elrhiarhodan

So the seals have come off on the last of the exchanges I'd signed up and written for (thoughts on that in another post), and I figured it's time to post an update to the fics I've been talking about in various posts.

Title: Booked and Bespoked - A Mills & Boon Romance
Author: elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Kingsman (Movies)
Rating: Mature
Characters Harry Hart | Galahad, Merlin, Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Alastair Morton | Percival, Victoria Winslow (RED), Original Female Characters, Original Male Characters, Roxy Morton | Lancelot, Tilde (mention of)
Pairings: Harry Hart | Galahad/Merlin
Word Count: ~31064
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Evil mother, Expressions of Homophobia
Summary:Merlin is one of the most prolific and popular writers of genre fiction in Great Britain, but he's suffering from a tremendous case of writer's block. His editor, Eggsy, suggests he go back to what he'd been doing when he'd written his breakthrough novel nearly thirty years ago - a tell-all book about being a paid companion for high-society women, or a "walker" as they were once called. The thing is, that is exactly what Merlin had been, a paid companion; the more he thinks about it, the more he finds the idea appealing. He can go back out in that world and gather fodder for a sequel.

Harry Hart, Marquess Cardoc and owner of Kingsman Media, is sick and tired of his horrible mother trying to marry him off to eligible women. No matter how many times he's told her that he's gay, she doesn't want to believe him. His senior fiction editor and good friend, Eggsy Unwin, suggests that he find someone to fake date - like those men that used to escort women to society parties.

When Harry and Merlin finally meet, it seems like fate has made a perfect match.

Author’s Note: The first of two stories written for the first Kingsman Reverse Bang, for artwork created by my co-mod and partner in crime, anarchycox.

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Booked and Bespoked - A Mills & Boon Romance (On AO3)

Title: Shooting Star
Author: elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Kingsman (Movies)
Rating: Mature
Characters Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Harry Hart | Galahad, Merlin, Charlie Hesketh, Roxy Morton | Lancelot, Alastair Morton | Percival, James Spencer | Lancelot, Chester King | Arthur, Original Characters, Elton John (as himself)
Pairings: Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin
Word Count: ~50071
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Mild Drug Usage, Suicide of Minor Character (who dies in canon), Expressions of Homophobia, Closeted Sexuality
Summary: Gary "Eggsy" Unwin had once been the hottest musical act since a certain moppet had been discovered from his YouTube videos, but criminally bad management had sunk his career - to the point that both his recording contract and his management company have terminated their relationships with Eggsy. Bored, unhappy, bitter at how everything's gone to shite, he calls his dealer, looking to score some coke.

It doesn't work out as he expects.

Author’s Note: Written for the first annual Kingsman Reverse Bang, for the artwork by mmouse.

Shooting Star (On AO3)


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Title: Ten Minutes Ago (I met you)
Author: elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Kingsman (Movies)
Rating: Mature
Characters Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Harry Hart | Galahad, Merlin, Original Male Character (Prince Sebastian Clarack), Original Female Character (Queen Davina Clarack), Charlie Hesketh, Roxy Morton | Lancelot
Pairings: Eggsy/Original Male Character
Word Count: ~20693
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Canon-Level violence, Politics, Royal AU
Summary: Walking home from the tailor shop, Eggsy is about to start a very well-earned vacation when he hears the sound of a high-powered rifle. Eggsy being who he is, runs towards the danger and finds a diplomatic motorcade under attack from a roof-top sniper. He saves the day, and more importantly, the two royals who had been the shooter's target.

Prince Sebastian Clarack, heir to the throne of his tiny North Sea island kingdom, finds himself obsessed with the man who'd saved his life. The man he only knows as Galahad is strong and beautiful and Sebastian finds he wants to know everything about him. It's a pity his Uncle Christie, who works with Galahad, as well as the stern Harry Hart, who's been his mother's tailor for as long as Sebastian can remember, and just happens to be Galahad's boss, won't tell him a damn thing about the man.

Spies, after all, need to keep their identities a secret.

Author’s Note: Written for the Just Married 2019 Exchange, for my dearest anarchycox. By way of enticement, Richard Madden is fancast as Prince Sebastian and one of the very early scenes is a riff on a key scene from Madden's BBC series, Bodyguard (not to be confused with the horrid 1980s movie with a similar name). Casting Richard Madden as a character named "Sebastian" is a thing in certain sectors of the fandom.

