Fandom Promo!

[crantz]

Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!

Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign ups!

Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!

Suggested form to use:

<b>FANDOM NAME</b>:
<b>WHAT MAKES IT GREAT</b>:
<b>WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional)</b>:

Comments

Hornblower, The Singer not the Song, The Famous Five

[sweetsorcery]

FANDOM NAME: Hornblower (TV)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Gorgeous men in glorious uniforms, history, much slash potential, drama, adventure - 8 movie-length episodes of it all.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Remastered DVDs are available at Base.com. Check Amazon too, or wherever you get your entertainment for your region. Take a peek at it all on YouTube, where you'll usually find HD uploads of all or most of the 8 parts.

FANDOM NAME: The Singer not the Song
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: An Irish priest is sent to a Mexican village, which struggles under the rule of a bandit who hates the church and looks rather good in black leather. The bandit does his best to intimidate the priest but, when that fails, he instead falls under his spell. It's a book (1953) and a movie (1961), and the slash is as canon as it could be at the time.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): There are copies of the book floating around. The movie is available on DVD, and you'll frequently find (blurry) YouTube uploads of it.

FANDOM NAME: The Famous Five
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: It's a classic. It evokes a time long gone, and if you're like me and grew up with a massive crush on one of the characters, and have become a fan fiction writer since, it's a fun fandom to revisit. After all, they're allowed to grow up some time. :)
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): At BookDepository, and in any good book store, hopefully. On DVD and YouTube. I personally much favour the original 1970s TV series, but there's a more recent one too, if you must. :)

[(Anonymous)]

FANDOM NAME: The Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: I love interpretations of fairy tales, but it's been decades since I haven't known the general shape of a story based on the kind of fairy tale story it's telling. I know nothing about Russian folklore, so the story that begins in The Bear & The Nightingale is a complete mystery to me and wonderful to watch unfold.

Vasya Petrovna is blessed with the ability to see the spirits and caretakers of her house, her village and the local wildlife. However, it's the 14th century and Christianity is making a solid push into her village in the far north of Rus', and there are those who believe her gift might actually be a curse.

Oh by the way, the god of winter and/or death has taken a special interest in her.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Where ever books are sold! Or the library! Two of the three books are out now, with the third coming in January 2019

Cook Up A Storm (2017)

[whitedandelions]

FANDOM NAME: Cook Me Up A Storm (2017)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Do you like shows about cooking? Do you like cooking competitions? Do you want to ship the two main characters like me with a passion of a thousand suns?

This Cantonese movie is basically “Shokugeki no Soma” come to live-action, but it’s still so good. If you don’t know what Shokugeki is, it is basically an anime where there’s tons of emphasis on the food and how it’s cooked and enjoyed. The food made in this movie is absolutely mouthwatering, and the chemistry between the two characters above is amazing. The premise of the movie is that these two characters are completely different in their lifestyles, their upbringing, and most importantly their food. The one on the left makes fancy, learned in a culinary school kind of food while the one on the right makes food he learned from home, and he cooks in a restaurant everyday and the locals love his food. And without getting too spoilery, while the movie starts out with them as rivals, they eventually become close. And the best part, is that while this movie focusses a lot on the food, it also has a LOT of heartwarming moments and character growth for a lot of characters in the movie. The end was absolutely amazing, and the friendships between some of these characters are so beautifully painted. And amazingly, this movie did not have anyone end up in a relationship, which I rather quite enjoyed (even though I ended up shipping these two so hard near the end.)

Powerless!

