somniloquence

This was definitely the most active fan fiction year I've had in a very long time. A lot of people know that when my twin sister died some years ago, my creativity sort of died as well -- I've participated in Yuletide and made vids, but it's been a serious struggle to write. Downright agonizing. But I've plugged along, writing something outside of Yuletide for the first time last year when I wrote a little Loki & Pepper Avengers story.

And it was the same kind of year, going along, making vids, until July happened. I didn't expect it, but man did I fall hard for Pacific Rim. I was just obsessed, still am, and it's been weird, because I don't know anyone else in the fandom with my pairing interest that I can spend time around talking about it, or anyone who's at the obsesso level I still am at. I'm the kind of person who really needs to squee with people. Still, I have a third part of a story kind-of series coming up, and more vids I want to make, and I guess you could say Pacific Rim changed my life, because suddenly, for the first time since my sister died, I felt like I could create, I felt the overwhelming DESIRE to create, particularly in writing. I can't tell you how monumental that feeling has been, and I wish I could share it with people.

( Yuletide reveal and year in review for fic and vids )

And I guess that's it? Not too bad for someone who's had such a hard time creating.

Gah, every time I vow to post more often, I fall behind. LIfe's been kicking my ass in a bad way lately, though there have been a few light moments in there, like last Friday when a bunch of us went out to dinner at a fantastic sushi place and had the most amazing meal. Good company, great food, what more could you ask for?

But now I've got a huge book that's looming over me and I really want to just write and vid. Converting my vid files for my Festivid is taking forfuckingever. For a show that didn't last long, there are entirely too many episodes. I had no idea. I used to always post a story on my birthday, and I would really like to finish what would be the third in a Hot Dads sort-of series, but I'm not sure if I'll have enough time to work on it and have it read over.

I've also been really battling the depression that settles on me this month, the whole dealing with my birthday without my sister, and now there's December and my dad's death, and everything feels very lonely. I went to see Gravity last week, and wow, I really found myself wrapped up in Ryan's pain and isolation. The way she remembered the details of her daughter's death. I don't know that I got out of the movie what other people got out of it, because I was really focused on that specific part, but I respected it a lot and I'm so glad I saw it in 3D. It truly was stunning.

I'm going to try to see Thor 2 on Thursday, even though I shouldn't since I'm already behind on this book. But I feel like I'm the last person in America to see it (at least, among people who count Thor and Loki as fandom objects of affection).

I've been watching a lot of TV. I have thoughts on many things, but I wanted to specifically mention ( Sleepy Hollow )

But as for ( Almost Human )

I guess this is the hard part of finding yourself in a movie fandom like Pacific Rim, especially where your pairing is the smallest one out there. I keep checking for new fic, but there has been nothing for Team Hot Dads that isn't also an AU, has multiple other pairings, or is a crossover with something else. I'd hoped there might be more after the DVD came out, but so far, no, and I haven't really seen a lot of vids, either. This is where movie fandom sucks -- when you only have one film to work with, and you aren't in the dominant pairing, and you don't have any friends to squee with. I never could have foreseen that PR would make me so crazed, but it has, but man does it feel lonely.

Ugh, I haven't posted in an age. I was doing pretty good for a while, recovering from that flu and all, and then I kind of relapsed a bit and was battling the cough again and feeling run-down. I think it's the new medication I'm trying out, one that's supposed to prevent needing to pee all the time. Among the legion of side effects mentioned was feeling congested, sinus congestion, cough, and feverish skin. Yay. It was just hard to tell whether it was the drugs or relapsing. But it does seem to work at night. I'm not certain yet whether the side effects are worth it, though -- I mean, I still have to get up about a billion times a night, but at least that's down from a squajillion. It also makes me really itchy about an hour after I take it, just in time to flail around in bed.

