Hiding fandom in the underwear drawer since 1977

Well, snacky wrote me the awesome don't know where you're coming from but you're coming soon Peter/Sansa and ran the exchange!syrena_of_the_lake wrote some wonderful things this year, including two gifts for me,Crouching scientist, hidden dragon a Eustace time travel with talking dinosaurs story (yes really) andAll shall love me and despair about the Narnia war machine, goose on a moose


And I did three stories!

For Love and rock music,


Yes, a return to war-time France, The Stone Gryphon and the Lucy and Edmund part of the story, Heart and Crow Make the Peace. the unwritten except I keep filling it in in bits and pieces. This follows the chapters, Heart and Crow Go To War and Kiss me Like a Soldier Headed For War, Rat and Sword Go To War, Black, White and Gray Wolf In Between (where Lucy runs away from school and Helen is visited by Briony, Hound and Nag and Chaos and Inspired Genius.Love and Rock Music is the primary Susan/Tebbitt shipper and has been insistent that I not kill off David Lowrey (who? Yeah, I know, but SHE remembers this minor character from TQSIT) so when I drew her for the Fic Exchange I decided to throw sense and most of my carefully constructed historical fiction research out the window and go for it.

The Star Wars/Narnia xover was for vialethe, syrena_of_the_lake, waywren and be_themoon. It turns out that in one of the recent Leia-focused Star Wars novels, the author Beth Revis gave Leia a sword and named it Rhindon, after Peter's sword. Really. So, well obviously I HAD TO USE IT. It's part of my Susan Joins the Rebels series.

Queentessential (5547 words)
Summary: Once a queen of Narnia, always a queen of Narnia. Or Princess of Alderaan for that matter.
 

And last, utter crack of the Washington DC insider variety, modern AU, Lucy Pevensie is a vampire crashing the conservative Heritage Foundation Halloween Party.  Stay away if politics are not your thing or if you aren't comfortable with fictional murder of the Republican Congressional leadership and a couple of Republican governors. 

Three more,


This one... hmmm. will, at some point, get a post all its own. I knew WingedFlight wanted witchy Jill and I had no idea until I read their Dear NFE Author that edenfalling liked my two stories with Letty and Mrs. Lefay and then Polly and Letty. This wasn't the story I'd intended but is much much better for it. To emphasize it is not part of my TSG series. It's a gift for two fabulous people and I hope they enjoyed it.

This one was for the wonderful syrena_of_the_lake for her birthday and guardyanangel and reader Eva. Eva had written me after the posting of the Star Husband really wanting some comfort for Susan -- even if some of her siblings return to Spare Oom, Susan herself has been deprived of the time with loved ones, the agency of making her decision, and the comfort of Aslan. Eva made a compelling case and several people have, over the years, wanted a scene with Susan and Lambert reunited. So, here we are.
And last, the one that absolutely wrecked and ruined me, where I, completely out of the blue, ended up shipping Susan and that rat bastard Obi-Wan Kenobi.
( more ranting about this story and the life-ruiner OW )

The King Under The Mountain (9528 words) by rthstewart
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Agent Carter (TV), Indiana Jones Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Peggy Carter, Henry "Indiana" Jones, James Montgomery Falsworth, Jim Morita, Gabe Jones, Jacques Dernier, Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan
Additional Tags: World War II, Nazis, Crossover, MCU-Indiana Jones level references to torture
Summary:

The War in Europe is finally ending. Doctor Indiana Jones and Agent Peggy Carter have to make sure it stays that way. They'll need ravens, a flute and a sack of grain (or maybe a bottle of 1935 Chateau Latour Pauillac).

The reveals for the Crossoveringn 2018 challenge went up last night.  There are some wonderful stories in the collection, including several by Narnia/NFE/Twitter friends, including WingedFlight, FreudianCascade, Nasim, and syrena_of_the_lake .  I wrote the above Agent Carter/Indiana Jones xover that is not Peggy/Indy.  My spawn was a huge help and in the scene with the blunt and sharp, spawn was the one who gave me those lines in a text.  (I added the punching above weight class).  I had no idea that Indiana Jones backstory was so immense.  I was going to do Indy and Pegg and a Tesseract-weaponized Spear of Destiny/ Lance of Longinus only to discover that in mid-1945, Nazis in Ireland had already been chasing it with Indy and Dr. Jones Sr.  Who knew? 

