Fic roundup 2012 with "witty author commentary"!
BTVS/ATS
Sweet Reflections (Buffy/Angel)
Things That Are Easy, Things That Are Free (Buffy/Angel)
Hope Springs (Buffy/Angel, Connor/OC)
Put Your Dreams Away (For Now) (Buffy/Angel)
Fatal Attraction (Xander, Buffy)
Asylum (Joyce, Buffy)
Unconventional Methods of Torture (Cordelia)
Make a Difference (Xander)
Home Improvements (Buffy/Angel)
Bones
25 Things You Might Not Know About Jack Hodgins (Hodgins/Angela, indications of Hodgins/Cam)
Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace (Hodgins/Angela)
Gilmore Girls
The Things You Must Remember (Rory/Logan)
Fringe
Fuel For Our Journey (AltLivia, AltLincoln/AltLivia friendship)
1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?:
I felt that I wrote a lot, but looking back, it's really not that much. Particularly on the drabble front. I just reread everything so often like the tremendous narcissist that I am that it seemed like more. Also I do have a few fics saved on my computer that are all written but not posted.
2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:
Everything was pretty standard this year except for my Fringe piece. It was just random inspiration from watching the episode but I never really thought I would ever write AltLivia. Also my Bones fic (the stuff that I posted anyway) was focused on Angela/Hodgins instead of Bones/Booth.
3. What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
I really like the narration of Fuel for Our Journey and feel that it fits very neatly into the episode, and I think that the dialog from Sweet Reflections is fun. And I'm happy with the way Hope Springs turned out (and beyond that, it's such a huge relief not to have it constantly hanging over my head). But actually, quality-wise, I'm pretty happy with my work this year overall.
4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I attempted to write chapter fic, with Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace and a Veronica Mars fic that I have three chapters of on my computer. And the fact that I stopped after a few chapters shows that I'm either not good at it or not ready for it. I can write long fic and then break it up into chapters (see my blatant and totally failed attempt for more reviews on the version of Hope Springs that I posted ff.net), but it just takes a REALLY long time.
5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
CHAPTER FIC, STILL CHAPTER FIC. I am going to keep pushing until I finally do it. I would like to write original fiction, but I'm not listing it as a goal because I don't actually believe it's going to happen and I don't want to end up next January crying about how I'm such a failure because I can't even write stuff that isn't fanfic.
6. From my past year of writing, what was...
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:
Technically Fuel For Our Journey because of the small size of the fandom (I'm hoping it's that rather than that it wasn't good) but it feels like Hope Springs because of the reviews vs effort. I could have had three full term and one premature baby in the period from that fics inception to its completion, and I know that reviews shouldn't depend on that, but I just felt unvalidated by my readership (let's take a quick pause to all laugh at the way I phrased this, like I have an eager audience holding its breath, afraid to leave their computers in case I update). Especially the two hundred jerkfaces on ff.net who have read and not reviewed. NOT COOL, GUYS!
Most Fun:
Home Improvements flowed really easily, so that was fun to write, and it's still pretty fun to read. Reading over the last part of Sweet Reflections, makes me laugh because perpetual pointed out a shipping/banter thing to me.
Most Disappointing:
This was not a great year for Bones fic for me. I'm not really happy with the way that the Hodgins sequel to my Booth piece turned out, at least in comparison to the first, which I really really like. And I’m very bummed out because what was supposed to be my entrée into chapter fic, something that seemed really doable at the outset, remains incomplete. I have one unposted chapter on my computer, but my inspiration dried up and that was very depressing for me. Also I reread it today, and it’s one of those ‘in the moment’ fics that doesn’t seem to translate well from my head to other people’s. Perhaps because I make no notations to indicate which minor moment of a random episode I am inserting my narrative.
Most Sexy:
The winner might actually be the Xander/Buffy innuendo from the beginning of Fatal Attraction. It's a two line fakeout scene with undescribed touching of some sort. That’s how slim the pickings are in this category in my writing.
Hardest to Write:
The obvious answer is Hope Springs. I’ve been struggling with and ranting about this story for three years, and now it’s done. Put Your Dreams Away was a fairly standard think-write thing (thought of it early October and wrote it up in about two weeks), but translating the plots and ideas from my head to the narrative without using obvious exposition was hard, and I’m still not sure that I accomplished it appropriately. But obviously the incompleteness of Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace says that it should be the winner.
