I posted my second oldschoolfic story to fkfic-l this weekend.  A few scenes have been rewritten since the ficathon, but it's largely the same.  I'm grateful to abby82 for the ficathon prompt!  And I'm obliged to my beta-readers (see the story's endnote, as always).

"Fearful Symmetry" is entirely from Nick's perspective.  I don't often narrate from Nick's point of view, and that's curious to me.  I've been wondering from where that comes (among what the series presents, what I'm any good at writing, and what people seem to like to read).

	•	Title:	"Fearful Symmetry"
	•	Length:	~9,900 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L November 1-2, 2008
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	As the asteroid panic gets a second wind, Nick revisits his experiences during the 1950s Red Scare.
	•	Setting:	Flashbacks to 1954 ("Spin Doctor").  Present after "A More Permanent Hell."
	•	Characters:	Nick, Natalie, Lacroix, Janette, Others.
	•	Quotation:	"He had been so proud to be awarded tenure last year, to be recognized as a worthy and wanted permanent member of the faculty."

 

I began posting my oldschoolfic ficathon story to fkfic-l today.  I'm grateful to amilyn for the ficathon prompt, and her enthusiastic reception of the story!  And I'm obliged to my generous beta-readers (see the story's end note) as always.  This is the longest piece I've yet written solely from Natalie's perspective.

	•	Title:	"A Delicate Balance"
	•	Length:	~9,900 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L July 27-29, 2008
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	Natalie takes a break from a murder investigation to attend an unusual memorial for her brother, while considering a new approach to Nick's condition.
	•	Setting:	After "1966."  Flashbacks to Natalie's childhood.
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, Schanke, Richard, Sara, Nana, Janette, Grace, Stonetree, Tracy and others.
	•	Quotation:	"The mesmerism-enforced lie that had covered Richie's vampirism curdled on Natalie's tongue."

Addendum:  By the way, the fkfic-l "ACK" states that the posts are reaching 279 recipients.  (I presume that is "mail" and "digest," not "nomail," but I don't know for sure.)  Those of you who have FK fanfic you've posted on LJ but not the list, please do consider sharing with the biggest FK audience still assembled.  We miss you.

Please bear with me through one last post here about this story.  I sent "Starwort" to fkfic-l early this week, then archived it on my own site.  It's my longest fanfiction in almost five years, and my first starring Fleur in almost seven.  My sincere thanks to those who helped it come into being, and those who have let me know that they read it!

	•	Title:	"Starwort"
	•	Length:	~14,000 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L April 20-22, 2008
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	While Fleur is pregnant with Andre, a stranger named Lacroix arrives uninvited at a hunting party.
	•	Setting:	1236, Artois
	•	Characters:	Fleur, Lacroix, Original Characters
	•	Quotation:	"How my ladies would laugh, to hear I had a successful flirtation and don't even remember it."

I'm going over my femme_fic ("We Love Female Characters") ficathon story draft one more time today, trying for as much polish as I can achieve before posting to the community this weekend.  As part of that, I've just transcribed the key dialogue from those episodes on which the story most draws, including every word ever spoken by my favorite neck-of-the-week, the most canonically pertinent guest character we ever received (such that I am joking by lumping her into that category, naturally).  The transcriptions below are exact; I did not omit even those lines that make me throw rolled-up socks at the screen, and you know these episodes have their share of those!  But I love them anyway, as shown by the 14,000-word draft continuing them that I'm scrubbing right now, and striving to make evoke these very lines.

If I've written the story well, no one will need to rewatch any episodes in order to understand it.  But reviewing FK canon is always a delight, right? ;-)  I will get these quotations properly sorted into my FK Concordance after the ficathon story is on its way.  (Gracious, but transcribing is so much easier with the DVDs than it was with tapes!)

Transcribed excerpts, in reverse chronological order:

( Crazy Love ) ( Fallen Idol ) ( Be My Valentine ) ( Near Death )

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:

	•	Title:	"Steamer Trunk Space"
	•	Length:	~1,400 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L February 7, 2008
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	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."

