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I have questions related to various things that we do with computers. (Not those things. Other things. Cleaner things. Or, okay, at least two of these are about things that are almost entirely clean.) I am hoping you all have answers.

Thank you! You are awesome! Yes, you.

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Dear Author,

We matched! This means we are destined to be friends, I tell you what, because while my requests this year are not as weird as last year's, they do sort of come off like I was trying to define "idiosyncratic" using only a Yuletide signup form. (I wasn't. I wouldn't do that to you, I swear. This is just the list that happened!)

I am, as always, going to provide you with all the details, because that's what I always hope to get from my recipient. But if that's not you, please tap out of this letter now. Just know that I really, really cannot handle child or animal harm or death, and I love you for volunteering for one of my tiny fandoms. See you on the 25th!

( Me )

( My Fandoms )

We recently watched Operation Petticoat, as you do. (Look, sometimes a person needs to see Cary Grant being suave. I am quite sure this has happened to you.) And I finished it feeling that you people had let me down, because while I am sure this has been thoroughly documented within the White Collar fandom, no one told me.

And what no one told me is that White Collar is an Operation Petticoat AU.

It's so obvious! Tony Curtis is the guy who joined the Navy for the shiny uniform and turned everything to his advantage, and then smooth-talked his way into being the supply officer for the submarine, and then robbed an entire Navy base blind to get the stuff he needed. Cary Grant is the captain, using Tony Curtis's skills because he needs them, but always aware this is a double-edged sword with no handle. Come on; that is obviously Neal and Peter, right there. And if you needed any proof beyond that, there's the name of the Tony Curtis character, which is: Nick Holden. As in, you know, one letter different from Neal Caffrey's favorite alias.

(If you're curious, by the way, Mozzie is clearly Ramon, thief and conman extraordinaire. Elizabeth, we decided after a lot of discussion, is the best parts of Lt. Crandall and Lt. Duran, combined; this is clearly why the OT3 vibe is so strong in White Collar. But there is no Satchmo equivalent. I guess you can't have everything.)

Anyway. If anyone has been yearning for a WWII White Collar AU that's heavy on the humor and features a pink submarine, there's one available for rental. I just thought you should know, in case your friends were keeping you in the dark, too.

And if you already knew, here are some other AUs for you to consider.

The One in Which We Learn That in the Right Hands, the Sketchbook Is Scarier than the Sword. Never Leave a Trace, by sam_storyteller. White Collar, Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey.

You know what's weird about White Collar? I remember the stories, but most of the time I can't remember if a given story was gen or OT3. (If it was something else, I remember.) I assume this is because White Collar itself is so OT3 that gen is just OT3 without actual sex scenes. (Dear White Collar people: Just have the canon sex scene already. The Burkes have a big enough bed, and it would save us all a lot of confusion and double-checking. We all know the fucking is happening, you realize. It wouldn't come as a surprise. <3, TFV) So take my pairing notes with a grain of salt, is what I'm saying. I double-checked, and I double-checked again, and I am pretty sure I'm right. But with White Collar, you can never be sure.

And now let's talk about this AU. It's not, like, the Neal, Peter, and Elizabeth gladiator AU. (Um. Please tell me there is not actually a White Collar gladiator AU. I think I sprained something just imagining that.) Instead, it's the show, except with magic. And this is not shiny happy magic with clear rules, where every first-level spellcaster gets one magic missile spell per day and his party only keeps him alive because at level 15 he will get lots of magic missiles. (And also because the player will whine if you let this character get killed off like the last one.) This magic is - fuzzy. Murky. Edgy. This is magic I can - okay, not believe in. But this is magic that works for me. (Hey, there's a reason I never played a magic user, okay? And not just because magic missile doesn't do all that much for me. I just have a hard time having fun with magic that's structured like an Amway sales chart.)

I love how this story manages to be so much like the actual show in the basics - I mean, everyone still has the same jobs and no one is wearing a toga - while being completely different in tone and genre. I love how much sense the magic makes, how it totally works to have prison, a place where people suffer and are often powerless, be a nexus of supernatural power. And I love how even though the entire picture is different, Neal and Peter and Elizabeth are still absolutely themselves.

This story is gorgeous and involving and lovely and great. And that's all I can say. Go read it right now.

The One That Starts and Ends in Pretty Much Exactly the Same Place, and Covers the Entire Galaxy in Between. It Is the Infinity Symbol of Fan Fiction Stories, Basically. Only Good for Legends, by leupagus. Star Trek XI, Jim Kirk/Spock.

Star Trek is officially the canon that ate my life. It should come with a warning, actually:

WARNING: Susceptible individuals may find themselves dramatically altered from continued exposure to this material. Changes may include, but are not limited to, a tendency to write "Spock" in hearts on your shoes, laughing at stories rated NCC-1701, and partial or total loss of your leisure time. You will never recover, and there is no way to know if you are susceptible until it is too late. Please check your schedule for the next four decades before opening this DVD.

I mean, that totally happened to me. So it is extremely cheering to me to happen upon a story like this and know, for sure, that I am not the only person who lost her soul and her evenings to Star Trek. (Okay, yes, I already know I'm not alone. frostfire fell down the well with me. But more company is always nice. It's a very big well.)

And then I get to read the story. Which is, well - it is a giant sprawling epic in which Spock is a cop and Jim is, you know, Jim. (I'm pretty sure in Iowa they use "Jim Kirk" as a descriptive phrase. As in, "Did you hear about Roger? Pulled a Jim Kirk with a Klingon; hear he won't be walking for months." Or "The barn's missing and there's giant letters spelling out a graphic insult where the floorboards used to be; gosh, this looks Jim Kirk-y.") And then stuff happens. I mean, a lot of stuff, because did I mention the sprawlingness of this story? Trust me, it's worth mentioning twice. This story goes from earth to Vulcan and back again.

I love lots of things about this, but probably what I love most is the mystery plot line. Mostly that's because SF mystery is something that's hard to do and, in my opinion, totally worth doing (All the time! Everywhere!), but I admit that there's also the fact that the mystery plot line has got a lot of Vulcans in it. I love Vulcans, especially when they aren't being a frankly creepy faceless monolith, and they are the furthest thing from that here.

Plus, T'Pring is wonderful in this. In fact, my notes on this story read, in large part: "Come for the Kirk/Spock, stay for the T'Pring of awesome." (If you're wondering why I don't share my bookmarks on Pinboard too often, this would be why. I rec slowly because no one anywhere should be subjected to my immediate reactions to stories. Also, said reactions are often at least partly expressed in long strings of vowels. I try to edit that out of the final recs, too.)

