Off-Beat Remedy

"If that's what you're willing to do for someone you hate, what would you do for someone you loved?"

Again black and white version under the cut as well as some sketches I made of the characters in preperation for this piece!

They don’t just come as a tiny pig, though. My mom has a really big one we use as a rice holder pot, and they can also be bigger, like this:

AS THE WORLD GOES ON ITS WICKED WAY

bonus:

In which Breq has an existential crisis, the Kalrs are worried, and Seivarden takes a nap.

REPUBLIC OF TWO SYSTEMS INDEPENDENCE DAY FANWORK EXCHANGE, 2023 EDITION

This year is a pretty special one in the Imperial Radch/Leckieverses fandom! This October will mark the 10th anniversary of Ancillary Justice's publishing date, and this June we're getting a new Radch universe book, Translation State! So it feels important to run this exchange once again. I'm excited to get hype.

(The Republic of Two Systems Independence Day is a holiday mentioned in the Preface to the Traveler's Guide to the Two Systems. Ms. Leckie has told us it can probably be celebrated the Monday after Easter Sunday, when Peeps are cheapest. This year, that's April 10.)

TAG SET  —   COLLECTION

NOMINATION PERIOD: now until February 26, 11:59 PST.

SIGNUPS: February 27 - March 6, 11:59 PST.

ASSIGNMENTS OUT: March 7.

WORKS DUE: April 7, 11:59 PST.

WORK REVEALS: April 10, 12:00 AM PST.

AUTHOR REVEALS: April 17, 12:00 AM PST.

MATCHING: OR matching, on both characters and ships. (The signups should be simpler this year, now that I understand AO3 exchange tags better.)

MINIMUM: 500 words or a sketch on unlined paper.

DETAILS UNDER CUT

NOMINATIONS:

Go here to nominate tags!

There are three fandoms for this exchange: Imperial Radch, The Raven Tower, and Crossover. Characters/ships from Provenance, Night's Slow Poison, and She Commands me and I Obey go in the Imperial Radch fandom. Characters from the godsverse short stories go in the Raven Tower fandom. For Crossover, you can nominate crossover relationships between Radchverse and godsverse characters, relationships between Leckie and non-Leckie characters, or solo non-Leckie characters you want to see in a Leckie universe. Please put the second fandom in parenthesis after the character. For example: “Breq & Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries)”. 

For easy matching, all nominations will be Relationships. To nominate a solo character, write "Solo: (Character)". For example, "Solo: Medic". Relationships can be romantic, indicated by a “/”, or platonic, indicated by an “&”. For example, “Breq/Murderbot” would indicate a romantic or sexual relationship, while “Breq & Murderbot” would be platonic.

I've added general Worldbuilding tags for Radch and Raven Tower, but feel free to nominate more specific ones, like "Worldbuilding: genitalia festival".

We are a small and crazy fandom. There may be some injokes and OCs in the tagset. If you want to nominate something weird & obscure, go for it.

If you miss the nomination deadline by a couple hours, just message me and I’ll reopen the tagset for you. 

SIGNUPS:

You will need to make at least 3 requests, and 4 offers. For each request or offer, pick at least 1 fandom, 1 relationship tag, and one medium from the dropdown tagset. You can group your requests however you like; you could make 3 individual requests, each with one character, or three requests each with 20 characters- up to you.

If you only want to receive or create works based around worldbuilding, rather than characters, request/offer the “Worldbuilding” tag.

The way the matching works, you will be matched with someone who used at least 1 of the Fandom tags, 1 of the same Relationship tags, and 1 of the Medium tags as you. The work you create only has to use one of the requested relationship tags. 

You can pick “Any” for both offers and requests! Just remember that really does mean “Any”, and be prepared.

If you’re fine with both Art and Fic, you can check off both boxes, or just pick “Any” for that section. 

If there are things you very much Do Not Want in your gift, please list these in the Optional Details box for each of your prompts. For example: “DNW any appearances by spider mechs.” You are required to make a good faith effort to not include DNWs in your recipient’s gift. 

You’re encouraged to give your gifter some prompts! You can put these in the Optional Details box, or paste a link to a letter into the URL box. Optional Details are Optional, and your creator isn’t bound to follow them, outside of the DNWs. Only DNWs in your signup are enforceable, so put them there, not just in a linked letter.

You are allowed to mention characters and ships that weren’t nominated in your optional details, but remember, your creator matched on the tags you chose and isn’t obligated to include anything else.

