Some things

[thisbluespirit]

Because I do want to start trying to make posts that are talking again. (My last week's ones don't count; that was incoherent babbling. ;-D)

1. A much-delayed link/announcement but liadtbunny has started up oldbrit_tvicons - because it's so hard to find a sensible central place to post old British TV icons. However, the problem with that, is there's also no central place to advertise a comm to post old British TV icons. So, do go & join if that's of interest, and if not, if you can pass the word along, that'd be wonderful.

2. At last I can talk about this! seriesfive sent me her WIP by installments, one of the things that has been cheering me up this year, but obviously you can't rec a WIP. But now it's in progress on AO3, so I can. It's a fic in which Silver and Steel get stuck in the His Dark Materials universe and very strange things are happening, including to them. There are many things I could say about it, because it's excellent, but mainly... Silver is stuck as a lemur and it is awesome. (I didn't know I needed lemur-fic in my life, but apparently I did.) That is a terrible rec (sorry, seriesfive!) - it also has a mystery and much amusing and subtle character stuff between the two, which is what people should read it for, but Silver is a lemur. That is all. *cough*

Of Angels and Elementals (30011 words) by SeriesFive
Chapters: 14/29
Fandom: Sapphire and Steel, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Silver/Steel, Silver & Steel
Characters: Silver (Sapphire and Steel), Steel (Sapphire and Steel), Lord Asriel, Master of Jordan College
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Idfic, Community: Fic Rush, Trope Bingo Round 2, Gen or Pre-Slash, Daemons, Angels, Elements
Summary:

Steel and Silver have been assigned. Their destination: Oxford. Upon their arrival they soon discover that they’ve stumbled into a trap — a trap specifically designed to capture an elemental. The question is what is more perilous? Steel realising that he is slowly turning human, Silver discovering that he’s somehow ended up as Steel’s dæmon or the fact that a dark shadow is transforming innocent school-boys into statues?

This is obviously pre-HDM. In Lord Asriel’s world elements are called elementals. The story can be read as Gen or Pre-Slash, just choose according to your preferences.

3. Also, I have discovered the secret of fanfic writing success! Well, obviously apart from writing in popular fandoms, popular slash pairings, and/or being very good. But if, like me, you're not any of those things, what you do is this: write a hasty crossover ficlet in which Miss Marple is in someone else's fandom, being awesome. Then sit back and wait for the kudos to inexplicably roll in.

More seriously, something very nice happened during Non-Existent-and-Horrible-July, which was that someone asked to translate my ficlet So We Meet At Last (in which Miss Marple meets Dracula and it doesn't end well for the Count) into Russian. This was very exciting - I don't think anyone's ever asked me if they can do anything to any of my fics, and certainly not to translate one. I can't give you the link, because it was for a specific challenge on a Russian site, but the translator gave me a guest login, so I had the fun of seeing my fic in Russian (and putting all the comments into Google translate) and, as there was a link back to my original fic, I suddenly got about 20 extra kudos on it. Which means that my top two fics are now both Miss Marple crossover ficlets. Hence my joke. But wasn't that lovely?

Comments

[seriesfive]

And I do think I'm up to good, but maybe not very good - I have some really amazing writers on my flist to measure myself by.

That's what keeps us striving!

I know exactly how it feels. There's a great quote I have written on a post-it and stuck to my pc screen: the story is always better than your ability to write it. I've forgotten who said it, but it is from some writer (obviously) :D

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, Some Writer! They said lots of good things. ;-D

(Oh, and, btw, I just caught this right at the end of your latest chapter, where possibly either you or yr beta temporarily fell asleep:

Where they poisoning him? The thought caused a trickle of ice running down his spine. He had trouble breathing. Where was Silver, his mind was screaming as everything felt more and more sluggish by the second. He felt so terribly exhausted. He couldn’t help it; he couldn’t stay awake. He was only dimply aware when he fell.

Should be "Were they poisoning him? The thought... of ice to run down his..." and-and-and dimly aware at the end. "Dimply aware" is another matter entirely and I don't even know what that would look like. (It is an awesome typo, though. But if you don't want readers getting the giggles at the most dramatically inconvenient point, you might want to edit it back to dimly. I suppose at least it wasn't pimply aware... :lol:)

[seriesfive]

Oh Goddess! Thank you for being so observant! Dimply aware really IS great *so many dimples...* It is the wrong association here though. :D

[thisbluespirit]

It's definitely a typo to be treasured - the placing in the paragraph is perfect, too. You build your way up to the cliffhanger so well and then level it with a dimple. :-)

I just happened to be looking at it was right at the end there...