The One in Which We Learn What Happens When You Hire a Wizard as an Interior Designer. The other things the road to hell is paved with, by luciazephyr. The Dresden Files, Harry Dresden/Susan Rodriguez, Harry Dresden/John Marcone.

The Dresden Files is turning out to be one of those fandoms where I find myself inexplicably sulking at the internet, wondering why there isn't more fan fiction for it out there, even though I have not taken the time to get to grips with the actual canon. But Dresden/Marcone apparently speaks directly to the part of my brain that was shaped by intensive exposure to Smallville fan fiction.

No, seriously, if you've ever wondered to yourself what the world would look like if Clark Kent had magical powers instead of, you know, super powers (primary difference: none noted) and Lex Luthor was a businesslike criminal instead of a criminal businessman, Dresden Files fan fiction is where you should be turning. And if you have no idea at all what the Dresden Files is about, not to worry, because this story will teach you everything you need to know. (And if you don't want to dive in there until you know, here you go: There's magic and crime. Dresden has magic. Marcone has crime. There are some complications. And then they have sex the end. Okay, technically that's what the fan fiction is about, but I think it's already established that in this case the fan fiction is my canon.)

This story is perfect for me, because I am - well, pragmatic might be a good way to put it. In Smallville, I rapidly grew tired of Clark's Lone Hero pose; I always wanted Lex and Clark to team up, because Lex got shit done. And Clark, honestly, needed someone to get his shit together. And then Lex could borrow (and slightly modify) Clark's moral compass, and together they could save the world. Seriously, people have no right having these prolonged declared mortal enemies/rivals things going on when by working together they could be so much more effective. Basically my message to them is always: With great power comes a great need to get your head out of your ass. (It's probably a good thing I'm not on any comic book writing team.)

Well, that is what does happen in this story with Dresden and Marcone, provided you are willing to consider Chicago to be roughly the same thing as the entire world. (It isn't. However, it definitely has the strangest pizza in the world, and that is almost the same thing.) Dresden even manages to get his head out of his ass. I cannot tell you how immensely satisfying I found this.

(I cannot help but notice that I'm a lot more concerned about Dresden's issues than Marcone, and I'm concerned that you might be envisioning me as a sort of chaotic neutral type person now. I'm not. I used to play paladins. Really, I did. I still like them! I find the concept of lawful goodness truly interesting! I give to charities and am kind to puppies and hardly ever break any important laws! Just, in fiction, I tend to prefer people who are effective but immoral to people who are the kind of moral where they screw things up all the time but for the best possible reasons.)

Anyway, this story is long and glorious and features the unstoppable team of Dresden (in charge of magic) and Marcone (in charge of everything else). Which is as it should be. The end.

The One That Left Me Twitching with a Need for the Recipes, Damn It, the RECIPES. Grande Soy Triple Dirty Chai, by friskaz. Suits, Mike Ross/Harvey Specter.

You can blame frostfire for this one. She's the person who emailed me while she was in a distant country with a summary of this fandom, which meant when I started seeing fan fiction for it I responded with "Oh, right, that's the one with Harvey and Mike! The lawyers!" instead of "So, what, we're big into Brioni/Armani now? How does that go? 'Oh, baby, slide your button into my notched lapel - harder, harder, YES.'"

(If you don't know the canon, although it's hard for me to believe I could be speaking from a place of greater knowledge than anyone when it comes to a currently airing show - it's about, well, Harvey and Mike. Harvey is a lawyer with an awesome boss. Mike doesn't actually have a law degree but is practicing law anyway. Note for people following along at home: In the real world, it is better not to do this.)

So. I think we can all agree that the barista AU is a fine and honorable tradition in fandom. (Although - when did this start, exactly? Is there a Highlander barista AU, in which Methos is the guy who knows everything about the history of coffee but will happily drink the stuff from a vending machine and Duncan is the guy who takes coffee way too seriously and works endlessly to bring good coffee to everyone? Is there a Starsky and Hutch barista AU where they hug a lot and fight corporate coffee? Is there a TOS barista AU in which Kirk is the - you know what, no. I can work a Reboot barista AU fine, but trying to imagine James Tiberius Kirk mark 1 as a barista is hurting my head, even given the worrisome similarity between Starfleet and Starbucks.)

Anyway. My point is: I can generally take or leave a barista AU, except when they are awesome. This one is awesome. I buy Mike as a barista (yes, based on my extensive experience with this canon, which involved reading not one but two intercontinental emails, I feel wholly comfortable making this assertion), I love the way Mike and Harvey interact, I love the (I assume) original characters, and this is just a totally satisfying, sweet, lovable story, from beginning to end.

Much like a really good pie. Which, note, if you read this story, you're going to want some pie. (Or other dessert of your choice, pie-haters; I know you're out there. I'm married to one.) I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Just, some stories should come with a kitchen warning up front ("Warning: Do not read if you don't have ready access to a kitchen or at least the excellent products thereof"), and that's what I'm giving you here.

I am seeking advice on two clothing problems. One is mine, one is the earthling's.

The Trousers Must Stay On!

The earthling has a very, very narrow waist. (He is not underweight. Just - narrow.) This makes buying trousers for him difficult; he generally grows into the waist around the same time the cuffs hit his mid-calf. With some brands, he doesn't grow into the waist until the cuffs are just below his knee, which would make them good shorts, except he doesn't like shorts. I have seen clothes labeled 9 - 12 months that have waists too big for his 40-month-old body.

And the thing is, the earthling has preferences. He doesn't like clothes with stiff or scratchy fabric or anything he deems poky, and he expresses his objections in no uncertain terms when things do not meet his standards. But for his age group, the only option for the narrow-waisted is adjustable-waist trousers. Which are, in the earthling's judgment, unacceptably poky, and in any case they only come in jeans and cords and stuff - all fabrics that are too stiff. He will not wear them. (And even if he did, on the tightest setting they still slip some.) He wants to wear elastic-waistband trousers made from soft fabric.

This takes us to pajama pants and sweatpants. Both of which, when they fit his length, fall off his narrow, narrow body unless we roll the waistband at least once, often twice. (We own exactly one pair of trousers that fits him in every dimension. One. This pair came to us as part of a pajama set. If I could, I would clone it.) This has worked for most of his life, but now he wants to get dressed all by himself. He does not want help, no thank you, Mama, I do it, I do it. He can get the trousers on, but he can't get them properly rolled, and the result is that he spends a lot of time walking around on his cuffs hauling up his waistband every two steps.

