there will be a fish

- WOOOOOOO YULETIDE SIGNUPS ARE IN! All except one of my requested fandoms have offers, and all of my offers have requests (except the same one as the requested; I was the only person to request and offer for Paper Moon, sigh). ETA: I plan to put up a Dear Yuletide Author letter soon! Just, not today. I really need to sleep.

- Today was my mom's birthday! That was fun. She mostly wanted to do brunch, then hang out and watch musicals, so that is what we did. ♥ Our birthday present/project for her didn't really get done in time, and the surprise was spoiled, but that's okay. (There's an old set of French doors that we took down for some remodeling, and she wants them hung in a different place so she can close the door and listen to music in the living room while things are going on elsewhere. They were painted in oil paint and then latex over that, so the latex is peeling off and we had to scrape off the old paint layers, prime with a bonding primer, and then paint with the real color, so it's this whole endeavor that involves taping the edges of about a million tiny panes of glass and painting in woodwork crevices and cursing. It's taking forever, is my point.)

- Last night, the twin and I went to a party out in the countryside hosted by the lovely katieupsidedown. I got rather drunk and slept on the floor and spent most of today hungover, good times. :)

- Is anyone else reading that XMFC work-in-progress Nine Eleven Ten? Because Katie is not, and I desperately want to talk with someone about how amazing it is and speculate about WTF is going on with certain things and also what the hell is going to happen next. I've been raving about it enough that I've convinced Katie to read it, but that's going to take a while, so. Yes.

For those who are not reading, IT IS SO AWESOME, I RECOMMEND IT. Even though it's a (regularly updated!) WIP. It's a Beauty and the Beast retelling -- only definitely a dark, dark version of the story. This is much less Disney, and much more the "Cinderella's stepsisters cut off their toes to try to fit the slipper" or "someone dies by being dragged along the street in a barrel of nails" or "heroine's cursed shoes that keep her constantly dancing until she amputates her own feet" or "the little mermaid dies and turns into sea foam at the end" kind of fairytale. Which is the kind I LOVE. For extra special bonus points, it's set in an apocalyptic dystopian AU (basically: nuclear WWIII happened), WHICH I ALSO LOVE. The Beast (Erik) is legitimately scary and damaged, and Beauty (Charles, LOL) is not at all a happy or obedient captive and pretty BAMF in his own right, and the world-building is fantastic, and the author has cultivated this brilliant fairy-tale sort of tone which really shouldn't work for a science-inundated universe like X-Men but does (because their powers are sort of like magic anyway). Her Charles is brilliant, so clever and kind, but she never forgets his pride or arrogance or fallibility, nor his slightly-dubious adherence to boundaries. And her Erik is complex and dark, as capable of cruelty as he is of incongruous kindness. BASICALLY IT IS EXCELLENT. I'm a total sucker for "the main characters are horrible to each other before they come to understand each other and then fall in love despite themselves" kind of romance (along the lines of The Queen of Attolia, Captive Prince, etc...), and this has it in brilliantly-written spades. Definitely watch the warnings, though -- here there be graphic violence and dub-con. As an aside, though, ( oblique spoiler ) The author apparently has previously written a bunch of Sarah/Jareth Labyrinth fic, some of which I've read and deem excellent -- which is not a surprise at all; she's got the complex power-struggle/fairytale themes/strangely-compelling-but-not-at-all-a-nice-person villain-slash-sort-of-love-interest down to an art in this.

I am sort of obsessing about this fic. I can't even regret it all that much; it's so fucking good.

I've had some fics I've been wanting to rec just hanging around for a while. Here goes:

1. Close To Home (DCU, Tim/Kon)
I feel like I must've recced this one before, but perhaps not. It's one of my favorite Tim/Kon pieces out there, and I have a huge soft spot for the pairing as it is. Basically, Kon ends up investigating the murder of a gay boy who went to his high school, and ends up tackling all the hate-crime issues and casual small town homophobia that goes along with it. Tim helps, being infinitely better at murder mystery stuff than Kon is. This makes it all sound much more serious than it is; Tim and Kon are the older and more mature versions you see around now, it's true, but it's not a downer by any means. There's plot and intrigue and a lot of Kon trying to figure out who is and Tim being slightly crazy and Bat-like, and generally is just a fun read all around. I ♥ this fic.

