#this one is a livejournal post from 2005. good to know people were sharing their terrible utena takes online when i was 2 years old

[transmascutena]

oh and here i was thinking it had something to do with akio being a groomer and a rapist. and perhaps also the whole fucking her mom behind her back thing. clearly i don't understand the show as well as i thought

[prettyoddfever]

Tumblr glitched while I was trying to answer this, but thankfully I took a screenshot of everything before refreshing because I legit cannot find that draft or question anywhere now, sorry. So here we go again...

I'll link to the post here. (btw any annoyance that might seep into my tone in my recent answers is NOT directed at the actual people asking... y'all are lovely). So that post is done in a very similar tone to the Ryden primers that the pre-split fandom posted, but I'm getting the sense that this is very very different... like that person seems to actually believe the content that they're posting is straight up facts (and even if they don't, the fact that you're referring to it as "infamous" probably implies that other people are at least treating it as real facts, so I'm still going to address it like the tone is serious). Here's an explanation of how the majority of the fandom used to view Ryden.

A lot of their pictures no longer show up, so I'm going to leave a wayback screen recording here for reference:

I'll just comment as I go through it if I have something to add:

I suppose that the tone of someone's comments is open to interpretation, so idc as much about whether those are misread or not.

That supposed AIM convo was shared as a myspace bulletin by Brent's brother Blake during the summer 2006 season when he was trying to stir up shit and was busy posting other inaccurate info too. I'm just saying to take it with a grain of salt. 

Ryan’s lj post on 9/27/05 was about the release of AFYCSO that day. He talked a lot in interviews that season about how it was weird for him to see so many fans singing his lyrics back to him.

uhh most of the pictures that this person lists "from this era" of 2004/2005 are actually from 2006. so they definitely know what they're talking about here lol.

they list one of Ryan's livejournal posts and then say "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I know it was some time in 06." It was from June 24, 2006. 

lol Audrey.

re: the Myrtle Beach theory

why is the part where Ryan called Brendon a golden god in late 2006 any different than when Brendon said this about Spencer that same season?

re: the 2006 mic-sharing & stage gay

fans would positively scream when Ryan & Brendon approached each other, especially in the last half of 2006. this moment in Munich in October 2006 seemed no different... the guys absolutely knew what they were doing.

the VMA performance just seemed like Ryan was still using Brendon as a safe space to look at so he wouldn't stare at his feet or guitar, but that is still very much something you could turn into a Ryden thing so carry on haha.

about the Rolling Stone interview

I'm laughing at the "squint a little harder" comment about finding Ryden content in 2008. That is so accurate. 

re: Dylan's myspace (yes, Keltie ran a myspace for Hobo that anyone could grab pics from).

Ryan absolutely sounds like he's saying dude... also that would be normal.

the picture of the bracelet is normal

I'm just going to link to this post since it addresses many similar inaccurate points about early 2009.

I was about to side eye them so hard for posting the Lana Jade letter as real, but at least they added that she made multiple posts explaining that it wasn't her. And yes, obviously Brendon's best friend was Shane (not Ryan).

omg Ryan's tattoos are not about Brendon. Those are Tom Waits lyrics. Ryan was good friends with Thomas Dutton. About a year before getting the tattoos, Ryan was hanging out with him on tour in the UK and later told Kerrang that “a friend of mine in Forgive Durden turned me on to Tom Waits when we were in the UK… I’ve been listening to him ever since. His voice is so rough and dark. I’d never really heard anything like that.”

the sharing beds idea was misunderstood in the Billboard interview... all 4 guys slept on bunkbeds in the same room when they were recording AFYCSO. That's what Brendon's referring to.

re: the Bishop Gorman tshirt… Ryan was hardly that size in high school. But Brent went to Bishop Gorman too (and so did Paulina, who was also friends with Brendon). Brendon did borrow some of Brent’s stuff in 2004/2005 (like money for food while they were first touring). Just saying… it's def interesting, but it’s not an automatic Ryden connection.

I didn't read Spencer's tone in that out.com interview the same way... there's some relevant bits in this post.

about the red shirt

here's my general tag for Ryden stuff

[emilieautumnarchives]

a light in the dark...

Posted: January 21, 2005 Archived from The BonnyTymePyrate LiveJournal

It is just after 7 am, and I'm waking up after having fallen asleep only two hours ago, and I felt compelled to write thoughts down, because this is when all the good stuff happens...

My keyboard's not lit up, and it's dark in here, so there are lots of typos I will have corrected by the time you see this...

My life is a whirlwind of action and emotion these days. So many things undone that were to be done, things put on hold, things going forward that were never even to be...and guess what I've done right at the height of it all? That's right, I've dropped the Zoloft. Not the medically, intellectually smart thing to do, I completely realize, but I had to listen to that feeling deep n my gut that says "do something," so I did, and I've been off it for about two weeks now. Every day is a range of emotional and physical tests for me, the dizziness, the lack of focus, the mental confusion, the general anti-depressant withdrawal, and I'm dealing with it without complaint, and have not gone into the state of extreme darkness that would normally have accompanied such a withdrawal/descent back into unmedicated depression. I am committed wholeheartedly to my health, I'm not abandoning myself...I will utilize herbalists, therapists, anything it takes to get to a state of happiness or at least manageable unhappiness through more natural means, and if that doesn't work, then I'll go back to plan A but at least I will have tried. I always appreciate advice and tales of successful release from medication, so feel free to share what has worked for those of you who have been in this spot before.

In the meantime, Opheliac is temporarily on hold as I am moving residences and am currently staying with friends - lovely times, but not the studio I was used to working in, so I'm a bit displaced. Things will get back on track and be better than ever, I just need to regroup, it'll just take a moment. The heightened emotion these days brings endless fodder for writing and thus new songs, but the last thing Opheliac needs is more songs...

Then there is work on the upcoming albums of friends, something I'm spending more time on than my own, but that's because they have major label deadlines and I don't;) C'est la vie... But music will be made, and life will be lived, and oranges will be cloved, and so on and so forth.

My eyes are beginning to go into sleep zone again, time to cut this soliloquy short.

Do you ever get that feeling that you've jumped off the Bridge of Sighs and you are falling downwards through the air, but you don't know if you'll hit the water or the rocks, you only know you're falling? That's where I am, in all it's stupid poetic glory.

I realize that not everyone gets my quirky/random/morbid sense of humor, and this saddens me, because I didn't think it was all that difficult to follow, but I suspect otherwise at times. Humor is so important to every relationship, and it is so polarizing as well in it's ability to divide by what one finds funny... One can change their mind, their behavior, but I cannot imagine being able to change that part of me that has random thoughts and says them out loud, or finds the potential for laughter in feminist poetry or a basket of fruit...that is what it is. I know I'm weird, but at least I don't ever pretend to be otherwise...I wear tea bags on my head, and I've got pics to prove it...I don't back down from challenges, and I always take a dare, that's my weakness perhaps. All aside, people's reactions to "me" never cease to surprise me, and I'm not getting any more normal here!;)

I received a bunch of fan presents from you guys the other day, I will go into detail later, but I love and am endlessly grateful your gestures, I truly am. Thank you!!!

I think I can try sleeping now, wish me luck...

Oh, but I should say that the baroque violin on the Corgan's album track is amazing, we left it dry against all the rock elements so that you can really hear the contrast and you feel the physicality of the playing and the woodiness of the instrument...I am very proud of how it's turning out. Back into the studio tomorrow...on two hours sleep...what's new?

This is to prove the "wearing tea bags on my head" statement, but at least I'm not the only one - there are those who would jump into the fire of public scorn with me as you can see:

Loving you all, EA

[olderthannetfic]

I was going to wait on Stargate Atlantis since I just posted about SG1, but it turns out I have more bad news to share.

Wraithbait is gone.

Both Area 52 and Wraithbait. Jesus. So much for early Stargate fic!

SGA, as it is often abbreviated, followed SG1 in the Stargate franchise. Slash fandom’s focus was largely on John Sheppard and Rodney McKay. John is an ace pilot. Rodney is a hypochondriac scientist. They’re both total dorks.

As cheesy sci-fi, SG1 and SGA are pretty similar. As fandoms, however, there’s quite a difference:

SGA hit just enough later that it attracted tons of livejournal-based fans I knew who had never dipped a toe in SG1 fandom. It was a Fandom That Ate Fandom, draining the BNF writers from all over slash-dom.

Being a little later also meant that it has exponentially more good vids online. I always kind of resented SGA fandom for eclipsing my beloved SG1, but I sure do love the vids!

One of the more famous ones to show at Vividcon is Another Sunday by Jescaflowne. Youtube has it region-blocked all to hell, but it’s still up and probably viewable through the usual sketchy means.

And how could I not share the glorious crack of Soccer Practice by bironic, a rare slash vid showing off hottie Jason Momoa as Ronon Dex. On AO3 here.

For the juggernaut ship, no vid could be more in-character for melodramatic Rodney than Grace Kelly by Diana Williams:

SGA was squarely in the Livejournal era, and a lot of fans from back then have migrated to AO3. Its influence on modern AO3-ish fandom is tremendous, as I’m sure half of you reading this can attest better than I.

One effect on a more meta level was to make female fandom more irate than ever over TPTB being sexist little shits. Reportedly, SGA attracted too many female fans for the showrunners’ comfort, and they wanted to retool their franchise as SGU, a darker and edgier version designed to attract a more BSG reboot-like audience.

Needless to say, when you’re a franchise that’s good at putting aliens in gold lamé bikinis rather than at coherent writing, going darker and edgier does not work.

SGU was a miserable flop, the entire Stargate franchise stalled, and SGA slash fandom developed an enduring hateboner for TPTB.

At Escapade, SGA has had a steady presence from 2005 through to the present. Past panels include:

2006 - First Marriage of Classic and Postmodern Fandoms? (Are we writing fanfic for the show, or are most stories just meta versions of stories from older fandoms, and commenting on each other comments? Remember when people complained all we had was hummus? All SGA has is crack(fic).)

2007 - John Sheppard: Psychokiller or Pretty, Pretty Princess (From mild-mannered sci-fi geek to special-ops xenocide, John Sheppard is one of the prettiest psychopaths in two galaxies. Which is the 'real' Sheppard? Can these two personalities be reconciled? How does this dichotomy in canon affect how we choose to portray him in fanfic?)

2008 - Crackfic, AUs, and Characterization, Oh My! (SGA canon is full of AUs and crack. Do the show's wacky plot twists encourage us to boldly go further out than other fandoms have gone before? And what happens when we go AU: why are John, Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla so recognizable even when they're planted in Harlequin romance, NASCAR, a symphony orchestra, or a diner in Maine?)

2009 - On a Clear Day, I Can See the Pegasus Galaxy (How are you feeling about the end of SGA-relief or regret? Are you looking forward to the rumored film(s), or planning to be snuggled up with your favorite fic that night? Have you ever been part of an active fandom whose canon closed, and do you have any thoughts (or advice!) about how to keep the fannish energy going? Let's discuss our hopes, fears and fondest dreams for the future of the fandom.)

2011 - Stargate: The End? (We were charmed by the original movie concept, many of us were fannishly enslaved by the first television series, others were entranced by Atlantis and some of us even tuned in for Universe. Are we ready to let the Stargate concept go or are we sitting on the edges of our seats, anxiously awaiting the next incarnation?)

2012 - SGA: Rodney and John: What We See is Not What We Get (We know we're adding slash to whatever's on the screen. With McShep, we really know. John the MENSA/slacker who knows how to fit in chasing brilliant yet obnoxious Rodney? How the Hell did we ever think they wouldn't kill each other, John with his P-90 or Rodney with his brain? Come prepared to argue the pros and cons of Sheppard and McKay, support your favorite character, and argue why Ronon is/isn't damned hotter than either of them.)

