Yuletide Reveals

Thank you again to both edwardianspinsteraunt and WyvernQuill, who between them wrote my three amazing gifts! \o/ (I have read them now, and they were indeed just as wonderful as they looked.)

I haven't read more than halfway through the collection on mere first pickings, though, because while I have two things in the collection, I very nearly made it to three but failed on Christmas Eve, and spent the little energy of that kind I had trying to fix the third all week. It was at that sort of stage to drive me wild not to be able to do so. Anyway, for better or for worse, it is posted now, and I'll link to it here separately later, but it was for The Winslow Boy, for edwardianspinsteraunt.


I was assigned The Shadow of the Tower (!!) for misura, who had once written me a Madness treat for this canon and the same characters (Henry VII & John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln) which I have treasured ever since, so I was pretty delighted to be able to return the favour. I had this idea pretty much straight away, although it took a while to work out and be well enough to type up. I worried a bit over the ending (involving a slightly different take on a canonical death) and kept checking their DNWs (and each time, no, they still had not DNWed death, heh) and am so relieved that not only did they leave me a lovely comment before I even got to the collection on the 25th, but they absolutely got what I was going for in that section.

And thanks to persiflage_1 for the beta, as ever!

that strange unmerciful tyrant (2256 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Shadow of the Tower
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Henry VII of England & John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln, Henry VII of England/John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln
Characters: Henry VII of England, John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln
Additional Tags: Battle of Stoke, 15th Century, Loyalty, Rebellion, Trust Issues, Dreams, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, (that goes slightly differently), Episode: e04 The Crowning of Apes
Summary: John of Lincoln knows what he wants - the throne of England. His heart might have other ideas.


I also wanted to write some treats if I had time, maybe some ficlets for Madness, as there were a few requests I eyed up, especially The Winslow Boy (which along with the SotT request, was the other thing I'd have been most happy to get assigned to), and The Time Master trilogy maybe, or The Net (1995).


I did write TWB, but typed it up second - I knew if I didn't attempt The Net treat now I never would, while I was clearly going to write something for TWB sooner or later now. Anyway, so even though the very morning I typed it up I had decided that I simply couldn't do it, somehow nevertheless I wrote the first Jack/Angela fic for unhindered_dreams because the foe!yay needed to exist, and apparently I had to write it myself, dammit. ;-p

(Some of their other prompts were so funny, too, though. I think "Canon, but soulmates" made me laugh the hardest, because I'm not into soulmates as a rule, but "worst possible soulmate except yes actually in some ways they genuinely are" is amazing. As was "following your boyfriend's trail of dead bodies" even if canon is more "you can tell your boyfriend is following you because there's a trail of dead bodies behind you.")


it's the end of the world as we know it (4805 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Net (1995)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Angela Bennett/Jack Devlin (The Net 1995)
Characters: Angela Bennett (The Net 1995), Jack Devlin (The Net 1995)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, Dubious Consent, Mild Gore, Foe Yay, Enemies, enemies with benefits maybe?, Apocalypse, Swearing
Summary: The end of days happens while Jack and Angela are out at sea. Things go differently.

With many thanks to sovay for the beta and US pick!

(The irony of me and Zombie Apocalypse fic is that I don't like really like zombie things, but somehow I like writing Zombie Apocalypse AUs a lot anyway, even if they usually feature more biscuits and team bonding than zombies, so this was comparatively zombie-heavy for me, but that's not saying much, lol.)


The one downside of my plans, other than not quite making it and exhausting myself at the same time (but what else is new) was that, due to foolishly writing treats that involved two different fictional Jeremy Northams, while waiting for Treat #1, I was, oh, maybe I could start on Treat #2 and then my brain for one moment tried to put Jack Devlin and Sir Robert Morton in the same place and broke into distressed pieces, so I took the wiser course of having a rest instead.

Fic: the furthest stars came thundering at the door

As I said, I tried to write a second treat for yuletide, and didn't quite make it. But I got it ready to post today when the New Year's Resolution collection went live.

With many thanks to persiflage_1 who not only agreed to beta in like 0 minutes available on Christmas Eve, but put up with 3 emails of "Here's the fic to beta; No wait, not that version, HERE'S the fic to beta" and then finally, "No, don't beta the damn thing, it's a mess, sorry, i'm going to bed," and then finally beta-ed it today, by which time it had grown 1.5k words over what I told them it would be. (♥ Pers, you're a star!)

I had fun writing it, I should say! I just swithered over what I was doing with it, and then it turned into one of those silly situations where every change begs more change. I'd have sorted it sooner if I hadn't exhausted myself with the zombies already, because what it really needed was just have the time to sit down and rewrite of the first half properly. And then fix everything I'd messed up by rewriting the first half, lol.

ANYWAY, edwardianspinsteraunt had prompted about getting a reversal where Sir Robert was involved in a scandal this time, and also forced proximity tropes and for some reason I got absolutely fixated on combining the two, which was why the original idea of being stuck on a train in the snow got shelved because there had to be the scandal bit (my brain, idk) and that necessitated it being late July 1914, when, cool as the weather was, it would have been unlikely to snow in the south east of England. (Even granted that even as little as one flake might cause a British train to halt, if it were the wrong kind.)

What I'm blathering about and towards is, the whole thing about simultaneously thinking about how hard they were to apply tropes and I couldn't do a daft AU for them + "stuck on a train in the snow" led me to the distracting idea (NOT ever for the gift, do not worry, edwardianspinsteraunt) that OMG what about MURDER? They would have exactly the right skill set between them and Sir Robert would absolutely hate it, it would be amazing.

Me: Someone should write a series of 1920s cosy crime novels where the protagonists are a former suffragette and a posh lawyer.
Me: (reflecting on how many cosies there are) ... one almost certainly already exists, doesn't it?

Anyway, I couldn't put them in a fake relationship, I couldn't strand them on a train in the snow, but I listened to the commentary (which I was taking notes from for sovay, if they still want them) and that got me to an actual fic, rather than a slight ficlet, and here it is.

(I watched TWB too many times again, I'm sorry. I apologise for the wittering. I've just had this fic nearly done stuck in my head and having to rewatch the film extra to keep it there for a week and a half and now I can talk again.)


the furthest stars came thundering at the door (4455 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Winslow Boy (1999)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Robert Morton/Catherine Winslow
Characters: Robert Morton (Winslow Boy), Catherine Winslow
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Edwardian Period, with World War I approaching like the down express, Trains, Smoking, Post-Canon, Scandal
Summary: Catherine and Sir Robert find themselves on the same train, but travelling in quite different directions.

(The title is from a poem about London Bridge Station, written in 1909.)