I actually posted September's recommendation-of-the-month to my site days ago, so it's not quite as late as it looks from here. :-)

What's Good?  Sweet-by-bittersweet, Mary Co.'s "Last Things" runs happily-ever-after all the way into heaven.  It's unapologetically sentimental, and exemplifies a distinct and popular subgenre of N&N romance that, intriguingly, is almost never applied to any other FK characters.

        Any illusions that they might keep the change in their relationship a secret were quickly shattered. It took Don Schanke exactly seventy-two hours to figure it out, and he confided to Nick that if Myra hadn't been off at a Skin Pretty convention, and therefore unavailable for consultation, he would probably have tumbled to it sooner. So they gave up the pretense and she moved -- lock, stock and Sidney -- into the loft.

What's New?  In August, fkfic-l saw three new stories by two authors: ( List )

What's good?  For April, I recommend neonhummingbird's brassy Nick and Natalie short story "If I Were You" (1998), which runs Nick from hope to despair and back, while Natalie insists on balance and realism.

"That's enough, Nick!" Her voice cut through the darkness like a whip crack over the noise of the skycaps and the crowd milling around the terminal, even at 4 a.m.  ...  "You listen to me, detective.  You are not the walking jinx you think you are."

-----
What's new?  In March, fkfic-l saw four authors post eight stories.  Completed tales in order by the date of the final installment: ( List )

What's good?  I'm proud to begin the new year of the recommendation-of-the-month project with amilyn's novella "Slippery" (2003).  Undeniably harsh, the story dramatically explores what might happen if, one of the times he tells Natalie to get away and she doesn't, a blood-stoked Nick unintentionally lashes out -- with his muscles (rather than his fangs).

   "How long before someone in your department ends up with you as one of their cases -- just like you had to cut up Maggie Dwyer and God only knows how many others like her?"
   "That is enough!" Natalie interjected, her voice sharp. "That was very different. This... this was an accident. He did not mean to hurt me. I know that, and he knows that."
   "Oh, really?" Tracy caught Natalie's eyes. "Then why is he scared silly he's going to do it again?" Tracy paused, looking for a long moment at Nat, then added carefully, "And why are you?"

What's new?  In December, fkfic-l saw three new stories, a filk, and one piece identified as a repost (which is technically against the list rules without permission, so I wouldn't advise it as a trend).

• "Disclosures" (6 posts) by pj1228
• "Dashing Through the Snow (Vampire Style)" (filk) (1 post) by Kristen F.
• "Birthdays" (1 post) by Walt D.
• "Snowy Knight" (1 post) by J.L.K.
• "Milepost" (1 post) by me

There is also a six-post story that began in December, and has finished in January.  So this month so far is not empty, but not crowded.

What's good?  This year's final recommendation-of-the-month is kirbyfest's sentimental N&N interlude, "The Heart of the Holidays" (1996).  It grants Natalie and Nick a Christmas Eve of quiet joy and gentle comfort in one another.

"Richard and I used to play outside for hours.  He loved the snow.  I don't think I've played in it since we were little kids."  She looked up at Nick and saw the concern in his face.  "I'm fine, really.  I can talk about him now.  That's what holidays are for -- remembering the people we love, and the good times."

(I apologize for the unprecedented lateness of the recommendations project this month.  If you noticed my previous mention of asking an author, that was someone I couldn't reach.  I would be pleased to feature either story any month!)

What's new?  In November, fkfic-l greeted a gracious plenty of new stories:

• "Fearful Symmetry" (4 posts) by me
  
• "Corpus Aristotelicum" (7 posts) by dj_clawson
  
• "Remembrance" (1 post) by Walt D.
  
• "Act of Remembrance" (1 post) by Angela G.
  
• "Nor'ever Night" (1 post) by Walt D.
  
• "Memoirs" (1 post) by Walt D.
  

And there have been three tales by three authors in December so far!

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.

