IS THIS TRUE?

Lately, I have been tumbling fannishly. It's okay, but I like words. Here are some I posted over there recently:

FOR THE RECORD, OLIVIA DUNHAM HAS NEVER BETRAYED ME


I’ve been pondering lately why historically so much of my outward fannish energy has been dedicated to source texts I have loved, but not trusted.

The X-Files, SPN, now Arrow. God help me, Roswell back in the day. And my relationship with BtVS was far less traumatic, but not without strain.

I don’t talk (read/write fic) as much about my passionate, risk-free amours with Fringe or Elementary. Or Northern Exposure and Farscape, once upon a time. I mean, those shows were giving me canonical bodyswap, sex pollen, butch straight women, polymorphously perverse sentient plants, and recursive AUs on the regular. And now, JOAN WATSON.

But I also think maybe it’s because I need you, fandom, to help me survive Chris Carter’s virgin/whore complex & preference for cards as (plot)building material; SPN’s difficulty negotiating the Horror genre’s ickiest tropes re: race & gender; nonsensical alien reincarnation retcons; altogether too many questions of paternity; sketchy love triangles & romanticized romantic jealousy.

You give me Scully competence porn with extra helpings of porn porn. And Winsisters. You unkill the lesbians. You overrun the Arrow cave with feminine hygiene products, glitter & snark. You give everyone wings. Maybe one day soon you’ll introduce me to John Diggle’s mom.

(You also get up to a lot of wanky insanity & thoughtless shit-stirring, but I’ve learned to avoid all that, mostly.)

*

[Then I reblogged myself and said:]

( I introduced myself to John Diggle's mom.Collapse )I introduced myself to John Diggle’s mom.

I don’t know what my deal is about this! It’s just that we’ve met everyone else’s parents - why not Diggle’s? He’s quite probably a Starling City native since that’s where both he & his brother went back after they separated from the military. If the parental Diggles are still alive, shouldn’t John be angsting about whether/how to to tell them about Andy’s dead/not dead status like Laurel did about Sara?

Assuming he wasn’t hatched from an egg, JOHN DIGGLE WAS OF WOMAN BORN.

And he treats women like people! Someone taught him that, right? Doesn’t she want to meet me her grandbaby?

(Also, I would like some evidence that John Diggle knows other black people who aren’t related to him by blood or marriage. Only vaguely related: I also want to know about any & everybody’s non-vigilante friends.)

*

[And then I also said this:]

( Okay, I’m a professional knitter* and so my work life requires a variety of categories/levels of media productsCollapse )Okay, I’m a professional knitter* and so my work life requires a variety of categories/levels of media products depending on how much I need to be looking at the screen/paying attention in general, from total silence for important pattern math calculations to things I have internalized into my soul (like the X-Files) for all-purpose comforting background stimuli to unwatched quality new shows for long stretches of stockinette to crappy procedurals that break up some monotony but don’t impede me keeping track of those short rows or whatever.

This isn’t what I opened up this window to type about: see, I’ve been watching The Walking Dead since you all inundated me with Richonne gifs and found that it works on multiple levels: it’s new & interesting (and unlike those CSI prime reruns that crossed the line from mostly white noise to actively distracting by offending my politics every other ep) but if I have to look at my needles while they stab some zombies, well, I’ve seen them stab a lot of zombies at this point.

ANYWAY, the point is this: I knit 2 & half sweaters this week over the first two seasons and was thus exposed to a metric ton of blood & guts & gore. Ho hum, knit purl here we go.

But last week, I fainted on top of my cat & my WIP during Call the Midwife when that woman accidentally yanked out her daughter’s uterus on their kitchen floor. I feel like there’s something thinky to be thought here about media & violence, but I have some important knitting deadlines and I have yet to figure out how to type while knitting, so.

It’s just that between TWD & watching Fury Road w/ my sweetheart last night, I’ve seen not one but two impromptu amateur C-sections that killed the mother since then & remained conscious (and knitting) both times.

*

Hope everyone is well! Happy International Women's Day! I have to go afk now, so this probably wasn't the best moment to resurface, but oh well!


​

Tags: autobiography, fandom is my fandom

 Do any of you have posting access at Whedonesque (I never waited for the blue moon when they have sign ups)?

Because, you see, my friend wants to teach a Jayne hat class at her yarn store but we haven't had a lot of people sign up. But I'm convinced that there ARE more Browncoats in Chicago who'd like to learn how to make their very own Jayne hat. And that we'll have more success reaching out via fannish avenues rather than the regular knitting/crafting channels.

(We also want to do a class on knitting a plush Dalek. Any thoughts on where would we could alert the most Whovians?)

PS Also, HI. Sorry to reappear after an absence just asking favors. I'll be back later but I'm actually tending the aforementioned yarn shop at the moment.

This entry was originally posted at http://femmenerd.dreamwidth.org/2806.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Two problems:

1) These do not come in lady-butt sizes.

2) THERE ARE NO NATASHA OR WONDER WOMAN UNDERPANTS FOR THE LITTLE ONES.

(It’s like the underwear version of [this fanfic] where Tony discovers the truth about gender segregation in the toy aisle when his daughter has a doll emergency.)

Tags: avengers, comics, dc comics, fic recs:mcu, justice league, mcu

Because I posted and disappeared again. But I did start writing knitting-themed Steve/Darcy fanfic?

The first chapter is here on AO3.

 But it wasn't just from here, I also went on an unexpected hiatus from my pervy Arts & Crafts tumblr too. Even my knitting people didn't see much of me. 

I was...hermiting. And perving on Captain America a great deal. (Steve/Darcy is the new Faith/Dean).  And generally trying to avoid suffocating in The Gray (aka Chronic Lyme, clinical depression, ennui, hysteria, etc.)

I have a huge accumulation of thoughts & feelings & squee, but I don't even know where to start. 


This entry was originally posted at http://femmenerd.dreamwidth.org/2098.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Hello there, El Jay-width. I dunno where I've been. Basic life maintenance has been...challenging. I have this bad feeling that there are some comments here and there that I've replied to, but only in my head.

Anyhoo, lately I've been rather captivated by the subset of crossovers that are really "fusions" and started writing an X-Files/Doctor Who fic in which Mulder & Scully take the place of Amy and Rory respectively in the Who-verse.

Here's a re-imagining of the infamous "iced tea" scene with junior high!Mulder & Scully hanging out in a tree fort that's probably not going to make it into that since the story's developed plot that will invalidate this, maybe.

So this is pretty much just 1000 words of AU X-Files gen.  
( 'Foxwilliam Mulder,' she teased. 'Like Fitzwilliam Darcy—only instead of ten thousand pounds a year and a manor house, you've got five dollars a week in allowance and a double-decker tree fort.'Collapse )

 

This entry was originally posted at http://femmenerd.dreamwidth.org/1814.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Tags: crack, my fic, x-files

 This project of archiving (and locating) my old fic has made me realize that if I were to die today my fannish epitaph should read:

HERE LIES FEMMENERD. SHE TOOK CURTAIN-FIC VERY SERIOUSLY. ALSO, LIKED TO TURN UNSUSPECTING CHARACTERS INTO LESBIANS. (ESPECIALLY THE BOYS.)
This entry was originally posted at http://femmenerd.dreamwidth.org/1642.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Tags: navel gazing
Feels like...: amused

 *Every time I watch "The Red and Black" I am re-shocked into a slash-induced speechless state when Krycek kisses Mulder on the cheek (after beating him up & dropping some serious alien-related knowledge on his ass). Too bad I am such a delicate flower with such little interest in hate sex & enemy 'ships. And there's not more pre-MSR Mulder/OMC slash to be had like [this story]. 

