(no subject)
It's time for Yuletide reveals? It's time for Yuletide reveals! I wrote three fics this year, one assigned and two pinch-hits:
A Course to the Ocean, Ivanhoe
This was my assigned fic, which I struggled with a bit initially as it rapidly became clear that I should have thought a little harder about offering a dense text that I had only read once, and not in several years. My recipient asked for friendship between Brian de Bois-Guilbert and Maurice De Bracy; after rereading the book I saw some fun loose ends in the text of Ivanhoe to pull on that would allow me to put together a "Brian lives!" AU, and went from there. (It remains a challenge for me to write any kind of Ivanhoe fic that doesn't have Rebecca in it, but to be honest Rebecca is probably happier being out of it.)
As a sidenote, this was my second year in a row attempting to pastiche a Victorian author attempting to pastiche the medieval era. Sorry, Sir Walter Scott; I could not bring myself to go the full forsooth.
Germination, 7 Seeds
Pinch-hit number one! I actually had already bookmarked my recipient's amazingrequest for futurefic about Natsu, the world's most social anxiety-ridden post-apocalyptic heroine; when I saw it come up on the list I leaped upon it with the speed of a dozen giant feathered dinosaurs, because I LOVE NATSU and the slow process of watching her grow into herself is one of my very favorite things about 7 Seeds. It turns out writing futurefic for open canons is kind of nervewracking, especially when you are trying to juggle a cast of forty people, and also have decided to do several thematic conversations between people who have never actually met yet in canon, because ... it seemed like a good idea at the time? I also did not expect initially to be writing about extinct natural contraceptives. Or Hawaiian generation ships. Or evil dinosaur chickens. But this is what 7 Seeds does to your worldbuilding, basically. I also accidentally wrote myself into shipping Natsu/Semimaru, though Natsu/self-esteem is still my ultimate 7 Seeds OTP. I did sadly fail in my effort to get any one of the characters to describe the imaginary future town where Ran and Nijiko have set up shop as "the land of lesbian infrastructure," but that is what it will always be called IN MY HEART.
Impulse Control, Hexwood
Pinch-hit #2! And what a terrible title, wow. If I'd had another week, I would have attempted to write the EPIC POSTCANON HEXWOOD SPACE OPERA of my dreams, but with the 7 Seeds fic rapidly ballooning I only had time for this relatively short slice-of-ruling-the-space-empire life instead. Mostly I came out of this experience a.) happy that I had the excuse to reread Hexwood and poke a little at some of the MILLION sparky loose ends left at the end of canon and b.) deeply resentful that there isn't more Hexwood fic in existence. Come on, the book ends with our heroine forming a universe-ruling coalition with her ex-brainwashed ex-assassin boyfriend, their accidentally adopted son Merlin, and Merlin's two nephews, one of whom is our heroine's annoying fake little brother and the other one of whom is King Arthur. IT'S THE WORLD'S WEIRDEST SITCOM.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/396956.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
A Course to the Ocean, Ivanhoe
This was my assigned fic, which I struggled with a bit initially as it rapidly became clear that I should have thought a little harder about offering a dense text that I had only read once, and not in several years. My recipient asked for friendship between Brian de Bois-Guilbert and Maurice De Bracy; after rereading the book I saw some fun loose ends in the text of Ivanhoe to pull on that would allow me to put together a "Brian lives!" AU, and went from there. (It remains a challenge for me to write any kind of Ivanhoe fic that doesn't have Rebecca in it, but to be honest Rebecca is probably happier being out of it.)
As a sidenote, this was my second year in a row attempting to pastiche a Victorian author attempting to pastiche the medieval era. Sorry, Sir Walter Scott; I could not bring myself to go the full forsooth.
Germination, 7 Seeds
Pinch-hit number one! I actually had already bookmarked my recipient's amazingrequest for futurefic about Natsu, the world's most social anxiety-ridden post-apocalyptic heroine; when I saw it come up on the list I leaped upon it with the speed of a dozen giant feathered dinosaurs, because I LOVE NATSU and the slow process of watching her grow into herself is one of my very favorite things about 7 Seeds. It turns out writing futurefic for open canons is kind of nervewracking, especially when you are trying to juggle a cast of forty people, and also have decided to do several thematic conversations between people who have never actually met yet in canon, because ... it seemed like a good idea at the time? I also did not expect initially to be writing about extinct natural contraceptives. Or Hawaiian generation ships. Or evil dinosaur chickens. But this is what 7 Seeds does to your worldbuilding, basically. I also accidentally wrote myself into shipping Natsu/Semimaru, though Natsu/self-esteem is still my ultimate 7 Seeds OTP. I did sadly fail in my effort to get any one of the characters to describe the imaginary future town where Ran and Nijiko have set up shop as "the land of lesbian infrastructure," but that is what it will always be called IN MY HEART.
Impulse Control, Hexwood
Pinch-hit #2! And what a terrible title, wow. If I'd had another week, I would have attempted to write the EPIC POSTCANON HEXWOOD SPACE OPERA of my dreams, but with the 7 Seeds fic rapidly ballooning I only had time for this relatively short slice-of-ruling-the-space-empire life instead. Mostly I came out of this experience a.) happy that I had the excuse to reread Hexwood and poke a little at some of the MILLION sparky loose ends left at the end of canon and b.) deeply resentful that there isn't more Hexwood fic in existence. Come on, the book ends with our heroine forming a universe-ruling coalition with her ex-brainwashed ex-assassin boyfriend, their accidentally adopted son Merlin, and Merlin's two nephews, one of whom is our heroine's annoying fake little brother and the other one of whom is King Arthur. IT'S THE WORLD'S WEIRDEST SITCOM.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/396956.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.