Uffish Thought

I can't believe I finally finished this story. It's been a WIP since...a few years after I posted the first story in the series in 2011? Oh, my dear, dumb perennial Yuletide fandom ♥

Find Me, Follow Me
Banlieue 13
Damien/Leito, 4500 words

The sunlight from the windows angled lower and lower, shading from twilight into darkness before the president finally waved his magic pen, granted them all pardons, and sent them off to guest bedrooms to sleep.

Damien turned right when the rest of them turned left, though.

Leïto stopped. He considered the long plush hallway, the expensive beds, the food – and then followed Damien.

Please let me know if you enjoyed it!

This year I wrote À votre santé, 2K of food-related fluff for my favorite ridiculous action movie duology and perennial Yuletide fandom, Banlieue 13!

I was given The Trip to Beta Colony by fawatson, a charming Ethan of Athos story about Ethan and Terrence during those missing eight months of their roundtrip to Beta Colony. I was extra excited to get fic for this fandom, since I petitioned for it to be included this year (since the Vorkosigan Saga at large is long since past the limit), and pleased that the writer wrote so specifically to my prompt!

I also just posted Interference, a short B13 missing scene from my earlier story Phone Tag, in which Lola rescues a stray reporter. I'm hoping to finally finish the third story in the series sometime soon, a Leito/Damien porny post-movies coda that has been a WIP for an eternity, so it's now set up as a fic series on AO3. Yes, all the titles are phone terms I found browsing the Wikipedia category for phones. No, I will not be taking comments on that at this time. :P

Also, people may have noticed that I did not post my monthly recs for November last month - partly I was feeling uninspired by what little I had saved (November was a BUSY month), and partly I wanted to do a 12 Days of Christmas recset with themed recs for each day. I did in fact do that on Tumblr, though I got behind and it was a bit messy, but if anyone is belatedly interested:

On the twelfth day of Recsmas, my reccer gave to me:

• Twelve Christmas stories
  
• Eleven weird crossovers
• Ten twisty timefucks
• Nine works a-dancing
• Eight transformations  
• Seven warring pranksters
• Six zingy banters
• Five P W Ps!
• Four first meetings
• Three great puns
• Two OT3s
• And a classic of fake dating!

Day 3 - Share a favorite piece of original canon.

I decided to go with something light today, and talk about my favorite dumb slashy action film, Banlieue 13. Set in the dystopian future of 2010 (yes, I know, shut up), where Paris has built walls around its ghettos to isolate them, a cop and a local have to team up to fight a crime lord who's stole a MacGuffin advanced bomb and then accidentally armed it in the middle of the city. TOTAL nonsense, paired with some of my favorite fight choreography ever.

The local guy, Leito, is played by David Belle aka one of the founders of parkour. The cop, Damien, is played by a professional stuntman, Cyril Raffaeli, who Americans are more likely to recognize as the French parkour mercenary from Die Hard 4. They did ALL of their own stunts in the original and most of the sequel iirc, and the movies are chock full of creative fights and chases.

More importantly, the fight choreography is beautifully character driven. Damien is very straightforward, grounded, highly trained, and Lawful Good; Leito is improvisational and anti-authoritarian and thinks laterally. Once they team up and start fighting *together* instead of against each other, they'll have these amazing broccoli moments where they move or fight at the same time, but the choreography still underscores how they're different. For example, when they get spotted on a staircase and have to fight their way up, Damien starts bulling his way straight up the stairs, taking out a ton of guys on the way with his superior martial arts skills. Leito, on the other hand, climbs over banister and parkours across the stairwell and around, tipping out a handful of dudes trying to stop him down the well along the way. They meet at the landing at the same time, like badasses.

I'm not remotely doing them justice, but I do highly recommend the movies -- as long as you're aware going in that these movies are definitely problematic (I can explain how in the comments if you need trigger warnings or squick avoidance) and you're willing to ignore that shit in favor of the awesome action and INCREDIBLY slashy main pair.

