buffer-overrun

I've been spending most of my time of Twitter lately, but that account is my Serious Writer pseud, and feels like a more stressful version of LinkedIn. At least on LinkedIn, I'm not expected to post witty comments, just reblog work spam, etc.

So, I'm nervous about being more fannish that the average bear. There seems to be so much incurious snobbishness among Serious Writer folks, but maybe a cutting myself off from a potential support system.

So, here I am back on DW, because in the last week, I’ve gotten a string of kudos for old, restricted-access fics on AO3. Which feels great. Maybe some of my femslash got recced somewhere? I'd love to know but also don't want to run across someone who hates my writing, so it's better not to dig too deep.

I also got a kudos (is kudos a collective noun? what is the singular? do I need to ask my husband who actually took Ancient Greek in high school?) on my first ever fanfic (as in written within a fannish community, as opposed to the Cheetara AU I wrote when I was 12  which I only in retrospect recognize as fanfic). It was 2013 and I had just gotten into BBC Sherlock, but I hadn’t read that much fanfic yet, and my Sherlock was cruel and my John was boiling with anger. As I read more fanfic, I sort of realized I was writing it “wrong” but I couldn’t find any way to get it to HEA. And for a long time it felt like a failed experiment. But a few months ago, I got a comment saying that my fic seemed to presage where S4 ended up, and I could see it in a new light — that maybe I had been responding to something that I later let myself forget

It’s also weird to remember that I got into fanfic because I was looking for writers who were exploring Holmes’s drug use. I was really frustrated by the way they were dancing around it in the show, particularly when combined with various Word of God quotes about how they would never address it in the show. Sherlock Holmes is the archetypal Functional Drug User, and it was a very important thing for me to hold onto when I was using drugs. Which maybe sounds like I was trying to justify or downplay my own use, but I just mean that there was so much stigma, and Sherlock Holmes's drug use (a thing that was cut out of many of the editions that were intended for kids) was this rare, pre-prohibition portrayal of drug use. Not that the later stories weren't entwined with prohibition, particularly when ACD wanted to publish in Collier's Weekly in the US.

But, anyway, I didn't really find people exploring Holmes's drug use in the way I wanted but I fell down a slash hole. I was pregnant and living in my body was really bad all the time, and a little sexy escapism was incredibly salutary. And I really like the idea of being attached to a subculture, because I had aged out/ sobered-out of all the subcultures I used to be involved with when I was younger..

Which gets me back to wondering if I should connect my fannish life and my Writer Twitter (both of which are also separate from my biomedical scientist LinkedIn life0.

I had a dream about Alex last night.
( Cut for length )

[Crossposted to elsawilliams.net]

My amazing gift from monicawoe, as part of the Fandom Trumps Hate 2019 fan auction!


Stumble and Fall Into You (4355 words) by monicawoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes
Additional Tags: Fandom Trumps Hate, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Steve Rogers Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers
Summary:

Three months ago, Steve's world shattered. SHIELD had been infiltrated by Hydra, people he trusted turned out to be enemies, and Bucky, who he thought he'd lost in 1944, had been alive this whole time. Steve tries to get back to some kind of normalcy, but Bucky is always on his mind, and lately he's been seeing him everywhere.

Also on DW

The Winter Soldier is a ghost story. This fic hit all its notes perfectly, in turns, creepy and sad and hot.

Note that it's a WIP last updated 6/4/18

Abyssinia (38760 words) by bettyboopz
Chapters: 9/?
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Peggy Carter, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Howling Commandos
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Horror, Pining, Best Friends, Fairy Tale Elements, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Dirty Talk, Non-Linear Narrative, Angst, Body Dysphoria, monster love story because when are there ever enough of those, Tags may be added, Daddy Kink, Child Death (Implied)
Summary:

"I wanna eat you, Steve," he whispers. "I wanna fucking eat you. Just wanna . . . Just let me, Steve. Just give me a little taste. Just a little."

"Bucky." Steve wants to laugh, but then again, he doesn't at all. He wants to turn around in Bucky's arms and – "You the Soldier now or something?"

Bucky doesn't answer.

~

The Winter Soldier is an ancient, bloodthirsty creature of legend. In 1945, Hydra perfects the serum that can turn a good man into an infamous harbinger of death. No one has ever crossed paths with one and lived, or so they say.

Steve Rogers has always been exceptional.

I am absolutely melting down from the stress of trying to find a new job. Not even necessarily the job search itself, but the stress of hiding it from my (paranoid and controlling but also absentee) boss.

And the certainty that the lab I work in will come to a grinding halt if both me and my coworker leave this summer. I am so deeply conflicting about only giving 2 weeks notice. But I have already talked to HR, and I have no contractual obligation to do more than that.

I started crying last night trying to figure out how to get the time off to go to a job interview.

And today my boss just didn't show up. No text. No email. Just not here. Again.

I was reading through old journals as research for my memoir, and found an instance of “peg” in a journal from 1999 (specifically my wanting to peg a girl I had a crush on) and I was like Huh, I didn’t think the word went back that far [Note: it was actually coined in 2001]

While I was caught up in thinking if about my memoir and trying to make sense of my life in my early 20s, I met a new neighbor. He told me he studied psychic plants, and I immediately knew that he was someone who would understand me and my memoir project. And I asked for his number, a little worried that he would think I was flirting with him.

There was a big street fair and a lot of people I used to know were going to be there. I felt really underdressed because everyone else was in full goth/industrial regalia. [This happened in real life a couple weeks ago at the showing of Industrial Accidents at the Brattle, though I didn’t see anyone I knew there.]

I saw the guy who studied psychic plants, and it turned out that he was actually a molecular biologist. He placed moss in different psychic environments and then analyzed them.

At the street fair, I saw two old friends of mine that I haven’t seen in 25 years. They were both much taller than I remembered and wearing leather trench coats even though it was hot out. The each gave me great big bear hug, and it was great.

Going to a writing conference today.

I signed up for a query letter workshop and a first page clinic. And I feel like I am really too thin skinned for this shit. Last year my query letter was absolutely ravaged. Apparently memoir, death, grief, and recovery are totally unsellable.

This year my query letter centers on the idea of “a double life” which is a phrase that I am really not comfortable with. The thing that finally pushed me out of academia was post-partum depression and work-life balance. But nobody would call that “a double life”.

In my early 20s, I was trying to treat academia as a day job. Which academia will absolutely not let you do. But at what level of chaos, illegality, secrecy, or just incomprehension by the reader does it officially become a double life.

But for now, it’s my elevator pitch.

I’m trying to find a way to frame it as an adventure gone wrong. I really wanted to be the hero of a beat novel, but pretty soon reality set in. And I ended up in all these gendered roles in the subculture — caretaker, den mother, Bettie, Old Lady.

I manage a memoir workshopping group, and a new member wants a more formal content warning policy (not because of specific triggers she wants to be warned for, but because she was an instructor at small liberal arts college for a semester and felt they were very useful). A long standing member of the group who has been a professor for decades is opposed to requiring trigger warnings (she has more of a 70s liberal take on most social issues, and also has seen trigger warnings used as a way to manipulate the administration into censuring adjunct professors).

The current policy is:

Writing presented in the group may contain references to or descriptions of death, illness, abuse, unhealthy family and relationship dynamics, sexual assault, racism, sexism, or homophobia, as well as explicit sex or drug use. We do not generally use trigger or content warnings, though specific warning requests will be taken seriously.

Elsewhere in the guidelines, it says that people need to briefly introduce their work before they start reading, so there should never be a situation where a potentially triggering topic is a total surprise. But the way the topics are addressed might be more graphic in one section than another.

I am working on a project about my boyfriend's death when I was 24, and the piece I brought to the group last week included a description of a dead body, and so I warned people in an email. Everyone appreciated the warning, but none of the people who actually attended the in-person meeting wanted to change the policy (the new member who wanted the change the policy wasn't there).

We are looking for new members and I am trying to craft policies that will work for people we don't already have a good working relationship with.

None of the workshopping classes I took included content warning requirements, so I feel like I don't really know where to start.

I also feel like triggers are incredibly personal. I usually use "Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings" on AO3 because almost every story I write has some fleeting reference to the character having sex when they were under 18 or some past traumatic experience.

And in my memoir writing, I'm still grappling with what to call things. Like what level of creepiness on my father's part requires a trigger warning? When I am still trying to come up with a stable way to frame my experiences for myself.

Outward Podacst: The "Town and Country" Edition

Every Miley Cyrus quote I’ve heard from that Vanity Fair article makes me cringe, like, please don’t say stupid shit and claim to be representing bi women. But when people feel cornered, they stay stupid defensive shit. Second Wave feminism spent so much effort policing women’s gender and sexuality, and then you get Choice Feminism, which is morally hollow and makes Third Wave feminism look meaningless. The only thing you can do is say, “I don’t need to answer than. I am allowed to have privacy from misogynistic policing.”

Christina Cauterucci is absolutely the last person I want to hear talking about bisexuality.  Her claim that Cyrus is responding to attacks that no one is making against bi women in long term relationships with men is ludicrous. Is she going to say the same thing about Stephanie Beatriz , who made a much more thoughtful statement about exactly the same issue, because obviously it’s a thing that is a big issue for bi women, inside and outside the queer community. And Cauterucci in particular has no leg to stand on since she is constantly calling people out as fake queer (including Lady Gaga).

But the interviews with the authors of When Brooklyn Was Queer and Real Queer America were super interesting, and definitely worth listening to.

When I was in 4th grade,I really struggled with timed multiplication quizzes. And there are a few simple multiplications that still trip me up: 6x7, 6x8, 7x8. My best guess is that I started memorizing from the outside of the 12 by 12 grid and kind of ignored the middle. And so anything that is not a factor of 5 or 9 or a square just didn’t stick in my head.

But now my older daughter is in 4th grade and struggling with timed multiplication quizzes. So I end up checking a lot of practice quizzes.

And I figured out a mnemonic for 6x8: it is (x+1)(x-1)=x^2-1 where x=7.

Because clearly algebra made a bigger impact on me than multiplication.