Welcome to 2018: a 2017 fic review
Buffyverse
That Names Were Carved on Us
The Future Belongs
Would They Go On Aching Still
MCU
16. “Do you wish things had happened differently?”
A Discovery of Warming
A Homecoming
In Brief Delight, In Joyous Strains
In the Bloom of Life
In the Little Glimmers
Missions Accomplished
So That You Will Hear Me (my words sometimes grow thin)
Sweet Living
The Greatest Virtue (the greatest fault)
The Things I've Left Unsaid
Through Despair and Hope
untitled Steve/Peggy fic
Veronica Mars
Gifts of Time and Love
1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?:
As I've said, I don't really predict. However, I thought around the same amount as the past few years, but now that I'm looking at the list, it's definitely less than I would have hoped. I mostly wrote for events and challenges this year rather than writing spontaneously or doing more prompts or requests. I also stayed fairly traditional in my pairings, and didn't develop any new interests (slash obsessions) that inspired me to write for new fandom.
2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:
All these are pretty standard pairings and fandoms for me at this point, but I didn't think I had another Veronica Mars fic in me, and I definitely didn't think I had more than my one annual Buffy/Angel story to write.
3. What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
Overall, probably Missions Accomplished, the best example of that sweet but not overly fluffy slice of life type of fic that's my favorite, but I think the AU flows really well in The Greatest Virtue (the greatest fault). It might have been So That You Will Hear Me (my words sometimes grow thin) if it had worked a little better because there's more plot to it, but there's some awkward roughness in there that didn't get worked out. That's definitely my favorite title of the year, though. And I think I love my untitled little Steve/Peggy and kids story more than anyone; I'll sometimes track it down to reread it because I love that little world.
4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I really did stay very simple this year. I think that a year lacking risks actually made me want to be a little more adventurous in the future. Another lesson learned: I don't know what I was doing before to come up with good titles, but I want it back.
5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
The main one is to finish my Woman Borne sequel. I did work a little bit more on that this year, but it's really moving in inches. I'd love it if I could be done by 2019, though. As a larger goal, though, I'd just like to write more. I hope that I'll try some new (or older) fandoms this year, and that I'll write more fic just because and not be as afraid to ask for prompts. I think that I assume that because I don't get a lot of replies when I do ask, and I don't get a ton of feedback on things that I post, especially comparative to other writers and stories, I'm just bothering people when I ask for prompts, that I'm just asking them to request things they don't actually want. But I really do get better the more I write, so maybe I just have to take advantage when I get a prompt and try not to care that people don't really care that much.
6. From my past year of writing, what was…
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:
As mentioned before, that untitled Steve/Peggy fic is something I actually like, but as also mentioned, it has to be basically unearthed, so it's possible that if it had been posted as something other than a tumblr comment, more people would have seen it. There are other fics (The Things I've Left Unsaid and Gifts of Time and Love mainly) which feel underappreciated in comparison to my other fics or fics from other people, but I really just have to chill about.
Most Fun:
I think Sweet Living, which is really just a cute baking AU. But I do also love the sarcastic, awkward big brother Angel humor and Jo's banter in The Future Belongs.
Most Disappointing:
It's pretty clear that when I was writing In the Little Glimmers I got caught up in the research and history of it, and the writing suffered for it. I also liked the sound of the idea for That Names Were Carved on Us when I was initially discussing it on tumblr, but in my hands, it went by very quickly and didn't dwell enough on the eternal yearning of it all, which was one of the best parts of the whole idea.
Most Sexy:
Haha, how long have I been doing this without being able to answer this question? Maybe Missions Accomplished? They're in a bed, and there's innuendo?
Hardest to Write:
Things actually went pretty easily among what I actually wrote this year. I think So That You Will Hear Me (my words sometimes grow thin) took a while to percolate, and I did have to think pretty seriously about what would be changed in this AU, but even that didn't take all that long to write.
Most Unintentionally Telling:
Would They Go On Aching Still
Choice Lines:
Michael comes back Saturday night, his drained look disappearing as he swings Sharon up into his arms. Peggy spends a week noticing all over again the gray of her office, the quiet of her house. She paints her toenails and watches her favorite movies, goes out with Angie and finds new takeout places in her neighborhood. She thinks about her own wholeness, and tries not to consider how she never even had to think about it before. - Through Despair and Hope
The winter of 1940 is awfully cold. Bucky’s pop say that it’s nothing compared to 1926, the winter Steve barely survived, and his ma says that it’s cozy next to the winter the year Bucky was born, but none of the chatter helps when the pneumonia settles into its familiar place in the lower lobe of Steve’s left lung.
He slips away before he can hear, across a thousand miles of land and ocean, the echo of her clawing and endless scream.
Steve’s stillness somehow has its own enormity, filling the room with the lack of motion to his shoulders, his legs, the fragile muscles of his eyes. The easy movement of his chest cannot dispel the lack of any other response for Peggy or Bucky as they keep watch. - So That You Will Hear Me (my words sometimes grow thin)
Falsworth unscrewed a flask, poured for everyone. “To the captain,” he said, and somehow Peggy felt bolstered by it, pledge and tribute, battle cry and compass.
