Fic in Review 2005
Jan. 1st, 2006 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alixtiiI won't post a masterlist for the year, because I'm still relatively new to fandom--my LJ is less than a year old, although I was posting at FF.net somewhat before that. Instead, I'll refer you to my indices: you can a) search my fic by universe here, b) search Buffy/Angel by character here, c) search Firefly/Serenity by character here, d) search by genre here, and e) search for meta here.
Questions gakked from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wisdomeagle.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this past year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
Possibly more, although not really surprisingly so. I didn't really have any expectations. I had possibilities, but I'm not sure if I had asked myself if I would have hoped to have written more or less.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2005?
Dawn/Giles, without a doubt. Not only have I written this, this is well on its way to becoming my main pairing. Not my OTP, because that means something else to me (my OTP, for those of you who don't know, is Mal/Kaylee, of which I haven't written not one word of fanfic), but still: I am a Dawn/Giles writer. There is no way in a thousand underworlds I could ever have predicted that. (I'm not the only Dawn/Giles writer on the 'net, but I'm fairly confident you could fit us all in a standard sized bathtub.)
My favorite story this year (of my own): Well I can't say anything else without mentioning my chaptered fic Divine Interventions, an ensemble piece where I throw Dawn, Ethan, Amy, and Cordy all together to protect Willow against a resurrected Rack and the minions of the Order of Osiris. It was amy major project this summer, and at 30,000 words is the longest fanfic I've written. It was my baby, and I'm proud of it. It'd be the answer to every one of these questions if I could. But knowing that everyone isn't going to go back and read a 30,000 word fic, I won't, and instead I'll spread out the love between my fics.
My best story this year: Facing the Shadows, Faith/Kennedy, R. This is at once a 'ship fic and plotty, with an actual adventure and a vampiric enemy. In my opinion at least, this fic is a powerful testament to the depth of two loves: Willow/Kennedy and Faith/Kennedy, both of which are close to my heart. Set several years after Willow's death, Faith and Kennedy return to Brazil and come to terms with the past.
Most fun story: "The Giles-Summers family celebrates fall holidays" series: the ficlets Eve of All Hallows (Faith/Kennedy, PG), Feast of All Saints (Dawn/Giles, PG), and Feast of All Souls (Dawn/Giles, PG-13) written forcadence_k and the longer fic Bonfire Night for karabair. There's angst, because I wrote them, but the first trilogy I think provides some nice bittersweet insights into this family. And "Bonfire Night" hasthe characters fighting off the poetry of T.S. Eliot as the main plotline--how can one beat that?
Also there's my Crack!fic Comic Crossover forglossings's ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
scoobiesinspace challenge. That's, well, sorta crack!tastic.
Sexiest story: Uncaging Monsters (Eve/Nina). Okay, I don't know about sexiest, but my Eve here is a capable seductress verbally sparring with the much more vulnerable Nina and the gratuitous nudity makes me happy.
Story with single sexiest moment: Into the Woods. Buffy and Kennedy get demon gunk all over them while battling demons in the woods, and are forced to strip naked and bathe in a nearby stream.
Most unintentionally telling story: Halfway through The Adventure of the Stolen Heart (Simon/Kaylee) I began to call the antagonist, Mary Margaret, "Mary Magdalene." It's fixed now, but that Freudian typo had to have meant something.
Otherwise, perhaps my The Sleep of Reason? We all know (because I've said it before) that I Mary-Sue Dawn, and in this fic, the only time I wrote young!Dawn (well, between seasons 5 and 6, which is young for me) I was pretty deeply in her POV. I wouldn't be surprised if there was something telling about it, although if you want me to tell you what it is you've come to the wrong place.
"Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: Either Hue of Dungeons, School of Night (Dark!Willow/Kennedy) or School of Lost Souls (Fred/River). Probably the latter, because it's not all that surprising that under a Dark Witch there'd be BDSM and enslaved Slayers and all that stuff. "School of Lost Souls" on the other hand hits much closer to home, with an intimate relationship that can seem almost loving even as it consists of child molestation and abuse of authority and, ultimately, the greatest act of betrayal imaginable. That makes it that much more disturbing.
Story that shifted my own perception of the characters: Possibly my Shepherd Book ficlets--Road to Emmaus, Conversion, and Through the Black, She Shines. I was never a huge Shepherd Book fan; in fact, that was the reason between "Road to Emmaus." The idea behind Ari's20weeks challenge was that every two weeks she would (and she did) post a new challenge, and one would post a fic using one of the ten main Firefly chatacters (counting Serenity as a character). I used Book for the first challenge, figuring it'd be best to get him out of the way as quickly as possible. As it turns out, that ficlet was the only one I ever wrote for the challenge (sorry, wisdomeagle).
