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Yuletide reveal and ramblings
So now I can reveal the Yuletide story I wrote:
Special Mission (8739 words) by
geri_chan
Fandom: In Death - J. D. Robb
Rating: Mature
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Eve Dallas, Roarke (In Death), Lawrence Summerset, Delia Peabody, Mavis Freestone, Nadine Furst, Charlotte Mira
Summary: Peabody has been given a very special mission to fulfill.
For: seimaisin
One of my recipient's requested fandoms was In Death, which is exactly what I was secretly hoping for! When I first saw In Death pop up on the suggested nominations discussion post over on the Yuletide comm, I thought, "I'd really love to read some fic for that, but I don't think I could write it." But the more I thought about it, the more I got excited about the idea of writing In Death fic because I love the characters so much--even the supporting characters are awesome and worthy of stories of their own. At the same time, I was a bit nervous about writing such well-known and beloved characters--what if I got the character voices wrong, or the readers thought they seemed OOC?
But I really wanted to write for that fandom, and I decided to go for the challenge. So I started re-reading the books to brush up on characterization, plot points, and overall feel, and consulted the In Death wiki when I needed to check on specific canon details.
My recipient's Yuletide letter offered several suggested prompts including, "A social get-together with some or all of the characters having a good time together." That's one of my favorite scenarios, too--in fact, some of my favorite scenes in the books and novellas are the barbecue parties given by the Miras or Roarke! So I decided to go with a plot bunny I had forming in my mind about Roarke and Eve's friends throwing her a surprise birthday party. And naturally, Eve's partner Peabody needs to keep her distracted while the party preparations are going on.
Originally, I was just going to write a brief section about Peabody and Eve chasing down some dubious leads that go nowhere before sending them on to the party, when suddenly I got the idea of having the leads pan out and having the killer be an Elvis impersonator. Honestly, I'm still not quite sure where that came from--possibly it had been percolating in my subconscious after that Castle episode in which Castle sneaks into a casino disguised as an Elvis impersonator.
Anyway, I had fun writing about "Elvis," but my favorite part was writing the actual party. One of the things I like most about the books is the way Eve gradually opens up to Roarke and her friends, and the way that they become a family bound together by choice and love--a "family of friends" or a "found family," as a couple of the comments for the fic stated. So I really enjoyed writing about having all of Eve's friends come together to celebrate her birthday, with Eve feeling a little bewildered by all the fuss, but touched by the gesture all the same.
***
Btw, there was an In Death story written by another author that I really loved: Weekend in Death (11930 words) byhilandmum. A really great casefic with an awesome OC and a clever plot twist that feels like it could be a canon short story. I will formally rec it in my next recs post, but just wanted to mention it here as long as I'm discussing In Death.
***
This was my second Yuletide, and once again, it was great and I had an awesome time! I had fun writing for my recipient, and I received a wonderful fic in return. My only real disappointment, selfishly, is that there wasn't more In Death fic, and that some great prompts I saw offered on other people's Yuletide letters didn't get written. I had really wanted to read some Boxcar Children fic (especially focusing on the reasons behind Grandfather's estrangement from the kids' parents), and there was none written. And spectrespecs wrote a great Boy Meets World prompt about Eric Matthews that I so wanted to see get written: In the show, he goes from the cool brother in one season and the freaking insane brother the next. What cracked him? He wasn't the smartest cookie, but they just completely made him an idiot later on. For some reason he went from level-headed with the occasional ridiculous idea to flat out crazy, and maybe picking at what happened causing that could be interesting. Or just a humorous day in the life of Eric.
I only started watching Boy Meets World in the last two or three seasons, but even so, I noticed that there was something a little off about Eric's character. Sometimes he was goofy but loveable, other times he was a complete idiot, and very occasionally he showed a bit of sensitivity and insight. I remember that the season finale showed a flashback of Eric walking through a museum with his father, and he made some surprisingly intelligent and thoughtful remarks about a photograph they were looking at. When the father said something like, "I didn't think you were interested in this sort of thing," Eric replied something along the lines of he didn't think that was what his dad expected of him--in other words, he felt like he had to be the crazy goofball Eric that everyone expected him to be (or at least that was my interpretation). The dad reassured him that of course he wanted Eric to be his real self, but it struck me as kind of sad, as was the way that the dad underestimated Eric at end of the series, with the best of intentions: he wanted to make Eric a partner in his business, basically because he was afraid that Eric (who isn't exactly the sharpest pencil in the case, to borrow a phrase from Bronze Ribbons) couldn't cut it on his own in the real world. Both his wife and Eric's teacher and mentor Mr. Feeney tell him that Eric is stronger than he thinks, and he finally relents and gives Eric the freedom to choose his own path. It was just very weird, this shifting back and forth between crazy idiocy and seriousness with Eric's character, and it made him very interesting to me--I always wanted to know which was the real Eric and why he acted like an idiot if he really wasn't.
So I suppose what I ought to do is take on some of those prompts and write them myself for a New Year's Resolution! Although I think I would need to rent the Boy Meets World dvds and brush up on the canon to write the Eric prompt since it's been years since I watched the TV show.
There's also a Petshop of Horrors prompt that I've been mulling over, and I've been working on a non-Yuletide Haru fic.
