My 2013 Fic Year in Review, part two
Part one.
”Unexpected” - I’d never been happy with the 100-word drabble I wrote early on in the fandom with the visual of Blaine standing under the streetlamp outside of Kurt’s class at Dalton, waiting for him in the falling snow. I needed to write it as a ficlet. I’m not sure why it came up at the top of my writing queue, probably because it was simple, sweet, and short, which was a perfect combination with all of the craziness of the museling being off from school for a couple of weeks, but I ended up revisiting the idea in this story. I’m glad I did. I like the image of Blaine waiting. I like the loneliness lifting off of Kurt’s shoulders as the reality of having Blaine as his boyfriend sets in. I like them holding hands in the snow.
”One More Dance” - Obviously I’d been thinking about Klaine weddings since the whole proposal arc at the end of season four, but I’m pretty sure that being on tumblr and being aware of the zeitgeist of non-spoilery talk/fic/gifsets of wedding stuff that was probably brought on by spoilers people knew about the upcoming proposal fed into me going from dreaming about writing future wedding fluff into having to write future wedding fluff. I’m still not sure how I feel about that, honestly. I mean, I’m not sorry I wrote the fic, but I am sorry in retrospect that I was probably on the edge of being spoiled and thinking about things that were actually going to happen even if I didn’t know it instead of being completely oblivious to the squee as I would have preferred.
Anyway, I was struck by the idea of what it would feel like for Kurt and Blaine to be married and of what their wedding would feel like to them. I had this visual in my head - I keep saying that sort of thing, but I do… I have to be able to see the scenes to write them - of them dancing wrapped up in each other in the middle of the dance floor, of them watching their friends enjoying themselves, and of them dancing alone in their suite, and I just wanted to wrap them up in happiness, peace, and love when at the time I fully expected 5x01 to be either wholly unsatisfying to me or really tough for them to get through Blaine’s awkwardly timed proposal.
Tina’s line about Blaine looking like he’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted is actually similar to something someone said to me about mr. muse at our wedding. I never insert anything like that into my fics, but in this case I really thought it really suited Blaine.
The fic is just ridiculously sweet, but it hits the tone I wanted, so I can’t be too embarrassed about it.
”Taking Care” - By this point in the year, I had broken my foot, and Sinkwriter asked me how I thought Kurt and Blaine would deal with having a similar injury. I think that Kurt would be a very bad invalid, too impatient to sit quietly the way he’s supposed to, and so I ended up writing about it.
I think the fic suffers from me being on pain meds, because for once I let go of my utter dislike of fics sort of sliding into flirty sex, the end. I mean, it can be done well, but mostly it feels lazy to me, and in this fic it definitely feels lazy. On the other hand, I think Kurt and Blaine here are largely how I think of Kurt and Blaine, and they are flirty boys who have sex, so… *shrug*
”Last First Time” - And here’s another fic idea that I knew would be jossed - because they had to be getting back together at some point, I was certain of it, and surely it wouldn’t look quite like this - but couldn’t get out of my head. I was just so ready for Kurt and Blaine to be Klaine again, and I kept thinking and thinking and thinking about what it would mean to them to be together, how they didn’t need to start all over from the beginning but could jump in quickly even as they rebuilt trust, how it would feel so good to them to be back together, maybe tentative but still wonderful.
It includes my headcanon that Kurt lusts after the Anderson family kitchen, it includes Kurt driving their relationship (because I think despite them being equals mostly he does set the rules for them in canon), it includes a repurposing of “Teenage Dream” that makes me very happy, and it includes a lot of them just being totally wrapped up in each other and wanting this to go well. I wanted them to feel like they’ve just desperately missed each other, everything about each other, and for them to show it both in their words and in how they react to the physical reality of being able to be together again. I wanted it to be overwhelming, too, like with Blaine coming before he’s ready but with him craving more even though he’s overstimulated and Kurt having trouble letting go, because they both just want it so much.
This clearly isn’t at all how their first time having sex after getting back together in 5x01 happens, because their reunion isn’t so tentative at all in canon, and I don’t know if I paced the end properly, but I think the emotional undercurrents of feeling like they’re coming home once more and showing their joy in it are still true.
”Sunday Morning Dreaming” - I wasn’t sure, as the end of the hiatus neared, if I’d be able to write my bookend fic as planned. I just didn’t have an idea, the hiatus had lasted forever, canon was still stalled, yadda yadda yadda I was angsting. And then Blaine started talking in my head to Kurt in bed about vacation spots, and I said, “Oh. Okay, then.” I could write happy, fluffy, settled, future Klaine. It sounded perfect.
The first line that came to me was Kurt sitting up and saying, “’Really? Did you seriously just YOLO me, Blaine?’” It made me laugh. I had to write the fic.
”Here, There, and Everywhere” 5x01 left me soaring with giddiness and shock, because I didn’t think there was a way in hell Glee could sell me on a proposal and yet they did. I wanted to capture some of the characters’ own giddiness in fic, especially since we were given not as much Kurt as I would have liked, and I decided I wanted to write him reeling after the proposal and kind of letting it sink in a little. Given how torn he was about the whole thing on the way over to Dalton, I wanted to explore how he feels after he sees everything Blaine planned for him and hears his words. I wanted to show the shift in him from the control he has when they get back together earlier in the episode to the raw emotion he shows at the end of the proposal, his walls having come crashing down in the face of everything Blaine is giving him with his unbridled love.
More than anything, I wanted to feel all of that romantic hope that lived in Kurt for so long and that had faded after the breakup just bloom anew to his surprise. I thought Kurt’s progression in the episode was fascinating, and I just wanted to see more of it.
