there will be a fish

I've had AUs on the brain (XMFC fandom is rife with them), so apparently the thing to do with that situation is to rec some of my favorite AUs. In alphabetical order by fandom:

1. The Art of Running & Fearless on My Breath (The Fast & The Furious, Brian/Dom)
Because what the world really needed was for someone to take a massively testosterone-infused fandom like this, and change one of the main characters into a woman. That's right, people -- this is Brian genderswap (of the always-been-a-girl variety), and it's really good. Brian is totally crazy in the exact same way, but then also crazy in some other new and fun ways, but it's all excellent. I think what I love best about this is that the author preserves their friendship and mutual respect from the movies; Dom doesn't treat Brian like a girl, he treats Brian like a person. IDK, it's genderswap fic! They drive really fast cars while being attractive! It's great! The sequel (Fearless on My Breath) then takes on the second movie, and it's kind of better this way.

2. Sixteen Days In September (Generation Kill, Brad/Nate)
This is an amazing story. Fair warning: it's a really intense war story, so there's violence of many kinds and very heavy subject matter. That said, don't be scared off! I can't imagine there's someone out there who hasn't read this yet, since it was recced to high heaven, but it's one of those stories that deserves every scrap of praise it gets. This is a point-of-departure AU: instead of joining the Marines, Nate joins the Peace Corps, and is sent to East Timor...and then a civil war starts up, and Nate, of course, does whatever he can to look out for people and do the right thing, but his pragmatic idealism takes a real beating from the war. A lot of the rest of the ensemble show up (as Marines still; actually, RL Nate went to East Timor as part of the peacekeeping force when he was a Marine), and everyone is just perfectly characterized. The Brad/Nate is a delicious slow burn that I love to pieces. Seriously, I cannot recommend this highly enough.

3. Play It Again, Jeeves (Jeeves & Wooster, gen-ish Bertie/Jeeves)
And now for a 180-degree tonal shift! The last was epic and very serious; this is short and completely ridiculous. The author did it on a request for "cracky retelling of Casablanca with Jeeves and Bertie." It's a very brief little piece (set in the last scene of the movie, so DON'T READ IT if you haven't seen the film, if you care about spoilers), but it makes me just die with laughter. Imagine recasting Rick with Bertie and Captain Renault with Jeeves, and then shifting the tone of the whole thing way into the Wodehouse range of things, and there you are. And by "there" I mean "laughing your ass off." Hee.

4. Next of Kin (The Losers, gen-ish)
This author writes the best damn Jensen in The Losers fandom, hands-down. If you like Jensen -- and who doesn't? -- you should read everything else she's ever written, basically. Anyway, this AU is also a point-change: Jensen never joins the Losers...and then Max gets his hands on his niece and sister and blackmails Jensen into working for him as his pet hacker. So Jensen is left to do an impossible task with his family's life on the line, and he has no backup. And then the Losers hear about Max's computer expert and decide a little bad guy kidnapping is in order, not realizing that Jensen's about as not-bad as you can get.... ♥ I've re-read this many many times, and it continues to delight me.

5. Apotheosis (Sherlock, gen-ish John/Sherlock)
AWESOME AU IS AWESOME. This is an inversion of "The Empty House" (the ACD short story wherein Holmes was revived after supposedly dying at Reichenbach Falls) setup -- after the confrontation with Moriarty at the pool, instead of Sherlock going after Moriarty alone for three years, John does. Long, plotty, full of pining, and lots of badass John! Truly excellent, and really creative in certain ways that I refuse to spoil for you.

Anyway, that's it. Enjoy!

(This is still not my Dear Yuletide Author letter, like it should be. Oops? /Rick Perry)

Oh my god, you guys. I am so fucking bored right now. And antsy. Like, really antsy. Like, want to go swing dancing or run around the block or something, that kind of antsy. Only I can't do those things, because it is 11pm. What the hell. So instead, I'm going through some old files and finding all the half-finished memes I have hanging around. (There may be more of these coming. I am BORED, and I slept for 12 hours because work has been deathly slow and I have no responsibilities, because I am a poor excuse for an adult human being. Anyway.)

