aka kikicat

Christian / Wife / Mom I’m just here cuz I love the Queen’s Thief series. Seriously, read it! Come join the QT discord at https://discord.gg/vre2ag3whn

[hamiathesgiftexchange]

Nominations are open for Hamiathes's Gift Exchange!

Important info:

- Nominations will be open until June 25 @ 8 pm ET

- You do not need to nominate in order to participate in the exchange but you can only request/offer what's in the tagset so make sure to submit if you want something specific!

If you are going to submit tags, the setup is a little wonky so I’ve added some explanation below!

Relationships and worldbuilding must also be submitted under the "character" submission in the following format:

Relationship: [characters]

Worldbuilding: [element]  

For instance:

Relationship: Eddis/Sophos

Relationship: Helen & Gen

Worldbuilding: Eddisian myths 

Check out the tagset here to see what has already been submitted (hit "expand all" to see them), and click "nominate" to submit yours! If you have more questions you can check out the FAQ, or feel free to message me here or on the Queen’s Thief discord!

[jhawkgirl]

It’s Hamiathes’s Gift Exchange time!

[espiethestrawberry]

The problem with trying to recommend the Thief to someone is trying to make it sound interesting without spoiling it. "So like there's this thief and then he goes and he steals something and then he loses it. And there's traveling and...sleeping? I swear it's awesome."

"That doesn't sound fun."

"No, but hear me out. The thief guy complains a lot and is super obnoxious."

"..."

"Just read it."

[luna-azzurra]

Things to consider when writing about Romance!!!

⊹ Why do these two people actually like each other. "They're both hot" is not enough. What specifically draws them together? Shared trauma? They make each other laugh? They challenge each other? Similar worldviews or completely opposite ones that balance out? Give them actual chemistry based on personality not just physical attraction!!

⊹ What's stopping them from getting together immediately. External obstacles like war, forbidden love, wrong timing? Internal ones like fear of vulnerability, past trauma, thinking they're not good enough? Both?

⊹ How does the romance affect the main plot. Does it help or hinder the protagonist's goals? Create complications? Give them something to fight for? Romance subplots that are completely separate from the main story feel tacked on!!

⊹ What's the pacing. Do they fall for each other slowly over time or is it fast and intense? Slow burn is great but you need moments of progress. Instant attraction is fine but the actual relationship should still develop.

⊹ How do they communicate. Do they actually talk about their feelings or just pine silently for 200 pages? Can they have difficult conversations? Do they understand each other or constantly misread situations?

⊹ What do they disagree about. Couples who agree on everything are boring. What are their fundamental differences? How do they handle conflict? Do they fight fair or is it toxic? Can they compromise or does someone always give in?

⊹ How do other characters react to the relationship. Supportive friends? People who think it's a terrible idea? Jealous exes?

⊹ What does each person bring to the relationship. Is it balanced or does one person do all the emotional labor? Do they make each other better or worse? What do they each need vs what do they want?

⊹ What are their love languages. Physical touch? Words of affirmation? Acts of service? Quality time? Gifts?

⊹ How does their past affect this relationship. Previous heartbreak? First love? Trust issues from family stuff? Abandonment fears?

⊹ What's the power dynamic. Are they equals? Is one person in a position of authority? Does one have more experience? Unbalanced power dynamics need to be addressed not ignored!!

⊹ How physical is the relationship and when. First kiss timing? Is there sexual tension? Do they hold hands? Are they touch-starved and finally have someone? What's appropriate for your genre and audience??

⊹ What's at stake if the relationship fails. Just heartbreak or something bigger? Will it destroy the friend group? Ruin the mission? End an alliance?

⊹ Do they have lives outside each other. Friends, hobbies, goals that have nothing to do with the romance? Couples who only exist for each other are codependent and boring :(

⊹ What's the "oh" moment. When does each person realize they're in love? Is it dramatic or quiet? Same time or does one person know way before the other? Multiple realizations?

⊹ How do they support each other through the plot. Do they have each other's backs? Believe in each other? Or does the relationship become a weakness enemies exploit?

⊹ What happens after they get together. If they become official halfway through, how does the relationship continue to develop? New challenges? Deeper vulnerability? Don't end the romance arc the second they kiss (please!!)

[hamiathesgiftexchange]

Hamiathes's Gift Exchange 2026: Schedule Announcement!

The schedule is here! We're kicking off in about two months (a month earlier than last year), so please make sure to check the dates below. This exchange is open to anyone with an AO3 account who wants to write a fic or make a piece of QT art. For more details on length, size, and logistics of the exchange, check out the FAQ linked at the bottom of this post.

