the sun and the moon and the stars

I am home, Internets! I had a lovely Christmas with my family (now with bonus Chris!) and it was generally relaxing, apart from the actual travel portion, thankyou holiday traffic. (That thankyou was a lie.)

Things are back to normal now - Chris is back to working from the office again, which means I have the house to myself during the day, which means I can be productive again. (Chris working home was entirely lovely, but it was way too easy to distract myself with his presence. :)) I have a looot to catch up on, so it'll be valuable.

*

I saw The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug at the cinema on Boxing Day with Chris and my dad. Thoughts behind the cut: ( mildly spoilery. )

*

Other than that, I got a lovely Elementary story for Yuletide:

1, 2, 3, 4, tell me what you're looking for (1180 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Elementary (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Joan Watson (Elementary), Sherlock Holmes
Summary:

otherwise known as: 10 moments from Joan Watson's new life as a consulting detective, with occasional guest stars.

Entirely recommended. Thankyou, thankyou, mystery author!

I have not done any other Yuletide reading yet, apart from two or three recs of the "drop everything and read this" variety. I hope to rectify this soon!

*

And finally, I owe one more post for the December talking meme, but I am behind on things, and it still needs a bit of thought to articulate what I mean to say, so I shall leave that for next post. :)

I don't know how I'd not read this before, but on my insomnia-fueled fic trawl I found this:

A Cry Answered (5479 words) by imperfectcircle
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pacific Rim (2013)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Stacker Pentecost & Mako Mori
Characters: Stacker Pentecost, Mako Mori
Additional Tags: Found Family, Original Female Character - Freeform, Code Switching, year in the life
Summary:

Fuyumi can read between the lines of Mako’s file. The justification for having Mako on the base is paper thin -- strings have been pulled and favours have been bartered, and somewhere along the line someone decided Fuyumi was the perfect combination of talent and expendability to be brought into this mess. It’s only slightly closer to a compliment than an insult -- the balance tipped by the child at the centre of this, nine years old and heart-breakingly brave.

-- Scenes from the year after Stacker and Mako first meet.

It is lovely. Very lovely.

So I figured I'd put together a list of my favourite stories from 2010 (though some may be a little older).

Killing Elvis by hradzka - Aliens fandom, OFCs and OMCs. A hilarious epistolary fic and one of the breakout hits of Yuletide 2009.

Almost No One Makes It Out by atrata, a brilliant and incisive Iron Man AU, casting Tony as himself - but without the class and wealth privilege.

水火 by trascendenza, an Avatar: the Last Airbender story. It's an amazing look at Azula post-series, coming back to herself and finding a new way to live.

The One Where The Fire Nation Clearly Loses, another Avatar fic by Miarr. Hot, funny Sokka/Zuko porn with spot-on voices. (I just reread it and oh, SOKKA.) Normally I am not one for stories that are pure porn, but this one's hilarious because it's porn.

Enigmatic Absurdities by Eponine, a House/Angel crossover where House winds up trying to diagnose what's wrong with Angel. It's four years old but I only stumbled across it this year so it might be new to some of y'all too.

Nerds of the Earth, take note! by brown_betty, an Iron Man/Leverage crossover where Hardison gets coerced into doing a job for SHIELD.

Agent Afloat Atlantis by Mhalachai, a SGA/NCIS crossover AU set at the end of season 5 NCIS and mid-S5 SGA. When Vance breaks up Gibbs' team after Jenny's death, Ziva is sent to Atlantis as NCIS's Agent Afloat.

A Partial Map Of Your TARDIS (Subject To Change) by alibi_factory. Doctor Who fandom, 11th Doctor-ish but not really spoilery. I've recced this before but it's so good I have to rec it again. It's a beautiful, whimsical set of maps to the TARDIS, complete with follies and indulgences and it just makes me flap my hands around incoherently.

War Games by seperis, a hundred thousand words of Star Trek Reboot plotty awesomeness. It's Kirk/Spock with fantastic original characters and an engrossing storyline.

My Home and Native Land by Copperbadge. A SGA story in which Ronon is looking for a tribe to call his own, and finds one in an unlikely place. I love this story for Ronon's characterisation.

Working Around The Crazy by Peroxidepest. A Burn Notice/Supernatural crossover (spoilers for S3 Burn Notice and S5 Supernatural) where Lucifer's looking for a new host and has settled on Michael Westen - but Michael has other ideas, and the sang-froid to test Lucifer's patience.

Concession by obsession_inc, a brilliantly creepy story about Christine Everhart writing an investigative piece about the disappearance of Pepper Potts and Tony Stark. This is the kind of story that really sticks with you later.

Five Universes by quigonejinn. A brilliant Iron Man five things fic that, unusually for the format, makes some really incisive comments about the characters.

...okay, it's four am and I have to get to bed at a semi-sane hour. So, more later, I hope.