a conspiracy of cartographers

LIFE IS SO BUSY AND EXCITING. I suspect I have long since lost that wonderful ability I had in college to craft exciting narratives about the beauty of everyday life, so instead, in scattered list form, some things I have been up to lately:

+ Weekend with the Tyler posse! I suspect I should resurrect my Tyler posse tag, because everything these excellent humans do is a source of joy to me. At school they serenaded me outside my window and pulled me along on various adventures; this last weekend we went to a burlesque show and held a housewarming party for one of our number, in which the chief activities were tipsy Fandom Apples to Apples and a watching of Black Books for afters.

+ Probably not deserving of its own bullet-point, road-tripping with Amiel for Tyler posse shenanigans! I mention it mostly because the drive back was three hours of winding New England back roads and loud music to keep us awake, and it took maaaaybe half an hour before we started calling each other Dean and Sammy. ("My hair is too long to be Dean's," Amiel observed, as their hair was indeed at about four fluffy inches; "Well, mine's too short to be Sam's," I said.) NO REGRETS.

+ Monday was Paul Newman & Robert Redford Films With Polaris and Housemate K! Somehow I had gone through life without seeing either Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or The Sting? That has now been remedied! I spent a good portion of Butch Cassidy yelling "HOW IS THIS ON MY SCREEN" re: the OT3. Maybe I will see it again next time I am in the mood for threesomes and tragic last stands.

+ K and I spent pretty much all of yesterday watching Babylon 5. We got through EIGHT EPISODES. Only one more episode of first season to go! Let me tell you, internet, yesterday's eight episodes were all tragically barren and G'Kar-less, although they did have lots of good Londo and Delenn and Ivanova. I am looking forward so much to season two. I am also a bit tempted to start taking frantic notes and attempt to resume my meta rewatch, but my meta rewatch relied heavily on my ability to actually remember things that happen, and though bits of Londo and G'Kar's arc are stamped indelibly on my memory, it's been two years and the joy of this rewatch is in the discovery of things.

+ K & her girlfriend made really delicious chocolate chip cookies the other day. I'm now going to eat the last of them like a motherfucking adult.

CRYING LAUGHING.

( Under the cut is the excerpt of an entry I wrote in May 2006, dithering over whether to watch Supernatural. Seriously. Supernatural, 2006. )

Anyway that is all quite silly, and since I should perhaps continue as I began, I'm going to talk about another ridiculous TV show! This one is Eternal Law, which I suspect was created when a bunch of producers got together, listed a lot of the concepts popular on TV right now, and then threw a dart at the list. The darts landed on ANGELS and LAWYERS, which -- why the hell not, I am so there!

I can't actually give anything like a proper review, because I've only seen the first ten minutes and then life interfered, but so far there has been lots of the city of York, a naive and totally adorakble angel named Tom who keeps trying to sing (he was in the heavenly choir!) and a long-suffering angel named Zak who is played by Sam West and has already said "bugger all," which -- I am not sure I have mentioned that in my Good Omens fantasy casting, Sam West absolutely plays Aziraphale? So now, even if he doesn't, my life is a little more complete.

It is pouring rain, which is not the midwinter snow I always desire but is still comfy sweater weather, and I have painted my nails gold, just cos. Today I think is a day to curl up and talk about fandom things!

i. HOBBIT TRAILER. I love everything about it! I love all the dwarves (distinctive enough that I have tried to resolve to learn which is which by the time the film comes out, although I'm fairly sure that as long as I can keep track of Thorin, Fili, Kili, Balin, and Bombur, I'll have my important bases covered). I love the clear determination to tell the dominoed events that culminate in Lord of the Rings, because that's apparently everything I've ever wanted from an expansion of the Hobbit; WHITE COUNCIL, PLZ. And I love Bilbo so, so much. I loved him more than anything when I was four, and I don't think I've ever managed to stop. This time next year I'm going to be a delighted sobbing mess of Hobbit emotions, I suspect.

ii. Four new Sherlock trailers, while we're on the subject of Martin Freeman In Everything. Despite having felt tetchy with Sherlock ever since Blind Banker was made of fail, I am quite willing to be excited. Mostly because ( cut for spoilery trailer things. )

iii. End of the year fandom meme! ( My ability to remember what fandoms are from what years is terrible at the best of times, but I'll give it a go. )

And now LUNCH. Also, I will attempt to not be too amused at everyone's alarm over the latest LJ debacle. Come to the Dreamwidth side, guys, it's nice here and you don't even need an invite code right now.

This is a post about dreams I had, and therefore completely self-indulgent and not terribly interesting! But for reasons unknown, I don't just keep a DW for posting about dreams. (Maybe I should! But then I would have to admit to keeping a dream journal, and from there it is an inevitable slide into becoming my mother.) Anyway.

