Lesserstorm's journal

Dear Yuletide author 2016

lesserstorm — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 22:36:38 GMT

Dear Yuletide writer

Thanks so much for offering one of my tiny fandoms – I think pretty much everything I'm requesting is a fandom of one, so I'm really excited about whatever you give me. I had real difficulty trimming my requests down to 6 this year (hence the lateness of my sign up and this letter), so whichever you've matched on I am guaranteed to be very enthusiastic about.

I have a few big Do Not Wants (DNWs). No major character death, intense focus on grief or grieving, gore, non-con, incest, infidelity please.

I would also prefer not to receive crossovers, pwp or kink (unless it's there to demonstrate some other facet of the relationship), total AUs, zombies, soul bonds or omegaverse. However any rating from G to explicit is fine.

General things I like are: happy endings; complex paths to get there; unexpected kindness; people being smart and competent; triple-crosses; second chances; characters wresting grace out of chaos; lovers who value, trust and like each other; gen het or slash; families of choice.

I dislike "love" that really needs a restraining order and characters who are too stupid to live.

On to the specific requests, all of which are spoilery to a greater or lesser extent.

Queen of Atlantis - story by Sarah Rees Brennan
(can be found online at https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/summer_2011/queen_of_atlantis_by_sarah_rees_brennan )
characters: Mede (Queen of Atlantis) The Prince (Queen of Atlantis)

I love Mede's courage, her strength of character, her integrity, that though she feels that she is always slightly inadequate compared to her older sister, when it really comes down to it she's the one who will do the right thing, even at tremendous personal cost. I also love the way she can cut right to the chase – e.g. " Life or death. Either one would be an answer.” “It would be a help if you knew which one was the r-right answer!”

I love the Prince for his kindness, his integrity, the way that anger, betrayal and despair have tempered over time so that although he may be without hope for himself or his land, he can still act with gentleness and courtesy towards a long line of young and horrified princesses and will use neither force nor trickery to try to persuade one to stay.

I love the way that even as they see the sea rush in, Mede's reaction is to turn to "her" Prince, who still looks like a monster and say "It’s our wedding day. Kiss me again."

While I think the story's ending is thematically perfect, I still really, really want fix it for this fandom, not just to give Mede and her prince longer to live, but also to see their relationship develop with a chance to know and trust each other better. When Mede chooses to marry the Prince, the best case scenario is that they might both survive and would each be married to a stranger, something which in other circumstances that would be pretty terrifying. But it's worth it because even the worst case scenario would bring salvation of a sort to both their people. I'd love to see growing trust and affection in something closer to the best case. They each demonstrate both strong personal qualities and intense commitment and loyalty: I'd really like to see that relationship developed further.

I don't think the only two options need to be the rotting, living death status quo of the start of the story or becoming human again; fix-it in this context might mean that the Prince's land is renewed and everyone lives after all, but it could also mean that as the land is drowned by the sea, none of them actually die, but go through a "sea-change into something rich and strange" (like Ariel's song from the Tempest only still alive and living in a city below the sea). I think it could be really interesting to see the characters dealing with that kind of change alongside learning to know and trust each other and working out what their lives would be like going forward.

One last request – no zombies please! I'm fine with the canonical descriptions of the Prince as monster, but I don't want to see animated bodies without human minds.

Amaluna - show by Cirque du Soleil
characters: Cali (Amaluna) Romeo (Amaluna) Miranda (Amaluna)

I saw this show in theatre last winter and I was entranced. I'm a fan of Cirque du Soleil's spectacle in any case, but with this show I also love the way the acrobatics interacted with and spun out the storyline. Interpretation of non-spoken theatre is always going to be more subjective than the written word, but this is some of how I see the show:

I love the drama and the energy and the joy, the bold colours and the feats of skill. I also love the way that the show subverts the Tempest and tackles many of the things that leave me lukewarm about that play. I love the way the focus is on the female characters as strong and powerful. I love the fact that Miranda has grown up on a magical island, is deeply engaged with its magic and its magical creatures and has all her own agency as she comes of age (rather than being put into a magical sleep whenever Prospero does anything interesting). I love the fact that Prospera and Miranda are powerful but live alongside and within the magic rather than needing to dominate or tame it. I love the fact that "happy ever after" means that Romeo is able to stay on the magical island with her rather than that she leaves everything she knows to follow him.

The programme notes (which I only read after I saw the show) describe Cali as Miranda's jealous pet, but watching the show I didn't see him as either a pet or jealous. He seemed to me to be protective rather than jealous and every bit as much a person as the other characters, even if he is not entirely human (and really, how many people on the island are human?) It probably didn't hurt that he was played by an utterly gorgeous performer in the show I saw, but it also helps far more that unlike Shakespeare's Caliban he didn't attempt to rape Miranda as a toddler. And while I really enjoyed his dynamic with Miranda – which seemed a dynamic of equals – I also really enjoyed his dynamic with Romeo which seemed to me to begin in rivalry and mistrust, but also involve a certain fascination (possibly on both sides) that develops into a grudging respect and even liking. Could that become loving?

For Miranda, the show is obviously about coming of age, coming into her magic, owning her own emotions. Romeo is torn away from everything he know and there is clearly a point where he needs to choose to stay with Miranda and engage with her world and live his life in it, which has to be a much more deliberate choice than just being entranced by a beautiful girl following a shipwreck.

I mentioned in my sign up that I'd love to see OT3 with these characters where Miranda is strong and powerful now she has come into her inheritance, Romeo adapts to life in an entirely new world (just what is that like when the new world is so full of magic?), and Cali is still deeply protective and sometimes tricksy, but Romeo is now included in that protectiveness. However failing OT3, I'd also be happy with Romeo/Miranda, Romeo/Cali or ambiguous gen. But I'd still like to see all three characters included with strong bonds of whatever kind between them.

Fandom: Magical Makeover (Interactive Fiction)
(can be found online at http://philome.la/Citrushistrix/magical-makeover-fixed/play )
characters: Player Character (Magical Makeover) Amherst (Magical Makeover) Fairy (Magical Makeover)

This is a repeat request from last year. This "game" is interactive fiction, though rather less interactive than most – you make three choices near the start about three "beauty" products to use, and the rest of the story unfolds from there. It's quirky and offbeat and frivolous, with more depth than you would necessarily initially think. The author describes it as "An interactive story inspired in part by fairy-tales, and in part by terrible "makeover" Flash games targeted towards girls." I strongly recommend it and I think it would appeal to people who like Diana Wynne Jones' Rough Guide to Fantasyland etc.

Once you've played it through once there is a author's note page which will give you a crib sheet of how to get the different endings. I particularly like the option b endings which have the extra interaction with the fairy, the endings with Amherst and the final ending in the fairy library with access to all the different worlds. When I come back to the game I'm always surprised how strong the characters are and how much I like them.

I really like the protagonist, the way her apparent incompetence is mixed with a sense that of course she'll do the right thing and a back story that is full of genuinely wild travels, adventures, astral projection etc. I'd love to see her being awesome in her unique and inept way; she is so determined to be selfish and shallow, but that doesn't stop her going into danger or freeing a captive cassowary. Maybe your story could include further adventures into other worlds or exploring the fairy library, which seems an utterly awesome place, with possibilities for either travelling to other worlds, just looking at them, or having an adventure right there.

And of course in the library, the power dynamics between the protagonist and the fairy are reversed and the fairy is the one with power (The protagonist thought it was okay to keep a fairy in a jar? Seriously? The fairy has clearly managed to work out a perfectly pleasant lifestyle in the jar, and is so much more competent that I'm sure she could have escaped if she had really wanted to, but there's no denying the protagonist is at best clueless about her.)

I'd be particularly interested in seeing her shipped with the fairy or with Amherst or both, though preferably not with Mildred. (Although I don't think her gender is technically specified, I read her as strongly coded female and given her canonical relationships are all with women, if you make her female please keep her a lesbian). I'm fine with Mildred in the story though and I like the Cassowary a lot, but I'm not so interested in her relationship with her parents. And I don't mind you only including either Amherst or the fairy but not both if it's so you can ship the protagonist with that character.

Dark Parables (Video Games)
(wiki available at http://dark-parables.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Parables_Wiki )
characters: Teresa | Theresa (Dark Parables) Eldra (Dark Parables) Raphael (Dark Parables)

Dark Parables is a series of "casual" games with a mixture of hidden object sceness and puzzles, but has more continuity of storyline and character between the instalments than seems usual in this type of game. My request characters appear in "The Red Riding Hood Sisters", a relatively early instalment and I will be the first to admit that both storyline and dialogue are clunky compared to later games. However the story has so much potential that I want more and particularly fix-it. (We do get more back story for Teresa and Rafael later in the series, but that doesn't alter the "everyone dies" ending of their story.)

To recap the relevant storyline (spoilers up to The Little Mermaid and the Purple Tide), Teresa is a king's daughter who loved the forests, but was cursed along with her sisters and turned into a mermaid. She met Eldra and Raphael when they were all young (it's not quite clear whether they were still children or teenagers) and they together found the magical doodad needed to make her human again. Eldra and Teresa were then trained by the red riding hood sisters while Raphael became an adventurer and fortune hunter. Ultimately Eldra and Teresa rise to the top of the order until they are rivals for its leadership, whereupon Eldra kills the wolf king, is corrupted by the Wolf Talisman and becomes the evil Wolf Queen.

So Eldra and Teresa have always been friends and rivals and even as Wolf Queen, Eldra had Teresa brought back to the Mist Kingdom rather than being left to die where she lay. Was Teresa that important to her, even in Eldra's corrupted state? And did Teresa ever realise that the woman whose claws wounded her was her dearest friend? Then Raphael – who turns out to be the last descendant of the protectors of the Mist Kingdom before it was overrun by the mist wolves tracks Eldra (by smell!) to try to rescue her, not realising what she has become. He clearly loves her (and Teresa?), whether as friends or something more and in the end she is free from the Wolf Talisman though very much weakened and he stays with her rather than escaping from the Fabled Land with the other characters. (Oh and the Mist Kingdom where Teresa's body is, no longer seems cut off from the rest of the world.)

I'd love OT3, but otherwise I prefer Teresa/Eldra to Raphael/Eldra. I'd adore fix-it, with or without pairings. The fairytale detective finds Teresa's body in the Mist Kingdom, but are we sure she was dead? She had after all been paralysed when she was attacked by the Wolf Queen. And though we seem to see the Fabled Land destroyed with Raphael and Eldra still there, it's plausible he could have dived through a portal with her at the last minute. So what would happen then? I imagine they – or at least Raphael – would want to find Teresa. Then Eldra clearly has a lot of healing to do, both physically and emotionally, plus coming to terms with everything she did as the big bad Wolf. If Teresa is alive, she is also going to be in need of at least physical healing and they might well not want to go back to their old lives. I can't see Raphael leaving either of the others. A story with all three of them healing and finding each other again would be perfect. But if you don't think you can do fix-it, maybe something with the three characters together in their younger days seeking out the fire orb to break Teresa's curse?

Fandom: Neolithic Sites of Southern England (Anthropomorphic)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/history/
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/avebury/history/
characters: Stonehenge (Henge) Avebury (Henge)

This was the last-minute addition to my requests that caused me to be so late with my sign up and this letter. I agonised over which of my other requests to cut, but I'm fascinated by Neolithic sites so when I saw they were in the tag set, I couldn't resist.

I think anthropomorphic requests are necessarily the most open to interpretation of anything in yuletide, so if you have a story you long to tell go for it. It seems to me though that stories could fall into two rough camps – a) all out anthropomorphic fic where the henges have human type personalities and talk to each other/email each other/complain about whether their stones are being shown off to best advantage/bitch about upstart more recent monuments getting all the attention or b) something less humanised but still with a sense of place or identity or personality of an incredibly ancient place. (And yuletide people are very imaginative, so I'm sure I've missed other possible story structures).

If you go for something in the vein of a) then I'd like both Stonehenge and Avebury to be included, but for something more along the lines of b) feel free to only use one of them. Perhaps that could be a story about successive eras of people using the circles for different purposes or giving them different meanings, maybe even a "story of humanity" as seen by entities who were not remotely human. Or a look at how an anthropomorphised stone circle regards the different generations and cultures of people who come to it.

I really have a bit of a thing for Neolithic sites - I'll always want to visit if I'm holidaying anywhere nearby - and the unbelievably ancient people who built them and used them. I'm much more interested in the actual prehistory than in either modern Pagan practice and understanding of the sites or "aliens built the pyramids" type fantasy, but I don't expect you to be an expert in prehistory or the latest archaeological interpretations. Part of the attraction and part of the reason for making this request is just that the stone circles are so very very old, but part is that even though we do know that they were built and adapted and used over unbelievably long time periods we still know so little about why they were built and how their use changed over time. So things that are purely speculative, or that involve "modern-type!human thinking in prehistoric trappings" are both great and something more modern would be okay too so long as there's a sense of their tremendous age. I'd love to see anything you can come up with for this fandom, so you could probably even sell me on aliens building the henges if you tried hard enough.

West Kennet Long Barrow and Waylands Smithy were also in the tag set. I didn't request them because I feel that their history is somewhat less unknown – we at least know that they were used for burials, even if the significance of which burials still escapes us. However if you want to add both or either to a story about one of the henges, go for it - West Kennet is only just over a mile from Avebury after all.

Daisy Dalrymple Series - Carola Dunn
characters: Ben Dalrymple Martha Dalrymple Susannah Prasad Norville Sybil Sutherby

I adore this mystery series for all its warmth and good humour – I wouldn't read it for exciting suspense or to puzzle out whodunnit, but I still find it utterly delightful. I really like the way that Daisy genuinely likes people so much and that the plot often flows from that and I enjoy the strong family dynamics in many of the stories and that they are often between found family as well as those related by blood.

I also often find myself caring about the minor characters or the characters who only appear in the plot of one book and I often find myself at the end of the book wanting to know more about what comes next for them. Daisy and Alec may have solved the crime, but the other characters are almost always left dealing with the fallout of a murder or a murderer in the family, changes in their social standing, unexpected revelations about each other et cetera. I nominated four minor characters who I find really interesting and requested them all, but please read what follows to see the circumstances in which I'd be happy with a story focusing on just some of them or on other characters altogether. I also do really like Daisy and Alec and would be very happy to see them in the story including at the linchpin of the story so long the requested characters don't just become window dressing for an Alec-and-Daisy story.

So as regards my requests, optional details are optional, and if you can bring all four requested characters together in any way then go for it and I expect I'll enjoy almost anything you write. I don't think bringing them together is as unlikely as it may initially sound either; after "Heirs of the Body", I think that Daisy may be less reluctant to spend time visiting Edgar and Geraldine; she has a family and home of her own now, the loss Fairacres as her childhood home is now more distant, she's got know them both better and they will now have Martha and Ben and their families living with them, who are also now friends of Daisy and Belinda. It's not hard to imagine Geraldine encouraging Daisy to bring some other friends to stay too.

However I also have some specific scenarios I'm interested in following the end of four of the books, as the individuals or families in question grapple with their new circumstances. So if you want to write for any of the following prompts including how the characters in question adapt, cope and move on, then there's no need to include all - or even any - of my requested characters.

