the_comfy_chair | Recent Entries

This is one of the best SG1 (J/D) fics I've read in almost a year. It isnt as dark as my usual fare (think Paian or JaneDavitt), but it's definitely chock full of angst and emotional whomp.

What I enjoyed most about Everything (besides it being a longfic) was the authors grasp of canonical voices in a largely A.U. environment. The circumstances are changed, but the essence of Jack and Daniel are the same, and I had no trouble suspending my disbelief.

There was no side-character or shippy bashing of Carter. No de-evolving of Teal'c to a conglomeration of eybrow arches and one-liners. No blatantly unrealistic motivations and such.

This is an inspired story that deals with pain, loss, redemption and love on a mature level - definitely no PWP.

Everything by WordGeek

Current Mood: giddy

torachan

Living Is a Gamble is an SGA AU written for the recent John/Ronon exchange,

satedan_grabass. It's only about 3000 words, so if you haven't read it, I highly recommend you do so.

From the summary ("Ten years after the Plague, life's a little like an RPG. Or is it more like a comic book?"), it's clear this is some sort of post-apocalyptic world, but what sort is not immediately clear. The very first sentence ("When John was a teenager, back at the turn of the century and decades before the Plague") places it at some point in the near future, but that's all we get before we're thrown right into the action, which is just the way I like it.

( Discussion contains spoilers! )

carolyn_claire

The creation of this comm was inspired by a desire to contribute content for DW, and its opening was timed to coincide with the 3W4DW anniversary fest. It's a standing rule of the comm that all comm content is to be hosted here--no linking to posts in other venues, such as one's own journal, is allowed, so that discussion meant for the comm stays in the comm. That doesn't preclude someone mirroring a post made here somewhere else, as long as there's no link to the mirror post--usually; for the duration of the fest, for the next three weeks, we ask that you do not mirror any posts created here anywhere else (though you can announce and link to a post made here in other venues.) Thanks for participating!

carolyn_claire

This post is a sort of a hybrid thing--not really a story review, not as objective or extensive as an essay, and a little bit of both, maybe. As I was thinking about a couple of stories I might like to post about, it struck me that several of them have something in common--they have a SF element in them that really impressed me. But it's a Stargate show, you may say; the entire premise of the series is SF based. And you're right, it is, but that doesn't mean that all the stories written that are based on the series are SF themed, in and of themselves. There's romance, adventure, thrillers, porn, drama, humor, all sorts of foundations for the action and interaction of the stories that aren't SF based, even though the universe, itself, invites the use of wormholes, faster-than-light travel and knowledge of life on other plants as tools to advance those stories. The stories I'm talking about, the ones that give me a little thrill reminiscent of the way the SF stories I grew up on made me feel, have SF elements at their hearts--the stories are built around those elements, and they're extremely cool.

The stories I'm going to refer to are:
Synthesis by Thingswithwings
The Ones You Leave Behind by Leah
Whipping Boy by Skinscript
The Fourteenth of Green by Kanata
Dearest by Lavvyan
( Read more... )

carolyn-claire.livejournal.com

The comm is open, and the first post (by me) is up. Come over and discuss with us! http://the-comfy-chair.dreamwidth.org/

I'll be closing The Cuttingboard, now. Thanks to everyone who's participated; I hope you'll come join us on Dreamwidth!

carolyn_claire

Welcome to The Comfy Chair! This community was created to encourage public discussion of stories written in the Stargate-verse (and other fandoms to be added, later.) The point, here, is to share reactions, views and preferences--what we like in the stories we read and what we don't, and why. Anyone can have an opinion about what does or doesn't work for them in what they read; it's all welcome, here, and all up for discussion.

Please read, remember and follow the guidelines below in order to keep your posting status:

- Any story posted or archived publicly may be discussed here; stories posted to private lists or flocked journals may not. Posters may chose, at their own discretion, to ask authors if they would mind having their story discussed prior to posting, but doing so is not a requirement of the comm.

