a conspiracy of cartographers

Not to squee anyone's harsh, because wow, AVOS-style delicious, wow, but:

1. INSPECTOR SPACETIME. There is a TV Tropes page, a forum for creating the canon, and even some tumblr confessions. I LOVE FANDOM SO MUCH. Also I ship Inspector/Sergeant, obvs.

2. POTTERMORE, fucking finally. I am still noodling about in Chapter One, mostly because wow that site has way too much traffic, but I would like to be friends with you guys? Please tell me who you are! Then I will feel less lonely and more like I am Doing It Right. Meanwhile I'm StormScarlet127, a name I still secretly believe means I am an Ororo/Wanda shipper.

...The whole house just shook inexplicably for thirty seconds, so I'm going to assume it's an earthquake. Quick googling doesn't turn up any news (oh self it happened like three minutes ago, even the internet isn't always that quick) but does tell me that my town is on a wee fault line, so it probably wasn't a hallucination.

Live in California on the fucking San Andreas fault for fifteen years: always out of town or asleep during quakes. In North Carolina a few months of the year for less than five years: EARTHQUAKE.

ETA: Not a hallucination! That seems to be all the details the news has so far; I hope everyone near the epicenter was all right.

LJ still isn't working for me. LJ, I am so glad I have basically quit you.

In my Harry Potter reread, I am most of the way through Prisoner of Azkaban! I am procrastinating by posting because I'm at the beginning of The Dementor's Kiss, and -- yeah, deep down inside, I am fairly sure that it will never stop being Sirius Black Feelings O'Clock. (Sirius still holds the dubious honor of being the only fictional character whose death made me sob uncontrollably for ten minutes straight.) Another of the ways in which I am procrastinating is by repeatedly going to a page that has you list the top 200 names in Harry Potter in eighteen minutes; it takes me about eight to get to roundabouts 100 names, and then I can coax out another 10 to 20, and then I sit there stumped. I am quite good at most of the students, teachers, Order members, and Death Eaters, but I always forget ghosts and creatures and Founders and backstory folk. I have a stupid goal to get at least 150, but really I should probably just do better things with my life.

I also, help, am doing my reread in that way where I can hear my brain taking fic notes. It is almost exactly ten years since I got into online fandom and fic writing via Harry Potter, though, so instead of resisting I will allow myself whatever revival period I apparently need. Yes, brain, you can write Marauders-era Lily/James/Remus/Sirius, and post-war Harry/Ron/Hermione, and some Ginny fic, and post-war Harry/Draco, and maybe an AU where Sirius gets a happy ending and BLACKS, BLACKS EVERYWHERE, and -- no, help, I feel fifteen again, except this time instead of having a niche I want EVERYTHING.

Never mind, I'm off to have lunch and brave some dementors.

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.

While a lot of my flist is excitedly posting about going to WisCon, I ... went to see Thor again.

It's actually really hard to watch when one is watching for the express purpose of following Loki's arc and motivations. I spent a lot of the film wide-eyed and clutching my face. (I really need to stop falling in love with the villains. They always come back, which is great, but they never catch a break either.) Now I have more than enough in my head to Write A Fic! I hope that by announcing this, I will either do that thing where I feel accomplished enough for just announcing it that I leave it be, or that I write it quickly and move on.

Also, what the hell, RECS TIME.

+ Myth and Legend by bagheera_san: Lex/Loki. It would seem ironic, the trickster wanting revenge for a lie, but Lex understands perfectly. Some crimes are unforgivable between father and son. And some beings offend merely by existing. I don't know about you guys but I want a billion Lex/Loki fics now. No one is surprised that I love this one.

+ The Incestuous Elephant in the Room by quiddative: Thor/Loki. "While Thor and I respect the customs here on Earth, you have to understand that we have been raised under completely different social conducts." Five times Thor and Loki horrified the other Avengers, and one time the Avengers shrugged and dealt with it. This is hilarious.

+ The Later Edda: Lokisaga by bluestalking: Loki gen. Loki’s reaction to this was bad, as he never liked a lie he did not contrive himself. Thor retold as Loki's story in Old Norse prose in translation. This understands Loki so well, and also fixes the ending, and I love it a lot.

1. My computer does not, after all, have a hideous spyware virus as theorized by an astonishingly unhelpful over-the-phone tech guy; nope, my physical hard drive is scratched. I'm taking it in this afternoon to get the hard drive replaced, and hopefully I'll have my own functional computer returned to me by the weekend. I'm remarkably unstressed about this, as I backed everything up last week: telly, music, fic is all on external drives. All I'm losing is some Trek & vids.

Also, naming one's computer Methos does not guarantee longevity. Methos, I haven't even had you for a year. Apparently when five thousand years old you reach, work this well you will not.

2. The more Trek fic I read, the more I want to write an open letter to Kirk/Spock fandom. I mean, they shouldn't listen to me, and if I want something done right I should write it myself (or actually finish reading War Games) but in the meantime:

Dear Kirk/Spock fandom,

I have come across a couple of fics in which advantage is taken of the fact that Vulcan hands are erogenous zones. Please, keep that up! Tell your friends! It's hot and weird and indulges my delight for alien anatomy without resorting to wildly extrapolating, making things up wholesale, or using the word 'emerald' at the least provocation. I have also come across a couple of fics in which Spock hits Kirk around and they both really like it. I do not demand that everyone go this route, but it delights me and does make unreasonable amounts of sense. Seriously, I'm willing to provide citations.

