Keep Hoping Machine Running

[Earthling] Pigeon Petition

2013-04-16T18:59:56Z

The earthling is four, and he's loved the Pigeon for half his life. This is an enduring love, is what I'm saying. And during all that time, he's believed that Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus is a basically unfair book. The Pigeon should get to drive the bus, is his feeling. It's not like there are any good reasons why not, beyond what a bus driver who didn't even stick around to drive his own bus wants.

But recently we bought the earthling the Pigeon app, and that has taken his Pigeon-bus anguish to new heights. You can change a lot of things about the story in the app, but you can't change the one thing the earthling desperately wants to. No matter what, you have to keep telling the Pigeon no.

I can only conclude that this strikes the earthling as terribly, fundamentally wrong. He's complained to us. He's protested to the app. Every time he plays the app, he gets his stuffed Pigeon out and lets him drive all the cars and trucks he owns, carefully playing through his ideal scenario, which goes like this:

"Can I drive the car transporter?" Pigeon says.

"Yes, you can. I'll help you."

"I'm so happy! This is the best day ever. I'm driving the car transporter!" Pigeon says.

This is an actual transcription, word-for-word, of one of his recent rounds of Pigeon Gets to Drive the Things. (Including the dialogue tags, because the earthling knows you have to specify who's talking.)

So it was against this background of extreme concern over rampant Pigeon-related injustice that I uttered the word "petition" to the earthling yesterday.

"What's petition?" he asked.

I tried to explain. "A petition is a letter you write to someone, asking for something you think should happen. And you sign it, and other people who agree with you sign it, and it's a way of showing that lots of people feel this way."

"Oh," he said, thinking. "Can we write a petition?"

"You have to have a thing you want to happen," I told him. "Like better lunches at school."

"Or the Pigeon to drive the bus?" he asked. I agreed that that is a thing you could write a petition about. "Let's do that," he said.

"But you need a reason," I said. "A good reason why the Pigeon should drive the bus."

"It will make him happy," he said. He thought some more. "He keeps asking and no one ever says yes. You have to say no even if you want yes."

"Any more?" I asked.

He thought some more. "It makes me sad to see him always get said no," he told me.

"You mean you'd rather see him get what he's dreamed of and worked for?" I asked, interpreting some.

"YES," the earthling said.

Those are perfectly good reasons, in my opinion. So, yeah, I made a petition for the earthling. And I'm asking you to sign it. Tell your friends, tell your family: we want the Pigeon to ride the bus. He's been asking for ten years and no one has EVER said yes. It's time to figure out how to make it happen.

Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

(Note: You can sign from anywhere in the world. You don't have to be in the US.)

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New Story! (Hockey RPF, Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin)

2013-03-22T17:08:45Z

Fastening One Heart to Every Falling Thing (51519 words) by thefourthvine
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin, Evgeni Malkin/Alexander Ovechkin
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulbond, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Summary:

Geno can't. Sidney won't.

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Yuletide: Reveal!

2013-01-01T19:07:47Z

I wrote one story for Yuletide 2012, for the doughty shrift, who gave me the best prompts in the world.

This Side of Paradise (17031 words) by thefourthvine
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Losers (2010)
Rating: Explicit
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez/Jake Jensen
Summary:

"I'm a good boyfriend," Cougar said.

I tell you what: in the planning stages, this story seemed like it would be fun and short, but it really only delivered on the fun front. I blame Jensen. Key lesson learned this Yuletide: If you want to write a Yuletide story that's less than 10k, don't use the motormouth's point of view. Use the PoV of the laconic guy with the sarcastic eyebrows. I mean, Cougar doesn't go into lengthy digressions about rude Canadians and the etiquette of three-ways and Star Trek.

And speaking of geeky movies, I totally salute thehoyden and frostfire for pointing out, during my Fucking Chris Evans Is in Fucking Everything breakdown, that he's never been in Star Trek. (And I salute frostfire for this conversation via IM while I was deep in the middle of writing this:

Frostfire: Hi! How are you?
Me: WEEPING BECAUSE SPOCK.
Frostfire: Did you watch Wrath of Khan again?
Me: DANTE'S PRAYER.
Frostfire: Awwwwwww.

Fandom: the place where people will always understand when you're sobbing incoherently about how he TOUCHES HIS CHAIR OH GOD.)

So, anyway. This story, thanks to Why Jake Can't Shut Up Jensen, became so long that I was in the painful position of not even being able to complain on Twitter about how long it was, because that might de-anon me. But it was a barrel of fun to write, for real.

And Nestra, Norah, Queue, and thehoyden were heroes of Yuletide for beta-reading this with such aplomb. Thanks, guys! Next year, I will try for shorter, and also way fewer run-on sentences. I swear.

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Yuletide: Gifts for Me!

2013-01-01T06:39:22Z

I was going to do this as one general end-of-Yuletide wrap-up, the way I usually do, but the authors aren't revealed yet, and I don't want to wait any longer to brag about my gifts. So, hey: I got cool stuff! I got two fantastic stories:

My Only Self (4587 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Space Girl - The Imagined Village
Rating: Explicit
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Space Girl/Servo Robot Rocket Pilot
Characters: Space Girl, Servo Robot Rocket Pilot
Summary:

In the aftermath of a disastrous accident, Space Girl and her robot find a new understanding of each other—and possibly, forgiveness.

This is a story for the song Space Girl, by the Imagined Village, and it is wonderful. (It's also the first time I've read my Yuletide story and had suspicions about who wrote it.) Even if you've never heard the song (although I maintain that it is well worth a listen), if you like robots or technological sex or human-machine interaction, this is a story that is designed for you. (Well, technically I guess it was designed for me. Still.) Read!

And because I am the Luckiest Yuletider, I also got:

this obsessive idea (2847 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Literary RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Charles Baudelaire/Jeanne Duval
Characters: Charles Baudelaire, Édouard Manet, Jeanne Duval
Summary:

Paris, 1863. Édouard's new painting is finished, and he must decide if he should submit it to the Salon for consideration. Charles can't bring himself to care.

All those of you who have, through the years, looked at my ridiculous Charles Baudelaire prompt and wished someone else would write it: SOMEONE DID WRITE IT. And whoever it was did an amazing job. This story is incredible. Beautifully written, and it perfectly integrates the demons and terrors of Baudelaire's imagination with reality, so neither he nor you is ever sure what's real. So, so great.

And both of these stories deserve way more love than they've gotten. PLEASE GO LOVE MY STORIES THE WAY I DO.

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[Rant] So You Want to Arm the Teachers

2012-12-22T03:16:11Z

My son is in preschool right now. Since Newtown, I've been staring at his school, at his building, at his classmates, and thinking of all those kids who are dead now. I don't think any parent can help that.

And, hey, I am willing to do whatever it takes to stop that from happening again. Suggestions I've heard from gun control proponents: Reduce gun access, reduce rate of fire, increase waiting periods, make smart guns (with biometric chips to prevent firing by someone other than owner) mandatory.

Suggestion I've heard again and again from gun fanatics: Arm teachers. When every teacher has a gun, every child will be safe.

( And that's what I want to talk about today. )

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[Rant] Politics Without Should

2012-11-15T18:07:59Z

(TW: abortion and the politics thereof.)

(Additional warning: serious business.)

Recently, I tweeted this:

"If you’re pro-life, you’d better also be pro-welfare. If you vote pro-life but against welfare, you’re actually pro-child-misery."

I assume this requires no explanation, but here's a brief one. Women know when they shouldn't have a baby. Many of them, when that is true, seek abortion. If your vote prevents them from getting it, you've forced a child to be born in a bad situation - just to name two examples, that child is at much higher risk of poverty and at much greater risk of living in a household affected by domestic violence. (Yes, you've also inflicted a great deal of harm on the woman herself, but if you're pro-life, you're okay with that. So we're focusing on the child, here. The person you claim you want to protect.) Welfare is one of the means we use to protect children in bad situations. If you simultaneously vote to stop abortion and to cut welfare (and, I might add, other government services), then what you're really saying is, "I'm absolutely in favor of children suffering. I'm entirely willing to increase the number of children in harm's way in this country, and I'm also entirely willing to make sure there's no help for them. Because that's easier and better for me."

In short: congratulations, you're a fucking asshole.

So tweeting this was interesting. I got a lot of FUCK YEAH type replies. I also got some replies from righties. And my discussions with them all fell apart at the same place.

"But the woman should take responsibility!"

"The woman should work to support her kid!"

"The man should stay and help raise his child!"

Yup. Every conversation fell apart as soon as the righty used the word "should."

Here is a true fact: fuck should. Should has no place in policy. We make laws about what is actually happening, not what would happen in an ideal universe, because, newsflash: we don't live in an ideal universe.

So I would point out that hey, this isn't how the world actually works. In reality, men leave. In reality, women can't simultaneously support their kids and pay for childcare on a minimum-wage income. In reality, a woman forced to have a child is in a bad situation, and it is likely to get worse, and if we have a law that put her in that place, that's on all of us. (And in case you think I'm just talking about abortion, and if we just allow abortion we can cut the safety net no problem: until we fix education, racism, abuse, addiction, and poverty, among other major issues, we've still got to step in. Because we owe it to our fellow humans not to let them suffer needlessly when we can help. The end.)

And the social conservative would either step out of the conversation entirely, or go into a sort of a critical error of the brain, except the blue screen of death in this case was just the repetition of the words "personal responsibility" and "should."

Social conservatives appear to think that if they just make laws that perfectly reflect their ideal universe, that universe will somehow be willed into being.

This hasn't worked yet. It's never going to work. It's fucking stupid. And these conservatives actually already know that. (Proof: most of these people are Christians, and Christians are supposed to be into peace and against killing, and yet I never once heard any of them argue that we should abolish the military.) They're just using their talisman words, "should" and "responsibility," to avoid confronting the fact that they, themselves, are personally responsible for the suffering of children.

