skygiants

Other things I discovered while backing up documents: some not-quite-as-old fic-bits I never posted. Most of which never will be posted, but on consideration I have decided I like this well enough to inflict it on the world.

Title: Gone Fishing
Characters: Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye
Word Count: 987
Summary: In eight or so years of nonstop political scheming, there may have been one faint doomed attempt at a vacation.

( “Lieutenant,” he says, “do you know much about fishing?” )

So NOT ONLY did I kidnap genarti for the last week of December, but I ALSO chained her to the computer and forced me to co-write a New Year's Resolution fic with me! Which is now up on LJ as well as on AO3. With thanks to our betas futuresoon and dictator_duck!

Title: Five Times Firo And Ennis Fought Together, And One Time They Danced
Authors: genarti and bookelfe
Characters: GUESS. Uh, but okay, Firo/Ennis with cameos from the Gandors, Czeslaw, Maiza and Claire.
Spoilers: Post-canon, with spoilers for the entire series.
Summary: When you've got this kind of lifespan ahead of you, you can afford to take things kinda slow.

(The way Firo sees it it's more important that they're in rhythm with each other, and they've sure got that part down by now.)



And now I am going to ( talk a little bit about the co-writing process! )

In the end, I think, you can tell co-writing is going well if it's fun - if you're constantly filled with glee over the bits that your partner is doing, and excited to add your part. Which is how we ended up writing about 6000 words in one evening. NOT USUAL for me, I can assure you.


What about you guys? If you co-write, what methods work best for you?

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.

If I had to make an estimate, I would guess that around 60% of FMA fandom is entirely uninterested in Scar, 70% entirely uninterested in Mei, 90% entirely uninterested in Marcoh, and 99% entirely uninterested in Yoki.

So basically that leaves approximately two people who might have any interest in this. Uh, I hope those hypothetical two enjoy it! (And thank you genarti for the beta.)


Title: Ghosts of Baschool
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Characters: Mei, Marcoh, Yoki, Scar
Spoilers/Warnings: PG-13 for mentions of genocide? This probably goes without saying for these characters. Set during the Briggs arc, so spoilers for everything up until then.
Word Count: 3726
Summary: So a serial killer, a mass murderer, a petty thief and a princess walk into an abandoned mining town . . .

(For the record, my mental soundtrack for this fic is Dar Williams' Mercy of the Fallen.)


( They'll make their own noise; it won't be so bad. )

It has been a very, very quiet day at work. (I am the best employee.)

Title: Cautery
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Words: 189
Characters: Marcoh, Scar. Postcanon.

( Anonymity is a reward that he's not sure he wants anymore )

The reveal post for fma_ladyfest is up! And with that last bit finished, I guess I can finally take an official deep breath and say: WE ACTUALLY DID IT. AND DIDN'T DIE. (Gen and I have pretty much been shrieking and allcapsing at each other since yesterday nonstop about the fact that we actually pulled off a ficathon, oh my god, what is this.) And okay, as a mod-type person I can't really rec specific fics, but I humbly submit to you all that you should go read and admire EVERYTHING, because it is all seriously amazing. I haven't commented on anything yet because I want to comment on it all and that would have made it pretty obvious which fic I wrote (because there was nothing else obvious about the fic I wrote). But I will be doing that over the next few days!

For the record: I wrote A Girl Worth Fighting For, for izilen. Yes, the one with cross-dressing, bickering siblings, too much talking, and historical dorkery. To your inevitable shock at this reveal, I can only modestly respond that I am eternally unexpected and unpredictable. Like a ninja.

I also co-wrote Got One Hundred Steps To Go with Gen for yhlee. I BET YOU CAN'T GUESS WHICH OF US WROTE WHICH BITS. (Everyone who has ever read anything by either of us will be able to guess which of us wrote which bits. But if you need a hint, all the gorgeous parts are hers.)

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING NOT-ACTUALLY-COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: now that Ladyfest is done, I can commence freaking out over Yuletide!

( Here are some of the things I am thinking about nominating )

Drabble roundup, part 2!

