To be precise, this journal is about 75% flocked. Anything that is in some way linked to my personal life is friends only. General discussion and opinion posts are open. I don't write a lot of fic, but if you're looking for it, you'll find links in the sidebar.

Don't be shy! If I have a vague idea who you are, I'll most likely add you. I just want a little control over who reads my stuff.

This was my third Yuletide, and the best ever.

I got three amazing gifts for my prompts: Two full-length fics for The Sound of Music and a Yuletide Madness Calvin & Hobbes X Doctor Who crossover. I have no idea who wrote any of these and I'm a little overwhelmed by the fact that I got two treats and I just want to hug and cuddle all my stories forever. I've also gotten a lot of positive feedback for my own (still secret) story (on which christycorr and firstlightofeos did a fantastic last-minute beta job), which keeps making me very happy. I love fandom.

The recs:

Title: Pasturale
Fandom: Sound of Music (1965)
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Baroness Elsa Schraeder
Genre: Character study, includes Elsa/Georg von Trapp and Elsa/OMC
Summary: The Baroness is usually seen as a villain in the Sound of Music. Maybe it's time to think again.

A detailed, thoughtful story about Elsa's life, from her first marriage to the time that she lets Georg go to be happy with another woman. This has a very introspective and perceptive Elsa, who is kinder and more thoughtful than you would perhaps expect from the movie. It also does an exceptional job of reconciling the movie's historical inaccuracies with actual events. All in all, the world depicted here is perfectly reconcilable with movie canon, but the characters have a little more shades and the world they're in has a little less technicolor than the movie's. I also love the writing style; it is very much in sync with the topic of the fic.

Title: Fourteen and Impossible
Fandom: Sound of Music (1965)
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Baroness Elsa Schraeder, Friedrich von Trapp
Genre: Gen
Summary: "The boy is looking imploringly at her again. Elsa sighs, and holds up a hand to summon the waiter."

It's a missing scene with Friedrich von Trapp (that's the oldest of the boys) and the Baroness witnessing the Anschluss together during Maria's and the Captain's holiday! The kind of story that you wouldn't expect, but that works on every level. Elsa is pitch perfect as the movie's supercilious, shrewd socialite, and her commentary on the von Trapps is brilliant and cutting. And still, she and Friedrich manage to find and comfort each other in a bad time. The ending is a great example of show, not tell, and it makes me choke up a little every time I read it.

Title: Holiday
Fandoms: Calvin & Hobbes, Doctor Who
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Calvin, Hobbes, Melody Pond
Genre: Gen
Summary: It was just a silly old box.

A chance meeting between Calvin and Melody. It's brilliant characterisation and tongue-in-cheek jokes and canon references for both fandoms in 214 words. I absolutely adore Calvin & Hobbes crossovers, and this one demonstrates why.

All of these don't have nearly as many hits as they deserve, so check them out and leave spread the love!

I will make another rec post for Yuletide fics at a later date (I hope).

Dear author,

First things first: Thank you for doing this! Yuletide has become one of my favorite things about the holiday season (and there are a lot of contenders). I'm excited!

Most of my requests are pretty broad and/or brainstorm-y. Part of that is because I really don't have particularly concrete expectations or must-have's, and the thing I like most about a gift is the surprise. In addition, I want the best you can offer (I'm picky like that ;)), and I want to give you free rein for that. So, seriously: everything I suggested is just that--a suggestion. In those cases where I said any characters in the request, I meant that! Even if I'm talking about specific characters in the prompt--that was just what my mind could come up with for a prompt. Doesn't mean that I won't enjoy another story more, just because I didn't have that idea.

In conclusion: Do whatever you feel works best for you and feel free to ignore pretty much everything I'm saying here or in my prompts if that helps you.

However, if you'd like some more info about my preferences, here it is.

( about my general prefences )

( about my fandoms )

I hope this helps. Most of all, I hope you have fun with my fandoms and prompts! Don't be terrified, I'm so happy you signed up for this, and I love you for it! And anybody who likes either of these fandoms has my implicit trust.

