I got lovely things in my fandom stocking, among others Bab5 icons *points* and two lovely fics with Susan Ivanova, Crossing chasms in small jumps and The Mantle of the New.

I'm having one of those days where some small things went wrong and I'm feeling a bit unbalanced for no good reason. So to give myself the illusion of doing something, have part I of my attempt to make "The Maze Runner" make more sense.

Why build a Maze?
The Maze is huge and complicated. Building it must have been very expensive and a lot of work. So why?

( Tests )

( Grievers )

Does that make some kind of sense? I think it's more logical than what they said in the movie, but fortunately the way the background info was presented makes it very easy to say that most or all of it was lies. Thoughts welcome!

I'm still working on part II: What are the scientists doing (what about the brain scans?) What was Thomas' plan? Who sent up Teresa? How did the exit work? And then part III will be "other small stuff", like ladders.

Merry Christmas, or whatever other holiday you celebrate! I hope you all have a great time :)

It's 2am and my head is a bit fluffy, so I'm not sure how much sense this makes. I just made chocolate muffins at 1am for a birthday brunch tomorrow.

I have my Christmas presents prepared, except for the wrapping. I was late this year, I got two of them today, but whatever.

I watched parts of the first period of the Pens vs. Tampa game that DD is attending in person (so envious!) Originally I wanted to watch the whole game, but I'm very tired so I'll see. 0-3 so far, but at least not as badly outplayed as they could be considering the Pens' ridiculous injury list. I'll be happy to escape with nobody hurt. (But anything can happen!)
Now Flower is being pulled. It it wasn't his fault, and back-to-backs are brutal anyway.
At least the game looks entertaining! I'm going to ask DD for a detailed report.
Edit: 0-4. Let's just get at least one goal tonight, 'kay?

Tomorrow there's MSZ's birthday brunch and then dinner and then singing and then presents. Yuletide should go online sometime around midnight, right? The smart thing would probably be to go to bed early and then wake up earlier on Thursday because I won't be able to sleep long anyway, I just doubt I'll manage. Depends on which books I'll get. I've never not gotten a book for Christmas :)

I already have a long list with ideas for stories for The Maze Runner, and I feel more confident about maybe actually writing them than I have in a long time about prompts. Maybe it's because I wrote a lot in December, but I think it's also that the canon seems "easy" in comparison to the last two I wrote (Young Avengers and Hockey RPF): it's just one movie without a huge background, and the characters are fictional so you can make up whatever backstory you want.
But who knows, maybe I'll have abandoned all of them in two weeks.


For the December meme, a question by topaz119: Tell me about your favorite books from your childhood.

I did a 10 books that have stayed with you post once, and many of them are from my childhood. Depending on how you define childhood (up to about 14 in this case, maybe?), all of them except #9.

I read a LOT when I was a kid. I used to go to the library about every second week with a shopping trolley filled with books, and sometimes that wasn't enough space. We went on vacation with a huge bag full of books, especially when we visited my grandparents and I borrowed twenty books from my aunt at the same time.

I read basically everything I could get my hands on. Once I found an author I liked I tried to read everything by them that I could find and then switch to the next one. For example for a while I read a lot of Wolfgang Hohlbein, then Agatha Christie and Edgar Wallace, and a bit later I had a Marion Zimmmer Bradley phase.

One of the earliest of these phases was when I discovered Karl May. He's very popular in Germany and Austria, but I don't think he's well known elsewhere. He wrote (fictional) travel novels (that are basically Mary Sue self-insert fic), the majority of which took place in the Old West and the Orient. I still know the names of his horses (Rih, Hatatitla, and Winnetou's was Iltschi) and of his companions (like Hadschi Halef Omar Ben Hadschi Abul Abbas Ibn Hadschi Dawuhd al Gossarah).

Some aspects of the books are problematic, some just aren't that good, but they were very good idfic and wow were they great for self-insert fantasies. The existence of Kolma Puschi made up for the death of Nscho-tschi, so my avatar merrily rode through the Old West saving Old Shatterhand and Winnetou from the Comanches (the books were also good for h/c.)