Calvin is a member of the Green Lantern Corps--that makes an incredible amount of sense to me and totally made my day.

The HTML of the feed of this post is SERIOUSLY borked.

From the delightful crossover Relatives & Relativity:

As soon as they had opened the door, both sisters cried aloud. "Elinor!" Marianne's eyes widened in the soft, golden light. "Have you ever beheld such a marvel as this?"

"I have not." Elinor walked inside – not a shed, but a great space, larger by halves than Mrs. Jennings' drawing room. The floors, walls and ceilings gleamed like polished brass, and an odd contraption whirred in the centre of it all.

Marianne stepped inside the shed, then out again, then repeated this process several times before she exclaimed, "It is larger within than without! That is impossible. And yet it is true. My eyes do not deceive me."

"I do not see how it can be, and yet it so appears," Elinor admitted. "Some strange illusion is at work."

For the first time in many months, Marianne's face lit up with true wonder. "Elinor – do you think it could be real – that he could – that he might be a magician?"

"His speech is rather rough, dearest. More likely he is a day-labourer from the North."

Tracey, #2: In what feed reader? I'm not seeing any problems via Google Reader, or with the Google Reader desktop client Reeder.

I recall a BtVS fic wherein Glory's minions sit around a cafe, wearing berets and smoking Gauloise cigarettes, discussing the fact that god is dead.

The LJ feed is borked as well: http://makinglight.livejournal.com/718293.html

I'm going to have a look at the entry and see what I can do.

"The Moar List"

Hey! I didn't have anything to do with this.

Patrick #4 - It WAS certainly borked on LJ, but it seems to be fixed now.

I found a missing quote (or rather, found that there was a quote missing; had I found it, it would not have been missing) on the URL right at the breakpoint of the LJ feed. I've added it in.

Any better now?

Though I think his best story may be 'Orouboros' (Deep Space 9/Dawn from Buffy), I'm particularly partial to Marcus Rowland's BtVS/St. Trinians x-over myself. (Please note this is the St. Trinians of the 1950s/60s movies, not the recent atrocious remakes) Now if only he'd write one where Willow and Buffy go back to the Sixties and meets Giles' Aunt Emma and her bowler-hatted partner....

JIm: Only logical that they would.

Average Avengers Local Chapter 7 of New York City is now part of my personal headcanon because I am a sucker for fics that depict Captain America as a guy named Steve who had a life in the early 20th century before the serum, and/or New York as a place where people live and do stuff that isn't superheroic.

Here's a page of the best Forever Knight fanfic ever written: http://home.earthlink.net/~combsmfk/index.htm

If you never saw FK, think of it as Twilight with Real True People in it. Great stuff. Note, however, that one of the premises of the show is that to become a vampire you have to deliberately turn away from the door to Heaven. So, a strongly religious flavor.

Rob: His St. Trinian's stories are a hoot. I'll check out "Ouroboros".

And then we have a very good reason for running and screaming from fanfic, from The Atlantic:

The Strange World of Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan Fan Fiction

The horror... the horror...

Glenn Hauman @14: I'm guessing you weren't a fan of the Barack Obama/Rahm Emanuel fanfic back in 2008? Because there was some hilarious stuff in that vein back then.

I've been re-reading chunks of Cerebus recently, and it's just occurred to me that it has a lot of the fanfic nature. It's not just that it started out as a crude parody of Barry Windor-Smith's Conan comics. It's also that there doesn't seem to be all that much of a difference between "Christine from Phantom of the Opera and Sarah from Labyrinth are university students who share an apartment" and "Rufus T Firefly from Duck Soup and Adam Weisshuapt from the Illuminatus books are rival politicians in a secondary-world group of Renaissance city-states, with Elric and Moon Knight dropping in from time to time". I suppose the main difference is that Cerebus spends most of its time on its original main character.

Glenn Hauman @14: Oh, definitely. Patrick sidelighted that last night. Did you see the comment thread? it's got all these paranoid right-wingers who think the existence of a Romney/Ryan slashfic Tumblr can only be explained as a political dirty trick cooked up by the Obama administration.

Fade Manley @15: I remember those!

IMO, the greatest political fanfic written to date was Dan Sinker's fake Rahm Emanuel Twitter feed. Sinker was brilliant.

I'm not generally a fanfic reader, but when my friend recommended this one to me, the concept made me sit up and take notice. And the story delivers.

Equilibrium by augustbird is a mashup of Flowers for Algernon and Sherlock (the TV show) - the essential plot concept of the former, with the characters and setting of the latter. (I've never seen the TV show, but knowing it's Holmes and Watson in the present day is sufficient.) The arc of Watson's intelligence growing - remember, he wasn't exactly an intellectual lightweight to begin with - and Holmes' reaction to it is amazingly rendered.

I just wanted to read into the record the awesomeness that is Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, about which, presumably everyone here knew sooner than I did. But still.

I beleive several of our regulars (besides the illustrious Mr. Brust) are also fanfic writers. Any of y'all care to share where your stuff may be found, either anonymously or in the clear? (Please ignore/gnome/delete if deraily or out of line.)

Let's just say that my fanfic pseud is not terribly opaque to anybody who ever knew me in the SCA.

You can find some of my recent stuff here. Be warned: WIPs.

Probably for an AO3 link. Would the gnomes care for some homemade spaghetti sauce?

May I also recommend Harry Potter and the Horrid Pain of the Artiste....

I wrote reams and reams of fanfic some years back. It was in that nebulous space that fanfic for game settings occupies, where (almost) all the characters are original, but the setting belongs to someone else... Though it wasn't Gamefic, in the "I wrote about my character from this campaign!" sense. (In fact, I rapidly discovered that the one time someone coaxed me into trying to play a few of my characters from the stories in actual campaigns, it worked horribly. They were written for fiction, not for roleplay.)

I'd probably still be displaying more of it online if it had been more...well. Competent. I like to think I'm better at pacing now, and attaching something more like a coherent plot to a given "story".

I will confess to writing fanfic under the not-so-oblique name of hhertzof. Lots of Doctor Who (classic, new, obscure and not so obscure spin-offs), strange crossovers, and rare fandom stuff (mostly written for Yuletide, the annual rare fandom exchange).

Not sure if it was the two URLs, the mention of Yuletide or syntax starting with "I'll confess to".

I am however, waiting for the Making Light gnomes to be nominated as a Yuletide fandom...everything else has been.

Jim @5: There appears to be no linkable online version, so:

=====

SMOKE (early Season 6)

Spike sniffed the early autumn air and caught the unmistakable smell of Gauloise cigarettes. That was odd. He ambled from one street to another, following the smell, until he tracked it to its source at the Espresso Bar.

Sitting out front at a sidewalk table were three of Glory's warty hobbit creatures. They'd shed their rubbishy brown robes and were now wearing turtleneck sweaters, berets, and sunglasses. One of them was awkwardly smoking a Gauloise while the others watched.

"Oi, what's up with you lot?" Spike said, not unamiably, as he seated himself in the fourth chair.

"Bonjour, Your Anomalously Semi-Good Vampireness," said the wartiest of the three, trying not to look nervous. "I am Dreg, and these are Murk and Skitter. We are moving on."

"Our god is dead," Murk volunteered.

"And this leads to smoking Gauloise?"

"Yes. In sidewalk cafes. We are having existence."

"Ah ... got it. Good job," Spike said after a moment. "Where'd the new program come from?"

Dreg beamed. "We were helped by Lewis, a most eminent scholar who works at the Barnes & Noble near the mall. He found us wandering sorrowfully in the Self-Help area. When we told him our god was dead, and that we were condemned to a life of freedom, he instantly knew which books to sell us."

"We were surprised to find it is a known subject. Do gods die here often?" asked Skitter.

"No, it's relatively rare," Spike said. "Lewis is a genius. You should go back and ask him about the music and poetry that goes with it."

"Having existence is already confusing," said Murk.

"Ah, well. It's more about the journey than the destination."

The three ex-minions glanced around at each other and came to a decision. "Would you like to smoke with us?" Dreg asked.

"Don't mind if I do." Spike lit up a cigarette of his own as the other three lit theirs, and they sat quietly, watching the thin trails of smoke rise up through the light from the Espresso Bar and disappear into the darkness.

"Was Glory always your god?" Spike asked.

Dreg shook his head. "No. When we were young, she became our god through direct revelation."

"How's that work?"

"She appeared one day and told us that she was our god now," he said, looking depressed.

"She gave us our names, too," said Murk.

Spike took a slow, thoughtful drag on his cigarette. "You know," he said, "around here it's traditional to get a new name when you change gods."

All three of them brightened immediately. "Yes, please," said Dreg.

"Do we need a credit card number?" asked Skitter.

"No, it's free. ... Right, then. When you get the hang of it, you can rename yourselves if you want, but starting now, and for as long as you like, your names are" -- he pointed around the table -- "Bebop, Howl, and Road."

