A Lightkeeper's Log

This is my stocking.

My stocking is full of wonderful things, like a Kate/Renee ficlet with hugging and empathy, shareable Rivers of London text icons, a ficlet about Jason and Alcmene getting together, a slightly meta ficlet about Sinclair and Catherine with reincarnation and time travel, and the Jeff/Michael story that I always, always, always, always wanted to read. Plus a lovely assortment of banners and good wishes.

My eyes look like ♥.♥ right now. I should probably see a doctor.

You should go to my stocking and read all the things. Also the icons are aces. Then you should comment and praise the people who gave me things.

Seriously, this is how Eustace turned into a dragon.

I have also written things, for those interested.

Title: The Memory Book (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: Quantum Leap (Al, Sam/Donna)
Rating: Gen
Word Count: 1,500
Notes: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, winterjameson! Fic is set in the first season, and assumes episodes took place in production order ("Genesis," "Double Identity," "The Right Hand of God," "Star-Crossed," "How the Tess Was Won," "Play It Again, Seymour," "The Color of Truth," "Camikazi Kid") rather than order aired. Some dialogue taken from episodes, some blatantly ad libbed.
Summary: Sam keeps forgetting, but Al is making long-term plans.

Title: Five Times Charissa Sosa Realised She Was Dating the Whole Damn A-Team (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: The A-Team 2010 (Face/Sosa, Team)
Rating/warnings: Explicit (sex, profanity, canon ableist language)
Word Count: 4,700
Notes: Happy darkest, coldest part of the year to a_q! I hope you had a great holiday, and that you enjoy this fic. Huge thank you to king_touchy for the beta.
Summary: "You heard I was a player, you wanted to play, then I got serious and you freaked!" "Oh, I freaked? I did not freak!"

Title: Another Time, I Would Have Cried (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: Babylon 5 (Susan/Talia)
Rating (warnings): PG-13 (Unbearably schmoopy, and set in an already Fixed future AU).
Word Count: 1,200
Notes: Happy darkest, coldest part of the year to amyfortuna! Title from Girlyman's "Nothing Left."
Summary: Injured and unsure of her memory, Susan searches for something to hold onto.

Title: On the Slopes of Mount Wundagore (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: Marvel Comics: 616 Universe (Carol Danvers/Wanda Maximoff, other canon pairings)
Rating/warnings: PG-13 (spoilers for Disassembled through the first issue of AvX)
Word Count: 1,800
Notes: Happy January to sanguineheavens! I hope you had a great holiday, and that you enjoy this fic. Based on a fic_promptly prompt from approximately one million years ago. I sadly no longer remember where it was or who made it. Thanks to Nenya for the speedy beta.
Summary: Or, Five Times Carol Searched for Wanda (And One Time She Found Her)

Title: That Night on Deck (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: Sinbad Sky1 (Sinbad/Gunnar)
Rating/warnings: PG-13 (none)
Word Count: 1,400
Notes: Happy January to papryka! I hope you had a great holiday, and that you enjoy this fic. Thanks to Nenya for the last minute beta.
Summary: Following "Eye of the Tiger," Sinbad wants to know why Gunnar keeps watching him.

Title: Down Hill [gen]
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Number of Words: 1,100
Notes: Written for the tamingthemuse Prompt 116 - Rolling Stone Crushes Toes. No beta on this one.
Disclaimer: I realise that the recognisable persons, places and things in the following story are not mine. As I am making no money from this, I respectfully request that no one sue me.

---

( It wasn't every day that Iolaus had to fight off vicious attack boulders. He had not, for example, had to fight them off yesterday, nor the day before. )

Now that I've actually seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or some of it anyway, I'm rereading ltlj and Kimberley Rector's crossover with Hercules: The Legendary Journeys When Hellmouths Collide, which was hysterically funny (and full of ploty goodness) when I hadn't seen Buffy and is even better now. That story just doesn't get old, and I'm on time four or something.

Also, what may be my favourite line in anything ever, though I don't know why:
"Kiwi and Clydesdales. In ancient Greece," Giles said wearily to himself. "Of course."

