selenak, posts by tag: heroes - LiveJournal

Links to all fanfiction I've written in various fandoms. That I'm admitting to.

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Not a combination I would have thought of, courtesy of ffutures, but one that's interesting to compare and contrast. Disclaimer here: I stopped watching Heroes mid season 3, and the first half of season 3 was such a decline that I've blotted most of it out of my mind. So my Noah Bennet canon derives from what I recall about the first two seasons.

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This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1042…. Comment there or here, as you wish.

Evil lingering cold is evil. And tomorrow a cousin's wedding, too.

On the cheerful side of things, The Bletchley Circle was as great as advertised. The basic premise - four women who used to be among the 80% female part of Bletchley Park employees (aka busy breaking codes in WWII) team up again to solve a case of murders nine years after the war is over and they've tried, with varying success, to cope with "ordinary" life in the 50s - should be good for a longer series, but if the miniseries of three parts i all there'll ever be, I'll still be content because it was fabulous. Not flawless - the third part was weaker than the first two, since the denouement depended on a very clever and sensible character doing something eminently stupid - but the good far outweighed this: the four women (Susan, Millie, Jean and Lucy) were all competent, interesting, with distinct personalities, and the revival of their war time comraderie under the very different circumstances they're now in was compelling.

With all the hiati and season premieres, it occurs to me that I've now dropped three shows I used to watch, all in the same year - Fringe, Dexter and now Downton Abbey. DA is painless, Fringe had such a lot going for it that dropping it leaves the kind of ache that dropping Heroes caused me a while back, but just as in that case, it has become necessary, and the decline of Dexter in s6 (though the rot set in earlier than that) still infuriates me.

It also makes me nervous because Homeland had its season premiere last night (haven't had a chance to watch yet, will do so soon), and the first season for me was terrific but also good in a way that makes me wonder whether this particular premise is sustainable for more than one season, and I should hate to see it decline the way Dexter did. I'll access my inner optimist soon!

Maybe, cold aside, I feel a bit in the doldrums because we've been doing media tie ins over at b5_revisited for a while now, having exhausted all the on screen canon, and while that was fine when we were talking about the telepath trilogy, it's become depressing for the most part since, because I dislike so much about the the Centauri trilogy (oh my beloved Centauri!), and of the JMS and Fiona Avery short stories, I loved The Shadow of his Thoughts, was fine with Genius Loci, but then came the appalling Space, Time and the Incurable Romantic and now Ms. Avery's story True Seeker, which I didn't know before, turns out to contain more coals than gems as well. So that meant I've been writing negative reviews for weeks now. And it's depressing. I don't like doing that, I really don't, it's just that hardly anyone else writes reviews at all and it's the Babylonverse which I still love discussing because of my ongoing affection for the show proper. But it's incredibly depressing. :( ...so much more fun to squee, I can't tell you. Speaking of which:

Discword/Avengers crossover of genius: Ankh-Morpork, Avenged. Which absolutely had to happen. It made my Monday.

This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/8247…. Comment there or here, as you wish.

30 – Do you have a favorite fic you've written? What makes it your favorite? And don't forget to give us a link!

Considering I have currently 156 stories listed at the AO3 archive, which don't include the occasional drabble, you'll forgive me if I can't narrow it down to one. However, after a lot of ponderings and narrowing it down etc., here's the short list I came up with:

The Burying Kind: this is a crossover between Angel and Six Feet Under. Well, technically I should say "between Angel, Buffy and Six Feet Under" since some BTVS characters show up as well and the BTVS backstory is important, but it does take place after BTVS has ended, during AtS' fifth season and the fourth one of SFU. It was born out of a remark kangeiko made, that given both shows are set in Los Angeles, it would only make sense if Angel hired Fisher & Sons (who were Fisher & Diaz at that point) to ( Collapse ). This sounded like a fantastic idea to me, and the result was one quite ambitious ensemble story in which I could tackle grief, friendship, sibling relationships, post traumatic stress syndrome and the like, and take full advantage of the quirks of either show, such as SFU's use of "ghosts" (which is why David Fisher doesn't blink when he sees an AtS one, not realising this is the genuine article) and gleefully draw conclusions. (Come on, you just know Olivier would be a client of Wolfram & Hart's artist division, with all the lawsuits he's bound to get!) The greatest challenge for any crossover is to write it in a way that makes it enjoyable to read for people familiar with both canons but also for people who only know one of the canons in question, i.e. you have to give some background information but find ways of doing so that don't feel annoying to people who already know. Also, the character interaction should make sense and be about more than "wouldn't it be cute if X met Y?". And of all the many crossovers I wrote, this one to me feels where I achieved all these goals best.

