it's a magical world

I completely forgot I hadn't posted anything about Yuletide! I received an AWESOME fic, Hear That Call, which is League of Their Own fic that made me super, super happy, and which I will surely reread a whole bunch. I only watched that movie for the first time sometime in September, and I don't know why it took me so long -- WWII ladies kicking ass and playing baseball, all of these things are right up my alley! And this fic is Dottie/Jimmy, which I sort of guiltily shipped during the film but the author made it work, with hints of Mae/Doris in the background (my primary OTP, ugh I love them so), and, yeah. You should read it!

Still a little time left before reveals, but for the first time, my own recipient has not responded to the fic at all, and that does sour it a bit for me. :/ I mean, I've received gift fics for Yuletide and other challenges in the past that haven't been great (NOT THIS YEAR, OBVS, SEE ABOVE), but I always, always find something nice to say to the author and thank them for writing, because this is a thing that they made for me, and that's a wonderful gift regardless. So now I'm really worried that the fic I wrote is really, truly bad, and I feel guilty about having written something crappy for someone else, and at the same time I'm slightly annoyed because the prompt was interesting but not an easy one for me to write, and I really tried to give the recipient what she'd wanted, and it's a fandom and character that I do love quite a lot, and just ugh. I'm probably being petty, and it's really not a big deal at all, but it is kind of a letdown.

But the fic I received really was amazing, so I shall console myself by rereading it a bunch because it makes me happy.

secret_mutant authors have been revealed! Oh, man. A couple of those I totally guessed; others, I'm kind of smacking myself in the forehead for not figuring out immediately. And then, y'know, a bunch of authors I wasn't familiar with before, who now I obviously need to check out. If you like Charles/Erik and you haven't taken a look at this exchange yet, you really should. Ninety-five new fics, many excellent. Huge kudos to pocky_slash for organizing and running the damn thing.

And now I can properly thank argyleheir for her excellent gift, Practical Applications of Radioactive Material. READ IT! Erik and Charles keep running into other superheroes on their recruitment trip; I particularly adore Sue Storm in this one, but really, it's all just great fun and awesomeness. ♥

Also, I wrote some stuff?

Celestial Navigation (9470 words) by kaydeefalls - or on LJ
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Characters: Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, N'Dare Munroe, Ororo Munroe
Summary: Not everything has to be life or death. Sometimes it snows in September, just because a little girl wills it so.

From the sign-ups, it was pretty clear that ginbitch and I have pretty damn similar tastes in terms of canon fics set in the 1960s; I definitely got my period research kink on writing it. The prompt was for snow, which to me, obviously meant bb!Ororo had to be in there somewhere, which wound up mostly involving her mother, N'Dare Munroe. I kept their family backstory as close to comics!canon as possible -- N'Dare was Kenyan, one of long line of priestess-sorceresses; she married an American photojournalist, and Ororo was born in Harlem. They move to Egypt when Ororo is very young. I couldn't find anything suggesting N'Dare was herself a mutant, so that bit's all mine. Also, it's kind of a love letter to New York City (my hometown), and it let me get inside Charles's enormous head way more than I've ever really thought about before. Telepathy is weird, guys. So that's that one.

&

I Ain't Scared of Lightning (13107 words) by kaydeefalls - or on LJ
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Characters: Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier, Alex Summers, Moira MacTaggert, Armando Muñoz, Angel Salvadore, Hank McCoy, Raven Darkholme
Summary: Canon!AU. "Shaw has someone very dear to me," Charles said in a low tone. "You're not the only one playing for keeps, Erik."

Pinch hit of doom! I have no fucking clue where this came from, except that I had this image in my head of Charles on the Coast Guard ship flanked by Darwin and Angel, and Erik being like, daaaaamn. But it was kind of an intense ride for me -- most of it was written frantically over the course of last weekend, as, um, you might have noticed. I'd originally intended to include flashbacks of Charles & Raven's altered backstory, but when I realized how massive the main plotline was becoming, I cut them all out. Possibly there's another fic in there; possibly there's also another fic continuing the AU version of events through the end of the movie. Possibly I should just leave it be. My main regret with this is that I didn't have the time to fully explore the changes in Charles's outlook on the world due to losing Raven so early on -- I think he'd be much more pragmatic and less optimistic about the Shaw situation, and far less scrupulous about his own use of his powers to achieve his goals. And, on the flip side, he would actually be able to understand Erik's point of view much better -- there wouldn't be such a wide chasm of miscommunication between them, which would serve both them and the team much better in the long run. I'm not sure how well any of that came across. But it was interesting to explore. (Original prompts from confusedkayt: badassery leading to kissing, holding one another, Erik connecting with Alex. I did manage to incorporate all three!)

