AND THEN I DID A FANFIC.

bodlon and I were discussing classic Who the other day, and the interesting arcs both Ian and Barbara have in the First Doctor's era. I have many thoughts on both of them, but particularly on Ian; for a long time I've thought both that he was probably thrilled to get away from boring heteronormative Earth and that he would have a difficult time adjusting to life back home, since after you've had gay sex in a storage locker while the Daleks take over the world, Coal Hill School doesn't exactly thrill.

The solution?

A job with Torchwood!

And as it's Torchwood, I wrote porn. :D

Title: Delight Of Battle
Rating: R (Jack Harkness/Ian Chesterton)
Summary: Earth is a hard place to be stuck after having all of time and space at your feet. Sometimes, even Torchwood can mean freedom.

1) Getting a decent, if patchwork, night of sleep

2) Brunching on mimosas, and grits topped with really tasty things, accompanied by sigerson and sen_no_ongaku

3) A five-part geocaching scavenger hunt created just for me (with the final cache being a clue which led to the pair of 20-hole Doc Martens concealed in the smoker -- yaoobruni is the awesomest ever)

4) Motherhood and fanfic-themed madlibs created just for me (thanks, ltlbird! I will post the result of one of them tomorrow, because we laughed so hard several people wound up with tears on their eyes)

5) Spending the day with friends, complete with dinner, cheap wine, and eventually hot-tubbing and then a final glass of champagne to close out the day

And special bonus 6) Birthday wishes all over the internets \o/!

I have to say, this has been a really lovely day; if the coming year is anything like today has been, I will be a happy Kass indeed.

Title: Paternity Test
Fandom: House
Pairing/Rating: Cuddy/Foreman, PG.
Length: 200 words
Spoilers: Who's Your Daddy.
Author's Notes: Written for lauriestein for her prompt in my last drabble meme. Here on the AO3.

Summary: "I'm only telling you because after tonight you'll be able to guess," Foreman says.

( Paternity Test )

As a suggestion for a new career path, my mother sent me an e-mail about an "Animal Communication" workshop. Okay, I think. I'm good with animals! I could work with them. Let's check this out.

Here is what I find on the website:

DAY ONE: Saturday

Participants will learn the essentials of telepathic communication, and how to reawaken this inherent ability in all of us. They will acquire skills that will prove invaluable during their personal encounters with animals and add a new dimension to each participant’s life. They will leave with tools to improve the lives of countless beings that share this earth.

Topics include:
Practice exercises on how to relax and quiet the mind.
Learn how to "listen" with the heart.
Send and receive information telepathically with other participants.
Communicate with animals telepathically (in person).

...
Yep. That's my mom.

Title: shared by two
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing/Rating: Buffy/Faith, G.
Length: 200 words
Spoilers: Chosen.
Author's Notes: Written for marenfic for her prompt in my last drabble meme. Here on the AO3.

Summary: After Sunnydale, they arrive somewhere, but Buffy is still lost.

( shared by two )

In other words, the still-pervasive notion that folktales, especially fairy tales, are primarily "kids' stuff" owes a great deal to 19th-century racism, classism, and religious bigotry.

Endemic to this line of theorizing is the assumption that the folklorist, the one collecting and interpreting folklore, is not of the folk: the folk are always the Other. Traditional folklorists were educated bourgeois outsiders who traveled to rural areas in their own lands—or, better yet, foreign locales—since one cannot find folklore among one's own group, because only "they" have folklore—"we" have Culture (Toelken 1979, 3–7, 265). This did not change until Alan Dundes redefined the folk as "any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor" (Dundes 1965, 2)—thus including everyone, including educated bourgeois folklorists, in the category of the "folk." […] [note 7]

note 7: This distinction between the "folk" and the "not-folk"—as well as the revision of these definitions—is of obvious relevance to fandom studies. Fans have traditionally been figured as the Other, responding in unofficial and often "bizarre" ways to the official culture industry. The rise of the "aca-fan" as a category has gone a long way toward dispensing with these problematic assumptions.

