Ruth Sadelle Alderson

Today I'm thankful for Little Mosque on Hulu and the people on Tumblr who blogged about it. I'm about halfway through the series, and I've laughed a lot.

This entry moves from gushing to contemplative and critical to critical. This is an entry comprised mostly of pop culture critique along political lines, specifically around issues of sex and race. If that is not fun for you, or you don't think that's a worthwhile use of fannish energy, you should skip this entry.

This entry includes spoilers for all aired episodes of all three of these shows.

Rizzoli and Isles

Have you ever watched a buddy cop show and thought, "If only this were about women"? If so, Rizzoli & Isles is the show for you. Angie Harmon plays detective Jane Rizzoli while Sasha Alexander is medical examiner Maura Isles. Together, they solve cases. They're also the kind of buddy cops who are practically married. They go undercover in a lesbian bar in season one and pretend to be together (unfortunately badly) in season two. They bicker and talk about fashion and facts and people. The show also does a fantastic job of including Jane's family. And I like the male cops. My two favorite things from this season: ( Spoilers )

Haven

Earlier this year, norwich36 linked me to an anonymous thread about shows with strong women characters to catch up on over the summer. Haven was one of them, so I started watching it. I was fascinated by how many people commented back about it when I tweeted about it, particularly for a show I'd never even heard of before. It's really good. Those of you reading this might also like it: the lead character is a woman, and there's a fantastic slash pairing. (Nate/Duke forever! Where is my story where they're exes?) But in the context of this post, what I want to talk about is how Audrey is interestingly nonsexual and nonsexualized, which is not something you see in women on TV. ( Spoilers )

Suits

In case you haven't noticed, I love Suits. The plot is stupid and gets in the way of a really fun show, but the fun stuff is enough to make up for it. My strategy has been to watch it once, and then only watch the fun parts again. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about women, so let's talk about the women on Suits. Parts of fandom (including me) are very excited about the women: Gina Torres as Jessica Pearson, lawyer whose name is in the firm name and who got Harvey out of the mail room and into law school in some fashion we haven't been made privy to yet; Sarah Rafferty as Donna, Harvey's fantastic assistant who gets all the best lines; Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane, paralegal who's smarter than most of the firm but with test-taking anxiety that's keeping her from taking the LSATs; and Vanessa Ray as Jenny, Mike's best friend Trevor's girlfriend who later becomes Mike's girlfriend. (Okay, fandom isn't as fond of Jenny. I think there are strong possibilities for some interesting stories there, but fandom's "OH MY GOD A WOMAN" thing means no one's likely to write them.)

But what I haven't seen yet (largely because I haven't gone looking for Suits conversation outside of the two email threads I'm on) is any discussion of the ways in which the show's portrayal of women is problematic. I think there's a layer of sexism on the show that's particularly insidious precisely because it's under the surface. ( Details/Spoilers )

While I was visiting her, lakeeffectgirl showed me Sherlock, which I loved. It has the same two elements that I love about H50: they're married (or at least well on their way to together, complete with everyone thinking they're together) from the beginning, and it's funny. (My favorite line: "I'm in shock. Look, I've got a blanket.") I've read my way through the first few pages of highest hit count and longest things (minus anything that sounded ghastly or was part of a series) on AO3, and I'm finding the same thing with this fandom's fic that I found with H50: a lot of it is boring. My sample size of two is actually too small to make any definitive judgments, but I'm wondering if there's something about fictional person fandoms - either in terms of who they attract or in terms of the canon itself - that makes this more likely. Anyway, my point here is that I would love some recs! And I will give you some too.

First up are two stories I read on recs from lakeeffectgirl that are basically the same story, except one is kink and the other has texting. etothepii's "everything you won't tell me (is mapped in your scars)" is the kink one. It's set in a world where everyone is either a dom or a sub. It's actually the third in a series, but I originally read it without reading the prequels, and it made perfect sense. (I did then accidentally read them last night, and they are also very good.) misslucyjane's "My Phone's on Vibrate For You" is the texting one. They both hit my love of stories where the characters are involved before they ever put a name to it. From "everything you won't tell me (is mapped in your scars)":

"He told me to choose between you and him," John admits, and looks away. His mouth feels suddenly dry. "He didn't like that I help you with your cases."