"Bebop," said the minion formerly known as Skitter. "It has meaning?"

"They all have meaning. Lewis can help you with that."

"What about Blotch?" said Howl (formerly Murk). "He has been visiting Lenscrafters. We are meeting him here."

"Blotch's name is now Sphere."

"He will like that."

"Road," said Road. "Road."

Spike nodded. "Road."

Road sighed contentedly. "It was of course a tragedy that Glory died, but ..."

"We must put it behind us," Howl said firmly. "I have been reading articles in the magazines at the laundromat, and what you do with tragedy is put it behind you. They all say so."

"That they do," said Spike. "You're good with that?"

"I am. We are," said Howl. "We have had enough essence. Existence is better."

TNH is being cagey about her authorship of #28. IJWTS that although I have read it before, re-reading it still makes me laugh so hard I bang my head on my desk.

TNH, I am in awe.

Here's mine.

I still push Lunch and Other Obscenities at anyone who will hold still. Reboot!Trek featuring Uhura and Gaila, PG-13 for some bawdiness, and an amazing illustration of how to get along with someone whose cultural taboos are mind-bogglingly different from your own, with a side of back-story on the Spock/Uhura relationship. If you read and liked HellSpark, you'll enjoy this.

Speaking of RPF... this is a category I mostly stay away from, but Close Your Eyes and Think of England is a stunning exception. PG-13 for bawdiness but no actual sex, funny as hell, and based on a real incident; apparently David Tennant was gobsmacked to find out about Dr. Who slash during a TV interview.

Graduate Vulcan for Fun and Profit -- more Reboot!Trek, slightly AU from the movie because Jim still ends up on Tarsus IV (and has a whole slew of medical issues as a result). Extremely character-driven, including a Vulcan Starfleet Academy instructor who is also a survivor of the Kelvin. Funny and deep by turns, and fairly long -- there's a link to the second part at the end of the first section.

This one may be meaningless to non-Canadians, but MacDonald Hall is Fabulous is a (G-Rated) slashfic of Gordon Korman's Bruno & Boots that manages to be very much in the spirit of the original novels. Written for Yuletide, unsurprisingly.

If we're recommending Avengers, I have have have to recommend the In Which Tony Stark Builds Himself Some Friends (But His Family Was Assigned by Nick Fury) series by scifigrl47. Choice quote:

"You built a toaster that resents bagels," Clint pointed out. "Which is kind of a flaw. You know. FOR A TOASTER."

"Bagels are hard to toast," Tony explained. "You'd resent them, too."

I actually just spent the month of July reccing Babylon 5 fanfiction over on Livejournal. I mention this because I've also been following Abi's fluorospheran B5 reviews from last year, so perhaps there are people here who'd be interested.

And TNH, that Buffy fic's fabulous. And we totally need to nominate the Gnomes for Yuletide.

I'm Megpie71 on AO3 - have a link. I'd also recommend having a browse through my AO3 bookmarks, because I've recently synched them with the bookmarks I had marked in Firefox (the joys of too much coffee of a Wednesday), so they're a pretty up-to-date list of stuff I thought was worth a second reading.

For the very first time! Probably a URL issue. Or does mention of the Gnomes trigger their appearance?

I have blueberries and genmaicha green tea.

Fortunately, I have a packet of Tim Tams available for their high tea and I'm willing to share. I gather I got gnomed for a couple of links to AO3.

(Oh, and I can seriously second the Toasterverse rec. Hilarious stuff, got me laughing out loud, and the subsequent fics and Phil Coulson's files of the Toasterverse are well worth a look as well).

This one is one of my all time favourites

Nativity by Milkshake Butterfly. It's really very brilliant. Bethany Sloane is 8.5 months pregnant. They didn't have room at Holiday Inn, there is no barn. There is however a Wal-mart.

and then to quote directly:

"The Metatron ran into Lucifer in Aisle Eight--Snacks, Cookies and Fruit Juices. The Serpent of the Abyss was wearing a dark gray pin-striped suit and had just stolen a packet of Oreos, if 'stolen' was the right word for taking them off the shelf and casually breaking them open with the sense of entitlement only the very rich and the very evil seemed to have"

forgot the name @ #33, thanks for that rec. That's an amazingly fun read.

Maybe the gnomes are my fault.

Like, what if they normally eat vowels?

Maybe they had a population explosion back when I used to do more disemvowelling, and now that oversized generation and its offspring are slowly starving.

My fanfic is at AO3 under the name VelveteenThestral.

Eventually I'll finish uploading the epic Snape/Evan Rosier romance (written in 2004) that inspired the name -- the annoying part is hand-coding all the italics. However, the Live Kennedy Universe Hornblower stuff and the Law & Order: UK fic are complete stories. Apparently what inspires me to write is if the source material kills off Jamie Bamber.

Dear gnomes, we have birthday cake with lemon curd, and many, many varieties of rum.

I love #28 so hard. Completely.

Here's a Downton Abbey/BtVS crossover drabble, entirely spoileriffic, that was actually spoken word to amuse Patrick and Teresa, and written down later by request.

And here's a compendium of short things: Aubrey/Maturin for Mary Dell, hotheaded and coldhearted dragon and unicorn for finnyb, Rick Deckard and Sam Spade for Jay Lake, and the seeds for more.

Thanks for the rec. And I am still working on POM. Just really, really slowly. *g*

I don't really read fanfic - I guess I've never fallen into it. But I clicked over to some of the ones that looked interesting to me.

I absolutely and utterly adored Relatives and Relativity. Thank you!

Many years ago, in a fandom which I choose not to name in this post, one of the male stars entertained a well-known female fan at his home. She was, I gather, a significant mover in the main fan-club for the show, and all was quite respectable and above-board. Family occasion and all that.

Then he discovered that she wrote slash-fiction about the character he played, which caused him to re-think some of the events of that visit.

There was, I think, foolishness on both sides, but it was a few years before he agreed to be a convention guest again.

Times have changed, a lot. Explicit gay porn isn't as hidden as it was then. Public figures didn't come out. But a scenario such as the one I recall, that would still be difficult to cope with.

Very much not fanfic, but go check my work at the Spontoon Islands Website.

Some of the other stuff there has definite fanfic characteristics: Mission Impossible meets up with the Marx Brothers?, or perhaps, if you're really in to old-time movies and radio, The Giant Gnat of Sinatra.

Er, may I refer the reader to my efforts in The Exploding Shampoo Plot. dotted through a comment thread on this very website.

As I do not wish to connect my real name publicly to my fanfic pseud, I merely submit a link to my (quite small) AO3 collection. (Be warned, under it I have a larger collection of bookmarked fics. Most of them are extremely smutty. Hence not using my real name.)

I have other fanfic elsewhere, which you'll find if you google the pseud; I just think the stories on AO3 will probably be most in line with what people here are interested in tasting, given they are Yuletide pieces and include a Young Wizards/Illuminatus!/Sandman crossover and a couple of crackfics - one serious, one humorous - for Zelazny's Amber Chronicles.

(And now you probably know who I am if you've been paying attention all year. Don't worry if you don't. I'm obscure.)

[The format of your URL is, unfortunately, one that gets things booted to moderation.—Idumea Primrose Cowper, Duty Gnome]

No list of must-read fanfic is complete without Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, a post-SGA story.

"Older and Wiser." (Sound of Music)

Far more angst-ridden than most of the others rec'd here, but the situation is *obvious* in retrospect.

Ooh, Elise, those are marvelous!

Slowly working my way through the recs...

@Pensnest no. 50: Beat me to it! Among other things, it's a look at what the Stargate Program, in-universe, would seem like to outsiders. First you do something radically excellent in your field, then you disappear down a classification black hole, then you die in an implausible accident (that may actually have been a black hole but nobody will ever know that).

Sarah @32: There is Macdonald Hall fanfic?! How did I not KNOW about this?!

As for fic, the best thing I've ever written IMO - certainly the thing that makes me cringe the least upon rereading it a year later - was a Star Trek fanfic about collecting dogtags after a space battle.

The worst thing I've written that I still have evidence of was also a fanfic, written when I was sixteen and full of angst, for Gundam Wing. Everybody died, one at a time, except for one person who was still alive - and ALONE! WOE! - at the end. It's terrible, but I'm fond of it.

Em, 54: Sometimes you eat some worms, sometimes you write terrible fic, sometimes you read all the way through the AO3's "angst"/"major character death" tags for fandoms you aren't even in. (Hypothetically.)

TexAnne@55
And sometimes you read fanfic in which Clint Barton has been turned into a corgi puppy and it attains a level of brilliance beyond any it has any right to attain. http://sirona-fics.dreamwidth.org/119315.html

Worms are an excellent source of protein.

Also, am halfway through the Macdonald Hall fic Sarah linked, and it is BRILLIANT.