*I was talking to my friend the other day and realized that the X-Files is one of the few fandoms that would not be improved for me by any genderswitch AUs.  And this is because as much as Mulder & Scully's partnership defies a lot of gender norms (she's the scientist, he's the emotional one, respect, etc.), their characterizations - and what I appreciate about them - are so very rooted in their gender. For example, I really like how the traces of Mulder's privilege (class, race, gender, height & symmetrical attractiveness) are as evident as his more and less successful attempts to check it. I appreciate that realism: he's a good guy & he tries, but no one's perfect.  And Scully! Bulking up her tiny, tough self with those heels and those pastel pant suits stuffed with shoulder-pads. Her many strengths & rebellions but ridiculous diet food eating. 

* I like to think that the showrunners of Bones and Castle and Fringe learned from The X-Files that the whole Moonlighting curse thing is bullshit - i.e. resolving the sexual tension between your leads doesn't have to ruin your show - unless you are a bad writer or buy into the idea of marriage as narrative closure. But I don't think the lesson came in how The X-Files actually went about getting Mulder & Scully together (especially since they obfuscated things to such a degree that I have a better handle on the Conspiracy metaplot than I do on how & when exactly Scully got knocked up). Nor do I think canon MSR should have happened pre-FTF - I LOVE that Mulder & Scully were friends and partners first, and in such a way that "more than friends" seems like a ridiculous concept when applied to them. It was the squirrely, half-assed and yet excessive way it all went down that serves as a cautionary tale, I think. 
This entry was originally posted at http://femmenerd.dreamwidth.org/1301.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Tags: meta-ish, msr, the x-files

While cooking dinner just now, I realized that a Lewis/X-Files crossover NEEDS TO EXIST. Preferably a nerdy casefile set <s>sex</s>  [<----ACTUAL FREUDIAN TYPO] in Oxford with past Hathaway/Mulder (& current MSR, of course). With the slashy flashbacks when Hathaway was still in seminary (yes, he went to Cambridge, but) or just recently out. The dates don't match up right, I don't think, and I don't know that I'm the woman for the job, but GOD. 

The sarcastic yet earnest & intellectual dishiness is almost more than I can bear just thinking about it. And the idea of Hathaway knowing about the paranormal!!!
This entry was originally posted at http://femmenerd.dreamwidth.org/1260.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

So after spending a truly excessive amount of time posting old fic on AO3, I have only now realized just how easy it is to import rather than repost. I don't know why I didn't try that to begin with!  At least I can console myself with the fact that some of the stories I posted really did need careful (re)formatting. 

But considering how voraciously I've been reading classic X-Files fic lately (especially on Gossamer and Reocities), I've felt a karmic fannish duty to pay it forward by archiving my old fic. Of course, I'll soon be getting into those embarrassing early stories I might rather hide, some of which aren't even on LJ. I've never allowed my nitpicky vanity to make me ERASE anything before, but. 

*

In more paranoid news, I recently realized that while I was all hiatus-y, delicious got bought or broken or something happened to it such that it was displaying MY REAL FULL NAME alongside tags like "wincest" and "Daddy!kink" and god knows what else. After much arguing with the new delicious interface, I've got it so my name is no longer up there, but it still comes up on the second page of google search results for my real name, alongside academic & facebook hits.  Now, I've always been open about my fangirling with other academics and given my career trajectory, I wasn't too worried. But I also never gave specifics to colleagues (unless they were also fangirl/friends), mostly because I didn't want to invite non-complicit voyeurs into my community, but also, they don't need to know what kind of porn I like!

ETA: Okay, it is no longer showing up in Google searches, whew. But I wonder if this had anything to do with why I never got a callback regarding this one job I applied for last year... sigh, oh well.

*This is also reminding me of how I've had these rebellious thoughts about doing nude art modelling (with my face and all!) because it represented for me, committing to a creative, non-9-to-5 life. Kinda like getting a neck tattoo. 
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Tags: ao3, fandom history, internet privacy