A POC-only safe-space for Race & Class Discussion

Today is Christmas, three times over!

1.

luzula finished Far Frae the Bonny Hills and Dales, a Flight of the Heron longfic that I have been following for the past eighteen months. AU where Ewen is transported and sold to the Caribbean sugar fields. There are tragic parts to the story (note the "major character death" warning), but it ends in a good and satisfying place. One of the things I love about luzula's writing is that she makes her characters earn their happy ending -- and they do.

Congratulations to luzula, and happy Christmas to me!

2.

fandomtrees revealed! I received some beautiful maritime-fandoms icons (William Bush, Frederick Wentworth, and Anne Eliot), thank you to sarajayechan and chewingbottles! I am looking forward to using them!

I also made a half-dozen things (which will have their own reveals post later), and that's been fun, too.

3.

Family Chistmas celebrations got delayed twice, first by weather, and the second time because my brother called up and said he was still waiting on my Christmas present to be delivered. He insisted he had ordered it in good time, but repeated shipping delays, it was supposed to be delivered any day now, etc. etc. And I was all dude, it's fine (while wondering what the big deal was, but whatever, if he wanted to hold off so we could do it all in person, that's fine, too.) I get a long weekend for MLK Jr. weekend (for non-USians, this weekend), so we pushed it all back to today, when we convened at Mom's house for delayed Christmas celebrations.

grrlpup and I got everyone a lot of Japan souvenirs -- my brother got squeaky-toy katana and a whole big box of the bubblegum he had adored as a kid (which, fair enough, took us WEEKS to find, it no longer being in every convenience store like when we visited Japan as kids) -- and we also got some beautiful hand-made art from my sister-in-law. I thought present-opening was done. When my brother dropped in my lap a great big box the approximate size, shape, and weight of an autoharp. Although a bit heavy for an autoharp? Weirdly balanced for an autoharp, too. (Not that he would ever get me an autoharp!)

Lo, this was my brother's Christmas present to me:
( color me dumbstruck )

I am very much blown away by the gift, and yes that was very much worth delaying celebrations for and also making sure he could watch me open it in person, I very much get it now.

Either he won Christmas or I won Christmas, I'm not sure which, but either way, Christmas was indeed won.

Is it too late to post about Yuletide? Surely not!

For Yuletide 2024, I tried to pick up a Hornblower-TV pinch-hit. Alas, even though I had the first part of the story written, I wasn't quick enough to get assigned the pinch-hit. Which turned out just as well, because the story stalled out and while I told myself I could post it as a treat, I never finished it. I ended up quasi-trunking it that spring as a hopeless job.

But in November I finally figured out what its plot needed to be (sadly, it would require a complete rewrite!), and then one of the Yuletide 2025 requests was even a better match for the overhauled story than the original 2024 pinch-hit would have been. So I rewrote it, and published as a Yuletide treat, hurrah:

The Worst Part of Waking Up for BromeliadDreams

Bush/Hornblower

Hurt/Comfort, Dying Declarations, First Kiss (is also the) Last Kiss (or it should have been damnit), Everybody Lives (as embarrassing as that is for some), When He Made This Bed He Wasn't Expecting to Wake Up In It, Episode: Loyalty

Summary:

At the end of Loyalty, Bush is too late to save Hornblower. With his dying breath, Hornblower requests a kiss from Bush…

…only to wake up a week later and discover he's going to live after all. Damnit.

The title btw, was only meant to be provisional, but it was as sticky as fuck and time was tight and I never got around to changing it. I do realize it's the perfect title for a Folgers Incest fic (and I had a serious conversation with myself about whether I really wanted to waste such a great title on the wrong fandom), but in the end I don't have any real ambition to write Folgers Incest fic. And anyway, it's funny. So there it stayed, sorry for the earworm.

This morning I was tidying my WIP folder, archiving the stories I've finished since the last time I cleaned up, and remembered I still had the first version of the story, which is in Bush-pov. I still like it very much, and it's mostly all stuff that doesn't appear in the rewrite, except by implication.

So this morning I published it as a bonus:

Too Late, Too Late

Hornblower/Bush

POV William Bush, Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Episode: Loyalty

Summary:

Bush is too late to the beach to stop the firing squad.

Bonus Bush point-of-view on the beach scene.

One of the things I love about fic is that there doesn't have to be one canonical version; you can post alternate povs and alternate endings, and bits and bobs and scraps of things. And a lot of times people enjoy them! And if they don't enjoy them, they don't have to click. It's great.

So if Bush-pov on the beach scene is the kind of thing you might enjoy: enjoy!