Yuletide recs, part two

Yuletide reveals have, well, been revealed. So these are no longer anon. But! Here are some of my other favorite Yuletide fics, so far.

Catch a falling star (5665 words) by Lizzen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Aliens (1986), Prometheus (2012), Alien 3 (1992)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Dwayne Hicks/Ellen Ripley
Characters: Dwayne Hicks, Ellen Ripley, Rebecca ‘Newt’ Jorden, Bishop (Aliens), David 8
Summary:

Alien3 AU – Sometimes family is all you have left.

This is a really nice AU, in which Our Heroes become space pirates. And who doesn’t want to see that?

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Springtime Will Kill You (15379 words) by Luna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Greek and Roman Mythology
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Demeter (Greek and Roman Mythology), Persephone (Greek and Roman Mythology), Hades (Greek and Roman Mythology), Zeus (Greek and Roman Mythology), Orpheus (Greek and Roman Mythology), Aphrodite (Greek and Roman Mythology), Ariadne (Greek and Roman Mythology), Nestor (Greek and Roman Mythology)
Summary:

Orpheus doesn’t think much about his life before he was a private detective. But when he’s hired to search for a missing girl, he’ll have to take on Hollywood royalty, hired killers, and maybe, finally, himself.

Oh dear sweet crickets. WONDERFUL Noir AU.

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Being What We Can (12390 words) by oliviacirce
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fame (1980)
Rating: Explicit
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Ralph Garci/Montgomery MacNeil, Ralph Garci/Doris Finsecker, Montgomery MacNeil & Doris Finsecker
Characters: Montgomery MacNeil, Ralph Garci, Doris Finsecker
Summary:

Ten years, twelve beats, and something like a happy ending.

Bookmarker’s Notes:

The sweet, loving, funny, AIDS-era, poly-family FAME fic I never knew I needed. :sniffle:

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Velveteen Presents Victory Anna vs. Love (Which Is, After All, A Many-Splendored Thing). (5525 words) by Cadhla
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Velveteen – Seanan McGuire
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Polychrome/Victory Anna
Summary:

And now for something completely different! Join one Science Heroine in her Perilous Quest to find her way to Solid Ground through the power of Science, Steam, and Epona’s Own Grace.

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And, hrm. Well.

This one is mine.

In Kind (3459 words) by resolute
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: War for the Oaks – Emma Bull
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Major Character Death
Characters: Phouka (War for the Oaks), Original Female Character, Original Male Character
Summary:

Jazz Age prequel for War for the Oaks. Ruby Kind comes to Saint Paul looking to get away from life in Hibbing. She finds the Wabasha Street Speakeasy, Miss Winter, and Mr. Pook.

Dear Ms. Bull,

Should anyone alert you that this is here, I tried to find out your stance on fic before I offered the fandom. And, while I couldn’t find anything specifically, I read the Shadowunit fic policies and decided that you might not mind. If I was wrong, I’m sorry.

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Yes, Resolute is my fic-writing pseudonym. Yes, you can go find other things I’ve written. For the love of all that is holy, please, please, PLEASE take the ratings and warnings seriously.

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The Year in Music 2012

This past year was very pop-music heavy for me. I don’t have much of a theme, beyond that. I picked up a lot of songs from playlists I found on the internet, or music my friends shared with me, or, honestly, from what was being played on Glee.

That said, the first song of 2012 that I listened to on endless repeat with “Marstorm,” by Uh Huh Her.
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That’s them performing for Jimmy Kimmel Live.

I don’t have a huge amount to say about this. The lyrics are hard for me to understand. I looked them up — it’s a, a relationship song? Okay, sure, that’s fine. But there’s an interplay between the inflection of the singer’s voice and the instrumental parts that … soars. This is a song I end up dancing along to in my chair.

Florence and the Machine, “Seven Devils”.
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This song is the perfect soundtrack to any story about a young woman in danger from the people she thinks will protect her. It’s a song about being surrounded, about being lie to and deceived, about being in peril. I love it. It’s ZOMG DRAMATIC, sure. But sometimes that is just the thing that’s called for, all thundering drums and falling melody and ominous repetition.

Rihanna, “We Found Love”.
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It’s the video that made me like this song. There’s a recklessness in the narrative that feels real. It feels, in conjunction with the climbing synth-and-bass breaks, like those moments when you know perfectly well that this is a terrible idea. Yet you also know with equal certainty that this is right and good and that nothing bad will happen to you.