- This is a discussion comm, not a recs comm or a snark comm. Don't just tell us that you loved a story; tell us why, what made it work for you and if there was anything about it that didn't. Don't choose a story to discuss that doesn't merit discussion--no badfic, please. Choose stories that you or others feel are well written, and tell us about anything that did work for you as well as anything that didn't. Story discussion is interesting and informative; flaming is not. Reasoned, critical discussion is welcome; save bitchy wit, snark and MSTing for other venues. Rants aren't allowed; detailed posts/essays on things like pet peeves, fanon/canon, characterization, etc., including any specific examples from posted stories, are encouraged (without any dramatic eye-rolling or teeth-gnashing, please.)

- Discussion will be focused on stories, only, not authors, posters or other commenters. Be prepared, when posting, for others to disagree with you; that's the point of the comm. It's all about opinion, and opinions on any one story will vary widely. Tactful, respectful discussion is key, but people do express themselves in different ways; comments reprimanding others for not using 'correct' language ("I think", "IMO", etc.) will not be allowed. Focus discussion on the ideas expressed and not how they're expressed. Stay on topic: the comm has a firm "take it outside" (to your own journal) rule for threads that evolve beyond story discussion.

- Discussion here isn't intended as an attack on any story or author, so no 'defense' is needed. To keep discussion uninhibited, authors are asked not to join in discussion of their own stories; friends or betas of authors are also asked not to speak on their behalf. Discussion should center on readers' views of the story as presented, not on authorial intent. Let the story speak for itself, here; write the author directly for her viewpoint or to give feedback.

- Please don't submit your own stories for discussion or request critique or feedback of your stories from the comm. If you'd like to see your completed, publicly-posted story discussed, ask a friend who enjoyed it to open a discussion post about it.

- No story posting, announcements, comm ads or off-topic discussion, please. Discussion of episodes as they relate to writing and particular stories is allowed.

- Do announce your posts to your flist, your fandom's noticeboard/newsletter, etc. to encourage participation in the discussion on your post. (This will become increasingly important as new fandoms are added beyond those the mods participate in.)

- If you have any questions about the comm, please feel free to comment with them to this post or contact me, carolyn_claire, at my journal.

Have fun! It's all about the fun.

carolyn-claire.livejournal.com

That's the name of the new and improved Cuttingboard comm--The Comfy Chair. Like it? We do, and "we" now includes Kanata (yay!), who will be available to ably serve your late-night mod needs, along with Nora, while Pouncer and I will mostly be on tap during the day. I would like to open the comm the morning of the 26th, the first day of the DW 3-week content fest, if my health cooperates over the weekend and allows me to prepare.

I'll be putting up the first story discussion post, as an example and a starter, but I haven't chosen my story, yet. I'm still mostly focused on SGA, and there are certainly a lot of stories I've enjoyed and might get into talking about, but I'm also interested in what stories YOU might like to talk about. I'm going to take a look on Delicious for often-linked stories that ping me, but I'd also like to hear from flisters (and others, if they're reading) about what stories might inspire you to join the discussion, what stories have pleased or moved or surprised you or made you think. Ideas? (Links would be very helpful, too, if you have them.) Don't be shy! Tell me what you like. ;)

carolyn-claire.livejournal.com

Hello, anyone who's still watching the comm! I've developed some ideas (finally) for what I want to do with the comm, and I'm putting them out there for input/discussion, if anyone has any ideas they want to contribute for consideration.

