The Life and Times of El

I like to think of this post not as insanely late for yuletide fics, but as a timely reminder that the archive is actually open until november, when Yuletide 2010 cranks up. Which I will totally be doing. This was my first year of Yuletide, and it was tremendous fun! (Except for the actual writing down of the fic, that happened, as always, on the day before it was due. Procrastination dies hard.) But the Yuletide reveal was truly wonderful, even though I wasn't there on the actual day. Yuletide is like getting your own Christmas present, and then being able to play with everyone else's too! So I have been spending a lot of time on the archive, reading things in fandoms I don't usually read, and collecting links. Here they are!

I wrote The Red Arrow for Thevina, a backstory fic about Rohan and Gondor becoming friends. Lots of obscure Tolkien details, be warned.

I received Jocasta's Soliloquy and a giftfic, Five Ways Medea Lost Herself (to/with Jason). Awesome ladies in Greek mythology, hurrah!

And now for the recs! Organised by fandom, under cuts because they are numerous.

( Greek and Roman mythology )

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( Tortall )

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( Shakespeare )

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( 30 Rock )

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( Blackadder )

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( xkcd )


And that will be enough for today. Incidentally, happy Republic Day and happy Australia Day, if you're celebrating them.

To my yuletide writer,

Firstly, thankyou in advance for writing a fic for me! This is my first year doing yuletide and I hope I'm doing everything right, having read the FAQs and submitted my form twice today.

The General Stuff

Here is my LJ for your researching pleasure, my fics have their own tag, if you're interested. http://www.fanfiction.net/~enelya is my old fanfiction.net account, I put it on the form because I have a lot of my favourite fics linked there, if you wanted to know what sort of style I like (in short... varied. Not very helpful, sorry.)



I'd like gen but het or slash is fine too. I like humour fics but serious is fine too.

Essentially, what it says on the tin - I will read slash or het, but I really have a soft spot for gen because it doesn't get nearly as much attention as the first two. I like fics about friends or siblings. When I read slash or het I want to focus on the romance and interaction between the characters, sex scenes I can take or leave, to be honest.

I love humour when it's sly wit or sarcasm, rather than slapstick. I'm not a big fan of unremitting angst and darkness, but I love a story with a twist ending, or one that is bittersweet. I want characters to earn their happy endings. Crackfics are fine. AUs are fine and fun (I wrote part of the Silmarillion if all the characters were zombies, I can't talk). More than anything, I like reading about minor characters and about the 'bits in between' of fandoms - I love it if a fic can fill a gap in my fanon.


Please no: really explicit sex (if it's rated M and below it will be fine but I'd rather concentrate on the romance, if that's what you're writing) rape, non-con, or shota.

This comes in with my preference for genfic - I like a good, hot sex scene, but I'll happily read a fic without it. I don't want to read about characters doing anything sexual that would get them arrested in the real world, as listed above. (Good) sex is good, but it's not everything.


Characters: Any

I set all of my fandoms to this because within those fandoms, I would happily read about any of those characters. What I put in the request boxes are just suggestions for things I've wondered about, but if you're more comfortable writing about a completely different character, I'll be happy to read about them too.


Fandom #1 - Mythology - Greek and Roman


What I'd like to see: Prometheus! He did so much for humanity (fire, for example) and did not end very happily as a result. You could write about what made him bring fire to humans, and if he regrets it when he's stuck on that mountain having his liver eaten every morning. Medea is fascinating, not always good but not quite evil either, I'd love to hear more about her. Hera generally gets a bad time in Greek myths, perhaps you could tell her side of the story?


Poor Prometheus, too clever by half to fit into the world as ruled by Zeus. I'd love to hear what he thought about humans when they were first created, and what made him give them fire (pity? Curiousity? Mischief-making?). Maybe he looks at us now and regrets it...

I've loved Medea since I had to read Medea by Euripides at school - yes, she did some horrible things, but I don't see her as an inherently evil person. She grabs life with both hands and gets what she wants out of it, or if she doesn't she tries at least (which is more than I can say for a lot of Greek heroines). Medea ends up being exiled from her home, left by her husband, her children dead by her own hand and she's branded a witch and a villainess by most of Greece - and I would love to get inside her head, in any stage of her life. She's amazing. (For the record, I think Jason is an ass. Just so you know.)

