Yuletide Reveal and the 2014 Writing Round Up

[przed]

This year for Yuletide I matched on a recipient who requested Edge of Tomorrow and Only Lovers Left Alive, both of which I'd offered. After briefly toying with doing a demented crossover of both fandoms (and brainstorming with the Sweetie; vampires who can remember the time loops and are really miffed about it, yay!) I settled on just doing an Edge of Tomorrow story.

It was a movie I'd already loved in the theatre and had been telling people to go see it. But now I've watched it a bunch more times and I am here to tell you that it is an awesome film, probably my favourite film of the summer (yes, more than Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America) and you should totally go see it. No, it doesn't matter if you hate Tom Cruise. In fact, it might help, because the start of the film plays on that smarmy asshole-ness that Cruise so frequently presents. His character starts off as a coward and a jerk and has to learn to do better. And then it has Emily Blunt as the badass soldier who needs to train him to become a hero. But the film doesn't handle this in a way that negates her contributions. Right until the end, if Blunt's Rita Vrataski hadn't been with Cruise's character, he would have been sunk.

So, yeah, totally check out Edge of Tomorrow.

And here's my story:

The First Time 'Round (3198 words)
Fandom: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Relationships: William Cage/Rita Vrataski
Summary: The first time you meet Private Cage, you think Christ, not another one.

Besides Yuletide, I wrote seven stories this year. It was a lower story count and a much lower word count than the last few years when I was setting personal records. I haven't been around much online, either. There have been a few contributing factors to that, I think. One big part of it was organizing BistoCon with FJ Bryan. Even though it was a small con, getting it all put together took a significant amount of the time and energy I had for fannish activity for the first two thirds of the year, and after it was all over I felt knackered for longer than I would have thought. It took the amazing SHareCon to rejuvenate my fannish ambitions.

Another big part is Ros getting older. She's doing activities every day but one, and gets to bed just that little bit later, giving me less time to work on anything at night.

The last thing that's taking my time is Taekwando, which is rapidly becoming as consuming as fandom. I tested for my red belt just before Christmas (I broke three boards!), two away from black. I'm aiming to test black in spring of 2016, and that's going to require three classes a week, a two hour training session on Saturday mornings, and regular volunteering in other classes. The black belt test requires a whole weekend spent at the dojo in March where they keep you going for most of 60 hours and push you to your limit, and then there's another couple of months of rehearsing performance routines for the June Black Belt Spectacular. Oh, and 2016 is also when we've promised to hold the next edition of BistoCon. I have a feeling there will not be much fic written in 2016.

Anyway, here's a list of the fic I did manage to write.
Dreaming of a White Christmas (7379 words)
Fandom: Take That
Relationships: Howard Donald/Jason Orange
Summary: When Mark disappears just before Christmas, Jason and the boys go looking for him.

This was a sequel to Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, my runaway Mark and Robbie story. It's a whole lotta angst, but I'm rather fond of this little cycle.

Run, Rabbit, Run (1000 words)
Fandom: The Professionals, Blade Runner (1982)
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Summary: I didn't even notice I was doing it. There was paper and my hands were idle and before I knew it, I was folding one of the shapes I knew so well.

This was a picfor1000 story, and the first time I'd managed a story for the challenge in a few years. (I had three or four years of getting really sucky prompt pictures, which made me sad because this was the challenge that got me writing Pros again.) But this time I got a picture of a origami rabbit and the lovely and talented moonlightmead said it gave her a Blade Runner vibe, and it all slid into place easily from there.

Feel (10513 words)
Fandom: Take That, Der Himmel über Berlin | Wings of Desire (1987)
Relationships: Howard Donald/Jason Orange
Summary: What happens when an Angel falls in love?

A prequel to No Regrets.

I wrote two angel stories this year (who knew that was a kink of mine; huh) and this was the first. I'd already done a crossover of Wings of Desire with Take That, but wanted to go into the back story of angel!Howard. This was that story.

A Little Out of Reach (3619 words)
Fandom: Take That
Relationships: Howard Donald/Jason Orange
Summary: An unexpected phone makes Howard admit to something he's long hidden. But is it too late?

I wrote this story to exorcise my fears that Jason Orange was going to leave Take That. So, yeah, that didn't work out quite the way I'd hoped. Though perhaps if Howard had shagged Jason, he would have stayed. :(

Golden Angel (2668 words)
Fandom: Starsky & Hutch
Pairing: Starsky/Hutch
Summary: Golden. That’s what I thought the first time I saw the Blond Blintz standing there on top of a Bay City warehouse: that he was golden.

My second angel story. After not writing any S/H for years, I actually came up with an idea for a story, courtesy of some gorgeous art work by sc_fossil in the SHareCon con zine. In fact, just going to SHareCon stimulated my fannish squee.

Happy Now (1358 words)
Fandom: Take That
Relationships: Howard Donald/Jason Orange
Summary: Since Jason has left the band, he's happy now. But what about Howard?

I hadn't finished any TT fic since Jason had left the band, but wanted to write something for dear friend and huge Jason fan, soundofthesurf. What resulted was this sort-of fix-it fic. Jason still is out of the band, but that doesn't mean he had to leave the bloke he clearly adores. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Final word count for 2014: 29,735
That's down significantly from last year's 91,261, but a bit higher than I feared it might be. And that doesn't include the 7K of a TT AU WIP I've had kicking around for most of the year. (I am vowing to finally finish this cop!Howard story this year. If it kills me.)

I also managed one vid this year. Pieces of Heaven vids Pros to a Mark Owen song, both of my fandoms in one nice little package. Given everything else going on in my life, I suspect I won't get any more vids done for the foreseeable future.

Comments

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

I must say I hadn't been drawn to 'Edge of Tomorrow' from the poster/trailer/cast (yup, I'm not really a Cruise fan) but your enthusiasm does sway me to give it a go. And then I could read your fic too! *g*

[przed.livejournal.com]

I'm a sucker for good SF, I like Emily Blunt a lot and can tolerate Cruise in the right thing, which is why I gave it a try. And it turned out to be just fantastic. Great premise, really funny in places and heartbreaking in others. And if you watch and end up liking it, there were some other stories in Yuletide for it that were just fab.

[sarren.livejournal.com]

YaY for being passionate about something that maintains your fitness, also yay for being able to protect yourself.

My housemate is mad on Edge of Tomorrow - your rec is the nudge I needed to get around to seeing it (not a TC fan, usually).

[przed.livejournal.com]

I just love martial arts, but the self defence aspect is a definite bonus.

You should totally watch Edge of Tomorrow. It is really an amazing film. And not being a TC fan should be no impediment for enjoying it. Emily Blunt is just awesome in it.