I find that I am particularly sensitive on some points of characterisation. It's funny, I used to feel a little superior to the OTP crowd. Then I realised that I'm just as bad if not worse in some of my older fandoms. I really can't handle breaking up some of my established pairings, or portraying them as unloving or unhappy. It the members mutually decide for polyamorous relationships in addition to the original pair, I'm fine with that, but the core must remain. For the record, my OTP ships:

• LotR: Arwen/Aragorn, Éowyn/Faramir (and Éowyn was a hero, and was generally happy in her post-war life, and these points are so beyond non-negotiable)
• PotC: Elizabeth Swann/Will Turner
• Firefly: Zoe/Wash
• Star Trek: Voyager: B'Elanna Torres/Tom Paris (in later seasons, anyway)
• Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: Jason/Alcmene

Yeah, all canon het. I know, I know.

I think a lot of my defence of these pairings is backlash against people who feel that they are ill matched, or that one half is not good enough for the other (since when has that had anything to do with love?). This is especially strong when the female half of the pairing is written off so the man can go bang his boytoy. (And no, killing them off is not better than breaking them up).

Part of it is my firm belief in the existence of functional long-term relationships (it's not my fault, I blame my parents). In fact, not only do they exist, but they can be interesting. They need not be broken up or plagued with incessant bickering just for there to be a story. Seriously, this is what did me in with BSG: that one bar scene where Lee Adama and Galen Tyrol are sitting together bitching about their marriages.

There is lots of conflict to be had, lots of couples facing problems, but you know what? Having them all bickering, sleeping around, breaking up, and being unhappy? That's about as realistic as stories that pair off every single character in an entire universe and make them live happily ever after, no questions asked. (Granted, the members of several of my listed couples did bicker quite a lot, and it's partly the TV writers that this is aimed at).

I suppose I should add that -- given that my first two pairings only have a couple of paragraphs of canon backing them -- my choice of which relationships get to be the together and functional ones is a bit on the arbitrary side.

So a few days ago, monkeycrackmary posted a bit of meta called "Why Joey and Ross could hug Chandler after Chandler got engaged to Monica": the making-safe of male intimacy in a heteronormative television, using Supernatural as a primary example. (which one should be warned references incest, but is very insightful and well worth reading). It's a bit depressing though, especially after watching all the Het, Het, and Here, Have Some More Het in BSG this week. (really, I'm fine with het, but it's not the only option out there you know, and Moore and Eick are hypocrites for not acknowledging it).

Today marycrawford (yeah, my flist is beginning to look like the Bible what with all these Marys -g-) posted I'd Like to Take You to a Gay Barn, which includes a copy of the most wondrously gay piece of television ever aired in the United States at prime time. See this icon, the one I've tagged "Gay Porn" -- she made that from that scene. Seriously, go watch!. It will put a smile on your face on this grey Monday morning. There's hope yet, I tell you!

Also,
Egg Island Day Eighteen: Brother's Post, There Be Whales Here, Gardening, and the Tale of Two Nipples.
Egg Island Day Nineteen: Ye Old Tractor, Saint Mark, and Pictures.

Well... um...

Anyone who was in the Hercules: TLJ fandom may have had a very familiar - and possibly warm and tingly - feeling that the writers were all on drugs, and it might be best if this viewing was experienced in a similar state. This episode surely had that catapulting-kiwi-fruit-at-a-giant-chicken vibe to it.

I'm actually fine with this. More than fine really. I'm trying to figure out how many Batman references there were, and the answer is probably quite a lot.

I like serious stories too, but there is a time and a place for canon crack, and this feels like it.

Probably not the most productive reaction to seeing An Inconvenient Truth: Man, I'm glad that Iolaus isn't here, because he would be really pissed that we're killing the planet after everything he went through.

Yeah, I have another resident in my head, it seems.

However, y'all should go see the movie because it's very clearly put together and interesting. It also has cartoons, so Yay.

Snow day, so I'll take the time that I would have given to falling asleep in economics over to writing this up.

