Outside revisiting old fics, I've been at my parents for the better part of a week. It's been a lot of work, but I love Christmas and I love my family, so I'm happy to be able to do things for them.
My mom got to come home today. After the long-term care hospital she was in a skilled nursing facility for a while, getting OT and PT to build her strength back up. Recovery takes a long time (I read somewhere you should assume a month of recovery for every week you were bedridden - I don't expect this to take a whole seven years, but it's fine if it's slow going for a while). She's still in a wheelchair a lot of the time and likely will be for a while. We went to church, and everyone was very kind. The point is that she's home for Christmas, which is the one thing I wanted most.
Nadolig llawen, friends. I hope you all have whatever sort of holiday you like best.
What a great thing to wake up to in my part of the world - the Yuletide archive is open! (Usually here in Germany it's noon before that happens.) Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and peaceful holidays for everyone. I will do my annual pic spam later, but for now, here are the two lovely Foundation stories I got, both Demerzel-centric, the former from her pov, the second from Cleon XXIV's - last season's Day, in other words - , and both superb in their characterisations.
Remembrance (3416 words) by Anonymous Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Foundation (TV 2021) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death Characters: Demerzel (Foundation TV 2021), Hari Seldon, Cleon XXIV Additional Tags: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, mix of book and tv series canon Summary:
Demerzel wanted to scream back at him, to explain how this was all his fault, Cleon the First damning them all to this nightmare fate that none of them could escape.
But she said nothing, and walked away. Like she always did.
standard deviation (4805 words) by Anonymous Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Foundation (TV 2021) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Cleon XXIV & Demerzel (Foundation TV 2021) Characters: Cleon XXIV (Foundation TV 2021), Demerzel (Foundation TV 2021) Additional Tags: Character Study, Artificial Intelligence, Complicated Relationships, Mother-Son Relationship, Loyalty, Yuletide 2025, Yuletide Treat Summary:
He can’t get a rise out of her, and can never push hard enough that she pushes back. Human mothers eventually raise their voices, yell back, get upset. You can fling hurtful words at a human mother. But as far as he can tell, it never lands with Demerzel; there’s no heart there to twist the knife into.
(Relationship study for what slowly went wrong between Cleon XXIV and Demerzel. Spoilers for all of season 3.)
We end where we began, with Star Trek. This is the first K/S Advent fic I wrote, and the most enduring. I loved being able to make a world that is completely strange, completely alien, and to give the Enterprise a mission where while there is danger, there’s nothing trying to attack or harm them. Space is dangerous, but also wondrous, and the crew should get to enjoy that sometimes. Snowflakes (Star Trek Reboot, Kirk/Spock, G)
‘Spock was already pulling out his tricorder. "It appears to be...life, Jim. Plant life," he said slowly. Spock had a lot of ways of speaking slowly. There was the way that meant he was thinking, and the way that meant he was thinking Jim was an idiot. There was a way that meant he was absolutely determined not to laugh, and a way that meant he was still processing something shocking. This was a new one, though, Jim thought. It was almost wonder.’
Rec: Wizards in Winter by Vibishan (Calvin & Hobbes/Young Wizards, G)
The one where Calvin becomes a wizard. I don't know what else to say about it beyond that - but look, you know (if you know Young Wizards) that the younger the wizard, the more raw power. And that wizards are offered the Oath when they're needed. Anyway, I knew from the beginning this was the rec I wanted to end on.
I'm sitting in the livingroom, listening to Kpop rather than Christmas music of either secular or Christian origin. I've been prepping for Christmas Day, when we'll entertain four friends, and the house is full of the smell of two types of dressing cooked tonight so that I don't run the risk of overcooking it in the same oven as the tiny turkey (10.5 pounds) I bought for our somewhat unexpected meal. Unexpected, because we hadn't planned to do Christmas at all; one of our friends texted to ask if we were doing Christmas, possibly because they remembered that I'd said I wanted to invite them to a post-Thanksgiving dinner, and I just texted back "Yep!" because they've been very good to us, and this was one way we could repay them.
