MRF2

Originally written as a treat in the everywoman exchange, uploaded to AO3 for reveals on 30 June. Also on my website.

The Interviewer’s visits were far less frequent nowadays. How long had it been? Somehow something always seemed to come up. Time after time, she had put off coming today because tomorrow would do as just well—tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. This today, though … this particular today … she had no interview to conduct, no write-up to complete for her Editor, no must-watch TV, no party with friends, no date with a stranger new-met through a dating app. So, with no excuses left, she had finally decided that this was the day that she was going to go to the Community Clubhouse. (The “Community Clubhouse”? She wondered for a moment if that were still an appropriate term for the place.)

She prinked a bit in the mirror, freshened her lipstick, and straightened her skirt. There had been times when she’d arrived far more informally, even sometimes dressed in jeans when she’d just popped in for coffee and a chat. But it had been so long. She didn’t know who she’d find (or what she’d find) when she got there—or if (she felt a frisson) she even could get there. She realized suddenly that she was as nervous as she’d been the first time she’d slipped through the interfictional dimensions, sent by her Editor to talk to as many of Mary Renault’s characters as decided to come to their invited interviews.

Actually, she thought, today she was more nervous. That time, she had been venturing into the unknown. This time, she feared what she’d find.

Yes. It was time, and past time. With a final glance over her shoulder at her familiar apartment, she opened the door and … turned a corner.
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Until recently, the maryrenaultfics community on LiveJournal was active. Indeed, this past summer saw its tenth anniversary. However, its moderators have decided to place it on hiatus.

Their decision, of course. Unfortunately, it puts two of its members in a difficult position.

For the Ten Years On (10YO) Celebrations, my sister fawatson and myself planned a series of ficlets set in a metaverse that was created in 2008 by the members of maryrenaultfics to be a place outside space and time that can be visited by any of the characters from Mary Renault's books. Originally, the Clubhouse there was simply a place where an Interviewer could chat with the characters. (The In Their Own Words project, it was called.) Over time, though, it became much, much more. In addition to the original interviews, a number of individual stories and series were set in this ITOWverse. Some of these were celebratory in nature (for instance, the Five Years On Celebrations of 2009). Others were comments on current events at the community: the characters' own perspectives on the members. A fictional newspaper, The Renault Times, allowed another form of meta as it was ostensibly delivered to the characters in their own books, reporting to them on events in both the ITOWverse and the maryrenaultfics community, while "columns" from it were posted as commentary.

So, naturally, an ITOWverse series was planned for the tenth anniversary of the comm; and my sister and I duly began to write and post it at that time. But it was never completed: events in the summer of 2014 derailed our best intentions. We intended to return to it—all fall and into the winter we intended to return to it. Indeed, after the Yuletide gift exchange (in which we both participated), we did indeed start back writing; and one post was made.

However, before we could continue, maryrenaultfics was closed.

This community has been created, therefore, so that we may complete our intended series of 10YO stories and provide an ITOW transition to the future.