Disco Elysium; Death Note: THE HIT AND RUN by brawltogethernow
Jan. 3rd, 2026 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sasheneskywalker posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fancakeFandom: Disco Elysium, Death Note
Pairings/Characters: L/Yagami Light, Harry Du Bois & Kim Kitsuragi
Rating: Mature
Length: 36,039 words
Creator Links:![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
brawltogethernow
Theme: crack treated seriously, crossover, casefic, unconventional format
Summary: Harry hits Light Yagami with his car. (Based on a joke post, taken extremely seriously.)
Reccer's Notes: Murder mystery where Harry Du Bois investigates a murder he himself committed, putting him right in the middle of the Kira case. Very funny! The dialogue is perfectly in character, the art is fantastic, and I love how the entire fic is told in the style of the game.
Content Notes: major character death (Light Yagami is dead), graphic description of corpses similar to that of Disco Elysium canon
Fanwork Links: THE HIT AND RUN
Pairings/Characters: L/Yagami Light, Harry Du Bois & Kim Kitsuragi
Rating: Mature
Length: 36,039 words
Creator Links:
Theme: crack treated seriously, crossover, casefic, unconventional format
Summary: Harry hits Light Yagami with his car. (Based on a joke post, taken extremely seriously.)
Reccer's Notes: Murder mystery where Harry Du Bois investigates a murder he himself committed, putting him right in the middle of the Kira case. Very funny! The dialogue is perfectly in character, the art is fantastic, and I love how the entire fic is told in the style of the game.
Content Notes: major character death (Light Yagami is dead), graphic description of corpses similar to that of Disco Elysium canon
Fanwork Links: THE HIT AND RUN
2025 in review: books
Jan. 2nd, 2026 01:33 pmsnickficI guess I might finish another book before year’s end, but this feels close enough to be pretty safe. NB I have reviews for most of these books in my books tag.
How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/reading patterns/etc?
Books read: 25
Pages read (roughly): 7450
Relative to past years, more murder mysteries, more rereads (five), more older stuff (four before 1940). Less straight horror. Probably more textually queer stuff? I read a lot on airplanes. I took almost the whole summer off from reading and watched movies instead.
I had a mountaineering phase kickstarted by that one Jon Krakauer book, which also meant reading way more nonfiction than usual. Apparently the key to reading nonfiction is to have specific topics you want to know about, rather than just being like “I want to Learn Things.” Who could have foreseen!
What are your top 3 books that you read this year for the first time?
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Yes, it really is that good, just like everyone says.
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge. Beautiful prose, top-notch worldbuilding, and some great horror moments.
A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear. A shot STRAIGHT to the id.
What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
Maybe The Secret of Chimneys, an Agatha Christie novel that I probably read at some point but had forgotten basically all of. The other thing I’d forgotten: how fun Christie is when she’s really on her game. This was a rollicking delight.
Which books most disappointed you this year?
It was disappointing to realize how much worse the sexism was in the Pern books than I remembered. Just absolutely soaking in it. Ugh.
Also, wow, I hated Wild Spaces by SL Coney. Haaaaated.
And I reread Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys and didn’t enjoy it as much the second time around. There felt like too many characters, too thinly characterized. I still love Aphra and the worldbuilding, though.
Did you reread any books? If so, which one was you favourite?
I reread several this year, but the one that I enjoyed the most and definitely the one I spent the most time with was Moby Dick. The langague, gosh. Good enough to eat. Having reacquainted myself with the story, I think I’m going to keep just dipping in and out of it every so often. I found and bought a physical edition I really love, the Canterbury Classic "Word Cloud" edition that is just a pleasure to read and makes dipping in very appealing.
On a related note, I think this year was the tipping point to me becoming a prose snob. The prose in Moby Dick is so rich and chewy and worth reading and rereading. Sometimes it's basically impenetrable, but even so! Incredibly rewarding. And then I open so many new novels and quit on the first page because the prose is so artless.
It's not like I want every novel to be Moby Dick, which also happens to be a timeless work of literature: hardly a fair comparison for a random novel I pick up at the library. However, there are lots of authors out there writing prose that is graceful and evocative in their own ways. Frances Hardinge and Stephen King come immediately to mind, for two very different living examples.
