CEPHIED VARIABLE'S OMG GREATEST HITS. Yes folks, you've been *waiting* for this one.
AHAHAHA, 
kill_me_faster WANTED ME TO DO THIS MEME OH, I DON'T KNOW, AGES AGO. But it's a totally awesome meme- everyone on my flist who writes fic? You should do it too. Because I'm honestly curious.
Pick what you consider to be the top five pieces of writing (fanfiction) you've ever finished, and post in your LJ a long-winded ego stroke as to why you think they're the best. Don't pick what your friends like, pick what YOU like! Similarly, pick a friend's piece of writing that often goes underappreciated, and give it the attention that it deserves!
Broken Circle - Cardcaptor Sakura
This is perhaps the most perfect fanfic I have written in my life. I mean- I wrote this monstrosity in one night when I was fifteen years old and I still am patently impressed by it. That's something in itself right there! Besides being a good ol' yarn of a slashy tale, this also represents a time in my life when I had the leisure to just kind of write with freedom and abandon. I'm too high strung to do that anymore, which is more than a little problematic considering what I want to do with the rest of my life. :P
Okay, so it's well written. But it's also incredibly well constructed. The story jumps around erratically and I used several different tenses and writing styles in it (I mean, there's a part that's more or less script format. What?), but it still works. I love the symbolism I managed to work into this (Eriol and the stars!), the screwed up characterization I managed to weave (Syaoran and his wtf! obedience!) and I'm satisfied with the way I was able to create an entire story by only showing one consequence of an event. Even though it's just a fanfic, it's stories like this that remind me, why yes! I am an incredible writer and always have been!
Also, this is dark dark dark. Lollerifically dark, considering the subject. I have no clue what it was about CCS: it was such a cute, sparkly show and I loved it, but I just wanted to destroy that happiness so badly.
WARNINGS: Eriol/Syaoran, sexual themes, dark ha ha ha
Lacuna - Fullmetal Alchemist
So I have a love/hate relationship with this fic. Writing it was something of a chore considering it was written for a contest and I procastinated and procastinated and then went to an anime convention and then wrote most of it freehand in line to see Johnen Vasquez and on the plane home and, ooops, I decided finally to finish it at five in the morning the morning it was due after staying up all night playing video games with my friends because I'm a dummy. And then I didn't even make the deadline. Or edit it properally (HA, LIKE I EDIT MY FANFICTION EVER LAWL), or, uh, post it the way I was supposed to, but y'know, it was my darling, darling Demidevi running the contest so Igot preferential treatment BITCHES was forgiven and, uh, yeah.
WELL THE LONG AND SHORT OF THE MATTER WAS for a good few months (or, y'know, YEAR) after I wrote this thing I hated it passionately. All I could see were the places where I rushed or choked or the scenes I sacrificed for the sake of writing faster and the way the ending is too abrupt and too dumb and too predictable. And even though Demidevi left me that 5000 word review (NO LIE!) and Dawn quoted the damn thing in one of her University papers (WHAT!?), I refused to acknowledge that it was actually any good.
AND OF COURSE, since I'm the one who wrote it I definitely couldn't (and still can't, actually) see what was so damn disturbing about it. Half the reviews on the fic are from people claiming I made them physically ill with my writing. Meanwhile I'm all: "Okay, necrophilia and parental complexes. It's gross, but my writing's pretty vanilla, so, uh...."
Meanwhile, I went back and re-read it- really re-read it- in preperation of filling out this meme considering, y'know, what with the big deal everyone makes out of it, there must have been something pretty special about it. And finally- FINALLY- I could see it. I could see that even though it was rushed and half assed, the themes were still communicated strongly and concretely. The fic was circular and despite everything, I had made every word count.
I agonized for a long while which of my FMA fics to include in this list. I wrote a lot of pretty terrific fic for that fandom (IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF. WHICH I DO. :D) and spent some time waffling between Half Empty (which is most certainly the best Roy/Ed fic I ever wrote, no arguments), Through a Glass Darkly (because I am bizzarely, bizzarely proud of that piece) and Death of a Ladies Man (which is kind of sort of perfect). In the end, I settled on Lacuna because even though I definitely like those first three better in many respects, and they are all very, very good, they are not exceptional. 'Lacuna' is something of an *accomplishment*. It stands head and shoulders above most of my other fics simply because of how different it is from what I usually write and also the strong effect it had on those who read it.
