As the Cardinal Flies

Whoof. I do believe that this completes the catching-up, more or less.

So: we backtrack again; I received two excellent stories this past Yuletide, and here they are. First up, a delightful and mischievous adventure set in the world of Emily Pollifax,sometime CIA courier - but here starring her world-traveling neighbor, Miss Grace Hartshorne, who has no idea that the roguish gentleman whom she's unexpectedly encountered in Rome is in fact a friend and colleague of her neighbor back in New Jersey.

Photo Finish
Fandom: Mrs. Pollifax (Dorothy Gilman)
Author: sholio
Rating: Teen & Up
Category: Gen
Warnings: none
Words: ~5600
Characters: Grace Hartshorne, John Farrell
Additional Tags: casefic, caper fic



As it happens, my other gift also features a vacation - but Dairine's is much quieter and far less stressful, which is something of a novelty for someone who's getting used to having interstellar adventures fall into her lap. For the reader as well as for its central character, this is a deeply effective exercise in relaxation (yes, I know, that sounds weird, but trust me here).

Be My Place to Land
Fandom: Young Wizards • Diane Duane
Author: Gray Shadows (tris_chandler)
Rating: Teen
Category: gen
Warnings: none
Words: ~3300
Characters: Dairine Callahan
Additional Tags: minor appearance by Carmela Rodriguez, futurefic, travel
And now, suitably relaxed, I need a nap....

A quiet Yuletide for me this year - one gift rather than last year's extraordinary three, but a very worthy gift it is, being a thoughtful and warm look at a couple of the canon's adult characters as they circle into each other's orbits.

Principles of
Fandom: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Words: ~1500
Characters: Harry Callahan (Young Wizards), Irina Mladen, Nita Callahan, Dairine Callahan
Additional Tags: Fluffy little genfic, Discussion of partner loss, Mentions of Cancer, fuck cancer

Meanwhile, my contribution - admittedly a short piece in a pretty thinly populated fandom - is slowly accumulating kudos (which appears to be in large part the new normal for Yuletide these days; the recs-and-comments bandwagon is not what it used to be). It is, however, early in the cycle as yet.

Greetings, O writer of letters, and welcome! And also, thank you!

I can't write short letters worth a darn, so while I've got detailed material farther down, it's only fair to give you the list of fandom requests up front. So, those would be:

Doctor Who (1963)
Mary Poppins (Movies)
Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Young Wizards (Diane Duane)

Feel free to wander backward through this journal and my fic on AO3 (linked to your left) to get an idea of my interests; what I write is very much also what I like to read – and has, over time, added up to rather a variety of fandoms. My past Yuletide letters (and those for other exchanges) are tagged "dear santa" herein; see the "Yuletide" tag too, if you like.

Things I like:

Text-driven pluses for me include effective use of wit (aka banter aka snark, etc.), as well as strong characterization & dialogue. I value both respect for and clever use of canon (including well-developed canon-divergence AUs). I thrive on UST (heavy on both U and T), and am neutral where gen/het/slash is concerned; if the pairing is well-developed, I'll read with an open mind
None of my requests call specifically for mature/explicit content. This doesn't mean I don't appreciate sizzling erotica/smut/porn; it's just that my fanfic-reading interests and my e/s/p-reading interests mostly don't tend to intersect. Also, for this exchange, I find myself not especially interested in any of these characters writing e/s/p.

DNWs:

I've resisted writing this section for years – not because I don’t have preferences, but because I hate framing them as absolute negatives. I’m a flexible reader, and the story I want most out of a given exchange is the one you want to tell me rather than the one that’s living in my own head (that one, if I want it badly enough, I can always write myself). That said, in the interests of clarity, some things I Do Not Want:

AUs: For this exchange, avoid both alt-setting (i.e. coffeeshop, high school, dept. store, etc.) and canon-divergence AUs. This does *not* mean that you can’t extend on canon, fill in blanks, etc.; indeed, Unsent Letters strike me as designed for just this sort of thing. Nor does this absolutely preclude crossovers, but for once I’m (mostly) reining in that part of my muse.

