The Middle Distance

I got a three stories this year, my main one and two treats. I've never gotten any treats before! That in itself makes it special.

And I love my stories.

Two of them are based on this song:



The tune is a Christmas classic, of course, made all the better because the Pogues are one of my favorite bands of all time and I've loved this song since the album came out in 1986.

There are a lot of ways you can go with writing about this song - even though none of the characters are named, it has a lot of them. There's a novelistic richness to it.

And the Bells Were Ringing Out tells it from the point of view of one of the "boys" of the NYPD Choir, contemporaneously with the song.

Baile an Fheirtéaraigh Garda Station – Christmas Eve 2011 also is narrated by an Irish-American New York cop, and it's set in the present day about brings things around full circle in a terribly bittersweet way.


In addition to that, I got an incredibly lovely piece of original fiction: A Secret History. It's under the Mongolian History RPF tag, but it isn't really - it's a contemporary story, and it's a beautiful tale about the tension between modernity and tradition and a very sweet, if slightly prickly, sibling relationship.


Anyone want to try to guess which one I wrote? Here's some hints: (1) It's in a fandom I've never written before, but I did directly reference it in another fic once. (2) It's the only story in its fandom this year.

I had the usual angstfest and deadline stress eruption, but overall I think it turned out well, and pretty close to my recipient's request, and the recipient seems very happy, so all is well in V-Yule-land.

Kenaz wrote the amazing Ship Song (Der Himmel Uber Berlin Remix) (Good Omens/Wings of Desire crossover) for me! What's your name on LJ, hon, I want to friend you so hard!


I wrote A Mirror of Moths (Lord of the Rings, Aragorn/Frodo, adult) for eyebrowofdoom.

So I did manage to get a little writing done for the IJ porn battle....

Seems that gender-bending warrior-bonding femslash was my theme this time.

Discworld (Monstrous Regiment), Polly/Mal, "taboo."
(Squick warning on this for a very special kind of, ahem, bloodplay)

Crossover, Chronicles of Narnia/Lord of the Rings, Aravis/Eowyn, horsewomen.


The glorious hyel and I kept crossing each other - I think both the prompts I wrote were hers and I know she wrote two of mine and did an AMAZING job, so the least I can do is rec the hell out of her:

A Moon-Lit Challenge (Crossover, Good Omens/His Dark Materials, Adam/Lyra, revolution)

Dream Interpretation (Crossver, Sandman/Hellblazer, John Constantine/Morpheus, dream interpretation)

and one that wasn't one of my prompts but I wish it had been:

Heaven (Moby-Dick, Ishmael/Queequeg)

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.

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....

Like lots and lots of people, I've been reading the ongoing revelations about truly trainwrecky onionlike layers of malicious batshittery in the HP fandom a few years ago...

metafandom has been chock full of essays lately on what this says about interpersonal dynamics in fandom, the cult of the BNF, the justifiability of anonymity. All of them, I find absolutely fascinating reading. Sometimes I nod vigorously, sometimes I shake my head just as vigorously.

On occasion the point has been made that the cult of the BNF is so overwhelming in HP that everyone can't help but fall prey when the situation goes bad. I disagree, kind of. It's really a matter of where one might have the good or bad luck to "live."

( For length, and a tortured Urban Life metaphor )

And in other news, my fun with the Ultimate Fandom OTP Generator continues to bear fruit.

Check the comments for fabulous crossover crack:

catherinecookmn wrote 2001:A Space Odyssey/Discworld

very_improbable wrote Neverwhere/The Daily Show.

They work.

This weekend, I was getting a series of spam in which all the subject headers were lines from Longfellow's "Hiawatha." It's been stuck in my head. Anyone else get poem earworms?


htebazytook had to go and remind me the Ultimate OTP Pairing Generator exists. It's a black-hole-force time-sink, but sometimes sitting there and clicking really pays off...


Aslan is shagging DickCheney

What's Your Ultimate Fandom OTP?
Shiver My Timber--A Pirate RPG


I want someone to write me these for my birthday:

( cut for absurdity )

OK, maybe not Meatwad.

ETA: The indecently brilliant catherinecookmn has just written me a ficlet: HAL9000/Granny Weatherwax.

