What's good?  I'm running late on the recommendations project this month; my apologies.  Now that we're here, I am so pleased to get to highlight the energetic, enthusiastic, insightful, 1995 novel "Protect and Serve" by butterflykiki!  This unique angle on the Enforcers focuses on the human characters.

Natalie:	"Do you ever think that our lives would be a lot simpler if we just gave up on the secrecy and published the truth in the Enquirer, Nick?"
Nick:	"I don't need my life simplified that much."

What's new?  In October, fkfic-l saw one new story, a one-parter titled "Hallowe'en" by Walt D.  (Yea, Walt!)  November, by comparison, has gotten off to a sprinter's start, with three stories by three authors already!

Recently, in FK on my Friends List:

• On July 16, amilyn posted "Somewhat Useful," a traditional drabble (100 words) featuring Schanke and Urs.  (Yes, you read that right.  It says, "Schanke and Urs."  Honest.  Credit the prompt to wiliqueen.)
  
  
• On July 14, ithildyn made remarks about a FK/Iron Man, Janette and Tony crossover idea.  I can only assume that egging her on would be a positive step, even though the story could never be posted to fkfic-l (rules, rules).
  
  
• On July 11, abby82 posted her Schanke vid "The Rockafella Skank" to a song by Fatboy Slim.  I am not familiar with this music genre, but the Schankeness is pure.  It's a light-hearted, totally pre-"Black Buddha" production.  (And it's the first vid she ever made.)

As for me, after a hectic, horrid, work week, I've used up just about all my hobby time this weekend reading and remarking on oldschoolfic ficathon stories by my fellow players, and thanking those who kindly replied to my story.  What I want to be doing now is taking greerwatson's advice and adding a "Relative Reality" column to my Places & Things of the FK Universe list.  Honestly, when I began it, I meant to list only the fictional things unique to FK (e.g. the Borchiver Award from "Can't Run, Can't Hide").  But I blundered into some that are quite real (e.g. Humbar Nurseries from "Only the Lonely") and greerwatson is very generously sharing her Toronto expertise to make the distinctions for the benefit of FK writers.  I hope to get that scrubbed and up this week, if not this weekend.  (What is it with Real Life, eternally interfering with fandom? ~g~)

Are there other FK-eligible ficathons on the horizon?  If not, I've promised much_madness that I'll try to address her taste for ficlets (101-1000 words) in some way.  And I still owe hearts_blood that NCIS/FK unbirthday crossover.

I've spent most of my fandom hobby time lately working on my oldschoolfic ficathon story.  I got an FK prompt!  And I'm trying to deliver an episode-like response, cop-plot and all.  Eeep!  (Cop-plot stuff is hard.)  Yet in the "vacuum the cat" tradition of ducking the dreaded blank page by any means available, I've also made my second batch of "up for grabs" FK icons (below); the first was that Natpacker set, of course, and so I've now made a smattering of userpics for most other factions.  If you pick one up, please let me know, and credit as appropriate.  Constructive criticism is also welcome.

The original screenshots for many of these come from Nancy T.'s Knight Watchman; others come from Kristen's Knight Vision; and a few have actually been on my hard drive since the series was still on the air (uh, successive hard drives, that is ~g~).  I believe the FK logo GIF with the red letters was created by Nancy K.

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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."

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..."

Next up in the retrospective is "Kindred Spirits," which falls into the "post tag scene" genre as a direct response to that twitching toe at the end of "Hearts of Darkness."  It received a nomination in the 2001 FK Fanfiction Awards, and I'm grateful to those who put it forward!  To this day, I believe it ranks among my best fanfiction stories.  I'm really rather proud of it; I hope that's not misplaced.

At the time, a few thoughtful readers explicitly praised the choice to not stray from canon into a Nick/Urs romance.  They were certainly correct, and a romance had not even occurred to me at the time!  But rereading the story today, I must admit that I wondered whether a sequel taking such a non-canonical turn might pre-empt "Ashes to Ashes" and "Last Knight" in a worthwhile way, for a happier, healthier ending all around.  Something to think about...

	•	Title:	"Kindred Spirits"
	•	Length:	~13,500 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in January 2001
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	Jacqueline turns to Urs and Nick for help.
	•	Setting:	After "Hearts of Darkness"
	•	Characters:	Nick, Urs, Ellen/Monika/Jacqueline, Erica, Sofia, Natalie, Lacroix, Enforcers
	•	Quotation:	"Either one would help me, I guess.  Lucien for a price.  Javier, because he always does, eventually.  And there are others.  But unlike them, you'll help her, just because she needs help."

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."

 

I wrote the next story in this ongoing retrospective as a gift for someone who was a good friend back then and who has become a dear friend through the years since.  She wrote some striking "Center Stage Challenge" stories, featuring secondary characters like Miklos ("Revenge") and guest stars like Feliks Twist ("Red Dreams"), and she once chose Alyce Hunter's view for a round-robin story.  So thinking about what might amuse her led me to this piece starring Alma.  (The story is also an overt nod to her "The Charade," which explains the "Lacroix Lite" phenomenon of early third season.)

	•	Title:	"Renovations"
	•	Length:	~4,200 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in February 1997
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	Alma redecorated the Raven for Janette in "Love You to Death." After Janette left him her club, Lacroix required someone to perform the same service.
	•	Setting:	Before "Black Buddha," after the flashbacks of "The Human Factor"
	•	Characters:	Alma, Lacroix, Urs
	•	Quotation:	"Alma shivered at the thought of what it would mean to be a vampire in Toronto with this strange, new Lacroix in charge of this strange, new Raven."

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?"