I just cannot be fucked anymore with prose that doesn't show some skill. Life is too short. I suspect this might lead me to reading more classics, which I'm not mad about.
What's the oldest book you read?
The Unafraid, a 1913 adventure romance by Eleanor Ingram (with a textual gay side character!), is the oldest that I read for the first time. For rereads, Moby Dick was published in 1851.
What's the newest book you read?
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett, published this year.
Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
My most emphatic DNF was the second book in the Briardark series by SA Harian. I reread the first book just to remember what all was going on, then got like fifty pages into the second one and was like, actually I don’t care about any of these characters or the cosmic horror mystery.
Some others I started and wandered off from:
- The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
- The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
- Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
- The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis
- Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby
- Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
- Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott
What was your predominant format this year?
Still mostly dead trees around here, although I did listen to a mountaineering book and part of Moby Dick on audiobook, and I read a couple of ebooks during my travels.
What's the longest book you read this year?
Moby Dick, with 561 pages in my edition.
Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
I wanted to read more outside my usual fiction genres, which I really didn’t manage to do other than for a couple of specific items on the to-read list. Speaking of, here is all I read from the to-read list. Honestly five books from the January tbr is pretty good for me lol.
Moby Dick
The Iskryne books (I read the first two)
The Book of Lamps and Banners (Cass Neary #4)
something by ECR Lorac
Any goals for 2025?
My immediate list of stuff I want to tackle or finish is:
Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
The Count of Monte Cristo?
Something… literary, maybe?? Maybe My Brilliant Friend or something by Anne Rivers Siddons.
The Draegaera books (starting with Jhereg)
Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle
The Coldfire Trilogy
Ammonite
Dublin Murder Squad
American Elsewhere
Perdido Street Station (reread)
A Zelazny collection (reread)
The Folly of the World
Maplecroft by Cherie Priest (Lizzie Borden + Lovecraft?!)
Craft Sequence – Max Gladstone
I would say the main theme here is "ambitious," for me if not the author. A lot of older stuff, or stuff that is beloved that I haven't tried, or stuff I've just been meaning to get around to. A couple of those are already on my shelf, and it'd be nice to knock them off the TBR.
How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/reading patterns/etc?
Books read: 25
Pages read (roughly): 7450
Relative to past years, more murder mysteries, more rereads (five), more older stuff (four before 1940). Less straight horror. Probably more textually queer stuff? I read a lot on airplanes. I took almost the whole summer off from reading and watched movies instead.
I had a mountaineering phase kickstarted by that one Jon Krakauer book, which also meant reading way more nonfiction than usual. Apparently the key to reading nonfiction is to have specific topics you want to know about, rather than just being like “I want to Learn Things.” Who could have foreseen!
What are your top 3 books that you read this year for the first time?
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Yes, it really is that good, just like everyone says.
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge. Beautiful prose, top-notch worldbuilding, and some great horror moments.
A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear. A shot STRAIGHT to the id.
What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
Maybe The Secret of Chimneys, an Agatha Christie novel that I probably read at some point but had forgotten basically all of. The other thing I’d forgotten: how fun Christie is when she’s really on her game. This was a rollicking delight.
Which books most disappointed you this year?
It was disappointing to realize how much worse the sexism was in the Pern books than I remembered. Just absolutely soaking in it. Ugh.
Also, wow, I hated Wild Spaces by SL Coney. Haaaaated.
And I reread Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys and didn’t enjoy it as much the second time around. There felt like too many characters, too thinly characterized. I still love Aphra and the worldbuilding, though.
Did you reread any books? If so, which one was you favourite?
I reread several this year, but the one that I enjoyed the most and definitely the one I spent the most time with was Moby Dick. The langague, gosh. Good enough to eat. Having reacquainted myself with the story, I think I’m going to keep just dipping in and out of it every so often. I found and bought a physical edition I really love, the Canterbury Classic "Word Cloud" edition that is just a pleasure to read and makes dipping in very appealing.
On a related note, I think this year was the tipping point to me becoming a prose snob. The prose in Moby Dick is so rich and chewy and worth reading and rereading. Sometimes it's basically impenetrable, but even so! Incredibly rewarding. And then I open so many new novels and quit on the first page because the prose is so artless.
