Beyond Selidor

I know it's part of Yuletide culture to post recs while the collection is still anonymous, but I vastly prefer doing so after reveals, because it's important to me to be able to credit the authors.

This year had a fantastic crop of fic, and I'm really happy with both my own gift, and the reception of the four fics I wrote. I also went about commenting and keeping track of what I wanted to rec in a much more deliberate way, with spreads in my bullet journal noting down fic titles, whether I'd commented, and whether I planned to recommend the fic in question.

I received an absolutely wonderful Spinning Silver fic. One of my favourite scenes in canon was the moment when the Staryk lord joined Miryem to dance at her cousin's wedding, and I had made a prompt suggestion for another moment where either he joined her for another family celebration or Jewish festival. My author took that prompt and ran with it, and the result was a fic that took place during Purim celebrations!

True Masks (2144 words) by ariadnes_string
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Miryem Mandelstam/The Staryk Lord
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Purim, Canon Jewish Character, Jewish Holidays
Summary:

Miryem and her husband celebrate Purim

I wrote four fics — my assignment, which was in The Dark Is Rising fandom, and three treats (another in The Dark Is Rising, one in The Queens of Innis Lear, and another in the Winternight trilogy fandoms). The broad theme of all these fics seems to have ended up being 'people go out into extreme weather and wild landscapes and have extreme emotions', one fic had a title taken from an electropop song, and one drew from several medieval Irish texts, all of which, I feel, are my fic 'tells'.

( My fics behind the cut )

I aimed to comment substantially on at least fifty works in the main Yuletide collection, and at least twenty in Madness. I succeeded in the former aim, but in the latter I was thwarted by lack of familiarity with enough of the canons to hit my twenty-comment goal. The following group of recs represent those of the sixty-plus fics I read and commented on that I most enjoyed reading.

( A great many recs in fandoms including Spinning Silver, Uprooted, What We Do In the Shadows, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (book), Daevabad Trilogy, Seraphina, Jonathan Creek, Earthsea, Six of Crows, and more )

What did you enjoy in the collection? How did the writing go for you? I hope that Yuletide was great for everyone who participated.

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.

( General likes )

( General dislikes )

Fandom-specific prompts:

( The Bone Season — Samantha Shannon )

( The Daevabad series - S. A. Chakraborty )

( The Queens of Innis Lear — Tessa Gratton )

( Six of Crows series — Leigh Bardugo )

( Spinning Silver — Naomi Novik )

( Winternight series — Katherine Arden )

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.