aelfgyfu_mead | Reading

Here's my offering for Into a Bar this time out! Although the community mod is mostly incommunicado for a few days, so it'll be a little while before it shows up there.

Title: We Don't Talk About That Here
Fandom: The Orville/Gravity Falls
Characters/Relationships: Sheriff Blubs, Isaac, Blubs/Durland, mentioned Claire/Isaac
Rating: General Audiences. Content warning for police abuses treated entirely non-seriously. Also contains spoilers for both shows.
Summary: Isaac wants information about interdimensional rifts so he can get home. Sheriff Blubs just wants to uphold the law. And eat peanuts.
Tags: Gravity Falls post-canon, the Orville post-S3, interdimensional travel, cops, the Never Mind All That Act, mentioned Claire/Isaac, crossover
Length: ~1600 words
Author's Notes: This was written for A Ficathon Goes Into a Bar, the challenge where you pick a character and have to write them going into a bar and meeting a randomly chosen character from one of your other fandoms. Sometimes, you get character combinations that lead to fascinating interactions and new insights into both participants. And then sometimes you get... this.

We Don't Talk About That Here

Current Mood: accomplished

Tags:

Every Thursday, we have a community post, just like this one, where you can drop a rec or five in the comments.

This works great if you only have one rec and don't want to make a whole post for it, or if you don't have a DW account, or if you're shy. ;)

(But don't forget: you can deffo make posts of your own seven days a week. ;D!)

So what cool podfics/fics/fanart/fanvids/fancrafts/other kinds of fanworks have we discovered this week? Drop it in the comments below. Anon comment is enabled.

BTW, AI fanworks are not eligible for reccing at recthething. If you aware that a fanwork is AI-generated, please do not rec it here.

Tags:

!thursday recs,
bts

Hello, world, 'tis I. Another year older and therefore infinitely wiser than the last time we spoke. I started this journal when I was 21, and now I am 39, and man, that is a a heck of a long run. Especially since I've known some of you pretty much that whole time!

We have had another Bard Family Calamity (tm) here. My dad had an acute gout attack a couple of weeks ago, and it was gnarly. He's had a bump on his toe for months and we've politely suggested he get it looked at, and to be fair, he did show a nurse who thought it was gout, but he didn't hear anything back about the blood test for it, so he assumed it wasn't gout. Until one morning, he woke up in excruciating pain, with his toe extremely swollen and red streaking up his foot. He got some antibiotics from the walk-in clinic for it, but if my dad has even the slightest fever, he loses his goddamned mind. He's up, he's down, he over here, he's over there, he won't rest, he won't listen, he won't take pain medicine, he's ADHDing all over the place and you cannot stop him. We had to literally drug him to get him to lie down. Thankfully, most of the acute phase is done now and today he's going to see the doctor to find out what he has to do, but dear God, it has been a trial.

Other than that, things haven't been not too bad. I've been reading like a mad thing, and also writing like a mad thing. I think the two are correlated. I think you need to read to able to write, and I just couldn't get my brain to read for awhile. Last year, or a couple of years ago, there was a link on tumblr to a bunch of free romance novels (I think they do it twice a year where a bunch of authors put one of the novels on sale for free, but that was the first and only time I saw it) and I got a bunch for Kindle, but I'd never really gotten around to reading them, so I'm working my way through them now that my Dad gave him his old Kindle to use. I also wrote a story! A short original story, based on a prompt I saw on Pinterest about a time traveller and an immortal being friends. I may post it once I let it marinate, because I quite like the characters, and I have more ideas for adventures for them. I'm proud of myself, since I really hated the first version that I wrote and I was able to do proper editing and make it into something I liked instead of giving up on it. I'm in that muddy phase of skill learning where I'm past 'wee, this is fun! I love to do this!' into 'I am not as good as I want to be at this skill, therefore I am terrible at this skill and should stop'. I know enough to know I don't know enough, and it's frustrating.

Anyway, I hope you all are living the best you can in these continued WTF times we live in, and finding some joy where you can.

Tags:

helen_keeble recommended this LitRPG series, and I am having a GREAT time, although I'm only about 80% of the way through the first book (but honestly I don't expect my opinion to change a whole lot; it might really surprise me later, but this strikes me as a series where what you see is basically what you get).

