Favourite fics meme...
.. stolen off sophiamoon, because my LJ is just gathering dust lately.
Post a list of your top ten favourite fics you've written, regardless of fandom or the reason you love them. This isn't about the BEST things you've written, but what you LOVE most. Then tag five other people to do the same.
I've been writing fic, on and off, for over 10 years now. From the Suest of Mary Sues to... um, hopefully moderately complex characters, from Star Trek and Harry Potter to the murky waters of RPS, I've come a long way. I think that 90% of my fics (wish-fulfilment stuff, mostly) are unposted anywhere, and will hopefully remain so, but of those published, my favourites are (in no particular order, and much too wordily explained)...
-Inside (Fandom: Harry Potter. Pairing: Severus Snape/Sirius Black)
The fires are lit in every single fireplace, there are candles and torches along the corridors, but still I have the feeling my breath freezes in my throat, and that the strongest gust of that wind outside cannot rival what I feel every time I must go past my mother's portrait, veiled as it is. The ghostly aura that canvas emanates is even colder than the coldest clear sky I remember seeing from the skylight in my cell in Azkaban, when I saw the Dog Star and could not remember its name. (...) Now I feel that what Peter started that Halloween Eve, what the Dementors continued in Azkaban, this lethifold of a house will finish, and I'll become some kind of empty shell that looks like Sirius Black, speaks like Sirius Black but it's not, inside, where it counts, Sirius Black.
Yes, it's a songfic and yes, it's melodramatic, and yes, I was young, but I think that what I did here with Sirius' voice I've seldom managed to do with other characters, and there is a lyrical quality to the writing, and a sense of rhythm, that I usually struggle to write and that here seems to flow efortlessly. I LOVE this piece.
-Are you having fun? (Fandom: Harry Potter. Pairing: Severus Snape/Sirius Black)
If killing you would stop all this, I would do it. But I'm familiar with death, and I know that the answer to my problems lays not there.(...) Dead things are even more dangerous than living things, when it comes to the matters of the heart. If you died, by my hand or someone else's, what can be vexed and made cruel fun of now would become sacred, holy, unnameable, and it would take away even my hate for you, which is the only thing that keeps me sane nowadays.
In a sense, a companion songfic to 'Inside', from Snape's POV. Again, melodramatic, but also a great experiment on getting a character's voice right, although it's less lyrical and more cynical. I loved writing Snape then, and I love wrting Snape-like characters now, and I think I learnt the use of the second person with this fic.
-Family Matters (Fandom: Harry Potter. Pairing: Severus Snape/OFC)
The threat had been removed, the stranger had been stopped, and now there was only the burning taste of blood in its tongue, the taste of flesh out of an open chest. The part of Remus that had learnt self-control with the Marauders, and that had been caught unaware by the difficult transformation, suddenly reacted by thrusting its muzzle out of the body and focusing its golden eyes on it; wasn't it a dog a few minutes before?
Oh Merlin, no! Sirius, his blue eyes closed. Sirius, his good-natured face scratched. Sirius, his throat and chest mangled beyond recognition. Sirius, blood that still tingled in its mouth making it want *more*. Sirius, his non-beating heart almost exposed by the furious wound on his chest. Sirius, flesh torn from the neck downwards. And still the beast wanted more and more, and more…
One of my Mary Sues of the later period. Yes, she is a shockingly beautiful and powerful witch that leaves broken hearts in her wake and ends up married to one of my favourite characters. She is also deliciously, remorselessly evil, and one of the first characters that took off from the page and started doing its own thing. Also, I think I wrote the most awful murder I've ever written for this fic.
- Alabaster (Fandom: Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Pairing: Antonio/Bassanio)
My Antonio, I hope this letter finds you as well
as my prayers and thoughts wish you to be. Your
life, that my fair Portia so cleverly rescued, is still
the dearest thing to me, next to you heart, and I envy
Venice, not for all her riches or her husband, the sea,
but for having your presence, whereas I am left
with nought but your sweet memory. I pray you, do
not forget your dear friend Bassanio, who has given
you as much grief as joy he wished to grant you,
and who sends you his love along with this letter,
since his heart you have since long ago.