Most Unintentionally Telling:
I’m never really sure how to answer this question. My life is always pretty standard, so my stories usually follow a pretty standard pattern of thoughts, traits and realizations.
Choice Lines:
Sadly, I've written so little this year that I'll just go through and give a line or two from each one.
Sweet Reflections
- “Dawn,” Buffy sighs, her own eye-roll not insignificant, “You have done magic and killed vampires. You are actually a glowing energy being. You have cleaned Xander’s apartment without gagging. South America should not impress you.”
- “Don’t tell Xander,” Buffy tells Angel, biting into her own cookie. “He lost an eye and you’ll never hear the end of ‘Who Has the Manlier War Wound.’”
Things That Are Easy
- “What if she’s allergic to lemon? Or sugar? Or whatever else you put in when you baked it.”
Buffy snorts and fixes his collar. “Oh, ye of too much faith. You’ll have to read the box to see what ingredients the store used in there. But even if she’s one of those bubble people who’s allergic to, like, sunlight and water and air, she’ll appreciate the gesture.”
“Just because she couldn’t live as a plant,” Angel hisses, but Buffy has knocked and the rest of what he was going to say is cut off as his unknown neighbor comes to the door.
When Buffy said that she was afraid of him, Angel imagined an older lady or perhaps a fluffy-haired, middle aged Joyce Summers look-alike. But the woman in the doorway is perhaps thirty with short dark hair just brushing her earlobes. She’s wearing a business skirt with a silky-looking tank top.
“Did you just get home?” he blurts. Buffy elbows him, so he tries to remember the niceties that he thought up in the moments between meeting Buffy at her house and her revealing her plan. “I’m Angel. I live next door. In the…creepy house. I brought a cake.”
“I’m Buffy,” Buffy chips in, trying to look as normal as possible. “Angel doesn’t get out much. The cake is lemon, though, so it might be good.”
Hope Springs
- She had dark hair and dark eyes and she stared silently upward, as if searching for constellations in Buffy's face. A future, a whole lifespan, a human eternity looked up from the cuddle of blankets.
- “Don’t say I didn’t earn my homemaker stripes,” she said, handing the cup over. “Thank Charlotte for me. I won’t torture her for the secret ingredient, but someday someone might.”
“She grinds her own cinnamon.” He lifted the mug a little, half saluting her. “No torture necessary, although I’m pretty sure Char could take it.”
“You’re a lucky man, then. Hang on to your torture-resistant woman.”
Connor smirked. “I’ll do my best.”
The conversation seemed to be over. Buffy nodded and turned away. A few steps later, Connor said her name. She stopped, but didn’t face him. “Just so you know, he’s been doing the same. Hanging on, even if you think he’s letting go.”
- Now she reminded Buffy of a doll her Nana Grace had kept in her attic. It had been a china doll, a perfect replica of a human child. That was what Ren’s face looked like now, not in that it was pale and perfect and fragile but that it was frozen, hidden away, an aggressive imitation of what was precious.
- “We- parents, people, champions- we make choices. And sometimes we never know if we made the right ones.”
I'm also quite partial to the epilogue piece at the end.
Put Your Dreams Away
- He gives a neutral response, something British, “Indeed” or “Quite,” and they continue on.
Home Improvements
-"Angel." She snorted as she levered the top off of the can of Chili Pepper Red. "Maybe he should be called Anal." She sat up suddenly. "Wow, that came out dirtier than expected."
- "You're human now, Angel. Making noise is the new sneaking around. Get with the times,"
25 Things...Jack Hodgins
- Jack never took drugs because the scariest thing in his world was for his mind to fail him.
Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace
I actually like a lot of the writing here; readers' choice.
The Things You Must Remember
- ...eating a million packages of vending machine Oreos is much less fun without your mother trying to confuse you into pressing the wrong buttons
- You don't notice that you are crying until he steps through the doorway and puts his arms around you. It's the first time anyone has hugged you through all this. Until now it has been you sharing a quick, dry embrace with a tearful DAR member, or trying to wrap your grandpa tight enough to keep his heart inside.
- There's a quiet pride in his voice, and it reminds you of the thousand different tones when he used to say 'I love you,' of how you used to be able to tell what he was feeling just by the way his mouth moved against yours.
- You sit on the bed and watch as he gets pajamas from your drawer and slips them on to you. They're your favorite ones that you keep at your mom's and you wonder is it's a coincidence or if he knows about your intricate pajama hierarchy.
