Gigantic post of Yuletide glee!
God, I bookmarked WAY too much fic. Seriously. You're going to be able to figure out which story I wrote by picking the one story out of the archive that I didn't rec. OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration.
So here's how it's gonna divvy up:
WHAT IS MAKING ME ALL GLEEFUL:
Corner Gas: Twenty-Two Short Films About Dog River, except they're not films, they're stories, and there's more like several altogether than twenty-two, but they are fairly short. "I didn't mean to question the food at the Ruby. I was sleeping!" Brent says. "And it's cold out and my pyjamas are too small. And pink. Too pink. Normally I like cowboys and robots, but someone didn't have any of those." Mine!! :D
**
WHAT YOU POSITIVELY CAN'T MISS:
Friday Night Lights: 40 Miles North of Presidio. Riggins. Only he could manage to fuck up running away quite this bad. It has a shorter coda, too: Falling Quiet.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: Boom Boom. "Do you have to do this every time? No, no, yes, yes? It's tired," he said, and licked my ear. Oddly enough, this cracked-out threesome porn manages to stay more loyal to its source material than almost anything else on this list. The dialogue, OMG.
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Natural Theology. X doesn't believe in Fred, but Henrietta's not given up hope.
Prince of Egypt: I sayeth unto thee. Father will not be pleased. But Father does not understand how much Rameses needs this. Brotherhood. Boyhood. An hour's worth of not being the divine light of his people.
Pulp Fiction: The Jimmie Situation. You have been victorious. I didn't know this needed explaining until it got explained to me in this fic.
Pushing Daisies: Twice Upon a Time. It wasn't the done thing to insert yourself into the narrative - not among the narrator's circle of friends. Oh, there were those who did it, but it was considered a little tacky, a little déclassé. Cheeky is the only word for this. Oh, and wonderful!
RPF - American Frontier: Every Land. Lewis & Clark. I have no quote, since this is practically a novella. If you only listen to one thing I say, ever, go read this one.
The Simpsons: The Fearless Moral Inventory of Milhouse Van Houten. He gets really into telling the truth.
**
WHAT YOU SHOULDN'T MISS:
The 10th Kingdom: And They All Lived. The daughter was a heroine, the daughter was a waitress. It takes guts to be as boldly schmoopy as the miniseries was, and this author does it proudly :)
Blades of Glory: Five Very Important Life Lessons. Thank god for snowbanks - mother nature's airbag, that's what the nuns at the orphanage had always called them.
Bound: Two of Hearts. "Fuck you. We did this so I wouldn't have to work anything else again. I shot a man dead for you and you still wonder if I'm in this." The cadence of every single one of Violet's lines is absolutely perfect.
The Breakfast Club: state of imaginary grace. Brian Johnson/John Bender. He had no idea what to do, or what to say, so he let John be the judge of that, because John could always be counted on to say something, even if that something was exactly the wrong thing to say at exactly the wrong time.
Bringing Up Baby: Havana Honeymoon. "Maybe," Susan conceded with a grin. "But I wouldn't worry about it for a while. Havana is the most worldly, least-likely-to-turn Red, sort of place you can imagine." Oh my GOD, the dialogue.
Deadwood: The Founding of the Famous Gem Saloon and Other Historic Tales of the Early Days of the Camp of Deadwood. He thinks sometimes that Al Swearengen can see the future. Not like a fortune teller or any such horseshit, but like a man who knows the evil in men's hearts and how that evil reflects itself into the world; its patterns and shapes. Three different angles, in orbit around Swearengen.
Dinosaur Comics: Insecurity Comics. "God, it's not fair for you to mock me." I reaaaally wanted to write this, and I would have ruined it completely.
Drop Dead Gorgeous: I'll Fit Everything I Need In My Double-Wide. Annette & Loretta! It had just seemed...right, like a smoke first thing in the morning, or going for the highlights in her hair.
Empire Records: One Two Many. Gina's been shocked to realize, this past year, that being in a band isn't particularly dire; it's mostly nights like this, fooling around with her friends, singing songs they only half-know, gasping at the cold when they step outside, equipment hefted onto their backs.
Fairy Tales (Trad): What The Pea Proved. The king and queen had clasped hands, right there on the table, their plates empty. They watched Sari hungrily, as if she were the meal.
Freaks and Geeks: Stray. Kim Kelly. Being a bitch translates really well into law.
