a conspiracy of cartographers

It occurs to me that I'm using the AO3 as my fic-posting platform these days; I usually forget to crosspost, and it's nice to have comments consolidated in one place. So this is a drive-by PSA to let everyone know that I won't be posting fic to ariafic anymore, though I'm not taking down any of the fic that's there. Unless and until the next drastic platform shift, fic gets linked to the AO3, and also posted to my master fic list, which is now a sticky post on this journal, because I like organizing things.

+ Today we went on wine-tasting adventures around the finger lakes! There was much delicious wine, some of which we bought, and ice cream in between vineyards. fsdjds I love going on vacation, and also thingswithwings and eruthros remain basically the best.

+ I have figured out my bingo line! It is five different fandoms! It's all potential fics I have lots of feelings about! This is all absurdly exciting. Oh gosh, so much fic to write. :D

+ So I may have mentioned at various points that I have lots of feelings and general love for the Demon's Lexicon trilogy. Tragically I don't think I ever made proper reaction posts when I read them for the first time -- seriously, I read the Demon's Surrender all in one day, and afterwards made a post mentioning that I'd read it and saying something about how most of my feelings wanted to be expressed in complicated plotty poly fic -- but ... maybe at some point I will do (another) reread and talk about why these books are kind of a perfect storm of things I love. In the meantime, though, I've been compiling a links & general recs list, for my own benefit and to give to various friends after foisting the books upon them, so I thought I'd post it here too.

( Demon's Lexicon recs: canonical short stories, various canon extras, excellent fic; SPOILERS, oh my goodness, don't even click this if you don't want to be spoiled. )

sdkdsfk my Fourth of July was amaaazing. Polaris and I made delicious burgers and watched 1776 over cake, singing along with all the songs and mouthing along with the dialogue; in the evening I met up with Emma and Amiel, and we went to see fireworks along the river. It was hands-down the best fireworks show I've ever seen, not only because the finale was quite literally breathtaking, but also because just after the fireworks started there was an absolute deluge of rain, so my glasses smeared the fireworks too bright to see and I laughed until I cried a little.

I'm also going on travel adventures to see thingswithwings and eruthros tomorrow, which I am absurdly excited about, so today's my day of quiet sandwiched in between lovely things.

It is before noon and I have already done all the grocery shopping and paid rent! I am well pleased, and also cradling a cup of tea so I don't end up faceplanting into the keyboard. I've been up for ages because I crashed at Amiel's after contra last night, and oh my god, contra continues absolutely amazing. I am pleasantly sore today, and maybe I should try to properly take up yoga so I don't end up stiff and tottery over the weekend.

Mostly I'm just absurdly happy: contra, and this weekend at the harbor there's some kind of exhibition of tall ships, and on the 4th Polaris and I are planning to watch Independence Day and 1776, as you do when you want the weirdest double feature, and to have a cookout in the back yard (where we will presumably meet some of the neighbors, because I doubt we're the only ones with this idea). And in case I haven't mentioned it lately, I love my housemates so much, see: aforementioned 4th of July plans, and the bit where when I got home today I found that K had left me the most adorable and terrifying gift ever. We're in season four of Babylon 5, and in ... celebration, or possibly to freak me out, K made a plushie Drakh Keeper, a tentacley alien neural parasite. It is SO CUTE, and buttons around one's neck! I plan to wear it like a scarf, and if I misbehave I will claim that the Drakh made me do it.

In other news, I just happily sailed through Runemarks by Joanne Harris, the basic premise of which is that Ragnarok happened five hundred years ago, Asgard fell, the gods are dead or imprisoned in various realms of the World Below, magic has been outlawed, and a dystopic Order reigns, so of course our fourteen-year-old magical heroine has to go on a quest to renew the world, and ... basically has a fantastic road trip with Loki. I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH. It occurs to me that I love most iterations of Loki not because he's played by Tom Hiddleston (because ... mostly he isn't, though I think in this he was) but because he is tricksy and saves the world a lot while loudly telling everyone that he's just in it for himself. (I may have imprinted on Howl from Howl's Moving Castle at an impressionable age.)

I also think I want to make a list of Books That Do Fun Interesting Things With Norse Mythology, but at the moment the list is limited to Runemarks, DWJ's Eight Days of Luke, and Gaiman's Odd and the Frost Giants. (American Gods doesn't make this cut cos it's about Norse mythology a bit but it's also about a hundred other things.) I am very much up for recommendations! Lots of Loki a bonus but not specifically required.

So the other day, Amiel posited to me that, if there's one thing Loki and all the Avengers can actually agree on, it's that Lady Gaga is awesome. HAHA YES OBVIOUSLY, I said in great delight, and we left it at that, until last night when Amiel sent me possibly the greatest ever series of text messages:

Amiel: Re: the Lady Gaga headcanon I said earlier -- Fury doesn't get it. Until someone shows him one of the music videos. Then he decides okay, I kinda like that.
Amiel: I'M FIGURING OUT EVERYONE'S FAVORITE SONG NOW.
Aria: TELL ME.
Amiel: Emma had the genius suggestion that Bruce loves "Born This Way" and no one makes the obvious comment that he, uh, wasn't. Might be about the Hulk, to Bruce.
Amiel: And Steve works out to "Just Dance" (and takes a Tonyish sort of motivation from it if he overthinks it).
Amiel: I can't decide if Clint or Coulson has "You and I" as their favorite. But if it's Coulson, Clint likes "Alejandro" but will belt "Teeth" with no shame.
Amiel: Tony's favorite is "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" because *sigh*, Tony.
Amiel: Natasha likes "Paparazzi," mostly because of the music video.
Aria: THESE ARE FUCKING PERFECT. Asgard bros?
Amiel: Thor's I don't know! Help me with it. I know he likes a lot of her songs. I think he loves "Born This Way" and "Edge of Glory."
Aria: I think "Edge of Glory" sounds right!
Amiel: Loki -- no one knows his favorite because he tells different people different ones. He tells Tony "Bad Romance" because that's what Tony expects. Because Thor is subtle about NOTHING, including hickeys etc, Loki quietly tells Steve his favorite is "I Like It Rough" because it makes Steve make a worried face. He tells Thor "Poker Face" or "Monster," depending on what upsets him more. I'll let you guess his actual favorite, though I know what it is.
Aria: Ok, I'll be a bit silly & guess "Marry the Night."
Amiel: Good god, you got it right.
Aria: IT MADE SENSE! But I am still hilariously pleased.

Wow, I have become genuinely the worst at regular posting. It isn't tumblr's fault (tumblr: dangerously convenient for all my staring-at-Loki's-face needs); mostly it's that I'm living with fannish people and hanging out in person with fannish people and &c &c, so instead of yelling at the internet about all my Avengers feelings, I've been doing the same in physical spaces.

In any case, stuff that's been happening:

+ Housemate K really loves to contra dance, but hasn't really been able to since moving in with us and losing regular access to a car. While I was off at WisCon she had a talk with Amiel about this which resulted in the realization that Amiel in fact does have a car, so ... last week? or two weeks ago now, K and I met up with Amiel and Emma and we all went to contra! I LOVED IT SO MUCH OMG. I had to sit out every other dance to keep my lungs from strangling me, and there were a few dances where I didn't pick up how to not crash into everyone until about halfway through, but I was better at it than I expected and I really want to do it every week. We'll see if it actually becomes a habit!

+ This last weekend we finally had our Gondor-warming, Tyler posse edition, and my North Carolina friends were also visiting. I think everyone had a fairly good time -- we went to Pride on Saturday, and demolished most of the tea and booze in the apartment, and played fandom Apples to Apples, and had low-key hangouts. Of course this all happened during what's been for me an astonishingly bad brain week (like, I keep panicking for no goddamn reason, and I'm hoping it's just worse-than-usual hormonal stuff and it'll abate soon) so I wasn't up to quite the quality of hosting I would've wanted. But it was still excellent to have everyone over; seriously I have so many good friends, I don't even know how this happened but it's wonderful.

+ Okay, this isn't actually something that's happening to me personally, but I was poking around Tom Hiddleston's wiki page, as one does, and I discovered that next year he's in a film where he and Tilda Swinton are vampires in love? And. I don't actually care whether it's completely stupid and terrible, Amiel and songofsongs and I have basically made a pact to go see it together and clutch each other a lot and wail, because for some reason the universe is giving us Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as vampires in love. But before that, the universe is also giving us Hiddleston's Prince Hal! And for that, oliviacirce is coming up, and she and Emma and I are going to watch it and clutch each other, and maybe wail a little but in slightly dignified ways. Friends for every Tom Hiddleston occasion!

...I think I just need to give up and resign myself to having a Hiddleston tag on DW too.

i. skfdk everyone run do not walk to listen to the podfic of Shatter, read by cyranothe2nd who is basically my new hero -- she makes the fic sound so good, and also upped my fondness for Jane a lot. SO GOOD. I would listen to it like five times in a row except that it's three and a half hours long, and also, let's be honest, I basically have the fic memorized. I just love the podfic so much!

ii. WisCon! I'm going with Emma and am stupid excited to show off Madison to her; we'll be arriving early Friday afternoon (fingers crossed, our bus schedule keeps changing so it's entirely possible we won't turn up until about five in the evening) and staying through Monday, and I'm really excited to see everyone. WISCON BUDDIES I WILL SEE YOU SOON. \o/

There is no thing three! Maybe I will try to write some filthy Thor/Loki before I'm off on weekend adventures, idk, maybe I will just clean the house.

File under: good reference conversations for the stupid epic Avengers fic I'm writing; also file under reasons I need to have a billion fannish gchats with were_duck.

( Loki feelings, accompanying Thor/Loki feelings, Avengers spoilers. )

Originally we were going to wait until Saturday like responsible adults, but last night Polaris got home from work and we stared at one another for about two seconds and then she ran back out of the house to buy us tickets to the midnight show. Our audience, unsurprisingly, was really into it. I wouldn't accuse them of being one of the best opening weekend crowds, but the entire theatre groaned and booed the preview of Battleship, and cheered lots for Amazing Spider-Man and Prometheus, which was pretty great. They also laughed and screamed and cheered -- sometimes all three at once -- which means I definitely missed some of this film's better lines. I guess I'll just have to see it again! Oh the hardship.

( Spoilers under the cut! Lots of enthusiastic feelings about everything, but mostly about Loki, you know the drill. )

In conclusion, I would love roughly a billion more of these films, by which I mean I am stupidly psyched for Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 (!!!) and the probably-happening new Hulk which I actually have some faith in, and man can't they just make Avengers 2 INSTANTLY? That would be pretty great.

Now I'm going to have lunch and watch last night's Community and do my best to convince my brain that I need to get a few things done today and cannot actually neglect everything including food in favor of writing the torrent of Thor/Loki fic that is building up in my mind.

LIFE IS SO BUSY AND EXCITING. I suspect I have long since lost that wonderful ability I had in college to craft exciting narratives about the beauty of everyday life, so instead, in scattered list form, some things I have been up to lately:

+ Weekend with the Tyler posse! I suspect I should resurrect my Tyler posse tag, because everything these excellent humans do is a source of joy to me. At school they serenaded me outside my window and pulled me along on various adventures; this last weekend we went to a burlesque show and held a housewarming party for one of our number, in which the chief activities were tipsy Fandom Apples to Apples and a watching of Black Books for afters.

+ Probably not deserving of its own bullet-point, road-tripping with Amiel for Tyler posse shenanigans! I mention it mostly because the drive back was three hours of winding New England back roads and loud music to keep us awake, and it took maaaaybe half an hour before we started calling each other Dean and Sammy. ("My hair is too long to be Dean's," Amiel observed, as their hair was indeed at about four fluffy inches; "Well, mine's too short to be Sam's," I said.) NO REGRETS.

+ Monday was Paul Newman & Robert Redford Films With Polaris and Housemate K! Somehow I had gone through life without seeing either Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or The Sting? That has now been remedied! I spent a good portion of Butch Cassidy yelling "HOW IS THIS ON MY SCREEN" re: the OT3. Maybe I will see it again next time I am in the mood for threesomes and tragic last stands.

+ K and I spent pretty much all of yesterday watching Babylon 5. We got through EIGHT EPISODES. Only one more episode of first season to go! Let me tell you, internet, yesterday's eight episodes were all tragically barren and G'Kar-less, although they did have lots of good Londo and Delenn and Ivanova. I am looking forward so much to season two. I am also a bit tempted to start taking frantic notes and attempt to resume my meta rewatch, but my meta rewatch relied heavily on my ability to actually remember things that happen, and though bits of Londo and G'Kar's arc are stamped indelibly on my memory, it's been two years and the joy of this rewatch is in the discovery of things.

+ K & her girlfriend made really delicious chocolate chip cookies the other day. I'm now going to eat the last of them like a motherfucking adult.