[firstlovelatespring]

FANDOM NAME: Powerless
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: powerless is an nbc tv show starring VANESSA HUDGENS! it takes place in a universe where superheroes are real, but the main characters are just everyday citizens of Charm City. Emily (Vanessa Hudgens) works at Wayne Enterprises, designing equipment to protect people from superheroes/supervillains and getting up to some great shenanigans!! the show only ran for 1 short season before getting cancelled, but there was a lot of potential! i'm pretty sure they were setting up a love triangle with emily/teddy (Danny Pudi)/green fury (Natalie Morales), which would have been very bisexual. (also natalie morales is irl bi.) this is from when emily saved green fury's life!:

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): unfortunately the episodes aren't streaming on the nbc website anymore but they are available for purchase on youtube/itunes/amazon/google

[moonlight69]

FANDOM NAME: Cook, Serve, Delicious! (1 & 2!!)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: On the surface, it appears to be a quirky cooking video game, but not only is it way more hardcore than you would initially think, but it's also got a fairly intriguing world built around it. Set in a post-apocalyptic future Earth, the question of what happened to the world can slowly be teased out via in-game emails and restaurant descriptions in the second title. There are also recurring characters in these emails, particularly the escalating drama of Dennis and Leo.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): The first game is $9.99 on Steam and the second is $12.99, but they are frequently on sale, including for the next 21 hours. Alternately, there are lets plays on YouTube, and several Twitch streamers play it. For an entertaining watch, I recommend checking out Nilesy's gameplay for the first game and BaerTaffy for the sequel.

[aetataureate]

FANDOM NAME: The Passage Trilogy (Justin Cronin)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The Passage Trilogy is a sweeping epic that sits somewhere between vampire apocalypse literature and zombie apocalypse literature. It covers two major periods of time: the present, where the government is trying desperately to halt a plague of its own creation, and the future, where bands of survivors work with and against each other and the virals to maintain civilization and maybe, one day, cure the world. Justin Cronin created an incredible framework, and the novels cover so much space and time that there are some really incredible stories to tell. There are fantastically memorable and well-developed characters that take on near-mythic status while still feeling distinctly human. Plus, there's a TV show coming out next year, which means there's a lot of room for the fandom to grow!


FANDOM NAME: Pushing Daisies
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The sweetest little show the 07-08 Writers Strike ever killed, Pushing Daisies ran for two incredible seasons. The premise is simple. Ned has a gift, but not from anyone in particular: he can touch a dead person and bring them back to life. A second touch, and they're dead again forever. He uses this gift how anyone would: to bring back his childhood sweetheart, make delicious pies, and solve crimes. Cue some SERIOUS unresolved sexual tension, and the GLORY that is Emerson Cod. Created by Bryan Fuller and featuring colorful characters, sets, dialogue, and place names, Pushing Daisies was an absolute delight. It ended before its time, leaving a lot of questions open. Anyone who wants to do some creative worldbuilding, fun character exploration, or figure out exactly how the rules of the gift work and what they mean will feel right at home.


FANDOM NAME: FlashForward
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: FlashForward only ran for one season, which is a damn shame. The premise, that everyone on Earth simultaneously blacked out for two minutes and seventeen seconds and saw a vision of their own future, sends the plots spinning off infinite directions. People's motivations, both selfish and selfless, are forced to the surface, and everyone is forced to wrestle with the question of whether they are really in control of their lives. The finale ***SPOILER***, where it was finally revealed that the events of the first season were all building to a second blackout, which ended the series, ***END SPOILER*** was a roller coaster ride which left me desperate for more. It never came. Here's hoping that fan fiction can ride to the rescue and fill in the gaps.

[nyctanthes]

Fandom: Ezra Furman, Transangelic Exodus (Music, Album, 2017)

What Makes It Great: It’s an album that is both a "fictionalized memoir” and a quasi-rock opera about, in no particular order: i) angels and government experiments; ii) being queer and Jewish in a vague dystopia as well as IRL; iii) coming out; iv) God/religion.

Not only are the foci of the album super chewy and interesting, but the music is awesome and Furman's lyrics are great. Here's a review at AllMusic, where you can also listen to several tracks.

This seems like the kind of work fandom would all be over, but I haven't found anything yet. I’d have taken a stab at it, but I’ve been immersed in writing 50K words in a different micro-fandom. It's on the to-do list!

Source Material: In terms of how much background knowledge this (yet to exist) fandom requires...it's a 42 minute album that's available to stream on Spotify and to buy at all the usual places. It's got enough details to get you started, but not enough that you'd be hemmed in by canon. There's a lot of room to play.

