the deep moans round with many voices

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write a context-free sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)

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( General Information )

Okay. On to specific fandoms.

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( The Darkangel Trilogy )

( Saga of the Skolian Empire )

( Daredevil (Comics) )

( The Dispossessed )

And that is that. Thank you again, and happy writing!

A couple days late, but let me point you toward my four (!!!) lovely and wonderful Yuletide gifts! You should go read them and shower love upon the writers!

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First, three beautifully clear, understated, and painful stories about Rulag and Palat (Shevek's parents) from The Dispossessed, which I am going to chew over for a long time and which will vastly enrich my experience of the book on my next reread:

Letters From Abbenay (1601 words)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rulag/Palat
Characters: Rulag, Palat

Summary: "She only knows denial. How to deny the possibility of coming home." - The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin

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Serving Truth A Little At A Time (1480 words)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rulag/Palat
Characters: Rulag, Palat

Summary: "She [Rulag] had the engineer's clarity and pragmatism of mind as well as the mechanist's hate of complexity and irregularity." - The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin

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The Joys of Solidarity (190 words)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Rulag, Palat

Summary: Denial and learning it.

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Second, somebody finally wrote me a Lions of Al-Rassan fic, and it is the bittersweet foursome canon-divergence AU of my heart:

Moon, Sun, Stars over Sorenica (5641 words)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Jehane bet Ishak/Ammar ibn Khairan, Miranda Belmonte/Rodrigo Belmonte, others
Characters: Jehane bet Ishak
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Fix-It of Sorts, Canon Divergence, Turn-left canon-based AU, Polyamory, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical mentions of war, Canon-typical religiosity, Canon-typical race and religious issues, Canon-typical medical procedures, Unconventional marriages, Disability

Summary: They're celebrating Jehane bet Ishak's birth day when they hear the news about Al-Rassan the Beloved.

snowflake_challenge day 2:

Share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul.

Many over the years, but I'm going to say Ursula Le Guin in general, because she did that to me twice. The first was The Tombs of Atuan, which I read when I was... probably eight? Could have been seven or nine, but eight sounds right. I picked it up at random in my school library, and while I wouldn't necessarily say it knocked me for a loop (I was a bit young for that), it was, I think, a very lucky early counter-argument to the reams of male-centric swords-and-horses stories I read subsequently: a quiet voice always there in the bedrock of my mind, saying, "There are other ways."

Some years later (I think I was twelve or thirteen), I read The Dispossessed and that one DID knock me for a loop -- less for the anarchist stuff than for the structure of the thing and how it balances and tie in to the themes and the emotional arc, plus the richness of the worldbuilding in general, and also of course the characters and the very believable-feeling descriptions of alien science as a lived experience. I walked around for a couple weeks with a good quarter of my brain constantly chewing over that book, while I tried to stumble through the rest of my life and not give away how utterly distracted I was.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write a context-free sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.

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

( General Information )

Okay. On to specific fandoms.

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( The Dispossessed )

( Lucifer )

( The Lions of Al-Rassan )

( Black Jewels )

And that is that. :-)

So I got TWO presents this year! An embarrassment of riches!

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First someone Firerose wrote me a story about Laia Asieo Odo, from "The Day Before the Revolution," which is a short story by Ursula Le Guin that acts as a kinda-sorta prequel to The Dispossessed. Both stories are set in the Ekumen (aka the Hainish Cycle), and deal with the twin planets of Urras and Anarres, and a thought experiment about how utopian, communitarian anarchism might possibly be made practical.

A Necklace of Acorns: (collection link) Only cast pearls before swine if a necklace of acorns becomes you (Sayings of Odo). Glimpses into the life of a revolutionary.

This is an awesome and wonderful exercise in world-building, character, and some of the politics and cultural baggage implicit in the setting of the novel and the short story, and you should go read it immediately and heap praises upon the author!

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Second, someone fresne wrote me a story set in the world of Meredith Ann Pierce's The Darkangel trilogy, which is about vampires on the moon. (Only a thousand times better than that summary makes it sound, I swear to god -- it's about fairy tales and myths and quests and female empowerment and friendship and all kinds of amazing stuff like that. Plus did I mention it takes place on the moon? Because yeah.)

Sons for Every Daymonth: (collection link) Her first son was fair of face,/ Her second son was full of grace,/ Her third son was full of why,/ Her fourth son had has far to go,/ Her fifth son might have been loving and giving,/ Her sixth son worked hard for a living,/ But her seventh son was bonny and blithe and good and gay. She had problems with that one.

These are the stories of the other six icari, who weren't as lucky as Irrylath and lost their souls forever. It is also the story of a world slowly falling apart as the White Witch's baleful influence spreads and the links between domains come apart. Go heap praises upon this author too!