Yuletide reveal and thoughts
Jan. 1st, 2012 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estiroseI want to mention first of all that rebecca_selene wrote the wonderful "Writing with Chopsticks" for me in Mulan fandom, and BridgetMcKennitt wrote me both "Side Quest: The Journey of Hilda and Gordon" and "Reach the Sky Above" in Final Fantasy II fandom. (And learned a new fandom for me, besides!)
As for me, I wrote ten fics. I am scary. (Though not as scary as the person who wrote 30.) This year, all of my story titles were from Broken Poets lyrics.
The fics in question, in alphabetical order: All Things In Time (Kamen Rider Double/W), And If You Believe (Sapphire & Steel), And It Wouldn't Be Me (Final Fantasy II), Drowned In This River (Mulan (1998)), Just on a Whim (Kaboom (anthropomofic)), Never Do What You Do (Tower Prep), Never Once Was Afraid (Kamen Rider Fourze), Of Some Happy Ending (Schoolhouse Rock), With The Grace of a Child (Monster High), and Won't Bring Me Home (Villains By Necessity - Eve Forward).
I'll talk briefly about the meta on the fics below (and some thoughts about my Yuletide in general) under cut below, but I also will mention I wrote DVD commentaries for some of the fics (specifically Just on a Whim, Won't Bring Me Home, And It Wouldn't Be Me, And If You Believe, With The Grace of a Child, and All Things In Time).
Of Some Happy Ending: I adored "Schoolhouse Rock" when I was a little kid. When I read the prompt, I didn't recognize any of the characters, but I figured they were from one of the shows that just had slipped my mind. Imagine finding out that the series had been revived for a bit! And of course, I couldn't resist a story where the woman proposed to the man. So I took Mr. Morton, extrapolated some real-life fears, and had him go try to buy something for Pearl because it was the kind of thing I'd be afraid to do myself.
The title was from the song "To Dream of Another Life".
Just on a Whim: This was my first attempt at anthropomorphic pretty much ever, featuring a fandom that exists thanks to a post in yuletide_admin. Literally, there was no canon in this story, and trying to figure out how to write a story featuring an explosion, a bike, a breakfast cereal, and a tile cleaner was very much a mood-lifter one evening when faced with something that was causing me anxiety in RL.
The title was from the song "To Be Alive".
All Things In Time: I kind of started this one as a treat for last Yuletide/a NYR, for a while thought I'd just post it as a fic on its own, never finished it, and then came back to it when I got the original recipient as my Yuletide recipient. Thus, it more fits the Yuletide 2010 prompts than the 2011 prompts. (Oops.) I did write a second fic, just in case this one didn't finish, but it did once I figured out what was going on, so that one will probably post as a NYR. I really wasn't expecting the whole "vivisect Shoutarou" plot point, though it makes sense that the Museum might try such a thing. Writing Sokichi was a challenge, but at least I had more canon material for him this time around. He's very much a father, to both Shoutarou and trying to be one to Philip, since he can't be one to Akiko.
The title was from the song "Say You Don't Love Me".
With the Grace of a Child: I was checking out the Dear Yuletide Writer letter, and I thought, "Hey, let me check out this cool-sounding other fandom with this prompt about courting!" So, I did. I really like Abbey and Frankie, I like the universe, and I found writing courtship a little bit of a challenge, because first I had to research courtship rituals (which there are really none for girls courting girls, of course) and figure out how Abbey would start a courtship when it seemed more likely an adult would start the courtship for her. Finding out that according to Abbey's diary that she lives with the Headmistress really helped out the fic, because it helped me get Abbey to the point where she could ask Frankie.
The title was from the song "The Clairvoyant".
Never Do What You Do: I wanted to sneakily write tptigger a gift fic (I'm sure she figured out it was me pretty fast). Last year I managed to disguise my writing style, but I wanted this year to give her something in a fandom she requested. I knew she had gotten into Tower Prep, and I also knew that she was nominating it. While I was watching the episode "Whisper" I got the idea of talking about Ian's relationship with Whisper 119, how he was loudly protective and she was so much more subtle. It's slightly AU because I'm not sure her note from the end of the episode is up on the bulletin board, but I'm pretty sure that I got things straight canonwise.
The title was from the song "When You're Done".
