An Introduction to Gotham's Cinderella

FanFiction.Net Properties
Category: Batman Begins/Dark Knight
Rating: T
Language: English
Characters: Bruce Wayne/Batman and OC (Valencia Carter)
Genre: Drama/Romance
Summary: Once upon a time, Valencia Carter was a rare Gotham success story, but then she disappeared. When she returns six years later, the city hangs in the balance between the Dark Knight's vigilantism and the Clown Prince of Chaos's reign of terror.

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With just a little less than a year left before "The Dark Knight Rises" hits theaters, I decided to start publishing my Batman-related fanfiction that I had been working on for quite some time. According to the file create date of my first drabbles, my OC Valencia has been dancing around in my head since May 2010. It started out as an exercise in creating a character of substance worthy enough to play opposite the too-damn-good-to-be-true Bruce Wayne without being an all-out Mary Sue. (She does come dangerously close to it, I will admit.)

I don't believe I was really serious about Gotham's Cinderella until about a few months ago, about June 2011, when I realized the short scenes that had wandered into my head and onto my computer could easily be connected to one another. In the following couple of months, I worked out a few major plot points that would enable me to include all the elements of Valencia's story I want to include.

The result was the most well-planned story I've ever put out, with all chapters outlined and about 15,000 words' worth of snippets that will hopefully start to flow together into chapters. Just like with Shadows of Ourselves, the chapter titles will have an overall theme/uniformity. New to Gotham's Cinderella, however, is the use of a song (one per chapter) that will end up being the already compiled Gotham's Cinderella playlist, which I've been listening to nonstop for about two days now.

Also unique to Gotham's Cinderella was my decision to write it all in the present tense. My drabbles had started out in past tense, and I had to switch some of my first and favorite original scenes to present. I'm not quite sure where the idea came from. I believe I wrote one very in-the-moment scene in present tense, realized what I had done and decided it would be interesting to try to write completely that way. It certainly has been a challenge, especially when you realize nearly everything else you read and write is written in past tense. It's sometimes limiting, but it's also allowed me to find new ways of describing things, be more aware of physical movement and hopefully convey a sense of this motion and immediacy when needed.

An Introduction to Reclusion

FanFiction.Net Properties
Category: Inception
Rating: T
Language: English
Characters: Arthur, Ariadne, Eames and OC (Lacey Kendall)
Genre: Romance/Adventure
Summary: Arthur adds another member to his, Ariadne, and Eames' team. The new addition can suppress people's subconscious, but it's her former relationship with Eames that's part of the mystery, as well as her ties to Cobol Engineering. Arthur/Ariadne, Eames/OC.

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Reclusion was my attempt to direct my obsession with "Inception" into a more creative channel than downloading movie posters and wallpapers, and counting down the days until the DVD was released. It was published on FanFiction.Net on September 7, 2010, after I stayed up the whole night writing chapter one and part of chapter two. It's canon according to the movie but includes an OC (original character).

Reclusion takes place about two years after the end of the movie. A year after the Fischer job, Ariadne's graduated from college and working at a boring architecture firm. She rejoins Arthur and Eames, and they become the foremost extraction team in the business.

Their latest job lands them to Alaska, where the Mark has extensive training. Arthur says the only way they can do it is if they have a Filter, someone who can suppress the Mark's subconscious long enough for them to complete the job without his projections attacking them. The Filter he has in mind had worked with him, Eames, and Cobb after Mal's death.

However, the Filter has a mysterious past that even Arthur can't seem to unravel. Everything is screaming at Ariadne not to trust her, though she can't help but like the girl. And as for Eames, his feelings are a little more than complicated when it comes to their new team member, seeing as she's his ex-fiancée.

An Introduction to Irene's Aria

FanFiction.Net Properties
Category: Sherlock Holmes (movie)
Rating: K
Language: English
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Irene Adler and John Watson
Genre: Humor
Summary: A rainy afternoon at 221B Baker Street. Irene's bored, Watson's trying to get some work done, but Holmes is the only one being productive. OneShot.

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Irene's Aria is my oneshot foray into Victorian England. It was published on FanFiction.Net on September 1, 2010, a school night when I was supposed to be doing homework and naturally decided to write some fanfiction instead. It's canon according to the first Sherlock Holmes movie and plays off of Robert Downey Jr.'s and Jude Law's characterizations of Holmes and Watson, though Irene's history comes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself.

Aria takes place an indefinite amount of time after the movie. It assumes that Irene either doesn't leave London after Holmes handcuffs her on the bridge or that she returns after some time and they get married. Watson is now a published author who still finds himself in his old rooms on Baker Street more often than he would like to admit. Holmes still gets into the dumps in between cases, and it is in the midst of one of these droughts that we drop in on him, though he's not as bad as before. Irene is, for all intents and purposes, a reformed thief.

An Introduction to Shadows of Ourselves

FanFiction.Net Properties
Category: Harry Potter
Rating: T
Language: English
Characters: Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger
Genre: Drama/Romance
Summary: Seven years of war has taken its toll. When her childhood nemesis offers her a way to end the war, Hermione takes it without a second thought, even if his way out doesn't necessarily mean a happy ending.

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Shadows of Ourselves is my magnum opus of Harry Potter fanfiction. The first chapter went live on April 3, 2006, more than five years ago. Though it was canon when I started writing, it has since become AU (Alternate Universe) after the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," so I suppose it can be considered canon up to Harry Potter 6.

Shadows takes place seven years after the trio graduate from Hogwarts. The United Kingdom has been abandoned by wizards and Muggles alike, but what is left of the Order remains holed up in Grimmauld Place, a bitter, exhausted and jaded handful of survivors.

A strange, skeleton society has sprung up, revolving solely around Voldemort. It observes a rigid system of patronage and hierarchy as those few who could not leave England cling to the hope of climbing the new social order. At the top rules Voldemort's aging inner circle, his faithful Death Eaters, who dole out favors to the "underlings," the rest of the hangers-on not branded with the Dark Mark. Only one person has been given the Dark Mark since Voldemort fell from power more than 20 years ago, and that person also bears the strange distinction of being inducted into the Order.

Draco Malfoy is the Order's double agent. Branded at age 16, he sought out and joined the Order two years later and has been informing them of Voldemort's movements ever since. Though the Order remains guarded and suspicious of Malfoy's ulterior motives — and not a little of the childhood animosity thrives between him and our three favorite heroes — they have more or less accepted him as one of them ... until he proposes something that throws the Order into turmoil and threatens to break the already tenuous bonds holding them together.