2026 Schedule

Character/relationship/worldbuilding nominations: Thursday, June 18 - Thursday, June 25

Signups: Friday, June 26 - Sunday, July 5

Assignments sent out: Tuesday, July 7

Fanworks due: Friday, August 14

Fanworks revealed: Friday, August 21

Artists/authors revealed: Friday, August 28

All deadlines are at 8pm EDT

Note: If you don't have an AO3 account, you can request an invite here. There is currently a 10 day waiting list to get an invite, so please make sure you request one soon if you're considering participating!

If you have any questions about how the exchange works you can find last year's FAQ here. Check out past HGE works here! If you want a reminder when signups open, dm me!

[mapsontheweb]

The black areas represent the remaining natural dark skies in the United States

[largedad]

[impossiblepackage]

I’ve been in the middle of the ocean at night and now live in texas and it is so hard to explain to people that no, they have not ever seen the night sky. It is so hard to explain to people that what they think is a proper night sky is fucking pathetic. A disgrace.

People talk about how you can’t see stars in the city and yeah, that’s true, but their concept of “seeing stars” is being able to make out orion’s belt.

So, so few people have see the sky in all its glory and it’s not sad. It’s a fucking crime. Seeing a perfectly dark night, no clouds, not a hint of light pollution? That’s a fucking religious experience.

The sky the vast vast majority of us grew up with is not the sky that inspired us to look up. It is not the sky that inspired constellations. You can’t even see most constellations.

Your ancestors looked at the night sky and said “surely, that is where the gods must live.” And you might be lucky if you can see hardly more than a handful of stars.

The sky is full, fucking FULL, of stars, and you’ve never seen them.

[bisquid]

I remember the first time I saw a properly dark sky and was like ‘oh that’s why it’s called the milky way’ and promptly started to cry

When we were on a field trip to the middle of the red sea, I remember us all crowding at the end of the boat that didn’t have lights and just lying on our backs and staring

When you see a properly dark starscape

You understand why people wrote poems and made up legends and built rockets and said heaven’s in the sky

The universe is infinite. So are the stars

[bisquid]

I’m trying to find a picture on google images to show you what I mean and I can’t find any

You think of the night sky like fairy lights on black velvet, but it’s not it’s not it’s like, like, dust in sunlight, like - I can’t find the words.

The stars are everywhere, like sugar, like glitter, like dust. You can’t find the constellations at first, not because you can’t recognise them, but because there’s so many stars you can’t pick out the familiar line of Orion’s belt. The North star has gone from bright familiarity to almost vanishing among a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million other lights. The milky way is a line of light arcing across the sky like a moon-trail on water only infinitely, infinitely bigger.

And for the first time in your life you’ll understand why people call it a dome, because it is, it’s three dimensional in exactly the way a city skyscape isn’t.

You’ll understand why Luthien Tinúviel danced under starlight, not moonlight, why people in a time before we knew the earth was round still looked up and wondered and built telescopes and dreamed about the stars.

The stars are endless and ancient and infinite and you will stand with your head craned back and your rucksack forgotten at your feet and you’ll feel like you’re falling upwards into that great bright sky like it’s calling you home and you’ll wonder how you ever thought the stars were beautiful before tonight when all you’d ever seen were the naked empty skyscapes of your home. And you’ll cry and you’ll spend the rest of your time there gazing up and wondering and imagining what it would be like to stand among those bright silver flecks

And then you’ll come home, and look up, and fall in a different kind of love with that handful of blazing stars to stubborn to be outdone by the whole of human invention, leading you home despite the light pollution and the clouds and the endless bustle of this shrinking planet.

[5c0l0p3ndr4]

this is not a shot from a space telescope overlayed behind a woods, or anything. that’s not the sky as kepler or hubble or james webb see it. that’s the sky from a dark sky park in michigan. that’s the view you are missing out on from right here on earth. that’s the view that has been stolen from you.

[mckitterick]

I fell in love with the sky as a child growing up in western Minnesota, miles from a small town, near a massive lake and just downhill from an 18-hole golf course - the pure darkness broken only by a single bright light I could escape by hauling my telescope up that hill or into a nearby field

I’d often set an alarm to wake me in the middle of the night, so it was as dark as possible and my eyes as dark-adapted as they coud get, and starlight alone was enough to guide me

that’s what’s been taken from us all

[cosmo-the-ethyrian]

OH OKAY so actually im fully ugly crying snotty-sobbing about this. what

[i-like-reblog-maps]

this post was inflicted upon me so now i’m inflicting it on all of you

(full map of ~75k is too much for me to load, but i got to 40k! very laggy, but worth it.)

