The Unfortunate Result Of Spare Time

A few more questions to round out the weekend...

( Cut for length and self-indulgence, as always. )

A few more fic-writer-y questions, just for the heck of it.

( Cut for the usual. )

Finally!

I've wanted to post here for a while now, but I also didn't want to do anything at all, anywhere, until I got to the end of Part Two of the Endless Nightmare WIP... and boy, did the last chapter beat me bloody. Possibly one of the hardest scenes I've ever had to write... and given my tendency for plumbing extreme depths of angst, grief, and trauma, that is really, really saying something.

Anyhow, it's done now, and we can finally move on.

Move on to what, precisely, I'm not yet wholly sure.

I desperately need some kind of palate-cleanser after crawling through that horrible chapter, but I'm still not sure if switching tack and tone to write something else -- even a short little one-shot something else -- would be beneficial or detrimental. One of the big downsides, I suppose, of being neck-deep in the kind of WIP that requires constant attunement to a very specific setting and situation.

We shall see, I suppose.

Either way, May took me where I wanted -- to the completion of Part Two (out of what is still threatening to be five, oh boy) -- so I am going to call it a very, very hard-earned win.

I have a bunch more "questions for fic writers" that I saw on Tumblr somewhere, so I'll probably unwind with that over the next few posts... apologies in advance for the spam!

Another fun fannish Friday Five for your... Saturday.


1. What do you consider your current main fandom?
Right now, as it has been for the last two years, GLOW. I have not been this feral over a single ship, for this long, since I first dipped my toe in Actually Being In Fandom fifteen-plus years ago.


2. What was your first fandom?
First show I felt fannish about, I'd say Buffy The Vampire Slayer... but I wasn't ~in fandom~ then in any meaningful way, I was just rabidly fannish. This was swiftly followed by Farscape, which maybe counts a little more because the friend who inflicted introduced me to that one very much was In Fandom... but, being the shy, socially hopeless loser I've always been, I was not.

First fandom I was actually in, as in, part of the Actual Fandom... well, I spent a lot of time on the Cold Case forums, which was my first real experience of being In A Fannish Space with other people who were also fannish. But to this day, I still say my first "real" fandom experience was Legend Of The Seeker, and all the many wonderful crazy experiences that came with that.


3. Do you have any favorite headcanons or fan theories?
Historically, I don't generally agree with most of the established fanons / fan theories for most of my fandoms and/or characters. I trend very left-of-centre as a rule, and don't usually see things -- in general, not just fannishly -- the way most other people do, so that has been, on occasion, a little bit alienating in some spaces. Part of why I prefer tiny, dead, or non-existent fandoms, I suppose.

As to my own headcanons... I dunno. I wouldn't say 'headcanons' exactly, but I do have very strong feelings about certain canonical character traits, behaviours, etc, and what kind of experiences may have made them that way (or not). I'm unsure what category that falls under.


4. Have you ever created fanworks?
Yep! On my old AO3 account, before I went scorched-earth and deleted everything, I had approximately six million words worth of fic, split across around fifteen fandoms or so (though, more than half those words were all in one fandom alone). It was kinda sad to see them go, since I was rather proud of a non-zero number of them, but... well.

I'm not nearly up to that number on my current account / fandom just yet, and I'm committed to taking things slower than I used to... but, y'know, early days. ;)


5. Are you still active in any old fandoms?
Depends on your definition of 'active'. I'm not really active on the internet in general, really, beyond my occasional rambling-to-myself posts over here... and I'm currently so deep into my current fandom I haven't even thought about writing for anything else in what feels like forever... but I do still check the AO3 tags for some of my beloved older fandoms, and I do still keep tabs on some of my friends from those fandoms, even though they've got new fandoms now too...

Plus, y'know, does it count as 'still being in fandom' if you're all but married to someone you met through one of your very first fandoms, and you both reminisce all the time?

Stolen from maevedarcy, via 3weeks4dreamwidth.

The last...

