writing_shadows

Dec. 2nd, 2010

annwfyn.livejournal.com

Hi all

So, it's December and Hanukkah starts tonight at sundown, which means that the holiday season is well and truly upon us. And that means I'm feeling seasonal. So, I thought I'd post this up here and see if people want to get involved.

I thought it might be fun to do a little

writing_shadows version of Yuletide Treasure. The point of Yuletide Treasure is that a bunch of people sign up to write fics (at least 1000 words in length) for other people in the challenge, about specific requested fandoms etc. Obviously, we're not going to do that, but I thought it might be nice if we did see if we could write a fic for someone else over December.

The idea I had is that if anyone would like a fic for Christmas, they post in the comments here, mentioning any specific interests they have, such as which venue, which character (s), and maybe which theme. For example, I could say:

Hi! I'd really like it if someone wrote a fic about Venice and Rosalba, including a WWE cage match, and with a Christmassy theme.

And anyone who is interested can just reply and say "I'll do that,"

Ideally, I'd like it if anyone who requests a fic also commits to write one, and anyone who writes a fic also requests one. If you want to write more than one, you can request more than one. If you do see one request which you really want to do, but already has someone writing it, you can volunteer and that lucky person can get two stories written for them, but I'd like it if we all tried to make sure that no one goes without a fic if they ask for one.

The only rules are that they need to be at least 1000 words in length and contain any characters/themes requested by the person who you are writing it for.

I know this is in addition to the December writing challenge, but I know you guys all have time on your hands. Plus, this is the perfect opportunity for those of you who were thinking 'I wish I could get Sally a Christmas present, but I have no idea what' to give me something which will really make me happy.

Are people interested?

EDIT - as a random suggestion, because there's been lots of doom in the IoD lately, I reckon it would be nice to make the default in these stories positive (about the characters mentioned anyway), unless someone requests a tale of hate and bitterness. I am fairly sure most of you totally will, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

unifex.livejournal.com

I open with apologies - it's been a fair while since I did any creative writing, so I expect to be more than a little rusty. Aplso apologies to Fran for presuming a note onto Jayne, and to James Holloway for making assumptions about Cambridge plot: They remain assumptions and guesses!

( What <i>DO</i> you buy the man who has everything for Christmas? )

faerierhona.livejournal.com

For

adze

Ciara came back into the room from the cold and dark outside. Looking around she could see the people around the table, people who made up her family, or most of it.
Adrianne and Penny were talking about something clever, probably sciency or to do with engineering. Their faces softened by their passion for the subject and the candlelight, neither as hard or grumpy looking as normal. Gehenna, her darling Horse, was looking at Hjarta in that way he had which made him glow with inside light, like she’d somehow given him a bit of her glow. Hjarta was looking back at him, his shadow falling across her as he shared his darkness. It wasn’t a bad darkness, people forgot that sometimes. It was highlighting her, making her shine more beautifully, like the coloured glass around the candle Ciara had bought her as a peace offering.
Finally her eyes fell on Harper. The first person she had truly considered a friend. He had that smile again, crooked, genuine, warm. Harper who never touched her ears without asking but who hugged her hurts away like only Gehenna had before. He was watching the others, he seemed to like watching them, and Ciara remembered how he had watched her walk into that room in Essex, scared, lost, looking for her Stupid Horse, so frightened he had become forever lost. How taking Harper’s hand had made her feel safe, better, and how he had kept that promise. The first promise anyone except Gehenna had ever made and kept to her. He would find her Horse, and he did.
Ciara smiled, stepping back from the doorway and resuming her cat form, knowing some people were freaked out when they saw a woman turn into a small black cat. She stretched luxuriously and padded back into the room, ignoring the fire, rubbing her back lightly against Hjarta’s legs and jumping onto Genny’s lap, stroking the underside of his chin with her head as she kept walking, over Penny’s shoulders in that way that drove her not-really-mad, jumping onto Adrianne’s lap and tickling her nose with her tail, and then onto Harper’s lap, stretching up to lick the tip of his nose with her raspy tongue and then padding down gently (she’d learned her claws hurt people too much) and curling up against his lap and chest, her green eyes half closed as she listened, purring contentedly when she didn’t remember not to.
Family, Ciara decided, were great.

akonken.livejournal.com

(Wartime fic for

annwfyn.)

The house was dark, the towering boxes and covered furniture casting unfamiliar shadows throughout. Neither of the children could sleep, and they were huddled in front of the fireplace quietly speculating with each other.

"We'll be back at Christmas," Michael whispered staunchly. He was popular here, but a bright, active boy like him would be liked wherever he went. He was fearless and sure of getting his own way, come Hell or high water.

His older sister was his opposite in many ways. Quiet and timid like a whippet when she was unsure, the coltish 12-year-old girl just looked at him with a solemn expression. "I don't think we'll ever be able to come home."

Michael laughed and tickled her until she slapped at his hands and told him to stop in a stage whisper. The important thing was that she was laughing. He loved his sister most when she laughed - everyone did.

They giggled for a few minutes before subsiding. The war was serious, they both knew. America itself had been attacked, after all. So they were flying across the ocean to be closer to the battle. Not in Germany itself (Michael was young enough that he had visions of his father winning the battle single-handedly), or in France, but in England.

