beatrice_otter: This looks like a good day for World Domination (World Domination)
All the cool kids are doing it, so I guess I will too:

How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.

A. Anatomy of a Secret--Jadzia Dax in the Reboot universe.
B. the bells are going to chime--My Fair Lady, Eliza/Colonel Pickering post-movie
C. Currency--Star Wars/Babylon 5, Han and Chewie take a job carrying cargo to a place so far out in Wild Space they've never even heard of the Empire. Or the Jedi.
D. The Desert Between--Reboot, Spock/Uhura, and vulcan worldbuilding
E. Essential To Your Own--TNG, Data/Geordi
F. Family Matters (The Things Inside Remix)--BSG, Dee is on Pegasus, finding her place. A Six is on New Caprica, learning what she doesn't know. Lee Adama is a Cylon prisoner, but this is not his story. A New Caprica AU.
G. The Genetics Factory--Criminal Minds/Stargate, In Detroit, homeless addicts are turning up dead. But there's more to the case than meets the eye, and the BAU finds themselves looking for something they don't understand. For Derek, it gets personal.
H. The Heart's Desire--Rivers of London, Abigail has earned her right to become a practitioner of magic. Now, the training begins.
I. Interview with the Robot--Fandom for Robots
J. Just Like Old Times--Stargate SG-1, Teal'c and Daniel, on an adventure.
K. Kitty and Georgy (The Healing Old Hurts Remix)--Pride and Prejudice, Kitty is often ill, but she is determined to live her best life anyway.
L. Little Ship Lost--TNG, On a routine mission, a wormhole opens up near Enterprise, and a ship pops out. It's challenging to rescue people who don't trust you.
M. Matters of Perspective--TNG, Picard and Guinan post Time's Arrow
N. Not Place, But People--Enterprise, The older Enterprise wasn't destroyed after all. When it limps back to Earth, Trip finds Lorian and invites him home to meet the family.
O. The Offer--Vorkosiverse, An AU where Aral didn't survive Mad Yuri's Massacre, but his sister did.
P. Pale Battalions--SG-1, Teal'c goes home after a glorious battle in Apophis' name.
Q. 
R. Revenge of the Zillo Beast--Star Wars, Mace and Anakin have killed the Zillo Beast every way they can think of in different time loops. Maybe killing the Beast won't solve the problem?
S. Schoolwork--DS9, Jake misses his dad, now he's with the Prophets, but he still has his friends, his family, and his career.
T. Third Chance--Star Trek, AU, This isn't the first time Ro has had to start her life over, nor the first time she's had to deal with people who don't like or trust her.
U. Undiscovered Stars--Star Wars/Star Trek, Just how far out in the Unknown Regions was he, Lando wondered, that they didn't use hyperdrives?
V. Vast Beyond Knowing (The Details Remix)--Star Wars. Anakin, Luke, Rey. The desert taught them much. But not everything.
W. Wachet Auf--Rivers of London, In 1940, Nightingale has to catch a Nazi spy armed with a magical device. In 2016, Nightingale and others fall into a magical coma, and Peter Grant must figure out why it happened and how to end it.
X. X is for Xenophobia--SG-1, Little Jake Carter knew all about people who Weren't Like Us.
Y.
Z.

22/26, not bad. Interesting that I have X but not Y; from looking at other peoples' lists, it's usually the other way around. (If I'd done more Stargate Alphabet Soups, I might have filled in the missing letters.) I have, by the way, written 264 fics in approximately 110 fandoms over the course of almost 20 years. (Some fandoms are squishy, and it depends how you count them.)

◾ Tags:
goddess47: Emu! (Default)
Show: SG-1

Rec Category: Jack O'Neill
Characters:Pairings: Jack/Daniel
Categories: mission related, major whump. hurt/no comfort
Warnings: major whump. hurt/no comfort, no gore
Word Count: 5211
Author on DW: none found
Author's Website: AO3 Profile
Link: Nothing You can Ever Say


Author's Summary:

Daniel's lips get sewn shut while on a mission. No one knows how it happened, and Daniel can't tell them. He and Jack have been in a secret relationship for months. Jack becomes unpredictable in his fear of losing Daniel.


Why This Must Be Read:

This is for Whumptober 2025 and H_River_Ageleis has delivered.