I began the first draft of this story from Nick's perspective, and then started over again from Natalie's to find it worked better, though entirely differently.  The coda from Lacroix's perspective wasn't on my outline; it just appeared, as Lacroixian things sometimes do.

If this weren't a retrospective, I wouldn't have identified the voices like that, because my hope was for the reader to speculate, for the first few paragraphs, that it is Janette.  But of course the character list below shows that Janette isn't here.  I'm wary of detailed headers for that very reason (spoilers) and I'm glad fkfic-l still does not require them.  That preference seems to be my old-fashioned oddity, though, doubtless because there is ever so much more fanfiction than there used to be -- which is a good thing; don't get me wrong! -- and people in more active fandoms need more ways of sorting through it all.

	•	Title:	"Last Minutes"
	•	Length:	~3,100 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L October 24, 2007
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	At a wedding reception, Natalie ensures Nick's secret is kept.
	•	Setting:	c.2011
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, Lacroix, Urs, Serena, Lily Toeffler, Catherine Barrington, Others
	•	Quotation:	"If most vampires persist in thinking of psychokinetic hypnotism as a magic spell, it's no wonder they don't use it to its full potential."

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..."

I wrote "What It's Like" during one of those phases when I identified very strongly with Nick.  Given that, I'm not sure why it's from Natalie's perspective, but there it is, in that delightful canonical gap between the flashbacks of "Only the Lonely" and the present of "Dark Knight."

This little story winds up with an origin for Natalie and Nick's "movie nights," as seen on screen only in "False Witness," but famed in fanfic through every faction and fad.

	•	Title:	"What It's Like"
	•	Length:	~2,400 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L on May 3, 2003
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	Natalie attempts to understand Nick's struggle, as he grapples with his third shift as a homicide detective.
	•	Setting:	1991 Toronto
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick
	•	Quotation:	"That's exactly the kind of thing I need to know, if we're going to cure your condition, not just treat its symptoms.  And that is our mission statement, isn't it?  Find a cure?"

 

Next in this rolling retrospective is "A Matter of Time."  The twist of this story depends on its readers knowing both "Last Knight" and "A More Permanent Hell" fairly well.  That did not seem like much to ask six years ago, but I wonder whether now such canon knowledge would indeed be too much to ask.  Time passes; things change.  What is the custom for assuming canon familiarity in other long-sleeping fandoms?

I'm happy to get to say that this is the fifth most popular story I've ever posted.  My thanks to those who have let me know they've read it!

	•	Title:	"A Matter of Time"
	•	Length:	~3,450 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L June 24, 2002
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	A much-changed Natalie confronts Nick with a stunning request only he can fulfill.
	•	Characters:	Nick, Natalie
	•	Quotation:	"Fully awake, he could feel the splice in the metaphysical rope of his artificial life, the place where his being twisted inextricably with hers.  Family.  The monster who had done this to her was close kin."

 

[Crossposted from forkni-l.  In reply to remarks on the second-season episode "Capitol Offense."]

Nick getting away with breaking lots of procedures and perhaps contributing negligently to homicide is just a "little bit"?

Well, yes, in "Capitol Offense," it is, because, as we know, the even bigger reality-defying problem in this episode is that Canada would never extradite someone who faces the death penalty.  It's against the law.  If "Capitol Offense" had happened in the real Toronto, the Laura Garfield character would probably be behind bars in a Canadian prison to this day, as I understand it.  They wouldn't ship her home until Texas gave up the death penalty -- which is to say, never.

But despite that infamous blunder nomination for the wall of shame, I really do love two things about "Capitol Offense."  ( Read more... )

When I posted "Puzzles," someone enthusiastically requested a sequel.  I've never forgotten the kind request, but I was never able to decide just what happens next.

