regshoe

I would like to write something properly long and plotty for Tobias/Gabin, but that'll have to wait until I've thought of a plot and got more of a handle on characterisation. In the meantime:

It’s not just where you lay your head (719 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Étoile (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tobias Bell/Gabin Roux
Characters: Gabin Roux, Tobias Bell
Additional Tags: Fluff, Pillow Talk
Summary:

Tobias finally finds a satisfactory Parisian pillow.

I've been enjoying reading through the tag, so have some fic recs:

( Some fic recs )

I've also been listening to the soundtrack via the very helpful official Spotify playlist. It's a great variety and lots of fun! Here are some of my favourites of the songs:

( And some music )

I received and wrote fic in the same new-to-me fandom, and very good fun it's been :D

My lovely 'Christabel' gift was by avaloncat555—thank you!

And I wrote the other Christabel fic in the collection, for flo_nelja:

The Twice-Stolen Child (2882 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Christabel - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Christabel's Mother/Sir Leoline, Christabel/Geraldine (Christabel)
Characters: Christabel's Mother, Sir Leoline, Christabel (Christabel), Geraldine (Christabel)
Additional Tags: Fairies, Changelings, Backstory
Summary:

The curious story of Geraldine’s true origin—and Christabel’s.

As with the last time I did threesentenceficathon, I was inspired to write a few things and then quickly ran out of steam, but I had a lot of fun coming up with ideas for the prompts and managed six fics this time, which I'm pleased with. Then I procrastinated on posting them for a while because that was too many fics to come up with titles for, but then I thought hey, I can just adapt the prompt for a title, right?

One of them is very nearly an accidental drabble at 101 words, but I thought it would be cheating to deliberately edit a word out at this stage; maybe one day I'll write a proper drabble.

( Six fics for Kidnapped (book and play), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Warm Hands of Ghosts and The Owl Service )

(I like Gilbert, and may write more about him in future if I can find an opportunity.)

I felt like my writing did not go brilliantly this year, so it's gratifying to go to my AO3 stats page and see that that's not entirely the case. I published twelve fics in 2024, and my total posted wordcount is 43,882—lower than the last few years, but really not that bad, especially considering the ~25k draft also finished but not posted.

And my total posted works count has passed 100. In fact it's currently 103 and was never (or at least never showed as) exactly 100, because number 100 was my Yuletide assignment and I then posted another two Yuletide fics which were all revealed as mine at the same time, but never mind, it's something to be pleased with! Here are the last few fics running up to that total, which I didn't share here at the time:

( A few fics )

At the end of the year I also wrote a ficlet for one of my occasional Raffles Christmas cards, which I've just posted on AO3 now:

A Ham Common Christmas (420 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bunny Manders/A. J. Raffles
Characters: Bunny Manders, A. J. Raffles
Additional Tags: Christmas, Fluff
Summary:

Raffles and Bunny receive an unexpected present.

:)

All right, here it is.

I've wanted to write this crossover for ages, ever since first thinking, hmm, Helena is a Sister at a hospital, Ella is a Sister at a hospital, surely they know each other!... and I think these four characters turned out all to suit each other pretty well.

I don't think you need to know both books to understand this fic, but be advised that it does spoil the endings of both.

The Spirit of Enterprise (3227 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jill - E. A. Dillwyn, Peccavi - E. W. Hornung
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gilbertina Trecastle/Sister Helena, Nurse Ella/Gwynneth Gleed
Characters: Gilbertina Trecastle | Caroline Jill, Sister Helena, Nurse Ella (Peccavi), Gwynneth Gleed
Additional Tags: Future Fic
Summary:

Four ladies meet for tea at a London flat.

This fic is something I was originally thinking vaguely of writing for Yuletide, but there ended up not being time during the exchange, so here it is as a New Year's Resolution. :)

The idea came from combining garonne's Yuletide letter, which mentioned ‘fic that shows little snapshots of characters' lives over a long period of time’ as a like, and her own fic ‘A-Roving No More’, which does just that so well, on the one hand; and on the other hand, the historical future of Allan Breck Stewart—who never returned permanently to Scotland, but lived out the rest of his days in France. What might our Alan and David’s long future look like in that world, thought I?...

