starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
I don't even know anymore.

Dear Yuletide writer,

First, thank you so much for participating in Yuletide this year! Second, thank you for agreeing to write a story in a fandom we both love, or at least remember fondly. I'm genuinely interested to see what caught other fans' interests about all of these sources, so please don't feel that my prompts are too binding. I'd rather have an inspired story than slavish devotion to my requests. If you're looking for more of a sense of me and my tastes, skimming through the last twenty entries on my DW will probably give you a good idea; most of the entries in general are unlocked.

I hesitate to say what I do or don't like in fic--I don't have any major squicks, and no firm principles as to what I will or won't read. That said, it's my general sentiment that Yuletide is not the place to go looking for PWP, at least for me; which isn't to say that I wouldn't want sexytimes, as it were, in any story you write, but which is to say that I generally like my sexytimes to go along with plot and characterization. And as you may have guessed from these requests, I do really like women being awesome. In some ways, really, my own fics demonstrate both these preferences very well.

Magic School Bus, Jazz Kings, Darkwing Duck, Mary Poppins )
Taken all together, these seem sort of random, and I guess they are; for me the fun of Yuletide is just as much in the giving as in the receiving. I hope the same goes for you, and that you can find something in here to tickle your fancy.

♥,
Me
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
Since Yuletide nominations will be opening soon, I'm looking at my "Yuletide 2011" text file, which I start some time after nominations have closed the year before. Here's what I have:

1. The Aurors
2. Magic School Bus(/Dr. Who)
3. Mary Poppins(/Dr. Who)
4. Jazz Kings (more info here)

I think I'm going to scrap Mary Poppins. Also, people, you should totally check out Jazz Kings.
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
First things first, recognition and further applause for my wonderful writers!

In Threadless T-Shirts, [archiveofourown.org profile] hectorrashbaum wrote You're Ready And You're Willin'. In Disney Princess Superheroes, [archiveofourown.org profile] beatrice_otter wrote A League Of Their Own; [archiveofourown.org profile] ankaret wrote Just Another Day In The Secret Base; [personal profile] nextian wrote you're gonna leave them all behind; [archiveofourown.org profile] pervyficgirl wrote The Trial of Snow White, [archiveofourown.org profile] lovelyzelda wrote The League of Extraordinary Princesses: B for Beauty, and last in terms of word count, but certainly not least in terms of awesome, [archiveofourown.org profile] wickedtrue wrote Disney Princesses, ASSEMBLE!. They are all so awesome, you should go read them all right now, yes, even you. I can't pick between them, all of them are wonderful. Thank you, writers! I am amazed and humbled to have received such a bounty of great fic. ♥


So I wrote two stories of Heian Period RPF for Yuletide, Bangai (Apocrypha) for [personal profile] elegantpi and Brush Talk for [personal profile] daegaer; I also wrote the Clover fic Sanctuary for [livejournal.com profile] toxictattoo. Let me thank again my wonderful beta reader [personal profile] lnhammer, without whom "Bangai (Apocrypha)" would have been much weaker. Really, I have to say that I thought these three stories, and particularly the first two, were screamingly characteristic of my writing and interests. XD

Bangai (Apocrypha) )

Brush Talk )

Sanctuary )

All that being said, it's time for (drumroll, please!):

The End of Year Fanworks Meme!

Fic I Wrote
:
1 of the Good Guys, The Archandroid/Fake News RPF feat. R2-D2
Symbolic Logic, Inception
Gravedust, The Old Kingdom Chronicles, for New Year's Resolutions 2010
Infernal Machines, Sherlock Holmes 2009
Recompense, Sherlock Holmes 2009
Second Face, Sherlock Holmes 2009
The Flying Empire, Sherlock Holmes 2009 steampunk AU for [livejournal.com profile] holmes_bigbang
Known Associates, Sherlock Holmes 2009 steampunk AU
Bangai (Apocrypha), Heian period RPF for Yuletide Treasure 2010
Brush Talk, Heian period RPF for Yuletide Treasure 2010
Sanctuary, Clover, for Yuletide Treasure 2010

Total word count: About 65,000 words. Throwing in original fiction, unfinished fic, and papers, I'm at nearly 105,000 words for the year. I think my original goal was 150,000; I'm sure that if I threw in all the translations I've done, it'd get within shouting distance of that. In any event, I'm satisfied.

