where there's smoke there's--

Unlike last year, I actually want to talk about writing my fics. Don't ask why; I don't even know why myself.

On a slightly different tangent, I'm glad I got this in before I have to shift gears for Who Daily tonight. 😬

This year I wrote the (Netflix) GLOW fic for armadillo1976:

Words Get in the Way (2505 words) by merryghoul
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: GLOW (TV 2017)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Debbie Eagan/Ruth Wilder
Characters: Debbie Eagan, Ruth Wilder
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, 1980s, 5 Times, New Year's Eve, Sitcom, Angst, Season's Treatings, Holidays
Summary: Five doors standing in Debbie’s path to Ruth.

( me explaining how I wrote this fic )

I wrote one of the 17776 (really, it's more a part of 20020) fics for woodironbone:

County of San Diego, California. The Mountain Empire. 19304. (1297 words) by merryghoul
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future - Jon Bois
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Manuel "Manny" Baez/Nick Navarro
Characters: Manuel "Manny" Baez, Nick Navarro, Juice (17776)
Additional Tags: Racing, Desert, Mountains, California, Embedded Images
Summary: Manny and Nick’s run to the Boise State field in 19304, with Juice on commentary.

Me: I picked up this pinch hit and worked on it for a week, using woodironbone's suggestion of writing about Manny and Nick's run. The fic was inspired in equal parts by me being lonely watching sports at times, by how Bois tends to tweet on Twitter—lower caps and sarcastic jokes, and, of course, by 20020 itself. And I had it formatted initially like this paragraph, thinking I was going to remix this fic and actually make it look somewhat like 17776 and its sequels after Yuletide.

Then I found this 17776 skin tutorial for AO3. I spent a few days before Yuletide doing some basic photoshop work, figuring out hex code colors, and tweaking the skin slightly from the original tutorial alongside some other HTML work.

My gift was from boasamishipper.

My gifts, a post-season one look at Eve after season one of Killing Eve, and a smutty look at Josie and Anya from Annihilation (Garland 2018), are here.

Here are my other recs from this year’s Yuletide:

( Horror of Dracula, The Americans (TV), AHS: Hotel, Annihilation (Garland 2018), Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, JS&MN (TV), Moonlight (2016), Pied Piper of Hamelin, Rosemary and Thyme, Thoroughbreds, Fallen London, lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to )

Didn’t post them here earlier in part because I decided to think through my comments before leaving them, and I was disrupted a bit by family things. But here are my gifts:

none of these will bring disaster (1527 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Eve Polastri
Additional Tags: Episode Tag, Moral Ambiguity
Summary:

"I have lost two jobs, a husband, and a best friend because of you."

But what else has Eve lost? Does she even know?

Cocoon (4005 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Annihilation (2018 Garland)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Josie Radek/Anya Thorensen
Characters: Josie Radek, Anya Thorensen
Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Body Horror, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Surrounded by liars and tricks of the light, Anya looks for something real.

Recs after I go through the collection, reveals post to follow.

Title: Emergency
Fandom: Preacher (TV)
Wordcount: 1209
Rating: Teen
Characters: Proinsias Cassidy, Jesse Custer
Contains: canon-typical violence
Notes: pinch hit for SaintDianeofCooper for Yuletide 2017
Summary: What was supposed to be a quick stop for groceries became a trip to get Cassidy some blood.

AO3.

( Read more... )

This year I matched with melannen, and this year I wrote this for her:

Waterman of the Dead (3951 words) by merryghoul
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: James Asher Vampire Series - Barbara Hambly
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: James Asher/Lydia Asher
Characters: Simon Ysidro, Lionel Grippen, Mrs Raleigh (James Asher Vampire Series), James Asher, Lydia Asher
Additional Tags: London, Oxford, Edwardian Period, Missing Scene, Misogyny, Murderers, Newspapers, On the Run, Vampire Slayer(s), Staged Crime Scene
Summary: Moments before, during, and after James Asher’s destruction of the lairs of the Master of London, Lionel Grippen. (Mostly set during the last chapter of The Kindred of Darkness.)

I had a bit more time to go back over the James Asher books unlike last year. melannen and I are both intrigued with the character of Grippen. I was also intrigued with the closing paragraphs of The Kindred of Darkness, where Asher retaliates against Grippen and his fledglings over the events of the novel. The closing paragraphs are so brief before the book finally ends on Asher’s dream, so I expanded on Asher’s summer of vengeance and Grippen preparing for it.

