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I made one of these over at the great tumblr purge, but I figure I should have one for people visiting my page!
I'm formerly 2-weird-4 on tumblr, currently 2weird4 on AO3 and weirdbird4 on Twitter. You can also message me for my Discord!
I go by birdie, I'm in my twenties, and I use she/her pronouns.
While I'm still figuring out what kind of content to post on here, some ideas I have going right now: squeeing about Ursula K. Le Guin (I can say "squeeing" again now that I'm on DW, right?), talking about vegetarian cooking, rambling about fandom racism, discussing femslash, reccing fic, reviewing episodes of Young Justice, sharing old fic snippets, complaining about life stuff, posting pictures of my dog, obsessing over The National and Sufjan Stevens, ranting about roleplay (OCs and some fandom stuff, mostly on Discord). I'm gonna be poking around in new fandoms in the coming year, probably, searching for a new home, so pardon my dust.
Please feel free to introduce yourself and just chat in general!
When I was a tiny tomboy, I was kind of allergic to rainbow and sparkles? But apparently, now that I'm a lesbian grown-up, I'm all for it. Seriously, this show's aesthetics are tooth-achingly adorable and soft. A lot about the show is.
But very predictably, my very favorite part of the show was CATRA! I mean! She's a snarky catgirl with expressive ears struggling with an abusive background and living in someone else's shadow and her Very Big Gay Feelings for her former best friend and she does improbable acrobats and?? That suit??
This show is so, so queer and woman-centric in its very essence, and it is beautiful. I feel like all those times I made fun of Steven Universe fans are gonna come back to bite me in the ass, but you know what, it's all worth it for you, Noelle.
I was also not expecting this kids' show to tap into my own complicated familial feelings but Adora yelling, "I'm not going back! You have no power over me anymore." Wow. Got 'em (me).
I really wanna write some Catra/Adora because, oh my god, the fountaining friends to enemies to lovers?? tension and all the history and, c'mon, smarter people have written essays on this already. Maybe even Catra/Scorpia because I really love a big buff happy character and a tiny grumpy one? And I'm always that multishipper. Right now I'm trying to find fandom with my tumblr defunct, so if any of you know of any Dreamwidth communities or Discord groups for the show, let me know! I'm already subscribed to thehonorofgrayskull, she-ra-fandom, and she-ra-me-ta.
my fanfic year in review
Jan. 1st, 2019 10:36 amI'm taking a look at my AO3 stats for 2018! I was going to compare them to 2017, but I'm just gonna leave it at 29 fics in 2017 versus 10 in 2018 (discounting "Tiebreak"). Spoilers for the fics and the canons are sometimes embedded in the little blurbs, fyi.
[descending by kudos]
wordcount: 103,296
( cut for length )
[descending by kudos]
wordcount: 103,296
( cut for length )
My resolutions:
- less screentime
- use my screentime for journaling and talking to people I actually like
- make a genuine effort to socialize and make plans with people
- cut out more dairy and eggs
- reduce single-use plastics
- read more books and poetry
- keep working on my patience and thoughtfulness
So far in 2019, I've tripped on my dog and hit my knee, so...that's a win.
I also watched two of the big Asian-lead movies from this year in the past couple days, Crazy Rich Asians and To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Thoughts under the cut.
( Spoilers! )
Happy 2019, everyone! Tell me about your resolutions, the year you had and the year you hope to have.
- less screentime
- use my screentime for journaling and talking to people I actually like
- make a genuine effort to socialize and make plans with people
- cut out more dairy and eggs
- reduce single-use plastics
- read more books and poetry
- keep working on my patience and thoughtfulness
So far in 2019, I've tripped on my dog and hit my knee, so...that's a win.
I also watched two of the big Asian-lead movies from this year in the past couple days, Crazy Rich Asians and To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Thoughts under the cut.
( Spoilers! )
Happy 2019, everyone! Tell me about your resolutions, the year you had and the year you hope to have.
first time cooking for my friends!
Dec. 30th, 2018 12:32 pmMe and some of my old school friends are having our eighth annual gift exchange--started when we were freshmen in high school up to now when we're seniors in college. My gift-giving and gift-wrapping skills, as always, aren't optimal. I'm wearing my ridiculous red bauble earrings, as usual. But the new thing for me is that I'm bringing actual food I made myself!
I hollowed out part of a winter squash (a cushaw, apparently, from my mom's boyfriend's mother's garden) and made some (vegan) couscous with the squash, onions and garlic, sundried tomatoes and some chopped heirloom tomatoes, olives, fire-roasted peppers, seasoned with zatar, sage, and red chili flakes, topped with some mint:
I also made vegan tempeh and white bean "meat"balls with lots of onion and garlic, dried basil and oregano, and topped with panko breadcrumbs and garlic salt, plus a sweet and accidentally overly spicy tomato sauce:
Overall, I'm happy and eager for my friends to try it! I think both came out pretty well. Not sure how enthused everyone will be about the couscous, and I anticipate leftovers, but that's okay. I'm usually only cooking for one person (myself), so figuring out how to cook for larger groups of people is really hard? Also, cooking vegan is an unexpected challenge for me, even though I've only ever cooked vegetarian?? I wanted to throw some honey in the sauce, and I really badly wanted some parm in the "meat"ball mix. I thought about adding nutritional yeast, actually, but I'm cooking for four carnivores in addition to me and my vegan friend, so I thought I should take it easy on the hippie stuff.
Also, uploading images on Dreamwidth is a pain in the ass! I see what everyone's been saying about the difficulty of artists moving over here.
All of us are sleeping over at my friend's house. The nostalgia is so real. Except everybody (but me because I don't drink) is gonna have alcohol, which actually didn't happen when we were fourteen. And despite that I still came out to everyone during some party game (Never Have I Ever or Truth or Dare, maybe?). I think it'll be fun, though! It'll be good to see everyone.
I hollowed out part of a winter squash (a cushaw, apparently, from my mom's boyfriend's mother's garden) and made some (vegan) couscous with the squash, onions and garlic, sundried tomatoes and some chopped heirloom tomatoes, olives, fire-roasted peppers, seasoned with zatar, sage, and red chili flakes, topped with some mint:
I also made vegan tempeh and white bean "meat"balls with lots of onion and garlic, dried basil and oregano, and topped with panko breadcrumbs and garlic salt, plus a sweet and accidentally overly spicy tomato sauce:
Overall, I'm happy and eager for my friends to try it! I think both came out pretty well. Not sure how enthused everyone will be about the couscous, and I anticipate leftovers, but that's okay. I'm usually only cooking for one person (myself), so figuring out how to cook for larger groups of people is really hard? Also, cooking vegan is an unexpected challenge for me, even though I've only ever cooked vegetarian?? I wanted to throw some honey in the sauce, and I really badly wanted some parm in the "meat"ball mix. I thought about adding nutritional yeast, actually, but I'm cooking for four carnivores in addition to me and my vegan friend, so I thought I should take it easy on the hippie stuff.
Also, uploading images on Dreamwidth is a pain in the ass! I see what everyone's been saying about the difficulty of artists moving over here.
All of us are sleeping over at my friend's house. The nostalgia is so real. Except everybody (but me because I don't drink) is gonna have alcohol, which actually didn't happen when we were fourteen. And despite that I still came out to everyone during some party game (Never Have I Ever or Truth or Dare, maybe?). I think it'll be fun, though! It'll be good to see everyone.
thoughts on aquaman [spoilers!]
Dec. 29th, 2018 05:42 pmSaw Aquaman this morning with my mother and her boyfriend. My mom is an awful person to go to the movies with, wouldn't recommend.
Would I recommend Aquaman? If you like splashy (I know, I know) superhero movies that probably should have been summer blockbusters, oh, for sure. There was really no big message or any greater depth of meaning to this one, which is fine because I don't think that was the goal in the first place. Not every superhero flick can be Logan (2017) dir. James Mangold amirite.
With that said, I'm super impressed by all the costumes and the settings and the amount of world-building they managed to do. I did think the whole two-villains thing was a little discombobulating, but it's good sequel fodder, I suppose. The action scenes were super stylized and shot in this really abrupt way (hey, I'm no cinnamon topographer)? I think the fights underwater with the CGI sharks were more believable than Nicole Kidman spearing guys in the living room. I liked the blend of science fiction and fantasy a lot. The soundtrack was fun, took a leaf out of the GOTG book in a good way (unlike Suicide Squad. Sorry. I'm a DC fan, I swear).
I loved Mera! Did /not/ care for the whole smart, capable lady trains dumbass guy to be in charge thing. I was honestly waiting for Arthur to suggest that Mera take the trident and take the throne instead? Since she has the right vision for the future and the right experience? Is Atlantis just like...miserably patriarchal or something? The fact that there's basically like. Implied rape in Atlanna's storyline is so...yikes. Hopefully some people get around to analyzing that. Also, maybe this is dumb, but I still can't believe we're doing the whole glorifying birthright leadership thing in movies in 2018. Anyway. Mera and Diana super need to meet so Diana can help her Realize some things.
Speaking of Mera and Diana...I do kinda want to write some Mera/Diana in DCEUverse, especially since my Shayera/Diana fic has decidedly fallen through even after a second look and some attempts to edit it. I don't have any particular ideas so far. I'm glad Mera and Arthur didn't end up married at the end, at least, haha.
A cursory look at AO3 reveals a perhaps unsurprising amount of Arthur/Orm. Ah, brothercest. Slash fandom, I know you so well. Where's the Arthur/Black Manta, though? He's got a bone to pick with him...lots of unfinished business...he's a pirate! Pirates are still sexy, right? But wait! He's black. Which is a death knell for fandom creativity for totally non-suspicious reasons. That ship's on my list as well. Waiting around to be struck by ideas and motivation now, I guess! If anybody reading this has any burning prompts for these two, drop it below??
P.S.: Vulko was an unexpected dark horse for me? I really enjoyed him, for whatever reason, and if I do write anything, he'll probably be in the background. Sometimes I can like mentors for non-mentor/student reasons, right?
Would I recommend Aquaman? If you like splashy (I know, I know) superhero movies that probably should have been summer blockbusters, oh, for sure. There was really no big message or any greater depth of meaning to this one, which is fine because I don't think that was the goal in the first place. Not every superhero flick can be Logan (2017) dir. James Mangold amirite.
With that said, I'm super impressed by all the costumes and the settings and the amount of world-building they managed to do. I did think the whole two-villains thing was a little discombobulating, but it's good sequel fodder, I suppose. The action scenes were super stylized and shot in this really abrupt way (hey, I'm no cinnamon topographer)? I think the fights underwater with the CGI sharks were more believable than Nicole Kidman spearing guys in the living room. I liked the blend of science fiction and fantasy a lot. The soundtrack was fun, took a leaf out of the GOTG book in a good way (unlike Suicide Squad. Sorry. I'm a DC fan, I swear).
I loved Mera! Did /not/ care for the whole smart, capable lady trains dumbass guy to be in charge thing. I was honestly waiting for Arthur to suggest that Mera take the trident and take the throne instead? Since she has the right vision for the future and the right experience? Is Atlantis just like...miserably patriarchal or something? The fact that there's basically like. Implied rape in Atlanna's storyline is so...yikes. Hopefully some people get around to analyzing that. Also, maybe this is dumb, but I still can't believe we're doing the whole glorifying birthright leadership thing in movies in 2018. Anyway. Mera and Diana super need to meet so Diana can help her Realize some things.
Speaking of Mera and Diana...I do kinda want to write some Mera/Diana in DCEUverse, especially since my Shayera/Diana fic has decidedly fallen through even after a second look and some attempts to edit it. I don't have any particular ideas so far. I'm glad Mera and Arthur didn't end up married at the end, at least, haha.
A cursory look at AO3 reveals a perhaps unsurprising amount of Arthur/Orm. Ah, brothercest. Slash fandom, I know you so well. Where's the Arthur/Black Manta, though? He's got a bone to pick with him...lots of unfinished business...he's a pirate! Pirates are still sexy, right? But wait! He's black. Which is a death knell for fandom creativity for totally non-suspicious reasons. That ship's on my list as well. Waiting around to be struck by ideas and motivation now, I guess! If anybody reading this has any burning prompts for these two, drop it below??
P.S.: Vulko was an unexpected dark horse for me? I really enjoyed him, for whatever reason, and if I do write anything, he'll probably be in the background. Sometimes I can like mentors for non-mentor/student reasons, right?
My first entry on Dreamwidth! Super exciting. I used to lurk a lot before I had a tumblr, but I never actually commented or made an account. Now that my tumblr has been flagged NSFW and tumblr won't even let me download my blog (...that might also be my computer, to be fair, but I don't really feel like being fair), I'll be setting up home here for the foreseeable future! I also have a Twitter, but I'm bad at shortform stuff, as this post is about to demonstrate.
This past year, I've seen an increase in discussion about comment culture on AO3. Anecdotally (and I believe some people have actually looked at the numbers, too), fics posted on AO3 receive fewer comments than those posted elsewhere, such as on ff.net, LJ, or DW. One supposed reason is that kudos is a low-effort, low-pressure way to let the author know their fic was enjoyable. I also think, though, that the general disconnect from direct person-to-person interaction where you can like anything on Twitter, tumblr, Facebook definitely encourages kudos over commenting. We like clicking those buttons. A glut of easy-to-access content from strangers might be helping that as well. I know that I, for one, am much more inclined to comment on the fic of a friend or even someone I'm familiar with than the fic of a stranger.
Why do kudos matter over comments for some authors? Well, for me, kudos always says "that was good, but not exceptional enough that I have anything to say about it." A comment is so much more affirming. It tells me what a reader liked about my story, how it touched them. I receive kudos emails every day. With the 52 fics I have on AO3, I generally see a spread of one or two kudos over two to five fics. I get a comment like...maybe once every two or three weeks, sometimes with occasional clusters of two or three during holidays. I'm also, however, not a popular writer and not one who sticks with one ship long enough to amass any kind of reader base that I can expect to return to my next fic.
The vast majority of my works in my most recent active period of fanfic writing--late 2016 to perhaps summer 2018--have been for DC Comics. DC fandom is not so much one fandom as a bunch of fandoms stuck together. You have your Batfam stans, your Flash and Lantern geeks, your occasional passionate Aquaman enthusiast, your comics snobs, your people just here for the movies or TV shows, lesbians into any female character that kicks ass regardless of sub-property, that single brave soul who writes photo-essays on that one character from that one comic from 1989...So of course the popularity of ships, fics, writers, and artists is similarly fractured. Still, there are some strong contingents: your TV Supergirl femslash shippers, your Superman/Batman slashers, your Batkid gen writers are three big ones. DC fandom is swarming with antis and self-insert het stuff (you do you, girl, but I'm not reading that) and crazy amounts of discourse and while I've made friends, I wouldn't consider my experience an overall positive one. I've also been in DC fandom for four years now, where my previous monofandoms have had two to three years of staying power, so I might just be at the tail end of my fannish energy for it and maybe all of this is just coming from that. I've also been saying this for a while, however, so...lol.
My problem re: fic, though, is that except for a few fics in that third category (my most popular fics, actually!), I don't write the popular stuff. I've had to create tags for not only ships, but /characters/ that haven't yet been written on AO3. Because what I like the most is tough, complicated women of color fucking each other, perhaps inadvisably but certainly passionately. And I have had to DIG for those characters and those ships and sometimes produce them out of thin air. I'm drawn to something so niche--the corner of fandom I always find myself in is white boy obsessed even in 2018 (with the notable exception, of course, of the male characters of color in two recent megaslash fandoms, YOI and VLD).
And yet I don't necessarily like being part of a small fandom! I want to write things that more than me and 1 other person on AO3 appreciate. I'm hungry for feedback, for validation, to be part of a community that produces tropes and memes and challenges, that has a Discord with more than five people in it. But I don't know where to go. I've made some efforts towards moving to other fandoms. I've tried Star Trek: Discovery and The Bold Type, I've made forays into tags for fandoms I know to have female characters of color. Those fandoms, though, are always a subset of a subset of a fandom, maybe clearing 500 fics at the most. I wrote Ghostbusters fic back in 2016, and where I immediately saw Holtzmann/Tolan, everyone went crazy for Holtzmann/Gilbert. Because white ladies, I guess. Just like--where is my big active fandom with women of color I can ship together! I feel like I'm going to be waiting a long time.
Until then...I honestly don't know if I want to keep going. I can bite my tongue and write dudes or white women, but I'm at the point in my life where I'm like, you know what, fuck writing those perspectives that feel so constraining and alien and aloof. In my roleplaying with OCs, every single one of them is a woman of color now, and that's so freeing that I just don't want to go back. I can keep on the way I have been, but it's honestly draining to write a 7k fic and receive three comments and immediately disappear back into obscurity. I convinced myself for so long that creation was its own merit, but art can't exist in a vacuum, you know? I might as well enjoy my ideas in my own head instead of working to put them out there. With the courseload I have and the emotional stuff I've been going through, I just don't have the energy for fic anymore. I also honestly suspect that some of the things I used to channel into fic I've now channeled into cooking? The process, the time it takes, the separation from my normal homework and studying and other responsibilities, the creativity, making something consumable, and the elements of uncertainty.
So maybe I don't go back to fanfiction? Maybe I think about pursuing original fiction? Maybe I go back to embarrassingly confessional poetry? Maybe I accept myself as a frequent reader and a very occasional writer?
Or maybe I just wait until I fall in love with some other fandom and get sucked back in so thoroughly that I forget about all of this.
This past year, I've seen an increase in discussion about comment culture on AO3. Anecdotally (and I believe some people have actually looked at the numbers, too), fics posted on AO3 receive fewer comments than those posted elsewhere, such as on ff.net, LJ, or DW. One supposed reason is that kudos is a low-effort, low-pressure way to let the author know their fic was enjoyable. I also think, though, that the general disconnect from direct person-to-person interaction where you can like anything on Twitter, tumblr, Facebook definitely encourages kudos over commenting. We like clicking those buttons. A glut of easy-to-access content from strangers might be helping that as well. I know that I, for one, am much more inclined to comment on the fic of a friend or even someone I'm familiar with than the fic of a stranger.
Why do kudos matter over comments for some authors? Well, for me, kudos always says "that was good, but not exceptional enough that I have anything to say about it." A comment is so much more affirming. It tells me what a reader liked about my story, how it touched them. I receive kudos emails every day. With the 52 fics I have on AO3, I generally see a spread of one or two kudos over two to five fics. I get a comment like...maybe once every two or three weeks, sometimes with occasional clusters of two or three during holidays. I'm also, however, not a popular writer and not one who sticks with one ship long enough to amass any kind of reader base that I can expect to return to my next fic.
The vast majority of my works in my most recent active period of fanfic writing--late 2016 to perhaps summer 2018--have been for DC Comics. DC fandom is not so much one fandom as a bunch of fandoms stuck together. You have your Batfam stans, your Flash and Lantern geeks, your occasional passionate Aquaman enthusiast, your comics snobs, your people just here for the movies or TV shows, lesbians into any female character that kicks ass regardless of sub-property, that single brave soul who writes photo-essays on that one character from that one comic from 1989...So of course the popularity of ships, fics, writers, and artists is similarly fractured. Still, there are some strong contingents: your TV Supergirl femslash shippers, your Superman/Batman slashers, your Batkid gen writers are three big ones. DC fandom is swarming with antis and self-insert het stuff (you do you, girl, but I'm not reading that) and crazy amounts of discourse and while I've made friends, I wouldn't consider my experience an overall positive one. I've also been in DC fandom for four years now, where my previous monofandoms have had two to three years of staying power, so I might just be at the tail end of my fannish energy for it and maybe all of this is just coming from that. I've also been saying this for a while, however, so...lol.
My problem re: fic, though, is that except for a few fics in that third category (my most popular fics, actually!), I don't write the popular stuff. I've had to create tags for not only ships, but /characters/ that haven't yet been written on AO3. Because what I like the most is tough, complicated women of color fucking each other, perhaps inadvisably but certainly passionately. And I have had to DIG for those characters and those ships and sometimes produce them out of thin air. I'm drawn to something so niche--the corner of fandom I always find myself in is white boy obsessed even in 2018 (with the notable exception, of course, of the male characters of color in two recent megaslash fandoms, YOI and VLD).
And yet I don't necessarily like being part of a small fandom! I want to write things that more than me and 1 other person on AO3 appreciate. I'm hungry for feedback, for validation, to be part of a community that produces tropes and memes and challenges, that has a Discord with more than five people in it. But I don't know where to go. I've made some efforts towards moving to other fandoms. I've tried Star Trek: Discovery and The Bold Type, I've made forays into tags for fandoms I know to have female characters of color. Those fandoms, though, are always a subset of a subset of a fandom, maybe clearing 500 fics at the most. I wrote Ghostbusters fic back in 2016, and where I immediately saw Holtzmann/Tolan, everyone went crazy for Holtzmann/Gilbert. Because white ladies, I guess. Just like--where is my big active fandom with women of color I can ship together! I feel like I'm going to be waiting a long time.
Until then...I honestly don't know if I want to keep going. I can bite my tongue and write dudes or white women, but I'm at the point in my life where I'm like, you know what, fuck writing those perspectives that feel so constraining and alien and aloof. In my roleplaying with OCs, every single one of them is a woman of color now, and that's so freeing that I just don't want to go back. I can keep on the way I have been, but it's honestly draining to write a 7k fic and receive three comments and immediately disappear back into obscurity. I convinced myself for so long that creation was its own merit, but art can't exist in a vacuum, you know? I might as well enjoy my ideas in my own head instead of working to put them out there. With the courseload I have and the emotional stuff I've been going through, I just don't have the energy for fic anymore. I also honestly suspect that some of the things I used to channel into fic I've now channeled into cooking? The process, the time it takes, the separation from my normal homework and studying and other responsibilities, the creativity, making something consumable, and the elements of uncertainty.
So maybe I don't go back to fanfiction? Maybe I think about pursuing original fiction? Maybe I go back to embarrassingly confessional poetry? Maybe I accept myself as a frequent reader and a very occasional writer?
Or maybe I just wait until I fall in love with some other fandom and get sucked back in so thoroughly that I forget about all of this.
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