Arduinna

(But first, I am so far behind on the meme, zomg -- I'm currently very glad that most of the end of the month didn't fill up, so I can shift the questions I haven't answered forward. I will get to them all!)

Yuletide bears ate me for most of the last week, but I got a story done and posted and edited and tweaked and made myself stop touching it a few hours before midnight on the 24th, to be safe. *g* Today was supposed to be for hours and hours of reading, but was more like a little reading, and then hanging out with mollyamory and therienne for a wonderful dinner and some presents and Doctor Who and a very nostalgic trip to the pilot episode of Stargate Atlantis.

But I did manage to read both my gifts, of which I got two! I don't usually get treats, so I was hugely chuffed to see one this year.

My official story was in Haven, which I'm just beaming over, having spent some time earlier this month wallowing in the joy of this season of Haven -- the story itself is set during the season opener, which! Really couldn't be better timing. This melted me into a little puddle of happy goo.

Complicated (3081 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Haven
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos
Characters: Duke Crocker, Nathan Wuornos, Jennifer Mason (Haven)
Additional Tags: Bruises, Hurt/Comfort, Bathing/Washing, Reunions, Missing Scene, Complicated Relationships, Self-Flagellation, Empathy, Kissing, Minor Injuries, Napping, Season/Series 04, Established Relationship, Yuletide Assignment, Yuletide 2013
Summary:

Having just found Nathan busily involved in his own peculiar brand of self-flagellation, Duke spends some time getting him cleaned up and the both of them reacquainted. (Takes place during the reunion scene of Season 4, Episode 1, "Fallout.")

The treat was in Forever Knight, and also made me really happy. I miss Schanke like crazy, and the author did a great job with him and the world he inhabits (and if you're a Cohen fan, she nailed Cohen in this, too).

Copper's Instinct (5788 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forever Knight
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Nick Knight, Don Schanke, Amanda Cohen, Natalie Lambert, Officer Lipinski, Sgt. Mandrake (Forever Knight), Myra Schanke, Jenny Schanke, Det. McCabe (Forever Knight), Det. Dreyfus (Forever Knight), Janette DuCharme
Additional Tags: Canon Related, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Summary:

Schanke's perspective on the events of the Season Two premiere, "Killer Instinct".

I foolishly didn't take any time off this week or next, and I'm losing prime reading time on Sunday to a family get-together, so I'm flailing a bit at how to make it through the rest of the archive before reveals. But it's a fun kind of flailing, at least.

Yay, Yuletide!

And now to bed, so I can work tomorrow. Woe.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled over a program called TeamViewer, which gives you remote access to another computer. CNET gives it five stars, or "spectacular".

It's free for non-commercial use, and lets you do all sorts of things. You can use it to control another computer; you can use it to invite people to look at your screen in an online meeting; you can use it to transfer files back and forth without having to first upload them somewhere. The only requirement is that both systems have it installed and are online. (Obviously, faster connections and more modern OSes are going to have better results.)

The default setup gives you a user ID number that stays the same, and generates a random password every time you launch the program. You give that password to whoever you want to have access to your system, then when you end the session, the password is deleted.

You can also set it up to have a permanent password, so anyone can access that computer at any time if they know the user ID and pw. (You can do this during installation, or at any point thereafter by choosing a specific pw for that computer.)

One of the things I wanted it for was to be able to help my dad with small computer problems. I used to be able to walk him through things, but that's harder now, and my default had started to be "okay, write down the entire message and I'll take a look the next time I'm out", which isn't really great for a lot of stuff.

So I installed TeamViewer on his system the last time I was out there, which is when I discovered the permanent-password option, which was a source of great joy for me. I hadn't been looking forward to coaching him through opening the program any time I had to help him.

He called me a few minutes ago to say he had this crazy message on his screen from "A-V-G" about a "trojan horse found", and said "That doesn't have anything to do with me, right? I can just blow that off?"

And I said, "You know what? Let me try that thing I showed you..."

Opened up my laptop, opened up TeamViewer, opened up the list of "my computers" and clicked on his computer where I'd added it and its permanent password, and boom, there was his screen on my laptop, with the AVG threat-detection screen. Instead of having to listen to him read every word on the screen trying to get him to the "remove to vault" option, I just clicked it, and now am running a scan on his system from my living room, while he's off mailing a check.

If he didn't have a permanent password, I'd have asked him to launch TeamViewer and read me his numbers, so I could plug them in to my connection screen.

