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slinklingYou know that part in The Princess Bride where Inigo's trying to fill Westley in on everything that happened while he was dead, and he starts off by saying "Let me explain," then realizes it's hopeless and switches to, "No, there is too much, let me sum up"?
Yeah. What he said.
To start with,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide rocked. Two utterly fabulous stories were written for me, both for Gosford Park. If you've seen the movie, I cannot recommend these highly enough. A Dish Best Served Cold takes place during the events of the film, and follows George, Mary, Henry Denton, and Robert Parks -- weaving in and out of different characters' POVs in a most Altmanesque way, and offering a fascinating view into what was happening in other rooms while the canonical camera was elsewhere. It is also OMG HOT. It was written by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ukcalico, who I do not know but who is prodigiously talented, and you should all go read.
And as an extra treat, I also got The Servants' Ball, which is set a few months after the film, and gives us a hopeful glimpse of what might have happened if Mary, Parks, and Mrs. Wilson were to meet again -- with Mary knowing everything she knows. Best of all, it also offers all kinds of fantastic period detail, adding extra dimensions to the upstairs/downstairs dynamic we got from canon. I get the impression a lot of research went into it, as well as a lot of love for the characters, and lo, it is delicious. It was written bytaraljc, who I also do not know, but who I obviously need to.
***
Of course, as part of Yuletide, I also wrote a thing: The Midsummer Diaries. The fandom is Slings and Arrows, and the story is set several years before season 1 of the show. I wrote it forsangredulce -- yet another person I don't know but should -- and maybe she didn't mean for me to take her list of things she likes ("character studies, zany antics, angst, history, unreliable narrators, banter, tales of people caught between duty and love, memories, ...stories that manage to elicit both 'aww' and 'ouch', swordplay, characters exceeding their own expectations for themselves, comedy of manners...") as a point-for-point bullet-list of things I should include. But I tried anyway. So:
Title: The Midsummer Diaries
Author: slinkling
Fandom: Slings and Arrows
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 7000
Summary: "In all the play there is not one word apt, one player fitted."
Read the story HERE.
***
And then there was New Year's, a festival which lasted 3 days and included about 40 of my nearest and dearest, and games and good conversation and tons of excellent food, and did I mention the 40 incredibly cool people? In my house? (Sometimes. Sometimes we were all in Kass's house. It's nice to share.) This year, with bonus fangirls! I rang in 2008 in the company of new friendslightgetsin and cmshaw and cesperanza, alongside older friends kassrachel and sanj and the_star_fish and bayleaf and ellen_fremedon and many more too numerous to list here. (Honestly, I just tried, and gave up. You all know who you are, and I adore you.) I'm used to being at a giant party at New Year's; being at that giant party talking about Lex Luthor and porn and the Due South fic that pretty much writes itself once you've encountered this object -- well, that was new to me. But I like the idea that it could become a tradition. (Next year: Yelpers for everyone! Or not.)
***
And now the last of our houseguests have gone, the temperature outside has dropped below zero degrees fahrenheit, and it's time to start thinking about actual work again.
Happy 2008, everybody.
Yeah. What he said.
To start with,
yuletide rocked. Two utterly fabulous stories were written for me, both for Gosford Park. If you've seen the movie, I cannot recommend these highly enough. A Dish Best Served Cold takes place during the events of the film, and follows George, Mary, Henry Denton, and Robert Parks -- weaving in and out of different characters' POVs in a most Altmanesque way, and offering a fascinating view into what was happening in other rooms while the canonical camera was elsewhere. It is also OMG HOT. It was written by ukcalico, who I do not know but who is prodigiously talented, and you should all go read.And as an extra treat, I also got The Servants' Ball, which is set a few months after the film, and gives us a hopeful glimpse of what might have happened if Mary, Parks, and Mrs. Wilson were to meet again -- with Mary knowing everything she knows. Best of all, it also offers all kinds of fantastic period detail, adding extra dimensions to the upstairs/downstairs dynamic we got from canon. I get the impression a lot of research went into it, as well as a lot of love for the characters, and lo, it is delicious. It was written by
taraljc, who I also do not know, but who I obviously need to.***
Of course, as part of Yuletide, I also wrote a thing: The Midsummer Diaries. The fandom is Slings and Arrows, and the story is set several years before season 1 of the show. I wrote it for
sangredulce -- yet another person I don't know but should -- and maybe she didn't mean for me to take her list of things she likes ("character studies, zany antics, angst, history, unreliable narrators, banter, tales of people caught between duty and love, memories, ...stories that manage to elicit both 'aww' and 'ouch', swordplay, characters exceeding their own expectations for themselves, comedy of manners...") as a point-for-point bullet-list of things I should include. But I tried anyway. So:Title: The Midsummer Diaries
Author: slinkling
Fandom: Slings and Arrows
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 7000
Summary: "In all the play there is not one word apt, one player fitted."
Read the story HERE.
***
And then there was New Year's, a festival which lasted 3 days and included about 40 of my nearest and dearest, and games and good conversation and tons of excellent food, and did I mention the 40 incredibly cool people? In my house? (Sometimes. Sometimes we were all in Kass's house. It's nice to share.) This year, with bonus fangirls! I rang in 2008 in the company of new friends
lightgetsin and cmshaw and cesperanza, alongside older friends kassrachel and sanj and the_star_fish and bayleaf and ellen_fremedon and many more too numerous to list here. (Honestly, I just tried, and gave up. You all know who you are, and I adore you.) I'm used to being at a giant party at New Year's; being at that giant party talking about Lex Luthor and porn and the Due South fic that pretty much writes itself once you've encountered this object -- well, that was new to me. But I like the idea that it could become a tradition. (Next year: Yelpers for everyone! Or not.)***
And now the last of our houseguests have gone, the temperature outside has dropped below zero degrees fahrenheit, and it's time to start thinking about actual work again.
Happy 2008, everybody.
