fandomonymous

This journal is generally open to whomever would like to friend it!

I admit there are some friends only posts, mostly about my personal life and my relationship. Fannish stuff, whether footie or otherwise, is still completely open to whoever would like to read it, though - so feel free to friend me!

( Here's what you'll find here.Collapse )

( Just...a whole pile of things.Collapse ) This post was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you prefer.

I haven't done a post like this before somehow, so let's do this!

2011 - I wrote Look Around You: Yuletide. Weird, cracky, very "inside baseball"; this fic probably only makes sense if you're part of the flailing around the Yuletide tradition, but I'd like to think it does so pretty successfully. The very strict structure of Look Around You (i.e. in the style of old educational television) is absolutely fantastic to work with. Probably my most popular fic ever, because there's actually plenty of people familiar with Yuletide.

I received three fun, sweet things: A Sucker is Born Every Minute and And Substitute My Own, two fics that took an offhanded question about Good Eats ("how did Alton and W meet?") and spun the answers into weird, tone-perfect, lovely delights; plus The Great Yeti Adventure., which might be the cutest "lost episode" of Boy Meets World to exist.

2012 - I wrote within these secret spaces. Playing to my strengths here, character study and small scenes, in the fantastic Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Kushana learning about who Nausicaä really is after the events depicted, with a hint that could be taken romantically but doesn't have to be. I wrote this to work with either the movie canon or the manga one, though I only got to review the movie before writing.

I received an absolutely delightful Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex short: A Tachikoma by Any Other Name.

2015 - I wrote {T}raumdeuter. Finally writing some football RPF again, though this technically takes place in the world of the world's most delightful Coke Zero commercial. Finally writing porn, too, and getting back into genderfuckery in a lighthearted way! But really, this started with the thought of "how would I make the football world more magical? Taking everyone who calls Thomas Müller an impossible, magical being literally, and giving him Haruhi Suzumiya style reality bending prowess." I'm just glad it worked. :P

I'm practically weeping with joy about what I recieved this year: we're still the same, we're still the same. It is, for all intents and purposes, the Lahm/Schweinsteiger fanfic of my heart, studying some of the most fascinating people in this sport and how they grow both apart and together, and I just. I have already read it 20+ times and I will probably reread it hundreds more and the whole thing is now my headcanon of how I view the both of them, ugh it is fantastic thank you thank you.

This post was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you prefer.

Boss came back, things went well, but now all the work that was on backlog pending his arrival is back on my plate to get done. And some of it involves looking at data that is sad (e.g. "how often do we put patients in restraints in our psych ward, and for how long?") Oof oof oof.

I always knew I wouldn't make it to my friend's baby shower in FL. I didn't realize until today that due to family commitments I probably can't even make it remotely/over Skype. Blah. I am thinking a lot about my old friends vs. my hometown.

Someone linked this interview about creativity, depression, and breaking up long term relationships to me, and it's fascinating, even if I feel I've read everything there is about depression out there. :P That someone is rather open about "unwell brainmeats", and we had a great empathy for quite a while, but I'd lost touch...probably should fix that.

Brighter things:

For those of you that don't know, Google/Android has this little app where they offer marketing surveys in exchange for small amounts of App Store credit. I have one today that is seriously kind of outstanding:

Q1: Do you watch Youtube videos on your "me time"? (Yes / I don't watch Youtube / No)
Q2: How often do you watch Youtube videos with your significant other? (Always / Often / Sometimes / Never)
Q3: Of the following movies, which do you think is most quoteable? (The Big Lebowski / Princess Bride / Space Balls)

As someone who loves all three of those movies and what they represent to my young adulthood...this is amazing. I have NO IDEA what Youtube is studying with this info, but I REALLY WANT TO FIND OUT.

This post was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you prefer.

a. ahaha. Sorry about that Thank you for your patience. (I'm trying to replace at least some of my apologies with gratitude, as per this.)

I'm going to try blogging semi-regularly again, a mix of the personal and the fandom-y things. Feel free to read/comment but don't feel obliged? Or something? This is mostly for my own reference; reminding me of things to bring up in therapy, or to chat about with friends/cuties/others.

Weather changes are fucking terrible, and missing a community I love dearly is also terrible, and so is watching their lives drift away from my own. There's a great This American Life segment about the last idea, though with a very different context than mine. But God almighty, I miss having the routine of a set of nerds to hang out with who have known me forever, even if we didn't actually /do all that much/ necessarily. Also sunshine and not having to wear 50 billion layers, god that was nice, even if I never walked around in Florida and I always do now.

