netgirl_y2k

re: my continued world cup watching - mwhaha haha haha ha

Thinking about it, things like this are probably why a lot of English people would be quite pleased if Scotland were to declare independence and fuck off.

Still. Haha.

*

A meme thing, that I have already completed on tumblr, but otherwise this post would just be me mwhahaha-ing.

list ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.

1. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein
2. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
3. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
4. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
5. Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett
6. Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks - Christopher Brookmyre
7. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
8. The Kraken Wakes - John Whyndam
9. Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov
10. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood.

With the caveats that LotR was hugely influential on me as a wee thing, but adult me finds it a turgid, unreadable sausage fest; and while the Narnia books are the first books I remember properly loving, I've never even tried to revisit them as a grown up - I suspect grown up me would be annoyed by the religious stuff, and infuriated by the Problem of Susan.

That said, Scottish, geeky, lesbian, feminist, cynic, that's me in a list of books, really.

*

I am still slightly confused about using tumblr for things other than reblogging graphics. Like, I had some success posting those trope ficlets I was writing first over there, but then I felt weirdly guilty about it, because if tumblr isn't the worst venue ever for fic, it's not from lack of trying. On the other hand, it's nice when people notice that you're there, you know?

So, I shall compromise and answer a questions meme I got tagged in, but I shall do it here.

1. Does pineapple belong on pizza?

Not on a pizza. Not on anything I am going to be putting into my mouth. Eugh.

2. If you care about the World Cup, tell me about your team! If you don’t, then what’s something fun you’re looking forward to in the next month or so?

I am Scottish, and thus shit at football a true neutral. This week I'm feeling good about Uruguay and Costa Rica, for reasons that have nothing to do with a certain team which may or may not have been knocked out at the group stage.

(Mwahaha, etc.)

I think the smart money has to be on a South American team. I got Belgium (of all teams, Belgium?) in the sweepstakes. And my personal favourite is Germany.

3. What were the last 3 pieces of fictional/fannish media you consumed?

I just read the first Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator book. Which is an urban fantasy in the vein of the Dresden Files or Felix Castor, only with a lesbian main character. No one will ever accuse it of being great literature, but I ate it up with a spoon.

I'm dipping into the first series of Vikings, which I'm enjoying, although I expect to remain baffled as to why anyone would make Vikings when instead they could make the Lagertha Lothbrok is awesome show.

The series finale of Game of Thrones, which despite having spent most of S4 lurching from one misgiving to another left me optimistic for S5.

4. You’re in a zombie apocalypse, and your companions are the main characters from the pieces of media you named in the previous question. So, how fucked are you?

Are you kidding? I have a half-faery with a magic sword, the fiercest shieldmaiden in Scandinavia, and Brienne of Tarth. I'm going to fucking walk it.

5. What’s your ideal holiday destination?

When I visited my sister in Germany, her flat was next door to what appeared to be a combination pub/library; if any of the books had been in English I would not have come home.

Nice things to drink, and interesting things to read. I want very little out of life.

6. Tell me about your favourite item of clothing. Photos optional.

Today I am wearing battered converse with the Thundercats on them, a pair of drainpipe jeans that I really do not have the legs for, and a man's tuxedo shirt that I had to buy when I rented some formal wear earlier in the year.

I don't have a favourite item of clothing; pickin's are slim.

7. Sort yourself into your Hogwarts House. If you don’t know the Hogwarts Houses who are you tell me why you’ve resisted the siren call of Harry Potter.

Hmm. I am the least cunning person I know, and all but devoid of ambition. I'd also be hard pressed to describe myself as clever, at least not in the academic sense.

I am probably some manner of Gryffinpuff. Kind and loyal, yes, but thoughtless and bullheaded, too.

8. Dogs or cats?

Dogs, a million times dogs. I even lean towards especially stupid dogs because I find it discouraging to have a pet I suspect of being clever than me.

