thinlizzy2

Full-fledged fandomy argument

thinlizzy2 — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:08:19 GMT

I had a fandomesque discussion turn kinda angry today. It's been a while since that happened; I can't say I've missed it. But at least it was familiar territory!

There's a new American English teacher at work (he's going to cover for me when I go on mat leave). He's sort of ... dudebro-y, if you know what I mean. So besides "here's the job, please don't leave it in a fucking mess for me when I get back" we haven't had a lot to talk about. But today he mentioned that he likes the Big Bang Theory. So I thought we could go with that for a while.

I said how much Amy's character cracks me up. He was just "meh", which is fine. We don't all have to like the same characters. Then he said that he thought Sheldon should be with Penny. I'd never thought of that as a possible pairing, so I asked why.

Dudebro: Well... she's hot, you know.
Me: Yeah, but Sheldon doesn't care about stuff like that.
D: Yeah, but if he had a hotter girl it'd be better for him. Plus she'd be good for him because she could teach him about social stuff.
M: Well, what does she get out of the relationship?
D: What do you mean?
M: Well, leaving aside the fact that Penny's a pretty sexual person and Sheldon thinks sex is gross, he drives her up the wall a lot of the time and doesn't like any of the stuff she likes. What does she get out of dating him?
D: A really smart guy.
M: She's got one. Leonard has a Ph.D in physics.
D: Yeah, but Leonard's not as cool as Sheldon.
M: From Penny's perspective? I don't think she considers either of them cool. That's not a thing she's looking for in this relationship.
D: Whatever. Sheldon's cooler and he should have the hotter girl.

Yeah. Let's just use attractive women as rewards for characters we like. Never mind the fact that, intentionally or not, he routinely insults and offends her. And while we're at it, let's write off a really funny and original character as a love interest because this guy doesn't want to bang her. How fun.

Dear Peter David

thinlizzy2 — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 19:33:44 GMT

I will always love your work; there's no point in pretending otherwise. But if you kill the character you seem to be planning to kill, you will break my heart into 10000 painful little pieces. So I beg you, if you need to kill someone, kill that guy instead. Or that lady. Or, if you really must, that other guy.

But not this one, please. This one's special.

In other news, not spoiling stuff is HARD.

Lifelong dream comes true

thinlizzy2 — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:56:23 GMT

This week, we made an incredibly reckless investment that will probably result in having to slash costs in almost all other areas of our lives and I don't even care because this is something I've wanted for so long that I can't even remember when I first started dreaming of it.

We own a boat!!!

Fics: Dean/Castiel and Rictor/Shatterstar

thinlizzy2 — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 05:34:41 GMT

I've got TWO today!

The first is D/C and as written for PajamaSecrets for the D/C secret Santa Challenge. The prompt was an emotional make-out session in Purgatory.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/586884

And the second is my Yuletide story. It was written for Dett, who asked for "delicious Ric/Star" and therefore let my fluffy plotbunny run free!

http://archiveofourown.org/works/589422

Enjoy, if you're so inclined!

Um....

thinlizzy2 — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 21:00:38 GMT

I just woke up from a very strange dream. Jim Beaver was in it. He kept giving me various cats. I asked him to stop, and he got all offended. Then he made me a quiche.

I felt this should be recorded and now I've done it. So back to bed I go.

...I really want quiche now though.

Guess what tumblr taught me!

thinlizzy2 — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:27:34 GMT

Rabbits apparently shrink when wet!!!

This is now the best thing I know.

Worlds collide

thinlizzy2 — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 01:57:06 GMT

I teach an AMAZING teenage girl at her home on Saturdays. I really like this kid - she's funny and smart and geeky, pretty much the exact kind of student that makes teaching fun. So I've got to remind myself sometimes that I'm her teacher and not her friend and so I can't really nerd-out with her.

I got to the house yesterday and she was reading something on her computer that was clearly in English. I asked her what it was.

It was misachan's fic!

I was JUST able to refrain from shrieking "OMG - I know her! She's so cool! Do you ship D/C?!? I dooooo!!!" But it was seriously a close one.

Oh - and Misa please don't worry! The fic was age-appropriate.

READ THIS!!! Huge, huge fic rec

thinlizzy2 — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 20:27:17 GMT

I've spent the evening happily devouring the Yuletide offerings in my favourite fandoms, and I'm sure I'll come back with a much bigger rec post in about a week or so. But this particular story COULD NOT WAIT. It's just one of the very best things I've ever read.

If you're familiar at all with X-Factor (comic book, not singing talent show) you'll be stunned by how brilliantly in character this is. The voices, the motivations, the relationships, THE TEAM DYNAMIC - if reveals show that this fic was written by Peter David himself I won't be even slightly surprised. It's that spot-on perfect. The mix of action, mysticism, friendship, romance and humour are all why this is my favourite comic ever, and it's all done so very very well.