Ten Minutes Ago (I met you) (On AO3)


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Title: He is the Cat (that walks by himself)
Author: elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Kingman (Movies)
Rating: PG-13
Characters Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Merlin, Harry Hart | Galahad, Alastair Morton 
 Percival, mention of Roxanne Morton, mention of Tilde
Pairings: Merlin/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, background Roxy/Tilde
Word Count: 14,966
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Summary: Magic happens in the oddest places. Sometimes all it takes is a supremely ugly cat and a well-timed ice storm to bring two unlikely people together.

Author’s Note: Written for the Pining Exchange 2019, for my dearest friend, anarchycox.

He is the Cat (that walks by himself) (On AO3)

I was lucky enough to snag a ticket to last night's advance screening of Rocketman (apparently this is a thing with Fandango - they had one for Shazam, too, which I hadn't known about).

In short, the movie was fucking awesome. At length ... ( Under a cut for some light spoilers, all images are from the widely released trailer )

Title: A Chance To Try Again
Author: elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: NC-17
Characters Original Characters
Pairings: Male Military Leader Who Won The War/His New Husband Male Military Leader Who Lost The War, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Word Count: ~12,000
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: A/B/O Consent Issues, Political Marriage
Summary: As cadets at the Space Academy, Arris Gyreth, an all-too-noble Alpha Prime, had regularly helped Dezko Corrick, a scrappy Omega from the Confederation, through his heats.

Twenty-three years later, to end a long war, Arris Gyreth, now Lord Commander of the Imperium, demands Fleet Admiral Dezko Corrick's hand in marriage. Dez must also explicitly declare that any offspring of the marriage will be subject to the laws of the Imperium.

Dez is very confused, to say the least.


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Author’s Notes: Written for the 2019 round of smutswap, linking here now the covers are off. This is a challenge that gives me a chance to stretch my original fic muscles, as well as my porny instincts. Enjoy!

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A Chance To Try Again - Read on AO3

Title: Each Day I Learn Just a Little Bit More
Author: elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Kingsman
Rating: PG
Characters Eggsy Unwin, Original Male Character, Merlin, Harry Hart
Pairings: Eggsy & OMC, Harry/Merlin
Word Count: ~7100
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Attempted non-consensual drugging (roofie), Prior, off-camera non-consensual sexual encounter, allusion to under-age prostitution
Summary: Twelve years a Kingsman and Eggsy has his decent post-mission routine down pat. A glass of Scotch, a good steak, and some vigorous sex with a paid professional. But tonight, for some reason, he breaks his routine after the Scotch and the steak, and heads to a dance club on Old Compton Street in Soho. Standing at the bar and watching all the pretty boys twirling on the dance floor, he notices someone drop something into a drink left behind on the bar. A drink belonging to a rather lovely young Scotsman with brilliant blue eyes.

The evening might have ended most satisfactorily in a bed, but he'd made the mistake of offering to listen to the young man's story.

Or, as Albert Einstein once said, "Coincidences are G-d's way of remaining anonymous".

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Author’s Notes: As I noted in the AO3 tags, this is all eggsyobsessed's fault in creating a lovely OMC and fancasting Richard Madden. She'd given me permission to play in her SebWin sandbox, but instead, I decided to riff on the idea of an older Eggsy - just not quite as old as her magnificent version - and a different kind of meet-cute, but with plenty of good single malt whisky and Harry and Merlin as Eggsy's two dads.

It feels rather appropriate to use a line from the Elton John classic, "This Song Has No Title" as the title for this story.

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Each Day I Learn Just a Little Bit More - Read on AO3

Title: He Called You By Your Real Name
Author: elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Kingsman/James Bond (Craig Movies)
Rating: PG
Characters Merlin, James Bond
Pairings: Merlin/Eggsy, Bond/Q (alluded)
Word Count: ~1588
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Single use of an ethnic slur
Summary: Merlin and Bond meet on the Vauxhall Bridge, right across from the SIS Building. Merlin needs a favor from his old friend.

Author’s Note: Part of my Personal Fic Challenge 2019, for the prompt "He Called You By Your Real Name". This is a short version of a story that I've had in my head for several years, since I found Our Friends In The North and discovered that Mark Strong and Daniel Craig are good friends.

