The Turtle Jourtle

Now that I've finished my final fic bingo card of the year, I am ready to introduce the new game that I will be playing in 2023.

I enjoyed fic bingo. I liked being challenged to read fics I would not have otherwise in order to cover all the letters, and I liked sharing my feelings about what I read. Yet there were a few things that I disliked. The principle one was that fic bingo discouraged me from reading fics, particularly long ones, that started with a letter already filled on my bingo card. Another was that it made me less likely to read short fics, because I wanted to boost the total words for each bingo round. A third, minor one is that I was discouraged from reading fics starting with numerals. (I also found that I spent too much time choosing and tweaking the images to represent each fic on my bingo card, but that is not an inherent flaw in fic bingo, but rather in how I chose to play it.)

My new game, the Million-Word Fanfic Challenge, is designed to correct these issues while preserving the good features of fic bingo. In this game, the object is to read one million words of fanfic across all fandoms while fulfilling minimum word counts for each letter. The minimums only add up to 375,000 words, however, so there is lots of room to read extra fics for any letter.

I hope some others might enjoy playing this game, too. Feel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested. Happy New Year!

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I've finished my second round of Prosfic bingo. I read 27 stories (including two for the letter S) that totaled 463,432 words. Today, the five I would most recommend are:

Till a Bullet Stopped His Song by Callisto
The Keeper of Secrets by Jackie Thomas
Calibre by JGL
Reconsiderations by PFL / msmoat
Special Men by sineala

I also admire Decrescendo by erushi, but with some hesitation, as discussed (with spoilers) in this post and its comments. If not for that it would have been among the five top recs.

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J is for Just Enough Rope, Q is for Querencia

I continue to chomp through the fics I selected.

Under Surveillance by Ellis Ward starts out with Bodie and Doyle surveilling a lesbian colleague. I liked that part; I've always wondered why there aren't more fics in which some of the female CI5 agents are lesbians, as it is clearly implied in Long Shot that some of them are. The rest of the fic I felt neutral about, except for one aspect that confused me. I think there might be some text missing from the story, as there is an event referred back to twice that is never actually described. 5,774 words. B/D slash.

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V is for Vignettes Under Calico Skies

Yesterday evening, I picked out a fic for every letter that I have left on my bingo card. Many of the fics are on the shorter side. I want to be sure to get this round of bingo finished by the end of the year, and I've been chewing through fics more slowly lately than I do sometimes. Among the shorter fics on my list, the ones I read tonight were the three shortest. It was that sort of evening.

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K is for Keeps Raining All the Time, Q is for A Quiet Night at the Library

It's time for my final MFU fic bingo post of the year (and possibly of all time, since I have a different game planned for next year). I've read several MFU fics over the past couple of weeks, but haven't felt up to posting about them. Here I am, then, ready to finish my bingo card in one blow.

The Old Masters Affair by AconitumNapellus (aconitumn) is a fic I'd been meaning to read for a long time, but had somehow never gotten around to. It's a long casefic with a multipart plot in which Illya and Napoleon, aided by an OC, discover and foil a Thrush scheme. I don't know whether the fault was in the material or in me as an audience—it has been a bumpy few weeks—but this story never quite pulled me in. Still, I enjoyed watching its twists and turns from a slight remove, and I admired the interactions between Illya and Napoleon, which struck a good balance between caring and banter. Established relationship fics, of which this is one, are always a nice change, too. 49,159 words. NS/IK slash.

Keeps Raining All the Time by eponymous_rose is a beautifully written, fascinating fic in which Napoleon serves as Illya's contact while the later is undercover. It is short, but still packs in a lot of plot. 4,645 words. Gen. Particularly recommended.

A Quiet Night at the Library by threecee is a farcical little story, apparently inspired by true events. It's implausible and a touch risque, but good for a few smiles. (Besides which, it has the great virtue of starting with Q.) 1,612 words. Gen.

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V is for Vincit, U is for Uxorilocal

I've had limited concentration lately, so I've been reading some short fics. I found these particular ones using an AO3 search for the names of authors who have written fics that are in my Beloved Collection.

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G is for The Growing Up Affair, V is for The Vodka Affair

Late last week, I finished Nor Heed the Rumble by utopiantrunks, which elmey brought up when I was seeking recs of long MFU fics back in February. This story begins with Napoleon plagued by recurring dreams and unfolds from there. It is excellent. The plot is suspenseful and based on solid insights into the characters of our two heroes. The action writing is outstandingly vivid, but the emotional scenes are also memorable. Basically, everything about it is good. I'll be checking out more fics by utopiantrunks as soon as I've gotten all my bingo cards finished. 39,187 words. NS/IK slash. Particularly recommended.

I was not feeling well this weekend, so I comforted myself with two familiar fics that I knew I liked, The Growing Up Affair by joolz and The Vodka Affair by paulaH.

I particularly enjoyed The Growing Up Affair this time around. This fic has an original POV character through whose eyes we see the events of the story as well as Napoleon and Illya. Both her observations of them and her own character beats are enjoyable. The story has a lot of heart and just enough action to season it. 9,364 words. NS/IK slash. Particularly recommended.

The Vodka Affair is just fun. Napoleon appears only at the end, so we do miss the interactions between him and Illya, but the story is a wonderful showcase for Illya's character. I love the way it highlights both his pragmatism and his flair for the dramatic. (I'm not certain the events described are actually physically possible, but that never stopped the show's script writers.) 13,178 words. Gen. Particularly recommended.

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R is for Reification, I is for If You Left, H is for Hares and Hounds, X is for Xena Studies

I have a lot of fics to write up today. Including two T fics in my last batch left me with 16 free spaces even though I have been posting the fics by fives. I planned to include six fics in this post to get things synced up again, but then I accidentally read two fics for the letter D, meaning that there are seven for me to talk about here.

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The Red Pawn Affair by Mishka is a fic I had been meaning to read for ages. It's a sequel to The Black, White, and Lavender Affair by the same author, which I've read and enjoyed more than once. I didn't like The Red Pawn Affair quite as much. There were a number of good scenes and the Cold War setting was well realized as far as it went. Yet I thought the fic's central conflict was resolved a bit too quickly, not giving enough scope to explore the historical events that form part of the plot. 18,966 words. NS/IK slash.

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T is for Third Sex and The Ties That Bind, A is for A is for Alpha

Fic bingo returns!

Masked Ball by waid is a delightful Sherlock Holmes fic. Apparently it is not equally memorable, though, as it was only near the end of the story that I realized I had read it before. Oops. At any rate, I enjoyed it very much the second time around. It is mysterious and atmospheric with an unusual plot. If it has a flaw, it is that the ending feels a bit rushed, but that detracts only a little from the whole. 31,626 words. Holmes/Watson slash.

the last son is yet another Harry Potter AU by dirgewithoutmusic. In this one, Ron rather than Harry is the chosen one. It's a well thought out and engaging fic, though I didn't love it as much as the kids who chose themselves or the family evans by the same author. 13,051 words. Gen.

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