I've been pretty vocal, in my own journal, about my dislike of LJ and my desire to move elsewhere (both my personal journal and this comm.) I tried a couple of other platforms, but those have either failed or not really taken off, fannishly. Dreamwidth, though, looks like my idea of a happy journal home--plenty of fen have taken up residence there, the policies of the journal owners are ones I'm comfortable with, and it's been a happy place to be, fannishly aware and oriented with lots of cool upgrades (like the much longer posting limit) and more goodies to come. They're coming up on a year of service, sometime, here, and some users have organized a sort of fest to promote content that will be exclusive to DW for three weeks (beginning around Apr 26? or something.) I thought this would be a good time to make a move to DW with the comm, as I'm working on moving there with my personal journal. I'm still interested in promoting discussion amongst fanfic readers, just not on LJ. This seems like the perfect solution, and the perfect time to implement it.

I know, though, that not everyone wants to be on DW, or even have their comments on LJ journals/communities moved to DW, so I don't have any plans to move this incarnation of the comm to DW; instead, I'll close it to posting and leave it up as an archive of the discussions that have taken place, here. The new comm on DW will be run with the same mission but possibly with a new name and definitely with expanded fic parameters--I'm going to open it to all SG-verse stories based on all three SG-verse shows, including crossovers and fusions with other shows. Then, as we go on, I'll open it to other fandoms, probably by popular member vote. I'll also have the help of my previous aide, Pouncer, and a new volunteer, Noracharles, who will be acting as co-mods, but the responsibility for the comm--concept to implementation--will still rest entirely with me, so address any complaints/harassment/wank to me and only me, please. (You're encouraged to love on and appreciate Pouncer and Nora as you feel moved to, however.)

Input? Ideas? Suggestions? I'm open to listening to anything anyone wants to contribute, though I'll reiterate that the core mission and rules of the comm WILL remain the same. New comm name submissions will be entertained, too; I was thinking something along the lines of The Bookshelf, something that might be less frightening to potential new comm members, since the name became an issue in the past. I hope to have the comm built and the first post up near the end of the month; I will post a notice, here, when that happens, but I won't be mirroring content.

Fic discussion was and is a beautiful thing; I hope you decide to join us!

cathexys.livejournal.com

I'm really interested in the way fanfiction uses, changes, and inverts tropes that are readily available in popular culture as well as the ones fanfic itself has created. I've argued elsewhere about fanfiction being repetition with a difference¹, and looking at narrative tropes offers one way to instantiate both the repetition (in the way tropes repeat basic plot structures, archetypal characteristics etc.) and the difference (in the way every story fleshes out the trope but even more so in the way the trope gets altered and shifts in a given story but also over time).

One trope I'm particularly interested in is WNGWJLEO (We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other), which to me is the archetrope of old skool slash (i.e., I'd argue that the underlying structure is one that can be found in a large number if not the majority of traditional slash narratives even if the trope itself is not actually visible). I've recently talked at length about WNG and the way I think the underlying motivations have been updated to rid the trope of much of its homophobic sentiments (though I'd maintain that even as some of the stories were indeed violently homophobic, the trope itself never has been as I read it).

Three stories that came out recently illustrate to me the way in which this trope does and does not function. In the following, I want to look at

thingwithwings's always should be someone you really love and then briefly at

trinityofone's You're Pretty Good Looking for a Girl and

toomuchplor's Straight As a Circle. The reason these three stories struck me as interesting (beyond all three being meaty, well written, longish McShep romances :) is the way they ultimately are *not* what I'd expect them to be given a brief plot summary, and each one uses versions of WNG to challenge and subvert the trope in interesting ways.

( Always Should Be as inverted WNG )

( You're Pretty Good Looking and the vicissitudes of bodies )

( Straight as a Circle as gay romance )

( we've come a long way, baby )

millefiori.livejournal.com

Take Clothes Off As Directed by

helenish is NC-17, BDSM themed, and an unauthorized homage set in the alternate universe created by

xanthelj in General & Dr. Sheppard and Coming Home.

I read Helen's story both as a sly, clever reflection of male/female relations in Western society, and a look at the potential pitfalls of a society with an institutionalized BDSM lifestyle. And it's an interesting contrast to Xanthe's stories and style.

