a conspiracy of cartographers

I decided it was worth skipping through all the self-congratulatory bits and the parts where they talk about robots and monsters and explosions in order to find discussion of the last fifteen minutes in Doctor Who Confidential. ( Spoilery talk from RTD and Tennant under the cut, partly for my own fic-writing reference but also with speculation about the finale. )

It also occurs to me that I have so much I want to write that eventually my head is going to explode. This will not do, so I decided that instead of writing the billion WIPs I had, I would mash them all together into a tiny ficlet, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

One day the Doctor took the TARDIS to Eastwick, where he had tea with Darryl. Darryl persuaded the Doctor that it was perfectly justifiable and right to use his Time Lord powers absolutely, whereupon the Master turned up and Darryl watched in satisfaction while the Doctor and the Master proceeded to take over the universe. Of course at the last moment Fraser turned up and used his powers of Goodness and Reason to get the Doctor to see the light, thereby saving the universe. Meanwhile Ray Kowalski thought the entire thing was ridiculous, so he joined the Stargate program and had lots of puddlejumper sex with John Sheppard.

The end.

Cut links to http://aria.dreamwidth.org/49835.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

olivia_circe: I AM BASICALLY CONVINCED THAT DOCTOR/MASTER IS CANON, ARIA
ariastar: I ROUTINELY FORGET THAT THEY ARE NOT
ariastar: I mean, not to the extent that I am expecting angry onscreen makeouts anytime ever
ariastar: but
ariastar: -- of course you know what other fic would be fun?
ariastar: fic where the master turns up and sees that the doctor is losing it and finds this pretty much the biggest turn-on ever
ariastar: because he does have this thing where he routinely asks the doctor to rule the universe with him
olivia_circe: I WOULD READ THAT TOO
ariastar: I WOULD WRITE THAT
olivia_circe: DO IT
ariastar: WHAT IF I SPEND MY WEEK WRITING THAT
ariastar: AND CRAZY FRASER
olivia_circe: ahahahah
olivia_circe: if you do I will write you doctor/master

And so begins my slow descent into madness. By which I mean, the prospect of writing crazy Ten is so much less intimidating than the prospect of writing crazy Fraser. And by which I also mean, ahh, no, I have a million WIPs already and I feel kind of weird about going back to my old boyfriend Doctor Who fandom.

I will sleep on it! And probably wake up with a plot fully formed, because that is my way.

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/49481.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

A day late, but! Waters of Mars: ( thoughts ahoy. ) I AM A BIT EXCITED ABOUT CHRISTMAS, GUYS.

Cut links to http://aria.dreamwidth.org/49363.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

Could my life be any more fantastic. Okay. Apparently we have bats in the house (again) and for the past week I've had a bug the size of Kafka living in my window screen, preventing me from opening the window when it routinely gets stifling inside, but right now these things are laughably ridiculous.

Meanwhile I am a fucking ninja and ahead in all of my work, and in addition to that I found the time yesterday to start uploading allll my fic to the Archive. (Done so far: all the BSG, Doctor Who, and due South. Except not the DW season projects because I want to mess with the formatting & I haven't actually figured out how to post works with multiple chapters, although only because I haven't tried yet.) The sheer wealth of tags to choose from is making me gibber a little, and I think I'm going to be returning to retag things for ages; right now I just kind of adore it, though, because there is a GHOSTS tag. GHOSTS!

Really, though, I am seriously giddy because DOCTOR WHO. I won't have time to watch it until sometime tonight, but that's okay: yesterday I was thoroughly unenthused about it, but I have been reading every spoiler on my flist and it looks as though this episode is [a] your usual rubbishy hamfisted self-congratulatory stuff that Who is wont to do and [b] EVERY KINK BUTTON I HAVE REGARDING TEN. I have not felt this it will be awful/I will loooove it!! feeling since, like ... Last of the Time Lords. I am probably overexciting myself, but -- but my old fandom has called me up for a night of wild passion! I think I kind of missed it.