The remote-controlled computer has full functionality the whole time: if you need someone to show you what steps they took, they can do so while you watch. There's a little bubble in the lower-right hand corner of the remote-controlled screen so they know someone's there, with tools (toggle control permission off/on, chat window, etc.).

The session can be ended from either side. Once the session ends, a notice pops up on both computers that this was a free session, asking you to "like" it on Facebook/G-plus, giving an option to buy a license, or clicking "okay". This is a little annoying on the one hand, but clicking okay takes care of it, and the message means no one can sneak onto your system without your being aware that someone has done so.

I highly recommend this if you do tech support for anyone, or want to do any sort of remote collaboration. Or even if you want to do things like control the media player on your desktop from your laptop in the other room...

There are even mobile versions for iOS, Android, and Windows 8/RT.

Download it from the TeamViewer site instead of CNET, though, to avoid CNET's annoying third-party add-on crap.

I haven't done one of these in ages, but figured this was a good time to spread the word about some recs communities. These are all open to any fandoms, any genres, any ratings.

bestthingever is for recs of stories (and only stories, no other fanworks) that are no more than three months old; anyone can post.

fanart_recs is, as you might suspect, for reccing fanart. This one's run more along crack_van lines, with reccers signing up for a month to rec in their fandoms.

fancake is a themed rec community, where anyone can rec stories based on that month's theme. It's mainly fic-based, but any fanworks are welcome to be recced. Themes so far have been amnesia, telepathy, and superpowers, and a few times a year there's an amnesty period for reccing things under any previous theme. There's currently a poll to determine the next theme; I'm rooting for crossovers/fusion, myself.

list50 is for 50 recs at a time (or shorter lists during "minilist" challenges), on a reccer-chosen theme. The recs are generally just one line each - title, fandom, and link to story are the only required things, although people can add more info if they want. Anyone can post here.

And bonus community, which is restricted to gen fanfic but which is open to any fandom and apparently any rating:

gen_rec It's a little quiet right now, but I'd love to see this pick up, since I've only just discovered it. *g*

Author names have been revealed, so it must be time to post. *g* In order: What I got, what else I'm reccing, and what I wrote.

First up, thank you so much to eotu for my lovely Yuletide gift, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Assignment! It's I Spy, a missing scene for the episode The Seventh Captain, and I love it. *hugs story*

The ep moves very quickly from Scotty being captured and nearly killed (rescued by Kelly, yay!) to him being fairly light-hearted the next day; eotu pulls that back a bit and shows how he got back to that even-keeled place. Which, of course, is all due to his partnership with Kelly, and how they are just always there for each other, and which made me really happy to read. She gave me the Scotty and Kelly I love so much, and that interlude is now canon for that ep in my head.

So that is my first and most important rec! (Which I have just realized I didn't bookmark on AO3 because bookmarks weren't working well that first day, so I have just rectified that.)

More recs are available at my AO3 bookmarks; I'll be adding to these as I keep reading, because wow, is a week not long enough anymore. I don't even know how much more of the archive I have to go through, but it's a lot. *g* At the moment, there are recs in I Spy, Dark Is Rising, Fairy Tales, Anthropomorfic, Dresden Files (tv), MacGyver, Belgariad/Mallorean, the Fire Dancer series by Ann Maxwell, Victor/Victoria, Leverage, White Collar, Invisible Man, and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

(Note: I haven't read all the stories in all those fandoms - I've been dipping in and out, and have read maybe 2 Madness stories so far on top of that. There are likely to be more all over the place. God, I love the bookmarking feature.)

---

And now, for the story I wrote:

Beatriz (on AO3), for galerian_ash
Fandom: Gunmen *
Slash - Cole Parker/Dani Servigo
5,228 words
Rating: teen and up
* It's a mid-'90s action flick starring Christopher Lambert and Mario Van Peebles, about two men on opposite sides who eventually wind up (crankily) working together, then protecting each other, then helping each other, then sailing off together into the sunset sunrise while the soundtrack over them sings about how there's nothing wrong with being in love with someone. No, seriously.

I had so much fun with this. I signed up to write it because I've loved this movie for ages, and I've always wanted to see fic for it. Then I was looking through DYW letters before assignments went out, as you do, and stumbled across galerian_ash's request, and had this happy little moment of "that could be my assignment! I could totally write that!"