Then I got a migraine on Monday post-workout, which meant I missed the Passover seder at belmanoir and mrs_laugh_track's place, which I always enjoy. And it was still there at the dentist on Tuesday, which made the ordeal of the dentist extra special fun, and also last week sometime I woke up with my jaw completely locked and in a wrong position, and spent about three days trying to get my mouth to open wide enough for food, and it's still really tender and slipping in and out of position.

They gave me the bad news that I have three cavities. I was so depressed. I have never had cavities until a few years ago, and I'm eating better than I ever have in my life and drink way less sugar and stuff than I ever have, but every time there is something wrong with my teeth. My fucking body is falling apart with age, and it sucks. Since I have no insurance, being a freelancer, this is all out of pocket, and I have to have two appointments, because my mouth is so small that it's really hard for me to handle lengthy procedures. I am really dreading Monday like crazy.

While I was sick, I was overcome with this desire to see Steve and Kayla clips from Days of Our Lives, back in the 1980s. And also their reunion in 2006. I don't know why, but it was obsessive, and when I looked on YouTube I found hundreds of clips of them, whereas when I last looked, probably about 2009, there wasn't all that much. I have been positively WALLOWING in Steve and Kayla goodness. I had tea today with sdwolfpup, and we were lamenting that state of being where you're just OVERCOME with feels for a pairing or a fandom, and no one else is -- especially if it's long past its heyday -- and there's no one to share it with, so you're just sitting there obsessively watching things and just DYING to share them with someone, but of course you can't, so they build up in you and you feel like you'll explode.

That's what it's been like for me for the past few weeks. I discovered a couple folks have made playlists of clips edited solely for Steve and Kayla's storyline, and it's just...I cannot get enough. And seriously, like I was telling SDW, I can draw straight lines from Steve to almost everyone I have loved in the past 20 years in fandom, or at least make a venn diagram where different aspects of personalities overlap in huge circles. He is like this crucible character who forged everything I want in a fannish BSO. (Like, I was thinking the other night watching Walking Dead that there's an arrow-straight, short line from Steve to Daryl Dixon. It's a lovely symmetry, or maybe a fearful one?)

I didn't even see the storyline with him leading up to where they decided to redeem him and make him an antihero and supercouple with Kayla -- so that has been really cool. He was a fucking PSYCHO, too, which is really entertaining. The only thing I'd ever seen was him kidnapping Hope in the Miami storyline in '85, where he ties her up and torments her, and I remember thinking, wow, who is THAT guy, and also why, if he's threatening Hope, do she and him have such awesome chemistry and a kind of strange almost-friendship quality? Then I didn't see him again until he told Victor he wouldn't follow Kayla anymore, and they beat him up and she found him and took care of his sexy wounds and made him take his eye patch off. I was hooked by then. So it's been such a hoot to see all these clips in the interim, of him coming to Salem, tormenting Kayla while falling for her, slowly turning into a good guy. I never got to see any of that at the time, and I thank god for the fans who kept those freaking videotapes all those years instead of, like me, recording over the good stuff.

I wish I could figure out how to DL the clips off YouTube -- the latest downloader I can find doesn't seem to work on whatever encoding YouTube's doing right now, and none of the tape/dvd offers I've found seem to have current addresses, or at least, no one's replying. Because man, I want to make a vid. The vidmakers are just...not very good, they don't have a vidding aesthetic, really, it's just throw long talky face clips at the screen, and I feel this need to make something EPIC and full of feels for Steve and Kayla. I'm going to keep looking, because it's like feels threat level red here, and it needs to be done, even if there's no one to share it with. Like SDW said, at least I'd have one good vid that I could watch over and over on my own whenever I needed a shot of EPIC LOVE STORY.

Ahem. Anyway, that really did help me get over my flu and stuff.

Now if I could just get over making my vid for Vidukon, which is due this weekend, arg, and my Club Vivid vid, and the work piling up, and everything else, I'd be good to go.

So, how are you all? What's shakin', bacons?

