Pick a number, any number...

[jedibuttercup]

Hm; haven't seen this meme before. Lifted from izhilzha:

I have 656 works archived at AO3. Pick a number from 1 (the most recent) to 656 (the first thing I posted there), and I'll tell you three things I currently like about it.

Heh. I've certainly been a busy bee over the last decade, haven't I? This could get interesting.

Comments

[ancarett]

Gee, golly, that's a LOT.

*is in awe*

How about #79?

[jedibuttercup]

:-) Yeah, I'd say that's been my major hobby the last several years. A fun one, though.

#79 would be ... (paging back) ... ahaha, Put Your Funderwear On, part of my Fast and Furious/Transformers series.

I had so much fun with this one. Three things I still like about it: (1) the hilarious yet informative conversation between Luke Hobbs, Monica Fuentes, and Seymour Simmons, three characters underused in their respective fandoms whom I have much wry love for; (2) Thing One and Thing Two, a Dr. Seuss sneak-in reference (for the transformed phone and earpiece) that still fills me with glee; and (3) adding Bestia to my cast of Transformer OCs. Contrasted with all the little imports and muscle cars turned transforming robots I created who fell in with the Autobots, the big LAPV determined to be neither Autobot nor Decepticon but stay DSS with his driver was fun to write.

[pronker]

I'll pick #1. Looking forward to the answer on the debut fic!

[pronker]

Oops, mean #656. *puts on bifocals*

[jedibuttercup]

That would be ... Lesser Men.

Ah, that takes me back. I've been a fangirl of various loyalties since I was a wee tiny babe; Star Trek and Star Wars since I was toddling. But it was Joss Whedon-- I'll pause here so you can imagine me shaking my fist in the air, because I am still letting him get to me (viz. Avengers) all this time later-- who made me start writing, because I just could not accept the whump he started piling on his characters in Angel Season 3/B:tVS Season 6. I started looking for other people's speculations, tripped over ff.net, and then started writing my own fixit. The rest is history.

The writing quality suffers a bit, looking back at it now. But let's see, three things I still like about it, from today's perspective: (1) Ahahahaha, the contrived family relationships. Cliche or not, I had a lot of fun writing those in and using them to both explain and fix the various problems on the shows -- making Wesley = a timetraveled Connor, and Jonathan Levinson the son of Ethan Rayne; (2) LOL, the random gas station vamp too smart to actually live in Sunnydale but too dumb not to taunt a Sunnydale native when he recognizes one; and (3) SAVING WESLEY, PERIOD, THE END.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

How about #377?

[jedibuttercup]

#377 is ... ooh, Throwing Down the Gauntlet. Reboot Kirk and Spock gen!

Three things I like about this one: (1) Introducing 3D chess! The new movies have cheated us of that, but it's one of the things I enjoyed about TOS Kirk and Spock's friendship; (2) the Spock voice overall, which I got to use to sneak in a T'Khut reference (as the Vulcan name for Delta Vega, unsnarling yet another bit of mangled Trek canon) and also generally have fun with dressing up teasing and getting-to-know-each-other via excessively precise language use; and (3) shoring up Kirk's image as Not Just That Frat Boy Idiot, Thanks.

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

214... I think I like this game. ;)

[jedibuttercup]

*covering face* That one's Exercises in Frustration, which made me blush so hard when I wrote it. Luke Hobbs holding Mia Toretto 'hostage' so he can capture Brian too, and Mia turning the tables on him. It's the middle one of a Hobbs/Brian/Mia ficlet trio.

(I still totally intend to continue that series after Fast & Furious 6 comes out-- unless canon kills one or more of them, and maybe even then.)

Let's see. Three things I still like about it? (1) Just, you know, litle pregnant Mia totally dominating the room despite big muscley 6'5" Hobbs cuffing her on the couch; (2) Mia's observation: "You're betting a lot on the fact that Brian never learned how to stop loving people." (3) Oh, hell, and another line of hers, her rationale for drawing Hobbs in: "Maybe... I want to put my mark on something of Brian's for once."

... I just really enjoyed coming up with the dialogue on this one; him supposedly having all the power, but her winding him up with hardly any effort at all. I like BAMF women, in case you couldn't tell. :-)

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

Who doesn't like BAMF women? Crazy people, that's who.