Yes, this was the fic I alluded to earlier that I had to do a lot of research for. Researching collegiate boat clubs and English rowing events were were not what I was thinking of researching for a vampire fic.


I wrote a treat for havisham:

Secrets (1683 words) by merryghoul
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Atlanta (TV 2016)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Earnest "Earn" Marks
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, College, Racism, Vandalism, False Accusations, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Princeton wasn't anything Earn envisioned it would be.

Earn’s brief college years haven’t been seen on Atlanta (they were briefly mentioned in an early draft of the show), so I did some research into Princeton and came up with a way for him to get kicked out of a school that rarely expels people, while touching on Princeton’s history with race along the way.


I wrote a pinch hit for SaintDianeofCooper:

Emergency (1209 words) by merryghoul
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Preacher (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Proinsias Cassidy, Jesse Custer
Additional Tags: Post-Season/Series 01, Hospitals, Canon-Typical Violence, Vampires
Summary: What was supposed to be a quick stop for groceries became a trip to get Cassidy some blood.

For this pinch hit I abided by SaintDianeofCooper’s letter and wrote about an incident that could’ve happened before Season 2, focused mostly on Jesse and Cassidy.


And I wrote a pinch hit for Fmnds:

I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles (1081 words) by merryghoul
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Call the Midwife
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Phyllis Crane, Delia Busby, Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: 1960s, 1962 London Smog, London, References to Football | Soccer, Choking, Air Pollution, Misses Clause Challenge
Summary: December 1962: Phyllis finds a man walking in a "killer fog" that reminds her of the "killer fog" a decade ago in London.

After years of feeling I would never be able to do the Call the Midwife canon justice, I finally decided to write something in this fandom I’ve loved ever since Series 1 first aired on PBS.

I did some quick research on 1962 in London and learned about a smog incident that happened just before the events of this year’s Christmas special (concerning the Big Freeze of 1962-1963). I came up with a scenario that would require Phyllis to drive her car during that week of fog, and this is what I came up with.

I’m currently doing a longer fic about this incident, but with other characters, since the show skipped over this smog incident and jumped to, I guess, right before the Big Freeze (prior to this year’s Christmas special). It’s for myself, though.

My Call the Midwife gift was written by Selenay.

I’m not sure why I’m up. With that vaguely said, here is my gift, everything I’ve ever wanted in a Call the Midwife fic:

All It Takes Is a Moment (2059 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Call the Midwife
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Delia Busby/Patsy Mount
Characters: Delia Busby, Patsy Mount
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, Love, Breakfast in Bed
Summary: A few minutes here or there can change a lifetime.

More recs later, if I can get down my system of bookmarking fics and reading them off AO3 right (it’s more complicated than it sounds). Already have written my Yuletide post-mortem; that will also be much later.

I’m also doing femslash recs at my Tumblr for femslashreviewfest, if you’re interested.

I was not expecting to have a rec list that was going to have around sixty-six recs. I guess it's because this year I looked for more fic in book fandoms and because I did get around to seeing at least one of Yuletide's "big for Yuletide" fandoms (Ghostbusters 2016).

Recs listed under the cut. After reveals, I'm going to add them to my Pinboard account.

And feel free to correct me on any goofs I've made in my linking or my headers; I think I caught them all before I published this in public, but I might've missed something.

Fandoms: Rosemary and Thyme, Duel after a Masquerade Ball - Jean-Léon Gérôme (painting), Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, American Horror Story: Hotel, The Americans (TV 2013), Cheese (Anthropomorfic), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Blazing Saddles (1974), The Bletchley Circle, Brooklyn (2015), Call the Midwife, Crimson Peak, Ex-Machina (2015), Fail_Fandomanon RPF, Fallen London, Flatliners (1990), Ghostbusters (2016), The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, Heathers (1988), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke, Look Around You, Lost Boys (Movies), Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, On the Jellicoe Road - Melina Marchetta. Tingleverse, The Sandman (Comics), Sharknado (Movies), Sleeping Beauty (1959), Tarot (Divination Cards), The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, What We Do in the Shadows, Ancient Egyptian Religion, The Breakfast Club (1985), Fantasia (1940), Deadpool (2016), Neko Atsume, and A Year and A Day in Old Theradane - Scott Lynch.

( Read more... )