bluflamingo

It's only quarter past nine, but I'm seriously considering going to bed - even though it's finally got cooler at night, I keep waking up, and I'm SO TIRED.

In the meantime... I really want a season 1 fic challenge - where people have to give prompt/character choices that can be written by someone who's only seen the first season of something. Mainly because I'm horrible for losing interest early on/downloading the first season then waiting for the rest to come out on DVD, and so there are tonnes of fandoms I can't ever sign up for in exchanges in case someone wants a character from season 3 I've never heard of. I'm not really sure how it would work, and I flaked on Cam Mitchell ficathon modding last year, but... would anyone else be interested.

And in the meantime in real life... I went to look at an allotment this morning, which I'm seriously considering renting. It's fairly overgrown, but not unmanageably so, and the challenge seems fun. Plus, one friend's already offered to help out in return for cake, and I can't stop thinking about what I'd do with it. So, we'll see, I guess.

So, today was my day of being brave, mostly inadvertently, and by fluke, since I pretty much decided not to go out and then changed my mind last minute and went to the seaside.

1. Ran into my ex, which was made extra awkward by her having taken me there the first time I went, and it being the place where we agreed that we were dating, and then extra-extra awkward by her parents, who don't know she's gay, also turning up. Which was when I ran away, but it was nice to see her and manage a conversation.

2. Driving home, I went passed a place advertising a brief try at archery so I went in (eep, sports things, always scary) and had a go. So much fun! And I actually hit the target.

3. Also went into the slightly intimidating independent comic shop in Bristol, in which I was, as expected, the only woman, but they were nice and friendly, and sold me volume #1 of Hawkeye, which is a little wacky but fun. Though, I need a chart or something to make sense of all the different comic verses and how they fit together.

So, that was Sunday. How about everyone else?

Hello! (and apologies for not filling this out sooner)

If you've got an idea that you really love, please feel free to write and not bother reading through this. If not, though, hopefully something in here will be helpful.

Generally, I like: queer communities, hurt/comfort (especially emotional), slice of life/day in the life, friendships, AUs, magic, happy endings, friends with benefits, people behaving like adults and talking to each other (rather than hoping the other person will read their mind/their weird hints), created families, kid fic, cats, bisexual characters, established relationships.

I don't like/don't want to read: I'm only gay for you, we're the only gay couple we know/that seems to exist in this universe, coming out stories, women needing to be rescued by the men, UST, problems that could be solved by talking to each other, meddling friends (we know you love each other, you just don't see it, kind of stuff), horror.

Fandom specifically...

Inception

Inception is tragically lacking in female characters, especially with Ariadne being new to the whole thing, so more older women in the field, acting as mentors to someone like Phillipa would be awesome. I'd love to see grown-up Phillipa, particularly if you made her some form of queer (massive crush on Ariadne, maybe?) She seems old enough in the movie to understand what's happening to a degree - how does that affect her when she's growing up? How does she feel about Miles/Dom/her brother/her mom? Does she create her mom in her dreams to talk to her?

I like Miles because he's the older mentor figure, guiding the others and his students. I'd like to see more of that - who is he outside of Dom Cobb? How did he end up where he is? Show me something not connected to the movie plot - his office hours, recruiting other students, his contacts in dream-sharing, him getting tapped to help out with something. Is he a good guy, bad guy, shady guy? I'd prefer anything with him not focus on his family, unless it's his grandkids.

Avengers

My preference for Avengers stories is for SHIELD to be the focus, rather than the superhero stuff (I know, why get into a superhero fandom in that case?) I love the bizarre stuff people come up with in fic, like giant creatures, or surprise magic - the whole, "well, this is random, but it's our job, so lets get on with it" - so if you want to work some of that in, please do.

I ship Maria and Natasha pretty hard, but I could totally see Maria/Pepper if you wanted to go the femslash route. I like the idea of Pepper and Tony having an open relationship in a way that's happy not angsty - like, they talked it out, and they have guidelines and it works, no-one is secretly jealous or feeling unloved or whatever. Fury, I love for his dry sense of humour, and his faith in the Avengers. I don't like Fury being written as conniving for the sake of it - like, keeping Coulson's non-death secret just because. I like that he might find certain people trying, but he ultimately likes and respects them all. I love him and Maria as director and deputy - if you wanted to write him as actively training her up to take over from him, I would not say no at all - and that she questions him and he answers her.

