therapeutic thump

Hi, everybody, and Happy New Year!

So the time has come for me to own up to my Yuletide fics and to praise the two that were written for me. Let's do that part first.

Fabrisse - who is making quite a habit of writing for me, which is ridiculously happy-making - wrote a Jeeves story that did exactly what I wanted by revolving around the theme of family while Bertie struggles with the reality of a pregnant (by her husband, the economy-sized gorilla, Spode) Madeline, and even throws in his Deep Thoughts on poetry. It's all delightfully charming, and the last line is an absolute corker: And Baby Makes Three.

And obstinatrix, whom I don't know, wrote a gorgeous, first-blush Endeavour story for me that brings to light some thoughts on Morse and DeBryn and Thursday himself, all of which ring absolutely true. It's a wonderfully structured and thoughtful story, and I enjoyed every moment of it: Perception.

Annnnd for my own writing, I wrote my assignment and two treats! My assignment was for a movie I'd seen and adored, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, which turned out to be one of the big fandoms of this Yuletide. I knew I could write for the request - Lara Jean/Peter plus some strong Kitty action - but I made a lot of false starts here because I kept trying to make the structure of the story more complicated. At one point, it was going to be Lara Jean reading and perhaps writing one of her romance novels and thinking about how Peter stacked up against her literary heroes. I ended up not being able to decide whether to write my own romance novels for her to quote or try to find some she'd be likely to read. Another idea I got really excited about was doing something like The Last Five Years in five days instead, with the first day being when they get back together, the middle being New Year's Eve (fireworks, etc.), and the last being their first day back in school. It eventually struck me that I didn't have enough to say about each of them separately for that idea to work in such a compressed time frame - and I knew I wanted to stay relatively present-based and not try a future-fic that would betray that I didn't know the books at all. So I ended up with this, which is a tight look at the next few days of their lives and brings in Josh, because I honestly didn't know how to write Lara Jean without writing about Josh too: Make the Most of Freedom and of Pleasure. I named it for the song Lara Jean's mom used to dance to in the diner, and my good friend and Yuletide buddy musesfool did a great and snappy beta on it for me, noting that she would join Peter and Josh for mocking LJ in the last scene for her woeful Star Wars knowledge. Come on, that shit is hilarious. I enjoyed making Lara Jean and Josh into Great British Bake Off superfans, because I have been basically useless since I discovered that show. And I really do think Josh is getting the hat trick in having all three sisters be into him.

As always, I made a huge long list of people whose Yuletide letters were interesting and inspiring, and I wanted to write something for a five-minute fandom, because I think that including one of those should be rewarded if possible. I was torn between several such letters and decided on one asking for xenophilia in the short story 'To Whatever' by Shaenon Garrity. This was fun to write because there were no limits on the porn, except that I knew I wanted it to be enthusiastically consensual, and both the characters were so charming in the original story. I just went hog wild, and had a really good time with it, and my beta, Isis, improved it and steered me gently to romcoms when I was casting about for a title. I was pleased with the way this one turned out too: Love (and Consentacles) Actually.

And lastly, I always find some good stuff to read based on Yuletide (or fandom) requests, and this year's prize was Eva Ibbotson's Which Witch? I thought it would be a children's book, but it's more of a young adult title and manages to be both beautifully complete and open to storytelling. I absolutely loved reading this book, and I had the idea for my original character - Jean Javert, aka Le Merveilleux - almost as soon as I finished reading the letter requesting this fandom. I love found family themes and adored all of the characters and just felt like writing love love love. I ended up giving this one more of a generic title - though one from a much-loved poem - because I didn't want to narrow down the title to a relationship only between two characters, when there are nearly a dozen main characters in the story and the web of relationships between all of them is what I most wanted to get right. My week in Paris this summer gave me the (unjustified) confidence that I could write just enough French to get Le Merveilleux's voice right. Once again, the magic of Yuletide provided a great beta for me, Prinzenhasserin, who was fantastic: Brisking About the Life.

I got so lucky this year - all of my recipients gave me feedback indicating that they took my stories in the spirit in which I wrote them, and some other folks were kind enough to comment too. Plus two amazing stories were written to my specifications, which is such a marvelous feeling. I hope you all had a great Yuletide too!