Shameless plug -- of all my fics, the most/only popular one has been
Undeadwood (David Milch's Deadwood + zombies, played mainly for laughs).

I have occasionally committed fanfic; In the Café of Reasonable Comfort is the one I'm still most happy with. (Apart from the title; I never was terribly good at titles.) It's a Doctor Who crossover - what it's a crossover with is left as an exercise for the reader, on the theory that it's more fun that way.

***

And a couple of things by other people that have made me happy that fanfic exists:

Green Ice (P.G. Wodehouse x Dorothy L. Sayers) by Adina. Bertie Wooster has a reputation for pinching things--necklaces, amber statuettes, umbrellas--a reputation that becomes dashedly awkward when Lord Attenbury's emeralds go missing. (Starts and ends in classic Wooster style, but in the middle it goes places that are more familiar as Wimsey territory.)

The Case of the Unwelcome Owl (Sherlock x Harry Potter) by FayJay. Sherlock receives a letter from one of the relatives he never talks about -- delivered, to John's considerable bemusement, by an owl. More bemusement follows. ("This explains so much," says John, near the end, and I find myself agreeing.)

Em @54, Macdonald Hall fanfic is a staple of Yuletide. I can't imagine a Yuletide without it.

Currently, AO3 has nearly 10,000 fandoms represented. If you can think of it, someone has probably written fic for it (or at least nominated it for Yuletide or plans to nominate it this year).

Speaking of which, before AO3, Yuletide was hosted on a private server and the 2003-2007 archives have not been moved over yet. It's worth a look - there are some great stories there.

Hilary Hertzoff: I have the honor of being acquainted with quite possibly the only (modern) writer of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon fanfic. The author of the only such that Google knows of, at least. She was surprised, too; it seemed a fairly obvious sort of thing to write about, to her.

I'm not much into fanfic, for the simple reason that the little I've ever read stunk on ice. That being said: I *do* know of one that folks might be interested in.

Basically, there's a gent named Javier Grillo-Marxuach who has done a lot of TV writing. He came up with an idea for a series some years ago that failed as a pitch, so he did it as a comic book. The comic was successful enough that he was able to sell it as a series to one of the cable networks. Unfortunately the cable network was ABC Family, and they had no idea in the universe what to do with it so it was cancelled after a season. The series was called The Middleman and I recommend it highly: you can read more about it over at TV Tropes.

Anyway, he's said publicly that he doesn't plan to do any further stories involving the characters, but...

...back in November he wrote an early Christmas present for fans of the show. If this ain't crossover fanfic, I don't know what is.

Silverpard is a genius. I've been hoping s/he will do an anthology of Sentient London stories.

... always odd to find oneself recced for the most casual of throwaway stories. As I recall, that Bobby Singer story was written in less than an hour, as a gift for More Joy Day.

But I still think John Winchester would have been eviscerated by any rare book librarian he ever had the misfortune to meet.

As a general recommendation: if one likes a story on the AO3, it's worthwhile clicking on the author's name to see what else they have written. One is likely to find some gems.

Also, I now understand the sudden arrival of a number of kudos in my inbox...

Seconding forgot the name@33 - that, and everything else scifigirl47 has on AO3. She also has a collection on Tumblr of short pieces expanding the background of her personal headcanon that are great short stories in their own right.

Cofax: Yes, you've written more substantial stories, and I've read and enjoyed those too. I loved the "five archives" piece in part because it's such a good example of fanfic writers' perfect certainty about previously unexamined aspects of fictional universes. You've got serious research chops. I think you're probably a librarian.

The other reason I love it is that back in 1991 on the GEnie SFRT, I wrote what was essentially a piece of fanfiction about scholarly research, though I didn't think of it that way at the time. It was later published as an essay titled "The Pastafazool Cycle." What it's really about is having a day job where you get assigned tasks like compiling a primary bibliography of Thomas of Ercildoune.

Bruce E. Durocher II @61: Middleman! Middleman was BRILLIANT. Juan turned me on to it, and we loved it. Natalie Morales was possibly our favorite snarky viewpoint character for a superhero show EVER. We still miss that show, so thank you for the link. I am gonna go follow it RIGHT NOW -- but I had to thank you first.

Middleman! YAY!

OMG Middleman + Doctor Who crossover!

*dies and is ded of the squee*

elise: Grillo-Marxuach recently posted this on his Tumblr: "…if you - the fans - can convince shout! factory to do the show as a blu ray, i will personally write a complete, hour-long middleman adventure in the TV continuity and do everything within my power to personally reunite the cast and writers for a read through." Considering he pulled off a similar stunt for the 13th episode at SDCC, I hope that someone comes up with a way to persuade Shout! to play along.

Oh, and in an interview in December he said "Natalie Morales and I have remained close friends since the show wrapped, and she weekly asks me to get my head straight and write a "Middleman" TV movie and pitch it to ABC Family already. I'm pretty sure at some point she will prevail."

I will leave the topic for now, lest Teresa think "Why is the guy who gave me an orange peeler now taking up all my blog space to shill for a dead TV series?"

This is my fanfic handle, and most of my stuff is posted on FF.net (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/7068/) --I wrote/write DragonballZ and Transformers fanfiction.

I seem to have been gnomed. I hope to hell they aren't from Zurich, or I'll never be able to get my comment out of durance vile. Perhaps, unlike our hostess, they don't like orange peelers?

I realize that when I mentioned that I seem to have been gnomed I forgot to mention it in my comment header. Should I do so in the future, or will a straight comment do?

[We gnomes look at every not-yet-published post. But putting a note in the header will get us to look a bit sooner. -- Ororix Tulutian, Duty Gnome]

I see I've posted this before (open thread 133! I didn't remember doing it either.) But of the various fanfic bits I've written, this crowd is more likely than most to appreciate the Edward Whittemore one:

http://www.eblong.com/zarf/uru/story/lara-memoir.html

Bruce: it's always best to put it in the header; abi and Jim et al. skim headers more often than they read the bodies of posts, so noting a gnoming in your header gets you a faster response.

It's also polite to offer the gnomes something in exchange for their services . . . .

Melissa: I can't meet the requirements if they're from Zurich, as I said before, but if they want a referral to a world-class oncologist I'm their boy.

Like cofax, was wondering at the sudden influx of kudos into my inbox, so thanks for the rec. Judging by the general reaction since I wrote that extremely short P&P story for a fic challenge, there are a lot of Lydia Bennett fans out there.

TNH @66:

Thank you, you're very kind. I do think that the classic form of the Five Things story relies, more than almost any other, on a really close familiarity with the text, because so often they are dependent on the reader following the breadcrumbs back to the point of divergence for the emotional hit. They don't generally work too well for strangers to the canon.

I think you're probably a librarian.

Hah! I'll take that as a compliment, but in fact, I have a JD, not an MLS (although I work in historic preservation). I have, in fact, read the muster rolls that Bobby is looking at at the National Archives. It's a pretty remarkable thing, to handle documents that Merriweather Lewis wrote.

There's enough wonderfulness here that it makes me want to read or watch the originals of the crossovers where I don't know one half...

Middleman! I have read that Middleman/Who crossover before, and found it utterly fabulous. It's even cooler that it's by the guy who invented the Middleman 'verse himself.

And Natalie Morales, do please keep after him to write us more! Such a good show. Written by and for My People, oh yes.

Andrew Plotkin @73: the story of yours I've always loved best was the SG-1 AU in which the team is a band.

And this story has, I think, been linked before, but it's always worth revisiting The Zombie Master of Culter.

Hilary, #59: Thank you for that link! I've been browsing the archive, and finding some very fine tales.

(Side note: I can't believe that someone actually wrote a Grounding of Group Six fic! And it's right down my alley, being of the and-what-happened-later variety.)

Oh.

My.

God

I have justthisminute finished The Case of the Unwelcome Owl, and it's a wonder the people around me at Starbucks haven't all put down their papers or closed their laptops or whatever and turned stern and unsmiling eyes on my multiple fits of unseemly giggles.

I am gobsmacked. It is BRILLIANT.

Have also read Graduate Vulcan for Fun and Profit and am similarly gobsmacked. (I love that word. It really says it all.) Teresa, Smoke is a jewel. Thank you for sharing.

Since I have these two completed ST:TNG novels hanging about on my hard drive (still in need of de-Mary Sue-ing, I'm afraid, but at least I know it), I wonder if maybe it's time to admit to myself that, even if they're probably past their sell-by dates for publication, taking place as they do well pre-Death-of-Data, maybe I can still provide some entertainment value by popping them onto a fanfic site.

Anyone have any suggestions as to the most likely logical (heh) fit, content-wise?

And now I depart, to read more fic, and ignore many of the things I had intended to accomplish today in favor of Happy Skippy Reading Fun Time!

cofax @ 80 : Thank you; you are kind as well.

