a conspiracy of cartographers

MY SHOW MY SHOW MY SHOW. Actually, aside from my sheer unhappy panic at the first episode, I have been loving this season of White Collar a whole lot.

( 3x04: if spoilers ever get lonely, tell them to call me! )

+ Gay marriage legalized in New York, HELL YES. This is still happening so slowly, but it's happening.

+ I read Demon's Surrender the other night, all in one feverish delighted go. Since my deep thoughts on the book can basically be summed up as "I LOVE EVERYONE AND I SHIP THEM ALL," rather than making a reaction post, I seem to be writing reaction fic. As one does.

+ Speaking of fic, Balancing by astolat, Thor/Loki, AU in which Odin dies and Loki is king. "He's dead, you see," Loki said, "so it's the nearest thing I can have to revenge." I apparently want a billion fics in which Loki is really not okay? Shocking. Anyway I am glad no one else is home right now, because it made me wail with joy.

+ The response I've already got to the Loki fic is making me clutch my face with glee. It is magical to be in an active fandom. (It is also magical to know there are lots of people who share my Loki FEELINGS.) Now I just have to convince myself that not everything needs a plot, and that it is okay if I write Sif/Darcy without apology. I also have to convince myself that I am capable of writing Tony Stark, but this may, in fact, be a lie.

+ Speaking of Starks, I have the first episode of Game of Thrones sitting on my computer. Taunting me. Daring me to watch it, even though I have an inner voice wailing that I shouldn't dare watch it without reading the books first. Shut up, little voice, you coped with True Blood, you can cope with this. (Oh HBO, why you gotta keep half-seducing me into watching bits of your shows.)

+ I cannot stop listening to the gay mutant disco love song from the First Class credits. It has become the soundtrack in my mind. I am having such a strange relationship with First Class fandom! Like, on the one hand Erik/Charles is my pairing type FOREVER, and I am so, so glad that it has suddenly become fandom's thing du jour. On the other hand, the more I think about the film the more issues I have with a bunch of its basic structures and assumptions, and navigating unknown fic is a minefield of avoiding Holocaust-related hurt/comfort or the assumption that Charles is actually a good and correct person, oh god how many times have I hit the back button. On the mutant (haha) third hand, a lot of excellent writers and people I know are doing so, so right by it, and so I keep reading fic, and feeling mildly bewildered, and listening to the gay mutant disco love song yet again.

+ I went to see Midnight in Paris yesterday. It is unutterably charming, you guys. I have a low tolerance for Woody Allen films, but this one was great. I originally went to see it on the promise of Tom Hiddleston as F. Scott Fitzgerald, and he was indeed pretty delightful (although oh god he had an American accent, cognitive dissonance, WHAT IS HAPPENING) but the best part was actually Ernest Hemingway, who had me basically rolling in my seat laughing. If you like jokes about 1920s writers, watch the hell out of this.

+ I seem to be rereading American Gods; this is great fun, because I get to clutch my face and cackle when it talks about Shadow's cellmate Low Key and his scarred smile, and also I keep going, "Oh, ODIN," when no one is in the room. But I think I should warn you all: don't read Neil Gaiman late at night. Just don't do it. I used to know this, but last night I foolishly forgot, and for my transgression I dreamed that I was Shadow and had to talk with Laura while she was a half-decayed corpse; I was pretty chill about this, but there was SCREAMING INSIDE, believe me. Why you gotta do this, brain? I would have taken Aziraphale and Crowley over this. I would've taken Loki over this! Oh well. In conclusion, Neil Gaiman, late nights, no. I imagine this applies even harder if the reading in question is Sandman.

+ ...I am really tempted to watch a trio of Xena episodes in which, wiki tells me, Xena is Odin's most feared Valkyrie, Gabrielle hangs out with Brunhilda, Xena helps Beowulf defeat Grendel and ends up married to Hrothgar, and then there is girlkissing. On the other hand, if I try to watch it I might actually start laughing too hard to see.

Apparently I have decided that it is time for Thor Softer World remixes. (There is in fact a really lovely tumblr, A Softer Asgard, to which I will probably be submitting a few of these.) But, um, mostly this is a demonstration of how patience is a virtue -- a few of these are made with high-quality caps from trailers, but the majority are from a telesync and fairly rubbish. Trailers, why you gotta have almost no Loki?

Anyway. ( 10 Thor Softer World comics under the cut! Some of them are quite silly, and some of them are quite sad, and all of them are spoilery. )

Also: A Softer Universe, tumblr repository for the Doctor Who Softer World remixes I've been doing, mostly because I compulsively organize things. New ones will also be posted here, for those of you who don't care about tumblr.

Today in awesome things I have done with my life: get drunk, watch Iron Man. The irony is palpable, guys. (Also, oh man, trying to type 'palpable' whilst drunk? DIFFICULT.)

