Yuletide Fandom Promo 2024!

[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!


Cheju has started a spreadsheet for promo! Here's the link!

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Here are some areas you can cover:

<b>Title</b>:
Please put your fandom's title in the subject of your comment, too. This helps people find your promo again.

<b>Media</b>:

<b>Approx length</b>:

<b>Where to find it</b>:
(If giving links, please only link to legal sources. You may want to encourage people to contact you directly if they are having trouble finding a canon and you can give them tips)

<b>What is it, in summary?</b>:

<b>What do you love about it?</b>:

<b>What sort of things are you likely to request for it?</b>:

<b>Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?</b>:

<b>Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence)</b>:
This is at your discretion and is not expected to be comprehensive

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(Bonus options: What are you thinking of requesting for this? If you're thinking of nominating worldbuilding, what sort of worldbuilding topics might people explore?)


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


- 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.



Previous fandom promo posts can be found at this tag!

Comments

Dot (BBC Radio Drama)

[(Anonymous)]

Title: Dot

Media: episodic radio comedy

Approx. length: 13 half-hour episodes (3 seasons of 4, plus the pilot), plus one 45min special (Dot and the Russian Dossier), so around 7h in total

Where to find it: can be purchased on Amazon or Audible, you can also message me on Tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/wyvernquill) if you need help finding it!

What is it, in summary?: a radio comedy by Ed Harris about Dorothy, nicknamed Dot, a secretary in the Cabinet War Rooms during WW2, and her (female) colleagues.
In her attempts to make herself useful to the war effort, and also perhaps earn a medal or two, Dot stumbles her way through various schemes (none of which ever really seem to work out for her), bosses around her friends/underlings Myrtle and Peg (Pearl in the pilot), and enjoys a healthy (mildly homoerotic) rivalry with snotty fellow secretary Millicent.

What do you love about it?: I generally enjoy a good historical sitcom, Blackadder is one of my favourites, and this feels *very* similar in vibe - except with a mostly-female cast (some of whom really feel very, uh, *directly inspired* by Blackadder characters tbh.)
Overall, I just love how all these ladies are weird, selfish, useless, and often horrible to each other in the most comedic fashion, and the sometimes-absurd humour of it all. The historically-inspired plots/references are also always delightful, and sometimes, when you least expect it, there’s a surprisingly raw and genuine moment of acknowledging the horrors of war and/or being a woman in mid-20th-century Britain tucked away in there…

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: femslash! Most probably Dot/Millicent, because I enjoy their rivalry with poorly concealed romantic-sexual tension underneath - though I’d also be quite open to general comedic shenanigans with these characters.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: I think just the pilot episode could give you a feeling for most of the main characters and the general humour - I can also recommend The Astonishing Adventures of Agent Whiff-Whaff (s1ep1) for Dot having a bit of a lesbian crisis over a rather butch female pilot, and London Can Take it (s3ep4) for Dot and Millicent sniping at each other throughout and very good characterisation of them both individually and their dynamic together.
Overall, as the format is quite episodic and there is only limited continuity, it’s definitely not necessary to listen to the whole series to write for it.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): general warnings for “this is set during WW2” (some scenes of air raids and bombing, some references to male relatives dying), and some of the period-typical British attitudes cropping up (though mostly in a way that clearly parodies them), in particular rampant classism.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - Claire North

[(Anonymous)]

Title: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Media: book

Approx. length: 400 pages

Where to find it: should be available anywhere you can buy books!

What is it, in summary?: A novel by Claire North about individuals who live their lifetimes over and over. The book follows, as the title suggests, the first fifteen lives of one Harry August, how he comes to realise what he is, how he learns more about this secret society of sort-of-timetravelers he is a part of, and how he met Vincent Rankis, a man Harry finds himself fascinated by, but who also may or may not be bringing about the end of the world sooner and sooner…

What do you love about it?: I found myself really drawn in by the very personal and intimate narration of Harry’s lives, and fascinated by the glimpses we get through his POV of the larger society of these functionally-immortal people. In many places this book is very tragic, and there is something bittersweet to how time and existence work for Harry, how the way he views other people shifts the more often he lives the same life again.
And then, of course, there’s Vincent. The way Harry describes his relationship with him has something repressed and unreliable, while also being oddly intimate - there’s some measure of attraction and kinship there, as much as Harry might not want to acknowledge this, and deliberately sets himself apart from Vincent in his narration. They’ve done horrible things to each other, and yet… And Yet.
Also, there’s some measure of attempted (Vincent doesn’t know it failed, and Harry does his best to not let on) memory erasure, and the identity porn/subterfuge resulting from that is just *delicious*.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: I find the relationship between Harry and Vincent fascinating on various levels, so probably something shippy, but would also just generally enjoy something from Vincent’s perspective - Harry is a rather unreliable narrator, after all, and we never truly know what is happening in Vincent’s head. So I’d love a missing canon scene, a post-canon scenario, pre-canon Vincent, or a canon scene from Vincent’s POV…

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: it’s *really* not ideal to read only parts, as the narrative tends to jump and circle around, this is a book best enjoyed in its entirety - however, if absolutely necessary, the final fifty pages (starting from Chapter 74) mmmmight suffice to fulfil my request? Chapters 52-58 (~40 pages) also provide a great deal of context as the lowest point of Vincent and Harry’s relationship.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): this is a rather dark book - it’s also been a while since I last read it in full, so please take this as an incomplete list.
There are obviously multiple deaths, violence, and severe injuries suffered by Harry August himself or other characters in the narrative (this includes some suicides). Furthermore, there’s attempted mind manipulation/gaslighting, attempts to nonconsensually remove memories, torture of the protagonist, and terminal illness, both the cancer that frequently ends Harry’s life, and once, towards the end, by radiation poisoning which is quite vividly described. At the very beginning of the book, Harry also briefly recounts the rape of his mother.

