The Middle Distance

Fuck work. Don't wanna talk or think about it anymore.

For me these days, the best temporary remedy for the Republican Economy Blues is the SQUEE.

So have some recs! This is what brightened up my last 24 hours more than anything else.

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Harry Potter

Essay: rexluscus has written an astoundingly beautiful and wise journey of meta on Snape in DH. (**SPOILERZLIEKWHOA**)

Illustrated fic: Platform 9.99999999999999 by Didodikali (trickofthedark). Gen. Dumbledore, King's Cross, and atonement. (**SPOILERZLETMESHOWYOUTHEM**) Quiet and strong and packs a profound punch. Very inventive and unusual.

Art: Inspired by another story by Didodikali, Just Try Me by Frodobolson72 on DeviantArt. G-rated but smoking. Made well before DH, so no spoilerz...except it almost is, in a way!

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Pratchett-tastic!

There's only thing in all the worlds that could have improved Monstrous Regiment. I didn't realize what it was until I read the first part of this story. Duh - appearances by Aziraphale and Crowley, of course!

At Stake by daughtersofisis. Good Omens/Discworld crossover, PG-13ish. Part 1 of a WIP. Vivid, plotty, hysterical--has that so hard-to-achieve Pratchettesque quality of making me want to stop and applaud the author every few lines, while still maintaining a plot that can keep the dream of fiction going even with the fourth wall made of Swiss cheese.

If you read only one Good Omens crossover this week, make it this one:

Falling Without a Parachute
by musegaarid
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: James Bond/Crowley (!)

It's tense, tautly-plotted, rich with all sorts of prickly nuggets on good and evil and the liminality of secret agents, it's wistful and moving, and when it's funny it's very funny (vintage car one-upmanship!) and when it's hot it's very hot. And she does a spot-on first-person Bond voice.


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Here's a silly meme from shadowvalkyrie via skull_bearer:

The Challenge: Assemble a superteam from your various fandoms.
Your team must consist of the following:
(1) Team Leader
(1) Warrior
(1) Smartypants
(1) Hottie
(1) Comic Relief
All your superteam members must be from DIFFERENT fandoms.

here's mine -- all of them from different fandoms.

The superhero team:
Team Leader – Sam Vimes
Warrior – Éowyn of Rohan
Smartypants – John Constantine
Hottie – Grownup Adam Young
Comic Relief – All the Democrats in the US Senate


The supervillain team:
Team Leader – Great Cthulhu (why settle for a lesser evil?)
Warrior – Anakin Skywalker at his whiniest
Smartypants – Stephen Colbert
Hottie – Young Tom Riddle
Comic Relief – Borat. And a bunch of owlbears.

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OK, now back to the Porn Battle. Six days of it left to go. Why yes, I am hoping to do one a day. Why yes, they will all be different fandoms. I think. That's the plan anyway.

Why, yes!

The giftfic posted for me at go_exchange: Casual as Birds. (Aziraphale/Crowley, PG). Definitely not your usual holiday fluff: it's got war-battered London, and stoic, sympathetic Aziraphale, and Crowley who's been through a hell worse than Hell, and bittersweet TLC with so much unspoken and it's absolutely beautiful. (No, it's nothing like my request - but I don't mind a bit!)

And not one but two wonderful people wrote giftfic for all us GOE mods!

xylodemon wrote Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot, (PG, Crowley, gen), which is a hilarious series of day-in-the-life vignettes as a mischievous demon tries to get through his New Year's Resolutions (yes, the Gaiman-Pratchett ones) with his dignity, such as it is, intact.

And blueeyedtigress wrote New Year's Plans, a pair of mirroring vignettes in which Aziraphale and Crowley scheme sweetly in their own very distinctive ways. So much WAFF....

There's just no text-box big enough to contain the squee. Thank you all so much!

Who can?

To commemorate swashbucklathon's decision to extend its deadline to December 31, here's some recs. Just things I particularly enjoyed.

Fic: Sandman

Untitled by katilara. A simple but very atmospheric and eloquent story about Death's centennial day as a mortal. Which she spends with a pirate.

Art: Harry Potter

Drinking Buddy by pinkelephant42. (Snape, Draco, Squid, G) Fantastically colorful drawing with glorious textures of wood/sky/water, and a suggestion of a really interesting story in there somewhere I would love to read.

Just Give In... by sillyshy. (Hermione/Tonks, PG) Never enough femslash, is there? This one won me over with its charm, its expressions, and yes, its corsets. Gets me every time.

Saturday Afternoon Piracy by theo_winterwood. (James, Remus, Sirius, Peter, PG). The Marauders play dress-up. I adore the colorfulness and children's-book-illustration quality of this; it makes their fantasy world so much more vivid than the mundane one that surrounds them (for a certain value of "mundane" that is).