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/48956.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

( Hello! )

You know, when I woke up this morning (...yesterday morning?) I was not intending to write fic. When I arrived home after dinner I was not planning to write fic. When I went out to see a play, I was not planning to write fic. But I got home from the play, I wrote fic.

A State of Being (In Five Steps, With Flowchart): Ray always did things backwards with Fraser. Out of order, upside-down, hanging off rooftops, putting the sled before the Dief, all that good stuff. Ray Kowalski's guide to romantic relationships. Yeah, I made a flowchart.

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/48198.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

Although by some miracle I have trained myself out of reaching November and going into full-on procrastination mode, it is still November and this means that I am being mostly responsible but still flirting with the idea of procrastination.

In the spirit of this, I should be using my hour-before-bed free time to, say, work on fic or perhaps catch up on Merlin and SJA and maybe Flashpoint. Instead I find myself rereading all the due South fic I have bookmarked, listening to a lot more Barenaked Ladies than is perhaps healthy, and steadily losing my internal battle to not rewatch Stargate Atlantis. This is how it goes in my head:

PROS
+ He's an emotionally inarticulate guy with a failed marriage, funny hair, and mad skills with a gun! He's a snippy Canadian scientist with a genius IQ and very few people skills! Together, they fight Wraith!!
+ RONON. Enough said.
+ The first time I watched it, it was literally one of the first TV shows I'd sat down to watch in a remotely fannish way, and although I certainly enjoyed it I was mostly watching it as Something To Do With Friends and it didn't particularly speak to me. Now I think of it and the idea of writing John Sheppard makes me go weak in the knees, okay.
+ I can probably find all the good fic and meta in about 0.5 seconds: go after the old due South stuff and work forwards!

CONS
+ I can probably find all the good fic and meta in about 0.5 seconds. My life would disappear!
+ It's not -- uh, it's really not that good? Obviously I would be in it for the fandom, and I am starting to get spoiled and like shows where I can just watch the show without getting a headache. (First Michael plotline, end of s2: I WANT TO BEAT EVERYONE WITH CLUEBATS. For example.)
+ Did I mention that the idea of writing John Sheppard makes me go weak in the knees? I think the only real question here is, how many fic projects do I need? (I understand that this may be only my own personal con.)

The fact that I am even mentioning any of this means I am tipping dangerously close to just caving and doing a (possibly selective, Best Of, Watch Rodney Do Awesome Things) rewatch, and I am about 80% sure that this is a thinly veiled ploy to get someone to talk me into it. On the other hand, this should probably be a project for the new year.

On the mutant third hand I really desperately want to write improbable Fraser/Ray/John/Rodney fic, but shhh.

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/47984.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

( Re: Eastwick being canceled; cut for space. )

Anyway, this is all by way of long-windedly saying that I am annoyed, and of late I channel my annoyance via being fannish specifically about due South. (I know, this is shocking.) One thing this means is that if I ever end up writing that dS/Eastwick crossover I keep mulling over, it'll still have Fraser and Darryl quoting Paradise Lost at each other or something hilarious and awesome like that, but it'll probably end up being about, say, Stella & Frannie & Meg.

The other thing this means is that I spend a hell of a lot of time going on about how much I love Fraser and Rays, and having this niggling feeling that the women on due South are problematic for reasons that are tangled and messy and thus keep on not being explored at this juncture. Maybe some day I will, but in the meantime I don't actually want to deconstruct, because I don't think that will help the annoyance; instead, I want to take a short break from Fraser and Rays, and talk about how even if the women on due South are problematic, they are also often awesome.

( Francesca Vecchio, Elaine Besbriss, Mackenzie King, Stephanie Cabot, Suzanne Chapin, Victoria Metcalf, Irene Zuko, Meg Thatcher, Stella Kowalski, Denny Scarpa, & Maggie Mackenzie, or: a non-comprehensive picspam & commentary on the awesome women in due South. )

Cuts link to http://aria.dreamwidth.org/47869.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

+ I am signed up for Yuletide! I offered ten fandoms, and apparently both previous years I have only offered five. Either I am gaining fannish confidence or it's just that all of Canadian fandom is kind of obscure. (I am guessing the latter.) I see a few people have already put up their letters, but it is still perfectly kosher to wait until assignments go out, right?

