Yuletide Meta
Jan. 1st, 2011 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeBefore I break for dinner, some Yuletide meta. Liner notes! Because... I wanted to document my thought process. I have no idea. Maybe people would be interested!
Prince of the Land of Stench – The problem with writing anything in any Jack the Ripper field is that there's so damn much material in the hundred or so years since people decided to stuff him in fiction that it's hard to decide where to begin. Even limiting it to one comic (From Hell) was difficult. After a couple seconds to think (because I had about an hour or so to write, I thought, by the time I noticed the thing hadn't been claimed) I decided just to start and go with wherever my brain landed. Apparently it landed in a London street sometime after it had rained when I was walking, I think, in Wandsworth. So I went with it.
New Process – I had no idea where to start with this one when I saw it pop up. I just knew I knew the fandom, and I actually had a bit of a crush on Todd when I first saw it. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is something I'm familiar with; trying to write Todd suffering from the condition was definitely a challenge. In the end I decided tomake it as easy on myself as possible go at it from the inside rather than the outside, because it was easier to peel open his head and show what's inside than describe the actions taking place and show it that way. Actually, writing this has rekindled my love for the world and the character, so there might be more fic in the offing. No promises, I'm horribly flighty sometimes, but I'll try.
Living Fairy Tales - This was for a friend of mine who popped up on the pinch-hit-but-not-signed-up list, when I didn't recognize/couldn't write for any of her fandoms prompted. Thee first time I re-watched Beauty and the Beast I fell in love with Vincent all over again, but particularly hard when he started reciting Shakespeare and poetry. Ron Perlman just has the most beautiful voice for it, stirring and subtle delivery... it was amazing. I started with that moment, putting myself in Catherine's place as listening to someone she loved dearly reciting to her those words, with such emotion... and I went with that. The conversation that fell out just seemed entirely natural from there.
Sunny Side – I write a lot of Clay/Aisha. I like Clay/Aisha. But at some point when I was breaking my wrists writing all the last minute stories I wanted to write for Yuletide, Jensen/Aisha popped into my head. I had to remedy this. How best to do it? Clay/Aisha porn! These two would be hot passing the broccoli, I swear.
Agnes of Gru – The title is a stealth pun on a play I haven't actually seen in years, but the play is called Agnes of God. It's about a relationship between three women. And that's where the reference stops because it was 11.4something, it was a last minute pinch hit, and I needed a title. The fic itself is not where I expected it to go at all, but the prompt was growing up in a supervillain type family, and what stuck with me most of that movie wasn't the Gru-as-supervillain, but the Gru-as-father and Gru-as-child dynamic. Dichotomy. Which is a little odd because he didn't turn up in the story at all.
I started with the yelling because that's what struck me about difficulties growing up, when you're a teenager and it seems like the whole world is conspiring against you, and everything you do that's wrong or stands out in a bad way is because someone deliberately is trying to hurt you. So, you hurt them back. It wouldn't be Margo, because if the girls are old enough to do that then she's almost out of that stage. So it had to be the younger two. Which led to, what happens when Margo goes away to college. Which led to… the fic.
I may have to write an aftermath fic; I feel like Gru got short shrift in this one because even though there are situations he's not equipped to handle, with his lack of sisters in his past, that doesn't mean he's an incompetent adult, parent, or foster father.
Scrapyard Parkour – The prompt for this was actually Cougar/Jensen slash, or Cougar slashy, which is an idea I'm not keen on. But friendship and affection, that I can totally do, and I can even leave it ambiguous enough that if a person wants to put a slashy spin on it, by all means! My dear friend and betakikibug13 gave me the idea for Aisha watching Cougar run, which flowed into this pretty naturally. I wasn't sure about Cougar's injury at first, but it didn't seem that unreasonable that he'd a) get carried away either showing off or playing with Jensen or both and b) a pile of tires was just a little unstable or slippery. Plus, it gave Jensen something to tease him about later.
Sweet Dreams – This … I have no idea where this came from. I was working on something and then it turned into Jensen/Aisha porn, but Aisha would never sleep with Jensen. She's got Clay! And somehow she doesn't strike me as the type to be randomly unfaithful, and setting up a change of lovers would take forever. On the other hand, it seemed totally plausible that Jensen would have some kind of sexy dream or fantasy about her. Which set up a humorous situation if she walked in on him talking or muttering or shifting in his sleep. Which then set up some cute interaction. I like the idea of Aisha making a place for herself, slowly and awkwardly, in their family. What happens after Max is dead, with Clay, is up for grabs, but to me that scene at the end of the movie with the soccer game showed that she was welcomed among them as family.