Also, in her wonderful CON.TXT recap post, isiscolo links to ellen_fremedon's recap of the Fandom Spelling Bee! Laughing...too...hard...can't...breathe. (As a Regional-level competitor in my childhood, I must admit that this would have defeated me.) Man, I gotta get me to some cons one of these days.

Is there anything mctabby can't find? She's like a very very good smut concierge! One random remark in a conversation about something totally unrelated, and she hooks me up with this. Where has it been all my life?

RPS Avoiders: Scroll Past

*eyedart* Musician slash, which I don't write, or read much at all. But I figured there might be two or three people on my friendslist who'd dig this.

Power Games by theratman
Band slash.
The Velvet Underground, specifically.
Lou Reed/John Cale, specifically.
NC-17.

It's raw, funny, kinky, pretty violent, and very very long. It's the "Sister Ray" of PWPs.

Been a great couple of weeks to be a Neil Gaiman fan, that's for sure.

So, MirrorMask! quantum_witch and I went out to see this yesterday with our menfolks.

It's about as beautiful as films get, for one thing. I can't remember the last time I've walked away from a film so dazzled by such an intense universe that is so utterly itself, like no other place I have any frame of reference for, and so completely real in its surreality. Maybe City of Lost Children. (which it reminded me of in some ways)

( More general lovestruck babbling )

I'm also almost finished with Anansi Boys and I am thoroughly loving it. It's certainly funnier than American Gods and a whole lot lighter...but I'm not convinced at all that it's less deep. A lot of the intensity of it is in what one might call the "throwaways"...and yet, they are so not. It's a much "smaller" story of course. With different priorities...actually the more I think about it, the less sense it seems to make to compare them at all!

( Two things about it that have me all a-ponder )

Aaaaand....it won't be long before the only two-week-old Good Omens Library gets its 100th story uploaded. It's currently at 93* Over at the forums I proposed doing something fun for that momentous occasion.

ETR: (edited to rec) Speaking of American Gods, a fantastic gen fic that isn't getting nearly the feedback it deserves: Confidence Men, by xylodemon. Wednesday and Loki, "Life, liberty, and the art of the two-man con."


*(li'l shoutout to David Tibet and a certain kind of music-geeks and the Thelemites in da houze)

Man, the friendslist was bringin' it today!

Multifandom recs.

Harry Potter, but with mucho mass appeal:
I'm sure most people know this by now, but mctabby has commemorated the 30th installment of the cracktastic Summary Executions series with a Greatest Hits edition. 300 luscious horrors inflicted upon the poor defenseless English language, and of course the characters we know and fuck with mercilessly love, only some of whom are defenseless. Some are almost Zenlike: "Nagini plans to take matters into her own hands." "A story told by the eyes of someone unwanted."

Crossover crack, sort of; LOTR AND The Princess Bride. mollyringwraith posts a collaborative effort: The Lord of the Rings Movie Scripts, Done Entirely in 'The Princess Bride' Quotes. Not only is this a geek apotheosis, it works so brilliantly, terrifyingly well.

Good Omens AND Harry Potter: If you're a lower_tadfield regular, you probably saw blue_phlox's gorgeous portraits of four sexy Supernaturals. But if you only saw that one, and didn't follow the link to her own lj, you probably didn't see the gorgeous portrait of the young Sirius and Regulus Black, all decked out in their proud-Pureblood vintage. They're both here.

Good Omens proper, although it's quite improper: professor_mary presents very unusual SMUT: All Mine, in which the connections between the Horsepersons and the Them get explored in a very erotic and very creepy way. Is it a pairing or a three-way? Bit of both, really. (Adam/Brian/Implied Pollution, NC-17)


Harry Potter AND Lord of the Rings: thrihyrne has written a HP/Tolkienverse crossover that's just bloody brilliant: Of Dwarves and Stewed Lucius, here. Dodges and skewers all possible thought of cliche: Lucius Malfoy and Second Age Dwarves. Also more references to needing to relieve oneself than are found in the entire Tolkien corpus.


Go enjoy, and give these geniuses the love like it's your last rear at Hogwarts!