This list includes all of my posted fanfiction, except for unfinished things and a few short pieces that I never even gave titles to. All my stories on LJ are also tagged; see the "fic" tags on my sidebar.

Within each category, stories are listed in reverse chronological order with the most recent at the top. I've included only the title and main characters here; see the header of each story for rating, any warnings, etc.

Please let me know if there are any problems with these links.


( Blake's 7 )

( Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

( Discworld )

( Doctor Who )

( due South )

( Harry Potter )

( Simon Pegg and/or Nick Frost fandoms )

( Torchwood )

( X-Men Universe )

( Other Fandoms )

Dear Yuletide writer,

( click to read )

I am doing the happy dance of the person who once again has internet access from home. Be grateful that you can't see me.

*****

Earlier today, while I was online looking at LJ, I was suddenly redirected to a site that Firefox said had an invalid certificate (Firefox blocked the site before it could come up). I restarted Firefox, and the same thing happened again. And again. I couldn't even get to my homepage. I tried again in IE--same thing. I restarted the computer--same thing. I unplugged the wireless router for a minute, which usually cures stupid annoying problems--same thing.

So, with all my security running, I let Firefox take me to the untrusted site, which turned out to be (or at least appeared to be) a login page for Ruckus Wireless.

I began to panic, and scanned my computer with all three of my antivirus/antimalware programs. Nothing found.

Then I tried using the city's free wireless connection (which only allows you to view the city's webpages), and it worked fine.

And then I packed up my computer and took it out to a coffee shop with wireless access, where, as you may have surmised, I connected without problems.

I'm glad the problem isn't some kind of browser-hijacking malware, but I'm wondering what the hell it is. I don't actually know who my ISP is--the arrangement with my housemate is that I pay her a flat amount per month and she handles the bills--so I'm wondering if Ruckus (which I googled just now and which seems to be legitimate) is actually our provider and my housemate has simply failed to pay the bill. Although that doesn't explain why the site should come up as having an invalid security certificate (which it did in both Firefox and IE).

This better be a temporary problems, because losing internet access from home would seriously complicate my life.

*****

My spellcheck program is telling me that "memorize" is spelled with a "z" and not an "s" in British English, contrary to the usual practice. I've checked the OED, which unhelpfully gives me both spellings with no explanation.

So, British folks, should I believe spellcheck?

(Yes, I do try to follow British spelling conventions when writing in British fandoms. I find it kind of fun.)


ETA: Never mind. I just tested with the word "realize," and apparently my spellcheck allows "ize" even when I've set the language to British English. *headdesk* Luckily, I can catch any slips by searching for "ize" (unlike the or/our issue, where searching for the string "or" pulls up about every tenth word in the document).

*****

The "t" key on my laptop has just detached itself. I can still sort of type but getting a "t" is a huge annoying effort. I googled, and according to some (e.g., Yahoo Answers) I can just superglue the kay back on. Has anyone tried this? Will I ruin my laptop if I do?

I can't afford to replace either the keyboard or the laptop. (Computer is an aged Gateway, if that matters.)

ETA: I seem to have resolved the problem by removing the ick that was under the key and then pressing it back down hard. Hopefully it'll stay on, but I'd still value advice on the superglue option in case it doesn't.

*****

I'm selling my box set of Blake's 7 DVDs (the complete series plus extras and commentaries). These are region 2, but are playable using a region-free DVD player or, on a computer, VLC player.

The set's in excellent condition, with just slight wear to the box. All discs play perfectly.

I've got these up at Amazon for $210, but I'll sell them on LJ for $195, which includes shipping. I'm afraid I can only sell and ship to someone in the U.S.; international shipping is just too much of an expensive hassle.

Payment by PayPal. Please leave a comment (all comments are screened) with your address and I'll reply with my PayPal information.

*****

Yesterday I proved my theory that the only way not to spend money is not to leave the house. I went out for non-book-buying purposes and nevertheless came back with a copy of Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals. I'd been resisting so nobly, and waiting for it to become available at my library! But I was 52nd in the library's queue, which has not moved at all in two weeks, and my patience finally surrendered to the urge to read it now.

So. Bought it, read it. It made me sad.

( major spoilers )

OMG SO BORED. But this is not ordinary boredom, it's the horrible kind of boredom where nothing sounds good. I've got three movies from Netflix that I'm returning tomorrow, all unwatched, because I can't bear the thought of any of them. I've got books I could read, but somehow not one of them is about awesome gay space pirates saving the universe (or a reasonable approximation thereof--the gay part is not negotiable, hence my lack of options).

I'm very much in the mood for fanfic, but everyone's either doing NaNo or gearing up for the ten bajillion Christmas/Yule/winter ficathons that every fandom has now, and nobody's posting any.

Help me, o wondrous peoples of LJ! Please rec me things (fanfic, cool websites, light but not utterly stupid TV with m/m homoeroticism). Or ask me questions! (I'd do a meme if there were any going around.) Or tell me things! Secrets, stories, random facts about cephalopods, the location of the fountion of youth or the lost Doctor Who episodes . . .


*****

I just finished reading Tim Pratt's short story collection Hart & Boot (Night Shade Books, 2007), and it's a book I think many of you might enjoy. Pratt's stories range all over the map of sff forms, from historical fantasy to invented worlds to parallel universe science fiction to a strange, disturbing version of the quest for the holy grail, and even the more traditional forms get interesting new twists. His prose is deft and his characterization is nuanced and three-dimensional, and that includes the female characters. Four stories out of thirteen have female protagonists, which is a respectable average for a male writer, I think. Plus, there are queer people and same-sex relationships in his stories, simply as part of the ordinary fabric of life, and there's a general sex-positive vibe that I like (one protagonist is non-monogamous, another sometimes works as a professional dominatrix). It's a breath of fresh air, and it also left me very aware of how limited a lot of sff writing is in terms of gender and sexuality.

I wouldn't call these stories earthshattering (he's not quite in the league of a Kelly Link or China Miéville) but they're very good, thought-provoking, and well worth a read.

*****

In the mini-commentary meme, stunt_muppet asked about a passage from my Vetinari/Drumknott story (Let's Play) Master and Servant. I'd been thinking about writing a full commentary for that story anyway, because I wanted to think more about what I wanted to do with the story and whether the story accomplished it. So I went ahead.

Below the cut is my commentary on the entire (not worksafe) story. I highly recommend reading the story without commentary first; there's a link above.

( click here to read the commentary )

Snagged from penknife:

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

The complete list of my stories is here or you can use my tags.

*****

Happy birthday wisdomeagle!

I'm now reading A Thief in the Night, the third collection of Raffles stories (yes, I read all of the second one today).

I'm on page 34. So far, Bunny has twice used the word "love" to describe his feeling for Raffles and has directly compared it to romantic love between a man and a woman.

And then there's this endearing little moment after Raffles has announced his intention to get a telephone installed in his rooms:

"Good!" I cried. "Then we shall be able to talk to each other day and night!"

Oh, Bunny, you are so sweet that you absolutely break my heart.

These books are the Spinal Tap of slash: their slash amplifiers go up to eleven.


ETA: The Raffles books are in the public domain. If you want to read them, they can be downloaded legally and free. The Internet Search Archive has links here to PDF files of the actual books, and Project Gutenberg has text files (which I find less readable) here.

There are four books, in this order: The Amateur Cracksman, The Black Mask (U.S. title Raffles: Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman), A Thief in the Night, and the novel Mr. Justice Raffles.

*****

I've finished the first volume of E. W. Hornung's stories about Raffles the gentleman thief and his sidekick Bunny. I'm glad to report that they're as homoerotic as I'd been led to believe, and even more so. Bunny does rather go on about how attractive Raffles is (what with his lithe athletic body and all), and also how masterful (the word being one of many delightful nods to Holmes and Watson, since the Raffles stories are basically AU Holmes fanfic). Raffles, for his part, is apparently a magnet for every Uranian in England. He's somehow acquainted with "a young fellow of the exquisite type" who invites him to visit the parental home (to play cricket, of course) and is decidedly put out when Raffles wants to bring Bunny too. Bunny deeply disapproves of the subsequent flirtation ("In the dining-room [Raffles] and Crowley lit their cigarettes with the same match, and had their heads together all the time.")

Apparently Hornung modeled Raffles on George Ives, an early gay-rights pioneer, and the stories are so homoerotic that it's hard to believe Hornung wasn't doing it on purpose. For instance, ( cut for length and slight spoilers )

Besides the incidental homoeroticism, I think the whole premise of the stories is coded as queer. Bunny is lured into crime by his old schoolfellow Raffles (who began the seduction back in their school days). Bunny's ashamed, while Raffles is not, but they both know they'll lose their place in society and their status as gentlemen if anyone finds out--not to mention going to prison. Bunny repeatedly tries to break away, but he's so dominated by the irresistible Raffles that he can never manage it. This is all pretty exactly analogous to Victorian ideas about how young men are lured into "unnatural vice."