[diana-prince43]

Choose a female fantasy writer PART THREE

Lucy M. Boston

Helen Lowe

Helen Dunmore

Patricia C. Wrede

Seanan McGuire

Michelle Sagara

Felicia Davin

Janny Wurts

Megan Whalen Turner

Cornelia Funke

Emily Bronte

Donita K. Paul

Voting ended onApr 19

[jhawkgirl]

Vote for Megan!

[fredgolds]

i’m not gonna say it’s all fun and games for irene’s attendants but it does have a certain flavour to it. like if i was one of ten people in the palace who knew that the king was sleeping in the queen’s chambers and i saw his oblivious attendants squabble over who gets to sleep on benches outside his empty room???? the rush must be unparalleled

[glorious-spoon]

anyway the thing about fanfic is that it's not essentially bad or good; it's essentially amateur. some people are absolutely out there writing award-worthy prose (some fic writers ARE award-winning writers IRL!), but that's not the point. the point is that we're all telling campfire stories. it's a community, and it's a way to spend some more time in the worlds and stories that we love.

[fictionadventurer]

My efforts to romanticize winter to get through the worst time of the year have worked so well that I think winter might legitimately be my favorite season. I keep seeing things that overwhelm me with their beauty.

Tall spruce trees heavily laden with snow in the blue-gray twilight.

A church spire stretching above snow-laden pines toward a sky spangled with stars bright and cold as diamonds.

A sky striped with pale blue and lavender (like January) that reflected perfectly on the dampness of the road, so it felt like I was driving through the sky or across the sea.

A faint nighttime fog that made the light from every streetlight, storefront, and house stretch upward in a perfect pillar, and then waking up in the morning to see every branch and twig of every tree covered in hoarfrost.

Looking out my bedroom window to see the full moon shining on a snow-covered landscape making the whole world glow bright as day.

The shadows of trees across the snow-covered ground making an intricate pattern of black and white.

The other seasons get their beauty from life, warmth, plants, color, but from where I stand in winter, it's almost too overwhelming to appreciate all of it. Winter strips it back to the bare minimum, showing the beauty at the very core of the world. The nights may be longer, but they're brighter, because while summer has its lights, in winter, the whole world is luminous.

[teaboot]

Yeah Mr. Darcy’s proposal was a complete turd and a half but you gotta understand. You got your life together. A good career, stable income, retirement plan, all that shit together. And you meet this girl. And she’s everything. Clever, outspoken, funny, calls you on your bullshit. Grade A cutie, right? And she doesn’t go out of her way to spend time with you but she’s nice, and sometimes you catch her looking your way in a way that makes you think you might have a shot.

But her family. Holy shit.

First off, it’s p much ALL women, and mostly UNMARRIED women, which at this time means of something happens to her dad then you’re financially responsible for like. Four grown ass adults, potentially forever

Because mom in law is DEFINITELY gonna need someone to take care of her when dad in law kicks it, and they have like. NO money. So already you’re accepting that if all goes well, you’re gonna be one random old bag’s retirement home. That’s expensive and exhausting, yeah? Imagine asking someone on a first date knowing that if they say yes and things go good her high-strung chihuahua mother is gonna move in with you. IMAGINE.

And girly’s other sisters. Well, one is a sweetheart, yeah, so she probably won’t be an issue, but that still leaves three more, and two of those ones are INSUFFERABLE. Never went to school, dumb as rocks, spend cash like it’s toilet paper

And while one of the two is young still and might grow out of it the OTHER one is actively torpedo’ing her entire family’s reputation by wandering off with random dudes and chasing ass. She’s never gonna work, she can’t build connections, she’s a fucking sinkhole, and she’s being led on by the same goddamn con man ass leeching tit who’s been bleeding you dry while telling anyone who’ll listen that your family is full of ratty thieving bastards.

And if he dumps her after a week- WHICH YOU KNOW HIS BITCH ASS IS GONNA- you’ve got a SECOND UNMARRIABLE GROWN ASS ADULT TO PROVIDE FOR. And you KNOW she’s gonna be a tantrum-throwing little shit about it, and it’s not like you can lock her in the basement or something, you’re gonna have to bring her fucking. Everywhere. And give her an allowance and shit while she contributes zero, because again, she NEVER GOT EDUCATED AND HAS NO MARKETABLE SKILLS. She’s not even good to TALK to. FUCK

And you’re looking at this girl’s father like “please for the love of fuck get your spawn under control, marry them off, get them working on their résumé, learning to sew or be nursemaids or manage staff or SOMETHING, yall got no money and one foot in the grave” and that old man just laughs like “haha yeah, what can you do. lol”

