2021 Yuletide 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>:


(Bonus optional: What are you thinking of requesting for this?)

EDIT:

Useful tips (Not required, but helps people if they want to engage with your fandom!):

- Mention what form of media the canon is. Is it a comic miniseries? Is it a twenty season tv show? Is it a book? Is it a twitter feed?
- Is it standalone or part of a series?
- It's best to make each fandom its own entry with its own title in the subject line! That makes it easier for people to find/see what you're promoting! Don't worry about 'spam', that is the entire point of this entry and you're using it exactly as intended.


For reference, last year's promo post!

Comments

WILL (TV 2017)

[vae]

FANDOM NAME: Will (TV 2017)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Hello all may I introduce you to the trashfire show of my heart, Will?



Ambitious (Catholic) aspiring young poet William Shakespeare leaves his wife and children behind in Stratford to go to London to pursue a career as a playwright. He talks his way into a job at the Globe under James Burbage, gets his first play on the stage, gets embroiled in love and politics, and it all goes from there. That's Will, in that photo above. He's rather clueless, but very well meaning.

Meet some of the other characters! Here's Alice Burbage.



Yes, she's the love interest. She's also scribe, prop manager, and intends to manage the Globe herself one day. She gets a lovely character arc and she's TOO GOOD for almost any other character in the show.

This is her brother, Richard.



He is, and I make no apologies for the pun, a bit of a dick. He's not the brightest of sparks, but he learns and he develops and by the end of the series, he's grown up a lot. (That's Autolycus behind him. Autolycus is kind of awesome.)

And THIS is Christopher Marlowe, goth (canonically and explicitly) gay nihilist punk poet playwright and spy of my heart.



I make no secret of the fact that Kit Marlowe is my favourite. He's deeply messed up, incredibly charismatic, the superstar of his day, intrigued by Will's writing talents, and manipulates nearly every situation to his own advantage. (Except personal ones, where he's self-destructive as fuck.)



Will aired on TNT in 2017. There's only one season, ten episodes, and it does come to a satisfying conclusion. As you can probably tell from the images, it's got a definite punk approach to history - the creative team have described it as trying to evoke the same reactions in a 21st century audience as would have been evoked in a contemporary audience. Yes, that means a very Knight's Tale approach to history and a punk soundtrack. It's got scenes of torture, it's got moments of glaring misogyny, and it doesn't treat its characters of colour very well, so if those are hard limits for you, probably give it a miss. It's also got the obligatory annoying child character, but even he's not too bad by the end. Watch it for Marlowe, for Alice, for the Burbage family, for Emilia, for Moll, for Topcliffe's comeuppance and Southwell's unmasking, for the glorious soundtrack, for the riot of colour in the set and costume design, for a vibrant London and for a love of theatre and expression and words and humanity.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT: It's available on Amazon Prime streaming and YouTube, both paid services instead of included with any packages. If you're in the US, it may still be on TNT streaming. If you have Virgin TV in the UK, it's in the box sets on your set top box.

Re: WILL (TV 2017)

[twistedchick]

I'm looking on Amazon Prime and not finding it -- all I get are Will Farrell movies. Can you give me the name of one of the actors so I can cross-check? It sounds like something I'd really love.

[event_kosch]

Saiki Kusuo no Sai-nan
Funny, fast paced, and sweet. It has a colourful cast of secondary characters, who are all the more amusing to see through a lens of a grumpy nearly all powerful teenage psychic. Just some heartwarming at times, and mostly light fun.
Though I'm definitely here for the few dark elements :)
In US you can find it on Netflix. Not sure about other countries.

Ascendance of a Bookworm
A sweet and humorous slice of life anime and light novel about a book lover stuck in basically pre printing press Europe. It's got a charming and adorable protagonist, interesting side characters, and wonderful and quite dark at times world building. So yeah, it has both fluff and angst, and is quite fascinating.
You can find it on Crunchyroll according to Google? I watched it in Russian unfortunately, so have no clue.

[kate_nepveu]

Added to my Netflix list for potential watching (not for YT purposes, though, as I do not write)!

Time Engraver

[trobadora]

FANDOM NAME: L'Oréal "Time Engraver" Commercials

WHAT IT IS: Two short film-style commercials around a sort of anthrompomorphic personification of time who transports people into his workshop to engrave wrinkles and lines into their skin. (Total runtime: 10 minutes 8 seconds)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Despite also being a vehicle for an "O NOES NOT THE WRINKLES" product, these commercials really are great little mini-films. There's fascinating worldbuilding/mythology to play with and expand on; there's a lot of potential for mortal/immortal interaction (the Time Engraver chats at his subjects! what if one of them wakes up?). There's stunning beauty. And I don't mean just Zhu Yilong, who plays the Time Engraver - the cinematography is genuinely gorgeous, and personally I adore the aesthetic especially of the first commercial. (It's also a great concept for optional crossovers!)