And knowing what to keep (12134 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: David Balfour/Alan Breck Stewart
Characters: David Balfour, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, POV outsiders
Summary:

Over many years, the laird of Shaws makes a choice.

(The title is from Kenny Rogers’s ‘The Gambler’, via the play soundtrack, but this is otherwise entirely a book fic.)

My amazing Kidnapped gift was, as I had suspected, by verecunda! Aww, thank you so much, it really is the most lovely story <3

And my Flight of the Heron Madness treat was by sanguinity, whose authorship I did not suspect (though it makes sense, thinking about it)! Thank you for such a beautiful birdy gift :)

I am also pleased to see that the other two guesses I made in my recs post were both correct.

As to what I wrote...

I was delighted to match to thrillingdetectivetales, who was also requesting NTS Kidnapped and who had a lot of AU-related ideas, particularly some kind of magical AU... I had some fun thinking over what sort of fantasy AU might suit both my strengths as a writer and the canon and characters; in the end I went back to my favourite kind of magic, did a little more research on Highland folklore and wrote this:

False Gold and True Silver; or, An Leannan Sìth (10931 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kidnapped - McArthur & McCarthy & Stevenson
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: David Balfour/Alan Breck Stewart
Characters: David Balfour, Alan Breck Stewart, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Fairies, Getting Together
Summary:

Davie and Alan seek refuge from the pursuing redcoats in what proves to be a very strange place indeed.

I loved edwardianspinsteraunt's request for Howards End femslash, and especially the prompt of Margaret meeting Ruth's ghost at Howards End; I've long thought this book is really a ghost story and I couldn't resist the chance to make that a bit more literal...

Fragments of Her Mind (3691 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Howards End - E. M. Forster
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Margaret Schlegel/Ruth Wilcox
Characters: Margaret Schlegel, Ruth Wilcox
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Ghosts, Minor Character Death, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

Afterwards, at Howards End, Margaret and Ruth get another chance.

And finally, luzula had mentioned a while ago her dislike for NTS!Alan's moustache; of course that immediately gave me the idea of writing a fic where he shaves it off, and it turned out there was a lot of story potential in thinking through what circumstances might lead him to do so. luzula did not actually request the fandom for Yuletide, and my original plan was to post as a non-exchange gift, but the way the timing ended up working out I thought it would be fun to stick it in Madness as a little extra :)

A Happy Disguise (1987 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kidnapped - McArthur & McCarthy & Stevenson
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: David Balfour/Alan Breck Stewart
Characters: Alan Breck Stewart, David Balfour
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Facial Hair
Summary:

With his face on a Wanted poster, Alan—with Davie’s help—contrives a new means to avoid being recognised.

Well, here we go! This is the prologue of my Flight of the Heron/Kidnapped crossover longfic, which is about 117,000 words long and which I hope to post shortly under the title

That Loyalty of Friendship. Being the Adventures of David Balfour, Ewen Cameron and other Notable Persons in and about the Year 1753: How Keith Windham saw a Quarrel made and mended; how Mr Balfour took a bold Step, and suffer’d a great Misfortune, in which there was yet a great Happiness; the History of Alan Breck Stewart and Dr Archibald Cameron, with divers other Jacobites; of Falsehood and Truth in Friendship and Politics; and treating also of Amity and Love between Jacobite and Whig.

(I had a great struggle trying to come up with a title, but realised I was taking the wrong approach: what it really needed was a mock-eighteenth-century overly-long title in the style of Kidnapped itself! I'm quite pleased with this one.)

I decided to post the prologue as a separate work on AO3, as motivation for myself, a preview for you, and to preserve the chapter numbering (I don't think AO3 will let me call the second 'chapter' Chapter 1). It's not posted on the website yet, as there'll be no need to separate out the prologue there and I still need to figure out the structure and HTML coding for the rest of it.

