On the one hand, I cringe at the idea of people finding my old fanfiction, because the writing is very... well, calling it "teenager-y" would be insulting to all the teens out there who write, and wrote, way better than mid-'90s!teen!me.
On the other hand, the idea of erasing every trace of those stories makes me sad, since that was a big, memorable part of my adolescence. So, in an attempt to have my cake and eat it, too, I'm taking the fanfic down... but I'm going to kinda reminisce about it.
The intro note below was written when I actually intended on linking to my old stuff.
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The stories here were fun to write, but there's also melodramatic prose, weak plots and iffy characterization going on, so tread carefully. I haven't left all the old stuff here -- it's all personal favorites of the mediocre Fanfiction.net caliber. In reality, this is my place to wax nostalgic about fiction that I really shouldn't have posted -- I figure since most people have had these stories forced on them anyway, I might as well wallow in the shame. *g*
Much of my Swampy fiction is still at Arcane Knowledge in all its unfettered, uncut teenage glory. So just skip it and read Fran's writing.
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the trek stuff
Spectrum (1996) - Q shows up on the Enterprise thoroughly traumatized. Troi feels sorry for him and decides to counsel him out of it. This leads to flashbacks where we learn he was tortured by aliens and had a romantic relationship with a Mary Sue ElfQuest elf. For reals.
This was the first piece of fanfic I ever inflicted on the internet, and it was the longest thing I'd ever written, novella-length, so I was really proud of it. It's bad -- gratuitous torture, Mary Sue ElfQuest elf, etc. -- but I enjoyed myself at the time. I seriously showed everyone this story. I showed my history teacher. (He was really nice about it and seemed actually entertained.)
There was a lot of italicized stream-of-consciousness stuff during the Q-gets-tortured parts; all that was my youthful attempt to be Madeline L'Engle (I'd just read A Swiftly Tilting Planet and was very much in awe.)
Some really talented and intelligent fanwriters were extremely patient betas to me while writing this; I don't think, at the time, I realized just how patient they were. *g* Mercutio, a prolific writer in Q fandom at the time, did a MiST/parody called Speculum. It poked fun at the endless amount of improper ellipses, the constant Mary Sueing, the obvious (and oblivious) homoeroticism (I was a slasher without even trying, man) and '96-era Q fandom in general. So, yeah, I totally wrote bad Mary Sue fanfic and got MiSted. I remember liking the MiST; I'm pretty sure I cringed at the spotlight shone upon my badness, but I remember it also being pretty damn funny.
I also met Mel through this story, so I consider that a total win.
...you know, ten years later, and I'm still writing about people screwing elves. This fills me with a strange mixture of bewilderment and pride.
Blank (1996) - The preachiest bit of preaching that's ever been preached. The Continuum, fed up with Q, turns him into a zombified Stepford!Q. Janeway defends Q's right to have a personality. Mel-ohhhh-drama, kinda Sue-ish Janeway. ...I am just now realizing that TNG totally did this plot, only without the brainwashing and with Data.
What?! (1996) - That punctuation embarrasses me. Anyway: Q fandom, such as it was, heard spoilers for the not-yet-aired Voyager episode, "The Q And The Grey." Specifically, they heard a spoiler that Q was supposed to try and get Janeway pregnant. Everybody thought this idea was basically liquid shit, and ran a ficathon challenging everybody to write the worst version of this idea possible. So I was like, "Hey, they had a drunken orgy and no one remembers what happened." I read it now and it's just not funny, but at the time, I thought I was a witty god. I totally need to go back in time, find my teenage ego and bottle it. ...on a more positive, less self-deprecating note, though, I remember making my friends laugh with it.
Uh-Oh (1997) - You know what? I'm actually gonna link, since this still amuses me. Basically: me trying to negotiate my way out of this fandom and into my next one.
the swampy stuff
Oracle - Dial-up modems! America Online! Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon as a brand-new, shiny, pop-culture phenomenon! Basically, a teleplay-script-style-thing where all the characters got addicted to the goddamned Kevin Bacon game. This is total, one-note, ff.net humor (they try to beat the game! they fail! They try! They fail!), but I still like how absurd and mundane it is, and all the references to C- and D-list actors. And, honestly, I still love one-note jokes. (Iloveeet?)
Chant - Honestly, this was a little too inspired by a scene in Alara Rogers' Q epic, Only Human, wherein Q wakes up feeling awful, not because he had a nightmare, but because of a good dream, a dream where he had his powers back, was accepted back into his family, etc. I hadn't encountered that before (I was pretty young) and it really moved me, so I wanted to do something like that. So, flashback vignette of Tatania injecting herself with the serum, lots of trippy imagery, Arcane dreaming she's fine and that they're still together, and then waking up alone feeling shittastic. The first thing I ever shared with Swamp Thing fandom; I'm pretty sure I met Fran through it, which is definitely a happy.
Beautiful Muzak - Oh, shit, I forgot about this. I'd leave it off, but it's still hanging around the internet. Basically: ff.net-esque crackfic (you know the kind; you're a teen, you're hyper, you think you're hilarious) with really bad Mary Sue/Arcane sex. It hurts so much that I'd kinda rather go without mentioning it, but, like I said, it's out on the internets forever and ever, so...
