absoluteham - Tumblr blog

[absoluteham]

Growing up is actually all about realizing people don’t inherently dislike you and it’s a bit odd to assume they do

[absoluteham]

This drives me batshit insane when I want screenshots or gifs to post when talking to other fans. Even if I BOUGHT THE DAMN THING on like AppleTV or Prime, it's still blocked. WHY IS IT STILL BLOCKED. I OWN IT.

(I know, I know, owning isn't owning anymore. We live in a copyright dystopia. But IT'S SO DUMB.)

“To protect their copyright, streaming sites do not allow for screenshotting of any kind.”

Hey remember VHS where you bought a box to plug into your tv and you could legally record whatever was playing and then own it for free forever

[absoluteham]

Sometimes a family can be a recently opened cold one, an ace engineer, an ex-con priest, a lesbian pirate doctor, a survivalist expert with a tragic past, an emotional support himbo, a mad scientist, and a roomba.

[absoluteham]

I know my g-valves from my catalyzers, and I can keep your ship singing.

[absoluteham]

On being an older fangirl

I was probably 10 years old when I first conceived of what was, looking back, fanfiction. Me and my best friend would lie in bed together on sleepovers and I'd make up stories about what happened after the end of our favorite book, "The Westing Game." She'd ask me for more stories, and I'd tell her more, inventing them as I went along. "Then what?" she'd say.

I was 14 when I went to my first convention. I had discovered Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was 1987, and my youth pastor was a huge Trekkie. He took me to a one-day crappy Creation con, but it was amazing to me. I met Nichelle Nichols. My dad showed me the Trek movies. He and I watched TNG together.

When I went to college in 1991, my dad used to videotape TNG episodes onto VHS tapes and mail them to me, so I could keep watching (I didn't have TV in my dorm room).

By the time I was a senior, we had Trek watching parties in the dorm lounge, where the TV had cable. Star Trek: Voyager had started up, and I wrote a column about it for the college newspaper. I joined a mailing list about it, with people in it that I still know today.

I got my first computer that could go online in 1995. I was on newsgroups. I discovered Doctor Who. I went to Trek conventions where we still passed around fanzines containing fic and art and smutty K/S fan creations.

Then it was Harry Potter. Then there were websites. Then there was Geocities, where we could all make our own little spots. We organized them into webrings. We talked on newsgroups and mailing lists. There were fanfic archives. Then there was fanfiction.net.

Then...there was LiveJournal. And we could interact in entirely new ways. We could form communities, and debate things, and fight over canon, and get into ship wars. On LiveJournal, I met my best friend of 22 years. I was in her wedding. She's my sister of the heart (which is what she calls me).

Then there was Tumblr. And Twitter. And now there's Discord. But it's all the same.

I am the same.

I am still that little girl who made up fanfiction in her head to entertain her best friend. I am still the one who was amazed to find communities on the internet - which was so new, so raw, so uncommodified - where others like me could meet. I found there people to meet in real life.

I am still that twentysomething going to her first major convention, being told that someone loved my fic, being asked about my writing process.

I am still that thirtysomething watching something I wrote blow up. Seeing friends from other fandoms find me in new ones, finding them there, too. Forgetting which fandom I know someone from, because I've known them for twenty years.

I still know some of the people who created those early websites, those mailing lists, those archives. I still meet people in new fandoms who say "Oh, I read your fic in [fandom] fifteen years ago!" There's no feeling quite like having someone remember something you wrote for that long. Or meeting someone whose fic meant a lot to YOU, or who you talked with on rec.arts.drwho.creative in 1997.

Aging in fandom is a gift. Being middle-aged in fandom is a joy. Having people who still read what I write and ask "Then what?" is a blessing.

It breaks my heart that so many people see it as something to be ashamed of, when it is one of my life's greatest gifts.

[absoluteham]

Red Lucy probably

[absoluteham]

I must not mock Gen Alpha. Mocking Gen Alpha is the mind killer. Mocking Gen Alpha is the little-death that brings total generational solidarity obliteration. I will engage with Gen Alpha lovingly. I will permit them to be cringe. And when they grow up I will turn my eye to their accomplishments. Where mocking has gone there will be nothing. Only generational solidarity remains

[absoluteham]

Me, on the welcome desk in the library: Good morning, how are you today?

Customer: I have welcomed Jesus into my heart and so I am well today and every day.

Me, a little unnerved: Okay then! Is there something I can help you with?

Customer, digging around in his bag and pulling out an iPhone in a box: Unfortunately, Jesus can't help me with this fucking phone, so I came to the library.

[absoluteham]

“I used to say: ‘I like to watch TikTok, or YouTube.’ But I don’t really like to describe myself that way anymore. Because if you think about it, that’s not really something you do. It’s just something that pulls you in. It made me feel connected. Like, I know this person. But I really didn’t know them at all. And I’d sit at home getting sucked into this endless void of whatever I was watching. Windows closed, AC on. My dad would say: ‘Go outside and do something, it builds character.’  Most of the time he’d only say it because he wanted me to take out the trash, or go on an errand with him. So for a long time I didn’t think it meant anything. But it really does, if you think about it. Because every time you do something, it adds to who you are. You learn from life. Recently I joined a group called The Veggie Nuggets. There’s seven of us: me, my friends, a couple neighbors. We made a mural. We made a garden over by 69th and the bridge. We lobbied a little bit at the capital for climate change, because it’s kinda a disaster. I had to develop a certain mindset when I did those things. I had to affirm to something. I had to be motivated. And that’s a real thing,  motivation. It’s a trait. And now it’s part of my character.”

[absoluteham]

Yaaaaas 😍

[absoluteham]

[absoluteham]

Yeehawgust, Day 4: Dead Man’s Hand

“Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.”

[absoluteham]

[absoluteham]

The devastating difference between how much time it takes to write something vs how fast people read it lol

[absoluteham]

___ and Taxes

In celebration(?) of tax season, I decided to see if I could find the weirdest tags to go ALONG with “Taxes.” Readers, there are some GEMS. (And like… a somewhat surprising variety of smut…)

[absoluteham]

[absoluteham]

They deserve everything