YOU GUYS. This is SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD.

No Less Unthinkable (79437 words) by rageprufrock
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary:

In which Katsuki Yuuri fights a losing battle with chronic anxiety, the quadruple Salchow, and his own judgment four drinks in — but wins the war.

Very, sincerely, NSFW. Really long. Warm and funny and real and absolutely worth your while.

So, hey, I posted on Saturday, which I need to not do because nobody reads LJ/DW on Saturdays. ;)

And also! If you like soulmate stories -- and I do, they are a pretty bulletproof Like for me -- this is one of the best I have seen in a long while. You will need to know Yuri On Ice, but knowledge of the movie on which the plot is based (Kimi no Na wa, or "Your Name") is utterly unnecessary.

(And if you don't know Yuri On Ice, go! Watch it! I can hook you up with my Crunchyroll account! Or you can find it on YouTube! It's WAFER-THIN! I will wait.)

Back now? Good.

Anyway, it's this story, which many of you may have already read:

a great desire to love (21724 words) by lily_winterwood
Chapters: 7/7
Fandom: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime), 君の名は。| Kimi no Na wa. | Your Name.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary:

For some strange, inexplicable, fantastic reason, Yuuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov are trading places. Kimi no Na wa AU.

One of the other things I realllllly love in fanfic -- one of the reasons I still have this hobby -- is the way that it plays with POV, which has always been a borderline obsession for me as a reader and writer. This story does a fantastic job with that.

So I've been percolating for a while about putting together a little video or podcast series aimed primarily at tweens/teens on mental health -- what going to therapy is like, what's happening in your brain when you have depression/anxiety/whatever, how to learn to balance caring for yourself and caring for others, healthy relationship boundaries, weed, cutting, sexuality, that kind of thing.

This is my passion, honestly -- I love giving people the tools they need to help themselves, and the earlier the better. (And I actually know some young persons who would probably help me make certain the content is helpful and not boring.) And I feel like this is a thing I can do to actually help, if not the current situation, then at least to help the next generation survive the current nonsense and maybe can get to do better.

So I'm just spitballing, literally writing this down for the first time. I think I want to do videos because my audience (hey, kids!) is more likely to find them than a book or a blog. I know how to create a podcast, and I do know video editors (hi, vidders!) but I am thinking about how to present the content. Definitely not my circular nun-in-her-forties-looking face talking into a camera. I love the style of things like CGP Grey or Crash Course, but have no notion of how much work that would actually be... certainly Crash Course has a mountain of people working on it, so that style is likely too ambitious. But you get it: < ahref ="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh5LY4Mz15o">edutainment</a>.

Here I am once again putting the cart before the horse, anyway, since no matter what I need to create the content. SO. What are peoples' thoughts on what the topics should be?

What's the thing you wish someone had told you about your brain, your self-care, your boundaries, your attitude, whatever, way before you figured it out in therapy at 25/35/45 years old??

I'm definitely going to start with "so you're gonna go see a therapist." :)

Helsinki 2017 (2764 words) by Sanj
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Characters: Katsuki Yuuri, Victor Nikiforov, Scott Hamilton
Additional Tags: Ice Skating
Summary:

Tonight, live from the World Championships, we bring you an exclusive interview with powerhouse men's skaters Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov!

Haven't been much of myself lately, what with the Nonsense growing and spreading across the wasteland of the US government. I'm crankily tweeting and signing petitions, and then I try to just focus on doing what good I can in the community where I live. So it's mostly been work, sleep, blearily check Twitter, work, hug a local friend or two, and generally stumble around much like a person in deep mourning. Which I am, I guess. But I don't think I have anything new to say on this that hasn't been said. It's a shitty situation and we as a nation are running out of time and opportunities to stop it from becoming exponentially shittier. (Message/email me if you can't figure out my Twitter handle and you want it.)

So there's that.

It turns out that when I am in deep distress, I tend to return to very old, foundational fandoms for comfort. After 9/11, for example, I suddenly read all the Star Wars fic I could find. (And that was back during the height of Master/Apprentice, so there was plenty!)

Apparently right now I am reliving eighth grade and marinating in the Pern universe. The good (okay, better) parts, not the later novels where Anne McCaffrey was clearly being imprisoned alive or something so that they could continue to print out fanfiction of her work for cash money. (Seriously, after Nerilka's Story the prose style isn't even close to the same - the contrast is stark as fuck and in another universe I wrote a thesis or something about it, but whatever.) (They did this to a queen (?) in a classic Doctor Who episode -- ellen_fremedon will know the one I mean. ANYWAY.)