Explicit sex, or “sexting” exchanges.  In the context of this exchange, this just isn’t my jam. Non-explicit mention or discussion of sex is fine, though. Kinks to avoid: noncon, incest, adult/child, power-imbalanced sexual/romantic partnerships (teacher/student, boss/underling, etc.).

Romantic partnerships that directly contradict canon. To amplify: where a character explicitly states a sexual preference/identity in canon, honor the statement. OTOH, if no preference/identity is specified onstage, it’s OK to establish – or widen – one for a given character. (Also see canon-specific notes.)

Doctor Who (1963)
Any Companion & Any Companion, Any UNIT Member & Any UNIT Member, Sarah Jane & Harry

NOTES: I’m good with seeing any of the available epistolary formats for this request.

PROMPTS:
I picked “Any Companion & Any Companion” (and its UNIT-based cousin) with full knowledge of just how wide a net that casts, and I am good with that. I’m best acquainted with Three through Six and their fellow travelers, but if your muse runs to correspondence between Susan Foreman and Ace (however that might fall out) or Peri and Jamie (ditto), I’m on board. That said, I’m especially fond of Sarah Jane, Nyssa, Jo Grant, and Tegan, especially intrigued by Turlough and Kamelion, and curious about how Adric might find a way into this form.  

EXTREMELY OPTIONAL BONUS POINTS: For any of these prompts, I am entirely OK with drifting into the 2005-era timeline, and also into Sarah Jane Adventures territory.  And if you can finesse a regeneration cycle for Sarah Jane out of one of these prompts, feel very free to do so!

Mary Poppins (Movies)
Bert & Mary, Minerva McGonagall & Mary, Mary & Original Characters

NOTES: I’m good with seeing any of the available epistolary formats for this request.

DNW:
• AUs: See above - but in this context I’m thinking that McGonagall & Mary looks more fusional than crossover-ish, still, either way (and even if your take differs from mine) that’s one request where it’s OK to indulge. (Also, if by some chance you’ve actually read a certain fic of mine in which Mary appears, extending or riffing further on that fic’s premise is totally in bounds.)

PROMPTS
Bert often appears to act as Mary’s eyes and ears in the mundane world; it would be interesting to see his written reports – whether on the Banks children or other matters (does he vet potential candidates for Mary’s patronage?). Was Minerva Mary’s mentor (or maybe vice versa?), or is Mary something outside wizardly rules and traditions?  Who else has Mary already nannied over the years?

Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Holmes & Professor Moriarty, Irene Adler & Holmes, Watson & Anyone

NOTES: I’m good with seeing any of the available epistolary formats for this request.

DNWs:
• Note that Adler & Holmes material should be non-romantic as per the tag.
• For Holmes & Moriarty: just in case, let me emphasize here that ACD-canonical Moriarty is not, repeat not, equivalent to the popular post-canon Moriarty of movies, TV, and pastiche (this last in either direction, whether slanted toward Meyer & Kurland or toward Horowitz and ELementary). As with Poppins, I’m happy to see thoughtful speculations roving outward from canon – but I’d like to see them grounded *in* canon, one way or another.

PROMPTS:
• For Holmes & Moriarty: I’m thinking the most intriguing material is likely to be pre-canonical. Yet every bit of “fanon” we have (the professor as the Holmes family math tutor, etc.) is purely speculative; there’s a lot of room for that speculation to go in different directions.
• For Holmes & Irene – who writes to whom first, and why? Does Holmes need a field agent, does Irene need a sleuth, or are they simply sharing practical tips on cross-dressing disguises (heh)?
• For Watson, the great question here is: how did the good doctor really store, sort, and distribute the millions of words’ worth of manuscripts he evidently wrote? (And who got the job of doing either the field work or the cataloging?)

Young Wizards (Duane)
Carl/Tom, Dairine & Roshaun

NOTES: I’m good with seeing any of the available epistolary formats for this request.

DNW:
• Explicit sex/kink; for Dairine & Roshaun, it’s way too soon, and for Carl & Tom, I’m happy to give them their privacy for that.
• AUs: Avoid both alt-setting (i.e. coffeeshop, high school, dept. store, etc.) and canon-divergence AUs. This does *not* mean that you can’t extend on canon, fill in blanks, etc.; indeed, Unsent Letters strike me as designed for just this sort of thing.

