GIP: I love Shaw and her hat

[st_aurafina]

Thursday's headlines about Trump and the military made for a fairly hellish day in the old brain weasel cage. I want to say that I love and support all my beautiful trans and genderqueer friends. You are valued and your friendship is treasured, and I am glad that you're here. I am proud to know you. <3

--

multifandomdrabble was so much fun! I posted my fics yesterday but I wanted to also link my gifts. I got lovely stuff!

Royal Circuit (100 words) by Trismegistus
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Characters: Damen (Captive Prince), Laurent (Captive Prince)
Additional Tags: Teasing, Established Relationship, Fluff
Summary:

Laurent is a handful.

dog days (100 words) by sapphire2309
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Person of Interest (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sameen Shaw, Bear (Person of Interest)
Summary:

The heat gets to Bear.

A New Hobby (100 words) by Isis
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Lord John Series - Diana Gabaldon
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Lord John Grey, Stephan von Namtzen
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Stealth Crossover, Drabble
Summary:

Lord John Grey visits Waldesruh again, and learns about Stephan von Namtzen's latest obsession.

Never alone (100 words) by Kayim
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Claudia Donovan/The Warehouse
Additional Tags: Drabble
Summary:

Claudia can feel the Warehouse wherever she is.

That was a seriously fun exchange - low-key, easy to fill, easy to treat, easy to read. Would definitely drabble again.

---

Thanks to nanodownunder and Camp NaNo, I've got a first draft of my wipbigbang. It came in at 48K (of POI Sentinel/Guide AU) Now I need to squish out the word bloat, edit it, and, um, find an Ameripicker. (Any volunteers? It's Root/Shaw, Harold/John, and my basic plan was this: "There are sentinels and guides. They touch each other on the face gently. A lot.")

I've been writing and writing and writing, and I'm 3K away from my 25K Camp NaNo total, but I'm floundering because I finished my main project, and my back-up project. I guess I should write some more 15kisses fics.

Also, I am trying to do nominations for femslashex. Nom nom nom!!

Writing! It's haaaaard but somehow words keep coming out of my fingertips like silly string.

---

Linkspam!

- from rahirah, Photobucket alternatives.
(Omg, my profile is a mess. I need to fix it. Not that I've been using photobucket of late, but I don't change my profile much. FFS, photobucket, did you learn nothing from the delicious debacle?)

- From Mental Floss, 15 Things You Might Not Know About Nighthawks.
(The painting, not the bird. This was interesting to me, but there's weird capitalisation of headers in this article. I can't stop looking at it now that I've noticed it.)

- Migaloo the white whale is back on the east coast of Australia. He has a twitter! migaloo1. I'm always glad when he shows up, because it means he's evaded whaling ships again.

- From My Modern Met, Woman Turns Prosthetic Leg Into Chalkboard to Creatively Caption Her Travel Photos. (Somewhat in the same vein from The Betoota Advocate: Local Girl Refers To European Countries As Though They Are Actual People On Instagram.)

Speaking of mocking insta-culture, I was struck by the algorithm, and now my insta is No. Fun. At. All. I know why they did it, and if I were a business using Insta to promote myself, the algorithm would be great. I could overloook the ads, but the lack of chronological feed is killing it for me. I like the posts of people I know, because I want to say "Hey, I like this!" but then that prioritises their posts over the stuff I just ogle for teh pretteh. And it's kinda creepy the way the thing is measuring the time I spend looking at stuff. Though I did find this article interesting, about the formation of insta-pods to game the algorithm:
Instagram influencers use comment collusion to game the algorithm.

- Five ways with pesto
(For all you people overwhelmed with basil. Or beetroot. The beetroot one is so pretty!!)

- International Drone Photography contest.
(There's not much info about the individual photos, unfortunately. There's an image in here that looks like animal harm - men with spears surrounding a fleecy thing - but I did a bit of research and it's from this festival in Spain: La Vijanera. It's a guy dressed up as a monstrous bear aka the embodiment of evil.)

