graycardinal | Recent Entries

In an effort to save some time in drafting individual signups, I'm trying something new this year; starting with this year's unsent_letters exchange, assigned writers (and interested treat-writers) will get two posts as opposed to one. This master post will cover my general interests & likes, and there will be an individual signup post with specifics regarding prompts and DNWs for each particular exchange. The AO3 signup will link to the exchange-specific post, and each exchange-specific post will include a link to this one.

Treats are always welcome and encouraged.

( Why I'm Here )

( What I Like )

( DNWs )

This is where I confess that I need perspective....

There is a large Jane Austen-sized hole in my liberal arts education. This is all the more unforgivable as I was, in fact, not only an actual English Lit major but also an early reader of (modern) Gothic romances and the Sherlock Holmes canon. To add to the depth of the hole - perhaps we should call it a semi-bottomless pit - I was seduced by live theater in junior high school (as a viewer, not an actor, though in college I made a number of good friends who were in fact actors, several of whom are now successful professionals), but have mostly sidestepped the numerous Austen-derived films and prose adaptations (yes, even the zombies).

However.

I was, in my capacity as a theater junkie, introduced earlier this month to an Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of Emma - specifically, a 2022 adaptation of the original Austen novel by one Kate Hamill which is, let us say, distinctly non-traditional - and specifically, non-traditional in ways not unlike the ways fanfic sometimes treats its favorite things.

I was - and am - fascinated. For my part, I think Hamill's approach works well, and the show's audience(s) appear to agree with me That said, OSF audiences can be hard to read, especially for comedy - the thing is, they've long since been trained by the combination of long-term enthusiasm and modern TV game shows to give standing ovations to nearly every performance of every play. (Johnny Olsen, Bob Barker and their successors have a great deal to answer for in this regard.)

But having come in as pretty much an Austen virgin (at least at first hand), I'd be very interested in more informed perspectives from people who may know the material better. I haven't seen a full production history for the Hamill adaptation, but it premiered at the Guthrie in Minneapolis, and Hamill's credentials are such that I have to think there've been other significant regional performances over the last four years, and I can think of at least one mutual subscriber who needs to see this show (or at least get hold of the script) if they haven't already.

So: has anyone in fact seen this adaptation? (If nobody has seen or read it, I will happily explain a bit more about just what Hamill has done with the source material, because I think part of the fun of this one lies in the premise, and that spring is sprung right from the start.)

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: six blocks from the local theater district
Current Music: "I Think I'd Better Think It Out Again!" (*Oliver!*)

It's a rare slow week around here, and thus a good chance to slide in a proper update or two. This one is, I think, slightly out of order, but it's top-of-mind right now (and a new fandom for me on the writing end of the equation).

The story written for me was a multi-layered crossover - MCU (specifically Peggy Carter & Howard Stark), pre-Iron Man Tony facing off with John Shea's version of Lex Luthor (from Lois & Clark), all dealing with Brisco County Jr.'s major McGuffin - which is to say the Orb. I was and am delighted by the multiversal nature of the tale, and to have it come from a writer brand new to me.

Sphere of Influence by Ultra
Fandoms: Agent Carter (TV), The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., Marvel Cinematic Universe, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, Brisco County Jr, Tony Stark, Lex Luthor, Karina (Brisco County Jr.)
Additional Tags: Crossover, Peggy Carter & Howard Stark Friendship, Code 0-8-4 | Objects of Unknown Origin (Marvel), Confusion, Power Dynamics, Young Adult Tony Stark, Lex Luthor Being an Asshole, Multiple Crossovers, Same Performer in Different Roles

No matter where or when in space and time, someone unworthy is always looking for The Orb, so it must find somebody else who will protect it.

Now for my contribution: I wasn't actually matched on Calvin & Hobbes...but when I noticed Asian fairy tales among that cluster's possible combinations, I couldn't resist the chance to provide a bit of potential back story for Hobbes, or to give Rosalyn the babysitter a chance - however slim - to one-up Calvin for once. The resulting tale actually startled me a bit, but I think I like the way it turned out better than the original (if vague) plan I'd had for the ending.