"So you chose me," Sherlock says, softly. There is something in his voice that John can't identify, and on someone else he'd almost call it awe.

"I don't need a sub," he says. But I need you, I need what we have.

Sherlock beams at him.

From "My Phone's on Vibrate For You":

Then came the day when Sherlock texted him a blunt, "Come home and fuck me. SH," and a few weeks after that John woke up to a text of, "I'm downstairs and naked. Where are you and why aren’t you here? SH," and then only a few days passed when Sherlock texted him from across the room, "Take off your clothes. I want to do stuff to you. SH," which made John laugh out loud, but he also took off his clothes.

Because it's me, after reading through a lot of unsatisfactory things (remember the part where I said it was funny? Why is the fic all serious?), I finally got down to business and started working my way through things tagged john/sherlock+d/s at delicious. I have two recs from that reading.

First up is thisprettywren's "Transport," in which Sherlock's kink of choice when he needs to decompress is sensory deprivation. John happens to be filling in as the medical person on duty at the club where he does this and finds out. This was so good, and I absolutely believed that Sherlock would need a break from taking in all that information.

The abrupt removal of the touch on his skin was one of the most disorienting moments of Sherlock's life, the sudden lack of connection making his head spin. So intently had he been focusing on that single point of contact that, when it disappeared, his first dizzying fear was that it was he who had been obliterated.

They'd played games before, confronting him with teasing bursts of stimulation that came and went, leaving him to swim in a void, keeping him guessing. It was enjoyable and distracting, and when it happened again he'd accept it as he accepted everything else.

It was also not what this was. Or, he didn't think it had been. That intense, sustained connection hadn't been teasing at all, it was... exploratory. Communicative. Then it was severed and he called out for it, biting down hard on the gag between his teeth, once again grateful for the anchoring presence of the leather restraints. Just this, he thought, here, and the pressure of the straps against his skin was the proof he needed.

The other thing I read that I really liked is thedeadparrot's "If I Fell." In a lot of ways, it's the same kind of d/s fic you might find in any fandom, but then, I like that sort of thing.

"Do you trust me?" John asks when Sherlock turns to look at him.

He's not touching Sherlock. There is a careful two feet of space between them, yet Sherlock wants to lean towards him, wants to bury his face in the wool of John's jumper and just breathe in the scents of it, London and dim sum and John's particular brand of detergent. "Yes," Sherlock says, and the word tastes strange on his tongue.

"Good," John says, as he brushes his lips across Sherlock's, light enough to be a tease. "I want you kneeling."

Sherlock drops to his knees almost as soon as John's finished the sentence. "You knew," Sherlock says, still feeling a bit petulant. He's not in that place in his head yet, where all he can do is want and obey and need. "You knew and you didn't say anything."

"I suspected," John says. "I didn't know until just now." He runs a hand through Sherlock's hair, his fingers digging lightly into Sherlock's scalp. "You'd be obedient at the strangest times and I could never suss out why that was."

This is the part where I talk about this entry.

To preface this entry: I don't know if this is everything I want to say, or even how I want to say it. This doesn't flow as smoothly as I wish I could make it go. This feels, to me, more like thinking via my fingers than the actual essay someone else might make out of the same ideas.

I also think I should note that I spent much of the morning being teary-eyed about Sarah Connor Chronicles. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

You should also know there are spoilers in this entry. I've put them behind a cut, but if you've come here via a link that takes you directly to this entry's page, you might not notice the warnings.

This is the part where I talk about women.

