I love good guys

As this year's halfamoon comes to a close, lightbird did me the honor of remembering and recommending one of my old -- 2001! -- Forever Knight stories for the theme "One-hit Wonders." Read her kind rec.

"Kindred Spirits" (T, gen, ~13K words) is from Nick's perspective, but features Urs and Jacqueline (Ellen-Monika-Jacqueline of "Hearts of Darkness," the theme's "One-hit Wonder"), with cameos by Natalie and Lacroix, and "off-screen" actions by others.

This is one of my personal favorites of my own FK fanfic (it's even tagged "author's favorite" from back when that was a thing). I love these characters and the questions I think they raise. I hadn't re-read it in so long that I had literally forgotten just how it ends, and I made myself cry, if that's not too silly to admit. I now feel that (a) I should be daring like that more often in the present, so yay! '01 me and the beta-readers who helped me, and (b) wow, did I ever use oodles of unnecessary words and overlong sentences, so hey! '25 me take warning and never backslide. ;-) I was also surprised that the story was this long; in my memory, it was much shorter... because, in proportion to the norm then, it was indeed shorter.

Thank you, lightbird! You absolutely made my day.


(halfamoon has many assorted recs across fandom. If you haven't, consider taking a look?)

I posted only 2 stories in 2017, I'm afraid:

• "The Decline and Fall of the Murphy Case"
  beta by sholio; for lastscorpion in fkficfest
  (Forever Knight; ~2K words; G, gen; Schanke, Nick, Stonetree, Norma)
  05/30/17-01/06/18: 88 hits, 14 kudos, 7 comment threads


• "To Reason Why "
  beta by batdina; for morgynleri in hlh_shortcuts
  (Highlander; ~3K words; G, gen; Methos, Grace, original characters)
  12/20/17-01/06/18: 169 hits, 19 kudos, 5 comment threads
  

2017 AO3 statistics (across 103 works in 12 fandoms):

  33 Kudos
  12 comment threads
    2 bookmarks
    0 subscriptions
257 hits

I'd never noticed the AO3's "Statistics" tab until I picked up on it from senmut. I learned that my most viewed story ever, by leaps and bounds, is my one BSG78 story. I had no idea (it's earned 7 kudos in 6 years, so who could have guessed?). Anyway, if you've never looked at your AO3 "Statistics," you might find them interesting. :-)

And I do still owe several fanfic "gift certificate" fulfillments from years past (list). Sorry!!!

I wrote only three stories in 2016, I'm afraid:

myoldfandom 2016 Exchange: "The Wand of Siora the Wise"
beta by Skieswideopen; for DesertVixen
(Dungeons & Dragons (1983-85); ~9K words; G; Sheila, Eric, Hank, Bobby, Diana, Presto, etc.)

   This was my first writing in this lifelong-loved fandom. I tried so hard to fulfill the prompt and be episode-like that I may have overdone it. Yet I learned about the characters as you do only when you're writing them, and found much delight in them and their universe! I want to write them again, and read them more.

fkficfest 2016 Exchange: "The Time Will Come"
beta by Batdina; for Merfilly
(Forever Knight; ~3K words; G; Janette, Alma, Aristotle, the Enforcers)

   Late summer and all fall are lost to me in a haze of overwork. I don't recall just how this concept found me, only that it felt important to stake FK's claim on an open future. I learned more about Canadian security than the story needed, not to mention Syrian brutality. But the story, I think, I hope, is finally full of hope and determination — first-season-style, today.

hlh_shortcuts 2016 Exchange: "Ships in the Night"
betas by Skieswideopen, Celli & Sholio; sounding-board-ing by ArgentumLS & Skieswideopen; for Idontlikegravy
(Highlander; ~1K words; G; Richie, Michelle, Angie)

   I almost didn't sign up for this fest. And then I almost dropped out. HLdom often seems to me as monolithic as FKdom is diverse; I worried and fussed. The kind people listed above helped me through. I do love HL dearly, for all that I'm lost in HLdom. I hope that I did right by it and by the other players, and maybe they won't mind me playing again someday.

( Still-unfulfilled fanfic IOUs )

( Still-unwritten fanfic just for me )

Back in 2011's fandom_stocking/fandom_stocking game, I ambitiously posted six little stories, one to every stocking that had wished for FK that year. Four of these pieces, I shared on fkfic-l and archived in the usual way. The other two went into a kind of purgatory; each had a unique challenge that I discovered through audience responses, and each I thought I should rewrite, recast, recreate to address its challenge. I never did.

leela_cat once advised me to formally tie off those two, the better to stop thinking of them as eternally to-be-done. I finally did that this weekend, archiving them to the AO3 with only a wash and wax, not a new transmission. I backdated both to Epiphany 2011:

• "Getting Involved" (1.2K words, PG, Janette and Erica, canon-divergent)
• "For a Song" (900 words, G, Lacroix and Janette, canon-compliant)

My thanks to the kind people who played Fandom Stocking that year, giving me an opportunity to explore these characters and learn valuable storytelling lessons!

I've previously posted about the nice things that I received in my own Fandom Stocking this year, and about the neat things that I spotted in other people's Fandom Stockings, so tonight I thought I'd point out the items that I stuffed into some Fandom Stockings myself. I didn't create as widely or well as I'd have liked, but I did have fun writing:

• Highlander: "Lazarus Heart" (Methos/Alexa, 918 words, G) (beta-read by celli!) for beccadg's wish
  I'd never tried Methos/Alexa before, but the attempt turned out surprisingly satisfying for me. I hope that it works as well for readers, and doesn't bog down when I poke around inside Methos's head for a bit in the middle.


• Forever Knight: "In Pursuit of the Paladin" (Lacroix & Natalie with Nick implied, 991 words, PG) (beta-read by skieswideopen!) for pj1228's wish
  This led me to a new approach to the ever-vexing problem of how to write for fellow FK fans who personally prefer "dark" takes that I can't support, myself. Here, I imagined a "bright" scenario that I'd love, but told it from Lacroix's perspective. It worked better for me than some past, straining attempts to approach "dark" prompts, but I don't know whether it really bridges the problem of sufficient respect for preferences I can't share. Maybe it's better not to try? There are so few of us! Are mismatches better than no matches, or not?


• A handful of fanfiction "gift certificates" in FK and HL for stories to be posted to the AO3 sometime in 2014
  (Four have been redeemed/accepted so far. Coincidentally, that's the same number I still owe from the last time I tried this — you know who you are. ~grin~)