Pick a number

[gwyn]

This is a cute meme swiped from killabeez that might be a fun way to squeeze some positivity out of things.

I currently have 179 works posted on AO3. Choose a random number—no peeking!—between 1 and 179 inclusive (where 1 is the first work ever posted and 179 is the latest), and I will tell you three things I currently like about that work.

(Obviously higher numbers will give you the stuff from my descent into MCU madness...)

Comments

[musesfool]

175!

[gwyn]

That looks like Waiting for Deliverance, a little post-Avengers: Infinity War ficlet with Shuri, Bucky, M'Baku, and Steve.

- I liked how Shuri and Bucky's friendship is captured in a really small amount of words, just by virtue of his "weird old man expressions" and her grief.

- I loved writing M'Baku, because he's just the best, and even though he's gentle here, I think he'd still be very take no bullshit and challenge Shuri.

- I liked the ending, two people who loved Bucky tied together by him and their loss.

[musesfool]

<333

[dine]

how about # 111?

[gwyn]

Hah, you picked Things We Lost in the War, the Bucky recovering by writing letters with Steve story.

- I like the writing, the language and the way it flows. I wrote it over a long period, months and months, and had to let it sit for quite some time when I didn't know what to do, but I feel like in the editing, I erased any sense of being piecemeal.

- I like that all the voices are distinct, which can be especially hard to do in letters, and that you can see Bucky's voice change from the Soldier's to Bucky Barnes in the course of his writing, and later his behaviors. That he got his gifted writing ability back.

- the way it seemed to touch people so much was a genuine surprise, and while it might not have been a huge hit, it inspired some amazing comments, as well as a couple of gorgeous fanmixes.

[ratcreature]

66?

[gwyn]

That looks like it's Don't Get Much, the last Magnificent Seven fic I wrote. I'm almost positive the date is wrong on that, but I'll have to check another time.

- I like the melancholy, elegaic tone it has, about the changes to the town Vin and Chris live in that are coming with the future. And how they are ready to roll with it, anyway, as long as they have each other.

- The history research was always my favorite part of writing Old West fic in this fandom, and this one allowed me to delve into a really fascinating and difficult time period with the railroads being built and what that often did to Western towns.

- It feels more mature than some of the other stories I wrote around that time, probably because of the topic and probably because this was after losing so many people close to me.

[gehayi]

89?

[gwyn]

It looks like 89 is my Pacific Rim vid "Brother," about the Jaegers and their pilots to the Lord Huron song.

- I was just generally really proud of this vid. The editing is really tight.

- In this case, "brother" as a concept is comrades in arms, not just men, and I liked that I was able to center Mako and the limited bits of the female Kaidonovsky sibling in among all that testosterone.

- Giant mechas piloted by pretty people and smashing monsters works perfectly for the song; I've since seen this song used for fandoms that just seem really wrong for it, and I think this one just fits.

[minim_calibre]

150!

[gwyn]

150 is War Dogs, looks like, the Christmas fic about Bucky being a pretty good dog whisperer.

- I still love the showdown between Col. Phillips and Bucky, where he basically subtly threatens to take Steve with him if he can't have his new canine best friend in the SSR.

- I loved the low-key humor in it, especially Bucky's lines (although it cracked me up that some people really believed he was giving Steve a flight of artisanal craft mustards in a charmingly rustic gift box, like that would be a gift he'd give)

- I adore the art that ria komai made for it when I commissioned her after our big bang collaboration (ah, back when I had dinero). I felt like it really captured Bucky and Gretel becoming friends.

[bonibaru]

1!

[gwyn]

You know it's funny, I thought I knew this off the top of my head, but I forgot that morgan dawn was putting up old Media Cannibals vids and adding me as co-creator on some, so this is actually Tender Comrade, the a capella Professionals vid.

- This was one of the first vids I ever worked on with the group, and I loved being able to participate and bring my video database brain to work on a project.

