2020 Yuletide Fandom Promo Post

[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

Book fandoms!

[enamoured]

FANDOM NAME: Legendborn, Tracy Deonn
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Here's the summary:
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.

A flying demon feeding on human energies.

A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.

And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.

The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.

She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT: the setting (I'm from this part of North Carolina and the sense of setting is so vibrant; I got homesick reading it) is the first thing.

Then, the characters: Bree! She's smart and wounded and allowed to get angry, and she's also act first, consider later. I adore Nick, who the author described as having some major Raleigh Beckett energy and is a reluctant Chosen One (with a twist), and then there's Selwyn. He's a broody, angsty bi mage who has (claims had) feelings for Nick in the past (but also might still feel some feelings for him), and has a pretty tragic, messed up past. And he might also feel something more than straight-up loathing for Bree. Basically, these three could 100% be OT3 material. Plus, there's a great supporting cast with LGBT+ characters, and a minor character who's nonbinary and the cast doesn't make a big deal of it.

And the magic and worldbuilding: a secret society at the oldest public university in the country? A secret society at the oldest public university in the country AND it's in the South? Bree's inherited some magic and doesn't quite know what to do with it? And there's a BIG OL' TWIST AT THE END? And this is the first of the series?
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): at your favorite chain booksellers, on digital, and possibly through your local library and bookstore as well.

FANDOM NAME: My Most Excellent Year, Steve Kluger
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: A summary:
Meet T.C., who is valiantly attempting to get Alejandra to fall in love with him; Alejandra, who is playing hard to get and is busy trying to sashay out from under the responsibilities of being a diplomat's daughter; and T.C.'s brother Augie, who is gay and in love and everyone knows it but him.

MMEY is a YA novel about first love, baseball, and Mary Poppins, not necessarily in that order. I made a fanmix about it years ago, which may give you a better idea of the main characters/why I love it, and can be viewed here.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): in some of the same places you can get Legendborn! The paperback was hard to find for a while, but it's in ebook format FINALLY, so go forth, friends.

secrets and lies in a town of sinners (jonni phillips, animation)

[sugarspankhorn]

FANDOM NAME: secrets and lies in a town of sinners (jonni phillips)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: at the start, "secrets and lies in a town of sinners" seems like a series of vignettes about people who live in a small town, living their own individual (if strange) lives and watching it all play out. however, it comes together pretty quickly into this narrative about change being something natural, that life is a series of meetings and partings-- about how family is something that you find in unexpected places-- and that you'll be okay. it's remarkably uplifting and hopeful, while also being pretty darn funny. it's also very queer, featuring nonbinary characters as well as two gay couples in very different places in their lives. whatever you want, i think you'll find a slice of it here. if you're looking for a heartfelt bittersweet exchange in which a man loses his son and is warmly welcomed over to dinner by the neighbor who just lost his wife, it's got you covered. if you're looking for a weird cult conspiracy and a b-plot about dopplegangers taking the place of your loved ones, you've got it. if you're in need of some comedy about how an alien dated jesus christ back in the day and their parents won't stop asking if they're inviting jesus to christmas dinner this year, well boy howdy does this hit your weirdly specific niche.

if you've got 52 minutes to devote to watching a deeply sincere piece of original animation, i think you'll find a lot of inspiration in this narrative!

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): watch it on youtube in its entirety right here and call me in the morning!

you can also read some synopsis and more about it here!

Two So-Bad-They're-Great Schoolboy Novels

[reine_des_corbeaux]

FANDOM NAME: Tell England - Ernest Raymond
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Tell England is not actually good. It is in fact, very, very bad, but in the kind of way that makes it eminently readable. It is a novel from 1922 that is half schoolboy novel and half World War I novel, telling the story of best friends Rupert Ray and Edgar Doe stretching from their pranks and hijinks at public school to the battle of Gallipoli, where, predictably, things do not end well. So why should you read this ludicrously patriotic, obnoxiously Anglo-Catholic, glurgily sentimental novel about young mens' lives cut tragically short at Gallipoli? Well, two reasons: 1) it is incredibly, astoundingly, ridiculously homoerotic and 2) one of the main characters is canonically, a war poet. Edgar Doe and Rupert Ray have an incredibly close, incredibly charged friendship that one can quite easily tip over into shippable territory, so if intense schoolboy friendships and tragic WWI bromances are your sort of thing, this canon could quite easily be catnip for you. Likewise, if you prefer your Edwardian schoolboy novels with the WWI epilogue fics baked into canon, check this out.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional):Read it here on Gutenberg!