So this has resulted in the formation of my new rule of political discourse: If you can't phrase your political argument without the word "should," you can't participate in the discussion at all. Seriously. Go away. You're done with politics; you need to take up model airplane building or knitting or something. (Tell the plane that the parts SHOULD be easy to put together! Tell the wool that it SHOULD NOT tangle!)

It's time for people who make some attempt to see reality to design policy.

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Dear Yuletide Author

2012-10-25T17:08:21Z

Dear Author Person,

We matched! So, hey, here's some good news: three of my four requests this year are five minute fandoms - you can master all three of them in the time it takes to eat a sandwich. I hope that is a joy and a comfort to you, especially if we matched on the fourth request, which is, um, slightly more complicated.

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! )

( This Is Where It Starts )

( CinderFella -Todrick Hall )

( Space Girl, by the Imagined Village )

( Literary RPF (Charles Baudelaire) )

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227: Get Well, Gus

2012-10-22T19:03:35Z

This is a recs set with a special purpose: to give some entertainment to alexandrina, whose three-year-old son, Gus, has brain cancer. Obviously this is not a thing I can fix or even help with, but kidfic is her happy place. So I am recommending some long, happy kidfics for her; at least this way she'll have something to read on the many sleepless nights in her near future. (So far, by the way, the news on Gus is basically all good, or at least all the news that followed "he has brain cancer." I'm hoping hard that things stay good for Gus. And if you pray, alexandrina has asked that people please pray for him to reach ten healthy and strong and relapse-free.)

The Only Fan Fiction Ever to Make Jeweled Teeth Endearing. (Note: Jeweled Teeth Are NOT Endearing.) The Place of That Desire, by yekoc. Swimming RPF, Ryan Lochte/Michael Phelps.

For those of you who, like me, were not really paying attention to the 2012 Olympics, let me assure you: Ryan Lochte is an appalling human being. This dude recently picked Auburn to win a college football game between Texas A&M and LSU, so we can see that he is not the brightest brick in the Duplo box. He has a signature word, and it's such an awful one that I refuse to type it here because I might teach my autocorrect terrible habits. He once tweeted "A Qm" (complete, total tweet) and people favorited the hell out of it as vintage Lochte at the very peak of his communications prowess.

And that's not even getting into his - attire issues. I mean, okay, I knew he had some weird thing about jeweled "grills," but I managed to persuade myself that this must merely mean buttons or maybe Elton John type sunglasses until I was in the middle of this story, when I could resist no longer. I googled. And then I bowed my head and WEPT FOR HUMANITY. (Don't google. If you haven't seen it, DON'T GOOGLE. Just know that he wears bejeweled mouthpieces and be grateful that the phenomenon hasn't spread to other sports. Or, if it has already spread to other sports, don't tell me about it.) And then I showed the picture to Best Beloved so we could weep a little more together. (TFV Marriage Tip #121: Spend a little time each day being mutually appalled together.)

But when we were done, I wiped my tears and kept reading, because this story is fantastic. I have a special love for stories that manage to make seriously disastrous people lovable without erasing any of their problematic elements. And I basically worship this story for convincing me that Ryan Lochte, Ryan Lochte, would be adorable with a baby. And good with a baby. And an actual quality parent. And that he's - yeah, okay, lovable.

Frankly, this story is not just sweet and adorable, and it doesn't just have its best scene take place in a pool, it's also deeply inspiring. At least if you are the kind of person (me) who can be inspired by the discovery that even profoundly flawed human beings can still be reasonably awesome ones. And if that's not enough for you, this has perhaps the best coming out scene in all of recorded fan fiction. At least if you like your coming out scenes the way I do. (My impression of coming out was forever warped by my own experience of it, which was notable for the following conversation between my mother and sister:

My sister, cranky because seriously don't talk to her in the morning she's a fuzzy ball of snit until ten: Are we out of milk?
My mother, on the phone to me: Your sister's a lesbian.
My sister: Fine. I NEED MILK FOR MY CEREAL.

If you're going to come out, and you're worried about the response you might get, I encourage you to practice on my sister in the morning. Okay, really any time, but you'll get much more amusing results if you start early.)

Location of the mother: Absent. But, I mean, this is a character who had unprotected sex with Ryan Lochte, so I can't think anyone would be surprised.

The One That Leaves Me Wishing I Could Download All the Adorable Photos Taken During the Story. Whyyyyy Can't I Make Photos Appear with Just the Power of My Brain? I Swear I Would Use My Power Only for Good! Enough to Crush Your Veins, by doctor_denmark. Hockey RPF, Jeff Skinner/Eric Staal.

When this story first came out, I had several late-night arguments with people about it. And that is definitely a sign of a quality story: people, some of whom have CHILDREN and all of whom have to get up in the morning, spending precious sleep time a) reading a story and b) communicating with friends in other locations who are also up way too late reading the same story. (My father, when I was little, used to tell me about a strange time in our country's history when almost everyone watched the SAME TV SHOWS at the SAME TIME. It was like the world's least social party, the way he described it. "That'll never happen again, of course," he said. If he were alive today, I would tell him that it still does happen. Sort of. In the sense of several thousand people all reading the same pornographic fan fiction story at the same time and mutually shrieking about it via email and Twitter. The thing about my dad is that he would probably have found that inspiring proof of humanity's basic amazingness.)

Anyway. So basically this is the story that put nanny AUs in a box marked done for me, because I'm never going to be able to read all the way through another one without taking this one out and reading it again. It is GREAT. It is CLASSIC. And it works for me - well, okay, first it works for me because the toddler OC is an actual toddler. (I cannot read stories featuring alien toddlers from another dimension. Unless of course they are billed that way. Which reminds me: why don't people write Vulcan toddlers more often? WHERE IS THE VULCAN TODDLER FIC?) But mostly it works because it takes an abused, overused plot element (two people who really need to talk to each other and yet don't) and perfects it. This is how that's supposed to be done, is basically what I take away from this story: two people being idiots, yes, but because of reasons! It makes all the difference.

And, oh, there is so much glorious stuff here. I don't want to spoil it for you, but trust me: if this is the kind of thing you like, then you will basically want to wallow in this story, roll around in it, maybe print out a copy so you can put hearts in the margins in some places. Not that I have done any of those things. (Except I do re-read this basically every time I'm sick, which, given that I have my very own germ vector, means I've re-read it at least 20 times since it was posted. In April. One area of raising a toddler where this story does not achieve realism is in the area of constant illness, but I just assume Eric and Jeff and Joey all have superhuman immune systems, which are probably issued to you free through public health care up in Canada.)

Location of the mother: Present (albeit temporarily in another country)! A good parent who is ACTUALLY INVOLVED IN HER CHILD'S LIFE WHAT IS THIS MADNESS.

The One That Confirms My Theory That Airports Were Put in This World to Test Us to Destruction. Don't You Shake Alone, by dira. Generation Kill, Brad Colbert/Nate Fick.

I always feel like I'm cheating when I recommend a story by Dira. Everyone knows she's good by now, right? Everyone who would even consider reading a lengthy Generation Kill based kidfic did so immediately after she posted it, right? It's like: Dira wrote a good story. In other news, Neil deGrasse Tyson is a basically perfect human being and this Labrador Retriever puppy is cute enough to make your teeth hurt.

But in the end, I don't recommend a story based on whether I think there's an English-reading fan anywhere in the solar system who is unaware of it; I recommend a story because a) I want to write about it and b) I want Best Beloved to read it. (She refuses to read stories I go on about at length unless I actually sit down and write about them. This is the motivation for like 90% of the recommendations I've made in the past four years. TFV Marriage Tip #382: Know how to motivate your partner, and then use that knowledge to make her do things she actually wants to do anyway.)

So. This story is incredible. And not just because it's frankly adorable kidfic set against a background of realistic PTSD, which is not something most writers could manage. This story - like, I read this and I cannot believe that Dira doesn't have children, because she depicts, perfectly and clearly, the complete sea change a new baby brings to your life, and how being a new parent is kind of like - well, in birth classes they talk about "pain with a purpose," because the purpose is supposed to make all the difference. As far as labor goes, this is bullshit. Labor pain is pain. (It's pain with an END, which is way more important than a purpose, at least to me.) But being the parent of a new baby actually is pain with a purpose, and the purpose is making you attach so fiercely to a tiny helpless human that you would cheerfully kill hundreds of people to protect the useless larva that has kept you from sleeping or doing any uninterrupted tasks for the past three months. If human beings were intelligently designed, it was by someone with a massively warped sense of humor.

And if there was ever a fandom designed to underscore the warped nature of human reproduction and development, Generation Kill is that fandom. No one gets how fucked up basically everything is like Marines, is what I'm saying. Plus, the fundamentals of baby care involve a lot of sleep deprivation and random bodily fluids. Again, sort of the wheelhouse of the US Marines. (I'd suggest everyone hire a Marine as a babysitter, but it would have a deleterious effect on the vocabulary of the next generation.)

So this story is just fundamentally right. Plus, you know, hot, sweet, gorgeous, perfect - enough said GO READ.

Location of the mother: Planned absence.

The One That Proves That What Every Parent Really Needs Is Superhuman Senses and Magical Powers. I - Find This Unfair. Kindred, by maldoror_gw. Naruto, Gaara/Rock Lee.

Yes, okay, technically this is a sequel (although you could read it as a standalone, but why in god's name would you want to?) to Diplomatic Relations. I'm recommending it anyway because:

It is a great story in its own right.
If you haven't read Diplomatic Relations yet, that's a tragedy, and if you want to live a tragedy that is your choice and I can't be held responsible. All I can do is try to show you the light.

