minutia_r

I haven't posted about this here, mostly because I don't really post here much in general, but also because I'm not really sure how to post about it.

It happened like this: on the 1st of May, 2022, ilthit posted Chief Ban Fei's Nephew, a fic about an NPC in a game of Righteous Blood Ruthless Blades, a wuxia TTRPG. (The NPC is Ilthit's original character, but he's related to canonical characters from an adventure included in the rulebook.)

A couple of days later, with some trepidation about being awkward (at that point Ilthit and I were fandom friends and had enjoyed each others' work, but we weren't really close), I sent an email like, hey, I see you're writing about this game, it looks interesting, do you want to play with me?

Not quite two years and not quite half a million words later, it's become pretty clear that the answer is yes.

Anyway! We have just posted the final installment of the main storyline of the Lin Moniao series, featuring the adventures and sexual escapades of Lin Moniao, my PC, prettyboy and parrot cultist.

It started off with Ilthit running one of the adventures from the rulebook (The Cast-Iron Bat) but it quickly grew from there. Most of the time, Ilthit was the GM, though there was one adventure where we switched places (Martial Arts and Midwifery), and sometimes it was more freeform than that. She brought the plot, the world, and the cast (some her original characters, some NPCs from the rulebook fleshed out and interpreted in Ilthit's own way); I brought my boy LMN, and eventually a couple other PCs: his mother Zhu Chen, an impeccably-dressed poet with a hidden past, and his Devoted Ex-Lover (this is a game mechanic) Yi Zifan, an awkward and upright spiritual healer.

I guess you could call it a xianxia bisexual harem progression fantasy.

We will probably post at least one more extras collection, and an epilogue--some of this stuff has already been written, just not organized and polished into a form that we're ready to post. We also have some ideas for side adventures that we want to play, which we may or may not get around to doing. But the main storyline is finished, and I think it's a pretty satisfying conclusion. We had a ton of fun playing it, and at least two people who aren't us also enjoyed reading it. Maybe you will too?

(if you follow me on tumblr, you may have seen all this before, but I don't think there's a lot of overlap)

And everybody knows who wrote which Chocolate Box stories, or at least they could if they wanted to, because the authors have been revealed.

I got two lovely fics:

Like a Man of Mettle by Nary

Hey, look, it's Gabriel DeWit/Elijah Pinhoe (of the Chronicles of Chrestomanci) fic! The first one ever written, to the best of my knowledge, which is not surprising since they never met in canon, and also they only appear in canon as quite old men. Bask in the glory of grumpy, awkward young!Gabriel running away from his duties as Chrestomanci straight into a patch of stinging nettles, and young!Elijah helping him out with herb lore if you know what I mean.

Borrow Your Lust by PhoenixFalls

Fic about Ethan and Terrence (from the Vorkosigan Saga)! It's not quite as rare a pairing as Gabriel and Elijah, but seeing as how Ethan and Terrence are canonical life partners, I feel like there really should be more.

I love stories about people who for one reason or another don’t get how ordinary human relationships work trying to relationship, and this definitely hits those buttons. Also, it’s got an intriguing idea about one possible use of telepathy during sex, even if they end up not going there.

My assigned recipient was Miss_M, and I wrote her two Kencyrath fics:

An Economy of Blood and Bone was supposed to be about Trishien and Kirien’s relationship, and it is, but it’s more about Trishien’s backstory and the Women’s World and the Jaran and the intersection thereof. And economics.

Turn-Collar is the one where Brier and Tori discuss the fact that Brier broke her bond with Tori and got herself bound to Jame instead. It is so far the only work on AO3 tagged Loyalty Break-Up, which is a damn shame.

I also wrote a couple of treats for other people, both in the PJO/HOO fandom: Twice-Favored was for inelegantly; it’s a T-rated Annabeth/Nico/Percy interlude with capture the flag and a bit of kissing.

And finally, for dhampyresa, I wrote Delphi Falls, In which Rachel does some research with Ella and Skypes with Annabeth. And also Annabeth, Hazel, and Nico go on a quest to either prevent or start the zombie apocalypse, but that honestly happens offscreen. It’s also my 100th fic on AO3! Hooray!

And, less than a year later, another chapter of Get Me to the Church on Time. It is a Piper chapter! There is more Reyna/Piper! Also politics in New Rome! And still no Frank, Hazel, etc. etc.