Runaways: one of the two Heroes stories I'm proudest of and love best, with an actual plot (borrowed from Brian K. Vaughan) and again, what I consider an achieved goal of ensemble use and interaction in a way that works emotionally, providing both humour and angst. Plus I'm still smug about having come up with John Williams tunes as a method of communication. :)

Five in One: sometimes I write stories that are also meant as meta (sometimes on a character or several, sometimes on fandom; sometimes on a source, here it was all of the above). This BtVS one is a case in point, written not sine, but cum irae et studio; it dealt with several issues I had, was a great way to exorcise them (for the time being) and still works imo as a story. Or five. About five of Spike's victims, from their point of view.

City Girls: this, on the other hand, is a labour of love, for both Buffy Summers and the city of Rome. (Some Dawn love also contributed.) Inspired by the AtS episode Damage casually mentioning Buffy and Dawn were living in Rome. Having spent three months near the place myself in the mid-90s, something clicked in me. I still consider this my definite Buffy character portrait.

Quark's Day: inspired originally by altariel's reply to a "describe a story I never wrote" challenge, this is my DS9 ensemble story par excellence, set directly after the Second Occupation arc of season 6 has ended, and of all the many DS9 stories I wrote the one that best declares my love for the entire show, not just one aspect or character. (I also think it's my best Quark character portrait, but then, I would. :)

In Vino Veritas: it's rare that one gets to pioneer a slash pairing. This is by no means one of my best stories (though it has some good dialogue), and definitely not my best Babylon 5 story, but it was the very first Londo/G'Kar slash story, and allow me to bask in my pioneer pride and love it for this.

Death and the Maiden: one of the rare stories where you feel you have taken your writing to another level. Not just limited to fanfiction. I had never written anything as dark before, not in a way that still, many years later, makes me feel I did justice to the subject(s) instead of not quite coming through. It's a Highlander story dealing with Cassandra's backstory (and thus also with Methos, rape, brainwashing and the reinvention/discovery of self). Aside from authorial satisfaction, this was the story that made honorh write feedback the second time and thus brought me my second oldest internet friend, so I have an additional reason to treasure it.

aadler suggested two additional questions for this meme a while ago, to wit:

31 – Which fanfic authors and/or stories have had the most influence on your writing?

Back in ye olde Highlander days, when I was just cutting my teeth writing in another language (i.e. English), Mary Galasso a) was one of the few gen writers (HL was somewhat like Merlin today in that it was overwhelmingly a slash fandom, with some het thrown in, and not much gen), b) told me about this new show she was watching called Buffy the Vampire Slayer and c) kind enough to beta my early efforts, so definitely her. (Conversely, MacGeorge wrote fabulous and very hot D/M stories, but they influenced me as a reader in my early stage of slash discovery, not as a writer (seeing as I never wrote D/M).) katallison wrote this absolutely fantastic HL story called Last Set Closing in which Duncan visits an aged Joe partly ravaged by dementia which stll is one of the best things I've read in any fandom and showed me you can tackle such subjects in fanfiction in a non-superficial, non-patronizing way. Without facile solutions, and without feeling like a gratitious angst pile, either. (As I imagine many people do, I had an elderly relation suffering from dementia at the time, so it really hit home.)

32 – Are there any stories you want to write that you’re afraid to tackle? If so, what and why?

One comes immediately to mind. Basically the first idea I had after finishing my West Wing marathon was that I wanted to read, or, since a satisfying version didn't exist, write a story about Toby, incensed that the President dared to pardon him and with a whole lot of other issues besides, drives out to New Hamsphire and gets conveniently snowed in chez Bartlet so that he and Jed can have it out. I still want to read or write that story, and it still scares the hell out of me, because you probably need to be a first rate playwright to do it justice, not least because these are two of the most verbally adroit and intelligent characters in a show full of great talkers, but also because there are so many things they wouldn't say without going ooc. In the end, I backed away, but I did use some muddled ideas about that relationship (which was the most fascinating one on the show to me) for my brief character study Words and the Men.




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12 – Have you ever attempted an "adaptation" fic of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?

