, Renard/Ya Qing )

( Legend of the Seeker: Cara/Darken Rahl )

( Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Anastasia/Jabberwocky )

( Sherlock (BBC): Jim Moriarty/Sherlock Holmes, Jim Moriarty/Sherlock Holmes & Eurus Holmes )

( Time Engraver Crossovers: Time Engraver/Zhao Yunlan, Time Engraver/Jiang Yang, Time Engraver/Luo Fei )

( 天涯客 | Faraway Wanderers - priest: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu )

( 山河令 | Word of Honor: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu, Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu & Luo Fumeng )

( 长公主在上 | Eldest Princess On Top: Li Yunzhen/Gu Xuanqing )

shewhostaples

Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.

It's late and I'm tired and badly in need of some gentle quizzing on the telly and then bed, but:

For too much of my life I've felt faintly embarrassed by my own enthusiasms. I appreciate the reminder that it doesn't have to be like that. Thank you, fandom, for being so loudly, unapologetically, gloriously enthusiastic.

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

cyphomandra

Dear Confectioner,

Thanks so much for creating a bonbon for me! Really anything in these would be great, but here are some directions:

Writingwise: in general, I like humour, excitement, angst (if justified – not massive amounts of agonising over accidentally returning character X's library book before they finished it), food, moments of peace amongst activity, things that give me new thoughts about canon, and things that bring me back to feeling like I’m experiencing the canon again for the first time. I'm fine with ratings from G to Explicit. I like experimental formats - epistolary, IF, found documents etc.

Romantic tropes I like include sharing a bed, undercover as a couple, forced to seek refuge in a Canadian (equivalents accepted) shack etc. Two of my requests (Horizon and DCC) are for platonic relationships and for these I really like shared low-key activities (as a respite from the canon!), or moments of character. For both, I like non-mundane AUs, like psychic wolf companions, daemons, or Sentinel-Guide. I don't usually like mundane AUs for canons with sf/f elements but if you put your coffeeshop in space and add enough aliens I will probably like it.

Artwise: I like a range of styles, from cartoon/chibi to black & white to photorealism. I tend to like art that focuses on the quieter moments in canon and gives characters a breathing space between dramatic events; I also like quirky interpretations that give me a new view on characters. I’m happy with explicit art as long as it’s tagged!

DNWs: child/animal death or child/animal sexual abuse. Omegaverse or trans headcanons. I have previously DNW’d earthquakes but am back to being okay with fictional natural disasters.

Compilation of Final Fantasy VII

Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Genesis Rhapsodos/Cloud Strife

Pretty much anything goes with this; I love Cloud, I love how much he tries despite how messed up he is, and he deserves pretty much anything from fluff to angst to complete crack. I am always up for Zack & Cloud, pre-game or Nibelheim, sharing a moment or on a mission or trapped in the lab - Zack is such a great character. I am also up for Zack Lives AUs and I always like time travel.

With Genesis - he's grown on me and there's so much scope here. Meeting up when Cloud is a trooper and somehow impresses him, or post-game when they're the only two survivors who can really compare experiences - or PWP at any and all times inbetween. I am okay with dub con for this pairing and it doesn't have to be a happy ending, although if they earn it that's great.

For art - really I will just stare at all of them forever. Fight scenes! Uncomfortable meals together! Lost in the snow!

Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth (Video Games 2020-2024)

Roche/Cloud Strife
Sephiroth/Cloud Strife

Gosh I have no idea who my fave is :D Anyway, I love these games and their shiny, beautiful characters. Midgar looks amazing and the open world is gorgeous, and I just want more. Roche is such a delightful goofball who ends up breaking my heart - could things have gone another way? Is there still a chance for him to come back? What would have happened if he'd not let Cloud go after Junon, or even followed after him earlier?

Sephiroth - well. He's so obsessed with Cloud, and the end of Rebirth is just brutal. I will take pretty much anything in this, from what actually happened in Nibelheim to canon AUs to dubcon/noncon (which is practically canon), although please actually don't turn Cloud into a mindless puppet. He's fought so hard to avoid that.

