2019 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>:


For reference, last year's promo post!

This post on LJ

Comments

[aurilly]

FANDOM NAME: David Blaize by E.F. Benson

WHAT IT IS: A gently humorous novel about boys at an English boarding school in the early 20th century. It hits on all the classic beats of the public school story genre—cricket, pranks, exams, slice of life, cheating, expulsions, hero worship, rivalries, etc. Except with actually canonical homoeroticism and feelings.

This is a boarding school novel where the boys are explicitly flirting and whipping one other with racquet handles, fainting in one another's arms, cuddling in bed, reciting romantic poetry to one another while swimming naked, repressing their desperate feelings for one another, literally actually saving one another's lives with the power of love... I can't.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Everyone who has read this book is screaming and flailing about how it is iddy as all fuck.

The iddiness largely resides with David's best friend Frank Maddox. Frank is handsome, brilliant, athletic, friendly—and yet not at all annoying—and the object of David's intense hero worship. Frank's only 'flaw' is that he is gay and desperately in love with David. His internalized homophobia and repression and self-loathing are deliciously angsty. But he's also really fun and playful and brings a lot of joy into everyone's lives. He's a wonderful creation.

David's other best friend is George (he goes by "Bags") who is as desperately devoted to David as David is to Frank. Bags and Frank even talk about it once! Bags is a darling.

There's a sequel is about David's years at Cambridge that you don't need to read to fulfill most people's requests. Frank only overlaps with David at university for one year, and then spends large swathes of the novel away on Greek archeological expeditions (swoon!). However, if you control-F for Frank's name and only read the parts that he's in (as I did), you'll see that their UST and love are even MORE ridiculous than in the first book. And they don't get canon het endings! \o/

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?:
'David Blaize' is free on Gutenberg HERE.

The sequel, 'David of Kings', that is unfortunately still under copyright. You can buy it on Amazon for Kindle or in physical forms. There's also a totally unconnected thing called "David Blaize and the Blue Door" that is the author's attempt to write an Alice In Wonderland-style novel. It's set when David was really little and has no connection to the other books. (I haven't read it and I don't know of anyone in the fandom who has, but it's free on Gutenberg.)

Strange World (TV 1999)

[donutsweeper]

FANDOM NAME: Strange World (TV 1999)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Do you like tv shows about scientific investigations? Especially when they look into government conspiracies, environmental hazards, biological weapons, questionable technology, or human experimentation? Do you appreciate protagonists with their hearts in the right place even if their heads may not be?

The characters are truly engaging. The two main ones are:

Paul Turner (Tim Guinee), a doctor for The United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), who suffers from a rare form of aplastic anemia as a result of exposure to chemical weapons. Said disease is currently in remission due to a temporary cure he was given by a mysterious woman (Vivian Wu) who is working for a shadowy organization that wants to influence/direct some of his investigations, although she seems to also have an agenda of her own.

Major Lynne Reese (Saundra Quarterman) was his superior back when he was still in the army and did not listen to his concerns which resulted in his getting exposed to the chemicals and therefore becoming ill, something which she has always felt guilty about. Six years after that incident she recruits Paul (in the pilot) into her division to help prevent things like that from happening to more people and preventing further criminal abuses of science and technology.



WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: ABC only aired three episodes of the show before cancelling it and was completely hands off in its production which allowed its creators to develop the show and tell the story they wished without interference. All 13 episodes eventually aired on SCI FI in 2002. It was never released on DVD but can be found on youtube.

Any Kelly Marie Tran or Colin Morgan fans out there?

[hellabaloo]

FANDOM NAME: Passenger List

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Passenger List is a mystery/thriller podcast that follows Kaitlin Le (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran) as she investigates the disappearance of Atlantic Flight 702, lost somewhere en route between London Heathrow and New York JFK. It's a little bit true crime, a little bit conspiracy thoery investigation, and just a touch of could there be supernatural forces be involved?? Each episode focuses on a different passenger's background as Kaitlin tries to put the pieces together and get answers to what actually happened to Flight 702 and her twin brother who was onboard. It's a totally engrossing story and you learn just a little more about Kaitlin, her brother, their relationship, and all the other passengers with each new episode.

So far, the main recurring cast consists of Kaitlin, a college student who's dropping everything else in her life to focus on her investigation, and Dylan (voiced by Colin Morgan), a mysterious figure who "has access and wants to help" and provides Kaitlin with tips and leads to follow up on. Patti LuPone has also gotten top billing in some of the promo material and I'm hoping that means her character Mia, the Psychic Witch who had been on the plane when suddenly overtaken by overwhelming dread and tried to warn everyone that the plane would crash before she was escorted off, will be recurring but I don't know for sure. There are four, 40ish minute episodes so far, with new ones released on Mondays.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Here, on their website or on your podcast delivery system of choice.

Re: Any Kelly Marie Tran or Colin Morgan fans out there?

[rhosyn_du]

Oh, man. This sounds so very RTMI. I will definitely be checking it out.

Black Box - Jennifer Egan

[fencesit]

FANDOM NAME: Black Box - Jennifer Egan

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:

"Black Box" is a short story told in second person POV about a lady spy in the near future! It was posted via the New Yorker's twitter and the conceit of the second person format is that spies like the narrator record advice and observations for the spies who will come after them to learn from.