"Do you think we'll meet a leprechaun?" Michael asked after a few minutes. "Do you think they'll fight the Jerries too?"

Rosemary looked at her brother and just smiled. She didn't want to ruin his excitement, no matter how afraid and sad about what would happen she was. "Maybe. And maybe we'll see the queen while we're there," she murmured, widening her eyes to show excitement.

There was a creak upstairs, and both children looked toward the ceiling. Michael looked back first, smiling when his sister met his eyes. "We'll be together, whatever we do, though. Right?"

He held his hand out, curled on itself except for the extended pinky finger, which Rosemary took with her own and squeezed. "Swear," they said together.

There was another creak, and then a soft thud. Their mother was up. The scuttled, ratlike, to their bedrooms.

Tomorrow they would fly to their destiny. Together.

Current Mood: hopeful

yoda-ic.livejournal.com

( [Created] [Rocker] Does he know it's Christmas time at all? )

Current Mood: contemplative

http://users.livejournal.com/_crimsonearth/

So this one is for

akonken - not the happiest, but there is some positivity there. x

( About Neve... )

thelorax42.livejournal.com

Our cabal, in noir. So many liberties taken.

************************************************************************************

Essex was a dirty place. Always had been, always will be. From the filth in the waters of the Thames, long choked by industry and the effluence of the teeming hordes in that old lady London, to the people who lived by its side, crammed in a pale comparison of that ancient, corrupt city, their imitations of its sin somehow empty and tawdry, like a child dressing in it's parent's clothes.

To those who reached into the shadow of the world, and dealt with secret forces, it was no better. Ancient wizards, living in towers of power, far from the filth of the common, sleeping men they so despised below had thrown the whole place to the dogs so long ago it was past a tradition and nearly a religion. So the brightest minds had come here for the tower, and the concillium, and the most deviant desires and twisted research had been given the rest of the county, where they could only spoil what was already rotten to the core.

Now even the light of that tower has gone out, and all that's left is the dank press of what the rest of the county was given to, that, and me and my cabal, living in the empty, faded glory of the old tower.

...but enough of the scene, you've heard it all before, I bet. I'm a gambling man. Lady luck is a dame, and just like any broad in this crazy world, she picks favourites. While she don't always leave with the man she came with, that dizzy gal almost always left with me. I make my living playing the world like its a game of craps, where I just handed the dice I brought to the roller.

Which means it always surprises me when that dame luck makes me think it'll be fun to roll a craps the hard way, and throws something into my life like she was now.

The trouble itself wasn't so bad. Tall, dark haired and long limbed, she was the sort of dame men begged to help, and when she had walked into the room, I knew she was trouble. Dames with gams like that always are. Now the only bit of luck in this whole sorry story is she wasn't my trouble alone. In fact the guy she had her eyes on was Conner.

Now Conner was one of those PI's who had come into the business the hard way. A veteran from some special unit in the war, he'd seen every shade of dark that this sorry world could throw at him, and seen most of them off. Then he stood up he was taller than any man had a right to be, and he was the most level headed of all of us in the office. He watched her as she came in and started her spiel. I watched his eyebrow go up as she started, and not really come back down.

Now me and Conner have only been partners for a little while. And we got introduced by the dame in the corner. Dame who calls herself Wish. Now, since I joined this crazy world, I've chasing after lady luck like a sap who's gone all goofy for a broad, but it's taught me some frails are dangerous. Only one who comes close to Lady Luck is Wish. Now Wish is a frail with her own dough, and she uses her cash to get people what they wish for. But she's got more than that. See, she's a dame with one foot in the shadows, and I don't mean no lousy pack of gangsters. No she's the big cheese in a whole world of spirits, and she's pretty swell at using them to get a fool what he wants. Which as any one's mama will tell ya, ain't the same as what they need.

Now, Wish is sitting there waiting for the magic words, like a trap ready to snap around some unsuspecting mouses neck, she's wound tighter than it's spring, and her trigger is faster when she hears the words she needs.

Opposite me is Tristan, who came out of the army with Connor, but the two of them are as alike as day and night. He hears the dame's pitch and slams a drink down, whisky and fast, just like he prefers it. Now he knows the dame is trouble, but he's seen the sort of trouble that'll turn a man's hair white and his soul to god, but he's come out of it a hard drinking soldier, and he knows by half way though the pitch it won't end well for any of us.

The dame is still spinning her yarn as I flick my coin and stare out of the window at this old town. Now you look at it right and the city, hell the county, she's alive. She'll tell you what's important and what isn't, like a high price hooker whispering to her pimp. You just gotta learn how to read the stories these dirty streets tell. The writing on the wall.

I flip my coin and in the glint it gets from winter's watery sun, I see it all. Trouble. But we knew that when she walked in. They're always trouble. But the thing is, the secret no one tells you, that trouble is where all the interesting things happen, in this dark dirty county. It's steeped in sin, sure, but the job'll bring in something to pass the time, and see a little bit more of this worlds secrets she hides like a lady.

I flick the coin one more time, grab it out of the air and smile. Tell them we should take the job. Seen the future, and it's ours.