I've been saying that all my reading about race, racism, and anti-racism has resensitized me to issues of sexism, but that's not really true. My resensitization started before that, with Leverage's "The Stork Job." ( This part of this entry has Leverage spoilers. )

( This part of this entry has Dollhouse spoilers. )

norwich36 pointed me to a pair of coffeeandink's posts about Sarah Connor Chronicles. ( This part of this entry has Sarah Connor Chronicles spoilers. )

I think it's worth noting that SCC and Dollhouse are both the brainchildren of men: Dollhouse is Joss Whedon's and SCC is Josh Friedman's. I skimmed the list of writers on IMDb's full cast and crew pages for each of them, and Dollhouse has more women writers than SCC, both by numbers and proportion. Extra interesting to me is that the two pieces of SCC fan fic that I've read that were absolutely incredible (I have to admit to not having read much, just most of the things at Yuletide and a handful of other miscellaneous things, and most of it tends to blend together) were both written by a man: "Cinderella, Made of Steel" and "Seven Sunday Mother-Daughter Mornings," both by David Hines. You can't end oppression without involving the oppressors. The Egyptians are God's people too. (Happy Passover.)

For me, in some very real ways, the season finale of SCC marks the end of this TV season. With that done for the season (or possibly forever), there isn't anything I'm going to look forward to in quite the same way. But I've also been busying myself with watching the first episodes of a bunch of midseason shows.

This is the part where I talk about lgbt people.

One of the shows I watched the first two episodes of was Cupid. I have vague memories of seeing the ads for the Jeremy Piven version, but I don't think I ever watched it. I thought I'd watch this version because I really like both Bobby Cannavale and Sarah Paulson. Then the first episode had both Sean Maguire (I had no idea he was actually British) and Marguerite Moreau, both of whom are pretty and I like. ( This part of this entry has Cupid spoilers. )

I've been thinking about characters who are retconned into being straight, both because it's one of the things that happens to the lgbt superheroes on Perry Moore's list and because minkhollow brought it up in brown_betty's book discussion. ( This part of this entry has Supernatural spoilers. )

( This part of this entry has Kings spoilers. )

( This part of this entry has Sarah Connor Chronicles spoilers. )

One of the midseason shows I watched the first ep of this week is The Unusuals. If I could choose only one midseason ensemble cop show about a rich kid who became a cop, it would be this one (over Southland, but I'll watch another ep or two of that because Ben McKenzie did sell it at the end and Regina King is hot), although that's not much of a rec. It's not as funny as the ads made it look, and Amber Tamblyn is the kind of cute-pretty that they should be doing something with (in terms of the character) rather than ignoring. ( This part of this entry has The Unusuals spoilers. )

I've been watching Leverage via Yidio (TNT's finally putting them up online, but they're seriously delayed). The most annoying thing is that Yidio and TNT are not in sync - Yidio has the wrong episode titles every time TNT airs them out of their original intended order. Actually, the out of orderness is annoying for other reasons too. ( Lightly Spoilerish )

The show is lots of fun, despite the occasional hugely obvious product placement and the shoehorning in of one of Chris's songs for cross-promotional purposes. ( Mediumly Spoilerish )

If you liked the Ocean's movies, you'll probably like Leverage, and if, like me, you saw the original trailer back in the spring or summer or whenever and thought, "Oh, Chris, why are you always on terrible shows?" you should know that the second trailer actually made it look as good as it is, which is way, way better than how the first trailer made it look.

When I first started watching, I really wanted Eliot/Hardison/Parker, and I knew even before the show first aired that Eliot/Hardison was going to be the pairing of choice (both thanks to the posts on c_kanedaily and because it's Christian Kane and Aldis Hodge). (with_a_kay wrote an entertaining, non-spoilery snippet.) The more I watch, though, the more I want to bake Parker cookies and cuddle her and be the mommy she never had. Ahem.

Anyway, I'm kind of afraid to go looking for Leverage fic, but if you know of anything good, especially anything Parker-centered or Eliot/Hardison/Parker, tell me about it!

I keep meaning to write something about the movies I've seen so far this year (Children of Men, Smokin' Aces, The Queen [which may yet get its own entry about how the Royals were my first fandom], Pan's Labyrinth, and Breach), the awesome concert I went to (The Chieftains; you should also go if their tour is coming anywhere near you), and the completely frivolous book I totally want (The Science of Sexy by Bradley Bayou), but I don't think I'm going to get to it. Instead, I bring you the important parts of my Escapade 2007 experience.

