Yuletide postscript with Sanctuary preamble
I survived my very first Yuletide! \o/
I got awesome fic!
Ok, wait, first I need to ramble all about Sanctuary and omg these characters because I have a sneaking suspicion that nobody's watching this show and anyone who is, isn't for these characters. Which is tragic.
Sanctuary's actually an odd show for me in that the main characters, the premise, and most of the main plots don't do it for me at all. I have no complaints and don't dislike anyone or anything, it's just that there's nothing about it that inspires me to go to a fandomy place with so it stays firmly in a "non-fandom show that I just watch" place instead.
But then! There's this small group of recurring/one shot/haven't actually appeared on camera yet (um, heh) characters involved in a secondary plot and backstory. And omg the backstory.
I don't think there's any easy way of describing The Five (for that's how many there are) without it sounding like I'm making some kind of "so Sherlock Holmes(ish), Jack the Ripper, Nikola Tesla, and the Invisible Man walk into a bar" joke, but that's pretty much what's going on. Minus the bit about the bar. Plus Helen Magness, who's a main character and as far as I know has no pop cultural or RL historical basis. (But in my head could totally have been one of the old school Torchwood women who kicked Jack's ass and made him join up.) I'm pretty sure that sounds exactly like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but I've never read/watched any of that so I can't comment. All I know is The Five and their awesomeness.
And this group of five joined ranks and have been together (for vague definitions of 'together') since, well, actually I don't remember. Since before the late 1880s, at any rate. And there's just so much history there, good and bad. There is love and hate and trust and lies and betrayals and confessions and it all spans well over a hundred years. You get characters who haven't spoken in decades, who are carrying so much baggage wrt each other meeting up and being all casual and comfortable and physically intimate (um, but canonically platonically) because they easily fall right back into old patterns while still very much not being over how it all went wrong years and years ago.
The relationships I gravitate toward in pretty much all fandoms are the old ones, the ones with all kinds of history and backstory and good times and bad times and inside jokes and everything already in place before we see them. I love established relationships where, in this case, established relationships includes established romantic/sexual relationships, established platonic relationships, and established relationships that started out platonic but are just switching to romantic/sexual (or vice versa).
And Sanctuary has The Five. And The Five have all kinds of background together, in all kinds of combinations and permutations.
It's incredible. And it makes me go all "tell me more!" *grabby hands*
And then I got more. And it's incredible.
When All Points Break From Center Hold by susanmgarrett - Sanctuary gen w/ Watson, Druitt, Magness, and Griffen
This beautifully written fic is set back in 1888 when things are going all kinds of wrong for The Five just below the surface. There's a big major betrayal and badness going on, but the reveal of that to the others is still looming. And a couple of the group have already figured out what it is but decided not to tell, which is a pretty major betrayal of the group in and of itself. Mostly there's just a whole lot of badness looming. *fails at description* Some know it's coming, some are in denial, and some are in the dark or completely wrong in what they think is going on. But it's all about to go to hell and their days as a big happy family are rapidly coming to an end.
But what's fascinating about this fic is how the characters are written as not a big happy family, not then not ever. They were 5 people thrown together with all kinds of personality conflicts and secret agendas and alliances among them. It was never going to last even if that one guy never did that thing that he did that he kept from the others. (*is vague about a backstory spoiler that I've already spelled out*) And we see it all from the POV of the one member we've yet to see on the show and who was the least visible even within the group back in the day. (*giggles madly*) But he's the one with the best vantage point to see what everyone else is doing and where they're all headed.
I wanna go see what else the author's written and in which fandoms, but this is her only fic up on AO3 right now and a brief attempt at internet stalking failed to yield any likely candidates on LJ. :-(
I wrote things!
Castles in the Sky by me for marymac - Slings & Arrows gen
Slings & Arrows gen featuring Anna, Maria, and Nahum. (And Darren Nichols who wasn't really in the request and was meant to have a small bit but ended up taking over the whole damn thing. Oops.) IIRC this was the only fandom I offered where I said I'd do any characters and then I got the request and was all "oh, they mean any character." (And then there was brief panic when I thought the request might be for the three of them in not-gen but that turned out to be not the case. I'm vaguely curious as to what I would have come up with if it was Anna/Maria/Nahum that I had to do.) Heh. So that was a surprise but a good one because Anna, Maria, and Nahum are all amazing characters that rarely get featured in fic or canon. Yay for rare characters within a rare fandom! Anna's in this way more than Maria or Nahum, but I think (I hope!) I managed to give all three a moment of kick assness.
I had a power team of help on this one: many thanks to suchthefangirl for handholding early on and knowing everything I needed to know about theatre (even though much of it got dropped when I couldn't get that plot to be internally timeline consistent :-( ), to llaras for keeping me mostly sane when I got stuck, and to catwalksalone for betaing and putting up with me when I went crazy at the end.
