a conspiracy of cartographers

Um. So, Softer World comics, right? Weird and lovely on their own, delightful remixed with fandom pictures! Or at least I hope they are delightful that way, because I lost my entire mind and made a whole bunch.

( 50 Doctor Who Softer World comics beneath the cut! Spoilers up through Christmas Carol; warnings for crack, pathos, and emo Ten. )

I COULD DO MORE. I'm only about halfway through the archive! But I think for now it is time to take a break and do actual life things.

For no particular reason I have lapsed back into watching TOS Trek. (Maybe the reason was that I suddenly realized Abed would make an awesome Vulcan? That is the only reason I can think of short of my brain just suddenly going, "Okay, hilarious 60s sci-fi time!") And from there it is but a short slide into seeking out all the Kirk/Spock fic. I am not very surprised I am all over Kirk/Spock -- it's got aliens, telepathy, snark, inarticulateness about feelings, and an epic history of friendship, so it is pretty much my ship kryptonite -- but I have discovered some weird difficulties in the course of seeking it out.

It is so, so much easier to find well-written AOS fic than it is to find well-written TOS fic. But this is a problem! AOS!Kirk/Spock is TOS!Kirk/Spock minus epic friendship plus Uhura. And ... well, the more TOS I see, the more bewildered I am the film went the Spock/Uhura route (not least because I apparently have a side gig watching the old films and shipping Scotty/Uhura like burning) but, this said, I really don't want to sacrifice Uhura to the Gods of Slash, because she's too awesome for that. The entirely excellent compromise is Kirk/Spock/Uhura, which is fine, but at that point they have rejected the ghosts of TOS, and that is not the dynamic I'm craving.

Hilariously enough, when I'm reading AOS fic, everyone is definitely AOS Kirk and Spock and Uhura and Scotty et al, and same with TOS fic -- but Bones is always just Bones. I can flicker back and forth between their faces, but the tone and expression are always the same. Karl Urban, I take off my metaphorical hat to you.

Anyway, TOS Kirk/Spock! A lot of it is seriously delightful. A lot of it, by which I mean the fic from zines way back in the day that their authors have obligingly posted online, is delightful for anthropological reasons -- I just read a fic, for instance, in which Spock spends a lot of time agonizing over/analyzing his feelings, and realizes that he thinks of Jim as a friend in the sense that he is a comrade-in-arms and maybe something more, and I was sitting there going, "Spock, t'hy'la is in your vocabulary, why don't -- WAIT" and realized that the fic's publication date was 1979, the same year Roddenberry coined the term in the movie novelization. Dude. Guys, I read fic that is older than t'hy'la. *___*

(Reading TOS Kirk/Spock has an element of don't-think-about-pink-elephants to it, though. There is nothing quite like coming upon a sex scene and going "DON'T REMEMBER THAT IT'S WILLIAM SHATNER." Oh, Chris Pine, if only you were as interchangeable with Shatner in my head as Urban is with DeForest Kelley. My life would be much less full of horror.)

Lastly: this still! The one of Kirk clutching at Spock while they are no inches apart! And I think Spock is about to meld with Kirk or something? It crops up in vids a lot. But I do not know which episode it is from! Can anyone tell me? I would very much like to know.

I am pretty sure that if I was an advice tumblr (a la Advice Gerard or Advice Doctor) all of Advice Aria would be ridic pictures of my face with captions like GET DRUNK WITH FRIENDS, WATCH BLACK BOOKS.

Real update pending when it is not two in the morning and also when I am not a bit drunk. Mostly right now I am hoping that there are no typos in my html links. And that I can sleep very late.

Today my hair is doing hilarious flippy things! Hair, you are not Chloe Sullivan.

Apparently there really is going to be a remake of the Highlander movie? Google tells me that they have the writers from Iron Man signed on and everything, although most of the news links are from 2009, so who knows. Look, it is absurd to reboot your franchise when the whole premise is "there can be only one", or at least it is if you want another final showdown with the Kurgan. I think they should just make a movie about Methos, but I understand that Really Old Guy Who Is Seriously Awesome But We're Not Quite Sure Where He's From is a less catchy film title.

Anyway, I'm more occupied with staring in fascination at the much more up-to-date reports that Zack Snyder will direct the next Superman. And Chris Nolan will produce! Seriously, every time I remember these facts, I sit very still in a state of dazed paralysis, trying to wrap my mind around the sheer cracked insanity that could result.

In other news, I thought I would try my 50,000 November word count by just adding up all the various things I'm writing, but then ... I started writing an actual goddamn non-fanfic novel. I understand that one should be writing roughly 1667 a day in order to hit the minimum complete word count by the thirtieth, which means that tonight I should be at 15000. Alas, I only started three days ago, and am at 7495 words. That means I am 15% done! And ... halfway to the current word count I should have. Whatever! I have great tabs open; I keep staring happily at the googlemaps street view of Scottish towns, I have two google books of Sir Walter Scott laying around, and I am drowning in ballads. GOOD TIMES.

