Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom.

This list could be very long but there are two things that really stand out: the people and the words.

I met my person in fandom, 17 years and 11 months ago. I met some of my closest and longest lasting friends in fandom, including some I see routinely. My book club is fandom people. My travel buddies are fandom people. My current partner in fandom crime is someone I met...17 years ago. The friends who give me advice when my cats are sick are fandom people. The friends who write me monster porn when I'm sick are fandom people.

The thing about fandom is that you get an open door: this person also loves your blorbo. It doesn't guarantee a thing--I meet a lot of people I don't click with who also love my blorbo. But if you love the same characters or the same shows in the same way, man it's such a great place to start.

I also learned to write in fandom. I learned to edit in fandom. I get better at both regularly by being in fandom, and it turns out I use those skills in my real job almost every day. And even if I didn't, I love to write, and I love that people love my writing, and I love getting to tell stories about my favorite characters.

So despite the fact that I have been in fandom approximately twelve million years, I only rarely do Yuletide. But this year there are a bunch of fandoms I know and love, so here we are! If you are browsing through letters, I am gabolange.

First, and most importantly: thank you! I am sure I will love anything you write me, because OMG you are writing me a story! I am very grateful for your time.

Second, a couple DNWs: I am not really into non-canon major character death, or werewolves or A/B/O, or trauma porn. Also DNW non-con, rape, gratuitous violence against women, or embarrassment stuff. And I really, really don't want any character bashing.

Third, a couple loves: I am a character whore. I love a good canon-divergence AU of course, but my heart is happiest unpacking the characters we love in the settings we know. I don't mind if that's fluffy or heartfelt or hurt/comfort or deep inside someone's head or outside POV or whatever, but my happiest place is character work in a canon-friendly or canon-adjacent way. I want the characters to be recognizable themselves more than anything.

Fourth ( the fandoms! )

Snowflake Challenge #9 is "Rec Us Your Newest Thing." And you guys, I am halfway through For All Mankind and it is really, really great? I haven't fallen this hard for something this fast since...oh, I don't even know. It's been a long time. But to combine this with Snowflake Challenge #10, which is "Five Things!" here are five things I love about this show (so far):

1. THE WOMEN. I probably should not tell you everything I love about all the women, because there are *so many* of them, and they are diverse and complicated and beautiful and sometimes not, and allowed to be right, and then allowed to be wrong. And Wheel of Time does this somewhat, but this is the only other show I know of that allows this many women of all flavors to be this central, and this important. They make the decisions and have the biggest successes and failures and have the most meaning. They save the world. They are the world. And I would follow Margo Madison to the grave.

2. Competence Porn. I was just watching Slow Horses, which is charming enough, but I started to get annoyed at how much our central characters were fuck-ups. It turns out, I just really love watching people be good at things. I love that science and engineering and figuring shit out are at the center of the show, in the way that made me love Sam Carter and Temperance Brennan and all of Leverage and most of Star Trek. This show values smart people, and it lets being smart be good.

3. THE ALT-HISTORY. Possibly I loved this before I loved the rest of it. I'm a US History kid. And like...the subtlety and nuance of all the alt-history is *so* good. It's not just "what happens if the Soviets get to the moon first?" it's also...what happens if Chappaquiddick doesn't happen? What changes and when if women can chart a different trajectory? What happens if Challenger doesn't explode? What happens if Werner von Braun is convicted in a court of public opinion for his crimes? It's so fucking thoughtful about these things. And you end up with this world that looks and feels like ours--or maybe at this point, the one I grew up in--with all these little changes that are fantastic.

4. It's the right level of soapy. This show could take itself very seriously, and it does when it needs to, but it's also got dumb relationship drama and some tropes it shouldn't bother with and some amazing music choices, all of which reminds you this is entertainment. It's silly when it could turn serious, and it's over the top in just the right way. It's got some great ships, both canon and not, and for that I am already staying up too late reading fic, and I have already promised runawaynun a story. (This will take a year, it's fine.)

5. It's hopeful. I hate Ron Moore for many, many things--some of which are still present on the show, if perhaps moderated by twenty years of time and changes in media trends and what we're conditioned to find attractive in the obligatory manpainy white dude--but you can't say he doesn't know how to land that Trek mix of awe and belief in a better future and straight-up optimism in the face of danger. This show kills characters you love and makes you want to punch a couple others--and I'm not done, but I am spoiled, so you know. But regardless, it places human progress and peace and hope for the future smack in the center, and that will always be the thing that gets me, hook, line, and sinker.

