yuletide reveals
I spent new years' eve making drunk bad decisions; spent new years' day with probable alcohol poisoning (ugh, margaritas, why are you so good and so awful; oh I know because I tipped ALL THE TEQUILA INTO YOU) mainlining "Ground Floor" with Skylar Astin (surprisingly acceptable) and also the sixth Fast and Furious movie.
In lieu of a wrapup post (2013 was like the worst year of my life, hands down, not a drill, except for the bright spot that was HALIFAX!!!) I'm gonna talk about my Yuletide fic, cool? Cool.
I wrote "it's hard to do these things alone", which is a Fast and Furious fic in which Brian O'Conner talks to cars, the cars talk back, and Dominic Toretto tries very hard not to cave to how into that shit he is.
Man, okay. That story took me forever and I'm not even 100% sure that I'm happy with it, now. (Let's not talk about how it jumped from like 7k to 12 in the space of three days post-the Archive going live.) When I put in my YT fandoms I totally was thinking of Han/Gisele when I put 'any' for tFatF (lol, last minute decisions); I guess I like, thought about Brian and Dom, in the nebulous way that I had shipped them forever until Fast Five knocked Mia up at which point I just... couldn't figure out how to ship them and had to stop. But I didn't remember 'had to stop' so I was like, whatever, it'll be fine; I had so many other fandoms I'd listed and really just had tFatF on there to make up the space.
So when I got matched I was like, "WELL OKAY" and thank god that my recipient had a rec post in which she indicated she liked tFatF aus because otherwise I'd have been up shit creek. I mean, I still kind of was? And then Fahye was all, "I AM WRITING MAGICAL REALISM" (she did, indeed, and it is so perfect I make squeaky noises instead of comments, argh Anna) and I was like, "WHAT IF BRIAN O'CONNER TALKS TO CARS."
This is quite a roundabout way of saying: I didn't expect to get matched in this fandom, and I was kind of done with it when it happened, but over the course of writing this story I fell back in love with fast cars, poorly-articulated ambigeous morality, Vin Diesel's progressive multiethnicity, and Paul Walker's smile.
(TW: discussion of PW's death, skip this paragraph if you want.) And, then of course, at the beginning of December Paul Walker died and I was hideously despondent. Like, curled up in a ball and cried because I was depressed anyway and nothing was going right and I had just found something good again and it was gone. I thought about defaulting but then the admin post was all, just stay away from deathfic, so I did. And I'm glad I kept it because I ended up working through a lot of feelings that I had about Brian O'Conner, and it ended being a little bit of a love letter, for me. THIS FRANCHISE, seriously.
I just really love Brian O'Conner, guys. He's secretly so competent but also such a mess.
Also Mia Toretto, who is like, the best of all humans; I always watch those movies and go, fuck yeah Mia Toretto, because she's kind of a secret badass - especially in #1, where she hasn't realized who she wants to be yet; she likes to go fast and she loves her family but that isn't who she is, not quite, and I honestly wish that later on they'd played with that a bit more, told me the story of Mia on the edge of everything. I bet it syncs up pretty well with Brian. (If I'd had more time/figured out this story earlier it would have been in three parts; Brian and the Charger, Dom and the Supra, Mia and Letty and the history of bullets.)
I'm kinda bummed that I don't think I managed to weave Han and Gisele and the rest of the team in as organically as I might have, but seriously, time crunch, idk. I think that largely it works, though I wouldn't rule out coming back to it, particularly the universe which is the kind of universe I enjoy. I would totally title it "our cars don't even lose control". (The one where Han and Gisele hang out in Tokyo and Gisele mentors Neela? It's happening, let's not play. I always watch Tokyo Drift and am like, Neela you are secretly amazing, you are totally the Brian of this story, TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF and it makes me happy.)
But I do think I made something I like, and am proud of, and will probably revisit, and this year was my year of learning to edit, so I'm happy about that.
&yuletide;;;
In lieu of a wrapup post (2013 was like the worst year of my life, hands down, not a drill, except for the bright spot that was HALIFAX!!!) I'm gonna talk about my Yuletide fic, cool? Cool.
I wrote "it's hard to do these things alone", which is a Fast and Furious fic in which Brian O'Conner talks to cars, the cars talk back, and Dominic Toretto tries very hard not to cave to how into that shit he is.
Man, okay. That story took me forever and I'm not even 100% sure that I'm happy with it, now. (Let's not talk about how it jumped from like 7k to 12 in the space of three days post-the Archive going live.) When I put in my YT fandoms I totally was thinking of Han/Gisele when I put 'any' for tFatF (lol, last minute decisions); I guess I like, thought about Brian and Dom, in the nebulous way that I had shipped them forever until Fast Five knocked Mia up at which point I just... couldn't figure out how to ship them and had to stop. But I didn't remember 'had to stop' so I was like, whatever, it'll be fine; I had so many other fandoms I'd listed and really just had tFatF on there to make up the space.
So when I got matched I was like, "WELL OKAY" and thank god that my recipient had a rec post in which she indicated she liked tFatF aus because otherwise I'd have been up shit creek. I mean, I still kind of was? And then Fahye was all, "I AM WRITING MAGICAL REALISM" (she did, indeed, and it is so perfect I make squeaky noises instead of comments, argh Anna) and I was like, "WHAT IF BRIAN O'CONNER TALKS TO CARS."
This is quite a roundabout way of saying: I didn't expect to get matched in this fandom, and I was kind of done with it when it happened, but over the course of writing this story I fell back in love with fast cars, poorly-articulated ambigeous morality, Vin Diesel's progressive multiethnicity, and Paul Walker's smile.
(TW: discussion of PW's death, skip this paragraph if you want.) And, then of course, at the beginning of December Paul Walker died and I was hideously despondent. Like, curled up in a ball and cried because I was depressed anyway and nothing was going right and I had just found something good again and it was gone. I thought about defaulting but then the admin post was all, just stay away from deathfic, so I did. And I'm glad I kept it because I ended up working through a lot of feelings that I had about Brian O'Conner, and it ended being a little bit of a love letter, for me. THIS FRANCHISE, seriously.
I just really love Brian O'Conner, guys. He's secretly so competent but also such a mess.
Also Mia Toretto, who is like, the best of all humans; I always watch those movies and go, fuck yeah Mia Toretto, because she's kind of a secret badass - especially in #1, where she hasn't realized who she wants to be yet; she likes to go fast and she loves her family but that isn't who she is, not quite, and I honestly wish that later on they'd played with that a bit more, told me the story of Mia on the edge of everything. I bet it syncs up pretty well with Brian. (If I'd had more time/figured out this story earlier it would have been in three parts; Brian and the Charger, Dom and the Supra, Mia and Letty and the history of bullets.)
I'm kinda bummed that I don't think I managed to weave Han and Gisele and the rest of the team in as organically as I might have, but seriously, time crunch, idk. I think that largely it works, though I wouldn't rule out coming back to it, particularly the universe which is the kind of universe I enjoy. I would totally title it "our cars don't even lose control". (The one where Han and Gisele hang out in Tokyo and Gisele mentors Neela? It's happening, let's not play. I always watch Tokyo Drift and am like, Neela you are secretly amazing, you are totally the Brian of this story, TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF and it makes me happy.)
But I do think I made something I like, and am proud of, and will probably revisit, and this year was my year of learning to edit, so I'm happy about that.
&yuletide;;;