This year, I received a Gotham Central fic, Scare Crows, Not Crispus by Satchelfoot. I don't know Satchelfoot, but this was a terrific, dialogue-driven story about Detective Crispus Allen's very first encounter with a supervillain. It's a lovely little fic for anyone whose DCU knowledge is as minimal as "there's a guy called Scarecrow who scares people" to anyone who knows every nickname and alias of every character, their entire backstories and exactly what changed in each Crisis. Great for fans of cop stories, too! It really caught that feeling of camaraderie in the face of the bizarre that Gotham Central did so well.
I wrote one full-length story and one treat, both in fandoms I hadn't written before.
Private Universe is a Fringe story, from Astrid's POV, with an Astrid/Olivia relationship (with references to Peter/Olivia), for![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tristesses. She had a lovely, open, femslashy prompt which was a delight to write. The fic is full of spoilers for canon up to the last episode aired in 2010, so be aware of that - I'd hate to spoil those of you who are doing a catch-up viewing!
One thing that seemed odd to me was how different alt!Astrid is from Astrid - in most cases, there are great similarities, only altered by circumstance (alt!Olivia not having an abusive step-father, for example, or William Bell dying in a car crash). Walter and Walternate, for example, have a great deal in common despite one of them having a breakdown and the other not. This made me start looking for the similarities between the two Astrids, and reminded me that autism is a spectrum, and many things can change how an autistic person deals with the outside world. Alt!Astrid has been trained to work with numbers, but has no idea how to work with people, and no-one around her helps in any way, with the possible exception of Broyles and crossed-over Olivia. Astrid must have the same facility with numbers, given her cryptography background, but is far more socially capable. But still, she often works alone, understands and is sympathetic to Walter's rituals and routines, and all we have seen of her private life is one small glimpse of a brightly painted entryway in her apartment. I decided that she, too, was on the autistic spectrum, but had received help and encouragement to deal with the outside world and develop a range of skills and strengths, where alt!Astrid had been encouraged to behave like a machine. This does not, of course, mean that alt!Astrid doesn't have sympathies, emotions or loyalties - just that she doesn't express them in neurotypical ways.
The treat was Cho Hakkai Climbs forboundbooks in the seriously tiny Ōoku fandom - there is one other story for it, also in this year's Yuletide. It's a currently ongoing manga series about early Edo-period Japan (1603-1868) in which most of the men have died due to a plague and the women need to take over. It's a hugely detailed story and a very complex study of gender roles and the effects of patriarchy, and uses real historical events and people (sometimes but not always gender-swapped) as its basis. Fascinating, but difficult to write! When I saw boundbooks's prompt go by, though, I saw that it was a very open prompt that wanted more about the world and/or minor characters, and a one panel scene of one minor character popped into my head. Terutsuna is the eldest daughter of a high-ranking nobleman who is also an advisor to the Shogun - all Terutsuna's brothers died, so the daughter "Shizu" became the son "Terutsuna" and was raised to be a boy. Terutsuna is tall, fat, confident and physically capable, and easily passes as a young man, but also seems delighted to recognise other daughters raised as sons, so I started to wonder what was going on. The panel that inspired this was the look on Terutsuna's face when the Shogun reveals herself to be female - it's an amazing mixture of fear, joy and wonderment, where I might have expected simple recognition or delight. Like everything else in these books, it's very complicated!
So despite being sick since the last week of November (and honestly, I wouldn't blamest_aurafina for cough-related homicide at this stage) it was a terrific Yuletide! Now to see what I can come up with for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandom_stocking!
I wrote one full-length story and one treat, both in fandoms I hadn't written before.
Private Universe is a Fringe story, from Astrid's POV, with an Astrid/Olivia relationship (with references to Peter/Olivia), for
tristesses. She had a lovely, open, femslashy prompt which was a delight to write. The fic is full of spoilers for canon up to the last episode aired in 2010, so be aware of that - I'd hate to spoil those of you who are doing a catch-up viewing! One thing that seemed odd to me was how different alt!Astrid is from Astrid - in most cases, there are great similarities, only altered by circumstance (alt!Olivia not having an abusive step-father, for example, or William Bell dying in a car crash). Walter and Walternate, for example, have a great deal in common despite one of them having a breakdown and the other not. This made me start looking for the similarities between the two Astrids, and reminded me that autism is a spectrum, and many things can change how an autistic person deals with the outside world. Alt!Astrid has been trained to work with numbers, but has no idea how to work with people, and no-one around her helps in any way, with the possible exception of Broyles and crossed-over Olivia. Astrid must have the same facility with numbers, given her cryptography background, but is far more socially capable. But still, she often works alone, understands and is sympathetic to Walter's rituals and routines, and all we have seen of her private life is one small glimpse of a brightly painted entryway in her apartment. I decided that she, too, was on the autistic spectrum, but had received help and encouragement to deal with the outside world and develop a range of skills and strengths, where alt!Astrid had been encouraged to behave like a machine. This does not, of course, mean that alt!Astrid doesn't have sympathies, emotions or loyalties - just that she doesn't express them in neurotypical ways.
The treat was Cho Hakkai Climbs for
boundbooks in the seriously tiny Ōoku fandom - there is one other story for it, also in this year's Yuletide. It's a currently ongoing manga series about early Edo-period Japan (1603-1868) in which most of the men have died due to a plague and the women need to take over. It's a hugely detailed story and a very complex study of gender roles and the effects of patriarchy, and uses real historical events and people (sometimes but not always gender-swapped) as its basis. Fascinating, but difficult to write! When I saw boundbooks's prompt go by, though, I saw that it was a very open prompt that wanted more about the world and/or minor characters, and a one panel scene of one minor character popped into my head. Terutsuna is the eldest daughter of a high-ranking nobleman who is also an advisor to the Shogun - all Terutsuna's brothers died, so the daughter "Shizu" became the son "Terutsuna" and was raised to be a boy. Terutsuna is tall, fat, confident and physically capable, and easily passes as a young man, but also seems delighted to recognise other daughters raised as sons, so I started to wonder what was going on. The panel that inspired this was the look on Terutsuna's face when the Shogun reveals herself to be female - it's an amazing mixture of fear, joy and wonderment, where I might have expected simple recognition or delight. Like everything else in these books, it's very complicated!So despite being sick since the last week of November (and honestly, I wouldn't blame
st_aurafina for cough-related homicide at this stage) it was a terrific Yuletide! Now to see what I can come up with for fandom_stocking!
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