I like my job but I'm no longer gung-ho enthusiastic about it, but it feels doable anyway, so that's nice vs. burning out I guess. I hope I can stay in it for a super long time, not necessarily for the work itself but just for the sake of...stability and having one less thing to worry about, I guess? My boss has been out of the office for the past week and a half and I've been kinda slacking but a lot of it needs to get back on his plate anyway, so uh, I'm not entirely just being lazy and awful, I think. I hope. We'll find out tomorrow?

Also I have an incredibly attractive coworker who basically admitted both a desire to keep professional distance and concern about depression in /basically/ the same conversation. (We are...oddly close and yet not close, and this is really hard for me to parse right now partially due to physical attraction and partially for a really deep seated need to have people to consistently reach out to, I think? And also emotionally I see fragments of my ex in their personality, but I see that in everyone I'm attracted to, so that doesn't necessarily say a lot.... Something to think about.)

I am trying Very Hard to reach out to friends and cuties and make them a regular part of my life but it takes me like, specifically reminding myself and kind of dragging myself out of my head and into the world. I don't like that it doesn't feel natural, I don't like that I second-guess myself every time I'm invited out. It's also a huge adjustment to go from basically a community/squad/pile of people who all know each other to people who are mostly strangers to each other and only have me in common. I'm also not as engaging a conversationalist as I'd like to be and that's kinda weird too. Thus this post.

In better, fandom news:

I ended up Yuletiding anyway though I didn't put much effort into it. I have a good prompt but I am stuck, but I have faith I'll get /some/thing out on time and get something enjoyable out of it, and that is what matters.

I'm playing a lot of Android roguelikes lately, and knocked out my first Shattered Pixel Dungeon win (as well as two Hoplite wins I didn't get pictures of). I solemnly swear I will beat DCSS one day, but honestly most of my gaming is happening on my commute now, so lots of Android games and the occasional 3DS free-to-start silliness.

Also, man, I really like giant robot series that have wonderfully nuanced characters, and this one does and it's free to watch so you should watch it so I have someone to talk to about it. If you're cool with violence and some relatively awkward female physical character design, anyway. (Though the ladies in question are clearly very competent.) It also has a...weird and so-close-to-being-amazing model of polyamory that really intrigues me, but I don't think they'll explore it in the ways I want them to. But the possibilities, and the fact that it's canon at all, makes me VERY EXCITED.

This post was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you prefer.

I feel like I've forgotten how to participate in fandom, or that the ways it happens now have zoomed past me, or that I just don't feel the impulse to participate anymore, just to watch. Maybe all of the above?

I don't want to say this is "me growing up", but...maybe? I know now I was probably depressed or otherwise mentally in "recovery mode" instead of "growth mode" during the times I was most active doing stuff on the Internet instead of off of it (high school, grad school and the first year or so after it, maybe 2013 as well, and from February to May this year). Those last two are interesting because other than a tiny handful of fics I was mostly involved in things that are clearly fannish but not necessarily what I think of as "classic" fandom; my work on Youtube and Twitch were clearly acts of love of someone else's work, but they feel very different even from, say, helping louis_quatorze with the German NT primer, let alone writing fanfiction.

I am definitely in "growth mode" now - exploring relationships on my own terms, navigating work that's been deeply fulfilling, taking in New York City. These things take time, time that takes me away from the devices that keep me away from fannish Internet. But I do spend time "to myself", and most of that time is still spent soaking in bits of "canon" and to a lesser degree "fanon" - but not necessarily participating in fandom-building myself, and my canon absorption is not as thorough as it once was. (As an example, I no longer set my alarm for soccer games, and have forgotten to check when they're happening more times now than my 2011 self would ever be comfortable with.) And I do pick cuties/partners who are understanding of geek culture and fandom as a rule, though they don't necessarily share /my/ fandoms - though I consider that a plus. (And I'm willing to get into fandoms through them...heck, I'm considering offering two fandoms in Yuletide because of exposure to the canons from cuties.)

But do I want to write fanfic again? Do I have those stories in me? Do I want to participate in fannish conversation, finally learn how to Tumblr or have more fannish conversations on Twitter or take part in a revitalization of Dreamwidth or Livejournal? Do I want or need those communities, when I'm busy building communities and relationships with people I see face to face all the time? Do I have the energy for them?

tl;dr: do I want to participate in Yuletide at all?

This post was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you prefer.

So last night I was chatting with staticxfever and we decided that we both want to write every day in November 2015.

