cosmic_llin

 Just come back from a super-busy week off - carawj and I spent a few days at my dad's, a couple of days with a friend, and then my dad picked us up again and drove us back down to London, where my dad met Cara's parents for the first time. Then yesterday I visited my cousins who I haven't seen in a couple of years. It was an awesome week of hanging out with people I don't get to see enough, but now I'd quite like another holiday to recover from it!

Right before this was our fourth anniversary! Four years feels like a long time, but in a really good way! We went to the Museum of London for the afternoon to celebrate. I highly recommend it. It's a gorgeous museum with some very thoughtful and fun exhibitions - throughout there's an emphasis on how we can understand history by comparing and contrasting with the present day, and while it's designed to be accessible for kids, it's still fascinating as an adult.

In fandom news, check out this adorable story I got for the white_lotus New Year Exchange! Also this gorgeous Adelaide/Becky one from my Yuletide prompts.

Day 6 - In your own space, pimp three comms or challenges and explain why you love them.

where_no_woman / where_no_woman  - it's less busy than it used to be, but this community is what jump-started my participation in Trek fandom after a quiet patch, and it's full of intelligent, beautiful stories, vids and meta about the women of the Star Trek franchise. The archives are well worth looking through, they're handily tagged by character and type and basically everything useful. 

ds9_rewatch - another one that's quieter than it used to be - I think that's just the nature of rewatch comms though, sometimes. We're on season five now! I don't make it to the chats every week, but I've had some really fun times in this community, and some fascinating and in-depth discussions about DS9 and plenty of other things.

halfamoon I know it's kind of an obvious one, but Halfamoon is one of my favourite fannish times of year. For two weeks, the internet is full of people appreciating awesome women characters, and it's always a blast!


Day 7 - In your own space, share something non-fannish about yourself. A passion or a hobby or a talent, something that people might not know about you. We are more than just our fandoms.

Hmm, this is a tricky one because so many of what I consider my talents - writing, vidding, crafting, costuming - are linked with fandom even if that's not necessarily what I'm always doing with them.

I guess there's Russian, although that's not exactly a passion so much as something that turned up in my life almost by accident and never left. I studied Russian at university on more or less a whim, and lived out there for a year as part of my studies. It's been a couple of years since I went back, but I've visited several times since graduation. Partly because while I was out there I taught English at a community of foster families (if anyone is interested in volunteering in Russia, let me know), and I made a lot of friends there. And partly because Russia just sort of gets under your skin (like anywhere, I guess, if you're there long enough). I love the language, I'm fascinated by the culture and history... some of the politics at the moment I find scary and upsetting. But on the whole I love Russia, and I foresee it always playing some part of my life, although I'm not sure I could live there again.


Day 8 - In your own space, talk about setting yourself a fannish goal. Big or small, it doesn't matter. 

Well, one thing I noticed when I looked over my fanworks for 2012 was that I barely vidded at all. A lot of that was down to annoying technology issues that I didn't get around to sorting, but this year I'm determined to do better. I have a huge backlog of vids I've been meaning to make, and I'm really itching to get some of them done. So, I'm going to challenge myself to make six vids this year - not including my Festivids project, which kind of straddled 2012 and 2013. This will include my premiere for vidukon_cardiff , which looks like it's going to be my most ambitious vidding project yet. Wish me luck!

In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts.

1) For a long time it's been my dearest wish for THIS to have a fandom. I know it's just a kids' cartoon with like a dozen ten-minute episodes, but it's pretty much on a level with My Little Pony and that has a fandom! I just... Moondreamers is a show about a bunch of female characters who work together and save the day and foil the bad guys and do sciencey stuff, and I'd just love for some sort of fandom to exist.

2) I wish more people shipped Troi/Pulaski. In fact I wish people cared about Pulaski more generally, but Troi/Pulaski is my particular pet ship for her. She's just such a misunderstood and overlooked character (as I've discussed HERE... ;D) I'd like more fanworks for her and them to exist!

3) Jam and Jerusalem has the tiny beginnings of a fandom, but I wish more people would get into it, just because it's so wonderful and there are so many interesting relationships to explore!

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you did not create. See if you can rec fanworks that are less likely to be praised: tiny fandoms, rare pairings, fanworks other than stories, lesser known kinks or tropes. Find fanworks that have few to no comments, or creators new to a particular fandom and maybe aren't well known or appreciated. Appreciate them.


