a conspiracy of cartographers

i. Other things I love about December: pomegranates are in season! I have heard tell that a clever way to quickly remove the seeds from a pomegranate involves putting it in a bowl of water, but I really enjoy the -- I don't even know what the verb would be -- the shucking of a pomegranate? Something like that. It's satisfying and slightly meditative, and sometimes during the process I get struck by weird thoughts like "I know pomegranate seeds don't need a collective noun, but I want to call them a carnage of seeds." Red juice everywhere! In conclusion, pomegranates are delicious.

ii. The amount of canon-checking I'm doing for my James/Lily/Remus/Sirius fic is slightly absurd. Can't kill the McKinnons yet, Lily mentioned in a letter to Sirius that Peter was sad about it sometime in the summer of 1981! Make sure all the side characters have canonical names and could conceivably be at Hogwarts in the late '70s! I have moon charts open, people. But I also have faith that I'll be done in the next few days, so I can release it into the wild and get on with the business of Yuletide.

iii. Apparently there is now a musical version of the Importance of Being Earnest. The mind boggles. If it manages to be successfully imported Stateside I am absolutely going to see it, too, not only because I can't get over this glorious mental image in which Jack and Algy have a duet about cucumber sandwiches, but because I have genuinely lost count of how many times I've seen Earnest staged. At this point I'm incapable of simply sitting back and being entertained; instead, I carefully weigh each production against every other, observing what was successfully done and which choices were less successful. So, among other things, a musical would be a bit unexpected, and I'd love to laugh at Earnest like it was new.

To my complete bewilderment, instead of writing my Yuletide (which I am so far unstressed about; I have my whole outline and I'm nearly done with the obligatory canon review) I am instead writing Marauders poly fic. Peter is not invited to these poly shenanigans, but maybe he should be, because let me tell you guys, Remus is so obstinate and self-effacing at inconvenient times that we've now passed 10,000 words and there has been one kiss. One. Remus Lupin, we have passed the minimum requirement for undemanding big bangs! This is absurd!

I swear, you guys, I am no longer even remotely upset with Tonks for calling Remus out in the hospital wing in front of everyone. I am nearly at the same point myself.

DECEMBER! Month of tea and chocolate and Yuletide and my family's pagan-flavored festival-of-lights Christmas! I love how I feel wonderful this morning just because of arbitrary calendar things.

I finally have some clothing to my immediate right, so I am doing this meme:

Your job is now your Time Lord name. The last digit of your phone number is the current regeneration you are in. The nearest clothing item to your right is now the most notable item in your current wardrobe. The last person you texted is your current companion. Your favorite word is now your catchphrase.

I am the Intern! This seems slightly depressing as a Time Lord name, and I would much prefer to be the Writer, so I probably introduce myself like that instead. (ETA: Or, since a lot of my interning is about query rejections, I am also the Slushkiller! This seems suitably badass and ridiculous.) I'm in my eighth regeneration. My notable item of clothing is a white, black, brown, and grey striped knit hoodie jacket, which is awesome because it is both great for any nippy temperate climate and also pretty deeply weird. My companion is oliviacirce, which means I'm one of those Time Lords who goes for the companions that are way more competent than they are. And my catchphrase is "Gazebo!" because ... confuse the enemy?

I suspect there should also be a part of the meme that determines what outward disguise your TARDIS usually takes, but I am not sure what the question would be. Your favorite outdoor structure? The nearest man-made object you can see out your window? Something like that. (Incidentally, that means my TARDIS either looks like a lighthouse or a garden wall.)

Wow, I forgot how spectacularly I hate late November. It isn't for any particular reason this year, since I have neither looming exams nor any recent big screw-ups, but my body and brain seem to remember very well that late November is rubbish. I keep sleeping badly and staying in bed way too long, my mind is insistently cataloging the thousand ways I urgently need to improve as a person, and even emailing a local friend to ask when she'll be home for the holidays feels like an insurmountable human-interaction task. For the most part I am patiently waiting this feeling out, for lo, December is approaching and December is a month of sparkly joy in the same irrational way that November is awful. Until December arrives and magically makes my brain behave, though, here are some of the (fannish, obvs) ways I have been distracting it:

+ At paper_tzipporah's insistence I have started watching Farscape. I suspect that, as with Babylon 5, one's first best watch is done with a friend who is already in love with the show. As is, I am wandering through first season, enjoying the view but not mainlining it yet. (Also, bringing up Babylon 5 in this context makes me realize how much I'd love to see Delenn and Zhaan in the same room. I don't know what they would do, but it'd be amazing.)

