brightknightie | 2008 Fanfiction Round-up Meme

It doesn't look like much next to the breathtaking productivity of some fanfiction authors who have shared this meme, but my 2008 was unprecedently prolific. This was also the year I discovered ficathons. (I suspect a connection, oh yes. How did Bill Watterson have Calvin and Hobbes put it? "I work best under pressure." / "You work only under pressure.")

2008 is the last year for which tv_elf will appear in beta credits. I miss her. I am grateful to her and much_madness, batdina, leela_cat, wiliqueen, abby82, and a few people from the list, who generously gave their time and thought to make my stories worth reading -- and, in many cases, to midwife them into existence in the first place by asking questions and waiting out the answers.

And I am so grateful to everyone who read the stories -- especially those who told me they did. :-)

2008's List

Month	Story	Words	Rating	The One With	Beta
Nov.	"Milepost"	2,484	PG	Tracy, Natalie and Pizza	much_madness
Sept.	"Fearful Symmetry"	9,991	PG	Professor Girard and McCarthyism	tv-elf, much_madness, batdina
July	"A Delicate Balance"	9,987	PG	Flashbacks to Natalie's Childhood	tv-elf, much-madness, batdina, leela-cat, wiliqueen
May	"Clearing the Air"	100	G	Tracy, Natalie and Croissants	abby82
Apr.	"Starwort"	14,135	R	Fleur, Lacroix and Falconry	tv-elf, much_madness, batdina
Mar.	"Pro Terra Sancta"	1,283	G	Nick Mentioning the Crusades	Mary C., Loreal, Walt
Feb.	"Steamer Trunk Space"	1,489	PG	Janette Packing	wiliqueen

2008's Summary

Favorite:	"Starwort," I think. I still have a thing about Nick's sister. Make of it what you will. And the historical research rocked.
Best:	"A Delicate Balance." I hope it includes and balances all the ingredients of canonical FK circa the hiatus, as well as tweaking canon's direction just the littlest bit to make third season less likely.
Most fun:	Hmmmm. Yep, "Starwort." Reading The Hound and the Hawk, referencing everything by Gies & Gies, perusing SCA sites and Wikipedia, chatting the story through with much-madness on the phone during lunch breaks, and creating adult!Fleur, whom I enjoy so much and have this whole parallel universe for in my head.
Sexiest:	Well, "Starwort" is my only eligibility in this category, but you'd be disappointed, I'm sure.
Hardest:	"Fearful Symmetry." Curiously, this was for a prompt I submitted myself, and yet it was still almost overwhelming. I over-researched, over-reached, and ran out of time in the ficathon.
Easiest:	"Pro Terra Sancta." On the walk to Good Friday mass, boom. Talk about when you start hearing the characters' voices...
Most Popular:	Thirteen people kindly told me they read "A Delicate Balance." The runner up is "Starwort," with nine.

I contributed to the oldschoolfic 2008 holiday ficathon, but as that queue is not yet released, I'm counting that story as the first of 2009. Also, it's not an FK story, curiously enough; I'm not quite sure what to do with it, and only hope it pleases its recipient.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Are you referring to Francis and Joseph Gies the authors of Life In A Medieval Village and Life In A Medieval City?

I've only read Life In A Medieval Village of their books, although I now have the other one I mentioned.

Even my university teachers seem to like them. I certainly found the book to be interesting and relatively easy reading. It was definitely informative, although the period was a bit later than that I'm truly interested in.

>"Are you referring to Francis and Joseph Gies the authors of Life In A Medieval Village and Life In A Medieval City?"

Oh, yes! My personal favorite popularizers of Medieval Life 101. :-) They are also the authors together of a third in that batch, Life in a Medieval Castle, and there's a lavishly illustrated color omnibus of those three called Daily Life in Medieval Times. My favorite of those is the City one, but my favorite of what I've read by them overall is The Knight in History by Frances Gies alone; it's a different kind of book, with many more incidents and anecdotes and connections drawn.

I miss having access to a university library, but the Internet is an awe-inspiring resource, and probably does me as well for my mere fanfiction flashbacks when I back it up with the public library.

Last spring, when I ended up writing a Fleur and Lacroix story set c.1233 for a ficathon, I really wanted to write a Fleur and Andre story set c.1303 -- naturally Fleur would not have died in 1247 in this scenario -- but I pushed it aside for lack of information on daily lives of the clergy at that time. Information on theology and politics was easy to come by, but not the day-to-day routine. That's why I like the Gies books so much, even if they're not always just at the right decade for what I'm doing at any given time.

My favorite medieval history book discovered this year is The Hound and the Hawk by John Cummins, about medieval hunting. It blew me away.

2008 Fanfiction Round-up Meme

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The Gieses