[fic] this distance, the words which pierce her skin [carnivale] [justin + iris]

This Distance, The Words Which Pierce Her Skin by pen
Carnivale, Justin and Iris, M.

This is a remix of Damnation by smercy / arenotvalid. It was originally posted here. Meta to follow later today (at least after breakfast).



( This Distance, The Words Which Pierce Her Skin )

see how they run

Remix is a varied experience for me every year. Last year my remixee was An Unstoppable Army of Lizzens, and remixing an old friend was both a frustration and a delight, but at no point did it really feel like a challenge.

I was surprised, upon going to sign up this year, that I was compelled to nominate a major fandom. I also suspect that the number of stories required has increased. I understand that both of these moves were solely to facilitate an easier time of matching authors, but of the major fandoms I only qualified for BSG and the idea of having no choice but to write BSG was almost enough for me to not sign up. I loved BSG, but I've not seen s3 or s4, and my writing of BSG is based now on whimsy and that old adoration, which means all I can write are pilots, I can no longer write those minor characters.

Still, I thought about not signing up, but at the last I did. And I matched with my remixee for BSG, and I despaired (even though she loves Billy, and I briefly considered changing one of her stories to be our favourite cylon!Billy, and then decided that would be cheating). But I saw that she had written Carnivale, and so I borrowed the DVDs from a friend and got to mainlining.

Justin and Iris are complex characters, as all interesting characters are. It was a challenge for me, writing older characters - I tend to not understand them so well, though it seems an arbitrary thing on my part. I enjoyed watching Carnivale, though I still have not finished watching it (two more episodes to go), and Justin and Iris are complex and creepy and I hope that that creepiness came through in the story. And it was an interesting process for me, gradually writing the story as I worked my way through the episodes.

Overall, I am happy with the piece that I have written, and saddened that few people have written for Carnivale, but a little disappointed by the challenge process. I really wanted to see some Dune or Pretender this year, but I suppose at the same time that if I didn't match anyone on Dune or Pretender, it means no one else signed up to write it. And that's disappointing, too. My beloved small fandoms.

we'll have our happy ending now

In other news:

( Carnivale, season two )