Personal favorites index
Because sometimes, when you're perusing a particular author's collection of works, you want to know what she thinks are the best of the bunch (and why). Or maybe that's just me. But I'm currently debating whether or not it's worth going to bed since I'll just be awake in ten minutes (insomnia rocks, you guys) and I think it's going to shake out on the side of staying up.
One shots:
Title: we will rise as the buildings crumble (external link)
Rating: R
Pairing: Alex/Mark/Addison
Summary: when the world ends, collect your things, you're coming with me
Why: Okay, again with the apocalypse, but bear with me. I had just finished marathoning Season One of Jeremiah after six months of being very good and not writing about the end of the world. I will admit to trolling the comment-fic-athon for apocafic-worthy prompts and waltzmatildah put up one that just stuck in my head as perfect. I like the awkwardly-linear approach to this and, like most of my apocafic, that I chose detail in weird places instead of spending paragraphs focusing on exactly what the hell Bartertown looks like.
Title: Tranquilize (external link)
Rating: R
Pairing: Alex/Addison
Summary: they are such a bad idea
Why: There's just something about the flow of this that I really like. I don't usually go for the fragmented sentences and parenthetical thoughts (or, if I do, they don't take over the entire fic) so this was a departure for me and I found that it worked for these two. In my head, Alex and Addison are really dysfunctional (no matter how I've written them in the Biosphere universe) and bad for each other, so the concept of Addison leaving Seattle for LA and pretending it's rehab is somewhat apt.
Title: Quiet Battered Voices
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Derek/Addison
Summary: When the world ends, who will you tear the country apart to find?
Why: I have a not-so-secret love for apocafic. It may be my favorite genre. I went through this period this year where I couldn't write anything unless the world had ended in some form or another, and this went for all fandoms. The alien schtick may be a little absurd, but I found the overarching story of two people on the brink of divorce doing everything possible to find each other across a vast and empty country to be fascinating to write.
Title: Five Minutes Past Midnight
Rating: PG
Pairing: Mark/Addison, Derek/Mark/Addison, Derek/Addison, Derek/Meredith
Summary: Mark and Addison go on a post-apocalyptic road trip across the country to find their friend.
Why: Again with the apocafic. I had fun with this one because parts of it were bizarrely specific and others intentionally vague. I think I also have a thing for road trip fic because I have a strange love for oddly-named towns in the middle of the country and a massively useless knowledge of regional grocery store chains. Only the second one was put in use here, but I think it's the thought that counts. And, like Quiet Battered Voices, it speaks to searching the country for loved ones, though this time it's loved ones of a different nature.
Title: We Can Get Wild
Rating: R
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: you're gonna kill yourself with those
Why: I have a fetish for Addison smoking, but it has to be a particular brand of self-destructive smoking in order for it to work for me. Before her character went crazy on TV, I think she was one of those women who publicly held it together with a pair of Jimmy Choos and Dior sunglasses and called it a day but only let her guard down in the darkest hours of the night and did so in such a spectacular fashion that you couldn't even recognize the two sides of her.
Title: Shh
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: Simple, every day things.
Why: Because it's simple. And a little cheesy. And I think love should be like that.
Title: Thank You, Stars
Rating: G
Character: Addison
Summary: mother and daughter through the eyes of each other
Why: I actually can't explain why I like this so much. I'm 90% positive that I was furious with my own mother when I decided to write it, but I suppose that inspiration comes in some of the more unlikely places when you least expect it. Perhaps because it's sweet and innocent and there's no dialogue and I didn't even bother to give the girl a name or use proper nouns. I don't know.
Title: Over the Rainbow
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: Triplets, Christmas.
Why: Oh, goodness. This was written during the summer when I churned out a fic every three days and you had better than even odds on assuming that said fic was going to involve kids. My ovaries have since calmed down. But I remember falling in love with this bit of Gravity of Love when I wrote it and mentioning to stickypearls that someone needed to write Mark/Addison!Triplet!fic and rightfreakingnow and she calmly said that I should do it. Thus, this.
