#or a snippet from the longfic i finally started. we shall see.

[starsailores]

my daily mantra and ros vortalis's dying thoughts

[shukakumoodboard]

6, 8, & 11 for the fanfic asks :3

oho. anonymous georg enables me again. i love u

6. Which yet-to-be-started fic is first on your list?

my gawd. the hardest fuckign question tbh. part of me wants to say the enemies-to-lovers kamakura period japan longfic i've tentatively titled bushidō, but that still requires a lot of plotting and like. kelbrain, before i can even begin writing it sdklghdlkf. i want to give it my full creative power and, considering my fanfic capacities pre- and during- my current degree, i think i might actually try to turn my attention to my two collab fics! shan't say the authors rn, but i don't think they'll be a surprise to those who know me when they're finally done and posted lol

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

i mean i could also say bushidō but that's a sellout because i just discussed that in the last question so i shall also say i should like to try my hand at my sole gaaleesbians wip, thread of deepest scarlet, heart of shining pearl, which is, as you may guess from the title references, is a salem witch trial puritans au. behold:

Gaara’s crimson red lips sang poisonous, blasphemous hymns, and she wanted nothing else. “I can,” she breathed. “I would show you, in all your loveliness, such wonders, if you wish it.” For if Gaara was the serpent in the Garden, she was Eve, and in that parable, it was she doomed to succumb to temptation; her weakness preordained, this was her Apple and the ways of wickedness were already within her, and so. “Please.” And so, she let Gaara consume her.

#cant write smut ive got catholic guilt anyway, i've never written Da Lebbiesiasnsns, and i've never written historical fiction, so we shall see if i am All Powerful or not

11. Would you like to try any new fanfic genres or tropes this year?

help all of these questions are related. i want to try historical fiction as seen in the previous answers! most of the other things i have on the brain are things i've at least dipped my toes in.

thank you so much for asking <3

quite literally offering u free snippets for the right questions yall

[chaoticspacefam]

2020 In Review: Wordcount Tag

I was tagged for this by @actualanxiousswampwitch​ , thank you! I’m not sure who’s already done or been tagged for this cause I am, once again, late to the party LOL but I shall (no pressure and sorry if you’ve already done it!) tag: @rainofaugustsith​ , @darth-bagel​ , @thatmmolesbian​ , @thelastenvoyyy​ and anybody else who wants to do this. Yes, I promise I mean you!

Words: 45,314

Published: 0 (I’m not counting the couple of Six Sentence tags I’ve gotten, they’re snippets of an unfinished piece & are included below instead :), or roleplay replies, cause that feels like cheating lol.) I actually wrote a lot more than I thought I had, this is a rough guesstimate as well, as my oneshot WIPs tend to be all over the place across something like 6 different documents, some of which have existed since 2018, so I had to guess at how far up to count from the end for some of them, but I think it’s a fair guesstimate XD I also have included lore/worldbuilding docs in this because that was a 3-month long Lockdown 1.0 Boredom/”Canon is a trash fire so I’m ignoring that and making up my own lore” passion project and I’m goddamn proud of how much I wrote for that. It’s the most I’ve written in one stretch (think I finished it over a span of 3 nights or so, once I’d done all the research and made all the notes ofc ^^)

Not Published: 45,314

The Breakdown:

swtor - 45,314

for creeping shadows (my main longfic/part one of the subterfugeverse series) - 1,553  - Aria, stop being difficult! *shakes fists* XD

oneshots - 16,223

lore/worldbuilding (for subterfugeverse naturally) - 23,001 (is this ALL tomato alien lore? pretty much, yes, yes it is :’D ~400 words is “the WIP reworked timeline to correlate my worldbuilding with the canon timeline that was released”, but 98% is just...me thinking way too much about Purebloods and how they deserved way better goddamn lore. I blame @fluffynexu ‘s amazing tomato worldbuilding posts,  reading them when I went looking for “canon” lore one day for the rp is what got me started down that rabbithole (it’s awesome and if you haven’t already you should totally go check hers out too :DD), I had a “fuck you then canon I’ll do it myself too >:L” moment and once I started I couldn’t stop until I’d crapped out literally over 20k words on the subject *whispering* thank you LOL)

zephyrverse au bonus oneshots - 4,537 (stuff I wrote to fill in time gaps or “just cause I had a plot bunny”, relating to mine and k-christine’s zephyrverse au rp. None of these will likely be posted publicly, but they still deserve to be counted as words I wrote this year :’D