All in all, a good deal of fun. I've downloaded the later volumes through Google books (they're in the public domain) and am looking forward to the homoerotic hijinks.

*****

1) Watched the new Merlin episode. ( spoilers )

2) Picked up Terry Pratchett's The Last Hero from the library and sort of read it. I read the good bits, which is to say, the bits without Cohen the Barbarian and the Silver Horde in them. There aren't many Pratchett creations I loathe, but I loathe Cohen and I wish he'd just been let quietly disappear once Discworld became more than a Robert Howard parody. The problem with Cohen is that writing him does something to Pratchett's normal good sense and causes him to make rape jokes. Rape jokes are NEVER. GODDAMN. FUNNY.

On the other hand, Vetinari is especially awesome in The Last Hero, and gets to express the thoughts of all sensible people about barbarian heroes. ( cut for length )

To be fair, the book does call the "heroism" of Cohen and company into question, but I just can't be arsed to care about a bunch of pillaging raping murderers.

A lot of the art is lovely, though. I often don't like the way Paul Kidby draws characters (Ponder Stibbons needs to look less like a plump Harry Potter, Rincewind positively frightens me, and Vetinari's just blah) but Kidby does beautiful landscapes, buildings, and animals, and his pages from Leonard of Quirm's notebooks are breathtaking. I wish I could show you the amazing splash page of a post-apocalyptic Discworld, but I can't find it online.

Although Drumknott is not in the book (*sniffles*), it did give me Drumknott-related thoughts, because it establishes that there is a god of "paperclips, correct things in the right places in small desk stationery sets, and unnecessary paperwork." He's not a very nice god, but he exists! I imagine Drumknott offers him a propitiatory prayer every so often, just in case.

3) Also picked up a copy of the first volume of E. W. Hornung's Raffles stories, because apparently they're slashy as hell. I've only glanced at it, but this appears to be the case.

4) Have edited about 12,000 words of story. Have about 4000 to go. Am kind of sick of story now. Also, have misplaced personal pronouns.

5) I still can't think of a title for the story. (Hello again, personal pronouns! Nice to see you!) I'm awfully tempted to call it "Death, Tea, and Rhetoric (Tea Is Compulsory)."

No, I'm not actually going to turn 16,000 laborious words into a silly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern joke, but I am tempted. My life would be easier if I could just steal the title from a poem, but I've decided I'm not allowed to do that either, because I do it too often.

I swear, sometimes the title is the hardest part.


*****

The authors have been revealed at remixthedrabble, so I'm reposting the two remixes I wrote.

Title: Creation (the Cooking for Two Remix)
Remix of: An untitled drabble (the first one on the page) by benebu
Fandom: Good Omens
Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley
Rating: All ages
Word count: 100

( Creation )

Title: Absolute Zero (the Quantum Singularity Remix)
Remix of: Frozen, by kerravonsen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness
Rating: Teen
Word count: 100

( Absolute Zero )

I'm writing up my Yuletide request (no, it's not open for requests yet, I'm just obsessive). I'm definitely requesting Discworld and the Points novels (by Lisa A. Barnett and Melissa Scott). But for the other two requests, I'm torn between three fandoms! Ah, the heartache! It's just like a seventies pop song, only fannish.

I could ask for China Miéville's Bas Lag novels; there's hardly any fic even though tons of people always volunteer to write them for Yuletide. But it's a hella intimidating fandom to write in, and I'm worried about writer panic leading to writer flakeout and a pinch-hit.

Or I could request Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe novels. The recent books in that series haven't thrilled me, and I'm really more in the mood for sf/f than for mystery, but I do love the characters.

The third option is Hyperdrive, a TV show I and a few others love but which has no fandom. I worry that if I got matched on this fandom, it'd be to one of those people who signs up to write everything; I'm nervous about the prospect of fic by someone who doesn't actually care about the source text.

And so, I poll the audience. I don't promise to be bound by the results, but it'll help me decide.

Also, polls are fun.


Poll #1474429
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 25

1) Which additional fandoms should I request for Yuletide? Pick TWO.

2) How's the weather?

*****

Happy birthday, slashweaver!