entirely ruined her disposition with books

Y'all, one of my readers I've been talking to on aff is twelve years old. How did I find this out? She mentioned she wished she could write as well as I do (aww!) and I told her to just keep writing--I've been writing almost every day for over twelve years now, and after that time you do get better. And she said, "Would you believe that's how long I've been alive?" And I was like



When I told her I was 25, she was like, "Wow, most k-stans aren't that. Uh. Age." TELLING ME I'M ANCIENT. I was so amused, I had to mention that I come from a fandom where I have friends who are grandmas and they're lovely.

But I feel kind of guilty that this twelve-year-old is out there ready my Infinite porn. I have to remind myself that most of my fandom friends started reading smutty stuff that young--I didn't, actually, because I was just in one fandom for so long and that fandom was centered around a series of message boards where you really couldn't post anything higher than PG-13 (and I was really innocent in real life, too). So I was seventeen or so when I stumbled upon the smutty side of fandom. But y'all are all fine! And I feel like it's better that she's reading stuff that was written for her gaze than it would be her watching mainstream porn that tells her she's just an object.

Still, I'm currently feeling very maternal, wanting to pat her on the head and tell her to stick to the PG-rated stuff. Not that I will. But it feels different knowing there are twelve-year-olds reading my smut!



Speaking of which, the other day lil sis and I had the "if I die, make sure to burn my laptop before our parents can see it" conversation. And she was like, "What do you have on there?" And I said, "Just stuff I'm not comfortable with them seeing." And she said, "You don't write porn, do you? Please tell me you don't write porn. Please."

YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HOW COOL I PLAYED THAT. I was like, "Does that sound like me?" with a perfectly straight face.

And she thought about it and said, "No, it really doesn't," and wandered off quite happy. SO I DIDN'T LIE. But I wasn't going to say yes when I knew she'd be completely horrified by it.

And to think: six months ago, I could have said, "No, I don't" and meant it. And now I'm completely corrupted. I blame this guy:






And now I need to go write for NaNo. It's only three days in, but I've only written 1,000 words because I've been too busy writing lots of thousands of words of Infinite fic. I've been telling myself I'll actually buckles down and write when I get ONE MORE COMMENT on my last chapter, but it's been a while and that hasn't happened yet, so I need to just actually do it.

Okay, so I asked Lil Sis again what she thought about Supernatural, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: So my online friends want to know what you think about Supernatural.
Her: [appalled] What? Why?
Me: Because they all watch it, too. And I told them I'd tell them what you think.
Her: [still confused] Okaaaaay. [She will never understand my online life.]
Me: So what do you think?
Her: It's okay. I don't really like that it's so scary.
Me: WHAT? You are the one who watches all the horror movies I refuse to watch! You love horror movies!
Her: Yeah, but movies are different. They're scary and then it's over. This, like, keeps being scary.
Me: Okay. So what else?
Her: I think one of the reasons I can't get into it is that there aren't any girls.
Me: [trying to hide how much I love her for this] I totally get that. The show really fails when it comes to ladies.
Her: Are there ever going to be any girls?
Me: Kinda? But most of them die? And the rest don't get that big of a role.
Her: But what about the girl Dean-from-Gilmore Girls is married to?
Me: [confused, and thinking she thought that Sam was married to Jess] He wasn't married to her and she died in the first episode?
Her: No! In real life!
Me: Oooooh! Yeah, she's on later for a while. I like her character. But that's in a couple of seasons.
Her: Okay, good. She was in Wildfire. I really loved that show. [then proceeds to talk about hot-guy-from-Wildfire because she is who she is]

So her thoughts are: too scary, not enough ladies. She surprises me sometimes. Often in good ways.

The Lil Sis has started watching Supernatural, which amuses me greatly. I asked her for her feelings and she said, "Eh. It's okay. The guy who wasn't Dean on Gilmore Girls is hot." You can see why I'm in fandom and she's not, I suppose. She's only a few episodes in, but I will totally keep you updated if she has any entertaining thoughts on the show. I hope she does.

The Lil Sis has started watching Supernatural, which amuses me greatly. I asked her for her feelings and she said, "Eh. It's okay. The guy who wasn't Dean on Gilmore Girls is hot." You can see why I'm in fandom and she's not, I suppose. She's only a few episodes in, but I will totally keep you updated if she has any entertaining thoughts on the show. I hope she does.

So as much as I would like fandom to have a better standing in society's eyes, I'd rather us kee being ignored forever if it means we can avoid articles like a this. Ugh. That just makes me feel uncomfortable. What is the point of this article? Why does it need to exist? It doesn't provide any real insight into the world of fanfic or why people write fanfic or how we feel about it. It pretty much only exists so that people outside of our community can wrinkle their noses and think about how weird we are.

Plus, I'm like 99% sure that the writer of that article didn't contact the writers of the fics to ask if they could quote them. Which of course they don't legally have to do, but it would be POLITE, okay? Nobody wants to find out their fic has been quoted on NBC's website. Gross.

Ugh.

Stop looking so happy, Andrew-in-my-icon. This is making me uncomfortable.

[eta: I feel like this is also a good time to point out that I stumbled across the article via fanthropology, which is simultaneously awesome and HORRIFYING. It start out as a sort of meta community about fandom, but now it's mostly just a linkspam of media references to fanfiction. There are a few surprisingly positive discussions about the fanfiction community in the larger culture, but most of them will just make you SO ANGRY.]

