honey and sting

Title: The Tadfield Satanic Nones.
Author: lannamichaels
Fandom: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: Apart from the name, Warlock Dowling was an unlikely rock star.


( the best ever death metal band out of denton will in time both outpace and outlive you (hail satan!) )

On Sunday, I heard Hotel California on the radio and suddenly knew it would be a great fanvid and could see it all unfold beautifully in my head. I was going to write it down but decided against it.

Today I'm like "okay I am not a vidder but maybe I could do that in drabble form" and CANNOT REMEMBER WHICH FANDOM IT WAS.

:(

guess I may go with "what's the funniest thing" (Jane Austen).



EDIT: I remember! I remember! Complaining works! ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.

Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for [starting] a fic title? One fic per line, 'A' and 'The' do not count for 'a' and 't'. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count. (Using whichever fic I feel like when there are options.  God.  I feel like I could have just done crossovers...)

• A And Sinister, X-Files/Greek myth (just trust me) It's perilous to bargain with dark women at crossroads.
• B Bad News on the Doorstep, Highlander/Marvel Hopefully, they're going to get along. Maybe like a bar afire.
• C Cherries In Winter, Victor/Victoria In the winter of 1935, soon to be 1936, Andre Cassell's club has a new opening act.
• D Double Vision, Marvel (various canon) Steve Rogers learned his guilt-trip glare from his mother. It can have interesting effects.
• E Exemptions and Indulgences, Highlander/Discworld I AM AFRAID YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION.
• F Fire In The Hole, Highlander/X-Files/Buffy Possibly the weirdest part of Mulder's night so far -- and it said a lot about the whole thing -- lay in the wolf being the one that tried to get out of his way to let him shoot the basilisk again.
• G A Game of Cat and Cat, Highlander/Blood Ties Two acquaintances from the court of Henry VIII, five hundred years later: who's playing with whom?
• H Hot Pursuit, due South/Highlander Law enforcement officers can't resist hot pursuit. 800 year old FBI agents are no exception to this rule, especially when it's a Mountie in a speeding carriage chasing a wolf through Chicago.
• I The Innocent Sleep, Highlander New Year's Eve at Joe's bar. Written for Amireal's International Nap Day challenge.
• J Joe Dawson, BAMF, Highlander/Stargate SG-1 https://archiveofourown.org/works/763847
• K Kindred Spirits, Highlander/Leverage Rebeca learned about cons from one of the best.
• L Life Cycles, Marvel Sometimes 'daddy's girl' isn't a description so much as a warning label.
• M  Mismatched Pieces, Marvel/Highlander (Opportunities 'verse) Very few targets survive the Winter Soldier.
• N Not To Plan, X-Files/Stargate SG-1 The second stupid thing the goons did was throw Mitchell in the same cell with Krycek.
• O Open(ing) Doors, Leverage Game and negotiation theory suggests that opening up and vulnerability can in fact lead to the best mutual outcomes. Grifters use their own apparent vulnerabilities to achieve their aims. Mix well, stir, and add an angry Eliot Spencer, who grifts quite well for a hitter retrieval specialist.
• P Parched, Highlander Blood cleans off a blade so easily, really. Some days it's dry and difficult work. Other days it's as easy as running that blade through a man. This morning, though -- this morning was easy, both the killing and the aftermath.
• Q Quiet Breaks, Numb3rs Ian hasn't talked to either Eppes brother since they hunted down a black box together. He's been a little busy with this.
• R Respite, Buffy/X-Files Two heroes sorely in need of a vacation run into each other. They also run into tea, cocoa, conversations about vampires, and really good pancakes.
• S The Scent of Salt and Wood, Rivers of London/Forever Kissing a perfect stranger in an alley is unusual behavior for both of them.
• T Time Upon A Once, Amber Chronicles/Wizard of Oz/Fairy tales A thorny tale of 1 missing prince, 2 princesses, 2 cats, 3 witches, and a silver bird. Some overlap possible among categories; partridge in a pear tree not included. Drinking while reading not recommended.
• U Unanswered Riddles, Riddlemaster of Hed She woke in the night knowing that her doom had missed her by an hour at most... and that it was still waiting for her. So Lyra got up, and packed, and went to meet it.
• V Vintage Appreciation, Forever Knight/Southern Vampire books (Charlaine Harris) Two vampires discussing rare vintages.
• W White Horses and Tails, Nero Wolfe/Highlander Saul Panzer never forgets a face, or where and when he saw it. Connor MacLeod has lived, and done business in, New York City for two centuries, off and on. In combination, that can lead to a problem.
• Y You See Two Geek Geniuses and Several Computers, Leverage/Warehouse 13  They were in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.