So. Either you should go read Diplomatic Relations, stopping off if necessary at my original recommendation of it, or you have already done this task (and thus been fitter, happier, and more productive for the past four years) and are ready to move directly on to Kindred. Either way, let me tell you about Kindred.

My own theory for how maldoror_gw decided to write this story is that she was sitting in her home one day, thoughtfully considering Gaara, as you do, and she suddenly realized there was something even more terrifying to contemplate than Gaara in love: Gaara with a CHILD. Parenting a child. Raising a child! (If you have no idea who Gaara is, it shouldn't hold you back from reading this story, by the way. He's a psychopathic, demon-infested ninja whose childhood consisted entirely of trauma and killing. But as an adult he's really much improved, and some optimistic people even believe he might have a facial expression someday. In short: spacetoaster!) It really is the kind of concept to give you nightmares.

But this story is the exact opposite of a nightmare. Yes, that's in part because Rock Lee, whatever his other faults (mostly excessive enthusiasm and sincerity, and if you don't think sincerity can be a fault, obviously you need to read up on Rock Lee), was basically designed to be a good parent (despite having a traumatic childhood; as far as I can tell from my limited exposure to Naruto, the number of ninjas with traumatic childhoods is all of them). But it's also because Gaara is used to working around his faults, and there is no more accurate description of parenthood than that.

This story is funny, fun, and touching, basically all the things good kidfic should be. Plus it features ninjas in love. I'm not sure how things can ever be better than that. (Okay, maybe if you also added robots? I don't know, it might be overkill, but in my experience robots usually make things better.)

Location of the mother: Deceased, but this is Naruto, where like 80% of adults don't make it past 30, or at least that's how it looks to me from my place of total lack of canon knowledge. (To give you some idea, Rock Lee was orphaned at an early age. Gaara's mother died when he was born and his father died later; you could list "Gaara" as the cause of death for both of them with reasonable accuracy.)

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Yuletide: My Sordid Signup History

2012-10-15T19:09:39Z

It's Yuletide time! And thus time to bring out the Yuletide advice posts.

Every year I try to persuade someone new to Yuletide to sign up for it. I don't always succeed, but I always try. And part of what I offer to support them in the Yuletide hurly-burly is advice on signing up and selecting fandoms. And then I thought: what if there are other people, people who are signing up for the first time even though they are not being harassed by me, who might also want to know this stuff? Anything is possible!

So I am sharing. Selecting fandoms for Yuletide, TFV style.

The central thesis here - my single key piece of advice - is basically DON'T DO WHAT I HAVE DONE. And while I've made mistakes every single year, my first few years I made doozies. Let's discuss my errors, so that you can either learn from them or, you know, just laugh at me. Either one is a totally valid choice.

2004 was my first year, and I signed up in a total panic. I couldn't believe I was doing it, actually signing up for Yuletide. Because - this amazing challenge that actually got me into fandom! And me, who had never actually written any fan fiction! Surely a bad combination. Also I had a high fever. And that's why, instead of actually looking at all the fandoms, I went through the fandom list from the top - this was waaaaay back when, and the fandom list was this drop-down box with a billion options, ordered alphabetically. I just picked the first three fandoms I knew, fandoms that all began with A, and went back to bed.

This was an error. I missed several key steps in the offering process, including:

Considering what people might want in that fandom.
Considering how it would be to write in that fandom.
Imagining what a story in that fandom might actually look like, coming from me.
Involving my brain at any point in the process.

This is why I ended up getting assigned All Creatures Great and Small. Which, okay, back then the format for Yuletide fandoms wasn't written in stone the way it is now, and I didn't even know that there was a British TV miniseries based on the books. So I was offering the books. My recipient was requesting the miniseries. Problem! Also the books are these totally heartwarming stories told in a distinctive first person voice. I - do not do heartwarming. Another problem! One I really should have considered before I got my assignment. As I did not, by all rights my first Yuletide should have been a disaster. A fandom mismatch! A fandom I couldn't actually write! Oh god whyyyyyy? CUE PANIC.

I have three people to thank for getting me through that Yuletide: Best Beloved, who read and edited and soothed and supported, laurashapiro, who beta-read the story after BB was through with it, and Cassie, our beloved and much-missed Labrador Retriever, whose lifestyle choices (chew all the things, basically) gave me something to write about. I also have to thank artyartie, who saved my life by providing a very useful prompt, and who was the best recipient a first-time Yuletider could hope for. (Dear recipients everywhere: if you really want to make your writer's day, come back a year later and say how much you still love your story. artyartie did that for me, and my confidence as a Yuletider totally soared. Which I needed.)

My take-home lessons from my first Yuletide: Read the whole list of fandoms. Also, get a loved one to review your signup for sanity.

The next year, 2005, I was determined! I would do Yuletide again! I would make fewer mistakes this time! It was a good thing my goal did not involve making no mistakes, let's just say. I downloaded a spreadsheet with all the nominated fandoms on it and eliminated everything I didn't know, followed by everything I couldn't write. Then I considered what was left. This was a much better process. Unfortunately, I missed two key steps, which were:

Considering what people might want in the fandom.
Remembering that I might be assigned either gen or pairing.

The previous year, I'd been assigned gen. (For which I am eternally grateful to the Great Yuletide Sorter, because I don't think I could have stood it otherwise. I am bad at porn anyway, and given everything else I did wrong that first year, oh god no no no.) I forgot that lots of people, me included, sometimes want fan fiction that has sex in it. I had not, at this point in my fannish career, written any explicit porn. (There are many people who do Yuletide who are only really interested in writing gen or very non-explicit romance. At least some of them game their signups considerably to avoid fandoms where straight up smut is a likely request. I did not do this. This was an error.) And that was how I ended up getting assigned Mr. and Mrs. Smith, with the prompt of "hot het porn." I had never written het. I had never written explicit porn. I had never written anything hot. CUE PANIC.

I survived this Yuletide thanks to Best Beloved, my amazing betas, and my Emergency Yuletide Whining Filter. Best Beloved in particular went above and beyond the call of duty by saying such things as "get her hands on his cock right now" and "I really think you ought to get her skin-tight pants off before they have penis-in-vagina sex" and also reminding me that while I cannot write porn, I can write teasing indefinitely. And queue wins points forever for being the person to point out, gently and kindly, that I had given John two cocks, and this was not canonical.

My take-home lessons from Yuletide 2005: Sometimes people want pairings, and even porn. Also, only write doublecock porn if your recipient specifically requests doublecock porn.

In future years, I learned advanced lessons about considering what kind of time you have, what kind of Yuletide experience you want to have, what access to the source you have. But the basics are pretty simple:

Get to a short list somehow. I go through the entire list of fandoms and delete everything I don't know and then everything I couldn't write, but you can do it however you want.
When you have that short list, look at each one of them. Imagine how you would feel if you got it assigned to you. Imagine opening up your assignment letter and discovering that this is your fandom, that you have only a few weeks to write at least a thousand words in it. Imagine what story you'd write.
Think about what stories a recipient might request. Common requests include:
- A pairing of any two of the nominated characters. M/m, m/f, and f/f are all options, here. Threesomes are also a possibility, although I think less likely (based entirely on how I've never received a request for one; yes, this is SCIENCE).
- Background. The history of a character, the history of some institution, how everything got to wherever it is in the canon.
- Futurefic. How things turn out after the story ends.
- Something just like canon - another episode, say.
- Worldbuilding. This is obviously especially likely in any canon that takes place in a world obviously and significantly different than ours.
Imagine writing each one of these types.
If, after all that, you feel good about it, leave that fandom in. And if you can't imagine writing a story for it, throw it out.

Take whatever is left and divide it into two lists: fandoms for which you must specify characters (always an excellent choice if you're, say, happy to write Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, but aren't really sure you could hack Bill/Ted's mom) and fandoms for which you can honestly offer any and all characters (because you are happy to write Bill/Ted's mom, or Bill/Billy the Kid, or Socrates/Joan of Arc!). Pick your top five specific-characters fandoms and offer those (or, if you have fewer than five, offer them all). Make the rest your bucket list.

And then PROFIT. Or, okay, don't profit, because this is fan fiction. My point is: click that submit button and go on your merry way. (Until you get your assignment letter a week or two later and inaugurate the great tradition of Yuletide Panic, at least if you're me.)

Anyone else have any tips to share?

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Yuletide Fandom: I'm on Fire

2012-08-30T07:17:35Z

Sometimes you see something and think, "I want more of this. So much more." And so you make it a Yuletide fandom. And sometimes you see a thing and think, "There is more to this story, and I want to know what it is," and so you make it a Yuletide fandom. This is both of those things. Go ahead, watch. It's better unspoiled, and it's three minutes long.

It's the video for Camille Harp's cover of "I'm on Fire."

Okay, so you've seen it now, right? So, like, there's an obvious narrative here, but what I love is that it doesn't quite work; it doesn't explain everything that we're seeing. THERE ARE SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. (And unanswered questions are what a Yuletide fandom needs to thrive! Or at least to get to a thousand words of story.) What does she say to the dude over the phone? It can't be what we're hearing. What exactly does the dude think when he gets there? He's not pissed off and rageful, more rueful, like, well, crap, she got me. Might as well drink some of this alcohol she left for me and study the photo she partly burned and ponder this story that all three of us know so much better than the viewer. And what is this woman? She's wearing a tank top on a cold night and yet is obviously not cold, and also she seems sort of - strange. My own theory is some kind of supernatural deal, here (succubus for ladies?), but there are so many possibilities.

And then there's also the possibility for hot femslash. Which, you know, I am bang alongside. Basically, this is a no-lose Yuletide fandom.