Hera is towards the bottom of the list of my favourite characters in Greek mythology, since she's quite the jealous woman - but of course, it's not her fault that her husband will have sex with anything that moves. I'd like to find out what made her start punishing the equally-blameless mortal women that Zeus sleeps with. Did she want to protect her own children's birthrights, or did she want to make Zeus jealous? (not that it worked...) Anything that throws a little more light on Hera would be good.



Fandom #2 - J R R Tolkien - The Silmarillion and other history of Middle Earth

First I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, then I loved the books, then I found out there was a whole other set of books about the backstory! And I love The Silmarillion for not only being a backstory for LOTR, but for being a beautiful, tragic set of stories in its own right.


No immediate-family incest unless you're writing Turin/Nienor, which is canon anyway (I don't have a problem with cousin-cousin incest in this fandom).


I worded this rather oddly, by 'immediate-family incest' I mean between siblings or between parents and children. Turin/Nienor is the only case of sibling incest in the Silm canon, but they didn't know it at the time and things ended very badly for both of them. I have no issues with cousin incest in this fandom, since Maedhros/Fingon is one of the main OTPs.


What I'd like to read: I'd love to see any of the Sindar characters going about their lives in Doriath - Beleg, Nellas, Mablung, Nimloth, Dior, Melian, Thingol. Or the Feanorians causing havoc and mayhem, as they normally do. Or a story about Numenor and its Downfall.


In the Silm fandom, everyone loves the Noldor - and I do too, but I love the Sindar as well and I want them to get their time in the Sun. The Sindar did, after all, live in Beleriand while it was still only lit by stars, and they were the first to fight against orcs and other of Morgoth's monsters. I'd like to see how Sindar characters react to change - whether it's meeting the first monsters, or meeting the Noldor as they return to Middle-earth.

I like the Feanorians because I find them so much fun to write - despite their best efforts, things never end well. This can be comic or tragic, but I love the tension and impending doom that overshadows everything they do. If only they could let go of those Silmarils...

Numenor is a story of how humans make their own fate, and how that's not always a good thing. I would love to see some political intrigue and morality that comes in shades of grey. What I'd love to see here is conflict, whether it's between two political factions or within the hearts of Numenoreans.



Fandom #3 - The Incredibles

The Incredibles is an awesome movie in its own right, but it also pokes a lot at the superhero genre (and in a lot more upbeat fashion than Watchmen, I must say). I love it because it shows that superpowers more often lead to superproblems that supersolutions, and that supers are complex and flawed like everyone else. Also, it has a killer soundtrack.


I'd love to know more about Mirage - what's her superpower, how did she end up working for/with Syndrome? Or on the other side of things, what happens to her after the end of the film? Does she start working with the Incredibles, or with the government? Does she keep going on with Syndrome's work, or does she strike out on her own? Or you could write about the other supers that had to go undercover. how did they cope? What do they think about the Incredibles going public again? Or you could write about the Incredibles and how they cope with growing up and fighting crime together, or if they split into parents and kids teams.


Mirage is someone that intrigued me but we never found out much about her in canon - I don't think her superpower was even mentioned, nor her reasons for joining Syndrome or what she thought about supers in general. She was treated like a classic villain henchwoman who redeems herself in the end, but I can't help thinking that there was more to her than met the eye... anyway, anything that gives her more detail would be excellent.

Apart from the Incredibles, the only other super that has a major role in the film is Frozone, but we know there were tens or hundreds of supers being superheroic and such before they had to go undercover. I'd love to know how they adapted to their new lives (or didn't), if they too secretly fight crime, what they thought of the Incredibles going public and how they'd react if offered the chance to be a superhero again. Syndrome also killed a lot of supers testing his robot before he got to Mr Incredible - maybe their stories are like his, or maybe completely different...

Given the sort of life the Incredibles lead before they went public as superheroes, living in a household with three children who are rapidly growing up and fighting crime would lead to all kinds of mishaps... also, we didn't see much of Jack-jack but I'd love to see him teaming up with his brother and sister.


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I hope this helps, oh yuletide writer, and if you get stuck with these prompts please remember that I really will read a fic with any of those characters in it. Most importantly, please enjoy yourself while writing, it's what we're all doing it for! See you on the 1st of January, 2010...