Seo Hronrad

In under the wire, I have to make some Yuletide recs!  I sorted the archive by size, and only got through stories that were >4,000 words, so that's what I'm reccing here (other than my gift fics).

But I must start with my presents!  What an incredible Yuletide this was: I not only got two main gifts, but then three Madness treats as well!  I have been spoiled rotten, and I am so, so grateful to all my authors (the truly anonymous as well as the... not so :P )!  Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you!

First, my main gifts:

An der Nordseeküste (1163 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Glennkill | Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: The Sheep, Rebecca Flock
Summary: "Wir fahren an die Nordsee!", verkündete Rebecca eines morgens. Doch wo ist das Meer?
Read it because: It's absolutely, completely, wonderfully true to the original books, all of the things I loved best about them.  (Note: it's in German.)

That the State Suffer No Harm (2034 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Roma sub Rosa series - Steven Saylor
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Gordianus the Finder, Marcus Tullius Cicero
Summary: In which Gordianus the Finder entirely fails to help Cicero defend Gaius Rabirius.
Read it because: It's clever!  And very much like the books!  And someone I love very very much wrote it for me, but has gotten almost no feedback, which is sad. :(

And then there were my Madness stories!  EEEEEEEEEEEE nail polish.  Ahem.  Yes, despite what some people apparently think (I hear), I really did request nail polish not to be 'cracky' or attention-grabbing or anything, but because I LOVE NAIL POLISH MORE THAN ANY OTHER FANDOM EVER.  Yes.  And these stories!  They have nail polish!  And then on top of that, are AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111111111eleventyone.

Only Once (449 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Nail Polish (industry)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Original Characters
Summary: The story of the most beautiful nail polish in the world.
Read it because: The Very Anonymous person who wrote this for me almost didn't post it, saying it was "too sad."  It's not sad, not really; it's *beautiful*.  Bittersweet, yes, but so nice.  Awwww. :)

Five Nail Polishes (616 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Nail Polish (industry)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Original Trans Character
Summary: Five drabbles for five nail polishes.
Read it because: This is such a *creative* work: little flashes of story inspired by nail polishes (but not directly about them).  It's so clever!  Very impressive.

Colour Me New (625 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Nail Polish (industry)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Summary: When the shades are this pretty, you can't help but keep coming back for more.
Read it because: OH YAY this author totally gets why nail fandom is awesome.  :)

Again, thank you *SO MUCH* to all of my authors!!!!!!  You are the bestest bestest.

Then, stories that were not written for me:

Still Climbing After Knowledge Infinite (7492 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: 16th & 17th Century CE RPF, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Christopher Marlowe/William Shakespeare
Characters: William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Edward Alleyn, Walter Raleigh, Robert Greene, George Peele, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Watson, Thomas Walsingham
Summary: How much of the play is the playwright? In which Will Shakespeare meets Kit Marlowe, and in searching for Kit's voice, begins to discover his own.
Read it because: Gay spy Marlowe + Shakespeare + a love of language = awesome.

Five times Sybil and Gwen were alone (5314 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Sybil Crawley/Gwen Dawson
Characters: Sybil Crawley, Gwen Dawson, Anna Smith
Read it because: It's good Sybil/Gwen femmeslash, starting in canon and then extrapolating a bit.  It read as pretty historically plausible to me, which is nice.

Triolisme (6615 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sybil Crawley/Gwen Dawson, Tom Branson/Sybil Crawley, Tom Branson/Sybil Crawley/Gwen Dawson
Characters: Sybil Crawley, Tom Branson, Gwen Dawson
Summary: When Sybil and Branson leave for Ireland, they do not go alone.  This is what happens, after.
Read it because: I prefer my Sybil/Gwen with just, well, Sybil/Gwen, but for having to have Dawson in there, it was nice.

No Prince Charming (12821 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Enchanted (2007)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Giselle/Nancy Tremaine, Nancy Tremaine/Robert Philip
Characters: Nancy Tremaine, Giselle (Enchanted), Robert Philip, Morgan Philip, Edward (Enchanted)
Summary: Nancy Tremaine thinks she may be losing her grip on reality when she brings a stranger in a fairytale wedding dress with a distressingly low sense of self-preservation home to sleep on her couch. She has no idea what she's getting herself into.
Read it because: From now on, every time I think to myself that 'there's no good femmeslash', I will remember this story and feel happy.  I never liked Giselle/Nancy before, but this is *WONDERFUL*.  I just wish this had been how the movie had gone!

I Found my Way (5028 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Lewis (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James Hathaway/Original Male Character
Characters: James Hathaway, Original Male Character
Summary: There's still too much of himself that James prefers to hide away because the alternative seems rather scary.
Read it because: I love the author's characterization of Hathaway here.  It rings very true to me.  It's a character study with an incidental OMC pairing.

Telling Time (12287 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Lewis (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James Hathaway/Robert Lewis
Characters: James Hathaway, Robert Lewis, Jean Innocent, Laura Hobson
Summary: Secrets from Hathaway's past and present combine to create complications in an important case.
Read it because: Again, terrific Hathaway characterization.  Also, this is a really well written story, with lots of attention to the actual craft of writing (plus, long-ish!).