And then assignments came, and that was my assignment! \o/ Most years I get an assignment from a recipient who wants something a little different than my take on things, which is great because it lets me stretch; this was one of the years where we were totally in sync, which is great because it lets me just sink into the source. So I found my old VHS tape, and I ordered a DVD copy so I didn't completely destroy my tape, and I started watching. And watching. And watching. I was right, I really do love this movie. *g*

My one regret, if you can call it that, is that I had to skip about half my notes, which consisted of all the ways in which Cole (Mario Van Peebles) is gorgeous; I had all these scraps of lines in my head about that, because I really like looking at Cole. But then I started writing, and realized I was solidly inside Cole's head, and wasn't budging. Which meant that all of that description was useless, alas. But I like being inside his head, too, so it's all worth it.

So yay, another fabulous Yuletide, all around!

I've been planning to add vid recs to my rec site for a couple of years now. The problem is, there are so many great vids that I kept feeling like I was leaving too many out.

I'm still leaving too many out -- vids, fandoms, you name it -- but it's at the point where if I don't suck it up and post these, they're going to languish on my harddrive forever. Better to rec some than none, right? So here are 107 vid recs in over 50 fandoms. (... yeah, I know.)

Most of my connection to the vid community these days is through Vividcon, so these tend to be slanted toward vids and vidders that I've come across there.

All of the recs in one place:

What’s New: Vidrecs

Recs by fandom:

Angel the Series
(2 recs)

Astro Boy
(1 rec)

Babylon 5
(2 recs)

Batman (tv)
(1 rec)

Battlestar Galactica
(4 recs)

Big Eden
(1 rec)

Boston Legal
(2 recs)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
(4 recs)

Burn Notice
(1 rec)

Charlie Jade
(1 rec)

Dead or Alive 2
(1 rec)

Dead Poets Society
(1 rec)

Dead Zone
(4 recs)

Dexter
(2 recs)

Doctor Who
(5 recs)

Dune
(1 rec)

Due South
(1 rec)

Equilibrium
(1 rec)

Farscape
(3 recs)

Flyboys
(1 rec)

Hairspray
(1 rec)

Happy Feet
(1 rec)

Hercules: the Legendary Journeys
(2 recs)

Heroes
(4 recs)

Highlander
(2 recs)

Holding Out For A Hero
(2 recs)

Homicide: Life on the Streets
(1 rec)

House
(1 rec)

Hustle
(1 rec)

Indiana Jones
(1 rec)

Life
(2 recs)

Life on Mars
(2 recs)

Lord of the Rings
(1 rec)

Loving Annabelle
(1 rec)

The Matrix
(1 rec)

Miracles
(1 rec)

Once a Thief
(1 rec)

Pan's Labyrinth
(1 rec)

Peackemakers
(1 rec)

The Persuaders
(1 rec)

The Professionals
(2 recs)

Robin of Sherwood
(1 rec)

The Sentinel
(1 rec)

Sherlock Holmes
(1 rec)

The Shield
(1 rec)

Silence of the Lambs
(1 rec)

Stargate Atlantis
(10 recs)

Stargate SG-1
(12 rec)

Torchwood
(2 recs)

Wiseguy
(1 rec)

Xena Warrior Princess
(1 rec)

X-Files
(2 recs)

Multifandom
(8 recs)

Please let me know if there are any problems with links, etc.

I lucked out this year; I got one of my favorite fandoms for my primary story, and a Treat in a fandom I had totally never expected to get as a second story.

My main gift was was An Honest Man, by Michelle Christian (movies_michelle), for Peacemakers, which is a fandom so dear to my heart I can't even say.

It's lovely. It's a slash story that weaves in and out of canon, using games of chess as a throughline to show Stone and Finch's deepening relationship, which is just perfect. (They play, canonically, and by the time we see it, it's clearly an established habit that they both enjoy a great deal, and it's a moment I adore for the sheer comfortable connection between them.) The character and emotional arcs in this are just wonderful; she starts from the literal beginning, when they barely know each other and don't like each other much, and builds steadily and gorgeously from there.

I almost didn't ask for Peacemakers this year, since I've been lucky enough to get a fabulous story for it in a previous Yuletide, but I'm so glad I decided to include it on my list. *hugs story*

The second story I got was a Yuletide Treat -- extra stories that anyone could write for anyone, if they saw a request that sparked an idea. And someone wrote one for me!

It's Joey and Michael, Sitting in a Tree, by zortified, for My Two Dads. Yes, My Two Dads. That sitcom you maybe kinda remember from the 80s, with the two guys and the kid. Seriously, I had no hope that anyone would pick this up; it had a whopping three offers on the requested-fandoms page, and I was the only person to request it.