2013 - The Cool Kid and the Geek (Rodney loves John because John is sexy-handsome, lithe-and-cat-like, athletic, brave, and ridiculously pretty. He's also one of the Cool Kids, so, yeah, Rodney might fall hard. But Rodney is not sexy-handsome, lithe-and-cat-like, athletic, brave, nor ridiculously pretty. He’s the Geek, so why is John drawn to him? Come argue your point!)

2017 - Stargate: Classic Fandom Flashback

2018 - Stargate: Ten Years On

SGA on Fanlore

SGA on AO3

SGA on FFN

[traincat]

Can you share why you like the 2015 Fantastic Four movie?

Must a superhero movie be “good”? Is it not enough for a superhero movie to criticize the US military, large?

Okay, seriously, a little bit of background in three points: 1) I followed this movie from the beginning. Through the casting, through the reshoots, through the cryptic articles about how the movie would feature an unexpected romance that turned out to be right but not how we all thought -- I’m pretty sure a Ben/Sue cut of this movie exists somewhere, but it’s hard to argue that the only romantic subplot that exists in the finished film is... Ben/Reed, so. I got excited over stuff in the trailers that was cut from the finished movie entirely. I analyzed the hell out of previews. I almost stole a theater stand but it wouldn’t have fit in my friend’s trunk. I, no joke, bought the Fantastic Four peanut butter. And I had friends who were also excited for the movie, so we were having fun together. So the anticipation definitely has a part in my enjoyment of the movie. “Even though it came like that?” Oh, 100%. 2) I really like Ultimate Fantastic Four, a bad comic, so in a way I was primed to already be like “must a movie be “good?” Must it not simply give me the Mole Man?” (It did not give me the Mole Man.) Fant4stic is much more heavily influenced by Ultimate Fantastic Four than it is by 616 Fantastic Four, especially in its Reed and his relationships with Ben and with Franklin Storm and the think tank. Finally, 3) I really, really dislike the 2005/2007 movies. I think they’re flashy, sexist, shallow hot garbage pieces of filmmaking and I hold Chris Evans’ Johnny from all angles -- writing, styling, performance -- largely responsible for a wide fandom perception of Johnny Storm as a hotheaded playboy. I like Reed and Alicia but that’s basically it. 

And I can -- and have already -- gone over Fant4stic’s faults. It’s very clear that the movie largely falls apart after the time skip, but especially during the final battle, which is messy to the extreme. The extensive reshoots messed with the overall product to the point where you can pinpoint while watching what comes from which shoot, though that’s in part to the horrendous wig they put on Sue to cover up that Kate Mara had cut her hair for a different movie in-between. Josh Trank’s dogs did $100,000 worth of property damage, somehow, during filming. So I’m going to talk about what I like about Fant4stic, and here’s a really big thing: as superhero movies go, it’s different.

There’s something I hear a lot in discussions about Spider-Man films, when someone goes, “No, it wasn’t a good Spider-Man movie, but it was a good superhero movie.” Which is something I take issue with because how are we defining what makes a superhero movie good? And what people seem to think makes a superhero good is the MCU’s general formula -- not necessarily the content of their movies, but formula with which they’re devised, which does, it’s fair to say, make for a big office winner, too. And what the MCU does is it makes superhero action movies. It plays around a little with genre -- Captain America: The First Avenger is a war movie, but it’s an action war movie. Guardians of the Galaxy is a space action movie. Ant-Man is a heist action movie. It’s spun its Spider-Man movies as coming of age stories, but they’re action movies. This becomes a problem for a viewer (me, I’m the viewer) if you don’t really love action movies all that much.

In no way, shape, or form can anyone make the claim that Fant4stic is an action movie. Its one big superhero fight scene is a complete and utter failure and probably the worst scene -- probably because it was never meant to be in there. Fant4stic was meant to be a horror movie with a superhero angle, which isn’t all that surprising considering it was directed by Josh “Chronicle” Trank. And I’m really into using big superhero properties to explore other genres -- Logan’s dystopian western, TASM/2′s romance. Fant4stic’s horror. Some of the best parts of the movie are the ramping up to the accident. You know it’s coming. You know it’s going to go horribly wrong. You know Ben, in particular, played with a quiet but longing stoicness by Jamie Bell pre-transformation (and the only film Ben to be acknowledged on-screen as Jewish), is about to be, pardon the pun, doomed. And then there’s the utter horror of the aftermath: Johnny, apparently a burnt out shell, lying in the wreckage as Ben screams for Reed for to help him. Reed crawling through the smoldering chaos only to look back and see that his legs are still pinned under the wreckage. That’s good. A version of the film was apparently screened before the reshoots and the test audience found it “too dark” and I desperately want to see that cut.

In addition to Fant4stic’s horror angle, there’s the villain of the piece: the US military. Doom, despite showing back up last minute looking like lovechild of Annihilus and a melted toy soldier -- Annihilus was supposed to be an initial villain in the film, so the resemblance likely isn’t accidental -- isn’t the true villain of the piece. If anything, young ecoterrorist Victor who just wants to rule his own planet is kind of a charming concept. But the villain of the piece is the military, who wants to use the gate for their own purposes. The military imprisons Ben, Johnny, and Sue after their transformation and explicitly uses Ben as a killing machine. When Harvey Allen approaches Ben, he convinces him Reed’s abandoned him, and that he has to “play ball” with the government. Johnny’s youthful enthusiasm and longing to belong places him in similar danger -- Sue and Franklin explicitly talk about how, if they don’t do something, Johnny’s going to be used as a weapon. One of my favorite lines in the film is when Reed is brought back to the compound to see his reworked invention: “You made it ugly.” The film backs off on this at the very end -- it doesn’t stick the landing like TASM/2 does, where the ultimate villain that spawns the actual superpowered villains is consistently Oscorp’s abuses -- but it does better highlighting this than a vast swathe of other superhero films: the bad guy isn’t Doom. Doom isn’t the one who tortures Ben. Doom isn’t the one who remakes the gate with the express purpose of breeding super soldiers. It’s the military.

I also really like the characters within the film. I don’t think this is going to be hugely surprising to my followers, but really all you need to do to make me like a Fantastic Four adaptation is nail Johnny Storm, and Fant4stic nailed Johnny Storm. I think Michael B Jordan was really terrific casting, and I’m sad we didn’t get to see more of him in the roll, because he was great at portraying Johnny’s insecurities and his vulnerability, making his occasional moments of swagger charming instead of oily, like when he blows a kiss to a rival racer. Introducing Johnny with a drag race -- and with Standing in the Shadows of Love, which is a great Johnny song, and I love how music is a big thing for both Storm siblings -- established his ability with cars and his talent for building things, letting the audience know that Johnny is smart and capable, it’s just that he doesn’t feel like he is. I love this Sue, too, serious and blunt and a little awkward, incredibly smart and far more inclined to hold a grudge than her brother. I love how she’s styled -- her clothes are normal and her makeup is realistically minimal, not movie-minimal. There’s no scene where Fant4stic’s Sue has to strip off her clothes to use her powers, or where a sexy nurse exists so Johnny can hit on her and the audience can get their recommended fifteen minutes of female objectification.

Ben is, as he often is in Fantastic Four pieces, a standout, of course, and Jamie Bell gives a great performance, both anguished and full of rage and resentment and at the same time love for Reed, but it’s his design I love the best. The 2005/2007 Thing design is cartoonish -- the 2015 is monstrous. I love the first few Thing scenes where Ben seems to have trouble moving, dragging himself across the floor, because you get a sense of how incredibly heavy his new form is and how difficult it is to exist in it beyond just looking like a rock creature. The horror of the superhero transformation is built into Ben Grimm at his core, but here it doesn’t manifest in a lost fiance or children screaming on the street but in the difficulty with which he moves, the new grinding note of his voice, vocal chords landsliding together. It’s some really terrific work. And while I think Ioan Gruffudd’s Reed was actually a pretty perfect 616 Reed (more’s the shame about the rest of the films), the Reed of Fant4stic is Ultimate Reed in the beginning through and through. The precocious genius of his childhood, misunderstood by everyone but Ben until Franklin Storm sees him, the scene where he takes the kid’s model airplane and awkwardly apologizes afterwards (the “you’re a dick” line IS funny), his awkward attempts to connect with Sue, his attempts to connect with Victor. Like Sue, he’s straightforward and blunt. The way he isolates himself in his attempt to fix things. How gross his powers are in motion. The aforementioned “you made it ugly” line. I really do like him as a Reed. And Victor... Victor is hilarious. I’m sorry, but it’s true. I was on board back when they were like “he’s a blogger, he’s a gamer” like I was 100% down to see Doom’s tortured neon green on black LiveJournal screeds, and opening on Victor unwashed in the dark playing video games? Hilarious. Victor seeing glowing green energy and immediately going “I’m gonna f*ck it”? Superb. Is this a good Doom interpretation? Maybe not, but it was entertaining. I think they could’ve gone full Ultimate and put little metal hooves on him post-transformation, granted. It’s not the Doom I want for any upcoming Doom projects -- I want my science wizard monarch -- but I can’t say I don’t like the character that Fant4stic gave me.

Fant4stic is an imperfect film, but I’d rather have an imperfect film with characters and themes that I like and one that did something different than a perfect film made with the same old formula and the same jokes on the same beats.

Also, if anyone’s curious, since Fant4stic has no DVD commentary (a crying shame on so many levels), @johnnystormcast recorded our own in our Giant Size Annual and you can download it to watch along with our thoughts, which are very deep and not at all mostly about how Ben and Reed are in love in the film.

[p-and-p-admin]

Interview given to The Severus Snape and Hermione Granger Shipping Fan Group.  (sharing here Admin approved)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/199718373383293/

Hello Subversa and welcome to Behind the Quill, thank-you for letting us get to know you a little better.

Many of our members will be familiar with your stories which include This Time, Improbable Felicity and of course, The Love You Take.

Okay, let’s jump right in.

What's the story behind your pen name?

My tagline on LiveJournal was Subversive Subversions, and that kind of says it all about me. I like to stir the pot

Which Harry Potter character do you identify with the most?

I identify most with Hermione, the book-loving swot. Oddly enough, on the various Sorting tests I’ve taken, I always Sort into Ravenclaw. (Until I took the Pottermore test, where I Sorted into Slytherin; I blame years of living in Snape’s head).

Do you have a favourite genre to read? 

I grew up reading voraciously. My first genre of choice was romance. As an adult, I began reading thriller/suspense books, and I really didn’t come back to reading romance until I began writing fanfic.

Do you have a favourite "classic" novel?

It would be a toss-up between Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Jane Eyre. I see shades of SSHG in them all.

At what age did you start writing?

I took my first run at writing when I was eight years old. My parents, however, discouraged the idea of me being a writer, and even though I started a number of stories over the years, I never finished one until I began writing fanfic in my forties.

How did you get into writing fanfiction?

It was in April 2005, while I was impatiently waiting for HBP to be published. I was noodling around the Internet and I stumbled over Mugglenet. As I was gobbling up all the content, I found a link to their fanfiction.

I perused the genres, and under romance, I found the pairings. When I saw SSHG, I was horrified. So of course, I had to read something.

I read The Long Wait by ancientgirl, and I couldn’t stop. I was completely enchanted, and I thought to myself, “I could do this.” So I started writing Master of Enchantment.