So does anyone have any brilliant ideas? I need either:

1. Some mechanism by which the waistbands of elastic-waist trousers can be made permanently narrower, without interfering with the earthling's ability to get them on all by himself.
   
2. A source for elastic-waist, soft fabric trousers for narrow-bodied toddlers.

Keep in mind that I do not own a sewing machine, and also the only reason I passed the needlecrafts part of Home Ec was that the district office sent over a note saying that, diagnostically, I could not ever be expected to do any better. (And even then, I was extremely wise and kept my projects very low on the ambition scale.) And Best Beloved's mother deliberately did not teach her kids home skills of any kind, on the grounds that she did not ever want them to use them.

So, basically, we are looking for a solution that does not require us to be crafty and handy and - stuff. This has ruled out everything I have come up with so far. Help? The earthling is running out of trousers. And tripping a lot. It is very sad.

The Boobs Must Be Free!

Before I got pregnant, I wore bras that took their design inspiration from the Bastille. My bras were things that you could, in an emergency, use as moderately functional body armor, filled with ribbing and nine million hooks and many wires, with a general aesthetic somewhere between "bondage device" and "cruel and unusual punishment."

Then I got pregnant, and soon I had a stomach in the way of many of those bras. Then I was nursing, and it turns out those sorts of bras block various critical ducts, not to mention that they don't fit the ever-fluctuating boobs of the breastfeeder, so they don't make them in nursing versions. I mean, yes, I have an underwire nursing bra, but it's entirely wimpy. One tiny wire under each boob! That's not a true underwire bra as I know it.

So, the earthling is now officially weaned. And, see, I've spent the last two years assuming that would happen any day now (and look! I was right!), so I've been wary of purchasing new nursing bras. As a result, I now have a total of four of them: one that is so stretched out it is more like a tank top, one that has a giant hole in it (making it ideal for any three-breasted breastfeeder, but less ideal for me), one that is way too loose, and one that actually fits and works.

Obviously, it's time to get out the old bras. They are the same size as my boobs currently are (or, okay, some of them are). But my boobs have lost the knack of wearing them. Used to be I strapped them into their wire cages and they did not protest, but after four years of freedom, they have decided they don't like captivity. They whine all the time - "A wire is poking my sensitive underparts!" (Used to be I could get an open sore on my boob from an exposed underwire with only minimal boob protests.) "This is really tight!" "Why is the cup only big enough for half of me?" (I said only some of them fit, right?) It's pathetic, seriously. Somehow having and nursing a baby turned my boobs into wimps.

Basically, they want to stay in nursing bras. I, on the other hand, would prefer to have cups that don't come randomly unhooked when I move too much, largely because there is nothing more wonderful than fishing around in your shirt for a stray cup, unless it is the charmingly lopsided look your boobs have when one is in a cup and the other one is on top of its cup.

I need recs. For bras. Bras that are not fierce contraptions of steel and strapping, bras that are somehow comfortable. (Underwires are optional, but fine. I mean, I do have underwires in my best-fitting nursing bra. Just - I guess not really aggressive underwires.) And these bras have to come in an H cup. Is there anything like that out there? Do any of you large-breasted persons out there know of a bra like that? Help my boobs! They are yearning to breathe free!

(Warning! Spoilers, although mostly of the kind where I tell you who ends up with whom, which you will figure out in the first chapter anyway.)

Here's the thing about Georgette Heyer: she hates you. Or, okay, she doesn't hate you, exactly. It's just that unless you are white, English, and upper class (and hale, and hearty, and straight, and and and), she thinks you are a lesser being.

This is actually kind of reassuring to me. See, I read all her mysteries back in my teens. (The only romance of hers I'd read before this is The Grand Sophy, which is on the required reading list that starts with Pride and Prejudice. It isn't second on that list. Maybe 50^th. But still. It's there.) I was going through a classic mysteries phase, and I found Heyer strangely refreshing, because at least her antisemitism was only one prejudice of - well, basically all of them. I mean, Sayers (who I also adored) was racist and antisemitic, but totally pro-queer, and it was confusing to proto-me - like, lady, do you hate me or love me? Are we friends or foe? Make it clearer. Whereas with Heyer, I knew where I stood: somewhere way below the bottom rung of humanity. Along with everyone else in the world except Prince William and four of his friends from Eton, which really took away the sting.

But my point is: if you are not that white British upper-class person of good stock and hearty bluffness and a large country estate, the only question for you is which book will contain a grimly bigoted caricature of you featuring every single stereotyped trait ever associated with your particular group. (You have to decide for yourself if really wonderful female characters and great writing are worth the rest of it.) For me, the big ones were The Grand Sophy, featuring a giant festering glob of antisemitism roughly in the shape of a man, and several of her mysteries, which have amazingly stereotyped gay and lesbian characters. (One of them also includes, somewhere around the eighth time the gay guy bursts into girlish tears, an explanation of how childhood asthma causes homosexuality. I am not kidding. And, hey, I'm asthmatic and queer, so maybe she's right!)

But with this as background, you can perhaps understand why I was so riveted by the concept of the Masqueraders. During the Heyer sale, Best Beloved pointed it out to me, and the conversation went like this:

BB: Listen to this one. "...brother and sister flee to London, Prudence pretending to be a dashing young buck, and Robin a lovely young lady."
Me: So, wait. They're brother and sister and they masquerade as - sister and brother?
BB: Apparently.
Me: Why? What possible reason could there be to do that?
BB: Says here it's because of the Jacobite rebellion.
Me: ...Maybe they skipped the drag aspect of that in my history books.

So obviously I made her buy it. But then, in direct violation of established conventions in our relationship, she refused to read it. I suffered the curiosity of the damned for about two days and then gave in and read it myself.

And it is exactly as advertised. Prudence and Robin spend most of the book cross-dressing, and not just, you know, casually. They are walking the walk. Prudence joins a club, attends stag parties, hears smutty jokes, and gets into fights. Robin flirts outrageously and acquires a number of admirers and a lot of petticoats.

This book shows you just how good Heyer was at this writing gig, because she faced a conundrum, here. I mean. There is no actual good, plot-related reason that Prudence and Robin cross-dress. Sure, Jacobite blah blah blah wrong side blah blah treason blah. But here's the thing: if you are, say, Robin, and good enough at disguise to make a convincing lady, you're also good enough at it to make a convincing different guy. (A fact that is driven home by another character in the book, who does just exactly that.) I was left with the inescapable conclusion that Robin and Prudence cross-dressed because they just really wanted to, and if you're not going to seize the day when you're fleeing from a treason charge, when will you?