It was weird to go back to the ‘grind’ of writing weekly fic on topics that weren’t quite of my own choosing, but it was a wonderful way to start!
”The Definition of Alone” - If the previous fic was to explore the immediate aftermath of the proposal, this fic was to explore what it felt like for Kurt to be back in New York, with so much changed between them but the distance still the same. He comes back to NYC in such a different mental state than when he left. His dad is okay, he’s engaged to Blaine, and his future is so much brighter.
I started with the image of him wheeling back into the apartment by himself and then the image of him picking up the blazer he was wearing when they got engaged and how it would make him fluttery to see it. And then I realized that he’d realize he could call Blaine and talk freely and happily for the first time in so long, and I had to blast right through my dislike of phone calls standing in for action and write the fic, because the phone call was the action.
The fic still feels good to me. Kurt’s line to Bruce, the way he realizes what forever means, the lightness in his heart overall, the banter with Blaine, the promise of new routines and a new future together… it’s what I was trying to capture.
”The Perfect Accessory” - I tend to be really interested in the stories that the wardrobe department tells with what Kurt and Blaine are wearing, and I was struck by the fact that Blaine’s boutonniere in this prom episode was very similar to the ones he and Kurt were wearing in “Prom Queen.” I went back to look at PQ to be sure. This idea excited me, especially since it wasn’t like he was matching everyone else’s there, and when it combined with my disappointment that Kurt wasn’t a part of prom this year, not even from afar, I got this fic.
It has a phone call. I am tired of writing phone calls. On the other hand, it also has Sam, and I adore Sam and his friendship with Blaine. I like that Blaine is still excited for the night without Kurt, but I like that Kurt’s there with him in spirit.
”Snapshots II” - Early in season four I wrote a fic (“Snapshots”) based on the kinds of pictures I thought Kurt and Blaine would text each other throughout their days, just the mundane things they’d share with each other. It was a delight after the first two episodes of season five to be able to return to this idea with them back together again to think about how they’d be thinking of each other and keep their relationship going once more. It’s stylized and full of small moments, but I like how that works.
In case you haven’t noticed by now, I love thinking and writing about the little things between them. I like the simple intimacies, the way they show each other their hearts in small ways, the way they think about each other though they’re apart, the visions they give to each other with their barriers down, like Kurt being mussed after his workout here.
The first “Snapshots” felt bittersweet to me, because I knew in my unspoiled way that the road wouldn’t be easy. This one feels happier and more hopeful, with forever at the end of it.
”Three Kisses” - I wasn’t planning on writing a Blaine reaction fic to the engagement, because there was so much more of his POV and his heart in his eyes all over the screen, but people were chatting with me about it in various comments and out came a fic. I wanted to use the progression of these three kisses to show Blaine’s POV (and Kurt’s through his eyes) in various points in 5x01: the renewed relationship between them after they get back together and how Kurt isn’t holding back anymore, the giddy joy of being engaged, and the sureness between them when Kurt has to go back to NYC afterwards.
The mental picture that started it all was Kurt pressing Blaine back into the door in his house in the first kiss, that vivid demonstration that Kurt really is all-in again, that Kurt missed him and isn’t afraid to say or show it, and that Kurt isn’t wasting time being tentative about it but has given his heart again and is moving forward full-force.
It’s a happy fic, and I like what it says. I like having given Blaine these moments, too. :)
”Finding Normal” - The obvious thing to write after 5x03 was something in Kurt’s POV. After all, he was a major player and our guide through the episode, he had lost so much with Finn’s death, and he is the character I usually feel I understand best.
I didn’t want to write Kurt, though. I mean, we’d seen so much of him through the episode, and I didn’t feel I needed to add to that. Blaine, however, had been so notably silent, and I thought that it was much more interesting and compelling to explore his perspective on things.
This wasn’t an easy fic to write. I mean, on the one hand it just rolled out of my head and fingers onto the page. I was very torn about whether it was appropriate to write fic about the real life death of Cory, but I knew I needed to write the fic to process. I just wasn’t sure I’d post it. Both Stoney and Liz helped me see that people might need to read it the same way I needed to write it, so ultimately I chose to share it with fandom, but it was a difficult choice for me.
In terms of the story flowing, once I had the visual of Blaine standing in his kitchen trying to so hard to do what was right and keep on with his life even though he was quite clearly lost, it all just unfolded for me: his emotions like a cork in a bottle keeping all of his words and feelings inside, the way he wants to be there for Kurt, how much he takes on himself, how much more open Kurt can be about his feelings, how he takes care of Blaine, and how they lean on each other. Kurt’s closer to the death but further along in his grief, because he knows how to get through it. Blaine is lost in it, still not quite able to wrap his head around it, not sure how he’s supposed to be acting (or sure of how he is but not sure how to get there with any ease). They’d feel their relationship reaffirmed because life was too short to waste a minute of it, just as Burt had said to Kurt before the engagement. It was all there, ready for me to write it.
The story flowed, but, god, it was painful to get it all out. I cried pretty much the entire time I was writing. There’s a lot that still hits me right in the chest, but the line that hurts me the most is about Finn being excited that Blaine was going to be his brother-in-law. The lost dream there for all of them is just… I don’t know, it hits me hard. And yet this story is satisfying to me in a very deep way, because there’s so much in it that’s just true.
I’m glad I wrote it. I’m glad I shared it. I just wish none of us had needed it.
