which represents a third of all the fic I wrote in 2010

[aria]

It is Yuletide reveal time! I love Yuletide reveal time, because it means my flist is rife with awesome surprises. Meanwhile this entry is rife with things that are probably not very surprising.

My assignment: Aschesis, Young Wizards, Ronan & Darryl. The assignment itself made me giddy with joy, because while my recipient said she'd be happy with any story involving the two of them, what she really wanted was an exploration of what it meant for Ronan dealing with the consequences of Wizards at War in conjunction with Darryl the ex-autistic abdal, and -- someone was specifically asking me to write identity porn!! It was also great fun because while I love writing in the YW style, my comfort-zone POV characters are Nita and the local Seniors; writing snarky sullen Ronan while maintaining the essential optimism of the world was a lovely challenge.

My fic that wasn't assigned to me in any way but still happened and then grew into a goddamn novella because I apparently have a lot of unfinished business with this canon: No Second Coming, Dark is Rising, Will/Bran & the Drews. Apparently everyone has a lot of unfinished business with this canon, because I look at this fic's current hit count and then I have to go sit somewhere quietly for a while. I'm completely delighted with it, really; I wanted to give the characters their agency back, and I don't think there's anything cathartic in quite the same way as a fix-it fic. This one was nurtured to life and coherence by the combined efforts of fahye, schiarire, nextian, polarisnorth, and oliviacirce; if there's anyone else I threw a draft at in a panic and have forgotten to thank, just raise your hand and I will gladly add you to the list of praises.

My Yuletide Treat that actually stayed Treat-length: The Demon's Fun Day Out at the Park with a Picnic, Demon's Lexicon, Nick & Alan. The title started as a joke on SRB's journal re: why Nick can't have nice things, and when innocentsmith linked to the conversation in her request letter, I was so charmed by the title and by the notion of a story in which nothing seriously bad happens to the characters that I wanted to write a little something. It still turned out sort of melancholy and longing rather than fluffy, but Nick and Alan both smile, which is like a happy ending.

I ... should probably start replying to all the lovely comments I've received. DAUNTING.

Comments

[feverbeats]

ARGH I still haven't read No Second Coming, why are the holidays so mad? Congrats on a successful yuletide indeed, darling!

[starlady]

You know, I finished No Second Coming, and apart from loving it to death I had the distinct suspicion that the author was someone I knew, though obviously I couldn't have said who specifically. Again, that was a wonderful, wonderful fic.

[myalexandria]

I am so behind on my yuletide reading that I have not yet gotten to Dark is Rising, but I would say "everyone has a lot of unfinished business with that canon" is VERY TRUE. The same is true of Narnia, I think, and I encourage you to write lots of gay!Edmund in 2011. :-)

[aria]

It is okay, it will keep!

Happy new year, bb. <3333333

[aria]

I love that "This was written by someone I know" suspicion! I am delighted you enjoyed it. <3

[aria]

Wow, you are being much more in-depth with your reading than I was!

I suspect that a lot of us have unfinished business with many of our childhood books, especially the ones that have alarming endings like The Last Battle or the end of Silver on the Tree. I still haven't worked out the way to make Last Battle in any way okay, though, but in the meantime, so much gay Edmund! I am rereading Dawn Treader over toast just now, in fact. :)

[labellementeuse]

I *did* call it. \o/

[aria]

*g* I am unsurprised!

[myalexandria]

heh, I just got back from the DT movie. Interesting experience; the casting is so perfect, and yet the actors are pretty wasted on the movie as made. Green mist whatever! The problem with DT though is that it's very, very episodic. It would work much better as a miniseries, really. I understand why they had to do something to unify the plot, but the mist thing totally bored me. Perhaps the problem is that DT, the book, is moving away from the unified evil-monster plots of the first two books and towards an exploration of the evil that men do; the difficulties of the book are all caused by ordinary people, more or less, which is less exciting than evil magic from a filmmaker's pov, but more interesting to me.

But essentially I'm not sure the filmmakers *get* Edmund, which is weird to me. I know many people think that Lucy is the main character, but for me the first and third books have always been *all* about Edmund. I think it's a lovely portrait, and his bravery just breaks my heart. And Lewis's engagement with Edmund over the course of the first three books is a much more profound statement about the Christian worldview than the rest of the Aslan plot, IMHO. So to just leave out Edmund and Eustace-the-Dragon--sigh. And I was glad that we see that Edmund is still fighting the White Witch in his head, but the OH NOES SEA SERPENT bit was weird. First of all, it was almost a direct quote from Ghostbusters--when Lucy asked Edmund what he'd imagined, I thought "Oh God, it's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man!" Second, haven't we spent the whole film learning that Edmund's greatest fear is of his own selfish desire/greed, symbolized by the Witch? Why would he suddenly come up with sea serpents, which he hasn't given us an indication of fearing? It would've been better if he'd called up the Witch, who had then called up the serpent. And they could have made more of Edmund's giving up the Narnian sword "because it wasn't his to keep"--that should be a big character moment for him, given the rest of the film.

In conclusion, Edmund/Caspian, yes.

[skipthedemon]

I just read No Second Coming. Aria, how are you so AWESOME?

I want to read Aschesis, but in fact, I haven't gotten that far in the Young Wizards series. (Yes, I know, criminal, but the Boston Library doesn't *have* it all. I should break down and order things.)

[aria]

Yes, all of this! And I too understand the urge for a unified plot, and how in the brainstorming stage the mist thing might have come into being, but ... in the end the quest for the lords' swords in order to stop some ill-defined evil doesn't make the story any less episodic than it was when the plot was just to discover what happened to the seven missing lords, and in the process they ended up seriously damaging everyone's otherwise-interesting motivations with "The mist made them do it."

Honestly I was just bewildered with a lot of their narrative choices, especially in regards to the ratio of action sequences to character moments, because ... I'm not sure who their target audience is? But the two most obvious choices are [a] fans of the book and [b] children; I'm pretty sure fans of the book wanted to see an adaptation of the book rather than something else that plays connect-the-dots with the narrative framework, and I don't know if the children in the audience of the theatre I went to were a representative sampling or not, but they seemed mostly interested in Eustace and Reepicheep and Aslan, and not that into the major action sequences.

Augh, what they did with Edmund. The sudden fear of sea serpents (which ... aren't real unless you conjure them up? THAT MAKES NO SENSE OF COURSE SEA SERPENTS ARE REAL IN NARNIA) was just weird, but so were Edmund's sudden Authority Issues. Peter's the one who was chafing at Caspian now being in charge; Edmund's issues are much more about making smart choices for himself. I am all about Edmund's continued awful issues with the Witch! But that never went anywhere.

In conclusion, Edmund/Caspian INDEED. Apparently I can talk about this stuff forever!

[aria]

Hee! I think the appropriate answer to that question is just "Thank you!" but the other answer, where AWESOME is given as a value of WROTE EPIC FIC, is "I was hugely frustrated with the end of Silver on the Tree so I started writing and then COULDN'T STOP."

Where are you in Young Wizards? Aschesis has explicit spoilers for both A Wizard Alone and Wizards at War, but none for A Wizard of Mars except that in the background, Kit has a wizardly project on Mars. :) Wherever you are, though, fie on the Boston Library! Order them! If you've enjoyed however many you've read so far, chances are you'll also love the rest of them.