The narrator is a normal person driven by her duty to her country, struggling with extreme circumstances and coping partially through her incredibly focused, factual, for-the-most-part emotionally distant recorded instructions, which the rigid structure of the text and the narrative distance mirror so incredibly perfectly. I know second person isn't everyone's cup of tea, but IMO this is one of those incredible stories that could only be told effectively in second person, so even if you're not usually a fan of the POV or aren't considering requesting, I think it's definitely worth a look just because it's such a dang good short story.

Major relationships include the narrator and her husband (who does not appear in-scene but who she thinks about often) and several enemies &mdash two men she's investigating and a woman who lives with one of them! Also it's implied that there are other spies like the narrator and presumably someone trained her to go out and seduce men to get information from them.

I think in terms of fic you could produce from this canon there's a lot of potential for darkfic exploring the harsh realities of the narrator's job, tropey fic about having to work with the enemy or trust someone who might be the enemy, and relationship-focused pieces about the narrator and her husband or the Alpha Beauty and her man. And probably other things I'm not thinking of! I have to admit I won't be signing up for Yuletide but I've requested this a couple times in recent exchanges and will be keeping my eye out to treat, so I'd love to see requests for this. I've nominated it with Narrator, Narrator's Husband, and Alpha Beauty; please feel free to let me know if you want those nominations added to or switched up at all.

In terms of content warnings, this story does involve the narrator having sex while undercover and dissociating during the experience.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?:

You can read it for free here at The New Yorker, unless you've read all of your free articles already this month, in which case you can read it via the Wayback Machine.

Dogs of Berlin (TV 2018)

[merle_p]

FANDOM: Dogs of Berlin (TV 2018)



WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Dogs of Berlin is a 1-season long German Netflix original series that was released in 2018. It is a cop drama revolving, at its core, around two police officers who more or less hate each other on principle: Erol Birkan is an openly gay Turkish-German cop who is obsessed with putting the head of the Lebanese mafia in Berlin behind bars. Kurt Grimmer is hypermasculine, straight, white/German, corrupt, and a former reformed Neo-Nazi who has turned his back on his family when he left the NN scene.
When a Turkish-German soccer star playing for the German national team is murdered, Birkan and Grimmer are forced to team up to solve the crime before racial tensions erupt across the city, while a gang war is threatening to break out between the Neo-Nazi scene, the Libanese drug mafia, and the Eastern-European betting mafia.
The series is action-filled and suspenseful, with a slightly apocalyptic feel to it. There are a lot of interesting secondary characters with their own subplots, including many compelling female characters, such as Birkan’s Turkish-German police partner/BFF or Grimmer’s mistress, an underemployed single mother of two who is trying to get her life together.
The characterization of some of the “villain” characters is at times somewhat heavy-handed and the action/violence/drama level definitely exceeds what one might call strictly realistic, but overall the characters and scenarios are vastly more complex than most other comparable shows or films about contemporary Berlin I have seen.
There’s plenty of potential for hate-slash/enemy-slash between the protagonists but they also both have canonical relationships that could be interesting to write (Kurt has a wife and a mistress, Erol has a live-in boyfriend), and there are other character constellations that would lend themselves to ship-fic (including het, slash, femslash options). Also a good canon for friendship fic (in various constellations) or for gen case fic/plotty fic with the two protagonists overcoming their differences to solve crimes.

WHERE TO FIND IT: It’s available on Netflix in the USA (either in Original German with subtitles in English, Spanish, and Chinese; or dubbed in English, Spanish, French, or Italian. Personally I would go for original German with subtitles – I find the English-dubbed version a little weird because it is spoken by the German actors in English with quite noticeable German accents and sounds a little wooden to me, compared to the original version; but that may be just my personal taste.) Also available on Netflix in Germany and many other countries.

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me

[serenadestrong]

FANDOM NAME:
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (Graphic Novel)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:
This is a stand alone, 1-volume YA LGBTQIA graphic novel, and one of the best books I've read this year. You can read the whole thing in an hour or two, and then if you're like me, you'll read it two more times.

My favorite summary of this book is still this person I don't know on twitter, who says "The whole book sort of feels like someone found your all your discarded teen feelings at a rummage sale and lovingly cleaned them up, and you happen to see them again realizing you never knew they could be so beautiful." (source)

Most (all?) of the main characters (Freddy and her friends) are queer and while we don't learn too much about any of them, there's enough that they feel like real people. Or maybe it's just that the details are so perfect - I know hardly anything about them, but I can see parts of myself and my friends in all of these characters, and parts of my high school experience, and parts of my experience as a queer adult.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional):
Anywhere books are sold, and also probably your local library!

Re: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me

[enjoyyourcocoa]

I'm THERE. Thank you! Good LGBTQIA YA is the best YA.

Arcade Spirits (Videogame)

[merriman]

FANDOM NAME: Arcade Spirits (Videogame)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Set in the alternate year of 20XX where the great video game crash of the 1980s never happened, Arcade Spirits is set in a small arcade where you've just gotten a job. You meet the regulars, your coworkers, your boss, the guys who run the donut-and-book shop next door (The Hole Story), a rival, an enigmatic auctioneer, and more. The whole point is to make friends, keep the arcade open, and achieve your dreams! If your dreams are to run an arcade. The player character is customizable and can be male, female, or nonbinary. There are six (seven if you count the "secret" path) characters you can romance if you want, but if you're just here to make friends you can pick that early on too. The story is cute as hell, the characters are even cuter (and diverse in several ways), the writing is fun and the puns are sneaky.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Official site is here Arcade Spirits and it's available on Steam and itch.io right now (on sale on Steam at this moment, but I think that ends tonight).

