Horsechicks of the Apocalypse

God's Blueprint, by djarum99. R, 1535 words. Post-S2, with spoilers through the finale.

"Mitchell looking into the cracked mirror of his past, and choosing the path of his future."

Amazing, full stop. Every word is perfectly chosen, every thought is perfectly Mitchell, in all his contradiction and scars and love. I. Just.

:: flails ::

I've read it three times, and still can't describe it any better than that. If you've seen through S2, go read!!

If We Shadows by ariafic (1775 words, PG-13)

I think this might capture the tangle of love and crazy binding Geoffrey and Ellen and Oliver better than anything I've ever seen outside the show itself. Each of them is pitch-perfect, flaws and passion and all, the language is beautiful, and the structure is unconventional in a way that seems completely effortless and sensible and not the least bit forced or affected.

Geoffrey makes a small and quiet character choice, frozen there in the little white room and all its reflections. Ophelia has made her wantonness her ignorance; tonight Hamlet will not be merely acting a play. Oliver is always saying he wants more from Geoffrey, Geoffrey is capable of more, more. What Oliver wants, Oliver gets.

"Time is out of joint," he whispers to Hamlet in the mirror.

Exeunt.

S&A is one of those shows where, however much I miss it and sometimes physically ache for more, I know it's done. The story, as it makes sense to tell it on television, is told. But man, there's some nice interstitial fic out there, and this is WAY up there.

Abby's local obituary is here.

If you'd like to make a donation to one of the organizations requested
by Abby and her parents, here is the information you'll need.

Checks can be sent to either:

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (Abby worked on this website!)
4000 Clayton Road
Concord, CA 94521

MDA SF East Bay
1800 Sutter Street
PO Box 721
Concord, CA 94522

For online/credit card donations, please visit the MDA Gift in Memory page.

If you'd like to make your online gift for something specific, Abby was diagnosed with SMA type I (Werdnig-Hoffman) and SMA type II at various times (type I because she was diagnosed with it at a young age, and type II because she lived into adulthood).

Rather than have the "gift in memory" cards sent one by one to Abby's family, you can have them sent to me, and I'll bundle them up and give them to her all at once. The address is ( hereCollapse )

Abby had told us and even the book club at church that at her memorial service, some friends had promised to do the mourning scene from "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Forum". I don 't remember who was in on this, but I figure at least a few of you horsechicks are or know who is. We need to meet with the pastor tomorrow--and by the way, he's okay with this! So I need to know if he should expect it.

Please respond to me at donna@albrechts.com  I'm using her computer because I don't have the horsechicks list.

Donna

Welcome to the Abby Albrecht (tv_elf) memory post.

Abby, 1975-2008. Article by her mom and herself, 2005, after her 30th birthday.

Post a memory of Abby here, and forward on the link to anyone you think will want to contribute.

I've been bookmarking stories I like in the former de.licio.us, now Delicious, application for a while now. Mostly I keep it short, summary-one-line-reaction. I've got tags for "lovely", "glee", and "awesome", "angst" and "crack" as well as ones for crossovers, au's, and het and gen. 165 recs so far as of today, here.

The latest are a couple Torchwood-Journeyman crossovers, some post-Season-4 Doctor Who's, Tin Man, Supernatural Big Bang fic, more crossovers, NCIS, Angel, Heroes and Farscape, old and new stories alike.

Because I just wrote Persistence of Memory (crossover with Doctor Who, dealing with both the Deal, and Martha's actions during the Year that Never Was), I went looking for other fics that address Dean's deal with the Crossroads Demon. Only five eps until his time is up; now is a good time to get your Alternate Realities in place, if they do something horrible to him. So I present four of my faves: different ways of trying to save Dean.

Strange's Country by concernedlily
Rating: R
Author's Summary: Sam stopped focusing on ways to free Dean from the deal and started looking for ways to get him out of hell two months before he was due to arrive there.