I'd love to see how you fantastic, imaginative Yuletide participants transform this work.

Roadstergal on LJ and AO3

[(Anonymous)]

FANDOM NAME: War of the Worlds (TV)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: It's so bad it's glorious. I loved this to tiny bits when I was young, and I recently re-found and re-adored it. The aliens from the original WotW have had the nasty Earth bacteria driven off from them by Radioactive Waste, so radioactive aliens are sloughing around, taking over Earth bodies that fall apart from the radioactivity. The episode titles are all Biblical references, the San Francisco bay area looks suspiciously like Canada, and the pacifist scientist and the Token Army Guy (played by the only guy in the original Predator who had actually served in the military) have a deliciously slashy relationship. The two other main characters are a female scientist and a black paraplegic scientist who don't feel like tokens. The potential of this fandom begs for good fics.

http://oi67.tinypic.com/fa8ykz.jpg

Re: Roadstergal on LJ and AO3

[keerawa]

Was that the one where in season 1 it's all, "There are aliens secretly plotting to take over the Earth, we have to stop them!" and then it underwent a complete genre shift between season 1 and 2, and became, "The aliens have taken over the Earth! Fight the alien overlords!"
???

Caper Court novels by Caro Fraser

[halotolerant]

FANDOM NAME: Caper Court Series - Caro Fraser

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: In this 1990s series of books, two British lawyers, one (Leo Davies) a debonair, silver fox, man-about-town, bisexual (but romantically solely interested in men) socialite, the other (Anthony Cross) a naive, young, handsome, earnest-and-deserving, straight-I'm-so-straight-I'm-definitely-straight new starter, HAVE FEELINGS AT EACH OTHER. PINE. LONG. YEARN. UST UNTIL THE COURT MELTS.

This is a mainstream series and the fact that it is mostly focussed on Leo is still kind of blowing my mind a little. I had never, ever heard of it before I stumbled over the first book and read between the lines of the blurb. Broadly, the series covers the lives of several people who work in and around this firm of lawyers, and has a somewhat soapy set-up.

[Content Warning: There's another character who has suffered childhood sexual abuse, this is a theme in Book 2 and is mentioned afterwards, I think Fraser handles it reasonably well although I don't think it would survive a very critical reading. Book 1 does not even contain this character so you can safely dip a toe.]

Another Fair Warning: I have just finished book 4, there are 8 published & according to her website she is working on 9. Maybe it will all go wrong! But join me on that journey *g*

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?:
Books are on Amazon kindle and very cheap secondhand, at least in the UK. Reading order and publication date:

The Pupil (1992)
Judicial Whispers (1995)
An Immoral Code (1997)
A Hallowed Place (1999)
A Perfect Obsession (2002)
A Calculating Heart (2004)
Breath Of Corruption (2007)
Errors of Judgment (2013)

Re: Caper Court novels by Caro Fraser

[(Anonymous)]

So if, in theory, one were to only have time to read one or two of said books, would that be enough to write fic, do you think? I for one read a bit slow.

[aris_tgd]

FANDOM NAME: TableTop Saturday Night '78 Fiasco
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: So a little background. Wil Wheaton has a web series called "TableTop" where he runs board games and roleplaying games with friends at his house. In episodes 8 and 9 of the first season, he runs a one-shot with a roleplaying game called "Fiasco" using the scenario/playset "Saturday Night '78." The other players are Alison Haislip, Bonnie Burton, and John Rogers.

