nomadicwriter | Entries tagged with yes minister

Yuletide reveals are here again! This year I got into a new-to-me fandom, The Brokenwood Mysteries, just in time to add it to my requests, and received a delightfully spooky story for it, Breakdown by Arazsya, which is in that vein of mundane detectives meeting the supernatural that I always love. I also managed to write five stories myself, having initially aimed for three but finished the third with a few days left to spare. All in all, a pretty successful year!

Communication (Always Leaves Me Incomplete) (Ludwig, 1750 words, John/Lucy-ish)

John has boxes of files to try and sort out, as well as some other things that are a bit more complicated.

I ended up matching with the same person I've written a couple of Ludwig treats for before and already had a pretty clear concept for this fic in mind, but it still turned out to be a little tricky to write as it was my first time writing from John's POV. Conveying ambiguous UST from the POV of a character who can't tell it's there is an interesting challenge! Also, I seem to have started a minor tradition of using songfic titles from 60s-80s songs for my fics in this fandom, for some reason.

And Threaten Present Blusters (Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators, 5800 words, Frank/Lu)

A tale of two stakeouts, one elderly burglar, and the importance of savoury baked goods in a relationship.

I actually matched my recipient on two different fandoms and decided I wanted to try and write fics for both, especially since there's very little fic for this fandom and almost nothing for the ship, so I thought they deserved some version of a get-together arc. I struggled for a summary and don't love the one it went live with, though it's miles better than what I had before. At least titling fics for this series is easy, given it's just a matter of digging out a fitting quote! I quite liked this one.

The Money Tree (The Brokenwood Mysteries, 6550 words, gen)

The discovery of a body at the old cement works leads to a dangerous confrontation.

Having requested this show before I'd had time to finish watching it, I was still scrambling to get through the last few seasons while Yuletide was ongoing, so I especially wanted to try and treat the one other person to request it (who incidentally also turned out to be my writer) while it was still fresh. Summary and title were again a bit of a struggle and I feel like what I ultimately picked was a little bland, but at least it didn't go live with its placeholder title of "In the Works"! Hoping to write more fic for this fandom this year both in and out of exchanges, since it has a great ensemble cast of recurring characters that are giving me lots of ideas.

General Inspection (Blackadder, 2000 words, Blackadder/Darling)

Baldrick attempts to bring some Christmas cheer to the dugout with a touch of greenery. Well, brownery.

I wasn't initially planning to write for Blackadder again this year, but I saw one of my past recipients pop up as a late pinch hit and then finished my three planned fics with a few days left to spare, so I thought I should have a go at spinning something up. Since there wasn't really time to come up with an elaborate plot and the recipient was up for Christmas-themed fic, I went for some under-the-mistletoe silliness. For Blackadder Goes Forth values of 'mistletoe'.

Snow Job (Yes Minister, 1950 words, gen)

Something has to be done about the snow. Unless it doesn't.

I enjoyed writing for Yes Minister last year but really didn't think I was going to have time to do it again, since I had all of one day left after prioritising the Blackadder treat. However, the requester repeated a prompt from last year and I discovered I'd actually written some early notes for it back then before I was diverted by picking up a different YM request as a pinch hit. I had most of the dialogue for Humphrey's conversation with Ian scribbled down already, and so wrote the rest of the fic around that. Glad I went for it in the end, because it seems to have gone down pretty well!

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Next up on the schedule,

caseficexchange! It's running a little earlier this year, and I hope it'll only continue to grow after the successful first year. I had fun with it last time and now have another new detective fandom to throw into the mix this year, so looking forward to having another regular exchange to do annually alongside Yuletide! Also hoping there might be a prompt or two in

candyheartsex I can write some treats for, as signups have just opened today.

Yuletide reveals are upon us! This year I was unusually organised and rewatched a bunch of potential fandoms earlier in the year instead of trying to cram everything in November, so I actually ended up signing up again instead of just treating. Which worked out well for me, since I received a delightful Drop the Dead Donkey fic, The Hero We Deserve by brutti_ma_buoni!

My plan for my own writing was to have a nice relaxing time writing my main assignment in a fandom I know well and then attempt some treats at my leisure. Then my assigned fic got very long and ambitious, I picked up a late pinch hit in a fandom I've never written before, still wanted to tackle a couple of my planned treats, and generally finished up in the usual chaotic scramble. I ended up writing four fics in total, for Blackadder, Yes Minister, the UK House of Cards Trilogy and NetHack.

