measured_words (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
measured_words) wrote2010-12-31 11:21 pm
measured_words) wrote2010-12-31 11:21 pm
Entry tags:
Yuletide reveals!
First, I am just going to link to the stories. And then, under a cut, I will talk about them more, in a sort of meta-y, spoiler-y way, which might be better and make more sense after you’ve read them!
Witchward Ho! (2008 words) by
Measured_Words
Fandom: Warlock (1989)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kassandra (Warlock), Giles Redferne
Summary:
Good Woman (1578 words) byMeasured_Words
Fandom: Warlock (1989)
Rating: Mature
Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Giles Redferne/Marian Redferne
Characters: Giles Redferne, Warlock (Warlock), Kassandra (Warlock)
Summary:
Unforgettable (14039 words) byMeasured_Words
Fandom: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hermes/Original Female Character
Characters: Hermes (Greek and Roman Mythology), Original Female Character
Summary:
The Doom of the Hippos (1859 words) byMeasured_Words
Fandom: #yuletide rpf, Fandom RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Truth (#yuletide), snow (#yuletide), Steelneko (#yuletide), hhertzof (#yuletide), mjules (#yuletide), pillow (#yuletide), kristin (#yuletide), elfwreck (#yuletide), isabeau (#yuletide), Jenn (#yuletide), Original Characters, AD (#yuletide), VelvetMouse (#yuletide), Doranwen (#yuletide)
Summary:
Authority (1012 words) byMeasured_Words
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Rating: Explicit
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Loras Tyrell
Characters: Jaime Lannister, Loras Tyrell
Summary:
Must have Been the Rum (1810 words) byMeasured_Words
Fandom: Nautical RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Anne Bonny/Mary Read
Characters: Anne Bonny, Mary Read
Summary:
Witchward Ho!
Although I wrote two pieces for my assigned recipient, this is the one that I consider the ‘official’ fill. I had a really great letter to work with, and a number of ideas sprang to mind as I was watching the film…. And then watched sections of it over, and over, and over…. @_@ I realized that the timing was actually pretty tight – it had to be because of Kassandra’s aging curse. There are a lot of things I thought of that wound up not being practical for this reason. For instance, I considered that Redferne might insist on going to church, or similar, on Sunday. However that is the day that he gets out of jail, and the same day that they find out that Warlock can now fly…. There just isn’t time. Alas.
I also might have liked to write the scene I referenced wherein our Dynamic Duo try to stop for lunch in Vegas and windup at some kind of topless establishment (I did look for routes heading westward from LA and into Colorado, yes… Thank you Google Maps!), but it just wasn’t coming out right. Instead I settled for a diner scene, and decided to explain how and why they wind up with the witch compass tied inside the car by the time they get to the Mennonites’ house. I think it worked out pretty well! Still, I might have liked to have them talk more about some things, but it is pretty clear from later scenes in the movie that they haven’t. When Redferne tells Kassandra that “Yesterday, you cared not to know about such things,” for instance. Oh and also the fact that he doesn’t even ask her *name* until 2/3 of the way through it!
Apart from the witch compass bit, I also wanted to look at a few other things we didn’t see handled in the movie. For instance, Redferne knowing what coffee creamers are when he sees them later on the plane. I think most of the other things I wanted to do got done in the story – talk a little about the aging thing, look at why Redferne doesn’t spend all his time going “OMG THE COACHES NEED NO HORSES!” and what have you. There is not time for that sort of gawking when you have a Warlock to stop!
I am overall very happy with this story, and Warlock was really fun to write for :D
Good Woman
This is a secondary piece I write for my recipient that is, well, nothing like what they asked for at all. Not even a little. Heh. I hope they forgive me! Warlock is a weird movie, in tone. It has some really dark parts – several people lose body parts in rather gory ways, there some pretty severe off-screen violence, and lots of general menace and evil. But most of the worst stuff does happen off screen. I am still a little morbidly curious about the bite-marks on the back of Chas’s neck, for instance – what was that about!
I was also specifically curious about Redferne’s past, and his dead wife. Of *course* he has a dead wife that the Warlock ‘happened’ to! Of course he does. By this time in his quest, he’s a little beyond vengeance, I think, but I did wonder what happened to her. The one question he asks Kassandra about the present is about make-up, and he ends his cut-off tirade with the curiously leading “If my Marian had nae…” had not what? What’s this about make-up? What’s the deal? Well, this is my conjecture. I didn’t want to disparage her character much, so I just made her a little insecure. And Young Redferne is perhaps a little less certain himself. And Warlock is just as creepy as ever. I decided to be less, rather than more, explicit in this story, and I think that it works out just fine. I will leave Marian’s exact fate to people’s imaginations. As to why the warlock left Redferne alive, I am drawing from his explanation to Kassandra about why he left *her* alive – that he considers their suffering a fate worse than death.
