sophia_sol | Entries tagged with anent: me and fandom

a meme that's been going around! I have been tagged by various ppl, and please do it too if you want to!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

If we're just looking at the fanfic, I'm at 50. Dang that is many!

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

Currently at 114,681!

3. What are your top five fics by kudos?

truth can find the strangest home, svsss moshang (923 kudos)

If love is what you're after, inception arthur/eames (685 kudos)

revelations from a layover flight, svsss cumplane (231 kudos)

habitat, behaviour, svsss bingqiu (195 kudos)

as free as my hair, mcu steve & bucky (163 kudos)

4. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently: mxtx's three books are on constant rotation in my head and have been for several years. This is by far the most fic I have ever written for a fandom!

5. Do you respond to comments? why or why not?

I do try to! But sometimes I forget, or get overwhelmed, and then all of a sudden it's been years and it feels a bit late! I'm much better at it in recent years, at least, than I was in the early 2010s.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm I think when I go for non-happy endings they're usually more bittersweet than angsty... like, for example, "I know what that song means now" (mdzs, jyl/jzx), where the viewpoint character is satisfied with her choices and priorities but narrative doom is hanging over her. And I have several other fics too with the impending threat of narrative doom as the main closing emotion.

For a different approach I also have "promises" (cremation of sam mcgee), but that's creepy rather than angsty.

I really don't think I have written any fics with a specifically angsty ending!

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I think the most uncomplicatedly happy ending would be either "habitat, behaviour" (svsss, bingqiu), or "bodies, talking" (mdzs, jyl/jzx), both of which have endings focused on basking in the ways a good relationship with a partner who understands your needs can be so fulfilling.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have gotten occasional complaints but never straight up hate, so far! At least, that I can remember, lol. Sometimes a bad memory is helpful!

9. Do you write smut?

Sometimes! When it suits the needs of the fic I feel moved to write. It can be a really fun aspect of a character or relationship to explore!

10. Do you write crossovers?

I used to be a lot more into crossovers when I was younger. These days there's a much higher bar to clear for me to be into a crossover idea. The last crossover I wrote was in 2014!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Other than the inevitable LLM bot scraping, not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I vaguely recall having been asked once or twice, but I don't think anything ever came of it.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I did occasionally, in long ago days, but I haven't cowritten in many years at this point.

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

Too hard to answer! I refuse!!! How am I supposed to choose between so many amazing ships!

15. What's the wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The wangxian telepathic bond. Longing sigh....

16. What are your writing strengths?

Vibes, themes, characters.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot, fast-paced action or adventure, snappy conversations, that kind of thing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I think there are contexts where it can be an effective choice to include untranslated dialogue, and I think that I'm not qualified to write the kinds of fic where it would be an effective choice.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

As far as I am aware, the fairy tale Cinderella, when I was about 8 years old.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Look, my fave is usually whatever I've most recently finished! Because it's what's been occupying my mind the most! Soooo it's either my yet-unposted jingyi fic (just needs me to figure out how to implement an improvement suggested by my beta), or my mxtx remix fic (won't be revealed till April 18, and won't be revealed as being by me until April 25)! So you don't get to read either of them yet. But SOON!

Number of words written

37,632 words in published works

Number of works published

I published 13 works! a total of 10 fics, plus one each of podfic, zine, and ao3 site skin.

Fandoms you wrote for

Surprising nobody:

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Heaven Official’s Blessing

The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

Work you are most proud of regardless of kudos/hits

Most proud.....I think that would be Habitat, Behaviour. Writing explicit sex is still relatively new for me and that is the fic with absolutely the most sexual content in it, and I'm really proud of how I managed to integrate it into the fic!

(It also does happen to be the fic with the most hits/kudos, but I decided which work I am most proud of before checking that, lol.)