(And even if you aren't interested in Yuletide, still click through so you do not miss the awesome genderswitched cover of "I'm on Fire." You can't tell me that isn't relevant to your interests.)

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Sixteenwins Payoff: Kidfic!

2012-08-28T15:40:34Z

For my second sixteenwins payoff, I had to (Had to! Like it's a chore!) talk about kidfic. And, okay. I have always adored kidfic, but ever since I had a kid of my own, it's been - complicated. I still want all the characters to have all the kids, except the characters who obviously should not be permitted within fifty feet of children, but I have all these - opinions and standards and issues and shit. It's awful when reality gets in the way of your legitimate enjoyment of fan fiction.

So I guess I could have given quettaser a lengthy screed on my kidfic issues, but I'm trying to produce something she'll actually read all the way through. So instead: four summaries and snippets from kidfic stories I yearn to read. YEARN.

Thanks to my Flyers beta, paxpinnae, my Habs beta, katarin, and my pre-readers, thehoyden and Best Beloved.

( Traditional kidfic! )

( Non-traditional kidfic! )

( Uncommon kidfic! )

( Id kidfic! )

( Poll! )

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Sixteenwins Payoff: Inverted Tropes!

2012-08-27T22:30:41Z

So, I put together two brackets for the Stanley Cup playoffs, and - I didn't think the Kings would win, okay? (I take comfort in the fact that no one thought the Kings would win. As the playoffs went on, I spent a lot of time collecting especially querulous articles talking about the Kings. Professional hockey commentators seemed a touch cranky. I can only conclude that the Kings fucked up their brackets, too.)

So, in the particular pool I was in, you have to pony up not money, but fannish stuff. I offered words. I have many, and other people generally want fewer of them, but in this case quettaser inexplicably wanted more of them. Her request:

( Request! )

Now, extremely conveniently, just before she posted this request, I spent some time whining to frostfire about the particular manifestation my Bitter Old Fandom Queen disease was taking. Namely, I want all the tropes. But I want them backwards. So in part one of my payoff, I'm going to write about how, now that hockey fandom has done - okay, most of the tropes, although there is always room for more, or for that matter for the same ones again - it is time to shake the tropes, turn them inside out, and see what's in their pockets. (Not recommended with Jeff Carter or Mike Richards, since what's in their pockets this summer is: an assortment of, uh, entirely legal substances, condoms, lube, phone numbers scrawled on beer-stained napkins, an SD card containing the video of the threesome they had with the Cup, a half-eaten PowerBar from the sweep against the Blues, a badly-photoshopped picture of Paul Holmgren rimming himself, and a small laminated card that Kings management gave to all the players that says "Hi! I am a Stanley Cup winner. If I am found too drunk to walk or talk, please call my team and someone will be sent to collect me. REWARD.")

So, here are some inside-out tropes that I really, really yearn to see in hockey fandom. (And, uh, sorry, quettaser; I am a Penguins fan, which I think means we are sworn enemies for life and if we ever meet in person you are required to consume 3/8ths of my liver. But in both this and the kidfic post, I made a sincere attempt to include some Flyers content. And we can at least meet peaceably in the drunken, homoerotic presence of the Flyers West.) I have included concepts, summaries, and also story snippets.

Thanks to paxpinnae for being the Flyers fan beta, and to thehoyden and Best Beloved for general pre-reading.

Also in fairness I should note that I have 30k more words written on the full version of one of these. I. Look. It's been a long postseason, okay?

( Accidental marriage! But not. )

( Amnesia! But not. )

( Prostitution! But not. )

( Gay chicken! But not. )

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Yuletide Fandom: CinderFella

2012-08-18T03:49:07Z

Okay, so after my mistaken public posting earlier today, several people led me to an epiphany, which goes like this: why not share my list of Yuletide fandom links? Maybe people will be swayed and nominate them! Or swayed and WRITE them! Or, you know, just squee with me, so I have joy to tide me over until actual Yuletide.

So here's another one. Everyone I've shown this to has had roughly the same reaction, which goes like this:

I - am not sure I can stand this. Do I really have to watch ALL SIX MINUTES?
Things are looking up! Maybe it won't be torture!
OH MY GOD THAT IS THE GREATEST.
No. No, I was wrong, because this is clearly the greatest.
WRONG AGAIN. That's for SURE the greatest.
Ahahahahahaha.
Awwwwwwwww.
...It's over? And I can't even buy the music? Suuuuuuuuuck. Better watch it again, I guess.

My point is, it is really important to muscle through the initial part, which is a little hard to take if you aren't a fan of wistfulness, to get to the parts that are the greatest. And I don't want to spoil it for you, so I'm going to link here and then discuss for a bit. Ready? Watch the WHOLE THING.

CinderFella, by Todrick Hall. (Warning for rapid cutting and flashing lights.)

There. If that didn't make you happy, I don't even want to know, because it makes me really, really happy. And I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be a Yuletide fandom for me, because I would take any story in this fandom. The main pairing, obviously - I want to know their happily ever after, because I am seriously invested in it. The princesses, oh hell yes, I want to know all about that - every detail, if you will. The fairy godmother! I want to know what she does on her days off. Anything. Anything at all.

My only real complaint here is that as far as I know I can't actually buy the music. But everything else is glorious.

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Yuletide Fandom

2012-08-17T15:22:26Z

So, this was in actual fact supposed to be a private post for future (Yuletide!) reference - yes, I really am the person who makes private posts with Yuletide fandom suggestions throughout the year, and it has always served me in good stead - but since I made it public I think I should leave it public. Bottom line:

Watch this commercial, which features basketball players growing up and then fucking each other. You think I'm kidding? You tell me what comes after the last shot. I seriously can't think of anything that doesn't involve cock no matter how hard I try.

(And then prepare to write it for Yuuuuuuuletide!)

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Help Me Help Myself (iTunes)

2012-08-17T07:38:41Z

Okay, I am fully aware that there is a solution to this somewhere on Google, but I am also aware that the chances of me finding it anytime in the next brief forever are very slim. (Basically, I had a con, which was great and good and wonderful. And then I came back from the con and realized my life is booked for eternity. And also everyone is sick and we are all apparently going to stay that way for roughly the same length of time. I wish there was a rule that illness and busyness were mutually exclusive, but no. Unfair, I say, unfair.)

So. I have a new main computer. Yay! Because of a disastrous third-party software misfire, I used the native Windows file transfer utility to move everything from my old XP computer to my new Windows 7 computer. (Yes, I know Macs are perfect and made of unicorn snot and that using one is basically the same as achieving union with the godhead. This is why I have a Mac laptop. But my main computer cannot be a Mac for work reasons the end.)

In the process, all my music transferred over, and all my iTunes data - play counts and playlists, particularly - transferred over, but iTunes can't find my music. It's not where it used to be. (And the folder in which it lives is locked? I think?) I do not want to lose all that data, because I'm not even sure how to navigate my sprawling music collection without it. On the other hand, iTunes is unusable at this point, which means my iPod is unupdateable, which means I am sad and bereft and pathetic. And Apple of course will not provide me with any support on this front, as I am evil, and Microsoft supporting anything - okay, I'll just stop here while you get the laughter out of your system

And, like I said, I am sure there is a fix for this, and I am also sure sufficient application to Google would tell me what that is. But I'm hoping someone out there already knows what it is. And can tell me. Ideally in steps that can be easily understood by a person on a lot of cough syrup, but at this point I will take helpful links or just basically anything. Even if the answer is that I'm doomed and must do a fresh install of iTunes, that would be useful to know because it would keep me from hoping.

Help? Someone? Please?

FIXED YOU ALL ARE GENIUSES AND I LOVE YOU. Thaaaaaaaaank you!

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[Poll] Help Me Pack

2012-08-07T00:37:55Z

Okay, so. Today I tried on all my dresses and discovered, to my extreme lack of joy, that exactly two of them still fit over my post-breastfeeding boobs. Like, I thought the boobs were supposed to go back to normal, and in fact I thought they had, but after I saw myself in my pre-pregnancy all things to all parties dress (which I love and cannot stand the thought of getting rid of), with boob up as far as my ears, I was forced to conclude that that had maaaaaybe not happened.

So. Last year at VVC, I told myself that the next time I went, I would damned well bring a dress and wear it to Club Vivid. Obviously, my boobs are calling my bluff, since my choices now consist of:

A nursing dress that, ironically, wouldn't fit over my boobs when I was nursing. It fits now. Pros: It is soft and comfy! It's kind of vaguely pretty! Cons: It's a nursing dress, and I'm not nursing anymore. Also, its style aesthetic can best be described as "schoolmarm who wants ready access to her boobs."
A black lace dress that no one in this house remembers buying. Pros: It fits. And it's black. Cons: I'm not sure it ever was in style. It can best be described as "gothic schoolmarm."
Pajamas. Pros: Comfortable. Cons: Not sure I want to be the girl who wore pajamas to the ball.
My retired swimsuit. This is a suit I bought when I apparently believed I'd be attending a lot of underwater evening parties; it's black with a little drape and a short skirt and basically looks nothing like a swimsuit. Cons: Really not sure I want to be the girl who wore a swimsuit to the ball. Pros: Might be the most appropriate piece of attire I own that still fits over my boobs. Plus, if the hotel floods, I will be completely prepared and in a position to mock the attractive, well-dressed people flailing in their non-water-resistant clothing.

Since I am currently in an aggressive state of dither over all things relating to the trip (my brain currently sounds like this: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEE, with occasionally side trips into what I was even thinking deciding to go somewhere), I can't decide. HELP.

View Poll: Dress Me

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Loving the Spacetoaster

2012-07-22T03:05:38Z

The other night, Best Beloved and I were reading before sleeping, as is the custom of our people, and I had to take a break from the story. In the days when I did most of my fan fiction reading on a computer, that meant just switching to another tab. But now I do most of it on my Kindle, and I can't switch in and out as quickly. (On the other hand, it's way easier to read fan fiction before bed.) So for short breaks, I just kind of - look away from the screen. Which is what I did.

"What?" BB said, looking up from her own Kindle.

"It's getting gross," I told her. I may have sounded a trifle grim when I said it.

There was a pause as she tried to figure out if she wanted to know, and decided she probably didn't, and then realized she couldn't stop herself from asking anyway. (This is, by the way, self-destructive curiosity. Normally I'm the one who has it. Not this time.) "Like - blood?" she asked. "Serial killers?"

"They're having feelings all over the place," I said. And I meant it.

See, even in stories, I prefer feelings in small doses. When people start having impassioned conversations in which they share their innermost thoughts, I have to stare into space for a while, even if they are totally great and in-character conversations and the story is awesome.

I realized, after BB finished laughing openly at me and returned to her book (in which people probably had feelings left, right, and center without her flinching at all, because she is weird enough that she believes a serial killing is more disgusting than emoting) that this was totally related to a question bethbethbeth posed quite a while back, about people's favorite character types.

This might lead you to believe that my favorite character is the strong silent type. And, okay, I do enjoy reading about people who, if they have a feeling, have to go ford a stream or hack through a jungle or venture into deepest space to deal with the trauma. But that isn't my type.

My type is the spacetoaster. I love spacetoasters. I can get into all kinds of fandoms and I can like all kinds of characters, but only a spacetoaster will force me to turn my brain into a sort of heart annex to hold all my feelings of love. (Yes. Irony: I live it.)

So it's probably pretty obvious, but I'd still like to define the spacetoaster.

A toaster, see, is someone with a feelings dysfunction. Maybe the toaster has few feelings. Maybe the toaster has lots of feelings and is totally bewildered by them. Maybe the toaster has spent a lifetime getting distance from any and all feelings, only to be suddenly confronted by them and fail to deal. Whatever. My point is: toasters don't get feelings. They spend a lot of their lives watching other people emote and wishing to be elsewhere, or having feelings themselves and thinking they're maybe hungry or something. (And, yes, there is a bond of sympathy here. I once had an argument with an art therapist in which I finally said, "But I don't have feelings all the time." "You do," she told me, using the tone that therapists used to get with teenaged me after half an hour or so of attempted therapy. "Everyone has feelings all the time. You just don't acknowledge them." And then the hour was up, thank god, but I still think I was right. Sometimes I don't have any particular feelings.)

But not all toasters meet my character needs. There are lots of people who are coldly efficient, or coldly correct, or coldly distant who in no way grip me, or at least don't specially grip me, because I am specifically interested in spacetoasters: toasters who are alien, or alienated. Or maybe just easiest to describe in alien terms. Whatever. My point is, if you have an alienesque person who dreams in black and white, a person who acts like all her feelings are beamed in from a space station orbiting Jupiter, you have a character I'm going to want to meet, and read about, and write about, and possibly pin up on my super-secret Wall of Spacetoasters.

This is why my reaction to Spock was, basically, where have you been all my life, you dreamy, dreamy spacetoaster? Spock is the exemplar, the archetype, the essence of spacetoasterdom. If you're looking for a spacetoaster, you can do no better than Spock. And if you're trying to build a better spacetoaster, I'm just going to have to laugh at you, because they don't get better than Spock. (Although I encourage you to try. So, so strongly encourage you to try.)

But there are other spacetoasters out there, of course. Benton Fraser, I would submit, is a spacetoaster - a guy routinely labeled a freak even by his fellow Mounties, whose only successful emotional relationship, as the series begins, has been with a dog. (Many spacetoasters are better with animals or babies than with adult humans.) Aeryn Sun would rather shoot everyone in a building, or indeed on a planet, than have a single heartfelt sharing moment, and she is, again, an actual alien: spacetoaster! (And, man, maybe it's just that I never really watch - uh, anything, basically - but to me it looks like there is a serious shortage of lady spacetoasters out there. Someone needs to get to work on that, stat. I mean, I get the sense that Temperance Brennan may be a spacetoaster, but I also get the sense that she's on an ensemble show, and I still have scars from the last ensemble show I tried to watch. Beyond that, and of course my beloved Queen of Attolia, I've got nothing.) Jamie Hyneman has three certified expressions, last had a feeling in the fall of '39, and is weird even to other Mythbusters: spacetoaster, spacetoaster, spacetoaster. Abed Nadir is, as far as I can make out, the result of Dan Harmon's actual attempt to build a better spacetoaster. (He failed, of course. There's only one Spock. But Abed is awesome, even so.) And then there's Sidney Crosby, who only has feelings during and about hockey, and who may actually be from space. Spacetoaster. (In fact, the word itself comes from a pathetically long email exchange on the subject of one Sidney Crosby. I am not going to implicate my co-conspirator, though, on the grounds that she might then refuse to finish a story I really want to read. Guess what it's about!)

So, you believe you may have a spacetoaster on your hands, but you aren't quite sure? Here are some signs! (Please note that, like many tests, this is not intended to diagnose. A high score merely provides a basis for further testing. The real proof of the spacetoaster is in the story.)

Is your character highly competent at something that is not feelings or people? (If yes, +10 spacetoaster points.)
Try writing a story from your suspected spacetoaster's first-person point of view. Then write the same story from some other character's point of view. If the first character requires more words to get to the same place, and those words aren't in dialogue, you may have a spacetoaster on your hands. (+1 spacetoaster point for every additional thousand words. In extreme cases, you can just stop the test here; some spacetoaster points of view can add 50k words to a story.)
Imagine writing a story in which your suspected spacetoaster is a robot. Now imagine writing a story in which the same character spends fifteen minutes discussing his or her feelings intensely and sincerely. (+5 spacetoaster points if the robot was easier. +10 spacetoaster points if you fell over laughing when you tried to picture the second scenario. +15 if your character is actually already a robot.)
Picture your possible spacetoaster receiving a heartfelt hug from an acquaintance. (+5 spacetoaster points if the character stands there stiffly. +10 if he or she recoils, flees, or flinches. +15 if it is impossible to picture an acquaintance hugging your character because the Do Not Touch field is so strong with this one.)
Take a random sampling of five stories about the suspected spacetoaster, or five episodes, whatever you have. Count the number of times the character fails to understand some extremely basic human concept. (Example: if you want to kiss someone, that might mean you are attracted to that person!) (+1 point/incidence.)
Consider the same random sample. Give one spacetoaster point for each incidence of the following:
- Someone calls the character an alien.
- The character must engage in some level of research (reading texts, calling friends or relations, setting up an elaborate double-blind study, whatever) to understand a joke.
- The character avoids an emotional scene.
- The character fails to notice an emotional scene.
- The character wishes to be a robot.
- The character fails to respond appropriately to a fairly basic cultural concept. (Example: not really understanding the rules of visiting a friend at home.)

Total up your points. The higher the number, the more likely it is that you should email me with news of your spacetoastery discovery. What, you thought you were taking this test for you? Don't be silly. (You might not even appreciate spacetoasters. Although I hope you do.) This is my attempt to get you to tell me about your favorite spacetoasters, because I might have missed some. And I'm sick. There's nothing like a spacetoaster when you're sick. The hopeless way she stares at you in distressed confusion, pats you awkwardly on the shoulder, and then disappears and comes back with a welding torch - it just sets you right up.

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Tumblr?

2012-07-21T06:47:32Z

Okay, so I am sure you are all very tired of seeing posts by people going, "Who is Tumblr? What is she, that all our fans commend her?" But! I have a question, brought on by thehoyden, who is, it goes without saying, a terrible person. And so, yes, this is another How Does Tumblr post. Sorry.

See, I have always rejected Tumblr as Not for Me, because walls of text are not welcome there, and I am an entirely text-based creature. And I will probably always be a more or less passive Tumblr user, but - I was considering posting, like, shorter, single-thing recs there. For recs that will never fit in a set! Or whatever! It would still be all text, though. Is that a thing I should do? OPINE AT ME, Tumblr denizens! Assuming any of you still read this text-based medium.

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Rant: the boys i mean are not that bright

2012-07-08T16:17:40Z

I read a lot of hockey blogs, because that is the right and proper behavior of the obsessed sports fan, and I want to be right and proper. (Okay, no, that's a lie. I have no interest in being proper.) Yesterday, I found a post about summer hockey-related reading, and, wow. The post has three unsubtle messages for me:

"Alas, these books are not for you." (This is the only message I'm not pissed off about, because it's all on me. Basically, if I'm going to break out of my non-fiction comfort zone, I need it to in some way involve Martha Wells, Naomi Novik, or spaceships.)
"Get lost, this post is not for you."
"Fuck off, this sport is not for you."

Yeah, it's those last two messages I wanted to rant about.

The author of the post is Philip Painter, whose business cards, I have to assume, say "not interested in the ladies" right under "Director of the Puerto Rican Ice Hockey Federation." And we should thank him, for he has provided an excellent, possibly even textbook example of using assumptions about your audience to make that audience smaller. (And, in the process, exclude and hurt a group of people. I get the feeling he'd be more worried about the first part, though.)

Because we all know the only people interested in reading books about hockey are dudes, right? Right, Painter says. But, he continues, these books are so good that "your woman" might actually want to read them, too. You might have to hold her Cosmo hostage to get them back! (Or her alcohol. Or you can just withhold sex. No, I'm not kidding, that's exactly what he says.) Gosh, Mr. Painter. Thank you! That is valuable advice that will surely save my marriage. Oh, wait, no, I meant the other thing. Fuck you. I meant fuck you.

And then there's this line, which is such an amazing gem I can't look directly at it:

...sometimes a female writer can grab the subtleties that men overlook.

