For Yuletide, I got not just one, but two charming Corner Gas fics!

Sparkle Balls (3707 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Corner Gas
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Karen Pelly, Davis Quinton, Mayor Fitzy Fitzgerald, Wanda Dollard, Lacey Burrows, Hank Yarbo
Additional Tags: Small Towns, Misses Clause Challenge
Summary: Davis has his heart set on a flashy lights display to bling up the police cruiser for the Dog River Days parade. Karen doesn't want to tell him that she broke the display weeks ago. Can she fix it before the day of the parade?

Casing The Joint (878 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Corner Gas
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Davis Quinton, Karen Pelly, Brent Leroy, Wanda Dollard, Lacey Burrows

I read a bunch of other stuff, too. Pretty much everything in the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries section was good, as was everything in the Thrilling Adventure Hour section. But my favorite has to be the Beyond Belief/Thin Man crossover. It's pretty much the best thing ever. My favorite four drunken, married, adorable detectives solve a supernatural crime via alcohol consumption.

The Thing-Man (2835 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Thin Man (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Frank Doyle/Sadie Doyle, Nick Charles/Nora Charles
Characters: Sadie Doyle, Frank Doyle (TAH), Nora Charles, Nick Charles, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Crossover, Vendettas, Drinking & Talking, Clink!
Summary: The Doyles are invited to a mysterious dinner party.

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In writing news, I...think I am done with a complete draft of the angst!fic? All the words appear to be there, and in roughly the right places. (All THIRTY-EIGHT THOUSAND OF THEM.) I'm going to let it marinate for a few days, then proof and look for a beta.

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Paper Aeroplanes is a Welsh boy-girl band I've been listening to lately. Imagine Stars, if Stars were fronted by Zooey Deschanel.

Several songs I like:
My First Love
Red Rover
Cliche
Make a Wish
Winter Never Comes"

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Another thing I want to rec is a due South fic: "The Great Northern Maple Syrup Adventure," by nutmeg9cat. It's novel-length gen with a few hints of Fraser/Thatcher UST, and it reads just like an episode, with a good mystery, wacky Canadian hijinks, and excellently characterized versions of Fraser, Vecchio, Thatcher, and Diefenbaker. Seriously, go read it now. It makes me want to write dS fic again!

P.S. On this note, please, someone talk me out of writing the AMAZING horrible AU where Fraser and Thatcher are pairs skaters. Or where they have to solve a crime via skating. Skate America is held in Chicago and they get caught up in a judging scandal which takes out the Canadian pair who were in on it, and at the last minute they have to step in FOR THE GLORY OF CANADA, maybe. Hey, they're Mounties, I'm sure they're good at something wintery and outdoorsy like ice skating. Anyway, their skating somehow breaks the case open, because the corrupt judge reveals him/herself in scoring them. Turnbull sews their costumes (red, possibly with maple leaves, naturally) out of some stretch fabric they have lying around the Consulate for undisclosed emergencies. Vecchio and/or Kowalski make disparaging comments about figure skating throughout the whole thing, but then are the loudest cheering section during the actual event.

...I AM NOT WRITING THIS.

Not yet, anyway.

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/934967.html. It has comments over there.

It is Yuletide! And I got a really wonderful Cutting Edge fic that's all about Kate and Doug and SKATING, and done with so much attention to detail and such good writing that it just made me burble happily as I read it this morning.

Landing (2908 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Cutting Edge (1992)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Douglas Dorsey/Kate Moseley
Characters: Douglas Dorsey, Kate Moseley, Anton Pamchenko, Jack Moseley
Summary: Kate's got a decision to make about the 1994 Olympics.

Me, I only wrote my assignment this year (treating plans all fell through). I feel like it's bleeding obvious which one I wrote, so you're welcome to guess, although I know better this year than to promise ficlets in return! (spatz, I am a horrible person and I still owe you that Follow the Fleet ficlet!)

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/925817.html. It has comments over there.

For Yuletide, I received a gorgeous, sweet, and really just lovely Northern Exposure(!!!) future fic. It even has its own soundtrack, which as far as I'm concerned goes above and beyond. Yuletide writer, you are a STAR. If you're reading this, thank you again!

