Secret Santa 2018 - Story collection

[Mineoa]

Thank you Crud. That wasn't what I was expecting and cought me completely off guard. That was a wonderful story and honestly I felt like I was about to cry when i realized it was Hisao. I mean, that caught me REALLY off guard. I really appreciate the story. It was fantastic.

[Zerebos]

Pablo, that is not at all the set of characters I expected with that prompt, but that's a good thing. I actually really liked the cast you chose and how you brought them together. Kenji stories like this are always hilarious and this is no exception. I think your characterization of him was pretty good for most of it, he just seemed a bit *too* receptive to being with Misha and Shizune. But him being too much of a dolt to realize she's deaf was perfect

All in all, I really enjoyed this, it was really unique. Thanks Pabs!

[LordDarknus]

Scare yourself awake. Breathe in. Pee. Sleep again.

That's hilarious.

I kind of bastardized the request,

[...]

The request was:

Can I have my prompt be that Hanako has been getting presents lately from someone but she doesn't know who, but one day she walks into her room early and there's like two or three skeletons dressed up as santa clause and they're putting presents in her room? I just want the secret santa to be a couple of festive skelleton dudes. Otherwise the story can be anything.

I took the "...story can be anything..." route. I wanted to make it scary but I don't know how to.

Dude, what, come on, you never heard of Captain Jack Sparrow Santa Jack Skellington?



I wanted Jack Skellington to take Hanako to Christmas Town or something...

[cpl_crud]

Scare yourself awake. Breathe in. Pee. Sleep again.

That's hilarious.

I kind of bastardized the request,

[...]

The request was:

Can I have my prompt be that Hanako has been getting presents lately from someone but she doesn't know who, but one day she walks into her room early and there's like two or three skeletons dressed up as santa clause and they're putting presents in her room? I just want the secret santa to be a couple of festive skelleton dudes. Otherwise the story can be anything.

I took the "...story can be anything..." route. I wanted to make it scary but I don't know how to.

Dude, what, come on, you never heard of Captain Jack Sparrow Santa Jack Skellington?



I wanted Jack Skellington to take Hanako to Christmas Town or something...

Yeah, I have to admit that I'm not up to date on Mr Skeletal references, or any jolly skeletons.

It might be a bit of bias, but I don't see "happy and jolly" as really a Hanako thing. But maybe I'm just too cynical...!

As for the reaction to a night terror, I have to admit that I may have done some unnecessary self-insertion there.

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, at first I thought Hanako was getting a visit by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future...
Now that would actually make for an interesting story... though maybe better with Hisao being the one visited...

[ProfAllister]

Onsen a Lifetime

Nice story, but, umm... what's with all the Airplane! references?

Rooftop Repartee

Similar to Mirage, it's a nice story, but it's kinda sad to see (serious) depictions of Nomiya as the resident creep. Fun and goofy depictions are enjoyable for a laugh, but serious writing in that direction is just low-hanging fruit.

All I want for Christmas...

Cute story, lots of fun, and reasonably well-written. Some word repetition, and I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of third person present tense stories, but that's mostly a personal preference.

Holiday Hunger Humbug

An extremely strong showing for a first post. Looking forward to seeing more. That being said, I'd advise against going for radio silence until you're ready to post. Commenting on fics and getting involved in the community will make it easier to commit to sticking with writing and eventually posting your story.

A Silent Jive under Miseltoe and Snow

As already said, short and sweet. A repetition of "seem interesting", and I'm personally a fan of avoiding name drops when making outside references, but those are little nitpicks. A quiet breath between moments can be very refreshing indeed.

[Untitled Self-Portrait #9](If you don't give your story a title, I'm gonna do it for you :p )

"Scary Ghost Stories" is one of the Christmas traditions that's been somewhat forgotten in recent years, so nice to see it come back. And I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that it's a bit of an honor for you to participate this year. A quiet, melancholic story is nice, and something hard to get right, so hats off to you. I'll admit that I find it a little odd that Hanako's Father is taller than Hisao (One of the tallest characters in KS), but I guess it isn't outside the realm of possibility.

Kenji Survives the Christmas Apocalypse

Very nicely done, and a fun twist on the prompt given. One bit jumps out at me, though: I don't think it's especially accurate to describe Shizune as Misha's protege...

