1. So I watched Horatio Hornblower: The Fire Ships last night and ok. ok, I understand now. The appeal is entirely different from the books, but watching Hornblower wandering around being Tragically Stern is kind of irresistable, isn't it?

(I got the next drawer down with my random numbers this time, so I guess we're trying Sharpe next.)

2. I realized it had been awhile since I checked the ILL catalog for the trades I'm trying to follow so I did and then I went slightly wild and put seven of them on hold at once:

I reqested Vol. 2 of the GotG run with the lesbian space dragons, Vols. 2 and 4 of Kingyo Used books, Vol. 1 and 2 of the complete Gillen Journey into Mystery, Rocket Racoon, and Thor and Loki: The Tenth Realm

I got Thor and Loki: The Tenth Realm, Rocket Raccoon, 2 copies of Journey into Mystery Vol 1, two copies of Kingyo Used Books Vol. 4, and a collection of Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon tie-ins.

I.. guess that's a passing grade? you go, Maryland Intercounty ILL, you be you.

Anyway I fully expect to go slightly gaga over Kid Loki again soon, but meanwhile I am reading Kingyo Used books, which is still probably my favorite manga of all manga? It's just a bunch of semi-connected shorts that tell the stories of how various people have had their lives changed by reading old manga, and it's delightful, and I'm sad that four trades is all there is in English.

At lunch I read #23, A Man Ahead of His Time, which is about two old friends who run into each other on the street on one's 60th birthday, and then flashed back forty years. When one of them was a student radical, and was always cajoling the other one into going to riots with him, because "I always fight stronger when you're there", until the first one is like, no, I can't do this any more, violence is not my way, and they go their separate ways, but then over the decades as they grow older they keep meeting again and the one is still quiet and thoughtful and the other still wild and politically passionate and they always feel that connection again, and finally as old men he's like, "I figured it out: you fight too, but the way you fight is by getting me riled up to fight" and the other one just smiles but when he leaves he's still carrying the other one's favorite manga that he's had with him all this time, and I'm just like. you did this to me on purpose, Kingyo Used Books. you are hurting me on purpose.

3. The AU where Enjolras and Grantaire are both dark-horse candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, and keep running into each other at ridiculous podunk events that everybody else had too much pride to attend, that I am writing as punishment every time I forget myself and start to be optimistic about US politics, just hit 5500 words.

Currently they are trapped together in a hot-air balloon. With a Republican.

4. So here is a thought process that happened to me awhile back:

1. If I ever finish this original story I'm going to submit it under my initials.


2. Not just because of gender bias! OK partly because of that. But also as a tribute to S.E. Hinton who has the same initials and is awesome.


3. Not that I know anything about S.E. Hinton as a person except that she's supportive of people writing Ponyboy slash as long as they use condoms, because unsafe sex would be ooc


4. actually I've never even read The Outsiders, but I remember when my sister's grade read it and all the girls were really into it, and even then I was like "Ponyboy? Really?"


5. Ponyboy?Really?


6. It's kind of neat how you can tell which books are still being assigned in high schools because there's always a sudden surge of slash for them at the beginning of the semester.


7. Man, if I'd had access to slash fandom in high school, I would 100% have been writing The Scarlet Letter OT3


8. Okay I was anyway, but I didn't have anyone to share it with, and if I'd been in slash fandom and known anybody else cared I'd've been writing negotiated bdsm cuckoldry preistkink ot3


9. No really it's been fifteen years and basically the only thing I remember about that novel is that it would've totally worked, other than their various psychosexual issues they were all fairly reasonable people when Nathaniel-freaking-Hawthorne wasn't trying to force them along rails into a contrived tragedy.


10. Also, really Hawthorne? Really?


11. Can teachers these days still get away with teaching that book without talking about kink?


12. No but! It would totally work! Like this, see:
    ( I had to google to remember the names but I still know exactly how the porn would go )