Another Day In Suburban Paradise

Yes, I wound up writing Neverwhere again for Yuletide, but it's a fun fandom to write for, so I have no regrets.

In this one, I play a bit with Marquis backstory, ditto for Hunter, and have the crew run afoul of the Oxford Circus and its mysterious Ringmistress.

The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning (19634 words) by Sophia_Prester
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Richard Mayhew, Marquis de Carabas (Neverwhere), Door (Neverwhere), Hunter (Neverwhere), Serpentine (Neverwhere)
Summary:

Some stories have many beginnings and many endings, and it can difficult to tell one from the other.

What can be said is that in the middle of this particular story, Door learns that finding her sister is not the same thing as getting her back, Richard struggles to come to terms with his new calling, and the Marquis may have forgotten something very important.

Christmas itself was actually quite relaxing (more on that later), but I spent a good 15 hours yesterday Being Productive. This included errands (Bed, Bath and Beyond makes me lose my faith in humanity), the emptying and re-organizing of every single drawer and shelf in the bedrooms, cleaning, ironing, paperwork, hanging blinds, etc. etc. etc. Today, after I go do my workout, I'll be able to collapse and spend some time browsing through the Yuletide archive.

Speaking of Yuletide, I'm counting this year as a solid win.

One, my recipient LOVED the fic I wrote for her. I'm quite pleased myself with how it turned out, especially given that I was still doing major work on it through Christmas Eve morning.

Two, I received not just one but TWO fics in the fandom I had mentally tagged as "least likely to receive" out of all my requests! Both are for "Sapphire and Steel," which is a delightfully creepy British sci-fi series from the late 70s/early 80s starring Ilya Kuryakin and Patsy David McCallum and Joanna Lumley. Anyhow, what's especially delightful is that each author picked a different aspect of the prompt I left, and I got two very different and very wonderful stories.

One is a nicely creepy story that explores some of the (many) unexplained aspects of the show's world, gives the spotlight to a character I adore, and has an OC who could fit perfectly into the original show. The other is a pitch-perfect Discworld crossover that plays the characters from both verses against each other perfectly (Silver and Nanny Ogg? Brilliant).

If you have any familiarity with the fandom at all, I highly recommend both of these.

In Darkness (4870 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sapphire and Steel
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Silver (Sapphire and Steel), Sapphire (Sapphire and Steel), Steel (Sapphire and Steel), Plutonium
Summary:

Silver doesn't like assignments that begin with him alone in a place where nothing is as it seems. These things shouldn't happen to a technician, especially not more than once.

Of Elements and Existence (2642 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sapphire and Steel, Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Steel (Sapphire and Steel), Sapphire (Sapphire and Steel), Silver (Sapphire and Steel), Death (Discworld), Mustrum Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons, Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax, Gytha "Nanny" Ogg
Summary:

There are some places even Elements should never go. The Discworld is unquestionably one of them...

It took a while, what with some other projects (including SPN RBB), but I finally have the next card in this series:

( Card #1 - The Magician )