I can't believe I've already been home for two weeks. But at the same time, it feels like I've been home for ages. Christmas went decently well. ( talk about presents and stuff )

In more successful news, I went to go see It's Complicated today and it was hilarious! Meryl Streep was fantastic, just like she always is, and Alec Baldwin was hilarious, just like he always is. They have incredible chemistry together. I went with my parents and didn't except to super love it, just because it seems like more of an 'old person movie', but I was laughing just as hard as they were. I'm awed by how Meryl Streep is able to convey SO MUCH just with tiny facial expressions. She's like- gah! *______*

Oh, also! I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall the other day, and actually quite enjoyed that, too. What super impressed me was that Jason Segel wrote it! WOW! And he wrote the songs for his Dracula music! And was clearly playing the piano. I thought it was funny and reasonably kind hearted (which is what I like in humour movies), and I especially liked that it didn't too much villainize the ex girlfriend. Russell Brand was SO FUNNY.

Also, also, on Boxing Day, I got a white bedskirt for my bed back at my place- great success! It will hide the mattress and all of the boxes underneath the mattress and that will be awesome. I also got a vegetable peeler and two of these spatulas that are curved so they're almost like a spoon. And bright orange! Love it! I'm like this incompetently domestic person, idk. I spent a while researching those organic produce delivery services (single people like me can get really small deliveries that only come every couple of weeks or every month) but I'm not sure if I can commit to that because there's probably too high a ratio of other vegetables:squashes.

Anyway, that's what's up with me. I hope that you had a good Sunday! I'm going to go see if the iKitty is still alive- wish me luck!

Okay, it is still alive, but I'm pretty sure just because some else fed it. Creepyyyyyyyy. I guess all the iPets are connected by the intertubes. O_o

Oh my god, I miss my real cat ;___;

And here it is! The masterlist for the Crazy Elf Wish Exchange submissions. Please check back in on this post, I'll keep updating it when more fic and art is posted (A lot more to come. And that's just the things I know people are working on :) Also, please feel free to keep playing with the wish prompts as much as you like. Getting doubles is awesome. And when you post, please crosspost a link to the original wish thread (here - if you want to get notifications of updates, please track this post.)

If you're in the mood for more Christmasy goodness once you're through here, please take a look at last year's submissions as well. There's some really good stuff in there.

Merry Christmas, everyone. And thank you so much for helping spread some Christmas joy.
Love you all to pieces. ♥

( Masterlist of fulfilled wishes. Merry Christmas, everyone. :) )

( Complete list of wishes here )

Ps. If you notice anything missing, please drop a note in the comments and I'll take care of it asap. Again, thanks, guys. You make my Christmas really happy. ♥

For emmyatthedisco, who wished for: more Rywalk snuggles, in whatever form they come
Merry Christmas. ♥

( Merry Christmas )

What kind of freakishly cruel parents go for a REALLY LONG WALK on CHRISTMAS MORNING????



There are presents to be opened.

For salire, who wished for: Anything domestic with ryan and brendon. oh my god, i love it when they're pretty much just married and comfortable with each other and just. guhhh boys *____*.
Merry Christmas, sweetie. ♥

( Would you like some freshly ground pepper? )

I have three WIPs going for the Christmas wish exchange (and some art that I'm planning to do). And one of them even got completed in time! \o/ (The rest will come along shortly, hope you don't mind.)

The following is for moku_youbi in response to this wish: Spencer/Brendon where they are hitmen on opposite sides of some dispute or other, but who are sort of friends, occasionally running into one another on the job (trying to beat each other to the same target, or something) and who hang out outside of work for casual drinks and the like (they don't really have any friends or family). Then, one winter they're assigned to kill each other, but run away together, instead.

Title: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) | Brendon/Spencer | PG-13/R | one-shot | 6800 words
Summary: Kill Bill meets Pulp Fiction meets about a 1/10 or so of John Grisham’s The Firm. Spencer is a hit man, working for the Deadly Cobras. A certain Brendon Urie keeps getting in his way.
A/N: Big thanks to salire for cheerleading and doing impromptu beta work at 4 AM. Merry Christmas, moku_youbi. Love you to little pieces. ♥

( You're too late again. )

Title: Christmas is Overrated, Anyway
Author: fleurdelisee
Word Count: ~3,300
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon
POV: 3rd, Ryan centered
Summary: Putting up the tree was the most anti-climactic moment of Ryan’s entire life.
Disclaimer: Never happened as far as I know. If you stumbled upon this by Googling your name (seriously, don't you know it was a bad idea?), please, for the love of everything that's good, go away.
Beta: devilswhore_x
Author Notes: Merry Christmas! It’s kind of bittersweet; definitely not what I had planned but I still love it. Many of the ideas in this come from my wonderful beta, devilswhore_x, who convinced me this idea needed to be developed. It was originally supposed to be two different stories but I managed to make them fit together and make it work. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

