switchbladeeyes

Seen floating around DW, and because I've yet to see a fic meme that I said no to:

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

30 on AO3.

(Another 14 or so are still floating around out there NOT on AO3, but in older archives or print zines. I keep meaning to import some of them.)

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

171,170

3. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. More Than One Prison - Oz - 45 kudos
2. TIE: Two Truths and a Lie - Oz - 41 kudos, and Expecting the Unexpected - Star Trek: Enterprise - 41 kudos
3. Zero-Sum - Oz - 26 kudos
4. Poison in Their Blood - Forever Knight - 21 kudos
5. Dust to Dust - Forever Knight - 19 kudos

4. What fandoms do you write for?

Since I got back into fandom two years ago, pretty much entirely Forever Knight. I dabbled with Oz in a couple fics, but all my current projects are Forever Knight.

Before my 15-ish year fandom hiatus, I wrote for a bunch of fandoms, but mainly Oz.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Usually. It’s nice to acknowledge someone taking the time to leave a comment. Also sometimes chat in the comments about the story. Occasionally though, I forget and then realize later, but, idk, it feels weird to leave a response “late.”

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Talking only of the fic on AO3, ummmm… not sure. Several have angsty endings. Not sure what makes one the “angstiest" though. I can't answer this one.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I don’t really seem to do fics where everyone is happy by the end. I favor “hopeful and bittersweet” endings more than ones that are “happy.”

I guess I’d have to go with Squid Pro Quo, an absurdist Forever Knight story in which Nick befriends a giant tentacle monster lol.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, thankfully.

9. Do you write smut?

No, but I have one in the works 😏.

10. Do you write crossovers?

No. I did a stealth crossover many, many years ago (the crossover reveal was basically the punchline of a short story).

The challenge with crossovers is you have to find people willing to read two different fandoms. And since I already write in such a teeny fandom, I’m not sure there’d be much appeal. (Though I still have it sitting in the back of my find to do an FK/What We Do in the Shadows crossover lol.)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Only Forever Knight fans will get what this means, but yes, because I was an active writer in a Forever Knight faction war back in the 90s.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

In my Oz fandom days of yore (like 20 years ago omg), the toxic canonical pairing of Beecher/Keller was definitely my jam.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

None. I do not doubt that I will finish the WIPs that I want to finish.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue. This comes the easiest for me, and I think I’m pretty good at it. Most scenes I write start with the dialogue.

I think I also can construct interesting endings.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Describing action. Unlike dialogue, this does not come to me easily. My brain is not great at “spatial” things. So it takes a lot of effort for me to describe scenes that have intensive action. I can picture the action in my mind, but I struggle with articulating what I’m visualizing. Because of this, I spend a lot of time drafting and fine-tuning this kind of thing when writing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

When reading, I don’t like it if the meaning is not made immediately apparent by a translation or context unless it’s a commonly known word or phrase, e.g., no one needs to translate "bon jour", or unless even the characters aren't supposed to know what the words mean like as a plot device to keep information from the characters. I never go to endnotes to look for translations. I just forge ahead and assume it wasn't that important.

Given my own personal preferences, when I put dialogue in another language, which isn't often, I provide an immediate translation in italics. Like so:

“Janette,” I whisper against her ear. “Qu'est-ce que tu fais ici?” What are you doing here?

“La meilleure revanche,” she replies, breathless, reminding me of our first night together a thousand years ago. The best revenge.

I only inject non-English dialogue very occasionally and briefly (not for the entirety of a scene, like the above was the only French in that scene). I only do it in Forever Knight fics because, canonically, it's just something a few of the characters sometimes do with each other. They'll slip between English and (typically) French, so I'll pop in a bit of French every now and then.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Forever Knight. Back in the 90s. I've come full circle lol.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

Of my old stuff, Two Truths and a Lie (Oz). Two characters trapped together, who have strong feelings for one another. They play a game that turns into a total mind fuck/power play because one is a psychopath. The other ends up just kind of having to accept it if he's going to carry on. A fave because I think I just really "got" these characters.

And of my new stuff, The Strangest Inklings (Forever Knight). Speaking of mind games and power plays, I had so much fun writing this one last year. I turned the tables on a character who, TBH, had it coming. I did not want the readers to see the twist in this story coming, just as the POV character didn't see it coming. Gotta say, the payoff was good in terms of feedback on that. A fave because it was just so dang fun to write.

The fkficfest prompts are out. I'm looking forward to seeing what people come up with.

Writing fic has been a great creative and emotional outlet for me personally these past couple of years. Why FK in particular? I don't know. But as my country slips deeper into brazen lawlessness and breathtaking incompetence at the federal level, I'm grateful for such an outlet.