Which, fine. I am all for cheerful madcap cross-dressing siblings having adventures in historical England! That is a winning formula, as far as I am concerned. But it did leave Heyer with a problem - when you want to write a book about something because it makes your id do handsprings of glee, but you can't come up with a decent reason for it to happen, what do you do? Millions of fan fiction writers know exactly what to do, of course: you start the story with Ray Kowalski already a zebra, or with Erik and Charles already in a brutal space prison, or with Kirk and Spock already tied together by an eternally unseverable eighteen-inch chain. Problem solved! Commence writing your ever-loving id out! But Heyer had to figure this out without the internet. And she still managed just fine. We begin the story with Prudence and Robin already Peter and Kate, and unless you look at it closely - or, okay, think at all - it holds together just fine.

But Heyer wasn't enough of a writer to solve the main problem (from her perspective, I mean; from mine, this is not a problem but a delight) of a romance in which your main characters spend all their time cross-dressing. She couldn't degay it. I mean, if Tony believes that Prudence is actually a guy named Peter, then Tony's love for Peter looks - and in fact is - very, very gay.

The traditional way of getting around this, of course, is to have Tony see through the disguise and realize immediately that Peter is, in fact, Prudence. Heyer has gone down this road in other books, Best Beloved tells me. (Apparently she was trying to win the hotly contested "Most Cross-Dressing in a Single Author's Collected Works Created After 1616" title.) The problem in the Masqueraders is that Heyer wanted Tony to treat Prudence like a dude. It's clearly a big part of the id appeal for her. Tony gets her into his club, invites her to his guys-only parties, and asks her to his house in the country for a week. (Less than a week after they meet, no less. And he pitches a massive hissy fit when she politely declines. There is no actual stated reason why he does this, but my theory is that "visit," in this case, was a euphemism for "fuck.") No guy of that time period - and do keep in mind that Heyer's historical books are "meticulously researched," or so says the bit at the end of my copy - is going to do that with someone he knows is a lady. I mean. Seriously. Not.

But it's more than that. The Big Reveal scene goes roughly like this:

Tony: Welcome to my home, Peter. I invited you to a party, but in fact it's really a romantic dinner for two!
Prudence, tensing up: Um.
Tony: Now let's chat. I know your secret!
Prudence: Yes, okay, fine. I'm a girl. I admit it. You have dragged it out of me with your vicious romantic dining and your sleepy but knowing eyes!
Tony, attempting to control his facial expressions: You're a girl? Seriously? I mean - yes, exactly! I knew it all along!
Prudence: I'm just curious. How did you know?
Tony: Um. Well, you know, various small clues I can't recall now. Mostly it was the way I felt about you. [No, I am seriously not kidding; his entire evidence is the way he felt about her.]

At no point before she confesses, in other words, does he give any indication that he actually knew. And as soon as she does confess - and absolutely not before - his way of interacting with her changes drastically. He stops treating her as an equal and starts giving her orders and making demands and being very, very Tony-knows-best-don't-bother-your-sweet-head. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that he really didn't know she was a girl. And, in fact, was rather pleased that she was not, if you get where I'm going with this.

(It is possibly also relevant that once Tony realizes that Robin is really a guy, he keeps right on flirting with him, and in fact does so more than when he thought he was Kate. I - I can only hope they work this all out after the book ends.)

So basically Heyer, who did not like persons of even the vaguest queerness, let her id talk her into writing what amounts to a gay romance. I find this deeply satisfying. (Right up until the point when women's clothes turn Prudence strangely biddable and passive, and the women's clothes on Prudence turn Tony into a raging dickosaur.)

Robin's romance, by the way, is sadly less gay, but also wildly less ethical, largely because he makes friends with his beloved as Kate but woos her in a black mask as the Unknown. (If you're asking yourself what kind of woman would fall for a guy she has seen only for a handful of minutes, who always wears a mask, and who gives himself the name the Unknown, read the book, because the answer is: exactly the kind of woman he ends up with. I correctly predicted to Best Beloved what her response would be to Robin's disclosures about all of this, and it is, basically: "Oh my god that is so awesome let's do it all again except this time can I wear the mask?")

The Masqueraders just might be for you, if you were looking for a romping romance in which a guy thinks a girl is a guy and a girl thinks a guy is a girl. (And, yes, now I am yearning for a story in which both halves of the romantic couple meet while cross-dressing - she think he's a girl! He thinks she's a guy! Surely someone somewhere has written this. Please let someone have written this.) At least until everyone changes clothes. (Provided you don't mind that the author hates you.) But if you were hoping that there really would be a good plot-related reason for all the cross-dressing: sorry, nope. Still, I think you'll agree that it's better that way.

Last night, I was talking to frostfire_17, and she described someone as "classically gorgeous."

I pointed out that I had no idea what that meant. I wasn't kidding. I really don't. Best Beloved has given up on me on this score; she has instituted a series of rules to keep me from getting attacked by a mob because I accidentally describe a celebrity as, for example, "oddly stretched" when that person is, in fact, the apex of beautiful perfection. (Sample rule: If I think a man looks like any member of the rodent family, he is in fact exceedingly attractive, and I should not share my opinion with others until I am sure they don't have pitchforks.) But I have always had the belief that if I simply looked at enough pictures, I wouldn't have this problem. (I have no problem, for the record, knowing what I mean by gorgeous. But I want to know what other people mean, too.)

Since I had a willing victim right there, last night I asked Frost to name some classically gorgeous people. It went sort of like this (names redacted for reasons that will become clear):

Frostfire: There's always [name of person].
Me, studying the results of a google search: He looks like a man who really wants to sell you expensive real estate, even though he was up all night doing lines off Aaron Sorkin's ass.
Frost: But when he was younger - okay. Never mind. How about [name of other person]?
Me: Seriously? Look at his Wikipedia photo!
Frost: Oh my GOD. Don't use the Wikipedia photos. Go to Google Image search like a normal person.
Me, managing to whine in text: But then there's too many pictures.
Frost, patiently: But I am going to tell you which pictures to look at. Okay, got it? First one, last one on the first row.
Me: ...How can those possibly be the same person?

At that point, I decided to call the experiment on the grounds of keeping Frost from hating me. But I still want to know what other people mean by gorgeous. I've just learned that what I need is for people with functioning Gorgeousness Determination Circuits to let me borrow their brains.