The fic is heartbreaking as Daniel and Jack both suffer from whatever has sewn Daniel's mouth shut. It's appropriately whump-y for the prompts... For all that it's not gory, it's still frightening in its own way.

Not for the happy ending folk but an interesting exploration of what could be out there!



snippet of fic )
Fandom: Hamlet (William Shakespeare)
Pairings/Characters: Ophelia, Hamlet, Laertes, Polonious, Claudius (genderflipped to Claudia), Gertrude, Fortinbras, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (genderflipped to Rosie and Goldie), Claudia/Gertrude
Rating: Teen
Length: 11,174
Creator Links: AO3 profile.
Themes: Uncommon Settings, IN SPACE, Murder Mystery, Alternate Ending

Summary: Hamlet in space, starring sensible and heroic Ophelia, genderswapped Claudius, clones Rosencrantz and Guilderstern and alien Fortinbras. (Alas, there are no sharks in space riding motorcycles, nor is there a time machine.) (Taken from AO3)

Reccer's notes: This is just an extremely well-done sci-fi take on the classic play, with Ophelia as the protagonist. I really enjoy the species changes to certain characters, and the way the author plays with the well-known story beats to create something unique. The author's notes at the end also have some interesting insights into the writing choices they made. 

Fanwork links: Rosemary for Remembrance

annathecrow: screenshot from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Shmi Skywalker looks at R2-D2 as he rolls past. Text overlay: "...the heck?" (sw: the heck)

Hi everyone,

sorry for the month of radio silence. I had an accident riding my scooter (the Vespa kind, not the "two wheels and a stick" kind) and broke my collar bone. Oops.

Modern medicine is a beautiful thing so I'm not stuck in a cast, but it's still been An Experience and I didn't really have enough spare spoons to keep up with the comm.

BUT, I'm definitely fine enough by now to copy-paste a post into DW, so I'm going to start making at least free-for-all chat corner posts every Monday again. We're not dead yet! Come and share your SW thoughts/feels if you have any :)

petra: A blonde woman with both hands over her face (Britta - Twohanded facepalm)
Archive.org has The Wretched of the Earth/Damnés de la terre (1961) available here. It is a work on colonialism, revolution, and racialization.

It was also written by a man with a name that is, for me, intensely unfortunate.

The foreword is titled "Framing Fanon."

As [personal profile] hannah points out, "It's pronounced 'Fa-NOH.'"

I'm so sorry, Frantz Fanon. You were there first, having a perfectly cromulent name, and then those fans came and made your name a word to be feared for reasons having nothing to do with colonialism.

I'm going to see how far I get with it, and if I have issues, there is an audiobook of an analysis of it available via NYPL that I will take out and dig into.

-- possibly after Yuletide, because racialized colonialism is gonna be fucked whether or not I get my assignment in on time.
goddess47: Emu! (Default)
Show: SG-1

Rec Category: Jack O'Neill
Characters:Pairings: implied Daniel/Sam
Categories: post-episode
Warnings: some morbid thoughts that are not carried out
Word Count: 1680
Author on DW: [personal profile] troyswann
Author's Website: AO3 Profile
Link: Tin Men


Author's Summary:

As he slaps glue onto a weeping pipe and bends a patch around it, Jack fantasizes about a Goa’uld incursion. A firefight. A daring rescue. Actually, he doesn’t picture the actual adventure, but rather the four of them on their slabs talking about it, a hundred years from now. “Remember that time?” Of course they’ll remember it. They’ll remember it perfectly. In his imagination, they fall silent and sit on their slabs waiting for the seconds to roll over uselessly like tumblers in a broken lock.

Eternity, infinity, entropy and art therapy.


Why This Must Be Read:

One of the myriad of ways the lives of our beloved characters may have gone after they realized they were robots and not human.

There's a bit of morbid thinking but MSSalieri is more hopeful than that and gives a hopeful ending in the short space of her story.



snippet of fic )
mific: Sepia pic john sheppard and rodney mckay leaning heads together, serious (McShep - intense)
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: Gen
Length: 1133 & 700
Content Notes: No AO3 warnings apply. There are explicit details about a normal full-term delivery in Plus Ça Change.
Creator Links: toomuchplor on AO3
Themes: Uncommon settings, Friends to lovers, Complete AU: hospital, Humor

Summaries: Technically he *wasn’t* Dr. Sheppard, not for another two months, but it was standard for medical students to introduce themselves that way. It reassured the patients. It didn’t do anything for John’s sense of inner calm.
“Unh,” said McKay, and folded his arms under his face before flopping down again. The position pulled the sleeves of his scrubs top taut around his biceps. “If I hide here it’s harder for the interns to find me.”

