This Yuletide I wrote six stories! I had a wonderful time writing them. Every single one of them just flowed, which I don't think has ever happened before - usually I struggle with at least one of them.
I've placed any spoilery notes for them under the cuts. Ideally, read the story before reading any notes below cuts. This goes quadruple for "You're Wrong About Misericorde," which I think is most fun if you read it completely unspoiled.
Don't Need to Know Canon Beyond Osmosis
The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. The Golden Apple, for nitpickyabouttrains. The Endless offer a dreamer a choice.
All you need to know to read the story is that the Endless are godlike beings who rule and represent qualities such as death (and life), dreams (and imagination), etc.
It's in second person because I wanted to lure you into wondering which you'd choose (or if you'd choose). I kept going back and forth between Death and Destruction, with Dream an extremely close second.
"You're Wrong About" Podcast. You're Wrong About Misericorde, for NaomiK. Sarah tells Mike about the lost horror movie that became an urban legend.
All you need to know to read the story is that "You're Wrong About" is a podcast exploring what we're wrong about. They've had episodes debunking Koko the gorilla, exploring the social context behind Princess Diana, etc.
My notes on the story are spoilery. Very, very spoilery. Once again, I think this will be a lot more fun if you read the story first and my notes second.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scioscribe was an enormous help in brainstorming this story, and she actually wrote a section of it. Which part is spoilery.
I had recently started listening to "You're Wrong About," so I immediately knew I had to treatnaomikritzer if I didn't match to her. This was the first story I wrote - I originally posted it in November.
I wanted this story to be a huge mindfuck, which is why I listed both real and fictional characters in the character field. I was hoping people would have google them to figure it out, and indeed they did! After you read the story, read the comments to the story; they were beyond my wildest dreams.
scioscribe and I collaborated on creating the actors for the Marav family. Here's my email to her explaining what I wanted:
Rachel: "Pease help me by coming up with a set of names for Family # 2. You can do this in two steps:
1. Come up with a set of actual actors who roughly parallel the ones in Family # 1. ie, Christopher Lee and Bette Davis for the grandparents, etc.
2. Change around those names so they're just very vaguely reminiscent of their models, ie, Charles Leeman and Elizabeth David.
If you want further amusement, come up with fake bios for them which include appearances in both real and fake movies. I want to mindfuck readers by making them wonder if any of these are real people, and to be uncertain which of the movies are real. So please help me come up with some real but obscure movies where it would be hard to tell if someone played a small role, and plausible-sounding fake movies some of the actors could star in."
scioscribe: "Okay, potential Family #2: I like Christopher Lee too much to give him up, so I still vote for Charles Leeman for the grandfather. June Crowley (Joan Crawford) could also work for the grandmother, as well as Bette Davis, who'd be great. Parents: Ron Schneider (Rod Steiger) and Helen Burson (Ellen Burstyn), maybe? I like the idea of faux-Burstyn as yet another horror movie mom.
Charles Leeman should have a couple of Amicus films under his belt, various second-tier horror anthology flicks from the UK that only got limited distribution here. Maybe a minor rule in a real movie like Asylum. June Crowley or Elizabeth David could have been supporting actresses earlier in their career--you could probably slot one in as having a small part in a female-heavy movie like Stage Door, and then maybe she spent a long time doing theater before she came back in "biddy horror" and schlock melodrama. Offered TV work that she refused. Ron Schneider was a somewhat temperamental Method actor, and he had enough of a Southern accent that he was repeatedly cast as the designated hillbilly heavy, something he mostly got out of after he felt like his experiences with it peaked in Deliverance. Got some minor award nominations for a late-career performance in a Harry & Tonto style movie where he played an old man who moved into a house already occupied by a stray cat.
Helen Burson was an early American champion of Truffaut and Godard, and since she was fluent in French, she wound up working in France for several years, which supposedly gives her a trace of an accent in this movie. Purportedly friends (or lovers) with Jean Seberg. Widely believed to be a lesbian, with the theory being that she went abroad partly to escape Hollywood scrutiny. She came back into the States occasionally to work, but stayed off big studio's radars by doing off-beat projects."
As you can see, parts of this bio appear word-for-word in the story. I just provided the names of the movies they were in, which are all real movies that they could have been in.
I did quite a bit of research for this story, from multiple sources. Read Peter Cushing's Wikipedia article if you want to fall in love with him and Christopher Lee; don't read Easy Riders, Raging Bulls if you want to not hate 90% of all American men involved in filmmaking in the 1970s.
With one exception, all the direct quotes by real people are actual quotes. The Roger Ebert review excerpts are very lightly edited excerpts from his review of Don't Look Now, which was my model for the tone and atmosphere of Misericorde.
