RatCreature's Journal

Are there any Highlander pandemic fics yet?

While reading another HL fic (as I still do ocassionally) it occurred to me that current events would work well with classic HL angst and themes: immortals feeling survivor's guilt because they don't get sick or die when everyone around them does (and you could do flashbacks to previous epidemics too), immortals working as doctors or medics or volunteering because they know they can't get sick, the chance for exposure of their secrets because of more medical scrutiny (I don't remember whether there's any canon on whether their blood even develops normal antibodies or such if they have to undergo a blood test), in general evil immortals taking advantage of upheavals...

I get that not everyone likes current events encroaching into their fanfic, but just as many others do, so surely there's bound to crop up some?

When I link checked my recs, I also noticed that I never even added the last recs I posted in this journal in April 2012. I now fixed that, though I didn't mark them as new additions on the website, because well, the recs were from 2012. I could take some WIP labels off, though.

And only one of those stories has vanished since then, Exegesis, an XMFC WIP by aesc. It used to be at: http://archiveofourown.org/works/351756 and was a kind of dystopian fantasy AU with powers, some A/B/O elements, and intriguing worldbuilding with religion and history. I'm really sad it vanished, because even unfinished, I enjoyed it a lot.

Newly missing are links to three ST:AOS stories. One is "Open Up My Eager Eyes" by downjune, slash and femslash, Kirk/Spock, Uhura/Gaila, ca. 15,000 words. It used to be at: http://downjune.livejournal.com/35815.html but that journal was locked, and this story isn't on the author's AO3 profile or the DW journal. And once again I failed to save a copy. :( The description from my rec: "This is a fusion with Pump Up the Volume that was written for reel-startrek. I really enjoyed this, even though I'm not particularly into high school AUs or into making Spock a human/loosing the SF elements in Trek fiction."

The other two are by leftarrow, also vanished with a locked journal. The first is "Lensflare Lover", het, Pike/Enterprise, Pike/Number One, ca. 7,300 words. It used to be at: http://leftarrow.livejournal.com/92285.html, with the description from my rec: "This has a cool premise in which the spaceships have avatars." The second "Walls Burning, Towers Turning", slash, Kirk/Pike, ca. 5,000 words. It used to be at: http://leftarrow.livejournal.com/136820.html, with the description from my rec: "This is a fantasy AU with really neat worldbuilding."

In happier news, one story that had been locked for a while, became unlocked again, so you can once again read: "In Truth" by mint_amaretto, slash and het, Kirk/McCoy, Spock/Uhura, ca. 3,570 words. This is a really creepy, twisted AU, as any mix with the Dollhouse concept (not the series itself, more the basic premise) should be.

Next, checking my xover recs which are also more than a hundred links. Maybe at some point I will even get around to posting new ones.

I've decided to slowly tackle the linkrot in my rec pages after all (so far I've done the TS, SGA, and SPN AU recs and that alone took most of yesterday, yikes, a major hurdle is that automatic link checkers won't show deleted LJs as broken, because the error message isn't standard).

With the SGA AU recs I'm missing "Everything but Love" by Cottontail, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, ca. 24,000 words. It used to be posted at: http://cottontail.livejournal.com/134833.html but the LJ has been deleted. Other stories by this author can still be found on Wraithbait and AO3 but not this one. I didn't even save a copy. :( The description from my rec: "This story adapts the plot of the movie The Lake House. I have never seen that, but the crux of it is that John and Rodney get each others' mail, but are living two years apart. The time travel paradoxes in this one made my head hurt a bit, but then the time travel here is more a vehicle for their romance than the point of the story, and the romance was a lot of fun to read." Does anyone know whether it can be still found online somewhere?

Currently I'm checking the DCU AU recs pages and the only story which I can't find, is the Batman story "Topsy Turvy World" by Roach. It used to be posted at: http://roachspit.livejournal.com/69864.html but the LJ has been deleted. The story was posted in November 2005 in response to the Vice Versa Challenge, and swaps Barbara Gordon and Tim Drake. I actually managed to save myself a copy for once (for a while I routinely downloaded everything linked on my rec pages with a script after posting, but unfortunately as many good backup practices it didn't last), so at least I still have a copy for myself, but I'd love , but I'd love to link it online somewhere.

Have you read any feel-good stories recently? Normally I tend towards angsty with happy endings in my reading, but I am in need of completely fluffy escapism. So for the purpose of this inquiry I mean stories with happy endings in which the characters don't suffer too much before either, but preferably something with some sort of plot, not PWPs or h/c fluff or the like, e.g. genres like romantic comedies, or caper stories or humor or such, where something happens, but it is not that extreme in tension, angst or drama (if that makes sense). As a complicating factor, the plot shouldn't depend on some stupid misunderstanding between the characters, or ineptitude either (those sometimes hit my embarrassment squick).

So have you read any recent, tragedy free stories lately? XMFC would be particularly nice, but I'd take White Collar, Sherlock, Star Trek Reboot, SGA, Merlin...

So, since I'm currently reccing Tolkien art at fanart_recs (yes, I do find a way to promote the comm in every other post *g*), I've been in the mood to read some LOTR fic. Specifically I was looking for 4th age Aragorn & Faramir friendship stories. I don't read that much LOTR, so I browsed around and checked out one that I seen positively linked in a couple of places, hoping to avoid the worst, but alas! It wasn't to be. It's like a train wreck, the way this series butchers poor Faramir's characterization. What is it with stories turning him into some kind of weepy, quivering wimp (and not even due to extreme torture or anything)?

Incidentally, links to decent stories would be welcome. (I don't read Aragorn/Faramir though.)

I've been wondering whether there was any Star Trek fic that somehow deals with the ongoing consequences of that apocalyptic phase Earth had before the utopian Federation in the Trek universe with the Eugenics Wars and WWIII and such. Not adventure stuff like some frozen Augment surfacing, but more slice-of-life fanfic in which the mundane longterm annoyances of living on top of former sites of industrialized warfare come up. Like the environmental damage or how the Earth citizens in former target and strategic places may on a semi-regular basis get their lives disrupted, because some uncleared weapon remnants resurface or the like.

I guess that with the improved Federation tech making cleaning up easier they probably have cleared much of that warfare legacy and pollution by the time the Trek series take place. OTOH from what I vaguely recall of the flashbacks we got over time to that era it's not out of the question that in hurried and chaotic rebuilding with first contact on top of it some duds somewhere in the ground that hadn't been exploded so far didn't seem like a priority. Or they just poured some concrete on the nuclear contaminated waste hoping for the best and that it won't be worse than the increased overall background radiation they are bound to have.

(This was brought on by some idle musing as yesterday evening there was once again some travel chaos and public transport disruption, because they had to evacuate an area, after they found some unexploded WWII bomb or other that had to be defused. Which is a fairly common occurrence here, especially when they are digging around in the harbor area. They usually have to evacuate five hundred meters around such a site, so that means a couple of thousand people living there have to be elsewhere for a few hours, and inevitably some train track is affected and closed, and a bunch of buses get disrupted and you get chain effects in the connected lines too.)

So have you ever read any Trek fic like that?

I've recently watched The Listener, and quite liked it. So naturally I'm now wondering whether there is any fanfic to be found for it. I've tried del.icio.us with various likely tags without success, asked google, looked on ff.net... and nothing turns up. Not a single story anywhere. An interest search on LJ yielded a single community the_listener_tv (no comms on DW or IJ), but the only fanfic posted were two very short comment ficlets.

I just can't believe nobody has written anything for it. It has a main hero Toby who is pretty, angsty (with some past trauma), orphaned and a telepath, and can be easily shipped with both his on-and-off again girlfriend Olivia, but just as well slashed with his paramedic partner Oz thanks to Toby and both Olivia both being somewhat waffling about their relationship, or paired with any number of other people. The whole series is like a fanfic blueprint what with the mix of mild supernatural SF elements, crime/medical drama, tragic mystery past and relationship options. And yet, thirteen episodes of this and I can find no fanfic anywhere? How can that be?

Because this gets asked for quite frequently on sgagenrefinders (like here, here, here and here...), I figured I'm not the only one with a soft spot for wereanimal stories, and a thematic list might be useful.

This is a SGA thematic list (i.e. not recs) for stories in which an SGA character becomes or already is a wereanimal. 'Wereanimal' here is not all that strict, but refers to any supernatural animal-shapeshifting as long as is not another kind of magical animal category, such as centaur!fic or dragon!fic. It is sorted by character, which kind of wereanimal is listed with the story.

As usual, if you know of any story that I've missed, please tell me about it.

Link: SGA thematic list: Werewolves and other wereanimals.

I've decided to start a new thematic list for another one of my favorite SGA fic tropes, an Atlantis that either by necessity or choice has to fend for itself in the Pegasus galaxy.

For a story to be included in this thematic list the Atlantis expedition has to loose contact with Earth permanently, or at least for a significantly longer time than in canon, declare independence from Earth, or be stranded as a colony in Pegasus after Atlantis is lost. I've divided the list in the following subsections:

1. Atlantis is involuntarily cut off from Earth, e.g. it's on its own because Earth has been lost or is too occupied in the Milky Way (overrun by Ori, Replicators or Goa'uld, blown up, hit by a natural disaster...), or has never (or only much later) reestablished contact in the first place; contact with Earth may or may not happen eventually, but the separation has had a lasting impact, and is somewhat central to the story.
2. Atlantis intentionally secedes from Earth, i.e. declares its independence, or its allegiance to one or more Pegasus cultures/alliances or develops into a colony city in the (far) future.
3. The Atlantis expedition members (i.e. more than just the team) settle as a colony somewhere else in Pegasus, e.g. because Atlantis the city has been lost to some enemy or disaster, or taken over by Earth officials the original expedition can't support in their goals leading to mass desertion, or similar scenarios.

I've listed about thirty stories so far, but there are probably more, so if you know of any I missed please comment with a title and a link.