FANDOM NAME: Eric, or Little by Little - F.W. Farrar
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Like Tell England, Eric is not actually good in the strictest sense. It is, instead, infamously terrible, and therein lies its greatness. The story of the eponymous Eric's schooldays as he goes from being a reasonably virtuous kid to Falling Into Sin at his Victorian boarding school, the novel is a nonstop parade of glurgy sentimentality, heavy-handed Christian moralizing, anti-masturbation propaganda, high melodrama, and unintentional homoeroticism. Perhaps the best description of it is "English Elsie Dinsmore for boys". Basically, it's completely nuts, and the kind of thing you will definitely wind up sending your friends out of context quotes from. I really cannot in good conscience call it a good book, but it is an incredibly entertaining one that may have you spitting tea all over your keyboard. If you like OTT consequences for drinking illicit alcohol, protagonists who may or may not have the touch of death, and tangents about how masturbation will lead to the fall of the British Empire, this is the book for you.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): On Gutenberg, right here.

[paperscribe]

FANDOM NAME: Julie and the Phantoms (2020, US remake)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: If you’re like me and you a) love musical TV shows and b) love shows that devote a lot of time and attention to character development and worldbuilding, here is a show for you! Three teenage band members die in the 90s right before their big break. 25 years later, another teen finds their demo CD among her mom’s stuff and accidentally brings the band’s ghosts into the modern world. Wouldn’t you know it, she is also musical, and this band may be just what she needs to reawaken her love of music? (Just so no one is blindsided, there is some pretty emotional stuff about death and grief in here—the show doesn’t shy away from what the band members’ deaths mean to them and their families, and Julie is grieving the death of her mom.)

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Netflix is the only place I know that has it. But you can watch all 9 episodes in a day (not that I did this :))


FANDOM NAME: Renault CLIO Ad, “30 Years in the Making”

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: In one commercial, the entire span of a relationship happens, from Gemma and Seza’s childhood meeting and developing friendship to their correspondence and reunion to their first kiss to...but I don’t want to spoil it all, as it’s only a few minutes long. This ship has EVERYTHING!

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrNCVAqbCD0


FANDOM NAME: The Carol Burnett Show - One Word Responses

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: I get a very Brief Encounter vibe from this sketch, as Hillary and Rex, both unhappy in their marriages, share a table at a cafe. I want to know if they ever see each other again, and what happens!

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jF3Xfzu-rM

Steampunk Tarot, Cyberpunk Laughing in the Wind, Listening Snow Tower

[melody_jade]

FANDOM NAME: Steampunk Tarot Deck - Barbara Moore & Aly Fell

WHAT IS THIS: A beautiful steampunk-inspired tarot deck that is published by Llewellyn and should be available at various online retailers worldwide. Also available as a Fools Dog mobile app.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Steampunk femslash!



This tarot deck has tremendous femslash shipping potential! One of the cards I'm nominating is the Three of Cups, and the card description is a fic prompt all on its own - Three women walk into a bar: a researcher, an aviatrix, and a fortuneteller. I totally love the expressions and the relaxed postures of the characters in here, and it's very intriguing to think about how the characters got here and what's in store for them next.

I'm also nominating the Queen of Swords, Page of Pentacles, and the Queen of Pentacles, which are three gorgeous cards in which the personalities and presence of the characters just radiate out of the cards. There's so much to explore in these characters and their relationships with each other - liege/subject loyalty kink, rival queens with a complicated history, spying in an enemy court, etc.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FANDOM NAME:Cyberpunk adaptation of Laughing in the Wind (Cfensi April Fool Post)

WHAT IS THIS: An April Fool's announcement on Cfensi about a cyberpunk TV adaptation of the Chinese wuxia novel Xiao Ao Jiang Hu (aka Laughing in the Wind) that has also genderbent most of the major characters. While only a joke and not real, the Cfensi post goes into quite a bit of detail about the plot and character arcs, plus the setting is drastically altered, so prior knowledge of the original novel is not needed.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Cyberpunk femslash!



Many of the major characters are now women due to the genderbending, which opens it up to lots and lots of femslash shipping potential in a cyberpunk setting! I'm nominating four female characters: Dongfang Bubai, Ren Woxing, Yue Buqun, and Ning Zhongze, and they all have antagonistic or love/hate shipping potential.

Dongfang Bubai and Ren Woxing lead the anti-corporation Sun & Moon collective, while Yue Buqun and Ning Zhongze are leaders of a major corporation. Dongfang Bubai was once a follower of Ren Woxing before she plotted an uprising and imprisoned Ren Woxing, while Yue Buqun and Ning Zhongze were lovers before Yue Buqun became more ruthless and twisted. Two of the characters also merged themselves with AI technology. So there's plenty of stuff to play around with here - cyberpunk worldbuilding, lovers turned enemies, power struggles both inter- and intra- organization.

