Much of this is cribbed from my letter last year. If any of it seems familiar, that's probably why.


Dear Yuletide Writer,

I am delighted that you are playing this year!

My sign-up is: http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2016/signups/92747

I always dearly hope that I get ~The Fic~ that will make angels sing and fill some niche in my heart that I hardly realized was missing, but that's a lot of pressure to put on an author and kind of an unrealistic expectation. I do thoroughly enjoy fic that seems like the author had a lot of fun writing it. If you have a bunny that grabs you, totally run with it even if you're not sure it fits what I'm hoping for.

Some things I like, in no particular order:

( Read more... )

Came in to work to find that I'd dropped a ball. Panicked a bit. Got the ball back in the air. Also lunch with Purple and his table, and a bit of a debriefing with lb (and lb and Purple) and then Gramp and some guy who was also complaining about helpdesk. Fun with my inbox. Prep for 2nd Thursday. The realization that my period may be trying to synchronize with 2nd Thursday. #fishpile all over twitter. <3 <3 <3

That much-reviled phrase, "I can see Russia from my house!" came up over lunch. Well, it almost did. Purple opened his mouth, it got halfway out, then it met my steady glance and the words turned around and marched right back in. I sent him a link to http://azurelunatic.dreamwidth.org/2008/09/19/distant-early-warning.html for when he has an hour to spare. (We established that my reading speed was about four times his, as of last measurements on both sides.)

At around about the time I was thinking it was just about a day, Purple pinged me to say that he was back from the group dinner-thing his team had done, and there were leftovers if I was so inclined. I reckoned I might be so inclined, and wandered over -- to see that other vultures had been there ahead of me. I proceeded to demonstrate my skills at adulting by eating the bowl of frosting and cake scraps which was the only viable leftover. (Purple: "Are you sure that was it?" ... "You were right. Sorry about that...")

Around seven, I had taken the shortcut outside on the sidewalk heading to the kitchen to refill my water bottle (it's a shortcut because it doesn't involve the possibility of the awkward fat-human/narrow-hallway two-body problem) and got an eyeful of the full moon all rosy in the pink sky. By the time Purple had finished his bug triage stuff and I had finished my frosting, it was full black with a white moon. I looked up the time of the eclipse. I hope to be sound asleep by then. It's 2nd Thursday this week.

Sometime after getting home, I realized that I actually am not crushingly touch-starved like I was at about this time last year. When I was a bitty wee Lunatic, one or the other of my parents would tuck us in at night -- lie down next to us for a bit while we settled in. As we grew up, that stopped -- but every night, I would imagine myself curling up next to whoever it was that was my crush at the moment, and just lying there quietly and happily, sometimes talking to each other like sleepy chickens, and sometimes saying nothing at all. (Note: the peacefulness of sleepy chickens is not actually a reliable thing. You may just be sitting there contented with your feathers fluffed up, and then someone pecks you, or perhaps your sister steps on you while crawling over you for a better position in relation to the heat lamp.) This tradition kept on for a good many years. Lately, though, not so much. Sometimes I still imagine it, but largely I am concerned with my card game, or my plan for the next morning. Part of it is general changes in my brain and life outlook, but a not insignificant part is getting goodnight hugs* on a more-often-than-weekly basis.

* From someone who does not set off my "PEOPLE!!!" alarm. While most of the people I know are not the guy whose Free Hugs sweatshirt was last washed three long months ago (using barbecue sauce and essence of skunk as detergent) neither are they necessarily the person whose hugs would be welcome even when my brainspace is prickling and growling. Which is of course when I most need hugs. Ah, Catch-22.


Nora informs me that Dwellers in the Crucible has made it into Yuletide, and from the sound I made when she said that, apparently this is one of my extra special fandoms.

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS BOOK, OKAY. So the thing about Star Trek books is, they are officially Not Canon, and at least originally, there was no particular attempt to enforce continuity between the books. Authors got to do basically whatever the hell they wanted to. And Margaret Wander Bonanno had some ideas.

Federation ambassadors have good-behaviour hostages kept in a secluded location on Vulcan, complete with implanted bombs or something equally unsociable. They're treated well, but don't have liberty, and do have the aforementioned bombs. The Earth ambassador's hostage is her daughter, who is a bit of a party girl. The Vulcan ambassador's son's career was of too much significance to allow him to be cooped up like that, so since Sarek is in fact a Vulcan and will behave himself anyway/take the life of another Vulcan seriously, his hostage is a studious young Vulcan volunteer. Ladies who are basically opposites. Ladies being friends. Peril! Lesbian subtext! Vulcan virginity. ( Sexual assault kinds of peril. ) I remember it as being gloriously tropey and oh so good. (I was also sixteen, and affected a "ruby" stud earring in the appropriate ear, and refused to take it out even when it would have been wise to do so. I bear the legacy of this fuckheaded decision in today's metal allergies.) My dearest hope for Yuletide this year is now that someone can distill the crystalline essence of tropey goodness free of the Suck Fairy dander that has doubtless landed on it during the intervening nearly-two-decades since I last read it.

This book holds a second dear place in my heart. I can see, right now, one of the ill-sorted cubes of my main bookshelf. Right between The Warrior's Apprentice and Hellspark is Preternatural, the one with the jelepathic tellyfish (Azure-blue, where are you?) and the thinly-disguised Star Trek clone, with the thinly-disguised author-self-insert, author of the tie-in novel Abide in Fire. Which, when quoted by some fan asking questions at a panel, has the same text on the same page number as good ol' Dwellers. MY FANGIRL HEART EXPLODES. (I would package Preternatural up with Deep Secret and either Bimbos of the Death Sun or Fallen Angels to form a Convention Shenanigans box set.)

So in conclusion, I would also be super happy with either a Dwellers in the Crucible fic, or an Abide in Fire fic, particularly one that included Karen Rohmer Guerreri.


XKCD shows some poll numbers about approval of interracial marriage and same-sex marriage. I got engaged to another girl in 1995/1996. It was not the most friendly time for that.

Hi! I'm most often "Azz" in Yulechat, so if you were in Yulechat and wondering if that was me, yeah, that's me.

( Optional details are optional. )