I am bummed that I totally forgot to celebrate this holiday yesterday.  So anyway, here I am today.  What is IPSTW day, you ask?  It's this.  In short, it's a silly holiday for writers to celebrate the diversity and originality of the Internets by sharing free fiction!  Many famous authors participate and share a lot of cool high-quality short fiction, and seriously, you should go read those three stories I just linked.

Alas, I have no new original fiction to share with you.  Somebody really needs to remind me of this holiday about a month in advance so I remember to write you something suitable.  I will, however, give you a meme full of fictions: the AO3 Hit Count Meme.

1. ANY OTHER KEY.  57 Hits, 0 Kudos, 3 Comments, 1 Bookmark.  Haruhi Suzumiya series fanfic, unfinished AU of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.  It's my newest story, unfinished, in a small fandom.  It requires canon familiarity.  Makes sense that it has gotten very little attention.

               I was beginning to see stars. Orihime! Hikoboshi! If it were time to send you another wish, I would surely do so now! As it is altogether the wrong season, instead, please remember me kindly!

2. Knight of the Star.  559 Hits, 6 Kudos, 6 Comments, 3 Bookmarks.  Arthurian Legend -- a novella-length retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, done for Yuletide 2010.  I'm very proud of this story, but given its length, I'm surprised how often it's been read.

             There is no great adventure in speaking to a nun,” Agravaine said shortly.

3.  Sir Dinadan's Tale.  68 Hits, 4 Kudos, 2 Comments.  A short, stand-alone sequel to Knight of the Star, featuring an altogether different knight.  Fairly new, not posted for any kind of challenge, focused on an obscure character... I didn't expect this one to get a lot of attention, but it has a dark sense of humor, a riddling contest, and subtextual homosexuality.  I really like it.

             I asked the boy what I might call him, and he said that his name he guarded, but that I might call him Starling Eater, and his brothers Magpie Eater and Raven Eater. I told him that might be so, but by the end of the evening one or the other of us would be eating crow. He nodded, ever solemn, and said that might well be true, but the other would be feeding crows, which stole away some small measure of my joy.

4.  The Language of Birds.  181 Hits, 19 Kudos, 7 Comments, 1 Bookmark.  Arthurian Legend, Lancelot/Sagramore slash, for Yuletide 2011.  Only the second time I've written explicit gay sex in a story (the first is also on this list).  I like the conceit and the character in this story, and it's very loosely another tale in The Knight of the Star, although it doesn't need to be.  I'd like to go back and fiddle with this one when I have more time, though.  I procrastinated and rushed this once, and there are things I could edit.
      
             “I pray you,” Gawain said, mild, cautious, earnest. “Forbear from this game, Sagramore, or choose you your prey more wisely.”

 “Prithee, Gawain,” Sagramore responded with great cheer, “educate me: have I instructed your hunting and dictated in which manner and season you should chase hart, or fox, or boar? Or maidens, for that matter, when you are so inclined?”

5.  Untitled.  Hits: 93.  Kudos: 1.  Dragaera fanfiction, for a long-ago fic challenge.  How Noish-pa got his familiar.  If it were not for the fact that this story was written for someone else, I wouldn't have posted it.  Save for one stolen line of dialogue, I'm really not fond of this piece.

               "Old man! I grow tired of waiting!"

"Have patience, my friend," he called. "Perhaps waiting has not yet tired of you."

6.  Unsorted.  Hits: 85.  Kudos: 1.  Ultimate Spider-Man fic, centered around Gwen Stacy.  Written for a fic challenge but originally posted elsewhere, so no wonder it's gotten so little attention.  Honestly, though.  I love this one.  Pure character study, really, but I connect with it.

                  She writes down all the song lyrics that make her soar because there are truths and passions that someone out there, at least, understands, and there are other people who get angry about all the crap in the world, and there are singers who can make her cry just by talking about it. She has a little book of truths just full of all these quotes and lyrics, all without context, and it’s her goal to say things like this to people, to make them think and find meaning.

7.  ...And Silver Fountains Mud.  Hits: 165.  Kudos: 1.  Mortal Instruments fic, centered around Alec and Jace, with a little Young Wizards shoutout because I could.  Written for Yuletide 2008.  Kind of hit or miss, really.

             "Don't be ridiculous, Alec," he said. "It can't be a dragon. Dragons are extinct."

8.  The Hands-On Approach.  Hits: 75.  Kudos: 1.  Bookmarks: 1.  Full Metal Alchemist.  Why Hughes uses knives.  I'm very fond of this piece.  It was for a fic challenge back before there was an AO3, so who knows how many hits it had over its lifespan.

          "Each blade struck a vital area, incapacitating or killing the enemy," Hawkeye said, crisply, with a cadet's precision and blank expression. "But the draw time for the knives presents a crucial delay. For every two knives you throw, you could fire five shots. Your aim with a gun is good enough that you would be more efficient with it. Why choose the knives, sir?"

Hughes frowned, then made a noise of realization. "There's an office betting pool now, eh?"

9.  Non Omnis Moriar.  134 Hits, 1 Comment, 3 Kudos.  4 Comments on the old archive, too.  Mina Harker after Dracula.  Written for Yuletide 2006.  Many more comments back on the old Yuletide site.  I always call this my most underappreciated piece, however.

                  I will not sleep until the dawn comes again, if then, because I am certain that I will not feel safe until then.

 God help me, I may never sleep easily again.

10.  There's No Rainbow Bridge Across the Generation Gap.    280 Hits, 6 Kudos, 3 Bookmarks.  37 Comments, but all on the old site. Norse Mythology, Yuletide 2007.  Loki discovers starting Ragnarok isn't as simple as he expected.  I have never had as much fun writing a piece as I had writing this one.  And it was very, very well received, for which I'm grateful.

            Jormungandr reared his head. The arched coil of his neck rose twenty feet above the water, his vast shadow falling across Loki's face, his eyes wide, red, and dancing with light.

 "Hi, Dad," he said, sounding a little embarrassed. "Um. It's been awhile."

11.  Delirium.  Hits: 136.  Kudos: 2. Comments: 6 (old site).  Roland/Eddie slash, for Yuletide 2003. I guess the gay sex isn't quite explicit, but believe me, at age 19 I was quite shocked and proud of myself for writing this.  It still holds up pretty well, too.

               "Have you ever heard of Stockholm syndrome, Roland old buddy?" he asked, rhetorically.

12.  The True Death of Frank Gardiner.  Hits: 1072.  Kudos: 4.  Bookmarks: 13.  Comments: 20.  A Lovecraftian story written for Yuletide 2009.  A Filipino pearl diver is forced to explore a shipwreck.  This has literally been read more than all my other stories on the site put together.  This is, in part, because I did a good job with it, but it's also because hradzka linked to it.  Which kind of makes it foundational to my writing career (such as it is) in a couple of ways I hadn't considered.

              I have seen things under the water that no laughing sailor's tale, no matter how gruesome or exaggerated, could ever fathom.  And the most fearful thing I have ever seen is the death of Frank Gardiner.



So.  That's that.  If you read any of 'em, let me know what you think!