a conspiracy of cartographers

December posting meme! Today's topic: the thing I most want to see in upcoming MCU films, for such_heights.

I ... feel like I have two different answers; one of them is about my ideal MCU films, and one of them is about what I can reasonably hope and expect to see in the future. Obviously there is some overlap! So I'm just going to go through upcoming films that I know are happening, be WILDLY OPTIMISTIC, and list some things I would love:

+ Heaps and heaps of well-done Natasha backstory! Like, ideally I want a Black Widow movie buuut obviously that is not in the cards, so instead I want lots of Natasha in Age of Ultron (and for those bits from the trailer that hint at backstory being done well), and lots of Natasha in Cap 3, and ... surprise Natasha in everything else?? LOTS OF NATASHA.

+ Uhhhh I am in mild despair about the Ant Man film but, let's be real, what I desire is a minimum of Hank Pym, and JAN PLEASE JUST GIVE ME JAN AND DON'T FRIDGE HER, and for most of the film to be about Jan and Scott Lang. ...A girl can dream.

+ A girl can also hope that Carol Danvers gets a casting like Katee Sackhoff or Katheryn Winnick, though I'm not wedded to either of these and I bet there are tons of excellent options out there. But I would be really into either of those!

+ I am trying to be restrained but seriously though I want a Thor 3 that's about Loki WRECKING EVERYTHING while being king (lolol I'm going to get literally Jossed about this in May) while Jane tries to save it with SCIENCE and becomes friends with Sif and they both have to help Thor with politics as well as hitting things and also ... everyone hangs out and Loki keeps being allllmost redeemable ...? Stop talking and write fic, Aria.

+ Tbh my most important want for any MCU film ever, though, is for the characters I love to have meaningful connections and hang out and be friends! This is a lot of the reason I really loved Winter Soldier; this is the reason that despite rolling my eyes a lot at the Age of Ultron trailer, I'm still way too optimistic about the movie because I adored the clip of the Avengers trying to lift Mjolnir. I want all the movies to be, at their core, like that.

Okay, it's almost December, that means it's time for the December meme! I'd really love to do this; using DW is still an only-occasionally thing but I love it as a habit, so this seems like a lovely way to go about it.

So yes! Pick a day or days in December and a topic for me to talk about -- specific fandom feelings, things from my real life, random opinions, favorite things, whatever -- and I will talk about them! Length to vary according to number of feelings and/or opinions I have on any given thing :)

( List of days. )

It occurs to me that I may be terrible at New Year's resolutions in part because my brain thinks of years as having September-August cycles (ie the way a school year/summer break is scheduled) rather than January-December ones. Leaves beginning to turn color? Time to figure out what habits and schedules to change in order to optimize the year! I think this means I should take advantage of my brain's comfort with fall as a time of change in order to make some nicer habits!

Obviously one of these is posting to DW more often. I have stopped worrying and learned to love twitter, but it has no archival-diary function, which is my favorite thing about journaling sites. Also, wow, being able to condense my thoughts is a nice skill, but at this point I feel like I need to relearn how to uncondense them. And so: an uncondensed list of things I would like to do!

1. Get back on tumblr tbh. I need to just pare it down to people whose posts I consistently like, and then give myself a half-hour time limit per day and make myself stop after that before I can go into a weird guilt spiral about never catching up. It's okay, self. Tumblr is infinite.

2. Stretch in the evenings?? The apartment of Gondor often mainlines shows in the evenings (the past few months it's been Warehouse 13); this is the ideal time to roll out a mat and unwind a bit. I have a job that has a lot of heavy lifting! My back has been REAL MAD lately! I should be kind to my body, it's the only one I get unless awesome cyborg enhancements are coming to the general public sooner than I anticipate.

3. Enjoy some new media! I ... have peaced out of Doctor Who so hard :( Instead I am watching Outlander, lololol; I definitely want to give Farscape a go, since it's all on Netflix. (I am told that the viewing order is in some way fucked?? Any pointers from people who know Farscape would be much appreciated.) I have also fallen back into the habit of reading actual books; just finished Jemisin's Dreamblood duology, and Leckie's Ancillary Justice is next on the list. EXCITED.