As you can see, most of my “muse” this year came from sporadic oneshots :’D The Ahaszaai twins also properly plot-bunnied their way into my brain in late 2019 and haven’t stopped making a nuisance of themselves the whole fucking year. Every time I tried to carry on with a chapter, one of the two of them would pop up like “Nooo write about ME! pay attention to ME!” - Yes, Ni’kasi, I will get to you this year, I promise XD

New Things I Tried:

Just Writing. Not worrying about whether “it wasn’t part of the next chapter” or “it comes from a part in the story that I’m nowhere near close to posting yet”. If I felt like writing something, or for a specific pairing/feeling/scene, whatever. I wrote until I ran outta muse juice. Yeah, it meant I didn’t technically “finish” anything this year BUT - the important thing is I wrote stuff. and that’s all that really matters, eh? :’D

Polyam ships! May not seem like a big deal but I spent a long time talking myself out of them because of internalised toxic monogamy and finally saying “you know what, fuck it! I can ship three or more people together and it can still be a perfectly wholesome, healthy and loving relationship and that’s okay” was a BIG thing for me this year.

Dialogue Scripts: which I didn’t count as wordcount because really it’s just word vomit of general tone/inflection and dialogue that I came up with right before falling asleep which I didn’t want to lose. Basically, if an exchange or a particularly punchy or moving line of dialogue popped into my brain but I wasn’t ready to write the whole scene that it fit into out, but didn’t want to forget the line(s). I wrote it out in movie script/script-style roleplay fashion e.g. Character’s Name: (emotion, hand gestures etc.) [Dialogue here] and so on. I know this is probably a well known trick of the trade, but I never took it seriously until this year. Seriously, do it. It’s great.

Favorite Thing I Wrote:

Hmmm, a snippet for Andronikos/Ni’kasi that I started this week which isn’t posted yet (saving it for this week’s Six Sentence Sunday so look out for it! :D) was pretty fun to work on, I love their dynamic and Kas is suprisingly fun to write for.

Also the Aria/Vano proposal scene that I posted a snippet for the week before last. I’m having great fun with that scene, and I really enjoy putting a non-serious spin on the classic “proposal scene” tropes. Can’t wait to finish it, though it may be a while before the full one goes up on AO3, as it depends whether it ends up fitting in as part of the mainfic or as an additional oneshot

And I have a D’leah/Kissai oneshot that I need to give another once-over before I finally yeet it onto AO3 and Tumblr for you guys to see :’D

Favorite Fic I Read:

@sleepswithvillains Eleanora/Quinn fic, Helplessly Hoping. I’m horribly behind on chapters and I gotta catch up and read the finale this week, but it’s been a helluva great ride and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the story! <3

Also The Invitation collab with @tishinada featuring Zas and Fiona had me squealing, I can’t wait to catch up on HH and see more of these two, they’re adorable ;-; @a-muirehen​ ‘s Relu/Merkara series of course! I’m a complete sucker for (friends to lovers to in Ariano’s case but yea pfpfpf) enemies to lovers ships and these two are just so good, I am on the edge of my seat every time we get a new snippet for them, ngl (grimace emoji) @darth-bagel ‘s Sylvas/Graz’zt and Sylvas/Liz/Rilfaen snippets which they’ve been spoiling me with on Discord @mercurypilgrim ‘s Ven’fir/Quinn AU oneshots, Cloudbank (Western was a particular favourite, but all are very good!) and of course @rainofaugustsith ‘s Lana/Viri updates are always fantastic, some personal favourites from this year were Almost There & Memory of Healing :3 (I totally still go back to read Commander & Advisor too sometimes, getting to see Viri be a little diabolical and messing with “MiNiSTeR LoRMaN!” was and still is my favourite thing XD)

If I’ve left you out I’m sorry!! These were the ones that stuck out in my memory, but I’ve loved everyone’s writing this year, it’s been great :3

Writing Goals:

to actually finish and post chapter 8 & 9 of Creeping Shadows. Then we’ll get to the meat and potatoes of the story and maybe Aria will stop being a brat and fighting me every time I try to stick to a semi-regular update schedule Get off my butt, finalise the name and get started on Ni’kasi’s part of the Subterfugeverse story. Maybe run the updates in-tandem with Creeping Shadows but idk if I want to wait till after CS is done before I start posting Kas’s side, or do them side-by-side yet, we’ll see ;) Keep writing! I know better than to pressure myself by setting a specific word count goal, that’s never worked well in the past

