dbskyler

I hope this doesn't come across as incredibly boastful, but I'm looking for a rec of one of my own stories. And, I'm not entirely sure it even exists. But one of my fics on AO3 has gotten a huge number of hits, and so I suspect that someone has linked to it somewhere. And while it's possible that they've linked to it as an example of a terrible fic, I think it's more likely that they linked to it because they enjoyed it. And either way, I would like to find out, but I can't find a reference to it anywhere (at least, not with my limited Google-Fu).

For anyone who has any ideas on the best way to pursue this, or who wants to help me figure out what's going on, here's the fic:

That One Time Gita Chandra Saved the Earth with Roses.

Oh, and one other possibility: maybe there's a bug, and AO3's hit rate is incorrect? All I know is that the numbers have been steadily climbing for awhile now. I don't remember when I first noticed, and my initial thought was that SJA fic must be more popular on AO3 than on Teaspoon, but now that it's received over 900 hits, I'm pretty sure there's something else happening.

I have a fandom stocking! You can find it here: http://fandom-stocking.dreamwidth.org/330975.html

I am hoping to actually fill some stockings this year, so if you have one too, please link me to it in the comments! Or tell me the most obscure thing you requested so I can find it through the tags.

And if you don't know about fandom_stocking, it's an awesome community that is all about hanging a "stocking" with your current fandom obsessions, and filling stockings for friends and random strangers with fic, icons, recs, or simply holiday wishes. If you don't have a stocking yet and want to get one, there's still time! Actually, I don't think there's a hard cut-off, so there's probably still time up until reveals in January, but for the sake of the mods I wouldn't recommend testing that. Besides, the longer your stocking is hung, the more chances for a random stranger to see your requests and decide to fill one. Which is part of the point -- and fun -- of the whole thing. : )

I've had an AO3 account since Yuletide 2009, but I've never posted any of my non-Yuletide fic there. In particular, I've never put any of my Doctor Who fic there. I've always felt that the best place for Doctor Who fic is the Teaspoon, and the second-best place for my Doctor Who fic is my journal and sometimes certain LJ communities.

But, I realize that there might be a slightly different audience at AO3, so I've nevertheless toyed with the idea of putting my Doctor Who fic there. It's also occurred to me that some people who only know me from my Yuletide fic might be curious to see what else I have written. Unless they're big Doctor Who fans, they are unlikely to go looking for my fic at the Teaspoon. Actually, even if they are big Doctor Who fans, they are unlikely to go looking for my fic at the Teaspoon unless they happen to already know that I write in that fandom, which they would not know from looking at my AO3 account. When you put it like that, it makes sense to post all my fic in the same place at AO3. In fact, I believe that is one of the main points of having a multi-fandom archive.

But why am I feeling motivated to finally cross-post a fic or two now? Well, the sad fact is that I haven't written anything new in a really long time, and I am kind of missing reviews. I had been thinking that it would be nice to get another review. And then I thought, maybe putting an already-written story onto AO3 would be a good way to get a review.

So, I confess that I have gone and put "Spotter's Guide to the Doctor" up on AO3. This will be an interesting experiment to see if it's worthwhile to put all my Doctor Who fic up there.

And, perhaps I will get a review.

So I've been watching "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," and there was this actor on it who was really familiar, but I couldn't place him. Then all of a sudden it came to me, and it was "Oh my god, that's Rani's father!!! Rani's father is having sex with Rose!!!!! MY EYES! MY EYES!!!!!"

Then I saw the episode with Matt Smith, but somehow that wasn't weird at all. I had already known that he was in the show, so that might be the explanation, but somehow I think it's that after unexpectedly coming across Sex Client Haresh, nothing can faze me anymore.

Just a couple of random things:

-- I now have 71 "plays" for my fanvid on Youtube! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeS1Cqj6ucI) And believe it or not, not all those plays were me. :D Youtube also provides interesting statistics. Apparently my fanvid is most popular among males aged 13-17. (I'm guessing that's just among people who are logged in, though.) It's also most popular in the US, the UK, and Portugal. Hello there, you Portuguese Doctor/Sarah fan, whoever you are! *waves*

-- Calufrax is looking for more reccers, and I encourage everyone to sign up! It's nice to spread the fic-love around, and give some recognition to your favorite fics. All you have to do is join calufrax (membership is open) and then sign up here.

-- David Tennant has a slightly disturbing story about someone who accosted him in a gym shower (!) in order to get an autograph. The way he tells the story is hysterical, though. Go here to see it (start at 10:55): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-rVzs-5Hos

-- The above clip also has a really funny "say the next line from 'Much Ado About Nothing'" competition between David and Catherine. That's right at the beginning, so just hit "play." (Guess who wins?)