So here's to you, 'Lacuna'! May you continue to give hapless reviewers sick stomachs when the FMA fandom is dead and gone and you're nothing but a relic curious fans of an aged franchise stumble upon in desperation! ♥
WARNINGS: DARK DARK DARK DARK. Roy/Ed, Ed/alter!Trisha, Man/Dead Body, necrophilia, pedarestry, serial murders, OEDIPUS COMPLEX, autoerotic asphyxiation. NOT NICE THINGS. IT IS RATED R.
Shades of White, or... - Trigun
I love this fic so very much. I don't even know what to say about it because it's just... something I can be proud of without having to give any reasons or ancedotes or, anything, really, because I think the justification for my beaming, egotistical pride is somewhat self-evident: this is a fucking awesome fanfic. I wish that someone else had written it so that I could say that without any irony or conceit or, y'know, me looking like a self important jerk.
The whole concept behind this fic is that it's supposed to be the opposite of a "five things that never happened to..." fic. I've always wanted to write one of those wonky things, but you all know me: I'm better at writing things that are close to canon (OR AS CLOSE TO CANON AS YOU CAN BE WITH ALL THAT GAY I WRITE). So instead, I decided to write a: "five things that actually happened to..." fic and just do a sequence of events in Wolfwood's life that either were his take on canon scenes, or things that could of concieviably happened in canon. Each one of these scenes being events that shaped his life. I tried very hard to draw a defining line between Brother Nicholas of the December Orphanage and Wolfwood the Chapel of the Eye of Micheal. Y'know, where he crossed the line from being a protector-figure to becoming a murderer. All that stuff. Uh yeah. Not a word is wasted in this fic, which is a goal I wish I could achieve more often, since I waste a lot of words. Look! I'm doing it right now! Oh, english language, how I wrong you each and every day of my life! *sobz*
WARNINGS: Spooiilerzzzz for teh MANGA! Vol. 8-11ish.
The Things We Do For Love - Naruto
These are charming, charming little drabbles about love, all tied together. I tried to mostly keep it canon or "believiable" (ie: Lee->Sakura and Hinata->Naruto are canon, Shikamaru/Temari, SasuNaru and Neji/Hinata are believiable) because I wanted to make them appeal to everyone. Mostly, I tried to make them as much character pieces as romantic pieces because I'm Jenn and I'm analytical and most of the romance I write is about character analysis anyways (except a lot of my, lol, Roy/Ed and that one ShikaTem fic ♥).
But, uh, why are these fantastic? Well- first of all, they're all perfect, proper 100 word drabbles except for one, which is 121 words. And they're pleasantly in character (OR AT LEAST I THINK THEY ARE). And they're diverse. And, oh, oh, they were really really fun to write.
There's a lot of nostalgia in these too. I wrote these between the end of part one and the timeskip. The fandom back in summer of 05' was full of hope and sadness and apprehension and incredible fanfic. I never thought I'd say this about any series I love as much as I love Naruto, but I honestly like the post-timeskip Konoha presented in a lot of the fic in 2005 more than I like the post-timeskip Konoha in canon.
THERE. I SAID IT.
Not that many of you are going to disagree with me. :P But you all know what I'm talking about, right? That general assumption that there was going to be War! And epic drama! And that the genin nine would be mixed and matched more often and in general, things would be less structured and- oh, I don't even know. I'm just fond of these drabbles.
Also:
He would fight for it. He would kill for it. He would drag himself through hell- up and down the rocky clifface, through the rain while bleeding his heart out through his mouth. He would drench his hands in blood, sell his soul, snap bones, break his own body, keep chasing, keep moving no matter how it destroyed him in the end- for all that was good in the world, damn it, he would die for it.