PROMPTS:
• For Carl & Tom: I’m absolutely up for intimate exchanges, given this relationship, but I am more interested in the intimacy than I am in the romance, if that makes sense. (For example, what do they write, whether for themselves or each other, after ‘losing’ Picchu? Or what do their journals or texts look like during/after the memory lapses from WIZARDS AT WAR? Alternately, I’d love to see some of their after-action reports to higher authority (whether Irina, or some intermediary) after some of the kids’ adventures.

• For Dairine & Roshaun: individual journal entries may be easier to deal with than actual letters/texts/manual-mail for these two, but either is totally fine. I’d love to see each of them trying to nail down their perceptions of the other in writing – or, alternately, an exchange between them grumbling and commiserating about how No One Else Understands My Pain. Or even just Dairine trying to explain the Star Wars movies to Roshaun….

EXTREMELY OPTIONAL BONUS POINTS: If any of these prompts give you an excuse to have someone exchange email or other correspondence with Mr. (Counselor) Millman, do not hesitate to bring him in; he’s such a good sounding board as well as an excuse for the sort of wry humor that Duane is so good at injecting into these books.

ETA2: Finally, time and keyboard access at one and the same moment.  Let's get this show on the road:

By normal standards, this letter is going to look very odd; I'm giving the usual sections out of their usual order owing to the circumstances of this year's exchange, my very late signup, and the fact that I'm getting this posted late as well.

First, since the odds are about 99% in favor of one particular match, let's cover that:

Austin/Murry-O'Keefe families (L'Engle) • Adam, Polly, Zachary, Kali, Canon Tallis

As this character grouping may indicate, I am very fond of Arm of the Starfish -- I think I actually read that one before encountering A Wrinkle in Time.  I have remained fond of that corner of L'Engle's universe ever since -- in particular, I regret not seeing more light thrillers in the vein of Starfish and Young Unicorns -- and have long wished in particular for more of several of those characters than she chose to give us.  Kali's story in particular has long seemed unfinished to me, and I'd have liked to see more of Canon Tallis, even as I recognize that he often works better as a mentor and backup player than he might as an actual protagonist.  We did, of course, get a bit of Adam's later career -- and though L'Engle (and I) are content to pair him romantically with Vicki Austin, I can't help thinking that it would be fun to see how his interactions with Polly evolve as both of them grow into maturity.  And then there's Zachary, perhaps one of L'Engle's most complicated characters.  I have requested -- and written -- Zachary before, as I really like to think his redemption in An Acceptable Time may finally stick.  But there are a lot of ways that could go, and I wouldn't mind seeing a further speculation in that direction (particularly involving Canon Tallis, whom I don't think he actually meets in canon, or Adam, who strikes me as the hardest to convince of Zachary's genuine 'reform', such as it may be). 

The foregoing does not say much about Polly and Kali -- except that that's actually telling, because Starfish makes it clear that the two girls will certainly be thrown together while Kali is being treated on Gaea, and nothing in any of Polly's later memoirs says a single word about what came of that.  Which is fascinating, and in some ways hints that the treatment did not go as well as I would like to think it did.

At any rate, a story about any one of these characters will make me a very happy camper, and putting just about any combination of them together is likely to cause long bursts of delighted squee when the exchange goes live.  The one thing I'll note here is that for all that I believe the best of Zachary after An Acceptable Time, I think L'Engle makes it clear that he and Polly are not a workable romantic pairing (and that both of them know it).

 ###

General Likes & Dislikes

Pluses for me include strong characterization, well-written dialogue, wit/banter/snark, clever use of canon, well-developed AUs, UST (heavy on both the U and the T), and more. I'm neutral when it comes to matters of gen, slash, and the like -- if the pairing is well-developed, I'll read with an open mind. I'm not into noncon, incest, or adult/child kinks, but have few other outright squicks as long as the relationship is age- and canon-appropriate; OTOH, I mostly don't read fanfic for sexual content -- and only one or two of these requests include characters I'd anticipate seeing paired romantically.

