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As I mentioned longer ago than I thought, I discovered that the Mead Hall had gone down something like 18 months before, and I had failed to realize that it was really down. So a good chunk of the fic I've written has been inaccessible. I have copies of everything, and I've been posting it in small chunks to Archive of Our Own; you can find it here. Today, I moved the last of my SG-1 fic from The Mead Hall, and I felt really accomplished, and then I remember that I have at least one SG-1 fic that never made it to The Mead Hall, and probably more. I will get to those!
Reposting my fic at AO3 means redoing all the ratings, tags, warnings, and notes on that site. I've been writing new summaries for some because my summaries are often rather unattractive; I hope I've been doing better. I try to write a summary that would make me want to read a story. The trouble is that I would happily read a story described "Sam and Daniel discuss what went wrong in Episode X, why they did what they did, what they wish they'd done, and how to live with it all." And that, especially if you change the names, describes most of my fics.
For in looking at most of my fic over several weeks instead of several years, I have found that I do the same things over and over, which I suppose are what we call narrative kinks:
* Most of my stories feature charactersarguing about discussing what would have happened if they had done something different, whether they should have known better, and just how terrible they should feel about what they actually did. They end up feeling at least slightly less terrible. This describes most of my SG-1 fic, probably all of my SGA and Primeval fic, and my one TW fic.
- This is true not only of my episode tags, but also of my dramas: they feature the characters reliving decisions made on actual episodes even as they're faced with new crises. My fics generally fit into a specific season and often between specific episodes as characters continue to work through those events while dealing with new ones.
- I'm wondering if this has become a rut for me. Many of my stories explain things whose in-show explanations weren't entirely satisfactory, which I already knew, but I also apparently have an obsession with people having trouble living with the decisions they've made. Do all these stories start to sound alike? I'm a bit afraid that they do.
* An awful lot of stories feature food or drink. I think that's because my characters talk so much, and these aren't people who just sit down and talk, for the most part. They need an excuse to sit down and talk. If I write more, perhaps I should find more varied excuses.
- Then again, it's not always an excuse. See Bill Lee. See Bill Lee share food.
* Even my action/adventure stories have a lot of talking.
* I am apparently very interested in people who feel guilty after
acting without full information but with good intentions, or
acting under duress.
(If these are kinks, I fear I must be a rather boring person.)
Some of these features of my fic might be why I have a bit of an itch to write stories about Bucky after CA:TWS when I haven't had the fic itch for a while: he's a character who has been acting under extreme duress who now has to live with what he has done (or simply what has been done with him). I want to see him grapple with that—as, apparently, do multitudes of other fans. Let's hope the script writers for future movies feel the same!
These features might also explain why I felt very little urge to write any Sherlock fic: the characters in it seem to have very little trouble living with what they've done, which became an increasing problem I had with the show. They do act without full information, but their intentions are not always good, and they have a sometimes surprising lack of regret, from the very first episode through the most recent. People acting under duress there are generally minor characters (think of the people through whom Moriarty speaks in "The Great Game"—and I read a few good fics about them). It doesn't explain why I read it voraciously for a couple of years there.
I also see here what I already knew about WC and my involvement with its fandom: I want Neal to feel some guilt over choices he has made and learn from his mistakes. I think Peter recognizes most of his own mistakes and does feel guilty, pace many fics and metas on the show. I feel that Neal only feels guilt when people he cares about get hurt, and usually only when they get hurt in very obvious ways. He fails to recognize that his own crimes almost always create victims, and the show aided him in that in that someone who seemed to have been hurt by his actions last season turned out to be running a scam on him, so he was exonerated —repeatedly—for having gotten her in trouble, lied to her, etc. I think Peter wants the same thing from Neal that I do, and that a lot of fans get angry at him for wanting Neal to admit guilt and amend his ways, but I think Peter is very often right!
Neal was acting under duress for much of the recent season, and yet I felt no need to write anything about that. It may have to do with the fact that I was really unhappy with situation the writers set up; it seemed too far-fetched even for that show.
I cannot explain my Chuck stories at all except that I had to use the fact that it had actors who played very different characters on SG-1 and WC, and the temptation to use the likeness in each case proved irresistible. Those don't get at my narrative kinks at all, but I hope they're funny.
I've done some rereading as I try to make sure the reposted stories are fairly error-free. Sometimes I think, "Wow! I could really write!", but sometimes I think, "Didn't I write the same story where these two SG-1 characters play 'what if' about seven times?"
