This is a public service announcement ... with DVDs!

[rivkat]

From ter369 -- Deep Discount DVD, whose prices generally beat Amazon's unless Amazon is having a sale, has dropped its prices 20% more if you enter "SUPERSALE" as the promotional code at checkout. And there's never any shipping charge. I bought many DVDs as a result.

Bonus meme: If there is any question you would like to ask me about any one of my fics, then go ahead! What I meant by a particular line, why I chose that characterization, what I was listening to as I wrote, what crack I was taking and where you can get some...anything. Anything you might like to know about how I wrote a fic, I shall do my best to answer.

Comments

[lambourngb.livejournal.com]

I think "The Presence of Fire" was one of the first things I read by you. I was curious as to how it came about, and what you think of the story now, when we've had canonical lines in "Devoted" about Lex acknowledging that his dark side is creeping over him, the numerous times Clark has wielded the "you're turning into your father" ax to Lex, and the most recent line in "Bound" where Clark wants Lex to change, and Lex confesses he doesn't think he can.

What is your favorite story that you've written? What is your favorite story that was least liked by fandom (by levels of feedback, I guess)?

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

The Presence of Fire was my first posted SV story. It came about because I was in the first stages of obsession with the show, and it turns out I have a real thing for alien invasions. I didn't know that when I wrote this first story, but it's clearly part of the reason I wrote it. I wanted to experiment with the switching timelines, and I feel like it worked out okay. Someday I really need to go whole hog and write an alien invasion novel, though. I also wanted to explore how the Rift might come about in a way that both parties would have legitimate grievances. I don't agree with what Clark did, but he did have understandable reasons for doing it, and I feel that it was in character -- and I still feel that way, actually, as he's become more of a jerk.

I also think the story still works reasonably well as a story about Lex; obviously, I no longer think that it would be plausible for the two of them to get together when Clark's in college, because relations are too strained for that.

My favorite story? Ooh, a softball question! I'm going to go by fandom, because it's too hard otherwise. X-Files: with MustangSally, the third Iolokus story, the one with all the quotes from the Tempest. On my own, the Bonus Secret Story on my X-Files page, because it was my first real foray into solo comic writing (excluding my very first story ever, Dynamic Duo, which was a gag written for a challenge and doesn't count). It's ten pounds of metaphors and similes in a five-pound bag, and I had fun writing it. Especially the simile about Scully and Mulder being like sound waves.

Buffy: Serious Moonlight, because it's Egypt and mummies and there's collateral chicken damage, which is a phrase I'm not responsible for but adore. Also, a crucial plot point happens so organically that it always makes me smile: Buffy punches Spike in the nose, as she often does, not really realizing yet that's he's human, which gives him two black eyes and a swollen face, which prevents him from being recognized as William the Bloody for a few crucial days. We didn't plan that; it just wrote itself that way, and it was great.

Smallville: My comfort re-reads are Five Things that Never Happened to Lex Luthor and Switch. Five Things may be cheating, because it's five stories really, but part of what I like is that the structure medium-short-long-short-medium worked well for the stories. I like the first, in which Cassandra's visions pass to Lex, a lot for the visions; the second for the sex; the third for the elaborate alternate reality I imagined, only a fraction of which made it into the story; the fourth is my least favorite, only because its emotional punch dissipates over time; and the fifth is a shaggy dog story, but I think the punchline works well.

Favorite story least liked by fandom: Two obvious winners, the XF story Tikkun Olam, which was a lot darker than what I think people expected but I like because the plot worked on an emotional if not a logical level. But we boiled a cat on a stovetop, as part of a deliberate reference to our much more popular Iolokus series, and I think a lot of readers were turned off. Second, SV's Ceremony of Innocence. Again, I think I understand why it didn't get much response -- structurally, it's oatmeal, not much plot and some incidents like raisins every once in a while. But it is a story about a descent into darkness that happens not because of external events but because Lex chooses to interpret events in certain ways, so the sense of stasis, stuck time, slow decay -- that's what I wanted for the story.

Thanks for the opportunity to ramble!