To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

[Note: I am icepixie across LJ, DW, and AO3.]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

THANK YOU for writing for me! I love all these fandoms and characters dearly, and I know I'll love whatever you come up with for them. I'm offering specific prompts for each fandom if you're the kind of writer who prefers them, but please don't feel constrained by them if you're not. Follow your inspiration wherever it takes you.

( General likes/dislikes )

( China Beach )

( Corner Gas )

( Northern Exposure )

( Robson Arms )

Happy New Year! Wow, 2013. It feels so futuristic.

With the new year comes Yuletide reveals, and I can finally own up to what I wrote! In alphabetical order by fandom:

My Late Enchantments Still in Brilliant Colors Shine (1753 words) by icepixie
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Babylon 5
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Susan Ivanova, Original Female Character
Summary: "There's no way you could've gotten a pilot's license without realizing 'Equal parts wonder, delight, terror, and whimsy' does not constitute a cargo manifest." Susan Ivanova runs into a technomage.

The Snow Maiden (1643 words) by icepixie
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Babylon 5
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Susan Ivanova, Sofie Ivanova, Talia Winters, Marcus Cole
Summary: Like in all those old fairy tales, the third time was the charm. Susan was a daughter of the snow, and she would never let spring crack her heart open again.

In Memory Bright or Dull (1540 words) by icepixie
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Northern Exposure
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Joel Fleischman/Maggie O'Connell
Characters: Maggie O'Connell, Joel Fleischman
Summary: Maggie and Joel attempt a memorial for Soapy Sanderson on the anniversary of his death.

The Case of the Missing Martini Olive (1071 words) by icepixie
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Thin Man (1934)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Nick Charles/Nora Charles
Characters: Nick Charles, Nora Charles, Asta
Summary: An olive goes missing from a drink. Nick and Nora are on the case.

spatz, you win a prize! :D I take it the banter gave me away?

Some people on Tumblr who are going as Maggie O'Connell and Joel Fleischman (Northern Exposure) for Halloween.

LOVE. And they look reasonably accurate, too!

Someone on my floor at work today came as a TARDIS, which I thought was most excellent. And the building managers were in the lobby giving out candy at the start of the day, which was also very nice. I think next year, if I can find the right dress and cobble together a pinafore, I'm going as Alice in Wonderland.

I don't even know, y'all. Despite the fact that I sort of think Maggie and Joel are the last people on Earth who should reproduce, this came to me and wouldn't leave me alone. (Also, I cannot deny it felt damn good to finally finish something after two months of trudging through the space pilots story novelette novella OH GOD WHY WON'T YOU END.)

Title: Bravest
Rating: G
Word count: 800
Summary: "I want to have a baby," she says.
Note: This makes extensive reference to "Baby Blues." There are also small references to "First Snow" and "Full Upright Position."

( Bravest )

Today I decided to add a collection of scenes to my space pilots story that will make the finished product roughly thirty percent longer than I'd planned.

Good: These scenes will add danger, adventure, and (of course) more banter and UST! Hard to go wrong there, especially since in the original plan, things rolled along for 75% of the story without much conflict beyond one character pining after another. (Which is not a bad conflict, but they're also supposed to be doing vaguely dangerous stuff, and there was a lot of vague and not much dangerous till near the end.)

Bad: I already blew past what I assumed would be the 6,000-word finish of this "short" story, and this will take it pretty much into novella category. I'm still having fun, and the characters are entertaining me, but I was kind of hoping to finish it at some point in the near future.

I'm also poking rather more insistently than usual at the Northern Exposure fic I've had in my head for about ten years now, which is fun.

Speaking of which, if you were seduced by my pimp post for this week's nx_rewatch episode, the discussion post is here!