So here I'm throwing out ideas of things I could see myself writing next month. This isn't meant to be binding in any way, just brainstormy when I get partway through November and can't decide what to write. :)

personal essays
* defining the ideals of my current romantic model
* talking about the reality of making that happen
* compulsive planning in general vs. the spontaneity of emotion
* examining how a relationship goes wrong? or is this too raw?
* examining living in NY again, Queens specifically
* thoughts on the first-gen immigrant emotional rollercoaster
* maybe write some erotica vaguely based on real experience, in the style of /r/gonewildstories?

not so personal essays
* things i have learned from working in healthcare
* deep thoughts on roguelikes
* recaps Mary Sue style (re)watching something??

poetry
* revising "to a set of poets, regarding (dirty) talk"
* probably something about redefining the word "love"
* probably something about seasons and witnessing change, FL vs NY
** speaking of holy shit how did i write this 11 years ago and it feels better than anything i can write now?? http://theopenhouse.livejournal.com/23291.html

fanfic
* this weird mostly Bayern magical realism idea that I won't really share details on publicly just yet
* more Pia-verse? there's a few never-quite-written scenes...but considering the inspiration for Pia is no longer my partner, and the really deep emotional rollercoaster that is getting over that relationship and my understanding of queer attraction in general...idk???
* would it be weird to expand on 4or5paragraphs's Bayern Pacific Rim AU??????
* "becoming the hermit", aka FILLING IN ALL THE BATTLE TENDENCY TO STARDUST CRUSADERS GAPS GODDAMNIT
* oh right I had a Jojo's crossdresser idea too because I'M PREDICTABLE but ugh that might be even more emotionally fraught to tackle than Pia-verse uuuuuuuuuugh
* dig through touchline for fun madness?
* find some other kink memes/prompt collection type things? i know Welcome to Night Vale used to have a big one of these, and there might be a Jojo one as well? hm.
* dig through past years' Yuletide letters???

This post was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you prefer.

And holy shit, those two years were...transformative.

Florida did not treat me well, after all. I had two jobs I hated, and sacrificed living with my then-partner for them, and regretted that choice and burnt out terribly. Then I lived with my then-partner again, and realized we had both changed deeply, and had stopped knowing how to really communicate to each other how much we had changed.

If you couldn't guess, we then broke up. It's pretty much amicable now, but it took a lot out of me to do.

If you couldn't guess from those last two things, I moved back to New York City. I'm not looking forward to winter here, but I'm reconnecting with old support networks, and the city itself feels wonderful and supportive in a way that's hard to describe, so that's progress. No formal job yet, but a lot of promising leads. We shall see.

I think I'm polyamorous-ish. Open-ish. Capable of loving more than one person, given that they love me back and accept the possibility. I'm still defining love, defining relationship instead of friendship, and having a lot of trouble with that, but that's a work in progress.

I have the possibility of a wonderful, wonderful partner in Boston if his primary will let me in - though that's very doubtful, and the fact that there's doubt there is its own story that I don't think I'll make public just yet. I will say I will hopefully be in Boston in two weeks, meeting said primary, seeing what happens. I am...cautious and scared, but also hopeful.

I have (had?) the possibility of a lovely partner in Pittsburgh, but I think his own mental health is in the way between us and our actually being able to support each other, and that's just tragic for so many reasons.

Beyond ending things in February I've had some other rejections too at varying levels of angst.

I'm slowly opening up to the possibility of directly looking for someone here locally, but it's a process, and the whole "specifically looking for people to date" thing feels so weird to me, after stumbling into all of my relationships so far based on my participation in shared interests. But it would be nice to get affection and intimacy to help me cope with the other things going on in my brain and my life.

Beyond those things, I'm exploring things I love. Livestreaming roguelikes three times a week, volunteering in civic tech activism once a week, talking to friends, drinking good beer, watching good soccer, wandering New York City. We'll see what the future holds.

This post was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you prefer.

i uh may already have a job lined up less than six hours of being here

it pays shit and is far away but it's basically what i do. besides commute time is time to listen to podcasts and by podcasts I mean Welcome to Night Vale

Speaking of which HOLY SHIT GUYS WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE I'M SO OBSESSED. also because Adam is Spanish and a scientist and has perfect hair, I am now fervently looking for any and all East Asian-descent Cecil headcanons. /predictable

I am living with two members of the bropocalypse but they are old enough now to be cool. They have treated me to beer and grouper.

Florida, she treats me well.