For his part, Steve had been calm when she’d come home in the middle of the day and told him about the transfer. “I guess after you’ve spent time as a Russian ice cube, you take a different perspective on things. New York, Los Angeles, they’re not what’s important,” he’d said, giving her one of his shy glances.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she told him. “You were an American ice cube who just happened to be in Russia.” But she’d squeezed his hand. - A Discovery of Warming
“Shepherd’s pie, and I added a cup of chicken soup on the house because it’s still cats and dogs out there,” Angie says, setting the food on the table and taking out her pad. “Where’s Steve, anyway? Been a while since you were in here alone.”
“Steve?” Peggy absently stirs at her soup. “He’s working.”
“Uh huh,” Angie says, scrutinizing her for a moment, before calling over her shoulder into the kitchen, “Luce, I’m taking a break!” loudly enough that the one other customer in the place this late winces. Angie shrugs and sits in the booth across from Peggy. “So what’s the problem?” - The Greatest Virtue (the greatest fault)
“You think you could walk a little louder?” Morita hisses to Dugan.
The man himself just gestures rudely behind his back, but Falsworth says with an acidic simplicity, “I might point out that your whisper isn’t exactly subtle.”
“Any chance you all could pick up the pace?” Jones adds, and although his tone is perfectly polite and he had nothing to do with the coffee incident of the previous hour, the rest turn and glare at him. At this point, Dernier mutters something about how minimal an amount he’d trade them all for, and although they’re not all honor’s students in French, they get the point and start to glare at him instead. - In the Bloom of Life
Somehow, though he listened to everything she said, Steve thinks he blacked out for a few seconds. Probably the rage. Definitely the rage, he decides when he finds that he has fists pressing into his thighs. - A Homecoming
Steve worries about Sadie the most; she will make an excellent spy.
“I’ll get the door for you,” Mimi says, a little skip in her movements as she goes to hold it open.
“Overkill,” Peggy and Sadie whisper together. Mimi sticks her tongue out as the nurse goes past her, pushing the bassinette.
“This is the last one,” Peggy murmurs to him as the girls follow the nurse out. (They’ll be back in a few hours. How much trouble Steve will have to get them out of depends on who forms to plan to get them inside again.)
Steve nods, tucking her into his arms as best he can. She’s probably right. She’s getting older, she has an important and busy job. But then again, they said the same thing after Mimi too… - untitled Steve/Peggy fic
But the brief moments when their paths have crossed over the past year have been knife-sharp and veridian, painful enough to make him realize how much worse a week or even two in Buffy’s company will likely leave him after.
A five minute apology in her dorm hallway was one thing. The idea of seeing her for days of early mornings, talking to her as she sprawls on the sofa at night, the confrontation of memory and imagining of a human lifetime of that: it knocks hollow on his ribs.
Angel tends to agree. He loves Buffy, but he’s seen her drive. Then again, he’s seen Cordelia drive too. And they are taking his car. “Maybe Wes should -” he starts, but before he can even get the suggestion out, he’s watching the door close behind the three of them.
“I named her after my grandmother,” Jo says, smiling down and stroking Elena’s small fingers. When Angel is quiet for a moment, she looks back up at him. “You didn’t think I was going to name her after…”
“No,” Angel says quickly. “Of course not.”
“Don’t worry,” Buffy tells him as she sees him eyeing her fellow passengers. “I won’t get all dismembery if anyone gets creepy with me.”
“I was actually going to encourage it,” Angel says, watching thankfully as a man who doesn’t seem to realize that his tongue belongs inside his mouth moves past the Sunnydale bus in favor of the one to San Francisco. - The Future Belongs
She steps toward him, and with deer-sprung legs he steps away, breath coming fast. Even under the smoky, perfumed scent around her, even protected by skin and veins, he can smell the blood.
He looks out the car window into the California sun and sees her and knows, certain as starvation, after two hundred years and five thousand miles, how to be found. - That Names Were Carved on Us
“When you’re ready,” he’d said that night, the two of them skin-close in her bed, “I hope you’ll talk to me.”
She’d kept her eyes closed, and said nothing. She didn’t know how to tell him that there was a weakness now to the feeling of being in his arms. - Would They Go On Aching Still
He knows that Veronica can be a surprising Christmas elf, but she hasn’t really raised the bar this year as much as grabbed the bar and used it to beat the holiday into submission.
His sister sped right past certifiable and got herself certified. - Gifts of Time and Love
“Colonel Phillips was detained and sent me to appease the room in his stead.” He still can’t see her entirely, but her tone indicates that Colonel Phillips has been detained by his lack of desire to attend this event.
“More likely they happened to pass the home of a comely widow with a surprisingly well-stocked larder,” says Peggy shrewdly.
“Of course not,” Steve tells her earnestly, as Bucky simultaneously says, “Basically.”
“If you had this all along, then why the hell did I have to go mushroom picking?” Dugan demands.
“Well, you were having such a good time,” says Steve. “Seemed a shame to ruin it for you.”
“And we wanted to see how resourceful you could be,” Bucky adds. - In Brief Delight, In Joyous Strains