Thanks to everyone who commented on the porting over my old stories to AO3. I'm nearly done -- I think. The worst one is ahead, which is my Buffy WIP that hasn't been finished. I found that there's something that prevents me from using the importer on a lot of my stuff (probably how things were coded before), and that one is gonna be a bitch. Blurg. But who knows, maybe it will inspire me to finish the damn thing. I'm sort of fascinated by the fact that I have so much shit from before. And how it basically almost stops after sis_r died. There's still the finished Fast and the Furious stuff from after she was gone, a Mag 7 or two, and a few chapters of the Buffy WIP, but outside of Yuletide and the odd Avengers story I wrote this summer, nada.

In a way, I'm almost glad because it means there's less to port. But if I could have had the choice to keep my twin sister and not write another word, I'd have taken that one.

I have another question, though -- what about some random Five Things little pieces I did by request a few years ago in my LJ? Would/should those be in AO3? I just don't know. I mean, I guess it's fic in a way, but it's not...well, it doesn't seem like real fic to me. They're just tiny.

I have another post at some point about Justified this season. This is the first time I can ever say I'm not unequivocally in love with it. This disturbs me, since it's the closest thing I have on TV to my old fannish obsessiveness.

Also saw Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters yesterday and have thoughts.

Things have been weird and hectic the past week. I got a new foster dog named Buffy (seriously), and she's been pretty neglected/abused, so it's been hard getting a handle on things -- plus the fact that our rescue group had a huge intake of kitties from a shelter in Eastern Washington, as well as more dogs in care than we've ever had before (there are over 100 animals in foster right now), so I wasn't getting much information or help on dealing with her. But I had to take her in for an evaluation and to figure out what to do about this growth on her foot, and they said she had mammary tumors as well, and a heart murmur (she also has cataracts, and they were figuring there would be teeth extractions). Poor kid. She lost most of the fur on her back due to a flea infestation/allergy. She's kind of a wreck.

But she had surgery yesterday, and I brought her home last night. I actually thought she was going to die last night; it was a long night. She was so listless and seemed to be suffering so much. I finally was getting into bed when she popped up and came over to me, so I let her have a little water and then we went outside for potty, which she was surprisingly good about. I put her "Adopt Me" shirt on and get her back into bed and covered up with a blankie, but she wouldn't take any food. Cut to this morning when the cleaners came really early and she was out there barking and dancing as they came in, seemingly quite hale and hearty. The blood seepage has stopped, and she seems quite fine. I have to very gingerly pick her up with all the sutures and stuff, but she wanted to go on a walk this afternoon, so things are looking good. Wow, she hates the cone of shame. I'm really afraid a senior dog in this condition isn't going to get any adoption applications, but...we'll see.

I was pretty stressed out about the surgery, but I went out with friends Tuesday night to the most amazing dinner at a restaurant called Copperleaf, in the most unexpected place -- down near the airport, kind of a class-free zone for most of my life. kerithwyn was in town and suggested it, as it's her favorite place, and so a bunch of us met up and feasted the evening away. I really needed that, because I'd been kind of making myself ill with worry.

Not just about the dog, either -- I had talked to my friend Keith and found out that in the past couple of months he'd had a kidney transplant and pancreas transplant. I mean...he never called to tell me that, and I had made him swear he would tell me when he got the call about a kidney, and he's been in the hospital twice for dangerous unexplained fevers, which scares the bejesus out of me. I was all set to fly out so I could take care of him, too, and I just... It's very hard to be far away from someone you love when such a monumental thing is happening. And he's far from out of the woods, so we have to wait a while and see how everything is taking, and hope for no more reactions.