ANYWAY. I seem to be kind of telling myself Harper stories in my head? Robinton/Menolly/Sebell, because *of course* they are my original OT3? Would anybody read that shit if I even wrote it? Does anybody still have passionate feelings about Harpers? Does anybody care if I utterly ignore everything published after The White Dragon, and probably go AU from after Dragonsinger? Does anybody even know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, my brain is in full-on escapist mode. I'm doing the work of being a mindful citizen, but I'm also taking this time before we have to actually literally pick up pitchforks to have some fun and play with a thing that is giving my inner fourteen-year-old a bit of joy.

... I'm a little late with acknowledging my Yuletide gift. I've only just moved in with the inestimable taabe, and we haven't got the Wi-Fi working yet. And it's a pain in the butt to post from my cell phone, because goshdarnit, I'm over 40 and my thumbs are wide.

But! Excuses aside! I have received a lovely Yuletide gift, which you also might enjoy:

The Bones of St. Nicholas (1432 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Eve Baird, Jake Stone, Ezekiel Jones, Cassandra Cillian, Santa - Character
Summary:

Santa comes to town a few months early. Colonel Baird needs a drink.

The voices are great -- in particular I can *see* Jake -- and it's a really lovely and endearing case for our heroes to solve. Hijinks ensue! It's everything I asked for!

Hope your Yuletide season is also filled with good things. (So much Hamilton, OMG, somewhere he's proud of all of this verbiage.)

Put in a placeholder for my Yuletide letter, and then just pasted in my main URL for my Yuletide signup.

So here's the URL and I will dig up and put it on the admin page where they keep that sort of thing.

http://sanj.dreamwidth.org/501812.html

YAY Yuletide! I am excited by my prompt. :)

Dear Yule Writer: I am not a picky person. If you love one of these fandoms as much as I do, you will probably make something that will make me very happy.

(1) October Daye series - Seanan McGuire (any character)
I love everything about this series. Quentin and Raj are probably my favorites, but I would be happy with just about anything. (I'm super excited by Quentin's new relationship hinted at in A Red-Rose Chain!) I love exploring the boundaries between Faerie and the mortal world -- especially with a character like, say, Chelsea to act as a guide. Alternatively, Toby/Tybalt is always good; Toby and Tybalt as mentors to Quentin and Raj is always good, and I basically just love this universe to pieces, so go to town. (Try not to kill off anybody that hasn't died in canon?)

(2) The Librarians (Cassandra, Eve, Jake, Ezekiel)
Just give me TEAM and HIJINKS and I will be happy. (And honestly, I can't think of why else you would like this show enough to write it for Yuletide?) Please keep this one on the light side -- this is my fluffy silly fandom. Bonus points for the kind of snarky repartee and deep knowledge of mythology that the show exhibits. I like Flynn and the other characters too! Any sexytimes would be fine but are not necessary -- do whatever you want on that score.

(3) Inside Out (any character)
I would dearly love to see what happened with Riley in the span of time between the day she decided not to run away and the day she got her "upgrade" in the epilogue. Clearly Joy and Sadness learned to work together. Or the events of the story from one of the other characters' internal points of view, maybe? Alternatively, seeing the conceit of the inside-voice characters applied in a crossover would also be fun -- what do other peoples' heads sound like?

IN GENERAL (repeated every year, more applicable to some fandoms than others):
The stuff I like best: first kisses, first times, threesomes/moresomes, stubborn loyalty, stubborn trust, us-against-the-world, intimacy, teamwork, and competence. Hey-kids-let's-put-on-a-show. A sense of place. Rituals, sex, and ritual sex. Strangers in strange lands. Secret romances where the stakes of discovery are high. Power exchange and sexualized D/s relationships. Coming-out stories and discovery of same-sex desire.

The stuff I don't like: partner betrayal, non-canonical death, drug or smoking kink, scat, bestiality, or bugs. Not much on clowns, really, and I'm not big on mixing sex and food, for some reason. Pretty much anything else I can think of is A-OK. Knock yourself out. :)

That's it! Go write! Have fun! If you have fun, I'll have fun. That's the short version.

FOUR HOURS OF SLEEP. TWELVE HOUR SHIFT.

Brain, why you gotta be like that?

Hoping pushing through today will reset my brain to normal-sleepytime levels.

So, hey! Things going on with me.

( Fannish things:Collapse )

(5) Fannish wittering is because job is freaking me out. ( My union is striking.Collapse )

(6) I like the new place! But water pressure and internet speed are both kind of iffy. Landlord's working on the water, at least. My computer may also be part of the internet problem, as it's getting on in years. Alas. But the delay is reduced with the phone, and I don't mind reading off of it, so I'm good for now.

(7) Huge family reunion in three weeks with my niece getting married and half of my family, including me, cramming into my sister's house. Should be a hootenanny. I have planned extensive padding on both sides of the trip so I can experience an actual vacation.

(8) How do you get a cigarette smell out of furniture? Vinegar? The adorable new desk I found at a tag sale reeks of stale cigarettes.