Beyond Selidor

I always wait until after author reveals to post my Yuletide recs, because I like to be able to credit the authors. I had a great Yuletide in 2017, both in terms of my gift, the reception of my own assignment and treats, and the other fic I read in the collection. If you, like me, are interested in adding new people on the basis of shared Yuletide (or other) fandoms, I have set up a friending meme here -- please feel free to link it anywhere you want, and leave your own comments if you so desire.

On to the fic!

I have been asking and asking for Pagan Chronicles fic in multiple exchanges for so many years, and this year I was lucky enough to get it! My gift is absolutely gorgeous: the perfect blend of humour, compassion, well-researched allusions to medieval literature, history and religion, and deeply felt human emotion that drew me to the original canon in the first place, and I'm thrilled to have received it.

Still Waters Run Deep (1362 words) by Lauren
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pagan Chronicles - Catherine Jinks
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Pagan Kidrouk, Isidore Orbus
Additional Tags: Yuletide, Yuletide 2017
Summary:

Just another night on the Peregrinatio Compostellana. Isidore's still wondering why they're out here. Pagan's still wondering why horse farts are so revolting.

I wrote four fics this year: my main assignment, and three treats. Looking back at them, I've noticed that, true to form, two of them have titles from song lyrics (one from a Cut Copy song, the other from a Massive Attack song), and the other make heavy reference to medieval Irish tales (Tochmarc Étaín and Buile Shuibne in one fic, Fléd Dúin na nGéd and Cath Muige Rath in the other). I guess those are my signature things?

My main assignment was for tassosss, for Kate Elliott's Court of Fives series.

Always from the Same Height (3406 words) by Dolorosa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Court of Fives Series - Kate Elliott
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kalliarkos/Jessamy Ottonor, background Maraya Ottonor/Polodos, background Amaya Ottonor/Denya
Characters: Jessamy Ottonor, Kalliarkos (Court of Fives), Amaya Ottonor, Denya (Court of Fives), Maraya Ottonor, Polodos (Court of Fives)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Established Relationship
Summary:

Six months have passed since the events at the end of Buried Heart, and Kal has returned to Saryenia for his first leave from the spider scouts. He returns to a city transformed: neither a monument to the old injustices of Saroese colonial rule, nor a complete reversion to what it was in the Efea of dimly-remembered history, but something messier, more complicated, and more hopeful. Who better than Jessamy to be Kal's guide through this changed city?

I also wrote three treats, for 'Seasons of Glass and Iron' - Amal El-Mohtar, The Dark Is Rising Sequence, and Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows duology respectively.

The Heart's Gold Thread (4890 words) by Dolorosa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Seasons of Glass and Iron - Amal El-Mohtar
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Amira/Tabitha (Seasons of Glass and Iron)
Characters: Amira (Seasons of Glass and Iron), Tabitha (Seasons of Glass and Iron)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

After leaving the glass hill, Tabitha and Amira find themselves walking strange paths and wandering into other people's stories.

A Cold Mirror (2293 words) by Dolorosa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: The Lady (Dark Is Rising), The Black Rider
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat
Summary:

'I will always be up here, above you, and you will always be down there in the earth, mourning lost causes.'

Throughout the long years of the ceaseless struggle between Light and Dark, the Lady and the Black Rider's paths cross frequently. Usually, their encounters occur at turning points, spaces between — at times when choices are made.

Please see the endnote for details of applicable warnings.

Kintsukuroi (1760 words) by Dolorosa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Characters: Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Post-Canon
Summary:

Ketterdam is the only place where Kaz Brekker feels any semblance of safety and control. Inej Ghafa's feelings are more complicated: she left to fight the injustices she saw every day on Ketterdam's streets, but finds she's drawn back in spite of herself to the city where she spent so many years. And in that city — a city of refugees, misfits, and the dispossessed, the city where Kaz and Inej found each other — the pair slowly begin to mend the broken pieces of themselves.

This fic takes place some time after the events of Crooked Kingdom.

There were so many great fics in the collection. My recs are behind the cut.

( Fic recs for The Dark Is Rising sequence - Susan Cooper Earthsea - Ursula Le Guin, The Handmaid's Tale, Jane the Virgin, Jewish scripture and legend, The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay, Llyfr Taliesin/Book of Taliesin, Six of Crows series - Leigh Bardugo, Uprooted - Naomi Novik behind the cut )

It's the evening of Boxing Day, and, after the busyness and socialising of the past two days, things have calmed down a bit. I'm in Germany visiting my husband's family, and it's been fun so far. In Germany, the main Christmas celebrations happen on Christmas Eve, with the big meal and present-giving taking place in the evening. As we did last year, we had our Christmas Eve dinner at Matthias' sister's place. This year, I cooked the dinner: salmon baked with lemon, garlic, onions, tomatoes, capers and capsicum, served with wild rice. It was a hit, which was a big relief to me, as my taste in food is very different to that of my in-laws. I think I'll always volunteer to cook, as I get really stressed at Christmas events that aren't with my family, and need something to keep me occupied and make me feel useful.

On Christmas Day Matthias' sister, her husband and their son went to visit the husband's family, and Matthias and I stayed with his parents. Everyone had been given lots of books for Christmas, so we spent most of the day reading, before eating a dinner of cold seafood, bread, and various pickled vegetables. (This used to be his family's Christmas Eve meal of choice, but since events have moved to his sister's, it gets pushed forward to Christmas Day instead.)

Today is Matthias' dad's birthday, and the rest of the family came over for coffee and cake in the afternoon.

Post edited to make public, now that I'm back home.
In between all the various meals and gifts, I've been getting stuck into the Yuletide collection. My gift was wonderful: a little gem of a fic in one of my most beloved fandoms-of-one, and I hope my comment made it clear how much I loved it. My own assignment, and the treats I've written, seem to be well received. I've been impressed with most of the fics I've read so far, and have been on an absolute comment spree. I decided to read through the collection in reverse alphabetically order (because I always feel sorry for authors who write for fandoms at the bottom of the alphabet, as people take longer to get to them and may have run out of steam for commenting by the time they've read their fic), and am up to D. I'll do the same thing with the Madness collection once I'm done with Yuletide.

I've bookmarked a lot of fics, and will do a recs post on 1st January. I never do recs posts before reveals, as I like to be able to credit the authors and make it easier for people to read their other work.

I had an idle thought to do a post-reveals friending meme. Would anyone be interested in such a thing? Obviously it would be open to those who didn't participate in Yuletide as well as those who did.