Fic: Pirates of the Caribbean (Why yes, the main object of Swashbucklathon was to piratify fandoms that suffer from a pirate deficiency. But you can't leave this one out!)

Bait for the Wind by thegiantkiller. (Tia Dalma/Elizabeth; various other pairings, R). This is a haunting and bittersweet story, not much more forgiving than the sea. But Tia Dalma has her moments of sad generosity.

Fic: Good Omens

Right Between the Deadlights by use_theforce_em. (Aziraphale/Crowley, NC-17). Yes, I've recced this one before, and I would have even if it hadn't been written for me. Just fantastically raw and funny and gritty and fascinating; in which Aziraphale finds a way of earning respect in a milieu where he is utterly out of his element. Yum. Hot. Also featuring beautifully cinematic appearances by War and the Kraken, who are not out of their respective elements at all.

Art: Supernatural

Untitled by cathybites. (Sam/Dean, R/NWS). I've never watched an episode of this show, so you know this is special if I'm reccing it. It's just...utterly...gorgeous. Stark and flowing and passionate Aubrey Beadsley homage with wallsex on a ship. You want to look at this, trust me.

Fic: Lord of the Rings

Upon the Western Wave by tears_of_nienna. (Aragorn/Legolas, PG). Yes, there are canonical pirates in the LOTR-verse. (PJ even played one in ROTK). Lots more should be done with them. This is a decent start, though it focuses more on the central relationship....but what I love is that there is so much acknowledgement of other tidal pulls on their affair. Aragorn has Arwen. Legolas has the Sea and the West.

Comic: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Slayers on the High Seas by redpiratemel. (Buffy/Faith, PG-13). OMG! Another fandom I've never been in, but WOW - the story; the expressiveness; the snark; the sexiness. If more pro comics were this good, I would probably read more of them.

Fic: Sherlock Holmes

The Adventure of the Crimson Coat by tmartian42. (PG13; gen, no pairings). The very fact that AU Sherlock Holmes piratefic exists is reason enough to rec it, don't you think? Oh yes, and it's also very nicely done!

Me, I'm thinking of writing a little bit more in the "Brag It Out"-verse, and maybe a short thing in some other fandoms entirely.

My hate for the new posting interface knows no bounds. If you knew what ancient browser I was using, you might know how it just makes some things downright impossible for me. ICK.

Like, right now, I can't see what I'm typing because my icon has inexplicably migrated into the text boxto be in the way.. Oh, LJ. When will you ever learn to fix the things that ARE broken, and don't fix the things that ain't: this is Southern Common Sense 001; Remedial.

But here's something that ain't broken: r_becca has a fabulous post on A Guide To Participating In Fic Exchanges. Oh HELL yes.

One trend I've noticed at go_exchange this year that is super-cool? Long fics are happening. We've got one 21,000-word novella, a 14-page comic, another clocking in at 15,000 words or so, and a handful of 8,000-ish worders. I'm not one of these people who believes long fics are superior in any way inherently to shorter ones--I'm a short-story writer at heart myself, my longest fic ever so far was about 20k--but it is a form of storytelling that definitely has its own rewards, and there haven't been all that many of those in GO fandom lately, and it's great to see people really allowing themselves the room to stretch out. Did our longer deadline this year make that possible? At any rate, it's great to see.

Oh, and happily, there have been some posts at lower_tadfield lately that weren't GOE-related, thank Someone, that unbroken Wall o' Spam was starting to worry me. And both of 'em absolutely fabulous fanart: thank you bonemeadow and andreanna, you made my week!

So of course while writing and posting my swashbucklathon fic, I did wonder a bit who had my request.

It was use_theforce_em, who beta read mine and never so much as hinted. Beware one so devious as well as talented; she's dangerous!

And oh my stars and shipwrecks, is it funny, vivid, twisty, rough and tender, exciting, and hot. Oh Lord Yes.

Right Between the Deadlights

My prompt was: “What on earth is Aziraphale doing in Tortuga? You tell me. Bonus points for seasick!Crowley, a bar brawl, and cameo appearances by War and the Kraken.

It's all there. Plus a special guest-star appearance at the end. Plus, y'know, absolutely scorching sex that's what I love most: a touch perverse and a little dangerous and very revealing.

I can't thank her enough! (Though I will try...I do owe her a little something. ;) )

Another sign of Davy Jones Locker fast approachin' fiscal instability? It appears The Company may have got rid of our taxi voucher program. If so, that's gonna suck--not so much for me, but for all the people who live more than two El stops away from downtown, which is most.

And here we are on the Maximum Inconvenience Holiday Schedule. If I wasn't a smoker, I'd get no fresh air at all!


Here, have a rec! Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack/Elizabeth, R

the Nights Out series by artaxastra. Just beautifully written, smoldering with tension, and very hot. Romance embodied in unblinkingly gritty realistic details.

Happy Equinox, everyone!

And Happy Birthday to Bilbo and Frodo!

