dragonyphoenix

Since AO3 provides a list of my stories, I'll just lists some of my favorites and stats from 2014.

Top 5 of my own stories from 2014:

In a Corner of My Soul - Giles as the big bad of season 1. Quite a bit of editing went into this and I think it shows.

The Man - What if Xander were the new James Bond? This is a very meta story touching on movies, fandom, Hollywood.

On This Side of Goodbye - I've given up on the comics but still I've written my own version of how Giles was brought back as a 12 year old. Mine is funnier than Joss'. Just saying.

Sailing Towards the Dawn - Babylon 5: During his hitchhiking days, Stephen realizes he isn't just running way. He's running to something, even if he doesn't know what it is yet. There is some great characterization in here and a kicker ending.

Without a Passport - I'm getting pretty good at Anya's voice so I had to include one example even if it isn't one of the funnier ones.

Top 5 by hits according to AO3:

Shanshu - pickamix asked for a story where Spike shanshus because of his sacrifice in "Chosen". I've also given him amnesia because, well, more fun!

And If My Love Had Never Let Me Go - canon!Ethan messing with an Ethan and Rupert who had never broken up. Just because he can. This is a crossover with a graphic novel called The Unwritten and touches on other fandoms as they jump universes.

Special Delivery - I was playing with voice and picked Willy's because it's so distinctive.

The Revelatory Power of the Feminist Revolution is Obvious, Right? - This was hugely popular on Twisting the Hellmouth. Crossover with I Dream of Jeannie. She seems sweet and all, but damn can Jeannie be stubborn. But then again, so can Willow.

The Pen is Mightier - When Ethan turns Giles into a rabbit, you can imagine Anya's reaction.

Top 5 by Kudos:

Shanshu

The Pen is Mightier

Please Come Again - Anya. Sexual humor. Need I say more?

Alone - one of the runner-ups when I was working on my top 5 list (of my own stories). Written for a prompt: Buffyverse, Giles, it's the end of the world again, but this time he's alone.

Goblin Market - Ah, Drusilla. It's been ages since I've written her.

And a special shout out to Dinner, No Movie, from 2013, which has almost 30 times more hits than any other story I've posted to AO3.

Yay! It's Fandom Snowflake Challenge time.

(image snagged from sparrow2000)

Day 1: In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Share what you've created. Be proud of your creativity.

I'll recommend different categories I've stories that I've created. Most are set in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom.

Sentimental: In Babylon 5, Dr. Franklin speaks of his travels to other worlds, when he was basically backpacking through the universe. Sailing Towards the Dawn looks at his time with the Markab people.

Funny: Please Come Again: Sexual humor based on Anya's misunderstanding of language.

Rewrite: On This Side of Goodbye rewrites a situation from the comics: bringing Giles back from the dead. It's got a kicker of a last line.

Remix: The Morning After remixes the start of the Responsible Adults (Joyce/Giles/Ethan) verse. It was written for a Giles hangover prompt.

Meta: The Man, which takes a meta look at movies, fandom, and Hollywood, is a remix of Critical Review, a story where Xander's great-grandaughter "wasted four years, considerable talent, and an inestimable amount of her current and future credibility, in a futile and meaningless effort to spotlight the achievements of a man who, much as his great-granddaughter might wish otherwise, had none."

I'm recommending Station Eleven. The writing is fantastic. It jumps time-frames, pre- and post-apocalyptic, but is easy to follow. I was never confused about what time period I was in. It's got this lovely metaphor about a graphic novel running through it, which ties up the theme in the end. I like the characters. It's quite a good book that I read in two sessions.

The MarySue is right. This vid of Giles getting knocked down is delightful.

All Set Down. Dark. Beautiful.

Captain America story. Damn it's good. Decoys.
Summary: The serum makes Steve stronger, but not bigger. Instead of a superhero, he becomes a spy.
Line that says it all: Captain America means both more and less than it once did - it's secrets as well as heroism, lies mixed up with freedom.

Hey! Gillo wrote a response to my perfect cup of tea story. Apparently this is what all the Brits saw in my original version! No wonder they were upset. ;-)

I have just finished rereading Indri’s In the Morning of the Magicians. What a delightful story. It covers the time period where Ripper and Ethan meet, invoke Eyghon, get Randall killed, and break-up.

