I can't think of a title people, I'll get back to you.

[minxy]

Heavy on the Sam/Daniel recs today. Hope you don't mind.

Scenes from an Accidental Courtship by goddessleia. Very nicely characterized Sam/Daniel in a comfortable, easy way, post-descension. I enjoyed the comfort that they found together, even when they were making dumb-ass decisions or working through their issues. R rated, nice and longish.

pre-Sam/Jack, or nearly Sam/Jack, in character, and I love Jack's reaction of being scared of Sam a little bit. Wow, PR-13 from holdouttrout.

aurora_novarum wrote Drawing Straws, an alternative take on Shades of Grey that felt marvelously like a different camera angle on a favorite episode. Gen, PG.

brighidestone recc'd godofwine's John story, Things You Never Did, which she was quite right to do, as it was heartbreakingly pitch perfect John: sweet and capable, but distanced and emotionally bewildered. It really is heartbreaking to read, and then Brighid went and wrote a gorgeous poem as feedback: Entropic, which is perfect in tone and beautiful in its own right. Beautiful lyric twin stars. Worksafe, but UST abounds and there are endings.

There is no excuse for my continued failure to actually read the Sam ficathon stories (well, actually, there totally is an excuse, in the form of my dissertation and distraction,) but it does feel very odd that I've never perused those stories, possibly because anonymous stories have the ability to be offputting to me. But I'm working on my issues here, I swear.

And I've just read surrealphantast's Sam & Daniel friendship from the ficathon as part of a theme of fics on the subject of why Daniel never visited Sam whilst ascended. It was for poohmusings, in samcarterfic and called No Creeds for Mathematics, PG. It's beautiful; Sam flailing in unknown emotional waters.

Answers, by Random, is another. Despite using a certifiably beta-squicky phrase* at one point, this is filled with tactile descriptions and a marvelously emotionally clueless Sam going through the data and not seeing the analysis. Sam and Daniel friendship, working through the data, and I really do love how Sam catalogues everything she's witnessing. PG, gen.

tripoli8 called WIP amnesty on a fascinating Moebius tag, partly because Jack is finding his bearings, partly because dork!Sam is coming into her own strengths and gaining the respect of those around her by degrees, but mostly for FirstPrime!Teal'c dealing with Jaded!Daniel. The exchanges between Teal'c and Daniel in this are amazing--and it's Jack's POV, incredibly. Fascinating character study on who they might have been. fill our mouths with cinnamon, gen, team.

katie_m also called amnesty on the opening for a ficathon piece that wanted to stay a little vignette. I think it's marvelous world building, and amazing alien POV, questioning assumptions and universal curiosities. Sweet little unfinished story without a title, gen, team.

And then she did post the ficathon piece. Jack/Daniel ficathon, for icarusancalion, S4, PG rated Jack/Daniel. The Best Policy, with pitch-perfect Jack and Daniel at loggerheads.

ETA: I almost forgot: geonncannon's femslash and threesome For Real, which is broken, lost Sam, with space piracy. Who she finds first and heals and who heals her is wonderful. Sam/Vala, Sam/Vala/Daniel for the threesome ficathon of goodness. NC-17. Smootches to green_grrl for the Space Pirates (!) rec.

*okay, it's possibly my own issue, but here is one beta-squick: some variation on 'and under the scent of soap, she smelled something uniquely and indescribably him,' which is weak, though props for trying to go to a sensory place. If you're smelling warm rain soaked into the cotton of his sweater, say that. If it's musk or body odor, say that. Aftershave? Fine. Shaving cream? Iodine from an earlier infirmary visit? Dust and mold from everything he owns being just unpacked from storage boxes? GRAND, but don't pull the shortcut of 'something indescribably... whatever.' Just, no. You're a writer, nothing should be indescribable, and you're shorting yourself out of a chance of really taking your readers into the moment in your head by using that trick.

Comments

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks for the recs! ...though they both actually lead to the unfinished story, she said, a little embarrassed to admit that she checked.

you're shorting yourself out of a chance of really taking your readers into the moment in your head by using that trick

If only I had a sensory imagination, instead of an aural one...

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Squick -- oh yes. Right next to "under the coffee/beer/etc. was the taste that was indescribably him."

[rydra_wong]

I must have pointed you towards The Big List of Small Dogs, right? If not, I fail in my beta responsibilities.

He smelled (or tasted) like Food A and Food B and something else that was just him. "Underneath the tang of raspberries, tahini, and motor oil, there was the essential taste of Methos."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I love your brain. I could never have written the unfinished story. I could never have dreamt that up.

I did, though, kind of take the prompt you gave for the Teal'c ficathon and sort of start weaving a story out of it. And I think (I've heard) that you did eventually get a pinch hit, which is great, because this story has veered away from anything I expected. So everybody has a special brain.