You’re wrong, of course, about that second thing. maybe you get away with it this time, maybe the next. But not forever.

M.I.A., “Bad Girls”.
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I wrote about this a great deal, here.

The only thing I have to add it that, months later, my daughter still asks to listen to this song in the car.

Good.

Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me Maybe”.
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There is a moment, near the end of the song, when you can hear with perfect clarity that Ms. Jepsen is smiling, nearly laughing, as she sings the lyric. I love that moment. It’s a moment of joy in a song of delight and strength and hope.

Gotye, “Somebody That I Used to Know”.
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I didn’t care for this song much, but it grew on me. And then I realized that I didn’t care for it much because the emotional message of the song isn’t a horribly dramatic one for me. It’s just business as usual. I mean, my ability to completely forget why I wanted to date someone two weeks after I break up with them is … appalling. And hurtful. And I should really listen to this song a bit more and try to understand it better.

Skrillex, “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites”.
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Oh dear sweet crickets. I love the bass drop in this song. Love it. To pieces. Love.

What this sounds like to me is the soundtrack for the non-existent live-action mini-series remake of Macross, as done for Showtime or HBO by David Milch, with SFX by WETA Workshop, starring Columbus Short as Roy, Georgina Haig as Minmay, and Daniel Craig as Bruno Global.

Somebody get on that, hmm?

Fun, “We Are Young”.
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I was watchign clips from some awards show this summer, and this song was being performed live when the camera cut to Emma Watson, Kristen Stewart, and Scout Taylor-Compton in the audience. They were singing along. And I thought, oh dear heavens. Yeah, you guys are so young.

Natalia Kills, “Wonderland”.
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I like songs about fairytales. And Wonderland.

The Wanted, “Glad You Came,” Avengers fanvid.
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I first encountered this song, that I noticed, in this fanvid. The image quality is poor, probably because the source of the footage was not legal. But the gist of the narrative is clear. The world needs heroes, however we find them. I loved the Avengers movie. This vid is a very well-edited depiction of what there is to love.

David Guetta ft. Sia, “Titanium,” Game of Thrones Daenerys and Arya fanvid.
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I first encountered this song in a fanvid as well! “Titanium” is a great score for the narrative arcs of both Arya and Dany in the Game of Thrones tv series. I developed an attachment to the song, which only grew when it was used in the shower scene in Pitch Perfect.

The Corin Tucker Band, “Neskowin”.
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TWO GIRLS SNEAK AWAY TO GO SEE A PUNK SHOW.

“Darling I know I don’t go like the other girls
It’s just I enjoy other toys other faculties”

\o/

Nicki Minaj, “Starships”.
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This is the catchiest, hookiest song ever. And my kids both adore it.

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The past Year in Music posts are:

2009 in Music.
Year in Music 2010.
2011 Year in Music.

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Yuletide Recs!

This is an incomplete and wildly eclectic mix of Yuletide recs, based on what my magpie gaze has lit on so far.

Usual caveat — Yuletide is fanfiction. The pseudonymous writers are writing stories using characters and settings to which they do not own the rights. These are works of love and passion, gifts made for strangers across the world.

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

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Monsters, Inc.

This is Cabin in the Woods fic. Please, I beg of you, only read this if you’ve already seen the film. But if you have seen the film? Please read this fic! It’s touching and hilarious and horrifying.

To Boldly Go

Mad Men fic featuring Sally Draper as she discovers Star Trek and invents Mary Sue and slashfic for herself. It’s fantastic and sweet and edged.

The Sticking Place

15th Century RPF crossed with The Hunger Games. I know, that sounds crazy. But the author has cleverly recreated a history of a lost 5th Annual Hunger Games, featuring teenagers from all the Districts as if they were the major political figures of the fifteen century. I mean, who do you think would win the Games? Margaret of Anjou? Henry? Richard of York? Lucretia Borgia?

To End All Wars

A sad, bittersweet Warehouse 13 fic in which H.G. is in Paris in the 1920s, after The Great War, looking for the missing Regent — Irene Frederic. The author has done a nice job describing post-war Paris through the eyes of an emotionally wounded and angry H.G. Worth the time if you like these characters.