John Finnemore's Double Acts

[(Anonymous)]

Title: John Finnemore's Double Acts

Media: radio comedy anthology

Approx. length: 12 half-hour episodes, 6h in total

Where to find it: Audible, Amazon, you can order it as a CD box set…

What is it, in summary?: a comedic radio series penned by John Finnemore (probably best known for Cabin Pressure), each episode featuring only two main characters, played by two new actors each time. In the first season, all individual stories are (very loosely) interconnected, in the second season this is no longer the case. From a psychologist teaching a businessman to imagine tigers, over an old woman giving a con man a lift, or Queen Victoria letting a recording of her voice be made, to the intricacies of British-Danish diplomacy… this series has it all!

What do you love about it?: Finnemore is just brilliant at writing radio comedy, and there are some truly amazing comedic actors involved in this, too. Each episode introduces you to new characters, and by the end of the episode you’re guaranteed to love them dearly (or sometimes love to hate them) - many episodes are also built up very cleverly, where the full extent of the situation only gradually starts unravelling the longer you listen. And if you don’t like one episode’s setting or characters, the next one will be about something entirely different!

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: most likely an extension of the Penguin Diplomacy episode, featuring a Danish eccentric and a British governor who meet on a windswept little island rather close to the antarctic in 1948, and develop a strange, heartfelt friendship over chess, divorcing penguins, and international power struggles. The ship potential is obvious, and I love how the two communicate (or fail to communicate), so something post-canon, a missing scene, or anything else with similar vibes between these characters - perhaps an AU transferring their circumstances into a different context? Modern AU? Scifi AU? - would be delightful to me.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Obviously, to fulfil my request, only listening to Penguin Diplomacy would be entirely sufficient. (I have also only nominated those two characters, please let me know if you would like someone else to be added.) Beyond that, I recommend English for Pony-Lovers and The Goliath Window, which are my personal top 3 episodes of the show together with Penguin Diplomacy.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): nothing substantial. One episode briefly references homophobic attitudes (The Rebel Alliance), Penguin Diplomacy very briefly and indirectly hints at war trauma, and The Goliath Window references amputation of a limb while at sea (and possibly unknowingly eating it), but it’s all very blink-and-you-miss-it.

SBI Rust

[conar]

Title: SBI Rust
Media: Web video
Approx length: N/A (mostly lost)
Where to find it: Canon is mostly lost, here is a video about the characters I nominated: https://youtu.be/lLgNNeUTq5c?si=E3Yoy0bVb1vLHrAh

What is it, in summary?: Livestreamed roleplay series set in the game Rust, streamers play characters in a post-apocalyptic world setting. There's conflict between the two main groups - the Dome Cult, a group who found a giant dome-shaped building and worship it, and Fort Kickass, a small group of cannibals.

What do you love about it?: Fort Kickass are extremely interesting to me, particularly Krinios who maintains the belief that what he's doing doesn't make him evil and doesn't like people he considers evil despite being a cannibal prone to random violence. The three form a sort of dysfunctional family unit with Tubbo as their kid, but all three gleefully consume their own and each other's bodies after respawn.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Just things looking into Fort Kickass as characters, there's no fic centered on them and only one where they appear at all and I've been fascinated by them since the series was still going in 2021. I also like shippy Krinios/Hycei :)

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Yes, the whole canon doesn't exist anymore anyways. All that's left for Fort Kickass is the Krinios video (and maybe a Tubbo video or two if he has any).

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Video game violence, cannibalism, cults

SDMP | Sleep Deprived SMP

[conar]

Title: SDMP | Sleep Deprived SMP

Media: Web video, livestreamed

Approx length: N/A

Where to find it: Highlight videos and VODs are on YouTube

What is it, in summary?: Spiritual successor to SMPLive, has the same wacky improvised sitcom energy but with modded Minecraft instead of vanilla. Very gay and very silly.

What do you love about it?: It features a lot of people I really enjoy, and has a lot of fun dynamics in it. I really love Traves, Hunter and Krinios, and Yahi.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Almost certainly gen, but might include worldbuilding. Very cracky goodness.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Everyone has their own content for their POV. Yahi, Traves and Krinios have all their VODs on YouTube.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): N/A!