( Read more... )

one

it's funny, my approach to wordcount milestones in writing! when I'm very close to a nice round number, it really feels like a milestone. like: wow, I'm totally going to hit 1,000 words on this wip tomorrow!

then tomorrow comes and as expected I surpass 1,000 words but I don't pay much notice to it, I'm just cracking on with writing. the celebratory feeling is when the milestone is in sight, not when the milestone is reached. interesting.

two

Recently I jumpscared myself while listening to bird songs. One of the recordings of the dusky grouse sounded like a creepy man making weird mouth noises into my ear! Thank you dusky grouse, well done, this is SUCH a funny sound to make as a bird!

(the second recording listed on this page: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dusky_Grouse/sounds)

three

turns out Christopher Chant fits exactly into the character type I most enjoy playing in zoom theatre. I reread The Lives of Christopher Chant endlessly as a kid, because it's just such a fun book! And now as an adult I can see how it sunk its little hooks into my brain.

four

I need to figure out a system for deciding which bird pics are for my rl-name presence online and which for my pseudonymous fandom presence online, so that I can post bird pics here sometimes. And also on my website in the bird shrine!

five

Found a new volunteering gig, went to my first meeting with them, and within a couple of days was trusted with login information for their entire website and email and social media accounts. And I might be the main website person now?

It's amazing what power you can accrue by dint of showing up and raising your hand.

six

I have been mentally scrabbling around for the right word for. uh. years? to succinctly summarize for myself in private bookmarks a certain mode of fic writing that very earnestly and naively sands off all complexities in order to present a one-dimensional story.

My mind kept presenting "juvenile" to me but that's not actually the right word. But I could never get to the right word because juvenile was always standing in the way, preventing me from seeing past it.

This week the word "facile" came to me and like. close! so close!!! I could feel the conclusion of my quest within my reach! And then looking facile up in wordhippo presented me with "jejune" as an option and like -- yes! That's exactly it! I have never used the word jejune before in my life but I guess I am going to start now. In private, where the authors I consider jejune can Never see it.

Jejune! I DID IT.

whoops I drafted this for crossposting but then never got round to it - just discovered the draft while cleaning up some files!

two question/answer memes I did over on mastodon! reposting here so you can see my answers too :)

( shipping meme )

( fic writing meme )

my systems of crossposting grow ever more arcane

- I post things to fedi/mastodon, straight from the brain through my fingers into cyberspace

- if it's a fandomy post that, on reflection, I don't mind being publicly visible: crosspost it to bsky

- if it's a fic rec: crosspost it to bsky, bookmark it on ao3, bookmark it on linkding, comment on the fic

- if it's an svsss fic rec: also crosspost it to the svsss discord server I'm in

- if it's an announcement of a fanwork I posted, crosspost it to allllll the things: bsky, tumblr, dreamwidth, my website, any relevant discord servers, any friends I want to share with directly

- once a week, review my week's worth of random posts, collect a few that I'm happy sharing on tumblr and dreamwidth, and crosspost them to both venues

- once a month, collect my month's recs, and crosspost them to tumblr and dreamwidth

WHEW. that's a lot to keep track of! and somehow I feel like I might still be missing something. which is of course the problem!

one

I have done too well at insulating myself from the relentless marketing of capitalism.....I forgot that black friday week is a thing and went in person to an electronics store on saturday to buy a new phone grip.

that store. had SO MANY. people, noises, flashing lights & images, maze-like aisles & displays, busy employees who couldn't stop to help me because they were already on a mission, etc.

I escaped with the phone grip I went for but. whew. that was a real experience.

two

so funny to think about my feelings on a lot of characters in mxtx novels on my first read vs on subsequent rereads. the number of characters I found boring, irritating, or incomprehensible who I now adore!

this post inspired by thinking about pei ming, an asshole who sucks (affectionate)

three

I have really been on a hell of a handcrafting kick of late. SOMEDAY I will get back to personal web dev! that's also a very exciting form of crafting!

four

sorting through a recentish batch of bird photography I did, and gosh did you know birds are SO cute and photography is SO fun?! I'm verklempt

five

Every time I watch a Sally Pointer video I get so fired up to do crafting! Her latest video is on a type of nalbinding, a technique working cordage into a bag or basket which has been used across the world and throughout history, back to the paleolithic era.