9. What’s the last news item or fic you read? Link?

The last news item was somebody else mwhahaha-ing about England's ignominious departure, so I shall spare you the link. The last fic was this porny Sansa/Margaery modern AU by mautadite who is one of my favourite authors in asoiaf fandom.

10. What’s your go-to comfort food?

Beer. Cheese.

11. What’s the story behind your tumblr username?

Oh, God. I made up this stupid pseudonym when I was fifteen, with the expectation that I'd be in fandom for about twelve minutes. Well, I'm not fifteen anymore, and it's been a damn sight more then twelve minutes. And changing my fandom name would feel weird, like I was killing off this persona I've created over the past *mumble mumble* years.

It's still a stupid name, though.

I had almost decided to sit out the returning remix until I noticed that they've revamped the qualifying fandoms meaning that I could sign up with just Game of Thrones, and I wouldn't have to offer either Doctor Who (Moffat Issues, bleh) or Merlin (where there's an extremely high risk of an untenable match; both on my end, and for the poor bugger who might be assigned to remix me with the not unreasonable, and yet still false, assumption that among my 50+ Merlin fics there might be one that's actually about Merlin and Arthur).

I am a bit miffed that Once Upon a Time didn't even merit being put to the vote. Although, I would have had to write more to qualify; perhaps it would have been motivation to finally get to those Aurora/Mulan or Emma/Regina fics I've been wanting to write. On the other hand, there's a lot of Belle/Rumpelstiltskin in OUaT fandom, and Belle/Rumple is a bit like Arthur/Merlin for me, in that no one who likes the pairing really needs to hear my opinions on it. For the curious, my opinion on Belle/Rumple is neatly summed up thusly.

Game of Thrones has that much going for it, there are dude characters that I couldn't care less about - Hi, Stannis Baratheon! Your narrative is a constant revelation to me, but only because I keep forgetting that you haven't died yet - but there are very few that I absolutely couldn't write. And I'm not sure there are many people who exclusively write, like, the Greyjoy uncles anyway.

Anyway, I'm still musing over whether to sign up, or to hang on and do the female character remix (femmeremix) in early May. In the old days of the remix I was quite often assigned to remix people who mainly wrote slash, and they were often awesome writers, one or two of them I'm still friendly with now. But I would be lying if I said that it wouldn't be nice to know in advance that there'd be some female character centric fic for me to remix, and also that someone wasn't opening my AO3 page and going: Aw, no, not her, or at least, not for that reason.

Of course, it's entirely possible that I'll lose all self control and do both.

But I'm putting the cart before the horse, because I still haven't written my rarewomen fic. My assignment is perfectly doable, although it isn't exactly singing to me. I feel like I'm repeating myself a bit when it comes to fic with the women of ASOIAF: something something patriarchy... mild feminist propaganda... background lesbianism... here, have this crown, try to do better than the dudes... repeat until you've run through all the women in the 'verse... eh. Still, hopefully the start of S4 will prove inspiring in some way.

The Doctor Who special was... well, it was trying to be a Christmas episode, a rousing send off for Matt Smith, and to round up all the dangling plot threads from the last four years, and as a result it didn't do any of these things particularly well. Which is exactly the same problems as Tennant's final episode had. So.

That said, I wept at the regeneration, and I say that as somebody who never more than intermittently warmed to Eleven. I am desperately looking forward to Capaldi.

Today's meme post comes in the form of a response to a question: The female doctor. who would you cast? how would you write her? etc etc. And you shall be pleased to know that I will not be answering this one in the form of poetry, and probably not at great length, as I am dreadfully hungover (damn 7% Belgian beer) and really ought to be in my pyjamas, watching The Deathly Hallows under a duvet.

I have at different times said that Lena Headey, Miranda Richardson, Miranda Hart, Indira Varma, Sheridan Smith, or Sophie Okonedo would be interesting choices to play the Doctor. But I think my first choice would be Olivia Colman. Her name came up a lot when people were discussing the possibility of a female Doctor last time, and with good reason, I think.

