sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (Default)
Well it's a good thing I made a New Year's resolution to post a fanwork each month, or I wouldn't have edited this last night and posted it this morning:

Title: Fall of Princes
Author: [personal profile] kaizoku
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: NC-17
Ships: Arthur/Gwen, Gwen/Merlin, Arthur/Gwen/Merlin
Summary: Arthur wants to see Gwen with another man.
Notes: OMG you guys this story is so hot.
Links: Text, download, and streaming links at the AO3

Another one of my resolutions was to repost twenty of my old podfics to the AO3 each month until it's done. Well, work has been busy and I've been putting it off so I didn't really try until today, and so far I've done three. Lots more uploaded to the webspace [personal profile] paraka's giving me, but it will take a long time to fill everything in, especially with some authors having left fandom and/or taken down their fics, and with the files on my own computer being way more disorganized than I'd realized.

Anyway, here are my works tagged podfic on the AO3. It will be gradual. I'm using a posting skin that [personal profile] eosrose made and shared at [community profile] podfic_tips a while back, with the colors tweaked by [personal profile] fire_juggler and I really like how it looks. I sure regret not doing this years ago.

The Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology is happening again this year with submissions due by February 8th. This is a fun thing to participate in even if you haven't made podfic before. I am happy to have a deadline to motivate me to make something in February.
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (gwen merlin steps by vicky_v)
I've been trying to update the FAQ for the Camelot Remix and Camelot Remix 2013 collections on the AO3, but I keep getting a 500 error when I click "Update". Has anyone else run into something like this or have any ideas on what could be wrong? Thanks!

I have put in a support request, but sometimes asking one's friends is quicker. :)
sophinisba: Gwen's lips and Morgana's lips with gauzy fabric (gwen morgana lips by ravenclawbest)
I did this meme just over a year ago, and I thought it would be fun to come back and compare how it looks this year! My top ten fics by AO3 hitcounts:

list )

thoughts on this list and last year's list )

The other day [personal profile] anatsuno pointed out a great Tumblr post by [personal profile] helens78 about the taboo against saying we like and our proud of our own work. Helens said it would be great if more authors would use the One of My Favorites tag on the AO3 and I agree, so tonight I went in and added it to four of my fics. I had decided to limit myself to five and I can't quite decide between two others. :) And none of those six fics overlap with the ten that are here, but that is okay.

So far only 135 works at the AO3 have that tag. Why not add it to a few of your stories, if you archive there? A lot of readers would like to know about them.

If you are a fan of the AO3 and can afford to do so, consider donating to the OTW! (I just accidentally typed OT3. Seriously, that comes to my fingers more easily than OTW or OTP. My OT3 is in fic #6 in the list above.)


Also also, the OTW is hosting an AO3 Tag Wrangling Open House from 19:00 to 21:00 UTC on April 22nd. In my timezone that is Sunday afternoon or an excellent time for fannish discussion, before frantic Sunday night catchup for the school week and frantic last-minute Remix edits. As much as I love the archive, I rebel a little every time I post a fic because the canonical Merlin character tags are ALL WRONG from my perspective. I am really curious as to why they've chosen to do things that way (and whether they might change it omg!) and also lots of other things about tags. Tags!
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (merlin ot3 by melody_icons)
It's possible I've written fewer words of fic this year than any year since I've been in fandom, and most of that has been short PWPs (plus a few other ficlets that didn't have porn or plot). However, I would never skip the fic year in review meme because I love it, plus it is nice to compare from year to year.

List of fics )

Numbers and graphs! )

Questions meme )
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (Default)
-[livejournal.com profile] aralias has started up [livejournal.com profile] podtor_who, a new comm for Doctor Who podfic! Sign up for a day between Nov. 20 and Dec. 19 to post a newly recorded Doctor Who podfic! Wouldn't it be great if we had one for every day?

-The Kaleidoscope fanworks exchange is probably going to go live this weekend! In the meantime, they are looking for pinch hits in the following fandoms:
十二国記 | Juuni Kokki | Twelve Kingdoms
青い花 | Aoi Hana | Sweet Blue Flowers
NO.6(ナンバー・シックス) | No. 6 (anime)
Epic of Gilgamesh
Dragon of the Lost Sea - Laurence Yep
Static Shock
サイレン- | Psyren
東海道HISAME | Toukaidou Hisame
姑獲鳥の夏 | Ubume no Natsu | Summer of the Ubume - Kyōgoku Natsuhiko
The mods would appreciate it if you'd pass on this info to people who might be able to help. You can also browse all the requests and make extra treats if you want. ETA: I am so amused by the two Y tu mamá también requests, right there one after the other. That is fandom, right there. God bless. /eta Some of the requests are open for art and fanmixes and vids as well as fic. All the links you need are at [community profile] dark_agenda.