But at least it has Will insulting Piper's taste in bagels.

Now it can be revealed: the story I wrote for Jukebox is The Tale of Celaeno and Celbalrai, based on Emily Jane White's Sleeping Dead (see above).

It's got highfalutin' language, sufficiently advanced technology or sufficiently systematic magic, and a sort of fairy-tale feel, so if you like that sort of thing, you might like it?

So I finished that fic that I posted part of yesterday, where Gregor and Mark talk about sexual trauma? And here it is. And there is discussion of sexual trauma in it, so be aware of that.

The Family Expert

By which I mean that one of the benefits of having fandom friends is that sometimes they will write fic of your fic and it will be amazing.

By which I mean that books4belle/goodforharpies wrote a follow-up fic to Useful Crafts! It's set four years later--Leo has broken up with Calypso and feels like nothing he makes works anymore, Rachel has helped defeat the python and renegotiated the the terms of her service to Apollo and feels horny, maybe they can help each other out?

You can read it here: Good With Their Hands It's about 2000 words long and rated M.

*EXPIRES OF SQUEE*

Chapter three is up! Finally. (For those of you who a) haven’t seen this before, but b) care, it’s the one where Frank goes missing right before his wedding.)

It’s going to be a long wait for chapter four as well, I’m afraid, because given how much time I seem to have for writing fanfic nowadays I really have to take a break from this and get started on my yuletide story.

Useful Crafts

Annabeth burst out of her seat and started pacing across the room, her hand twitching near her knife where it was strapped to her thigh. “Seriously? Seriously? Gaea is waking up, the giants are being reborn, Percy’s been kidnapped by the Romans, and that doggerel-spouting prettyboy is sending us on a quest because one of his campers lost his fucking teddy bear?”

Annabeth just wants to find Percy. Leo just wants to work on his ship. Rachel just wants to play Galaxy Angel Eternal Lovers. Unfortunately Apollo has other ideas. Set around the same time as the events of The Son of Neptune.

Now this is the gen magical adventure I've been meaning to write. Or at least the first chapter of it. Enjoy!

(PS: Why isn't Secret History a canonical tag on AO3? Step up your game, fan writers.)

So I have written more HOO fic! You still don’t get the gen magical adventures, though. Instead, have some friendship/relationship fluff/angst. flangst?

Aphros' Sacred Brownie Recipe

I was rereading Mark of Athena and I got to the part where Aphros gives his brownie recipe to Leo, and I remembered this comic and especially this one from ilyone's excellent chronology of a friendship and a few things just sort of clicked. You don’t have to read chronology of a friendship in order to understand what’s going on here—in fact this story is not 100% compliant with chronology of a friendship canon, although I’ve used several of the details—but you should read chronology of a friendship anyway, because it’s good.

Anyway, this is the one where Leo shares his brownie recipe, and Jason sucks at relationships. Onesided (as far as Jason knows) Jason/Nico, with background Jason/Piper which is not going 100% smoothly. (No Piper bashing I promise.)

I got post-apocalyptic fic again for jukebox! El Staplador wrote me The Last Child comes to the Green Valley for The Green Valley by Puscifer, a new-to-me song that is delightfully evocative and rife with story possibilities. The story describes the journey of a young man who's grown up in a world devastated by radiation and disease, to a place that he's heard spoken of as a refuge. It's very effective at portraying the whittling-away of the protagonist's choices, while at the same time showing how life finds its way through the cracks. The ending is nicely ambiguous and fits the mood of the song really well. And like most of the jukebox fics you don't have to know canon to appreciate it, although I do recommend you listen to the song because as previously mentioned, delightful.

And I wrote Magpie's Wings (based on Tom Waits' Kentucky Avenue) for Deepdarkwaters--whom I have to thank once again for nominating and requesting the song, which was also new to me, and brilliant so you should go listen. (I should also thank everyone else who participated in jukebox and did not offer the song, 'cause I only listened to it and offered it at the last minute when I was looking for requests that didn't have any offers.)

Anyway! The story is about two boys growing up in the 1960's in California, and their friendship, and a spell they cast which goes wrong and then eventually goes right. Once again, you don't need to know canon or enjoy the works of Tom Waits in order to read the story.