a conspiracy of cartographers

Incredibly strange discovery du jour: my aunt, who I have not seen for a few years, looks really scarily like Stella Kowalski. Same haircut, same coloring, same lines around the mouth. I am slightly freaked out by this, but in the best possible way (& she is my favourite aunt, so I may accidentally like Stella better because of it).

Never mind that; before I dive into a round of belated Christmas and New Year's celebrations with the extended family, I am taking the time to post my Yuletide recs! I have probably passed over many undiscovered gems, but this is my list of favourites from the main archive.

( 34 recs: Anthropomorfic, Black Books, Calvin & Hobbes, Chuck, Dalemark Quartet, Discworld, Eastwick, Eddie Izzard, Enchanted, Graveyard Book, Hazards of Love, His Dark Materials, Hot Fuzz, Hunger Games, King of Shadows, Lilo & Stitch, Life on Mars, Love Actually, Pigeon Series, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Slings & Arrows, White Collar, Whip It, & Young Wizards. )

Next: look through the separate Yuletide Madness page! I was unsure at first, but I think I love the AO3's organization of the archive this year.

Here is a two-minute clip from what I assume is near the beginning of The End of Time part 2. And, um. Wow, I kind of dig it. I am sure it falls apart again about two seconds after the clip ends, but in the meantime, I, um. I'm just really easy for the CGI and the costuming, all right?

I love how my Who squee is really intricately bound with actually hating most of it and wanting to salvage a few bits to create awesome. I have a page of notes and manic longfic energy to spare. Good job, self.

I am full of so much glowy holiday spirit I don't know what to do with it! My giftfics this year are splendiferous. I only received the one Yuletide story, but that's all right, because i. I only wrote one and that's karmically sound; ii. I also have my due South Seekrit Santa; and iii. I would not trade in these fics for the world. They're just. Sdldfskd.

First, I opened my holiday card from wintercreek this morning; on the outside of the card is a charming little picture of two guys on a sleigh ride through a snowy woods, and on the inside is a holiday letter from Fraser and Ray. How wonderful is that? They told me about their impractical Christmas tree, and that Dief says 'hi'. I think I want letters from fictional characters all the time, because it's awesome beyond words. Thanks, wintercreek, it's absolutely wonderful. <3

And that was just the preliminaries!

My Yuletide: But Rather Darkness Visible [Doctor Who/Young Wizards]
How do I love this story? Let me count the ways. Let's start with the one where it's a Doctor Who/Young Wizards crossover. I strongly suspect that whoever wrote this story either has me friended or follows me (so HEY THERE, ANON, I LOVE YOU) because how long have I been nattering on about how I need to write exactly this? Of course I was never going to, and now someone has, for me, better than I could've! The mythological blending is perfect, there are Shakespeare metaphors and of course a Star Wars joke, and both Dairine and Ten are absolutely pitch-perfect. I can't stop beaming.

My dSSS: loquacious (loh-KWEY-shuhs) [due South]
Fraser/Kowalski established-relationship fic, post-series. I am completely in love with this Ray; Fraser feels somehow incidental to the story, which I love, because there's a point in the narrative where Stella tells Ray that the Mountie's been good for him, and spectacularly misses the point. What I really love about it, though, is that each section header starts with a long word that Ray then uses sometime in that section, which -- I was not previously aware how easy I am for Ray making beautiful paragraphs! I really am. And the ending is whipped cream topping off the awesomecake.

Now with that metaphor I'm off to have breakfast with the folks. The Archive is slow like a very slow thing right now from all the Yuletide traffic, so I'm going to give it a rest for a few hours (during which I might even come up with some sort of attack plan for how I'll organize my read-through); and of course there's the rest of dSSS to read. Plus the physical present exchange with my parents.

I'm an extremely happy Aria! I hope all of your Yuletides/other holiday practices/normal days are going wonderfully too.

I am horribly restless, and having no luck working on my Yuletide, so instead a meme stolen from feverbeats:

Name a fandom, and I'll tell you:
01. The first character I fell in love with:
02. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:
03. The character I would shag anytime:
04. The character I'd slap:
05. My 3 favorite characters:
06. My 3 favorite pairings.:
07. The character I'm most like:
08. The coolest thing about the canon:
09. The lamest thing about the canon:
10. My guiltiest pleasure in this fandom:
11. The story I wish I could read:
12. The story I wish I had written/still want to write:

HAVE AT IT. I am all for mindless enthusiastic things right now.