I wrote this for a request. Never before -and never again- had I ever toyed with the thought of trying to write fic for *Shakespeare* of all things... but this fic got a lot of great comments, a rec at EpicRecs, and I'm actually weirdly proud of how I got the Shakespearian language and tone right.
- Clean Break, Tangled and Unravelled (Fandom: Football. Pairing: Steven Gerrard/Xabi Alonso (Steven Gerrard/Fernando Torres))
“Was it so hard for you, then, to tell me you actually wanted me?”
“How else did you want me to tell you, Steven?” asks Xabi, his voice tight in an effort to control his temper. “If all these years haven’t been enough, how else did you want me to tell you?”
This might be, still, my fave fic in this fandom. The characters were alive, flawed and fitted beautifully together. Writing this was like doing a puzzle, where all the pieces found their place. And I didn't give them a fake happy ending, and nothing got resolved, and I LOVE this fic so much, even now, that I wish I could go back to it and write a sequel and make a whole novel out of it, because I didn't say a tenth of what I wanted to make these characters say...
- Desde siempre, Hasta ahora and Como siempre. (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: Carles Puyol/Xavi Hernández, (Xavi Hernández/Javier Saviola), Pep Guardiola/Andres Iniesta)
Porque a Javier lo quiso.
Lo quiso como nunca te atreviste a soñar que pudiera quererte a ti.
Lo quiso tanto que se le iluminaban los ojos sólo cuando Javier estaba cerca. Lo quiso tanto que lanzó al olvido sus proverbiales timidez y discreción para abrazarlo siempre que pudiera, sin importarle lo adecuado del momento. Lo quiso tanto que sólo sonreía al pensar en él.
Lo quiso tanto que no le quedó nada cuando Javier se fue.
One of my first full-length RPS fics in Spanish. Again, like in the SeX trilogy, the characters came alive and dovetailed neatly into each other; there were interactions and consequences that couldn't have turned out better if I'd spent a year planning them.
- Transcendence (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: David Beckham/Iker Casillas)
David is happier than he remembers being. When he was the star of Manchester United and Ferguson had only good things to say about him and England was heaping all its hopes on his shoulders, he had felt at top of the world. Now, he sees that feeling for what it was, a transient bubble of satisfaction, ready to pop after a defeat, a hurtful tabloid headline, an off day.
This happiness is more solid, more real. It has substance, it looks as if it could outlast football and fame and fortune. It is still precarious and secret, and David is well aware that it is threatened from all sides, but he has the feeling that it will withstand anything the world can throw at it.
I wanted to say too much in too few words, but I love this pairing and this fic came out like a stuttering declaration of that love.
- Growing up (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: Leo Messi/Bojan Krkic)
Is this the boy from two years ago, who was so withdrawn that one practically had to ask Deco for an appointment to talk to him? Is this the mop-haired kid who walked everywhere with his headphones (blaring truly horrible music) and couldn’t understand why people would want a picture of him, or an autograph?
Is this the boy you wanted to hug every time you scored a goal, every time he scored a goal, every time you played together, every time you won, every time you lost, every time you were in the same room? Is this the boy you wanted to kiss every time you saw him?
Leo looks away from Pedro and straight at you, and you feel your heart doing an awkward little flop; that he catches you looking at him has happened too many times now, so you know the best thing is to try not to look caught and just smile casually. He smiles back, sweet and oblivious as usual, and your heart again tries some impossible acrobatics inside your chest.
Yes, he is still that boy. Only that now he is also so much more than that.
An efortless, happy piece for an effortless, happy pairing. This is flirty and careless and funny and cute and I love when I'm able to write like this, just a few characters chatting and being themselves without some huge drama behind them, just a few giggles and a few blushes.