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FANDOM NAME: 听雪楼 | Listening Snow Tower (TV)

WHAT IS THIS: A 56-episode wuxia extravaganza about love and conflict that is gorgeously shot and has tons of interesting characters, in which my favs are the female antagonist and the male second-lead hero that she's in love with. Available in full with English subs on Viki.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: An antagonist ship between a female villain and a male hero!



The characters I'm nominating are Ming He and Qing Lan (a.k.a. Jia Ruo), who are the main antagonist and the second lead of the show respectively. They were on different sides, but Ming He met and fell in love with Qing Lan during a secret mission, and after that mission she sealed Qing Lan's memories so as to keep him by her side. Their story is a delicious tropey mix of conflicting loyalties and betrayal, loyalty kink during the amnesia phase, and a complex love/hate dynamic after Qing Lan remembered his past.

Here are three photosets about them: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Here's also a specific cut on Youtube featuring just the scenes in which they appeared together (total time just under 4 hours).

The show itself is very beautifully filmed, and the fight scenes in particular are very well-choreographed! In particular, I also really love the main characters - the male lead is the sickly but intelligent and cool-headed leader of the eponymous Snow Tower, while the female lead is the impulsive yet kind-hearted junior martial sister of Qing Lan who went through her own story of overcoming grief/loss and growing strong in spite of them.

Little Free Library by Naomi Kritzer (short story)

[donutsweeper]

FANDOM NAME: Little Free Library by Naomi Kritzer

WHAT'S IT ABOUT: This is a short (just shy of 2500 words) short story about a woman, Meigan, who sets up a little free library outside her home and starts getting notes and little gifts from someone who's taking books from it. The gifts, however, are strange and slightly unworldly, like a leaf she can't identify and a coin stamped with an image she's never seen before, and the while the notes start of with just requests for sequels to previously borrowed books they soon begin to tell a story of what might be some sort a rebellion. At first she thinks the book borrower is just an eccentric artist having some fun but then she begins to wonder....

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: For such a short story the potential exploring its world building is incredible considering all the details Meigan comes across in the notes and presents that are left for her. The ending also is just open ended enough to leave a lot of possibilities in continuing the story.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): It's available online for free here.

[firegang]

FANDOM NAME: Sapphire & Steel
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Picture 1970s Doctor Who with even less budget and even less explanation. Sapphire & Steel is a British tv show about two inter-dimensional agents who try to stop incursions of something from breaking into our world via anachronisms. The show is very atmospheric and does a wonderful job creating this feeling of creeping dread via lighting tricks, nursery rhymes, so much focus on atmosphere, and lots of staring at evil.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Youtube, baby! Sapphire & Steel is split up into six assignments, multi-part serials ranging from four to eight twenty-five(ish) minute episodes. Some kind soul on Youtube has edited all the assignments down into full-length features, taking out cliffhangers. Each assignment is relatively stand alone, but start with Assignment 2.

FANDOM NAME: Confessions of Dorian Gray
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: It's an audio-drama Picture of Dorian Gray AU fanfiction. The general consensus is this: what if Dorian Gray didn't die at the end of PODG and instead spent the next hundred or so years in what's basically a supernatural monster of the week story? The episodes are relatively stand-alone, with Dorian meeting a new guest star (occasionally played by a Doctor Who actor) and/or facing a new monster each episode. The series is also massively tropey and features vampire boyfriends, a bodyswap episode, a Sherlock Holmes crossover, identity porn, the gang forms a band, an episode that's nonstop whump, werewolves, and the world's worst drug trip.

As a note, this series has a LOT of trigger warnings including, but not limited to: body horror, gore, dubious consent, drug use, sexual assault, torture, suicide, stalking, eye trauma, war & war-related PTSD, etc. If you're interested but there's a massive trigger you don't want to deal with, PM me and I can tell you if or where it shows up!
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Spotify! You can buy downloads or CD copies from Big Finish's website but, at least for USA listeners, the series is streaming on Spotify. Keep in mind that not all of the series is streaming: Series 5 and the free, stand alone episodes aren't streaming. As a listening note, Series 1, 2, and 4 consist entirely of stand-alone episodes. Series 3 is a continuation, picking up where 2.5 left off, Series 4.2 (The Spirits of Christmas) picks up where Series 3 left off, and Series 5 focuses on characters featured in previous seasons.

Bearcam!

