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Cool Bits meme & Yuletide
So, I finally crushed my doubt underfoot, took the plunge and signed up for Yuletide!
Still quaking a bit with excitement - it's my first big ficathon complete with deadlines and secrecy! - but honestly, I think it'll be a great experience. Apart from that one fic I'm working on (don't worry,
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maspalio, your Lyta & G'Kar is in the making!) I've been a bit stumped for inspiration lately, so I figured I needed a kick in the, ah, shins, in order to maybe write in a different fandom for once! Of course, I still requested and offered Babylon 5, too. *g*(Question: are there any other multifandom fic exchanges that are not restricted to rare fandoms, and don't focus on crossovers? I'd love to write some Trek or maybe Stargate or something else, but I'm thinking I'll need a kick in the shins for that, too.)
Anyway, this reminded me of this meme-ish thing I picked up from
mithen, which involves listing one's Cool Bits (aka things you love in fic) in one's journal. And what better occasion to post this list than as a prelude to a Dear Yuletide Author letter? I had fun coming up with my list, so please, y'all tell me yours! Amatara's Cool Bits
I love gen. Gen is wonderful, and you can never go wrong with it with me. The same goes for ensemble fic: I have a boundless admiration for authors who have the patience and skill and love for a show necessary to pull it off. I'm not a rabid shipper mostly; on the other hand, the pairings I do ship, I ship with all the impetuousness of a cartload of starved puppies being offered a bone, so het and slash for those pairings I will devour with a passion! Still, there isn't a pairing I love of which I don't also love genfics - I'm pretty easy there.
Specific favorites? Now, let's see. Angst, for one, especially if it ties in with canon. Dark stories with just a pinprick of joy to make the unbearable bearable. Characters being forced to do things they didn't think themselves capable of, and having to live with the consequences. Misunderstandings. Relationships that don't come easy. Fragile friendships, strained to breaking point, that eventually get mended again. Backstories. Missing scenes. Character building. Teensy details about a character's past, no matter how inconsequential, giving you a glimpse of how they've become who they are.
Elaborate costumes. Gloves. Glasses. Not-so-young and not-so-lovely characters that make up for it with enthusiasm and flirtatiousness. Naive, enthusiastic characters getting under gruff, bitter characters' skins. Nightfall. Sunrise. Metaphors. Darkness and weirdness. Characters waxing poetic. Science geeks. Smart women with and without personal lives. Characters doing foolish things to protect someone, even when they can hardly defend themselves.
Gallows' humor. Witty dialogues. Snark as camouflage for caring. Jokes so dry it's painful. People finding love at a moment where everything's falling apart, and going on with it regardless. People drawing together in the face of despair. Fic that lacks plot but reads like poetry. Hurt/comfort of the understated kind, where the hurt one does not panic or whine, and the comforting one does not wipe sweat off fevered brows, but where the hurt is real and mostly hidden, and the comfort is grudging or awkward or slow to come. Tropes used skillfully and in character. Concussion. Poison. Hypothermia. Confessions made while delirious or drunk. Characters getting locked up together in tiny spaces, being forced to cooperate in order to live.
Just-below-the-surface sexual tension. Muted shipping. Muted yearning. Anything muted, really. Sweet PG-13, involving kissage and fondling and foreplay and fades to black. Vague descriptions of sexual acts, that for all their vagueness still manage to be hot. Fumbling, imperfect sex. Unplanned sex in impractical locations. Aborted sex. Sex that fails to solve any problems. Those other erogenous zones: throat, hands, stomach, thighs. Alien sex being completely different and totally surprising.
Characters making love for all the wrong reasons. Characters on the verge of breaking down, but refusing to show it. Weeping behind closed doors. Laughter in the face of despair. Unnoticed heroism. Deaths that are good and right and fitting and sad.
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Dark stories with just a pinprick of joy to make the unbearable bearable.
You and I are mirror images, because I love generally happy stories with just a shiver of angst to remind everyone happiness is fleeting. :)
Not-so-young and not-so-lovely characters that make up for it with enthusiasm and flirtatiousness.
Gah, I have SUCH a thing for this, and not surprisingly it gets stronger as I get older myself. :)
Hurt/comfort of the understated kind, where the hurt one does not panic or whine, and the comforting one does not wipe sweat off fevered brows, but where the hurt is real and mostly hidden, and the comfort is grudging or awkward or slow to come.
*gurgles happily*
Fic that lacks plot but reads like poetry.
I admire and envy people who can write like this so much!
Muted shipping. Muted yearning. Anything muted, really.
Mmmmmmyes. Also, yay for the PG-13 label! Almost all of my favorite stories, written or read, fall into that wonderful category with the muted sex. :)
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Well, it's not that I don't like happy tales - if they're well written and not too sappy (or sappy in the right way :) ) I can enjoy them very much! (Especially the type you mention, where disaster is lurking just around the corner and everyone pretends they don't notice, even though they do...) It's just that I tend to be pretty difficult to please when it comes to fluff and humor: it has to hit the right tone with me, I need to be in the right mood, and so on and so forth... I have the same with movies and series, I guess: there aren't that many that make me laugh out loud, but when I find one that does, I can watch it a dozen times over!