Thank you for those few kind words, Mr. Painter. This female writer is really appreciative, and let me tell you, I am exactly the master of subtleties that you assume me to be; I totally get the subtle implications, here. (And since you complain about the lack of graphic sex in the female-authored book that you recommended, let me just reassure you: I do indeed write graphic sex. In fact, if you're short on hockey stories involving sufficient graphic sex, I can totally help you out with that.)

And the thing is, this post comes after a season in which female hockey bloggers had to beg people not to use women's names as insults for their most hated players. (The most tragic part of this: at least one of these articles focused just on begging other female hockey fans not to use misogynist insults. Apparently the male hockey fans are just irremediable, but we can maybe save some of the ladies if we try hard enough.) And let us not forget the delightful clusterfuck that was While the Men Watch, a Canadian TV show meant to bring relief to all the women who were watching hockey but secretly yearning to discuss manicures instead. (Though no one I read on this topic mentioned the sole draw of While the Men Watch, which was that it would give you something to drown out the inane and often worrisomely creepy official announcers. At least, I assume it did, because having to listen to Pierre "My love for Sidney Crosby is unwholesome" McGuire and exceedingly unfunny stereotype-based jokes is surely cruel and unusual punishment.)

But what the general hockey fandom has learned from both of these kerfluffles is, apparently, that the ladies sure do get worked up sometimes. And then you can't have sex with them until they get over themselves. So better do your misogyny where they can't see.

Dear male hockey fans: I can still see you.

I'm just starting to wonder if you can you see me. Like, did you set your shields to exclude female presence back in fourth grade and then forget to switch that off?

If you're wondering why hockey doesn't have a bigger fanbase in your city, if you're wondering why you never seem to meet women who like hockey, if you're confused about the preponderance of dicks on your dance floor, uh, let me clear this up for you: it's your fault. Yes, you, misogynist hockey fan, and also you and you and you. Because when you pull shit like this, and especially when you pull shit like this again and again, and then don't see any problem with it (when I checked the comments on Painter's post, they included one note that the post is, you know, a tiny bit offensive, and that comment was left by a woman - and let's not forget that the Puck Daddy editors let this post fly in the first place), you're doing everything in your power to push the ladies away.

(And so those ladies are going to go somewhere else and entertain each other. And if you just said, "Hey, can I watch?" out loud - yeah, those female hockey bloggers were right. You're irremediable. Congratulations! Now please shut up.)

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Signal Boost

2012-07-08T07:00:43Z

Does anyone out there live in Edinburgh? Or near it? Or in some other large city in Europe? marina is looking for crash space for a few days in late August. And I hear she brings snacks to share. (So if you're willing to host a multilingual fannish visitor for a few days, she will definitely be a TASTY multilingual fannish visitor.) If you're in the vicinity (...of Europe), please go read her post!

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Story: Your Daddy's Aim Is True

2012-06-15T02:58:42Z

I appear to have written a thing! And, since I'm concerned that the Archive might fall over and go boom again soon, I'm posting it here, too. ...I'll be honest; I've kind of forgotten how you post fan fiction to LJ/DW. Let's see how this goes.

Title: Your Daddy's Aim Is True
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Pairing: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Rating: Explicit
Notes: Written entirely to entertain thehoyden as she struggled with work badness. Thanks to her for beta-reading, and to Best Beloved for the usual stellar alpha-reading.
Also On: AO3

( Papa never heard the cool. )

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Fannish Psychological Testing

2012-05-29T06:37:58Z

Recently, Best Beloved and I had the pleasure of being test subjects for rachelmanija. She needed a local couple that had been together at least six months to take a psychological assessment tool, and, well, we have indeed been together for more than six months, which apparently makes us something of a rarity in the greater Los Angeles area. I'm not depressed about that at all.

We filled out the instrument side by side, as instructed, which was a problem because, uh, Best Beloved and I are used to sharing our opinions. (And also asking for clarification. Given that when you're administering these tests, you can't say anything but "Just do the best you can" and "Pick whichever one seems most appropriate" without invalidating them, we are probably the worst subjects ever. Rachel used those sentences a lot. And the thing is, I knew she couldn't clarify, and yet I still wanted her to, which is a problem I have had with psychological tests since, basically, ever. I would just like everything to be clear, okay?) And we had a lot of opinions about that test. So it sort of went like this:

Me, to Best Beloved: Number 26. I mean, not on purpose, but -
Best Beloved: I know! I guess - false?
Rachel: Maybe try to collude a little less?
Us: Sorry.
Best Beloved: 44, though. I can't just do yes or no on that one!
Me: Well, I put true, because it's more true than false, but yeah, I need a scale.
Rachel: You're colluding again.
Us: Sorry.
Me: Oh, god, 81.
Best Beloved: I don't even know. Could go either way. I'm putting false.
Rachel: STOP COLLUDING.

I gather from this that relationship therapists have to spend a lot of time telling their clients to stop talking to each other, which is not how I envisioned it prior to this experience.

But my major take-home from all this was that, frankly, the instrument sucked. It was unclear, it had questions that were absolutes, and it had questions that made me want to write lengthy essays as opposed to circling true or false. (Also, it was hugely biased in favor of heterosexual, monogamous, gendernormative couples, which was no big deal in our case since we were basically taking it for kicks, but makes it much less useful in practice. If you're not straight, or not monogamous, or genderqueer, or in any way not in line with the cultural norm, then finding a relationship therapist is probably fraught with extra stress - like, not only do you have to go in there and deal with your shit, but you also have to go in there and hope the therapist takes your relationship seriously, which has got to just massively suck. And how great would it be, feeling that way, already nervous for all kinds of reasons, to sit down and take this very biased survey that says, "Hey! When I say 'relationship,' I don't mean you." NOT THAT GREAT, I'm guessing.)

Also, the test was just boring. I'm sorry, but people who already have problems should not be subjected to lengthy tests that are roughly as interesting as an eight-part documentary on dryer lint. I could not help it; I was compelled to write some more fannishly oriented questions. So, here you go:

The Fannish Relationship Survey

If I were transported to another universe, I would immediately try to find my partner's analogue. (T/F)
If it was an evil mirror universe, I would still try to find my partner's analogue. (T/F)
I would also expect my partner's analogue to find me, even if said analogue had no way of knowing I was there. (T/F)
My partner and I are capable of having complete conversations using only eyebrows, shoulder punches, or awkward, shuffling silences. (T/F)
Other people have sometimes accused my partner and I of being telepathic. (T/F)
If my partner or I were to turn evil, so that we had to spend the next fifty years as mortal enemies, I would still expect us to be there for each other in times of personal crisis. (T/F)
I have brought my partner back from the dead, or my partner has brought me back from the dead. (T/F)
I have sacrificed my life, my sanity, or other people's lives to bring my partner back from the dead, or vice versa. (T/F)
I have remolded reality to protect my relationship. (T/F)
Our souls, or a representation of our souls, have merged. (T/F)
My partner's soul is as much my responsibility as my own. (T/F)
If my partner is ever grievously injured, I will violate hospital protocols, not to mention health and safety regulations, to keep a weeping bedside vigil, even during lifesaving surgery. (T/F)
If I am ever grievously injured, my partner is likely to quit, go catatonic, go berserk, or otherwise become a less than functional member of society. (T/F)
At least one improbable being (mystical creature, copy of me from another dimension, minor deity, etc.) has declared that it is my destiny to be with my partner. (T/F)
Basically the entire universe has declared that it is my destiny to be with my partner. (T/F)
I am fairly sure that if I ever leave my partner, the universe will end. (T/F)
My partner was at some point literally the only boy/girl/other in the world, and neither of us minded. (T/F)
If one of us was transformed into a vampire, that person would immediately transform the other. (T/F)

(Scoring note: One point for every true. Anyone who scores more than 14 on this survey should probably take a different test. One that measures how well in touch you are with reality.)

See? Now there is a test that I would enjoy taking. Although I admit most of the pleasure would come from working with BB to identify all the couples references, which would mean Rachel would have to spend even more time telling us to stop talking to each other. (Eventually, she'd probably have to threaten to put us in separate rooms. The motto of psychological testing is, and always has been, "Stop having fun or I will turn this session around and no one will get any therapy.")

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226: GIANT COCK ANGST

2012-05-22T07:17:10Z

frostfire tends to tell me about whatever media she's consuming. (So, for example, I know a lot about True Blood for someone who has never seen it and never will. This gives me joy, since it lets me pretend I have some real connection with popular culture, instead of just a really long mental list of all the fictional people who should be fucking each other.) Recently, she told me about a story she was reading. (Just to give you some idea of what it's like, this is a story that forced us to use the terms cocksobriety and gaymaker a lot. Proper usage, in case you're curious: "That's it, he's fallen off the wagon. His cocksobriety is a thing of the past." "Yeah, [character] totally hit him with a gaymaker, and now he's just COCK COCK COCK all the time.") It is glorious. I can't remember the last time just hearing about a work of fiction made me so happy.

And probably the thing that has made me happiest is this key plot element: One of the characters has an enormous penis, and this gives him angst. Yes. This man's main source of anguish is his GIANT COCK. (No, this is in no way attached to other gender issues. He just - has tremendous insecurity, caused entirely by his HUMONGOUS WANG.)

Well. Obviously this is the best thing in the world. Because, first, it has finally given me a TV-Tropes-type name for a fiction phenomenon that has long irritated me, which is when the character has a trait that 99% of people would think is totally great and maybe even pay lots of money for, but which the author pretends is a major problem leading to extreme and possibly insurmountable trauma. I needed that. For the rest of my life, when I encounter a character who is gleamingly perfect except for all the tragedy arising from being, like, too happy or whatever, I will go, "Hello, GIANT COCK ANGST!" and giggle a lot.

