i don't know about y'all, but i know about us

the non-spoiler spoiler post
Aquarium, "The Hive" : OMG, Rodney!

HP & Goblet of Fire: Alan Rickman totally pwns that franchise, even when he's barely in the film. When I read the books, I still have no particular attachment to Snape, but OMG, ALAN! You are hysterically funny and weirdly hot and I adore you way beyond the bounds of anything reasonable.

Rome: Dammit. Nice going, Vorenus.

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The best sitcom you're not watching right now is Out of Practice, aka the Stockard & Henry Show. How much do I love the both of them? I am also, of course, not unswayed by the fact that one of the characters is a lesbian (the very fine Paula Marshall, whom Sorkinites will remember as Jenny the Adult Film Actress from Sports Night), but mostly? Stockard Channing and Henry Winkler are awesome and wonderful as a divorced couple who seem to be bickering for old times' sake, but who mostly understand each other too well not to appreciate each other. I realize that if you're watching the Aly & Neil Patrick show at 8:30, then you have to survive Two and a Half Men to get to Out of Practice, but you should. It's cool, I think, to have a sitcom that isn't about raising children or about single people and their wacky search for love. Out of Practice is a family sitcom, but the three kids are grown professionals, so it's a lot about the relationships you have with your parents as adults, and the way you see them as real people rather than just as Mom and Dad. Also, Regina should totally steal more of Oliver's girlfriends; she should do so at *every* opportunity. And hang onto the jewelry he gave to them, hee.

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Progress Reports on My Holiday Stories (edited for content):

SGA - I think I can handle this one. I told Mary my concept and she kind of rolled her eyes and implied that it sounded out of character to her, which I guess should have me worried, but what the hell. No guts, no glory. We can't let canon push us around, now, can we? Also, I don't think it's going to turn out as smutty as I had originally imagined, which is unlike me.

popslash - I've got *nothing.* I'm literally clueless. The best I can say is that Mary and I have an eight-hour car ride tonight to Virginia for Thanksgiving, and maybe between us we'll come up with something.

threesome - I just want to say, I got a really tough assignment here. You get four options, and two of mine were for fandoms that mean literally zero to me. So then I had these other two, which were fandoms I could hack, but one requested a character that's become prominent since I slacked off on watching the show, so I didn't feel comfortable with that, and I was left with one feasible option. Now, I have come up with a story that I really love, but here's my question:

What's the fan politics on villainous characters for gift fics? Because, okay, I'm writing Character X, right? And he is, canonically speaking, kind of a bastard, but he is a big woobie for the fandom (I don't think this is too spoilery, because God knows fandom loves their bastard/woobies all around the board). But in this story, he'd kind of end up being a bastard. Is that okay? I've done some research on my recipient, and she doesn't seem to be a Crazy Character X fan, but still, maybe that isn't how she likes her X, or maybe it's a little dark for a Christmas story (although unlike last year, I'm not planning to write anything where a title character takes a severe intestinal wound and dies slowly -- no need to thank me!)

I don't know, the thing is, I like dark stories. I'm better at them. And I like my Character X on the darker side, and not all woobified. Also, it would be an *awesome* story, if I can pull it together right. Also, I have no other ideas. But I don't want to ruin Christmas for my recipient or anything. And objectively speaking, though I love this story personally, I can see that it'll be one that people will either love or absolutely hate, depending on what baggage they have surrounding the characters and what they're looking for in a story like this. So, given that I'm writing it for someone I don't know well, should I try to come up with something different, something a little more festive and crowd-pleasing?

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