Elspethdixon's Big Damn Fanfic List

Being an index to every piece of extant-on-the-web fic by Elspethdixon since her freshman year of college, including the clichéd badfic, the abandoned WiPs, the one that turned up on McTabby’s Summary Executions, and the one with the word “orbs” in it. From Harry Potter to Pirates of the Caribbean, and beyond. Hopefully, the quality improves as ones moves down the page.

( Big Damn List )

Forward-dated to go at the top of my journal. Warnings are present in the headers on all multichapter fics. Warnings for ficlets will be provided upon request. All multichapter fics contain some degree of hurt/comfort.

I had this bizarre dream last night that a fourth Iron Man movie came out and:

a) undid all the character development Tony went through in the Avengers movie & Iron Man 3.

b) Had a screen play written by Matt Fraction (hence (a) happening) - who in the dream had apparently publically bragged in interviews that he'd never bothered to watch the IM3 or Avengers movies because he didn't want them to taint his 'vision' for the 4th film.

c) Had a love triangle where Pepper inexplicably nearly cheated on Tony with Thor.

d) Had Talia al Ghul in it as Hawkeye's long lost sister, with the revelation that Clint was secretly Ra's al Ghul's long lost illegitimate son. Also Talia could phase through objects like Kitty Pride because the League of Assassins had done evil science experiments on her, and Ra's Al Ghul - in a cover identity as a corrupt US politician - had been one of Howard Stark's old business partners.

e) Turned into a crossover with Transformers partway through. The Aerialbots appeared, and Rhodey was somehow magically turned into a Transformer (his root-form/robot form was, of course, the War Machine armor) and became the Air Force liason to the Autobots. Transformer!Rhodey's alt-form was some sort of frankenplane fusion between an A-6 Intruder and an A-10 Warthog, which makes a weird kind of sense as far as dream logic goes - the shoulder cannon on the War Machine armor turned into that big, asymetrical nose cannon the A-10 has.


... I'd actually consider reading a fanfic devoted to (d) or (e), despite the fact that it's made of pure WTF. Especially if (d) ended in Talia/Natasha porn, which the dream sadly did not - it ended in Tony acting like an awful charicature of his pre-Vietghanistan self and Pepper randomly dumping both Tony and Thor to hook up with Suddenly-an-Asgardian!Steve, who had apparently survived the ice because he'd secretly been Baldur all along.

And then seanchai and I left the theater and went to hang out with an alien dance troop in the lobby of our space station's artificial tropical rain forest environment dome. Because dreams.

So, having run out of dinosaur documentaries once again, we've been watching a documentary series on volcanoes, which is otherwise good except for the fact that the announcer/voiceover keeps saying "volcano doctors" instead of "vulcanologists," which is so cutesy and twee that it drives me nuts.

This is a science documentary on PBS that's clearly aimed at adults. You can call scientific professions by their actual names, announcer guy, I promise.

Generally, when I read either romance novels or fic, I tend to skim over the sex scenes. But every once in a while, a particular line will jump out at me and force me to pat attention, like the following one from one of Juliana Stone's older novels that made me re-read the entire page trying to figure out what exactly the guy was doing to the woman:

( cut for NC-17-rated details )

I was seriously worried that it would be dreadful (Iron Man 2 was a big step down from Iron Man 1, and if #3 had continued the trend and been a step down from 2... yeah), and when I went into the theater and saw the large, annoying poster of a hysterical Pepper clinging to Tony-in-the-armor, I almost turned right back around and went back out again.

But luckily, I didn't. The poster lied, no such "hysterical woman clings to her brave savior" scene is in the movie, and it was actually really good.

The feel of the whole thing reminded me a lot of 70s/Bronze Age Marvel. All it lacked was the classic 70s Iron Man "Tony inexplicably strips his clothes off in front of Rhodey for no reason" scene.*


*My theory is that Tony at that point in the comics was continually trying to seduce an apparently oblivious Rhodey.

American flisters: The Employment Non-discrimination Act has been reintroduced into Congress (again).

Email or write/call your congressmen if you can, guys. Maybe we can actually get it passed this time (not that I hold out much hope for any worthwhile action from Congress at the moment, given that they let the sequester* go through).


*I could rant about that one almost as long as I could about the utter worthlessness of Matt Fraction. And you probably want to hear it even less than you do the Fraction rant.

So, in light of recent tumblr events, a statement:

If you want to save a copy of any of my fics to your hard drive - YES, GO AHEAD. (I have something like half a gigabyte of fanfic saved to my hard drive myself.)

If you want to print a copy of any of my fics out and keep it in a three-ring binder somewhere - YES, GO AHEAD.