A Tale of Three Tigers
Fandoms: Calvin & Hobbes, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Chinese Folk Religion & Lore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Calvin & Rosalyn (Calvin and Hobbes)
Characters: Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes), Rosalyn (Calvin and Hobbes), Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)
Additional Tags: Tigers

Rosalyn has one plan for her evening taking care of Calvin.

Someone else has an entirely different plan.

And Calvin? As usual, he's right in the middle of things.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: that would be telling
Current Music: wind chimes in a gentle breeze

A heads-up for the literature and theater fen who follow this space:

One of the first posters I bookmarked here on DW (and indeed, on LJ prior to the Great Migration) is presently on the second of his annual pilgrimages to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (!), and has just posted commentary on four (!) plays including two Shakespeares, an August Wilson, and a David Henry Hwang. (He says he's seeing one more show tonight - an adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma by one Kate Hamill - and I know I've got Austenites in this crowd....)

Borrowed from sanguinity: A very straightforward meme - one merely posts the first lines of one's ten most recent fics. (This includes fics from recent exchanges for which I am behind on posting post-reveal notes. We'll see if I can get to catching up on those this week....)

I should also note that this list is in chronological order, so you're getting them with the newest work last.

#####

Note 1: Find a better place to hide this, so Katie and Jen never ever get hold of it again.

Written By the Winners • Power Rangers Time Force]

/////

The collection of materials which follows is peculiar in the extreme.

"The Affair of the Statutory Duel" • Sherlock Holmes/"The Grand Duke" (Gilbert & Sullivan)]

/////

Death by drowning, Tommy Oliver reflected, was totally unfair.

"Where You Need to Be" • Power Rangers Dino Thunder/Gargoyles]

/////

“Mister Nickerson,” said Jacqueline, seating herself. “This is . . . unexpected.”

"Why Me?" • Nancy Drew (Keene)/Jacqueline Kirby (Elizabeth Peters)]

/////

Codex Antiquaria. It was one of Gotham’s oldest bookstores, though its name and location didn’t appear in any index or field guide to the city’s literary entrepreneurs.

"All In the Subtext" • Batman:TAS (etc.)/Miraculous Ladybug]

/////

The woman in the glitter-edged green cocktail dress was sipping at her drink and doing her best to quietly take stock of the hotel’s renowned dining room when the sound of a cheerful voice abruptly poured into her right ear from above and behind.

"The Mutual Benefit Encounter" • The Phantom (1996)/The Shadow (1994)

/////

I must make one thing clear from the first: while I am assuredly Sherlock Holmes, I am not and have never been Sherlock Holmes, the resident of 221B Baker Street in the city of London.

"The Hologram, the Android (but not the Trained Cormorant)" Sherlock Holmes/Star Trek:TNG/etc.

/////

One thing about his new employer, Terry McGinnis concluded after the first week, was fascinating and frustrating in equal measure.

"What The Butler Saw" • Batman Beyond/DCAU (Timmverse)

/////

It has been . . . perhaps a few hours, in subjective time . . . since he and his TARDIS vanished into the Vortex in the wake of his latest defeat at the Doctor’s hands, and the Master has gathered enough of his wits to reflect on the aftermath.

"Equal and Opposite: (The Ingeniously Villainous Remix" • Doctor Who

/////

1. Ms. Marvel here. World saved (for this week, anyhow). Reporting in from LA (state, not city); helping Capt. Marvel unpack.

"Adventures in Team-Building" • MCU/The Marvels

COMPLETE!