Unforgettable
Also known as the Treat of Doom! I started writing it as soon as a I saw the prompt, before assignments went out, because it bunnied me so hard! I stopped part way through to do my assignment pieces though, because I was afraid of how *long* this thing wanted to be – and wound up being. But I have to really thank the recipient for giving such lovely prompt! Hermes is my favourite also. I love him to pieces! Other than that, though it was all her general requests that really twigged this in my head – strong female characters, relationships, and seeing things from secondary actors, its all about me, etc. I’ll just link the letter here, and you can see for yourself! Writing Charlene was a lot of fun, but challenging to make her the right balance of vulberable and also independent and strong and focuses. This made writing a lot of the dialogue very tricky, because I couldn’t have Hermes say (or not say) anything that would have her reasonably just walk away before the end. Challenging, but I think I pulled it off!
This was challenging for a number of other reasons as well, a bit one being that I couldn’t get a hold of the damned book until about a week before deadline! The beginning is available online, at least, I relied on some helpful folks to situate the story on a vague sort of timeline. I set it, if it isn’t clear, in the year 2000, which was about when the book came out, and works out best in terms of week days and the few dates we are given. This set some interesting limits, in terms of things I could reference, technology I can mention, etc. For example, this is why Hermes doesn’t have an iphone, and why he did not claim to invent snuggies ;) I assumed that Shadow came back to life on the spring equinox, which seemed to make sense for a number of reasons, even if it was not made explicit.
There is a lot of stuff that went on in my head that never actually made it in to the story – partly for reasons of length, and partly because I was working from Charlene’s PoV. I liked the idea, for instance, that Hermes (and Athena) knew that there was some game afoot, even if they weren’t sure exactly what Loki and Odin were playing at. Mostly though, what I said in the final author’s not at the end is true – part-way through writing this, I decided that this really needs to be the prequel for some kind of awesome buddy-cop style show that would be a mash-up of elements from Castle, leverage, True Blood, and Due South. Possibly it should be set in Montreal, but Toronto works just as well :)
Here is a lot more I can say about this! I will only say some of it. First: Why Canada? For one thing, Toronto does have a very large Greek immigrant population (although I’m not convinced that means as much to the Greek Gods as it did to some other immigrant gods. It is also a large multi-national city. I know it well enough to write about it. And I felt Canada needed to be brought back into America, because I never understood why international borders, in the book, mattered to the land. Also, Hermes is a traveler, and a god of border crossings, and I like the idea that this gave him a little more freedom. Second: Athena. Athena is at Bryn Mawr. Because where *else* would she be really? ;) Third: Transit. I thought that another travel god would be a good person for Hermes to have some kind of rivalry with. As for some of her negative aspects, I asked a friend of mine who is a bus driver about some of the things they do when they are feeling cruel…. So yes, anytime you think a bus driver is doing something just to be a dick, you are probably correct D: I am glad people liked her. The crazy-old-vagrant-lady bit made her easy to write for, and her tirades let me sneak a lot of conceptual stuff in that I don’t know how I would have been able to include without sticking to some kind of external exposition. I also think Charlene refusing to use the transit system alone would be a great running gag for the show ;)
The Doom of the Hippos
A ha ha ha! Oh story. This story came about because of #yulechat being #yulechat. Various discussions and random happenings, and wackynesses. I kept getting bunnies and then saying ‘oh lord I can’t actually write this!’ and then I though, well I have to try! So I took one of the ideas we’d joked about, and altered it, et voila! Hippos and Raptors and bears oh my! I wound up giving the story to AD again because of in-chat sillyness…. But then I mistyped her username! Accidental meta! Hilarity ensued! Or something.
I have to make an apology here as well, as I honestly didn’t realize that there was an opt-in thread for fandom rpf stuff. If I had I would have not used people off the list, for good or for ill! I’m sorry if anyone was upset or offended! I’d also like to note that I didn’t use any actual chat logs – I just wrote it out to look like an irc session, and used formatting stuff to get it to look right. I’m also sorry if anyone was disappointed at *not* being included! I used a mix of regulars and people who happened to be around and active as I was writing. It was easier, as I had something more concrete to refer to in terms of speech patterns and such. Hopefully people will forgive me for any errors or exaggerations made in the name of comedy!