--Catherine Tosenberger, "Kinda Like the Folklore of Its Day: Supernatural, fairy tales, and ostension"
(Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 4, 2.6-7)

It's not that this is news, necessarily, but I do like it when people are able to synthesize so cogently and pointedly. And in the next paragraph there are some very perceptive comments on class (and folklore) in The X-Files. Oh, TWC, I ♥ you.

Both of these stories are from book fandoms, and were written for Yuletide.

The Sparrow is science fiction that asks questions about religion. After the SETI program finds music coming from a nearby star, the Jesuits send a mixed crew to investigate. Atlas Shrugged theorizes about what happens when the people who make the world go 'round decide to go on strike.

( The Sparrow )
( Atlas Shrugged )

Thank you to the authors, both for writing such in-character pieces, and for allowing me to record them. And, as always, thank you to general_jinjur and the folks at the Audiofic Archive.

ETA: Cross-posted to amplificathon

We Invented the Remix...Redux 8: Magic 8 Ball

( Click here for the scoop )

Disclaimer: The management, meaning me, is not responsible for whatever is done to your story. If you can't handle the idea of someone else mucking around with your babies, don't sign up.

Disclaimer 2: All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners and/or copyright holders. These fan-written works of fiction intend no copyright infringement. All fiction about real people is, in fact, fiction, and thus, not true nor intended to be taken as true.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to astolat and her merry band of coders for making it possible to host the challenge on the Archive of Our Own, to delurker for the awesome banner, to everyone who's helped in one way or another over the years, and to the originators of the challenge, who let me run with their idea. Thanks also to my co-mods, devildoll, angelgazing, luzdeestrellas, and mousapelli for their help and support.

PS: If someone would like to make an icon for the collection that matches delurker's awesome banner, or features the Magic 8 Ball or the phrase "All signs point to yes," that'd be awesome.

~*~

Title: Nothing Gold Can Stay
Fandom: Dragonriders of Pern
Pairing/Rating: Lessa/Moreta, G.
Length: 200 words
Spoilers: Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern; Dragonflight.
Author's Notes: Written for coffeesuperhero for her prompt in my last drabble meme. Here on the AO3.

Summary: There is no Ballad of Moreta's Return.

( Nothing Gold Can Stay )

They've brought Tremors: the Series out on DVD!!

*flails like a flailing thing*

It's region 1, but Amazon marketplace have it. Here, have a handy-dandy link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tremors-Complete-DVD-Region-NTSC/dp/B002ZHKZGA/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_2

Now everyone can see the love that exists between Tyler and El Blanco!

On a whim, I watched a film yesterday and enjoyed it so much that I spent a ridiculous amount making screencaps and other frivolous things on a weekend that I really ought to have been doing other things. It's called Saving Face and it is a coming out film, a film about the Chinese American community in Queens, a film about family and generational differences and it's also a romcom. It was adorable and touching and hilarious. Apparently, it is based on the experiences of the director, Alice Wu, coming out and it was really rather refreshing to watch American media about lesbians that didn't end in murder/suicide. Plus, one of my favourite actresses of all time, Joan Chen is in it. And she is amazing!

If you haven't seen this already, I thoroughly recommend it! Check out the official homepage [here] and then get thee to the nearest dvd shop.

( a brief little thinky thing about the film. cut for spoilers. )


( picspam! image heavy! part 1 of 2. There is text! I highlighted the spoiler text but the images themselves are spoilery! )

Smallville Fic, various pairings and ratings, some TW/MR RPS

Fics posted in 2009

Fics posted in 2008

Fics posted in 2007

Fics posted in 2006

Fics posted in 2005

Fics posted in 2004

Links to archived fics pre-LJ

Main Fic List (in LJ Memories). Includes a few fics from 2003 that didn't make the above lists.

