you brought it on yourself miss twiddle

Yuletide 2023 Letter

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 21:41:58 GMT

Dear Yuletider,

Thanks for writing for me! I am requesting three fandoms this year: nad and Dan adn Quaffy - Diana Wynne Jones (ANY), The Game Beyond - Melissa Scott (ANY), and Dragaera - Steven Brust (Khaavren, Tazendra, Aerich, Pel - ALL). Per Yuletide tradition, I think, the first part of this letter has general notes about what I like and don't like, and then sections on each fandom.

General Likes

Here are some things that I like in general, and would be overjoyed to see in any fic for any canon:
-Loyalty/fealty relationships
-unequal power dynamics
-Close relationships intersecting with unequal power dynamics
-Intense friendships
-Platonic life partners
-Comedies of manners
-Court-culture,
-Social intrigue
-Mirrors for princes/panegyric/shitty court rhetoric/bad court poetry
-In-universe art, literature, music, rhetoric,pop-culture, food, ritual, folklore and so on.
-Difficult decisions about whether to do what is right or what is expedient/conducive to survival, having to compromise your principles, and finding ways to live with the consequences.
-Unreliable narrators; protagonists with imperfect information.
-Linguistic games and code-switching, puns, allusions to other works of literature, whether in-universe or extra-universe, pastiche
-letters & in-universe documents/literature. (I'm completely, enthusiastically on board with epistolary fic, journal-entry fic, archive fic, far-future-historian-looks-back-on-these-events fic, ridiculous in-universe fictionalization of the character fic--- any weird experiments with genre and form are ok.)

General DNWs

(starred* DNWs = mentions of canon plotlines that deal with these things are ok): death of canon characters beyond canon deaths; mass death & genocide*; apocalypse and large-scale destruction*; blowing up planets or cities*; violence & gore beyond what is in canon; psychological torture or/and breakdown beyond what is in canon*; dehumanization*; noncon*; unremittingly bleak endings; non-canon incest; mundane and/or modern AUs; unrequested crossovers or fusions; kidfic; fic centered on the struggles of a character in a real-world marginalized identity*; Christianity and Christian-conversion narratives.

nad and Dan adn Quaffy - Diana Wynne Jones

(Internet Archive 1-hour check-out link here or here)

Characters Requested: ANY (Worldbuilding, F.C. Stone, Candida I, Danny)
What I love about this story is how it sends up so many things so deftly and affectionately: vintage SF tropes; typos; silly made-up names for mundane things; the utter blinding confidence of SFF writers (and readers) in their own cleverness re: the political worlds they make up. If you also enjoy this story, I’ll probably love anything you choose to write, from any angle! Here are some prompts/ideas, but go wild!

Possible prompts:

+ Just more of the tropey 70s era nudist matriarchal space opera F.C. Stone stumbles into. How does Candida I crush Adny's rebellion and restore the Matriarchy? How did she come to power in the first place?

+ F.C. Stone turning it all into another novel.

+ Meta-fic about F. C. Stone's oeuvre, e.g. reviews of her novels as her style/focus changes over time, fanfic or fan-essays about the Starship Candida books or the Candida I universe book, if she ever writes it.

+ Worldbuilding about the Candida I universe (leaning into the tropey 70s-80s SF of it all the better!): how do people interact with their conscious-class computer doubles? What is life like on Nad? Some random civilian’s memoirs of what it was like during Adny’s rebellion?

+ I welcome crossovers with any other Diana Wynne Jones novel or story or series EXCEPT the Howl/Ingary books, Power of Three, and Islands of Chaldea. (F.C. Stone is another guest of honor at the convention in Deep Secret and drags Danny along? The Bounds land Jamie in Ladn on Nad? Candida I has to deal with a visit from the Reigners? The computers in the basement of Stallery Castle somehow get tangled up with the Ship’s Computer or/and F.C. Stone’s?)

Canon-specific DNWs: Adny victorious/the Matriarchy being defeated; earnest deconstruction of the gender politics of the scifi universe.

The Game Beyond - Melissa Scott

(Internet Archive 1-hour checkout link here)

Characters Requested: ANY (Keira Renault, Desolin Hamm'tt, Oriana I, Worldbuilding)

I just thought this novel and the world it was set in was really neat, and I'd love any fic about it! Here are some possible prompts/ideas, but please don't feel constrained to them, or even to the nominated characters: if you have an idea about Lasca FitzMary pulled out of her career as a naval officer to be an imperial hostage or the history of the Order and its anchorites or a Miss Manner's style column about the niceties of Convention or the later career of Overlord Ojeda, go for it!