And yet! A story! Slash, even, which was what I most hoped for, but expected even less than I expected the fandom. And it's adorable. I don't know how zortified did it, but she nailed the voices and tone of the show, and gave me exactly what I wanted. It's a little cliched, but that is perfect for this show, and for its era. *hugs this story too*

Both of these stories make me ridiculously happy, and I rec them both whole-heartedly. Go, read! You'll love them.

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As for what I wrote, it was also Peacemakers, which is a first -- there have never been two stories in one year for this fandom. Woot!

True Gold
slash, Stone/Finch
44k, PG
Summary: A rash of fires in Silver City strikes close to home.
written for Dorinda

On the Yuletide archive

On my site

Every year, Yuletide challenges me in a different way, which is one of the things I love about it.

This year, the challenge was writing for a good friend, without her finding out about it.

( Here's how it went: )

All in all, it's been a heck of a fun Yuletide.

I'll have more recs, as soon as I finish going through the fandoms I know. Meanwhile, I'm tagging my favorites on del.icio.us.

I wrote two stories for Yuletide this year, for fandoms and pairings I love, and I had a blast, as always. A panicky blast, but a blast. I love Yuletide.

Hearthstone
Dead Zone, Johnny/Walt.
NC-17, 36k, 5,500 words
Summary: Light in the darkness.
(Yuletide archive version)


Rx
MASH, Hawkeye/Trapper
PG, 11k, 1,450 words
Summary: This is what he'd been waiting for.
(Yuletide archive version)


And since I don't quite have my recs ready to go yet, I have to take this opportunity to pimp the story I received, which I've been very happy to see has been getting a lot of positive response, because it *rocks*:

Strange Bedfellows, by Lyrastar.
It's also MASH, and also Hawkeye/Trapper, and it made me incredibly happy. She nailed the show and the characters perfectly. Go, read, comment, praise!

And, er, about those Yuletide recs...

I was hoping to have a recs post ready for today, but I was reading right up to the reveal last night, and I still have something like 15 entire fandoms bookmarked to read, never mind fandoms I don't know as well that I was hoping to get to eventually. OMG, 1,057 stories. So I'll either put up a recs-so-far listing sometime in the next few days, or will hold off and do a final version in a week or two.

In the meantime, I've been bookmarking Yuletide 2006 stories I particularly like here on del.icio.us, if anyone's desperate for links in this vast wasteland of no Yuletide recs anywhere. *g* I know it's tough to find things to read! I haven't pulled these out into astolat's nifty script on my website, so they're not all pretty, but they're functional.

All of the new recs can be found on the What's New page.

Or go straight to the individual fandoms, with new recs at the top (everything's dated):

The Dark Is Rising (1 rec)

Doctor Who (1 rec)

Due South (6 recs - all F/V)

Hercules: the Legendary Journeys (1 rec)

House (1 rec)

Invisible Man (2 recs)

NUMB3RS (1 rec)

Stargate Atlantis (28 recs)

Stargate SG-1 (8 recs)

Veronica Mars (3 recs)

Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis (1 rec - this is counted under both SGA and SG1 as well)

I broke out four fandoms into their own pages - Due South, Invisible Man, Stargate Atlantis, and Stargate SG-1 - because they all had 10 or more recs and were making the mixed-fandom pages too crowded. If more fandoms reach that level, I'll break them out as well.

I also added a page that lets people look for recs by category -- nothing fancy, just a list of links to sets of my del.icio.us bookmarks for specific tags (e.g., everything I've got tagged as both h/c and recs).

I just put up a batch of recs -- 30 this time, in 8 fandoms. Newer recs are at the top of the fandom's section, and everything shows what date I added it.


Recs page

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Direct links to updated sections:


Dark Is Rising

Due South

House

Invisible Man

Monk

NUMB3RS

Professionals

Stargate Atlantis

I just added a recs page to my site. The first (huge) batch of recs covers more than 90 stories, in more than 50 fandoms -- the number of fandoms is thanks to the Yuletide archive, which is where a good many of these stories live.

Beyond Yuletide, a lot of these are older stories from older fandoms. Obviously, despite the numbers, I've barely scratched the surface; there are entire fandoms still missing, and lots of stories in the fandoms I've started in on that I didn't get around to adding. I'll be adding more eventually, but I don't know how often or extensively.

Recs page