See my sticky master gift-exchange letter here for general notes, including DNWs. Now, then, for the current round's requests and prompts:

#1 • Castle, Elementary, Elsbeth, Gargoyles, MCU, Muppets, Young Wizards

( Here in Manhattan... )

#2 • Agent Carter, Amelia Peabody, Enola Holmes - Springer, Mary Poppins (movies), The Mummy ('99-'08), Professor Moriarty - Kurland, Robin Hood - traditional

( This Scept'red Isle... )

#3 • Elsbeth, Enola Holmes, Gargoyles, Jacqueline Kirby, Mary Poppins, Miraculous Ladybug

( Hear Me Roar... )

#4 • Finding Your Roots, MCU, Mary Poppins, Pretender, Tomorrowland, Young Wizards

( Read the Transcribed Section... )

#5 • Enchanted, Gargoyles, Galavant, Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare), Muppets, Sheep Detectives

( ...I Have a Dragon! )

#6 • Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Castle, Doctor Who, Leverage, Pinky & the Brain, Young Wizards

( Mad, I Tell You... )

#7 • Adv. of Brisco County Jr., Agent Carter, Elemental Masters (Lackey), Galavant, The Mummy, Pirates of the Caribbean

( Left Turns at Albuquerque... )

#8 • Batman '66, Doctor Who, Lois & Clark, MCU, Stargate SG-1, Stargirl (TV 2020), Tomorrowland (2015)

( Old School Sci-Fi... )

#9 • Any Fandom I've Requested, Any Other Fandom I've Requested

( Why Yes, I *Am* Out of My Mind... )

Greetings!

I'm trying something new this year: my general likes and DNWs for challenges and exchanges are in a master letter post here. What follows are prompts and notes on my specific requests for this exchange.

( **Crossover Fandom** )

( **Castle** )

( **DCU** )

( **Kim Possible** )

( **MCU** )

( **Nancy Drew - Keene** )

( **Stargate SG-1** )

( **Tomorrowland** )

ADVISORY: This is not the post you may have been looking for....

////

I have, over the last few months, arguably spent more time on YouTube than one should (specifically, in a couple of specific corners of YT that are not at all relevant to the present inquiry).

However, YT being YT, it is all too easy to be lured into other corners of the videoverse in the process...

...and thus did your correspondent discover the vast yet singularly redundant swampland in which one finds AI-generated revenge-fic. Herewith a very brief description of this sea of mire, madness and muckraking for those not familiar with the concept:

Your narrator, you learn at once, has been horrifically ill-used by those around him. He (or she) may be:

a hard-working child whose parents liked their other offspring best

a gifted technical genius cast aside by an employer out to profit massively from their breakthrough

a highly decorated but now-retired member of an elite or classified military unit

a newcomer to or neighbor of an HOA ruled by a "Karen" who recognizes no authority beyond her own, who destroys all who won't submit to her will

What none of these villains realize is that their plans have been foreseen, their schemes laid bare, their crimes anticipated, their every move planned for. For just as they swoop in to claim their unjustly gained rewards, Our Hero smiles a thin, calm smile and confronts them with reality:

the inheritance they anticipated belongs to the child they ignored

the patents they thought they owned are in Our Hero's name

Our Hero has bought the company from the villains under their very noses

Our Hero's former co-workers in black ops have assembled evidence to have the villains put away (or, occasionally, neutralized the villain's Evil Empire)

the newcomer to the neighborhood is a Senator/Mayor/Police Chief/etc. (who owns the land "Karen" has been trying to co-opt, and/or is the parent of the child they've bullied or injured)

Which is to say that the formula for these things is extremely, well, formulaic. And yet the genre garners tens of thousands of views, and is thereby (at least in theory) tremendously profitable for its creators, who have built the vids almost entirely with AI narration, a handful of still images, and a means of putting narrative text on top of the images they've used.

And there is, evidently, a market for these things, such that people are evidently making considerable money off of revenge channels nowadays.

////

Which makes one wonder...

How hard would it be for a veteran fic-writer to whip out a dozen or so revenge yarns with just a little more creativity than the formulas have so far demonstrated? To download the software the current creators are using? To set up a YouTube channel of this sort of thing that would, perhaps, be just a bit more, well, creative than that now dominating the current swamp? Could one make enough money at such a game to retire, if not to the French Riviera, at least to a corner of Darkest Suburbia with better bus and train service than he has now?

Inquiring minds want to know what your humble narrator is missing in this equation....

