I've filled 21 prompts, though only two of them actually managed to stay within the three sentence limit. I am so bad at length restrictions. *hides face* (I did get another one down to four sentences! That's not too far off, right? And one of the multi-sentence ficlets is only a hundred words long... *makes feeble excuses*)

Anyway, eleven of them are responses to one person asking for a specific scenario in a specific fandom -- Inception, girl!Arthur/Eames, for be_themoon -- and they all fit into a unified timeline. So I'm going to post those separately.

All the other random stuff (so far) is in this post. *grin*

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( 1. Storm Warning - Doctor Who/Narnia )

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( 2. Loyalty - Merlin )

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( 3. Tribute - Chronicles of Narnia )

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( 4. In Strict Obedience to Her Commands - Lucifer )

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( 5. Everything Ends - Ender's Game/Doctor Who )

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( 6. Seek and Ye Shall Find - Chronicles of Narnia/Dark Is Rising )

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( 7. Of Horses - Chronicles of Narnia, WARNING for brutality to animals )

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( 8. No Illusions - Inception )

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( 9. I'm Your Gun - Captain America )

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( 10. Birds in the Hand - Chronicles of Narnia, WARNING for crime, child abuse, and prostitution )

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More to come, probably. Dammit, why can I not find this level of inspiration for my actual fics???

Yuletide reveal day!

I wrote two stories this year, both for Hexwood, a standalone science fiction/fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones. The book is something of a head trip, and I will therefore not attempt to summarize it, except to say that pretty much any back cover or dust jacket summary you will find for it will be misleading in one way or another. But it's a lovely book and I recommend it almost without reservations.

The reservations have nothing to do with the writing. They are simply my way of warning you about a quirk of Jones's stories. Her books are always lovely fun on the surface, but if you look more closely there's often a darker, more disquieting undercurrent to some of the world-building or the backstories of various characters. Hexwood is no different -- the lurking horror here is the backstory between Mordion and Reigner One, which starts with child abuse, slavery, torture, brainwashing, and murder, and could, depending on how you read the things Jones leaves unsaid, go to even worse places -- which is why my two stories have such different tones.

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( 1 ) Childish Things (ff.net crosspost), 7,200 words, Dec. 2010. Three games Vierran played with Mordion over the years. Contains mention of slavery and child abuse.

This was my assigned story, written for Elspeth Vimes, whose request read as follows: This is one of those canons where I'm equally for gen and het fic. I admit I'm a fan of Mordion/Vierran and would love to see more of them interacting like a happy, normal couple. But I also just love each of those characters in their own right and would love to get a deeper look at their lives. Forest hijinks with Ann, Mordion, Hume, and Yam are also fun.

Something with Ann's real childhood would be particularly interesting.

I turned that over in my head for a while, wondering if there were a way to fit more than one of those ideas into a single story, and eventually hit on a gimmick that would let me tick off every single one of them. So. Vierran/Mordion? Check. Vierran's childhood? Check. A deeper look into their lives? Check. Forest hijinks with Ann, Mordion, Hume, and Yam? Check. I even squeezed in a bit of Siri, Arthur, and Fitela for good measure.

Basically, this story builds from a distressing beginning toward what I hope is a crowning moment of heartwarming. :-)

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( 2 ) Served Cold (ff.net crosspost), 1,600 words, Dec. 2010. Orm Pender bred Martellian's descendants into Servants for a thousand years. He was quite practiced by the end. Contains sociopathy, slavery, child abuse, sexual abuse, implied rape, implied torture, murder, etc.

My second story was written as a treat for shewhoguards (aka googlebrat), whose request said: I asked for Mordion fic, because Mordion makes my heart hurt, but what I really want here is backstory. Where did these babies come from? Who were their mothers? Were they related? Were they killed afterwards or did they try to get their babies back? Was it all an attempt by Reigner 1 to keep their houses under control? You don't even have to include him as more than a baby if the story doesn't turn that way, and he certainly doesn't have to be a main character. I just want to know how we got here.

I wrote this story because I ran a search on the giant request spreadsheet, noticed that someone besides Elspeth Vimes had requested Hexwood, and since I had the book in Seville with me so I could edit my other story... well, why not at least look? Shewhoguards's request hit a lot of my writing kinks, so I dashed it off in under two hours.