The unexpected dangers of talking about my younger self: I am now listening to My Chem's Na Na Na on repeat and watching the pilot of Smallville. Oh yeah, and wearing an oversize hoodie! SELF, WHAT WERE YOU DOING WHEN YOU WERE ACTUALLY FOURTEEN. /o\ (Well, let's be honest: I was listening to Avril Lavinge and reading really awful Harry Potter fic, so this is a step up. From that. Probably a step down from earlier today when I was watching Star Trek TOS and listening to Vienna Teng, though.)

i. Something I love about the slush pile is the names. Oh man, the names! They are fannish with weird regularity. Last week, I rejected queries by a Harris and a Rosenberg in succession. Today, I got to write a polite note to Mr. Scotty! I don't remember what his query was about, but I hope it was something like A Guide to Practical Engineering in the Twenty-Third Century.

ii. For some absurd reason, I am trying to work out Highlander and Buffy timelines. Because, y'know, the First Evil and the Bringers blew up all these Watcher headquarters, and Adam Pierson has this nice place in the English countryside where all the new Slayers can train! House rules: no practicing decapitation indoors, or, in fact, anywhere near Mr. Pierson. (What is wrong with me.)

iii. There is a pairing meme going around! I like memes. ( Under the cut. Comes with spoilers for s5 Doctor Who, the end of Babylon 5, minor ones for White Collar, and intentionally vague ones for BSG. )

A very important question: why did no one tell me that Dramatic License is the best Highlander episode ever?? EVER. So far I am eight minutes in, I have never seem Adrian Paul have such fun before, both Amanda and Duncan have dramatically read aloud from a romance novel, and I have already choked half to death on my own laughter about ten times.

I mean, okay, Dramatic License is sort of like The Naked Time in that it's only screamingly hilarious if you already know the characters, but someone should have mentioned it anyway! Only I'm not sure who 'someone' is, because everyone I know who's seen Highlander either saw it because I mentioned it, or is mostly there for Methos, or both. So, okay, possibly I should finish the episode first, but consider this an extremely enthusiastic rec (with perhaps a caveat if you have a really active embarrassment squick? YMMV).

...It would be even more amazing if Methos was in it, though. Universe, why have you not conspired to have Peter Wingfield dramatically read purple prose porn starring Duncan? Not on, universe.

The problem with moving, it turns out, is that I spend a lot of time using my muscles to haul furniture, which leaves my brain free to hang out on the spinning hamster wheel of absurdity. I will now share with you some of the fascinating things that have been going on in my head:

i. I had such fun with yesterday's WIP meme that I thought up a few more. These are less likely to get written, but eh, what are a few more absurd Highlander crossovers among friends?

( The White Collar one and the Buffy one. Don't look at me like that. )

ii. This is not actually a real crossover at all, just a thought: Amanda from Highlander/River Song. Possibly with heists. DISCUSS.

iii. There is this fairly hilarious White Collar vid to One Jump Ahead from Aladdin. I thought it was cute and clever at the time, and moved on. But obviously it stuck with me, because today, on my iPod's shuffle, the tricksy iPod oracle started playing "I Won't Say (I'm In Love)" from Hercules and -- my god, I can't stop laughing, it is the most perfect Methos crackvid to ever exist. Except that it doesn't exist yet! Obviously, if I ever do try to learn how to vid, this should be the first one I do; it won't matter if it's rubbish, I'll learn the ropes, and it'll be fucking hysterical.

iv. Speaking of Methos (when am I not speaking of Methos?) I am writing a fic. It's Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair, as I think I mentioned in the previous WIP post! And I am having my normal longfic troubles with it, ie, I keep being sidetracked by trying to figure out every little last minute detail in my personal canon about Methos, and that is not useful. Therefore! Know how those 'list x pieces of personal canon for x show/character' memes sometimes go around? I'm doing one of those.

( 20 bits of personal Methos canon. Um, this ended up structured strangely like a fic itself. )

A very important question: have any of you seen Stonehenge Apocalypse? Could it possibly be even worse than it looks, or is that wishful thinking? Will I ever stop laughing? THESE ARE VERY IMPORTANT QUESTIONS.

I've been having an anxious couple of days, and I can think of absolutely nothing better to remedy it. Oh my god.

1. ( An absurd chart of my favourite character traits. )

2. I have a steadily more burning desire to write Highlander fic. Goddammit. At least Doctor Who has cured me of my conviction that I need to have a comprehensive knowledge of the canon before I write in the universe? I'm still pretty sure, though, that by "write Highlander fic" I mean "write hilarious fic about how Methos is four millennia older than the Doctor, so there." I don't even know, guys.