(I do appreciate the irony of my overall request for no major character death or focus on mourning in the context of people dealing with the aftermath of murder, but please do still avoid going into too much introspective detail of the experience of grief - as opposed to acknowledging that a character may be grieving or setting a story a little in the future with a focus on other things. Also, please don't kill off significant characters unless it's because they are an arrested murderer now brought to justice. In particular, if you chose to include/deal with Lucy's family, even though Lord Haverhill obviously doesn't have too long left to live, please don't have him die or dying during your story.)

Mistletoe and Murder – the Norville family must be left in turmoil. One of Susannah's sons has been arrested and will likely be hanged for murder; the other is now heir to a title and his brother's son presumably becomes his heir. Add to this that the titled relatives have always refused to acknowledge such an unsuitable (read not white) family and it's not necessarily a bad thing that Mrs Susannah Norville has been taken under Daisy's mother's wing. I can't help feeling that having the Dowager Vicountess in her corner would be a distinctly mixed blessing, though Mrs Norville herself is so grounded and dignified that I don't think she would either be phased by the Dowager taking her into society or want to take society by storm. For this book, so long as the focus is on the family dealing with what has happened to them and adapting to their new circumstances, I'd be happy with a story about just Susannah or a story about her family generally, especially Miles and Felicity.
Another Mrs Norville idea – maybe Daisy introduces her to her friend, Sakari. I'm sure they would get on well and have some things in common as Indian ladies living in England, (they also seem to have the same surname which strikes me as odd) but as Susannah Norville was apparently raised Christian and as there is no suggestion that they are from the same region of India or even have the same first language, they may not have as much in common as Daisy might think.

A Mourning Wedding – these characters were not in the tag set, but if you prefer them to those I did request, I'd happily accept a story about just what did happen to all of Lucy's family after the police had gone home. Just how do you go on when the eldest son and heir has been murdered by his own son and heir? What about all the publicity? We know that Lucy married Gerald quietly in a registry office, so I'm more interested in follow-up about the other members of the family, especially the earl and countess, Lucy's young cousins and Rev'd Tim & his family who is now presumably heir to the earldom.

Gone West – again, I'd really like a story about what happens next and life going on. I chose to nominate Sybil – what does her life look like now? Is she deeply in love with Roger Knox? (I like them both tremendously). Does she stay in close contact with the Birtwhistles – or those at least who are not in prison. I'd also be interested in a story about her writing. I know she decided she did not want to continue the westerns without Humphrey, but What kind of books does she write now? does she adopt a different nom de plume and can she leverage being 'Eli Hwake's co-author to get a better reception with publishers? Alternatively, and sticking with the theme of what happens next and life going on, I'd be very happy with the story about the remaining Birtwhistle family, Ruby, Simon and Myra, with or without Sybil. I really liked the way that Simon and Myra started off as deeply unpromising characters, but flourished in difficult circumstances. Plus I love the sense of found family – as Simon says about Myra "she may be a little idiot but she's our little idiot".

Heirs of the body – I nominated Ben and Martha and I'd really like a story about either or both of them and their families, both their blood family and their new extended family of distant relatives at Fairacres focusing on how they deal with all of the changes about to happen in their lives . How does Ben get on as the ward of a Viscount? How is his life changed? What about his elder sister? She's about to go from probably having to give up school to care for her siblings to living on an English country estate. Does she gets to finish school and even go to university? And what about Martha and Sam, what's it like to suddenly be thrust into life as Edgar's heir. It's going to help that Edgar and Geraldine are warmhearted people with no great interest in London society, but I'm sure Daisy's mother will have something to say about it all, not to mention the rest of polite society – and that may be even worse for Ben, can his new guardians protect him and his siblings from racism? I'd really love to see a "found family" theme here and dealing with a total - though good - upheaval of life; I'd be happy with the story focusing on any one of Ben, his sister and other siblings, Martha, her nuclear family and the new extended family household.

Dear yuletide writer

lesserstorm — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 18:30:19 GMT

It is Yuletide again. Yay! And this year I have two book requests, two songs and two short pieces of interactive fiction, so hopefully something to suit everyone. Details beneath the cut
.
I have a few big Do Not Wants (DNWs). No character death, gore, non-con, incest, infidelity please.

I would also prefer not to receive crossovers, pwp or kink (unless it's there to demonstrate some other facet of the relationship), total AUs (though I don't think there's anything in the songs that would make any particular setting AU), soul bonds or omegaverse.

General things I like are: happy endings; complex paths to get there; unexpected kindness; people being smart and competent; triple-crosses; second chances; characters wresting grace out of chaos; lovers who value, trust and like each other; gen het or slash; families of choice.

I dislike "love" that really needs a restraining order and characters who are too stupid to live.

The Riddle – song by Nik Kershaw here
charcters - any

Okay, this is a song is my childhood/youth's contribution to Yuletide and I'm still very fond of it 30+ years on.

I know that Nik Kershaw said that there was no deeper meaning to this song, but that doesn't stop me really wanting to know just what is going on. I'd be happy with any direction you take this one – fantasy, steam punk, this world or AU, though please do note my DNWs above. I'd also love to see who some of the characters are – the old man? The wise men's child?

Harvey – song by Electric Swing Circus here
Harvey - character

I discovered Electric Swing Circus when I saw them at a festival this summer and I've fallen for their music in a big way. I love its bounce and life and combination of genres that really shouldn't work together but do. (You can hear most of their music at their youtube page via the link above).

The song Harvey is not quite typical of their music, but I love its slight creepiness and mysteriousness but overall positivity. I really just want a story about a Pooka who might be a horse or a pet octopus, the unpicker of seams who will be a friend in the circus of your mind. What happens when that Pooka chooses me or you or the song's narrator? Again, please take this one in any direction.

(I should note that from discussion on the Yuletide comm this is almost certainly based on the 1950 film Harvey featuring a giant invisible rabbit. I want to be clear that I'm requesting the song and I'm not particularly interested in the film.)

Magical Makeover - play it here
Player Character
Amherst
Fairy

So this is interactive fiction, though rather less interactive than most – you make three choices near the start and the rest of the story unfolds from there. It's quirky and offbeat and frivolous, with more depth than you would necessarily initially think. The author describes it as "An interactive story inspired in part by fairy-tales, and in part by terrible "makeover" Flash games targeted towards girls." I strongly recommend it!

Once you've played it through once there is a author's note page which will give you a crib sheet of how to get the different endings. I particularly like the option b endings which have the extra interaction with the fairy, the endings with Amherst and the final ending in the fairy library with access to all the different worlds. When I come back to the game I'm always surprised how strong the characters are and how much I like them.

I really like the protagonist, the way her apparent incompetence mixes with a sense that of course she'll do the right thing and a back story that is full of genuinely wild travels, adventures, astral projection etc. I'd be particularly interested in seeing her shipped with the fairy or with Amherst though preferably not with Mildred. (Although I don't think her gender is technically specified, I read her as strongly coded female and given her canonical relationships are all with women, if you make her female please keep her a lesbian). I'm fine with Mildred in the story though and I like the Cassowary a lot. And I don't mind you only including either Amherst or the fairy if it's to ship the protagonist with that character.

First draft of the Revolution - play it here
Juliette
Henri
Alise

Another piece of interactive fiction. Again nontypical as you don't so much "play" the story as create it – it's told in epistletory format and I don't think the player can change the outcome. What you do change is the words the characters use and by seeing the different things they consider writing – and the things they don't – you create their exact characters. The finished work is probably short story length, though it feels somewhat longer because you have seen the different thoughts which go into the finished letters.

Juliette is a young wife in an alt!18th century France whose husband has banished her to the country. Now they - and a few other characters - correspond through enchanted letters...

I really liked Juliette and her character arc pushes a lot of my buttons – I love the way she grows during the story, that being young, pious, obedient and somewhat naive doesn't actually stop her seeing political necessities and making it happen. I love the way she has far more strength of character than someone looking at the externals would expect. I'd love to see more of her functioning in society and as a member of Henri's family after the story ends – I particularly liked the way she dealt with Alise in alise's last letter.

The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Philologos
Hilarion

Okay, I ship these two like burning and would love to see them get together. I know that might be disconcerting to anyone who offered "any", but I really do, to the extent that a couple of years ago I made a post for Yuletide detailing their every interaction. I feel that although we don't see much of either of them individually, what we do see hints at all sorts of interesting things going on not just between them and the King, but between the two of them.

So I'd love a shippy story. I'd also love to see the machinations of court and the interaction of the attendants with their king illuminated through the eyes of these two minor characters. And everything in book four about Ion's feelings towards the King, hard-won loyalty and desire to be trusted seems that it would apply also to these two, even though Ion's specific storyline wouldn't.

When the King Comes Home
Queen Andred
King Julian
Istvan

Again, I just adore this trio and the ending of their story presses all my buttons as they sail away, the three of them together. I'd love to know what happens next, either naturalistally in world or as they drift into legend, though backstory would also be okay.

For this request, I'd be really good with either OT3 or a rocksolid couple plus a friend who is entangled every bit as deeply with both of them as they are with each other. The thing that really pushes my buttons is them as a trio, with confidence and loyalty and trust and commitment almost tangible things between them, whatever the form their individual bonds take.

lesserstorm — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 18:34:01 GMT

Just a note to anyone who's interested - my yuletide letter is slightly backdated so won't show up on friendslist or feeds but it is now up.
(and my assignmen from my recipient is awesome - I hope I can do it justice ;-) )

Yuletide!

lesserstorm — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 16:17:59 GMT

I've returned to Yuletide this year, so, as always this is my dear author letter.

Firstly, if you match my sign up, I am just excited you are out there. There's something special about knowing other people love the same obscure fannish things you do. I'm generally a pretty easy-going recipient and ODAO so as always, please write something that inspires you rather than trying to do justice to a prompt you don't feel.

This year I do have a pretty big DNW (do not want). My mother died a couple of months ago following a traumatic few months before that. So please, no death and no cancer.

Other DNWs: incest; torture (unless surrounded with a lot of comfort); rape and noncon (unless it's canon); unrelieved bleakness; kink; happy endings that cheat; pure fluff; ABO; soulbonds; kidfic; "love" that really needs a restraining order and characters who are too stupid to live.

With that out of the way, I happily read gen, het and slash. Even if you to go the shippy rotue, I'm generally bored by PWP so if you do include sex I like it used to further plot or character development rather than being hot for its own sake (particularly in tiny fandoms where we get so little chance for plot and character development at all.)

Things I particularly like; (though not all of them will fit with all my prompts):
happy endings, complex paths to get there, music and stories; strong women; integrity; hope; families of choice; acts that have consequences; people being smart and competent; unexpected kindness; conflicting loyalties; triple-crosses; second chances; overcoming trials or difficulties; lovers who value, trust and like each other; people who support each other; characters wresting grace out of chaos; lationships where there are both 'political' and personal things going on at different levels.

In terms of specifics, my requests are –

Magids Series - Diana Wynne Jones
Roddy Hyde

I'd really like a story about Roddy when she is a little older, coming into or gaining confidence in her power as a future Lady of Governance, perhaps taking on responsibilities, balancing power with judgement or making finely balanced decisions. If this involves her future relationships with other people, particularly Nick, her parents or either of her grandfathers that would be great too (I have a soft spot in this world for Gwyn ap Nud ) but I'd like Roddy to remain the as protagonist.

Details for this one are pretty much as above. I'm a big fan of Roddy and there's no doubt that she has another huge task ahead of her as the future Lady of Governance, together with no doubt years of learning about all the old magic in the "flower files" now in her head. There's also a lot of substance ripe for fic in all of the different things she's gone through and achieved during the book – I always like the way Diana Wynne Jones characters grow and change and sometimes find out things about themselves or their relationships with other people that they genuinely did not expect, and I think that Roddy particularly has that kind of story arc; not just tackling the conspiracy and saving the country, but the suddenly taken on power, discovery of both sides of her family background (and especially her grandfather Gwyn), her own burgeoning magic abilities and an unexpected future.

There's lots and lots to pick up on there – I suggested Roddy a little older coming into her power or confidence or exercising her judgement as I think the book leaves her both poised on the brink of all sorts of new opportunities and growth, but also potentially really from some of the things that have happened (especially Grundo) and I would love to see the person she becomes.

I would prefer not to see a crossover with any of Diana Wynne Jones other multi-verse books (I do like Chrestomani and Howl's worlds, but there is much more fic for them and so I'd prefer the focus to be Roddy and possibly the other characters she already knows.)

And one fandom specific – I'm happy to read about Gwyn ap Nud, his relationship with Roddy and his role in this world, but please do still respect my request for no deathfic (so a cameo appearance from his retinue would be fine, but please nothing about him interacting with the newly dead, having dead characters – even ones who died in canon – feature as part of his hunting party etc)

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty: A Gothic Romance
Leo
Aurora
Count Lilac
(also available on DVD)

At the end of the show we have Leo and Aurora needing to strike out into the 21st-century. What does that look like? Was she aware of dreams while she slept and did he learn anything about the world beyond the Forest or is it all new? And how does their continuing involvement with the supernatural and the vampire fairies work? Leo is now a vampire after all. What about Count Lilac's interactions with the two people he has watched over for so long? I'm happy to ship Leo/Aurora or Leo/Aurora/Lilac OT3

I saw the show in theatres and I was blown away. I'm a fan of Matthew Bourne's work anyway, but this is possibly the best thing I've seen live on stage ever. I love the character development, I loved the vampire fairies (are they vampires as we understand them? Are they something else altogether?) Going into the show and knowing that the good and bad fairies were both being played by male dancers, I had sort of expected I might slash them, but in fact I don't at all. I love the fact that Caradoc's obsession with Aurora is portrayed as creepy and nonconsensual and not remotely okay. I love the way Matthew Bourne invests us in the Leo/Aurora relationship and I love the way Count Lilac, while both enigmatic and alien, intervenes to change the Bad Things.

I get the feeling that Leo has done very little in the last century beyond camp out in the woods and wait for Aurora, but that's okay as it means they face the new world together. I interpreted some of the Forest sequences as meaning that Aurora may have been aware in some distant dreamlike state of Count Lilac in her dreams; I recognise that both of those things are mainly head-canon though.

I love Leo's pragmatism and loyalty. I love Aurora's bravery and individuality and the way that she is probably so much better prepared to function as a 21st-century girl without any particular wealth or position than your average Edwardian Princess. I love the way that Count Lilac clearly cares for these kids, even to the point of turning Leo so he would have a chance to rescue Aurora one day. I'd love to see his relationships with them developing and changing over time, whether as some kind of patron or in an OT3 way. Or would it be Aurora and Leo who help Lilac function in the 21st-century just as he helps them find their feet in the supernatural world? Or all three of them, especially Aurora are likely have some trauma from how things went down with Caradoc - it would be good to see them recover and flourish. (Though I don't think I'd be up for an entire fic of detailed rape-recovery).

One last thing in this fandom – I thought the flying baby in the last scene was a wonderful touch and I'm happy for the baby to be in the story or not, but I'd rather kidfic wasn't the focus.

Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Dominique Viellard

I'd like to read about Minou, her life, perhaps the choices she has made for herself, the choices made for her when she was young and things which were not choices but which she has chosen to embrace. Or the ways her life interacts with the very different lives of Benjamin and Olympe, how her position affects her relationships with them or her relationships with the wider free community of colour. I'd be very happy to see some dynamic with Henri and/or Chloe; I'd love as happy an ending as is possible in her deeply imperfect world

This is something of a repeat request from much earlier years of participation in Yuletide. I love almost all the characters in this series and I love the way the author makes the world come so much to life.

I'm particularly keen to read about Dominique's position as a placee; not the mechanics of being Henri's mistress, but the way it affects her relationship and the roles she can take in the world. There's all the "usual" issues of a society where a man can have a mistress but that woman will never be respectable herself, compounded by the awful history of racism and slavery where a woman of colour can be a white man's mistress but could never be his wife and complicated by the semi-official arrangements of the placees and the quadroon balls.

With Dominique being young when she became Henri's placee and the arrangements being made by Livia, I don't think it's clear how much was her choice; given Livia's own history and Minou having much fairer skin than her half brother and sister, I'm not sure whether other options would really have been open to her. Yet she seems happy to be with Henri and to love him, despite the fact she was never sure he would fight to keep her if his marriage had meant that wasn't easy. I'm interested in the impact of being a white man's mistress on the way she is regarded by "respectable" free people of colour, even while it means she lives a more comfortable and affluent life than many of them can aspire to. And I'm interested in how very vulnerable
that lifestyle is and how little security she has – how Henri could well have abandoned her and her child without recourse when he married Chloe.

In spite of all this, I like Henri and Chloe and Minou's relationships with them both. My natural urge for happy ever after comes into obvious conflict with the realities of slavery and racism in 1830s Louisiana. But I would love to see Dominique wresting a life that she wants and where she can be happy from the deeply imperfect world she lives in. I think that is in keeping with her canon storyline too. I wouldn't want OT3 for this fandom as I think it would actually be too easy a way of simplifying the complexities of Minou's relationships, but if you want to include Chloe and Henri I'd love to see the three of them living out a life that works for them, regardless of what anyone else thinks of the arrangement.

lesserstorm — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:58:06 GMT

So I'm not doing Yuletide this year.

I figure that if I post that publicly, it makes it official. (And the signups are now closed, so I couldn't change my mind if I wanted to.) It was so, so tempting to sign up anyway, but RL is busy enough and stressful enough right now that I honestly couldn't guarantee time to write

I do admit to having browsed lots of other people's letters, and I do have some ideas of things I'd love to write as treats, so I may yet do that, but honestly, looking at my schedule I don't think I'll have time; at least this way I'm not letting anyone down.

In fact, my entire year has pretty much been like this -- I can't describe how much I'm looking forward to an entire 10 days away with family over Christmas -- and I realise I never posted publicly after last year's Yuletide reveal. So very belatedly, let me point anyone who is interested to the Hades/Persephone story I wrote for Rosencrantz; The Fruits of Hades. For anyone who's not seen it, I think that if you like my Guinevere story, What Is and What Seems to Be, you will like this and vice versa, although the stories and the characters are really very different.

And I should also acknowledge the truly lovely story Thassalia wrote for me, The Main Line is Frayed and Thin, a look at the future for Tracy and Dex from The Philadelphia Story (1940). It's a film I love, mainly because I adore the character's and I ship Tracy/Dex like mad; but I'm also very aware of the serious unresolved issues between them, some of which the film acknowledges and some of which it... um... perpetuates. I was quite upfront about that ambivalence in both my request and my Yuletide letter, and to be honest I'd half expected that even if I was matched on this fandom, my writer would be likely to go away and investigate my fourth request (where the fandom is a three or four-minute song) and write for that instead. But Thassalia ran with the characters and gave me a lovely, subtle wartime story. Her Tracy and Dex feel deeply real as they work out their own future together and apart after the film's "happy ever after".

Dear Yuletide Author

lesserstorm — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:39:14 GMT

Firstly, thanks so much for signing up. And as always, please feel free to ignore this letter; I do understand that optional details are optional and I'll be delighted with pretty much anything in these fandoms.

In the past I've tried to talk about lots of different things I'd like to see in a story rather than being too specific about just one request; this year I seem to instead be rambling at great length about the things I love about each set of source material; hopefully that will also be informative for you. Please ignore it if it's not and please don't feel you need to reproduce the things I love in the canon - I'd rather have the story that excites you to write.

Practicalities first -- I've arranged the order of this post carefully as it includes fairly major spoilers for the first three books in Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series and it includes book destroying spoilers for Sarah Rees Brennan's Demons Lexicon, with fairly major spoilers for its sequel. So please use the cut tags and don't read to the end if you haven't read the books (which I recommend strongly to anyone who hasn't). I do have a note about any potential spoilers for Demon's Surrender right at the end.

Secondly, you may notice that my request for The Queen's Thief contains a link to an entire additional post. PLEASE don't read this as a hint that that's the request I really want to see fulfilled -- it's really, really not. If you've matched on something else and don't know MWT's work I should explain that I'm asking for the story of two tiny bit characters in one book of what's already a fairly obscure fandom -- the extra post is simply an attempt to demonstrate to anyone who doesn't live in my brain what I see in the characters and why the request isn't totally random. My other requests are probably a bit more mainstream and a bit more self-explanatory, but I want to see those stories just as badly. Similarly, I've quoted quite a bit of Demon's Covenant dialogue -- Oh the beauties of owning ebooks! That might make that section of this letter look by far the longest, but I think the things I'm actually saying are about the same length in all cases.

Things I like

As far as general likes and dislikes go, I've written a little summary of some of my favourite and less favoured things for the last couple of years -- this year it's not quite as relevant to the specifics of some of my requests, so I'm going to link to it rather than copy it out again.

I will say that I particularly like happy endings, complex paths to get there, relationships between people who really get each other, conflicting loyalties and relationships where there are both 'political' and personal things going on at different levels. I would really prefer not to receive anything with partner betrayal, rape, main character death, incest or graphic torture.

I'll happily read gen, het or slash (even despite any preferences I express below) and any rating that works for the story is okay with me -- I would pretty much always prefer plot, character development or relationship development to pure PWP though. I also generally prefer stories that take us beyond what we know from canon to missing scenes. And where I have expressed pairing preferences, I'd prefer you didn't permamently pair either character up with someone else altogether.

Now onto the fandoms

Orphans (Gaslight Anthem Song)
any characters

This is my completely wild card request. And if you've got matched on a request you really don't feel up to then, because this is a single track, you can probably familiarise yourself with it really quickly.

I have no idea what a story based on this song would look like, but I'm excited to find out. It could be a real world story, or you could take the metaphors literally and turn it into a fantasy or SF setting. What would the circus wheel resting along the sea look like made literal? What was the fire of his youth and the triumph over his enemies that he gave up? No need to take the factories too literally if you don't want, but if you do then that works too.

Primarily, this is in my requests because I love the song. Not just the lyrics, but the music, the driving rhythms, the power and passion which seem to me to reinforce the narrator's strength and passion. Without the music, the lyrics on their own could be despondent or even depressing, but the music makes it a defiant moving on,

Things I love about the song? I love the music running through it, I really love the orphans becoming the sons of regret becoming the sons of these songs. I love the sense of growing older and moving on, of being hard battered but not bowed, of no longer being in the first rush of youth, but still being strong, the sense of second chances and a new purpose. I don't know whether he's poured himself out for a cause or just in the struggle to survive when life is hard, but I get the feeling that the blood and the truth, the fire of his youth etc are all still worthwhile even if the cost has been terribly great, even if his home is faithless and fairweather and has to be left behind. I want to know what the hatful of rain is and whether he's found it or whether it's something he still hopes for ahead of him.

I was kind of tempted to nominate the album rather than the song and ask for a crossover with Old Haunts where you get "don't sing me your songs about the good times, Those days are gone and you should just let them go .... Old haunts are for forgotten ghosts". I chose not to and I'm explicitly not asking for that, because I don't think the two songs are really telling the same story (in some ways they have opposite stories, moving on from good things that have gone vs moving on from bad things or dreams not fulfilled), but I get the same kind of feeling from the lyric about old haunts and forgotten ghosts as I do from the sons of regret and saying goodbye.

(I should say that I am very definitely asking for a story from the song, not RPF - and I wouldn't know enough about the band to follow RPF anyway)

Sign up details said --
I have no idea what a story based on this song would look like, but would dearly love to find out. It could be an entirely realistic story, or turned into a fantasy or SF setting. I love the song for the combination of driving rhythms, regret and passion, strength and hope. I love the sense of second chances or a new and changed purpose, of the orphans becoming the sons of regret becoming the sons of these songs.

Philadelphia Story (1940),
Tracy Lord,
C.K. Dexter Haven,

This is a repeat request from last year. I truly love this film, but there's no denying that it's got some problematic bits.

The things I love first:

I love Tracy, love that she's strong. I love that she's been trying to force herself into a mould that she and society think is "good" but she gets to the point where she has the courage and self belief to be herself in passionate three-dimensional glory. I love that she decides she doesn't want the man who would give her a prefabricated role as a perfect society wife but would then leave her to spend the rest of her life playing that part. And I love that she's already resolved that that's not what she wants before she thinks she has any chance of getting Dexter back.

And I love Dexter. I love that he's an alcoholic who's managed to stop drinking. I love that he's changed. I love that he doesn't make excuses for his past, but has gone out and found work and is dealing with the consequences of his actions. I love that he wants the best for Tracy and that although he'll stop her wedding to George by any means necessary, he would stand aside if she wanted Mike.

I love the film for the banter and wit, for second chances, for the way Tracy and Dex actually "get" each other -- and some of the other characters get them and each other too -- and because the characters change and grow. (And although it's probably not relevant to this request, I truly love the scene where James Stewart is very drunk and Cary Grant is very sober and they work out the plan to double cross the gutter press.)

But then there's the less fortunate elements; the way that, along with encouragement to be herself, Tracy is still being given some really unhelpful lessons about a woman's responsibility. (She's to blame for her father's affair? Really? And let me say that I thoroughly approve of her getting herself out of a relationship with an alcoholic, even if he has managed to stop drinking since.)

What I'd really adore is Tracy/Dex set after the end of the film that takes seriously their histories and the history between them -- things like him being an alcoholic who hit her when he was drunk, even though he's now sober and non-violent, and the really unhelpful messages she has absorbed about it being her responsibility to make other people happy -- but a story that still manages to come to a happy resolution where they know and trust and value each other as well as loving each other. If your heart quails at that (and I can see why it would) then anything with snarky interaction between the two of them, and the affection showing through would make me happy.

Sign up details said --
I'd really love Tracy/Dex set after the end of the film that takes seriously their histories and the history between them -- things like him being an alcoholic who hit her when he was drunk, even though he's now sober and non-violent, and the really unhelpful messages she has absorbed about it being her responsibility to make other people happy -- but a story that still manages to come to a happy resolution where they know and trust and value each other as well as loving each other.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR KING OF ATTOLIA AND THE TWO BOOKS BEFORE IT IN THE SERIES; Minor spoilers for Conspiracy of Kings

Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner,
Hilarion (Queen's Thief),
Philologos (Queen's Thief),

If you've been assigned to this request, I can only assume it's because you offered "any" characters for this fandom. And I'm sorry!

If you're currently scratching your head and wondering what on Earth is going on in my mind, I'd like to make the case that these two tiny characters do have not only a lot of depth, but a lot of character development and relationship development between them in the course of King of Attolia. And I'd like to direct you to a separate post where I have laid out pretty much every mention of either of them in any of the books and which I hope will make a case for it.

I love these books for the intricate politics, the depth of the characters, the way that humanity and compassion are often matched with ruthlessness, the way that faith makes things more complicated not less. I love Gen and Attolia and pretty much all the main characters, but yuletide was always going to be the only chance I ever had to ask for Hilarion/Philologos so that's what I'm asking for now.

I love these characters in particular even though they are so minor in the scale of things. I love the way they start off being Sejanus's dupes, fairly shallow and self-interested, but that they grow and change over the course of the book. I like the growing courage and honour that makes Philologos both confess his own wrongdoing and makes him take on a growing leadership role among the King's attendants. I like the way that Hilarion also takes on personal responsibility and how -- into Conspiracy of Kings -- he starts doing what Gen needs his attendants to do, even while Gen is still assuming he can't trust them. I love the way their own interactions with each other deepen throughout the book as Hilarion looks out for Philologos and Philologos becomes a voice of conscience and insight. There's a relationship between them to be extrapolated from the books and an increasing amount of respect that the other attendants hold them in, as well as their complex relationship with the King.

I love the effect that Eugenides has on on the people around him; by the end of KoA, I'm entirely convinced that he has won his attendants' passionate loyalty, even though he's still utterly infuriates them -- and even though CoK makes clear that he thinks he can't trust them. (And partly through Ion in CoK but mainly through Hilarion and Philologos' own actions and behaviour in KoA, I'm convinced that they've become "Eugenides' men" -- to paraphrase Harry Potter -- through and through.)

I don't see Hilarion and Philologos as already being in a relationship by the end of King, but I do see the potential growing, all mixed up with them becoming capable of more and greater things themselves and with navigating the complexities of Attolia's court; a whole set of my favourite things. I'd love a story where they do become a couple in among all the complications of mixed loyalties and court politics and whatever Gen and Attolia decide to do next. If you don't want to do slash, or if I've failed to convince you on the pairing, then a gen story using these two characters to focus on life among the King's attendants, the same complexities and the same sense of it means to be drawn into Eugenides orbit would also suit me very well. I'd like to think that they ultimately become Eugenides' trusted lieutenants (in the non-military sense) and that that makes their lives far more complicated, not less, but there's no need to write that far into the future if there are other things you'd rather focus on. In either case, I'm happy for anything between most and very little of the story focus to be on the King and Queen, so long as it's from H &P's perspective or includes the effect on them. Or a story in Gen's perspective as he gets to actually know them could also be fun.

Sign up details said --
If you're completely baffled by this request I'm sorry! I swear the pairing makes sense and I do have more explanation at my Yuletide letter. I'd love a story where they become a couple in among all the complications of mixed loyalties and court politics and whatever the king and queen do next. I'd like to think that they ultimately become Eugenides' trusted lieutenants (in the non-military sense) and that that makes their lives far more complicated, not less.

BOOK DESTROYING SPOILERS FOR DEMON'S LEXICON AHEAD. Plus spoilers for the ending of Demon's Covenant

Demon's Lexicon - Sarah Rees Brennan,
James 'Jamie' Crawford,
Nicholas 'Nick' Ryves,

I only started reading this series in the last few months and I don't think I've loved new reading material so much since I discovered Megan Whalen Turner. (High praise indeed!) I'm serious about the book destroying spoilers, and also that it's really, really worth reading these books unspoiled -- if you don't already know them, please click away now (and then go buy and read!)

I love everything about these books. I love the intensity combined with the wit. I adore Mae and Sin unreservedly. I'm very fond of Alan, even (or especially) when he's being entirely amoral or sacrificing the world for the sake of Nick. But Jamie and Nick are the ones I love the most, both separately and together. (Despite the fact that everyone has complex motives, I don't have much sympathy for Gerald or the other magician leaders -- once they are feeding people to Demons for the sake of getting power for themselves, protestations that everyone is morally ambiguous just don't stack up to me).