Space Opera!

[satchelfoot]

Fandom Name: Space Opera, a novel by Catherynne M. Valente

What Makes It Great: Cat wrote a book inspired by her longtime love of Eurovision and science fiction, especially the kind of huge-scale, cosmic SF comedy that Douglas Adams was known for. The story focuses on an intergalactic music competition in which newcomers have to perform for the survival of their entire species. Naturally, this is the first year in which humanity has been forced to compete. It's hilarious, bittersweet, and fabulous, full of strange aliens, struggling humans, and glam-rock glitter.

Where Can I Find It?: In fine bookstores and libraries everywhere, in paper, ebook, and audio (read by the author's partner, Heather Miller).

Dash Sword Slash and the Defenders of Everything (youtube)

[merriman]

FANDOM NAME: Dash Sword Slash and the Defenders of Everything (youtube)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Do you love 80s cartoons? Do you love the idea of 80s cartoons more than the actual cartoons themselves? Then have I got a YouTube video for you! Buckle up and hop on board to the airplanes that turn into helicopters that turn into the best 80s cartoon mashup parody one could ever hope to see. This video takes the intros for a whole pile of various 80s cartoons (and a couple of other shows and commercials) and turns them into one big cartoon promo parody. All the characters get new names (like Jansport the Human Backpack, Chain Male, and Wallace Shawn) and the plot is as nonsensical as any actual 80s cartoon was. I'll be nominating four characters from The Creep Crew because they make me laugh harder than any of the others.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT? Right here: https://youtu.be/fZXCrw3DHbc

[ineffabilities]

FANDOM NAME: Arden (Podcast)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: it's a modern-day setting update of Shakespeare! only in fictional true crime podcast format! hosted by bickering hosts Bea Casely (canonically in a relationship with a woman) and Brenda Bentley, the podcast is all about ten-years-missing heiress and actor Julie Capsom, and the events surrounding her disappearance. take note: there are discussions of sexual assault towards Julie over the course of the podcast, so be careful.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): it's on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. I'd recommend clearing out a day to listen to it while doing something else, the episodes get progressively longer over the course of the first season. second season is coming out soon!

The Shadow of the Tower

[thisbluespirit]

Fandom/Canon Name: The Shadow of the Tower
What makes it great: It is an oldtime BBC drama about the reign of Henry VII. It is highly theatrical (but that was not a bad word back then) and sometimes doesn't bother with a set (it has a cute but anachronistic monkey instead, it knows what's important) and opens with a lot of info-dumping in bad wigs, but it is also awesome. It focuses on the various conspiracies against Henry, so it's a study of paranoia in a series of related plays, with Henry disintegrating at the end.

It has an arranged marriage (where actually they like each other but Henry is too insecure to dare to believe it until right at the end, so they walk on a knife-edge of mistrust and handholding and guilt, AND THEN SHE DIES, all the feels); Henry sees his would-be usupers as mirrors (this is not slashy, no, wait, it is: "Henry Tudor is in my very heart!" cries the Earl of Lincoln before the final battle. Henry's trust will be buried with him, too), plenty of angsting about wearing crowns and chopping off heads, while Perkin Warbeck is bisexual. (This is not even a tiny bit subtext; there is a m/m kiss and it is a fact that almost everyone talks about. Meanwhile, Perkin is obsessively fantasising about making Henry grovel before him.)

There is a random comedy episode where Peter Bowles is a Tudor spy with a terrible French accent and another where Christopher Neame is being tragic as Warwick. (Perkin also probably fancies him.) And nearly all the directors were female (somehow, I don't know, this wasn't usual for 1970s BBC), which does at least mean it is way more thoughtful than most old BBC shows about which blokes wind up in tights and shirts in the Tower. It also totally has an episode about the issues of lollardism, which is amazing.

Because of the format, there is not enough Margaret Beaufort, Jasper Tudor and Thomas Stanley so I want more of them as well. (I will probably nominate Henry, Margaret, Elizabeth and John of Lincoln or Perkin, but am willing to swap people around if a miracle occurred and anyone else thought they might like to request it.)

Basically, if you can survive BBC cardboard and enjoy theatrical historical dramas, it is a thing of both genuine awesome and total crack and I will probably be requesting it forever.

Online info & reviews:
Shadow of the Tower (Wiki entry)
http://venetianvase.co.uk/2015/01/27/henry-vii-winter-king-and-the-shadow-of-the-tower/
https://thehistorylady.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/henry-vii-the-tudor-who-started-it-all-beset-by-pretenders-in-the-shadow-of-the-tower/
http://www.frockflicks.com/the-shadow-of-the-tower-pt-2/
I had a couple of tumblr posts on favourite episodes, but lost all but one in an accidental deletion fiasco, but that's here

Where to find: here on YouTube (although some of the middle episodes are now not playing in some regions, curse the BBC). However, it is also out on DVD in R1 and R2 (although only in non-UK editions, but they are fine in the UK anyway) and I have heard that it can be found in libraries in the US sometimes, too.

