Aurora's Sundry Notes

I finally got around to posting my torchwood_fest fic on AO3, so let me share it here as well.

Taste of Spice (2782 words) by AuroraCloud
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones
Additional Tags: Season/Series 01, Angst, cakes, POV Ianto Jones, Angst with a Happy Ending
Summary: On a dark December evening, Ianto Jones isn't feeling exactly cheerful, and his relationship with Jack is just confusing. Still, there can be unexpected benefits to spicy cakes.


My third Jack/Ianto fic, and my third Torchwood-only fic (ie. not Doctor Who crossover), and also the one I am the happiest with to date. Late Series 1 Jack/Ianto is interesting to explore, because their relationship is, as I see it, still in a very complicated no-man's-land, they've got issues, and it's wonderful to try to work out all that and figure how it might go and how they might react to this or that. And generally, more I write these two, the more I enjoy exploring them. Also, dear shopfront did a wonderful job beta-reading this story for me.

This fic is getting really well received on the archive so far; I'm not used to this many hits, kudos and comments in under 24 hours, not with my fic. Nice!

Dear Chocolatier,

Sorry I only got this letter up now! Hope it helps. You’re super-awesome for offering whatever you’ve offered out of my requests, and I look forward to reading what you come up with. I’m offering some prompts for each relationship, because I’m a writer who enjoys having something like that to work with. If you prefer to work without specific prompts, just skip them and check out my general likes and DNWs. Or if a prompt/idea/like leads you to another idea that I didn’t mention, feel free to go along with it as long as you avoid the DNWs. Feel free to combine relationships and prompts.

( General likes )

( General dislikes and Do Not Wants )

( Doctor Who (2005) (relationships requested: Bill/Heather, Bill/Martha, Bill/Amy, Jack/Doctor (any Doctorfrom 9 to 13), Jack/Martha, Jack/Eleven/TARDIS, Eleven & Amy & Rory) )

( Torchwood (Jack/Ianto, Tosh & Ianto, Jack & Tosh) )

( Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers (Rosemary/Sissix, Sidra & Tak, Sidra/Tak) )

( Finishing School - Gail Carriger (any relationships in the tagset) )

( Parasol Protectorate — Gail Carriger (Genevieve/Alexia or Genevieve&Alexia, Biffy/Lyall, Genevieve/Imogene, Alexia & Akeldama )

rarepairfest reveals have happened, so I can share my fic! But I've forgotten to share the previous fics I've been able to post before this one, for wintercompanion and torchwood_fest, so I will take this opportunity to post links to all of them. All links lead to stories on AO3.

First, here is the Rare Pair Fest fic. The prompt basically allowed me to write the "Martha and Jack seeking comfort from each other after the Year That Never Was" fic that I've been wanting to write for a long time. Still, it wouldn't have been nearly as good without enkanowen's beta work, which helped a lot both with the language/writing and with the pacing and character development.

Care for Apocalypse Survivors (5797 words) by AuroraCloud
Chapters: 1/1<
Fandom: Torchwood, Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: Teen And Up Audience
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Martha Jones
Characters: Jack Harkness, Martha Jones
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Post-Year That Never Was, Pre-Season/Series 02, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, brief appearance by Tenth Doctor, background Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones - Freeform, Mentions of Torchwood Three
Summary: After the Year That Never Was, the TARDIS whisks the Doctor, Martha, and Jack to a safe place to rest and recover. With a year of horrors behind them, Martha and Jack have each other for comfort.




For Torchwood Fest, I wrote my first posted Jack/Ianto fic (I've got a lot of unfinished drafts on my hard drive, most of them darker and angstier than this one). Though the prompt I wrote for was about sex, I tried to make sure the fic had more than just that. Again, much thanks to Enk for helping make the story better.

Fresh Air (2386 words) by AuroraCloud
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones
Additional Tags: Fluff, Semi-Public Sex, Morning Sex, Cuddling & Snuggling, Ianto thinking about his feelings
Summary: In a morning after a vigorous night in his flat, Ianto opens the window for some fresh air. He is not taking Jack Harkness properly into account, though.



And for Winter Companions, I wrote a Jack/Ten story. It has a lot of elements that have been brewing in my head for a long time. I didn't feel I quite got it where I wanted, but it has some things I like, nevertheless. It seems Ten isn't that easy for me to write, regardless of how much I've been watching and reading him, but I do want to practice more on him - especially with Jack.

Between (4928 words) by AuroraCloud
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness
Additional Tags: background Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones - Freeform, Post-Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Sex in a TARDIS
Summary: It was a moment when Jack didn't want to hear the TARDIS materializing behind him.
The Doctor comes across Jack in the middle of an alien-hunt, and they work out some issues. In various manners.

