I love good guys

AO3 Search Tips.  xparrot shared excellent tips for "Browsing & Reading on AO3."  Among other tools, she addresses the tactic that pj1228 requested last week: how to search to exclude rather than include.  (Thanks to sholio for the link.)

AO3 Feedback Meme.  celli promoted a meme (LJ/DW) celebrating that AO3 is fully equipped for feedback and discussion to enhance community feelings and inspire writers.  (Want more stories? Talk to a writer!)  ruuger: "Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to go to Archive of Our Own," and: ( options )

Forever Knight is pitifully underrepresented on AO3 (just 204 pieces by two dozen authors).  Granted, I've mirrored under half of my own FK fic so far; I shouldn't complain.  Still! So few authors! So few old favorites, so few new possibilities.  The best I can offer in the spirit of the meme is to point out the FK works of WiliQueen, Leela and James so far archived there.

Highlander fares more happily, with precisely 1000 works when I looked this morning.  Longer favorites eluded me, but I easily found two all-time-enjoyed shorter HL pieces, which HL fans should check out:

• "All that Glitters" by Killa (~3K words; PG13; AU; Tessa, Duncan, Methos, Richie). To this, other AUs should aspire: it entirely satisfies, and makes me cry.
• "Even Better" by Melina (~7K words; PG; Episode-Related; Michelle, Amanda, Duncan, Nick, Connor). When Amanda returned in "Finale," I wanted a mention of Michelle from "Rite of Passage." This pleasingly supplies what canon neglects.

Addendum: The meme strives to advertise the fact that AO3 is not just a writers' archive, but rather that it serves readers and recommenders. (The "bookmark" function is where to find the recommendation option, by the way.)

I've finished my reading in the Highlander hlh_shortcuts 2010 exchange fest, and these are the stories there that most impressed and satisfied me, personally:

• "Burn Layer" by tryfanstone (G; 2200w; Cierdwyn, original character).  ( rec )


• "Domaine du Meilleur Bien-Aimé" by hafital (R; 7600w; Duncan/Methos).  ( rec )


• "Elementary, My Dear MacLeod" by dkwilliams (PG-13; 9500w; Duncan, Methos, Claudia Jardine, Sherlock, Watson, Mycroft).  ( rec )

I must also nod to "Truffes noires d'hiver" by unovis_lj (PG; 1800w; Methos, Darius, historical figure), which is very good, but creeps me out in at least three ways.  ( rec )

It's amazing to have so much new HL all at once!  With thirty stories, many different genre tastes are served, including action (e.g. "Dirt Road Blues" by Mackiedockie), capers (e.g. "Fencing" by Merriman) and sci-fi (e.g. "From Out of the Wilderness" by Morgynleri).  From a whole-series perspective, Methos is perhaps overrepresented; Richie, Charlie and Tessa are underrepresented; and there's a surprising plenty of Rebecca.  Take a look?

What's good?  This September, the recommendations project features a crossover that handles the sharp edges of third-season Forever Knight through the gloves of first-season Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Did you know that Joyce Summers was Natalie's cousin?  Well...

"Then, one night, they brought me a bag of body parts that decided to put themselves back together, get up from the table, slurp down a bag of blood, and push the boundaries of my universe beyond anything I ever expected."
            -- Natalie to Buffy, "Spring Break, Slayer Style," by wiliqueen, 1998

What's new?  In August, we had a new story on fkfic-l!  "Soliloquy, The One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-eighth" by Walt D. (one post).  Three cheers for Walt!

I'm pleased to announce that when the femme_fic "We Love Female Characters" ficathon queue released late Friday night, the line-up boasted two FK stories!  (I admit that I was simultaneously grateful at that many and disappointed at that few, but I knew perfectly well that it was a wildcard in this game.  I can be angstily ambivalent -- I am, after all, a Knightie. ~g~)

The two FK contributions are:

• "Starwort" by me.  Features Fleur, Lacroix and a small crew of supporting original characters, plus references to Nick, Janette and more.  Written to a prompt by falcon_horus.  Will go to fkfic-l and on my website later this month.
  
• "Could They Choose Between" by havocthecat.  Features Janette, Natalie and Nick, with references to Grace and Schanke.  Written to a prompt by amilyn.  I hope Havoc will choose to share this one with fkfic-l in the future, too.

Of course there's a lot of very nice non-FK fanfiction, but this is my FK blog, so I'll leave that for you to discover (try the by-fandom index).