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( Two AM and the Vauxhall Bridge is mostly deserted. Mostly, not completely, however. ) (On AO3)

Title: Life's a Long Song
Author: elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan / elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Kingsman (Movies)
Rating: Mature
Characters: Harry Hart | Galahad, Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Merlin (Kingsman), Roxy Morton | Lancelot, Charlie Hesketh, Chester King | Arthur, Victoria Winslow
Relationships: Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin,
Word Count: 32,333 / 8/8 Chapters
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Discussion of HIV/AIDS and discussion of a memory for a request for assisted Suicide (at the end)

Summary: Harry Hart, multiple award-winning playwright and screenwriter and sometime actor, has occasionally had lapses in judgment. The biggest one of late had been an ill-considered relationship with the young and not-so-talented actor, Charlie Hesketh. It's awards season, Harry's nominated for several BAFTAs, and so is Charlie. Merlin, Harry's best friend since their teenage years, and his agent, is insisting that Harry needs to bring someone prettier, younger, and more talented as his arm candy for all the red carpet events coming on during Awards Season.

And he has just the young actor in mind - Eggsy Unwin, recent RADA graduate (with honors), has been getting the rawest of deals from his own agent, Chester King. Merlin knows that Eggsy will appeal to Harry for many reasons, and offers Eggsy a representation contract if he just goes to meet a client of his - no other strings attached.

Related Work: Artwork for Plays Mentioned in Life's a Long Song

Author’s Note: See below the cut

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On AO3: Life's a Long Song

( Copious Author's Notes )

Dear Author:

( Thank you for writing for me. I know I'll love what you create. )

While I don't have a lot of works in progress, I do have a problem controlling my word count. It's rare that I can write something under five thousand words these days. It's not that I feel that my writing is bloated or redundant, it's that I just get so enthralled with a story idea that I let it take over my brain.

I used to do wonderful short stories and ficlets; three hundred words was a sweet spot, and for years, my average story length was between two and four thousand words and completed in a week or less. But lately, my stories are just getting longer and taking longer to write, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, I would like to be able to write shorter, less wordy stories, too.

Last December, anarchycox and I were talking about her WIP problem, and how every idea she had seemed to go epic, and we brainstormed rules for her personal writing challenge. After finishing two challenge assignments (chocolateboxcomm and poetry_fiction), I thought this would be a good time to start my own personal writing challenge, employing a few of Anarchy's excellent ideas.

Using my very beloved list of prompts from The Writer's Book of Days, I've eliminated prompts I've written before (I've used this list for a variety of personal writing projects over the last several years) and then ruthlessly cut it down to one hundred prompts, and each are numbered.

The goal is to write two fics a month based on one of the prompts. I have a random number generator that will give me three numbers, and I pick one prompt from the three. I'm allowed to roll twice, because the goal is to write a story, not to NOT write a story.

Rules:

1 – Each story can be no more than five thousand words and be complete when posted.
2 – Stories may be interconnected but they have to stand alone.
3 – Stories can be based on already published worlds/series.
4 – Prompts are selected on the first and third Sundays of each month

Now every good challenge needs a reward. If I complete three months in a row, the fourth month I can take two prompts on the first Sunday of the month and combine them into a single fic and write something that is more than 5k, but it MUST be finished that month and be 10k or less. Or I can continue on as before and write two stories 5k or less each.

Wish me luck!

Title: The Summer Folly
Author: elrhiarhodan
Fandom: Kingsman
Rating: R (for sexual content
Characters: Harry Hart | Galahad, Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Charlie Hesketh, Original Female Characters, Original Male Characters
Pairings: Harry Hart/Eggsy Unwin (Hartwin)
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~6800
Summary: A non-spy AU, set in Cornwall, circa 1924. Harry Hart is a landed aristocrat and Eggsy, a student at Oxford, and somewhat friends with Harry’s young cousin, Charlie, has been invited to spend the summer at Harry’s estate. Nothing, though, is quite as simple as it seems.

Author's Notes: Written for the 2019 poetry_fiction challenge, for the snippet from O Great Beauties! by Tishani Doshi

Just explain the mystery to me.
Did darkness burn all around?
Or did you see, as I see—a quiet wood
Outside the town, with a banquet
In a field of belladonna?

I don't know why, but this snippet took me in the direction of Kingsman meets Downton Abbey (or Brideshead Revisited, or God Is An Englishman if you prefer), or maybe I just wanted an excuse to put Harry and Eggsy in period formalwear.

Fills the "Moonlight" square on my Fluff Bingo card, the "May/December Romance" on my Trope Bingo card, and the "Historical A/U" on my Gen Prompt Bingo card.