So, Jamie and Nick. I love the demon/magician thing. I love that Jamie could rule and remake the world if he controlled Nick or that Nick could rule and remake the world if he controlled Jamie and that if they don't it's only because they choose not to. (We're back to choices about what matters here).

I love Jamie's courage, even when he's terrified. I love his goodness that doesn't mean weakness and his strength that doesn't mean he has the skills to join a physical fight. I love his wit even when he's facing horrors and even when he's completely unprepared.

I love that even when Nick fails to grasp humanity, he is still fiercely protective of the people he loves (or at least sees as his). I love that even when Alan is most worried about what Nick is and whether he cares about anything at all, we can see that Nick feels far more than he is able or willing to say I love that --

“I thought that demons weren’t supposed to lie,” Mae said.
“We don’t,” said Nick, his hands light on the wheel and his voice even. “But I am in full possession of the amazing power of being sarcastic.” (and that's even in the context of fretting about Jamie's feelings)

Putting them together, I love the way that throughout Covenant, albeit largely out of Mae's Sight, Jamie and Nick are developing a friendship, training a little with knives, doing things that are supposed to terrify Jamie and that Nick isn't supposed to be capable of. I love that even while Nick is struggling with Mae and Alan about very basic issues of humanity, he is still developing bonds with Jamie. I love the wit and the banter in the interaction between them even when it's serious; for example --

Nick put (the knife) away. “Just making a point.”
“Yes, I took your point,” Jamie muttered. “Right up against my throat.”...
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he told Jamie suddenly.....
“Okay,” said Nick. He turned to Jamie and popped his left wrist sheath again. “Look.”
Jamie backed up. “Which part of ‘completely terrified’ did you translate as ‘show us your knives, Nick’? Don’t show me your knives, Nick. I have no interest in your knives.”

I love the way that Nick is focused on protecting Jamie, albeit in a terrifying fashion, I love the way that these weighty bits of dialogue are scattered through several pages of action, I love the way Jamie retains his composure and his sense of humour.

Or later on the bridge with Celeste, I love --

“You’re not taking him,” said Nick. “He’s ours.”
“I really kind of am,” Jamie put in. “I mean, I’m mine. Nick is being horrifying and inappropriate as usual, but I’d much rather go home with them. Not that I don’t appreciate the kind offer of hospitality as expressed by kidnapping me.”....
“Everything is all right,” Celeste cooed. “I don’t blame you for an instant. It’s made you promises, hasn’t it? It’s made you want to do anything it wishes. It’s shown you marvels.”
Jamie blinked. “If you’re talking about Nick, all he’s shown me is this car he’s fixing up. And honestly, I wasn’t that interested.”
“You said you were interested,” Nick commented, his voice dry.
“Well, I was being polite.”

And a little later, really demonstrating why I love them both --

“I didn’t mean for you to take that the wrong way,” he said abruptly.
Mae stared at him in amazement. So, for that matter, did Jamie. “What?”
“Demons don’t touch anyone without a reason,” Nick went on, his eyes shut again. “You can imagine what kind of reasons we usually have. I don’t like – not anyone – I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Oh,” said Jamie. “Oh, that’s okay! That’s fine. I understand. I am filled to the brim with understanding and, and acceptance! I’m very Zen like that.”

And I get total shivers towards the end of the book --

“I’m really sorry about this,” he said. “I know that you’re upset about Alan and you don’t know what to say to me about – about anything, and this is the worst time to try and talk to you.... there isn’t any other time I can talk to you. I just wanted to say that you were a great friend. I’m really glad you asked me. I’m really glad we did that. And you can go and find Alan now. You don’t have to say anything at all.” Jamie stood a careful distance away from Nick and spoke carefully too, anxiously, trying to get it just right....
“Hey,” Nick said abruptly, and tossed something at Jamie’s head. Jamie caught it, fumbling it a bit, and then almost dropped it when he saw the rough carvings on the bright handle and worked out what it was.
“A knife, Nick?” he asked piteously. “I feel so betrayed.”
“It’s a magic knife,” Nick said. “I made it myself.”
“I don’t want to seem ungrateful when you have given me this thoughtful, homemade and totally terrifying gift,” Jamie told him. “But you can’t imagine that I’m going to use it.”
“Just to hold someone off. Just remember what I taught you,” said Nick. “Just buy a little time so I can come and get you. Jamie. I’ll come and get you.”
“Nick,” Jamie said. “I know. Thank you for my scary knife.”

Who am I kidding? I could quote almost anything either of them ever says to the other and love it. I've quoted vast paragraphs of the book above and I was still really sorry whenever I had to cut anything out.

I'd love a Nick/Jamie story, with them fumbling their way to a real deep relationship, perhaps picking up on issues of humanity and integrity, power and trust, or right and wrong, the choices they make or the ability to love, but with the lightness of their banter showing through. And if Nick/Jamie isn't your thing, I'd still love something with friendship and wit and all the same issues that arise when a Demon and a Magician come together as friends. And honestly, if Nick and Jamie are in it, I'll love a story which does pretty much anything at all.

Finally a note about spoilers -- I've read both Lexicon and Covenant. I've also read Sarah Rees Brennan's first posted snippet of Demon's Surrender (the one with Jamie and Nick). I'd be happy with something based on that or something that goes entirely AU after Covenant, but I won't necessarily read any further snippets or spoilers that come out for Surrender. I don't think there's any way anyone is going to get to read the book before Yuletide, but if by any chance there are further spoilers around/you find an ARC/you are one of SRB's beta readers, please don't include recognisable spoilers beyond what I've read!

Sign up details said --
I love this pairing being about Magicians and Demons, that either of them could use the other to rule the world, but they don't have to choose to do so and I love the way they build a friendship despite Jamie's fear and Nick's lack of people skills. I'd really like a Nick/Jamie story, with them fumbling their way to a real relationship, perhaps picking up on issues of humanity and integrity, or power and trust, or right and wrong and the choices they make, but with the lightness of their banter still showing through

An explanation of why one of my yuletide requests makes sense

lesserstorm — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:02:14 GMT

Nothing to see here. Whistles innocently.

This is basically a supporting post to try and explain why I don't think one of my yuletide requests is foolish or unreasonable. Hilarion and Philogos are two minor characters in Megan Whalen Turner's King of Attolia, and in an attempt to explain why I see huge potential for character development and a burgeoning relationship between them, this post contains every mention of them in that book and the sequel.

Please don't read if you haven't read the series -- I've been quite ruthless about cutting parts of scenes to only show the Hilarion and Philologos dialogue -- if you don't already know the books, you won't be able to follow this post, but you will still gather enough to be spoiled for a wonderful story.

King of Attolia

Hilarion, the heavyset attendant, was the second son of a coastal baron. He brought the king the wrong trousers and was sent back to the wardrobe....
....Most of the attendants had the kindness to look uncomfortable, knowing that Costis was paying for their transgressions. Hilarion glared at the king, safely out of his line of sight. Sejanus only looked amused. He raised his eyebrows and smiled as if he expected Costis to share the joke. In this way, Costis fully realized his new function. He had been elevated from obscurity so that there would be some victim in the pecking order lower than the king.
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Sejanus was clearly the leader even though the attendant Hilarion was oldest and Philologos, the youngest attendant, an heir to a baron, was the highest in rank.
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As the king made every effort to conceal his handicap, the attendants made every effort to emphasize it. If the king wanted his bread sliced, he had to ask. If he stubbornly declined to ask, then Sejanus, or Hilarion, would make a show of distress that they had forgotten to slice it for him. Twice more the king locked himself in his rooms. Both times he allowed Costis and only Costis to stay with him.
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“You do have to admire him. Sejanus, I mean. Not the king, of course. He tells Hilarion, who supports the queen, that any attack on the king, even so much as a mismatched stocking, is a blow for the queen. The next day, he might tell Dionis, whose family has never supported the queen, that to ridicule the king will shame the queen as well, and somehow he is perfectly convincing.”
“They don’t notice that he has no loyalty to either side?”
“They don’t care.” Costis stopped to think. “Or they are afraid of the wrong side of his tongue. He can make anyone who crosses him sorry. Philologos doesn’t like all these pranks. He’s his father’s heir, not some wild younger son, but Sejanus pulls everyone’s strings like a puppet master.”
-----------------------------------------------------------
Costis looked down at the woman in his arms. She had a name. She was Irene. He’d never thought of her having any name except Attolia, but of course she was a person as well as a queen. Lying in his arms, she felt surprisingly human, and female. Costis, suddenly uncomfortable with his burden, was relieved when Hilarion lifted her out of his arms and carried her away to the guardroom. Her attendants followed after, clucking like hens.
-----------------------------------------------------------
“Yesterday, I thought he loved her,” Philologos said plaintively.
“I think he did,” said one of the others.
“And she—”
“And I think,” said Hilarion, cutting short further discussion, “that we are not all needed here, and as all of us have been up through the night, some of us, at least, should go to bed.” He put a hand on Philologos’s shoulder and pushed him toward the door that led through the king’s wardrobes to the cell-like, semiprivate rooms where the attendants slept. “Who knows but that you will get up to find that the world has inverted itself yet again?” He looked around the room at the other attendants as if in warning, but spoke to Philologos. “Remember, the love of kings and queens is beyond the compass of us lesser mortals.”
If anyone noticed, no one commented that he had called the Thief of Eddis a king.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Philologos got up from his bed to find that the world had not reinverted itself and was in fact exactly as he’d left it, much to his distress and the distress of many others. The queen did not leave her apartments. The king, when they eventually knocked on his door, got himself out of bed to open it, and told them to go away.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Only Philologos was unwilling to be let off so easily. “Your Majesty,” he said sternly. “We have behaved shamefully. You should not overlook it.”
“I shouldn’t?” The king was amused.
“No.” Philologos was not.
“You tell me,” said the king. “What should I do?”
Philologos didn’t smile back. “We should be dismissed, if not banished outright.”
His fellow attendants looked at him as if he was out of his mind.
“That’s a little fierce, isn’t it?” said the king. “To deprive your father of his heir and his only son because of schoolboy tricks?”
Maybe Philologos hadn’t thought this through, but he didn’t waver. Exiled, he might still inherit his father’s land and property, but would hardly be able to administer them from outside the country. His father, in the interests of his property and dependents, would likely be forced to disinherit the young man and choose another heir, a cousin, probably, if the man had only one son, or a daughter if she could be safely married to a man who would hold and defend the family’s land.
“For schoolboy tricks?” the king repeated.
Philologos licked his lips. “The snake was not just—”
“Philologos,” Hilarion interrupted. “Before you betray a man’s misdeeds, you might check to see if he has the same sense of nobility as yourself. However, as you have done so”—he turned to the king—“perhaps you can exile those of us responsible for the most grievous offenses against you, Your Majesty, and send Philologos back to his father.”
The king appeared taken aback. “I am surprised, Hilarion, to see your nobility can rise to the occasion, but I hadn’t intended to exile any of you. Not even for the snake. I think it is all in the past now. We can leave it there.”
“Your Majesty, at the very least we should all be dismissed from your service,” Philologos insisted. “Whatever he implies, I—”
“Put the snake in my bed,” the king finished for him. “Yes, I know. He was trying to save you from yourself, but he didn’t need to. I knew who delivered the snake, and who put the sand in my food...
-----------------------------------------------------------
The king turned to Costis. “Go get a squad ready to escort me.”
Philologos protested naively, “You said you were going to rest.”
The king only flicked a glance in his direction. “I lied.” .....
.... A short time later the king himself appeared, trailing worried attendants.
Hilarion stepped faster, passing the king. Once ahead of him, and between the king and the door, he stopped and turned around to ask bluntly, “Where are we going, Your Majesty?”
The king tilted his head and looked up at him through narrowed eyes. Hilarion swallowed, but the king chose to give him an answer. “So far today I have pardoned people I would have preferred to exile, exiled the only member of this court that I like, and imprisoned for life a man I would have preferred to execute. I am going to the palace prison to indulge myself. I think I deserve it. You may stay here.”
“No!” A little too loud. “I mean, please, no, Your Majesty. We should be with you.” Or the queen would have their heads, thought Costis.
“I will have my guards with me. They are sufficient.”
“Your Majesty.” It was Philologos. “We are your attendants, aren’t we?” His expression was equal amounts pleading and resignation.
The king rolled his eyes, but gave in. “Three of you may come.”
He left it to them to choose. Hilarion and Sotis, now that Sejanus was gone, were the two obvious choices. Costis was a little surprised when Philologos also stepped forward and even more surprised when the other attendants backed down. The three followed the king out the door.....
.....They reached the grand staircase that led down four levels to the ground. The king glared at the steps in front of him.
“If we may assist you, Your Majesty?” Hilarion offered.
“You may not.”
-----------------------------------------------------------
“A chair,” said the king. He considered the prisoner and then turned to Philologos. “And some water. Get it from the kitchen.”
Philologos hurried out the door....
....Philologos came back with a skin jug in his hand. Sotis took it from him, and, following the king’s indications, he bent to tip it into Relius’s mouth.....
....Then the angry flush in the king’s cheeks faded away. He let the queen’s message drop from his hand, his face as white as the paper it was written on. He reached for the chair, and his hook banged awkwardly over the top of it. He was swaying as he turned to catch his balance with his remaining hand. Philologos was nearest and raised his hands to help, but backed away. They waited. The king held the chair, stared into invisible space, and slowly his color came back. He started to speak twice, and stopped. He experimented with a small breath, then took a deeper one, and finally spoke without turning his head.
“I don’t care whose orders you think you are following, Captain, but you will see that Relius is moved to the palace infirmary and some physician, other than the butcher down here, treats him.
-----------------------------------------------------------
“Your Majesty,” Hilarion wailed, sounding more like Philologos.
“I lied.” The king interrupted without lifting his head and without pausing as he continued painfully up the stairs. With no choice, the attendants followed.....
....It had been added to the palace by the current queen’s grandfather in a day of flamboyant architecture and was made of two colors of stone, speckled like a lattice and faced with decorative brickwork. The king paused as if admiring it, then went up the decorative brickwork as if it were a staircase and disappeared over the edge of the roof.
Consternated, the attendants stared at one another. After silent prodding Philologos called, “Your Majesty?” but there was no answer.
Hilarion put his hands to the brickwork and cautiously began to climb, not sure how he would continue when his path took him over the edge of the wall and out above empty space. He didn’t find out. He’d gone no more than a few careful steps when the king’s voice came over the edge of the tower roof.
“I will have you granched,” he said quietly.
Not wanting to end his life hanging impaled on stakes, Hilarion stepped hastily back down.
It was more than an hour before the king came down, and Relius had long been in his bed in the infirmary before his attendants and guard returned the king to the royal apartments.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Philologos passed the velvet ribbons of the bed hangings through his hand. The bedpost nearby was marked as if hammered over and over with a pickax. The wood was splintered and gouged. The holes were surprisingly deep.
“They won’t know details. They won’t hear any from us.”
“They won’t need to,” said Hilarion.
Philologos poked his fingers into the holes....
....“Our little king doesn’t like people trying to assassinate him.”
“He isn’t angry because someone tried to kill him,” Philologos said sharply.
“How do you know that, Philo, dear?”
But Philologos had had enough of being condescended to. “Because, Lamion, I am not as dumb as you think I am, even if you are.”
By the time Lamion had parsed this to be sure there was in fact an insult at the end of it, Hilarion had laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“So, tell us, Philologos, your insight.”
“He isn’t angry because Nahuseresh tried to have him killed,” Philologos told them. “He is angry because he can’t go kill Nahuseresh in return.”
“Because he is king,” agreed Hilarion.
“Not because he’s king,” Philologos said, disgusted by their dull wits. “Because he has only one hand,” he said, voicing the king’s bitterness as his own.
The attendants looked around them at the mess, at the fabric sliced again and again until it hung in threads, and the bedpost marked by gouges. They looked back at Philologos with new respect.
“That’s what he doesn’t want the queen to know about.”
No one disagreed. They turned their attention to cleaning what they could and arranging for the wall to be repaired, and discussed, very carefully, how they might suggest to the rest of the court that the king’s tantrum was caused by his dislike of Nahuseresh, and nothing else.
-----------------------------------------------------------
“We’ll all hang for it,” said Hilarion. “I know why you don’t want to get involved. You certainly owe us no favors, but I swear on my honor, Costis, name your price and we’ll pay it, if you can get him off that wall.”....
....Get him to sword practice in the morning.”
They wavered.
“When I said, name your price, I was thinking of silver,” Hilarion admitted.
“I wasn’t.” “All right,” he capitulated, “if that is your price, but you are obviously a lunatic, too.”
-----------------------------------------------------------