1. Poker Face (the she can read you remix) - by Lorraine - Perhaps it's cheating to rec a remix of one of my own stories, but Lorraine took my initial idea and explored it in ways I hadn't thought of at all. This is a brilliant and sad look at how having an additional sense sometimes makes life more difficult for Deanna Troi. I love Deanna character studies, and I'm fond of young!Deanna, and this story gets it just right.

2. Raven's Honour - by kelly_chambliss - This is a non-magical AU in which Professors McGonagall, Sprout and Hooch open a boarding school for girls. If you're not already clicking on the link, I don't know what else to tell you, to be honest. 

3. Like an Elephant - by biichan - I'm a femslasher in Who fandom, which means I will happily ship any female companion with any other female companion, but Mel/Donna makes more sense to me than most, and this story perfectly illustrates why.

So, Christmas was nice, but it's even nicer to be home! I spent four nights at my dad's place in Wales with him and my brother, and mostly amused myself by rereading the entire Princess Diaries series. I only happened to pick one up because they were there and I didn't want to start anything big before the inevitable books for Christmas, but I got really sucked in.

( Extended rambling about why they're so great... )

In other Christmas news, carawj gives the best presents! I got an awesome poster and t-shirt and many books and I feel like I'm just sitting in a pile of awesome stuff and I don't know what to play with first! 

Also, Yuletide! I got two fics! Both of them really exciting! :D

First of all I got this one:

The Glass of Champagne - Sally Lockhart Mysteries, Becky/Adelaide
It's fun and sweet and the chemistry between them is perfect, as is the dialogue - like another commenter said, it could be a missing scene from the book! I've wanted something like this for so long and now that I have it I just want to wrap myself in it and read it forever and ever and ever!

Then this one for a treat:

She'll Fly True - Once Upon a Time (In Space), Aurora/Nastya
This is my new benchmark for PWP about people doing it with spaceships. It's super-hot as well as adorable. And I think you can read it even if you don't know the fandom (but if you don't, it's a fandom that's totally worth getting to know!) The first time I read it I was so excited I literally bounced and squeaked.

Hope everyone's having a good festive season!

Stolen from netgirl_y2k

( 2012 in fic... )

December seems to be going slower than usual. Think it's because this is the first time in six years that I haven't been doing the Sarah Jane advent calendar. It's kind of sad because I really enjoyed doing it and I always got some lovely feedback, but I can't say I miss having to post something every single day. It's making December more relaxing, not constantly trying to work out what's ready to post and when I can get to a computer.

I finally made a proper start on my Yuletide story and I'm liking the direction it's going. At the moment it's coming in a little short, which is always my problem, but I'm having fun with it and I'm pretty sure I'll figure it out in time.

I'm nearly finished with my The Dark is Rising reread. ( Thoughts under the cut... )

Off to see The Hobbit tonight. I'm quite looking forward to it but I'm nowhere near as excited as most of the other people I know!

 So, I realised I hadn't actually properly posted since I posted about getting engaged, and that was weeks ago!

* Wow, planning a wedding is complicated. I somehow thought everyone else who ever got married in the history of ever was making it up, but it's ALL TRUE. I mean, I understand there are plenty of ways we could have a quiet, simple wedding, but when we both have large families that we love and want to share the day with, it makes it more difficult. Exciting, though!

* Of all the unexpected things, Gilmore Girls has become my new comfort TV. I don't imagine I'll get into the fandom much but it's just really good and low-effort at the end of a long day.

* Really looking forward to Vidukon now the dates have been announced! I need to get cracking on making my premiere. I'm pretty excited about it.

* I'm rereading The Dark Is Rising because it's that time of year. <3

* The last several weeks have been hard work - my pay date changed, and the way they arranged it left me with two weeks' worth of pay to last six weeks, which was no fun. I got my first proper new-date pay at the end of November, and I've mostly spent it on Christmas presents, but hopefully the new year payday will get me back on track.

* Christmas! It's nearly here! Aaaaaaaahhhh! (I like Christmas A LOT, folks.)

* Edit: Forgot to say, and this is interesting - last week I had a root canal, and since then I haven't needed to take any of my TN medication. This could be a coincidence or it could be more. I'm cautiously excited, if a bit annoyed that I was told months ago there was no way it could be connected to anything dental... but TN does go away and come back, so waiting and seeing...

 I'm doing Fandom Stocking again this year! Here's my stocking:

http://fandom-stocking.dreamwidth.org/311792.html#cutid1

Let me know if you have one! 

For anyone who hasn't done it before, it's a really fun and low-pressure exchange, and I always enjoy it. :)

Dear lovely Yuletide person,

( Read my letter here! )