It's not like I want every novel to be Moby Dick, which also happens to be a timeless work of literature: hardly a fair comparison for a random novel I pick up at the library. However, there are lots of authors out there writing prose that is graceful and evocative in their own ways. Frances Hardinge and Stephen King come immediately to mind, for two very different living examples.
I just cannot be fucked anymore with prose that doesn't show some skill. Life is too short. I suspect this might lead me to reading more classics, which I'm not mad about.
What's the oldest book you read?
The Unafraid, a 1913 adventure romance by Eleanor Ingram (with a textual gay side character!), is the oldest that I read for the first time. For rereads, Moby Dick was published in 1851.
What's the newest book you read?
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett, published this year.
Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
My most emphatic DNF was the second book in the Briardark series by SA Harian. I reread the first book just to remember what all was going on, then got like fifty pages into the second one and was like, actually I don’t care about any of these characters or the cosmic horror mystery.
Some others I started and wandered off from:
- The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
- The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
- Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
- The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis
- Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby
- Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
- Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott
What was your predominant format this year?
Still mostly dead trees around here, although I did listen to a mountaineering book and part of Moby Dick on audiobook, and I read a couple of ebooks during my travels.
What's the longest book you read this year?
Moby Dick, with 561 pages in my edition.
Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
I wanted to read more outside my usual fiction genres, which I really didn’t manage to do other than for a couple of specific items on the to-read list. Speaking of, here is all I read from the to-read list. Honestly five books from the January tbr is pretty good for me lol.
Moby Dick
The Iskryne books (I read the first two)
The Book of Lamps and Banners (Cass Neary #4)
something by ECR Lorac
Any goals for 2025?
My immediate list of stuff I want to tackle or finish is:
Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
The Count of Monte Cristo?
Something… literary, maybe?? Maybe My Brilliant Friend or something by Anne Rivers Siddons.
The Draegaera books (starting with Jhereg)
Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle
The Coldfire Trilogy
Ammonite
Dublin Murder Squad
American Elsewhere
Perdido Street Station (reread)
A Zelazny collection (reread)
The Folly of the World
Maplecroft by Cherie Priest (Lizzie Borden + Lovecraft?!)
Craft Sequence – Max Gladstone
I would say the main theme here is "ambitious," for me if not the author. A lot of older stuff, or stuff that is beloved that I haven't tried, or stuff I've just been meaning to get around to. A couple of those are already on my shelf, and it'd be nice to knock them off the TBR.
2025 in review: Fandom
Jan. 2nd, 2026 12:15 pmsnickficMy year in summary
I posted 88k words this year across 31 fics and wrote more than 103k new words total. I posted 8 Oasis fics (including several very short ones), 5 original works, 2 Re-Animator fics, and 16 singleton fics for other fandoms.
Fandoms of my heart this year
Oasis, obviously. What a time to be alive.
I also rekindled some Re-Animator feelings earlier this year, between fic I was writing and getting to see the movie in the theater. On film, even!
Other fandoms I felt at least a little fannish about this year, whether writing, daydreaming, or what have you:
- The Iskryne books by Bear and Monette
- On Swift Horses, the 2024 movie
- Dune movies
( my year in fandom, in much greater detail, with a meme )
( other fannish things )
I posted 88k words this year across 31 fics and wrote more than 103k new words total. I posted 8 Oasis fics (including several very short ones), 5 original works, 2 Re-Animator fics, and 16 singleton fics for other fandoms.
Fandoms of my heart this year
Oasis, obviously. What a time to be alive.
I also rekindled some Re-Animator feelings earlier this year, between fic I was writing and getting to see the movie in the theater. On film, even!
Other fandoms I felt at least a little fannish about this year, whether writing, daydreaming, or what have you:
- The Iskryne books by Bear and Monette
- On Swift Horses, the 2024 movie
- Dune movies
( my year in fandom, in much greater detail, with a meme )
( other fannish things )
Podfic: Oh freddled gruntbuggly - Darth Vader reads his poetry to torture Leia
Jan. 2nd, 2026 01:40 pmpetra[Podfic] Oh freddled gruntbuggly (23 words) by peasina, MelancholyMorningstar
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leia Organa & Darth Vader
Characters: Leia Organa, Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader
Additional Tags: Bad Poetry, Vogon Poetry (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes
Summary:
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leia Organa & Darth Vader
Characters: Leia Organa, Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader
Additional Tags: Bad Poetry, Vogon Poetry (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes
Summary:
Darth Vader learned his torture tactics from the Vogons.