I have indeed, with Runaways, which basically uses the premise of Brian K. Vaughan's series Runaways (well, of the first volume anyway) in the fandom Heroes, or, as I put it in the summary: Kidnapping and running away seems a reasonable reaction if one discovers one's parents are supervillains, in any universe. It's not a straight forward adaption, i.e. the plot doesn't match, but I took not only the premise but the structure of interspersing scenes with the parents. At this point (the story was written during the s1 and s2 hiatus), we didn't know much about the earlier generation other than Angela, so the scenes with them bickering were definitely inspired by the interaction the Pride has. In retrospect, it still works, though if I had written the story a bit later after we found out Angela had a fling with Kaito back in the day I'd have used that to colour their interacton. Ah well. The story is still one of my fondest memories of my active days in Heroes fandom.

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This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/6931…. Comment there or here, as you wish.

Five characters who would like to explore or travel in space (who haven't done so already.)

1.) Clyde from The Sarah Jane Adventures. Well, technically speaking he already was in space, but being locked in a satelite or bodyswaped for a minute or two to another planet doesn't count as exploring. You know he'd love it. (So would Rani and Luke, of course.)

2.) Hiro Nakamura from Heroes. Since I stopped watching in early s3, I can't know for sure he hasn't done for, but I think it's a reasonable assumption. And he would adore it.

3.) Andrew Wells from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mind you, he'd talk the crew's ears off with comparisons to just about every sci fi show and film ever, when he wouldn't be analyzing their dynamics and talking about UST. So he might not end the journey alive. But he'd sign on in a heartbeast.

4.) Coraline from the novel Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Exploring hidden space is her speciality, and after the Other Mother, she'd have no problem with whatever the universe might be throwing at her.

5.) Ellie from Up! With Carl at her side, of course. You just know she was an early sci fi fan and never missed a serial.

This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/6912…. Comment there or here, as you wish.

8 – Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they're not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.

I don't write OCs often, being a canon girl at heart, but sometimes they're simply necessary for the story to work. And then there are the characters who are original characters in all but name, i.e. canon tells us of their existence and sometimes provides a name, but doesn't give us anything further, so you have to make up the personality if you want to use them. Again, usually I need a bit more from canon to intrigue me, but not always.

Going through my work, here are the original characters I found, counting only OCs that take up a sizable portion of the story and have a more important role than to say "ready to order, ma'am?":

Highlander:

Andrew Lanart in the Covenants series, specifically the stories Incubus and Transferences; the later also has an important OC named Mireille Lejeune. Andrew Lanart is Cassandra's Watcher and a minor (but important) character in Incubus and a major supporting character in Transferences, a story that uses the events of Incubus as background but is about Amy Thomas (Joe's daughter) finding her way after the episode Indiscretions and figuring out for herself what it means to be a Watcher. Mireille Lejeune is her supervisor. The Mary Sue question never even presented itself due to Lanart's function in both stories, and if Lejeune can be accused of anything, then of fulfilling the wise mentor stereotype.

Heroes:

The unnamed campaign worker from the Petrelli campaigin in my crack story Campaign Secrets from whose perspective the story is told. This was a story written for comedy effect and the narrator's constant misinterpretations (or are they, she asks sinisterly) of the first season events she observes are the very point of the tale.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:

My childhood story about Kai Winn, Chosen, has two important OCs, a childhood friend of hers named Lerin and a Vedek who has to choose between them both. Considering we know nothing of Winn Adami's childhood, it was necessary to make up both characters in order to show young Adami in development. Again, the Mary Sue question didn't pose itself due to what happens in the story.

Technically not original characters because canon tells us of their existence but doesn't do more than that which I wrote about were:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

Everyone in Five in One, my story about five of Spike's victims. These people existed (I quote the relevant dialogue from the show at the end of each part), but with the exception of Nikki Wood and her son Robin, we don't see them on screen (and the Nikki section is told by her Watcher who later adopted Robin, a character mentioned but not seen on screen). And the crux of the story, the big challenge, was to make each of them real and complex, with their own story, hopes and dreams, that come to an abrupt end when each of them encounters Spike.

Babylon 5:

The four Centauri telepaths from White Lies. We see these women in the episode Coming of Shadows (where they never speak a word), but never again, and one of the reasons why I wrote the story was that I wondered what had become of them and why they weren't around in Cartagia's time anymore. It allowed me some world building while pondering what it would mean for them to be raised the way they were, and how they would cope after Turhan's death. It also allowed me a glimpse on post-show Londo. But I don't imagine any reader would like to be them, and I certainly would not, so - no danger of Sueing.