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( There are standards to be maintained, especially for those apparently not born to the manor. ) (On AO3)

I've had reason to go back and look at some of the ways that I've participated in fannish activity on journal-based platforms (LJ and now DW). While in my early days in fandom, I had avoided signing up for too many challenges and exchanges. (IIRC, the first one I remember signing up for had been a bit of a disaster. I had to pull out of because of my dad's final illness and the mod refused to allow my exchange participant to give me my gift because apparently when her brother's girlfriend has been in the hospital I hadn't been sufficiently sympathetic. Nine years later, I'm still scratching my head over that one.)

But I rarely met a bingo challenge that I didn't sign up for. I liked them because the prompts were good at sparking my imagination, there was no real penalty for failing to make a bingo, and even if the mods would be strict enough to block me from getting a card in the next round, nothing could stop me from continuing to work on the card I already had even after the round closed. Besides, I honestly don't think any mod on any bingo challenge has ever had the patience or time to go through hundreds of signups and match those with requestors who never posted a bingo.

Anyway, in lieu of writing this evening, I gave in to my inner completist (she's a bitch but I love her), and I rounded up all of my bingo cards. There were quite a few of them.

Thirty to be precise.

Hurt/Comfort - 7
Trope - 5
Kink - 4
Angst - 2
AU - 2
Love - 3
Gen Prompt - 2
Kiss - 1
Season of Kink - 1
Fluff - 1
Dark - 1
Cotton Candy - 1

I have to admit that I'm a bit of a nut. I always look at a bingo card wanting to make a blackout (I've done that five times) but if I can't, I find I'm paralyzed and can't even make a one-line bingo!

What I've found interesting and a tiny bit annoying as I've gone back through my emails (thank you gmail, I don't have to get rid of anything) is that so many of those cards had been parts of pre-generated sets (For example, I found bits of code in the HTML of one card referring to Card_1_of_10 in the table header, another that simply said Card_5), which might explain why I kept getting cards for a certain bingo that reused the same prompts every year (out of a published set of several hundred prompt), because my opt-outs were the same every single year.

While I love my new Fluff Bingo card, I really adore my Trope Bingo card. The trope_bingo mods decided that they wanted people to actually write and create stuff, so they posted the prompt list and pointed people to a bingo card generator. I look at this miracle of Javascript (or whatever it is) and wonder, why can't all bingo comms work this? Tell someone signing up to pick fifty prompts, put it in the generator, and post the card to the comm. Or if there's a trust issue (people cheating and using prompts not on the list), have participants still pick their fifty prompts and let the mods generate the actual card and send out the HTML. Because using the same handful of cards over and over again, or having 500+ prompts but only having 100 active prompts that get onto actual cards doesn't make a lot of sense.

It's not my intention to slight the hard work that bingo community moderators do - especially come the end of the round, or for those comms that stay in active communication with members through out the round. It's just so darn frustrating to see the same prompts appearing over and over again.

I have both PNGs and HTML for all thirty cards, including the cards that had only been provided as images (Love Bingo, two rounds of Kink Bingo), so if anyone wants to find some inspiration and doesn't want to sign up for their own card, or the comm is closed down (I think only H/C, Trope, Gen Prompt and Season of Kink are still open for business), just drop a comment and I'll respond. Or if you just want a random card to play with, just ask.

On Day 12 of the snowflake_challenge, we were asked to create our own challenge and I decided that I wanted to run another Reverse Bang, but this time for Kingsman and to help create a presence for the fandom here on DW.

My frequent partner-in-crime and constant braintwin, anarchycox, said this interested her. So I dug out the exhaustive rules I'd created for the old WC reverse bang, did some editing, passed them back to Anarchy, who made some comments and suggested improvements, we brainstormed over the weekend, refined the rules, I set up the community here, she's signal boosting on Tumblr, and now we're ready to go. I present to you:

Kingsman Reverse Bang



Schedule for Round One of the Kingsman Reverse Bang:

Sign Ups Open: February 7th, 2019
Artist Check In (not mandatory): March 14th, 2019
Artist Sign Ups Close: March 14th, 2019
Art Drafts Due: March 21st, 2019
Art Draft Preview: March 23rd, 2019
Author Sign Ups Close: March 25th, 2019
Round One Art Up for Claims: March 26th, 2019
Round Two Art Up for Claims: March 30th, 2019
Round Three Art Up for Claims: (If necessary)
Author Check in (mandatory): April 21st, 2019
Last day for author drop out: May 1st, 2019
Pinch hit request: May 3rd, 2019

Challenge Closes, Fics and Finished Art Due: May 15th, 2019
Posting Starts: May 18th, 2019
Posting Ends: June 1st, 2019


See all of the requirements in the Community FAQ.