Pepper, I love because she's shown as competent, and emotional, she stands up for herself, she takes charge, and she's gorgeous. I'd love to see her and Maria (and Fury if you wanted) de-aged to teenagers and running around causing havoc, if you felt like going that way.

Stargate Atlantis

I've sort of drifted out of this fandom lately, but it's still the fandom of my heart. Please, though, don't strand Atlantis with no contact from Earth (unless you're doing a season 1 AU), or write them into an antagonistic relationship with Earth/the SGC.

That said, one of my favourite things about the show and fandom was how people navigated having lives they'd left behind on Earth, especially for the characters who don't get enough development for us to know about that. Does Alicia have an ex-girlfriend she left behind? How did Major Teldy end up on the mission? I always imagine Alison Porter having a dog on Earth for some reasons, and Dusty having a sprawling family of brothers.

Larrin seems to get a lot of dislike/hate from fandom, but I love her and think she's awesome, so please don't make her the bad guy. Though I also love that she's not a straight up good guy either - she's morally grey, but it's for the good of her people, I think.

Nancy, we only ever saw in relationship to John, really, but I'd love to see more of her outside of this. Her job, her relationships, her hobbies, her good deeds. Does she stay in touch with David after the divorce? What's her own family like?

...To be getting into the habit of just posting at weekends and rambling about life. So why break a habit?

Yesterday was my last day at one of my jobs - I now have one full-time job (I was part-time at it for three months already) that I love, with people who I really like and a boss who thinks I'm a competent professional and likes me. A job, by the way, that I mostly applied for in desperation and thought I'd completely bombed the interview for. I think the universe must have been smiling on me somewhere along the line. Anyway, old job gave me beautiful flowers - sunflowers and something purple, so pretty.

This evening, I'm going to meet this cat as a possible second cat to live with me and the existing cat - I think she gets lonely. Wish me luck, because how much of a cutie is she?!

Until then, I have fish stew in the slow cooker, and three hours to either sew or garden. This weekend so far is working out pretty well - how's everyone else doing?

Well, one question: should I sign up for the Avengers fest exchange?

I ask, because of the last three fic exchanges I've been part of, I've only actually only got something in return from one of them. Which, I like exchanges for the prompts that make me write stuff I wouldn't usually, but... I guess I'm kind of sad that I didn't get anything in return. For one of them, the mod was my assigned writer, and kept saying she was working on something... but I think she fell out of the fandom, because if she was, she never finished it. For the other, I know the mod had a hard time around when fics were due, which is probably why I never got anything.

I don't know. I feel a little doomed, and slightly... not exactly fool me once etc but like I might be better off staying out of exchanges for a while. Though I do like to write for them.

Or maybe I'm just whining about bad luck, I don't know.

Advice?

Turns out my gardening gloves aren't nettle proof after all - ow! Still, I have a nice collection of thorn scratches on the same arm, so at least I match.

My flat - can't call it a new flat, since I've been in it 51 weeks yesterday - has a small garden. It's mostly brick, with a little bit of soil, and I've filled about a third of the brick part with plant pots so far, including an old coffee table and a saucepan stand that have been repurposed as pot stands (I live in a cul-de-sac, people dump stuff). Today I finally got around to sorting out the soil border, including ripping up thorns and branches and nettles (did I say ow? cos, ow) and hacking back two bushes. Turns out I have a hazel tree in there! That gets to stay, then I'm putting in herbs.

Also thinking about having a corner for a rabbit run. There's lots of rabbit rescues around here, so I kind of like the idea. On the other hand, I also want more plants, a space for a table and chairs, a small storage shed... so the rabbits may be a no go!

Title: Not Dark Yet
Fandom: SGA/SG1
Pairing: pre-John/Cam, John+Cadman friendship, Cam+Lorne friendship
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~10,000
Summary: When a rescue mission goes wrong, Cam struggles with his role in it and the challenges of being deputy civilian commander of Atlantis. Meanwhile, John and Cadman are more focused on the struggle to survive, and their fading hopes for rescue

Notes: Written for the 2013 round of sgareversebang, for ignemferam's art Search and Rescue

Not Dark Yet (on AO3)

Title: Stay With Me (I'm Sticking With You)
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: John/Ronon
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1250
Summary: Back on Earth, John and Ronon talk about what's next, for them and Atlantis (post season 5)

Stay With Me (I'm Sticking With You)

Died this morning of a stroke. She was kind of a big deal in UK politics - first (and thus far only) women Prime Minister, hated right-wing figure by the left - so people have a lot of opinions on her being dead, unsurprisingly.