Recommendation: Luck, be a lady - due South fancomic by gjdraws
Jan. 2nd, 2026 01:30 pmpetraThis due South comic is flippin' brilliant, and I don't just say that as someone who loves the way the artist draws RayV looking at Fraser.
( Other things I liked about it )
Ahem.
Give it a go. It's short! It's cracky! It's pretty!
And I have the right icon for it.
( Other things I liked about it )
Ahem.
Give it a go. It's short! It's cracky! It's pretty!
And I have the right icon for it.
January Meme: Five Places everyone should visit in Germany
Jan. 2nd, 2026 05:37 pmselenakI'll have you know it's really hard to limit myself to only five. And of course this is highly subjective. For an entertaining alternative choice with two per German Bundesland (i.e. federal state), check out the two most recent episodes of History of the Germans here.
Aaaanyway, pondering deeply, this is what I have come up with from the depths of my Teutonic yet Southern Wessi German soul:
1.) The Rhine between, say, Düsseldorf and Koblenz. You can either go by boat on the river itself or take the train, but this is a combination of landscape, architecture and history which is both aesthetically pleasing and incredibly historically and contemporarily relevant. Parts of it are ridiculously romantic. Other parts visibly suffer from climate change.
2.) Berlin. I am the opposite of a Berlinerin, but it's the capital, and talk about being relevant for German history (though not beyond the last two hundred and fifty years or so) and present. If you don't visit in Winter, take a boat trip on the Spree as well.
3.) Munich. Was bombed as much as Berlin, did a better job at reconstruction, is the South to Berlin's North (and only three hours away from Italy via Autobahn or train), with the Alps next door. Offers Baroque splendour to Berlin's 19th century classicism. Speaking of German history of the 20th century: if you haven't visited the Jewish Museum in Berlin with its section devoted to the Holocaust, visit the NS Doku centre and the Jewish museum in Munich. (Don't visit the Dachau concentration camp if you're in a hurry, but do visit it if you have much more time, and don't do anything else on that day. It's stomach turning and it ought to do be. You can't do that in the morning and then hop over to the art collection at the Alte Pinakothek in the afternoon.)
4.) Lake Constance, aka der Bodensee. Most parts of this gigantic lake are either in the German state Baden(-Württemberg) or in Switzerland, but there's a Bavarian section as well, oh, and a Rhine connection. The individual cities located on the lake and the islands in it offer early medieval castles and Zeppelins (they were first built here, and if you have a lot of cash, you can still board one), 19th century German poets and prehistoric settlements, and lots and lots of vegetables and gardening and great food throughout the year. Oh yeah, and the Romans were there, too. And a famous Church Council featuring in opera and historical novels. (Have a pic spam.)
5.)Bamberg. Hamburg. Was bombed to smithereens, did a reasonable job at reconstruction, offers a legendary harbor which you can take a two hours boat trip to visit, two great towers to have a view from, an early morning fish market, an immigration museum, stylish nineteenth century villas, quite expensive shops, some good art musuems and the Reeperbahn. Look, it was as important in shaping the Beatles as Liverpool was, and so the world owes it a visit for this alone, okay? Also: three hours train ride to some spectacular northern sea beaches from there.
The other days
Aaaanyway, pondering deeply, this is what I have come up with from the depths of my Teutonic yet Southern Wessi German soul:
1.) The Rhine between, say, Düsseldorf and Koblenz. You can either go by boat on the river itself or take the train, but this is a combination of landscape, architecture and history which is both aesthetically pleasing and incredibly historically and contemporarily relevant. Parts of it are ridiculously romantic. Other parts visibly suffer from climate change.
2.) Berlin. I am the opposite of a Berlinerin, but it's the capital, and talk about being relevant for German history (though not beyond the last two hundred and fifty years or so) and present. If you don't visit in Winter, take a boat trip on the Spree as well.