Possible Prompts

+ I'm fascinated by the hints we get about Keira's relationship with Oriana–his mixture of pity and contempt and regret for who she could have been is so suggestive; we know that she regularly (!) made him afraid for his life and enjoyed having that power over him, but he also did persuade her to let him dictate policy and make decisions and even speeches essentially on her behalf. How did he prove himself to her? How did they develop that bond of trust/mutual reliance/??? ? What convinced Oriana to make Keira her heir?

+ Keira’s young adulthood seems fascinating! What does it mean to grow up as the heir of a ruling family that officially doesn’t exist? How did Keira learn to wield power and authority, and what is his personal history with the Castellars?

+ Desolin Hamm’tt was another character I wish we had seen more of. She seems so isolated, even among the Maiores and even within her own household. How did things end up that way for her? I’d also love to see Desolin in her element as Prime Minister or as Grand Duke. I’m not particularly interested in romantic Desolin/Keira, but seeing them as allies and partners would be excellent, especially, say, in a moment of disagreement where their agreements are tested.

+ Worldbuilding: more about any of the Imperial history that gets tossed around in short references! The backstory of the Renaults on Hellmouth!3 How Convention actually works when Majores (mostly) play the rules (or at least, more than they do in the novel): what happens when a powerful Majore is successfully “assassinated”, for example? The monastic and psychic side of the Order, and how it intersects with the religious (?) faith of the Church? One of my private delights was that they are still using dot-matrix printers where you have to tear the sheets apart, and I’d love to see more exploration/playing around with 80s-extrapolated tech that now seems quaintly outdated.

The only things I'm not so interested in for this fandom are: Eduard de Terranin , stories set mostly within a VR game (about gaming is fine!), stories set after Keira's eventual death, stories mostly focused on the Terran diplomatic delegation (Denisov-Graham and other Terrans as side-characters is fine!).

Dragaera - Steven Brust

Characters Requested: Khaavren, Tazendra, Pel, Aerich (ALL)

I’ve read all the existing Vlad books, all the Paarfi books, Brokedown Palace, so any references to any part of canon are fair game! That said, my favorites are the Khaavren novels (and especially the first two). Adventure-romance is one of my favorite genres, and I love how joyfully the swashes are buckled, how enthusiastically (but honorably) violent our four heroes are, how vibrant the world of the Dragaearan "ancien régime” is, and how light the tone is (although not without some very moving moments of friendship and loyalty). (Also, although it’s controversial, I am a big fan of Paarfi of Roundwood). So basically, I’ll be overjoyed with anything that gives me more of our friends Khaavren, Aerich, Tazendra, and Pel and their colorful world. Here are some prompts/ideas, but please don’t feel limited to them.

I don’t have very good prompts for this, because I really just want to see more of our friends Khaavren, Tazendra, Pel, and Aerich in any era, whether the 500 years between Phoenix Guards and 500 Years After or during the 250-odd years of the Interregnum before Paths of the Dead. Or fudging the the timeline so all 4 of them are in the Guards longer. (Or anything else, really–Paarfi isn't consistent with himself or with Vlad (who also isn’t entirely consistent with himself), so why should we be finicky about exact details? If you want to have Khaavren, Pel, Tazendra, and Aerich hanging out at Aliera's 200th birthday party, when she's been living at Court for a couple decades already, go for it! Everyone Lives into the era of the Vlad books and/or No Adron’s Disaster AUs are also welcome.)

Possible Prompts

+ There's some intricate Intrigue afoot and our heroes end up entangled in it but (with the possible exception of Pel) never actually figure out what was going on.

+ something completely trivial: Aerich loses his crochet hook and the gang all have to go try to procure a new one?

+ Any sort of adventure or non-adventure: a mission for the Emperor? A duel (or multiple)? One of Pel’s or Tazendra’s love affairs gets too tangled and they have to call in their friends?

+ Other POVs are fine, e.g. an everyone-lives universe where Tazendra is a regular guest at Castle Black and Vlad has to deal with four comrades.
+If you want to write in the style of Paarfi, I'm completely here for it! If you have no desire to write like Paarfi, I'm also completely here for it! If you have an idea about another ridiculous genre/style that you want to play with (or several), I'm here for that as well!