Anyway, I found that while Book never interested me in canon, he was fun to write, because it wasn't too much of a stretch that he would percieve the world in terms of Chrstian symbology--a symbology in which I'm relatively fluent. One simply has to take a metaphor, then, and run with it. In writing these fics I found myself becoming much more comfortable with Book. He's still not my favorite character or even in the top four, but my perception of him certainly changed.
Hardest story to write: In general, I suppose, the longer a story is the harder it is to write, although coming up with some type of thematic message in the shorter ficlets to tie them together in lieu of plot isn't always a walk in the park. Still, I'd say the short ficlets are much easier than the long plotty fics., which means Divine Interventions would be the hardest of them all, which makes sense since I spent several months perfecting it.
In general, however, I think the longer fics are also the better fics, and are that much stronger for the extra work. The exception to this is the fics which were subpar; they tended to be difficult to write regardless of size, because I usually knew they weren't my best work even as I wrote them and had to force myself to continue.
Easiest story to write: See above.
Story I didn't write but will at some point, I swear: Oh so many. I put up a few options for the finish-a-thon; I have even more saved to my hardrive as "Watcher!verse Continuity" where I keep track of what happens when. If anything, though, I suppose I should promise to one day write To Live in Hearts and reveal the secret of who exactly Madelyn is.
Most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: My virtual series Dark Champions. As far as I know, I'm the only one who has read these scripts, although I can understand why: screenplay format isn't exactly the rage. Still, its ability to capture the feel of canon in a way that my other fanfiction can't continues to captivate, and I will post episode 3 and write episode 4 regardless of whether anyone is staying tuned. I know to listen to my muse; the last thing I want is to be on her bad side.
Most overappreciated story, still in my opinion: The Box of Yfrak (Ethan, Wesley, Illyria, Faith, Angel) was surprisingly well-recieved (to me, considering my estimation of its quality; it doesn't have a million comments worth of feedback or anything like that), but getting anything out of the challenge--which as I remember involved Wesley, Faith, Angel and the end of the world--was incredibly difficult, because I knew I'd have to go AU and I didn't think I could earn the shift from canon. So I went for crackfic and stopped even trying to earn it, and instead reached into my bag of cheap tricks and wrote what I thought was a rather pretentious and overly trite metafiction. OTOH, it did give me a chance to bring in a side of Jossverse RPS and end with that cracktastic closing line, "And then they had an orgy."
Biggest disappointment: Lethe's Blessing (Willow/Giles) may be the only fic I'm actually ashamed of. For one thing, the IWRY challenge--where we wrote fics about what might have happened to various minor or major characters during "I Will Remember You" before the reset button--turned out to be much more difficult than anyone expected, I think. I know I'm not the only one who agonized over his or her fic in that challenge.
That said, I was about to write Willow & Giles, which quickly became Willow/Giles in my mind even though I'm fairly certain my requester didn't even like that pairing. I kept on putting it off, hoping I'd get some other idea, but none other ever came. And when I did sit down to write the fic, it didn't even live up to what I had in mind. There was supposed to be a subtle but clearly felt Giles/Buffy thread, so that he would sleep with Willow in a pique of jealousy at Buffy/Angel, but suddenly as I wrote it that didn't make logical sense anymore so I was left with gestures in that direction that didn't make any sense. And so the Willow/Giles ended up less in character than I wanted and I hated the thing even before I posted it.
Biggest surprise: Triangle (Amy/Faith, Faith/Dawm, Dawn/Amy) wasn't the biggest surprise so much as simply the most recent fic I've finished. Still, it was a refresher lesson in how every fanfic becomes a surprise for its writer. Any fic long enough to not be able to planned in an instant is going to have elements that the writer didn't expect at first. I started out with the roughest of outlines: I was going to have Amy have sex with Faith, then Faith was going to have sex with Dawn, and then Dawn would have sex with Amy. But as I began to write, parallels fell into place and theme emerged even as I forged ahead, and the story became so much better than I initially imagined. It's the sort of experience that makes writing worthwhile, and while I can point to at least half a dozen other fics where a similar process took place, it never ceases to take one by surprise--the epiphanic moment of "So that's what the story is about!"
A story I want remembered: I'm going to return to where I started with this question, and put forth one more time my masterpiece, the fic closest to my heart until I manage to surpass it: Divine Interventions.
