Fic retrospective

[aadler]

 
So, The end of the year.

I’m not in a mood to do a year-in-review on my life overall, so I’ll focus on fanfic. And since, to my mind, the “past year” (in fanfic terms) began while I was in Afghanistan, the period covered actually begins in September of 2005. While I was on deployment, I deliberately set out to break new ground in fic terms, to expand myself by doing things I’d never done before. As an example, I wanted to fill out my titles list so that, for every letter of the alphabet, I’d have a title beginning with that letter. I already had twelve covered, I added seven, so I have seven remaining slots to fill (J, K, O, Q, U, X, and Z).

Other results:

• My first story unequivocally set in the Angel series. “Notes on an Opera Program” was done from Lilah Morgan’s perspective, but was her analysis of the Scoobies; “Ex Post Facto” was technically set during Angel, but dealt with two characters (Wesley and Faith) who had begun in Buffy, and was mostly concerned with events from Buffy. “Phase Shift”, however, was not only set during Angel, it dealt with exclusively Angel characters. New ground.
• My first fic featuring a girl-girl kiss (“Glass Ceiling”).
• My first ‘Spander’ (“Beg to Differ”). Which also contained my first explicit sex scene … very plain-vanilla by most fanfic standards, but I still showed sex occurring, rather than discreetly withdrawing to allow the characters their privacy.
• My first B/X story (“Dusk Over Pompeii”), also my first specifically ’shipper story (though some categorize “In Ev’ry Angle Greet” as a multi-ship).
• My first non-Buffy fic (“Savant”, an Alias story) since I actually learned the term ‘fanfic’.
• My first-ever Season 1 story (“Yet to Be Seen”).
• My first participatory story (“Rorschach”), which was my contribution to the “70 Questions” meme begun by nemo_gravis and now stored — many of them, at any rate — at this site. “Rorschach” was also my first one-word title.
• My first post-“Chosen” story (“Learning Curve”).
• My first collaborative story (“God Save the Queen”, with sroni, though I haven’t posted it yet).

On the non-first front, I finished one story (“the Still, Small Voice”) on which I’d been frozen for over a year. “Glass Ceiling”, though I produced it readily enough once I started, had been on my to-do list since 2001. And “First Do No Harm” was just plain fun from beginning to end, and got a nice response from readers.

There are other things I have yet to do. Though he’s appeared a couple of times, I’ve never used Angel as a character to any significant extent (though Angelus is a different matter), nor have I ever done an Angel-ensemble piece. I still don’t have any story actually set in Buffy Season 7. I owe sroni my collaborative half of “Queen’s Gambit”. And there’s a character arc that goes back almost to the beginning of my Buffyfic career that I really need to finish.

I intend to follow through on most of those. What else may come about, well, the future will tell.