AUs we need more of:

 So far, young Avengers - I spent so much time *smiling*. and then being a bit teary. *happy sigh*

Wonder Woman is GLORIOUS and horrific and family quabbles on an epic scale of beings that are *not like you* and the horror end of Greek mythology and I’m in love. Also, Diana, when not actively fighting or about to start one and is just hanging around or having a cuppa in a cafe, shoves her tiara up as a headband and wears a coat over the bathing suit. There are a few of these coats, but there is a distinct fondness for white, funnel necks and short burberry-style macs. verrrrry stylish, a distinct look and makes so much sense for someone who doesn’t have a secret identity and is always battle ready. *spoiler* the bracers she wears? Actually cage her power. Remove them and it, er, escalates a tad into the glowing eyes and crackling power around her, which fits for the whole god and demi gods only being human shaped thing the current run has.

Batwoman: oh, it was complex and interwoven and double-crossing and FAMILY and learning and limits and pushing through them and fucking up and learning and PTSD all round and broken and recovering and coming back harder and how being a military family fucks your reactions to normal life and paranoia levels and sneaking and creepy and spooky and haunted house and… then DC pissed off JH Williams and Blackman one time too many and they left, leaving the entire DEO storyline and Batman hunt dangling. And the issue after that is … generic Gotham tinged vigilante heist and washed out pale copies of our characters that are *nothing* like the ones we knew, don’t even speak or react like them. Kate and Bette are not Nightwing and Spoiler on a bouncy day, Andreyko. Sorry.

The thing about catching up in chunks is noticing all the ads. Aside from the really annoying new 52 newsreader update at the end of each issue - which is annoying, we’re not going to pick up stuff with a two second gossip-style newsbite on every character in the ‘verse but easy to skip. Preview short stories at the back, yes, not a 60 second news update. And there are a *lot* of adverts for crossover/theme months. …Villains month? seriously? How is that different from usual aside from the likelihood of random villain popping in and not having owt to do with the currently running storyline? and crossovers tend to be more annoying than anything, because you suddenly have this issue where nothing makes sense with story arcs beginning in a comic elsewhere that you don’t get. Which doesn’t smack of gimmick desperation at all, honest.

Me:'...I just write AUs, don't I?  I never actually write canon.  AUs with meticulously researched random tiny details.'
Jane: *patpat* 'But good AUs.'

(apparently I  wrote canon in Torchwood and I used to write it in Angel.  only the Torchwood would be case fic, so...)

okay, that Merlin fic I've been writing?  It's clocking up the hits and kudos gradually, but the comments are... interesting?

You know me, I occasionally try to go a bit historical and 'try-to-work-out-how-it-would-work'.  Merlin fandom is a fun and interesting place.  You often see fic that examines political stuff and the vague historical period that the  show very rarely ever did.  (well, Uther would occasionally do it - Queen Annis, plus regular bits of Uther - see the bit where he tells Arthur that a mistress is all very well, but don't think it's going any further than that.) Girl!Merlin fic often does it, because it's the nature of genderswap to examine the angles and changes and nuances.  And with this one, I pondered what would happen if Merlin had grown up at court, thinking through and discussing it with mates.  Originally I'd had Merlin and Arthur falling for each other in conventional fashion, only the way it gradually played out after I re-wrote the first concept it became more like intense friendship.  With some other undercurrents.

And..um...several of the comments I've got are in the fluff and 'twoo wuv, they're totally getting married!' sector.

I am deeply confused.  Does it seriously read like that?

 

You may recall the girl!Merlin thing I occasionally mutter about.

I decided to start posting the occasional snippet at AO3 - still *utterly* lacking a plot as it's more of a 'verse, which will be almost certainly be completely out of order but at least I'll have something there if I ever manage to get a plot. There will almost certainly be lots of snarking at each other dialogue.

Daughter of the Dragonlord snippets, starting off with a bit of establishing backstory.

 I'm trying to decide whether it's faintly depressing or cheering after reading a theory that the reason the British army did better in the Falklands than the Argentinians was that we expect to make do with stuff held together by string and a prayer in so much of our life that we don't even think about panicking when supplies don't turn up and just get on with it.  The soldiers didn't expect the stuff they'd been promised to turn up so had brought their own food and supplies.

Or rather their propensity to have the heroine cut/tear them off whenever there's action required.

Excuse me while I groan because it's clear you've never actually seen material cut or torn. It's up there with the writers who tear a shirt off someone for the sex scene - do you know how difficult this actually is?