It's no secret that I ship Theresa/Monet like FedEx, and this fic turns the currently hopeless state of that relationship on it's head and provides a wonderful (and so believable!) solution. And this is probably the only Moneterry (no idea if that's the actual shipname or I just made that up, but I think I'm keeping it) that I've ever read in which Monet's past with Theresa's father is called into play. The scene with Sean Cassidy (one of my favourite characters in the history of characters) honestly brought tears to my eyes. And it's just one of a million things I could point to that shows how very well this author knows these characters.

So if you like X-Factor, please read this. If you like femslash, please read this. If you just feel like a well-written, clever, spooky romance, you should be reading this right now!

It's called Heartlines and it's here:
http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2012/works/597842

Fic: The Insurmountable Enemy

thinlizzy2 — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 18:14:28 GMT

I'm posting all my fic to AO3 now, so if anyone wants to read some cracky Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Castiel written for the secret lovers exchange, please go here:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/604110

Time to rec!

thinlizzy2 — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 07:49:40 GMT

I am seriously recommending the fic that was given to me if the team_free_love secret lovers exchange.

It's AWESOME.

It's Cas/Meg, and somehow manages to be fluffy, sweet and romantic while remaining totally in character. Dean's voice is perfect and Sam and Gabriel are adorable.

Check it out here:
http://team-free-love.livejournal.com/287323.html#comments

Congrats Amerifriends!

thinlizzy2 — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 18:19:56 GMT

I drink mango tea in celebration with you!

Fic: The Last Time Castiel Went All Dark and Stuff (Castiel/Jo)

thinlizzy2 — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 09:37:38 GMT

Title: The Last Time Castiel Went All Dark and Stuff
Author: thinlizzy2
Pairing/Characters: Castiel/Jo, Sam, Dean, Bobby, Ellen (People are alive if I say they're alive, dammit!)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1507
Summary: It's the curse to end all curses, and it listens to Evanescence.
Author's note: Written for the spn_bigpretzel Hallowe'en Microband. Inspired by the great art by patriciatepes, who also did the awesome banner. Thanks to jaune_chat for the great beta job.

This, Castiel decided, was the curse to end all curses. This was far beyond the overwhelming cravings of Famine or the dangerous confessions that were Veritas’s calling card. This curse blighted the eyes and polluted the ears. It drove people, even those who had never before seemed so inclined, to drape themselves in trousers and long jackets made of the tanned skins of slaughtered animals and transformed his father’s most beautiful creations into a sea of identical chalky white faces. It was nothing he had ever seen before and nothing he could control. He didn’t even have a name for it.

Bobby called it ‘the fucking curse that turns people into goth douche-bags’.

Castiel supposed that would do.

To make matters even worse, they couldn’t even get help from the Winchesters. Because Sam and Dean - or, as they now preferred to be called, Raven and Draconis - had been among the very first victims.

Castiel had been surprised when Dean had first started wearing the studded collar. To the best of his knowledge, those accessories were generally reserved for canines rather than humans. He’d taken it upon himself to try to help by doing a bit of research, but entering “Dean Winchester and dogs” into a Google search had brought up such intensely disturbing results that he’d needed to go to Heaven and be nothingness for a little while.

When he finally worked up the nerve to return, things had gotten much, much worse.

Sam had taken down all of his current research from the walls and replaced it with several posters of... a person. Castiel still wasn’t sure if they were a man or a woman. The name Marilyn, as far as he knew, tended to be given to female children, and Sam’s new fascination did have breasts in some of the images. Still, it was hard to be sure. He’d gone to Dean for help, only to find him engaged in a most curious task.

“The Impala is already black,” Castiel had pointed out. “There is no need to paint it... blacker.”

“It’s black, but it’s not, you know, black,” Dean had failed to explain. “It’s just ordinary black-black. I want it to be black as midnight. Black as the grave. Black as my soul.”

Castiel had tried explaining that Dean’s particular soul was actually mauve, with rather fetching periwinkle accents. But when Dean had narrowed his eyes and spat out that Castiel just didn’t UNDERSTAND him, the angel was forced to agree. He’d gone back inside to find a rather agitated Bobby Singer on the phone to Ellen Harvelle.

The curse had already started spreading across state lines.

***

Which led them to where they were now. Bobby was driving, since Dean had become prone to pulling off of the road to ruminate about the meaninglessness of life and death every time that they passed a bit of roadkill on the highway. There was, apparently, enough of the real Dean left for him to object to surrendering the steering wheel, but they had handily solved that problem by looping Tim Burton movies on Sam’s laptop. The Winchesters in the back seat were enthralled and quiet, but there were some negative side effects.

“The worst pies in Looooon-dooooon!” Castiel sung under his breath.

Bobby shot him a furious look. “One more time, and I swear you’re flying there.”

