Early Exit Polls (the Remix II remix)

First off, some fine individual remixed my Mandy vignette December 1997, aka, the 500 words I excised from the Great Unfinished Mandy Story, the one with pilates and the half-joint tucked behind a refrigerator magnet. I could not have asked for a better one of mine to remix if I'd been able to use mind-control on the author. And she does a damned good job of it, cutting back and forth from my New Year's Eve 1997 to Mandy's New Year's some years later, with all the regret and baggage and that comes along with it.

I give you Same Old Lang Syne (the Back and Forth remix) by ??? (some lovely person).

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Then, for my Memories and so forth, some of the good stuff I've come across so far.

Edited to add additional recs.

Clean (Live, Acoustic), a H:LotS sort of Kellerman/Lewis and a really elegant example of how a remix works best. The remix author took the theme of the original fic and re-crafted it to give it new punch, in a slightly different version of the same story, set the night Mikey goes back to the boat to off himself. Really marvelous, especially the last line.

Means of Expression (Go Thy Way remix) is a kickass Firefly story with Zoe both strong and fragile, and Mal and Inara, separate but equally helping keep her on her feet.

Left the Runners Behind (The Killer in Me Remix) is future-Farscape that kicks such serious ass I don't even know where to start. John is so jaded and toughened and Scorpy's just another guy on the ship and Jack is old and innocent. Really good stuff.

Lady Come Down (Amnesia Remix) is category: Humor, and also funny! It's an Enterprise story about diplomacy and first-contact procedure gone wacky, with a groping Emperor with secret arms on a planet with a "no pointing" rule. Plus, Hoshi has three husbands.

Ready or Not (the Don't Be Alarmed Now Remix) has Giles in a dream that's funny and fucked-up and frightening. Here's the Giles that remembers being Ripper and doesn't always hate himself for it, and the Giles who understands that Buffy is both fragile and tough as nails. The original story's a Buffy/Faith piece, and the remix takes advantage of the Buffy/Faith sexitude in a twisted, skilful, Giles-POVvy way. This is a bitter and whip-smart little story, fiercely written. I love it.

The Quickening (Got No Soul to Sell) purports to contain both Character Death and Character Assassination. Maybe it does, but I thought it was damned good, myself. This is a Highlander AUish futurefic, and this is the Richie I know, the Richie who plays the game to win.

A Few Things Anya Knows (the Billy Pilgrim remix) is just that, and moreso. This is Anya, AU Anya, anyway, pre- and post-"The Gift," clinging to that stupidly human concept of hope in her inimitable ex-demonesque manner. And at the end of the day, she's the one with the most hope of 'em all.

The Wizard From Outer Space (Meta Remix). Hal wrote a 100 word HP drabble where Arthur Weasley bumped into some fanboys in London. The remixer picks up in fanboy POV and tells the unabashed lovestory story of the strangest, most wonderful, most in-character wizard he's ever met.

Punk read an SV story about mutants that was, in her words "fucking awesome." I haven't read it yet, but I trust Punk when it comes to things that are fucking awesome. And so: Huitlacoche (Corn Smut), a 2nd POV story about mutants and Lex clones and sexy sex.

I will read some more stories now.

this is the year of the child when he spreads out his wings

Next up is the Farscape ficathon assignment. I have header titles and an outline! I've written my name at the top! And the disclaimer! I also thanked Punk in advance! Clearly, I'm inches away from a completed story, and I've got seven whole days in which to do it.

After some very fancy somewhat immoral footwork, the multiverse2004 pairings are out as well, predicated on the concept that practically everybody got at least one request they can write. Me, I got three, but I swear, not just because I know the organizers, really, it just worked out that way. *g*

We learned things, too, 'Raste and I, not the least of which is that running a ficathon ain't easy, and running a multifandom ficathon's right close to impossible. So mad props to musesfool for the hard work she's done getting Remix/Redux II on its feet, and additional omnibus props to all ficathon-organizers far and wide.

Mostly, we learned about math, and not the kind that includes dividing by four, where I can just turn to Punk -- as I do, with math problems -- and say, "how'd I get 22?" and she'll say, "because you added wrong." Instead we had quadratic equations where the request says [Crossover 1: Fandom A/Fandom B and Crossover 2: Fandom C/Fandom D] but the available writers only write fandoms B and D *or* fandoms A and C thus making the assignment impossible to either of them, time to go back to the master list, rearrange things, get some of our broadest-spectrum multifandom whores back (all hail voleuse, sathinks, illmantrim and _par_avion, with an honorable mention to our intrepid pinch-hit volunteer leadensky, whose talents will almost assuredly be called upon in the future) and start again. Then I went to bed and 'Raste had some pizza and in the morning there was a FAQ and no one's declared vendetta upon our houses and our children's children, or at least not where we can hear it.

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Meanwhile, I elected roommates, and loads of 'em, in the hopes of replicating my Brooklyn commune on Angeleno soil (desert, bedrock, San Andreas fault). I will miss ptpatricia a whole lot, but the new folks seem okay. I got 81 responses to my ad, so I had the luxury of being selective, and even so -- as these things so often go -- I ended up picking the first girl I met, though I dutifully met the others as one by one they dropped by, and all stuck around, and by midafternoon we had a coffee klatch in the living room with five girls and a dog.

Now I'm awake (again, still) because I flipped nocturnal and I'm hungry and dizzy and reading the remixes with sheer delight.

Say.

If you're out there and you know how to build the kind of site used by the Remix or Yuletide, with forms and anonymous feedback and whatnot, we would very much like to borrow your talents for the Multiverse. Anyone care to volunteer to make us a site?