In this video she shows you how to make cordage from scratch, from whatever fibres you have available, and gives tips on what kind of fibre you might be able to easily access that's good for this kind of work.

Then she shows how to use the cordage to work both the single loop and the loop and twist variants on nalbinding, and walks you through how to use these methods to make a bag.

She demonstrates how simple they are to do, how adaptable to doing whatever it is you want with it, and how it's great to just do what feels right to you instead of following a rigid pattern. Perfection not required.

I really want to make myself a netted bag using this method now. And other useful "holding things" devices!

I was sick with a cold and lost the energy for hanging out on dw....but I'm back, feeling myself again! and trying to catch up!

one

It's love meme season again!

✨ holiday love meme 2024 ✨
my thread here

two

my household has two printers.

printer one: a fancy modern printer that came with an ink subscription you can't opt out of. you get 10 pages per month included; beyond that you pay per page. great for easily printing one-off forms you need in a hurry! terrible if you want to print anything of length.

printer two: an elderly laser printer that does single-side b&w printing only, but is very reliable and easy to use, once you're going. however its print driver doesn't work on modern computers so I have to boot up my 7 year old laptop that takes approximately forever to do the simplest of tasks, and laboriously convince it that it wants to download my documents, open them, and print them.

you see my problem, as a hobbyist bookbinder and as a frugal sewist who collects free online pdf clothes patterns!

three

the framing of certain kinds of stories as being interested in getting people in cahoots with each other struck me so hard from one of the early 8 days of dwj podcast episodes.....like yes. yes. that is SO one of the things I love in stories! and dwj does it so well!

I am going to be talking about characters being "in cahoots" forever now fyi

and I've been thinking about how more romance stories need to make the romantic leads be in cahoots with each other tbh. show me how they work together to a common goal!

four

weight talk, no numbers

a pants alteration project I recently completed was one to increase the size of an old pair of pants that had gotten unwearably tight a couple years ago, to make them a useable part of my wardrobe again

and the funny thing is, these pants have had alteration from me before.....when I had taken in the original waistband by a bunch of inches to make them fit how skinny I was, once upon a time. those waistband tucks were taken back out again years ago, but I can still see the marks of where those seam lines used to be. and now I am adding panels of fabric to make the pants even bigger!

I've worked to be at peace with my body and I'm not even upset at the thought of how much bigger I am now than I used to be, but it's wild to spend time working with this very physical reminder of the time in my life when I thought it was important to spend energy on Watching My Weight

five

did you know you can just MAKE things. I'm all 😍 every time!

here's a link to a pic of the little coiled basket I recently made out of fabric scraps!

of course the shaping of the basket is not perfectly smooth and even and symmetrical, but that's to be expected; this is the first time I've made a basket of this type. it takes practice for hands and eyes to learn! and I have learned things, and also have a cute little basket to show for it .

six

I'm amazed it isn't a common plot in post-canon mdzs fics to draw on the deliberately hanging thread of people's interest in the tiger seal, and the idea that they can get it from the nieyao coffin

like. here's a passage from mdzs ch 13, wangxian part three:

Suddenly, he heard a young man’s voice. “Then is the Tiger Seal really inside the coffin?”

A cloud of silence fell over the wine shop. A moment later, someone answered, “Who knows? Perhaps. What could Jin Guangyao have done with the Tiger Seal except for carrying it on him?”

“But there’s no way of telling. Didn’t they say the Seal’s become just a piece of scrap iron? There’s no use for it anymore.”

The boy sat alone at a table, holding a sword in his arms. “Is the coffin really firm enough? What would happen if someone wants to see if the Tiger Seal is inside or not?”

Immediately, someone raised his voice. “Who’d dare?”

“The Qinghe Nie Sect, the Gusu Lan Sect, and the Yunmeng Jiang Sect all sent people to guard the cemetery. Who in the world would have the guts to do it?”