And When It Was Good by me for Ignaz - American Idol RPF - Ryan Seacrest/Simon Cowell
I was polishing off the S&A fic and just a couple hours away from sending it off to beta and being all "yay, nothing to write for a while! I'm on holiday!" when the wonderful Ig's requests went out for pinch hitting. My first thought was "I can write something for Ig," which was followed immediately by "I can never write something for Ig anonymously omg" because you see nearly every thought and bunny I've ever had for Ryan/Simon I've already discussed with Ig at length, and those that I haven't yet are pretty much only because currently too underdeveloped/overcomplicated. But then I thought of something new and wrote it up for a treat and yay! And then I went back and looked again at my new and undiscussed fic and oops it's all full of every conversation we've ever had and answers to questions I'd asked her while plotting something else. *headdesk* What I'm saying is that while I tried to not write my name over every single word, it would not surprise me at all if this was a total anonymity fail. Still liked writing it though. *hearts* to dani for betaing.
I betaed things too! Mostly for people I didn't know, which was kinda cool.
Incident Report by hopefulnebula - Eureka gen
A fun Eureka piece featuring Carter, Allison, Jo, and Zane. It's written as interspliced interview bits with the four of them (think Firefly's Bushwhacked ep) with the who and why for the interviewing not revealed until the very end. With bonus Little Shop of Horrors references!
Medical Research by lorannah - Green Wing - Boyce/Statham
Ok, listing this as Boyce/Statham feels like such a misnomer because while it totally is all about them, it's even more an ensemble piece with everybody done well and right. I giggled my ass off while reading and then was an utterly useless beta because it was totally brilliant.
Sensory Overload by llaras - American Idol RPF - Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
A lovely series of little moments showing Kris slowly falling in love with Adam. With whale songs and mints.
The Death of Girl Number Two by mumblemutter - Profit - Gail/Profit
Gail/Profit is all manner of disturbing. This fic is all manner of disturbing. Of course, everything Profit touches turns to disturbing, so it all fits. My reaction to Gail/Profit is usually 'omg no' (see also: my reaction to anyone in a relationship with Profit, except maybe Bobbi. which...) but my reaction to this fic was 'actually, this makes sense. This is exactly how it would happen.'
First Yuletide was fun! When do we get to go again?
I got awesome fic!
Ok, wait, first I need to ramble all about Sanctuary and omg these characters because I have a sneaking suspicion that nobody's watching this show and anyone who is, isn't for these characters. Which is tragic.
Sanctuary's actually an odd show for me in that the main characters, the premise, and most of the main plots don't do it for me at all. I have no complaints and don't dislike anyone or anything, it's just that there's nothing about it that inspires me to go to a fandomy place with so it stays firmly in a "non-fandom show that I just watch" place instead.
But then! There's this small group of recurring/one shot/haven't actually appeared on camera yet (um, heh) characters involved in a secondary plot and backstory. And omg the backstory.
I don't think there's any easy way of describing The Five (for that's how many there are) without it sounding like I'm making some kind of "so Sherlock Holmes(ish), Jack the Ripper, Nikola Tesla, and the Invisible Man walk into a bar" joke, but that's pretty much what's going on. Minus the bit about the bar. Plus Helen Magness, who's a main character and as far as I know has no pop cultural or RL historical basis. (But in my head could totally have been one of the old school Torchwood women who kicked Jack's ass and made him join up.) I'm pretty sure that sounds exactly like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but I've never read/watched any of that so I can't comment. All I know is The Five and their awesomeness.
And this group of five joined ranks and have been together (for vague definitions of 'together') since, well, actually I don't remember. Since before the late 1880s, at any rate. And there's just so much history there, good and bad. There is love and hate and trust and lies and betrayals and confessions and it all spans well over a hundred years. You get characters who haven't spoken in decades, who are carrying so much baggage wrt each other meeting up and being all casual and comfortable and physically intimate (um, but canonically platonically) because they easily fall right back into old patterns while still very much not being over how it all went wrong years and years ago.
The relationships I gravitate toward in pretty much all fandoms are the old ones, the ones with all kinds of history and backstory and good times and bad times and inside jokes and everything already in place before we see them. I love established relationships where, in this case, established relationships includes established romantic/sexual relationships, established platonic relationships, and established relationships that started out platonic but are just switching to romantic/sexual (or vice versa).
And Sanctuary has The Five. And The Five have all kinds of background together, in all kinds of combinations and permutations.
It's incredible. And it makes me go all "tell me more!" *grabby hands*
And then I got more. And it's incredible.