-Speaking of rare fandoms, Yuletide is open for signups! I'm not especially in a writing place these days and the nominations process looked scary, so I've decided to sit out official participation again this year, but I do hope to write a treat or three! You can get the links you need for that at [livejournal.com profile] yuletide_admin. The years I participated in Yuletide I had a really awesome time!

-OMG OTW elections! If you're a member, you should have instructions and useful links in your email.
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (Caetano Veloso)
Today is the last day of [community profile] pod_aware! Today's topic is Encouraging Podfic:
Podfic as a fan art is still relatively small, even if it's growing quickly. There are positive steps that can be taken to help podfic as a fan art grow. To learn how check out [community profile] pod_aware on LJ or DW.

I have run out of podfics to post and also, apparently, things to say about podfic. But it has been an awesome fest! Thanks for all your hard work, [personal profile] paraka, and to everybody else who contributed! ETA: Oh here's something: if you run a comm for say fic about a certain pairing or a certain small fandom, ask yourself whether you are against having art, podfics, and other fanworks posted at that comm. If not, edit your posting guidelines and make an announcement to the comm! I would really appreciate it if more comms would do that and I know a lot of visual artists feel the same way. /ETA

In other fest news, I am really looking forward to participating in [livejournal.com profile] erasureathon, a fest where you get assigned to an author and erase most of the words in one of their fics to end up with a poem. The explanation of erasure at the comm says,
Erasure poetry is made when the poet selects a written work, removes parts, and what is left is the poem. It’s an excavation, an unfolding, a division, a recreation, a transformation. Your final product can be radically different from your original source – in fact it is bound to.

Earlier this year I went to a reading by several published erasure poets and it was AWESOME! I was especially impressed by Travis MacDonald's book The O Mission Repo (Vol. 1): a Repo of the O Mission Error Attacks on Unit (based on The 9/11 Commission Report). It was very creepy and beautiful! This is the third year of the challenge and I know [personal profile] be_themoon is playing but I hope other friends of mine will join up too. I wish the signups weren't screened but I guess it's exciting to be surprised. Signups are open through December 3rd and erasures are due on January 7th. Yay fanworks of fanworks! OMG POEMS!!!

Oh hey speaking of transformative works, let's hear it for those AO3 Support volunteers, politely and helpfully answering a lot of strongly worded emails over the last few days. Yay for them and also for other folks who have put so much work into improving the AO3 and other OTW projects.

So, OTW Board Elections are coming up later this week! If you have contributed money this year and are able to vote, I'd like to encourage you to vote for Julia Beck, Jenny Scott-Thompson, Nikisha Sanders, and Betsy Rosenblatt. If you would like to spend a few days reading posts about this and getting really depressed, let me know and I can give you some links. But the most clearly stated post I've read is [personal profile] bookshop's OTW Elections! Now with less confusion!, which puts it in terms of, well, why not to vote for Naomi Novik (even though she's awesome in many other ways that are not being on the OTW Board).
sophinisba: Morgana smiling from ep 2.03 (morgana happy by gwy)
I have had a week. FRIDAY has not meant this much to me in a long time. Yes I am tipsy in the late afternoon okay.

Anyway here are some things:

-I have only finished one [livejournal.com profile] paperlegends fic, but it was awesome. Destiny That Darkly Hides Us by [livejournal.com profile] nympha_alba is a wonderful long Arthur/Merlin fic takes place before and during WWI but in an AU where magic exists and is illegal. The language in this is fancier than what I usually like to read but it won me over pretty quickly with the LONGING and the ACHING. It is great.

-I am in the middle of reading The Ivy Crown by [personal profile] briar_pipe and it is also great. It is the AU-from-the-end-of-season-one fic you've been waiting for, full of plot and characters from Arthurian legend and Morgana being the strong, intelligent, and flawed center of her own story.

-Speaking of ladies and fic, my fellow Merlin femslasher has convinced me to join [livejournal.com profile] pornspiration, a comm for getting better at writing porn that will be kicking off tomorrow. Membership is moderated but they welcome people from any fandom and level of experience, and the mods would especially like to invite femslash fans to join in. There will be lots of different kinds of posts but if you're like me and you don't want people to critique your writing then it's okay to sit out those rounds and just play along in other stuff. It looks like it will be a fun and upbeat place and I hope I can find time to participate and I wish it were on Dreamwidth but hey.



