A Lightkeeper's Log

Thank you for writing me a story! I love presents generally, and putting work into something for me makes me very happy generally. I'm pleased that we have fandoms in common, mystery author, and I look forward to seeing what you end up writing!

A few general likes and squicks before I talk about my fandom. Erm, obviously, I'm not expecting all of the following. Just write what you like, and if you want ideas, check out the list. Since you clearly have excellent taste in women, I trust to your judgement.

Likes: I love angst and h/c, I also love action/adventure and humour. Tropes of which I am fond: time travel, amnesia, mind control, AUs (both where they're all pirates or in space, or where someone turned left when in canon they turned right), wrongly accused of crimes, thinking someone is dead, abandonment issues, loyalty in the face of all odds, and h/c generally (especially emotional h/c). I like women being good at their jobs, but I prefer relationship and character-focused stories, or at least a lot of emotional-engagement when it comes to case fic. People interacting and connecting makes me happy. I like gen (especially about friendship and/or mentors and students), het and femslash. I like porn, including D/s and bondage.

Squicks: I don't have triggers, but I can be upset by strong sexual violence and graphic torture (aftermath of torture is okay). I really don't like downer endings. I'm not super fond of pregnancy stories, but if you want to include canon pregnancy, that's okay. If you write porn, I prefer porn with plot over PWPs. I also don't really like extensive blood play, or any scat or golden showers. I don't like mentor/student, or other sexual relationships with a strong disparity in power. I don't really care for AUs about school, bands or coffee shops, or D/s or a.b.o universes.

Fandoms: ( A-Team (2010), Babylon 5, Dor (2006), Captain Britain and MI:13, Daughters of the Dragon, and Sinbad )

This is my stocking.

My stocking is full of wonderful things, like a Kate/Renee ficlet with hugging and empathy, shareable Rivers of London text icons, a ficlet about Jason and Alcmene getting together, a slightly meta ficlet about Sinclair and Catherine with reincarnation and time travel, and the Jeff/Michael story that I always, always, always, always wanted to read. Plus a lovely assortment of banners and good wishes.

My eyes look like ♥.♥ right now. I should probably see a doctor.

You should go to my stocking and read all the things. Also the icons are aces. Then you should comment and praise the people who gave me things.

Seriously, this is how Eustace turned into a dragon.

I have also written things, for those interested.

Title: The Memory Book (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: Quantum Leap (Al, Sam/Donna)
Rating: Gen
Word Count: 1,500
Notes: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, winterjameson! Fic is set in the first season, and assumes episodes took place in production order ("Genesis," "Double Identity," "The Right Hand of God," "Star-Crossed," "How the Tess Was Won," "Play It Again, Seymour," "The Color of Truth," "Camikazi Kid") rather than order aired. Some dialogue taken from episodes, some blatantly ad libbed.
Summary: Sam keeps forgetting, but Al is making long-term plans.

Title: Five Times Charissa Sosa Realised She Was Dating the Whole Damn A-Team (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: The A-Team 2010 (Face/Sosa, Team)
Rating/warnings: Explicit (sex, profanity, canon ableist language)
Word Count: 4,700
Notes: Happy darkest, coldest part of the year to a_q! I hope you had a great holiday, and that you enjoy this fic. Huge thank you to king_touchy for the beta.
Summary: "You heard I was a player, you wanted to play, then I got serious and you freaked!" "Oh, I freaked? I did not freak!"

Title: Another Time, I Would Have Cried (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: Babylon 5 (Susan/Talia)
Rating (warnings): PG-13 (Unbearably schmoopy, and set in an already Fixed future AU).
Word Count: 1,200
Notes: Happy darkest, coldest part of the year to amyfortuna! Title from Girlyman's "Nothing Left."
Summary: Injured and unsure of her memory, Susan searches for something to hold onto.