But GIANT COCK ANGST did not stop giving there. I'd been thinking of TV Tropes, and from there it was a short step to just plain old tropes, and I realized that GIANT COCK ANGST is a concept that needs further exploring in fiction. I mean, just consider the potential in hockey RPF alone! Sidney Crosby (who was once rumored to have a giant cock) and his GIANT COCK ANGST, caused by the many remarks made in the locker room about his, you know, horsedick. (Obviously, Sidney would be a virgin because of his GIANT COCK ANGST.) And, of course, there should really be like eight stories called The Giant Cock Angst of Patrick Kane, because come on. Patrick Kane totally has GIANT COCK ANGST, despite having a completely normal-sized penis. (And he definitely talks about his GCA all the time, too, which leads to Tazer having a cock-related breakdown. (Quote from this imaginary story: "Baby, there is nothing average about this gorgeous piece of manmeat," Kaner says, sprawling really offensively to display his goods to maximum advantage. Johnny is pretty sure Kaner's practiced this in front of a mirror, just to make him crazy, and it pisses him off how well it's working.))

But the sad news I have for you today is that there I have no actual GIANT COCK ANGST stories to recommend. There's just the one I know of, and obviously I haven't even read it. So I am going to share with you these other stories. (I just want you to be thinking about GIANT COCK ANGST. Forever, basically. I know I will be.)

The One That at Long Last Satisfies My Desire to See a Vampire Get Called an Idiot a Lot. Look, I Read Interview with the Vampire at a Formative Age, Okay? Where the wild things are, by liketheroad. Hockey RPF, Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews.

Midway through this story, I realized I was in pain. My face hurt. After several seconds of careful consideration, I realized I was experiencing muscle pain from smiling too much. And, you know, I smile a lot anyway, but apparently I don't smile for protracted periods of time without at least a small break. My cheek muscles were cramping.

So that's the center of my recommendation: This story made me smile until my face hurt so much I had to keep taking breaks to play Bubble Shooter. Maybe it will make your face hurt, too! Worth a shot.

And, okay, I have never read Twilight, and beyond the sparkling vampire thing, don't really know what goes on it. But if it's all Bella, like, yelling at Edward to get over his issues and stop being so creepy, and trying to force him to be more like an actual functional person, I am so ready to read it. I will borrow my mother's copies right now. (Yes. My mother has read the entire series. I don't want to talk about it.) This story - look, when there's an old immortal doing the Bonding Tango with a high school student, I worry. But that is seriously not a problem in this story, where Kaner is actually the one in charge of the entire pursuit-capture-turning thing, and Tazer's job is to stand around being confused and creepy and occasionally saving Kaner's life. (Kaner is also the more functional human being, which, given that we are talking about Patrick Kane, should tell you something about how vampirism affects Tazer.)

Although I really have to ask those of you who have read Twilight: Does Edward for serious spend his entire immortal life endlessly repeating high school? If so, why? Is he being punished? Because if he is, I salute the vampires for figuring out the perfect way to punish someone you can't really lock up or kill or spank or whatever, but I can only assume Edward did something really and truly awful (...attempted to destroy the planet?), in which case probably they shouldn't let him near Bella. And if he didn't do anything and is just spontaneously choosing to repeat high school endlessly, clearly there is something seriously wrong with him, and, again, he shouldn't be allowed near Bella. (Even if he was okay to start with, eternity in high school would eventually leave him barking, in which case, yes, he shouldn't be allowed near Bella.)

The One That Proves That at the End of the World, You're Going to Want to Be Able to Pickle. And Maybe Also Deal with Your Issues, but I Don't Know If It's Possible to Be Able to Do Both, and This Story Does Not Clear That Up. In Search Of, by toft. Mythbusters RPF, Jamie Hyneman/Adam Savage.

Okay. There are some stories you know you shouldn't read. This is absolutely one of those stories for me. It has animal harm! Child harm! The world ends! Bad stuff happens. And I am not a copes-well-with-bad-stuff person. I am a person who recently had an argument with her sister about who cries more easily. (We were waiting for the crowds to clear after a performance of Billy Elliot. It was topical. The conclusion, by the way: There comes a point where it doesn't matter, and that point is significantly behind both of us.)

So. This is not the story for me. I read it anyway. Partly that's because, hey, toft! She's good in anything! And partly - look. Sometimes I have Bad Story Sieges, where every single thing I attempt to read, no matter how good it looks, no matter how much I love the concept, no matter how sure I am it will be awesome, turns out to be a disaster. (I'm not sure if I hope I'm the only one this happens to, or if I want company in my misery.) In those situations, I will take risks I maybe shouldn't to break the siege. (For the record: If a beta of a story who knows your reading tastes only too well tells you that you absolutely should not read it, do not believe anyone else who tells you that you could. The beta knows it better. The end.) And this story did in fact break that particular streak of fan fiction disasters. You have to love a slumpbuster, even if it's not your usual fare.

But even if this story hadn't broken my siege, I think I would still have loved it. Yes, even though I reacted badly to certain sections. I love it enough to put up with the pain. Because, let's face it, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are near the top of your Real People I Want to Team up with if the World Ends list. (Don't even tell me if you don't have that list, because I will just fret. Proper preparation prevents poor performance, people!) Because this story is something to bring to mind the next time you're stuck in traffic and wishing everyone would just disappear. Because Adam and Jamie adopt a baby and they name her Leia. I just: Adam. Jamie. Apocalypse. Baby. That right there is a winning recipe.

...If you can handle animal harm. For real don't read this if you can't.

The Series That Proves That Dira Can't Resist Having Babies of Some Species in Her Stories. Or, in Other Words: PUPPIES! (I Approve.) Every Marine a Wolfbrother, by dira. Generation Kill, Brad Colbert/Ray Person, Brad Colbert/Nate Fick, Brad Colbert/Awesome.

Okay, I think every single person who is willing to read a series featuring US Marines psychically bonded to wolves has already read this, but my philosophy about that is that I don't care, I'm recommending it anyway. If I worry about things like timeliness and so on, I will never get anything posted. (This is why I don't instarec. If I did, it would read like, "OMG you guys totally go check out Dorothy Sayers! And this Murasaki lady is pretty darned awesome as well!")

And I would actually have recommended it earlier except I kept debating about which of the stories in the series to recommend. I finally realized that this was a sign I should just go with the whole series. (Yes, I did already recommend the first story in this series. So good I recommended it twice!) Because this is amazing. I've mentioned before that I have never and will never read A Companion to Wolves, but this series does such an incredible job of updating it, bringing it into a modern context, and making it make sense. Which is. You know. Amazing. I mean, this is Dira, so you sort of expect amazing, but still. This series is basically the equivalent, in terms of challenge level and so on, of writing a Tolkien barista AU and making it work. (Oh, man, I bet Rivendell is the name of a massively snooty coffee shop (although people in the know call it Imladris), where all the employees are seriously gorgeous but will not give you the time of day. They have Dead Language Open Mic Nights and Crystal Instrument Musicale Tuesdays. Arwen is the daughter of the owner; she gets harassed a lot for wanting to marry this dude who is totally scruffy and, like, mainstream. No, wait, I am stopping this right now.)

Given that Dira makes this central concept work, it's almost beside the point to mention that she makes so many other things work. I mean. I can't quite call to mind any other story I've read recently in which the main pairing gets bored in the middle of sex and talks about surfing (no, Dom and Brian, talking about cars doesn't count, especially since for you that is sex), but that happens in one of these, and it works. Probably the key miracle in this series is that Dira switches pairings between the stories, which. Uh. I have a very sensitive OTP Detector, and generally I can read only one pairing per fandom. Multiple pairings in a single series is tough. Multiple pairings involving the same dude - that's basically impossible. (Although not hugely surprisingly in this case, since a side theme of the series, as with every Generation Kill story I have ever read, is "Wow, Brad Colbert is really awesome. I mean. Wow. I just. SO GREAT, people. SO GREAT. I think he's made entirely of sparkledust and swear words!") But Dira made me read it, buy it, and like it. I think she wins the Impossible Feat of the Year Award, hands-down.

Unless someone really does write that Tolkien barista AU, I guess. (Suggested name for a new AO3 collection: Tolkien AUs Are Fucking Hardcore.)

The One That Leaves Me Wondering if Anyone Ever Buys a Robot Who Totally 100% Means to Buy a Robot, or if in the Future All Robot Purchases Will Occur While Drunk, Upset, Concussed, Confused, or Whatever. (And Yes, I Do Wonder How That Will Affect Marketing Strategies.) The Chinese Room, by tyrannicides. Football RPF, Iker Casillas/Cesc Fabregas.

Okay, so this is a robot AU. Stop rolling your eyes at me, youngun. I do not recommend every single robot AU that comes down the pike. Just the awesome ones. It is not my fault if the trope tends to lead to awesome stories.

And this one is sincerely awesome. Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard to write about without spoiling it. (Although I will say this: if you read it and like it, read it twice. I liked this on first reading - lovely writing, gorgeous story, solid characterization given that I have basically no clue who these people are, etc. And then I re-read it and picked up so much more of what the author was doing. First time good, second time better!)

But this does leave me in a quandary. For reasons that do not require spoiling at this juncture, I can't talk about the story, beyond, you know, the basics (There's a writer with agoraphobia! He buys an android!). And since I don't know the characters basically at all, I can't talk about them. (They play for - football teams. In Spain. Beyond that, all I can tell you is that my conclusion is that Iker maybe has some issues, and might also be a trifle uptight. And Cesc is a puppy. Probably this one.) So what do I talk about in this rec?

