Spread Your Wings
I didn’t sleep very well last night; I guess my mind still couldn’t process the fact skywardprodigal is gone.
I first learned of skywardprodigal when she was ebonbird and writing/maintaining Ororo/X-men fiction. I thought it was glorious and I was so sad when there hadn’t been any more production. But I’d never spoken to her. I was still new in the fandom business (didn’t even know there was a term for it) and was merely reading fic, not at all writing it. I don’t exactly remember when I first officially “met” skywardprodigal. I think it was when I wrote the Martha Meta/Rant and she simply said good job. Well, it was a little more than that, but it was succinct and to the point. That must’ve been it, because I didn’t engage with her like I would someone who’d been on my flist for a minute. I pretty much said “thank you” and kept it moving. Then she invited me to a few of her comms she’d started, and I’d felt uneasy because I didn’t consider myself a sci-fi buff at all. Doctor Who I truly consider my first real foray, as Harry Potter is more fantasy than anything else. But through that I realized how brilliant skyward was. And we would have debates and talk and at some point we got close. I really wish I remembered the evolution of such a friendship, but I remember always being happy when I spotted her on my gchat because she knew how to lift my spirits. I would tease her because I’d had no idea she was that much older than I was, and she would come right back around and say she didn’t believe I was as young as I purported to be. :) Our conversations were as silly as Spock wooing Uhura and her convincing me to start playing Café World on FB to help her out (my sis still bemoans that! lol) to as deep as the international impact of the intersectionality of race and gender, such as for the indigenous peoples in Canada or the media representation of Haiti, especially as related to the earlier earthquake; or even why it was important to protect yourself as a Fan of Color when in fandom discussions-re: tone, why it’s not “just entertainment”, and why it’s really a “big deal”. She was so smart I would often wonder why is she even listening to what I have to say. And she really made me think about my position. She didn’t just cosign, she made you wonder why this was how you viewed the world, not because she agreed or disagreed, but because the process was just as important as the thought.
I know she was a wonderful professor.
Though I knew she was having health challenges (a few weeks ago she’d given me an update that…didn’t make me the happiest, but we were hopeful this was the treatment needed for real improvement), by no means did I ever anticipate that e-mail I’d gotten just before I’d left from work yesterday. Our last communication had been a week ago and fandom-related. Spock/Uhura. It’d been her last bit of fic writing she’d posted and she’d complained about the lovemaking between the pairing being too “perfect”. She should’ve known I rarely found fault in her writing. She was my fanon in terms of AOS S/U because she wrote them pitch, IMO. I’d told her for someone who hadn’t written in a while, “perfect” wasn’t a bad thing, especially when she usually didn’t write them “fantasy perfect” like that. She said she would mull it over and I couldn’t wait to read what she’d decided.
I won’t know that now.
It was only within the past year I made the connection ebonbird = skywardprodigal, and she just laughed off my fangirling, because she has no idea what kind of standard she set for me in terms of fic-writing skill. I also learned she’d helped edit one of my favorite S/U stories ever. I was thinking she’s so awesome and I wonder if she knows how awesome she is. And then she had the audacity to call me S’awesome and call me beautiful when few really ever did and be one of those people who helped me push forward on my Lent project and develop and improve my writing-she was even editing one of my manuscripts so I could publish it eventually. She was my sounding board in ways I took so much for granted, and I’m so mad at myself for being too sleepy to chat with her the other day (although thankfully that wasn’t our last interaction).
Skyward was brilliant, resilient, beautiful, compassionate, uncompromising in a good way, encouraging in the best ways. I only spoke to her on the phone once, and I damn near cried when I got that bill back! LOL! I told her about it and she laughed but said she hoped we could do it again. I told her we would have to figure out a more cost-effective way. She agreed because that call wasn’t cheap for her, either, but I wished I’d had the foresight to just try again.
She introduced me to tapping (something I didn’t ever really catch on to), but she had amazingly giving of herself. And all she was going through in her personal life, to be that light and open I’m still in wonder. Those times when she couldn’t be as light, she would open up to me and others, and I couldn’t help but feel so humbled she’d allowed me into her life like that.
She knew how to bring people together; knew how to enlighten people about various causes. Her multibeautiful site has been the source for many a hero/heroine muse for me. In fact, Go with Your Heart’s muses came directly from her. She saw beauty where it wasn’t obvious to the mainstream and put a spotlight on it. She was beautiful.
I first learned of skywardprodigal when she was ebonbird and writing/maintaining Ororo/X-men fiction. I thought it was glorious and I was so sad when there hadn’t been any more production. But I’d never spoken to her. I was still new in the fandom business (didn’t even know there was a term for it) and was merely reading fic, not at all writing it. I don’t exactly remember when I first officially “met” skywardprodigal. I think it was when I wrote the Martha Meta/Rant and she simply said good job. Well, it was a little more than that, but it was succinct and to the point. That must’ve been it, because I didn’t engage with her like I would someone who’d been on my flist for a minute. I pretty much said “thank you” and kept it moving. Then she invited me to a few of her comms she’d started, and I’d felt uneasy because I didn’t consider myself a sci-fi buff at all. Doctor Who I truly consider my first real foray, as Harry Potter is more fantasy than anything else. But through that I realized how brilliant skyward was. And we would have debates and talk and at some point we got close. I really wish I remembered the evolution of such a friendship, but I remember always being happy when I spotted her on my gchat because she knew how to lift my spirits. I would tease her because I’d had no idea she was that much older than I was, and she would come right back around and say she didn’t believe I was as young as I purported to be. :) Our conversations were as silly as Spock wooing Uhura and her convincing me to start playing Café World on FB to help her out (my sis still bemoans that! lol) to as deep as the international impact of the intersectionality of race and gender, such as for the indigenous peoples in Canada or the media representation of Haiti, especially as related to the earlier earthquake; or even why it was important to protect yourself as a Fan of Color when in fandom discussions-re: tone, why it’s not “just entertainment”, and why it’s really a “big deal”. She was so smart I would often wonder why is she even listening to what I have to say. And she really made me think about my position. She didn’t just cosign, she made you wonder why this was how you viewed the world, not because she agreed or disagreed, but because the process was just as important as the thought.
I know she was a wonderful professor.
Though I knew she was having health challenges (a few weeks ago she’d given me an update that…didn’t make me the happiest, but we were hopeful this was the treatment needed for real improvement), by no means did I ever anticipate that e-mail I’d gotten just before I’d left from work yesterday. Our last communication had been a week ago and fandom-related. Spock/Uhura. It’d been her last bit of fic writing she’d posted and she’d complained about the lovemaking between the pairing being too “perfect”. She should’ve known I rarely found fault in her writing. She was my fanon in terms of AOS S/U because she wrote them pitch, IMO. I’d told her for someone who hadn’t written in a while, “perfect” wasn’t a bad thing, especially when she usually didn’t write them “fantasy perfect” like that. She said she would mull it over and I couldn’t wait to read what she’d decided.
I won’t know that now.
It was only within the past year I made the connection ebonbird = skywardprodigal, and she just laughed off my fangirling, because she has no idea what kind of standard she set for me in terms of fic-writing skill. I also learned she’d helped edit one of my favorite S/U stories ever. I was thinking she’s so awesome and I wonder if she knows how awesome she is. And then she had the audacity to call me S’awesome and call me beautiful when few really ever did and be one of those people who helped me push forward on my Lent project and develop and improve my writing-she was even editing one of my manuscripts so I could publish it eventually. She was my sounding board in ways I took so much for granted, and I’m so mad at myself for being too sleepy to chat with her the other day (although thankfully that wasn’t our last interaction).
Skyward was brilliant, resilient, beautiful, compassionate, uncompromising in a good way, encouraging in the best ways. I only spoke to her on the phone once, and I damn near cried when I got that bill back! LOL! I told her about it and she laughed but said she hoped we could do it again. I told her we would have to figure out a more cost-effective way. She agreed because that call wasn’t cheap for her, either, but I wished I’d had the foresight to just try again.
She introduced me to tapping (something I didn’t ever really catch on to), but she had amazingly giving of herself. And all she was going through in her personal life, to be that light and open I’m still in wonder. Those times when she couldn’t be as light, she would open up to me and others, and I couldn’t help but feel so humbled she’d allowed me into her life like that.
She knew how to bring people together; knew how to enlighten people about various causes. Her multibeautiful site has been the source for many a hero/heroine muse for me. In fact, Go with Your Heart’s muses came directly from her. She saw beauty where it wasn’t obvious to the mainstream and put a spotlight on it. She was beautiful.