Le 2015 fic post
Buffy/Angel
Our Inner Wars
Chicago Fire
Here In This Moment
Harry Potter
How Revelatory the Darkness
Something about James Potter
Something about Lily Evans
Something about Sirius Black
The How and the Why
Veronica Mars
A Hidden Fire
Moorings
The Ninety-Nine Percent
1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?:
I don’t really predict, but I feel like it was significantly less than I had wanted. I don’t think I’ve written this little in years. I didn’t write anything for the whole first half of the year (boo to my last year self who counted The Aching Land as a 2014 fic when I posted it on New Year’s) because grad school was way harder than I thought.
I think my fic process is changing, though. I have more and more ideas and snippets that I haven’t finished or haven’t written, when in the past I would maybe have one secret WIP, and everything else would just be written in my mind and then put down on paper and posted in a relatively short timeframe.
2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:
Dawson/Casey, as I just watched Chicago Fire starting this year. And there was a little bit of a Marauders era resurgance!
3. What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
The Ninety-Nine Percent is a strong contender. I am so happy to be done with it. I am so proud that I pushed through. I can’t even tell you the lifting of weight when I finished this story. But I probably like the writing in Moorings the most.
4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Not really? I guess I wrote kind of small this year, by which I mean that I focused mostly on smaller fandoms or less popular characters. I think I also have shifted my writing style? It’s increasingly dramatic sounding (which is probably why I rarely write long stories; it's just too much to read for a significant length of time).
5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
Finish this crossover type AU I have half-written. Write more often for the VM fic recs prompts (I was really good at it for a while and then kind of…stopped). Be on top of my IWRY story earlier on (writing this year was so stressful. Why am I a procrastinator?!). Just write more, maybe?
6. From my past year of writing, what was…
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe: I’m so happy with the responses this year. I don’t really look at any of these fics and go “this was so good, why don’t you love it?!” both because I think the quality is just okay, and because I think I got reviews and kudos as earned. Overall, though, probably How Revelatory the Darkness. I think it’s decently written, but there isn’t a huge market for Lily/James pseudo apocalypse AUs. Or Maybe The How and the Why, which is also not bad but got really very few comments on it.
Most Fun: Here In This Moment? It was easy to write, and it’s just so cozy with fluff.
Most Disappointing: Our Inner Wars, maybe. It’s part of a whole thing, and I still think the basic idea is good because this AU in particular is based on a supremely minor change so it could have easily gone this way, but the story itself didn’t have that much juice to it. When I write this kind of AU story, I tend to go with things that shift the situation or the characters’ perspectives drastically, and I tried to work with something here about the way that Buffy’s protective role would be different or revealed in a different way, but I think it just wasn’t enough. The writing isn’t horrible, though.
Most Sexy: Ha. I’ve been writing these for what? Five years? I’ve still never really answered this question. Did I even write a kiss this year? (I did, but good luck finding it!) The How and the Why might have some quietly sexy moments...?
Hardest to Write: This must be The Ninety-Nine Percent, bane of my existence for too damn long. I only actually wrote a few chapters this year, and I knew where it was going, but it was still terribly difficult getting there, forcing myself to write even during that draining first semester of grad school. But honorable (ish) mention to Our Inner Wars, because it kind of aimlessly came to me as I wrote and there’s something really difficult in that. It felt like trying to keep a car from skidding when you really had no idea what you were doing.
Most Unintentionally Telling: All of them in their own way. You can ask for specifics if you want them.
Choice Lines:
He has a bit of a prominent, stubborn jaw, and she almost wants to rest her fingers on either side- just the tips- and her thumbs on his chin, to cradle it like her mother would a mug she was examining for chip.
“Hey, I’ll have you know that Remus keeps piles of books around his bed that would probably get our place condemned if an inspector ever came to look, and Peter nearly burned the building down last time he tried to warm up some leftover Chinese takeaway.” She laughs at that, his stories and his indignation, laughs harder when he tells her that Sirius had stormed out of his room next to naked and groggily shouted at Peter that he wasn’t allowed to use the stove anymore (“If I wanted hot firemen in the flat, I’d buy a bloody calendar!”). - How Revelatory the Darkness
But it hadn’t been thoughts of relieving that pain that had led Dawson to lean over to him; she had just been sheltering this flickering secret inside of her for too long, letting it out only once, on the fifth day, as she leaned into Kelly’s chest and told him, horror in her voice, that she was afraid that Matt was dead and she didn’t know what to do.- Here In This Moment
“Be good, Wallace,” but his chest is racing and he doesn’t know that he remembers how.
