a conspiracy of cartographers

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!

Two pieces of related, absurd conversation:

Aria: OH MY GOD DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY WIPS I HAVE
Aria: IT IS FUCKING UNREAL
Amelia: HEE HEE HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Aria: I have nefarious plots to make you watch bits of Highlander
Aria: PURELY SO THAT YOU WILL BE EXCITED ABOUT MY HIGHLANDER WIPS
Amelia: I would not be averse to this!
Amelia: I mean dude, cheesy eighties immortal Celts with swords
Amelia: That's pretty much my secret soul, I think
Aria: Yesssss. :D
Aria: Although technically the TV show is 90s cheese instead
Aria: It wants to hang out with due South and be earnest!
Amelia: AWESOMESAUCE
Amelia: Fraser would be the most hilarious immortal
Aria: Oh my god, don't even. I AM TRYING NOT TO WRITE THAT FUSION.

Aria: do you have a halloween costume yet?
Aria: if not, BE CKR.
Amelia: I don't yet!
Amelia: dude, you bring the mountie suit and I'm there
Aria: well, I think I was going to be a vulcan, although I would be quite happy to mountie it up instead!
Amelia: I think you would be an awesome vulcan!
Aria: I could be VULCAN FRASER.
Amelia: HA
Aria: IMMORTAL VULCAN FRASER
Aria: that is so not a stretch
Amelia: YOU ARE SILLY

I'm not quite sure how this came about -- probably it came into my head from the combination of a discussion on rereading Harry Potter and something I saw in the Thirty Days of Fanfic meme that's going around -- but I have been thinking about Fandom Firsts. Okay, you've got a new fandom: what was the first fic you remember reading? Did it make any lasting impact on your experience with said fandom? &c.

Here are some of mine!

( Harry Potter, Good Omens, SGA, Doctor Who, due South, and Highlander. Most of these are RIDICULOUS. But I happily own my fannish absurdity! )

And what about you guys? If you do absurd things like imprint on old fic enough to remember it, I'd be fascinated to hear what it is. And seriously, don't be embarrassed. My stuff is all old school slash or Eliza Snape, okay, I will really not judge you.

It is thunderstorming today! Quite reasonably, my desktop weather widget had a picture of lightning. I still stared at it in puzzlement for a good ten seconds, thinking, "It's ... cloudy with a chance of Quickenings?" /o\

And then, sitting down to work on my Highlander fic, I was quietly plot-outlining in my head when I was brought up short by sudden guilt. And it wasn't obligation guilt: I know enough about my writing process that I can prioritize a due South AU and a Babylon 5 rewatch and an Avatar season and &c &c as much as I want, but if I sit down and a Doctor Who fic comes out instead, that's what I'm damn well writing. So trying to write Highlander fic wasn't making me think, "Why am I doing this when I should be doing x instead?" but rather "Why am I writing Highlander fic at all?" and this brought me up short: I was feeling self-indulgent, and that apparently made me feel guilty. Uh, what? Fic-writing is for funsies and not profit, after all; it is by definition wonderfully self-indulgent. Apparently, the problem is that it's Highlander.

( Cut for length; on fannish guilt, comparative 90s shows, active fandoms, and id-fic. )

Obviously the solution is to just write my ridiculous Highlander id-fic, not least because enthusiastic self-indulgence usually produces the best fannish writing. But I still feel weird and apologetic about it. OWN IT, SELF, OWN IT LIKE ALL THE OTHER AWESOME RUBBISH YOU LOVE.

LOLWHUT. I just hit an episode in Babylon 5 where a scary, scary interrogator had a strangely familiar voice. "He sounds like the guy who played the philosophical Bolt brother in Red White or Blue!" I said to myself, and lo, IMDb says that it's the same guy. I am starting to think that Fraser got off really easy. Yikes, interrogator guy.

Apparently I can play mid-90s awesome TV show bingo? IDEK.

Know what I love? The Canadian Six Degrees Valentine's Day Exchange, that's what. I received mine today, and upon reading it was promptly informed that I was glowing blindingly. This is an accurate assessment: it is amazing.