Let me start by acknowledging that I am three or four years late in noticing the implications of the following. That said, I am also not normally someone who buys or eats Hershey's Kisses in the first place, so I can perhaps be excused for not noticing a thing I wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been unexpectedly thrust into my personal space over last weekend.

That said: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING????? (You may need to click on the image to enlarge the picture. Be sure to swallow and put down your beverage first.)

I mean, really. Surely I'm not the only person in the room whose reaction was, "Wait, what, do they not realize they've just portrayed the Grinch as a potential sexual predator?"

And yet, a few moments of Googlemancy revealed that evidently this packaging has been around for four or five Christmas seasons now.

Think about this. Wouldn't one expect that in a non-zero percentage of cases, giving a co-worker a box or bag with this slogan on it would be a violation of the relevant employer's anti-harassment policy? (Deity knows that I would never, ever think of giving one of these to a co-worker at my own place of employment.) Might one not also expect that in a non-zero percentage of cases outside a workplace context, the giver of these Kisses might do so in hopes of stealing actual kisses from the recipient, and that some few such givers might subsequently attempt to collect such kisses (or other favors) irrespective of the wishes of their particular recipient(s)?

And that leaves aside the problem that the package design represents a complete and utter mis-characterization of Dr. Seuss' actual Grinch, either before or after having his heart resized. Note particularly here that even pre-reform, he is carefully polite to Cindy-Lou Who when she interrupts his tree-thievery. One has to think that the good Doctor would be appalled, nay, shocked at seeing his creation portrayed as the box copy portrays him. And the Grinch himself strikes me as having an excellent case for a libel or slander action, a la Coyote vs. Acme.

Truth be told, I have to wonder how this got past the approval phase from the people who license Dr. Seuss' material (not to mention the social-media team(s) at Hershey and its marketing agencies). Given that the Seuss licensors have actually pulled a handful of his original books from circulation due to the content having not aged well, you'd think they'd have realized the implications of the Kiss packaging before it went into production.

I am sorely tempted to go look up contact info for the Seuss licensing outfit and write a letter....

[Aside to sanguinity: you clearly need to see this.]

Now, then.

The collection for crossworks is live, and for once I'm going to get the thank-you post up in ridiculously good time. There is a great deal of excellent work in this exchange - I may in fact do a recs post here in a bit - but in the meantime: someone's written me a genuinely delightful tale that takes full advantage of the "mix any two things I've mentioned" element of the exchange, and that would be this:

Lost (and Found)
Fandoms: Young Wizards - Duane; Valdemar - Lackey
Rating: all ages
Category: gen
Warnings: none
Words: ~2200
Characters: Dairine Callahan, original Valdemaran Companion
Additional Tags: crossover, interspecies friendship, portal fantasy, worldgates

"I'll have you know I'm not a horse girl."
"Then it's a good thing I'm not a horse."

Suffice to say that the author knows both these canons well, and that the blending is beautifully done. If you're familiar with both of them, it should be clear just from the summary that they've got the character voices down perfectly, and it keeps right on going from there.

Current Mood: delighted
Current Location: over the moon
Current Music: theme from *H.R. Pufnstuf*

These letters aren't getting any shorter, so while I've got detailed material farther down, I think it's only fair to give you the list of fandom requests up front. So, those would be:

Antiques Roadshow RPF (any)
Batman Beyond (any)
Dirk Pitt (worldbuilding)
The Keltiad (any)
The Magician (TV 1973) (any)
Night of the Solstice (any)
Night World (any)
Power Rangers Operation Overdrive (any)

Now, then:
Greetings, O YuleScrivener, and welcome! And also, thank you! Where Yuletide is concerned, I am nothing if not a Requester Of The Seriously Obscure. Thus I am always amazed when the technomancy of the matching process succeeds in finding a writer who shares my appreciation for said obscurity, and delighted on Christmas morning when a wonderful and wondrous story from that writer's (metaphorical) pen lands in my AO3 gift-folder. We may just be setting out on this year's journey, but I know there's a happy ending to come, and I am grateful for it already. Your work is (and will be) appreciated and valued, and I look forward to seeing its fruits.