赠答诗 | Poems Composed in Reply - 金车美人 (弘农) | Beautiful Woman in a Golden Carriage (

[larryhammer]

Title: 赠答诗 | Poems Composed in Reply - 金车美人 (弘农) | Beautiful Woman in a Golden Carriage (Hong Nong)

Media: Very short story with poetry (~450 characters/~550 words in translation)

Where to find it: Original is at https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/御定全唐詩_(四庫全書本)/卷866#金車美人, and my translation is at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/796115.html#hongnong. There are alternate versions of this story in Extensive Records of the Taiping Era at https://ctext.org/taiping-guangji/364/xieao/ens and Xuanshi Records at https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/宣室志/補遺#謝翱, neither of which AFAIK aren’t translated anywhere.

What is it, in summary?: A short romance of Tang Dynasty China where one of the couple happens to be a ghost, or at least some sort of non-human. (In Complete Tang Poetry, it’s in a chapter of poems by ghosts, but the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era version is put in tales about 妖怪, monsters/devils.) Poems are exchanged after a one-night stand that neither can forget, and after being reunited (exchanging more poems) they spend a few nights together until the ghost “vanished in both sight and sound.”

What do you love about it?: It’s enigmatic, even by the standards of ghost stories of the time. Why is Hong Nong interested in Xie Ao and his peonies? Why does she have to vanish? What’s with the golden carriage? What type of being is she anyway? Plus I love her sass when they meet: “He naturally asked who she was, and she replied, ‘You understand I’m not human, yet calmly ask such a question?’”

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: More about the enigmatic Hong Nong of the Crooked Path. Answers to any of the above questions.

Content warnings: major character death

The other stories in that translation post (and the other ghost poem posts) may also be of interest, and certainly the lore of Chinese ghosts they reveal might be useful.

Di Gi Charat

[conar]

Title: Di Gi Charat (1999)

Media: Anime

Approx length: 16 4-minute mini episodes + 5 groups of specials + a movie. The franchise has much more but I only nominated the original incarnation.

Where to find it: No legal streaming option at the moment. Can be purchased on Blu-ray from Sentai Filmworks: Link. The set contains the original series and all the specials, but not the movie.

What is it, in summary?: Very stupid show made to promote a games store in Japan, completely nonsensical. Focuses on a cat girl named Dejiko who has eye lasers and her friends.

What do you love about it?: Characters are super endearing, and the humor is actually great for how old the show is.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Probably something focusing on Dejiko and Piyoko? I haven't really decided yet, I just wanted a fourth nom and I enjoy this series a lot.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: I would just recommend watching the main series + the summer 2000 specials. (Piyoko is introduced in the summer specials). The other specials aren't really required. There's also a 2003 miniseries you can watch to learn more about Piyoko.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): N/A! Very safe series.

The Saint of Steel - T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon)

[resplendeo]

Title: The Saint of Steel - T. Kingfisher
Media: Book series

Approx length: This is a series consisting of four books (Paladin's Grace, Paladin's Strength, Paladin's Hope, and Paladin's Faith); the publisher's website lists the longest one at 436 pages. My rough math puts this at roughly 140k words for this particular book? The shortest is at 270 pages.

Where to find it:
The publisher sells it directly in ebook and hardcopy formats (and as of this writing, seems to be on sale!): Ursula Vernon (Writing as T. Kingfisher) at Argyll Productions

What is it, in summary?:
This is a series of books where a small group of berserker paladins are struggling to heal and continue living in the wake of the their god dying. In each book, they take it in turns to go adventuring and solve some kind of dangerous and gruesome problem and fall in love with a very interesting love interest character who's usually in some kind of awful danger or on a quest of their own. Or both: both is good.

What do you love about it?:
The worldbuilding is great, the characters are excellent, and it's also just great to read adventure fiction where the characters are all above the age of like twenty. Lots of main characters in their forties or so. We have the berserker paladins as a through-line, but we also have a perfumer, a spy, a coroner, and a bunch of priests of the White Rat, who take holy vows to go out and solve problems and be public defenders (among other things) in a medieval/fantasy world. It's some cool jars we're shaking these characters up in.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?:
Oh, damn. God, I'd love some adventure? I'd especially love some expansion on scenes that get briefly remarked on in the books but not like, explicitly told? I like competence and the product of weird rabbit-holes on Wikipedia for weird little facts. I would also like the honeymoon period/domestic life after the various couples are out of danger. And also the gnoles are great and I'd love to see Brindle or Earstripe. And the weird gruesome magic that features is also very interesting.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfill your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?:
Yes! Each book centers on one relationship.
Minor spoilers ahead in the next section but not anything more than you'd get from reading the backs of the books:

MINOR SPOILERS
Paladin's Grace (#1) focuses on Stephen and Grace. Perfumes, sock knitting, assassins, recovering from bad previous relationships, and a fantasy crime procedural.
Paladin's Strength (#2) focuses on Istvhan and Clara. Gladiatorial arena. Awful infrastructure. Weird fucking magic.
Paladin's Hope (#3) focuses on Galen and Piper. A coroner (lich-doctors, here) with a little magic, and also the only book so far with an M/M couple. Dangerous murder-solving.
Paladin's Faith (#4) focuses on Shane and Marguerite, who we met in book #1. Spying! Fancy gowns! Industrial espionage! Business groups with secrets they'll kill to keep!