ObLink, since I've given up shame here: http://eblong.com/zarf/essays/naqqadah.html (SG1, AU, possible misuse of R&B music terminology)

And since it's fair to give some links for other people's work that sticks in my head: http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/38/thefearless.html "The Fearless Moral Inventory of Milhouse Van Houten" (Simpsons).

Wow, I forgot how absolutely destructive fanfic is to my work schedule. The last time I was regularly reading http://www.kekkai.org/synecdochic/sg1/ and subdirs , I was employed at a job I didn't care about. Can not afford that this weekend! Argh!

Syd: ff.net is certainly a place where they'll get a lot of notice; Archive of Our Own seems to be up and coming; you might also browse LJ for Next Gen communities, of which I'm sure there have to be many.

Syd: ff.net is certainly a place where they'll get a lot of notice; Archive of Our Own seems to be up and coming; you might also browse LJ for Next Gen communities, of which I'm sure there have to be many.

Sarah S all the way back @19:

I'm currently reading my way through Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, and I don' know whether to thank you or curse you because my laundry isn't going to do ITSELF you know but I can just read one more chapter and....

And speaking of edge cases, I was at Barnes&Nobel yesterday, and saw the latest Classic+Undead book: My Favorite Fangs: The Sound Of Music, only Maria is a vamp who's turned the rest of the family. Oy...

I don't read a *lot* of fan fiction. I don't have copyeditor eyeballs or anything, but I like editors. A lot. Rather passionately.

And I don't wanna be one.

So a lot of fan fiction annoys me to no end.

Worse, I hate TV. I hate most movies too. I have ADD and can't hold still for a lot of visual stories because they are RONG. And EVIL. And and and... So I tend to bounce pretty hard off a lot of fic anyway, because I neither know who the characters are, nor do I care... and I'm a really pretty character driven reader.

But Girl Next Door made me unspeakably happy. I love Phantom of the Opera (the musical is unbearably schlocky, but the book is great). And while not *all* of the characters in the strip are from stuff I have seen or sung, enough are that it's funny to me. Further, I can read a lot of the French without the help of translation software :D. (plz note: am soprano. unbearably schlocky rather goes with the territory. if you do not love the schlock, you'll probably stop singing. I sing... a lot.)

@85: You know there's a podcast version? You could do your laundry AND listen to HPatMoR.

LMM @88: You are Not Helping. (um, actually, you are; thanks....)

A few hours back, as well. Sorry -- failed to follow up right away.

(For URLs, I am sure.)

[Actually, it was for formatting. A comma with a space on both sides of it (common in mad-lib spam. --Wroriox Rinis, Duty Gnome]

Cassy B. @ #86

I know. It ate my life. My excuse is that it was recommended to me by an actual! rocket! scientist!

Lee, thanks for the tip to the Grounding of Group Six fanfic.

Although I must say the index of that site leaves a lot to be desired. Is it under G? No. Is it under T for Thompson? No. It's under J for the original author's first name.

Allan Beatty @93 - The old Yuletide archive will eventually be imported into AO3 (part of the reason AO3 was founded was because the original site couldn't deal with the stresses of a huge ficathon), but they've been ironing out other system issues first. They're also perfecting the process by importing other archives in danger of disappearing via the Open Doors Project and those take priority over an archive that's stable, if hard to navigate.

Those of us with fic in the old Yuletide archive do keep hoping, but AO3 has had other issues this year due to exponential growth and other features and code fixes have had to be fast tracked to deal with that, so the import keeps getting pushed to the back burner.

Carrie S, I think I'm missing something--ff.net takes me to what appears to be an all-anime site.

On the other hand, I'm seriously considering signing up for an invitation from Archive of Our Own (and have also begun the task of de-Mary Sue-ing Novel #1 (in the TNG-chronological sense, although it's the second in writing order))...and I had an idea for a crossover fic that should probably have occurred to me as soon as I started reading this thread. And the beauty of it is that the category for Crossover Entity 1 has relatively few works, and none of them are crossovers with my Entity 2!

This could be fun...

Allan, #93: I find that sort of thing bothers me less after several years of dealing with iTunes, which alphabetizes the same way. "John Denver" is filed under J, for example.

@Syd no. 95: Fannish shorthand strikes again. It's fanfiction.net in full. Obligatory warning: It's nicknamed the Pit of Voles because someone once commented that if a hundred monkeys typing nonstop for a hundred years could eventually randomly reproduce Macbeth, then whatever lurks at fanfiction.net sure as hell ain't monkeys. But that's a function of the sheer size of the place combined with the lack of an editor; the rare gems are very good indeed.

IME you are likely to get a very big audience at that site, but if you go to AO3 instead, there will be more intelligent criticism and less "U SUCK" and "squee rite moar." Or you could post at both sites, of course.

I love A.J. Hall's fic, particularly her writing of older women. She's now writing in Sherlock- this one is casefic, told from the POV of the intended murder victim ("“Someone spent twenty minutes - twenty minutes, John - the average time on a site page is a second and three quarters and the average hit length for the whole site is 4.357 seconds – browsing scienceofdeduction.com. And this is the search term she used to get there: ‘How’s a woman supposed to prove her husband’s a murderer, dammit?’ God, that’s beautiful.”")
while the Queen of Gondal series is a crossover with Bronte juvenilia; it starts here.
(You don't have to download them, there's an epub reader Firefox extension and I assume similar things for other browsers...?)

If anybody has read Diana Wynne Jones's Tough Guide to Fantasyland, the added entries for modern urban fantasy in The Tough Guide to Fantasy Cities by marycrawford are blissful- I think they really get the flavour of the original.
("Love Triangle
"Female tourists will often be caught up in a love triangle. This generally happens in Undead Cities, where you will have trouble choosing between a Vampire and a human partner, and in Perfect Cities, where the government will assign you a perfect mate, but you will be drawn to someone unsuitable instead.

"One of these potential lovers will be manipulative, dangerous, and difficult; the other will be faithful, honest, and reliable. After much soul-searching, you will inevitably choose the former.

"If there are more species involved, i.e. Werewolves or Fay or Demons or Shapeshifters, your triangle will soon start to resemble a more complex mathematical shape, such as an icosahedron, and you will find yourself unable to move without tripping over some unclad and/or undead person. If this should happen to you, the Management advises you to leave town and start a new Tour under a different name.")

Syd: I'm sorry; as Jenny said, I used shorthand for fear that the longer version might get gnomed.

I will be happy to send you an AO3 invite if you like. (I post there and at fanfiction.net, and Jenny's right that the comments at the latter tend to be both shorter and less articulate, but there are more of them.)

I haven't read GND in a while, but isn't the Crowley in there from Gaiman's and Pratchett's "Good Omens"? Along with Az (Aziraphael, his angelic counterpart)?

Jenny Islander, Carrie S, thank you, that helps immensely. :)

But do you mean post the same work on both sites? About doing which I have no particular concerns, especially if I could set up accounts at each site with the same public name (which might not be my name...haven't decided yet, nor read the all the appropriate site guidelines), and since I'm not doing it for profit, there wouldn't be any copyright issues... Hmmm.

And Cassie, I would appreciate an invitation to AO3--thank you very much! My email in rot13 is ynheryzbbaf(AT)nby(DOT)pbz.

Thank you again, and excuse me while I try to stifle my giggles over how much fun this could turn out to be.

Greetings, gnomes! My comment at/near #101 has been trapped. Only thing I can think of is that I used all caps in parens to indicate the at sign and the dot in my rot13'd email address, although an accident with punctuation-related spacing might be an issue.

I'm afraid I haven't anything with me to share for tea. I feel like such a philistine.

Such Things As Dreams Are Made Of (A Drabble)

Charlie has dreams still. Bad ones. He dreams of Passchendaele and the Somme. And now, while he dreams, Helen will cling to him, warm and soft and loving, trying to ease the pain of memory. The times he was shot, they gave him morphine, and the dreams were different.

The root of Helen's bad dreams is more recent. Charlie cannot know it, whether she tells him or not. He cannot experience it, and knowing of the dreams would scar him. He would, being what he is, take the blame.

The twins have no nightmares. They know not what they did.

Syd: I do apologize, but I spoke too soon; I seem to have no invitations available to me. On an encouraging note, when I got into the queue for AO3 a few months ago, it took less than a week.

I post most things to both AO3 and ff.net, though the latter has more stringent content guidelines so there are a few things that don't go up there. I use the same name for both; some people like one and some people like the other, so I'm just trying to broaden my fanbase... :)

No worries, Carrie! It's going to take me a little while to get Effort 1 ready to go up, anyway. Chapters, I think; it's currently about 157K words long, and the count isn't likely to drop below 145K no matter how much Mary Sue-age (heh) I identify and rewrite. Thanks for thinking of me, anyway.