This is a follow-up to my recent post, Girls' Schools: St Trinians with a dash of Cat Among the Pigeons: A Themed Picspam. I thought: I have almost enough pictures of Gemma Arterton, Talulah Riley, and Lily Cole out of character to make its own picspam! (The "almost" was quickly remedied!) Therefore,



an actress picspam featuring the stars of St Trinian's (clockwise from TL):

Juno Temple, Paloma Faith, Lena Headey, Talulah Riley, Mischa Barton, Gemma Arterton, Caterina Murino, Lily Cole, & Tamsin Egerton (in the center)

Part 1: Gemma Arterton & Talulah Riley

Gemma Arterton has exploded into greater prominence since St Trinian's, starring onstage in Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe, then becoming a Bond girl in Quantum of Solace and now starring in Clash of the Titans. Also, she's one of my biggest girl crushes - that picture with the bruise on her thigh!! - so there are a lot more of her. Talulah Riley seems to be blonde, engaged to one of the founders of eBay, and living in Hollywood with him and his 5 kids these days, although she did star in the St Trinian's sequel which came out last December.

( Around 100 images )

Title: The New Rebel Alliance
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis/Star Wars
Pairing/Rating: Leia/Teyla, G.
Length: 200 words
Spoilers: A New Hope
Author's Notes: Written for leiascully for her prompt in my last drabble meme. Here on the AO3.

Summary: In which John and Rodney flail like fanboys and Teyla takes it all in stride.

( The New Rebel Alliance )

Why is everyone jizzing over Broken Bells. Why. Whyyyy. I heard a promo for All Songs Considered where a guy was going, "You need to let this album be a part of your life. Whether it's on in the background while you're cooking, or you're listening to it more closely..." Dude, I do not need to let that Shins guy and his voice anywhere near my life. Danger Mouse? Sure. Shins guy? Jesus Christ in a chickenbasket no.

(I think I answered my own question up top with "'cause Shins guy.")

Title: Conflict of Interest
Fandom: House MD
Pairing/Rating: Foreman and Wilson, PG.
Length: 200 words
Spoilers: 4.16 "Wilson's Heart."
Author's Notes: Written for cadeira for her prompt in my last drabble meme. Here on the AO3.

Summary: "You can't change your mind just because a family member starts crying. They're always scared."

( Conflict of Interest )

Apropos of a discussion with legionseagle et al about writer's clubs (both the kind wif a nail in the end and the other sort), I have been pondering the ever-fascinating question of editors/betas/what d'yer call them, in a sort of back-brain way.

The basic first instinct of a writer seeking critique seems to me to be to seek out another writer, preferably one whose writing one admires, and ask them for advice.

And it occurs to me that this, which I admit often does work very well, probably works more-or-less in spite of itself.

I say more-or-less in spite of itself because I suspect that the place most people start when picking a beta reader (when you CAN pick, as opposed to being in a situation where there is exactly one person in your fandom who you know how to get hold of who's willing to read your stuff - and that can work out splendidly, actually), is by looking for a writer who has one or more qualities that you think you'd quite like to have, and hoping that those qualities are transmissible through editorial queries. And, as I say, it can work.

But if I may just put in a quiet word for the beta-reader who is first and foremost a, well, a reader?

A good reader. A reader who, in a perfect world, reads widely, in the genre you want to write, in a fairly engaged way, and has strong opinions not so much about how you ought to write, but about what they like to read. and whose reading one admires - by which I mean that when they recommend things to read, you tend to like those things, and when they review or discuss things you have read you tend to find what they have to say interesting, smart, and a pretty good guide to things you yourself might like to read, and when you given them something of yours to read, you know that they are going to read it the first chance they get and you're happy when they like it and look forward to their comments a lot. If they happen also to have a solid grasp of structure, grammar and style, a good ear for prose, and domain knowledge relevant to your genre, well, all I can say to that is I've only ever found one of those and, Reader, I married her. (But we're not exclusive; I bet she'd beta read for you if you bought her a drink first. She likes margaritas, btw.)

Now, many writers, possibly even most writers, are Good Readers. But it's not guaranteed. I am not, in this context, a Good Reader, despite being a professional editor; I am a Good Reader of NON-fiction, which turns out to be a whole different skillset. So I do think that in the endless search for Really Good Beta Readers, there's a whole pile of excellent and enthusiastic readers out there, being badly underused.