broadcast me a joyful noise

I have realised I will have to be the Yuletide 2015 rec list I want to see in the world, in the hope that it will encourage MORE REC LISTS, because >2500 fics is a lot to browse through. I need guidance! I need gushing capslock!

( Here, I'll start. )

I feel like any resolution to use this blog more regularly in 2015 is doomed at the outset (or at least, it will be until...May, after exams) but I still want to talk about my Yuletide stories because I'm a dork like that. And I had fun with them. AND I LOVE YULETIDE.

There were five, because why study when you can displace all your stress onto fanfiction.

1) Confidence Artists, the Road to El Dorado threesome fic that was probably inevitable, knowing me and threesomes. I had to throw together a con plot and a romance built on unresolved arguments and also a sex scene involving three people (ugh, TRICKY BLOCKING) and resist, resist, resist the urge to make it too easy for myself and use Tulio as the POV character. But I like how it fell out.

2) fighting vainly the old ennui, the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries canon-AU about how Jack and Mac should be buddies and how PHRYNE IS CATWOMAN (as opposed to the other AU I was tossing up, which went more down the PHRYNE IS BATMAN path). This story was a collision of my love for identity porn, letters, poems, and thief/detective love stories; for a very long time the GDoc was simply called MISS FISHER WHITE COLLAR AU which tells you a lot about how the idea germinated.

(agonistes, I wanted SO MUCH to write a treat for you, but I had already exhausted all of my feelings about Jack and Mac and their beautiful potential friendship while writing this story, so I just wriggled around silently and hoped you would read and enjoy it anyway.)

3) Shades of Pale, a Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters story that I wrote VERY early in the Yuletide period and then threw at my favourite letter as a treat. What can I say, I am easy for witch narratives. And Gemma Arterton. And Gemma Arterton making out with Jeremy Renner while covered in blood, which while not TECHNICALLY a part of the film, I feel was heavily implied to the extent that I had to oblige in fic form.

4) And All Things Nice, the Rule 63 Peter Pan story that FLEW out of me at the last minute when the prompt got stuck in my head and wouldn't leave. So far in comments I have revealed that Captain Hook is played by Natalie Dormer (and might actually be Jamie Moriarty, given the James/Jamie thing, you can decide that for yourself) and that somewhere in me is a whole fucking novel about her cruelty and her history. This story did a lot better than I expected.

5) Playing Titania in Tim Hortons, the other story that flew out at the very very last minute (single sitting, Christmas Eve, booyah!) because the prompt was so good. It's a Scott Pilgrim/Slings & Arrows crossover about Knives Chau becoming the new muse of Darren Nichols, and it was absurdly fun to write.

& now, to work on my WIPs. I have THREE dangling and unfinished multi-chapter stories on AO3 at the moment, and this year is the year I will FIX THAT.

I had one assignment story and three treats in the collection this year, although one of the treats got HILARIOUSLY LONG.

The Evolution of Reptiles - Elementary - Jamie Moriarty & Joan Watson

This is the one that is most recognisably me, I think, being full of lady psychopaths and thoughts about art and MAGICAL REALISM and loving descriptions of everything that Watson wears ever. I had a lot of trouble with it until I decided to stop striving for some sort of impeccable consistency in the format and just add in bits however they felt right, and I think that improved the finished product. My original intent was for it to be femslashy but it would have felt forced, in the end, so you can just imagine your own coda with untrusting makeouts.


Lines on Palms - S.U. Pacat's Captive Prince - Damen/Laurent

I am super proud of this treat, which was born out of my love for this particular AU scenario and also the prospect of writing from Laurent's POV. I realised that I'd bitten off more than an easy mouthful when I had to sit down and rebuild Laurent's character from the ground up - the AU assumes that Auguste is alive, leaving Laurent both protected from the Regent and not the heir presumptive to the throne - while keeping the essential parts of him intact. In this regard I owe huge thanks to both electrumqueen and nextian, who squinted hard at the characterisation of both Damen and Laurent and nudged me back onto the right path when I started to veer off it.

It was going to be simpler than it was, but...Laurent. Nothing is ever simple with him. There had to be a dash of intrigue and a great many games and a lot of silent sarcastic judgement of everything going on around him, even though he had fewer flinty personal walls and was a little more open to the prospect of fun for fun's sake. Once I settled into the narration and had a handle on the AU, it was heaps of fun; Laurent is much more my sort of character to write than Damen is, after all. Twisty and sharp and observant.