(  Ryan cursed under his breath as he fought with a beat up cardboard box, trying to haul it up the steep staircase of Brendon’s apartment building. )

I've been a little holiday house elf the entire time I've been back at my parents house. At first it was making me cranky, but resistence is futile, so I've kind of just given in and am reasonably enjoying myself. Over a couple of days, I helped my mom make four trays of pergoies (which takes a million years but is pretty much one meal for my family). Two nights ago I made stir fry for dinner, and the tofu was the best. I don't know if it was a good brand or my awesomeness (I spent a long time wringing all the water out), but it turned out really well.

Last night, I had this manic energy (there have been some ...tensions around my house), so I went to the grocery store and then made pumpkin bread pudding, and then this morning for lunch I made winter panzanella (squash, brussel's sprouts, croutons, & onions in a vinaigrette). The bread pudding was okay because I put in even more spices than she called for (and apparently she put in more spices than the original recipe called for) and because pumpkin is always tasty. Bread pudding isn't necessarily my favorite, but it was easy to make. The squash and brussel's sprouts thing was so incredibly mothertrucking tasty, wow. My Dad grows herbs, so there was fresh thyme and sage from the garden, and then the crispy garlicy bread things, nom nom. It took a million years to make, though. (If you want to cook it for yourself-- the squash takes 45 minutes to cook, not 15. I don't know what kind of crazy oven she had that cooked it in 15 minutes. Squash never cooks in 15 minutes.)

Do you guys know of any other recipe blogs besides Smitten Kitchen? I like some of her recipes, but she posts a lot of recipes for cake, and wow would I ever not have time to make any of those. I pretty much just like cooking vegetables, and by vegetables I mean squashes, so really what I want it is a blog of squash recipes. Other vegetables, too, I guess. Whatevs. I also like chickpeas. (OMG, I also have a recipe for chickpea and squash salad. Greatest. Recipe. Ever. I'm going to try making that after Christmas.)

Yeah, so, I don't know. Being home is a little weird. I've been keeping myself busy. I think that anyone who actually knows me is going to be rolling around in horror at the suggestion of Laura In The Kitchen, but my parents disabled the smoke alarm, so it's all good. I set the parchment paper on fire a little bit, but it was easy to blow out. No worries.


In other news, remember when Spencer did that promo thing for the drum company? I watched that again this morning, and OMG.


It's like he has gumby arms-- no bones!

How excited am I for Panic's new CD? Really excited. I would like to share my hopes and dreams with you and these are them:

1. Shane has been filming Spencer and Brendon in the studio. We will get to see this video.
   
   
2. Spencer and Brendon do ~professional photoshoots~ to promote the album. MORE SWEATER VESTS PICTURES.
   
   
3. The music is good.

I think that is a pretty reasonable set of demands, so there's no reason why the universe shouldn't give them to me.


I haven't gotten any marks back for this semester. :( I hope it wasn't a disaster.

Just booked tickets to go see Cobra in London on Feb 10. With intricate_life and fannyt!!! SO EXCITED!!! Anyone else who's going to be there? And if so, want to meet up for fangirly hangouts and/or beer?

Wishes are posting! And several more are in the works (I know of at least 5. And they're awesome. :)))). Basically, this makes me even more of a happy elf on crack.

So, a couple of practical things to make sure no one misses out on anything:

1) Once you've posted your fic/art/what it is you have made to your LJ, please post a link in the thread where the wish was made as well (these threads are here, and a few more here). This to make sure that the person who made the wish as well as anyone tracking the wish post will be sure to see it. :)

2) If you're posting a teaser for something you plan on finishing after Christmas, please do the same thing. (And add another reply with link once the thing is finished.)

On Christmas, I'll make a masterlist of everything that has been posted so far. And I'll keep updating this whenever someone posts a new link in the wish post, so feel free to track (and let Christmas spill over into January. There should always be Christmas in January too. :)).

And now I should go off to try and finish the stuff I'm working on for this. I got sidetracked for a few days and ended up watching every episode of Merlin and reading all the arthur/merlin fanfic I could find. Seriously, guys, it's like a medieval version of Lois and Clark! Arthur is the greatest reporter warrior in the land, and goes off to investigate things! And Clark Merlin has to follow him, pretending to be just a clumsy but endearing country boy and letting Lois Arthur order him around and then saving him with his secret powers whenever Arthur gets into trouble. \o/ Seriously, so amazing.