Two quick things: One, I responded to saraht's request for fic-recs at halfamoon with a rec for a Yuletide story that somehow turned into a intro-post for the canon. If you have somehow missed my attempt to make you read Polly and the Pirates, or have been hit by me before but might still be susceptible, this one has scans!

Second, I am looking for a beta who lives or has lived in Kenya. I know. Failing that, um, anyone with experience with military culture and structure?

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

So, odditycollector was discussing her most recent attempt to watch Smallville, (cue my "It's still on? Hasn't someone noticed yet?") and the following ensued.

Betty: [Dragonball is] anime. And kind of like Smallville, if everyone acknowledged how stupid Clark is, and he didn't bother trying to keep the fact he's an alien secret.

For the tiny percentage of you who know what I am talking about, does this mean Bulma is Lois Lane, or Chloe? How does Vegeta fit in? SERIOUS QUESTIONS.

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

@Gmail

GIVE ME MY GODDAMN EMAILS, YOU PSYCHOPATHIC BOMBASTIC BLENDER-ATTACHMENT.

@everyone else

I may not have received your emails, if you have recently emailed me.

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

I assume everyone who is interested knows about Let's Misbehave, a WhiteCollar OT3 vid, but the reveal was last week and it can now be downloaded. (Seriously, is greensilver really the first to realize The Rat Pack + White Collar = Vidding OTP?)

Speaking of which, my gosh, WC is shiny, and not overtly stupid, but still really kind of stupid. ( spoilers for 110 )

I find myself gravitating, fannishly, towards OT3s, in some part because the fic is just slightly less likely to contain misogyny. Also they're adorable.

---

Speaking of misogyny, this flowchart seems a pretty accurate diagnosis of Supernatural's problems with women, although I can't be sure of the seasons I haven't watched. It comes from a cracked.com article, which, although likewise accurate, so far as it goes, uses 'gay' and 'pussy' as insults, may it develop a perpetual itch.

---

Speaking of itches (man, did you see how I did that...?)

Excluding porn, and the associated and expected, (because OMG, TMI, and also, Awkward) have you ever had a physiological response to writing?

Granted, I am ridiculously prone to psychosomatic conditions (actual stress reactions: nausea, welts, hiccoughs, heartburn, etc.) but I once came all over itchy from reading Martha Wells' Gate of the Gods, (third in a very worthwhile series) which had a description of an old and musty house that would certainly have had me wheezing and eye-watering if I had been there. I had to put the book down for a while and go breathe outside air.

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

Since the internet is my TV, and since I have my adblock honed to a monomolecular edge, I rarely see movie trailers, and in fact often don't know about new movies until the reviews start coming up. (Lending a distressing plausibility to advertisers' claims that they are in fact informing the public.) So every once in a while I go and watch all the movies trailers on the internet to figure out what I'm missing. Sadly, the answer usually seems to be, 'nothing much.'

My point being: This Legion movie; anyone else feel like they've already read that SPN mpreg apocafic?

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

If I asked "Who are the characters with Daddy Issues?", this entry's comment section would look like an ontd entry, but who are the character's with mom issues? (I can't quite make myself type "mommy issues" and besides, it sounds oedipal like that, which is not my meaning. I just mean: 'who are the characters who have bad relationships with their mother, which they cannot let go?')

Off the top of my head:

• Lacey Thornton, The Middleman
• Sidney Bristow, Alias
• Eve/Livia, Xena
• Dinah Laurel Lance, DCU
• Wonder Woman (Diana), DCU
• Cassandra Cain, DCU

And I kinda had to reach to get that many. Are there others? Do they manage to be interesting?

ETA: Are there any dudes with Mommy Issues? At all?

Mpreg son of ETA: eruthros, in comments,

I was watching the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade making-of special a while ago, and Stephen Spielberg uttered this immortal line in the first couple minutes of the special when they were talking about the basic premise:

"I wanted to flesh out Indy's relationship with his father. And I said, here's a time we can really do a really good character study of who gave birth to this guy."

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

Did I tell y'all that I found Pregnesia in my municipal library's romance paperback rack? I suspect one of the library book-buyers of being a fan of Smart Bitches with a sick and admirable sense of humour.

