illusion is hope born from fear

I identify as queer.

I am a cis woman who at one point, about a decade ago, came out as bisexual. That wasn’t a knee-jerk or snap judgment, it was the culmination of years of observations, realizations, and late-night conversations, primarily with myself but occasionally with a friend. I reexamined every part of my life until I couldn’t ignore the truth anymore--I wasn’t straight and I never had been.

But after all of that, after I thought I had everything figured out, I had more epiphanies come to smack me in the face.

For most of my life I didn’t know the world “asexual” existed. It was never a concept that anyone introduced to me as a child or a teenager. It was just assumed that every one was a sexual being, that sex was clearly natural and everyone clearly wanted to have it. I was taught as a teenager that lust was sinful, that sex was sinful, and that I should never, ever have it (until I got married, of course). And that was easy for me. Don’t have sex? Okay, no problem, not a big deal.

( My Journey to Queer )

Hi, hello, is this thing on?

It's been a really long time, mostly because I was trudging through years of creative drought. Like, intense drought. I couldn't even come up with stories to tell myself while I was falling asleep, it was that bad.

Mostly, all I could handle was passively flipping through things on tumblr. Tumblr's a great place to be if you don't really want to think about things too much.

But now I'm writing again. Like, words to paper; story, plot, and character. It's kind of miraculous and I've missed it SO much.

Sadly, I'm not really "in" a particular fandom. Nothing has really scratched that obsessive itch in a long, LONG time. So I've fallen back on my old friends, Star Wars and Narnia. Also I kind of want to write an Oz fic? Which is just wild. Maybe I'm just tired of adulting so I'm falling back on all of the things I loved when I was a kid.

Well, whatever the reason, I'm just super-psyched that my creative brain is awake. I feel like a person again, not just some kind of automaton that works and eats and sleeps and then repeats it all again the next day.

Oh! And between then and now I've welcomed two new cats into my life! They are Rey (a tiny tortie and the littlest Jedi) and Jupiter (my doofus child and a space princess). I adopted them a year ago and I am really, astoundingly lucky to have them in my life.

Day 2

In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul.

Last night, I watched Star Trek Beyond while I was typing up the Day 1's post. There are a lot of things that have impacted my life, in a lot of ways, but Star Trek is foundational, Star Trek is constant, Star Trek is forever.

And Beyond is a great example of why Star Trek is the forever-est of my faves. The crew overcomes all of their obstacles because they work as a team. Uhura, at one point, while talking with the Big Bad Krall, says that there is strength in unity and then, for the rest of the movie, the crew of the Enterprise proves that thesis. Each person contributes what they know, adds their strengths to everyone else's, and they win. They overcome all of the obstacles and save a station full of people, and, of course, each other.

Right now in America, with fascism on the rise, it's easy to fall prey to despair, to futility, because your one little person who hardly has the power to get up in the morning, let alone save the country, or the world. But it's not about what you or I or that one person over there can do, it's about what all of us, together can do. Of course, we can't be passive, we have to be brave enough to speak up, to offer our strength or our wisdom or our two hands. We can't be passive, but we don't have to do it all by ourselves, we can't do it all by ourselves. Anything we do, we do it together.

That's what Star Trek taught me, that's the cornerstone of my life. Uhura was right (of course she was, she's Uhura), there's strength in unity. And if we believe that and do that well then, maybe the Federation and Roddenberry's optimistic future isn't as faraway as it otherwise might seem.

I've really fallen into the Pacific Rim fandom. I've even written fic, well, ficlets. To be exact, bingo fills handed out for Jaegercon over on tumblr (oh tumblr, shiny, shiny tumblr).

Anyway, I wanted to share them with all of you. I have more written and more to write, but here is the beginning. Hope you enjoy.

Title: Rhapsody in Kaiju Blue (I)
Fandom: Pacific Rim
Rating: G - M (depending on part)
Disclaimer: If I made any money off of this I'd actually have some money.
Notes: Bingo fills written for Jaegercon 2013, a ficlet per square.

Summary: Moments from the apocalypse.

( They whispered the stories around the shatterdome, tales of hauntings, of missing tools and missing techs, people driven away by what they saw deep in the beating of a jaeger's heart. )

Thanks for all of the kind comments on my last post. I want to reply to them all individually but am waiting until I have a couple more spoons to work with. You are all the awesomest, just so you know.

