Hello, author! What I truly believe about all fandom exchanges is that it's better to give than to receive, so more than anything I hope my prompts inspire YOU to have tons of fun. I will start with general likes and dislikes, then move on to fandom-specific prompts.

Likes (SFW): colorful art, worldbuilding, cultural differences, moral dilemmas, political debates, enemies to lovers, team/ensemble dynamics, strange ways of expressing affection, grappling with in-universe prejudice and oppression, metafiction, banter, body diversity, body horror, complicated feelings about bodies, epistolary fic, relationships that cannot be easily categorized or labeled, fealty and devotion, canon divergence AU, trippy magic

Likes (NSFW): playful sex, awkward sex, switching, enthusiastic consent, power exchange, submissive tops and power bottoms, xenophilia, enjoying differences between bodies in general, dirty talk, sex that goes wrong, using magic or weird technology for sexual purposes, sex as character study

Dislikes: pure fluff (I like at least some angst with my fluff), miscommunication trope, fake dating, intense pining, setting AU (college AU, mafia AU, that sort of thing), pretending like sexism/xenophobia/homophobia/etc. in a canon setting doesn’t exist, fix-it / nobody dies / golden route. Also, I strongly prefer that trans women’s sexual body parts be referred to as a clit/folds/etc and trans men’s parts be referred to as dick/front hole/etc, even if they are non-op/pre-op/non-HRT. (Dealer’s choice for non-binary people.)

Do not want: Unrequested dub-con/non-con, pregnancy, kid fic, verbal degradation (such as calling a partner things like “two-bit whore”, “dirty slut”, etc.), unrequested trans headcanons, Google Translate Spanish (especially relevant for Pluribus, below).

( Animorphs )

 

( Fire Emblem Three Houses )

( Critical Role: Aram�n )

( The Mighty Nein )
( Pluribus )

I've added some new Dreamwidth friends recently, so I'm going to write this post under the assumption that you the reader do not know much about what I write (even though that is not true for all of you.)

Fanfic

Two new installments in my epic (half a million words and counting) Animorphs series, Dæmorphing, are forthcoming. The first is a fic I'm writing for the fandomtrumpshate charity auction, a side story about Eva and Aftran's curious relationship. That one is written and in the editing stage. The second is the next major installment in the story, advancing the plot quite a ways. I've spent a lot of time outlining it, because the thing about writing an epic like this, I've found, is that the longer you go on, the more you need to plan, because you need to make sure that what you write agrees with and advances along everything you've written before. I'm now working on the first chapter and every word feels like pulling teeth. But sometimes starting a long fic is like that. I'm going to power through as best I can and just follow my outline for dear life, hoping that the inspiration and the smooth flow of words will kick in at some point.

I am seriously tempted to write an episode tag to the latest episode of The Magicians, which I loved, because Margo Hanson is a goddamn king. I just feel vaguely guilty about writing a self-indulgent id-fic when I've got a novel-length fic project on my plate that I'd really like to finish this year.

LARP

So I'm a LARP designer, and have been for a few years now, these days in the Nordic style. LARP (live action role play) is any type of roleplaying game where you role play with your body, rather than with abstractions like narration, rolling dice, or moving figures on a map. Lately, I have been playing and writing the sort of LARP that emphasizes immersion into your character's thoughts and feelings, co-collaboration between players and game-masters, and a light unobtrusive rule-set. 

I am in the process of writing two LARPs at this time. One of them has been a work in progress for about a year now, and I'm co-creating it with a friend who lives a long distance and many time zones from me, which makes collaborative work challenging. We recently had a really good creative session over a Discord call, and I would like to schedule another such session soon. We're very close to having concepts for all the characters. It's a very internal, psychological kind of LARP that's centered around a coming of age ritual, and figuring out what your character wants out of life and how they'll make it in the big wide world.

The other LARP is much more in its infancy. Lately I've played a lot of nonverbal LARP where you express your character and their story through movement and dance. I have a concept for a nonverbal LARP centered around blues dancing, but at the moment it's just a long bullet point list in a google doc. What I really need to do at this point is show it around to some LARP friends who are more knowledgeable about dance than I am so I can get some ideas about how the players can develop their characters through blues movements.

