fanfiction round-up.
Stories:
Overall Thoughts:
Are mostly derogatory. I have a hard time reading over my own work. It usually seems awkward, immature, and badly characterized after the fact. I've found this to be especially true with the fiction I wrote, even more so than with my academic writing. But I'm pleasantly surprised that I began writing fanfiction at all; I had accepted that I would only ever be a reader in fandom.
I like the feeling that I'm re/producing the community that I participate in; at its best, I think, fanfiction is a mode of persuasion or conversation. At the same time, I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about the change it signals in my journal and my participation online. The people I met through my livejournal that I still really value and. I don't know, I guess admire is the word that comes closest. Anyway, those people aren't fans, or aren't members of the same fandom, and they haven't commented as much lately. Comments, of course, aren't indicative of presence; one of those friends reminded me of that by commenting recently and saying that while she hadn't been saying anything, she'd been checking in. Still, I worry about that. I also worry about the youth of the fandom I'm in, particularly because of my role as a college instructor. I imagine I've probably unwittingly annoyed undergrads on my friendslist before by bemoaning my students' lack of dedication and ambition; there's only more danger now.
At the same time, I promised myself at a certain point this year that I was going to give up on second guessing things. I might not even become a teacher, after all. Who knows? Maybe I'll become a book binding press operator after all of this. And writing pretentious smutty stories about boys in eyeliner seems to keep me sane, so I'm not going to question it too deeply.
My best story of this year:
Depends on how I rank them. In terms of accomplishing what I set out to do, probably This is grad school in a nutshell, which is a little thought. It's got a different tone than I usually write with, and I used that tone for a particular reason, which makes me feel like an actual writer.
My favourite story of this year:
"After," even though it makes me sad still to think about all the things I could have done better, or should have done differently. Still, it's a story very honest to my interior topography, if that makes any sense, especially during the time period when I wrote it. I think there was a limited audience for it from the beginning, because it's located in an apocalyptic setting and seems like it's going to have an unhappy ending. Ultimately, though, it's a story about how I decided to kill myself and then didn't.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
I think none of my stories should be appreciated by the universe, because that would freak me out. "I can see their faces" didn't exactly draw in readers, though. It requires that you have seen and cared about Bourne Ultimatum, and it's gen. Sad gen. I wonder why the masses didn't appreciate it? Gee, that's a real stumper. (This is not meant to demean the few people who did like it, because they made me feel special for writing it.)
Most fun story to write:
Something I didn't publish. It's an AU written for offonmars about Joe Trohman's epic love for Spencer Smith when the two of them worked in an office. Complete fluff, with your standard fic cliches, absolutely and completely reprehensible and without redeeming value. I wrote it in a giddy haze after I'd just finished "After." I really needed something without redeeming value at that point.
Story with the single sexiest moment:
Well, it's a personal kink, so I can't rank it as absolutely sexiest. It's from "Simply a reflection of your own self":
--------
"I prefer the phrase 'cheap date,'" he jokes.
"Yeah?" Tim glances down over Landry's body, and just like that the conversation's well and truly jumped the track. Landry feels like someone's walked their fingers up his back and scratched their fingernails into his hair. He doesn't know what to say. He's talked shit like this before, but before he knew that Matt would start laughing first. Tim's a stubborn son of a bitch.
"Sure," he says, finally, because he doesn't like to back down.
Tim pulls his eyes back up to Landry's face. "So how many more beers until you blow me?" he asks, like he knows what's going on in Landry's head.
"About-" Landry holds his beer up, makes a show of examining the level, "-this much?" Tim grins, and Landry decides to go for it, really freak him out. He drains the beer, watching the foam jerk down through the neck. He drops it when its empty and falls to his knees. He looks up at Tim, grinning a little, sure he's got the edge on him now.
Tim's not laughing, though, or smiling. He's just looking at him; he hasn't moved, his hand is still curled around his beer, the bottle resting against his chest. Landry's knees hurt. Fuck, he thinks, I really fucked up. He starts to get up. His feet slide in the gravel, and before he can flinch away Tim's put down his beer and got a grip on his collar. He braces himself for the blow.