3.) Munich. Was bombed as much as Berlin, did a better job at reconstruction, is the South to Berlin's North (and only three hours away from Italy via Autobahn or train), with the Alps next door. Offers Baroque splendour to Berlin's 19th century classicism. Speaking of German history of the 20th century: if you haven't visited the Jewish Museum in Berlin with its section devoted to the Holocaust, visit the NS Doku centre and the Jewish museum in Munich. (Don't visit the Dachau concentration camp if you're in a hurry, but do visit it if you have much more time, and don't do anything else on that day. It's stomach turning and it ought to do be. You can't do that in the morning and then hop over to the art collection at the Alte Pinakothek in the afternoon.)
4.) Lake Constance, aka der Bodensee. Most parts of this gigantic lake are either in the German state Baden(-Württemberg) or in Switzerland, but there's a Bavarian section as well, oh, and a Rhine connection. The individual cities located on the lake and the islands in it offer early medieval castles and Zeppelins (they were first built here, and if you have a lot of cash, you can still board one), 19th century German poets and prehistoric settlements, and lots and lots of vegetables and gardening and great food throughout the year. Oh yeah, and the Romans were there, too. And a famous Church Council featuring in opera and historical novels. (Have a pic spam.)
5.)
The other days
Fanfiction: Bad Timing (Ace Attorney, Apollo/Trucy)
Jan. 2nd, 2026 04:03 pmrionaleonhartMy first fic of the new year!
Iiiiiit's incest!
Title: Bad Timing
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Rating: 14
Pairing: Apollo/Trucy
Wordcount: 2,500
Summary: Phoenix tells Apollo about his connection to Trucy, much too late.
Warnings: Accidental incest.
( Bad Timing )
Iiiiiit's incest!
Title: Bad Timing
Fandom: Ace Attorney
Rating: 14
Pairing: Apollo/Trucy
Wordcount: 2,500
Summary: Phoenix tells Apollo about his connection to Trucy, much too late.
Warnings: Accidental incest.
( Bad Timing )
Two stories (one Guardian-adjacent, one Guardian crossover)
Jan. 2nd, 2026 05:00 pmtrobadora posting in sid_guardianFor Yuletide, I wrote for Zhu Yilong's Thermos "Flower Series" commercials - if you're not familiar with them, they're worth a watch! Here's a playlist with most of them (though the first video is a bit atypical), and here's one more commercial.
Here's what I wrote (I talk a bit more about it on my journal, in case you're interested):
Here's what I wrote (I talk a bit more about it on my journal, in case you're interested):
- One story for the "Flower Series" commercials - this features Zhu Yilong's character as a dragon, and a white cat whose human form I imagined as played by Bai Yu::
Heart-Seed, Heart-Flower (8,465 words)
Fandom: Thermos "Flower Series" Commercials
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Characters: Zhu Yilong's Character (Thermos "Flower Series" Commercials), White Cat (Thermos "Flower Series" Commercials)
Content Tags: Magic Flowers, Magic Waters, Dragons, Cats, Shape-Shifters, Multiple Worlds, Lonely Wanderers, Magical Quests, Saving Worlds with a Magic Bottle
Summary:
The bottle was plain and unadorned, the lotus pattern that would have signalled the success of his quest nowhere in evidence.
He'd failed. - And one Guardian crossover for the above (a Guardian canon divergence/fix-it for the ending):
Dragon of Flowers, Dragon of the City (2,275 words)
Fandoms: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018), Thermos "Flower Series" Commercials
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Characters: Da Qing, Zhu Yilong's Thermos Character, Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei, SID team
Content Tags: Canon Divergence (for Guardian), Episode Related, Episode 37, Fix-It, Hallows Shenanigans, The Wick of the Guardian Lantern, Magical Flowers, Cross-dimensional Wanderers, Saving Worlds with a Magic Bottle, Dragon City is named after a dragon
Summary:
Lao-Zhao leaned forward, resting an elbow on a knee. "I thought you got all your memories back."
"Yeah, yeah." Da Qing waved a hand in the air, dismissively. "Not remember like 'I don't know my past', remember like 'where did I put my keys'. Except not my keys."