Please come and join the merriment, as an artist, a writer, or just to cheerlead. Everyone is welcome!

Day 15

Talk about why you participated in Snowflake &/or what you got out of it. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


I'd participated in the first Fandom Snowflake Challenge, back in 2012, when I'd truly believed that my fandom, White Collar, could last until eternity, that there was no better and more far-reaching platform than LiveJournal (although I'd been posting from DW). I'd also just come through a health crisis and needed something to fill in the hours while I was recovering.

In the intervening years, I'd participated in the FS Challenge but more often than not, dropping out by the fifth or sixth day. When I'd migrated over to Tumblr, I tried doing it there, but it all seemed so pointless. Most everything that wasn't a political screed or a cute cat picture or a fannish reblog got utterly lost. So I'd given up and I'd let my Dreamwidth account languish (although I'd never stopped paying for it).

But then the December 17th Ridiculousness happened and I realized that I was wasting far too much time on something which had no emotional or fannish value, and that it was time to come home.

And so, for the first time in a very long time, I did the Fandom Snowflake Challenge, as a way to get back into the habit of blogging on an adult platform. In the two weeks I've been participating, I've added more friends to my circle than I can count. I've reconnected with people I'd lost touch with, and I've found a new resolve to bringing fandom back to a community based platform.

My deepest thanks to all of the mods for continuing the work that began in 2012 and making it better, more meaningful, more important than ever.

And to everyone I've connected with, let's keep the dialogue going.

Day 14

In your own space, talk about what you think the future holds for fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I hope, with the migration away from Tumblr, we'll start to see a more community-based fandom experience, again. I don't think it will ever rise to the heights it had been in the days before the disasters on LJ (strikethrough/boldthrough) and the rise of insta-blogging/micro-blogging on Tumblr and Twitter, but I think that if there are a few dedicated souls in each fandom who are willing to put in the time and effort to build the necessary structures on Dreamwidth, and others who will help with the heavy lifting (promotion, signal boosting, etc.), Dreamwidth can be a centralized home for fannish activity.

tozka has been posting their thoughts about fandom and it's future on their journal, and I don't want to reiterate their ideas here (read: steal), and I urge anyone who is the least be interested in the future of fandom on a journal based platform to go read their posts (this one and this one).

Between Doctorsidrat's meta and the last three Fandom Snowflake challenges have really gotten me to think about why it was so easy for fandom to migrate to Tumblr and why it's going to be difficult to rebuild it here on Dreamwidth.

Time. (Queue up Simon and Garfunkel's Hazy Shade of Winter)

It's easy and quick to set up a blog on Tumblr. Tags don't belong to you, they are Tumblr-wide. You don't have to do much to keep people in the loop other than keep hitting the reblog button.

Creating a community on DW is a much more deliberate action. It requires a lot of thought and you need to make some pretty serious choices. Tagging is community specific and for it to be effective, the comm owner needs to set up a tagging system (my experience is that the comm owners should pre-create the tags and not allow members to create their own tags). Signal boosting means you have to reach out to other community owners and ask for permission to post the boost, you have to corral friends of the comm to boost on their journals, and if you're lucky, you'll get someone with a lot of friends who'll see those posts.

All of this effort takes time. It's not easy. Good, well-run communities have clearly spelled out rules that are easily found (it's surprising how many comms don't use their profile page at all and don't sticky-post the rules or put a link to the rules in the sidebar). Things that you think are obvious still need to be spelled out and sometimes, in great and tedious detail, especially for challenges and fanworks exchanges.

Fandom on Dreamwidth will grow again through good, well-maintained and regularly moderated communities, all of which take time and dedication and a handful of people who are able to give that.

Day 12

In your own space, create your own challenge. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This one's easy!

Kingsman Reverse Bang.

There's a Kingsman Big Bang, a Kingsman Stocking Stuffer Exchange, a Kingsman Secret Santa, Kingsman Fic Wars, but there is no (at least that I've seen) Reverse Bang for the Kingsman fandom, and yet there are so many incredible visual artists who create Kingsman fanworks (is it surprising with a cast comprised of Colin Firth, Mark Strong and Taron Egerton?), that could inspire us word artists.