What can I say? Backstory is my addiction, OCs are my bread and butter, and sociopaths are disturbingly easy to write.

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Rereading Hexwood was interesting. I remembered the gist of the story, but the details had blurred -- partly because I hadn't read it for a few years, and partly because the story's presentation is so convoluted. The first time I read it, I got horribly confused the second time Ann went into Banners Wood, and thought there must have been a terrible editing mishap. But then I remembered that I trust Diana Wynne Jones, so I continued reading and my trust was more than repaid in the end. This time I knew the trick and wasn't so utterly thrown, but it still takes a bit of work to keep all the threads straight and figure out what events actually happen, and in which order.

Some other random observations: Hexwood makes me think that Jones must have been reading Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series shortly before she started writing. I mean, this book has a character named Orm Pender who turns into a dragon! You cannot tell me that's a coincidence.

Also, Arthur Pendragon is a real mythological figure, so it occured to me this time round that Fitela Wolfson might be drawn from European mythology as well, and it turns out he is! Fitela is the Old English name for Sinfjötli, the son of Sigmund and his sister Signy, who avenged his family (the Völsungs) against Signy's evil husband. His half-brother Sigurd is notable for slaying the dragon Fafnir, so it's likely that Jones is suggesting that her Fitela Wolfson was the inspiration for both stories -- after all, she says that Martellian was trying to breed pureblood Reigners to avenge him against Orm Pender (which suggests he might have encouraged incest), and Fitela fought the dragons the Reigners sent to kill Martellian.

Those observations made it into Childish Things by way of the focus on dragons in the middle section and Fitela's brief mention of his parents in the third section, but mostly I bring them up because they amuse me. :-)

At the beginning of the month, I posted about a deeply stupid AU idea that I had for Code Geass, which has not only refused to die, but which continues to tick away in the back of my mind, developing world-building details and plot incidents. (I am still not actually writing it, but I am now resigned to at least producing a detailed outline.)

Also, I have written two sidefics. Which are really more like backstory fics, or let's-try-out-the-world-building fics, but whatever. One of them I posted in a somewhat sloppy version as a comment!fic for askerian. The other is new.

So. Here is the first one, about Marianne vi Britannia and her son. (875 words -- and you really ought to go read the background post first, or this will make very little sense.)

( Mother Wolf )

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The fun thing about writing an AU that requires as much world-building as this one does is that I can throw out or twist quite a lot of canon backstory, so long as I get Lelouch, Kallen, Suzaku, and CC to Shinjuku in a reasonably plausible fashion, without making them too unrecognizable from their canon selves. *evil laughter*

Gacked from askerian

Instructions:
1. Write down the names of 10 characters.
2. Write a fic of fifteen words or more for every prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. DO NOT read the prompts before you do step 1.

...I feel like making extra work for myself (or indulging in crack, whichever), so I am going crossover-happy. *bright smile*

Characters:
1. Zuko (exiled prince of the Fire Nation; Avatar: The Last Airbender)
2. Sokka (companion of the Avatar; Avatar: The Last Airbender)
3. Mazikeen (Lucifer's lover and war leader of the Lillim; Lucifer)
4. Belial (chief among the seven Satans; Angel Sanctuary)
5. Kurai (princess and dragon master of the Evils; Angel Sanctuary)
6. Nyota Uhura (communications officer on the Enterprise; Star Trek: AOS)
7. Spock (first officer and science officer on the Enterprise; Star Trek: AOS)
8. Morwen (no-nonsense witch; The Enchanted Forest Chronicles)
9. Irrylath (prince of Avaric and former winged vampire; The Darkangel)
10. Kazul (king of the dragons; The Enchanted Forest Chronicles)

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Ficlets:

Collective Warnings: implied dubious consent, implied death, and implied dragons eating other sentient beings. Also a lot of crack.

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( One )

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( Two )

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( Three )

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( Four )

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( Five )

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( Six )

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( Seven )

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( Eight )

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( Nine )

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( Ten )

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( Eleven )

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...I don't know about you, but I am slightly worried about my brain.

