jadesfire

These are a combination of fic and podfic recs. Sometimes, because the reader made it sound awesome, I stuck with a fic for much longer than I would have done just reading. Sometimes, I loved the fic, while the reader made me stumble. My basic approach so far has been to find a reader that I like and download everything I think I might enjoy that they've read. My hit rate is about 50%, which I think is pretty good. But that means I can't untangle the fic from the reader, not really, so I'm reccing them as sets, because what works for me isn't necessarily what will work for someone else.

All the podfic pages also include a link to the text if you prefer, but this post was already long enough and the idea of doing 2 lots of links made my brain hurt. Also, fics are Gen/PG unless otherwise stated, and links go to the audiobook version where available because I prefer them - if you prefer MP3, that's usually on the archive as well, just search for the title.

This is the first batch - I got a bit carried away, so I'm sorting them by fandom, although most of the ones I have are Merlin and Sherlock. So just for a change, let's start with Doctor Crossovers and SGA:

Lost in space (and time) written and read by FayJay. Here
A Doctor Who/Black Books crossover. Yes, you read that right, now go listen to the fic, which is awesome. I think particularly for this, having the writer read the story really lifts it - the Black Books voices are perfect.

Relatives and relativity by Yahtzee, read by FayJay. Here
A Doctor Who/Sense and Sensibility crossover that completely surprised me. I thought it was a light little fic, a comedy crossover, but I was completely wrong-footed by it, and loved loved loved the story in the end. The thing is, the author has really caught Jane Austen's style, which I'm not a fan of. So I never would have sat and read this all the way to the end, and even in podfic form, I found some parts hard-going, but the reading and the story pulled me through, and it was absolutely and completely worth it.

Someone on Whom by Cathryn, read by FayJay Here
Because I don't check before listening, I had no idea what this fic was about before it started. It turned out to be a brilliant, really brilliant, Doctor Who/Sherlock crossover, set during the Year that Never Was. Lovely character voices, and the ending left me grinning.

Even Bonnie and Clyde had off-days by Sholio, read by winkingstar Here
This remains one of my all-time favourite SGA fics, for good reason. Teyla, Ronon, adventures, boats, mud and banter. What more could I want? The reading here is spot on, particularly with the character voices, and I've been known to listen to it on repeat for an hour or so, quite happily.

Just a swift comment-fic written for with_apostrophe, who inadvertently prompted it :) Set in the Port Call AU.

~570 words, Silly Gen.

( When Rodney gets mad, nothing gets in his way. )

Since this has just hit the top of my flist, allow me to link you to this post about the LJ staff cuts. It really sucks for people who've been made redundant, but I'm refusing to panic just yet. Still, I'm going to track the Dreamwidth project with something approaching interest over the next few months and look seriously into my own website. I must have about 350,000 words of fic around here that I don't want to lose!

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I've accumulated the things on this post through the day, so here's some happier stuff:

The Long Way Home is a great SGA comic by astridv and rheanna27. Teaminess, adventure and a lovely ending. Gen, set in S5.

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sheafrotherdon posted at the weekend about a 2009 challenge. Nope, not fic nor fandom-related, but us-related. About not talking down what we achieve, not deflecting compliments and telling that little voice of criticism inside our heads exactly where it can go. My actual motto for 2009 is Weebles wobble but they don't fall down (what? it's my motto, I can have what I like :P) but I'm taking up Cate's challenge and also adopting the adjective 'resilient' for the year.

Anyone else care to play?

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Not unrelatedly, doing the fanficcers love meme has made me realise how little I read nowadays. There's not much I can do to fix that right now, but it's going on my agenda for when we get back from Morocco, and I'm going to try to use my delicious account to track things properly. Time for a comment-splurge, I feel.

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The Ninja Librarian. Oh yes.
(er...contains strong language and mild violence. not often you have to warn for a video about librarians...)

If you've got some time, I also recommend this as an example of how to make a user's guide to the library video. Fun music, animation and Doctor Who. I think that covers everything.

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MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!!! Look what donutsweeper made me!!!!



I'm beaming like a total loon here :D Art is always awesome and this has me almost falling off my chair with bouncing.

Huge thanks to highonstargate for my pretty, pretty banner:



(clicking will take you to the story :))

Also, I watched "The Prodigal" at the weekend, then was doing some research for a story and noticed something. ( Cut for Atlantis Season 5 spoilers and trivia )

In other news, writing about knitting has broken my writer's block. Go figure.

How's everyone else at the moment? Doing okay? The sun is shining here for the second day in a row, so I feel like some of the fog in my head is starting to burn off. This is A Good Thing. Definitely.

Title: Port Call

Author: jadesfire2808
Words: ~3,600
Genre: Gen, AU. With a side order of Crack.
Rating: PG
Notes: This is a pinch-hit for chensuu as part of the Fall 2008 Genfic Exchange at sgahcchallenges. It's also my costume for the Come as You Aren't Party over at karaokegal's.