”Drunk on You” - I’d been working on a big Blaine-focused fic for a while during the hiatus after 5x03, and I’d also been writing up bits of microcommentary on tumblr reblogs for fun. At one point I wrote up something on a gifset from “The First Time” outside Scandals about how Blaine in my Bushwick futurefic headcanon gets drunk and handsy and Kurt usually humors him and puts him to bed with a glass of water but sometimes gets tipsy, too, and happily gives into his handsiness. I mean, it’s Blaine. He’s hard to resist. I have a ton of headcanon about this kind of thing, from Blaine getting buzzed at Thanksgiving and staring at Kurt’s ass while talking to Burt to the kinds of things I talk about in this fic, smoldering at Kurt at a friend’s party, getting frisky in the cab, and getting really forward at home.
While I think Kurt’s pretty much in charge of the Klaine relationship most of the time, I also think Kurt likes it when Blaine gets forward. I think sometimes he’d be more than happy to just go with it.
Writing drunk or medicated Blaine is one of my favorite things ever, so even though it’s porn (agh) I had way too much fun writing this fic. I really liked how Blaine’s natural politeness is stripped away some here; he’s very sure of his welcome and touches Kurt without checking in with him or asking if it’s okay, which it totally is. But even though it’s all okay with Kurt, I don’t think that’s quite their usual dynamic, and I like how it flusters and turns on Kurt. Obviously, Blaine is welcome, but he’s not usually quite so sure of it. He doesn’t usually move Kurt around quite so much just the way he wants him. I think of their relationship having more of a give and take most of the time, and this has a lot of very happy take.
His kiss is as pushy as his hands are, mapping Kurt out like he can just do that, and as much as Kurt loves being his own person he loves that he’s Blaine’s person, too. He loves having someone who gets to touch him whenever he wants, loves being able to touch back with no fear of rejection.
I don’t know. It’s an oddly porny fic for me, but it’s so happy and full of love that I really just adore it.
This fic is also me finally giving in to the reality that I want to write so much Bushwick futurefic and don’t give a damn that it will be jossed because it makes me so happy to think of Glee in New York.
”A Cold Slap of Reality” - Back to episode reaction fics! I was struck in 5x04 by Adam kicking Kurt out of the Apples because he was engaged, and I wanted to think about why Kurt’s so keen on starting a band and is feeling so willing to compromise himself to succeed, which isn’t his usual perspective. It made me sad for him that he was feeling so rejected and hopeless and that someone who was supposed to be a friend had shut him out. Finn’s death plays a huge role in what’s going on with him, obviously, but I just wanted to talk about it more. Of course it required a phone call, sigh, but I wanted Blaine to be the one Kurt talked to, the person he picked up the phone and called without thinking after he talked to Adam, which to me is a sign of just how grounded he is in the relationship.
Anyway, I think this fic connects the dots I needed connected.
”A Friday Night In” - As I was pondering/daydreaming about the Bushwick loft in the future with Blaine there, I got to thinking about what it might mean to him to have that family, not just Kurt but all of them, loving him and accepting him day in and day out. I feel like that’s something Blaine really wants and has never quite had, not with the façade he had up with the Warblers and the tensions within New Directions. The way Elliott was sprawled on the cushions in 5x04 made me think about nights with Blaine there, too, just as easily a part of the group, and what he might feel like lying there at ease, belonging. It’s a big, deep topic and one I hope the show might someday explore with him, but I just wanted a little snippet of it.
So that’s this fic: a simple night in, the Bushwick crew being themselves, and Blaine feeling like a part of it. There’s a lot I like about this fic, as small as it is. I like Dani and Sam playing guitar together, since these are people who all make music as easily as breathing, and I liked showing that. I like the idea of Santana and Elliott doing makeup together, because it made me laugh. I like the way Blaine looks up at Kurt from his lap and sees the angle of his jaw instead of the straight-on view of his face. I like how warm and easy it all is for all of them.
Oh, and I love the line: ”Puppies, Kurt,” Blaine said again. This was not a laughing matter. “Actual real cartoon puppies. As a coat.” Actual real cartoon puppies still cracks me up.
(What? If I can’t make myself laugh, what’s the point of writing funny things?)
”Potential" - I fully expected after this episode for fandom to explode in a frenzy of tattoo and piercing porn, and it probably did. But what got me interested was Kurt getting some of his mojo back and Blaine’s reaction to Kurt’s new accessories, not as sex aids but as something that might ping his own insecurities. Blaine in canon is flailing a bit and is apart from Kurt again; I feel like he might be feeling pretty unsettled, echoes of the fall of their breakup still resonating with the distance, even though history isn’t repeating itself. Kurt’s definitely ahead of Blaine on the arc of growing up, and I think Blaine feels it. It’s interesting to me.
I also loved the idea of Kurt coordinating his tongue studs with his outfits, because you just know he would. :D
I got a comment about this fic that said something along the lines of “yeah, we know you think Kurt is just the most amazing person in the entire world *eyeroll*,” which… okay. I don’t see the point of leaving a comment like that, but that aside, I do think Kurt is amazing. I also think Blaine is amazing. In the context of this fic, the reason that Blaine thinks Kurt is amazing are not so much the reasons that I think Kurt is amazing. Blaine and I have very different perspectives on him. He means different things to us; if nothing else, to Blaine Kurt is the real person he’s in love with and whom he knows intimately but imperfectly, and to me Kurt is a fictional character whose story I’ve been able to watch unfold from afar with more distance and insight. But you can’t convince me that canonical Blaine thinks anything other than that Kurt walks on water, sneezes rainbows, and is some sort of magical fairy prince who has taken mortal form to spend time with him. I mean, have you seen Blaine’s heart-eyes? I’m not saying it’s necessarily healthy for Blaine to feel that way, but he really does seem to.
So yes, in this fic Blaine is really gushing quite a bit over Kurt, but that’s because that is what I think Blaine thinks of Kurt, not because Blaine here is standing in for me. That’s the whole point of me writing in a tight POV. I am writing what I think the POV character thinks. I hope for most people that comes across, because otherwise I’m doing something very wrong.
Which I probably am, but that’s a conversation for another day.
”The Return of Nightbird, or Six Times Kurt Meets a Superhero” - I blame lizinprogress for this fic. She and I were chatting a little over e-mail about the idea of Blaine and Sam continuing to be their superhero selves in New York, but to my infinite sadness she never did come up with a fic about it for her to write. Some weeks later, though, I happened to think about what on earth Kurt would think if he unexpectedly walked in on a full-costume superhero club meeting in the loft, and just like that the ideas exploded out of me in rapid-fire visuals, demanding to be written.
I feel like even in New York Kurt will still gravitate toward the girls (Rachel, Santana) and Blaine toward the boys (Sam, Artie), and that that’ll be okay with them to have a bit of separation of friends. Kurt might not really get Blaine playing with Sam, but he won’t have a problem with it. So I thought a baffled Kurt going about his life, trying not to be too pushy, trying to let Blaine be independent and himself, but being really confused by the whole superhero thing would be funny and make a lot of sense. I thought it might tell a good story about them getting to know each other in new ways. It was also ridiculously fun to write a total romp with the whole Bushwick cast together.
The whole fic makes me smile and is one of my favorites of the year, but this line is my favorite because it feels so very, very Kurt and his priorities to me: They’re going to get photographed for Humans of New York before he is by Bill Cunningham. The horror!
”The Sounds of Home” - I loved having Blaine in the Bushwick loft with everyone in 5x06; it was like my own elaborate headcanon was coming true. I thought a lot about what it would feel like for him to be there, and I kept coming back to the idea that he’d be happy but not quite feel settled there during the episode. Moving from Lima to New York is a huge change. Everything smells and sounds different. Coupling that with a Blaine who is very clearly feeling unsettled and less than confident brought me to the idea of him jumping at sounds of the apartment/city that Kurt doesn’t even notice. It’s so different going from being a big fish at Dalton or McKinley, living in his parents’ home with them to deal with most of the daily grind of life and to be a barrier between him and the grown-up world outside the door, to being miniscule fish in the huge ocean of New York, responsible for everything from buying food to personal safety to succeeding in careers that don’t have the easy outline of high school classes and tests. It’s overwhelming.
Still, I wanted the fic to feel dreamy and close, because as unsettled as he is, Blaine is with Kurt. I wanted them to feel caught up in a cocoon of each other with only little interruptions, happy to be able to be together in a bed all night long at last, drunk on each other.
”The Man Behind the Curtain” - In keeping with the tradition of me having no idea what people in fandom want, I think the idea of this fic is really great, but it got very little attention in fandom. Still, I like it a lot. 5x07 continued the trend of me being super, super interested in Blaine and all that was going on inside of him, all that he was wanting to hear from people but wasn’t except in their puppet forms. I thought a series of scenes of him talking with the Kurt puppet as if it were Kurt would illuminate all sorts of cool things about what was going on in his head and where his stresses and insecurities lay. It’s an idealized Kurt, probably one he’d hate in reality, one that gives but doesn’t take, but it’s one that soothes him where he’s most worried right now.
I think I caught some of the manic, silly energy of the episode, I think it’s fascinating to look at Blaine through this lens, and I still love the line that made me go from daydreaming to writing this fic: “You know, I don’t have a gag reflex,” the Kurt puppet says casually.
”Twenty Tropes for Real Boys” - For the last fic of 2013, I played with tropes again. I don’t remember exactly how I started thinking in this direction this particular time, whether I’d read a trope fic or was just thinking about them, but I got off on this mental tangent about how I treat Kurt and Blaine as real and have never felt the urge to give them tentacles or whatever so haven’t really troped it up the way so much of fandom does. So that meant that I started thinking about how I would write tropes for them, and the huge lightbulb over my head went off with the idea of writing tropes as they exist in their mundane forms in our world. Amnesia means you forgot something important. Sex pollen means someone brings you lovely flowers. Demon possession means a person before his coffee.
I was off. I made a list of about fifteen tropes, which I added to as I was writing along, and just started typing my heart out. I wrote quickly and happily, which isn’t always true. It kept me up at night. It was a perfect fic to write during a really busy time, because I could write a section or two during a short break and didn’t have to sit with a big plot in my head waiting for more time for writing. It also solved my issue of wanting to write holiday-related fic when canon is not concurrent with reality, I had nothing to say about 5x08, and Kurt and Blaine aren’t even in the same space, because I could just futurefic it with a holiday theme and have the best of both worlds. Yay Bushwick futurefic!
I’d like to pull out sections and talk about them, but then we’d be here all day. I loved twisting the tropes around in what I hope are interesting ways. I’ll just say that this fic makes me insanely happy, and it made me happy that other people liked it, too.
So that’s 2013 in fanfic for me!
There are other fics I worked on this year but haven’t finished. I have a couple partial Teen Wolf fics sitting in GDocs, and most notably in Glee I have some more in the Near Misses ‘verse and a good chunk of a long Blaine fic about his need for big moments, growing up gay, and the importance of marriage and marriage equality to him. I actually have a couple of drafts of the start of that fic, because I keep trying to find the right way to tell it, but the one that I think is the right one is about ten thousand words long at the moment. It’s kind of the Being Blaine Anderson to my Being Kurt Hummel. I really hope I figure that one out.
I obviously didn’t write as much as last year, since there was no Near Misses-sized fic in here, and I’m kind of sad about not being inspired to write one nor having the time to do so, but still, I figure averaging a fic a week isn’t that bad, all things considered.
