va'esse deireádh aep eigean, va'esse eigh faidh'ar

I did yuletide this year for the first time, though it was far from my first exchange, and it ... was fun? In the way all exchanges are fun? The Yuletide Hype(tm) put me off it for years - twinned with the fact that I tend to request pretty rare fandoms/ships anyway - but I'd do it again. I wrote one thing and got three gifts, and added a lot of people to my 'to treat if they request this again' list. I wrote:

a sycamore tree, as sick as can be. the haunting of hill house - shirley jackson, theo/nell, theo/ofc. teen. for luna.

There's no risk of a picnic here, nothing it needs to keep me safe from. I go out into our building's tiny back garden and tilt my head back to see the green-feathered branches of the single tree brush the sky. Dear Nell is in a tree now, I think, and then I laugh at the absurdity, because Nell is a house, of course.

( some thoughts about ghost stories, hill house, the reception this fic got, and ambiguity, of the director's-commentary sort that is not meant to take away from anything you might have gotten from the fic. )

And I got three wonderful gifts, two in the main collection and one in Madness.

Five Life Goals for the Working Country Girl. goblin market - christina rossetti, jeanie & lizzie & laura. teen. by LittleRaven.

Five fates they never got to choose.

Not content with absolutely murdering me with Goblin Market fic in Darkest Night, LittleRaven has written me the girls as vampires AND werewolves AND ghosts AND fey flowers AND space travellers and I am spoilt beyond measure, truly.

Where The Wild Roses Grow. goblin market - christina rossetti, jeanie/lizzie. teen. by sweetcarolanne.

The flowers on Jeanie's grave did not die - they lived, and grew ravenous. They will bring Jeanie the vengeance that she seeks, and lead her back to hope and love...

Is this 1.1k of sweetcarolanne indulging my id's desire for Jeanie as an eldritch plant monster who eats goblins and watches over her little sister and plots to steal Lizzie away to somewhere where they can be eldritch plant monster girlfriends together? Yes. Is it perfect? Also yes.

comatose. the source (ayreon album), the counsellor/the biologist. NR. by kalypsobean.

I allllmost didn't request The Source because I had a moment of 'seriously, who is going to write fic for an hour and a half long symphonic metal concept album about aliens and androids during the apocalypse' but I DID and I GOT FIC FOR IT. This is a lovely little 'getting together during wartime with the fate of the world on our shoulders' fic that feels very real and wild and hopeful, and I love it.