- I am breaking up with Flash Forward. And no, it's not because CKR was only there for five minutes and also evil blah blah I am very tired of that, although it didn't help. It's more how they've had sexuality fail and racefail now, and when I discover that Eastwick is a lot better for my blood pressure than any other show airing on a US tv channel right now, I think it's time to step away from the television.

+/- Bits of my flist are starting to talk about Bitching Party. I am full of so much yearning jealousy! I am hesitant to tell myself "there is always next year" because, while I won't be in school, I'll still be halfway across the country and hopefully gainfully employed. But that's what requesting time off ahead of time is for, right? Ahhh entering the stage of my life where I can conceivably be fannish in a mobile way! Anyway. There's always next year. And I am going to WisCon, so that's all right.

+ SO MUCH TO WRITE. Those of you who have foolishly volunteered to look at the F/K/V AU? I'm probably going to stop dithering and send the first part out tonight. Whee writing.

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/46835.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

+ Yuletide signups are open! I am probably not going to sit down and properly sign up until this weekend, because there are so many delicious shiny fandoms to choose from and I want to do a thorough job. (And not actually think about how I'll be signed up for this, and due South Seekrit Santa, and Eyai Yuletide.)

+ A Wizard of Mars has a release date & awesome cover art! I think I have already resigned myself to never actually writing the Adventures of Dairine & the Tenth Doctor, so I am content to be delighted with a definite release date. Perhaps I will reread my Young Wizards books over winter break?

+ Things I did not expect when I started watching Eastwick: that Joanna would kind of end up being my little black dress. ( Eastwick 1x07; I may be losing my ability to actually be critical of this show, because I really unironically like it. ) The preview for next episode makes me nervous, but the previews for tomorrow's Flash Forward are distracting me from worrying. PG and CKR are legit almost on my screen at the same time, guys! This is funnier than it should be. Perhaps Paul can finally join the I'm Evil And Then Die Club?

Yeah, I should sleep.

Cut links to http://aria.dreamwidth.org/46470.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

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.

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/46056.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

I am not doing NaNoWriMo this year, as much as I secretly and desperately crave to do so one of these days. (My laughable assumption that I'll be able to do it next year, let me show you it.) Nor am I doing WriSoMiFu, as much as the name makes me laugh, and as many original ideas as are actually percolating in my brain, because I do write at ten minutes a day every day whether I want to or not.

What I am doing, however, is using the Magical Writing-Intensive Month of November to make a concerted effort to write a ton of the due South s2 AU, which may or may not now be tentatively titled Neutral Zone just because I want to say something that is less of a mouthful than "due South s2 F/K/V AU." It is, among other things, my pet project since this last spring, and also what I have resolved to do for the dS Big Bang, which luckily is not due until well into next year. Still, I want to get as much of it done as I can, as soon as possible.

In the spirit of this, I would love to know if anyone would like to be involved in it, in a betaing/cheerleading/what-have-you capacity. I already have the world's best beta, at whom I wail at all hours and who puts up with a lot from me, but I feel like dumping this whole project on her and her alone is madness waiting to happen. In this vein, before you raise your hand and tell me you'd love to beta/cheerlead/whatever, understand that this goddamn fic is six parts long, only one of which is written, that said part is ~17500 words, and that if I don't burn out and run away crying to a secret base in the Caribbean or something, the whole thing will probably end up somewhere in the realm of 90,000.

That said, it's a potential 90,000 words of Fraser and both Rays having wacky adventures and emotional mixups and solving crime! Any takers?

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/45348.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

My watching of Flash Forward, in brief:

CHARACTERS: *make bad life decisions*
ME: Meh.
LESBIAN FAIL: *is not as bad as I feared*
ME: ...Well ...
NAI: Are you going to break up with this show?
ME: I'm not sure! Evil Dom Monaghan is making me reconsider.
NEXT WEEK'S PREVIEW: *has unexpected Callum*
ME: sdflkfdsdk *falls off couch and hides under coffee table*

No, I actually hid under the coffee table and wailed dramatically because I can't actually break up with the stupid thing until, y'know, Callum comes through and is probably evil and then dead, as he does. Damn it.