Title: On the Slopes of Mount Wundagore (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: Marvel Comics: 616 Universe (Carol Danvers/Wanda Maximoff, other canon pairings)
Rating/warnings: PG-13 (spoilers for Disassembled through the first issue of AvX)
Word Count: 1,800
Notes: Happy January to sanguineheavens! I hope you had a great holiday, and that you enjoy this fic. Based on a fic_promptly prompt from approximately one million years ago. I sadly no longer remember where it was or who made it. Thanks to Nenya for the speedy beta.
Summary: Or, Five Times Carol Searched for Wanda (And One Time She Found Her)

Title: That Night on Deck (stocking link)
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: Sinbad Sky1 (Sinbad/Gunnar)
Rating/warnings: PG-13 (none)
Word Count: 1,400
Notes: Happy January to papryka! I hope you had a great holiday, and that you enjoy this fic. Thanks to Nenya for the last minute beta.
Summary: Following "Eye of the Tiger," Sinbad wants to know why Gunnar keeps watching him.

First off, read this review of Thor (mild spoilers), which is excellent.

So I watched some of the new Hawaii Five-0, which is quite addictive, and have thoughts.

It's funny to me that the fast-talking guy from New Jersey with anger management issues is the Responsible One on the team. Not that that makes him very responsible, in that the competition is a Navy SEAL who is, to quote a fic, fondly treasuring his delusion that his crazy-ass quest to grow up into Inigo Montoya is a secret; what tv tropes (no, I'm not linking) refers to as a Lawful Badass Biker dude with all the emotional maturity I had as a clinically-depressed twenty-three-year-old with malaria*; and a former professional surfer who climbs palm trees and punches dudes out for stealing her waves.

I have to say it's a nice change. Especially as I was saying the other day that I was getting a little bored with fanon -- and canon tbh -- slotting women into the Responsible One role so we essentially don't have to deal with them. Like the difference between Sosa and B.A. in The A-Team film (especially in fanon) is essentially that, while they are both more responsible than the others, B.A. still goes with all the completely goofy plans, while Sosa grudgingly admires them, but doesn't get to play too. Weir on Stargate: Atlantis got to spend most of the time telling Team Sheppard to be careful, but only when she was possessed by an evil alien did it seem like she got to have some fun. The same was often true of Teyla, who would watch whatever nuttiness the boys were up to and shake her head in amused condemnation.

Sidebar: slashers, and I absolutely include myself as I've done this, twist things in a similar way. Canon female love interest is too sensible to be with the dude we want to slash with someone else. I like that way out better than canon female love interest is a total bitch or canon female love interest is dead. However, when I did that, I was essentially shuffling the woman away from my favourite character who I think is awesome and shiny, saying, oh, no, he's totally not good enough for you, you deserve better, sweetie (which I think is some fable involving a rabbit or something, possibly by La Fontaine, but I honestly don't remember which one. Anyway, the point being that it's all a shell game).

Granted, there are worse roles, and I like the Responsible One better than the Ditzy One or the Vindictively Shrewish One (who is actually often pretty much the same as the responsible one, just seen less charitably by canon). However we don't watch cheesy cop shows or read superhero comic books or go to plotless summer action films to see people be responsible. We, on the whole, go to see wacky hijinxs and batshit seat-of-the-pants plans, and general silliness. This is what fandom on the whole rejoices in, not people being responsible. What fun would that be? If there is a straight man character, the point is often to get him to loosen up and learn to live a little. (Granted, at the end, characters are often shunted into stolid, Roman roles, but that's what Pirate AUs are for!)

So, to conclude, I'm totally happy that Kono seems to spend too much time with Steve learning to blow things up and Chin learning to angst, and not enough time with Danny learning to do things properly. I know which would be better for her in RL, and I know which is more fun to watch. They are not the same.



*You will not convince me that Chin Ho ( spoilers for his arc up to 1x20 or so )

Someone noted that having just read through two archives, several rec lists and the pit of voles, I ought to pass on my hard-earned wisdom and put together a rec list.