I have to say that Potterverse, and specifically the SSHG fandom, became my obsession and occupied all my thoughts for several years. I pretty much read nothing but fanfic and did continual re-reads of the HP series during that time--this from a woman who previously read 3 novels a week.

What's the best theme you've ever come across in a fic? Is it a theme represented in your own works?

JKR may not know it, but her greatest creation is Severus Snape, the antagonistic protagonist.

I have always been driven by Snape’s plight. It is the theme I am most drawn to in stories I read. Over and over again through my years of active fanfic writing, I tried to give him redemption and the happiness he deserves.

What fandoms are you involved in other than Harry Potter?

I watched the birth and rise of the Sherlock BBC fandom on LiveJournal, and I saw a number of friends go over to that particular dark side. I read some of the fic, but was never tempted to write it.

As a favour to a friend, I wrote a Twilight fanfic story for a gift exchange on LiveJournal (it was awful).

So, Potterverse is really my only fandom.

If you could make one change to canon, what would it be? Do you have a favourite piece of fanon?

I basically hated book 7. The whole Deathly Hallows thing felt like something JKR introduced out of thin air. I hated the interminable camping trip. I hated the epilogue (except for “and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew”) and the idea that you must marry the person you crushed on in high school.

Mostly, of course, I hated the death of Snape.

So my change would be to have Snape survive, be vindicated in the eyes of the world, and live to earn the happiness he had never known before.

My favourite fanon thing is the myriad ways we have of making Snape survive Nagini’s attack.

Do you listen to music when you write or do you prefer quiet?

I always listen to music. Every piece I have ever written has its own soundtrack. I have piles of CDs from the time before I had an iPod, with the name of the current story I was writing scrawled on it in Sharpie. The longer pieces had soundtracks that evolved over the course of the story. There are songs that still pierce me with the memories of what I felt when I wrote. Music is an integral part of my process.

What are your favourite fanfictions of all time?

Wow. This is a hard question. I’m sure that any list I create will be missing an important story. Nevertheless, here are some, in no particular order:

Care of Magical Creatures

She Was Beautiful to Him

Guard... Check... Mate

Second Life

Big Name Death Eater

Marry a Choice

The Absinthe of Reason

I'll Never Take Advantage

Irresistible

The Bookshop

The Price of Madness

King of Swords

Denial

No Loyalty in the Moonlight

You Can't Have One Without The Other

The Language of Flowers

Are you a plotter or a pantser? How does that affect your writing process?

I am a total pantser. It means I can write myself into a corner and have to write myself out again.

What is your writing genre of choice?

Forever and always, romance. Often with a side of erotica.

Which of your stories are you most proud of? Why?

Transcendent Quality of Remembrance, because there were two timelines running and it was an intricate plot device. It is also one of the most heart-wrenching stories I’ve ever written.

Did it unfold as you imagined it or did you find the unexpected cropped up as you wrote? What did you learn from writing it?

I have to admit, the unexpected always crops up as I write. I’m one of those people who believe without apology in my Muse.

As for what I learned, I found that writing the entire story before trying to post it meant the story would hang together better without me having to write myself out of a corner. I probably went back and changed the first chapter seven or eight times due to developments in the plot.

How personal is the story to you, and do you think that made it harder or easier to write?

Everything I write is intensely personal to me. I am immersed in my story, and I feel every emotion. It is the only way I have ever written. I don’t think I could write something I didn’t feel. So it’s neither easier nor harder. It is what it is.

What books or authors have influenced you? How do you think that shows in your writing?

Georgette Heyer, who wrote a large number of Regency romances, was and is a huge influence on my writing. I think I absorbed her turns of phrase and plot devices and romantic hero figures through my skin. It absolutely shows in my writing.

Do people in your everyday life know you write fanfiction?

Not my coworkers or family outside of my husband and children. My best friend knows I write fanfic.

How true for you is the notion of "writing for yourself"?

For me, it’s the only way I can do it. I have to be consumed by the basic idea and let it live in me as I write. I write the stories I want to read about the subjects that fascinate and inspire me.

How important is it for you to interact with your audience? How do you engage with them? Just at the point of publishing? Through social media?

During my active fanfic writing years, I was immersed with my audience. At that time, SSHG Fandom pretty much lived in LiveJournal, and I was active there every day. I was not very good at answering reviews, but I tended to put author’s notes before and/or after chapters as a way of engaging with my readers.

What is the best advice you've received about writing?

To write the story I want to read. To fall in love with my protagonist.

What do you do when you hit writer's block?

Walk away from the computer and pick up a pen and pad of paper.

Has anything in real life trickled down into your writing?

Many, many things about my romance with my husband were fodder for the romances I’ve written.

Do you have any stories in the works? Can you give us a teaser?

I am striving to complete my first novel of original fiction. It’s the beginning of a trilogy. All have been written (first draft), and the first has been to a professional editor. I���m striving to complete a draft with her suggestions.

It’s about a swotty girl and her teacher. (shock)

They live in a magical world with conflict. (further shock)

There is lots of sex with a BDSM twist.

The protagonist is (in my heart) Severus Snape in disguise. He has his own brand of physical unattractiveness and a mesmerizing presence.

Any words of encouragement to other writers?

Write what’s in your heart. Use a good beta reader. Take constructive criticism in the spirit it is offered. Ignore trolls.

Thanks so much for giving us your time.

[thedeepdarktrashpile]

Ryden conspiracy theories/evidence/pls just be frens now...+ a short history of P!atd...(part 1)

DISCLAIMER I find all of this stuff on the internet so idk if it's yours just tell me and I will make sure you get credited anyways onwards...

Oh and another thing I don't hate Sarah. Sarah is a queen and Brendon and her are happy and I wouldn't want to ruin a happy couple cos that would be unfair anyhow oh and I also think it's important to have a bit of Panic! history that many people might not know about as it gives you an idea of the kind of time frame that im talking about also its intresting too.

And if u don't know what Ryden is (tbf idk why ur here but this will educate u) it's basically the ship name of Ryan Ross (ex guitarist and backing vocalist of panic!) and Brendon Urie (singer and last man standing)

Pre-Panic

Ryan Ross and Spencer Smith (ex-drummer of Panic!) have been friends even since they were little the photo below would prove this

They're so adorable 😊😊

In 9th grade they decide that they want to start up a band btw for reference Ryan and Spencer at that time attend (Bishop Gorman high school) and they invite Brent Wilson from Palo Verde high school to come and try out for bass along with another guy called Trevor they formed a band called Pet Salamnder this was when they were around 16 ish (They acctually still have a website for the band and you can go check it out if you want)

There some of the pics on the website but check out their bios as well because they made me laugh....

Here are some of their pics tho

Spencer and Ryan and the whole band together (Ryan😂😂)

Anyways don't really know what happened to Pet Salamander but in short they kind of lost Trevor (don't know correct me if im wrong but I think Trevor was the guitarist in the way things worked out it would make sense and I think there was another band they created in between these 2 bands but idk its not important) The band now needed a new guitarist. Brent who went to the same high school as Brendon told him he should audition for their band so Brendon did just that and became the guitarist. Orginally Ryan was meant to be the lead singer but Brendon then became the lead singer because they heard him do his singing and they though he was good. At the time especially Ryan and Brendon were having a hard time with their families and their education as they wanted to quit high school and as a result I think they both got kicked out of their houses . Brendon got a job at a smoothie shack to try and earn some money to pay for rent. He also would sing to people for tips. In other words they were hella broke.

Here is a screenshot from Ryan's livejournal (which he has now deleted) where Brendon would post underneath

I love ya' baby! wednesday. practice. be there of be....GAY!!

Brendon 😂😂

Anyways Ryan and Brendon started creating the demos for their album and Ryan decided to send them to Pete Wentz who was in the LV area recording under the cork tree with FOB. Pete listened to the demos and signed them up to his new record label decaydance after hearing them perform 2/3 songs.

I'm gonna leave you with some 2004 recording sessions this is filmed on a potato but is somehow high quality content of Ryan doing a this is our apartment tour its great

So yeah that's cool and also hilarious in it's own ways (gay bars!! 😂😂)

AFYCSO era 2005/6

AFYCSO was released on the 27th September 2005 on that same day Ryan posted something in his livejournal (I'm not sure if it was just something to commemorate it being released or if he was acctually in a relationship at this time but here is what he put)

'Whisper babe...i'm as good as it gets in this town.whisper babe..i'm a fever you can't sweat out.These are my deepest thoughts and secrets under a microscope or spotlight.Forgive me if i'm not quite ready to give them to you.it's such a different feeling..when I see you smiling and singing back to me i'm still playing different pictures in my head that arn't so pleasent. I'm doing the best now to live in the song and not just the meaning.'

(Yes this could be about Brendon but when you read it again it dosen't sound like that at all it seems as if hes talking about the lyrics and the meanings of the songs of which have things he had to deal with in his childhood his dad being an alcoholic ect. But he tries to be happy with the fans who are smiling and singing and live in the moment not just the past)

Obviously AFYCSO became popular especially the song I write sins not tragedies came out but there's many different interviews and pic that i'm going to share below.

This is the one where Ryan says that Brendon washes his hair and he blushes red. It's adorable 😊

Here is another 2005 interview by the same girl who thought Pete was called Jason 😂 but anyways it's old like just look at Ryan's hair he's in his troll phase still 😂

This is another old interview that shows them acctually performing and only contain Brendon and Ryan talking about the band they're so awkward its adorable.

And here's a pic of them from a photoshoot

Idk but Brent looks so confused rn 😂

(Look at Brendon as well staring at Ryan...hmm..😉)

And here's an adorable pic of them together my bbs 😊❤

Look at them they're soo adorable ❤❤👌😊

Anyways 2006 is when it all became big for the boys who announced a tour and where becoming bigger than ever. At the end of 2005 to 2006 both Brendon and Ryan began dating scene queens Audrey and Jac. Pics below

Yup this is them together.

Idk when they breakup but they break up and some evidence that I've found online is very interesting.

Here is screenshots of chats that Audrey and Jac had online. The first picture shows that Jac is blaming Brendon for turning her bf (Ryan) gay

The next one shows kinda the same thing exept this time Audrey blamed Ryan for turning Brendon gay

Hmmmm... All very interesting I think....

(Note there's another conversation or so that I want to include in part one but it's way too long to put on this one post so i'm going to do a little post to finish off part 1. And also i'm obviously going to work on part 2 straight away but I just feel like the whole panic! and especially Ryden stuff needs to be updated abd i also find it super interesting as well. Also I feel I need to adress all the lyrics that could somehow lead to something to do with one another there's so much stuff out here and I need it all in one place cos im fed up of trawling the internet for all the theories and stuff never getting anywhere 😂)

[lovemesomesurveys]

a survey ABOUT surveys by x-hallie (tumblr) // seed_pod_says (livejournal) 1. When did you start taking surveys? Do you remember any of the very first ones you took? Since the Myspace days, so starting around 2005 for me. I’ve been doing them forever. 2. How or when did you decide to create a blog specifically for surveys? Well back when I started, I posted them on Myspace, but sometime later I created a Xanga and did them there for quite awhile. I posted some on my personal Tumblr, but in 2009 I became largely an Alexander Skarsgård blog, along with other stuff I liked, and wanted a separate place for surveys, thus this side blog was born. 3. How or when did you realize it was going to be more than a fleeting interest and more like an addiction? Oh, I realized that early on. haha. I was doing them all the time and clogged up my Myspace with ‘em. Clearly, I was right because I’m still doing them and have a whole blog dedicated to them.