People Who Don't Understand Brecht Don't Understand Life (6686 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Slings & Arrows
Rating: Mature
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Darren Nichols/Geoffrey Tennant
Characters: Darren Nichols, Geoffrey Tennant, Oliver Welles
Summary: New Burbage presents Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, opening June 11, 1986. Tickets on sale now.
Read it because: I liked the Darren/Geoffrey here, even if I don't think everything was quite in keeping with canon.  It's very fun, nonetheless.

So, that's all the stories I've read so far this year and wanted to rec!  It's not many, but they're all WONDERFUL: don't miss them!

I was so lucky for Yuletide this year! I got two Yuletide stories (and have two more Treats waiting!), which is so amazing. Now, I do know who wrote one of them (it was someone... very close to me who wrote one of them, because she had the same idea for a Christmas present for me as I had for her :P), but the other was a total gift, especially since it seems that my actual writer defaulted, but since the mystery person who wrote me a story just wrote it *because she's awesome*, my request never went to the pinch hit list. So it's like, a real *gift*, rather than just an exchange assignment, and I can't even tell you how amazed and lucky that makes me feel!

Also, it's an awesome story! It's about my sheep books (I'm sure you all remember me talking about them: the two German books about the mystery-solving flock of sheep), and the sheep go with Rebecca to spend the summer by the North Sea, where they are puzzled by a little mystery of nature. It's *WONDERFUL*. It sounds just like the books, in style and content. It was just what I wanted, lots of world-building details about the sheep's worldview, and interaction between them, and there were cloud sheep and the abyss and the Winter Lamb, and oh, it was just amazing.

Of course, it was in German. So, if you read German, you MUST GO READ IT. If you don't read German, I've written a translation, but I don't know whether I should post it here in my journal or wait until after reveal and ask permission? What are the ethics of this situation? (Anonymous author, if you're reading, what do you think?)

Oh, I loved it so much! And I am so touched that someone wrote it for me just to be nice! Thank you, mystery author, thank you thank you thank you! <3 <3 <3

The story is here and if you can, you should go read it: http://archiveofourown.org/works/294825 (And if you can't read German, you should still read the first book [Three Bags Full] in English, because it's so fun.)

My other story, by my Mystery Author, is a Roma sub Rosa story, about exactly what I asked for (Gordianus and Cicero and the pro Rabirio and even some vague thoughts about Catiline!), and you all know how I adore that mystery author of mine. :) So of *course* you should all read that one too! It's here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/296868 It's even in English and everything! :) (Mystery Author, you are so talented and wonderful and I love you so very, very much! *snuggles*)

Dear Yuletide Author,

You're going to write me a story? Yay! Thank you! You share one of my beloved tiny fandoms here? That automatically makes you awesome. I am *sure* I will love whatever you write, and I hope you have fun! If you're happy, I'll be happy. :)

If you're interested in knowing more about me and my likes/dislikes, etc., that's great, but if you've already got your own thing you want to do here, please do!

For caveats, I will just repeat what I said in my requests: please no explicit het, please no making canon queer characters (Catilina, Portia) straight, and please, please, please not even a *suggestion* of animal harm whatsoever.

Otherwise, have at it!

But if you'd like to know more, let me start by saying that I really did try to pick fandoms this year where I would be happy with anything (exceptions noted above) about the characters. At all.

But in general, I like fluffy stories more than angsty; happy endings rather than sad. I like femmeslash and slash, as well (in these fandoms) as gen, of any rating. I like cliché plots / tropes, especially 'have to get married' and 'gay undercover'. I like long, plotty stories; short, witty stories; worldbuilding; poetry; romance. I like sex-positive kink!fic. I like clever people being able to show off. I like awesome women being awesome. I like a story that can surprise me.

The fandoms I am requesting this year don't have a lot in common, actually, except that I really and truly love all of them (and will be super-excited about a story in any of them). Do not fret that I love any more than others! Let me tell you more about each of them and why they are awesome! :)

( Glennkill | Three Bags Full -- Leonie Swann. )

( Roma sub Rosa series - Steven Saylor )

( Nail Polish (industry) )

( Lady Julia Grey Mysteries - Deanna Raybourn )

So that's my requests this year! And again, thank you, thank you, thank you, dear Author!

With grateful anticipation,

lysimache

Because she loves me, sineala has been watching all of Moonlighting with me on DVD from Netflix. We're just about halfway through season 2 now. I watched all of these, some many times, with my mom when I was little (although not any of them, I think during the original run: but I think we must've been watching them in syndication [on Lifetime?] shortly thereafter; we were definitely watching them every day by the time I had mono in 9th grade ['92]). And I both see all the wonderful, wonderful things I loved about the show -- the wacky chases (hearse chase FTW!), the wacky characters (oh, Miss DiPesto and your rhyming phone greetings!), the brilliant writing and directing and *care* that was put into it ("The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice" has to be one of the best episodes of anything, ever; and if you don't love the bit about the man with a mole on his nose, I don't think we can be friends anymore), and just how much I love all these people...