Unfortunately, I bookmarked nothing, so this is brought to you by vague memories of what I enjoyed, and is in no way exhaustive. ( Nine Recs Behind the Cut (By Author) )

I may have just signed up for intoabar, because I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

Also, I wrote another ficlet for fic_promptly. For which I blame valtyr.

Same Old New Game (A-Team [2010]/Highlander, B.A. Baracus & Hannibal Smith)
Prompt: A-Team, BA, old soldiers never die

Title: Out of Bounds [gen]
Author: muccamukk
Fandom: The A-Team (2010 film)
Spoilers/Warnings: Profanity, reference to violence, some homophobia, and ableist language in reference to Murdock.
Number of Words: 3,000
Notes: For a kink_bam prompt. With thanks to blackcatbone for hir thorough technical beta.

---

( 'Old habits may die hard, but they still gotta die.' Now that he's out of the Army, B.A. tries to figure out what time is the right one to break a silence he's kept his whole life. )

ileberte: I just read a bunch of Adam Lambert fic even though I get second hand embarrassment squick from American Idol and never watch it
ileberte: my fannish habits are really weird
me: he's kind of fabulous
ileberte he is
ileberte: he's definitely way more interesting than any American Idol contestant, that's for sure. Except maybe Kelly Clarkson, although in a very different way.
me: They should have a buddy cop show
ileberte: Everything's better with complementary personality buddy cop AUs

Why does the A-Team have the worst archive in the history of the Internet? It's a respectable-sized small fandom. There's a couple thousand fics in there. Yet the archive has a damn near unusable search function. There's no standardised warnings, or space to indicate characters, pairings or relation to episodes. You can't click on author and get a list of their other fic. Which is all bad enough, but recently the site has been randomly stripping out it's already dubious formatting out of stores and randomly filling them with �. I went back to a story that was mostly readable two days ago, and there were � instead of spaces. Spaces! I was handling the complete lack of navigation by just reading through the whole archive alphabetically, but by the time I got to C, I realised there was very little point and pretty much gave up. Does no one care? It's a shame as there are great stories in there. If you can find them, and read them when you do.

So it's Wednesday and comics came out. I tried to have them mailed, but they just went to Campbell River. The boss has the mail key with her, where ever she's gotten to. They might as well be on Mars.

Having watched quite a bit of the A-Team, I have concluded that B.A. is canon queer. Which is probably not the conclusion that Mr T. wanted me to reach, but there you are.

Watching LJ's users eat the management is a lot more fun when you're not invested in the site.

However, given my accumulated knowledge of the last few days, I would like to point out the following:

There is no canon support that Face joined up under age. None. In that he went to college for two years, he was probably at least eighteen when he joined the army. This is supported by the actor's age. (The same is true of movie!verse)

Face is a Green Beret. Now, I'm not an expert on all things military, but I understand that the point of the special forces at that they are able to out macho and generally beat the crap out of most of the rest of the people on the planet. Now, I'm sure there's some room for PTSD and general emo, but it strikes me that Face would be able to a) handle multiple assailants and b) maintain calm in stressful and violent situations. The first is supported repeatedly and enthusiastically in canon, the second tends to lead to whinging on Face's part, but not in earnest.

If B.A.'s dialogue sounds remotely like he's just escaped a supporting role in Gone with the Wind, you have a problem.

Being homophobic, while not generally an improvement to anyone's personality, does not automatically make one a) murderous, b) a rapist, c) evil or d) an evil murderous rapist. Homophobia is a big problem, yes, and people have been brutally killed by homophobes. However I know a number of people who do not approve of my lifestyle and have yet to murder me in my bed.

While charming and attractive in canon, Face does not possess pheromones that make everyone in the world (regardless of gender or sexual orientation) need to have sex with him immediately, whether he consents or not.

