(no subject)
I am cranky because my Black Parade dvd has not come yet and because I went to three different bookstores and none of them had the new Lynn Flewelling book.
I would be completely convinced that the universe does not want me to have nice things, except I *may* have found an apartment. It costs a million dollars a month, but it's very close to campus and all utilities are included and I can have my cat and live alone. Georgetown assigned us second-year student mentors and mine has been helping with the apartment search. Today he emailed me and asked why I was avoiding roommates and I had to figure out how to say "because most people annoy me by existing,* so I don't trust myself to live with strangers" in a way that doesn't make me sound anti-social and misanthropic. I'm not! I am charming with excellent social skills! But I'm an introvert, so being charming with excellent social skills is exhausting and people require effort. People I don't know require significant effort. So hopefully I'll hear back about the apartment tomorrow. I don't have a job yet, but I will feel SO much better when the apartment piece gets resolved.
Fandom-wise, I've been keeping up with everything pretty well (Secret Toro-baby! Brendon/Ryan cheek kiss! Pete's Out interview ♥), but I haven't felt recently like I have a whole lot to contribute. I think it's the moving stress doing me in. Also, I have been beating my head against the fics that I'm writing. I'm afraid that if I don't finish the Brendon/Ryan/Keltie this summer, I won't finish it at all. My problem is that, in every other fandom I've ever written in, I have to be as canon compliant as possible, and I'm usually the most interested in futurefic. I care most about what happens *next.* Most of my AtS fic is post NFA. In my other fandoms, everything I wrote was future fic at the time I wrote it, even if it's been Jossed now. The complicated nature of ever-shifting bandom canon means it's *always* new, and I spend most of my time ripping my hair out. I find it very, very difficult to ignore information once I have it, so anything new I learn I feel compelled to include. I get that you take what pieces of canon work with your plot and, say, ignoring The Cab's tour schedule or the fact that Jon lived with Ryan at one point is okay! If it doesn't work, ignore it! But ALSO the part of me that needs my fic to be as canon-compliant as possible wants to know things like what Spencer's house looks like while the part of me that I feel is clinging to sanity feels creepy for this desire and really, it causes incredible cognitive dissonance. Either way, intentionally leaving out facts or rearranging timelines is not something I ever would have even entertained in any other fandom and it leaves me a little blocked writing-wise. Is this something you guys experience? Because I find writing rpf to be very different from writing in other fandoms.
I need to learn to write AUs.
I should work on the zombie-apocalypse fic instead. It's about Gabe Saporta throwing the party at the end of the world and it should be easier to write because, hi, zombie!quasi-au. Canon-compliance, whatever. But it's kind of harder to write because it really depresses me, which completely defeats the purpose because I was writing it mostly because zombies amuse me and I find it difficult to take them seriously. It was supposed to be fun. The working title is "Zombie Apocalypse, Everyone Dies," so I think I pretty much failed at fun there. That isn't really shocking though. Bandom does not have anywhere near enough potential for apocalypse. I sort of miss writing in sci-fi media fandoms for this reason; I want angst and melodrama and for my usual type of writing to avoid being utterly ridiculous, the stakes have to be pretty high. It's possible I might have gotten carried away with the zombie-apocalypse level stakes. There's lots of flowery prose and speeches and crying and quoting of Edna St. Vincent Millay. There may also be Cobra gsf, though, and it is my hope that this will redeem it somewhat. Cobra gsf redeems most things.
Anyway. Enough about fic that is very, very far from being finished. How are you guys?
*Present company excluded, of course.
I would be completely convinced that the universe does not want me to have nice things, except I *may* have found an apartment. It costs a million dollars a month, but it's very close to campus and all utilities are included and I can have my cat and live alone. Georgetown assigned us second-year student mentors and mine has been helping with the apartment search. Today he emailed me and asked why I was avoiding roommates and I had to figure out how to say "because most people annoy me by existing,* so I don't trust myself to live with strangers" in a way that doesn't make me sound anti-social and misanthropic. I'm not! I am charming with excellent social skills! But I'm an introvert, so being charming with excellent social skills is exhausting and people require effort. People I don't know require significant effort. So hopefully I'll hear back about the apartment tomorrow. I don't have a job yet, but I will feel SO much better when the apartment piece gets resolved.
Fandom-wise, I've been keeping up with everything pretty well (Secret Toro-baby! Brendon/Ryan cheek kiss! Pete's Out interview ♥), but I haven't felt recently like I have a whole lot to contribute. I think it's the moving stress doing me in. Also, I have been beating my head against the fics that I'm writing. I'm afraid that if I don't finish the Brendon/Ryan/Keltie this summer, I won't finish it at all. My problem is that, in every other fandom I've ever written in, I have to be as canon compliant as possible, and I'm usually the most interested in futurefic. I care most about what happens *next.* Most of my AtS fic is post NFA. In my other fandoms, everything I wrote was future fic at the time I wrote it, even if it's been Jossed now. The complicated nature of ever-shifting bandom canon means it's *always* new, and I spend most of my time ripping my hair out. I find it very, very difficult to ignore information once I have it, so anything new I learn I feel compelled to include. I get that you take what pieces of canon work with your plot and, say, ignoring The Cab's tour schedule or the fact that Jon lived with Ryan at one point is okay! If it doesn't work, ignore it! But ALSO the part of me that needs my fic to be as canon-compliant as possible wants to know things like what Spencer's house looks like while the part of me that I feel is clinging to sanity feels creepy for this desire and really, it causes incredible cognitive dissonance. Either way, intentionally leaving out facts or rearranging timelines is not something I ever would have even entertained in any other fandom and it leaves me a little blocked writing-wise. Is this something you guys experience? Because I find writing rpf to be very different from writing in other fandoms.
I need to learn to write AUs.
I should work on the zombie-apocalypse fic instead. It's about Gabe Saporta throwing the party at the end of the world and it should be easier to write because, hi, zombie!quasi-au. Canon-compliance, whatever. But it's kind of harder to write because it really depresses me, which completely defeats the purpose because I was writing it mostly because zombies amuse me and I find it difficult to take them seriously. It was supposed to be fun. The working title is "Zombie Apocalypse, Everyone Dies," so I think I pretty much failed at fun there. That isn't really shocking though. Bandom does not have anywhere near enough potential for apocalypse. I sort of miss writing in sci-fi media fandoms for this reason; I want angst and melodrama and for my usual type of writing to avoid being utterly ridiculous, the stakes have to be pretty high. It's possible I might have gotten carried away with the zombie-apocalypse level stakes. There's lots of flowery prose and speeches and crying and quoting of Edna St. Vincent Millay. There may also be Cobra gsf, though, and it is my hope that this will redeem it somewhat. Cobra gsf redeems most things.
Anyway. Enough about fic that is very, very far from being finished. How are you guys?
*Present company excluded, of course.