As an aside, if the possibility of a female Doctor wasn't at least discussed at the BBC, then playing the pronoun game prior to the announcement of Peter Capaldi was a dick move.

Anyway, Olivia Colman, great actress, can do comedy and drama and darkness, which you need to play the Doctor. She's interesting looking, which I say with the very best will in the world, in a very Doctor-ish way. She's old enough to do it; because I don't think you could have an actress in her twenties playing the Doctor, not only because she'd be judged that much more harshly than anyone else, but partly to keep the Doctor distinct from the recent run of companions, and partly for the same reason I don't want another bloke in his twenties, there's a sense of age and gravitas that the Doctor needs, I think.

The other thing about Colman is that she's extremely well liked by the public, at least in the UK. You know how when people are talking about their fantasy female Doctors, and the conversation quickly turns to the likes of Maggie Smith or Judi Dench? And I don't think that's pure wish fulfilment, I think people know that there would be a lot of shit talked about any actress in the role, but that it would be less, and more quickly shouted down if it was someone considered a national treasure, you know?

That said, I don't think the objections to a female Doctor would be as strong as a lot of people think they would. At least, not among casual viewers. Fandom... well, fandom will always be fandom, god love it. Almost every time I get to talking about the possibility of a female Doctor somebody brings up that story about Steven Moffat asking a room full of fans at a convention if they'd stop watching if the Doctor was a woman and they all said yes. And I don't really see the relevance. It was a self selecting audience, a bunch of people invested enough in the show to go to a convention, asked a leading question by a man they presumably admire. It's the inmates running the asylum. I mean, imagine prior to Elementary asking a roomful of people at a Holmes convention how they felt about Lucy Liu playing Watson, and look at how that turned out.

I would write the female Doctor as the Doctor. I've been thinking about the reasons I never really got Eleven, and yeah, a lot of it is related to the writing, but also Eleven is, to me, the first Doctor whose maleness was ever more than notional, if that makes sense? Where he was an alien, and unimaginably old, but also unquestionably male. I feel like with any of the others you could have cast a woman, changed the pronouns and carried on much the same, you'd still have the Doctor. Eleven, with his I like bad girls and I don't understand women, was not only the first Doctor that felt specifically male to me, but he felt male in a way that drove me away from the character.

I'd also never mention the fact that the Doctor was a woman. I mean, I'd mention it once in the regeneration episode, in a I'm a woman! New teeth! New kidneys, I don't like them! type way. But never after that. I'd think I'd give her a boy companion, or at least a boy and a girl. My first choice for a boy companion to a female Doctor would be Clyde off SJA.

Specifically, what I go for in a femslash pairing.

According to the AO3 I have both written and bookmarked the most femslash in the Merlin fandom. Which is interesting, if only for the fact that that you have to really hate yourself to be a Merlin femslasher.

I think Gwen/Morgana is the pairing I have written the most of in any fandom, and although I am slightly loath to admit it, in that case it was a one true character thing. As we discussed a couple of days ago, I am a mite obsessed with Morgana; I loved Morgana, I thought she was gay and wanted to ship her, and Gwen was the only other woman on the show. I would have argued there was a little more to it at the time, but in retrospect-- that was a good eighty-five percent of it. Especially as my interest in Merlin femslash (well, all Merlin fic, really) drops like a stone as soon as Morgana isn't involved. And that I subsequently shipped Morgana with every woman who came into her general vicinity; including Morgause, who may or may not have been her sister depending on your headcanon, the degree of AU, and assorted writing inconsistencies.

