(Writing) Year in Review Meme, from penknife
Alias
Facets
Secret Keepers
In Flight
For alias500:
Heat
Lessons
All Part of the Service
Marriage
Correspondances
Angel
Word Made Flesh
Doubt
Betrayal
Losing Control
Babylon 5
Coming in from the Cold (crossover with Deep Space Nine)
Pretty in Pink (crossover with Firefly)
(New) Battlestar Galactica
Story of a Lifetime
Farscape
Theban Play
Firefly
Pretty in Pink (crossover with Babylon 5)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Coming Through
Coming in from the Cold (Crossover with Babylon 5)
Star Wars
Five Senses
Sole Occidente
Theatrical_muse
I wrote challenge replies for three muses (Londo, Darla, Connor) and roleplayed a lot there. In fact, the sheer amount of rp probably contains as many words as my fanfic put together. (Except for poor Londo, who feels neglected and basically is reduced to answering challenge replies because the Jossverse muses are currently talking so animately with me. What is a Centauri to do, hm?)
Now, roleplaying threads are lengthy and complicated things, and probably can't really be enjoyed if you haven't been following the story, but just for the sake of record keeping and to honour the very, very talented writers I've had the pleasure of playing and co-writing with, here are some of my favourite threads from the year:
Darla
Darla (post series, resurrected yet again, human because at the time my Darla joined t_m, I figured that if she came back as a vampire there was no way to rationalize why she wouldn't get staked by other muses) met some old friends on t_m and made new ones. Some of her most delightful interactions were with that fellow we only heard about in The Girl in Question, her old pal the Immortal, brought to glorious life by karabair.
A typical Darla-Immortal rp would be this one.
Now, after it frustrated me for a while that there was no Connor at tm while being simultanously afraid there would be one who wouldn't be played well, I decided to take on Connor, too, once karabair promised she'd play him if Darla and Connor interacted directly. (Playing two muses at one time talking to each other gives me a headache.) For various angst-ridden reasons (and fortunately for poor K'.s workload), this isn't often the case, but sometimes it happens, as in the first mother and son encounter (after some emailling before). Playing twisted, angsty and intense Aurelian family dynamics is fun!
One of Darla's first and most important aquaintances on tm was an OC - the best OC in the 'verse, played by bohemiancachet! - one of the new Slayers, named Kara. The Darla-Kara relationship went through various stages, especially since Darla simultanously wanted to figure out this human mother thing and was a bit attracted to Kara, but settled on friendship. One representative thread would be their night on the town.
As flirting with lawyers is a canonical past time for my darling girl, I also enjoyed her interactions with Alan Shore. Still haven't seen Boston Legal, but 3pipeproblem brings Alan to sharp life, and encounters like this one, which also included some demonic geese (don't ask), were a blast.
But of course, every Darla needs an Angel. After an earlier version which shall not be spoken about left, we got a fabulous one indeed, played by ashylogic, who gets both the serious and the dorky side of the broody one. Due to various circumstances (read: it was Connor's fault!), Darla, Angel and the Immortal had to go to Pylea to retrieve some artifacts. This made me see I had totally misjudged the Pylea arc. Well, okay, it was just fun to use as a background for a terrible trio invading.
Most recently, I got to showcase Darla's manipulative skills and amoral ruthlessness in a conversation with Cordelia, which was just eeeevil. But hey, she was just thinking of the kids! Well, mostly.
Connor
How he came to be: see above. What I hadn't planned on but what happened was that I got to play out an entire relationship (meeting, getting closer, falling in love, crisis, more so, separating) that I still want to do in fanfic, too, one day, and I only hope if I do that I will be able to do the other character justice, because bohemiancachet played her so very, very well.
In short, Connor met Justine again. And they went on a journey, which hit all my road movie kinks. Their cautious growing friendship is showcased in one of my favourite threads of the year, here. And because it is Connor's destiny to fall for women his fathers fell for (or at least had some kind of attractions towards), they eventually kissed. For the full messed up intensity, complete with preceeding dream cameo by Darla, see here.