- I still remember the unbelievable difficulty Sandy went to to edit that song, and shorten the lengthy pauses, and how much I admired her work and just what I learned as we went along. And how touching the vid was.

- A lot of my memories now are of the remaster Justacat and I did. We couldn't figure out why the timing was so wildly off--she thought it was exactly right because it matched her copy of the vid precisely, but I knew that it was terribly off timing. No other vid on her tape copies was off timing, but for some reason, this one was quite a few seconds off, and it took us weeks to get it straightened out and for me to get a correctly timed version to her, and then to re-edit the re-edits. It was wild.

[vaysh]

123. :)

[gwyn]

I think that's my Agent Carter vid Titanium.

- Peggy Carter whomping on asshole men is just always a good time.

- I think the song and subject are an absolute perfect fit.

- The ending is a really difficult thing to work with, vid-wise, because it has a couple of notes and a trailing echo vocal, then trailing notes. I think the solution I found works as well as it could, and better than some vids I've seen to this song.

[killabeez]

#9 cutie.

[gwyn]

Ha ha, oh man, that's my Professionals story These Things Do Not Remember You, which is a death story. :o

- The title was always one of my favorites, and it reminds me of Sandy a lot too, because she asked about it and I used the poem it came from in a post after she died.

- I think it conveys grief really successfully, even though I wrote it before some of the worst things had yet to happen to me, grief-wise.

- I loved how Bodie and Doyle got together in the flashbacks, that it was just a "hey, yeah, this is right" rather than a big revelation or romance.

[killabeez]

Ooh, I might have to read this. Pros death story sounds nicely grim, like my soul. :D

[aurumcalendula]

What about 29?

[gwyn]

Oh, that one's a longtime fave--a Buffy/Spike story called The Living, where they both have a bit of a death wish and go on a road trip to Mexico.

- I loved how Spike's voice turned out in this. He's bitter and angry and insightful and loving and hopelessly hopeful.

- This was one of the darkest and smuttiest things I'd written at the point, but I still felt like it wasn't a bleak or porny story, and the writing in it is some of the best I did in that fandom.

- I liked the Wild Horses sort of feeling about it: Let's do some living after we die.

[killabeez]

*whispers* i love this one. :D

[muccamukk]

117

[gwyn]

I believe that might be Stripes and Solids, which was a little Sam/Steve commentfic that I wrote for a prompt in the MCU kissing fest.

- I like that Sam knows Steve maybe a little better than he knows himself.

- I always like the canon of Sam being amused at Steve's inherent dorkitude and kind of cutting through his defenses, and I had fun trying to write that here.

- Their banter was fun to write, especially when they're kissing.

[kore]

179 itself!

[gwyn]

Well, that is obviously The Smart Set, my 1950s Desk Set AU for the Stucky AU Big Bang.

- I like that I kept the flavor of the movie and its fizzy romantic comedy style while still giving it some tragic superhero canon backstory, as well as opened it up so it wasn't so setbound (the movie is very much based on a play)

- I'm glad I was able to make it about 90 percent less racist and sexist, and even though I know that's a fantasy, I still felt like I was able to give it enough grounding details of those things existing while still keeping it pleasant for Our Heroes

- I feel like a lot of my new dialog or changes to the stuff I borrowed from the movie was very much in the style of the movie's

[jb_slasher]

56!

[gwyn]

Oh, this came in right when I was writing another one--it looks like that might be Five Things the Men Saw Between Winters and Nixon They Weren't Supposed To, a little five things ficlet for Band of Brothers I wrote back in the LJ days when everyone was writing those.

- I was pleased with the different voices for each of the different men of Easy Company I worked with, they're all distinct

- I especially liked the one where Winters's orderly sees Nixon going back into his quarters after the orderly has left, and the lights go out

- The fact that they're not all romantic or gazing into each other's eyes or whatever makes me happy--one of them is Nixon barfing on Winters's boots--but they are all about two guys who love each other very much