( Scan & text behind cut: a Valentine from Ray & Ray to Fraser. \o/!!! )

How do I completely adore this? Let me count the ways! We'll start with the one where I got a card TO FRASER FROM RAYS. The affectionate bickering fills me with joy, as does their cheerful vandalization of a cute if traditional card to more accurately reflect their actual relationship. (He TELLS US stories! He finishes OUR sentences WHICH IS A LOT ANNOYING!) It just -- mere words cannot accurately express how wonderful it is. Imagine me flapping my hands with delight. :DDD

The #1 thing I really hate about buckling-down-and-writing-papers days: my brain decides that, in between the ten-minute bursts of productivity, it has to come up with every brilliant thing I should be writing instead, right now. For example, I spent most of this morning slowly constructing sprawling plotty post-ep7 White Collar fic.

Then my brain took a sharp turn and thought, "You know what would be really awesome? Kate-from-White-Collar/Victoria-from-due-South fic!" No but really that would be fabulous. Find the gold! Get the girl! Leave your lovesick pretty boy standing devastated on a train platform!

I think I need to get food. And to step the hell away from the internet.

I am taking a break from being almost disgustingly productive in order to conduct a VERY IMPORTANT POLL. And if you've been paying any attention to me for the last ever, you'll know that by very important poll, I mean I love asking arbitrary questions!

Today's are born of my continuing reaction of being completely weirded out by the fact that finding Sheppard/McKay fanfic is easy: you just find someone who wrote Fraser/Kowalski way back when and click forward a little. I have convinced myself that there must be some deep mystical connection here, partly because I want fandom to be less shallow than "pretty boys! yay!" and partly because I'm fighting a losing battle against plotting a massive crossover instead of writing my Yuletide. In the spirit of that, by which I mean deep mystical connections, I want to see if there is a favorite character pattern! (For example: Fraser & Sheppard are kind of One True Characters for me. Maybe this means I have a thing for The Heroes? Maybe you like Fraser and McKay best! Snippy Canadians for the win? I don't know what I'm trying to prove here but, by god, I am going to skientifically prove it.) So!

For the purpose of this exercise, you do have to choose. Also, I'm not going to lie, I'm just kind of curious to take a headcount on how many people actually know wtf I'm talking about.

Taking a break from my massive amounts of work to record two unrelated fannish things:

i. I dreamed that I was in a sled dog race that ended in Chicago; my mum had to drive me to the airport but kept missing her U-turn, so eventually I decided to get out and walk. I ended up at the rundown bohemian flat of an AU wherein Ray Kowalski and Stella were still married. Ray went into the bedroom to chat with Fraser, and because my brain is a cruel mistress I did not join them but rather stayed out in the living room talking with Stella, who inexplicably had long brown hair and was so unremittingly awesome that I understood exactly why Ray Vecchio wanted to end up with her. And then we went to see a Harry Potter musical together. I don't even know.

ii. There is another new Doctor Who trailer! (It starts at about 0:22.) gf;lsdfkfsd. ( Excitement for Christmas: RISING. )

The YouTube sidebar also has a preview of Tennant's Hamlet, but I feel this is somehow secondary.

Today in art class we were drawing faces from a model. She was redheaded and quite pretty, and I spent the first hour and the first drawing going quietly nuts because there was something odd in my picture. Then she moved to her second pose, which put her in profile to me, and perhaps five minutes into that drawing I twigged to what was going on: aside from the red hair, she looked freakishly like Victoria Metcalf.

Once I'd figured this out, the drawing came out quite well. Well enough, in fact, that despite the fact that it's newsprint and that I have no scanner, I brought it home, stuck it on my door, and took a picture. Here it is; feel free to tell me whether the Victoria resemblance is only a figment of my fevered brain.

Really, though, my brain is not fevered. My brain is quite good at the moment, and plans to rewrite my play about lesbians and ghosts, and then do yoga on the awesome new mat I bought the other day.