All of them are terrific roleplayers and actors, and they play a quartet of characters involved in seedy nightclubs, crime, and seedy nightclub crime on a night when everything goes to hell. There's canon femslash/bisexuality, arson, and a few bags full of heroin. It's a delight and it's all free. The whole thing's edited down to about an hour's worth of watching, with an optional episode where they come up with their characters and the scenario.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): https://geekandsundry.com/fiasco-alison-haislip-bonnie-burton-and-john-rogers-join-wil-on-tabletop-ep/ and https://geekandsundry.com/fiasco-alison-haislip-bonnie-burton-and-john-rogers-join-wil-on-tablet6/ with optional setup https://geekandsundry.com/tabletop-fiasco-set-up/

[wiccanslyr]

I've been on a Table Top binge run lately and there are so many that end up with little stories and characters that could TOTALLY be nominated as there own little fandoms! This one, The Harbour, Forbidden Desert, Fate Core, and Once Upon a Time episodes spring to mind right away as being super nominatable for sure!

Like I feel like there could be an entire exchange dedicated to Table Top. XD

Xenogears

[alterimpulse]

Fandom name: Xenogears
What makes it great: Do you like Neon Genesis Evangelion? Do you like RahXephon or Big O? Take all of that, throw it in a blender with everything from the Kabbalah to Thelema to a fuckton of sci-fi easter eggs from Star Trek and Star Wars to more to even more.

Or, as TV Tropes defines this game: Sigmund Freud has sex with the Holy Bible while Neon Genesis Evangelion operates the camera and Mobile Fighter G Gundam watches.

Or, as I did once with the assistance of being rather baked: a universe where a psychiatrist would be 1000 times more useful yet more of a Deus ex Machina than an actual god killing giant mecha.

This game is 20 years old this year, and it is one of "those" fandoms - but if you can get around all that, you have a ton of interesting space and sci-fi lore to explore, a massive universe set in deep time with lots of things to play with, canon hetero ships and a fuckton of slash subtext once you scratch the surface, some really amazing characters to work with, layers of plots and themes...and giant robots.

There are some major downsides: the game's visual and sound aside from music such as voices and battle sounds etc DEFINITELY shows its age (the anime sequences are especially shit) although the OST in full quality is amazing music and well worth a listen, the treatment of dissociative identity disorder for Fei also does show its age (and can be enraging or triggering from how badly it was written because Google and easy access to resources didn't exist back then, so the writers were obviously winging it from other media with not so good results), and the canon het ships can be squicky and near-sexist in their depiction (which may or may not have been on purpose so people intentionally looked for the slash - there's rumors that at least one writer and one character designer were shippers on board for at least Citan/Sigurd and Sigurd/Bart and for Sigurd being gay), and if you're heavily religious and don't like fandoms that play fast and loose with that, it's probably not going to be a fun play or watch for you.

Where can I Find It?
If you wish to play through the game, Amazon or Ebay and I think it's on the Playstation Store by now. Of course, you can also put on your own eyepatch and arr an emu, but there's a couple hard freeze glitches you'll need to beware of or work around with the emulation (I think they're random, based on graphical bugs? But know where they are and hit your save state before so you're not totally fucked if they happen).

If you're more interested in just the story/characters than actual gameplay for yourself? This is one fandom where that's more than okay! This is a more "literary" JRPG, and there's full dialogue scripts, longplays, character analyses, snarks, and much much MUCH more on the internet due to how old it is and... how it does tend to attract the sort of fans who like to go into even more exposition and overthought than a certain character in it you might really love or really hate does. ;)

(I personally highly recommend the LP by HCBailly - which is what got me into the fandom of all things so late - and the A Rope of Robots take among others, but just cruise around Youtube, and you'll find lots of varying quality and interestingness. And there's at least one full longplay there I think, too.)

Dialogue script is on gamefaqs. The game has its branch of the Xenosaga Wiki as the game that started it all (there's tons of sequels by this point that are "spiritual successors" and "cousin games" such as the Xenosaga games themselves, which are the nearer time prequels, and the Xenoblade games). There's also guardian.leamonde.net which is an awesome resource from back in the day and one of the few that hasn't been purged or memoryholed over an eternity of Internet time.

Re: Xenogears

[(Anonymous)]

Oh man, Xenogears! Bart/Billy was MY JAM back in the day. Thank you for this reminder to give it a re-play and reignite my feelings.

