Kivrin

I noticed a few months ago that my preferred way of sitting on the floor has changed.

I used to really like to have one or both of my knees pulled up to my chest. It was such a characteristic pose that when my father was traveling and found a pin with a picture of a woman sitting that way on it, he bought it for me.

These days, though, I really like sitting cross-legged.

It's easy to put this down to ways my body has changed over the past several years. On the other extreme, it feels Pollyanna-ish to read it like my therapist does as 'increased comfort taking up space.'

Hello, Yuletider!

My name on AO3 is also Kivrin.

I will be so very happy to see fic in any of the fandoms I've requested. I've babbled a bit about what I love about each, and listed some prompts, but please don't feel limited by those if there's something else in the fandom that you're drawn to write.

What I like best: I love stories that fit into the interstices of canon - aftermaths of canon events, elaborations of references to past events, backstories, explorations of what-was-happening-back-at-the-ranch-while-[insert other action], and things like that. I love found families and deep friendships, so in romantic stories I particularly like it when the romantic partners' other relationships (friendly or familial) also play a role. Hurt/comfort, particularly with both physical and emotional elements, and with stoic or older characters needing to accept aid from others, is my bulletproof narrative kink.

Things I'm not fond of: Stories in which suicide plays a prominent role are very difficult for me to read, and at this point I don't want to read nominated-character death, please.



ADAM DALGLIESH (novels by P.D. James)
Requested Character: Adam Dalgliesh

I'm fascinated by Dalgliesh the poet and policeman, and his combination of great reserve and great sensitivity. My absolute favorite novel of the series is Unnatural Causes, for the examination of his uncertainty about his romantic relationship, his warm yet understated relationship with his aunt, and the only glimpse we ever get of his poetry.

Character exploration or backstory, or not-necessarily-romantic relationship examination, is what I'm most interested in, though casefic would be amazing!

Specific Prompts:
- How does being a vicar's son influence his adult tastes and personality? We know he likes church architecture, but what about liturgy and music?
- I'm curious about his brush with mortality just before the novel The Black Tower, and would love a story exploring that.
- How did he decide to become a police detective? What was he like as a green young constable? (In other words, show the Endeavour to the novels' Inspector Morse.)


FOYLE'S WAR
Requested Characters: Christopher Foyle, Paul Milner

I love this canon's mix of well-deployed period detail and complex characters. Lately I've been intrigued by the professional and personal bond between Foyle and Milner, as shown in the episode "The Funk Hole" (series 2 episode 4) when Foyle's been suspended on a charge of sedition and Milner risks his own good standing to bring him information about the ongoing investigation. My very favorite scene, though, is probably at the end of "The White Feather," when Foyle tells Milner "I can't do this bloody godforsaken job on my own... what I want, starting now, is for you to be with me one hundred percent."

I'd be glad to see their relationship explored as either a friendship or a romance, though in a romance I feel Foyle would probably be very scrupulous in personal interactions about the power differential between them due to his higher rank in the police, and being Milner's boss.

Specific Prompts:
- Backstory for the pair of them. Milner says in the first episode, "you asked me to work for you once... I said no." What happened there? What was their previous experience of each other?
- Casefic where an injury or illness has Foyle confined to bed and he has to play the armchair detective while Milner does the hands-on observation and interviewing.
- Milner's final two appearances disappointed me; his attitude seemed out of character. I'd love to see a warmer post-war interaction between the two of them, whether on a case or strictly socially.


MANHATTAN
Requested Character: Liza Winter

I've really enjoyed the first series of this show exploring the challenges of life at Los Alamos, and particularly the situation of the scientists' families. Liza Winter, who gave up her own scientific career to follow her husband to New Mexico, is my favorite. She's in a particularly challenging position in that her interests and temperament align her with the scientists working on the project, but security concerns limit her ability to connect with them, even - especially - her husband.

I'm very curious about her life before Los Alamos, but her view of life on the Hill is interesting to me as well.

Specific Prompts:
- How did she and Frank come to get married? How do they talk about their respective intellectual passions when the U.S. Army isn't always figuratively in the middle of the conversation?
- What was her experience of WWI and how does it affect her view of the current war?
- Canon shows us very little interaction between Liza and her daughter Callie; what is that relationship like? What are Liza's hopes and fears for her daughter?


Thank you so much, and happy writing!

Foyle's War, series 8/9

( spoilers for series 8/9: High Castle, Trespass, and Elise )

In which Anthony Horowitz suddenly remembered how to tie A, B and C plots together.

( spoilers, sir )

I wrote three stories for my first Yuletide.

The first, my assignment, was for The Bletchley Circle:

Clerical Work
They said, afterwards, that they’d done clerical work at Bletchley. They said that they were friends. Both were a little bit true.

Or, as my lovely recipient put it, "Susan being thoughtful, Millie being grumpy and smug and just very Millie in general, Lucy being so very darling and Jean as a matchmaking matriarch who knows and sees all. Period detail, gorgeous writing and a liaison in a storage cupboard."

(I'm particularly please with Jean as a matchmaking matriarch, myself.)


and two pieces for Foyle's War (because I am nothing if not predictable):

The Faithful
March, 1932. A meal at Carlo's restaurant brings encouragement to a grieving Detective Inspector Christopher Foyle.


A Good Work
“Crime is horrible,” Sam said, after a moment, “but isn’t it better that there should be good people working to stop it? And doesn’t that… matter, as much as making munitions or nursing casualties?"
[A missing scene from "Eagle Day" (series 1, episode 4)]

Hello, Yuletider! This is my first time at this rodeo and I am very excited both to write and to see what others write.

My name on AO3 is also Kivrin.