X & Z don't have titles.  I shall have to fix this. 24/26, and 291 works.  Nice!
(If any links go to the wrong fic, let me know and I'll fix it.)

Picked up the AO3 alphabet meme from viridian5:

Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, 'A' and 'The' do not count for 'a' and 't'. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.

Is this is when I am punished for not having uploaded all my old fic to AO3? Let us find out.

A: As compasses. The Goblin Emperor, Idra & Maia
B: Baresark. due South, Fraser/RayK
C: Contamination. Sherlock, casefic
D: Dry Cell. Highlander, Duncan & Methos
E: Exhalation. Star Trek x The Sentinel, Jim/Blair. Second in a series.
F: From Sweet Fellowship Comes Nectar. LOTR, Legolas/Gimli
G: Gammer Gurton's Garland. Sherlock, Sherlock/John, Eurus.
H: hold fast (hold steady). Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Cody, OC/OC
I: I spread my dreams under your feet. Star Trek 2009, Spock/Uhura.
J: [nothing]
K: Kaiidth. Star Trek 2009, Spock, T'Pring, T'Pau, Stonn
L: Lied: Lay My Heart Naked. LOTR, Legolas/Gimli.
M: Maybe Next Time. The Sentinel, Jim/Blair.
N: Numberless the ways, and imperceptible. LOTR, Legolas/Gimli.
O: Once Upon A Time. Highlander, Methos/Kronos.
P: a picnic planned for you and me. Good Omens TV, Aziraphale/Crowley
Q: [nothing]
R: Roust. Written with basingstoke. due South, Fraser/RayK.
S: ship's night, residential deck, third corridor. MCU, Loki & Thor
T: Tech. Hockey RPF, gen
U: unsuitable. The Bone Key, A Theory of Haunting. Blanche Parrington Crowe, Griselda Parrington, & the unfortunate Kyle Murchison Booth.
V: Valse a deux temps. due South x The Sentinel, Fraser/RayK, Jim/Blair
W: The Wrong Tree. Sherlock, Sherlock/John.
X: [nothing]
Y: [nothing]
Z: [nothing]

21/26. I'm almost certain uploading my old fic would not have helped. What I should stop doing is using so many I and W titles and branch out a little more.

Two stories so far this year (I'm trying to finish the third):

No Rest For The Licked (3678 words) by Gryphonrhi
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Tony Stark, JARVIS the AI (Marvel), Hulk (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon
Summary:

"Eight foot frogs in Central Park? J, the sun's not even up."

"The people reporting it sounded awake and sober, I'm sorry to say. Sir will make pickup in six."

Steve was in a warm bed, pleasantly tired from the night before, and he'd been promised a very good breakfast. "This job," he sighed and went to get changed. Maybe there'd be a coffee cart open when it was over.

Operation Shock and Claw (2610 words) by Gryphonrhi
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DCU
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Scarecrow, Tim Drake (DCU)
Additional Tags: Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon
Summary:

Fear gas is an ongoing experiment, not yet perfected.

Hope you enjoy!

