hieroglyfic dreams

So everyone is Yuletide this and Yuletide that, and you know what that means, don't you? It's time to start thinking about the C6D 6 degrees of Valentine's Day exchange!

Except...I don't think I want to run it again. I have always enjoyed doing it - it's a low-key and fairly low-stress fest and I love seeing what people create - but I just can't muster the enthusiasm for the C6D fandoms any more. (Actually, I have been rather short on enthusiasm for any fandom, lately. Woe.)

So - anyone want to take it over? I will happily give you all the information and past-year stuff, and explain how I put it together. And I will also leave it in your hands entirely, so you can run it entirely as you wish, with whatever rule changes you desire.

I hate to give it up, and actually, I have no idea if there's enough interest to even run it again this year. I haven't really paid attention to C6D over the past year. Maybe everyone's moved on to other fandoms. But if people do want another year of C6DVD, it's going to have to be someone else's baby. So if you want to adopt, let me know.

[ETA: YAY mizface has gallantly stepped up to the plate! To, er, mix a metaphor or two.]

As some of you know, I am running this card exchange thing. I am not actually officially a participant, but who am I to complain if someone decides to butter up do something nice for the mod?

( Aww, Dan sent Duck a Valentine's Day card! )

Snow icon in honor of my first ski day of the season. Actually I just drove up to the resort in mid-morning, skied a couple of hours, and then came back home for lunch, but my legs are not yet up to a full day of bashing the slopes.

Yoooooooooletide! I edited and posted my story, then edited it some more \o/ and then came up with a better title and edited it again. I love being able to make last-minute changes. Heck, it's not even last minute yet. And while I'm talking about AO3's awesome features, guess what? They added a 'leave kudos' button to stories, so you can let the author know you liked a story without having to come up with something clever to say in a comment!

This is probably not of interest to anyone but me, but: I noticed (because I am refreshing http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2010/fandoms rather frequently) that the point at which number of fandoms and number of stories crossed was 335. What I mean is that early on, most stories posted were in unique fandoms, and several of them were tagged with more than one fandom (I assume because they were crossovers), so the number of fandoms was greater than the number of works. But as more stories got added, some of them were in fandoms that already had a story in the archive for Yuletide 2010, so the works number went up but not the fandom number. And the point at which works overtook fandoms was (as far as I could tell) 335 works, 334 fandoms.

I have tried to get several pinch hits. So far I have failed each time.

If I sorta-know you (if I have you friended or subscribed, or you have commented here in the not too distant past) I will (probably) be happy to beta-read your Yuletide story even if it's in a fandom I don't know, as long as it's fairly short (like, under 7500 words or so). Email or PM me if you want to take me up on this. (Email is isiscolo at gmail.)

I have beta comments on my festivid. Must work on it.

Speaking of vids, cupidsbow pointed today to a new video editing tool that has just gone into open beta: Lightworks. You have to register in order to download, but it's free, and it looks like it's quite versatile and powerful (and hard to learn how to use, no doubt).

yuletart has been posting, and as usual I'm loving it. This is the small-fandom art exchange, and there have been some lovely paintings, amazing crafts, and clever crossovers so far. The thing about fanart is that it takes very little time to look at an image, and you can appreciate a work on aesthetic grounds even if you don't know the fandom. So go look!

I am also appreciating the lovely cards people have sent me. Thank you, amanuensis1, dementordelta, sofiaviolet, mrkinch, and stultiloquentia for the cards, which range from beautiful to giggle-inducing.

Oh, and speaking of exchanges and cards, I'm planning to run the C6DVD exchange (six degrees of Canadian fandom Valentine's Day card exchange) again. Keep an eye on c6d_universe if you think you might be interested.

Whew! I think that's all.

As many of you know, I am running the second Six Degrees Valentine's Day Cardathon (which is awesome). A couple of weeks ago, I was poked to suggest what pairings I might like as Valentine's Day cards, since I am not formally participating in the exchange, and I gave a short list which included "some ridiculous crossover with Darren." By which I meant, you know, anybody in any C6D media I might be familiar with.