General Relativity (Blackadder, 20k words, Blackadder/Darling)

Darling's remarkable resemblance to French traitor the Duc de Darling - no relation - sees him unwillingly sent to infiltrate a German-occupied château. Blackadder accompanies him even less willingly, especially when he learns exactly what it is they're looking for.

(Baldrick is also there, but no one bothered to find out if it was willingly or otherwise.)

An old favourite fandom of mine I was delighted to be assigned! I was intrigued by the recipient's time travel prompt, and so this turned into a pseudo-crossover between Blackadder Goes Forth and Blackadder II, with supporting plot elements borrowed from the canonical time travel adventures in Blackadder: Back and Forth. I could tell it had, perhaps, got a little ambitious plot-wise around the point I was 10k in and they still weren't inside the time machine. Still, it was a fun challenge trying to distinguish the characterisations of the different versions of Blackadder. (Lord Blackadder is really much more of a charmer and more status and image-conscious; Captain Blackadder is very tired and done with everything and definitely doesn't care what impression he's making on anyone. Baldrick II is also, not precisely brighter, but a bit more in touch with reality and aware of his Blackadder's various shortcomings.)

A Matter of Definition (Yes Minister, 3,800 words, gen)

Early on in his time at the DAA, Jim attempts to pin down some important details about the department he now runs. Such as what it is that it actually does...

I rewatched YM early on last year, having planned for years to do so and never quite managed it in time for Yuletide. When I realised how long my assignment was getting, I regretfully gave up on having time to treat it, but then a pinch hit came up pretty late in the writing period and like a lunatic I claimed it. The recipient gave free rein to write anything, so I ended up spinning up an episode-style plot out of nothing in particular. Which feels sort of fitting for the show, really.

Set My Life Upon a Cast (House of Cards Trilogy UK, 2,400 words, gen)

Francis Urquhart is not a man to believe in visions other than his own.

I was actually just finishing watching the House of Cards trilogy when Yuletide assignments went out. (I did a bit of a themed rewatch of 80s and 90s UK political shows this year, on a sort of cross-pollination theory that elements from one might help spark fic ideas for another, though I'm not sure how that actually worked in practice.) The prompt suggesting throwing something out of context like supernatural elements at Urquhart caught my eye, but again I'd sort of given up on finding time to write it until I saw the recipient go out as a pinch hit and was inspired to finish the treat. It seemed natural to write it in first person, given FU's habit of addressing asides to the audience. I considered the more obvious Something Wicked This Way Comes for a title, given all the Macbeth references, but decided that this Richard III line which FU also quotes was more fitting.

Any Other Business (NetHack, 1,200 words, gen)

Minutes of an emergency meeting of the Minetown Council Action Committee.

Always excited to see people asking for fic for old-school roguelikes! Seeing this in the tagset got me playing NetHack again for the first time in about fifteen years. (I'd been meaning to check it out again ever since the devs returned from their long hiatus and started to release new updates in, cough, 2015, but never quite got round to it.) I initially had the idea of writing something from the POV of the Minetown watch, but didn't have a clear idea for a plot, and so the recipient's liking for in-universe documents gave me this idea for a framework. Typically, just when I wanted to revisit Minetown for some in-game inspiration while I was writing, I managed to get a really good game going that went all the way to ascension, so I never got a chance to repeatedly replay the early game as is the more usual NetHack experience.

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Overall, glad I managed to sign up! Received a great gift, wrote some new and different things, and generally had a pretty good Yuletide all round.

Jumping back in to sign up for Yuletide again for the first time in quite a few years! Hi to any prospective writers, and please try not to stress too much about writing for me. I have pretty broad tastes when it comes to the kind of fic I read, and am really just looking for more about my favourite characters rather than having my heart set on any one particular type of story.

My AO3 name is Nomad (nomadicwriter), and treats are enabled and very much welcomed if you're feeling extra generous!

( Some General Likes )
( Drop the Dead Donkey )
( Infamous Iron Man )
( Yes Minister )

This is your annual "resurfacing from lurkdom to post my Yuletide fics" post! Had a bit of a tough writing year this year, for no obvious reason other than I was probably due one after having had some really prolific Yuletides in recent years; I was only writing treats but just lacking in any inspiration for ages and then the writing itself was painfully slow. Thought for a while I was only going to manage two stories and struggle to do that, but in the end I finished my second one with a week to spare and squeaked a third one in under the wire. All humour fics this year, for Terraria, Porridge and Blackadder.