Horizon (video games)

Aloy and Beta

I am replaying Forbidden West at the moment and I just have so many questions about these two. What was Beta's upbringing like? I'm not sure the Far Zeniths had any other children on the ship (too wedded to their control and power) - what did she think of her role, and what was it like when she saw Aloy for the first time? How does Aloy feel about being no longer alone? Really I just want more of the interactions between them, in game or after (although I haven't yet played Burning Shores so nothing that relies heavily on events then).

Dungeon Crawler Carl Series - Matt Dinniman

Carl and Princess Donut and Katia Grim

I love Carl, who is trying so hard despite everything being so stacked against him, and how he teeters between his goals and their costs. I love Princess Donut, who is very much a cat despite everything, and Katia, who has grown so much (ha!) during her time in the dungeon. I love the gamelit/RPG tropes (loot boxes! stat increases!) and the horror tropes and the pokes at reality TV. I love that everyone has their own agenda (look at Donut, running a revolution in her spare time) and I really, really love the way that Carl, even as he blows everything up and gets increasingly unstable, can listen to others, respect their opinions, and give them chances to make their own paths.

Prompts - go wild. I'm okay with glimpses of backstory for all three (what did Donut think of Carl originally?) or a missing scene from the series, or an AU where a floor goes differently (or, I don't know, a bizarre AU where suddenly everyone is a cat EXCEPT Donut :D ). Feel free to play with formats. Please don't permanently kill any of the requested characters but otherwise darkness consistent with canon is fine. I am fine with gore. I do not ship any of the nominated characters - one of the things I like about DCC is that Carl hasn't had any sexual relationships since entering the dungeon. Canonical relationships (Katia/Bautista and I SUPPOSE Donut/Gravy Boat) are fine but I don't really want them to be the focus.

cyphomandra

Yuletide! I was neither travelling internationally nor moving house this year, so I signed up with enthusiasm, got my assignment, and then played video games (mainly Blue Prince) with all my spare time in a completely unhelpful fashion until I was right up against the default deadline and starting to panic.

Mostly this was me procrastinating, but there was a little bit of assignment angst; I’d matched on Dungeon Crawler Carl again, and I’d offered Carl, Katia and Donut. I specifically didn’t offer the AI because this mainly seems to get people wanting Carl/AI (which rejoices in the ship name aiCarly :D) and I really don’t want pairing fic for Carl, either reading or writing. However although my recipient only nominated Carl, they obviously do like this pairing and indeed prompted for it. This meant I dithered a bit about whether to attempt it, how to do it, etc etc, but this was not their only prompt and they did mention outsider pov and playing with formats and in the end I stopped trying to do the AI and went for that.

The title, a riff on Wallace Stevens, came to me early on and was great apart from the bit where I only had three segments written by the posting deadline and would need another ten to make it work. I therefore moulded these into a story under a modified title, added the first part of the framing sequence, posted this for the work deadline as a functional but brief story, and then reread the entire DCC series, fixing each segment as I went and writing new ones (obviously I am a terrible example when it comes to deadlines and if you are a Yuletide mod please ignore this entire discussion :D).

Deciding who to do for each book pov was fun. Mrs Parsons was an early pick for opening book 1, with Bea as the closer, and I really wanted Katia in book 4, so you get her character arc at two points, from her and then from Louis' pov. I wanted noncrawlers as well, which got Signet (and her writers' room), Gary (with bonus AI), Fire Brandy, and also Mordecai (I dithered about where to put him in but there's a lot going on in Butcher's Masquerade so it worked well there). I couldn't decide between Imani or Elle but when it ended up being Bedlam Bride Imani worked better for a character pov that needed to be about Carl. And I also wanted villains with complexity, so Lucia Mar and Quan Ch. I was slightly startled by the number of character tags I ended up using.

I’d thought that book 7, which was the turning point, would be the longest piece, and as I was going through the first draft I just wrote three or four lines of Prepotente fuming in prison to see if I could get his voice, and then did the rest of the sections before skimming This Inevitable Ruin. At which point I re-read the lines and realised they were infinitely stronger if I didn't add a whole bunch of text, yay.