Department S

[thisbluespirit]

Fandom/Canon Name: Department S
What's awesome about it: It's one of those UK 60s action-adventure serials (made on film! with US money! Not 100% composed of cardboard! Random American/Canadian regulars!), about an Interpol Department that investigate inexplicable and surreal incidents that nobody else can explain. (Why did someone suffocate in a space suit in central London? A plane goes missing for six days, but everyone on board is sure they've landed 20 minutes early... Why is there a body in a fake, beautifully furnished room in a warehouse?)

The Department consists of the diplomat in charge, Sir Curtis Seretse (Dennis Alaba Peters), and his three operatives, Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) who heads up the team and tends to do the legwork and the action scenes (although he has an impressive tendency to get drugged/knocked out/tortured in the process, especially in the first half of the series), computer expert Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nicols) who's brainy, competent, and is let in on the action far more than most ITC female leads, and flamboyant thriller author Jason King (Peter Wyngarde), who's there to flirt with the enemy and provide outside-the-box answers using his imagination. You can ship them in pretty much any direction you like, and they make a pretty great OT3 or team.

It's a lot of fun and the "Mary Celeste" type openers are v cool, its moments of seriousness are actually pretty great, and the guest cast is starry (including all the regular suspects, plus even a young Anthony Hopkins), while Jason and his fictional hero Mark Caine mean it has a fun post-modern tongue-in-cheek/meta element. I picked it up one summer after seeing it on soembody else's Yule-letter and loved it far more than I'd expected, going by the vague idea I had of Jason King. (There is no obligation to watch the sequel show; certainly I've never seen it.)

Where to find: It's out on DVD and even Blu-Ray. Here are some trailers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu-UUbdLDrU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n06YHH9eEjU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4V2nZBYvnM

Some of the eps, including episode 1 can be found here on Dailymotion! Want to know how a plane can land 20 minutes early and yet be six days late? Find out here. (I think the user has some more eps up, and given the format of ITC serials, all your need is a few eps, and they're a lot of fun.)

Dracula (TV 1968)

[thisbluespirit]

(Look, I gave my heart to a lot of ancient cardboard telly, what can I do?)

Fandom/Canon Name: Dracula (TV 1968)
What's awesome about it: Feature length b&w adapation (originally part of ITV's Mystery and Imagination series), starring Denholm Elliott, Corin Redgrave, James Maxwell, Joan Hickson, Bernard Archard, Suzanne Neve & Susan George. It's shaky old b&w telly, yes, but it's also an interesting adaptation, and it's a lot of fun as a launching place for Dracula fic.

In this version, all the action is confined to Whitby, Arthur and Quincy have been dispensed with, while Jonathan (Corin Redgrave) is conflated with Renfield and is 100% overwhelmed by Dracula (sadly Dracula prefers girls if he can get them, poor Jonathan) and the sole strapping Victorian male gent left is Dr Seward... who spends the whole thing fainting under the strain. He's Van Helsing's miner's canary. Van Helsing (Bernard Archard) clearly has history on this supernatural stuff as well as epic fake hair, because Dracula has heard of him. (He's long wished to cross swords with him. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Aha. Ahahaha.)

Meanwhile, Lucy (Susan George) is busy seducing Mina (Suzanne Neve) <3 <3 <3 when she's not making John faint again, and Denholm Elliott's Dracula likes to turn up to dinner parties and troll people. Many flowers get killed; this distresses Dr Seward. It all winds up with Dracula ostensibly defeated, but Mina probably still vampirised and eyeing up Dr Seward's neck, and Jonathan shaken and silent. And then...? Who knows, dear Yuletider, that's the thing.

It's also a great one to be in if you're a minor character - as far as we know, Mr Swales, the three Brides of Dracula, and Mrs Weston (Joan Hickson aka Miss Marple, oh yes) are all still alive when the credits roll.

Basically, it's only 1hr 20 mins, available, femslashy, and has all the questions and loose ends of the kind that mean fic is needed. Just because there is also some terrible fake moustaches is no reason to run away.

Where to find: YouTube & Links -
1. The whole thing is up here at YouTube
2. Dracula (1968) (Wiki entry)
3. Reviews:
http://www.gothic.stir.ac.uk/blog/Dracula-1968/
http://cult-tv-lounge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/mystery-and-imagination-dracula-1968.html
Plus: Many many gifs at my tumblr.

Baywatch TV: OT3 Lifeguards

[phnelt]

This year for Yuletide I'm nominating a super obscure fandom (you probably haven't heard of it) Baywatch (TV)



Looking at this image I can almost hear the theme tune. I'd never seen Baywatch this year and I wish someone had told me how bananas it was.