- World realises Americans don’t use egg cups, loses its collective mind
GUYS GUYS IS THIS TRUE? But how do you egg??? HOW DO YOU EGG AND SOLDIERS???
ETA: I did not realise how much of a thing this was! This is an egg cup:

You cut your toast into strips - the strips are the toasty soldiers, and you dunk them in the soft-boiled egg. You use a teaspoon or a coffee spoon to eat the rest of the egg when the yolk is all nommed. Optional extra, possibly from my Nonna: push your spoon through the bottom of the empty shell so that witches don't steal it and use it for a boat.

- A Wrinkle in Time first look: Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, and more
(Late to the party on this, but wow, this looks gorgeous.)

Come Along On A Virtual Tour Of This French Butter Factory
(Please enjoy this vaguely erotic video about making butter. How tenderly they caress the butter! How they run their fingers through it!)

- Flower crown free crochet pattern
(I will never be bored of flower crowns.)

- Name of Groans: The Search for the Most Truly Awful Restaurant Name in America
(Baguetteaboudit!)

- Mind MGMT, Flutter Adaptations in the Works at UCP as Dark Horse Re-Ups Pact
(Upcoming adaptations at UCP - I'm most interested in this: Podcasts 'Tanis' and 'The Bright Sessions' are also being developed for the small screen under the renewed deal.)

- From The Toast: Movie Yelling With Nicole and Mallory: The Hunt for Red October
(This capslocky review gave me all the feels. They appreciated all the right things about this movie, like Beverly Crusher and "Perhaps I will need two wives" and "One ping only, Vassily!")

Also, I have now completed my pharmacogenetics training. Cheek swabs for everyone!!

Comments

[yuuago]

Congratulations on finishing the big bang draft! 48k is a lot. \o/

I don't use Instagram, but man, non-chronological timelines are a pain in the ass. When Twitter started doing that, I nearly pulled my hair out.

Egg cups mystify me. Softboiled eggs are not very popular in my region of Canada, and they've always seemed like some kind of weird... European... thing.

[sholio]

The appeal of eggs with soft yolks in general baffles me -- I mean, there are people out there who like all kinds of things, and that's fine, BUT KEEP IT AWAY FROM ME. XD My mom and stepdad like them over easy (the white is cooked, the yolk is not) and ... just ... no. I love hardboiled eggs, but if the yolk is runny, Something Has Gone Wrong.

[hitokage]

Egg cups would imply the eating of eggs in a way that requires a special cup and, frankly, no one does that. Like the most common ways of eating eggs seem to be variations on: hard boiled, scrambled, or fried.

If I knew anything at all about POI, I would totally be happy to Ameripick for you. Alas, I know nothing. XD

[st_aurafina]

It's one of those weird things that never get mentioned so it's sailed past me until now that soft boiled eggs are a regional thing. It's such a normal and basic comfort food for me. Or it was in childhood, anyway.

If I knew anything at all about POI, I would totally be happy to Ameripick for you. Alas, I know nothing. XD

Thank you for the thought anyway! <3

[musyc]

LOL, I have never in my life used an egg cup. I don't even know what kind of eggs go in those. But I have had many an over-easy egg and dipped my toast into that. XD (Though my preferred form of egg is deviled. Om nom.)

What sort of Ameripicking are you looking for? Just a general "remove my arvos and sickies" sort of thing?

[st_aurafina]

Hee! Soft boiled eggs, so the ones with a runny yolk. The soldiers are toast cut into handy little sticks for dipping. It's a childhood comfort food - I'm trying to think of something similar but I'm coming up blank. Mac and cheese, maybe? IDK. hitokage says poached eggs on toast.

That is exactly the kind of Ameripicking I need - I see you speak Aussie! - if you had canon knowledge of the show, that would be a bonus, but if you don't I can summarise it thusly: there's an AI and a tech guy and a tough guy, together they fight crime. I really need someone to help me not say 'footpath' and to tell me what you call a tall building where you park cars. (In the show, they say 'parking structure' and I don't know if that's an idiosyncracy or an actual term.)

[andraste]

It's a guy dressed up as a monstrous bear aka the embodiment of evil.

This is a good sentence and reading it made me happy *g*. (I wonder how they choose which guy dresses up as the fleecy embodiment of evil and which guys chase him? Is there a vote? Do they draw lots?)

The beetroot one is so pretty!!

Even though I ate beetroot just yesterday I am now sad I just got back from the supermarket and already have food for the next two days, because that looks great. Maybe Monday ...