Content warnings: Some weirdly gruesome magical violence. And the first book in particular has a main character who left an absolutely awful relationship and is recovering from that. We see some slavery in book #2.

A Half-Built Garden, by Ruthanna Emrys

[reflectedeve]

Title: A Half-Built Garden - Ruthanna Emrys

Media: A stand-alone science fiction novel.

Approx length: ~340 pages; the audiobook is 15 hours and 51 minutes.

Where to find it: Bookstores, libraries, libro.fm, Audible, etc

Summary: In this near-future novel, the Earth is roughly divided between three powers, in descending order of influence: the Watersheds/Dandelion Networks, a global, ecologically-focused system of communities that practice a form of consensus decision-making shaped by carefully-programmed algorithms (which take advantage of machine learning’s tendency towards bias to prioritize solutions and suggestions most congruent with agreed-upon values); nation-states, which technically still have some jurisdiction over the Watersheds but are struggling for relevance; and strange artificial island-based Corporate strongholds, where the legacy of capitalism is carried on like a sort of cultural tradition, carefully quarantined off from most of the rest of the world apart from highly-regulated trade. Then the aliens arrive.

Judy Wallach-Stevens, a new mother from the Chesapeake Watershed, along with her wife and baby daughter, stumble on the landing party when they go to investigate alerts about a mysterious source of pollution in the Bay. In spite of being a water resources technician, she gets roped into serving as a diplomatic representative of humanity via happenstance, and the fact that the visitors’ culture places significant emphasis on the prestige of motherhood and the diplomatic importance of bringing small children to negotiations. Conflict of some kind is, of course, inevitable; neither the United States government (such as it is), nor the Corporate polities, are willing to let the Watersheds represent humankind on their own, and everyone has interests and advantages that come into play. Especially once they learn that to these aliens, the natural and only safe/sane course for a technologically-advanced species is to “graduate” from planetary life, preferably by recycling said planet for parts. The mutual confusion and dismay between their representatives and those of the Watershed, with their dedication to fixing and nurturing the Earth, is immediate.

What do you love about it?: Where do I start? I have a huge soft spot for first contact stories that invest a lot of thought in their alien cultures and biology, and I was particularly tickled by the aliens’ attitude towards pollution and ecological degradation (far from the enlightened/disapproving advanced species paradigm). Overall, this is a book about communication and community; there’s TONS of talk and very little “action” as such, which yes please, give me that delicious negotiation, diplomacy and cultural exchange! (Also: the most compelling use of machine learning/artificial intelligence, as it actually exists, that I have encountered either IRL or in fiction.) It hits the spot for me on “possibly hopeful futures” as well.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: There’s a ton of worldbuilding to play with, and some really intriguing family dynamics that I’d love to see explored much more. Post-canon explorations of the ways in which humanity and their new interstellar neighbors continue to interact and combine, share and conflict, on any number of levels. Blended alien/human family life! Interspecies relationships of various flavors (there’s some canon romance already)! More exploration of the alien societies and habitats! Also, there’s a particular curmudgeonly Corporate character who winds up in exile among the terribly earnest Watershed folks, and I would greatly enjoy seeing some development there.

The four-character nomination limit is going to be a real challenge for me with this one.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfill your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: No, not really, given that I’m most interested in stories that build on the whole book in terms of character development, interactions, and/or worldbuilding.

Content warnings: Child endangerment/attempted kidnapping, brief discussions about experiencing transphobia. The aliens have fairly essentialist understandings of gender by their own norms; there’s a heavy emphasis on childbearing and rearing as defining motherhood (and therefore, also leadership potential).

The Witch Family, by Eleanor Estes

[reflectedeve]

Title: The Witch Family - Eleanor Estes



Media: Stand-alone middle-grade novel.

Approx length: Recent editions clock in around 240 pages, though the original hardcover (which is the one I used to get at the library, based on the cover) is apparently only 186; I guess the print is smaller? The audiobook is 4 hours and 42 minutes.

Where to find it: This book came out in the 1960s, so it’s probably a better bet for libraries than bookstores. It can also be found in ebook and audiobook formats (Libro.fm and Audible both have it).

Summary: Amy loves telling stories, mostly to her best friend, Clarissa … and her stories are also true. So when she banishes (or excuse me, “banquishes”) Old Witch to a glass hill for her wickedness, she soon peoples that world with a Little Witch Girl (just her and Clarissa’s age), an invisible spelling bee, little witch classmates, a mermaid friend, a baby sister and more. Amy and Clarissa’s suburban life and the lives and adventures of Little Witch Girl and her friends entwine and interact in unexpected ways, the lines blur between storyteller/characters, enemies, and family, and there is exciting but mild danger and inventive wordplay for all.

What do you love about it?: It’s a childhood favorite of mine, and as an adult, I’m fascinated by how metatextual the whole thing gets. I want to read and write stories that play with those elements and push them further than the original book does!

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: I’m probably going to ask for something set a bit after the book, either during the main characters’ adolescence or young adulthood, which plays with the metatextual stuff; either something involving the bleeding-through of the fantasy characters into the “real” girls’ lives, or possibly something about how Amy keeps telling stories about these characters in ways that intersect somehow with her life, or … I don’t know, something along those lines! (I'd especially be interested in something that adds a little queerness, perhaps unsurprisingly.)

