kangeiko

What with one thing and another, I haven't written much this year. What I wrote was almost entirely for challenges, exchanges and fundraisers, with the odd little thing thrown in on the side.

Anyway, first up, yuletide reveal:

A Lie Agreed Upon [Mad Men] for idlerat 
Betty's mom was the one who taught Betty how to do her hair.
This was my assignment, and my first attempt at Mad Men fic. I was quite uncertain about it all the way through, and I'm really grateful to kristin for kicking it into shape. I ended up writing about Betty almost by default, because I've been reading a lot about second-wave feminism recently, and thinking about perfect-things-that-aren't, Betty's homelife of course being one of those. This is set three months before the first episode, in January 1960.

pirate superheroes (explode things and steal stuff) [Nextwave] for jennova 
How to put together an elite fighting team. With bonus lobsters.
This was a pinch-hit I picked up, and then promptly flailed over. Because it turns out that all the ideas I had for this fandom involved visual mediums, rather than pure text. Many, many thanks to Ferret & Lan for betaing, and additional thanks to alasdair for providing a much-needed kick-start by telling me all about Gomi and his cybernetic lobsters. (No, srsly, Marvel, WTF?)

a vision softly creeping [Mad Men] for idlerat 
Midge and Don conduct a business transaction during Blowing Smoke (S4).
So, I completely panicked when writing my main assignment, certain that it just wasn't going to pan out. So I wrote this concurrently, in case A Lie Agreed Upon didn't work out. I'd just seen the episode, and kristin was a star in getting it to make sense.

*

On to the rest of the year, in reverse order:

Partita [Sherlock] for slowascent 
Sometimes John forgot that Sherlock lived in a completely different world.
Written for help_pakistan after many false starts.

contract negotiations (always open with a 'no') [Pretty Woman]
After they rescue each other, the fairytale relocates to New York.
queenspanky and I went to see Pretty Woman. This resulted.

Cut Time [The Big Bang Theory]
Penny hobbled home.
A horrid, mean little fic that I couldn't get out of my head until I wrote it all down.

Roses in December [Alias]
Sometimes, when he is feeling particularly masochistic, Jack likes to pretend that Laura really existed.
I wrote this in about half an hour sitting in the reception area of the Sierra Light House hotel in Freetown, before setting off for a week of field visits.

The Gorgoneion (The Epyllionic Remix) [Greek and Roman Mythology] for trascendenza 
This is no heroic verse.
Yeah, epic poetry in iambic pentameter, it nearly killed me. Many thanks to athena25 for services above and beyond the call of beta-duty.

*

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, it just looks like it.

I spent the weekend with the darling monanotlisa , eating a variety of nice things and drinking a variety of teas (mainly vanilla rooibos - I can't decide if I have a preference between that and caramel rooibos, both are equally delicious although I admit that the caramel flavour is artificially added so I suppose the vanilla has a slight edge). We even ventured outside on occasion... mainly in search of other things to eat, it has to be said. We did go to the circus, but I got upset at the animals, and we'd already eaten the popcorn, so we went back to her apartment and made muffins. (Well. She made the muffins, but we both ate them. Team effort, if you will.) I do confess it is good to be home, though, despite all the real life drama that has been happening in my absence (oh, estate agents, how shite thou art!).

Fandom-wise, I've been discovering the joy of The Big Bang Theory, specifically the sweetness of Sheldon (who is only sweet on screen, if I had to know him in real life he would be the Late Sheldon Cooper), and possibly even acquiring a het ship, in the form of Sheldon/Penny. I KNOW, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? I also totes ship Howard/Raj, though (and occasionally Sheldon/Leonard, and sometimes Sheldon/Raj), so I suppose all is not lost. I might even attempt fic for it, although the humour is very particular and I am still only 1/3 of the way through Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos, and in any case he lost me partway through the frog-in-the-bake-tin explanation of the Higgs field.

I am also working on my help_pakistan fic. The wonderful and generous slowascent won me in the auction, and I will be attempting - gulp - Sherlock fic. That can't be too hard, right? I mean, I've kind of half-written several fics in my head already, I just haven't got around to writing any of them down. Er... well, I have bits of it plotted out in any case, but it turns out writing devilishly intricate and complex murder mysterious is bloody hard; who knew?

I've been on leave for the last week and a half, and have another few days of leave left. Rec me some wonderful stuff to look at online in the meantime, hmmm?