And no, it isn't perfect. But nothing is, not even the shows I love like I think I'm going to love this one. You are required to put up with the obligatory mainpainy white dude. The cast is too large and no one gets the time they need. The first season is incredibly tight, but the next one is less so. There are stupid side plots.

But I don't ask my media to be perfect. I just want it to be all of the things this is, so far. Hat tip to runawaynun for pestering vaguely through Tumblr posts for a year to get me to watch this show. Anything that happens next is all her fault.

Okay, maybe I am doing Snowflake Challenge...a little.



Challenge #3

Create a wish list of fandom things (podfic, graphics, playlists, canon recs translations, research help, vids, sky's the limit!) that you'd like to receive.

I have only two things I really want to exist in the world that do not seem to, and one request for the universe.

1) Art: A proper poster I can frame and hang in my office that has the Star Trek emblem with the words "Ad Astra Per Aspera" on it. I have been trying to buy this but it does not exist, and I would pay to commission this, genuinely.

2) Vid: A Bablyon 5 Londo Mollari vid to Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero." Because *come on* nothing has ever been so perfect.

3) I also would love for folks to go...fill a fandom stocking or comment on a story they've been meaning to or find a story that doesn't have the kudos or comments it should and give the author props or rec it to a friend or something. Send joy into the fannish world.

Well, I've been writing this for what feels like forever. But two full drafts and some extra work later, I have for you:

Title: the wheel of the headlong year
Fandom: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Summary: Marie Batel lives. Survival is complicated.
Character / Pairing: Marie Batel, Marie Batel / Christopher Pike
Rating: T
Words: 16,374

Other things: this is a story about trauma, and grief, and survival, and unexpected intimacy. Content warnings for medical trauma especially.

With gratitude to pellucid for the kind of thorough and thoughtful beta I cannot live without, and extra gratitude to the universe that she is well enough--for the first time in fifteen months--to provide such wonderful beta services. With additional thanks to tellitslant for an extra set of eyes and some really insightful thoughts, as well as for listening to me talk about this as it came together since...well, the day the finale aired.

**

I thought I wouldn't publish anything in 2023 for the first time since 2016. But here we are, under the wire. I am immensely proud of this story, and I hope you enjoy it. I have many hopes for 2024, but perhaps the most straightforward is this: Marie Batel better fucking live.

**

Happy New Year, friends.

***

Title: move into the future (bring it all back)
Fandom: Wheel of Time (TV)
Summary: Nynaeve does not stay on the road for dreams
Notes: Nynaeve character study, Lan / Nynaeve, with background Moiraine / Siuan. 5K words, all audiences.
Beta: The wonderful holdouttrout.

**

Anyway, this was a lot of fun. I got to rewatch Wheel of Time...and then not tell anyone about it, which was hilarious. I had a great time trying to get into Nynaeve's head and understand where she would be at the end of the season: what would it mean for her to go to the Tower? How would this impact her relationship with Lan? How does she feel about Moiraine? I hope I've done the premise justice.

**

I wrote four stories this year--three in WoT, and one in B5. I am happy with all of them, and looking forward to what 2023 will bring!

The last ten years of writing fic have been something else. I've published 36 stories across 12 fandoms. The shortest is 293 words, the longest 12393 words. For some people that would be nothing--in terms of output, fandom count, or word count--but for me, it represents keeping on and only writing when I have something I really wanted to say. There were years I wrote nothing and years I wrote a lot, and that particular bent has served me well, I think.

Speaking of something that has worked well...I have worked with the same beta for the entire decade, and we have only gotten better at working together. She continues to make me a better writer while also letting me be the writer I need to be in any given moment. It's good stuff.

But with all that...I kind of wanted to look back on the last ten years of fic. And you know I love a meme!

( A Decade in Fic )

Given that Galentine's Day prompts will be out soon, and given that I am not on vacation like everyone else right now, I figured I'd get ahead of my author letter. (As usual, it's all chaila's fault.)

Dear Author,

Hi! Thank you in advance for writing me a story!

( General thoughts. )

( Specific thoughts. )

Thank you again,
gabolange

Look, ma, I have a Dreamwidth!