I had talked to him right after I was vibrating with upset, too -- I got a new iMac a few weeks ago and finally started getting it set up this past weekend. I found out, though, much to my horror, that I cannot install Final Cut Studio 2 (FCP 6) on the computer. It won't install PowerPC discs, I guess, and so that meant I could not vid. I don't have the budget to buy a new version of FCS either. I found out that people have been able to get 6 to run on Mountain Lion, but they had to do either something with Rosetta from the Snow Leopard install discs (which I don't have) or command line stuff in Terminal (which I am not competent to do, and they warn people it's dangerous if you don't know what you're doing). In order to complete my Festivids, I'm going to have to keep my old computer up and running, but that upsets me and stresses me out.

I have always kind of felt borderline OCD, and I think I could easily tip over into that. My issue is having clutter and space -- it panics me when there is too much stuff around me, when it's disorganized. I'm typing this on my new computer, in fact, and I'm crammed over to the side of my desk with these two huge monitors looming at me, and cords everywhere, and it just kind of makes me twitchy and sick in my stomach. People I know sneer at me for my needing white space issue and make fun of me about it, but it's a very real stressor for me. I know keeping both computers around is the easiest solution, but it's very upsetting right now. And I honestly don't know what to do about this vidding thing.

I also found out, after the fact, that Apple no longer provide iDVD with the Macs. Fuckers. They believe that everyone's doing cloud sharing, I guess. There are so many FAIL issues with that I can't even. I wrote a nasty letter about it but I'm sure I'll never hear back. On the forums, people are so angry, but at least I found out that some people are buying iLife11 and getting it to work with Mountain Lion -- I hope that's true because right now I'm pretty fucked, and I have to make DVDs for things. I'm so filled with rage at Apple right now, and I've been a lifelong loyalist to them, even in the dark years. I get wanting to push the tech forward, but this idea that cloud use is the only future is just bogus bullshit. (And don't get me started on the whole issue of keeping your own content, service providers disappearing and lost content, and all that shit.)

So yeah, I was in a predisposed state of unhappiness when I talked to Keith, and then finding out he came pretty close to croaking...arg. I guess his kidneys (he has type I diabetes, and he's been getting sicker and sicker the past few years) were so bad that he was constantly sick and was a few weeks away from having to have dialysis. Scary shit, that.

To bring this around to obligatory day of thanks here in the US: I'm thankful for the foster dogs that have crossed my path this year, for the few friends I actually have left who keep me from taking a long walk on a short pier (especially for some of my friends I've met through fandom here, like killabeez and sdwolfpup, belmanoir and kerithwyn, you guys are the best (and I said this the other night to melina123, but if it wasn't for Killa, I don't think I'd even be vidding or doing much fannishly, at this point, she has saved my life so many times with this stupid hobby). I sometimes don't know what I'd do without all you people and my friends list at large. I am thankful, as well, that someone cared enough to be an organ donor so that in a time of tragedy and loss, someone else could get a future they wouldn't otherwise have had and stay in the world where they are loved and cherished.

I really battle depression most of the time, but this time of year it's especially hard. This is the first Thanksgiving I've gone through with all of my family gone, and I feel really lonely, even though in a few hours I'm heading up to have a gourmet dinner at killabeez and mr. killabeez's place. It's just hard to come to terms with the fact that they're all gone, and I'm the one remaining, the least competent to deal with it.

I think tonight when I get home I might, eschewing my Yuletide responsibilities that I haven't even begun yet, just watch some found family entertainment like Community and Firefly. Cuddle up with Miss Buffy and try not to be too sad.

Here's a pic, btw, of Miss Buffy (before I gave her a bath and cut some of the mats from her fur, so she's a little scraggly).

Last night, Olive stayed out all night (when the weather finally turns nice, she will do this, like, she can't believe it's nice out finally or something). I get so worried. I didn't get to bed till after 2, and I always have trouble sleeping when she won't come in, so I get up constantly to call her. The last time I did, I heard birds tweeting and the sky was that incredible shade of deep blue where you know there's a bit of light, but it's still twilight out. I couldn't figure it out -- I hadn't been in bed that long. Then I realized, oh yeah, it's summer solstice, shortest day of the year. Amazing!