+ I have also watched the first two episodes of Once Upon a Time, and I am charmed despite the fact that I keep getting distracted by most of the actors' sheer confusion at how to play the fairytale-flashback bits. There also just seems to be a deluge of Snow White-centric stories lately? I've now seen previews for both of the films that are coming out next year, and I can't stifle the small panicked voice in my head that keeps saying "Snow Glass Apples! Snow Glass Apples!" Yes, little voice, I already saw Kristen Stewart get turned into a vampire last week, I know how this story goes.

+ I ... can't quite dislodge myself from investment in Supernatural. Right now it's manifesting as mild curiosity about some of the early-seasons episodes I skipped, so I've been watching bits with Azazel's other kids and John and Meg, and enjoying it stupid amounts. This time through, though I still have a tendency to go "Oh Dean," I've also been saying "Oh Sammy," a lot more frequently than I did the first time around. WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE GRIP ME TIGHT AND RAISE ME FROM THIS SHOW.

+ The amount of writing I am doing! A bewilderingly long James/Lily/Remus/Sirius fic is probably coming soon to a computer near you, and then of course there is Yuletide, and also other Yuletide stories I will probably write despite not being assigned them, and mm. I love December because December is that glorious time when one curls up with a hot drink and all the beloved source material and just goes to town with it.

THESE DOCTOR WHO MINI-EPISODES OH MY GOD

Bad Night & Good Night
First Night & Last Night

I am infinitely charmed by Moffat's willingness to write and film fic for his own show. Because these are absolutely fanfiction: wacky improbable adventures are happening just off-screen, but the story at hand is about these people in the TARDIS having emotions at each other. IT GIVES ME SO MANY FEELINGS. Also I do believe I want fic of this fic.

Evidence of the fact that I have been having Exciting Adventures: radio internet silence! I will probably be properly around again sometime after Thanksgiving, at which point I will realize how many emails I almost certainly owe people. Presumably I will also start dithering about Yuletide. EXCITED ABOUT YULETIDE, GUYS. In the meantime, some disorganized bullet points:

+ I am, for inexplicable reasons, still watching Supernatural as it airs. I really need to stop, but on the other hand, Crowley. Also I own the same hairbrush as Becky the Fangirl. Uncomfortably small world!

+ This last week's Community was so great. I was starting to worry that I was only enjoying the more gimmicky episodes, because most of the day-in-the-life ones lately have been frustratingly mean-spirited, but this one filled me with joy and warm fuzzies. I am pretty sure I need all the Troy/Abed/Annie fic now.

+ In non-television news, I have an actual moving-to-Boston timeline now! It is not really precise, but "sometime in April" is a real thing that is happening rather than a vague resolution. I'll be moving in with polarisnorth, and it's an excellent location, and we're already drawing up Lists Of Apartment Things and generally doing lots of hilarious nesting, and I'm pretty sure we need an apartment tag. Presumably this will happen once our apartment has a name, and alas, we cannot call it the Avengers Mansion, as that's where filia_belialis and feverbeats and bluestalking live. But I will think of something!

And that's about it! Today I think is a day to write things, since I have left Boston, and rayruz is at an acting class for most of the day, so I have a bit of breathing room.

Now that I am caught up the show, it is time to bask in the fic! But the thing about Supernatural fandom is that it is prolific; I'm having to really fine-tune tag queries on the AO3, I have no idea where to even start on LJ, and, well, delicious isn't really a font of helpfulness these days. Therefore, this is officially a shameless plea for Supernatural fic recs post!

Obviously if you know anything off the top of your head that must be read, by all means rec it! But I figure talking about the sort of things I'm looking for might be helpful. So:

+ Sam/Dean. Hit me with all the fic about them being psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent on each other. I honestly don't care when it takes place, how compliant with all of canon it is (although I don't think I want anything from before the end of second season, unless it's a specific episode tag and un-Jossed), whether or not they're allowed to have nice things, any of it. All I really need here is well-written epic codependency.

+ Dean/Cas! I ... am honestly not sure what I want from my Dean/Cas, so hit me with your favorites. My only hard rule is that the narrative also likes Sam. (Not, necessarily, is nice to him, because when is any narrative nice to Sam; I just don't want to read anything that hates him.) I suspect I would also be especially easy for anything that explores Dean and Castiel's weird twisty power dynamics, but really I'm up for anything.

+ FIC ABOUT LADIES. Give me all your fixes and reclamations of Jo and Ellen! All the subversive things you can think of about Mary or Ruby or Bela or Anna or, hell, Lisa or Cassie or Madison or I don't even care, LADIES. Ladies saving the world and giving the refrigerator the finger and not having their narratives end with those boys.