[(Anonymous)]

FANDOM NAME: The Amberlough Dossier Series - Lara Elena Donnelly

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: It's a 1930s Art Deco, LGBT fantasy political thriller that focuses on three central characters. Aristide Makricosta, a nightclub emcee who is also a smuggler; Cyril DePaul, a spy and double agent caught in the midst of a government turning to nationalism and fascism, and Cordelia Lehane, a dancer at the nightclub who gets caught up in the turning of political tides and becomes an unlikely revolutionary.

The writing is sharp and clever, and the plot weaves between political thriller and the connection between Aristide, Cyril, and Cordelia. Aristide and Cyril are the main relationship in the story, and it's wonderful to see a same-sex, interracial relationship in a historical setting.

Basically, I describe this series as Cabaret meets James Bond. Basically think of the setting of Cabaret and queer 1930s Berlin and give it the slick, action focused spy thriller of James Bond. The first two books in the series are out and the third and final book comes out in 2019.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Amazon, iBooks, wherever else you get books!

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

[whetherwoman.livejournal.com]

Fandom name: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

What makes it great: Ok. Ok. This is a fandom of one and I am singlehandedly going into the new millennium cross my heart. This movie is about Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo and they are drag queens on a road trip and get stranded in a small town and punch the bad guys and make the good guys fabulous. I DON'T KNOW WHY THERE ISN'T MORE FIC FOR THIS MOVIE.

Here is Vida Boheme:


Here is Noxeema Jackson:


Here is Chi-Chi Rodriguez:


They are FABULOUS.

The pairing of my heart is Vida and Carol Ann, because Carol Ann is played by Stockard Channing and, well... here is a very poor quality video of some STEAMING HOT SUBTEXT HOLY GUACAMOLE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmVNfp18O1s

Also there are cameos by Robin Williams and Ru Paul.

Ok, it is a little problematic - it came out in 1995 and some of the language used, while used by people who identified with it at the time, is a little shocking to hear now. Content warning for domestic violence, and for threat of homophobic and transphobic violence although everyone turns out ok.

But look, this is a movie about three drag queens stranded in a small town and nobody dies and there is a happy ending! And there are fabulous costumes and people being loved for who they are and really I don't even know what to tell you, this just needs a lot more fans. A lot.

Where to find it: It's a couple bucks on youtube or amazon.

Re: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

[dr_zook]

Oh man, this was one of my favourite movies as a child/youth! I re-watched it often on VHS when I was sick and had to stay at home from school. :3

The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body

[crantz]

FANDOM NAME: Risen som ikke hadde noe hjerte på seg | The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body - Asbjørnsen & Moe
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: If you ever heard about the fairytale technique of removing your heart from your body to make yourself unkillable? This is it! It has a loving family (although the brothers are careless), a clever princess, and a giant with good ideas.

Plot: A king has 7 sons and 6 go out to find brides (the 7th stays home because the king cannot bear to be parted with all his sons) and they forget to find their brother a bride and end up, on their way home, turned into stone by a giant.

The Prince, his name is Boots, goes on a quest to find what's happened to his brothers and ends up saving a lot of starving animals on the way. Eventually he's led to the giant's castle, meets his princess, and finds out why the giant is unkillable.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/asbjornsenmoe/giantnoheart.html

Pandoras Choice by Yudori

[(Anonymous)]

Pandoras Choice is not a heart-warming story.

In 1840's America, Pandora Blais is the only daughter of Christopher Blais, a wealthy young man who drinks far too much. He has given up on pretty much everything, to the point of neglecting his daughter. Still, Pandora tries her darnedest to make her father act the part.

Pandora is an independent young woman, who often considers her place in the world, as does her governess. These musings are seldom ham-fisted, and come across in the same vein as Jane Eyre, though it does take a leaf from Wuthering Heights in how intensely gothic the mood and story comes across.