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

Chess is a show I know entirely through the cast recordings; if I recall correctly, it was such a thoroughly Cold War project that the liner notes referred to the two chess players as only "the American" and "the Russian". The new book by Danny Strong turns it into a (even more) melodramatic period piece, with the chess matches not simply a allegory for political tensions or a way of obtaining minor diplomatic concessions but tools for averting World War III. The Arbiter is dragooned as a narrator, who exposits both the global situation and the personal interactions with the characters, partly through a series of very bad and very obvious jokes.

Freddie Trumper, American grandmaster and obnoxious wunderkind, is challenged by Anatoly Sergievesky, mordant, depressed, and engaged in a clandestine flirtation with Freddie's chess second and lover, Florence Vassy. Freddie is notoriously a weak point in the original book, so prone to anti-Communist slurs, misogyny, and temper tantrums it is impossible to extend him much sympathy. The new version mitigates this by giving him bipolar disorder and medical noncompliance, and also by casting Aaron Tveit. Tveit is indeed so good and so charismatic that I was on Freddie's side way more than I expected, although not enough to take self-pity anthem "Pity the Child" seriously. (The rest of the audience seemed less skeptical.) Lea Michele as Florence is just as strong vocally, and almost as strong in terms of acting, though unfortunately without much romantic chemistry with either partner. (The closest any scene comes to a sexual charge is Freddie's sleazy half-assed attempt at persuading Anatoly to throw the game in Act II.) Nicholas Christopher as Anatoly is the weak point in Act I, where I had the same opinion as I had of his Sweeney Todd: he's got the potential to be great, but he isn't quite there yet. He really needs to work on his emoting, which is too flat even for the murderous Sweeney or the dour Anatoly. He is greatly handicapped in Chess by having to affect a Russian accent, which I really hope the production drops. But! He pulled out all stops in Act II, both for the songs and the acting, and won me over with his intensity and vocal power.

So basically: the book is still flawed and they need to cut the runtime, particularly in Act I. This was the second night of previews, so there's still time for changes before the show technically "opens". If we're lucky, they'll start by cutting the topical jokes.

But the point of Chess has never been the book; it is the score full of bangers and power ballads. The music is by ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and the lyrics by Ulvaeus and Tim Rice. And the musical performances are GREAT. I am still guiltily fond of the kinda-no-really-very-racist "One Night in Bangkok" (which can plausibly be explained as Freddie's typical white guy take on the city) and which in this production is a camp masterpiece. I am seriously tempted to see the show again just for that.

Stolen from linky...

Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for [starting] a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.

A - Abbeville (Secret Adventures of Jules Verne)
B - B'chol Dor Vador/In Every Generation (X-Men Comicverse)
C - Call Back Yesterday (Torchwood)
D - Each of Us Becomes the Helpless (DC Comics)
F - A Face at the Window (DC Comics/Tanya Huff's Blood&Smoke series)
G - Gather Ye Rosebuds (Love in the Air, Phayu/Prapai/Rain/Sky)
H - Half a Decanter (Secret Adventures of Jules Verne and holy cow, this is my first fic put online)
I - I Dwell in a Lonely House (Doctor Who)
J - The Jealous Confirmations (HIStory 3: Trapped)
K -
L - Late Though Lingered the Snow (Kamen Rider Kuuga, Godai/Ichijou)
M - The Maddest Trick a Man Can Ever Play (DC Comics)
N - Nature Never Did Betray (Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger)
O - Observed From the Surface (DC Comics)
P - Pains of Love Be Sweeter Far (Love in the Air)
Q - A Question of Perspective (Eureka)
R - Rarely Do They Forgive Them (Kamen Rider W, Phillip/Terui Ryu)
S - Sad Soul Take Comfort (Kamen Rider Agito, Ashihara Ryou/Hikawa Makoto/Tsugami Shouichi)
T - Take Time Enough (Fuuma no Kojiro, Yagyuu Ranko/Fuuma no Ryouma)
U - Under Such a Deception (Kamen Rider Ex-Aid)
V - The Virtue, Temper, Understanding (2Gether: The Series, Sarawat/Tine)
W - Waiting (Star Trek: Enterprise, Hoshi Sato/Malcolm Reed)
X - X-Men Comic Drabbles (Kinda cheating, but this is really what I titled it!)
Y - Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) (X-Men movieverse)
Z -

Wow, 24/26! That's better than I thought :) I chose the first alphabetically each time, because I was curious how well my fandoms would be represented and this isn't super far off. Oddly, I could have sworn there was a Z, but apparently not. Huh.