+ I did not request “Worldbuilding” because I’m most interested in Paarfi-verse worldbuilding for Dragaeara and that didn’t seem like something I could fairly limit a writer to. But if you want to write something focused on pre-Interregnum/early Zerika IV politics/society/history, or about the literature and literary circles Paarfi runs in, please feel free, even if the characters I requested play smaller roles! (E.g. what kinds of novels did Tazendra and Khaavren grow up reading? What’s on the shelves of Aerich’s library? What kinds of seditious poetry has Khaavren had to arrest people over, and was some of it written by Pel under a deeply buried nom-de-plume? What does a court masque look like in Tortaalik’s court?)

Canon-specific DNWs: explicit romantic relationship or pining between Tazendra and Aerich; death of any requested characters; if you are writing a story set during the Interregnum or later, please don’t focus on Adron’s Disaster and its associated traumas, but references to it are fine (e.g. mention of a character having lost relatives in the disaster, or a nostalgic aside about something in Dragaeara city) and the more extended effects of the collapse of the empire are of course fine!

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Yuletide Recs 2021

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 16:12:31 GMT

Once again, I won Yuletide! I got the most wonderful Bright Smoke Cold Fire fic:

the word at the heart of the world. A worldbuilding-centric fic about the last stand of the ancient Sisters of Thorn in the Sunken Library; if you've read the books, you'll know that everyone sacrifices their lives to save and seal the library, but this is the most heartwarming, tragic-but-triumphant story about the death of all the characters you've come to love in the brief time you've met them that you'll ever read. But canon knowledge isn't really necessary to enjoy this fic! It's set long before the books and doesn't involve any canon characters: all you need to know is that the Sisterhood of Thorn is an ascetic & grim order of nuns who use their own blood (and sometimes others') to work magical protections against Death and keep it from overwhelming the world.

I also got a delightful Bright Smoke Cold Fire treat in Madness: shipshape, set post-canon, in which Runajo attempts to build boats (or rather, get other people to build boats).

( More recs! )

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Yuletide 2021 letter

Sat, 16 Oct 2021 04:26:54 GMT

Dear Yuletider,

Thanks for writing for me! I'm requesting 3 canons: Bright Smoke Cold Fire (character: Runajo), Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung (character: Hae-ryung), and The Queen's Thief (characters: Attolia, Teleus, Relius).

I've listed general likes and DNWs first, then prompts for each canon. Hopefully the prompts will give you an idea of the kinds of things that I'm excited about, but please don't feel bound by them! If they spark your imagination in another direction, I'm sure I'll be happy with the result.

( Letter )

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Yuletide Recs

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 23:52:11 GMT

I think I won Yuletide this year. I nominated and requested A Lady of Quality, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a very odd proto- Georgian-romance novel whose heroine is almost an antiheroine, and who is far more like the standard Regency-romance Tall Dark and Arrogant Hero Who Must Be Redeemed By The Love of a Good Woman than anything else. And someone wrote me the most wonderful fic for it!

The Manners of a Gentleman (A Lady of Quality series, 4.5k, T)

It has literally everything I could have wanted: Clorinda in all of her magnificent cold-blooded glory as avenging angel! Anne coming a little bit into her own! Cross-dressing (although not where you might expect)! A really wonderful suggestion about Clorinda's marriage that I want to make my headcanon! Style that perfectly mimics the original novel and the ethos of the period it depicts! Some amazingly purple passages that FHB just wishes she could have thought of for describing just how majestically beautiful her heroine is!

If you're a fan of earlier-setting Regencies and Georgian romances (think These Old Shades, Devil's Cub, and so on), I think you might find this an enjoyable romp even if you haven't read the novel it's based on. But if you enjoy that type of novel, I think you might enjoy A Lady of Quality as well as "The Manners of Gentleman"!

Here are some other recs, in no particular order:
( Read more... )

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Yuletide 2020 Letter

Sat, 17 Oct 2020 03:29:58 GMT

Dear Yuletide Writer & Gentle Passers-by

Thanks for checking out my Yuletide Letter (I'm ricardienne here, but sigaloenta on ao3 and tumblr). I'm requesting canons with tiny to non-existent fandoms: A Lady of Quality - Frances Hodgson Burnett, 신입사관 구해령 | Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung, and Bright Smoke Cold Fire Duology - Rosamund Hodge. So the fact that you're even reading my letter makes me incredibly happy; I like to talk about why I like things, and so I've rattled on about each canon and given some possible prompts below, but the main thing is: I will be incredibly grateful and thrilled with any fic you write. The first part of the letter has general details about what I like and what my DNWs are; after that, I have specific prompts for each canon I'm requesting.

