Yuletide reveals

[swan_tower]

My assignment this year was for Diana Wynne Jones’ A Tale of Time City. My recipient wanted something worldbuildy, but also had requested fic about Elio in several previous Yuletides, so I wrote Elio-centric fic with some worldbuilding crammed in around the edges: “Historical Curiosity,” which looks at his hundred years in the city.

I also picked up two pinch-hits. The first, “Wisdom and Power,” is another Wheel of Time story; the requester asked for several things, so I went with backstory expanding on the first time Nynaeve channeled the One Power without knowing it. The other one I grabbed because I was already halfway through a treat for the recipient: “The Life and Times of a Crusader King,” for the historical strategy game Crusader Kings 2. I don’t think you need to have played the game to read that fic; just know that it’s kind of like Risk, if Risk involved you playing a dynasty as your character and focused on things like marrying off your unattached relatives, hatching espionage plots, persuading the Pope to declare somebody a heretic so you can annex their territory, and tearing your hair out because (to quote the request) “your heir is an inbred bastard with no diplomatic or military prowess to speak of while your daughter is a grey eminence with claims on half the titles in Europe, yet you can’t switch the succession laws because you aren’t Basque”. It’s kind of absurd fun to play, and I tried to show some of that in the story.

The last full-length piece was a pure treat, based on a cracktastic request for Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet: “Nothing But One of Your Nine Lives.” The fic itself is less cracky, since I didn’t actually go so far as to make Tybalt a werecat, but, well.

Then there were four stocking stuffers, because at one point I was feeling grumpy and Grinch-ish and not at all in the holiday spirit, so I decided that I was going to write random things for people, dammit. They are, in order, “The Faces of Halloweentown” (Nightmare Before Christmas), “No Man Needs Nothing” (Lawrence of Arabia), “One Spark” (Banlieue 13 | District 13), and “Clearbrook vs. the Strangleweed” (Elfquest). That last one is pure silliness: teleidoplex always says I am Clearbrook, so when I saw a request for a story about her learning to braid her hair, I couldn’t resist.

As always, much fun. I look forward to next year. (And if you’re looking to dip your toes in the water, not only is there New Year’s Resolutions — an ongoing collection for people who want to write to a Yuletide prompt after Yuletide is over — but this year I’m helping to organize Some Day My Fic Will Come, which is a challenge for prompts that have gone unfilled for at least three years. You could make somebody very happy . . . .)

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[morbane.livejournal.com]

And feeling grumpy and grinchish leads to... more writing gifts? How extremely alchemical of you. :D

I must finish Tale of Time City! It's one of those casualties of getting too many books out of the library that I had to return half-read.

[xahra99.livejournal.com]

The Crusader King fic is a thing of pure beauty. Liked the R+J, Lawrence of Arabia and District 13 a lot as wll, but that's one hell of a history geek Christmas cracker.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

^_^ Thanks! I may have had a wee bit too much fun writing it.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Writing more gifts was my way of flipping the bird to a grumpy and grinch-ish mood. :-) Not so much that the mood inspired the stories (though I guess I didn't write much that was happy during that binge).

And you absolutely need to read A Tale of Time City. It, like much DWJ, is excellent.