Freaks and Geeks: Gettin' In Tune. That, plus her faux rebellion and stupid decisions and just that look she gets on her face like she's waiting so desperately to fit somewhere, they all twist in his guts and it completely sucks. Oh, Ken.
Friday Night Lights: The Biggest Win. Coach/Mrs. Coach. Everything Tami says in this is so perfectly in her voice!
Friends: Halfway Enough. And one day Emma is going to be a teenager and not want to come home from work every day and paint her nails with her mother, and the thought of Rachel coming home to a big empty house in the middle of a development and heating up tv dinners (because why would she cook for only herself?)...was terrifying.
House of Wax: Miss Ambrose. The clerk flirts with him, but Nick's more uncomfortable with all that shit than ever and just scowls. Scowling's what he's good at. Total guilty pleasure, until you click and it turns out to be so well-written.
Kill Bill: Hanso's Sword. He looked at her differently, after she'd come back from China. Not with a pride that came from ownership, like most men might have felt in his situation. But a pride of... accomplishment. As if she were a symphony he had written.
Kill Bill: Dreams. They despise each other -- they always have, even when Bill was alive -- but now they also need each other. They're the two survivors. The two not worthy enough for Beatrix Kiddo to bother finishing off. Three related ficlets.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: The Other Line. "Whatever you're doing, stop it," Perry said over the speakerphone. "Whatever is in your hands, put it down. And then don't fucking move. You hear me, Harry? Don't. Move. I'll be there in three minutes." Oh, Perry.
Latter Days: Once Upon A Midnight Dreary. Aaron can't dance for shit. It's kind of hilarious, like watching a Muppet fall down the stairs. Nawww, the little details.
Little Miss Sunshine: a fucking conversation about whatever. "When did you know?" Dwayne jerks his eyes away from him and looks up at the crack on the ceiling, instead. Actually, there are two cracks, they just criss-cross each other.
Mary Poppins: Where The Air Is Clear. But the cathedral looked so sad and valiant in that deep gold light, even though the black smoke from the last air raid still hung around it like a shroud. It seemed wrong to leave it; some Londoner, someone who loved it ought to keep it company when the Germans started dropping their bombs again.
Mary Poppins: Where you are young the world is a ferris wheel. Bert counts the lines of the rainbow; there are more than he'd ever imagined, more colors than he even knew existed before today. He thinks that maybe, when he's grown, he'll paint portraits with colors not yet invented.
Night At The Museum: Playing Nice. Jedediah strode up and clapped Octavius on the back. "Hey, buddy," he said, smiling around at the circle, "Hey, guys, how's the standing in lines and holding spears? Better than last night?" At some point last year I was going to request this, and then didn't. :)
Northern Exposure: Strangers In A Strange Land. Ten different fandoms come into contact with the denizens of Cicely, Alaska. Sweet, strange and a little deranged.
Ocean's Eleven: Boy Wonder. "We're screwing with him now?" Rusty asks dryly. "I thought we weren't doing that until two-thirty. You changed that plan, too, Danny? You couldn't send out a memo?"
Ocean's Eleven: everything looks perfect from far away. They take turns napping. Rusty spends most of the trip pocketing the small, valuable articles that their fellow first-class passengers inevitably leave unattended. Danny wakes up and slips them back into pockets and bags and overheads. Rusty pretends not to notice.
The Princess Bride: There Will Be No Survivors (Except for the Survivors Behind the Curtain, But Pay No Attention to Them). Inigo took his stance again, sword raised with a bit more mettle this time. "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. I've captured your ship. Prepare to die."
Pushing Daisies: This Other Life. Ned got flustered when she talked about herself, her death, her life, them, their work, his powers or his relationship with Digby (effectively narrowing down their conversation to movies and pies).
Pushing Daisies: lonely tourist in a summer dress. Ned/Chuck/Olive. The three of them were sleeping with the wall to separate them: cotton, air, the opaque haze of dream in which they reached out across the space between the beds but did not touch each other.
RPF - The Office (US): we've learned to hide our bottles in the well. It's a warm cold outside, the type of cold just before snow. He breathes on the window and writes HELLO backwards with his finger in the fog. John leans over him and writes HELP underneath. This is exactly one of my requests, even though it wasn't written for me. Win!
Superbad: Bullshit. "Remember the time we went sledding?" Evan asked. He clutched the orange plastic toboggan he had toted down the stairs defensively, prepared to deflect any blows aimed at the genital region.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down. "He was gonna kill us?" asked Theodore. He made a cross in front of himself and began to pray: "Lo, though I walk through the uncanny valley, I will hold no fear." That line wins my geek award of the year.
