Yuletide Reveals
Jan. 1st, 2014 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThe Yuletide reveals are upon us! I wrote six treats this year, partly in penance because I defaulted on my story. I just need to not offer to write things for movies or TV fandoms, because it generally doesn’t work out very well.
Nymphs and Bacchantes, Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Lucy/Ginevra, R.
After a costume ball where she feels her charms have been underappreciated, Ginevra comes to Lucy’s room in search of commiseration and/or appreciation.
“An officer,” she said. “Handsome as an angel, with hair as blonde as my own and hands almost as fine, and his legs - ! Ah, do not frown, Diogenes; he was dressed as Apollo, I could not help but see. I missed a dance because of him: I put myself in his way, but he did not take his chance, and so I had to sit at the side like a wallflower. And he took no notice of anything I said to him. Me! And I barely eighteen: am I losing my charms already?”
Her heart was not injured: only her vanity. “He sounds a sensible man,” I told her. “Be sensible too, and go back to your bed so I can go back to mine.”
I love all my Yuletide fics, but this one is my secret favorite. I should probably print out the recipient’s comment and frame it in gold.
Chrysalis, Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn Chronicles (set near the end of Farseekers, Elspeth/Rushton, G.
“Rushton would not let us clear out your room,” Ceirwan had told me, looking at me with such a speculative light in my eyes that I had clamped fiercely on my thoughts. But although I could keep my thoughts from drifting loose for a farseeker to pick up, I could not keep myself from remembering Rushton’s voice when I first saw him after my return: Ah, Elspeth, love.
Ah, Elspeth and Rushton, the pairing of my fannish little heart during my teenage years! I still love them in all their uncommunicative glory. This is a missing scene inserted near the end of Farseekers, right before the Moonfair, to explore Elspeth’s feelings a bit more.
Just Deserts, Madeleine L’Engle’s And Both Were Young, Erna & Jackie, G.
And Both Were Young is one of L’Engle’s early works, set at an international boarding school in Switzerland not long after World War II. The book touches very gently on the experience of German girls at the school; the recip mentioned she wanted a bit more exploration of that, so that is mostly what this is. With bonus friendship and cookies!
Three Christmases with the Halladays, Frances Ha, kind of sort of Frances/Sophie, PG for language.
”I just, I, uh, I kind of thought we were dating,” Frances said.
Sophie stared at her. Frances picked at a pimple on her chin. “Because of that time at the party?” Frances said. “When you wouldn’t kiss me.”
“You thought we were dating because I wouldn’t kiss you.”
I watched Frances Ha only a couple of days before Christmas, but I liked it so much that I pounded out this story right away. I tried to capture the balance, like the movie, between Frances and Sophie’s easy talking - their conversations replicate the weirdness of chats between old friends very well - and their inability to quite communicate the deeply important things, although I’m not sure I succeeded: the visuals, the body language, are very important for that.
No More Sad Songs, Sherwood Smith’s Crown Duel, Elenet, G
I have always, always wanted more about Elenet after the end of Crown Duel. She seems like such a great person, and she gets such a raw deal from life: her father murdered by Galdran, her mother fleeing back to her home country and leaving Elenet behind, the man she loves in love with someone else.
This is my attempt to give her a road forward, without taking the easy route of pairing her up with someone. It’s much more introspective than most of my stories, very quiet, very reserved: a reflection, in a sense, of Elenet.
Doppleganger, Brave, G. The prompt for this came as a super-emergency last minute pinch hit, so if it’s a little rough, that’s why.
The prompter suggested a story where Merida meets her Disney princess counterpart. (For those of you who don’t keep up with Disney Princess news, Merida got a slight but telling redesign when they added her to the Disney princess line; you can compare the two here.)
The cracktastic brilliance of this idea tickled my fancy. What would happen if they met? How would this meeting come about in the first place? Will Merida let her sparkly counterpart take her place in DunMoch, while she herself runs off to sack Byzantium? (Hey,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
motetus! There’s another Byzantium picture possibility for you! :D)
Nymphs and Bacchantes, Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Lucy/Ginevra, R.
