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can i get a hell yeah
Oct. 16th, 2020 08:48 pm
Dear Yuletide writer...
Oct. 16th, 2020 01:33 pmHi! This is ao3 user ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
renaissance here, and you've reached my Yuletide letter! This year I've requested Brideshead Revisited (Waugh), The Secret History (Tartt), the Southern Reach Trilogy (Vandermeer), and Succession (HBO). I don't usually say this for Yuletide, but this year my letter is bursting at the seams with spoilers, so I would exercise particular caution if you're not caught up with any of these canons, or planning to engage in the future. I have a hyperlinked table of contents within my letter so you can skip to any one of these canons and avoid the others, if you wish.
Whether you've been assigned to write for me, or are just passing through, I hope you find something here that catches your eye. Happy creating!
( onward! )
Whether you've been assigned to write for me, or are just passing through, I hope you find something here that catches your eye. Happy creating!
( onward! )
that time of year again?
Sep. 26th, 2020 01:31 pmwhile the internet at large prepares itself for halloween - which is not really a big deal in australia, honestly - i find myself thinking of the silly season: yuletide! being as i am jewish, christmas is of no consequence to me, but yuletide gives me something to look forward to at the year's end, a way to get the same zest of life that other people seem to have for the last week of december. it snuck up on me this year: nominations were open before i knew what i wanted to nominate. but after some deliberations, i settled on my usual set for the secret history, the brideshead revisited trio - these two, the same as last year - and the southern reach trilogy. (here is my comment on the coordination post; i have one slot open for brideshead.)
for southern reach, one of my characters is whitby, who doesn't have a single tagging on ao3 yet! i have a lot of prompts in mind for southern reach, so i'm hoping i can catch someone else out there who read these books full of so many incredible, dynamic characters, and saw the weird scientist and went "this one is mine." for the other two fandoms, which i've both requested and written before, i will probably end up with more broad requests. though for the sake of people out there who prefer some sort of prompting, i'm sure i'll come up with something!
this will be my fourth yuletide. i'm looking forward to seeing what else i want to request from the tagset, and hopefully to writing some treats this year. (i always say i will, and yet, and yet.) in general i think i'm just going to take it easy and focus on writing and treating this year. last year's yuletide was a weird one for me. on the one hand, i wrote probably one of the best fics i've ever written - i just reread it, and honestly it holds up - but on the other hand, my recipient neither commented nor kudosed, despite the fact that i was working directly from one of their prompts. this put me in a very weird headspace and i spent a lot of time sitting on my hands and wishing for people to rec my fic, namesearching on coal and stuff like that... which wasn't good for me at all! but i was also in a super weird headspace, like, life-wise as well, because i had (a) just finished writing my phd thesis (b) undiagnosed depression. idk. obviously i wish my fic had been a bit more of a hit, but i know it's niche content, so i'm mostly over it.
the other thing last year, is there was some weirdness with my gift. i won't go into the full details but basically i shook my gift, and i found that my gift was tagged with one of my DNWs, sort of. it was partly my fault - i had worded the DNW too vaguely - but i spoke with the mods, and they interpreted the DNW how i had intended it, agreed that the gifter had disregarded the DNW, and got me a pinch hit. and, like, the pinch hit was delightful and everything i could've hoped for, so i was lucky in the end. plus i got a treat fic, for the first time ever! but i couldn't stop thinking about my original gift, which had disappeared from the collection (duh, of course i checked) - was it a genuine misunderstanding? was i just being a bitch? or had someone honest to god written me a spitefic gift and i dodged a bullet?
yuletide is one of those things where you can't really please everyone. (though, i will say, lurking coal taught me one thing, which is that i'll write my "dear yuletide writer" letter in sentence case this year, i promise.) i have largely been very lucky with it! i still think very fondly of my gift from two years ago, which i have read so, so many times, as essentially one of the best fics ever. but i definitely had a moment, leading up to nominations, where i thought about last year and found myself wondering if i should do it at all this year. as you can see, i made it past that! i have made my nominations. i am getting my ducks lined up, thinking about which fandoms in the spreadsheet catch my eye. and i am going to make this yuletide a positive experience, because if for some unforseen reason i don't have time for it next year, i don't want to have ended on a sour note.
