Beyond Selidor

Yuletide was a bit of a weird one for me this year, for reasons I've explained in other posts.

My gift itself was wonderful — a really good character study of Ban from The Queens of Innis Lear (Tessa Gratton) that dug into a lot of things I particularly enjoy seeing explored in fiction: travel causing people to shed their skin and come to a greater understanding of themselves, bittersweet relationships, and an emphasis on the sky and the natural world.

guiding star (1306 words) by liesmyth
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Queens of Innis Lear - Tessa Gratton
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ban the Fox (The Queens of Innis Lear)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Self-Discovery, mentions of Ban/Elia
Summary:

Sometimes a prophecy can be a compass, not a chain.

( What I wrote )

What did you write and receive? Is there anything you particularly enjoyed in the collection?

I'll post about the Australian election result in the next few days once the dust has settled, given it is uncertain whether we will have a minority Labor government with a confidence-and-supply deal, a Labor-led coalition with Greens and independents, or a Labor government with a tiny majority, but as you can probably tell from the array of possibilities, I have breathed a sigh of absolute relief.

Suffice it to say, I have a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge.

once_upon_fic authors were revealed yesterday, so I can now post enthusiastically about what I received, other recs from the collection, and share the work that I wrote myself.

My gift was this wonderful character study of the selkie woman in the Icelandic 'The Sealskin' folktale:

only a seal, only a skin (1131 words) by Pingoodle
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Sealskin (Icelandic Folktale)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Selkie Woman/Husband
Characters: Selkie Woman, Husband - Character
Additional Tags: Pregnancy
Summary:

I taught my six children what to look for, to soothe my heart. Again and again they’d come to sit at my feet and tell me: Only a seal, only a skin.

I also wrote a selkie story, although mine was for the slightly different Scottish variant on the tale:

The Sea Inside (1687 words) by Dolorosa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Selkie Bride (Scottish Folk Tale)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Selkie (The Selkie Bride)
Summary:

This is a story about the language of the sea, and the language of the land. An earthbound selkie sheds and reclaims many words, and many skins.

It seems to have been well received, and I'm glad from the comments that people could see what I was trying to do with language, with the landscape, and with the sea.

Here are my recs from the collection.

( Four recs behind the cut )

This was a great exchange in which to participate, and I'm so glad I took part!

Thank you for writing for me!

I'm pretty easygoing about what type of fic you want to write for me. I read fic of any rating, and would be equally happy with plotty genfic or something very shippy. I read gen, femslash, het and slash, although I have a slight preference towards femslash, het, and gen that focuses on female characters, and my requests and prompts in this exchange reflect that. Don't feel you have to limit yourself to the characters I specifically mention — I'm happy with others being included if they fit with the story you want to tell.

Feel free to have a look around my Ao3 profile, as it should give you a good idea of the types of things I like to read.

( General likes )

( DNWs )

Fandom-specific prompts:

( The Iliad - Homer )

( Rumpelstilzchen | Rumpelstiltskin (Grimm) )

( The Sealskin (Icelandic Folktale) )

( Tochmarc Étaíne )

Don't feel you have to stick rigidly within the bounds of my prompts. As long as your fic is focused on the character or characters I requested, I will be thrilled to receive anything you write for me, as these really are some of my most beloved fandoms of the heart, and the existence of any fic for them will make me extremely happy.

( Pandemic ranting )



Onward to snowflake_challenge: In your own space, rec a fanwork (fic, art, vid, playlist, anything!) you did not create.

I'm going to share my Yuletide recs list from this year. It's got one of my own fics in it, but the remainder are by other people.

I'm not going to go through the list fic by fic and explain what I loved about each individual work (although if you click through to the comments on each fic on AO3, you'll see a comment from me pulling out the elements I particularly enjoyed. However, I will try to briefly summarise what I most enjoy seeing in fanfic, and what tends to be a common thread in all that I rec.

Firstly, I almost exclusively read fic in tiny fandoms — generally fandoms that only have a handful of works on AO3, generally book fandoms. Usually I'm not looking for works that try to mimic the writing style of the original (in fact I tend to find that distracting). Instead, what I enjoy is fic that makes prominent certain elements I enjoyed about the original: specific character dynamics, an underlying theme, a really strong sense of place. I find it even more impressive if the fic makes me take note of certain elements that the original canon only whispered in the margins, and brings those submerged elements to prominence. I generally prefer fic that has a lyrical, lush, or even portentous turn of phrase, unless it's a humorous canon/fic. And I really, really love fic that digs into the veins of fairytales, folktales, medieval literature, or mythology and finds a hidden seam of darkness, melancholoy, or just straight up weirdness to mine in fic.

What do you look for in fic, or in other fanworks?