What's good?  For March, the FK recommendation-of-the-month project features Dorothy's novel "Evidence" (1998), set shortly after "Trophy Girl."  The Reese subplot (in and around a serial-killer cop plot, Renaissance flashbacks and some Natalie psychology) makes me think again that as Dorothy is most often publicly praised for her N&N romance content, her spot-on rendering of Reese is perhaps an underappreciated gift to the fandom.

What's new?  In February 2008, fkfic-l happily saw these two new stories posted.

• "What Would Happen" (an FK/Smallville crossover, adult) (1 Part) by abby82
  
• "Steamer Trunk Space" (a Janette vignette) (1 Part) by me

At least, I presume it was happily.  I was happy at the advent of new fiction, even though one of the stories was my own.  I would be happier if there were more, always.  Fandom does not live by discussion alone.

This retrospective is rapidly catching up with me, as we come to "Better Late," written just last summer.  I have only three more stories from then to now to list.  Good thing I have a new one underway!

In fact, "Better Late" is not, in all ways, quite as new as last summer.  I first drafted a version of it in 2002; it was from Nick's perspective, shorter, and more conventional.  My perceptive beta-readers didn't like it.  So I set it aside, and did not seriously pick it up again until spring 2007.  In addition to being from Natalie's perspective, the final version has flashbacks, and a presence by Lacroix, that were nowhere in the original.  I believe it's stronger for the changes.  I'm bemused that it took me so long to grow into a capacity for those improvements.

	•	Title:	"Better Late"
	•	Length:	~6,100 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L on July 30, 2007
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	Natalie suspects more behind a change in their daughter's custody arrangements than her ex-husband Nick has said.
	•	Setting:	2012 Toronto
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, Lacroix, Others
	•	Quotation:	"One reason of many for not telling Joanie had been to keep her innocent by the Enforcers' code if they ever came for Natalie and Nick.  Silence was safety."

Someday, I may write a sequel to this novella, and it may be called "Under a Long Shadow."  Someday.  If I figure out the theme.  I know what happens next, you see, but I'm not sure it matters, because "In the Light of Day" fulfills its whole original purpose.  To write, I must have purpose.

"In the Light of Day" is a parallel-reality tale.  The break with canon comes after "Fever," and the story then progresses through "Dead of Night," "The Games Vampires Play" and "The Human Factor," reworking each episode given Nick's new mortality, until things are so different that the parallel snaps, and the alternate reality floats free.

One tidbit of which I'm fond here is Natalie's on-the-fly psychoanalysis of Lacroix, in which she concludes that no one will ever love another person as much as he has, over eight centuries, convinced himself he loved Fleur.  I also like the garden I built for Feliks Twist (but I really owe him a nice story of his own for his fate here).  And the flashbacks!  I did more research for them than any before or since (so far).  For this story, I became queen of a certain slice of Trivial Pursuit questions.  :-)

	•	Title:	"In the Light of Day"
	•	Length:	~53,000 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in October 2003
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	Nick regains his humanity, but he's not the only one.  And no one is prepared for all the consequences.
	•	Setting:	After "Fever," with flashbacks 1226-1228
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, Norma, Stonetree, Urs, Tracy, Reese, Vachon, Feliks Twist, Lacroix, Myra Schanke, Janette, Others
	•	Quotation:	"Nick strolled back to his loft in the crisp morning light, feeling everything was right with his world. Granted, his arm was in a sling, his shoulder throbbed like thunder, he remained on enforced medical leave, his partner might never again pass a police physical, and the Enforcers could well be coming to get him and the woman he loved..."

This weekend, my fanfiction retrospective reaches "Another Officer Vetter."  The title, of course, comes from Tracy's chat with Marian in "Blackwing," and the protagonist from "Avenging Angel."

As far as I know, this is the only fanfiction solely from Tracy's mother's perspective.  It was challenging, and I'm still proud of the achievement.  (I hope that's not too foolish.)

	•	Title:	"Another Officer Vetter"
	•	Length:	~3,600 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in September 2002
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	Barbara Vetter learns of two important choices her daughter has made.
	•	Setting:	1990 Toronto
	•	Characters:	Barbara Vetter, Tracy Vetter, Richard Vetter, Other
	•	Quotation:	"Tracy had done well enough in every course she tried, and Barbara had hoped each time that this was it, this was the path less traveled than the Vetter destiny."