Reccer's Notes: For a fandom rich in AUs, there are very few medical AUs in SGA. This is an excellent two-part series and I recommend reading it in reverse series order, as the second part is a prequel. In Plus Ça Change, John blunders into an unexpected ER situation as a 4th year medical student doing an ambulance ride-along, and meets Rodney, a medical resident. The other story, Living Will, is set 3 years later by which time they know each other well and John's an ER resident, Rodney now being chief medical resident. The stories are funny, with great characterisation and snark, and accurate medical details. Very much recommended!

Fanwork Links: Plus Ça Change, and Living Will

mific: (Shep - oh crap)
Shows: SGA (fusion with Battlestar Gallactica)
Rec Category: Action/Adventure
Characters: John Sheppard, Chuck Campbell, Evan Lorne, Elizabeth Weir, Rodney McKay
Categories: Gen
Words: 1289
Warnings: no AO3-type warnings apply
Author on DW: [personal profile] slybrarian
Author's Website: slybrarian on AO3, slybrarian on sga_flashfic
Link: Unscheduled Excursion on AO3
Why This Must Be Read: This is a great little fusion of familiar SGA characters with the universe of Battlestar Gallactica (you don't need to know that to enjoy it). It's John Sheppard-centric, as Sheppard (the battlestar ship's commander) tries to decide what to do next in the midst of disaster. It was written for a flashfic challenge and is a standalone piece, an intriguing glimpse into an interesting AU.

snippet of the fic under here )

petra: Paul Gross smooching a skull (Geoffrey - Smooching Yorick)
Zounds (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Slings & Arrows
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ellen Fanshaw/Geoffrey Tennant
Characters: Ellen Fanshaw, Geoffrey Tennant
Additional Tags: Drabble, Love Bites, Bruises
Summary:

Ellen leaves marks.


*

Tell Old Man Worry to go climb a tree (600 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker/Han Solo
Characters: Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo
Additional Tags: Mpreg | Male Pregnancy, Incest, Drabble Sequence
Summary:

The Force moves in mysterious ways in order to get great-grandkids.

petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
I recorded the fandom on each of mine because I was curious what the spread was. There are surprisingly few, and surprising, repeats.

A - The A Train - DCU/Supreme Power
B - Back where we began - Hockey RPF
C - C'est la faute à Rousseau - DCU (sorry, Les Misérables fans)
D - The Daddy's Boy Job - Star Wars Prequel Trilogy/Leverage
E - Each result and glory - Doctrine of Labyrinths - Monette
F - Failsafe - Vorkosigan Saga - Bujold
G - Game theory - Life on Mars (UK)
H - Ha -- h'm - Horatio Hornblower - CS Forester
I - I ain't no brilliant writer, Kethe knows - Doctrine of Labyrinths (please don't ask why I wrote a sonnet in Mildmay voice)
J - Janet and Thomas's Halloween - Tam Lin - Dean
K - Keep it down in there - Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
L - L'appel du vide - Life on Mars (UK)/Ashes to Ashes
M - M'don'a's sex advice - Star Wars Prequel Trilogy/Madonna's Sex Advice
N - Naked truth - due South
O - Oak of the clay lived many a day - Promethean Age - Bear
P - A pack that almost became historic - Les Misérables + Psychic Wolves
Q - Q. E. D. - John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, Logic Guards Sketch
R - Rated able seaman - Hornblower (TV)
S - Safe and sane - DCU
T - Take heed of loving me - Hockey RPF
U - Ululation - Harry Potter (written 2002)
V - A Vaderwan limerick for your delectation - Star Wars Original Trilogy
W - Wait till you hear the next one, legate - Marcus Didius Falco - Davis/Good Omens - Pratchett & Gaiman
X - X axis, Y axis, 2 axes - Murderbot/due South fusion
Y - Yas queen - Iskyrne Series - Bear & Monette/@dog_rates
Z - Nothing yet. Zounds - Slings & Arrows, just posted, because I am a completist.

