the Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast award is one of my longest-running half-serious jokes, it's given to authors of fanfic that just makes my jaw drop for taking an idea I expect only to loathe with the burning passion of a thousand firey suns, something I read for the express purpose of heckling, and making a story that not only doesn't suck, but is actually GOOD. It's been so long since I gave out #1 and #2 that I can't even remember the stories themselves beyond that one was a Power Rangers fic of all things, the other original-flavor Evangelion, and the graphic was lost three or four hard drive failiures ago, but that doesn't detract at all from my pleasure at awarding #3 to EmySabath for her story Time to Spare, which is a post-HBP Harry Potter time travel fic, in which Harry is sent back to the Marauders' days in Hogwarts, with Draco malfoy his only companion and reluctant ally.
The writing is good. The characterization is beleivable. There ar no asinine prank wars. There is neither smug "I know what's coming before it happens" timeline tweaking, nor angsty wailing about changing the futre and how it could cause a paradox. It explains the events of HBP with beleivable motivations that let the author do her own thing with the characters anyway.
EmySabath, I salute you.
- CD
Edit: Holy crap, I found it!
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
Dr. Akagi will recover. Observe, Rei smiled. Shinji-kun, are these your clothes?
Ritsuko shot up like a spring loaded meerkat. What? Shinji-kun is naked?
See, Anata? Dr. Hentai is alive and well. - Innortal's _I Do_
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

There are a lot, actually, but the one that comes to mind fastest is Relatively Absent, by Mark Shurtleff. And a couple other things by him as well which were left to twist in the wind.
I'd also love to see Jack and Jillian Staik come back to the Net and finish Our Wedding Day, which is Part 4 of their epic series The Tales of Ranma and Ranko.
And of course it goes without saying that I fervently wish for Eric Hallstrom to take up writing Ranma and Akane -- A Love Story once more.
So... what dead fics would you like to see resurrected?

-- Bob
---------
For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

Wow.
www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html
"The Turkey City Lexicon"
Which appears to have successfully reduced/distilled all my pet fanfic peeves( and favorites) into trite, insulting one-liners.
Edit: I realize that more than a few people in this forum might have already seen some version of this but, hey, its new to me.

I don't have a lyrics link handy - just thgouht of it as I was heading for the sack - but madonna's Live to Tell sruck me as a possible power song for hiding information - specifiy a certain set of knowledge as it's played and a time to stop hiding it, and after the end of the song all the subject (probably limited to Doug himself without metasong use) has a vague idea of what kind of information is being hidden and roughly when it will be revealed, but it can't even be accesed by telepathy, not even details of what sort of sevret is hidden - frex, "plans" but not whether they're plans for a microchip, a steam engine, or a surprise party.
Whether he lives to convey the information to whoever it was meant for, like the song says, well... that's up to him and his backup.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
Dr. Akagi will recover. Observe, Rei smiled. Shinji-kun, are these your clothes?
Ritsuko shot up like a spring loaded meerkat. What? Shinji-kun is naked?
See, Anata? Dr. Hentai is alive and well. - Innortal's _I Do_
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

I've been listening to a lot more filk lately, since I just got a new toy a few days ago: a 1 GB digital audio player. One of the songs comes from the Owlflight album - songs based on Mercedes Lackey's book of the same name.

Snare and Deadfall
Michael Longcor
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Drive your quarry where you choose
Baffle them with trick and ruse
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Snares are meant to catch and hold
Loop of vine with knot to hide it
Placed just where the overbold
Still a foot or head inside it
Hook it to a counter weight
Or a young and sturdy sapling
Use their manly pride as bait
Catch them with its sudden grappling
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Drive your quarry where you choose
Net them so they cant get loose
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Deadfalls kill the prey with weight
Dropping down from high above them
Make it look like act of fate
Rocks and limbs with none to show them
Carve the triggers out with care
Hide them so that none can see them
Greased with fat from boar or bear
So the slightest touch will free them
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Drive your quarry where you choose
Lost without a hope or clue
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Hidden pits for them to tread
Drop them down to kill or maim them
Men cant fight if they are dead
Men march slower if you lame them
Line the holes with wooden spikes
Harden tips within the fire
Row on row like warriors spikes
Give them more than they desire
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Drive your quarry where you choose
Dead men cannot carry news
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Lead them on and lead them long
Make it look like natures crafting
Fear and greed will drive them on
Bite your tongue to keep from laughing
Let them think theyve won the war
While the noose draw ever tighter
Deadly though these brigands are
Traps can take the toughest fighter
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Drive your quarry where you choose
With no choice except to lose
Snare and deadfall, pit and-
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose
Drive your quarry where you choose
With no choice except to lose
Snare and deadfall, pit and noose