Last year, someone suggested combining prompts. And I found that combining winning prompts with losing prompts really helped with brainstorming. That exercise put different spins on the winning prompts, fueling fires in the imagination. I will be doing it again, and mention it in case anyone else might find it helpful.

Good luck, FK peeps, see y’all on the other side! 🫡

I saw a funny picture in which someone summed up the story of "The Lord of the Rings" as "Fallen angel with a jewelry obsession hunts 4 ft. tall man across a continent." That literally made me laugh out loud.

I thought it would be funny if people applied this idea to their own fics. So take some of your fics and, in one sentence, summarize them poorly but accurately.

Hours into Days, Days into Years (Forever Knight): Vampire cop takes horse pills, and it turns out that wasn’t a great idea.

Salt (Forever Knight): Vampire who wouldn’t shut up about moving on doesn't move on.

Retribution (one of five ways "Last Knight" didn't end) (Forever Knight): The series finale, only worse.

The Trilling Wire (Forever Knight): Man finally takes women's advice.

Now is the Winter (Dresden Files, TV-verse): A story about a wizard named Harry, but it’s not THAT wizard named Harry.

Zero-Sum (Oz): Man annoyed his actions have consequences.

Here's the picture that inspired this:

1. Would you rather have a fun job that doesn't pay well or a boring job that does?

I currently have a boring job that pays well (more than meets my needs). If I found a fun job that met my needs even if it paid way less, I would take it. But if it's a fun job where I’d be struggling to meet my needs, no thanks.

2. Would you sacrifice your morals for a job?

No. But that’s a luxury I can afford at the moment.

3. Would you ever take a job that requires you to be in costume?

I mean, I feel like formal business attire is a costume so... I already have such a job. Fortunately, I usually work from home so don't have to wear it very often.

4. What is your fantasy job?

I once read an article about a retired guy who showed up at an animal shelter with a brush asking if he could brush the cats. So they let him do that in a room the shelter had for cat socialization. The room had a couch and the man would come in every day, sit on the couch, brush the cats, and then zonk out on the couch with cats zonking out on him. Such a volunteer job would be my fantasy lifestyle, 100%.

5. Would you like fries with that?

Absolutely. With a side of ranch.

Scrolling about here on Dreamwidth, I have experienced another blast from the past: The Friday Five.

I remember this being a thing on LJ back in the days of yore. Every Friday, a set a five questions was asked for people to answer. Apparently, it's a thing here on DW at thefridayfive. I looked at today's and didn't find them interesting (a bunch of questions about the rain) so I went and scrolled through the old ones.

I found a writerly one that's of interest. So here we go, keeping in mind that pretty much all my writing is fan fiction based on obscure 90s TV show, Forever Knight. (I dipped a toe in Oz back in 2023. I'm starting to find SGA tempting mostly because even though I've only watched one season, trillingstar has opened my mind to the crackiest crack fic I have ever read. And that's something I think I can get behind. FK just does not deliver the crack like this.)

Annnnyway, here we go:

1. Where do you get ideas/inspo for your writing?

Prompts, gaps in canon, things that annoy me about canon, random ideas that float into my head.

Prompts are the biggest source. I did not realize it until now, but looking through the total 15 fics I've written over the past couple of years, 10 of them were related to prompts. Sometimes a prompt spurs the entire idea, sometimes a prompt helps me focus something I had been playing/waffling with in an unfocused way.

So, um... y'all got any more of them prompts? :-D

2. Do you have a favorite place to write?

Yes, I like writing while lounging about on the couch.

3. What are your tricks for getting through writers block?

I don't have any tricks. If this is a problem, I either (1) work on something else, or (2) write anyway knowing that something is probably going to be salvageable from the word vomit that winds up on the screen.

4. Favorite genre to write? Do you have a different favorite genre for reading?

Uh, well, as mentioned, I just write mostly FK fan fiction. Is "fan fiction" a genre? I'm not sure. Of the fan fiction I write, it's mostly like dramatic stuff. But there was that one with Nick Knight befriending a colossal squid. Part of me feels I should write more of that kind of thing lol.

As for reading, I'll read pretty much anything. I read some fan fiction. I read a lot of regular fiction and non-fiction books. Do I have a favorite genre? IDK, probably "historical fiction" on the fiction side and "history" on the non-fiction side. My brain likes to noodle around in the past.

5. What is something you really want to write but haven't gotten around to yet?

I've gotten it into my head to post an FK story that starts exactly thirty years after the events of the series finale, which I would post on that exact same day. I have brainstormed concepts for this. So I have partially baked ideas. Haven't written the story though. But I have until May 13, 2026 so... there's time.

----

Not sure how often I will do The Friday Five. I suppose as long as the questions are of mild interest to me. Might just go back and do old ones. I see lots of really random topics. One is a really involved set of questions about soup. TBH, I'll probably do the soup one.

