I managed to write two fics for my recipient this year!

In a Boundless Universe (3798 words) by Mara
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV), 镇魂 | Guardian (TV) RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shěn Wēi/Zhào Yúnlán, Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong
Summary:

It was not, Bai Yu thought with significant irritation, as if this was the first time he’d had a crush on a colleague.

On This Life’s Rough Sea (3385 words) by Mara
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: HIStory3 - 圈套 | HIStory3: Trapped
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jack | Fang Liang Dian/Zhao Li An | Zhao Zi, Meng Shao Fei/Tang Yi
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe
Summary:

It’s not what you think it is. It’s also exactly what you think it is.

There were both SO MUCH FUN to write, I can't even begin to tell you :)

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I'd be thrilled for fandom to return to DW. I'm already loving all the new posts I've seen today. ::bounces with glee::

An important note about me: I have a mind like a steel sieve. Unless your username is one I know super super well or is closely related to your real name, there's a very good chance I can't remember who you are. It's not personal, I swear. It's just me being a dork.

So if I tell you things you already know because (say) we've been talking on FB for the last three years or I assume you know something that you don't (because I *think* we've been talking on FB for the last three years) be kind to a tired old lady ::snerk::

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A lot of y'all will remember when Yael was born. Hell, you probably remember the struggle to even get pregnant in the first place.

It is with pride, awe, and deep shock, that I announce that tomorrow morning, Yael Adina Fishman, my darling sproglet, will stand in front of Congregation Beth El and because a Jewish adult at her bat mitzvah.

She's so grown up! She's clever and funny and stubborn and a smartass (I know you're surprised) and she's going to do an amazing job. I'm so proud of the woman she's becoming!

Due to our long history together, LJ, you get a sneak preview of the event, because I wanted to make sure I recorded her dvar torah for posterity. So...here's the speech she will give:

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The Unconventional Courtship fic challenge is about a million times more fun than it should be ;) If you've never tried it, I would urge you to sign up now for a posting date in late August/September.

It's a panfandom challenge, because you're not assigned a recipient, so you don't have to worry about pleasing a specific recipient and you can pick absolutely whatever fandom you happen to be obsessed with at the moment and you can change your mind about what fandom you choose at any point :)

The gimmick is that you scroll through romance novel teasers from Harlequin or Mills & Boone until you find one that tickles your fancy. Then you replace the characters with the characters of your choice and write a story (probably AU but it doesn't have to be!) around that summary. You can, of course, change the genders of the characters if you feel like writing non-het fic.

I will repeat: This is SO MUCH FUN.

Last year I wrote Most Shy and Ladylike, an Ultraman Mebius AU, and in 2014 I wrote The Black Sheep's Inheritance, a Power Rangers Jungle Fury AU.

You can take the prompt seriously or you can be ridiculous (or you can be me and do both at the same time). You'll be surprised how easy it is to find a prompt that works for your fave ship. In fact, in my experience, the problem is choosing just one. I have an entire Word doc of prompts and pairing ideas.

Here are a few prompts that I love for various pairings (and if any of them work for you, please feel free to use them, because no two Unconventional Courtship fics is going to be the same):

Lying in Bed -Jo Leigh

To find a blackmailer, FBI agent Ryan Vail is going undercover as part of a “couple” at an intimacy retreat. But when Ryan meets his “wife” he knows he's in big trouble - this investigation looks set to be one irresistible temptation!

Emergency: Wife Lost and Found - Carol Marinelli

Marriage reunited – in A&E!

Every emergency doctor dreaded recognising someone in Casualty – even cool-headed consultant James Morrell. But he was doubly shocked when the unconscious patient he was asked to treat was instantly familiar. It was his ex-wife!

Dr Lorna McClelland hated being ill, hated being stuck in a hospital bed, but above all she hated having to rely on James. Then, as she recovered, all the wonderful things about their marriage came flooding back…

The Virgin's Proposal - Shirley Jump

HOW COULD HE TURN DOWN A BANANA IN DISTRESS?

Successful rebel Matt Webster came to make peace with his past and his family. But he'd never thought that to appear "respectable," he'd become the pretend fiancé of a banana-wearing storeowner! Yet how could he refuse spunky Katie Dole, the woman under the costume, when she kissed him so sweetly— and so thoroughly—in the spaghetti aisle of the supermarket?
Her blue-green gaze implored him to play the role of lover to show up her ex-fiancé. But remembering the kisses they shared were supposed to be pretend became more difficult, when all Matt wanted to do was to make love to the appealing Katie! Was the virgin's proposal turning into something…real?

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Because I feel the need to write something cheerful rather than gloomy, I bring you a Yuletide retrospective. I must admit I hadn't thought about how many years I'd been doing Yuletide. Wow. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

2005NYR: Al Dente. Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. Going back to my roots and having some fun. This was back when you had to write a NYR fic to get into the main exchange.

