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So I guess it is Yuletide reveal time! First of all: thank you forever to genarti, areyoumymemmy, newredshoes, batyatoon and dictator_duck for various levels of betaing and support and handholding; y'all are awesome.

For my original assignment, I wrote Etude: Composition, a postcanon fic which has the dubious distinction of being the only Princess Tutu story that I am aware of to incorporate the phrase "Aliens Made Them Do It." For this, I am sorry. (Sort of.) It's also postcanon Fakir-tries-to-write-Duck-back-to-a-girl fic, which I once swore I would never do and therefore am somewhat sheepish about, but I have to admit was a total guilty pleasure to write.

Then, feeling a little worried that ambiguous genre-play might not in fact be what my original recipient was hoping for out of her Yuletide Princess Tutu fic, I also wrote the treat Entr'acte, a small and relatively fluffy piece about the changing dynamic between Fakir and Duck set right after the end of the first season.

My other Madness treat was Catherine's Fairy-Tail, a ridiculously wordy Northanger Abbey ficlet that really is just a prologue to a greater unwritten story - I saw an amazing prompt for Catherine getting to have real gothic/fantasy adventures, and wanted desperately to write something for it, and realized very quickly that if I kept going it would end up a MILLION YEARS long. So maybe I will come back to this over the course of the next year.

Lastly, in other travesties for which I am not really sorry, my other full-length story (for a pinch-hit) was The Barkosigan Saga: Mirror Dog. Hilariously, this is by far the most popular Yuletide fic I have ever written, but I can't really claim any credit for it - my recipient jmtorres came up with the brilliant idea to do a Vorkosigan episode of Wishbone, the 90's television show of my childhood heart about a Jack Russel terrier enacting great works of literature, and I just elaborated. (Well, and picked Mirror Dance specifically, which may make it extra special, but hey - I watched a lot of Wishbone to research for this story, and if they can do Count of Monte Cristo without killing anyone off, I can absolutely do a G-rated Mirror Dance.)

Also hilariously, the day that I snatched up this particular pinch-hit, genarti signed online and said "Hey, Becca, I saw a pinch-hit on the list that reminded me of you!" This is probably proof that Gen knows me too well. (To be strictly fair, she was actually talking about jmtorres' other request, which was a really cool Girl Genius prompt that I probably would have written if I had had time to bone up more on canon.)

AND SPEAKING of genarti: it seems it has become a tradition with us that on the occasions I kidnap her, it is time to watch RIDICULOUS THINGS. This time around: Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legend The Movie! In which former Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi plays this guy:



For a lengthy writeup, see over here. All I can tell you is that watching this was an AMAZING LIFE DECISION.

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The other obligatory New Year's Day post: books read in 2010!

I only read 127 full-length books this year, which is significantly fewer than last year. Part of that is because I read much, much, MUCH more manga (90 volumes); part of that is the relatively strict reading quota I was keeping in terms of trying to read more nonfiction and more books by non-white authors; part is trying to write every day. I'm not sorry about any of these things, but I still do want to read more books next year. (I also have a few books I haven't reviewed yet there at the end, but that'll happen this week when I'm back at work.)

( And now, the list! )