WHERE CAN I FIND IT:
2019 Time Engraver commercial
2020 Time Engraver commercial

Re: Time Engraver

[eirenical]

I am SO glad to see that you're nominating this. 1) because I also love the Time Engraver commercials and would love to see more fic for them ^_^ and 2) because you kicked my brain over into realizing that I can nominate the THERMOS commercials. ;D (I knew you could nominate commercials and I've been wanting fic for those since forever, but for some reason I didn't connect the two until I saw this. XD) So, thank you for that!

Dessa - Sound the Bells (Music Video)

[fhionnuisce]

FANDOM NAME: Dessa - Sound The Bells (Music Video)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: This music video is gorgeous. Water and sea motifs, cliffs, great landscape otherwise, a theme of sentinet statuary, and also marbles! Who knew I'd come to appreciate marbles this much! It's a somber song whose lyrics I also really appreciate, but I'm nominating the music video because it's just so gorgeous. It fits several themes I was very involved with in last Yuletide, and I found it just days after Yuletide reveals, so I knew it needed to exist in this year's tagset!
WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIGioQ7tfXg

Re: Dessa - Sound the Bells (Music Video)

[fandomonymous]

Also the song itself is excellent, as so much of Dessa's work is. Glad to see a vid of hers in the tagset!

Tekkonkinkreet (Anime Movie)

[fhionnuisce]

FANDOM NAME: Tekkonkinkreet
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Magical kids! Fighting the Yakuza! To keep the streets of their town safe. But more than that, there's a motif of disabled characters who lean on each other in more ways than one to make it in the world. There's a telepathic bond! And it's a short canon, since it's a movie.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional): I'm not great at finding were anime content streams in recent years, but a DVD does also exist.

[embraidery]

FANDOM NAME: Crossing - Shaun Tan
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: 'Crossing' is a wonderful painting of a cat mostly submerged in turbulent waters (ocean? lake?), and two humans (humanoids?) sitting huddled together on the cat's head. I'm just so excited about the possibilities of this painting, and it tells such a story with so few carefully-chosen elements. I love the details of the waves and the way you can see the light shining through the cat's ear.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional): https://beinart.org/collections/shaun-tan-limited-edition-prints/products/shaun-tan-crossing-limited-edition-print-of-300-48-3x33cm-19x13

[sonofgodzilla]

absolutely agree! Shaun Tan is such a wonderful artist.

The Duke of Mount Deer (TVB 1984)

[grayswandir]

(Reposting from previous Yuletides!)

Fandom name: 鹿鼎記 / The Duke of Mount Deer (TVB, 1984)

What is it?: A 40-episode live-action wuxia drama produced by TVB in Hong Kong, based on the wildly genre-subversive wuxia anti-epic novel of the same(ish) name by Jin Yong.

What makes it great?:

Well, Andy Lau and Tony Leung, for one thing. :D

If you're into Asian cinema, you probably know them as two of Hong Kong's top film stars (and you might also know Tony Leung from Shang-Chi, which I have not yet seen, but I keep hearing he's amazing). You may or may not also know that they both started out on TVB in the early 80's, doing ridiculous but adorable low-budget dramas with flimsy props and dubious period costumes. The Duke of Mount Deer is a particularly shiny gem.

    

The premise: Two boys meet one day on the grounds of the palace court at Beijing, circa 1650 or so, and become wrestling buddies. Both of them are hiding their real identities. One is actually the young emperor of China, while the other is a mischievous trickster kid who grew up in a brothel and is now being used as a spy... by rebels who want to overthrow the empire.

Most of the story takes place after they've more or less cleared up who they really are, as their relationship gets increasingly complicated by politics. Meanwhile there's other crazy stuff going on all over the place (secret books, buried treasure, weird cults, a kung-fu nun)... but things always seems to circle back to drive the conflict between the maturing emperor, who is trying to hold his kingdom together, and his problematic fave Wai Siu-bou, who would rather be getting up to hijinks somewhere.

  
 

I love how well-intentioned and yet deeply flawed both of the main characters are, and how they struggle to sustain the fiction of an equal friendship in spite of the massive power imbalance between them. There are some intense loyalty tropes, right alongside a lot of deception and mutual distrust and conflict. And, amid all the cheerfully chaotic drama and hilariously low-budget props, a compelling and really rather classic relationship arc.