No lie, I love this story with the passion of burning suns.  (and if you don't, please don't tell me and let me continue on in blissful ignorance).  It was a string of one glorious coincidence after another and I was able to weave in so many things I've done before (some of the source material for Rat and Sword Got To War, Maenad of the Maquis and my Narnia/Avengers xover all found its way into this work.)

ALSO, as posted previously, I received amazing fan art in the xover, Peggy Carter and Raiders of the Lost Tesseract  now revealed to be justanotherray as the creator.  It's not quite coincidental fan art for my own story, but it's all in the same glorious vein and I"m really happy with what I got and with what I gave and with how it all involved that shining moment in history where darkness was defeated. 

And in a week's worth of truly awful, it was nice to write someone unapologetically punching Nazis in the face.

Thanks so much xovering author! I hope you have fun with the assignment and that it doesn't cause you stress.
I've already given some prompts. If you have any questions, you leave a comment -- I permit anons over here.

So, generally, what I love:

• Really I LOVE xovers and fusions. 
• UST; witty banter and snark; Politics, finance or military strategy; World War 2; Worldbuilding; Gap-filling; Culture clash healthy, romantic relationship between exuberantly consenting adults (canon pairing or OC); someone being extraordinarily clever and getting out of a jam; any canon character being observed from a third person point of view where you know more than the 3rd person pov; anything sly, wry, and silly; rapid fire dialogue; a delightful sense of the absurd
• I don't mind character-driven rather than plotty fic, though plot is great too!
• A happy ending, delightful characterization, and to laugh at least once
• I prefer humor over angst and sex over violence.
• Ladies being good at what they do, whatever that is.
• AU, OCs, and canon divergence are great too.
• In terms of ships, I'm good with just about anything or none at all. If you get shippy, I generally prefer m/f, f/f and poly. if you go m/m, please see DNW below.

What I definitely don't want in my fic: it's a short list but pretty strongly held: excessive angst, gore or violence; any dub-con whatsoever; female characters and especially WOC being written out of the narrative or canonical romance in favor of white dudes.

Also, there are some fandoms that I really like that aren't part of the exchange (Elementary, Wonder Woman movie, Temeraire, Bujold's Chalion, Warehouse 13) that could all be great match-ups with each other and some of what I've already prompted.  Feel free to mix and match.   And, if you see a possible pairing among the fandoms I did list (for example, Star Wars/Allstate Mayhem or Doctor Who/Star Wars or Narnia/any MCU) GO FOR IT.

Narnia/Captain America/Agent Carter/Indiana Jones

Let's punch Nazis.  This is your basic World War II and post WWII cross or fusion. Espionage, spying, punching Nazis, commando raids at Hydra outposts during and after the war, SHIELD in New York.  Also, punch Nazis. I've written some of this myself and have gone completely AU with Narnia -- the crash never happened, etc.  So feel free to incorporate other MCU if you want.  Among the ideas I had, tracking down weird Hydra artifacts, the Howlers finding about the Magician's Nephew rings, or going into the warehouse at the end of Raiders.  Or, maybe a Pevensie becomes an archivist at that warehouse, or any of the Pevensies works for SHIELD, or with Cap or Peggy.  Or Indy or Marion is a consultant to the Howlers as the Allies are cleaning out Hitler's storage closets (Hitler is obsessed with the supernatural, right?). You could also focus on the ladies, Marion, Susan, Lucy and Peggy and Angie (and maybe Dottie!?) all at the Griffith? Maybe Peggy tries to recruit Marion.  Maybe they all have slumber parties and talk about weird the stuff they did during the war and punch Nazis.
I noted in the prompt that I didn't like how much Peggy had to fight for her place in SHIELD -- I know my worth, etc.  Loved her, but I expected that Peggy was one of the founding members of SHIELD and acknowledged as such, per the portraits we saw in Winter Soldier so I'd prefer if stick to her having leadership. 
Also, punch Nazis.
 

 

Allstate Insurance Mayhem/The Librarians
Those ley lines are centered over the Allstate Headquarters.  Obviously.  The Mayhem Guy is a Trickster or a magician. 

Timeless/Person of Interest/Political RPF 21st century
Please, just fix it.  Make it stop.  The 2016 election didn't happen.  Russian interference in the election didn't happen.  The stories about Stormy Daniels and Karen MacDougal actually broke.  Someone stopped Wikileaks.  Someone stopped the DNC hacking.  Oh god just make it stop.

