Beyond Selidor

Re: tweeness, I find that there is a fine line between whimsical, and cloyingly sentimental, and a lot of authors who are currently writing fantasy novels about magical libraries, magical books, and the power of storytelling tip over into the twee, sentimental side of things. (A prime candidate would be Alix E Harrow's Hugo Award-winning story from last year, which was about witches who worked in public libraries, and made me so, so angry, because it wasn't just sentimental, it was patronising and white saviour-y, and barely any Hugo voters seemed to notice this.)

I haven't listened to any of Ada Palmer's music, but I have no doubt that it is as intricate, well thought out, and clever as the rest of her creative output!

That is such a vile thing to have happened to you in 2018 Yuletide — I can understand why you would feel burned by that. I had a pretty meh Yuletide last year (for reasons that had nothing to do with my my gift, which was fine), and avoided doing any other exchanges this year for that reason. Do you like the writing and gift-giving part of Yuletide as much as the receiving? If so, maybe signing up to be a pinch-hitter, or writing treats could be a low-stakes way to ease yourself back into things, without exposing yourself to the potential of a triggering gift.