( Likes & Dislikes )

( DNWs )

( Character Matching & Prompts )

( Requests )

[wakes up, glances at date]
[!!!!]

Ye ghods and little fishes, has it been almost two years since I last looked at this list?

(OTOH, I've clearly justified the "Procrastination" callout in the original header....)

I'm not even going to try and justify having let the darned thing sit that long, but at the same time, some of these Q-and-A combos were just too impressively bizarre not to share even at this late date.

Herewith the character list from the (semi-)current round. Note that I'm now running my lists through a randomizer prior to opening a new round:

Maria Hill • MCU
Shego • Kim Possible
Elminster of Shadowdale • Forgotten Realms
Emily Pollifax • Mrs. Pollifax (Gilman)
Goliath • Gargoyles
Seven of Nine • Star Trek
Alexis Castle • Castle
Tommy Oliver • Power Rangers
Barbara Gordon • Batman Beyond
Carmela Rodriguez • Young Wizards (Duane)
Gabriel Agreste • Miraculous Ladybug
Joan Watson • Elementary
Pat Dugan • Stargirl (TV)
Kermit the Frog • Muppets
Stephen Strange • MCU

Now, then (some questions have been slightly edited to supply pronouns appropriate to the characters involved):

From astrogirl:
( Read more... )

////

From thisbluespirit (who gets bonus good-kind-of-evil points for springing questions on me that I asked them in a prior round):
( Read more... )

////

From kernezelda (by way of astrogirl, due to a threading anomaly (or possibly a multi-parallel space-time inversion):
( Read more... )

////

From acorn_squash:
( Read more... )

One more step toward catching up with all my outstanding prompts for the FIcathon That Goes Into A Bar....

Title: All in the Subtext
Author:

graycardinal /

gray_cardinal
Prompt: Gabriel Agreste ~~goes into a bar~~ visits a Gotham City bookstore…and meets Barbara Gordon!
Fandoms: Miraculous Ladybug / Batman: TAS
Word count: ~1700
Rating: Suitable for all ages.
Warnings: None.

Ninety-five percent of the volumes on Codex Antiquaria's shelves were simply old, and little more than that, each waiting for one of the half-dozen people on Earth with a unique interest in the particular topic whose subject that work concerned.

Not surprisingly, the remaining five percent – the grimoires, the spell-books, the alchemical field guides, the encyclopediae of magical artifacts – drew most of the paying customers.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: right in front of a very large bookshelf
Current Music: "The Cover Is Not the Book" (Mary Poppins Returns)

As usual, long letter is long.

( Why I'm Here )

( Likes & Dislikes )

( Notes & Logistics )

( Fandom-Specific Notes )

( Requests )

( NYC Cluster )

( Fantasy Cluster )

( SF Cluster )

( Meddling Kids Cluster )
( Capers & Crimes Cluster )

( Odds & Ends Cluster )

( British Cluster )

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: every multiverse at once
Current Music: "My Friend the Doctor" (50th anniversary Whovian version)

And we continue the "Into a Bar" catch-up process. This one sat idle as long as it did because while I had a premise in mind almost at once, the execution stalled almost as soon as I'd had the idea. And then this past week, once I'd looked at it again, I realized where it really needed to go.

I probably owe a little bit to Chelsea Cain for this one, because what I've done with Ned here is at least partially inspired by what she did with him in Confessions of a Teen Sleuth.

Title: Why Me?
Fandoms: Jacqueline Kirby series (Elizabeth Peters) / Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Word count: ~1500
Characters: Jacqueline Kirby, Ned Nickerson
Relationship: Nancy Drew & Ned Nickerson
Rating: Suitable for all ages.
Warnings: None.

Jacqueline Kirby ~~goes into a bar~~ visits a jail … and meets Ned Nickerson.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: "I'm Late, I'm Late" (Alice in Wonderland)

Reading online this morning, I find news of Tom Lehrer's passing. This is not perhaps unexpected in itself; he had led a long and fruitful life, but it's definitely a moment for reflection, as Lehrer was possibly the cleverest and most literate satirist of our time, not to mention the funniest.

