[fanfic] happy new year, guys! ♥
Fic written for the Pointless But Original Talking Forum Holiday Fic Exchange.
Assignment #4
Fandoms: ah. Harry Potter. Jrock.
Pairing/Groups You'd Like to Receive: I AM SO OUT OF TOUCH WITH POT, but I can try like platinum pair. and Solitaire. O: I'm basically okay with any pairing but those with Atobe, Horio etc.
Squicks/Turn Offs in Fic (receiving): See above.
What You'd Like to See in Fic: Christmas angst! Nah, that'll be hard. Anything you think will make me smile :D Also for reference my favourite HP pairings are like, maurader-era RLSB, SSLE, and I have taken some weird interest in HPDM. Just no HPGW. aha
Gen/Het/Slash/Smut/None/All-of-the-above?: I will never write smut, but I'm okay with receiving. aha.
Your request: damn, I think I just threw everything up there ^ I'm sorry Rea <3 If they could throw in some obscure Jrock/vkei references I'll love them forever, but that is not needed. Aha
Title a portrait of an artist, as a starving young man
Pairings/Groups/Fandom Prince of Tennis; Niou, Yagyuu, Marui
Rating PG-13
Warnings fanfic about fanfic; catch all those awful sneaky references!
Summary Author sensation Niou Masaharu decides that his latest project will actually be a revisiting of his roots: Harry Potter slash fiction. Did you hear that, fangirls? /o/
Beta layne_lok!
A/N // Message to the Receiver darn it, Kura, when I saw the angst in your request I was like I got the awesome prompt cheyeeeeah but then I realized it wasn't actually to be. So now you get fanfiction about fictional characters writing fanfiction. Much gaderp ensues.
*
It was a pity that Niou had not been born poor. It would've been easiest to market him as the perennially poor but bursting with ambition young author. And even if he had been rich, he might have been able to go the slumming-hipster-what-is-angst route. What Niou was-what he really was-was middle-class. There was nothing to say about the middle-class other than the fact that they were living comfortably, had both parents alive and well, and were going to keep complaining about taxes for as long as they felt necessary.
Niou was at his loft when his editor called him, giving him his latest pitch. Giving Back, in capital letters.
"A novel written just for your fans," said Yagyuu Hiroshi, "a Christmas special with limited copies, special-edition, with a barely wet signature on the inside of the front cover." The advertising would be splattered everywhere, across Tokyo Dome and Ikebukuro, over-shadowing the usual promotions for Hetalia World Series and Gravure Magazine, covering the bookstore windows in Shinjuku.
"Sounds like a scam to me," said Niou, who may or may not had been picking his nose throughout the pitch.
"You can think whatever, but that's because you're going to be paid to do it."
"And I'm not gonna do it."
"I've executive approval. You know how Yukimura is."
Niou knew many things about Yukimura, but that was not the point. "Today's November first."
"Call it an incentive deadline."
"Oh how I fucking love the bureaucracy. Okay, bright boy, what about printing?"
"Two hundred pre-ordered copies. Five hundred more online, and"-Yagyuu was really, really proud of this pitch, had practiced in front of his mirror until the mirror nearly bled shards of glass-"a personal appearance from the artist himself."
"Fucker!"
"Yukimura begs to differ." He checked his watch. "Anyway, it means you've got more or less a month. Standard length, if you have my understanding. It shouldn't be too difficult. Ernest Hemingway wrote his first novel in ten days."
"And there's a reason why his first novel sucked balls."
"Everyone seemed to like your first novel."
"Isn't it pretty to think so?" Niou derived much pleasure from slamming his phone. It felt therapeutic and he did it twice more to consolidate and justify his anger. Then he went online, presumably to do research for his second novel which was coming around rather slowly but actually to buy tickets for FINAL "TOKYO GALAXY" at Budokan in January. The server crashed on him twice and then Niou remembered that his credit card had expired and he needed to finish his bank statements. Suddenly, writing seemed not such a bad idea.
*
That was the thing. Writing was easy. And Niou was a fast writer. It meant he constantly had new material. Another: it meant that he would always be able to dodge deadlines at the last minute, further lending to Yagyuu's foiled fury. But they had stuck it out for years now, ever since Niou penned his first novella and received the backing of the then less than prominent editor. The risk had proved successful, and Niou rose among the literati while Yagyuu was promoted.
