Title: The Past is Like the Weather (it will come and it will go)
Author: lionessvalenti
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing/Rating: Jack/Ianto, PG-13
Summary: Jack and Ianto couldn't imagine a different life.
Why you should read this: So, I was in the mood for comfort fic last night, and as I went through my tabs, found this one that had been sitting open for a bit. It starts off as curtainfic, which is one of the things I will turn to for comfort fic. Yeah, it's unrealistic, but it's some of my favorite characters getting a happy life that canon would never let them have, and sometimes that's what I'm in the mood for. Then, and here's why you should read it even if you loathe curtainfic, it takes a sharp left turn, ties up a loose end from canon and in the process exposes a bit of logic-fail in canon, and resolves a bit angstily but yet still hopefully. Seriously, I do think you'll enjoy it even (perhaps especially) if you spend some of the first bit rolling your eyes at the unlikeliness of it all.

Stolen from bethbethbeth. The deal is to pull up the stories that you have on AO3 (would work for any archive with hit counts enabled though) to see which are the top 10 in terms of hits. Then, I gather, later you compare to see what shifts. This sounds cool to me, as my overall impression is that there are more people reading (or at least leaving kudos and comments on) the smaller fandoms, like Vorkosigan and Temeraire, but that may not turn out to reflect who's reading, just who's more inclined to give feedback. So, here goes, though I'm going to go from 10-1:

10: The Morning After (HP, SS/HG/LM, Explicit, "Hermione rolled over to her left and found something in her way. Rolling over to her right, she found another obstruction. This woke her up enough to wonder what could be crowding her." 314 hits)

9: How Hermione Got Her Groove Back (HP, SS/HG, Explicit, "Hermione finds herself alone in the Headmistress’ office one afternoon with Snape’s portrait, and things get … interesting." 316 hits)

8: Burnt Offerings (Vorkosigan, Miles & Cordelia, Gen, "On the anniversary of his father’s death, Miles ponders the way they mark it." 317 hits)

7: Wherever I May Roam (DW, Jack/Doctor, Teen, "It was supposed to be a simple stop to pick up supplies at the famed market of Avicephalon." 331 hits)

6: Moulding to the Pitcher (Temeraire, Gong Su, Gen, "The chance to serve a Celestial had seemed a blessing to Gong Su, one normally reserved for those who served the imperial family. And it was, but frequently not in the ways he had imagined." 406 hits)

5. Keeping the Goal in Sight (Vorkosigan, Ekaterin/Miles, Gen, "There must be a reason she needs to learn Comparative Botanical Genetics, right?" 413 hits)

4. Never Chose This Way (Vorkosigan/BtVS, Ivan/Byerly, Teen, "Ivan and Byerly are on their way home from Beta Colony when something goes very wrong. Gigantically wrong, you might say." 442 hits)

3. The Doors We Open and Close Each Day (HP, SS/RL, Teen, "Young Severus Snape was packed off to Hogwarts with instructions to ingratiate himself to the pureblooded Slytherins who would surely be his House-mates. By the time it’s his turn to sit under the Sorting Hat, he has other ideas." 458 hits)

2. A Perfectly Normal Day (HP/Temeraire, CW/HG, Gen, "Just when Charlie thought he'd seen everything, along came Iskierka." 460 hits)

1. An Ordinary Man (Vorkosigan, Ivan/Byerly, Explicit, "Byerly gets Ivan drunk, and one thing leads to another." 557 hits)

==================================================================

Some musings. An Ordinary Man is the first completed fanfic I posted online. So my first thought was, "It has the most hits because it's the oldest, so it had more time to collect them." However, it was not the first uploaded to AO3. That honor goes to #2, A Perfetly Normal Day. It'd be interesting to compare in a few months or a year to see how things shift (or don't).

Stats as of right now:

Fandoms: Vorkosigan 4, HP 3, Temeraire 2, Crossover 2, DW 1, BtVS 1
Ratings: Gen 4, Explicit 3, Teen 3
Ship type: Slash 4, Het 3, None 2, Multi 1 (Misleading, because some have implied or background ships but are basically genfic. Could also read as Slash 4, None 4, Het 1, Multi 1.)

I'm not sure any of those stats reflect the overall percentages of my fic. Even though I think of myself as a slasher, since that's where I started out, I've written far more het, mostly SS/HG, though of late there's been more and more gen or quasi-gen. It is interesting that VK fandom does have the most hits represented, as that was the impression I had going in, even though I've written comparatively little of it.

Meanwhile, I need to try and do a little writing this afternoon before it's time to run off to dinner and a blues concert.