If there's anyone out there who's listening and who's interested, please hit me up. I've run Reverse Bangs in the White Collar fandom, as well as Big Bangs, holiday exchanges, writing fests, prompt fests, so I have experience in how to do this.

Day 9

Commit an Act of Kindness. In your own space, share what you’ve done, talk about what you’ve done, or simply leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I did the thing a few days ago, rec'ing some media with a low violence quotient to teaotter. You can find the recs here.

Day 7

Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or check out some fanworks that are new to you. (The recs from Day 2 might be a good place to start.) Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


I don't know what propelled me here, to Elizabeth Enright's Melendy Quartet. Those books had been amongst my childhood favorites, and I'd never considered that there could be fanworks for them.

Not that there's a lot to pick from, a grand total of five stories on AO3, and the most recent one is almost five years old. But I thought it worth a shot and I absolutely do not regret reading Wendelah1's story, Good As New.

It brings together the whole family and the secondary characters, a few years into their future. It's been decades since I read the books, but the characters and voices, particularly Miranda's, feel very real and authentic.

Day 5

In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Since I'm playing catch up, I'll keep this brief (ha!).

trope_bingo - Round 12 Sign Up Post

Why Do I Love This Community/Challenge: I especially love this round of Trope Bingo because they are letting you use old cards from prior rounds and even better, letting you create your own bingo cards from the community's list of prompts. So, you get to pick your top 24 prompts and put it in the generator to create the HTML for your own card. And the rules for what is a sufficient fill have been changed - 100 words for a fic, down from the usual 500 words (and there are across the board reductions for all kinds of fanworks).

For me, this is a big deal. Since my days participating in the White Collar 100 challenge, 300 words had been my sweet spot for telling a complete story. If I had to go to 500 words, I'd write a thousand or more. Part of my 2019 writing goals is getting back to a shorter form of storytelling, where I have to force myself not to include every f**king detail.

poetry_fiction - 2019 Featured Poet

Why Do I Love This Community/Challenge: I've been participating in this challenge for quite a few years, and I think that some of my best writing has come from the inspiration provided by the assigned snippets. The challenge is extremely low key, no one gets barred if they fail to post their fanwork. If you don't like your prompt, you can always request a new one. The featured poets are always diverse, and the closest they've come to being part of the Western Canon is selecting Pablo Neruda for the 2016 featured poet (and no, I'm not saying the Neruda is part of the Western Canon, but he was widely recognized and often considered one of the greatest poets of the 20th century).

The mod has a knack for picking great snippets that are filled with imagery, and the participants fill with a wide range of fandoms and original works. The fill requirements are low - I think 1000 words is the requirement for a fill, although I suspect that a lower wordcount will not get you tossed - since nothing can get you tossed. In July of each year, the mod posts an open challenge, one poetry snippet a day for anyone to fill. There's always an amnesty (although it briefly closes for the new challenge period).

chocolateboxcomm - Signup Form on AO3 (Note: signups close soon, on January 7th)

Why Do I Love This Community/Challenge: Chocolate Box is one of the great pan-fandom exchanges. Unlike the venerable Yuletide, there's no bar to nominating a fandom (Yuletide is ostensibly for small fandoms with less then 1000 works on an archive), so you can find both mega-fandoms like HP and MCU and LOTR and Star Wars along side of microfandoms like you might find in Yuletide. They also allow crossover fandoms (nominated by pairing) and original works (over 500 different prompt/pairings). The challenge requires the fanwork to focus on relationships - which means family and friendship, not just romance (despite the name and the time of year).

Like most pan-fandom challenges, you have to have a few fandoms you're willing to offer fanworks for and are looking to receive, but the fulfillment requirements are low (300 words, a 500x500 pixel artwork on unlined paper), so this could be a chance to stretch yourself with a new fandom without committing to a long story/complex artwork.

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These three comms / challenges are ones that I've participated in regularly, and I recommend them to everyone, even novice creators. They are all exceedingly well managed, with responsive mods (Trope Bingo has a new mod this round and Chocolate Box has added mods because it's gotten so large). Perhaps the most "challenging" of the challenges is Chocolate Box, if just because of the intricacies of the signup process. If there is something they could do better is explaining how the nomination and signup process works, especially how to nominate crossovers. Anyone with reasonable intelligence can figure it out, but for a newbie, a little hand-holding would be nice.

Day 4

Comment to someone you haven't ever interacted with before or introduce yourself to someone you've interacted with and friend/follow them. Afterwards, leave a comment in this post with the equivalent of "I did it!"