They did fight, occasionally, as only writer and editor can, spewing hateful metaphors and symbolic anger terms over a telephone line and with twenty other intermediates running back and forth. It helped that Yagyuu's office was on the thirty-fifth floor of their publisher's complex. It also helped that the elevator was an old and chronically broken machine, and that Niou's impatience usually self-combusted around the tenth floor. So by the time he arrived, he was more likely to ungracefully plummet onto the couch than to have Yagyuu's dead head on a platter served with apples and cream puffs on the side. (And that was not a euphemism for anything.)
They were even slightly friends, maybe even slightly respected each other. But they were wary of the other, just the same. There were times Yagyuu labeled Niou a pretentious prick; and just as many times Niou thought Yagyuu just needed to get laid.
(He actually was awful enough to write their relationship into a short story once. It was also coincidentally his debut to the American market, the story appearing in the New Yorker. The story did well. It did not help either of them.)
*
Ten drafts, and he still had nothing. Earlier that day, he had spent two hours reading fan mail. They were all typed in the same way, with the same emoticons, and Niou came to the conclusion that he had a stalker. The revelation flattered him. He wasted more time doing nothing. So it was about half-way through November when Niou remembered Harry Potter, the way a man woke up and remembered his wife.
"I stopped reading the novels though. I suppose I got bored. I still like the movies, I think Emma Watson is kind of cute," said Marui, who Niou had had the mistake of calling. "Wait, you were saying?"
"Plots," said Niou, "I need plots."
"Canon or post-canon or pre-canon or-"
"Cat plots, bunny plots, fat moose plots, insane plots. Just. Plots."
"You know," it sounded like Marui was chewing gum or a piece of plastic, "I always wondered why Black and Lupin didn't just run away."
"Well it's kind of difficult when they're both dead. Unless they run away together while in the afterlife."
"Maybe they wreak havoc on all the angels in Heaven."
"Are they in Heaven?"
"They troll everyone."
"In the dungeon?"
"No, in Heaven."
"Hmm," Niou contemplated this.
"Say," said Marui, "since when were you into Harry Potter again? Did you watch the new movie?"
"I forgot."
"So did I. Maybe we can rent it and watch it some time. I know I'll watch the last one."
"You can't watch the last one without watching the newest one. You'll spoil yourself."
"The newest what?"
"The one that came out a few months ago."
"No, it comes out in a few months."
"I give you up," sighed Niou.
"And I refuse to review your new story when you finally decide to post it," said Marui, a bit teary-eyed. "But oh God, now that you mention it, I always loved the way you wrote Snape and Lily together. It was so tragic. But so real. And so hot. Is all that old stuff still online?"
"Yes," admitted Niou, after several seconds.
"Hnn, I am most excite now. What was your old penname? Was it like, x and an x with a tennis demon in between? Or am I thinking of Akaya? I wonder how he's doing. He must be finishing grad school about now, huh? Great, now I sound nostalgic."
"I'm not reminding you."
"It's not like I can't find it. I just need to go back to our old forums, banana and peach jokes and condos made out of condoms and messed-up fairytales and just about everything else. Wink wink nudge nudge. You used to be such a review whore, but I guess all authors have to be. Say, aren't you writing a new novel or something?"
"I am."
"And somehow . . . Harry Potter relates?"
"Yes," said Niou, only he said it much more threateningly and with some oomph.
"Can I get a free copy?"
"You have to pay, like all the other bitches."
Marui frowned. "Whatever. I know you'll end up posting it on Livejournal anyway. You used to cross-post from here to your mother's handbag. It was all over my f-list."
"I deleted my account."
"And created a new one because you're too cheap to rename. I know these things okay."
"You don't happen to stalk me, do you?"
"Naaaw, why would I do that?"
"Oh I don't know," said Niou. "Something I heard through the grapevine."
"Must've been a really thin vine. Or a fake one. You know, they can make those things out of plastic nowadays. Cheap as hell, too. A shame, they look completely authentic."
"I honestly don't get you sometimes."
"Will the book come with a free autograph?"
"Not for you."
"What if I pre-order?"
"I'll make sure you don't get one. Authorial privileges."
"I wonder what JK Rowling has to say about all this."
"Why don't you call and find out?" Niou said.
Marui laughed.
autocadere, I love you and hope that you derive some kind of pleasant silliness from this! FORUM PEEPS AND F-LIST, I LOVE YOU ALL ALSO. HAPPY NEW YEAR. YOU GUYS MAKE ME SO HAPPY AND SHAMELESS FOR HAVING WRITTEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS. MY ONLY REGRET IS THAT I DIDN'T GET MORE FORUM JOKES IN D: I LOOK FORWARD TO THE DAY WHEN WE MIGHT FLOOD TOGETHER AGAIN ♥
Assignment #4
Fandoms: ah. Harry Potter. Jrock.