4. Write ... some books ...? I mean, I have a post-Thor 2 plotty political fic to write with filiabelialis, and unrelated shorter Loki/Amora and apparently Sif/Lorelei fics, and probably some Gamora/Nebula if I can bring myself to care about the GotG part of the MCU enough; but then I also have some original projects to finish! And to start! And to middle! I think the takeaway here is that, just as I need to block out a half hour per day for tumblr and then call quits, I need to block out probably an hour per day for writing (and then NOT call quits if the writing is actually working). When my days were more structured I got lots more writing done per month, so now that I have a job with weird hours I need to do my own structuring.

5. Gonna learn to vid! This has been a backburner resolution for a while, but verity has offered to actually teach me, so hell yes I'm doing that. (She's also offered to teach me how to break an egg one-handed, as per Thor's skill at that in her fic halfway between the gutter and the stars -- GO READ IT it features the very best Thor -- but presumably learning how to break eggs will take less time than learning how to vid.)

I think all this is doable! It'll be nice to settle in and work on getting comfortable inside my life; A and I just redecorated the apartment, so physically it's lovely to be in; I've had lots of summer adventures and am happy to lay low for a bit. Such good summer adventures, though: some New York friends came up to Boston and took me to a One Direction concert with them, which was pretty great; the following week filiabelialis and I went down to NYC to visit (mostly different) friends. And I think I want to get back into the habit of having a narrative for adventures, either the gallivanting ones or the at-home ones. I like the way it makes them feel more permanent.

i. WisCon this year was wonderful! as WisCon every year is wonderful. It felt particularly short this year, though (a situation exacerbated by [a] not arriving til Friday afternoon, [b] the vid party being on Saturday instead of Friday and thus cutting into Saturday lobbycon, and [c] increasing numbers of my friends being on panels; maybe one of these years I will be brave and go on a panel myself). The vid party was delightful, it was so so great to see old WisCon buddies and to meet new ones, the GOH speeches made me cry a bit, and next year I fully intend to arrive Thursday and give myself breathing room and really bask in the con.

ii. Relatedly I am reading NK Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy! Currently in the middle of the third one, still loving it, though nothing will be as id-satisfyingly perfect to me as Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was. (SO perfectly id-satisfying; I've been summarizing it to people on twitter as "court intrigues and captive gods and family drama," and there has been much sage nodding/laughing at me because why yes that IS a portrait of my id.) I ... also think they're really well-written and -plotted and all that good stuff, but I'm not sure I can recommend them as Perfect Books, because mostly they are just perfect to me.

iii. Other things that are a bit perfect to me: Maleficent! ( Mild spoilers, mostly pleased. )

iv. I also saw Days of Future Past, but that doesn't get a spoiler cut, since it can be summarized as "Quicksilver and Mystique were my favorite parts, it was fun I guess." Sorry, X-Men, I think I'm officially broken up with you :/ Not that I won't see any future films in that universe, but I don't have lots of fannish feelings about it right now.

v. Meanwhile, in my job in the barista AU, I am now a shift supervisor! This means getting up earlier, but also getting paid more and getting to go home earlier, and is for the most part really nice. (As I type this, one of the other shift supervisors is texting me to do a complicated schedule swap because he wants to play a show with his band on a day he has a closing shift. I'm living in a weird hipster fic, send help.)

iv. Polaris and I have spent some of the day researching animal shelters in the area! Perhaps next week we will get a cat or two, stay tuned :DDD

Happy Passover! Gondor is hosting a sedar tonight for our D&D group, though as far as I know we won't be holding it in character.

Meanwhile it's spring. The weather this week, as I understand it, is going to get miserably cold again, but at the moment we have the sort of blustering spring rain that makes me crave summer thunderstorms. I was walking home with my jeans and shoes soaking wet and I didn't even care, because summer is coming! At the cafe we're running through all our cold brew before noon and the poor ice machine can't keep up with demand, but all the customers are so happy, which is incredibly pleasant.

