no man is an island

I am sadly not getting paid or in any other way compensated by Cantrip Candles for this post, nor are they in any other way affiliated with or responsible for me, but I've said a few times before this I should make a list of the fics I've written to specific Cantrip scents, and seeing as they're both raising their prices (due to rising supply costs) and having a really excellent Black Friday–Cyber Monday sale this seemed like a good time to do it--alphabetically by scent, since I'm indecisive.

This doesn't include original writing projects, though I have a few of those with Cantrip scent pairings too; this is just a fanfic list, mostly so I can actually link the words I'm talking about instead of just going "no, really, they're out there!" (It also doesn't include all my favorites; Healing Potion is my personal year-round go-to and one day I will write something that deserves Yule.)

( words & fragrances )

I put the latest thing I've posted to the AO3, “Anything That Does Not Harm Others” (1789: Les Amants de la Bastille, as adapted and performed by the Takarazuka Revue’s Moon Troupe in 2015), through enough major changes that it might interest some people to see the revision history, as it were.

The original draft was written on an airplane last October (I find ficlets a great way to occupy my brain and distract from flight anxiety); the first rewrite, during that vacation; and while I made a couple of friends read it and provide feedback I couldn’t do much of a canon check. I’d seen the musical exactly once at that point, a month or two prior, and had neither reliable internet access nor a device larger than my phone with me. I got back, rewatched as part of a final edit before posting, and almost scrapped the entire fic because it turned out I’d completely forgotten a major plot point.

It wasn’t until much later I realized that this could, instead, with some edits, enhance the canonical sequence of events, in the way that gives me—as someone who entered fandom on bad late 00s/early 10s genre TV—tremendous nostalgic satisfaction.

Content notes for the drafts: aftermath of torture (taken only about as seriously as the musical does, which isn’t very); kink discovery that results in a sexual situation nobody participating in it has consented to; painplay. Content notes for the edit notes: also, internalized kinkshaming and emotional infidelity.

( Read more... )

Askbox fic on Tumblr was great.

Anyway Fire Emblem: Three Houses is currently eating my life, somehow (Scott is how, every time "somehow" ends a sentence about a fandom it's Scott) and there are TOO MANY GOOD SHIPS AND CHARACTER DYNAMICS TO JUST WRITE PROPER FIC FOR EVERYTHING leave me comment prompts and you might get words. Leave as many comment prompts as you want; it will increase your odds that at least one will hit.

("kate last time you did a prompt post--" I know I know but I made a sincere effort and that's what counts in life.)

( fill index )

Years ago, when I was a tiny baby new to fandom (and therefore to having to have answers right away instead of at some nebulous future point when I was revising a novel that I might at some point get around to completing maybe) and my entire work experience was a bit of part-time retail-minioning, I kept finding myself wondering, “but what do people do all day when they’re supposed to be responsible for magical science-y cities and everyone in them?”

Hell if I knew, really. It seemed to involve paperwork.

Fast-forward. It is now five years later, and ( I can now say confidently that it does indeed involve paperwork. )

I have the feeling I’m forgetting like fifteen million things, so if you have any questions please do let me know in the comments, I’m always happy to babble. (Especially if you want to know anything about all my Intense Feelings About How Schools Work, I am so sad by how little resemblance like every fictional school ever bears to my experience working at same.)

fandom: Troy
rating: teen+ audiences
characters/pairings: Hector & Helen, basically gen with canonical pairings
length: ~1000 words
content notices: Canonical character death under non-canonical circumstances; war; reference to canonical domestic abuse; general sadness
tropes & things: alternate canon; character death fix; otherwise not a fix-it at all
summary: To Helen there is no honor worth death.
notes: If you care about Achilles and his narrative, this fic is probably even less something you want to read than everything else I have ever written about or referencing the Trojan War. If not, carry on. Title and cut-text from Suzanne Vega’s “The Queen and the Soldier”.
ao3 crosspost: here

( but the crown it had fallen and she thought she would break / and she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached )

fandom: Merlin
rating: teen+ audiences
characters/pairings: Mithian/Vivian, Mithian&Rodor, Arthur/Vivian, mentions of Arthur/Gwen
length: ~7K words
content notices: deals heavily with canonical mind control and references canonical mutually non-consensual kissing due to same, also contains [discussed and agreed-upon in advance] kissing to break a spell
summary: Mithian is surprised at how much it hurts when Vivian comes back from Camelot talking of nothing but Arthur.
notes: Plot-compliant with 2.10 “Sweet Dreams”, but not quite with 4.11 “The Hunter’s Heart”. I owe a debt of gratitude to versaphile for their map of Albion, although I picked and chose as I wanted/needed from there and from canon both re: the layout of Albion. I would also like to thank lady_ragnell for continuing to be the most patient sounding board/cheer squad anyone could wish, for helping me sort out the politics of Albion, and for unsticking the story even before she beta-read it on appallingly short notice. Written for untold_legends, for the square “against all odds” on my trope_bingo card, and for #6 (“Ours”) of 100_women table #8. Title from Lady Gaga’s “No Floods”, because this is me writing Vivian. (I really ought to break that habit at some point.)
ao3 crosspost: here (contains additional worldbuilding natter in the endnotes)

( And she’s too late, anyway, and a princess may love where she chooses but a queen never. It feels suddenly, terribly unfair that Mithian has made herself a queen-yet-to-be and never allowed herself to notice why she didn’t mind Vivian’s cheerful self-centeredness. )

fandom: Greek mythology (literature?)
rating: teen+ audiences
characters/pairings: Cassandra/Helen of Troy; some canonical relationships mentioned
length: ~2000 words
content notices: referenced future canonical character deaths; discussion of Nice Guy™ism (Apollo, re: Cassandra, if that clarifies for you); war
summary: Two princesses of Troy, both used and discarded by the gods.
notes: Written for Femslash February, for halfamoon, and for the square “friends to lovers” on my trope_bingo card. Title from Sara Teasdale’s “Helen of Troy”.
ao3 crosspost: here

( The smile she tries to form is kind, the effort in it kinder still, and Helen values kindness so much more than beauty. )

Or, Things I Need To Do On My Summer Vacation

( BBC Atlantis )

( Merlin (also BBC, but no longer prone to confusion), with bonus trope_bingo planning! )

Speaking of icons, I also need to start finish the icons I've offered people for snowflake_challenge.

\o/ /o\ \o/ /o\

fandom: The Avengers
rating: teen+ audiences
characters/pairings: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov(/Phil Coulson)
length: ~400 words
content notices: mind control; imprisonment; canon-typical violence
summary: Natasha in the realm of the Frost King. [or: a (scene from a) The Snow Queen AU.]
notes: Originally written for a prompt from Nell—“fairy tale AU, Natasha/someone”—during a three-sentence AU meme. I’d originally planned to expand it into a full fic instead of just a slightly longer and more grammatical ficlet, but have since drifted away from the fandom.
ao3 crosspost: here

( Natasha is always careful; it comes by now as easily and naturally as breath. )

[muffled sounds of nonisland being buried under an avalanche of cards and tables and other things of things to write]

( Am I posting this so I can be held accountable for it instead of forgetting about it like the last bingo card I had? MAYBE. )

Also, I'm not precisely saying I will take requests, but I am open to any suggestions you have, especially since I tend to do better at writing things if I know I'm not the only one who wants to read them! (Though I already have Plans for "au: fairy tale/myth". *fingersteeple*)