Don't Hate the Player (Hate the Game) [Terraria]
Perhaps a more cautious man would have stopped to ask more questions when the request for a replacement guide had come in with the reason filled out as 'spontaneous combustion'. (2800 words)

I don't play that many recent(ish) video games so jumped at a chance to write for this one, which was possibly a mistake because I proceeded to spend far too much of the early writing period "doing canon review" in the form of playing Terraria. I knew I wanted to write something from the POV of the Guide NPC witnessing the player's bizarre behaviour, but the idea went through many different revisions: I debated whether to go with a humour or horror angle, and considered writing it in the form of reports and diary entries; I started out with the original Guide's POV from the start of the game through to the Wall of Flesh but felt that dragged too long and ended rather darkly, and also came with the issue of having to give the player character a name at some point. Ultimately I switched to the alternative of the replacement Guide's bafflement at arriving in this post-hardmode world where everyone else has had time to get used to the player's weirdness. The narrative also ended up being shaped to an extent by a mix of the particular combination of nominated NPCs and the setup of the world from my playthrough at the time.

A Bit of Bottle [Porridge]
Fletcher's life is complicated by Grouty's latest scheme, some questionable craft projects, the ill-advisedness of carnal thoughts in prison, and Godber. (Fletcher/Godber, 6,900 words)

Trying to write Porridge slash was an interesting challenge, but I was motivated by being surprised to see how little fic existed, a grand total of three crossovers on AO3. I didn't expect a lot, but I did think there'd be a bit more than that. (Of course, Yuletide going the way it does sometimes, by the time I'd finished writing this both people who'd requested the fandom had already received it for their main gift, so we managed to double the amount of fic between us!) At any rate, it was a good excuse to revisit the series, which I probably hadn't seen since the repeats I watched as a teenager in the 90s. Slightly boggling to realise it's now 50 years old; though it has its moments of 70s values, it still holds up very well. I guess the prison setting partly helps to give it a sense of timelessness, but I also watched the spin-off Going Straight for the first time and thought that was equally strong. And frankly worth the price of admission for the first episode with Fletcher and Mackay's final parting alone. All in all a bit of a nostalgia fandom I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting.

Major Opportunity [Blackadder]
After being presumed dead, Blackadder seizes his chance to escape the trenches, and hopefully avoid ending up actually dead. (Blackadder/Darling, 3100 words)

By the time I'd finished and edited my Porridge fic I had about five days left, so I turned to a reliable old standby fandom, Blackadder; I know the characters inside out, the relevant series only has six half-hour episodes, and I own the scriptbook, so it's one I can always dive right back into without needing a lot of canon review. Plus it's always great fun to write capers for! I actually ended up writing for the same person I treated last year, since I sleuthed out that the other possibility had a Blackadder fic as their main gift already (which actually turned out to be the longest story in the Yuletide collection and also written by the person I treated, so good call me). I was still editing at 4am Christmas Eve, again, but glad I persevered and got it finished.

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What else have I been up to this year on a vaguely fannish front? Probably lots of things, but my brain is cheese. Oh, I also rewatched the first series of Yes Minister in the run-up to Yuletide, but ran out of time to watch the later series or write anything. Maybe next year! In a rare foray into currently airing TV I also watched the final series of the BBC's Ghosts, which I really enjoyed, plus the Christmas special. The latter was more of an Ending ending than I would prefer, being generally a fan of open endings where the status quo continues, but it was still fine and didn't ruin anything for me.

My project of attempting to (re)read every book I own in an effort to winnow out my bookshelves continues, albeit in slightly self-defeating style, since I finally got around to continuing with the Vorkosigan books that have been sitting on the shelf since, cough, 2004, and promptly ended up buying even more books to complete the series. (I still have the last two to pick up; I thought Mirror Dance and Memory were the strongest, but like the later books well enough that I might as well finish out the series.)

On the book front I also checked out the Lockwood & Co books when everyone was talking about the Netflix series, since I remembered enjoying Stroud's Bartimaeus books back in the day. I've read three so far and they're fine, readable YA books but not grabbing me at all fannishly. (Predictably, the main character that actually piqued my interest was Barnes; show me a group of plucky teenagers saving the day, and like a heat-seeking missile I will immediately glom onto the nearest tired middle-aged authority figure wearily trying to deal with their antics.)

...I'm sure I must have read and watched more things than this in 2023, but what were they? No idea. The passage of time, how does it work?