Flavor Flav is much shorter in person
Flavor Flav was on the same plane from Sacramento to Burbank as amatia and me. As the section heading says, he's much shorter in person. He also actually wears the clock. It looks like one of those plastic kitchen clocks you can buy at Target for two dollars, and it's hanging from a gold chain amongst other bling. I have no idea what he was doing in Sacramento.

Non-famous people we encountered
When we went out for milkshakes on Sunday afternoon, we went to a small coffee shop which was mostly empty. The only people in there were the barista and a guy with his dog at one of the tables. Molly immediately chatted up the dog. I had this whole thing in my head about how the guy and the barista were in love and he was just hanging out with her while she was at work. And then she asked him for a dollar so she could make the tip jar an even 20, and he said something about having to tip his girlfriend. It was very cute.

Fangirl or Scientist? You decide.
Like last year, there was a science conference ending as we arrived at the hotel. Fangirl or Scientist is a pretty easy game to play. There were only two people we saw who could be either. We also easily spotted norwich36 and paraviondeux in the airport, and not just because they were near the rental car counters where we had agreed to meet.

Hot Girl's identity revealed (but not to you)
You may remember from last year's con report that we were trying to identify a woman we referred to only as Hot Girl. This year, we discovered who Hot Girl is. And, no, I'm not going to tell you. (She seemed vaguely alarmed when I felt compelled to confess that we'd referred to her as Hot Girl.)

I will, however, tell you two more things:

1. I sent Molly an email last year speculating that [Hot Girl's LJ username] might be Hot Girl, which goes to show you that my instincts are good.

2. We had talked early in the weekend with other slashers about how we wanted to find out who Hot Girl was. Later in the weekend, we had this discussion with one of them:

Other Slasher: [Hot Girl's name] is the hot girl you were talking about, right?
Us: Yes.
Other Slasher: I knew exactly who you were talking about. I just didn't know her name.

Panels
Yes, I attended panels. More than I expected, actually.

Panels I led
The femslash panel gets its own post with transcribed flip chart notes.

But You're A Slash Fan! started out with a large number of people raising their hands in answer to "Who likes SGA but just can't see the McShep?" We had a little bit of interesting discussion about whether or not it's socially acceptable in fannish circles to be a slash fan and a het fan. And then it somehow devolved into a discussion of newspaper content in the 19th century. I then suggested that slashers are the Basques in Spain while het fans are the Basques in France. I'm not sure that made sense to everyone.

Panels I attended
Quest for *Guh* - Writing Powerful Sex Scenes was worth attending. It almost hit my limit for amount of time to sit still and listen, but it was good, despite the fact that one of the attendees had a tendency to dominate the discussion and two others were a bit overheated. The handout is great, and available online. There was something Aristide/Mairead said that was particularly good, and now I can't remember what it was. Perhaps I should have taken more useful notes over the weekend.

Is It A Crowd - Or An Orgy? was about how the ensemble show has replaced the buddy show as a staple of TV. Someone mentioned Martin/Danny (Without a Trace), and I said, "dannyandmartin.com," and people just laughed at me. Hmpf! I also tried to bring up comedies, and no one wanted to talk about that. What was most interesting to me was what we didn't talk about: Why ensemble shows have replaced the buddy show. I think there's something there about how ensemble shows are a way to put women on TV without alienating audiences who want (or who content producers/marketers think want) to watch men on TV. The other most interesting thing was the woman across the room with the drop spindle; I could not stop watching her. (I think we stayed all the way through this one, but it's possible that it actually belongs on the list below.)

I'd never been to minotaurs' Sex Tips for Slash Writers panel, so this year I went. (I liked it that they put both sex panels on the same day.) Apparently the prostate feels like the tip of your nose. I found the whole panel highly entertaining and informative.

Panels I started to attend
As you may remember from years past, Molly and I have a habit of ducking out of panels that take a sour turn.