+ Angels! I would love anything that messes about with the mythology; I would happily take Good Omens or American Gods or Murder Mysteries crossovers. (Or even crossovers with things Neil Gaiman hasn't touched, as presumably those must exist too.) I would love more with Anna; I am fairly sure I need fic about Gabriel like air, oh my god Gabriel. I don't care about demons quite as much, but give me good Crowley and I am so there. None of this has to be gen, either; even though I do have specific Sam/Dean and Dean/Cas wishes, I'm basically there for any ship done well.

+ TEAM FREE WILL. Membership not limited to Sam, Dean, Cas, and I guess Bobby, either; I would love fic written mid-season that wildly theorizes, or AUs about what could have happened, all that good stuff. Other favorites for Team Free Will are Jo, Ellen, Gabriel, Anna, and Crowley. God, wouldn't have a season about all of their world-saving adventures have been great? Anyway! Maybe there will be fic that provides at least some elements of that.

+ And this is not fic, but if you know of any particularly tasty meta on any aspect of the show, I am so there.

Hopefully the above narrows it down some, and I didn't actually just say "Give me every well-written fic this fandom has ever written," buuut it is entirely possible that I did. In any case, all recs greatly appreciated, and I might even come back and leave you excited flaily comments about the fics in question. Have at it!

I have hazy recollections of the internet going ballistic when Supernatural did its episodes about Supernatural the book series; people who didn't really want the show to out them as fans or shippers, people who didn't want Sam and Dean to tap at the fourth wall and go, "Dude, stop it, we're brothers." And it is a really weird narrative choice, isn't it? It's lampshading something that the casual viewer doesn't know/care about anyway, and you're not going to make your fans love you more by holding up a mirror and saying, Actually, you're Becky! Mostly, though, I think it's giving me niggling frustration because, while I actually do like weird meta in small doses and bits of the first Chuck episode had me breathless with laughter, I am so over the hapless socially inept fan as a character type.

I'm actually one of the most socially awkward people I know, and I'm still perfectly capable of carrying on normal conversation and understanding interpersonal boundaries. (To be fair, there is a good reason I don't try to interact with actors I like, but if I was forced by circumstance into a situation where I'd have to, I wouldn't start touching them, ffs.) I've been to a handful of cons, and at every one I've hung out with intelligent articulate people who happen to have the same weird encyclopedic knowledge of fiction because of their awesome hobby. I don't know, maybe the fan as a person who is as baseline functional and ordinary as everyone else isn't -- good comedy, or something, but if you know your audience is a bunch of nerds? don't do a caricature of nerds! We passed absurd about four exits ago.

There will be Crowley soon. There will be Crowley soon.

Oh, and it's also worth mentioning that I have yet to watch a Trickster episode I don't love with all my heart. That's where you can stick your meta and absurdity and tapping gently on the fourth wall.

This PSA has been brought to you by Preaching To The Choir, and also by Wow I Love Me All The Angels And Demons On This Show.

All this Supernatural-watching is making me desperately want to reread the Demon's Lexicon books: like SPN, but in England, with fewer dudebros and dead women! Also, I am entertaining myself by imagining that on the weekends Alan Ryves, Dean Winchester, and Thor get together to commiserate about the towns their little brothers razed this week and to swap coping tips. Yep.

It was probably a terrible plan to watch Mystery Spot just before going to sleep. My dreams have been thankfully light on the creepy corpsey things (though there was a brief disturbing turn with rescuing a baby Voldemort during an exciting chase through the canals of Venice) but most of last night's dreams just repeated. themselves. over. and. over. VERY FUNNY, TRICKSTER GODS. (This is what I get for writing so much about Loki.) It also may have been a terrible plan to watch Mystery Spot generally, because I was already sold on Dean's codependence re: Sam, but I hadn't been sold on Sam's codependence re: Dean, and now I am just a wobbly mess of FEELINGS. My Supernatural-watching plans did not actually include this much faceclutching and emotional investment.

I like that season three has ACTUAL COLORS, though. And that Hollywood Babylon had meta on how horror films are supposed to be dark, you guys. But I'm with the studio exec that wanted jewel tones and saturation.

And now I will go interact with actual humans, who will expect discourse on subjects other than the ridic show I'm mainlining.

A text exchange:

polarisnorth: Apple cider and bacardi is surprisingly tasty.
aria: Dean Winchester crying is surprisingly tasty.

I am in second season! Unsurprisingly, Winchesters shut up in small spaces having feelings at each other is like catnip to me; the happy faceclutching of emotional investment set in around when John was possessed. And I have actually lost count of how many times today I've said "Oh Dean!" to my screen.

(For those of you who warned me that this show is going to crush my soul, I am duly warned! Right now I am treating it as a flash-in-the-pan fandom tour a la my affair with Smallville, which is probably accurate as far as my frustration by the end is likely to go, and also in that Sam totally stole Clark Kent's hair.)