a conspiracy of cartographers

Favorite early-summer activity: sitting out on the porch and listening to oncoming storms. Mmm Southern thunderstorms.

Okay, 3w4dw time!

2. Why did you choose your journal name? What does it mean?

Heh. When I was quite young, like ... eleven, twelve, something like that, I came into possession of a book called Aria of the Sea. To my great disappointment, it was not even remotely about a girl named Aria who had magical ocean-related adventures, although the book was quite decent, and I learned a new word! (I am not sure how I didn't know an aria was a kind of song prior to this, but somehow it took me this long.) Despite this, I still really liked Aria as a name, and so when I signed up for ... I think it was a fanfiction.net account first, I signed up as Aria because it was the first thing that came into my head. When I migrated to various other places, I kept the name, and by now it's just stuck with a vengeance, to the extent that I easily answer to Aria IRL. But I still like it.

( The rest of the days. )

This morning I came across an offhand comment in a discussion thread about how adorable it would be if Amy and Rory had a child, and Eleven traveled around with a whole family of Ponds! I guess my brain thought it was, in fact, pretty adorable.

Slow Path. Jessie Pond Williams has the most amazing friend in the whole universe. KIDFIC, THAT'S RIGHT. No spoilers, just a wee child and the potential horror of Amy Pond as a responsible mother.

PLEASE OCCUPY ME SO I DO NOT GO MAD WHILST WAITING.

Meme! Give me a character and I will tell you:

* How I FEEEEEL about this character
* All the people I ship romantically with this character
* My non-romantic OTP for this character
* My unpopular opinion about this character
* One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

A few weeks ago I got the first two Beka Cooper books from the library, and, to my surprise, read them all in a go. (Or most of them; I had to return Bloodhound when I was only halfway through, so please no spoilers.) I say 'to my surprise' because somewhere in the Trickster books I reached the conclusion that I like Tamora Pierce books best when they have fabulous camp villains and lots of swashbuckling, and that her older stuff ran on nostalgia value but I'd just outgrown her. Beka Cooper told me it wasn't so; I love those books, and they filled me with the deep enthusiastic desire to go reread Alanna.

I'm at the beginning of In the Hand of the Goddess again now, and ... wow, right after reading the Beka books, it's weird. I keep imagining all the brilliant worldbuilding things that could happen! All the brilliant gender commentary! All the ... yeah, man, I still don't know what to do about the Bazhir. Possibly open diplomatic dialogue instead of making Jonathan the Voice?

The point is, though, that I keep imagining a much longer, in-depth, and progressive set of Alanna books. There would be a lot more history, especially in regards to the Old Ones and the Black City; I'd love to see those match up with the developed mythology of the later books. There would be a bit more time to get to know Raoul and Alex and Gary and Jon and Miles and George, though, bless them, I love them all even though they're mostly sketches compared to her later character work. There would just be more time for everything, the psychology of Roger and the war with Tusaine and foreign relations and the Roof of the World and everything with Thom and and and.

Really what I want, though, is the narrative of a girl who lives as a boy for eight years. And yes, there's a bit of that, but -- oof. I actually keep wincing a little. Alanna keeps being convinced that she has to prove herself five times over to be as good as the weakest boy, and utterly loathes it when she hits various milestones of female puberty, and scowls a lot when people tell her gently that she can't change what the gods gave her. On the other hand, she ends up growing very comfortably into herself, so I'd say she's maybe a bit genderqueer but not, at the end of the day, in the wrong body. What I really want is for her to identify however the fuck she wants, and while I'm at it, let's examine how Jonathan is mostly into her when she dresses like a girl and he remembers that she's a hot lady, while meanwhile George kisses Alan on street corners and Liam flips out no matter what. Oh, and let's talk about how Alanna's entire close social circle for eight years was a group of excellent guys who definitely talked about the ladies they were into while she is around; damn but it would be excellent if Alanna was bi. I am sure there are plenty of court ladies who are not silly or scheming! That would be amazing and add so many tasty layers to her ridiculous on-and-off thing with Jon. And of course she can end up with George anyway, pay attention, George makes out with Alan on street corners.

Fff. I need to shut up that awful little voice in the back of my head that keeps saying so write it yourself.

So Elisabeth Sladen has passed away. I just ... I can't even.

I bet Delgado and Pertwee and Courtney throw really awesome UNIT parties in the afterlife. That's all I've got right now.

Why is everyone on my rlist not shrieking about this? So far I have only seen one excited post, and that is ridiculous considering how many of us care about Doctor Who. But perhaps not everyone has seen it? So it is linking time!

Link: Q&A Transcript for the the Doctor Who NYC Primer screening! It is in fact technically spoiler-free; we mostly learn that Karen is on Team Fez and Matt is on Team Stetson, and that Moffat is still as evil as ever, and that Alex knows more than everyone else.

Excited flailing: ( an excerpt of the transcript, potentially spoilery Master business. )

So I wrote a fic! It is an extremely belated fic for filia_belialis' birthday, or Christmas, or because she lets me crash in her room; probably all of the above! Anyway, we are partners in flailing about Demon's Lexicon, so Demon's Lexicon fic it is!

Fix, Nick/Alan. "What's stronger," Nick said, "a demon's mark or a magician's mark?" Spoilers like hell for the end of Covenant, wild speculation, aaaand my total inability to feel even a little guilty about writing this. I would happily write Alan all the damn time.

And now it looks more like I'll get my own computer back sometime early next week. Since I leave town on Wednesday, I am ... now less than serene about this. So fuck this noise, it's time for a meme.

1. Make a list of fifteen characters first, and keep it to yourself for the moment.

2. Ask your flist to post questions in the comments. For example: 'One, nine and fifteen are chosen by a prophecy to save the world from four. Do they succeed?', 'Under what circumstances might five and fourteen fall in love?', 'Which character on the list would you most want on your side in a zombie invasion?'

3. After your flist has asked enough questions, round them up and answer them using the fifteen characters you selected beforehand, then post them.

Last night I dreamt that I was writing poetry about Spock. I am actually more or less incapable of writing poetry, and I expect that if I'd remembered the words upon waking they would have been not-very-good words, but at the time I thought it was decent. Now I'm a bit sad I'm not devoting my day to poetry about Spock.

On the other hand, after that I dreamt I'd turned into girl!Ten, and my pinstripe suit was fabulous. Apparently in my brain, David Tennant is a hot lady. So that was excellent.

Today we say goodbye to Vienna Teng and Paul Gross. THIS IS IT, GUYS. I don't even know how you're going to choose between Freema and Gina. Seriously, the answer to the question, "Martha or Zoe?" is clearly "Space adventures with both of them!"

( Four attractive people beneath the cut! )