- The beauty of the young (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: Diego Forlán/Martín Cáceres)
He barely had one glass of wine at dinner, and the beer he had been drinking was alcohol-free, but Diego finds his brain turning to mush as the crowd pushes them closer and closer, the rhythm makes them move faster and faster, until there is no space between them and his hand is resting (finally!) on the small of Martín’s back, touching that strip of exposed skin that’s been taunting him for what feels like an eternity.
Martín arches into the touch, his gesture making Diego’s hand slip further under his shirt, and his smile is all Diego can see for a moment. Is it too late to pretend nothing is happening, can he blame it on alcohol and loneliness should Martín decide he’s taken the joke too far, how is he going to be able to live with this memory when the harsh light of day dispels the illusion?
Then Martín leans in and Diego’s breath hitches not only at the closeness, but at the sudden reminder that the younger man is almost an inch taller than he is (he finds this so fucking sexy he could just die).
The one fic I've written that I've re-read and actually thought, "Well, this is HOT!". For a pairing that I'd never even considered, with characters I'd never written before and maybe will never write again, too!
- Idiots (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: Fernando Llorente/Javi Martínez)
It was just his damn luck, really. He did everything well, he had luck on his side, he made the first team and La Selección before his 22nd birthday, and then he went and spoilt it all by making the most idiotic mistake in all the history of idiotic ways in which footballers had ruined their careers: by developing a heart-stopping crush on one of his teammates.
And not just any of this teammates, either. He had to aim for the most beautiful, the most successful, the most kind-hearted… the most unattainable, in a word. If there was in the world one footballer who would look at Javi and not run in the opposite direction, that one certainly couldn’t be Fernando Llorente.
I made drbillbongo cry with this fic! I love it because I wrote this for him and he liked it, and that's, in the end, why I like to write: to give people something they like.
This is fun! Don't wait for me to tag you, just do it!
:)
Post a list of your top ten favourite fics you've written, regardless of fandom or the reason you love them. This isn't about the BEST things you've written, but what you LOVE most. Then tag five other people to do the same.
I've been writing fic, on and off, for over 10 years now. From the Suest of Mary Sues to... um, hopefully moderately complex characters, from Star Trek and Harry Potter to the murky waters of RPS, I've come a long way. I think that 90% of my fics (wish-fulfilment stuff, mostly) are unposted anywhere, and will hopefully remain so, but of those published, my favourites are (in no particular order, and much too wordily explained)...
-Inside (Fandom: Harry Potter. Pairing: Severus Snape/Sirius Black)
The fires are lit in every single fireplace, there are candles and torches along the corridors, but still I have the feeling my breath freezes in my throat, and that the strongest gust of that wind outside cannot rival what I feel every time I must go past my mother's portrait, veiled as it is. The ghostly aura that canvas emanates is even colder than the coldest clear sky I remember seeing from the skylight in my cell in Azkaban, when I saw the Dog Star and could not remember its name. (...) Now I feel that what Peter started that Halloween Eve, what the Dementors continued in Azkaban, this lethifold of a house will finish, and I'll become some kind of empty shell that looks like Sirius Black, speaks like Sirius Black but it's not, inside, where it counts, Sirius Black.
Yes, it's a songfic and yes, it's melodramatic, and yes, I was young, but I think that what I did here with Sirius' voice I've seldom managed to do with other characters, and there is a lyrical quality to the writing, and a sense of rhythm, that I usually struggle to write and that here seems to flow efortlessly. I LOVE this piece.
-Are you having fun? (Fandom: Harry Potter. Pairing: Severus Snape/Sirius Black)
If killing you would stop all this, I would do it. But I'm familiar with death, and I know that the answer to my problems lays not there.(...) Dead things are even more dangerous than living things, when it comes to the matters of the heart. If you died, by my hand or someone else's, what can be vexed and made cruel fun of now would become sacred, holy, unnameable, and it would take away even my hate for you, which is the only thing that keeps me sane nowadays.