And now for a complete emotional 180 I have the best news ever. I'm an aunt!!!!! Yes, that's right, one of my brothers has successfully procreated and on July 17 my little nephew was born.

You see my brother, whom I have often called the Big Lug, got married last year and moved to Australia (he married an Australian, that being one of the few ways one can actually immigrate to Australia). And now he and his wife have procreated!!!! I've been calling the baby Dingo, because I think I'm adorable, and now Dingo has been born!!!

Baby and mother are doing well. So well, in fact, that my wonderful nephew has already peed all over his dear old dad. I can't wait to meet him for myself, though it may be a while. I'm just so happy that he's a being who exists and I'm looking forward to getting to know the person he becomes. And spoiling him rotten. Because that's what single aunts (or uncles) are supposed to do.

Welcome to the world Dingo! We're all so glad you're here!

It's been a year, more or less, since I started my little experiment with not following Mormon dietary laws. It's been an interesting time.

I've discovered a few things, such as coffee and beer are delicious, as is wine. I haven't had the chance to try a lot of cocktails though margaritas can be tasty and a bloody mary needs to have enough booze to compensate for the fact that I don't really like tomato juice.

The most interesting observations have had very little to do with the food or drink. You don't really realize how focused Mormons are on holding to the niggling details until you're not following them anymore. And how frankly ridiculous it is that so many Mormons put so much emphasis on rules like the Word of Wisdom when what we do or do not eat says very little, if anything, about the things we actually believe.

Dietary restrictions are easy signposts for religion; more people know the basics of keeping kosher than know anything about Jewish faith or belief. And just as most people know that Mormons don't drink coffee, most Mormons think that the only true standard of one's own Mormonism is what you do or do not eat. Plus, it makes us different and we love the things that make us different (just as we hate the things that make us different; sometime we're the Sméagol of religions). In fact, one of the central tragedies of Modern Mormonism is that cultural drive to be different from other people while at the same time embracing roles and ideas that we think will make us just like everyone else. We want to be different from "the world" but we won't accept difference amongst our own ranks.

The thing about Mormonism, and why its still so attractive to me, is that it's not about the niggling details. Mormonism takes a cosmic perspective: not only is this life not the end but this world isn't the end. There is no end, and the life we have now is only one small part of a greater whole. I've always felt that there's a strong similarity with Buddhism, that just as Buddhists see every life as another step on the journey to enlightenment, Mormons see life as a step on a path of progression, of learning and growing and becoming better. Instead of being clannish and disapproving we should be the most accepting, the most loving, the most willing the accept change.

But there you go. A year of drinking coffee doesn't mean I'm going to Hell. I had a beer and I wasn't smitten on the spot. And now please excuse me, I hear Tim Hortons calling my name.

Title: The Tomb of Every Hope
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: G (General)
Disclaimer: No money to see here.
Notes: Set after the book. Expect major spoilers for the ending.

Summary: The dwarves were leaving.

( Erebor called to them and they returned )

The epic story of two assholes in love.

( I am intense, I am in need/I am in pain, I am in love )

I made this mix a very long time ago and, for some reason, never posted it. Then my computer crashed and I lost the cover art but now here it is, new art and everything.

I still love Martha Jones so much. She's just awesome.



( The Doctor That Saved The Doctor )

YOU GUYS! HI! It's been forever, I know.

I saw The Hobbit in IMAX 3D yesterday. I don't have a lot of thoughts about that movie, I've seen it 3 times now (mostly for social reasons), it's fun and adventurous. The IMAX 3D is pretty amazing, not so much with the 3D gimmicks (though there were a few of those) but more with the incredible depth it added to the movie viewing process. It was used to enhance and some things, like the mines in Erebor, looked amazing. Totally worth the fleeting moments of motion sickness and the eyestrain headache it caused.

BUT! THERE WAS A STAR TREK TRAILER! It was, like, the first 3 minutes of the movie and WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS? It gave me SO MANY FEELS!111!!@@!!!

( Spoilers, spoilers, SO MANY SPOILERS )

SO EXCITE!

Oh, that's right, I did have some Hobbit thougts, namely Thorin/Balin y/y? In the book Bilbo and Balin have a good friendship but in the movie Thorin and Balin are just so devoted to each other and kind of sweet, in a dwarvish way. It makes ( Hobbit Book Spoilers! ) Also, everybody loves Bilbo, as they should. Hey PJ, MORE BILBO PLZ!