Keeping Secrets – I couldn’t decide whether to make this pre-series Nicky interacting with pre-series Jason, or post-series Nicky. I also couldn't come up with too much justification for one of them tracking down the other off the top of my head, so I made it to be pre-series memories set by a post-series Nicky. I figured it was entirely possible that the two had had a fling, but she didn't act like someone who was seeing someone she'd been deeply in love with. Nor did she act like someone who didn't care about him, so I tried to find a balance between the two. That, and the intensity and force Matt Damon gives his Bourne, make a story!
Walking Wounded – A couple of you who read this might recognize Annie's problem, heh. I was racking my brain for an injury I could write about without a ton of research, because this was part of the massive number of fics I wrote on the 24th and I didn't have time to do much research. I don't remember if anything in particular triggered the memory, but I gave her the same injury I'd sustained a few, maybe six months ago. I think it was trying to think of how she would react if she, a previously healthy and fit woman, was suddenly injured. And I remembered lying prone on the floor, literally unable to move from that position without wracking, crying pain, and being terrified that I'd done something horrible and paralyzed myself. And how frustrating it was coming up from that, and so on, so rather than come up with an equivalent I drew from that. Jai I threw in … maybe not solely because I met Sendhil at Dragon*Con last year, but mostly because of that. He's an absolute sweetheart and after a short line of people talking about Mohinder he seemed really eager to talk to me about Covert Affairs, it was quite adorable.
Strain – This came up as I was waiting to head out from work (I work retail, we were waiting to see if we could close up early or if there was going to be a last minute rush, and there wasn't.) and, pretty much, I looked at the prompts and was all "DAMMIT, ELYN." Because I love Rorschach. Or it might be more accurate to say, I love writing for Rorschach. I can never do too much of it at any one time because he's just a bit messed up, in the same way the Atlantic Ocean is a tad damp. But I love writing for him. I grabbed at it, I askedkikibug13 to give me a nudge of some kind, and she suggested the time between leaving Dan and arriving at Doc Manhattan. The rest flowed from there.
Consequence – Given a prompt of Cassie and Pop Girl, either working together or working against I… took the middle ground. I was going to do working against each other, as rivals, because that fascinated me, and then I ran up against the problem of Pop Girl getting her memory wiped towards the end of the movie. She couldn't be a rival if she didn't remember why she was supposed to be fighting Cassie. On the other hand, she did still have those pictures in her notebook. Cassie's point of view is pretty easy for me to get into, but writing Pop Girl's words and actions was a bit of a challenge. I did enjoy it a fair bit, though. Writing both of them as equals feeling their way along things, especially with Cassie knowing what had happened and that it was partly her and her people's fault, and feeling a bit bad about that once she realized what it meant for the other Watcher and yet not wanting to get shot… complex situation.
Playground Justice – At the very last minute, I worried that my story (epic though it was) might not be right for my Yuletide recipient. And then I worried that if I was writing two prompts for a pinch hit assignment (two prompts on that assignment spoke to me, I was only familiar with the one on my initial assignment) my initial assignment might feel left out, despite the fact that there was actually no way for the person to tell until I posted about it on LJ. Go me. But Human Target is an easy fandom for me to write for, and the recip and I share a fascination with the pocket ninja. It started off with, literally, only so much as Guerrero with a guy trussed up on that wheeling cart and Chance giving him a funny look. And Guerrero responding with. "What? I got you a fruitcake." A very little bit of Chance-Guerrero RP and a lot of banging and bashing stuff together later and a fic emerged! We also have some spoilers for future eps to blame for this, but I won't tell you which parts or in what way. Suffice to say, the spoilers were inspirational. Actually by the time this goes live they might not be spoilers anymore, I'm writing this on Christmas day before I forget a lot of stuff.
Keep Breathing – Every time I see this title I think of that Keep Bleeding Love song. Not sure why but it, too, kind of fits. I love Blade Runner. Roy with both Pris and Zhora has always been my personal canon; they're Replicants, they don't live as long as humans, and they don't have time/haven't had time to develop human customs and mores. As the apha male, it makes a certain amount of sense that he'd have both women if he wanted. Zhora, though, is more of a partner than a mate.
I love the whole movie. I brought my origami unicorn from my Blade Runner special set briefcase to Edward James Olmos, that's how much of a fangirl I am. And I love the vividness of the city. Zhora's place of work seemed like a very bright, vivacious, lively place, a place where she would have gone if she wanted to feel alive, and with all the Replicants most likely dying soon if Roy didn't find an alternative, she probably wanted to feel alive. The image of her running through the glass and dying in the snow stuck with me. The idea that it wasn't fair, that he shot her in the back, that she ran rather than stay and kick Deckard's ass which, let's be fair, she totally could have done there. I wrote Zhora as best I could, I'm used to writing Roy, which I can link here if people are interested.