If you like period dramas and vintage shoujo manga, I wholeheartedly recommend it. You can read it on Lezhin.com

[(Anonymous)]

FANDOM NAME: Great Northern War RPF
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Uniforms, a boy-king who is waaay too big for his boots. He fights a crazy Czar, and is completely convinced that this is going well! Even in the face of obvious defeat and bad omens. Because he is king, dammit. Gods chosen one!

Charles XII of Sweden had a fairly happy childhood. Dad had a temper, but never let it go out over his family. Mom kept the children close, overseeing their early education(Instead of handing them over to governesses as was common). Charles' best friend was his older sister. His father, King Charles XI was a family man, spending all his free time hunting with his son, or hanging out with the family.

Tragedy struck, and Charles became king at the age of fifteen. Greater tragedy struck: Charles was deemed mature enough to rule, rather than obey a temporary government. Charles had one love in life, and this was playing war. So he hopped off to fight. Any wounds were shrugged off as 'only a flesh wound'(yes really), and everything went according to Charles' amazing secret plan that existed in his head. He did not share this secret plan with anyone. This is great for a king, but devastating for a general.

Eventually, he was defeated at Poltava. Suprisingly enough, he did not give up. This man was going to have his revenge on Russia, if it had to cost him Poland(It did). For several years, he stayed at Bender in Turkey. On the Sultans' budget. Trying to convince the Sultan to attack Russia. Despite all advice running counter to this.

He was also amazing at spitting one-liners:

"I will get married once the war is over. And if I decide to have an army full of unmarried men, that is my choice alone." Charlie on why he never married.

"Firstly, it's gotta go boom." Response to "We can do X, but that would be a suicide mission."

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Bengt Liljekvists wonderful biography of Charles XII. Other great sources are Hermans Historia(although it tends to glorify him quite a bit, his faults are what makes him interesting). Extra History did a series on the Great Northern War which is really good and definitely worth checking out!

Exile | Avernum

[verecunda]

FANDOM NAME: Avernum (aka Exile)
Why two names? Well, in the 90s, indie game developer Spiderweb Software released the Exile trilogy of RPGs. Since then, the games have been remade twice, under the new name Avernum. They all tell the same story, with very minor changes to dialogue and character names, etc. The main differences between each version are the graphics and gameplay.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: A great old-school RPG, with a fantasy setting just a little bit out of the ordinary. There’s the usual swords and sorcery trappings, but the land of Exile/Avernum is a hellish system of subterranean caverns that the evil Empire who rules aboveground uses as a penal colony for all its petty criminals, rebels, and misfits, all eking out a precarious existence and fighting the various beasties who already live in the underworld. You follow the fortunes of various bands of adventurers as they explore this strange new world, make allies and enemies among the other denizens of the caves, drink lots of mushroom beer, rebel against the iron might of the Empire, and, finally, find a way back to the surface world.

It’s a great story, with lots of quirky humour, some cool recurring characters, and it wears its worldbuilding just lightly enough that there are loads of enticing gaps just begging to be filled in with fanon!

And it’s addictive. Very addictive. I don’t even want to think about how many days of my life I’ve lost to these games. With (mostly) non-linear storytelling, plenty of sidequests, and a great big game world to explore, you’ll find yourself getting happily lost for hours on end ("just one more dungeon, honest!"). There’s tons of replay value, too.

Oh, and it has Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders who sometimes give you spider kisses. If that doesn’t entice you, nothing will.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: All of Spiderweb's games can be purchased via their own site. For the Avernum games, you can download free demos, and the entire original Exile trilogy is available to download for free.

The newest trilogy is also available on Steam and GOG. GOG also sells the first Avernum trilogy as part of a package. (This package includes Avernum 4-6, a follow-up trilogy to A1-3, but I've never played those.)

All games are available for Windows and Mac. The new trilogy is also available for iPad.

Tales of the Otori

[schneefink]

FANDOM NAME: Tales of the Otori - Lian Hearn

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: This is a five book series: an original trilogy, a sequel and a prequel. It's a fantasy adventure story in a pseudo-Japanese setting, with lords and ninjas and romance and battles etc. The trilogy has its flaws (I could have done with way less love-at-first-sight romance) but it's overall a good story and also does interesting things with loyalties and where one belongs etc, and overall I like it a lot. (Bonus, many queer characters, including the bisexual hero.)