I can't find any videos of the two of them fighting together, but the opening parkour chase with Leito evading a gang whose drugs he's just stolen and destroyed (while inexplicably but delightfully shirtless) is justly famous:

Dear Yuletide Author,

OMG YULETIDE IS HEEEERE!!! Thank you, fellow fan, for loving one of these little fandoms enough to write me fic for it. ♥ You are welcome to ignore my optional details, of course, but if you like having some hints and prompts and guidelines, read on!

( General preferences )

( Fandom specifics )

If there's anything that's really confusing or stymying you about my prompts, please feel free to PM inmyriadbits (DW, Tumblr). She's my twin sister, so she knows all my preferences and can guide you - and will probably be delighted to keep the secret from me and then tell me all about it after reveals ;)

Whoops, I once again totally forgot to post my Yuletide story here!

At Play
Banlieue 13
for thedeadparrot
Damien/Leïto, outsider POV

Jean stuck his head inside the station break room just as Luc was laying out his lunch. “The Captain is sparring with Leïto!” he said breathlessly, and ducked back into the hallway.

I love this fandom, so it was really fun to match on it finally and get to play with the sparring plotbunny I've had for ages, with an actual impetus to finish.

Dear Yuletide Author,

First of all, I am SO sorry it took so long to write this for you. I have two people and a whippet camped out in my living room, and none of them are fannish, so finding space to write this has been difficult. :D

Secondly, hi! Yuletide is here, and I am so happy you're writing for me! Clearly, you have awesome taste in fandoms :) I'm incredibly easy-going, so if prompts are not something you find useful or inspiring, feel free to ignore any and all of the rambling below or my prompts in the sign-up. My only hardline request is that you not write incest. It's my one cast-iron squick, and I would not be able to read the story.

( An incomplete list of things I do like )

( Banlieue 13 )

( Lockout )

( The Wolverine )

( Books of the Raksura )

( Fast and the Furious series )

( Temeraire )

Thanks for the multiple recommendations for Dropbox on my last post, ya'll! I just had to reinstall Windows last night (I think my harddrive is actually dying, but I'm hoping it's just the OS *fingers crossed*), so once I have all my files loaded back on tonight I'll take a swing at it.

In the meantime, I am bored at work (shocking!), so let's play:

Pick a trope from this list and provide a fandom/pairing/characters and I'll tell you something about the story I'd write for that combination (i.e. write a snippet from the story or write not!fic or tell you the title and summary for the story I would write).

1. genderswap
2. bodyswap
3. drunk!fic
4. huddling for warmth
5. pretending to be married
6. secretly a virgin Damien/Leito for inmyriadbits
7. amnesia
8. cross-dressing
9. forced to share a bed Clint/Coulson for neery
10. truth or dare
11. historical AU
12. presumed dead/fix-it
13. apocalypse fic
14. telepathy Clint/Coulson for ignipes
15. High School / College AU

(with a substitution for 12 because the idea of writing kidfic is just...I have no idea where I would even start! I literally cannot remember a single plotbunny I've had involving children, now that I think of it....)

TITLE: Phone Tag
FANDOM: Banlieue 13 (aka District B13)
LENGTH: 6540 words
SUMMARY: Five times Leïto left a message for Damien, and one time Damien left a message for Leïto. Set in the three-year period between the movies.
NOTES: This fic owes its life to inmyriadbits - we're talking one of those melodramatic life-debt types of situations, so when she asked for it to be given to her as a Yuletide NYR, I could only say yes. (That today is our birthday is just a bonus.) I'd apologize for making you beta your own present, but you looked like you were having fun. ;) Additional beta thanks to bloodygoodgirl.
( Some basic information about the French police and other notes: )
Also archived at AO3.

( ONE: October 23, 2010 (7 weeks later) )

Dear Yuletide Author!

I am super excited about participating in Yuletide for the first time, so please pardon the invitable excess of exclamation points in this post! Hopefully, I covered the essential things in my submitted request, but I thought of a few random things in case you wander this way.

( Walk this way.... )

Anyway, I'm going to shut up now before I overload you. And feel free to ignore most or all of this if you have a great idea, because I also love surprises ;)