What it says on the tin.  Most recent fics are at the top of the list; I don't currently have any multipart ones here, but when I do they'll be marked accordingly.  I also have older fics on fanfiction.net, but nowadays most of my posting is to LJ, since it doesn't eat my formatting at random intervals.

This list only contains very basic summaries and notes if warnings are used -- more details are on the individual entries.  (If you want more specific details before you click links, PM me and I'll be happy to give them.)

(Last updated 18th May 2012)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

( White Collar )

( Criminal Minds )

( Sherlock (BBC) )

( Avatar: The Last Airbender )

( Stargate Atlantis )

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Well. I wasn't sure at many points I'd actually be able to finish this course.

Turns out I could :)

Now I need to sleep forever. So little of it this week.

*will probably make a capslock post tomorrow. SLEEP.*

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/57666.html with comments.

Hello LJ. Let me share my exam paper from today with you, which I'm totally counting as #8 on my #100things list. (I would tell you to think of it as a birthday present, but I'm not quite that bad a friend.)

For context: You answer two questions in the three hours. This whole exam paper is brand-new: we're the lucky year who get to be guinea-pigs to see whether it works. As such, there were no mock papers, no one knew any guidelines, and we've been explicitely told that the examiners have no model answers to compare ours against. FUN.

1. Are all taxa successful?
2. What benefits will new technologies bring to our understanding of biology?
3. If life exists on other planets, what features would you expect it to share with life on Earth?
4. What is the most significant scientific challenge now facing biology, and why?
5. Will biology become more reductionist as knowledge increases?
6. What role do parasites and pathogens play in biology?
7. Is an understanding of statistical methods essential for biologists?
8. Are all species doomed to extinction?
9. How do organisms respond to stress and how are these responses similar across taxa?
10. Is homeostasis an essential attribute of living things?
11. Are organisms well-designed?
12. What is the evidence for evolution?

So yeah XD (I answered #4 and #8.)

Then I went and hung around in the botanic gardens with Conrad and Seb and Seb's brother where I did a lot less revision than they did and ate strawberries. So that was very nice and de-stressing :)

Only two days left. I CAN DO THIS.

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/57389.html with comments.

One exam down. I am very wiped out, but I answered questions, which is a good thing. Send pictures of baby animals and Neal Caffrey.

Because I wouldn't be me if I wasn't geeking out about random bits of biological experiments, this was my favourite question:

"In older experiments aimed at testing the hypothesis that bees estimate distance from energy consumption, worker bees were made to carry small weights. The bees struggled even to gain height when loaded, and overestimated the distance that they had travelled. It was concluded that the bees were using their energy consumption to estimate distance. Provide an alternative explanation of these results."

They put little weights on bees and made them fly around, you guys!! :D Sadly the paper doesn't reference it, so I don't know what the weights were made of...

I don't have an exam tomorrow, and I'm really tired, so I shall now drink wine and pretend that there isn't at least one person I badly want to murder.

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/57309.html with comments.

#8
Mason placed rats in a Plexiglass pen with two cages: in one was another rat, in the other was a pile of five milk chocolate chips—a favorite snack of these particular rodents. The unrestricted rats could easily have eaten the chocolate themselves before freeing their peers or been so distracted by the sweets that they would neglect their imprisoned friends. Instead, most of the rats opened both cages and shared in the chocolate chip feast.

"In our lab we called it the 'chocolate versus pal' experiment," Mason says. "The rat could have put his butt in the opening of the cage containing chocolate to block the other guy, but he didn't. They were sharing food with their pals. In rat land, that is big—I was shocked." Mason says that free rats typically took the chocolate out of the cage before eating it and that sometimes the free rats placed the chocolate chips in front of or very near their recently sprung peers, "as if delivering it."

- Scientific American

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/57078.html with comments.

Um, so. This is a thing that I have written. You can probably read it without knowing The Hunger Games as it's a "characters from one canon put into the setting of the other" sort of AU, rather than a strict crossover - I've put some of the background for the Games below.

( Context for the setting )

Title: life is fragile as a dream
Fandom: White Collar/Hunger Games AU crossover
Characters/Pairing: Elizabeth, Neal, Peter, Diana; Gen with hints of El/Peter
Genre/Rating: Action, angst; 15
Word count: 3000
Warnings: Graphic violence, character deaths
Notes: hoosierbitch and rabidchild67 encouraged me, and helle_d beta-read (and listened to my long, long spiels of canon-geek justification for everything in this fic). I blame all of you guys for this *g*
Apart from the context of the Games (see above), I don't think there are really spoilers for The Hunger Games in here. (This is an AU for both canons.)
Also, I've just realised that I can totally use this for the 10tropes challenge as my Beware The Nice Ones fic.