I really liked the idea of Cops, Spies, and Secret Agents. The reality, not so much. One of the moderators was disorganized, and the other one admitted straight up that they'd suggested this panel as a way to shoehorn a Pros panel into the schedule in case the actual Pros panel didn't make it. I'd never seen most of the things they brought up as examples, so I left early.

We went to the Mystical Bonds panel, but then it wasn't as interesting as advertised, so we left.

We intended to go to the Fueling The Fires of Genderfuckery panel, but we were hungry and based on the panel leader and the people gathering, it looked like it was likely to be all HP, so we went to lunch instead.

We also intended to go to Writing Race and Alien Characters, but it didn't sound very interesting at the beginning and I was restless, so we went to have milkshakes instead.

The Party and other social things
Many people we're usually excited to see weren't there this year (j_crew_guy and elekdragon, dine and sorchar, meaganola, mousewrites). I also noticed that there weren't as many men there this year, and typhoidk observed that there weren't as many folks who aren't white.

All was not lost, however. We spent some quality time hanging out with hederahelix and crew (typhoidk, reccea, and kuwsi_dilla), and even stuck out way more of the party than we usually do (primarily because we were at a table with those folks). I also met another slasher from my town, so we're talking about starting up some kind of fannish gathering here.

We went to He-He after we left the party, and stuck out two rounds before I reached my limit of spending time with other people. That was, however, the only time the whole weekend that I was fed up with other people. Molly and I decided that having only the two of us in our room worked really well.

Mal and other acquisitions
In addition to the aforementioned milkshakes, we had a lot of good food. In fact, the only bad food we ate all weekend was in airports. If you're ever in Ventura, I highly recommend Full of Beans (coffee shop with excellent muffins and yummy milkshakes), Cafe Bariloche (South American food), and Nature's Grill (healthy and yummy, with excellent smoothies).

For the past couple of years, the con has given away 4x6 photos with the name badges. This year, I got someone I didn't recognize (from Supernatural, I think). Because I didn't even know who it was, I was willing to trade for just about anything. Someone wandered by and traded me for Rodney (from SGA). I was then able to trade Rodney to Molly for the Mal picture she got.

I then bought way more Mal in the dealers room: a Serenity crew photo (8x10), a Firefly cast as themselves photo (8x10), a different Firefly cast as themselves photo (8x10), a racier variation on one of the Firefly cast as themselves photos (4x6), a hot Mal photo (4x6), a photo of Mal and Jayne with guns (4x6) (I'm not a Mal/Jayne person at all, which is a subject for another day, but it's a great photo) (4x6), and a Serenity postcard that's the movie logo. The 8x10s are going over my bed (possibly with green matting or frames) and the postcard is going in my office at work (in an orangish wood frame). I put the hot Mal 4x6 and the Mal and Jayne 4x6 on the fridge, but I have no idea what to do with the other 4x6s.

Molly's friend Kellie Lynch (like the namedropping?) was in the dealers room with a booth for her company, Iris Print (possibly not work safe). Molly gave me A Strong and Sudden Thaw for Christmas, and I loved it, and I told Amazon that, so Amazon started reccing me the other Iris Print titles. I'd been thinking about buying Connections, but I wanted to look at it first. This gave me the perfect opportunity, and the book was my only non-Mal dealers' room purchase.

We pulled two items for Sky off the swap table, and they'll be in the mail soon (since I didn't do it this morning). I also got two items from the swap table for myself: a hugely long King Arthur promo poster I want to put over my bookshelves (preferably in a red frame, but I'm never going to find something the right size [21x50]), and a tape labeled "Twitch City #1."

Fandoms
Torchwood is apparently the hot new fandom, and Life on Mars also had some buzz. There was also lots of talk all weekend about SGA and Supernatural, and BSG amongst the people I was hanging out with. I spent a large portion of the weekend and at least half of the two panels I led having no idea what people were talking about. I'd never even heard of Torchwood or Life on Mars before they started showing up in proposed panel descriptions, and I've never seen SGA, BSG, or Supernatural. I kept looking at pictures in the dealers room and saying, "I don't know who this is." I did manage to pick up that the guys in Supernatural are Sam and Dean, that one of the actors is named Jenson Ackles (And it's entirely possible that someone will appear to tell me I've gotten the name wrong. I could look it up, but that feels like cheating in this context.), and that one of the actors is very, very tall while the other is not.