Number of cats in our garden: 2
Number of cats we own: 0
Amount of time said cats spent in a tense stand-off on the outdoor furniture: at least 20 minutes.

They then started wandering in circles around the cherry tree, glaring at each other.

It's been a mixed bag of a weekend. I spent most of last night and this morning panicking about the aphid-infested chilli plants I inherited from notasapleasure, which had begun infecting all the other indoor plants. I'm still a bit dubious about what to do with them, since spraying them with soapy water doesn't seem to have solved the problem (I think they were just too far gone for anything to work, to be honest). I'll consider it a win if the other indoor plants survive.

Far more enjoyable has been the gymnastics world championships. This normally wouldn't happen in the same year as the Olympics, but the pandemic meant that it's followed the Olympics in quick succession. This has then meant that most of the big names in women's gymnastics have elected to sit out the Worlds, meaning more chances at medals were available to up-and-comers, with a lot of upsets and surprises. There was a greater spread of countries winning medals (particularly in the apparatus finals), and — most pleasing for me — the medalists on floor went back to being more old school, winning on a mixture of difficulty and execution, rather (as has become more common with the dominance of US women in the sport) due to overloading the routines with difficulty but being a bit graceless in the execution, particularly the dance and interpretation of the music.

*

Yesterday, Matthias and I watched Dune, and I was surprised by the intensity of my reaction to it. I loved it, and the last time I can remember loving a film that much, it was Mad Max: Fury Road, which is actually my very favourite movie. I've read Dune, but it's not a particular favourite of mine (I don't watch film/TV adaptations of books that I dearly love, not even if every other fan of the book has told me it's a good adaptation), so perhaps big fans of the book would feel differently, but for me it felt like basically a perfect film. I find it hard to explain why I loved it so much — certainly I loved the score, and I always love Denis Villeneuve's whole aesthetic, which is very suited to the kinds of intergalactic political space opera which calls for sweeping shots of vast brutalist architecture dwarfing tiny, tiny human characters — but the best I can really manage is that the heart (and id) wants what it wants, and apparantly what my heart wanted was this specific film. I would quite happily watch it three more times in the next week if I could.

*

Other than that, I've been impatiently waiting for my Yuletide assignment, and reading a great post-canon Raven Cycle fic by likeadeuce, which has a great sense of place and found family — exactly what I want for fic in this fandom.

Recognize the World that You Call Home (24888 words) by likeadeuce
Chapters: 7/7
Fandom: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Characters: Richard Gansey III, Blue Sargent, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Richard Gansey II, Mrs. Gansey (Raven Cycle), Helen Gansey, Original Characters, Orphan Girl | Opal
Additional Tags: Future Fic, domestic pynch, Hiking, appalachian trail, Parenthood, Adoptive Parents Ronan Lynch and Adam Parrish, Childhood, Backstory, Gansey family problems, Floating Timeline, Kid Fic, ley lines, Iceland, Roadside Attractions, Richard Gansey International Runaway, Dreams (Gansey's this time), Dogs, Adam and Gansey are friends
Summary:

Since leaving Henrietta after high school, Gansey and Blue have been bouncing around the world looking for a place that fits. After more than ten years, they are almost ready to make some decisions, but first they decide to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail together. Along the way, Gansey revisits memories of the childhood that turned him into a lover of forests, mysteries, and traveling the world. Meanwhile, Ronan and Adam are creating their own family back at the Barns.

Written for Raven Cycle Big Bang 2021

*

I hope you've all been having lovely weekends!

A little while ago, I posted about Interlibrary Exchange, a book fandom exchange taking place from May-August this year. Several people seemed interested, so this post may serve as a reminder that nominations are now open.

Each participant can nominate up to ten fandoms, and can nominate up to ten characters (or relationships, both / and &) per fandom. You can see more details of what's eligible here. The tagset is open and you can see what's already been approved here.

I so far have plans to nominate eight different fandoms. For some, I have filled almost every character slot already, whereas for others I am open to suggestions for all ten slots. If you were thinking of nominating similar fandoms and want to get as many characters/relationships in the tagset, you can also use this post to coordinate.

I'm going to put a list of my planned nominations behind the cut. If anyone has suggestions for filling the free character or fandom slots, please let me know in the comments and I'll update the post as your suggestions come in.

( The plan so far )

So, please do let me know if you want me to add anything else to my nominations. (I was going to nominate the Six of Crows duology, but someone's already done so, with an extremely comprehensive collection of characters and relationships.)

Via fandomcalendar I learnt about an upcoming fanworks exchange that is very much to my tastes: Interlibrary Exchange. The event kicks off in May with nominations, and assignments will be due in mid-August (with what appears to be a six-week period to create them). The exchange is devoted solely to canons based on novels, and the mod goes into more detail about what is and isn't eligible in an FAQs post here. The main comm for the exchange is libraryarchivist.

