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Entry tags:
Yuletide reveal + meme
Belated again, whoops. I got a little distracted by Person of Interest and my car dying and finally giving two weeks notice at the call center (starting off the new year right!). I wrote Nikita fic for ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
gothicgunslinger, a Birkhoff character study:
No Easy Walk To Freedom (1707 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Nikita (TV 2010)
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Seymour Birkhoff, Percy, Amanda, Nikita
Summary: Hacking is 90% hardware and 10% software: 90% knowing how a thing works, and 10% figuring out the people who made it. It's the 10% that'll get you screwed – or save you.
The title is from a Nelson Mandela speech. I had a lot of fun coming up with backstory for Birkhoff, which was my recipient's sole request, and thankfully the show left me a lot of room to work with there. I did a partial rewatch focusing on the Birkhoff-heavy eps but didn't finish due to holiday busyness, which I'm a little sad about. I'd forgotten just how fast things go down on the show: it's narratively and emotionally intense, and awesome.
Weirdly, I think the part I enjoyed most about writing this story was remembering all the 'period' details about computers from the nineties, now fuzzy childhood memories. Made me all nostalgic. [Of course, now all I can think is how hilarious it would be to watch Harold Finch completely school Birkhoff. He offers to hack the Pentagon for lols when he's accidentally high and builds the world's most insanely advanced AI; you know he'd think Shadownet was adorable.]
2010
Crumbs in the Butter (5591 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Alice (2009)
Relationships: Alice Hamilton/Hatter, Duchess/Jack Heart
Summary: Alice and Hatter attend Jack and Duchess's wedding, and run into a few...small problems.
Commentary: My first Yuletide! It was the first thing I wrote that had any sort of plot or action, so naturally I decided to learn how to do all that against a deadline. /o\ It resulted in some great tags, though ;) Also, this set the pattern of me procrastinating and Lindsey holding my hand through last minute edits when I decide the story I posted to meet the deadline could be so much better if only I add another 1600 words before they closed the archive. I was right, but I rather wish I hadn't made Lindsey stay up until 2AM Christmas Eve for it.
Phone Tag (6540 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Banlieue 13 (2004)
Relationships: Leïto/Damien Tomaso, Damien Tomaso/Sonya
Characters: Damien Tomaso, Lola (Banlieue 13), Leito (Banlieue 13), Original Male Character
Summary: Five times Leïto left a message for Damien, and one time Damien left a message for Leïto. Set in the three-year period between the movies.
Commentary: As a natural followup to Lindsey being awesome, I wrote her B13 fic for NYR! She knew all about it because we are a squee echo chamber around here and she's my beta, but she didn't know I was making it a present for her. I'm still really pleased with this fix-it for their estrangement between the movies - I really enjoy working with the puzzle pieces of small canons like this, and inventing bridges for the gaps. I keep meaning to finish the porny sequel (which actually has an ending, for once! just hardly any porn yet), and the prequel snippet where Lola meets Alain (because Lola needs more love).
2011
Precession (2868 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Life
Relationships: Charlie Crews/Dani Reese
Characters: Dani Reese, Charlie Crews, Kevin Tidwell, Jane Seever
Summary: Dani really hadn't expected to be back at work before Crews.
Commentary: Probably the fic I'm proudest of writing so far - something about Life just makes me want to write better, more lyrically, pushes me to figure out how to entwine all the motifs and characterization that the show does visually into prose. And this is still the only fic on AO3 tagged for Jane Seever - so at least there's one! (For shame, fandom. I'd vote for her.)
2012
No Easy Walk To Freedom (1707 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Nikita (TV 2010)
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Seymour Birkhoff, Percy, Amanda, Nikita
Summary: Hacking is 90% hardware and 10% software: 90% knowing how a thing works, and 10% figuring out the people who made it. It's the 10% that'll get you screwed – or save you.
Commentary: This is a perfectly satisfactory fic, but I'm somehow dissatisfied with it. I did finally manage to find Birkhoff's voice successfully, which I struggled with at first, but I think it's because I didn't bring much new to his character except for creating the details of his past. Probably because I was deliberately limiting the scope of the story so I didn't get overambitious and run out of time - I was fighting exhaustion and writer's block for a lot of December. Or maybe because I didn't write it in an adrenalized panic (or sit on it for months tweaking the damn thing to death, like I do when there's no deadline), it's lacking in oomph. IDK.
