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batdina posted an icon meme on Friday, and agreed to play it with me. Would you like to join in?
( Batdina selected my Tracy, Natalie and IB icons. )Happy Easter! With this installment, we come to the end of my little fanfiction retrospective. From now on, it's new or nothing! (Unless I retype two or three dusty 'zine properties, perhaps.)
In December, much_madness challenged me to produce something short on a deadline, noting that she enjoys vignettes and "ficlets," and that I rarely write them. She's right. I have a tough time letting FK scenarios go when they're still small. In reply to her, and inspired by something wiliqueen said while analyzing Blood Ties, I managed this:
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• | Title: | "Steamer Trunk Space" |
| • | Length: | ~1,400 words | |
| • | Date: | Posted to FKFic-L February 7, 2008 | |
| • | Rating: | PG (gen) | |
| • | Summary: | Between the scenes of "Father's Day," Janette packs for the trip in pursuit of Nick. | |
| • | Setting: | 1925 Paris | |
| • | Characters: | Janette, Lacroix | |
| • | Quotation: | "Prudence often dimmed and drifted, when it came to Nicolas." |
The original idea-flash for this vignette came in the form of a comic-book storyboard with no speech balloons -- no words at all except the message on the answering machine and the date on the newspaper, something very like the silent "The Phoenix and the Carpet" interlude in the back of that issue of Classic X-Men -- you know the one, right? ;-) But I don't have the drawing skills to execute that vision, so I wrestled the inspiration into prose instead.
The piece includes my best use of Miklos to date. Re-reading it, I felt I should try to do more with his character.
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• | Title: | "By Expectation Beguiled" |
| • | Length: | ~1,900 words | |
| • | Date: | Posted to FKFic-L on July 28, 2006 | |
| • | Rating: | G (m/f) | |
| • | Summary: | A shift at the Raven hinges on personal intangibles that have nothing to do with work. | |
| • | Setting: | Second season | |
| • | Characters: | Janette, Alma, Brianna, Miklos, Nick, Other | |
| • | Quotation: | "At first, she looked up each time the door opened. But Janette soon shook her head and settled down to her paperwork. ... This was one of the nights when she felt how very good she was at what she did, and how much it was worth the doing." |
"Fireweed" is my longest story to date. (To my surprise, "In the Light of Day" falls short by 11,000 words!)
This alternate universe diverges during the "Be My Valentine" flashbacks with Janette bringing Fleur across, and then parallels canon, asking what would have been different had Fleur been there. I named the story for Epilobium angustifolium, a particular flower species [Fleur] that thrives in the aftermath of wildfires ["Ashes to Ashes"] in northern climates [Toronto].
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• | Title: | "Fireweed" |
| • | Length: | ~64,600 words | |
| • | Date: | Posted to FKFic-L in December 1998 | |
| • | Rating: | PG-13 (m/f) | |
| • | Summary: | As Natalie strives to derive a cure for vampirism from Divia's lethal venom, Fleur returns to her family. | |
| • | Setting: | After "Ashes to Ashes," with flashbacks to 1229 | |
| • | Characters: | Nick, Natalie, Janette, Lacroix, Fleur, Grace, Tracy, Others | |
| • | Quotation: | "I hope, Doctor Lambert, that you will tell my brother of my attempt last night to dissuade you. He will be looking for a scapegoat, and I'm not eager to take on the role again so soon." |
And Another Thing 10:39 PM: I almost forgot to mention that "Fireweed" was a nominee in the 1998 FK Fanfiction Awards! My sincere thanks to those who nominated it and voted for it. Your kindness still matters.
Again prompted by the season, I'm going to tweak this rolling retrospective out of chronology to bring up my one New Year's fanfiction, "An Appointment Unkept," which is also my one true crossover to date. In this case, the cross is Forever Knight/Highlander. The story is less about those lost than those who miss them.
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• | Title: | "An Appointment Unkept" |
| • | Length: | ~2,982 words | |
| • | Date: | Posted to FKFic-L December 31, 2005 | |
| • | Rating: | PG | |
| • | Summary: | Nick and Darius have a longstanding appointment, but neither of them make it. | |
| • | Setting: | Paris, New Year's Eve 1999 | |
| • | Characters: | Original HL Immortal, Janette | |
| • | Quotation: | "She met his eyes, her own again a rich blue. The depth of the sorrow there shocked him. Carefully controlled, it nevertheless went down, and down, and down, perhaps without end." |
So far, I've rolled this fanfiction retrospective in reverse chronological order. But today, in a seasonal mood, I'm going to leapfrog ten years in order to reach my one Christmas fanfiction, "Send My Love." I actually wrote it on Independence Day, a little Christmas in July. (It's the first of three "Where are they now?" pieces I've posted in the past two years -- and by my standards, that's a bit of a kick!)
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• | Title: | "Send My Love" |
| • | Length: | ~2,505 words | |
| • | Date: | Posted to FKFic-L September 19, 2006 | |
| • | Rating: | PG | |
| • | Summary: | Mailing Christmas gifts, Natalie bumps into a very old acquaintance. | |
| • | Setting: | December 2006 (alternate future, diverged just before "Last Knight") | |
| • | Characters: | Natalie, Janette | |
| • | Quotation: | "Well, she had no intention of leaving her place in line, not for vampire, murderer or apocalyptic space debris. She had presents to send." |
Where did I get the idea that Janette is particularly good with numbers? In "Can't Run, Can't Hide," where she does her own business taxes by hand and implies she checks her accountant's work? I don't remember, but it's one of the character tidbits in "And So It Goes," which I wrote for a very good friend, to whom at the time I still felt obliged to provide ample evidence that I no longer believed Janette had died in "The Human Factor" (I was such an irritating newbie; you have no idea). Thus this story, my first contribution to the Song Challenge, the longest-running fiction challenge in FK, originally issued by Susan G.
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• | Title: | "And So It Goes" |
| • | Length: | ~6,300 words | |
| • | Date: | Posted to FKFic-L in February 1997 | |
| • | Rating: | PG-13 (m/f) | |
| • | Summary: | Janette sees Nick for the first time since he brought her back across in "The Human Factor." | |
| • | Setting: | In Paris after "Last Knight" | |
| • | Characters: | Janette, Nick | |
| • | Quotation: | "He looked haggard, thin, and he had a beard again -- shaving was always the first thing he neglected when he decided that ignoring his body would help save his soul." |
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• | Title: | "He Never Blames Her" |
| • | Length: | ~100 words Fourteen lines in three stanzas, unrhymed |
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| • | Date: | Posted to FKFic-L on June 4, 2006 | |
| • | Summary: | Nick never accuses Janette of complicity in his condition. | |
| • | Characters: | Nick, Janette | |
| • | Quotation: | "a wound he wears because she so wanted him" |
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• | Title: | "The Coming Choice" |
| • | Length: | ~220 words Five pentameter sestets, rhymed |
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| • | Date: | Posted to FKFic-L on August 2, 2003 | |
| • | Summary: | Janette contemplates the choice the Code will demand of her when Nick regains his humanity. | |
| • | Characters: | Janette | |
| • | Quotation: | "Kill him. Convert him. Or make him forget." |
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