26/26, 1312 works.

Bonus points: I have stories titled beginning with #, numbers, ¡ (inverted exclamation point), à, and ᓄ.

Also, I have no idea what possessed me to write a sonnet in Mildmay voice, but I'm proud of it just the same.
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

silvercat17: comic panel of the silent knight side eyeing another knight with a blank though balloon (side-eye)
What are you working on? What have you finished? What do you need encouragement on?
 
Are there any cool events or challenges happening that you want to hype?
 
What do you just want to talk about?
 
What have you been watching or reading?
 
Chores and other not-fun things count!
 
Remember to encourage other commenters and we have a discord where we can do work-alongs and chat, linked in the sticky.

petra: Lan Wangji glaring at anyone who might dare to wake Wei Wuxian, who is napping and leaning against him (CQL - Often not been on boats)
My new collection, Petra's Food Bank Donation Thank-You Works, has its inaugural work:

And spread the welcome mat for you (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian
Characters: Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian
Additional Tags: Drabble, mid-autumn festival, mooncakes
Summary:

Wei Wuxian presents Lan Wangji with a mooncake.


*

Details on how to participate in the collection here.
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
If you donate at least $25 in cash or in-kind to a food bank at any point between now and the end of the Trump Administration, and you either share a fandom of mine and want a drabble or fannish poetry, or you want original poetry, drop me a comment, and I will write for you.

Repeat customers welcomed with open arms.

Please format your request: Fandom or Original; Drabble or Poem; Character(s) and/or Pairing if any; Optional Prompt.

For example: Sesame Street; Drabble; Cookie Monster/Cookies; Food is not a sometimes luxury.

If you didn't make the donation in US dollars, please check the exchange rate on your donation at a currency converter to confirm that it qualifies. No receipt necessary regardless of which currency you donate in; this is on the honor system.

Please publicize this post.

Works will be collected on the Archive of Our Own and in my Food Bank Thank-You tag on Dreamwidth.
◾ Tags:
mific: John sheppard head and shoulders against gold orange sunset (Sheppard orange)
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Radek Zelenka, Elizabeth Weir, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan, Carson Beckett, Evan Lorne, Aiden Ford, Bates, Laura Cadman, Jack O'Neill, Harry Maybourne, Jeannie Miller, Original Non-Human Characters, Imaginary Creatures from Story and Song, Atlantis.
Rating: Mature
Length: 30,758
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply. The author warns for kidnapping and children in peril. "They aren't injured, and they are rescued. One of their kidnappers is kidnapped in the process and then returned to her friends." There's also a warning for passages with creepy clowns - see the endnote.
Creator Links: esteefee on AO3
Themes: Uncommon settings, Worldbuilding, AU: apocalypse/dystopia, AU: fantasy/magic, Friends to lovers, First time, Humor, Action/adventure

Summary: Major John Sheppard was starving, delirious, chased by monsters to the edge of the world, when he raised the City from the sea.

Ten years later, Dr. Rodney McKay comes to the peaceful City, bringing war in his back pocket.

Reccer's Notes:
This fits the "unusual settings" category as the world depicted in this fic is extremely strange, surreal, and quirky. I've reccd it before but in a different category, and it's a story that's well worth re-reading. Despite the tags for fantasy and dystopia, it isn't traditional fantasy/magic at all, and it mostly isn't a straightforward dystopia. Yes, it's post-apocalyptic and the rest of the world's very dystopic, but Atlantis herself is a solarpunk refuge in the chaos. The story is set after the detonation of a quantum unreality bomb which plunged Earth into fantastical chaos where very few laws apply consistently - certainly not those of physics, or normality. Weird monsters, fantasy creatures, and dangerous improbabilities now abound, although much reduced in Atlantis. The worldbuilding's terrific, and woven into this new world is a story where John and Rodney meet and become friends, and more. There's also plenty of plot, including a daring rescue. It's an excellent read, and highly recommended!