If you want to lend the three-ring binder to every person in your English class/office/college dorm - YES, GO AHEAD.

If you want to turn a copy of any of my fics into an ebook and put it on your nook/kindle/iPad/etc. - YES, GO AHEAD (AO3 very conveniently lets you do this automatically)

If you want to email the ebook to all forty-three of your closest friends - YES, GO AHEAD (or just point them to AO3 and tell them to click the nice "download as epub" button themselves)

If you want to publish copies of said fic as zines and sell them for $$$? ASK FIRST.

I will probably say yes provided you're doing it as a for-cost zine instead of for a profit and aren't doing something likely to get all of us sued by Marvel/Disney, like publically listing it for sale on Amazon or Lulu, but still, please ask. If nothing else, I might have a clean, all-in-one-word-document file of the fic to make your life easier. (Also, it's usually considered polite in zine-making circles to give contributors copies of the zine)

Actually, let me mention that sued by Marvel/Disney part again. Disney is infamous for the rabid psychotic intensity with which they defend their copyrights. Listing Avengers fanfic for sale on widely-used public sites like Lulu, Createspace, Smashwords, or, god forbid, Amazon, is probably a good way to risk facing a C&D letter if the wrong team of corporate lawyers somehow notice it.

Zines have been around in fandom since long before the invention of the internet, and there's a whole culture and etiquette surrounding them, some of which is probably just us old school, pre-tumblr fans being fuddy-duddies, but some of which exists for a reason. Selling printed fic at cost and not making a profit is a fandom etiquette thing that corporate lawyers probably aren't going to distinguish from selling it to make money, so it's a good idea to try and stay under the radar. And, again, to ask the authors first, because while most of us will say yes, some fans are very, very sensitive about having complete control of their fic and will not only say no if asked, but be extremely upset if you go ahead and distribute it anyway.

(You know those artists who are so upset at having a piece of fanart reblogged on tumblr that they don't feel comfortable posting art at all anymore and delete their entire pixiv or deviant art account? That reaction is not unique to artists; some writers feel that way, as well)

ETA: And if it's co-written? (Which means pretty much all of my longer Marvel fics) Please, please ask seanchai as well before openly distributing any kind of printed zine. Just because my stance on fic is "Yes, go ahead, podfic it! Translate it! Save copies! Print it out and tape it to the walls of subway cars!" doesn't automatically mean that her response will be the same.

My three prompts for hc_bingo's March amnesty challenge were asphyxiation, loss of voice, and runaways.


( Runaways - 2 recs )

( Loss of Voice - 5 recs )

( Asphyxiation - 8 recs )

I found two beautiful things yesterday, which partially makes up for getting flamed un-anon for the first time since I stopped actively participating in comics fandom discussions (but it wasn't by PFG, so at least there's that).

The most amazing Les Miserables fic I've ever seen: http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/11667.html?thread=2824595#t2824595

An amazing filk of amazing beauty: http://fail-fandomanon.livejournal.com/50749.html?thread=235592765#t235592765

I really have to go and watch the Les Miserables movie, and wallow in the glory that is English-language opera. I've recently been reminded of how that book and soundtrack* tapped right into the "ridiculously pining over distant and unachievable love interests, oh, it's so beautifully angsty" part of my adolescent Id.

Also, I think I was one of the few teenage girls who's "beautiful pining followed by angsty death" adolescent identification character was not Eponine**, though I still loved "On My Own" to a ridiculous degree because it was in my voice part and easy to sing. (Cosette's parts were all a bitch to sing along with, while Fantine and Eponine were easy, because heroine/love interests are always first sopranos while secondary female characters get to be second sopranos and altos)

*I didn't actually see Les Miserables performed until I was in college. I heard someone's soundtrack for it at summer camp, latched right on to the melodrama, and immediately went out and read the book. Then I bought myself a copy of the Original London Cast recording and memorized it. Then in college, I saw the American/Broadway version performed on tour and realized that "Drink With Me" had a different final verse that's pretty much sung directly to Enjolras and died a small fangirl death right there in the theater.

**This was one of many cases of "something about this character/relationship deeply appeals to me for reasons I can't articulate" that would make a lot more sense once I discovered a) that I actually had a sexuality, and b) what it was.

There is an official at the NYC Department of Buildings whose last name is Nimrod.

No, seriously, Nimrod, spelled just like that.

And they work for the DOB.

This is even better than filing purchase orders for JohnKat Windows and Doors (I don't even ship John/Karkat, but it amuses me every time) or getting emails from real estate agent Jessica Jones, because for once everyone else in the office is also snickering.