It would have made a welcome break from his assigned task of foiling Sam and Dean’s attempts at piercing each other’s various facial bits, but this particular drive was fascinating to Castiel. During the day, it was as if every person under the age of forty had simply disappeared. The streets were half-empty, and those who were out were middle-aged or older. They congregated in small groups on the street corners, talking in furious whispers and shooting nervous looks back at their own houses as curtains twitched and howling music blared from the windows.

And they were all gone by the time the sun went down. Then the city-scapes were transformed by hordes of teenagers and young adults clad in various articles of black clothing. Bobby rolled down the windows hoping for a reprieve once the Danny Elfman music from the back seat became too much, but there was no relief. Instead, the air became thick with the smell of clove cigarettes and an endless chant, repeated over and over no matter what miserable little town they were in.

”It’s all about my individuality! They just don’t UNDERSTAND”

“It’s like it came earlier this year,” Bobby commented.

Castiel stared at him. “This has happened before?”

“Naw, I just mean Hallowe’en. It’s not supposed to be for another couple of weeks, but it sure looks like Hallowe’en out there now.”

Sam’s head suddenly shot up. “Hallowe’en rocks, man. And Skeleton Jack!”

Dean nodded in agreement. “He totally understands me!

Bobby shook his head sadly and explained the yearly tradition.

“Do you think they could be related?” Castiel asked. “The transformations and this holiday?”

Bobby rolled his eyes. “Maybe, but who knows? Look, I know these guys are schooling you on human stuff like pie and cars and disguising weird sexual tension by bickering all the time, but here’s one great truth from me. Idjits are gonna be idjits, no matter what time of year it is.”

Castiel decided that Bobby was a very wise man.

***

Ellen came running out as soon as they arrived. “I’ve tried everything,” she exclaimed. “I’ve used exorcism, done healing spells, taken away her iPhone. Nothing is working!”

Castiel left Bobby to console the worried mother and entered the house. Then he stopped, stunned.

Jo Harvelle was dressed in a lacy black corset and a long leather skirt, Castiel’s eyes darted from the fishnet stockings peeking out from under the skirt to the spiked collar around her neck and then, inevitably, to the two mounds of flesh the tight foundation garment so prominently displayed. All of the blood in his vessel was flowing to unfamiliar places, leaving him with only one coherent thought.

This look is SO much better on women!

Unfortunately, Sam and Dean were not struck but the same revelation. They immediately crowded around Jo, offering her cheap red wine and baggies of strange herbs in exchange for being allowed to borrow her black nail polish. To make matters even worse, Jo clearly dismissed Castiel as one of the unaffected and ignored him completely. So he was relegated to doing research with her mother and Bobby.

And that research was a daunting task. Bobby did have the brilliant idea of Googling I want everyone to be goth and I have magical powers, but that turned up 762395 different tumblrs, and there didn’t seem to be anyway of narrowing them down. Bobby and Ellen finally collapsed, exhausted, and Castiel stepped outside for a breath of fresh air.

“Why are you allowing this to happen?” Castiel demanded of the unresponsive sky. “You leave me all alone, with no help and no guidance; you let my family turn against me. And somehow I manage to find friends, real friends, and you let them be turned into whiny pale abominations! Why, Father? Why are you doing this to me?”

He turned to see the Winchesters and Jo regarding him curiously.

Jo approached Castiel with interest. “Do your parents not understand you? Have they let you down?” She reached up, stroking Castiel’s cheek. Her tongue darted out, licking at her lips. “That’s... really hot.”

Castiel couldn’t believe his luck. “It is?”

“Totally.” She started sliding her hands under his clothes, and then stopped. “I’m not sure about this though.” She fingered the lapel of his coat. “This jacket... it’s totally mainstream.”

Desperate, Castiel stared hopelessly over her head at the Winchesters. Something stirred in Dean’s eyes and Castiel saw a flicker of the old Dean fighting the curse - the Dean who was Castiel’s best friend and always had his back. The Dean who had once promised to get him laid.

“I don’t know, Jo,” Dean said. “I mean, Neo wore a trenchcoat.”

Jo shrugged. “Good enough!” And she pressed her mouth against Castiel’s.

***

The next morning saw Castiel flat on his back, stunned and sated and seriously rethinking the whole ‘God hates me’ thing.

Unfortunately, Jo was far less contented. “Listen, last night was great and all, but I don’t know if I can do this again.” She toyed with his cast-off tie dispiritedly. “I mean, it’s a suit. It’s a business suit. Don’t you get what that means?”

“My vessel had a paying job?”

Jo flopped back on the bed and let loose with the refrain that Castiel had become so sick of hearing. “You just don’t UNDERSTAND.”

Castiel rose and walked towards the mirror. He had remnants of Jo’s white face powder on his own cheeks and forehead; her black lipstick had rubbed off his mouth. He turned back to her and she rolled away sadly, facing the wall.

And displaying her gorgeous rear end.

Castiel shrugged and reached for her make-up bag. At least he'd be seasonal.