”Unexpected” - I’d never been happy with the 100-word drabble I wrote early on in the fandom with the visual of Blaine standing under the streetlamp outside of Kurt’s class at Dalton, waiting for him in the falling snow. I needed to write it as a ficlet. I’m not sure why it came up at the top of my writing queue, probably because it was simple, sweet, and short, which was a perfect combination with all of the craziness of the museling being off from school for a couple of weeks, but I ended up revisiting the idea in this story. I’m glad I did. I like the image of Blaine waiting. I like the loneliness lifting off of Kurt’s shoulders as the reality of having Blaine as his boyfriend sets in. I like them holding hands in the snow.
”One More Dance” - Obviously I’d been thinking about Klaine weddings since the whole proposal arc at the end of season four, but I’m pretty sure that being on tumblr and being aware of the zeitgeist of non-spoilery talk/fic/gifsets of wedding stuff that was probably brought on by spoilers people knew about the upcoming proposal fed into me going from dreaming about writing future wedding fluff into having to write future wedding fluff. I’m still not sure how I feel about that, honestly. I mean, I’m not sorry I wrote the fic, but I am sorry in retrospect that I was probably on the edge of being spoiled and thinking about things that were actually going to happen even if I didn’t know it instead of being completely oblivious to the squee as I would have preferred.
Anyway, I was struck by the idea of what it would feel like for Kurt and Blaine to be married and of what their wedding would feel like to them. I had this visual in my head - I keep saying that sort of thing, but I do… I have to be able to see the scenes to write them - of them dancing wrapped up in each other in the middle of the dance floor, of them watching their friends enjoying themselves, and of them dancing alone in their suite, and I just wanted to wrap them up in happiness, peace, and love when at the time I fully expected 5x01 to be either wholly unsatisfying to me or really tough for them to get through Blaine’s awkwardly timed proposal.
Tina’s line about Blaine looking like he’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted is actually similar to something someone said to me about mr. muse at our wedding. I never insert anything like that into my fics, but in this case I really thought it really suited Blaine.
The fic is just ridiculously sweet, but it hits the tone I wanted, so I can’t be too embarrassed about it.
”Taking Care” - By this point in the year, I had broken my foot, and Sinkwriter asked me how I thought Kurt and Blaine would deal with having a similar injury. I think that Kurt would be a very bad invalid, too impatient to sit quietly the way he’s supposed to, and so I ended up writing about it.
I think the fic suffers from me being on pain meds, because for once I let go of my utter dislike of fics sort of sliding into flirty sex, the end. I mean, it can be done well, but mostly it feels lazy to me, and in this fic it definitely feels lazy. On the other hand, I think Kurt and Blaine here are largely how I think of Kurt and Blaine, and they are flirty boys who have sex, so… *shrug*
”Last First Time” - And here’s another fic idea that I knew would be jossed - because they had to be getting back together at some point, I was certain of it, and surely it wouldn’t look quite like this - but couldn’t get out of my head. I was just so ready for Kurt and Blaine to be Klaine again, and I kept thinking and thinking and thinking about what it would mean to them to be together, how they didn’t need to start all over from the beginning but could jump in quickly even as they rebuilt trust, how it would feel so good to them to be back together, maybe tentative but still wonderful.
It includes my headcanon that Kurt lusts after the Anderson family kitchen, it includes Kurt driving their relationship (because I think despite them being equals mostly he does set the rules for them in canon), it includes a repurposing of “Teenage Dream” that makes me very happy, and it includes a lot of them just being totally wrapped up in each other and wanting this to go well. I wanted them to feel like they’ve just desperately missed each other, everything about each other, and for them to show it both in their words and in how they react to the physical reality of being able to be together again. I wanted it to be overwhelming, too, like with Blaine coming before he’s ready but with him craving more even though he’s overstimulated and Kurt having trouble letting go, because they both just want it so much.
This clearly isn’t at all how their first time having sex after getting back together in 5x01 happens, because their reunion isn’t so tentative at all in canon, and I don’t know if I paced the end properly, but I think the emotional undercurrents of feeling like they’re coming home once more and showing their joy in it are still true.
”Sunday Morning Dreaming” - I wasn’t sure, as the end of the hiatus neared, if I’d be able to write my bookend fic as planned. I just didn’t have an idea, the hiatus had lasted forever, canon was still stalled, yadda yadda yadda I was angsting. And then Blaine started talking in my head to Kurt in bed about vacation spots, and I said, “Oh. Okay, then.” I could write happy, fluffy, settled, future Klaine. It sounded perfect.
The first line that came to me was Kurt sitting up and saying, “’Really? Did you seriously just YOLO me, Blaine?’” It made me laugh. I had to write the fic.
”Here, There, and Everywhere” 5x01 left me soaring with giddiness and shock, because I didn’t think there was a way in hell Glee could sell me on a proposal and yet they did. I wanted to capture some of the characters’ own giddiness in fic, especially since we were given not as much Kurt as I would have liked, and I decided I wanted to write him reeling after the proposal and kind of letting it sink in a little. Given how torn he was about the whole thing on the way over to Dalton, I wanted to explore how he feels after he sees everything Blaine planned for him and hears his words. I wanted to show the shift in him from the control he has when they get back together earlier in the episode to the raw emotion he shows at the end of the proposal, his walls having come crashing down in the face of everything Blaine is giving him with his unbridled love.
More than anything, I wanted to feel all of that romantic hope that lived in Kurt for so long and that had faded after the breakup just bloom anew to his surprise. I thought Kurt’s progression in the episode was fascinating, and I just wanted to see more of it.
It was weird to go back to the ‘grind’ of writing weekly fic on topics that weren’t quite of my own choosing, but it was a wonderful way to start!
”The Definition of Alone” - If the previous fic was to explore the immediate aftermath of the proposal, this fic was to explore what it felt like for Kurt to be back in New York, with so much changed between them but the distance still the same. He comes back to NYC in such a different mental state than when he left. His dad is okay, he’s engaged to Blaine, and his future is so much brighter.
I started with the image of him wheeling back into the apartment by himself and then the image of him picking up the blazer he was wearing when they got engaged and how it would make him fluttery to see it. And then I realized that he’d realize he could call Blaine and talk freely and happily for the first time in so long, and I had to blast right through my dislike of phone calls standing in for action and write the fic, because the phone call was the action.
The fic still feels good to me. Kurt’s line to Bruce, the way he realizes what forever means, the lightness in his heart overall, the banter with Blaine, the promise of new routines and a new future together… it’s what I was trying to capture.
”The Perfect Accessory” - I tend to be really interested in the stories that the wardrobe department tells with what Kurt and Blaine are wearing, and I was struck by the fact that Blaine’s boutonniere in this prom episode was very similar to the ones he and Kurt were wearing in “Prom Queen.” I went back to look at PQ to be sure. This idea excited me, especially since it wasn’t like he was matching everyone else’s there, and when it combined with my disappointment that Kurt wasn’t a part of prom this year, not even from afar, I got this fic.
It has a phone call. I am tired of writing phone calls. On the other hand, it also has Sam, and I adore Sam and his friendship with Blaine. I like that Blaine is still excited for the night without Kurt, but I like that Kurt’s there with him in spirit.
”Snapshots II” - Early in season four I wrote a fic (“Snapshots”) based on the kinds of pictures I thought Kurt and Blaine would text each other throughout their days, just the mundane things they’d share with each other. It was a delight after the first two episodes of season five to be able to return to this idea with them back together again to think about how they’d be thinking of each other and keep their relationship going once more. It’s stylized and full of small moments, but I like how that works.
In case you haven’t noticed by now, I love thinking and writing about the little things between them. I like the simple intimacies, the way they show each other their hearts in small ways, the way they think about each other though they’re apart, the visions they give to each other with their barriers down, like Kurt being mussed after his workout here.
The first “Snapshots” felt bittersweet to me, because I knew in my unspoiled way that the road wouldn’t be easy. This one feels happier and more hopeful, with forever at the end of it.
”Three Kisses” - I wasn’t planning on writing a Blaine reaction fic to the engagement, because there was so much more of his POV and his heart in his eyes all over the screen, but people were chatting with me about it in various comments and out came a fic. I wanted to use the progression of these three kisses to show Blaine’s POV (and Kurt’s through his eyes) in various points in 5x01: the renewed relationship between them after they get back together and how Kurt isn’t holding back anymore, the giddy joy of being engaged, and the sureness between them when Kurt has to go back to NYC afterwards.
The mental picture that started it all was Kurt pressing Blaine back into the door in his house in the first kiss, that vivid demonstration that Kurt really is all-in again, that Kurt missed him and isn’t afraid to say or show it, and that Kurt isn’t wasting time being tentative about it but has given his heart again and is moving forward full-force.
It’s a happy fic, and I like what it says. I like having given Blaine these moments, too. :)
”Finding Normal” - The obvious thing to write after 5x03 was something in Kurt’s POV. After all, he was a major player and our guide through the episode, he had lost so much with Finn’s death, and he is the character I usually feel I understand best.
I didn’t want to write Kurt, though. I mean, we’d seen so much of him through the episode, and I didn’t feel I needed to add to that. Blaine, however, had been so notably silent, and I thought that it was much more interesting and compelling to explore his perspective on things.
This wasn’t an easy fic to write. I mean, on the one hand it just rolled out of my head and fingers onto the page. I was very torn about whether it was appropriate to write fic about the real life death of Cory, but I knew I needed to write the fic to process. I just wasn’t sure I’d post it. Both Stoney and Liz helped me see that people might need to read it the same way I needed to write it, so ultimately I chose to share it with fandom, but it was a difficult choice for me.
In terms of the story flowing, once I had the visual of Blaine standing in his kitchen trying to so hard to do what was right and keep on with his life even though he was quite clearly lost, it all just unfolded for me: his emotions like a cork in a bottle keeping all of his words and feelings inside, the way he wants to be there for Kurt, how much he takes on himself, how much more open Kurt can be about his feelings, how he takes care of Blaine, and how they lean on each other. Kurt’s closer to the death but further along in his grief, because he knows how to get through it. Blaine is lost in it, still not quite able to wrap his head around it, not sure how he’s supposed to be acting (or sure of how he is but not sure how to get there with any ease). They’d feel their relationship reaffirmed because life was too short to waste a minute of it, just as Burt had said to Kurt before the engagement. It was all there, ready for me to write it.
The story flowed, but, god, it was painful to get it all out. I cried pretty much the entire time I was writing. There’s a lot that still hits me right in the chest, but the line that hurts me the most is about Finn being excited that Blaine was going to be his brother-in-law. The lost dream there for all of them is just… I don’t know, it hits me hard. And yet this story is satisfying to me in a very deep way, because there’s so much in it that’s just true.
I’m glad I wrote it. I’m glad I shared it. I just wish none of us had needed it.
