a conspiracy of cartographers

i. I can't stop listening to Aims, Vienna Teng's new album. (Link goes to the soundcloud album stream she posted. Actual album comes out tomorrow!) Just want to listen to all of it on endless loop, particularly Level Up and Never Look Away. It is good fighting music, and being happy music. It's perfect as a ward against and an accompaniment to the onset of autumn; my brain doesn't know what to make of the cold, because in the general way of things fall and winter make me very happy, but last winter was the absolute worst and of course has attached sense memories, so ... we'll see how that goes. And listen to Vienna Teng on loop.

ii. Last week I went with a bunch of friends to see Dessa! IT WAS SO GREAT, of course it was; she played nearly everything I wanted her to, and I kept running into her in the bathroom because there was no proper backstage, so there was a lot of casual smiling acknowledgement while we washed our hands and I screamed internally. Also, quite by accident, friends I went with to the concert were my D&D group minus scribe, who was ... still out of the country, I think? Unsurprisingly these humans are excellent to hang out with whether or not we're slaying monsters and flirting with other monsters at the time.

iii. I just ... keep playing Dragon Age. Housemate A got Dragon Age 2 and everything! But my elf is nearly to the final battle and my dwarf is being the most hilariously best bros with Sten and I can't move on yet. (Also I got Wynne to ship my elf/Zevran; I'm not sure why I didn't get an achievement badge for that.) Polaris and I are considering whether when we run out of Dragon Age games we should try Mass Effect. I ... have the vague fannish osmosis feeling that it's good? I know some of you have played it! Please deliver unto me your Mass Effect feels, whatever they are; I would love opinions.

iv. Fic update: part five of eight complete! ONLY THREE LEFT. I'm starting to have this feeling like I'm hurtling shrieking towards the finish line, though mostly in a good way; I'm not sacrificing quality to time, it's only that I finally have my full complement of writing enthusiasm back. Getting it done is going to be a bit scary, though, because I want to have it all posted at the very last the day before Thor 2 comes out, which means I have to start posting it by very latest on Halloween, and I have to be done in time that Olivia can reasonably beta it, and ahhh. Current wordcount: 63,826. \o/

i. skfdk everyone run do not walk to listen to the podfic of Shatter, read by cyranothe2nd who is basically my new hero -- she makes the fic sound so good, and also upped my fondness for Jane a lot. SO GOOD. I would listen to it like five times in a row except that it's three and a half hours long, and also, let's be honest, I basically have the fic memorized. I just love the podfic so much!

ii. WisCon! I'm going with Emma and am stupid excited to show off Madison to her; we'll be arriving early Friday afternoon (fingers crossed, our bus schedule keeps changing so it's entirely possible we won't turn up until about five in the evening) and staying through Monday, and I'm really excited to see everyone. WISCON BUDDIES I WILL SEE YOU SOON. \o/

There is no thing three! Maybe I will try to write some filthy Thor/Loki before I'm off on weekend adventures, idk, maybe I will just clean the house.

Joyful flailing! FIC OF MY FIC.

Silvertongue (a lie for a lie) by inkasrain: It's a lie, and he probably knows it. Still, she thinks it's a good one. A post-script to Ragnarok, in which Darcy watches the battle and tells Loki a lie of her own. I ... am fairly sure apocalyptic deathfic shouldn't make me grin all over my face, but THIS DOES.

Also: A Softer Universe, tumblr repository for the Doctor Who Softer World remixes I've been doing, mostly because I compulsively organize things. New ones will also be posted here, for those of you who don't care about tumblr.

GUYS OMG

http://isamypregnant.com/

LAUGHING SO HARD

Okay, guys, I caved. I have a tumblr now! Tumblrs are cool.

I am thedaisiestdaisy cos, um, naturally my tumblr will be an oldschool Doctor Who reference about joy and optimism. As you do. Those of you with tumblrs, tell me what they are! Rec your favorites! And if someone has mysteriously started following you on tumblr, it is perhaps me!

Brb, reblogging EVERYTHING.

Why is everyone on my rlist not shrieking about this? So far I have only seen one excited post, and that is ridiculous considering how many of us care about Doctor Who. But perhaps not everyone has seen it? So it is linking time!

Link: Q&A Transcript for the the Doctor Who NYC Primer screening! It is in fact technically spoiler-free; we mostly learn that Karen is on Team Fez and Matt is on Team Stetson, and that Moffat is still as evil as ever, and that Alex knows more than everyone else.