Anyway, I’m glad that it has been mostly well received and enjoyed! Being around for the random IRC hijinks the story inspired was probably the best payoff I could have asked for ^-^ now that authors are revealed, I’m going to have to go put *myself* back in the story – I took me out because I wasn’t on the opt-in list, and hadn’t left a happy comment either ;p
Authority
This was almost an emergency pinch hit! Only while Elyn was trying to encourage a terrified me to commit, a story was either found or posted. And then I decided I would try it anyway, to see if I could! And I did! I admit I was inspired to this pairing from reading this story. Loras seems a logical slash choice for Jaime to me – he’s already gay, and there is some good angst to work with there (as per the request). I was surprised that a few commenters said it hadn’t occurred to them, but hey, its all good :D It also required a minimal amount of canon review, which was good considering the time constraints! This is actually the first thing I have ever written in this fandom, so I am glad that it has also been well received :D
Must Have Been the Rum.
My friend Queenofinsanity6 requested this fandom, because I’d mentioned I was offering it, and hey! Pirates! :D I love pirates. Then I was the only one offering it. So then I couldn’t talk to her about yuletide, just in case I was assigned her! Which I wasn’t. But I figured I would write this anyway :D Pirates! Porn! I have two degrees on pirates, basically, so it is good to see they are getting some use, right? :D Anne and Mary don’t need men. Except to get them knocked up so that they don’t hang. For the record, I am assuming this is set before the boy that Mary falls for joins the crew, or at least before she really takes much nice of him. I like the idea of Anne being the aggressor here, but Mary still being the one to take charge. Mary strikes me as more mature, generally speaking, though Anne is more wild. If I was a pirate lady, I would want to be Mary Read, but not only so I can tie up other hot pirate ladies and have sex with them I promise ;)
Witchward Ho! (2008 words) by
Fandom: Warlock (1989)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kassandra (Warlock), Giles Redferne
Summary:
Kassandra (with a K) and Redferne (with an R) stop for breakfast in Utah before they hit Colorado and catch up with their quarry.
For: mikeneko
Betas: Nary, Hsifeng, htbthomas
Good Woman (1578 words) by
Fandom: Warlock (1989)
Rating: Mature
Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Giles Redferne/Marian Redferne
Characters: Giles Redferne, Warlock (Warlock), Kassandra (Warlock)
Summary:
"Who's Marian? That's why you're after the warlock, isn't it?"
...
"What happened to her? The warlock happened."
For: mikeneko
Betas: Nary, htbthomas
Unforgettable (14039 words) by
Fandom: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hermes/Original Female Character
Characters: Hermes (Greek and Roman Mythology), Original Female Character
Summary:
Charlene hits it off with an interesting guy she meets at the gym, but her instincts tell her there is more to him than he is letting on.
Charlene has good instincts.
For: Beth CG Pheonix
Betas: Nary, Malkontent, kastaka, Ambyr
The Doom of the Hippos (1859 words) by
Fandom: #yuletide rpf, Fandom RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Truth (#yuletide), snow (#yuletide), Steelneko (#yuletide), hhertzof (#yuletide), mjules (#yuletide), pillow (#yuletide), kristin (#yuletide), elfwreck (#yuletide), isabeau (#yuletide), Jenn (#yuletide), Original Characters, AD (#yuletide), VelvetMouse (#yuletide), Doranwen (#yuletide)
Summary:
Once upon a time, there was #yuletide. Wacky hijinks ensued!
And then, someone tried to ruin Yuletide Forever!
Are hippos about to become an endangered species??? :o :o :o
For: AdaptationDecay
Beta: Snow
Authority (1012 words) by
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Rating: Explicit
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Loras Tyrell
Characters: Jaime Lannister, Loras Tyrell
Summary:
Before his vigil for his father, Jaime experiments with his sister's methods for making allies.
For: Esteliel
Beta: Nary
Must have Been the Rum (1810 words) by
Fandom: Nautical RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Anne Bonny/Mary Read
Characters: Anne Bonny, Mary Read
Summary:
Anne is sick of men, and is looking for a connection only another woman can give her.
For: queenofinsanity6
Beta: snowynight
Witchward Ho!