( And then this appeared in my mailbox... )

So if you're reading this, Darren, I really am quite flattered, but I have, alas, made my choice and must remain with him. And besides, I don't speak German very well.

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Happy last day of 2009 (or first day of 2010, depending on where you are in the world)! I know a lot of people had sucky years, and if you're one of them, here's to a better 2010; me, I had a pretty awesome year (and decade, for that matter) but hey, bring on the next one, it's time.

Thanks to dawn_guy and catbear, darththalia, ladysunflow, and tty63 for the lovely cards! (And especial thanks to tty63 for the warm fuzzies! ♥♥♥)

Signups are now open for the C6D Valentine's Day Cardathon. This is a really fun fest with a lot of room for creativity of all sorts, not just the traditional fic (you can see last time's master list to get an idea of scope), and as you are only required to ask and offer in a single fandom, I urge those of you on my flist/circle who don't consider yourself C6D fans but love a Canadian-source fandom that qualifies (I'm thinking specifically of Slings & Arrows, but I'm sure there are others) to think about joining in.

Some things that have entertained me on the internet lately (when I'm not reading Yuletide stories, which, keep scrolling):

A discussion in oxoniensis's journal about the name "Mabel" made me think of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's song "Hello Mabel," and I quoted some of the lyrics to her; she poked around YouTube and found this adorable live performance, and then I followed various links to "related content" (sings: "for an hour or two") and found the studio version I was familiar with (a bit more tuneful, but the fanvid part is kind of WTF) as well as other videos and live performances. (The Intro and the Outro! The Canyons of Your Mind!) Ah, memories. I used to have one of their actual vinyl records but it is long since gone.

But I do have three of their songs as mp3, so here, for oxoniensis and anyone else who wants, have some musics (on my server, right-click and save): Hunting Tigers Out in 'Indiah' | Labio-Dental Fricative | Rockaliser Baby. If you're not familiar with them, hmm. Kind of a cross between Monty Python and They Might Be Giants? My favorite is the lovely alliterative nonsense of Labio-Dental Fricative.

A link from shezan that made me laugh: Five Star Wars Status Updates.

And this is a couple of years old, so you might have seen it, but it just came across my fflist last week and I marveled: the Battle of Pelennor Fields made out of candy. The previous year they did Helm's Deep, the next year the Mines of Moria, and apparently they're doing another one this weekend but haven't posted it yet.

Finally, yeah, Yuletide. I was reading by fandom, hitting the fandoms I know and love, but felt kind of...hollow. The problem (for me!) is that a lot of the Yuletide stories are just little codas and ficlets in the 1000-2000 word range, which - yes, you can do a lot in 2000 words, but I craved something meatier. I realized this after zebra363 asked if there was a way to sort Yuletide stories by length, and I figured out how to do it, and wow, there were a couple of novellas in there, and a goodly number of satisfyingly-long stories. So I started paging through the list, looking for things I might like. I read a bunch, commented a lot, and have three to rec:

Home for the Holidays | Hot Fuzz, Nicholas/Danny, R. At 6200 words this is short for a long story :-) but I loved the banter and humor and understated affection, not to mention the bonus Good Omens crossover.

Sentimental Reasons | Casablanca, Sam/Rick, R, 16,500 words. This makes Sam real, giving him a backstory presented through the most exquisite showing-not-telling. Subtle and slow and filled with yearning. I actually would have been happy had it ended with the beginning of the movie, but certainly don't object to the actual ending.

The Ballad of Mirrim and Menolly's Ride | Dragonriders of Pern, gen, PG, 18,200 words. I think this utterly fabulous story is my favorite of this year's Yuletide. Awesome women being awesome, which, yay; time travel, which, also yay; alternate histories and futures, with twisty bits about possible alternate lives of the characters, which, OH YES YAY. And the ending is perfect. I really, really loved this, and now I am hankering to re-read the Pern books.

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