Won't Bring Me Home: I couldn't resist writing fic about the world of "Villains by Necessity". In this case, I took one line from the book and decided to see where it went - which happened to be one of Arcie's last guild members. It grew into a fic about four of Arcie's guild. As a side note, some of what Arlyn "saw" happen to be from the episode of GARO Makai Senki that I was watching at the time - the "knots of malevolence" that Leo and Kaoru see, especially the ghostly giant (who was particularly scary to me after too many rewatches of "Fatal Frame" series walkthroughs), and the skull who ate "breakfast-cakes" (pancakes) is from a book of ghost stories I've had for years.
The title was from the song "The N and the R".
Never Once Was Afraid: What if Gentaro didn't show up during the first episode of Fourze? What if Yuki took his place? In this set of four drabbles/almost-drabbles, I imagined a world where Yuki and Gentaro kind of swapped roles, and extended it to the end of the series based on previous KR endings. It was really easy to do, given that if Gentaro hadn't shown up, I could see him as an enthusiastic supporter of Yuki's, and he'd have cheered her on all the way.
The title was from the song "The Death of Dustin Essary".
And If You Believe: I wrote a ficlet, about 300 words on it, but I wanted to do so much more for this author (ETA: I picked up a pinch hit!). So, Sapphire, Steel, and Silver went and tried to deal with a strange metal chest and two young people, and this replaced the ficlet I'd written, which will post as a NYR most probably. Technically speaking, if you look very closely, you can tell it was originally a crossover (specifically with Final Fantasy III); I renamed one character (or more accurately, Sapphire mishears Sara), and altered several other names, but Ingus job-changes during the story (Knight to Scholar; you can tell by his glasses, the lack of sword, and Ingus slamming the monsters with books, even though I goofed up when he drew a sword, as Scholars can't use them). But I think I did a good job in obscuring that! To throw things off a little, Sara(h) mentions that Ingus and the others destroyed a mirror, something that never happens in Final Fantasy III.
The title was from the song "If You Believe".
And It Wouldn't Be Me: Normally, writing slightly smutty Final Fantasy II fic isn't my thing. But the recipient wanted Firion/Minwu (or Firion/Minwu/Maria, to be exact), was fine with explicit stuff, and my muses abruptly decided that this would be set after the three of them had sex. Except Firion slept through the entire fic. Minwu got all domestic on me, as well, deciding to betroth himself to the others so that his family would claim them as widows/widowers. Minwu's foresight describes several in-game events, as well as one bit from Dissidia (Lightning handing Firion the rose) and one from Final Fantasy III (The Warriors of Light traveling to the surface world). IF there's any fic that will get a (non-Yuletide) followup, it'll be this one, as soon as I figure out where in the world Minwu is from….
The title was from the song "Wouldn't Be Me".
Drowned In This River: I first hesitated at filling this request, because I feel that some part of Mulan's significance in Chinese myth/the Disney movie is that she's a girl. A cisgender girl in a male-dominated culture. But the prompt writer, a pinch hitter, wanted fic about a possible transgender (FtM) Mulan, and it gave me the opportunity to examine the restrictions upon Mulan as a girl (not to mention I was intrigued by the possibility of Mulan being transgender and how it would affect how he acted as Ping). So I wrote a short fic. It was one of the toughest fics of Yuletide because I didn't want Ping to be transgender because he wanted freedom from the restrictions upon women of that society; I wanted him to be transgender because he was transgender, and it's hard to split the two when some of the same reasons he wants to be Ping are the same things that Mulan seems to want as a woman in canon.
The title was from the song "To Dream of Another Life".
I didn't get huge amounts of hits this year (or comments, for that matter, but that was quite okay. I write Yuletide for the joy of writing fic for other people. That being said, I have to confess that I chose Mulan as one of my requested fandoms because I knew that anyone getting it would get a good hit count, and hopefully lots of comments and kudos. And "Writing with Chopsticks" was a terrific fic that did everything I hoped and got recced a few times besides.
In terms of hits of my own, "Drowned in this River" got the most hits and kudos (which is not surprising, considering Mulan is a big yuletide fandom), but "Of Some Happy Ending" got the most comments (which is also not surprising, because of my Social Anxiety and how it made it really, really easy to write someone who's afraid of interacting with strange people as I read Mr. Morton's actions in the source). I'm really happy with the reactions in general to my fics; I knew my recipient was going to write me something effusive, and I knew that Minkhollow was going to love my VbN fic. (Lots of people seemed to love it, which surprised me as nobody in that fic is canon.)
