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useyourtelescope · 5 months

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yuletide 2023 recap!

This yuletide exchange was fun, though as usual I am still making my way through the collection (here's hoping this year I actually finish reading all the open tabs in Jan/Feb at least).

For my gift, I received a gorgeous fic for The Borgias - some Cesare/Lucrezia hurt/comfort post-season 3 with lots of my fave tropes, you can read that on ao3 here:

One Touch of Your Hand

I wrote five fics - 2 for Only Murders In the Building (Gen) & 1 each for Nancy Drew (Nancy/Ace), The Borgias (Cesare/Lucrezia) and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans (Frankie/Bobby). I did end up with 3 unfinished treats sitting in my drafts, 1 of which I wrote about 3k for, but it was probably wishful thinking that I might have completed them in time too. The published 5 are the most individual fics I’ve managed for Yuletide, or any exchange for that matter (though it’s about 1k short of the total words I’ve done for an exchange thanks to the long fics I wrote for Yuletide 2019).

Summaries of the fics themselves and thoughts on writing them below the cut:

A Whole New Direction - OMITB, Charles & Mabel & Oliver, Banter Post S2, ~800 words [ao3 link]

"I know yesterday we said we’d kind of shot ourselves in the foot podcast-wise by limiting ourselves to the building only, never mind whose idea that was—“ “It was your idea,” Mabel and Oliver replied in unison. “But never mind! I thought of a way we could continue the podcast without betraying the original premise.”

I enjoy writing their banter so this was a fun quick one; the main section came easily, it was just trying to decide where I wanted to end it that took the most time.

Co-Location - OMITB, Gen (Charles & Mabel + some Oliver), Canon Divergence in S3, ~1k words [ao3 link]

Charles offers a solution to Mabel's apartment-hunting woes.

This is a bit more sentimental than the general vibe I go for with writing the show (though not as angsty and internal as the Will POV post-Oliver’s heart attack fic I wrote for the last exchange I did), but the idea lent that way and I had to follow. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to end this one either, but when my beta mentioned that perhaps next season in the show Charles might not be able to stay at his apartment after the latest murder and would have to go to Oliver’s, the image of all three of them having to sleepover together made me laugh so I had to work that in.

Got A Lot To Learn - Nancy Drew (TV 2019), Nancy/Ace, Post-Canon Fluff, ~1.7k words [ao3 link | tumblr post]

Nancy and Ace approach a minor relationship milestone soon after breaking the curse.

This was my assignment! My recipient wanted something in canon which gave me an excuse to return to the the idea of Nancy learning ASL for Ace/his dad, which I thought was really sweet when they mentioned it on the show but the timing of that reveal meant it was angsty and I wanted it in a cute scene. Still getting the hang of writing the characters/universe but hopefully I'll be able to play more with them later this year (maybe even with the unfinished ND treat I started, though Nancy/Ace was more background in that one).

Power Over Me - The Borgias (Showtime TV), Cesare/Lucrezia, Explicit, Modern AU - Alpha/Omga, ~15k words [ao3 link | tumblr post]

Cesare has always been protective of his sister. When she unexpectedly has her first heat he worries that he might need to protect her from himself.

This got a bit away from me lol! It's not a trope I expected to write but the recipient's prompt really clicked as Cesare/Lucrezia do have that intensity that lends itself to this type of AU. It was still supposed to be a 5-6k thing initially but then I got the idea of putting Cesare through it on his special shopping trip for Lucrezia lol and started to consider more about the character arcs and showing more of Lucrezia's side of things and it snowballed into a much longer piece. That meant I had to leave aside the other Ces/Lu fic I started writing as a treat for this Yuletide, but even though I think that'll be shorter the storyline is more complicated so this was probably the better one to pick to finish for a deadline and a fun experiment for me.

The Very Thought Of You - Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Frankie/Bobby, Mature, Love Letters & Reunions, ~6k words [ao3 link | tumblr post]

A few months into their marriage, Frankie has to return to Marchbolt without Bobby. Finding the telephone insufficient for maintaining their usual level of intimacy, she starts to write to him.

There was a note in the recipient's letter about how they show each other their affection and they prompted letters for another ship which gave me the idea of Frankie and Bobby writing to one another. I was originally going to mostly focus on their time apart and just see a little bit of them reuniting at the end but once they were together I wanted to spend more time with them in the same place and thought it made sense to follow through on some of those spicier letters with giving them a bit of alone time too so it became 6k rather than 3 lol, but most of it flowed quite easily. It was just the letters and some of the historical aspects I spent time rewriting, especially Bobby's letter since that's the emotional point of the fic.

All in all, I really liked all 5 I managed to complete, but probably going to take a little exchange break for a bit and write whatever is flowing easiest rather than trying to write for a deadline.

#useyourtelescopefic #yuletide 2023 #the borgias #nancy drew #only murders in the building #why didn't they ask evans?

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