Pairing/Groups You'd Like to Receive: I AM SO OUT OF TOUCH WITH POT, but I can try like platinum pair. and Solitaire. O: I'm basically okay with any pairing but those with Atobe, Horio etc.
Squicks/Turn Offs in Fic (receiving): See above.
What You'd Like to See in Fic: Christmas angst! Nah, that'll be hard. Anything you think will make me smile :D Also for reference my favourite HP pairings are like, maurader-era RLSB, SSLE, and I have taken some weird interest in HPDM. Just no HPGW. aha
Gen/Het/Slash/Smut/None/All-of-the-above?: I will never write smut, but I'm okay with receiving. aha.
Your request: damn, I think I just threw everything up there ^ I'm sorry Rea <3 If they could throw in some obscure Jrock/vkei references I'll love them forever, but that is not needed. Aha
Title a portrait of an artist, as a starving young man
Pairings/Groups/Fandom Prince of Tennis; Niou, Yagyuu, Marui
Rating PG-13
Warnings fanfic about fanfic; catch all those awful sneaky references!
Summary Author sensation Niou Masaharu decides that his latest project will actually be a revisiting of his roots: Harry Potter slash fiction. Did you hear that, fangirls? /o/
Beta layne_lok!
A/N // Message to the Receiver darn it, Kura, when I saw the angst in your request I was like I got the awesome prompt cheyeeeeah but then I realized it wasn't actually to be. So now you get fanfiction about fictional characters writing fanfiction. Much gaderp ensues.
*
It was a pity that Niou had not been born poor. It would've been easiest to market him as the perennially poor but bursting with ambition young author. And even if he had been rich, he might have been able to go the slumming-hipster-what-is-angst route. What Niou was-what he really was-was middle-class. There was nothing to say about the middle-class other than the fact that they were living comfortably, had both parents alive and well, and were going to keep complaining about taxes for as long as they felt necessary.
Niou was at his loft when his editor called him, giving him his latest pitch. Giving Back, in capital letters.
"A novel written just for your fans," said Yagyuu Hiroshi, "a Christmas special with limited copies, special-edition, with a barely wet signature on the inside of the front cover." The advertising would be splattered everywhere, across Tokyo Dome and Ikebukuro, over-shadowing the usual promotions for Hetalia World Series and Gravure Magazine, covering the bookstore windows in Shinjuku.
"Sounds like a scam to me," said Niou, who may or may not had been picking his nose throughout the pitch.
"You can think whatever, but that's because you're going to be paid to do it."
"And I'm not gonna do it."
"I've executive approval. You know how Yukimura is."
Niou knew many things about Yukimura, but that was not the point. "Today's November first."
"Call it an incentive deadline."
"Oh how I fucking love the bureaucracy. Okay, bright boy, what about printing?"
"Two hundred pre-ordered copies. Five hundred more online, and"-Yagyuu was really, really proud of this pitch, had practiced in front of his mirror until the mirror nearly bled shards of glass-"a personal appearance from the artist himself."
"Fucker!"
"Yukimura begs to differ." He checked his watch. "Anyway, it means you've got more or less a month. Standard length, if you have my understanding. It shouldn't be too difficult. Ernest Hemingway wrote his first novel in ten days."
"And there's a reason why his first novel sucked balls."
"Everyone seemed to like your first novel."
"Isn't it pretty to think so?" Niou derived much pleasure from slamming his phone. It felt therapeutic and he did it twice more to consolidate and justify his anger. Then he went online, presumably to do research for his second novel which was coming around rather slowly but actually to buy tickets for FINAL "TOKYO GALAXY" at Budokan in January. The server crashed on him twice and then Niou remembered that his credit card had expired and he needed to finish his bank statements. Suddenly, writing seemed not such a bad idea.
*
That was the thing. Writing was easy. And Niou was a fast writer. It meant he constantly had new material. Another: it meant that he would always be able to dodge deadlines at the last minute, further lending to Yagyuu's foiled fury. But they had stuck it out for years now, ever since Niou penned his first novella and received the backing of the then less than prominent editor. The risk had proved successful, and Niou rose among the literati while Yagyuu was promoted.
