write about love

hello!

i'm not here anymore and i'm certainly never writing hp fic again, but if anyone wanted some kind of... closure? idk? on the hufflepuff draco series... here's the outline ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ literally just copied and pasted the entire doc here. for reference "quatch" was an in-joke name for quidditch with me & ao3 user aroceu.

( here it is )

sorry 2 anyone who likes my fic/WIPs i guess because i genuinely feel like i'm at a point in my life where i might never write hp/merlin/whatever fic again. or like i'll come back to my WIPs but in five years from now when my other interests have worn off (though this is... low likelihood) and my work life has settled. might just dip back in for yuletide and become one of those people whose ao3 is just yuletide fics.

i do genuinely feel a little bad about huffledraco but i basically no longer care about the potterverse at all, have basically moved to another ao3 account, have started enjoying fandom again in a way i didn't in the last few years, like, at all. (which you might notice if you scroll back through my journal and find all the angst posts about how i was feeling insecure about my place in fandom, lol.) there were flashes of something, maybe, especially writing huffledraco, but i wasn't doing fandom at large in a way that i enjoyed. i am now. so: i guess this is me giving my notice? that the lights are on but nobody's really home over here.

anyway. hope you're all living your truths and taking care of yourselves. peace x

Hi! This is ao3 user renaissance here, and you've reached my Yuletide letter! This year I've requested Brideshead Revisited (Waugh), The Secret History (Tartt), the Southern Reach Trilogy (Vandermeer), and Succession (HBO). I don't usually say this for Yuletide, but this year my letter is bursting at the seams with spoilers, so I would exercise particular caution if you're not caught up with any of these canons, or planning to engage in the future. I have a hyperlinked table of contents within my letter so you can skip to any one of these canons and avoid the others, if you wish.

Whether you've been assigned to write for me, or are just passing through, I hope you find something here that catches your eye. Happy creating!

( onward! )

while the internet at large prepares itself for halloween - which is not really a big deal in australia, honestly - i find myself thinking of the silly season: yuletide! being as i am jewish, christmas is of no consequence to me, but yuletide gives me something to look forward to at the year's end, a way to get the same zest of life that other people seem to have for the last week of december. it snuck up on me this year: nominations were open before i knew what i wanted to nominate. but after some deliberations, i settled on my usual set for the secret history, the brideshead revisited trio - these two, the same as last year - and the southern reach trilogy. (here is my comment on the coordination post; i have one slot open for brideshead.)

for southern reach, one of my characters is whitby, who doesn't have a single tagging on ao3 yet! i have a lot of prompts in mind for southern reach, so i'm hoping i can catch someone else out there who read these books full of so many incredible, dynamic characters, and saw the weird scientist and went "this one is mine." for the other two fandoms, which i've both requested and written before, i will probably end up with more broad requests. though for the sake of people out there who prefer some sort of prompting, i'm sure i'll come up with something!

this will be my fourth yuletide. i'm looking forward to seeing what else i want to request from the tagset, and hopefully to writing some treats this year. (i always say i will, and yet, and yet.) in general i think i'm just going to take it easy and focus on writing and treating this year. last year's yuletide was a weird one for me. on the one hand, i wrote probably one of the best fics i've ever written - i just reread it, and honestly it holds up - but on the other hand, my recipient neither commented nor kudosed, despite the fact that i was working directly from one of their prompts. this put me in a very weird headspace and i spent a lot of time sitting on my hands and wishing for people to rec my fic, namesearching on coal and stuff like that... which wasn't good for me at all! but i was also in a super weird headspace, like, life-wise as well, because i had (a) just finished writing my phd thesis (b) undiagnosed depression. idk. obviously i wish my fic had been a bit more of a hit, but i know it's niche content, so i'm mostly over it.

the other thing last year, is there was some weirdness with my gift. i won't go into the full details but basically i shook my gift, and i found that my gift was tagged with one of my DNWs, sort of. it was partly my fault - i had worded the DNW too vaguely - but i spoke with the mods, and they interpreted the DNW how i had intended it, agreed that the gifter had disregarded the DNW, and got me a pinch hit. and, like, the pinch hit was delightful and everything i could've hoped for, so i was lucky in the end. plus i got a treat fic, for the first time ever! but i couldn't stop thinking about my original gift, which had disappeared from the collection (duh, of course i checked) - was it a genuine misunderstanding? was i just being a bitch? or had someone honest to god written me a spitefic gift and i dodged a bullet?