And that is it. Every mention of either of them by name (although they do appear among the mass of attendants a few more times). But now tell me there's no story potential there. It's not just the chance to extrapolate their own relationship, but also the story of how each of them becomes respected by the other attendants at they get to know the King and change from despising him to serving him wholeheartedly

then there is only a tiny mention of Eugenides' attendant in conspiracy of kings, but some of Sophos's dialogue with Ion is also relevant

Conspiracy of Kings

When he was done, Hilarion arrived and introduced himself as one of the king's attendants.
He asked if we would be able to join the king and queen for an audience. I should have paid more attention, but I was still eating what I could from a plate of fruit and trying not to drip anything on my coat. I didn't realize until we had followed Hilarion through the narrow corridors to the main staircase that we were heading toward the megaron of the palace, the largest of the throne rooms. When we reached the doorway, we could hear the quiet rustling of the crowd beyond, and when I looked past Hilarion, I could see only a narrow aisle open in the center of the room....
....if I could have, I would have signaled Hilarion and waited until a less public moment to talk with Attolia and the new Attolis, but it was too late.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The men in uniform were obviously the king's guards. The others were like Hilarion, Sounis assumed, more of the king's companions. They were attractive in the way only the very well heeled can be. Trained in all the arts of riding, shooting, fighting, dancing, and clever court dialogue, their kind had intimidated him for years, and Sophos, now Sounis, quailed at the idea of surrounding himself with such companions.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Your Majesty?" Hilarion spoke from the doorway, ushering Sounis into the room, where Eugenides waited....
....When the king of Sounis was gone, Eugenides's attendants, waiting in the guardroom, heard the wine cup smash.
Philologos stood, saying wearily, "I'll clean it up," and went to fetch a cloth.
-----------------------------------------------------------
They parted ways, and the magus and Sounis, led by Attolis's attendant Hilarion, made their way back to their rooms.
-----------------------------------------------------------
After she had been announced, but before Hilarion could introduce Sounis, Eddis had raised her hand to silence the attendant and wordlessly withdrawn.
-----------------------------------------------------------

At his own door, Sounis said to the attendant, "I am sorry to keep you away from your king."
"As you have noticed," said Ion, "he will not have missed me. We are merely for ornamentation, like the king's coats, his boots, and his embroidered sashes."
Sounis said, "Gen's very fond of his boots," and then, when Ion smiled painfully, wished he hadn't.
"Not even that, then," Ion murmured as he opened the door to Sounis's suite of rooms. "Verix is waiting for you and will attend you until morning."
-----------------------------------------------------------
"And your attendants?" Sounis asked. "Every one another Ambiades," said Gen, referring to the traitor who had betrayed them both when they followed the magus in pursuit of Hamiathes's Gift. "I'd had some hope for Philologos," Gen admitted, "but Sejanus won that hand neatly."
Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances."
Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?"
Sounis couldn't argue with that. "Perhaps you can bring out better in them?"
Eugenides shook his head. "I pulled the carpet out from under them very thoroughly. They will not cross me, but they won't love me, either. I am not Eddis. People do not hand me their hearts."
Sounis wondered. He would have given Eugenides his heart on a toothpick, if asked. He remembered Ion's obvious wince at being rated somewhat less significant to Gen than his boots.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Sounis waited.
"I did arrange the meeting with Zenia that the ambassador used to his advantage, and I will have to inform the king."
"And what will he do?"
"Send me away," said Ion. "This is one too many mistakes to forgive."
"You would prefer to stay?"
Ion shrugged at the irony of his situation. "I would."
"You could apologize," Sounis suggested. "He has a soft spot for idiots. He's always been very kind to me."
Ion shook his head. "I do not think he has any such soft spot for me, Your Majesty."....
..... Ion unexpectedly smiled. "I would be gratified to serve Your Majesty," he said sincerely.
"You would rather serve Eugenides," said Sounis. "Only tell him so, and I will have to find someone else to keep an eye on all my new finery."
-----------------------------------------------------------
Conversationally, Eugenides said, "What are you doing rescuing my attendants from their own folly?"
"Did you let him go?"
"I'm still thinking about it, shocked as I am to find you raiding my overelegant lapdogs for your own companions."
"I astonished myself," said Sounis. "I might perhaps have been prejudiced in my earlier judgment of them."
Eugenides popped a grape into his mouth and said seriously, "I will rethink my own judgments, then."
-----------------------------------------------------------
He had arrived at the palace late the night before and had risen early in the morning, expecting to find no one but the two honorary royal guardsmen and his own personal guard in his anteroom. Instead he found Ion, the attendant of the king of Attolia, waiting by a bench against the wall.
"You're still here, then?" asked Sounis, in surprise and pleasure.
"Yes, Your Majesty. My king thought that you might wish to dress with particular care this morning. There will be an official reception in a few hours." Ion was smiling. They both knew that Attolis hadn't been referring just to the ceremony planned for the day.

Thinking about Yuletide

lesserstorm — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 23:31:47 GMT

Another year down, Yuletide nominations already over and this is my first journal post of the year. Which leaves me with some serious thinking to do about whether I participate again this year.

I love Yuletide. It's one of my favourite parts of the fannish year. In recent years it's also been the one big motivation for me to come back to writing. On the other hand, last year's participation for the first time became a burden as well as a joy and one that I seriously feared I might have to default on. Not because of the request I was given -- which was lovely --, but just because real life placed me under so much pressure as deadlines loomed. And I look around me now and have to accept that things in the off-line world are busier and more stressful this year than last.

(I was also one of the people hit hard by the overloading of AO3 on Christmas Day -- over the holiday period, I tend to snatch moments for Yuletide on other people's computers; being unable to get into the archive then meant it was almost New Year before I was able to read -- or to respond, which didn't feel very fair on my wonderful writers. As far as reading and recommending over the anonymous period went, I had to forget it. As for reading and recommending in January; well I was working long hours, had bookmarked other people's recs to read later and then lost them all when my hard drive died.)

My final decision is probably going to depend on when signups open and whether I can seriously predict a free weekend to write in November after I'm likely to have an assignment; December is looking impossible. But oh, I still do want to participate!

And since this year has been so busy I haven't postede at all, let me very belatedly point out the stories that were written for me --

Lean on Me by CiraArana
Source - Tanya Huff - The Fire's Stone, Aaron/Darvish
Darvish is fighting old demons.

One of the things I love about the source canon is the way that all three protagonists are individual and their choices and characterisations have consequences. So I'd asked for something that would really explore that in the context of a future relationship between Darvish and Aaron. It was probably an intimidating request to make, but I'm so glad I did -- the author really picked up on all the issues where the guys might quite legitimately have insecurities about each other or see their relationship in different ways while still having you rooting for a relationship that fundamentally should be able to succeed.

And then the ever talented edenfalling wrote me a treat --
And Both Shall Row
Source - Susan Cooper - Seaward

900 words of Cally and West meeting again and a real delight. And as well as everything else, she gave Westerly a nationality and an ethnicity and a back story to match the story in the books; I knew I wanted that, but I didn't realise how quite how much until I saw it written out.

(And she's since written a prequel as well -- Wings To Fly -- if you know Seaward the book, go check both stories out)

My own story was in the world of Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia series -

The King's Guard
Costis is just glad to be a squad leader again, even if Aris does say he's starting to think like a politician.

Major spoilers for King of Attolia, so don't read if you're not that far on in the series.

Yuletide - I love this time of year

lesserstorm — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:13:57 GMT

Dear Yuletide author

Thank you so much for offering to write for me! I seem to have run on at great length in my requests, so I'm not going to go into a great deal more detail on the individual fandoms here, but I do want to stress that I know that optional details are optional and that I really would like pretty much anything with my requested characters. It's also worth saying that a lot of the length of my requests is in the vein of "maybe this!" "Or maybe that!" "Or here's something else that would be really cool too!" I hope that might give you a feel for what I love in the source material, but I don't necessarily expect you to write any one of my "maybe"s and I certainly don't expect you to write all of them.

Slightly unusually for me, three of my four requests are actually shippy. (I'm usually a gen writer myself). All three pairings are actually canonical, so I'm hoping you won't have too many problems with the mere idea of any of them, but I'd be okay with anything from a story all about the lurrve through to a story with them doing something entirely unrelated to their relationship. I admit that all three pairings are OTPs for me though, so if you really can't see them together please go gen rather than breaking them up. On the fourth request, I've no problem with you pairing Tanaqui up with someone but I've no stronger desire for relationship fic than for gen.

Drawing heavily on last year's letter, things I don't like include deathfic; incest; torture (unless surrounded with a lot of comfort); unrelieved bleakness; happy endings that cheat; pure fluff; "love" that really needs a restraining order and characters who are too stupid to live. I'm generally bored by PWP (although if the story calls for sex, then any rating you write is okay by me) and would rather no femslash and no very strong kink.

Random things I do like (I don't expect any or all of them and some of them wouldn't work with particular prompts or fandoms); happy endings; people having to work for their happy endings; happy endings that suggest there is still more work to be done; people facing and overcoming real trials and difficulties; people who love each other working together; platonic love being as important as romantic love; lovers who value, trust and like each other; comrades who know they can rely on each other; people who support each other; people keeping or recovering their integrity; characters wresting grace out of chaos; characters striving for goals more important than their own happiness; characters putting honour and integrity above their own interests; complex characters; music and stories; hope; compromise; messy relationships between characters, (not necessarily romantic ones); stories that are driven by relationships, (not necessarily romantic ones); character driven action plots; political cities; strong women; ambiguous characters; characters who are more competent than they appear; characters pretending to be morally worse than they are; protagonists who act and do things rather than just letting the story happen around them; flawed characters; likeable characters; characters living with integrity in societies that lack it; people who manage to change their worlds for the better; cynical characters who believe in people; intelligent writing; acts that have consequences; people being smart; people being competent; people being kind; people making their own families; ruthless characters acting with compassion; unexpected kindness; triple-crosses; second chances; duels of nerve; fluid power dynamics; a strong sense of place; characters who can do more than they think; stories that follow through implications that are there in canon but not dwelt on; stories focusing on relationships between characters I like anyway; stories that do different things at different levels.

And in case you feel like looking into a different fandom from the one where we match or just so I can pimp my fandoms to other people on my friends list, here's a brief, non-spoilery description of each one and the reasons why I love it. (I'm also putting my requests at the end of this post, but they are highly spoilery for the end of each story.)

The Philadelphia story -- a film starring Katherine Hepburn as an heiress trying to do the expected thing, Cary Grant as her ex-husband and James Stewart as the reporter who gatecrashes her second wedding. Should still be readily available. I love it for the banter and wit, second chances, the fact that characters actually change and grow, the way Tracy and Dex actually "get" each other and so do Tracy and Mike and for the scene in the early hours of the morning where Cary Grant is very sober and James Stewart is very drunk. (I'm explicitly not asking for slash in this fandom though as it would break up my OTP). There are a couple of unfortunate gender issues among the awesome - you'll see that my ideal fic would tackle them rather than ignore them.

The Fire's Stone -- a stand-alone fantasy novel by Tanya Huff with a princess trying to get out of an arranged marriage, the dissolute prince she's been betrothed to and a street thief all needing to track down the magical artefact that will save the Prince's country. I love it for the strong relationships between the three protagonists, the way that they have non-stupid motivations for the things they do and face real consequences of their weaknesses and the way they completely resist being slotted into neat categories as hero(ine), sidekick and love interest. The fact that the setting is not generic Euro-fantasyland doesn't hurt either. The book is out of print, but quite a quick read if you can track down a copy and is also included in the omnibus Of Darkness Light and Fire (the other novel in the omnibus is unrelated).

Seaward -- another stand-alone novel, this time YA fantasy, from Susan Cooper (who wrote The Dark Is Rising). Calliope is a western teenager; Westerly has been torn from a country which seems to be undergoing a violent coup. They meet in a hostile and mystical world where they appear to be pawns in a literal game between Lugan and the sinister Lady Taranis. I love the mythic feel of the story and the allusions that are only half explained, but more than that I love the characters and the very real relationship that develops as they cling together. And Lugan and Taranis are awesome characters too. This may also be out of print, but should be available secondhand. It's a coming of age story, a quest fantasy and an interracial romance (though the author doesn't do a great deal with the cross-cultural elements).

The Dalemark Quartet by Diana Wynne Jones -- not stand-alone, but well worth reading and as the books are children's/YA they are quite quick to read. Although it's not as well-known as her Chrestomanci series, this jostles with Howl's Moving Castle as my favourite DWJ book. It starts in a fantasy world similar to ours perhaps 200 years ago, on the brink of industrialisation with travelling singers (minstrels!) involved in revolutionary plots. The second book is in the same era, but with largely unrelated characters and the third book dives back into the country's prehistory. And without wanting to spoil anything, the fourth book pulls strands from all the other three together as well as touching on the modern era. I love this series for the characters, the world building, the way the different strands are woven together in the end, for times when music might also be magic and for the endnotes written in the style of modern historical commentary. In order, the books are; Cart and Cwidder; Drowned Ammet; The Spellcoats; The Crown of Dalemark.

And finally for reference, these are my requests -- please note that they generally spoil the endings if you haven't read the originals.

Susan Cooper - Seaward - Calliope/Westerly

I'd really like to see Cally and West meeting again in our world. I'd love you forever if you can include a background of real-world unrest/violent coups/refugees that ties in with West's backstory in the book but I won't need that to be happy with the fic. Things I love in the book include the mythological feel (selkie hands etc) and the really vivid relationship between the two of them; but I also like the idea that although it's a sacrifice to return to what may be a harsh reality, their lives will be real and they and their love will both grow there in a way that they couldn't in Lugan's country. (The promise that they will remember when they meet each other again so what they've gone through in the book won't be lost is an important part of the ending for me.) I also enjoy Lugan and Taranis as characters, but don't need them to be in your story. I'd be happy with any mood from one that incorporates magic/myth to one that was very realist.

