lunabee34

I hesitated for the longest time to participate in this ficathon because, frankly, there's a lot of rules. And it's kind of confusing. And the whole BANNED FOR LIFE thing scared me because I mess up coding and uploading all the time. Just ask the folks over at

supernaturalfic. But I have watched you guys have an absolute blast for the past four years and this time I thought I would not miss out on the fun.

I requested three fandoms: Toy Soldiers, Across the Universe, and Frasier.

My Dear Yuletide Letter

This is my first Yuletide, and I am really excited and nervous to be participating.

Please be assured that I am thoroughly stoked that someone is writing a fic in one of the three fandoms I requested and that I will be happy with wherever the muse takes you.

Toy Soldiers is one of my favorite movies, not because it's acutally a *good* movie but because it hits my nostalgia button hard. Truthfully, it's a pretty terrible film. It's dated and watching it now, sometimes the laughs come in places I know the director did not intend. But every time I watch it, I'm 12 again and sitting in Sandy's darkened living room drinking in everything Wesley Crusher says and does and developing what will be a life long crush on Sean Astin (which if you share please to not be reading his autobiography as he comes off as a crush-crushing egomaniacal whiny baby, but I digress). This movie is about grownups who are kindly but unable to fix the situation; it's about hot boys sitting undie clad in a big pile on each other's dorm beds; it's about pranks and friendship; it's about THE FUCKING MACHINE GUN LOL. Toy Soldiers resonated so strongly with me as a teenager; the adults can't fix the situation, but a group of kids can outwit a terrorist strike group.

I will be ecstatic with whatever you choose to write. Really and truly I will. I personally see the Billy/Joey slash in neon lights, but if you don't, I'd enjoy a story about their friendship equally as well. I'd love to see all the guys playing pranks and making mischief and watching each other's backs or Billy in the movie's aftermath or man. Anything. Seriously. LOL

I also requested Across the Universe with a focus on Jude. I totally fucked up my request, which yay! I've screwed up early and in a relatively minor way so hopefully that'll be the end of that for this fest. :) I bet you read that request and thought, "Has she even *seen* this movie?" I meant to choose Max. Max's character seems crucial to me in the film even though so little of what we see is from his POV. He is, I think, the linchpin--the real thread of connection between all these disparate characters. I will, again, be satisfied with any permutation of characters and any pairing you'd like to write for this fandom--het, gen, slash (including femslash), incest; it's all good.

Finally, I requested Fraiser sibcest. Normally, when I want to read something this badly, I just write it myself and hope that others will follow suit. But even though I have a vision in my head of how such a fic might go, I am not funny or witty or erudite, and the few attempts I've made to write the pairing myself will never ever ever see the light of day on lj. I understand that this concept may be something that squicks you mightily, that you simply cannot write. And I'm cool with that. I would desperately love to read some Niles/Frasier, but barring that, I'd love a fic that's full of the brothers engaging in all the witty snarky banter in the show, minus the sex. :) Or an ensemble piece.

The main thing I hope you get from this letter is that I am not picky and I will be honored that you took the time to write for me no matter the shape the end product takes.

The story I received was Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End by Farasha Silversands and I could not have asked for a better Yuletide gift. I briefly recced this piece in a previous post, but let me say in a little more depth why I like this fic. I think it is an absolutely pitch perfect depiction of PTSD and what I imagine it might be like to try to reintegrate into life after such a harrowing experience. And in Max's case, what it might be like to figure out where you belong when everything you left behind has changed in ways that you can't live with. This is a fic about love, pure and simple, and I love that it was written for me.

I offered to write in a few fandoms: Across the Universe, Outlaw Star (I was really hoping to get this one as Josh and I just recently Netflixed and watched the whole of the series), UKLeG Earthsea, Hebrew Bible or Old Testament (Jael, Sisera, Deborah).