Pray Your Gods

If you know what “A Study in Emerald” is, then all I need say is that this is another case in that world. If you don’t know, then let me say that Neil Gaiman wrote Sherlock Holmes – Cthulhu crossover fic, called “A Study in Emerald,” and you should READ THAT. And after you read that, read this fic.

Sidestepping

This is an ominous prequel fic for the manga series Life, and was my Yuletide gift! This is exciting, because no-one ever seems to have read this series, and I was quite pleased to be given a fic for it!

Heartlines

This is entirely canonical up-to-nearly-current fic for the X-Factor comic by Peter David. Except, of course, for the non-canonical relationship between Monet and Theresa. If you life what that comic is doing these days, I recommend this story. It reads like the next storyline that never was, and the writer clearly has a fondness for these goofy semi-heroes.

Dice for Decimals

Oh, this is wonderful The Wire AU, but only somewhat AU. Stringer Bell is an economics professor at a community college, and For Reason of The Plot, Jimmy McNulty has to take his Intro to Econ class. Spot-on voices, excellent re-imagining of the world. Takes place during season two of The Wire, spoilers apply.

2012 Moments in Fandom

2012 Moments in Fandom

Your main fandom of the year?

My fannish participation this year has been consuming the works of others. And by that measure my principle fandoms were Marvel’s Avengers movie, Pitch Perfect, and Once Upon a Time. But that’s misleading. What I actually have been a fan of this year are

1) the updates to AO3 that makes finding the fanfic I want easier for me, and
2) Tumblr.

Tumblr is a TERRIBLE medium for having a conversation. About anything. It’s a TERRIBLE venue for deep conversation. What it is really awesome at is flickering shiny curated visual fanworks — fanart, gifs, cosplay, animated gifs, vids, and show clips — in front of my easily entertained eyeballs.

I appreciate this greatly. I do not want to take the time to learn to make these things. But I love them — I love the cosplay, love the fanvids, love the gifs, love the transformative nature of creative fanworks. Yet, I don’t want to struggle to find things I like. Tumblr makes it easy for me to passively consume the fanworks I enjoy, and it makes it easy for me to pass those on to other people.

“Look at this shiny thing! It’s funny/poignant/sarcastic/queer/assertive/whimsical/whatever! I really like it!”

I appreciate this quality about Tumblr.

Your favorite film you watched this year?

The film I liked the most, from start to finish, as written and performed, was The Avengers. I loved many, many things about that movie. The performances. The characters. The costumes. The sets. The dialog. The messages. The plot. The action. I loved it all. I’ve been reading rather a great deal of Avengers fic on AO3. I like this universe and I like what people are doing with it.

I also like the authorized movie fanfic — namely, Avengers Assembled. This comic is set inside the Marvel comic-verse, but it’s specifically for new readers who loved the movie and want to get inside this world. I recommend it highly.

My other favorite film is a movie I love more in my head than in reality. I watched Pitch Perfect and loved it with a crazy love. But I edit out about … 25% of the film. All the gross-out humor. The humiliation stuff. And about half of the heterosexuality. So. I’ve read ALL the Pitch Perfect fanfic on AO3. But I can’t say the movie was actually my favorite this year. That would be Avengers

Your favorite book read this year?

I read all eighteen of the Kerry Greenwood Phyrne Fisher novels this year. Twice. I’m holding off on starting a third re-read because I have a lot of books on my tablet that I have purchased and not yet read. Plus, as I write this, a three-week backlog on comics. I wrote about the books here. I don’t have much to add to that; I love them to pieces.

Your favorite tv show of the year?

This was tough this year. Game of Thrones? Downton Abbey? Doctor Who? I love those shows, and more besides. But the show that I clearly have the greatest fannish obsession with is Once Upon a Time.

OUaT went from being a show that lost me in the last four episodes of the first season to being a show that I pine for each week. I went back and watch the end of season one, and I am still not impressed with it. But season two keeps me coming back.

Here’s the thing. This is NOT an unproblematic show. The treatment of characters of color is shabby-to-poor. The handling of adoption as a major show theme is wildly variable. I have an auto-dislike of stories that are solved by The Power of True Love — I prefer plots to be resolved by grit, repentance, and true change. Almost all of the male characters are either not written well, not acted well, or both.

But.

This is an ensemble show in which the women — all of the women — are well-written, well-realized, and mostly well-acted.