4. Have you ever taken the 5000 question survey? If so, opinions on the experience? I’ve done several parts of it, but I have yet to finish it. I haven’t done any of it in like 2 years. It would get overwhelming at times and I needed to take a break from it, but this break has gone on quite awhile. Maybe I’ll eventually finish it.

5. If you make surveys, what inspires your questions? I don’t.

6. What is the longest you’ve gone without taking surveys and why? I can’t say how long I went prior to this blog, but on here specifically I tend not to go more than a couple days at most usually. There’s been times where I went longer because I was really sick or was just dealing with other things, and then in 2012 I went like a month at least because I had surgery. 7. What’s the largest number of surveys you’ve taken in one day? Hmm. I’m not sure. Sometimes i’ll find a lot to take and have like a survey spam, and then there’s days when my feed is dead and I can’t find many, if any at all, to do. 8. Other than random surveys, what is another type you enjoy (holiday, category, fashion, bolding, music shuffle, relationship, etc)? I like category/sectional type surveys as well. I don’t care for bolding or shuffle surveys. 9. How does your survey-taking ‘style’ differ from when you first started (eg. you never elaborated before, you typed with proper grammar and now you don’t, etc)? I think when I first started the question were pretty basic and generic from what I can remember. I’m pretty sure I didn’t elaborate as much as I do now, largely because there weren’t really questions that allowed for it. Plus, on Myspace I had friends and family on there and wouldn’t want to talk about or get into detail with certain things. 10. Have you ever been afraid to share your opinion or had someone confront you about an opinion you shared in a survey? Have you ever been the one to ‘yell’ at another survey-taker? I don’t like to get into political or controversial topics because I don’t want anyone saying anything to me about it if they have a strong opinion about something that differs from mine. It hasn’t happened, yet, and I’ve never said anything to someone about an opinion of theirs. I have thoughts and comments that I keep to myself, I don’t say anything to the person about it. 11. Is there anything you like to do while taking surveys (listen to music, eat, watch tv, etc)? I often just have the TV on or I’m listening to an ASMR video. 12. Are you open about yourself in surveys or are you more closed off? Oh, ya’ll know I’m very open on here. 13. How would you describe your general attitude while taking surveys (serious, thoughtful, silly, etc)? Do you think this shows in your answers, or has anyone ever commented on your 'tone’? It really depends on my mood. 14. What is your process for choosing a survey to take? Would you say you’re picky or not so much? I just check the first few questions and see if they’re of interest to me and see whether or not I’ve taken it before, at least not recently. 15. Is there a question that’s been especially memorable to you, either because of how good, bad, or just plain weird it was? I guess not because I’m blanking at the moment, ha. There’s been some interesting questions and there have been some really weird, stupid questions. 16. Are you okay with surveys that contain objectively triggering material? Does it bother you to come across triggering questions w/o warning, or are you able to deal with that kind of thing? Are there any 'normal’ questions you find triggering because of their associations? No, I handle that stuff fine. 17. If you post pictures with your surveys, what kind of theme are you going for, if any? I don’t. 18. What is one thing that makes your survey-taking style unique to everyone else’s, or what differentiates you from the survey-crowd? i just like having the survey formatted a certain way like you see here. I’m pretty picky about that. I treat these like my diary, so I’m very open and share a lot about myself in these things, but most of the survey takers I follow on here do the same thing, so. I don’t think there’s anything unique about my survey-taking style. 19. Have you ever become good friends with or met up with another survey-taker? How about dated one? I’ve talked to some people, but I’ve never met anyone on here in person. 20. What prompted one of the longest answers you’ve ever given? There’s some questions that are just great for venting and rambling, and depending on my mood I can really go at it. 21. Name the different places you’ve taken surveys (eg. your partner’s house, on a road trip, at college, a cafe, etc)? Where do you most prefer to take them? I’ve taken them at home, hotels, school, and the hospital. I really just like taking them at home in bed, honestly. 22. What is something you have learned about yourself through taking surveys? Hmm. That’s a good question, actually. I’m not really sure. 23. Do you think surveys are always going to be part of your life, or do you think you will eventually give them up? I suppose the day will come one day when I no longer do surveys, but as for now I don’t see myself stopping any time soon. 24. Do you care about having a nice layout, theme, formatting, and all that, or do you not care so much? Do you ever alter surveys to meet your preferences? Well, like I said I’m very picky about the format of the survey. If it’s not to my liking, then yeah I’ll fix it. 25. What is an opinion of yours that has been changed through taking surveys? Another good question. I’m not sure. I do really enjoy reading other people’s answers and seeing their thoughts on things, though. 26. Do you like to follow and interact with other survey-takers, or do you prefer to keep to yourself? I have in the past, but I’m a shitty person and suck at keeping in touch and being a friend in general. I keep to myself, but I do read other people’s answers and I’m rooting for ya’ll and I feel bad when you guys are going through your own crap. Just know that even though I don’t say anything, I do see it. 27. Does anyone ’irl’ know about your survey-taking, and if so, do they think anything of it? I had a friend who knew I had a survey blog, but she didn’t know what it was and she doesn’t do surveys so she didn’t follow it or anything. Kind of glad because I like to keep this separate from people I know. 28. What is one question you wish you never had to encounter again? Marriage and kids questions, man. 29. Are surveys more of a diary or a distraction for you? Assuming the questions are inspiring enough, are you one to elaborate or give the bare minimum? Is there a reason for your choice to be more vs. less in depth? I treat this as my diary like I said, but they do make great distractions and help pass the time when needed as well. I am definitely one to elaborate, we all know this by now. 30. How many surveys do you typically take in a day? Is there a time of day when you prefer to do them? I’d say I generally take 1-3 most days, sometimes more. I like to take them at night.

[gundampilot]

Inspired by @dialup2002 to post some more old stuff. :) This is a desktop screenshot I posted on my DevART account January 2005. Kicking it with Windows XP, but I loved/preferred the classic style that I was accustom to (95-98-ME). I made the wallpaper used, but I’m having trouble finding a copy of it. I’ll prob try to remake it in non-1024x768 resolution lmao. Not sure if this is from 2005. It might have been from 2004, but I hadn’t posted it yet. I did that a lot. Some fun notes about some of the software icons pictured (lots of info):

Firefox - THE FIRST BROWSER TO DO TABS OMG. I was a huge advocate for Firefox, especially in its initial releases. They were doing things on the internet nobody had really seen up to that point, and made it popular! Since I had so many issues (as most people do) with Internet Explorer, I was shopping around for a new browser at the time of this shot. Google Chrome didn’t exist yet. (Can you imagine??)

IE - As stated above, I disliked IE. It was kept for various reasons, however. Such as testing website layouts, since the mass-majority of people used it and things looked different in browsers when you were coding.

Opera - While giving Firefox a try, I also managed to snag a very, very early copy of Opera. I’ve always been the type of person that loved to try out new stuff as early as possible, and this was a very special piece of software that I wanted to give a go. The reason that it was special? You had to send away for a CD for it. That’s right, kids. They snail-mail’ed me a CD because it was considered “commercial software.” I paid to get that browser lmfao. I was super super hyped later in 2005, because it became “freeware” and I was able to more-easily push my friends to try it out. The devs were (and still are) seriously awesome. This is why I still use Opera as my main browser today! Ya’ll should try it if you aren’t already! You can even use your most-beloved Chrome extensions on it. :)

Soulseek & WinMX - Holy crap, you guys! lmao Is anyone here old enough to remember these programs?? XD This was basically where most people went after Napster bit the dust. This was when we were all scrambling, trying to find a new P2P sharing program. This was right in-between the eMule/Donkey phase and before the Limewire/KaZaA fiascos where people’s computers were being overloaded with viruses from companies trying to stop pirating. Ahh, the wild, wild west... Days were so exciting when you spent hours downloading something that could potentially ruin your computer lmao

WS_FTP - Still one of my favorite FTP programs for Windows! Works like a charm! These days I use Transmit 5 for Mac, but this was my first program ever for file transfer protocol. It’s basically a tool for uploading files to my website’s server, because back when I first registered it, there was no web uploader for that kinda stuff. Now I stick with that because it’s easier and I’m used to it lol

Veo Digital Studio - Used to use this for my webcam back before webcams were built into laptops, and before they were common enough to have amazing freeware available for them.  (Also this is hilarious.) The quality was horrible, but I was hella excited to take pictures and share them with friends and on my blog at the time. From what I remember, there was something I used after this that was some type of South Korean selca software. Haduri? Something like that. It was really cute and even let you do little animations. :) 

Animation Shop - Okay. So... from what I remember, this might have been owned by the people that made Paint Shop Pro? I think it was Corel. I honestly don’t remember where I got this from, but this is what I used to use to make animated gifs (because Photoshop just....didn’t for some reason? I had to use PSP at some point, I remember that. I just don’t remember why lmao. It might have been my copy didn’t allow it, or my computer was just too shit to run it good enough, or just stopped working because....Windows). 

Adobe Photoshop 5.0 - I originally got this rip from a friend of mine, whose dad got a CD from his company that he worked at. It was an official/real license, which was really awesome! I think this was the first version of Photoshop I ever owned (!!), which is pretty amazing to think about about! I had that CD copy for a few years. I initially was gifted a copy of the CD around 2001-2002 or so. I know for a fact I had newer versions (7.0 was legend before CS suite came around), so I’m not sure why I was using this one at this point lmao. My guess is, like mentioned above, something happened with my computer and I didn’t want to format it and reinstall everything lol or because it was the fastest version I had installed to boot up and do a quick photo edit.

Adobe Photoshop 7.0 - I do remember this took a long time to start up. I can only imagine this was like a bad pirated copy or something, or was so bloated with new stuff in it, and that’s why I kept 5.0 for a quick boot. I know I used this majority of the time, though. Most of my backups for brushes and fonts are from backups that include 7.0 as a zip. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  My computer wasn’t the most powerful at the time, despite what I pushed it to do, so this is prob why.  But hell yeah! Photoshop represent! lol I still use it today, and its still one of the first things I install on a fresh OS install. Enjoying CC 2017 these days.

Nero Start Smart - I was so excited to make mix CDs and share them! Back in the day before you had stuff like playlists that were sharable on YouTube/Spotify, etc, you had this to share music. Or play in your car. Or CD walkman. Nero was a software you could burn your CD-Rs and make your own laser-etched album art! I begged for years to get a CD burner lmao. Back when casette tapes were still around enough that my parents were like “but why???” lmao. They were not common back in the day like they became over time, just, like, included on your computer. Back then you had to buy one and install it into your computer tower yourself! I got mine I believe.....in 2001? It was the year after the Playstation 2 was released. The first one I got was just a very standard burner. Did a very specific type of CD burning at a low (slow af) speed. It was $700 lmfao. Let that sink in for a minute because my parents didn’t let me forget about it for the next four years lmfao. I saved up birthday and Christmas money and went halves on it. Then I upgraded to the one that this one was! c: Which did the laser etching, and DVD burning! (And you better believe I was burning DVDs of stuff I was downloading online lmfao this was the golden age of the internet where everything was just available everywhere as long as you had the patience to download that shit, because it took forever to download)

Volume Control - My dad and I messed with the wires on all of these random computer speakers and stereo speakers that we had collected over the years and hotwired our own version of a 5.0 surround sound in the room, which was mounted to the ceiling corners and above the computer station. It was lit. I needed Volume Control easily accessible because sometimes the speakers needed redirecting, or I needed to turn the beats down because my mother was tired of my fifth time playing the Gundam Wing OSTs and Miyavi. (It was metal, okay???)