I had a very good yuletide! Now, to put my recs together. I'll probably post them around June, to give people something to read. :)
As for me, I wrote ten fics. I am scary. (Though not as scary as the person who wrote 30.) This year, all of my story titles were from Broken Poets lyrics.
The fics in question, in alphabetical order: All Things In Time (Kamen Rider Double/W), And If You Believe (Sapphire & Steel), And It Wouldn't Be Me (Final Fantasy II), Drowned In This River (Mulan (1998)), Just on a Whim (Kaboom (anthropomofic)), Never Do What You Do (Tower Prep), Never Once Was Afraid (Kamen Rider Fourze), Of Some Happy Ending (Schoolhouse Rock), With The Grace of a Child (Monster High), and Won't Bring Me Home (Villains By Necessity - Eve Forward).
I'll talk briefly about the meta on the fics below (and some thoughts about my Yuletide in general) under cut below, but I also will mention I wrote DVD commentaries for some of the fics (specifically Just on a Whim, Won't Bring Me Home, And It Wouldn't Be Me, And If You Believe, With The Grace of a Child, and All Things In Time).
Of Some Happy Ending: I adored "Schoolhouse Rock" when I was a little kid. When I read the prompt, I didn't recognize any of the characters, but I figured they were from one of the shows that just had slipped my mind. Imagine finding out that the series had been revived for a bit! And of course, I couldn't resist a story where the woman proposed to the man. So I took Mr. Morton, extrapolated some real-life fears, and had him go try to buy something for Pearl because it was the kind of thing I'd be afraid to do myself.
The title was from the song "To Dream of Another Life".
Just on a Whim: This was my first attempt at anthropomorphic pretty much ever, featuring a fandom that exists thanks to a post in yuletide_admin. Literally, there was no canon in this story, and trying to figure out how to write a story featuring an explosion, a bike, a breakfast cereal, and a tile cleaner was very much a mood-lifter one evening when faced with something that was causing me anxiety in RL.
The title was from the song "To Be Alive".
All Things In Time: I kind of started this one as a treat for last Yuletide/a NYR, for a while thought I'd just post it as a fic on its own, never finished it, and then came back to it when I got the original recipient as my Yuletide recipient. Thus, it more fits the Yuletide 2010 prompts than the 2011 prompts. (Oops.) I did write a second fic, just in case this one didn't finish, but it did once I figured out what was going on, so that one will probably post as a NYR. I really wasn't expecting the whole "vivisect Shoutarou" plot point, though it makes sense that the Museum might try such a thing. Writing Sokichi was a challenge, but at least I had more canon material for him this time around. He's very much a father, to both Shoutarou and trying to be one to Philip, since he can't be one to Akiko.
The title was from the song "Say You Don't Love Me".
With the Grace of a Child: I was checking out the Dear Yuletide Writer letter, and I thought, "Hey, let me check out this cool-sounding other fandom with this prompt about courting!" So, I did. I really like Abbey and Frankie, I like the universe, and I found writing courtship a little bit of a challenge, because first I had to research courtship rituals (which there are really none for girls courting girls, of course) and figure out how Abbey would start a courtship when it seemed more likely an adult would start the courtship for her. Finding out that according to Abbey's diary that she lives with the Headmistress really helped out the fic, because it helped me get Abbey to the point where she could ask Frankie.
The title was from the song "The Clairvoyant".
Never Do What You Do: I wanted to sneakily write tptigger a gift fic (I'm sure she figured out it was me pretty fast). Last year I managed to disguise my writing style, but I wanted this year to give her something in a fandom she requested. I knew she had gotten into Tower Prep, and I also knew that she was nominating it. While I was watching the episode "Whisper" I got the idea of talking about Ian's relationship with Whisper 119, how he was loudly protective and she was so much more subtle. It's slightly AU because I'm not sure her note from the end of the episode is up on the bulletin board, but I'm pretty sure that I got things straight canonwise.
The title was from the song "When You're Done".
