#I tell people I'm flipping through my Rolodex

[lycorogue]

[image ID:

A black cat with its head angled down and its eyes wide, with an almost mile-long stare. As if lost in thought. The progress-wheel is edited onto its forehead.

The caption reads "me trying to remember literally anything"

/end ID]

[randomfoggytiger]

I have a question about your encyclopedic fanfic knowledge. You mentioned having a Google doc or a spreadsheet I think? I'm at a point where I have read so many fics that I can flip through a mental rolodex but then can't find what it is I want and I'm thinking of trying to sort myself out. How do you keep track of fics for yourself?

tldr: Describe the era of the fic (IWTB, S5, etc.), create codewords/shorthand for each incident or trope (i.e. #1 for first child or etc.), and pick out a SPECIFIC descriptor/phrase/detail that is unique to that fic (because "bathtubs" may be a dime a dozen in fic, but "bubbles on the mirror" are not.)

I have several (and I mean several) Google docs filled out by author: one document might be an entire spread of one writer (@baronessblixen), or it might be grouped together by authors who've written fics for each other (Author A's complete works/links + Author B's complete works/links, etc.)

I'll tell ya, @lilydalexf might be a better person to ask this question because while my system works for me, it barely works for me. Google Docs is a pain to find one specific fic for; because unless you have a DISTINCT word explaining that fic separate from similar other fics, you'll get 20 fics in the advanced search that may have your hopeless previous combination in there somewhere or may not.

Example: I'm searching up a fic about Mulder and Scully attend a basketball game before they finally open up and make the next move. Cute, right? I name all dating era fics S6-7, (though I disagree with that timeline but ANYWAY) and all dating fics right on the cusp or becoming a dating fic as PreS6-7. SO, I type in "PreS6-7" and "basketball" into Google search. Twenty fics pop up: some might have "PreS6-7" and "basketball" in the same fic, but those words describe separate fics; and more likely than not, that document may have the word "basketball" in it but not the word "PreS6-7."

What I've ended up doing is picking my battles: describing specific scenes, people, or phrases I'll always think about when I think of that one fic; then writing down when it's set and including a link.

Example: "PreS6-7/Mulder invites, basketball game/Scully realizes other couples there/duo eat, dinner, lunch/she asks/he makes moves" + link. IF there had been a specific thing about that fic that jumped out at me (Scully wearing a headband, for instance) I'd include that detail (headband) in the description because it would set it apart from other "basketball/eat/makes moves" fics.

And come up with codewords for each genre or type of fic. I'm dead serious. For me, #1 means first baby Mulder and Scully have, regardless of era/canon/etc.; #2 means second; S11/AU is the header for that author's Revival fics; PreS1 means all fics set before the Pilot; OntheRun means post S9's The Truth but pre-IWTB; AU/Chinga means Chinga AU; etc., etc., etc.

BTW--this is the voice of experience and desperation wailing-- THE CODEWORDS MUST BE LEGIBLE BUT WEIRD, OTHERWISE "BABY" COULD REFER TO MULDER CALLING SCULLY BABY OR BABY WILLIAM OR REVIVAL BABY OR ETC.

Here's what a typical spread will look like (with extra notations written in, marked by Me:)

Author's Name(s):

Tumblr:

Ao3:

(Me: etc.)

Cancer Arc/AU

(Me: cancer arc/post Memento Mori-post Redux II fics)

Pre-Memento Mori/description-- link

Assorted/AU

(Me: S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S6, S7, PreS1, timeline-non specific, AUs)

Through the years/Scully smiling through the years/episode, incident/episode, incident/etc.-- link

This is veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long, I know. But now you know. XDDD

Gotta run byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye!

[mlobsters]

supernatural s11e1 out of the darkness, into the fire (w. jeremy carver)

i'm feeling very dispirited about my ability to watch the entire series, gotta say. i'd been kind of looking forward to s11 because i have some vague notions of a few of the episodes. ah well. tally-ho

dean sucked up by the darkness straight away, great (scrolling through my internal rolodex of ladies i very vaguely know of from fic. amara??). turns out our nice boy is just taking a nap with the flowers

sam's hair situation looks improved, looks like they let it grow out so it's uneven in the back and flipping up in parts again instead of a shaped smooth bob situation

they're getting a little more creative with the effects with rolling in the flashbacks, which is neat. though using the same effect (differently but similar enough) for dean and sam's recollection, less neat

cas has progressed to rabid wet kitten i see

JENNA Rebar. I sought cover. I fell.