But my favourite, favourite was Morgana/Vivian. So, Vivian was a one episode guest star in series... two? And she and Arthur are cursed to obsessively love each other, and by the end of the episode Arthur's been saved, and Vivian's left under the spell (forever, I guess), and I hated that. I became fascinated by the idea that Morgana could somehow be the one to lift the spell from Vivian. I have this recurring theme in all my fics and fandoms about women somehow reclaiming agency that's been taken from them; but, you know, with humour and occasional dragons. Anyway, Morgana/Vivian, which I sort of have to take the blame for, because by virtue of my writing a few fics and never shutting the fuck up about them, they briefly became a thing in fandom, someone even wrote a really awesome big bang fic about them. That aside, Morgana/Vivian is a pretty good example of my fondness for super-rare femslash pairings that don't really exist outside my head. I actually still have a lot of fond feelings and nostalgia for that pairing, and I keep thinking I should revisit them once more; I think they'd be good in a modern AU, I have this image of them making out in the limo at Arthur and Gwen's wedding, partly because it's the only way to lift the spell from Vivian, but mostly because if Arthur's going to marry Gwen, Morgana is damn well going to make out with a pretty girl in something expensive that he's already paid for.

A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones is a fandom where I want more femslash. I mean, there's actually a pretty decent amount, and so much female character centric het and gen that I'm actually a pretty happy bunny, but I want more, and in the spirit of being the change you want to see, I endeavour to write a fair bit of it. I also do a lot of exchanges in that fandom, and I always put "any femslash, basically" in my sign-ups; which is how I come to write some slightly off the wall pairings like Arianne/Dany and Sansa/Myrcella. I actually enjoy writing those types of pairings because there's sometimes a moment when your brain just goes oh, something clicks, and it all makes sense; I had that when I wrote Sansa/Myrcella recently.

Speaking of Sansa, she's probably the closest thing I have to a one true character in ASOIAF, so I write and read about her a lot. There was an amazing prompt on the kink meme a while ago, for a canon era fic where Sansa was a lesbian, but because of her upbringing and the world she lives in, she has no word for it, no frame of reference; and hot damn if I could figure out a way to do it properly I'd write it in a heartbeat. I do read a fair bit of Sansa/Margaery, which is probably the biggest f/f pairing in the fandom, interestingly enough I didn't ship them at all in the books, where I found it pretty evident that Margaery was using Sansa. Then came S3 of the show and brought with it Natalie Dormer and the impression, at least to me, that Margaery does genuinely want to help, and care for, and flirt with Sansa, just so long as it doesn't interfere with her own ambitions or the advancement of House Tyrell, and that's way more interesting to me. The scene with the rose and "some women like pretty girls" didn't hurt either.

Although the pairing I'm most desperate for, that fandom seems determined to deny me, is Sansa/Brienne; it's a the lady and her knight thing, bulletproof kink of mine, but only if the knight in question is a woman.

Now with Once Upon a Time I finally seem to have found myself in a fandom with a major femslash presence, which is nice, but also-- You know how I said when I was in Buffy fandom I didn't care for Buffy/Faith or Willow/Tara, going for the basically nonexistent Tara/Anya? I'm a bit like that with OUaT. I didn't get into Emma/Regina in S1 when everyone else did because I don't generally like adversary shipping, and now I can see it, I can so see it, and although it doesn't take much for a vid or a graphic to convince me of them, I am ridiculously fussy about fics. Like, I backbutton out of nine out of ten fics I try to read about them, but I keep trying because one day I'll find one that does them right, and that fic will be spectacular. I don't even know what "doing them right" is; but I have a feeling it would involve a lot less woobiefying of Regina, and framing of Snow as the enemy.

And I do like, more than like, Aurora/Mulan ; it's the princess and her knight thing again, and I really want to write fic for them, which I'm not writing for the same reason I think lots of other people aren't-- where do you even go after the aborted declaration of love|pregnancy scene?