His nose squashes against Tim's. Their teeth collide, hard, and his lip splits a little on the inside, he can taste his blood. He stumbles a little when he pulls back.
"Christ," Tim says, scowling, still too close, "you make me do everything my goddamn self." He puts his hands up, warm and large, and tilts Landry's head to the side. Landry lets himself be tilted, lets himself be kissed, opens his mouth when Tim opens his.
He's making out with Tim Riggins.
Tim Riggins is a pretty good kisser.
He gets into it a little, slides his hands down from where they landed on Tim’s chest to his hips. Tim breaks away, breathing heavy, and Landry follows him, blindly, presses their spit slick lips together again. Tim bites at his lower lip, and their hips finally connect, and they both make stupid, strangled noises.
Landry doesn't really think a whole lot after that.
--------
The story as a whole doesn't work, rhythmically or structurally, but there are little moments that I think click. That's one of them, the gear change into how the school nerd and the bad boy have this weird sexual interaction in the middle of the night. I think the power dynamics are unbelievably hot; they are in general between Tim and Landry at this point in the season, and I can see the tension here, between the guy who plays everything off as completely natural and the guy who does everything to the utmost in spite of it being totally uncool.
Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
The only things that would deserve that comment for me would be shitty gender politics, mpreg, or lack of consent. And I had none of those things. Ergo: nothing wrong here, move along. Pegging to the right, snowballing to the left. Make sure to try the hors d'oeuvres!
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
Huh. This is a tough question. I mean, the easy answer is all of them, because I start with vague concepts and certain scenes or images I want to write towards. I think probably Bob in the Bob/Frank/Jamia threesome story I should post one of these days. After writing that, I saw all of his interviews in a different light.
Hardest story to write:
"After."
Biggest Disappointment:
"After," in its own way. Whatever, that story was a brain-eater.
Biggest Surprise:
That a story I wrote in three hours during a seminar on Milton ended up being the story that people love the most.
Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
If you knew me in college, the unpublished Bob/Frank/Jamia story would be the most unintentionally telling. I'm pretty open about how much of myself I put in my stories, though, so.
Or maybe "Handsy," one of my little thoughts. My aesthetics aren't always obvious at first, but that one demonstrates the distance between me and the norm pretty handily. (Pun intended.)
- Five Fights Coach and Mrs. Coach Didn't Have and/or Five Times They Made Up. FNL, Coach/Mrs. Coach, PG for cussing. 2/22/07. Using a five things prompt from honey-wheeler.
- Simply a reflection of your own self. FNL, Landry/Tim, NC-17 for sex. 2/27/07. This is the long way of saying that when he wakes up from a dream about sucking Tim Riggins's dick, he's not too surprised.
- Bikini. FNL, Tyra, G. 3/5/07. Mr. George looked at her for a long time when she walked past, and she swung her hips a little, like the women on tv. He was old enough to be her daddy, but it felt good to be looked at. She felt like a real grown up, walking to the store in her bikini top and her cutoffs, money in her pocket, men watching her walk down the street.
- This is why they should make NetNanny For Rockstars. Bandslash, Pete/Patrick, NC-17 for intentionally bad porn. 6/17/07. What one could call my gateway story.
- Hang the blessed DJ. Bandslash, Ryan/Spencer, G. 6/25/07. An abbreviated AU story about boys in thwarted love through livejournal; badly characterized, but I still kind of like the germ of it. Contains photoshopped images. Written from a prompt by arsenicjade.
- Intentionally Pitchy. Bandslash, Gerard/Pete, NC-17 for sex and power. 7/16/07. I edited arsenicjade's Just Off the Key of Reason, and when I was done I said (paraphrased), "wait, and then Pete wants Gerard to beat him up again, right?"
"Sure, but that would make this truly epic, and I am currently sick of writing epics." So I did my usual job of glossing over the hard parts and having Pete be a pin-up. - Then she wrote A Little Bit Dirty, which goaded me into writing Isle of Capri. Bandslash, Gerard/Pete, PG-13 for sex. 7/18/07.
- I can see their faces. Bourne Ultimatum, PG for violence. 8/22/07.