Everyone expressed their agreement. The boy didn’t speak up again. He took the teacup from his table and sipped, as though he gave up on his idea. Yet, his eyes hadn’t changed at all.

Wei Wuxian had seen those types of eyes on many faces. And he knew that this definitely wouldn’t be the last time he saw them.

that tiger seal is hungered for. people ARE going to be digging up nieyao coffin and releasing angry spirits before that 100 years are up! and that would be so interesting to explore in a fic, if you are looking for a plot backdrop for whatever ship you're writing! and I for one would love to read a million of those fics.

one

I'm enjoying the thought that if a person reads any one of my fics from the last few years, yeah there's probably something birdy mentioned or present but it doesn't have undue narrative attention. but if a person reads a bunch of my fics, well, a suspicion will have to arise that it's a bit weird for birds to keep on coming up and being relevant like this in so many fics!

two

the problem with bookbinding is the steps that involve "let your project sit for hours to days while glue dries or paper flattens"

what do you mean I can't just hyperfocus and push through from start to finish in one inadvisable go

three

I've been thinking about the idea of formative fiction, and it's a concept I have always struggled with because like....how do you tell if a book or movie or whatever was actually formative, in that it contributed to forming you?

sometimes media has been obviously formative to me in that the wider experiences I had around a book did have noticeable effects on my life -- for example, how other people reacted to me reading it, or the experience of engaging with other fans of it.

or sometimes my enjoyment of a piece of media or engagement with it was reflective of other pre-existing formative influences in my life, in that I was only exposed to that media or predisposed to enjoy the things it's doing because of aspects of the environment I grew up in

or sometimes a piece of media took up an outsized amount of my attention and interest, or was particularly compelling to me on a visceral level from a young age, and which points to themes which continue to be a presence in the narratives I enjoy engaging with. but that doesn't mean the piece of media caused me to be interested in the theme, since it might have been speaking to an interest which was already within me. and it doesn't even mean that piece of media is was what made me realise I was interested in the theme?

so I'm really not sure I can say that any particular piece of media was specifically formative to me!

four

recently I was reading a short story that said something intended to be weighted with meaning about the hollowness and frailty of bird bones....I was immediately like: bird bones are thin and hollow but strong for their size! they are dense and they have a better mass to strength ratio than mammal bones! your metaphoric resonances are wrong!

one

trying to flip between all the open tabs of my brain like "I know I left a thought in here somewhere that I wasn't done thinking yet, where'd I leave it? what was it about??"

two

tfw you read a REALLY good fic and go to the author's page and they're a prolific writer....for other fandoms. and that one fic is the singular fic they've written for your fandom 🥲

three

the time when I snap and install linux grows ever closer tbh

four

rereading what I've written in my cumplane (sqh/sqq) wingfic wip and just like grinning at my phone in glee, I love these assholes so much

did you know: I'm pretty good at writing!

five

sometimes you get up and get dressed and realise you do not own the correct neckwear for the outfit you set out, and there's nothing for it but to sew something new immediately

one

as of this coming saturday I will have been on tumblr for 13 years. that is so many years. how!!!

two

one of the small pleasures in life: sitting around with your partner, each of you working on your own hand-sewing/mending projects, and casually chatting about topics of mutual interest

three

I have now seen! flying squirrels!!!!! it's so cool that they're a mammal that exists on this world - and a mammal I can see in my country!