- I wrote that before Naruto made that speech in the manga. OH, SASUNARU. STOP BEING SO CANON, WTF. KISHIMOTO. W.T.F.
WARNINGS: Uh, lots and lots of pairings? In sparse, sparse words? I mean, spoilers for the two and a half people on the planet who don't know that Sasuke left the village.
Wands - Harry Potter
I had no clue how to end this list. I mean those first four up there? That's some hard stuff to match up to. There's some old, old, old Digimon fics written when I was, like, twelve that I'm still really fond of and kind of wish I could find the will to rewrite because they were incredible, if poorly executed, ideas. But, uh, even though all that crap's still up on my ff.n profile I'd be THIIIIIIIIIIS embarassed to link anyone on my flist to it so, no. Eighteen nos, in fact.
In the end I chose this VERY STRANGE AND UNFORSEEN story. I didn't write a lot of HP fanfic and was never involved in the HP fandom and really find most of my HP fic to be some of my worstest writing ever but, uh, for some reason I'm hosted on, like, five HP archives and my old, old crappy-lame H/D fic has been translated into Russian, Italian, Chinese. Dutch and something else because. Just. I have no clue.
BUT! But, despite my general apathy for the HP fandom beyond snickering at the wank and winning costume contests in my super-brilliant Slytherin cosplay, I AM fairly proud of this one fic. 'Wands' isn't really about anything but short character studies. I guess you could call them interconnecting drabbles comparing character's personalities to the wands they use. I tried to use a good mixture of main characters, tertiary characters and really WTF obscure characters (GOYLE, OH YES). It doesn't really have any consistancy, but it DOES have a point at the end. And a fairly poignant one. So, this makes it on the list just because it's unique and full of interesting metaphor.
Really, I just wish Half Blood Prince had been better.
WARNINGS: "Wand" is not a eupherism. I promise.
AND A RECOMMENDATION OF A FRIEND'S WRITING:
Spinning -kaiousei
IS THERE SOME SORT OF RULE AGAINST RECCING MY ROOMATE'S FIC? Dawn probably thinks very little of these drabbles, but, uh, really? All other NejiNaru pales in comparison to them. I used to be all over NejiNaru like am exhausted university student over capuccino, but these drabbles were just so *perfect* and *satisfying*, I actually haven't actually had any urge to read it since.
I don't actually have anything "omg deep" to say about them. They were just kind of perfect.
kill_me_faster WANTED ME TO DO THIS MEME OH, I DON'T KNOW, AGES AGO. But it's a totally awesome meme- everyone on my flist who writes fic? You should do it too. Because I'm honestly curious.Pick what you consider to be the top five pieces of writing (fanfiction) you've ever finished, and post in your LJ a long-winded ego stroke as to why you think they're the best. Don't pick what your friends like, pick what YOU like! Similarly, pick a friend's piece of writing that often goes underappreciated, and give it the attention that it deserves!
Broken Circle - Cardcaptor Sakura
This is perhaps the most perfect fanfic I have written in my life. I mean- I wrote this monstrosity in one night when I was fifteen years old and I still am patently impressed by it. That's something in itself right there! Besides being a good ol' yarn of a slashy tale, this also represents a time in my life when I had the leisure to just kind of write with freedom and abandon. I'm too high strung to do that anymore, which is more than a little problematic considering what I want to do with the rest of my life. :P
Okay, so it's well written. But it's also incredibly well constructed. The story jumps around erratically and I used several different tenses and writing styles in it (I mean, there's a part that's more or less script format. What?), but it still works. I love the symbolism I managed to work into this (Eriol and the stars!), the screwed up characterization I managed to weave (Syaoran and his wtf! obedience!) and I'm satisfied with the way I was able to create an entire story by only showing one consequence of an event. Even though it's just a fanfic, it's stories like this that remind me, why yes! I am an incredible writer and always have been!
Also, this is dark dark dark. Lollerifically dark, considering the subject. I have no clue what it was about CCS: it was such a cute, sparkly show and I loved it, but I just wanted to destroy that happiness so badly.