- Bend Over Boyfriend. Bandslash, Frank/Jamia, NC-17 for sex. 8/30/07. Written for the bandslashmania pornothon. Touring will fuck you up. She's not even in a band, and touring is fucking her up. She watches porn all the time, eats Cheetos for breakfast, drinks her lunch, and develops serious opinions about video games that she has no idea how to play. She hasn't even been out with the band for a week, and her jeans are already marked hem to waist with unidentifiable stains. She has a t-shirt with "Bob's my croquet BITCH" written on it in ketchup, for Christ's sake. Even worse, she can't bring herself to throw it out.
- The Thing Is. Bandslash, Frank/Gerard, PG for language. 9/26/07. Comment story written for algernon-mouse. The thing is, Frank could win. If he hit a truly epic growth spurt, started wearing brass knuckles, and developed a meth habit. Then, then Frank would have a real fighting chance against four of the school's best lacrosse players. As it is, though, he's getting his ass handed to him.
- After. Bandslash, Frank/Gerard, NC-17 for imagery. 10/9/07. The one about the boys with trees growing out of their bones.
- Frame. Bandslash, Brendon/Spencer, NC-17 for fisting. 10/17/07. Written for audreysrev's Kink comment challenge. I also wrote a story about Patrick spanking Pete, but that was more notes for a longer story. (ahaha.)
- Dirty. Bandslash, Bert/Quinn, NC-17 for sex. 11/24/07. "Shut the fuck up," Bert says, and yanks at the waistband of Quinn's shorts. "You're fucking asleep."
- A round-up of comment stories. Bandslash, Criminal Minds, various pairings, 12/19/07.
- I also started an original fiction series, and every time I try to talk about it I sound either wanky/pretentious or like I loathe myself. It's about me, though, and the way I participate in the world, even though they are all fictional. They're called little thoughts.
Overall Thoughts:
Are mostly derogatory. I have a hard time reading over my own work. It usually seems awkward, immature, and badly characterized after the fact. I've found this to be especially true with the fiction I wrote, even more so than with my academic writing. But I'm pleasantly surprised that I began writing fanfiction at all; I had accepted that I would only ever be a reader in fandom.
I like the feeling that I'm re/producing the community that I participate in; at its best, I think, fanfiction is a mode of persuasion or conversation. At the same time, I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about the change it signals in my journal and my participation online. The people I met through my livejournal that I still really value and. I don't know, I guess admire is the word that comes closest. Anyway, those people aren't fans, or aren't members of the same fandom, and they haven't commented as much lately. Comments, of course, aren't indicative of presence; one of those friends reminded me of that by commenting recently and saying that while she hadn't been saying anything, she'd been checking in. Still, I worry about that. I also worry about the youth of the fandom I'm in, particularly because of my role as a college instructor. I imagine I've probably unwittingly annoyed undergrads on my friendslist before by bemoaning my students' lack of dedication and ambition; there's only more danger now.
At the same time, I promised myself at a certain point this year that I was going to give up on second guessing things. I might not even become a teacher, after all. Who knows? Maybe I'll become a book binding press operator after all of this. And writing pretentious smutty stories about boys in eyeliner seems to keep me sane, so I'm not going to question it too deeply.
My best story of this year:
Depends on how I rank them. In terms of accomplishing what I set out to do, probably This is grad school in a nutshell, which is a little thought. It's got a different tone than I usually write with, and I used that tone for a particular reason, which makes me feel like an actual writer.
My favourite story of this year:
"After," even though it makes me sad still to think about all the things I could have done better, or should have done differently. Still, it's a story very honest to my interior topography, if that makes any sense, especially during the time period when I wrote it. I think there was a limited audience for it from the beginning, because it's located in an apocalyptic setting and seems like it's going to have an unhappy ending. Ultimately, though, it's a story about how I decided to kill myself and then didn't.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
I think none of my stories should be appreciated by the universe, because that would freak me out. "I can see their faces" didn't exactly draw in readers, though. It requires that you have seen and cared about Bourne Ultimatum, and it's gen. Sad gen. I wonder why the masses didn't appreciate it? Gee, that's a real stumper. (This is not meant to demean the few people who did like it, because they made me feel special for writing it.)
