Female Gen Character Ficathon: Iron Points North (AtS, Fred)

[vaznetti]

(posting early by special permission)

Title: Iron Points North
By: Vanzetti
Fandom: Angel
For: inlovewithnight, in the female character gen ficathon
Summary: Fred needs to be somewhere else.

Comments

[the_grynne]

Oh...oijev. I think I'm tearing up.

"This is always gonna be home," she said. "I'm not gonna turn into someone else in LA, mom, I promise."

Fred isn't a character I think about a lot, but I like this very much. Thank you.

[vaznetti]

I sometimes wanted to like Fred a bit more than I really did -- but I still do like her. And I'm glad you liked this.

[maidenjedi]

This was really good, and a fantastic diversion for the end of the day. I'm glad you got to share it early!

[vaznetti]

Thanks a lot!

[nolivingman]

Oh this is so good - I can see a girl from Texas needing to drive away from LA sometimes. And I love the hint in the fourth section that she knew something was wrong, some hint of the Angel memory erasure.

Poor Fred - I always feel bad for Roger and Trish - not even knowing that their girl is gone. This line: Fred thought her mother would be proud makes me go *sniff*.

[vaznetti]

I got sadder and sadder as I wrote it -- isn't that odd? But yes, I think she had to have guessed that something was wrong, although obviously she wouldn't have known what. Fred's brain was sadly ill-used in the show.

[bardsmaid]

I don't know any of the background for this, never having ventured into this fandom, but your writing just keeps getting better and better--clean and evocative, which makes it a draw to read. I especially liked how Fred's "I needed to go somewhere without so many buildings" segued so nicely into "Dry grass had crackled around her as she walked, seeds stuck to her jeans. Tiny lizards and snakes scrambled and slithered away from her feet. In the late afternoon she'd wandered up a dry creek-bed and through scrubby gray trees

[vaznetti]

I think you're right about the built-in drawbacks of fanfic -- the way it can exclude readers who don't follow the original source, although I think the problem is worse in short fiction. I can often read a long story in a fandom I'm not very familiar with, because the plot of the novel itself will carry me along. Whereas for short fiction, I need to know the source (and care about it) much more deeply.

I'm pleased that you liked the writing--that it could pull you in even without any knowledge of the source. That's a great compliment.

[likeadeuce]

Oh, this is wonderful. As a girl who grew up in the country and has moved on to gridlocked suburbs, I understand the feeling exactly.

And hee on "borrowing" Gunn's truck. I can just imagine how frantic the boys were --

[vaznetti]

I tried to be fair to Gunn (and Wesley) in that scene -- I mean, they're really freaked out. And of course, I think it's very telling that Gunn lets her take the truck.

Thank you for the feedback -- I'm glad you liked it.