2005: The Beginning of Education. A Max Headroom fic, and not my best Yuletide fic ever. I realized at that point that I just can't write dystopian stuff.

2007: Held Together but Separable. Team as family. Hi, Mara's favorite kink! You explain why she wrote so much Batverse, huh? I got to write some folks I almost never write about, so that was awesome.

Also 2007: A Vote for Survival. I do love me some Liaden 'verse :) Given the year, I'm kind of surprised I wrote a pregnancy fic. Although...now that I think about it, the exact discussion kinda makes sense.

2008: Acuteness of Desire. More Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. In which I attempt a pairing I don't ship at all and do a halfway decent job, considering. I almost convinced myself!

2009: End in Lovers Meeting. Jaime Reyes is a wonderful boy and a great Blue Beetle and OMG it was so fun to write this.

Also 2009: If I Forget Thee. Tony Foster/Lee Nicholas are one of my fave canon gay couples and this was also super fun. I crowdsourced the solution to the problem I'd created for the characters and it worked great.

2010: Beside My Lonely Fire. Blood Ties fic. It's not often I write Henry/Mike without Vicki, but this worked better than I thought.

2010 Madness: His Ready Help Was Always Nigh. Wasn't this the year Perri and I wrote each other fics in this same book fandom? The Kris Longknife series is a lot of fun.

2011: The Substitute for Genius. Here's the time I tried to write a pairing I don't ship and had to give up. I think the fic is pretty funny anyway. When Miles Vorkosigan is involved, how can it not be?

2012: That Quick Comradeship of Letters Sorcery and Cecelia fic always makes me happy. Once again I tried a pairing I don't ship and it worked in an interesting fashion.

2014: A Captain Bold. Heh. I knew exactly what my recipient wanted from a Gokaiger fic and I wrote it. OT6 4eva!

2015: Nor Any Drop to Drink. Zyuranger! I love Geki and Goushi and it was a ton of fun to write them in Tokyo.

2016: Thy Smile Be Lost to Sight. This is the fic I described as being so very much by me, it might as well be an acrostic spelling out "This fic was written by Mara." It's Captain Marvelous (Gokaiger) and Godai Yuusuke (Kuuga) talking in a restaurant. It just needed accidental baby acquisition or a sex scene to be more me ;)

Huh. I thought Portents of Magic and Might was also a Yuletide fic, but...maybe not? I wonder if it's that missing 2006 fic? Because I was pretty sure I wrote for the challenge that year, but I couldn't find anything. Anyway, it's Sorcery and Cecelia and actually has a plot and I love it to pieces.

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No comment on the election. Just...no.

Right now I'm focused on next weekend, which is my niece Atara's bat mitzvah in New York. My MIL bought Yael some super adorable dresses for the event, so she's going to look fabulous.

I decided I deserved one new dress too and I found one that was (almost) perfect. Purple, classy, gorgeous, knee-length. The only problem is that it's sleeveless :( And it's an Orthodox shul, so sleeveless won't do.

In fact, all the dresses I liked in the store today were sleeveless. There were a few dresses with short sleeves and one or two with long sleeves, but apparently women don't get cold arms in the fall and winter? At least that's what dressmakers seem to believe.

So I guess it's back to my old dresses. Ah well.

Okay, I'm going to go back to knitting hats and scarves to donate to charity and watching Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger. Because adorable ninja failbots and knitting will help my mood.

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If, in the past year, I have done anything to hurt or offend you, whether intentionally or unintentionally, I beg your forgiveness. I hope that in the coming year I may do better.

In return, I will do my best to forget all slights, grudges, and hard feelings I have stored up throughout the year, so that I may begin the year with a clean slate and a clear mind.

G'mar hatima tova and shana tova. May the coming year bring joy and happiness to everyone.

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Dear Yule Goat:

I love you already because these are fandoms that need more fic! I'm honestly going to be happy with whatever you choose to write, so don't feel constrained by what I write here, but if you are the kind of writer who likes the optional details, here they are.


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I haven't decided if I'm going to request any other fandoms...

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I still have many important and serious things to deal with in RL, but I want to take a moment and share with you that a Christian lady on FB just tried to argue with me that she can't accept transgender people...by quoting the Torah.

::facepalm:: She was gifted in return with a multi-paragraph rant about how as long as she eats bread on Passover and works on Saturday, she probably shouldn't try that particular argument on me.

Seriously now, what are they teaching evangelical Christians these days??? "Don't quote Torah at the atheist Jew" should be up there with "Don't get involved in a land war in Asia"! Neither one has ever led anywhere you're going to enjoy, folks.

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I participated in the "Be the First" challenge recently, in which we had to find something that had no fic whatsoever written for it, and write the first fic for that fandom.

The fics have gone live, and I'm pleased to have finished a short piece in the universe of the movie Bokutachi no Kougen Hoteru, called And the Spring Comes Slowly.

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There's all kinds of stupid stuff going on in RL. Which is why I'm writing fic ;)

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