I am so delighted by the reception this story got, and that I am personally responsible for people googling "Steven Spielberg celery pillow."
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The Space Garden, forfresne. 9360 words.
When Meri La Nix was sent from the Mars colony to live with her aunt at Missiles Wait Manor, nobody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. But some of them thought it.
This was a late pinch hit.fresne prompted for a complete re-imagining of the story, and had "IN SPACE" as a possibility, so I jumped at it. The next thing I knew, I was madly attempting to retell the entire book in 48 hours. IN SPACE.
So yes, I wrote 9300 words in 48 hours. It was possible largely because the entire plot was already written for me, and also due to help fromsholio and scioscribe, who suggested "York Station" and "Missiles Wait Manor." The worldbuilding was informed by my recent discovery of The Expanse TV series.
Should Know Canon
Iron Fist: Fluffy, forsholio. 4802 words. Ward gets turned into a kitten.
I'd been idly wanting to write her Iron Fist for a while, but her "Ward gets turned into a kitten" prompt that inspired me. I thought it would be the most obvious thing I'd ever written, but surprisingly, it was not.
Ward has a lot of cat-like attributes, which was fun to play with in this story. I also appreciated Iron Fist's commitment to random ninjas showing up at any opportunity, which spared me from having to do more than hand wave the actual plot and just focus on kitten!Ward.
The New Mutants (comics).
I was delighted to see so many requests for this beloved fandom of my teenage years, and originally intended to treat all of them. I ended up running out of time, but I did at least get to treat two of them. There were a lot of prompts I loved, but I ended up going with my two favorites, which were "Write from Catseye's POV" and "What's it like for Illyana to meet our Ororo after she knew Limbo's Ororo?"
Funplace, forsheliak. 2032 words. Catseye/Rahne. Catseye and Rahne sneak away from a fight to visit a county fair.
Catseye is one of my favorite characters and her barely-subtext with Rahne is off the charts. Their canon dynamic is sneaking off together to have fun while their teams are fighting or otherwise engaged, so I just needed a suitable location.
She canonically has a very odd way of speaking, grew up believing that she was a cat who could turn into a girl, and is genius-level intelligent. She was an extremely fun character to write from her own perspective because she's so quirky and so utterly without angst. It was my first time writing the Hellions, whom I really like.
Seeds, forgenarti. 1168 words. Ororo has a garden. There’s not much I can be sure of, but I’m sure of this. It’s true in both the worlds I know. Maybe it’s true in all worlds, all timelines, all dimensions where there’s an Ororo.
Illyana gets so much first-person narration that I ended it writing it that way - it really made the story flow for me. I wrote this last-minute for Madness so I couldn't do much plot:
This one got the delightful comment fromgenarti, "This is note-perfect Illyana narration voice, and packs an impressive amount of characterization into "Character A gives Character B a houseplant."" Did you guess I wrote it?
Plants, of course, have unusual significance for both of them.
I hope those of you who wrote stories will do reveal posts talking a bit about them. I always enjoy reading them.
Comments open to discuss any of the stories and their canons. Spoilers for both stories and canons are fine in comments - no need to do rot13 or otherwise encode them. Just be aware of that if you read the comments.
I've placed any spoilery notes for them under the cuts. Ideally, read the story before reading any notes below cuts. This goes quadruple for "You're Wrong About Misericorde," which I think is most fun if you read it completely unspoiled.
Don't Need to Know Canon Beyond Osmosis
The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. The Golden Apple, for nitpickyabouttrains. The Endless offer a dreamer a choice.
All you need to know to read the story is that the Endless are godlike beings who rule and represent qualities such as death (and life), dreams (and imagination), etc.
It's in second person because I wanted to lure you into wondering which you'd choose (or if you'd choose). I kept going back and forth between Death and Destruction, with Dream an extremely close second.
"You're Wrong About" Podcast. You're Wrong About Misericorde, for NaomiK. Sarah tells Mike about the lost horror movie that became an urban legend.
All you need to know to read the story is that "You're Wrong About" is a podcast exploring what we're wrong about. They've had episodes debunking Koko the gorilla, exploring the social context behind Princess Diana, etc.
My notes on the story are spoilery. Very, very spoilery. Once again, I think this will be a lot more fun if you read the story first and my notes second.
scioscribe was an enormous help in brainstorming this story, and she actually wrote a section of it. Which part is spoilery.I had recently started listening to "You're Wrong About," so I immediately knew I had to treat
naomikritzer if I didn't match to her. This was the first story I wrote - I originally posted it in November.I wanted this story to be a huge mindfuck, which is why I listed both real and fictional characters in the character field. I was hoping people would have google them to figure it out, and indeed they did! After you read the story, read the comments to the story; they were beyond my wildest dreams.
scioscribe and I collaborated on creating the actors for the Marav family. Here's my email to her explaining what I wanted:Rachel: "Pease help me by coming up with a set of names for Family # 2. You can do this in two steps:
1. Come up with a set of actual actors who roughly parallel the ones in Family # 1. ie, Christopher Lee and Bette Davis for the grandparents, etc.