This one's going to be (for now), a bit of a cheat, since I did it yesterday. I read etoile_noire's Kingsman fic, One Little Thing on the fandomweekly comm, and commented on how much I enjoyed it and how nice it was to see a Kingsman fic on DW. I asked if it was all right to add them to my DW circle and they agreed, and voila! We became mutuals just like that.

Day 3

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

The Flash, Season Two, Episode 17 - Flash Back

This episode is probably the best of the entire season, and maybe even the best of the series. Barry goes back in time, to a moment when he had still been ignorant of who Harrison Wells really is, for the purpose of learning how to run faster. He plans to interrogate his mentor, learning some speed secrets (The Man in Yellow was always that much faster than Barry). Of course things don't go as planned, Wells/Eobard figures out that the Barry Allen he's talking to isn't his Barry, and we end up with the EoWells/Barry Bondage Scene. It's a two-hander filled with quiet menace, massive rage, gamesmanship, and an incredible amount of sexual tension.



The rest of the episode is stellar, too - EoWells dragging his chair like a security blanket, Cisco having a not-so-quiet freak-out at the appearance of TWO Barry Allens, the redemption of Hartley Rathaway, the first appearance of the Time Wraiths, and the off-screen hatesex between Barry and Eo.

If only The Flash had been able to maintain this quality - writing, acting, characterization - the show might not have been cancelled.

Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Because I can't just rec three fanworks, I'm reccing three creators near and dear to my heart, and then three of their works.

anarchycox / anarchycox / anarchycox

I could just rec almost everything that Anarchy has written for Kingsman (I haven't read anything she's written for other fandoms, but that doesn't mean that they aren't equally awesome). They only reason why I don't is that there are a few of her stories that push some uncomfortable buttons (mostly my deep-as-the-Marianas-Trench humiliation squick) and I haven't been able to read them. That being said, Anarchy is prolific and committed to her stories, and you really can't go wrong reading anything she's written. The hardest thing to do is to pick just three. And I'm cheating, since I've picked two series and one stand-alone.

The Idiot Squad

A Kingsman A/U, set as an A/B/O, with Merlin as the pack leader, Harry as his second in command, and the Kingsman characters taking their place in various roles. I love these stories because they are both cracky (hence the title "Idiot Squad") and yet deadly serious. Merlin and Harry have a history as deadly members of MI-6, damaged by the work they've done and finally breaking free to form a family of their own. Although Merlin and Harry are emotionally and physically close, they are the pairing in these stories – the first one is Merlin/Eggsy, the second Harry/Percival, the third Roxy/Tilde, the fourth to be finished is Michelle and an original male character. The fifth to be written/fourth in the series chronology, is about how the pack grows with the addition of children (this is an A/B/O fic, so there is mpreg). There's also a collection of timestamps (Good Families Don't) that are tragic, hysterical, sweet, sexy, and everything else that doesn't fit into the main stories.

True Love Is Found in Event Horizons and Taco Nights

This series started with a promotional picture of Mark Strong and the girl children of his (then) new television series, Deep State, and Anarchy wrote a quick fic of the idea of stoic and seemingly married-to-Kingsman Merlin having five daughters. She wasn't satisfied, and expanded it into what is now known as "Taco Nights" (I love Anarchy's talent for always having the perfect titles). These stories are unexpectedly sweet and family oriented, but not at all syrupy or out of character. The first story, The Five Wonders of Merlin's Life and How a Sixth Appeared is what it says – how Merlin ended up with five girl children, and then how a new love made his way into Merlin's life. The story is the start of a beautiful, slow-roll Merlin/Eggsy romance, but it's mostly a family/domestic story that rings true with every word. The sequel, Liking Is Easy, Dating is Hard, is still a work in progress, but of all of Anarchy's current WIPs, it's the one most frequently updated (about once a week, maybe more often). As with nearly all of her series, Anarchy has a timestamp collection for Taco Nights and the two chapters currently posted are utterly hysterical and anyone from a large family can appreciate them.

