@russkii: good point.

@tomqvaxy: They report on you, I imagine

@ParryLost: Is the problem software (no fonts) or pesky Russian keyboard layout? If the former, both Mac and PC have easy ways to load Russian (no clue about linux). If the latter (which results from the former), there may be phonetic keyboard options out there. I have a handy typed chart of the Russian keyboard…

@ParryLost: я-то знала что вы мне почему-то нравитесь!

Of course I'll watch, at least for a few episodes. As long as I start off expecting to be really angry and frustrated, I figure I can't possibly get too disappointed. Besides, the UK one is cute, but it's not Buffy or anything—the bar isn't THAT high.

@Dany_J: Were. But only because he died. They did many many things together before then, including the Clarion Writers Workshop

@Oxygengrrl: just to clarify, as the above is a bit flip. The actress playing Katniss looks a lot like Katniss is described as looking. The actress playing Rue looks nothing like Rue is described.

@Stephen Goldmeier: except for that whole skin-tone problem

Thanks for letting us know!

what's wrong with feisty tomboys and nerdy wimps, asks the nerdy, wimpy tomboy

I first read about the flying buttress in E.L. Konigsburg's A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver (Great book for a 10-12 year old. Does not hold up well on rereading as an adult, though). This was back when there was no internet, so I had to look them up in the encyclopedia to learn more (that book had me looking…

@Mortimer Gray: thanks. i'll check it out.

@Dexomega: Well, it's been done before, hasn't it (e.g., Faith/Buffy and Riley)? What I'm wondering is whether it's been done before in a hetero context but with the dude being the one who's twinned. Would it make for a different (character and audience) reaction?

@tlachtga: I see you. I just don't recognize you...

I have trouble telling film and television actors apart, particularly all the young new ones. I get them confused all the time, sometimes across ethnicities, often leading to my partner making fun of me. I attribute this tendency on my part to the fact that they do all kinda look alike.

I took this once, and was all over the place—fantastic on some, terrible on others. Then I went and had some whisky, let it work its way into my bloodstream, and came back to try again. This time around, I was closer to the mean on all of them. There's a lesson here.

Thanks Josh Wimmer and big thanks Vonda McIntyre. Interesting stuff, particularly the origin of Merideth, whom I have to admit I had read as female, too, thereby cheating myself out of one more pleasure from this novel until now.

poor critter.

@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: Absolutely—and I think the original argument was that the entire plot, and the full slate of heroic characters was aligned better with [female/feminine/femme/other option]-identification than most science fiction plots and characters up until that time.

@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: I like "femme" and "butch" myself. But I'm not sure any of the options ("femme," "female," or "feminine") comfortably apply here. We seem to be talking about jobs and attitudes that are traditionally associated with one or the other sex (healing vs. fighting) but the association is…