A few years ago when I first watched this series, I wrote up a ridiculously thorough screenshot-illustrated recap, which is naturally full of spoilers but might be worth a glance if you're wondering whether the show is something you'd care to check out.

Content warnings: Lots of mysogyny (women treated as possessions/prizes), including an instance of strongly-implied non-con which is basically played off as just more trickster antics. :/

Where to find it:: On TVB's official YouTube channel with Chinese subs, or here with English subs.

(The novel, which I may also request, is available in a pro-translation on Amazon as well as a fan-translation here.)

Re: The Duke of Mount Deer (TVB 1984)

[trascendenza]

Ooooh! I had bookmarked this and forgotten to watch it. D: So this time I'm jumping right in, I watched the first two episodes today (THEIR MEET CUTE IS ADORABLE) and my friend has agreed to watch with me. I'm super excited! (I'm always looking for good cantodramas and just never know where to start, so thanks for requesting this. <3)

Fare Well (Edinburgh Hogmanay 2020 drone show)

[choirwoman]

FANDOM NAME: Fare Well
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: I cried when I first watched it. And I cried more when I watched it again. And I'm crying while I type this, even though I'm not watching it.
It's SO MUCH BETTER THAN FIREWORKS. It's got voiceovers by people of all ages and genders IN SCOTTISH GAELIC (and also in Scots English). It's optimistic about humanity and the future, which we needed last year and which we'll need this year even more.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional): https://www.edinburghshogmanay.com/ (in several parts) or on YouTube but imo it's better on the site.

[choirwoman]

FANDOM NAME: Alpennia (Heather Rose Jones)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Women being awesome is what it's all about. Women who work together, around and with and subtly against nineteenth-century central European patriarchy in a small Ruritanian-type country. Oh, and there's earnest religion and understated magic. They're technically romances but the romance is very understated, it's mostly fantasy-of-manners.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional): Page of links to the books. Start with Daughter of Mystery or if you don't mind being thrown into the deep end (sort of literally), Floodtide.

[(Anonymous)]

I was thinking about nominating this, any preferences for characters? I think it's a dash rather than parentheses for the author, fwiw.

Sotheran's Twitter

[vae]

FANDOM NAME: Henry Sotheran Ltd (Sotheran's Twitter account)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: At first glance, this appears to be the Twitter account of a long-established London antiquarian bookshop. On closer examination, it reveals a surreal, somewhat gothic alternate London in which the bookseller attempts to maintain an antiquated business while dealing with (and potentially being an) eldritch horrors. Their ongoing feud with another antiquarian bookseller appears periodically, but the feed is studded with worldbuilding gems both for the bookshop and the wider city and world around it.

It's a London where Trafalgar Square has a taste for blood:



and it's wise to pay respects to the river:



A shop where books spontaneously generate:



where unlit staircases provide traps for brigands:



where screaming in the building is revealed by the new phone system:



and where customer files contain very specific notes:



A bookshop with a dungeon in Tottenham Court for which they've apparently been paying rent to the wrong person. A bookshop with cellars somewhere in Birmingham. A bookshop with a ghost that turns the taps on full overnight. A bookshop with archives that go missing, and replacement archives that also vanish.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT: Sotherans Twitter

Re: Sotheran's Twitter

[marginaliana]

OMG I hadn't thought of this as a yuletide fandom but YES.

False Doctrine (Alice Degan)

[choirwoman]

FANDOM NAME: False Doctrine (From All False Doctrine and its more or less accidental sequel, Neither Have I Wings which is set twenty years later and follows a minor character from the first book). Only the two books, but they're longish.
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The people are so real. It's fantasy set in Canada. It's deeply Christian (Anglo-Catholic) without ever becoming preachy. Everyone who deserves HEA gets it, and that's not always "getting together as a couple".
WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional): I got mine from the Kobo store.

Romances of Arquitaine (Books)

[kitsunerei88]

FANDOM NAME: Romances of Arquitaine by Lilith Saintcrow

SUMMARY: This is a two book duology by one of my favorite authors, Lilith Saintcrow, who also writes under Lili St. Crow, S.C. Emmett, and Anna Beguine. Rather than providing a full summary, here is the back of the book blurb off Amazon!

Vianne di Rocancheil has been largely content to play the gawky provincial. As lady in waiting at the Court of Arquitaine, she studies her books, watches for intrigue, and shepherds her foolhardy Princesse safely through the glittering whirl. Court is a sometimes-unpleasant waltz, especially for the unwary, but Vianne treads its measured steps well.