Special Mission (8739 words) by
Fandom: In Death - J. D. Robb
Rating: Mature
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Eve Dallas, Roarke (In Death), Lawrence Summerset, Delia Peabody, Mavis Freestone, Nadine Furst, Charlotte Mira
Summary: Peabody has been given a very special mission to fulfill.
For: seimaisin
One of my recipient's requested fandoms was In Death, which is exactly what I was secretly hoping for! When I first saw In Death pop up on the suggested nominations discussion post over on the Yuletide comm, I thought, "I'd really love to read some fic for that, but I don't think I could write it." But the more I thought about it, the more I got excited about the idea of writing In Death fic because I love the characters so much--even the supporting characters are awesome and worthy of stories of their own. At the same time, I was a bit nervous about writing such well-known and beloved characters--what if I got the character voices wrong, or the readers thought they seemed OOC?
But I really wanted to write for that fandom, and I decided to go for the challenge. So I started re-reading the books to brush up on characterization, plot points, and overall feel, and consulted the In Death wiki when I needed to check on specific canon details.
My recipient's Yuletide letter offered several suggested prompts including, "A social get-together with some or all of the characters having a good time together." That's one of my favorite scenarios, too--in fact, some of my favorite scenes in the books and novellas are the barbecue parties given by the Miras or Roarke! So I decided to go with a plot bunny I had forming in my mind about Roarke and Eve's friends throwing her a surprise birthday party. And naturally, Eve's partner Peabody needs to keep her distracted while the party preparations are going on.
Originally, I was just going to write a brief section about Peabody and Eve chasing down some dubious leads that go nowhere before sending them on to the party, when suddenly I got the idea of having the leads pan out and having the killer be an Elvis impersonator. Honestly, I'm still not quite sure where that came from--possibly it had been percolating in my subconscious after that Castle episode in which Castle sneaks into a casino disguised as an Elvis impersonator.
Anyway, I had fun writing about "Elvis," but my favorite part was writing the actual party. One of the things I like most about the books is the way Eve gradually opens up to Roarke and her friends, and the way that they become a family bound together by choice and love--a "family of friends" or a "found family," as a couple of the comments for the fic stated. So I really enjoyed writing about having all of Eve's friends come together to celebrate her birthday, with Eve feeling a little bewildered by all the fuss, but touched by the gesture all the same.
***
Btw, there was an In Death story written by another author that I really loved: Weekend in Death (11930 words) by
***
This was my second Yuletide, and once again, it was great and I had an awesome time! I had fun writing for my recipient, and I received a wonderful fic in return. My only real disappointment, selfishly, is that there wasn't more In Death fic, and that some great prompts I saw offered on other people's Yuletide letters didn't get written. I had really wanted to read some Boxcar Children fic (especially focusing on the reasons behind Grandfather's estrangement from the kids' parents), and there was none written. And spectrespecs wrote a great Boy Meets World prompt about Eric Matthews that I so wanted to see get written: In the show, he goes from the cool brother in one season and the freaking insane brother the next. What cracked him? He wasn't the smartest cookie, but they just completely made him an idiot later on. For some reason he went from level-headed with the occasional ridiculous idea to flat out crazy, and maybe picking at what happened causing that could be interesting. Or just a humorous day in the life of Eric.
I only started watching Boy Meets World in the last two or three seasons, but even so, I noticed that there was something a little off about Eric's character. Sometimes he was goofy but loveable, other times he was a complete idiot, and very occasionally he showed a bit of sensitivity and insight. I remember that the season finale showed a flashback of Eric walking through a museum with his father, and he made some surprisingly intelligent and thoughtful remarks about a photograph they were looking at. When the father said something like, "I didn't think you were interested in this sort of thing," Eric replied something along the lines of he didn't think that was what his dad expected of him--in other words, he felt like he had to be the crazy goofball Eric that everyone expected him to be (or at least that was my interpretation). The dad reassured him that of course he wanted Eric to be his real self, but it struck me as kind of sad, as was the way that the dad underestimated Eric at end of the series, with the best of intentions: he wanted to make Eric a partner in his business, basically because he was afraid that Eric (who isn't exactly the sharpest pencil in the case, to borrow a phrase from Bronze Ribbons) couldn't cut it on his own in the real world. Both his wife and Eric's teacher and mentor Mr. Feeney tell him that Eric is stronger than he thinks, and he finally relents and gives Eric the freedom to choose his own path. It was just very weird, this shifting back and forth between crazy idiocy and seriousness with Eric's character, and it made him very interesting to me--I always wanted to know which was the real Eric and why he acted like an idiot if he really wasn't.
So I suppose what I ought to do is take on some of those prompts and write them myself for a New Year's Resolution! Although I think I would need to rent the Boy Meets World dvds and brush up on the canon to write the Eric prompt since it's been years since I watched the TV show.
There's also a Petshop of Horrors prompt that I've been mulling over, and I've been working on a non-Yuletide Haru fic.
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Mum
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Mum
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I will have to read your story when I carve out some time. I've been reading stories in a Saiyiuki giftfic comm I wrote something for -- I just finished -- and I have a boatload of stories from S1 of Sherlock to read. Since the first episode of S2 was broadcast today, I need to get caught up on those
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