So here's how it's gonna divvy up:
WHAT IS MAKING ME ALL GLEEFUL:
Corner Gas: Twenty-Two Short Films About Dog River, except they're not films, they're stories, and there's more like several altogether than twenty-two, but they are fairly short. "I didn't mean to question the food at the Ruby. I was sleeping!" Brent says. "And it's cold out and my pyjamas are too small. And pink. Too pink. Normally I like cowboys and robots, but someone didn't have any of those." Mine!! :D
**
WHAT YOU POSITIVELY CAN'T MISS:
Friday Night Lights: 40 Miles North of Presidio. Riggins. Only he could manage to fuck up running away quite this bad. It has a shorter coda, too: Falling Quiet.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: Boom Boom. "Do you have to do this every time? No, no, yes, yes? It's tired," he said, and licked my ear. Oddly enough, this cracked-out threesome porn manages to stay more loyal to its source material than almost anything else on this list. The dialogue, OMG.
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Natural Theology. X doesn't believe in Fred, but Henrietta's not given up hope.
Prince of Egypt: I sayeth unto thee. Father will not be pleased. But Father does not understand how much Rameses needs this. Brotherhood. Boyhood. An hour's worth of not being the divine light of his people.
Pulp Fiction: The Jimmie Situation. You have been victorious. I didn't know this needed explaining until it got explained to me in this fic.
Pushing Daisies: Twice Upon a Time. It wasn't the done thing to insert yourself into the narrative - not among the narrator's circle of friends. Oh, there were those who did it, but it was considered a little tacky, a little déclassé. Cheeky is the only word for this. Oh, and wonderful!
RPF - American Frontier: Every Land. Lewis & Clark. I have no quote, since this is practically a novella. If you only listen to one thing I say, ever, go read this one.
The Simpsons: The Fearless Moral Inventory of Milhouse Van Houten. He gets really into telling the truth.
**
WHAT YOU SHOULDN'T MISS:
The 10th Kingdom: And They All Lived. The daughter was a heroine, the daughter was a waitress. It takes guts to be as boldly schmoopy as the miniseries was, and this author does it proudly :)
Blades of Glory: Five Very Important Life Lessons. Thank god for snowbanks - mother nature's airbag, that's what the nuns at the orphanage had always called them.
Bound: Two of Hearts. "Fuck you. We did this so I wouldn't have to work anything else again. I shot a man dead for you and you still wonder if I'm in this." The cadence of every single one of Violet's lines is absolutely perfect.
The Breakfast Club: state of imaginary grace. Brian Johnson/John Bender. He had no idea what to do, or what to say, so he let John be the judge of that, because John could always be counted on to say something, even if that something was exactly the wrong thing to say at exactly the wrong time.
Bringing Up Baby: Havana Honeymoon. "Maybe," Susan conceded with a grin. "But I wouldn't worry about it for a while. Havana is the most worldly, least-likely-to-turn Red, sort of place you can imagine." Oh my GOD, the dialogue.
Deadwood: The Founding of the Famous Gem Saloon and Other Historic Tales of the Early Days of the Camp of Deadwood. He thinks sometimes that Al Swearengen can see the future. Not like a fortune teller or any such horseshit, but like a man who knows the evil in men's hearts and how that evil reflects itself into the world; its patterns and shapes. Three different angles, in orbit around Swearengen.
Dinosaur Comics: Insecurity Comics. "God, it's not fair for you to mock me." I reaaaally wanted to write this, and I would have ruined it completely.
Drop Dead Gorgeous: I'll Fit Everything I Need In My Double-Wide. Annette & Loretta! It had just seemed...right, like a smoke first thing in the morning, or going for the highlights in her hair.
Empire Records: One Two Many. Gina's been shocked to realize, this past year, that being in a band isn't particularly dire; it's mostly nights like this, fooling around with her friends, singing songs they only half-know, gasping at the cold when they step outside, equipment hefted onto their backs.
Fairy Tales (Trad): What The Pea Proved. The king and queen had clasped hands, right there on the table, their plates empty. They watched Sari hungrily, as if she were the meal.
Freaks and Geeks: Stray. Kim Kelly. Being a bitch translates really well into law.
Freaks and Geeks: Gettin' In Tune. That, plus her faux rebellion and stupid decisions and just that look she gets on her face like she's waiting so desperately to fit somewhere, they all twist in his guts and it completely sucks. Oh, Ken.