For oneechan19: ( Howl's Moving Castle/Young Wizards crossover: Howl as a YW!verse wizard )

For varadia: ( Milliwaysverse: That time Dave walked by when Mary and Galadan were discussing her future career path )

And also for varadia because that was terrible: ( Homeward Bounders/Ouran crossover: Jamie stuck in Ouranverse )

For shati: ( Avatar: Dangerous ladies! )

And then I felt bad, so I wrote shati another: ( Avatar: Appa )

And then somehow that still did not quite work out to cheerful, so, also for shati: ( Avatar: Zuko attempting to write poetry for Mai, and Sokka's reaction )

For elspeth_vimes: ( Monster/20th Century Boys crossover: post-series Tenma meets Kenji )

Also for elspeth_vimes: ( Sun Sword/20th Century Boys crossover: Kallandras gives Kenji singing lessons )

And, since that one was very short, also for elspeth_vimes: ( Sun Sword/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover: Serra Teresa and Hawkeye discuss political strategies )

For lacewood: ( Fullmetal Alchemist: Mustang/Hawkeye shippiness or UST, OH TWIST MY ARM )

LAST ONE. Also for lacewood: ( Fullmetal Alchemist: Team Mustang hijinks, also Briggs hijinks, CUNNINGLY COMBINED )


AND OKAY THAT IS ALL.

Hi guys! A FEW POINTS:

a.) It's Friday.
b.) My laptop charger cable has broken, which means that until I get a new one shipped to me I will be working off of The Ancient Dead Laptop of Death or The Boring Work Laptop, which means a lot of the stuff I have been doing to feel productive is currently on pause.
c.) As you, uh, may have noticed, I seem to be unable to write anything these days that is not EPICALLY LONG.
d.) It's Friday!

As a result of all these things, I am asking a favor of you guys: give me drabble prompts! I would like to have short things to work on this weekend until I can get back to using my usual laptop. I would also like remind myself that it is possible to write fic that is not ten thousand words in length.

Feel free to toss me anything you think I would know; if I don't know it well enough to write, I'll tell you to give me something else.

First things first: I woke up yesterday morning to the BEST SURPRISE EVER, which is that someone had come along and illustrated my most recent fic! Look look look! (Seriously, every time I look at Selim's TINY ANGRY FACE I start cracking up all over again.) You all should go here and tell he03 how awesome she is; as a bonus there are hilarious King Bradley/Mrs. Bradley comics! (HIS TINY FACE.)


Aaaaand now back to our regularly scheduled booklogging, which in this case is our regularly scheduled fangirling of Laurence Yep. City of Fire is the start of a new Laurence Yep fantasy trilogy, in which Laurence Yep was clearly just like "I am going to write about EVERYTHING I THINK IS AWESOME." It is totally the everything-and-the-kitchen sink approach to worldbuilding; the main characters include:

1. A diplomat's daughter/semi-princess from the Kushan Empire (which in this AU has survived into the 1940s) whose dream is to join her big sister in the Elite Amazon Warrior Guard
2. Her tiny griffin friend, who seems to be a cross between a Companion and Zazu
3. Two streetwise San Francisco orphans with ~secret identities~ (one of them involves dramatic and tragic reincarnation backstory; the other one involves WEREBADGERS)
4. A DRAGON ASSASSIN who spends most of her time disguised as a Pinkerton agent
5. The Hawaiian goddess Pele. (Why, you might ask? Laurence Yep's answer, clearly: WHY NOT.)

The plot: our Ragtag Band of Misfits weathers an attack from the evil industrilists who are stealing priceless artifacts from a museum, chase the evildoers to Hawaii, hook up with Pele, and encounter five million more mythological creatures (Kappas! Norse fire giants! Hired goons who are walking sharks!) There is also lots of dramatic surfing. I have to admit, I kind of love Laurence Yep's gleefully all-encompassing approach to stealing bits of mythology in this book; you can't accuse him of privileging any one mythos over another, because basically he's just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. All the actual emotional development kind of seems shoehorned in in the shuffle (oh wait, is this character supposed to be grieving for a suddenly dead mentor figure? Okay, obligatory grief-check, can we get back to the DRAGON SURFING now?) but I don't even care; Laurence Yep is clearly having way too much fun with it, and so was I.

This fic almost involved kittens and puppies. Then I decided if I went that route I would die of sugar overload without ever completing it, and if I did finish it my beta would die of sugar overload before she could get it back to me. Speaking of: thank you to genarti for the beta!

Title: Night Shift
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Characters: Al, a little bit of Ed, and OCs
Spoilers/Warnings: Absolutely none! Set pre-series.
Word Count: 3,392
Summary: So I thought, "Al can't possibly spend every night sitting against a wall and brooding, can he?" And then I wrote a fic.

[Author's note: Fullmetal Alchemist takes place in a military dictatorship that has been almost constantly at war since its founding and does not seem to be overly concerned with human rights. I have conveniently decided that this means that they do not have very strict hospital regulations. Or HIPPA.]

( Hospitals don't shut down for the night, and neither does Alphonse Elric. )