AMV I Made:
Quantum of Darkness - Darker Than BLACK: Ryuusei no Gemini

2010 in fanworks )
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
So thanks to the pseudonym feature on the AO3 I did not realize until just now that I had received another Yuletide Treat (the notification email went astray somehow, I guess?). Thank you, dear Yuletide Writers! I am sorry for my delay in saying so!

Disney Princess Superheroes
Disney Princesses, Assemble! by Anonymous - I meant to make a Madness recs post, but that hasn't happened yet; in the meantime, do go read this awesome snippet of the princess superheroes being awesome.

The League of Extraordinary Princesses: B for Beauty by Anonymous - A more fairy tale take on the princesses, with Belle in the lead after her husband is kidnapped. I love how Belle puts her reading experience to good use. ♥
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
I have three windows of Yuletide stories open at the moment, so I'm going to keep these recs on the quick and dirty side. I'm also trying to rec things that I haven't seen get much traction on the comms as yet. These are just the shorter stories; hopefully I'll have time to plow through the longer ones before the reveal. 

Also, guessing game! As a reminder, I wrote three fics in two fandoms, both chromatic, both I've never written in before; as of this writing, none of my stories have been rec'd to the comms (which doesn't surprise me, really; I made a deliberate effort to offer the more obscure fandoms I could). And, you know, at least two of them seem really obvious to me, but that is because I'm the one living on the inside of my head. ^^

A Night in the Lonesome October, Arcadia, Arts & Sciences RPF, Calvin & Hobbes, Circle of Magic, Disney Princess Superheroes, The Effluent Engine, Eugene Onegin, Hark, a Vagrant!, Heian Period RPF, Hogfather/The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Hunger Games, Gabriel Knight, K-20, Princess Tutu, The Prisoner, Qing Hua Ci, Sociology RPF, Their Majesties' Bucketeers, Threadless T-Shirts )

And finally, in the brilliant tradition of writing about Yuletide, With All Apologies to William Carlos Williams by Lanna Michaels. I'm still laughing.
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
The eggnog was amazing (my egg whites are still stiff nine hours later), both gravies and stuffings came out tasty (though I already have improvements planned for next year), and with nine people, a dog, and a bird, we had a grand time. I wore my mother's Christmas sweater, which still smells like her and which has shoulder pads because it is as old as I am, and a grand time was had by all; I'm amazed at how much happier I am this Christmas than last year. And apparently there is 12 inches of snow on tap for tomorrow. If the roads are clear, me and my sis are going to the movies late at night, since neither of us can go to bed before 1:30 anyway.

So, having cooked ALL the things, I am now going to read all the things. Yuletide! I got five gifts! Five! Holy crap! And they are all awesome.

Threadless T-shirts: We've Got Some Work to Do Now
You're Ready and You're Willin' by Anonymous: Velma and Scooby learn to survive as the infestation worsens. This is sad and awesome and perfect, just what I wanted, and quintessentially Yuletide in its style. ♥

Disney Princess Superheroes by kreugan
A League of Their Own by Anonymous: The Princess Superheroines have to balance saving the world and dealing with it--not always easy, since the world is what it is. This is awesome and brilliant and often quite funny, in that bitter you-gotta-laugh-or-you'll-cry kind of way. Awesome.