Storybook Love – I'd been carrying around this in my head for a while. Maybe a couple of weeks before I finally got to write and upload it. When I got this pinch hit I was familiar with at least three fandoms, and it took a second to decide on the one I ultimately wrote about 18k on. But I still had RED in my mind, because Helen Mirren with a machine gun is so the right answer. Victoria and Cooper talking was the first thing that came to mind about it, the second thing was Victoria and Ivan's love for each other. And then it occurred to me that, given Cooper's relationship with his wife, that was the perfect thing they could talk about. Love, and not just any kind of love but a love that endured and knew each other in the small ways as well as the large. I hope I conveyed that well enough in the story; it was a lot of fun to write.
Dungeon Swag – This was a huge amount of self-indulgence as well as filling a prompt. Jensen always seemed the type to RP to me. And if they could play card games for guns and knives, why not RP? A lot of soldiers and such RP! I made the GM a woman because I wanted Jensen to interact with her in a flirty way but also with a barrier to further shenanigans, at least for there. Only then realized I was sort of defying stereotype by doing so. Partly because I'm also a woman who GMs. There is a conversation in that fic, too, that actually took place in a game I was in. I threw it in because it seemed like exactly the kind of joke Jensen would make.
Fooled Hearts – You havekikibug13 to thank for this, again. She gave me the Nick making Cassie breakfast in bed prompt, and I ran with it. I also killed off Kira because, well, no one in this fandom it seems like likes Kira, and because in my personal canon for them (see The Rainbow Connection for more details) Kira sacrifices herself eventually. And because the significance of Nick reaching out and making breakfast and eating food on his own initiative after losing someone he loves that deeply seemed like something I could make a fic out of. The title comes from the song As The World Falls Down, which is sort of what it feels like for them: a surreal, escapist world with just the two of them in distorted vision while the rest of the world rots and falls down around them.
Starstuff – I'll admit, I was really nervous about this one. I picked it up somewhat at the last minute, don't have the books anymore I think… unless I do and all that freaking out was for nothing. I'll have to look now, that just occurred to me. But I didn't have the books, hadn't read them in a few years, but of all the fandoms on that list I was pretty sure they were all obscure, and knew I knew at least one of them. So I grabbed it. The world of the Darkangel trilogy fascinates me, the layer of science fiction under the layer of fantasy. There were so many complexities and so many places I could have gone with it, especially after the events of the last novel. I chose to deal with the responsibilities Aeriel would face and the task of rebuilding and being mother to the world, partly for a number of complex personal reasons but also because my mental landscape when I need to organize my thoughts for writing comes a great deal from this book. I use handcrafts as a framework, because I spin and weave and things. I picked up the idea of the spindle because it was the niftiest idea ever, I made a whole mental workshop out of it. And I thought, she might be able to do that too. Ultimately it ended up being more about her mental tools and less about her magical and physical tools, but it seems to have worked out all right.
We Regret To Inform You – Warehouse 13 is one of my happy fandoms. I'd say it's a happy new fandom but somehow the show turned 2 seasons old when I wasn't looking. Writing a story about the women on the show wasn't hard; they outnumber the men! Two to one, mostly! It actually started out as a treatise on communication, Claudia yelling at Artie about his lack of it, HG trying to achieve some of it with Myka, and a couple other things. But when I started writing I kept thinking of the Mrs. Frederic notifying Valda's family of his death fic that I had in mind to write at some point. I had this in mind for a while, for several reasons. The idea of the Regents having homes and families intrigued me. They hold down normal jobs, one of them is a diner waitress, for crying out loud! The idea of Mrs. Frederic's off-screen duties, and the idea that she's close to these people. And part of the Yuletide letter for this was wanting to know more about Claudia and Mrs. Frederic, so I went with it. And it turned out to be the best part of the overall fic, so I posted just that. The other pieces… HG's letter to Myka went up as part of Yuletide Madness. The conversation between Claudia and Artie never quite gelled.
(Future Fic Idea: What do you mean I'm free… what do you mean I'm bound to the warehouse?)
Moonlight and Love Song – I don’t even remember why I grabbed this in the first place, but I'm sure I had a reason. I threw up an outline pretty quick; it seemed an easy one to plan. A conversation between a woman and her dead lover, a last chance to actually say good-bye instead of a few gasped out words. There was an end scene if the conversation between them didn't conclude in a final and determined manner, but it didn't work out that way, they both seemed content. And Lawrence struck me as someone who, apart from the hypocrisy of it if he did object, would be fine with his beloved being happy with another man years after his death. As long as she was happy and cared for, and the man was decent and honorable. The fic itself came more easily than I expected. I love old mystery movies, I love the old horror tropes. It quickly became the story of, how many little inside jokes can I throw in and not overdo it. Also, puns. You may have noticed.
