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elekdragonTaking some extended time off of work, starting this last Friday. it's all vacation time, rather than taking FMLA, but I'm still thinking whether I need to take FMLA to get away from the crazy-making-ness of work. There's no way to give you all a short version. Just... there's some hinky shit going on, where bafflingly obvious bias is happening. One of my friends in the teaching faculty is advising me to talk to a labor lawyer. Time off also gives me some time to deal with mom & dad's deaths from the past few months, and all the weird-ass legal shit and other stuff that comes with losing your parents.
so yeah, I've taken the rest of December off. It's helped a lot with the anxiety and stress and blood pressure. We went shopping and had red lobster yesterday, and I've spent some more time looking through the old fic on my website that never made it onto AO3. Today I did some cleaning up of an ancient Due South fic and posted it to AO3. It's christmas-themed, so I figured someone might actually read it. I'm poking at a couple other Due South ones that never made it to AO3. I barely remember some of these!
It's nice to actually be writing, even if it's just cleaning up some stuff I wrote over two decades ago. Oh, that reminds me, the other day I got a comment on one of my old fics on AO3 where the person was "that was so hot THIS FIC IS OLDER THAN I AM but very hot". LOL. I'm officially a fandom Old.
I started cleaning up another fic (the formatting is super fucked up because it was originally transferred from geocities to tripod to slashcity to my final personal website, without ever actually cleaning up the code), but I keep laughing at myself. Man, the time we spent describing people's eye colors and referring to them by anything other than their names!!! And the first time you refer to a character in a fic, you MUST use their full name. I still remember those silly "rules" I learned when I first started writing fanfic. I haven't come across "orbs" yet, but I feel I'm getting closer to that.
We wrote so weirdly in those days. It was also the time when you HAD to address WHY these guys who've only had straight relationships on TV were suddenly boinking, instead of just boinking. I really want to update it, but I also feel like I should probably post it as-is, like an artifact of the 90s. "This is how we wrote back then! In an incomprehensible gabble of eyeballs, heterosexism, and never using a character's name! Look upon it and despair!!!!"
Seriously, it even starts with song lyrics!! And it's so old and in an old fandom, there's no pressure to even bother posting it!
In further no-stress stuff, I've been re-reading the Forbidden Game Series by LJ Smith. Man, does it bring back memories. Like, having to wait forever for the next book to be published. Really really wanting to win that stupid ring in that contest. The friends I made through that fandom. I was surprised I had actually posted all my LJS fic to AO3, but then, I was still really in it when AO3 came around. It was before the TV show. Might have been before LJ came back? *shrug*
Not sure what I'll do for the rest of the week. I should work on job applications and cover letters (I have two in-progress that I didn't finish last week, including the one 'Blade sent me), but it's nice to take it easy for a few days.
so yeah, I've taken the rest of December off. It's helped a lot with the anxiety and stress and blood pressure. We went shopping and had red lobster yesterday, and I've spent some more time looking through the old fic on my website that never made it onto AO3. Today I did some cleaning up of an ancient Due South fic and posted it to AO3. It's christmas-themed, so I figured someone might actually read it. I'm poking at a couple other Due South ones that never made it to AO3. I barely remember some of these!
It's nice to actually be writing, even if it's just cleaning up some stuff I wrote over two decades ago. Oh, that reminds me, the other day I got a comment on one of my old fics on AO3 where the person was "that was so hot THIS FIC IS OLDER THAN I AM but very hot". LOL. I'm officially a fandom Old.
I started cleaning up another fic (the formatting is super fucked up because it was originally transferred from geocities to tripod to slashcity to my final personal website, without ever actually cleaning up the code), but I keep laughing at myself. Man, the time we spent describing people's eye colors and referring to them by anything other than their names!!! And the first time you refer to a character in a fic, you MUST use their full name. I still remember those silly "rules" I learned when I first started writing fanfic. I haven't come across "orbs" yet, but I feel I'm getting closer to that.
We wrote so weirdly in those days. It was also the time when you HAD to address WHY these guys who've only had straight relationships on TV were suddenly boinking, instead of just boinking. I really want to update it, but I also feel like I should probably post it as-is, like an artifact of the 90s. "This is how we wrote back then! In an incomprehensible gabble of eyeballs, heterosexism, and never using a character's name! Look upon it and despair!!!!"
Seriously, it even starts with song lyrics!! And it's so old and in an old fandom, there's no pressure to even bother posting it!
In further no-stress stuff, I've been re-reading the Forbidden Game Series by LJ Smith. Man, does it bring back memories. Like, having to wait forever for the next book to be published. Really really wanting to win that stupid ring in that contest. The friends I made through that fandom. I was surprised I had actually posted all my LJS fic to AO3, but then, I was still really in it when AO3 came around. It was before the TV show. Might have been before LJ came back? *shrug*
Not sure what I'll do for the rest of the week. I should work on job applications and cover letters (I have two in-progress that I didn't finish last week, including the one 'Blade sent me), but it's nice to take it easy for a few days.
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Date: 2021-12-14 11:04 pm (UTC)Second: It's nice to actually be writing, even if it's just cleaning up some stuff I wrote over two decades ago. Oh, that reminds me, the other day I got a comment on one of my old fics on AO3 where the person was "that was so hot THIS FIC IS OLDER THAN I AM but very hot". LOL. I'm officially a fandom Old.
This made me LOL really hard because at my age, I know I could toss the fic out there that I was writing when I met Charles (in fact, it was the reason why I met Charles), and the younglings would definitely call me on my age. Of course, I won't toss That Fanfic Collective out onto AO3 because other than it getting me something good (friends who are still in my life, and not the ones who ghosted me), I would just as soon let my Jay and Silent Bob fics die in a fire somewhere. LOL They aren't to see the light of day ever again.
We wrote so weirdly in those days. It was also the time when you HAD to address WHY these guys who've only had straight relationships on TV were suddenly boinking, instead of just boinking. I really want to update it, but I also feel like I should probably post it as-is, like an artifact of the 90s. "This is how we wrote back then! In an incomprehensible gabble of eyeballs, heterosexism, and never using a character's name! Look upon it and despair!!!!"
What I appreciate about writing fic now that was fine back then but sometimes "got in the way" was constantly having to write Every Sex Scene involving the practical use of condoms or at least having The Safe Sex Talk at some point in the fics because apparently we were supposed to be the Sex Ed Teachers through Fanfic 101. And while sometimes the condom thing still works its way into my fics, it feels more organic now, or I just don't do it because we thankfully don't have to be teachers for the fanfic babies anymore.
Seriously, it even starts with song lyrics!! And it's so old and in an old fandom, there's no pressure to even bother posting it!
Okay. But. I still sometimes start fics with song lyrics. A lot of mine lately are titled with song lyrics or poetry lines, and sometimes I still toss in lyrics at the beginning or somewhere. I don't think I've written a full-blown songfic since I wrote Reach Out and Touch Faith (a Logan/Kurt fic set in a confessional - boy, was that one fun), but I have used song lyrics where I felt it worked. I say we bring back lyrics in fics and maybe put more of an end to the new babies out there wanting to censor everything that might give them a bad sleep. ;)
no subject
Date: 2021-12-15 12:14 pm (UTC)