Pen's Nest

A story that just makes you happy.

MPREG, by Rhys, may actually be my favourite story of all. I don't look for mpreg, but it's an essential part of this story—the story couldn't happen without the pregnancy, and yet in a lot of ways the story isn't about the pregnancy. And I love it.



Of my own, The First Step. It came to me out of nowhere when I put a prompt together with a news item, and I have inexplicable and immense love for it.

A story that spawned an inside joke.

Where did you put the lava lamp?

Do you want me to explain?


For my own contribution, I nominate Home Cooking.

See, several years ago there was a popslash Christmas card exchange in which we sent cards 'from' our recipient's nominated favourite boy(s). My recipient (Ephemera—who seems to have inspired an incredible number of my fics) wanted Chris, Lance and Nick. Well, I decided that Chris and Lance (and Joey - probably because that seemed reasonable at the time) would send recipies. They roped Justin and JC into including their own. Lance's recipe was Mississippi Cornbread; Joey's was Fatone Chicken. Justin sent a fruit cobbler recipe and JC sent vegetarian pot stickers. Chris sent Better Than Sex Cake, annotated with horrified comments from Lance and Joey.(1)

Some time afterwards I noticed Ephemera had a request up at fic_requests for a threesome featuring Chris, Lance and Joey. Aha, I thought, and wrote Home Cooking, which involved each of them making their Christmas recipes for a celebration meal. The dessert was characterised as a lethal weapon, not unreasonably—it's basically chocolate cake supersaturated with condensed milk, plus added topping and crushed chocolate bars.

And somehow, when we had the first Camp Sparkle, it seemed reasonable to make one of these deadly cakes. We adapted it somewhat (none of us was prepared to eat Cool Whip even if we could find it, so we used whipped cream, and British sweets) and re-christened it Death Cake, and it's been on the menu ever since.

*pride*


(1) If anyone would like them, I probably still have the file somewhere and can send .pdfs

This time, you're looking for a crossover with an unfamiliar fandom—one you didn't know when you read the story.

I read Poptarts In Atlantis by Torch because it was a DWNOGA story in 2005. I'd seen a few Stargate Atlantis icons dotted around LiveJournal, but hadn't read any fic or seen any of the episodes, so for me, the Atlantis environment basically functioned like a really well-realised AU with excellent characters (I very much liked McKay). The link above is chaptered and there are several subsequent stories using the same 'verse. A few other people have done popslash/SGA crossovers too, and all that I've read have been fun.


It's difficult to write a crossover with a fandom you don't know; I did it with Bouquet, but I've already used that one, so how about The Joy and the Colour which introduced me to Mika. Thank you, Ephemera!


In other news, I think it's Spring! It was positively *warm* out when I went for my singing lesson. Didn't actually get a singing lesson, as my teacher didn't so much cancel at the last minute (like last time) as just didn't show up. Oh well.

Real world with added weirdness... you know, based in canon (they're popstars!) but with supernatural or otherwise inexplicable extras, like, magic is real, there are vampires in the audience, they have superpowers, they swapped bodies, etc.

Oh boy. It feels as though fully half of all the popslash stories ever written would qualify for this one. There's the one where Chris shrinks, and the sudden telepathy between Lance and Chris after a lightning strike, and the Lance/Justin bodyswap *fans self* and the JC/Britney bodyswap, and any number of 'wakes up as a girl' stories, and, and...

I'm going to go with something that won't immediately spring to mind, namely A Sheepish Kind of Love by Natalie. In which the people who fall in love with Chris... turn into sheep.


I also seem to have written a few of these... okay, Round Dance is my body-swap story, only I didn't want to write one in which two people swap with one another and exchanged information at once. I decided to write something in which four people swapped, but in a sort of pass-it-on exchange, and didn't realise they hadn't done a straightforward swap... There's not a lot of precedent for multiple body-hop-swap stories, and as I've written one, I know why. Inevitably, it turned into Trickyfish. Oh, what the heck—also Horny, which features a unicorn.

My weary body has completed an hour of Body Pump today and then an hour of Body Balance, so it wants me to sit down. Don't blame it.

Day 19: a series or collection.

The Epic of the Lambs by Donna, a wonderful intertwined then-and-now Lambs story based on a set of (I think) 25 prompts. Super, super story.

Noche and Cetacean Blues by chalcopyrite, two stories set in the same supernatural-added universe. I hope there'll be more of these!


My own: er. I've already mentioned Prone and the Chronicles, so I think it'll be my Twice around the prompts set of stories written for the final Dragon Challenge—ten short fics, unrelated by subject but passing one character of the pairing on to the next story, and using all five of the prompts: dragons, dwarves, dolphins, diamonds and demons.

A story that makes you laugh.

Aaaaaand.... so many, many choices. Under(his)pants by Sola Fiamma. Actually, this one usually makes me *cry*.


Of my own, Merchandising.

Songfic - a story which uses a song somehow.

and you'll notice my smile (is like kool aid) by Nopseud. I love this story. Lance has this smile, see, and it's really, really effective, it works on all kinds of unexpected people. Chris is pointedly disapproving. Great stuff.


Thirteen Years and Counting uses "Love for Sale" as part of the story. It was apparently the seventh popslash story I wrote, which amazes me quite a bit, for any number of reasons.

Fantasy AU
- not necessarily swords-and-sorcerers, but something that's not real-world or contemporary.

A Treatise on the Habits of the Greater Blue Horned Dragon by Patchworkdragon was one of the entries for my very first Dragon Challenge, in 2006. It's a fantasy setting but nicely unusual—our five young men each have their own reasons for approaching the dragon, eg Joey wants to show off to a girl, Chris wants it to stop eating his sheep, Lance wants to study it, etc.


Mine: well, my Chronicles of Lancyn and Ser Chrisfer fit the 'fantasy' prompt.

Threesome or moresome! Because why stop at two sparkly boys or girls when you can have more!

There are quite a lot of moresomes around, but most of them don't have a lot in the way of plot, being All About The Porn. So my pick is The Other Side of the Street by Puszysty, in which Kevin and JC swap bodies (as you do) and everything ends up as a Backstreet/Nsync orgy. Well, it would, obviously. Good stuff!


My (possible) favourite from my own supply is Let's Do the Time Warp Again, featuring Joey as Eddie, Justin as Rocky, and Lance as Columbia.

A crossover with another fandom you knew before you read the story.

Today's award goes to Double or Nothing by Calico, featuring Lance Bass and the Weasley twins. I was a bit croggled by this when first I read it—it must have been at an early stage in my slash-reading life when I was unused to things getting a little more, hmm, interesting! Fred gasped, and heard George gasp in stereo, and by Merlin, Lance looked smug. Lance being smug is a weakness of mine.

As I seem to have been pre-empting other people's recs a bit, I hope this category opens things up more!


My own for this category is Anomaly, in which Lance and Nick unexpectedly turn up on the Enterprise-D.