a conspiracy of cartographers

I saw Infinity War! As I tweeted after leaving the theater, I need help reacting to something.

( This is going to just be a terrible ridiculous train of thought post, fair warning )

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.

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.

This last weekend was really lovely. On Sunday Housemate A and Amiel and I all went down to the Common with A's slackline and did our best to wobble about between two trees; A can go four to eight steps consistently, but Amiel and I were only good enough to stand on the line for a couple of seconds before falling off. A lot of tourists came over while we were at it, and tried it too; most of them were surprised by how hard it was, probably because A makes it look relatively easy. It was lots of fun, anyway, and made my leg muscles do new bizarre things, which of course made seven hours of baristaing the next day mildly painful. Still! Want to try it again soon, preferably without a shift the following day.

We also went (as a group of five, hilariously enough) to see The World's End Sunday evening. It was ... I don't know what it was! I enjoyed it a lot, and laughed a lot, and unlike Shaun of the Dead (which I can never rewatch because dfl;dfkds zombies) I think I'll see it again, even if it never gets the same wear that Hot Fuzz does. That trilogy really likes rejecting ... organized sameness? I feel like there must be a better way to put that; though it also isn't big on punishing the people/beings/&c involved in the organized sameness. Which is cool! I hadn't picked up on that with just the first two to compare.

Real life is being mildly stressful; I have health insurance shenanigans to sort, which will probably involve the bureaucratic phone runaround, which -- well, I don't have full-on anxiety attacks when I have to talk on the phone with strangers anymore! I'll do it, though! And then set up the various appointments that insurance will give me! And those appointments will be so much less stressful than the initial phone calls. /o\

Organizing my real life also makes me think about organizing my online life, especially because I ... don't do fandom the way I used to. I think some of it has to do with the way I'm allotting my time, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have both long-distance from-fandom friends whose friendship isn't contingent upon us being currently in the same fandoms, and local fannish friends with whom I frequently have hours-long Avengers discussions or we find ourselves, over dinner, saying in unison "ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD." So at the moment fandom isn't filling any sort of isolation-from-community need. And I'm not in desperate need of any particular fic, either; I read the Avengers fic by authors I know I like, and am writing the Thor/Loki fic I want to see in the world, and Night Vale the show is fulfilling enough that I don't find myself in great need of fanworks. (Although, go go right now listen to thingswithwings' podfic Second Date, an episode-style recording that I have already failed to remember is not canon.) The point is, I am not entirely sure if I miss my fic-devouring ways, but I suspect I should get a Pinboard, and reorganize myself, and that I'll feel much more fandom-settled when I do this.

Speaking of the Thor/Loki fic I want to see in the world, it has just passed 47,000 words. We're ... about halfway through. I'd like to get it done by the end of September, just so I'll have it all posted before Thor 2 comes out (plus, uh, we have a lot of feelings about this universe and there are side stories where Steve takes Thor and Loki to art museums or Natasha and Sif hang out talking about feminist theory, it'd be cool to be able to post those before Thor 2 also, oh pipe dreams). That effectively means writing another 50k in a month, but ... I've done 50k in two weeks while on summer vacation, I can do 50k in a month while also having life obligations. Yes.

What did you recently finish reading?

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson. IT WAS SO GREAT. I loved how casually queer it was, not just in the sense that m/m and f/f relationships were normal and uncommented upon, but also in the sense that in the place of a love triangle there are three people who all love each other a whole lot in various different ways, and try to take care of each other and respect each other's decisions. I loved a lot of the worldbuilding (particularly the semi-sentient city, I'm so easy for sentient cities!); a few of the plotlines, like the one where the main character realizes that her rival at school is actually lovely and it's too bad they haven't been friends, were on the predictable side -- but even when I did guess some things, they felt well-executed and satisfying, and for the most part everything was unexpected enough to keep me guessing. This book is good, also, both as its own thing and as a Gilgamesh retelling; I was compelled to go look up a summary of Gilgamesh after I'd finished (since I hadn't read the epic in ... five years?) and was impressed all over again, because the thematic things Johnson pulled are really, really great. I'm buying this one forthwith, in fact; it will definitely hold up on rereads.

