Melbourne

He's being a terrible Dory again. (Sung to the tune of 'I'm telling a terrible story' from The Pirates of Penzance.) This time his evidence exculpatory is that I won't let him use the indoor swimming pool. (No, not the sink. And I don't have a bathtub.)

So he learned to turn the lever sort of door handles and also swing on them in such a way that he can open an outward opening door from the outside. I am pondering technological solutions. I hear there's a form of child lock that works on cats. Until then I'm leaving the lid down and putting a barrier in front of the door, but I expect that won't hold him for long.

First off, I posted a fic:

Words to lead you forward, Star Wars: TFA, Rey-centric Rey/Finn/Poe soulmarks story. About 3700 words.


I'm doing most of my writing on the train at the moment; at least in the mornings. I used to live in Ballarat, a hundred kilometres from the city I work in, and although the commute sounds terrible I really loved my time on the train. I nearly always got a seat on the train - rarely the case when you live in the suburbs - and it was a really great opportunity for writing. I wrote Green Toes entirely during train trips. Though I did also spend a lot of time video gaming.

I lived back in the Melbourne suburbs for a year and a half, where my commute was shorter but much less comfortable. And now I've just moved out to the very edge of Melbourne's suburbs. We're still technically in the urban sprawl, but there's a farm less than a kilometre from my house. I'm at the end of the train line, which means I nearly always get a seat, which means once again this is where most of my writing gets done. I kinda love it.

Still, most days I only seem to be enthusiastic about writing during the morning commute. By the evening I'm wiped after a day at work and it's much more tempting to turn on the mobile hotspot on my phone, link it up to my laptop wireless and browse all the internet I've missed out on for the last eight hours. (There was no mobile phone coverage for most of the trip from Ballarat, which saved me a great deal of browsing temptation.) Mobile internet gets expensive, though, so I'd probably reserve it for just backing up my writing if not for the fact that we don't have any wired internet at home so I essentially attached a whole new data plan (and high speed mobile modem) to my phone bill until the NBN company comes and puts in our cable.

Maybe once we have proper internet at home and I've ditched the extra data from my phone plan, I'll resist the temptation to browse Dreamwidth on the way home and write both ways. Or maybe it'll just be easier once I get used to the new job! But in comparison to some parts of the past, even writing for a solid 40 minutes once a day is pretty huge. I can let myself goof off on the way home.

(This will be of limited interest to those who aren't fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The West Wing.)

So, the husband and I were talking, yet again, about the fact that he likes Sam Seaborn and I don't. And I referred to Sam as "the Riley Finn of West Wing".

He pointed out that Sam's character was supposed to be the interesting one, until the interesting role got taken over by Josh - and that "Josh is probably the Spike". To which my instant reaction was "Of course not! CJ Cregg is the Spike!"

...much discussion ensued.

( a summary )

I would be interested to hear how very wrong I am, and why clearly it should be arranged in a different order...

I've been sick as a dog for almost a week -- I haven't had a voice since Saturday morning -- so I was "lucky" enough to have coughed myself awake just in time to catch the announcement live via Twitter.

I've really been hoping for a woman of colour as the next Doctor, and I didn't recognise Jodie Whittaker by name, so I felt a weird stab of disappointment and even betrayal when I saw her white hand, coupled with simultaneous excitement that it was clearly a woman's hand.

I still think that a white woman was the easy option, casting-wise, but I've seen Whittaker in a few things -- including the first four episodes of Broadchurch, which I inhaled last night and enjoyed so much I completely forgot about Game of Thrones -- and she's very, very good.

And I also wonder if it would be unfair to an actress of colour, to throw her to the same wolves that drove Leslie Jones off Twitter, while also expecting her to lead a show with (so far) all-white writers. Which is not to excuse the implications of casting a white woman, I just think it might be complicated. Most things are. Whitakker's already been hit with a barrage of misogyny, and I hope the BBC is filtering her mail.

Anyway, I've curated my social media so well that I haven't seen a single friend or acquaintance saying they're opposed to a female Doctor as such.

On the other hand, I've seen a lot of performative finger-wagging, reminding us that this is only a victory for white women (got it, thanks) and that we can't rely on pop culture to save the world (no, really? Good heavens, I had no idea, thank goodness I had you, random Twitter person, to tell us off for being invested in a hobby!).

I guess I'm weary of performative wokeness, and, while everyone's entitled to an opinion, I find a lot of opinions on Doctor Who from people who aren't or haven't been in the fandom ... lack context? Which is sometimes valuable, and sometimes it's just the hot take equivalent of "DID YOU KNOW THAT 'TORCHWOOD' IS AN ANAGRAM OF 'DOCTOR WHO'?"

ANYWAY. Whitakker. I'm looking forward to her run, I'm still holding out hope for Alexander Siddig or Sophie Okonedo as Fourteen (it's never too soon!), people are already complaining that Whitakker is too young and too old, so, like women everywhere, we already know she just can't win.

So.