AO3 Feelings and Opinions )

-Last week I finally made a good start on my podfic project for [community profile] ladiesbigbang! I made some big mistakes but I still got a significant chunk done and it felt good.

-I have filled twenty out of twenty-five squares on my first [community profile] kink_bingo card!!! I have until the end of September to cross off "silk, velvet, feathers, furs", "prostitution/sex work", "whipping/flogging", "obedience", and "consent play". I think it's kind of funny that I haven't come up with anything for consent play yet, considering how excited I was to get that square and the fact that half of my fills have been dubcon or noncon. I just haven't found anything that quite fits it in the way I want. (I thought about trying to do Gwen/Vivian with enthusiastic consent for the Happy Endings challenge at [livejournal.com profile] summerpornathon but it didn't work out.) I had pornathon fics picked out that I wanted to podfic for both that and obedience, but the authors either never de-anoned or didn't answer my podfic permission requests, so I'm still looking. There's another piece I started writing for pornathon that involves prostitution, so I should try to sit down and make that work. Silk/velvet/feathers/furs is another one that seems like it should be easy but hasn't happened yet. And whipping/flogging is not really my kink and I don't have any ideas. So yeah, I would take suggestions for any of those five, particularly if you know of good, relatively short fics that ought to be podficced.

-I watched the first two episodes of Parks and Recreation last night and another this afternoon. I like the main character a lot and it often makes me laugh but more often just makes me very uncomfortable. If you would like to try to convince me to keep watching I will listen. I would also take recs for other shows that are streaming on Netflix or other places on the Internet, especially the half-hour funny kind that I can watch right before bed. What I would really like to watch is more Community. That's coming back soon, right?

I finished the first season of Mad Men a couple days ago and was going to try to hold off on diving in to the second, but I think I will probably cave tonight.
sophinisba: Wee Gwen admires wee Merlin's magic! (gwen merlin by el_jamon)
-Last night I went back on Tumblr after a hiatus provoked by rumors of Merlin spoilers. There were no Merlin spoilers and there were lots of pretty pictures, and it seemed to me that more of them had image descriptions than last time I was on, so triple yay.

-[community profile] kink_bingo is starting up again on June 1st. I hadn't been so excited but with the ramp-up posts and new kinks and changes to the rules and all of that now I am. I especially loved [personal profile] pinesandmaples's and [personal profile] rooibos's essay Opening the door, or how fanfic changes everything about what finding kink on the Internet has meant in their lives.

-[livejournal.com profile] lgbtq_recs is also starting up again on June 1st and could use recommenders. I've found out about a lot of cool stuff through this comm.

-[community profile] dark_agenda is planning the first Kaleidoscope Fanwork Exchange for rare fandoms with chromatic creators and characters.

-[personal profile] themadlurker made An Incomplete and Highly Subjective List of Reasons Why I Love the AO3. Yay AO3!!!

-In less squee-inducing news, [personal profile] facetofcathy linked to a really interesting essay about working with mostly white feminist organizations who wanted to help adding more diversity (until they realized that would mean doing things differently and prioritizing the needs of women of color): White Feminist Privilege in Organizations.
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (gwen smiling by hermitsoul)
Here is a fun meme that I saw on [personal profile] torachan's journal and since then on a few others'. My top-ten fics by AO3 hitcounts:

List and thoughts )
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (frodo writing by nefithilwen)
Every once in a while I'll say to one of my friends, "Gah, I wish people would fill out their user profiles on the AO3!" and my friend, despite being a regular user and fan of the AO3, will say something like, "Huh, I guess I should do that sometime" or "There are profiles on the AO3?" This is totally understandable. Nobody really talks about them and they are not very prominent. They aren't linked in the sidebar or from a person's Works page (the one I look at most often). The URL is http://archiveofourown.org/users/USERNAME/profile, and there is a link from a user's main page. I had some trouble with HTML when I set up my account there in 2009 and didn't actually go back and fix it until today, after I'd been complaining about it on Twitter. So, you know, I understand about it not being at the top of everyone's to-do list.

But I would really like it if more people would put a little information there, especially links! The three things I would love to see people put in their profiles are
-Where else they are on the web (like LJ/IJ/DW)
-How to contact them privately
-How they feel about uses of their work (specifically relevant to my current interests: PODFIC).