[st_aurafina]

I wonder how they choose which guy dresses up as the fleecy embodiment of evil and which guys chase him? Is there a vote? Do they draw lots?

SO MUCH LEFT UNANSWERED!!

After making walnut pesto, I am so ready for pestos with other things in it. And the pink one looks so good on the pasta!

[dine]

I have vague memories of soft-boiled eggs as a child, so my mom probably had/has some egg cups, but for most of my youth, we ate scrambled, hard-boiled or fried eggs. I liked mine fried sunnyside up with runny yolks, so I could sop up the yolk with toast. not quite as dignified as soldiers, but much the same taste. nowadays I generally eat scrambled, often mixed up with veggies, bits of meat and/or cheese - potentially disgusting to look at, but easy to fix and delicious

I have owned an electric kettle for years, and love the damn thing. I'm the only one in my family, and probably much of my friend/acquaintances group, but it's awesome.

[st_aurafina]

I don't often cook soft boiled eggs these days, but it's such a basic home/comfort thing that the article caught me by surprise. And you had to push your spoon through the bottom of the shell so witches wouldn't use it as a boat. (That last bit might have come from my Italian nonna, though.)

I don't know who I'd be without my kettle, to be honest. It's the most important appliance in the house.

[yifu]

Congrats on the first draft and finishing your training! *confetti*

The Photobucket alternatives sound promising, thanks for pointing out the post. I'll check them out after I stop being grumpy over my broken images. ^^;

[st_aurafina]

I took one terrified look at my profile and fled, possibly never to return again. So many broken links!

[torachan]

Yeah, what others have said. I just don't think softboiled eggs are that popular here. The main two you would have with breakfast would be scrambled or fried. Hardboiled eggs are also common, but not breakfasty so much (used in salads, sandwiches, etc).

Fried eggs often have runny yolks, and some people like to use their toast to wipe the yolk off the plate, but the whole dipping sticks of toast in an egg in a cup thing is just not common at all.

[st_aurafina]

the whole dipping sticks of toast in an egg in a cup thing is just not common at all.

I'm sad that's not a thing over there! It's very comforting.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, I'm glad you had such fun with multifandomdrabble!

Like everyone else, I'm bemused by having/not having egg cups. Being British, I'm definitely on the side of mystification over not having them. I mean, if you're only going do one kind of boiled egg, it's not going to be the dry and cold hard-boiled type of unloved sandwiches and salads, is it? It's got to be your nice hot, relatively soft-boiled (depending on preference) one eaten in an egg cup with a teaspoon (or a coffee spoon) and maybe with soldiers.

My Granny used to make us boiled eggs for tea as quite a regular thing and she had one egg-cup that was basically a china version of the shoe the old woman lived in and so we had to take it in turns to have that instead of the normal egg cups. Eggs clearly tasted superior in it, too!

[st_aurafina]

Yes! It has to be hot, and it has to be tender and gooey, and there should definitely be buttery toast. I remember when I was apparently old enough that I didn't need soldiers anymore. It was terrible - the bleak cold loneliness of adulthood, sob.

[talkingtothesky]

I used an egg cup just yesterday! I enjoy soft and hard boiled. Eggs are easy to eat, warm, and filling.

Root/Shaw, Harold/John, and my basic plan was this: "There are sentinels and guides. They touch each other on the face gently. A lot."
*hearteyes* I'm British so I can't Ameripick, but I wanna read this sooooo baddddddd.

[st_aurafina]

WHAT NO THAT'S NOT FAIR!

Do you get your fic Americpicked? Or do you just wing it? I've never noticed any overt Britishisms in yours - I didn't actually pick you as a Brit - but being sort of stuck on some US/UK divide, I don't always.

[ambyr]

I associate soft-boiled eggs with ramen--in which case, no special cup necessary, obviously, because your egg is floating in soup. Or sometimes I soft boil an egg and cut it into quarters on my salad, so the yolk drips into things and becomes a sort of dressing. But plain boiled egg would not occur to me as a thing you'd eat on its own, except maybe as hiking food, and then obviously you want it hard-boiled so you can eat it out of your hand as you walk.