I see two potential abilities for this one. First, it could boobytrap the area surrounding Doug, but this would probably only last until the song's end, so it's of limited usefulness. Second, it serves as a very strong 'Detect traps' ability: ALL traps within Doug's range are immediately sensed by him, with all the details known. This allows disabling/avoiding any trap sensed.
The second option would also work VERY well together with Operation Desert Storm. Play Snare and Deadfall first, follow with ODS, and every trap within range should backfire. This is great for making henchman/minion hash, since all of the traps should backfire against their creator/his people.
-Feinan

It was aproximately two minutes after the man appeared before a second man, in the grey robes and cloak with the face-obscuring charm of an Unspeakable, stepped up beside him, grabbed his shoulder, and portkeyed away, two minutes in which the haunted eyes flitted from one building to the next in Diagon Alley, a face pale and scarred from too much time in battle or on the run slack in wonder at the colors, the sounds, the LIFE in this place, in this time. Two minutes in which something of a stir had been caused, as passerby noticed the rather distinctive scar on a person far too old-looking to be the one that scar belonged on...
When the duo reappeared, it was inside a very heavily warded room, physically sealed form the outside by a vault-like door. The ragged figure who'd been so unexpectely brought here ducked out of the Unspeakable's grasp and rolled clear, firing a barrage of staggeringly powerful battle magic, which the mysterious official was only barely able to dodge - the one shield he'd been able to get up had shattered with a particulalry pathetic pop form one of the less-intense and poorest aimed hexes - and which blasted, slashed, burned, vanished, and shredded large divots out of the walls, wards or no. Fortunately, the shock reaction passed quickly, and both men relaxed slowly form their ready crouches.
"Well, I suppose that settles whether you're really Harry Potter, then, doesn't it?" remarked the Unspeakable. He puled down the hood of his cloak, allowing the face-hiding charm to dissipate. "Which leaves me. I'm Punctuality Wessex, from the Office of Temporal Adjustment. Unfortuanately, Mr. potter, you've used a non-approved method of time travel, meaning one that can actually change the past rather than already being accounted for in consensus-time as with a Time Turner, and that means you're going to have to face some restrictions on your actions before seing the light of day, as we can't allow any meddling with time, even with the best of intentions."
An eyebrw crossed by a famous scar arched in wry amusement. "Well, we have something of a problem, then," the Man-Who-Survived murmured, "because while my scanning spells aren't strong enoguh to have gotten much form Europe, I can tell you that at the time I left I was most likely the last human alive in Britain, and certainly the last wizard... it seems a certain enemy of mine had a doomsday pact to insure that if he was ever truly killed, the rest of the world would go down with him."

...AND STAY THERE, FOUL SPAWN OF THE LEPUS!!
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
Dr. Akagi will recover. Observe, Rei smiled. Shinji-kun, are these your clothes?
Ritsuko shot up like a spring loaded meerkat. What? Shinji-kun is naked?
See, Anata? Dr. Hentai is alive and well. - Innortal's _I Do_
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Howdy All,
Synopsis: Lily Evans went back in time and married Godric Gryffinor before coming back to the future. Their baby was Harry, who was disguised as the son of James Potter until the summer after OotP. A potion brings back his "real" appearance and spurs Dumbledor to become Harry's magical guardian. Harry and Hermoine become attracted to each other, and Ron becomes a jealous git.
I was reading this HP fic on ff.net earlier today and was interrupted by a power failure. Now I can't find the fic because ff.net's search feature crapped out when I tried to use it. I don't remember the title (I think it's "Father" but can't swear to that) or the author.
Help?

Little background - I'm a CSI fan. I'm an Eyrie fan. I caught myself noting the difference between Grissom and Nick in Gryphon's CSI: New Avalon bit last night, and I noticed how Griss never seems to stop working..
Never.
I don't know how active a set of CSI fanfic there is, but I can just see the poor guy getting worked flat to death..
So, I scribbled this little bit. It's not really NSFW, but it's fairly brain-hurty. Of course, the idea of Grissom losing his nut and going completely horizontal has it's appeal..
kokuten.livejournal.com/7...tml#cutid1Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

Is it dead? Should I close that section of the board?

-- Bob
---------
For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

Okay, "defiantly" for "definitely" has officially irked me. It's a spell-check error: of that, I am certain.
Much like "to," "two," and "too." These words, while correctly spelled, are probably not the words that the author intended.
I presume that the given example was entered, pre-spell-check, as "definately..."
grr.
Grr, I say.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll