skygiants

I am extremely excited to announce that my Yuletide gift this year inaugurated the Crossroads Series tag on the AO3: Let us go then, you and I, a fic about how vet student Laurie and a vengeful warrior Griffin met and entered into a tragic interspecies relationship that by the time the actual books begin is in full swing and never explained!

Laurie would never, later, admit this to him, but her very first thought was: Aslan?

"I won't refuse it," Laurie said. Thought: I deeply resent how much less fun being the heroine of a doomed romance is, compared to reading about it at thirteen.

I'M SO HAPPY.


As you may remember, I rediscovered the Crossroads books, an obscure portal fantasy series about vet students who go perform minor surgeries in a constantly endangered fantasyland, earlier this year. I had no expectations that I would ever receive fic for it; a million thanks to my mystery author for proving me wrong.

While we're talking about books I loved in the 90s: one of my other best holiday presents this year was a set of Fionavar Tapestry cover art, from genarti. I'm mentioning this because a.) I'm extremely delighted b.) I NEEDED A SEGUE AND HEY, HAVE WE ALL HEARD ABOUT THE FIONAVAR TV SERIES? I am still trying to sort out how I feel about this, but I definitely have some basic requirements:

- amazing 80s hair for everyone, but especially Kim
- I expect serious commitment to the tragic Arthurian threesome and by that I mean Arthur and Lancelot had better make out by the end
- the CBC had better not cut Dave's law notes, the best joke in the series
- if Paul doesn't make someone cry in the first episode then honestly what is even the point

FIONAVAR FRIENDS, please tell me your hopes, fears, and dreams about this thing that is apparently happening!

ETA: And now I have a surprise Madness treat as well! Conversations with Righteousness, which very impressively manages to explore a whole bunch of the things I most wanted to see about Orth and Aria and Righteousness and The Shadow Of Ibex in several quick readable chatlogs.

Orth: Do you want to remember where you end and Righteousness begins? Here’s my advice, for whatever it’s worth: remember where your costume ends and you begin. Yours isn’t a suit, but you’ve still got one. Don’t become it.

A YULETIDE THAT KEEPS ON GIVING. :DDDD

Wow, I super did not expect so many people to be into these write-ups of the Fionavar Tapestry, but I'm GLAD YOU ALL ARE because we are now hitting The Wandering Fire and it is probably my favorite of the books!

( Or, if not my favorite, at least the one containing the most plot elements that make me shriek for -- a number of reasons. Let's just go with that. )

Recently I decided it was time to reread Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan, now and forever subtitled in my head A Tale of Three Sexy Religions.

Al-Rassan is basically Romanticized Fake Al-Andalus. Romanticized Fake Al-Andalus maintains an uneasy balance between Fake Christianity (Jaddite), Fake Islam (Asharite) and Fake Judaism (Kindath), so naturally we have a sexy protagonist from each of these three faiths.

Rodrigo Belmonte: Jaddite war leader and mercenary, so sexy that as soon as he comes home from a campaign his wife kidnaps him, ties him down in a shed, stabs him with an arrow and has her way with him

Jehane bet Ishak: Kindath doctor, so sexy that one look at her hot surgery skills is enough to cause naive young soldiers to fall madly in love with her and decide to center their entire lives around her

Ammar ibn Khairan: Asharite poet, assassin and statesman, so extremely super sexy that when he rides into a city to stop a massacre he immediately gathers a crowd of fangirls shouting "DO ME AMMAR"

A lot of politicking means that Rodrigo, Jehane and Ammar all end up working for the same ruler in one of the fake Islamic city-states. Jehane meets Rodrigo and Ammar independently and finds both of them extremely sexy, but that is nothing compared to what happens when Rodrigo and Ammar's eyes MEET ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM. Guy Gavriel Kay spends at least two pages describing them staring at each other in Instant Soulmate Recognition, and because I am a terrible person this is the point at which I started laughing out loud on the subway, because it is total Mercedes Lackey-style lifebond. (And, in fact, since Rodrigo and Ammar are both based on historical figures, you can make a fairly strong argument that this whole book is Guy Gavriel Kay's El Cid/Ibn Ammar mystical soulmate RPF.)

No, but it's very poignant! There is basically an epic doomed emotional threesome between Jehane, Rodrigo and Ammar (only an emotional threesome, though, because Rodrigo has a hot wife at home) set against the backdrop of the Tragic Fall of Beautiful Cosmopolitan Al-Rassan to the Forces of Fake Christian and Fake Islamic Religious Intolerance, Shame About Those Nasty Crusaders and Desert Fundamentalists. (There is no Fake Jewish religious intolerance, the fake Jews just spent a lot of time being intolerated at.) There is a lot of beautiful imagery and sad poetry and elaborate politics and dramatically noble sacrifices and it's all very Guy Gavriel Kay at his most Guy Gavriel Kay-ish.

I was kind of disappointed that no one ever told the tragically doomed threesome that if they were lucky they would all be together in the next life in Fionavar.

So.

Around this time last year, I was feeling vaguely un-great. And so I made an offer.

Right now, I myself am doing pretty well, albeit in a crazy busy sort of way - but a lot of you people I care about are going through tough things, and when you guys are sad, that makes me sad, too. I wanted to take the time to go through innerbrat's love meme earlier this week and tell you all about your fabulousness, but every time I opened up the page a little voice shouted "No time for love, Dr. Jones!" in my head and I reluctantly closed it down and went back to my reading/take-home midterm/thesis draft.

After today, though, life hopefully slows down a bit, at least for a week - and so I am repeating my offer from last year. If there's something I can do to make you happier, this post is a place for you to request it. I will write fic, both new requests and old ones I never got around to doing and forgot about; I will make icons; I will tell you my thoughts on yaoi; I will upload music that reminds me of you or that I think you would like; or, if you want, just tag in and I will tell you some of the myriad reasons why I think you are awesome.

Please don't be shy about taking advantage of this. I really want to do stuff for you guys, because you all mean a lot to me.



And for the time being, I will trundle back to my thesis chapter, the completed draft of which must be done today before I go off to see Titus Andronicus tonight. I got into a pretty good thesis-writing groove last night before I fell over, so here's hoping I can manage that again!