thisengland | (no subject)

I am perhaps not the only one who, spurred by the histories ficathon, is looking forward to this year's Yuletide Treasure.

This post is intended to point histories fans in its direction, because the more of us there are the more likely it is there will be histories!fic, and that is a good thing.

But it's also intended to suggest we get some kind of consensus about how our fandoms are categorised. Last year there was only 'the Henry plays', which seems to me to be a bit unsatisfactory. But how should it be done?

- One big 'Shakespeare - Histories' category?
- 'first tetralogy' and 'second tetralogy'? But what about people who get them mixed up - it's a bit confusing that the second one comes first in historical terms, and what about people who don't know what a tetralogy is but are fans of R3 or H5 or whatever?
- 'Richard II', 'the Henry IV plays', 'Henry V', 'the Henry VI plays', 'Richard III'?
- individual plays?

It seems to me that when it gets to the fandom requesting part of the schedule, in September, it would be better if we could all agree and ask for the same things so as not to confuse the organisers.*

* Although more histories-esque if we could have a giant schism over it, split into Team Whiterose and Team Redrose, and then maybe get assassinated by a bunch of Henry VIII and King John fans incensed at not getting included at all.

Threaded | Flat

The way it seems to have been done traditionally, as you note, is that everything is lumped together as "The Henry Plays," which is rather unfair to the Ricardians among us! Although on the other hand the only histories fics that ever get written for Yuletide are Henry V/Scroope for some reason.

I think that we are probably stuck with "The Henry Plays" as a category because it already exists, although if I were in charge of these things, I would count the individual plays individually but consider the multipart plays one play for categorization purposes. I suppose that the Richard plays would probably each get their own category if anyone wrote anything about them for Yuletide; other Shakespeare plays get listed individually...

I agree with

angevin2 on at least starting off with individual plays (except for those in parts), since it's probable that a lot of people would get confused by tetralogies. Although I love the idea of red and white roses and Henry VIII fans getting annoyed by a lack of inclusion, prompting them to start sacking monasteries accompanied by King John...but I get ahead of myself.

And ever since I discovered Yuletide a few months ago, I'm dying to join in. Is the sign-up process incredibly complicated?

Me, I'm asking for Coriolanus fic. Blast it.

But I like the third option you've suggested--currently, Yuletide appears to be going by play, but I'd feel silly asking for 'a 2 Henry VI fic, plzkthx.'