( SPOILERS!!! )

Ruthlessly borrowed from pickamix

"I'll Be Your Santa Baby - Rufus Thomas" (Watch on YouTube)

Ten Things that Never Happened in the BtVS Fandom by Booster: What if Dawn had been in the series from the get-go? This question is answered using episode transcripts, interviews, message boards, terribly awful fanfic. It was a delight to read.

And while I'm reccing, Sleeper has long been one of my favorite fanfics.

My neighbor created a rather hunky snowman and it reminded me of Shon Richard's December Bride. Frosty the Snowman fanfic which leaves me wondering what, in a romance, the difference is between love and obsession.

Story rating: so not worksafe (for sex, not violence)
Pairing: Frosty / the girl in the red hat (after she's grown up)

Day 5

In your own space, talk about a creator. Show us why you think they are amazing. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Marcus Rowland is the king, no make that god, of crossovers. I mean it. Who else could write three as varying fandoms as Buffy, Galaxy Quest, and the Avengers in one 100 word drabble? And make it work? Honestly. That story is a thing of beauty.

Who else would even think to cross Wallace & Gromit with Buffy? Okay, Beer Good Foamy - whom I adore for crossing Buffy with Welcome to Night Vale - may have had that thought, but I'm pretty sure nobody else has.

I'm not even going to try to list all of the fandoms in Who Are You Gonna Call? Suffice it to say that Coulson, even as a ghost, is on the side of good.

Okay, now I'm just browsing but ... Oh. My. Goddess. He wrote a Lensman story. Not only that, he crossed the Lensman series with Battlestar Galactica. If I weren't too old, I'd be offering to bear his children for this alone.

A rec reminded me of this story and I had to go hunting for it: I was made for loving you baby
Missing internal links so come back here to navigate: One: In the Beginning / Two: Trouble the Waters / Three: Viva Las Vegas / Four: Substitute / Five: Dancing in the Streets / Six: Erase and Rewind / Seven: Everybody hurts

011100101001110101110011ithink0100110thereforeiam0011101atleastithinkiam0110

I think. I think I am. I am Buffy. I am not Buffy . Dawn is my sister. Dawn is Buffy's sister. I love Spike. I am programmed to go to Willow when I am damaged. I don't think I know of a breed of humans this small. I helped make lunch today. Peanut butter and jelly.

Humans consume sandwiches. The size of a human stomach is finite. Humans cease consumption when the stomach is full. They do not consume more until they have used the food within their stomach and created space for more food. This process is called digestion.

Dawn has consumed pancakes for breakfast. She will have used most of that material by lunchtime but not all. There will be space for three sandwiches. Preparing more than three sandwiches would be wasteful. Sandwiches require bread and butter/peanut butter and a filling such as jelly. Bread and butter and filling have to be obtained by exchanging money for the goods. The supply of money available to the inhabitants of 1630 Revello Drive is finite. Making sandwiches surplus to requirements reduces the money available for other necessities. Tomorrow I will make three sandwiches and then I will stop and make no more sandwiches. I do not need to be instructed to stop.

I have made a decision.

I HAVE MADE A DECISION.

I'm an idiot. My Toshiba - old computer, way to slow to play with now - has all my links for BtVS Top 5. Since I can't access those I wandered around aimlessly looking for new (to me) stories to link, not thinking until I went to post then that they needed to have been written in 2013. So Top Five stories I mostly stumbled across today and was going to post to BtVS Top Five.

1) Must Not Be Rushed by TheFoxinator. Written for SB Fags End Halloween challenge so Spike/Buffy.
There’s a dragon in the Hyperion lobby.

Well, there’s a dragon head in the Hyperion lobby. The rest of the dragon is curled up in the little garden out back.

2) Arcana by kindkit. Ethan in the hands of the Initiative.
It doesn't need magic to make a man disappear.

Ethan's disappearing, little by little, over days he can't track since there's no way to mark them on the walls. The walls are white, smooth, cold, and neither blood nor shit will stick to them. The plastic spoon from his meals won't leave a scratch.

3) January by kindkit. Ethan/OMC, Ethan/Giles.
Warnings: Nonconsensual sex, violence, sadism, magical badness.
The young man on the bed was struggling desperately against the manacles. His wrists and ankles would bruise from the unpadded steel. Ethan pictured blood-dark rings on that tanned young skin, encircling those strong bones. He looked the man over carefully, weighing possibilities, seeing a blank page ready to be marked. To be written upon. The story Ethan would write was old and not at all edifying, the grimmest of fairy tales. One nobody's granny ever told. A tale in which everyone was devoured, even the big bad wolf.

4) Fenrisulfr by antennapedia. Dawn/Ethan
Warning: I'm not sure how young Dawn is. She's finished high-school a year early which would then make this sex with an underaged girl.

Dawn put the book into her backpack and ran a hand over her hair. She looked up over the door as she went to leave, and saw another bas-relief of Janus. Bearded man, androgynous youth. God of gateways. Tacked up next to the door was a hand-lettered card. Help wanted. Dawn stopped, and yielded to impulse. She turned and walked over to the counter.

"I see you're looking for help," she said, directly, meeting the man's eyes. "I'm available, and I know about books. I'd like to fill out an application."

"Ah. Yes. I'm not sure you're, er, entirely qualified."

"Unqualified to do what? To run a cash register? Make espresso? Handle selling whatever's in the back room to your non-human customers?"

5) Broken English by Estephia. Giles/Ethan.
Giles exhales. His heart is racing. He feels like he’s burning up, in spite of the car’s AC. He stares at his whitening knuckles for several seconds until he realizes he’s gripping the steering wheel like a madman. Loosening his grip, Giles slowly turns his head to look at the apparition. A very solid apparition, for the man raps against the passenger window, producing a very real, solid sound that sends another jolt through Giles’s racing heart.

Giles takes a deep breath. At the push of a button, the window slides down.

“Knock, knock,” Ethan says, leaning forward to peer into the car. “Who’s there?”

“Ethan.” Giles’s voice is flat.

“The one and only.” Ethan is positively preening.

So, the image that has been imprinted on Giles’s brain ever since he saw the footage from Buffy’s comlink, the image of Ethan’s blood and brain splattered all over the prison cell wall - fake, nothing more. Another lie. He should have known. Giles grimaces at his own naivety. “Well, you certainly didn’t stay dead long.”

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you did not create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. See if you can rec fanworks that are less likely to be praised: tiny fandoms, rare pairings, fanworks other than stories, lesser-known kinks or tropes. Find fanworks that have few to no comments, or creators new to a particular fandom who maybe aren't well known or appreciated. Appreciate them.

They all turned out to be Giles/Ethan. I did not plan that. Honestly.

Indri's In the Morning of the Magicians covers how Giles and Ethan first met and the Eyghon business that got Randall killed. This story is just brilliant. First, for all that Rupert blames Ethan, they never would have raised Eyghon if both of them hadn't been there. Both Rupert and Ethan were essential in that causal chain, which I just find too amusing. It is so awesome when Rupert is shocked that Deidre blames him as much as she does Ethan. Second, Rupert is so bourgeois. He's not embracing the counter-cultural lifestyle; he's running away from home. Again, amusing and delightful. Third, they are all so wounded by this at the end, but it's Ethan's wounding ... Okay, I don't want to say Ethan's wounding is awesome or positive but this story explains why he's become such an isolated person. I adore this story for that. Yes, I did recently re-read this story and remind myself how awesome it is!

Trekker's Tarnished. Giles, after leaving Buffy for her own good, returns to Bath where he runs into Ethan. This story runs through Season 7 and past it, bringing the two of them together as a couple. It's very believable. SPOILER: Rupert doesn't completely trust Ethan until he thinks he's lost him for good.

Wolfling and Magpie's Of Old Mystics. Giles, head of the Council after season 7, rescues Ethan from an Initiative cell. They learn that they have a destiny and an apocalypse of their own. The previous two stories (Indri's and Trekker's) I first read this past year, actually only a few months ago, but this story has been one of my go-to stories for years now.

And since I've been rec'cing so much Giles/Ethan, KateKat1010 has a Giles/Ethan pic that makes me want to learn how to decorate my LJ page so I can put it up there. Note: there are other good images here, but only one Giles/Ethan. ;-)

In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I've gotten heavily into writing drabbles these past couple of years and Open on Sunday has become my go-to spot for finding prompts.

Advent drabbles, while only active in December, provides an excellent chance to be hectic and write a drabble a day for a month.

Another chance to be hectic and write like the wind is provided by SB Fags End Halloween prompt: Witches' Brew. There's not only a limited time span but the drive to beat the other two teams. Quite fun.