I mean, I could tell you about the world building in this story. (Remarkable, especially given that we're talking about one character who basically does not leave his house and another character who has no understanding of what the world actually is.) I could tell you that this story really made me think about all the things you can do with a robot AU. (I guess there's nothing that lets you get to the heart of humanity like writing about someone who is not technically human and doesn't actually have a heart?) I could tell you about the writing. (It's lovely.) I could tell you how compelling this story is. (Very.) I could tell you this story legit made me tear up in several places. (Granted, this is not all that challenging, but still.) Or I could go the rec-unrelated-to-the-story route, always a favorite of mine, and, say, tell you about how I recently discovered that my son's first preschool teacher maaaaaaybe has been able to hear my wife and I having sex for the last three years. (Whoops.)

Or I could just tell you to go read the story. Yeah, let's go with that option. (Go read it! It's good!)

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Hockey: Love. And Pain. But Let's Focus on the Love.

2012-04-16T03:14:21Z

The playoffs are depressing the fuck out of me, people. (And it's not like this week was not already bad enough. I mean. Someone should have warned me the playoffs would be agony (ALL OF YOU should have warned me the playoffs would be agony), and then I would not also have chosen this week to attempt a major technological change and a major household change.) So I thought I'd take a moment to remind myself why hockey is not just misery and pain. Because there are things I love about hockey, too. Right? Right. Let's talk about THOSE for a change.

Why I Love Patrick Kane. The Kaner Shuffle video.

Okay, so. When I first watched this, the person who linked me to it made me liveblog it. And she was right: watching it unspoiled and reacting to it in realtime is the way to go. So watch it now, and then we will talk about why this is the essence of awesome, and also the essence of Patrick Kane, which leads us to the dubious but mathematically indisputable conclusion that Patrick Kane is awesome.

Done? Okay.

Here are the things I just cannot get over about this video:

Tazer saying, "Nice shirt. Looks good on him." And I have had this video analyzed by a Johnathan Toews Sarcasm Specialist who is really pretty sure he's being HONEST when he says that. OH REALLY, TAZER? Everyone else noticed that that was a terrible shirt that basically made him look like a sack of cheap souvenirs they sell tourists in Honolulu. You think it looks good on him? Tazer also says, in all sincerity, "That's an NHL superstar, right there." I mean. He's trying to make fun of Kaner, but he calls him a superstar. Hmmm. From this, we can learn that a) Tazer has absolutely no taste and b) Tazer has absolutely no ability to conceal how completely and totally he adores Patrick Kane. Like, he doesn't just love him. He adores him. Wow.
Patrick Kane saying, "Haters can keep hating, but I'm just going to dance." That, right there, is all you need to know about Patrick Kane. How can you not love this guy?
So many of the Blackhawks are impressed with slow mo. It's like they keep them in a box and only let them see technology if they're advertising it. I'm a little worried about them, to be honest.
But here's the great part, the amazing part, the best part of all: Patrick Kane is the best dancer. On the entire team. They all laugh at him, but they're worse than he is. Which, see - with the Christmas singing video, I was like, fine, whatever, these guys can't sing. But they're athletes. How can they not DANCE? How is it that not one of them can hear a beat or move his upper body in coordination with his lower body? Seriously, the lack of (non-hockey) talent on the Blackhawks roster is amazing. I'm starting to suspect that if these guys weren't playing hockey, they'd be on exhibit in a zoo somewhere.

In other words, as I said in the comments a while back, this is the video that perfectly explains Kaner. He's the worst! But he's HONESTLY the worst, and he's FINE with being the worst, and also sometimes you think he's the worst and he's actually the best.

Why I Love Sidney Crosby. Sidney Crosby Does Not Understand Humans, by impertinence. (Make sure you read the linked inspiration at the top of each one, both because Mark Doesn't Understand Animals is pretty funny, and because it will help you grasp the pure joy of this post.)

Okay, so this is only part of why I love Sidney Crosby, but god, I love it (and him) so much, because this ALL MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. Sidney Crosby just - he missed out on the "understanding humans" part of his education! (He's sure got the being a brat thing covered, but I think his parents wrote him a note to get him out of all his Human Studies classes.)

Now, let's talk favorite bits of this. First, there's the one I think of as Sidney Crosby Is Actually Fine with Humans, Provided They Are Under the Age of Four. Because, I mean, until someone actually makes the NHL Players with Babies Tumblr I yearn for, or until I break down and do it, this is as good as it gets: Sidney Crosby being really good with very small children, and then sort of recoiling in confusion from older children. You can almost hear him thinking, in the middle panel of the kids one, "But this one looks like a person, not a baby! What do I doooooo?"

And then there's the one with Jordan Staal. (You will recognize him. He's the one with the blondest, most unfortunate hair you have ever seen, unless you spend a lot of time looking at hockey players, in which case you have seen a lot of unfortunate hair, so much that this doesn't even register. Spend too much time in hockey and you start to think all haircuts are great unless they are, like, mullets with random tufts of hair missing AND a terrible perm, all on the same head.) Read it and I promise you will never be able to behold a Staal without thinking, "Oh no! This one is all poofy and stuff." Seriously, it improves Penguins, Rangers, and Hurricanes games by at least 15%.

But, basically, if you've ever wanted to see Sidney Crosby staring cluelessly at the entire human race, but for some reason you don't want to just google random pictures of him, this is the post for you. Go. Revel.

Why I Love Alexander Ovechkin. Alexander Ovechkin talking about jerking off, ably translated by marina.

Someday, marina is going to write the best Ovechkin primer in the world. I am hoping that day is soon. Like, in a week or two would be ideal, because by then my teams will probably be out of the playoffs, god damn them all to hell, and I'll have lots of time to read the post. And it will keep me from crying.

But until that glorious day, this is a really damn good substitute. Marina has spent her time trawling the internets for Ovechkin stuff, which I think we can agree is the best possible use of said time, and basically she's found all the most fabulous things in the world. Including this video, which is in Russian, but which she has helpfully translated so that we can all appreciate the beauty of Alex Ovechkin laughing, on stage, in front of an audience, about how he jerks off every day. That is the kind of thing that would deserve a Great Service to Fandom award, if we gave awards for that. (Actually, I guess we do? But it's mostly in the form of commentfic. Which - wait, where is the Ovechkin masturbation commentfic? NOW I FEEL DEPRIVED, FANDOM.)

And even if you do speak Russian, for real, read her translation, because her comments on the amazing acting talent of Alexander Ovechkin are worth it, my friends. Ovechkin: Maybe not the guy you'd pick first to cast in Hamlet, basically. Even if you were doing an all-NHL-player version of Hamlet. (Worst. Idea. Ever. Although I'm eager to discuss who would get to be Ophelia. I am thinking maybe Roberto Luongo.)

Why I Love Goalies. Colorado Avalanche: The Oldies, by vamm_goda.

Okay, so a bit ago vamm_goda posted the most amazing primer I have ever read, for the Colorado Avalanche, a team I had barely heard of. (Like, my sole point of reference before then was from when I shared an office with the world's most dedicated sports fan, who once spent an entire work afternoon arguing violently and fiercely with internet strangers on the subject of Colorado Avalanche: Stupidest Team Name Ever? Seriously, he took regular breaks to stride around the office and rant about the most irritating comments to us, gesticulating wildly and demanding we agree with how crazy this was, which, you know, we did, but only because he was himself clearly worryingly unbalanced. I mean, to give you some idea, I remember his flailing arms with great clarity, but I've forgotten what side he was on.) Anyway. I read this primer over the course of a couple of days, and I went from knowing nothing at all about the Avalanche to being genuinely interested and caring, which is - let's just say that even if I'm the only one who had that reaction, this primer still made an appreciable difference in the current total worldwide level of caring about the Avalanche. An impressive feat!

But if you don't want to read the whole primer - and you should! - you should at least read this post, because like all teams, the Avalanche has had some amazing and fascinating people on its roster. And if you don't read the whole thing - though you should! - just scan down until you find Patrick Edward Armand Roy, because - okay. Recently, someone on my friends list was asking why goalies are always said to be crazy. This post will answer that question. (Spoiler: IT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE CRAZY.) Patrick Roy was a fantastic goalie with an unnatural interest in his teammates' underwear, a desire to beat the shit out of any player who touched his net, and an apparent total lack of skill at pillow fights. (YES. Pillow fights. It's like that one commercial come to life! With a lunatic French-Canadian in it.) Basically, either he was crazy to start with (which I think is true) or being a goalie drove him crazy (which I also think is true), but either way: Dude was batshit.

But fun batshit. It's people like Patrick Roy who remind me why I love hockey. It isn't because my teams win (they don't, those motherfuckers). It's because the people involved are fascinating, and by fascinating I mean really weird and vaguely gay.

Okay. I think I can survive another week of the playoffs now. Tune in next week, when I will probably be doing a post entitled Screw It, Here's All the Reasons Hockey Is a Heartbreaker.

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[Poll] SALAD (and Fandom)!

2012-04-10T04:30:19Z

There has been some salad-related discussion in our household of late. (Actually, this discussion has been going on for at least ten years. Salad is an important topic in our family.) I cannot tell you what, exactly, we've been saying, or at least I can't without biasing the poll (and god knows I would never want to bias the ironclad validity and reliability of an internet poll!), but your thoughts are VERY IMPORTANT.

Also, because this is still a fannish journal, and also because I did not want to do two polls, I'm asking about the fandom that is most exciting for you right now. So even if you have no thoughts on salad - although I'm really not sure that is even POSSIBLE - please scroll down for the last question.

In this poll, for the record, I am talking about a green salad. Potato salad and fruit salad and caprese salad and - pasta-y things, whatever, those are fine, but not what we're discussing here. Those are SALADS FOR A LATER POLL. (And there will probably be one. The salad debate is reaching critical mass around here.)

View Poll: Salad and Fandoms

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