These were my recipient's requests:

1. Alan Bennett--The History Boys
2. Across the Universe--Max/Jude; post-movie; what happens when the music stops?
3. Dead Poet's Society--Life in the subjunctive; events that didn't happen, but almost happened, or should have happened.
4. Michael Cunningham--The Hours

One and four were out instantly because I'd never seen or read the source material. I thought long and hard about the second prompt, but ultimately I decided that I wanted to revisit Dead Poet's Society because it had been such a huge part of my youth.

Reactions to Re-watching the Movie

This was really an odd experience for me. DPS came out when I was ten, right on the cusp of, well, everything. Puberty and boobs and angst and poetry and all that lovely teenage jazz. Back in those ye old days, though, it took a year or two for a film to get put on VHS, so I probably didn't see it for the first time until I was 12 or 13. DPS was really the film of high school for me. (That and Renaissance Man. Don't ask) Jouida and I memorized pretty much the entire dialogue of the movie. I threw away notebook after notebook that was just quotes from the movie when I cleared my room at my parent's house to move out. This movie inspired me. It made me read Whitman and Thoreau and Emerson and it made me write poetry and it made me FEEL in a visceral way that few films since have done. I had always wanted to be a teacher; I think I sprang from the womb mewling, "I want to be an English professor when I grow up." But after DPS, I knew just what kind of teacher I wanted to be. The Keating kind.

I hadn't seen the movie since high school. After I got into fandom, I dipped my toes in the Yuletide archive and read all the DPS there and I loved all the fic. There is some seriously awesome fic in this fandom. Check my rec tags and see for yourself. So when I watched the film to write my Yuletide fic this year, I was seriously surprised when I was so underwhelmed.

I don't know exactly why, but the movie so did not grab me on this re-watch like it did on the first go round. I don't know if it's because it's dated and doesn't hold up well or because you have to be in the throes of blossoming hormones to appreciate it or because it was one of the first in what has proven to be a long line of Magical Pedagogy films and now I'm just burned out on them or what. I do know that if this movie came out now and I were watching it for the first time I would think it was okay and not give it a second thought. I thought the score was weird and jarring. It was very much less slashy than I had remembered (possibly because most of the fanfic I'd read was slashy and I was superimposing that on canon). All in all, DPS was not the movie I remembered from my childhood. This really upset me. Like horribly. Has that ever happened to you guys? Have you ever revisited something you loved as a kid and found as an adult that it was not as awesome as you'd remembered?

Even though I was disappointed with the movie, I decided to still write for that prompt.

The next thing I did was check out my recipient's journal to see what s/he's into and whether she'd left a letter for me. I didn't find a Dear Yuletide Author Letter but I did see some SGA slash there so I felt like my recipient would be okay with slash if that's where the muse took me.

S/he pretty much gave me the whole fic wrapped up in a shiny bow anyway with that kickass prompt. There was my title. LOL And y'all know how much I love both drabbles and the five things meme. This prompt seemed pretty much tailor made for both.

What I was trying to do in each vignette

In the first double drabble, I explore what might have happened if Keating had listened to Nolan, if he had pulled back, if he had streamlined his pedagogy to fit in with everyone else's. You notice that Keating isn't a total sell out here; he doesn't concede everything, but he gives up just enough that the DPS never even happens. And, yes, you can infer that Neil still lives, which is a win, but none of the good things that came from Keating's teaching survive.

In the second double drabble, I explore one of the ways that Neil and Todd might have gotten together. One of the things that I noticed about the movie was the winter imagery--snow, the frozen lake, geese taking flight--and I wanted to acknowledge that in this fic. This vignette owes a great deal to Margaret Wise Brown and Pussycat's Christmas which is my alltime favorite Christmas book and in my top ten children's books ever.

In the third double drabble, I explore what might have happened to Cameron and Pitts after Welton. Military school is bandied about as a punishment for them all and the movie is set right on the threshold of the Vietnam War. It's no stretch to imagine that after they graduate, some of them would have ended up in the war. I love this vignette. The thought of the two of them shoulder to shoulder and leaning on each other chokes me up.

