Sense, Nonsense, and Not-Sense

[It's December Days time! There's no overarching theme this year, so if you have ideas of things to write about, I'm more than happy to hear them. Thanks again for reading through the month and commenting. It's quite nice.]

Time for the semiannual fiction output post. I've done quite a bit in these past six, it appears.

• The Audition (3042 words) by silveradept
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Avatar: Legend of Korra
  Rating: General Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Suyin Beifong & Kuvira
  Characters: Suyin Beifong, Kuvira (Avatar), Korra (Avatar), Lin Beifong
  Additional Tags: Metalbending & Metalbenders, Dancing, Post-Canon
  Summary:

  Kuvira returns to the thing that she knows best, after her bid to unify the Earth Empire failed. The metal helps her think. The dance helps her feel. In front of no-one, Kuvira puts on the performance of her life.

  
  
  I jumped up my wordcount with this one, but it needed it. I also feel rather proud of this one because of integrating music suggestions into the work itself to help evoke the intended mood. Well-received work and a reassuring sign to me that I was capable of longer things with the right inspiration.


• Machine Learning (1235 words) by silveradept
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Person of Interest (TV)
  Rating: General Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Characters: The Machine (Person of Interest), Samaritan (Person of Interest)
  Summary:

  What, exactly, can an ASI do when given the opportunity? Quite a bit, it seems.

  
  
  A treat to write, from the perspective of the most interesting and least heard-from character in Person of Interest. Contains Asimov references, as I suspect any artificial superintelligence would have them.


• The Best Revue In The State (2826 words) by silveradept
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Leverage, White Collar
  Rating: Mature
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Neal Caffrey (White Collar) / Jim Sterling (Leverage)
  Characters: Neal Caffrey, Jim Sterling
  Additional Tags: Crossover Pairings
  Summary:

  If he had known that teaming up with a supposedly reformed art thief and con man would eventually lead to his prancing about on a male revue stage, Jim Sterling might have thought a little bit harder about accepting Neal Caffrey's offer to get closer to Leverage.

  
  
  I wasn't sure I could write convincing, or at least plausible relationships between men until I tackled this assignment. I used the fact that Matt Bomer did Magic Mike as the way to getting this story to completion, and it turned out okay, at the very least. I've got less fear about writing all kinds of relationships after this.


• Human-Cyborg Relations (2715 words) by silveradept
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Xenosaga
  Rating: Mature
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: KOS-MOS/Shion Uzuki
  Characters: KOS-MOS (Xenosaga), Shion Uzuki
  Summary:

  It's diagnostics day for KOS-MOS. Everything would be fine, if it weren't for some strange static infecting her processors every time Shion touches her.

  
  
  And then I did this one, which was a relationship between a female character and her gynoid, so now I've done one of each of the same-gender (ish) relationship stories. My beta's seal of approval on this one about being able to write a convincing F/F relationship was very helpful in building confidence in my writing ability.


• Story Time with Rumpelstiltskin (2454 words) by silveradept
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)
  Rating: General Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
  Characters: Belle (Once Upon a Time), Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
  Summary:

  Belle and Rumpelstiltskin share a story every night. Tonight, Belle decides she wants to tell Rumpelstiltskin.

  He is not amused.

  
  
  This one is fun - if you know the premise of Once Upon A Time, where storybook characters (or at least their Disney versions) have been transported to our world, then the idea of having Rumpelstiltskin have to listen to his own origin story is too good of a chance to pass up. Include that Rumpelstiltskin is generally a grump and a grouch together, and there's lots of fun potential in needling him.


• Cyber-Serenity (4062 words) by silveradept
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Firefly, Doctor Who (2005)
  Rating: General Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Malcolm Reynolds & Eleventh Doctor
  Characters: Eleventh Doctor, Malcolm Reynolds
  Summary:

  A strange blue box contains a nearly-naked man with an offer to travel the 'Verse and get paid handsomely for it. This makes Mal deeply suspicious. His suspicion is warranted.

  
  
  What do you get when you cross a cynical Browncoat with a Doctor who crosses space and time? An adventure, of course. The wordcount went back up for this one, which usually is a sign of a more involved plot than what first came to mind. I liked writing it, even though there was a lot of banging my head against Mal's characterization to get him right.


