And may all your Christmases be white.
Irving Berlin has a lot to answer for. Nice Jewish girl that I am (mostly), I have this firm belief that December 25th should have snow involved, even though it rarely does. There was snow this year, leftover from last weekend's storm, so I was a very happy bunny.
All the things that made this week lovely and wonderful:
To go back and cover some of those points in more detail and because the next section includes SPOILERS for the two movies and Doctor Who, I shall institute the time honoured custom of cutting.
My present was On the First Date and I absolutely adore it. *bounces* You should all go read it, even if you don't know Wizards and Warriors
I ended up writing eight fics:
1 Assignment
2 Pinch Hits
5 Madness fics
For anyone who can identify three or more of the fics I wrote (note that the yuletidemadness collection is not open yet, so not all my fics are available), I will make one icon per fic you correctly identify for you from the picture of your choosing. Note that if you betaed one or more of my fics, it does not count towards the three fic minimum, but I will make you an icon for it.
Being Jewish, I have no Christmas commitments of the family sort, so I developed the habit of picking something special to do for me (a movie, a stack of new books, etc). Over the years this has grown to include Yuletide and Doctor Who, and this year my friends and I went to see two movies.
The Princess and the Frog was brilliant, and while my heart will always belong to Belle and her books, Tiana has taken second place in my heart, and I want her dresses. I think the representation of New Orleans was a bit stereotypical, but I loved Tiana's work ethic and determination and the way she discovered there was more to life than just work. It would have been so easy to make the white girl the villain, so I loved that while selfish and oblivious she did have a good heart (and was clearly color-blind) - where Disney fails so often is in the shades-of-gray type characterization. Is the Disney Store selling Princess and the Frog stuff yet? I also need the soundtrack. And a cookbook would be a nice tie-in.
I knew Sherlock Holmes wasn't going to be slavishly canonical before I saw it, so I went in expecting what I got - a rip-roaring buddy adventure. What I didn't expect was Irene Adler to be quite so lovely and capable, and my love for Mary was cemented when she met Sherlock for the first time and threw a glass of wine in his face. Now I want OT4 fic about them all being amazing. Also there's clearly seeds for a sequel and I want it NOW!
Then we came back to my place to watch the first half of Rusty's & Ten's swan songs.
There really isn't much to say. He stole from everywhere, and put together a relatively incoherent plot, held together with duct tape and wire, and thrown at you at an amazing speed. But I'm not ashamed to admit that I watch Rusty's over the top episodes for that roller coaster ride, holding on tightly and desperately hoping that this time he won't crash and burn. And aside from the totally WTF ending, I liked this better than last year. The Master will always be my favorite Doctor Who villan, and I liked that Donna was kept in the background so that Wilf got a chance to shine.
ETA: The Advent Calendar nailed it today. I've been lukewarm about the official calendar this year (though the Sarah Jane Wardrobe Appreciation Society one was brilliant), but this was just the perfect follow-up to the episode.
Out of order, but I have to go back to the bit about the Simplicity Pattern sale. I'd been waiting for a sale so that I could buy this pattern for my brother's dog, Jeeves. I'd shown it to his girlfriend, half-jokingly, and she said she thought it was just Jeeves' style. So I will be making it. While I was on the site, I went looking for a vest pattern that would fit, and stumbled on this which was precisely the style I wanted for a vest for Sarah Jane cosplay at Gallifrey. I didn't notice at the time that the pattern also included a shirt that looks a lot like the ones she was wearing in the 2nd series of SJA. These patterns also continue my habit of jumping off at the deep end, as there are techniques in them that I'm not sure I understand yet. Something to contemplate next year.
I am contemplating a Sarah Jane Watch/Listen Along on the sarahjane_fic comm next year. I don't want to leave out the audios, but at a story a week, getting from The Time Warrior to Enemy of the Bane will take a year, and I'd sort of like to be done by September, pending a fourth series. Opinions and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
All the things that made this week lovely and wonderful:
- Staying up until all hours of the night writing for Yuletide.
- The stories I wrote for Yuletide.
- #yuletide - IRC chat.
- #yuletide - Twitter hash tag.
- Getting a gift fic notice from AO3 and double checking to discover that no, someone hadn't tagged a fic wrong, it was an import from a ficathon held ages ago.
- Reading that fic again. :)
- Peppermint and Wintergreen being adorable.