And re: Eastwick: well, that should teach me to watch two half-season cliffhanger episodes in one day. I know Paul Gross makes me hide behind my hands sometimes, but dear god, I spent 90% of that episode cowering and peering through my fingers. I suppose it doesn't count if it was out of terror rather than embarrassment? My heart was rabbiting like crazy.

On the bright side, how Jamie has given a brief, concise, and kind of awesome definition of what exactly Darryl is, which if nothing else will be helpful for, say, that due South crossover I keep threatening to write one of these days.

White Collar, guys! I am always behind the curve on TV shows, and the only reason I started watching this one is because ... um, I ran out of SGA, I didn't want to catch up on Merlin, and I can recite most of s3/4 due South backwards; but I wanted to do something not-taxing with my brain before I embark on a sort of compressed hell week that's doing a good seminar paper in two days. To be fair, I also started watching White Collar because I just finished catching up on Chuck, a show whose virtues are quiet enough that I usually forget about them, but I needed to get to the episodes with Scott Bakula in. (One day I will make a useless chart about how everything I watch these days can somehow sneakily be traced back to C6D; bless BSG, really.)

My POINT, though, is ... a few points, actually, one of which goes, "I think I'm starting a collection of OT3s." I'm not sure this actually counts unless I'm actively fannish about them, but I'm only two episodes into White Collar and holy god you don't need to convince me that Neal/Peter/Elizabeth needs to happen. I could potentially get really enthusiastic about this show, because I've only seen two hours of it but I am SO IN LOVE with all three of them.

Unfortunately my potential enthusiasm does need to stay mostly potential for now, because I need to go off the grid until I write my seminar paper. The only fannish thing I'm allowed to do is my Yuletide. And, um, Eastwick. But that's it.

I am taking a break from being almost disgustingly productive in order to conduct a VERY IMPORTANT POLL. And if you've been paying any attention to me for the last ever, you'll know that by very important poll, I mean I love asking arbitrary questions!

Today's are born of my continuing reaction of being completely weirded out by the fact that finding Sheppard/McKay fanfic is easy: you just find someone who wrote Fraser/Kowalski way back when and click forward a little. I have convinced myself that there must be some deep mystical connection here, partly because I want fandom to be less shallow than "pretty boys! yay!" and partly because I'm fighting a losing battle against plotting a massive crossover instead of writing my Yuletide. In the spirit of that, by which I mean deep mystical connections, I want to see if there is a favorite character pattern! (For example: Fraser & Sheppard are kind of One True Characters for me. Maybe this means I have a thing for The Heroes? Maybe you like Fraser and McKay best! Snippy Canadians for the win? I don't know what I'm trying to prove here but, by god, I am going to skientifically prove it.) So!

For the purpose of this exercise, you do have to choose. Also, I'm not going to lie, I'm just kind of curious to take a headcount on how many people actually know wtf I'm talking about.

Oh my god what is this I don't even.

( Letters from Pegasus, Kowalski edition. )

It looks like I am kicking off Eyai Yuletide here! I'm a bit nervous about this, because I adore the whole eyaiverse but previous to this I have enjoyed it from the sidelines. Here is my prayer that no continuity is lying dead in the streets. And without further ado:

inertia, ~1300 words, for littledust. I hope you enjoy. <3

Taking a break from my massive amounts of work to record two unrelated fannish things:

i. I dreamed that I was in a sled dog race that ended in Chicago; my mum had to drive me to the airport but kept missing her U-turn, so eventually I decided to get out and walk. I ended up at the rundown bohemian flat of an AU wherein Ray Kowalski and Stella were still married. Ray went into the bedroom to chat with Fraser, and because my brain is a cruel mistress I did not join them but rather stayed out in the living room talking with Stella, who inexplicably had long brown hair and was so unremittingly awesome that I understood exactly why Ray Vecchio wanted to end up with her. And then we went to see a Harry Potter musical together. I don't even know.

ii. There is another new Doctor Who trailer! (It starts at about 0:22.) gf;lsdfkfsd. ( Excitement for Christmas: RISING. )

The YouTube sidebar also has a preview of Tennant's Hamlet, but I feel this is somehow secondary.