The Turtle Jourtle

Happy International Fanworks Day, all!

As in 2021 and 2022, I am celebrating by posting recs from an assortment of fandoms and covering each of three fanwork categories. This year, since crossovers seem to be the theme of AO3's festivities, I have included at least one crossover in each category. Also, this year I'm offering a few more recs, so that there will be more content from the two fandoms I know I have in common with most of my readers. I hope you'll see something you like.

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U is for Untitled



This week, I read two fics that I will not be writing up: one starting with L and worth 27 points, and the other starting with Y and worth 21 points. If you are unbearably curious about why I'm leaving these out, you can send me a private message, and I'll explain. (No, it's not because they are smutty.)

The first piece I will be writing up today is Winter Solstice, Camelot Station by John M. Ford. This is a prose poem that began its life as part of a Christmas card from the author to a friend and was later published in several anthologies. As the name suggests, it is based on Arthurian legend. I'm not going to claim that all modern interpretations of Arthurian legend are fanfic (though if you wanted to claim that, I also wouldn't contradict you). I think this one counts, however, since it appears to draw from another published 20th century interpretation, The Once and Future King.

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All your car doors are frozen shut.

M is for Monkey Suits With Satin and Lace, S is for The Steppes of Central Asia Affair, G is for The Gemini Factor



Those of you following these posts may notice that I did decide to mark crossovers that draw from fandoms in two different categories. The squares representing those fics are colored mostly with the color of what I consider the main fandom of the fic, but a corner of each square is colored to represent the other fandom.

Most of my reading time during the period I'm covering today has been devoted to crossovers, in fact, starting with The Gyptian Caravan Affair and The Steppes of Central Asia Affair, the first two fics in Taylor Dancinghands's (tdancinghands) trilogy UNCLE Through the Aurora. This is Man from U.N.C.L.E. daemon fic, meaning it uses the idea of daemons from Philip Pullman's book series His Dark Materials. This fic is also set in the chief alternate world from that series (which not all daemon fics are). I'm a fan of daemon fic, and I enjoyed that element of these stories. Indeed, I think they did a very good job of weaving the presence of daemons into the plots. The plots themselves were well paced and interesting and had a definite resemblance to Napoleon and Illya's adventures in canon, reimagined for a fantasy setting. The characterizations of our heroes were also good (though the supporting OCs were perhaps a bit stereotypical). In short, these were very well made fics. That said, there was something missing for me. I really can't identify what it was. The fics just felt a little inert. Nevertheless, I do intend to read the final installment of this series at some point. 20,596 words and 13,894 words. Both NS/IK slash.

(Curiously, there are 10 or so daemon fics in Man from U.N.C.L.E. fandom, but apparently none in Professionals fandom. I hope to write some for Pros someday. I have a number of ideas.)

I also read Quaint, a Doctor Who fic by kathkin. This is a short, partly humorous, partly serious account of a conversation between Zoe and Jamie, the Second Doctor companions. It was insightful and I enjoyed it. 2,035 words. Gen.

Monkey Suits With Satin and Lace by Joana Dey is a Professionals fic. I have to say that I didn't like this much at all. The characterizations didn't work for me (weepy Doyle!), and I have issues with the ending. 2,134 words. B/D slash.

On the other hand, I had a grand time reading The Gemini Factor by Russ. This is a crossover between The Professionals and the film Who Dares Wins starring Lewis Collins. It is somewhat unusual in being told in the first person, which was definitely the right choice for the story it tells. That story is engrossing and unravels at just the right rate. There are both compelling emotions and some wonderfully cinematic action late in the story. 25,868 words. B/D slash. Particularly recommended.

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C is for Cold War (and prequels), R is for Rift, F is for The 'Fine and Private Place' Affair, M is for More Deaths Than One, D is for Dreamed That Man Was I, D is for Dream a Highway



I have a lot of fics to write up today. Most of them are things I have read before and gathered into my Beloved Collection. I guess I've been in a mood for stories I know I like.

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After reading Spiderweb, I remembered another MFU fic by Cord Smithee that I had enjoyed: Wicked. This is an episode coda for The Fiddlesticks Affair. It includes some interesting proposed backstory for Illya and some very good interactions between our heroes, as well as ideas about the future of the episode's innocent, Susan. The story has a lot of sex in it, but I found it compelling anyway. 4,465 words. NS/IK slash with het. Particularly recommended.

Tonight I finished the Professionals fic Island Innocents by Glen Fiddich. This was a fun, slow-paced story, with a lot of time devoted to interaction between Bodie and Doyle as they explore the story's picturesque setting. The characterizations of the Lads were well done, as were those of the supporting characters, who were all distinct and vivid. This is an established relationship story, which I liked. The drama of a forming relationship makes a good story element, but I enjoy seeing the Lads' relationship in other phases, too. 54,462 words. B/D slash.

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Now that I've finished my final fic bingo card of the year, I am ready to introduce the new game that I will be playing in 2023.

I enjoyed fic bingo. I liked being challenged to read fics I would not have otherwise in order to cover all the letters, and I liked sharing my feelings about what I read. Yet there were a few things that I disliked. The principle one was that fic bingo discouraged me from reading fics, particularly long ones, that started with a letter already filled on my bingo card. Another was that it made me less likely to read short fics, because I wanted to boost the total words for each bingo round. A third, minor one is that I was discouraged from reading fics starting with numerals. (I also found that I spent too much time choosing and tweaking the images to represent each fic on my bingo card, but that is not an inherent flaw in fic bingo, but rather in how I chose to play it.)

My new game, the Million-Word Fanfic Challenge, is designed to correct these issues while preserving the good features of fic bingo. In this game, the object is to read one million words of fanfic across all fandoms while fulfilling minimum word counts for each letter. The minimums only add up to 375,000 words, however, so there is lots of room to read extra fics for any letter.

I hope some others might enjoy playing this game, too. Feel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested. Happy New Year!

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I've finished my second round of Prosfic bingo. I read 27 stories (including two for the letter S) that totaled 463,432 words. Today, the five I would most recommend are:

Till a Bullet Stopped His Song by Callisto
The Keeper of Secrets by Jackie Thomas
Calibre by JGL
Reconsiderations by PFL / msmoat
Special Men by sineala

I also admire Decrescendo by erushi, but with some hesitation, as discussed (with spoilers) in this post and its comments. If not for that it would have been among the five top recs.

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J is for Just Enough Rope, Q is for Querencia

I continue to chomp through the fics I selected.

Under Surveillance by Ellis Ward starts out with Bodie and Doyle surveilling a lesbian colleague. I liked that part; I've always wondered why there aren't more fics in which some of the female CI5 agents are lesbians, as it is clearly implied in Long Shot that some of them are. The rest of the fic I felt neutral about, except for one aspect that confused me. I think there might be some text missing from the story, as there is an event referred back to twice that is never actually described. 5,774 words. B/D slash.

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V is for Vignettes Under Calico Skies

Yesterday evening, I picked out a fic for every letter that I have left on my bingo card. Many of the fics are on the shorter side. I want to be sure to get this round of bingo finished by the end of the year, and I've been chewing through fics more slowly lately than I do sometimes. Among the shorter fics on my list, the ones I read tonight were the three shortest. It was that sort of evening.

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