come from the woods with that shy tread.

[damkianna]

Three posts in one month? WHO AM I

I was thinking through the list of things I've seen recently and might want to talk about and not coming up with much (Sleepy Hollow: still watching, though not quite as fiercely in love; Major Crimes: still watching, as fiercely in love as ever; The Flash ... is a thing that's happened while I've been looking at it, as is the vague charm of Forever) and then suddenly remembered THE LIBRARIANS. I HAVEN'T POSTED ANYTHING ABOUT THE LIBRARIANS. !!!

The Librarians is not necessarily a good show—honestly it's probably a pretty bad show?—but I don't care at all, I just want to hug it so much. It's everything I could possibly ask for in a fandom, in fact, including its questionable objective quality. An island of misfit toys! Weekly magical shenanigans! Less-than-astounding plots but adorable and even genre-savvy dialogue! It's like the first few seasons of Warehouse 13 all over again, except the team is larger and the ensemble more ensemble-y, which I am all over. And that everyone on it is there precisely because they specialize in a particular variety of nerdery is just—I ADORE IT SO MUCH. I'm so fond of them all and of watching them try to learn how to work together, and BAIRD, and then the episodes are all so fantastic and silly and great. Like, this is a show that KNOWS it's ridiculous and has committed to embracing that WITHOUT throwing its characters out a window. Non-stop zaniness would annoy the hell out of me, but The Librarians hits a balance that I personally think is just about perfect between AMAZING RIDICULOUSNESS (NINJA PRINCESS. BAIRD SAVES CHRISTMAS. EZEKIEL ACCIDENTALLY THE LIBRARY'S MAGICAL REPRESENTATIVE.) and the characters continuing to be real people with real feelings in the midst of the ridiculousness, the ridiculousness meaning something in the end. I AM SO EASY FOR THAT COMBO.

Also: how great was it that Cassandra was Prince Charming? SO GREAT. And if anybody tries to tell me that the "we had ten years" to Baird in the finale wasn't meant to imply that Cassandra and Eve had a romantic relationship in that alternate universe, I will not believe you. I don't even necessarily ship them super hard, but that the show seemed (to me) to be allowing for the possibility is FANTASTIC. \o/

I do hope it gets renewed, but I actually am grateful that they tried to wrap things up a bit in case it isn't. If it isn't, then this was an adorable ten-episode miniseries that I will enjoy writing Yuletide fic for over many, many years. If it does get renewed, then I hope they make an effort to make it a little less blindingly white—Ezekiel is great, but that he's basically the only person in the major and/or recurring cast who isn't white is pretty pathetic. If nothing else they could at least give Lamia more stuff to do!

But it's just such a wonderful fandom show, with the combination of magic + secret organization and the ZILLION tropes that allows for (magic = time loops! wingfic! accidental telepathy! secret organization = pretending to be married for an investigation!), and the characters being clear enough archetypes to be easy to grasp but with enough small details thrown in to make them interesting in their own right. Like, take all this with many grains of salt, my taste in media is really forgiving, but I SERIOUSLY LOVE THIS SHOW.

Anyway. Also, meme! Seen this in places, and couldn't resist:

When you see this, share 3 lines from 3 random WIPs.


1. (Camelot: five Morgan-centric futures Merlin sees.)

"Go home," Morgan murmurs to Merlin's golden boy-king, her eyes very nearly kind; and Arthur—

For a moment, Arthur almost touches her hand, this sister he has never seen before—touches her hand, her face; says, "Come home, Morgan," looking at her with a gaze like the summer sky.

In sixteen futures, he does it and is coldly rebuffed. In fourteen of them, Morgan's stare goes sharp, narrow; in seven she spits in his face, in an eighth she grabs the hand he puts to her cheek and coolly breaks his wrist. In four more she simply strikes him; in one she does not stop until he bleeds, and in another, she takes the knife that lives at her hip and Arthur's startled gasp is the last breath he draws—

But for a moment, the smallest sliver of a moment, Merlin lives another life in the grip of a seventeenth.


2. (Sinbad: age regression.)

The temple is the only building on the island, gray-gold stone rising up between the trees; of course Sinbad wants to go inside. "Just to look around," he says brightly, "just for a few minutes!"—as though Sinbad has ever needed more time than that to get in trouble, Gunnar thinks.

"If there's treasure," Rina says, narrowing her eyes, "you had better come back out and tell us."

"Well, obviously," Sinbad says, innocent. "I'll need you to help me carry it back to the ship, won't I?"

Rina gives him a flat look—and then her gaze moves past him, her stance changing, and beside her Tiger goes tense. Gunnar looks: there is a woman standing in the temple doorway, dressed in flowing yellow-gold, a flower braided into her hair beside one ear.

Sinbad whirls and stares at her, blinking, and she smiles.

"Welcome," she says. "Which of you will enter?"


3. (Rizzoli & Isles: known!werewolves AU of the original Hoyt case, Jane is a werewolf.)

At the end of Charles Hoyt's street, Jane makes herself stop. She can't do it cleanly, it's too hard—easier to just redirect, so that she slams into the side of the building on the corner instead of running on past. She takes the impact on her hip, her shoulder, shoves her knuckles hard into the stone and bares her teeth at the wall. She can't, she can't—she can't come at Charles Hoyt like a wolf. She's a cop.

She breathes deep, lets it out, until she can convince her lips to cover her teeth again; her knuckles are scraped but not bleeding, and she flattens her hands against the wall and watches the scrapes close up, like water freezing over, time-lapsed. She's a cop, she tells herself, she's a cop—she's a wolf and a cop, but right now she really needs to be a cop.

She fumbles for her phone, hits 2, and leans her forehead against the wall while she listens to it ring.

"Hello, you've reached the medical—Jane?"