the Dalaverse

That meme that's going around -- pick five favorites from your own stories and elaborate. I hope it's not cheating to pick multi-part stories/series.

1. For Want of a Nail(Jack/Norrington, long) -- this is my big, long Sparrington epic, one of the very first things I started to write in PotC and finished when I was fully enmeshed in the fandom. These versions of the characters, particularly Norrington (Gabriel! What can I say, I took an initial dislike to the name James), are very distinct in my mind, and this is very much their story. I feel like I went through numerous stages and progressions as a writer, in addition to ironing out how I felt about the characters, and it shows in the fic. I mostly work with established relationships; somehow getting to the end of this one, to the place where Jack and James arrive, feels extra satisfying. It works out neatly into my some of my favorite complementary combos as well -- Jack/James alongside Will/Elizabeth and Groves/Gillette. Lastly, its premise is built upon one of my favorite hurt/comfort scenarios -- the nursing back from a long illness.

2. North and South of the River (Jack/James/Will, long) -- again, one of my earliest efforts, and at the point it was finished, it was the longest thing I'd ever written (Nail beat it not long after). I put a lot of myself into it, and was proud of feeling like I'd done the ending justice by the time I finally got to it (the ending came into my head along with the very first scene). Writing the last part wrecked me completely, but it was worth it. In terms of characterization, I feel both Jack and Will got their due despite James' tight third-person perspective. It's a very insular sort of fic -- other characters make appearances mostly at the end, and even then they're brief -- but it works for the story I wanted to tell.

3. The Highway Is For Gamblers -- I love the supporting cast of PotC, and this is the most vivid they've ever made themselves for me (especially considering Scarlett and Giselle share a grand total of one scene, one line, and one joke between them in CoBP). Scarlett's voice was amazingly clear as I was writing it, and it was an eye-opening experience to see how little the plotline of the movie mattered to her, because she had her own life -- dirty, rough, and hardscrabble as it was, it bore little resemblence to the scenarios I usually write with the primary characters. I also love the resolution for both women, who ultimately refuse to be vicitimized in a world that feeds off of them.

4. Five Ways to Wear a Green Ribbon (James-centric, various pairings, short) -- this is my one official attempt at the Five Things genre. As you can tell just from this list, James was my default voice/POV up until DMC (for various reasons, it seems to have shifted to Will), so he seemed the perfect outlet for Five Things. It's also one of my most stylized fics, with the very beginning identical in each iteration -- this same canon missing scene that went in such different directions. I'm choosing it here mostly because it betrays my PotC poly nature: I find each of these outcomes and pairings equally plausible given the right impetus or a simple twist of fate, from fluff to tragedy and everywhere in between. It's a bit love-lettery to the canon and the fandom, I think.

5. Waking Jack Sparrow (You Must Remember This) (Jack/James, shortish) -- my favorite of my post-DMC fics, which takes an already dark plot to an even darker place -- and lets the strength of the characters move it into the light. What I did to Jack in this fic still frightens me; the loss of his sense of self, of who he is and has been and will always be, is much crueler than any time I've killed him (except maybe for the syphfic). It's a fic where perspective is everything, because we as readers know how much he's lost and he has only the barest of inklings (James knows too, and knows what it feels like, and is able to help Jack to heal because he'd started to restore his own sense of self when he turned to help the Pearl). And because of all that's left unsaid, I feel there's a lot of room for a reader to interact with it -- there are conclusions drawn and points emphasized in the comments that surprised me when I read them. Despite the ache I love the ending for Will and Elizabeth, the fact that they go down together -- and I love the hopeful yet ambiguous ending for Jack and James. Truth be told, I don't know if Jack will ever regain his memories or if he'll allow James to tell him who he was -- is. I have my theories, but I would like you (the general audience-you) to have your own as well.


...Wow, that was self-indulgent. But fun. Y'all should do it!