the river heights gazette

you are responsible for this.

I've started this labor of loooooooooove (aka rewrite of Secrets of the Nile), which I have dubbed Honeymoon on the Nile, and the first chapter is posted at ivory_charmed. Not a lot of Joe and Bess interaction until chapter 2 (which is also finished but not posted yet). There's been a lot of disagreement on how far their relationship should go, so we'll just see what happens when I get there (there probably being chapter 10, where there will be CANONICAL DANCING).

That may be my new favorite phrase.

So I wrote three stories for Yuletide 2011.

My assigned recipient asked for Community, Jeff and Annie, and while I've written one of those before (plans and their opposite), I had this grand idea for what I would do with this one... and then I ended up swamped with work until December 19. Like as in all of December 19. And stories were due December 22. So I didn't start it until December 20.

So I ended up with something that was practically what I wanted - I didn't pull the trigger at the end, although it could easily be followed up, and I wanted something with a slow burn anyway.

-Blindsided (rated T, pretty much for language)
Annie isn't sure who she is yet, but Jeff likes watching her try to figure it out.

I had this idea I'm utterly incapable of writing, that in the background of this story Troy and Abed are using their film (the zombie movie, or Attack of the Clones) to infiltrate the HVAC annex and figure out Vice Dean Laybourne's evil endgame, which triggers the hostage situation that kicks off the story, and Britta is eventually roped into it (hence her cryptic voicemail to Jeff). Someone else would have to write it, though.

Then I started reading through the other prompts, hoping to find a Nancy Drew one I could write, but I couldn't write the very few requests that weren't mine. I found a request for Mad Men, and saw Peggy/Father Gill, and... well, that's one of my favorite pairings for the show, and I've found very few stories written that feature it, and I'd had a premise gestating for a while so I dusted that off. (I swore I wasn't going to offer Mad Men this year because I did Mad Men for the previous two Yuletides, but it was like this didn't count.)

-negotiable affection (rated T, pretty much for... angst)
It had already been a rough day when John saw her across the bar.

This started in Father Gill's head and stayed there, because I think Peggy is a little hard to read. Sometimes I think that she does things and doesn't analyze too closely why she's doing them or what the implications are, and other times she seems deeply interested in repercussions. This takes place a few years after S2, the only season he was in; the Peggy he runs into is more of a late-S4 Peggy. I think S4 Peggy would be more likely to act on the attraction the two of them seemed to share than S2 Peggy, anyway. I really liked the mood of the bar in this.

Then I ran across a Jane Eyre prompt, and I don't turn down excuses to write Jane/Rochester. Even though I never wrote them until earlier this year for the Porn Battle.

-elegy (rated E, for sex)
Jane receives an entirely expected letter.

It was like 10pm when I started this, and I think it's a little uneven, but I went back and read basically the last chapter of the book and saw how Jane says she and Rochester were basically like two halves of the same brain during their marriage... and, given how easy it is to call Rochester a psychopath, I wanted to put them in a relationship that actually worked, and was the same kind of playful and loving that their courtship was. Jane says at the end that she'll soon receive a letter telling her of St. John's death, so this is her getting that letter.

All my recipients replied and said they enjoyed their stories, so hooray! That was pretty much all I was expecting, this year. I never thought any of them were going to get very popular, especially since I'm not good at the surrealism that the fandom likes to see in Community stories. I didn't read very much, either; I'm into pairings instead of gen right now, and since I haven't read Snuff yet I don't want to look at any of the Discworld fic, and... yeah.

But, another plug for the two stories I received:

-Inching Forward
(Community) - Jeff takes Annie back to his place after she gets drunk one night.

This is one of those fics that, in a good way, left me wanting to find out what happened next. I really like the way Jeff and Annie play off each other here and the implications of their conversation.

-Ask Me No Questions
(Outlander - Diana Gabaldon) - Claire and Jamie's first time after he punishes her for disobeying orders.

As the author points out, this isn't how it goes in the actual book (it falls during the first book of the series), but given their relationship later, I can definitely see this fitting in. I adore Jamie and Claire together. And it makes me want to read that book again. Mmmmm.

Hooray for Yuletide!

So, the het_bigbang stories have been revealed!

To see my story and the artwork that was created for it, visit the main site.

Theoretically the whole thing is up at Archive of Our Own, although it's been throwing up errors so who knows.

I've also started posting it over at ivory_charmed.

The story: Nancy's on a long-term undercover assignment for the CIA when she finds out Ned is marrying someone else.

For those of you who were on the filter and read along, you will now be able to read the sixth part, which is a flashback to their time together in Berlin.

Enjoy!

Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll and/or made comments about the het_bigbang quandary! I'm going to stick with the enormous CIA story. Good times. AND I have this epic idea about what to do with the ending.

(I also thought it was really interesting that the kidnapping story is far more intriguing to you, my readers, than the Bess/Ned/Nancy triangle, but hey, that's good to know.)

I swear that I was going to work on another story today but instead I've written seven more pages on my het_bigbang.

--

I stayed up until 5 a.m. reading a story in which, well, I would hate to ruin the surprise, but anyway, it involved Goren, Eames, vampires, Nicole Wallace, and sex. In some configuration. It's a WIP, not done yet, but anyway. I had to share it with jesshelga and now, those of you who also are fans of what definitely falls into the realm of straight-faced crackfic can also rejoice. Given that tonight was the (sobs quietly to self) Criminal Intent finale.

--

I really wish I could find the notebook that contains the very first fanfic I wrote, when I was about eleven years old, but I'm also glad, because it was so horrifically bad that I'm sure I would do spit-takes every other page.

I wrote it back when I had no idea there was such a thing as fanfic. I also, because I could, crossed every fandom I was into at the time, regardless of the fact that THEY DIDN'T EVEN TAKE PLACE IN REMOTELY THE SAME TIME PERIOD. I have no recollection of how I managed it.

--

I've rediscovered tumblr (I'm ndnickerson.tumblr.com) so if you post photos of Timothy Olyphant or Ryan Reynolds or squee about Nancy Drew or Community or randomly post MST3K quotes and I'm not already following you, do let me know so I can find you over there and you can witness me reblog random shots of Jon Hamm looking hot.

(I still don't know how to customize my layout or do almost anything other than reblog and click the little heart button and occasionally post random things.)

(i keep seeing commercials for the adjustment bureau and they make me want to watch dark city because dark city did it SO, SO much better.)

i'm halfway to my minimum word count in my het_bigbang story! i have a feeling i'm not quite halfway through the actual story, but that's okay. if you want in on the filter, comment on the (recent, probably previous) post. i've put up two snippets and a poll so far.

other stories i need to work on include three for helpthesouth - i already know what i'm doing for the perry mason one, but the other two are being more difficult. and then there's the nancydrewfic summerfest 2011! i just finished off a story for that, which is posted over at ivory_charmed.

ooh, so tired. got up an hour early for an errand that turned out to be entirely fruitless, so that sucked.

Rewriting History - A Comment Fic Meme


my prompts so far, which include spoilers!:

( AU prompts )

Fandoms:

Chuck, Nancy Drew, Mad Men, Big Bang Theory, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Legend of the Seeker, Lois & Clark

Stories:

( under the cut )