everything but the girl

Note: Started writing this on Monday, got distracted by the awful news about Kim Manners and then by Putting Kids to Sleep - The Extended Remix, so it's now mid-day on Tuesday and I need to just post it or it'll be too long for anyone to bother reading (don't sigh, I know who you are).

One of the X-Files fandom charity sites is inviting people to contribute by donating to The American Lung Association, in memory of Kim Manners:

"Prolific director Kim Manners, beloved to fans of The X-Files and Supernatural for his skilled and innovative directing style, lost his battle with lung cancer on 25 January, 2009. To honor the firecracker genius we lost all too soon, we invite our fellow Manners fans to contribute any amount they are able beginning on 26 January, 2009. The funds will be collected and donated to The American Lung Association in Memoriam of Kim Manners, from his community of fans."

At least three people on my flist have had people on their flists break flock this week, which is just very tacky and not on. Bad form, flock-breakers.

But on the good side, three people on my flist have shared love for Billy Joel, Hall & Oates and early 90s George Michael in the last day, so that's a cheer-up.

From the Fangirling The First Couple side of the web, The New Yorker interviewed ( the adorable couple ) back in 1996 and they just make me so ridiculously happy. Is Michelle wearing loafers? I hope she is because it would make me adore her more (if such a thing is possible). deirdre_c also shared this gorgeous shot.

In further fangirling, officialgaiman won the Newberry Prize and basically announced it himself via Twitter. He also twittered about being wet.

And some of the guys from the cast of Heroes are being woobies ( on the football field ) (more here)

spn_j2_xmas recs. I adored a massive number of the fics posted this year, and I haven't finished reading all of them yet, but these are a few that I thought were particularly adorable:

chash's Waiting (Learning My Patience) - a J2 futurefic involving weddings and magazine interviews

sazzlette created gorgeous weechester art

shiplessheathen wrote Werewolves In Their Youth, an AU of Sam and Dean if John had left them with Ellen sometime in the late 80s.

Reading Rent-A-Santa from jeyhawk is like enjoying the good bits of the holiday season all over again in the form of an unexpected meet-cute in this J2 AU.

The premise is vaguely cracky (Intergalactic Hooker Jensen/Art Student Jared) but beckaandzac was creative and astoundingly glorious in I'd smother you in kisses, I'd give you outer space. The characters are wonderfully done, but what made this particularly brilliant, to me, was her "future perspective" on things like 3D and food.

(Gee, I think my rec-theme this year is Oh, Woobies!)

What to Get for the Boy Who Wants Nothing from emerald_angel9 is utterly schmooptastic and made of glee.

Special thanks to alchemise for an adorable Pushing Daisies crossover and manip here (and even though it isn't an spn_j2_xmas fic, lyra_wing also posted a delicious Pushing Daisies xover this week - Coeur d'coeurs - wherein Dean gets creative with pies.

Between those two fics, and emerald_angel9's recent ice-cream themed Brand New Flavour, it's been a lovely month for fics to make you very, very hungry!

Also, my gift for bimosexual is up here - it's a J2 version of Ever After - well, it's the first fifth of it. There's Prince Jensen of the Great Nation of Texas, and beleaguered Jared who spends most of his free time in an attic in San Antonio, and the evil Lord Fredric Lehane and his bratty kids, and soon, the famed artist Jeff Morgan will arrive.

Since I'm discussing both Heroes and SPN in this post, I'll use my pre-series xover icon.

SPN Fics:
Sam learns cross-stitching and uses it for protective reasons by embroiderama. Gen. If you like SPN and/or crafting, read this - it's very different.

musesfool posted There's Never Time to Save, You're Paying By the Hour, which reads like a casefic but feels like a character sketch. Or vice versa. In other words, it's a terrific piece of writing with many, many layers.

Harvester of Eyes is a fic that gwendolyngrace posted in the spn_boc (supernatural + blue oyster cult) ficathon. It's a crossover of SPN and Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and it's very evocative of both universes, and obviously, it features the Corinthian

Intrepid reporter 12_12_12 has been collecting picspams and interviews and more from the Heroes World Tour, and you can find her collection of links here (and ancillary discussion of the sublime potential of a Jim Profit/Steve Carrington fic/art challenge here).

