A Lar by any other name

Aster convinced me that the Leverage/Avengers story wasn't a stand alone. Beth's cheering helped push me over the edge so here is Chapter Two of what I am now calling Caught Between Two Worlds.

Story Summary: The worlds of Leverage and the Avengers collide as one of the Leverage team members appears to be someone no one expected her to be. Now, she has to pick up the pieces of a life she thought was hers and a life that is expectd to be hers. Neither one fits very well any longer. And which man does she want? The man who introduced her heart to love or the man who introduced her to herself?

Chapter 1: Dead Is All Relative

Chapter Summary: Parker isn't normal, as most people consider normal. Maybe instead of it just being "who she is", it's really because she's someone else entirely but doesn't know it because a certain mastermind criminal has her under a spell.

Chapter 2: Doesn't Play Well With Others

Chapter Summary: Bobbi isn't Parker but she isn't Bobbi either. Not anymore. Not where it counts. Before she can move on, she needs to go back to make sure that she hasn't missed anything.

First and foremost -



Okay, now that I've gotten that up there (so that I will remember to go to it some time soon, I present the real reason that I opened this window.

You. Must. Read. This. Story - So No One Told You by Kari_Kurofai

You like the Avengers? You like Friends? This is the fic for you! The official summary: Between them there're three apartments, a disgruntled downstairs neighbor, and a coffee shop with a barista who threatens them with tasers. Which, as a whole, that description sounds way more simple than it actually is.

Why you should read it? Because it's funny and endearing and spot on in both Friends and TA voice. It's lovely to read and remember through the day. It's the first time I truly found that I loved Loki (although he's fandom!Loki but that's good enough for the time being) and I clinched my love of Clint/Natasha/Bruce (although they are very silly in this, which is fine by me because it's a silly sort of story).

I'm sort of amazed where the story has gone in 19 chapters and I can't wait to see what happens next!

So, on to my next topic.

I've never been in on the very beginning of a fandom before. I came to Harry Potter in 2003, well after everyone had separated into camps. I came late to SGA. All the rest of my fandoms are very small or I don't ship them enough to write in them.

I have two fandoms that I came to the party on time... Leverage and now the Avengers. They are also two fandoms that are highly visible on AO3. It's like all these people with separate fandoms are on AO3 but they finally get a fandom in common and it BLOWS UP! The above story has 19 chapters and over THIRTY THOUSAND hits. I know there are stories that have that many hits but WOW! It's not that old.

jendavis posted a story there (A Good Idea (Clint/Phil) - check it out!) this morning and it already has over 1700 hits.

I posted a little story that I did for the HugFest. 500 words. First story in the fandom, more or less. In three days, it has OVER 600 hits! Now, that's AMAZING for my stories. I don't normally write in pairings that have large audiences and I don't do a lot of promotion. Slowly and steadily, over the past year, I've gained what I think might be called a "following" but I still only get a modest amount of hits. I'm good with that! I love that I can track a story on AO3 and even see how many people have opened the document. It makes my little heart jump with glee when I get over a hundred. The first of my stories to do that was in SGA and I jumped around the room for a good two minutes after I saw those stats. When I got my first 500 hit story, I refreshed the screen four or five times to make sure it wasn't playing a joke on me.

I can't get over it! It makes me want to write stories in those fandoms, that's for sure. It's fun to be in at the beginning!

So I spent a lot of time "discussing" my thought process for my Leverage Big Bang and how I was having trouble coming up with something I liked enough to write 10k but then the editing helped and I have something that I'm much prouder of. Now, after all that time, I can finally show you what I was talking about as it was our posting day!

Title: The Middle of the Night
Author: lar_laughs
Beta(s): imagine_that
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the show or these characters.
This is all done in fun.
Characters/Pairings: Eliot/Parker/Alec, Nate, Sophie, original characters
Rating: PG-13
Genre: hurt/comfort, angst, drama
Warnings/spoilers: some violence/language
Word Count: 11322
Summary: It's the middle of a con and Eliot is bound up in a warehouse, out of contact with the rest of the team. He has to rely on them coming to get him and they have to rely on themselves to get the job done in a timely fashion before he's too far gone.
Artist: ghoulfang

The Art
The Story

Some of you might know about my penchant for including quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I've sort of done away with that lately but that use to be my thing. I sort of went back to that but decided to sort of use quotes as my chapter titles. There used to much more of a "move from twilight to dawn" theme that got sort of lost in the edits because the title no longer really fit what the chapters were.

The title comes from the song "In the Middle of the Night" by Within Temptation.


Sadly, there used to be another character in the story but he got lost in the edits, as well. I have to say that I owe Shelley (Eliot's friend from the Boys Night Out job) a special story for having him come all this way just to get cut out. By having him in the story, it reduced Parker to nearly nothing (and I think she was doing mean things to my muse) and that wasn't the story was meant to be. I had fun writing Shelley so he will definitely be back in another story. Maybe I'll resurrect some of the witty banter because he had fun talking with Alec.

What else was I going to tell you here? As always, this is dedicated to Aster because, without her, I would never make it through the marathon writing sessions that I have to endure because I can't seem to write any of these stories EARLY. And I had so much fun getting to write a story for ghoulfang's graphic AND getting to know him on LJ. I don't think I've ever had a big bang end in friendship! That was well worth it all and went a long way in me not just dropping out of this. So, thank you, both of you!

Also, a huge shout out to the all the people who listened to me whine about "I have to go write again" and encouraged me. It means a lot to get to talk to all of you have know that you're in the same boat that I am!

Title: Girls Will Be Girls
Fandom: Leverage/Stargate: SG-1
Characters: Parker, Eliot, Daniel/Vala
Word Count: 1311
Prompts: Parker & Vala, stealing for FanFest 01 and Pinkie Swear & Disbelief for the March Prompt Table at caffeinatedmagic, 04. comfort of the familiar for 5_prompts
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Parker goes exploring and goes right where Eliot told her not to go. Vala also gets Daniel all riled up... but not the good way.

( Parker nursed her secret as she as she would a migraine... )

Title: Time to Leave
Fandom: Firefly (post Serenity)
Characters: Simon/Kaylee
Word Count: 276
Rating: PG
Written for: an_ardent_rain for the whedonland Birthday Week

( ...life on board Serenity is the only life Kaylee has ever appreciated... )

Title: Not Surprise
Fandom:Leverage
Characters: Parker, Alec
Word Count: 377
Rating: PG
Written For: penikitty for the whedonland Birthday Week
Prompt: RED for 5_prompts

( ...she hates that this could happen every year about this time... )

TITLE: Tears
AUTHOR: lar_laughs
FANDOM: Leverage
CHARACTERS: Sophie
PROMPT: BLUE (crying eye pic) for the VRD challenge at 5_prompts and for love and pain, love and pain/are companions in this age. for anenko at the AWESOME LADIES FICATHON comment fics.
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 229
SUMMARY: Sophie is struggling with the way things have unraveled
WARNINGS: Don't read if you haven't seen the newest shows in the current season of Leverage. And if you haven't... get off the computer and RUN to TNT and watch them!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Leverage but I would definitely hire them if I was in trouble! *g*

( ...there are things that are best done alone... )

Title: Decisions
Fandom: Leverage
Characters: Sophie, Parker
Word Count: 374
Written for: darlaslilgirl at the whedonland Birthday Week
Prompt: 03. assorted flavors at 5_prompts and 74. decisions at 100_tales
( ...she had so many choices... )