But what you get is really a lot of fun - light, entertaining, very funny, with a lot more humanity and a darker edge than I was expecting. Also, it's a good Baby's First LitRPG (a genre I've bounced off repeatedly in the past) because there's a solid in-universe explanation for the stats, leveling, and other aspects of the genre.

Basically, Earth is now an alien reality game show.

In one moment, the vast majority of Earth's population is exterminated (everyone who was indoors or inside a vehicle or other contained space - they're all recycled by an alien resource development company, along with just about every other human-made thing on the planet). Everyone else finds themselves plunged into a world-sized dungeon with nothing but whatever they happen to be wearing at the time, where they must compete against an escalating series of challenges, televised for a galactic audience and run by a psychotic AI with a foot fetish and a ruthless alien corporation. The hero - Carl - was outside in a freezing night in order to rescue his ex-girlfriend's pedigreed Persian cat Princess Donut from a tree. Now he's in a dungeon, forced to compete against all too real enemies as well as fellow contestants, with a mind-controlled virtual pop-up display giving him descriptions of his and his opponents' stats, and a virtually unlimited inventory space. Princess Donut almost immediately gains a level-up bonus to human-level intelligence and becomes Carl's partner in the dungeon crawl, a squishy mage with sky-high Charisma next to Carl's tank. Who knew all that time playing first-person shooter games with no company except his cat was going to pay off ...

( More about the book (no big spoilers )

Tags:

Shows: SGA
Rec Category: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay
Categories: M/M
Words: 3111
Content Notes: Aliens yet again make them do it, Rodney's drugged with an aphrodisiac, John's restrained, dubious consent
Author on DW: n/a
Author's Website: eliade's SGA fic on LJ, and old website on Wayback (SG1, other fandoms)
Link: Red Silks on LJ, and backup on Wayback
Why This Must Be Read: This a delicious, very tropey AMTDI/Aphrodisiac fic, where the aliens have decided Rodney needs to have his way with John for trade relations, so they've drugged Rodney and tied John down in a lush bedroom. Yes, it's non-con or at least dub-con, but as they both want each other it's in the usual PWP tradition. Eliade is a gorgeous writer and the story's deliciously erotic, sensual, and super hot. Rodney, stoned and vaguely accusatory, edges John mercilessly, and John's turned on but increasingly frustrated POV is highly amusing. A classic romp in the genre.

( snippet of fic )

Over at

recthething, I posted a few recs for

diagetic_exchange (Babylon 5, Murderbot, Megamind). Diagetic Exchange is for in-universe fic/RPF/etc; I did not participate in this one, although I enjoyed the results!

Meanwhile in exchanges I did participate in,

whumpex author reveals happened tonight. I wrote two things:

Mission of Mercy (Biggles, gen, 5800 words, Flies East AU)
My assignment! Rather than just letting it go, Biggles becomes determined to find EvS's crashed Bristol fighter. Is this really just an excuse to write EvS suffering the effects of a crash and heatstroke? Mmmmaybe.

A few ending-spoilery author's notes on the story

My biggest problem, once I'd started writing it, was figuring out a way for EvS to get away given how I had set up the situation. I had trouble with Biggles just letting him go, at this point in time, but no ending that involved him being taken back to be tried and interrogated or shot felt good either. Eventually, I came up with the eventual sort-of compromise that involves Biggles finding a way to justify (to himself) letting EvS plausibly-deniably escape. (For certain values of plausible.) It is really interesting to write them when they're so young!

High G Maneuver (Babylon 5, Londo & Vir, 1700 words)
This was a treat for a recipient who had requested (among other things) a "Dust to Dust" tag in which Vir stays on the station longer so they can deal with the events of the episode.

A few notes

I've been wanting to write more about aftermath from that episode, so I immediately jumped on that prompt. But I realized when I started writing it that this is actually a really difficult time in canon to write emotional h/c for, because Londo is so closed off, and really doesn't start opening up to people, including Vir, until a season or so later. And he's going to be even more shut down in the wake of being physically and mentally hurt as badly as he is in the episode. I ended up wrapping it in a metaphor about Centauri fighter pilots, as a way of getting at the emotions that they won't talk about.

Tags:

diegetic_exchange is for in-universe fanfic/RPF/etc. Here are some things I enjoyed from it!