Unfortunately, the dance has changed. Treachery is afoot in gilded and velvet halls. A sorcerous conspiracy is unleashed, with blood, death, and warfare close behind. Her Princesse murdered and her own life in jeopardy, Vianne must flee, carrying the fate of her land with her -- the Great Seal of Arquitaine, awake after its long sleep. Invasion threatens, civil war looms, and the conspiracy hunts for Vianne di Rocancheil, to kill or to use her against all she holds dear.

A life of dances, intrigues, and fashion has not prepared her for this. Nor has it prepared her for Tristan d'Arcenne, Captain of the King's Guard and player in the most dangerous games conspiracy can devise. Yet to save her country and avenge her Princesse, Vianne will become what she must, say what she should, and do whatever is required.

A Queen can do no less.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: My absolute, most favourite thing about this book is that Vianne is not a Strong Female Character. She does not mysteriously find strength, she does not pick up a sword and fight for her country, and she's really rather helpless, particularly in the first half of the first book. She is exactly what she should be as a pampered noblewoman who's been raised to be a princess' companion! She has her interests, but she is patently not prepared to become the figurehead of one side of a civil war. In terms of the romance, I love that her romance with Tristan is complicated (for reasons that would be spoiler-y to explain), and I love that this is not a simple series and that Saintcrow doesn't hesitate from the hard things, the wrong things, and the bad things. Trigger warning for Book 2: dubcon.

This book doesn't get the credit it deserves, and a big part of that is that it's very poorly characterized and marketed by its publishers. This looks and sounds like a Young Adult novel. It is not. See trigger warning above. This is what I wish Young Adult fiction would grow up to be.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Amazon, and probably anywhere else that you find books (especially ebooks).

I'LL BE ASKING FOR... Canon Divergence AU, explorations of Tristan's inner thoughts in The Hedgewitch Queen, or a continuation scene of some kind.

Re: Romances of Arquitaine (Books)

[downjune]

Well this sounds AMAZING. Definitely going to try to track these down.

[tigerlily]

FANDOM NAME: NOS4A2 (TV 2019)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Messy female characters dealing with trauma from both the ordinary and the extraordinary in a horror drama series. (Two seasons, each ten episodes long.) An aspiring artist trying to get out of what she fears is a dead-end life has her efforts derailed when a supernatural child abduction happens in her neighborhood.

The characters are working class Americans and the series spends time in their environment; even the supernatural elements are grounded in ordinary things, and in how the characters are informed by their world. Characters with magic, called Creatives, can psychically create other dimensions and break the walls between those dimensions, but the way they look and how they can be accessed are specific to the personal histories of the Creatives.

One of these Creatives feeds off the souls of children to sustain himself and his personal dimension; the series deals with the two female characters who have to stop him, first as teenagers and then as grown women. It primarily follows Vic, a young artist and biker whose dimension is a bridge to find lost things, but also in a major role is Maggie, a librarian whose dimension is a Scrabble bag from which she can divine information.  There's an assortment of secondary female characters important to these two and to the story at large; I love how they all get layers and time to shine. I love the attention the series pays to its characters' pain and family trauma; there's an empathy and a sadness to the horrors in it.  It can be heartbreaking, and it can be hopeful. The protagonist/antagonist foil dynamic really pleased me with its moments of parallel narrative. And the actors are really good! I love Ashleigh Cummings as Vic and Jahkara Smith as Maggie especially, and Zachary Quinto is doing his best villaining.    

The horror leans towards the psychological in that there's more focus on stress the characters are under; there's violent, but it's not that graphic usually, and there's gore, but not much. 

I also wrote a primer with a little more about the protagonist/antagonist foil dynamic if you’d like to check that out.

The show has a fandom wiki here!  

Content Notes: Attempted assault and offscreen rape, references to domestic violence, a partly successful murder/suicide one spouse commits of their spouse and child, references to homophobia in one character's backstory, PTSD, two openly misogynistic antagonists, the offscreen but heard death of a cat, some brief scenes of characters getting beaten/smashed into things that I felt on a visceral level, referenced child abuse, offscreen child sexual abuse, drugs used in abduction, serial killing, and one of the antagonists seems to have an obvious disability.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Physically, both seasons are out on both blu-ray and DVD.  Streaming-wise, both seasons can be found in the United States on Hulu, Shudder, and AMC+. (Shudder and AMC+ can be accessed through their apps or through their channels on Amazon or Apple, depending on where you subscribe.) They can also be streamed through AMC, Fubo, DirecTV, and SpectrumTV. They can be purchased digitally on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, and Vudu. This information has been taken from its Just Watch page here. You can change it by region to see where and if it's available in your area.

[geckoholic]

Now this seems up my alley, I shall check and out and see if it sparks fandomy feelings. Thanks for reccing!

Line of Duty (TV Series)

[kitsunerei88]

FANDOM NAME: Line of Duty (British TV series)

SUMMARY: This is a 5-season British police procedural series, with a 6th season in production. From Wikipedia:

Line of Duty follows D.S. Steve Arnott (Martin Compston), an authorised firearms officer who was transferred to Anti-Corruption Unit 12 (AC-12) after refusing to agree to cover up an unlawful shooting by his own team. At AC-12 Arnott is partnered with D.C. Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure), a highly-commended undercover officer with a keen investigative instinct. They work under the supervision of Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), who is one of several Senior Investigating Officers (along with D.C.S. Patricia Carmichael (Anna Maxwell Martin) of AC-3 and those of AC-9) responsible for uncovering corruption within the police force. Throughout the series, AC-12 investigate seemingly disparate cases involving seemingly-corrupt police officers such as D.C.I. Tony Gates (Lennie James), D.I. Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawes), Sergeant Danny Waldron (Daniel Mays), D.C.I. Roseanne Huntley (Thandie Newton), and undercover officer D.S. John Corbett (Stephen Graham). AC-12 realise the pervasive nature of corruption and the police's deep-rooted links to an organised crime group.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: As a lawyer, my favourite thing about this show is that it does better on procedure and the law than the vast, vast majority of police procedurals out there. In other police procedurals, they "catch the bad guy" while I'm screaming about how many rules they broke and how there is no evidence and this case is literally going to be tossed out by the Crown before they even get in front of a judge; for Line of Duty, while it isn't perfect, there is enough there for me to suspend my disbelief. Hello, recognition that there are actual procedures that need to be followed with real consequences if they aren't!

Also I generally love the different perspective this one takes for a police procedural. Most police procedurals are about solving the crime and the police are heroes but this one... is about rooting out bad cops. That's pretty great.

I also have to commend the characterization of the show. Steve Arnott is, at the beginning of the series, still dealing with the fact that he's lost a prestigious position in Anti-Terrorism, and with the sense of identity he has with the police and how he is now, essentially, investigating his own. The acting is also phenomenal, and I love how at the end, there aren't any easy solutions.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Netflix (Canada), CBC Gem (Canada), Amazon Prime, likely BBC, and other outlets.

I'LL BE ASKING FOR... character dynamics, character backstories, and character development!

Grand Designs (UK TV)

[hangingfire]

FANDOM NAME: Grand Designs

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: long-running British reality/documentary show in which host Kevin McCloud covers the building of a custom-built home that is unusual, ambitious, risky, expensive, or some combination of the above (usually all). It rises above the usual sort of show in this vein in that Kevin is very well-informed on matters of design and engineering and is also fond of explaining problems with mundane objects in a very funny way. (One episode involves making a trifle, complete with custard, sherry, and cake.)

Inevitably, the builders run into trouble—cost overruns, weather, unforeseen problems with the romantic old building they "fell in love with", choosing to project-manage their whole build when they have no experience—but it's rarely a schadenfreude show; more often than not you just really want to see these poor overwhelmed people pull it off. One of my friends nicknamed the show "Measure Once Cut Twice", which pretty much sums up the usual sorts of troubles people bring upon themselves. There are at least two or three cases of massive hubris, one of which occurs in the 2019 season in spectacular fashion, and the other involves a gentleman that I refer to as "batshit Irish castle man". If you know you know.

I'm eager to see Grand Designs crossed over into some kind of genre setting, original or otherwise—supervillain lair, superhero HQ, haunted house, portal fantasy, etc etc. Kevin has a very distinctive style of narration which is great fun to riff on—he opens each episode with a philosophical rumination that ties into the key ambitions of the project at hand and loops around back to it in the end, and then there are the hilarious explanations of building problems.

For more, this Decider article does a great job of explaining the show's charms.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional): Various seasons are streaming on Amazon and Britbox. If you're in the UK, you can stream it on Channel 4's web site.

Re: Grand Designs (UK TV)

[karanguni]

If you've not seen the Kevin M.C. Loud "House Music" video, I highly recommend (https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153851579742330&_rdr or https://twitter.com/Channel4/status/799356708061483008) as I now sit here screaming FENTON, FENTON softly to myself.

Tales of Beauty and Madness (Books)

[kitsunerei88]

FANDOM NAME: Tales of Beauty and Madness, by Lili St. Crow

SUMMARY: Do you like fairy tale retellings? Better yet, do you like dark fairy tale retellings? Well, do I have the series for you!

