Aurora's Sundry Notes

Yuletide reveals were yesterday, so here are the fics I wrote. Yes, fics in plural - this year I succeeded at writing two short treats for Yuletide Madness as well.

For my assignment, I had The Wayfarers again, but this time with a request that finally allowed me to write a Rosemary/Sissix sex scene that takes joy in the interspecies aspect of it. Also I had a really chocoholic phase when I wrote it, in case you can't tell. Luckily it seems to have worked, based on the comments.

Excellent Dessert (2767 words) by AuroraCloud
(for Mosca)
Fandom: Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rosemary Harper/Sissix Seshkethet
Characters: Rosemary Harper, Sissix Seshkethet, Dr. Chef (Wayfarers Series)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Food, Alien/Human Relationships, Chocolate, Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Frottage, Hands, Tails, Female Characters, Alien Character(s), Alien Biology, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Touching
Summary: The Wayfarer is in space again. Sissix needs touching. Dr. Chef has made a new dessert based on an old Human recipe. Rosemary is happy to test its supposedly aphrodisiac effects with Sissix afterwards.



Yes, I like putting in lots of tags. (Also, let's not speak of the fact that I altered the title several times and accidentally typo'ed this title as "Excellent Desert" without noticing it until several hours after the reveals. *facepalm* Luckily I did notice it and fixed it. There is quite a difference between the words dessert and desert.)

Both of the Madness fics I wrote were entries into new fandoms for me, hurray! Which is very understandable in both cases as they're very new fandoms. In one I even wrote the first fic for the fandom, which is rather exciting.

An Evening in the Garden (698 words) by AuroraCloud (for st_aurafina / st_aurafina)
Fandom: Moonbase Theta Out (Podcast)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Roger Bragado-Fischer/Alexandre Bragado-Fischer
Characters: Roger Bragado-Fischer, Alexandre Bragado-Fischer
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Fluff, Established Relationship, Gardens & Gardening, Dogs
Summary: Alexandre has been working on his garden. Roger brings him hot chocolate.


Yes, this is the first fic in the fandom! It's thanks to st_aurafina's enthusiastic recommendation of Moonbase Theta, Out, that I discovered this lovely queer sci-fi podcast drama, and when I read her request I really wanted to write something. Several of the prompts were enticing and I would have loved to write for any of them, but I ended up choosing the one where I could include dogs. And also make Roger and Alex happy because they deserve it. (I did my best to not make it obvious that I know little about gardening and have trouble keeping plants alive. I love the idea of gardening very much, however!)

And I wrote my first fic for This Is How You Lose the Time War! It was bound to happen sooner or later, I am so in love with this book. This story pretty much wrote itself when I just gave myself some time at the keyboard, and I've had lovely feedback for it, especially considering how small the fandom. I've even seen it recced twice! (Also, I got to write a dog again!)

A Letter in her Smile (750 words) by AuroraCloud (for jibrailis)
Fandom: This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Blue/Red (This is How You Lose the Time War)
Characters: Red (This is How You Lose the Time War), Blue (This is How You Lose the Time War)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Touching, Tea, Dogs, Kissing
Summary: After so many letters, how to speak?



Finally, thanks to all my lovely betas who were available at such a short notice because I'm always ridiculously late finishing my stories and their edits - I shall add beta credits in the story notes tomorrow!

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.

Dear Turingfest author,


Sorry I had to leave a sign-up that was just the characters for some of the requests; I was away from home with very poor internet access, and typing a lot on my phone is a pain. Also, for family reasons, I didn’t have much time and energy before the sign-ups closed. Anyway, I’m so excited I didn’t prove unmatchable for this exchange, so you’re extra awesome for offering at least one of the things I’ve requested! Feel free to include any other canon characters than the ones requested, to make crossovers with other fandoms I like, to combine or modify prompts. I’m fairly new to realising I totally love AIs/robots/etc. and these fandoms I’ve requested are largely responsible for realising it, so I’ll be thrilled to have fic for any of them. How long I’ve written about each doesn’t correspond to how much I want it, but more to how much material there is in the source and how long I’ve known it.