I finally had the Supernatural dream I've been expecting to have for a few months now, by which I mean a dream in which HORRIBLE SCARY THINGS. Except my brain insulated me from this by making it an anxiety dream of Dean's. By which I mean, I dreamed I was teenage Dean Winchester, and Sammy and I were staying in this place with bunk beds, and Sam had the top bunk. I'm going around making sure everything is secure, and when I get to the ... floating balloon full of holy water ... it breaks, and I realize the thing in the top bunk isn't Sam, but is actually a red-lit, static-y-special-effects, snarling and clawed demonic beasty, which realizes it's been made and leaps on me. So I kick at it ineffectually and wonder frantically what the hell happened to Sammy and start yelling for Dad, which is pretty stupid because obviously he's not anywhere close by.

And then I briefly woke up? And instead of being traumatized I was entertained, because the beasty was only normal episode levels of HORRIBLE SCARY, and apparently my brain wants to give me the Dean Winchester Experience.

Of course then I fell back asleep and dreamed that I was Sam this time, because my brain believes in equal character time? And in this dream we were investigating something in a creepy old asylum, and nothing jumped out at us, but Dean and I did spend a hilariously large amount of time gazing soulfully at each other and really wanting to kiss, but not actually kissing because of reasons that Dean seemed pretty clear on but I was quite skeptical about.

In conclusion, NO MORE SUPERNATURAL FANFIC FOR ME, this is kind of ridiculous. Instead I will work on my Yuletide! It is only 900 words right now, but it is 900 words that I am fairly happy with.

I really do seem to make Softer World remixes for all my visual media fandoms. So ... this happened.

( 44 Supernatural Softer World comics. Winchester feelings, some total absurdity, and I guess spoilers through this season, but event-wise only really through season five. )

Evidence of the fact that I have been having Exciting Adventures: radio internet silence! I will probably be properly around again sometime after Thanksgiving, at which point I will realize how many emails I almost certainly owe people. Presumably I will also start dithering about Yuletide. EXCITED ABOUT YULETIDE, GUYS. In the meantime, some disorganized bullet points:

+ I am, for inexplicable reasons, still watching Supernatural as it airs. I really need to stop, but on the other hand, Crowley. Also I own the same hairbrush as Becky the Fangirl. Uncomfortably small world!

+ This last week's Community was so great. I was starting to worry that I was only enjoying the more gimmicky episodes, because most of the day-in-the-life ones lately have been frustratingly mean-spirited, but this one filled me with joy and warm fuzzies. I am pretty sure I need all the Troy/Abed/Annie fic now.

+ In non-television news, I have an actual moving-to-Boston timeline now! It is not really precise, but "sometime in April" is a real thing that is happening rather than a vague resolution. I'll be moving in with polarisnorth, and it's an excellent location, and we're already drawing up Lists Of Apartment Things and generally doing lots of hilarious nesting, and I'm pretty sure we need an apartment tag. Presumably this will happen once our apartment has a name, and alas, we cannot call it the Avengers Mansion, as that's where filia_belialis and feverbeats and bluestalking live. But I will think of something!

And that's about it! Today I think is a day to write things, since I have left Boston, and rayruz is at an acting class for most of the day, so I have a bit of breathing room.

Now that I am caught up the show, it is time to bask in the fic! But the thing about Supernatural fandom is that it is prolific; I'm having to really fine-tune tag queries on the AO3, I have no idea where to even start on LJ, and, well, delicious isn't really a font of helpfulness these days. Therefore, this is officially a shameless plea for Supernatural fic recs post!

Obviously if you know anything off the top of your head that must be read, by all means rec it! But I figure talking about the sort of things I'm looking for might be helpful. So:

+ Sam/Dean. Hit me with all the fic about them being psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent on each other. I honestly don't care when it takes place, how compliant with all of canon it is (although I don't think I want anything from before the end of second season, unless it's a specific episode tag and un-Jossed), whether or not they're allowed to have nice things, any of it. All I really need here is well-written epic codependency.

+ Dean/Cas! I ... am honestly not sure what I want from my Dean/Cas, so hit me with your favorites. My only hard rule is that the narrative also likes Sam. (Not, necessarily, is nice to him, because when is any narrative nice to Sam; I just don't want to read anything that hates him.) I suspect I would also be especially easy for anything that explores Dean and Castiel's weird twisty power dynamics, but really I'm up for anything.

+ FIC ABOUT LADIES. Give me all your fixes and reclamations of Jo and Ellen! All the subversive things you can think of about Mary or Ruby or Bela or Anna or, hell, Lisa or Cassie or Madison or I don't even care, LADIES. Ladies saving the world and giving the refrigerator the finger and not having their narratives end with those boys.