So, this is where you come in! If you have a functioning GDC and some time on your hands, that is. What I want - what I very very much want oh please oh please - is for you to pick out a specific photo of a famous person, one that you think embodies the term "classically gorgeous." (I am avoiding all other kinds of hotness for the moment, on the grounds that I am very easily confused, especially when looking at pictures.) Then post it here, so I do not get distracted by the plethora of images of that person on the internet. (One thing I learned last night: the more famous you are, the more truly awful photos of you there are in the world.)

And please remember to include the name of the person, because it's not like I will ever have a clue otherwise. (This is why I give up on "Post hot pictures!" threads. For one thing, I am never sure what kind of hot the posters mean. For another thing, I never have any idea who the people are, which makes it - confusing. Am I looking at the same person over and over? Or are these all different people? What is going on? Why do the pixels mock me? And then I have to close the tab or start ranting on street corners.)

The One Featuring the Same Safeword I Originally Used. I Would Prefer to Have Less in Common with Sherlock, in All Honesty. Indecorous, by basingstoke. Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson/Tai Morstan.

I love this story because people talk in it. No, I love it because they communicate. This sticks in my mind because when I first read this story, I was also reading a (published) book in which the characters somehow managed to speak many, many words to each other without ever actually communicating at all. It started out like this:

A: I think I like you.
B: Song, sung, blue, everybody knows one.

But in the fullness of time, after they went through many struggles together and learned about each other, their conversations basically all went like this:

A: Bindlestaff Capricorn!
B: Sheepleweepwit. Skanderhoff wormington. Soaply dundoo.

You get the picture. These people started out talking past each other, and ended up with no actual semantic content to their exchanges at all. It was like watching two people make a game try at ballroom dancing, except one of them is anesthetized and the other one is an octopus.

That may be why the first thing I noticed about Indecorous was that, okay, John and Sherlock and Tai don't necessarily understand each other, let alone live in perfect harmony while chanting a lot and occasionally ascending to another plane of existence (and that is just as well, because the other plane of existence would definitely send Sherlock right back), but they do communicate. They start talking and then keep right on talking! To each other! In actual sentences containing meaning! They have misunderstandings and resolve them with functional interaction! They identify problems and solve them! They negotiate boundaries! They learn about each other! It's amazing. It's like they're actual real people. I spent the entire story not wanting to punch any of them. (Except Sherlock occasionally, but who doesn't want to hit Sherlock from time to time?)

I mean, okay, yes. There are many other things I love about this story - the humor, the characterization of everyone, the incredible way it all works together, the way the relationship makes all three of them more than they would be on their own, Sherlock in a vampire costume, Lestrade having an actual life - but, really. For me, it keeps coming back to the way everyone actually talks like they are real grownups and not malfunctioning plot devices. My new motto, drawn from this story: More people, fewer plot devices.

The One Featuring the World's First Texting Ghost. Okay, He Doesn't Actually Text. He Just Writes Like He Is. Must You, Harry? Really? Cross, by lightgetsin. Dresden Files series, Harry Dresden/John Marcone.

I have not read any Dresden Files books. I keep bouncing off the early chapters of the first one, largely because I am not entirely sure that I want to spend that long in Harry Dresden's head or Jim Butcher's hands. But I have grown to love and adore the fan fiction. And I especially love and adore this story, even though - well, let's just say, in my head, there is already a sequel. It is full of ice cream and mermaids.

So, yes, okay, the ending of this one is not quite as happy as I would like (although it's not horrible, and you can get through the rough spots simply by reminding yourself of the fantasy sequel). Don't care. To me, this story is basically an exercise in examining how many layers of denial you can plaster over yourself before you crack into a million pieces. Answer: John Marcone is nearly there. (Sequel.)

I love that. I love John Marcone, too, in the same way I love Lex Luthor. (To me, they fit into the same general category: Too Competent for Anyone's Good. It's a small but well-loved group of people who get shit done, but it would probably be better if they didn't. You want to give these people hobbies, and then you remember that they'd start out collecting stamps and end up conquering Switzerland to gain control of its post office, and you just kind of give up in despair.) And I particularly love this John Marcone, who is complicated and deeply fucked up and practicing denial like it's his religion. And then you pair him with Harry Dresden, who is, let's be honest, maybe not the healthiest guy parading around Chicago with a giant staff, and you watch things explode. (SEQUEL.)

Of course, before things can start exploding, Marcone has to, um, bring Dresden back from the dead. These things happen occasionally. I just love that this story starts with one half of the pairing dead, and then he comes back, and then the real fucked-up-ness starts. (SEQUEL SEQUEL SEQUEL.)

Read it! It's amazing! And then come back here and tell me alllll about your own personal fantasy sequel to it.

The AU in Which Movies Are Presumably Way More Fun Than in Our Universe. Which in Your Case You Have Not Got, by dira. Generation Kill x A Companion to Wolves. (I really don't think you need to know either fandom for this to work, for the record.)

First, let me say: I have never read A Companion to Wolves. If you have a really intense squick, you generally learn to avoid things that sound like trouble. (Or, I suppose, you turn into a twitching wreck. I prefer caution.) Like, BB and I learned to avoid movies described as "poignant," because it turns out we don't enjoy watching people die horribly. Of, say, cancer. Or being beaten to death. When they say "poignant," what they mean is, "will leave TFV huddled on the couch under a blanket, wheezing, with her eyes swollen shut." In the same way, I look at the summary of something like A Companion to Wolves and know that at some point, a wolf will die, and I will end up crying for three hours, at the end of which BB will say, "Why did you even read this book? You should have known better."

I do, however, know some Generation Kill (I read the book, and also Nate Fick's book, and no I did not see the TV series because are you kidding?), and I have to say, if the real US military had involved being telepathically bonded to a motherfucking wolf under the weight of thousands of years of Norse history, Nate Fick would have had nine million orgasms just thinking about joining the military. And you'd have had to shoot him to get him out. Nate Fick is a guy who would say, in all sincerity, that they just don't do manly warrior bonds like they used to, back in the good old days (B.C.).

So, yes, this story is an awesome commentary on all the military Test of Manhood and Noble History and I Am Warrior shit. But that is not why I love it. I love it, basically, because the entire story is told through the eyes of a dude who does not have a clue. I mean, seriously, Evan the reporter, in this, could not find sand in Iraq. He'd just be staring around going, "I know it's here somewhere. I can, like, smell it. Hmmm. Sand. Where could it be?" And yet it's very clear to the reader what is going on. I love that. I love writers who do that. And I really, really love this story.

The telepathically bonded magical wolves and manly warrior bonds do not hurt, either. For the record.