You can ask for NSFW, but your creator isn’t required to give it to you, so it would be polite to provide some SFW prompts as well. If you are a minor, please do not request or create NSFW content for this exchange. 

ASSIGNMENTS: everyone will get an email through their AO3 account once I’ve run matching. The email will have your assignment in it. 

It’s possible there will be some people who won’t have anyone they could create for. I’ll email them through their AO3 email asking them to add more offers, and if they don’t respond in 24 hours, their signups will be deleted. If this happens to you and you don’t see my email in time, don’t panic! Just contact me and we’ll work something out.

Please don’t tell your giftee who you are. If you have a question, let me know and I’ll convey it to them. 

When you are creating your work, make sure you include at least one tag from at least one of your giftee’s requests, and don’t include DNWs. You only need to create one work, and it only needs to include one of the tags in your giftee’s signup. 

DEFAULTING:

If you can’t finish your gift, no worries. Just click the “default” button on your assignment page. If the person assigned to you also defaults, you may not get a gift. 

If you need an extension, just message me and let me know! If the posting deadline passes and you haven’t posted anything or contacted me, I’ll assume you’re defaulting. 

If you’ve posted your gift, and your creator defaults their assignment, a pinch-hitter will create a gift for you. Everyone who posts a gift will get a gift. 

POSTING:

Please post a finished work of 500 words or sketch on unlined paper by the posting deadline! You can continue to edit and add to your gift until the 10th, but you need to have something that could work as a gift by the 7th.

To post your gift, go to your Assignments page on AO3, and click the “Fulfill” button. Your gift will be automatically given to your giftee, but it will be hidden until the reveal date on the 10th. 

REVEALS: Works will be anonymous for a week after they are revealed. 

TREATS: Because we’re doing this on AO3, everyone’s requests will be visible, and treats are accepted and encouraged. If you see a request you like, you’re more than welcome to make a work that fits it, post it to the collection, and gift it to the person who made the request. Just make sure that it matches the tags in the request and doesn’t include any DNWs.

whatever was left, that was ours for a while.

I don't mean like your parents and stuff, but like — I work in after school care, and I'm forever meeting five and six year olds who seem like the most incredible people on earth. Kids who painstakingly explain the rules of handball, kids who ask me to help them colour in, kids who feel really deeply wounded by a classmate's behaviour, just an endless stream of them.

Or like my friends' kids who I've babysat once or twice. A kid who played with me in a creek, a kid whose mannerisms are etched in my mind. Cousins' babies who I held for a while. Even just stranger's babies in shops who stare at me the way babies do.

One of my best friends has an online friend who's recently had a baby, and he tells me - someone who doesn't know the friend's name even - about that baby having their first bath. Because that's the kind of love and excitement that little children inspire.

None of these children will remember me.

And then she slept in my arms, resting on my chest, for two or three hours.

It was at least an hour before I even thought about doing something else. Holding a sleeping baby, it turns out, can be a completely absorbing activity, even if you have ADHD. (Baby also enjoys the inherent leg-bouncing that comes with the ADHD.)

Now I can't stop thinking about how when that kid is five or six she's gonna run into me at Christmas lunch or some such event and - even if I see her on every holiday between now and then - I will basically be a stranger to her. But to me she will have the starring role in a memory I'm gonna treasure probably forever.

I can't stop thinking about all the aunts and uncles and family friends and second cousins once removed that I was routinely introduced to at Christmas lunches or weddings or funerals, who would say "You're so tall! Has it been that long? You probably don't remember me haha."

(Content warning: dementia)

—

As a dementia researcher, I see a lot of people who can’t always remember their loved ones - both people who love them and people who have been loved by them. I also see a lot of people who are the ones “left behind”, in a sense; they’re the ones who have to watch someone slowly lose themselves. While that’s happening, those left behind are losing their person, too.

They call it The Long Goodbye - and it is.

These people might not remember the people who love them and who they, themselves, have loved (and still continue to love in their own way). It’s a scary journey for them and for their loved ones. Things change a lot, and it’s absolutely not easy. If you loved them before they started to lose themselves, please continue to love them as best you can. If you’re meeting them after this process has started, that doesn’t mean you can’t find things about them to love.

At the end, a person with severe dementia may be surrounded by people who look like strangers to them, while those people have memories upon memories of that person. They may not remember, but they can still feel that they’re loved.

Please don’t stop loving people because they can’t or won’t remember it. They’ll feel it in that moment and maybe that’s when it matters most.

I believe in Watanabe “endings”.