2. No Yesterdays on the Road (XM:FC, Charles/Erik)
This is probably my favorite XMFC fic that I've read so far. The basic idea: slightly AU from the beach divorce, where Erik still kills Shaw but the rest of the mess doesn't go down (with the subtle departure point of Erik simply not putting the helmet on, which lets Charles speak to him more directly. Kind of a cool alteration.) Anyway, they're working on the new school when Charles gets kidnapped, and Erik has to team up with Moira to find him. This story's characterization of Erik is brilliantly spot-on, and believably vulnerable in a way I think most authors ignore in favor of his harder edges. The plot is terribly fun and roadtrip-y, Moira gets to shine and snark and be competent in a way she wasn't given space to in the movie, and the interactions are just a joy. There is also a good deal of pining going on on Erik's part, which is one of my favorite things in the world. All in all, a wonderful read.

3. Telephone (Captain America/Avengers movieverse, gen-ish)
I almost skipped this one because I'm not the biggest Thor/Loki fan, and this was marked as such. I'm not sure why, though; any subtextual interpretation is on the reader's part, because this was as gen as the movies. More gen, even, because there's any any het going on here either. ANYWAY, I'm glad I did read this, because the Steve voice here is SO GOOD, and the story as a whole is hilarious and surprisingly touching and really just adorable. I really recommend this to anyone who loved Steve Rogers in the Captain America movie. Or maybe just anyone who finds the idea of Loki texting Steve Rogers out of boredom as hysterical as I do. :D

4. Pants on Fire (Inception, Arthur/Eames)
This was such a fun use of the amnesia trope. Helenish did her usual magic here in taking a strange concept and making it really work, and her Eames and Arthur characterizations were excellent. I feel reluctant to try to explain the plot; it's a lot more effective to just let it unfold, so I'm going to send you in blind. Cheers!

5. Captain America's Art Crawl Adventure (The Middleman/Captain America crossover, gen)
I love musesfool SO MUCH for writing this, I can't even tell you guys. I mean, she not only wrote a story featuring Art Crawl (o/!), but she added Steve Rogers to the mix as well. SO MUCH LOVE. This is hilarious, and I fell in love with Wendy Watson's fabulous ass-kickery and wacky art-related shenanigans all over again. (And Noser, and Lacey, and the Middleman, and of course Steve. SO MUCH LOVE, did I mention?)

6. Nerds of the Earth, take note! (Leverage/Iron Man crossover, gen)
Everyone loves Alec Hardison, am I right? I mean, he's the nerd of all our hearts (talks Doctor Who AND takes down evil doers with his geekery!), and he is a damn good-looking man. *SWOON* Anyway, my point is, this fic is all about putting Alec Hardison in the same room with Tony Stark, who is also a really hot geek, and having them work together to save the world in typical geek fashion while snarking at each other. It's wonderful, and hilarious, and even a little heart-breaking. Two thumbs up!

7. Dr. Sandburg Finds a Sentinel (The Sentinel/Stargate: SG-1 crossover, gen)
And by "gen," I mean "as gen as TS ever was," which really means "rife with subtext." Anyway, Blair is working at the SGC as one of their geeks, which is a brilliant job for him, and Jim gets caught up with a bunch of NID/rogue CIA/Chinese spies shenanigans (as you do), and the rest is history, explosions, and wackiness. I enjoyed the hell out of this story.

8. make your wars (XM:FC, Charles/Erik pre-slash)
This is a quiet little modern, no-powers AU that I really liked. I've not been overly impressed with those, but this one really caught me. Charles is a shrink, Erik's a war vet with a bunch of PTSD issues, and Erik would really like to be annoyed by Charles but can't quite manage it. It's just lovely and low-key, and I really liked it. There's a sequel as well, linked at the bottom of this post.

9. Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc (Sherlock/The Addams Family crossover/fusion, eventual Sherlock/John)
This is the first of three stories in a dark little Sherlock AU that duia recced to me -- it's a strange concept (John Watson is actually an Addams, on his mother's side), but the author really makes it work for the characters and the world. Fair warning, it can be pretty violently visceral and graphic in places, so that might turn some people off the story, but it digs into the creepier side of Sherlock in a way that I found fascinating.

10. You do know you're completely mad, don't you? (Sherlock, gen)
The meme prompt for this story was: When John says to Mike "who would want me for a flatmate?" Mike doesn't ask "what do you mean by that?" He also doesn't say "oh, what'd be wrong with you as a flatmate?" He just accepts that John would be a difficult person to find a flat for and moves on to Sherlock. Given that Mike knows at least a little of how odd Sherlock is and yet suggests Watson as a good match, does this imply that John has some weird habits of his own, without regard to his experiences in Afghanistan?

Which means the story itself is all about John's wacky shenanigans at university -- in John's usual unassuming yet awesome style. It's told from Stamford's POV, and is on the whole warm, affectionate, and very funny. I love the idea that John Watson is the most normal weird dude on the face of the planet, which is why he and Sherlock get along like gangbusters, and everyone else is totally fooled by the tea-drinking and ugly jumpers. ♥