So...yeah. That happened. :)

I may be crap at reccing awesome fics, but this MUST BE DONE. It's already being recced all over the place, but if you've somehow missed it, Pairing Pendragon/Merlin, by anonymous author of awesometasticness.

Look, I'm a sucker for Merlin AUs, it's the only fandom I genuinely love AUs for. And this is just -- Arthur is a fandom BNF. Merlin is his beta. It pokes fun at fandom in all its ridiculous glory, and yet with such love, and Merlin's beta comments, and the twitter feeds, and GWEN COSPLAYS UHURA OMG WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS POST AND NOT THE FIC.

So, that.

Unrelatedly, can we has festivids yet? How about now? I'm going to be in NYC for the weekend, but I'll still probably hole up in a corner somewhere and watch ALL THE VIDS once it goes live. \o/

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

RIGHT NOW.

Because this is the most brilliant and hilarious and spot-on perfect vid you will ever watch.

Tenth Doctor: the Musical, by di_br.

TRUST ME ON THIS.

HOLY CANON SLASH, BATMAN. That would be a link to an article about Jack/Ianto, my friends, with one of the hottest pictures of Ianto I have ever, ever seen. (Totally PG-rated and nonsexual, incidentally.) Also, some spoilers for Torchwood series 3, so, that. This show cannot happen soon enough.

WE WANTS IT, PRECIOUS.

On a different fandom note, have a spot-on hilarious Star Trek: Reboot parody.

ETA: I totally didn't realize that comm was locked. Whoops. Links to the individual article/pics in comments instead.

It's been a very long couple of days. I got three hours of sleep last night before having to haul myself out of bed for an eight-hour shift house managing, and then I got distracted by a Borders on my way home for a while. I'm finally now checking my flist for the first time today, and realize, hey! Remix reveal!

So, yes. I am responsible for Staging (Rebel Without a Cause), a remix of thedeadparrot's most excellent fic Stage Five. I must have spent DAYS reading and rereading her House fics for something I could remix without making an utter ass of myself, and I kept coming back to that one, so. I'm not good at remixing, but I'm a lot happier with this remix than I usually am, so that's good.

Also! I should have flailed about this earlier, but remixes were posted while I was doing Passover, and it just slipped past. rian219 remixed my fic Logical Deduction as Gravitation (The Logical Conclusion Remix), and it is TWELVE THOUSAND KINDS OF AWESOME. She took my silly crack-addled Sirius!fic and made it aching and funny and brilliant and REMUS, and I am kind of in love. If you read this, rian, THANK YOU.

I can has sleep now?

(Also, BSG? OMGWTFCHIEF & CHIEF/BOOMER. That is all.)

Ahem. Since a few people seemed to be interested.

kaydee's somewhat self-indulgent and random but still potentially helpful guide to seeing new york city on limited time and budget
a.k.a. Well, we got here, and the trip to the top of the Empire State Building was a total rip-off, so NOW what the fuck do we do?

( well, i've got a few suggestions, in no particular order... )

I should've pimped this long ago, but the newest installment kicked my ass all over the plce and made me insanely happy, so if you live under a rock and haven't yet checked out shoebox_project, then for god's sake get over there NOW. HP, Remus/Sirius, Marauders era, the best-written, funniest, and most realistic take on the Marauders I've ever read, and it's absolutely fucking brilliant. Yes. Go.

REMIXER, I LURVE YOU. Omigod. It's, like, all the Elijah backstory I never put in, and his character is EXACTLY right, and <3 <3 <3.

I also sort of have a guess, because the style is very familiar, but on the other hand, there are so many people involved this year that it might be some Viggorli author I've never read until now, in which case I should have been reading her, because OMG SO GOOD.

I've never been much of a Rosie fan (I like her well enough, but am somewhat indifferent towards her in terms of fandom). That said, get thee hence to monkeycrackmary's journal. Five things that never happened to Rosie Cotton. NOW.

I don't rec things enough. So, I'm reccing this. New good Domlijah, so rare, yet so beautiful. Get thee hence.

jubilancy's Double Tig on a Tog. Domlijah like it's never been written before, snarky and brilliant and GO READ NOW.