( MOAR FEELINGS under the cut! And vague spoilers, I guess, if you don't know anything about the show. )

And in conclusion, that's part of why, no matter how much I initially shipped Mulder/Scully on The X-Files, I wasn't willing to go through all that twice -- after a certain point, I just had to give up on them (and switch to Mulder/Krycek, which if nothing else always had going for it that it would never be canon!).

The nail board likes to do "top 20" lists a couple of times a year, where everyone posts a list of their favorite 20 polishes (any 20, but you have to actually own them), with pictures, if they have them. This is my list.

( LOTS and LOTS of pictures behind the cut! )

To: Agatha Christie, Mark Gatiss
Cc: Dorothy Parker, Josephine Tey, Deanna Raybourn, the Law & Order writers
Bcc: OMG every other mystery writer ever.
Subject: Dead lesbians are not a decoration for your story.

So please stop putting them in. It's not enough to just not make them evil; they also have to survive the story. A sprinkling of lesbians does not make you or your detective more 'edgy' or 'diverse' or 'tolerant' or whatever you're going for.

To be clear: Background happy lesbians? I would be okay with some of those. I do like that you've realized lesbians exist. It's the dead/evil thing I'm objecting to. Don't tell me it's a genre constraint that the lesbians just happen to end up dead, because there are plenty of background happy straight people who do not, in fact, end up dead or evil.

I understand that narratologically all secrets are gay secrets and that you probably think you're doing something clever by having surprise dead/evil lesbians. Who knows; maybe you don't even realize you're doing it (and that everyone else is too).

But if I have to see one more dead lesbian in a mystery? I might just have to give up on the whole genre.

And that would be sad.

So stop.

Love, a lesbian mystery fan.

First, a np note: Okay, I give in. The crack(le) is awesome. I love it and I want more. Moooooore!

Then: ( Doctor Who 6.3 )

And: ( Doctor Who 6.4 )

And here we are at the end of April! I hope I haven't annoyed some of you too much (clearly, there are people who just *hate* poetry, even if that statement makes me unutterably sad) and that some of you have even, I hope, enjoyed the poems! And I always love discovering new poems, so I think it would be awesome if anyone who wants would share a poem in the comments -- contemporary, older, whatever you like!

"Advice to Myself"

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.
         --Louise Erdrich

Oh, you guys, I have been waiting *all* month to post this, because I am *SO* excited about this poem. It is awesomeness reified. And then I find that Metafilter linked to it today, too. Something in the air?

But then Metafilter (well, AskMe, actually) has been having a big hatefest against poetry today, too, and honestly, it made me cry a little to hear so many people expressing so much disdain for poetry ("it's pretentious!" "the academy has killed poetry!" "it's too subjective!" "it's too personal!" "song lyrics are enough poetry for me!" "I don't understand it!" "line breaks are random!" "it doesn't rhyme!" "I don't care about the poet's feelings" and so on and so on). I... don't even know what to say. Why would someone hate poetry? Seriously, it makes me tear up to think about. I don't understand at all.

So whatever, yay, capybaras!

"Unit of Measure"

All can be measured by the standard of the capybara.
Everyone is lesser than or greater than the capybara.
Everything is taller or shorter than the capybara.
Everything is mistaken for a Brazilian dance craze
more or less frequently than the capybara.
Everyone eats greater or fewer watermelons
than the capybara. Everyone eats more or less bark.
Everyone barks more than or less than the capybara,
who also whistles, clicks, grunts, and emits what is known
as his alarm squeal. Everyone is more or less alarmed
than a capybara, who—because his back legs
are longer than his front legs—feels like
he is going downhill at all times.
Everyone is more or less a master of grasses
than the capybara. Or going by the scientific name,
more or less Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris—
or, going by the Greek translation, more or less
water hog. Everyone is more or less
of a fish than the capybara, defined as the outermost realm
of fishdom by the 16th-century Catholic Church.
Everyone is eaten more or less often for Lent than
the capybara. Shredded, spiced, and served over plantains,
everything tastes more or less like pork
than the capybara. Before you decide that you are
greater than or lesser than a capybara, consider
that while the Brazilian capybara breeds only once a year,
the Venezuelan variety mates continuously.
Consider the last time you mated continuously.
Consider the year of your childhood when you had
exactly as many teeth as the capybara—
twenty—and all yours fell out, and all his
kept growing. Consider how his skin stretches
in only one direction. Accept that you are stretchier
than the capybara. Accept that you have foolishly
distributed your eyes, ears, and nostrils
all over your face. Accept that now you will never be able
to sleep underwater. Accept that the fish
will never gather to your capybara body offering
their soft, finned love. One of us, they say, one of us,
but they will not say it to you.

    --Sandra Beasley

And LOOK IT'S A MOMMY CAPYBARA WITH A BABY CAPYBARA AWWWWWWWWW.