Just Another Day in the Secret Base by Anonymous: a different, brilliant take on the prompt by a wonderful Treat writer, this time with brilliant meta jokes on the Disney movies and a hilarious, complicated take on the intra-team dynamics which also acknowledges the way the world is, even when it's guarded by a team of superheroes led by an alien from an alternate universe. Yup. 

you're gonna leave them all behind by Anonymous: a third, gentler take on my prompt (clearly I struck gold here), in which Alice Liddell profiles the team for their Women of the Year citation. The relationship between Snow White and Cinderella, and Alice's reportage, and the details, are brilliant and also reality-edged. 

The Trial of Snow White by Anonymous: in which the team must decide Snow White's fate after what another of my wonderful writers referred to as the Dwarf Incident. This is a somber story, asking important questions, but the team and their interpersonal relationships are at the center, and it's great--I particularly liked the fact, in this story and all the others, that it's female characters making decisions for themselves and each other. "Sisters are doing it for themselves," as Annie Lennox once sang. 

ETA: Two more fics in this fandom, one Treat and one Madness, both awesome, here. /eta

Ahem. I can only hope I've created a fandom here. I regret nothing. Happy Yuletide, all, and writers, THANK YOU. 
starlady: (heaven's day)
I wound up writing two three stories, one request and one two Treats in two fandoms, this Yuletide; if anyone wants to take a guess at which (Chromatic Yuletide) fandoms before reveal, and guesses correctly, I will happily write a story to your prompt. Total word count this Yuletide is about 4600 5600, though I have my eye on at least a few more prompts for Madness. 

I went with my dad and sister to the movies today, and then we continued our relatively new Christmas Eve tradition of cheese fondue for dinner. Mm, fondue. I have made five kinds of cookies in the last week; tonight I made cranberry sauce, and tomorrow I will make two kinds of stuffing, two kinds of potatoes, and two kinds of gravy, as well as shadow my dad on cooking the turkey. We had to put the second leaf in the dining room table for the first time in forever, which warms my heart. I am also making egg nog from scratch for the first time, and I am EXCITE. 

Merry Christmas to all those who are celebrating, and to all, a very good night. 
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
Got Yuletide draft back from beta, who liked it, with suggestions for fixes. \o/ Which changes I will put in tomorrow while baking cookies. 

I am, however, succumbing to paranoia and uploading as I write this, for fear of who knows what happening and defaulting unintentionally.  

Dear self: You have way too much to do to go trolling letters for Treats, even if tomorrow is only the 19th. 
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
My Yuletide assignment is right up my alley. I can so totally rock it, you guys, you have no idea. (Which is good, because just like last year, I only matched with one fandom, and I don't think I have time to acquire the others.)

Mwahaha, this is going to be sweet. 

ETA: I even know exactly who I'm going to ask to beta! Hah!
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
You know what helps with the pre-assignment jitters? Wine, and writing research papers. 

So today, via [personal profile] senmut, this post by [personal profile] elf on Yuletide changes was pointed out to me. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but it's definitely worth a read. 

ETA: as usual, [personal profile] wistfuljane brings the cogent commentary; I highly recommend This Is Not a Love Song. It also contains links to the commentary the vidders wrote about the vid I mention next, which is vital to read. /eta

On the happier side, if you haven't seen the One Night Fandoms vid by [personal profile] thingswithwings and [personal profile] eruthros, you totally should, because it is made of love and totally represents the best of the Yuletide experience. 

And finally, [personal profile] naraht's How to Have Fun at Yuletide should be required reading for the challenge. 
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
Dear Yuletide writer,

First, thank you so much for participating in Yuletide this year! Second, thank you for agreeing to write a story in a fandom we both love, or at least remember fondly. I'm genuinely interested to see what caught other fans' interests about all of these sources, so please don't feel that my prompts are too binding. I'd rather have an inspired story than slavish devotion to my requests. If you're looking for more of a sense of me and my tastes, skimming through the last twenty entries on my DW will probably give you a good idea; most of the entries in general are unlocked.