At least 2 chapters of each of the works mentioned above would be great though, more would be better! We’ll see how I go

Words of Thanks:

honestly, to everybody in the fandom I’ve met this year. Anybody that I follow, thank you for being there and engaging with me and/or posting amazing content for me to look at! I came over from deviantART where the SWTOR fandom is incredibly small and generally quite inactive and the contrast since moving over here has been incredibly uplifting. I very nearly cancelled Creeping Shadows and stopped posting fic for my SWTORverse altogether because I got next to no engagement on dA and it was very disheartening to the point where I felt I could enjoy the game and the rp partners I had, but the solo projects I’d put so much thought, time and love into already weren’t worth continuing. You guys took that spark and kept it going and I really don’t have enough words to say how grateful I am for that. Even if I haven’t published much this year, making posts on this tumblr, interacting with everyone and working on lore, plot points and so on for Subterfugeverse has kept me going through the Hellish Year of Nightmares that was 2020 <3

to the amazing new friends I’ve made in this past year, who have listened to me ramble about headcanons, character backstories, writing snippets (and rambled/sent some back), keep being awesome: @walk-ng-d-saster , @darth-bagel , @kyber-heart , @deepseacritter , @thedinalixlegacy to further friends and meme tag buddies, I get so excited every time I see a mention for a new meme or ask game in my inbox, so thank you!! : @mimabeann , @palepinkycat , @a-master-procrastinator , @raven-of-domain-kwaad , @actualanxiousswampwitch , @thatmmolesbian , @a-muirehen to my regular commentors/rebloggers/likers/askbox lurkers, I see every one of you and every time your users pop up I grin like a kid in a toy shop: @starlightjedi , @sparkles-and-rust , @wilvarin-chan , @sunsetofdoom , @ask-an-andalite , @thelastenvoyyy . @lyrishadow and more because Tumblr only goes so far back and I have the memory of Swiss Cheese. If you regularly comment, like, reblog, or anything, from me, know that I see you, and I love and appreciate you for it! <3

I couldn’t possibly remember to tag everyone and I promise if I missed you out it’s not because I hate you! Anxiety just sometimes be a bitch and I don’t wanna look like a clown calling someone a “friend” if I’m not explicitly sure we are, in fact, friends. I think you’re all awesome and I’m so glad to have moved over here and met you all <3

[whopooh]

Undercover or under the covers? The June trope MFMM challenge

Undercover, but rather uncovered.

June was the month for undercover, and this trope opens up for a broad range of possibilities – all the way from creating a whole case to sketching a teasing undercover attempt mostly to make Phryne and Jack get together in a specific way. Often, the two layers of the roles and themselves comment on each other in meaningful ways, and within this, the undercover scenarios – worlds to immerse in, roles to play – are more or less limitless, and also really tickles the imagination.

Compared to the other months, this month’s fics ran away and got rather long, and also published late in the month -- so what first looked like an ‘easy’ month for me to write an overview for instead in the end became really fic heavy. This is also a trope that has already been extensively (under)covered in earlier fics – also there not seldom long ones. To just name a few, we have lovely longfics like @wah-pah’s “Undercover at the Elvsworth Club", @phrynesboudoir/sassasam’s: “The Model Murders”; PlayfulMay/ @mollidraws’s "Undercover Escort”; @firesign23‘s "The Uses of Adversity”; @missingmissfisher‘s series “Double o Phrack”; and two lovely and rather different undercover fics with a cycling theme: Miss_Lilian’s “Death at the Warrny” and hotelf’s “Murder at the Cycling Club” -- just to name some of the longer ones. Undercover truly is a popular trope.

But this post is about the trope challenge, so we’ll concentrate on the fics from June. In most stories, it’s either Phryne, Jack, or both of them going undercover, and the focus is on their relationship and the case. A few fics are broadening that focus, which is really lovely. I will start with them, to then go on to the lighthearted fics, the smuttier fics, and finally end with the longer cases.

In @flashofthefuse, “The Red Flame”, there are two different undercover operations that unbeknownst to each other are set in the same place, a club/brothel. When Jack is in need for a woman to go undercover and pose as a criminal, the title’s red flame, he asks Mac – although it takes a little while for the reader to realise this, and it’s deliciously done. At the same time, Phryne has a case and makes her undercover work with Bert.