This was also, as I have been telling people, my PORN DEBUT. I set my teeth, I gathered my skirts, I gazed despairingly at all the male pronouns...and then I churned out Baby's First Smut. Apparently all you need is to really, really, really want the characters to bone.


except in my affections - The Importance of Being Earnest - Cecily, Gwendolen, Algy & Jack

I wrote this, start to finish, in the very early days of Yuletide. Before I'd written a word of my actual assignment. I just liked the idea of smushing together tropes and seeing if I could document the result in Wildean dialogue, and it was so much fun to do. (This may be the only time I ever attempt babyfic. Usually I can't stand it. But the baby in this isn't so much a CHARACTER as an amusing prop.) Thanks to skygiants for her excellent beta!


a distinct lack of tutus - Brooklyn Nine Nine - Amy Santiago/Rosa Diaz

HAHAHAHA. Oh man. I wrote this on Australian-Christmas-Day, over a time period of three hours during which I was also shovelling turkey and ice cream down my throat, and uploaded it at the last minute. And then it proceeded to win at Yuletide.

This fic contains all my love for Amy Santiago (neurotic perfectionist that she is) and the greater wacky B99 family, whose dialogue was enormous fun to capture. It also contains my deep aesthetic appreciation for Diaz's hair and boots.

Hello hello! I hope you enjoy the mad Yuletide process as much as I do, dear writer, and that you have a great time writing this story.

( details under here )

"Oh, what a nice assignment," I said.

"This should be a fairly short fic," I said.

"Maybe around 3000-4000 words," I said.

~

You can probably work out the moral of this story for yourself.

~

UNRELATEDLY: I have a sudden fierce yearning to write eyaiverse stories again! Maybe I'll just go and obsessively reread all the existing stories like I usually do. Sadly, the two -- three? uh, maybe four -- stories that fall next on my eyai To Do list are involved and plotty. I need an idea for something fun and in-betweeny like good news for beautiful people, so that I don't have to sit down with a timeline and a determined expression in order to plan the thing.

The official communities are talking about it, so WE'RE ALLOWED TO AS WELL. Nominations are approaching! Let's talk about fandoms!

I am definitely nominating:

- Discworld (Tiffany Aching, Preston)
- The Lady's Not For Burning (Thomas, Jennet, Margaret)

...and I suspect my third nomination will need some careful thought. I am having a serious craving for Midsummer Night's Dream fic about the fairies, but during my visit to the States I also got very excited about

- Bring It On (the musical)
- the London Olympic Opening Ceremony

And somone on the official nomination post mentioned Stranger Than Fiction which makes my writing brain go !%*&#?!! so I really hope it ends up on the list.

I will probably end up treat-writing for the Lizzie Bennet Diaries but I'm sure they'll be nominated and requested and offered all over the place, so I'm putting them aside for now.

TELL ME YOUR YULETIDE DREAMS, MY FRIENDS.

(I have been spending too much time on tumblr, I tried to tag this post 'I guess this means I should get a wriggle on and finish my Natasha Romanoff fic' before realising that I was, in fact, using Dreamwidth. Tumblr suits the way my brain feels when I get home from work, but I'm starting to really miss the comment-conversations and impetus to create of LJ/DW platforms. I might try to spend more time here and less time scrolling past gif sets.)

Main fic: Uploaded, polished, never want to look at it again, etc.

Pinch hit: Nabbed one from the recent deluge! EXCITING.

Treats: One almost finished, vague ideas percolating for a couple of others if time allows.

I keep staring greedily at the fandoms list and trying to resist the urge to cackle with glee.

My main fic was This Town We're Painting - a St Trinian's future-fic that is a sneaky crossover with Sherlock, featuring Kelly/Annabelle and most of their classmates, all grown up and wreaking a more sedate kind of havoc. Writing it was SO MUCH FUN, especially Chelsea's parts.

I also wrote two extremely last-minute treats:

my secrets are doors - a Queen's Thief story. To be honest, this is probably a mere tenth of the Gen/Attolia story that exists IN MY HEART, but you know, time limitations. And I do find this universe very stressful to write in because of how beautifully and carefully Whalen Turner chooses her words, but I was fairly pleased with how this came out.

five days that were difficult and one that wasn't - a bunch of little How To Train Your Dragon vignettes which I wrote at the speed of light in the HOUR before the main collection closed. It's pretty rough, but I really wanted to try my hand at writing Hiccup at least once :)

/o/

\o\

\o/!

I am going to have SO MUCH FUN WITH THIS, omg.

So I've finally remembered to post last year's Yuletide to my ficblog!

Ask Me How -- Dexter -- Jazz playing through the computer and a bowl of popcorn to my right; all in all, the ideal leisurely evening for your friendly neighbourhood serial killer.

And now I'm fighting the very, very strong desire to crawl into bed and not come out for at least two weeks. My strongest weapons in this fight are endless cups of tea and the fact that I'm bribing myself to get through my piles of work with episodes of Blackpool. I will do all sorts of things for David Tennant's Scottish accent, constant oral fixation and wildly ridiculous hair, especially when they are then SET TO MUSIC.