After a costume ball where she feels her charms have been underappreciated, Ginevra comes to Lucy’s room in search of commiseration and/or appreciation.
“An officer,” she said. “Handsome as an angel, with hair as blonde as my own and hands almost as fine, and his legs - ! Ah, do not frown, Diogenes; he was dressed as Apollo, I could not help but see. I missed a dance because of him: I put myself in his way, but he did not take his chance, and so I had to sit at the side like a wallflower. And he took no notice of anything I said to him. Me! And I barely eighteen: am I losing my charms already?”
Her heart was not injured: only her vanity. “He sounds a sensible man,” I told her. “Be sensible too, and go back to your bed so I can go back to mine.”
I love all my Yuletide fics, but this one is my secret favorite. I should probably print out the recipient’s comment and frame it in gold.
Chrysalis, Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn Chronicles (set near the end of Farseekers, Elspeth/Rushton, G.
“Rushton would not let us clear out your room,” Ceirwan had told me, looking at me with such a speculative light in my eyes that I had clamped fiercely on my thoughts. But although I could keep my thoughts from drifting loose for a farseeker to pick up, I could not keep myself from remembering Rushton’s voice when I first saw him after my return: Ah, Elspeth, love.
Ah, Elspeth and Rushton, the pairing of my fannish little heart during my teenage years! I still love them in all their uncommunicative glory. This is a missing scene inserted near the end of Farseekers, right before the Moonfair, to explore Elspeth’s feelings a bit more.
Just Deserts, Madeleine L’Engle’s And Both Were Young, Erna & Jackie, G.
And Both Were Young is one of L’Engle’s early works, set at an international boarding school in Switzerland not long after World War II. The book touches very gently on the experience of German girls at the school; the recip mentioned she wanted a bit more exploration of that, so that is mostly what this is. With bonus friendship and cookies!
Three Christmases with the Halladays, Frances Ha, kind of sort of Frances/Sophie, PG for language.
”I just, I, uh, I kind of thought we were dating,” Frances said.
Sophie stared at her. Frances picked at a pimple on her chin. “Because of that time at the party?” Frances said. “When you wouldn’t kiss me.”
“You thought we were dating because I wouldn’t kiss you.”
I watched Frances Ha only a couple of days before Christmas, but I liked it so much that I pounded out this story right away. I tried to capture the balance, like the movie, between Frances and Sophie’s easy talking - their conversations replicate the weirdness of chats between old friends very well - and their inability to quite communicate the deeply important things, although I’m not sure I succeeded: the visuals, the body language, are very important for that.
No More Sad Songs, Sherwood Smith’s Crown Duel, Elenet, G
I have always, always wanted more about Elenet after the end of Crown Duel. She seems like such a great person, and she gets such a raw deal from life: her father murdered by Galdran, her mother fleeing back to her home country and leaving Elenet behind, the man she loves in love with someone else.
This is my attempt to give her a road forward, without taking the easy route of pairing her up with someone. It’s much more introspective than most of my stories, very quiet, very reserved: a reflection, in a sense, of Elenet.
Doppleganger, Brave, G. The prompt for this came as a super-emergency last minute pinch hit, so if it’s a little rough, that’s why.
The prompter suggested a story where Merida meets her Disney princess counterpart. (For those of you who don’t keep up with Disney Princess news, Merida got a slight but telling redesign when they added her to the Disney princess line; you can compare the two here.)
The cracktastic brilliance of this idea tickled my fancy. What would happen if they met? How would this meeting come about in the first place? Will Merida let her sparkly counterpart take her place in DunMoch, while she herself runs off to sack Byzantium? (Hey,
motetus! There’s another Byzantium picture possibility for you! :D)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 12:20 am (UTC)Just added you because I love movie and book posts. :)
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Date: 2014-01-03 02:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 04:40 pm (UTC)And it's exciting searching libraries & used bookstores for books that have been long out of print: like a treasure hunt.