Since several people want to know if they need to learn martial arts or get a small firearm and a carry permit, I must confess that the lovely season 1 story, "Sex in Seven Stages," was the fic in the icon challenge whose author, etharei, I intend to have killed. As I said in the comments to the story, it's nothing personal. It's how I show my love.

My eye catches a glimpse of something dark grey under my sofa, and I don’t look, because I know it’s a sock from some retail store that’s entirely the wrong size for me and stinking with dried sweat that’s not mine. And I don’t know what that is, what to call it when stuff-that-isn’t-mine starts cluttering up odd corners of my home, my space, and I don’t just dump them in the trash.

It just made my heart hurt, in a good way.

I'm also very proud to have beta'd vlredreign's "Insurrection," which is short, emotionally powerful, and beautiful.

You will be on time this time. This time you’ll call his name, and he’ll duck.

There were several other stories I really liked, most notably "Catching Fire" by flashfly. I would say it's probably the favorite of most people, and might have been mine, except I always have trouble with other writer's post-513 fics, which has nothing to do with their stories and everything to do with my own creative process - I invest mentally and emotionally like woah in the Xieverse, it's the only way I know to do it. So when someone else writes one, no matter how good it is, there's a wall between me and that story, a little mental censor going, "Well, interesting, but of course THAT'S TOTALLY NOT WHAT HAPPENED."

I'm sure you can see how that can ruin a good read.

And of course, I heap roses on my lovely wife _alicesprings for running the qaf_challenges community and doing all the hard work involved with making these work so well. Since we're married I see how hard she works behind the scenes, and I'd say it isn't pretty, but the truth is, everything she does is beautiful.

She's the pretty wife.