Librarians/Timeless
I love the characters but had a hard time coming up with something specific in the way of a prompt.  Both Team Librarian and the Time Team are very focused on making things right, and will alter time/history/reality to do it but are also very protective of history being a certain way.  Both teams are protectors first.  I could see Time Team  being very skeptical of magic, but then again, they are riding around in a time machine and we're dealing with Jiya's ability to see the future.  Or, maybe Rittenhouse steals artifacts from the Library?  (You could also work the Indiana Jones warehouse in here.  How did the Ark get from the warehouse to the Library?)  As mentioned in my prompt, I love the overlap of characters, Eve and Wyatt shoot things and beat things up, Jacob and Lucy gush about history and the ethics of changing it/not changing it, Jiya, Rufus, and Cassandra and Ezekiel geek about visions, video games, math and hacking and is it just REALLY ADVANCED technology? Or magic? I could see both teams being at the same pivotal moment in history and wrestling with whether or not change.  Maybe the Librarians realize that Time Team and Rittenhouse keep trying to change history and try to do something about it. 

Doctor Who/All Star Wars/The Expanse
All the ladies, in space, and especially, women of power and substance, like Leia, Padme, and Chrisjen.  This could also be a fusion -- Mara Jade is Chrisjen's spy or River Song ends up in the Star Wars verse and is a pain for Leia or Mara or is Chrisjen's secret archeologist.  Bobbie Draper wasn't among the offered characters but, by all means, include her too if you can make it work!

It's going to take me a while to get through these stories.  There are 39 of them of amazing quality.

To begin,

Fit To Be Tied, written for me, crack cross over in which, courtesy of Anansi the spider trickster, Susan romps through various fictional places dealing with a spider with a sense of humor,

The Rule of Threes Raid, also written for me, Susan is inserted into North Africa to mislead the Nazis about the upcoming invasion of the "soft underbelly of Europe" (a crossover with Rat Patron, which you don’t need to know at all), canon Narnia and my own The Stone Gryphon series

The Case of the Descending Debutante, Lucy, Edmund and Eustace, still with Harold and Alberta, post DT, invade Greece on a humanitarian mission with guest appearance by paratrooper Susan, is hilarious, amazing fun,

Chain of pearls (anklets of light) a beautiful, visual story about Eustace and faith as he visits India, and comes to see how elephants in Hinduism allows him to better understand the Lion in his own life, . Aspects of the Narnian fandom can be horribly critical of non-Christian belief systems, asserting that non-Christians have no business enjoying the Chronicles except as a path to Christian evangelization -- ironic given the popularity of the stories worldwide. For its respectful portrayal of another belief system, this story is multi-cultural gem and Eustace is the perfect voice and vehicle for it.

So I'm just back from nearly 10 days away and 3 time zones and so am behind on absolutely everything, including the December meme, which will probably be more of a January meme at this point. Also, I know that some have written things in response to my prompts and I will get to commenting and such. Thanks so much for sharing your theories, meta, personal stories, and all good fannish things.

So, Happy New Year! May this year be better than the last! I wish you all good things!

Did you get nice things?  Did you have a nice time?  Tell me more?

So, Yuletide. Oh my gosh, a huge thanks to heliopause for getting me through it! Helio was SO supportive.

I wrote one story, and one treat. The main story for parhelion was in Bujold's Chalion. I think my recipient liked it and I had fun doing it.
Communion of Saints (7300 words) by rthstewart
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: the Bastard (Chalion), the Mother (Chalion), the Father (Chalion), the Son (Chalion), Lupe dy Cazaril, Bergon dy Ibra, Paginine, Ista dy Chalion, Ser dy Ferrej, Umegat, Acolyte Clara
Additional Tags: Fictional Religion & Theology
Summary: When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Saints can find communion but may have to crawl over rough ground to get there.

My second was a treat for Port, writing, for the second year in a row, Mara Jade and Talon Karrde but not Mara/Karrde (that's not a ship I sail on).

Show Your Hand (1163 words) by rthstewart
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Mara Jade, Talon Karrde
Additional Tags: Nursing, Humor
Summary: Karrde is injured. Mara tenderly nurses him back to health.

I had in my head the desire to write a whole bunch of romance tropes where Karrde and Mara subvert them. This was just the first, where Mara "tenderly nurses" an injured Karrde back to health. Uh huh. There's always a YT request for Mara Jade plotty fic and that takes time and I really need to think about that and maybe next year.

I received 3 wonderful fics, 2 written by keerawa and another lovely story by glishara.  And I'm so happy that these stories are all doing well and are popular in YT.  It's nice to write something your recipient loves -- and I  loved all my shiny gifts.  It's even better when others love what you did!

All Disasters Out of Season (1103 words) by keerawa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Elementary (TV), Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Joan Watson (Elementary), Ms. Hudson (Elementary), Sherlock Holmes
Additional Tags: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, The Bastard - Freeform, Yuletide Treat, Yuletide 2014, Misses Clause Challenge, Case Fic, Character of Faith, Canon Trans Character
Summary:

At first, Curtis Atherton's death appeared a simple suicide. Of course, nothing is simple when the Bastard is involved.

Like a Dragon in a China Shop (2779 words) by keerawa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Temeraire - Naomi Novik, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Temeraire
Additional Tags: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Post-Canon, Dragons, Period-Typical Racism, Victorian, Yuletide 2014, Yuletide Treat
Summary:  When Holmes' investigation into a series of murders in Chinatown reaches an impasse, Watson must call upon an old acquaintance for help.

Birthings (1834 words) by Glishara
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold, Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ista dy Chalion, Illvin dy Arbanos, Annaliss dy Teneret
Summary:While on assignment in the Archipelago, Ista and Illvin's band finds some truly unexpected spoils of war...

Thank you to all who sent birthday wishes. That was very nice. It was a really putrid day, as my birthdays so often are. I mean, starting the day with a fraud alert on your credit card, so very much not fun. Happy Birthday to you from Chase Account Holder Card Services. Fortunately, I had already ordered my peanut butter pretzels and coffee from Amazon so those deliveries were uninterrupted. The weekend improved as it went on, most especially beacause of the Narnia Fic Exchange and Madness reveals. The Main Collection is here (25 stories of awesome) and the Madness Collection is here.

I got 4 madness stories. WHAT??? Also, I wrote one, plus 2 stories for the main exchange and received an amazing gift. So...

What I received
I received a wonderful Temeraire/Narnia cross by the superlative wingedflight21 An Unusual Dragon Situation Returning to Cambridge after a voyage across the Eastern Sea leads Eustace to realize that he is not the same boy who fell through the painting. He has grown in unexpected ways. It's wonderful. I'd spotted the fact that there was a Temeraire cross in the collection and was hoping it was for me and it WAS. As always, Winged's Eustace voice is pitch perfect.

Madness was an embarrassment of riches. edenfalling wrote A boat, beneath a sunny sky, a glorious slice of Aravis and Lasaraleen having a small adventure and brilliant bit of characterization
edenfalling ALSO wrote a wonderful and insightful Polly and Digory story, about the war to come in response to the prompt by several people, How the Skeleton Aches

The wonderful adaese wrote the wry and poignant
A correspondence between Bibi Tarkheena, wife to Kidrash Tarkaan, lord of Calavar Province, and her aunt Latana, High Priestess of Zardeena, being a selection from the Calavar archives, presented here for the edification and instruction of young ladies.
Which explains the whole of Aravis' situation from the point of view of the not-so-evil stepmother.

And I received The Little Sea by Transposable-Element which is a wonderful bit of Calormen pantheon and worldbuilding.

Thanks so much to the generous people who wrote these wonderful, wonderful works! GO! Read and Review!

I had huge problems writing, at first.  I've been incredibly busy with work writing and I've felt that Narnia, its fandom fen, and I are in the middle of an especially messy and painful divorce.  I've really wanted to just chuck it all and go to ground so it was really, really hard to write, at first.  Eventually, I forced myself, word by word and finally came out with three stories.


And what I wrote

I did two stories for the main exchange, one of which was blindingly obvious and one of which was definitely not.
My assignment:
That we may hear the whispers of the gods, for bedlamsbard  (a very intimidating person to write for, let me tell you!)  Anyone who has read some of my musings on the Calormene Trickster god would have recognized this story.  It was a real mess in early drafts and was truly saved by freudiancascade.  Aravis isn't an  easy character for me for some reason.  I really enjoyed Lasaraleen and Hwin in this story.  I'd also wanted to do a much bigger story, hinted at here, of Cor's abduction (again) and Aravis riding off to rescue him.  Also hinted at, but not something I could develop, is that Aravis and Cor have issues, both individually and as a couple, and that Cor's time as slave definitely left its mark.  Freudiancascade asked me during one round of review if I really intended to imply that Cor and Aravis were probably queer -- and I said yep, that was intentional.  I really wanted to play with gender issues and how complicated that was by their personal histories and Archenland politics, but I just couldn't pull it off without it coming out incredibly sexist, so I tossed a lot of that.  The abduction was simply too big a story for the NFE -- this already clocked in at 10K, so I stripped out a lot and tried to focus in on Aravis becoming comfortable in her own skin.  I ended up blundering into sexy times even in one draft.  Egads. 

