Author Profile: pearl_o
Author: pearl_o
Website/link to fic: but george you're a communist
Fanlore page: This way!
First DS fic posted: 2004
Full disclosure: pearl_o and I are mutual flisters.
Pairings: F/K, F/K/V, K/V, and a whole assorted bunch of other more uncommon pairings.
Style and strengths: If I had to pick one thing about Pearl's writing that I love, it's her ability to write characters that come across as only human. Yes, they're on TV; yes, they have vastly improbable lives; yes, they are frikkin' gorgeous. But they're still just people, with bad habits and insecurities and normal human desires. And she takes those ordinary humans and just lets beautiful things happen to them.
Other DS/C6D activity: Wilby Wonderful, Hard Core Logo, Men With Brooms, Twitch City, Slings & Arrows.
Some favourites:
I'm Only Gonna Say This Once
I have to say, it took me a while to go for Ray/Ray. What about Fraser, said I, and his tragically perfect Mountieness? What's better to infuriate Ray or Ray than perfection? And annoyance is totally exactly the same as love, right? Right? Yeeeeah!
But I distinctly remember reading this fic when Pearl first wrote it, and saying, Whoa. Whoa. I get it. Because at least for me, the amazing thing about Ray/Ray is that both of them are imperfect, in some similar ways and some completely different ways, and the beauty comes from showing that those imperfections complement each other. This fic does this wonderfully and quietly, with a classic too-tough-for-romance Kowalski voice that makes all the tenderness almost unbearably subtle.
My heart hadn't even gotten unwrapped yet; it was unused, it was brand new. I was ready to take it for a ride. But me and Stella, it was just like that rock thing. I was the little stone and she was the hard one, and twenty years we just kept striking against each other. So my heart was real sharp afterwards, but most of it's chipped away, too.
Same thing with my parents, my mom and dad running away for ten years. Another chip. And then up in Canada -- that's the last bit of it.
Mostly what I got now is about the size of a pebble.
That's the thing about Vecchio: he doesn't care. Vecchio doesn't want more than my pebble, Vecchio doesn't need more than my pebble. Vecchio's rock isn't that big himself, anyway -- two ex-wives, and the other girls, and his dad was an asshole, too, and then I don't even know the whole deal between him and Fraser, and then like I said, whatever he did undercover, we don't talk about all that.
So me and Vecchio, we're both carrying pebbles, and his doesn't bother mine and mine doesn't bother his.
Your Hands, Clasped
Beautiful, lyrical Fraser POV narration, walking through the steps of trying to start a relationship when the odds are impossible and there is only everything to lose by trying. The whole story has an intimate kind of rhythm to it, with sparse dialogue that packs a punch.
This morning in your car, as you drove us to the station, we stopped at a red light. I turned to watch you in the driver's seat: your head bobbed, you licked your lips, you hummed some unfamiliar song to yourself as you tapped the beat out against your thigh with the hand not occupied on the wheel. The sunlight hit your hair and reflected off your sunglasses, and I felt myself fill with unalloyed tenderness towards you.
I picked your hand up with my own, and pressed my lips to your knuckles.
I realized as soon as I did so that I had misjudged, misintepreted the limits of what we have between us. Your hand was stiff with tension as you pulled it back, and you didn't speak or glance over toward me for the remainder of the drive, even as I kept up my own steady patter in the seat beside you.
The rest of the day I made an effort to give you your space, but it was strange to realize how unnatural it felt now to keep the distance from you that came so easily with others.
How Many Ways (and sequel, Merry Bells Keep Ringing)
I love kidfic, and this is one of the best pieces of kidfic I have seen in dS: messy and angry and adorable and all of the things that happen when two people try to incorporate a young human into their lives. Just the right amounts of every ingredient.
It can't be an actual memory. It's much too far back, for one thing, and for another, it's much too clear and detailed. It must be something she made up, but how much of it is from stories and ideas they've given her and how much is completely her own invention is impossible to say.
Still, it feels like a memory: the snow falling light and flaky all around as she clomps through it; she falls down often, even more when Dief tries to help her, but that's part of the fun, part of the play, and she shrieks and shrieks with laughter as they run around.
And then, beyond, her parents standing there, watching, and one of them says "What the *hell* do we think we're doing?" and the other just laughs, and then she is being scooped in arms that are warm and good-smelling and strong.