On the other hand -- leaving aside aesthetic style, because I'm willing to forgive the 1970s for thinking that 'moist' was a remotely sexy word -- there is something you guys, and especially you guys writing now, have really got to stop. It's this t'hy'la business. You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means. It doesn't mean soulmate; it doesn't even mean bondmate. It's not the sole property of people who are destined to be lovers across a thousand universes. It just means someone is your goddamn trenchbuddy. And I love that! I'm all for every possible fic in which Spock goes, "You are an admirable comrade-in-arms, and I am honored to be your friend," and Jim is like, "Awesome, let's fuck." (Although I'm pretty sure that was just an exchange between TOS!Spock and AOS!Kirk. Whatever, I'd ship it.) My point is, that's great. Less is more. No more declarations of undying love, please.

Always appreciative of the sheer wealth of fic to choose from,
Aria

A TERRIFYING SEQUENCE OF EVENTS:

1. At Olivia's house, I discover I cannot get on the internet using my computer. That's okay! I have to write Yuletide anyway, and if I need the internet, I am allowed on Olivia's.
2. MY POWER CORD DIES.
3. I dash about like a headless chicken of sheer terror, but manage to locate my external HD and copy all 19 goddamn pages of my fic without my computer shutting down on me.
4. I realize that, since Olivia is out right now, I can't mess about with my HD and her computer. I will try to reconstruct from the last remembered point and continue in googledocs?
5. I also realize that I won't be able to reuse my own computer until at least the 21st.
6. RAGE, RAGE AT THE DYING OF THE DELL LAPTOP.

I am still shaking a bit with the massive fear of lost work. I mean, nothing is lost, but dammit, power cord! My last shitty laptop went through batteries like crazy, but the power cord lasted forver! BITTER.

ETA: On the other hand, this did not stop me from feverishly finishing the draft in googledocs, and it is now uploaded! Wow, so much less stressed suddenly. Also, I am sitting by a roaring fire and petting a ... strangely static-y cat, so life is good. Or much improved, anyway.

Thought progression:

1. Headstones reunion tour in February.
2. Hard Core Logo 2 actually got filmed and primered when I wasn't paying attention!
3. WHY AM I NOT IN CANADA.

In conclusion, however much I <3 Danger Days, I ... kind of already have my version of bandom? (Not that I'm not seeing MCR in Chicago next week. I'm just saying.)

I have jobs to search for! I have reading to do! (I have Methos fic to write and a Babylon 5 rewatch to continue, and let's not even talk about the plotty Doctor Who fic, kink bingo, or the due South AU.) But what am I doing?

I am outlining a goddamn fourth season of Avatar.

Don't expect 50k in two weeks, okay? Also, I hate you all.

PS: Stuck to You, the Amy/Rory/Eleven vid I have been waiting for all my life! Go watch it, it's awesome.

What everyone has been linking to (and what doesn't necessarily deserve a signal-boost, but I am nevertheless enjoying the discussion it's generating): Diana Gabaldon's anti-fanfic blogpost.

I'm pretty sure that ye olde fandom circles have already covered all the ways that she is Wrong On The Internet -- everything from the flawed analogy of the creepy neighbor to her misinformed understanding of copyright law to the heinous tone of having the moral high ground for being Published For Reals and not writing any filthy, aesthetically displeasing fanwork -- but the point that made me tremble with rage was the assumption that fanfic is practice, that being Published For Monies is the only way to be a Legit Writer, and that if we're writing other people's characters we're just too lazy/uncreative/what-have-you to make up our own.

So let's break this down for a moment. In part this particular point got to me because, growing up, my parents were always supportive of my writing but also always at me to stop fucking around with fic and get some Legitimate Writing done. Eventually my rote defense became "It's practice! I'm getting feedback so that when I write my own stuff I'll already have the craft down." And for a while I even bought into this response myself, but ... One is not better than the other, and putting fanfic down on questions of morality or legitimacy or aesthetics is spectacularly missing every point. I only speak for myself here, obviously, but I write fanfic because I love interacting and having dialogue with the creative works that are close to my heart, and because being in a community of people who want to do the same thing is awesome beyond words.

Not entirely separately, I do want to be Published For Monies. Not all the stories in my head are dialogues with already-existing work, and while the fic-writing and the original-writing compulsion are related, I derive slightly different joys from each. I figure, if someone will pay me to do something that I love, that's excellent. (I also figure, if the universe turns out to be made of puppies and rainbows, I might end up having a tiny Yuletide fandom for my books or something. And that would be amazing.) But being Published For Monies doesn't make me a more Legit Writer, it just means I get money instead of comment threads. And even if I do manage to get published, I'm absolutely going to do what a handful of awesome fannish people do already, and keep writing fanfic.

So, with all due respect, fuck your legitimacy and moral policing, Ms. Gabaldon.

...And if that was too srs biznes, a couple of links!

1. A list of derivative works, like, y'know, Shakespeare and a bunch of musicals. Obviously new copyright law shifts the paradigm a bit, so I don't know how well it technically stands as a defense of transformative works, but it does get the damn point across.
2. Anti-fanfic bingo card. There's a bingo card for EVERYTHING, isn't there? It's sort of amazing how many of these Diana Gabaldon managed to go through.