look, I posted.

[melannen]

I have been told I need to update already so that people know I am still here.

Let's see: what have I been doing since my last update?

Messing around on the internet; fighting off huge internet-induced bouts of self-loathing; watching old episodes of Top Gear; applying for jobs; fighting off job-search-induced bouts of self-loathing; reading Top Gear fanfic; watching the news and falling into bouts of loathing the entire world; working on interrobang studios stuff with RL friends; horrifing RL friends by telling them that Top Gear fandom is awesome because instead of genderswap slashfic where somebody is turned into a girl because it's okay to have sex with girls, it has turned-into-a-car slashfic because it's totally okay to have sex with cars, obv.; playing the terribly addictive flash game that RL friends introduced me to in order to distract me from talking about having sex with cars; helping Mom with her volunteer & church work; helping former roommates move & attempting to deal with post-move out issues; falling into massive bouts of self-loathing RE:inability to actually be a grown-up; listening to NPR because if I can't be watching Top Gear or HIGNFY I can at least be listening to Car Talk & This Just In; continuing to go through my massive collection of STUFF in an attempt to manage it; fighting off lack-of-money induced fits of self-loathing; and writing Top Gear/Doctor Who crossover fanfic.

Mostly, I haven't been posting because things I did in one of the last massive anti-oppression discussions have left me unable to say *anything* fandom-related without becoming despairingly convinced that what I am saying is full of fail and privilege and will hurt people. (This is my problem, not anyone else's, but just fyi I am probably going to have to work through a lot of crap on my own part for awhile before I feel comfortable speaking in *any* kind of meta discussion whatsoever, which, frankly, sucks, because I love meta. Also, it isn't helping that the fandom I kind of became obsessed with in the meantime is basically the story of three middle-aged rich white men being as rich, white and male as possible on camera.) (Edited to removed language-of-privilege, WHY IS THIS SO HARD.)

ANYWAY.

I have been around, although reading & commenting a lot more sporadically than I had been, in an attempt to manage the self-loathing.

I have also done the last four Spink comics *all by myself* while the main studio had no internet, about which I am quite proud! And I did the Friday's Trigger Star strip all by myself! And posted about the first quarter of this years's book reviews on librarything, though I still have a bunch of read-this-year books waiting to be reviewed.

And I had signed up to do a fanmix for polybigbang, and ended up claiming the very first fic on the claims list, tania_sings's amazing, epic, gloriously kinky story in which Ariel the Sprite sleeps with basically every other character in Shakespeare, Perfection, which was just an utter delight to mix for & illustrate. I did get the mix & art done & submitted in time, & my author loved the mix about as much as I loved her story, despite me being so flaky to workwith lately! So yay! The mix, which contains only songs that are vaguely, by some definition, in-period for Shakespeare, by which I mean lots of bawdy ballads via dreamsquirrel and niquerio, is at Ariel Sings Stormy Weather (.zip file) and here is the Ariel cover art. I was playing with using vectors/paths for the cover art, which I haven't done seriously in about ten years, and was impressed with how well it came out. (And listened to about thirty times as much new music as I actually put on the mix, which means I actually have a hope of being able to navigate my current mp3 collection now, yay!)

What I did *not* do, see re:self-loathing above, is finish the second disc of the mix and make a proper mix post with tracklistings & explanatory notes like I said I would, because the notes started growing in length exponentially as I started looking for actual attested dates for the period music. I am still hoping to finish that post very soon, but I have realized that if I wait to post until I've finished that, it would be quite easy to keep not posting for a very long time.

Reading polybigbang and rpf_big_bang have been great fun, too, (and partly responsible for my giving in and reading Top Gear slash, because I think there is more un-flocked Top Gear stuff there than anywhere else on the net up until now) and I am full of general reccingness for them.

I am probably not doing nano this year - I know, first year since way back before I was even in fandom, but it's beginning to seem a bit silly to keep signing up and writing less than 12,000 words - unless of course the Top Gear/Doctor Who crossover of doom keeps writing itself as fast as it has been. <_< I am doing yuletide, though. There's only been one year in history where the self-loathing was strong enough to keep me away from yuletide.

Comments

[willwrite_fortea]

if I could I'd kick the economy and every spoiled overpaid white CEO in the balls aka whoever the fuck has done this to you and me and the millions of people in the shitter due to their illegal/should be illegal shenanigans


good to have you back though **offers to pour you a strong drink**

[melannen]

Hi!