Since I posted my Pinboard sidebar and custom buttons tutorial for Firefox yesterday, people have been asking about Chrome. I don't use extensions or addons in Chrome myself (Chrome is my sleek and fast browser), but I promised to look into it.

I started by looking for extensions that are already out there, since I have no idea how to make extensions for Chrome. I went to the Chrome webstore (https://chrome.google.com/webstore), did a search for Pinboard, installed all the extensions, and tested them. These are the ones that I think are useful:

( Screenshots and descriptions )

That's it. All the other extensions I tried didn't convince me. These six offer a lot of the functionalities the Firefox custom buttons and sidebar I showed yesterday did, plus more.

The following is missing:
1) There's no actual sidebar, but the Pinboard extension does something similar and is actually sleeker than the sidebar, plus allowing for tag filtering (with multiple tags!).
2) None of the extensions support the "popup with tags" option. This might be a real drawback for some people.
3) Only one extension (4) contains a link to your network. None of them offer a network sidebar. Again, might be a drawback for some.

If anyone is still interested in a real sidebar, a popup with tags option, quick access to your network, or any of the other stuff I showed for Firefox, let me know! I'll look into it.

(Also: feedback is love. Anonymous comments are enabled, IP logging is off.)

[UPDATE: I made another post for Chrome extensions]
[UPDATE the second: The popup with tags button now has a scrollbar. (Thank you to the anon who provided the code in the google doc.)]

This is a tutorial for adding a Pinboard sidebar and custom Pinboard buttons to Firefox. Hope it helps some people!

One thing I really liked about the old Delicious was the Firefox addon. I use sidebars a lot, and I love customized toolbars. I didn't really use the Delicious toolbar, but Firefox allows you to drag buttons that you like into other toolbars (in my case the amazing All-in-One Sidebar, see http://firefox.exxile.net/aios/index.php).

Pinboard offers only a very basic browser addon (no real toolbar and no sidebar), plus the bookmarklets that you can drag and drop anywhere you like. However, when I first got my pinboard account (back when Yahoo announced they'd shut down Delicious) I spent some time fiddling with the Pinboard bookmarklets and made them into pretty buttons. I also made a button for a Pinboard sidebar.* Now that more people are leaving Delicious for Pinboard, I figured these might be useful for other users.

( Screenshots and instructions under the cut )

* Well. It's the Pinboard mobile version opening in your Firefox sidebar. Not a replacement for the Delicious sidebar, but Maciej (the Pinboard owner) has said that he will not be implementing a real sidebar anytime soon because it would require too much coding. So this is the best you'll get.

First things first: Thank you for doing this! This is my second Yuletide, and last year was amazing, so I'm really excited for this round, and I hope you'll have fun with my prompts!

Most of my requests were pretty broad and/or brainstorm-y. Part of that is because I really don't have particularly concrete expectations or must-have's, and the thing I like most about a gift is the surprise. In addition, I want the best you can offer (I'm picky like that ;)), and I want to give you free rein for that. So, seriously: everything I suggested is just that--a suggestion. Do whatever you feel works best for you and feel free to ignore pretty much everything I'm saying here or in my prompts if that helps you.

However, if you'd like some more info about my preferences, here it is.

( about my general prefences )

( about my fandoms )

I hope this helps. Most of all, I hope you have fun with my fandoms and prompts! Don't be terrified, I'm so happy you signed up for this, and I love you for it! And anybody who likes either of these fandoms has my implicit trust.

Kinderhymne - Bert Brecht, 1950

Random update out of nowhere. I've been putting up a lot of shelves and generally redecorating the apartment. Here's what you see when you come in:




I love it. I'll put up bookshelves over all of the doorways. We now have books in every room (except for the pantry).

Have a close-up of the R2-D2 I got for the 100$ Sideshow Collectibles gift card I got at Comic-Con.

I was not completely happy with last week's episode--I loved the character introductions for both Amy and Eleven and the setup of Amy's relationship issues and background, but I thought the rest of the plot was, well, lame. Well, let's just say this episode made up for it. You have no idea how much I was squeeing.

( CUT FOR SPOILERS AND EXCESSIVE SQUEEE )