I lost interest in the Fast and the Furious series after the third movie though I did like Mia. *ponders watching the newer movies*

[vialethe]

I am in awe of how prolific you manage to be while still living a very full life! You're amazing.

I'll pick 545.

[jedibuttercup]

I think of it as part therapy, part entertainment, and part skill-sharpening; fandom has always been a happy space for me. :-)

Awww, #545 is Watching Buffy, the Buffy Summers/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce drabble collection I wrote for my friend maevebran several years ago.

Three things I like about it: (1) the pairing; I'm a huge fan of that pairing for various reasons, but it's hard to pull off, and the connected drabble format let me build up to it believably-- them appreciating each other as adults, for their experience and all the ways they fit together-- without having to write a massive epic; (2) again, saving Wesley, this time via the support of the Scoobies; (3) It's silly, but the dorky exchange with the cookies in chapter #2 when he's still on his best stuck-up stung-ego leather jacketed behavior. :-)

[kerrykhat.livejournal.com]

This looks like fun. :) what about 124?

[jedibuttercup]

#124 is .... Where No Sorcerer Has Gone Before, a request fic wherein Balthazar Blake of Sorcerer's Apprentice meets Spock Prime, in the reboot Star Trek 'verse.

These two understated wry old powerful men, assessing each other! I had so much fun with their conversation. Ahhh, ♥.

Three things I like about this fic, off the top of my head? (1) Implying that Vulcan adept = equivalent of Merlinean Sorcerer, which actually explains so much about TOS Spock; (2) saving Surak's katra from the wreckage of Vulcan, because because; and (3) ahahaha, implying that Kirk's an untrained sorcerer, too, and that the Enterprise is the equivalent of his magic ring, because that also explains so much.

[graycardinal]

[grinning]

And now I am very amused, because I very deliberately did not peek at other people's numbers in the archive before making up my mind about the number I posted below.

[jilltanith.livejournal.com]

25 please! ;)

[jedibuttercup]

#25 is .... Operational Expansion, wherein The Machine throws out a number in Oregon, and John Reese calls Eliot Spencer about providing leverage. :-)

This fic wasn't as long as I wanted it to be; it feels kind of unfinished, looking back at it. I need to write more in that 'verse, eventually. But three things I like about what's there? Hm.

(1) Reese comparing his previous self and Eliot's (as like the CIA agent he had been at the time as two bullets fired from the same gun) and their current circumstances (a man with laugh lines forming around his wolf's smile and a companionable handshake, accompanied by a decidedly civilian coworker), because dude, he and Harold are codependent enough as it is and you can hardly call his interactions with Lionel, Joss, and Shaw 'friendships'; he could use an Eliot in his life. (2) On the other hand, on the strength of Harold looking perturbed, John's first instinct is to drop the pastries and scan the library for intruders! And, (3) more speculation about the capabilities of the Machine; I always enjoy exploring that.

[graycardinal]

I'm torn between picking a relatively low (and thereby more recent) number, with the amusing if improbable hope of landing something I prompted, and picking a relatively high number just to see what happens when you look back at the really early stuff.

[pause, think]

Okay, rampant curiosity wins...

542.

[jedibuttercup]

That's... ah, a seven-year-old B:tVS/Bones teenyfic called Man in the Foundation I wrote for maevebran in the August crossover sprint. :-)

Not my best work. But I did sneak in a few things that still please me: (1) Hank never came after Joyce died not because he was a total deadbeat but because he was dead, which sucks for him but might comfort Buffy to know; (2) Buffy being weirded out by Booth's resemblance to Angel instead of glomming onto him; and (3) ... hm, the title? It was Bones-y and also sufficiently punny and double meaning-y, making it appropriate on several levels, something I don't often manage (I really am pretty lackluster at titles overall).

[graycardinal]

[reads]

Nodnodnod; all those are good things, indeed. (And actually -- he said, glancing over pages in the archive -- I'd say you do reasonably well with titles overall. Deity knows I have enough trouble with some of mine....)

[jedibuttercup]

I guess I'm just still stinging over stumbling across a public rec of one of my stories once, that went on about how the story (Love, After, as it happens) was good despite the title, etc., etc. *sheepish*

[morgynleri]

483?

[jedibuttercup]

483 is... Ten Slayers That Were Never Called, one of my B:tVS crossover drabble collections.

Heh, that was a fun one, though. Three things I like about it, looking back:

(1) Everything about "Uncareful What She Wished For". Just-- what would change in Petunia's story, and what wouldn't, if the problem wasn't that Lily was special-- it was that she kept being special when it turned out that Petunia was never going to be the Slayer after all?

(2) Elle getting one back on Jay and Kay. :-) (Much as I adore Kay, she really got a raw deal in MIB II.)

(3) Just, generally, the whole concept of making a bunch of women who normally don't get crossed as Slayers into them-- Jo from Twister, Gillain Taylor from ST IV (aka the Whale Lady from the One With The Whales), etc. I had some fun with that!

[hiddencait.livejournal.com]

Damn that is a heckuva count!!

Ummmm choices. 313!

[jedibuttercup]

313 is ... Destiny By Any Other Name, from the "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" movie. *grin*

Oh, what to say about this one? Things I like about it, currently:

(1) Tamina-centric! Putting the power of the story back in her hands. Because it couldn't be that easy. Though of course they're still going to be happy...

(2) ... because I seem to have this irrational compulsion to connect the dots in romances where time-travel is involved, and I thought this series (this one's the first) came out rather well. :-)

(3) Just ... this whole paragraph: "I smile and raise my forehead from the steps, the gold beading of my veil scattering the light of the candles like sparks of the gods' grace. We make our own destiny, Dastan has told me; noble, puppyish, impossible-- and very pretty-- Prince Dastan, who seems to have done so by joining his to mine."

[sulien.livejournal.com]

If it's not too late, I'd like to ask about #593, which should be "Eclipse" if I've counted right. This was one of your stories that made me start stalking your fic and reading it, finished or not, despite how much I hate reading dribs and drabs of WIPs.

And speaking of reading, I'm waiting to read some of your recent stuff after I get my new glasses (reading for any length of time at all is a literal pain when your glasses prescription is off) and I'm also hoping to see Iron Man 3 before I read spoilers.

Lastly, your portfolio is downright astounding. Thank you so much for sharing all of that! I hope you continue and that 656 will only be a proverbial drop in the bucket of your future works.

[jedibuttercup]

Eclipse is ... ah, goodness, the first fic longer than 5000 words I wrote outside of the Buffy/Angel fandom; the longest thing I'd written in two years; and the fic that cemented my fondness for writing the SG-1 crew. It felt like a milestone to me at the time, like finishing it meant I was a real writer. :-) So I guess you could say while Wesley Wyndham-Pryce was my first fannish-writer crush, Daniel Jackson was the one who convinced me it wasn't a flash in the pan.

Three things I like about it now, from seven years later: (1) The detail work. You would not believe how much research I did to even give the planet its six digit ID, and the environmental stuff - I loved the fact that some of the reviewers said even reading it made them feel thirsty, because that was what I was going for! (2) Daniel, with Jack's MALP on a rope, getting pulled into one of the spires - this fic gets classed as 'Sam whump' on at least one rec website I know of, but I wanted it to be tense throughout, and that's the whump scene I always remember from this; and (3) the totally team-y vibe. I didn't single out any one or couple of the SG-1 crew, I tried to give them all equal spotlight.

As long as there are (1) inspirational media out there and (2) fabulous folks reading and reviewing, I doubt I'll ever stop. :-)

Meant to reply MONTHS ago...

[sulien.livejournal.com]

Your reply to this has been sitting in my inbox for practically forever (well, since May, anyway) and I meant to comment back that it shows that you always do your research. The proverbial devil is always in the details and even though I may not always notice it because I'm not necessarily into all of the fandoms you write, I have seen the amazing attention to detail you've put into the ones that I do. The same goes for the smidges of science, history and literature with which I'm familiar that I have seen referenced in your works and I know there are a lot of things that zip past my head at warp 9 that I don't notice. How you manage to do so much research and write such in-depth characterizations and plots (all too often so very much better than the original creators managed and very nearly always as well as) while maintaining a full time job and 'normal' life, I'll never know.