We jumped into "Emergency Christmas" mode, and I've already completed the cranberry orange relish and the Green Slime (it's a 1950s/60s recipe I got from Bob's mom, and it's not a canonical Christmas for our friends unless this is part of the menu, lime jello, cream cheese, maraschino cherries and all.) Tomorrow morning I'll stuff the bird with some of the dressing that didn't get baked tonight; I'll bake the veggie side-dish Bob and I chose; I'll make the peach cobbler I decided on instead of pie because cobbler is much, much easier to make. Then it's on to sweeping and damp-mopping the diningroom before putting extra leaves in the table and setting the Christmas board.
Last year, we were both despondent about the federal election and, without having the kids and Harlan here to be Christmasy for, we spent the day in a bit of a funk. To put it mildly.
A year later, the despondency has lifted a bit, but we still hadn't thought about Christmas much. We had improved enough to buy gifts for our three closest friends, and their son, but we'd expected to share them on New Year's Eve. Instead, that text came, and the rest is recent history.
And tonight, I got a comment on my AO3-archived story, "It Was Wonderful," a fanfic based on "It's a Wonderful Life," which Bob, Andy, and I have loved for years. For several years on Christmas Eve, I've reshared the fic, which I originally posted on my LJ, then on Dreamwidth, and I eventually posted it on AO3, and was always tickled when I got the few kudos I did for it.
The comment was thoughtful and that would have been all I needed to read. But the person then asked if they could do a podfic. They were polite, said they'd understand if I didn't want them to do that because they'd still love the story. I checked them out and found that they a) weren't the type of scammers apparently infesting the archive these days (people pretending to be fans of stories, then working around to asking for money to "create fan art" for stories) and b) were experienced podficcers.
I told them I'd be honored. It's the first time anyone's done that for one of my pieces, and it seems like a lovely and unexpected Christmas gift.
I'm not much of a believer these days - not a Christian, certainly, although my experience with Christianity growing up in a house filled with love was very good, and that experience colored the way I approach spirituality. But as Bob has often said, and I believe him, some stories are true even if they never happened. The story of a child born in a stable and placed in a manger for warmth, a child who angels sang to sleep, who shepherds approached quietly after having heard the lullabies, a child who was a hope of peace ... well, that's not a bad story to happen, even if it never did.
And then there's "It's a Wonderful Life," and "It Was Wonderful." You can find the latter at the link, should you like to read it, either the first time or perhaps for another time.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. Peace be unto all, even those who don't celebrate. I am lucky to know all of you.
This poem came out of the May 7, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from siliconshaman and wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "Crisis" square in my 5-1-24 card for the Superhero Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Big One and Kraken threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.
How did it get to be Christmas Eve? Are we sure? This year has been hard to believe in. I fell asleep in front of the decorated tree. Merry Erev Christmas.
1. I'm so glad I decided to work from home today after all. The rain was really steady all day and I'm glad I wasn't out driving in it.
2. It had rained a bit overnight and was raining slightly when I went for my walk this morning, but I managed not to get very wet at all. Then I almost immediately hopped in the car to go down to Gardena and pick up the Christmas cake. It was raining a bit on the way down and then there was a sudden downpour right before I got to the bakery, but it stopped before I arrived. Got my cake and had almost no rain on the way back, but then it really let loose as soon as I was a few blocks from home lol. I had to dash in the house, but at least then I didn't have to go out anymore.
3. There was a few hour break in the rain in the late afternoon and early evening, so we got some more walking done and were able to take the trash out to the outside bins (Thursday is our usual trash day but of course they're not going to pick up until Friday this week; still, we like to get everything out on schedule, especially since we'll be out all day tomorrow).
4. When the rain was only drizzly this afternoon, the doorbell rang and I assumed it was a package, but it was the little boy across the street who was bringing homemade gifts to all the neighbors. Not sure if everyone was getting the same, but we got some chocolate coated Chex mix. Tasty! And very nice of them.