Angst, on the other hand, makes me happy pretty easily. (which, now I re-read that sentence, is a bit of a contradictory statement, no? *g*)
My relationship with hurt/comfort is of the love/hate type, really. :) Because some - okay, much of what gets written is, let's say, not very qualitatively pleasing. *g* If it's reaaally pathetic hurt and reaaally mushy comfort, I tend to squeeze my eyes shut and click away. But if it's subtle, and in character, and somewhat realistic - mmmh. Can't get much better than that...
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Okay, so there are a few differences between you list and mine. I don't care for elaborates costumes one way or the other, and I would have to add canon compatibility. For most of my fandoms, I'd rather read fics that are not contradicted by canon, the more plausible the better. I only read AUs if the author's really good.
Apart form that... great minds think alike, yes ? :)
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Londo.
G'Kar.
You love them, and claim you're not in it (at least in part) for the costumes -
Seriously, who are you kidding, lady? *g*
(Also, a third word: Jim Kirk. Because pants tucked into calf-high boots: I'd be calling that a costume. :p)
I would have to add canon compatibility. For most of my fandoms, I'd rather read fics that are not contradicted by canon, the more plausible the better. I only read AUs if the author's really good.
You know, I think I more or less literally typed into my Yuletide request details: "No AUs please, I so love my canon." Great minds do think alike!
I demand to know when and how you went into my brain and made a copy of all my cool stuff.
Gah - are you sure I can't goad, blackmail or beg you into writing B5 fic? Because hell, if all of that's true, I'm dying to read your take on our joint OTP...
A ficlet?
A drabble?
Anything?
*craves*
(Good to see you, by the way - hope you're doing OK. Been a while; you made me realize, I really should try to post more often. :) )
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Novembrer is NaNoWriMo, also known as the month of "every minute of free time is to be spent working on that novel". Try blackmailing me again in December, and don't set your expectations too high.
(Good to see you, by the way - hope you're doing OK. Been a while; you made me realize, I really should try to post more often. :) )
Still doing OK, and don't worry: if someone ought to be posting more, it certainly is me.
...
(OK, so maybe I like the costumes just a little bit. But I still think Starfleet uniforms are silly.)
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It's 50 000 words in one month's time, no? Gosh. Myself, I'd hardly reach a tenth of that (I got a good day of fic writing in last weekend - I think I reached about 800, and felt quite accomplished *g*) so I'm pretty much impressed! Is it a French novel? Can you tell what it's about, or is that supposed to be secret? And have you decided what you're going to do with it once it's finished? Anyway, go you! *cheers*
"Kirk/Spock Shipper Resents Original Series Uniforms." I can so see that as the headline of a very angry TOS fanzine article where other shippers protest at your proper lack of adoration of everything TOS! ;)
Well, you at least mention in your journal that it isn't really meant for posting! Me, I don't have that excuse. *g* It's a bit of a cyclical thing, I guess - I start posting, get feedback, become enthusiastic, post more, have an instant of panic where I go "damn, this thing takes more effort than I thought, help, no time, darn daytime job, waa waa!" and slow down, and now I've again reached the point where I start missing everyone. :) Maybe I should just post silly one-liners that are no more than an excuse to get comments - should I? *g*
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Right now, I'm in the "everything I have ever written is crap and I should give up on writing and retire to a nunnery" stage of the project, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it once it's finished. Still, I'm pretty pleased by my word count. And I even made myself a nice icon to keep me going.
Silly one-liners may be hard to comment. *g* But really, try not to stress over your posting schedule. It's supposed to be fun, right?
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Your icon is cool! Also, for some reason the name Midgard rings a bell to me... can't tell from where, though. Is it an existing novel you're expanding on? Or does the name just resemble something I might have heard before?
Stress over posting - ah, it's not too bad, really; I need at least a bit of stressing over it, otherwise I lose my energy pretty fast. Also, once you start posting, you kinda keep hoping for people to come over and read, which of course, requires more posting. I'm just silly that way. :)
You know, talking of silly, I've been meaning to ask you something. Supposing I'd be able to blackmail you into writing B5 fic coming December ;) ... would you feel like doing something together, like, I was thinking of something RP'ish, maybe? Not as a regular thing or so, just something one-shot and strictly for fun and self-indulgence. *g* Reading those old RPs (like what
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Supposing I'd be able to blackmail you into writing B5 fic coming December ;) ... would you feel like doing something together, like, I was thinking of something RP'ish, maybe?
I never thought of that but, provided you don't expect stellar quality from my writing, I'd be wiling to give it a shot, yes. :) Do you have anything more specific in mind ?
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*resists temptation to ask how the NaNo is coming along, so as not to make any more nervous than you probably already are*
Um - no, nothing specific in mind just yet. I didn't quite dare to give the idea much thought, you know, not until I I'd found at least one other person crazy enough to want to try it. Meaning: yay!!! :) I'm guessing we'd need a plot, or at least a setup for one, and decide who will RP which character(s), and so on and so forth... I also asked
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*resists temptation to be smug about NaNo word count by remembering that the month is only half over and I still have two more weeks to go*
And no, I don't mind waiting. Just let me know when we are ready to start, and/or if anyone else is joining. (The more the merrier, right?)