The repartee between Mac and Jack is glorious, like here:

“... you definitely look the part, but just looking like her won’t be enough, you know. Are you as confident in her character? I hope you took the time to read the material I sent.”

“Are you always this condescending?”

“Probably,” he admitted, earning him a small smile. “May I come in? I’d like to fill you in on what we’ve learned this afternoon.”

The story isn’t finished yet, but it’s lovely in more than one way to see the interactions both within and between these two pairings – having their own very difficult mission, but also worrying about the other’s. We often say that we want more interaction between Mac and Jack, and here that is given in a brilliant way, with sincere care and respect as well as banter – and also with a Mac that is a genius in playing a tough, nonchalant role undercover, using her experience of being a woman in a man’s world in a way that helps the case enormously.

@rubycaspar’s “And after all the obstacles” gives us a fic all from Rosie’s point-of-view. Even if it is Phryne and Jack that are undercover, the person we follow here is Rosie, being at a garden party and suddenly encountering Jack, who turns out to be undercover together with Phryne. We see all the action and scenes from her point of view, and the case part of the fic is thus brilliantly shortened. @rubycaspar gives us Rosie’s view and her observations and conclusions of what she sees – conclusions she constantly needs to revise, as more and more is revealed to her about Phryne and Jack. This also gives her the chance to work through her feelings about her ex-husband. It is set almost a year after “Unnatural habits”, and gives a strong and determined Rosie – “Rosie thought about avoiding him, but she wasn't one to back down. If he didn't want to see her, he could leave. With that in mind, she straightened her shoulders and made her way over” – and a Rosie ready to change her preconceptions. It’s a very hopeful story.

In @longlineoftvdetectives‘s “Incognito”, finally, Jack is the one going “undercover”, but his undercover interplay is with Aunt Prudence. Aunt P is ill and needs to travel to England, and it turns out that she needs Jack to accompany her, thus forcing him to pretend to be her niece’s husband. With small gestures, the fic teases out many emotions, details and characterisations, in snippets covering many issues and building up a story about Phryne and Jack, about Phryne in relation to her family in England, and also about not hiding who you are (a second take on the theme ‘undercover’). Like this discussion about Oscar Wilde:

“Dragged out of his room by the police and sentenced to hard labor.”

“For…, um…” Jack stammered, unsure what euphemism was appropriate for the dining room of the establishment in question.

“For refusing to live his entire life undercover,” Phryne responded, her voice now clear and defiant. “For loving who he wanted to love. For not hiding or apologizing for who he was.”

Jack smiled and held her gaze. He loved her like this. He would have kissed her, soundly, if they weren’t in public.

“So the Wilde play, then,” he said matter-of-factly, after a long beat.

These undercover prospects are intriguing.

After these alternative perspectives, I’ll turn to the rather large section of fics that are fun and light hearted and sometimes also have a… shall we say more liberal view of what ”undercover” can mean.

The perfect transition between these two sections are of course @ollyjayonline‘s “The Inspector”, a fic that focuses on Isabella, the rather scandalous wife of Phryne’s cousin Guy, and has a delightful touch on the subject of both her and the theme of ‘undercover’. The two spouses have a conversation worthy of British toffs, discussing a news item about Phryne getting married, while simultaneously devoting themselves to both rather ‘dirty’ and casual carnal pleasures.

Isabella’s logic turns the tables on the “propriety issue” we often consider with respect to Phryne and her life style in contrast to Jack: “Really, it is quite wrong of your cousin. A divorced policeman? Why can’t she just keep sleeping with him? I mean, what will people say?"’ It’s a brilliant turnarounf. Reassured that this won’t affect her, she instead turns to daydream about the handsome and dour Inspector, something Guy doesn’t mind helping her out with through some roleplaying.

Isabella’s and Guy’s way of seeing everything as a game, of indulging in fantasies, and of having other people in bed with them – both physically and in role play – is all very in character, and an interesting contrast to Phryne.

The next lighthearted fic is @loopyhoopyfrood’s sweet modern AU “Love At First Swipe?”, where Jack Robinson is being set up for a date on an app as part of a case. He needs to find out how burglaries seem to have been conducted in relation to dates set up via this app; his only problem is that when he meets his date, it is not a suspicious stranger but a lady detective working on the same case.