We'll see if the picture changes as I dig up more stories and repost them. My most recent SG-1 stories haven't made it yet, nor any of my stories from Primeval.
Reposting my fic at AO3 means redoing all the ratings, tags, warnings, and notes on that site. I've been writing new summaries for some because my summaries are often rather unattractive; I hope I've been doing better. I try to write a summary that would make me want to read a story. The trouble is that I would happily read a story described "Sam and Daniel discuss what went wrong in Episode X, why they did what they did, what they wish they'd done, and how to live with it all." And that, especially if you change the names, describes most of my fics.
For in looking at most of my fic over several weeks instead of several years, I have found that I do the same things over and over, which I suppose are what we call narrative kinks:
* Most of my stories feature characters
- This is true not only of my episode tags, but also of my dramas: they feature the characters reliving decisions made on actual episodes even as they're faced with new crises. My fics generally fit into a specific season and often between specific episodes as characters continue to work through those events while dealing with new ones.
- I'm wondering if this has become a rut for me. Many of my stories explain things whose in-show explanations weren't entirely satisfactory, which I already knew, but I also apparently have an obsession with people having trouble living with the decisions they've made. Do all these stories start to sound alike? I'm a bit afraid that they do.
* An awful lot of stories feature food or drink. I think that's because my characters talk so much, and these aren't people who just sit down and talk, for the most part. They need an excuse to sit down and talk. If I write more, perhaps I should find more varied excuses.
- Then again, it's not always an excuse. See Bill Lee. See Bill Lee share food.
* Even my action/adventure stories have a lot of talking.
* I am apparently very interested in people who feel guilty after
acting without full information but with good intentions, or
acting under duress.
(If these are kinks, I fear I must be a rather boring person.)
Some of these features of my fic might be why I have a bit of an itch to write stories about Bucky after CA:TWS when I haven't had the fic itch for a while: he's a character who has been acting under extreme duress who now has to live with what he has done (or simply what has been done with him). I want to see him grapple with that—as, apparently, do multitudes of other fans. Let's hope the script writers for future movies feel the same!
These features might also explain why I felt very little urge to write any Sherlock fic: the characters in it seem to have very little trouble living with what they've done, which became an increasing problem I had with the show. They do act without full information, but their intentions are not always good, and they have a sometimes surprising lack of regret, from the very first episode through the most recent. People acting under duress there are generally minor characters (think of the people through whom Moriarty speaks in "The Great Game"—and I read a few good fics about them). It doesn't explain why I read it voraciously for a couple of years there.
I also see here what I already knew about WC and my involvement with its fandom: I want Neal to feel some guilt over choices he has made and learn from his mistakes. I think Peter recognizes most of his own mistakes and does feel guilty, pace many fics and metas on the show. I feel that Neal only feels guilt when people he cares about get hurt, and usually only when they get hurt in very obvious ways. He fails to recognize that his own crimes almost always create victims, and the show aided him in that in that someone who seemed to have been hurt by his actions last season turned out to be running a scam on him, so he was exonerated —repeatedly—for having gotten her in trouble, lied to her, etc. I think Peter wants the same thing from Neal that I do, and that a lot of fans get angry at him for wanting Neal to admit guilt and amend his ways, but I think Peter is very often right!
Neal was acting under duress for much of the recent season, and yet I felt no need to write anything about that. It may have to do with the fact that I was really unhappy with situation the writers set up; it seemed too far-fetched even for that show.
I cannot explain my Chuck stories at all except that I had to use the fact that it had actors who played very different characters on SG-1 and WC, and the temptation to use the likeness in each case proved irresistible. Those don't get at my narrative kinks at all, but I hope they're funny.
I've done some rereading as I try to make sure the reposted stories are fairly error-free. Sometimes I think, "Wow! I could really write!", but sometimes I think, "Didn't I write the same story where these two SG-1 characters play 'what if' about seven times?"
We'll see if the picture changes as I dig up more stories and repost them. My most recent SG-1 stories haven't made it yet, nor any of my stories from Primeval.
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I really thought WC was setting things up for a HEA (happily ever after), and from comments made by TPTB, I think that was the original intent. Then the network decided they wanted another short season to wrap things up and that trashed the previous plan. They got Jossed by their own network.
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Ugh.