I need to start keeping a life list of all the mammals I see

four

another small pleasure: rereading my own fic sometimes and getting to be like, yeah that WAS a banger 😊

five

mdzs book club with verity has had 29 meetings. we started on january 20th of this year and are going strong. we're doing SO good. every book club meeting is a joy and delight! highly recommend the experience of doing a two-person book club with a good friend!

one

I spent good portions of last weekend watching all of fd signifier's 3.5 hour video about kendrick lamar and drake, and then several others of his videos about rap/hip hop and its history. and wow that was great stuff and I really learned a lot!

a good video essayist is a wonderful thing and I love when someone's passion draws me into learning stuff about something I would never have bothered to look into on my own. and seeing why it's worth that passion!

guess I've found yet another youtuber to enjoy and always be behind on watching their videos lol

two

reading about birds, as you do, and this description of the yellow rail (a very secretive bird) is so funny: "if you see the bird well enough to actually note the back pattern, it is probably not a yellow rail"

three

wen ning: perpetual outsider 😭 not human enough for the humans, not corpse enough for the corpses, he doesn't fit in and belong anywhere!

four

truly one of the things I am able to provide to fandom is: someone says they want to read some fics that do x thing. I go digging through my bookmarks and provide a comprehensive and annotated personalized rec list. I cannot be stopped from doing this actually! you might get recs whether you want them or not :P

one

oh!!!! the linkding github notified me that the code has been updated to allow for a default guest user profile, so that I can set things up so people looking at my shared bookmarks page can see things in a more useful form!!!

VERY exciting news that this functionality is going to be available. rn my linkding is great for me but it's really not a good UI for guests looking at my shared bookmarks

it looks like this update is going to be in the next release; it was committed the day after the most recent version of linkding was released. no rush for me to do this right away, then, as I need to wait for it to be included. but soon I will need to put aside time to see if the notes I left myself from my last update are good enough to be able to do another update smoothly!

two

hearing a nuthatch from my front porch always brings me joy

three

SHRIEKING.

I can do it!!! I can update my website! I have the power!!!

LOOK AT THIS.

I successfully logged into aviansoph.com via filezilla! and made my way through the very confusing directory of files, to find the ones that are for my main website instead of alllllll the linkding related stuff!

(filezilla's user instruction info online assumes you already understand the file structure of your own website, which is fair lol)

which meant that then I found my index file for my main page, and I'll be able to update that page and create more pages!

look out, world!!! aviansoph dot com is going to happen.

four

I have so many wonderful things in my life - partner, friends, household, house, community, hobbies, etc. and yes not everything is perfect, but damn I am lucky!

and I am so glad for all of you here who are part of my online community! 💖 you're one of those things I am lucky to have as a part of my life!!!

five

I'm willing to tentatively pronounce that my new strategy for keeping on top of dreamwidth is working pretty well -- so exciting! fingers crossed it stays that way!

one

amazing to think that when I got into birds a few years ago, I had to work hard to train my eyes to learn to notice and see birds. and it was so effective that now I genuinely have trouble believing how oblivious I was to the birds around me for all the years of my life before that!

I am now that xkcd comic about experts overestimating what the average person knows, lol

two

sometimes people are Wrong on the internet and you have to step away without engaging in trying to argue with them about it and it's just like. I'm so strong and powerful actually, for succeeding at that.

three

reading endless useless articles with the same three pieces of advice on how to handle task initiation when you have adhd is ALMOST the same thing as initiating the task you need to do, right???

four

writing tgcf fic just has endless space for exploring Gender and it's so good

five

sometimes you just gotta sew 1.5 alteration projects and then reread a known-fave fic about it*

*it being "your feelings"

one

it's wild to think how much of the span of my life I've been an internet/fandom person, in all the different ways I've done so over the years. I think I'm up to 24 years since I first got an account on a fannish forum!

two

something I would never ever have expected of myself from the first, like.....30+ years of my life. is that I'm enjoying finding ways of incorporating the colour pink into my wardrobe.

certain shades, and in certain ways -- it can really fit into the type of vibe I'm aiming for these days! I always avoided it when I was younger, and strongly disliked it as a child, because it was a "girly" colour and as a closeted-to-myself nonbinary person I was basically allergic to things that would make people see me as a standard-issue girl.

but there are ways to incorporate pink into outfits that don't make it read as "girl" but as "gay" and you know what. that's GREAT actually, it turns out!

