Fun fandom things to do

I think I'm getting sick, flist. My throat is aching and I felt miserable and ache-y all day. On the plus side, however, I was able to take most of the day off and do two fandom things I've been looking forward to:

* I finally signed up for hoggywartyxmas, the year-end exchange centered on the Hogwarts staff. Hoggywarty's in its fifth year and always produced great fic and art about the older generation. (And I should give credit not only to therealsnape, who does a brilliant job running it, but also to JKR, whose teachers are so vividly drawn that we can populate a whole fest with them alone. I wibble every year because deadlines come at the worst part of the semester, but this is so fun I couldn't resist. Sign-ups are open through tomorrow--drop by to join us!

I always have difficulty crafting a sign-up. Do you, too? On the one hand, I'm easy to please--there are only a handful of things I dislike in fic which generally can be boiled down to bad politics and shallow characterization, neither of which can be warned against and are rarely an issue, anyway. I love stories other folks have loved writing, so I want give an author as much leeway as possible. On the other hand, I know many of you are looking for direction in a sign-up, so I feel like my easy-going "everything's great!" isn't that helpful.

* I also read the first two fics being discussed over at reading221b, holyfant's The Speed of Objects in Motion (Sherlock/John, stunning psychological realism from an author I admire, discussed over here) and chryse's The Frost is All Over (another Sherlock/John, this time a nineteenth-century AU and a charming and self-conscious pastiche of Victorian tropes and themes discussed over here). I'm so excited about this comm--it's a reading group for fic! Fabulous concept. The big drawback to date has been the length of the fics selected, 48K for the first and 148K for the second, and even taking the day off I didn't have time to read slowly enough to savor either and didn't get to do much beyond skim the conversation at the comm. If you're interested in talking about Sherlock fic, this is a great chance to do so.