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This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/6909…. Comment there or here, as you wish.

As with the fathers, I'm going with mothers who actually raised their children. Mothers who died giving birth or very early on, sacrificing their lives, might be very praiseworthy indeed but unfair as it is, they never got to prove themselves much in the ways of day to day interaction and, to quote Alicia Florrick, in parent-teacher conferences.

1.) Alicia Florrick from The Good Wife. In addition to all the other stress in her life, she has two teenagers on her hands. Which she handles admirably, coping with manipulative girlfriends and religious streaks alilke. Also, she doesn't ridicule her children's enthusiasms, which makes her very cool indeed.

2.) Sandra Bennett from Heroes. I stopped watching around ep 10 or so of season 3, but when I left her, Sandra was fabulous. Overcoming obstacles such as regular mindwipes and being partronized by husband and daughter alike, she's loving, fiercely protective, and, once she's finally let in to the secrets, brave. (Also, she's a great proof for adoptive mothers being terrific.)

3.) Sarah Connor (Terminator/ T: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). In other circumstances, training her son as a soldier from toddlerdom onwards would count against her, but in her circumstances it's life saving. Also, talk about someone who gives their life for their child; Sarah does this not by dying heroically but by transforming herself into a warrior and trying to change history so there won't be a need for any messiah. She also fights the good fight because that's what she believes in, I don't want to put down her insight and heroism. But being a mother set her on this journey, and it is a quintessential part of her.

4.) Joyce Summers (Buffy: The Vampire Slayer). Joyce isn't perfect and for the first two seasons suffering from Denialitis Sunnydalonia. But even in this state, she's ready to defend her daughter with an axe (ask Spike). She copes with being divorced, living in a town with a high deathrate, one daughter who is the Slayer and during the last year of her life another who has a crazy hellgod after her and is an entity for whose sake Joyce's and everyone else's mind got altered. (She also copes with having dated a robot and her daughter's vampire boyfriends who may or may not go psycho at any moment.) (And with finding herself replaced as the supreme parental authority figure by a sexy British librarian.) In conclusion: Joyce rocks!

5.) Moya from Farscape. Moya is a Leviathan who spent years being imprisoned, traumatized and basically raped before gaining her freedom, and still manages to mother all her passengers (who are the most difficult lot this side of the Liberator crew) and her doomed offspring Talyn. All the other mothers mentioned here go through a lot, but I think Moya wins for sheer trauma anyway - and she still comes out kind, caring, and despite not being able to do anything to defend herself but run away a Leviathan to be reckoned with. And those she mothers love her forever. In conclusion: Moya wins!

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Darth Real Life doesn't leave me time to watch the SJA episodes just yet, let alone review them. However, there is always time for short fannish distractions, such as:

Merlin:

Go Between. Perfect OT3 epilogue to the most recently broadcast episode (3.10 for later readers). Rooting for Merlin/Gwen/Arthur might be a minority thing in the fandom yet, but the great fanfic starts coming, such as thish one. No wonder, with all the current canonical support.

Lost/Heroes:

The non-creepiness of strangers: in which post-show Claire from Lost meets just pre season 2 Nathan from Heroes. It was the first time since eons since I read Heroes fanfiction, even a crossover, and I was surprised how well it worked for me. Of course, it being set at an era when I was still filled with show love helped, as does that we're in Claire's pov, and exploring Claire after all that happened to her and through her post Lost is something I look for in fanfiction. Nathan in his pre and early s2 state is an ideal person for her to meet, in that messed up characters chatting sort of way, plus, you know, personal resonance with girls named Claire who are illegitimate daughters.

And lastly: drool over what were their names again from Inception and what's his face from Sherlock all you want, flist, but I came across this picture and was reminded once more that where British actors are concerned, two septuangarians are the ones who reduce me to putty:



This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/6293…. Comment there or here, as you wish.

In other news, I just heard I won an award:



It's a bittersweet feeling, because, oh, show, but on the other hand I well remember the love I felt for the characters and the entire universe then, and this one is one of the three Heroes stories I'm proudest of. So I'm very glad it's still read, and that people voted for it.

This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/6140…. Comment there or here, as you wish.