a couple of recent fictional pet peeves

One:

Just once, just once could I please have a book/movie/series of books/comic/manga/what have you that a) is the sort of fiction in which it is possible for people to die and b) has twins as characters and lets them both survive? Once? Please? Double special brownie points if they are telepathic. Seriously, if I can't think of or locate a counter-example for a trope, it's gotten too damn pervasive.

Two:

Dear writers who work in worlds in which bodyswaps are possible: if I, personally, woke up in the morning and happened to find myself in the wrong body and specifically the wrong gender, I would, in fact, be able to tell pretty damn instantly. And without having to in any way look in a mirror or manually check. And I would notice the absence of breasts without having to jump up and down. Why? Because I have an elementary sense of where my own body is and what it is doing, which sense many fictional characters apparently lack.

Seriously, if I read *one more* piece of fiction in which a person who has been genderswapped feels slightly funny, has Horrible Suspicions and then goes and sticks a hand down their own pants in order to have said suspicions confirmed, I will... I will... well, it would not be pretty and you do not want me to have to do it.

Oh, and to the fanfic writer whose protagonists upon being bodyswapped with each other staggered around for days and days running into doors, misjudging distances, being unable to locate their centers of gravity, losing track of how much they could lift, and swearing whenever they tried to play a musical instrument: you, personally, win the internet. Especially since your protagonists were both male and differed only in height by a foot and in weight by a hundred-something pounds, and you had them speculate about how much worse it would have been had either of them wound up as a woman. Please, please, would more people do this sort of thing?

Aargh.

In completely unrelated news, I will be almost certainly internet-inaccessible from Thursday through Monday, as I am going to Montreal for the Farthing Party (yay!). Anyone who really, really needs to get hold of me should try my cell (bearing in mind that it had better be good, as the roaming charges are scary) or get hold of Ruth.

a couple of recent fictional pet peeves

One:

Just once, just once could I please have a book/movie/series of books/comic/manga/what have you that a) is the sort of fiction in which it is possible for people to die and b) has twins as characters and lets them both survive? Once? Please? Double special brownie points if they are telepathic. Seriously, if I can't think of or locate a counter-example for a trope, it's gotten too damn pervasive.

Two:

Dear writers who work in worlds in which bodyswaps are possible: if I, personally, woke up in the morning and happened to find myself in the wrong body and specifically the wrong gender, I would, in fact, be able to tell pretty damn instantly. And without having to in any way look in a mirror or manually check. And I would notice the absence of breasts without having to jump up and down. Why? Because I have an elementary sense of where my own body is and what it is doing, which sense many fictional characters apparently lack.

Seriously, if I read *one more* piece of fiction in which a person who has been genderswapped feels slightly funny, has Horrible Suspicions and then goes and sticks a hand down their own pants in order to have said suspicions confirmed, I will... I will... well, it would not be pretty and you do not want me to have to do it.

Oh, and to the fanfic writer whose protagonists upon being bodyswapped with each other staggered around for days and days running into doors, misjudging distances, being unable to locate their centers of gravity, losing track of how much they could lift, and swearing whenever they tried to play a musical instrument: you, personally, win the internet. Especially since your protagonists were both male and differed only in height by a foot and in weight by a hundred-something pounds, and you had them speculate about how much worse it would have been had either of them wound up as a woman. Please, please, would more people do this sort of thing?

Aargh.

In completely unrelated news, I will be almost certainly internet-inaccessible from Thursday through Monday, as I am going to Montreal for the Farthing Party (yay!). Anyone who really, really needs to get hold of me should try my cell (bearing in mind that it had better be good, as the roaming charges are scary) or get hold of Ruth.