I will be so very happy to see fic in any of the fandoms I've requested. I've babbled a good deal here about what I love about each, and listed some prompts, but please don't feel limited by those if there's something else in the fandom that you're drawn to write.  You'll see there are a disproportionate number of prompts for Foyle's War - that's because I requested Any character there and so wanted to be sure to have prompts for characters individually as well as in combination, not because the other canons are of less interest to me!

What I like best: I love stories that fit into the interstices of canon - aftermaths of canon events, elaborations of references to past events, backstories, explorations of what-was-happening-back-at-the-ranch-while-[insert other action], and things like that. I love found families and deep friendships, so in romantic stories I particularly like it when the romantic partners' other relationships (friendly or familial) also play a role. Hurt/comfort, particularly with both physical and emotional elements, and with stoic or older characters needing to accept aid from others, is my bulletproof narrative kink.

Things I'm not fond of: Stories in which suicide plays a prominent role are very difficult for me to read, and at this point I don't want to read nominated-character death, please.


FOYLE'S WAR
Requested Characters: Any (Andrew Foyle, Christopher Foyle, Paul Milner, Samantha Stewart)

( what I love about it )

( Foyle's War Prompts )


ADAM DALGLIESH  (novels by P.D. James)
Requested Characters: Adam Dalgliesh

( what I love about it )

( Adam Dalgliesh prompts )

QI RPF
Requested Characters: David Mitchell

( what I love about it )

( QI RPF prompts )


FAKE NEWS RPF
Requested Characters: John Oliver, Andy Zaltzman, Jessica Williams

( what I love about it )

( Fake News RPF prompts )

Thank you so much, and happy writing!

The keyword for this icon is "Andrew" and when I scrolled through the list I thought "wow, when did I upload an icon of Andrew Foyle?"

I am actually considering signing up for Yuletide. Because Foyle's War. If I understand correctly, one can submit nominations without contracting to participate, so I could nominate FW, PD James' Adam Dalgliesh novels, and Something LM Montgomery, without necessarily condemning myself to a December of insanity.

What it actually says: seeking volunteers for a research study, blahblah qualifications, time/travel reimbursement available.

What I read: TIMETRAVEL reimbursement available.

***

- A lifetime of reading (mostly) amateur-sleuth mysteries is poor preparation for a police-procedural fandom, especially a very small one where there aren't fannish resources. I need a 20th-century law-enforcement equivalent of What Charles Dickens Ate and Jane Austen Knew.

- There appears to be no P.D. James fic in the world. Not even from Yuletide. Not even based on the dramatizations. I sort of expected there to be a small but devoted circle of Adam Dalgliesh/Cordelia Gray shippers writing multi-part curtainfic.

- Department of meta jokes: This bit of Acorn Media's "hey look at all the videos we'll sell you" montage, in which Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison says "Don't call me ma'am, I'm not the bloody queen" and there's a cut to Michael Kitchen as Christopher Foyle saying "Well, unfortunately, the evidence suggests otherwise."

- Apropos of the above, should The Doctor turn up, B&R and I are going to see tiny!baby!Helen Mirren in the 1965 National Youth Theater Antony and Cleopatra, with tiny!baby!Michael Kitchen in a small role. (And then we'll go see Antony Sher's Richard III and Patrick Stewart's Othello and the original cast of My Fair Lady and Liam Neeson and Laura Linney in The Crucible and...)

- Department of Foyle's War spoilers, Series 7/8 (depending on numbering) Ep 1: The Eternity Ring: ( Read more... ). Short version: still not planning to take anything after V-E Day as canon.

- I would really like to see the other scripts Anthony Horowitz apparently wrote for 1943 and 1944 but had to throw out due to ITV being all "hmph, only one more series for you."

- Connected only by WWII, Strange Glory by Charles Marsh is a very good life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It's... well, it's pretty grim, because Nazis, and there's a good deal of fairly serious theology covered, but it's readable and informative and I'm glad I'm reading it as my first Bonhoeffer bio and not the Eric Metaxes one.

It appears that "All Clear" is to Foyle's War what "The Gift" is to Buffy, by which I mean "a point at which things could have ended in a coherent focused way, after which there is some flailing for direction that is at times extremely wince-y and involves characters acting like totally new people, who are assholes."

...maybe there's a "Once More with Feeling" still to come, and Sam does have extremely nice hair in "The Russian House," but... I am predicting that I am going to spend quality time with the episodes up though V-E Day and will watch everything else once and then pretend it never happened.

Recently finished Longbourn by Jo Baker, which is highfalutin' professional Pride and Prejudice fanfic. I say that in no pejorative sense. It is focused on the servants in the house, and their own lives and concerns of the heart which must be squeezed in around hauling water and doing horrendous gobs of laundry (menstrual rags for five women, sweet Jesus have mercy.) It's very good. The narrative is primarily centered around the housemaid, but there is a lengthy digression into the footman's backstory which is quite violent, so be aware of that.

Also recently read Time for Tea by Erica H. Smith, which is a very satisfying time-travel novel with mystery and relationship elements. I described it on Goodreads as being situated in the Venn diagram overlap between Kage Baker and Connie Willis, specifically the elements of both which I most enjoy. There's the future-worldbuilding-and-politics of Baker and the historical-detail-and-emotional-compellingness of Willis. I'm in a semi-anonymous gift exchange right now and I've bought a second electronic copy of the book to send to my recipient. (The recipient I know to be a fan of the Outlander books by Diana Galbadon, which is of course a totally different and to my mind far less satisfying genre of time-travel story.)

I'm in the middle of Tamora Pierce's first Beka Cooper book, Terrier, and I'm enjoying it very much. I loved the Alanna books back in the day but I haven't kept up very well with Pierce's later work. I really enjoy how the culture and especially the religion of Tortall have more detail and texture in this book.