And then there's the sequel, "The Harsh Cry of the Heron," set sixteen years later, which is great. It takes the actions and mistakes and flaws of the original protagonists and shows the consequences, it introduces a variety of great new characters, it looks at an entire country and its large cast and shows how everything is connected, and what happens when things start unraveling. My favorite characters were the "next generation" and how they are shaped/influenced both by their parents and families and and which abilities they have and what choices they can and cannot make. It gets quite dark at times but does have a hopeful ending.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): As books or ebooks.

[larryhammer]

FANDOM NAME: Hell Gate - A. E. Housman

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: This is a short narrative poem in which an unnamed speaker travels to the gates of hell, recognizes one of the two doorkeepers (Sin and Death) as a woman he has a past with, and then recognizes one of the armed guards marching on the walls as Ned, a soldier he has a past with -- whereupon Ned shoots Satan, and he and the speaker escape and return to the living world. Which is hella plot for just over 100 lines with loads of atmosphere.

Needless to say, there are layers and layers of love triangling or OT3ing that can be teased out of this. It is awesomesauce, people. That the story may, like much of A Shropshire Lad, reflect on Housman's relationship with his university roommate, Moses Jackson, only adds to the interest.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: It was originally published in Last Poems, which is available on Project Gutenberg, or here's the text on its own.

[kore]

This sounds amazing.

[ricardienne]

FANDOM NAME: La Clemenza di Tito | Clemency of Titus - Mozart/Massolà/Metastasio

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Mozart's shamefully under-appreciated opera seria has misunderstandings, love-pentacles, loyalty-kink, distraught arias as the heroine/villainess wrestles with herself over whether to let her boyfriend be executed for a (failed) attempt to assassinate his best friend that he undertook on her orders... loads of fun early modern Mirror For Princes pageantry on the nature of severity and mercy and the qualities of kingship, a surprisingly compelling b-couple, a token bass who isn't so much evil as the voice of raison d'état, and, perhaps best of all, most of the male characters were written for mezzos, so there's scope for as much queer and/or genderqueer subtext (or actual text) as you want to include or ignore.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: You can read the libretto HERE There are a number of live performances available in full on Youtube.

[quillori]

I just spotted this in the tagset, and came to see if anyone had promoted it here (I don't know how I missed seeing it when you posted it - apparently I managed to skip straight from A.E. Housman above you to the art work below). Anyway, all the +1s and ♥s for nominating this and fingers crossed for fic.

A Place of Greater Safety

[luna]

FANDOM NAME: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: A rich novel about the French Revolution, focusing more on the characters than on the history, though there's plenty of both. Political and romantic intrigue with the highest stakes. Ride-or-die friendships tested by war! Enemies forced to work very long nights together! Canonical queerness and open relationships! Camille Demoulas and Georges-Jacques Danton are kind of like the Gallic Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, with extra swagger and style, a little more bloodshed and lots more wine. Even their wives know they're kind of in love. Together, they fight--well, not crime, but just about everything and everyone else. Especially the incorruptible Robespierre, who also happens to be Camille's boyhood friend with a barely repressed crush on him.

It's a long book, but it's luscious and transporting and sexy and thoughtful. Pay no attention to the guillotine in the corner.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: at Amazon or wherever books are sold, borrowed, traded, etc.

Re: A Place of Greater Safety

[dr_zook]

♥!!!

