The Tyranny of Socks

And Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating it! (This year, I am one of you, as I'm in the UK now.)

But really, it's Yuletide! I received a wonderful story this year in one of those fandoms I would never have even considered possible, had someone not put it into the tagset! As I said in my notes, the story is like a mosaic of individual moments and memories that all come together into a lovely whole.

The Remembrance of Honey (1481 words) by Fabrisse
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 12th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Moses Maimonides | Rambam, Abraham ben Moses
Summary: On a rare lazy afternoon in Cairo, Maimonides remembers his childhood and speaks to his son.

I wrote two stories, both in fandoms I had never attempted before! So that was a fun challenge.

Hello Yuletide Author!

Thank you so much for writing for me this year! I am very excited that my schedule is allowing me to sign up for Yuletide! The fandoms I have requested are all canons I really love and am interested in, so if you have a story you would really love to write involving the characters I've chosen, go ahead and write it.

Also, usually I do request at least some male characters but somehow this never happened here.

I am open to treats, and would love one!

Most of what's below is a slightly expanded version of my sign-up, or just copied directly.

( General Likes )

( DNW )

( 12 Monkeys: Katarina Jones, Jennifer Goines )

( The Expanse: Chrisjen Avasarala, Bobbie Draper, Camina Drummer )

( For All Mankind: Danielle Poole, Molly Cobb, Margo Madison, Aleida Rosales )

( Crossovers )

Again, thank you and i hope you have fun writing!

Holy cow, Yuletide author, here we are again! Thank you so much for being willing to write a story for me! I hope you find something interesting and inspiring here.

I DNW: A/B/O, D/s and related dynamics; harm to children within the story (references to canonical child death are fine, though); PWP or NC-17 rated fic; humiliation; non-canon-setting AUs

Things I like include: enemies being forced to work together; competent characters doing what they're good at OR being forced outside their comfort zone; relationships between equal partners; happy or hopeful endings; canon-divergence AUs; crossovers (see below!); character-driven stories and plots; adventures, quests and other hijinks.

On to the prompts!
Request 1: Poldark (TV 2015)
Characters: Ross Poldark, Demelza Carne (Poldark), George Warleggan, Caroline Penvenen
I love the crazy soap-opera nature of this canon, and how Ross is an idiot and an asshole most of the time but still not the stupidest guy on the show, and how George is obsessed with him to the detriment of pretty much everything and everyone around him, and how pretty Caroline's clothes are, and how confident Demelza becomes in the course of the show about who she is and what she wants. The scenery is also not bad.

( further prompts below )


Request 2: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Characters: Katarina Jones, Jennifer Goines
This is such a great TV show, and I recommend it to everyone. I love it for its amazing plotting and attention to time-travel paradox-related detail, and for the great characters including the great female characters, who are allowed to be crazy, assholes, or crazy assholes. And unlike so many genre shows, it had a perfect ending.

( further prompts below )


Request 3: The Palliser Novels - Antony Trollope
Characters: Glencora Palliser, Madame Max Goesler.
I am not sure that the Palliser novels are Trollope's best work, but they are the nearest to my heart: I love the sprawling political and social landscape, with the odd pairing of Glencora and Plantagenet at its heart. Trollope is also so great at creating female characters and outsiders, at least when he wants to be. Glencora is really my favorite of all his ingenues, because she has so much personality -- I suppose because we get to see her grow up. I love that she still makes mistakes, but she gets over them. I am equally fond of Marie (Madame Max): I love how successful she is. She got to turn down the Duke of Omnium!

( further prompts below )


Request 4: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell -- Susannah Clarke
Characters: John Uskglass|The Raven King, John Childermass, Stephen Black
This is such a delightful book, and I love all the layers within it -- the history of this other England, but also the layers of ignorance, so that in the end everyone is caught up in the Raven King's spell, including himself. Stephen Black and John Childermass are probably my favorite characters in the novel (I find the idea of John Uskglass fascinating but I don't think you can call him a character in the novel) and I want more of them, more of both the past and the future of this universe.

( further prompts below )


Two for One 2019
As I wrote above, I really love crossovers. And look, two of these canons occur at almost exactly the same time, and a third not to long afterwards. And the fourth is about time travel! So all these people could easily meet! I would seriously love a Poldark or Pallisers story in which the magic and the characters of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell existed! Or in which people from 12 Monkeys splintered back to one of these settings to pursue some macguffin or other! Cassie and Jennifer have to front their way through one of Glencora's political weekends! Ross Poldark could be Phineas Finn's new political mentor! Or any of the Poldark characters could develop a talent for magic! John Uskglass' magic has a very northern focus; I wonder if magic is different in Cornwall?

In crossovers what I like most is the meeting of characters from the two canons; I don't care whether the setup us a fusion or a crossover so long as both sets of characters exist within it and some of them interact with each other.

I've given some ideas above for the canons I'm requesting here, but if you're interested in writing a crossover with any one of these, feel free to look through what I've written, or pick one of the other fandoms I've considered in Yuletides past: Aubrey-Maturin novels (they share a time period with Poldark and JSMN)!; Oxford Time Travel Universe (they have time travel too!); Rivers of London (magic is real here too!).

I have almost 500 words of my Yuletide story written and am now much more panicked than I was when I had 0 words. I have to keep reminding myself that my overly-convoluted desires for this story are not the same as my recipient's much more straightforward desires for this story, and so I will not need to write those extra 5,000 words about that completely irrelevant thing.

In other news, since I never managed to get tumblr to work for me (somehow nothing I ever posted ended up in the tags, and I liked reblogging things but found interacting their difficult) I am just as happy to say goodbye and go on to the next thing, whatever it is, or indeed to come back here, although I admit that I will miss looking through other people's gifs.

