Pen's Nest

I did just squeak in before the reveal with yesterday's recs, happily. Not that it matters, because there are so many authors around for Yuletide, and I maybe recognise a handful of names—I doubt I'd go looking for Writer X's Stuff. Anyway, I hope you all had a chance to read through whatever may have caught your eye.

My story was With What Intense Desire, a Mansfield Park fic which changes the end of the story so that Fanny goes home earlier from Portsmouth, and gets to listen to Edmund whingeing about Mary in person instead of reading his letters.

My recipient wanted Fanny to be happy, and my conclusion from re-reading was that Fanny's truest source of happiness is being at Mansfield, at Home, in fact, so that is what I gave her. I may not have been quite heavy-handed enough, as nobody in the comments said they were glad to see her becoming the mistress of Mansfield Park, but there it is. It was fun to do, mostly because I was able to adjust Fanny a wee bit so that she gets more impatient with Edmund, which I do myself.

The title is from a quote in Chapter 45, "With what intense desire she wants her home," from Cowper.


So, that's Yuletide done for another year!

*

Snowflake Challenge 2026, challenge no. 1: The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

I seem to have introduced myself many, many times, as I've been doing an online journal since I joined LiveJournal in 2005, and have (I think) done at least some of the Snowflake Challenge every year since it began.

So rather than reiterate how I came to be a fanfic-fandom person, I'm going to send anyone who's interested to the Snowflake 2022 post I made, in which I introduce myself via some posts. A selection of my posts, rather than a(nother) post About Me. The first is a love letter to fandom; the second mourns the death of a creative idol of mine (Stephen Sondheim) and also mourns the country I wish I lived in. The third is about death, though possibly a bit less miserable than that sounds. And there's a bonus fourth, to cheer you up a bit—a really unhelpful phonetic alphabet. As a collection, I think they give quite a good idea of Me, though I'm not usually quite so death-focused.

What do I want from Snowflake this year? I'm not sure. Some entertainment, maybe the discovery of a couple of new people to interact with? As much as anything, I have the feeling that this is a little burgeoning of posts, and I would like to be part of that.

What do I want from DreamWidth this year? Hmm. I'd like to put in a bit of the energy that I've been frivolling away on Reddit lately—although on Reddit I am somewhat more astringent and wit-focused, I think, than I am in this my own space. I hope there will be more discussion of Stuff I'm Interested In, whether that may be barbershop or fandom in general and the changes it has undergone of late, or the pleasure-pain of writing, or what to wear to dance at my daughter's wedding, and more. We shall see.

This was my Yuletide story for 2024, a Peter Wimsey story that focuses on Harriet, and her relationships with the women in Peter's family (and one or two others).

If you have come from my website and would like to leave a comment, this is the place!

So, Yuletide authors are revealed - not that it makes much difference to me, as there are *so* many stories that I don't even think of reading for the author, just for the fandom, and the odds of my being able to guess an author's identity are vanishingly small. I have found quite a few new favourites, but I have a strong suspicion that recs will come up in the Snowflake Challenge, so I shall keep reading for now.

I received a lovely gift fic, Frost and Folly - an Emma variation by writerfan2013, who gave me a rather charming alternate timeline in which Emma begins by noticing some worrying signs from Mr Knightley, and Robert Martin gets what he deserves. Some lovely moments in which Emma is comparing herself to Harriet—she is twenty-one, Harriet is but twenty—and changes her behaviour somewhat in order to, well. I won't spoil it for you, but it's a lovely and unexpected take on the story.

I also wrote an Austen fic, Of Duty, and A Path Not Ridden, which takes that moment in the narrative of Persuasion where Frederick wonders if Anne would have been receptive if he had returned just two years after his original offer was refused, and extrapolates what might have happened if he had. I enjoyed writing it, quite a lot, and found that it grew to nearly six thousand words without really trying—though I did wonder, early on, if I would ever get those two together after all. It turned out to be one of those fics where my initial and slightly random ideas worked out really well. I might even have an out-take or two for it.

In your own space, create a fanwork.

I've been waiting for this one.

Back in 2012, I wrote a story called Wanna Tell Me About It? I thought there was probably going to be a sequel, but it turned out that what I needed to do was to enlarge the story. It has taken me... rather a long time to get it done.

With thanks to brandywine28 and frausorge for their betas, I present Wanna Tell Me About It?, the extended version.
If you read it here, you'll get to see the header, which is one of my favourite graphics; alternatively, you can read it on AO3 here.

It's RPF, featuring Adam Lambert and Lance Bass plus a selection of their friends, in an alternate universe where Adam is an actor looking for work and Lance is a sometime TV star from a show called Synchronicity who is now a TV producer. Their first encounter does not go well.

I threatened promised to do this, and nobody dissuaded me. But we can dispense with the babies. I'm not that hungry.

Warnings: non-con, elephantiasis, feats of unnatural strength, unorthodox use of a lava lamp

O Lance! Where did you put the lava lamp?

The slowly opened hotel door revealed
A pair of sleepers twined upon the couch
Another lying face down on the floor
and television static on the screen.

Methinks this was a million years ago,
when telly ceased at twelve or thereabouts
and VCRs were real.

Anon my tale.
( Read more... )

I think I got all the best bits in. *flees*

ETA: The gushing fount of my inspiration, now on AO3. And, for those who have not been exposed to its glory, The Lava Lamp Story In Pictures is worth half an hour of your time—five minutes to read, twenty-five to recover.

Please note: this story contains a scene of rape and violence

( Read more... )

Written for dragonbigbang 2014. With big thanks to my betas, brandywine28 and chalcopyrite

If you would like to read the story in one piece, it is up on my website here.

Please note: this story contains a scene of rape and violence.


( Read more... )

Consider this a Warning: contents can cause brain pain and earworms.*

The Camp Sparkle 2013 Add Five Words Story can be accessed here. I have not typed it out—if there is Huge Demand, I will do so, but, you know... Anyway, it is recorded for your delight edification pleasure for you.





* Moohahahaha.

I was just about to put my remix story up onto my website, when I realised I did not do a 'this was my story' post here, so.

This was my story. It's a remix of Aeiouna's Crossed Paths, in which Brian and Howie dream about each other before they get to meet. I'd decided I wanted to try a remix IN SPACE, and so ended up writing the holodeck version.

Comments welcome!


Yet again, random icon plays a blinder.