The Rainbow Connection – Adventure, and Nick/Cassie. Well, since Nick/Cassie eventually happening was in my personal canon anyway, I just had to get them there.kikibug13 and I had already developed the part of the story where Kira dies, giving them the opening to get Cassie's mother out of Division. The problem was getting them there. The first part, not so hard. I took Cassie from a thirteen year old with a crush (because she so had a crush on Nick) through to discovering sexuality as her body changed, as she grew up, to thinking about Nick in more sexual terms as well. That part was important to me, because she started out having this physically chaste crush on him despite knowing a lot of things, possibly more than she wanted to, about sex, but not knowing or understanding the visceral urges as applied to her. And then, as she grew, this changed and she had to cope with those changes along with both Nick and Kira's relationship and all the issues in Division.
And then Kira dies, and they have to rebuild, so there isn't much time for relationships. The part I struggled with after that was trying to figure out how they'd take down Division. Kiki had another good idea about that, giving them someone who could undo Pushes. The implications of that, if someone could undo the Pushes that maybe lead people to work for Division, would be astonishing. And major. Especially if what Carver did to Kira wasn't an exception or startling or unusual. It didn't seem unreasonable that a number of people had been Pushed from being rebels into working willingly for Division. So I went with that. It wouldn't be a quick revolution. It would be slow, and they'd have to work at it and keep working at it. But given that both of them have been on the run for so long, it seemed like they'd prefer to work at it from a home base that's more concrete and established. They've also been together for so long, they could easily form the core of a family unit, especially the way Nick seems to slide easily into the leader role, with Cassie close behind him giving him information and nudging him, stabilizing him too, in a way. As she gets older, she can take more of the reassuring and comforting role as well.
Hammurabi – I swear, when I outlined this I didn't know it would get this big.
I speculate a lot about Guerrero and this little one in his life. Whether or not he's an active part of the child's life, whether or not he keeps tabs on them through other means, whether or not he's listed on the birth certificate came to mind when it turned out that he had a full legal name that might still be found. And at that, I think he is, but it doesn't come up in the story.
For the mother of his child, I figured she was likely a civilian. Someone who knew the kind of life he leads that intimately would either never risk having a child with him, or he wouldn't be apart from her, they would have figured a way out to be together. She would also be strong, intelligent and fierce and very capable in her field. All the women he's hit on or flirted with so far have been strong-willed and fierce women. She would be capable of dealing with him and his profession on at least a somewhat equal ground, given that she wouldn't have his skills. And she would fall in love with who he is, not who he could be if he was fixed. I made her Latina, although that didn't turn out to be relevant to the story, and I gave her knitting needles because at some point I meant to have Guerrero stab someone with them, but that didn't happen either. Sadly. Now I want to write a story about him stabbing someone with knitting needles.
Chance, judging by the rough timeline they've set up for us, would have been dealing with Winston and the aftermath of the Katherine Walters event, which jives with Guerrero not knowing about it so well, not the outcome, and his reaction when he learned about it. That sigh and lean back and distant look. So he's finding out all these things that change his image of his old friend, maybe his oldest friend by now, even while he's trying to find and rescue his friend from danger. He'd be wondering how Guerrero could have loved someone enough to have a child with them, or if it was an accident, if he ever knew his friend at all, how could he keep the secret. He might also think back to the conversation with Baptiste (because this episode had aired back then) and how Baptiste asked him how long he'd been talking to them, thinking about leaving. And thinking about him and Guerrero talking, especially about women or families, and Guerrero all the time having this family and never saying a word.
Winston, I wasn't sure about. Winston doesn't like Guerrero although he is coming to tolerate him, and he doesn't like the influence Guerrero has over Chance. But he does, I think, respect Guerrero enough not to say much in the way of derogatory remarks or tease him about having a family. Ames, having a professional crush on Guerrero and thus an idealized view of him, especially with not getting to know him very well, would be very shocked. And it would shake her some. I didn't explore either of their reactions too much, although now I'm kind of curious.
And then, of course, the ending. Because Guerrero and a wife/girlfriend and children in the kind of world he still lives in is untenable, she has to go away. Private based witness protection, set up by them and financed by Ilsa. That scene was hard to write, both for the emotional kick and for the balance between showing how much it hurts and keeping Guerrero in character, the cold and ruthless bastard he can be but still fiercely loyal, emotional, self-decidedly "honest with his feelings" and, obviously, capable of love. Probably very strong, enduring love, given his other behaviors throughout the series. I'm actually a little surprised that I made it through the whole story without a kiss, but kind of relieved, too. A kiss would have been overweening, I think. The flashbacks may have been, too, they maybe should have stayed as deleted scenes, or the information within been folded in a little more. Something to think about for future versions.
