Remember me? Can't blame you if you don't...
Happy holidays, flist! I've been gone for forever, and I'm sad that I don't really have a proper online presence in fandom anymore, but that's how it is. In fannish terms I'm homeless and unemployed, and since I'm fairly bad at making new fannish friends unless it's through writing and commenting, I don't see that changing anytime soon.
But I have somehow managed to participate in Yuletide and write actual fic for it. And I almost posted it just now before I remembered that Yuletide has a reveal and I'm still anon... whew, that was close. So instead here are the two gifts I got:
Something Fishy Off the Coast of Denmark (7209 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Eight Days of Luke - Diana Wynne Jones
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: David Allard/Luke (Eight Days of Luke)
Characters: David Allard, Luke (Eight Days of Luke), Astrid Price, Þórr | Thor, Other(s)
Additional Tags: References to Norse Religion & Lore, Implied Slash, Adventure, Explicit Language
Summary:
Luke shows up to invite David and Astrid on a trip to Denmark. They know better than to expect an ordinary holiday.
Eight Days of Luke was a fandom I also offered and really hoped I'd be assigned - instead I got a lovely long fic for it. It had Norse mythology even I'm not that familiar with, and as you might know it's one of my pet topics, plus some cool real world stuff on Denmark. Add to that the pairing I ship in this fandom, and a great use of female characters and the fact that is long and it's a big YAY for this story!
I also got a treat for a fandom that I offered and requested, and that, honestly, I was terrified I'd be assigned because it would have been SO hard to write - Kipling's "Kim". Why is "Kim" a terrifying fandom? Because a) historical sociolects, b) historical foreign setting involving major research and c) highly questionable and problematic source text. Nevertheless, at least one published "Kim" fanfic exists ("The Imperial Agent" by Timeri Murari) but until now there was no fanfic on AO3.
The Impressionists - Part Two (3219 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kim - Rudyard Kipling, Stalky and Co - Rudyard Kipling
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kimball O'Hara, Lurgan Sahib, Hurree Babu, Dickson Quartus, Pussy Abanazar, The Head (Stalky), Stalky Corkran, Colonel Creighton
Additional Tags: Crossover
Summary:
The boys at United Services College are told a tale of Kim and Stalky on campaign.
It's called "Part Two" because the title refers to a chapter title in Stalky & Co. Stalky is another adventure/coming of age/children's novel by Kipling. I don't know if it is more or less well known than "Kim" today (definitely less well known in Germany, but I think that's because Germans have stronger interest in India than in Victorian military boarding schools.) In my request I mentioned that I think "Kim", "Stalky & Co." and "The Jungle Books" are absolutely begging for crossovers, since they're all to some extent about India under the British Empire, and Kim, Stalky and Mowgli are so similar, yet each of them occupies a slightly different position in the Imperial order. I wish I could write that crossover myself, but the biggest obstacle for me is in fact the language of Stalky & Co. (this book is actually about as difficult for me to grasp in all its nuances as Shakespeare - from a purely linguistic perspective). The author of this fic, though, manages the language with aplomb and has done their research, so this is a very credible additional chapter for Stalky & Co.
Stalky, for those not familiar with the book, is a boy hero much like Kim or Mowgli - no parents in the picture, growing up "wild" at the boarding school, clever and self-confident but (and Kipling consciously and explicitly writes against the dominant school story tradition of his time) defiant and rebellious when it comes to authority. Most of the book is about how Stalky's clique breaks the school rules (think Harry Potter without much of a plot) and complain about cricket and military propaganda - and then after graduating Stalky nevertheless becomes a heroic agent of the Empire in India, and is suited for the job precisely because he spent all his school years bending the rules of the system. Weird stuff, and as difficult to judge as all of Kipling.
I think a crossover could really get into some of the tough issues and problematic elements in Kipling. For one thing, there's the race / class issue. Stalky is a proper Victorian British school boy who, the final chapters imply, makes a career in the military/intelligence service. Kim is born white, but culturally somewhere in between, in terms of class he is definitely very low on any social ladder, with some potential for mobility into either direction. Mowgli, if you want to add him to the picture, is Indian and Hindu, but in practice doesn't belong to any human society, and therefore doesn't really have any concept of race or class - but he would instantly experience the barriers if he left the wild (as he does in some chapters of the "Jungle Book"). How would the three react to each other if they met? What would the story look like if you took away Kipling's basic assumption that the Empire is better than any alternatives?
My own story, which I will post once it's reveal time, was a mess to write even though I got a great fandom and a great prompt. My problem isn't really a writers block (all in all I probably wrote close to 30 000 words, more if you count pre-Yuletide drafts in the same fandom) but a mix of low confidence and a short attention span. I start a story, I get into it for a few days or even just a few hours, and then suddenly I look at it and lose interest, or get the feeling that I bit off more than I can chew. Then I start another story... This is a problem that I don't just have in writing, but in all areas of life, particularly relationships, but I find it particularly frustrating when it comes to writing because until a few years ago I was *fine* when it came to writing. I had the occasional dry month or unproductive phase, but I writing fic or term papers was easy and I felt really confident about it, and I experienced it as a constant learning process - and now I feel as though I am unlearning instead. Having a deadline was both a blessing and a curse - the story that I ended up writing would have needed a lot more editing and it should have been longer, but on the other hand I finally finished something!
But I have somehow managed to participate in Yuletide and write actual fic for it. And I almost posted it just now before I remembered that Yuletide has a reveal and I'm still anon... whew, that was close. So instead here are the two gifts I got:
Something Fishy Off the Coast of Denmark (7209 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Eight Days of Luke - Diana Wynne Jones
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: David Allard/Luke (Eight Days of Luke)
Characters: David Allard, Luke (Eight Days of Luke), Astrid Price, Þórr | Thor, Other(s)
Additional Tags: References to Norse Religion & Lore, Implied Slash, Adventure, Explicit Language
Summary:
Luke shows up to invite David and Astrid on a trip to Denmark. They know better than to expect an ordinary holiday.
Eight Days of Luke was a fandom I also offered and really hoped I'd be assigned - instead I got a lovely long fic for it. It had Norse mythology even I'm not that familiar with, and as you might know it's one of my pet topics, plus some cool real world stuff on Denmark. Add to that the pairing I ship in this fandom, and a great use of female characters and the fact that is long and it's a big YAY for this story!
I also got a treat for a fandom that I offered and requested, and that, honestly, I was terrified I'd be assigned because it would have been SO hard to write - Kipling's "Kim". Why is "Kim" a terrifying fandom? Because a) historical sociolects, b) historical foreign setting involving major research and c) highly questionable and problematic source text. Nevertheless, at least one published "Kim" fanfic exists ("The Imperial Agent" by Timeri Murari) but until now there was no fanfic on AO3.
The Impressionists - Part Two (3219 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kim - Rudyard Kipling, Stalky and Co - Rudyard Kipling
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kimball O'Hara, Lurgan Sahib, Hurree Babu, Dickson Quartus, Pussy Abanazar, The Head (Stalky), Stalky Corkran, Colonel Creighton
Additional Tags: Crossover
Summary:
The boys at United Services College are told a tale of Kim and Stalky on campaign.
It's called "Part Two" because the title refers to a chapter title in Stalky & Co. Stalky is another adventure/coming of age/children's novel by Kipling. I don't know if it is more or less well known than "Kim" today (definitely less well known in Germany, but I think that's because Germans have stronger interest in India than in Victorian military boarding schools.) In my request I mentioned that I think "Kim", "Stalky & Co." and "The Jungle Books" are absolutely begging for crossovers, since they're all to some extent about India under the British Empire, and Kim, Stalky and Mowgli are so similar, yet each of them occupies a slightly different position in the Imperial order. I wish I could write that crossover myself, but the biggest obstacle for me is in fact the language of Stalky & Co. (this book is actually about as difficult for me to grasp in all its nuances as Shakespeare - from a purely linguistic perspective). The author of this fic, though, manages the language with aplomb and has done their research, so this is a very credible additional chapter for Stalky & Co.
Stalky, for those not familiar with the book, is a boy hero much like Kim or Mowgli - no parents in the picture, growing up "wild" at the boarding school, clever and self-confident but (and Kipling consciously and explicitly writes against the dominant school story tradition of his time) defiant and rebellious when it comes to authority. Most of the book is about how Stalky's clique breaks the school rules (think Harry Potter without much of a plot) and complain about cricket and military propaganda - and then after graduating Stalky nevertheless becomes a heroic agent of the Empire in India, and is suited for the job precisely because he spent all his school years bending the rules of the system. Weird stuff, and as difficult to judge as all of Kipling.
I think a crossover could really get into some of the tough issues and problematic elements in Kipling. For one thing, there's the race / class issue. Stalky is a proper Victorian British school boy who, the final chapters imply, makes a career in the military/intelligence service. Kim is born white, but culturally somewhere in between, in terms of class he is definitely very low on any social ladder, with some potential for mobility into either direction. Mowgli, if you want to add him to the picture, is Indian and Hindu, but in practice doesn't belong to any human society, and therefore doesn't really have any concept of race or class - but he would instantly experience the barriers if he left the wild (as he does in some chapters of the "Jungle Book"). How would the three react to each other if they met? What would the story look like if you took away Kipling's basic assumption that the Empire is better than any alternatives?
My own story, which I will post once it's reveal time, was a mess to write even though I got a great fandom and a great prompt. My problem isn't really a writers block (all in all I probably wrote close to 30 000 words, more if you count pre-Yuletide drafts in the same fandom) but a mix of low confidence and a short attention span. I start a story, I get into it for a few days or even just a few hours, and then suddenly I look at it and lose interest, or get the feeling that I bit off more than I can chew. Then I start another story... This is a problem that I don't just have in writing, but in all areas of life, particularly relationships, but I find it particularly frustrating when it comes to writing because until a few years ago I was *fine* when it came to writing. I had the occasional dry month or unproductive phase, but I writing fic or term papers was easy and I felt really confident about it, and I experienced it as a constant learning process - and now I feel as though I am unlearning instead. Having a deadline was both a blessing and a curse - the story that I ended up writing would have needed a lot more editing and it should have been longer, but on the other hand I finally finished something!