Diana Wynne Jones - Dalemark Quartet - Tanaqui

I'd pretty much like any Tanaqui story set at any time in Dalemark's history, though preferably not a missing scene from any of the books. I'd particularly like anything with her using weaving magic or that delves into what it means to be undying. Was she "the witch Cennoreth" who went in search of Gull ("the hero Gunn")? What was she doing while her daughter was determined to believe her husband was undying? Just how much power does she have? Why did she choose to live a retired life, weaving in a cottage rather than staying young and travelling like Duck or fading into myth and legend like Old Ammet and Libby Beer? What changes does she see in Dalemark between prehistory and the present day? Do include any other canon characters or none. I love the "historical" footnotes at the back of the books, but certainly don't need them in your story. Gen is great but if you do pair her up I'd prefer not femslash.

Tanya Huff - The Fire's Stone - Aaron/Darvish

I'm hankering for Darvish/Aaron set after the book ends and please don't make it OT3. (I'm happy to see Chandra in the fic but one of the things I love about the book is that the relationships between the protagonists are equally important without being the same and for me a threesome blurs that line.) That said, there's a million things about the guys I'd like to know -- how do they each adapt to life in Chandra's court? Only Darvish has an official role: does that cause problems? Would Darvish manage sobriety and monogamy (assuming he tried*)? Could Aaron trust him and feel secure in their relationship? Why wasn't there more kissing/sex in their last scene together? Hurt/comfort would be fine (though not required), but please don't leave them miserable in the end.
*I should say that I prefer monogamy and think Aaron would too - I just also think Darvish has been very much in the habit of casual drink and casual sex.

The Philadelphia Story - C.K. Dexter Haven/Tracy Lord

I'd really adore Tracy/Dex set after the end of the film that takes seriously their histories and the history between them, but still manages to come to a happy resolution where they know and trust and value each other as well as loving each other. By "history" I mean things like he is an alcoholic and hit her when he was drunk, even though he's now sober and non-violent; she has absorbed a lot of really unhelpful messages about it being her responsibility to make other people happy along with gaining the courage to live life passionately. If your heart quails at that (and I can see why it would) then anything with snarky interaction between the two of them, and the affection showing through.

Dreamwidth

lesserstorm — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:24:54 GMT

I've had very little personal computer time recently (the fic tbr folder is increasing fast!) and don't expect much in the next few weeks. And I'm very behind on reading my friends page. But I'm delurking, mainly to say that I've set up openid and a reading list over at Dreamwidth.

For now I've tried to replicate my lj reading list, though as that involved a bit of searching and a lot of clicking through other people's circles I'm sure I've missed some people. But if you're clicking back through from DW, this is who I am. If you're over there and I've missed you or you don't know me and think I've mistaken your account for someone else, do let me know.

Master list posted

lesserstorm — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:04:15 GMT

Because I'm starting to accumulate fic in various places around the internet, I now have a sticky post at the top of my journal with a fic master list.

Poetical Days by Lesserstorm

lesserstorm — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:36:20 GMT

A pointer to my latest flashfic. This is for the emo challenge and is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever written.

Title: Poetical Days
Author:lesserstorm

Rating: PG
Spoilers: none
Wordcount: 1884

Summary: Even in hindsight, Merlin maintained that the problems did not begin with him writing poetry. They began when Arthur caught him writing poetry. It didn't help that the poem in question was an overwrought description of the anguish of life.

Merlin, Arthur, technically gen.

Changes by lesserstorm

lesserstorm — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:49:49 GMT

In pursuit of my aim of writing more frequently in 2009, I have committed flashfiction

Title: Changes
Author: lesserstorm
Rating: PG
Spoilers: none
Wordcount: 1300

Summary: Morgana's mind is torn apart, she can govern no one. Perhaps if Merlin had reached her before Uther's men reached him she might have been saved. Five intertwined ficlets

Follow the fake livejournal cut to merlin_flashfic

Comments disabled to keep all feedback on the challenge community

friends update

lesserstorm — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:57:38 GMT

I have just added 35 people to my friends list.

If you're wondering why you're one of them, quite a lot of you are people I came across in the course of this year's Yuletide and others of you have journals I've been browsing from time to time over several months or I found you while reading other people's friends lists. You probably write things I've enjoyed reading, or have interesting things to say about books or media, fandom, writing, history, maybe current events.

I use my friends list as a reading list and I won't be offended if you don't friend me back, but everyone is very welcome to do so. A glance down my recent entries will show you that I'm not exactly high-volume, so I'm unlikely to clutter up your reading list unduly. Last year I don't think I posted anything between one Yuletide and the next, although I'd like to write a little more in 2009. I don't post under friends-lock, so what you see is what you get.

Its only fair to admit that I'm one of the worst journallers ever -- I post irregularly, I'm slow to reply to comments and although I don't filter my friends page, I don't always manage to keep up with it either; if there's something you really need me to see, you're probably best to leave a comment -- I do have comment notification turned on.

Although I don't use filters and although I want you all on my friends list (or I wouldn't have just added you), I have effectively just doubled the size of my reading list, so I'm going to have to see how that works in practice. But if I do find I need to cull my reading list again it's likely to be because I can't keep up with the volume or because our interests simply don't seem to coincide as well as I thought they did; I can virtually guarantee it won't be personal.

Yuletide reveal and thank you post

lesserstorm — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:18:13 GMT

I wrote three stories this Yuletide.

My first and official story was The Tumultuous Events at Raxenhyrst written for JackOfNone in Philip Reeve - Larklight series (5,585 words)

Although a young gentleman of the British Empire should not be forever complaining about trifles, when Art Mumby returns from Starcross life at Larklight is dull and his sister Myrtle is annoying. So he welcomes a journey to Mars, even if it is to attend a gala ball. But Raxenhyrst House holds a dastardly secret and Art's inability to dance will be the least of his problems.

I got it uploaded with a few days to spare, mainly because I knew I would be out of the house quite a lot in the run up to the deadline. So of course the obvious thing to do with a week and a half before the archive went live seemed to be to read through the pinch hits, people's dear writer letters etc. And from there I wrote another two stories.

What Is And What Seems To Be written for ineptshieldmaid in Arthurian Legend (3,007 words)

She is the Saxon princess, a token of friendship between two powerful kings. She is the ambassador's tool, a weapon to his hand.

Walking into Legend written for Kali in Merlin (TV) (11,394 words)

Sorceror, King, Queen. Seer, Druid, Knight. They walk into legend, one step at a time. (Includes slash, het and lots of non-shippy politics for people who like to be warned for any of those things.)

And yes, I know Merlin is totally not a small fandom any more, but it barely existed when nominations closed and it still qualified when requests were put in.

If you are interested in reading, but don't know the fandoms, What Is And What Seems To Be should work for anyone with only the vaguest familiarity with Arthurian Legend. The Tumultuous Events at Raxenhyrst stands pretty much alone, and is probably worth trying just for the concept of Victorian space pirates at a formal ball on Mars, but will mean more if you know the books. It does contain one significant character spoiler for the first book in the series (Larklight) but nothing I consider a major plot spoiler and one spoiler for something that happens very early on in book 2 (Starcross). It was written before I even read book 3 and therefore contains no spoilers at all for it. And now might also be a good opportunity for me to strongly plug the books. Walking into legend is probably the most dependent on canon; it picks up immediately after the end of the season finale and for me at least, both the characterisation and plot hinge quite closely on things that were revealed through the first season; other people's mileage may vary.

I have many thanks to make, beginning with the long-suffering phlebas who every year dives into a fandom he doesn't know to be my beta and helped pull The Tumultuous Events into shape.

And thanks to attempt_unique and everywherestars who emerged from yuletide chat to beta read What Is And What Seems To Be and Walking into Legend respectively in mega-quick turnaround time and putting up with a lot of e-mails from me saying things like "I'm still not finished, so will you be about to do a beta tomorrow instead?" and "I know I guessed about 5000 words, but it grew a bit."

And thank you to everyone who has enjoyed, commented on and recommended my stories. I'm overwhelmed with how much love you've been giving me. I have oodles of intelligent, perceptive comments grappling with the stories, I've seen them in many peoples recs and I've made the Popular Merlin Bookmarks page on delicious. I will be responding to comments over the next few days, but in the meantime; Thank you all!

Many thanks finally to the authors who wrote for me:lferion for The Duty of a Bard and care-says for Five Loves in Jaxon Halsing's Life.

lesserstorm — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:49:25 GMT

This has been a great year for yuletide and there are a lot of fantastic stories to be found just by browsing the site or following other peoples rec posts. However I did want to post mine too; I still have several stories bookmarked for reading later, but these are my top 10 so far. I'm not trying to claim they're objectively the 10 best stories in the archive or even the 10 best that I've read (although they are all excellent); but they are the ones that have really stuck with me.

ETA I didn't get this post formatted before the reveal went live, but recs are always good things anyway right? I haven't altered this post except to add in the author names. I will be updating again with details of my own stories and thanks to everyone else involved, but it may not be till tomorrow.

Diana Wynne Jones - Homeward Bounders

To Be of Use by Elizabeth Culmer

This fleshes out the back story to a world that is relatively modern, that fights demons and that sees slavery as normal. Joris and Konstam (and the other Khans) are three-dimensional and real I love the way the author tackles Joris’s hatred of his slavery but worship of Konstam and his passion, dedication to and choice of the dangerous job they do. Wonderful back story for two characters I now feel I understand much better than I ever did. Utterly wonderful and one of my favourite stories this year.

Diana Wynne Jones - Dalemark Quartet

The Last Free Soul of Dalemark by Firerose

Really wonderful exploration of the way stories develop, of the cost to Mitt in becoming King and of a minor character who fades away from the books. Also makes fantastic use of the notes and modern history of the world, both the ones DWJ puts at the back of the book's hand the ones the author has created for this story. And Mitt appears in a very unexpected guise.

The Prisoner's Dilemma by Becca

Excellent exploration of Navis Haddson in Holand, of his survival in among the palace's intrigue through inaction and of the shrew politician and kingmaker who was waiting to emerge.

The End Is Where We Start From also by Firerose

Mitt realises his immortality and outlives his life as Amil (and Moril is there in his old age too.)

Diana Wynne Jones - Chronicles of Chrestomanci

Rhinegold by rosemaryandrue

I loved this. It's a really in character and in keeping exploration of the worlds and it was really nice to see Conrad as an adult carrying out a responsible and competent job surrounded with genuine feeling issues and politics. And of course it's always nice to see the kids well written and doing their own thing in their own way.

P G Wodehouse - Jeeves and Wooster series

Deus Ex by innocentsmith

I loved both the conceit behind this and the delicate way the author plays with it. It's about what's Jeeves does on his his summer holiday, which is not what you would think and it's also about his stories. Exquisite.

Merlin UK (tv)

Double-edged Sword by Valderys

There have been a lot of good Merlin stories this year (and there is no way that this fandom will remain eligible for yuletide next year) but I think this may be my favourite for the ways it is wily and twisty and plays with prophecy, time and memory. It's hard to talk about it too much without spoilers but I loved the way that this story takes up the tradition of Merlin living his life backwards and just how heartbreaking that is. (And although Morganna isn't in this story, it still makes my heart ache for her too.)

(And who am I kidding, trying to stick to 10 stories? It's also worth checking out the full Merlin Page and I also particularly liked That Shall Achieve The Sword by astolat, Buggre Alle This by Signe, Wings of Desire by Raven, The Last Word by Greensilver, Reasons Why by Ankaret and Camlann also by Ankaret)

Robin McKinley - Sunshine

Gyre by Sister Coyote

This is the story I knew I wanted when I finished the book, although I didn't know what form it would take. Sunshine is forced to grapple more deeply with her magical heritage and to confront the Inspector, but she also remains firmly grounded in flour and butter and everyday things. This perfectly captures the characters, but it's far more than a character piece. Perfect.

Terry Pratchett - Discworld

Queen of the Cats by Gehayi

A full-length story in the style of the master, featuring Granny Weatherwax, the Vimes family, the patrician and more. I particularly love this version of young Sam Vimes and the patrician's interference in his upbringing makes me squirm with glee.

(Also well worth checking out in Discworld -- Entering with Intent by shewhoguards and What Money Can't Buy by gillionoz, both of which feature Sam Vimes at Hogswatch and The Uninvited Guest by akamarykate with Granny Weatherwax at Susan's christening.)

Bible - New Testament

Man of Cyrene by Lucy Gillam

An excellent character piece and just painful enough and human enough for the subject matter. I know that some people are a bit wary of Bible fiction but this is one that I think you could enjoy regardless of your own beliefs or knowledge of Christianity.

Yuletide

lesserstorm — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:01:09 GMT

Happy Christmas to everyone who celebrates it.

I've not had much opportunity to browse the Yuletide archive, but I have managed to read my own gifts. And I have two, in two different fandoms, so many thanks to my mystery authors!

The Duty of a Bard is from Patricia McKillip's Song of the Basilisk -- after the end of the book, the music School, Tourmalyne house and people's lives are all being rebuilt. There is a mix of politics, music and the personal dimension, a real sense of hope and new beginnings, of things being unearthed and of the building of a new future on different principles to the old regime and with Luna's goodwill

Five Loves in Jaxon Halsing's Life is from Sharon Shinn's Summers at Castle Auburn and traces Jaxon's life from his first glimpse of an Aliora to what happens to him after the end of the book.

Both stories are lyrical, in slightly different ways and they each capture something of the feel of the original.

I'm particularly impressed with the mystery authors as my original writer had defaulted and they had been a mixup with the pinch hits. Thankfully, I was offline throughout Christmas Eve, so although I knew I was on the original "Yuletide treat -- no story in the archive" list, I didn't see the last-minute e-mails looking for authors going out 24 hours before the archive went live. So it's a real tributes to my writers' skills and dedication to Yuletide that these stories were shiny and ready for me in the archive when it went live.

Both of these fandoms are so tiny as to qualify as fandoms of one, so if you know the books, do drop by and read the fan fiction -- there's not a lot of it around. (And if you don't know the books, go and find them!)

lesserstorm — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:50:58 GMT

It's this time of year, when everyone is bustling around getting pinch hits in and writing extra stories that reminds me just how much I love Yuletide!

I got my story in in the middle of last week (mainly because I wasn't sure how much time, if any, I'd be able to spend at the computer on Saturday.) So of course the sensible thing to then do seemed to be to start writing a couple of extra stories. I wouldn't want to not be under pressure! Many thanks to everyone who's given a hand with getting everything beta'd and finished; I'll be more explicit in my thanks after the reveal.

My own requests are still on the Yuletide Treat List (which means no story uploaded for me yet). It started off at about 160 people and is now down to 51. So maybe this is the year I break Yuletide after all. Seriously, if you are my pinch-hitter, then thank you ever so much and I'm sure your story will be wonderful. Something similar happened last year and I ended up with the most fantastic epilogue for Song of the Basilisk -- Caladrius-centric so not competing in any way with this year's request -- as well as an extra little story

And anybody who is feeling bored today or tomorrow should hop over to http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/index.shtml and consider writing some extra snippets for some lucky recipient (not necessarily me!)

One last thing, for my long-suffering writer, I'm going to be away from home between this afternoon and New Year. There technically will be Internet access, but I have no idea whether it will be practical to borrow a computer and use it to read stories. So I may be online a lot, but if you don't hear from me quickly -- I probably haven't seen my story at all and I will be back to give feedback as soon as I possibly can.

A letter to my Yuletide writer

lesserstorm — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:18:06 GMT

Dear Yuletide writer

I did worry that this might be the year I broke the Yuletide matching process -- all 4 of my requests are character specific in very obscure book fandoms. So I really will be delighted with whatever you write and I hope my chosen characters aren't too daunting. However having said that and repeating myself a bit from last year --

I like character driven action plots; political cities; strong women; ambiguous characters; characters who are more competent than they appear; characters pretending to be morally worse than they are; people keeping or recovering their integrity; characters wresting grace out of chaos; characters striving for goals more important than their own happiness; characters putting honour and integrity above their own interests; complex characters; happy endings; people having to work for their happy endings; happy endings that suggest there is still more work to be done; people facing and overcoming real trials and difficulties; people who love each other working together; platonic love being as important as romantic love; lovers who value, trust and like each other; comrades who know they can rely on each other; people who support each other; music and stories; hope; compromise; messy relationships between characters, not necessarily romantic ones; stories that are driven by relationships, not necessarily romantic ones; protagonists who act and do things rather than just letting the story happen around them; flawed characters; likeable characters; characters living with integrity in societies that lack it; people who manage to change their worlds for the better; cynical characters who believe in people; intelligent writing; acts that have consequences; people being smart; people being competent; people beiing kind; people making their own families; ruthless characters acting with compassion; unexpected kindness; triple-crosses; second chances; duels of nerve; fluid power dynamics; a strong sense of place; characters who can do more than they think;

I also like long plotty gen, or stories where the romantic relationship is part of a larger plot. I like stories that spin-off canon or follow through implications that are there in canon but not dwelt on. I like stories focusing on relationships between characters I like anyway and characterisation that is canon based. I like stories that do different things at different levels

I don't like deathfic; torture (unless surrounded with a lot of comfort); unrelieved bleakness; happy endings that cheat; pure fluff; magical soul bonds; "love" that really needs a restraining order; characters who are too stupid to live. I love gen, would be happy with most ships within the characters I requested and except where I said things specifically in the details, but am bored by PWP and would rather no femslash and pretty much nothing that could be characterised as "kink". Having said that, if the story calls for sex, any rating you write is okay by me.

Yuletide assignments are out

lesserstorm — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:59:29 GMT

And I'm really excited about mine.

So before I go to refresh my knowledge of the canon, I'm posting my requests here for reference. I made four requests, all in fairly obscure book fandoms and all with specific character requests, so I'm deeply relieved that I didn't actually manage to break Yuletide. (I'm also excited that by the time sign ups closed there were not only offers to write in all of them, but more than just my request in all of them. So hopefully that will translate into lots of lovely fic to read.)

And if anyone reading this doesn't know these books, can I encourage you to go out to find them; only the Hambly is a series (historical mysteries); the other three are standalone fantasies with magic and court politics -- seriously, what's not to love?

Barbara Hambly - Benjamin January series -- Chloe St Chinian, Dominique Viellard, Henri Viellard

I'd really like a Dominique-centric story set any time after Wet Grave. I'm particularly interested in her choices as a placee in contrast to her sister's lifestyle and her very deep strength of character. And I'm fond of Chloe and Henri too. I'd love to see all three of these characters grappling their way to a "happy in their time" ending, without trivialising the inhumanity of the society they all live in. And I'd love a story that introduced new plot rather than just a glimpse inside their heads. No OT3 please -- in this case it feels as if it would be a way to avoid the issues. I also love Ben, Rose, Olympe and most of the sympathetic characters from the series -- it'd be nice to see any of them in the story, but I'd like the focus to be on the three characters named.

Patricia A McKillip - Alphabet of Thorn -- Bourne, Nepenthe, Tessera, Queen of Raine, Vevay

Tessera discovering her potential after the end of the book and starting to draw together the components of a golden age. Ensemble piece please, court politics, unexpected grace, people realising their strengths and becoming comfortable in their own identities would be great. I came to love Bourne throughout the book for the way, in spite of his flaws he instinctively support the Queen in crisis and yet he never seems tempted to abandon Nepenthe to court Tessera even when it would be incredibly expedient to do so.

Patricia A McKillip - Song for the Basilisk -- Giulia Dulcet, Hollis Tormalyne, Justin Tabor, Reve Iridia

I'd love to see Giulia and the other musicians rebuilding the Tourmalyne school while Hollis rebuilds Tourmalyne house. Although I've not named her in the character list, it's always a good thing to have Luna in the background weaving a careful web of government. I loved the interactions in this book between music and magic and the different meanings of being a bard. Gen very welcome; any pairing okay, canonical or not.

Sharon Shinn - Summers at Castle Auburn -- Coriel Halsing, Jaxon Halsing, Rowena, Queen of Alora

I'd love a story about the Aliora and especially something that recognizes the ways in which they are not human, while fully being people. I don't normally like "missing scene" stories -- it feels as if I already know the ending. But I would like to see the story of Jaxon and Rowena extending from their early days past the end of the book. Can the price she has paid be worth it? Can he ever be anything other than enchanted? What would it take to really be a story about love? Or I'd also love a story about Corie going finally to Alora after a long happy life and after her husband's death. No need to include both Jaxon and Corie, though I would like at least one of them.

lesserstorm — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:07:02 GMT

Reading this livejournal, you would think I disappeared each year between January and October, appearing only for Yuletide.

It's not quite true -- I have been around, and though I haven't always been reading friends lists regularly I usually have been present, though not always commenting.

The thing I have not been doing is following any TV series at all. This was originally to do with travelling extensively in the spring (I can tell you that if it's a choice between travelling around the other side of the world or seeing the fourth season of Doctor Who, there really is no comparison.) But although it began accidentally, it's actually been remarkably liberating. I think I'm pretty much spoiled for any of the series I ever cared about, so I've still been following the fannish buzz, but spoiled or not I have no great inclination to sit down and catch up -- or even to put any effort into watching the next series. Instead, I've found myself reading a lot, spending some weekends catching up with friends and I thoroughly recommend it.

I will be doing yuletide again this year -- I plan to sign up later today, so my requests and further details will be appearing soon.

Final Yuletide Post

lesserstorm — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:27:06 GMT

The yuletide reveal happens at New Year, so I'm only 2 months late announcing my stories. For my assignment, I wrote Long Time Passing for delurker, in the world of Diana Wynne Jones's Dogsbody, Kathleen/Sirius, 14,000 words. I swear I didn't expect it to be above 3000. But I had a brilliant time writing the story -- delurker's detailed request was for something that struck me as begging to be written when I first finished the book and that I'd have liked to read by somebody else, although I wouldn't have dreamt of writing it were it not for yuletide. Then, of course, once I started working it out it became obvious quite how many obstacles and difficulties the book leaves in the way of making it work. So delurker;, many thanks for the request and for pushing me to write something I would never have started on my own. In the event, I'm really pleased with how the story turned out and, although Dogsbody is a tiny fandom, the lovely and wonderful comments I got seem to indicate that the readers who commented did really get what I was trying to do. It's ridiculously late to respond to comments individually, but thank you eveyone who commented.

Then, right around the time of the deadline, I thought a bit further about the original request I had received before the rematched one. I wasn't running right down to the last 10 minutes before the pinch-hitter and treats upload form closed, but I did have about 36 hours (during which time I was also working) before I lost all computer access until the New Year. So of course, the sensible thing to do seemed to be to write another story as a Yuletide treat for sjkasabi Falling Stars and Cloudless Skies, Venetia/Damerel in the world of Georgette Heyer's Venetia. The yuletide archive gives a word count of 1000 words, but in fact the story is only 900, the remainder being a footnote giving lots of attributions. (Well of course Venetia and Damerel would make love in quotations! I do need to admit that I didn't originally know all the poems or sources, until I surrounded myself with half a dozen poetry books and a dictionary of quotations...)

My Song for the Basilisk gift, the fantastic The Ice Song was by halfpint jack and my Fire's Stone treat was by Esteliel

I'm afraid I'm not proposing to go back to my previous recommendations post and add names, but I have added a further 11 recs for Watership Down, Greek and Roman mythology, fairy tales, T.H. White, Young Wizards Series and Temeraire, so do go back and take a look if any of those fandoms interest you. And I do need to make special mention of rosemaryandrue who wrote no fewer than three of the stories I originally recommended.

This brings the total number of my recommendations to 53 so I've also put together a list of my top 10 as follows (Okay -- make that eleven...)

Stories which stand on their own and can be read without too many spoilers for the books

The Murder at Missel Hall -- Diana Wynne Jones - Chronicles of Chrestomanci -- A brilliant magical mystery, set a few years after Conrad's Fate with all of Christopher's generation just maturing into adulthood
La Familia -- Diana Wynne Jones - Chronicles of Chrestomanci -- fantastic, long ensemble story; the castle is in uproar when Millie becomes mysteriously sick.

Two, Side by Side -- Naomi Novik - Temeraire series --- Fantastic (and canonical) blending of Temeraire and Chinese legend in the story of MuLan

Spider's Web -- Mythology - Greek and Roman -- Penelope's courtship in among Helen's

Stories which stand on their own but contain significant spoilers for the ends of the books

Unseason -- Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion series -- Ista riding into a mystery which is like a slice of the books

Dearer for its mystery -- Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion series -- takes Ista's retinue into the newly conquered Quadrene lands and mixes the story up with her still troubled relationship with her gods

The Ascent -- Susan Cooper - Dark Is Rising series -- a powerful story of Barney, his family and friends a few years later.

Stories which contain spoilers for the books but also work better with a knowledge of the canon plot or style (though don't let that stop you if you don't plan to track the books down)

The Ice Song -- Patricia A McKillip's Song for the Basilisk -- Caladrius in the hinterlands. Things beautiful and cold and costly and strange, the ice bone beast, silence and songs of death and life and truth.

Brought to Light --Robin McKinley - Sunshine -- just a lovely story, picking up after the end of the book

Bright Moon, Who Goes Farther Still -- Richard Adams - Watership Down -- Two does' stories

Allow For Inflation -- Diana Wynne Jones - Dalemark Quartet -- my favourite of 3 very good Maewen stories after the end of the book.

And finally I just want to say what a fantastic time I had during yuletide. I delved deeply into source material I would never normally have written for, I completed stories for the first time in 4 years, I received the most fantastic yuletide story myself and although I mainly lurked on the yuletide community, it was a brilliant thing to see this massive, wonderful project come together over the last week or so of deadlines.

Yuletide stories

lesserstorm — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:25:53 GMT

The yuletide stories are up and I'm still incoherent with delight over The Ice Song which was written for me in the fandom of Patricia A McKillip's Song for the Basilisk. There are some fantastic stories this year, but I honestly think this is the best of all -- and it was written for ME!! It is beautiful and lyrical and captures the style and mood and heart of the original perfectly. Caladrius in the hinterlands! Things beautiful and cold and costly and strange, the ice bone beast, silence and songs of death and life and truth! This is absolutely the epilogue that the book doesn't have and it's perfect.

And now that the stories are up, I can admit that, although I would have been delighted with something written for any of my requests, a story like this one on this subject is what I was secretly hoping for. It was totally unexpected -- I knew from reading the website as deadlines loomed that my requests were on the pinch hit list and this really is the smallest fandom ever -- I've never found even one other story in it and the book is somewhat hard to find, so finding a pinch-hitter can't have been the easiest thing to do. Yet my unknown writer wrote something wonderful with the very soul of the book shining through. I want to tell everyone to go out and read it, but I do have to admit that the story is both spoilery for the book and depends on it for a lot of its power. So if you know the source, go read at once. Otherwise, particularly if you like things wild and strange, stories of politics and magic and wonderfully drawn characters, track down a copy of the book first, and then read this.

I was also lucky enough to receive a Yuletide treat, A Wizard of the Nine, a short but delightful snippet of future domesticity with Chandra, Aaron and Darvish in the fandom of Tanya Huff's The Fire's Stone

Thank you again to both my writers!

And now I have more recs -- a lot of them in fact -- in 18 mainly book related fandoms

My next two favourite stories after The Ice Song are both in the world of Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion series and both have Ista riding out with her small retinue as Saint of the Bastard after the end of Paladin of Souls.

Unseason has her riding into a mystery which is like a slice of the books.

Dearer for its mystery takes her retinue into the newly conquered Quadrene lands and mixes the story up with her still troubled relationship with her gods

Robin McKinley - Sunshine

Brought to Light -- a just lovely story, picking up after the end of the book

Demerara -- a sweet insight into Sunshine's childhood

Robin McKinley - Damar series

Good and Faithful -- some years later, Jack has left the city, but there is more going on than Harry is aware of

Exhaled at Noon-- Culture shock -- just because Jack loves the hills, it doesn't mean that they have accepted him without any reservations

Lake of Dreams -- Corlath's kelar manifests when he is 17, but I like the story most of all for the appearance of Aerin

Diana Wynne Jones - Dalemark Quartet

This is one of my favourite series, with far too little fanfiction. But this yuletide there are three different takes on Maewen and the few years following the end of the book. I think the first one is my favourite, but they are all very good, with subtly different approaches to the issues of being mortal versus undying

Allow For Inflation

The Paths of the Undying

Your Boy is Like a Memory

Diana Wynne Jones - Chronicles of Chrestomanci

The Murder at Missel Hall -- my other favourite story of this yuletide. A brilliant magical mystery, set a few years after Conrad's Fate with all of Christopher's generation just maturing into adulthood.

La Familia -- fantastic, long ensemble story; the castle is in uproar when Millie becomes mysteriously sick. I'm always a sucker for reminders that Millie is a powerful enchantress and a former living goddess in her own right

Christopher's Elephant -- a delightful slice of Castle life in the era when Christopher, Millie and the young enchanters are training together

A Benevolent Arrangement -- Tacroy, 25 years on and Gabriel's ruthlessness is revealed

No Good Deed -- a slice of life in the previous generation

Diana Wynne Jones - Homeward Bounders

The Wandering Jamie -- short, poignant and very in character

Diana Wynne Jones - Fire and Hemlock

Bagatelle -- Polly and Tom after the book

Diana Wynne Jones - Magids series

Intended -- I never expected to be recommending a story about Rupert's children

Susan Cooper - Dark Is Rising series

The Ascent -- a powerful story of Barney, his family and friends a few years later. Beautifully told, with menacing foreboding and my heart aches for Will, so isolated and unable to tell the others what they once knew. (Disclaimer: I'm one of those people who thinks that if you make children into heroes but then wipe their minds of everything they've learnt, done and become, you're asking for all the trouble you get. I like this author's resolution better, though.)

Lois McMaster Bujold - Vorkosigan series

How Bright is My Mud -- a short funny snippet as Ivan and Mark lose at war games

The Emperor's Curve -- Gregor's first night at school

Dorothy L Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey series

Ducenti Quinquaginta -- Peter and Harriet, newly engaged

The Dependant Classes -- Peter meets Bunter

Scarce Any Man -- Harriet before Peter in the days of Philip

Small Things -- a first family Christmas

The First Year After -- brilliant take on the year after Harriet's acquittal

Megan Whalen Turner - The Thief series

Strange Love -- just a snippet with Gen's cousins

Gosford Park

The Servants' Ball -- just what it says

Naomi Novik - Temeraire series

When the Wing is a Sail -- How hard it must be for an aviator and a non-aviator to even comprehend each other, let alone maintain a marriage.