 

In "I Will Repay," Janette tells Nick she never converted anyone to vampirism.  But what about the Baroness in "If Looks Could Kill"?  Some very kind people nominated "Not the Mothering Type" for a 2001 FK Fanfiction Award for its attempt to reconcile those loose canon ends.

Rereading this story tonight, I thought about how it models what I hope to contribute to that "Women are Awesome" femme_fic ficathon.  Told from Janette's view, "Not the Mothering Type" stars Janette and Sofia, their challenges and solutions -- and while Lacroix's villainy is not completely overcome in the past, this is first season, where Janette, Sofia and Nick have all outlived him.  They are the survivors... of all he put them through, all the deep-seated damage he wrought.  They win.

Rereading, I also wondered, in passing: "Golly, could I really tell no story in those days without a Fleur reference?" ;-)

	•	Title:	"Not the Mothering Type"
	•	Length:	~4,500 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L October 6, 2001
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	Prompted by Nick, Janette recalls what really happened when Sofia became a vampire.
	•	Setting:	c.1885 Bavaria (ILCK), framed 1992 (IWR)
	•	Characters:	Nick, Janette, Sofia, Lacroix, Others
	•	Quotation:	"Newly returned to this world, Sofia needed -- and would want -- only vibrant, living, human blood, not the sluggish undead mire that was all Janette had to share."

"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].

	•	Title:	"Fireweed"
	•	Length:	~64,600 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in December 1998
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	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.

Putting this fanfiction retrospective back on chronological track, the next story up is "England's Rose."  It seems peculiar now, over a decade later, on this side of 9/11 and war and all the rest, the volume of grief lavished on Princess Diana's loss.  But at that time, much of a generation saw a mirror crack, and felt their reflection shatter.  Natalie is part of that generation.

FK's timeline warps to accommodate this story.  "Nobody dies, nobody ever dies," so that the entire cast can register reactions.

	•	Title:	"England's Rose"
	•	Length:	~5,572 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in September 1997
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	Princess Diana's death distresses Natalie and reminds Nick of Queen Caroline.
	•	Setting:	August 31 and September 6, 1997; Flashbacks 1981 and 1783
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Sara, Grace, Schanke, Nick, Janette, Lacroix, Urs, Vachon, Screed, Tracy, Cohen
	•	Quotation:	"Natalie had turned nineteen the summer of the royal wedding, and there had been something inescapably exciting about watching this girl, her own age, walk onto the world stage."

 

This LJ retrospective on my FK fanfiction now comes to "Billets Doux," which is one of my few stories that have never yet appeared on FKFic-L, and one of a handful to which no one has ever responded.  I wrote it in the winter of 1996, and a friend kindly recruited it for the zine Tojours Lacroix, which came out in 1999.

There isn't much to "Billets Doux," beyond a neglected line of "Fallen Idol" -- Nick says Fleur wrote to him -- but while I'm inclined to make light of it, eleven years out, and supposedly long recovered from my LC phase, well . . . re-reading the story tonight brought tears to my eyes.  If it never pleases anyone else, I'm still I'm glad I wrote it.

	•	Title:	"Billets Doux"
	•	Length:	~1,200 words
	•	Date:	Published in the charity fanzine Tojours Lacroix (1999)
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	Lacroix muses on his loss of Fleur and how it led to his loss of Nick.
	•	Setting:	Indeterminate, looking back at 1229-1247 from many centuries later
	•	Characters:	Lacroix, Nick, Fleur
	•	Quotation:	"He is what is left to me of her, and his hatred is what is left to me of himself."

"Longer Than the Medicis," my first fan poem, was nominated for FK fanfiction poem of the year for 1999.  My thanks to those who nominated it!  (The poem received only three feedback comments at the time, so without the generous nomination, I wouldn't have known anyone else read it, and I might not have tried writing fan poetry again.)

	•	Title:	"Longer than the Medicis"
	•	Length:	~1,200 words Nine pentameter 18-line stanzas, unrhymed
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L on August 30, 1999
	•	Summary:	In Renaissance Italy, Janette and Nick host a party.
	•	Characters:	Janette, Nick
	•	Quotation:	"But through candlelit hours of music / and talk, she could feel Nicolas waiting, / waiting, waiting for her, his molten voice / singing a long, slow kiss through the chamber."