There's a lot of interesting stuff on metafandom lately about fandom and large amounts of mainstream attention - related largely to something about a Wall Street Journal article on fanfiction, and some Kirk/Spock vid set to NIN's "Closer" going all the way around the world on YouTube.

Today musesfool relates the small-community nature of fandom to that of underground rock in the 80s, and relates mass-media attention to the phenomenon of Nirvana and the year punk broke. Yeah. Just...yeah. Meaty thoughts to chew on, and oh yeah, deja frickin' vu.

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So Fandom_Lounge at journalfen has a link to a mildly alarming story about the popularity of the Harry Potter books among Guantanamo detainees. (It comes from a bit of Defense Department propaganda about the "benefits" the detainees are enjoying. What's a little waterboarding between friends if you get to play table tennis and read Harry Potter, too? Hell, half the American public thinks "waterboarding" is something John Kerry does off Nantucket.)

The comments thread. is even funnier. Hell, I want to write read Osama Bin Laden Hogwarts self-insert fic. (Not as if I've never made a joke about him in HP fic before).

Why? Because the louder the usual election-year drone about terra!terra!terra! gets, the less I want to hide under the bed and vote Republican (not that I've ever found either of those attractive options) and the more my natural gut-level instinctual response drifts toward ever-increasingly-tasteless jokes.

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Speaking of other ways right-wingers scare and bilk people....


Here's a rec for a Good Omens fic I just loved:

Human Footnotes

author: shiplizard
rating: PG
Characters: Aziraphale and Crowley (you can read it as slashy or just friendly)
Summary: 1920s. America.

A very powerful and haunting story (in its subtle, sneaking-up-on-you way) about abuses of faith, exploitation of the flock, and the arc-bend toward justice. Also about friendship and forgiveness (which of course are both intimately connected with justice).

First off, reposting this from all over. If you know alchemine please consider joining foralchemine. If you know her, you know why.

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Happy belated birthday, shaggydogstail!

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It occurs to me I did a lousy job of announcing quantum_witch's and my latest collab at switchythings on Sunday--all cryptic and vague for no reason. But readers seem to have found it anyway.

I'll just do it properly now because I'd hate for anybody who's interested to miss it:

Remember Who You're Talking To
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: NC-17 (and NWS art)
Summary: There is an argument. Aziraphale proves a point--and not just the one he intended.
Warnings/Adverts: Kinky.
Author's Note: The 30_lemons prompt was #1 "Anonymity," or "Taken By the Faceless Stranger." You think that was an easy one for these guys? And setting a story in what is basically Kipling's India kept making me want to write Crowley an ignominious discorporation-by-mongoose, which is counterproductive to teh pr0n.

Yup, locked to members. Cause it's just that dirty. QW and I are putting some thought into what we'll do to celebrate when we pick up our 200th member, which is scarily not that far off. Suggestions welcome!

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Here are some miscellaneous fics I've really enjoyed lately:

Completion by kallisti78

Fandom: HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos
Pairing: Azathoth/Nyarlathotep
Rating: NC-17
Her warning is priceless: “Formless and insane interdimensional horrors mating. What more warning do you need?”

This is really starkly beautiful. Trusssst me.


Those Other Things by use_theforce_em

Fandom: Good Omens
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: R

Sweet and startling dream-sex story with some absolutely gorgeous imagery and fresh metaphysical turns that manage to enrich the paradox of just how human they are and just how human they aren't.

And thanks to defaultlyric for reminding me this exists!

Harry Potter and the Eagle of Truthiness by Christine Morgan

Fandom: Obvious, innit? :D
Rating: Unrated. I'd say PG for language.

The new DADA teacher is an American with BALLS. Oh, and he's a bald eagle Animagus! Considering that Stephen Colbert had already written himself as a Gary Stu into Middle-earth, this is metafanfic with so many layers it makes me cry like an onion. In a good way.

Also, if you feel like joining world_cup_slash, there's a very nicely done (friendslocked) PG-rated short, "Attention-Seeker," by grondfic that explains the Zidane/Materazzi incident in just the right way....

My esteemed collaborator quantum_witch posted me a birthday present today! (Four days early but I needed a smile right now)

Like most of our collaborations, it's a smutty illustrated Good Omens slashfic - but she did all the work herself! (I hope she doesn't ever expect me to do any drawing, because nobody wants to see that!)

Anyway, it takes a few-sentence bit from one of our collaborations and expands it into a full story. it's sweet, it's hot, it's funny, it's just wow. Go look!

Twice-Changed World

(Aziraphale/Crowley, NC-17, NWS illustrations, etc.)

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And happy actual birthday, tehta! May this year be a great one.

I love maggiehoneybite's birthday fic for her - in which Helob and Morliant, her slashy Tolkien-verse Giant Spider antiheroes, save their species' honor in The Middle-earth Minions of Evil Football Final!. Just brilliant.