Maybe it was her profile, as full as lies as every other user, but missing that hint of authenticity. Or maybe it was just Jack’s spidey senses tingling. Either way, something about Fern Roberts had him groaning in resignation and swiping right.

20 minutes later he had a date.

He tried not to think about how it was his first date since his divorce.

As a chapter 11 in her longer fic collection, “The Friday Phrack Series, @rositalg writes an intimate and atmospheric scene from Phryne and Jack in an established relationship. Phryne comes home to a Jack that sits and reads, and she simultaneously talks about her case and is seduced by him.

Her eyes closed blissfully, relishing in the attention.

“Perhaps you could help me.” She suggested, her thighs parting ever so subtly. “You’ve always been one to...dive deep into a case.”

He met her eyes, both of them knowing he was going to have her right here on this couch before the evening was done.

“Miss Fisher, are you asking me for assistance?”

In @omgimsarahtoo‘s “Under Cover of Darkness”, both the ‘undercover’ and the ‘under the cover’ theme is at play. Phryne and Jack has spent the evening undercover in a club, and the fic starts after this is over. Everything goes black, and when Phryne wakes up, he is in a strange room. After the first moments of fear, she deduces that she is not kidnapped but rather at Jack’s house, with a Detective Inspector sleeping in the chair next to her. The fic then turns to her instead indulging in pleasures under the covers with her crime solving partner, and it’s combined with really lovely banter:

“You, Jack Robinson,” she breathed, around sweeps of her tongue across his cheeks, “have a very talented mouth.”

“It’s entirely the subject, Miss Fisher,” he responded, his smile a smug tilt of the lips.

And in the end:

Catching her hand, he leaned up to kiss her, his smile tender. “You are an excellent partner, Miss Fisher. I enjoy working with you, undercover or not.”

“That’s because I’m exceptional.” Phryne grinned as she said it.

“And so modest, too!” Jack affected surprise. “A prize among women.”

Equally of the fun and teasing persuasion is @firesign23′s “Subterfuge at the Savoy” that establishes a gorgeous scene of Phryne in bed in a hotel in England – just to suddenly have her mother barge in without warning (of course Phryne Fisher’s mother is resourseful...). In the heat of the moment, Phryne decides to keep Jack hidden under the covers, but he is in a devilish mood and starts touching her and making her behave exceedingly oddly towards her mother.

“You aren’t still pouting over that policeman your father mentioned, are you? He said you told the poor man to come after you, which is utterly foolish.”

The policeman in question was drifting dangerously high up her thigh with his tongue, and Phryne really had no idea how much longer she could keep this charade up.

Among all the fun, there is also a partly serious question from Jack, after Phryne’s mother has left: ‘“Why was it, Miss Fisher, that we are two consenting, independent adults and I still found myself hiding from your mother?” he asked, eyes dancing. “You’re not ashamed of me, are you?”’

But Phryne has an answer to that question, too.

A last lighthearted undercover fic is leavephryneforme's “Undercover At The Great Australian Baking Show” – a fun romp told in small snippets about a modern Jack being undercover on a baking show. He decides to keep this a secret to Phryne, who starts wondering why he suddenly has so many cookbooks, and the fic addresses his far too alluring features – which the female judges appreciate – when baking.

Preparing Jack for undercover crossdressing. Art by @kidnthehall.

From lighthearted, we’ll turn to two fics that focus on putting Jack in costume.

@whopooh's “The Importance of Being at the Wilde Cats Club”, is a case fic where the focus is not so much on the case, but more on the characters. In order to help Phryne’s old friend Eleanore, who is also a transwoman, Jack, Hugh, Bert and Cec need to go undercover at a club as men impersonating women. The fic focuses on the transformation of them – how they will need to dress, and move, and wear make-up – and also in Phryne’s complete delight in dressing up and putting make-up on Jack, and the shenanigans that follow from this, where Jack uses his newly painted lips to tease Phryne. There is both trust and teasing all through, and a slight continuation of the role reversal theme of April. It all came from two things: the comment “We need more mfmm men in lingerie”, and the desire to have a transgender person who would not need to die in order to be important in a case story. This turned into seduction via lipstick:

She pressed her lips together and motioned how he should do the same and he followed her lead, pushing his lips together. She smiled, and he followed her lead in that too.

“Oh, hang on,” she said, and procured a piece of paper. “Bite the excess colour off on this one, like this.”

But instead of doing that, Jack captures her and kisses her deeply, smudging the lipstick: 

When they resurfaced, she looked at him and couldn’t stop a smile from spreading over her face. He looked ridiculous, with the lipstick smudged and forming a mad pattern around his mouth. 

“Well, you should see yourself,” was all he said as he gave her a small smile.

Also in @scruggzi's “Merciful Powers”, there is a focus on Jack in costume – this time in a luscious costume for going undercover as an understudy in a Macbeth production. Phryne takes great pleasure in the fact that he is dressed in tights, and that he also can be extricated from said tights, and there is a wonderful use of Shakespeare quotes as seduction throughout the fic. As the whole undercover trope shows, it is very fulfilling to put Jack in other clothes than his normal ones, while still keeping his restrained character, and here it is combined by a delicious push-and-pull between them: ‘“Mmm,” she purred, “much as I applaud your theatrical talent, Jack, that was definitely better than Shakespeare.”/ “Sacrilege!” he protested in mock horror, eyes twinkling at her.’

And heading into smut, there is a lovely self-awareness of the literary, and the way it comments on the two of them:

“Macbeth always knew he couldn’t resist temptation forever. All he really needed was an excuse.”

Phryne was fairly sure that analysis had very little to do with Shakespeare, but Jack’s hands had moved around to palm her breasts, and his lips had found the spot just under her ear that made her knees weak. Literary criticism could definitely wait.

The undercover work, and its implications of dressing differently than normal, and of perhaps partly trying out being someone else, is driving the sensual pleasure here.

A similar thing can be said about @phrynesboudoir /Sassasam’s, “The Captain’s In”. Here Phryne and jack are both working undercover on the same case, or rather, Jack is working undercover and a stubborn Phryne stumbles into his case. As they're thrown together, Phryne having to pretend to be a prostitute, the undercover turns into rather rough sexual roleplay (‘"Get below and get naked," he ordered. / Phryne realised with a rush of aroused surprise, that he meant it and she must obey in order to maintain their cover’), and also here there is the idea of heightening an experience through unfamiliar roles and costumes – in this case more ‘dirty’, and added to it a rather sinister on-looker.

Fancy meeting you in the US, Lin!

Over to the long, more elaborate case fics. First, @longlineoftvdetectives, “Welcome to San Francisco”, as the title gives away, set in the US where Phryne and Jack have taken a detour on their way home to Australia. In San Francisco they happen upon Lin Chung, who’s in need of their help. The stakes are high – Lin is threatened to his life – and it turns out that Jack will have to pretend to be Baron Fisher, while Phryne poses as Lin’s wife. In a lovely and similar way as the show, the storyline shows some of Phryne’s and Jack’s emotional journeys, but without settling anything too much, still leaving many questions unanswered. Their relation and the case is woven together, and there is a lovely relation between Jack and a young lad he takes in under his tutelage;, an interesting triangle between Phryne, Jack and Lin; an outsider view disapproving of the Chinese man that they handle brilliantly; and a very competent pair of detectives.

There are many poignant points, often made through dialogue, like here:

“Are you and Inspector Robinson in San Francisco on a case?” Lin asked.

“Not exactly,” Phryne replied. “You might say our relationship is no longer strictly business.”

“I see,” Lin answered. “Are you happy?”

“Very much so,” Phryne replied without hesitation.

“Should I still refer to you as Miss Fisher?”

“Yes.”

“Then there must be more to Inspector Robinson than I had originally perceived,” he concluded.

A fic that teases out an emotional side of Phryne and Jack’s partnership, and of Phryne’s backstory, is @omgimsarahtoo‘s ”Ungentle Reminders”. The undercover stint in this story awakens memories of René in Phryne, and it also higlights misogyny and abuse. Phryne is unsettled by the happenings, where she has to pretend to be a subdued woman among other subdued women, and after the women unexpectedly has made a bloody rebellion, she states:  

“I’ll be a character witness for them,” Phryne said, her eyes on his face as he swept the cloth gently across her skin, wiping up the residue he’d left behind. His eyes flashed up to hers, surprised.

“You only knew them for a couple of days,” he said.

“Maybe,” she agreed, “but Jack, I was them, once upon a time.”

And Jack agrees about the woman who’s now going to be charged for murder: “She made her own freedom.”