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfill your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: No, I don’t think so, but it’s not a very long book anyway.

Content warnings: Some schmaltz in the narrative style; occasionally a little preachy.

Breakaway Series - E. L. Massey

[taken_aback_by_tuesdays]

Title: Breakaway Series - E. L. Massey

Media: book series

Approx length: 1200 pages

Where to find it: Here's a summary of it, if you want to look at your library: goodreads page
It's also buyable at Amazon or Ninestar Press

What is it, in summary?: A M/M romance between a disabled, POC figure skater (Eli) and a hockey player. It started life as a Kent Parson Check Please fanfic but quickly grew it's cast of original characters (and the Kent character changed enough) that it got rebranded as original fiction.

What do you love about it?: A flawed character trying to be better and a disabled character getting to be grumpy about things that are difficult for him.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: fic focused on Eli: his cooking video channel, hanging out with the hockey team, playing video games with his boyfriend.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Like Real People Do (the first book) introduces the characters and gives a good sense for who they are.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence):
Seizures and hockey injuries.

Khyber Shards

[yellowmagicalgirl]

Title: Khyber Shards

Media: D&D 5e actual play show; for the most part it can be listened to instead of watched.

Approx Length: Over 186 hours long - there are 185 episodes that are usually about an hour long (but some episodes like the final fight against the BBEG are closer to two hours)

Where to find it? On YouTube via The Laughing Tree's channel. It's also available on YouTube Music.

What is it, in summary? Short answer: X-Men in the published D&D world of Eberron. No knowledge of X-Men or Eberron is required to enjoy the show, but you won't pick up on all the foreshadowing or Easter eggs.

Long answer: Four child soldiers with aberrant marks (magical birthmarks that grant powers that are often destructive to the bearers and those around them; their bearers are discriminated against) are forced to flee the supersoldier program they were members of when the program turned on them after the war ended. They chose to hide their powers and hide in the backwater pirate city-state of Stormreach, but three years later in-universe (and a few episodes later IRL) faces from their past began to surface - most hostile, but one rescuing them in the hope of teaming up with our heroes in order to make Stormreach a safe place for people with aberrant marks, partially through starting a school for children with aberrant marks.

What do you love about it?

I first got into the show because I'm a fan of Eberron and wanted an actual play to listen to that was set in this world, and for the most part the show sticks close to the lore, and where it does deviate it deviates in places that almost always increase the quality of Khyber Shards as a story. However, I stayed for the relationships between the characters. I'm not a fan of most found family plots, but the found family aspect is incredibly significant to the relationships between the player characters (especially one character whose arc is learning to rely on and protect others instead of pushing everyone away for her own survival) without devolving into rigid familial roles.

The two main canon ships of the series are both friends to lovers ships. One gets together relatively quickly, with relationship drama that makes you question if they'll be able to work as a couple when one character is an adventurer and the other doesn't leave town. The other main ship is a slow burn that doesn't get together until towards the end of the series.

The female characters are treated with a great amount of nuance that you don't always see in stories created by men (the DM and 4/5 (later 3/4) players are male). To quote another fan on this, "I was thinking about how great [DM] is at creating female characters who are competent without making a big deal about their 'toughness', and whose awesomeness has freaking NOTHING to do with how they look. I admire all of these women ... They're not 'tough for a girl', they're just people. Who are good at what they do." And this doesn't just apply to characters who would be capable of holding their own in a fight alongside or against the PC's! To quote a different fan, "also characters like mrs. b who aren't the physically strong type like many people think is required of 'strong women' when in reality it just means a well-rounded, dynamic character"

There is also disabled representation that is not handwaved away as, "it's a fantasy world so permanent disabilities don't exist", nor are the disabled characters treated as less competent because of their disabilities (although one does choose to refrain from field work specifically because of his disability). In addition, most of the disabled characters are on the side of the heroes, as opposed to disability being a sign of villainy. While no one is in a wheelchair despite it being an X-Men inspired story, our disabled rep includes:

• A burn victim who is disfigured, hard of hearing, partially blind, and suffers from chronic pain thanks to her burn. It's also implied that her powers give her a form of overstimulation and/or chronic pain that she had needed to learn to cope with prior to canon, but the exact nature is kept vague. She's also my favorite character (whom I will be requesting both as a solo character as well as for ships) and probably the most well-developed NPC.


• Two different amputees with prosthetic limbs who are still upset over their respective amputations - one is upset about the amputation itself. The other thinks the prosthetic is cool (and even rejected any limb-regrowing magic) but still holds a grudge against the people who caused them to need amputation.


• A character with an eyepatch who seems unconcerned about his lost eye


• A character with a prosthetic eye; I'm unsure if he had any ocular disabilities prior to the prosthetic or if this is more of a transhumanist (trans-elf-ist?) character given that his prosthetic has cool magical abilities

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: A lot of different things, including slice-of-life, hurt/comfort, worldbuilding, fusion AU's involving other fandoms, whump, and other things. And even then, if someone wants to do something entirely different that doesn't cross my DNW's, then I'm eager to see it - I'm desperate for something to read that I didn't write myself.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: I'm planning on including prompts for if you only watch the first two episodes, prompts that only require you to watch up 'til episode 70 (with a suggestion of episodes to skip), and worldbuilding prompts that more-or-less only require you to watch one episode.