But the pairing I fell super hard for was Ruby/Belle which was basically sunk by Ruby's actress not being on the show anymore, and the decision to retcon Rumple/Belle into something cotton candy sweet and fluffy. It's frustrating; Rumple/Belle could have been super-interesting, if not my shipping bag of chips, but the more they deny that there's anything dark or creepy about them, the more I want Belle far away from him. I always wanted a fic where Ruby was Belle's beast instead. Of course I did; bring me all the lesbian fairytales! They played into my friends to lovers kink as well. Speaking of, somebody's going to tell me when Regina/Tink becomes a thing, right?

Specifically, my continuing, inexplicable, and seemingly unending fascination with her.

Merlin was a show which, by the end, I... did not enjoy. Indeed, by the last couple of series it was offending both my sensibilities and my intelligence on an almost weekly basis. Now, a reasonable person might ask: why not just stop watching it and disengage from the fandom entirely? And my answer is twofold, 1) I tried, and 2) this silly, sexist, often deeply unpleasant little show also gave me my favourite character ever.

I know, right?!

And the thing is, I don't know why she's my favourite. The redemption arc that I always naïvely hoped Morgana was going to get is currently being done far better on Once Upon a Time with Regina. There are characters whose presence on the page or screen delight me more; if only because I'm not already cringing in advance of their creators somehow making it worse. There are characters who I am much more prepared to defend in fannish arguments; Morgana is my all time favourite character, but even I concede that she is badly-written, incoherent, and generally unpleasant, and if you dislike her, well, you're probably right.

I don't know-- my initial glomming onto her was a confluence of different stuff, what was going on in my life when I watched Merlin S1, a deep attraction to the actress, some stuff I was reading into the character (Gay! Gay! Magic as a metaphor for gay!) But I've liked plenty of characters who I've disengaged from when their narrative fucked up, and the only way I can explain why that didn't happen with Morgana was that the narrative really fucked up. You ever hate something so much it gives you energy? That's me with Merlin.

The problem with Merlin (well, the biggest structural problem, we don't have all day here) is how static and reactive a character Merlin is. He never develops, never grows-up, never reveals his magic, never acts unless backed into a corner, and then only so much as is required to save Arthur's immediate life. And this lack of development warps the other characters around him. Arthur becomes king, but never the great leader destiny promised. I always thought there was an interesting story in there about how Merlin's "destiny" went from protecting Arthur's life so that he could become the once and future king someday, to wrapping him in cotton wool and protecting him from any sort of upsetting knowledge or difficult decision until he was incapable of becoming that destined king.

And as for Morgana, after three years of being set up as antagonist to Uther because the king hated sorcerers (it's worth noting that this was always selfish, she hated Uther because if he burned sorcerers then someday he might burn her; there was some interesting anti-villian stuff there) over the course of one episode she decided to kill Arthur to usurp the throne, and I don't think she ever mentioned the laws against magic again. Then again, neither did Merlin. And it always struck me that Morgana's quick descent into smirking pantomime villainess who spent most of her screen time butchering extras and, I don't know, kicking puppies, was not least because as long as Morgana was Cruella de Vil it didn't matter that Merlin hadn't done much of anything laudable, all he had to do was not be quite so bad as her.

Merlin was a show that disdained character development, but with Morgana it couldn't be avoided, the legends are well-known; Morgana had to go from being at least a coincidental friend of Camelot, to the kingdom's mortal enemy. But Merlin was also a show that disdained giving screen time to any characters other than Merlin or Arthur; I'm thinking especially of the scene where Gwen has been banished and is leaving the city with a cart of her belongings, and Merlin is standing in the back of shot looking constipated - because otherwise how would we know to be sad. So Morgana's character development (character development, lobotomy, evil twin, brainwashing, magic spell; could've been anything) all happens off-screen, which is frustrating as hell, but also gives you a fuckton of room to play in.

I have a special hatred in my heart for that thing where interesting female characters disappear into male narratives -- and this is what Merlin did with Morgana, but the character herself, when faced with being sacrificed for the great destiny of Arthur & Merlin (even if she didn't know that's what was happening at the time) reacted by having a decade long, murderous, foot-stomping temper-tantrum because it wasn't fair; and that appeals to my inner eight-year old.