Keep well

thinlizzy2 — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:10:10 GMT

To all friends affected by the superstorm, I'm hoping you're safe, warm and dry. Check in every now and then if you're able, and know I'm thinking of you.

Um... no thanks

thinlizzy2 — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 07:17:29 GMT

I get a lot of viagra and so on spam emails; I think it's because I used to order herbal vitamins online before I found a place that sells them here. I pretty much delete them all.

But I got one today with this subject line:

"BE A SEXUAL PREDATOR IN YOUR PANTS!!!"

I'll pass, thanks.

Fic: Desperate Measures (SPN, Castiel/Meg)

thinlizzy2 — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 17:42:53 GMT

Title: Desperate Measures
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Vessel non-con, mentions of violence
Summary: That thing that calls itself Meg Masters is in total control, but Kay is still there.
A/N: Written for the spook_me Hallowe'en challenge. Set in SPN season 6.

Her name is Kay.

When she was little, and already dreaming of the bright lights and glittering gowns of Hollywood, she used to resent her mother for saddling her with such a useless little non-name. She spent hours, when she was meant to be doing homework, trying out stage names, imaging how they would look in gossip magazines, as autographs, on her very own star on the walk of fame. When she left home and starting auditioning she’d settled on Krystelle. No last name - just the first. Like Madonna or Cher.

It’s ridiculous what she would give to just be Kay again now.

The creature inside her calls itself Meg Masters. That’s a stage name too; it ditched its real identity - a sinuous Slavic tongue-twister - along with snowy Siberian winters, smoky birch wood fires and its own flesh long ago. It either can't shut Kay out or hasn’t bothered to; sometimes she thinks it gets a kick out of her screams, her whimpers, her pleas for it to stop. That alone should be enough to to keep her quiet, but most of the time she has no one else to talk to.

The sole exception is Jimmy, and he’s not exactly great company. The first time the things inside them used their bodies to kiss and bite and caress and violate each other, she’d called out to him, hoping desperately that they could somehow band together and make it stop. But Jimmy just curled up into himself, a tight little ball of consciousness, even as the fingers that were his buried themselves in the pussy that was hers and two supernatural beings groaned with lust.

She can only talk to Jimmy when they - the angel and the demon - couple, but their appetite for each other is insatiable enough that she has plenty of time to get to know what’s left of him. She learns that he once had dreams too, that he’d prayed for a chance to serve God and do his will on Earth. The perversion of that goal - that his misled faith has led to his lips, so used to singing hymns, being used to tease Kay’s kidnapped nipples - seems to have been the betrayal that finally broke him.

She can’t help it; she wants to break too. Jimmy’s disconnected babbling and the blankness in his eyes would probably be a blessed relief compared to her own state. She’d love to be able to check out when things get too bad too, to start ranting about promises and comets and whatever. But she just can’t. Maybe it’s because the thing inside her isn’t as strong as the one possessing him, or maybe it’s because she hasn’t had to deal with having her faith betrayed on top of it all. Whatever it is, she has to face the fact that if she hasn’t gone mad yet then she’s probably here for the duration.

Which means she’ll have to bear it for as long as the creature decides to stay. All of it. She will have to feel its pain whenever another living nightmare manages to hurt it. She will have to find a way to tolerate the guilt and shame that come when it uses her body or her voice to deal out countless injuries to others. She will have to endure its orgasms.

Or so she thinks.

She started making promises inside her head pretty much as soon as she realized what had happened to her. At first, she swore she’d make things better with her mother if she could only get the chance to do it as herself. Later, she vowed that she’d give up on the whole acting thing and become a nun the way Grandpa had wanted her to be; if there was any God out there capable of helping her then she would gladly find the faith needed to devote her life to him. She still does it; it’s just a way of feeling like she’s still fighting. None of it works and she stopped expecting it to long ago.

Until suddenly it does.

It’s a particularly desperate moment that has no reason to be particularly desperate. She’s felt that angel’s tongue whispering the demon’s name between her legs what feels like a million times before. But the idea that she might very well have millions more such instances to come is so horrific that when the creature shouts with pleasure, Kay screams as loud as she can to drown it out:

”I swear to God, I’ll sell my soul to make this stop!”

And then it does.

She is suddenly alone in her head, in complete control. She wills her eyes to open and they do, effortlessly. Stunned, she lifts her hands to her face and flexes her fingers, weeping with gratitude as muscles and tendons and bones obey her mental commands as if it weren’t anything at all. She leaps out of the bed, desperate to find her clothes and get away before it all starts again. She doesn’t know where she’ll have to go or what she’ll have to do to keep the monster gone, but she’ll find a way.

And then she realizes that she’s not as alone as she thought she was.

“Hello Kay.”

The angel with Jimmy’s face - the one that Jimmy called Castiel and Meg called Clarence - is still there. It sits at the edge of the bed and regards her with a ridiculous infuriating sadness.

She punches it as hard as she can. She hears clicking noises in her fist and it hurts like hell, but it’s her pain.