that said. i'm moving overseas probably around december, so this might be another frantic one. better start writing as soon as i get my assignment this year! and it may just be that i do most of my reading through the collection in january/february, if things get too crazy. either way - i'm glad i wrote all this out, because i've talked myself back into being excited again!! it's yuletime baby!
for southern reach, one of my characters is whitby, who doesn't have a single tagging on ao3 yet! i have a lot of prompts in mind for southern reach, so i'm hoping i can catch someone else out there who read these books full of so many incredible, dynamic characters, and saw the weird scientist and went "this one is mine." for the other two fandoms, which i've both requested and written before, i will probably end up with more broad requests. though for the sake of people out there who prefer some sort of prompting, i'm sure i'll come up with something!
this will be my fourth yuletide. i'm looking forward to seeing what else i want to request from the tagset, and hopefully to writing some treats this year. (i always say i will, and yet, and yet.) in general i think i'm just going to take it easy and focus on writing and treating this year. last year's yuletide was a weird one for me. on the one hand, i wrote probably one of the best fics i've ever written - i just reread it, and honestly it holds up - but on the other hand, my recipient neither commented nor kudosed, despite the fact that i was working directly from one of their prompts. this put me in a very weird headspace and i spent a lot of time sitting on my hands and wishing for people to rec my fic, namesearching on coal and stuff like that... which wasn't good for me at all! but i was also in a super weird headspace, like, life-wise as well, because i had (a) just finished writing my phd thesis (b) undiagnosed depression. idk. obviously i wish my fic had been a bit more of a hit, but i know it's niche content, so i'm mostly over it.
the other thing last year, is there was some weirdness with my gift. i won't go into the full details but basically i shook my gift, and i found that my gift was tagged with one of my DNWs, sort of. it was partly my fault - i had worded the DNW too vaguely - but i spoke with the mods, and they interpreted the DNW how i had intended it, agreed that the gifter had disregarded the DNW, and got me a pinch hit. and, like, the pinch hit was delightful and everything i could've hoped for, so i was lucky in the end. plus i got a treat fic, for the first time ever! but i couldn't stop thinking about my original gift, which had disappeared from the collection (duh, of course i checked) - was it a genuine misunderstanding? was i just being a bitch? or had someone honest to god written me a spitefic gift and i dodged a bullet?
yuletide is one of those things where you can't really please everyone. (though, i will say, lurking coal taught me one thing, which is that i'll write my "dear yuletide writer" letter in sentence case this year, i promise.) i have largely been very lucky with it! i still think very fondly of my gift from two years ago, which i have read so, so many times, as essentially one of the best fics ever. but i definitely had a moment, leading up to nominations, where i thought about last year and found myself wondering if i should do it at all this year. as you can see, i made it past that! i have made my nominations. i am getting my ducks lined up, thinking about which fandoms in the spreadsheet catch my eye. and i am going to make this yuletide a positive experience, because if for some unforseen reason i don't have time for it next year, i don't want to have ended on a sour note.
that said. i'm moving overseas probably around december, so this might be another frantic one. better start writing as soon as i get my assignment this year! and it may just be that i do most of my reading through the collection in january/february, if things get too crazy. either way - i'm glad i wrote all this out, because i've talked myself back into being excited again!! it's yuletime baby!
And so this is Yuletide...
Jan. 1st, 2020 08:35 pmWell, works have been revealed, so now I can talk about it all! I have a handful of recs to share, my gifts, and then a few others in fandoms I'm familiar with. I'm also going to take this as an excuse to talk about my own fic, right at the end. (Wow, sorry that this is like a thesis statement. I'm still stuck in the academic writing zone...)
I received two wonderful gifts this Yuletide. My main gift was this incredible Dead Poets Society fic: and yet the notes recur by brampersandon. I can't begin to say how much I love it! This is a diamond of a story, following Charlie's interest in Todd, and the way both of them deal with their feelings for Neil. It's heartbreaking at times, gorgeously written throughout, and filled with fantastic imagery. I also got a treat in the Madness collection, a paler shade of white by havisham. (This is the first time I've ever had a Yuletide treat, so, yay!) It's a Withnail & I fic, which is a gleeful sight in and of itself, and this is a real gem of a fic! It picks up post-canon and imagines a meeting between Marwood and Withnail as established actors. The banter is on-point, and it manages to balance all the warmth you want from a get-together fic with the snark and spite of canon. I'm so grateful for both these fics! They made it a great Yuletide for me.