• Dream of the Hero Near Another World (4189 words) by silveradept
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Quest for Glory
  Rating: General Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Characters: Erana (Quest for Glory), Katrina (Quest for Glory), The Hero (Quest for Glory), Avoozl (Quest for Glory)
  Additional Tags: Cameos
  Summary:

  The dead do not always take their fate lightly. Heroes sometimes find they can still be of use to other heroes from beyond the veil. All it takes is a connection.

  
  
  This one needed to both have the fat trimmed and the story expanded. I'm a sucker for prompts that have this game in them, just because it was formative and good and I want more people to write in it. But this story is a testament to the idea of writing what you have and then working backwards from there. Eventually, I got to something that I was satisfied with.


• To Complete The Set (2743 words) by silveradept
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Final Fantasy XIII
  Rating: Not Rated
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Lightning/Oerba Dia Vanille/Oerba Yun Fang
  Characters: Lightning (Final Fantasy XIII), Oerba Yun Fang, Oerba Dia Vanille
  Summary:

  Lightning thought she was rescuing someone from a bad situation at the club. What she got into was much, much stranger.

  
  
  Emboldened by my success at Human-Cyborg Relations, I decided to go in and write again for an exchange fully on femalash. And ended up writing a story about how a triad came to be off the prompt. I like how this one turned out, mostly because I think I was able to keep the characterizations correct, but allow a character who is not at the forefront in their source material to come out and behave more like how I thought she would be in that same game. The power of transformative works, and all.


• And finally, since Yuletide reveals were this morning, I get to put my capstone in for this year:
  
  Promotion (6609 words) by silveradept
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Chess (Board Game)
  Rating: Mature
  Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
  Relationships: Pawn (Chess)/Queen(Chess)
  Characters: Pawn (Chess), Queen (Chess)
  Additional Tags: Dubious Consent, Mind Control, Violence, Crossdressing, Crueltide, Anthropomorphic, Transformation, Disguise
  Summary:

  The Pawn of e file must navigate the dangers of the Board and capture the Queen. The plan goes well...until the Pawn makes contact with the Queen.

  
  
  This is one of my finest works for this year, taking someone's plotbunny and fleshing it out into something they're proud of. The revisions to the drafts from the betas (thank you, azurelunatic and sithjawa) added two thousand words from the initial draft. It's the biggest work this year, in terms of words and in terms of worldbuilding and work involved in it, because it's not like chess has a shared world and characters to draw on for wiring. I'm immensely proud of it and very glad that the recipient loved it.

So, onward to next year's output posts, challenges, and writing. I'd like more kudos and comments to stroke my ego, of course, but otherwise, the joy is in the writing.

[It's December Days time! There's no overarching theme this year, so if you have ideas of things to write about, I'm more than happy to hear them.]

For as much as I enjoy art, I realize that I lack the necessary skills to produce it, whether as CG or hand-drawn material. This is mostly a matter of practice, however - should I decide I want to acquire the skills and practice them, I will eventually be able to produce material of sufficient quality to make myself proud of it.

I used to think much the same about the quality of my writing. I realize, though, that at this point of life, I've actually done a lot of writing practice. There's still plenty more to do and improve upon, but if I think about it, I've written into the hundreds of thousands of words over the past twenty-*mumble* years of being a writer. My early work wouldn't make the AO3 minimum word count, but the craft developed a lot over message board RPGs, before graduating into Livejournal roundups, link lists, and commentary on commentary and opinion columns. And now, I'm back where I started, actually, writing fan fiction and commentary on stories, with a lot of experience going to work on making things better. I still need other pairs of eyes to look it over and make sure there aren't major and minor mistakes. But if the commentary I've been getting on the stories and the giving of grief is any indication of how others are receiving the work, I've managed to make it to the point where I can be satisfied that the writing is good, and that others that see the works believe its good, as well.

This is a fantastic thing. I've finally gotten to the point where the output is good enough that it doesn't offend my sense of taste. Through a lot of practice and putting words out. Hooray!

[It's December Days time! There's no overarching theme this year, so if you have ideas of things to write about, I'm more than happy to hear them.]

Someone wrote me some Peppermint Patty and Marcie for Yuletide, and I am thrilled.

Sweet Dreams Are Made of Peanuts.

Also, the work that I wrote was received extremely well by its recipient, and that makes me happy, because I was worried they would see what I had done with a potentially sacred plotbunny and they would be disappointed or worse. That is not the case.

And now, to try and wend my way through the collection!