I just want y'all to know that I love you so much and that I'm so blessed that you're in my life and that I don't know how I managed to accumulate so much awesome on my flist and that I just want everything good and wonderful for y'all in life.

And also that I am a big giant sap, apparently.

This will probably only make sense to some of you...but I feel like the ones who do understand will appreciate it a lot....



Y'all are the absolute best, and I love you madly.

Y'all should all definitely do this. Because it's pretty low-key but also awesome, and not many things manage to be both of those. The idea is just to leave more feedback...and what "more" means depends entirely on you. If you're mostly a lurker, just leave a few comments, even something as simple as "I really liked this story!" If you always comment on things you read, try to make your comments longer or more detailed. Etc. Here are some more ideas/guidelines.

I'm going to commit to this (which means commenting on things I read on ff.net, which I almost never do, as well as hopefully writing longer comments on things here on lj and on AO3. And if you want to leave me more feedback, you can hunt down things here or here. Yay!

So everyone's freaking out abou the latest reveal in the Buffy comics, and I understand. I really do. Everyone has good reason to be upset and/or excited. Big news! Drama! Etc.!

But. I have come up with a solution to the whole comics situation that I think that we all (at least, almost everyone on my flist who cares about such things) can agree on.

gryfndor_godess and coalitiongirl take over the writing of the comics.

Boom.

We're all happy.

Because we can trust them to love the characters and write them as themselves and also not offend any of our feminist sensibilities and provide us with a satisfying story.

Go ahead, agree with me.

Hey, y'all! I hope you had a good Thanksgiving if you celebrate and a great weekend if you don't. I had amaaaaaazing food and lots of it, so I'm generally feeling pretty good. I also finished the very last episode of Friday Night Lights and cried like a baby, watched every aired episode of Happy Endings (which is fun! I like it!), and started The Walking Dead, which I have decided how I feel about yet, as much as I love post-apocalyptic stuff. Also I am slightly ahead on NaNo! So I will definitely be writing 50,000 words this year! Yay me!

And I'm thinking about what I'm thankful for, and I serendipitously ended up reading this article which is old but awesome and all about how Young People Today (Gens X and Y, apparently) are obsessed with Not Looking Stupid and so never want to Be Seen Caring Too Much, and you know what? I recognize that in a lot of people I know, especially my smarter real life friends. But reading it made me sad, thinking about what kind of a tiny life that must be, except then it made me think about the internet and all of y'all and I was reminded that there are a lot of people out there who Don't Care about Being Seen Caring Too Much and who just embrace being in love with things and being passionate and loving what they love and how I think that that's one of the more important things in life.

Which makes me think of one of my favorite quotes from John Green:

…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness.’

I'm thankful for fandom as a community. It can turn ugly, as we all know, but most of that ugliness comes from a place of Caring Too Much. And yes, we should all learn not to take things so seriously that shipping wars become the end of the world or we attack other people for liking a character we hate or vice-versa or whatever, yes learning those lessons is a good and necessary thing. But I think I'd rather flounder into a big mess because of Caring Too Much rather than just live my life so tepidly in a constant attempt not to be Mockable in any way. (BTW, there's a Happy Endings episode about that, and I loooooved it). I care, y'all. Those silly characters I reblog gifs of on my tumblr and write fic about? I love them so much that sometimes I feel like I'm going to just explode with the force of it. I really, really do. And I care about other things, too, like justice and kindness and basically just being a good person and trying to make life easier for other people if I can. And I don't care if that makes me Not Cool. I don't. I am a geek through-and-through, and you know what? I love that about myself, and I love that about y'all, and I love all of you for providing me with a place where I can just revel in that love whenever I want to. Fandom, to me, is a place where people love things and get excited about things and get upset about things and basically just scream at the universe that they are human and so they care. And how amazing is that?

Anyway, my apologies for being sappy, but y'all are awesome. ♥

OMG Y’ALL YOU HAVE TO READ THIS ESSAY.

Okay, does anybody remember SurveyFail? Anybody? If you were following metafandom a couple of years ago, no doubt you do. Two researchers who had nothing to do with the fannish community decided to survey fandom about its kinks, pretty much. In doing so, they revealed ALL KINDS OF FAIL. Fandom went crazy—in the amazing, snarky, intelligent way that we tend to do when outsiders are trying to pain a particular picture of us that has nothing to do with reality. [eta: Here's the FanLore entry, in case you want to do some digging. ]

Anyway, we kind of kicked them out? Or so I thought. Apparently they JUST PUBLISHED A BOOK which is full of still more fail. And a brilliant anivad has written an excellent, excellent critique of their both their methods and the ways in which the kyriarchy silences those it sees as Other.

One of my favorite parts of the essay is where anivad talks about the way in which the internet can be used as an equalizer, as a way of the voiceless being able to speak. When the mainstream media, owned by huge conglomerates mostly headed by white guys, refuses to let the oppressed speak, the internet gives us a voice and at least the potential to be heard (admittedly, most of us aren’t heard beyond communities of like-minded people, but the potential is there. By the way, did I mention that you should all go read this essay about livejournal in Russia? Because it opened my eyes to so many things. GO READ NOW).

And all of this just reminds me—AGAIN—of how dismissing internet relationships is just another way to silence people. I was thinking specifically of those of us who have anxiety struggles or other mental health problems. One of the hardest parts of my depression/social anxiety disorder is that way it makes me feel alienated. I don’t want to go out and be around people—it’s too tiring, too awkward, too draining. But, like most people, I still want relationships. I still want to connect to people.

