Ernest in Town, Jack in the Country

In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit...



EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

ETA: Having now seen the part where all of them are at the table, I would also like to add, for posterity:

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I still can't believe it's ACTUALLY HAPPENING!)

Let me open by admitting this might not make sense. My perceptions of Kate Freelander are a little complicated, and even though the breakthrough I made today seems totally rational to me, I know my own brain well enough to realize that it might not be the same for everyone else. So the short version of my post is that I love Kate Freelander.

( Here is the long version )

Does anyone know how to enter a question for Tapping Tuesday?


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More thoughts and a few fic recs can be found here.

tessagratton wrote this week's short story of Merry Fates. It is called "Three True Things". I don't want to give too much away, but let me just say it has possibly my favourite faerie dupe OF ALL TIME.

Three True Things

Oh, sometimes it pays to love whoever you want and get kidnapped by heteronormative fey...

Apparently today I am a MACHINE.

girls who rock, pirates, random time travel, fun with sailing ships, sword fighting, pirates with surprisingly good hygiene, I have a thing for knives, etc.

I bought this book (ordered it online, actually, as the St.Ab Chapters is REALLY BAD about having the books I want in stock) without knowing anything about it, beyond the part where there's a girl on the cover holding a sword. It did not disappoint.

( Turns out it's my day for fight scenes. )

I am going to go with 9 out of 10, for being a feel-good romp, full of swordplay and ships, and a totally satisfying way to end this crazy day I've had.

Dr. Horrible + My Little Pony = PURE AWESOME.

Because everything is more awesome when it's a) a musical and b) involving animal supervillains.

There were quite a few things I liked about this book. The modern setting meant they could all be reasonably snarky, and there were just enough call backs to the first three books (and the Infernal Devices) to keep me interested (though, I swear, if Alec turns out to be a Herondale, I am DONE). Considering that my two favourite characters didn't show up until half-way through the book, it was actually better than I was expecting.

I was a bit miffed that Clary was essentially the bait for 90% of the book, but at least Jace was also the bait (sort of) a lot. And Isabelle was awesome. There were, however, a LOT of people in this book, and following them all was a challenge. But the whole Mark of Cain thing paid off nicely, and the ending was only visible from orbit (instead of, say, ALPHA CENTURAI), so it could have been worse. I'm not all "OMG, CLIFFHANGER!" because it was kind of like getting hit by a train after the bells have sounded and the lights have flashed and the barriers have come down and you've been stupid enough to cross the tracks anyway.

There was a lot of OMG, YOU PEOPLE ARE STUPID! in this, in that they never talked to one another, but at least it was consistent within everyone's characters (and Magnus broke my heart AGAIN because that is what he does). I really, really hate Jace [whatever his last name is this book]. Just saying. I mostly want Clary and Izzy and Maia to go off and Conquer the World between them, but this should not surprise anyone.

So...8. Because the cover is pretty and Alec is awesome, even if he's only in half a book, and now I'm stuck sitting here wondering what happens to atheist vampires.

Sanctuary with a side of Steampunk.

(And the best part is that when I was editing the cap, no matter WHAT effect I used and even though he is standing in the corner of the shot behind Nigel and facing away from the camera, the most noticeable element in the whole picture was Nikola's mustache. Then I made the picture smaller, and the scary mustache went away. Sort of. Thank goodness.)

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Last night I had my first sfa_ficawards nightmare. tielan had filled out her nominations incorrectly, and I had to delete them because even though I knew what she meant, I couldn't cut her a break just because she was my friend. It was awful! :D

What I'm saying, f-list, is that nominations are open at the comm, and I've made them as straightforward as possible (which probably means they make sense to me and no one else, but whatever!). So go forth and nominate! Right now, it's just five stories per nominator, until I get an idea of how big it's going to get, but we might throw it open next week.



Please feel free to tell everyone you know. Particularly if you're lanna_kitty :)

The more the merrier!

Get your own shiny banner here, care of shadadukal.

Amanda Tapping, on Tapping Tuesday, just answered the following question:

Is there any one episode that stuck in your mind and made you want to leave a night light on?

With:

Anything with vampires. Except Tesla. He's a pussy cat.

Which I think means that now is as good a time as any post a masterlist of all those Kitten Fics that got written a couple of weeks ago. ;)

(If I've forgotten someone, please comment.)

penknife wrote two fics.

Close Calls: Wherein James and Nikola are both too fond of danger.

Animal Welfare: Wherein Nikola is a bit embarrassed about a kitten.

shadadukal wrote the absolutely hysterical Practical Cats (And A Dog), wherein Helen and Nikola are turned into cats and John is made into a Great Dane.

icarus_chained wrote Catch Cat, wherein Nikola meets a faerie cat and it's absolutely adorable (OMG, and if someone wants to draw me the picture I request in the comments, you can have...whatever you want).

artaxastra made an honourary entry with Reunion, wherein James comes into a round about sort of ownership of a basset hound sicced on him by Nikola.

geonncannon added Of Mice and Abnormals, in which Helen is forced to turn to independent contractors to deal with a rodent problem.

shanachie_quill wrote HAP vs Cat, wherein Henry's allergies go up against a special kind of invasion.

And I wrote The Naming of Cats, wherein Ashley rescues a cat and it lives a long and happy life with her.

[Poll #1726299]