deense

I cannot believe I haven't done this already.

First of all, there's my lovely gift.
The Ugly Sister, or, How Edith Learned Not to Believe in Fairy Tales

Fandom: Downton Abbey
It's 1200 words of Edith getting a bit of a happy ending of her own. Warning: Spoilers for Season three. I asked for a story that featured any of the sisters, so I am entirely happy with this.

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Then onto what I wrote. It was a bit of a mad year. I picked up a number of pinch hits, and then wrote two treats as well.

Let's start with my favourites (though I do like them all) and work down to the truly crack-like:

The Purple Dragon Says: Shop Smart, Shop Mal-Mart
Fandom: Disney Princesses/Fairy Tales and related Fandoms
The request said Disney princesses were okay, and that she wanted lesbians, and would love a supermarket-AU. I delivered a story about Belle and Mulan working for Maleficent's chain of superstores, 'Mal-Mart'.

Thunder Road
Fandom: Friday Night Lights
The request was for Lyla/Tyra, and suggested the song Thunder Road as inspiration. I went with it and sent these two girls on a cross-America road trip. They're two of my favourite characters from one of my all-time favourite shows, and it was awesome to get to write them.

The History Girls
Fandom: The History Boys
What if the History Boys and everyone in their lives were girls? This is Posner's perspective.

Leopards Never Change Their Spots
Fandom: Downton Abbey
A story about Violet and Martha and their many encounters. Spoilers for S3

Stranger Things
Fandom: Lost Girl
Lauren and Dyson take matters into their own hands where Bo is concerned. Adult.

Is There A Santa Claus?
Fandom: Lost Girl
Chatting with my Beta made me want to explore the idea of Santa Claus. Does he exist and is he light or dark fae? Poor Kenzi still doesn't have a good answer.

And the truly crack-riffic:

Settler Blue has a Supermarket
Fandom: Settlers of Catan
The same person who requested the Disney fic had a Settlers of Catan request. So I wrote an anthropomorphized Supermarket-AU for it. AS YOU DO. I do still need to fix a couple edit issues on this one as it was uploaded with seconds to go.

AS PER USUAL! A huge thank you to all my betas who helped these become much better stories, and to yuletide IRC and for cheering me on in those last hours. :)


That is my Yuletide round up. I think I want to explore the Disney story more, and write a series of them (Unions! Labour issues! Overthrowing the evil queen of retail!) so I probably will. You know, in all my free time.

Now that Yuletide has been revealed I can say which stories I wrote!

My original story for slowascent:
The True Memoirs of Anthony Blunt.
Cambridge Spies
Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess (with mentions of Julian Bell)
PG/Gen, 2307 words
I loved this prompt. She wanted Anthony and Guy, and as I have a hard time slashing them, I wrote a gen-recollection. Inspired partially by her dear author letter and her love of the sin of pride, and in part by the actual -- rather apologist -- memoirs of Anthony's that were made public earlier this past year. I couldn't have done it without misspeacock and moonlight69 who were brilliant betas and helped me with the worst of my bad habits.

Whilst I didn't pick up a pinch-hit this year (first time!) I did decide to write two more stories for people who's original writers defaulted.

Epilogue
Sanctuary
Will Zimmerman, Henry Foss
PG/Gen, 1642 words
I agree with many that Sanctuary doesn't get near enough fandom love. This is a piece set after the events of 2.03, just the two guys trying to deal with what's happened, and not particularly well. I couldn't have done this without the encouragement of Ames and the #Yuletide chat.

Only Just Ordinary
Sanctuary
Nikola Tesla, Helen Magnus
PG/Gen with hints of something else, 1640 words
When Ames came up on the Yuletide Pinch Hit list I HAD to do this, even though it wasn't assigned to me. Flashing from the past to the present it shows Nikola and Helen's relationship, something that has always intrigued me, and apparently Ames as well. Unbetad because it was minutes before the archive closed.

So there we go. My fic writing adventures in Yuletide this past year.

I did join getyourwordsout in order to try and encourage myself to write more in the next year. Woohoo!

There's an article going around about the 'Gay Twist on Sherlock Holmes' and while it earned a giggle from me at first, something has been bothering me about it all day¹.

I quote:

...Michael Medved, a former Post movie critic, says Downey and Law must be joking. "There's not a seething, bubbling hunger to see straight stars impersonating homosexuals," Medved told us. "I think they're just trying to generate controversy . . . They know that making Holmes and Watson homosexual will take away two-thirds of their box office. Who is going to want to see Downey Jr. and Law make out? I don't think it would be appealing to women. Straight men don't want to see it."

I'm not sure where to start with this. There's the fangirl reaction which involves a lot of squealing and thinking that man, that's hot. Then there's being offended at the pigeonholing of female sexuality that happened so easily there. Woman must not like that sort of thing? Has anyone noticed how many straight (and actually, not-so-straight) women are very very intrigued by things like Adam Lambert's hips, or homo-erotic fiction? Or the proliferation of things like slash-fiction on the internet.

But wait for a moment. Let us take this out of the realms of fandom, and fic. How about the fact that bastions of supposedly straight and conservative women like Young and the Restless have featured storylines involving gay teens dating and *gasp* kissing, earning the show some of it's highest rating in a very long time. It was more about the relationship than the simple appeal, but those two boys being attractive wasn't a detriment. Things like this are apparently also forgotten.

Moving on from there, is the unspoken assumption that it's going to somehow be some sort of orgy filled snogfest. That the story won't be interesting or compelling enough that any homo-eroticism in their relationship, overt or covert, would be the focus. It's Sherlock Bloody Holmes, for god's sake, and Guy Ritchie. I mean, I was already going to give it a go.

Then is the assertion that the actors and director mistakenly think there's some sort of clamoring to see straight stars impersonating homosexuals. Whilst I won't even touch on fandom here, I will say that isn't that part of what acting is about? Being something that you aren't to tell a story? Every day people pretend to be straight or gay, victim or bully, jewish or christian, when their own lives might not reflect this at all. The studio and director made the choice to go for two big name actors. If they'd wanted Sherlock to wear an eyepatch, speak in a norweigan accent and hop around on one leg all whilst bemoaning his traumatic childhood, RDJ would have.

There doesn't need to be a seething, bubbling hunger, there simply needs to be a way to make it fit in with the story Ritchie is trying to tell. I would have said there wasn't a seething, bubbling hunger to see a show about polygamists either, but look at Big Love, and how successful its been for HBO.

There is some baffling about the statement that 'They know that making Holmes and Watson homosexual will take away two-thirds of their box office'. Do they really? All straight men will forgo seeing this? That's a fairly broad, homophobic and sexist assumption. Do those straight men also wear anti-gay wards, to keep away those pesky gay germs that might infect them? What about gay men and women? Are they considered? Or the straight woman that do want to see them make out, or even don't care one way or another?

Finally, it's a bit insulting to those of us who actually want to see the movie because it looks, if nothing else, intriguing. Those of us that like or love Sherlock Holmes and are curious about this re-imagining. Yes, some of us are maybe preparing to be horrified, but it's there. The people who are Guy Ritchie fans, or Law and RDJ fans, and would doubtless go to see any movie they were in (please remember, I have Heart and Souls on my computer. Don't judge me, I beg of you). Or those who simply want to see one of the highly touted movies of next year, and don't care one way or the other as to the romantic inclinations of two men.

I do wonder about quotes like that. I realise they are in part ot stir up controversy, and in that they succeed. But I wonder how any sane person can make such a statement, and on the record.

¹ No, it's not the differentiation between gay and homo-erotic, that's a rant left for birkentree to make