A pinch hit for Blue Prince came up while I was hastily working, and while it went very quickly, it meant I’d checked the app and seen the other Blue Prince requests, including

thefourthvine’s. I went back to DCC, but the prompts nagged at me, especially the one about new upgrades for rooms. On a quick writing break run through Mount Holly (the house in Blue Prince), I ended up staring thoughtfully at what look like doggy doors on the back of the Kennel and it occurred to me that you could combine the Kennel (contains dogs) and the Patio (spreads gems) and spread puppies all over the house.

After that I made random notes whenever another room occurred to me, finished the DCC fic (almost - I wrote the second half of the frame sequence three different ways and didn’t like any of them) and wrote the Blue Prince treat on Christmas Eve, allowing for a suitably festive battle with formatting on AO3 arrgh why can I never get the spacing right although at least swapping to rich text helped with most of it. I then wrote the final final version of the DCC closing frame sequence a whole hour before reveals, after present and stocking opening but before cooking Xmas dinner. I was probably highly guessable by anyone who read my previous DCC fic due to using the same chat skin but I really didn't have time to sort another one!

Both works have been pretty successful for me in Yuletide and I had a lot of time to read fic, so all around an excellent experience.

13 Ways of Looking at a Lit Fuse (4100 words) by Cyphomandra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dungeon Crawler Carl Series - Matt Dinniman
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl), System AI (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Katia Grim, Growler Gary (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Princess Donut (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Louis Santiago, Firas Zaman, Beatrice (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Miriam Dom (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Lucia Mar, Imani (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Prepotente (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Quan Ch (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Mordecai (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Tsarina Signet (Dungeon Crawler Carl), Fire Brandy (Dungeon Crawler Carl)
Additional Tags: POV Outsider, Karaoke, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Chatlogs, canon compliant up to the end of book 7, Ethical treatment of NPCs
Summary:

Carl, as others see him.

Blueprints (the we're going up up upgrade remix) (1127 words) by Cyphomandra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blue Prince (Video Game)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Simon P. Jones (Blue Prince)
Additional Tags: terrible puns, Puppies, Yuletide Treat, adventures in drafting, hey I found a bunch of blank upgrade disks
Summary:

Simon proposes a few changes.

superborb

It was soooo helpful to be able to look back at notes from last time, so here are my NYE party notes for 2025! Now that I have recovered a bit from the sleep deprivation of being in a noisy house with a toddler...

( Read more... )

Overall, I thought the food was pretty successful! Even though I was very sleep deprived, having the schedule did keep everything on task. I guess the real concerns for next time are trying to time hot food better (not really sure if that's possible with this style of food), and maybe I should consider more complicated dishes? I think it would've been easy to do a red braised pork, since that reheats well. I always want to have lots of little snacks before because that was My Job for ages, but it might be too much and detract from the meal...

The "Me" Page!

eirenical

eirenical @ tumblr

January 2026

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Leaving So Soon?

Page Summary

maggie33 - Cashero
tinny - Things learned in December
passingbuzzards - (games) fallen london - evolution
nnozomi in guardian_learning - 第四年第三百六十三天
tinny - Snowflake Challenge #1 + Cultivativity
cyphomandra - Books read, December
trobadora - Write Every day 2026: January, Day 6
rachelmanija - A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers
dorinda - Yuletide reveal: "What Wouldn't I Do For That Man" (The Sting)
sovay - Now let's listen to a conversation between two English actors on the subject of Warships Week
landingtree - Liveblogging The Power Broker, part 2
anghraine - (no subject)
troisoiseaux - Lovesick Falls - Julia Drake
sovay - How am I supposed to know what's real?
nnozomi in guardian_learning - 第四年第三百六十二天
trobadora - Dear Candy Hearts creator
shewhostaples - Snowflake Challenge: day 3
cyphomandra - Candy Hearts letter
cyphomandra - Yuletide reveals
superborb - NYE 2025

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