The Mezzanine

Another piece of Superman Returns fic. Because I'm incorrigible.

Title: Nothing to See Here
Rating: G
Word Count: 2510

Summary: Now that Superman's spending time with their son, Lois is learning more about him.


( a not-so-secret identity )

For some reason, I felt moved to write femslash pirate dubcon smut. Not sure where that came from.

Title: And a Bottle of Rum
Rating: R
Word Count: 1536

Summary: Seriously, guys, this is just smut.

( yo ho ho )

This is for my urban fantasy setting, previously seen here and here.

Slowly but surely, I seem to be doing a thing…

( drabbles! )

So, I've written some drabbles. They are original fiction, for an urban fantasy setting. (And yes, I'm still writing more of them.)

I'd love it if you friendly people could have a read…

( five drabbles )

It’s been about eight years since my nephew auditioned for, and won, a role in the School of Rock musical touring Australia, New Zealand, and China.

Coincidentally, his little sister is eight years younger than he is.

She is currently nine, and about to audition to be in the Melbourne tour of Annie.

I am, of course, fairly biased. But I’m also pretty knowledgeable about performing arts stuff, especially singing. And my niece is a DAMN GOOD singer. Like… way better than her elder brother, the professional jazz musician, who toured in musicals as a kid. (He can sing, but he got his SoR role for his awesome piano playing.)

My niece can hit the notes, and project, and put feeling into her voice, and change her accent to match Annie’s, and sound different for different songs. And she’s NINE.

There’s a good likelihood that she’ll actually get cast as something. And I will watch with amazement as my sister’s family does this whole thing again.



(My daughter is going to be wild with envy. But that’s a separate issue.)

This morning, I was discussing politics on Reddit (as one does), and used the phrase "por que no los dos?".

Instead of saying, in the language that is both my native language and the language of the discussion, "why not both?".

I did so because "por que no los dos?" is a phrase – a phrase that people know – and I felt that that phrase held the meaning I was trying to convey. Which wasn't exactly the meaning given by the words "why not both?" (or even by the words "por que no los dos?") but a meaning that is particular to that phrase as a known phrase.

…if you get what I mean there.

I just find it fascinating that, at least to my brain, the five-word phrase has a distinct meaning that is all its own, even though I can't really express that meaning other than by saying "But… it's what the words mean, but also what the phrase means. It's the vibe, y'know?".

I was discussing Love Actually with my friends, and someone mentioned that the relationship involving Keira Knightley is extremely problematic.

I said, "Yep. But it's one of my favourite stories in the movie."

Everyone stared.

"Why?" they asked. "It's all so… unhealthy."

"EXACTLY," I said.



Because, honestly, my love for fictional relationships has little to do with how healthy I think that relationship would be in real life. If anything, the reverse is true.

Are you a soulless vampire, desperate to stake/screw/destroy the disgustingly soulled vampire lover who you simultaneously adore and despise? I will ship that.

Are you desperately, sort-of secretly, in love with a woman who you keep on calling a "whore", while she insults your job, your skills, and your personal hygiene any chance she gets? I will ship that.

Are you fighting an intergalactic war against your nemesis, father of your daughter, whom you are openly ordering killed while secretly arranging for him to slip through your fingers? I will ship that.

Are you terrified of your wife leaving you, and have arranged a fake pregnancy so that she will stay? Or have you discovered the whole fake-pregnancy thing and are secretly plotting your husband's downfall, while still pretending everything's fine? I will ship that.

Are you utterly devoted to your commanding officer, and following his every order, especially the ones about tying him up, humiliating him, kicking him, and making him lick your shoes? I will ship that.

Are you having fight scenes that somehow morph into sex scenes, where you keep wanting to hurt each other but also can't stay away? I will absolutely ship that.



Healthy relationships are great. They're also – for me – kinda boring to watch. Give me the problematic weirdness any day.

Advice for budding musicians who want to get good at playing with a group: JOIN A CHURCH BAND.

No, seriously. I have so much experience at different varieties of music-playing – but the kind of experience you get out of being in a church band is a whole other level.

You see… half the people there will kind of suck at music.

By playing piano in a church band, I have learnt:
- how to play with guitar and drums accompanying
- how to play without the drums, because the drummer failed to show up
- how to get the drummer into a different tempo by thumping the piano keys loudly, because he started the song at completely the wrong speed
- how to play in a way that supports the singers rather than overpowering them
- how to deal with the singers accidentally skipping two bars
- how to notice that the singers are unexpectedly repeating the chorus rather than moving on to the next verse
- how to loudly start playing the tune when the singers completely lose track of what they should be doing
- how to play beautiful tinkly music while people go up for communion
- how to extend the beautiful tinkly music for far longer than you were planning because communion is taking forever
- how to change the entire song to a different key halfway through rehearsal, because the singers complain it's too high
- how to realise a few bars in that the guitarist is playing in a different key to you, and transpose the song on the fly to match what he's doing
- how to be ready to unexpectedly launch into the "Happy Birthday" song when the pastor gets overexcited about us being part of a community

I am so damn picky about Buffy/Spike fic.

I love it, I really do, but there are hundreds of things that make me nope right out of a fic, before it's even gotten going.

"Spike's crush on Buffy is revealed! (season 4)" - NOPE.
"Buffy realises how much Spike loves her! (season 5)" - NOPE.
"Buffy's friends accept her relationship with Spike, and they snuggle foreverafter! (season 6)" - NOPE.

It's not that I'm only interested in canon-compliant stuff, but there are some elements of the Buffy/Spike relationship that are, in my opinion, pretty essential:

- Spike needs to be evil, and start out NOT interested in Buffy.
- Buffy CANNOT trust Spike to love her until he's proven it in some self-sacrificing way (e.g. getting tortured by a goddess, or babysitting Dawn for several months).
- Spike is incapable of understanding healthy relationship dynamics until he gets a soul.

Unfortunately, this severely limits my ability to find fic I actually want to read. (Possibly I should write some more...?)

Longest fic I've ever written! It has chapters, and everything!

Title: Midnight Pizza, and Byline Obligations
Rating: PG
Word Count: 7830
Pairing: Lois Lane/Claire Kent

Summary: It's possible that Lois might have a crush on Superwoman. But she's not certain.


( Photographic fantasies )

( Hokey festivals )

( Impending disasters )

( Perilous heights )

( Theoretical discussions )

( Romantic evenings )

( Annoying coworkers )

( Fashion disasters )

( Late-night deadlines )

( Intriguing encounters )

( Gang-related explosions )

( Implausible theories )