Also, have you shared a link to any of your work at AO3 or ff.net and I missed it? Because if you haven't, and would like to share, I would look forward to reading... :)

Syd @ #105, Carrie S. @ #104:

I did have an invitation spare, and no particular plans for it, so I've offered it to the email address Syd specified.

Paul A @ 106, thank you! Account created, and once I finish reading all the fine print and how-tos, I'll start posting. I will also check into ff.net and advise when I'm active over there.

Links to postings should stay here, I would think, rather than migrating to the current OT?

Back in the last century I was tempted down the primrose path of fanfic by my favourite TV show of the time, Poltergeist: the Legacy. A lot of P:TL fanfic was badly written and had no plot, so I did a couple of reasonable stories that I'm still proud of - False Knight on the Road and The Harrowing of Hell

'The Thing With Feathers" (Colbert Report). Compassionate and funny.

"Theories About Nuclear Winter" (Calvin & Hobbes) - click through to Part II at the end. Calvin and Susie in high school and after... yes, this is exactly how it would go.

"Amends, or, Truth and Reconciliation" (Harry Potter). Hermione in the postwar.

My recs on Archive Of Our Own. Especially "Lunch and Other Obscenities" as recommended above, and "Sisters of Bilhah" (Handmaid's Tale).

"Tomorrow is Waiting" by Holli Mintzer. Muppets. See Kermit again!

From Yuletide 2011: A few of my favorite stories cover Casino Royale and Billy Elliot. Also check out Star Trek: Deep Space Nine heartwarmers "The Life That Is Waiting" and "In the Files".

If you enjoyed Babysitters Club and have more than an hour, Baby-sitters Club The Next Generation #6: Byron and the God of California will reward your readership. It reads like Ann M. Martin, plus profanity and sex.

Crossover Colbert Report-Harry Potter fanfic (no sex, mind) where the Stephen Colbert persona is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Might it be hot-wrong in some nonsexual sense of the word "hot"? It's certainly funny. "Author's Note: I'm not sure if this counts as a fanfic, a parody of a fanfic, a fanfic of a parody, or all of the above. Whatever it is, I just had to write it."

"Second Verse (Same As the First)" by Friendshipper/Sholio. "The power disparity between the 'Lanteans and the other peoples in Pegasus is something I think about occasionally, but it's never addressed on the show." I don't know much about Stargate but this still kicked me in the gut.

And a couple fan-made videos, "Us" & "Closer", for those who are new to fanvids...

(Lots and lots of URLs.)

I'm not linking to nffge.bet, but Smilodon's "A Fall in Antioch" is a great piece of Brother Cadfael fanfic.

#109 ::: Sumana Harihareswara:

I'm currently caught up in "Amends, and Truth and Reconciliation", but I must note that I misread another fic as "Lurch and Other Obscenities". I consider this unfortunate which is why I had to share.

I have to say I've enjoyed some of this fanfic. I've read some that was horrible, but then I've read some published original fiction that was horrible.

I don't generally feel like writing it. To the extent I write anything, creating the world and characters is the fun, easy part. Writing the actual story is harder.

Sarah S @92: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is DONE! WAHHHH! I've read to the (current) end and I want MORE! More, I tell you!

Cassy B. @114: [..] I want MORE!.

So if in response you write more, is it fanfic² ?

Cassy B., the The next update is due on September 1.

Rob Rusick @115: Heh. Quite. The trouble with that idea is what I loved about this particular piece was the continual surprise. Which I don't get if I'm the one plotting it....

Nancy @116: Good. Let's hope it's more chapters....

I expect that there will be more chapters of HPMOR-- Eliezer said a while ago that he's going to write chapters in bunches and then post them in relatively short intervals.

Nancy Lebovitz @116: As I read it, that's the next progress update, not necessarily the next update to the story.

*Sigh* Well, it's just a couple of days until we find out whether it's chapters or another update.

As putting together recs is more fun than working, and with the caveat that some of these will likely to be known to at least some of y'all, I present some recommendations, most of which are Very Long.

Guerrilla, by Glishara, in which Ivan Vorpatril is forced to take on the role he's always avoided. Goes AU (alternate universe) from Diplomatic Immunity. Character death is very much warned for, but the story is pretty awesome. (Vorkosigan universe novel)

By Any Means Necessary, by tevildo. Marvelous novel-length Ivan-and-By story, with awesome plot and world-building and politics and action. And it ends with Ivan/By, and earns it perfectly. (Vorkosigan universe novel)

Lilac City, by NWHepcat, in which Xander Harris discovers that although ten years have passed, he still has a role to play in the post-"Chosen" world of vampires and Slayers. (Written before the Season 8 comics came out, and catnip for fans of Xander and Faith.) (Buffy universe novel)

The Talking Stick/Circle stories, by Macedon and Peg Robinson, in which season 2 of Voyager never happens and far more interesting (and terrible) things do. If you were frustrated by the way the show entirely failed to handle the Maquis, and were intrigued by the relationship between Janeway and Chakotay, this is for you. It's a bit over-wordy and I could do without so much of the holographic cat, but it is the only piece of fanfiction to ever actually make me cry. Twice. (ST: Voyager, multiple novels)

The Student Prince, by Pandarus, in which Merlin and Arthur are students at St. Andrews. It requires no familiarity with the television show Merlin, really, and is just an entirely entertaining and witty romantic comedy. It's even better in podfic read by the writer, who is a marvelous reader. (If I could, I'd hire her to record all my stories.) (Merlin novel)

Responsible Science, by Lettered, a series of stories examining (primarily) Bruce Banner and his relationships with the other superheroes. My favorite is the one set in Uganda, for its delicate handling of the situation. (Avengers movie-verse, multiple stories)

The Brain Thief, by Holli, in which Young Sam grows up, meets a girl, cracks a case, and tells a lie. Not necessarily in that order. Utterly lovely, with brilliant world-building. (Discworld novel)

Sharp's Dragon, by Blackdisa, in which Richard Sharp is basically dragooned into the Aerial Corps. (Sharp/Temeraire crossover of unlikely skill and believability, novel)

The Sceptre at the Feast, by Ninevah_UK, in which Peter Wimsey follows his nephew's career over the years. So well-done, and heartbreaking. (Wimsey short)

And, to wrap it up with some levity: This is How the Universe Ends, by pervyfic and shewhoguards, in which Death runs into a problem. (Doctor Who/Discworld crossover, short)

And Wait Wait Don't Eat Me! by Nestra, which is pretty much exactly what you think it is: WWDTM, reporting on the zombie apocalypse. It has the dubious honor of having been linked to by the WWDTM staff themselves. (NPR RPF? short)

(SO going to be gnomed, but it looks like someone's around to approve, so I'll hit "post" anyway...)

Where do you people find the time to read all this stuff...?

I have to say thank you for the link to the Calvin and Hobbes one. It reminded me of the cartoons, and then, when I was looking after my niece (5) and nephew (7 I think) I realised how they were clearly using Calvin as a role model and copying his actions as if he were their hero.

Except they can't read very well yet. Do you think Watterson had his own child or just remembered what it was like at that age very well?

Jacque @122: Where do you people find the time to read all this stuff...?

Well, to be fair I don't read as much published fiction as I used to. But I don't miss it, either: fanfiction takes the place of, well, "comfort-reading", really. The lightweight stuff I used to burn through at the public library. And, frankly, the best fanfiction is better written than most published genre fiction is, so there's that.

But also, the list I just posted includes stories over a decade old, from bookmarks I compiled slowly over the last few years. It's not like I ran out and read them all this week to recommend them to you. (Though I am tempted to reread one of the Ivan stories...)

I'm reading Amends, or Truth and Reconciliation and I'm quite impressed by it. Is it finished?

Also, I'm noticing that it and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (something I'm also fond of) simplify Rowling's world.

Part of the fun of canon HP is that it's full of *stuff*. There's magical animals and semi-humans and customs.... Any recommendations for fanfic which does a good job of capturing that aspect?

cofax @121: Thanks--I think--for the Guerrilla link. I spent more hours than I could spare today inhaling it in one gulp. Now the quandary of starting the sequel or waiting for it to be finished.

I'm reading Amends, or Truth and Reconciliation and I'm quite impressed by it. Is it finished?

Sadly, no, and the updates come at very long intervals. Same for Glishara's Emperor.

The down side of fanfiction Works in Progress: some of them never get finished, and in later years fans sit around in the pub and whinge to one another about the legendary X-Files story in which Scully went undercover with the Irish mob and got hooked on cocaine... (X-Files fandom in particular is littered with the corpses of epic unfinished WIPs: it was so bad that I gave up reading them for a long time, but have slowly been sucked back in.)

I love threads like these. I never seem to read fanfic except by explicit friend recco, with good descriptions thereof so that I get a sense of whether it's something I can enjoy. Which reccos this thread is full of, so thank you. Saving a bunch for reading on the train ride home.

