Life! (not immortality)

I haven't yet read any, but I see that Yuletide 2016 yielded:

• 3 new D&DC stories (and there's 1 that posted independently in October, since the last time I checked)
• 3 new FK stories (and there's 1 that posted independently on Christmas Day)
• 0 new BSG78 stories (although 3 posted independently in November and December)
• 0 new YB stories (although someone included it in a mass crossover in October; otherwise, it last had a story of any kind in 2013)
• 14 new Galavant stories
• 13 new Pokémon Go stories (I didn't know PokéGo fanfic was a thing. But OF COURSE it is.)

And many, many more. Including 4 stories for A Ladies' Guide to Collecting Mermaid Love Songs by Aimee Picchi, which I'd never heard of, but will be looking up on the strength of that title!

I'm particularly looking forward to the D&DC tales. Falling prey to prejudging a fanfic by its tags and summary, I think they look congenial. I shall see... :-)

#10. Recommend a fannish reference resource.

In Dungeons & Dragons (the '80s cartoon!), I heartily recommend the astounding Dungeons & Dragons cartoon encyclopedia! It's everything I ever wanted to do for FK non-fiction, and more and better. If you ever loved this show, it's easy to get lost in delight there, link to link, script to script.

In Battlestar Galactica (the original series!), I rely on The Battlestar Wiki for anything I can't remember where to find in canon (and for what's beyond canon). It has a few blind spots, connected (I presume) to certain Real Life situations (e.g. Serina isn't in the recurring character list, though several less-frequent characters are).

As you probably know, in Forever Knight, I assembled my own reference materials back in the day, including a script-based flashback timeline (a variation on wiliqueen's phenomenal costume-based flashback timeline, and building also on Dorothy's version), a Crusades/FK chronology alignment, and 7 character FAQs (mainly the S3 characters). I started, but never completed, lists of all named FK places and things and FK characters, and an FK quotation concordance. To this day, I keep print-outs of my timeline and aired-order episode list on a bulletin board above my desk at home.

Happy Saint Nicholas Day! :-)

The stockings are going up over at fandom_stocking. They'll continue appearing through December 15.

My own isn't up yet, but here are the tag-filter links for wishes in Forever Knight and Highlander. At the moment, the elves seem to have the original Battlestar Galactica mixed up with the new one as both battlestar+galactica and bsg tags; I'm sure they'll untangle them (and if they don't, we BSG78 fans can figure it out).

(Speaking of BSG78, have you heard about the new "definitive collection" recently listed for pre-order? 3 hours of deleted scenes!!! I, uh, may have pre-ordered it for myself already to take advantage of the huge markdown in price on Amazon today. It won't be available until May. Thank you, Santa... um, Easter Bunny... um, my employer!)

As you know, you don't have to "hang a stocking" yourself in order to gift someone a recommendation, story, illustration, warm greeting, and so on (or vice versa!). This is a completely no-obligation opportunity to do some small nice thing, whatever your talents and interests.

Many generous people stuffed my Fandom Stocking full of abundant lovely treats this year! May I spill them out on the floor and hold them up to ooh and aah with you? I received:

• Assorted fun ecards full of seasonal and holiday wishes, including a link to Neil Gaiman's New Year Wish post. (You know, I really must get over my teenage Gaiman trauma — do not hand Sandman to a fairly innocent adolescent, okay? gift her Zot instead — and try him as an adult.)



• Two exciting fanfiction gift certificates! Now, I must narrow the infinite possibilities in order to redeem them! (Oh, hush, yes, of course my favorite characters are carved in lichen-covered stone. ~grin~ Let's just pretend to suspense for a minute anyway.)



• From rebelcolors, a recommendation of a 50K-words gen Battlestar Galactica 1978 story! "Perceptions of Reality" by L Zaza. (Yay, fellow BSG'78 fans! Yay, recs! Yay, gen adventures!)



• A Highlander fanfiction, "The Day After" (Duncan/Tessa) by elistaire, from Tessa's perspective on the island the day after the tag of "The Gathering." As I stagger on through fandom's perpetual tragic drought of Tessa stories, Elistaire has mercifully refilled my canteen; I will survive to the next oasis.



• A Forever Knight fanfiction, "Moving On" (Natalie, Nick, Grace, Sydney) by pj1228, from Natalie's perspective on returning home after her desert vacation after "Only the Lonely." PJ thoughtfully remembered that I had, ages ago, submitted Natalie's between-seasons relocation as a story prompt, and she builds it up from solid first-season canon timber.



• Another, completely different, Forever Knight fanfiction, "Approaching Dawn" (Nick, Urs) by skieswideopen, from Nick's perspective in days to come. It resembles a vintage "Forever Not," ending the story, full stop, with the daring we used to have in doing that ourselves before TPTB did it for real and we all got obsessed with their ending. Skieswideopen keenly assembles my least-popular most-beloved tropes, including major character death, bereavement, longing... no, wait, come back! These are good story things, and she knows what to do with them! Really!

For my part, I'm afraid I managed to properly stuff only three stockings — with one HL ficlet, "When a Lady's in the Case" (a tag to "The Lady and the Tiger"); one FK ficlet, "Relocation Therapy" (a tag to "Black Buddha"); and three Avengers userpic icons — and then to lean some New Year's wishes up against a handful of other stockings. Nevertheless, as always in fandom_stocking, I had a lot of fun, and met amazing new people! Happy 2013, everyone.

With a special call-out to those of you who enjoy supporting f/f storytelling, I want to share that hearts_blood has written an innovative, intriguing FK piece for a prompt that I submitted in a meme game: "Tripping Over Mountains" (~700 words, PG; Cohen/OFC).  This is not the first personal Cohen story in the history of the fandom! But... it's unfortunately close. I know of precisely two others.

While I am making entirely informal recommendations (while falling yet further behind on the formal recommendations project), did I ever properly emphasize that all BSG'78 fans should check out "The Poet's Son" (~9K words, PG; Boomer, Nomen OMCs, Starbuck, Apollo), which malinaldarose wrote for one of my prompts in the last oldschoolfic game?  This is a brand-new, strong, plotty, themed, canon-aware, gen adventure starring Boomer!  Where else can yet get that kind of treat?

And if you're an adult whom the Big D wishes would Not Write Or Read Such Things, you might enjoy this Oh So Adult Tangled tale: "What You Don't Know" (~90K, NC-17; Eugene/Rapunzel, Pascal, Maximus, Queen, King, Snuggly Duckling Crew, etc.) by Airplane. Blame neonhummingbird, 'cause I usually don't go anywhere near... eep! (It's the themes and parallels, honest. And Eugene thinks he doesn't do backstory...)