:(
Jan. 2nd, 2026 09:16 amwaterswordFuck. CVS is out of COVID tests, but I picked up cough drops and loratidine, per rahaeli, on the assumption that this is covid; between the cough and the general sense of recognition, I am pretty confident in my self-diagnosis.
R. is shipping me tests and some other stuff, because she is a fucking saint. I am changing back into my jammies and finishing this pot of tea and going back to bed. Ugh.
December 2025 Monthly Media
Jan. 2nd, 2026 08:08 amcinaed* = Rewatch/reread
Anime/Cartoons
- Bob's Burgers 16.07
- Dandadan 2.01-2.12
- The Mighty Nein 1.05-1.09
Books/Short Stories
- Nicked by M.T. Anderson
- The Sugared Game by KJ Charles
- Subtle Blood by KJ Charles
- Copper Script by KJ Charles
- Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman
- A Winter's Earl by Annabelle Greene
- Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
- The Beauty's Blade by Mei Ren Jian
- Ballad of Sword and Wine 6 by Qiang Jin Jiu
- Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery
- We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough
- The Helios Syndrome by Vivian Shaw
- The Chosen and The Beautiful by Nghi Vo
Manga/Comics/Light Novels
- Oglaf (ongoing webcomic)
- Order of the Stick (ongoing webcomic)
- Wilde Life (ongoing webcomic)
- Amy Bradley is Missing (2025)
- Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencers (2025)
- Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
- The Perfect Neighbor (2025)
- Playdate (2025)
- Sean Combs: A Reckoning (2025)
- Water for Elephants (National Theater)
TV Shows/Web Series
- Abbott Elementary 5.07-5.08
- Critical Role 4.08-4.10
- The Residence 1.01-1.08
- Revenged Love 1-2
- Survivor 49.11-49.13
Video Games/Board Games
- The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Various
Jan. 2nd, 2026 11:59 pmvassHeads-up re LiveJournal, if you haven't heard: if you still have stuff you care about there, you should probably save it now.
Yuletide reveal: I wrote A Night at the Opera formage-pie. I already knew them from Discord, and their prompts were very much in line with what I wanted to write. Good experience.
Tonight I unplugged my desktop, opened up the case, and gave it a clean. I am happy to say that it booted again afterwards. I haven't yet dared to try Hollow Knight again since, though. (What prompted me to do this was having the computer spontaneously shut down twice while I was playing Hollow Knight. In the same region.[*] It's a hot day, and heat plus not having cleaned the case since mumbleevermumble plus spontaneous shutdown while playing a game made me think "overheating".)
[* City of Tears, near the Watcher's Spire.]
Yuletide reveal: I wrote A Night at the Opera for
Tonight I unplugged my desktop, opened up the case, and gave it a clean. I am happy to say that it booted again afterwards. I haven't yet dared to try Hollow Knight again since, though. (What prompted me to do this was having the computer spontaneously shut down twice while I was playing Hollow Knight. In the same region.[*] It's a hot day, and heat plus not having cleaned the case since mumbleevermumble plus spontaneous shutdown while playing a game made me think "overheating".)
[* City of Tears, near the Watcher's Spire.]
The Magnus Archives: Ask an Exec: How to Navigate Cultish Colleagues [...] by shinyopals
Jan. 2nd, 2026 10:28 ambirdylion posting in fancakeTitle: Ask an Exec: How to Navigate Cultish Colleagues, Soul-Stealing Bosses, and the End of the World at Work
Fandom: The Magnus Archives
Pairings/Characters: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims; OC management advice blogger, OC internet commenters
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Length: 43626 words
Creator Links:shinyopals
Theme: crack treated seriously, epistolary, no canon required, outsider pov
Summary:
I've recently been unexpectedly promoted to lead a department in my organisation, wrote the anonymous emailer.
As there was no one working here when I arrived, my manager, who is head of the organisation, had promised me the choice of my own assistants. However, without warning, he simply presented me with an additional assistant. This new assistant’s first act on his first day was to let a dog into the office. It took several hours to catch and clean up after this dog and it has only been downhill from there. I admit I'm not entirely sure what to do with this assistant now I'm stuck with him. I'm hoping you have some advice?