I would like to know! )
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (frodo writing by nefithilwen)
Fic rec! Last night I read the first 18 parts of a new WIP at the kink meme, The Map of Love. It's, um, Arthur/Merlin in which Arthur is a doll, but it's quite lovely and achy rather than creepy or cracky (not that there's anything wrong with crack or creepiness). It's from Arthur's POV and it has great supporting characters (FREYA!!) and in general is just very interesting and enjoyable. It just got updated with with another 8 parts a little while ago, so I'm looking forward to reading some more of it tonight. ETA: Note that it starts out with cancer and death - if you'd rather not read about that you can skip ahead to the middle of the third comment, and the story will still make about as much sense.

Podfic rec! Earlier this week I finished listening to The Student Prince, fic and podfic by [personal profile] pandarus, and that was also wonderful! It's a very long fic and I liked some parts more than others, but I was completely charmed by the end, as I pretty much knew I would be. I was sort of laughing at myself and how predictable my reactions were, as in getting bored with the love triangulations and the drinking, then happy with the romance and the porn, and over the moon whenever glbt issues came up. Anyway, FayJay's reading is totally smooth and fun and happy-making, and I highly recommend it.

Podfic progress! )

Lack of Writing Progress :( )
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (yuletide sun jan davey ellis by chomiji)
Look you guys! [livejournal.com profile] fitz_y posted a gigantic Merlin Fic Rec Extravaganza Eleganza for slash, femslash, and multi ships other than Arthur/Merlin. This is a great resource (and I'm not just saying that because it includes a couple of my fics and a bunch by my friends)! There's a lot of great variety in Merlin fandom but the Arthur/Merlin stories do tend to be the most popular, and the rarepair stuff can be hard to find. I know when I've used Delicious or AO3 tags to try to find Gwen/Morgana fic, I mostly get Arthur/Merlin fic with Gwen/Morgana in the background. Fic tagged Lancelot/Merlin often turns out to be about Merlin starting out in a relationship with Lancelot but eventually realizing he really loves Arthur. Obviously there's nothing wrong with those kinds of stories, but Fitz's list points us right at the awesome fics where the rarepair is the main one. Hooray!

The epicness of that post puts me to shame - so much I haven't read, even for my favorite rare pairings! But here is my own humble rec list, just four more of my favorites from the Yuletide stories I've read.

fandoms: The Catcher in the Rye, Old Spice Man/Beowulf, The Muppet Show/Doctor Who/Doctor Who RPF, The Handmaid's Tale )

Yuletide

Nov. 13th, 2010 08:19 am
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (winter tree by liviapenn)
Yuletide signups are up on the AO3! They will be open until…okay I guess we don’t get a deadline, maybe the 17th or maybe the 19th or 20th. If you’re not in a rush though you might want to wait a day or two so as not to pound the servers so hard. Apparently the form is huge and may take a long time to load. People seem to be having better luck with Chrome than other browsers. There’s more information at [livejournal.com profile] yuletide_admin. I have an extra AO3 invite code, so let me know if you need one. I have really enjoyed this challenge for the last three years and I highly recommend it. I'm excited that some of my friends are participating for the first time this year.

Don’t forget that you can also keep up with [community profile] dark_agenda, who are running a subcollection within Yuletide 2010 to encourage and promote fics with chromatic characters and creators, and [community profile] access_fandom has an informal challenge for Yuletide fics about characters with disabilities.

I’ve decided not to sign up myself this year for a combination of reasons, the biggest one being that I’m facing a lot of deadlines in real life right now and I don’t want to risk getting a difficult assignment and having fandom become another source of stress. (There’s a small possibility that I’ll cave though.) Normally I would power through on the strength of my Yuletide squee, but, um… squee harshing )

On Dreamwidth you can see the latest posts tagged yuletide. (I do wish this had inline cut tags like one’s reading list does.) I was using that to follow the wank but then it turned into more and more “Dear Yuletide Writer” posts and those are also cheering me up. Already this morning I found a request by someone I don’t know that’s uncannily similar to what I want from the source, and I might try to write that or something else, even though I’m not signing up. Last year I wrote two extra stories and the year before I wrote five and those were all a lot of fun, even though last year I also had people telling me that reading letters to get ideas for extra stories was Not In the True Spirit of Yuletide. *g* I guess there’s always something.
sophinisba: Merlin smiling with forest background (ep. 1.04) (merlin smiling by miakun)
Hey all, I'm finally getting started with that Merlin remix challenge I've talked about a few times. I'm thinking signups in another week or so and fics due in October (a shorter writing period to beat the holiday rush). Announcements will be crossposted at [personal profile] camelotremix/[livejournal.com profile] camelotremix and the fics will be hosted at the AO3.