Although I wrote two pieces for my assigned recipient, this is the one that I consider the ‘official’ fill. I had a really great letter to work with, and a number of ideas sprang to mind as I was watching the film…. And then watched sections of it over, and over, and over…. @_@ I realized that the timing was actually pretty tight – it had to be because of Kassandra’s aging curse. There are a lot of things I thought of that wound up not being practical for this reason. For instance, I considered that Redferne might insist on going to church, or similar, on Sunday. However that is the day that he gets out of jail, and the same day that they find out that Warlock can now fly…. There just isn’t time. Alas.
I also might have liked to write the scene I referenced wherein our Dynamic Duo try to stop for lunch in Vegas and windup at some kind of topless establishment (I did look for routes heading westward from LA and into Colorado, yes… Thank you Google Maps!), but it just wasn’t coming out right. Instead I settled for a diner scene, and decided to explain how and why they wind up with the witch compass tied inside the car by the time they get to the Mennonites’ house. I think it worked out pretty well! Still, I might have liked to have them talk more about some things, but it is pretty clear from later scenes in the movie that they haven’t. When Redferne tells Kassandra that “Yesterday, you cared not to know about such things,” for instance. Oh and also the fact that he doesn’t even ask her *name* until 2/3 of the way through it!
Apart from the witch compass bit, I also wanted to look at a few other things we didn’t see handled in the movie. For instance, Redferne knowing what coffee creamers are when he sees them later on the plane. I think most of the other things I wanted to do got done in the story – talk a little about the aging thing, look at why Redferne doesn’t spend all his time going “OMG THE COACHES NEED NO HORSES!” and what have you. There is not time for that sort of gawking when you have a Warlock to stop!
I am overall very happy with this story, and Warlock was really fun to write for :D
Good Woman
This is a secondary piece I write for my recipient that is, well, nothing like what they asked for at all. Not even a little. Heh. I hope they forgive me! Warlock is a weird movie, in tone. It has some really dark parts – several people lose body parts in rather gory ways, there some pretty severe off-screen violence, and lots of general menace and evil. But most of the worst stuff does happen off screen. I am still a little morbidly curious about the bite-marks on the back of Chas’s neck, for instance – what was that about!
I was also specifically curious about Redferne’s past, and his dead wife. Of *course* he has a dead wife that the Warlock ‘happened’ to! Of course he does. By this time in his quest, he’s a little beyond vengeance, I think, but I did wonder what happened to her. The one question he asks Kassandra about the present is about make-up, and he ends his cut-off tirade with the curiously leading “If my Marian had nae…” had not what? What’s this about make-up? What’s the deal? Well, this is my conjecture. I didn’t want to disparage her character much, so I just made her a little insecure. And Young Redferne is perhaps a little less certain himself. And Warlock is just as creepy as ever. I decided to be less, rather than more, explicit in this story, and I think that it works out just fine. I will leave Marian’s exact fate to people’s imaginations. As to why the warlock left Redferne alive, I am drawing from his explanation to Kassandra about why he left *her* alive – that he considers their suffering a fate worse than death.
Unforgettable
Also known as the Treat of Doom! I started writing it as soon as a I saw the prompt, before assignments went out, because it bunnied me so hard! I stopped part way through to do my assignment pieces though, because I was afraid of how *long* this thing wanted to be – and wound up being. But I have to really thank the recipient for giving such lovely prompt! Hermes is my favourite also. I love him to pieces! Other than that, though it was all her general requests that really twigged this in my head – strong female characters, relationships, and seeing things from secondary actors, its all about me, etc. I’ll just link the letter here, and you can see for yourself! Writing Charlene was a lot of fun, but challenging to make her the right balance of vulberable and also independent and strong and focuses. This made writing a lot of the dialogue very tricky, because I couldn’t have Hermes say (or not say) anything that would have her reasonably just walk away before the end. Challenging, but I think I pulled it off!
This was challenging for a number of other reasons as well, a bit one being that I couldn’t get a hold of the damned book until about a week before deadline! The beginning is available online, at least, I relied on some helpful folks to situate the story on a vague sort of timeline. I set it, if it isn’t clear, in the year 2000, which was about when the book came out, and works out best in terms of week days and the few dates we are given. This set some interesting limits, in terms of things I could reference, technology I can mention, etc. For example, this is why Hermes doesn’t have an iphone, and why he did not claim to invent snuggies ;) I assumed that Shadow came back to life on the spring equinox, which seemed to make sense for a number of reasons, even if it was not made explicit.