( Read more... )

kuwdora.livejournal.com

I found

thepouncer's discussion about deviations from canon interesting, and the replies insightful as to people's preferences on the matter. The following essay/recs have been percolating in my mind for a few months, but I haven't felt the time right to table my thoughts. Until now! I don't usually fic rec, nor meta but this is my attempt to do so in an articulate and thoughtful manner. Forgive me if it isn't.

How Much Canon? Lindsey Novak and Those Weird Pairings (mainly Lindsey Novak/Rodney McKay)
fic recs include drabbles by isiscolo, wabbitseason, trinityofone, aella_irene and a vignette by kellifer_fic

How much canon do you need to find a story as delightful, entertaining and hot as any John/Rodney or John/Elizabeth or *insert main het/slash pairing of choice here* stories out there?

One of the many reasons I love Atlantis is because of all the secondary characters in the show. More characters mean more pairing possibilities! There are those who are stringent OTPers, but even they probably have several growing-to-be-OTPs that don’t conflict with their Main OTP.

Last December, I started

oddball_sga because I enjoyed reading those lesser seen pairings, and wanted to have a place that people could convene and share their Lorne/Weir, Ronon/Kate or Beckett/Grodin stories (among, omfg, so many more. Someone’s even written Kavanagh/Simpson, but for the life of me I can’t even remember who Simpson is and I don’t know if that makes me a bad fan.)

I started a drabble challenge and the first pairing the challenge featured was Novak/McKay. You can read the +10 drabbles here. The drabbles range from the cracktastic to the sweet and even plausible scenarios (in my mind) that would bring those two together or even become friends. I’ll highlight some of the drabbles I favored and give a brief explanation as to why.

isiscolo’s drabble

wabbitseason’s drabble

( Thoughts on isiscolo's drabble )

( Thoughts on wabbitseason’s drabble. )

Other Novak/McKay drabbles I enjoyed from the challenge:
*

trinityofone’s obligatory drunk sex drabble
*

aella_irene’s drabble that includes the oh-so-endearing holiday angle

The next pairing in my scope is Lorne/Novak. We have no reason to believe that they’ve met each other since we haven’t seen it on screen, but Novak is an engineer of sorts aboard the Daedalus and Lorne appeared at the beginning of season 2, when the Daedalus arrived. It’s not impossible to say they ran into each other during the 3 month trip.

kellifer_fic has written one of my favorite Lorne/Novak stories, called Moved to Distraction

( Thoughts on Moved to Distraction. )

In the end how much canon do you need to support a pairing? Lorne/Parrish seems to have a fairly strong following and I was so confused that I had to look Parrish up in order to put a face to a name – they’re together in one episode for like, what, 3 minutes? Not enough canon for me, but for many it is. Another pairing that seems to have exploded in the corner of weird pairings is Lorne/Novak. In fact,

lorne_novak’s community title is: Lack of Canon Does Not Impede the Creative Process.

Do you think that’s true? Does it take away from the enjoyment of a story if they’ve never formally met on screen? By using secondary characters but still staying within the realms of what we’ve seen in canon is very tough in my mind and the author who can accomplish so much with so little earns my appreciation and respect.

Current Mood: contemplative

carolyn-claire.livejournal.com

Since the comm's inception, I've felt it needed more than two moderating eyes--three, at least, possibly even four. Happily for me, a woman with two very good eyes and a lot of other fine qualities has consented to co-mod the comm with me. Welcome,

thepouncer, to your new position as co-wielder of the Eggplant of Admin Authority, and thank you for being willing. *dusts Pouncer with celebratory parmesan* Members, please respect Pouncer's eggplant as you would mine. (And how much do I enjoy getting to say that.)

thepouncer.livejournal.com

I’ve been thinking about making this post for a while, because I read a lot of Atlantis stories, and frequently I’m thrown out of a story (that isn’t an obvious alternate universe) because of deviations from canon that seem random or nonsensical. In my less charitable moments, I chalk those deviations up as errors, as mistakes that could have been caught by a good beta or by researching the show a bit more. Other times, I’m able to shrug and continue. But it always lessens my enjoyment of the story in question and if the deviations are too egregious, I stop reading and go on to the next one.