Mostly what I've been doing this week is having awful wrecking Winter Soldier feelings. I am not going to deny these feelings! (After Thor came out I spent this precious week going "Huh, what an interesting flash-in-the-pan investment I'm having! I'm sure it'll end soon," and this is the SAME LEVEL OF INTENSITY, by which I mean, lots.) I've read a post-film fic where a line of Natasha's made me tear up, and I've been making vids in my head and tearing up more because I just love Sam Wilson so much, and I really definitely cannot hold all these feels, so instead I'm reading Black Widow comics and feeling cranky about Hydra and trying to think of an action plot to hang my OT4 story on. (I'm also not going to make it 100k. I just. Nope. I'm hoping wistfully that it'll be under 50k instead, hahaha you fool it's never under 50k when you have this many feelings.)

I'm also. Hm. ( I'm having some complicated Bucky feelings? )

And I'm genuinely excited for new SHIELD /o\ I still think they haven't decided where they want to come down on the morality scale, but at least CAtWS made the question actually interesting, and I'm pretty psyched for the version of the show where these losers are running around like headless chickens trying to figure out who the hell their allies are. WE SHALL SEE.

*taps* Is this thing on? Yes? Good.

Fandom participation is a weird thing for me right now, because at the moment my main fandom is ... the D&D campaign that Housemate A is running? I hear that often D&D campaigns are kind of cracky and fragmented and, while lots of fun, not full of really coherent narrative or character arcs; but we're a group consisting entirely of people who are really fannish and care a lot about character relationships and plot threads and so on, so we've been doing it ... very fannish RPG style, I guess. Shipping things and finding songs to give each other feels! I keep on making vids in my head! THERE IS NO FOOTAGE. But it's a lot of what my brain has been up to.

I've also been watching Leverage for the first time; we're two episodes from the series finale now, and I don't want it to ennnnd, but I do want every single Hardison/Parker/Eliot and/or perfect found family team fic; totally taking recs! Also probably going to comb through the AO3 with great enthusiasm. Other than that I'm not watching much telly; Sleepy Hollow is between seasons, I've sort of peaced out of both Elementary and White Collar until I can watch the whole season in a go, I'm rewatching all of Community by showing it to a friend, and I can't quite bring myself to keep going because Troy, and ... well, okay, I have been watching SHIELD.

Seriously, of all the shows, SHIELD is the one I'm keeping up with. I don't even fucking know either, but I have a lot of THOUGHTS. ( Yelling about SHIELD; some positive stuff, but mostly wailing about how the show really has to fucking decide whether its main characters are the good guys or not. )

Okay, so perhaps besides the D&D campaign, Marvel is still my current fandom. Oh, and I've been reading the Agent of Asgard comics! They are SUCH tumblr fodder, but I'm really okay with that; it's kind of fun to feel squarely within the target demographic. Loki writes slashfic! Loki is always herself! Loki makes bizarre One Direction jokes! Hell yes I'm paying $3 every couple of weeks for this.

Relatedly, does anyone know if the Thor 2 deleted scenes & assorted other whatever special features are anywhere to be found? Amazon seems to have DVDs and Blu Rays and all that good stuff, but none of them list any actual special features! C'mon, Marvel, I'm trying really hard to give you money, just give me something in addition to the movie in exchange! I'll probably just keep compulsively checking amazon, but this is a little silly.

My new year so far:

+ I had very pleasant shifts at the cafe; good tips, several super nerdy interactions with customers (including a little girl who had a Doctor Who book and told me her favorite Doctor was "Nine and Ten AND Eleven!")

+ Our D&D session last night was so great! Many shenanigans were had, and scribe's visiting BFF seemed to have a good time.

+ Amiel stayed over and as usual did that thing where they make amazing breakfast. So, due to snowstorm, instead of getting up at unreasonable hours to catch a bus to New York, I got up at perfectly reasonable hours and had snuggles and BACON.

+ It is the third bus I attempted to get a ticket for, but I'm on it and actively on my way to the couch con oliviacirce is hosting! By which I mean I'm sitting at the very front of the top level of the bus, watching the road go by below, listening to the Pacific Rim soundtrack and writing this on my phone and generally having a really good day.