France is a Feast

[lorelei42]

FANDOM NAME: France is a Feast (Alex Prud'homme & Katie Pratt)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Julia Child in a tube top! Julia Child's husband Paul was an artist and photographer. This book collects a selection of his photos from their time in France, the period during which Julia learned to cook and during which Julie & Julia and My Life in France are set. We get to see Julia before she was famous, enjoying rooftop picnics and playing with her cat, Minette. We also get photos of her and Paul together and Julia with her (even taller) sister, Dort. And there are a few photos of Julia in her tiny Parisian kitchen. I love this window into the private Julia and her relationship with Paul. There is also text accompanying the photos that tells some of Paul's story, which is romantic and intriguing. Paul Child was a twin and led an interesting life. Julia was not the first love of his life. He lived for years with a divorcee 15 years his senior, Edith Kennedy, who passed away a few years before he met Julia. Paul and Julia met during their WWII era service in the OSS, the precursor of the CIA.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Book is available on Amazon, but you can see a selection of some of the best photos in this Bon Appetit article:
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/julia-child-never-before

[vaysh]

FANDOM NAME: The Witch Family (by Eleanor Estes, 1960)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: This is an incredibly charming old-fashioned children's book that I read as a kid in the German translation (Die Kinder die Hexen zaubern konnten). It was hands-down my favourite book as a kid. I have no idea how well-known The Witch Family has been in the English-speaking world. The book comes with two girl protagonists, Amy and Clarissa, who draw pictures, and those pictures become real. The story starts with Amy banning Old Witch onto a barren glass mountain which she can only leave on Halloween. The book features a female fantasy world, where there are no men – the Witch family is Old Witch, Little Witch Girl and Weeny Witch. The book has also mermaids, Easter bunnies, a school for witches (!), a spelling bumble bee ... There is exactly one fic for this "fandom" on AO3. But it totally could be huge if only some producer discovered this book and made a movie of it. :) The publisher's pitch: A Halloween classic about the power of make-believe.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: On amazon and I assume in libraries or used book stores.

[calycanthe]

FANDOM NAME: Chéri Hérouard - Works
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Chéri Hérouard painted a whole series of mermaids for La Vie Parisienne, characterised by their playful, elegant style and how clearly the personality of the mermaids comes through. Adopting fast to the modern world, many of them are fascinated, or possibly obsessed, by legs and feet and shoes, (eg here or here), and they are generally found either hanging out with each other, or gazing longingly at smartly dressed young woman. (Even here, where the text suggests they are calling out to Ulysses, the visual image implies it is Penelope they are summoning).
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Right here!

La Sirène et La Parisienne (La Vie Parisienne cover 19 August 1916) (C. Hérouard - works)


La Pêche Aux Sirènes (La Vie Parisienne cover 21 June 1919) (C. Hérouard - works)


La Ruse d'Une Sirène (La Vie Parisienne 1921) (C. Hérouard - works)


La Sirène/La Saison A Potinville-Sous-Mer (La Vie Parisienne 1922) (C. Hérouard - works)

[wiccanslyr]

I can't wait to see your prompts for this!

[metonymy]

FANDOM NAME: Cinderella, a ballet with music by Prokofiev and choreography/staging by Matthew Bourne (nominated as "Cinderella (Bourne)")

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Bourne is known for his innovative stagings of classical ballets, most famously his Swan Lake with an entirely male flock of swans. In this Cinderella, the classic story of a mousy girl with romantic dreams is transposed to the London Blitz. The overture begins with dancers clustered together as if waiting for a raid to end, interspersed with images of the bombings and the aftermath. The charming prince is now a pilot who's suffered some unnamed trauma and is injured, and it's unclear how much of the story is a dream or fantasy. Oh, and the fairy godmother is an Angel, an impossibly dapper man in a white three-piece suit that evokes parachute silk. His powers may extend far beyond a nice dress and a carriage made out of a gourd. Other parts of the story have changed too; Cinderella's father is still alive (a veteran of WWI) and she now has a whole host of step-siblings who range from hilariously petty to definitely creepy. (One of the step-brothers is gay and gets a little side romance of his own.)

It's just a moody, melancholy, gorgeous take on the story, a meditation on finding scraps of love and beauty and hope to sustain oneself through terrible times. I'd love to see what authors do with it and how they would translate the movement and music into text.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Someone has helpfully put the pro-shot version onto Vimeo here: https://vimeo.com/250171228