friendshipper

I have been awfully remiss in posting this, but sga_genficathon is live! There will be about 50 stories posted over the next two weeks ('til May 14). From what I've seen of the stories, there is a fantastic variety of character, theme and subject matter (the stories that are posted so far include everything from a fast-paced team caper story to one about Alicia Vega grappling with DADT in the Mensaverse). And thank you again to tipper_green, kyuuketsukirui and greyias for posting the anon stories ... so I don't have to! (Poor Tipper. She will probably never volunteer to do anything for me ever again.)

team_sga is also live with their Team AU festival -- and my posting day is tomorrow, so you can look forward to my wee!Team story then.

Misc other fanfic I've read lately that's good...

Pamphlets by shati (Good Omens, gen, G-ish, Aziraphale with a bit of Crowley) - I haven't read Good Omens fic in forever, but I read this and was reminded all over again why I love the characters so much. Oh, Aziraphale ... dorkiest angel ever.

Modern Love by penknife (Discworld, PG-13, mostly OCs and various OC pairings more hinted at than seen) - okay, so this has been read and rec'd everywhere by now, but I loved this story so much. Written for lgbtfest, it's a brilliant look at the complexities of dwarf sexuality and how Ankh-Morpork's different social mores are affecting them -- which probably sounds awfully dry, but it's really not; the author's got a great feel for Pratchett's narrative voice and this seriously reads like something that could be slotted into one of the books. I loved the OCs too.

Okay, so I created an account at Dreamwidth ... but I thought that you could associate a DW account with an OpenID account to link up comments and have my "circle" port over from one to the other. Has anyone else done this? How'd you do it? Or is that part of the site not working yet?

oh my god, this commercial is so, so, SO wrong on pretty much every level that I cannot stop laughing at it (at least partly in horrified amazement that it's an actual commercial and not an SNL parody commercial). The shaved cat! THE TULIPS.

You know what I need, I think? A new series of books to be hooked on. It was so lovely to sink into the new Dresden Files book, but it was all over so quickly and now I have to wait for the next one. *chews nails* My reading has been falling off lately -- I'll start books and then abandon them -- and I think a lot of it is because what I really want right now is to fall in love with some characters and spend a lot of quality time with them. Most of what I've been reading lately have been stand-alone genre and literary-type books, but I'm finding them harder to get into. Since I'm not really following any TV shows avidly at the moment, I think that I need to find me some good, escapist brain candy to satisfy my mental sweet tooth.

Recommendations? I'd prefer books with SF or fantasy elements, but I'm open to anything else, too, if you know of something that's good. If you've been reading my journal for any length of time, you probably know what I go for: ensemble casts with relationships more complicated than just "boy meets girl, love at first sight", strong friendships, quality world-building. I like to be surprised and to have a story take me places I'm not expecting. I like genre-mixing (steampunk SF, mystery fantasy). I'm very character-focused; I like to follow the same characters over years and watch them grow and change. I am an absolute sucker for ambiguous and flawed heroes, ambiguous and likable villains, and enemies forced to work together for the common good. I like explosions, and as much as I adore solid world-building, I get bored with infodumps and florid writing very quickly.

A few of the series that are the sort of thing I'm looking for right now:

- Death Gate (Weiss & Hickman)
- Dark Tower (King)
- Discworld
- Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books
- Coldfire (C.S. Friedman)
- Tobias Buckell's Xenowealth books

I've tried both Lynn Flewelling and Janny Wurts and just couldn't get into either one (sorry, xparrot!). I also haven't tried George RR Martin because I'm scared XD, though I have the first Song of Ice and Fire book sitting in my to-read pile in case I manage to get over the fact that everyone keeps telling me these books will rip my heart into a million shreds and dance on the pieces.

1. I got assorted phone calling done today - updated my credit card with the phone company, called the water truck people and let them know that they really shouldn't try to get the truck up our driveway until after the melt is over (we have our water delivered to a holding tank via tanker truck - not that uncommon in Fairbanks), etc. *checks stuff off list happily*

2. Bunnies! There are snowshoe hares all over the place. I looked out the window this morning and counted four white hares hopping around out in the yard. Some people consider them a pest, but I don't; I don't bother them, and they don't bother me. Having a lot of wildlife around the place is one of the things I really like about living in Alaska.

Today's happy is getting a Dreamwidth invite code -- squee! \o/ I used it on my personal account, not this one, because I had liked the idea of moving that one somewhere fresh anyway. (You're not missing much; it's mainly just random little anecdotes about my life and staying in touch with old friends from college etc.) So I've been poking around, customizing, and exploring. I used their import feature to move all my old posts over, with comments -- it took about an hour to finish, and seemed to get everything, as far as I can tell. Very cool! Works as advertised!