Windows Media Player - I did not use this to listen to media. Let me reiterate that. I did not use it to listen to media on. lol this was specifically used to rip tracks from CDs that friends lent me, because it was the easiest software I was able to use to change the KBPs for quality control and the ID3 tags so I could save it and organize it for use in Winamp and know wtf I was listening to lol. Nobody used WMP for listening to music.... xD 

Winamp - The best music player. Period. Still. Nothing beats it. Pls, pls, Nullsoft! Come back and make a native version for MacOS. :’((((  I would buy it! Doesn’t even have to have new features or look different. Classic look, pls pls! 

Media Player Classic - Do people still use it??? This player was amazing! Paired with k-lite codec pack, it played everything. It was like VLC before VLC. And it looked good. Clean. Small. Could be installed anywhere which was nice. And the codec packs just made everything look and run fantastic! 

Recycle Bin - .... Trash XD 

Magnifier - This was for my dad because he had bad eyes and couldn’t remember CTRL +/-/0 to increase the text on pages that he wanted to read.

My Documents - Where I saved all the stuff I downloaded. Not the real My Docs. Just a folder that I named as such, with a custom icon. I don’t know why I wanted it there lol. I think to just have a uniform square on my desktop haha

Journal - I renamed this. I forget the original name of the client, but it was the official client of LJ. It was basically a program that let you write up posts for Livejournal and you could format things, draft them, etc, and post without uploading to your journal/blog. I liked it because sometimes I couldn’t post right away, and it made making drafts a lot easier for me to go back and edit. It also let you edit past posts, which was really convenient instead of looking for it on the web version one post at a time.

AIM+ - I loved AOL Instant Messenger, but over time the ads became too much. I invested a lot of time in 3rd party clients. I was constantly switching between AIM+, Adium, DeadAIM, Pigeon, Trillion, etc. Depended on what I wanted to do that day. Want to clone a SN? Want to skin the colors of the chats? Need transparency? Want to customize your lists? Want to log into more than one msg system at once? They all had their strengths. This was my msg service of choice. Back in the day you were either on this, MSN, or Yahoo!. Some people rocked ICQ and there were a few others, but these were the most common from who I knew/hung out with. I miss those days. <3 

You can see WinMX running in the taskbar lmfao so I was prob downloading something at the time of snagging this quick shot. I also had DevART open (prob because I was gonna share this on there). I really wish I had more programs open at the time of this! XD It’s wild to look back at some of the software changes over the years!

Anyway, that’s one of my oldest screenshots that I can find that I’m able to share right now. :) I’m going to be posting a remake of that wallpaper that I did later today for those of you that want that, too.

If you read this far, thank you!! Hope you had fun reading about old stuff! 

[1998tales]

26 APRIL 2020

12:29AM

I made a Livejournal because I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to share my first entry. I’ll be crossposting from this tumblr to the livejournal too.

https://redcandle1588.livejournal.com/ - Feel free to add me as a friend there if you want.

   An Introduction and Nostalgia Trip    

I'm not sure what to write here. I am a mid-30s woman who has returned to LJ after being off this website since probably 2005. It's weird how you obsess over these communities and love them so much, but one day you don't login and forget you were ever interested. I remember on my old LJ that I never made a post though. I was never consistent at ever keeping a blog, though I've tried on different platforms about a dozen times. I don't recall making any specific friends either. In fact, I can't remember my old username, but I'm sure it has been purged.

I was always interested in t.A.T.u., Tegan and Sara, and Heavenly Creatures. Perhaps I was part of an Agatha Christie community as well. It was so much fun talking to people who shared your same interests. We shared LJ icons, AIM icons (oh how I miss AIM), etc. We obsessed over every detail of the Parker-Hulme case. I remember taking the time to scan every page of a play because it was hard for the average fan to get a copy. (I wonder if that's still floating around on someone's hard drive today.

We shared demos of t.A.T.u. and whole concert bootlegs of Tegan and Sara that I still have on CD-Rs somewhere. We told each other secrets that we wouldn't share with anyone else. We discovered ourselves, shared our lives, but no one needed to see your photo. No one needed to hear your voice. We didn't do it for clout. There was no money involved either. Simpler times.

I feel like that Pepperidge Farm meme and someone much younger will call me a Boomer. I don't mind though. I'm glad that I experienced this at its height. I wish I had a more concrete record of the time I spent on here (& one for offline memories too, but I destroyed my journals in my late 20s).

I never knew that I would still be a fan of certain people almost 20 years on. I still have t.A.T.u. on the brain. I buy every mp3 they release. I'm still collecting old CDs and vinyls. Some people have even offered to buy my whole collection. I've seen Tegan and Sara in concert twice. I don't watch Heavenly Creatures very often, but I'll probably do that tonight since I'm thinking about them. I want to review all books related to them on this blog. I was so obsessed with that movie that I even bought the two Biggles books that Pauline and Julia read in the book.

Anyway, I'm babbling. I will say honestly that I am disappointed in how I never developed as a person. I'm stunted. I never got to experience the usual milestones that other people do. I'm working on changing that before it's too late. Perhaps it's already too late. But I'm going to put in the old college try this year.

About thirty minutes ago, I started a fast. It will last thirty-six hours. I've only ever went twenty-four hours without food.

I keep a tumblr as well at: http://1998tales.tumblr.com. I've been keeping a daily log there since January. It's the first time that I've ever become consistent with anything.

I think I'm going to post this entry there as well. Maybe I'll write the same post for both starting tomorrow.

3:50AM

I can’t sleep. I just weighed myself and I weigh 230.6lbs/104.59kg. Wow. Fat.

12:52PM

I’m over thirteen hours into my fast now. I don’t feel hungry. I’m drinking a Bang energy drink in the flavor rainbow unicorn. I’ve decided that my livejournal will be more for talking about nostalgia, books, movies, music, etc. Maybe it will motivate me to read.

I’ve decided that I’ll link the Livejournal entries in their own post. At the end of the year, I can export my livejournal and make them into a PDF. I’ll figure it out later on. I had wanted to post all the entries here, but I think that defeats the purpose of having a separate blog.

5:04PM

I’m over 17 and a half hours into my fast. I don’t feel overwhelmingly hungry yet. I do feel very tired. It will probably be easy to go to sleep tonight. I’ve packed a very good lunch for tomorrow. I will be so glad to have something good to eat at noon. I’m taking flavored water as well.

6:31PM

I was so disappointed to see that I had a fee earlier for $149.00. It’s once a year and I completely forgot about it. I was getting so excited about being able to save more money this month. I’m only able to save about $300.00 right now. I know that sounds horrible, but I don’t  make a lot of money. This month even with my makeup purchases, I was able to get to $500.00. Now, I will have saved $351.00. Also, I’m saving my coronavirus relief check which was $1,200.00. So for this month, unless something comes up, I’ll be putting back $1,551.00. I’m very grateful that I can do this. I’m just disappointed that I didn’t remember about the fee otherwise I would have skipped the Sephora sale which cost me about $40.00 even on discount.

I’ll try harder next month.

I found this exercise challenge earlier:

https://www.shape.com/fitness/workouts/30-day-squat-challenge-will-totally-transform-your-butt

I don’t have any high expectations for it, but I want to try something for 30 days straight. I started today and it wasn’t too bad to do.

7:13PM

I am starting to feel hungry now. It’s kind of sad how I rarely feel hungry due to massive over-eating. This reminds me of how little I should probably be eating. I don’t feel dizzy or sick. I know that tomorrow I’ll be able to make it to noon without a problem.

I think the real issue for me is getting stressed out at work and using food to feel better. Or coming home and feeling bad about myself and getting food multiple times.

9:23PM

I still feel normal. I don’t feel hungry now. I’m going to try going to sleep in a few minutes. 

[prettyoddfever]

P!ATD: meeting Pete in late 2004

I’m going to get a bit more specific with dates here just because journalists were all over the map with whatever story they wanted to make up… I’ve seen dates published that are anywhere between early 2004 – spring 2005 for when the band met Pete. 

So I’ll start in late November 2004... Fall Out Boy was recording in L.A. at this time. Ryan Ross (who was 18 & in college) had been spamming the internet and telling everyone to listen to his band. Journalists later wrote that Ryan had put his purevolume link on Pete’s myspace, youtube, livejournal, the FBR journal, and basically any site you could name (so they were confused about that too). Pete told Nylon in 2006:

“I ended up in a sort of ongoing livejournal skirmish with the guys in Panic!, where they would send me nasty messages and mess with me, and I’d mess with them back… One day they told me to listen to their band – which of course I did because I wanted to tell them how shitty they were – and was blown away. I couldn’t believe how awesome they sounded, so I signed them right away.”

Ryan told Big Cheese in early 2006: 

“I sent a link to our purevolume page to his journal. I figured he’d never even hear it. He sent me an email saying he wanted to hear more, so he drove to Las Vegas and sat in on a band practice, and then he said he wanted to sign us.”

Spencer said in late August 2006: 

“We had two demos online and Ryan posted a link to the website on Fall Out Boy’s livejournal on the internet. And Pete happened to see it, happened to click on it, listened to the songs, and contacted us.”

Ryan said “When we first talked, Pete said he usually never listens to anything people post, but by chance happened to that day.” (Pete’s also told a version of the story a few times where he initially wanted to listen to the song just to tell the guys they sucked... but instead he ended up scrambling to sign them).

These interview quotes from early 2006 give a good summary of what Ryan & Pete usually said.

So on November 28th Pete posted this after listening to the demos – you can still see Ryan’s reply in the comments. And if you glanced at some of the stuff I put in previous posts, you can probably tell what a huge FOB fan Ryan was in 2003-2004 and how surreal that moment must’ve been. (Also, Brendon’s early email address was just as funny as Ryan’s so I hope nobody’s mocking that still ha). In future interviews the band would sometimes say that Pete didn’t discover them – they found Pete.

Ryan’s November 28th livejournal post after he talked to Pete: “’take those pics and write the hits’ wow. big things have been happening. pete from fob heard the band and liked it. he and i talked today about alot of things about what we plan to do, as of now he’s going to go see us in california. who knows after that. wierd that someone in a band i really like is into my music. it feels good.”

Brent’s brother Blake later leaked a supposed transcript of an AIM chat between Ryan & Pete, but he was also trying to destroy the band’s image that season and was busy posting other inaccurate info that only showed how little Brent even knew about the band. So I’d definitely take the content in that chat “between Ryan & Pete” with a grain of salt (even if it seems fun). I definitely wouldn’t trust anything from Blake... especially something that he shared in mid-2006. 

Anyways, Pete said he signed the band right away and Ryan said one time that Pete drove out the next day, but it was more like he drove out several days later (which was the story they usually went with anyways). Dan Suh was FOB’s tour manager who was with Pete when he met P!ATD for the first time, so I’ll be referencing a few of his livejournal posts just to show that everything was documented and definitely happened at this time. On November 30th (Wednesday) Dan said “there might be a field trip to vegas this weekend.”

MEETING PETE

Ryan posted a picture of P!ATD on his livejournal on Saturday 12/4 like Pete asked and then later updated it with their name & what each guy played. It wasn’t clear if that picture was taken before or after they met Pete, but this was the weekend when they met.

Pete drove from the LA area to Vegas. P!ATD’s Rolling Stone cover article claimed that Pete flew to Vegas right away to check out the band, but most other articles understood that he rented a car & drove. The Miami Herald also published this version of events: “Wentz heard the songs, flew to Las Vegas, and signed Panic! to his brand-new label, Decaydance. All this before Panic! had ever played a note to a live audience.” (Again, the phrasing is important: it’s technically true that the band by the name of P!ATD hadn’t played a single show before they met Pete).

