Polishing Shoes by T. Verano (G)

[snycock.livejournal.com]

Fandom: THE SENTINEL
Pairing: none
Length: 93k
Author on LJ: t_verano
Author Website: (or a link to where more of their fic is archived): Pleasance
Why this must be read:

This lovely story is an account of Blair and Jim's first Christmas together - well, not-Christmas, really. See, Jim likes his peace and quiet at the holidays, and Blair figures the best present he can give him is to clear out a few days. No problem, right? Except when everything goes horribly wrong...

As in most of her stories, T. has Blair's voice down perfectly, both internal and external. And there's no mystery as to why this story won Best Gen Short Story for 2008 in the LMFAs.

ETA: Updated links to new site (Thanks, T.!). Also, here's a link to a podfic of Polishing Shoes; a follow-up story, Discerning the Magi's Gift by laurie_ky; and a podfic of same.

Polishing Shoes

Comments

[laurie-ky.livejournal.com]

Love that story, and I podficced it, if anybody wants to listen instead of read. http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/polishing-shoes

Poor Blair, he has the best of intentions, if not the best judgement.

Laurie

[t-verano.livejournal.com]

Really glad you posted the podfic link -- I've got it linked on the AO3 and ASR3 copies of the fic but the behind-the-scenes code on my stupid website is like spaghetti and I've allergically backed away from changing things there for a horribly long time.

ALSO. Your WONDERFUL FOLLOW-UP FIC. That totally should be linked here too (especially since -- again -- it's linked on AO3 and ASR3 but not on my friggin' tarpit-petrified website).

So. IMPORTANT:

Discerning the Magi's Gift (http://laurie-ky.livejournal.com/55248.html#cutid1), a (wonderful!) epilogue by Laurie (at http://laurie-ky.livejournal.com/55248.html)

[laurie-ky.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me tagalong with your post. And I podficed Discerning the Magi's Gift, and the link is here. (http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/discerning-magis-gift).

Laurie

[snycock.livejournal.com]

Added this one, too... :-) I should get credit for four recs with this one!

[laurie-ky.livejournal.com]

:)

Laurie

[snycock.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links - I added those...

[snycock.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I added that link as an ETA... :-)

[t-verano.livejournal.com]

Okay, you have just successfully woken me up this morning *without* coffee (you ninja!reccer, you :-)) ::blinks, blushes, beams at you in thanks:: Shoes was my Brave New World fic, during which writing morphed from You Can't Be Serious -- Seriously, You're Writing an Honest-to-God Story ??? to Can't Stop, Can't Stop, God Help Me, I Can't Stop... Also it was the wedge in the door to meeting people who've become cherished friends & to learning the joys of being part of a fandom community of wonderful people. I'm now feeling sentimental as all get out (and I thank you for that, too -- it's a great way to start the morning, a reminder of all my fannish blessings).

(Um. I have a My Face Is Red -- for reasons other than blushing -- moment going on here: my former website address is supposed to actually be kaput by now, even though earthlink keeps hanging on to it. The new/real/dependable-upon address for the website is actually:

http://www.janedavitt.com/tverano/

and for the story is:

http://www.janedavitt.com/tverano/polishing.htm )

[snycock.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know about the links change! I was going off the LMFA site. I've updated the entry to reflect the new links, and also add all the great links you and Laurie suggested.