rosie_rues

Recs in Fandoms H-Q. So much good Hamlet fic this year.

( Old Kingdom – Garth Nix, Nightrunner series – Lynn Flewelling, Magids, Swan Lake, Howl )

First off, write something you'll enjoy. It's exciting just to have someone who loves the same crazy little fandoms as me, and I want you to have as much fun with it as possible. I'm not going to lay down some crazily precise requests, because I know how much that would throw me off, but I will tell you what I like about the fandoms I chose and hopefully that will give you some ideas.

( The season to be jolly: Drina, Chrestomanci, The Silver Branch, Swan Lake )

Oooh, it's yuletide time again. Christmas must be coming ^__^

( The season to be jolly... )

On a completely unrelated note, I'm appealing to the wisdom of my flist. My little sister has just announced she's pregnant, and she's miserable and puking at the moment. I want to get her something for Christmas which is all for her and will make her feel pampered, as I think she'll be drowning in baby fever otherwise (it'll be the first baby in a new generation, and our grandparents are already besotted even though it's not even a bump yet). Does anyone have any suggestions? The closest I've ever been to pregnant is covering a Year 4 class, and even they were too little and freaky for me (why do they lick table legs? Why glue their worksheets to their foreheads? What's the appeal of sticking pencils up your nose? Give me stinky teenagers any day. At least I can mock them without making them cry).

Awoke after slightly less than four hours of sleep to find the Archive open. I have two stories, both for Catherine Christian's The Sword and the Flame / Pendragon. I really thought that this was the little fandom that would defeat even Yuletide. As I said back in November, I was regarding the nomination as a chance to spread some love for a very good book. Whoever wrote this story has gone out and written for something they didn't offer *loves*

Yuletide Author, you are amazing. You went above and beyond the confines of Yuletide. Whether you knew the book already or read it for the first time to write these, you are brilliant. I'm already wildly excited about the stories and I haven't even read them yet. I'll leave you a proper, coherent comment later when I've got through the first bit of the day and woken up enough to read and comment thoughtfully, but know you've already made this a very good Christmas.

And for the odd Catherine Christian fan on my flist, they're here:

Three Things Worth Holding, three vignettes, two slash, one femslash.

Calling the King, Gen, Ygern-centric.

^____^

Merry Christmas all.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Firstly, thank you for offering to write in one of my tiny fandoms :) Secondly, please enjoy yourself. This is supposed to be fun. Write whatever you fancy about these characters and I'll enjoy it ^_^

( My fandoms: The Sword and the Flame, Howls Moving Castle, Drina, Much Ado About Nothing )

Hmm. I seem to have commented on 7.6% of the archive. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface - people, go forth and comment! There's a lot of good stories in there which are low on comments, including some of those below, even though some of them aren't in super-obscure fandoms. Be brave, good readers! There's treasure in them there hills!

Recs in fandoms M-A, in reverse alphabetical order. 31 Recs in 20 fandoms.

( Greek Mythology, Merlin, The Mariners Revenge Song, Eight Cousins, Lorna Hill, Homer, Georgette Heyer, Abhorsen, Fairytales, Malory Towers, Vicky Bliss, Diana Wynne Jones, Honor Harrington, David Eddings, Chaucer, Laputa, Arthurian Legend, Swallows and Amazons, Aladdin, Winnie the Pooh )

First off, I got Archer's Goon fic - The Problem With Being An Older Brother. I was really chuffed with this as the inclusion of this fandom was a very last minute thing because I happened to be reading the book the week that sign-ups happened and was seized by a desperate desire for more Erskine. And more Erskine is what I got - the story is an exploration of Erskine's changing attitudes towards Venturus from his birth to after the book. It's a spot on character piece and well worth a look :) Thank you, anonymous writer ^_^

I wrote five full-length stories and five stocking stuffers (and, yes, I did hide away with a sleep-deprived headache and sleep my way through part of Christmas afternoon). For the fun of it, I'm offering prizes to anyone who guesses any of them. Get one right and I'll write you a snippet for any fandom with any pairing (as long as I've actually read or seen it). Not restricted to Yuletide fandoms - I'll write Remus/Sirius if that's what the winner wants.

( Clues )

I've dipped into the Yuletide archive a bit today and will be tackling it more systematically tomorrow. What I've seen so far has been excellent.

In the meantime, I've seen a few people do this, so I thought it might be fun. I wrote six stories for Yuletide this year. If you can guess any of them, I'll write you a snippet or drabble in a fandom of your choice (providing it's something I'm vaguely familiar with, of course). Commments are screened.

A few hints:
Four of my stories were for books by the same author.
One was in a fandom I've written in before.
None were in the fandoms I wrote for last year's Yuletide.
Two of them included the same characters.
Two of them were slash, two were focussed on a particular character, and two were ensemble pieces.
The lowest rating of any was a G and the highest an R.
Four were set in worlds other than our own and one was set in the past.

I think I may be all yuletided out. I've done five (four of which were in, um, related fandoms). Considering that I missed the original sign-ups, that's not a bad show ^_^

The amazing yuletide mods have offered us pinch hitters the chance to put in last minute requests, which was quite unexpected. If you've snaffled mine, well, follow your muse and play to your strengths :) I tried to make my requests as pinch hit friendly as possible, and I wasn't expecting anything, so will be thrilled with whatever you write.

My brother's staying with me tonight, and he's just texted to say he's finished work, so I think I'll just tidy up a few other loose ends and then - well, let Christmas begin.

Happy Christmas, all :)

The Yuletide authors have been revealed!

Thank you, vassilissa for my lovely story - With Room To Grow In - Noel Streatfeild, Harriet/Lalla. Thank you so much. :)

I can also reveal my own contributions:

Feeling Blue for Raya. Hilary McKay's Casson Family series. If you haven't read this series, I recommend them. The Cassons are a wildly eccentric and artistic family, growing up in a small English town. The books are hilarious and touching in equal measure. I adore them and writing this was great fun. I found myself trying to pick up the style of the original, which was interesting and challenging. McKay is a very low key, restrained writer, and that's a tough thing to carry off and still be funny.

Eirias for Maud. Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising Series. Set in Oxford, one foggy midwinter, as Bran's memories begin to return. I don't have enough words to express how much I loved writing this. I realised as I wrote just how much Cooper's writing has influenced my own style - I read them so much as a child that they've sunk into my bones. Jane/Bran, Will.

I'd also recommend reading Memories of Things You've Never Known by kyuuketsukirui. This was written for the same prompt as my piece, but took it in a different direction. I found it fascinating to compare the narrative choices we both made, especially as some of the things that remained the same weren't obvious - for instance, the prompt did not specify that Jane should be pregnant, but we both wrote it that way. Fun.

Finally, I have now added author names to all my earlier recs