5. I forgot to mention yesterday but we did get the car back. I really wanted to get it back before the holidays and before the rain, so it was good timing. Hopefully nothing else goes wrong with either car for a while.
6. Look at Ollie all tucked in! That's actually not a blanket covering him, or rather, it's a wearable blanket with a hood. It's been very cozy now that the temps are down, but when I'm not wearing it, I leave it folded up on my bed and the cats just love to lie on it. (Or under it, in Ollie's case last night, though that was my doing. He did stay there, though.)
My senior year of college, I was invited by the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine to come and write a story about the college’s Green Key Weekend, a weekend of partying and games and partying and also partying with partying on the side (why did they invite me? Because I was from the famously unfun University of Chicago, and they wanted to see what the weekend looked like from the view of an outsider with that sort of perspective).
There was much of the weekend I don’t remember (ahem), but one thing that sticks in my mind is the Spring Sing concert, in which the several acapella groups of Dartmouth got together and did their thing. I thought they were all fantastic, and also, during the concert there was one girl who took a penny, balanced it on the end of a stretched-out wire coat hanger and spun it, keeping it stuck on the end of that coat hanger while singing the Toy R’ Us jingle, backward. I remember thinking this was the most hilariously amazing thing I’d ever seen, and also, I wanted to marry that girl, whoever she was.
Spoiler: I did not marry her. But neither has a year gone by that I have not thought about her and wondered what she was doing with her life now. We don’t always pick the things we remember. They make an impression nevertheless.
It is perhaps this personal history with acapella that primed me to enjoy Pitch Perfect as much as I did. It is a very silly film about something that doesn’t have much consequence, namely, the hyper-competitive college acapella circuit. This is obscure to the real world (or was, until this film), but is life-or-death to the theater-adjacent-kids who yearn to get out and sing without instrumental accompaniment. I first watched Pitch Perfect not expecting much, and came away having laughed more than I thought I would, and having been unexpectedly moved in a couple of places.
The plot: Beca (Anna Kendrick) is a jaded wanna-be DJ attending Barden University, mostly because her dad’s on the faculty so presumably she’s getting a tuition discount. She mostly wants to work at the college radio station and focus on her remixes, but one day Chloe (Brittany Snow) hears her singing in the shower and basically dragoons her into auditioning for the Barton Bellas, a once-proud all-girl acapella group now struggling because of an infamous event at the previous year’s national competition (which I will not relate, you will see it soon enough if you watch the film).
Beca auditions, gets in and immediately butts heads with Aubrey (Anna Camp), the group’s type-a leader, who wants to do things just so. Beca wants to loosen things up, whether everyone else agrees or not, and eventually there’s a battle of wills for the future of the group, interspersed with various competitions and run-ins with the Treblemakers, Barden’s all-male acapella group, who include Jesse (Skylar Astin), a fellow freshman who is sweet on Beca more than Beca is sweet on him.
Truth to tell, Beca is not a hugely sympathetic main character, even if she is played winningly by Kendrick. Beca gets a lot of mileage out of not being a joiner and being her own person, but mostly it just means she’s unhappy and maybe a little miserable to be around, and causes more trouble than needs to be caused. This is not bad for the movie, since it precipitates at least a couple of amusing scenes (including an acapella rumble, which is as ridiculous as it sounds). It does make you wonder what everyone in this film sees in her. Usually when someone is this casually dismissive of everyone and everything, you just let them get on with being their own little ball of gloom.
But no, the film and its characters are determined to pull her out of her shell, mostly because otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a movie, but also because they intuit that Beca’s lone wolf act is just that, an act. She likes being part of a group, and having friends, and being someone that others can rely on. The question for the movie is whether all of that can be achieved through the power of song, and whether Beca’s own particular set of musical skills will come into play. Inasmuch as this is a crowd-pleasing comedy, you will get no points for guessing how it’s all going to turn out.