There is no canon evidence that Face was sexual abused. By anyone. Ever.

There are Consent Issues involved in Hannibal sleeping with any of the his subordinates. Which I'm fine with and will cheerfully read around if they're addressed. However, Hannibal sleeping with an under-aged, sexual abused, unable to defend himself subordinate with self-esteem issues will never be anything but incredibly creepy.

In canon, Hannibal tells Face that he's done a good job as much as he says the same to B.A. and Murdock.

Relationships where one of half of the couple literally cannot live without the other half are generally seen as dysfunctional, not romantic.

The team has been together for something like thirteen years by the beginning of the show, the chances that they don't all know they love each other by that point are pretty damn low.

Okay. I'm done, no, wait...

To conclude: Competence is sexy.

ETA: B.A.'s potential for manpain > Face's.

I have one line of my A-Team bang. Oh well, better than nothing.

I'm reusing the play list from Sea Stars. I don't know as yet what that means. May be the right tone or something.

BA is trying to convince everyone to go along with pro bono job that some small child has sad faced him into, so he puts it to a vote. After getting the same small child to sad face Face into it, he looks at Murdock.
Murdock: They don't let crazy people vote! They take that right away from you when you're committed.
BA leans in threateningly, Murdock leans forward so they're nose to nose.
Murdock: [In an accent that sounds a bit like a cheesy Dracula] We are also immune to fear. We can't hook up emotionally to the concept of cerebral damage.
B.A.: I'm getting tired of this rap, Murdock.
Murdock: [In his normal accent] You're tired of it? How do you think I feel? I have to listen to it all day.
B.A. grabs Murdocks shoulder. Murdock grins and raises his hand to indicate that he volunteers.
-- from "Pros and Cons"

Which is even funnier if you can see their expressions.

A job went wrong, possibly because Face wasn't holding up his part of the job, and B.A. got shot in the leg. He's not happy and has promised, loudly and repeatedly, to take it out of Face's hide just as soon as he can walk. While he's getting treatment, Face is pacing around the living room and Hannibal is sitting on the couch lighting a cigar.
Face: It was my fault.
Hannibal: It was nobody's fault. We got the client out alive. That's what counts.
Face: Yeah, well you're not the one he wants to bust into little pieces. Did you see the look in his eye?
Hannibal: Oh yeah. Scary.
Face: Oh. Hannibal, you... you talk him out of it, won't you?
Hannibal: Face, if anybody could talk B.A. out of anything, he'd be a professional wrestler. Now, give him some time. He'll cool off. The worst thing that can happen is he'll take a couple of swings at you.
Face: One ought to do it.
Hannibal: Face, B.A. loves you.
Face: Yeah... he does?
Hannibal: Told me so himself.
-- from "Black Day at Bad Rock"

That's a conversation I'd be interested in hearing. Not sure how that would have come about.

As of half way through season one:
So far, I'd avoid 101-102 "Mexican Slayride" for being boring and full of awful stereotypes about Mexicans and some really awful yellow face, and 107 "The Rabbit Who Ate Las Vegas" for the team implying threats of rape and black face (even if it was mocked by B.A.). Otherwise, the show's been mostly okay about race. I mean, they've had a couple of mixed race gangs (corrupt cops in one ep and bikers in another), and no characters of colour as heroes of the week so far, but it's not as bad as I initially thought.

B.A.'s continual awesomeness makes up for a lot. The man's a mechanical genius. You could lock him in a cave with a box of scrapes, and he might not make a suit of armour the flies, but whatever he came up with would be impressive. I wonder if Movie!B.A. is good with computers.

Murdock isn't as overtly batshit as I remember him being, and Hannibal is very... happy. And probably crazier than Murdock. Hannibal is the character who changed the most between here and the movie, but they're in rather different circumstances. The man in the show has had ten futile years on the run to go as nuts as he is. I don't think he has any real hope of anything changing, so his boys and the jazz is all he has left.