I harp on how the thing I want in minority representation is VARIETY. I do not want ONE lesbian to represent all lesbians, I want a variety of portrayals. I do not want ONE geeky girl, I want a host of geeky girls and women of all sorts. I do not want ONE character of color whose primary characteristic is that they are not-white, I want diversity. Variety. I want the pantheon of human existence and experience to be represented broadly across the vast bulk of fiction.

OUaT does many things half-assedly. But it represents white women pretty well. And as one portion of the entertainment I consume, I love it.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

Scandal.

All my thanks to Anika for pointing this one out to me. Scandal is fantastic.

I realized, halfway through the season two opener, that Scandal is a Vorkosigan story. We have this manically driven leader of a team of misfit crusaders, who work around the edges of a political-military system which is problematic but also the only game in town, fighting to maintain their secrecy, integrity, and position, while also fighting to protect each other.

I could talk more about the specifics but I truly do not want to spoil the show in case any of you intend to watch it.

Snappy dialog? Check.
Attractive actors? Check.
Characters of color in a variety of types of roles? Check.
Men and women in a variety of types of roles? Check.
Poor decision-making based on an over-developed sense of justice? Check.
Poor decision-making based on guilt? Check.
Attempts at redemption? Check.

I do love this show. So very much.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

DC Comics has consistently shown that, not only do they not want to support comics I want to read, they aren’t even concerned that I don’t want to read their stuff. This stings, it truly does. But I am comforted by the fact that the wheel turns, and eventually these people will not be in control of characters I like.

Your fiction boyfriend of the year?

Jaqen H’ghar, from season two of Game of Thrones.
Thor.

Your fiction girlfriend of the year?

Regina Mills from Once Upon a Time.
Natasha Romonov from the Avengers movie.
Dex Parios from the Greg Rucka and Matt Southworth comic, Stumptown. Which is a terrible idea. I should never date any Greg Rucka characters.
Beca from Pitch Perfect.
Quinn Perkins from Scandal
Kate Bishop from Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye comic.

And in the want-to-be-them, not want-to-date-them camp:

Carol Danvers from Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Captain Marvel comic.
Phyrne Fisher.
Ruby from Once Upon a Time.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?

Probably when I saw that Rucka had included Mim in Stumptown. I mean, I squealed audibly, and then all over the internet.

My other squee moments, well, I was trying very hard to be calm and professional, and so the squee manifested as a complete lack of affect. These mostly involve meeting people whose work I have a huge amount of respect for, and getting to tell them how much their work means to me. But this also includes the publication of Chicks Dig Comics, the book I co-edited with Lynne Thomas.

There’s a book out there that I helped put into the world. This made me really damn happy.

The most missed of your old fandoms?

I’m not sure I really missed any this year.

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?

I don’t really know! I try to avoid the marketing associated with fiction properties I love, because the marketing for them makes me angry and avoidant. So I don’t know what’s coming, fannishly. There’s … another Marvel movie? I suppose? And Seanan has a book coming out? Maybe two? And the nineteenth Phryne Fisher book is coming out in January. And … there will be more comics? And tv shows?

Professionally, I have a couple of projects coming out in 2013 that I am really looking forward to.

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Past Moments in Fandom posts:

2008
2009
2010
2011

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Haven’t done a ficathon in ages

When I woke up at 4:30 this morning (because my son, reading in bed, dropped the 3rd Edition AD&D Monster Manual onto the floor above my head) I could not fall back to sleep. The things keeping me awake were:

1. Remember to use proper form on your kettlebell swings when you work out tomorrow. Good squats, Sigrid!

2. If M wakes K up, I will be upset with him.

3. The kids have karate tomorrow. Don’t forget.

4. Did you order the things you were supposed to order? Yes, yes you did. Shut up.

5. You have to post the fic to femslash12 tomorrow. You have to post the fic to femslash12 tomorrow. DO NOT FORGET. You have to post tomorrow.

6. Remember to use proper form on you kettlebell swings …

etc.

Loop infinitely until 7:30 a.m.

Good morning, all!

But I did remember to post my fic.

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November 15 2012

1. We went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art yesterday to see the special exhibition, China’s Terracotta Warriors. I have all sorts of feelings about this exhibit. There’s all this history, y’all. All this stuff of human hearts and hands and will, lasting evidence of the work and mind of the long-dead. I told my family I was going to sniffle through the whole exhibit, and I did.