And, for the most part although less so for the top half of these stories, much, much thanks goes to my ever eagle-eyed editor,lireavue, without whom these stories might be a lot less coherent and probably with many more typos.
Prince of the Land of Stench – The problem with writing anything in any Jack the Ripper field is that there's so damn much material in the hundred or so years since people decided to stuff him in fiction that it's hard to decide where to begin. Even limiting it to one comic (From Hell) was difficult. After a couple seconds to think (because I had about an hour or so to write, I thought, by the time I noticed the thing hadn't been claimed) I decided just to start and go with wherever my brain landed. Apparently it landed in a London street sometime after it had rained when I was walking, I think, in Wandsworth. So I went with it.
New Process – I had no idea where to start with this one when I saw it pop up. I just knew I knew the fandom, and I actually had a bit of a crush on Todd when I first saw it. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is something I'm familiar with; trying to write Todd suffering from the condition was definitely a challenge. In the end I decided to
Living Fairy Tales - This was for a friend of mine who popped up on the pinch-hit-but-not-signed-up list, when I didn't recognize/couldn't write for any of her fandoms prompted. Thee first time I re-watched Beauty and the Beast I fell in love with Vincent all over again, but particularly hard when he started reciting Shakespeare and poetry. Ron Perlman just has the most beautiful voice for it, stirring and subtle delivery... it was amazing. I started with that moment, putting myself in Catherine's place as listening to someone she loved dearly reciting to her those words, with such emotion... and I went with that. The conversation that fell out just seemed entirely natural from there.
Sunny Side – I write a lot of Clay/Aisha. I like Clay/Aisha. But at some point when I was breaking my wrists writing all the last minute stories I wanted to write for Yuletide, Jensen/Aisha popped into my head. I had to remedy this. How best to do it? Clay/Aisha porn! These two would be hot passing the broccoli, I swear.
Agnes of Gru – The title is a stealth pun on a play I haven't actually seen in years, but the play is called Agnes of God. It's about a relationship between three women. And that's where the reference stops because it was 11.4something, it was a last minute pinch hit, and I needed a title. The fic itself is not where I expected it to go at all, but the prompt was growing up in a supervillain type family, and what stuck with me most of that movie wasn't the Gru-as-supervillain, but the Gru-as-father and Gru-as-child dynamic. Dichotomy. Which is a little odd because he didn't turn up in the story at all.
I started with the yelling because that's what struck me about difficulties growing up, when you're a teenager and it seems like the whole world is conspiring against you, and everything you do that's wrong or stands out in a bad way is because someone deliberately is trying to hurt you. So, you hurt them back. It wouldn't be Margo, because if the girls are old enough to do that then she's almost out of that stage. So it had to be the younger two. Which led to, what happens when Margo goes away to college. Which led to… the fic.
I may have to write an aftermath fic; I feel like Gru got short shrift in this one because even though there are situations he's not equipped to handle, with his lack of sisters in his past, that doesn't mean he's an incompetent adult, parent, or foster father.
Scrapyard Parkour – The prompt for this was actually Cougar/Jensen slash, or Cougar slashy, which is an idea I'm not keen on. But friendship and affection, that I can totally do, and I can even leave it ambiguous enough that if a person wants to put a slashy spin on it, by all means! My dear friend and beta
kikibug13 gave me the idea for Aisha watching Cougar run, which flowed into this pretty naturally. I wasn't sure about Cougar's injury at first, but it didn't seem that unreasonable that he'd a) get carried away either showing off or playing with Jensen or both and b) a pile of tires was just a little unstable or slippery. Plus, it gave Jensen something to tease him about later.Sweet Dreams – This … I have no idea where this came from. I was working on something and then it turned into Jensen/Aisha porn, but Aisha would never sleep with Jensen. She's got Clay! And somehow she doesn't strike me as the type to be randomly unfaithful, and setting up a change of lovers would take forever. On the other hand, it seemed totally plausible that Jensen would have some kind of sexy dream or fantasy about her. Which set up a humorous situation if she walked in on him talking or muttering or shifting in his sleep. Which then set up some cute interaction. I like the idea of Aisha making a place for herself, slowly and awkwardly, in their family. What happens after Max is dead, with Clay, is up for grabs, but to me that scene at the end of the movie with the soccer game showed that she was welcomed among them as family.
Keeping Secrets – I couldn’t decide whether to make this pre-series Nicky interacting with pre-series Jason, or post-series Nicky. I also couldn't come up with too much justification for one of them tracking down the other off the top of my head, so I made it to be pre-series memories set by a post-series Nicky. I figured it was entirely possible that the two had had a fling, but she didn't act like someone who was seeing someone she'd been deeply in love with. Nor did she act like someone who didn't care about him, so I tried to find a balance between the two. That, and the intensity and force Matt Damon gives his Bourne, make a story!