For the record though: if you're posting that you're glad she's dead, or that you're having a party to celebrate, or that you've signed a petition for her not to have a state funeral (all of which I've seen this afternoon) - can you unfriend me until you're done with that please? (Not saying that any of you would, but then I wouldn't have said that some of the people on my facebook wall would either - consider this a universal 'you')

I'm not saying everyone has to like her, or like her policies, or think they were a good idea. I don't. But she was a person, and she was a powerful woman, and it wouldn't hurt to treat her death with a little respect and a little less glee. She hasn't been in power for decades, she's not controlling politics now, and she wasn't kicking babies and puppies when she was. I'm not saying she was doing good and not hurting anyone, but she's being compared to Mussolini and Hitler who, you know, actually had hundreds of people killed.

I'm a little hesitant to say it's because she was a woman in power, specifically, and not because of her policies, but I can't help thinking that's part of it - that somehow what she did was worse because she was a woman and should have been softer or warmer or fuzzier or whatever.

As a woman leader in the 80s. Good luck with that.

You don't have to like her, but enough with the glee already. I can't stand David Cameron. I hate what he's doing to welfare rights, I hate his cuts, I hate his attitude and his face, I hate his man of the people what private school? speeches, and I hate that his coalition gets such good press. He's actually still in power and actually still having a negative impact on people. I still wouldn't wish him dead and yes I'd like him out of power, but through an election defeat, not through his death, and I wouldn't be happy if he was dead.

Margaret Thatcher, for whatever she did wrong, was someone I knew about when I was a kid. I knew that she was a woman who'd run my country and that meant something when I was a little girl. That was *rare* when I was a little girl, and is still rare know, and that she achieved that was worth something and still should be. Whatever she achieved once she got there.

In case it's not obvious: please can we keep the glee at her death out of the comments; criticism of her and her policies is fine, but no dancing on her not-yet-existing grave please.

The comments on this article at feministe make me so angry.

The article is about how choosing to take your husband's name on marriage is not a feminist choice, and that, essentially, the reasons many people give for doing this aren't really great feminist reasons (which doesn't make women who do this unfeminist, just that this isn't a feminist choice) and that feminism isn't actually about 'I'm a woman, it's my choice, therefore it's feminist.' The comments are full of people raging at the author for daring to say that the choice they made isn't a feminist one, and their reasons aren't feminist. That she's attacking them for their choices. That she's going after 'low-hanging fruit' and has chosen a totally ridiculous 'hill to die on.'

And reading it, I just think - could you even acknowledge how fucking lucky you are that you can marry the person you want to be with? And that there's convention for what happens to your name afterwards? And that you can make a choice to adhere to tradition, because it exists? Without being judged for that decision (and no, what the article says is not judging)? That your relationship is steeped in centuries of privilege for being a woman who wants to be with a man, and this is the one thing about it that you're going to be told is maybe not so ok?

Because, right now, my country is debating whether I even have the right to marry a hypothetical future woman I love, or whether I should carry on having a second class ceremony. People are arguing that religious beliefs (by which they mean Christian) trump what should be rights. That letting gay people marry will somehow damage young children. That it's OK to publicly say 'I think that if you're gay you should have fewer rights,' without fear of any kind of actual real reprisal. Because, basically, homophobia's OK.

Right now, I wish my biggest problem around marriage was whether a feminist on the internet thinks that my decision to follow tradition isn't very feminist.

Two name-related anecdotes...

My sister got married a little over a year ago, and it honestly never occurred to me that she'd take her husband's name until a few months before the wedding. I don't know why not, since she's very traditional. I remember saying to my mum that it's like she's no longer identified with our family - because it is. She's not identified as a new family with him, she's identified as part of his birth family, not ours.

I want to change my last name. I want to take my mother's maiden name, for many reasons, including practical ones like it's a lot easier for people to spell than my current last name, and ideological ones like, I have a troubled relationship with my father and his mother, and my blood-grandfather, who died long before I was born, sounds like someone I would be scared of, but I love my mother's family, and want to show that I belong to them. When I told this to my mother, she said that if I changed my name, it would be like I no longer identified as her daughter. Totally not the same when my sister does it though, because she's marrying a man and that's what you do.

Is my choice more feminist than my sister's? I have no idea. But it's a hell of a lot less acceptable, less normal, more likely to be commented on, more expensive, more complicated.

But yeah, what sucks is being told that your choice to take your husband's name isn't feminist.