There have been stories that I thought were otherwise marvelous, but the canon deviations were too overt for me to embrace them fully. I’m not talking about characterization, because that’s often in the eye of the beholder. As a reader, I try to immerse myself in an author’s words, but if a story contradicts canon for no good reason that I can see, my critical faculties blare an alarm: wait, what was that? Why? Why would XYZ happen given that the show said ABC? Instead of going with the flow of the story, I’m busy trying to problem-solve. I can’t relax and enjoy the writing, because I haven’t been given a basis for the changes. Suspension of disbelief only takes me so far.

Of course, I like canon. I like the show; I think it has room for stories that are humorous and funny and romantic and adventurous and serious and angst-filled – an entire spectrum of emotion and potential without venturing into alternate universes, although those can be cool too.

( Further discussion, using Sabine's The Pegasus Society as an example )

How do you feel about deviations from canon? Do you notice them? Do they bother you or not? Are there things that you see all the time? Things that don’t fit into the three categories above?

carolyn-claire.livejournal.com

In my comment to

summerfling in response to her comm post on popularity vs. quality, I mentioned that I might open up a thread for recommendations of potentially overlooked stories as a way to further the cause of wider readership for stories by newer writers, since some felt that that was an issue. Normally, we focus on discussion, here, rather than recs (there are plenty of good recs journals, already), but in this case, I'll make an exception.

Do you feel there are hidden gems to be mined, possibly by newer or lesser-known writers, that deserve to be read and enjoyed more widely? You're welcome to rec those stories here, in this thread. Be aware, though, (here's the tricky part) that a writer who's new to you may be someone else's long-time favorite, and a story you haven't seen recced anywhere may be much loved and talked about in other circles. Let's think of these author and story recs as 'new to me' or 'unknown to me'--and please don't be offended if you or your story are referred to as new or unsung, here. It really is hard to know who's seen what, anymore, SGA fandom having become so large, and if someone wants to be sure your story is seen by as many people as possible, that's a nice, thing, yes?

Please provide a link to any story you rec that will take readers to a page that lists story info, warnings, spoilers, etc., or provide that sort of info in your rec blurb. And tell us why you think this story deserves a spot in the 'top tier'--these are gems we're looking for, stories that you think rival those you've seen most recced and discussed in terms of, well, whatever it is about a story that makes you consider it one of the best. And do feel free to drop a rec into this thread at any time, indefinitely. There can never be too many good recs, only too little time.

ETA: If you have or know of a recs page that you feel covers more ground than the average, do feel free to mention that, too. And a shout-out to

ship_recs for pointing out things I otherwise wouldn't have seen/tried and providing helpful teaser-tastes of stories. Also,

sga_newsletter--no recs, but links to all the new stuff I might otherwise never hear about.

paradise-city.livejournal.com

Quality and popularity are two separate concepts that, in theory, are complementary. In practice, however, they are often intimately entwined and certainly play an important role in what gets read, watched, listened to, etc. That the same mechanism is at work in fandom and fan fiction is not surprising, though perhaps, with the independent community nature of fandom as opposed to professional published fiction, it should be.

What follows is a discussion on quality vs. popularity in SGA fan fiction, with the purpose of exploring the structural dynamics of fandom and the social norms and mores that contribute to those dynamics.

( Read on. )

ETA 1: For any newcomers to the discussion, the issues I originally posted about are related to public crit and easily segue into a discussion on that topic. However, as per the admin's kind reminder, please keep your responses away from the topic of public crit and on topic with what was said in the original post. Thanks!

