Yuletide Recs 2

[selenak]

Incidentally, from the writing/reader reaction side, I'm having the worst Yuletide ever. Not because of the recipients, who wrote lovely, long and detailed comments, which made be very happy - for a day. And then as time went on I had to notice that with each of the three stories I wrote in three different fandoms, only one person other than my recipient commented, and I haven't even gotten double digit kudos so far. For any of the stories. None of which, I have to add, was written half heartedly or at the last second; I loved writing each, the assignment and the treats, did research for each, worked on each, am proud of each. This never happened to me before. I'm going through the usual rigmarole, telling myself "small fandoms", or "maybe the summary sounds wrong", or "maybe you should have added more tags", and what not. But in the end, I fear it comes to monumental indifference to my writing. Which makes it somewhat hard to enjoy Yuletide in 2017, she says, sobbing melodramatically in her hankerchief.

Still: there's my reading self, very pleased to have found the following stories:

Historical Fiction:

Praying Nuns, Weeping Queens: half direct historical fiction, half inspired by Shakespeare's histories, all intriguing AU in which the medieval clergy is all female while the Wars of the Roses wind down, and Elizabeth Woodville makes a terrible discovery. Or two. The story pulls off its premise with style and deft characterisations.

American Gods:

War Paint: I loved the subplot road trip for Laura, Mad Sweeney, and Salim the tv show added to book canon, and this story is a great "slice of life" glimpse at those three and their dynamic.

Bride of the Rat King:

Talking Pictures "Bride of the Rat King" is probably my favourite standalone Barbara Hambly novel, and this delightful story shows us Norah and Alec a few years later, when sound arrives at the cinematic scene and confronts them with a different type of magic.


Carrie:

No peace in the kingdom of women: Carrie rejects Tommy's offer, so Sue has to come up with a different way to atone. Captivating, well-drawn AU.

If you see her, say hello: Sue moves on, or tries to.


Defenders:

Freedom: a character portrait that weaves Elektra's past and present into a coherent, captivating tapestry

Exile on Main Street: fantastic Jessica-centric lengthy story set post Defenders (and at a vague point in the future when Matt is, well, you know). It does justice to all her relationships, uses bits and pieces from the Alias comics in a way that works with the MCU (Jessica and Luke having to play bodyguard for Matt for a while, Jessica having a rebound affair with Scott Lang), no mean feat considering the differences in set up, and is the ideal way to spend the time waiting for Jessica's own show to come back.

Comments

[trobadora]

I'm going through the usual rigmarole, telling myself "small fandoms", or "maybe the summary sounds wrong", or "maybe you should have added more tags", and what not. But in the end, I fear it comes to monumental indifference to my writing.

Ack, I know how frustrating that feeling can be. It's happened to me plenty of times. I don't know which fandoms you wrote in, obviously, but a lot of it definitely comes down to fandoms. (Or to pairings, within fandoms. With some fandoms, if you write outside what is considered the main point of interest, most people won't care.) Another part is just that commenting seems down in general. And a third part is that sometimes, there's no reason, and you simply have bad luck. I hope yours will get better over the next days, or if not, then next year! *hugs*

[selenak]

*hugs back*

[muccamukk]

Agreed with it def comes down to the fandoms. I'm very pleased with the stories I wrote, which all have single digit kudos except for the one in a larger (but still small) fandom which has 15 (hooray!).

I expect that they'll sit at the bottom of my stats page, and be appreciated by the handful of people who have heard of the fandom.

But I've NEVER had a bit yuletide hit, either.

[rachelmanija]

People seem to be commenting way less this year. It's really frustrating.

[selenak]

Verily!

[thawrecka]

I've been trying to tell myself to stop checking my fic because it's not going to get more comments or kudos than it got on the first day, but it's so hard to remind myself. I did check all the fic for that fandom, though (one of the larger of the small fandoms) and nobody seems to have gotten much in the way of hits or kudos, even the people who wrote ship fic, so at least I know it's not just me.

[selenak]

I thought that comments in general - for all stories, that is - were fewer each Yuletide, but this year it really seems to be massive. And, alas, the same goes for kudos(es).

[vilakins]

Toft also said she's had very few comments on hers, so maybe there's some reason like there being more fics, or people leaving kudos rather than commenting?

[selenak]

They‘re not leaving kudos, either, though...

[lilacsigil]

It seems to be a low-comment year all around. But I loved "Exile on Main Street", too! It was indeed the perfect place-holder until the show comes back.

[selenak]

Yes indeed.

[daybreak]

Sorry about your Yuletide woes! I know the feeling. I remember I researched and everything and my recipient didn't even comment. No one commented until they put my story on the 'no one commented list'. :-/

It's tough. This year I didn't participate because I could only find three fandoms I could write in and the requirement was four. It's hard to find fandoms I know. But after this post I'm going to try!

Chin up!

[selenak]

I had non-commenting recipients in previous years, but then other people commented. Maybe I can‘t have both? My recpients this year were all three lovely people who commented in great detail on the first day, which was awesome.

[lokifan]

That does suck. My 2016 fic for a big Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy fest was one I thought was good... and it got the least comments in that fest. And I'm not generally all that invested in comments, but the fact that I compared enough to know that says it all :P