WARNINGS: Eriol/Syaoran, sexual themes, dark ha ha ha
Lacuna - Fullmetal Alchemist
So I have a love/hate relationship with this fic. Writing it was something of a chore considering it was written for a contest and I procastinated and procastinated and then went to an anime convention and then wrote most of it freehand in line to see Johnen Vasquez and on the plane home and, ooops, I decided finally to finish it at five in the morning the morning it was due after staying up all night playing video games with my friends because I'm a dummy. And then I didn't even make the deadline. Or edit it properally (HA, LIKE I EDIT MY FANFICTION EVER LAWL), or, uh, post it the way I was supposed to, but y'know, it was my darling, darling Demidevi running the contest so I
WELL THE LONG AND SHORT OF THE MATTER WAS for a good few months (or, y'know, YEAR) after I wrote this thing I hated it passionately. All I could see were the places where I rushed or choked or the scenes I sacrificed for the sake of writing faster and the way the ending is too abrupt and too dumb and too predictable. And even though Demidevi left me that 5000 word review (NO LIE!) and Dawn quoted the damn thing in one of her University papers (WHAT!?), I refused to acknowledge that it was actually any good.
AND OF COURSE, since I'm the one who wrote it I definitely couldn't (and still can't, actually) see what was so damn disturbing about it. Half the reviews on the fic are from people claiming I made them physically ill with my writing. Meanwhile I'm all: "Okay, necrophilia and parental complexes. It's gross, but my writing's pretty vanilla, so, uh...."
Meanwhile, I went back and re-read it- really re-read it- in preperation of filling out this meme considering, y'know, what with the big deal everyone makes out of it, there must have been something pretty special about it. And finally- FINALLY- I could see it. I could see that even though it was rushed and half assed, the themes were still communicated strongly and concretely. The fic was circular and despite everything, I had made every word count.
I agonized for a long while which of my FMA fics to include in this list. I wrote a lot of pretty terrific fic for that fandom (IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF. WHICH I DO. :D) and spent some time waffling between Half Empty (which is most certainly the best Roy/Ed fic I ever wrote, no arguments), Through a Glass Darkly (because I am bizzarely, bizzarely proud of that piece) and Death of a Ladies Man (which is kind of sort of perfect). In the end, I settled on Lacuna because even though I definitely like those first three better in many respects, and they are all very, very good, they are not exceptional. 'Lacuna' is something of an *accomplishment*. It stands head and shoulders above most of my other fics simply because of how different it is from what I usually write and also the strong effect it had on those who read it.
So here's to you, 'Lacuna'! May you continue to give hapless reviewers sick stomachs when the FMA fandom is dead and gone and you're nothing but a relic curious fans of an aged franchise stumble upon in desperation! ♥
WARNINGS: DARK DARK DARK DARK. Roy/Ed, Ed/alter!Trisha, Man/Dead Body, necrophilia, pedarestry, serial murders, OEDIPUS COMPLEX, autoerotic asphyxiation. NOT NICE THINGS. IT IS RATED R.
Shades of White, or... - Trigun
I love this fic so very much. I don't even know what to say about it because it's just... something I can be proud of without having to give any reasons or ancedotes or, anything, really, because I think the justification for my beaming, egotistical pride is somewhat self-evident: this is a fucking awesome fanfic. I wish that someone else had written it so that I could say that without any irony or conceit or, y'know, me looking like a self important jerk.
The whole concept behind this fic is that it's supposed to be the opposite of a "five things that never happened to..." fic. I've always wanted to write one of those wonky things, but you all know me: I'm better at writing things that are close to canon (OR AS CLOSE TO CANON AS YOU CAN BE WITH ALL THAT GAY I WRITE). So instead, I decided to write a: "five things that actually happened to..." fic and just do a sequence of events in Wolfwood's life that either were his take on canon scenes, or things that could of concieviably happened in canon. Each one of these scenes being events that shaped his life. I tried very hard to draw a defining line between Brother Nicholas of the December Orphanage and Wolfwood the Chapel of the Eye of Micheal. Y'know, where he crossed the line from being a protector-figure to becoming a murderer. All that stuff. Uh yeah. Not a word is wasted in this fic, which is a goal I wish I could achieve more often, since I waste a lot of words. Look! I'm doing it right now! Oh, english language, how I wrong you each and every day of my life! *sobz*
WARNINGS: Spooiilerzzzz for teh MANGA! Vol. 8-11ish.