Hello everyone! I'm blowing the dust off my Dreamwidth account for the first time in years, as I branch out into Tumblr alternatives. I thought I'd refresh by talking about the media I'm into right now.

What I'm Reading

On the profic side, I just finished reading Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, and am currently listening to Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse. Ninefox Gambit was an interesting read, if confusing at times – the worldbuilding is wildly original, but not always explained adequately. I'm waffling about whether to continue listening to Trail of Lightning; I love that it transposes the monster hunter narrative to the Navajo/Diné nation after a water crisis, it's way cool, but I'm finding the shape of the story clichéd and predictable. I'm about to start listening to A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab, a couple years after listening to the first book in that series, A Darker Shade of Magic.

On the fanfic side, I am currently subscribed to Seal of Solomon by tb_ll57, which is an epic length Harry Potter AU where the Dursleys abandoned him at an orphanage. Highly recommend. I'm also subscribed to Four Letter Word for Intercourse by the inimitable bendingsignpost, which yes, is a Supernatural fic, a show I have never seen, but it's a mundane AU so it doesn't really matter and the identity porn is incredible. And of course there's always the contents of my unread pile to work through.

What I'm Watching

I don't watch TV much these days but I'm absolutely hooked on The Good Place. It's such a funny and genuinely insightful show. I will probably watch Star Trek: Discovery when it comes back, which I hear is soon.

The last movie I saw was the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which was as visually and musically beautiful as you can expect from these filmmakers, but mostly reminded me how much I dislike Westerns.

What I'm Listening To

On the podcast side, Friends at the Table continues to be my favorite podcast ever. (It's an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends.) I also listen to The Adventure Zone: Amnesty, The Bright Sessions, Be the Serpent, Emojidrome, My Brother My Brother and Me, Reply All, and Levar Burton Reads.

On the music side, I'm absolutely obsessed with the guitar stylings of Nick Schillace right now. And I'm just as enamored of Jack de Quidt's Friends at the Table soundtracks as I have been for the past year. 

Title: Love the Warrior
Characters: Tobias, Ax, Toby, Loren, ensemble
Rating: All Ages
Warnings: (skip) Ableism, graphic violence
Beta: lit_luminary
Summary: Tobias joined the war because he had nothing else. Now, he has a true reason to fight. A retelling of #23: The Pretender.
To new readers: This is part of my Dæmorphing series, a fusion of Animorphs with His Dark Materials. If you're new to the 'verse or don't know HDM, refer to this primer.

Read on AO3. Feel free to comment here or there.

Title: Love the Warrior
Characters: Tobias, Ax, Toby, Loren, ensemble
Rating: All Ages
Warnings: (skip) Ableism, graphic violence
Beta: lit_luminary
Summary: Tobias joined the war because he had nothing else. Now, he has a true reason to fight. A retelling of #23: The Pretender.
To new readers: This is part of my Dæmorphing series, a fusion of Animorphs with His Dark Materials. If you're new to the 'verse or don't know HDM, refer to this primer.

Read on AO3. Feel free to comment here or there.

Title: Love the Warrior
Characters: Tobias, Ax, Toby, Loren, ensemble
Rating: All Ages
Warnings: (skip) Ableism, graphic violence
Beta: lit_luminary
Summary: Tobias joined the war because he had nothing else. Now, he has a true reason to fight. A retelling of #23: The Pretender.
To new readers: This is part of my Dæmorphing series, a fusion of Animorphs with His Dark Materials. If you're new to the 'verse or don't know HDM, refer to this primer.

Read on AO3. Feel free to comment here or there.

Since I've been participating more in LJ activity lately, I thought I might share what I've read, what I'm reading, and what I want to read. I always take recommendations, too.

Recently Read:

The Silmarillion
J.R.R. Tolkien

I've been working on this book for a few months as part of an agreement with my friend that I would read The Silmarillion and two other Middle-earth apocrypha of her choice if she would read the Animorphs series. She has only read the first two Animorphs books so I feel I'm doing a better job of upholding our bargain.

