Author profile: Omphale
Author: omphale23
Website/link to fic: LJ Memories
Fanlore page: tbc
First DS fic posted: 2006, I think, though if LJ Memories is playing tricks with me, I could be wrong.
Full disclosure: omphale23 have talked to each other a few times in fannish viewing parties, and we've run into each other in various writing challenges.
Pairings: F/K mostly, couple of F/V, one F/K/V, and a few other pairings.
Style and strengths: This is the bit where I have the tenderest of soft spots for one thing in any writing ever: rhythm. I love Shakespeare just because the rhythm in his words feels so damn good rolling off my lips. I like poetry and I like singing and I love O's fic. She mentions many, many times that music is very important to her writing, and I have to admit I instinctively knew that before she said so, because her writing has this wonderful pulse to it. It's especially fun to feel that pulse change depending on what's happening in the story. There's something visceral and intense that comes from that, that I really have never felt anywhere else.
Other DS/C6D activity: HCL, one Twitch City, a crossover with S&A.
Some favourites: I could just rec everything she's written EVER, because that would not be at all inaccurate. However, let me give y'all a couple of stories to start yourselves with.
A Problem of Memory
This is classic omphale23, written for DS Match '08. Absolutely gorgeous, sublime look at OT3, starting with Vecchio leaving Stella, told in thirds by Stella, Kowalski, and Fraser. Sounds complicated, but when you read it, you'll see it's not. Just because.
Vecchio, the real Ray Vecchio, the first (only, former, returning, hidden, possibly permanent) Detective Vecchio has a terrible hard look on his face. Ray meets it without blinking (without flinching, without comment) and wonders who he (Armando, Raymundo) killed. He wonders whether they deserved it. He wonders if they saw death coming in the desert.
Fraser is thrown for a moment in this doorway, and they can both see the echo of Vecchio's choices. Fraser looks surprised. Maybe it's new, maybe this Vecchio is different (older, wiser, colder) from the guy Ray is supposed to be. Maybe Vecchio was a nice guy, and Vegas has taken that from him without offering hope (consolation, prayer, forgiveness) in exchange.
It makes Ray glad he doesn't live in Vegas.
Ray can't trust that look, and he won't give Vecchio the chance to change his mind. Whoever Vecchio was, right now he's a threat.
There's No Good Time to Discuss This
Omphale precedes this story by saying, "It's late, and I'm walking the fine edge of songfic, but I think I avoided it" -- because apparently songfic is a bad thing, which I am just discovering now? Don't know what's up with that. In any case, this fic takes a Kowalski and Fraser who seem determined to stay apart and nudge them together. Layers and layers of depth in the characters' thoughts, delivered through parantheticals (which normally I can't quite get the feel for, but in Omphale's case I make an exception). Sweet, realistic resolution.
Ray is not going to fall for his shiny (pretty, clean cut and razor sharp) new Canadian partner, because Ray is a divorced cop who is (say it loud, say it often) straight. You can tell just by looking at his hand. And if that isn’t enough, just ask every woman at the station, because Ray’s got the perfect first date figured out, and he uses the right pronouns when he talks about dancing and dinner and whatever else he’s been babbling.
Ray buys a bracelet to wrap his arm, to remind him of who he is now and who he is not.
That Ray is a (ladies’ man, man’s man) regular guy is the first thing people see about him. If he’s lucky, it’ll be the only thing they see.
Masquerade
(Co-authored with slidellra.) This one comes with its own soundtrack. Which, the link for it is currently expired, but it's the principle of the thing. (Omphale, if you're reading this, I'd be glad to give you a hand getting those tracks up on the interwebs again.) This was written for ds_harlequin and was based on the movie Charade(1963), starting out with Kowalski/Volpe and then throwing Fraser into the mix. Go. Read the giant novel-length fic, you know you want to.
Ray reached out with his foot and pushed a chair away from the table, pleased when the guy took the hint and sat down. "This is the last chance I have--We're flying back to Chicago tonight. You got a name?"
"Yes." The guy rubbed his eyebrow before continuing. "Robert Benton."
"Ray Kowalski. Got a... partner, Mr. Benton?" Ray liked to flirt, but he'd learned the hard way to get his cards on the table early. Some straight guys just couldn't take a compliment.
"Yes, but he's a wolf. Well, not entirely a wolf. But whenever he's not with me, he's out all night with the local bitches." The guy shrugged. "We don't belong to each other."
"That wasn't a proposal. I was just curious."
"Is there a Mrs. Kowalski?"
That was a good one. Ray couldn't tell if the guy was playing with him. "Now why would you want to know about my mother? There's a Volpe."
"Ah. Good for you. Is it an arctic fox?"