My total fic count at this moment and to my vast amusement, is 666!

In my reading of Game Of Thrones fic, I developed an urge for fic where Elia Martell Targaryen (why some married women are only referred to by their maiden names and some are always only referred to by their married names, I do not know) and her kids don't die. It would be interesting to see what it would change!, I thought. Surely it doesn't need to change a huge amount necessarily, but it would great to see it!

And so I went looking and found a bunch and it turns out.

It turns out that when you want fic where legitimate claimants to a throne survive, you get a ton of fic about Targaryen restoration. You get so many fics that are love letters to the Targaryens.

I don't care about Targaryen restoration! I don't like the Targaryens and see no reason why I should! (Except for Aemon, the Targaryen maester who is still alive at the Wall, I allow that he's really intruiging.)

Also I will admit the first time I saw the pairing of Jon Snow/Rhaenys Targaryen, I had a full blown "why? why the fuck?"

But yeah I get it, if Jon Snow is her long lost half-brother, then it's true Targaryen heritage to ship them. I don't see it, I don't even like the ship, and it's interesting how I have no problem whatsoever with Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, who were raised as half-siblings, but my reaction to Jon/Rhaenys is "I'm completely uninterested in reading this". Also I'm not really into Jon/Daenerys.

Maybe it's the whole enforced-incest of the Targaryens? IDK.

But also.

Reading the fic.

Okay so I am never going to read the books, I have long since been warned off from all the grimdark rape, and I am never going to watch the show, ditto.

I did not realize how small the amount of time the Targaryens have actually been ruling in Westeros. They only showed up like 300 years ago???? In a setting where people are like "my family has been ruling in this one spot for 10,000 years" or whatever, the Targaryens are new kids on the block who showed up with dragons, conquered everyone, had several (!) really bad rulers, constantly married each other (in violation of the local religion, and no one else was allowed to copy their behavior because they're special), seemed to do very little marrying out to the locals because who needs to shore up support, dealt with civil war/rebellion, lost their dragons, had a really fucking awful last king, and then, surprise, they were overthrown.

And you want those folks back? You are nostalgic for the wonderful days of the people who showed up five minutes ago and were generally terrible?

Also blowing my mind was, okay, I had been told over and over again that Baratheons all look a certain way since time immemorial and so that's why obviously if you look into it, Cersei's kids can't be Robert's.

But the Baratheons were founded as a new house by a Targaryen bastard. The looks of the Baratheons are the opposite of the Targaryens. Also this is also only like 300 years ago, and Westeros seems to enjoy a society where there are several pathways to ensure that only one or two of your sons are allowed to have children (maesters, the wall, endless wars).

So all this is kind of amusing from a "reading fic without knowing canon" perspective, the slow unfolding of, oh my god, what is going on in this canon. But also the mismatch of people who have actually read/watch this canon and what they want to write (Targaryen restoration, Targaryen incest) vs. me who has not done that, and what I want to read.

But actually what I want to write is a fic where Jon Snow actually is Ned Stark's bastard. Ah, yes, I see here that "Ned Stark is very honorable". Uh-huh. Well, he had an affair with a woman who is a sex worker/laundress/woman who was interested before his marriage and then, because he is so honorable, he took the child in and raised him, rather than leaving Jon Snow to live in poverty.

This explains nothing about why Ned Stark wouldn't tell Jon Snow about this mother but I'm sure we can come up with something (the mother was already married? who cares).

But I'm not writing this, entirely because I have no idea of a plot to go along with this. Oh and also I'm not reading/watching this, but I wrote an MDZS drabble without reading the book/finishing the show.

DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.