The reveals are now live for Secret Santa 2012 over at be_compromised!!! Be sure to dive into the wonderful on the Masterlist.

On the one hand I am a tiny bit disappointed, because I didn't get chance to read anywhere close to all of them before the reveals went up. There's something great about reviewing anon. creative works, that part where people know that's what you thought, not what you think of them, y'know? I hope people still think I’m being honest, because I still intend to go through them ALL :D

I’m hugely excited to be able to say that always_a_queen wrote my gift Comfort and Joy (fic, PG, implied sexytimes and mild language). Summary: 'Tis The Season: Clint and Natasha (and the whole team) and the holiday season. Or: The Avengers celebrate Christmas and everyone gives Natasha unwarranted advise about her love life. I say again, I LOVE THIS TO PIECES! I love Natasha’s voice, I love all of the details, I love how Clint and Natasha are shown to be so complimentary, just right for each other, and I love the theme of comfort and joy, of Christmas being togetherness whether happy and perfect or not <3

It's also exciting to get to chat to people about the gift that I made: The Nature Of Dust for sugar_fey (R for sex, see post for warnings) Summary: Fic with accompanying collage of graphics/manipulations and icons for the prompt 1930s dustbowl AU. Clint and Natasha are members of a travelling circus. Dark/supernatural elements a la Carnivale optional but very welcome. When I read that sugar_fey had left that prompt I really hoped that her giftee would fill it. Then I was her giftee, which was all kinds of well now I had to put my writing where my wish was! I LOVED getting to play with the prompt, however much I struggled with it at times, so much so that I got carried away and made graphics as well and I ended up writing the longest fic I have managed to actually complete in years, wow.

To everyone who helped me with research questions about 1930s America and curses, this was why and thank you for all your help and interesting chats! And oodles of thanks to my beta readers, the amazing and amazingly helpful rthstewart and lar_laughs, who put up with me sending lots of things back to them time and time again, who read speedily, who caught mistakes, who gave me lots of thinky thoughts, and made everything more <3

I also got to play with a fantastic graphics team for Secret Santa: daxcat79, frea_o, hermyfan, oresteia, and purely_distel. There are links to the icons, gift banners, organiser gift graphics, and participation graphis on the Masterlist as well. Do add taking a look at all the shiny to your Secret Santa 2012 tour, which was brought to you by our Awesome Organisers Of Awesome anuna_81 and cybermathwitch :D

I know the reveals have only just gone up, but I like having everything archived and there's a few mistakes I've spotted on the original post, which I can't edit, that have been making me twitch *grins*, so here's the fic and accompanying graphics that I gifted to sugar_fey for be_compromised's Secret Santa 2012 exchange. I highly recommended taking a look at the masterlist, because there's a whole heap of wonderful over there :D

Title: The Nature Of Dust
A Gift Basket For: sugar_fey
Rating(s): R for sex
Length: approx. 10,150 words
Warning(s): highlight to view (spoilerish)*sex, mild bondage (with rope), offering sex as payment, kind of personified weather trying to kill people/nature as violent and deadly*
Summary: Fic with accompanying collage of graphics/manipulations and icons for the prompt 1930s dustbowl AU. Clint and Natasha are members of a travelling circus. Dark/supernatural elements a la Carnivale optional but very welcome. Thanks to this prompt I am now watching Carnivale, but I’m not familiar enough to use the supernatural elements from it… so I made up my own.
Authors Notes: Title taken from the song ‘Nature of Dust’ by Laura Marling. This site covers all of the circus slang used in the fic. I’ve aimed for historical accuracy, except for use of fire poi – my research suggests that wasn’t really around until the early 1960s, but the character that performs with it is well travelled and innovative, and I really wanted to use it ;)
It takes a village: many thanks to the legion of people who helped me with the research for this, thanks to everyone who bounced ideas around with me, huge thanks to the amazing rthstewart and lar_laughs for applying their magic beta abilities to my words, and thanks to anuna_81 and cybermathwitch for orchestrating this whole Secret Santa party.



( For as long as he can remember Clint has always been getting into trouble for seeing things that he shouldn’t, or rather for getting caught at it. Oklahoma, 1934, and this time trouble comes in the form of a girl )

( Collage and Icon Set )