Excited flailing: ( an excerpt of the transcript, potentially spoilery Master business. )

It is 74°F here. Seriously. I am in cute summer clothes! I have already started the debate in my head about whether I should cut my hair to above my shoulders, say fuck it and chop most of it off, or actually let it properly grow out for the first time in years, and I didn't expect to start this debate until, say, April or May. I have vague plans to make a milkshake and go sit out on the porch later! It actually feels like my ideal early-summer day, except that the trees are all still bare and the pleasant breeze is making last year's dead leaves skitter along the road, so the whole day also has an air of complete surreality.

I am suddenly in possession of all the Vorkosigan Saga through Civil Campaign, and I'm wicked excited about that, but I find myself instead devouring The Pervocracy. (I suspect that pretty soon I'm going to break down and just read everything tagged 'cosmocking' because -- well, I have been known to take abandoned Cosmo magazines from airport lounges for that very purpose, but she does it much more clearly and articulately.) I have also embarked on the ridiculous project of Netflix-streaming vampire films recommended to me by Amelia. So far I've just watched The Vampire Lovers, which is an adaptation of Carmilla starring Doctor Who's Queen of Atlantis and the goddamn Rani, and ... holy crap, the wiki file of the poster genuinely has the tagline taste the deadly passion of the BLOOD-NYMPHS! It's just as awful and amazing as it sounds, and I seriously can't even think about it without grinning all over the place.

Um, basically, life is good. VAMPIRES! MILKSHAKES! &c &c.

Activities that seem like a good idea whilst laid up with a head cold: watching Hot Fuzz; watching endless clips of the Daily Show. Activities that are in fact a terrible idea whilst laid up with a head cold: see above. The endless laughter is actively dangerous, but somehow, the hacking cough didn't actually stop me watching.

In other news, Good Omens is being made into a miniseries? Or at least people are claiming that Pratchett has said this? I don't think I'm counting it as official until Gaiman talks about it on his blog, but it's mildly exciting anyway. I assume it'll be made by the BBC, and I assume the fandom is going to be disgruntled with anyone they cast; my only real hope is that their Aziraphale isn't young and thin and pretty, because I am way over that fanart. (Actually, my Aziraphale and Crowley look quite a bit like this, so anyone along those lines, assuming they also did the acting bit well, would delight me.) Of course now I want to play the Cast Good Omens Using BBC Actors game, but ... so far all I've got is Caitlin Blackwood as Pepper, because that would be goddamn adorable. And if I could nab Laura Fraser of a decade ago, I'd have her play Anathema Device. Maybe she can be Agnes Nutter instead? I don't know! I'd quite like a lot of delightful people I've never heard of.

Re: delicious shutting down, I am mildly heartbroken because it warms my fuzzy organizational heart, and massively heartbroken because [a] it's such a lovely convenient way to find fic by specifics like pairing! and [b] I'll be honest, one of my favorite features was the ability to plug in the URL for one of my fics and see the notes people had made on it. However, all is not lost! I've seen these links around, but I figured I'd signal-boost: go here to export your own delicious bookmarks so at least you won't lose years' accumulation of favorite fics, and go here for some encouraging brainstorming on the subject of a possible fan-friendly delicious clone.

Re: other things I am doing to cheer myself up, at the moment I am eating chocolate, as you do, and watching Narnia films, ostensibly in preparation for seeing Dawn Treader sometime in the next few days. The funny thing is that I have to be sure to really make time to watch the Narnia movies, because I am so FEELINGS FEELINGS FEELINGS about them. Seriously, I cry all the way through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Why? I'm not even sure! I sort of waffle between whether Lewis or Tolkien is responsible for my first really fannish whatever, because I made my mum endlessly reread The Hobbit to me when I was four and I had a hilarious Elven Mary Sue when I was ten (alas, she never made it to paper, but she was BFFs with Frodo and had a romance with Faramir and Eowyn's son, it was awesome); on the other hand, I actually remember having ~theories~ about the Narnia books when they were first being read to me, and I still vividly recall the sheer joyful anticipation of a week in first grade when my family had ordered the BBC Narnia series and I could watch them ALL THE TIME, and I believed in Aslan so, so much. Basically what this means is that when I watch these new films and they are all pure and earnest and Aslan resurrects triumphantly as the dawn breaks behind him, I am damn well going to happily cry all over everything.

Do -- do any of you get all FEELINGS FEELINGS FEELINGS about Narnia? Surely this is at least somewhat a shared experience.

Re: Yuletide: AHAHAHA WHAT YULETIDE, WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE TALKING ABOUT, FUCK OFF, I AM WATCHING NARNIA FILMS.