No Easy Walk To Freedom (1707 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Nikita (TV 2010)
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Seymour Birkhoff, Percy, Amanda, Nikita
Summary: Hacking is 90% hardware and 10% software: 90% knowing how a thing works, and 10% figuring out the people who made it. It's the 10% that'll get you screwed – or save you.
The title is from a Nelson Mandela speech. I had a lot of fun coming up with backstory for Birkhoff, which was my recipient's sole request, and thankfully the show left me a lot of room to work with there. I did a partial rewatch focusing on the Birkhoff-heavy eps but didn't finish due to holiday busyness, which I'm a little sad about. I'd forgotten just how fast things go down on the show: it's narratively and emotionally intense, and awesome.
Weirdly, I think the part I enjoyed most about writing this story was remembering all the 'period' details about computers from the nineties, now fuzzy childhood memories. Made me all nostalgic. [Of course, now all I can think is how hilarious it would be to watch Harold Finch completely school Birkhoff. He offers to hack the Pentagon for lols when he's accidentally high and builds the world's most insanely advanced AI; you know he'd think Shadownet was adorable.]
2010
Crumbs in the Butter (5591 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Alice (2009)
Relationships: Alice Hamilton/Hatter, Duchess/Jack Heart
Summary: Alice and Hatter attend Jack and Duchess's wedding, and run into a few...small problems.
Commentary: My first Yuletide! It was the first thing I wrote that had any sort of plot or action, so naturally I decided to learn how to do all that against a deadline. /o\ It resulted in some great tags, though ;) Also, this set the pattern of me procrastinating and Lindsey holding my hand through last minute edits when I decide the story I posted to meet the deadline could be so much better if only I add another 1600 words before they closed the archive. I was right, but I rather wish I hadn't made Lindsey stay up until 2AM Christmas Eve for it.
Phone Tag (6540 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Banlieue 13 (2004)
Relationships: Leïto/Damien Tomaso, Damien Tomaso/Sonya
Characters: Damien Tomaso, Lola (Banlieue 13), Leito (Banlieue 13), Original Male Character
Summary: Five times Leïto left a message for Damien, and one time Damien left a message for Leïto. Set in the three-year period between the movies.
Commentary: As a natural followup to Lindsey being awesome, I wrote her B13 fic for NYR! She knew all about it because we are a squee echo chamber around here and she's my beta, but she didn't know I was making it a present for her. I'm still really pleased with this fix-it for their estrangement between the movies - I really enjoy working with the puzzle pieces of small canons like this, and inventing bridges for the gaps. I keep meaning to finish the porny sequel (which actually has an ending, for once! just hardly any porn yet), and the prequel snippet where Lola meets Alain (because Lola needs more love).
2011
Precession (2868 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Life
Relationships: Charlie Crews/Dani Reese
Characters: Dani Reese, Charlie Crews, Kevin Tidwell, Jane Seever
Summary: Dani really hadn't expected to be back at work before Crews.
Commentary: Probably the fic I'm proudest of writing so far - something about Life just makes me want to write better, more lyrically, pushes me to figure out how to entwine all the motifs and characterization that the show does visually into prose. And this is still the only fic on AO3 tagged for Jane Seever - so at least there's one! (For shame, fandom. I'd vote for her.)
2012
No Easy Walk To Freedom (1707 words) by Spatz
Fandom: Nikita (TV 2010)
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Seymour Birkhoff, Percy, Amanda, Nikita
Summary: Hacking is 90% hardware and 10% software: 90% knowing how a thing works, and 10% figuring out the people who made it. It's the 10% that'll get you screwed – or save you.
Commentary: This is a perfectly satisfactory fic, but I'm somehow dissatisfied with it. I did finally manage to find Birkhoff's voice successfully, which I struggled with at first, but I think it's because I didn't bring much new to his character except for creating the details of his past. Probably because I was deliberately limiting the scope of the story so I didn't get overambitious and run out of time - I was fighting exhaustion and writer's block for a lot of December. Or maybe because I didn't write it in an adrenalized panic (or sit on it for months tweaking the damn thing to death, like I do when there's no deadline), it's lacking in oomph. IDK.