The angel take her hand in both of his and there’s a weird tingling sensation as the bones repair themselves. She yanks her hand back but it’s too late. She’s already healed.

She says the one thing she can think of. “How do you know my name?”

It sighs like it’s the one that been suffering, and walks towards the window, She wonders about running for the door, but she knows there’s no point now. She’s seen the angel in action; she knows how strong it is. All she can do is whatever it wants.

It turns to her. “Would you like to make a deal?”

In which Lizzy is in love with a politician...

thinlizzy2 — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 13:44:31 GMT

And damned unapologetic about it!

A while ago, I posted about Justin Trudeau, the great shining light of the Canadian Liberal party. And I was rather shallow about it, choosing to dwell on the fact that he... well... he looks like this:

Dude, seriously. You're a politician in your forties. How is this even possible?

But my sense of civic responsibility kicked in, and so I decided to find out a little something about my new wank-fantasy *ahem* FUTURE PRIME MINISTER.

And holy shit.

This man called Peter Kent a "piece of shit" in the middle of the House of Commons after he (Kent) told a lie slandering an opposition party member. Seriously, he just called out "you piece of shit" right in the middle of question period. And while I'm sure there are loads of people who clutched their pearls and decided to vote Tory in that very moment, for others it was like a PSA that finally we have a MP who will not and does not tolerate dishonesty, speak in political tongues or hide the truth from Canadians. And wow, do we need that!

Not convinced yet?

Trudeau stood up for trans people, calling out a new policy that states that passengers will not be allowed to board an airplane if their appearance doesn't match the gender listed on their passport. He called it a "direct affront to the transsexual and transgender community" and "just wrong". It was a beautiful, brave move.

All those photos of him on the web topless and in boxing shorts? Those are from when he boxed a Tory senator in order to raise money for the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation. The match was Trudeau's idea; he posted on twitter for ages looking for a Tory opponent for a charity fight. They ended up raising $230000 dollars!

Oh, and he won.

He's a fierce defender of the environment and has sworn to forbid drilling in Northern Canada unless the drillers can prove beyond any reasonable doubt that they have the capability to clean up an oil spill under arctic ice. Since that's more or less impossible at the moment, drilling will not happen until it becomes possible. Earth over oil is such an uncommon choice among politicians that I actually checked four separate sources on this to make sure I had it right.

I... think this is what national pride might feel like. Been a while. Hope it sticks around.

And once again, because I'm shallow, there's this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5f0RD4u_IM

Beta reader?

thinlizzy2 — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 08:33:55 GMT

Hey, does anyone feel like doing a beta read for me? It's for the spn_bigpretzel reverse Hallowe'en microbang. It's Castiel/Jo (people are alive if I SAY they're alive, dammit!) but the ship isn't really the focus. The point is the lulz, more than anything else.

It's about 1500 words and I need to post it on Hallowe'en.

Anyone? I'd be happy to return the favour!

Yuletide Letter Here

thinlizzy2 — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 18:16:26 GMT

Dear Yuletide Writer:

Hello, and thank you in advance for writing for me! I'm very excited to see what you'll create.

I've sorted my likes and dislikes according to fandom, with some general stuff at the bottom. Dislikes in the bottom section include some pretty severe triggers for me, so I'd ask you to please avoid those if you can.

Dark Shadows (1966)

I absolutely ADORE Julia and spent a strange portion of my childhood wanting to be her when I grew up (sadly, I started smoking as a result of this!) So I'd love to see fic with her. Barnabas/Julia is my OTP for DS, but I'd be thrilled with Eliot/Julia or even Barnabas/Eliot/Julia if you can find a way to make it work. I'd prefer something set in later canon or post-canon, after they're all good friends, but if your muse wants a different time period, that's all good too!

A kind of strange do-not-want for this fandom: accidental pregnancy, at least for Julia. She's a doctor, so it stands to reason she'd know about birth control, and I see her as pretty practical in regards to that. I've got no problem with Barnabas being a vampire in the fic, but I'd prefer no bloodplay or emphasis on drinking blood.

X-factor

This was a really hard one to pick characters for, since I love the whole team, so feel free to include lots of people. Theresa/Monet is my femmeslash OTP, so I'd love to see something with them together. I also really like the strange but compelling friendship between Rahne and Shatterstar, and I'd like friendship fic with them a lot! A threesome with Rictor is also more than welcome, but I'd rather not see just Rahne and 'Star without Ric unless his absence can be credibly explained.

I love Ric/Star, but I'd rather not get a yuletide fic that focuses exclusively on that ship alone. I like the idea of using Yuletide for rarer pairings and less popular characters. If you write a fic including Rahne and sex, please avoid bestiality themes. I've got no problem with explorations of faith with these characters (I'm honestly fascinated by how both Monet and Rahne reconcile their faiths with their sexualities) but no religion-bashing please.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Kira is pretty much my fandom bicycle; I ship her with virtually everything and everyone! My original ship in the first season was Sisko/Kira (because the actors = hot) and as far as I know, there's not a single fic for it. If you can, I'd love to see that changed! I also think the way her relationship with Bashir developed and changed was awesome; I was delighted when their human-writer alter-egos were a married couple. And I thought the relationship she had with O'Brien when she was carrying Kirayoshi was fascinating, and I'd love to see that expanded on as well. So essentially, Kira. Kira, Kira, Kira.