New York Is a State of Mind, but Cicely Is a Way of Life (6005 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Northern Exposure
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Joel Fleischman/Maggie O'Connell
Characters: Joel Fleischman, Maggie O'Connell, Ruth-Anne Miller, Ed Chigliak, Chris Stevens, Marilyn Whirlwind
Summary:

In which Joel and and various Cicelians meet in a dream, a moose gives advice, Maggie's in denial, Ed visits the Big Apple with a purpose, and Joel makes his long-awaited return to the great state of Alaska.

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/886572.html. It has comments over there.

Fringe S5 premieres in less than a week! I have somewhat mixed feelings about it after last season, but given the little dance I just did in my chair when I realized there are only five days and ten hours left to wait, I'm going to guess "pleased" wins out. :D

Castle S5 also premieres this week. I was tempted not to even bother, but then I saw this sneak peak, and...this might not actually suck as much as last year. I laughed! Watching Castle! That hasn't happened in a while. The TV Guide-style summary is ( Spoilers?Collapse ) which does not fill me with enthusiasm, but maybe they'll only drag that out once or twice a season, and they will actually be funny/cute/sweet to make up for it? I think I could live with that.

Meanwhile, this weekend seems to have been given over to trolling for new, or at least read-it-so-long-ago-I-don't-remember-it, fic for some of my oldest fandoms. At the moment, I have DS9, TNG, XF, and SG-1 fic up in tabs, and I have a feeling SGA is going to get added to that before the day is out. To that end, allow me to recommend a series: the Greensleeves AU by ScopesMonkey, which you can reach by scrolling to the end of their profile. It's Jadzia/Julian, aka Baby's First OTP. (Adorable science twins! Whyyyyy did you have to destroy all my dreams, PTB?)

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/873663.html. It has comments over there.

I put up my fic for remixing in Remix Madness, and I got an absolutely gorgeous retelling of my Fringe story "Double Exposure" from Nina's point of view. You should all read it.

Give You Back The Open Sky (Single Focus Remix) (1227 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fringe
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Nina Sharp, Olivia Dunham
Summary: Nina used to believe there were no coincidences; there was only chance. After the most brilliant theory, the most conducive set-up, outcomes could be neither entirely controlled nor predicted. It was at once what science hinged upon and what it desperately wished to deny.

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/854807.html. It has comments over there.

Since I did some Yuletide recs this year, why not go for the double with some Festivids recs?

You Might Think, Bringing Up Baby - Definitely my favorite. The Cars are not the first band I would think of for a vid for this film, but it works wonderfully. This vid captures all the slapstickish, screwbally fun of the movie.

All is Not Lost, Babylon 5 - Everything that is inspiring and epic and joyful about B5, all in one vid.

A Butterfly Dreaming, The Fall - I don't think I ever actually made it all the way through this movie, but it sure is pretty, and this vid is also gorgeous.

Outside the Box and Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, Maru the Cat - I admit, I was skeptical that the YouTube videos of Maru could be made into a fanvid, but both of these disabused me of that skepticism very quickly. Trust me on this, they are awesome.

You Make Me Feel So Young, Mary Poppins - Frank Sinatra and this movie? MEANT TO BE. The dancing is perfectly aligned with the music.

Bad Moon Rising, Beetlejuice - Excellent pairing of song and creepy Burtony movie. Tee hee!

Extraordinary, Legion of Extraordinary Dancers - LXD is a web series I've never quite managed to get into, but this vid distills everything I liked about the episodes I saw.

Since I'm reccing, have the soundtrack to The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos. If you watched the "Address is Approximate" video I linked to a few days ago, you'll recognize one of the tracks; the rest are very much in the same vein. My personal favorite is "Life of the Bird," which has been excellent background music for a Sekrit Writing Project.*

* Actually it's not terribly secret, I just enjoy being mysterious. It's this sci-fi/adventure/romance short story that grabbed me by the neck and wouldn't let go. Updates as events warrant.

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/839310.html. It has comments over there.

Biennial(ish) bowling with high school friends today! I got somewhere in the 80s for the first game, and then a 130 for the second, which might be a record for me. (Not hard, considering that except for the times we went for gym in high school--yeah, I went to nerd school, we did stuff like that for PE--I think I've been bowling maybe five or six times in my life.) Apparently there's going to be a high school reunion this summer, which I had not heard about because I hate Facebook and never log in to it. I am...fairly disturbed that it's been ten years since we graduated.

In other news, Yuletide happened! I don't usually do recs, but I recently rediscovered the "reading history" page on the AO3, so I'm doing them this year. Four stories I enjoyed reading:

My Master's Secret Mission - OMG SO FUNNY. My favorite Yuletide story of the year. I'll just give you the snippet of the summary that hooked me right off: "I am THE LUCKIEST GENIE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD! My Master has given me a DIARY!"

eff em ell, and other quotes from the official biography - Post-canon fic for the Shakespeare Retold version of The Taming of the Shrew (which I loved so much), from Tim's POV. (The poor sod still works for Katharine and has to deal with her and her family.) Everyone's true to form, and it's hilarious.

Scenes from a Cultural Exchange, or The Muppets Take New Burbage - Exactly what it sounds like. Exactly as awesome as it sounds.

Leavening - Very much like a lost episode of Ballykissangel. Peter- and Assumpta-centric.

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/834988.html. It has comments over there.

It's Fringe Friday! In honor of that, have some vid recs:

Follow the Cops Back Home, by obsessive24 - The title is taken from the chorus, and the end of that line is "and rob their houses." It's an Ourlivia/Peter/Fauxlivia vid. Which basically makes it the perfect subject matter for that song. It's heartbreaking, and very well put-together, with some inventive editing.

Boom Boom Pow, by hollywoodgrrl - This is probably the first Fringe vid I ever watched, and it's still my favorite. If you don't feel badass by osmosis after watching it, there's something wrong with you. ;)

Small Blue Thing, by beccatoria -- This had me at the Suzanne Vega song, but it's also a nicely-crafted Olivia vid. I really like the way beccatoria shifts the colors of various objects from red to blue and vice versa throughout the vid.

In spoilery territory, here's an interview with Anna Torv on the Peter/Olivia relationship. Apparently they got her for a few minutes in the middle of filming a scene, so the most entertaining part of this is listening to her schizophrenic Aussie/American accent. (Spoilerwise, it isn't, very. A lot of it is Anna speculating rather than actually giving details that she's seen from upcoming scripts, and most of the details she gives, you could probably guess from the two that have aired so far.)

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My own vidding (which I am not allowed to get back to until I write two more cover letters, argh) is going slowly. Dear iMovie, WHY must you not read AVIs? Even when I open them with Perian and save them as MOV files? MOV IS YOUR OWN FREAKING FILE FORMAT! But noooo, you make me run them through iSquint so they'll be MP4s before I can import them. This takes twice as long as each clip (so a two-minute clip cut from an AVI via Perian/Quicktime will take iSquint four minutes to convert), which, sure, is not such a huge deal, and at least there exists a program which will let me put it into a format iMovie likes, but arrrrggh. Roadblocks. Thankfully this vid is only going to be a minute and forty seconds long, and I already know pretty much which clips I want to use...

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/810907.html. It has comments over there.

Because you need a Toy Story vid to "Tik Tok." Yes, yes, you do. It is in fact pretty much the most awesome thing I've seen since the Star Trek vid to same.

Fiona Glenanne and her bad reputation.

Oh, Fiona. You are indeed a woman after my own heart. People who enjoy morally gray women blowing things up should watch this. (Calling munditia!)

It's got clips through S3, it looks like, but almost all of them are from the Job of the Week plots and shouldn't be terribly spoily.

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/790235.html. It has comments over there.

So. I appear to have tripped and fallen headfirst into The Mentalist fandom. Well, just the fic, really, and nothing else. I...actually have no plans to watch the show, for the following combination of reasons:

1.) I need another cop show like I need a hole in the head.
2.) I need another cop show with an unorthodox investigator like I need a really big hole in the head.
3.) Patrick Jane appears to be a dick of the highest caliber, and while they can sometimes be amusing and lovable if written with a certain amount of sympathy (see: my GIANT AND INEXPLICABLE LOVE for Megan Hunt), in general, I'm not a fan.
4.) I am especially not a fan of The Jerkass character with the oh-so-angsty past, and Jane falls squarely into that category. Again, I need a character bent on revenge for a serial killer's murdering his wife and child about as much as I need a puncture in my pate.
5.) Between Jane's past, Lisbon's past (dead mother and abusive/alcoholic father, wheee), and Rigsby and Van Pelt's star-crossed lovers thing, it sounds angstier than BSG. That's saying something.
6.) What I have gleaned of the emotional dynamic of the two lead characters reminds me waaaaay too much of the codependent angst-fest that was Mulder & Scully: The Later Years, without the sci-fi and the goofiness to leaven it. (I don't mind that so much in fic, but on a show itself it drives me a bit mad.)

BUT, I have somehow gotten sucked into the world of Jane/Lisbon fic. I don't. even. know.

However, this one is quite nice. And there is a steampunk AU novella that I haven't read yet, but which is very intriguing.

(Dear Self, you could be being productive, why are you doing this, why why why)

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/785562.html. It has comments over there.

Two very exciting things:

1. The Wailin' Jennys are finally finally finally releasing a new album! It comes out next week! In the meantime, you can listen to three tracks here. "Swing Low Sail High" is my favorite.

2. Someone else has written Ivanova/Garibaldi fic! And it's fantastic! :D :D :D

(This reminds me that I'm terribly behind on responding to posts at beyond_the_rim. Definitely need to get on that today.)

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/758838.html. It has comments over there.

Insta-rec: The Future An Experiment by thrace_ - Lovely, plotty Myka/H.G. Wells fic. I wish it were canon.

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( I am the very model of a modern major general...Collapse )

This entry was originally posted at http://icepixie.dreamwidth.org/724207.html. It has comments over there.

This is a truncated, single-artist music rec post. I haven't been listening to much new music lately, mostly because of end-of-semester stuff. I've been finding it harder and harder to write papers with music playing, which makes me sad. :(

Anyway, the single artist is Imogen Heap, whom I've liked a few things by for some now. I just bought a few tracks from her latest album, and they are awesome. I mostly got them because I like the piano-influenced electronic music, the melodies, and her voice, but the more I listen to them, the more striking I find some of the lyrics.

Wait It Out - This is my favorite. The second half or so of the song gives me chills all along my scalp and down my neck, particularly the moments from 2:28-2:57ish. I really, really want to vid this song, but I'm not sure what would go well with it. I wonder if a post-Shadow/Earth Civil War B5 vid might fit.

Tidal - I...think this song is about evolution? Maybe? It seems to begin in primordial soup, anyway. (Okay, okay, it's probably a love song dressed up in metaphor. Whatever. I'm still impressed that what is basically a dance song has meaningful words at all.)

Between Sheets - "The many windswept yellow stickies of my mind" sounds like a pretty good description of my mind at the moment. *glances at stickies lining the pages of various paper-related library books, some of which are yellow*

Clear the Area - I first heard this song some time ago thanks to a really, really incredible Scully(/Mulder) vid by Astarte that you should all watch, yes, every one of you, even if you never watch fanvids, because it is that good. Click to see Astarte's entry with download and streaming links. The song is so perfect for Scully. It's a wonderful song on its own merits, but I love it all the more thanks to that vid.

And while I'm doing vid recs, have another: here's luck, "Sea Fever," Slings & Arrows. I cried the first time I saw it. It's beautiful. (The song, by Kris Delmhorst, is gorgeous, too.)

I haven't been reading much from Yuletide--just a few here and there--and I had no plans to rec anything, but read this one. It is based on Oregon Trail (yes, the game). If you spent hours and hours and HOURS of your life playing it in elementary school, as I did, you will get most or all of the references. It has the most awesome twist ever at the end, and that's why you should read it. No, really. Even if you've never read fanfic before in your life. Go. Now.

Bwaaaaahahaha. The BSG finale in Facebook format..

TEARS, Y'ALL. Bwahahahaha!

YOU GUYS. mylittleredgirl wrote me twisted AU S5 Ivanova/Garibaldi fic, and it is incredible.

READ, I COMMAND THEE.

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS! I was poking around in old B5 communities, and found that SOMEONE WROTE REALLY GOOD IVANOVA/GARIBALDI FIC!

LOOK!

AHHHHH!!!

In fact, that whole comm has all kinds of season one fanficcy goodness! WOOOOO!

I know you are all getting tired of my endless, endless B5-related chatter, so I am cutting for your reading convenience!

( Four unrelated observations/discussion points about various aspects of the series, including mention of the original Five Year Plan; the only big spoilers are for cast changesCollapse )

( Some B5 fic recs, vaguely spoilery for the whole seriesCollapse )

And finally, a vid rec: this video is a fan-made animation pitting ships from Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, and (old) BSG together in a big ol' firefight. Awesome.