Finished Cryoburn the other night. Even knowing a particular character development was destined to be coming up, even seeing all the foreshadowing for exactly what it was, that was quite the gut-punch. No wonder I put off reading it. ( Cut for a spoiler that really isn't a spoiler, since Bujold had said all along that the next book would contain this particular element. )

Also, an epilogue composed of self-contained, exactly 100 word drabbles? With a definition for the unfamiliar of what a drabble is? Stroke of genius. Admittedly, if someone did that in fandom, as we're so accustomed to drabbles and drabble-series, it might not have gone over quite as well. But it was such a surprise and the format worked so well for what she was doing that I just loved it.

In other news, orientation at work proceeds apace. I definitely prefer working the floor to supervising, despite the fact I'm basically just pushing pills. I apparently have two more weeks of orientation scheduled, plus the iv certification class that hasn't been scheduled yet. But I'm definitely feeling more confident about it all.

The 3rd annual wintercompanion Summer/Holiday fest has started with a lovely bit of Jack/Nine hurt/comfort. I'm looking forward to seeing them all. Very cool approach they took with the prompts, too, using the "psychic password" format we encountered in "The Doctor's Wife" of a color, a number, an emotion, and an aroma. Very effective and evocative, and the prompts are open for people to write/draw/create other things throughout the month, which should lead to seeing some intriguing variety on how people run with them.

I think I'm about over my "What the hell was I thinking?" attack re: my femslash11 assignment and have moved into research mode, which is a very good thing.

And now, time to run around and do stuff to get ready for this weekend's Anadikia retreat. Coming up with appropriate offerings has been rather challenging. (I got it into my head that I needed special liquor offerings for each of the Temple patrons. Ginger liqueur for Zeus and Oracle of the Sun Shiraz for Apollon were easy enough to find. I'd wanted retsina for Pan, but nobody around here even knows what it is, much less carries it, including the place Tim found it a year or so ago. So I went with Bully Hill wine that has a goat for a logo. *facepalm*)

Have a great weekend all! Don't break the intarwebz while I'm gone!

If anyone else who participated in the Whipped Cream Day mini-ficathon uses An Archive of Our Own, there is now a collection for those fics, which you can either post to or, if your fic is already up on AO3, I think you can edit to associate with the collection if you want.

Also, since fandom_stocking had an AO3 collection, I've uploaded the various things I wrote there.

• No Idea (Doctor Who, Nine/Jack, NC-17) written for arenee1999


• Genius (BtFS, Willow/Tara, G) written for cornerofmadness


• Beautiful (Firefly, River/Kaylee, Kaylee/Inara, PG) written for recrudescence


• Safe (Black Jewels, Jaenelle/Karla, PG-13) written for not_from_stars


• Possibilities (Harry Potter, Neville/Luna, G) written for haro


• Handmade (Harry Potter, Snape/Hermione, G) written for libco


• Make the Best of It (Doctor Who, Ten/Rose, G) written for baranyadi


• Picnic (Doctor Who, Ten/Rose, G) written for haro


• Tea and Company (Doctor Who/Torchwood, Martha/Jack, NC-17) written for nelliewu


• Point of View (BtVS, Giles/Anya, G) written for libco


• Key (Doctor Who, Nine/Rose/Jack, PG-13) written for canaana


• Stories (Firefly/Doctor Who, River Tam & River Song plus Serenity crew, G) written for sentientcitizen


• The Present (Charmed, Piper/Leo, Phoebe, G) written for supernaturalhel


• Solstice (BtVS, Willow/Tara, PG) written for clocketpatch


• Mistletoe (BtVS, Giles/Anya, G) written for philomytha


• Faces of River Song (Doctor Who, River Song, G) montage created for alt_universe_me

Whew! That's more than I realized. And at some point, I need to upload the rest, just to have everything in one place. At some point.

Now to tend to various fandom responsibilities I've let slide. Meep!

Forgot to do this yesterday. There's certainly nowhere near as much in years past, partly due to nursing school and partly due to the 271K+ insanity that is The Fic That Wouldn't Stay Dead. But other stuff did get written!

• No Longer a Student (HP; Hermione, Snape, Lupin; G)


• Daftest Wizard Ever (HP; Hermione/Remus; G)


• Not Just a Joy Ride (DW; Amy/River; G)


• What Matters (HP; Snape/Lupin; G)


• Muted Joy (DW; River/Amy, Amy/Rory; G)


• Keep 'Em Guessing (DW; Nine/Rose/Jack; PG-13)


• Cold Certainty (TW; Ianto/Jack, Tosh; PG)


• The Way to a Man's Heart (BtVS; Dawn/Xander, Xander/Anya; G)


• Tingly (BtVS; Willow/Tara; PG)


• Flying on Ice (HP; Snape/Hermione; G)


• A River by Any Other Name Would Play a Different Song (DW; Jack, River; G)

Of course, compiling that reminded me that I missed the deadline to write something Snupiny for December for the Year of Snupin challenge. *sigh* I reminded myself more than once over the past week to do it, too. Damn.

Still trying to write a few more fandom_stocking stuffers, as the reveal isn't until the 6th, I think, so rather than keep track of what was 2010 and what was 2011, I'll just count it all as 2011.