Walking Wounded – A couple of you who read this might recognize Annie's problem, heh. I was racking my brain for an injury I could write about without a ton of research, because this was part of the massive number of fics I wrote on the 24th and I didn't have time to do much research. I don't remember if anything in particular triggered the memory, but I gave her the same injury I'd sustained a few, maybe six months ago. I think it was trying to think of how she would react if she, a previously healthy and fit woman, was suddenly injured. And I remembered lying prone on the floor, literally unable to move from that position without wracking, crying pain, and being terrified that I'd done something horrible and paralyzed myself. And how frustrating it was coming up from that, and so on, so rather than come up with an equivalent I drew from that. Jai I threw in … maybe not solely because I met Sendhil at Dragon*Con last year, but mostly because of that. He's an absolute sweetheart and after a short line of people talking about Mohinder he seemed really eager to talk to me about Covert Affairs, it was quite adorable.
Strain – This came up as I was waiting to head out from work (I work retail, we were waiting to see if we could close up early or if there was going to be a last minute rush, and there wasn't.) and, pretty much, I looked at the prompts and was all "DAMMIT, ELYN." Because I love Rorschach. Or it might be more accurate to say, I love writing for Rorschach. I can never do too much of it at any one time because he's just a bit messed up, in the same way the Atlantic Ocean is a tad damp. But I love writing for him. I grabbed at it, I asked
kikibug13 to give me a nudge of some kind, and she suggested the time between leaving Dan and arriving at Doc Manhattan. The rest flowed from there. Consequence – Given a prompt of Cassie and Pop Girl, either working together or working against I… took the middle ground. I was going to do working against each other, as rivals, because that fascinated me, and then I ran up against the problem of Pop Girl getting her memory wiped towards the end of the movie. She couldn't be a rival if she didn't remember why she was supposed to be fighting Cassie. On the other hand, she did still have those pictures in her notebook. Cassie's point of view is pretty easy for me to get into, but writing Pop Girl's words and actions was a bit of a challenge. I did enjoy it a fair bit, though. Writing both of them as equals feeling their way along things, especially with Cassie knowing what had happened and that it was partly her and her people's fault, and feeling a bit bad about that once she realized what it meant for the other Watcher and yet not wanting to get shot… complex situation.
Playground Justice – At the very last minute, I worried that my story (epic though it was) might not be right for my Yuletide recipient. And then I worried that if I was writing two prompts for a pinch hit assignment (two prompts on that assignment spoke to me, I was only familiar with the one on my initial assignment) my initial assignment might feel left out, despite the fact that there was actually no way for the person to tell until I posted about it on LJ. Go me. But Human Target is an easy fandom for me to write for, and the recip and I share a fascination with the pocket ninja. It started off with, literally, only so much as Guerrero with a guy trussed up on that wheeling cart and Chance giving him a funny look. And Guerrero responding with. "What? I got you a fruitcake." A very little bit of Chance-Guerrero RP and a lot of banging and bashing stuff together later and a fic emerged! We also have some spoilers for future eps to blame for this, but I won't tell you which parts or in what way. Suffice to say, the spoilers were inspirational. Actually by the time this goes live they might not be spoilers anymore, I'm writing this on Christmas day before I forget a lot of stuff.
Keep Breathing – Every time I see this title I think of that Keep Bleeding Love song. Not sure why but it, too, kind of fits. I love Blade Runner. Roy with both Pris and Zhora has always been my personal canon; they're Replicants, they don't live as long as humans, and they don't have time/haven't had time to develop human customs and mores. As the apha male, it makes a certain amount of sense that he'd have both women if he wanted. Zhora, though, is more of a partner than a mate.
I love the whole movie. I brought my origami unicorn from my Blade Runner special set briefcase to Edward James Olmos, that's how much of a fangirl I am. And I love the vividness of the city. Zhora's place of work seemed like a very bright, vivacious, lively place, a place where she would have gone if she wanted to feel alive, and with all the Replicants most likely dying soon if Roy didn't find an alternative, she probably wanted to feel alive. The image of her running through the glass and dying in the snow stuck with me. The idea that it wasn't fair, that he shot her in the back, that she ran rather than stay and kick Deckard's ass which, let's be fair, she totally could have done there. I wrote Zhora as best I could, I'm used to writing Roy, which I can link here if people are interested.