In the fourth double drabble, I wrote a scene that feels very much like canon to me. What did they do when all was said and done, when Neil was in the ground and it was time for everyone left living to move on? I can't imagine that they didn't go back to that cave. And as intuitive and perceptive as Todd is, this is a conclusion that I can easily imagine that he would come to.

The final double drabble, is the fix it. Neil lives. He acquiesces to his father's wishes. But he does not give up what he has learned, what he has become. His friends don't let him. Neil doesn't do the play. He grows up and becomes a doctor. But he is Puck, dammit. And I think you can infer that these are his buddies for life.

I had the best beta in the whole world--

ariadne83. (I'm sure you guys are all, "Why is she going into this much detail? The navel has been gazed enough." But I can't help it)

Our Email Exchange

On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 3:28 PM, <lunabee34@aol.com> wrote:

So here's the sitch.

My recipient's request was worded thusly: Life in the subjunctive--what should have or could have happened.

So after I stopped squealing because dude! I could so do that! this is what I came up with.

I've got five double drabbles.

I'm particularly interested in what you think of their order. They appear right now in the order that I wrote them and I can't really think of any organizing principle. Should they stay in this order? Rearrange? *helpless hands*

ariadne83 said:

Prepare for my (heavily biased :D) thoughts!

I'd switch the order of 2 and 4, but leave 1, 3 and 5 where they are. Here's why:

1 is a powerful opening which sets up the issues you explore in the other drabbles. Keating has betrayed his students in a way, by becoming what he was cautioning them against, but given what we know happens to Neil in the movie Keating's compromise (while sad and beaten-down) saves them from their own intransigence. Everyone has to give, in some way, to get along - the key is how much. Here, Keating has arguably given too much, but others, later, will restore the balance.

Which I think natually leads into 4 (the slashy one). The boys are still at school, and presumably living within the rules enough to get along, but they have something they keep private, which no-one can take away. They don't completely buck the system, but they don't give in to *every* pressure either. It's a sweet moment which tempers the bitterness of the first one.

And then we have 3, which I think is the pivot for the whole series. Structurally, I think it's a good centrepiece. It's canon, but only slightly tilted and with the thrum of defiance that defined most of the movie. I really like the way you've described the consequences for the boys, and not just for Keating - and I like that they grow up enough to shoulder the responsibility for their own decisions. Stark but not hopeless, and a centre from which the other pieces deviate.

2 is the darkest, so I'd put it here, just before the up-beat ending of 5. I think the contrast of the two tells a story - some blame Neil's father for his death, some of his friends blame themselves, but Neil himself also has to carry some of the blame, because hope may be lethal, but only if you let it go. I've always thought Neil gave up too soon, and that he could have had his entire adult life to get to a position where he could successfully defy his father (or at least come to a compromise he could live with). 5 isn't exactly that, because he *does* end up as a surgeon, but I think it's close.

I could go on some more about how the boys' relationships with each other are so fluid and interesting, and how the subtle ways they care for and restore each other really make this special... Dammit, I really need to watch this movie again :-)

Finally, the reception. The ficathon is full of warnings that this is often a low feedback fest, that often only the recipient responds, and I was prepared to be totally okay with that. For reals. But then, I got all these comments. *squeeeeeeeeeeeee* And ALL THESE LORRAINE RECS (including this one from my inveterate cheerleader). I got a Gold Star for being an early poster. I navigated the rules and the crazy posting interface (with the help of you guys) and I got a seriously kick ass fic of my own. (Also, go to my userpics and check out all the cool Yuletide icons.)

Yuletide rocks! Is it December again yet? :)

ETA: I forgot the part where I watched this fanvid by stephantom over and over again for inspiration, and strangely found it way more compelling than the source material itself.