(Genius Locii just about made me cry, it was so beautiful. Again, thank you.)

X-Files fandom in particular is littered with the corpses of epic unfinished WIPs:

Well, to be fair, isn't that the way the show itself was too? :P

Yet another set of recs (gnomes, stand by -- there are virtual Voodoo Doughnuts in it for you). One or two of these may be familiar to certain of the present gallery as well, and (like others) I too draw liberally -- though by no means exclusively -- from the Yuletide exchange. And as you can perhaps tell from these, I have a particular weakness for the skillfully executed crossover.

Yule Morning, or Malvolio's Revenge, by ellen_fremedon (Shakespeare)
This one is ambitious, being an actual written-in-blank-verse sequel to Twelfth Night...but for my money, the author does an excellent job with it, and I'd like nothing better to see somebody stage this.

Elsinore, by Malkin Grey (Shakespeare/Supernatural)
The medieval versions of the Winchester brothers are recruited to investigate a haunting in Denmark. This one's in prose,

The Trouble With Harry, by Azar (NCIS/Doctor Who)
Suppose Abby Sciuto of NCIS had been one of the Tenth Doctor's companions, and then suppose a much earlier companion went missing in a way that involves Abby? Both canons are served admirably here, and the character voices are beautifully rendered.

From A World More Full of Weeping, by Azar (Narnia/Doctor Who)
One of the most thoughtful -- and most concise -- treatments I've seen of the "problem of Susan" from the Narnia series, with a perfectly pitched last line.

Wizards in Winter, by oniongirl (Young Wizards/DC Universe)
In which a problem for certain of Gotham City's costumed defenders is neatly and amusingly solved with the aid of certain teen-aged wizards from a neighboring universe. The interlacing of the two canons is ingenious, and the humor is clever without going too far over the top.

The Tale of Marian's Wedding by Gray Cardinal (Robin Hood - trad)
A straight Robin Hood story -- well, except where it isn't, and saying much more would be telling. This is one of those odd Yuletide stories that bridges categories.

There Will Be No Survivors (Except for the Survivors Behind the Curtain, But Pay No Attention to Them) by knightshade (Princess Bride)
In which Westley turns the Dread Pirate Roberts job over to Inigo, though not without certain complications and explanations.

Another Rainbow in Another Sky by Annie D (My Little Pony)
Yes, you read that fandom correctly -- and yes, you do want to read this. The summary at AO3 reads simply "Megan grew up", and that gives you nearly all of what you need to know, although one or two references reward those familiar with certain other '80s animated material. The balance of nostalgia and wry humor is beautifully done.

[Oooh! Doughnuts! -- Borisi Piwxos, Duty Gnome]

Thank you for the "From A World More Full of Weeping" and "Another Rainbow in Another Sky" recommendations!

Yeah, "Amends" is rockin' and I look forward to further episodes. The author's written other stuff in the same universe, in case you don't mind spoilers.

One reason I read fanfic: a few years ago I had a recurring dream that Stephen Colbert was trying to teach me something. Once awake, I looked up nonfiction and fiction about Colbert to figure out what it was I was supposed to be learning. I think the fanfic helped a lot.

Jacque @ 122:

Where do you people find the time to read all this stuff...?

Two words:

Time-Turners. ;)

Thank you for recommending "From a World More Full of Weeping".

I might make a specialty of HP continuations-- that epilogue was so unsatisfactory. However, the thing that tripped me up wasn't so much the damage resulting from the war as that I was hoping the wizards would do something about their corrupt institutions. Maybe not something completely effective, but it's conceivable that they would be shocked enough to do *something*.

Any good fics along those lines? Anything about the house elves?

I keep rereading "The Only John Wayne Left in This Town" by gyzym. It just hits all of my Mary Sue squee buttons. Clinton Barton, AKA Hawkeye, is prodigiously gifted at two things--both involving strings. Takes place in the Avengers/Iron Man/Captain America/Thor live-action cinematic universe.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/364902

Gonna have to check out some of these.

Here's a rec I got from here earlier: Going Native, a ST:TNG / new Battlestar Galactica crossover which ends the latter series in a more satisfying way than the canon (which sets the bar fairly low, I admit). It has an annoyingly high number of spelling mistakes, but is otherwise fairly well-written.

Just finished the latest chapter of Amends, or Truth and Reconciliation, and it's splendid. Just...wow.

Oh, my, such a delicious conundrum: Whatever shall I read next?

Poking my nose up for a rare comment, unfinished chores, laundry needing brought in off the line, and grocery shopping all pending but I can't resist:

A whole lot of good stories are on LJ, unarchived; there are also dozens and dozens of fandom and private websites (some pop out of existence daily, sadly). One way to find better-than-straight run stories is to check the panfandom recs community the Crack Van which is searchable by fandom and sometimes pairing.

I'd also like to second cofax's recommendation of Lilac City which, among other virtues, has absolutely convinced me that inzcverf yhex ng gur V-90 erfg fgbcf va Rnfgrea Jnfuvatgba.

This discussion has greatly interested me in a theoretical way, but I haven't looked up any of the recommendations. I'm not familiar with the source materials, not having followed any TV series since...

Wait a minute, hang on, Making Light will have to wait a few days. I'm off to look up some Fez/Kelso slash.

Allan and people in that situation: browse fandoms on Archive Of Our Own -- books, theater, music, video games, webcomics, films, celebrities...

I'm only about halfway done, but I have to rec Castiron's Not Yet Dead. Let's just say that Reichenbach went sideways, and that Conan Doyle wrote stories about some guy named Sherrinford, and that Sally Donovan is FABULOUS. Warning: it's really long, and as I found to my peril, people with work to do shouldn't start reading.

TexAnne @ #140:

I haven't started reading, because I have things that need doing, but I like the archive tags.

And I finished it, and there were some moments of "I didn't see *that* coming," immediately followed by "but of course that's how it has to be."

The only problem I had with the fic is that Znegva Serrzna vfa'g ungpurg-snprq rabhtu gb cynl Ybeq Crgre. (Not a plot spoiler, just a lovely worldbuilding detail.)

Fanfic is like gossip and cooking and imperialism and leisure travel and cell phone usage ... it's a fact of life, an ordinary thing that people do. Ben Rosenbaum wrote about being irritated when speculative fiction authors ignore present and probable-near-future technology that their characters would totally use, and similarly I am beginning to get annoyed when I read present-day or near-future SF where the characters totally should be reading or making fanworks, yet aren't!

Fortunately, there are counterexamples.

"Tales of MU" gives you, as a bit of character-building backstory for the protagonist, fanfic she wrote as a teen. At less length, in Constellation Games we're told that the main character wrote some Sonic fanfic in junior high.

I bet there is something in The Big Bang Theory and Community that I haven't seen. The "Lemon Lyman" website from The West Wing might have RPF, though it's never stated. Vids "A Different Kind of Love Song" and "We Didn't Start the Fire" show that fanwork is portrayed in Supernatural, The Simpsons, and a bunch of other shows that went by too quick for me to quite catch them all.

And Star Trek: Voyager played with this, especially with that "Muse" episode where a pre-industrial playwright wrote stories based on Voyager characters and experiences.

I'm probably missing huge obvious swathes somewhere.

Carrot cake for the gnomes?

Sumana @143: I don't have the examples or links to hand just now, but I do know that there was a wildly popular Boston Legal fic a year or three back in Yuletide -- either just before or just after the AO3 move, I think -- in which Denny Crane & co. found themselves handling a fanfic court case.

It also wouldn't surprise me a bit to find stories involving fanfic in the burgeoning Castle fandom, possibly more likely on fanfiction.net than on AO3.

And if memory serves, the author of "The Tale of Marian's Wedding", recommended above, has a couple of older stories in which various of the Kim Possible characters (and not necessarily the ones you'd expect) are involved with fanfiction.

***deep breath*** I've posted the first chapter of one of my ST:TNG novels here. Feedback there or here will be greatly appreciated.

146
More? /oliver

P J Evans @ 147, I'm going to take that question as a good sign.

Answer: Soon. The formatting differences required to get things to display nicely a bit of drudgework. Thank you for asking. :)

My partner just called from Dragon*Con to tell me he'd seen a guy carrying a banner that said "BRohan". Someone who is more familiar with MLP than I am desperately needs to write that crossover!

#119 ::: David Goldfarb:

It turns out that as you said, it was just a news of progress update for HPMOR (now made clearer to indicate that that's all that section is).

Lem's Story -- if you liked "The Mountains of Mourning", you'll love this. It's back-story and aftermath both, from a POV that we rarely see in canon.

Too tall, face like a hatchet and eyes like a trout. No denying that she was skinny, and that her face came to a point. But Harra Mattulich was beautiful, was the thing. The most beautiful lady in all the worlds, so far as Lem knew.