In a sense, a companion songfic to 'Inside', from Snape's POV. Again, melodramatic, but also a great experiment on getting a character's voice right, although it's less lyrical and more cynical. I loved writing Snape then, and I love wrting Snape-like characters now, and I think I learnt the use of the second person with this fic.
-Family Matters (Fandom: Harry Potter. Pairing: Severus Snape/OFC)
The threat had been removed, the stranger had been stopped, and now there was only the burning taste of blood in its tongue, the taste of flesh out of an open chest. The part of Remus that had learnt self-control with the Marauders, and that had been caught unaware by the difficult transformation, suddenly reacted by thrusting its muzzle out of the body and focusing its golden eyes on it; wasn't it a dog a few minutes before?
Oh Merlin, no! Sirius, his blue eyes closed. Sirius, his good-natured face scratched. Sirius, his throat and chest mangled beyond recognition. Sirius, blood that still tingled in its mouth making it want *more*. Sirius, his non-beating heart almost exposed by the furious wound on his chest. Sirius, flesh torn from the neck downwards. And still the beast wanted more and more, and more…
One of my Mary Sues of the later period. Yes, she is a shockingly beautiful and powerful witch that leaves broken hearts in her wake and ends up married to one of my favourite characters. She is also deliciously, remorselessly evil, and one of the first characters that took off from the page and started doing its own thing. Also, I think I wrote the most awful murder I've ever written for this fic.
- Alabaster (Fandom: Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Pairing: Antonio/Bassanio)
My Antonio, I hope this letter finds you as well
as my prayers and thoughts wish you to be. Your
life, that my fair Portia so cleverly rescued, is still
the dearest thing to me, next to you heart, and I envy
Venice, not for all her riches or her husband, the sea,
but for having your presence, whereas I am left
with nought but your sweet memory. I pray you, do
not forget your dear friend Bassanio, who has given
you as much grief as joy he wished to grant you,
and who sends you his love along with this letter,
since his heart you have since long ago.
I wrote this for a request. Never before -and never again- had I ever toyed with the thought of trying to write fic for *Shakespeare* of all things... but this fic got a lot of great comments, a rec at EpicRecs, and I'm actually weirdly proud of how I got the Shakespearian language and tone right.
- Clean Break, Tangled and Unravelled (Fandom: Football. Pairing: Steven Gerrard/Xabi Alonso (Steven Gerrard/Fernando Torres))
“Was it so hard for you, then, to tell me you actually wanted me?”
“How else did you want me to tell you, Steven?” asks Xabi, his voice tight in an effort to control his temper. “If all these years haven’t been enough, how else did you want me to tell you?”
This might be, still, my fave fic in this fandom. The characters were alive, flawed and fitted beautifully together. Writing this was like doing a puzzle, where all the pieces found their place. And I didn't give them a fake happy ending, and nothing got resolved, and I LOVE this fic so much, even now, that I wish I could go back to it and write a sequel and make a whole novel out of it, because I didn't say a tenth of what I wanted to make these characters say...
- Desde siempre, Hasta ahora and Como siempre. (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: Carles Puyol/Xavi Hernández, (Xavi Hernández/Javier Saviola), Pep Guardiola/Andres Iniesta)
Porque a Javier lo quiso.
Lo quiso como nunca te atreviste a soñar que pudiera quererte a ti.
Lo quiso tanto que se le iluminaban los ojos sólo cuando Javier estaba cerca. Lo quiso tanto que lanzó al olvido sus proverbiales timidez y discreción para abrazarlo siempre que pudiera, sin importarle lo adecuado del momento. Lo quiso tanto que sólo sonreía al pensar en él.
Lo quiso tanto que no le quedó nada cuando Javier se fue.
One of my first full-length RPS fics in Spanish. Again, like in the SeX trilogy, the characters came alive and dovetailed neatly into each other; there were interactions and consequences that couldn't have turned out better if I'd spent a year planning them.
- Transcendence (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: David Beckham/Iker Casillas)
David is happier than he remembers being. When he was the star of Manchester United and Ferguson had only good things to say about him and England was heaping all its hopes on his shoulders, he had felt at top of the world. Now, he sees that feeling for what it was, a transient bubble of satisfaction, ready to pop after a defeat, a hurtful tabloid headline, an off day.
This happiness is more solid, more real. It has substance, it looks as if it could outlast football and fame and fortune. It is still precarious and secret, and David is well aware that it is threatened from all sides, but he has the feeling that it will withstand anything the world can throw at it.
I wanted to say too much in too few words, but I love this pairing and this fic came out like a stuttering declaration of that love.
- Growing up (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: Leo Messi/Bojan Krkic)
Is this the boy from two years ago, who was so withdrawn that one practically had to ask Deco for an appointment to talk to him? Is this the mop-haired kid who walked everywhere with his headphones (blaring truly horrible music) and couldn’t understand why people would want a picture of him, or an autograph?
Is this the boy you wanted to hug every time you scored a goal, every time he scored a goal, every time you played together, every time you won, every time you lost, every time you were in the same room? Is this the boy you wanted to kiss every time you saw him?
Leo looks away from Pedro and straight at you, and you feel your heart doing an awkward little flop; that he catches you looking at him has happened too many times now, so you know the best thing is to try not to look caught and just smile casually. He smiles back, sweet and oblivious as usual, and your heart again tries some impossible acrobatics inside your chest.
Yes, he is still that boy. Only that now he is also so much more than that.
An efortless, happy piece for an effortless, happy pairing. This is flirty and careless and funny and cute and I love when I'm able to write like this, just a few characters chatting and being themselves without some huge drama behind them, just a few giggles and a few blushes.
- The beauty of the young (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: Diego Forlán/Martín Cáceres)
He barely had one glass of wine at dinner, and the beer he had been drinking was alcohol-free, but Diego finds his brain turning to mush as the crowd pushes them closer and closer, the rhythm makes them move faster and faster, until there is no space between them and his hand is resting (finally!) on the small of Martín’s back, touching that strip of exposed skin that’s been taunting him for what feels like an eternity.
Martín arches into the touch, his gesture making Diego’s hand slip further under his shirt, and his smile is all Diego can see for a moment. Is it too late to pretend nothing is happening, can he blame it on alcohol and loneliness should Martín decide he’s taken the joke too far, how is he going to be able to live with this memory when the harsh light of day dispels the illusion?
Then Martín leans in and Diego’s breath hitches not only at the closeness, but at the sudden reminder that the younger man is almost an inch taller than he is (he finds this so fucking sexy he could just die).
The one fic I've written that I've re-read and actually thought, "Well, this is HOT!". For a pairing that I'd never even considered, with characters I'd never written before and maybe will never write again, too!
- Idiots (Fandom: Football RPS. Pairing: Fernando Llorente/Javi Martínez)
It was just his damn luck, really. He did everything well, he had luck on his side, he made the first team and La Selección before his 22nd birthday, and then he went and spoilt it all by making the most idiotic mistake in all the history of idiotic ways in which footballers had ruined their careers: by developing a heart-stopping crush on one of his teammates.
And not just any of this teammates, either. He had to aim for the most beautiful, the most successful, the most kind-hearted… the most unattainable, in a word. If there was in the world one footballer who would look at Javi and not run in the opposite direction, that one certainly couldn’t be Fernando Llorente.
I made drbillbongo cry with this fic! I love it because I wrote this for him and he liked it, and that's, in the end, why I like to write: to give people something they like.
This is fun! Don't wait for me to tag you, just do it!
:)