😬

all right so. just the moral calculation of culpability in all the rando human deaths at scale due to ye olde brothers. letting lucifer out i think is zero sum, they were pushed by heaven and hell to make it happen. sam saved a lot of people by jumping into the cage to lock lucifer (and michael and poor adam) back up, that's gotta add a good number in the black. (cas has got some big negatives with the whole god-stint and releasing the leviathans i wager. oh and the whole angels falling business). choosing for sam to live instead of closing the gates of hell forever, well that is less definable but seems like a big fat red number on dean's tally, but probably less than would have died with lucifer and michael duking it out? so if we consider them one (ofc) they're still in the black. this business with the darkness though, is a lot more definable and in your face if we're seeing this hospital full of dead people on their first jaunt out post evil!twister. curious what kind of guilt they're gonna lay at sam's feet. he gets squirrely when it's people in the way of having dean. anyway. i think y'all might be the bad guys 😔

moving on, finally.

oh funny, the deputy was the original fen in the magicians which i've definitely mentioned before while watching this. aha, she was in 7x22 with rick worthy (dean fogg on the magicians, spn alpha vampire). those light eyes and dark hair are very striking and memorable

did they scrimp on the makeup budget or something?? looks like he's sewing up a vulva and not even bothering to lift her shirt. UNSANITARY, BRO. hope she's up to date on her tetanus too. and gets some antibiotics to boot

that's some weirdly lit cleavage. also, dean already lied to sam about what went down with her? SIGH. so. tired.

this lighting got him extra haggard looking. why didn't he just kill the zombie whatever, especially after hearing the baby crying? wtf is going on.

the little yawn 🥺

MARN’S HUSBAND You just sit your tush down, okay? Just let me get this out. I've been thinking a lot about what you said -- and -- and I know, I lost my chickens when you put it out there. But it's not every day that your wife tells you that she wants to watch you get a party started with your best friends. I mean, am I right?

this whole interlude is... something. aaand straight to maternal death. sigh. and dad's gonna die too. great

giving 2x9 croatoan slash 2004 dawn of the dead vibes

DEAN And how long is that? And when they infect others, how long is that? No, we stay here, that baby dies. We did this, Sam. Okay? We broke it, we bought it.

indeed. why don't you tell sam about the dark cleavage lady then

CASTIEL Sam, Dean... goodbye. It may be some time before we see one another again. DEAN Wait, Cas. Cas!

LOL okay. couldn't squeeze in any details i guess

MINION 1 It's just, you barely escaped assassination. You're arguably on the run from the most powerful witch on earth -- not to mention an angel of heaven and uh... CROWLEY And? MINION 1 You didn't call for help until after the orgy?

come now, minion 1, do you truly expect otherwise

sam's talking big picture logistics and dean's just like wtf is the other option right at this moment

DEAN We have a plan, okay? It's the same plan as it's always been. In order to get out, we go through. SAM And? How's that been working for us? DEAN We can't save Cas if we're stuck in some hospital, okay? Just like I can't strap on a time machine, go back, and tell Cain to shove that Mark up his ass or stop you from releasing the darkness. Now, have we made mistakes? Yes. Hell, yes. And we can analyze each and every one of them over a couple of frosties when we're old and farting sawdust and out of this room! Right now, all I can do is I can gear up, I can head out, and I can save that freaking baby, which is exactly what I'm gonna do.

when they get old. together. right.

SAM Dean, if we don't change -- right now -- all of our crap is just gonna keep repeating itself. DEAN Okay, I-I don't even -- what?

i'm with you on this one, dean. what

SAM There is always a cure. You just have to want to find it. DEAN Yeah, how are you gonna find it if you're dead? And around and around we go. SAM Saving people means all of the people, Dean. Not just that baby. Not just each other. I unleashed a force on this world that could destroy it... to save you. DEAN And I told you not to. SAM And I'd do it again. In a second, I would do it again. And that is what I'm talking about. This isn't on you. It is on us. We have to change.

(i hate that my thought process legit is, take yourselves off the board, go to heaven, do not pass go)

so i guess sam's guilt caused a come to jesus moment about killing the people (rabids??? zombies) who we've seen already have an inherently short shelf life even without intervention. guess that's why he refused to shoot one despite the crying baby. this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. i can see sam having this thinking, but not in this situation and moment.

poor woman stuck watching their messy drama play out. i hope they're packing her a big ass duffel of formula and diapers. did you know when you give birth in a hospital, you can take all that stuff you don't use in your room with you? stock up, folks

SAM Get Jenna to the car. Get her and the baby somewhere safe. DEAN Without a shot. And what are we gonna do about those things on our tail? SAM They won't be on your tail. DEAN No way. SAM You said it, Dean. We broke this. DEAN Yeah, we broke this, okay? We did. SAM I heard it in your voice when you agreed to take that child. I get it. You do what you do. But you've got to let me do what I do, too.

be bait?

quelle surprise sam locked himself in with a zombie. oh and got zombie juice in his mouth. STELLAR PLAN, SAM

MIKE Her name.. is Amara.

okily dokily. so we think the baby's named amara but it's actually dark cleavage lady? do i get a gold star?

and lucifer slash michael is all riled up in the cage, even greater

DARKNESS For the same reason that you'll never hurt me. (She pulls aside her dress to show the Mark of Cain on her collarbone) We're bound, Dean. We'll always be bound. You helped me. I helped you. No matter where I am, who I am... we will always help each other.

great great. it's like a neverending fucking romcom where an ever growing percentage of sam and dean's problems are caused by lack of communication. but we don't even get the catharsis of a good kiss at the end. i am so tired of it

i need to lower my expectations again so i can stop being so disappointed

[heart-forge]

Wait wait wait, why does Anne with an E bother you so much? Because I've always felt that Ann without an E feels like nails on a chalkboard to me. Never occurred to me that someone could feel the same way as me only opposite! I am now intrigued.