+ Listening to coverage on NPR about how people from Connecticut (what do y'all call yourselves?) are split in their support of the Patriots vs. the Giants, I got bitter and pissed off. I shouldn't care. But I do. Because grown-ass adults can talk about "loathing" a team and talk about "redemption" when it comes to sports, and that is totally socially acceptable and nobody questions it. But if I was to go on any media outlet and talk using that same sort of language about ships or character arcs or the depth of my feelings about the stories I invest in, people would think I was weird and either mock or pity me.

I hate the world.

+ Okay, so apparently these ugly-crying gifs of KBell that I've been seeing around have something to do with sloths + Ellen? I really love KBell, so I kind of want to watch whatever this is, but sloths really, really freak me out? Like almost as much as komodo dragons, which are currently number one on my list of animals that freak me out (my list makes much more sense than my sister's, which is comprised of squirrels and fish. I don't know either). Something about the way they move is just scary as anything to me. So can I watch this video without being horrified? Can I close my eyes during the sloth parts and just watch the KBell parts, or is it mostly sloth parts? Ugh. Just writing the word grosses me out.

I use my Andrew icon for this post because he is the only celebrity I would believe can understand the depth of my feelings (about anything. about everything. just feelings in general). Andrew Garfield: Emotional Evangelist is your sponsor for this post.

+ Listening to coverage on NPR about how people from Connecticut (what do y'all call yourselves?) are split in their support of the Patriots vs. the Giants, I got bitter and pissed off. I shouldn't care. But I do. Because grown-ass adults can talk about "loathing" a team and talk about "redemption" when it comes to sports, and that is totally socially acceptable and nobody questions it. But if I was to go on any media outlet and talk using that same sort of language about ships or character arcs or the depth of my feelings about the stories I invest in, people would think I was weird and either mock or pity me.

I hate the world.

+ Okay, so apparently these ugly-crying gifs of KBell that I've been seeing around have something to do with sloths + Ellen? I really love KBell, so I kind of want to watch whatever this is, but sloths really, really freak me out? Like almost as much as komodo dragons, which are currently number one on my list of animals that freak me out (my list makes much more sense than my sister's, which is comprised of squirrels and fish. I don't know either). Something about the way they move is just scary as anything to me. So can I watch this video without being horrified? Can I close my eyes during the sloth parts and just watch the KBell parts, or is it mostly sloth parts? Ugh. Just writing the word grosses me out.

I use my Andrew icon for this post because he is the only celebrity I would believe can understand the depth of my feelings (about anything. about everything. just feelings in general). Andrew Garfield: Emotional Evangelist is your sponsor for this post.

Her: Did you watch Vampire Diaries this week?
Me: Yeah.
Her: How was it?
Me: Good. Craziness happened. But craziness happens every week.
Her: Good! I'm getting ready to stream it now.
Me: What did you think about Damon kissing Elena?
Her: Loved it. I always liked him better. Didn't you love it?
Me: ...Yeah. I did.

First of all, to all of you who left me comments on the love-meme, y'all are wonderful. Your comments moved me so much, and I know that I'll revisit them often when I'm feeling really down. I love y'all so much.

So let's play a game, okay? Just because I'm curious.

Tell me:
1) Which fandom character you most identify with personality/emotions-wise
2) Which fandom character's life you most identify with

Like this:

1) Emotionally, I really relate to Annie Sawyer from Being Human. She's a very emotional person, but that's not portrayed as a bad thing. She's just easily overcome by her feelings, both good and bad. She's more outgoing than I am, and she doesn't seem to have a passion about anything the way I do/did about writing and school, but she reacts to things emotionally the way I would. I also quite relate to Sam Seaborn in that I'm smart (though not a smart as him--the guy's a genius) but I'm very insecure and have a difficult time believing I can accomplish all I want to accomplish or that I deserve to play with the big kids. I'm always half-afraid that people are going to find out that I'm a giant loser and that I'm not nearly as smart as they think I am. He's also an idealist who tends to live in his head, which I am too. I can imagine him getting as frustrated as I do that I have to deal with the details of life instead of just living my dreams all the time. (Oh, and you all know I relate to Spike. Emotionally. Not in the details at all.)

2.) Julie Taylor. She's a white, straight, middle class, red state girl with a little sister and parents who love each other and a good home environment. She goes to church, does well in school, and doesn't live the party kind of life. She has some good friends but doesn't seem to have lots of them. Now, there are lots of details that don't match up with me--the boyfriends and her little acts of rebellion (and let's leave most of S5 out of this, because: NO). But her life is the closest thing I've ever seen to my life on television.


Anybody up for this? I'm really interested! I feel we can learn a lot about each other from this.

So my BFF is watching Buffy for the first time, and she is loving it. Yay! I met up with her today and she returned Seasons 3 and 4 to me and I passed along Seasons 5 and 6 to her. And of course I asked her what she thought about the show.

So she told me lots of things, and then she goes, "And OMG, I love Spike." And she started telling me all the things she loves about him--how he has the best lines, how he manages to meld the best qualities of hero and villain, etc.

And then she goes:

"And I really love his ambiguities."

And I really love his ambiguities.

And I really love his ambiguities.

And I just needed to share that.