I can't even picture what an egg cup looks like. I mean, I assume cup-like...?

[st_aurafina]

Well, we do all those things too - I love soft boiled egg on my salad! So drippy and delicious. But for breakfast/comfort food, you put it in an egg cup and dip toasty soldiers in it. Like this:


You cut your toast into strips - they're the soldiers - and you dip them in the runny egg. Om nom nom.

[used_songs]

I've seen egg cups (I'm in Texas) but the idea of soft boiled eggs makes my skin crawl so I've never used one. I only eat eggs in the occasional papas con huevos breakfast taco.

I loathe non-linear "timelines." They instantly make a service like twitter, instagram or facebook less useful and appealing to me.

I enjoyed the Nighthawks article (and all of the linked stuff therein).

Photobucket alternatives - I resurrected my flickr account (tied to an old yahoo email address) and it's OK. I don't see a lot of people using flickr though.

[st_aurafina]

lilacsigil has no truck with runny eggs either, so she's with you. But I love them. Whereas I have never had a breakfast taco in my life. Tacos for breakfast? Mind blown!! (I actually think it would be a pretty great breakfast. It's just not a thing here at all.)

I also resuscitated my flickr, but I haven't done much with it yet - the hosting seems to be a bit clunky? I don't know. I need to have a play around with the options, but right now I'm pretending everything is fine.

[teigh_corvus]

BB draft success! Yay!!!!

I've never even heard of this eggs and soldiers thing before. But your description makes me want to find an egg cup now.

[st_aurafina]

It's so funny, this eggs thing. I am cracking up. It's such a normal thing for me!

But then again, you guys can buy pumpkin in a can, and that's just. I mean. I get that it's in pumpkin pie (which I've never eaten but have seen on TV) but I always assumed you cooked the pumpkin first, not bought a can.

When you think about it, there are so many weird little things that are different between us that never get mentioned.

[musesfool]

Oh man, I love The Hunt for Red October SO MUCH. "One ping only, Vassily!" YES. <333

I don't really eat eggs much and I definitely don't eat them boiled hard or soft, but it's nice to know what egg cups were actually for. I think my grandmother had a set.

[st_aurafina]

Omg, the broship is so strong on that submarine. It's fantastic. "I would have liked to have seen Montana." *broken sobs*

I think my grandmother had a set.

Yeah, gwyn further down says that it was a thing in past generations, but it's kind of died out over there. It's so interesting!

[redfiona99]

Pharmacogenetics yay!

I take it now would be the wrong time for the undergrad anecdote where my entire first year genetics class took cheek swabs and tested for Alu repeats. In short, my poor prof was teaching an entire class of amoebas :)

I do wish a lot of companies that rely on algorithms would learn that people will game everything. It's what people do.

[st_aurafina]

I'm so weirded out that a thing that was theoretical when I was in college (one day in the future, we might be able to tailor medications genetically ooooo) is now a kit I'm selling to people to take home and do.

I do wish a lot of companies that rely on algorithms would learn that people will game everything.

It seems counter-intuitive not to do this - I mean, surely if they were doing proper testing, they'd have seen how the algorithm could be gamed.

[kindkit]

I can Ameripick for you if you still need somebody.

As for eggs, clearly some food historian needs to write a paper about why the soft-boiled egg in an egg cup is almost unheard-of in the US but is a favorite in other parts of the Anglophone world. I can remember eating hard-boiled eggs as a kid--not for breakfast, but as a portable lunch if the whole family was out somewhere--and scrambled eggs and fried eggs, but never soft-boiled. I didn't like eggs very much when I was young anyway, and it wasn't until I was an adult that I learned to appreciate a runny yolk. For breakfast I think cereal and toast were most common, with oatmeal as the upper limit of what my mom was willing to cook most mornings.

[st_aurafina]

I can Ameripick for you if you still need somebody.

Thanks for the offer - I think I'm sorted now.

Egg yolk is the best sauce for everything, seriously. The day I learned to properly poach an egg was a beautiful day.

[gwyn]

I think it's a generational thing too, which no one has mentioned: I grew up in the sixties and seventies and soft boiled eggs were sort of dying out, and I collect some midcentury modern dishware, and many of the patterns, especially ones that began in the fifities, have egg cups. We didn't tend to cut the toast and dunk it, however, we mostly would eat a bite of toast and a bite of egg. I think it's like a lot of things that died out post-war here, it was a huge country changing rapidly, and things were speeding up, so stuff like eating a soft-boiled egg out of an egg cup when you could eat breakfast on the run and go-go-go for your capitalistic business just went by the wayside. Everything became about cars, and not wasting time because making money was everything…and here we are now.

And then you throw in all the "eggs are bad for you, studies show" panics we have, then next week it's "eggs are okay" and then it's "studies show all bad diseases are linked to eggs but just the yolks"…I mean, we're a country that seems to pride itself on stupid now, so.

[st_aurafina]

Oh, wow, that it would be generational makes a lot of sense! I can see how it would fall by the wayside in the age of convenient food.

[vass]

Thursday's headlines about Trump and the military made for a fairly hellish day in the old brain weasel cage. I want to say that I love and support all my beautiful trans and genderqueer friends. You are valued and your friendship is treasured, and I am glad that you're here. I am proud to know you. <3

♥ Same here.

It came in at 48K (of POI Sentinel/Guide AU) Now I need to squish out the word bloat, edit it, and, um, find an Ameripicker. (Any volunteers? It's Root/Shaw, Harold/John, and my basic plan was this: "There are sentinels and guides. They touch each other on the face gently. A lot.")

Oooh. *leans closer to screen*

Also, I have now completed my pharmacogenetics training. Cheek swabs for everyone!!

Whoa, is this going to be a thing in pharmacies now? That is so cool. Tell me everything! (If you want to, obvs.)

[st_aurafina]

Ohh, seriously, I learned an important thing writing Sentinel/Guide fic - it's wish fulfillment for people with sensory overload: "Hey you, super special heroic person! I see you're all jangled by the world which is too loud and bright! Let me wrap you in a warm blanket and protect you. And tell you you're wonderful because you are." It has fulfilled an iddish need I didn't realise I had.

Whoa, is this going to be a thing in pharmacies now?
WE LIVE IN THE FUTURE! Seriously, this was a theoretical concept when I was at college, a "one day we might even be testing genetic capacity for metabolising medications before they are prescribed!!"

I don't know what test you had done? But this is the MyDNA kit, which tests your ability to metabolise a range of meds: blood thinners, anti-depressants, reflux meds, codeine and tramadol, and NSAIDs. I can take the cheek swab or they can do it at home. There's also a test kit that's cheaper that only does one class of meds, and one (which I fear but will probably still do on myself) that does a 'health assessment' of your tendency to store fat, have elevated lipids, etc.

It's seriously cool. I am seriously futuristic. But the training was hard - I had to study stuff, not just listen and circle answers. Bleh.

[promethia_tenk]

elisi and I had the egg cups and kettles conversation the other week and blew both of our minds (I’m American, she’s European). I love finding things like this out.

(I’m quite fond of soft boiled eggs as they were always my mother’s favorite. But they are definitely not a common way for Americans to eat eggs. When I make them I scoop the insides out into a saucer and then do the toast-sopping from there.)

Photobucket replacements: I’ve been using postimages.org for about six months and am quite pleased with it. It was apparently designed for forum posters. The interface is as simple and unobtrustive as humanly possible, which makes it wonderfully quick to pop in and out. As an example, to create an account, you tell them your email address, they email you a password, and you’re done (you can change the password later if you want).

[st_aurafina]

I love finding things like this out.

Me too!! I love seeing where little niches of different cultures have survived like that. It's so interesting. Like, apparently US butter is white, and ours is yellow. What's that about?

Thank you - I will check out postimages.org. It sounds easy.

[lurkingcat]

No egg cups? No eggs with soldiers comfort food?! (I need to go and have a long conversation with my American friends who live over here now... )

That is a lot of words written. Well done!

[st_aurafina]

Right? No soldiers - that's blowing my mind. How even?

Thank you! I hate every single word at the moment but hopefully soon my fic and I can be friends again.

[dhampyresa]

Now I want eggs. Can't remember where the egg cups are, though.

[st_aurafina]

Hee! They'll show up when you least expect them to.

[adafrog]

That is really cool about Nighthawk.

Nope, I make eggs over easy, and dunk my toast in it. No utensils needed. :D

[st_aurafina]

Nighthawk is such an evocative painting!

I definitely have eggs that way too, but I do like a soft boiled egg.

[hellkitty]

Amazing writing total!

To be honest, everyone I know except my mother (who is pure Old Country Italian) hates soft boiled eggs. No need for egg cups when you find soft boiled eggs the taste equivalent of dragon snot. When she forced us to eat them as kids (because what is better on a squiffy stomach than half-raw probably e-coli contaminated eggs amirite?!) we had them cracked in a bowl, like a cereal bowl.

Eating something you call a soldier is just semantically weird.

You REALLY want to get into weird British/American differences? Do you refrigerate eggs, butter, or both?

[st_aurafina]

half-raw probably e-coli contaminated eggs amirite?!)


It's not usually a problem in Australia - if someone gets salmonella or e coli, it's usually from poorly cooked meat. Thank goodness, because poached eggs are totally a thing here.

And I refrigerate my eggs because I don't go through a dozen very fast, but in the supermarket, they're just on the shelf. Butter is in the fridge in summer, but not in winter.

[clare_dragonfly]

I have been aware for a while that soft-boiled eggs with runny yolks are common in other countries and that is 100% nope to me. I don't get how it can be so common and people don't get salmonella all the time. But people in the US cook eggs over easy with runny yolks and they don't necessarily get salmonella?? So, I don't know if my aversion to any runniness in a yolk is half texture and half food-poisoning fears, or if it's all food-poisoning fears that have given me an aversion to runny yolks.

I have read that American eggs are sold already cleaned (unlike in other countries where they still have their natural coating) and thus must be refrigerated, which is not necessarily common in other countries, due to relatively large salmonella outbreaks. So maybe that's also why we don't do soft-boiled eggs.

Love the woman with the chalkboard prosthetic leg. That is awesome.

[st_aurafina]

Yeah, I've heard the same about eggs in the US - they're not refrigerated in our supermarkets but I keep mine in the fridge because it takes me a bit to use a whole dozen.

Most of the salmonella outbreaks I've seen have been from poorly cooked/cured meat - I know it's a risk (and lilacsigil tells me off whenever I eat raw cookie batter) but it doesn't seem to happen frequently.

[singe]

Ah, I grew up in America's Deep South, which is essentially England with alligators, and we have what's called egg-on-toast. We don't have over-easy or poached eggs, we just lightly fry it (in butter) on both sides until the white is set. If you break the yolk in the frying pan, God help you. If you cook the yolk through, you're just bound for hell, sorry.

Put this on a piece of hot, buttered toast. A sprinkle of salt and pepper and THEN break the yolk. Coat the top and eat it with your fork. It's very comforting and delicious. And cheap, we're not rolling in money down here.

And I have an electric kettle! I use it for chamomile tea.

[st_aurafina]

America's Deep South, which is essentially England with alligators

Omg, that's hilarious and awesome. I have such an image. The aligators have bowler hats - "I do beg your pardon, I hate to impose but you do look delicious."

That sounds so good - I want runny egg on buttery toast so much!

And electric kettles are the best. I mean, if you have the power to run it - I've heard some areas in the US, the current isn't able to run a kettle? Not sure how that works but it would make sense why they're not as popular.

[batmarg]

Ugh. And I am surrounded by people who think we made a good choice w/ that man as president. I'll sit and wait for the eventual "i told you so" like when my uncle wanted Palin to be president.

I clearly need to look into Captive Prince. I keep seeing people on LJ/DW/tumblr discussing it.

I've only seen egg cups on tv and in some old houses when I've attended estate sales. I do have some familiarity w/ the soldiers concept though, because I read a lot of cookbooks.

But how do you egg???
I usually have it fried over easy. A lot of americans love scrambled, but I'm less of a fan.

[st_aurafina]

It's so interesting the differences in how we egg - I am actually a fan of the scramble, to be honest. It's very quick and easy to make.

Captive Prince is kind of amazing - amazing that it got a mainstream publisher (not because it's not good - it is! but since it's incredibly, incredibly tropey) and also a great story. I read it in serial form, and talk about a slow build. It was excruciating. But totally worth it.