[longpig]

FANDOM NAME: Katmai National Park Bear Cams - Explore.org

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The bearcams have been a real sanity saver these past months. They are so pure, so carefree, so gosh dang fuzzy...!They have a wide (literally and figuratively) variety of characters with big personalities. Bears compete for fishing spots, mates, and to see who will get the fattest before hibernation. This yuletide, why not try RBF instead of RPF? :v

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional):
Brooks Falls Brown Bears Bear Cams - note that the actual cams may not be online for more than a few more weeks because, well, the bears will be hibernating starting sometime in October and the solar powered cameras will lose the light. But there are tons of clips, gifs, and other info on the particular bears on the wiki.

Right now we are ramping up to Fat Bear Week (sept 30-Oct 6) so it's a great time to get involved! Reading the bearcam chats will get you up to speed on who's who fairly quickly! Don't forget to vote for your favourite Fat Bear campaign posters while you're there! :v

Katmai Bears Wiki

Bears of Brooks Rivers 2019

Fat Bear Week!!!

I Ship My Adversary x Me

[qikiqtarjuaq]

FANDOM NAME: I Ship My Adversary x Me

WHAT IS IT: A short and delightful cnovel about a third-rate actor named Wei Yanzi who stumbles onto a group of RPF shippers and ends up falling into fandom and shipping himself with another actor from his company, Gu Yiliang. They're not actually adversaries or rivals, that's only a widely spread conspiracy theory. Instead, it turns out that the shippers are the ones may not have been too far off the mark...

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Wei Yanzi has one of the most unique and hilarious narrative voices I've read in a long time. He has an absolutely wild imagination that only gets wilder the more fanfics he reads and the more fanvids he watches. He has *no idea* what he's doing in fandom and keeps getting kicked out of his own fan groups! And he is an unabashed lover of fluff and ship fuel.

Gu Yiliang looks more respectable on the outside, but is a disaster in his own way internally while trying to deal with his growing feelings for Wei Yanzi. His diary entries are adorable glimpses into his POV.

I think what makes me love this book the most though, is how relatable Wei Yanzi is. If you've ever gone into the deep end of shipping, if you've ever shipped an RPF pair, you'll feel incredibly seen by the narrative. I love that the book doesn't take a mean-spirited meta look at fandom, even though there are tons of ridiculous fannish shenanigans. You can really feel the love and joy of participating in fandom while reading Wei Yanzi's thoughts.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: English Translation (32 Chapters Translated out of 47) | Chinese

The translation is incomplete but it's mostly a fluffy novel, so you get the general gist of the canon fairly well at this point, and there's no cliffhangers.

Ivanhoe 1997

[lalamorn]

Title: Ivanhoe (TV 1997)
Media: BBC miniseries
Time commitment? About 4.5 hours
Where to find it? Streaming for free on Amazon Prime! Also, possibly at your local library. You can also find used copies for highly variable prices online.
What is it?Sir Ivanhoe, a disgraced knight, returns home after the Crusade and tries to help Richard the Lionheart to reclaim his throne. Mostly by getting stabbed and laying around recovering while other people do things. There's a great supporting cast, including Ivanhoe's father and his childhood love, Rowena, Isaac and Rebecca of York, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, Ivanhoe's main rival and foil.

What do you love about it?Rebecca!!! Rebecca of York, Jewess, doctor, all around best person in the world. I love everything about Rebecca, but I especially love her relationship with Bois-Guilbert. He betrayed Richard and blamed Ivanhoe for it, and later kidnaps Rebecca, first in an attempt to hurt Ivanhoe, but quickly realizes that she's the best person in the world and falls in love. This does not include letting her go. He tries to find his redemption through her, while Rebecca refuses to be a prop in his story. I love them both individually and together, and think their plotline is the strongest part of the show.

Basically: Do you like women who accomplish a lot more than the men around them want them to? Do you like guilt, redemption, and arguments about morality and religion? Do you like deconstructions of chivalric love? Do you like horrible testosterone poisoned men being broken (emotionally and physically) by their love/admiration for women that are way too good for them? You might like Ivanhoe!

What sort of things are you likely to request for it? I'll be requesting Rebecca&/Bois-Guilbert, with an eye towards missing scenes and canon-divergence AUs! I am interested in anything that plays them off of each other, and I'm equally happy with canon-typical to requited shippiness. I am also interested in as much history as my author is willing to provide!

Content warnings: Well, the Crusades are a big part of the backdrop. In-character antisemitism. Attempted and threatened sexual assault (no successful on-screen sexual assault, though one of the villains is absolutely 100% a rapist, and accuses Bois-Guilbert of being one as well). Violence and torture, mostly not graphic, but there is a short scene of graphic injury to an eye. Major character death.