+ Angels! I would love anything that messes about with the mythology; I would happily take Good Omens or American Gods or Murder Mysteries crossovers. (Or even crossovers with things Neil Gaiman hasn't touched, as presumably those must exist too.) I would love more with Anna; I am fairly sure I need fic about Gabriel like air, oh my god Gabriel. I don't care about demons quite as much, but give me good Crowley and I am so there. None of this has to be gen, either; even though I do have specific Sam/Dean and Dean/Cas wishes, I'm basically there for any ship done well.

+ TEAM FREE WILL. Membership not limited to Sam, Dean, Cas, and I guess Bobby, either; I would love fic written mid-season that wildly theorizes, or AUs about what could have happened, all that good stuff. Other favorites for Team Free Will are Jo, Ellen, Gabriel, Anna, and Crowley. God, wouldn't have a season about all of their world-saving adventures have been great? Anyway! Maybe there will be fic that provides at least some elements of that.

+ And this is not fic, but if you know of any particularly tasty meta on any aspect of the show, I am so there.

Hopefully the above narrows it down some, and I didn't actually just say "Give me every well-written fic this fandom has ever written," buuut it is entirely possible that I did. In any case, all recs greatly appreciated, and I might even come back and leave you excited flaily comments about the fics in question. Have at it!

I have hazy recollections of the internet going ballistic when Supernatural did its episodes about Supernatural the book series; people who didn't really want the show to out them as fans or shippers, people who didn't want Sam and Dean to tap at the fourth wall and go, "Dude, stop it, we're brothers." And it is a really weird narrative choice, isn't it? It's lampshading something that the casual viewer doesn't know/care about anyway, and you're not going to make your fans love you more by holding up a mirror and saying, Actually, you're Becky! Mostly, though, I think it's giving me niggling frustration because, while I actually do like weird meta in small doses and bits of the first Chuck episode had me breathless with laughter, I am so over the hapless socially inept fan as a character type.

I'm actually one of the most socially awkward people I know, and I'm still perfectly capable of carrying on normal conversation and understanding interpersonal boundaries. (To be fair, there is a good reason I don't try to interact with actors I like, but if I was forced by circumstance into a situation where I'd have to, I wouldn't start touching them, ffs.) I've been to a handful of cons, and at every one I've hung out with intelligent articulate people who happen to have the same weird encyclopedic knowledge of fiction because of their awesome hobby. I don't know, maybe the fan as a person who is as baseline functional and ordinary as everyone else isn't -- good comedy, or something, but if you know your audience is a bunch of nerds? don't do a caricature of nerds! We passed absurd about four exits ago.

There will be Crowley soon. There will be Crowley soon.

Oh, and it's also worth mentioning that I have yet to watch a Trickster episode I don't love with all my heart. That's where you can stick your meta and absurdity and tapping gently on the fourth wall.

This PSA has been brought to you by Preaching To The Choir, and also by Wow I Love Me All The Angels And Demons On This Show.

All this Supernatural-watching is making me desperately want to reread the Demon's Lexicon books: like SPN, but in England, with fewer dudebros and dead women! Also, I am entertaining myself by imagining that on the weekends Alan Ryves, Dean Winchester, and Thor get together to commiserate about the towns their little brothers razed this week and to swap coping tips. Yep.

It was probably a terrible plan to watch Mystery Spot just before going to sleep. My dreams have been thankfully light on the creepy corpsey things (though there was a brief disturbing turn with rescuing a baby Voldemort during an exciting chase through the canals of Venice) but most of last night's dreams just repeated. themselves. over. and. over. VERY FUNNY, TRICKSTER GODS. (This is what I get for writing so much about Loki.) It also may have been a terrible plan to watch Mystery Spot generally, because I was already sold on Dean's codependence re: Sam, but I hadn't been sold on Sam's codependence re: Dean, and now I am just a wobbly mess of FEELINGS. My Supernatural-watching plans did not actually include this much faceclutching and emotional investment.

I like that season three has ACTUAL COLORS, though. And that Hollywood Babylon had meta on how horror films are supposed to be dark, you guys. But I'm with the studio exec that wanted jewel tones and saturation.

And now I will go interact with actual humans, who will expect discourse on subjects other than the ridic show I'm mainlining.

A text exchange:

polarisnorth: Apple cider and bacardi is surprisingly tasty.
aria: Dean Winchester crying is surprisingly tasty.

I am in second season! Unsurprisingly, Winchesters shut up in small spaces having feelings at each other is like catnip to me; the happy faceclutching of emotional investment set in around when John was possessed. And I have actually lost count of how many times today I've said "Oh Dean!" to my screen.

(For those of you who warned me that this show is going to crush my soul, I am duly warned! Right now I am treating it as a flash-in-the-pan fandom tour a la my affair with Smallville, which is probably accurate as far as my frustration by the end is likely to go, and also in that Sam totally stole Clark Kent's hair.)