The Tales of Beauty and Madness are Lili St. Crow's take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood. That's about where similarity ends because the seven dwarfs are actually vampire mafia families, Cinderella's fairy godmother is a giant spider that's trying to eat her, and Little Red Riding Hood is a werewolf. It's that kind of world.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: The worldbuilding. Honestly, the worldbuilding of this is absolutely brilliant, and I love that there are little hints of it all over without ever getting explicit. The world was the same as ours until the Reeve, or the magical revolution, where something happened to make the world dangerously unsafe. Covered trains travel between cities, and magical power can twist and turn someone into a jack. The characters of this story is really just a way to show this world, which is strange and beautiful and also a bit dark.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT? Amazon, probably other booksellers, but likely only to be found in ebook form.

I'LL BE ASKING FOR... Worldbuilding! Tell me what happened in this world's past! Tell me about the Reeve, and twisted charm, and jacks!

David Blaize - E. F. Benson

[plaid_slytherin]

FANDOM NAME: David Blaize - E. F. Benson
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:
A two-book (well, technically three, but I have not read the short prequel) series, chronicling David's experiences from before he goes to public school to through his university days.

These books are incredibly sweet. David's POV is a delight, and the books feel refreshing and far ahead of their time. Young David's observations are precious; it's fantastic kid POV and he continues to be wonderful as he grows. It's low-stakes, slice of life stuff, with charming characters. Frank, David's friend, is the other character I'll be requesting. Their relationship, which starts out with David as Frank's fag (yes, it really is a British public school story from 1916) and develops from there. I don't want to spoil anything, but they are close and ridiculously shippable. (Frank is canon gay - in 1916! - and David is canon oblivious.) Subjects for potential exploration include cricket, archaeology, and World War I (the timeline is somewhat nebulous; you could easily go there if you're interested or not if you aren't). There's so much potential for get-togethers, domesticity, or just the same sort of stuff we get in canon again.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional):

David Blaize is on Project Gutenberg.

David of King's is on the Hathi Trust.

David and the Blue Door, prequel, on Project Gutenberg.

[primeideal]

FANDOM NAME: Crying Suns

WHAT IS IT: A roguelike computer game, similar to FTL: Faster than Light in mechanics (you're crossing a galaxy, jumping from system to system, while trying to use fuel and scrap to upgrade your ship), with worldbuilding influences from Foundation (the galaxy is large, humans are puny, and there's only so much we can do in the face of entropy) and Dune (giant sandworms are annoying).

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: It's a roguelike that "knows" it's a roguelike. You play as a series of memory-altered clones of the legendary admiral, Ellys Idaho, so the player character has a reason to know "okay, I know how to pilot a spaceship, but I don't remember anything about my individual past"--the life and times of the original Idaho are filled in by infodumps on the planets you pass through, but that leaves room open for unreliable narrators and sidekicks with their own agenda. There's a fun sense of humor from "we added the quest to the next sector, if we make it that far--which is unlikely given our track record--you can follow up on this." And while some of the random events get repetitive after a while, they're still funny on the first couple playthroughs. (Space pirates are always going to be a threat.)

WHERE CAN I FIND IT: It's on Steam, as well as iOS, Android, and Switch (I've only played the Steam version). As a game, I found it significantly easier than FTL, but the boss fight on level three is unusually tricky; even if you're playing on normal difficulty, you might want to switch to easy for that level to advance the story. There's also a cutscene compilation here which is sort of the "cinematic mode." (3 hours, 40 minutes).

I'LL BE ASKING FOR: Ellys, Kaliban (his robot assistant, and one of the only survivors of a Shutdown that seems to have destroyed all the "OMNI" robots), and/or worldbuilding! I'd be interested in anything from humor (more space pirate traditions?) to angst (Ellys' relationships in his backstory have lots of potential for tragedy) to AUs (Ellys seems to be a genuine good guy who wants to be merciful even to defeated opponents, but the game doesn't usually give him a lot of free will--what if things went off the rails?)

I am also working on my own non-exchange fic for this tiny fandom, but who knows when I'll get around to finishing that. >.

[yhlee]

Okay, I'm sold! I've bought this for my iPad to investigate further. :D Thank you for the cutscene compilation especially.