Lee @ #151, wow. Thanks for the rec. It takes some nerve to write Vorkosigan fanfic, but both the examples cited here have been excellent.

May I recommend Luminosity and Radiance.

http://luminous.elcenia.com/

Twilight fanfic. I've never read the originals, only critiques of them, but I enjoyed these 2 very much.

Thanks to John C. Bunnell for a world more full of weeping.

I never particularly liked the Narnia canon because of all the Christianity. However, I read it at an impressionable age and it is indeed beautifully written.

But I just totally, totally love the idea of the time-traveling TARDIS up against the orthodox Christian view of the final judgment ....awesome.

I never particularly liked the Narnia canon because of all the Christianity. However, I read it at an impressionable age and it is indeed beautifully written.

There's some really good Narnia fanfiction that challenges or subverts Lewis' interpretation of Christianity, or at least how he condemns Susan for the crime of being a young woman. Went Forth Unconquered is one. Also The Ivory Horn, a crossover with Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" universe, is another. And a third is Food For Thought, a wonderfully-creative story told in the form of Livejournal entries.

Finally, for a truly gritty, adult, political Narnia, look no further than Bedlamsbard: In Constellated Wars is a great example of her work; it's a story set in the interstices of Prince Caspian.

Well, if we're going to talk about subverting Narnia, we can hardly fail to mention Jenna Moran's brilliant Aslan Shrugged.

(Which gnxrf gur aneengvir evtug hc gb gur cbvag jurer vg jbhyq unir gb nyybj bar jbeyqivrj be gur bgure (Puevfgvnavgl be Bowrpgvivfz) gb or qrsvavgviryl pbeerpg...naq vafgrnq bs tvivat hf gung erfbyhgvba, fgbcf fubeg. Abgr gur vavgvny qrqvpngvba gb Fpuebrqvatre! Jr'er tvira gur obk jvgu gur png vafvqr, ohg qba'g trg gb frr vg bcra.)

So… speaking of fanfic. I recently got submerged in Sherlock fandom, and that's why I've been MIA virtually everywhere else online. I was inspired by a Mumford & Sons song to write a short post-Reichenbach fic, but since it's the first fiction I've written since junior high, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. Or why I suddenly couldn't stop myself. But so far I'm entirely on the fringes of fandom, reading along, and not interacting (no tumblr). Of course, I read here for more than two years before I ever commented, so that's probably not surprising.

EClaire: do you have an account on Archive Of Our Own? Posting it there, appropriately tagged, will likely get it some attention, and if you go and look at the profiles of people who've given kudos or left comments, you may find stories you like and people to interact with.

If you don't have an account... well, the wait queue is ENORMOUS after a kerfuffle with ff.net and explicit stories back this spring, but I can see if they've lifted the restriction on existing accounts requesting invite codes, and request one to give to you if a) it's available and b) you'd like one.

Sherlock is HUGE on tumblr and joining tumblr for Sherlock would be throwing yourself in at the deep end... but you'd find an endless source of material!

Loving this thread, and all the wonderful recommendations.

Rikibeth: I don't have an account there yet. I've got a few people whose stories I love, that I follow on Tumblr so I always know when they have an update. I've only managed to find Ivyblossom on Twitter though, so without getting my own Tumblr account, she's the only one I can "talk" to. But yes, I would love an AO3 account, so I can at least leave kudos in my own name. I've just not been brave enough to see about getting one. I'm familiar with the ff.net pearl clutching of earlier this summer though.

Despite reading lots of blogs on Tumblr, not all of them Sherlock related, I'm hesitant to get my own account. For one, I know it would eat time like mad, and I've managed to avoid Pinterest so far for the same reason. For another, and this is the really big one…
I met Benedict Cumberbatch last month. He was filming here in Louisiana and I drove an hour with my 4 year old to see if I could find the shoot. I did, he was standing outside, and I got his autograph. But when I did, and he apologized for not being able to take a picture because he was in costume, I said it didn't matter, I wasn't one of the Tumblr women, I wasn't there so I could post his picture online. And so now, I don't want to BE one of the Tumblr women. Even though, if I'm honest, I might as well be. Yes, I know it's goofy, and he's the only person I've ever gotten the vapors over this way, but there it is.

I've been gnomed, possibly for offenses against punctuation. I heartily apologize, and offer for your delight some homemade strawberry jam on crusty bread.

If, on the other hand, my gnoming was for reasons affiliated with a popular British actor, I apologize for nothing. I will scream his name from the rooftops without regret! Only, not just now, because my neighbors would think it odd at 11:36 at night.

EClaire: alas, AO3 is still not letting current members jump the queue with invite requests. Otherwise I'd have been happy to do it for you.

I'm glad you got to meet him. I'm sorry it's dissuading you from joining in a source of fannish community -- but I readily acknowledge that his fans can get, well, over-the-top.

My admired actors are a bit less universally beloved, except for one who's most famous for BSG -- and he's, by all accounts, really gracious to his fans, and has semi-regular contact with one fan community, amicable enough that the organizer felt comfortable asking if there'd be pictures of him and a former co-star together when they participate in an upcoming charity golf tournament, and he said he'd see what he could do. Another object of my admiration has been very kind to my fellow fans who've met him in person; and yet another (with many more stage credits than film, though my love stems from a TV role) has a twitter and even answered a silly question I asked him over twitter about a very old on-set candid (he was doing needlepoint and I was having trouble making out the design).

I TRY to keep my admiration to a sane level -- where I love the characters, admire the actors' looks, and am happy when they say nice things in interviews and seem to have untroubled lives -- without getting into the Scary Stalker mode. I suspect, though, that if I met them in person, I'd find it difficult to say rational things. Silly, at my age, but still true.

For those who might be interested, the Yuletide Schedule and guidelines for this year went up this week. There is also a brainstorming post here.

That last post contained two links to LJ and mentions of Yuletide. Perhaps the gnomes would like some fic to read while they wait.

[Broken link. (The fic was delicious.) Borx V'shov, Duty Gnome.]

I've read all that's available of Amends, and Truth and Reconciliation, and was impressed and delighted (except for some of the romantic/pornographic elements). I'd appreciate further recommendations for post-canon HP fiction, especially if it's that intelligent. Extra points if the story is complete and/or if there's no sex between good characters and revolting ones. (That last may be a lot to ask.)

The Importance of Being Edited

Hilarious Vorkosigan fic. Pretty much anything else I could say about it would be a spoiler -- just go read it.

166
*snerk*
Good thing I didn't have a drink in hand, of any kind.

@Nancy Lebovitz: I'm currently reading Questions and Answers by little0bird. The Potter and Weasley kids go off to their first year at Hogwarts almost entirely ignorant of what their parents did in the War. This may not have been a good idea. I like it because the kids act like kids, including times when they are absolute snots. It's at 414,000 words and still in progress, just to warn you. Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3954448/1/Questions-and-Answers

Thanks very much. I'm checking it out.

Would anyone care to mention finished fanfic novels which are generally considered classics? I'm especially interested in HP, but who knows what else I might like?

If you like novels of manners, you might enjoy the Peaceful Vorkosiverse series by Bracketyjack (http://bracketyjack.livejournal.com/tag/miles%20vorkosigan), starting with Forward Momentum at the bottom of the page. Lois McMaster Bujold has said that she works out the plots for her novels by trying to imagine the worst thing that could possibly happen. Bracketyjack instead tries to imagine everything going gloriously, spectacularly right in a canon-compliant way. My one nitpick is that the characters are described as conveying whole paragraphs of politically important implications with a change of expression or tone and I don't think that's possible. But then I am "on the spectrum."

#170 ::: Jenny Islander:

Tentative memory: I think Bujold usually has the worst thing happen to characters that they could learn from. (Tien would be an exception.) Just piling misery on characters wouldn't lead to as interesting a universe.

EClaire, I recently joined AO3 due to the kindness of a fellow Fluorospherian with a spare invitation. It will be a couple of hours before I can access my AO3 account, but if I find myself possessed of an invitation to share, it's yours.

Tien isn't a character who's going to learn anything or ever change. He's there as an obstacle to gur ebznapr orgjrra Rxngreva naq Zvyrf.

Rats. Sorry, EClaire, I guess I thought newbie accounts on AO3 came with an invitation to share. I'll keep checking, though, unless someone else comes up with one for you sooner.

Would have been #174. Spacing issue? Use of a word to describe folks who a new to a thing? Something else?

Greetings to the Duty Gnomes, and...I could go buy sandwiches, maybe?

[No, it would have been the format of the URL you were linking to. BTW, any link to twitter.com will always be gnomed. Not that you did, but others have, and I'm sure yet others will. Spamming links to various names at Twitter is Way Popular. -- Voritber Palmyit, Duty Gnome]

The reports of my double gnoming have not been greatly exaggerated.

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I'm now leaving out the URL I'd included on my original comment and subsequent gnoming report. It pointed to my Archive fan fiction page.