Won't Bring Me Home: I couldn't resist writing fic about the world of "Villains by Necessity". In this case, I took one line from the book and decided to see where it went - which happened to be one of Arcie's last guild members. It grew into a fic about four of Arcie's guild. As a side note, some of what Arlyn "saw" happen to be from the episode of GARO Makai Senki that I was watching at the time - the "knots of malevolence" that Leo and Kaoru see, especially the ghostly giant (who was particularly scary to me after too many rewatches of "Fatal Frame" series walkthroughs), and the skull who ate "breakfast-cakes" (pancakes) is from a book of ghost stories I've had for years.
The title was from the song "The N and the R".
Never Once Was Afraid: What if Gentaro didn't show up during the first episode of Fourze? What if Yuki took his place? In this set of four drabbles/almost-drabbles, I imagined a world where Yuki and Gentaro kind of swapped roles, and extended it to the end of the series based on previous KR endings. It was really easy to do, given that if Gentaro hadn't shown up, I could see him as an enthusiastic supporter of Yuki's, and he'd have cheered her on all the way.
The title was from the song "The Death of Dustin Essary".
And If You Believe: I wrote a ficlet, about 300 words on it, but I wanted to do so much more for this author (ETA: I picked up a pinch hit!). So, Sapphire, Steel, and Silver went and tried to deal with a strange metal chest and two young people, and this replaced the ficlet I'd written, which will post as a NYR most probably. Technically speaking, if you look very closely, you can tell it was originally a crossover (specifically with Final Fantasy III); I renamed one character (or more accurately, Sapphire mishears Sara), and altered several other names, but Ingus job-changes during the story (Knight to Scholar; you can tell by his glasses, the lack of sword, and Ingus slamming the monsters with books, even though I goofed up when he drew a sword, as Scholars can't use them). But I think I did a good job in obscuring that! To throw things off a little, Sara(h) mentions that Ingus and the others destroyed a mirror, something that never happens in Final Fantasy III.
The title was from the song "If You Believe".
And It Wouldn't Be Me: Normally, writing slightly smutty Final Fantasy II fic isn't my thing. But the recipient wanted Firion/Minwu (or Firion/Minwu/Maria, to be exact), was fine with explicit stuff, and my muses abruptly decided that this would be set after the three of them had sex. Except Firion slept through the entire fic. Minwu got all domestic on me, as well, deciding to betroth himself to the others so that his family would claim them as widows/widowers. Minwu's foresight describes several in-game events, as well as one bit from Dissidia (Lightning handing Firion the rose) and one from Final Fantasy III (The Warriors of Light traveling to the surface world). IF there's any fic that will get a (non-Yuletide) followup, it'll be this one, as soon as I figure out where in the world Minwu is from….
The title was from the song "Wouldn't Be Me".
Drowned In This River: I first hesitated at filling this request, because I feel that some part of Mulan's significance in Chinese myth/the Disney movie is that she's a girl. A cisgender girl in a male-dominated culture. But the prompt writer, a pinch hitter, wanted fic about a possible transgender (FtM) Mulan, and it gave me the opportunity to examine the restrictions upon Mulan as a girl (not to mention I was intrigued by the possibility of Mulan being transgender and how it would affect how he acted as Ping). So I wrote a short fic. It was one of the toughest fics of Yuletide because I didn't want Ping to be transgender because he wanted freedom from the restrictions upon women of that society; I wanted him to be transgender because he was transgender, and it's hard to split the two when some of the same reasons he wants to be Ping are the same things that Mulan seems to want as a woman in canon.
The title was from the song "To Dream of Another Life".
I didn't get huge amounts of hits this year (or comments, for that matter, but that was quite okay. I write Yuletide for the joy of writing fic for other people. That being said, I have to confess that I chose Mulan as one of my requested fandoms because I knew that anyone getting it would get a good hit count, and hopefully lots of comments and kudos. And "Writing with Chopsticks" was a terrific fic that did everything I hoped and got recced a few times besides.
In terms of hits of my own, "Drowned in this River" got the most hits and kudos (which is not surprising, considering Mulan is a big yuletide fandom), but "Of Some Happy Ending" got the most comments (which is also not surprising, because of my Social Anxiety and how it made it really, really easy to write someone who's afraid of interacting with strange people as I read Mr. Morton's actions in the source). I'm really happy with the reactions in general to my fics; I knew my recipient was going to write me something effusive, and I knew that Minkhollow was going to love my VbN fic. (Lots of people seemed to love it, which surprised me as nobody in that fic is canon.)
I had a very good yuletide! Now, to put my recs together. I'll probably post them around June, to give people something to read. :)