And as always -- Katie, you know me too well. Let the other kids play first. ;)

Ship meme: (taken from here)

Pick 10 of your ships and write down a quote for each of them. Have your flist guess the ships without using Google/IMDB.

( quotes beneath the cut )




( ETA: guessed answers )

Meme yoinked from this lovely Middleman fic:

The iPod Challenge: Put your MP3 player on shuffle and write a flashfic (I refuse to call these drabbles; I am a term purist!) about each of the first ten songs to come up. The catch? You only have the duration of the song to write it in.

I haven't really looked at these since I wrote them at 5am, so hopefully they're not terrible. I also cheated on the rules for a few of them (you will likely be able to tell which, because they are significantly longer).

Also, I have no idea where the serial killer one came from. I kept trying to figure out who the character was, but I don't think she's anybody I've met before. Whoops, accidental original!fic?

1. ( Fringe )

2. ( Generation Kill )

3. ( not sure; any female lead + serial killer, I suppose )

4. ( Supernatural )

5. ( The Pretender )

6. ( Sherlock Holmes )

7. ( Primeval )

8. ( Sports Night )

9. ( Middleman )

10. ( Magnificent Seven )

Ohhhhhshit. I just had to click on a link to TV Tropes, didn't I? I even just talked about how dangerous that site is with Katie.

*sigh* I can just see the rest of evening spinning away into a cloud of open tabs and fascinated reading.

I have found a few awesome things so far, this time around:

( links and discussion under the cut, should you wish to avoid the black hole of awesome that is TV Tropes at this time. NO REALLY, CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK. )

Okay, stopping now. I have such an unhealthy relationship with that site.

So, I'm essentially on vacation, working infrequently, and also kinda sick at the moment. When such is the case (okay, fine, I really don't even need the excuse), I tend to spend a lot of time with stories, reading and watching media. My current obsessions:

1. Reading Sherlock Holmes with thespatz.
Katie and I discovered that we both enjoy Doyle about ten times more when read aloud, because otherwise we tend to skim the big blocks of description and miss the delightful subtleties, which are happily brought out in the dramatic reading. We plan to work our way through the entire collected adventures!

2. The Pretender!
Wow, talk about a blast from the past. I think this one started because we were re-watching the Burn Notice episode where Michael and his antagonist are held hostage in a bank and forced to work together. Katie mentioned the Pretender episode where that also happened, which I didn't remember, so we downloaded it for kicks. And then watched the one where Parker and Jarod are handcuffed and trapped in a hurricane. And then the pilot, and it was all downhill/the rest of S1 from there. I'd forgotten how much I loved that show, and happily, the re-watch is revealing new dimensions that I didn't really understand when I was nine. Katie stole all the things I wanted to say that were actually thoughtful, so we'll leave it at that. :)

3. Vorkosigan. Miles Vorkosigan
I'm re-reading Komarr. Um, again. This is at least the sixth time, at a conservative estimate. And then I plan to re-read A Civil Campaign, which is for more like the tenth time. :D? It's been just long enough since I last did it that I'm really enjoying the experience. *happy sigh* Gosh, I love this series.

4. Nate Fick
Okay, fiction/non-fiction collision. Along with the Generation Kill DVDs Katie and I bought, we got Evan Wright's book that inspired it, and the book that the real-life Nathaniel Fick wrote about his career as a Marine officer, One Bullet Away. I keep having to stop reading because I'm getting waaaay too emotionally over-invested. I can't help it! He talks about things like honor and duty and means it, and man, that gets to me enough when it's fictional characters. Anyway, it's serious personality-crush/fascination territory, so I'm keep avoiding/not-avoiding the book because I don't have the energy.
(side note: when buying this book from Amazon, Katie was browsing the reviews and, after reading a particularly complimentary one, went to see who wrote it – and realized it was written by Rudy Reyes, one of the Marines in Fick's unit in Iraq. It's worth a read.)

In other news, I have been coughing and wheezing at night so badly that it's kept me from sleeping, so I went to the doctor today. To my surprise, they gave me an inhaler (short-term), and hydrocodone cough syrup. I...am not sure this isn't overkill, but whatever. I'm just glad to know I won't be up until dawn tonight.

Also, I totally called that ( spoilers for NCIS:LA )