I wrote half of this thing with an old friend and the other half with one of my current BFFs, and honestly, we had a blast. We'd just sit in McDonald's, giggling and coming up with crackfic.
Ecstagony (1997) - I totally titled a story with a made-up word.
This was the second-longest thing I'd ever written and I worked hard on it and was really proud of it at the time. It was clearly written as I went along. An AU to a really, really bad episode I loved, "Mirador's Brain," where Arcane never gets Mirador out of his head. It starts with him basically wandering through the swamp and getting his rant on, but becomes a sort of mindgame/mindfuck between himself and Mirador. Somehow this leads to h/c with Graham, h/c with Tressa, h/c with Alec, even trippier imagery, and lots of flashbacks to Tatania. (I totally shipped them for a while, even though I don't think I understood it as that, back then.) It also has fake, poorly researched schizophrenia (he gets prescribed Zoloft! That research involved: asking a classmate stuff.)
The opening line has a young Arcane killing a raccoon. Raccoons don't live in England, where I assume Arcane grew up. I remember feeling that a dog, cat or bird would've been too "mundane" and not editing because of that. Ah, youth.
Despite the lack of research, structure and closure and the youthful fear of said and whatnot, this story seemed to really strike a chord in at least three of my friends in that tiny fandom of ours, to a degree that surprised me. One friend said it sort of read like being obsessed feels, so I guess the passion I had for it helped make it entertain despite (because of?) the flaws, and I'm glad it entertained, that it worked for them.
Bloody Hell, co-written with Fran White (1997) - An alternate ending to "A Jury Of His Fears," wherein Arcane isn't revived and goes to, er, Hell. And gets the ever-loving-bejesus tortured out of him.
Also, there are fun shenanigans where Graham finagles Alec into going down to Hell so they can bring Arcane back, since Graham's basically desperately in love with him. Uh, him being Arcane. Not Alec. Although that would've been awesome.
I'm pretty sure that, in this story alone, Arcane gets beaten, electrocuted, contracts malaria, drowns in quicksand, loses an eyeball and gets set on fire. And I'm totally leaving out stuff.
However, he does get briefly healed by a genderless being named Fete. ...I sort of love how cracked out all my fanfic was.
Fun fact: This story was started because there just wasn't enough torture and mindfuckery in the story above, so I needed an outlet for even more gratuitous torture. Fanfiction: Allowing You To Safely Work Through Your Goddamn Issues Since 1967. (Or whenever fanfic started.)
Writing with Fran was so much fun. So much fun. I learned so much. She was so kind and funny and smart. I feel slightly guilty for putting this story here amidst all the self-deprecation, because I don't want to be seen as dissing her memory or our time collaborating in any way.
At the same time, it's hard for me not to bring up that I infantalized Arcane in a major way, that the torture got gratuitous (at least in my scenes -- admittedly, that was the point), and Fete was cool but a little Mary Sue-ish and hir plot thread shouldn't have been left hanging. On Fran's end, there were some Britishisms going on that I should have spoken up about (at the time, I worried that it would be un-PC or something) and some oft-repeated, common punctuation mistakes. But, you know, that's cosmetic.
She obviously knew her way around character and a deeply affecting scene. She gave the story plot and coherency. Her scene with Arcane meeting himself is still so damn good, as is the scene where he interacts with Savannah -- I still find it really moving, affecting.
At the time, this was the longest thing I'd ever written, which made me really proud. And it was my first experience co-writing, ever, and it made me love the process. I seriously wouldn't have traded working with Fran for a minute.
Haunted (1997/8?) - I tiptoe into the realm of slash. Graham, unrequited love, very G-rated.
I'm Not Drunk, I'm Wonderful (1998) - Arcane and Graham wake up on New Year's Day in bed together and wearing each other's drawers. Panic ensues. At this point, I think they'd just shag each other, but it was 1998 and I was innocent. Sort of.
Slip Down (1998) - Gay bar that looks like a prom. Slow-dancing. Gay bar that plays Motley fucking Crue. I'm serious. Dara, I blame you partly for this, she teased. Also, Nikki Sixx is hot.
Landslide (1998) - Way to steal your titles from Fleetwood Mac songs, young writer. The story where Arcane gets raped (off-screen). Only, I (unwisely?) played it as a reveal, so now you've totally been spoiled. Graham comforts him. Also, they have an argument. And there's cuddling.
That Untitled Slash Story I Never Finished (1998) - There's a Jewel lyric at the beginning of this. I think we should all just let that sink in a minute.
So, it was my first attempt at writing slash. Arcane/Graham, who I was shipping hardcore by then. The sex scene was really, really bad. It starts out as this fucked up relationship, but then Carla Jeffries takes over the complex and there's torture and mutants running amuck and lesbians (with eyepatches?) and it sort of turns into Action Jackson.
Orgy, Houma-Style (1999), co-written with Dara - We wrote badfic on purpose. I think it freaked out the mailing list because of all the badly written sex and the swearing. Swampy fandom was a pretty PG-ish place at the time. Well, except for my long-ass stories filled with violent, gratuitous torture. But anyway: writing with Dara has always been a blast. (I still remember the RPG-ish story-thing. Arcane/Alec college road-trip for the win, man.)
And that's about it, baybeh.