I hesitate to say what I do or don't like in fic--I don't have any major squicks, and no firm principles as to what I will or won't read. That said, it's my general sentiment that Yuletide is not the place to go looking for PWP, at least for me; which isn't to say that I wouldn't want sexytimes, as it were, in any story you write, but which is to say that I generally like my sexytimes to go along with plot and characterization. And as you may have guessed from these requests, I do really like women being awesome. In some ways, really, my own fics demonstrate both these preferences very well.


Requests )


Taken all together, these seem sort of random, and I guess they are; for me the fun of Yuletide is just as much in the giving as in the receiving. I hope the same goes for you, and that you can find something in here to tickle your fancy.

♥,
Me
starlady: (revisionist historian)
I need to post this and then either shower or go running asap. Maybe both! WHO KNOWS.

So, okay, Yuletide! Here are four posts I would like to throw into conversation with each other: [personal profile] troisroyaumes' Yuletide Rant Repost, [personal profile] franzeska's The Highlight of the Fannish Year, [personal profile] dhobikikutti's Yuletide, AO3, and me, and [personal profile] bossymarmalade's brainstorming about possible alternative/supplementary exchanges. Go forth and ponder! Fanfic exchanges are not a zero-sum game; neither is fannish joy.

ETA: If anyone knows anyone who wants an AO3 invite for YT who hasn't yet emailed the mods, send them my way! I have a spare invite yearning for a recipient. /eta


Okay! Moving along, via Diane Duane on Twitter, Disney Sith princesses! Not quite as awesome as the superhero princesses, but pretty damn awesome all the same.

Via [personal profile] torachan, whose linkspam are awesome, [livejournal.com profile] sadynax has a quite awesome Sherlock/Holmes fanart, featuring movie!Holmes & Watson meeting BBC!Holmes & Watson crossed over with the Harry Potter-verse. The House sortings are ridiculously appropriate, so much is explained just by their scarves.

[personal profile] kuwdora just made an awesome Inception vid, "PASIV Face," featuring the ensemble set to a remix of "Poker Face." If you watch one Inception vid this season, it should be this one.


Moving along again, the awesome Cindy Pon is having an ARC contest for Fury of the Phoenix, the sequel to Silver Phoenix! And this one is specifically for fans of the book, because the entry submissions are…fanworks, and meta! The contest closes on 1 December; the page on CIndy's blog with full details is here, and let me take the opportunity to point you at [personal profile] inkstone's post about the same, which has further details about the ongoing experiment V. is corralling w/r/t these awesome books.

And finally, teaser trailer for Shinkai Makoto's new film, Hoshi wo ou kodomo!

starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
For those of you who don't know it, I wholeheartedly recommend the Chromatic Yuletide 2010 challenge hosted by [community profile] dark_agenda in honor of the late [personal profile] skywardprodigal, who is already much missed.

So I nominated:

Disney Princess Superheroes - chromatic characters are Jasmine, Mulan, and Tinker Bell  Tiana

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore (white creator) - chromatic character is Nimira (pimp post/review here)

White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi - chromatic creator, chromatic characters are Ore and Sade (pimp post/review here)

the Clockwork Century by Cherie Priest (white creator) - multiple chromatic characters including Croggon Hainey


and NPR RPF and Paradise Kiss, which were already nominated.
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
Astoundingly short real life entry, go!

# Yuletide nominations! This is my partial list:
1. Disney Princess Superheroes
2. Their Majesties' Bucketeers
3. NPR RPF
4. The Magic Schoolbus
5. RahXephon

Thoughts? 

# I signed up for Zipcar last week, and this morning under the pressure of "I need more dayquil and tissues" I reserved a car, and this afternoon my friend L and I went to…Target. Very dramatic and significant, I know. That said, it was a ridiculously easy sign-up process, and the company people I've interacted with have all been both nice and helpful, and Hybrid Car! And cities across the country and internationally, which is good. The rates are slightly high for just one person, at least on my budget, but with two or more people to split the costs it's pretty reasonable. And the cars live six blocks from my house. 

