Fanfiction Recommendations And Fic Rating System

I haven’t been converting much fanfiction into E-books lately. It is not because I am not reading any… I am just not reading many on my PDA. Since I am not converting fics, I figured it might be a nice if I pointed out the good ones I come across, therefore I am adding a Fanfiction Recs category to the website.

Fanfiction that I read (and I feel is worth the effort) will be rated on a five point scale:

E – Excellent.
G – Good
A – Acceptable
P – Poor
T – Terrible

Some items I look for in a fic: good plotting, pacing, characterization. Items I dislike: Slash, poor grammar and spelling, out of character action, Mary Sues.

Death of Richard Biggs from Babylon 5

Got this info off of the DNDContact Yahoo Group. Richard Biggs, who played Dr. Stephen Franklin on Babylon 5, died Saturday morning.

There is a condolence notice on Bruce Boxleitner’s and Melissa Gilbert’s website.

Memorial service information may be found on Richard Biggs official website .

Sad to see him go…he was only 43, with a one month old baby.

Angel Dangling Plot Threads and Mysteries

This post was inspired by a question on usenet by “Dan Lam” entitled, “Mysteries that may never be answered”.

After reading his post, I realized there where a lot of dangling plot threads and questions where we never learned the answers. My list (overlaps with Dan’s):

1. What about the Cyborgs from episode S5 E7, “Lineage”? Who sent them?
2. Who exactly are the Powers That Be and what did they really want? While we never saw the Senior Partners (except maybe for S2 E15, “Reprise”), I think it was fairly clear that they were out for power. We never found out why the PTBs helped Angel in the first place. Also, where were the PTBs this season? Did they give up on Angel? We had Cordelia’s vision that she gave to Angel and her temporary return from the dead, but that is about it. Did it have something to do with Jasmine dying at the end of S4?
3. In Epiphany, Angel was able to get into Kate’s apartment without an invitation. Was it the Powers That Be? If so why did they intervene? The same goes for the mysterious snowstorm in Sunnydale and Angel coming back from Hell.
4. Whatever happened to the Groosalug?
5. Why did Lindsey really return? When he left in “Dead End”, it seemed he realized the true price of working for Wolfram and Hart and figured it was too high. Envy at Angel for his becoming CEO of the LA branch seems a little off to me.
6. Does the Shansu Propechy now apply to Spike? Did it always? Has Angel really lost his chance to become human?
7. Illyria. How did she die in the first place? How did her tomb disappear in the first place? Drogyn (in “Hole In The World”) said he believed that is was “predestined” as part of Illyria’s escape plan, but I don’t recall her saying anything to that effect and I think she was somewhat surprised at her rebirth.
8. Gunn. Why did Wolfram and Hart choose to give him überlawyer powers? While their loss served to get Illyria into the country, from what Hamilton said (and I believe him), that was not something the Senior Partners wanted.
9. Drogyn. Who or what made him immortal in the first place and placed him in charge of the well?

Sigh…so many questions that will never be answered.

“Not Fade Away”

Well, I finally got around to watching “Not Fade Away”, the series finale to Angel. My thoughts, in no particular order (spoilers ahead!):
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Eulogy for a Fanfic

With the show finale of Angel the Series, it looks like the Buffyverse is coming to a close. While I have told people, “there is always fanfiction”, it looks like that well is drying up too. The usenet group, alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative, at one time my chief source for quality BTVS fanfiction, has fewer and fewer new fics being posted on it.

Then Ryan Kinkor, author of the Harsh Legacy and Black & White series, has announced that he will not be continuing the series:

Announcement 1
Announcement 2

I totally understand Ryan’s reasons for choosing to discontinue his series. This post is just to thank him for writing the series in the first place.

Ryan wrote 27 stories in all for Harsh Legacy and its sequel series, Black & White. His original character, Marcus Valmont, fit into the Buffyverse smoothly and unlike many original characters in fanfiction, enhanced the storyline rather than stealing it. Ryan’s characterizations of the various Buffyverse characters seemed to keep their essence, while still allowing room for growth. I particularly like what he did with Dawn and Xander. Dawn got to do the maturing the real show seemed to deny her, while Xander was never the “buttmonkey” in Ryan’s stories.

The plotlines and arcs of the series were also excellent. Nothing seemed forced, they were always interesting, and required no more suspension of disbelief (much less in cases) than the TV show.

All of this, while using proper English, grammar and spelling!

In some ways, I am more sorry to see the Black & White series end than I am to see Angel end. I never felt as much affinity for the characters on Angel as I did for the ones on BTVS, and Ryan’s stories primarily focused on the BTVS characters.

All of the Harsh Legacy and Black & White stories may be found at fanfiction.net,
http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=102069 or in the E-book section on this site.

Ryan – Once again, thanks for the stories 🙂 and sorry to see you go :(.

Site Update

I have finally broken down and added a Weblog to LaunchPad Zero. Site news will now be on the blog. Currently I have posted all of the site news for this year. The rest of of the site news entries will be moved to the blog as time permits.

The blogging software I am using is WordPress. I am still tinkering with the blog layout. Currently, I just hacked together some CSS and stuff and shoved it up on the web. I will be improving it and adding in WordPress features “as time permits.”

Site Update

Put up last night’s chat transcript. The chat room will be open next Wednesday as well. Special Notice: There was a request by some chat room members that Kitty, Candy & Ethan not read this transcript.

Site Update

There was no Succubus Club this week, but the chat room was open last night. I have posted the transcript.

Also, turns out that some of the zip files in the D&D section were corrupted. Thanks to Brent Palmer for letting me know this. I figure I must have accidentally ftp’ed them as Ascii files. I have reuploaded them all, and believe they are all fixed. If you do find a problem with one, please contact me.

Site Update

Latest Succubus Club IRC chat is up.

Site Update

Added How To Extract Images From Word to the Office Tips page.