Aurora's Sundry Notes

Yuletide has been live for a few days now, and I'm very pleased with my Yuletide. I got not one but two fabulous gift fics this year! I'm ever so pleased with them. I feel so privileged. Here, let me share both of them with you. There are also lots of other brilliant fics in the archive, most of which I haven't had time to read yet (especially since I'm suddenly reading Penumbra Podcast post-S1 fics, help me) but I'll try to write rec posts soon!

The main gift I received is for the Imperial Radch books, post-canon, a lovely Seivarden-centric fic where Seivarden has angst and Ship takes care of her and helps Breq take care of her, and there are lots of cameos from other crew members, and it's so true and emotional and good.

Still Left in Want of Mercy (3403 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mercy of Kalr&Seivarden&Breq
Characters: Seivarden Vendaai, Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen | Breq, Mercy of Kalr (Imperial Radch)
Additional Tags: The rating is because Seivarden is Seivarden and has no filter, Lots of other crew members show up in small roles, Post-Canon, POV First Person, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Slice of Life, Tea, Artificial Intelligence, Helpful AI, Spaceship AI - Freeform
Summary: The Republic of Two Systems is about a month old. Seivarden is having yet another crisis - can Mercy of Kalr get her through it? Maybe, with the crew's and Fleet Captain's help.


I also got a treat, for Machineries of Empire, a Cheris & Jedao crackfic post-canon, where they go and try to have therapy, and it goes as well as you might imagine. It's a hilarious fic where the comedy comes from things that are mostly extremely plausible with regards to canon, and I loved it. Just the kind of thing I hoped for when I said I might enjoy crackfic in this fandom.

Therapy for Genocidal Generals (1753 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ajewen Cheris & Garach Jedao Shkan
Characters: Kel Cheris, Shuos Jedao
Additional Tags: Therapy, Crack, Telepathy, Yuletide Treat
Summary: "I'm Nirai Dia, and I specialize in couples with troubles. Why don't you start by telling me about yourselves and how long you've been together?"

"Two months," Jedao supplied immediately.

At the same time, Cheris said, "Eleven years."

The therapist's smile became even more polished. Cheris could practically see her filing them under avoidant man, codependent woman, check.

*

Thank you to UrsulaKohl and sigalit for beta reading this.

---

Btw, nothing to do with the above fic, but copying the information into the journal post reminds me again.... The AO3 character and relationship tags for this fandom are so weird. Why do they use everyone's birth names when it's clear in canon that when they join a faction, the faction name is their name (in place of family name)? And for the vast majority of characters, we get to know them by their faction names, and for most of them I wouldn't remember the birth names at all if they weren't in all the AO3 tags, because otherwise we see them maybe once. With Cheris a case can be made for her birth name, because that also ends up being used a lot, but otherwise... Don't really know who I should complain to, though. It's just so weird and it feels different from how things are usually done.

I mean, it's not like in the Anna Karenina tag, Anna Karenina gets called by whatever her birth name is just because we can discover it from somewhere in canon (it's been years since I read the book so I don't remember if her maiden name is explicitly mentioned, but her brother is a character in the book, so it's not exactly hard to figure it out). She's Anna Karenina. It should be the name the character is mostly known by / introduced to the readers as, shouldn't it? And for the Machineries characters, that's usually the faction name + personal name. Shuos Jedao, Kel Khiruev, etc. (And bizarrely, Kujen seems to be tagged only as Kujen even though we know his name is Nirai Kujen. It feels like whoever decides the canonical tags has decided the faction names are like titles, such as Mr. or Captain or something, but they're not, it's clear from the books that they occupy the same function as family names. Okay, end of digression.)

Continuing with my very-behind Fandom Snowflake challenge!




Day 2: Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create.

All righty! I could be at this all night, but let's try not to. First, here are a few fics, old and new, across various fandoms.

First, my Yuletide gift from this year totally deserves to be mentioned again, though I did squee about it on the day of the reveals.
An Example of Benevolent Selfishness (5724 words, General Audiences) by Alona, Jane Austen: Emma, Emma Woodhouse & Jane Fairfax with a hint of femslash. A truly beautiful, excellent and in character canon divergence AU where Emma and Jane become friendly earlier, and this has important changes for Jane and her life - I would say better than things turn out for her in the book, all things considered. Their relationship is developed beautifully and gradually and awesomely, and it's amazing and makes me happy.

Another from the latest Yuletide:

The Pelerins Progress, or a Long Wei to a Smalle Angri Islet (1220 words, General Audiences) by UrsulaKohl, Becky Chambers - Wayfarers series, featuring the characters and pairings from The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. Basically it's the story of the book told in Middle English as a Chaucerian miracle tale and it's awesome. Go enjoy the uplifting adventures of the fair Rosmarine and all the other pilgrims of the Pelerin.

Then some Doctor Who fics from my bookmarks on AO3:

Gravity (4179 words, General Audiences) by kathkin, Doctor Who (1963), Second Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon. Undoubtedly my favourite Two/Jamie writer, she gets both of their personalities and their dialogue and all so well, and I probably haven't recced this one anywhere yet. A lovely fic set early in Jamie's time with the Doctor, containing awesomeness of space and the universe, things Jamie learns, and very cute Two/Jamie moments.

Precipice (1761 words, Explicit), also by kathkin, also Doctor Who (1963) and Second Doctor/Jamie, but this one has very explicit sexual content. It's gorgeous and smutty and fluffy and adorable.

I should probably rec some gen as well because I actually totally like Jamie and the Doctor simply as two touchy-feely friends, too, but when I look on the tag I discover that all the ones I remember what they're like are also by kathkin... Ah, what the heck, have Too Much, a cute little gen ficlet from the Two & Jamie & Ben & Polly era, in which the Doctor sometimes finds his companions a bit too much - or maybe not.

This one I haven’t yet read all the parts of, but the parts I did read so far are great, and I trust the remaining ones are, too. Fabulous Investigations by john_amend_all, with Zoe and Isobel (and Zoe/Isobel). Zoe and Isobel being awesome in several stories!

Finally, some New Who:

When She's Ten Feet Tall by Nancy Brown, a Doctor Who / Alice In Wonderland crossover in which Martha Jones is awesome. You know with all the things Martha has gotten through, she can deal with Wonderland as well!

Sub-Subliminal, by 51st Century Fox, in which Jack Harkness, working for Torchwood in 1969, meets The Silence.

Memory of Water by weakinteraction, a beautiful, stunningly lovely Bill/Heather story from the latest Femslash Exchange.



Second, here's some Doctor Who fan art, because I've recently realized that if I go to DeviantArt and type in characters I like, I have a good chance of finding images that I'm very happy to look at. And I should share! (Also, trying to not totally flood tardis_library with my fan art recs.)

First (and I’m going to rec this at tardis_library, too, but it’s too lovely not to be posted in more than one place) Miss-Alex-Aphey’s Doctor Who Flowers series with various female companions from all eras of Doctor Who drawn with flowers that suit them. While the idea combining women and flowers may sound cliched and trite, it’s not so with these pictures - the characters look just as sharp and active as they are in canon, they’re all gorgeously drawn, and the flowers are vivid and awesome. Many of these are my favourite fan art ever for that character. Here are links to a few of them, and you can go on and find others:
Martha Jones
Amy Pond
wee!Amelia Pond
Nyssa of Traken
Victoria Waterfield
Ace
Vicki

A couple of funny Second Doctor era drawings by julianwilbury
Velcro-Scot. Second Doctor & Jamie. To quote the description: "There is a term used among bird owners, particularly those who own very personable, loving birds such as cockatoos that would be content to spend their whole day in their owners arms cuddling or clinging to them in any other way, in which such clinging birds are called "velcro birds.” (…) It was seriously only a matter of time would apply this to Jamie."

And here is Zoe getting nose-booped by the Doctor!

A cute drawing of Jamie, Zoe, and an iPod by ladyyaxetel.

Finally, here’s a lovely Two & Jamie drawing by EttelwenAilinon Safety Cling No more shippy than canon, trust me. That’s them in approximately every other scene.