Went Down to the River and Prayed

Although there are other stories I want to rec (some of which were written for me), I have to rec the story that made me a lifelong fan of Anarchy's writing. This is one of the most unique and original pieces of fiction (fan or otherwise) that I've ever read. Merlin is an ancient kelpie, a water-horse, captured by Kingsman shortly after the foundation, and he's forced to use his magic for the benefit of the agency. This Merlin isn't particularly nice, but then, neither is Kingsman. It is Merlin/Harry, but true love doesn't run smoothly and the forces of evil do their best to destroy everything good in the world.


kyele / timeforalongstory / kyele

Kyele is simply the most brilliantly lyrical storyteller I've ever met, and there isn't anything she's written that I won't whole-heartedly rec (perhaps because we share the same deep-as-the-Marianas-Trench humiliation squick). It's really, really, really hard to pick just three, so I'm going for one series and two stand-alones (that I wish had timestamps and sequels, if just because I'm a greedy reader).

ad infinitum

The first story, Tempus Fugit, was my gateway drug into the world of Kyele. I'd started watching The Flash in Netflix – catching up with Season One and then the current eps midway through the second season, and fell deep into the Eobard/Barry ship (when most of the rest of the fandom was shipping Barry with Captain Cold). This story takes a very unique tack, that when Barry Allen returns from not saving Nora, his mother, at the end of Season One, he ends up right back at the start of the whole adventure – just waking up from the nine-month coma. He knows everything, but at the same time, he doesn't really know what's going on. There's a slow and aching reveal in a very fraught relationship between Barry and EoWells that just breaks me every time I read it.
The two additional stories, Olim and beati possidentes, are soft and warm and sexy – everything that is needed after all of the hard-edge energy of the first story in the series.

The Marriage Bargain

A Flash A/U that is a self-described modern/futuristic Regency/Harlequin Romance, with all of the perfect elements - the poor, intelligent and self-sacrificing hero(ine), the cool and distant, rich and handsome love interest, tragic backstories, excellent and fully-fleshed out secondary characters, and truly villainous antagonists. Unlike modern Regency and Harlequin romances, the plot never hangs on the failure to communicate and unresolved misinterpretations of intention. I love this story for so many reasons, including the intense pining on both sides of the story, the long and deliciously drawn out sexual tension, and the fascinating world-building. It is a story of manners, emotions and a nifty legal turn that makes everything end up just right.

A Royal Arrangement

This story is Kyele at her very best. A true Regency, but also an A/B/O, and a Kingsman Royal AU, where Harry –last fertile Alpha of the British Royal Family – is condemned to marry high-born Omegas and divorce them if they don't get pregnant within one year of marriage. Eggsy is the next Omega on the list - his father, Lee, had been an Earl, his mother, Michelle, had come from very wealthy, but very common stock (no Dean here). There's lovely emotional tension; Harry and Eggsy had met before the V-Day virus had destroyed fertility in a large swath of the population and Eggsy had fallen in love with an Alpha he'd believed would be within his reach. When Harry was made king, Eggsy thought all chance of that was gone. Harry, for his part, is resigned to a loveless marriage – how can he fall in love, fearing that the union would be dissolved exactly a year later. In typical Kyele fashion, there are complications of the romantic and legal and moral kind, but there is a lovely HEA that everyone deserves.

kanarek13 / kanarek13 / kanarek13

kanarek13 is an incredibly talented digital artist whose work has long been focused on White Collar, which is where we met – bonding over the beauty that is Matt Bomer. It's hard to pick three of her works to recommend – because she is not only wildly talented, but incredibly prolific. And because it's so difficult, I'm going to be a little shit and rec only artwork that she's done for my stories (and it's still hard because she done so much for me):

La Rivalité des Cygnes

Cover art for my still-unfinished story Orchestration, a historical AU set in Austria in the late 1700s, just before the French Revolution changed everything.

Remembering Rialto

This is a bit meta - theatregirl7299 had written a story for me based upon an event mentioned in one of the very earliest stories I'd ever written, New York, New York – It's a Helluva Town, where Neal remembers Peter chasing him through Venice, and Neal jumps off of the Rialto Bridge onto a passing water bus. For quite a while, Theatregirl had thought that this had actually happened in canon, if just because Neal had a habit of jumping out of windows and off of buildings. Also, I may have used this bit of head canon in several connected stories, so it kind of kept coming up.

Education is Key

Artwork for one of my stories in the Wonder(ful) Years 'verse, where Peter and Neal are the same age and grow up together, go to college together, join the FBI and work together in the White Collar division, and live their lives together – both in secret and then out and proud. This artwork is for the story First Time, Forever, where college age Peter and Neal have penetrative sex together for the first time. The artwork is from a scene early in the story, where Peter and Neal are reading "The Joy of Gay Sex" together. Because, as you know, education is key to success.


Please check out all of the works by all of these wonderful creators. Trust me, your time will be well spent.