Anyway: Person is wearing a long skirt or dress and suddenly there's a fight scene requiring kicking, or they have to climb/run lots.

The writer thinks 'Oh noes! material in the way! I know, I shall get it out of the way quickly! Character undoubtedly has a knife/ can filch one off someone, cut and tear it off and Robert is indeed your mother's brother! She can get on with her fight/climb in all of ten seconds!'

Yeah. NO. Material and the construction of clothing doesn't work like that.

• First, there's the material itself. Doesn't respond well to slashing with a knife - you might get a hole in it, but it'll take a good while to cut all the way through a piece. Several minutes. Faster with a good pair of sharp heavy-duty fabric scissors, but I somehow doubt your character has a pair of scissors on them, let alone a pair that would be any good for cloth cutting (have you seen fabric scissors, writer? They're bloody great heavy things, with *at least* 8-inch blades). If you must do this, make a small cut *at the edge*, grab the sides and pull. This will very noisily make a clean tear in the direction of the weave. And *only* in the direction of the weave. If the material was cut so the weave is on the diagonal - it'll tear in that direction. So you'll have a tear that... hasn't done all that much aside from split the skirt.

'But they make big slashing tears in curtains all the time on film!' I hear you say. Yeah. On film. Remember how that's not reality? Also, they have physics on their side. Curtain cloth has tension and weight due to the whole hanging from the ceiling factor, and isn't normally cut on the diagonal. And please note that they always cut *down*. no horizontal slashing here.

• Second: 99% of clothing is not made of one piece of material, due to conservation of fabric, and that amazing thing known as design and getting it to hang right. Skirts are normally made of at least two panels sewn together. And the sewn part is normally reinforced with thread, and specifically made to be resistant to tugging and tearing. So even if you were lucky enough to make a horizontal cut/tear to the material, you'll run into a seam. And have to start cutting again, only this time it requires more strength and several goes.

So all this has taken a good ten minutes, and an awful lot of effort, which I doubt your character really has time for. Not to mention afterwards she'll be running around in a hacked off dress/skirt, which would a) look weird and b) be pretty much unusable afterwards. Clothing isn't cheap and the chances of spare stuff that'll fit hanging around is slim unless you're lucky enough to be in the middle of a residential area on laundry day.

'But how do I get the fabric out of the way so she can climb/fight?' I hear you wail.

(Never mind that it's actually quite possible to do this in a long skirt, women have been doing it for millennia, and yet there's a distinct lack of anecdotal evidence of them having to mend their skirts when they come back from doing this.)

Fear not, dear writer, I have a solution!

TUCK, KNOT OR ROLL THE MATERIAL UP.

It's that simple. Takes about 30 seconds at most, and that's if you're hell bent on keeping it securely in place for ages. And by 'ages' I mean an extremely vigorous evening of dancing or similar. Several hours' worth. If all you're wanting is to get enough material out of the way for activity, you only have to do this with one side. Which takes all of 10 seconds. Ever read anything set prior to the 20th century, and the female character says something about 'kirtling' her skirts? This is what she's doing. Hitching them up enough to do vigorous activity with her legs free and securing them in place.

Yeah. So, given the option of grabbing the front of her skirt and tucking it into her waistband/knickers or knotting it or spending several minutes hacking uselessly at fabric with a knife she won't necessarily have access to?

TUCK.

went looking for some supporting character backstory for a fic that ended up (after changing and re-doing and re-inventing) being my nano of Infernal Affairs and MI-13. (couple of years ago, it's on darkisrising). I allude to some of it in one chapter, but it's the later stages. The stuff I'd written was the saga of character and his boyfriend getting together.

Found it a night or so ago and thinking about re-working it for the world that I eventually settled on for nano. (previously I'd never got a satisfying storyline out of it) Problem: nationalities have changed, the outside world has changed, character x disappeared, character Y and Z changed jobs, trust issues changed (x is friends with Y but don't know if they'd ever go clubbing together). Originally this backstory was me doing Notting Hill with an american male film star and a scots werewolf secret agent. With gossip sites and headlines and gagging orders and 'which film star is considered a ladies man allergic to relationships in the US but has a very serious boyfriend in the UK?'. Now climate and gossip sites have changed, the werewolf is still an agent but as he's a bit more focussed on social work and coppers it's not so much 'secret' any more. And the film star is now British. Which definitely changes any 'technically in the closet' issues. And whether the film star is going to have the slightest chance of a regular bodyguard/handler-type.

I still want to re-work it, but cthulhu knows how I'm going to get it to.