I will note in particular that I am a sucker for the clever and well-executed crossover -- not because I expect one (Optional Details Being Optional, and such things being well beyond the call of either duty or necessity), but because in one or two of these cases, the potential amusement/entertainment value would be particularly high if your writerly imagination should happen to wander in that direction.

Where I have listed several (or "any") characters for a given fandom, I will be pleased and satisfied with a story focused on whichever particular character on whom we've actually matched. At the same time, neither a single-character request nor a list should be taken to exclude a character or characters you think it's important to include in your story.

 ####

Now let's get to the rest of the specific requests, in case anyone is contemplating treats:

Young Wizards (Duane) • Harry Callahan, Irina Mladen, Nelaid ke Seriv, Robert Millman

This is a really oddball character list; what I find in the wake of Games Wizards Play, though, is that I'm more and more intrigued by the interaction between wizardly life and traditional family life, and the effects it has on wizards and non-wizards alike.  Thus I am interested in how Dairine's and Roshaun's fathers interact with one another (as we finally start to see in this latest book), how Irina's job as Planetary complicates and complements her life as a mother, and how Mr. Millman as a non-wizard helps keep things glued together for everyone involved.  (I've seen a couple of very good Millman stories, but I don't think I've yet seen one that tosses Irina into his orbit; likewise, I am particularly curious about how Irina and Harry might interact given some time with one another -- although I emphasize that I do not want to unduly tamper with Irina's home life, to the degree that we know about it.)

Diana Winthrop series ("Chambers")
Planet Builders series ("Tallis")

These are two of my ongoing micro- to nano-fandoms in the teen/YA category -- well-nigh unmatchable in the present context, and both long OP and relatively hard to find.  If you happen to be in the small group of folks who read either series, you know why I like these -- strong plotting, engaging ensemble casts, and genre-savvy in the way-above-average category. 

The Winthrop books are a teen-sleuth series (six slim paperbacks from the mid-'80s) set mostly in New York and New England, with "Kate Chambers" being a pen name for versatile writer Norma Johnston -- a fact I didn't learn till much later.  The individual mysteries are dedicated to (and often plotted in the style of) various classic and then-famous mystery authors, and the characterizations are much more nuanced than is usual for this category.

The "Planet Builders" books were a 10-book paperback series (also from the '80s) involving a large teen cast on a colony world with ongoing mysteries involving psi powers, mysterious native aliens, and light interplanetary intrigue.  "Robyn Tallis" was a combine with authors including Sherwood Smith, Bruce Coville, Mary Frances Zambreno, and collaborators Debra Doyle & James Macdonald.  The overall tone was akin to classic Andre Norton space opera with modern sensibilities and a touch of Tom Swift (not unlike A. C. Crispin's Starbridge series), and character-driven humor was skillfully integrated to keep the tone fairly light.  Also, while the teens are the stars, there are well-characterized grownups in the mix as well -- an unusual touch for this genre.

 ####

And that, as they say, is a wrap!

Note: A good deal of this text has been ported straight from last year’s letter, including two out of the current six requests.  Things have been kind of hectic around here in recent weeks – and also, I find I actually rather like last year’s introductory paragraph.

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.

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:

Birds of Prey (TV) (Alfred, Barbara, Helena)
Forgotten Realms: Songs & Swords – Elaine Cunningham (Arilyn, Danilo, Khelben)
Gargoyles (Macbeth)
Jacqueline Kirby - Elizabeth Peters (Jacqueline Kirby)
Tomorrowland (Athena)
Young Wizards - Diane Duane (Carmela, Dairine)

 

 

 

And now a quick run-through of recs from my early reading, in a variety of fandoms and culling from both the main collection and the Madness archive.

Fandoms are: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Family (L'Engle), Batman Beyond, Calvin & Hobbes, Justice League/JLU, Mageworlds (Doyle & Macdonald), The Muppet Show, The Scarlet Pimpernel (Orczy), The Sherwood Ring (Pope), Star Trek: Rihannsu (Duane), Young Wizards (Duane), Zorro (TV 1990).

Recs themselves are ( under the cut, for length: )