In retrospect, this was the first of my "Natalie's Life Goes On" genre.  Like "Send My Love," "Better Late" and "Last Minutes," "Puzzles" picks up years past "Last Knight" without being a post-LK story, and sketches a life for Natalie that does not stop with canon.  Curiously, they all share that prelude-like construction.  I don't mean to leave things hanging!  But I speculate that it's defying the finality of LK.  "Forever means forever," and all.  Without end.

	•	Title:	"Puzzles"
	•	Length:	~1,550 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L July 20, 2002
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	In an alternate future, Natalie's past never really lets her go.
	•	Setting:	c.2017 New York
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Others
	•	Quotation:	"And if he had died -- in a freak accident, or at the hands of what she now thought of as the dark underworld he had first escaped and then battled -- she would never know."

 

"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.

What's good?  Happy new year!  To kick off the recommendation-of-the-month project for 2008, hearts_blood generously let me feature her uplifting "Carpe Noctem" (2003), a first-season, flying, friendship, movie-night, N&N, song-challenge story.

What's new?  In December 2007 on fkfic-l, we received a bounty of new fanfiction the like of which the good old list has not seen in a single month in years.  Seven new stories (including one ongoing work-in-progress) posted.

• "Revenge" (1 Part) by Ell H.
• "Car-Sin-Ogenic" (1 Part) by Walt D.
• "Victorian Christmas with Lacroix" (1 Part) by Laurie of the Isles
• "Catch-22" (1 Part) by abby82
• "A Christmas Eve Conversation" (1 Part) by Walt D.
• "Singing Up the Sun" (3 Parts) by Nancy K.
• "To Light the Darkness" (WIP 6+) by Kristen F.

What a windfall of fanfiction!

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!)

	•	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."

 

The next installment in this rolling fanfiction retrospective is the most popular thing I've ever written.  I wish I understood precisely why -- I wouldn't mind writing something else popular! :-) -- but I suspect it just happened to strike a chord at that particular moment, almost one year past cancellation.  My sincere and enduring thanks go out to the generous readers who voted it the best vignette of 1997 in that year's FK Fanfiction Awards.

	•	Title:	"As We Forgive"
	•	Length:	~1,800 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L for Easter 1997
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	Nick made the wrong choices for all the right reasons.
	•	Setting:	During Lacroix's "Last Knight" speech
	•	Characters:	Nick, Lacroix
	•	Quotation:	"I placed my faith in hers, and she gave it back to me in myself.  Now, it leads me after her, to the reckoning that is the price for having a soul."

Fluff.  Utter, unremitting fluff.  My first fiction response to "Last Knight" was apparently thoroughgoing denial wrapped in sappiness and sprinkled with humor.  Eeep!  A few years on, this would have been satire, but at the time, I meant it just as it is.

	•	Title:	"Happiness Is"
	•	Length:	~1,700 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in June 1996
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	Natalie and Nick chat about friends and family, happily ever after.
	•	Setting:	"Nobody Dies; Nobody Ever Dies"
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, references to everyone else (that's right: everyone!)
	•	Quotation:	"How about you, Natalie Lambert Knight, love of my eight hundred and four years?  Are you happy?"

And the Way Back Machine dials early spring of 1996.  "Quid Pro Quo, Doctor Lambert" was the first fanfiction I wrote, and it remains my third most popular.  I'm afraid it shows all the embarrassing characteristics of a first fanfiction -- it's a bird! it's a plane! it's a Mary Sue? and "cool aunt" Janette? -- and I hope I would do better today, but the story will always be distinguished for me by having reached fkfic-l before "the final four" episodes aired.  Writing in FK as a live fandom was . . . unforgettable.

	•	Title:	"Quid Pro Quo, Doctor Lambert"
	•	Length:	~2,800 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in April 1996
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	A debt is collected before the eyes of Nick and Natalie's grieving daughter.
	•	Setting:	Alternate Future, 2035, Toronto
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Lacroix, Janette, Others
	•	Quotation:	"And you bargained well, for someone with a table leg through his chest."