Given that my last discussion of Renault-based fan fiction was back at the beginning of 2018 for my newly posted Yulefic, one might be forgiven for thinking I'd have a plethora of new pages to describe. However, the demise of maryrenaultfics, with its frequent little challenges, means that I've only written Charioteer fic for Yuletide. Specifically, two stories in 2018 ("Deckle-Edged" and "Quandary") and one in 2019 ("Let Me Fend for Myself").

Sadly, it's not a fandom often requested in other gift exchanges; and, in the last few years, I've had a lot of trouble getting myself stuck into stories unless I've a recipient to feel guilty about.

"Deckle-Edged" was written to sunsetmog's request:

Happy ending is essential! But I'd just love to see bits and pieces from Ralph and Laurie's life together, or them building a trusting relationship.

Now, I'm mostly (though not 100%) a gen writer. So I dithered a bit over the first sentence before deciding that I'd take it literally rather than euphemistically. However, "happy endings" aside, a request for slice-of-life curtainfic is something I can write. I set the story in the early 1950s. Granted Laurie and Ralph would have been apart for much of the war, but they would have had several years to settle down. Given the era, their relationship would probably have been very much kept secret—the sort of thing to lead to social complications. When Laurie receives the annual invitation to celebrate the season at the vicarage with his mother and stepfather, he has, of course, no interest in spending Christmas anywhere but home with Ralph.

For the webpage, I decided on a wintry theme. The main background is a pale blue version of brown128.jpg, a tile I got from GRSites.com years ago, and mutated a thousandfold into all sorts of colours and combos. Over it, I laid a snowy animated .gif: very simple, but effective. The border to the central panel was done in shades of warm blue and blue-mauve, with the innermost layer being in an icy texture. (Well, icy tones: it's actually a water graphic if you see it full size.)



"Quandary" was a treat for deliarium (momentum), written to the prompt:

A school story about Ralph and Laurie (maybe something touching on the line ‘Lanyon likes you, and other people have noticed it if you haven’t’).

It was strongly focused on Hugh Treviss as the "other people" who noticed.

For this, I picked a variant of beige208.jpg, also from GRSites.com. I've played with it fairly productively; but it's not resulted in anything like the range of derivative tiles that brown128 has done. If you scroll down to below the main panel, you can see the tossing curves of the pattern, which seems appropriate to the turmoil in Hugh's mind. It's a rose/red variant; so the border to the story panel picks up that colour range: puce, dusky pink, and such tones. With a touch of grey pearl.

The button used for decoration came from Ambographics.



The following year, "Let Me Fend for Myself" was also written as a treat for deliarium to the rather broad prompt:

I would love any story about these characters - pre-canon backstories, missing moments during the book, canon-divergent AUs, domestic fluff, plot-driven fic, shameless smut, snapshots of their lives during or after the war, etc. All I really ask is a) no character deaths for any of the three, b) Ralph and Laurie are still together by the end (unless it’s a pre-canon fic, of course), and c) the conclusion is relatively happy/hopeful.

The story covers the brief period post-Chapter Two when Ralph, expelled from school, takes the long depressing train trip home to face his family's anger.

I can't say I'm happy with the webpage design for this story, though I think it's very attractive in its own right. A floral tile from GRSites.com is used to make a border round a dark green frosted glass tile from Silvia Hartmann Nature. To set this off, the background is a very dark—indeed, near black—variant of brown128.jpg. I'm very pleased with the effect; but it has almost nothing to do with the story.

The button decorating the page was made from the same floral tile.