My recs in other fandoms, for now, are confined to those I'm familiar with enough to read fic. They're also fairly short ones for now, but there are a couple of longer fics I want to come back to, so I may end up making another rec post later on.
15th Century CE RPF
these late eclipses by betony - The intertwining of history and magic in this fic is artful. You can tell a lot of thought has gone into the symbolism of the different scrying substances that appear throughout the fic. The writing is lovely, and it just feels like a story that's had a lot of care put into it. This one, you can read without knowing the fandom, and you should!
Brideshead Revisited
Benedictus Benedicat by asuralucier - This is a brief scene in the early days of Charles and Sebastian which manages to be tone-perfect to the books, with witty dialogue and buzzing with tension. I just adore the vibes. It makes me feel like I'm reading the novel again, but with context instead of subtext :')
When We Were Idlers by Skeiler - A Brideshead twist on the classic coffee shop AU, this fic imagines a modern first meeting between Charles and Sebastian, with all the charm of canon and a lot of new details to love. Sebastian's coffee order is going to give me nightmares.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Healing by pasiphile - I was delighted to see a fic focusing on Arabella and Emma in the collection, and this did not disappoint. Their relationship is sweet and at times fraught; it feels very real. Plus, I love what the author does to elaborate on the in-universe magic system.
The Magicians
The Magician's Wish by mayhap - What thrills me most about this fic is how the author really understands the spirit of these books, and the characters. There's whimsy and sincerity; there's Eliot being a dumbass in love and Quentin being Quentin. Plus, it's laugh-out-loud funny. Feel good fic of the year, tbh.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
in all probability by marginaliana - Outside of my gifts, this is my standout favourite in Yuletide this year. If you don't read second person, it's time to reconsider. The writing here is masterful, and the nonlinear story commands ambiguity with purpose. Also I have a lot of feelings because of this. SO many feelings.
The Thick of It
Curtain Material by Monksandbones - I laughed out loud at this brilliant epistolary fic. I'm most impressed by the author's Nicola voice, and the absolute confidence with which this feels like it could just slot into canon. There's a richness of stories within stories hiding in here. It's a joy to read.
Finally, the fic I wrote - a self-rec, if you will! - is One Spell to Discover what My Enemy is doing Presently. Though I nabbed the title from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, this is a Secret History fic. My request was for a years-later reunion between the characters, particularly Camilla and Charles, so I took the opportunity to write from Camilla's point of view. Her position in the story is an interesting one: though Charles loves her, he treats her cruelly, and Richard regularly reduces her to little more than someone he has a crush on, to the point of plainly missing what else is going on in her life. (She always seemed pretty close to Francis, which I explored as well.) I thought about how it would be bittersweet for her to see them again, and then I thought, how can I make this even sadder? So I sent them back to Hampden College for one last hurrah before the place is bulldozed. I wanted to use that "end of an era" framing to parallel the way the four of them have changed, alongside the dubious progress of the 80s and early 90s. (I put in some references to the early days of the internet, which was really fun.) I also used magic as a framing device for the narrative; that just came to me as I started writing, when I thought about how Camilla was the one who was arguably the most supernaturally affected by the bacchanal. And of course then I thought to get the title from JS&MN, which was another fandom my recipient requested. Though I was writing this fic at a really busy time in my life, I managed to create something I'm really proud of, especially after months of not writing any fic. Feels pretty great!
I received two wonderful gifts this Yuletide. My main gift was this incredible Dead Poets Society fic: and yet the notes recur by brampersandon. I can't begin to say how much I love it! This is a diamond of a story, following Charlie's interest in Todd, and the way both of them deal with their feelings for Neil. It's heartbreaking at times, gorgeously written throughout, and filled with fantastic imagery. I also got a treat in the Madness collection, a paler shade of white by havisham. (This is the first time I've ever had a Yuletide treat, so, yay!) It's a Withnail & I fic, which is a gleeful sight in and of itself, and this is a real gem of a fic! It picks up post-canon and imagines a meeting between Marwood and Withnail as established actors. The banter is on-point, and it manages to balance all the warmth you want from a get-together fic with the snark and spite of canon. I'm so grateful for both these fics! They made it a great Yuletide for me.
My recs in other fandoms, for now, are confined to those I'm familiar with enough to read fic. They're also fairly short ones for now, but there are a couple of longer fics I want to come back to, so I may end up making another rec post later on.
