Now, to clean the things.
You guys, I feel like a fic-finishing and obligation-meeting machine right now.
Not that I actually am, but I got my![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
remix_duello fic in on time! I was going "OMG REMIXING IS HARD FOLKS" but then I realized, hey, wait, it's a remix, that means whenever I get stuck I can just crib from the original, which is *awesome*. It is probably not great by the standards of real remix connoisseurs, and I may have stretched the boundaries of what counts as a remix too much, but I'm (mostly) happy with it, and hay, meeting of deadlines happened, which means, because the AO3 challenge set-up is awesome, I now have a couple of no-pressure weeks to keep tinkering with it. Also I am looking at the melee prompts and trying to convince myself I don't need to start stories for any of them, no matter how much I want to, because I still have way too many other works in progress, plus kink_bingo and who knows what else.
I did, however, finish a five-month-standing WIP on the lolitics meme! And guys, guys, OMG, this is the first time I have *ever* finished something I started posting as a WIP and didn't finish within that first push of energy. I usually try to stay anon on these things at least for awhile but I kind of want to just strew sparkles around in general.
Also said story was coming-out and GLBT-activism themed, so it seems like a good segue into talking about Coming Out Day. Coming Out Day, as a day set up to help people claim a GLBT identity, always left me feeling left out and confused even as I was happy for the people who did come out. Because it took me a long time to find an identity I felt like I could claim. And even now that I'm fairly comfortable with it in myself? I still feel like I can't come out, like I don't belong in the coming-out narrative.
But, screw it. If I can write a fictional character's coming out, I can write my own. So, hi! You've probably already figured it out, but I don't know if I've ever exactly announced it before, so: I'm asexual, which means I have never experienced sexual attraction to anyone, male or female or other; and I'm aromantic, which means I've never particularly wanted to have a romantic relationship, or really understood what the point of them are.
IDing as ace, particularly outside spaces that are already familiar with the idea, has its own issues. There are all the people who think it's an excuse or a cry for attention or an attempt to co-opt queer identities or being in denial; or think it means you're sick or repressed or traumatized or had bad experiences and need a cure (if you're lucky, this response results in psychiatric recommendations; if you're not, it results in sexual assault); or you're fat and ugly and just can't get a partner; or they have never heard of the idea and want long-winded explanations or to talk you out of it. And there are the people who think they do know what it means, and hear "asexual" and assume that means you have no libido, or are repulsed by sex or anti-sex on principle, or have sworn never to have any kind of long-term partnership or marriage. (All of those things apply to some asexuals. None apply to me.)
And even if you can trust the people around you to be supportive, admitting - to yourself and to your friends - that you're asexual means closing doors. It means that no, you're never going to really understand what everybody's so obsessed about. That you're never going to be able to truly fit in to the conversations about sex and romance and crushes. That all the ways, small and large, in which society assumes people have partners and makes the path easier for them, are going to leave you out in the cold and fighting. That even if you do beat the odds and find someone to life-partner with, in whatever way works for you, it will never be the way you were told it was supposed to be.
Which is why I've never really done the "coming out" thing before. Because when announcing I'm asexual - even in a space I trust to be pretty friendly - requires three paragraphs of caveats and explanations? It is so much easier just to stay mum and let people make assumptions. Even when that means basically cutting yourself off from having any close RL relationships at all, like it did for me for a long time.
Anyway! I am also well in to finishing myintobar fic, weeks and weeks before the deadline! ...is there anybody who knows both Top Gear and Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars who wants to be first reader for ~3000 words worth of crossover? Since I actually have breathing space for a first reader, for once? (I suspect there *is* nobody else who's in to both Top Gear and Alan Mendelsohn, though.)
All of the above means I'm officially better off in terms of deadlines and missed deadlines hanging over my head than I was at the beginning of the summer! \o/ (By any sane standards, I'm still about to be buried, but I'm so used to that state of affairs that any lessening feels amazing.)
Also,![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
common_nature seems to have picked up enough momentum that it might just keep rolling on its own, so I don't have that hanging over me as much either! Now I have to resist the temptation to start more communities. (The rules is no starting new communities until scheduled posting happens. No matter how much I want there to be materiality, the common_nature sister community for man-made stuff - and more_cowbell, the music sharing community for people whose main criteria for acquiring music is "I can't believe somebody actually thought it was a good idea to record that!")
And I'm, like, 75% caught up on my LibraryThing Recently-Read Reviews! Amazing. There's still, like, a whole pile of cryptozoology books, and a whole pile of Star Trek novels, and the read-not-owned list, and a huge pile of started-but-not-finished, but I am amazed that I actually broke through the block and did it at all.
Also, while I was organizing files & stuff around my new hard drive, I went ahead and updated my AO3 account and my DeviantArt account. My dA account has about a year's worth of mostly fanart added, most of which I never posted to this journal. There is some Top Gear and some Doctor Who and some of my original characters and some fiber crafts and etc.
I waver back and forth on doing more with my dA account; on the one hand, it is nice to have a place that's for visual art the way this place is for textual, and wandering there inspires me to work on my own drawing more, but on the other hand, dA's administration is pretty damn faily and has a long history of it, and it feels hypocritical to be getting more into dA when I've stormed out of LJ over much the same issues.
Does anybody know if there's a site that is to dA as DW is to LJ? At least as much ease of use, committed membership, and less admin fail? 'cause that would be nice. (Then all I'd have to do is find my stylus and maybe I'd finish more art and post it!)
Also if anybody's got a dA account and wants more watchers, let me know? I am bad at finding people but I do like having galleries to watch.
...I was going to post about the new stories on my AO3 account, but this post is already too long, so, um, later. Also, I need to stay strong and not take a week or so's worth of being on top of things, and spoil it by signing up for NaNo.