Fanwork Links: When the City Wakes
mific: Sepia pic john sheppard and rodney mckay leaning heads together, serious (McShep - intense)
Shows: SGA
Rec Category: Action/Adventure
Characters: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, Elizabeth Weir, Carson Beckett, Even Lorne
Categories: M/M
Words: 7860
Warnings: no AO3 warnings apply
Author on DW: [personal profile] mrshamill
Author's Website: MrsHamill on AO3
Link: Personal Hero (locked to AO3), and here on DW. Plus, there's an excellent podfic by [personal profile] librarychick_94 which is here, or here.
Why This Must Be Read: This is a bit gruelling, but it all works out in the end. It features a badass Rodney saving John on a mission-gone-wrong, pushing himself beyond what he'd thought possible to carry John, wounded, back to the stargate. The rest of the story is about rescuing Ronon and Teyla, and the aftermath of the mission when John regains consciousness and gradually pieces together how Rodney feels about him. Action, then feelings and romance, and it's an enjoyable read.

snippet of the fic under here )

beatrice_otter: Captain America (Captain America)
I was re-reading some old MCU fic, and in the fic Steve says that Bucky was named for President Buchanan. Which Doylistically he was, but ... there's no reason he has to be from an in-universe perspective.

"James" was an incredibly common first name. The Social Security Administration publishes lists of how popular various names have been over the years; in the 1910s, when James and Steve were born, "James" was the third most popular name for boys. 275,000 baby boys were named "James" in that decade, which, given the size of the population, means that there were a lot of James' everywhere. Very common name.

Ah, but what of Buchanan, you say! Surely there could be no reason to give someone the middle name "Buchanan" if it's not naming him after someone famous! ... and no, actually. While people sometimes were named after famous people or political leaders (just like today), there's actually a more common reason to do it. It was a fairly common thing in the 19th Century for people to have a "last" name as a middle name, often their mother's maiden name, and people still do that today sometimes. Steve's middle name is "Grant", for example; "Grant" was a relatively common surname but (at the time) extremely uncommon as a first name. Steve was almost certainly given the middle name "Grant" to honor someone whose last name was Grant; it was probably his mother's maiden name. Buchanan is a relatively common Scottish name; it's not one of the top ten or anything, but the Buchanan clan is one of respectable size and power. In the same way, there is a very good chance that James was given the middle name "Buchanan" to honor someone whose last name was "Buchanan," quite probably his mother. And for a first name they gave him the third most common name for boys, and maybe didn't realize that there was a President by that name. Especially if they were immigrants, or weren't very well educated. (A lot of people in that generation had only a grade school education, or maybe a middle school education; only 10% of all 14-17 year olds attended high school in the US in 1900; there were still states where even elementary school wasn't required until 1918!) James Buchanan is not one of the Presidents that people talk about much outside history classes, and even then, a lot of history classes don't go into a lot of detail on him besides "last President before the Civil War." Yes, he was a bad President and one of the reasons the US Civil War became inevitable, but there were a lot of factors that were a lot more important.

I think "we liked the name James, and we wanted to honor his mother's family by giving him their last name as a middle name" is a far more likely scenario than consciously deciding to name their kid after President James Buchanan.

On a completely different note, if you want to write an AU where Bucky escaped Hydra early and made a new life for himself ... there's a late-20th-Century composer named James Barnes. He wrote concert band music. Here are some of his pieces: Symphonic Overture, Symphony No. 2, Third Symphony ("The Tragic")Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Nicolo PaganiniAlvamar Overture.

◾ Tags:
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
This NPR article about Cards Against Humanity (the company) suing SpaceX for trespassing makes me want Cards Against Humanity, Inc., in various fictional universes.

Surely it exists in Leverage-verse, home of professional trolls. Possibly Hardison owns the company.

How scathing are the anti-Imperial cards in the Galaxy Far, Far Away? What wild schemes have they undertaken to mess with the Powers That Be?

The conflict between the Kardashians Cardassians and the Federation seems fruitful territory for people to have done really, really stupid things. Also, that allows for a tournament on Deep Space Nine. Is Garak really good at this game, or does he overthink it to the point where no one can follow his logic?

I would also love to see the Slow Horses playing the game, if only so they can observe that the real winner is Lamb, because they're all sinking to his level. Alternately, perhaps they could get mixed up in a corporate scheme.

As for The Expanse, clearly there are competing entities putting out propaganda packs on all sides all the way through, and they're all making political statements for Their Team.
alierak: (Default)
DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

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