”Drunk on You” - I’d been working on a big Blaine-focused fic for a while during the hiatus after 5x03, and I’d also been writing up bits of microcommentary on tumblr reblogs for fun. At one point I wrote up something on a gifset from “The First Time” outside Scandals about how Blaine in my Bushwick futurefic headcanon gets drunk and handsy and Kurt usually humors him and puts him to bed with a glass of water but sometimes gets tipsy, too, and happily gives into his handsiness. I mean, it’s Blaine. He’s hard to resist. I have a ton of headcanon about this kind of thing, from Blaine getting buzzed at Thanksgiving and staring at Kurt’s ass while talking to Burt to the kinds of things I talk about in this fic, smoldering at Kurt at a friend’s party, getting frisky in the cab, and getting really forward at home.
While I think Kurt’s pretty much in charge of the Klaine relationship most of the time, I also think Kurt likes it when Blaine gets forward. I think sometimes he’d be more than happy to just go with it.
Writing drunk or medicated Blaine is one of my favorite things ever, so even though it’s porn (agh) I had way too much fun writing this fic. I really liked how Blaine’s natural politeness is stripped away some here; he’s very sure of his welcome and touches Kurt without checking in with him or asking if it’s okay, which it totally is. But even though it’s all okay with Kurt, I don’t think that’s quite their usual dynamic, and I like how it flusters and turns on Kurt. Obviously, Blaine is welcome, but he’s not usually quite so sure of it. He doesn’t usually move Kurt around quite so much just the way he wants him. I think of their relationship having more of a give and take most of the time, and this has a lot of very happy take.
His kiss is as pushy as his hands are, mapping Kurt out like he can just do that, and as much as Kurt loves being his own person he loves that he’s Blaine’s person, too. He loves having someone who gets to touch him whenever he wants, loves being able to touch back with no fear of rejection.
I don’t know. It’s an oddly porny fic for me, but it’s so happy and full of love that I really just adore it.
This fic is also me finally giving in to the reality that I want to write so much Bushwick futurefic and don’t give a damn that it will be jossed because it makes me so happy to think of Glee in New York.
”A Cold Slap of Reality” - Back to episode reaction fics! I was struck in 5x04 by Adam kicking Kurt out of the Apples because he was engaged, and I wanted to think about why Kurt’s so keen on starting a band and is feeling so willing to compromise himself to succeed, which isn’t his usual perspective. It made me sad for him that he was feeling so rejected and hopeless and that someone who was supposed to be a friend had shut him out. Finn’s death plays a huge role in what’s going on with him, obviously, but I just wanted to talk about it more. Of course it required a phone call, sigh, but I wanted Blaine to be the one Kurt talked to, the person he picked up the phone and called without thinking after he talked to Adam, which to me is a sign of just how grounded he is in the relationship.
Anyway, I think this fic connects the dots I needed connected.
”A Friday Night In” - As I was pondering/daydreaming about the Bushwick loft in the future with Blaine there, I got to thinking about what it might mean to him to have that family, not just Kurt but all of them, loving him and accepting him day in and day out. I feel like that’s something Blaine really wants and has never quite had, not with the façade he had up with the Warblers and the tensions within New Directions. The way Elliott was sprawled on the cushions in 5x04 made me think about nights with Blaine there, too, just as easily a part of the group, and what he might feel like lying there at ease, belonging. It’s a big, deep topic and one I hope the show might someday explore with him, but I just wanted a little snippet of it.
So that’s this fic: a simple night in, the Bushwick crew being themselves, and Blaine feeling like a part of it. There’s a lot I like about this fic, as small as it is. I like Dani and Sam playing guitar together, since these are people who all make music as easily as breathing, and I liked showing that. I like the idea of Santana and Elliott doing makeup together, because it made me laugh. I like the way Blaine looks up at Kurt from his lap and sees the angle of his jaw instead of the straight-on view of his face. I like how warm and easy it all is for all of them.
Oh, and I love the line: ”Puppies, Kurt,” Blaine said again. This was not a laughing matter. “Actual real cartoon puppies. As a coat.” Actual real cartoon puppies still cracks me up.
(What? If I can’t make myself laugh, what’s the point of writing funny things?)
”Potential" - I fully expected after this episode for fandom to explode in a frenzy of tattoo and piercing porn, and it probably did. But what got me interested was Kurt getting some of his mojo back and Blaine’s reaction to Kurt’s new accessories, not as sex aids but as something that might ping his own insecurities. Blaine in canon is flailing a bit and is apart from Kurt again; I feel like he might be feeling pretty unsettled, echoes of the fall of their breakup still resonating with the distance, even though history isn’t repeating itself. Kurt’s definitely ahead of Blaine on the arc of growing up, and I think Blaine feels it. It’s interesting to me.
I also loved the idea of Kurt coordinating his tongue studs with his outfits, because you just know he would. :D
I got a comment about this fic that said something along the lines of “yeah, we know you think Kurt is just the most amazing person in the entire world *eyeroll*,” which… okay. I don’t see the point of leaving a comment like that, but that aside, I do think Kurt is amazing. I also think Blaine is amazing. In the context of this fic, the reason that Blaine thinks Kurt is amazing are not so much the reasons that I think Kurt is amazing. Blaine and I have very different perspectives on him. He means different things to us; if nothing else, to Blaine Kurt is the real person he’s in love with and whom he knows intimately but imperfectly, and to me Kurt is a fictional character whose story I’ve been able to watch unfold from afar with more distance and insight. But you can’t convince me that canonical Blaine thinks anything other than that Kurt walks on water, sneezes rainbows, and is some sort of magical fairy prince who has taken mortal form to spend time with him. I mean, have you seen Blaine’s heart-eyes? I’m not saying it’s necessarily healthy for Blaine to feel that way, but he really does seem to.
So yes, in this fic Blaine is really gushing quite a bit over Kurt, but that’s because that is what I think Blaine thinks of Kurt, not because Blaine here is standing in for me. That’s the whole point of me writing in a tight POV. I am writing what I think the POV character thinks. I hope for most people that comes across, because otherwise I’m doing something very wrong.
