all among the nodding trees

I just spent three days on a gratuitously detailed yet strangely vague post about beauty and personal hygiene for Terrors. Not AMC The Terror fans (I think you all have that covered) but fictional versions of hunky 1840s Royal Navy sailors and their pals.

( Aka, Ska's slow'n'wordy guide to 1840s skincare, haircare, and lube; the opposite of quick and dirty because time means nothing to me any more. )

Happy Yuletide! In accordance with the seasons, here is my annual tl;dr Yuletide letter -- feel free to incorporate as little of it as you like. I'm skazka @ AO3 and my past letters can be found here. If I'm nominating more than one character in a fandom, feel free to write about any requested character alone; ditto for including other unrequested characters in addition to my requested main characters.

( Likes, Dislikes, and DNWs )

( Fandoms: The Little Stranger, Mary Reilly, The Turn of the Screw, AMC's The Terror )

This year for Yuletide:

Oranges & Lemons (AMC The Terror)
Characters: Captain Francis Crozier, Commander James Fitzjames, Captain Sir John Franklin
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Winter, Missing Scenes, Misguided Friendship Overtures
Summary: New Year’s Eve, 1845: Crozier drinks punch and mulls his options on Beechey Island.

turn not thy back to the compass
Relationships: Harry D. S. Goodsir/Cornelius Hickey
Characters: Cornelius Hickey, Harry D. S. Goodsir
Additional Tags: Mutiny Camp Era, Mutual Hurt/Comfort, Scurvy Blowjobs, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Goodsir takes stock of his practicals.

kiss the rod
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Cornelius Hickey
Characters: Captain Francis Crozier, Cornelius Hickey
Additional Tags: Dream Sex, Alcoholism & Recovery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Major Character Undeath, Prophetic Visions, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Crozier’s past has come back to haunt him before, but not quite like this.

an ill-sheathed knife
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Cornelius Hickey
Characters: Cornelius Hickey, Captain Francis Crozier
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Mutiny, Cannibalism, Pillow Talk, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Scenes from the private affairs of one Cornelius Hickey.

a sweete stroke on the lute
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Cornelius Hickey
Characters: Captain Francis Crozier, Cornelius Hickey
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Jacobean Dramatists, Sexy Stringed Instruments, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Crozier is a Jacobean theater impresario. Hickey is a play-patcher intent on taking him for a ride.

In non-Terror fandom news:

Close My Mouth (The Servant 1963)
Relationships: Tony/Hugo Barrett
Characters: Tony (The Servant 1963), Hugo Barrett
Additional Tags: Additional Warnings Apply, Power Dynamics, Yuletide Treat
Summary: This is Tony’s house, and the pair of them are the only living creatures in it.

deep red bells (The Stand - Stephen King)
Relationships: Nadine Cross/Randall Flagg
Characters: Nadine Cross, Randall Flagg
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hitchhiking, Additional Warnings Apply, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Nadine learns what she can about the great love of her life.

The Non-Belligerents (A Separate Peace - Knowles)
Relationships: Gene Forrester/Phineas “Finny”
Characters: Gene Forrester, Phineas “Finny” (A Separate Peace)
Additional Tags: Fix-it fic, Post-War, POV First Person, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Finny and Gene after VE Day.

beneath the golden hill (The Talented Mr. Ripley 1999)
Relationships: Tom Ripley/Peter Smith-Kingsley
Characters: Tom Ripley, Peter Smith-Kingsley
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-it fic, Domesticity, Confessions, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Tom and Peter, partners in disguise.


Out of the number of fics I enjoyed massively this year, I'd like to rec these:

Skin and Stone by scioscribe -- The Awakening 2011, 3k. Lovely post-canon casefic that serves as a showcase for Florence’s growth and independence as well as a shockingly swoonworthy depiction of her relationship with Robert. Great subdued ghosts.

cross the bridge as it burns by arbitrarily -- Babylon Berlin, 3k. Eerie many-layered journey through Gereon’s conscious and subconscious mind, wonderful canon tone and use of the theme of hypnosis. Plus, Charlotte/Gereon. [dreamy sigh]

Lucky Charm by galadriel -- Eastern Promises, 3.1k. Postcanon, Nikolai helps Kirill out in the shifting landscape of what’s left after his father’s downfall. Melancholy, gritty, and ultimately relieving.

Animal Magnetism by deepandlovelydark -- The Good The Bad And The Ugly, 3.3k. Night after night, Tuco and Blondie play out the story of their old escapades, with occasional visits from beyond the grave. Slashy, funny, and a kickass Tuco character study.

I Went To Your Wedding by karaokegal -- Hail Caesar!, 3.9k. Hobie and Laurentz make it happen, with oodles of enthusiastic rope bondage and cameos from all the best scummiest reporters of silver-screen 1950s Hollywood.

Lion Rampant, Contourné by yeats -- The Lion In Winter/12th Century CE RPF, 1.6k. A great, textured, quietly sinister study of Eleanor’s mothering and Richard’s coming of age. (Coming-to-be?) Lovely and fitting missing scenes for the ultimate Christmas canon.

Sir I Believe You Dropped Something by Jackalope80 -- The Philadelphia Story, 3.4k. Wonderful witty every-which-way postcanon flirtations between Tracy, Mike, and Dex, nails the canon’s sense of time and place and has a gay bar interlude (!!!!), my greatest love in all things.

Someone Else’s Music by bakcheia -- The Picture of Dorian Gray, 3.8k. Lord Henry Wotton is visited by a familiar-looking spirit and Wildean shit happens. Killer atmosphere and wonderful muted melancholy.

You Are Who You Say You Are by scioscribe -- AMC The Terror, 10k. Hickey finds work as impromptu surgeon’s mate and a moral-ethical sea change begins to take place, coincidentally at the same time as he and Goodsir are falling in love. A great, cautious, and above all earned patch of redemption.

Night comes a-calling by lilliburlero -- The Night Manager, 9.2k, dense and multilayered and twisty Pine/Roper with the kind of wit and sharp edges this writer does especially well.

(I didn't get to rec these pre-reveals but scioscribe also wrote Always Be Somewhat Suspect, a pitch-black character study of Guy Woodhouse from Rosemary's Baby and his willingness to make a bad bargain, and Happy Families Are All Alike, which explores the landscape of VC Andrews' Flowers in the Attic brilliantly and bleakly.

I'm going to try and post here more often, since my weird brand of content was never that suited for Tumblr-style short-format posts anyway, but I've been saying that for at least three years at this point so who knows how it'll go. I'm hard at work on Yuletide as well as other things irl that are considerably less fun than Yuletide, like moving and dealing with job stress.

I need to get my streaming logins in order (rip, Filmstruck, I never even got to know you) but as it is, it's been a weirdly film-less few days and that's almost relaxing in its own way. It means I can't really canon review, though, unless you count the rather marvelous early script draft for the pilot of AMC's The Terror that francienolan on Tumblr turned up. Hickey has eyes like a caffeinated saint, La Vesconte chokes on a biscuit, Fitzjames tells tedious "leaping into the water to save a drowning man" anecdotes rather than that time he got shot.

I don't really have any non-exchange fic currently on my docket, but I'm working on a Picture of Dorian Gray/Dracula crossover for a belated Trick or Treat gift and it's forcing me to fancast Paul Ready as both Basil Hallward and Jack Seward. I don't care that it doesn't make chronological sense, I just really like Paul Ready. Share with me your own Dracula dreamcasts, please, if you feel inclined.