# More ludicrously beautiful days in the Bay area this week. This morning and afternoon I could see all the way past the Golden Gate to Marin. We're so spoiled; also, the psychological boost is unquestionable. I'm glad again that I chose this school, and these people, and still happy to be here (and having the time of my life).

# I'm not sure I'll ever write up a full post on Sirens 2010, but let me just say, it was a total blast from start to finish--I was surprised at how much fun I had, and thrilled to meet a bunch of other people who loved to talk about books and whatnot with just as much passion as me, and everyone I met including the GoHs was ridiculously nice and awesome. It's an intimate con, which definitely contributes to that atmosphere, but the caliber of the discussions does not suffer at all for that. See you next year, all!

# I might as well admit to all and sundry that I'm plotting a really long Sherlock Holmes story. At this point it's probably going to be a novel. I am excited.

starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
Yuletide having been revealed, it turns out that jadelioness (who I think is [livejournal.com profile] jadelioness) wrote me No One Loves You Like I Do, and [personal profile] watersword wrote me Incense and Sunglasses on Orchard Street. Thanks so much again to you both; you made my first Yuletide pretty damn awesome.

I wrote four Yuletide stories. In order, they are:

The Momiji File (Gouhou Drug) -- I never expected that this would be the fandom on which I would match my recipient, but thankfully the prompt was pretty open-ended: essentially, what happened next? I wound up setting the story immediately after the end of volume 3 and stealing a recent plot point from xxxHOLiC to form the request the boys took on, partly because I think there would have been a lot more HOLiC crossovers had Legal Drug continued. It was an interesting challenge to write a story that could be read as either slashy gen or pre-slash, depending on the reader, since that seems to be a key feature of the manga reading experience. I also tried, as much as possible, to load up the fic with actual details from my time in Japan (this included scrutinizing the photos I took in Rikugi-en for the settings--you could actually go sit on the shamisen player's bench, not to mention walk across the bridge Kazahaya nearly falls off), and to make the dialogue echo the characters' diction in Japanese. Writing the story also made me realize how much of the slashiness in canon depends on visual humor and innuendo. Oh the power of images! And thanks again to [livejournal.com profile] nokiirat, whose insightful beta comments helped me get Kazahaya's characterization better. I think, though, that maybe my favorite thing about the story is the Suki Dakara Suki crossover. I justified it on the basis that Hina (and Doumeki, too) went to Waseda for college, and now in my world they totally do.

A Midwinter's Tale (The Drowning City - Downum) -- I'd offered to write Downum originally, and the requestor is a fellow tag-wrangler, so when I saw it on the unfulfilled prompts list I jumped at it. Oddly enough, it took me almost a day and a half to write, because I couldn't think of a concrete scene on which to anchor the first part of the fic. But I got to throw some Latin into my writing, and draw on my classics background, and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Empty-Handed (Old Kingdom series - Nix) -- Another story about (maimed and/or missing) hands. I wrote this on my plane to Detroit on Christmas Eve morning, having paged through Abhorsen the night before, and I'm very happy with it. It's probably going to become the first in a little series of fics in this fandom based on YT prompts for New Year's Resolutions.

The World Ends With You
(the Michelle West novels - West) -- This one I churned out on my forty-minute flight from Detroit to Milwaukee on Christmas Eve afternoon, because I share the fandom with [personal profile] inkstone, the requestor, who totally knew it was me because there's about five of us in this fandom, total. XD I've read the other story written for this same prompt ("Indelible" by moontyger; it's good! you should read it!), and I think it's interesting how the two of us did completely different things with the exact same request. Ideally I would have reread the beginning of Hunter's Death before writing it, but c'est la vie. I did at least manage to echo some of West's diction from key scenes in other books. And I'm totally way too fond of the title.