Movie I watched: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
Series I finished: Heated Rivalry.
Book I finished: Lord of the Rings. That's why we watched the movies, heh. Some interesting points of comparison, some infuriating ones. Only a few decades late.
Book I bought: I honestly cannot remember.
Book I received as a gift: Hardback copy of Springsteen's autobiography. Most books I read these days are digital, but I really wanted a physical copy of that one.
Food I ate: Tacos!
Meal I cooked: Same answer.
Drink I had: Water. If it's not water, it's coffee. If it's not coffee, it's tea. If it's not tea, we're back to water. Or coffee. Or... you get the point.
Song I listened to: Placebo -- "Infra-Red"
Album I listened to: The eponymous Look Outside Your Window.
Playlist I listened to: My newest WIPspiration playlist, named after a thematically relevant Asia album. >.>
Concert I went to: Uhm... Kate Rusby, I think? Like, fifteen years ago.
Game I played: Pokemon Unbound.
Person I talked to: The (other) lady of the house. ;)
Person I texted: Same. Obligatory daily Coffee Sticker text.

Since I can never resist a good bingo card, here's the one I just got from whatif_au:

Supernatural	Characters as Celebrities	Dystopia
Decade Specific	WILD CARD	Sentinel/Guide
Soulmates/Soulmates: Pet Edition	Ocean	Steampunk

I'm a slower writer these days than I used to be, so I doubt I'll have anything done before the event deadline... but I'm already poking at an idea for a fusion that covers one of those squares very nicely. And, as always, at least for me, it's the inspiration that counts more than the output.

Ventured back into Silksong, courtesy of the new patch.

Finally got through the bastarding Cogwork Core and got the last part of the Threefold Melody.

Got my ass kicked forty-seven times by Lace Fight #567.

Got my ass kicked another forty-seven times attempting to rescue the flea from Wisp Thicket.

Got my ass kicked once in Bilewater. Once was enough.

Got my ass kicked twice by Father of the Flame. Not counting the time he exploded in my face.

.

I swear, sometimes playing this game feels like getting curb-stomped by a woolly mammoth, then peeling yourself up off the concrete to beg for more. Like, if ever my identity as a masochist was in question, the eighty-plus hours I continue to pour into this game is proof enough, y'know?

But hey, I'm three per cent further along than I was the last time I picked it up, so... progress!

Not to be the kind of person who updates with pointless and artibrary nonsense while the world is falling apart... but holy heck, a day with sunshine and a temperature above 0°? I was truly starting to think I'd never see such a thing again.

We take what tiny joys and pleasures we can these days, and honestly, right now, this feels like a pretty big one.

Belated thanks for the birthday wishes -- they were very much appreciated!

Finished editing the WIP o'Doom (and nearly a full week ahead of schedule!), so I shall hopefully be a little less AWOL for... well, until the next ill-advised fic idea hits, I suppose.

For now, though: that educational meme that's been going around recently.

( Cut for Questions! )

I promised myself I'd try to post some little check-ins for this, so here we go.

A little late for the start of the month, but... eh, it's February. All bets are off.

So. getyourwordsout check-in #1:

Had a pretty awesome start, all told. A few little hiccups means a lot of time got taken up by Technical Issues (TM), but I still got what I wanted out of the month, creatively speaking, so it's all water under the bridge.

Total word count for the month was the highest it's been in well over a year (which is very good, because my GYWO pledge is the highest it's been in many years!), and I achieved my main goal for the month, which was to finish the first draft of Ye Endless WIP O'Doom Part 2 (Electric Boogaloo).

Tragically, this means that the entirety of February (at the very least) is going to be spent on editing said first draft... which, as we all know, is the worst, most exhausting, most soul-sucking part of any creative pursuit.

Writing longfic is my happy place. Editing longfic is the bane of my existence.

I would very, very much like this whole thing to be done, edited, cleaned up, and posted by the end of the month... but given the fact that February is the other bane of my existence, I'll accept this is highly optimistic.

If I can see an end to this darn thing by the time we hit March, I'll call it a win.