Yuletide meta
Notes on Into the Abyss (Chronicles of Amber)
The reason I love offering Amber every year is that it is full of infinite possibilities. But if you had told me, before this Yuletide, that I would end up madly shipping Brand and Martin and their Tragic Doomed Romance, I would have goggled at you. Brand is evil! Martin hates him! And they're related! (Although the last seems to be of minor significance in the Amber universe. Possibly because *everyone* is related.)
I blame amberite's brilliant prompt, which was like a lightning bolt to the brain. Why *haven't* a billion stories been written about these two? There is so much scope for obsession and ambivalence and regrets and *feelings*.
Martin is such an underexplored character in fic. Even in the original novels, he only makes a handful of appearances, and mostly stays peripheral to the action. But what happened to him is *pivotal* to the entire story. And his connections to the thrones of Amber and Rebma give him some very interesting potential. He has a complicated history, and doubtless complicated feelings about his father and his mother.
And then we come to Brand. I take the premise that Martin lied when he said he had never met Brand before Brand tried to kill him. Them having a past relationship - of whatever nature - makes things so much more *interesting*. And things turning out the way they did, it would be natural for Martin to blur the truth to others.
amberite wanted "sexydangerous UST", so I made it a challenge to cram in enough subtext to burst, without them actually having sex on the floor. Technically, you could call it slashy gen? (Which I love to write, but which I always have trouble labelling when it comes to tags and classifications.)
In a way, the story is a bit of a fix-it, because at the start Martin is kind of broken, and at the end he's getting better. (Unless he's actually worse, and only *thinks* he's getting better. Which is a distinct possibility.)
The title is both literal and metaphorical. I borrowed two of Nietzsche's quotes for the story, because they seemed relevant:
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
"What does not kill him, makes him stronger."
Notes on Tabula Rasa (Chronicles of Amber)
This started life as backstory for Into the Abyss - possibly a flashback - but when it began to look like it could work as a standalone, I carved it off to turn into a treat. Even then, the two stories did evolve in tandem, because they were meant to reflect different facets of the Martin and Brand relationship.
I was inspired by what amberite said about Martin being a tabula rasa that Brand had decided to work on. It fit well with the idea of Brand as an artist, creating the Trump of Martin. amberite had suggested "foreshadowing and ambiguity", so that was one of my goals for this story.
I admit to a sneaking fondness for the portentous dream sequence midway through a story. I like this one because it's almost a flashforward, only poor Martin doesn't realise how ominous it is.
I had reservations about the title, because there are already a heap of stories with that name, but it was just too perfect, so it stayed.
Notes on Homecoming (Seafort Saga)
There needs to be more Seafort Saga fic in the world. (Actually, David Feintuch's final unpublished novel needs to be released into the world. But that's another story.) So I decided to write a treat for kangeiko's prompt.
One of the suggestions was for something set between the third and fourth books, when the relationship between Nick and Edgar "suddenly takes such a lunge forward in terms of being comfortable around each other". Which made me think about them settling into each other's lives. I've fallen a bit in love with curtain!fic lately, and I liked the idea of Nick and Edgar being kind of domestic. And what could be more domestic than going to IKEA?
Something appeals to me about taking on an idea that should be crackfic, and trying to play it straight. This meant finding an emotional arc and turning point in the story. It ended up being the concept of home, because Nick keeps losing the places he has, and the people he has, and of course that has an impact on him. By the end of the series, he's lost almost everyone he could lose - but Edgar is still there. So that became one of the focal points of the story.
I actually went to IKEA for research! And ended up coming home with storage solutions that I am sure will *change my life*. Yay me!
The verse hanging on the wall of the office is from Proverbs 24:3-4.
I'm still a bit iffy about the title, because it seems a bit generic, but I couldn't think of anything else that fit better, so it won by default.
The reason I love offering Amber every year is that it is full of infinite possibilities. But if you had told me, before this Yuletide, that I would end up madly shipping Brand and Martin and their Tragic Doomed Romance, I would have goggled at you. Brand is evil! Martin hates him! And they're related! (Although the last seems to be of minor significance in the Amber universe. Possibly because *everyone* is related.)
I blame amberite's brilliant prompt, which was like a lightning bolt to the brain. Why *haven't* a billion stories been written about these two? There is so much scope for obsession and ambivalence and regrets and *feelings*.
Martin is such an underexplored character in fic. Even in the original novels, he only makes a handful of appearances, and mostly stays peripheral to the action. But what happened to him is *pivotal* to the entire story. And his connections to the thrones of Amber and Rebma give him some very interesting potential. He has a complicated history, and doubtless complicated feelings about his father and his mother.
And then we come to Brand. I take the premise that Martin lied when he said he had never met Brand before Brand tried to kill him. Them having a past relationship - of whatever nature - makes things so much more *interesting*. And things turning out the way they did, it would be natural for Martin to blur the truth to others.
amberite wanted "sexydangerous UST", so I made it a challenge to cram in enough subtext to burst, without them actually having sex on the floor. Technically, you could call it slashy gen? (Which I love to write, but which I always have trouble labelling when it comes to tags and classifications.)
In a way, the story is a bit of a fix-it, because at the start Martin is kind of broken, and at the end he's getting better. (Unless he's actually worse, and only *thinks* he's getting better. Which is a distinct possibility.)
The title is both literal and metaphorical. I borrowed two of Nietzsche's quotes for the story, because they seemed relevant:
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
"What does not kill him, makes him stronger."
Notes on Tabula Rasa (Chronicles of Amber)
This started life as backstory for Into the Abyss - possibly a flashback - but when it began to look like it could work as a standalone, I carved it off to turn into a treat. Even then, the two stories did evolve in tandem, because they were meant to reflect different facets of the Martin and Brand relationship.
I was inspired by what amberite said about Martin being a tabula rasa that Brand had decided to work on. It fit well with the idea of Brand as an artist, creating the Trump of Martin. amberite had suggested "foreshadowing and ambiguity", so that was one of my goals for this story.
I admit to a sneaking fondness for the portentous dream sequence midway through a story. I like this one because it's almost a flashforward, only poor Martin doesn't realise how ominous it is.
I had reservations about the title, because there are already a heap of stories with that name, but it was just too perfect, so it stayed.
Notes on Homecoming (Seafort Saga)
There needs to be more Seafort Saga fic in the world. (Actually, David Feintuch's final unpublished novel needs to be released into the world. But that's another story.) So I decided to write a treat for kangeiko's prompt.
One of the suggestions was for something set between the third and fourth books, when the relationship between Nick and Edgar "suddenly takes such a lunge forward in terms of being comfortable around each other". Which made me think about them settling into each other's lives. I've fallen a bit in love with curtain!fic lately, and I liked the idea of Nick and Edgar being kind of domestic. And what could be more domestic than going to IKEA?
Something appeals to me about taking on an idea that should be crackfic, and trying to play it straight. This meant finding an emotional arc and turning point in the story. It ended up being the concept of home, because Nick keeps losing the places he has, and the people he has, and of course that has an impact on him. By the end of the series, he's lost almost everyone he could lose - but Edgar is still there. So that became one of the focal points of the story.
I actually went to IKEA for research! And ended up coming home with storage solutions that I am sure will *change my life*. Yay me!
The verse hanging on the wall of the office is from Proverbs 24:3-4.
I'm still a bit iffy about the title, because it seems a bit generic, but I couldn't think of anything else that fit better, so it won by default.