Transgender Remembrance Day

This Saturday is Transgender Remembrance Day. In it, we pay respect to those whose lives have been taken because of actual or percieved transexuality. Because it is on Saturday, though, and GLSEN is a school/education-based network, it's been extended to a whole week. This week, in fact.
This is my contribution to the cause. Or at least one of them. How many times have you heard the phrase 'Be Yourself'? Or 'People should like you for who you are'? How many people are there who are afraid to be true to self because they might be killed for it? How many people are true to self anyway, because anything else is just another form of death? How many people, because they choose to live, are killed?
If you want to get involved, start by showing your support. Allies are more important than you might think.
For more information, check the link above, or this link.

Fic Rec

You. Yeah, you. The one reading this entry. Stop reading this and go read this fic. Or, if you'd prefer, you can continue reading this, and when you finish you can go read this fic. Either way. As long as you end up reading this fic.
Okay, if you're still here, you probably want to know some more about this fic; I can deal with that.
Basics:
Title: To the Living
Author: vagabond_sal
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: FMA/FFIX
Pairing: Al/Vivi
Those of you wigging out at the pairing? Do me yourself both of us a favor, and trust me on this, okay? It's good. I swear. (Those of you wigging out at the pairing because it involves a guy and another guy potentially getting it on off screen can loosen up already -_-.)

To the Living is an amazing, beautiful, breath taking fic. There's a life to it, and hope; it has a soul.
Every once in a while I find a fic that makes me stop and think, "This is one of the things by which I define myself. This is one of the things by which I define my art. This is my measuring stick. This is where I return when I no longer remember the way. This is where I start and where I end and where I begin again. This is it."
This fic? This is it.
This is, IMHO, one of the Master Works. This is the sort of thing I want to be able to write one day. The feeling I get from this is what I hope to acchieve one day in my own writing.

Those of you who aren't going to read it because you aren't familiar with one series or the other can e-mail me or comment or something, and I'll try and give you the information you need to understand it.
As for the rest of you who are still here, by all means, don't take my word for it that this is a good fic; go see for yourself. And while you're there, comment, because we need to encourage things like this as much as we can.