solrosan

Not all that long ago I wrote one of those bitter posts about hits and kudos and comments (you know the type) and because of that I just want to say that I'm having the complete opposite feeling right now.

In the last five days I've posted three fics (I've only written one during this time, the other were just waiting for a last read-over and a title). I can't tell you how many times I've checked my AO3 dash during this time, but I can tell you that I've been happy (almost giddy) every time I did. There has been 0 influx in the numbers of hits, kudos or comments I receive, but damn it if I'm not just so satisfied and content with things as they are right now.

This isn't because I'm somehow better at not comparing myself with others right now or whatever. (Because I'm an idiot and recently did just this...) This is just... how it is! This has been a good few days in fandom for me, and I thought I should write that down so that I'll remember it when I reach another down.

Also, just because I can, here are my three first fics of 2020!

bombs and pets and the things in between (Kingsman, James Bond (Craig movies), Eggsy/Q, Teen and up)
The first time they meet is ordinary. As is the second, the third, the fourth… Actually, so are most of them. Most of the times they meet are ordinary even if so many other things in their lives are not. Except it isn’t ordinary, because it’s them.

The Civilian Who Loves Me (Kingsman, Eggsy/Jamal, Teen and up)
It's not easy living with a civilian, ask Eggsy. He knows all too well how it feels having to go home to a partner time and time again and try to come up with new believable, reasons why a tailor has to leave the country on two hours notice. Luckily, Merlin knows it's not a walk in the park to live with a Kingsman agent either, and he has ideas on how to help out.

Love Leaves a Memory (Black Sails, James/Thomas(/Miranda), Teen and up)
James' first night at the plantation, Thomas asks about Miranda. It takes months for James to tell him everything.

Last night I walked home crying in the rain. It was a bit after midnight (I sent the "I'm home" message to people around 1 a.m.) and I'd had too much beer on too little pasta, after a 50 hours work week. It was a terrible way to end an otherwise pretty decent evening. I cried for the same reason I always cry these days when I've had some alcohol.

So there I am, drunk, crying, and feeling pretty damn pathetic and ridiculous for still crying over the same thing, and yet I keep thinking that if this was a movie, this would be such a cliché that people would ask me to cut it out. Woman walking home alone in the rain, crying. The writer in me found it strangely liberating that no matter how overused and tired a trope is, they actually do still happen in real life and if I want to I can use them!

And that's what I'm going to focus on when I think about last night.

So, day 3 of the snowflake_challenge 

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Dang it! This one is hard. There's so much to choose from. There's Sherlock, obviously, and the Ritchie movies that made me interested enough in ACD's detective to watch Sherlock to start with. Harry Potter definitely deserves an honourable mention. As does The Hobbit, seeing how a functionality we've developed is colloquially called Bilbo. There's The Thorn birds, first book I drew fanart for. Vicomte de Bragelonne, the first book I cried while reading...

...but the first thing that popped into my head was this clip and that's why I'm picking it.

"Mrs Morello, Stirred" (Watch on YouTube)

And if the video won't work, here is a link

This is a clip from The West Wing, s03e17, Stirred. It wraps up one of the episode's many subplots within subplots, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman has been punished with given the task to find a person to put on the next stamp while Donna thinks her teacher who is about to retire should be on the stamp. Or a day. Or at least a proclamation. Josh brushes her off, because really...

These things happens all. the. time. in this show. There's a subplot to a subplot to a subplot and the President doesn't like peas and they will now lose the election. That's one of the reasons I love this show. The chaos feel real and the level of closure for each plot line varies a lot because, well, that's life. Not everything is tied up in a neat bow. Not everything has an ending at all. So many things just... disappear along the way while more important shit is going on. Like giving your teacher a proclamation.

So just the fact that this plot line gets an ending besides Josh going "Eh, no." at the idea as we expect, we get this scene. It comes as a surprise to the viewer just as it comes as a surprise to Donna. The surprise is then doubled (for viewer and Donna) when it doesn't end with Josh's memo, but that the President understands how important it is and cares so much about the secretary of his Deputy Chief of Staff that he's set this up. It's heartwarming and not at all why I picked this.

I picked this scene because this is the scene that, without fail, makes me cry. I can't even retell this without starting to cry at "I'm in the Oval Office with the President of the United States and it's because of you." (Typing that, after JUST having watched it to make sure the wording was correct makes me cry.) It's been years since I first watched it, but this scene still breaks me. In a good way.

I don't even know what it is about it. If it's the idea of small people ending up in big places. If it's the ordinary in the middle of the extraordinary. If it's how we can all set people on paths in life that are beyond our wildest dreams. If it's the opportunity to thank someone who's important to you. I don't know.  I just know that if I need a good cry, like you do sometimes, I put on this clip and I watch a small town girl no one every expected greatness from, call her teacher and tell her that she inspired her to get on the path that would lead her to the Oval Office.

(and now I'm crying again.)