there will be a fish

1. I wrote two stories! There was the Sherlock Holmes (/Due South/Numb3rs/House/Psych/Castle) fic The Sincerest Form of Flattery back in September, and then I wrote Life fic for Yuletide: Taking The Stairs, which has received many lovely comments that stroke my ego. I also wrote a smattering of Twitterfic in February for a whole bunch of fandoms.

Speaking of Yuletide, I also beta'd my sister's Life fic, Precession, which is excellent (and hilariously the only other Life fic to come out of Yuletide other than mine). I also received two gifts: In Uniform (B13) by Val Mora, and A Madcap Proposal (Lost In Austen) by 7iris, both of which are wonderful and make me super happy.

( other things )

...I guess that's it. This year felt like it went by pretty fast, or at least uneventfully. 2011 seems to have been The Year of Mediocrity for me. I'm not particularly happy, but life isn't awful. I'm just sort of drifting, is all.

I think I might take a break from the internet for a while, just FYI. We'll see.

Wow, what a day. I was up until 6am last night being beta/moral support for Katie, who was editing her Yuletide fic down to the wire (and it turned out awesome, if I do say so myself; I am such a good sister). Anyway, then it was up at 9am for presents, and I got TWO stories for Yuletide (:D!), I was feeling great...and then BAM, right around noon I started feeling kinda crappy, and then grew progressively worse and worse all through my family's arrival and dinner. I was totally useless at helping set things up, and then I could barely get down my food or taste it. It was awful, I love Christmas dinner. My granny, who has medication-related lack-of-appetite issues, went back for seconds, okay, while I had to force myself to choke down firsts. It was wretched. I didn't even make it to dessert; I finally had to leave in the middle of everyone eating to go lie down and sleep for a couple of hours. I was supposed to work at 6pm, but when I staggered in I was barely coherent and listless and on the verge of tears, and got sent home in ten minutes flat. And then I slept, and now I'm awake again, and next will probably be more sleep, and probably not going to work tomorrow night either. Hopefully I am not too useless to hang out with my visiting older sister, because I barely get to see her and I don't want to miss it.

Anyway. I got two Yuletide presents! And they are both completely awesome! I can't even recommend them enough. In alphabetical order by fandom, I got:

In Uniform
(Banlieue 13, Leïto/Damien Tomaso)
Leïto, staying at Damien's apartment, sees him in his dress uniform on a few occasions.

and

A Madcap Proposal
(Lost In Austen, Caroline Bingley/George Wickham)
Caroline Bingley and George Wickham spend the Season in London, hoping to make advantageous marriages, but find that the best match may be each other.
For inmyriadbits, who asked for a story "where Wickham and Miss Bingley somehow team up and have loads of shenanigans in Regency-era London."

They are both SO GOOD. The B13 fic is excellently in-character, and full of the most delicious tension and perfectly-hit character notes, and I am so delighted to have more of these characters. If you like the movie(s), you'll love this too! And the Lost In Austen is spot-on what I wanted, with Regency-era shenanigans (courtship of convenience! WIN) and sharp characterization and everything is wonderful. I'm so grateful to my authors; their stories really nicely helped balance out the sick/unpleasant parts of my Christmas. :)

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)