ETA 2: Thanks to everyone who's participated in this discussion. I benefited quite a bit from reading others' opinions and I hope some of y'all did, too. Kudos also for keeping the discussion friendly and polite; perhaps it was naive of me, but I hadn't realized how incendiary a topic this could be. Thanks for sharing your ideas and opinions. :)

carolyn-claire.livejournal.com

There appears to be some confusion over how posting and commenting work in the comm, so I'm here to clarify, answer questions, if there are any, and make a small change. The way the comm is set up, you must be a member to make a post. Anyone can join the comm, and anyone who joins will receive posting access; there's no screening, no velvet rope. This rule is about controlling trollish behavior, not about exclusivity or keeping anyone out. The power to grant posting access also gives me the power to remove it from anyone who posts maliciously or inappropriately. No one has ever been refused membership.

One need not be a member to comment, though; one need only friend the community, not join, even if it's only for the short period needed to add a comment to an existing post--one can friend, comment, and unfriend. I set it up this way as part of my plan to control misbehavior, but, on researching a little further, I see (I think) that I can ban any user from commenting in the comm if I need to, whether they've friended the comm or not.

Because of the confusion created when people try to comment and can't who don't understand that it's friending, not joining, that gives them commenting access, I'm going to remove the 'friends only' comments restriction and allow any registered user to comment--anon comments are still not allowed. If it goes well, it'll stay that way; if it doesn't, it won't, and I'll let you know if I change the settings back to friends only.

If you wanted to comment on Cath's post but don't want to friend the comm, you should now be able to. If anyone tries and still has difficulty, please email me at cc1 at charter dot net and let me know that it didn't work for you. If that happens, I'll...bother the help staff, I guess. It should work, though. And everyone will play nice, yes?

cathexys.livejournal.com

I've been very interested in the general response to

synecdochic's Freedom, and I wanted to collect my thoughts and hopefully hear some different/opposing interpretations. Some of these ideas are influenced by the comments I read (esp. the author's interchange with

luthien and

cesperanza), some are from comments

synecdochic made directly. I have decided to focus on two (among the myriad of things) that interested me in the story, and I hope it's OK to post them together.

( trauma as structural conceit )

( fannish tropes )

zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com

Chasing Sheppard by

scrunchy
Teamwork by

methaya and

magus_minor

I have a really long fic to read list. I put things that have an interesting

sga_noticeboard write up or get recommended by someone I know on it, either c&p the write-up/rec or summarize what I think is potentially interesting, and stick it on the list.

Which is the long way round of saying I just read these stories today, instead of in November and October, when they were each posted.

They are both AUs, in very different ways, and I think Sheppard is largely unsuccessful (as SGA fanfiction, not as writing), but Teamwork is a darn fine piece of work as fanfiction, and I'd like to, you know, talk about that a bit.

So, Chasing Sheppard is a rewrite of Chasing Amy, ( discussion )

carolyn-claire.livejournal.com

*waves* Hello, all, it's me--CC, the absentee landlord. I've been kind of busy, RL kind of busy, but I've wanted to talk about crackfic for a couple of months, and now here I am to do it. Thenk yew for your patience and/or your poking.

So, what the heck is crackfic? Where'd the term originate? Who calls crackfic on a story? Is crackfic a new genre, a renaming of an old one, or just a state of mind? Does labeling a silly story crackfic confer some kind of legitimacy on it that wasn't there before? What about humor? Kink? AU? Have those labels been assimilated under the crackfic label? Does 'crackfic' cover a multitude of sins? Does it mean never having to say you're sorry? I wonder about these things. Do you? Tell me what you think about crackfic.

( More cracked thoughts and questions about crackfic. )

Since this topic is about larger ficcish issues--genre, style, direction, etc.--than a single author's story, it's okay to respond to this post from the perspective of a writer as well as a reader, but please do also respond as a reader if you're responding as a writer. Specific stories can be cited as examples, that's fine, but let's discuss crackfic as a whole rather than do in-depth discussion of specific stories, in this post.