Kaymyth

... Where's the rolling around laughing emoji when you need it? You win one internet.

Your mother could write an entire handbook on how to be passive-aggressive.

Well, to be blunt, if he put more Ruin into humanity they would become more destructive by nature. That would be somewhat unpleasant. Probably not necessary, but if he needs to siphon it off somewhere and doesn't want to release it to the general population, tucking it away into the Pits is as good a place as any. Especially if he's moved them somewhere less accessible.

I think, once again, that your parents are full of ash. Why would anyone want to marry someone who didn't appreciate all their oddball quirks? I have a husband who is also a geek, and let me tell you, he deeply appreciates having a wife who would rather go see the latest sci-fi action adventure than a standard chick flick any day. Part of my problem is that I inherited crappy joints. I was never able to wear skinny heels at all; my ankles don't have the strength to hold my balance on such a tiny contact with the ground. I'd take three steps, at best, and then fall over. Even in clunky heels, my knees would start to ache something fierce after not much time at all. It's gotten worse as I've gotten older, so I finally gave it all up as a bad idea and gave away all my heels. But I'll tell you what, I rock a pair of combat Docs something fierce. & I'm working on striking the right balance with this in my main character in Swift as Steel. Practically speaking, a double-steel Twinborn is really not going to want a lot of excess fabric flapping about her legs when she's trying to move a zillion mph, so trousers are going to be a lot more practical than dresses. By the same token, though, she eschews mistcoats/cloaks because all those strips of fabric could turn pretty quickly into hazards when you're a speedster. But Eva does have a girly side. She keeps her hair long because it's pretty. Sure, it'd be easier to bind up if there were less of it, but sacrifices, man. And just because she doesn't have the excuse to wear dresses often doesn't mean she doesn't like them. (And have you seen how much weaponry you can hide underneath a hoop skirt? Fashion can be useful!)

I wore knee-high Converse at my wedding. Seriously, it's like women's dress shoes are graded by how agonizing they are to wear.

I finally cleaned all of the heels out of my closet. My knees just can't take them anymore. Nowadays, my "dress shoes" are Doc Marten combat boots.

#90 needs revision. It should say, "I will never, ever wear heels." Stop. Period. No actiony hero should ever wear heels.

To be completely fair, that sort of thing is totally in character for Tony. He's an arrogant genius show-off; of course he's going to take a moment to show the villain how much smarter he is.

This x1000! Just because Person A is nice and Person B is nice doesn't necessarily mean that they are compatible. Relationships are way more complicated than that. To tell someone, "Oh, you should give him a chance because he's nice," is inherently disrespectful to both parties.

It sounds more to me like your brother is 12.

Don't you mean port and starboard? You know, since there's so much shipping going on, we should be using nautical terms. OK, that sounded funny in my head. I am officially too sleepy to internet.

This scenario....displeases me.

I always hated that one, too. And then life walked up and smacked me over the head with it. Well, I guess it was more like a recognition. My husband and I met on an internet dating site well-known for doing matches based on personality profiles. We e-mailed for a week before meeting. I laid eyes on him, and it was just this feeling of, "There you are! I've been looking for you freakin' everywhere." And then I dragged him off with my be-costumed friends (this was the day after Halloween) as we wandered around the Plaza reverse trick-or-treating. And then went back to a friends' place for the almost-annual tradition of Pumpkin Katana Baseball. And it didn't scare him off. We were pretty much together from that point on. Married for over 4 years, together for approaching 7. We broke all the rules of logic, but it worked for us. Though I'm pretty sure it had a lot more to do with luck than destiny. I've got plans. Oh, have I got plans. Dissect All The Tropes! Yes. Brandon does it right, and I generally trust him to know what he's doing. That said, if Wayne doesn't wind up alive at the end of the last AoL-era book, I am going to be a very, very unhappy ginger. I might be a wee bit of a fangirl.