It can't be a real memory, she realizes, but that's all right.
Website/link to fic: but george you're a communist
Fanlore page: This way!
First DS fic posted: 2004
Full disclosure: pearl_o and I are mutual flisters.
Pairings: F/K, F/K/V, K/V, and a whole assorted bunch of other more uncommon pairings.
Style and strengths: If I had to pick one thing about Pearl's writing that I love, it's her ability to write characters that come across as only human. Yes, they're on TV; yes, they have vastly improbable lives; yes, they are frikkin' gorgeous. But they're still just people, with bad habits and insecurities and normal human desires. And she takes those ordinary humans and just lets beautiful things happen to them.
Other DS/C6D activity: Wilby Wonderful, Hard Core Logo, Men With Brooms, Twitch City, Slings & Arrows.
Some favourites:
I'm Only Gonna Say This Once
I have to say, it took me a while to go for Ray/Ray. What about Fraser, said I, and his tragically perfect Mountieness? What's better to infuriate Ray or Ray than perfection? And annoyance is totally exactly the same as love, right? Right? Yeeeeah!
But I distinctly remember reading this fic when Pearl first wrote it, and saying, Whoa. Whoa. I get it. Because at least for me, the amazing thing about Ray/Ray is that both of them are imperfect, in some similar ways and some completely different ways, and the beauty comes from showing that those imperfections complement each other. This fic does this wonderfully and quietly, with a classic too-tough-for-romance Kowalski voice that makes all the tenderness almost unbearably subtle.
My heart hadn't even gotten unwrapped yet; it was unused, it was brand new. I was ready to take it for a ride. But me and Stella, it was just like that rock thing. I was the little stone and she was the hard one, and twenty years we just kept striking against each other. So my heart was real sharp afterwards, but most of it's chipped away, too.
Same thing with my parents, my mom and dad running away for ten years. Another chip. And then up in Canada -- that's the last bit of it.
Mostly what I got now is about the size of a pebble.
That's the thing about Vecchio: he doesn't care. Vecchio doesn't want more than my pebble, Vecchio doesn't need more than my pebble. Vecchio's rock isn't that big himself, anyway -- two ex-wives, and the other girls, and his dad was an asshole, too, and then I don't even know the whole deal between him and Fraser, and then like I said, whatever he did undercover, we don't talk about all that.
So me and Vecchio, we're both carrying pebbles, and his doesn't bother mine and mine doesn't bother his.
Your Hands, Clasped
Beautiful, lyrical Fraser POV narration, walking through the steps of trying to start a relationship when the odds are impossible and there is only everything to lose by trying. The whole story has an intimate kind of rhythm to it, with sparse dialogue that packs a punch.
This morning in your car, as you drove us to the station, we stopped at a red light. I turned to watch you in the driver's seat: your head bobbed, you licked your lips, you hummed some unfamiliar song to yourself as you tapped the beat out against your thigh with the hand not occupied on the wheel. The sunlight hit your hair and reflected off your sunglasses, and I felt myself fill with unalloyed tenderness towards you.
I picked your hand up with my own, and pressed my lips to your knuckles.
I realized as soon as I did so that I had misjudged, misintepreted the limits of what we have between us. Your hand was stiff with tension as you pulled it back, and you didn't speak or glance over toward me for the remainder of the drive, even as I kept up my own steady patter in the seat beside you.
The rest of the day I made an effort to give you your space, but it was strange to realize how unnatural it felt now to keep the distance from you that came so easily with others.
How Many Ways (and sequel, Merry Bells Keep Ringing)
I love kidfic, and this is one of the best pieces of kidfic I have seen in dS: messy and angry and adorable and all of the things that happen when two people try to incorporate a young human into their lives. Just the right amounts of every ingredient.
It can't be an actual memory. It's much too far back, for one thing, and for another, it's much too clear and detailed. It must be something she made up, but how much of it is from stories and ideas they've given her and how much is completely her own invention is impossible to say.
Still, it feels like a memory: the snow falling light and flaky all around as she clomps through it; she falls down often, even more when Dief tries to help her, but that's part of the fun, part of the play, and she shrieks and shrieks with laughter as they run around.
And then, beyond, her parents standing there, watching, and one of them says "What the *hell* do we think we're doing?" and the other just laughs, and then she is being scooped in arms that are warm and good-smelling and strong.
It can't be a real memory, she realizes, but that's all right.