The bit that got to me wasn’t the gold buckles, or the jeweled dagger, or the terracotta warriors themselves. No, what got to me was a brass weight. A standardized weight, used throughout Qin to measure things. Standardized weights mean trade. They mean economics. This brass weight was evidence of the long line of trade from the Yellow River to the Rubicon. It took two years for goods to make it that far, sometimes. Ox carts to Tun-Huang, bactrians to Kashgar, donkeys or dromedaries to Samarkand, dromedaries to Palmyra and Tyre, ships to Rome.

Human beings did that. They took the chances, accepted the risks. They did it for money, for power, for glory. They did it for the sight of new things. They did it for freedom and personal autonomy. They did it for all sorts of reasons, for thousands of years. People, walking the leather off their feet as they led their animals thousands of miles.

Team Human, y’all. We’re pretty spectacular, sometimes.

2. Tonight K tries out for the circus summer show. Break a leg, kiddo. I’m wishing you the best.

3. We can keep the front curtains open, now. We couldn’t for years, because Jake would stand on the couch and bark out of it at every passerby. But now there’s no Jake, and we can open the curtains. I miss my hound.

4. My nine-year-old son’s feet are as big as my feet. O_o This bodes … well, it just bodes, let’s leave it at that.

5. All I want to do recently is read fanfic, which I haven’t read in ages. Luckily for me, AO3 just updated with a patch that lets you sort by kudos. So I can look up a fandom or pairing, and then sort so all the best-regarded fic are at the top of the list. Thank goodness.

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Heinlein AU crossover fanfic

I realized last week that the first crossover AU fanfic I read was Robert A. Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast. Briefly, in TNofB, Our Heroes have a machine that travels through time, space, and dimensions. Due to some entirely irrelevant and forgettable plot shenanigans, Our Heroes find themselves running around through Wonderland, Oz, and Barsoom. Plus some other stops. At the end of the book, everyone is all together from all of Heinlein’s own books, along with a bunch of other fictional characters, the bad guys are defeated, and they all live happily ever after.

I loved this book.

This book, this was epic fantasy wish fulfillment for teenage me. The idea that I could go live with the characters from my favorite books sounded like perfection. I look at this now and I think, “gee, that’s some serious self-insert Mary Sue crossover fanfic!” Which, y’know — I love crossover AU fanfic. Love it. I kinda wonder if Number of the Beast is the start of that love.

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Thinking Ficcishly

I am sick, and coughing non-stop, and vaguely miserable. Last night’s illness-gloom was alleviated by the hijacking of the Twitter hashtag #LGBTfacts. It *was* being used by some anti-gay hate-group. As of this morning it was the property of “pro-homosexual twitter accounts.” I’m rather pleased by this.

My head has been thinking fannishly the last few weeks. I have various plot bunnies to offer you all:

1. Olivia Dunham (from the tv series Fringe) and Audrey Horne (from the tv series Twin Peaks) are roommates at the FBI academy. Their respective personalities are immediately, on the surface, something that the other does not trust. What happens next? What is their relationship like? Optional: One of their instructors is Dana Scully (X-Files) or Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs, et al.)

2. The tv series Downton Abbey in a steampunk universe. What changes? What doesn’t? How does the tech level affect The Great War, and how does this in turn change things at Downton?

3. Officer Valentine (Resident Evil: Apocalypse) and Lara Croft (Tomb Raider). Valentine is on indefinite leave and is taking vacation in Bali, to get away from The Umbrella Corporation. Lara is in Bali hunting for a lost city rumored to once have a cure for zombification. They team up, fight zombies, wear really short-shorts, and save the world.

4. A new book has come out, [Insert Character Name Here]‘s Guide to Ethical Polyamory. What character would you want to see this book from, and what would a choice snippet from it be?

Discuss!

I will also accept fic written from these prompts, playlists of music, photo manips, or vids.

:grins: This is my brain, welcome to it.

Yuletide recommendations

I have gotten nowhere near through the Yuletide archive for this year. But I fear that if I keep waiting until I do, I’m going to lose momentum and never post my recommendations. So here, then, is a partial list of some of the Yuletide stories I have really liked.

Dust of the World, based on the Terri-Windling-edited series of Bordertown anthologies and novels. The premise of Bordertown is that people run away to it. This is the story of a girl who is born and raised there. I like this a lot; it seems to have much of the tone of the canonical anthologies.

