Day Sixteen: Five Favorite Lilahs

[jennyo]

Sorry. Was caught up in fandom wankery.

Today/tomorrow's assignment: list your five favorite Lilah characterizations in fic. Pick five stories, tell us why you love them, adore them, think they speak to the Lilah-ness of it all.

Comments

[inyron]

Well, this was kinda hard.

I don’t think these are my definitive top five- I’ve probably forgotten too many for that- but they’re all characterizations I enjoy, so here we go:

Reprise by Princess Twilite. A version of my favorite characterization of the W/L relationship- Lilah wants power, money, and Wesley, and Lilah gets what she wants. It’s all very Id. Unfortunately, it rarely works out so simply in practice. The job isn’t quite perfect (though the power and money *are* nice), and while sleeping with Wesley is very nice, something else is happening there. Not love, of course. But something. I think this fic is a very good snapshot of early S4 Lilah.

Window of Opportunity by fox1013. What, you didn’t think Lilah’s really all that clueless, do you? Of course she knew just exactly what Wesley was keeping in that closet. And in this fic we get Lilah paying Justine a little visit, wherein they discuss the W/L relationship. And Justine curses a lot. Possibly because of the little handjob Lilah throws in, dunno. Also, Lilah

[nolivingman]

inyron is not alone in her sappy love for Five Ways to Have a Happy Ending, And Not One of Them True. It would have been on my list, but she really said everything I need to say about it, and so I don't need to cut one of these to get to 5. Yay!

1. This Is The End Of A Story Which No One Remembers Because It Never Happened by backfromspace. Pragmatic Lilah is in Hell, knows she deserves it and is dealing very well until Wes shows up and breaks her heart.

2. Nobody's Girl Friday by hold_that_thought. Love her snarky manner when having to deal with working for Angel, love her dreaming of writing "Kill" during a boring meeting. I'm a sucker for Angel and Lilah office stories and this is the best of them.

3. Careful Plans by Inyron. Shmoopy, heartbreaking and Princess Bride-quoting and that devious smile of Lilah's at the end makes the story complete. Love it.

4. Future Imperfect by Jennyo. Lilah's still hung up on Wes, but learns to love again with Spike. Her reactions to him being all romantic and Spike-stalkery make me smile. She's just

[palmaceae]

I don't have most of the links, but i have the titles. sorry

My List

[jennyo]

Five Favorite Lilah Characterizations

* Reconstruction by Roseveare. I'm already on-record as a fan of this series, because it's plotty and interesting, but I do think the Lilah here is really wonderful and a joy to read. For the record, I also love Quartet.

* There's a lot of good sallyanne, but I am actually pretty damn fond of In the Game's Lilah because she's snide and sexy and all the things I love about Lilah.

* Roz Kaveney's Decent Interval was written before it all went to Hell, so it's definitely more AU than not now, but the view of this Lilah and this Cordelia is lovely, aching, and somehow *true*. Much how I prefer to view what happened post-Angel than what...happened.

* I never stopped loving Soft by Princess Valium; call it my favorite "fluffy" Lilah characterization, with the hurt and the evil and all sort of vulnerable.

* And oh, now I am going to be all forms of egotistical and pick which Lilah of mine I like the best, for the record. Anna Begins. The Habeas Corpses that wasn't.

[raskazzptitsa]

*panics* I'm gonna miss people! And then I'll feel bad! And people will think I'm only picking my friends because they're my friends, but the truth is I'm cagey and simply up and decided to befriend all the Lilah people!

Okay, breathing now. There's a lot of fabulous Lilah fic, and many fabulous Lilah authors. Winnowing my choices down to five is EVIL. But I'll try. (I'm only doing one per author because...HARD!)

How do you narrow down among all the fabulous fics jennyo has done? Not easily, but I'm going with the one I end up coming to again and again. The Rules of Attraction. It's Wesley/Lilah, and it nails their relationship to me, for all its pricklyness and mindfucking. (Runner-up, and more Just Lilah, is Five Cities, Five Stories, in the vein of "Five things that never happened to...")

Soft by Princess Valium is just amazing. Soft and hard and....gah. Just...gah. Read it.

And It Was Good by fox1013...that's my Lilah, man. Making the best of any situation.

Untitled Ficlet by inyron (woman, would you title this sucker and upload it somewhere

[jennyo]

I actually almost said Rules of Attraction, too. *grin* So that's funny. Rules, Sixth Day, Anna Begins, and Aperture, with Affording Balm rounding out the five.

Smooch

[paratti]

And sorry about the mascara damage. /small voice