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

One of the fic genres I love and find fascinating is the one where it turns out that this one guy who everyone thought was an easy-going goofball is actually SOOPER SMART. You know the one; the one where John Sheppard does Nobel Prize calibre work in physics, where Jim Kirk is some kind of genius in Linguistics and speaks Vulcan and six other languages, or where Shawn Spencer gets his Sherlock Holmes on.

And it seems happen in one of two cases; either the savant character is one who is canonically so stupid that it's amazing they manage to navigate society, and the author invents back-story where their stupidity is affected and tactical, or, the case I find more interesting, when canon tells you a character is quite bright, but then fails to demonstrate it, and an irate fan finally takes the bit between her teeth and gives 'quite bright' everything she's got.

I mean, no character is really immune suddenly becoming a concert-level pianist, or a chess prodigy, or speaking French, in fic, but for some characters it seems to be much more intense, much more elaborate, where we follow them on extended displays of their ability, whatever it is. And the punch-line isn't always that the other characters who didn't respect him (usually him) realize they've under-estimated him. It's sometimes purely for the reader, and no one else sees it.

And it's such a guilty pleasure for me, because I love it (if done with a degree of skill) but I feel slightly ...embarrassed? And I'm not sure why.

ETA: Rec your Smart!Character fic in this thread!

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

I've been away from the internet and catching glimpses of the situation in Haiti all day. Oh my god, you guys.

Link drop:

• I personally know and endorse skywardprodigal who has a list of links to charities and other organizations that are able to help.


• NPR's list of links for Haiti support and news


• help_haiti is organizing an auction to raise funds, and you can purchase a variety of things, from a number of people, of whom I recognize glockgal, such_heights, vito_excalibur, marthawells, dreamalittleyo, xparrot, caia_comica, ethrosdemon, and sgrio. Also, there's like twelve-dozen pages more of people who I don't, but you might.
  
  • I especially want to mention odditycollector's offer to correctively recolour comic pages, as she did with the Legion of Super-heroes, this time, with everyone. It's currently going pretty cheap.
  • I'm selling drabbles and a book review. (I don't know if there's demand, but them's the deliverables.)

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

I just keep on lolling endlessly about The Vampire Diaries, even though I've watched about... five episodes? ( totally unfair mockery )

The point of which is that one of the brothers (the eeeeevil one, naturally) is named Damon.

And my question is: is anyone ever named Damon/Damien in literature writing except to signify that this fellow is No Good, although he is perhaps Dangerously Attractive, and the heroine may be Deceived by his Affected Concern, or Smoldering Intensity, especially when a Misunderstanding with the Hero drives her Sobbing into his Arms of Deceit?*

I was going to say, "And, has anyone ever encountered anyone named Damien in so-called Real Life?" except that my mother did. He was not evil. (I asked.)

So that was rather disappointing.

* Except for Anne Bishop. Obviously. She's clearly in a class of her own.

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

This is assuming that y'all have already seen the fistful of stories that are getting recced everywhere: if you haven't, they can be found here. I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting.

Polly and the Pirates

The Prize, by Fiercelydreamed — If you have ever read Ted Naifeh's Polly and the Pirates, I assume you loved it and wanted more. Here is your more. It is the story of Polly's parents, how they met and loved each other, and it is everything you wanted it to be.

Futurama

Be My Brussel Sprouts, by Xparrot — Pretty much exactly like the show, if the show made jokes about handjobs, which mostly they don't. For bonus points, look at the comments and see how many people give a response that is basically “This is hilarious! Poor Kif!” which, again I say, exactly like the show.

Iddie Izzard

Delicious, by newredshoes — Okay, this one has been recced everywhere, I just wanted to talk about it a little. This story is partly interesting as… well, what is it? Is it RPF? Is it even a story? It's a comic monologue that never happened. I admit to a vast curiosity as to the prompt that produced this story. (OH WAIT. I COULD LOOK IT UP. Hrmm, it's totally open-ended, so that's no help.) Also, it has made a running gag of Churchill, Manitoba, a city which has probably never had that honour, outside of Manitoba. (For your edification, Churchill, MB.)