( Click through for my letter! )

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5 more last-minute yuletide recs in 3 fandoms

Mon, 31 Dec 2018 20:45:33 GMT

Arthurian Mythology
Tested By The Flame: Gawain, when his king asks him to fulfill a duty at odds with his chivalrous reputation. Yes, it's conflicting loyalties feudalism angst with beautiful Arthur and Gawain characterization!

Ragnelle's Parting: An even more heartstring-tugging, but beautiful ficlet about Gawain and his wife, at the moment when everything has started to go wrong in Camelot

The Heart That Loveth Me (Every Joyous Word): A series of OT3 fix-its for Lancelot, Arthur, and Guinivere in a series of universes. All are brilliant!

Queen's Thief
flashpoints, like gunpowder: the prohibition-noir AU of Queen of Attolia that you didn't know you needed only because you didn't know it existed. But it does! and you do!

Don Carlos - Schiller
Nocturne: an absolutely beautiful wrenching ghostly-visitation scene as Posa tries -- even beyond the grave -- to save Philippe from his worse self. If you like loyalty-angst and dramatically meaningful shifts in address (and I do), this is probably the best fic in the collection.

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yuletide 2018 recs

Mon, 31 Dec 2018 06:30:27 GMT

Skating in under the anon deadline...

Yuletide this year was especially great for me, because I requested something very specific in a tiny fandom: sometimes you read a one-off fantasy novel by a not terribly prominent author, and come out thinking "ok this wasn't even a great and necessary book that I can unqualifiedly recommend so that it will get a greater readership; however, I really wish it were because I desperately need the fic where Character A and Character B actually have sex and I really want someone else to write it."

This is to say that two different people wrote me Innisth/Deconniy fics for Winter of Ice and Iron and they are both brilliant and capture exactly what I loved about these characters and their setting:

His Honor With His Clothes: Verè makes a different answer to Innisth's proposition. Really excellent for Innisth's negotiations with his Power and Deconniy feeling his way around his new land and new lord.

His Majesty's Man: post-canon: “ 'Desires change, Innisth. Surely you know that.'” Lovely Kehera and Innisth plus Innisth/Deconniy.

Writing for a tiny fandom is so generous and I'm thrilled people did it for me.

I also got an unexpected but extremely fun epistolary fic for In Other Lands:

Five Letters and A Postscript: letters that fit perfectly into canon and expand on, in particular, Elliott's relationship with elves. It's full of clever touches and I highly recommend.

In fact, there were a lot of good In Other Lands stories:

All I Want Is You: In which Elliot organizes a bachelor party for Serene's fiancé-- on his side of the Border. Chaos, hilarity, and some surprisingly poignant plot and character developments ensue.

The Next Chapter: captures the feel of the book perfectly.

I haven't had a chance to read as much of the collection yet as I wanted, but here are a few more stories I really liked:

Alliance-Union - Cherryh
Relations: a lovely exploration of Justin and Grant and what it means to be "like" family but still azi.

Alpennia
A Twelve Day's Mystery: casefic! Blackmail and Jeanne having to save the reputation of one of her past flings, bringing intrigue and politics for Barbara and a chance for Margerit to employ a working-in-progress. This was extremely fun, beautifully characterized, and had everything I love about the series.

Imperial Radch
From the Fire: Breq attends a fancy ceramics workshop while tracking down antique-collectors during her search for the Presger gun. Amazing detail and Radchaai worldbuilding (my favorite things!), and excellent supporting characters.

Diana Wynne Jones
A Little More Conversation (Derkholm) Callette invents texting. Funny and very in-character. Made me go and reread the books, I enjoyed it so much.

But Blank Lines Do Not Say Nothing (Chrestomanci) Julia wants to know about her mother's history. This was careful and subtle and beautifully characterized for Janet, Julia, and Chrestomanci.

Mina de Malfois
Mina de Malfois and the Changing of the Guard: another one of those things whose existence seems like a yuletide miracle. I adored Mina and Arc and this fic has exactly the right light touch with them as they get entangled in some of this past year's big fandom kerfluffles and issues.