In @zannadubs23 /Inzannatea’s “Things Said”  (her first mfmm fic – welcome!) the theme is also rather sinister: Jack is, on his way to London and Phryne, kidnapped in Egypt and taken by slave traders. The theme is serious and the case is given plenty of focus, building up the world where Phryne can be in place to save him – but there is also plenty of focus on more carnal pleasures, once Jack is finally released and still in her tent, as well as luscious details, like here, before Jack has realised who is his saviour: 'The room had an amber glow to it. Jack couldn’t really tell where the lights were coming from, but the room decidedly glowed. The floor was covered with stacks of ornate rugs and large pillows in shades of orange and red and purple. “She would love this,” his traitorous brain informed him instead of working on an escape plan.' The fic grew out of the line "Shave him and bring him to my tent" -- and from that start an elaborate story was built.

A casefic that has both dinosaurs, archaeological sites, a friend of Phryne with interesting parallels to her and the inspired idea to let Phryne and Jack pose undercover as siblings, is @firesign23 “Poetry of Earth”. 

Phryne and Jack arrive at the scene of an archaeological dig on Isle of Wight, where a clever female archaeologist, Lucy, that is a friend of Phryne’s works. There seems to be sabotage and ill will, and Lucy is particularly putting her neck out as a female archaeologist. There is a young girl that tries to flirt with the handsome brother in the newly arrived sibling pair, and there is a lot of tension and fun scenes as Phryne and Jack must take care not to seem to close for siblings. 

“Hence travelling as Frances and John Sutherland, amateur Australian archaeologists without the financial resources to make a name for themselves,” Jack concluded. “How fortunate then that I’ve decided to bone up on my childhood interests while here.”

Phryne looked at him, noting the small hints of a smug smile on his face.

“You know, Jack, one would almost think the pun was deliberate.”

“Thankfully you know my tastes are far too refined for puns,” he replied and she laughed at the glint in his eyes.

And there is a wonderful passage that comments on their earlier case at the observatorium, and that reflects on Phryne being rather alike her friend Lucy, who once almost got stuck in a flood because she was so focused on her work:

“That was careless of Lucy.”

Jack quirked a small smile. “She was distracted by a nearly complete skeleton they were uncovering. I cannot imagine what it would be like, working with someone so easily deterred by bones or luminescent objects.”

“If this is about the plutonium vial, I stand by my choices.”

He didn’t reply, merely smirked at a point well made; she glanced down the empty beach and then leant up to kiss his cheek.

At the same time as Phryne is standing by her choices, she is also all the time noticing how close she’s come to Jack, and contemplating on that sense of familiarity, all while not allowed to show any feelings for him openly.

In one last finished casefic, @ollyjayonline & @solitarycyclistadventures have ganged up on a case fic with plenty of tension between Phryne and Jack, “Death Under the Arch”. 

Here, Jack is going to Sydney for an undercover stint and leaves City South to a very handsome and eligible Inspector – Phryne, however, decides to join him in Sydney. The story is set after Murder and Mozzarella, right after they have said they’ll “make do” with each other, but before they have figured out what that actually means, which opens up for insecurities and misinterpretations on both sides. The mystery is set around the bridge that is being built in Sydney, and Phryne decides to play Jack’s ex-lover as a way to be able to keep watching him:

She leaned towards him, face alight with mischief, “I was thinking it could be fun if we were old friends.”

Jack almost laughed, how typical, only he would manage to go from strictly business to old friend without any of the fun in-between.

There is also a very perceptive young woman who tries to figure the two of them out, which adds to the mix of tensions and uncertainties, and a murder mystery that turns rather sad.

Finally, the section of “To be continued”: two fics that are not finished so I’ll only write shortly about them. In @missingmissfisher​’s “Hold out your hand” Jack has come after Phryne to England and meets her mother that instinctively dislikes him. It seems Margaret wants to stop her daughter from repeating her own mistakes by marrying an unsuitable man, and Margaret is something of Phryne’s kryptonite, so much annoying her that Phryne has troubles thinking straight. Added to the mix are snobbish and boring neighbours and a small mystery that turns into a much bigger and more serious one -- and how that will unfold we’ll see rather soon. @221aubrina started “The Case of the Missing Moll”, which promises to cover both the tropes undercover and bodyswap, and has just taken its beginning – so far, we only now that Jack has been drugged and taken away somewhere… 

That’s all for June from me. I am very much looking forward to the July fics, on the trope “Through time and space”!