I received a couple of fic-related pretties.



Song is the Snupin DH fix-it I wrote for skitty_kat's lovely and inspiring drawing Bribing the Ferryman during the Trading Places Challenge at lupin_snape. I'm tickled to learn it's a featured story this month.

Thank you, mods at TPP!

But wait, there's more!



I'm also on this week's quiz at quiz_sshg. This week's theme is crossovers, and the story there is Who Are You?, a Doctor Who crossover written for aleysiasnape during Zibitcon Envy at hpcon_envy to the prompt "Severus and Hermione meeting the 10th Doctor and making an entirely understandable—and incorrect—assumption about his identity."

Thank you, mods at quiz_sshg! Now, the rest of you, go play, and see if you can figure out which passage (if any) come from "Who Are You?" and the other featured stories!

There's actually a third fic-related thing this week, but no graphic to go with: as of Monday, I've completed a full year of consistently meeting the 5_for_five writing challenge of writing at least 500 words at least five times a week.

Thank you, lady_rhian for coming up with the idea and sshg316 for creating the 5_for_five comm as a motivator to Just Keep Writing!

That'd also make this post today's grats for the Gratitude Project, though I've got quite a lot of catching up to do with that. Oops.

Title: How Harry Learned to Keep His Hands To Himself (Most of the Time)
Author: remuslives23
Fandoms: Harry Potter, Torchwood
Pairings/Rating: Harry/Draco, Jack/Ianto, PG
Summary: When is a Crup not a Crup? When it's a teleporting, time traveling, energy guzzling alien, that's when.
Why you should check it out: What's fun about crossovers is seeing how one set of characters copes with being thrust into the home territory of another set of characters, and what that brings out in both sets. This fic does that well, making for a very amusing Monday morning read.

Found via rm. a round-up of the latest in LJ gender!fail in which choices are now "male/female/it's personal." Checked mine, and yup, it now says "it's personal." I'm annoyed. I'm cis-gendered and not particularly invested in not revealing my gender online, and I'm still annoyed on my own behalf and furious on behalf of those who are not cis-gendered and/or prefer not to reveal their gender online nor to use a cutesy phrase to indicate this. They're supposedly returning to the "unspecified" option but haven't yet.

Seriously, LJ? Did you hear anything users were saying when this issue first came up?

In other news, there either aren't that many queer slashers or the numbers are being skewed by straight women who are claiming bisexuality for the cool cred. (What "cool cred"?) Original post in this particular branch of the discussion is now flocked, but this post by elf has some interesting commentary on that, including links to this post by fairestcat discussing the OP's assertions and follow-up directly and this post by melannen that does some number-crunching on various polls that have been made at various times about sexual orientation in fandom generally and/or slash specifically.

Are there issues in slash with homophobia, cultural misappropriation, fetishization of gay men, and probably any number of other things I'm missing? Hell, yes, and these are things that absolutely should be discussed, as uncomfortable as those discussions often get. Deciding a large swath of the people involved either don't exist or are probably lying, however, only serves to derail the discussions that could be happening and to highlight another area of epic fail.

It also echoes LJ's most current fail, in that it reinforces the binary mindset of "you must be either this or that, and if you say otherwise, you are confused/hiding something/some other idiocy."

So, yeah, apparently it's "piss on everyone's self-identification week." Or something. Oh joy.

I've alpha and beta read a bit outside my usual realm this summer, which has been both a challenge and a blast.

Title: The Memory Remains
Author: deemichelle
Fandom: Twilight (AU)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Edward/Bella
Prompt/Summary: Edward is a soldier heading overseas in WWI. He meets Bella just days before he ships out, they promise to wait for each other. What happens when he comes back home a changed man to find her changed as well?
Why you should read it: It captures the flavor of the altered time setting in a number of ways that I found very enjoyable. And I imagine that for Twilight fen, it's probably all the cooler seeing how the changes in this AU affect things and how some things manage to stay the same.

Title: Touched by Dragons
Author: angela_snape
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R
Pairing: Charlie/Draco
Summary: A bad reaction to a burn treatment leads to a different sort of reaction to a burn specialist.
Why you should read it: A lovely bit of angsty not-quite-h/c with a very unusual pairing that does some intriguing things with Draco's character, in particular.

Title: Drugged
Author: sahiya
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Pairing: Nine/Rose/Jack
Summary: Goddamn xenophobic aliens and goddamn drugs and goddamn hypodermic needles.
Why you should read it: A thoroughly enjoyable h/c fic that slots nicely into canon and pokes about at some interesting aspects of Jack's character.

So, you've been hearing me wibble about the fic I've been working on for Chocolate & Asphodel vol. 2, but there's been another major Snupin project going on: BLU: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, the Snupin Big Bang. It's got its own archive that just went live tonight. Definitely looking forward to checking it out.