-- On a more serious note, honorh has an amazing (and extremely well-written) in-person account of what it was like to go through the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. She was right in the thick of it -- the tsunami washed away her apartment minutes after she got out: http://blog.oregonlive.com/my-hillsboro/2011/04/personal_account_of_tsunami_and_aftermath_in_japan.html

I've already donated to Japan relief, but I'm going to see if I can donate again. I think it's going to be awhile before they recover from this.

-- Speaking of donating, the Just Giving site collecting donations for Cancer Research UK in memory of Elisabeth Sladen is now well over 5,000 pounds. I would like to donate, but it costs me money to donate in British pounds. Anyone know if I can donate in U.S. dollars? Or should I donate to the American Cancer Society in her name instead?

I am offering fanfic for the help_Japan auction at LiveJournal. My thread is HERE.

Now to see if anyone bids on me . . .

Hope everyone reading this is safe tonight, and if anyone has friends or family in Japan, hope they are safe as well.

There's a fandom auction for Japan relief just starting up at help_japan. I'll be honest -- after getting burned in the help_haiti auction, I am unlikely to bid on anything from anyone who is not on my flist. But I'd still like to help, so I am spreading the word. I am also considering putting out an offer for fanfic. If I do, I'll announce it here on my LJ and provide a link.

In other news, LJ is still messing around with my notifications. Tonight, Sunday night, I received notifications for comments that were left in reply to me last WEDNESDAY. On the other hand, I did NOT receive notification of a comment that was left in reply to me tonight. (Good thing I checked the comm!) Apparently the LJ notifications system has found a TARDIS and is currently in the past. I might actually forgive them if they give the TARDIS to me in apology.

I love fanvids, but I absolutely cannot make them. Not even a little bit. I can't even figure out how to make a clip of something, let alone put a whole bunch of clips together to music. But I do love them, and there's one particular fanvid I've wanted to see made for a long time now: the Doctor and Sarah, and the Moody Blues song "Story in Your Eyes."

When the help_haiti auction came along last year, I was really excited, because it was a cause that I really wanted to help, and it was a chance to win an auction for someone to make me this fanvid. Well, I found someone who was offering Doctor Who fanvids, asked them if they would be willing to make this specific one, and got their answer that yes, they were willing. I then bid and won the auction, paid the money to the charity . . . and nothing's happened since. I've emailed the vidder several times, but there's been no response. Given that it's now been a year since the auction, I'm not exactly expecting one.

I don't regret donating the money to the charity. But, I would still really, really like to see this fanvid get made. I also don't think I will ever acquire the skills to be able to make it myself. So, does anyone have any suggestions for ways to go about persuading vidders to make a particular fanvid? Having been burned once, I don't want to go for a charity auction again (although I do recognize that some people do follow through on their offers). I've thought about offering fanfic for a fanvid, but I don't even know where to make such an offer. Any ideas? Does anyone know of any communities where people can request fanvids, or offer things such as fanfic in exchange? Or should I just give up on the idea altogether?

Just finished another week of Calufrax reccing, and because I was curious, I went through and calculated the following statistics:

Stories recced: 21

Authors recced: 21 (No repeats! Although there are definitely some repeating authors sitting on my "possible recs" list, so no guarantees for next time.)

Number of different characters recced: 42 (Someone has to figure out how many different characters there are in Doctor Who in order to really get a sense of my coverage, but it does look like I did fairly well, with an average of two new characters per story. Of course, I also recced some stories that had a lot of characters in them, so that upped the total count.)

Number of different Doctors recced: All 13. (Okay, my last rec yesterday helped a lot with this one . . . *g* Not counting yesterday's all-13-Doctors extravaganza, I've recced every on-screen Doctor except for One, Two and Seven.)

Most-recced Doctor: Tenth Doctor, who appeared in 8 out of the 21 stories.

Second-most-recced Doctor: Fourth Doctor, who appeared in 3 out of the 21 stories.

Most-recced companion: You'll never guess.

(Okay, it was Sarah, all right? She was in 7 out of the 21 stories. And I was trying to keep myself from reccing too many Sarah stories, too. But 2/3 of my recs were completely Sarah-free, so I sort of accomplished my goal, right?)

Second-most-recced companion: Martha, who appeared in 6 out of the 21 stories.

And those are all the stats I bothered to count up. Kind of interesting, huh? Or at least, interesting to me. :D

I'm reccing for Calufrax this upcoming week, and out of the 30+ stories I had on my "possible" list (I wish I was kidding), I think I have finally figured out which stories I will rec. Usually by now I have not only made firm decisions on which stories to include, but I've also written at least the first drafts of the "why you should read this" blurbs, and I have a terrible time writing those! But I'm behind, possibly because I had even more trouble than usual settling on which stories to choose. Matters were not helped by finding out in my last-minute doublecheck that two of the stories I wanted to rec had already been recced on Calufrax. Argh, why do other reccers have to have good taste? ; )

Anyway, as I said, I think I'll proceed with these ones. I even think I might know the order to rec them in. Now I just have to work on those blurbs, and also not change my mind and swap in a different story or two at the last minute.