Yes, that is the one with David Hasselhof and Pamela Anderson and the extensive shots of people running slow motion in swimsuits.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:

Baywatch, as a show, is amazing because of the truly amazing amount of plot they managed to shove into every episode. Here are some real things that happened in Baywatch:

- A plot: two lifeguards are trapped in a vault as it slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean. B plot: an odd couple of lifeguards compete in a beach volleyball competition so she can show up her ex!
- A group of children are exploring a small offshore island. Unbeknownst to them, the island has been infiltrated by pirates and now it's a race against the clock before they are discovered and murdered
- For a guys weekend away, some of the crew go down to Mexico, where they discover that a formerly quaint town has been taken over by a gang of Americans. They launch an improvised counterassault to take back the town and in the process blow up about half of it

And every episode includes at least two montages of a duration no shorter than two minutes. And I'm not counting the beach shots. At one point Hasselhoff takes out a massive video camera and just runs around the town filming himself and his girlfriend frolicking. And they say the kids are Instagram obsessed.

But I'm here for a very special lifeguard called Eddie Kramer.



Back before serialised TV, no one had to keep track of a character's backstory and so Baywatch managed to give Eddie the MOST tragic backstory.

An incomplete list:
- grew up in foster care ("I had six moms and dads -- all called Foster")
- was in a gang
- turned evidence and sent a guy to prison
- lived ~technically homeless in the beach hut
- didn't graduate high school
- got a gambling addiction (illegal gambling boat they ended up SCUBAing up to with harpoon guns)
- has a brother with schizophrenia

Everything happened to this guy, all of the time.

But then the show did a nice thing for him. After he got kicked out of the beach hut, he was taken in by an adorable married couple: Craig and Gina Pomeroy



Gina Pomeroy is an artist with the most amazing taste in hats. She's the rare TV wife who is fun, and has an actual personality, and isn't there to stand between her man and what he wants to do. I love her.



Craig Pomeroy is a lawyer who tried to work at a high-powered firm but kept skipping work to take lifeguarding shifts. You just can't keep him off the beach. He decides to start his own practice while also working as a full-time lifeguard. Somehow this works out.



I'd say it ships itself, except that I am currently alone.

When Craig starts his law thing and is working at home, he walks into the kitchen in beachy shorts and a full collared shirt and tie. Gina and Eddie look at each other like 'are you going to tell him?' 'no way, he's your boyfriend.'

When the gang member that Eddie sent to jail gets released and decides to wreak his vengeance upon him, Gina thinks he's just a friend and invites him in, so happy to meet a friend of Eddie's. And then, you know, she gets a little bit menaced and Eddie bursts in and it's all very dramatic. No one threatens Gina while Eddie is around.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: All 9 seasons are on Amazon Prime but Craig + Gina are only in season 1. The best OT3 episodes are: episode 1(first one after pilot), episode 2, episode 3.

[halotolerant]

FANDOM NAME: SOTUS the Series

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:
Nothing whatsoever to do with US politics, this is a delightful show (plus second series (SOTUS S) and another spin-off (Our Skyy) about two guys falling in love at university in Thailand. Do you like enemies-to-friends-to-lovers? Do you like slow burn and yearning? Do you like brash guys being bad at feelings and secretly sweet? Do you like pure trolls who top from the bottom but secretly have feeeeeels? This may be for you.

Kongpob is one of a new class of freshman at a large university. He and his classmates are due to go through 'hazing' by the class two years ahead, where he runs into head hazer Arthit, who is kind of shouty and a bit of a dick. Kongpob decides the best way to get through this is to become flirty as all hell, which confuses Arthit nicely. Except, actually, as Kongpob learns more about the hazing and the reasons why it's undertaken, he starts to see that maybe Arthit is someone he really wants to get to know better...

Things I enjoy about this show include: the fact that the romance is situated in a wider social circle of interesting characters (including a queer girl! yay!), the plotline about the role of 'hazing' (which is way less than US fraternity models but also intense and physical at times) and how compulsory group bonding can be both good and bad, and the way that the younger guy is also the pursuer and far and away the more confident of the two. It's also nice to know that the actors are very good friends in real life and have their own travelogue show.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Netflix carries season 1 (SOTUS the series), and the makers GMMTV have put up the whole thing, plus the sequel seasons, onto Youtube. They are in 15 minute chunks with baked-in product placement but a few minutes of car and phone adverts is worth it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWRpfNqQHHg)

[aris_tgd]

FANDOM NAME: The Lab: Avoiding Research Misconduct (Web interactive movie)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Bear with me here. It's a production by the Office of Research Integrity from the US Department of Health and Human Services, and it is the DRAMATIC AND TRAGIC TALE of RESEARCH MISCONDUCT. In interactive FMV visual novel form!

You get to play one of four people involved in the lab: Kim, a grad student whose research gets appropriated and rewritten for a journal article by golden boy postdoc and former fling Greg; Hardik, an international postdoc worried about his pregnant wife, his visa, and the fact that his experiments aren't going as well as Greg's; Aaron, the PI of the lab who has worked with Greg for ever; and Beth, the Research Integrity Officer of the university. There is DRAMA. There is BACKSTORY. There are FEELINGS. There is Asian mother guilt. There are in-laws dropping in. There is balancing work and home life. There is sneakiness. There is drinking. There is ethics. There are BAD ENDINGS.

I nominated Kim and Hardik because they're both great. It's surprisingly fun for a HHS production meant to teach you how to keep a neat lab notebook. And because it's a public service announcement, it's absolutely free!

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): https://ori.hhs.gov/thelab is the landing page, where you can learn a bit more and click through to play in a number of different languages (with subtitles available.)

[jaclynhyde]

I can't believe I'm emotionally invested in a research integrity tutorial. ...and I'm tempted to submit it to the Interactive Fiction Database.