three

bakkhai as translated by anne carson is SO MUCH FUN to put on in zoom theatre, highly recommend the experience

four

huh the master of demon gorge podcast episode about the chronicles of the eastern zhou kingdoms started with a history of the fiction genre in chinese, which is interesting to me because it comes quite directly out of a tradition of people writing down the stories they hear told in marketplaces and other informal contexts - which is to say, a tradition of folklorists. called the "school of small talk", and small talk is, I gather, still how novels are referred to today!

hello melding of my ur-special interest in folklore with my current interest in cnovels!!

five

this year's AOS announcement about bird species in north america has been released, and there's some big news! the common and hoary redpolls have been lumped into a single species! (along with the lesser redpoll)

from the various reading about redpolls I've done, I think this is a very good move, and I'm glad to see it's backed up with genetic analysis as well.

some of the other changes are very interesting too, but for me personally the redpoll news is the most exciting!

I was thinking again recently about how much I love a certain character type, which is typified by Death as played by Szabó P Szilveszter in the Hungarian version of the musical Elisabeth

an alien outsider, powerful, cold and restrained but with a depth of feeling, does not Get human emotions but can't help getting involved and intensely invested anyway in their own way. does things that would be considered bad or even evil from a human perspective but they don't have the framework to conceptualize their choices that way, and are acting according to their nature.

other characters of the type:

- the staryk lord, from Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

- Hun-Kamé, from Gods of Jade and Shadow by Moreno-Garcia, iirc?

- ok I actually struggle to think of others

but. what I want. what I really want. is this character type, but in a character who isn't gendered male!

(ok I will also take recs for more male versions bc I do just want more 😭 BUT.)

it's possible that what I want is just. more fiction about death gods. which would check out too tbh

LET WOMEN (AND BEINGS OUTSIDE THE GENDER BINARY) BE CREEPY PSYCHOPOMPS OK!!

one

WELL I now own an antique tatting shuttle so I guess lace making is something that could be in my future?

owning a tatting shuttle is something that could happen to anyone!

two

dang my dreaming mind went ALL in on creating a classic gothic narrative the other night. big manor house that you run away from as it goes up in flames and everything. good stuff!

three

writing is so cool and fun you guys!!!!

I just am NOT over how writing has become a fun hobby I LIKE TO DO ACTIVELY, instead of writing being something that I liked to /have done/

never would have thought that all those years of making myself write bc I liked to have written would lead me here to this place!!

four

last night I was reading a fic where tea-making and tea-drinking were so well described that I literally went to go reach for a mug of tea next to me. where there was no mug of tea because I had not made tea that evening!

five

the thing about listening to podcasts about birds is that they simultaneously fill me with joy and wonder about all the cool things I learn about birds, and also with despair as it inevitably comes up that so many species are threatened or at risk or in massive decline due to human activities, like climate change and pesticides and invasive species and commercial fishing practices, and so much more. it's heartbreaking!!

one

me every night: THIS is going to be the night I get it right and am asleep at a good and reasonable time

me every night, hours past bedtime, not yet in bed: it's a total mystery how this has happened yet again!

two

last week's podcast learnings: hang on, my personal nemesis Li Shimin wasn't the only emperor called Taizong, there was a Taizong emperor of the Song as well?!

*goes to wikipedia*

aha, same characters for Taizong for both Tang Taizong and Song Taizong, and it means "Great Ancestor", I'm picking up what's being put down here

three

me looking at fic tags saying "eroticised blood drinking" like okay I'm listening..... and then I notice the "alternate universe: vampires" tag and yeah nah I'm outtie

four

sometimes you see unknown birds flying over a distant treeline going about their business, and you get so emotional (positive) about how many birds there are beyond your ability to perceive, living their lives and doing their things, that tears come to your eyes!

five

whenever I spend extensive time outside in a healthy ecosystem, I'm amazed at the sheer variety of different insects I see. like, other than all the mosquitoes and deer flies, I hardly see two of the same species, and yet I'm constantly seeing bugs! it makes me want to know about all of them, which is an impossibility because there's SO many!

