No Kill I

Dec 31: for beatrice_otter: plot bunny/trope/fic kink you love but will probably never write and why.

There are a few of these.

One of them is marriage of convenience, which is nearly* a bulletproof fic kink for me. I haven't yet found a fandom I don't love this trope in, but I also have never found a fandom where I've managed to think of how to do it. I think usually because it works best in AU situations, and AUs aren't where I tend to go, as a writer; I like working within the canon too much (and, in fact, I have trouble working in open canons where I can be Jossed, because that will often kill my creativity). Related tropes like arranged marriage I *can* see myself writing (I mean, Vulcans, right), but where would a marriage of convenience even fit in with most fandoms? It doesn't, except of course OTHER people seem to be able to do it just fine...

Another is A/B/O universes, but I very specifically only like ones that have some serious worldbuilding and trope inversion. I find mainline A/B/O squicky and rife with creepyweird romanticization of consent issues, and so I only discovered I liked the trope handled well when it was combined with a marriage of convenience (see? bulletproof) by a writer I already trusted. This one I'll probably never write because, again, the AU thing, but also because what I really WANT to write is a completely gen version of an A/B/O universe and I cannot figure out how to do it, because of the nature of the trope. I've tried a few times and the worldbuilding always kind of falls apart. If I ever figure that out, I will probably write it.


* I say nearly because while I'll start reading just about anything in any of my fandoms labeled MoC, I will bail for the usual culprits of bad writing and bad characterization.

for copracat: travel, a place, fictional or real, you'd like to go.

A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies....

but there are so many real places I'd love to go! Fiction pales!

In no particular order, my top 5 non-US destinations:

The Galapagos
Costa Rica
Iceland
Italy
Antarctica

After that, it'd probably be a return trip to Ireland, or a trip to Morocco.

My top 5 US destinations are all national parks! Thanks, John Muir!
Grand Canyon
Carlsbad Caverns
Hawai'i Volcanos
Yellowstone
Redwood

The national parks we have plans to do, once our kids are older. The younger one isn't 3 yet, so probably not for another 5 years at least.

Dec 12: for dine:what are your favourite holiday dishes? (share recipes if you want)

This one's both easy and hard! My favorite (childhood) holiday dishes are a mix of ones that aren't holiday-specific -- my mom's spicy spinach and her famous green beans -- mom makes those all the time, because they're so good, and holiday-specific Polish dishes my mom learned from her paternal grandmother -- chrusciki, kielbasy, and kapusta. In adulthood, I've added some favorite dishes from my husband's family traditions -- scallops over pasta, rib roast, lobster bisque, crabcakes Benedict.

None of these do I have recipes for, exactly -- I know how to make many of them, but it was mostly learned in the kitchen. I'm sure I've written some of them down before, but here are some basic methods:

Spicy spinach: sweat garlic in extra-virgin olive oil (or butter, or a mix of the two) in a LARGE, wide pan until translucent. DO NOT allow it to brown! add cayenne and a giant amount of spinach. No, more spinach than that. Seriously, it shrinks down to like 1/10 the amount. Add pepper and salt to taste and then throw some handfuls of grated parmesan in there. Fend off other diners with a knife while you shovel it into your mouth, snarling.

Green beans: chop up some onions and bell peppers. Cook over medium heat in extra-virgin olive oil until they are soft and caramelizing. Add green beans, rosemary, salt & pepper. Cook til beans are how you like your beans. Throw some handfuls of grated parmesan in there.

Kielbasy: look you're gonna need my mom's recipe, a meat grinder, a sausage stuffer, and some sheep casings if you can get them. And pork butt and mustard seed and marjoram and it has to smell right and...look I can't really help you out with this one.

Kapusta: chop up some white cabbage and boil it until tender-ish but not TOO tender. meanwhile, melt some butter in a giant high-sided pan with a lid (like a big enameled Dutch oven) and in there you put some bacon (leave out if vegetarian) and sliced onion. when the bacon & onions are cooked, toss in a bit of flour and cook that in the fat for a bit, then add sugar, white vinegar, and the cabbage. Stir it all up together til the sauce coats everything and the cabbage is properly tender.

Chrusciki are a fried dough cookie. You can use any chrusciki recipe you find online for these, really. It's a dough with a lot of eggs in, and you roll it out and cut slices and fry them in shortening or lard (lots of people twist them or wrap them to make "wings" -- their English name is Angel Wings -- but my mom never did) and then dust them with powdered sugar. If you have teenagers you will need an extra wooden spoon to rap their knuckles as they steal from the pile of chrusciki as you make them.

for the_rck: One author, living or dead, who you would like to meet and talk to and what you would like to talk to them about.

This one's hard, because two authors immediately popped into my head!

The first one is Octavia E. Butler. I first encountered her work when I was 11 or 12, in my local library, and I struggled to understand it. Something about it held me, but it was difficult to wrap my head around. It still is difficult to wrap my head around -- her work never stopped challenging me.

I would ask her how the Parables series would have ended, if she'd had time to write it, or what she was trying to get at with the super, super creepy dub-con vampire sex in Fledgling. (Her vampires are the ones that freak me out the most, of all the vampire stories I've ever read -- they remind me more than a little of those parasitic wasps whose larvae take control of the host insect.)

The second one is Stella Gibbons, and I would ask her what wrong was done to Robert Poste, and what exactly happened in the 1946 Anglo-Nicaraguan War.

for beatrice_otter: Favorite fandom you've never written for (and why not)

Funnily enough, beatrice_otter, you are probably one of the few people who knows me who might have been able to guess this one: Babylon 5. At least, I don't THINK I've ever written B5; it's possible I did and forgot it, or tossed off something quick in response to a prompt, but it's not something I've ever really wanted to write.

I'm not sure why. I love the universe and a lot of the characters, but I think in some ways it's so strongly itself that I never had much of an impulse. I do read it -- which is why you might've been able to guess, because I've commented on yours -- and it's odd, because the stuff I love in B5 is similar to the stuff I tend to write about Vulcans (side characters, worldbuilding-y, not super long). You'd think I would go haring off after some Minbari or Centauri or Narn or Drazi cultural aspect, wouldn't you? But I don't. I don't know why. I love to read that, but I don't want to write it.