Fuck Greg!

Toilers of the Sea

[esteliel]

FANDOM NAME: Les Travailleurs de la mer | Toilers of the Sea - Victor Hugo

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: 19th century canon tentacles! Deserted island rock in the middle of the ocean survival adventures! Loving descriptions of Guernsey and language trivia! Also did I mention the CANON TENTACLES? I think this excerpt really speaks for itself:

A second form, sharp, elongated, and narrow, issued out of the crevice, like a tongue out of monstrous jaws. It seemed to lick his naked body. Then suddenly stretching out, it became longer and thinner, as it crept over his skin, and wound itself round him. At the same time a terrible sense of pain, comparable to nothing he had ever known, compelled all his muscles to contract. He felt upon his skin a number of flat rounded points. It seemed as if innumerable suckers had fastened to his flesh and were about to drink his blood.

A third long undulating shape issued from the hole in the rock; seemed to feel its way about his body; lashed round his ribs like a cord, and fixed itself there.

Agony when at its height is mute. Gilliatt uttered no cry. There was sufficient light for him to see the repulsive forms which had entangled themselves about him. A fourth ligature, but this one swift as an arrow, darted towards his stomach, and wound around him there.

The book apparently led to a tentacle craze in Victorian Britain. Furthermore, it resulted in these amazing illustrations and sculptures:



WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Free to download on Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32338

Re: Toilers of the Sea

[grayswandir]

I love this book. <3

In fairness, the tentacles actually play only a fairly small role in the actual story -- but I'm not too surprised to see that people found them memorable! ;)

[merriman]

Show my new-to-Yuletide friend's fandom some love?

FANDOM NAME: Qwerpline (podcast)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The best description I've heard for Qwerpline is what if Welcome to Nightvale, but instead of eldritch and spooky and unknowable, everything in town was just utterly ridiculously stupid? Welcome to Nsburg, city of lawns! Nsburg is home to local radio station QWRP and its morning show, Qwerpline, hosted by A-Train and G-Money. They'll tell you what's going on in Nsburg this week, with updates on the flushing of East Sump Acres and (most recently) the nuclear waste convoy's intensely slow progress through town. Weather, arts, traffic (that's a lie, the traffic reporter never tells them anything about the traffic), sports, and in-depth hard hitting reporting from summer (perpetual) intern Derek! Basically it's a thoroughly silly mock radio show full of horrible puns, horrible people, and the cast cracking each other up. Each episode is only about 10-20 minutes long, aside from the not-strictly-canonical live shows the group has done at conventions and during the annual Desert Bus for Hope charity stream. Those tend to be longer, but also a little more weird.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV_qemO0oatil7iRtM1JrKybU-VGFa5A7 New episodes from season 2 are going up on Sundays. Audio-only can be found here: https://loadingreadyrun.com/lrrcasts/archive/qwerp/date/desc/_

[meinterrupted]

FANDOM NAME: Frankie Drake Mysteries

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: SO MUCH FEMSLASH POTENTIAL! Cute friends-to-lovers! Angry hatesex! Gorgeous historical costumes! Women doing things for themselves! Fraught mother-daughter relationships! A history that's not populated by only white people!

Do you like Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, but wish there were more ladies? Well, Frankie Drake Mysteries is here for you! It's definitely not nearly as well-written and well-acted as MFMM, but it's charming and fun. Set in Toronto in the early 1920s, Frankie Drake spied for the Allies in WWI and came home to start a private investigation firm with her (business) partner, Trudy Clarke. They are assisted by Mary Shaw, a talkative morality officer who really wants to be a real police officer; Flo Chakowitz, a pathologist at the city morgue; Nora Amory nee Drake, a very successful conwoman and Frankie's estranged mother; and Wendy Quon, who runs a speakeasy that the cast frequents and helps them out when their cases take them into the seedier parts of Toronto.

There's a few attempts to shoehorn in a het love interest for Frankie, but her real chemistry is with all the ladies. Especially, in my not-so-humble opinion, Bessie Starkman. Bessie was a real person, and a real murderer, and the show doesn't ignore that. She and Frankie are "sworn enemies" who create sparks whenever they meet. (They should have hatesex, I'm just saying.)

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Frankie Drake Mysteries is originally broadcast on CBC in Canada, and in the US on PBS. The first 2 seasons (season 3 is currently airing) are on the PBS Masterpiece channel on Amazon Prime.

Brutus and Pixie (Webcomic)

[pirate_pancakes]

FANDOM NAME: Brutus and Pixie (Webcomic)



WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: It's a comic about a retired military dog and his tiny kitten sister and their adventures together. It has a great little cast of characters and it's absolutely adorable.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): You can find it on the artist's Instagram here: BRUTUS AND PIXIE Be sure to start from the bottom to read them in order!
There are also something like 35+ exclusive comics over on Pet Foolery's Patreon page (you can get them for a $1) PATREON PAGE

Jeremy Renner Jeep Commercials

[pirate_pancakes]

FANDOM NAME: Jeremy Renner Jeep Commercials



WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Aside from having Jeremy Renner and his music in them? Well, there is the fact that they all have a common thread running through them (other than Jeeps of course) so that opens up a world of possibility for storytelling that could be anything from super serious to absolute crack! Also, there are only 3 of them total so it's an easy to consume 5 minute fandom where you get to decide what the world and the characters are!