Outsider Perspective by Neery, Person of Interest, Finch/Reese. I can go either way on amnesia fics, although I'm kind of a sucker for them if they're done well, and this one is indeed! Finch and Reese, of course, assume that [a] they are dating and that [b] something really weird is going on, what the hell is with all the fake IDs? It's funny, and the characterization is sound; it also takes time to deal with the fallout once they have their memories back. And, like a bizarre number of PoI fics, it made me tear up at the end, because ... idk, I guess I'm just really a sucker for intense caring D/s and John Reese getting nice things.

What are you currently reading?

Tides by Betsy Cornwell. I looked over an early draft of this one in college! It is much better now, as I expected; it's charming and engaging, and I like everyone a lot, and it does fun things with selkie mythology.

What do you think you'll read next?

WELL. I just started working at a bookstore! There are discount and free books everywhere! My to-read pile is therefore already kind of alarming. The short list, though, is Neil Gaiman's Ocean at the End of the Lane, and after that possibly the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, since I read the first one in middle school and have roughly zero memory of it besides that it was good, and because Polaris thinks I'd really enjoy them.


Also, I have been watching some television! (Some of it is TERRIBLE. For some reason for instance I'm still watching Teen Wolf! What a stupid show, how I love it.) Fortunately I don't have thoughts about Teen Wolf, but I do have thoughts about several other things:

Warehouse 13! ( Spoilers for the last few episodes of this season; some squee, not much spec, a bit of talk about cancer. )

Avengers! Specifically, I watched the two-part opener of Avengers Assemble, and ... I have the vague idea that the internet is unenthused? I'd be curious to hear why; I'm not thrilled by the fact that there is literally one lady so far, but otherwise I find it unobjectionable! Honestly as long as I love Thor and I love Natasha (which I do in this iteration so far!) and I don't actively want to punch anyone in the face, we're doing okay. (Ftr in EMH I actively wanted to punch like ... half the cast in the face the whole time, but T'Challa and Jan and Carol and Hulk and Hawkeye were so unrelentingly great that it was okay.) I do find it interesting, though, that the recent Avengers shows -- and also the movie, tbh -- are really interested in having the Avengers fight each other a lot! Like, omg guys who would win?? And I don't know why that seems to be a focus/something the creators think we're clearly interested in? (Which I guess says something about who their assumed audience is?) I'm trying to remember how much, say, X-Men Evolution had the team fighting each other vs just hanging out in the mansion being bros, and I think the ratio was a lot better, and I want me some of that! Sure, Hulk and Thor can beat each other up, that's clearly their version of hanging out being bros, but I also want a billion scenes of everyone going out for burgers. Yep.

IRON MAN 3!!! ( Spoilers are the mechanic. )

I am still alive?? Perhaps my new year's resolution should have been "Have any online presence at all that is not twitter;" twitter, it turns out, is really easy to keep up with when you have a smartphone, and also stupidly early mornings during which most sane people are still asleep and not posting. I realize it's perfectly acceptable to not be on tumblr all the time, and only update my DW a couple times a month, but ... idk, I haven't been on tumblr since early December, I don't even know what the shape of Hobbit fandom is like! (I hear tell there is no standardized pairingsmush, though, so we can now witness that pinnacle of the pairingsmush trend, Thorbo Bagginshield. That, or my friends have been making stuff up to make me laugh.) In not-tumblr spaces, fannish feelings I have had:

+ Les Mis! Ever since teching Les Mis in high school I've had lots of feeeelings about it, and seeing the film made me really want to reread the book, which I also haven't done since high school. Seeing the film did ... not give me an excess of Valjean/Javert feelings, except inasmuch as I always have a lot of those; I haven't gone questing for fic, but The Drowning Sky, a lovely AU fic, somehow fell into my lap anyway, and I need roughly ten billion more fics of that vein.