2. Change around those names so they're just very vaguely reminiscent of their models, ie, Charles Leeman and Elizabeth David.
If you want further amusement, come up with fake bios for them which include appearances in both real and fake movies. I want to mindfuck readers by making them wonder if any of these are real people, and to be uncertain which of the movies are real. So please help me come up with some real but obscure movies where it would be hard to tell if someone played a small role, and plausible-sounding fake movies some of the actors could star in."
scioscribe: "Okay, potential Family #2: I like Christopher Lee too much to give him up, so I still vote for Charles Leeman for the grandfather. June Crowley (Joan Crawford) could also work for the grandmother, as well as Bette Davis, who'd be great. Parents: Ron Schneider (Rod Steiger) and Helen Burson (Ellen Burstyn), maybe? I like the idea of faux-Burstyn as yet another horror movie mom.Charles Leeman should have a couple of Amicus films under his belt, various second-tier horror anthology flicks from the UK that only got limited distribution here. Maybe a minor rule in a real movie like Asylum. June Crowley or Elizabeth David could have been supporting actresses earlier in their career--you could probably slot one in as having a small part in a female-heavy movie like Stage Door, and then maybe she spent a long time doing theater before she came back in "biddy horror" and schlock melodrama. Offered TV work that she refused. Ron Schneider was a somewhat temperamental Method actor, and he had enough of a Southern accent that he was repeatedly cast as the designated hillbilly heavy, something he mostly got out of after he felt like his experiences with it peaked in Deliverance. Got some minor award nominations for a late-career performance in a Harry & Tonto style movie where he played an old man who moved into a house already occupied by a stray cat.
Helen Burson was an early American champion of Truffaut and Godard, and since she was fluent in French, she wound up working in France for several years, which supposedly gives her a trace of an accent in this movie. Purportedly friends (or lovers) with Jean Seberg. Widely believed to be a lesbian, with the theory being that she went abroad partly to escape Hollywood scrutiny. She came back into the States occasionally to work, but stayed off big studio's radars by doing off-beat projects."
As you can see, parts of this bio appear word-for-word in the story. I just provided the names of the movies they were in, which are all real movies that they could have been in.
I did quite a bit of research for this story, from multiple sources. Read Peter Cushing's Wikipedia article if you want to fall in love with him and Christopher Lee; don't read Easy Riders, Raging Bulls if you want to not hate 90% of all American men involved in filmmaking in the 1970s.
With one exception, all the direct quotes by real people are actual quotes. The Roger Ebert review excerpts are very lightly edited excerpts from his review of Don't Look Now, which was my model for the tone and atmosphere of Misericorde.
I am so delighted by the reception this story got, and that I am personally responsible for people googling "Steven Spielberg celery pillow."
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The Space Garden, for
fresne. 9360 words.When Meri La Nix was sent from the Mars colony to live with her aunt at Missiles Wait Manor, nobody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. But some of them thought it.
This was a late pinch hit.
fresne prompted for a complete re-imagining of the story, and had "IN SPACE" as a possibility, so I jumped at it. The next thing I knew, I was madly attempting to retell the entire book in 48 hours. IN SPACE.So yes, I wrote 9300 words in 48 hours. It was possible largely because the entire plot was already written for me, and also due to help from
sholio and scioscribe, who suggested "York Station" and "Missiles Wait Manor." The worldbuilding was informed by my recent discovery of The Expanse TV series. Should Know Canon
Iron Fist: Fluffy, for
sholio. 4802 words. Ward gets turned into a kitten.I'd been idly wanting to write her Iron Fist for a while, but her "Ward gets turned into a kitten" prompt that inspired me. I thought it would be the most obvious thing I'd ever written, but surprisingly, it was not.
Ward has a lot of cat-like attributes, which was fun to play with in this story. I also appreciated Iron Fist's commitment to random ninjas showing up at any opportunity, which spared me from having to do more than hand wave the actual plot and just focus on kitten!Ward.
The New Mutants (comics).
I was delighted to see so many requests for this beloved fandom of my teenage years, and originally intended to treat all of them. I ended up running out of time, but I did at least get to treat two of them. There were a lot of prompts I loved, but I ended up going with my two favorites, which were "Write from Catseye's POV" and "What's it like for Illyana to meet our Ororo after she knew Limbo's Ororo?"