Mumble Eastwick's still better.

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/44920.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

Every time Eastwick is rubbish I am resignedly unsurprised, and every time it is good I am deeply confused. Mind you, by "good" I mean "I want to fall over with joy because I want to ship all the women on this show," but that is a rare enough pleasure that I am sticking to it. ( 1x06: shippiness, evil men, agency, and my startlement that I have articulate thoughts and none of them are about how Paul Gross's porn voice amuses me. )

Cut links to http://aria.dreamwidth.org/44753.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

I don't know how I find time for anything else these days with all the fic I seem to be writing.

In any case, today is my polybigbang fic posting day! It's Undercover, which is not, in fact, the F/K/V AU I was talking about this summer, but is instead a different F/K/V. Nevertheless, I am fond of it, and also if I never write Kowalski that unable to articulate his feelings again it will be too soon. It comes with an absolutely fabulous mix by sionnain, which I may have been listening to for about two days straight now.

(Actually I am going to go to the gym and listen to it right now! I hope you are all having good and perhaps slightly less rainy weekends than I am.)

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/43932.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

Flash Forward finally did something to merit an actual reaction with words from me! ( Cut because it is spoilery and capslocky, not for length. )

Okay, I feel better now.

In other better news, polybigbang has already done awesome things like produced the Slings & Arrows fic I never knew I desperately needed. It is, mm, canon-adjacent rather than really canon-compatable, but my god, I don't even care, it is fabulous. Trespass sweetly urged, Oliver/Geoffrey/Ellen, be still my heart.

Cut links to http://aria.dreamwidth.org/43673.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WAYS IN WHICH TODAY IS AMAZING.

+ Despite still being only about 60% of a functional Aria, I've done all the work I needed to do. (Except the reading for the racefail class, but that's, um, my self-prescribed naptime tomorrow. :D?) Basically I am a ninja of accomplishment.

+ My pants are starting to fit again! Now let's see if I can make them fit for real by going back to the gym when I am at least 90% of a functional Aria instead of, say, just subsisting on soup and ginger ale.

+ I am suddenly wildly excited for the due South Seekrit Santa. (Have I mentioned that I love how it's spelled "seekrit"? Best fandom ever alkdfkkdsfjs.) I have been asked to write a story I did not know I desperately wanted to write until I was asked, but wow, I desperately want to write it.

+ I have yet more new Hugh Dillon music. Did I just say best fandom ever? I mean it. Best. fandom. ever.

+ There is another Sherlock Holmes trailer. I could continue this masquerade of insisting that I will be watching this film behind my hands, but let's be honest, I've spent the last few weeks unironically enjoying the High School Musicals and Eastwick and the Plan. I have no taste. More importantly, THEY'VE BEEN FLIRTING LIKE THIS FOR HOURS. I don't care how much weirdass gothica steampunk supernatural whatchamahoozit aesthetic this film has, it also apparently has the Holmes/Watson subtext turned up to eleven.

+ And, of course, my perennial Wednesday night joy, Eastwick! ( Storytime with Uncle Badtouch! goddd I love Roxie. )

Cut links to http://aria.dreamwidth.org/43423.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.

Yuletide? What Yuletide? I mean, yes, of course, joy and small fandoms for all, but I was powerless to resist -- powerless, I tell you! -- in the face of due South Seekrit Santa.

( Letter! )

sklsd I am ill and should have gone to bed hours ago, but there was this fic, right, aaaages ago my friend Rigby told me that I should write Ray/Ray fic where Fraser is dead and haunting Kowalski, and the flashfic comm just had a challenge that had fun things like hauntings in it, so obviously I had to spend my whole day writing this fic! Instead of doing any homework. Or getting better. Y'know.

Carry On. What's worse than a dead best friend? A dead best friend who sits in your armchair going on about unfinished business and giving you worried looks.

dslijdsfd blarg.

Originally posted at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/42922.html. If you'd prefer, please comment there using OpenID.