[ritdha]

FANDOM NAME: Judy ASMR Mean Friend Series
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Judy is a Korean ASMRtist with a series of videos where she roleplays as your mean friend/roommate. Despite berating her roommate the whole time, the mean friend has given makeovers, lent clothes for a date, and helped her roommate delicately remove her makeup. It did not take long for the commenters to interpret this bullying as the mean friend having a secret crush. It's and they were roommates with a gently cruel, lesbian twist. Plus, if you're into ASMR, Judy does fantastic layered sounds and a great soft-spoken voice.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): English subbed playlist

THE TICK (TV 2017)

[likeadeuce]

FANDOM NAME: The Tick (TV 2017)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: You may know 'The Tick' from comics, the classic cartoon, or the 2001 TV series. The 2017 reboot got two seasons and it retains the absurdist humor while putting it into a story structure of a serialized streaming show + with (some) deeper dives into more nuanced character psychology. Peter Serafinowicz knocks it out of the park as the title hero/decoy protagonist while Griffin Newman plays sidekick/ actual protagonist Arthur as the most grounded person in a scene with superheroes, and the weirdest person in a room full of normals. (Here's a bit with the two leads being charming in person that includes a clip from the show that gives some of the energy of it).

There's also Valorie Curry as Arthur's kickass sister Dot, who has amazing sexy hijinks tension with a Punisher analog who calls himself Overkill (Scott Speiser, who plays the whole thing so gruff that it comes right around to being transparently vulnerable -- here's a Dot/Overkill supercut if you don't mind some spoilers.)

Also Arthur has romantic tension with a sentient boat voiced by Alan Tudyk. . .

CW: some dark subject matter, including parental loss and Arthur living with mental illness, particular in season 1.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Amazon Prime in the US -- not sure about elsewhere but it's surely attainable. There are 2 seasons/ a total of 20 eps that are 30 minutes long.

[gdgdbaby]

FANDOM NAME: Budweiser ME3 "Mysterious Smile" Commercial
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Real short M/M canon with an intriguing storyline and characters in less than a minute, great contender for anyone looking for another five-minute fandom!
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Here's the link on Weibo, and here's a link to an English translation of what's being said.

The Great (TV 2020)

[learnedfoot]

FANDOM NAME: The Great (TV 2020)

WHAT IT IS: One season (so far) TV show about Catherine the Great’s rise to power. It’s irreverent, comedic, and intentionally ahistoric in many ways. I think the trailer gives you a pretty good sense of its tone.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: I was surprised by how much I loved this show. The humor really works for me, and the political intrigue keeps the plot going at a fun clip. And, most importantly for fannish purposes, there are a ton of great, well-acted characters with fun, messy relationships. Elle Fanning is completely charming as Catherine, who is in turns sassy, inspiring and completely brattish and silly. Nick Hoult is fantastically terrible (and yet occasionally a tiny bit woobishly sympathetic for brief moments) as Peter III. The rest of their court is equally fun. There are a ton of different canon and non-canon shipping possibilities, from Catherine/Peter hate-sex to Peter’s messy af triad situation with his best friend’s wife to lots of delicious femslash combos. Plus, a million fun gen possibilities, from political intrigue to friendship to pure humor fic!

Also, did I mention that Nick Holt is amazing? Because seriously. He is so hilariously petulant and awful, it’s really great if you like that kind of thing. Also, this:



WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): It’s a Hulu original, so AFAIK that’s the only place to watch it.

[dye_ann]

FANDOM NAME: Mame, the musical (but also, the movie?)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Look, this is a show/movie about your rich, eccentric, avant-gardist middle-aged aunt who doesn't let anyone step on her toes, has a best friend/Nemesis and whose motto is "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death".
Mame ends up being in charge of her nephew, Patrick, and boy is he in for a ride among New York artists. There's wits and sass everywhere, a found family dynamic, extremely catchy songs, older women rocking the boat, and it's so camp I want to die.
Also, the musical stars Angela Lansbury in the title role, and Bea Arthur in the role of Vera Charles, her BFF/Nemesis. Need I say more ? Well the Rosalind Russell movie is also absolutely excellent.
Besides, this has the potential to be super queer, and I really think it should be explore that way. Mame and Vera are constantly throwing shades, and I'm sure they secretly wish for Patrick to grow up gay.
I wanted to nominate both the show and the movie because there are like 2 fics for it anyway, but I don't know what will come of it : it's really the same story anyway.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): There are several clips available on Youtube, the music is there too. I particularly recommend this monument of bitchy duet, starring Lansbery and Arthur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaW3YTAzkXA
As for the Rosalind Russell movie, here's the excellent, excellent trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gsRMtl70aQ

18th Century CE Frederician RPF

[raspberryhunter]

FANDOM NAME: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Content notes: Really abusive and dysfunctional family
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Would you like a fandom with all kinds of canon slash tropes (mean abusive dad who might have been suppressing his own slashy tendencies, tragic love story with loyal best friend)? Would you like a fandom about a magnificent bastard royal figure who is a modernist and reformer (and very much into freedom of speech and religion) for his time but also likes to invade various territories for fun and profit? Would you like a fandom with interesting, layered female characters, including a woman who becomes Empress despite all of Europe thinking this is hilarious being that she's a WOMAN?

Let me introduce you to Frederick the Great / Friedrich II / "Fritz" fandom. Boy/adolescent Fritz is beaten and publicly humiliated by his father (Friedrich Wilhelm), and his boyfriend (Peter Keith) is deported when his father catches them. He falls in love again, and he and his new boyfriend (Hans Hermann von Katte) try to escape, but dad catches them and executes Katte -- and orders Fritz to watch (though evidence seems to show that Fritz was not in fact made to watch). Katte's last words are some variation on, "I die for you with joy in my heart!"

Fritz earns his freedom by marrying a woman (Elisabeth Christine), whom he sees... approximately once a year, for dinner. He eventually becomes king when his father dies, at which point he turns out to be pretty much a spectacularly magnificent bastard. On one hand, Voltaire reports on Fritz' liberal tendencies that he said, "In this country, there is freedom of conscience and penis." On the other hand, Fritz also goes around breaking treaties and invading people on paper-thin and/or really zero justification. Hilariously, he first writes the Anti-Machiavel, basically saying "You should definitely positively not break treaties and invade other people just because you can," and then a whole three months later invades Maria Theresia's province of Silesia, just because he can. (Later he tells his people to go look for a historical claim to Silesia, which they find.) Maria Theresia, meanwhile, fights three wars with Fritz, after which he gets to keep Silesia.

On the family front, Fritz goes on to treat his brothers... in a way rather reminiscent of the way his father treated him. He doesn't execute anyone's lover, but after a bunch of emotional beating up of his brother August Wilhelm, August Wilhelm dies of what everyone else in the family -- except Fritz -- thinks is a broken heart. (It may have been porphyria.) Yeah, lots of dysfunctional family in this fandom.

And I haven't even gotten into the snarky Voltaire/Fritz frenemy ship, culminating in Voltaire trolling the world by fabricating mean stories about his ex which weren't realized to be fabrications for two hundred years! Or his brother Heinrich who had a love/hate relationship with Fritz and was BFF's with Catherine the Great!

WHERE CAN I FIND IT? (optional):
The best primer for this for a total beginner is probably selenak's primer on this as a TV show, complete with imagined fanon responses. selenak and mildred_of_midgard have been gracious enough to welcome me to their fandom by telling me all kinds of wacky stories about it. Much of these collected stories, synopses of various interesting bits about these characters, and various research can be found at rheinsberg (which I've linked to copiously in this post).

Year of the Rabbit

[(Anonymous)]

FANDOM NAME:Year of the Rabbit
Victorian London based sitcom? Although that doesn't seem quite right. It's in very poor taste and hysterical. It's only six 30 minute episodes. If you really like Matt Berry's work then you'll love it. Otherwise, you probably want to move along.

Description from Wiki: Set in London in 1887, the series follows "a group of Victorian detectives including Detective Inspector Rabbit, a hardened booze-hound who’s seen it all, and his new, hapless, by-the-books partner. While investigating a local murder, the chief of police's lewd but insightful adopted daughter becomes the country's first female officer. Together, the trio must fight crime while rubbing shoulders with street gangs, crooked politicians, Bulgarian princes, spiritualists, music hall stars and the Elephant Man.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Well, there's the cast for a start. Matt Berry, Freddie Fox, Susan Wokoma, Keeley Hawes, Alun Armstrong and Paul Kaye. David Dawson plays Joseph Merrickwho in this case is a theatrical impresario. It has a women's terrorist group, murders and a canon m/m relationship that while not shown on screen (much) is central to the story and described in great detail.

Here's the official trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uqTNwA_2NY

And here's a link to the first 10 minutes of episode 1. PAY ATTENTION TO THE WARNINGS AT THE BEGINNING:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8-2oiBOkq4&t=23s

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: It was on Channel 4 in England and IFC in the US where it's also available on Amazon Prime. There also appear to be full episodes up on Daily Motion.

[antler_action]

FANDOM NAME: Vinland Saga
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: A thoughtful examination of pacifism and revenge in 11th century Scandinavia. The protagonist is a fictionalized version of Thorfinn Karlsefni, who attempted to settle peacefully in Canada centuries before the Americas were colonized. This Thorfinn is thrown onto the battlefield at the age of 6, after his father is murdered by hired assassins. At first his goal is to assassinate the man he blames for his father's death, but over time, his objective becomes muddied.

Handsome old men with handsome life partners, and lots of big hairy Vikings. Leif Erikson is your grandpa.

Content warnings for violence, slavery, (brief and non-graphic) rape



WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: The 2019 anime adaptation is exclusive to Amazon Prime (oh no!), and the manga has an excellent official translation by Stephen Paul that can be purchased in hardback versions, or digitally. Like most anime and manga, there are also unofficial versions to be found, but as a huge translation snob I highly recommend this official manga release.



FANDOM NAME: ROOKIES (manga by Morita Masanori)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Bad boys playing baseball.

Rookies is about a team of delinquents who start playing baseball seriously when a passionate new teacher arrives at their school and refuses to give up on them like everyone else. It's a mixture of drama, sports manga and delinquent manga.




It's also pretty gay a lot of the time.



One boy especially, please see my two essays on AO3 for more information


Content warnings for teen boys not respecting women, and usage of slurs in the scanlation
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): It's fully scanlated on mangadex. There was also a dorama adaptation consisting of 10 episodes and a movie; the hit song "Kiseki" by GReeeen was used as the ending theme.

Frankissstein

[(Anonymous)]

FANDOM NAME: Frankissstein: A Love Story - Jeanette Winterson
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: From wikipedia:

"The story switches between Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein in Geneva, Switzerland in 1816 and the story of Ry Shelley, a transgender transhumanist who becomes involved in the world of artificial intelligence in present-day Brexit-era Britain."

What I love the most about this story is how all real characters from that house in Geneva where Mary Shelly wrote her novel (Lord Byron, Percy Shelly, etc) map to present-day fictional characters in such a hilariously fitting way. It's so creative and so so so clever.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional) : It came out in 2019, so it should be in most bookshops and libraries (and e-libraries). It's also not very long, and an easy read.

Frank Herbert's Children of Dune (2003)

[lalamorn]

Title: Frank Herbert's Children of Dune
Media: TV miniseries
Time commitment? About 4.5 hours
Where to find it? The only legal streaming I was able to find is on Vimeo, region locked to Australia and New Zealand, but you can get the DVDs for less than $20 or check at your local library.
What is it?Children of Dune is the sequel adaptation to the much more famous Dune. It adapts the second and third book of the series, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune. Dune is kind of famously philosophical, with lots of thoughts about messiahs and precognition and the future of human development. Children of Dune deals with the plot getting messy and incomprehensible by being entirely about a young, twinky James McAvoy emoting at worms and kissing his sister (how do you end galactic war? by turning into a giant worm dictator!). This is only a little bit of a joke. You don't need to watch Dune or read any of the books to understand what's going on.

What do you love about it?
Twincest, WORMS, powerful women doing politics at each other, and sloppy enough plotting that there's plenty of room for fic! I love the transhumanist themes of the pre-born, the Bene Gesserit, and the mentats. I love the theme of precognition as a trap. I love the visuals of Arrakis, a desert planet being slowly consumed by greenery, and the climate change themes attached to it. 

Basically: Do you love playing in a sandbox that has really interesting concepts behind it, but the execution is kind of dumb?

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?
Ghanima! Ghanima is one of the twins, and she is done so dirty by the narrative -- we have a plot entirely about how to see the future is to be trapped by it, and Ghanima is unforeseen and then... absolutely nothing is done with that. With the limited screentime she has, she's entirely excellent -- smart, daring, kind to her loved ones, vicious to her enemies. She also has super interesting interactions with all my other favorite characters. Her role is much more politically based than Leto's (her twin's), which is much more fantastic, and that gives some really interesting possibilities. I'll be asking for literally any expansion on her, pre-, during, or post-series, her interactions with any of the women running the show on Arrakis, and/or twincest with Leto. For what I'm requesting, you can honestly skip the first episode (the adaptation of Dune Messiah) if you want to.

Content warnings: Nonconsensual drug use. Very light body horror.

[wolffyluna]

FANDOM NAME: We Know the Devil
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: We Know the Devil is a short visual novel (~1.5-3 hours, depending in how fast you read). Overachieving Jupiter, trouble-making Neptune and shy and awkward Venus are sent to a Christian Summer camp for troubled teens, which tries to untrouble the teens with a combination of the great outdoors, hard work, guitar backed sermons... and sending teams of kids into the woods to meet and defeat the Devil.

It's magical realism/psychological horror/religious horror with great atmosphere and music, dialogue that is deep and feels like the midnight conversations you had when you are 14.

Also, queer characters! I would elaborate, but that would be spoilers.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): It can be found on Steam

[relle]

FANDOM NAME: The Fear of Painting (Drawfee Series)
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: On Youtube! (4 videos, ~10 minutes each)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: So you know The Joy of Painting, by Bob Ross? It's like that, but cursed.

Julia from Drawfee is the host, and she and a guest paint together. They create perfectly normal paintings, painted with perfectly normal paints and brushes, and there is nothing at all out of the ordinary. Julia is not a demon, there is not a portal to hell just offscreen, and the whole show is absolutely not a setup to collect souls for Satan. Everything is fine.

The guests are all great and include ProZD and Simone & Allegra from Polygon, if you're familiar with them. I would generally recommend every single thing on Drawfee's channel, but I find this series particularly delightful and think it would make excellent fanfic fodder. (Worldbuilding about how hell and the soul collection process works! More of Julia's character arc! New guests!)

Dracula (TV 1968)

[thisbluespirit]

FANDOM NAME: Dracula (TV 1968)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: It's a feature length b&w TV adapation (part of ITV's Mystery and Imagination anthology 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 a really interesting adaptation, and has so much potential for fic.

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. It 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, easily available, contains canon femslash, and has all the right kind questions, loose ends and shipping possibilities that mean fic is needed.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): The whole thing is up here at YouTube + the DVD is out in R1 and 2 and the Freeview channel Talking Pictures has shown the whole series and might well do it again.


Total vampire fodder.

Handy links: 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.

[thisbluespirit]

Fandom/Canon Name: The Shadow of the Tower
What makes it great: It is a 1972 BBC TV drama about the reign of Henry VII, starring James Maxwell, Norma West, James Lawrenson, Richard Warwick & Marigold Sharman. (Guest cast includes Peter Bowles, Christopher Neame, David Collings, Maurice Roeves, Peter Jeffrey & more). It is highly theatrical (but that's a feature not a bug) 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 wigs, but it is also great. 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. Basically, old time BBC has its many problems, but it loved making ironic, ambiguous, theatrical period drama with people angsting about beheading people in the Tower (heavy is the head that wears the crown as ever) and I eat it up with a spoon.

There are lots of things to play with in it, fic-wise, of all kinds. I am very into its Henry/Elizabeth relationship (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). Also 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 Battle of Stoke. Henry's trust will be buried with him, too); while Perkin Warbeck is bisexual (this is not even a tiny bit subtext) and obsessively fantasises about making Henry grovel before him.

It's very experimental (unusually so for this kind of thing), which is also great for potential fic. There's an episode almost like a mystery play about a heretic getting burned at the stake, based on one line from Henry's account books, and at the other extreme a random comedy ep about Tudor spies and inept assassins who want to kill Henry by magic and astrology. Want fantasy dream sequences? Totally canon already.

Basically, if you can survive BBC cardboard TV and its usual hazards, enjoy a good theatre play or are interested in the period, it is a thing of simultaneously genuine awesome and total crack & James Maxwell's performance as Henry is great, and I will request 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/
My tumblr tag for it, with some gifs is here



Where to find: here on YouTube (although some of the later episodes are now not playing in the UK; hopefully they still are in other regions, or my quest has just become even more hopeless). It is also out on DVD in R1 and R2 and I hear it can be found in libraries in the US. (If you have trouble, I do have a torrenting link someone gave me and also can maybe make arrangements re. the missing middle eps on YT.)

Hilda the Plus-Sized Pin-Up, Lady No Kids & the Matthew McConaughey Lincoln Commercials

[wiccanslyr]

FANDOM NAME: Hilda the Plus-Sized Pin-Up - Duane Bryers (Illustration Series)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Pin up, red head, plus sized lady, great art, so much potential for stories... what's not to love? Hilda's lust for life and her unashamed nature in seeking out even the smallest of adventures with exuberance is so completely evident in each piece and I adore everything about them! The happiness and joy contained in each of the works in this series is infectious and they always make me smile. The potential for great stories is infinite too! You could tell a story inspired by a single piece or string a bunch of illustrations together for something completely different!
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Some examples







You can find a larger collection here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.653547017991559&type=1&l=5126ca78c8

There is a little blog write up here including with a few illustrations not in the above collection: http://www.messynessychic.com/2016/08/02/americas-forgotten-pin-up-girl/



FANDOM NAME: The Adventures of Lady No Kids
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The sheer amount of amazing story-telling potential!
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Originally published in The New Yorker (Will McPhail - Cartoonist)

It's a one panel comic as seen here:




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 there is so much creative freedom, you get to decide who these characters are and what the world they live in is like!
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Compiled altogether into one single video, right here for your viewing pleasure! https://youtu.be/RP0ua3K684Q