Title: Home Is Where the Heart Is
Author: Martha Wilson (ltlj) and Kimberley Rector
Fandom: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Rating: PG-13, mature themes, violence, nudity (?)
Season/spoilers: Up to 514 "Just Passing Through" (thereafter it goes AU)
Word Count: About 44,000 (and several very fine illustrations)
Summary: Hercules has a problem: Iolaus is dead and Hercules can't find his shade in the Underworld. Xena, Gabrielle, and Joxer also appear briefly in this story.

Quote: Hercules regarded him a moment in silence. "The last stranger I trusted used me to steal something that gave him godlike powers, knocked me unconscious, and then sacrificed my best friend to a dark god."

Kheper's brows lifted. "Ah. I see I've caught you at a bad time."

Notes: There are stories that I read when I'm feeling down and need a laugh to cheer me up. Some stories, I go back to because I need something hopeful and empowering to shore up my faith. Others, I read because I'm feeling a bit lonely and need to remember true family, loyalty and devotion. On a rare occasion, I'll find something that I read over and over again because it contains a intricate and beautiful world that I discover something new in every time. Finally, there's the ones that I can do nothing but stare at and think, "Wow... that's purdy...."

"Home Is Where the Heart Is" is all of those things and more. There are times when I go to a really sappy, vaguely-out-of-character angst story to get one or more of those fixes, and it works for a while, but that kind of satisfaction never seems to last because one can only suspend disbelief for so long. This story is set in a fictionalised Ancient Egypt with characters from a pop-culture version of Ancient Greece, and death, rebirth, magic and monsters, but damn if it doesn't feel real. I never had a moment where I had to stop and think, "Well that wouldn't happen, but never mind, it's just a story, author's freedom of invention and all that."

This is because of three things. First, the canon characters not only stay in character, but seem more like the characters than the people on the actual show. That's not to dis the show, which I wholeheartedly adore, but Wilson and Rector's stories always end up including qualities that I always felt were between the lines, things that I not just wanted to happen but that I felt were happening, just not on screen somehow. (No, this is not a slash story.) The story centres on Hercules especially, and he breaks my heart every time (and puts it back together at the end too). He shows his inability to deal with a world that doesn't have Iolaus in it both explicitly by basically saying that but also more painfully in little actions and thoughts. A lot of people can do woe is me explicit angst; very few can capture grief like this. Secondary characters like Salmoneus, Iphicles and Autolycus get their share of love too, and I adore this Jason to itty bitty pieces.

Second, it fixes a broken season full of broken people. It does this with care, plausibility and a good deal of love (and possibly some degree of irritation -g-). For this I would like to hug them both quite a lot. Also, this launches an Alternate Universe on which the rest of the stories on this site are based, every single one of which is well worth reading.

Finally, The world the authors have created feels right. The level of detail clearly results from a Hell of a lot of research and brains most likely a lot more cleaver and creative than mine, but doesn't bog the plot down. Rather, it moves it forward and new and unexpected ways, which are cool -g- As for the original characters, I will say that they are made of AWESOME and leave it at that.

After all that, I feel that I might be overselling this just a tad which doesn't seem possible to me. If I am, it's just because "Home Is Where the Heart Is" hits almost every single one of my kinks dead on.

ETA: Of the eight people on my flist that admit to this fandom, one wrote it, and I know that two have read it several times. However, even if you are not in this fandom, even if you have never seen an episode of this show in your life, give it a try anyway.

From the wikipedia article on Jason of the Argonauts:
Because he broke his vow to love Medea forever, Jason lost his favour with Hera and he died a lonely and unhappy man with no friends. He was asleep under the stern of the Argo, which was rotten, and it fell on him, killing him instantly.

One of the occasions that I really do prefer the American television version of events, thank you very much. Because there are no words for how much that sucks.

I can't quite articulate why I pretty much immediately felt that Jason = the most awesome character in the series, but then I rarely can with these things. It may be his voice. I was raised on radio dramas and can be terribly shallow when it comes to voices.