Babylon 5

Stars Uncrossed: My Vorlon Sex Story! (1300 words, explicit)
OF COURSE there is Vorlon/human reader insert smut on Future Space AO3, and of course there are some very recognizable Space AO3 usernames in the comments. The author's notes are also pure gold. MINBARI DNI.

Megamind

Am I the Asshole for impersonating someone else to be with my girlfriend? (700 words, Megamind/Roxanne)
The most in-character thing ever. The comments are great, and also extremely in character.

Murderbot Diaries

Bot Sacrifice (600 wds, gen)
Sanctuary Moon fanfic with ART's inline beta comments. Hilarious and very them, and also very touching.

Tags:

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Tags:

movie

1. Vir and Delenn

From the "Only One Bed" meme (which at the moment has gone the way of most of my attempts at memes, alas), for a request for Vir and anyone.

( 700 words of Vir and Delenn )

2. Basking Narns

Posted as commentfic as a result of a comment discussion about cool-blooded Narns. (Also posted on Tumblr.)

( 400 words of basking Narns and Londo not being normal about it )

3. Ta'Lon and Vir

From a request on Tumblr for anything about Ta'Lon which actually ended up being not that much about Ta'Lon and more about the new ambassadors post-canon.

( 1000 words of Ta'Lon and Vir )

Tags:

promptfic:babylon 5

(Historical reference.)

"Maybe I'm Trans?" badges

Raising money for the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, who have been doing excellent things like organizing this parliamentary briefing:

Attitude: Trans+ legal experts warn Supreme Court ruling could breach human rights as 60+ attend Parliament briefing

Tags:

Treats welcome!

I would be perfectly happy if you swap tags between requests. I think all my requests are pretty similar, and if a different request's tags give you an idea, please go for it with my enthusiastic consent.

I would love to receive any of my requests equally, and optional details aside, the tags are the primary prompts; please feel free to do what you like with them.

( Relationship likes and dislikes )

Fandoms

( Babylon 5 - TV )

( Biggles books - W.E. Johns )

( Agent Carter - TV )

Tags:

exchange letter drafts

justmarriedexchange signups are open through the 22nd. I immediately pounced on it, to no one's shock, but I SWEAR this is the last thing I'm signing up for until I at least get my casefic and Summer of Horror written.

Also,

hurtcomfortex is having a long reveals delay (until early July) in case you might want to treat someone. Hurt/Comfort-Ex requests on the AO3 app.

Tags:

exchange:justmarried

HEAT EXHAUSTION

feeling faint or dizzy

excessive sweating

cool, pale, clammy skin

nausea or vomiting

rapid, weak pulse

muscle cramps

treatment: get to a cool, air conditioned place. drink water if fully conscious. take a cool shower or use cool compresses. (i suggest using them around your neck or on the inside of your wrists, where the blood vessels or arteries are close to the surface.)

HEAT STROKE

throbbing headache

no sweating

body temperature above 103 F (39.4 C)

red, hot, dry skin

nausea or vomiting

rapid, strong pulse

may lose consciousness

treatment: CALL 911 (or whatever equivalent is in your country) take immediate action to cool the person until help arrives. (i suggest providing shade, maybe getting them inside if they're on hot cement & use cool compresses on them)

types of medication that can cause heat intolerance.

Current Mood: hot
Current Music: fan that is keeping me cool

Tags:

pointing

Shows: SGA
Rec Category: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Characters: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Categories: M/M
Words: 3161
Warnings: no AO3-type warnings apply
Author on DW: n/a
Author's Website: unfortunately no longer accessible
Link: Everything You Could Imagine on Wayback
Why This Must Be Read: This is an episode tag to Home, the one with the sentient mist. After they get back to Atlantis Rodney asks John what was going on with his weird dead friends party, and John thinks about, but doesn't fess up to, a missing scene in which he found Rodney waiting for him in the bathroom at the bachelor pad. Eventually, Rodney shares his own mist-induced fantasies, and all's well. It's a fun might-have-been missing scene for the episode. There's great characterization, and it's hot and cleverly written.

( snippet of fic )

( Spoilers )

Edit: Also a spoilery thing about show vs trailer.

( More spoilers )

Tags:

tv:murderbot

Every Thursday, we have a community post, just like this one, where you can drop a rec or five in the comments.