And mine is particularly special, today, it seems, in the special-special sense. Will fix linkses.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

You have got the best beta links ever. EVER. *loves*

Yes to raspberries, tahini and motor oil. OMG yes.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

What is bad is that that line is enough to take me out of an otherwise marvelously descriptive fic! That I had to qualify the rec because I Really Hate That... I might have to describe this situation as perhaps why one needs a brutally honest beta who will not let you get away with stuff like that.

[nandamai]

possibly because anonymous stories have the ability to be offputting to me.

... well, they're not anonymous anymore. It was only for the first week.

Though I haven't read them all yet, either. I am good at the organizing and sucky at the follow-through, apparently, because I never finished reading the teamathon stories, either.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I know, isn't it wierd? I think it's because the excitement is not as high a week later... or something. I don't know. And Sam fic is so Right Up My Alley. It's not explainable.

I usually am very excited about ficathons and power through the posted fic--it's like Christmas. But I think the dissertation just took it out of me for a while.

Good to have the bookmark here just in case I find my mojo again at some point. I totally PLAN to find my mojo at some point. Yes, I do solemnly swear to read the Sam ficathon stories. I do. I will.

[teaphile.livejournal.com]

As I keep telling fic, I've licked a lot of people and they always taste and smell like people.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Which brings up a fairly entertaining beta memory of leaving the note 'didn't you just spend pages telling me how muddy she was? Shouldn't she, you know, taste like dirt?' Which I believe was considered in the final edit. *has beta pride*

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the rec! *Is very delighted*

Only...now that I know you do this, I'm gonna have to *read* a lot. Thanks for the extra material.

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Oh, you need to read those team ones. I discovered them before I really understood what LJ was. I find they're excellent to harvest for fic recs.

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do solemnly swear to read the Sam ficathon stories. I do. I will.

I'm marking that down. There's a lot of really cute fics there, from humor to angst and everything in between.

And thanks for the rec! Wow! My first non-ficathon related minxy rec. I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy. ;-)

squicky or not

[randomfreshink.livejournal.com]

Squicky or not, I gotta jump in her since I wrote the damn thing, but I have to stand by it, too. It's not about a lack of words here--god, no. It's that folks have scent--not the overlay smell--yeah, that's there, but there's something underneath, something unique. I've been turned off by some of them--not the top stuff, but the core chemicals. And turned on. My guy has a scent that I like so much I steal his t-shirts to sleep in them, I love it that much. And it's not his sweat--that goes a little sour-intense, and does get musky. And it's not cologne since he doesn't wear any. And it's not soap--that's a little different, has a touch of that bitterness of chemical. It's just 'him' -- and I like to bury my nose on his skin just for a heady hit like putting your nose into a big glass of good red wine.

Dog paws have the same thing--and I'm so not getting into here why I smell my dogs' paws, but I do, and each one is unique. And I could tell them apart just by going for a blindfold test and the paws.

So maybe I've just got a senstive nose--or a real kink here. (Could be.) But that underlying scent...it's just something that comes out of your skin (sickness will change it, too). So, the squik stands--personal scent stands. And here's to more intimate smelling.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Did I not warn you about that? I did mean to warn you about that.

*is not very sorry* I'm a pimp, what can I say? You are so welcome for the rec.

Re: squicky or not

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

You know, I will stick by you because the rest of that piece was so well written and sensory and really marvelous Sam, but I think I've read a similar phrase too often in badfic or something. And if you have to have experienced it to understand what the author is going for (and actually, I do know what you're talking about although I haven't gone so far as to sniff my dog's paws... maybe I'm missing out?) then I still feel like it could be described better. But, you know, it's clearly my issue. I wrestled with caveating that rec quite a lot because there were so many other wonderful things I could say about the piece, but I lost the thread of the story at that point, and generally I'll tell people if there's a signficicant thing about a story even if I kept on reading.

Yup, one person's squicks are another person's kinks. I'm sorry to have met your whilst giving a qualified rec. I guaranteed that I've whole heartedly reccd other pieces of yours (before I realized you had an LJ) and I offer them up as apology.

Re: squicky or not

[randomfreshink.livejournal.com]

NP on the qualified rec--opinions are free and should be expressed, least they fester into cankers which come out with lots of guck. So don't mind writer's thin skin here. (And have I mentioned how much I love the word squicky--it's like mud between your toes on a hot day, both yum and slightly repellent.)

And I do know what you mean about describe better--specific always works best to put an image into the head. But what I wanted here was the sense of Daniel back here--that means touch and scent and not just sight. Something 'more' than a whiff of laundry detergent. Something just him that Sam can't really find words for because her brain just doesn't go to poetic all that easily. Yes, I could go into a something more for that scent--equate it to something. But there actually was intent in this choice. And if it skates just too close to the worst of Barbara Cartland, well it could just be the reminants of unfortunate influence when I was just too young to know better--hey, I devoured Hershey's back then, too. And dreadful, dreadful TV shows.

But thank you for something to think about!

(And isn't this just the way you usually do meet folks online--over a difference of opinion?)