The Tay Bridge Disaster - William McGonagall
De Tavi Pontis Clade Carminis Fragmenta: Newly Discovered Fragments: well obviously I'm going to rec the one in Latin! But seriously: verse comp is really hard and this is very well done.

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Sat, 23 Dec 2017 02:24:03 GMT

-Family expedition to see The Last Jedi. I was so underwhelmed by the previous movies that I actively dreaded seeing this one. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it!. 4 whole women with important roles and distinct personalities! Some actually poignant tear-inducing moments! Some other things that are Spoiler-y! (Not that I didn't groan at a lot of the dialogue -- especially Luke Skywalker Attempts To Be a Cynical Professor. But overall, I did not feel uncomfortable and miserable at how bad it was the way I did during Rogue One.)

-Also, got an R&R on a paper I submitted a while ago. I'm probably going to put off reading the reports until tomorrow. Then I can stew miserably about them for a few days and get to work on revising the damn thing. But -- this is a good break to the string of rejections this year, I hope.

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Sun, 17 Dec 2017 17:50:57 GMT

Well, it's the now annual procrastinated-on-yuletide race to the deadline. This time with extra levels like 'family Hanukah party in 6 hours' and 'don't have internet at home, have to find a cafe to upload'.

ETA: well, a complete story etc. is up and posted, at least. Now let's see if I have time to pull off the wacky crossover treat I promised myself I could fiddle with if I finished my assignment...

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Wed, 04 Jan 2017 06:11:02 GMT

Saw Rogue One tonight. Didn't enjoy it at all: the pacing was bad, no characters were developed, the dialogue was unbelievably awful and the long emotional-exposition monologues were worse, I wanted to feel all the feelings, because the kind of plot that it had is the sort that usually makes me very emotional and weepy, but I was left completely cold (except for being furious at how few women there were anywhere in the movie). I don't know whether this is because I'm a horrible cultural snob or because I have lost the ability to feel.

Also, as y'all may have noticed, I am trying out the Dreamwidth mirror, though I suppose one really should be abandoning lj wholesale not just mirroring it elsewhere. So if you have a dreamwidth account, tell me what it is and I'll add you over there!

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yuletide 2016 gifts and recs

Sat, 31 Dec 2016 20:37:34 GMT

I got two gifts and a treat this year!

The Examinations (Imperial Radch): Daos Ceit looking back and forward, contemplating what the Radch means and what it means for her to join it. Some really beautiful phrasing and images.
On Political Murder (Queen's Thief): In which Lady Heiro and her friends talk plays, play politics, and are witty, clever, and funny while managing court intrigue. It's great!
Artless (Queen's Thief): A very different but just as compelling story about Heiro from King of Attolia onward.

Some other stories that I really liked, in fandoms that will not surprise anyone:

Imperial Radch

There were so may good stories! But I especially think you should read:

Prayers for the Dead, a terribly sad but wonderfully good story about Skaaiat at the moment when she learns that Justice of Toren has disappeared.

The Thousand Arms, about Anaander Mianaai at the very beginning, when there are still some bugs in the hook-ups with herself, ancillaries and expansion aren't quite accepted, and some people will still dare argue with her. Brilliant and awful and wonderful.

Diana Wynne Jones

Hot Iron (Chrestomanci), a long plotty story about Janet and the other Gwendolyn doubles, and a new 12-series world that could have been invented by DWJ herself.

Vox Populi (Derkholm), a short sweet story about Titus and Isodel sorting things in the Empire. Also nails the tone and ethos of the books.

Goblin Emperor

An Unquiet Beast. A brilliant and quite painful post-novel study of Hesero Nelaran: the disintegration of her marriage to and love for Setheris, her attempts to salvage something of her life, the incredibly cruel and vicious world of court politics and sub-aristocratic hanging on.

Historical RPF

Arms and the Men (Battle of the Tollens River, 1250 bce): the story of a bronze-age battle, with hints of post-Homerica. Very clever prompt, and it was filled really really well.

Hark a Vagrant: The Nemesis

Flintlock through the heart, and you're to blame: come for the hilarious ship names, stay for the surprise ending. Probably the most heartwarming story I read in the collection.

Duel to be Kind: featuring midnight duels over Euclid and pining for the enemy of one's heart.

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