The second story, a pinch hit, surely a surprise, As Waves Make Towards The Pebbl'd Shore for our NFE  mod and all around only good things should happen to her ever, snacky .  Peter/Caspian is one of Snacky's OTP's and she deserved a story written just for her for all her amazing work as mod and everything else.  So I wrote Peter/Caspian slash!   

A comment or two asked what was going on with the buzzing in Susan's purse.  That, as it turns out, is explained in my madnness story, Susan and Peggy Go Shooting (Again)which is a continuation of my Avengers MCU cross from the NFE  2 years ago.  I'm not sure if this is quite what the lovely aurilly had in mind but I had a lot of fun with it, particularly writing Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, and Col. Chester Phillips. 

That's all! 

In case you missed it, the Narnia Fic Exchange Reveals went up! Do go check out the stories because there are some really lovely ones. deepdarkwaters wrote a terrific, subtle cross over for me that I really enjoyed so much. It's a great story and I hope you'll check Always A King out and tell her how awesome it is.

And now the MADNESS ROUND BEGINS

I wrote two stories

Mazy Rings Troublesome Things for heliopausa
I had gotten my assignment at some point when, during and around our trip to England. Adaese and wellinghall had taken me to see the Magical Books exhibit at the Bodeleian Library in Oxford and I saw Lewis' Lefay fragment there. And so the idea was born. It was while reading and re-reading Magician's Nephew that I came with the story Come Boldly Unto Throne of Grace.   The story is the first time I ever tried to write in the Lewis style of voice.  There is a line about how once I went riding on the Somerset levels and my pony was wiser than I was and knew to avoid the rings.  That is actually taken from a ride I did do, though it was in Connemara in Ireland and my guide, a very serious young woman, pointed to a stand of trees and informed me that was the sort of place where fairies were sure to be and we should ride by very quickly lest they capture us.

A lot of the information came from the Wikipedia entry on fairy rings.

 

The second story was for wingedflight21 and I figured out from the prompt that it was probably Winged and I've know her a few years now so it was really fun to do this story.  Light to the Misled and Lonely Traveler is a massive crossover.  It was a lot of fun in a Hitchhikers Guide sort of way.  It marks the first time I've crossed into several verses there, including two book series I've never read. 

My thanks to snacky  for the great exchange and to buttonloops , starbrow  and Jay for the betas on the stories.  Unlike past stories, I didn't think either was obviously mine. 
 

So, let’s see.  I realized I should probably put up a few notes about my NFE’s.  I had a terrible time with posting and I’ve had to do a lot of RL writing.  But it's done and up and one part of it in particular, Katyn, deserves special discussion.

( Behind the cut for blather and notes )
And, I need to thank snacky again for running a wonderful exchange.  A true bright spot apart from the great stories has been that I've gotten to know some new people better, including tantella (the LJ account for Avia Tantella Scott), starbrowsings (Starbrow), heliopausa (Heliopause) and pencildragon11 (oldfashionedgirl95) (and one of her nearest and dearest!  Waves!)  We've also gotten stories from people who I've admired for a while but haven't seen Narnia work from them ever or in a very long time, including therck,  freudiancascade and Ruan Chun Xian
And this is, I remind myself, the real wonder of fanfiction -- the act of creating, the joy of sharing, and the growth that comes from the inclusive, vibrant communities that grow around those creations. 

My NFE posted. 
Title: Queen Lucy, the Firebird, and the Death of Koschei the Deathless
Recipient: ME a/k/a luckiest person in the world
Rating: G
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: none
Summary: In which Queen Lucy of Narnia and Princess Elena of Vinyedvyeri go on a quest to defeat Koschei the Deathless, rescue Elena's brothers, and incidentally get Lucy back home after she was carried off by a magical bird.

It has Baba Yaga and the Firebird and the hut on chicken legs and an evil magician, characters named Elena, Ivan, and Pierre, and the World Ash Tree.  it is all completely and utterly perfect and unique and a beautiful melding of the Chronicles with Russian folklore.  And Baba Yaga. 

And there is no question.  Something in here was the fault of Miles Vorkosigan.  Also, Ekaterin is telling this story to her daughters. 

Do go and tell my mystery writer how awesome she is.