So, I haven't paid much attention at all to the fic that poured forth from the Avengers mania, but reading belmanoir's Thor/Loki roadtrip series is making me want to read more. I think, honestly, there's not a pairing I wouldn't like, but I'm especially interested in Coulson/anybody (I can't even tell you how much I adore Coulson. He is my new fictional spiritual fiance -- I would never leave him like that ungrateful cellist!), Clint and Natasha together, and Clint with whomever or Natasha with whomever, as long as she's not portrayed as weaker. I could also do Loki if someone's good at explaining him. But honestly, I like them all (science bros!). I'm afraid, though, to walk unprotected into these waters. I would love some recs. Stuff I like -- angst (real angst, not OMG I Have a Hangnail "angst"), hurt/comfort, road trips, plotty save the world stuff, and most of all, cracking dialog. I do not like kink stuff, bdsm, anything with babies, or heavy AUs (I like "what-if" AUs, where one small change alters the course of everything, but there better be some consequences). Actually, now that I mention it, I love stories with stakes -- no, not the Buffy kind, the kind where things are at stake, where there are consequences to things. I enjoyed the Thor, Cap, and first Iron Man movies, though I didn't think they were the genius works everyone else thought they were, so characters from those are fine (Peggy! Bucky!). Also, spelling and grammar really count with me. What would you rec for someone with my requirements? Anything?

I need to get started on my 100 things challenge. I will!

And here are the pics of the day from Hawaii.



Anole lizards around the McBryde Gardens at the National Botanical Gardens on Kauai.

(For some reason, none of my recent DW posts are cross-posting.)

No doubt a lot of you have seen the posts about Sandy sherrold today, whom we often typed as Snady (if you see people referring to her that way, don't freak -- it was a thing). For those who haven't seen the others posts, movies_michelle has an update here with some info on things you can do, and why it's been so quiet about this. I hope people can understand how difficult it's been to watch this unfold, and how much those of us in town wanted to respect privacy, and also, simply, that we had hoped this was just a temporary setback.

I was talking about this yesterday with some other fans -- how, even though she and I lived ten minutes away from each other, and saw each other all the time, I didn't really enjoy going to cons when she wasn't there. Which is completely nuts, but as so many others have noted, she IS fandom to a lot of people, and her presence at a con was undeniable. You could hear here everywhere, her loud laugh (she once joked to me, the first time I had the Media Cannibals at my house, "Now you know why everyone wishes I came with a volume button!"), her infectious enthusiasm. And up till, really, two days ago, she was still planning to go to VVC. And who knows? Maybe she will. She has gone far beyond their predictions many times already in this.

Snady is the very definition of the phrase "force of nature." When we started hanging out, she welcomed me in and let me participate in making vids with the group, and even though for years we bickered and quibbled about things, she was always this person who meant so much to me that the bickering and quibbling weren't enough to drivve me away. And she and I made good vids together! I loved working with her on them, and I always, always learned something I never thought of before.

One thing I don't think many people realize is how influential she has been even to vidders who don't know her. Sandy was one of the early vidders who pushed this fannish art form into new directions, did things no one else had done previously. Her ideas about technique and style and theme have flown down to younger vidders, and they don't even know it. I wish more than anything I could spread that word -- that a lot of what many of us do right now came about because of Sandy pushing those envelopes back in the days when we made vids with bearskins and knives. Sandy is the original vidding hipster, babies.

I chatted with her yesterday and told her about remastering Hair and the new Media Cannibals site we're putting up with all the old vids. I could tell she wasn't well enough to see what I've got so far with Hair, and I'm really sad about that, but I could also tell that made her feel so comforted and happy. Even though she may not get to see it, I'm still going ahead with it. She is, and always will be, fandom to me, and to so many others, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that her legacy is not forgotten.

You know, just when I get to a point where I really hate fandom in general (like this whole White Collar thing, for one), something happens where I think, yeah, you know, fandom is pretty fucking great.

