I would like to know about Keiko on Bajor and Ro dentist fic, please! (If I can only have one, Ro dentist.)
Keiko on Bajor is sort of a companion piece to this fic? It follows Keiko during her time working on Bajor, including meeting her Bajoran colleagues and dealing with their various attitudes towards her, raising Molly among Bajorans, and getting to know Kira better. I started it years ago and it doesn’t even need to be super long, I just haven’t quite managed to get it working right yet. I worry at it now and then and will probably finish it eventually!
The Ro dentist fic is one that I probably won’t finish at this point. I last edited it in 2012, apparently. It was going to be a sequel to/expansion of this ficlet about Tasha and Ro at the Academy, and it was about Tasha guiding Ro through her first dental appointment, and more broadly about the kinds of experiences the two of them missed out on in their childhoods, and how they each cope differently with their feelings of not quite fitting in at the Academy. Here’s a wee snippet:
‘It’s nothing to be...’ - she was about to say afraid, but stopped herself - ‘concerned about,’ she amended. ‘They just scan you with a tricorder like in a regular medical, then if you need any work done you just sit in a special chair so that they can do a precision transport of any infected stuff, and then they just give you a hypo or two if anything needs regrowing or whatever. It hardly takes any time at all.’
Laren shrugged again. She was a very expressive shrugger.
Tasha thought it probably wouldn’t be helpful to mention her first dental examination. Fifteen years old, scared and confused, she had screamed and kicked and bitten the Starfleet nurse who tried to fit the head clamp for the microtransport.
6. which shows do you think are underrated and need more love?
Huh, that’s a good question. My current answers are 12 Monkeys! Killjoys! The Expanse! The first two are complete so you can watch the whole thing - 12 Monkeys especially is super tightly plotted. Killjoys is so much fun (Team Awesome Force!) and I love Dutch and Johnny’s relationship. Plus, FANCY LEE. And The Expanse has 4 complete seasons available for marathoning.
8. do you prefer week-to-week content, or just binging all in one go?
I prefer being able to watch all at once, but I think I get more out of shows I watch week-to-week in terms of thinking about them and absorbing them.
19. are there any shows on your “to watch” list right now?
So many! Killing Eve! Mrs. America! the latest seasons of Grace and Frankie and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel! Zumbo’s Just Desserts! Nadiya Hussein’s show!
Oh Jayne. I started writing this SPN/Black Sails fusion in 2018, and it’s still not done. Not even close. Anyways, thought you might enjoy a bit of Castiel via Black Sails :D :
(under the cut for length)
“You know what this is, of course” shesays, softly.
Castiel nods. “The Tree of Knowledge”
“Yes” she says.
Then she sighs. “Castiel, how did you gethere?”
Thoughts-memories-feelings-tumble through their consciousness at the speed of light-Miranda’s pleading, James’ fear, Rachel’s body, a shell without her Grace,Yakub’s laughter, Malachi’s favourite song, Raphael’s grim face, Alistair’smocking look, Miranda’s joy when she’d held James again, James’ grip on theirarm-millennia of slaughter and blood and silence and-
“I was looking” Castiel says,” for ananswer”.
“Well, then, you’ve come to the rightplace, haven’t you?” she murmurs, “But-“she pauses. “Are you sure of thequestion?”
Castiel looks at her, helpless.
She doesn’t say anything further, justlooks at them, kind as ever.
“Eating of The Tree brought sorrow and lossinto the world” Castiel says-unsure why their voice sounds like a plea.
“Yes” she says, “Yes it did- and it does”.
She says nothing more.
“It brings doubt and misery” Castiel says.
“Yes” she says, “it does.”
“Then why-“Castiel starts- and is interrupted by the sound of laughter.
There are two- people-at the base of The Tree now, and the laughter is coming fromthem. The woman murmurs something, and the man next to her – he bends his headso he can hear her better, and whispers something back, that makes her gigglesome more. They have their backs to their audience- but Castiel already knows- even as Miranda turns to rest herback on the trunk, pulling James to her- and James is turning now toward Thomas,who’s loped up from the side, and takes his hand, smiling, before turning todrop a kiss on Miranda’s lips, and then reaches up to do the same to Thomas.
