Oh, look at this! It's a seasonally-appropriate fic rec!! Starring the Buffybot!!!

First things first - my apologies to any English majors, teacher and professors or lovers of the language for my punctuation abuse in the title of this post. What did those poor innocent exclamation points ever do to me? Secondly, I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday - whatever you choose to celebrate or nothing at all. Christmas, Kwaanza, Solstice, Chanakuh "which is not THAT major a holiday on the Jewish calender but is getting swallowed up in the capitalist orgy of modern Christmas, darn it!" (So says a friend of mine.) Whatever, I'm easy. (Thirdly, I'm still having trouble with the "cut tags", damnit, so - apologies for taking up your Friends' Page, m'dears.)

Normally my Inner Scrooge doesn't go in for "warm and fuzzy Christmas fanfics", but as with any other trope or sub-genre, if it's well-written - superb characterization that is true to canon, a well-crafted plot, plausibility, atmosphere, spare and elegant prose, etc - I can be convinced.  I can be seduced. Also, today I got pajamas, chocolate, and a gorgeous new fluorescent yellow biking jacket that can be seen a mile away. (If that doesn't inspire me to get this leg injury healed so I can get back on my  horse  bike, nothing will.) Ergo, I'm in a sharing mood. My Inner Scrooge can go deal.

ozma914's  Buffybot's Secret  has all of that (the characterization, et cetera, not the biking jacket.) The Buffybot ("Bottie") celebrates her very first Christmas in ozma's post-Chosen, "Four Friends" 'verse featuring Dana, Tara, Buffybot and OC Slayer Kara at the new Slayer School. Tara (in the form of a not-quite-ghost) and Buffybot were resurrected by the same spell that healed Dana's mind. (Don't ask me how, I haven't gotten there yet either - LJ makes it a bitch to try go back in time. Just, roll with it, 'kay?) 

Oh Buffybot. If you don't know about my boundless love for the 'Bot, you haven't been paying attention. I could go on forever about how a potentially-disastrous concept pays such big dividends on BtVS, thanks mostly to Sarah's performance.  Somehow ozma manages to capture her spirit and voice - charmingly childlike, inadvertently funny, and surprisingly sympathetic - on the page, while using her as a vehicle to explore what it means to be "human" in ways the show didn't even attempt. And I do offer apologies to all the other fanfic writers reading this whose works I also treasure dearly; I'll spread the love very soon, but I meant to add this to my post yesterday.

WTF??? Can anyone tell me what THIS means?

unable to get cluster reader: 9 at /home/lj/cgi-bin/LJ/Talk.pm line 2490.

 Anyone recognize what the heck this is? This line was filling up my inbox on repeat and I deleted it a few times thinking it was spam, before it occured to me that it might be replacing some of my messages. (DAMN IT.) Is LJ trying to FORCE me to switch permanently to DW?  'cause losing my inbox messages is killing my warm and fuzzy Christmas mood.