Storybook Love – I'd been carrying around this in my head for a while. Maybe a couple of weeks before I finally got to write and upload it. When I got this pinch hit I was familiar with at least three fandoms, and it took a second to decide on the one I ultimately wrote about 18k on. But I still had RED in my mind, because Helen Mirren with a machine gun is so the right answer. Victoria and Cooper talking was the first thing that came to mind about it, the second thing was Victoria and Ivan's love for each other. And then it occurred to me that, given Cooper's relationship with his wife, that was the perfect thing they could talk about. Love, and not just any kind of love but a love that endured and knew each other in the small ways as well as the large. I hope I conveyed that well enough in the story; it was a lot of fun to write.
Dungeon Swag – This was a huge amount of self-indulgence as well as filling a prompt. Jensen always seemed the type to RP to me. And if they could play card games for guns and knives, why not RP? A lot of soldiers and such RP! I made the GM a woman because I wanted Jensen to interact with her in a flirty way but also with a barrier to further shenanigans, at least for there. Only then realized I was sort of defying stereotype by doing so. Partly because I'm also a woman who GMs. There is a conversation in that fic, too, that actually took place in a game I was in. I threw it in because it seemed like exactly the kind of joke Jensen would make.
Fooled Hearts – You have
kikibug13 to thank for this, again. She gave me the Nick making Cassie breakfast in bed prompt, and I ran with it. I also killed off Kira because, well, no one in this fandom it seems like likes Kira, and because in my personal canon for them (see The Rainbow Connection for more details) Kira sacrifices herself eventually. And because the significance of Nick reaching out and making breakfast and eating food on his own initiative after losing someone he loves that deeply seemed like something I could make a fic out of. The title comes from the song As The World Falls Down, which is sort of what it feels like for them: a surreal, escapist world with just the two of them in distorted vision while the rest of the world rots and falls down around them.Starstuff – I'll admit, I was really nervous about this one. I picked it up somewhat at the last minute, don't have the books anymore I think… unless I do and all that freaking out was for nothing. I'll have to look now, that just occurred to me. But I didn't have the books, hadn't read them in a few years, but of all the fandoms on that list I was pretty sure they were all obscure, and knew I knew at least one of them. So I grabbed it. The world of the Darkangel trilogy fascinates me, the layer of science fiction under the layer of fantasy. There were so many complexities and so many places I could have gone with it, especially after the events of the last novel. I chose to deal with the responsibilities Aeriel would face and the task of rebuilding and being mother to the world, partly for a number of complex personal reasons but also because my mental landscape when I need to organize my thoughts for writing comes a great deal from this book. I use handcrafts as a framework, because I spin and weave and things. I picked up the idea of the spindle because it was the niftiest idea ever, I made a whole mental workshop out of it. And I thought, she might be able to do that too. Ultimately it ended up being more about her mental tools and less about her magical and physical tools, but it seems to have worked out all right.
We Regret To Inform You – Warehouse 13 is one of my happy fandoms. I'd say it's a happy new fandom but somehow the show turned 2 seasons old when I wasn't looking. Writing a story about the women on the show wasn't hard; they outnumber the men! Two to one, mostly! It actually started out as a treatise on communication, Claudia yelling at Artie about his lack of it, HG trying to achieve some of it with Myka, and a couple other things. But when I started writing I kept thinking of the Mrs. Frederic notifying Valda's family of his death fic that I had in mind to write at some point. I had this in mind for a while, for several reasons. The idea of the Regents having homes and families intrigued me. They hold down normal jobs, one of them is a diner waitress, for crying out loud! The idea of Mrs. Frederic's off-screen duties, and the idea that she's close to these people. And part of the Yuletide letter for this was wanting to know more about Claudia and Mrs. Frederic, so I went with it. And it turned out to be the best part of the overall fic, so I posted just that. The other pieces… HG's letter to Myka went up as part of Yuletide Madness. The conversation between Claudia and Artie never quite gelled.
(Future Fic Idea: What do you mean I'm free… what do you mean I'm bound to the warehouse?)
Moonlight and Love Song – I don’t even remember why I grabbed this in the first place, but I'm sure I had a reason. I threw up an outline pretty quick; it seemed an easy one to plan. A conversation between a woman and her dead lover, a last chance to actually say good-bye instead of a few gasped out words. There was an end scene if the conversation between them didn't conclude in a final and determined manner, but it didn't work out that way, they both seemed content. And Lawrence struck me as someone who, apart from the hypocrisy of it if he did object, would be fine with his beloved being happy with another man years after his death. As long as she was happy and cared for, and the man was decent and honorable. The fic itself came more easily than I expected. I love old mystery movies, I love the old horror tropes. It quickly became the story of, how many little inside jokes can I throw in and not overdo it. Also, puns. You may have noticed.