Both journals and the AO3 are completely bare-bones right now. Anybody feel like making up a layout or a banner for publicity? Or maybe just pointing me in the direction of an OT4 or Camelot icon for posting over there?

Is anyone interested in co-modding? Or if that sounds like too much commitment, anybody up for helping me get things set up this week? I wrote a draft of a FAQ post this morning and would like to have a friend or two read it over before I put it up.

Thank you!

Remixes yay

Mar. 2nd, 2010 06:09 pm
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (merlin by brightedelweiss)
Sign-ups for Remix Redux 2010 are probably going to start in the next week. Yay! Watch [livejournal.com profile] remixers_lounge if you're interested. I wrote last July about why I love remixes. anticipation )

[community profile] kink_bingo is also running a remix mini-challenge this month with more flexible rules. shiny )

fic pie

Feb. 6th, 2010 01:04 pm
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (frodo writing by nefithilwen)
Yesterday I (sort of) finished posting my fics at the Archive of Our Own, for a total of 100 works! This is exciting because it gives me an opportunity to make pie charts. Pretty colors! Het and slash and other genres that may or may not have a slice of pie or a place in the conversation! )
sophinisba: Frodo smiling (frodo happy by proverb)
I've been having a really nice week. I've been blowing off exercise (eh, the gym is closed and it's too cold to run outside) and rl work (eh, no excuse there), staying at home and throwing myself into some fun fannish projects. I started a new Merlin fic on Monday and another one yesterday and have been writing a ton on both. \o/ I haven't posted anything new but I've had new comments on a few older fics that made me feel really good. I've been archiving my old fics at the Archive of Our Own and exchanging e-mails to brainstorm for a small fic and art fest to be held at [community profile] camelot_fleet next month.

I finally finished watching Noah's Arc on Netflix instant viewing a few days ago. I liked the movie a little less than most of the episodes because (skip) of all the relationship/infidelity angst and because I was disappointed that Junito wasn't in it and that Noah ended up with Wade, who I still think is an asshole. I did like the part with Wade's mom though, and Chance's student Brandon was a cutie. It was still fun and I think I might request Alex fic for Yuletide next year.

On Tuesday I went out to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie and I liked it pretty well, though not as much as I'd hoped. Comments on style and characters but no real spoilers )

I thought uploading my fic at the AO3 would be really tedious but it's mostly been easy and occasionally fun - I like skimming my old fics and deciding on tags for them. lots of AO3 talk )

Speaking of LotR, [personal profile] franzeska commented on the Dreamwidth side of the Fanlore post I did a couple weeks ago to ask whether I remembered the vampire hobbits fad from a few years back, and I had to say no, I think it was before my time. Does anyone else remember who the authors were, when that happened and where they got archived?
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (yuletide squee by liviapenn)
Yuletide has moved to the Archive of Our Own this year and that's taking some adjustment but is mostly awesome. The thing I love most personally is that it's now possible for us authors to edit our own stories whenever we need, and that doesn't affect the anonymity or give the mods extra work. It also makes me happy to know that lots of people are helping out with technical stuff at the archive so not all the work is on [personal profile] astolat and [personal profile] elynross.

And it means that anyone with an AO3 account can upload Yuletide stories, even if they didn't sign up for the original challenge. If you're interested in participating and don't have an account, you can request one! You can look at Yuletide requests from people who don't have a full-length story posted for them yet to see if there's something you'd like to write, even if it's just a drabble. Once those are all filled everyone's requests will open up. (Um, I'm still not actually writing, but I'm excited about it in my own way.)

Another thing that's neat about the archive is that people can put whatever tags they want on their stories. It's possible to see the fandom tags for the challenge so some people are looking at that to try to figure out which of their requests got written. I'm not doing that because I want to be surprised, but I have been looking at some of the other tags, including the Character of Color one where you can see a ton of new Mystery Works uploaded in the last few days.

I have a question for Leverage fans, since there will probably be a bunch of Leverage fics for Yuletide. I like Leverage pretty well but I've only seen the first season and the first six episodes of the second. But most of the episodes are pretty, you know, episodic, so I'd be fine reading fics without having seen the end, right? Or does something big and dramatic happen at the end of season two that will be ruined for me if I find out the wrong way? Is there an episode or two I should try to watch before I read fics, so that things will make sense, and that will be okay to watch without having seen all the other episodes?

Profile

sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (Default)
Sophinisba Solis

Tags

Syndicate

RSS Atom
Page generated Jun. 11th, 2025 07:54 pm

Style Credit

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags