Yuletide post-reveal
yuletide tory (only the one this year!):
As Good as a Boy, Famous Five - Enid Blyton, George/Jo, Anne. It's one thing to be a girl who always wants to be a boy, when you're eleven and going on splendid adventures. When you're starting to grow up, the adventures become a bit more complicated, but possibly even more exciting.
(Jo is the harum-scarum and fearless, possibly-Welsh traveller tomboy whose abusive father ends up in prison after he kidnaps George and Jo saves her - she's fostered by George's cook's cousin and resurfaces a couple of times later to help the Five out in the nick of time. Probably the most popular minor F5 character of all time.)
Request I love George so much in this series, though she kind of breaks my heart. I'm particularly interested in the way she relates to Jo and Anne - with Jo, I ship it really hard, I would love some pairing fic about them: first times and getting together are preferred over an established relationship, but if you wanted to write them in the midst of a Confused Thing that would also be lovely. I'm also really interested in the George & Anne dynamic - we don't get to see nearly enough of them on their own in the books, so if you wanted to expand on that, that would be amazing.
The first non-school story Blytonfic I've ever written, and handling George's complex gender identity was a challenge, especially remaining true to the reading that my recipient wanted of leaving him/her still ambiguous. I know that I left at least one reader feeling uncomfortable, and I'm sorry for that (although I'm very glad that they raised their concerns with me - on yuletide-coal! - and were so nice about it). Genderqueer was a very new thing for me to be writing, although I tried to handle it as sensitively as I could, and I don't pretend to have got it quite right That aside, I really enjoyed writing it - it was a fantastic assignment - loved the request, love the characters, love the pairing, love the setting (I grew up on F5, and while poor neglected Dick was my favourite, I loved George. Well, I love all of them. But George is kind of unique in classic children's books.)
Anyway, it got way more reviews and kudoses than I was expecting - really, I wouldn't have been surprised if only the recip had read it - the recip seemed to really like it, and overall it was a confidence boost just when I really needed one for my writing.
Given how fab my own gifts were, this was a really positive yuletide for me, so glad I did it!
(It is very clear to me that my comfort level, in writing as well as in real life, is cisgendered soft butch/soft femme. But I'm glad I tried something else, even if I didn't get it 100% right.)
As Good as a Boy, Famous Five - Enid Blyton, George/Jo, Anne. It's one thing to be a girl who always wants to be a boy, when you're eleven and going on splendid adventures. When you're starting to grow up, the adventures become a bit more complicated, but possibly even more exciting.
(Jo is the harum-scarum and fearless, possibly-Welsh traveller tomboy whose abusive father ends up in prison after he kidnaps George and Jo saves her - she's fostered by George's cook's cousin and resurfaces a couple of times later to help the Five out in the nick of time. Probably the most popular minor F5 character of all time.)
Request I love George so much in this series, though she kind of breaks my heart. I'm particularly interested in the way she relates to Jo and Anne - with Jo, I ship it really hard, I would love some pairing fic about them: first times and getting together are preferred over an established relationship, but if you wanted to write them in the midst of a Confused Thing that would also be lovely. I'm also really interested in the George & Anne dynamic - we don't get to see nearly enough of them on their own in the books, so if you wanted to expand on that, that would be amazing.
The first non-school story Blytonfic I've ever written, and handling George's complex gender identity was a challenge, especially remaining true to the reading that my recipient wanted of leaving him/her still ambiguous. I know that I left at least one reader feeling uncomfortable, and I'm sorry for that (although I'm very glad that they raised their concerns with me - on yuletide-coal! - and were so nice about it). Genderqueer was a very new thing for me to be writing, although I tried to handle it as sensitively as I could, and I don't pretend to have got it quite right That aside, I really enjoyed writing it - it was a fantastic assignment - loved the request, love the characters, love the pairing, love the setting (I grew up on F5, and while poor neglected Dick was my favourite, I loved George. Well, I love all of them. But George is kind of unique in classic children's books.)
Anyway, it got way more reviews and kudoses than I was expecting - really, I wouldn't have been surprised if only the recip had read it - the recip seemed to really like it, and overall it was a confidence boost just when I really needed one for my writing.
Given how fab my own gifts were, this was a really positive yuletide for me, so glad I did it!
(It is very clear to me that my comfort level, in writing as well as in real life, is cisgendered soft butch/soft femme. But I'm glad I tried something else, even if I didn't get it 100% right.)