...I think I sold my soul to the Marvelverse while I wasn't paying attention.

So this Loki fic that I'm writing. It is a little bit skipthedemon's fault, re: this thread, but it is mostly my fault, both for Loki being my character type to an absurd degree, and for the fact that I'm doing that thing, the thing where it is summer and I'm hiding indoors from the humidity and my mind latches onto this one thing I want to fix and story I want to tell and then WORDS, WORDS FOR WEEKS.

This is by way of saying that I've been writing this fic for two weeks now, and it's at 24,000 words. That's only half the daily output of the season projects, but it is more than enough of the daily output for NaNo, and also already 4000 words longer than anything else I've written barring the season projects. And it's not anywhere near done. I just -- god, I hope it comes in under 50,000 by a good margin?

Basically, what I'm saying is, HAVE A GIF THAT ILLUSTRATES WHAT MY LIFE IS LIKE RIGHT NOW.



I am so sorry I seem to have gone completely mad. Again.

1. Today I was running errands, which somehow included going to a bookstore for American Gods. (Any relationship between my desire to own this book and my recent ridiculous fandom infatuation with a warped Marvel version of a particular mythology is purely coincidental.) I also skulked about the YA section, as one does, and stumbled across a paperback reissue of Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness books. Let me tell you, internet, the covers were amazing; they were so Hip YA Paranormal Romance that I wanted to cry tears of joyous laughter. The Woman Who Rides Like A Man had, far and away, the best cover -- google images provides a rather small and grainy picture of it here -- but let me describe it to you:

Alanna is slender, sexy, pleasantly androgynous, and is wearing a cute shirt from Forever 21 or something. On each side she is flanked by a strapping young man, presumably Jon and George respectively. George has folded arms and what may or may not be a leather jacket, because he's the tough guy from the streets! Jon is a sensitive guy with a semi-open shirt, and bewilderingly, looks exactly like I picture him! The point is, guys, I am so glad I don't have these covers, and I also love them a whole lot.

2. I kind of posted on tumblr about this, but I also wanted to say it here, so. There is this lovely quote by McAvoy re: Erik/Charles:

"It is a little bit of a mini-tragedy that him and Magneto don’t, you know, have sex and become married and become best friends." [via Daily Telegraph]

So the thing about this is that I am totally delighted that McAvoy went there, and knew what he was playing. I'm delighted about that the same way I love that Sir Ian McKellen said something about how X3 should have started with a panning shot of Xavier and Magneto in bed together. It is, in every conceivable way, totally amazing and lovely that the actors playing these parts know to queer the hell out of their subtext.

But you know what? I'd really like it to be text. I'd like it if we could move past Bobby's unsubtle coming-out-to-his-family scene, and past Hank's "You didn't ask, so I didn't tell," and realize that X-Men really is a great place to damn well start textually queering our superheroes. Making Charles/Erik canon would come with its own fun set of problems, like the fact that Erik is ~evil~, but I don’t care because it would be such a great start.

(Still: BECOME MARRIED. That is a really charming quote.)

3. My Loki AU That Will Not End has just broken 20,000 words. I have given up estimating how long it's going to be. In fact, I have given up on the notion of free will entirely, because I am fairly sure I am just here as a vessel to Loki's storytelling whims. I regret nothiiiiing.

Today I saw X-Men: First Class! Lots of other people have said lots of things about its various fails and issues and layers, and all of that is awesome, but I can offer nothing of the kind, because I am in FULL SQUEE MODE.

( Spoilers need to find the point between anger and serenity. And then have lots of gay sex. )

I am pretty sure that is all my addled brain has right now! In related news, I ... may have two Marvelverse movie kinkmemes open in tabs. What has my life become.

I think it is time to admit that this is not a week-long whirlwind romance, and Thor is indeed my new pet fandom. All the signs are there: I keep refreshing the kinkmeme, and the loki tag on tumblr; I have downloaded fanmixes and tracked down comics (can we talk about HOW COMPLETELY ADORABLE KID!LOKI IS); I went to see the movie a third damn time, this time with some friends.

[Actually, an aside: after said third viewing, a conversation with my friend C illustrating a fundamental difference in our approach to this film:

ME. Loki is complex and damaged and weirdly beautiful and he makes my heart hurt!
HER. That's cool; I just want to rub my face all over Thor's abs.]

Anyway, my point is, I have fallen hilariously hard. The good fic is still frustratingly difficult to find, but it is good fun to be on the ground floor of an explosion of fannish enthusiasm nonetheless. And, maybe because good fic is still a bit thin in the ground, and possibly just because I have ALL THE LOKI FEELINGS, the fic I am writing has just, um, broken 10,000 words. And I am maybe halfway done. Maaaaybe.

Also, good fic thin on the ground does not mean good fic impossible to find, and so, insta-rec: Dominion by astolat; throne!sex, or, how to write perfect Thor/Loki in 500 words or less.