I started this post to share a Forever Knight meme, but then I began brain dumping about LaCroix. So here we are.

For me, LaCroix is a super fun FK character because he's unpredictable. Is he going to fuck up some shit? Or is he going to be helpful? Or maybe somehow both? You just never know. He’s also fun because he can be quite witty.

There's a marked evolution in the complexity of the character and his attitudes across the seasons. IMO, season 1 LaCroix is basically Snidely Whiplash, a stereotypical mustache-twirling, cartoon villain. (If you don't know who Snidely Whiplash is, please get thee to classic episodes of "Rocky & Bullwinkle.") Wikipedia sums it up nicely:

Whiplash is obsessed with tying young women to railroad tracks; he has no reason to do so and realizes no gain, profit or advantage, but is simply compelled to do it.

I feel like this parallels season 1 LaCroix in some respects: he is obsessed with fucking with Nick; he has no reason to do so and realizes no gain, profit, or advantage, but is simply compelled to do it. (I mean, his ostensible motivation is to keep Nick in the fold, but then he also just pulls some wild, cartoon villain stunts. Turning Alexandra? Daniel? Just for the funsies of fucking with Nick? “I did it for the lulz.” - Season 1 LaCroix, probably.)

Season 2 starts out with some of that same energy, but then quickly retreats from having Snidely LaCroix trying to forcibly tie Nick to the metaphorical railroad tracks. He backs off and starts to morph into a more complex character. Instead of being Snidely LaCroix, he becomes instead, idk, Darth LaCroix. We get more of his backstory, which makes him feel like a more fully realized character instead of just an agent of chaos in Nick's life. He switches tactics from force to persuasion, resulting in quite a shift in dynamics. I mean, geez, Nick even seeks him out at times. LaCroix's behavior becomes more consistent with his objective of pulling Nick in. And he is actually helpful to Nick at times when he could just fuck things up for him.

Then along comes season 3 LaCroix. He still has his Snidely moments in some of the flashbacks (I'm still mad about Nick's dog), but in the present day? He takes a major chill pill toward Nick. So much so that he helps Nick preserve his modern self in "Night in Question" and "Sons of Belial," which I've previously commented struck me as quite strange of him to do. His backstory became even more complex during season 3. I also felt like Nick was starting to rub off on him just a smidge by the end.

Anyway, I don't really know where I'm going with this, but feel free to chime in.

As I said, this started with a meme. As I was toiling away at delightedly working on the challenge of fan fiction that tries to reconcile some season 1 cartoon villainy with the more complicated character we learn about in seasons 2 and 3, I made a meme lol.

From snowflake_challenge: Talk about an unexpected joyous moment you experienced last year.

Last year, I tried fresh oysters for the first time. It turns out that I love them. Mr. SwitchbladeEyes and I eat mostly plant-based, but we will have seafood very occasionally, particularly when we visit the coast. We jaunted out to the coast for his birthday last year to an area where oysters are cultivated, learned a ton about the process of farming them (super interesting!), and both tried fresh oysters for the first time--both raw and BBQ’d.

Never having had fresh oysters before, I had no idea what to expect. Oh my! Turns out they are delicious! We sampled some that were local to the immediate area, and some that had been cultivated a few hours further north. It was interesting to discover they tasted different because of the different conditions in the water. Since then, we’ve visited the coast a couple more times and enjoyed sampling some fresh oysters each time.

From snowflake_challenge: In your own space, create your own fandom challenge.

Ooh, this is a fun one! This is going to lead to a proliferation of challenges from comments at snowflake_challenge. I plan to look through those comments and reply to some of those participant-created challenges in a separate post.

Meanwhile, for my own idea, how about this: What is a fanwork you'd like to see? Maybe it's something you've dabbled with. Or you've thought about it, but are coming up blank. Or it's a medium you enjoy seeing but don't personally create with. Make a post in your journal about a fanwork you'd enjoy seeing. For all you know, someone may create it, know where to find it, or chat with you about their thoughts on the idea.

---

My response: "Schanke Lives!"

In the Forever Knight (FK) fandom, I've had a persistent itch to read fic in which Schanke lives beyond season 2, and the season 3 characters are also still present. I would love to see a fanwork that tackles that. (I mean, I'm sure this exists somewhere in the sea of thousands of FK fics. Feel free to point me to it if you know. There's always room for more though.)