[The word "users" between paired forward slashes (/users/) is a frequent spam marker. Here's how it works: The spammer joins some innocent bulletin board somewhere, and puts all its spam links into its profile/user page. It then comment-bombs the world with links, not to, say, http://cheap-louis-vuitton-luggage.com but to http://www.stay-at-home-moms.com/users/38928 (Made-Up URL). Unless we filter on Every Single Bulletin Board In The World With Haphazard Moderation, that spam-laundering trick would get through. Unless... we take it down a level, to a common format within vulnerable bulletin boards. Your post, with your links, will get through as soon as a gnome gets to it (and we cruise the boards pretty often), just not instantly. --Rori Tumvlewaite, Duty Gnome]

Thank you, Vortiber and Rori, for explaining. Greatly appreciated!

***makes note to self not to make more work for the already hardworking gnomes***

Would anyone care to mention finished fanfic novels which are generally considered classics? I'm especially interested in HP, but who knows what else I might like?

My recs at 121 above are all complete, although I would only list The Talking Stick/Circle Stories as acknowledged classics.

Here are a few stories I would consider classics:

X-Files-- Iolokus by MustangSally and RivkaT. Available at AO3, search for RivkaT. Brilliant, disturbing, funny, and seriously challenging to the fans who wanted soft romance and angsty-Mulder. It's probably the most controversial story in the fandom, even now.

Farscape-- Weight of the World by Analise Here. The Peacekeepers take over Earth and Aeryn Sun has to go undercover for the Resistance.

Joan of Arcadia--Goodnight Moon, by Yahtzee. Works best if you know the show, but even if you don't, it'll knock your socks off. Definitely a classic.

Buffy--Phoenix Burning, also by Yahtzee. Buffy wakes up in the far future.

Stargate universe--Retrograde, by Martha Wilson, in which the Atlantis expedition is functionally abandoned for three years and things go very badly indeed. Universally beloved in the fandom.

Harry Potter--not my fandom, and the only recognized classic I can think of is AJ Hall's Lust Over Pendle, which is PG-rated Draco/Neville, written long before the end of the series, and rather unbelievable, but still charming (and long).

Other HP recs can be found here at PolyRecs. They have great taste: anything recced at PolyRecs is going to have proper grammar and spelling, and likely be well-characterized. And they don't recommend unfinished stories, IIRC.

In general, PolyRecs is a great resource for finding fic worth reading in dozens of fandoms, although a sad number of the links have gone dead (they're working on correcting that).

Your College English Classes, Only With Hot Guys Banging

NSFW (but not graphic), there's a very specific reason I'm reccing it here, and put down your drinks first.

Lee: BUY MORE...

Thanks for the warning, and the laugh, Lee.

Has anyone seen fanfic about Puddleglum in heaven? I was looking for him the first time I read The Last Battle because it was hard to imagine how a character could plausibly be both Puddleglum and in heaven. Perhaps Lewis also found it hard to imagine.

Oh my goodness, Cofax. That Joan of Arcadia story! Sloppy sloppy crying, but wonderful!

I finally put in for an AO3 account, and they're estimating the beginning of December before I get to the top of the queue. So I should probably write more, so I have more than one short fic to post when I finally get there. Thank you for the offers for accounts though.

I've only ever been on the outskirts of fandom, despite sharing lots of interests, so I still feel very insecure about making a bother of myself if I were to jump in with both feet. Although, I suppose jumping in with both feet is rather what being part of a fandom is about.

EClaire @183

NaNoWriMo is looming: a challenge to write 50000 words in November. It might be worth having a go.

Dave Bell: Garrrgh! NaNoWriMo. It's one of those chocolate covered sundaes that makes it really hard to remember that I already have plenty of irons in the fire, thankyouverymuch.

EClaire @183 and anyone else who is in the queue for an AO3 account:

Yuletide will be starting sign-ups in mid-October and there will probably be an AO3 invite distribution for people who want to sign up for the exchange who don't have an account yet. If you're interested in writing for a rare fandom exchange, that might be a way to jump the queue. See my earlier comments for links to the brainstorming post and other information.

I am currently 3845 words into a piece of crossover fanfic. I am also currently clueless as to how Group B ends up in Group A's locale, ditto for why, and can only hope the characters will lead me in the right direction.

Fun, though. :)

Wouldn't be eligible for Yuletide, unfortunately, as the characters from Group B have quite the healthy fandoms on both AO3 and ff.net (to use a previous useful shorthand). Based on a bit of research, though, Group A's universe would seem to be within the stated parameters given on the link in Hilary Hertzoff's #186...

Hmmm...

Also, strong (heh) agreement with cofax's rec in #121 for The Talking Stick/Circle "braided novels"--they are excellent, and kept me glued to my screen to the exclusion of all else for many enjoyable, heartbreaking, redemptive hours this last weekend.

Syd @187 - Just to clarify, the exchange isn't for previously written fanfic. You offer fandoms and make prompt requests and get assigned someone to write for and someone to write for you.

I have two remaining A03 invitations free to a good home. Should anyone wish one, feel free to email me at the addy in the 'view all by', minus the underscore and (most likely useless) anti-spamming mechanism.

Hilary Hertzoff @189: Just to clarify, the exchange isn't for previously written fanfic. You offer fandoms and make prompt requests and get assigned someone to write for and someone to write for you.

Do they do artwork as well as textual fiction? How specific can you be? (E.g., This fandom, focusing on this character?)

Yuletide is for exchanging fics so only artwork won't do, I'm pretty sure if you're a fan artist and a writer you could write a story and illustrate it but if you only do art you shouldn't sign up for yuletide. Instead you wait and pounce on all the new stories when they go live on christmas day :) I don't remember what the minimum word count is but there is one. Until a few days before go live day where the recipients that were defaulted on (as in the person assigned to write their story didn't) have their prompts go public so that anyone can do a last minute pinch-hit. I think the minimum word count is dropped on those very last minute stories or ficlets because the main aim is to ensure that everyone will at least receive something.

In general only the fandom has to match but usually people who are signed up do an open Dear Yuletide writer sort of letter where they say a bit more about why they picked their prompts and what their favourite things are about the fandoms etc. Again the writer doesn't have to follow any of that but usually it will colour the story since it's written for that specific person after all. Sometimes some bending is required to make things fit from either side but usually it works out pretty well.

Melody @190: Alas, the "view all by" no longer displays addresses. I am very much interested in one of those invitation codes. Might you email me at elise a t lioness d o t net if you've got one left, please? Thank you!

Melody at 190: me too please, if you still have one? lila a t markandlila d o t com

Jacque @191, I believe what you are looking for is Yuletart which is a multifandom art exchange.

There is also Festivids for those of you who prefer to make fanvids.

Elise and Lila—done and done. If for some reason you receive neither the AO3 invites or my follow-up email, feel free to let me know at mdnims a t gmail d o t com.

Thank you!!

Hilary Hertzoff @195: Well, acutally what I was thinking of would be sort of bespoke fic involving [char] in [fandom], to which I could then contribute some art.

Thank you!

Thank you, Melody!

I'm much more of a dabbler, and not ready to try anything long. That would involve far too much plot! Thank you all for the support though. It means more coming from the incredibly smart people here.

Those of you who liked Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon might also like "Goodnight Room" by Julia Rios ("Skogkatt"). She also wrote a great ending for Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.

Oh, that conclusion to The Diamond Age is sweet and appropriate, and what I needed to close that one cracked door in the back of my head that the story had left. (I don't mind stories that leave behind doors I want to open again, but they ought to know how to close the door at the end.) Thank you for the link!

Jacque @198 In that case you might want to look for big bangs. The idea is that someone writes a long fic and someone else provides art to go with it. There are a number floating around in most major (and some minor) fandoms and some non-fandom-specific ones like scifibigbang (anything SF or Fantasy qualifies).

Oh hey, maybe here is a good place to ask this. (Alas, LiveJournal.)

Can anybody recommend Torchwood/Doctor Who fanfic focusing on Jack Harkness, specifically dealing with what he did between the last episode of his first stint with the Doctor ("Journey's End") and the first episode of Torchwood? Slash is obviously okay, though I'm more interested in story than in sex.

Mostly what I'm looking for is plot. Even pointing me at the right combination of tags to filter the frankly staggering number of fics into something more manageable would be fantastic. Or -- dare I hope -- a single tag?

Kellan Sparver:

I would start with Polyamorous Recommendations, a site linked upthread. (It's called Polyamorous because the reccers like many fandoms, not because all the stories are about poly relationships.) They have, ISTR, quite a lot of Torchwood stories there.

Another option would be to look at the bookmarks on AO3 for Torchwood (filtering by tag is down right now, sorry), or try searching Delicious or Pinboard for Torchwood recommendations.

We have chapter 64 of "Amends"! *settling in to read*