yuletide is one of those things where you can't really please everyone. (though, i will say, lurking coal taught me one thing, which is that i'll write my "dear yuletide writer" letter in sentence case this year, i promise.) i have largely been very lucky with it! i still think very fondly of my gift from two years ago, which i have read so, so many times, as essentially one of the best fics ever. but i definitely had a moment, leading up to nominations, where i thought about last year and found myself wondering if i should do it at all this year. as you can see, i made it past that! i have made my nominations. i am getting my ducks lined up, thinking about which fandoms in the spreadsheet catch my eye. and i am going to make this yuletide a positive experience, because if for some unforseen reason i don't have time for it next year, i don't want to have ended on a sour note.

that said. i'm moving overseas probably around december, so this might be another frantic one. better start writing as soon as i get my assignment this year! and it may just be that i do most of my reading through the collection in january/february, if things get too crazy. either way - i'm glad i wrote all this out, because i've talked myself back into being excited again!! it's yuletime baby!

tonight, for the first time in literally months, i managed to write fic again. two thousand words in one big stretch. i'm continuing work on the hufflepuff draco series, and i will once again apologise for my glacial pace, as i noticed it's been over two years since i posted the first part. in all fairness, the newly minted dr. renaissance (i'll stop showing off about it soon, i promise) has been doing other things. but hopefully i can put something out again soon! i know this sounds corny, but i have been kind of humbled by my weird little genfic about hufflepuff draco learning to be a good kid reaching 300 kudos. i promise you he makes even more progress in part 2. (who among us hasn't daydreamed about deradicalising draco malfoy at the tender age of twelve?)

the other thing: it's a weird time to be a hp fan right now. there are plenty of terrible takes floating around, not least of all jkr's. some people think we have to abandon the books/fandom wholesale. some people have decided hp doesn't belong to jkr anymore; others have rightly pointed out that there have always been flaws in the series, and that we can't separate the author from the works. mostly i have been feeling uncomfortable because it's been widely known that jkr is a terf for quite a while now, but i guess it took a "fuck it, mask off" moment for people to pay attention on such a grand scale. i first worked through a version of this many years ago, as a teen, when i became more aware of racist and antisemitic tropes and the way they're employed in hp. could i have chalked that up to ignorance? not after she kept perpetuating those tropes in the fantastic beasts movies. with jkr's terf activity on twitter, i don't think there's ever been any question about it. so to that end, i'm glad people are finally taking it seriously.

my stance on it is basically, people who need to step away from the fandom can and should be given the space to do that peacefully and quietly. i don't seek to defend my participation in a fandom for a series of books made by someone i fundamentally dislike and disagree with for her bigoted views. it's just, with childhood nostalgia, things get sticky. as much as we can't separate jkr's harmful beliefs from the hp series and its flaws, it's also hard for many of us to separate ourselves (and our fic, and our headcanons) from our love for the series. yes, the hp series has antisemitic features to it. yes, i projected on anthony goldstein as a jewish kid because i recognised his jewish surname, and no, i cannot excise my love for the version of his character and his world that i've created. harry potter, the series, cannot exist independently of jkr's bigotry. but the fandom can, and on many levels does, and has for years.

i've revisited my feelings on this, as i do every time jkr's bigotry is in the spotlight. maybe one day i'll change my mind and be on my way, but for now, i'm still here. i have devoted so much time and love to hp fic and the hp fandom. i will continue to put love into my works, and to uplift everyone else in this community: especially lgbt fans, fans of colour, and jewish fans.

so anyway, if you need me, i'll be expanding the anthony goldstein cinematic universe. (yes, huffledraco will also have him in it eventually.) peace.

this prompt is for a list of things i, personally, wish for in fandom. i managed to think of four before i ran out of steam. this list is very indulgent and probably a little bit wanky and...  these are my 2020 fandom energies. what can i say.

1) people reading & commenting on my work. i feel like this is super duper self-explanatory so i'm not going to belabour the point, nor do i want to shake anyone by the shoulders and shout, you know? but this is a wishlist. and this is my eternal #1 wish when it comes to fandom. so. yeah.

2) for people to stop leaving mean/backhanded comments on public ao3 bookmarks. like, you know that if you bookmark something publically, everyone can read it, right? including - and especially - the author? some people leave ratings on their bookmarks; clicking through the bookmarks of your fic and seeing 1/5 is really fucking disheartening. i've also seen concrit in bookmark comments, backhanded compliments, and one bookmark of my own work that contained nothing but a demoralising "ehhhhhhhhhh." i mean it's not like... illegal or anything... i just think it's a dick move. it feels a lot like whispering behind someone's back. if you have something to say, say it in the comment box.

3) for the Discourse to slow down. i don't know if i need to explain this one, nor to mention which discourse, just that i think people on both sides of it need to stop and actually think about what they're saying. i have deliberately refrained from weighing into any serious social discourse, ever, because once i start i can't stop and that kind of single-focus debating strangers online is bad for my mental health. but i have so many opinions. my big one is this: SLOW DOWN. twitter in particular is TERRIBLE for discussing big social issues. nobody is getting anywhere with this sort of short-form, snappy, quip-based discourse. it is so tiring. it is so much of why i'm less active in fandom. i just want to be able to breathe clean air, you know?