The One That Shows That You Should Pick out the Minds You Visit Carefully. Take Note, Charles Xavier! Synergy, by airgiodslv. Inception x Criminal Minds. Arthur No Family Name Given Because Seriously, Christopher Nolan? Seriously?/Spencer Reid. (Sorry. Just, I mean - one of the core team characters in Inception gets two official names. One. It's like Nolan wasn't even trying.)

Another crossover! Involving yet another fandom I don't know! It's almost like this set has a theme. (Actually, I could do a set of those. Several sets, even.) Everything I know about Criminal Minds I know from this story; before reading it, I sort of generally classed it with the Letters Fandoms - NCIS, CSI, probably some other ones I've forgotten about; shows full of people who, to go by the vids, spend a lot of time in offices staring at things, and occasionally someone cries or gets killed or buried. Now, um, I still don't know that much about Criminal Minds, although this story did answer some searching questions I had about certain terms that have started showing up in non-fan-fiction locations. (Unsub, for example, which always makes me say, "...So, do you mean dom?")

But it is a tradition with me to recommend fan fiction for sources I know nothing about. And I love this story. The details! The consequences of inception! The researching and bugging and theories! It's casefic. With extra adventures inside the head of someone who could probably use a few visits with a shrink. Joy!

Plus, I love this for the portrayal of Arthur. Inception is one of those fandoms where I'm willing to entertain almost any story an author wants to tell about a character, as long as the three basic traits remain the same. (In other words, I won't buy stupid Arthur, but if you can make a case for magician Arthur, or demonic librarian Arthur, or robot Arthur, I am prepared to read it.) And I loved this version of Arthur, though of course I will not tell you what it is. (It would be a spoiler, and that would be wrong. I will tell you that he's not a robot, though. Which is fine, of course. But where have all the robots gone?)

I also love Eames in this one; I have a weakness for competent people who can roll with the punches and get shit done. (My ideal hero would, presumably, speak seven languages and not sleep much.) And I even like Spencer Reid, who seems anal, intelligent, and really, really complicated. I am guessing his show has run for a lot of seasons.

The One That Proves That the Side with the Biggest Teeth Wins. Jaws, by JoeLawson. Hawaii Five-0, Steve McGarrett/Daniel Williams.

Okay, so when I was figuring out what fourth story I wanted for this set, I ended up with one of those painful quandaries that fandom occasionally puts me in. (Like, you know, "Wingfic or amnesia?" The hard questions, in other words.) Eventually, though, I realized: no one should ever have to choose between weresharks and casefic. It's just not right to ask. So, since I don't have any stories that combine weresharks and casefic (a sad lack, in my opinion), I'm just going to have to recommend both.

Don't get me wrong: I still think Hawai'i needs werewolves. Or vampires. (Wouldn't it suck to get vamped in Hawai'i? Surrounded by moving water. Sunlight all the damn time. Pineapples. Palm trees. I bet Hawaiian vampires routinely win the Most Emo ribbon in the vampire shows.) But I am pretty damn pleased that the fandom has weresharks.

And not just any weresharks, let me add. It's not just that Danny is perhaps the best wereshark ever recorded - it's that there's a whole werecommunity in this one. (Although that makes it sound like the residents transform: half the time they're loners! And then the sun comes out and, bam, they're hugging and sharing and cuddling and tossing leis. But you know what I mean.) I love the hints in this story of something bigger just behind it, a whole world of people turning into sharks and wallabies and pangolins. And speaking bastardized Greek. It doesn't get better than that.

Note that there is some animal harm in this one. Shark harm, to be specific. I dealt with it by telling myself those were actually weresharks, and thus technically humans. (No, we will not discuss what it says about me that this worked as a coping mechanism. In my world, it is okay for sharks to eat people, but not for people to eat sharks, apparently.)

Some time ago - quite some time ago - I offered to review something in exchange for a charitable donation to help_japan. I expected, quite honestly, to be subjected to something legendarily terrible, perhaps Spock's Brain or Highlander 2: The Quickening, but instead, bizarrely, a group of people banded together to get me to watch something good. I know. I don't understand it, either. Grateful but confused, that's me!

That thing was a Korean TV drama, and the bidders were, and oh how I hope I have them all listed: anenko, dormouse_in_tea, jamethiel, paxpinnae, pineapplechild, vass, and zeborah. Thank you, people. I have enjoyed the hell out of Coffee Prince. And really appreciated your patience. You are all made of entirely of shine. What you're actually getting is a weird review-recap hybrid. Hope it's what you wanted!

A Preliminary Note

I don't speak Korean and I've never watched a K-drama before. I don't know the conventions, I don't know the idioms, and I had to resort to google a lot. I am going to make cultural missteps. I apologize in advance. Pointers appreciated!

Also, the fansub I found for this one was a little antic. I'm used to anime fansubs, which are inevitably better than the actual official licensed translation. I did not get that sense with these subtitles, which were informative most of the time with occasional moments where they induced shrieking hilarity. Seriously, even if you have no interest in adorable romance, the fansubs are worth watching for those moments alone.

Coffee Prince in Relatively Few Words (For Me)

So, that said - Coffee Prince is a charming, crazy, fluffy romance. The central conceit is that one half of the main couple, Eun Chan, is a girl pretending to be a boy. Or that's how the summaries read. (They actually mostly said something along the lines of "she's given up so much to take care of her family - even her femininity.") That wasn't how I saw it, though. And I was not alone.

Right after I watched the second episode of Coffee Prince, I had to take the earthling to see his doctor. Afterwards, as is our custom, he picked out a treat from the small store there, and we sat at a table outside where he could watch all the cars and trucks go by.

There was also a middle-aged Korean-American woman sitting out there. (This may seem like a gift from the gods of recap writing, but in fact we were sitting in front of a Korean café and a Korean pharmacy, so not so much.) We started talking while the earthling consumed his treat one molecule at a time (because there were so many trucks to watch). We talked about kids for a bit, and then she asked me what TV shows I was watching. Normally, my answer to that question is an apologetic, "I don't watch TV," but this time I had an actual show to mention!

I said, "I'm watching - uh, in English it's called Coffee Prince?"

She lit up. "I loved that show so much!"

We talked about various aspects of the show for a while, including how we got hold of it (and why I chose to watch it, which was a whole thing to explain, let me tell you; I should have just said that I heard it was good). Eventually, I mentioned how great I thought the acting was. I said the actress who played Eun Chan did a fantastic job showing discomfort with femininity, using masculine body language, all of that.