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Right here!
https://youtu.be/koDU_pDPqAM
https://youtu.be/WGVbiq8T8ZQ
https://youtu.be/pus3kykqwlE

Re: Jeremy Renner Jeep Commercials

[vanillafluffy]

Brilliant! I *do* hope something happens with this!

Matthew McConaughey Lincoln Commercials

[pirate_pancakes]

FANDOM NAME: Matthew McConaughey Lincoln Commercials



WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: It's a 15 minute fandom so it doesn't take much investment to get into it. These commercials are just... wild. There is a lot going on in them and you might not even really be sure what is going on in them some times. They can be seen as stand alone mini stories or, like me, you might see them taken altogether as an ongoing story. Plus, just like the Renner Jeep ads, you get to decide who these characters are and what the world they live in is like!

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Compiled right here for you viewing pleasure!
https://youtu.be/aq5ecBaOb6Y
https://youtu.be/8QEAA94FjHc
https://youtu.be/9fvXSF9bya0
https://youtu.be/o474oCwnjlU
https://youtu.be/2EqC-BE89-c
https://youtu.be/qtuL3MiDy_o
https://youtu.be/y_b2bE2IWlo
https://youtu.be/aeAXi5ShQ90
https://youtu.be/sxqnaZFBBUE
https://youtu.be/gTITOmi4c78
https://youtu.be/FoGGDKV88Fg

[seinmit]

FANDOM NAME: When Washington Was in Vogue - Edward Christopher Williams

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:

Do you like fizzy comedies of manners? Do you like the upper crust going to parties and bragging about their clothes, and houses, and cars? Do you like marriage drama, about whether or not the youngest daughter is going to snag that doctor? Other tropey romance elements, like misunderstandings and dancing with others to make the love interest jealous? What about flappers and all the 1920s atmosphere you could want? Epistolary novels and novels that pretend to be about real events? A great m/m ship! A great f/f ship! Incest potential for another good f/f ship!

This novel is outrageously entertaining to read and full of tropey romance elements. The main character (Davy Carr) is more than a little oblivious to the flirting of the wild-child flapper (Caroline Rhodes) who is in love with him. They have a bantering, teasing relationship, but she trusts him absolutely and he’s the one she goes to when she’s in trouble. He in fact comes to his rescue, when a dastardly rogue is trying to take advantage of her and her bestie in an Atlantic City gambling hall. Their dynamic is a lot of fun, with Davy old-fashioned and a little academic, with a stubborn and no-nonsense core, and Caroline very thoroughly modern (for the 1920s).

The novel is not all that feminist, but that doesn’t stop Caroline from being an amazingly compelling character. She smokes, she drinks, she hangs out with men and steals Davy’s cigarette holder. Davy scolds her by saying that if he was her father, he'd spank her, and she keeps that joke alive flirtatiously for some time.

If you prefer f/f ships, Caroline and her best friend Tommie have a huge amount of intimacy with one another. Tommie is always looking out for Caroline and a definite steadying influence to Caroline’s wildness. Tommie is sweet and kind to Caroline’s sauciness, and so beautiful that Davy says she’s the loveliest brown girl he ever did meet. To give you some idea of Caroline and Tommie’s dynamic, before introducing Davy to Tommie, Caroline very seriously warned Davy not to be unkind to her friend because she is so plain, confusing the hell out of Davy.

If you like m/m ships, the whole novel is told in letters from Davy to his war buddy and best friend Bob Fletcher, and the letters are intimate and even sexually charged enough that the introduction calls out the homoeroticism. In fact Caroline at one point says to Davy that she has no idea what all he writes to Bob and that she had assumed the fat letters were to “his best girl.”

If you like incest, Caroline and her older sister have a combative, competitive relationship that personally, could very well be improved with the addition of some kissing.

The end game ships are Caroline/Davy and Tommie/Bob, but all four of the characters have such enormous affection for each other than the poly foursome is also really compelling. There are many scenes where every combination of these four are together, affectionately talking about the others.

And oh yeah, did I mention? Every single one of these characters is Black. The novel doesn’t have a single white character. It is entirely set in the Black upper crust of 1920s Washington. It mentions race relations, the problems of colorism, and the various ways that systematic anti-Blackness touches all their lives, but the story is far more of a romance than a social commentary. But, if you’re interested in writing or requesting a fic that draws that out, there is a lot of opportunity here.

A specific thing I love about how Blackness is treated in the novel is that Davy is explicitly and happily into Caroline’s darker skin, really pushing back against some pretty relentless colorism of the period. Davy spends a lot of time examining the colorism of the people around him, thinking about white passing, and otherwise considering these issues of anti-Blackness which are more about intra-Black community relations and it is a really interesting take on issues common to a lot of Harlem Renaissance novels.



WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: The only downside of this canon is that it doesn’t appear to exist digitally at all. There is an in-print edition that is fairly easy to get ahold of, but no ebook. It’s worth it, though, honestly, even if you don’t want to write for it—I sat down to read it and tore through it in one sitting, it was so delightful.