They look different, Castiel thinks, stillin shock: older- their faces lined, and their hair greyer. Thomas Hamilton’s faceis lined and stubbled, his head bare and hair unfashionably cropped, and James’hair is not held back with a ribbon, but shorter. There are lines around hiseyes that don’t belong to-
Castiel watches and feels something piercethem: something unnamed and sharp, something like longing and tenderness, likeenvy and desire and fear-something inchoate that slices rapier-like throughtheir Grace, and they are-
It’s Miranda who sees them- she murmurssomething to the other two, and they both turn- still holding each other-anchoring, familiar touches-and the smiles still on their faces as they seewho’s watching.
Miranda holds out her hand toward Castiel,her smile widening.
“Castiel!” she calls.
Castielis rooted to the ground, they are flying through space-Castiel is-
*
When they wake up, they are in a garden.
It’s not the same garden, but it isfamiliar.
It is Miranda’s garden, except that Mirandais not here.
F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom
In terms of years spent actively producing content, House, which went from about 2004-2010.
N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer needs more Jewish themes, concepts, and characters; it could use more stuff set in Gothic California, or just California, period; I’d love to see more of people allowing the minor recurring characters like Anya and Drusilla more sympathy, agency, and depth than they’re usually given in fics these days.
so i originally read this as hollow point bc i suck at reading things, and that made me think of a fic that’s more like inspired by x-men than actually a direct fusion with x-men or smth that takes place in that world. (read: i steal the bits i like the best and ignore everything else.)
but ok so dean and sam, still hunters, still raised on the road by john, only they’re both mutants (john is not a mutant; mary’s status is currently unknown). dean has ferrokinesis; he can manipulate metal with his mind. very handy for fixing the impala, but also he can do the cool thing of arming and disarming guns, levitating them in the air, and pulling the trigger all without touching anything (and honestly could also just shoot bullets sans gun but he grew up shooting guns before his powers manifested at puberty and there’s still something satisfying about the chemical reaction in a gun blast - not to mention that john was kind of sort of a lot against mutant abilities so dean’s still kind of shackled with that).
sam’s a telepath with telekinesis. a hella powerful one too. he has a medical degree.
cas is a bit different. there’s no angels or demons in this world. so cas isn’t an angel but he is a mutant, with the power to heal. from anything. and is who knows how old at this point bc he never does seem to stay dead. someone at some point tried to graph wings into his back, so he’s got the bone and muscle and ligaments of wings. but they’re hella ugly and disturbing, all scraggly scarred up patches of skin graph, and whoever did it clearly didn’t have a good grasp of either physics or muscle strength, bc he can’t use them to fly.
dean and cas both have issues. sam has issues. there’s probably politics and morality that drive the external plot. like the recent recognition of supernatural creatures as legal citizens, with rights, or as much as mutants have rights, which throws into question whether dean and sam are hunting their own kind. cas is a badass militant activist for mutant/supernatural creature rights. he and dean argue a lot. all of things they leave unsaid give sam monstrous migraines.
the first couple lines goes:
dean first meets the mutant castiel by shooting him in the head. two minutes later, castiel hauls himself up from the dust, armoured with a glare like death and a tiny trail of blood trickling in front of his left ear.
and sam, with painful unfortunate clarity, hears dean think the twin thoughts of, oh shit, and, oh, here we go now, both sentiments alight in the same tenor of terrified murderous excitement.
it might also be set in steampunk 1890s london. (except none of them are british.)
send me a fic title and i’ll tell you what i’d write for it
A couple of days ago I reblogged a fanfic author ask meme, and @robotsnchicks, @serricoj and a couple of anons sent in some numbers. (Thanks!)
It is a bit weird to answer these now, while I’m a bit of a creative slump, but maybe this’ll help inspire something.