- Simplicity finally having a sale on patterns.
- Frantically writing treats on December 24th.
- Writing one last treat when the opening of the archive was delayed an hour.
- Getting the notice: You have a gift fic. :D
- Wizards and Warriors fic. Yum!
- The line from early on in said fic: "He'd gotten fourteen messengers, eight carrier pigeons, a specially trained lightning hawk, and three bards killed, but finally his perseverance had paid off." Well, that and a visit to the tannery for a present. - Geoffrey in a nutshell.
- Spending Christmas Day with two friends.
- Thinking about gift-fics for my betas who were lovely and insightful and made my stories that much better.
- The Princess and the Frog is so much love.
- Ditto Sherlock Holmes.
- The End of Time part 1 being vintage Rusty "what were you smoking" crack.
To go back and cover some of those points in more detail and because the next section includes SPOILERS for the two movies and Doctor Who, I shall institute the time honoured custom of cutting.
My present was On the First Date and I absolutely adore it. *bounces* You should all go read it, even if you don't know Wizards and Warriors
I ended up writing eight fics:
1 Assignment
2 Pinch Hits
5 Madness fics
For anyone who can identify three or more of the fics I wrote (note that the yuletidemadness collection is not open yet, so not all my fics are available), I will make one icon per fic you correctly identify for you from the picture of your choosing. Note that if you betaed one or more of my fics, it does not count towards the three fic minimum, but I will make you an icon for it.
Being Jewish, I have no Christmas commitments of the family sort, so I developed the habit of picking something special to do for me (a movie, a stack of new books, etc). Over the years this has grown to include Yuletide and Doctor Who, and this year my friends and I went to see two movies.
The Princess and the Frog was brilliant, and while my heart will always belong to Belle and her books, Tiana has taken second place in my heart, and I want her dresses. I think the representation of New Orleans was a bit stereotypical, but I loved Tiana's work ethic and determination and the way she discovered there was more to life than just work. It would have been so easy to make the white girl the villain, so I loved that while selfish and oblivious she did have a good heart (and was clearly color-blind) - where Disney fails so often is in the shades-of-gray type characterization. Is the Disney Store selling Princess and the Frog stuff yet? I also need the soundtrack. And a cookbook would be a nice tie-in.
I knew Sherlock Holmes wasn't going to be slavishly canonical before I saw it, so I went in expecting what I got - a rip-roaring buddy adventure. What I didn't expect was Irene Adler to be quite so lovely and capable, and my love for Mary was cemented when she met Sherlock for the first time and threw a glass of wine in his face. Now I want OT4 fic about them all being amazing. Also there's clearly seeds for a sequel and I want it NOW!
Then we came back to my place to watch the first half of Rusty's & Ten's swan songs.
There really isn't much to say. He stole from everywhere, and put together a relatively incoherent plot, held together with duct tape and wire, and thrown at you at an amazing speed. But I'm not ashamed to admit that I watch Rusty's over the top episodes for that roller coaster ride, holding on tightly and desperately hoping that this time he won't crash and burn. And aside from the totally WTF ending, I liked this better than last year. The Master will always be my favorite Doctor Who villan, and I liked that Donna was kept in the background so that Wilf got a chance to shine.
ETA: The Advent Calendar nailed it today. I've been lukewarm about the official calendar this year (though the Sarah Jane Wardrobe Appreciation Society one was brilliant), but this was just the perfect follow-up to the episode.
Out of order, but I have to go back to the bit about the Simplicity Pattern sale. I'd been waiting for a sale so that I could buy this pattern for my brother's dog, Jeeves. I'd shown it to his girlfriend, half-jokingly, and she said she thought it was just Jeeves' style. So I will be making it. While I was on the site, I went looking for a vest pattern that would fit, and stumbled on this which was precisely the style I wanted for a vest for Sarah Jane cosplay at Gallifrey. I didn't notice at the time that the pattern also included a shirt that looks a lot like the ones she was wearing in the 2nd series of SJA. These patterns also continue my habit of jumping off at the deep end, as there are techniques in them that I'm not sure I understand yet. Something to contemplate next year.
I am contemplating a Sarah Jane Watch/Listen Along on the sarahjane_fic comm next year. I don't want to leave out the audios, but at a story a week, getting from The Time Warrior to Enemy of the Bane will take a year, and I'd sort of like to be done by September, pending a fourth series. Opinions and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.