(Outside submissions will be addressed in their own threads (when completed))

... And that essentially wraps it up for this year. We have a few late submissions, but my understanding is that the recipients have been contacted, and the late submissions will be forthcoming... eventually. The good news is that I've got semi-reliable methods of contacting the remaining writers, so I'll at least have a way to know whether I should mobilise the backup writers. Hopefully, we'll get all our submissions in before July this year.

As today is the Theophany (according to the Julian Calendar), we're pretty much at the last day of the Christmas season, even by the standards of the most extreme revelers (who have a legalistic basis). So This is the formal close of ceremonies, with a big "thank you" to everyone who participated. with any luck, we can look forward to something similar next Christmas!

[Mirage_GSM]

Added the latest submission by Scrathminus to the index.

With this there should be four stories still missing - plus one or two that are still in progress.

@ProfAllister are you going to give those four to other writers so Craftyatom, Vekter, BristerXD and PabloPabloPablo also get their prompts written?

[monkeywitha6pack]

My very late post for BristerXD with the prompt Rins snowfort. I had a lot of personal issues over the last few months, and every so often I tried to sit down and work on it a bit and I'd rather not keep him waiting any longer, so heres what I pulled off



It's not too often we get more than a small amount of snow, but the storm last night brought in a hefty amount. Instead of getting to relax in the dorms where it’s nice and toasty, I’m out here building a giant snow fortress while Rin cryptically describes how she wants it to look.

After about the third time she’s told me to “make it less fluffy on that side,” I turn to her. “Please remind me why I’m the one doing this.”

“My feet would get cold if I tried,” she says with her version of a shrug.

There's no point in trying to argue with her so I get back to work. I woke up to her banging on my door about some dream she had, but this is a little extre--- Before I can finish my thought a snowball hits me in the back of the head.

“That wasn't very funny.” I whip my head around to see the culprit but Rin is just standing there, no one else in sight.

“Rin?”

“Wasn't me.”

“Then who was it?”

Before I can get an answer I’m hit from behind again, and once more I whip around to catch the culprit, only to see nothing but white. I decide its best to fight fire with fire. I bend down to make a snowball, pause and…

*WHAM*

I turn around, , and catch the culprit about to throw another one.

“Emi?”

She looks back with a smug smile.

“Listen Emi, I think we can talk this through, no need for war!”

Without skipping a beat she throws another one straight at me, but I dive into the fort, the fluffy snow cushioning my fall.

“I don't think she wants war... she brought snowballs, not weapons.” Rin says, already sitting in the fort with me.

I let out a long sigh. “I guess there’s nothing I can do.”

I carefully make a sizeable ball and peek up from cover to look for the enemy... There! I throw the ball but she's too quick. Guess I was just lucky the first time.

“Dammit, shouldn’t the snow slow her down?”

“Oh, but it is!” I hear her yell but it's too late; another ball hits me right in the face.

Okay, I’ll never be faster then her, but I can be smarter! I just need to study her and predict where she's going.

*WHACK*

“Finally!* I scream after finally landing a second hit.

*WHACK*

“Ha! Don’t get too cocky!” Dammit, I got too distracted by a meager achievement.

I lean down and start making a surplus of ammo in between ducking and dodging throws from her.

*WHAM*

I hit her once...

*WHAM*

...and another before she can recover. Pretty soon I’m throwing a mini-barrage at her.

I see a few whiz by Emi’s head in between my throws, until one finally hits. I look over to see Rin on the ground with her shoes off, looking very proud that she managed to get a hit.

“See I told you my feet would get cold.” I can’t help but smile as she wriggles her shoes back on

it goes back and forth like this for some time, and at some point I started having fun. But now it's dark and we have to leave the fort unfinished. The three of us are back in Rin’s room, where it's considerably warmer.

“I’m sorry Rin, I never finished the fort.”

She leans her head onto my shoulder.

“You weren’t doing a very good job of it so it’s ok.Today was still better than my dream was, anyway.”

[brythain]

This one is for Vekter, a whole year late, on behalf of whomever was supposed to write for Vekter originally.

Secrets

Better late than never!