The Rainbow Connection – Adventure, and Nick/Cassie. Well, since Nick/Cassie eventually happening was in my personal canon anyway, I just had to get them there.
kikibug13 and I had already developed the part of the story where Kira dies, giving them the opening to get Cassie's mother out of Division. The problem was getting them there. The first part, not so hard. I took Cassie from a thirteen year old with a crush (because she so had a crush on Nick) through to discovering sexuality as her body changed, as she grew up, to thinking about Nick in more sexual terms as well. That part was important to me, because she started out having this physically chaste crush on him despite knowing a lot of things, possibly more than she wanted to, about sex, but not knowing or understanding the visceral urges as applied to her. And then, as she grew, this changed and she had to cope with those changes along with both Nick and Kira's relationship and all the issues in Division. And then Kira dies, and they have to rebuild, so there isn't much time for relationships. The part I struggled with after that was trying to figure out how they'd take down Division. Kiki had another good idea about that, giving them someone who could undo Pushes. The implications of that, if someone could undo the Pushes that maybe lead people to work for Division, would be astonishing. And major. Especially if what Carver did to Kira wasn't an exception or startling or unusual. It didn't seem unreasonable that a number of people had been Pushed from being rebels into working willingly for Division. So I went with that. It wouldn't be a quick revolution. It would be slow, and they'd have to work at it and keep working at it. But given that both of them have been on the run for so long, it seemed like they'd prefer to work at it from a home base that's more concrete and established. They've also been together for so long, they could easily form the core of a family unit, especially the way Nick seems to slide easily into the leader role, with Cassie close behind him giving him information and nudging him, stabilizing him too, in a way. As she gets older, she can take more of the reassuring and comforting role as well.
Hammurabi – I swear, when I outlined this I didn't know it would get this big.
I speculate a lot about Guerrero and this little one in his life. Whether or not he's an active part of the child's life, whether or not he keeps tabs on them through other means, whether or not he's listed on the birth certificate came to mind when it turned out that he had a full legal name that might still be found. And at that, I think he is, but it doesn't come up in the story.
For the mother of his child, I figured she was likely a civilian. Someone who knew the kind of life he leads that intimately would either never risk having a child with him, or he wouldn't be apart from her, they would have figured a way out to be together. She would also be strong, intelligent and fierce and very capable in her field. All the women he's hit on or flirted with so far have been strong-willed and fierce women. She would be capable of dealing with him and his profession on at least a somewhat equal ground, given that she wouldn't have his skills. And she would fall in love with who he is, not who he could be if he was fixed. I made her Latina, although that didn't turn out to be relevant to the story, and I gave her knitting needles because at some point I meant to have Guerrero stab someone with them, but that didn't happen either. Sadly. Now I want to write a story about him stabbing someone with knitting needles.
Chance, judging by the rough timeline they've set up for us, would have been dealing with Winston and the aftermath of the Katherine Walters event, which jives with Guerrero not knowing about it so well, not the outcome, and his reaction when he learned about it. That sigh and lean back and distant look. So he's finding out all these things that change his image of his old friend, maybe his oldest friend by now, even while he's trying to find and rescue his friend from danger. He'd be wondering how Guerrero could have loved someone enough to have a child with them, or if it was an accident, if he ever knew his friend at all, how could he keep the secret. He might also think back to the conversation with Baptiste (because this episode had aired back then) and how Baptiste asked him how long he'd been talking to them, thinking about leaving. And thinking about him and Guerrero talking, especially about women or families, and Guerrero all the time having this family and never saying a word.
Winston, I wasn't sure about. Winston doesn't like Guerrero although he is coming to tolerate him, and he doesn't like the influence Guerrero has over Chance. But he does, I think, respect Guerrero enough not to say much in the way of derogatory remarks or tease him about having a family. Ames, having a professional crush on Guerrero and thus an idealized view of him, especially with not getting to know him very well, would be very shocked. And it would shake her some. I didn't explore either of their reactions too much, although now I'm kind of curious.
And then, of course, the ending. Because Guerrero and a wife/girlfriend and children in the kind of world he still lives in is untenable, she has to go away. Private based witness protection, set up by them and financed by Ilsa. That scene was hard to write, both for the emotional kick and for the balance between showing how much it hurts and keeping Guerrero in character, the cold and ruthless bastard he can be but still fiercely loyal, emotional, self-decidedly "honest with his feelings" and, obviously, capable of love. Probably very strong, enduring love, given his other behaviors throughout the series. I'm actually a little surprised that I made it through the whole story without a kiss, but kind of relieved, too. A kiss would have been overweening, I think. The flashbacks may have been, too, they maybe should have stayed as deleted scenes, or the information within been folded in a little more. Something to think about for future versions.
And, for the most part although less so for the top half of these stories, much, much thanks goes to my ever eagle-eyed editor,
lireavue, without whom these stories might be a lot less coherent and probably with many more typos.