3. In your opinion, what’s your best fic?
Right off the bat, a tough question! Okay, using the metric where “best” means “fic that I’m happiest with in its final form and am proud of from a storytelling point of view”, it’s my 2011 entry of the SPN Big Bang, A Judicious Application of Free Will, which was tremendously satisfying to put together and, at the time, was meant to be a farewell to SPN fandom (HA HA HA). Although it’s clunky in places, a lot of love went into that story and there are some scenes I’m really happy to have captured in words.
5. Is there any fic that makes you super happy to reread and remember you wrote that?
This changes a lot, and depends on my mood! I can vacillate between loving to reread a particular fic and being so embarrassed by the same fic that I don’t want to remember it exists at all. Right now, though, the fic that makes me cackle in self-indulgent glee during rereads is my Steve/Tony fic Stick With Me Baby, I’m the Fella You Came in With, which is one of those exercises of writing what you want to read, and is a double-accomplishment in the sense that I’d felt unqualified to write for this pairing for a long time.
7. What’s the fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?
This tends to rotate between three: the future timestamps for Not Part of the Plan (augh), another part of that werewolves AU with Dean/Cas (where Cas’ body changes upon his mating with Dean, as was implied to be possible in that ‘verse), and the third part of Biology and Feelings and Stuff where Dean and Cas’ cycles sync up.
17. In your opinion, what’s your most overrated fic?
A disclaimer! I’m really happy with a lot of things I did with this fic, and I’m grateful for the response it’s gotten. But proportionate to the response it’s gotten, is my sense of guilt that I could’ve done better with it. The fic in question is my Dean/Cas Big Bang from 2012, Convenient Husbands, which I feel took more emotional shortcuts than was necessary to make things happen, and I didn’t expand or use the background plot as much as I should have. I appreciate every single kudos and comment, but sometimes I’m like, oh my god I’m so sorry, I could’ve done that better.
18. What’s your most underrated fic?
I reckon this would be an old Heroes fic I wrote years ago (I just checked, it’s almost ten years old!) titled Suburban Lighthouse which was a fusion with the 80s horror movie, Poltergeist. I understand why it got the response it did: (1) it’s horror-based when I’m not great at horror, (2) although it has a slash pairing it’s actually gen, so it likely alienated readers who preferred either, plus (3) it leans way heavily on the reader being familiar with Poltergeist. This is all true.
BUT YOU GUYS!!! I had such a blast figuring out organic points of fusion between the canons of Heroes and Poltergeist, it’s like I wrote an in-joke story to be shared with people who enjoy both canons (which is mainly me, I guess?). Among the fusion bits are like, in Poltergeist one of the paranormal investigators has a nightmare of him clawing his own face, while in my Heroes fusion one of the characters DOES claw their face and it’s CLAIRE, OBVIOUSLY. Also, there’s the thing about who in the Heroes universe is the Beast – it’s obvious, really, as is the reason of the Beast’s interest in the Heroes universe’s version of Carol-Anne.
19. If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?
BEHOLD, THE DEAN, DEFINITELY. It’s a self-contained, tight little story, and it showcases my sense of humour and quite a few of my storytelling buttons. It’s like a short story exercise that I feel I did pretty okay with.
21. If someone starts kudosing and commenting your fics in a spree and has a few works of their own, would you go look through theirs?
Not often, but yes, I have done this. Especially if the kudos/comments are on fics which tackle relatively uncommon tropes, because I usually write things that I want to read more of, and…. I want to read more of those things.
25. What constructive criticism, however well-meaning, always makes you feel bad when you see it in a review?
I can usually get something useful out of concrit, but I have problems with endings sometimes, and it can be a punch in the gut to see that pointed out, like when endings are sudden, or the story just peters off weakly. It’s not so much that I dislike concrit – I dig concrit, and can get useful stuff out of it – but the fact that it’s a thing I already know I need to work on, but still haven’t gotten there.