Friday Night Lights: The Biggest Win. Coach/Mrs. Coach. Everything Tami says in this is so perfectly in her voice!
Friends: Halfway Enough. And one day Emma is going to be a teenager and not want to come home from work every day and paint her nails with her mother, and the thought of Rachel coming home to a big empty house in the middle of a development and heating up tv dinners (because why would she cook for only herself?)...was terrifying.
House of Wax: Miss Ambrose. The clerk flirts with him, but Nick's more uncomfortable with all that shit than ever and just scowls. Scowling's what he's good at. Total guilty pleasure, until you click and it turns out to be so well-written.
Kill Bill: Hanso's Sword. He looked at her differently, after she'd come back from China. Not with a pride that came from ownership, like most men might have felt in his situation. But a pride of... accomplishment. As if she were a symphony he had written.
Kill Bill: Dreams. They despise each other -- they always have, even when Bill was alive -- but now they also need each other. They're the two survivors. The two not worthy enough for Beatrix Kiddo to bother finishing off. Three related ficlets.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: The Other Line. "Whatever you're doing, stop it," Perry said over the speakerphone. "Whatever is in your hands, put it down. And then don't fucking move. You hear me, Harry? Don't. Move. I'll be there in three minutes." Oh, Perry.
Latter Days: Once Upon A Midnight Dreary. Aaron can't dance for shit. It's kind of hilarious, like watching a Muppet fall down the stairs. Nawww, the little details.
Little Miss Sunshine: a fucking conversation about whatever. "When did you know?" Dwayne jerks his eyes away from him and looks up at the crack on the ceiling, instead. Actually, there are two cracks, they just criss-cross each other.
Mary Poppins: Where The Air Is Clear. But the cathedral looked so sad and valiant in that deep gold light, even though the black smoke from the last air raid still hung around it like a shroud. It seemed wrong to leave it; some Londoner, someone who loved it ought to keep it company when the Germans started dropping their bombs again.
Mary Poppins: Where you are young the world is a ferris wheel. Bert counts the lines of the rainbow; there are more than he'd ever imagined, more colors than he even knew existed before today. He thinks that maybe, when he's grown, he'll paint portraits with colors not yet invented.
Night At The Museum: Playing Nice. Jedediah strode up and clapped Octavius on the back. "Hey, buddy," he said, smiling around at the circle, "Hey, guys, how's the standing in lines and holding spears? Better than last night?" At some point last year I was going to request this, and then didn't. :)
Northern Exposure: Strangers In A Strange Land. Ten different fandoms come into contact with the denizens of Cicely, Alaska. Sweet, strange and a little deranged.
Ocean's Eleven: Boy Wonder. "We're screwing with him now?" Rusty asks dryly. "I thought we weren't doing that until two-thirty. You changed that plan, too, Danny? You couldn't send out a memo?"
Ocean's Eleven: everything looks perfect from far away. They take turns napping. Rusty spends most of the trip pocketing the small, valuable articles that their fellow first-class passengers inevitably leave unattended. Danny wakes up and slips them back into pockets and bags and overheads. Rusty pretends not to notice.
The Princess Bride: There Will Be No Survivors (Except for the Survivors Behind the Curtain, But Pay No Attention to Them). Inigo took his stance again, sword raised with a bit more mettle this time. "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. I've captured your ship. Prepare to die."
Pushing Daisies: This Other Life. Ned got flustered when she talked about herself, her death, her life, them, their work, his powers or his relationship with Digby (effectively narrowing down their conversation to movies and pies).
Pushing Daisies: lonely tourist in a summer dress. Ned/Chuck/Olive. The three of them were sleeping with the wall to separate them: cotton, air, the opaque haze of dream in which they reached out across the space between the beds but did not touch each other.
RPF - The Office (US): we've learned to hide our bottles in the well. It's a warm cold outside, the type of cold just before snow. He breathes on the window and writes HELLO backwards with his finger in the fog. John leans over him and writes HELP underneath. This is exactly one of my requests, even though it wasn't written for me. Win!
Superbad: Bullshit. "Remember the time we went sledding?" Evan asked. He clutched the orange plastic toboggan he had toted down the stairs defensively, prepared to deflect any blows aimed at the genital region.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down. "He was gonna kill us?" asked Theodore. He made a cross in front of himself and began to pray: "Lo, though I walk through the uncanny valley, I will hold no fear." That line wins my geek award of the year.