4) to see an end to the Punching Bag Zacharias Smith trope. okay. this is the big one. if you've seen my dreamwidth journal header, you might have some of idea what i'm talking about. but basically: in a lot of HP fics, people turn to zacharias smith when they decide they need a random character to commit murder, sexual violence (both verbal and physical), bullying, or make bigoted comments. yes, i have seen all of these things, and yes, if you ask, i WILL pull receipts. it's mostly in drarry fic, which is a real shame, because there are so many fics i'd enjoy if not for this thing ruining it. i get the feeling that a few people did it, and then people just started copying it, perpetuating this sort of lazy shorthand which uses character bashing to write about violence and bigotry without actually addressing the issues, and turning it into a trope. and before you say "but if this guy's such an asshole, why is he your favourite character?" - i have THOUSANDS of words of meta in me, a list of every single time he's mentioned in the entire series, and a WIP manifesto which i'll finish and post one day - but basically the fact is zacharias smith does NONE of these things in canon, with the exception of a bit of minor bullying in the form of verbal teasing, and pushing first years out of the way to run away from a battle IN WHICH PEOPLE LITERALLY DIED. (sorry to all of the conscientious objectors of history, but being a draft dodger is just as bad as killing someone yourself!!!!)

like ok, pushing children and taunting people doesn't make him a nice guy - i KNOW he's an arsehole - but also he's a teenage boy, and he is summarily punished with threats of and ACTUAL PHYSICAL VIOLENCE following several of his lame taunts. this is like. A TREND. in the books. HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT? so - he is not a murderer. he never says anything bigoted, but people decided that just because he doesn't believe harry, he must be Evil. he is not a sexual predator - the only woman he canonically interacts with is ginny, who i love, but she also does fly straight into the quidditch commentator's tower, crashing it, leaving zacharias lying in a pile of rubble and presumably fucking injured because he fell?? from a TOWER?????? i also want to point out that, as a quidditch player, he would've known cedric, which very obviously explains why he's asking harry what really happened to him. and what does he get? a frosty reception and fred and george threatening to stick a metal rod inside him????? ok, deep breaths. you can see why i have a problem with this. my BIG wish for 2020 and beyond is that this fucking stops so i can read fic where my favourite character is tagged without having to be like "i wonder which kind of bigotry or malice this low-grade asshole will commit in this one :)" - and to stop stumbling upon it in perfectly harmless-looking fics where he isn't tagged.

Well, works have been revealed, so now I can talk about it all! I have a handful of recs to share, my gifts, and then a few others in fandoms I'm familiar with. I'm also going to take this as an excuse to talk about my own fic, right at the end. (Wow, sorry that this is like a thesis statement. I'm still stuck in the academic writing zone...)

I received two wonderful gifts this Yuletide. My main gift was this incredible Dead Poets Society fic: and yet the notes recur by brampersandon. I can't begin to say how much I love it! This is a diamond of a story, following Charlie's interest in Todd, and the way both of them deal with their feelings for Neil. It's heartbreaking at times, gorgeously written throughout, and filled with fantastic imagery. I also got a treat in the Madness collection, a paler shade of white by havisham. (This is the first time I've ever had a Yuletide treat, so, yay!) It's a Withnail & I fic, which is a gleeful sight in and of itself, and this is a real gem of a fic! It picks up post-canon and imagines a meeting between Marwood and Withnail as established actors. The banter is on-point, and it manages to balance all the warmth you want from a get-together fic with the snark and spite of canon. I'm so grateful for both these fics! They made it a great Yuletide for me.

My recs in other fandoms, for now, are confined to those I'm familiar with enough to read fic. They're also fairly short ones for now, but there are a couple of longer fics I want to come back to, so I may end up making another rec post later on.

15th Century CE RPF
these late eclipses by betony - The intertwining of history and magic in this fic is artful. You can tell a lot of thought has gone into the symbolism of the different scrying substances that appear throughout the fic. The writing is lovely, and it just feels like a story that's had a lot of care put into it. This one, you can read without knowing the fandom, and you should!

Brideshead Revisited
Benedictus Benedicat by asuralucier - This is a brief scene in the early days of Charles and Sebastian which manages to be tone-perfect to the books, with witty dialogue and buzzing with tension. I just adore the vibes. It makes me feel like I'm reading the novel again, but with context instead of subtext :')
When We Were Idlers by Skeiler - A Brideshead twist on the classic coffee shop AU, this fic imagines a modern first meeting between Charles and Sebastian, with all the charm of canon and a lot of new details to love. Sebastian's coffee order is going to give me nightmares.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Healing by pasiphile - I was delighted to see a fic focusing on Arabella and Emma in the collection, and this did not disappoint. Their relationship is sweet and at times fraught; it feels very real. Plus, I love what the author does to elaborate on the in-universe magic system.