35. Have you ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to?
Not really? Any ships in my fics are there on purpose. Though I some people said they shipped Sam/Anna in Not Part of the Plan, which blindsided me, so maybe that counts?
38. Have you ever purposefully written something you know your readers would find uncomfortable/would not enjoy? If yes, why?
Yeaaaaah I did this with That’s Pretty Nice Timing, which is an AU of my Dean/Cas highschool AU It’s Always the End of the World Somewhere. It does some things that aren’t popular (infidelity, some Cas/other) and ends ambiguously for Dean and Cas, and although I can see them figuring things out down the line, it’s not a strongly shippy ending as it is.
This story is basically part of my thinking that no matter how bad things got for Dean and Cas in the “main” universe due to Dean’s childhood choice, just fixing that choice in an alternate universe wouldn’t automatically mean that Dean and Cas would be happier together. Although what-ifs are part and parcel of fanfic exercises, in this story at least it isn’t and can’t be that neat, and I didnt want it to be.
Thank you to y’all that sent in the numbers, this was fun!
Ahahahaha, JOAN WATSON. I want to be her when I grow up. I was very skeptical when I first heard about the series and I was like, a) another Holmes adaptation??? and b) OMG THEY ARE GOING TO HETEROROMANCE IT AREN’T THEY.
But luckily and blessedly Elementary is imho THE BEST modern adaptation of the series, and that has a LOT to do with how AMAZING Joan Watson is! She’s SO SMART and COMPETENT and takes absolutely no bullshit but she always speaks truth from a place of kindness and compassion! I love how she’s a character that consistently makes brave choices, and tough choices, and it’s not because she isn’t scared but because she’s willing to risk things! I love that she loves to learn! I love that she’s independent and confident!
I COVET HER WARDROBE.
I also love that she’s the aloof/reserved one compared with Sherlock whose emotions are ALL OVER THE PLACE. (I mean, people have difficulty understanding him and he has difficulty forming connections but HIS EMOTIONS ARE SPILLING OVER EVERYWHERE where as Joan is like * moves an eyebrow half an inch to indicate EXTREME DISPLEASURE)
Anyways, TL;DR, Joan Watson is Everything and Lucy Liu was Perfect Casting and also the show fucking lucked out on the incredible chemistry between Lucy and JLM, and have i mentioned I’m SAD it’s over?
I would watch 7 seasons of Joan Watson feeding Clyde, is what I’m saying.
All the people I ship romantically with this character
Hmm, tough, because I don’t really ship her with anyone. The closest in canon is Jaime Moriarty, though I can ALSO definitely see a Marcus/Joan.
My non-romantic OTP for this character
Sherlock/Joan though frankly, their Platonic Soulmates TWO PEOPLE WHO LOVE EACH OTHER THING IS PEAK ROMANCE™ FIGHT ME.
Honestly, top 5 relationships in any TV series I’ve watched.
My unpopular opinion about this character
Idk, I think she’s Perfect, is that an unpopular opinion? :D I wish we’d gotten more Joan-only story arcs though, for sure.
Oh, and that thing where Joan wears heels in the brownstone almost all the time-that was really annoying to me- but obviously not a reflection on her character, but idk, was it because Lucy is really short compared to JLM? My calves would ache in sympathy every time.
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.
Moriarty and Joan should absolutely have got it ON :D
B - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind
lol, @sea-changed wrote a short Eleanor/Miranda Black Sails fic way back and I’d honestly never even considered that pairing until then, but I read it and I was like !!!!!!!!!
U - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms
Well, these should be pretty easy to guess lol
From my current fandom
The Rise of Phoenixes - Xin Zi Yan (he’s objectively The Worst, cold-hearted, manipulative, clever and ruthless. I love him so much.)
and older fandoms
SPN- Castiel
Harry Potter - Hermione Granger
Black Sails- Miranda Barlow
MCU- Natasha Romanoff ( though I’m basically refusing to acknowledge any canon after Civil War, and I refuse to see Endgame specifically because how they ended Natasha’s character arc)
