Five Things

1. The semester is so close to over that I can taste it, just a week more to give finals, finish grading, and cram some research in before the holidays. I love empty winter campus, and I’ll really enjoy returning to it in January, but for now I just want to be finished. If my department could stop throwing last-minute administrative things into this week, that would be great.
   
   (I want to bring donuts to the final for my upper-level on Weds. morning. This does mean putting in enough effort to like, order the donuts, but I think I can persuade myself to do so.)



2. I finished my mittens. Probably around 10 hours for these, owing to the colorwork—I did the first one on double points and switched to circulars with magic loop for the thumb, then did the whole second on circs. DPNs and stranded knitting were just a bit too much to handle.
   
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I ordered yarn to make my partner a sweater and it arrives tomorrow. I’m excited to knit it! Not as excited to finalize the details of construction.


3. I read the play version of Another Country this weekend and loved it possibly more than the movie. The movie is wonderful, I love the visuals and costumes and acting, but the play has all of that sharp dialogue on the page so I can linger and appreciate it. Also it makes canonical that one of the prefects gets off on caning other boys, which is really just key to the English public school story, I think!
   
   
4. Tumblr brought me a meta essay this week from a fandom I know nothing about, but I like the main point:
   
   

   
   Basically, I think it’s a lot easier and more common for small fandoms to buck panfandom trends than it is for large fandoms to do that, because by and large the people in one large fandom are going to overlap with people in other large fandoms, whereas two small fandoms might have virtually no crossover of individuals or interested demographics.
   

   
   
   I don’t know that I’ve thought about this before, having spent most of this go writing for one closed-canon megafandom. It’s an interesting lens, though—not so much about what it means for the character of big fandoms, I know that way lies misery, but for characterizing the tone of individual small fandoms. Who is here, what are they into, can I tell that just by looking at the works on AO3?
   
   I’ve unconsciously been using ideas like this to get further into small fandoms, by leaping from one to another following the trail of writers, AO3 tags, exchange fic, etc. which speak to me. It’s been validating. I’ve read a lot more fic this year than last, and enjoyed most of it, because I’ve been chasing similarity of fandom engagement rather than simply character type. Like: I like villains, but hopping around based on a villain I happen to connect with has historically led me to a lot of het good girl/bad guy fic that I do not. Meanwhile, chasing down all of the “historical fandoms where people write Victwardian-to-WW2 m/m pastiche” has meant more work for me in terms of learning the original canons, but you bet I’ve enjoyed pretty much every David Blaize fic I’ve read.
   
   


5. Speaking of: fic recs! From recent exchanges.
   
   Femslash Exchange:
   
   your mind a shell by yletylyf, Locked Tomb, E, 1k, Alecto/Harrow. Second person 💖
   once upon another time by celaenos, Locked Tomb, E, 5k, Mercymorn/Cristabel. Lyctor hurt, yesss.
   
   Fic in a Box:
   
   Have Not Saints Lips by ribbons, David Blaize, G, 2k, Frank Maddox/Hughes. I am filthy for a reunion romance.
   An Unlikely Partnership by PerfectlySteadfast, ACD Holmes and Raffles crossover, Bunny Manders/Raffles, G, 4k. A lovely fun casefic.