Black Cat (Comics)

[sirvalkyrie]

FANDOM NAME: Black Cat (Comics)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Bisexual female character doing heists with increasingly larger stakes. She always has a plan, but things tend to end up going sideways and she's improvising as everything blows up around her. She also has her crew to help her out. Everybody gets their awesome moments.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional): Part 1 Part 2

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

[melody_jade]

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 into a futuristic cyberpunk setting, so prior knowledge of the original novel is not needed.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Cyberpunk worldbuilding and 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 three female characters - Ning Zhongze, Dongfang Bubai, and Yue Buqun, and there's plenty of antagonistic shipping potential between them. Dongfang Bubai merged herself with AI technology and leads the anti-corporation Sun & Moon collective, while Yue Buqun and Ning Zhongze are lovers and leaders of a major corporation before Yue Buqun became corrupted by the AI and became more ruthless and twisted. So there's lovers to enemies, enemies to lovers, or even AI/human femslash ships!

I'm also nominating worldbuilding! There's so much to play around with this universe, whether you know the source material or whether you're just basing it on the Cfensi post. All the cyberpunk worldbuilding, or possibly a wuxia/cyberpunk fusion, or more about the AI technology or the major corporations and their intra- and inter- power struggles.

Re-Animator (movies)

[snickfic]

Fandom name: Re-Animator (Movies)
What is it: The Re-Animator movies are an American 80s/90s live-action horror-comedy movie franchise loosely adapted from a Lovecraft story, about a mad scientist med student and his roommate whom he drags along in a quest to re-animate the dead.

What makes it great: Just as a movie, Re-Animator is very tightly written and very funny, with a great score and great practical effects for its bloody gore. The cast is great, especially Jeffrey Combs as mad scientist Herbert West. (Combs later went on to play a bunch of different alien characters on Star Trek: DS9.) It's also VERY shippy. Herbert is a weird little amoral gremlin who dislikes basically everyone on Earth except, apparently, his roommate and fellow med student Daniel Cain. There are several great moments of Herbert comforting/reassuring Dan after Dan has been physically or emotionally traumatized in some way. (See below). Meanwhile Dan seems like the sensible one at first, but no, it's just that unlike Herbert he has a modicum of emotional intelligence, which does nothing to prevent him from going along with all Herbert's REALLY BAD IDEAS.



The second movie, Bride of Re-Animator, isn't as good of a movie, but in some ways it's even shippier, to the point of "there is no heterosexual explanation for this" on Herbert's end. A third movie was released almost a decade later, but it's pretty bad and doesn't have Daniel in it, so I don't really recommend it, and you won't need it for most of my requests.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it? I ship Herbert/Dan a LOT. I really want fic of them having feelings about each other andHerbert being his weird gremlin self while continuing his important body desecration scientific research. Feelings and gore, basically!

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfill your requests? I would be happy with fic for just the first movie or for the first first two movies.

Where to find it: Kanopy, Shudder, or you can rent it from the usual places.

Content warnings: Lots of blood, gore, and body horror, animal harm and death (on a very fake-looking cat), as well as institutionalization and a nonconsensual lobotomy. The first movie has a very uncomfortable gross-out scene of attempted sexual assault of a female character.

Re: Re-Animator (movies)

[calliopes_pen]

And I'd like to add, all three movies can also be located on Tubi! Spotted them last night.

Exit/Corners (Visual Novel)

[hopefulnebula]

(Shamelessly copy/pasted from last year)

FANDOM NAME: Exit/Corners
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Do you like visual novels? Puzzles? Five strangers who wake up in a creepy abandoned hotel together and need to find a way out? Philosophical musings on the nature of games, life, consciousness, and identity? Just the right amount (IMO) of creepiness? Snappy dialogue? If so, then Exit/Corners may be the visual novel for you.

Seriously. This is dark and creepy and at some points quite gory, but it's handled tastefully. (More content warnings will be available at the end of this comment, but many of them spoil important plot points, so they'll be set as highlight-to-read.)

It starts with a college student named Ink waking up in a strange hotel, with a strange woman in his bed. The two of them start looking for a way out and find three other strangers who are in the same situation. And then comes the creepy synthetic voice informing them that they have twenty-four hours to find the way out. Or they could die...

The puzzle elements are actually quite light, and I really like the hint/skip mechanic for them. You get commentary from whichever characters are in the room at the time!


WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): It's available for free at http://exitcorners.com/


SPOILERY CONTENT NOTES (highlight to read): (skip) E/C is an amazing game, but it does include (in no particular order) blood/gore, limb amputation, gaslighting/manipulation, abusive parents, transphobia, suicide references, and character death.

Re: Exit/Corners (Visual Novel)

[tildytwo]

I remember playing the first episode, but never realized it was completed! Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend...

The Darkside Detective (video games)

[hopefulnebula]

(Copy/pasted from last year again, this time with additions!)