I actually also wrote a script for an 8-page USS Bill of Rights comic that consisted mostly of gratuitous cuddling, because, sometimes cuddling is neccessary, but the US political news has been too depressing lately for me to keep up with Keith and Rachel regularly, so I have not drawn it. Yet! :D Perhaps I shall have that be my celebration if the public option actually passes.

[willwrite_fortea]

that would definitely be an appropriate way to celebrate public health care :D not just saying that b/c Cpt Maddow of the USS Bill of Rights is the hottest image ever

[hatman]

Nice to see you around again. :)

Turned-into-a-car sex fic? Sounds more like Turbo Teen than Top Gear, but... whatever shifts your gears.

My sympathies with you about the anti-oppression stuff. Although my actual views on the subject differ from yours (I see privilege as a deeply flawed and somewhat hypocritical concept, for example, in part for reasons that are tied to the self-loathing and struggle for expression you've been dealing with), I've felt some of the same things you describe. I don't want to get into a discussion of the actual issue, but I do want to wish you luck on dealing with your internal conflict. I hope you come to a good personal resolution, whatever that may turn out to be.

FWIW, I think highly of you. I've been impressed with your knowledge and understanding, your efforts to make things better, your level-headed yet impassioned yet reasoned voice, and other things I can't quite express.

From everything I've seen, you've got far more Clue than the vast majority. Which can be frustrating because you see how much Clue is lacking in the wider world, and yet can be disheartening when you try to measure yourself against the Clue-having elite.

In short... you seem pretty awesome to me. Try not to blame yourself too much for not being perfectly awesome. There's always room for improvement, but don't forget to appreciate how far you've come already.

Of course, I realize all this is an internal struggle. You have to do what's right for you and find what works and is true for you. Outside voices have little place in that, but I'm hoping that some encouragement isn't too far amiss. Anyway... good luck and best wishes.

Also, yes. Boomshine is fun. One of many very cool games hosted on my favorite games site, Kongregate.

ETA: (Actually, if you do happen to sign up, I get almost entirely worthless but still collectible points if you use this link to tell them I sent you.) Also, you may want to check out Music Catch 2. It's great when you need to relax and let your thoughts and feelings unwind.

[melannen]

Ah, but Top Gear has its own built-in surrealism generator in the person (or other)of the Stig, which means essentially that the fanwriters has no compunction about writing any sort of crack they feel like.

Actually you're the second person to mention Turbo Teen: I actually found the turning-from-human-to-car-and-back part fairly everyday business for genre stories; it's the having sex while in car rather than human form that seems fairly unique to Top Gear fandom. (Mind you, there have been on-camera incidents of *licking* and elopement and such, so the carsex is not exactly a stretch.)

[lady_ganesh]

I should not have clicked on that flash game omg. DOOM.

Re: Anti-oppression: I have finally just accepted that I should do the best I can and I will fuck up sometimes, and that's okay. I have my friends and I continue doing the best I can and that's all there is. But sometimes it's hard to get there!

[melannen]

That game apparently ships as one of the standard iphone apps. Everybody with a new iphone seems to spend several days just playing it... (since it's essentially a simulation of a nuclear chain reaction in atmosphere, it's bonus kind of morbid too!)

[stellar_dust]

YAY YOU EXIST!

I thought I detected your influence in recent Interrobang stuff! The Spinks with the shell phone is awesome and divinely inspired.

... Have you heard the Eighth Doctor Top Gear parody? Want me to upload it for you? :D :D :D

Also, you should stop self-loathing and post more often.

[melannen]

I gave up on patience and torrented it myself. Not as good as the real thing, but very good excuse for writing crossovers, since it means the Doctor is canonically a Top Gear fanboy. :D

My influence has been all over !? for months! I've co-written nearly everything that's gone up! ... the bad art by me is new though, yes.

[crantz]

I know there's a huge post here and everything, but all I can focus on is 'sex with cars'

[melannen]

That's okay! It's all I can focus on too! :D

I realized as I was putting togethar a playlist for the new fandom that I already had an mp3 of a song about having sex with cars. I don't know if that says more about what's wrong with me, or what's wrong with the Internets.

(the fact that I have been humming it for days is def. something wrong with me, though.)

(Actually, I'm kind of suprised I only have one song on the topic, considering I have a couple of the Car Talk compilation CDs.)