Funplace, for
sheliak. 2032 words. Catseye/Rahne. Catseye and Rahne sneak away from a fight to visit a county fair.Catseye is one of my favorite characters and her barely-subtext with Rahne is off the charts. Their canon dynamic is sneaking off together to have fun while their teams are fighting or otherwise engaged, so I just needed a suitable location.
She canonically has a very odd way of speaking, grew up believing that she was a cat who could turn into a girl, and is genius-level intelligent. She was an extremely fun character to write from her own perspective because she's so quirky and so utterly without angst. It was my first time writing the Hellions, whom I really like.
Seeds, for
genarti. 1168 words. Ororo has a garden. There’s not much I can be sure of, but I’m sure of this. It’s true in both the worlds I know. Maybe it’s true in all worlds, all timelines, all dimensions where there’s an Ororo.Illyana gets so much first-person narration that I ended it writing it that way - it really made the story flow for me. I wrote this last-minute for Madness so I couldn't do much plot:
This one got the delightful comment from
genarti, "This is note-perfect Illyana narration voice, and packs an impressive amount of characterization into "Character A gives Character B a houseplant."" Did you guess I wrote it?Plants, of course, have unusual significance for both of them.
I hope those of you who wrote stories will do reveal posts talking a bit about them. I always enjoy reading them.
Comments open to discuss any of the stories and their canons. Spoilers for both stories and canons are fine in comments - no need to do rot13 or otherwise encode them. Just be aware of that if you read the comments.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I. Oh my gosh. Sarah Marshall is my RL friend and I'm just - there is YWA RPF I have no words!!!
From:
no subject
It's not exactly RPF of her. It's a fake episode of the podcast.
Get her and Mike to record it as a podfic.From:
no subject
Yeah I'm reading it now and I think they would absolutely love this, it's spot on something that would be a real episode!
From:
no subject
I definitely just asked if she'd be comfortable reading it and considering doing this.From:
no subject
OMG OMG OMG 2021 is looking amazing already.From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Don't Look Now was the inspiration in terms of mood, but the plot is totally different. I also wish Misericorde existed!
BTW, I LOVED your Kinkade story. I had no idea that was you. It's so well-written and eerie.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
If the story winds up existing as a Mike and Sarah podfic, that would be amazing.From:
no subject
It would make up for not being able to see the actual movie.From:
no subject
Rachel, I'm so glad to know who wrote this, it's truly one of the highlights of the year! As I mentioned in my comment, I only got into the podcast this year (through their Disco Demolition Night one, because that's one of my biggest hot button issues) and I'm working my way up through the back catalog, and I really did feel like I was reading a text version of an episode.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
1. I LOVED IT SO MUCH.
2. I e-mailed Rachel to recommend it, as it seemed like something that she'd really enjoy...
3. She e-mailed me back and said "oh, I'll have to check it out" and then diverted me from mental speculations about the authorship by mentioning she'd just recently heard a few You're Wrong About episodes and which ones would I recommend?
4. I went through every incident and name and googled because it was so completely unclear where reality stopped and fiction started, in part because Hollywood is such a weird place in general (and was even weirder in the 70s). I'm still not entirely convinced that some of these people just didn't have Wiki entries.
5. I still kind of can't believe that the celery pillow and the cache of movies under an Alaskan skating rink were both real.
So goddamn brilliant. I've been meaning to do a Twitter thread for fellow You're Wrong About fans, but was kind of busy (surprisingly so for the last week of the year) and haven't done it yet.
From:
no subject
Do the Twitter thread and comment here with the link! I'm not on Twitter much.
From:
no subject
I stand by my comment about your Illyana voice and characterization, which is amazing, and the fic made me extremely happy and continues to do so every time I remember it. Illyana! Ororo! Continuity of the sort canon only sometimes remembered to do, but I loved every time they did!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Oh gosh, what a story. My first thought was Destiny, or maybe Delight if she had been there, I'm not sure I wanted to risk Delirium. The hints given from Destiny seem like they would do SO MUCH (and give you equanimity when other people don't have wisdom, and help elsewhere even if other people don't automatically trust your wisdom). And maybe happiest is being wiser than most, but not so wise that you turn into Destiny and stop having feelings about things. But maybe I'm always feeling like I'm running to catch up, maybe if I asked with which I'd be happiest I'd have a different answer...
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I'm really glad you liked mine!
From:
no subject
HA! I thought I smelled a friendly influence, but I didn't want to comment and cause offence if you'd never gone near the canon. It was fantastic, I actually shared it with my Expanse friend who is not interested in the Secret Garden whatsoever because I thought she'd like the vibe. \o/
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
The Golden Apple is great! Very vivid descriptions of who the Endless are. (I like what's behind the windows). Hmm, it's definitely Destruction or Death who I'd most like to receive gifts from in terms of how they think about the world -- but Destiny is the one that most tempts me, even if I don't trust his definition of wisdom.