The P!ATD guys had recorded their demos on garageband but didn’t know how to actually play them live as a band yet, so it sounded like there was some momentary panic there... they ended up playing them acoustically.

The band met Pete at a hotel (Brendon used to say it was the Palms but many years later he said the Aladdin so whatever idc). They took Pete to their practice space where he and the few people who were with him listened to Brendon & Ryan play acoustic versions of their demos. Someone who was in the practice space watching everything later told me that they only remembered hearing It’s Time To Dance... when Pete asked if the band had anything else, the guys said not really and so Pete just asked to hear that same song again & again (so that’s one person’s memory).

All four guys + Pete have given varying answers and contradicted themselves over the years about how many songs were played… it was somewhere between 1.5 to 3 songs but the answer was usually two. P!ATD had two demos online at that point (It’s Time to Dance + Nails for breakfast and tacks for snacks) but it sounded like they also had a third demo that wasn’t online and didn’t make it onto the album (I’m not talking about Relax, Relapse). So maybe that mystery demo factored into their memories of how many songs they had that season, idk.

Pete was really into the lyrics and later talked about how the fact that the acoustic version was still super compelling helped him see how good everything was.

update: Obviously Pete did not sign this band out of the goodness of his heart... he wasn’t there for a charity case. He was constantly hearing from bands who were desperate to be signed. Pete recognized the marketing potential in P!ATD and drove out to make sure that they had the right look & sound that could sell. This should be common sense. It was a business deal.

Pete said “I heard Panic! and my immediate reaction was jealousy. I was like these guys are writing songs I wish we had written. I think that it’s far more important as an A&R to chase songwriters not songs, because anyone can write a catchy song once. I want to find someone with a voice.”

He also told Alt Press in early 2006: “I think the thing that stood out immediately was that these songs maybe weren’t songs that could change the world, but these songwriters were capable of writing songs that could. A good A&R [person] chases songwriters, not songs. I remember listening to Time to Dance over and over again, wishing I had written it.” 

I’m not going to list tons more quotes from Pete, I promise... but here’s one more.

Pete took them to Del Taco afterwards. The band’s early bio on several sites said “As they were driving back to Pete’s hotel, he expressed his interest in wanting to sign the band to his label.” (P!ATD was one of the first bands that Pete signed, but not the first like some magazines said. I’m pretty sure that was Gym Class Heroes).

In a few interviews the guys said they signed their contracts right away, so that sounded like December... but other interviews said 3/4 of the band were under 18 so they had to have their parents sign their contracts when they were sent around the new year. Either way, the contracts were signed around the end of 2004.

Pete later mentioned his first impression of Brendon.

On Monday 12/6 Dan Suh posted on livejournal: “this weekend was an impromptu road trip to vegas to check out a band…”

THE REST OF DECEMBER

The band got their myspace, and their AIM names were listed (Ryan = stitchesnwalkers, Brendon = aboynamedskip, Brent = screenametaken1, Spencer = twentyninepiecer). I’m mentioning that because in early April 2009 Spencer tweeted Brendon “have you seen this... My 29 piecer will be alive soon.” and it was fun to have that flashback to the early days.

12/15 on Ryan’s lj: “bombing finals. writing instead. this weekend.l.a. road trip.”

P!ATD went to visit FOB in L.A. and Brendon did some vocals for 7 Minutes In Heaven.

Pete told Billboard in 2008: “When I signed them, Brendon was 17 and he didn't have much life experience. He came to see me in California and stayed up all night because he was so excited about not having his parents tell him to go to bed.” (He easily could’ve been talking about when the guys visited him again in January 2005, though).

Pete posted on the FBR journal on 12/12: “urgent update: life aquatic is the best movie of the year. watch it. change the way you think.”

Sunday 12/19 on Dan’s lj: “panic at the disco are hilarious guys and a wonderful band to boot. listen closely to the next record for a guest appearance from their singer Brendan.”

Ryan’s comment on that post: “dan, this is ryan from panic at the disco, thank you for making it a good time last weekend. and keeping pete from thinking he's too cool.” Dan’s reply: “yoooooooo what's up duuuuuuuuude. cool of you guys to come hang out in LA. next time we'll all go to the hustler store. oh wait, you f—s aren't 18 yet. anyway, have a great christmas in the desert, hit me up if you need anything… word.” (btw: Ryan was definitely 18 & in college. The other 3 band members were 17 and in high school still).

12/20 on Ryan’s lj: “if i could bottle my hopes in a store bought scent they’d be nutmeg peach and they’d pay the rent. los angeles was good. life aquatic was good. mansoup was good. my updates suck because i have to keep my mouth shut. ‘i keep telling myself that i’m not the desperate type’”

Pete would quote vague things in 2007 & 2009 that would turn out to be new P!ATD lyrics, so I just love that Ryan got to do it to him in that last post.

here’s Brendon explaining the “man soup” part of Ryan’s lj post.

From a 2006 Nylon interview with Pete & Ryan:

Pete: “When we were recording we were living in Oakwood, which is corporate housing in L.A. It’s filled with young actors who just get wasted and hang out in the hot tub all night. We’d all hang out there, five or six dudes. It was so lame, so we called it man stew.” Ryan: “We had no bathing suits. We were all in our underwear.”

A COUPLE RANDOM QUOTES

Brendon in a Buzznet interview in late 2006:

“[Wentz is] the reason we were discovered. We were kind of reaching out to him. Just the fact that he took a chance on coming out and seeing a band who had never played a show is cool. He does a really good job. He’s put in a really good word for us during interviews. A lot of the hype we can owe to him.” 

At the end of 2006 AbsolutePunk asked Spencer why they contacted Pete. Spencer’s answer:

“We were superfans. We had no idea how anything worked in the music business. We didn’t have any contacts whatsoever and only two songs. We liked their band and when you don’t think anything’s gonna come of it, it’s like ‘why not’?”

THE MAIN POST

[dawnfelagund]

Most and Least Popular Stories

I was tagged by @maedhrosrussandol​ to look at my stats and identify my most and least popular stories according to those stats. But I’m changing the rules a bit! The original post asked for stories to be ranked by number of kudos on AO3; since only a small fraction of my work is on AO3, then I’m going to go by number of comments and favorites on the Silmarillion Writers’ Guild instead. (All but a handful of my stories are there.)

I am not counting collections of ficlets posted as a single story.

Most Popular Stories (starting with most comments on the SWG)

1. Another Man’s Cage (63 comments) 2. The Work of Small Hands (31 comments) 3. The Sovereign and the Priest (17 comments) 4. The Election Farce of Nargothrond: Of Dumbness, Treachery, and Brotherly Love (14 comments) 5. The Bearer of Light (12 comments)

The picture looks a little different if I go by the number of people who have marked a particular story as a favorite.

1. Another Man’s Cage (12 favorites) 2. By the Light of Roses (8 favorites) 3. The Work of Small Hands (6 favorites) 4. Hastaina (6 favorites) 5. There are a bunch of stories with 4 favorites: When the Stars Smile, Return to Me, Salt, The Dance,  Essecarmë

Least Popular Stories

There is one lonely story of mine with no comments and no favorites on the SWG:  To Dream of Fire

All of these are stories with just one comment and no favorites on the SWG: Teler, A Woman in Few Words: The Character of Nerdanel and Her Treatment in Canon and Fandom, Statues, The Choices of Spirits, Forgotten Lore, The Puppet,  Mercy

Are your surprised?

Not terribly, no.

For one thing, any metric of popularity is complicated enough to keep a clear picture from forming using that single metric alone. In my case, it’s extra complicated because I do crosspost most of my work--so those stories have comments, likes/kudos, and favorites on sites outside the SWG--and I’ve also been writing for a long time, longer than the SWG archive has been around (and certainly longer than AO3 has been around much less popularly used by Tolkienfic writers). I also have a sneaky habit on the SWG of archiving my own work by posting it late at night, then using my moderator powers to go into the archive and backdate it so that no one knows it exists. Some of the “least popular” stories were stealth-posted like that; back in the day, they probably would have gotten their fair share of attention on LiveJournal, where they were initially posted.

There are also stories that are written for events that necessarily get more attention as part of those events.

Some observations: My older work is overwhelmingly the more popular. None of the “most popular” stories were written within the last three years.

Part of me always wants to despair at this: I’m not as good of a writer as I once was! I’m washed up! No one wants to read me anymore! Then the common-sense realization that some of those stories have had a decade to receive the comments and favorites they have catches up to me. Two of the stories (”The Bearer of Light” and The Sovereign and the Priest) were stories done within the past five years, so newer things can catch up, it just takes time.

I’m also in the odd position of having been part of not what I term the first wave of Silmarillion fanfic--that which was written before the LotR films and at the outset of online fandom/Web 2.0--but coming on-board at the beginning of the second wave: Tolkien fanfic written around the time of the LotR films (and their immediate aftermath) and at the rise of Tolkien-specific archives and LiveJournal as the primary means of sharing fanfic. (Versus multifandom sites like fanfiction.net or early social media platforms like Yahoo! Groups.)

As a bit of a historical tangent, there was a strange exodus of first-wave writers in 2005. If you look at the posting history on Silmfics, activity dwindled in 2004, then plummeted in 2005. I’ve never fully figured out why this was. A first-wave author who didn’t leave the fandom around this time once told me that the feeling was that everything there was to be discussed had been discussed. Of course, we second-wavers--some of us, like me, brought in by the LotR films--were eager to start all over again, and I wonder if that didn’t have something to do with it too. (I know that there were similar feelings around the time of the Hobbit films among more veteran Tolkien fans: that new fans had exploded on the scene, ready to reinvent wheels that we’d been happily rolling along with for the better part of a decade, and that these veteran fans were not only unappreciated for their contributions but didn’t want to get involved again at square one.)

Anyway, as someone who came on at the start of the second wave, I was in the unique position to put my stories before a very large and enthusiastic audience of Tolkien fans (even if most of them were not Silmarillion fans) and also to use my writing to address issues concerning canon that were huge at the time. Another Man’s Cage, which was not surprisingly my most popular work (and is also one of my oldest, having been posted in 2005, at the time of the first-wave exodus), was in many ways as much a work of meta as fiction, at least in my mind. I wrote it, never intending to share it, with the express purpose of correcting what I saw as wrongheaded interpretations of the characters and approaches to canon. It’s no surprise, now that AMC was posted more than 12 years ago, to hear people sometimes say that they felt it gave them permission to write Silmfic differently than it’d been done to that point. I don’t think this is because its ideas were that original--I was pretty new to the fandom and most of the ideas in it were being discussed in circles of fans who discussed The Silmarillion, and it was my fictional contribution to that discussion--but because it happened to appear at the right place at the right time: in a vacuum left by the first-wavers and with a strong canatical sentiment acting to censor (sometimes explicitly so, through archive/group policies) content that was deemed “noncanonical”--and that was a pretty broad designation in those days.

There was a whole constellation of shorter works associated with AMC and written around the same time, many of them among the “4 favorites” in position #5 on the most popular list. Anyway, I will never recreate the historical circumstances within the fandom--circumstances that, looking back, were both tumultuous and often partisan--that made those stories as important as they became. I am grateful that my voice was heard at that time and that my work did its part to shape the fandom as it is now (which is far from perfect but also not as openly homophobic and intolerant as it was at the outset of the second wave either).