The Magicians
The Magician's Wish by mayhap - What thrills me most about this fic is how the author really understands the spirit of these books, and the characters. There's whimsy and sincerity; there's Eliot being a dumbass in love and Quentin being Quentin. Plus, it's laugh-out-loud funny. Feel good fic of the year, tbh.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
in all probability by marginaliana - Outside of my gifts, this is my standout favourite in Yuletide this year. If you don't read second person, it's time to reconsider. The writing here is masterful, and the nonlinear story commands ambiguity with purpose. Also I have a lot of feelings because of this. SO many feelings.

The Thick of It
Curtain Material by Monksandbones - I laughed out loud at this brilliant epistolary fic. I'm most impressed by the author's Nicola voice, and the absolute confidence with which this feels like it could just slot into canon. There's a richness of stories within stories hiding in here. It's a joy to read.

Finally, the fic I wrote - a self-rec, if you will! - is One Spell to Discover what My Enemy is doing Presently. Though I nabbed the title from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, this is a Secret History fic. My request was for a years-later reunion between the characters, particularly Camilla and Charles, so I took the opportunity to write from Camilla's point of view. Her position in the story is an interesting one: though Charles loves her, he treats her cruelly, and Richard regularly reduces her to little more than someone he has a crush on, to the point of plainly missing what else is going on in her life. (She always seemed pretty close to Francis, which I explored as well.) I thought about how it would be bittersweet for her to see them again, and then I thought, how can I make this even sadder? So I sent them back to Hampden College for one last hurrah before the place is bulldozed. I wanted to use that "end of an era" framing to parallel the way the four of them have changed, alongside the dubious progress of the 80s and early 90s. (I put in some references to the early days of the internet, which was really fun.) I also used magic as a framing device for the narrative; that just came to me as I started writing, when I thought about how Camilla was the one who was arguably the most supernaturally affected by the bacchanal. And of course then I thought to get the title from JS&MN, which was another fandom my recipient requested. Though I was writing this fic at a really busy time in my life, I managed to create something I'm really proud of, especially after months of not writing any fic. Feels pretty great!

haikyuu just happens so much

( major spoilers for the manga )

i went for byron/keats/shelleys as my third nomination........ sometimes you just have to request romantic writer rpf... i don't think i'll offer it though. for my first yuletide (2017) i offered and requested exactly the same things, but last year none of my offers and requests overlapped, which was really fun. this year i think i'll mix it up, there'll be at least one overlapping fandom. i'm SO hyped to see the tagset and get onto deciding.

i don't know how many people here are reading the huffledraco series - of which one part has thus far been posted, Learning to Fly. well, i've got a lot of nice comments on it in the last few months (has it been rec'd somewhere? not that i've been able to find) which has been a lovely surprise, given that it's genfic, which is always so prone to slipping through the cracks. and it's been well over a year since i posted that! so, while my big scary phd thesis is due in under three months, i have been slowly chipping away at the second fic in the series, mostly outlining, but gearing up to keep writing soon. i... have had a lot of trouble writing children and teenagers recently. but i'm also coming to terms with the fact that this is my current magnum opus (until i get my arse in gear and finish my massive r/s canon divergence fic) so i really want to press on and do the thing justice. and god, i've got some good stuff yet to come.

so while i can't yet update the fic, and because just saying i'm working on it doesn't feel like enough, here is the rough outline of the series as it stands:

1. Learning to Fly [first year; posted]
2. Enemies of the Heir [second year; currently being written]
3. Écossaise [fourth year, yule ball]
4. To the Victor [fourth year, end]
5. Draco's Army [fifth year]
6. The Summer of Discontent [the summer between fifth and sixth year]
7. Loser's Lurgy [sixth year]
8. currently untitled seventh year fic
9. at least one post-hogwarts fic

note how it's not linear in terms of the books! nothing actually happens with draco in PoA and getting him involved in the harry stuff would've felt a bit contrived. also not all of these fics are going to be the same length; some will be fairly short, others may get longer. (at this point EotH is looking like it'll be the same length as LtF, maybe a little longer.) anyway, i've tried to title these fics in a way that makes sense wrt the content - e.g. an ecossaise is a scottish country dance. i'm holding myself back from saying much more, because i don't want to spoil anything, but i'm also like !!! i just want to talk about some of the stuff in these fics!!!!!! there's just so much i've put into this... one day i'll probably end up writing side fics too, or at least taking requests for some alternate POVs on events that people might be interested in.

well, try not to get too excited, because i don't even know when i'll post EotH. but it's happening!