"It's a boyfriend. But we're breaking up."
Website/link to fic: LJ Memories
Fanlore page: tbc
First DS fic posted: 2006, I think, though if LJ Memories is playing tricks with me, I could be wrong.
Full disclosure: omphale23 have talked to each other a few times in fannish viewing parties, and we've run into each other in various writing challenges.
Pairings: F/K mostly, couple of F/V, one F/K/V, and a few other pairings.
Style and strengths: This is the bit where I have the tenderest of soft spots for one thing in any writing ever: rhythm. I love Shakespeare just because the rhythm in his words feels so damn good rolling off my lips. I like poetry and I like singing and I love O's fic. She mentions many, many times that music is very important to her writing, and I have to admit I instinctively knew that before she said so, because her writing has this wonderful pulse to it. It's especially fun to feel that pulse change depending on what's happening in the story. There's something visceral and intense that comes from that, that I really have never felt anywhere else.
Other DS/C6D activity: HCL, one Twitch City, a crossover with S&A.
Some favourites: I could just rec everything she's written EVER, because that would not be at all inaccurate. However, let me give y'all a couple of stories to start yourselves with.
A Problem of Memory
This is classic omphale23, written for DS Match '08. Absolutely gorgeous, sublime look at OT3, starting with Vecchio leaving Stella, told in thirds by Stella, Kowalski, and Fraser. Sounds complicated, but when you read it, you'll see it's not. Just because.
Vecchio, the real Ray Vecchio, the first (only, former, returning, hidden, possibly permanent) Detective Vecchio has a terrible hard look on his face. Ray meets it without blinking (without flinching, without comment) and wonders who he (Armando, Raymundo) killed. He wonders whether they deserved it. He wonders if they saw death coming in the desert.
Fraser is thrown for a moment in this doorway, and they can both see the echo of Vecchio's choices. Fraser looks surprised. Maybe it's new, maybe this Vecchio is different (older, wiser, colder) from the guy Ray is supposed to be. Maybe Vecchio was a nice guy, and Vegas has taken that from him without offering hope (consolation, prayer, forgiveness) in exchange.
It makes Ray glad he doesn't live in Vegas.
Ray can't trust that look, and he won't give Vecchio the chance to change his mind. Whoever Vecchio was, right now he's a threat.
There's No Good Time to Discuss This
Omphale precedes this story by saying, "It's late, and I'm walking the fine edge of songfic, but I think I avoided it" -- because apparently songfic is a bad thing, which I am just discovering now? Don't know what's up with that. In any case, this fic takes a Kowalski and Fraser who seem determined to stay apart and nudge them together. Layers and layers of depth in the characters' thoughts, delivered through parantheticals (which normally I can't quite get the feel for, but in Omphale's case I make an exception). Sweet, realistic resolution.
Ray is not going to fall for his shiny (pretty, clean cut and razor sharp) new Canadian partner, because Ray is a divorced cop who is (say it loud, say it often) straight. You can tell just by looking at his hand. And if that isn’t enough, just ask every woman at the station, because Ray’s got the perfect first date figured out, and he uses the right pronouns when he talks about dancing and dinner and whatever else he’s been babbling.
Ray buys a bracelet to wrap his arm, to remind him of who he is now and who he is not.
That Ray is a (ladies’ man, man’s man) regular guy is the first thing people see about him. If he’s lucky, it’ll be the only thing they see.
Masquerade
(Co-authored with slidellra.) This one comes with its own soundtrack. Which, the link for it is currently expired, but it's the principle of the thing. (Omphale, if you're reading this, I'd be glad to give you a hand getting those tracks up on the interwebs again.) This was written for ds_harlequin and was based on the movie Charade(1963), starting out with Kowalski/Volpe and then throwing Fraser into the mix. Go. Read the giant novel-length fic, you know you want to.
Ray reached out with his foot and pushed a chair away from the table, pleased when the guy took the hint and sat down. "This is the last chance I have--We're flying back to Chicago tonight. You got a name?"
"Yes." The guy rubbed his eyebrow before continuing. "Robert Benton."
"Ray Kowalski. Got a... partner, Mr. Benton?" Ray liked to flirt, but he'd learned the hard way to get his cards on the table early. Some straight guys just couldn't take a compliment.
"Yes, but he's a wolf. Well, not entirely a wolf. But whenever he's not with me, he's out all night with the local bitches." The guy shrugged. "We don't belong to each other."
"That wasn't a proposal. I was just curious."
"Is there a Mrs. Kowalski?"
That was a good one. Ray couldn't tell if the guy was playing with him. "Now why would you want to know about my mother? There's a Volpe."
"Ah. Good for you. Is it an arctic fox?"
"It's a boyfriend. But we're breaking up."