Which I probably am, but that’s a conversation for another day.
”The Return of Nightbird, or Six Times Kurt Meets a Superhero” - I blame lizinprogress for this fic. She and I were chatting a little over e-mail about the idea of Blaine and Sam continuing to be their superhero selves in New York, but to my infinite sadness she never did come up with a fic about it for her to write. Some weeks later, though, I happened to think about what on earth Kurt would think if he unexpectedly walked in on a full-costume superhero club meeting in the loft, and just like that the ideas exploded out of me in rapid-fire visuals, demanding to be written.
I feel like even in New York Kurt will still gravitate toward the girls (Rachel, Santana) and Blaine toward the boys (Sam, Artie), and that that’ll be okay with them to have a bit of separation of friends. Kurt might not really get Blaine playing with Sam, but he won’t have a problem with it. So I thought a baffled Kurt going about his life, trying not to be too pushy, trying to let Blaine be independent and himself, but being really confused by the whole superhero thing would be funny and make a lot of sense. I thought it might tell a good story about them getting to know each other in new ways. It was also ridiculously fun to write a total romp with the whole Bushwick cast together.
The whole fic makes me smile and is one of my favorites of the year, but this line is my favorite because it feels so very, very Kurt and his priorities to me: They’re going to get photographed for Humans of New York before he is by Bill Cunningham. The horror!
”The Sounds of Home” - I loved having Blaine in the Bushwick loft with everyone in 5x06; it was like my own elaborate headcanon was coming true. I thought a lot about what it would feel like for him to be there, and I kept coming back to the idea that he’d be happy but not quite feel settled there during the episode. Moving from Lima to New York is a huge change. Everything smells and sounds different. Coupling that with a Blaine who is very clearly feeling unsettled and less than confident brought me to the idea of him jumping at sounds of the apartment/city that Kurt doesn’t even notice. It’s so different going from being a big fish at Dalton or McKinley, living in his parents’ home with them to deal with most of the daily grind of life and to be a barrier between him and the grown-up world outside the door, to being miniscule fish in the huge ocean of New York, responsible for everything from buying food to personal safety to succeeding in careers that don’t have the easy outline of high school classes and tests. It’s overwhelming.
Still, I wanted the fic to feel dreamy and close, because as unsettled as he is, Blaine is with Kurt. I wanted them to feel caught up in a cocoon of each other with only little interruptions, happy to be able to be together in a bed all night long at last, drunk on each other.
”The Man Behind the Curtain” - In keeping with the tradition of me having no idea what people in fandom want, I think the idea of this fic is really great, but it got very little attention in fandom. Still, I like it a lot. 5x07 continued the trend of me being super, super interested in Blaine and all that was going on inside of him, all that he was wanting to hear from people but wasn’t except in their puppet forms. I thought a series of scenes of him talking with the Kurt puppet as if it were Kurt would illuminate all sorts of cool things about what was going on in his head and where his stresses and insecurities lay. It’s an idealized Kurt, probably one he’d hate in reality, one that gives but doesn’t take, but it’s one that soothes him where he’s most worried right now.
I think I caught some of the manic, silly energy of the episode, I think it’s fascinating to look at Blaine through this lens, and I still love the line that made me go from daydreaming to writing this fic: “You know, I don’t have a gag reflex,” the Kurt puppet says casually.
”Twenty Tropes for Real Boys” - For the last fic of 2013, I played with tropes again. I don’t remember exactly how I started thinking in this direction this particular time, whether I’d read a trope fic or was just thinking about them, but I got off on this mental tangent about how I treat Kurt and Blaine as real and have never felt the urge to give them tentacles or whatever so haven’t really troped it up the way so much of fandom does. So that meant that I started thinking about how I would write tropes for them, and the huge lightbulb over my head went off with the idea of writing tropes as they exist in their mundane forms in our world. Amnesia means you forgot something important. Sex pollen means someone brings you lovely flowers. Demon possession means a person before his coffee.
I was off. I made a list of about fifteen tropes, which I added to as I was writing along, and just started typing my heart out. I wrote quickly and happily, which isn’t always true. It kept me up at night. It was a perfect fic to write during a really busy time, because I could write a section or two during a short break and didn’t have to sit with a big plot in my head waiting for more time for writing. It also solved my issue of wanting to write holiday-related fic when canon is not concurrent with reality, I had nothing to say about 5x08, and Kurt and Blaine aren’t even in the same space, because I could just futurefic it with a holiday theme and have the best of both worlds. Yay Bushwick futurefic!
I’d like to pull out sections and talk about them, but then we’d be here all day. I loved twisting the tropes around in what I hope are interesting ways. I’ll just say that this fic makes me insanely happy, and it made me happy that other people liked it, too.
So that’s 2013 in fanfic for me!
There are other fics I worked on this year but haven’t finished. I have a couple partial Teen Wolf fics sitting in GDocs, and most notably in Glee I have some more in the Near Misses ‘verse and a good chunk of a long Blaine fic about his need for big moments, growing up gay, and the importance of marriage and marriage equality to him. I actually have a couple of drafts of the start of that fic, because I keep trying to find the right way to tell it, but the one that I think is the right one is about ten thousand words long at the moment. It’s kind of the Being Blaine Anderson to my Being Kurt Hummel. I really hope I figure that one out.
I obviously didn’t write as much as last year, since there was no Near Misses-sized fic in here, and I’m kind of sad about not being inspired to write one nor having the time to do so, but still, I figure averaging a fic a week isn’t that bad, all things considered.