I love Kira/Odo, but it's not what I'm hoping for in Yuletide. I'd much rather have a rarer pairing here. Odo can be acknowledged and even involved, but not the focus if possible. I'd also prefer to avoid Kira/Dukat; it's my one exception to the bicycle rule! And if Dukat is a part of the story, shades of grey are wonderful but I just can't see him as a hero-figure.

Birds of Prey

If you can, please get Barbara and Dinah into bed together! They're just so very perfect for each other. You can go full-on happy ending if you like: marriage, kids, growing old together. Angst is great, but I would so love a happy ending for these women. They deserve it and they deserve each other! I also really like Jim Gordon a LOT, so having him play a role in a fic would be very welcome. I also love a lot of the supporting characters from the canon, especially Zinda, Ted, Savant and Creole.

Please go with Oracle!Babs, with the wheelchair. As a person with a disability, that meant a lot to me. If she's going to make a recovery, I'd really like it to be realistic, with physio, surgery and setbacks, but I'd honestly rather prefer a Babs who accepts her disability and works within it, as she did so well.

General

I love all kinds of rom-com tropes: bickering to hide sexual tension, jealousy, love triangles, declarations of love and false romantic leads. I like close friendships and families by choice. Group dynamics and supporting characters are always a big hit with me. I also love snark and humour. I like women who kick ass and take names, and it's okay to leave out the taking names if you want!

I'd rather avoid noncon situations, especially where the victim ends up enjoying the experience or where a character is raped to add angst to a story. I really don't like graphic description of bodily fluids and while violence is fine, I'd prefer if gore wasn't the focus of the story. I love slash, but I'm not looking for a M/M story for this particular exchange. M/F, F/F, and M/F/M are more along the lines of what I'm hoping for. And gen fic, focusing on any of these characters, is totally welcome if none of the pairings appeal to you.

If you go with a threesome fic, please have all the characters be equally important in the relationship.

Thank you again, writer! I hope this has given you a decent starting point and that you'll enjoy writing the fic. I really can't wait to read it!

Thoughts on an election from a country I DO have something to do with

thinlizzy2 — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 19:06:23 GMT

Canadian politics tend to be less ragey than American ones, which is nice. I think it has something to do with the multi-party system, but that's just a theory. Also, things like health care and birth control are less hot-button issues than in the states, so people don't panic as much.

So I can be as shallow as I like and point out that there's a very good chance our next leader will be the proud owner of THIS face.

I haven't lived there in years, but damn, it's nice to be Canadian.

If he ends up on stamps, I'm going to have some sent to me just so I can lick them.

Roll on November...

thinlizzy2 — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:34:28 GMT

So now I want to do weird sex stuff with Joe Biden.

For the sake of my mental health, this election cannot be over fast enough.

Thoughts on an election from a country I have nothing to do with...

thinlizzy2 — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 19:09:19 GMT

During the 2008 democratic campaign, I was uncomfortable with Hilary Clinton largely because I thought it would cheapen the idea of the first female POTUS if she was a former first lady.

But now?

Holy fuck, President Michelle Obama would be absolutely incredible. Can they run her in 2016?

*I'm not American, but American politics are so important, worldwide, that it's hard not to have an opinion.

Watching Fandom Happen

thinlizzy2 — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:25:56 GMT

My advanced class (preteens) is currently reading Holes by Louis Sachar.

If you haven't read it, you definitely should! It's an amazing book, and I think I'm enjoying it even more than the kids are. And that's hard to do, because they're loving it.

Especially one girl. She's become fascinated by the character of Kissin' Kate Barlow, a cowgirl outlaw whose trademark is leaving a red lipstick kiss on the faces of the men she shoots. Her essay on whether Kate was a good or a bad person was one of the most impassioned things I've ever marked as a teacher. And even more amazingly...

She's writing fic! She came into class today with a 2000 word story (not assigned, she did this for fun) with an AU ending for Kate in which she survives her story and goes on to take over Texas. Without any knowledge that thi is even a thing (as far as I know) she's producing FANFICTION!

I think she's far too young to be venturing into Stanley/Zero slash yet, but seeing a little geek get her wings is just so adorable.

Things that are obvious to more experienced parents...

thinlizzy2 — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 08:14:07 GMT

I am in the process of getting over what I have dubbed "DeathCold '12" since "common cold" does not describe the agony of this particular virus. Maybe flying all around and taking part in a wedding made it much worse, but Mashashi actually had to carry me up the stairs last night since walking up them was simply not an option. It sucked.