Most fun story to write:
Something I didn't publish. It's an AU written for offonmars about Joe Trohman's epic love for Spencer Smith when the two of them worked in an office. Complete fluff, with your standard fic cliches, absolutely and completely reprehensible and without redeeming value. I wrote it in a giddy haze after I'd just finished "After." I really needed something without redeeming value at that point.
Story with the single sexiest moment:
Well, it's a personal kink, so I can't rank it as absolutely sexiest. It's from "Simply a reflection of your own self":
--------
"I prefer the phrase 'cheap date,'" he jokes.
"Yeah?" Tim glances down over Landry's body, and just like that the conversation's well and truly jumped the track. Landry feels like someone's walked their fingers up his back and scratched their fingernails into his hair. He doesn't know what to say. He's talked shit like this before, but before he knew that Matt would start laughing first. Tim's a stubborn son of a bitch.
"Sure," he says, finally, because he doesn't like to back down.
Tim pulls his eyes back up to Landry's face. "So how many more beers until you blow me?" he asks, like he knows what's going on in Landry's head.
"About-" Landry holds his beer up, makes a show of examining the level, "-this much?" Tim grins, and Landry decides to go for it, really freak him out. He drains the beer, watching the foam jerk down through the neck. He drops it when its empty and falls to his knees. He looks up at Tim, grinning a little, sure he's got the edge on him now.
Tim's not laughing, though, or smiling. He's just looking at him; he hasn't moved, his hand is still curled around his beer, the bottle resting against his chest. Landry's knees hurt. Fuck, he thinks, I really fucked up. He starts to get up. His feet slide in the gravel, and before he can flinch away Tim's put down his beer and got a grip on his collar. He braces himself for the blow.
His nose squashes against Tim's. Their teeth collide, hard, and his lip splits a little on the inside, he can taste his blood. He stumbles a little when he pulls back.
"Christ," Tim says, scowling, still too close, "you make me do everything my goddamn self." He puts his hands up, warm and large, and tilts Landry's head to the side. Landry lets himself be tilted, lets himself be kissed, opens his mouth when Tim opens his.
He's making out with Tim Riggins.
Tim Riggins is a pretty good kisser.
He gets into it a little, slides his hands down from where they landed on Tim’s chest to his hips. Tim breaks away, breathing heavy, and Landry follows him, blindly, presses their spit slick lips together again. Tim bites at his lower lip, and their hips finally connect, and they both make stupid, strangled noises.
Landry doesn't really think a whole lot after that.
--------
The story as a whole doesn't work, rhythmically or structurally, but there are little moments that I think click. That's one of them, the gear change into how the school nerd and the bad boy have this weird sexual interaction in the middle of the night. I think the power dynamics are unbelievably hot; they are in general between Tim and Landry at this point in the season, and I can see the tension here, between the guy who plays everything off as completely natural and the guy who does everything to the utmost in spite of it being totally uncool.
Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:
The only things that would deserve that comment for me would be shitty gender politics, mpreg, or lack of consent. And I had none of those things. Ergo: nothing wrong here, move along. Pegging to the right, snowballing to the left. Make sure to try the hors d'oeuvres!
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
Huh. This is a tough question. I mean, the easy answer is all of them, because I start with vague concepts and certain scenes or images I want to write towards. I think probably Bob in the Bob/Frank/Jamia threesome story I should post one of these days. After writing that, I saw all of his interviews in a different light.
Hardest story to write:
"After."
Biggest Disappointment:
"After," in its own way. Whatever, that story was a brain-eater.
Biggest Surprise:
That a story I wrote in three hours during a seminar on Milton ended up being the story that people love the most.
Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
If you knew me in college, the unpublished Bob/Frank/Jamia story would be the most unintentionally telling. I'm pretty open about how much of myself I put in my stories, though, so.
Or maybe "Handsy," one of my little thoughts. My aesthetics aren't always obvious at first, but that one demonstrates the distance between me and the norm pretty handily. (Pun intended.)