Beyond Selidor

I finished up work at midday on 24th December, caught the train home, and walked straight up the hill to meet Matthias for food truck lunch and drinks in our favourite cafe/bar. He had spent the morning trundling around town collecting all the various bits and pieces of food that we'd preordered, and after we returned to the house, I set about enacting my plans for the twelve ensuing days of holiday: cooking, eating, reading, TV, and nothing more strenuous than swimming, yoga, and long walks. So far, everything's gone wonderfully: cold seafood dinner on Christmas Eve, a fantastic roast dinner for Christmas Day (we'll be eating the leftovers for at least the next four days), watching our way through the last season of Stranger Things in the living room lit only by the wood-burning stove, candlelight, and our various sets of string lights, reading nothing more demanding than Rumer Godden children's Christmas books, romance novels, Christmas romance novels, etc. Today we blew the cobwebs away with a 2.5-hour walk through the fens. The air was cold, the sky was clear blue, and the river water was still, and abundant with water birds, and everyone we met seemed relaxed and happy. We finished up with coffee in the market square.

Yuletide has been wonderful so far (initial terrifying moments when the mods somehow manage to open the collection with all author names revealed notwithstanding). I've been working my way backwards up through the alphabet — I do this as I feel most people read in descending alphabetical order and have run out of steam by the end, and I want to ensure authors who wrote for fandoms in the last quarter of the alphabet get love for their work too — at a leisurely pace, being more selective than in previous years in terms of what I choose to read, and I'm having a great time so far. My two fics have been well received by both their intended recipients, and other readers, which is always my main aspiration.

And then there's my own wonderful gift! I have been asking persistently for this fandom, and these two characters for the past eleven years — every single year in which I've participated in Yuletide, plus in several other exchanges as well — and no one ever wrote them, so when I saw what my gift involved, I almost danced around the room with happiness. And the fic itself is the fic of my dreams for these characters, and this fandom. What I always want from fanworks is more of the stuff that drew me to the specific characters in canon, and my author most certainly delivered in this regard: pitch perfect character voices, with a well-crafted little fic that reminded me all over again of all the specific things I love about these two characters individually, and together. I'm so happy!

Thrive (1030 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pagan Chronicles - Catherine Jinks
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Isidore Orbus & Babylonne Kidrouk
Characters: Isidore Orbus, Babylonne Kidrouk
Additional Tags: Found Family, Bologna, Healing, House Hunting
Summary:

Isidore and Bayblonne settle in Bologna.

I will share it again once authors are revealed, along with other recs from the collection. I hope everyone else who's participating in Yuletide has had an equally good time with this year's exchange.


( Another December talking meme response )

I'll finish up this post with a reminder that fandomtrees is going to open for fills soon. It's easy to browse the tags to see what people have requested. If anyone is interested, my tree is here.

I mentioned in a previous post that I had a particularly successful Yuletide this year, in terms of both the gifts written for me, and how the fic I wrote was received. (I was completely overwhelmed by travel and visiting my in-laws, however, and didn't have a chance to read anything else in the collection besides my own gifts, so for the first time since I participated in Yuletide, I unfortunately won't be able to include recs from the collection here.)

This year, I received not one, but two gifts, which I can now see were written by the same author.

The main gift was Paige/Arcturus fic for The Bone Season — a pairing and fandom which I have been requesting for ten years in almost every single exchange in which I participated. I'm so delighted that someone chose to write it for me at last, and to have dug into so many things that I love about these characters and this pairing.

Adamant (1024 words) by cher
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Paige Mahoney/Warden | Arcturus Mesarthim
Characters: Paige Mahoney, Warden | Arcturus Mesarthim
Additional Tags: POV First Person, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma Recovery
Summary:

Paige vs PTSD, with her usual feelings about battles.

Every year, I've hoped (while knowing that no one is entitled to such things) that someone might choose to write an additional treat for me, and for the first time in ten years of Yuletide participation, someone did! I feel very grateful and privileged, especially since the fic is for a tiny (even by Yuletide standards) fandom of which I thought I was the only person who felt fannish: Gillian Rubinstein's Space Demons trilogy. Again, the fic really got to the heart of what I love about this canon, characters, and pairing — right down to the nostalgic 1990s tech and internet!

futurism (1259 words) by cher
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Space Demons Series - Gillian Rubinstein
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: pre Mario Ferrone/Elaine Taylor
Characters: Mario Ferrone, Elaine Taylor, Ben Challis
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

Mario in the aftermath, reaching for a future.

