Yuletide recs #3: Stardust, Emma, Master Li, Pratchett's Nation (books)

I noticed two film!Stardust pieces about Robert DeNiro's swishy, amazing Captain Shakespeare. They're remarkably similar, except for length.

• Names, Navigation, and Other Issues Arising on the Caspartine. This is from the POV of Shakespeare's first mate and follows his whole career from long before the movie. It's of medium-length, not truly epic, but it does justice to that original character without really moving the focus away from Shakespeare either, and allows him to be admired as I, at least, felt he deserved after the movie.


• To Sir, with Love is a little drabble on the same theme, also from the point of view of an OC first mate, with a slightly different feel.

And then some odds and ends -

• Terry Pratchett - Nation Hands Across the Sea. "The young Princess Ermintrude, heir to the crown of England, stared at the paper in front of her and tried to think how to begin her letter." It's just about perfect in every respect. I could have kept reading ten times as long, but at the same time, it's not too short to feel complete in itself and entirely convey its purpose in just the tone of the book, sensitive and hopeful and wry.



• The Chronicles of Master Li Three Jade Mice, a funny casefic with some really delightful details of magic and mystery to make it memorable.



• Jane Austen - Emma Poignant Sting A very good and authentic-tasting (which you might not think meant much until you consider that I've never recced or even bookmarked a Regency-period AU or an Austen piece before, because I consider that nearly everyone fails at getting period voice right) look at the Austenian world of Emma through a darker and more supernatural lens.That isn't something you would automatically think would work, and yet it does. A little heartbreaking perhaps, but ultimately heartwarming and engrossing. Featuring Emma's and Jane Churchill's pregnancies, Mrs Elton's frustrated social ambitions, and Miss Bates, the Cassandra of Highbury in a more literal sense than is usually meant!

And yesterday in the Die Hard 4 recs I forgot one which I had lost in my initial orgy of reading, I don't know how. It's one of the best Die Hard stories I've read in quite a while in fact:

• I'll Be Hard for Christmas, A solid, funny, quirky, satisfying, believable sequel to the movie, all about the War on Terrorism and John and Matt's War on Congressional Committee Hearings.

the violence inherent in the system

I still have a cold. Last night I importuned Wax to make me some instant cauliflower soup, and then was basically unable to taste it, so it was like a gradually cooling gelatinous kind of... slimy... thing... and it ended up kind of gross and I threw the remainder of it away this morning.

Last night after translating the text from about 50 pages of graphs, I suddenly realised that "Ing." didn't stand for "Ingen" (No, none) as I had thought because that made no sense. I scoured Wikipedia and Google and finally went through all the Ing- words in Wax's dictionary to no avail. ENGINEERS. They write their reports just as if nobody but them is ever going to read them and send them off to be translated by someone who doesn't actually know that much about their particular sort of jargon (I mean, steam turbines, it's a slightly specialised area). I finally left the "Ing." there, just like the other Mystery Acronyms and Abbreviations, and the non-Swedish-speaking engineers who are doubtless going to peruse it at the other end can worry about it. I do feel a bit guilty, though. But at least I'm finished! I'll let Brother Windows say it:



Oh, and one more thing. Our latest Threadless order (Gay Pride and Stabby McKnife) hasn't even arrived yet so I guess I can't order this new t-shirt that's made of awesome yet: Identifying Flying Objects. (STEALTH BOMBER! Flying carpet! Lost Boy!)

obama + unicorn

Via guinevere33, BARACK OBAMA RIDING A UNICORN T-SHIRT!

Yuletide recs #4: The Dark Is Rising

A favourite rare fandom. I love the mood of this universe and the dynamic of this OTP. It's got a fairly unique feel, in fandom.

• The Leaves of Memory Parch and Fade. A sweet, wistful vignette with a subtle note of bitter irony. Hot est-rel; Bran's POV.



• The Illusion of Endings is a particularly dreamy story concerning, appropriately, Bran reliving his lost memories in the form of dreams. Interesting and a really nice story, though I thought the end too abrupt.



• One Goes Alone. Preslash. After the end of the series, Will's feeling lonely without the other Old Ones - until he's surprised by a letter from Bran.

Bonus non-Yuletide rec: Something Different by Aristide has just the right heaping helping of schmoop for these two rather dopey, touchy-feely dudes, and preserves the pretty, lyrical tone of the series and that breathless, sweeping-epic-destiny-drama feel.

fåtölj

Wax lied to me about which chair cover she ordered and the actual one is a hundred times more awesome:



Bemz's Stockholm Stripe in teal and "daiquiri", aka chartreuse, on Ikea Ektorp Jennylund.