And the internet lets me do this. I connect with people like me, I have conversations with people who are passionate about the same things I am, I build relationships with people I would never had a chance to be with otherwise. My sister jokingly says that my family and the internet is my social life, and you know what? These last few years, while my emotional problems and life situation have made me spend so much time at home, it’s true. And it’s not a bad thing. I hatehatehatehatehate this cultural conception of people who have friends on the internet as stinky losers sitting in their mom’s basement, unable to make friends in real life. It’s so not true of most of us, and even if it is, so what? I know some people whose moms have quite comfortable basements.

The internet is amazing. It’s been a lifesaver for me, and for so many other people. Obviously, as a tool, it can be used for destructive purposes as well (from hate groups organizing to child predators to leaked sex tapes/naked photos). But it can be used for beautiful things. It can let my social anxiety-riddled self connect to other people. It can let people who feel very, very alone and alienated find people who are like them, who share interests or struggles or perspectives. Geography is no obstacle. The boundaries of distance are melting away before our eyes.

And when people dismiss internet-formed friendships or mock them or ignore them or stigmatize them, what they’re really doing is marginalizing us. The ones of us who aren’t neurotypical. The ones of us who are different or Othered. The ones of us who are voiceless.

And look—I’m a privileged person. I’m a white, straight, thin, Christian, middle class white girl from America. I have nearly every single kind of privilege imaginable. The only two areas in which I suffer oppression—my gender and my mental illness—do render me voiceless and marginalized in some areas, but there are far more areas in which I belong to the oppressing group. And if the internet and the communities we form are so important to me with all of my privilege and with my relatively easy life, I can’t imagine how life-saving, life-affirming, life-giving it might be to someone whose very identity comes under fire even more often and with even more violence than mine does.

Anyway, all this to say: the internet is a beautiful tool. My mama often compares my “friends in the computer” to relationships that a lot of literary figures used to maintain via mail and written letters. It really is similar…except that it’s even more convenient, because it can be instantaneous if you want it to (or not, if you don’t want it to—one of the things I love about the internet is that I can literally turn off the conversation and walk away if I need to!) and the conversation can involve as many or as few people as you want it to. That is truly amazing.

--

And as a little aside, I went back on whedonesque yesterday. *sigh* Yes, I did. I just wanted to see what people were saying about that super weird interview with Jane Espenson and Georges Jeanty (um, Jane, I love you. Madly. Passionately. BUT PEOPLE QUESTION BUFFY'S AUTHORITY ALL THE TIIIME). Instead I ended up reading a bunch of people poo-pooing the idea of trigger warnings with the argument of “Well, if someone gets assaulted in a Laundromat, then seeing a washing machine might trigger them, and I can’t know that, so obviously I can’t warn for everything, so I shouldn’t have to warn for ANYTHING!” Which is the biggest bunch of hogwash I’ve heard in a while and made me roll my eyes majorly. I wrote up a big long reply and felt much better. I didn’t post it because I didn’t want to get sucked back into that vortex, but it made me feel better to type it. And the whole thing reminded me of why I stay in the spaces I do on the internet. Oh, beautiful flist, I love you.

Hello, y'all! I am back from vacation (which was lovely) and in the land of the cicada infestation (I can hear them constantly, inside, even with both the AC and my fan running). I ate lots of shrimp and managed not to get burnt and read lots and lots of books and generally had quite a nice time.

So! I'm sure I missed stuff! Links in the comments to the mucho important stuff, if you please! Otherwise it might take me quite a while to wade through my flist. :D

I hope life has been treating you well since I went away. Feel free to tell me about anything and everything. I missed y'all! *smooches*

Is it sad that one of the reasons I most look forward to my birthday is that I know that AWESOME PEOPLE on my flist will arrive with creative gifts? Because if that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

First of all eilowyn made me a really awesome banner featuring tons of my favorite ladies from my TV shows, and obviously it is now adorning my profile page.

Then there's snickfic who proved once again that she writes the very best River Tam voice ever by writing me a so-awesome-it-kind-of-hurts Buffy/Firefly crossover fic.

And finally, the kick-ass ohwaluvusbab wrote Harry Potter fic for the very first time in the form of an almost unbearably perfect Ron/Hermione fic that proves that we are indeed the exact same person when it comes to shipping.

Sometimes I really do boggle at how talented my flist is. And how generous. And all around wonderful.

I didn't forget anybody, did I? I'm doing this on the fly at work. I will feel horrible if I did.

Thank God it is finally the weekend is all I have to say. No wait--I also have this to say:

SCREW YOU, JOHNNY DEPP. YOU ARE OVERRATED. KEEP YOUR GRUBBY HANDS OFF MY ORIGINAL OTP.

And since I never actually answer all of y'all's questions whenever I post memes, I figure this time I'll let you do the work. Also, you can cheer me up about living in a world where people KEEP MAKING REMAKES OF THINGS THAT DON'T NEED TO BE REMADE. See also: Being Human, Skins, etc., etc., and so forth.

Out of utter curiosity, if I was chained up in your attic (I prefer attics, basements are damp and cold, attics theoretically at least have windows), and I had to write you one story, what would you request? (demand?) Or alternatively, what's something you always hoped I'd write but know is never going to happen?

I expect some really fantastic answers to this.



Question: how do you reply to things on Tumblr? People are reply to my posts and I feel technologically challenged since I can't figure it out.

One: I am sick and tired of scrolling through my flist and seeing all this porn vids posted in random communities. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT. STOP IT. Who does things like that? I do not understand.

Two: I think everyone needs a hug.



*sniff* I love you guys!