And Adrian Pasdar has posted a new video on his YouTube page here starring Milo and Jack and a vending machine. I just love how he's making these little films all along their trip, and sharing them. I've made an LJ RSS for the RSS for his YouTube page at pasdaryoutube if you want an easy way to see when he uploads new videos.

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Also, a legal story rec - Google has settled a trademark infringement suit with American Blind; in the settlement, Google "agreed not to make any changes to its AdWords trademark policy that would adversely affect American Blind in exchange for the company’s dropping its claims." Not sure exactly what this means, and I'm trying to get my hands on whatever settlement document was filed with the court. The reason this is interesting to me is because it deals with whether a company's competitor can purchase keywords in Google's AdWords system that are registered trademarks of other companies. In other words, a parallel would be whether Pepsi could buy the keyword Coke. Google seems to have come out of this situation with a settlement document that doesn't say that such purchases are trademark infringement, which means that Google doesn't have to start restricting AdWord keyword purchases, but since the case isn't resulting in any rulings, there's also no additional guidance as to whether a company can sue the competitor who purchases its registered trademarks as keywords.

Wheee, fixed coding in recs section!

From last week's hp_fridayfive:

1. How do you feel about Dumbledore's avoidance of Harry in OotP?

I was very unhappy with it in the course of the story, and especially when I got to the end with Sirius and the veil, because there was a linear causation from one to the other. I understand why he thought he had to do it, but I think he was wrong - just like he was wrong not to bring Kreacher to the cave!

2. Name a favorite crackpot Potter theory.

That the Blacks are descended from Rowena Ravenclaw, and the Tapestry was originally created by her.

That Scabbers transformed in the night while at the Weasleys for all those years and Manchurian Candidate-ed either Percy or Ron - or both.

When Hagrid said he "flew" to the Hut on the Rock, he flew via Thestral, which Harry couldn't yet see.

3. Do you think Sirius (consciously or not) mistaking Harry for James actually caused more harm than good?

I don't think he really did, actually. I think he wanted to see aspects of James in Harry, and that's it.

4. Tonks: Love her, hate her, or somewhere in-between?

She was full of potential in OotP, but I hate the idea that she'd lose her powers because of unrequited love. Ginny didn't! Nor did Ron or Hermione or Cho or anyone else - why, randomly, Tonks?

Silly plotline.

5. What Hogwarts house would you definitely NOT belong in?

Slytherin. I am just not that cunning. At all.

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Supernatural recs:

Two by big_pink:
Dazzleland - “Someone goes over Niagara in a barrel. You gonna jump in and try to save them?” – Dean Winchester, Crossroad Blues. Sam’s making plans, and they don’t include his father or hunting. They might not even include Dean. High school in two time periods, with spoilers through Croatoan. WIP but nine chapters are up and it's close to finishing. It's as gen as an episode - or three - of the show.

Red. "Something evil is killing treeplanters in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, possibly the same predator that Dean narrowly escaped years before. How Grimm will things get before the brothers figure it out?" Completed fic, discussion of sexual abuse and very bad things, some het, and again, as gen as an episode - or three.

unperfectwolf's Days Dawning; Pure Morning- an outside perspective on Sam in his first two years at Stanford, from the perspective of his roommate

mahoni's untitled ficlet based on Home

musesfool's Give Me a Leonard Cohen Afterworld - "Sam wakes up one morning, and it's as if he's living the life he'd always dreamed of having. There's just one small problem." I was shaking through most of this fic, terrified of how it would end - this is probably technically a horror-free "episode" - no monster of the week - but there is major emotional "horror" and it kept me shaking. Meep.

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copperbadge is writing "episodes" of Heroes to keep us all going through the hiatus! Chapter One: Facing the Firestorm
Chapter Two: A Family Decision
Two Steps Back, with a focus on Claude and Peter - how Parasite could have gone, but didn't - by philote_auctor