The Things We Do For Love - Naruto
These are charming, charming little drabbles about love, all tied together. I tried to mostly keep it canon or "believiable" (ie: Lee->Sakura and Hinata->Naruto are canon, Shikamaru/Temari, SasuNaru and Neji/Hinata are believiable) because I wanted to make them appeal to everyone. Mostly, I tried to make them as much character pieces as romantic pieces because I'm Jenn and I'm analytical and most of the romance I write is about character analysis anyways (except a lot of my, lol, Roy/Ed and that one ShikaTem fic ♥).
But, uh, why are these fantastic? Well- first of all, they're all perfect, proper 100 word drabbles except for one, which is 121 words. And they're pleasantly in character (OR AT LEAST I THINK THEY ARE). And they're diverse. And, oh, oh, they were really really fun to write.
There's a lot of nostalgia in these too. I wrote these between the end of part one and the timeskip. The fandom back in summer of 05' was full of hope and sadness and apprehension and incredible fanfic. I never thought I'd say this about any series I love as much as I love Naruto, but I honestly like the post-timeskip Konoha presented in a lot of the fic in 2005 more than I like the post-timeskip Konoha in canon.
THERE. I SAID IT.
Not that many of you are going to disagree with me. :P But you all know what I'm talking about, right? That general assumption that there was going to be War! And epic drama! And that the genin nine would be mixed and matched more often and in general, things would be less structured and- oh, I don't even know. I'm just fond of these drabbles.
Also:
He would fight for it. He would kill for it. He would drag himself through hell- up and down the rocky clifface, through the rain while bleeding his heart out through his mouth. He would drench his hands in blood, sell his soul, snap bones, break his own body, keep chasing, keep moving no matter how it destroyed him in the end- for all that was good in the world, damn it, he would die for it.
- I wrote that before Naruto made that speech in the manga. OH, SASUNARU. STOP BEING SO CANON, WTF. KISHIMOTO. W.T.F.
WARNINGS: Uh, lots and lots of pairings? In sparse, sparse words? I mean, spoilers for the two and a half people on the planet who don't know that Sasuke left the village.
Wands - Harry Potter
I had no clue how to end this list. I mean those first four up there? That's some hard stuff to match up to. There's some old, old, old Digimon fics written when I was, like, twelve that I'm still really fond of and kind of wish I could find the will to rewrite because they were incredible, if poorly executed, ideas. But, uh, even though all that crap's still up on my ff.n profile I'd be THIIIIIIIIIIS embarassed to link anyone on my flist to it so, no. Eighteen nos, in fact.
In the end I chose this VERY STRANGE AND UNFORSEEN story. I didn't write a lot of HP fanfic and was never involved in the HP fandom and really find most of my HP fic to be some of my worstest writing ever but, uh, for some reason I'm hosted on, like, five HP archives and my old, old crappy-lame H/D fic has been translated into Russian, Italian, Chinese. Dutch and something else because. Just. I have no clue.
BUT! But, despite my general apathy for the HP fandom beyond snickering at the wank and winning costume contests in my super-brilliant Slytherin cosplay, I AM fairly proud of this one fic. 'Wands' isn't really about anything but short character studies. I guess you could call them interconnecting drabbles comparing character's personalities to the wands they use. I tried to use a good mixture of main characters, tertiary characters and really WTF obscure characters (GOYLE, OH YES). It doesn't really have any consistancy, but it DOES have a point at the end. And a fairly poignant one. So, this makes it on the list just because it's unique and full of interesting metaphor.
Really, I just wish Half Blood Prince had been better.
WARNINGS: "Wand" is not a eupherism. I promise.
AND A RECOMMENDATION OF A FRIEND'S WRITING:
Spinning -
kaiouseiI don't actually have anything "omg deep" to say about them. They were just kind of perfect.