auroracloud | Dec. 25th, 2016

Dec. 25th, 2016

It's Yuletide! The archive is open! And this is what I got as my gift in the exchange:

Fandom: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
Title: Beatrice, or, The Mechanical Yule Goat
Summary (as posted on AO3): Charles Babbage constructs a Terrifying Literary Engine, driven by Steam and Diverse Mechanical Linkages, in order to complete his Yuletide assignment. Said automaton proceeds both to irritate the Countess of Lovelace and to destroy much of London.
Hijinks ensue.

The story is here.

There are footnotes! Wonderfully random mathematical, scientific, and literary references! Capering Caprine Yule-Horror!

Let me quote the first two lines:

”BABBAGE!”, screamed Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, down a speaking tube. “WHAT IS THIS ABOMINATION?”

“Which abomination in particular do you mean?” came Babbage’s voice, rendered a bit tinny by its return passage through the same tube.

Delightfully zany, rich in the sort of alternate-historical hilariousness that is so enjoyable in the canon, and Lovelace and Babbage being their wonderful selves. I'm sure many Yuletide authors can relate to Babbage's desire to construct the engine that he did. (I'm wondering if there's any way... Never mind.) And if you want to read it, the canon is delightfully easy to get into: it's a webcomic (available here, and also as a book) on AU versions of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, in a timeline where they did construct the Analytical Engine and proceed to have all sorts of steampunk-y adventures in an alternate 1840s London. Much recommended by me.

I haven't yet much read else at the archive, but there are fics in many of my little fandoms, such as Gail Carriger's verse, Wayfarers, and various 19th century literature things. Will be excited to discover them.

According to my dashboard, I also have a gift in the Yuletide Madness collection, but that only opens tomorrow. Looking forward to it!

I hope everyone's been having a nice Christmas (if you all celebrate it). Today has been a very peaceful day for me. Finns do most of the celebrations on the Christmas Eve, so especially when (like our family) you're totally not religious, there isn't much left for the Christmas Day itself. I've mostly been reading and stuffing myself with more Christmas food. Rice porridge in the morning, and now another big dinner. I don't know when I'll next need any food, but it can't be soon.

I finished rereading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - that's so fantastic! And one of the presents I got was a nonfiction book on some haunted houses in Finland and their histories, so I've been reading that a bit. I'll probably continue some of the other novels I took with me.

The earlier cold-that-wasn't-really-a-cold isn't quite over. The past couple of days I've been bothered by a persistent cough that feels rather unpleasant. I hope it won't last too long.

Feeling very tired and lazy now. Maybe I'll fall onto bed and read a bit more.

Current Mood: lazy

Today's writing

It seems that all that Yuletide-editing rather took it out of me fic-writing-wise, because there was no way I could make myself work on any fic today, despite having several ideas. I worked on my original idea, writing a few scenes/text fragments from various characters' point of view. I'd missed them, and really enjoyed the writing.

Tally
( Days #1-#18 )
Day #19: