have been unavoidably detained by the world

So there have been three new David Tennant Doctor Who specials in the lead up to RTD taking back the reigns and in the gap between Jodi Whittaker as Thirteen and Ncuti Gatwa as Fourteen? Fifteen?. And they are starring David Tenant and Catherine Tate who haven't been on Doctor Who in agessss.

Now, I haven't watched Doctor Who consistently since Matt Smith's run. It's a whole host of reasons I'm sure - life changed, my friends weren't watching, turns out Moffat has some....flaws....at being a showrunner - but the one that I keep coming back to is that I wasn't really in the fandom anymore, was I? I watched Doctor Who partly so I could join the Torchwood fandom in the first place. So I think when the fandom corners I was in died out, a bit of my interest in the source material died too.

(...also I'm convinced that some of the reason the fandom died out WAS because of Moffat giving us less to work with, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.) (ALSO also I'm still disappointed with the resolution to the River Song storyline, I still miss the days when people were connecting River Song to Jack Harkness in all sorts of fun clever ways.)

THAT ALL SAID I watched the first two specials and actually I loved them in that kind of shameless dorky way you love things when they recapture a bit of magic for you years after you've stopped looking. They weren't perfect (what was happening with David's hair) but also, who cares I love them.

I haven't watched the third one. My friends who watched the first two with me have already done so, but I was busy that weekend so there was no push factor. And a little bit I don't want the magic to end? I mean, it's Ten and Donna Noble! My heart!

*

AND WHILE WE ARE HERE. Gareth David-Lloyd was in the National Theatre production of The Corn is Green, which wouldn't mean anything except that the National Theatre keeps advertising to me on my youtube videos that it's availible to stream now. And every time I'm like OH THAT IS GARETH DAVID-LLOYD'S FACE so I'll probably have to figure out how to watch it even though I actually find it really hard to sit through recorded live theater for whatever reason.

So today I ended up stumbling* over a tumblr of a fic writer who a decade ago was one of my fave fic writers (in a fandom I was in a decade ago) and I realized like, I still like them a lot parasocially and all, but in the old days I would check their LJ often, I would read their posts, sometimes comment, even outside of fic/fandom stuff.

And like, we've both drifted in different directions, I haven't read any of their fics in years and all, but also....I just stopped reading their stuff at some point after they switched permanently to tumblr. I totally understand why they (and a lot of people) made the switch, but it really is just the medium sometimes huh? Like I know I don't like tumblr as a medium in general, but it's a little surprising how even liking the person being the blog just doesn't balance out how I bounce hard off the site I guess.

*A dormant fandom whatsapp chat of all things lit up today and people were chatting about a fanartist I once messaged on tumblr so I went to tell said fanartist "hi, people still love your work!" because every creator deserves that message, and the Old Fandom Person tumblr popped up on the sidebar and I was like, huh, guess I can click on that.

Anyway I poked around and every post that was long and thoughtful and a bit too rambly for tumblr-style were still enjoyable but I think I'll log off tumblr anyway.

I did my taxes! Under the wire! (Technically submitted on Sunday)

Freetaxusa.com kept encouraging me to file for an extension, but nooooo I did NOT want this stress for another few months no thank you. Now I am DONE. PHEW.

So, when I was a kid, I thought the only way to make tea was to steep it to death. See, the longer you steeped it, the better color it was, so that was better, right?

Anyway, as I got a bit older I discovered I don't actually like tea and I mostly stopped drinking it except occasionally, like a chai tea at Starbucks when I was meeting someone and needed to look adult-y (I dislike coffee a lot more) and/or when I was sick and who cares that it tasted bad, I just wanted something hot. So that was me though college and early adulthood and so on.

And then, like a year or two ago, I realized that while I'm still not a Tea Person or whatever, I do like tea well enough. I just like it WEAK. So weak. Barely allowed to call itself tea weak. Basically lightly flavored hot water weak. (And I still like it when I'm sick, I just like it way better because now I make it very very weak.)

This of course, feels like an entire waste of a teabag. You could make so much tea from that teabag! I like, hmmm, 2% of the flavor out of each tea bag! I like the water "slightly more colored than just plain water" tea. Feels like such a waste!

Anyway, thoughts on my weird tastes because I woke up this morning with a sore throat (shouldn't be covid, I just got over covid, I suspect the suddenly colder temperatures) and I just wasted an entire tea bag. If I was more awake when I made it, I might have tried to save the tea bag but it was eaaaarlllyyy.

So my lightly flavored hot water is very nice, thank you.

So I was talking to a friend, R, about how hard it's been for me to be in a fandom and also kind of disliking the fanfic in the fandom. Cursed Child fandom has this weird "mandatory fluff" culture and it's really hard to find darkfic, and endless angst, both of which are my candy. I've been trying to write what I want, but the truth is that I'm not a great writer and I'm glacially slow (and extremely anxious) so I haven't really managed it yet.

And R, VERY KINDLY, recced me some angsty/dark fics in Star Trek and Marvel Movies, which are the fandoms R reads in, and I'm familiar enough with both of them (I was even in Star Trek fandom, sort of, for a hot minute). But I'm not in these fandoms and I don't ship these ships.

It's so weird! It's so weird to read fic that scratch the itch amazingly. Dark angst and bad decisions and nightmares and bad communication mmmm, perfect. But I don't? Ship these ships? So Nu!Spock and Nu!Kirk keep making eyes at each other and I'm like...I don't see it but okay.

And all the Marvel fics are Tony/Steve and oh boy, I like, sometimes ship Steve and Bucky but my fave Marvel Movie fic was gen. True story! I just don't ship these people very much. IDK, it's not on purpose!

And these are WILDLY popular ships. And of course, the more popular a ship, the more fic there is. And the more fic there is, the more likely there will be fic of all sorts, including the dark angsty stuff that I love. And I am loving that part, some scenes are making me so happy.

And like, I used to be a lot more loud about not shipping things and I'm still willing to mention it in spaces like this, my space where I can say stuff, but I find it super rude to mention to people who do ship the ship. Because like, I'm not here to be convinced? And I feel like it reads unintentionally as a judgement. Which it isn't! I believe strongly in ship and let ship. I WISH I could incept myself to love fandoms and ships that are popular. It would make my life easier! In so many ways!

This isn't even the first time. I read everything Astolat writes in fandoms I understand (I think I might just be in the Astolat fandom) and I love her HP fic. But it's all Drarry. I don't ship Drarry. I sometimes stop reading the fic once the shippy stuff starts. It doesn't hit quite the same way, I think maybe she does a bit more work moving her characters through time enough so that I'm willing to suspend my disbelief a bit more. Or maybe her writing style just hits so exactly on my target.

But IDK. I'm enjoying having some new fic to read which I am assured is the kind of stuff I want in fics right now. I just wish I could get it more in my fandoms I guess? Back to reading this epically amazing Kirk/Spock fic where luckily Kirk is a perfect trash fire.

__

lannamichaels has given me a ton of excellent fic recs but I find the unfamiliarity of the fandom too overwhelming so I'm saving them. I have absolutely gotten into a fandom fic-first (Inception, and a little bit Torchwood) so like...it's possible! I just have to be up to it apparently.

1. I was talking to a friend last night and she mentioned how she's struggling with how much she craves approval from other people and how hard it can be for her to do something as simple as complain about a missing amazon package because she worries that the amazon rep will judge her and put her on the "bad customer list."

And as someone whose anxiety about what people think literally means that I struggle to participate in fandom even though I've been here for twenty years, I mean. Yeah. We talked about it for a while and I was supportive and we talked about therapy and stuff.

But I've been thinking about this since yesterday and part of me thinks that, well, this is just very human of us, isn't it? We're a communal species, wanting approval and support from other people is frankly natural and a really good defense mechanism for not being eaten by a saber-tooth tiger or whatever, isn't it? Like, the fact that it's hitting us really hard right now feels like maybe our internal checkers are off. Or maybe, that the reality of the world right now means that we are overwhelmed by so much judgement from so many different places and mingling of communities and social norms in ways we struggle to navigate. But maybe...maybe it will help to not frame the WHOLE thing as a bad thing, and just something we need to fine-tune for ourselves because really, a person who doesn't care about what anyone thinks doesn't sound like a good solution either? IDK, I've just been musing and I'm trying to puzzle out my feelings in my own head.

2. I am, once again, trying to cut down the number of tabs I have. (I have so many it's slowing down my computer and I have to restart more than I want to. My computer was bought in 2021, I am not ok with this!) Also I want to move over to firefox and I have too many tabs open to make the move right now.

For an embarrassing sense of scale, I have sixteen windows open. I am currently trying to close tabs in only two of those windows. Window #1 has 105 tabs open. Window #2 has 114 tabs open! (Window #3 has 5 tabs, so there's that at least)

The problem is that I don't want to lose so many of these tabs. Like I feel guilty closing them! But I have nowhere to put them! Some I'm saving on diigo, my extremely messy bookmarking tool, so that's...something?

So. Many. Tabs.

The latest OTW newsletter is out (including some stuff on the Bridgerton Musical, love that they are addressing it) and apparently the AO3 downloading FAQ has been updated. I re-read just to see if they had maybe made it possible to download an entire series in one download yet (nope).

And I was thinking. We talk about AO3 as a haven for writers, and it is and I love it. But I actually think this is one of the one places where it's...not, actually. Being able to download fic is a gift to readers far more than writers, many of whom would probably not allow that feature if it was there choice. It's one of the things hanging on from the old days, I think, where fic could drop off the face of the 'net in a heartbeat, and saving fic was sometimes the only way to keep it safe. Even writers lost their own stuff sometimes!

It's just an interesting contrast, isn't it? It's a moment where, actually, the writer doesn't have total control on Ao3. And honestly, I'm actually fine with it, I like the download option, on balance. Especially as sometimes I miss fics from LJ that I can't find anymore. Or worse! Fics that were hosted on one-off bigbang sites!

I was chatting with a friend and...I wonder if there are any Fandom Trumps Hate style fundraisers right now. Personally I would really like political ones (Stacey Abrams for example) but I would also fundraise for orgs that are specifically targeting the stuff we're losing - abortion, related women's health, miranda education, uhhhh environmental protection....

I get that this would take time to set up, I'm just SO unplugged from fandom right now I realize I wouldn't see it. Not sure going back on tumblr is the right move, but I'll keep it back of mind.

(I also want to say that I recognize that fandom-specific fundraisers are a way better bet than "all the fandoms" fundraisers but I seriously doubt anyone is going to do a HP-themed fundraiser anytime soon, and my other fandoms are....Torchwood? Inception??? Animorphs???? Lol yeah right.)

ETA: Saving the Marvel Trumps Hate link here so I can come back to it in the fall, just in case it runs this year. I wonder if I could manage a fic, or if I'll find something to donate. I was periphery in Marvel movie fandom, for a bit. I liked Coulson.

I sat with my beta for an hour and a half just walking through this fic and agonizing over every comma. And then they said go for it, and I posted. They offered to do that for every CC fic in my "ready to post" folder and...I might just do it. Thank you all, for encouraging me.

Good news of the day: I made an appointment to sit with my CC beta on Sunday and maybe try to put up some CC fic I've only been sitting on since 2017-2020 (which for me, in fic years, is yesterday). I don't have a Torchwood beta, but this is a small step.

Bad news of the day: EVERYTHING ELSE. I'm thankful I finally started properly budgeting for donations this year instead of doing it ad-hoc. I donated everything in the budget to the National Network of Abortion Funds but I mostly feel sad and angry and helpless. I don't know where to put these feelings and I don't know how to use them yet. It sucks.