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coalie ([personal profile] coalcube) wrote in [community profile] coaltide2021-09-04 07:45 pm
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The Coalies Are Back In Town

Friday night they'll be dressed to kill
Down at Coaltide Bar'n'Grill
The receipts will flow and wank will spill
And if the coalies wanna fight, you better let 'em
That jukebox in the corner blastin' out my favorite song
The nights are getting longer, it won't be long
Won't be long 'til Yuletide comes
Now that the coalies are here again

Nominations: Mon 20 Sept to Thurs 30 Sept
Sign-ups: Fri 15 Oct to Sat 23 Oct
Assignments out by: Mon 25 Oct
Default deadline: Sat 11 Dec
Assignment deadline: Sat 18 Dec
Reveals: Sat 25 Dec

Yuletide Discord and Exchanges After Dark Discords for Namespace drama 18+ discussion. Google Group for PHs. F_F wiki for history. Universal App for all past Yuletides and any other exchanges (donate).
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Re: Tagset Sorting / Recs

(Anonymous) 2021-10-11 04:28 am (UTC)(link)
James Asher Vampire Series by Barbara Hambly. Edwardian vampire adventure/suspense/mystery stories. The main (nominated) characters are James and Lydia, who are a married couple who are adorably in love, and Don Simon Ysidro, who is one of the oldest vampires in Europe, and starts the first book by blackmailing them into hunting down someone who is murdering vampires. But then they? Start to respect each other? Simon spends a week sitting next to James' sickbed reciting Shakepeare to him in the original dialect to keep him company and keep him safe from other vampires? In book 2 Lydia and Simon have to team up to save James and by the end of it they have confessed their love (which they shall never consummate, because they both care too much for James, and also Simon is a vampire who murders people to live and can't have sex) to each other and, separately, have confessed their love for each other and their resolution never to act on it, to James.

Eight books later, of escalating mutual rescues, hurt/comfort, and angst over the tragedy of vampires and humans who trust each other because of who they are and can't trust each other because of what they are, and even after multiple canon gay characters and a whole subplot where James and Lydia learn it's actually fairly common for a vampire to fall for a human couple, and it still hasn't occurred to James that it isn't actually normal for a monogamous man to be happy to let his wife go on adventures alone with the other man she's in love with, and he's the only one of them who hasn't realized yet that he loves Simon too and Simon loves him back.

But, like, I'm holding out hope, her other series has an adorable canon poly V in it, someday they will get there.

Re: Tagset Sorting / Recs

(Anonymous) 2021-10-11 04:41 am (UTC)(link)
Goodness!! I wasn't really in the market for vampire canons, but you sold me, nonnie.

Re: Tagset Sorting / Recs

(Anonymous) 2021-10-11 04:56 am (UTC)(link)
It's basically the only vampire canon I'm really passionate about! She never lets the vampires off the hook; they murder people and they don't have a cheat to get around that; and she never lets James and Lydia forget that either; but she also never lets it be ethically simple because James was a spy for the British Empire who has also murdered a lot of people for possibly worse reasons and knows it, and Lydia is a research pathologist who doesn't always remember to be horrified about death; but they try, there's always a point in every book where at least one of them resolves that this time they are actually going to stake Simon like they should have the first time they met him, and they always find a way to talk themselves into enough of a moral compromise not to, and Simon never lets them off the hook for letting him live when all three of them know they shouldn't, either.

Also her vampires are very believably hundreds of years old and not quite human any more but also wonderfully tragically deeply human, I love them.

Re: Tagset Sorting / Recs

(Anonymous) 2021-10-11 11:02 pm (UTC)(link)
cyrt

This all sounds lovely! This doesn't even really sound like my genre, but all these character dynamics sound so good, and I love a not-quite-human-anymore ancient vampire. I've added it to the list. :)

Re: Tagset Sorting / Recs

(Anonymous) 2021-10-11 06:35 am (UTC)(link)
NC and damn, I wasn't even looking for more books to read but this one is definitely going to have to go on the list. Thanks for the rec, coalie!

Re: Tagset Sorting / Recs

(Anonymous) 2021-10-12 04:09 am (UTC)(link)
You've sold me on this, coalie. Thanks!
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