Longer works are also among my most popular, occupying the top four and top three positions on the two most popular lists. This isn’t terribly surprising either, since longer works tend to allow characterization and worldbuilding that, in my opinion, allow a good writer to create an exceptional story. Unlike the above observations about older works (and how I feel my Silmarillion writing will never be as important as my earliest--and worst-written!--work was), this is encouraging because I prefer longer works, and there has always been angst among writers of novellas and novels that longer works don’t get the attention and aren’t, therefore, worth the significant time spent crafting them. (This is also not the first time I’ve made this observation, using different data.)

On the least popular list, not surprisingly, two works aren’t even fiction: There is a poem and an essay on there, both of which tend not to receive the attention that fiction does. In addition to stealth-posted stories, quite a few stories on there (including the least of the least popular) were written to the specific requests of friends, some of them rather niche requests less likely to appeal broadly to readers (and possibly not something I would have ever written either, if not asked to do so, which begs the question of whether I even put in the full effort to make those pieces my best work). Of the stories there, only “The Choices of Spirits” really surprises me, as I do like that story--but it is also older and was stealth-posted, so people either had likely commented on it years prior or don’t even know it’s there. I don’t feel like “Statues” is a bad story either but, likewise, it was stealth-posted.

Today’s Date: August 12, 2017 (in case you do this again in a year’s time)

My SWG Author Page: http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewuser.php?uid=1

Tagging: Anyone who wants to do this. :)

[kedreeva]

Yes I'm going to throw a fit about it you pretentious little gremlin. I've never in my LIFE demanded anything from my readers. I was there in 2005, too. I was there in 2000. I started writing fanfiction 20+ years ago and reading it before that, I remember all the same shit and more so your little "I have experienced some shit" card means exactly nothing. Everyone's experienced some shit, you’re not a special snowflake because you remember Before AO3. Plenty of AO3 writers wrote on other platforms before AO3 existed- ff.net, adultff.net when it launched, livejournal, dreamwidth, hell, go far enough back to where I started with mailing lists and geocities webrings and tiny, privately run archives. AO3 was created because those people needed something better and when AO3 launched, everyone started migrating there from all over. So people know what it was like before, they just have higher standards now because, guess what, that’s what happens as time marches on. Things are supposed to improve.

So let's try this again. You're, AGAIN, literally arguing against consent here. You're saying that just because an author, per story, has not expressly said no criticism, that you have their consent to give it. Not saying no STILL isn't a yes! Unless someone has expressly invited you to tell them what is wrong, don't fucking do it!! How was that not clear the first time, where did I lose you?

And you're right! No one has to read someone's stories and leave a nice comment! That's not the point! I expressly, expressly, said if you can't say something nice, there's the door! You're free to read or not read, like or not like, but if it's posted and there's no "concrit welcome" tag, concrit isn't welcome!!! If it's posted without a concrit welcome tag, it's very likely, almost positively in fact, as polished as that writer is going to make it and criticising it when you haven't been asked to is literally ONLY going to make them feel bad about their writing. Why, WHY, would you want to put that into the world when you could, instead, just not do that. Why would you want that. Please explain to me why the need to express your criticism is more important than not hurting a content creator. Why does your unwelcome criticism outweigh their feelings? Because the world is tough? Because things used to be worse? Because at least it's a comment at all? Those are shitty reasons.

God it's not a hard concept. Yes the fanfiction world was a shittier place for praise once upon a time. Yes the world is a mean place. Yes people are mean little benches. Yes if you put your work out there you risk getting shitty little goblins wiping their ass on your comment section and calling it a gift meant to help you. All I'm saying is that we should try to not be those goblins! We should be nice to writers! Literally we should always be nice to writers! Why are you even arguing this! Just because it could be worse doesn't mean what you're doing is good, how do you not understand that??

People write stories because they have stories to tell. They write stories because their friends want to hear them. They write stories because it makes them happy to do so. They share them because they want the thing that made them happy (or horrifically sad, whatever floats your boat) to have a chance to affect others similarly or to have a chance to scratch an itch for someone else, too. Rarely, I've met people who post for validation via comments, and that's fine too, and they usually ask for what they need. In all these cases, there's absolutely no need, EVER, to criticize them without them requesting you do so. 

“Jeez, I remember when fanfic authors were just thrilled anyone liked their work enough to leave a nice comment.”

Can you even see how fucking entitled and pretentious this comes off as?? Writers aren't suddenly doing some kind of 180. They've always wanted praise and nice comments. They've literally ALWAYS wanted people to be nice to them and as you so clearly pointed out above, they had to settle for scraps once upon a time. More recently they've started to speak up about what they want, and assholes like you are getting mean about it, as if writers don’t deserve to define how they want to be treated. In the same breath you're saying "authors need to tell us what they want or don't want" and condemning them for doing so with their posts about what makes a good or bad comment (much the same way Greenberg said in the original post, which was a simple "hey readers, you know this thing you do? It's kind of sucky maybe knock it off next time.") So which is it, do you want writers to tell you how to treat them or don't you? Personally, I do. If someone says to me "don't step on my foot" I'm not going to grind my heel into their toes, I'm gonna watch where I step. I don't see why that's any great revelation. I don't know why anyone would argue against doing that. It's common fucking courtesy to listen when someone asks to be treated (or not treated) a certain way even if that way is complex.

And listen. What YOU consider to be a harmless piece of helpful criticism? May be the most harmful thing said to a writer that day. I've had jackasses like you come to my writing before and explain to me what they think is wrong or could be done better. I've had them do it on commissions, which were very literally not written for them at all and written precisely to someone else's directions and wants, and only shared via request by the commissioner so their friends could also enjoy. When I was a wee bab just getting my legs under me 20 some years ago, "constructive" criticism I didn't ask for could have crushed me. I was 12 when I started writing fanfiction. I made it to this god forsaken year because a kind group of other writers on my mailing list took me in and told me my writing was great and put my stories on their archive site in their webring, as if my stories were anywhere near as valid as the others there. My writing wasn't great! It was a flaming pile of trash! But I felt good about it because people were kind to me, so I continued to do it. I eventually reached a point where I could ask for help from select people I trusted to give me constructive criticism and I got a lot better. What I put into fandom now is worlds better than back then. I still ask select people for help, but I ASK for that on MY terms, the constructive criticism I get does not come from some rando on the internet. It is my choice who gave me advice and help then, and it should be my choice now. You're advocating for taking my choice away from me by saying just because I didn't tell you no, I said yes. That's not true. It doesn't matter what else you say, that's the core of it. That's the truth. I have to say yes, I want criticism. And most writers don't say that because, surprise, they don't want it.

The thing is, you're right. Writers don't have to share their work and readers don't have to comment. But if we did that, fandom itself wouldn't exist. However, it DOES exists, and it exists because writers (and other content creators, of course) find pleasure in SHARING their creations. Not just creating them (I know many people, including myself, who create certain things they never share), but making them part of the community. When you take away the pleasure of sharing by leaving criticism where none was requested, people stop sharing. They may not stop creating, but they stop sharing. That damages fandom. You think you're helping by leaving "constructive" criticism, but you're not. Creating in fandom should not be reserved for only those folks who are tough and thick skinned, because fandom is often not made up of those people. Fandom, for many, is often a retreat to a safe space, and you have absolutely zero way to tell the difference between someone who can easily handle your offhand crits and someone whose future in writing might be completely crushed because they put themselves out there and got told they weren’t good enough. Why take the risk?

So like. I dunno what else to tell you here. You're clearly intent on carrying on criticizing writers that don't fucking want it, so go off I guess.

children, let this elder fandom auntie tell you a thing:

if you take the time to comment on a fanfiction but your comment is some variation of “this story would’ve been better if ______” then perhaps, in this one case, it is better to Not Comment At All

like, I am a disillusioned, emotionless fandom native at this point, so your comment will be met with mild annoyance and some form of dumbfounded laughter as I share it with my friends and baffle over the fact that you took the time to say, “this is cute but i would’ve liked it better if you had written a completely different story than this one”

but some people who write and post fic have not been in fandom as long as I have and therefore they have not built up an immunity to This Shit, so perhaps take their feelings in mind and wonder how it will affect them emotionally and mentally for you to essentially say the story they wrote wasn’t good enough

aight? aight

[ridleykemp]

Pandemic Notes #3 (Things I love)

It’s windy and gray outside, which means that by the time I finish writing this, the skies will open up and it’ll be one of those Texas spring deluges that generates flash flood warning and tiny toad spawns. I don’t dislike days like this, and in the right mood, I kind of dig them. They’re interesting and there’s been little enough of that going around of late.

I’m loving the way that social media has become list-and-meme driven like it’s 2005 again. The sense of social in social networking had been almost choked out of it. But what do I know? I’m an old LiveJournal guy who still remembers the markup for hiding stuff behind a cut.

Anyway, one of the more popular lists going around right now is the one where you name ten things that most people like that you don’t. It’s a fun exercise and I think I may have even responded to one of them on Twitter, but today, I think I’m going to name ten things that I love right now; ten things that are giving me good feelings in the here-and-now. My therapist would be proud. In no particular order:

1. My cat, Winjamin Failclaw

This doofus is determined to make the most of my home-bounditude. He’s an oddity in that he used to be a lap cat but isn’t so much anymore. He instead prefers to wait until I am at least somewhat-reclined and climbs up on my chest with his paws over my shoulder. This is not optimal for video conferencing. Well, it is not optimal for me. He doesn’t seem to mind in the least. He’s getting on in years so it’s nice to seem him become more affectionate as time goes by.

2. These pens now that I got the #$^%^ ink working

A few years ago, I got a nifty Lamy Safari fountain pen and bought some beautiful ink to go with it. And, after a while, I stopped using it because it just never seemed to work worth a damn. The ink, unlike the spice, did not flow. Also, I wasn’t thrilled with the medium-sized nib I had on it.

So, I thought I’d get a finer nib and it turned out that you’re pretty much better off just buying another pen. It’s easy to switch the nibs on ‘em. The new pen came with some generic ink and it worked perfectly with either nib. I finally put two and two together and looked up how to thin out ink. It turns out you…add water. Yep, that’s all there is to it. And now the fancy ink works beautifully, even with the fine nib. Simultaneously happy and embarrassed. These pens are a real joy to write with, but I feel kinda dumb that it took so long to figure out what was wrong.

3. My apocalypse playlists

Just a little something to get me through the night. The first one, my favorite, is mostly soft and sad. The second is instrumental (a lot of post-rock, if that’s your bag), and the third is industrial. Enjoy!

4. My wife Nicole

Here’s where my luck really kicks in. It turns out we really enjoy spending time together and tend not to get in each other’s way. Working from home these last three weeks has been tough on me, but it’s nothing to do with her. Instead, she’s making me feel loved and welcome in small, surprising ways that have helped keep me moving when it would be far easier not to.

5. My ridiculous hobby and all the toys associated with it

I am not a musician. Not. Even. Close. However, I’m worse at singing than anything else, so I have to find some other way to scratch that itch. Thanks to the sounds of Side 3 of Genesis’ Three Sides Live, I am a keyboard guy. I love the sounds, I love the feel, I love the way they work, I love composing, and I especially love playing along with songs I, um…love. That’s too many “loves” for one sentence.

Anyway, I’ve been collecting and playing the things since I bought Kevin Corrigan’s Sequential Prelude back in high school. I’ve owned, at one time or another…too many to list. They’re a marvelous hobby to sink myself into when I can’t leave the apartment and need to dump some anxiety.

6. Baking bread

Yeah, I know everyone’s doing this now, to which I say: “Good for everyone!” I’m using an absurdly slow sourdough recipe that is finally yielding the kind of results I’ve been hoping for since I baked my first loaf of bread. It takes a couple days to make, but I’m finally getting all of the elements that I’ve been looking for.

