Rec Milestone!

[fignewton]

Wow. Just posted my 150th rec at stargateficrec. That's not a milestone I ever expected to reach, to be frank.

For the most part, I've had a lot of fun being so active in the community. The mods are helpful and gracious people and most of the community members are equally enthusiastic and friendly. So thanks a lot, guys, for feeding my addiction, and encouraging me to be a part of all this!

So... how can we celebrate? :)

How's this? Leave a link to a favorite story or two of yours in the comments - gen, please - whether it's yours or another author's. I won't make any promises, but I'll review the story here and hopefully include it on my recs list for future reference. I'm still reccing Teal'c and Daniel friendship fics and Sam fics this month; next month, I hope to snag gen and episode related. So if you have stories that fit those categories, now would be a really, really good time to bring them to my notice!

This is also an opportunity to ask something I've been wondering about for quite some time now. If you have a fic posted to your LJ and also to your website, which URL would you prefer a reccer to use? Is it better to send readers to the website, which presumably is more permanent, neater, and better formatted; or would you rather have people read your story at your LJ, where feedback is more or less instantaneous and a lot more likely to occur? And how about readers - which location would you prefer for your reading pleasure? Where would you want a reccer to send you?

Virtual hugs to all the marvelous authors out there who bring some of my favorite people to life, and thanks to those of you who have made the LJ experience so enjoyable.

Comments

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

*salutes you*

( i can't help you with your request because i am following YOUR lead to gen fic, but go you anyway. )

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Don't know why I find that so funny, but I do. :) NO gen fics at all? Huh.

Love the icon, and glad to have you here!

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

hard to believe, but true. i got into the fandom for the slash, and along the way i have managed to read some really good gen (julie fortune springs to mind) as well as some long, plotty fic with romance in the background (cofax7 springs to mind), and some terrific jack-daniel friendship fic (merry springs to mind) but i am just now, after a year, getting to the gen portion of the fanfic riches that abound in SG-1. so yeah. I'm working my way through your rec page even now!

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Aha. You had read the odd gen fic here or there, just not too many of them... got it.

Will have to wander past cofax7 and see. Merry... hm, haven't recced a merry fic yet! Must fix that. :)

Hope you're enjoying the rec page. Mind the red ones!

[(Anonymous)]

Gotta say, I *always* check out your recs (though I find I've already read about half of them!). I don't know how much fic I'd be reading without your recs- I just have no *time* to spend sampling the way I used to. I hardly ever venture off sgfic or my flist without a rec. And even the stuff that turns up on lists, I don't read as much as I used to (unless it's one of my A-list reccers or by the description solidly in the zone of what I like).

I don't post fic on LJ, so I can't offer an authorial opinion as to which I'd prefer to have linked. But the *reason* I post everything to my own site is that when I started writing I was on a dialup connection. And LJ is *excruciating* on dialup. When I read Stargateficrec, I'd sit there with a book, reading between page loads. So when I designed the website, I stripped it down to bare bones- nothing but text, the absolute minimum of formatting I needed to make it readable and to get people to the fic. Now I have a faster connection, but not everyone does. I still keep all the fic on the site where it's fast and easy to load for everyone (okay, also I'm not really interested in redesigning the site!). But as a reader, I'd vote to link to the site under most circumstances. Sites almost always load faster.

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

That was me not being logged in, BTW!

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I figured. :)

Thanks for the compliment, but most of what I rec isn't "sampling" - it's stuff saved on my hard drive, except for the newer stories that I discover from my regular links. Eventually I'll run out of my hard drive fics, and then I'll be in trouble!

Interesting comment re dialup. I will say that when I know I'm going to be working on an image-intensive page - say, when I'm tagging for sg1debrief, on on the rare occasions when I go to Gateworld - I turn off images on my browser first. Makes life ever so much easier! I do agree that it's probably more courteous to choose the lighter option for those still on dialup. And I like the "bare bones" look of your website; after all, I'm there for the stories, right?

I'd like to get some more opinions on the web page vs. LJ page, though. :)

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

I will say that when I know I'm going to be working on an image-intensive page

And that's great if I'm on a site I know I can still navigate without images. On dialup, I hate *hate* hate sites (of which there are all too many) who code their links into decorative buttons where you can't tell what the links are for without the images on. So if I was on LJ, following links to random sites- that wasn't so useful. I found out later there was a stripped down version of LJ somewhere, but the info was irrelevant by the time I got it.

And I have to say- even on a fast connection, there's noticeably more time to download when there are a lot of images. And I'm like, "hey, I'll look at all your pretty photo-manips *after*, just gimme the fic now and no one gets hurt!"

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Good point re links as images that don't show up - I've found myself swirling the mouse round and round looking for links, and checking the bottom of my browser to see where the link would lead. Yep, annoying.

And I do heartily agree that when I'm looking for fic, the only coding I want on the page is bold and italics. Save the pictures and annoying backgrounds for the photo pages, please, and get me to the fic! :)

[rigel-7.livejournal.com]

*waves to fellow Gen obsessive*

You know I rec from fics saved to my bookmark list (which I recently had to re-organise into lists in an RTF file because it was getting so ridiculously large!)

I usually direct people in my recs to the LJ link, because I think people are more likely to leave feedback for the author because it's more convenient and they don't have to open up their e-mail program.