Not that I actually am, but I got my
remix_duello fic in on time! I was going "OMG REMIXING IS HARD FOLKS" but then I realized, hey, wait, it's a remix, that means whenever I get stuck I can just crib from the original, which is *awesome*. It is probably not great by the standards of real remix connoisseurs, and I may have stretched the boundaries of what counts as a remix too much, but I'm (mostly) happy with it, and hay, meeting of deadlines happened, which means, because the AO3 challenge set-up is awesome, I now have a couple of no-pressure weeks to keep tinkering with it. Also I am looking at the melee prompts and trying to convince myself I don't need to start stories for any of them, no matter how much I want to, because I still have way too many other works in progress, plus kink_bingo and who knows what else.I did, however, finish a five-month-standing WIP on the lolitics meme! And guys, guys, OMG, this is the first time I have *ever* finished something I started posting as a WIP and didn't finish within that first push of energy. I usually try to stay anon on these things at least for awhile but I kind of want to just strew sparkles around in general.
Also said story was coming-out and GLBT-activism themed, so it seems like a good segue into talking about Coming Out Day. Coming Out Day, as a day set up to help people claim a GLBT identity, always left me feeling left out and confused even as I was happy for the people who did come out. Because it took me a long time to find an identity I felt like I could claim. And even now that I'm fairly comfortable with it in myself? I still feel like I can't come out, like I don't belong in the coming-out narrative.
But, screw it. If I can write a fictional character's coming out, I can write my own. So, hi! You've probably already figured it out, but I don't know if I've ever exactly announced it before, so: I'm asexual, which means I have never experienced sexual attraction to anyone, male or female or other; and I'm aromantic, which means I've never particularly wanted to have a romantic relationship, or really understood what the point of them are.
IDing as ace, particularly outside spaces that are already familiar with the idea, has its own issues. There are all the people who think it's an excuse or a cry for attention or an attempt to co-opt queer identities or being in denial; or think it means you're sick or repressed or traumatized or had bad experiences and need a cure (if you're lucky, this response results in psychiatric recommendations; if you're not, it results in sexual assault); or you're fat and ugly and just can't get a partner; or they have never heard of the idea and want long-winded explanations or to talk you out of it. And there are the people who think they do know what it means, and hear "asexual" and assume that means you have no libido, or are repulsed by sex or anti-sex on principle, or have sworn never to have any kind of long-term partnership or marriage. (All of those things apply to some asexuals. None apply to me.)
And even if you can trust the people around you to be supportive, admitting - to yourself and to your friends - that you're asexual means closing doors. It means that no, you're never going to really understand what everybody's so obsessed about. That you're never going to be able to truly fit in to the conversations about sex and romance and crushes. That all the ways, small and large, in which society assumes people have partners and makes the path easier for them, are going to leave you out in the cold and fighting. That even if you do beat the odds and find someone to life-partner with, in whatever way works for you, it will never be the way you were told it was supposed to be.
Which is why I've never really done the "coming out" thing before. Because when announcing I'm asexual - even in a space I trust to be pretty friendly - requires three paragraphs of caveats and explanations? It is so much easier just to stay mum and let people make assumptions. Even when that means basically cutting yourself off from having any close RL relationships at all, like it did for me for a long time.
Anyway! I am also well in to finishing my
intobar fic, weeks and weeks before the deadline! ...is there anybody who knows both Top Gear and Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars who wants to be first reader for ~3000 words worth of crossover? Since I actually have breathing space for a first reader, for once? (I suspect there *is* nobody else who's in to both Top Gear and Alan Mendelsohn, though.)All of the above means I'm officially better off in terms of deadlines and missed deadlines hanging over my head than I was at the beginning of the summer! \o/ (By any sane standards, I'm still about to be buried, but I'm so used to that state of affairs that any lessening feels amazing.)
Also,
common_nature seems to have picked up enough momentum that it might just keep rolling on its own, so I don't have that hanging over me as much either! Now I have to resist the temptation to start more communities. (The rules is no starting new communities until scheduled posting happens. No matter how much I want there to be materiality, the common_nature sister community for man-made stuff - and more_cowbell, the music sharing community for people whose main criteria for acquiring music is "I can't believe somebody actually thought it was a good idea to record that!")And I'm, like, 75% caught up on my LibraryThing Recently-Read Reviews! Amazing. There's still, like, a whole pile of cryptozoology books, and a whole pile of Star Trek novels, and the read-not-owned list, and a huge pile of started-but-not-finished, but I am amazed that I actually broke through the block and did it at all.
Also, while I was organizing files & stuff around my new hard drive, I went ahead and updated my AO3 account and my DeviantArt account. My dA account has about a year's worth of mostly fanart added, most of which I never posted to this journal. There is some Top Gear and some Doctor Who and some of my original characters and some fiber crafts and etc.
I waver back and forth on doing more with my dA account; on the one hand, it is nice to have a place that's for visual art the way this place is for textual, and wandering there inspires me to work on my own drawing more, but on the other hand, dA's administration is pretty damn faily and has a long history of it, and it feels hypocritical to be getting more into dA when I've stormed out of LJ over much the same issues.
Does anybody know if there's a site that is to dA as DW is to LJ? At least as much ease of use, committed membership, and less admin fail? 'cause that would be nice. (Then all I'd have to do is find my stylus and maybe I'd finish more art and post it!)
Also if anybody's got a dA account and wants more watchers, let me know? I am bad at finding people but I do like having galleries to watch.
...I was going to post about the new stories on my AO3 account, but this post is already too long, so, um, later. Also, I need to stay strong and not take a week or so's worth of being on top of things, and spoil it by signing up for NaNo.