Jennifer Crusie: Dempseys

And to All a Goodnight, by freneticfloetry — I have to give it points just for making me forgive the title. I think Welcome to Temptation and especially Faking It are two of Crusie's best works, so it could be pretty easy for stories in this 'verse to be a let-down, but this very much gets Crusie's tone and technique nearly perfect. It's perhaps slightly less frantic, and maybe a shade warmer, but manages the same hysterically funny, non-stop, character comedy and structure. Also, it's novella-length.

Making It, by Emeraldwoman — I betad this, so no point pretending I'm not biased, but I do adore it. Brings together Nadine Goodnight and Simon (er, whatsisface), gives sexy, funny banter, and a happy ending.

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

haha whoops accidentally formated /home *facepalm*

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

I see that Yuletide stories have been unveiled, so I can confess I pinch-hat Chocolate and Chile and Cloves, a Leverage OT3 fic, which is perhaps cheating. Leverage is the large sort of small fandom, and I was a bit surprised it was eligible.

Now to go see who wrote the stories I bookmarked! (Aaahaha David, I should have known that was you!) I will ETA this post with a bit more reactions when I grab a moment.

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

Wheee, alphabetizing!

Yesterday, I was alphabetizing my shelves, as I am prone to do under stress. (Family holidays can be stressful.) Generally, new or unshelved books are placed horizontally on the shelf in the general region of the alphabet where they belong until the strategy becomes untenable and mass alphabetization ensues.

I had a minor existential crises when I discovered my McKinley and McKillip books had become inter-shelved (inter-leaved? inter-booked?) and I spent five minutes trying to decide if I was okay being a person who alphabetizes to five places of accuracy. (It turns out, I am. Five is a totally arbitrary number, but they are quite objectively different people.)

Anyway, give me your thoughts on Alphabetization! Mc before Ma? St. as Saint? Van der Post under V or P? Does series override the importance of Alphabetical by Title within Author?

GEEK HARD OR GO HOME.

(how do I not have a "books!" icon?)

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

This year I didn't sign up for Yuletide, but I did pinch one hit (hit one pinch?). And for the first time, I'm relatively certain that if anyone read it, they could easily spot it as mine, since I realized after it went live that one line in it is copied verbatim from something I've already posted. (I didn't recycle it, I just, apparently, have verbal tics.)

So, I'm screening comments, but a drabble or a limerick to anyone who guesses it! I reserve the right to unscreen non-guess comments.

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

Let's talk about books!

(Oh man, you guys, Yuletide!)

Has anyone ever encountered a book that was unreadable because of the font? Or, maybe just a book that was bizarrely difficult to read because of the font? I remember checking a John Barnes out of the library (possibly Mother of Storms? I remember something about islands.) which, due to some sort of printer's error, had strangely heavy letters. You could still identify the letters easily, but somehow the effect was unreadable, and I never got past the first chapter.

Then there's Magic to the Bone which has chapters from a mystery POV entirely in a sans typeface, while the rest of the book was in a serif font. The sans typeface gave the impression of being much smaller than the serif font, and it was so jarring I skipped those chapters.

And now I'm trying to read Staying Dead, and the font, which Identifont thinks is Generis Slab, (it isn't, but it's close) Is the most distracting damn thing.

I'm really not even a font snob, but sometimes this stuff turns out to kind of matter!

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

The Yuletide archive is alive again! *heaps abuse on it w/ opening of tabs*

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

Has everyone seen www.isityuletideyet.com? It's existence pleases me.

(Confess! Whose is it?)

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

Apparently American Idol fandom refers to their RP(F/S) works as AI RPS fic, or AIRPSFIC.

I keep going "Airships!? Where??!"

My life is a constant roller-coaster of excitement and disappointment, brought about by my inability to read.

(@Various: Yes, er, it turns out the laptop spontaneously turns itself off if one leaves it unplugged for several hours, even if one is using it at the time.)

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)

We've made it past the solstice! Those of us for whom this is the winter solstice, YOU GUYS YOU GUYS, this means we get MORE SUN EVERY DAY, from now on out!

(Those of you for whom it is the summer solstice... um. Sorry.)

Those of you for whom this is a festival, I um. Meant to wish you a happy one. Yesterday.

This post also posted on dreamwidth ( comments)