I make a link to the story on the author's site if it's a long fic and if it's formatted well (ie black text on a white background in an easy to read font with no annoying flashing things on the page :P)

Being on broadband (the pages load faster for me) I never thought about how annoying this might be for other people! Because some layouts are definitely image heavy, and if there are already a lot of comments - well that's even more images to load.

I think in future I'll add to the html code for the link and format it in the "light" setting for LJ - this is where it loads to the bare bones page, you just have to add "?format=light" to the end of the url like this...

http://community.livejournal.com/stargateficrec/686418.html?format=light

But I always love your recs, even if I've read the story before I still like to go and remind myself of why I liked it in the first place.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Like you, the ease of feedback due to convenience is my primary motivation for reccing on LJ. But, also like you, I prefer the neater format of a webpage for a longer fic... which is why I'm asking the question in the first place!

I'm still very very new to LJ, and didn't know the format=light thingy was possible. Thanks for that tip.

Glad you like my recs. I know I like a lot of yours! :)

Anything you'd like to post here, as a rec for a rec?

Since you asked....

[randomfreshink.livejournal.com]

JB is one of my favs--a smart writer who writes smart characters and plots that sink their teeth into you.

One of the best of the best is "Tok'ra Don't Dance" which is given a synopsis of: "Politics pervert an attempt to honour a member of SG-1, leading to disastrous consequences. Where there's smoke, there's fire."

There's a lot more than that. It's Earth-side adventure and it's all good. Warning however--it is complicated. It's set after Daniel's back, and of course he ends in the middle of a lot of bad. But the story really lets the entire team shine.

JB warns: Minor spoilers for Affinity. Action; Hurt/Comfort; Drama.


Here's a direct link
http://www.omnifera.com/tablet/stories/jb-site/tokradance.htm

Or for lots more JB:
http://www.omnifera.com/tablet/jb.htm

Re: Since you asked....

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Oh dear me yes. Jb writes sharp, intelligent fics with the same kind of antagonistic closeness that... well, that you give Jack and Daniel. I've recced her fics before, here and here and here.

Tok'ra Don't Dance will probably never make my rec list for the same reason why I doubt I would ever rec Power and Punishment - because while Jb's depiction of the NID and political machinations are all too true to the show's, it's an aspect of Stargate that I hate. I can't stand that the SGC has no true ally - not off-world, not on-world. I hate that isolation that pits them against everyone else, which means that there's no real solace or sanctuary, even in their own backyards. I'll write an essay about that someday.

That doesn't mean Tokra Don't Dance isn't a wonderfully gripping read, though. It's long and angsty and plotty and teamy, with great characterizations and some amazingly well-drawn original characters. If the action was only taking place off-world - on Kelowna, maybe, or some misled Jaffa? - it would probably be somewhere in my top twenty list, or maybe even top ten.

So Jb gives us an uneasy Daniel in Washington in S8, being honored for his service in the SGC. But while the original impetus for his medal was his loyal teammates and friends' recommendation, ugly politicking behind the scenes have pre-empted Daniel's award for the personal gains of some rather unscrupulous politicians. And even as a quietly-anguished Daniel is ready to swallow hard and bear his forced transfer out of the SGC into the glittery halls of DC, yet another personal motive - one born out of misunderstanding and desperation - sidetracks the story into kidnapping and a deadly inferno.

Heh. Reads like the blurb on the back of a thriller, doesn't it? :)

Much as I hate the politics of SG-1, Jb does it flawlessly. So if you enjoy that kind of thing - and even if you just enjoy Daniel struggling against all odds, and his teammates looking out for him - you're sure to thoroughly enjoy Tokra Don't Dance.

Good enough, Shannon? :)

Re: Since you asked....

[randomfreshink.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, all good -- and it is a thriller.

I liked your other recs--Losses is another favorite.

So I'll call you and then raise you one (also at the Tablet)--Corby's Footnote:

http://www.omnifera.com/tablet/stories/corby-site/footnote.htm

Which is a Future AU, but a good one--and she writes angst just so well. It's for when the Stargate's going public, but not in a way you'd expect, and with some old jealousies coming out, and it's so beautifully done.

Footnote

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Now, what you have to do is give me something I haven't read yet.

::considers::

A new fic of yours, perhaps? :)

But on to Footnote! This one is on my tentative rec list, actually, although I found Daniel's speech to be a bit... well, pretentious. Still, it's an intriguing AU, with some fun characterization and a lovely twist on P.T. Barnum's famous saying: "You can fool the Tau'ri some of the time, but you can't fool their allies all of the time."

Stephen Rayner, armed with the events of The Curse and his political savvy (and bootlicking skills), manages to oust Daniel from the SGC and claim all of Daniel's successes as his own. And the world blindly accepts this, leaving Daniel out in the cold when the Stargate goes public and all adoration is directed towards Rayner and his talented spinning of the truth in his own favor. Daniel isn't happy about it - not in the least - but he's philosophical enough to be satisfied with his quiet retirement.

Until it's time for Earth to meet its off-world allies, and Rayner pulls one too many petty tricks, and Daniel gets to appear in public, spraying popcorn and Coke all over the dignitaries... and delighting millions of children by swearing in front of everybody out of shock. :)

There's some lovely unspoken backstory, like Daniel's house, and the quiet visits of Omac and Lya. And there's the hilarious implication of the last scene, where the suggestion of just how that turnabout came to be. All in all, Footnote is an engrossing fic that bounces from angst and introspection to humor and back again.