This year I'm not at my parents' house for Christmas, I didn't attend the UU holiday service, and there is no Yuletide fic waiting for me. Instead I was back from my parents' place in time for a sprawling hours-long gift exchange with my friends earlier this week (from which I emerged with a beautiful paper lantern and nice knitwear; Polaris also got a jar full of chocolate, and since both she and Housemate A are now halfway across the country with their own families, the chocolate is mine, all mine). We did a small apartment Christmas before they both left a few days ago. I spent a lot of yesterday at work, caffeinating people through their last desperate burst of holiday shopping, and various of us got small gifts from regulars; then I went home, and watched the Community Christmas episodes, and because I was far away from the UU holiday service, I asked YouTube to play me a choir singing Silent Night.

Today I'm going over to scribe's for Chinese takeout and a Lord of the Rings marathon, as one does. And I've had texts and calls from various friends and family, so even though it's just me, and I'm somewhere new and doing different things, it still does feel properly like the holiday.

Hope you all have a lovely Wednesday. <333

I caught myself thinking "I have so many things to tweet about, but I don't really want to limit myself to soundbites," and then remembered that I have a Dreamwidth, c'mon, self. So here are some things I was going to tweet about, in more than 140 characters:

i. I have completed 90% of my holiday shopping for my parents! As usual I have fifty gift ideas for my mum and very few for my dad, so I'll try to just locate some nice chocolate for my dad and not go on some sort of tea and mugs and earrings rampage for my mum. I also have wrapping paper! And I should find some nice things for my housemates, and Jessie & co's white elephant gift exchange, and ... maybe for some other people? Idk, my general policy is to get physical gifts for in-person friends and bang out a few giftfics for fandom friends generally, but I actually have a lot of friends in the area this year, and lots of nice wrapping paper. Only my parents' stuff was urgent, though, as I'm going to see them next week. This weekend, though, the tree! (I really love December, and festival-of-lights gift-giving style Christmas. I would like some snow, though, c'mon, let's get winter up in here.)

ii. I have a new laptop! The old kind of broken one (m key hasn't worked for aaages, lid will no longer close because it was winching off slowly) is called Methos, which was apparently a terrible idea, because it kept dying but never stayed dead. I think I'm calling the new one Frigga, and it will hopefully be a much better-behaved immortal until its time comes. I haven't set it up yet, though, because that really feels like a day-long task to transfer all my files and get my music in order and make sure it has the right browsers and useful programs like VLC &c. It is also going to have much better processing power than my current one, which means it is time for me to LEARN HOW TO VID. Seriously, I want to try this! So, vidding friends: anyone know what vidding program would be good? Keep in mind that I'm still on a Windows OS, so all the nice Mac-only programs are right out.

iii. Speaking of vids! The Aims vid project, in which vidders are making a vid to each song on said Vienna Teng album. The latest is The Breaking Light, a Pacific Rim vid by such_heights, which I knew was going to slay me going in, because anytime she vids a Vienna Teng song I basically become a sobbing mess. That it's also Pacific Rim just made everything 1000% betterworse.

iv. And speaking of Vienna Teng, I had this theory that the song Never Look Away is just one of those great songs that is applicable to basically any pairing one is currently having feels about. I was fairly sure of this when I was having lots of Thor/Loki feels about it, and now I am entirely sure of it, because I've started showing Housemate A due South and suddenly Never Look Away was this ridiculous amazing torrent of all my old Fraser/Kowalski feelings. So yeah! I am showing Housemate A due South! We're still only in first season, and I'm enjoying it immensely; it's been at least two, possibly three, years since I watched it last, and oh gosh I just love it so much, what a perfect show to watch in the drawing-in of winter.

v. I hear there is a meme going around where you suggest topics and then I post a response to one a day! I ... really don't have the wherewithal to be that diligent, but if you like, please do comment with a topic, anything you like, and I'll choose some to talk about!

I went to see Thor 2! I did not even go at midnight, but at the reasonable hour of 9 pm! And sdkhjgffg IT WAS SO GREAT.

( Spoilers are a convergence. )

What I do know is that I need to see this film at least two more times and then write ... probably Loki/Thor/Jane fic with lots of Asgardian politics in. YEP.