Sometimes Writing

Okay, letter time!

Dear Pacific Rim Secret Santa writer!

( letter under here )

Holy crap it's time for hlh_shortcuts sign-ups again! That means 1. If you like HL you should go check it out, read some of last year's stuff, maybe sign up? And 2. Letter time!

( Read more... )

In addition to writing things this winter, I also received things! Wonderful things!

My gifts this year:

At the Edge of Our Hope - A fantastic Pacific Rim/Highlander crossover written for me by the wonderful ithildyn, with Methos serving as doctor in the Hong Kong Shatterdome during the events of Pacific Rim. I adore this. Methos fits in quite nicely and I love where the author chose to put Duncan and Amanda during the war. Please go read this. Having written crossovers for the Highlander swap before I know they often don't get as much love because not all the readers there for the Highlander stuff know the crossover fandoms.

Once in Love with Stella - My Yuletide gift, written by sphinxvictorian. It's a Local Hero story, and if you don't know Local Hero it's totally findable on Youtube and you should go watch it. Then read this story, which gives a lovely post-movie look at Mac, Gordon and Stella.

Dear Yule-writer!

( Details for you! )

And that's the lot! Feel free to contact me through the mods if you need more than what I've written, or clarification on something. I hope you have an excellent Yuletide!

Apparently I'm going to actually do more writing this year. I say this because for the first time in a while I've got a bunch of things I'm really looking forward to working on.

• Stories for the episodes I came up with for this bit of oddness I did for the Highlander 20th anniversary challenge. At least three of them are so clear in my head, it would be silly for me to ignore them.


• A third (and possibly fourth) piece to go with New Year's in Scotland and In the Mail. I'd like to do a road trip for Methos and Joe and I'd like to go back in time to when Methos and Connor met. Okay, make it three more pieces, because I'd like to have Connor find out Methos is older than him too.


• I seem to have started thinking about a Highlander/Buckaroo Banzai crossover in the comments to one of my hlh_shortcuts stories, so there's that to play with.


• People seem to like A Routine Operation, which is flattering beyond words. When I was planning what to do with that story, I had a bunch of ideas for what to do with the crossover. It actually started inside Coulson's head with his contingency plans for his contingency plans and I've got ideas for a bunch of other bits and pieces in the universe, so I'll be doing that too.

I have been sick and lacking the attention span to do much outside of work, but I am forcing myself to post because holy crap, I got awesome gifts this year!

For hlh_shortcuts I got an absolutely fantastic Avengers crossover starring Joe, Methos, Nick Fury, Phil Coulson and a ton of fun snark and action and crack. Oh yeah, it's crack. Crack so fun I was laughing hard enough to wake up the husband next to me. Unready Reserves, rated G, link goes to part 1 but I urge you to read on through part 2 and leave a comment, cause it rocks.

For yuletide I got a lovely fic for The Changeover, by Margaret Mahy. It's post-canon, set well after the events of the book, involving the every day lives of Sorry and Laura and Laura's younger brother, Jacko. I absolutely adore how Laura and Sorry's magic is infused into their lives even when they do normal things like cooking dinner for each other, and I love the choice Jacko is faced with and how they handle it. The story is really nicely written and, importantly, it feels right for the canon. I'll Break My Staff, I'll Drown My Book, rated Gen.


I'll post a list of my own wintery works when authors are revealed.

Let me explain... No, that would take too long. Let me sum up...

I received two wonderful fics this year as part of the hlh_shortcuts and yuletide swaps. I've mentioned them before but they both bear mention again:
Pilgrims for Highlander (Amanda and Methos) and Something Nasty in the Woodshed for Yuletide (The Avengers - 1960s tv).

I wrote five fics this year for the two aforementioned swaps:
Messing With Lazarus - Methos and Joe - PG (gen)
Originally written as a potential pinch hit but then everyone got their stories in and no pinch hits were needed. Thing is, by the time I knew that I was pretty much done with it. Inspired by the song Po' Lazarus (I was listening to some music to get in a good frame of mind to write Joe), it's got Watcher politics, Immortal folklore and a terrible couch.

Oh, My Mountain - Methos and Duncan - PG13 (gen) - written for Nirva
I'd had this idea of making Methos the expedition doctor for a group of climbers on Everest for some time now but I'd never done anything with it. Everest (and the phenomenon of people feeling a pressing need to climb it) fascinates me. Of course, it's not really a great place for a challenge.

Collaboration, Cooperation and Chime - Emelan/Circle of Magic by Tamora Pierce - Briar, Daja, Tris, Sandry and some OCs - PG13 (some violence, tiny bit of slashy romance) - written for Opalsong
I've written in this fandom before but never these characters. Originally it was supposed to be a shorter piece with Briar dealing with the trauma of having lived through a war, but then I reread the books and the story grew a crime to solve and a few OCs.

The Madame Curie Look-a-Like Contest and Other Failed Diversions - Real Genius - Chris, Ick, Jordan and assorted others - PG (gen) - written for thecarlysutra
I've always been nervous about writing for this canon but I couldn't not write a bunch of failed pranks. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Some background on the pranks: My father told me about some students at MIT attempting to haunt a new building by burying speakers against its foundation, but someone found them before the building was finished. My father also told me about some other students who wanted to make a point that professors never really paid attention to their students and spent a semester getting an entirely made up student through a full course load. With those sorts of stories, how could I resist?