This works great if you only have one rec and don't want to make a whole post for it, or if you don't have a DW account, or if you're shy. ;)

(But don't forget: you can deffo make posts of your own seven days a week. ;D!)

So what cool fics/fanart/fanvids/fancrafts/podfics/other kinds of fanworks have we discovered this week? Drop it in the comments below. Anon comment is enabled.

BTW, AI fanworks are not eligible for reccing at recthething. If you aware that a fanwork is AI-generated, please do not rec it here.

Tags:

After a couple of years of really struggling with mood and creativity, between burnout and family issues and god knows what (and I know I've been hard to deal with in fandom, at times), things are suddenly ... good! I can write again, I'm signing up for exchanges, whatever has been blocking me has gotten a whole lot better.

July is my birthday month, therefore Best Month, obviously, and I would really like to try to do some kind of "post a short fic every day" thing if I can make it work. Unfortunately I'm suffering a dearth of appropriate challenges, because of course now that I want one and have the mental bandwidth to do something with one, daily month-long prompt challenges and/or bingo card challenges for July are nowhere in sight. The closest thing is July Break Bingo, but I've asked for cards for this before, and I just ... never really do anything with them; I appreciate that it exists, but I think I need more of a - I don't know, social element to it, I guess? Less open-ended, more directed? Their cards just don't really click with me somehow. And I can't find a Tumblr prompt/whump/whatever themed promptfest thing for July.

So I'm kicking around a few different ideas. Why not throw it out to a completely nonbinding poll?

Poll #33243

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

View Respondents

What should I do for July?

View Answers

A custom bingo card/prompt list created (by me) from all my favorite tropes
17 (56.7%)

A personal challenge to finish older inbox prompts/unwritten prompts from past fests
8 (26.7%)

Find a prompt list from a previous (non-July) fest that I didn't do at the time, and use that
6 (20.0%)

Ask my flist for new prompts until I get 31 of them for fresh inspiration
11 (36.7%)

Run a comment fest over at the Biggles comm
7 (23.3%)

Something else that I will suggest in comments
0 (0.0%)

Tags:

polls

whumpex revealed tonight! (And H/C-ex is supposed to in a few days, if it's not delayed. All the hurtcomfort all the time.)

I got:

Staying Power (Babylon 5, Londo & Vir, 4200 wds)

I asked for (among other things) Londo reacting to something bad happening to Vir, or Vir taking a hit for him, and my Mysterious Gifter took me up on it most delightfully!

As usual, there is a fic or two of mine running around loose in the collection as well.

Tags:

exchange:whumpex

justmarriedexchange nominations close tomorrow (the 10th).

I will almost certainly be signing up for this one, I'm just saying. And you do need three distinct fandoms for this exchange.

*my existing assignments side-eye me*

Tags:

exchange:justmarried

Show: SG-1

Rec Category: Jack O'Neill
Characters:Pairings: none
Categories: gen, episode related
Warnings: none
Word Count: 1601
Author on DW:

darkshade (empty journal)
Author's Website: AO3 Profile
Link: Always Left Behind

Author's Summary:

Returning home after leaving his grandfather with the giant aliens, Daniel is fine.

Why This Must Be Read:

This is a Daniel-centric fic, primarily dealing with the SG-1 episode "The Crystal Skull" where Nick stays with the aliens.

Daniel is 'fine' -- for a certain value of fine. It takes Jack to assure Daniel that he won't always be left behind.

( snippet of fic )

Aelfgyfu

Al shal be wel, and al shal be wel, and al manner of thyng shal be wele

So, Here They Are In The Bar

Community Recs Post!

Happy Almost Summer!

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Red Silks (by eliade) (E)

Recent exchange fic

A few recs from Diagetic Exchange

James Gunn: ‘Movie Industry Is Dying’

Recent Babylon 5 ficlets from various places

In the spirit of the "I might be transsexual" badges at Michfest

Dear Just Married creator

Just Married signups

PSA: heat exhaustion vs heat stroke/meds that cause heat intolerance

Everything You Could Imagine (by rivier) (Explicit)

Murderbot 1x06

Community Recs Post!

Contemplating July activities

Whumpex reveals!

A quick note for me and others

Always Left Behind, by DarkShade (G)

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