Content warnings: Temporary major character death (including permadeath in a canonical alternate universe), animal death (one of the characters is a ranger who has a cat companion she takes to battle), graphic fantasy violence, superpower/magic-based discrimination.

Questionable Content

[taken_aback_by_tuesdays]

Title: Questionable Content

Media: Webcomic

Approx length: over 5000 strips

Where to find it: Starting QC at the beginning

What is it, in summary?: A hangout comic with an increasingly large cast of friends (and their friends and so on) including robots.

What do you love about it?: the robot worldbuilding and many of the characters

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: exploring more with one of the robot characters (Millefeuille or Pintsize particularly) or Brun (autistic person who loves dogs and has a harpoon) or Emmett Bennett (incredibly shy nonbinary person).

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Emmett Bennett first appears here and latest appearance is here
Brun first appears here
Brun's latest appearance is here
Pintsize was there from the beginning, so if you want him, read everything (sorry)
Millefuille appears here
Millefeuille's latest appearance is here
For the first to latest appearance characters, feel free to read just those sections (you'll pick up on other characters quickly enough)

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Occasional comic type violence

EPIC: The Musical

[(Anonymous)]

Title: EPIC: The Musical

Media: Musical Concept Album

Approx length: < 2h for what's currently released

Where to find it: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3sdEH7HfFE3d4xry5RnnLr?si=6b98d21a72804f35

What is it, in summary?: A musical soundtrack loosely based on the Odyssey, about a man trying to get home after the Trojan War and meeting many obstacles and misfortunes along the way.

What do you love about it?: The music is both thought-provoking and catchy, the characters and themes are complex and nuanced, and I just find the whole thing very captivating!

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Aeolus (playful/mischievous wind god) shenanigans, Athena in her role as a mentor, Telemachus coming of age

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfill your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Telemachus and his friendship with Athena features in the Wisdom Saga (5 songs), and Aeolus is only featured in one song, Keep Your Friends Close.

Content warnings: Violence and some dark themes throughout, implied SA and suicidal ideation in the Wisdom Saga.

Re: EPIC: The Musical

[(Anonymous)]

Posted by MimiHylea, forgot to sign the comment itself

Re: Clone High

[bring_me_sugar]

YESSS Clone High!

Secondhand Lions

[(Anonymous)]

Title: Secondhand Lions

Media: Movie

Approx length: ~2h

What is it, in summary?: A coming-of-age comedy-drama about a boy spending a summer on his uncles' farm and hearing about their adventurous past.

What do you love about it?: It has some very sweet found-family vibes as well as some fun comic relief, and the way it weaves the present-day story line and the flashbacks together is really well-done. The boy learning how to live on the farm without the tech/standard of living he's used to, and the uncles figuring out how to care for a kid, and them both learning from each other (and their pet lion) is just a delight to watch.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Found family dynamics between the uncles, their nephew, and the lion. Either working through how to live together as a family or fluff/shenanigans.

Content warnings: Per IMDB: Rated PG for thematic material, language and action violence

Posted by MimiHylea

Star Wars Rebels: Servants of the Empire - Jason Fry

[ambyr]

Title: Star Wars Rebels: Servants of the Empire - Jason Fry

Media: Four-book series

Approx length: Each book is under 200 pages.

Where to find it: All four books are available in ebook as part of Kindle Unlimited. (You can also buy them individually in paper or ebook, of course, but Kindle Unlimited is your cheapest option.)

What is it, in summary?: Servants of the Empire follows Zare Leonis, a young man growing up in a galactic backwater, as he begins to question the Empire he and his family have always served after his sister vanishes under mysterious circumstances. It covers three years of his life as he goes undercover at the Imperial Academy to try to find her, with help from his girlfriend, Merei, a slicer who's gathering information while playing cat and mouse with Imperial IT security experts (who happen to be her beloved parents).

It's about how ordinary people can justify terrible things, about what the slow creep of fascism looks like and why people do and don't choose to resist, about the psychological cost of long-term undercover work.

What do you love about it?: My favorite book is probably the third book, which really digs into Zare's interior struggle between his instinctive desires to be a good teammate to his fellow cadets and receive praise from the adult authority figures around him--balanced against his knowledge that all of them would sell him out in a second if they knew his real goals, and that the adult authority figures are (mostly) not good people. I also love Merei's plotline, which involves falling deeper into the underworld in her quest for intelligence that can help Zare and ending up over her head and doubting the morality of her own actions. It's a series deeply interested in questions about the ends justifying the means.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Post-canon fic looking at Merei's relationship with her mother and Zare's relationship with his sister in the aftermath of everything that goes down in the fourth book, probably!

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: No, you pretty much need to read all four books. (You do not need to watch Rebels, which this is a spin-off of. People who've seen Rebels may recognize Zare's name as a bit character from two early episodes; the novels cover both those appearances thoroughly from Zare's perspective. Everything you need to understand Zare's story is here.)

