Yuletide fics
Jan. 2nd, 2009 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI can share my Yuletide stories! Yay!
Yet another great thing about Yuletide: this one time of the year I'm allowed, nay, encouraged, to rant about my writing process. Just a little bit.
Given an inch I'll run a mile. You've been warned.
The main story: Stolen Time, Obernewtyn Chronicles, Ariel/Elspeth, PG-13/R (the rating depends how strongly you object to the...dubiously consensual make-out session. What can I say, Ariel is Elspeth's nemesis).
Not unexpectedly, this is the fic that's gotten the least love; it's from a tiny fandom with a vast (read: over 2000 pages long) source material that you have to know pretty well for the story to make sense. Also, it has a silly title.
I got a kick out of writing it, though. Obernewtyn has a very specific voice, and it was fun trying to imitate it. Also, off my own bat it wouldn't ever have occurred to me to write this, and I think one of the loveliest things about Yuletide is that it forces writers' out of their comfort zones; it stretches us.
The treats:
Temptation, White Christmas, Bob/Phil, PG. Yes, PG; the temptation referred to in the title is not the temptation you think it is.
Well, it is, but that's not the most important temptation in the story.
I'm very proud of this title; my fics tend to have stupid titles (certainly my Yuletide fics do) but this one is eye-catching and it works on multiple levels. And I think it goes with a pretty nice story (and you don't need to know the source material to understand it), which doesn't hurt.
Fools Rush In, Dexter, no pairing (the characters are Deb and LaGuerta), PG. This spoils a number of major things in the first two seasons of Dexter, although I think it's comprehensible even if you aren't familiar with the show.
This is the most ambitious fic I wrote for Yuletide (I mean, it's gen, that makes it ambitious right there). I loved writing Deb's voice - Deb is a marvelous character; she's so insecure and tough and enthusiastic and bitter, all at once. Dexter in general has great female characters, great characters just generally really, and it's a treat to write fic for.
Carpe Diem, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Lena/Tibby, PG. This fic was a hoot to write, and it's a cute little fluffball of fluffiness.
That said, the ending is totally AU, because there's absolutely no way the actual Lena from the actual Sisterhood would react like that (she spent an entire summer angsting about having a crush on a boy everyone was practically begging her to adore, there's no way she's just going to run with her Big Gay Love for Tibby). I'm kind of tempted to write a longer version of this story where Lena reacts in a Lena-like fashion (a.k.a. total freak-out), except I'm not sure I could keep that level of angst going without driving my readers crazy.
One of the amazing things about the original Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is that Lena, for all she spends the entire book as a self-absorbed weepy blob of angst, is one of my favorite characters. (Tibby is my other favorite; hence the fic.)
Also, if I wrote a longer version, I could pretend that AU was what actually happened, instead of having to deal with the tragic reality of Sisterhood sequels that are each exponentially worse than the one before. I think Ann Brashares (the author) tried to reinvent the success of the first book by mimicking its structure, which for a variety of reasons (foremost among them, that having four friends all have life-changing experiences that are linked by a pair of blue jeans is a nice gimmick for one book but irredeemably trite thereafter) doesn't work.
If I'd written the Sisterhood sequels, they would have involved the Sisterhood members actually interacting with one another (and the pants gracefully fading into the background)...okay, this is getting way off topic and is also possibly longer than the fic itself. Sorry.
Yet another great thing about Yuletide: this one time of the year I'm allowed, nay, encouraged, to rant about my writing process. Just a little bit.
Given an inch I'll run a mile. You've been warned.
The main story: Stolen Time, Obernewtyn Chronicles, Ariel/Elspeth, PG-13/R (the rating depends how strongly you object to the...dubiously consensual make-out session. What can I say, Ariel is Elspeth's nemesis).
Not unexpectedly, this is the fic that's gotten the least love; it's from a tiny fandom with a vast (read: over 2000 pages long) source material that you have to know pretty well for the story to make sense. Also, it has a silly title.
I got a kick out of writing it, though. Obernewtyn has a very specific voice, and it was fun trying to imitate it. Also, off my own bat it wouldn't ever have occurred to me to write this, and I think one of the loveliest things about Yuletide is that it forces writers' out of their comfort zones; it stretches us.
The treats:
Temptation, White Christmas, Bob/Phil, PG. Yes, PG; the temptation referred to in the title is not the temptation you think it is.
Well, it is, but that's not the most important temptation in the story.
I'm very proud of this title; my fics tend to have stupid titles (certainly my Yuletide fics do) but this one is eye-catching and it works on multiple levels. And I think it goes with a pretty nice story (and you don't need to know the source material to understand it), which doesn't hurt.
Fools Rush In, Dexter, no pairing (the characters are Deb and LaGuerta), PG. This spoils a number of major things in the first two seasons of Dexter, although I think it's comprehensible even if you aren't familiar with the show.
This is the most ambitious fic I wrote for Yuletide (I mean, it's gen, that makes it ambitious right there). I loved writing Deb's voice - Deb is a marvelous character; she's so insecure and tough and enthusiastic and bitter, all at once. Dexter in general has great female characters, great characters just generally really, and it's a treat to write fic for.
Carpe Diem, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Lena/Tibby, PG. This fic was a hoot to write, and it's a cute little fluffball of fluffiness.
That said, the ending is totally AU, because there's absolutely no way the actual Lena from the actual Sisterhood would react like that (she spent an entire summer angsting about having a crush on a boy everyone was practically begging her to adore, there's no way she's just going to run with her Big Gay Love for Tibby). I'm kind of tempted to write a longer version of this story where Lena reacts in a Lena-like fashion (a.k.a. total freak-out), except I'm not sure I could keep that level of angst going without driving my readers crazy.
One of the amazing things about the original Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is that Lena, for all she spends the entire book as a self-absorbed weepy blob of angst, is one of my favorite characters. (Tibby is my other favorite; hence the fic.)
Also, if I wrote a longer version, I could pretend that AU was what actually happened, instead of having to deal with the tragic reality of Sisterhood sequels that are each exponentially worse than the one before. I think Ann Brashares (the author) tried to reinvent the success of the first book by mimicking its structure, which for a variety of reasons (foremost among them, that having four friends all have life-changing experiences that are linked by a pair of blue jeans is a nice gimmick for one book but irredeemably trite thereafter) doesn't work.
If I'd written the Sisterhood sequels, they would have involved the Sisterhood members actually interacting with one another (and the pants gracefully fading into the background)...okay, this is getting way off topic and is also possibly longer than the fic itself. Sorry.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 04:19 pm (UTC)i'm not reading it right now, because i'm editing your fic and stuff, but at some point i will have to check that out. and probably the sisterhood of the traveling pants fic... they're such interesting (and slightly random) fandoms. ; )
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 05:25 am (UTC)Thank you for the edits, btw.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 04:56 pm (UTC)you're welcome.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 05:16 pm (UTC)Yuletide has been fantastic, both in the reading and the writing. I am toying with some NYR requests at the moment - picking a request isn't quite as scary as having one given to you!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 05:24 am (UTC)And then I'll get nothing done all year except NYR requests. Ah well.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 09:18 am (UTC)Still, I'm going to take a look later!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 05:04 pm (UTC)White Christmas is a pretty fabulous movie. Have you watched any other Bing Crosby? I tend to prefer his costars, honestly, but he always has fantastic costars.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 06:59 pm (UTC)The only Bing Crosby I can name off the top of my head is High Society (also Little Drummer Boy with David Bowie) but I'm sure if I thought a little more, I could come up with other ones....