one

I really appreciate that on the lingthusiasm podcast, one of the two hosts is also canadian, so when they're talking about accent stuff then one of the points of reference will definitely involve canadian english

today I learned what the cot-caught merger actually entails, for example! and how most canadians have that merger but pronounce it distinctly differently from the US people with the merger, and so trying to figure out from written descriptions how to modulate your vowels to create the split doesn't make sense to the canadian ear when the explanations are written with a US accent in mind

(thank you also to the second host for being australian, without the cot-caught merger)

also! the bath-trap merger! which canadian english also has, and which specifically gets in the way of trying to figure out how to do british accents, lol.

because Gretchen, like me, knows that many varieties of british pronounce SOME "a" vowels more like "aw" but when you have this merger there's no sense of the distinction of which vowels get that pronunciation and which don't, so you're just kind of throwing "aw" at the wall when you're trying to imitate a british accent, without knowing which words to apply it to.

this makes SO much sense out of my struggle with parsing how british accents work. if you have a bath-trap split, there is a to-your-ear logical way of distinguishing which words get which vowel sound! it's not just random, and it's not that all of them are the same just with a different vowel sound than canadian english!

and then, the most interesting part of the recent episode about vowel sounds, they got into gender differences in how vowels are produced in english.

and cis straight men have less variance between their vowel spaces than all other populations - their vowels are mostly all closer to the middle!

so one of the features that makes a voice read male to english speakers is to not give your vowels any flair or flavour, lol

they also talked about trans men and women, gay men, lesbians, bisexual men and women, and nonbinary people, and how they approach their vowel sounds. (nonbinary people: we just do whatever we want!) I do wish they'd gone into more detail about EXACTLY what each of them does with their vowels, rather than what impressions people have of them and what other groups they're most like. because this is a fascinating subject. I also want to know more about the OTHER things these different gender and sexuality populations do differently from a linguistics perspective!

(and then I found a fascinating academic paper that covered a few more things about trans voices and it was great: http://lalzimman.org/PDFs/Zimman2018TransgenderVoices.pdf)

two

I briefly ventured a little back into the world of twitter and like, a) there's still some amazing fanart there! and cool people saying things! but b) dear god being psychically attacked by the sheer volume of ads/sponsored posts, plus the context collapse of graphic photos of rl atrocities next to cute fandom posts. all power to those of you who still make it work for you, but I don't know how I used to manage being there regularly.

three

there's a birding podcast where I've been enjoying going through the backlog of episodes, but I just got to an episode where the host and his guest of the week spend a large part of the episode talking about info they're getting specifically from chatgpt. they made a brief disclaimer that not all of it might be right, but then they went on to talk about it all at length without once doing any further research to back up what chatgpt told them, just taking it at face value. I found it so frustrating I had to skip the rest of the episode.

I was talking with a colleague earlier this week about chatgpt, and she's someone I both respect and like, but she had literally never considered that you can't trust the facts that generative ai gives you to be correct, and her mind was a little bit blown by that idea.

I think generative ai has applications where it can be a useful tool! providing facts is not one of them! I wish I knew how we could change the public discourse around what it is and what it can be used for .

four

I love writing fic, it's so much fun!!

five

personal complaint about omegaverse

I don't want to yuck anyone's yum around omegaverse, but for me.....ugh I HATE how it's a universe that is usually predicated on a notion of "the instinctual biological drive towards sex or need for sex is so powerful it cannot be overridden or denied"

like I get why that's hot and/or compelling to a lot of people, but for me as an ace person who has less than zero interest in having sex with anyone ever, it's such an othering universe to immerse myself in that it has a real lowering effect on my headspace whenever I try to read it

and I know that not all omegaverse does this, but so much of it does that it's a bit of a minefield to try to find the exceptions. and I have a mild to moderate dislike of sufficient other aspects of the omegaverse trope bouquet for it to not be worth it for me to try reading omegaverse fics

I should at least occasionally share some of my mastodon thoughts over here too, for those of you who aren't on mastodon! my dw is too much just reviews and recs and the occasional fanwork these days. okay, three things make a post:

1.

tfw you keep forgetting which of the wips you're subscribed to you're waiting until they're done to read, and which you're reading as they're published, and so you open and read a chapter of a fic and then realise you haven't read the last 2 chapters

well that would definitely explain why this chapter didn't feel like it led reasonably from where I remember the fic having been left off!! because it WASN'T SUPPOSED TO.