She agreed, and said, "Watching that, I didn't think - I didn't think she was a girl, exactly. I know she was a girl, but I thought - you have to be one, of course, a boy or a girl, but I thought if you could be not a boy or a girl but a third thing, then that is what I would call her."

In short, even people who don't know the word genderqueer and affirmatively state that you have to be either a boy or a girl look at Eun Chan and decide she's not a girl pretending to be a boy, but rather a person being who she is. (I say she, by the way, because it's what she says. Or at least what the subtitles say she says.)

Or that's the impression I got from the first few episodes. I will be watching the whole thing - yes, I liked it that much - unless it turns out Eun Chan undergoes some kind of transformation into a beautiful swan because of the power of love or something, and then I will put my head down on my desk and cry.

So, yeah, that's the plot. There are these couples. They get together. The main couple has some tiny issues, in that the guy thinks the girl is, you know, a guy. And, okay, there's a lot of stuff about coffee and a coffee shop and some other supporting characters, but this is at heart a romance, and all of that is set dressing for the important task of getting the right lips on each other and having as many Key Emotional Sequences as possible. Fan fiction readers should understand this. (Because this is a good show, the set dressing is interesting. It's just - you know. The focus is on the couples.)

And, as I said, there are two of those couples. Let's talk a little more about them, shall we?

The Comedy Couple, Han Kyul/Eun Chan

HAN KYUL. Oh, man. Look, in my notes for this series I called him Jerkface, and trust me, he earns it. He's a smart rich kid who is totally in love with himself, and he's decided that his life will be easier and more fun if no one expects anything of him. Despite that, he has his noble moments, and just when you've decided what you most long for in the world is to see him get punched in the face, he'll do something that will remind you there's good stuff under the patina of asshole. In other words, I somehow ended up liking him while continuing to call him Jerkface. So, I mean - he's a jerk. I liked him anyway. There you go, the central problem of Coffee Prince.

EUN CHAN. She's a totally awesome mess, basically. She's uncouth! Unmannered! Clumsy! Disorganized! Constantly starving! She reminds me, on many occasions, of my younger nephew; she bounces off the walls, pokes at other people just to see what they do, says stuff without thinking, and breaks things. But she's also principled, moral, caring, and really fucking responsible. She's basically the inverse of Han Kyul; he has everything and refuses to try at all, and she has nothing but tries so hard all the time. At one point in the series, you get a look at her schedule. She has four hours blocked out for sleeping. The rest of the time she works and works and works, trying to take care of her mother and sister. And we've already gone into the gender thing, so I will just say: the actress OWNS this. All actresses everywhere who have to pretend to be a guy for a role: WATCH THIS SHOW.

So. These two people should be like watching a helicopter crash: flames and shrapnel everywhere, bystanders run for their lives. And the thing is, they kind of are. And yet they're wonderful together anyway.

Obviously, their main issue, at least at first, is that Han Kyul thinks Eun Chan is a guy, and, see, he's straight, and also he likes ladies, and what the fuck is with lusting after a guy? Whereas Eun Chan is frantically trying to keep all her plates in the air, and totally not be in love with Han Kyul, because he is not for her. This is, shall we say, not an unfamiliar dynamic for a slash reader. It's a joy to see this all done so well, and sort of weird to see it done with a het couple.

I'm not calling them the comedy couple, by the way, because they're comic relief; they have more Key Emotional Sequences than the other main couple, and definitely more than anyone else. Just. They are fun. That cannot be said of our next set.

The Tragedy Couple, Han Seong/Yoo Ju

HAN SEONG. Oh god his voice. I just want to say that here and now. Another reason this show is worth watching: Han Seong's voice. I want to listen to him talk all day long forever. This is a guy you would never want to work with, because you'd find yourself nodding in helpless agreement as he outlined his plans to set fire to the building. That's how good his voice is. As for the rest of him - he's Han Kyul's older cousin, and he's a successful music producer with a very adorable dog. He's also responsible and kind to Eun Chan. All these things made me want to love him.

YOO JU. She's an artist (a corporate one, judging by her paintings); she's very sweet and calm and seems to think before she speaks, which is a trait you don't usually see on television. She was with Han Seong for a long time, and then she left him for another guy, DK, and went to New York. Right before the start of the story, she broke up with DK and came back to Seoul. As the series begins, she's trying to rekindle her relationship with Han Seong. Han Kyul is also in love with her.

I liked Yoo Ju and Han Seong when they weren't with each other, and I loved Han Seong's voice, but after a while, I cringed every time we switched over to their storyline. These people bring the over-the-top angst in vats. Remember that time that you were in that totally serious, "oh my god we'll be together forever as soon as we're old enough to get driver's licenses" relationship? And then after four fabulous, incredible, soul-searing weeks it ended and you cried and cried and deleted all your poetry and cut your hair and wished it would rain so you could sit in the rain with your sorrow, like, why did you have to break up during the summer oh god your life is such totally fucking SHIT. Remember that? THAT IS WHAT THESE TWO ARE DOING. Except they are adults. Angst, whining, stupidity, and they own their own homes. It's not supposed to work that way. That shit is barely tolerable when you're 15, for fuck's sake.

A Note on Bodily Secretions

Anyone who has been assigned the bodily secretions square in Kink Bingo and wants to make a vid: Coffee Prince is the source for you. The producers of this show didn't really feel like they'd done their jobs until they had documented every single possible secretion on film. People poop and pee on camera (I am going to believe, for purposes of sanity, that they are acting); they barf pretty much on camera, and there is flirtatious nose picking, which I have to assume is one of those concepts that just doesn't cross the cultural barrier, because it is clearly supposed to be cute and instead makes me want to die.

So, fair warning: there are bodily secretions in this show. Far more than I want in my viewing experiences. I liked it anyway. See how I said this was the fundamental problem of Coffee Prince?

Episode 1

In other words: ALL THE COFFEE PRINCE DETAIL YOU COULD EVER NEED. If you need trigger warnings, please read the version of this with cut tags intact. I'm using nested cut tags for the one in this episode.

( 1: Everyone Says Hello and Then Something Horrible Happens )

( 2: There Are Inexplicable Gong Ringers, Velcro Ladies, and Excess Bodily Secretions )

( 3: Plot Complications Develop and Are Totally Overshadowed by the Discovery That Our Hero Is Made of Sparkles )

( 4: Eun Chan and Han Kyul Finally Get Together, and I Guess I Shouldn't Have Been Surprised about Where )

My boyfriend for the first part of my college career was a comic book collector, which meant that he had three billion carefully stored comic books, all of which had to be read with the same care you'd use when handling the original copy of the Declaration of Independence, and then replaced in their individual plastic sleeves and their specific spot in their long boxes. (There was a special technique for getting them into the boxes undamaged.) He was extremely anxious for me to share his interest in comic books, and he spent a fair amount of time telling me about them, giving me important ones to read, and, of course, taking me to comic book shops.