Dear Rare Pair Fest writer,


Awesome, you’ve offered to write for one of these fandoms and pairings I’m really into! Can’t wait to see what you create! So don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be thrilled with what I get.

NOW FINISHED UPDATING. SORRY IT TOOK FOREVER. Life just kind of happened and I was too exhausted to string many sensible sentences together. I'm not sure I'm still capable, but I'll do my best to write what I'm going to write here. So this should be the final state of this letter, unless I notice some typos and such I want to fix.

Fic likes: I love femslash, slash, het, and am fine with various polyamorous scenarios for any of these relationships. I love hurt/comfort, adventures, daily life moments and domesticity, angst (but hopefully with a happy/comforting ending), fluff, porn (though preferably so that the sex tells something about the characters), first times, established relationships, kisses, space, history, loyalty, found family, characters coming to accept some previously neglected/repressed part of themselves, canon divergence AUs (various ”what if”s changing some event or element of the canon but still keeping the world basically the same) etc. etc. Really a lot of things, so feel free to let your imagination roam as long as you respect my Do Not Wants / dislikes.

Many of these characters come equipped with teams, friends etc. and I’m very fine with these making an appearance in the story, should it work out for the story. There can be no sex or a little sex or lots of sex, however you like. Any rating from General to really really Explicit is fine.

Do Not Wants/Dislikes: graphic violence, gore and torture, non-con, sexual abuse, character bashing, mpreg, wildly different AUs of the coffee shop / high school / werewolf etc. variety. It depends a bit on the canon how much violence/torture/abuse I can deal with, but generally, please not higher level than the canon. That basically means that in Torchwood I can deal with worse stuff than others, because it comes with the canon. Also, no abuse/rape/consent issues between the requested characters or their canon significant other. Please no 2nd person POV, and in fic 1st person doesn’t work often either unless it’s in diary/epistolary format.

Now onto the pairings and requests. My request in italics and any additions in regular font. If I'm not adding much to the actual request, doesn't mean I care less about that pairing, just that I actually managed to say what I wanted before the sign-ups closed.

( Wayfarers (Becky Chambers) - Rosemary/Sissix )

( Parasol Protectorate - Genevieve Lefoux / Alexia Tarabotti  )

These books have been one of my favourite fun-and-fluffy-yet-smart with strong women and LGBT rep books for the past years. I love that unlike most steampunk I can find, it's not incredibly violent and depressing, yet manages to be more subversive and rebellious than looks on the surface. Alexia and Madame Lefoux are among the most delightful characters in the books (okay, I do adore Biffy and Lyall and Akeldama like any sensible person would) and some of my favourite sf/f ladies. I love that while Alexia is all sorts of kick-ass, she still is a woman of her era and confined by many of the standards of the Victorian ages, because let's face it, we all are affected by the mores of the society we grow up in. And I would absolutely love to see Geneviève make her defy those standards even more than she does. There's this undercurrent of attraction Alexia feels towards her, and the very obvious attraction she feels towards Alexia, and while Alexia and Lord Maccon are my favourite of Gail's het pairings (ie. the only one I do like), I still ship these two more. Feel free to either ignore Lord Maccon, have Alexia break up with him, have him never have entered her life, or have them enjoy a happy open relationship - everything is fine and nothing more preferable than the other.

I haven't yet read Romancing the Inventor, though it's on my to-order list, so might be I will before the stories go live. I'm fine with setting this story any time during the Parasol Protectorate books or after them. One possibility is also setting it during The Custard Protocol or after Imprudence - how would an older Alexia and Geneviève romance after everything else they've been through?


( Torchwood - Jack Harkness / Martha Jones )

( The Count of Monte Cristo - Euǵenie Danglars / Louise d'Armilly )

( Doctor Who / Torchwood - Tenth Doctor / Ianto Jones )

I don't seem to get around to actually writing posts these days. Well, let me post just a few random important things.

Finishing Torchwood S2 was certainly bad for my overall productivity. I mean, now there's so much more fanfic I can read. And do you have any idea how much fanfic there is in that fandom, including well-written and thought-out stuff, with interesting plots and delicious smut, and how much of it's is bloody epic in length? I could spend the rest of the year doing nothing but reading fics. I'm trying not to.

Well, I am still succeeding at reading Things That Are Actual Books, still, and one of the books I'm currently reading is Chris Hadfield's An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. In the case you don't know, he's a Canadian astronaut who has, oh, been Commander of the International Space Station and recorded a version of David Bowie's Space Oddity in space, and so forth, and the book is his memoirs of how to become an astronaut and how to be one and what we all can learn from it and how awesome space is and stuff. I'm having a grand time reading it.

I possibly had other things to write, but I can't recall them. Well, let me record that I had a good writing day today.