Sandy is having a really hard time and cancer is trying for a TKO on her, and it reminded me that we'd started a project a while ago, but now it needs to get taken over and finished by the rest of us in the Media Cannibals, and everyone's helping me figure out how to do that. And before my darling trelkez moved away, she and I talked about how she wanted to help digitize all our old vids (not remaster, just make them digitally available) and put them up on the interwebz so they are not lost to time. I emailed her and within, like, hours, she has set us up a site and and is making us some interfaces and just doing all this amazing stuff.

And melina123 has much better copies of the vids than I do, so I asked if she could make me copies, and she's sending them to me so I can work with greensilver on getting them up. Right now, I'm uploading the ones that have been digitally remastered that we've had on a disc for a while, many of which were done by justacat or killabeez for us, without us ever having to lift a finger.

Fandom really is wonderful. It does take a village to do anything, and our MC village is pretty fucking wonderful. More later when we have enough to go live.

So, last year I had to miss Vividcon, which was maybe for the best, but I was sad. And this year I plan to go, but I hear more and more of my friends saying they're not going, and I has a sad over that. I'm totally stealing sdwolfpup's idea of a VVC premieres poll and also wondering who's going this year. Thank god at least a few friends should be there, otherwise I think I'd be so lonesome I could cry.

There's no possible way I could list all the possible fandoms out there for premieres. These are just the tip of the iceberg of fandoms I see talked about on my flist -- so please tell me in comments what you're bringing if I didn't list yours!!

[Poll #1752331]

You know what's really hard? Making a vid and then just sitting on it for a long time, because you're sending it to a con and it's also Festivids time, and you're really really happy with it and want it to be out living in the world. For, um, definitions of hard that are totally selfish and fannish.

I'm about 6,200 words into a Prison Break story and nowhere near finished, but it's so frustrating because I think it's going to be really bad -- yet I still want to keep writing it. The thing is, there's so much to do in regards to my dad, and I don't even have anything workwise on the immediate front, yet I still don't have that much time to write, and I need a lot of uninterrupted time so that I can let my thoughts wander and try to steer it in the right direction.

One of the most frustrating things about coming back and diving full force into this fandom is that much has been taken away. There was a Michael/Mahone community called wallporn, but whoever ran it fucking purged it so all the stuff is now lost. Many of the people who posted stuff haven't posted it anywhere else, so it just seems to be lost. I don't understand people who do this. Let it languish if you don't want it anymore; don't fucking purge it and take everything away as if no one will ever come back to the fandom.

Things with Dad continue to be bad. Every once in a while, he starts to seem like he might make it out of the nursing home, like maybe he could go to the second floor of his apt. building, where they have full-time assisted living situations, but then it backslides and I think that no, it's never going to get better. I know they're going to ask me to clear out his apartment and I'm terrified of this; he's borderline hoarding, such a packrat that I don't know what to do with all that shit. And I'm all alone.

I've been freaking most about his license tabs. His SUV hasn't been driven since October, I guess, and the battery completely died. So I have to find a way to get it jump started and then take it to the emissions test, and I have only a few days to do it before it becomes illegal. Fortunately my mostly useless cousin volunteered to come down and help me tomorrow; cars are one thing he knows so that feels a little less frantic. I can't sleep unless I take something, the instant I wake up to pee or something, I'm wracked with worry and fear. I have never felt so alone and helpless and I wish my sister was here more than anything in the world. Not having someone to share this kind of thing with... this is hard. The fact that I have to do everything on someone else's timeline makes it worse.

Maybe it's a good thing I have Prison Break to watch and play with. Hell, maybe that's why I've fallen so hard for it again. I'm lucky that I have some kind people in my life who listen to me blather about it and even have watched an episode or two with me -- both belmanoir and killabeez have been endlessly patient with my squee and even watched it. That's when you know someone is good people.