Folk Art of the Ocean - The Dark is Rising - Jane - G - written for TLvop
This was a treat and I admit, it was written in under an hour. The thing is, it all but wrote itself. TLvop and I had chatted a tiny bit about The Dark is Rising in the Yuletide chat, sparked by my username. I checked TL's Dear Author letter and saw a request for Jane-centric fic and there it was. Jane as an adult, walking through a museum. Then she was the curator. Then there was the Greenwitch. I've only had that sort of writing compulsion once or twice before and it was a joy to get that piece out this time.


And then I made some recs for yuletide. 52 recs, to be precise. And I'm not done reading through the things I'd marked to read later. Here are my recs, covering Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, The Avengers (TV), Anna to the Infinite Power, Breakfast Club, Chronicles of Riddick/Pitch Black, Clue, Dark City, Dark Crystal, Elfquest, Emelan - Tamora Pierce, Galaxy Quest, Grosse Pointe Blank, Hot Fuzz, Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones, The Magicians, Muppet Show, MST3K, Oglaf, Oregon Trail (videogame), Portal (videogame), Protector of the Small/Tortall - Tamora Pierce, Push, Read or Die, Sandman, Ship Series - Anne McCaffrey, Star Trek: DS9, Sunshine, Swallows and Amazons, Toy Soldiers, Valdemar - Mercedes Lackey, Yellow Submarine, Young Wizards/Illuminatus!/Sandman

I'll add to this post when I finish my recs and get to read through the rest of the hlh_shortcuts stories for this year.

Also, I'm going to be adding all my HL stories to AO3. I did all my older Yuletide stories last year then got distracted before I could do HL. If you've done the HL swap in previous years and got something from me, you might get a notice for it when I put it up.

Hey, guess what time it is?

Yuletide time!

So, here's my Dear Author letter:
( Dear Author )

Swiped this from fandom_me

Pick a character and I will give and explain the top five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.

I've written in a lot of bitty fandoms and a ton of games, so take a look at my AO3 list, add HL and HP to it and my RP characters are fair game too.

And so the winter fic swap season has ended (for me at least) with the Yuletide author reveal. I've still got stories to read, what with the YT archive being so massive, but the official challenges/swaps are over.

I wrote a total of five stories this year. Four for Yuletide, one for Highlander.

hlh_shortcuts -
I wrote Fencing for hafital.
It's a HL/Ocean's 11 crossover, which was a blast to write even if it did take off in a totally different direction than I started it in. It was supposed to be a heist fic with Amanda, Danny and Rusty sort of competing to see who could get to the loot first. But it was slow going and I was having trouble with the set-up. And then I had a computer-less evening just before Thanksgiving and ended up scribbling in a notebook for a few hours and this came out of that.


yuletide / Yuletide 2010 on AO3 -
Freelance for MiraMira
Fandom: The Magicians by Lev Grossman
I read this books months back and when I saw it on the Yuletide fandom list I knew it had so many fantastic fic possibilities. I offered one character in particular - Jane Chatwin - because I thought she had some wonderful potential. And then that was my assignment. I reread the book several times, agonized over the fact that it would necessarily be one big spoiler, worried over the time travel/back and forth aspect, and eventually was very pleased with what I wrote.

Variant Flare for Kettricken
Fandom: The Magicians by Lev Grossman
I picked this up as a pinch hit not long after sending in my first story. It was for the same fandom, which I had been steeping myself in since getting my original assignment, and as soon as I saw the prompt I had a story idea. It's not nearly as spoilery as the other one, since it's a missing scene from mid-book. As an aside, while I did write this as a pinch hit, it seems as though the original writer for this recipient didn't actually default. There was a story uploaded, but not tagged correctly as filling an assignment. Looks like it is now, which is fantastic. Still, I'm thrilled I had the chance to write this.

A Day in the Life of Penny Priddy for missmollyetc
Fandom: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension
I saw the prompt for this (asking for a fic focusing on Penny) during Yuletide Madness and I do so love Buckaroo Banzai. I wanted to do something that showed both the sort of every day stuff that likely goes on at the Banzai Institute, and Penny's internal thought process in regards to being there. I admit, I drew a little on what I remembered from the book in terms of new students and their living conditions.

The Elephant's Balloon for kiki-eng
Fandom: Black Books
It is getting to be a habit for me to write at least one Black Books fic every Yuletide. I can't help it! They're so much fun and if I put an episode on in the background or before I write to refresh my memory on details the voices practically start shouting for me. Bernard in particular. I believe the prompt for this wanted to know more about the lensgrinder in Omsk (part of Bernard's original story which was later distilled into the ill-fated children's book). So I watched the episode, drew upon significant experience reading pompous book reviews (comes with the territory of Children's Librarian) and there it is. I was rather in a rush to get it done before midnight, as I didn't know when the archive would close. I've spotted a typo just now and should go fix it. I'm very sorry to have missed that until now.


And that's the lot this year. I always think I'm going to go back and do New Year's Resolutions for Yuletide but I've only done it once so far. Maybe this year will be the charm. I also have promised follow-ups to some of my past hlh stories and not done it. We'll see if I can remedy that.

And for anyone curious, I am going through some of my old stuff and dropping it into AO3, since I've got an account and all. I moved all of my old Yuletide stuff manually a few months back, so there's more Black Books, Ocean's and a random assortment of other things there already.