Questions gakked from
wisdomeagle.Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this past year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
Possibly more, although not really surprisingly so. I didn't really have any expectations. I had possibilities, but I'm not sure if I had asked myself if I would have hoped to have written more or less.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2005?
Dawn/Giles, without a doubt. Not only have I written this, this is well on its way to becoming my main pairing. Not my OTP, because that means something else to me (my OTP, for those of you who don't know, is Mal/Kaylee, of which I haven't written not one word of fanfic), but still: I am a Dawn/Giles writer. There is no way in a thousand underworlds I could ever have predicted that. (I'm not the only Dawn/Giles writer on the 'net, but I'm fairly confident you could fit us all in a standard sized bathtub.)
My favorite story this year (of my own): Well I can't say anything else without mentioning my chaptered fic Divine Interventions, an ensemble piece where I throw Dawn, Ethan, Amy, and Cordy all together to protect Willow against a resurrected Rack and the minions of the Order of Osiris. It was amy major project this summer, and at 30,000 words is the longest fanfic I've written. It was my baby, and I'm proud of it. It'd be the answer to every one of these questions if I could. But knowing that everyone isn't going to go back and read a 30,000 word fic, I won't, and instead I'll spread out the love between my fics.
My best story this year: Facing the Shadows, Faith/Kennedy, R. This is at once a 'ship fic and plotty, with an actual adventure and a vampiric enemy. In my opinion at least, this fic is a powerful testament to the depth of two loves: Willow/Kennedy and Faith/Kennedy, both of which are close to my heart. Set several years after Willow's death, Faith and Kennedy return to Brazil and come to terms with the past.
Most fun story: "The Giles-Summers family celebrates fall holidays" series: the ficlets Eve of All Hallows (Faith/Kennedy, PG), Feast of All Saints (Dawn/Giles, PG), and Feast of All Souls (Dawn/Giles, PG-13) written for
cadence_k and the longer fic Bonfire Night for karabair. There's angst, because I wrote them, but the first trilogy I think provides some nice bittersweet insights into this family. And "Bonfire Night" hasthe characters fighting off the poetry of T.S. Eliot as the main plotline--how can one beat that?Also there's my Crack!fic Comic Crossover for
glossings's scoobiesinspace challenge. That's, well, sorta crack!tastic.Sexiest story: Uncaging Monsters (Eve/Nina). Okay, I don't know about sexiest, but my Eve here is a capable seductress verbally sparring with the much more vulnerable Nina and the gratuitous nudity makes me happy.
Story with single sexiest moment: Into the Woods. Buffy and Kennedy get demon gunk all over them while battling demons in the woods, and are forced to strip naked and bathe in a nearby stream.
Most unintentionally telling story: Halfway through The Adventure of the Stolen Heart (Simon/Kaylee) I began to call the antagonist, Mary Margaret, "Mary Magdalene." It's fixed now, but that Freudian typo had to have meant something.
Otherwise, perhaps my The Sleep of Reason? We all know (because I've said it before) that I Mary-Sue Dawn, and in this fic, the only time I wrote young!Dawn (well, between seasons 5 and 6, which is young for me) I was pretty deeply in her POV. I wouldn't be surprised if there was something telling about it, although if you want me to tell you what it is you've come to the wrong place.
"Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: Either Hue of Dungeons, School of Night (Dark!Willow/Kennedy) or School of Lost Souls (Fred/River). Probably the latter, because it's not all that surprising that under a Dark Witch there'd be BDSM and enslaved Slayers and all that stuff. "School of Lost Souls" on the other hand hits much closer to home, with an intimate relationship that can seem almost loving even as it consists of child molestation and abuse of authority and, ultimately, the greatest act of betrayal imaginable. That makes it that much more disturbing.
Story that shifted my own perception of the characters: Possibly my Shepherd Book ficlets--Road to Emmaus, Conversion, and Through the Black, She Shines. I was never a huge Shepherd Book fan; in fact, that was the reason between "Road to Emmaus." The idea behind Ari's
20weeks challenge was that every two weeks she would (and she did) post a new challenge, and one would post a fic using one of the ten main Firefly chatacters (counting Serenity as a character). I used Book for the first challenge, figuring it'd be best to get him out of the way as quickly as possible. As it turns out, that ficlet was the only one I ever wrote for the challenge (sorry, wisdomeagle).Anyway, I found that while Book never interested me in canon, he was fun to write, because it wasn't too much of a stretch that he would percieve the world in terms of Chrstian symbology--a symbology in which I'm relatively fluent. One simply has to take a metaphor, then, and run with it. In writing these fics I found myself becoming much more comfortable with Book. He's still not my favorite character or even in the top four, but my perception of him certainly changed.