So you’re looking to the mom and finally it’s making sense how she got that twitch in her eye and as MUCH as she is you’re starting to realize she’s the SMART one, desperately throwing her armloads of girls at random men like they’re a bunch of fucking lifeboats bobbing around a sinking ship, like yes Jesus Christ sweetly that life boat IS old and ugly and kind of boring but for FUCKS SAKE PICK ONE

And you look back at this girl who is ALSO REFUSING THE LIFE BOATS BY THE WAY and god damn it she’s still the most radiant thing you’ve ever seen so fine, fuck it, Christ alive, you’ll do it. You’ll shoot your shot. She’s everything you’ve ever wanted in anybody abut it’s not even just about that anymore, it’s about being her best fucking shot at a future, and even if she doesn’t like you all that much she’s still gonna say yes and that might break your heart a bit knowing it’s about the money but who knows, maybe it will at least be civil, or companionable, and even if she doesn’t LOVE you at least you’ll know she’s well and cared for

And so you’ll do it. You’ll take on the neurotic stress mess mother in law, the absent father, the broke ass wingnut no brain no money no future airhead sisters, the bad mannered relatives and the embarrassing behaviour and the impending future of sharing your entire shit with a clown parade of freeloaders, you’ll risk it all and accept the absolute certainty of financial ruin and emotional exhaustion for the rest of your whole ass life and you’ll make your own family deal with it too, you’ll do it, you’ll fucking DO IT, you stupid lovesick motherfucker

And so you go to this chick like “look. Your whole family’s a shitshow. You’ve got fucking nothing and you’re gonna die on the street. But for some reason- and I don’t get it either- I’ve fallen in love with you, and I wish I didn’t, but I did, so I’m telling you that whether you like me or not, I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you everything even if it’s the dumbest shit I ever done. Fuck my stupid Baka ass, I’ll marry you.”

And she looks at you- having heard or considered absolutely none of your months-long internal debate and monologue- and goes “The fuck did you just say about my family, you son of a bitch?”

And the shock of that is enough to jolt you back into a reality where you are able to actually hear and process what just came out of your damn mouth And yeah

Yeah, I think I kinda get it

[serviceberries]

give yourself a sense of place and time. rotate your wardrobe when the weather changes. update your playlists every month. write down three things you did today. do it everyday. message your friends good morning. buy yourself different flavours of tea based on your mood, the packaging, the weather, your heart. save the little paper labels; stick them in your notebook until the inside cover is full of little colored tags. have it hot in the winter. have it cold in the summer. learn to make apple cider, raspberry cordial. spend the summer knitting a scarf for the colder months. spend the winter sewing loose flowy blouses for the summer. open the windows, five minutes a day if it's cold, all day if it's warm. give yourself a sense of place and time and weather.

[yutaan]

Mini papercraft set of Gen and Irene from the Queen's Thief series for a friend! These books (the first one in particular, since I read it as a kid) really helped shape my taste in stories, and I love them SO much. So these minis were a delight to work on!

[anonabelle]

Another The Thief era Gen.

(excuse the outfit, it's vaguely based off what i saw the sounisian characters wearing in the official artwork but i didn't fully commit to faithful details nor do better research on what the proper attire would have been because i just wanted to draw)

[jhawkgirl]

I had lots of fun writing for Hamiathes’s Gift Exchange this year, with a personal record of 10 treats in addition to my official assignment. I’m not gonna list them all here, but you can visit https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmekikicat/works if you’d like to check them out!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[svetlacreates]

A late night and an expected guest. An illustration based on The King of Attolia, depicting a stolen moment between Eugenides and Irene. This was a gift for seaofeels in the @hamiathesgiftexchange!

[hamiathesgiftexchange]

Works are Live!

Stories and art are revealed! You can read and view them here.

Stop by, enjoy, and don’t forget to leave feedback. 

If you have a fanwork in the tag, remember to update the publish date so you don’t appear behind already-published works! I’ll be leaving the collection open for last-minute treats until creator reveals in case anyone wants to get one in before reveals! 

If you signed up for the exchange, you should be getting an email with a link to your gift. You can also find it by opening your AO3 page and following the Gifts link in the left-hand navigation pane on the left. Please remember to show your author or artist lots of appreciation!

Fanworks will remain anonymous until Friday, September 26. However, if you’d like to reply to comments on the stories or art you posted, you can go ahead–your name will be hidden until then.

P.S. The collection will remain open for treating until author reveals, so feel free to post more works this week!

[bloodraven55]

it never fails to surprise me how some people will simply take every single thing in a story at face value and assume that what the characters are saying or doing or thinking must always be true even when all of the context clues are screaming the opposite

[bloodraven55]

[meganwhalenturner]

Not telling.