yuletide reveals are go! i only wrote one thing this year, but i received five (FIVE) absolutely gorgeous gifts. here is my roundup for easy access!
i wrote don’t take the money, a palm springs fic; sort of a sarah wilder character study and sort of a sarah/nyles relationship study and mostly a post-canon exploration of how they cope with, you know, not being in a time loop anymore. rated E, 5300 words. an excerpt: It’s a dusky blue spring evening, and she’s sautéeing the onions and peppers for the ratatouille, which she is, as she had hysterically told the woman in the produce section, going to make, and isn’t that just a fucking triumph of living?
as for my gifts—
all that’s left of our wings, run with the wind, iwakura yukihiko/kiyose haiji. not rated, 1900 words. a missing scene of haiji and yuki getting ready for graduation. my favorite kind of missing scene, too: ostensibly ordinary, but woven with so much significance, quiet tension, things unspoken, things wanted and longed for. it encompasses everything i love about their dynamic so well, and is beautifully, carefully rendered. a favorite line: All of the rooms in this building let in the bare minimum of sun, something that has bothered Yuki for years. And yet, looking at Haiji is illuminated now, the light twines with something that Yuki has been brushing aside for as long as he can remember. Something akin to longing, spreading out over the land of blue morbidities carved between them.
party on, party out, run with the wind, iwakura yukihiko/kiyose haiji. rated T, 2100 words. this fic has it all: feelings at the club. past hook-ups. dancing, at the club. a little bit of silliness and a little bit of melancholy. a KISS. i am spoiled rotten. a favorite line: Yuki lifted his glass, suddenly strangely aware of the fact that Haiji’s lips had touched the straw, before just shrugging and drinking the rest of the glass’ contents. He wasn’t some fresh-faced high schooler, he had no time to be worried about something as silly as indirect kisses or whatever they called it.
come healing, hades, megaera & persephone + megaera & zagreus gen. rated G, 3300 words. i longed for megaera to be a more three-dimensional character than the game permitted her to be, and this fic makes that more real than i can bear. absolutely wonderful, painful, strangely gentle look at her relationship with persephone and her involvement in the queen’s return to the underworld—and it has brushstrokes of the other erinyes too, which made me so happy. this has everything: her cruelty, her guilt, her anger, her love, her forgiveness. i can’t praise it highly enough! a favorite line: Her hand moved toward her whip, the titan-blood within her calling out for justice. But she remembered the queen she knew, once; the one who had given her a flower, when she did not know what such was. Who had shown her kindness, when she did know how to.
to those who cannot love gently, hades, megaera gen with a side of megaera/zagreus. rated M, 1800 words. ANOTHER stunning megaera study, revolving around five times she was too rough and one time she was gentle. it has everything i could have hoped for in a meg study—her friendship with dusa, her complicated feelings on zagreus, her backstory with her sisters, her odd but beautiful bonds with and respect for persephone and nyx. each scene is so small, but carries so much power and detail. the gradual escalation is masterfully done. every time i finish reading this i am bodied by my love for this character and what she means to me and i think that is a good sign. a favorite line: After the Queen left, none dared to touch her garden for fear of incurring Lord Hades’ wrath. In those first years, it was as if he wished to banish the Queen’s name from everyone’s tongue. Even now, when anyone spoke of Persephone, it was with a furtive tone and lamentable air, a dream of summer long disappeared.
you never needed it to be a clear day, kiki’s delivery service, kiki/tombo. rated G, 2700 words. i am still floored by how, like... graciously catered to me this is. it hits all the right notes for the kiki fic i feel like i’ve been dreaming of since i was little. a future fic exploration of how kiki’s depression and anxiety connect to her magic/creative work, and kiki and tombo are roommates, oh my god they are roommates??? and she cradles jiji in her arms, and it makes me feel the same love and warmth i feel when i cradle my own kitty in my arms? kiki as an adult, in all the realest and most beautiful ways? aaah! there’s just so much love in this, so much honesty and heart. i feel so lucky to have received it... a favorite line: Kiki looks it over. She remembers this from their childhood days. The problem is that the flying bike, no matter what the case was, could never sustain flight for too long. It always crashed, or at least drifted into an irreversible glide. Tombo gave up on it because—well—he said it made him feel regressive to be so obsessed with flight in that way.
again, cannot overstate how lucky and grateful i feel this year. happy reveals, everyone. o/ 💖