I love her epic poor life choices; that Gaius and Merlin may have had a hand in pushing her towards the dark side of the force, but it wasn't their fault (take note, fandom) Morgana's fuck ups are her fuck ups. I love her love for Aithusa (yeah, Morgana's best friend is a magic resurrection dragon; no-one is ever going to convince me that Morgana wasn't up and walking five minutes after the finale). I love even the tiny scenes she gets with Arthur, epic fucked-up siblings that they are. Morgana's story is a terribly executed story, with just enough hints of the much better story that I want to believe is in there to keep me hooked.

Fandom is about stories for me, and there are so many stories that I want to tell about Morgana, and until I get bored of telling them, which doesn't look to be happening anytime soon, I guess I'll always be a little obsessed with the ludicrous, tragic, awful, tyrant witch queen.

...and the possibility of redemption.

The first thing to say about Regina Mills is that I love her. When I was listing my favourite character archetypes the other day, I listed emotionally immature women, villains who change and grow without ever repenting, and queens. Had, during OUaT's development, someone from ABC called me and asked if I was primarily attracted to brunettes and whether I found lip scars sexy, I would have replied yes to both and they would have been able to say: boy, do we have a character for you!

That said, I do take issue with the section of her fans who are determined to insist that she can do no wrong, and that Snow was the one at fault. Snow has her flaws, to be sure, but nothing she has done can come close to Regina holding a decades long blood-feud against a child, and devoting years of her life to destroying that same child as a young woman. And surely, surely, the most interesting thing about Regina is that she is a tall, exquisitely dressed child, with enough magic to compel people to go along with her childish whims, and who is finally, finally being forced to grow up.

Seriously, watch the episode about Regina's first week in Storybrooke, where she tries to kidnap the boy Owen in one of the finest displays of emotional retardation and need for instant gratification that has ever been seen outside of a nursery school, where she goes and stamps her foot at Mr. Gold because the curse isn't making her happy. Watch the episode where she changes her appearance and spends some time in the woods with Snow White, where she completely fails to understand why the people she's ruling over as the Evil Queen don't love her. She casts the curse to get a do-over because she doesn't like the way her life's turned out, when post-curse her attempts to get Henry back, firstly by eschewing magic to win him back and secondly by siding with Cora to steal him back fail, she almost destroys Stroybooke trying to get another do-over.

So, Regina is four years old. And she wants what any child wants; family, love, acceptance. And because she's an incredibly powerful child she tries to force people to love her. And because she has a screwed up history with love - Cora, who couldn't love her; Daniel, who did and died for it; Snow, who wanted her love and which Regina was unable or unwilling to give - she either lashes out, or holds people too close, and drives them away.

But she's doing better. And in season 3, she's doing better all the time. I'm thinking particularly of the references to Henry as our son. Regina's maternal love for Henry was never in doubt to me, and was always the thing that made me think redemption was possible for her, but it always had this possessive, smothering quality. I think that earlier in the show Regina would have insisted on going off to save Henry herself (her son) even if it wasn't the best way. Now she's willing to work with Emma and the Charmings, and when she gets frustrated with their lack of progress she goes to find Rumple, and then brings him back to the group. Because it's okay (it's good, even) that other people love Henry and that he loves them, she knows now that it doesn't take anything away from her.

Regina's level self-awareness (which started somewhere in the negative-numbers) is also improving all the time, ( spoilers for the last aired episode ) Acknowledging that she's not the wronged party is a huge step, and one that a lot of villains, especially ones that we're meant to see as tragic or sympathetic, never get to.