More than usually, though, one of my favorite Diane Duane quotes applies: "What's loved, survives." We still have the music (and that's a very literal "we"; per his Web site, Lehrer a couple of years ago released his entire oeuvre into the public domain.

And in the wake of the news, it turns out he also left behind a (formerly) top secret mathematical joke that took more than half a century to fully detonate. (sanguinity, you should appreciate this....)

I am disastrously late, as usual, in catching myself up on fic postings. That being the case, you're about to get three things at once: my unsent_letters_exchange fic, my holmestice fic, and a just-posted amnesty story for intoabar (the story is up on AO3, but the corresponding entry is in the mod queue on the DW comm).

First, for Unsent Letters, a series of journal entries that turned out to be rather more of a comedy than I expected going in.

Written By The Winners
Fandoms: Power Rangers Time Force
Rating: all ages
Category: F/M
Warnings: none
Words: ~3200
Relationship: Lucas Kendall/Nadira
Characters: Lucas Kendall, Nadira, Ransik Additional Tags: epistolary, poetry, haiku, limericks

If the poem had really been written to Lucas' car, then none of what had happened made any sense. Unless....

Piece by piece, Nadira unravels the tangle of mixed signals and unintended consequences.

Next, the Holmestice story, which, while not precisely comical, allowed me to indulge my fondness for (seriously obscure) Gilbert & Sullivan....

The Affair of the Statutory Duel
Fandoms: Sherlock Holmes (ACD); The Grand Duke (Gilbert & Sullivan)
Rating: all ages
Category: gen
Warnings: none
Words: ~2600
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, Rudolph (Grand Duke)
Additional Tags: secret history, royal intrigue, Great Hiatus

Either the following material is an out-and-out forgery...or just possibly, Gilbert and Sullivan owe the central plot device of their last operetta to none other than Sherlock Holmes.

(Which is to say, the story to which this summary is attached raises a hell of a lot more questions than it answers.)

And just tonight, a stupendously late (we won't even mention the year I put in the original request) intoabar tale, in which I attempt to explain how legendary Power Ranger Tommy Oliver survived the volcanic explosion and complete destruction of a remote tropical island.

Where You Need to Be
Fandoms: Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Gargoyles
Rating: all ages
Category: gen
Warnings: none
Words: ~2800
Characters: Tommy Oliver, Katharine (Gargoyles), Ophelia (Gargoyles)
Additional Tags: crossover, interstitial

Death by drowning, Tommy Oliver reflected, was totally unfair.

I'd always wondered how Tommy survived the aftermath of Dino Island blowing up (as we see in an early episode of Dino Thunder). And then the dice-rollers at the Ficathon That Goes Into A Bar handed me the answer....

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: within shouting distance of A/C (!)
Current Music: "Reviewing the Situation" (from *Oliver*)

I will have extremely limited access to a full-sized keyboard this week (phone, yes; proper keyboard, no), but don't want to disappear without acknowledging two wonderful recently-written gifts:

From Unsent Letters 2025:
A Series of Notes Attached to A UNIT Requisition Form by astrogirl

Three and the Brigadier navigate the halls of bureaucracy (and the vastness of time and space) in pursuit of an electron microscope. A perfect replication of the reality of bureacuratic procurement channels...

From Holmestice, Summer 2024:
a study in violin by unrevealed

A full-fledged and dead-flat-brilliant novella (!) following Elementary's Sherlock Holmes through a lifetime spent with a Stradivarius (and a great many complicated relationships).

Current Mood: rushed
Current Location: donning jet-propelled roller skates
Current Music: the Muppet Show overture

I received two stories for Yuletide this past winter, and (as with Holmestice in the prior post) am horribly late in acknowledging their creators. Technically speaking, one was a gift and one a treat, but I'm in the camp that loves its treasures equally irrespective of that sort of labels.