Also not planned was the other strong relationship which developed. It all started with a hysterical rp in which Kara (see above) was in California for various reasons and Angel had asked Connor, who was living in Los Angeles with Justine at the time, to track her down. Connor found her with her new boy-friend, one Harry Osborn, of Spider-man movieverse origin. Insults, glares and drinking games ensued. (Harry, by the way, is played by ashylogic.) Rather unexpectedly, Harry wrote an email the next day, apologizing. This led to correspondance and bonding over daddy issues. Which led to friendship with subtext as if we were writing Smallville. Which led to lots of guilt, angst, drama, jokes, and lots and lots of UST. Representative for this stage and sort of the turning point as it brought up lots of realisations was a Halloween rp, the basis of which was that Ethan Rayne's costume trick was used again and Harry, who had picked a Dracula costume for fun, turned temporarily into that vampire. The result was also one of my choices for most intense rp I did this year, here.
A firm rival for this is an rp somewhat later, set on a Greek island (too complicated to explain why), with the boys switching from angst and mutual h/c to relaxed joking around to UST-ridden plays for dominance. It basically covers the entire spectrum of that relationship, and they still hadn't reached the actual sex stage, and can be found here.
(Though they did eventually get round to having sex, I might add.)
My favorite story this year
I'm torn between two, actually, both dealing with gentlemen sharing the same initials:
Facets (aka my Arvin Sloane portrait via his five main relationships, minus the one with Nadia, because at the time I wrote this we hadn't seen enough of that one yet), because that was the first time I thought I did him justice, both the dastardly and the compelling aspects, and Five Senses, which was my fanfic reaction to watching Revenge of the Sith. My Anakin muse had come back with a vengeance, no pun intended.
My best story this year
Coming in from the Cold, a DS9/B5 crossover I wrote for Multiverse2005. Or rather, since it starred Garak and Alfred Bester, it basically wrote itself. Doing justice to two ruthless bastards with a gift for one-liners was a joy anyway, but the challenge, as with all crossovers, was not to bore readers who were familiar with both universes with too much exposition but otoh provide enough explanations for readers who only knew one of the two.
Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: I got nice feedback for most of them. Hm. Maybe Secret Keepers, which got some at alias_fiction but not elsewhere, as it dealt with Dr. Barnett and Arvin Sloane.
Most fun story: definitely Story of a Lifetime. I love writing tabloid reporters. And if there is anything that didn't please me about Lucy Lawless' character D'Anna, it was that I wanted Playa to be that reporter giving us the inside scoop on Galactica.*g*
Most sexy story: Err, none? I mean, sex is eventually had in one of them, Pretty in Pink, but that's not what the story is about.
Story with single sexiest moment: Hm, maybe Sloane's eyes meeting Irina's when she puts back the chess game in Jack's favour in Facets, because that is the moment when he realizes she's not nice, kind Laura and he'll have sex with her. But I really think my sexiest writing this year was done over at theatrical_muse, and if I had to pick one point, then it would be the climax of the poker game, specifically "So if you really want to know what I'm able to do, anywhere at all... you're going to have to ask. With a "please" at the end. Loudly, clearly, and without any coy metaphors or excuses involving magic or drugs. Until then? Enjoy the flannel."
Err, I guess you had to be there.
Hardest story to write: Pretty in Pink. For the general challenge in writing a crossover (i.e. which amount of exposition to give), see above. This one involved two nice characters, Inara from Firefly and Vir Cotto from Babylon 5. And it was a request fic, which meant I had to get them into bed with each other at the end. Two bastards like Garak and Bester playing verbal chess? No problem. Two very nice people meeting each other? Far more difficult. Plus over at t_m Vir already had had sex with Inara due to Londo hiring her for him, and as the request for the fanfic came from hobsonphile who wrote Vir, I knew I couldn't repeat that scenario. I wanted both characters to get something other than sex out of it, too. Finally I decided that Inara post-show and Vir post-Cartagia are definitely in need to figure out where their life is going and in need for some h/c, and that worked, but then several other characters, like Zack Allen and Lyta Alexander, insisted on show up as well...
"Holy crap, that's *wrong*, even for you" story: *looks innocent* I don't know what you mean. Err, all the more outrageous parts of the t_m stuff?
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Sole Occidente got written mainly because I wanted to explore the relationship between Padmé and Palpatine, but as it turned out it also gave me an explanation for Padmé's passivity in Revenge of the Sith.
Biggest disappointment: perhaps frustration is the better word, but: Pretty in Pink. I keep thinking I could have done it better.
Biggest surprise: Coming Through. Because that was my response the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans, and to the sheer coincidence of Brock Peters, the actor who played Joseph Sisko on DS9, dying at the same time.
Most unintentionally telling story: Well, if I knew that, it wouldn't be unintentional, would it? Hm. Perhaps Word Made Flesh, because anything dealing with Jasmine is bound to bring up some personal theological ponderings.