Vatican Miracle Examiner

[piscaria]

FANDOM NAME: バチカン奇跡調査官 | Vatican Kiseki Chousakan | Vatican Miracle Examiner



WHAT EVEN IS IT? Vatican Miracle Examiner is a series of Japanese light novels by Rin Fujiki, with cover art by THORES Shibamoto. The series has spawned two manga adaptations, and one season of an anime. The anime is the primary entry point for English speaking part of the fandom, as neither the novels nor the manga have been translated.

The series follows two Catholic priests, Father Hiraga and Father Roberto, as they investigate reported miracles around the globe. Featuring improbable science, convoluted mysteries, bizarre secret societies, and surprising amounts of cocaine, VME has been described as Scooby Doo, but with priests.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Sexy priests. Loyalty kink. Thigh sucking. Hitler sperm. Cocaine. Road trips. Evil murder Santa. Domesticity. Amnesia. Rainbow disco Jesus. IT dungeons. Batshit science.

The official trailer gives you a good idea of the kind of craziness you can expect from this series.

As far as shipping goes, Hiraga and Roberto canonically adore each other, and Roberto frequently cooks and cleans for Hiraga. The novels introduce Hiraga as "a young Japanese priest Roberto loves," and in their opening scene together, Roberto spends a good half hour watching a half-naked Hiraga iron his cassock because he admires the view of him from behind. They have many lovely domestic scenes eating dinner together at Roberto's apartment or chatting on his sofa with glasses of wine. Their relationship is a goldmine for anyone who loves loyalty kink, platonic life partners, friends-to-lovers, forbidden love, and pining.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?:The anime is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.

While the novels are sadly unavailable in English, skeletonpunching has generously translated parts of the novels and side stories. bevelle has also posted a few scene translations.

Check out the longer fandom primer on my journal for nonspoilery character descriptions and a brief guide to the fandom, including popular ships and an invite to the fandom Discord.

Re: Vatican Miracle Examiner

[bonstrosity]

Binged the anime and I LOVE IT. I nom'd Hiraga, Roberto, Julia, and Lauren, and I will be requesting any with any configuration of shippiness, because they all have such fascinating backstories and chemisty!

[nonesensed]

FANDOM NAME: Much Ado About Nothing (2011) - Link to trailer

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: I think I'll start with linking to this Tumblr post which is what got me into this version of Much Ado About Nothing. The fact that this version of Beatrice and Benedick so easily can be read as two disaster!bis warms my bisexual heart <3

But there are a million adaptations of Shakespeare's plays out there, so why should you watch this one? Other than for the same-sex leaning disaster bisexuals meta? Here are my three reasons:

1) The physical comedy and modern setting. Would you like to see Benedick dressed as Miss Piggy and Beatrice as one of the Blues Brothers, bickering at a fancy dress party? A hungover Benedick in a Superman shirt and jorts, accidentally covering himself in paint? A nosy Beatrice getting hoisted to the ceiling while inexpertly trying to hide under a sheet? A stag and hen party, complete with sexy dancers? Adorable night watchmen? Prop comedy? This play has got it all! Also, many of the most stupid decisions the characters make are here shown to be the result of irresponsible drinking, which makes shitty decisions no less shitty but still slightly more understandable.

2) The way they've chosen to interpret the dialogue. Shakespeare might be "complicated" theatre nowadays, but that was hardly always the case. I've seen many versions of many Shakespeare plays where I've felt the dialogue's been a bit...not stilted, necessarily, but it's felt like the actors have been worried about "ruining" the script. This version of Much Ado About Nothing makes all the dialogue in the play feel natural. You can tell the actors get the lines, the innuendo and the puns, and they're having fun with it. During both "let's trick Beatrice/Benedick"-scenes the actors really ham it up and hesitate in ways that makes the scenes flow excellently. Though I think my favorite part is how they change Benedick's "And her hair shall be whatever color it please God" into "And her hair shall be re- WHATEVER COLOR IT PLEASE GOD!!!" when he's talking about his Dream Woman XD

3) The pining. As fun as I usually find Beatrice and Benedick, few versions of this play have sold me on the romance between them. This version? This version did. There are many subtle changes and non-verbal hints (as well as verbal ones, see fave quote from point 2) that show how Benedick and Beatrice clearly are into each other, but both are refusing to take the first step. It makes the mad plot to get them together make sense. It also helps that Beatrice's conversation with the prince is highlighted, the camera zooming in as they talk about how "she's done Benedick ill" and she replies with, pretty much, "He hurt me first". Whether they almost had a fling or were together and then broke up pre-canon is of course left up to the audience, as always, but I love the way it was presented in this version.

In short, this is a really funny and sweet take on the play, with excellent physical comedy along with the excellent acting. Here's a link to more silly gifs from the play.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Available for rent on Digital Theatre - oooor you can have a look around Youtube ;)

[starfishstar]

I just want to say that your prompts in the Yuletide app (which in one way or another also brought me here to this promo post) are 100% what led me to track down and watch this version of Much Ado About Nothing a couple days ago, and I LOVED it! Thank you! I've seen various iterations of Much Ado over the years, and you are absolutely right about how fantastic this one is. Might have to immediately rewatch, in fact...

I always discover such great things through Yuletide. Thank you for putting your enthusiasm for this out into the world! It paid off in terms of winning a new fan, and I hope it also pays off in someone writing lots of fic for it. :-)