No points, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still fun and even affecting. Acapella doesn’t mean anything in the real world, but there are worse things to get wrapped up in as a college-age person, and there’s something to be said about the joy you can have, getting into the same groove as all your friends. This movie is a jukebox musical and all the music is diegetic, but when you’re with a group of people who will naturally burst into song just because they feel like it, that diegetic nature doesn’t feel materially different from a standard musical. There’s something winning about a bunch of people just singing because, you know, why not? Why not sing? Even Beca eventually gives in to it. The power of pop compels her!
Naturally this all leads up to the movie’s final musical performance, where Beca has come up with a way to bring the underdog Bellas back to glory. I don’t know enough about the state of collegiate acapella in the early 2010s to know if what occurs here is an actual innovation or just the film reinventing the musical wheel, but at that point I also didn’t care. It’s a banger of a performance, so full of music nerd energy that I couldn’t help but smile all the way through it, and maybe even tear up (I am a weeper, deal with it). As musical payoffs go, it’s a winner.
Does the world change because of it? Not really, no. But not everything has to change the world. Sometimes just saving a dour little freshman from her own self-imposed alienation is enough. And in the meantime, the movie packs in a lot of snark along with the songs, thanks to a fun script, a very funny supporting cast (including Rebel Wilson in her star-making role), and a greek chorus in the form of two acapella color commentators (John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks, the latter of whom also produced, and who would direct the sequel). It even made a pop star out of Anna Kendrick, as “Cups,” a version of a song she performed in the film, went to number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Pitch Perfect was a moderate-sized hit at the box office and blossomed in home video. Its two successors were box office smashes and there was even a TV series spin-off that detailed the adventures of a Treblemaker named Bumper (Adam DeVine) following up a fluke hit in Germany. None of these quite had the magic of the original, but they didn’t have to have that full measure of magic. Turns out people just seem to enjoy low-stakes comedy with a lot of music thrown in. I’m somewhat surprised that this film hasn’t yet been turned into a Broadway musical. If ever there was a property designed for the a long Broadway run as a tourist favorite followed by an eternal life as a touring show, it is this one. I suspect it’s a question of when, not if.
I watch Pitch Perfect when I need a little pick-me-up, because it’s fun, it has music, and inevitably it makes me smile. I suspect I am not alone in this assessment; I imagine every single acapella kid ever feels the same way, up to and including that penny-swinging, backwards-Toys-R-Us-theme-song singing girl. I know she’s still out there. I bet she loves this film to death.
— JS
(PS: If you want to read that story I wrote about Dartmouth’s Green Key Weekend, 34 years ago now, it’s here.)
A special issue featuring reprints by neurodivergent creators from Reckoning’s first decade.
Essays, poetry, fiction, and art by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe, E.C. Barrett, Kaye Boesme, Offor Chidera, Jacob Coffin, Kelsey Day, Tania Fordwalker, Abbie Goldberg, A.P. Golub, Ruth Joffre, Taylor Jones, Laura McKnight, Kat Murray, Micah Nemerever, Mari Ness, Ellis Nye, Maria S. Picone, T.K. Rex, Ariadne Starling, and Adam Stemple, with new cover artwork by Abi Stevens.
I read quite a few anthologies this year and this was one of the best. It has some real stellar stories that I'll be thinking about for a long time, and some new writers that I definitely want to see more from. The stories are all speculative fiction and many dance with the climate apocalypse in its many forms and stages.
The real knock-out of the whole book was SQUAWKER AND DOLPHIN SWIMMING TOGETHER. I am a sucker for animal communication stories, and dolphins, and climate disasters and finding glimmers of hope amongst the rubble. There was so many cleaver plot threads dropped in here and there, the story felt like a much longer and fleshed out novel. (I've already preordered their upcoming anthology!)
Also shout out to The Blackthorn Door and Fixing the System in Tilt Town, both with really interesting worldbuilding. And a nod to Icediver, which started off strong but I feel like the wheels fell off halfway through.
I didn't dip into the poetry but if it's of the same quality of the fiction than it's pretty good too.
The entire anthology is free to read online or follow the links to support through an indie bookseller.
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