They did fight, occasionally, as only writer and editor can, spewing hateful metaphors and symbolic anger terms over a telephone line and with twenty other intermediates running back and forth. It helped that Yagyuu's office was on the thirty-fifth floor of their publisher's complex. It also helped that the elevator was an old and chronically broken machine, and that Niou's impatience usually self-combusted around the tenth floor. So by the time he arrived, he was more likely to ungracefully plummet onto the couch than to have Yagyuu's dead head on a platter served with apples and cream puffs on the side. (And that was not a euphemism for anything.)
They were even slightly friends, maybe even slightly respected each other. But they were wary of the other, just the same. There were times Yagyuu labeled Niou a pretentious prick; and just as many times Niou thought Yagyuu just needed to get laid.
(He actually was awful enough to write their relationship into a short story once. It was also coincidentally his debut to the American market, the story appearing in the New Yorker. The story did well. It did not help either of them.)
*
Ten drafts, and he still had nothing. Earlier that day, he had spent two hours reading fan mail. They were all typed in the same way, with the same emoticons, and Niou came to the conclusion that he had a stalker. The revelation flattered him. He wasted more time doing nothing. So it was about half-way through November when Niou remembered Harry Potter, the way a man woke up and remembered his wife.
"I stopped reading the novels though. I suppose I got bored. I still like the movies, I think Emma Watson is kind of cute," said Marui, who Niou had had the mistake of calling. "Wait, you were saying?"
"Plots," said Niou, "I need plots."
"Canon or post-canon or pre-canon or-"
"Cat plots, bunny plots, fat moose plots, insane plots. Just. Plots."
"You know," it sounded like Marui was chewing gum or a piece of plastic, "I always wondered why Black and Lupin didn't just run away."
"Well it's kind of difficult when they're both dead. Unless they run away together while in the afterlife."
"Maybe they wreak havoc on all the angels in Heaven."
"Are they in Heaven?"
"They troll everyone."
"In the dungeon?"
"No, in Heaven."
"Hmm," Niou contemplated this.
"Say," said Marui, "since when were you into Harry Potter again? Did you watch the new movie?"
"I forgot."
"So did I. Maybe we can rent it and watch it some time. I know I'll watch the last one."
"You can't watch the last one without watching the newest one. You'll spoil yourself."
"The newest what?"
"The one that came out a few months ago."
"No, it comes out in a few months."
"I give you up," sighed Niou.
"And I refuse to review your new story when you finally decide to post it," said Marui, a bit teary-eyed. "But oh God, now that you mention it, I always loved the way you wrote Snape and Lily together. It was so tragic. But so real. And so hot. Is all that old stuff still online?"
"Yes," admitted Niou, after several seconds.
"Hnn, I am most excite now. What was your old penname? Was it like, x and an x with a tennis demon in between? Or am I thinking of Akaya? I wonder how he's doing. He must be finishing grad school about now, huh? Great, now I sound nostalgic."
"I'm not reminding you."
"It's not like I can't find it. I just need to go back to our old forums, banana and peach jokes and condos made out of condoms and messed-up fairytales and just about everything else. Wink wink nudge nudge. You used to be such a review whore, but I guess all authors have to be. Say, aren't you writing a new novel or something?"
"I am."
"And somehow . . . Harry Potter relates?"
"Yes," said Niou, only he said it much more threateningly and with some oomph.
"Can I get a free copy?"
"You have to pay, like all the other bitches."
Marui frowned. "Whatever. I know you'll end up posting it on Livejournal anyway. You used to cross-post from here to your mother's handbag. It was all over my f-list."
"I deleted my account."
"And created a new one because you're too cheap to rename. I know these things okay."
"You don't happen to stalk me, do you?"
"Naaaw, why would I do that?"
"Oh I don't know," said Niou. "Something I heard through the grapevine."
"Must've been a really thin vine. Or a fake one. You know, they can make those things out of plastic nowadays. Cheap as hell, too. A shame, they look completely authentic."
"I honestly don't get you sometimes."
"Will the book come with a free autograph?"
"Not for you."
"What if I pre-order?"
"I'll make sure you don't get one. Authorial privileges."
"I wonder what JK Rowling has to say about all this."
"Why don't you call and find out?" Niou said.
Marui laughed.
autocadere, I love you and hope that you derive some kind of pleasant silliness from this! FORUM PEEPS AND F-LIST, I LOVE YOU ALL ALSO. HAPPY NEW YEAR. YOU GUYS MAKE ME SO HAPPY AND SHAMELESS FOR HAVING WRITTEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS. MY ONLY REGRET IS THAT I DIDN'T GET MORE FORUM JOKES IN D: I LOOK FORWARD TO THE DAY WHEN WE MIGHT FLOOD TOGETHER AGAIN ♥