Prologue: A Meeting on the Road (1263 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson, The Flight of the Heron - D. K. Broster
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: David Balfour, Alan Breck Stewart, Ewen Cameron
Additional Tags: Crossover, Missing Scene, Post-Canon
Series: Part 1 of That Loyalty of Friendship
Summary:

On their way through Appin after fleeing from the scene of the Red Fox's murder, David and Alan meet a familiar friend.

:)

raremaleslashex creators have revealed!

My lovely Armadale gift was by isevsianne, whose writing I am very happy to have been introduced to here—thank you :)

The excellent Kidnapped fic was by verecunda, which I correctly guessed! And the also excellent FotH fic was by garonne, which I did not guess at first, but decided was more likely thinking it over afterwards.

I was very happy to see The Longest Journey, an obscure fave of mine for years and years that I'd never worked up the courage to write fic for, in the tagset, and so I finally got to write it when I matched to phantomtomato. :D And I loved re-reading the book and writing this happy fix-it for Rickie and Stewart.

The Circle at the Centre (2550 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Longest Journey - E.M. Forster
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Stewart Ansell/Rickie Elliot
Characters: Stewart Ansell, Rickie Elliot
Additional Tags: Getting Together, Implied Fix-It
Summary:

An evening in the Ansell home after Rickie’s return there; or, Stewart develops his philosophy.

As for the book itself, my re-read has generated thoughts which I will write about here at some point—for now, here's an out-of-context excerpt which some of you may find amusing:



[er, this book was published in 1907; that's not Forester's Hornblower, to be clear!]

raremaleslashex includes art and podfic as well as fic, and it suddenly occurred to me when I was signing up that hey, I record podfic, I could offer podfic! So I did; obviously I ended up matching on fic, but I thought it would be fun to do one or two short podfic treats, and thinking over the two Flight of the Heron requests and the stories I had in mind as possibilities for podficcing, I hit upon the elegant idea of recording one of garonne's and one of sanguinity's stories, each as a gift for the other. :D

[Podfic] Comfort Me With Apples (9 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Flight of the Heron - D. K. Broster
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham
Characters: Ewen Cameron, Keith Windham
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Codes & Ciphers, Established Relationship, Long-Distance Relationship, Podfic, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes
Summary:

'Then it must be a cipher that none will suspect as a cipher,' Ewen answered stubbornly. 'Surely we can manage that.'

On the eve of war, Keith and Ewen devise a code to keep their letters private.

[Podfic] Ostend (9 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Flight of the Heron - D. K. Broster
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Podfic, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes
Summary:

Keith and Ewen meet on neutral ground, in an inn on the Flemish coast.

Exchange podfic is kind of a strange thing, because obviously it's not at all anonymous if one is creating for people who've heard one's podfic before (podficcing for a stranger in a new fandom might be different!). I like the mystery and speculation of the anon period with writing (even when it's not that much of a mystery), and I think I would feel unsatisfied with podfic as my only work in a multi-medium exchange, so doing these as treats worked very well.

Then I had to scramble at the last minute of posting them to find a way of uploading the files anonymously—box.com, my usual site, shows your username on shared files and I couldn't figure out a way to get it not to. Happily I recalled that Fastmail provides file sharing as well as email, and it doesn't show your email address, so that worked; and in fact I think I like the interface and aesthetic better than box.com, so I may just use Fastmail anyway in future.

On the visit to Cramond Island that I made when I was in Edinburgh to see Kidnapped, I hoped to gather material for a fic that I could set there. It turned out to be an excellent setting for a fic, and so here is the result :D

As the Tide Was Flowing (4329 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: David Balfour/Alan Breck Stewart
Characters: David Balfour, Alan Breck Stewart
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, There Was Only One Coat
Summary:

At Shaws, David and Alan go for an outing—which doesn't quite go according to plan.