The Dawning of a New Day -- Catherine at Lily's hatching

Long Live the Queen -- Temeraire surviving into the 20th century

Two, Side by Side -- Fantastic (and canonical) blending of Temeraire and Chinese legend in the story of MuLan

A Bit Discouraging -- poor Temeraire!

Jasper Fforde - Thursday Next series

The Eagle Conspiracy -- there is conspiracy afoot in Lord of the Rings

Intruder Alert -- silly meta where Thursday tackles an intruder, again in Lord of the Rings

Terry Pratchett - Discworld

Home for the Holidays -- Susan's first and only childhood Christmas with her grandfather

Not A Cat Person -- Granny Weatherwax is definitely not a cat person

The Birthday of Eternity -- Death is having a bad day

Most Interesting Day -- Carrot writes home

Shakespeare - A Midsummer Nights Dream

Apple Blossoms and Laurel Leaves -- Hippolyta, 20 years on

Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons

Tea and Biscuits -- the story of the mothers. Poignant and sad, but also the story of two lives lived well

TH White - The Once and Future King

Holy Days of Gramaryem -- It's a long time since I read the books, but this really captures the zany feel I remember
The Mantle and the Maid -- a gown for a woman true and fair..

Diane Duane - Young Wizard series

Fairest and Fallen -- Ouch!

Richard Adams - Watership Down

Bright Moon, Who Goes Farther Still -- Could be subtitled The Doe's story and manages to be simultaneously true to canon and open up a whole new side to Rabbit experience.

Fairy Tales (trad)

The Troll Princess -- Just what it says

Bittersweet -- ditto

Mythology - Greek and Roman

Spider's Web -- Penelope's courtship

Three Across -- Persephone and Hades at home
And never without sacrifice -- And my final rec is a story that reminds me just why I dislike most of the classical gods; but so well done.

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Finished!

lesserstorm — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:57:09 GMT

My Yuletide story is done and posted!

This is a fantastic feeling, particularly as there was a point a few days ago when it felt as if it would never happen -- not that you you're going to be able to identify it by looking at the longest stories in the archive; just that it's significantly longer than I thought it was going to be, with a corresponding increase in my stress levels as December passed. My poor put upon beta deserves special thanks for a super speedy turnaround, despite my increasingly frantic e-mails saying things like "well this is the first part, but I think there's around X pages still to come."

Panic notwithstanding, writing it has left me with a big urge to tell everyone that the original creator of my Yuletide source is insanely brilliant. Seriously –- the detail in their world is amazingly creative. Um… just wanted to say that -- can't really elaborate without giving anything away.

Writing I love...

lesserstorm — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:11:50 GMT

So this began life as a "dear Yuletide author" letter, but it probably serves as least as well as a guide to the kinds of things I like in fiction (not just fan fiction) and I hope also as a list of reasons why the three book fandoms I made my requests in are absolutely awesome and need more love. If you are my Yuletide author, please remember that the lists below are as much about what I love in published fiction is in fan fiction, that I know that some of the things I love really won't work with the requests I've made and that trying to include them all would quickly drive you insane :-)

Things I like --

Character driven action plots; political cities (think Berylon from Song for the Basilisk, or Cardegoss in Chalion); strong women; ambiguous characters, especially if they're women; characters who are more competent than they appear; characters pretending to be morally worse than they are; people keeping or recovering their integrity, especially in situations where that's hard; characters wresting grace out of chaos; characters striving for goals more important than their own happiness; characters putting honour and integrity above love and their own interests; complex characters; happy endings; people having to work for their happy endings; happy endings that suggest there is still more work to be done; people facing and overcoming real trials and difficulties; people who love each other working together; platonic love being as important as romantic love; lovers who value, trust and like each other; comrades who know they can rely on each other; people who support each other; music and stories; hope; compromise; messy relationships between characters, not necessarily romantic ones; stories that are driven by relationships, not necessarily romantic ones; protagonists who act and do things rather than just letting the story happen around them; flawed characters; likeable characters; characters living with integrity in societies that lack it; people who manage to change their worlds for the better; cynical characters who believe in people; intelligent writing; acts that have consequences; people being smart; people being competent; fantasy in settings that aren't mediaeval Europe; people making their own families; ruthless characters acting with compassion; unexpected kindness; triple-crosses; second chances; duels of nerve; fluid power dynamics; a strong sense of place; characters who can do more than they think;

In fan fiction I like long plotty gen, or stories where the romantic relationship is part of a larger plot. I like stories that spin-off canon or follow through implications that are there in canon but not dwelt on. I like stories focusing on relationships between characters I like anyway and characterisation that is canon based. I like stories that do different things at different levels, (except where I don't).

Some of my favourite authors are Lois McMaster Bujold, Megan Whalen Turner, Diana Wynne Jones (especially Ingary and Dalemark), Patricia Finney, Patricia McKillip (especially Song for the Basilisk and the Riddle Master Trilogy). My favourite LMB book is Memory. I'm sure I will love the Lymond series, but I've only read book one so far. A book is most likely to leave me cold if I don't care what happens to the characters or whether or not they succeed. So my yuletide author starts with a built in advantage because I love all the characters I've requested. I was slightly shocked during Yuletide signups to realise how many series I couldn't offer because of only having read books one or two -- a lot of things by Sharon Shinn come into that category. Please do recommend in the comments other things you think I might like.

In fanfiction, I'm not fond of prequels, missing scenes or anything where canon already tells me what happens next. I'm also not fond of extreme AUs -- e.g. the characters are all in a modern high school -- although I can be very fond of "what if..." stories that can break off from any point in canon and take the story in another direction. (Although the specific detailed requests I've made for Yuletide pretty much all pick up at the end of the stories in the books). I don't like character assassination, especially if it's to justify that heros doing things that would otherwise be horribly cruel.

Sex scenes tend to bore me and I often skim read them unless the specific detail of what is going on seems to be very important for developing characterisation, plot or relationship. If the sex really does do something important to the story (and with some of my requests it might) then feel free to go for as high a rating as you need to make the story work, but it's totally not something I require and I'd hate to get a story that was basically PWP. I wouldn't enjoy incest or chan. Also, not BDSM or most types of kink -- I suspect that this is a subset of not being particularly interested in sex scenes for their own sake.

More general things I don't like --

Deathfic; torture (unless surrounded with a lot of comfort); unrelieved bleakness; an authorial message that the world is hopeless and nothing can be changed (I'm actually thinking more of profic offenders here, though I wouldn't much enjoy that message in a Yuletide gift); pure fluff or schmoop; resolution of costly situations without actual cost; deus ex machina endings; love equating to a complete personality transplant; love conquers all -- especially when there is no reason love is relevant to the issues at stake; love seeming so important that all responsibilities and integrity is sacrificed for it; fated mates and soul bonds; particularly soul bonds meaning the relationship works by magic with no need to get to know each other or work for each other's good; romantic love that would require a restraining order in real life; one-dimensional gods; "good" characters belittling other people; characters, especially women, who are too stupid to live; people we are told are brave/clever/good but never given any evidence to show it; characters who don't spot things that a seven-year-old reader does; authorial condemnation for things that were actually reasonable decisions in hard circumstances; authorial support for things that would be unjustifiable if they hadn't been done by the heros; the author generally telling me what I should think in contradiction of the story s/he is showing me (why yes, I am thinking of RTD)

Again dear author, please do remember that I'm talking generally about what I like, not what I expect you to put into my story!

I didn't plan it this way, but all three of my requests have certain similarities of theme (although I did offer some alternatives). All three of them include characters I love and all of them are characters that the books leave in good or at least optimistic places, but also places that involve relationships, romantic or not, that are complicated, unconventional or unacceptable in their setting. All the books leave me with reasonable confidence that the characters are going to make things work out, but all of them also leave me with the feeling that there is a lot more to be said about just how things do work and what happens along the way. I'd love to see the characters making good in their lives and supporting good things for each other in spite of the obstacles they are all undoubtedly going to face. In any case, I'd really like the focus to be on the characters I've requested, unless you go for the specific alternative scenarios in my Song for the Basilisk request.

I will be cut tagging the specific requests as they all contain spoilers for the books

Fandom 1; Song for the Basilisk by Patricia McKillip
I read this relatively recently and it is not the easiest book to find, but it was a total joy to read. It hits pretty much all my buttons -- a strong presence of the city, political intrigue, characters I really care about (and not just the hero), strong women, ambiguity, strength manifesting itself in unconventional ways and the everpresent music of scholars and bards.

I asked for Caladrius and Luna and my detailed request was "I'd love to see Caladrius/Luna set after the book ends -- not so much love conquers all as love in among all the politics of Berylon and the weight of their own history and identities and being able to make a future for themselves without abdicating their other passions and responsibilities. Or Caladrius on his return to the hinterlands asking what it means to be a bard, what he finds there and what he becomes. Or what happens after the destruction of Luny and what the bards do next to preserve, recover or rebuild their music and tradition -- bonus points there for including Hollis. Or a story with two or more of these things. Including music in the plot would be a great thing. Feel free to ignore my character requests if you go for the Luny or hinterlands options. No death fic or pwp please.". Who am I kidding? I could request a dozen stories I'd love from this book alone.

Fandom 2; the Benjamin January series by Barbara Hambly
This is a series of murder mysteries set in 1830s New Orleans. Benjamin January himself is a joy of a character -- a Paris trained surgeon, with a tragic past, he has returned to the Louisiana leaving his wife dead of the plague in France. He is intelligent, perceptive and has a sense of integrity and justice (and sometimes righteous anger) that runs bone deep even when the entire world around him is at its worst. He is also a "free man of color", the son of a plantation slave and a white man's mistress, who supports himself as a pianist, New Orleans having no use for a doctor who is not white. (So in fact it is another series which is full of music, especially Die upon a Kiss). I wouldn't advise anyone to read these books back to back -- the mysteries can start seeming a little same-ish -- but then the books I really read to ask whodunit. I love the sense of place, the merciless detail of the setting (though it can be heart-wrenching to read), the compassion humanity and dignity of the central characters and the developing bonds between them. If this were a created world, you would expect a fitting resolution to the books to involve the protagonist changing his world for the better; as it is, January can solve a murder, but he cannot create justice in his society, or even free a single slave. And that makes the books hit hard.

And now my confession, and my apology if my Yuletide author offered "any" characters in this fandom. Because I didn't ask for Benjamin himself, or scientifically trained Rose who dreams her dreams despite how unacceptable they are for someone of her sex and race, or Benjamin's full-sister Olympe. No, I asked for Dominique, Henri and Chloe.

My detailed request was "A story about Dominique, Henri and Chloe anytime from the end of Wet Grave onwards. I'd particularly like to see more interaction between Dominique and Chloe, but not femslash or OT3 please. And it would be lovely to see how their unconventional status quo stands up to the unpleasant pressures of their society. Perhaps a story exploring Henri finding out about a friendship between his wife and his mistress, or how Dominique reacts if Chloe wants to know the child she might never have herself, or the way Chloe's youth and her hard-nosed business ability work against each other (and does this come up against Dominique's own strengths?), or about what happens if other people (maybe Chloe and Henri's family, but maybe Dominique's mother and friends) realise just how they are living their lives. Lots of local detail would be great and so would including Ben, but I'd definitely like the focus to be on Dominique, Chloe and Henri. No death fic or pwp please." This wasn't because there are not a lot of other stories with other characters that really deserve writing in this universe, but because I would love to see these three, relatively minor, characters create a way of life that can work for them on their terms despite everything their world can throw at them. I thought that Die upon a Kiss and Wet Grave really dealt well with the precariousness of Dominique's life an happiness. But although some truly dark or despondent stories would certainly be possible in the world of the books (and then it all became too hard and Dominique's lover abandoned her and she was forced onto the streets to support her children, before ultimately dying of cholera...), I'd really like a hopeful story. I don't want you to dismiss the difficulties, but I'd love to see them overcome. I specifically asked for not OT3 or femslash because it feels that that would be an easy way out, removing issues rather than tackling them and I'd really rather Chloe develops into a strong woman with her own happy-enough ending without her frigidity being magically solved. However I do understand that the details in Yuletide requests are optional, and I do realise that I've made a hard enough request with the characters alone.

Fandom 3; the Fire's Stone by Tanya Huff
This is another hard to find book that I love insanely for its characters. (It was reprinted as part of a combined volume, but the story it was packaged with is not nearly so good). The setting is vaguely Indian (the names, the racial make up and the general visual "feel" seem Indian, although the religion is very closely linked to the way magic works in this world and neither the religion nor the geography has real-world parallels that I can identify.) The plot sounds somewhat generic -- a wastrel prince, the neighbouring princess who does not want an arranged marriage to him and an outlander thief search for a stolen doodad to prevent the destruction of the kingdom. But the joy for me is in the details. For a start, this is one of the few books I can think of that genuinely has three main characters; they are all important, they are all given time on the page, each of them has a significant and developed relationship with each of the other two and it is truly not possible to break them down into stereotypes of "hero", "love interest" and "sidekick". They act with intelligence and common sense but not perfection or supernatural knowledge; their strengths are real but come with natural failings. And the author follows through on the consequences of her characterisation; for example Darvish is a drunken and debauched Prince -- this doesn't just lead to tortured angst, but to alcoholism and STDs (even if the healers' magic makes this not as dreadful as it could be).

My detailed request was "I'd really like to read Aaron /Darvish focusing on their relationship just after the book ends. It would be great to have Chandra present too, but not as part of a threesome -- one of the things I like about the book, and particularly its resolution is that there are really strong bonds between all three of them, but the bonds are not the same and don't need to be the same to be important and powerful. Maybe one or more of the following; Aaron making a place for himself in Chandra's court despite having no defined "job" there; Darvish exposed to the temptations to return to his old dissolute ways (and hopefully overcoming them); Chandra realising that regardless of her love life she already has strong responsibilities and commitments that temper total absorption in magic; the difference between Aaron and Darvish's previous experience, sexual, romantic or otherwise; factions within Chandra's court courting either or both of the guys to advance their own causes (and may
be playing divide and conquer?); Chandra using magic; Aaron working out what commitments Darvish has made to him and how secure he can be when he has no pulic role in this relationship (communication and miscommunication are both good here!) No death fic or pwp please although any rating is okay". I think that speaks for itself really and is probably the most obvious request based on the book. Again, I asked for not OT3 because I like the delicate, but asymmetrical balance in which the relationships are left at the end of the book, although I honestly think that there would be quite a lot of talking things out, trying to live them out and possibly misunderstandings before they really made them work.

And that is far greater length than anybody probably wants to read, but it's a good place to refer back to if anyone wants to know my tastes in fiction. I stuck with three requests, because these were the three fandoms in which I knew not only that I wanted a story in this world, but that I passionately wanted one about specific characters. If I had had to extend to four requests, the fourth would have involved either Megan Whalen Turner's thief series or Diana Wynne Jones's Dalemark quartet, with either of Lois McMaster Bujold major worlds as a fallback.