Yuletide Reveals
This year I received a delicious woman-centric Benjamin January Mysteries fic by Nary called Escargots. Thank you so much, Nary! Your story was superb casefic, and I loved every minute of it!
I only wrote two stories, my assignment and a pinch-hit. I never did get to write any Yuletide Treats. Still, those two stories ended up totaling 18,261 words. So...not bad.
Come the Good Peasant to Cheer (14th Century CE England RPF) for angevin2.
AU. Edward the Black Prince--now Edward IV of England--has been king for four years. Now the peasants have rebelled, the Black Prince wants to declare war on them all, and his stubborn, determined queen, Joan of Kent, is desperately trying to prevent utter disaster.
angevin2 asked for an AU. This was her prompt:
"The AU where the Black Prince lives. How does that work out for everyone? Is he really all that and a bag of chips or is his disastrous regency in Aquitaine a bad sign? How does Richard turn out if he doesn't have to be king when he's only ten? Does he end up having major political differences with his father? Is Joan of Kent as awesome a queen consort as I suspect she'd be? Does John of Gaunt end up being the unsung hero of the reign? If you don't want to write AU, though, any fic with this group of characters will be terrific. (Any others you wish to include as well!)"
I decided to start with the idea that the Black Prince didn't die of dysentary as the result of an infection he picked up in an army camp; instead, he recovered and was crowned king when his father died. At the time that the story begins, he and his wife Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, have been king and queen for almost exactly four years. Richard, their only surviving son, is now fourteen and is not fighting with his uncles because he's trying to be a monumentally strong king; Anne of Bohemia, Richard's wife of six months, is fifteen, sweet and shy. Everything seems fine...
...and then the Peasants' Revolt breaks out. And Edward's response here (as it was in real life in Aquitaine) is that rebellions need to be crushed militarily, and as swiftly as possible.
I have to admit that Joan's response--to meet with the peasant leaders and talk to them--was unquestionably the result of seeing many, many protests from August 2014 on. Over and over, the poor and disregarded asked for quite reasonable things--justice, equal treatment before the law, for people to just LISTEN--and those in power mocked them, publicly admitted to lying, and harassed people for even daring to say that the protesters had a point. I was thoroughly sick of this contemptible behavior by the time I got my assignment, and I decided that Joan, for extremely pragmatic reasons, was going to listen to the peasants.
Despite my love for cracktastic AUs, this one is straight-up historical. It's an alternate history, yes, but I did my best to make it plausible. Oh, and the title comes from a medieval song quoted in the story.
This story surprised and pleased me by being one that a fair amount of people liked. (People often don't read historicals, especially gen ones, so I wasn't anticipating anyone liking it except for angevin2.)
And this was my other story:
A Haven of Iron (Tam Lin -- Traditional Ballad) for angelan.
After being kidnapped as a child and raised by fairies, Tam Lin has a difficult time adjusting to life among humans once more.
Haven was a last-minute pinch-hit. I grabbed it because the ballad always seemed to be unfinished; Janet frees Tam Lin from Faerie, but the Fairy Queen is left cursing both of them. Janet has chosen and fought for Tam Lin, but Tam Lin hasn't chosen Janet or the mortal world. I wanted to follow the story to its logical conclusion and see Tam Lin growing to love Janet, their child, and this world.
This one seems to have been liked by those who enjoy fairy tales as well as fans of the ballad. It got fewer hits but more comments.
And that's it...unless I do some New Year Treats, which I hope to do. I have at least four stories lined up.
I only wrote two stories, my assignment and a pinch-hit. I never did get to write any Yuletide Treats. Still, those two stories ended up totaling 18,261 words. So...not bad.
Come the Good Peasant to Cheer (14th Century CE England RPF) for angevin2.
AU. Edward the Black Prince--now Edward IV of England--has been king for four years. Now the peasants have rebelled, the Black Prince wants to declare war on them all, and his stubborn, determined queen, Joan of Kent, is desperately trying to prevent utter disaster.
angevin2 asked for an AU. This was her prompt:
"The AU where the Black Prince lives. How does that work out for everyone? Is he really all that and a bag of chips or is his disastrous regency in Aquitaine a bad sign? How does Richard turn out if he doesn't have to be king when he's only ten? Does he end up having major political differences with his father? Is Joan of Kent as awesome a queen consort as I suspect she'd be? Does John of Gaunt end up being the unsung hero of the reign? If you don't want to write AU, though, any fic with this group of characters will be terrific. (Any others you wish to include as well!)"
I decided to start with the idea that the Black Prince didn't die of dysentary as the result of an infection he picked up in an army camp; instead, he recovered and was crowned king when his father died. At the time that the story begins, he and his wife Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, have been king and queen for almost exactly four years. Richard, their only surviving son, is now fourteen and is not fighting with his uncles because he's trying to be a monumentally strong king; Anne of Bohemia, Richard's wife of six months, is fifteen, sweet and shy. Everything seems fine...
...and then the Peasants' Revolt breaks out. And Edward's response here (as it was in real life in Aquitaine) is that rebellions need to be crushed militarily, and as swiftly as possible.
I have to admit that Joan's response--to meet with the peasant leaders and talk to them--was unquestionably the result of seeing many, many protests from August 2014 on. Over and over, the poor and disregarded asked for quite reasonable things--justice, equal treatment before the law, for people to just LISTEN--and those in power mocked them, publicly admitted to lying, and harassed people for even daring to say that the protesters had a point. I was thoroughly sick of this contemptible behavior by the time I got my assignment, and I decided that Joan, for extremely pragmatic reasons, was going to listen to the peasants.
Despite my love for cracktastic AUs, this one is straight-up historical. It's an alternate history, yes, but I did my best to make it plausible. Oh, and the title comes from a medieval song quoted in the story.
This story surprised and pleased me by being one that a fair amount of people liked. (People often don't read historicals, especially gen ones, so I wasn't anticipating anyone liking it except for angevin2.)
And this was my other story:
A Haven of Iron (Tam Lin -- Traditional Ballad) for angelan.
After being kidnapped as a child and raised by fairies, Tam Lin has a difficult time adjusting to life among humans once more.
Haven was a last-minute pinch-hit. I grabbed it because the ballad always seemed to be unfinished; Janet frees Tam Lin from Faerie, but the Fairy Queen is left cursing both of them. Janet has chosen and fought for Tam Lin, but Tam Lin hasn't chosen Janet or the mortal world. I wanted to follow the story to its logical conclusion and see Tam Lin growing to love Janet, their child, and this world.
This one seems to have been liked by those who enjoy fairy tales as well as fans of the ballad. It got fewer hits but more comments.
And that's it...unless I do some New Year Treats, which I hope to do. I have at least four stories lined up.