I’m offering some prompts for each relationship, because I’m a writer who enjoys having something like that to work with. If you prefer to write without specific prompts, just skip them. If a prompt/idea/like leads you to another idea that I didn’t mention, feel free to go along with it as long as you avoid the DNWs.

My formatting didn't quite survive being copied to the post, but I'll come back tomorrow to add the bullet points to the beginnings of the lines, because I'm starting to fall over.

( General likes )

( General dislikes and Do Not Wants )

( Doctor Who )


( Wayfarers Series )



( Murderbot Diares )

( Crossover (Murderbot Diaries / Wayfarers) )


( The Cybernetic Tea Shop )

Sorry for the delay in posting the letter, but here it is. I may still do little tweaks and edits during the weekend if I realize something could be worded better etc. but you're safe going on based on what I've got here.

Fic likes: I love gen, femslash, slash, het; I love hurt/comfort, adventures, daily life moments and domesticity, angst (but hopefully with a happy/comforting ending), fluff, porn (though preferably so that the sex tells something about the characters), first times, established relationships, kisses, space, history, worldbuilding, character-centric fic, intelligent/geeky women, relationships between women, loyalty, friendship, found family, teamfic where applicable, characters coming to accept some previously neglected/repressed part of themselves, canon divergence AUs (various ”what if”s changing some event or element of the canon but still keeping the world basically the same), epistolary fics, crossovers with fandoms you know I like, etc. etc. Really a lot of things, so feel free to let your imagination roam as long as you respect my Do Not Wants / dislikes.

If you write a romantic/sexual relationship, there can be no sex or a little sex or lots of sex, however you like. Anything from handholding or sweet words to hot steamy sex is find by me, though I prefer no complete PWP.




Do Not Wants/Dislikes: graphic violence, gore and torture, rape/non-con, sexual abuse, incest, underage sex (by this I mean under 16, which is the age of consent in my country), character bashing, mpreg, wildly different AUs of the coffee shop / high school / werewolf etc. variety. It depends a bit on the canon how much violence/torture/abuse I can deal with, but generally, please not higher level than the canon. Please stay away from sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other such things. Please no 2nd person POV, it hardly ever works for me. In fic 1st person rarely works for me unless it’s in diary/epistolary format; the exception here would be Skuggserien, where the original canon is written in first person, so if you want to write the fic that way as well, it’s fine.




( Le Comte de Monte Cristo | Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas )

(  Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers )


( Skuggserien (Shadow Series) — Maria Gripe )

( Finishing School - Gail Carriger )

Dear Femslash Exchange Writer,

I’m excited that you’ve offered to write at least one of these relationships with these female characters, so don’t worry too much, I’ll be happy to see what your muse will offer you. I list some Do Not Wants below, but other than that, feel free to do whatever your muse wants to do! The other things in this letter are just meant to help you along if you want a bit more from me. And I finally finished this. Sorry it took so long!

Things I particularly like: hurt/comfort, love growing out of friendship, enemies finding common ground and connection, character growth, women being awesome together, women supporting each other. I like fluff, I like angst, I like banter, emotional stuff, adventure, humour, worldbuilding/exploring the world of the canon, missing scenes, pre-canon, post-canon, what-if/canon divergence AUs…

Do Not Want: rape/non-con, gore and graphic violence, underage relationships, incest, death of requested characters, break-up of requested characters, strong horror, modern/mundane/werewolf/vampire/etc. AUs (basically the kind that fundamentally alter the world). Also please no racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other discrimination/hatred based on such attributes (hopefully not very likely for participants of this exchange, anyway!). Second person rarely works for me, so I’d suggest avoiding that.

I've written various ideas, prompts, suggestions, and what I love about the characters and their relationships, but that doesn't mean you have to include all or any of them. They're just meant to help spark your imagination if you need that.

Requests


( Wayfarers - Becky Chambers )


( Finishing School - Gail Carriger )


( Doctor Who/Torchwood )


( Parasol Protectorate )