2.

my partner told me recently about seeing someone on Instagram asking what the classic millennial midlife crisis move was going to be because convertibles are out of date and cheating on your spouse is gross, and someone replied to the post with "building a craft room. a room, just for crafts." and like. holy shit. I am living the millennial DREAM. I love my new craft room. I love it so MUCH. I have had it for less than two months and I'm not even done setting it up, and already it feels indispensable

3.

I decided to add a rare fandom tag to my bookmarks on pinboard, so I went through all the fandoms I have bookmarked (MANY HUNDREDS) and it's so funny how much I needed to double-check on ao3 to discover whether or not they're rare fandoms.

me: well I only have one fic bookmarked for this fandom and I know literally nothing about the canon even through osmosis, it's probably rare.

the fandom: has more than 80,000 works on ao3.

It's fascinating sometimes to look back at my own history of fandoms I was once obsessed with, and notice the wide variety of possible current feelings about them.

Mostly there are three axes of note: do I ever bother to seek out fanworks for it or see myself doing so in the future, or am I no longer moved to do so? If a fanwork that looks like it has promise happens to cross my path, will I read it/watch it/look at it, or just scroll on by? Do I think of the fandom with fondness and nostalgia, or do I think to myself "well glad THAT'S out of my life now"? Within these three spectra, many options are possible; and there are even some special fandoms that break the system!

A tour of some of the big ones that fit my main schema:

Sutcliff fandom; Les Miserables; sparklefandom (hungarian musical theatre): no longer actively seek out, but I still love it dearly, and if I find myself reading a good fic for this fandom again, allllll my feels return instantly and I go feral over it again for at least the length of time it takes me to read the fic

The Witcher: Remember it fondly, and every now and then feel moved to go searching for more content because it's what I happen to be in the mood for, but if I'm not in the mood I won't bother to read the things that happen to cross my path

Highlander; Man from UNCLE (both original tv series and the movie remake); Star Trek; Star Wars; Yuri on Ice: won't seek out, but if something fun crosses my path, I'll take a look with pleased nostalgia

Bandom; Due South; Good Omens; Hamilton; American Idol RPF; Inception; The Sentinel; Stargate Atlantis; White Collar: won't seek out, unlikely to read even if something crosses my path, but I remember it with fondness

Teen Wolf: won't seek out, won't read if it crosses my path, am glad it's out of my life, and yet still remember it fondly

Hockey RPF; Sports Night; Supernatural RPF: yeah no.

Special cases:

Fairy tales: my first and forever fandom, I will never not care about it. I read folk tale collections semi-regularly still, and am always delighted to find good fanfic for any particular tale or for the genre in general.

Harry Potter: won't seek out, won't promote without major caveats, probably won't read, but if something unusually interesting crosses my path, I'll take a look with a sort of exhausted knowledge that it's the fandom that made me and it is dug deep into my psyche

MCU: totally burnt out on, will no longer read the fic, can no longer even put myself in the headspace of how I could have once cared, and yet still have a lingering fondness for Thor and the Thor movies

Fake News: ahahaha oh god. the horror of american politics since then makes the heyday of jon stewart's daily show and stephen colbert's colbert report feel like a different world, one I can no longer access

Doctor Who: Once upon a time it broke my heart in a very real way which took me years to get over, but now I have a very reasonable relationship with this show as my ex. I remember the good times fondly, and smile when I see a gif go by on tumblr, and am happy to hear that it has been doing fun and interesting things in recent times, and I scroll on by.