These are my thoughts on the subject: even though FK's lack of adherence to its own canon sometimes makes me a little nutty when I watch the show, that could be a strength here. Maybe Schanke (and maybe also Cohen) had to go into hiding for some kind of witness protection reasons and never got on that fateful plane flight (sure, their bodies were identified among the plane crash victims in "Black Buddha," but, well, canon schmanon). Ooooh, thinking off the cuff here, maybe evidence of their bodies was somehow falsified for witness protection purposes. Or maybe Schanke didn't get on the plane because he was kidnapped (why? IDK, we'll figure that part out later lol). Or maybe not any of that, and his plane just never blew up; a different plane blew up. Schanke (and Cohen) could move, be reassigned, quit the police force, whatever. Or maybe they carry on as before, but the new police force characters have different roles than depicted in season 3. Or maybe "Black Buddha" never happened and we get introduced to the new characters of season 3 in a different way with a different case.

Any of my fellow FK fans feel like there's some potential here with "Schanke Lives!"?

From snowflake_challenge: Create a Rec Countdown

This is a fun one! A countdown of "things I like, and maybe you might like them too."

Five fiction books:

The Square of Sevens: family intrigue, mystery, twisty, historical setting.

All Systems Red: Murderbot would rather be watching soap operas than saving your ass, but it will still save your ass.

Hench: when you're a temp working for a supervillain.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built: a future world that is kind and gentle.

Remarkably Bright Creatures: giant Pacific octopus solves mystery of family tragedy.

Four non-fiction books:

Quiet: a book about the power of introverts.

Die with Zero: the purpose of money is not to have money (made me think a lot, but it does have flaws).

The Splendid and the Vile: happenings during Winston Churchill's first year as Prime Minister.

The Poison Squad: history of food safety regulation in the United States (more interesting than it sounds, don't read while eating).

Three comedy shows:

Ted Lasso: don't know anything about soccer? No problem.

Acapulco: I dream of visiting a fictional Mexican resort in the 80s.

Parks and Rec: especially hilarious for anyone who has ever worked in government.

Two sci fi shows:

The Expanse: realistic, dark, but I think humanity is gonna make it.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds: maybe it will have a Klingon boy band, maybe a main character will commit murder, you just never know which it's gonna be.

One podcast:

Pop Culture Happy Hour: breezy, fun, not too long.

From snowflake_challenge: In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for a beloved character, relationship or fandom.

First of all, an aside. The post about this on the Snowflake Challenge says, "Seems like we all spend a considerable chunk of our fandom time trying to convince loved ones, friends and total randos alike that our blorbo is in fact the best."

Blorbo?? What is this word? Well, the internet tells me that it means, "A fictional character or celebrity of whom one is especially fond."

Blorbo. A new, awesome word added to my vocabulary. Not sure how often I'll get a chance to use it, but I'm glad it's there.

Annnnnnyhoo, I have an embarassment of riches blorbos. But since this journal is mostly for me to nerd out about "Forever Knight," I shall focus this challenge on Nick Knight. For the 2-4 people that follow along my journal fairly regularly, Nick needs no introduction. So this is for participants of the big ol’ fandom mixer that is the Snowflake Challenge.

Meet Nick:



Not bad, huh? 😏

Nick is a night shift homicide detective fighting crime on the mean streets of Toronto in the 1990s. Also, he’s a nealy 800 year old vampire.

Yep, vampire cop. Try not to overthink this.

Nick is the main protagonist of the show “Forever Knight.” While he’s the hero of the in the show’s present day, he wasn’t always that way. He’s made some poor life choices and spent centuries hunting down and murdering humans. As one does. If one is a bloodsucking undead creature of the night.

Nick feels pretty bad about all that murder though. His major guilt complex drives most of his actions in the modern day. He is highly repentant, trying to live a better life and do good in the world.

His ultimate aim is to regain his humanity, and to that end, he tries to live like a human and works toward a cure for vampirism with dear friend and major source of UST, Dr. Natalie Lambert. She's of the few humans who knows what he really is.

Though he keeps his nature hidden from them, he also has close relationships with his human partners on the police force. First, Don Schanke (pronounced "skanky," and no, I have no idea why the ever loving hell that choice was made), and then later, Tracy Vetter.

Despite his aversion to vampirism, he still uses his vampire abilities (flight, speed, strength, hypnosis) regularly. He also associates with other vampires, most notably Janette and LaCroix; the three of them spent centuries living as a kind of family. Janette is a confidant, and "on again, off again" paramour. She's also the coolest vampire on the show (I said what I said). LaCroix is the vampire who turned Nick into a vampire. He’s an asshole, but he gets all the best lines. And Nick is definitely his blorbo.

Nick is just a fun character. A brooding vampire protagonist with a violent and checkered past, who, in the present, is a kind person and has a sense of humor. And while he tries to make choices that are "good" or "right," the world isn't always that black and white even if he wishes it were. These complexities make him incredibly interesting. It's cool to see what fans do with him in fic, playing with the different worlds he's living in.

The show's opening credits explain the show's entire premise and what Nick's deal is. If you're so inclined, enjoy.

Thanks for coming to my TED Blorbo Talk.