15th Century CE RPF
these late eclipses by betony - The intertwining of history and magic in this fic is artful. You can tell a lot of thought has gone into the symbolism of the different scrying substances that appear throughout the fic. The writing is lovely, and it just feels like a story that's had a lot of care put into it. This one, you can read without knowing the fandom, and you should!
Brideshead Revisited
Benedictus Benedicat by asuralucier - This is a brief scene in the early days of Charles and Sebastian which manages to be tone-perfect to the books, with witty dialogue and buzzing with tension. I just adore the vibes. It makes me feel like I'm reading the novel again, but with context instead of subtext :')
When We Were Idlers by Skeiler - A Brideshead twist on the classic coffee shop AU, this fic imagines a modern first meeting between Charles and Sebastian, with all the charm of canon and a lot of new details to love. Sebastian's coffee order is going to give me nightmares.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Healing by pasiphile - I was delighted to see a fic focusing on Arabella and Emma in the collection, and this did not disappoint. Their relationship is sweet and at times fraught; it feels very real. Plus, I love what the author does to elaborate on the in-universe magic system.
The Magicians
The Magician's Wish by mayhap - What thrills me most about this fic is how the author really understands the spirit of these books, and the characters. There's whimsy and sincerity; there's Eliot being a dumbass in love and Quentin being Quentin. Plus, it's laugh-out-loud funny. Feel good fic of the year, tbh.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
in all probability by marginaliana - Outside of my gifts, this is my standout favourite in Yuletide this year. If you don't read second person, it's time to reconsider. The writing here is masterful, and the nonlinear story commands ambiguity with purpose. Also I have a lot of feelings because of this. SO many feelings.
The Thick of It
Curtain Material by Monksandbones - I laughed out loud at this brilliant epistolary fic. I'm most impressed by the author's Nicola voice, and the absolute confidence with which this feels like it could just slot into canon. There's a richness of stories within stories hiding in here. It's a joy to read.
Finally, the fic I wrote - a self-rec, if you will! - is One Spell to Discover what My Enemy is doing Presently. Though I nabbed the title from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, this is a Secret History fic. My request was for a years-later reunion between the characters, particularly Camilla and Charles, so I took the opportunity to write from Camilla's point of view. Her position in the story is an interesting one: though Charles loves her, he treats her cruelly, and Richard regularly reduces her to little more than someone he has a crush on, to the point of plainly missing what else is going on in her life. (She always seemed pretty close to Francis, which I explored as well.) I thought about how it would be bittersweet for her to see them again, and then I thought, how can I make this even sadder? So I sent them back to Hampden College for one last hurrah before the place is bulldozed. I wanted to use that "end of an era" framing to parallel the way the four of them have changed, alongside the dubious progress of the 80s and early 90s. (I put in some references to the early days of the internet, which was really fun.) I also used magic as a framing device for the narrative; that just came to me as I started writing, when I thought about how Camilla was the one who was arguably the most supernaturally affected by the bacchanal. And of course then I thought to get the title from JS&MN, which was another fandom my recipient requested. Though I was writing this fic at a really busy time in my life, I managed to create something I'm really proud of, especially after months of not writing any fic. Feels pretty great!
dear yuletide writer...
Oct. 26th, 2019 02:44 pmhi, renaissance here! my theme for this yuletide is history, with three 1980s-ish canons that are preoccupied with the legacies of the past, and two historical RPF fandoms. please note that all of these are OR requests, and you do not need to feature every character requested.
i'm also entered in the crossover challenge, where i have prompted any sort of crossover/fusion between any of dead poets society/the secret history/withnail & i, and a secret history/19th century british writer RPF crossover or fusion. you can find more detail here.
i hope you find something in my letter that catches your eye. happy creating!
( rewind . . . )
i'm also entered in the crossover challenge, where i have prompted any sort of crossover/fusion between any of dead poets society/the secret history/withnail & i, and a secret history/19th century british writer RPF crossover or fusion. you can find more detail here.
i hope you find something in my letter that catches your eye. happy creating!
( rewind . . . )
dear yuletide writer...
Oct. 10th, 2018 01:48 pmhi! ao3 user renaissance here. this is my second yuletide and i'm really excited about my requests this year. i hope there's something on this list to excite you too - happy creating! \o/
( it's yuletime )
( it's yuletime )