Because he was a collector, he was well known to the comic book shop owners (I believe they gave little cries of joy when they saw him coming), and I was introduced as his girlfriend and welcomed into the fold. I spent a lot of time browsing at random while he chatted with the guys behind the counter, and I was young enough that it didn't occur to me that it might be significant that it was always, always guys behind the counter.

At that age, I was an easy sell on basically any story you cared to show me. I was happy to have new things to read. And I grew to love the comic books themselves, and especially the characters in them. My boyfriend didn't have a clue how to sell me on comic books - really, he should have pointed to two guys and used the words "unresolved sexual tension" and that would have done it - but he did pay attention to what I responded to. I loved Rogue. She was exactly the right character for an angsty sixteen-year-old girl. In particular, I obsessively read the issue in which she's trapped in her own brain; in there, it's strongly implied (or possibly outright stated; this was a long time ago, after all) that she's been raped. I loved that - Rogue had been raped, some time in her past, and she'd certainly made mistakes, but she was still tough, still on the team, still saving people. "Fucked up but strong" pretty much describes the Rogue characterization of the time, and that was exactly what I wanted from my female characters. I was fucked up, and I wanted to be strong, and there was Rogue, being my wish fulfillment in spandex.

My boyfriend assumed it was the rape itself that interested me, and offered more books featuring women being raped or abused. Since they weren't the heroes, and it wasn't about them getting over it - they were being rescued, or, you know, not being rescued - it didn't interest me. But I liked that he tried. And I was young enough that it didn't occur to me that it might be significant that he could find so many plotlines about women being raped or abused, and that all of them were told in precisely the way guaranteed to turn me off.

So, you know how it goes: we broke up. I ended up with Best Beloved, the woman I'm still married to. And I didn't realize it right away, but comic books were one of the things I lost in the divorce.

No, not the actual books themselves; I kept the ones that were mine, and in fact I still have them, five moves later. Not even the mutual interest in them - Best Beloved was a comic book reader, too, until she had so many series cut off from underneath her that she gave up and turned to things less likely to destroy her loves, like, you know, Fox. What I lost was my pass into the world of comic books.

The first time I tried to go into a comic book store without my boyfriend, I discovered that I had a superpower in the comic book world. I was invisible. I could not get anyone to acknowledge that I existed. There were guys behind the counter, yes, but they kept up their argument about Green Lantern while I stood in front of them. I had to interrupt, finally, to ask my question, and then I discovered my second superpower: I had a wall of silence surrounding me. They exchanged glances, gestured vaguely to the back of the store, and went right back to their argument. I left without finding the book I'd come for, but that's just as well; I don't think, based on future experiences, I could have gotten them to take my money if I'd found it.

I thought it was just that comic book store. Then I thought it was just that one and the next one, the one where I discovered that I could not force my money into the hands of the guy behind the counter; he walked away from the register when I approached with books in hand, then disappeared into the back of the store for, apparently, eternity. It was crazy; it was like I'd gone back in time a hundred years, and they still had Wolverine everywhere.

In the third store where my new superpowers came into play, I had what was, at that time in my life, an unaccustomed thought. Why am I doing this? I should not have to beg people to take my money.

I realized I didn't want to have to force my way in through doors that had "NO GIRLZ ALOWD" signs on them, doors I apparently needed a male escort to get through. I loved comic books, but I didn't love them enough to put up with that shit. So I didn't. And eventually I didn't love comic books anymore, either.

But that was more than fifteen years ago. Things have changed. I've seen the campaigns online. I've seen the maps of girl-friendly comic book stores. (Although, seriously, just that these exist is an indication of a major problem in the industry; you don't see maps of girl-friendly hardware stores, for example, because all hardware stores are girl-friendly. They employ women! They take our money! They provide us with non-condescending advice! They have gloves in our size! At least all the ones I've been in, and I'm a homeowner, so you can see that I spend a lot of time in hardware stores. The question isn't, "Which hardware store will treat me like a person despite my gender?" It's, "Which hardware store is closest to my house and stocks the items I need?" If you have to ask the former question, there is a big problem.) I've even read articles about how to get girls into your comic book shop, so clearly owners now understand that accepting money from only a fraction of the people interested in giving it to you is not always the world's most successful business strategy.

That's why, yesterday, I decided to stop into a comic book store. Totally on a whim. Just to see what it's like in there these days, how things have changed since the days of dialup. I thought I might want to get something with Oracle in it, to remember her by.

I walked in towing my unwilling three-year-old son, who had already come to the conclusion that this was a destination unlikely to have any trucks or Pigeon books in it, and therefore did not wish to go in. I blinked, letting my eyes adjust, and, man, comic book store interiors really haven't changed that much. I mean, the posters have - I think they've developed new breast enlarging technology, for starters, and it's not like the breasts were small before - but the interiors are still exactly the same.

"Hi!" the guy behind the counter said in cheerful tones, and I thought: But they have changed where it really matters.

Except he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at my son, who was clinging to my leg. "What can I find for you today?" he asked him. "Spiderman? Superman? Toys?"

"We're here for me," I said. "He's too young for comic books."

"You're never too young for comic books!" he said, still exclusively addressing the earthling. "I bet you like superheroes, huh?" (He doesn't.)

The earthling, apparently feeling threatened, asked to be picked up. I eavesdropped on a few more minutes of conversation that didn't involve me, even though I was the only member of my party willing to talk, and then I left. I pretty much had to; the earthling, distressed by this onslaught of talking despite all his Mama's attempts to redirect the conversation, had his face buried in my neck and was saying, "All done, all done, go home now?" very quietly into my ear. But in the time I was in the store, not one single word was addressed to me, let alone enough words to ask me, say, if there was anything I needed help finding. The guy never even looked at me. I was still invisible.

The only thing that's changed in fifteen years, apparently, is that I gave birth to someone who can be my passport into comic book stores. Except he doesn't want to be, and I don't want him to have to be, so that isn't going to work so well. I'm going to have to remember Oracle with icons and scans and fan fiction, instead of something that costs actual money.

But, hey, reboots happen regularly, and I'm sure Oracle will be coming around again. Eventually. So I'll see you in another decade or so, comic book store guys! In the meantime, thanks for keeping my money in my purse, where it belongs.