But the thing is, if you are sick and you have a baby, you cannot just crawl under the covers for eternity or until you feel better. Hubby will do all he can to help, but eventually he must go to work, and Baby still needs to eat, bathe, be changed and be kept busy so he doesn't start building a doomsday weapon to destroy the world. And even if Hubby is home, if Baby decides it's Mommy that he wants, he damn well better get Mommy or that doomsday weapon is coming out of mothballs fast.

It's interesting looking back on my childhood, because I remember thinking that when you were a "grown-up" you didn't get colds anymore. My parents seemed pretty immune to it. Now I realize that OF COURSE they got sick. They just had to suck it up and pack my lunch and take me to horseback riding and scare away the monster under my bed (who was named Captain Jerk and was only frightened if you shook a can of pennies at him to the tune of Jingle Bells - I was a very strange child).

I don't think that children should have to thank their parents for everything they do - adults choose to have children and they know sacrifices are involved and it's not an enterprise where you should necessarily expect a return on your investment. But if my parents had to deal with my 3am craving for apple juice while feeling like a slime-thing with claws was using their lungs as a stressball, I definitely owe them one.

Yay and ugh...

thinlizzy2 — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:44:29 GMT

Just got back from G's wedding trip! It was positively lovely (yay!) though I have a horrible cold (ugh) and was therefore high on Theraflu the whole night. The doctor says it is totally safe to take while pregnant, but I am still convinced the baby will be born lemon-scented.

The wedding was gorgeous! My own wedding was very small and simple, since we didn't have a lot of money at the time (Masashi was paying his sister's tuition and I had just finished grad school) so the whole big-sparkly-wedding thing still feels very fairy-tale to me. G looked like a goddess and never stopped smiling the whole night, which was fantastic to see.

It was just great to reconnect with her as well. Neither of us could sleep the night before the wedding (my head was all stuffed up and she was, you know, getting MARRIED the next day) so we spent several hours putting various toppings on bowls of popcorn and watching old episodes of Deep Space Nine, which was our favourite thing to do back when we lived together (Id forgotten how damn SMART that show was; we had excellent TV taste back then!). It was a really nice way to be reminded of how far we've come. Wonder where we'll in another 15 years!

Fic: Looking and Still Leaping (Sam Guthrie/Dani Moonstar

thinlizzy2 — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 17:58:54 GMT

Title: Looking and Still Leaping
Fandom: Marvel Comics
Pairing: Sam/Dani, minor Rictor/Shatterstar and mention of Rictor/Shatterstar/Rahne
Word Count: 1477
Rating: PG-13
Summary: They're new lover who happen to also be old friends. Or maybe the other way around.
Author's Notes: Written for the shipswap exchange. I don't know a single comm I can post this to (damn my love of comic rare-pairs!) so it will just have to live here.

They had one final hug before Sam and Danielle climbed into the car. Dani watched as the figures in the rear-view mirror - Rictor and Shatterstar fumbling with the keys and Chinese food leftovers, Rahne holding her son on her shoulders so he could wave bye-bye - grew smaller and smaller. She waved back until they disappeared, then leaned forward and started to fiddle with the radio.

Sam drummed along on the steering wheel. “The kid’s cute, huh?”

“Yeah. He looks a lot like Rahne when she’s wolfy, don’t you think?” Dani hit on a station playing something with twangy guitars and twangier voices. She would have normally kept looking for something else, but Sam started whistling the tune so she left it alone.

“Hey”, Sam was obviously trying to sound offhand and she could see the shy country-boy in him warring a bit with the universal human need to gossip about old friends. “You think the three of them are...?”

“You mean Ric, Rahne and ‘Star?” To be honest, she’d been wondering the same thing. It hadn’t surprised her at all when Rictor and Shatterstar had held hands on their walk, but the casual kiss Rahne had given ‘Star when he’d retrieved little Tiergaard’s runaway balloon had been rather unexpected. “Knowing Rahne, I’d say probably not. But I don’t really know. Maybe.” Sam blushed a fairly adorable shade of red and Dani couldn’t resist teasing him a little. She pulled out her cell. “Do you want me to call her and ask her? I could say you were just curious.”

Without taking his eyes off the road, Sam wrested the phone from her and tossed it into the back seat. “Nope, Chief. Definitely not.”

She laughed and patted the inside of his thigh a couple of times. Then she left her hand sitting there. Being able to just touch Sam this way was still a new thrill and she couldn’t resist savoring it for a little while. She reflected on other delightful new experiences with Sam: the appreciative noises he made when he ate the breakfasts that she prepared, the smell of his aftershave lingering in her bathroom, waking up with his arm tucked around her as the early sunrise caught on its fine golden hairs.

Then a squirrel darted in front of them and Sam had to hit the brake, dislodging her. Dani tucked her hand back into her own lap.

“It’s weird to think that one of us - you know, New Mutants 1.0 - has one of those, isn’t it?”