When All Points Break From Center Hold by susanmgarrett - Sanctuary gen w/ Watson, Druitt, Magness, and Griffen
This beautifully written fic is set back in 1888 when things are going all kinds of wrong for The Five just below the surface. There's a big major betrayal and badness going on, but the reveal of that to the others is still looming. And a couple of the group have already figured out what it is but decided not to tell, which is a pretty major betrayal of the group in and of itself. Mostly there's just a whole lot of badness looming. *fails at description* Some know it's coming, some are in denial, and some are in the dark or completely wrong in what they think is going on. But it's all about to go to hell and their days as a big happy family are rapidly coming to an end.
But what's fascinating about this fic is how the characters are written as not a big happy family, not then not ever. They were 5 people thrown together with all kinds of personality conflicts and secret agendas and alliances among them. It was never going to last even if that one guy never did that thing that he did that he kept from the others. (*is vague about a backstory spoiler that I've already spelled out*) And we see it all from the POV of the one member we've yet to see on the show and who was the least visible even within the group back in the day. (*giggles madly*) But he's the one with the best vantage point to see what everyone else is doing and where they're all headed.
I wanna go see what else the author's written and in which fandoms, but this is her only fic up on AO3 right now and a brief attempt at internet stalking failed to yield any likely candidates on LJ. :-(
I wrote things!
Castles in the Sky by me for marymac - Slings & Arrows gen
Slings & Arrows gen featuring Anna, Maria, and Nahum. (And Darren Nichols who wasn't really in the request and was meant to have a small bit but ended up taking over the whole damn thing. Oops.) IIRC this was the only fandom I offered where I said I'd do any characters and then I got the request and was all "oh, they mean any character." (And then there was brief panic when I thought the request might be for the three of them in not-gen but that turned out to be not the case. I'm vaguely curious as to what I would have come up with if it was Anna/Maria/Nahum that I had to do.) Heh. So that was a surprise but a good one because Anna, Maria, and Nahum are all amazing characters that rarely get featured in fic or canon. Yay for rare characters within a rare fandom! Anna's in this way more than Maria or Nahum, but I think (I hope!) I managed to give all three a moment of kick assness.
I had a power team of help on this one: many thanks to suchthefangirl for handholding early on and knowing everything I needed to know about theatre (even though much of it got dropped when I couldn't get that plot to be internally timeline consistent :-( ), to llaras for keeping me mostly sane when I got stuck, and to catwalksalone for betaing and putting up with me when I went crazy at the end.
And When It Was Good by me for Ignaz - American Idol RPF - Ryan Seacrest/Simon Cowell
I was polishing off the S&A fic and just a couple hours away from sending it off to beta and being all "yay, nothing to write for a while! I'm on holiday!" when the wonderful Ig's requests went out for pinch hitting. My first thought was "I can write something for Ig," which was followed immediately by "I can never write something for Ig anonymously omg" because you see nearly every thought and bunny I've ever had for Ryan/Simon I've already discussed with Ig at length, and those that I haven't yet are pretty much only because currently too underdeveloped/overcomplicated. But then I thought of something new and wrote it up for a treat and yay! And then I went back and looked again at my new and undiscussed fic and oops it's all full of every conversation we've ever had and answers to questions I'd asked her while plotting something else. *headdesk* What I'm saying is that while I tried to not write my name over every single word, it would not surprise me at all if this was a total anonymity fail. Still liked writing it though. *hearts* to dani for betaing.
I betaed things too! Mostly for people I didn't know, which was kinda cool.
Incident Report by hopefulnebula - Eureka gen
A fun Eureka piece featuring Carter, Allison, Jo, and Zane. It's written as interspliced interview bits with the four of them (think Firefly's Bushwhacked ep) with the who and why for the interviewing not revealed until the very end. With bonus Little Shop of Horrors references!
Medical Research by lorannah - Green Wing - Boyce/Statham
Ok, listing this as Boyce/Statham feels like such a misnomer because while it totally is all about them, it's even more an ensemble piece with everybody done well and right. I giggled my ass off while reading and then was an utterly useless beta because it was totally brilliant.
Sensory Overload by llaras - American Idol RPF - Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
A lovely series of little moments showing Kris slowly falling in love with Adam. With whale songs and mints.
The Death of Girl Number Two by mumblemutter - Profit - Gail/Profit
Gail/Profit is all manner of disturbing. This fic is all manner of disturbing. Of course, everything Profit touches turns to disturbing, so it all fits. My reaction to Gail/Profit is usually 'omg no' (see also: my reaction to anyone in a relationship with Profit, except maybe Bobbi. which...) but my reaction to this fic was 'actually, this makes sense. This is exactly how it would happen.'
First Yuletide was fun! When do we get to go again?