taedium ergo baked goods.

I was bored. So I baked corn muffins.

I'm sure there's some kind of train of logic that led from one to the other, but yeah, I don't really know. Mostly because I just saw Julie & Julia, which was very cute but mostly made me craved real cooked food like WHOA, but I hate cooking, so I baked instead. And I've had a mostly-full bag of cornmeal in my cupboard for a really long time, so: corn muffins. Found a very simple new recipe. We'll see.

And I discovered that there is not a single whisk anywhere in my kitchen. Which, look, you have to understand, between my roommate and myself, we have more cooking utensils and pans and bowls and things than you could possibly want for two people who don't really cook, and yet: lack of whisk. (Also, lack of good teaspoons, but at least we have a set.) This is particularly baffling to me because I certainly OWN a whisk. I purchased one in Chicago two years ago. I even thought it came to DC with me last year. So where on earth did it wind up? Maybe it didn't come to DC after all, and is still in my box or two of stuff left at my parents' in NYC. Hmmm.

Seriously, wtf, whisk.

Anyway. Time to check on the inexplicable muffins.

ETA: muffin verdict: decent base, but a bit bland. Very tasty when I drizzled some honey on them, though; would probably be good with butter or jam as well. Or if I'd added savory stuff (cheese? green peppers?) before baking. Good to know.

holy mother of REC.

I don't do recs very often, but this, everyone needs to go read. Torchwood/Merlin crossover that works like you wouldn't believe, and manages to stay absolutely in character for all parties involved, and, just, YES: Once and Future, by 10leaguesbeyond. Her summary: Four times Merlin Emrys met Jack Harkness (and one time he met Jack Harkness). I'm not sure how much sense it'll make if you don't know Torchwood, because god knows Jack's personal timeline is confusing enough even for Whoniverse fans, but it's absolutely brilliant. (And I think it absolutely works if you're a TW fan who doesn't watch Merlin -- as long as you know the basics of Arthurian legend, you're fine, though obviously this particular characterization comes from the BBC version of it.)

Just read it, now. And flail at the sheer brilliance of it all.

a propos of nothing (or, torchwood and qaf)

You know, without ever giving it any serious amount of thought, it is 100% my personal canon that at some point in the 1990s, Jack Harkness shagged Stuart Alan Jones. This is just kind of a given to me, in the sense that it vaguely baffles me that other people might not assume it to be obvious.

I've had a long meta post brewing in my head for a while, about Queer As Folk and Torchwood, and the many, MANY ways in which the Jack/Ianto relationship is set up to directly parallel or reflect Stuart/Vince (though I'm undecided as to whether Russell T Davies did that deliberately or whether it's just a series of connected tropes he keeps unconsciously repeating). At some point I'll organize it into a comparative essay of some sort, but seriously. The Stuart & Jack parallels are pretty straightforward, though obviously their backstories are VERY different; and don't even get me started on how Ianto is really just Vince v.2.0 -- honestly, I think Vince is more or less exactly what Ianto would have become if he hadn't been recruited into Torchwood London. (And for the longest time, when I started watching Torchwood, I was really thrown off by how deep Ianto's voice was, because I kept expecting to hear Vince instead; yeah, I dunno either.)

And a large part of my frustration with the end of Children of Earth comes from how completely the parallel arc of those relationships was subverted. Yes, I realize Torchwood is an entirely different show tackling completely different topics and with a completely different tone; but it's the brainchild of the same creator, and subconsciously, that's been informing my experience with Torchwood throughout. QaF ended on a note of absolute escapism and sheer joy; CoE inverted that in the darkest mirror possible, but still absolutely paralleling: ( spoilers for both )

So this is where my CoE fix-it fic comes in -- because I want to restore the parallel arc to its original form. Because, goddamn it, I want to give Jack and Ianto the ending RTD gave Stuart and Vince. Because that would be so fucking beautiful --

There are many rumours about Jack and Ianto -- all of them true.


...I really need to actually write up the full meta I have on this at some point.