I'm really enthusiastic about this, as all my fandoms are book fandoms, and I've been missing the old fanworks exchanges for book fandoms that previously happened during the northern summer but seem to have disappeared in the past few years. I'll have to see what ends up in the tagset, but as long as there's at least something I can write I'll be keen to participate. I hope it may be of interest to some of you as well.

It's time for today's book meme question, which asks for:

14. A book balanced on a knife edge

( My answer )


( The other days )

Via lirazel, a fun fanfic meme:

List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag 10 authors! consider yourselves tagged if you want to do this!

( Twenty first lines, all from book fandoms )

Some patterns:

Throwing readers immediately into things, with action already underway

Alternatively, meandering, ponderous, fairytale style sentences — usually for fandoms whose canonical material has a fairytale tone

Using the sky, the season, or celestial bodies to evoke a mood

I use first person in canons whose source material is written in the first person (Sunshine, Pagan Chronicles), although not for Galax Arena (which is written in the first person, but I never write fic from that character's perspective). Capturing Pagan Kidrouk's internal voice is really, really hard

I loathe present tense (I make a sole exception for it in the Pagan Chronicles) — I hate it as a reader, and I'm never going to perpetuate it as a writer. This ... puts me at odds with the vast majority of other fanfic writers

I think my favourite opening is number 12, Voice from Between the Stars, although to be honest my favourite lines of my own writing tend to appear further on in my fic, rather than in the opening lines. In fact, I'd be interested in repeating this exercise with the closing lines, since I tend to prefer these in my own work, and put the most effort into them.

I only like to do recs posts once authors have been revealed — doing it during the anon period always feels to me like it doesn't give authors proper credit. In any case, now that authors have been revealed, here are my recs. They're in a range of fandoms, but mainly books and literature.

( My recs behind the cut )

This post is basically me just closing some tabs on a few fanworks that have come into my orbit over the past week or so.

First up, an absolutely glorious Raven Cycle fic by likeadeuce:

Irregular and Wild (The Class Participation Remix) (2454 words) by likeadeuce
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ronan Lynch, Richard Gansey III, Adam Parrish
Additional Tags: Remix, Shakespeare nerdery, Dead Welsh Kings, Pre-Canon, First Meetings, Meet-Cute
Summary:

“I participated in class twice this week because of you," said Ronan. "You’re gonna ruin my reputation.”

Gansey just smiled. “That’s what I do."

(I just love this so much: Gansey collecting friends through sheer earnest persistence! Shakespeare! these ridiculous teenagers and their ridiculous emotions!)

Next, a review which wandered across my Goodreads feed earlier today. When I read A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, it absolutely blew me away, but kind of left me speechless. It was so, so good, and spoke to me on so many levels that I was almost daunted at the prospect of putting how much it had resonated with me to words. Thankfully, this reviewer, bookswithchaima has done it all for me:

Through Mahit’s eyes, the novel moves us through the stark and painful internal realities of being a non-citizen, and longing to be acknowledged as a citizen. Mahit understood how much Teixcalaan demanded and how very little it gave back, just as acutely as she understood that there is danger in not belonging.

I’ve been an immigrant for three years, and it felt extraordinarily cathartic to find a story in which the narrator is stuck out here with me. Like Mahit, I’ve never been able to chase away the feeling that while this new world I’ve set up house in embraces me with one arm, it also pushes me away with the other. I’ve often felt that something essential within me has been loosened from its moorings, and it dangled outside me, always looking for a place to put down roots and always starved for light. Because, and to borrow some of Mahit’s words, I would never fully belong and I would never stop knowing it. Like Mahit, I’ve never forgotten the reasons why I left. I am a different person in every sense, and as far away from the me who left three years ago as a distant planet. I miss home, and I don’t miss it, and those two realities still chase circles inside my head. But there’s one growing certainty wedging itself inside me every day: once you leave, you can’t really go home again. Not all the way, anyway. No matter how hard you try. Once you leave, something is lost, and I don’t think you ever find it again.

I don't want to equate my own experiences of being a white Australian immigrant with the reviewer's experiences of being a north African immigrant: the European countries to which we have migrated perceive us very differently, and to pretend otherwise would be appropriative on my part. But what this review explains so perfectly is the thing I've been struggling to articulate for nearly two years since reading this book: this story just gets what it is to leave your home, to put down roots elsewhere while knowing doing so is fraught with difficulty, and to love the literature and pop culture of a hegemonic culture with the awareness that this love is tinged with a kind of complicity. Oh, what a perfect review of a perfect book! You can read the whole review here.

My final link is a months-old fanvid by sholio, which is essentially a love letter to the Netflix Marvel Defenders shows, but on another level a love letter to New York, or at least the kind of surreal New York which the Marvel superheroes inhabit. You can watch the vid here.