Far West of Outremer

Hey, Circle-of-Doom folks-- a review of an interesting-looking novella, which has an interesting take on the "magical shifter insta-bond-you-are-totally-my-destined-mate" trope.

Specifically:

Hero: My animal side says you are my mate!
Heroine: That's nice.
Hero:... but... you... I...we...
Heroine: Don't really know each other yet? Yes, I completely agree.
Hero: But... mate-bond!
Heroine: That's according to _your_ animal side. _My_ animal side, however, does not really do that insta-bond thing.

I have to say, first, of course, that I am now imagining the cracktastic directions this could go in in, say, RK fanfic, and second, that I really like the idea of a heroine who does not just say, "Oh, well, if your animal side says we are mates, clearly we need to go get naked."

(oh, who am I kidding, my reaction is like 95% cracktastic directions that could go in....)

Around here, at Holiday-time, we sometimes run into the Dance of the Packages. You know the one--where more than one person in a house has stuff on order.... and perhaps there are things in the packages that are relevant to the other person in the house. Right. So, the other day, the doorbell rings; d_ragondaughter and I are sitting downstairs, and we both race (in a dignified fashion!) for the door.

d_ragondaughter Oh, that must be...

Me: The thing that I ordered!

Us: Wait.. the thing that you ordered?

d_ragondaughter Hang on... this has both of our names on it....

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Five things make a post...

1) The airline safety video's reassurance that a water landing is 'highly unlikely' just doesn't quite sound as reassuring when its saying that as the plane heads out over the Pacific.

2) It is really amusing how many folks brought their spouses and/or families with them for the duration of the program. I mean, the two whose husbands have legitimate research-y reasons for being here are one thing; the three people who brought spouse-and-baby make sense, I guess, sort of.... the guy who is here with his wife and four kids age six and under would probably have been beaten senseless with a bassinet if he'd tried to take off and leave her alone for over a month. Winner is still the guy who has managed to arrange his wedding in conjunction with being here.

3) I have managed to catch some episodes of a couple different live-action Japanese, Chinese, and Korean dramas on TV, with subtitles. Soooooo over-the-top. And the historical ones, I keep getting distracted by the amazing hair ornaments (there's a fantasty one, with evil scheming villainess, hapless king and queen, spunky princess, comic relief guards, brave captains.... cast of thousands, plus a very silly-looking official royal seal shaped like a turtle).

3a) Yeah, the plotbunnies are lurking.

4) Surprising feral cat population is occasionally noisy does not care what you think was a surprise.

5) Eee, amazing program full of fantastic brain-stretching stuff. *grin*

(yeah, more substantive posts anon)