It’s also just weirdly satisfying to do something like this as a reaction to difficult financial times. It feels like I’m contributing (I can feel Nicole’s side-eye here as she’s doing the lion’s share of shopping and cooking) in a way that is very hands on way.

7. This ridiculous little espresso maker

Nicole bought this because she doesn’t care for drip coffee. $30 on Amazon and with some seriously sketchy reviews (“Tends to explode”), but for the price, it can’t be beat. It’s not especially…espresso-y…but it’s a good, strong bracing splash of coffee to start one’s day.

It’s lasted a few years already and it paid for itself in about a week, so, yeah. Love this little guy. He’s my best friend first thing in the morning.

8. The pond

Staying in one place generally means you don’t get a lot of variety in your view. We’re fortunate in that we chose a place to live that has far more windows than most apartments. Most of what we can see is “other apartments” which can be amusing, especially when the lady across the street is throwing things at her mother, but otherwise…they’re apartments. On the other hand, we also have the pond. Yes, I know. It’s really just a runoff collection tank to help alleviate floods, but it’s still pretty pond-y. We get ducks, coots, and egrets. We get turtles and snails. We also get snakes and bats, which have their charm but are more charming at a distance. It’s also directly west of us, so we get some pretty decent sunsets.

9. Our giant bathtub

Our bathtub is huge. When you’re depressed and bored and just kind of over it, a giant bathtub is a big plus. I’m 6’3” and I fit in it pretty comfortably. And, since we don’t pay for water (directly, at least), we can be a little lavish in our usage of said tub.

I know, baths aren’t for men. But, what a waste of time to worry about what is and isn’t for “men”. Baths feel good. That’s plenty for me. I’ll let y’all argue about who they’re for while I’m having a good soak.

10. You

Yep, I got all hokey and sentimental at the end of this, but it’s true! In our little space capsule, bound for six weeks or six months into the future, connections are different than they were. I hate hate hate talking on the phone, so this internet is pretty much it for me. Seeing what y’all are doing, what you’re going through, and sharing reactions is a huge help for me right now.

Things still suck, but not everything sucks, if that makes any sense. Thank you for being there, for being here, for being wherever you are in these strange, unmoored times. Saying that makes me think “Gee, I wish Kurt Vonnegut could write about this era,” which is a true thing to think. But, it would also be a good time for John Steinbeck, J. G. Ballard, or Kazuo Ishiguro. Of course, the definitive work may have already been written by Emily St. John Mandel, huh? OK, that was a bit of a digression. I’ll end it here. Take care of yourselves, ok?

[prettyoddfever]

P!ATD: early 2005

THE MAIN POST

This covers some key things that happened after the band had met Pete but before they left to record AFYCSO in June. Again, I wasn’t a fan during this season so I didn’t personally watch these events unfold. I’m getting my info from several hundred interviews, stuff I could look back on once I was a fan, the boys’ livejournal posts, and info a few fans from this season shared during the early Fever era. 

RANDOM EVENTS:

Pete told P!ATD he wanted to release their record by the end of 2005, so they were purely focused on writing songs – they never played a show. The guys had about 5 months this spring to write some songs.

Pete had gone back to Chicago, but returned to L.A. in January. On January 13th P!ATD said they were heading into the studio to record It’s Time To Dance as a band (which is why Brent once claimed that they started recording AFYCSO in January lol). They just went to visit Pete to record the second version of the demo that was used on FBR’s spring sampler. Here’s more about that. 

they had a new website in early 2005 but it wasn’t fully done until after they’d been touring for a bit. The message boards were also up in mid-January.

Nicholas Scimeca wrote on their myspace in mid-February 2005: “hanging with you guys in vegas sucked so bad. im super glad your bass amp works amazingly and the lyrics to that instrumental song are so good. the shit in hand walk was invented in vegas. i love all of you. kissies.”

Spencer, Brent, and Brendon had to have their parents sign their contracts because they weren’t 18 yet. They were sent their contracts around the new year but nothing was officially announced until March. The news wasn’t particularly secret, though, since the FBR spring sampler started coming out around Valentine’s Day and P!ATD was on it. (Can I please point out how I completely failed my chance to be an early fan… my friend gave me that sampler and I just let it sit there. I was also hearing a bit of talk online about how some Fall Out Boy fan’s band had a Cinderella moment, but did I go listen to their demos? nope nope nope).

P!ATD’s first album had an expected fall release date when they were announced as a new FBR band on March 15th. Here’s the picture they were using on most of their profiles:

Their myspace said “what would Jesus not do.” Their FBR & purevolume bio called them a dance rock band and mentioned the line “ambitious and desperate for attention” from one of the songs they were working on. The bio also said that they knew kids would give them one chance to impress, so it was “crucial to form the best first impression possible.” There was a quote from Ryan that said “We want to write a rock record you can dance to, we want it to be fun but at the same time it’s going to be very sincere.”

Ryan was quoting Chuck Palahniuk’s “everything you say is a self-portrait” a lot... it showed up in some future interviews, but it was also on the band’s online bios by this point.

the Panic guys were at the FBR and Friends tour in Anaheim in late March. The sampler was handed out there too.

Brendon’s name showed up in Alt Press as “Brendan Disco” ha. 

it sounded like the band made a homemade music video for It’s Time To Dance this spring that Brendon used for a class at school.

I wasn’t as into Fall Out Boy by 2005, so idk much of what people were saying on those boards or communities. I know a lot of P!ATD’s early fans came from there, though.

I think this photoshoot was done this spring, but I’m not certain about that. It was in the first half of 2005 for sure. It looks like it was done outside of the Sahara West library in Vegas.

The band’s practice space was in the T.K. Productions building. There were around 45 practice spaces there and it was about a mile off the Vegas strip. A couple articles tried to make it sound like P!ATD was in a crumbling building on the outskirts of Vegas, so… no.

Ryan told Blender in 2007 that there was a big-box porn outlet across the street from their practice space: “We went in once. We saw this huge rubber arm with a fist at the end and I was like ‘it’s time to go.’” 

by April it was just Ryan’s AIM and email that were listed as the band’s contact info. Ryan continued to use his blinkexists182 email through the whole Fever era (but his email listed on the band’s public profiles like purevolume was ryan@panicatthedisco.com).

Spencer had been the one who handled a lot of the band’s business side of things and that sounded like it continued.

Brendon was close with his high school German teacher and later came back to visit him after the band started touring. The teacher said that he’d sometimes find Brendon monitoring P!ATD’s myspace this spring instead of doing work for him.

Brendon had originally thought he should be responsible and go to school in Arizona to be a cosmetologist or hairdresser. He was still having second thoughts in 2005 and the rest of the band was still like wtf no.

I’m not entirely sure when the Relax Relapse demo was posted... I only know it wasn’t up in January or February but it was on purevolume in April. They also used that demo on the summer samplers.

Brendon turned 18 on April 12th.

by the end of Brendon’s senior year there were girls posting on his band’s myspace asking if he’d sign their yearbooks or take a picture with them before school.

A couple fans said radio stations near them were playing the demos this spring. 

THE CHALLENGING SPRING

Some people had already started hating on P!ATD online because they didn’t “deserve” to be signed and hadn’t “paid their dues.” Ryan said that “Rather than going to all these boards and writing what I thought, I just put it in the songs.” 

Basically, the band was getting a lot of hate for getting a record deal before they’d technically played their first show or even written many songs (this dragged on for the next year and got realllllly old omg). Imagine that you’re a moderately popular band in your city and you’ve been playing the local clubs for years trying to actually make it... and then some local band nobody’s ever even heard of gets a record deal?! So many small bands were indignant and resented P!ATD... I mentioned more about this in other posts too (like how Jon Walker initially hated P!ATD too before he met them).

Ryan told the Miami Herald in late 2006: “People came down on us for not playing the bar scene in Vegas. We weren’t even old enough to get into the bars.”

Ryan told MTV “there was a lot of pressure, because Pete had only heard, like, two to three songs, and all of a sudden we were expected to go and write a whole record, and no one was really certain how it was going to turn out."

3 years later when the band was touring for Pretty. Odd., they occasionally looked back at the process of writing AFYCSO and said things like this comment Ryan made at a press conference in August 2008: “We had ample time to write and decide what sounds good or not. We had no pressure and all we wanted to do was to put our music out there.” 

The band had to wait to record AFYCSO until Brendon had finished high school (idk why some journalists claimed he dropped out... the band said many times that Brendon was the reason they had to stick around Vegas until early June). Brent & Spencer were finishing school online. 

Brendon didn’t go to prom (which you could totally tell from the cosmogirl article in 2008 even if you didn’t read his livejournal ha).

I’ll talk more about song influences in a different post, but Ryan’s girlfriend cheated on him this season.

Brendon summed up this season pretty well in an interview on LiveDaily in 2006: “We had, like, four or five months to write the record. At that point, we only had, like, three demos. It was the most stressful time for us. We were so under pressure. We would practice all day. I got out of class at 10 a.m. I had a nap, go to practice at 2 and stay there until like 1 in the morning. We had 11- to 12-hour days. I would have to wake up again in an hour and go to school. That was my last year in high school. I was a junior when I joined the band, and my senior year I spent writing and recording.”

BRENDON’S SITUATION

Brendon talked a lot about how he worked at a Tropical Smoothie Cafe and sang for tips. He consistently said in early interviews that the money from his job paid for his share of rent for the band’s practice space, so that part of his story stayed the same. However, I doubt he was actually kicked out of his parents home & living somewhere else this season. Brendon had a much different story during most of the Fever era... so I’ll just say that at the very least he had unsupportive parents and it was a stressful season. Here’s more info about how some journalists heavily altered that story over time.

RYAN’S SITUATION

Ryan’s dad didn’t support his decision to drop out of college & throw away his scholarship. Ryan told Kerrang in summer 2006: “His problems with alcohol magnified and skewed things even further. I was not staying at home for weeks at a time. I was staying with my girlfriend, staying with the other guys in the band. There were times when I almost had to sleep at our rehearsal space cuz I didn’t have anywhere to go. Obviously I loved [my dad] and I cared about him but when you’re getting kind of abused by that person at the same time it’s really hard to try to help them.”

Ryan told Big Cheese: “I dropped out of school to write the record. I was on the verge of getting kicked out of the house. [My dad] didn’t consider it to be a real career.”

Ryan and the other guys continually used different phrasings that all meant the same thing: Ryan quit college after meeting Pete, after one semester, that winter, after being signed, at the end of his first semester, before/after finals (once Ryan said he didn’t even take his finals), etc. A couple times Ryan said he dropped out of college at the end of the year (which is still saying the same thing), but maybe that was interpreted to mean the end of the school year. All I know is a couple big magazines wrote that Ryan was still in school in late spring 2005, which led to some confusing narratives.

The Alt Press cover article in spring 2006 had some errors, so I’m only using direct quotes that line up with other things the guys have said. Here’s a quote from Ryan: “When I told my dad after the first semester that I was going to quit college and write a record, he was not very pleased. He definitely threatened to take everything away. I was on the verge of getting kicked out because of that decision… I’d be completely angry with him about wanting to kick me out of the house, but then I’d have to make sure he was ok and take care of him. I’d… try to get him back to being sober, and [it would be] like he forgot all about what I just did for him and go right back to wanting to kick me out. There were definitely a lot of fights, and he was in and out of the hospital a lot that year. There’d be times where I’d be gone doing something for the band, I’d come home and he wasn’t there. There’d be a message on the machine from the hospital, saying that he was there and to come see him. There was a ton going on in my life, all while trying to write a record.”

Here are the spring 2005 livejournal posts.