Both works are short (though no less delightful for their conciseness) character-sketch pieces arising from the new CBS series Elsbeth starring Carrie Preston as the sparkling (for multiple values of the word) Technicolor-garbed title character, an attorney-turned-sleuth presently attached to the NYPD. (I did not follow either The Good Wife or The Good Fight, which featured our protagonist as a secondary character; the new show, luckily, is fully self-contained.) Here, Elsbeth Tascione is a delightfully quirky Columbo for the 21st century, supported by an engaging ensemble and - very much as Columbo did - solving murders that we in the audience see firsthand in the opening scenes, often with A-list performers as the killers-of-the-week.

Kaya Blanke's Night Off
Fandom: Elsbeth
Author innie
Rating: General Audiences
Category: gen
Warnings: none
Words: ~1600
Relationships: Kaya Blanke & Elsbeth Tascione, Kaya Blanke & Captain C. W. Wagner, WEslbeth Tascione/Jake Turling
Characters: Kaya Blanke, Elsbeth Tascione, Captain C. W. Wagner, Jake Turling

Kaya and Elsbeth have a night off.

////

All Kinds of Music
Fandom: Elsbeth
Author FanchonMoreau
Rating: Teen
Category: gen
Warnings: none
Words: ~2600
Characters: Elsbeth Tascione, Kaya Blanke, Detective Donnelly, Teddy Tascione, Dr. Yablonski

"You didn’t hear this from me," Detective Donnelly began, "but the real Little Italy isn’t on the Lower East Side. It’s in the Bronx.”

Elsbeth takes a day off.

////

My contribution for the round was for Gargoyles; I've written several stories in the fandom, but had never previously focused on Elisa Maza, so this was a chance to stretch a bit...and ended up giving me an opening I hadn't expected to play a bit with the show's backstage connections to the Star Trek franchise.

Thrust and Parry
Fandom: Gargoyles
Rating: General audiences
Category: gen
Warnings: none
Words: ~1500
Relationship: Elisa Maza & Puck | Owen Burnett
Characters: Elisa Maza, Puck | Owen Burnett
Additional Tags: missing scene

Puck would claim afterwards that he'd intended to out-Vogel Preston Vogel.

Neither he nor Elisa ever mentioned the theory she'd floated much, much earlier....

Per immediately prior post, this is disastrously late - all the more embarrassing given that my gift for the prior round is genuinely exceptional. It's very much what it says on the tin - a post-ACD letter from Watson to Holmes, describing in eloquently researched detail (complete with a generous set of bibliographic links) the former's activities as a military medic during WW I:

A Letter From France
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Author rabidsamfan
Rating: General Audiences
Category: gen Warnings: none
Words: ~4600
Relationship: Holmes & Watson
Character: John Watson
Additional Tags: Ambulance Trains, Battle of the Somme, Correspondence, Watson knows Holmes can read between the lines, World War I

Watson writes to Holmes after becoming the commander of an Ambulance Train just before the Battle of the Somme.

For my part, I committed a more-than-usually ambitious fusion, merging elements of Laurie King's Mary Russell universe with those of Elementary....

The Really Final Problem
Fandoms: Mary Russell - Laurie R. King; Elementary
Rating: General Audiences
Category: gen, f/m
Warnings: none
Words: ~7600
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Joan Watson, Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell, Sherlock Holmes & Sherlock Holmes
Characters: Sherlock Holmes (x2), Mary Russell, Joan Watson, Estelle Holmes
Additional Tags: crossover, fusion

Joan Watson's Sherlock Holmes has just come back to life.

Mary Russell's Sherlock Holmes has just come home with a copy of Joan Watson's book.

One Holmes is looking for an inheritance; the other has already bestowed it.

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Charter

This is a fanfic journal. I'm interested in a wide variety of fandoms as well as in meta- and theoretical discussions; see my interests list for specific fandom categories. Comments, critiques, recs, reviews, and the like are always welcome.

September 2026

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Sticky: NEW FOR 2026: Master "Dear Writer" Letter

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