I think my problem with this book was that I read it over too long a timespan. By the time I got near the end I'd forgotten who all these people were. There are so many characters with such entangled histories that I can't keep it all in my head. But I think it's also a problem of narrative distance. There are boatloads of characters in A Song of Ice and Fire but I can keep most of them sorted in my head because I feel personally invested in them. My friend definitely feels personally invested in the Silmarillion characters but I just couldn't get into it. I definitely appreciate how much effort Tolkien put into constructing the history of this world, though.



Skin Game
Jim Butcher

I finished this way later than all my other friends who are Dresden Files fans, just because I was busy, and I kind of regret I have no one to discuss this book with. As with most Dresden Files books it was entertaining but I have a lot of mixed feelings about it.

It was an improvement over the last book, definitely, because the Denarians are such good villains, and it was a great setup to force Harry to work with them. It was also great to have Michael, Waldo, and Karrin back as prominent players. I had many feels about his interactions with all of them, to the point of tears in Michael's case. Both Karrin's and Waldo's interactions with Fidelacchius were electric. I am so excited for Waldo's tenure as Knight of the Sword.

But I am still 100% fed up with how Harry has sexual tension with every female character who is not in a relationship. The only single woman he didn't have sexual tension with, Deirdre, died! Argh! And I continue to be disappointed with how the Winter Mantle infects Harry with ~dark feelings.~ It would be so much more interesting if the Winter Mantle corrupted by pure virtue of the power it confers, not because it whispers violent thoughts in your ear. I always interpreted the corruption of the Winter Knights that way, and it's just boring to watch Harry struggle with bloodthirst over and over. Power, after all, is neutral in itself; it's what we do with it that makes it good or evil.

Currently Reading:

Annihilation
Jeff Vandermeer

I pretty much never read or watch the horror genre, but my partner's boyfriend read the first chapter to me and I liked it, so I decided to give this a go. What drew me in were the lush and subtly creepy descriptions of "Area X," a sort of eldritch horror zone in the wetlands of Florida, and that all four characters in the book are women. I am 100% here for books with no men in them, especially after reading The Silmarillion.

I'm reading this as an audiobook, since hearing the first chapter read aloud put me in the mood for it, and I'm enjoying the narration quite a bit. Since the book is written in the form of diary entries, the narration makes it feel less like entries in a book and more like a personal confession. This is especially important since the narrator doesn't call any of the characters, including herself and her dead husband, by name, only by epithet. This puts more distance between the reader and the characters, but then hearing a voice reading the story makes it more personal again. I'm about halfway through the book and excited for more.


Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
Samuel R. Delany

Holy wow. I just started this book today, I'm only 45 pages in, and I already think this is going to be one of my favorite books. Why haven't I read any Delany until now?

I first heard about Delany when my friend gave a presentation about sci fi authors of color, mentioned him, and that he was going to be in town soon. I didn't go see him because I hadn't read any of his work at that point, but now I wish I had. He is truly a pioneer on the level of Ursula K. LeGuin, and coming from me that is the highest praise possible.

This book feels startlingly original, even now, 30 years after it was published. It deals with themes that I absolutely adore in my sci fi, like the nature of knowledge and freedom, how to reconstruct the self after great trauma, gender, queerness, kink, and race. I know many people don't seem to like this, but I love books where I have to pause every page to stop and think about what I've just read. That's the mark of a great read to me, not a bad one. I want my books to be difficult. I want books that are complex enough to make me work for them. This book does that.


Want to Read:

Permanence, by Karl Schroeder, on a recommendation and read-aloud excerpt from squirrelitude . I've read Schroeder before on his recommendation and enjoyed it, so I think I'd like to delve in again. It's another big-ideas book of the type I tend to like, about the nature of civilization and what the goal of a society should be.

Slow River, by Nicola Griffith, because Skin Game splattered my brain with too much Privileged Man and I need some lesbian sci-fi to cleanse myself.

Title: Love the Warrior
Characters: Tobias, Ax, Toby, Loren, ensemble
Rating: All Ages
Warnings: (skip) Ableism
Beta: lit_luminary
Summary: Tobias joined the war because he had nothing else. Now, he has a true reason to fight. A retelling of #23: The Pretender.
To new readers: This is part of my Dæmorphing series, a fusion of Animorphs with His Dark Materials. If you're new to the 'verse or don't know HDM, refer to this primer.

Read on AO3. Feel free to comment here or there.