+ Avengers, per usual. Part one of the stupid long post-Avengers fic is done, part two has ... really ill-advised makeouts and a ten-page outline, I'm beginning to be worried that [a] it will end up being 100,000 words long and [b] I won't finish it in time to not be jossed by Thor 2. (I know I won't be finished in time for Iron Man 3, but that's okay.)

+ FESTIVIDS. Unfortunately my internet has been so slow that it almost entirely refuses to stream vids, sooo my actual watching of things may have to wait until there is reveal and signed downloads. ALAS. Seriously I'm so excited about all the Earth's Mightiest Heroes vids I haven't been able to see yet.

+ WHITE COLLAR. I am currently keeping up with, um, I think the current roster of telly is something like Castle, Elementary, Scandal, Revenge, and obviously Doctor Who and Community when they return, but between all the real-life things I have going on, I've been really terrible at keeping up with them. White Collar? YES GOOD WATCHING RIGHT NOW, show of my heart! ( Brief cheerful spoilery reaction to this week's episode. )

That's about it. But in case you were wondering, internet, fuuuuuck it's cold in Boston right now.

+ Back from Dragon*Con! It was loads of fun; particular highlights included seeing fan buddies from far-off climes, witnessing tenlittlebullets' Simm!Master dancing with a Loki at the Heroes & Villains Ball, and the perfection of the panel with Juliet Landau and James Marsters. If I never have to be in crowds like that until next year's con, though, I will be very happy about it.

+ Stupidly exhausted. The weekend away was fun but not very recharge-y, and I have about a million obligations right now, and mostly I want to just sleep and write Avengers fic and never change out of this stupid oversized t-shirt I got at con which features a '60s Journey Into Mystery cover image with Thor and Loki being ridiculous.

+ I watched the Elementary pilot! I am ... weirdly having trouble reading it as a Holmes adaptation? Like, aside from their names and the thing with the bees, there was very little that pinged me as uniquely Holmesian. Which is not to say I didn't like it, because in fact I did! It was really refreshing to watch a Holmes who is making an actual effort to not be an asshole despite not doing social interaction in ways most other people do, and I like them both as characters and am intrigued by their dynamic, and yep, probably giving it a watch, as I'm not committed to too many shows at the moment and this one looks like an enjoyable procedural.

+ White Collar continues lovely this season! I ADORED last week's and was only normal levels of charmed by this one, but sfdkjsdfkjfds seriously show of my heart.

+ And Doctor Who is back! I ... man, I am so neutral about Who at this point. Mostly I feel like Moff really loves his cool set pieces but is content to let the character stuff happen off screen, and obvs Matt and Karen and Arthur are doing lovely things with what they're given, but they're not being given much. Probably I will end up writing Amy Pond frustration fic.

Wow, so I just had the sort of hilarious detailed dream I often have just before waking up. In it ... well, first there was a bit about seals in a swimming pool, but I don't remember that part very well. What I do remember is dreaming that I'd been sent a link alerting me that someone had reposted Shatter without asking me. Said someone had an LJ that screams "teenage girl new to the internet" complete with tiiiny font sizes in varying colors. I shrugged and figured I'd just ask them to, y'know, provide a link instead of having the whole fic copied, and then I realized that they were in fact pretending it was theirs. This has never happened! I was not entirely sure what to do! I did discover that in their header notes their thank-you was to Cassandra Claire, she taught me everything I know about writing ;) which amused me greatly. What a comedian, subconscious. It turned out that the fic also wasn't a straight-up copy-paste of Shatter; it was full of bizarre, accidentally awesome kennings, and there was one bit where the writing was formatted not in paragraphs but in a weird fractured way that had clearly taken a lot of html. As I drifted out of sleep I urgently wanted to let the plagiarizing teenage girl know that she could straight-up claim it was a remix and I'd be cool with that.

Anyway, the moral of this story is: next time, bizarre awesome kennings.