greenwoodside

 I was gifted a wonderful story for Yuletide set in the fun, mad (yet oddly believable) world of The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman. The series is about (summarising, badly) a somewhat secret society of librarians who acquire/steal particular rare books from different dimensions while carefully observing neutrality between the chaotic forces of the Fay (individualistic creatures who focus their existence on playing archetypal roles e.g. a scheming mastermind, a pure-spirited princess, a rogue-with-a-heart-of-gold) and the ordered powers of the Dragons (dragons who can shapeshift at will into human form and live in stiflingly hierarchical societies). All three of the sides are problematic. 

My request was for a story about Lord Silver, a Fay with the archetype of an (approximately) eighteenth century libertine who is a series regular who tends to get told off for doing things like standing around on rooftops at night in a dramatically billowing cloak. I got a great character piece (with plot!) showing him moving from being at odds with the series heroine to – well, that would be telling, but to an attitude that is in-line with his canon characterisation. Really well written with an eye for the amusing detail. 

On the Outside by Anonymous

Thank you very much, still unknown benefactor. 

I've been away for a few days so haven't had a chance to read much of the Yuletide archive. One story that did jump out at me this morning was set in the world of Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. The Honeymoon. Glokta (bitter, crippled torturer) and Ardee (alcoholic, pregnant with another man's child) have a honeymoon. I can't actually remember if the Union has honeymoons as part of its culture, but it's an obvious enough Europe-analogue that it probably does. Anyway, this story could easily have been flat and awful, but instead it manages to show the characters being fucked up, yet still caring about each other, and gets in some good lines, as Abercrombie characters are prone to. 

 Dear Yuletide Writer, 

This is all a bit new to me, 2022 being the first time I've attempted to participate in the Yuletide Challenge. The list of rules and procedures are both amazing and terrifying, aren't they? Even to an ex-filer-of-books, they're enough to give a moment's pause. 

ETA: And I completely misunderstood what the nominations phase was for. Or what a tagset was. But I know now! 

I'm thrilled at the idea that anyone could be writing a fic as a gift for me, and will be delighted at whatever I receive. In imitation of Yuletide stalwarts who seem to know How Things Work, I've noted down some general likes and dislikes: 

Likes

•  In essence, whatever you choose to give me, dear Yuletide writer
•  Plot. I really struggle with writing plot, and have deep admiration for those who can do it. If you can't either though, no worries! 
• Simple character moments are great too - if you can't think of plot, I'd still be delighted with a character piece
• A little hope/optimism? If you want to write a fic dealing with heavy issues, that's fine, but at the darkest time of year I'd rather not be reading something that ends in a total downer. 

 
Dislikes

• crackfic (on the whole this genre doesn’t align with my sense of humour; weird AUs are fine though, but the characters do need to be recognisably themselves in terms of personality, if not in appearance)
• character bashing and/or character apotheosis. I prefer more nuanced takes on what makes a character tick.
• PWP. Fine with sex, but I get bored if the story is only sex. 

Requests:

I requested the following: Neverwinter Nights 2 (the game that ate my soul, apparently); The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman specifying Lord Silver as a character; and finally the Tiffany Aching series, specifying Tiffany herself as a character. I'm really open to whatever take/era you want to write about with these two series. Prequel? Missing scene? Crossover? * Sequel set in an alternate dimension decades after the canon novels? You choose. 

With Neverwinter Nights 2 I haven't specified any character. I think it would be great if the story wasn't focused on Sand, Bishop and Casavir who have had lots of attention and words lavished on them already by many fans including me. At the same time, I wouldn't want to demand they be exiled from the story and not mentioned; after all, they're still part of that universe. I'm not a huge lover of either expansion pack; I admire Mask of the Betrayer though in a 'what a pretty statue, now let's move on' sort of way. At the same time, if you really want to write a Mask of the Betrayer story, I don't want to hold you back. Likewise if the only story idea you have is one about Sand and Bishop trying to teach Casavir to play whatever is the D&D-version of poker. I would still be delighted with my Yuletide present. 

If you have any questions, feel free to post an anonymous comment. 

Thank you, and happy writing! I'm already biting my nails wondering what assignment I'll get and if I can write something the recipient will like...

* I've included a lot of possible crossover fandoms in my user profile interests, revealing that, yes, I am tremendously geeky. However, apart from procrastinating and playing computer games during my undergraduate degree almost two decades ago, I also read a lot of classic literature. So if you want to go there, I'm reasonably familiar with Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Catullus, Beowulf, Old English poetry, Renaissance lit (mainly Shakespeare, a bit of Marlowe and Webster, Milton, Donne, Marvell, George Herbert), and nineteenth-century literature (Austen, the Brontës, Dickens, Hardy, Eliot, Thackeray, Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Goethe, Schiller, Flaubert, Stendahl).