In further "should have posted about this ages ago" news, I wrote a story for Crossovering! It was an MCU/ASOIAF crossover with Loki and Bran and Rickon, with the unfortunate title Fallen Princes (I really wish I could have thought of something better!). I am left wondering why I never wrote Loki before this, because he is exactly the sort of too-clever-for-his-own-good moron I like best. In the meantime I am keeping an eye on x_ship, a crossover ship exchange, in case anything interesting turns up there.

I am watching and enjoying the new season of Doctor Who. Usually it takes me about a season to warm up to a new Doctor, although I really love Thirteen already; instead it's taking me a little while to warm up to a new showrunner, although I am pretty sure that I will eventually. As with Star Wars, this is a canon I like too much to actually "do" the fandom.

I need to work on my crossovering story! I should not be browsing the Yuletide tag set! Although I think I have found a new fandom to offer -- Battle of the Tollense River rpf. Ando someone nominated Trollope's Palliser novels!

Hello internet! I kind of avoided you between December 15 and last Monday, when I finally got to see the Star Wars movie. I guess it was sort of strange to be so spoiler-phobic, but I saw all of the first trilogy completely blind (because I was something like 7, 10 and 13 when they came out; I remember walking out of Empire and complaining loudly to my father about how we wouldn't know what would become of Han Solo for ages, and how could they leave the story hanging like that?) As a side benefit I also got to see the Dr Who Christmas special with no preconceptions.

But anyway, I had to default on Yuletide myself; this was a good decision, especially because the next day my computer turned into a solid lump of nothing (it got better). But I still received this really excellent story. I don't think it will make much sense if you haven't see Humans, the show it's based on (but this is a show that many of you would like, since it is basically about AIs and what it means to be human, with a sideline in feminism, and is very well-acted and well-written and comes to a satisfying conclusion.)

Existential Issues (2818 words) by Black_Knight
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Humans (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leo Elster & Niska, George Millican & Niska, Niska & Anita/Mia, Niska & Joe Hawkins, Niska & Laura Hawkins
Characters: Niska (Humans), Anita | Mia (Humans), Joe Hawkins (Humans), Laura Hawkins, George Millican, Leo Elster
Summary: Four times Niska talks with a living being, and once with a dead being.

I loved all the characters, but Niska was one of the most interesting to me -- arguably she went through the most and traveled the furthest of all of them. This story does a great job moving her forward again.

I am writing my Yuletide letter already! This is a huge step forward in terms of organization for me! And in a couple cases, I am even requesting things I nominated!

... is it OK if three of my requests are basically "here, tell me a story about the women!" and one is old-school m/m slash?

A few more, worth reading. These are all in books fandoms, and capture the tone of the originals perfectly.

( Star Trek (Rihannsu books); Tam Lin; The Princess Bride )

ETA: Also, happy new year! I know a lot of you had crappy 2014s, so here's hoping 2015 is a great year for everyone!

I got an excellent story this year! If you read only one story in Forever, make it this one! You won't be sorry.

A Mistaken Assumption, Repeated (2947 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forever (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abe (Forever) & Henry Morgan
Characters: Abe (Forever), Henry Morgan, Jo Martinez, The Frenchman
Summary:

"You know, I thought you two had a thing at first."

I have one story in the main collection, and one in the Madness collection (a first for me).

Happy Yuletide, and all that!

I wrote two stories this year, both for canons that are near and dear to my heart.

First was a Lymond Chronicles story set post series:

Turn of Winter (4197 words) by Vaznetti
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Francis Crawford, Jerott Blyth, Philippa Somerville
Summary:

After the 1565 siege of Malta, Jerott Blyth returns to Scotland.

This story was so hard to write, because I find the canon really intimidating, and the request set me pretty squarely into the middle of it. I'm not sure that I really managed to avoid "optional details are optional" here, but I did try to give a glimpse of Francis, Philippa and Jerott after the events of the series.

Also, the 1560s were not a great decade for Scotland, you know?

Then I wrote a treat for selenak. I knew as soon as I saw the prompt that I wanted to write this story, but I had to get my assignment written first, and that went slowly, so I basically wrote this in about 24 hours, and played incredibly fast and loose with the first five months of 49 BCE. Not that anyone but me cares about that, I suspect. It probably should have historical notes, but when I started to write them it became clear that they would end up longer than the story itself, so if you have any questions, just ask them.

Scenes from something which is certainly not a friendship (3192 words) by Vaznetti
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Lesbia | Clodia, Terentia Ciceronis, Livia Drusilla
Summary:

Clodia and Terentia, through the 40s.

At first I assumed that anyone who knows me would know that I'd written this, and then I realized that the only people who I talk to about this sort of thing are my students, and if any of them are doing Yuletide I really don't want to know about it.

Of course, the whole idea of a friendship between Terentia and Clodia is so unlikely -- Clodia did something to attack Terentia during Cicero's exile, and then there's the Pro Caelio, and the story in Plutarch that Terentia goaded Cicero to attack Clodius because she was jealous of Clodia (I think? It's been so long since I read the Plutarch), and Clodia's daughter with Metella had an affair with Dolabella while he was still married to Tullia... But hey, that's part of the fun of writing! I couldn't quite manage to get Julia in, although if the story had continued we would have had Terentia seeing Clodia in Julia, just as Clodia sees Terentia in Livia. Actually, the story might have expanded to include young Marcus, and the younger Clodia (Clodia's niece, the one who was briefly married to Octavian), and Scribonia. And Attica and Agrippa, and Vipsania... and if I ever do write a novel, selenak, it will be all your fault.