Kind regards,
New Manager
Abigail Bailey runs a successful management advice blog. One frequent contributor is from a workplace with some... issues.
Reccer's Notes:
Content Notes:
Fanwork Links: Ask an Exec: How to Navigate Cultish Colleagues, Soul-Stealing Bosses, and the End of the World at Work on ao3
Fandom: The Magnus Archives
Pairings/Characters: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims; OC management advice blogger, OC internet commenters
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Length: 43626 words
Creator Links:
Theme: crack treated seriously, epistolary, no canon required, outsider pov
Summary:
I've recently been unexpectedly promoted to lead a department in my organisation, wrote the anonymous emailer.
As there was no one working here when I arrived, my manager, who is head of the organisation, had promised me the choice of my own assistants. However, without warning, he simply presented me with an additional assistant. This new assistant’s first act on his first day was to let a dog into the office. It took several hours to catch and clean up after this dog and it has only been downhill from there. I admit I'm not entirely sure what to do with this assistant now I'm stuck with him. I'm hoping you have some advice?
Kind regards,
New Manager
Abigail Bailey runs a successful management advice blog. One frequent contributor is from a workplace with some... issues.
Reccer's Notes:
The Magnus Archives is a horror audio drama in which the main character starts a new position as archivist in an organization named Magnus Institute that specializes on investigating strange/magical phenomena. Very soon, strange things start to happen to him too. Also, it turns out that his workplace itself is ... not what you could call safe.
This story starts with the idea that the main character writes to a management advice blog about the strange things about his workplace, and becomes a regular writer. The fanfic is told in the form of this advice blog as it could appear on the internet: We get the mails he writes in, and the bloggers answers, and also the comment section. It's hilarious, but also it's taken so seriously as the story progresses and gets darker.
As an outsider POV, it really brings out how horrible the whole Magnus Archives story really is. It also shows very well how the story starts so inconspicuous and then boils the characters in horror like a lobster it a pot - and in this fanfic, the character doesn't event write to the advice blog about what's actually happening (because of secrecy), only the workplace safety circumstances. It's such a fascinating outsider POV.
Since it doesn't expect any canon knowledge, it can be read fandom-blind. Even without fandom-knowledge it's a hilarious and tragic advice blog story and in my case, it was my intro to the story, which I listened to after finishing this fanfic, so it was great advertisement for The Magnus Archives. (Note that it contains out of context but significant spoilers if you're going in fandom blind. For me this added to the re-read factor of the fanfic.)
This story starts with the idea that the main character writes to a management advice blog about the strange things about his workplace, and becomes a regular writer. The fanfic is told in the form of this advice blog as it could appear on the internet: We get the mails he writes in, and the bloggers answers, and also the comment section. It's hilarious, but also it's taken so seriously as the story progresses and gets darker.
As an outsider POV, it really brings out how horrible the whole Magnus Archives story really is. It also shows very well how the story starts so inconspicuous and then boils the characters in horror like a lobster it a pot - and in this fanfic, the character doesn't event write to the advice blog about what's actually happening (because of secrecy), only the workplace safety circumstances. It's such a fascinating outsider POV.
Since it doesn't expect any canon knowledge, it can be read fandom-blind. Even without fandom-knowledge it's a hilarious and tragic advice blog story and in my case, it was my intro to the story, which I listened to after finishing this fanfic, so it was great advertisement for The Magnus Archives. (Note that it contains out of context but significant spoilers if you're going in fandom blind. For me this added to the re-read factor of the fanfic.)
Content Notes:
- depictions of outrageously bad workplace safety
- (canon-typical) dysfunctional interpersonal relationships
- lighter on the actual supernatural horror than the original canon
- out of context (but significant) spoilers if read fandom blind
Fanwork Links: Ask an Exec: How to Navigate Cultish Colleagues, Soul-Stealing Bosses, and the End of the World at Work on ao3
Snowflake Challenge Day 1: Icebreaker
Jan. 2nd, 2026 06:24 pmsnowynight
Hi! I'm snowynight! This's my introduction post
I'm doing this because it's fun. It's also good to meet other people. I'll try to join as many challenges as possible.