The fun and totally unconflicted answer is because I know what a field in Ontario looks like, and what a field in PEI looks like, and I know when they've sent a drone over the cliffs of PEI and when they're in a soybean field in rural Ontario. The more thinking emoji answer is below a cut for racism, indigenous racism, and residential schools !! Like those are literal plotlines in the show, not to misrepresent Anne or anything.

I've rewritten this like a thousand times just because I've done a little research into what people thought of the show and it means so much to a lot of people but also I think it was absolutely batshit of them to introduce a residential school plot alongside "Anne goes to university and kisses Gilbert", just in time for the cancellation so that thread is perpetually just hanging there. On one hand people think it was important for them to introduce the plotline and let it get as dark as it did, on the other hand it's by far the darkest and I'm not sure there would have been a way for them to do it justice without literally dropping every other storyline. And also like...there's the question of what would be done with Rachel. Are we just supposed to be cool with her saying she was sorry and didn't know she was actively enabling, participating in, and supporting violent colonialism that could have literally killed a beloved side character? She's already the go to for being the racist and the one who was introduced to us by bullying an orphan so like, where were we supposed to draw the line with Rachel?

I didn't like that they killed Mary, and I especially didn't like the weird flaccid thing Sebastian then had with the school teacher. Nothing against her or Sebastian, just that I already hated that they killed Mary for no discernable reason even though she had plenty of drama in tank with Elijah and all, and the Bog is just Gone Now. And Mary got replaced with a White Woman With Modern Sensibilities She Rides a Bike and Wears Pants and Fishes. Like you could have kept Mary alive and done an Elijah redemption arc. They didn't have to nuke Bas' family after like what an entire season of waiting on their romance? Best case her actress had other things to be doing, otherwise like...she died offscreen. They did her so dirty so Gilbert could stand there and do a cry face about it and swear to be a better doctor than the racists that wouldn't go see her.

Diana's gay aunt is where I feel really comfortable rolling my eyes at the just...paternalism the show seems to unintentionally have? Just in the sense that Anne never has to learn anything about these extremely complicated topics that she immediately begins white knighting for. She always instinctively understands the situation, which I think was just a case of "the POV character isn't an asshole and knows everything that we know right now" but in a way that comes off as preachy just because nobody else is on that level. Everyone else needs something explained to them, everyone else needs help accepting others, but Anne's open heart and sheer zest for life is always ready to tell all of Canada about residential schools: surely they'll be outraged (spoiler alert for literally up to last week: they weren't)?

I guess the tl;dr is that it felt like a social justice monster of the week game where they were flipping through a rolodex of topics for Anne to be extremely knowledgeable about regardless of how close she is to a topic or how reasonable it is to assume she's had experience with it before which was a disservice to her character and like, she didn't have to know everything about everyone's particular struggles and burdens in order to be a kind person? She was infinitely more compelling when she was shit talking Gilbert only to find out about his home life and his sick father and feel terrible about it, and that scale of drama doesn't translate into "finding out about gay people" (Diana was extremely funny that whole arc because she really was Just Finding Out About Gays).

And on one hand, some people just really do need to be told things: that Indigenous people really did undergo all this terrible violence done with the full sanction of the government and frankly a lot of the population (again, Rachel's immediate defence is that she didn't know what actually went on there—is that meant to absolve her in some way? She almost killed a child and definitely helped kidnap one and we will never ever be sure that Ka'kwet didn't die because Anne is cancelled), that gay people really are just people in love, that racism is bad. Maybe it's my own sensibilities that roll my eyes at that because like, that information is so easily accessible nowadays and intersects so heavily with so many fandoms that at some point people have to be working really hard to not hear marginalized folks on the ground floor telling them all these things to their faces........but I feel like the only fluffy plotlines really belonged to Anne and her straight white friends that are legacy characters. Anne and Gilbert, Diana, Matthew and Marilla (Matthew's actor made me soft, extreme farmer vibes, immediately wanted to help him figure out how to use his cellphone).

It felt like they were trying and I appreciate the hustle, but also 1) where were you going with this because you were escalating so fast I lost sight of your exit strategy, and 2) Anne is incredibly knowledgeable about most if not all social issues despite her backstory where she is an extremely isolated and abused child, and in addition to this open-heartedness that makes her unusually kind which, fine, anime logic, she is also extremely confident voicing her take on these situations almost like she's written by people with a hundred and a half some odd years of hindsight which leads to this weird duality of "this is Anne the character" vs "this is Anne on the soapbox". Like I said, she doesn't need to be (and should not be) a bigot in any particular way, but the way she navigated the world was almost like, in ignorance of it. Like not only was she totally open to the Mi'kmaq (good), she had no idea that other people wouldn't be (weird, she lives in this world doesn't she?).