Today's other happy is this story by vain_glorious: Men in Stiff Procession (SGA, gen, PG, about 21,000 words). There has been a real dearth of plotty team fics lately, and I really loved this one. I already rec'd it at stargategenrec but figured that I'd rec it here too, for those who don't follow that community. It's an AU of "Inquisition" in which Sheppard is exiled by the tribunal and subsequently declared dead by the SGC when he can't be found; Mitchell is brought in to take over as military commander of Atlantis. I am not a Cameron fan, but I surprised myself by really enjoying him in this -- I loved his outside POV on Atlantis as he tries to fit into a group of people who resent him for stepping into Sheppard's shoes, and his observations on the team members and their dynamic in Sheppard's absence was really interesting. (The story actually begins here with a brief "Inquisition" coda; the much longer story is a sort of sequel to it.) If you want to know if this one is a deathfic or not before reading it, highlight the span-coded text (spoils the ending!): Not a deathfic; there is a happy ending.

Today's happy: my Dresden Files book is here! \o/ *runs off to read*

I was tagged! I don't necessarily do tag-memes unless I want to, and I don't tag people, but I was thinking this one looked fun anyway; I enjoy looking on my f'list and seeing "days of happy" posts.

EIGHT DAYS OF HAPPY!

1. Post about something that made you happy today, even if it's just a small thing.
2. Do this every day for eight days.
3. Tag eight of your friends to do the same.

1. Well, today's big happy is of course this: Vermont becomes 4th state to legalize same-sex marriage. This also kinda clinches it: if we ever move somewhere other than Alaska, Vermont is at the top of the list. On a driving trip with my sister two years ago, I fell in love with their gorgeous mountains and waterfalls and little mill towns. And I really can't tell you how well a state with gay marriage and some of the most permissive gun laws in the country fits the political profile of this household. *g*

(I think the bit that really got me in the article was the maple syrup farmer who came down to the capital for the passing of the bill. Because "rural" does not have to be synonymous with "close-minded", "bigoted" or "redneck".)

2. The sun is out, and it's supposed to get above freezing every day this week! I'm thoroughly ready to get rid of some of this snow.

3. Yesterday I did a cleaning job on the upstairs that really needed to be done, and it makes me happy to look around and see my office space all tidy -- not immaculate (I don't think I'm capable of that), but not taunting me with a massive cleaning job that needed doing, either.

4. I'm happy for the people on my f'list who are heading into Passover and Easter, because it makes them happy. Those aren't my holidays, but going on my f'list and seeing people making preparations to celebrate their holidays with family and friends definitely makes me happy.

So, found via cathexys, a video link to the last few minutes of the U.S. Life on Mars season finale. (Obviously, if you go there, expect to be spoiled.) I haven't been watching the remake for probably self-evident reasons, but I was curious, so I clicked on the link.

Seen it? Okay ... ( WHAT THE EVER-LOVING WTF )

I wrote, posted and then privatized a long, rambly entry about my life -- it was more stuff I was working out in my own head than stuff I wanted the whole Internet to know, I decided. Short version, though, is that I might be going back to school this fall to finish my degree, over a decade after I dropped out. *flails*

Random fic rec: Notes on the Fridge (Being Human; slight George/Mitchell or could just be seen as the boys being silly and flirty). I love picture-fic/letter-fic/document fic (whatever you want to call it) and this is adorable -- Mitchell and George communicating via notes stuck on the refrigerator.

zvi_likes_tv has an excellent post on how to get a Dreamwidth account and what your options are: How do *you* get a Dreamwidth? Edit: And there's also a dw-codesharing community for getting an invite code (and hence a free account) if you don't know someone who has a DW journal. I should note in passing that accounts still aren't open yet, except to a small pool of beta testers, not until April 30.

At Metafandom, I ran across a good post on keeping your fannish identity anonymous. (People have probably noticed that I don't struggle particularly hard to keep my identities separate, though I'm starting to think I might oughta be a little more careful. I don't mind fandom people knowing my RL identity; it's the other way around that I'd really rather not.)

Last month, I rec'd John/Rodney friendship at stargateficrec; this month I've signed up for the Hurt/Comfort category (and possibly the Rodney category as well, but I'm not sure if I got my pick in time.) The category was in danger of being eliminated because it hadn't been rec'd in awhile, and we can't have that, can we? The only problem I think I'm going to have is narrowing it down! Do any of you have suggestions for your very most favorite SGA h/c fics? I'm just looking at my saved SGA fics (... almost a thousand of them in the folder) and realizing that over half of them would qualify for this category! So point me to a few of your faves; I'm mostly just looking for a good starting point, and to see if there's anything out there that I don't know about! Any characters/pairings can be involved, in any combination.

Edit: Oh, right, and it's April 1! It's always fun to see what people are doing around the internets. Check out Think Geek's homepage (squeeze bacon! USB pet rocks!). Over at little_details, a community where people post research questions for their stories, everyone is posting their questions today in the form of LOLcat macros, which is totally cracking me up. Edit2: Bwahaha, and Google has supposedly turned their operations over to an AI (run amok). It's obsessed with pandas; check out the image search page. The Gmail Autopilot page is my favorite part so far, though...