There is a lot of stuff that went on in my head that never actually made it in to the story – partly for reasons of length, and partly because I was working from Charlene’s PoV. I liked the idea, for instance, that Hermes (and Athena) knew that there was some game afoot, even if they weren’t sure exactly what Loki and Odin were playing at. Mostly though, what I said in the final author’s not at the end is true – part-way through writing this, I decided that this really needs to be the prequel for some kind of awesome buddy-cop style show that would be a mash-up of elements from Castle, leverage, True Blood, and Due South. Possibly it should be set in Montreal, but Toronto works just as well :)
Here is a lot more I can say about this! I will only say some of it. First: Why Canada? For one thing, Toronto does have a very large Greek immigrant population (although I’m not convinced that means as much to the Greek Gods as it did to some other immigrant gods. It is also a large multi-national city. I know it well enough to write about it. And I felt Canada needed to be brought back into America, because I never understood why international borders, in the book, mattered to the land. Also, Hermes is a traveler, and a god of border crossings, and I like the idea that this gave him a little more freedom. Second: Athena. Athena is at Bryn Mawr. Because where *else* would she be really? ;) Third: Transit. I thought that another travel god would be a good person for Hermes to have some kind of rivalry with. As for some of her negative aspects, I asked a friend of mine who is a bus driver about some of the things they do when they are feeling cruel…. So yes, anytime you think a bus driver is doing something just to be a dick, you are probably correct D: I am glad people liked her. The crazy-old-vagrant-lady bit made her easy to write for, and her tirades let me sneak a lot of conceptual stuff in that I don’t know how I would have been able to include without sticking to some kind of external exposition. I also think Charlene refusing to use the transit system alone would be a great running gag for the show ;)
The Doom of the Hippos
A ha ha ha! Oh story. This story came about because of #yulechat being #yulechat. Various discussions and random happenings, and wackynesses. I kept getting bunnies and then saying ‘oh lord I can’t actually write this!’ and then I though, well I have to try! So I took one of the ideas we’d joked about, and altered it, et voila! Hippos and Raptors and bears oh my! I wound up giving the story to AD again because of in-chat sillyness…. But then I mistyped her username! Accidental meta! Hilarity ensued! Or something.
I have to make an apology here as well, as I honestly didn’t realize that there was an opt-in thread for fandom rpf stuff. If I had I would have not used people off the list, for good or for ill! I’m sorry if anyone was upset or offended! I’d also like to note that I didn’t use any actual chat logs – I just wrote it out to look like an irc session, and used formatting stuff to get it to look right. I’m also sorry if anyone was disappointed at *not* being included! I used a mix of regulars and people who happened to be around and active as I was writing. It was easier, as I had something more concrete to refer to in terms of speech patterns and such. Hopefully people will forgive me for any errors or exaggerations made in the name of comedy!
Anyway, I’m glad that it has been mostly well received and enjoyed! Being around for the random IRC hijinks the story inspired was probably the best payoff I could have asked for ^-^ now that authors are revealed, I’m going to have to go put *myself* back in the story – I took me out because I wasn’t on the opt-in list, and hadn’t left a happy comment either ;p
Authority
This was almost an emergency pinch hit! Only while Elyn was trying to encourage a terrified me to commit, a story was either found or posted. And then I decided I would try it anyway, to see if I could! And I did! I admit I was inspired to this pairing from reading this story. Loras seems a logical slash choice for Jaime to me – he’s already gay, and there is some good angst to work with there (as per the request). I was surprised that a few commenters said it hadn’t occurred to them, but hey, its all good :D It also required a minimal amount of canon review, which was good considering the time constraints! This is actually the first thing I have ever written in this fandom, so I am glad that it has also been well received :D
Must Have Been the Rum.
My friend Queenofinsanity6 requested this fandom, because I’d mentioned I was offering it, and hey! Pirates! :D I love pirates. Then I was the only one offering it. So then I couldn’t talk to her about yuletide, just in case I was assigned her! Which I wasn’t. But I figured I would write this anyway :D Pirates! Porn! I have two degrees on pirates, basically, so it is good to see they are getting some use, right? :D Anne and Mary don’t need men. Except to get them knocked up so that they don’t hang. For the record, I am assuming this is set before the boy that Mary falls for joins the crew, or at least before she really takes much nice of him. I like the idea of Anne being the aggressor here, but Mary still being the one to take charge. Mary strikes me as more mature, generally speaking, though Anne is more wild. If I was a pirate lady, I would want to be Mary Read, but not only so I can tie up other hot pirate ladies and have sex with them I promise ;)