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Contains: fascism, speciesism against non-human aliens. This is a middle-grade series and remains appropriate for that age range throughout. Terrible things happen but not in graphic ways. There is no sexual violence.

The International Society of Infallable Detectives by Carolyn Wells

[evil_plotbunny]

Title: The International Society of Infallable Detectives - Carolyn Wells

Media: Short Stories

Approx length: 58 pages/ 5 short stories

Where to find it: Omnibus of all five stories at archive.org. Free to borrow, but you need to have an account. Some of the stories are available elsewhere without an account but I’ve not found a complete collection.

What is it, in summary?: In the 1910s, Carolyn Wells, a writer, humorist and Conan Doyle/Detective story fangirl wrote these pieces for magazines, in which many of the contemporary detectives had a club where they "solved" mysteries together.

What do you love about it?: I say "solved" because they end up taking their own methods to extremes and either someone else solves it for them or they stumble over the solution accidentally. Many of the detectives are still known by modern readers and the humor comes through.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: A new adventure possibly. If you're familiar with Carolyn's own mysteries, maybe insert either Fleming Stone or Pennington Wise, or other detectives who were active at that time (even if they weren't contemporary). The characterization is paper-thin, and the humor is what really drew me in. Make me laugh. I nommed 4 characters, but would probably request Any, because my choices were semi-random.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Each story is only a few pages, but you probably could get away with only reading one since each detective is reduced to stereotypes, but they're like potato chips.

• The Adventure of the Mona Lisa


• Sure Way to Catch Every Criminal. Ha! Ha!


• The Adventure of the Lost Baby


• The Adventure of the Clothes-Line


• Cherchez la Femme

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Period-typical sexism, though it's mostly the author skewering a group of white male detectives who think they know everything. Most of the "cases" involve missing objects or persons rather than more violent crimes. In one story, Sherlock Holmes is mentioned as having a hypodermic needle, though what he is using it for is not described.

Patty Fairfield by Carolyn Wells

[evil_plotbunny]

Title: Patty Fairfield Series - Carolyn Wells

Media: Books

Approx length: 17 volumes

Where to find it:
01) Patty Fairfield
02) Patty at Home
03) Patty in the City
04) Patty's Summer Days
05) Patty in Paris
06) Patty's Friends
07) Patty's Pleasure Trip
08) Patty's Success
09) Patty's Motor Car
10) Patty's Butterfly Days
11) Patty's Social Season
12) Patty's Suitors
13) Patty's Romance
14) Patty's Fortune
15) Patty Blossom
16) Patty – Bride
17) Patty and Azalea

What is it, in summary?: A series of books from the early 20th Century for girls aged about 10-16, starting when Patty is 14 and ending shortly after her marriage. Patty is alternately sensible and level-headed and surprisingly competent or fragile and takes on too much depending on the plot. The author is also known for adult mysteries (Patsy gets kidnapped in one of the series, but it's surprisingly tame) and humorous pieces and poetry, and these fall very much on the humorous side. (Disclaimer: the icon is from a different book series of the same era)

What do you love about it?: Even 100 years later, the author's humor shines through as she paints amusing portraits of what, for her, were modern day trends. Patty starts off in a rather didactic and possibly parody novel in which she visits 4 sets of family as she tries to develop a sense of "proportion" and see how other people live (ostentatious and spendthrift, bookish and busy, chaos and disorder, and moderation in all things). By the second book, this conceit has disappeared and the rest of the the novels string together amusing incidents (sometimes funny in themselves, sometimes skewering contemporary trends), and shifting away from the "proportion" conceit to a girl who has all the boys and young men falling at her feet and gets into amusing scrapes. She seems to change friend groups every few books, though it's more fluid than that and the boys are more likely to hang around than the girls.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Something amusing. Preferably in the author's style but not necessarily as long as the proprieties of the day are acknowledged. Knowledge of the time period is a plus.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: I've chosen characters who appear in the first book since I know committing to 17 volumes is unlikely, so you could get away with just reading one. I do recommend reading 2 & 3, because 2 is more representative of the series and 3 shows how the author will just throw away a carefully built up setting/characters to showcase Patty in a new setting. You'll miss some fun bits (Patty bets that she can earn money and we get some surprisingly detailed commentary about bad jobs of the time; Patty persuades all the boys to help her win a contest to get a motor car) and the introduction of her one true love, but that will give you a solid grounding.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Period-typical racism and sexism. There are points where Patty are in mildly scandalous situations of the day but not too racy for a book for tweens of the time. The main character's father (a widower) marries a young woman only a few years older than Patty, but everyone seems very happy with this (and it wasn't uncommon for the time). A few older men express an interest in Patty but this either means they're villains, or it's tempered by "but she wouldn't be interested in me" and courteously backing off.