I'm doing iddyiddybangbang , which posts in September. I also want to participate in remixrevival , which also posts in September. Signups for Remix run until the end of the month, and there are two fandoms I really like that I could qualify for in Remix if I polish up some WIPs and finally post them. SO... rather than getting a good start on my IIBB fic right now, I'm having a bit of a WIP-athon trying to finish things off. It's putting my other fic schedule back, but it's also kind of good to think about getting these things off my to-finish list. Hopefully this doesn't screw everything up?

( Snippet: Star Wars TFA, Rey/Poe/Finn soulmate marks fic )

( Utena: Five times Utena turned Anthy down )

 
Apologies for font weirdness. I write in too many different programs with too many different default fonts.

I did the roller derby thing yesterday after all that agonising!

1. it was fun

2. driving is less scary each time I do it, which is not surprising since that's the way facing your fears WORKS but it manages to surprise me a bit anyway. my fear of driving is sometimes so all-encompassing that it's hard to imagine spending a moment of it in anything but white-knuckled terror.

3. driving was okay despite the fact that while nearing Ballarat I was like "woah is my suspension off? do I have a flat tyre???" and then realised it wasn't that, it was just THE SHEER FORCE OF THE WIND NEARLY DRIVING ME OFF THE ROAD.

4. it was opposite day at scrimmage, where I enjoyed jamming more than blocking (??) but also enjoyed reffing the advanced scrimmage so much that I didn't want to stop (?????)

MEANWHILE I also set myself up with artistic skating classes at a nearby rink here where I live!!! Only to hear from derby people that the staff at this rink are not good on safety stuff and it's best to learn somewhere else. Unfortunately there are just not that many other rinks to start with, let alone rinks that offer artistic skating. :/ Also let me tell you, it is somewhat sobering to hear <em>roller derby players</em> being concerned with your safety when doing <em>dance skating</em>. Definitely not discounting it, I completely believe them, but it sure goes against people's perception of skate disciplines.

I intend to check out the rink and the classes for myself anyway, just with a more measured look now. After five years of roller derby I'm pretty confident in my ability to judge what's safe, and to have boundaries, and I'm comfortable telling a teacher "I don't care what your class rules are, it's my body and I'm not going to do that right now." But proceeding with caution.




Meanwhile, in fandom, REMEMBER WHEN I USED TO TALK ABOUT DOCTOR WHO ALL THE TIME? Probably not, it's been at least five years, but I will definitely watch again for the new Doctor, omg. Excited to get this train back on track.


I've also started rewatching Utena, in a real blast from the past moment. The animation in this anime looked old when I first saw it back in the 2000s, and looks even older now. It strikes me that it's about the only time I've really enjoyed the arranged marriage trope. "I fought this duel to defend my friend's honour! I didn't realise that meant I was now engaged!" My partner walked over during episode three, during that bit where Touga tries flirting with Utena for the first time, and she just said "Don't touch her. I've watched this show for five seconds and I already know that." RIGHT ON.

I reckon we'll have two companions this year - a man and a woman.

(Honestly, I don't even watch the show anymore, but this news has me wondering if I should start again. She just looks so... Doctorly.)

surprise, hi, I probably haven't posted here in over a year, here's an emotional and anxious post about roller derby.

why did I ever get into sports.

I moved house and started a new job all in the same week. That was three weeks ago, and I guess this is the first time I've felt like I had time to sit down, take my time and think. And yet I've barely taken any down time before I'm gearing up to do something else terrifying: drive out to Ballarat to play some roller derby again.

So much of the world seems overwhelming and scary to me sometimes. I know all about the value of leaving your comfort zone, but while i keep expanding my comfort zone it's still pretty small. Usually, just going about my daily life involves doing several things every day that scare me. It really isn't necessary to exacerbate it by combining two uncomfortable things (driving and playing sports) in one afternoon, and then commit to doing it every week. And yet, here I am, spending all morning obsessing about it, knowing I'll feel sad and disappointed if I don't go.

I've spent the last year trying to work out where I am with roller derby. I thought moving back to Melbourne and rejoining my old league would be fun, but I didn't feel at home there any more and then I was ground down by a concussion and by bullying. Spent the next six months just trying to get back to the point where I could get on the track without crying. And, okay, I got there, that was good.

I love skating, and I feel like I'm missing something without it. I love the derby community, too, and I feel sad when I'm not a part of it. The problem is that I never really had a great passion for competition, and now I feel that all my drive to compete is gone. Combine that with a whole pile of do-people-still-even-care-about-me feelings about the Ballarat club after being away for a year and a half, and I don't know where to find any motivation.

Although, there is always refereeing.

I haven't reffed before because... well, basically it looks too hard. I know! What the hell! Harder than having people tackle you while you're both wearing wheel shoes? Yes, because ti means making complex decisions about applying rules and people are going to question my judgement, and can I really deal with that? Also, it's a skill that takes ages to learn and I haven't felt like I had the energy for it. I'm not always up for feeling like a foolish newbie any more.

So in feeling overwhelmed and like I'm worn out from doing things that scare me, I've come around to a solution that also involves challenging myself. I'm also a bit stuck on the fact that I really enjoy the image of myself as a roller derby player. But I've done a lot of that by now, and if I don't feel excited by playing, is it worth it to keep up the image?