The Wind in Her Hair is a Beverly Marsh story, post the end of Stephen King’s It. The mystery writer of the fic believes that Beverly Marsh loves to drive cars, and after reading this fic I agree one hundred percent. This is Bev’s life.

Monsters and Me, Oregon Trail and Pioneer Trail computer game fic. This is the story of Bess, presuming that she is a monster-hunter from a family of monster hunters, and presuming that werewolves are a larger threat to wagon trains than wolves. It works very well, and in, underneath the plot, a story about deciding to be something other than what you are born into.

Five Card Spread is post-series Carnivale fic featuring Sofie. It is grim and serious and dark, and what pleasantness there is in the story is ground away by bleak depression. Much like the series. I quite liked it as a result.

Episode Thirty-Three: The Dark Reflection. This is pre-movie Galaxy Quest fic about Gwen. A mirror-verse script is proposed, and Gwen has some thoughts on how her part in it is going to go. I could hear Sigorney Weaver in my head as I read this fic. That was all I asked for.

Go Catch a Falling Star. Eeeeee! This is Lord Peter Wimsey / Doctor Who fandom crossover case-fic, in which mysterious deaths are happening at the Wimsey ancestral estate, and Harriet and Peter meet some very odd investigative journalists who claim to be on the trail of the deaths as well, and it is all a perfect delight. Points for Harriet p.o.v, and for the solution being imperfect for all parties.

seven wonders of the scientific world is a pre-first season and first season Luther fic about Alice Morgan, and how she thinks of herself. It’s a creepy and thoughtful delight.

From Rome to Brundisium, With Stops is a post-series Rome fic about Pullo, Vorenus, and their family, from the point of view of a coming-out-as-transgender Vorena. It’s thoughtful and clever, and very much in keeping with the characters in the show.

The Doves and the Ravens. This is a flat-out weird post-apocalyptic mutant nightmare fic based on the video for “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. It’s just weird, and creepy, and well done.

A Special Limited-Time Offer is a delightfully sly bit of humor aimed at the current trend for grim, dark epic fantasy novels. It’s done in the style of Diana Wynne Jones’ A Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which is a book I adore to pieces. I highly recommend the book, if you can get it.

A Living Fire is a look at the rest of Mattie Ross’s life after the events of True Grit. It’s bleak and practical and hard, and it makes me like Mattie even more.

A clear glass window, at a sea dawn. A Chalion story, set five years after A Paladin of Souls, featuring Umegat. The language is perfect, the cultural details are inspired, and the the meditations on theology made me laugh. An excellent story all around.

Dragonsearch. The mystery writer sends Mirrim and Path out on a Search for more female candidates, and nothing goes as Mirrim plans. The story is a fine and gentle critique of the canon while being utterly faithful to the world of Pern. Nicely done.

Monday’s recommendation

1. The kids went out of town last night with some family friends. Without us. As far as I can tell, they are having a great time. I expect that the children will be monstrously behaved on their return, but I am very glad that they have their own relationships with people. I want them to learn how to relate to others when their parents are not there. In other words, it’ll be good for them, belike.

2. I’m making a renewed effort to post to GoodReads. I think this link takes you to the list of books I’ve finished? I’m not at all sure what good the reviews I write would do anyone. I mean, I’m not describing what happens in the book, or anything. Ah, well.

3. Due to the lack of children in the house, thus obviating the need for a babysitter, Tern and Cavorter and I went to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World last night. I loved the movie. I am, apparently, a huge Edgar Wright fan, since I like Shaun of the Dead, love Scott Pilgrim, and LOVE Hot Fuzz. I did think Scott Pilgrim was an idiot, but he grew on me over the course of the movie, as I think he is supposed to. Here are my main conclusions on watching the film, though. First, no-one should have ever dated 22-year-old me. Second, I don’t want my kids to date either Scott or Ramona. Third, my kids are likely to BECOME Scott and Ramona, because everyone sort of does for a while. Fourth, if my exes form a League, I won’t be the slightest bit surprised. At all. Ever.

4. If you like steampunk and are pining for a great long-form story to read, I highly, highly recommend Gimmors and Devices. It’s a re-telling of Shakespeare’s Richard II, steampunk-style. It is imaginative, transformative, and fanfic. It is amazing.