Title: PS: You Rock My World
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mark, Mark/Addison
Summary: Do you believe in angels?
Warnings: Character death
Why: A lot of people found this to be incredibly sad. I found it uplifting. The idea that something so unbelievably tragic can happen and yet life goes on and you survive because you have to survive and all you can ask for is just a little bit of help on rough days and maybe, just maybe that little bit of help comes in the form of a full jar of peanut butter or a coffee maker timer turned on by the memory of someone else.
Title: New York Rock City
Rating: R
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: Eight vignettes (loosely) based on heavy metal song titles.
Why: Because it's silly. And I'm convinced that Addison has a huge crush on Slash.
Title: I Think Of...
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: The epic Africa fic. Doctors Without Borders, grenades.
Why: No, really. This is the epic Africa fic. I love it so much because it's one of those fics that incorporates all kinds of craziness and doesn't apologize for it (mostly because, at the time, I don't think I was aware of the sheer level of insanity in this). I mean, there's sex, there's love, there's a baby, there are grenades, a marriage proposal, and a whole lot of mud.
Title: Temperature
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Alex/Addison
Summary: How "Desire" should have ended.
Why: I have many, many theories as to why this relationship did not work out on the show as well as we'd all hoped. However, they're all crap and based in social and pop culture theory and have no value whatsoever because the fact is: the showrunners totally fucked up this pairing. They were doing so well and then the spin-off idea was greenlit and they were forced to make an abrupt left turn in order to compensate for the potential for Addison leaving the show. I decided that "Desire" needed a fix.
Title: The Baby Tree
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: She leaves Seattle and doesn't tell him.
Why: Ah, yes, the beginning of my kid!fic phase. And one of the better ones. There are babies and angst and a melon baller and, I don't know. It's just kind of sweet.
Title: I Will Write You Love Letters (If You Tell Me To)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Alex/Addison
Summary: She doesn’t think it very fair that she should finally be allowed to smile right before she has to disappear for good.
Why: God, I love this one. I found this album sitting in my college's radio station and then proceeded to outline this fic in my head during my show that night. It was a very awkward show. I love it because it's just the kind of thing that would happen to Addison (at least, the Addison in my head) and the US Postal Service gets utilized which doesn't happen often enough, if you ask me.
Title: The Sweeper of Dreams
Rating: R
Pairing: Derek/Addison
Summary: Cleaning big houses, ghosts (actual ghosts, not metaphorical), memories.
Why: Because there are poltergeists and hidden doorways and Clue references and I tried to put my otherwise-useless degree to use (that bit sort of failed).
Title: The Boy Who Waterskied to Forever
Rating: G
Character: Mark
Summary: Peanut butter and jelly, reflections
Why: Mark's a really good guy at heart. The show (when I was watching it) didn't show much of that side and it annoyed me, so I took what I got and magnified it. This is during the ferryboat arc when he sits next to Derek in the hallway.
Title: Deliberate Belief
Rating: R
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: It's hot, the air-conditioning isn't working, and Derek's at the hospital. Again. And Addison has a migraine. Again.
Why: Because it's humid and gross and miserable and I got to play with setting. And quote Heart of Darkness which, for the record, I really hated.
Title: Eli's Comin'
Rating: R
Pairing: Addison/Many
Summary: What guys like that do to girls like you...
Why: Because Addison got the short end of the stick during the show (again, when I was watching it). And there's this episode of Sports Night entitled "Eli's Coming" and Dan tells Rebecca "What guys like that do to women like you drives me insane" and I was watching a lot of Sports Night my senior year of college.
Title: Apple Candy
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: Running, jumping, climbing trees.
Why: There was this run of three days where all I ate was apple-based products. My body didn't like me too much, but it did produce this fic.
Title: Hallelujah
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: In which I go straight to hell because Addison quotes the Bible during sex.
Why: Because I was religious studies minor and was writing my sociology senior thesis, for reasons escaping me now, with a copy of the Bible next to all of my research on Australian Aboriginal identity. And I needed a break from writing said thesis late at night and there may have been a porn battle going on and my roommate's hooker boots were in the corner and I saw the Bible and then, well, this happened.
Title: Famous Blue Raincoat
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Summary: He never came to Seattle; she went back to New York.
Why: It was the first fic I wrote that was actually any good and in character. Plus, there are a whole lot of musical references based on "Famous Blue Raincoat" that are tossed in there for good measure.
Series:
Title: Corteo
Pairing: Derek/Addison, Mark/Addison, Alex/Addison
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Dark, angsty, violent.
Warnings: Corteo II: Overture includes some pretty hefty dub-con and spousal violence.
Why: I like this one because everybody basically beats the shit out of everybody else, both literally and figuratively. It was also the first time I'd heavily outlined a fic before I even started writing and I'm kind of sad to say that I didn't actually learn from that experience and continue to do so because it was really helpful in keeping it tight and neat without meandering all over the place. Pronouns are hard, by the way.
Corteo I : Prelude
Title: Gravity of Love (with stickypearls)
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Drabbles based on tarot card meanings
Why: Because stickypearls and I are awesome. And this was a totally crackpot idea that I'd had one night after watching too many episodes of Carnivale and popping an Ambien and somehow, somehow, against all logic and sanity, it worked out in our favor.
swords
Title: Sweet Child O' Mine
Pairing: Derek/Addison
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Please fix your marriage before the kid pops out.
Why: Because it's basically the only kid!fic that I've written that isn't extraordinarily over-the-top. That's not to say that it's perfect (three years later and I'm highly uncertain why it was necessary that they go to Greece) or that I dislike all my other kid!fics, I just find it to be the one that most closely resembles normal.
part one
Title: A Posteriori
Pairing: Mark/Addison
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Raising children is not as easy as it looks; extending several Gravity of Love vignettes into a coherent whole fic.
Why: This? This is my favorite series. Maybe my favorite thing I've written in this fandom. It was hard to write at times and I was so worried that I was getting the emotions wrong or taking too long to set up or wrapping things up too quickly but in the end, it came out phenomenally. I'd tackled kid!death before with moderate success, but had no idea how to handle sick!kid and I'm quite proud of how it turned out.
Eppur Si Muove
Title: pop culture clichés catch up with you sooner or later
Pairing: Mark, Mark/Callie
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He's not completely a cliché. Just partly.
Why: There was this throwaway line in a Halloween episode where some kid without ears asked Mark if he was the kid's dad. Derek paid the kid twenty bucks. But I figured that Mark's a playboy and couldn't have been safe all the time. And this is the fic that taught me that I can't actually fake it with small children; I either need to know what I'm doing or skip over those small formative years. And, PS, Shonda? I did Mark Has A Kid He Didn't Know About before you. FYI.
side a: track one: teardrop
Title: Shenzhou
Pairing: Derek/Addison, Alex/Addison, Derek/Meredith
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Long story short, Derek and Addison have a one-night stand with each other and Addison gets knocked up. Derek gets back with Meredith, Addison hooks up with Alex. Insanity and weirdness ensues.
Why: This is part of the Biosphere universe; it's not the first series I wrote in the universe, but it is the first series in terms of timing. In re-reading Dropsonde this past summer, I realized how much that series could've benefited from either a beta or a heavy hand with the editing and while I do love that story in its own right, I think it has too many issues to label it my favorite series in this universe. I always loved Rachel as a character and regretted that I jumped so quickly to her being a teenager in Dropsonde. This is the lost years, and shows Addison being pregnant, getting together with Alex, Rachel being born, and a few years after. It's a crazy batshit situation, but somehow Shenzhou manages to be a calm sort of crazy, occurring before the shit really hits the fan and things get inextricably complicated with custody and other kids and the whole back half of Dropsonde.
Shenzhou (01)
last updated: April.27.2011