Pennington Wise Series - Carolyn Wells

[evil_plotbunny]

Title: Pennington Wise Series - Carolyn Wells

Media: Books

Approx length: 8 Books

Where to find it:
The Room with the Tassels (1918)
The Man Who Fell Through the Earth (1919)
In the Onyx Lobby (1920)
The Come-Back (1921)
The Luminous Face (1921)
The Vanishing of Betty Varian (1922)
The Affair At Flower Acres (1923)
Wheels Within Wheels (1923)

What is it, in summary?: A mystery series comprised of 8 novels published between 1918-1923, following the cases of detective Pennington "Penny" Wise and his teenaged assistant Zizi

What do you love about it?: I picked these up because in the recent biography of the author, everyone seemed to think Zizi was one of Carolyn Wells' best characters. And she is. She's an actress, she's an artist's model for Pennington Stone in his day job, she's some complicated mix of sophisticated woman of the world and kid, she sits in the background and notices things, she asks impertinent questions, she gets into scrapes and gets out of them. In short, she's a complexly written teenager. She dresses in perfect taste, but all black (fashion for teens and adults was not that different at the time, and there are plenty of people creating/modelling that era on social media). She's got a magnetism that's hard to explain - when she's in a scene I find myself watching carefully what she says and does because I know it might be the key to unlock the puzzle. Pennington Wise is not without merit himself (he's got a sense of humor, he's clever, he's not dead weight), but he ends up being amusedly dragged along by Zizi's energy.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: More Zizi. I'm in love.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: You could probably get away with reading only one book, though I don't think the first is the best. The author tends to stand alone mysteries, each with a new cast (as was the style at the time), and Penny & Zizi rarely show off before the midpoint, but if you start there, you'll be missing some puzzle pieces

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Period-typical racism, sexism and other -isms. These are murder mysteries so there is some violence though it's not described in gory detail.

"Crossing the Water" by Gordon Bok

[joking]

Title: Crossing the Water by Gordon Bok

Media: Song

Approximate Length: 4 minutes 14 seconds. A true five minute fandom!

Where to Find It: Listen here.

Summary: The narrator is a sea monster / malevolent spirit / Death itself / something else up to your interpretation, singing about how you can never escape it no matter how far you try to row your boat. Maybe it's a metaphor about abusive relationships or the ephemerality of life, or maybe it's the Kraken about to eat you.

What do you love about it? It is so beautiful and so creepy, and hauntingly sad in its own way. I love how many ways you can interpret it; I've talked to several people about the song and I've heard a bunch of different takes on what it's about.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it? I just want to see all the different takes on who or what the narrator is, and what fate it has in store for "you."

Content warnings: It's just mega creepy. I sang it for my 6 year old cousin and she had nightmares afterward.

To Shape a Dragon's Breath - Moniquill Blackgoose

[joking]

Title: To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

Media: YA fantasy novel

Approx length: 511 pages

Where to find it: Wherever fine books and audiobooks are sold or lent out by your library.

What is it, in summary?: A deconstruction of the "magical boarding school" genre of YA. Anequs, a young indigenous woman, forms a bond with a wild dragonling and goes to a magical school about it.... against her will, because European colonizers will not allow an indigenous woman to bond with a dragon on her own terms. Anequs has to navigate a hostile colonial culture she does not understand in order to protect herself, her dragon, and her people.

What do you love about it?: As someone who became intensely disillusioned with Harry Potter and its various magical boarding school knock-offs years and years ago, reading this book was so cathartic. This book dares to ask, "what if magical boarding schools are colonial violence and must be destroyed?" Anequs is an incredibly cool, self-possessed protagonist, and the fantasy worldbuilding is deeply intriguing.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: I'm dying for some worldbuilding about the history of this world. I also adore Anequs's nonverbal autistic friend Sander and would love any fic about him.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Not really, you just gotta read the book.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Colonialism and racist violence.

Re: To Shape a Dragon's Breath - Moniquill Blackgoose

[taken_aback_by_tuesdays]

I just read this and it was amazing. Really love the worldbuilding.

A Sorceress Comes to Call

[teratornis]

Title: A Sorceress Comes to Call - T. Kingfisher

Media: Novel - psuedo-regency thriller/horror/fantasy

Approx length: 336 pages

Where to find it: Online and in-person book retailers (Amazon, Bookshop.org, etc), and likely at most local libraries in either physical or digital format.

What is it, in summary?: Cordelia has been raised in isolation by her mother, a cruel, controlling sorceress. When her mother's benefactor stops supporting her, she instead sets her eye on a wealthy squire for a husband. Together with the squire's sister Hester and some other allies, Cordelia must find a way to foil her mother's plotting and magic, and prevent her from hurting or killing anyone.

What do you love about it?: The characters and the relationships, and the way those relationships develop. None of the characters have the whole picture, and are so limited by their experiences and perspective, and reading about them all overcoming that really compelling. And, like any Kingfisher novel, the writing is delightful, and a little fucked up.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Post-canon interactions and introspection, mostly gen, maybe a bit shippy for the one canon romance. Possibly worldbuilding about sorcery.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Not really, no

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Deeply emotionally abusive and controlling (literally, as in magical puppeteering) parent, off-screen violent familicide, other violence, murder made to look like suicide, some body horror, violent off-screen animal death (sort of. He's not actually an animal even if he looks like one and he doesn't actually die, it's. . . complicated).