Yay new friends!
I've gone on a post-Escapade friending spree (when you friend one person at a time after months of contemplation, four people counts as a spree), never mind the fact that half the people I friended didn't even go to Escapade and half of those half wouldn't be interested in Escapade and may, in fact, mock me for attending.

That's all folks!
At this point, I don't think I'm going back to Escapade next year. Admittedly, I did have a lot of fun: I got to spend a whole week with Molly, had some fun times with the people mentioned in the social life section above, got to be my fannish self unrestricted and unmocked, attended some good panels, and acquired fannish items. Having said that, I don't think Escapade is my crowd anymore. A lot of the people I would usually hang out with weren't there, I was put off by how late and disorganized the panel scheduling was, there's something of a "you kids and your internet" feel about the con, I'm not particularly fannish about anything specific these days, and I sometimes *gasp* actually like the canon het relationships on a show.

I am planning to go to BASCon this year since I rolled over my membership last year (or at least I sent them a letter saying I wanted to; no one ever sent me a confirmation), and Molly and I are seriously thinking about going to WisCon in May, so you may yet see me at a con. And, of course, if you're the fannish sort and you're in the Chico area, I'm always happy for some fannish fun. (I got horrified looks and possibly some sympathy when I explained to a table full of fangirls that the only friends I actually spend time with on a regular basis are not just men, but straight men.)

Recs
Femslash recs are in the femslash panel post.

I love The Class, and I kept trying to rec it to people, without much success. I really like the het relationships. There's a canonically gay character who hangs out with one of the straight men, especially when his partner's out of town. Palmer (played by Jaime King) hits on one of the other women. It's completely compelling, and one of my can't miss shows. (I also started watching partway through the season, so you don't have to watch from the beginning to get it.)

I also recced Keri Arthur's Riley Jenson novels to, uh, someone. I used to not like werewolf or vampire novels, but now I read a lot more of them, and I really like this series. (I finished the book I was reading [Princess Academy] this morning and promptly went to Barnes and Noble for Tempting Evil, which came out this week.) I think the reason I was reccing them is that there's a whole lot of really hot sex. The downside to this is that I can't take the books to work. But I don't really mind reading a whole book over the weekend.

I again recced moonwhip's "Childish Things," a lovely Mal/Kaylee story. I think I only mentioned it to Molly.

Things I forgot
I'm sure there are some (even with all the things I've remembered to include over the last five days that I've been working on this), but as I've forgotten them, I don't know what they are. I do know Molly and I had a discussion about something (possibly a Vin Diesel movie) and she said there might be some at Yuletide. Not knowing what it was, I can't really go looking for it.

And now that I've posted this, I can meet the boys for lunch, and then go read other people's con reports.

I read nwhepcat's "These Songs of Freedom" recently, and I've been working my way through Arsenic Jade's Harry Potter fic. I also watched almost two episodes of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries in the last week or so. What all these things have in common is that they're full of plot--the Harry Potter and Buffy stuff has magical elements, but that's not the plot--and, except for "These Songs of Freedom," which is set in Africa, they're British.

I find I'm in a bit of a dip where there isn't much I want to read coming out for a while. I'd really like some book recs of things I might like in light of what I've been enjoying recently. Anything would be appreciated; available in paperback or at my local library would be best.

I've had a rough summer, emotionally speaking, which required a lot of comfort. Consequently, I've memorized all of my favorite romance fics/books/movies that I didn't already have memorized.

This is where you come in. I'm looking for more romance. I want declarations of love, dramatic scenes in the rain, running through the terminal to catch the plane. Rec me your favorite romance fics, books, movies.

To give you an idea of what I'm looking for, and to serve as something of an exchange, here's a list of all the favorites I can think of:

Fic

Xander and the Magic Lamp by tesla321, Spike/Xander.

Francesca, Jim/Blair. I like lots of Francesca's stuff, but particular comfort favorites are "Nature's Conferences," "Stands for Comfort," "Bother," and "Legacy."