Susan and Edmund talk about linguistics, post-LWW. Meta thinly cloaked in dialogue. (ETA: Disney movie canon, because I picked up an idea from somebody else's fic and forgot to check it against the books. *grimace*)

( Babel )

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In other news, work was a cesspit of madness today, but I survived. I also wrote another 150 words of "Secrets" ch. 14, and figured out why the scene with the twins wanted to exist. It turns out there's actually a perfectly good reason! And, in a potentially annoying twist, I think that while I can still collapse my original epilogue into ch. 14, I now have a plan for a different epilogue, set during the Weasleys' trip to Egypt. Which is all very well and good for letting me work Bill and Charlie into the story as physical presences instead of just in Ginny's thoughts, and for wrapping up a couple thematic threads, but now I need to do research on Cairo or Alexandria or the Valley of Kings or something like that.

Bother. Bother, bother, bother.

About two-thirds of this story began its existence as the introductory section of To Be of Use, my Yuletide story. But I ran out of time to get past Joris and Konstam's first meeting, which meant all this stuff didn't have any training sessions in Khan Valley, or demon-hunting missions, or post-book interviews and strategy meetings, or Joris's eventual emancipation, to balance it out. So I cut the introduction and turned it into a separate story.

Of course, that meant I had to add a section and elaborate on others, but I think it worked out reasonably well.

Summary: There weren't many labor slaves in Cardsburg, but Joris knew how the world worked. He just didn't think that knowledge would become personal. (The ff.net version is here.)

( Cut Clean )

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I do still want to get the rest of my original outline into words somehow, but I don't have time right now and I suspect that when I do have time, I'll have run out of motivation. I hate when that happens. *sigh*

This is my femgenficathon story, posted just under the wire. Phew!

Prompt: #68 - The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning. -- Ivy Baker Priest.

Summary: In which Morwen loses her house, meets a princess and a knight, does a favor for the king of the dragons, makes a new friend, and finds a new home, all within two days. This story uses some of my personal backstory for Morwen, but it should be perfectly comprehensible to anyone who's read Patricia C. Wrede's books... and, hopefully, even to people who haven't. Thanks to uminohikari and sirena_lune for the lightning-fast beta!

The Affairs of Dragons, Part 1

The Affairs of Dragons, Part 2

(Or you could read the ff.net version, which is slightly tidied-up.)

...

I think I'm going to go edit a few more commas out. I always go overboard with them when I'm writing, and they always make me wince later on.

I gacked this from ladylisse (and then tweaked it a fair bit). The idea is to post the first lines from ten of your recent or in-progress stories. I decided (since I won't have anything ready to post in the near future), that I might throw up some slightly longer excerpts. Fanfiction only.

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( The Transient and the Eternal )

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( Ephemera )

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( Secrets )

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( Undertow )

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( Strange Likenesses )

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( The Guardian in Spite of Herself )

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( Lemonade )

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( A Question of Familiarity )

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( Twilight )

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( Eyes of Stone )

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Am now off to read serious arguments about theodicy.

This story is set about ten years before main mercverse canon, insofar as this AU can be said to have any canon. :-) So. "Two Guys and a Girl," in which I bend, staple, and otherwise mutilate normal game canon involving trips to Nibelheim, because seriously, what's the point of crack AUs if you can't play around like this?

Edited 2/4/08, because the version first posted was the rough draft, which I put up mostly so I wouldn't have to eat my scarf for delaying yet another day. *grin* The new version still isn't great literature, but it's a bit less embarrassingly awkward.

( Two Guys and a Girl, Part 10 )

Back to Part 9

crosspost at mercverse community

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I may write a brief epilogue set a few years later, but then again, I have a lot of other things to work on, so don't hold your breath. Julian Silverberg is a reference to chofi's fic here; I know nothing of Suikoden or how she intended to use him, but this seemed reasonable to me. Zack's issues with duels (and the trouble they caused at court) are mentioned in several other fics.

This story is set about ten years before main mercverse canon, insofar as this AU can be said to have any canon. :-) So. "Two Guys and a Girl," in which I bend, staple, and otherwise mutilate normal game canon involving trips to Nibelheim, because seriously, what's the point of crack AUs if you can't play around like this?

( Two Guys and a Girl, Part 9 )

Back to Part 8

Continue to Part 10

crosspost at mercverse community

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Chapter 10 should be done Wednesday or Thursday... Friday at the latest.