This one is more than a trope, it's a full-blown societal problem. Girls aren't allowed to just not be interested in someone; they have to specifically say that there's something wrong with a guy before they're permitted to choose not to go out with him. Girls have to be "nice" and have to endure pressure from friends and family if they try and assert their autonomy. It's ridiculous and damaging. Yeah. I'm not above killing a character, but there needs to be a good reason for it. It needs to drive the plot, putting a character onto a specific path. Just having someone die because of Teh Sadz leaves me feeling, well, sad. Yep, which leads to a lot of guys engaging in stalkerish behavior because of the same societal pressure that leads girls to give in and date someone they're not really interested in. That's no good for anybody. Another trope that's just been done to death: The classic love triangle. There's the girl, there's the nice but boring guy, and then there's the "bad boy". The girl always, always picks the bad boy, and he's usually hiding a heart of gold. Just once, I'd like to see the girl look at them, think, "Gee, you know? I don't really see it working out with either of them," and telling them both to go fly a kite.

The Brave Heroine is facing the Dastardly Villain! He is irredeemably evil, and she has the upper hand. She has a weapon pointed at him, but he's not worried, because she is good and pure, and could never do something so horrible as kill a person. So he can just say, "Haha, you're too good, you can't kill me," and walk away scot-free to create more mayhem. No. No, no, no, no, no. He is going to go back out there and murder people, and you're just going to let him get away?! Shoot him! It doesn' thave to be a lethal shot! Shoot him in the butt if you have to, just SHOOT HIM!

Self-care is never a bad decision. *hugs*

Nope! I do have some plans for trope-busting. There are some tropes that I haaaaate, but they're not fantasy-limited tropes. They're just general storytelling tropes that almost every story wanders into.

I probably win. Monsters usually means magic, and once I have access to magic my subconscious is unstoppable.

Not got anything in particular to contribute, but I am quietly taking notes of Things Not To Do.

It's an interesting theory, to be sure, but I don't think the data backs it up. If it did, we'd have a statistically significant number of cases where people die of heart attacks while in mortal danger, and we really don't. Movies and TV do, sure, but not real life. And science has figured out that our bodies' stress reactions can't tell the difference between "boss is yelling at me" and "ohgodohgod I'm about to get eaten by a bear!" Basically, if we were likely to die when presented with a situation in which we thought we were about to die, we never would've made it out of the cave man stage. And....I would say yes, it is. That point happens when you start trying to do Jack Bauer's job in your sleep. I can defeat monsters all night long, but I am apparently absolute crap at trying to thwart domestic terrorists.

It's a weird thing to happen. My failed find-the-nuclear-bomb-in-the-amalgam-city dreams happened after binge watching a bit too much 24.

If that were true, we wouldn't see freak survivors of super-lucky falls. There are people who have survived skydiving accidents (like parachute didn't open) just out of sheer luck. I've heard a similar theory that goes, "If you die in your dreams, you die in real life. That's why you wake up just before impact." Well, I can tell you THAT isn't true. I've died in nuclear explosions in my dreams. There's definitely a moment of, "Oh, crap, I'm gonna die. Yep, there's the blast...I'm dead." *distinct post-death pause* "Oh, wait, OK. I'm awake now, whee!"

:( I believe that now would be a good time for those cuddleswarm bots.

She's called the Weird Dream Fairy, and I'm pretty sure that any complaints she receives will be taken as proof that she's doing her job perfectly well.

There is a 25% chance that I carry one of the colorblind genes. (There are actually two types of red-green colorblind, both linked to the X chromosome. Which one you have determines which cone you're missing.) My great-grandfather was direly red-green colorblind, so my grandmother is definitely a carrier. That makes my mom at 50% odds, and me at 25%. So far, all of the males in the family have lucked out, so we don't know amongst the gals is a carrier and who isn't. I am right-handed and (when I've had one) always wore my watch on my right hand. I never learned that there was a convention until I was already used to it, and refused to switch. Both of my parents are left-handed. I spent enough time in marching band throughout school that I still catch myself counting my steps in 8s. I cannot see Magic Eye stereograms. I blame my contact lenses. I hate cheesecake but love brussels sprouts. I have a genetic immunity to opiates. I learned of this while in the hospital. There's nothing quite like getting one's gallbladder out only to find that the "happy" drugs they give you for the post-surgery pain have absolutely zero effect. It wasn't until I got home and took an Aleve that I finally got some pain relief. I called and complained to my dad, and he said, "Oh, yeah, most of the family is like that." Thanks, Dad. NOW you tell me. On the flip side, there's a certain amount of grim humor to getting to tell an ER doc, while one is doubled over in ulcer pain, not to prescribe any of that useless narcotic crap. Ye gods, the look on his face was priceless.