Neptune feels more comfortable as he drives, and he has to shake himself as he thinks that maybe it’s not the familiarity of home, but that he is one of the skeletons now.- A Hidden Fire
Years later, in Azkaban, in shadowed London flats, Sirius and Remus each wished Voldemort had been looking for him instead. Because then they wouldn’t have to live in their own rubble, because if they were limbs of the Marauders, James was the spine and perhaps something could have survived if he had.
Something about James Potter: he believed they were all the heart, and would have smacked them both for thinking otherwise.- Something about James Potter
Something about Lily Potter: the week after Harry was born, James pulled her against him in the night, sealing her skin against his hot palms, and said, “Evans,” and she thought, Jesus, and then, I could never live without you again. And James breathed, “Lily,” somewhere close to her ear, and the thought came, heavy and intrusive in a way that she knew meant that it was the truth: Yes I could. I would hurt every minute for the rest of my life, but if I had to I could.- Something about Lily Evans
Of the way William Potter had hauled him from the mud he had splatted into and buttressed an arm around his shoulders. Of the way James had hugged him, hard, so that the knit of his sweater irritated Sirius’s cheek, and Sirius had hugged back harder. Of Eleanor Potter’s voice burring over them, saying, “Gracious, Sirius, come into the warm. We’re having your favorite. Let’s get your place set, and then once you’ve eaten we can get a room ready for you.”
Something about Sirius Black: The first time he saw Harry in the air, dark hair and slight Seeker bones up high, he thought of Regulus.
Something about Sirius Black: Even in his dog mind, the thought lasted only for a minute and then he was picturing the shadows of antlers on oaks and smelling moonlit musk, thinking fiercely, “James, James.”
Something about Sirius Black: He followed Dumbledore’s instructions and laid low at Lupin’s for three days. He and Remus stayed mostly quiet. He still knew when Remus needed a cup of tea. Remus gave him extra blankets without his having to ask. On the third night, he said across the darkened flat, “I can’t always picture their faces anymore.” Like it was just another half-thought remark tossed between their dormitory beds after Peter and lightweight James had already collapsed into sleep.
Something about Sirius Black: Remus said back, “I’m not always sure that I want to anymore,” with an even, dusty pain, and Sirius wondered if he could transform without Remus noticing because it hurt too much to be himself just then.- Something about Sirius Black
She goes out with Veronica one day. Veronica smiles, even after everything, and Mac knows it's because her father will be waiting for her at home. Logan comes with them, driving with one elbow out the window. Veronica wears sunglasses and twists back to talk to Mac as they head toward the beach. Logan interjects wryly every so often. Mac says something that makes them both laugh. The sun is brighter on her shoulder.
"It looked so lonely next to all the real ice cream, I figured it should come to a good home. A treat from Uncle Pennybags." Veronica's ponytail swings as she nods toward Logan. He kicks some sand toward her feet, but with barely any effort. The breeze blows it away from them.
Mac feels the breeze on her arms. There's the gray of the sea in front of her, the brightness of Logan's towel and Veronica's t-shirt in her peripheral vision. "If the top hat fits," Veronica says over the waves, grinning into her ice cream. Logan laughs. Mac listens to them. She opens her ice cream. There is this. She can hold on to this. - Moorings
“You want to brainstorm home security ideas?” Xander asks. “Because I've been working on this fence made out of stakes idea that I think has potential.”
“So you're thinking missed connection personal ad?”
For the first time, real feeling comes into Angel’s eye, into his voice. He looks up at Darla and says, “What have you done?” and there’s horror in the words.
She is faster and stronger than Buffy had imagined. Giles’s warning and reprimands play in Buffy’s head as she struggles against her, but she doesn’t have the time for breezy words. Darla laughs as they grapple, and Buffy has the strange thought that she might die. One for the diaries, she thinks. First slayer to die by catfight.
For the first time, Angel looks old. Not older, enigmatic and sexy and interesting, but exhaustedly old, like hidden years are revealing themselves in his weary shoulders.
“...My faults and those memories are always with me. Every morning I wake up in the same body and I’m haunted by my own hands.” - Our Inner Wars
He wants to say that he would look into their faces and they would know that his denying mind was filled with fear, and the nauseating forever of the war, and the unsettling questions of what the world would be like after, but that they would help each other beyond.
There’s a feeling of eternity to it all. She’s sung loudly in the shower for the past two days. He bakes fresh bread and they eat it with butter and raspberry jam. They try not to think of the betrayal.- The How and the Why