2009: The year in fanworks )

I think it's time to make rugelach now.
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
Everything I have open in tabs, unread, has been recced to the comm already; almost all of these have too. Contrary to appearances, there is a filtering mechanism at work here! But Yuletide is full of awesome writing.

Relatedly, if anyone wants to take a stab at guessing which fics I wrote, go Yulegoat-wild! I very much doubt that anyone will be able to, since Yuletide 2009 doubled my finished fanfic output by 200%, but regardless, here are a few hints:

1. I wrote four fics: two in Yuletide and two in Madness.
2. I have written in none of these fandoms before.
3. One has been recced to the comm.
4. None are in really popular Yuletide fandoms, and none are explicit.

On the offchance that any one gueses correctly, I will owe you a story, at least 500 words. Comments screened (if you comment about the recs I will unscreen).


Spirited Away, album fic, composer RPF, Hidden City, My Little Ponies, Chronicles of the Kencyrath, Earthsea, Darkangel trilogy, Temeraire, The Prisoner, Hook )
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
The archive is currently down for maintenance, which seems like a good time to post these.

The best way I have found to browse Yuletide & Yuletide Madness is by fandom. Here is the page for Yuletide proper, and here's the page for Madness.

Young Wizards, China Mieville, Megan Whalen Turner, Dinosaur comics, Calvin & Hobbes, NPR RPF, Honorverse )
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
Or, hooray for Yuletide! I received two full-length fics.

The first is No One Loves You Like I Do. It is the anime Blood+, David/Julia at a Red Shield holiday party, and it is hot like burning.

The second, a Treat, is Incense and Sunglasses on Orchard Street. It is Diane Duane's Young Wizards: Tom and Carl take a vacation in New Orleans, and it's great to see them get to enjoy themselves (and each other!) for once. I don't know whether the Treat writer mentioned Lud-in-the-Mist because he or she knew that I read it this year and liked it a lot, or because the Treat writer is awesome and likes good books, but either way, that shout-out was great.

I am not very good at leaving articulate comments, but both stories are awesome, and I sincerely enjoyed them. Thank you, writers!
Christmas Eve also saw the release of a very special holiday episode of Shadow Unit. I enjoy this strange hyperfiction experiment quite a lot on account of the characters, who are awesome and flawed and tragic and utterly human. The third season starts in February; I'd recommend the holiday episode, "On Faith", as one possible entry point to the show, and there is also a recommended reading order, which starts from the beginning.

And on that note, I should probably go get dressed.

ETA: My recipient and someone else left me very complimentary feedback on one of my stories! It is snowing again! So, all things considered, I think this Christmas has turned out as well as can be expected.
starlady: Kermit the Frog, at Yuletide (yuletide)
My tally for Yuletide: my story for my requester and two three stories off the unfilled prompts list, one two for Madness and one that became a Treat.

Yuletide writer(s), my internet connection will be intermittent for the next four days. I may not respond to your story immediately, but it's not because I don't love it, it's because I've been kidnapped by my relatives. Or something else festive.

For Yuletide Madness purposes, once again, here is my Yuletide letter.

And hey, Yuletide Madness starts soon! [community profile] dark_agenda is collecting eligible chromatic prompts. This year Madness is open to anyone with an AO3 account: go forth and write, ye writers! 

Also, the CLAMP 20th Anniversary Fanbook is now available in PDF! Download link is here; the book will be available to purchase after the holidays.

As an editor for the whole book, I've seen the draft copy, and let me tell you, fellow fans, we did an awesome thing, and each and every one of us who contributed in any way should feel proud.

I met up with my awesome friend K in Philly this afternoon and we had a great time wandering around, to the Liberty Bell, to Ben Franklin's grave, and to New World Comics. Then the staff at Korma, where we ate, gave us dessert on the house! It was rice pudding and it was delicious.

So on that note of kindness, very happy holidays to one and all; Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, Happy Yule, from the bottom of my heart. Have a good weekend, at the least.

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