Waiting

My sister is going into surgery, um, pretty much right now. It's not life-threatening, but she'll be off work for quite a while. I know she's in good hands, but it's kind of giving me the wiggins.

::chews nails::

Waiting Over

I couldn't bear sitting here at work, so in the end I wound up at the hospital with my mother, father, and brother-in-law. My sister came through the surgery fine - Brother-in-law spoke to the surgeon afterwards and everything went well. Sister is now happily floating on a cloud of morphine and is immensely glad to have it all over with (it's been in the works for some time). She'll be in hospital for a few days and off work for several weeks.

Thanks so much to all of you for your nice comments. Such a nice flist I have. :-)

Yet Another GIP

Heeee! This one's by awmp too.

Fanfic Author Appreciation #4

Most of my reading prior to LJ was at All About Spike, partly because I liked Spike as a character so much, but also because it was the first archive I found with such consistently good stories. (Maybe we should have an archive appreciation week too?)

After coming to LJ, however, I found new authors I hadn't heard of before. Lots. Lots that I've read and lots more that I haven't had time to read yet. It's hard to pick from among them, but here are a few of my favourites:

jwaneeta writes delightfuly insane prose in the style of P.G. Wodehouse. Her story A Proper Funeral stars Giles, Spike, and Angel, and is side-splittingly funny. jwaneeta has an unusual past and uses it to great effect when she does commentary on her own story The Code of the Watchers with Sister Angelus. Just reading jwaneeta's posts can be wildly entertaining, whether she is expounding on the loveliest desk in the storied annals of deskery or mourning frozen octopi that look like tiny used condoms with tentacles. Check her out.

thenyxie is a wonderfully talented writer with an incredible range. I've pimped it before, but I'll pimp it again: In The Alley (How It All Comes Down) is her take on what happened after the scene faded to black at the end of Not Fade Away and it is brilliant. In my mind, it's canon. Song of the Open Road takes a look at the post-Chosen lives of the surviving BtVS characters and is equally wonderful. Season of the Witch was written for her own Tales of the Slayers Ficathon and tells the story of a Slayer in the days of the Salem witch trials.

stoptocheer is an author I just started to read recently - she does a fantastic Xander. The Tale That The Watcher Tells looks at what might have happened if Xander's and Giles's roles had been reversed in The Wish. Not only is it a great story, but it gets rid of the plot hole in the original episode (see my post here). Seven Conversations Xander Harris Never Had With Rupert Giles sums up Xander's character perfectly and The Inherent Ineluctability of One's Fate is a great alternative ending to BtVS S6.

More tomorrow!

Mugshots

I had fun playing with portrait icons when they were all the rage last year. This is my family - the icons bear at least a passing resemblance to the real people. (Yes, I look alot like my mother, while my sister takes after my father.)

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And this is the cousin who got me watching BtVS and AtS in the first place. It's all her fault!