Hardest story to write: In general, I suppose, the longer a story is the harder it is to write, although coming up with some type of thematic message in the shorter ficlets to tie them together in lieu of plot isn't always a walk in the park. Still, I'd say the short ficlets are much easier than the long plotty fics., which means Divine Interventions would be the hardest of them all, which makes sense since I spent several months perfecting it.
In general, however, I think the longer fics are also the better fics, and are that much stronger for the extra work. The exception to this is the fics which were subpar; they tended to be difficult to write regardless of size, because I usually knew they weren't my best work even as I wrote them and had to force myself to continue.
Easiest story to write: See above.
Story I didn't write but will at some point, I swear: Oh so many. I put up a few options for the finish-a-thon; I have even more saved to my hardrive as "Watcher!verse Continuity" where I keep track of what happens when. If anything, though, I suppose I should promise to one day write To Live in Hearts and reveal the secret of who exactly Madelyn is.
Most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: My virtual series Dark Champions. As far as I know, I'm the only one who has read these scripts, although I can understand why: screenplay format isn't exactly the rage. Still, its ability to capture the feel of canon in a way that my other fanfiction can't continues to captivate, and I will post episode 3 and write episode 4 regardless of whether anyone is staying tuned. I know to listen to my muse; the last thing I want is to be on her bad side.
Most overappreciated story, still in my opinion: The Box of Yfrak (Ethan, Wesley, Illyria, Faith, Angel) was surprisingly well-recieved (to me, considering my estimation of its quality; it doesn't have a million comments worth of feedback or anything like that), but getting anything out of the challenge--which as I remember involved Wesley, Faith, Angel and the end of the world--was incredibly difficult, because I knew I'd have to go AU and I didn't think I could earn the shift from canon. So I went for crackfic and stopped even trying to earn it, and instead reached into my bag of cheap tricks and wrote what I thought was a rather pretentious and overly trite metafiction. OTOH, it did give me a chance to bring in a side of Jossverse RPS and end with that cracktastic closing line, "And then they had an orgy."
Biggest disappointment: Lethe's Blessing (Willow/Giles) may be the only fic I'm actually ashamed of. For one thing, the IWRY challenge--where we wrote fics about what might have happened to various minor or major characters during "I Will Remember You" before the reset button--turned out to be much more difficult than anyone expected, I think. I know I'm not the only one who agonized over his or her fic in that challenge.
That said, I was about to write Willow & Giles, which quickly became Willow/Giles in my mind even though I'm fairly certain my requester didn't even like that pairing. I kept on putting it off, hoping I'd get some other idea, but none other ever came. And when I did sit down to write the fic, it didn't even live up to what I had in mind. There was supposed to be a subtle but clearly felt Giles/Buffy thread, so that he would sleep with Willow in a pique of jealousy at Buffy/Angel, but suddenly as I wrote it that didn't make logical sense anymore so I was left with gestures in that direction that didn't make any sense. And so the Willow/Giles ended up less in character than I wanted and I hated the thing even before I posted it.
Biggest surprise: Triangle (Amy/Faith, Faith/Dawm, Dawn/Amy) wasn't the biggest surprise so much as simply the most recent fic I've finished. Still, it was a refresher lesson in how every fanfic becomes a surprise for its writer. Any fic long enough to not be able to planned in an instant is going to have elements that the writer didn't expect at first. I started out with the roughest of outlines: I was going to have Amy have sex with Faith, then Faith was going to have sex with Dawn, and then Dawn would have sex with Amy. But as I began to write, parallels fell into place and theme emerged even as I forged ahead, and the story became so much better than I initially imagined. It's the sort of experience that makes writing worthwhile, and while I can point to at least half a dozen other fics where a similar process took place, it never ceases to take one by surprise--the epiphanic moment of "So that's what the story is about!"
A story I want remembered: I'm going to return to where I started with this question, and put forth one more time my masterpiece, the fic closest to my heart until I manage to surpass it: Divine Interventions.
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Date: 2006-01-02 09:02 am (UTC)Gina
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Date: 2006-01-03 02:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-03 07:18 am (UTC)Gina
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Date: 2006-01-03 12:33 pm (UTC)....
I'm not sure what happened to the end of that comment.