Long, plotty, crossover with "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell", but so mildly that you don't need to have read or even heard of that book for it to work. Sam POV, but everything in it is informed by Dean, and the descriptions are awesome, as is the new magic Sam studies in trying to save Dean. Great stuff.

Cast Stones at Dragons by apocalypsos
Rating: PG-13
Author's Summary: It’s been a decade since Dean’s year was up.

Spare, short, but intense, with Sam still working on the solution long past the deadline, in a way that is unique and original.

Like a Wheel by mayachain
Rating: R
Author's Summary: The hellhounds have dragged Dean off to hell, and either Sam is going insane with grief or the car he just inherited is trying to persuade him to follow.

God, the imagery on this just kills me. And since I adore Impala-fic, this was incredibly welcome. The ending like iced-tea after an awful, hot day.

Under Darkening Skies by RivkaT.
Rating: R
Author's first paragraph: It went to shit in Waterloo, Iowa. They'd just iced a demon who'd possessed a college professor and had been inducing his students to cheat, steal, and even murder, so that went okay. But when they were on the way out of town, they ran into a roadblock. It looked like a sobriety checkpoint—college town, right?—but no sooner had they stopped, ready to give the sheriff's deputies smiles and fake IDs, than they were swarmed with black-suited SWAT guys and ordered out of the car.

Crossover with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, post-Chosen. I have issues with some of it, but other parts ring true; and most of my issues are lingering BtVS issues (I still can't like Willow), not SPN. Sam and Dean are drafted for one last job, and Dean figures it's better to go out with a bang (so to speak). And yet one *more* way to deal with the Deal, that isn't like the others.

Read 'em and brace yourself for the end of Season 3.

This is just poignant and poetic and stunningly beautiful. Part of the recent ficathon over at sarahjane_fic.

Gen, PG, 9400ish words.

Did I mention stunning?

(Gotta remember to post announcements here as well as on my LJ!)

"Five Times Coreen Fennel Didn't Kiss Henry Fitzroy (And One Time She Did)" by yours truly. T, just over 10K words, Coreen & Henry friendship. Spoilers through "Wrapped."

Explorations of two of the more problematic couples in a canon peppered with them:

1. "Love's Labours" by amilyn (Othello, Iago/Emilia)

With the Yuletide reveal come and gone, I can publicly thank amilyn for the honor of betaing this intriguing look into just how those two came about. They are entirely their pragmatic, calculating and unromantic selves, and it makes total sense. (There be some smut here.)

She paid less attention than was her custom to the patrons around her until one of the men stopped her with one hand and grabbed her ass with the other. He licked his lips and asked, "When will your father offer you for hire, woman?"

Emilia pushed her hip into his shoulder, and smiled coyly as sack sloshed into his lap. "Never when you are asking, Master Carter," she retorted.

The other men at the table jeered loudly as she proceeded to the man whose blank stare was now on her. She leaned over the table as she set his meal down. "Your dinner, good sir."

2. "Best Men Are Molded Out of Faults" by a_t_rain (Measure for Measure, Mariana/Angelo)

Saw this recced on angevin2's LJ earlier today, and had to check it out. Mariana was my first role in a full Shakespeare production, and I'm oddly protective of her. My Mariana was determined that the second chance she gave Angelo would not be wasted. This is an Angelo who rises believably to that challenge. Don't miss the shifts in form of address; every one of them is telling.

"Well! Methinks I see a proper spirit of humility in you, like to that of your virtuous wife. I did well when I ordered the two of you married." The Duke leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands together, and suddenly Mariana understood exactly why Isabella had refused the best match in Vienna.

"Pardon me, my lord, but you ordered me widowed, and him beheaded. I call that a strange sort of marriage."

"I feared, Mariana, that it would be a stranger marriage if he lived, but I am pleased to see it is not so." The Duke gave them both a searching look, and Mariana quickly reached for Angelo’s hand. As a gesture of affection, it was not entirely successful because Angelo did not seem to know what to do with hers, but it might have deceived the Duke by candlelight.

[xposted to my LJ]