Summary: Elizabeth is no fighter. The only bets are on how soon she'll die.

( life is fragile as a dream )

- - -

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/56654.html with comments.

I'm currently writing short prompt-fills as stress relief.

Title: Breathe
Characters/Pairing: Peter, Neal; Gen
Genre/Rating: Context-lite h/c; PG
Word count: 1000
Warnings: Panic attack
Notes: For a prompt by aqwt101 on whitecollarhc: Bad guy captures Neal and Peter and injects Neal with something causing panic attacks. Peter must keep him as calm as he can until help arrives.
Beta'd by helle_d.

Summary: Peter takes care of Neal, even when there's only so much he can do.

( There was just enough light from the doorway for Peter to get a quick glimpse of Neal's features as he was shoved back into their cell. )

- - -

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/56352.html with comments.

Quite a few people on my flist are doing a meme that involves listing all the fics you're currently working on. I considered doing that, but since I'm saving all the challenge-writing I've signed up for until after Finals, and since they're pretty much the same ones as everyone elses' (whitecollar_bb, wcpairings, whitecollarhc, plus a whole pile of misc prompts I will eventually get through), so that post wouldn't really be terribly interesting.

Instead, I'm going to talk about some of the fics I'm not going to write.

---

-- The Criminal Minds zombie apocalypse AU. Okay, so Criminal Minds fic in general probably falls into this category. Love the show, can't deal with the fandom.

-- I always meant to write Stargate Universe fic with TJ/James. No, seriously, this was my ship, and I am going down with it :P

-- An epic-length Merlin AU where I try and make the show make sense. (For those who haven't watched it, the scripts make Stargate Atlantis look well-plotted. Nearly every single Danger Of The Week could be solved in five minutes if the characters would just talk to each other about it.)

If I did this it would partly focus around Morgana and the absolutely terrible way Gaius treated her, which amounts to institutionalised abuse. On discovering she had magic he decided that of course she shouldn't be told about it, because she would probably do something evil (based on no evidence whatsoever, and despite Gaius doting on Merlin and his magic). The solution: continue to lie to Morgana, let her think she's crazy, and keep her drugged/sedated whenever possible to try and stop her finding out the truth. And then, when she discovered that Gaius and Uther, the men who have power over her, have been lying to her all along, her anger/feelings of betrayal at this was apparently proof that she would have been 'evil' anyway. Someone remind me why Gaius is supposed to be the show's moral centre, please.

Anyway, in this theoretical AU Morgana would find out the truth early on, Gwen would support her, Merlin would be angstily torn between his mentor and Doing The Right Thing and Arthur would at first be loyal to his father and then dramatically realise that he was in the wrong. And then they would all team together (possibly with Morgouese) and rebel against Uther. And Morgana and Merlin would study magic together. (I don't know what part the Slash Dragon would play.)

-- The series helle_d and I have been expanding on for the last couple of terms, which can be summarised as "Alanna (from the Tortall books by Tamara Pierce) Travels The Multiverse And Fixes Things". There is also lots and lots of femslash. She can do this at different times in her life, so will always be the right age for shipping :D Included in this so far:

Merlin: This works out a bit like above, although set during the third season probably. Alanna goes to Camelot, wins a tournament, realises that Uther's a tyrant, knocks sense into Arthur, teams up with (and is shipped with) Morgana, and helps lead the revolution. Also shows how ridiculous the ban on magic is.

Legend of Korra: We haven't really developed a plot for this, using this 'verse maaaaay be a thinly-veiled excuse to ship Alanna/Lin. (We also ship Korra/Keladry.)

A Song of Ice and Fire: In which we ship both Alanna/Brienne and Sansa/Margery. Alanna gets Brienne to realise how awesome she is, and then the two of them fight to let Sansa and Margery rule Westeros together. Brienne is made Hand. Asha (Yara in show'verse) gets to be Queen in the North. (After five books, these are quite literally the only characters I still care about.)

(Alanna does all this stuff with George's knowledge, of course, because they have a communicative and open marriage. Line from helle_d: "I can't come to bed, George, someone is Wrong in the multiverse!")

---

Okay, I'm sure there are more but I can't remember them. So more revision now. (Revision with fic-writing breaks to keep me sane.)

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/56050.html with comments.

Title: you shine in love you are born annointed
Author: loneraven
Fandom: A Game of Thrones/ASoIaF (no spoilers)
Characters: The Stark family, Robert; Gen.
Word count: 4000
Summary: "Your net contribution to the world, Eddard Stark, is sitting out there in lawn chairs playing Clue and drinking bad Riesling."

This is a wonderful, wonderful AU retelling of the beginning of A Game of Thrones, and beautifully written. I want Raven to rewrite the whole canon, honestly. (Also, I dare anyone not to love her Arya.)

loneraven's description: "My fannish engagement with [Game of Thrones] probably goes like this AU where Ned Stark is married to his gorgeous South Asian wife Catelyn, who worships different gods to him, and they've got one kid who's a fashion designer and another who's a disability activist who yells at the TSA a lot, and Ned is an unwilling transplant into politics from the simple academic life even if it is really fucking cold up north."

(they don't go in much for security theatre up here)

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/55669.html with comments.

I have had it pointed out to me that there is almost no functional difference between how I write Gen and OT3 in this fandom. Except that OT3 fic gives me an excuse to put slightly more snuggling in.

Title: Miles From Where You Are
Characters/Pairing: Neal/Peter/Elizabeth
Genre/Rating: Angst, h/c; PG
Word count: 4500
Warnings: None
Notes: Completely shameless sick!Neal fic, written for sahiya's prompt on the running hot meme.
Beta'd by helle_d, with an unnerving amount of giggling at my melodramatic angst. Title is from a Snow Patrol song.

Summary: Prompt: Peter and El are away for Christmas at El's parents' house when Neal gets sick. Because it's the holidays, there isn't anyone around to look after him at June's. He tries to hide it from Peter and El when they call, but is completely unsuccessful.

( When his phone rang it startled Neal out of a doze on the couch which he hadn't intended on taking. )

- - -

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/55467.html with comments.

Does anyone else do the thing where you start filling a prompt on a ficmeme and the whole time while you're writing it you keep on refreshing the page at intervals, being paranoid that someone'll have been faster than you and already filled it? /laughs at self

I'm currently interspersing fic-writing with revision, half an hour of each and then switching. It's going okay. Well, the end of last week and the weekend were a complete and utter loss, but I'm finally beginning to pick up again. However, when writing fic I'm even less inclined to come up with actual plots than usual. Expect continuing spam of contextless h/c.

(Speaking of which - is 'getting a bug' used in the context of having a cold in the US? Enquiring minds are unsure.)

- -

Book! I love this book. It's extremely funny and dark and witty. You should read it. It's... quite hard to sum up what it's about, but it mostly focuses around a soul-destroying shopping centre in Birmingham. Anyway, it's one of my favourites.

#7
She'd been staring at the words for so long, they were bled of meaning. Hobbies and Interests. What did it mean? Technically it wasn't actually a question, and it was only the two inches of white space below that would clue you into the fact that the words were supposed to elicit a response. Maybe she could just write something equally ambiguous as a response: 'Good', or 'Hello', or 'Yes'. It was a conundrum. Obviously she had no hobbies and interests, she was a duty manager... and yet there were those blank two inches, as if they wanted or expected you to have a life outside of work. It was a trap, but the thing with these traps was to act as if you didn't realise it was a trap. Lisa knew that writing, for example, 'I find hobbies and interests take up valuable time that could be better spent developing top-notch merchandising skills in store' would be too obvious. She also knew that even if she had any interests, to list them honestly would be disastrous, a clear compromise of her commitment.

After twenty-three minutes of staring at the three words, she had a flash of inspiration and wrote: 'Shopping and reading magazines.' So simple. And true! They would be delighted that her life truly was that small.

- Catherine O'Flynn, What Was Lost

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/55214.html with comments.

Title: Pressure
Characters/Pairing: Neal, Peter, Diana, Jones; Gen
Genre/Rating: Very fluffy h/c; G
Word count: 1300
Warnings: None
Notes: So, when I said I'd write a fic based on my experiences with blood donation, I was mostly joking. But then several people told me to actually write it, and I tend to do what people tell me.

Summary: The team take part in a blood drive. It goes a little less smoothly than expected.

( How would I cheat at blood donation? )

- - -

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/54989.html with comments.

#6
And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

- Louis MacNeice

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/54648.html with comments.

Recs:

Legend of Korra: Masks on Empty Faces by loquaciousquark (Gen, 1200 words)
The boy has a different name for it, but Koh knows the place where Truth begins.

This is a possible origin story for Amon, and it's gorgeous. Probably useful to have background knowledge of Koh from AtLA, but I'd recommend it even if you don't.


The Hunger Games: There's Another River on the Other Side by Mithrigil (Gen, 10,000 words, Warning for graphic violence)
District 11 wins the 74th Games. The rest is history.

spoiler or warning hereThis is an AU where Katniss dies instead of Rue, and goes on from there. It's beautiful. I adore how Rue is characterised here, and how all the consequences play out.

---

I had a good May Morning. A bunch of us from Tolksoc stayed up all night in Helen's room. There was food and good company, (and, surprisingly, no one banned me and helle_d from talking about fandom at great length...) and J showed up around 5 incredibly drunk to provide more entertainment. Then we watched the choir sing from the top of Magdalen Tower in the rain to welcome in summer, and went out for breakfast. We also went to find morris dancers first, because J told us earnestly (in a 'pirate' accent) that ze didn't believe in them. Then I went to sleep all day. That was fun.

Oh, semi-relatedly, Helen is now planning on actually using her LJ account, of_a_thousand. If you're from Tolksoc or otherwise know her, add her! *Pokes her to write posts*

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/54423.html with comments.

A note about commenting, since this is the sort of subject this is relevant to: my journal does have anon comments enabled, but they're screened because I keep getting spam. I let non-spam ones through, obviously!

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day. So I've decided to write a post, after thinking about it for a while. I haven't decided yet whether I dare to submit it to the masterlist of posts, which you can find here. I do encourage you to read at least some of them.

What I'm writing about are attitudes to evidence of self-harm. Since it's May Day, and summer started when we heard the singers from Magdalen Tower, this becomes especially relevant.

( Trigger warning: Discussion of depression and self-harm )

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/54026.html with comments.

Yes, I've produced more cliche hurt/comfort *g*

Title: Thin Ice
Characters/Pairing: Neal, Peter, Diana; Gen
Genre/Rating: Hurt/comfort; PG-13
Word count: 3500
Warnings: None
Notes: Written for a lovely anon on my drabble meme. I'm… not very good at writing drabbles. (And yes, I'm still working my way through the prompts, I promise!) Beta'd by the always-lovely helle_d.

Summary: Hypothermia!fic. A blizzard during an undercover meet is a recipe for disaster.

( Peter was trying to ignore his gut-feeling of anxiety. )

- - -

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/53953.html with comments.

I celebrated doing my viva by tidying my room. It's now immaculate. (Everyone who's ever been in my room is laughing/unbelieving right now, I know.) There's so much floor! Fran came into my room to ask me something and was literally stopped speechless.

It apparently amuses a lot of people how I'm obsessive about keeping kitchens clean and orderly, but happily live in rooms with clothes and paper all over the floor. SO MUCH PAPER.

--

I've finally begun uploading my backlog of fic onto AO3. Because I don't want to annoy everyone by spamming, I decided to do two stories a day. This has already become "two stories on days when I remember". My organisational skills, let me show them to you. Okay, since I've just told you how I filed two terms' worth of lecture handouts on my bedroom floor, this probably isn't a surprise.

--

Last night, for reasons which are beyond me, I made a spreadsheet of all the goods I own in Echo Bazaar and calculated out their values. Conclusion: I can comfortably afford an Overgoat. But I'd have to sell lots and lots of stuff to do that. I have an unreasonable attachment to stuff (even virtual stuff), so this is a Difficult Decision. I mean, I'm already sad that I can't have my Bifurcated Owl and Unfinished Hat equipped as pets at the same time. I kind of want them to both ride around on my Bengal Tigress.

--

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/53649.html with comments.

THAT WAS THE WORST EXAM IN THE HISTORY OF EXAMS AND ORAL EXAMS ARE THE WORST THING IN THE HISTORY OF EVER.

*SCREAMS SOME MORE*

I'M GOING TO GO WRITE FANFIC NOW OKAY.

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/53334.html with comments.

So, I had my three-hour stats exam. It went okay, I think - I'm pretty sure I passed, and that's really all I'm aiming for at this point. Now I'm back to reading about ants in prep for the viva voce tomorrow. I'm really not looking forward about that. Gah, I hate oral exams.

--

I was probably going to post a snippet from the Newsflesh series eventually anyway, but I was reccing them to sholio so they're on my mind. There's Feed, Deadline, and I'm currently waiting for Blackout to be released in a couple of week's time. They're about government conspiricies and a group of young adults who run a news website. And zombies. They're very good.

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/53064.html with comments.

I've just handed in my viva powerpoint slides, and tomorrow I have a stats exam. But in five weeks it'll all be over.

I'm actually walking round the house in my black heels today because I pretty only wear heels as part of subfusc and I've forgotten how to walk in them :P I'm smooth. I also forgot to get a white carnation over the weekend - anyone know what time the covered market opens? I'm guessing 9, which would give me enough time to get one before the exam. Also, so glad I get to do my exams in a room by myself in college, rather than in Schools.

---

I was wondering how to do the quotes from 100things which are from fiction books. I've decided that I'll do this by picking bits from near the beginnings of the books, and which don't give away plot spoilers. Is this an okay way to handle it, do you think?

This is nearly my favourite of his books. (Excession and Look To Windward narrowly beat it.) I love the way he puts little things in near the start, like this whole I was born in a water moon section, which you know are important, but you just can't quite figure out how until later.

Posted at http://frith-in-thorns.dreamwidth.org/52899.html with comments.