FANDOM NAME: The Darkside Detective (video game series)

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: This is a point-and-click adventure game where you're the detective in charge of investigating paranormal crimes in the city of Twin Lakes. Whether a child has disappeared through an eldritch portal, or a train has halfway lodged itself into the next universe over, you're there to help solve the crime. Even if that other guy gets all the credit and fame.

If you like old-school adventure games, ghosties and ghoulies, corny jokes, copious breaking of the fourth wall, lots of banter between characters, so much snark you guys, background jokes, and saving the universe, you'll probably enjoy this game. The sequel lives up to the first game and there are bonus chapters coming out for it very soon as well.

(I wasn't kidding about the background jokes. Make sure to check out the books on all the shelves in the library chapter.)

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Steam for Windows/Mac/Linux, and the first case is available for free on Kongregate as well as downloadable for free on Steam.

Scream (movies)

[snickfic]

Fandom name: Scream (movies)

What is it: An American live-action franchise of four slasher horror movies about traumatized young woman Sidney Prescott, whose story keeps inspiring new killers to try and murder her (in a flip from the classic slasher franchise structure, which largely kept the same killer from one movie to the next with new leads each time).

What make it great: I love the development of our main characters over the series, both individually and in their relationships with each other. The movies really focus on Sidney's trauma as the survivor/final girl, the different ways that she deals with that trauma, and how she grows and changes as a person. The series is also really fun slasher horror and very meta, commenting on classic slasher tropes (although IMO you don't need to be familiar with them to enjoy the Scream movies). She's not the only women who gets development, though; I love that our obnoxious reporter character Gale Weathers, played by Courteney Cox, not only doesn't die but gets to be a little bit badass in the end (and continue showing up in later movies). The development of her relationship with Sidney over the course of the movies is really neat, as they move from antagonism to something closer to war buddies. And Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott is just very hot.

Other fun relationships include Gale Weathers' sometimes fraught but extremely cute romance over the course of the movies with the local deputy, played by David Arquette; and the intense, codependent, slashable relationship of high school boys Billy Loomis and Stu Macher in the first movie.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it? Fic about Sidney and Gale together, in tones ranging from h/c to casefic to horror. I definitely ship it, if you're looking for femslash possibilities!

Where to find it: Can be rented from Amazon, Google Play, YouTube, etc

Content warnings: Lots of bloody murder! Mostly stabbings, but a handful of other memorable kills as well. There's also a very weird sexual backstory about Sidney's mom, including some offscreen sexual assault.

복수해라 | The Goddess of Revenge (TV)

[shinsengumi]

FANDOM NAME: 복수해라 | The Goddess of Revenge (TV)
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:
“This is Kang Hae-Ra's Live Revenge Agency.”

Our story begins by introducing us to our main character, Kang Hae-Ra, who's a celebrity and former news reporter just in the process of releasing her own book. When a raunchy clip of her cheating on her husband surfaces on the internet, her world falls apart overnight—and once she discovers that her husband's responsible for the set-up, she decides to stop at nothing while seeking revenge.

From there, we also become entangled in the stories of Cha Min-Joon, a high profile lawyer with a 100% success rate who's also out for revenge on the people who disappeared his sister, and Kim Tae-On, the sole heir to a sprawling company on a mission to ensure her succession.

If I had to describe this show in three words, I'd call it dramatic, exciting and over-the-top. I think it manages to strike a balance between real tension with a little intrigue and the kind of hyperbolic madness that you only get in television programs.

I think the acting is the real draw of this show—I found it very hard to look away, and I loved the relationships between the characters. As long as you're happy to divorce it from reality, I think it's a fantastic romp. (I would not describe most of it as realistic, particularly not the live-broadcast revenge reporting element, even though I loved that!)

Depending on what you like, it has great f/m (Hae-Ra/Min-Joon or Eun-Hye/Hyun-Sung), f/f (Hae-Ra/Eun-Hye ♥ or Tae-On/her secretary) and m/m (Min-Joon/Do-Yoon or Hyun-Sung/Do-Yoon) shipping options if you're looking for those, too.

If you enjoy women continuing to stand up and fight every time they get knocked down, this could be the series for you.

CONTENT WARNINGS: This show is rated 15+, so little of its content is particularly graphic. However, there is on-screen spousal abuse, as well as plenty of discussion around and implication of rape/sexual assault, murder and organ auctioning.

(Also, not as serious as the other content warnings, but basically everyone owns a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, so here's a warning for rampant capitalism and product placement, I guess.)

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): Watch for free on Viki.