Fuel for Our Journey
See Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace above.
Sweet Reflections (Buffy/Angel)
Things That Are Easy, Things That Are Free (Buffy/Angel)
Hope Springs (Buffy/Angel, Connor/OC)
Put Your Dreams Away (For Now) (Buffy/Angel)
Fatal Attraction (Xander, Buffy)
Asylum (Joyce, Buffy)
Unconventional Methods of Torture (Cordelia)
Make a Difference (Xander)
Home Improvements (Buffy/Angel)
Bones
25 Things You Might Not Know About Jack Hodgins (Hodgins/Angela, indications of Hodgins/Cam)
Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace (Hodgins/Angela)
Gilmore Girls
The Things You Must Remember (Rory/Logan)
Fringe
Fuel For Our Journey (AltLivia, AltLincoln/AltLivia friendship)
1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?:
I felt that I wrote a lot, but looking back, it's really not that much. Particularly on the drabble front. I just reread everything so often like the tremendous narcissist that I am that it seemed like more. Also I do have a few fics saved on my computer that are all written but not posted.
2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:
Everything was pretty standard this year except for my Fringe piece. It was just random inspiration from watching the episode but I never really thought I would ever write AltLivia. Also my Bones fic (the stuff that I posted anyway) was focused on Angela/Hodgins instead of Bones/Booth.
3. What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
I really like the narration of Fuel for Our Journey and feel that it fits very neatly into the episode, and I think that the dialog from Sweet Reflections is fun. And I'm happy with the way Hope Springs turned out (and beyond that, it's such a huge relief not to have it constantly hanging over my head). But actually, quality-wise, I'm pretty happy with my work this year overall.
4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I attempted to write chapter fic, with Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace and a Veronica Mars fic that I have three chapters of on my computer. And the fact that I stopped after a few chapters shows that I'm either not good at it or not ready for it. I can write long fic and then break it up into chapters (see my blatant and totally failed attempt for more reviews on the version of Hope Springs that I posted ff.net), but it just takes a REALLY long time.
5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
CHAPTER FIC, STILL CHAPTER FIC. I am going to keep pushing until I finally do it. I would like to write original fiction, but I'm not listing it as a goal because I don't actually believe it's going to happen and I don't want to end up next January crying about how I'm such a failure because I can't even write stuff that isn't fanfic.
6. From my past year of writing, what was...
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:
Technically Fuel For Our Journey because of the small size of the fandom (I'm hoping it's that rather than that it wasn't good) but it feels like Hope Springs because of the reviews vs effort. I could have had three full term and one premature baby in the period from that fics inception to its completion, and I know that reviews shouldn't depend on that, but I just felt unvalidated by my readership (let's take a quick pause to all laugh at the way I phrased this, like I have an eager audience holding its breath, afraid to leave their computers in case I update). Especially the two hundred jerkfaces on ff.net who have read and not reviewed. NOT COOL, GUYS!
Most Fun:
Home Improvements flowed really easily, so that was fun to write, and it's still pretty fun to read. Reading over the last part of Sweet Reflections, makes me laugh because perpetual pointed out a shipping/banter thing to me.
Most Disappointing:
This was not a great year for Bones fic for me. I'm not really happy with the way that the Hodgins sequel to my Booth piece turned out, at least in comparison to the first, which I really really like. And I’m very bummed out because what was supposed to be my entrée into chapter fic, something that seemed really doable at the outset, remains incomplete. I have one unposted chapter on my computer, but my inspiration dried up and that was very depressing for me. Also I reread it today, and it’s one of those ‘in the moment’ fics that doesn’t seem to translate well from my head to other people’s. Perhaps because I make no notations to indicate which minor moment of a random episode I am inserting my narrative.
Most Sexy:
The winner might actually be the Xander/Buffy innuendo from the beginning of Fatal Attraction. It's a two line fakeout scene with undescribed touching of some sort. That’s how slim the pickings are in this category in my writing.
Hardest to Write:
The obvious answer is Hope Springs. I’ve been struggling with and ranting about this story for three years, and now it’s done. Put Your Dreams Away was a fairly standard think-write thing (thought of it early October and wrote it up in about two weeks), but translating the plots and ideas from my head to the narrative without using obvious exposition was hard, and I’m still not sure that I accomplished it appropriately. But obviously the incompleteness of Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace says that it should be the winner.
Most Unintentionally Telling:
I’m never really sure how to answer this question. My life is always pretty standard, so my stories usually follow a pretty standard pattern of thoughts, traits and realizations.