12 December:
Mario Lanza, “O Come All Ye Faithful” because sometimes you just have to go full out even down to the Amen at the end of the song.

I had never heard of this singer until I read a fanfic by Coneycat where Tony Stark blasts Lanza's version of “Joy to the World” first thing on Christmas morning. Surprisingly I just learned that a friend of mine does that with the song I recommended yesterday (“O Holy Night” by Jussi Björling). I have to say that I am completely unfamiliar with this tradition of blasting music on Christmas day.

13 December:
Lee Murdock, “The Christmas Ship”. This is a very sweet one. Since I couldn't find a video with just this song, you can jump to 0:42 for the song to start. 5:44 is end

14 December:
Straight No Chaser, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” … sort of.

15 December:
I'm not sure how I miseed my favorite Christmas song, Loreena McKennit's “Dickens Christmas / The Palace”.

16 December:
"Christmas in Jail” by The Youngsters. Based on YouTube this song is much more well-known than I would have expected.

17 December:
Holy Night, Batman! One year I decorated my door at work as an homage to Eartha Kitt's Catwoman using her song “Santa Baby” as the holiday tie-in.

18 December:
Lady Gaga & Joseph Gordon-Levitt singing – and dancing – “Baby It's Cold Outside”. I liked that they switched it up and made her the seducer.

Peter S. Beagle's The Best Worst Monster read in a podcast. This is a delightful story.

Glassdarkly has written a series of stories under the collective title Second Front. They are delightful. It's Spike/Giles in an AU of Season 7 that is set in England. The writing is wonderful and the stories get really, really dark. *happy dance*

Actually they're all Christmasy. You Tube doesn't seem to have any good Pagan Yuletide songs. *sigh*

Day 5:
Bing Crosby & David Bowie singing "The Little Drummer Boy / Peace on Earth". The banter at the start is a bit studied dialogue-wise but is delightful.

This link is to a short story, set in the Dr. Horrible fandom. It won't make much sense if you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, but is delightful in context of today's song.

Will Ferrel and John C. Reilly have a parody of the Crosby/Bowie song.

Day 6:
Sorry Aunt Alice but it's another version of The Little Drummer Boy" as today's song.

I also want to recommend Asleep at the Wheel's "The Swinging Drummer Boy". I would have included it if I could but it's not online. I can only include this preview.

Day 7:
Louis Armstrong's “Cool Yule”. I adore this song. It has the most amazing horns.

Day 8:
The Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross version from Hipsters Holiday, “Deck Us All With Boston Charlie” from the comic Pogo just because Dad is a big Pogo fan.

And a less schreechy version of "Boston Charlie" where they sing all the verses I know of, even the "Woof, woof, woof" verse which those of us in Sisters of the Silver Branch have trouble with every year.

Day 9:
Chuck Berry's version of “Run, Rudolph, Run” because it's Dad's favorite.

Day 10:
Because Mom once told me that Tony Bennett is one of the greatest singers ever, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". This song is so awesome I sort of want to finish off the year with Tony Bennett carols.

Day 11:
“O Holy Night” by Jussi Björling. This is my favorite carol for the lines “Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices” because it suggests an experience of the divine that is so overwhelming that your legs literally can't hold you up and I think that's awesome. If I'm going to recommend a song for the lyrics apparently I'm going to provide a version of it in Swedish, but just listen to that voice! But if you must listen to an English version, I recommend Nat King Cole's.

Profile

dragonyphoenix

February 2023

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Pink Panther for Lefty by sarken

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jun. 3rd, 2025 03:38 am

Entries tagged with recommendation

Navigation

Year in Review

Fandom Snowflake Challenge

Station Eleven

I get knocked down, but I get up again

Why have I never heard of this author before?

Rec: Decoys

have a cup of tea, have another one, they're small

Rec: Indri's In the Morning of the Magicians

geek girls

Rec: Ten Things that Never Happened in the BtVS Fandom by Booster

Rec: December Bride

(no subject)

rec: sentient buffybot

5 stories I'm not posting to BtVS Top 5

Fandom Snowflake Challenge Day 3

Snowflake Challenge: Day 2

Advent of songs, third week

Rec: The Best Worst Monster by Beagle

rec: Glassdarkly's Second Front

More holiday songs