( My three fics — The Dark Is Rising, and the Winternight series )

So that was my Yuletide. I have today and tomorrow remaining as holidays, before returning to work (from home) on Friday. I'm going to ease my way gently into 2025 with a long yoga class, doing the final bits of set up of my bullet journal, and starting a new book. I hope the first hours of the new year have been kind to you.

Happy New Year to everyone! Matthias and I saw out 2023 in our usual way — with canapes, champagne, and films at home, and it was cheerful and relaxing and cosy. I wasn't quite intending to wake up at 7am, but in the end it was nice to be up and about in the very first sliver of the morning, drinking tea, eating a cooked breakfast, and chatting about which books with which we planned to start our 2024 reading. We then went out for a looping, 5km walk along the river and through the sleepy suburban streets, and back — via the coffee rig in the market square — past the cathedral, drenched in silvery sunlight, watching the canal boats and swans drift by. Here's a little photoset of the transition from one year to the next.

It being 1st January means two things: Yuletide reveals, and the start of snowflake_challenge. I'm planning to participate in a low key way in the challenge this year: I'll do all the prompts, but I'm not going to link them in the comm. I know this goes somewhat against the spirit of the thing, but I found dealing with the increased replies overwhelming at times last year, and this feels like a compromise that will keep things manageable. But more on Snowflake later: let's get to the Yuletide recs!

I only make rec posts for the exchange once authors have been revealed, because it feels unfair to share all these things I've enjoyed without the authors getting credit, hence why I always wait until 1st January. I'm pleased to see that several of my favourite fics that I'm reccing from this year's collection are written by friends!

( Nine recs behind the cut — mainly book fandoms )

I wrote four fics this year — my main assignment, two treats in the main collection, and one treat in the Madness collection, which seem to have been well received, so from my perspective, this has been a good Yuletide all around: a great gift, a good reception for my own writing, and a collection with some fantastic pieces of work.

( My four fics behind the cut )



Today's prompt is:

In your own space, update your fandom information.

My intro post remains up to date, which is pleasing. Something which I had been intending to do for last year's challenge, but which never happened, was writing a template post for fanwork exchange letters, with prompts for all the fandoms I'm likely to request. The idea was that this would save me time and avoid the need to go trawling back through multiple previous letters. I can obviously update it with new fandoms if I decide to request them. I'm really happy that the template letter post is all set up — it should save me a huge amount of time in the future.

And that's snowflake_challenge Day 1 completed!

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. I mainly read fic to find out what happens to characters after the final page has turned or the credits have rolled, so I would particularly love to have futurefic of some kind. 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. You can also look at my Yuletide tag, which includes past letters, and recs posts of my previous gifts and other fic I've enjoyed in previous Yuletide colletions.

I have treating enabled on Ao3 and would be delighted to receive treats for any of my requests.

( General likes )

( DNWs )

Fandom-specific prompts:
( The Bone Season — Samantha Shannon )
( The Pagan Chronicles - Catherine Jinks )
( 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 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.

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?

Now that author reveals have happened, I can post my recs for this year's collection. Of course, I first want to highlight the wonderful gift I received — a Lions of Al-Rassan fic that showed off the competence and mutual admiration of my favourite OT4.

All Roads Lead to Ragosa (1818 words) by Elizabeth Culmer
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Miranda Belmonte/Rodrigo Belmonte, Jehane bet Ishak & Ammar ibn Khairan & Rodrigo Belmonte
Characters: Miranda Belmonte, Jehane bet Ishak, Ammar ibn Khairan, Rodrigo Belmonte
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Reunions
Summary:

Word of the ambush at Emir ha'Nazar gets out. Miranda moves the Belmonte household to Ragosa.

I only wrote my one assignment fic this year, which is something of a departure for me (for comparison, the last two Yuletides I wrote four treats in addition to my assignment). It's a The Dark is Rising fic — my recipient had requested something that explored Merriman's past.

The Water Key (3610 words) by Dolorosa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Merriman Lyon, Original Characters
Summary:

In those days, the war between Dark and Light was ever present, pressing in from all corners. Neither side was in a position to claim anything like a victory, and instead things progressed with an agonising sense of attrition — one human heart turned from the Dark here, one ancient song leading the way to a magical object there. All that could be hoped for was a breath, a pause — a temporary respite.

I've got recs for a bunch of stuff — mainly book fandoms — from both the main collection and Madness. They're listed in the order in which I read and bookmarked them.