Choice Lines:
Sadly, I've written so little this year that I'll just go through and give a line or two from each one.
Sweet Reflections
- “Dawn,” Buffy sighs, her own eye-roll not insignificant, “You have done magic and killed vampires. You are actually a glowing energy being. You have cleaned Xander’s apartment without gagging. South America should not impress you.”
- “Don’t tell Xander,” Buffy tells Angel, biting into her own cookie. “He lost an eye and you’ll never hear the end of ‘Who Has the Manlier War Wound.’”
Things That Are Easy
- “What if she’s allergic to lemon? Or sugar? Or whatever else you put in when you baked it.”
Buffy snorts and fixes his collar. “Oh, ye of too much faith. You’ll have to read the box to see what ingredients the store used in there. But even if she’s one of those bubble people who’s allergic to, like, sunlight and water and air, she’ll appreciate the gesture.”
“Just because she couldn’t live as a plant,” Angel hisses, but Buffy has knocked and the rest of what he was going to say is cut off as his unknown neighbor comes to the door.
When Buffy said that she was afraid of him, Angel imagined an older lady or perhaps a fluffy-haired, middle aged Joyce Summers look-alike. But the woman in the doorway is perhaps thirty with short dark hair just brushing her earlobes. She’s wearing a business skirt with a silky-looking tank top.
“Did you just get home?” he blurts. Buffy elbows him, so he tries to remember the niceties that he thought up in the moments between meeting Buffy at her house and her revealing her plan. “I’m Angel. I live next door. In the…creepy house. I brought a cake.”
“I’m Buffy,” Buffy chips in, trying to look as normal as possible. “Angel doesn’t get out much. The cake is lemon, though, so it might be good.”
Hope Springs
- She had dark hair and dark eyes and she stared silently upward, as if searching for constellations in Buffy's face. A future, a whole lifespan, a human eternity looked up from the cuddle of blankets.
- “Don’t say I didn’t earn my homemaker stripes,” she said, handing the cup over. “Thank Charlotte for me. I won’t torture her for the secret ingredient, but someday someone might.”
“She grinds her own cinnamon.” He lifted the mug a little, half saluting her. “No torture necessary, although I’m pretty sure Char could take it.”
“You’re a lucky man, then. Hang on to your torture-resistant woman.”
Connor smirked. “I’ll do my best.”
The conversation seemed to be over. Buffy nodded and turned away. A few steps later, Connor said her name. She stopped, but didn’t face him. “Just so you know, he’s been doing the same. Hanging on, even if you think he’s letting go.”
- Now she reminded Buffy of a doll her Nana Grace had kept in her attic. It had been a china doll, a perfect replica of a human child. That was what Ren’s face looked like now, not in that it was pale and perfect and fragile but that it was frozen, hidden away, an aggressive imitation of what was precious.
- “We- parents, people, champions- we make choices. And sometimes we never know if we made the right ones.”
I'm also quite partial to the epilogue piece at the end.
Put Your Dreams Away
- He gives a neutral response, something British, “Indeed” or “Quite,” and they continue on.
Home Improvements
-"Angel." She snorted as she levered the top off of the can of Chili Pepper Red. "Maybe he should be called Anal." She sat up suddenly. "Wow, that came out dirtier than expected."
- "You're human now, Angel. Making noise is the new sneaking around. Get with the times,"
25 Things...Jack Hodgins
- Jack never took drugs because the scariest thing in his world was for his mind to fail him.
Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace
I actually like a lot of the writing here; readers' choice.
The Things You Must Remember
- ...eating a million packages of vending machine Oreos is much less fun without your mother trying to confuse you into pressing the wrong buttons
- You don't notice that you are crying until he steps through the doorway and puts his arms around you. It's the first time anyone has hugged you through all this. Until now it has been you sharing a quick, dry embrace with a tearful DAR member, or trying to wrap your grandpa tight enough to keep his heart inside.
- There's a quiet pride in his voice, and it reminds you of the thousand different tones when he used to say 'I love you,' of how you used to be able to tell what he was feeling just by the way his mouth moved against yours.
- You sit on the bed and watch as he gets pajamas from your drawer and slips them on to you. They're your favorite ones that you keep at your mom's and you wonder is it's a coincidence or if he knows about your intricate pajama hierarchy.
Fuel for Our Journey
See Moments of Rare and Fragile Grace above.