With thanks to my flist for constant patience with my obvious insanity and constant yelling of "PIRATES!" Also to travels_in_time for inventing a new emoticon especially for this fic: \o? [he has a hook!]. Also to miss_zedem for endless encouragement, nightdog_barks for a link that lost me 2 hours of my life to research (time well spent), greyias and xparrot for nitpicking, and pwcorgigirl for the title. *checks* I think that's everyone... ETA: Nope, it wasn't. Thanks to becky_h for the prompt that sparked the whole damn thing in the first place :)


Summary: Port Call. Being the True and Factual Account of the Adventures of Rodney McKay, Genius, and his Encounters with those Fearsome Criminals of the Pirate Ship Wraith. John Sheppard was also there.

( Port Call )

I'm no longer sad that I don't seem to be getting a story in the H/C challenge exchange, because I think xparrot wrote this just for me:

Blue Colorado Skies
Steampunk. Wild West. Big explosions. Oh yes.
Er, her summary reads more like: Rodney had guessed John Smith would be trouble the day he rode into town and tramped into his shop, yellow with dust and stinking of horse and sweat, and asked if he was McKay. Rodney had looked at the man's worn boots, his shabby black Stetson, and the Colt holstered at his side, and known no good could come of this.

Also, with a firm NO DRINKS warning:
Hello, Rodney by rhymer23
If you never read Run, John, Run (aka Shep-whump for 3 year olds) start there, then go on to this one. Only click the alternate ending if you've moved the drinks off the desk completely...

And now, to assuage my guilt for not helping to disassemble scaffolding (don't ask), I'm going to start the first of my Fandom Free For All stories. The one that I started last week and accidentally deleted *facepalm*

#1. Heard on the Today programme this morning:

"I think when they said 'brand new spanking programme' they meant 'brand spanking new programme'. The other probably wouldn't work on the radio."

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#2. Torchwood fic. In which I admit beta-bias, but rec anyway:

Forgotten by fajrdrako
Summary: Adam meets Jack.
Oh, that doesn't even begin to do it justice. Psychopathy, sympathy, love and bitterness all wrapped up together so you can't see where one begins and the other ends. A sideways look at "Adam" that hits all the right notes.

Graveyard Shift by dune_drd
Summary: Ianto loved his job, he really did. However, working for Torchwood still managed to surprise him once in a while.
As most of you know, I'm not really a shipper, and can get quite tired of Jack/Ianto stories. But Dune always makes me look at them int a new way, and she does her usual great job of the guest-starring alien. Atmospheric and tender without tripping into angst.

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#3. SGA fic by me! For sgahcchallenges:

In Memoriam
for leesa_perrie. Spoilers for 'Broken Ties'.
Summary: Now he has new pain to pile on the old, a layer of scars so thick that he finds it hard to remember what lies beneath them.

I'm not 100% sure I caught Ronon properly, but it was good to stretch some new muscles and have a go. Rodney was a joy as ever.

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#4. I'm missing my flist and my chats on Yahoo :( How is everybody? See/do anything fun/interesting/worth reporting lately? I promise a proper report from here once I can get three minutes together without being interrupted. Trust me, at the moment, that's not easy...

Title: Unaccepted
Author: xparrot
Reader: jadesfire2808
Spoilers: Episode tag to "The Shrine"
Length: 40 mins/15.76MB
Link: Megaupload

Summary: Sometime it's frightening, how easily these people from Earth face down nightmares and conquer them.

Author's Notes: I've really wanted gen team tags to this ep. Um, I almost managed one? It's about as gen as "The Shrine" itself is, really. Eheh...

Reader's Notes: You know when you read a fic and you just think "I have to record this"? Well. Huge thanks to xparrot for the fic and recording blessing :)

[x-posted to sgapodfic]

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ETA: Now with bonus meme:

Take a picture of yourself right now.
don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair - just take a picture.
post that picture with NO editing.
post these instructions with the picture.

Taken because I was playing with the webcam on my now-working-perfectly-fingers-crossed Aspire One

( You can tell I haven't left the house yet because my hair is mostly obeying gravity )

Since I couldn't seem to get myself into gear to really write last week, I did quite a bit of audiofic recording instead. I've got another week off in a fortnight, so you might want to brace yourselves...

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Title: A World Called Catastrophe
Author: perspi
Reader: jadesfire2808
Fandom: SGA
Length:57.19/52MB
Link: Megaupload; Permanent with thanks to general_jinjur

Summary: When the world ends in a flash of orange and yellow, the last thing John feels is the sensation of flying.

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So if the last one had outtakes for squeeing, this one had them for choking up. No matter how many times I read this story, it still gets me, every single time. Since they're less fun to listen to, I didn't include them. Huge, huge thanks to perspi for letting me play in her sandbox, and for pointing out when I repeat myself ;)

[cross-posted to sgapodfic and amplificathon with a promise that this will be the last spamming for a while...]

Happy birthday bironic *coughs* Only a day late...

I'd half-thought to give you the fic I wrote on Friday as a present, but since you ended up working on that, I decided to go with my original plan:

Title/text-link: The Pretty Peculiar Pegasus Pesach
Author: roga
Reader: jadesfire2808
Summary: Passover in Atlantis, in an Everyone's Jewish!AU.
Length: 29.20 mins/11.7MB
Download: From Megaupload [permanent link to follow when I get around to cross-posting...]

With HUGE thanks to roga for permission to read her fantastic story and for help with pronounciation. Remaining gaffes are all my own work. No sniggering at the back, please, I'm doing my best ;)

bironic, hope you had a lovely day, and here's to many more.