Little Runaway and Little Runaway 2 by tabaqui, Spike/Xander.

Conjunctions by flaming_muse, Spike/Xander.

Entrenous (website, LJ memories), Spike/Xander, Xander/Andrew. Entrenous has written many good romances. I particularly like "Shacking Up," "Expecting," "A Living Growing Thing," "For the Count," and "Spander on Ice."

Spikedluv, Spike/Xander. Favorites include "When Visions Come True" and the untitled human-au cop-thingy.

Lilith Sedai's Elements series (fics at Master Apprentice), Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan.

LadyCat (website, LJ memories), Spike/Xander. I have some favorites, but what they are depends on whatever mood I'm in at the moment.

The Long and Winding Road, The Long and Winding Road II, and Missing Scene: The Long and Winding Road by Kassandra, Mulder/Krycek.

A Week of Wrong and Your Horoscope for Today by Anna S., Spike/Xander.

Loserville by Shrift, Spike/Xander.

Wordsmith, Spike/Xander. In addition to the "Reconstruction," "Restoration," "Reunification" trilogy, I also like "Spike's Boys."

Recoveries by Lianne Burwell, Vic/Mac.

Extraordinarily Resilient by Cori Lannam, Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan.

The Familiar and Transfigurations by Resonant, Harry/Snape and Harry/Draco, respectively.

Work With Me by Anne Higgens, Vic/Mac.

Books

Dancer of the Sixth by Michelle Shirey Crean. One of my absolute favorite romances of all time.

Bellwether by Connie Willis. One of my other absolute favorite romances of all time.

"Spice Pogrom," "Time Out," and "At the Rialto" in Impossible Dreams by Connie Willis. One screwball comedy and two science romances.

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. Fairy tale retelling.

Deerskin by Robin McKinley. Another fairy tale retelling.

Spindle's End by Robin McKinley. Yet another fairy tale retelling.

Silver Woven in My Hair by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. Yes, it's another fairy tale retelling.

The Complete Ivory by Doris Egan. Not a fairy tale retelling, but nicely romantic. (I actually own each of the books separately; they've now been re-released in one volume.)

Light Raid by Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice. Yummy.

Promised Land by Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice. A forced marriage on a farm love story.

The Merro Tree by Katie Waitman. Interspecies same-sex romance, which is not really the main point of the story, but which is very romantic.

Sable, Shadow, and Ice by Cheryl J. Franklin. Every time I read this, I feel like I shouldn't like it because it's so cheesy. And yet I love it.

Mel by Liz Berry. Another one that's cheesy, but I love. Alas, I discovered on Saturday that our local library no longer has a copy of either this or Easy Connections, which finally started to creep me out on my last reread.

Quest For a Maid by Frances Mary Hendry. Historical romance for kids.

The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye. A good new-school fairy tale.

Mara: Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. Teen romance set in Ancient Egypt.

Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith. Weak battle scenes, but a nice romance.

Movies

She's All That. My love for Freddie Prinze Jr. movies is well documented.

10 Things I Hate About You. Mmm, Shakespeare retelling.

Love Actually. Romantic movie with romantic music.

The Princess Bride. Everyone's favorite new-school fairy tale.

King Arthur. I love this, and one of the things I love is the way the romance is so toned down.

IQ. Einstein's niece and a mechanic in love.

Bringing Up Baby. Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant speaking very fast.

Comics

"Dramatic Spring," From Eroica With Love story. What I find so romantic about this is the last page where we see Klaus trusting Dorian to watch over him as he sleeps.

Daisy Kutter: The Last Train. Excellent, excellent western.

Uncanny X-Men 318. The arc that ended with this issue is what made me want some Bobby/Emma.

TV

"Thespis" and "April is the Cruelest Month," Sports Night. Two very romantic Casey/Dan episodes.

Wonderfalls. Mmm. A great story premise with a very nice romance.

Keen Eddie. Fabulous romance in the midst of a cop show.

The O.C. Ryan and Marissa are everything I could possibly want in a teen TV couple.