So, yes, I think Regina is belatedly growing up and doing better all the time, and I think it's excellent and fascinating, and I hope the show keeps it up; along with her prickly friendship with Tinkerbell, and newfound ability to see Emma as anything other than the competition. Whether that qualifies as redemption--

The Evil Queen's crimes in the Enchanted Forest are legion; and until recently Regina's weren't much better (framing Mary Margaret for murder, the abduction of Kathryn Nolan) but one of the things I really like about morality in OUaT is that redemption is always possible; there are points (Snow White after Regina's massacre of an entire village, lots of fans after her rape of Graham) where people can quite rightly decide that they can't forgive you, and that they aren't willing to be in your life while you get the many, many hours of therapy you need to sort your shit out.

But no one is irredeemable, not even the Evil Queen.

Elementary has returned and continues perfect, but I still find myself with very little to actually say about it other than to reiterate my wish to draw sparkly hearts around Joan and Sherlock and their beautiful, beautiful friendship, so there's that.

The second episode of Agents of SHIELD was a vast improvement, I thought. Admittedly, I am watching a show about Melinda May and some other people too, I guess. And my total lack of aggregate comics or MCU knowledge means that I occasionally have to mentally replace a bit of dialogue or exposition with the words tra la la la la plot macguffin, but that doesn't seem to be affecting my enjoyment, so I'll keep watching.

Atlantis on the other hand-- I wanted to give it a fair shake, because I have a longstanding and quite possibly inexplicable fondness for Mark Addy, and Sarah Parish and Alexander Siddig were in it too. But two episodes in and we've already had a cult of evil women, and there just isn't enough NOPE in the world.

Does anybody still watch Downton Abbey? ( Spoilers for the last aired episode )

More happily, Once Upon a Time, ( Spoilers for the first two episodes of S3 )

-From time to time I regret my inability to get together with tumblr as a fannish platform, none more so than today for reblogging purposes, because someone made the most fabulous graphic of my Sansa/Myrcella fic.

And not so long ago someone drew fanart of one of my Sansa/Margaery fics, look at them snuggle!

Because I am awkward and crap at talking to people, I often forget how interactive fandom can be, and how cool that is.

-Today I have been thoroughly delighted by this O'Brien/Bashir vid and have been overcome with the desire to re-watch all of DS9, at once.

-I find the A03 statistics page compelling and distressing in equal measure, but it has given rise to a whole host of new memes ( that AO3 stats meme that's been doing the rounds )

Firstly, a fic rec: The Assembly of Ladies; or why there was no masque at the Tournament of Harrenhal by lareinenoire (ASOIAF) A clever, coherent version of the events at Harrenhal told through the eyes of the women who were there.

Seriously, guys, fics like are why I'm glad I'm in this fandom.

Secondly, it's that time of of year when all the shows I usually watch are off the air and I start casting about for other things to occupy me. Oh, and giving the towering piles of unread books in my house serious side-eye. Of the things I have heard good things about I dismissed Hannibal out of hand as being too much for my delicate sensibilities, and I think I'm going to wait until Defiance has a full first series under it's belt and then give it a go. There's also the latest half-series of Warehouse 13, but my irrational dislike of James Marsters meant that I turned off half-way through the first episode, and then I heard that later episodes got kind of, uh, intense, so that's on the back burner while I watch Orphan Black.

I'm only on episode five. Luckily, while I picked up a sense of great good will from fandom, I managed to avoid any actual spoilers, which is turning out to the good. But I can already join all right thinking people in declaring myself in love with/awe of Tatiana Maslany. Which, yes, I know is annoying if you haven't seen Orphan Black and have no idea what I'm talking about. Although you should, for it is excellent.

Thirdly, I am very bad at these fannish bingos, I rarely ever get so far as posting my square here, let along trying for some fills. But I was properly tempted by ladiesbingo, lots of the possible squares looked cool, and it's not like I wouldn't be writing fills about women anyway. I am trying, and failing, largely, not to look at this as a giant list of things to write that are not the last wee bit of This is What You Will Wear to the End of the World.

( My square, plus some plot bunny wrangling )

Anyone got any suggestions for the other squares or ideas as to where I should start?