The fandoms are: Spinning Silver (Naomi Novik), The Old Kingdom (Garth Nix), the Odyssey, Yudah Cohen series (Rebecca Fraimow), The Nutcracker, the Dark is Rising sequence, Tam Lin, the Mabinogion, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke), The Demon's Lexicon (Sarah Rees Brennan), Beowulf/The Legend of Good Women crossover, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Lupin (TV series).

( Recs behind the cut )

I'm so pleased to see that after reveals so many of the things I'd bookmarked to rec were written by Dreamwidth friends! What did you write? What did you enjoy from the collection?

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. I mainly read fic to find out what happens to characters after the final page has turned or the credits have rolled, so I would particularly love to have futurefic of some kind. 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. You can also look at my Yuletide tag, which includes past letters, and recs posts of my previous gifts and other fic I've enjoyed in previous Yuletide colletions.

( General likes )

( DNWs )

Fandom-specific prompts:



( The Bone Season — Samantha Shannon )

( The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay )

( The Pagan Chronicles - Catherine Jinks )

Don't feel you have to stick rigidly within the bounds of my prompts. As long as your fic is focused on the 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.

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 )

Just a brief update, as I have a lot of cooking to do.

I will write a longer recs post on 1st January, once author reveals happen, but I just wanted to flail about with happiness a bit regarding my Yuletide gift: nearly 10,000 words of plotty, character-driven problem-solving with my two favourite Benjamin January characters, Dominique and Chloë. This fandom was my greatest new discovery of 2020, and brought me a huge amount of happiness, and those two characters are my very favourite. It was as if the author reached into my mind and wrote a story to my exact specifications — the fic has everything I could possibly have wanted for this fandom, and these two characters. I am ecstatic. (I'm also really intrigued to know who wrote it!)

My own assignment and treats seem to have gone well so far. I wrote five things in total in this year's collection, and if any of you can identify them ... well, I don't know what I'll do, but it would amuse me. Obviously I'm not going to confirm or deny anything until after reveals.

Christmas so far has been quiet and relaxing. As Christmas Eve dinner is the main event for Matthias's family (as with other people from continental Europe), we unwrapped presents last night with my in-laws via Zoom, and then I cooked a dinner of salmon and roast vegetables. Today's going to be slower, and heartier, and with more grazing rather than a formal dinner — and then we'll eat all the leftovers for the next week or so!

There's been a huge amount of flooding here, to the extent that the paddling pool in the park (normally empty during winter) has completely filled with rainwater, the river has burst its banks, and all the fields are covered with water. This is a photoset from yesterday, and today's early morning walk out to Grantchester was pretty similar: Grantchester Meadows had become Grantchester Lakes, with a gaggle of very confused ducks, geese, swans and seagulls swimming around on what is normally a grassy field. There were a lot of other walkers out and about, and everyone was cheerful and friendly in spite of the dire state of affairs in the country at large. There is light enough, for now.

I hope everyone else who participated in Yuletide is enjoying their gift(s), has had a good reception for their own writing, and is in general having a good day. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you are having a restful holiday, and celebrating in a manner which makes you happy.

This is one of those posts about unrelated things, none of which I feel really warrants a post of its own.

I stumbled across this excellent post by Ada Palmer on her blog. On the surface of things, it's about the two recent TV series about the Borgias, but what it's really about is being a professional historian (or someone who has deep historical knowledge about specific time periods), and learning to switch off that part of the brain when engaging with historical fiction. I really love the way Palmer writes — I haven't seen either series, but this doesn't matter, as her writing draws you in, no matter what the subject.

I've hit a bit of a reading slump, and it hasn't helped that the book I was reading, The Library of the Unwritten by AJ Hackwith, sounded cool in terms of concept (a librarian who spends the afterlife preserving and collecting all unwritten books, for the library of Hell), but really didn't work for me in terms of execution. It's the sort of book about books, stories, authors and bookishness that I think I would have adored fifteen years ago, but with which I am swiftly losing patience — the literary equivalent of Oscar-baity films about Hollywood. (Other recent examples of this subgenre of fantasy novel which I also found tooth-gratingly irritating include The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow, and The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (both of which were, indeed, pushed at me by Goodreads when I marked The Library of the Unwritten as 'read'.) I think it doesn't help that these types of stories have a tendency to be extremely twee — this wasn't as bad in that regard as Harrow's writing, but it was still too treacly for my tastes. I wanted more celestial and infernal politics, and less pontificating about the power of stories.

Talk to me about Yuletide! Who is planning to participate this year? What fandoms are you thinking of nominating? Nominations coordination in the comments is most welcome!