I finally got around to reading Sinclair Lewis's Main Street this week. Lewis took 500 pages to say what Kate Chopin took 150 to say in "The Awakening" twenty years earlier, but even so, I liked it. (Okay, okay, it had a bit wider scope than "The Awakening.") I saw a little too much of myself in the dreaming dilettante Carol, and I found the satire of Good Old Small Towns On The Prairie very thorough and biting.

I also brought home a bunch of paperbacks the other day from the Local Used Book Emporium, including the definitive Collected Robert Frost for only three dollars(!). (That was originally going on my Christmas list, but now that list has been condensed to "all three seasons of Fringe." I'm looking forward to all the vids I can make! :D) I've been meaning to read more Frost for, oh, three years now. While I'm thinking about it, have one of his lesser-known works, which happened to be the first one I flipped through when I brought this volume home.

And I have ONE SQUILLION eleven books either out from the library or waiting on the holdshelf for me. So I will be busy for the next month or so. Whee!

*

Just for the hell of it, some WIP snippets. And by "snippet," sometimes I mean half the fic. (Some of these may never actually see the light of day in any kind of finished form, so...yeah.)

( Body of Proof, Northern Exposure, Babylon 5 )

Hooray! nx_rewatch starts today! Come join us! :D

Title: Out of the Ashes
Rating: PG
Pairing: Maggie/Joel
Word Count: 4600
Summary: After Maggie's mother burns down her house ("Burning Down the House"), she resorts to staying with Joel until she can move into a new cabin. Neither is terribly thrilled with the situation. Well, not at first.

( That O'Connell was homeless was a terrible thing. That she was currently homeless in his cabin might well be considered a disaster. )

Okay, so, highs in the low sixties and 48 hours of rain was not quite what I intended when I said I wanted a break from the heat, but then again, it's a change from 100F. And at least we aren't burning away like Texas. I'll take it. Apparently the rest of the week will be nice, anyway. There's a park I never knew about that I'm aiming to check out with my camera one day soon, and this will be perfect weather.

Fannishly, I'm still rewatching Northern Exposure in no particular order. It's a little more organized than throwing darts at a list blindfolded, but not much. I've rediscovered some gems I'd forgotten about. "Wake Up Call" is much better than I always remember it as, despite Maggie's stalker bear, mostly because LEONARD. Moreover, Leonard diagnosing Joel as bored with his practice because he himself is boring, and when he gets angry, saying he's no longer boring because now he's mad, and that's interesting. Bwahahah. I can never decide if Leonard, Bernard, Adam, or Eve is my favorite reoccurring character. Maybe they all are.

Still poking at the idea of a rewatch comm. Maybe I'll float the idea over at n_exposure and see if anyone bites.

I also got to working on my "Burning Down the House" post-ep where Maggie asserts her unassailable right as Joel's landlord to crash at his cabin when her mother burns hers down, and I think I might actually be nearing an endpoint! It was originally supposed to be just bickering and UST that could slot neatly into that point in the series canon-wise, but, uh, they were very strongly in favor of other things, so it's now bickering, UST, and Other Stuff that makes it into an AU. Whee.

I am vidding, and have two observations:

1.) Man, Northern Exposure sure had a lot of night shots. (Understandable, I suppose, since, hey, set in Alaska, with eighteen hours of darkness for half the year. Still.)

2.) Their directors and/or cinematographers (I am unclear on exactly who decides to film a scene from an unusual angle or that a shot will be tracking instead of static and things like that) were amazing. This is one of the most beautifully shot TV shows I've ever seen. I love the way they make use of the transitions from indoors to outdoors around the radio station, Ruth-Anne's shop, and Fleischman's office. I'm also fond of all the overhead shots.

I have a good feeling about this vid. I'm mostly done; it's just about eight seconds towards the end that are giving me fits. Everything I try just seems kind of blah. It'll work out, though, even if I have to do some rearranging.

Current mouse status: Silent. But last night it didn't start up until almost midnight, so this means nothing. At least only seems to move around for two or three hours at a time before going silent the rest of the night and day.