Dani looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “A threesome?”

He slapped her playfully on the knee. “A child. Come on, aren’t we all supposed to be in bed by ten tonight because we’ve got dance class with Stevie first thing tomorrow morning?”

“Ah, to see you in a leotard again.” They chuckled together. “I guess it is weird, though I always kind of figured Rahne would be the first.”

“Mmm. You think she’ll be okay with him? The kid, I mean.”

Dani would have loved to be able to say yes, but all things considered she really had no idea. Her honorary baby sister had been through hell in the last few years and she really had no idea if Rahne was mature enough to be a good parent or not. “Again, I’d say maybe. I really hope so.”

“You ever think about having kids, Dani?”

Just a few months ago, that wouldn’t have been nearly as loaded a question. It would simply have been one old friend asking another about abstract future plans, as distant and unimportant as enquiring if she ever intended to take up bungee jumping. Now it was her boyfriend, the oldest of nearly a dozen kids himself, asking her whether or not she wanted to be a mother. Not sure what sort of response was called for, Dani figured she might as well just go with being honest.

“I’m not sure. I mean, they’re cute and all. I like kids. Working with them at the school was really amazing. But look at how we live. Kids shouldn’t have to wonder if their parents are late because they’re picking up pizza or if the latest nightmare to crawl out of the pits has got them instead. Children need stability, and the list of people we can trust seems to change every day what with everything that’s been going on. And we’ve - I’ve - got some pretty long-standing enemies at this point. Why give them extra ammunition to use against me, right?”

She cut herself off, all too aware that she’d been rambling. She glanced at Sam, not sure if he’d be nodding along or completely zoned-out, and found that he was neither. Rather, he was scratching at his knuckles the way he always did when he was upset and his jaw was clenched so hard it looked like he was doing a Scott Summers impression.

“Sam, you okay?”

“Sure. No problem.”

Well, she knew bullshit when she heard it. Should she change the subject? Talk about the crazy weather lately or something? Fuck it. “Hey Sam? Do you want kids?”

He clicked his tongue and smiled ruefully at her. “I did until about three minutes ago.”

She laughed wryly. “I put you off them, huh?”

“Nope.” Sam shook his head. “I still think the good stuff about being a dad would outweigh all that. But I ain’t never been able to talk you into doing anything that you didn’t want to do, and by now I know better than to try. And having you around is a heck of a lot more important than any babies would be. It’ll be okay.” He jerked his thumb back towards Mutant Town. “I’m already an honorary uncle, after all.”

She stared at him, stunned. “Sam, are you honestly saying you see us together in the future? I mean, permanently?”

He shrugged. “‘Course I do. What, you think I’m gonna let you go now that I’ve finally got you?”

Finally had her? Like he’d been waiting around patiently for the last few years of their lives rather than dating blonde bombshells and intergalactic rock stars? “Sam... I’m not kidding.” Oh, she was breaking every single piece of advice she’d ever encountered on how not to send a guy running for the hills, but where had that ever gotten her anyway? “Are you saying you want this to be serious?”

It seemed to take him a long time to answer and when he did, his voice was unusually quiet. “Dani, I don’t wanna make any promises I can’t keep - not to you. Don’t want you doing that with me either; I know Nate’s still sniffing around you.” He held up a hand to still her oncoming protest. “I trust you, Dani; it’s not about that. It’s just that I can’t see the future and like you said: look at how we live. But when I look back at my life, most of the really important stuff? You’ve been there for. And those few times that you weren’t, it was like there was a hole beside me.” He shot her a quick nervous glance, then returned his focus to the road. “I need you around, Chief; things just mean more when we’re together. Don’t you know that?”

“Stop the car, Sam.” It was a struggle to keep her voice steady.

He winced. “You pissed? Too much all at once, huh?”

“Stop the car.”

She had her seatbelt already half undone by the time he signalled to pull over. As soon as the emergency brake was up, she swung her leg over it, climbing onto his lap. Straddling his legs, she plunged her mouth down, cheering inside when his lips opened enthusiastically under hers. She slid her tongue inside, savoring the taste of him. His hands came up behind her, gripping her waist and pulling her closer. He was getting hard; she could feel it against her stomach. It still amazed her that this was Sam - Sam Guthrie - and she could do this to him now.

They could do this to each other.

They weren’t about to get up to much sitting on the side of a public road, so they let things wind down slowly. Dani rubbed her cheek against Sam’s, relishing the scratch of his stubble against her skin, and then climbed back into her own seat. She buckled her seatbelt demurely, fiddling with the clip so he wouldn’t see her triumphant smile.

Sam exhaled loudly. “Yeah, I was right. Who needs kids?”

She laughed as he pulled back onto the road. “I didn’t say no, you know?”

She can sense his face lighting up without even looking. “Oh yeah. Guess you didn’t.”

“We can talk it over.” She put her hand back on his leg. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”