The Home For Wayward Cats

So, yeah, what a rush

Sat, 02 Nov 2019 04:11:37 GMT

Who knew that this was going to happen?

If you had asked me, I would have sworn that Gerard and Frank were both too fucking busy with all of their projects to have a My Chem reunion. Glad to be proven wrong, but 2019 has certainly been a year of My Chemical suprises.

I, like ~6000 other My Chem fans, tried to get tickets to the LA show. And failed. But to be honest, I wasn't expecting to get tickets - the odds were really against me (6300 capacity venue, and all of the My Chem fans who wanted to go. It sold out in about 5 minutes. And there were rumors of a full tour after the LA show, so I consoled myself with the fact that by not spending $ on the LA tickets + cost of getting to LA and etc, that I could 1. see more shows during a full tour and 2. put money toward my next tattoo.

I already have the design - it's by the same artist (amanda on Instagram who did my last tattoo design, which I don't think I posted here The next tattoo is a tribute to INOK, which is perfect for this resurgence of My Chem feelings, because I'm still not okay. :D

This was the other tattoo she designed for me - lyrics from Frank's song Great Party. (My heart needs work, it does what it wants to do

Anyway, the INOK design is two crossed croquet mallets with a flower behind them, and the words I'm not okay. Pretty excited for this one.

So, yeah. New My Chem show, which I'm really hoping means more shows (I desperately would love to see some Conventional Weapsons songs played live, please!) and maybe even new music (which would also make me pretty damn happy).

But also, if you've drowning in my chem feels, I just want to point out that no_tags is running another round to help people deal with their feelings. As always, it's a quick and dirty challenge, timeline like so:

Friday, November 1: Signup/prompting post
Sunday, November 3: Prompt claiming at Noon EST
Saturday, November 9: Posting

Signups and rules can be found here. You should definitely join in the fun.

Holy shit, what a whirlwind the last few days have been.

U've been entertaining myself with thoughts about how much of a fucking troll Frank is, and how much he enjooyed having this reunion show announced on his birthday. Best present ever, having your favorite band get back together for your birthday.

How are you all handling the news?

comments

Yeah, okay

Tue, 26 Mar 2019 00:55:06 GMT

Have an AO3 meme...stolen from the delightful dapatty.

Rules: Go to your AO3 works page, expand all the filters, and answer the following questions!

Total works? 614

What’re your first and second most common work ratings? Mature (201) and Explicit (164)

What’s your most common archive warning? No Archive Warnings Apply (552)

Do you consider yourself an adventurous writer/creator? I try to be. I like twisting tropes around, so maybe?

How many fics works have you written/created in each pairing category?
M/M - 395
Gen - 140
F/M - 84
Multi - 21
F/F - 15
Other -10

Is this more accidental, or do you have preferences? I don't have pairing category preferences, but I do have relationship preferences, which influences what categories I end up writing the most in. I would like to create more F/F; it's a work in progress.

What are your top 4 fandoms by numbers?

Bandom (266)
My Chemical Romance (263)
due South (194)
Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album) (65)

Are you still active in any of them, and do you tend to migrate a lot? I'm extremely monofannish; I'm still in bandom/My Chemical Romance. Really have no further interest in due South/C6D.

What are your top 4 relationship tags? ...this doesn't seem right. Only 59 with Frank/Gerard?

Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski (143)
Frank Iero/Gerard Way (59)
Party Poison/Gerard Way (36)
Joe Dick/Billy Tallent (23)

Does this match how you feel about the characters, or are you puzzled? Not puzzled, other than the low number of Frank/Gerard in comparison to Fraser/Kowalski.

What are your top 4 most used additional tags? (Note, I am absolutely terrible at tagging with other tags).

Community: ds_snippets (101)
Podfic Available (71)
Angst (38)
Community: anon_lovefest (31)

What would happen if you combined all 4 of these into a fic? Nothing?

How many WIPs do you have currently running on AO3? Any you don’t plan on finishing? I don't have any WIP, unless you count series, where there are stories that are added as inspiration strikes? In which case, the Dino 'verse, the Pillow 'verse and the Sharpest Lives are the ones most likely to have stories added at some point.

comments

Is February over yet?

Sun, 24 Feb 2019 10:36:24 GMT

I know several people who are struggling with February, in terms of physical illness and mental health; and apparently I am one of them. February has felt like I'm slogging through sand. Or maybe, considering where I live, snow. Either way, I'd like to be done with it.

There are a lot of liberals/progressives out there that are big Bernie fans, but I am not one of them. This op-ed from Teen Vogue by Isabella Gomez Sarmiento perfectly encapsulates why I'm not that into him. (via forests_of_fire)

( Cut for talk of death, illness, grief, marriage equality )

comments

Signal Boost: of fandoms and complete shitshows

Wed, 20 Feb 2019 15:56:59 GMT

rhodanum posted: of fandoms and complete shitshows

As someone who's been involved with fandoms for twenty years now, since the pre-LJ era, one of the most baffling and actively enraging developments in recent times has been the sharp rise of content-policing from within fandom itself, rather than something caused by the intervention of an outside entity (as was the case with the fundamentalist Christian group whose caterwauling kicked off Strikethrough).

This is a great deconstruction of some of the possible origins of anti-culture. It doesn't tie together the anti-culture with radfem TERFs or the "q-slur" advocates, but I wouldn't be surprised to discover that they're all interlinked.

I've never had any issues with any of these people. I've unfollowed a couple of kids on Tumblr because they were complaining about the q-slur being used by...get this...queers. I'm comfortable enough with my place in fandom that if people started getting upset with me because 1. I write incest ships or 2. I write underage characters having sex with age-mates or 3. I write RPF, I am fine with telling them to fuck off.

But not everyone can or will do that.

And it seems very relevant to me right now, because the Umbrella Academy show has both "incest" and underage elements which will no doubt outrage a lot of antis as people start creating fanworks for the show.

But go check out rhodanum's post. It's a fascinating look at fandom history.

comments

A mixed bag of things, fandom edition

Wed, 20 Feb 2019 15:18:48 GMT

Let's start with some community promos.

For all things Umbrella Academy

theumbrellaacademy is a new community for The Umbrella Academy! It's a general community, and while it’s mostly for the series we welcome discussions about the comics as well. As the show is newly on netflix, episode discussions will be under cut tags.

What’s welcome? Pretty much anything really! Episode discussions, icons, screencaps, gifs, thoughts on the comics, art or fics. Anything goes

And for your Umbrella Academy kink needs, there is a kinkmeme: umbrellakink

There's an interesting little podfic-to-fic challenge going on at remixapod

It works like this. Podficcer A submits between 3-6 of their podfic, then Author B creates a fic inspired by one (or more) of the podfic.

no_tags has posted, with 8 amazing stories. If you know me, you can easily guess which prompt I left. If you really know me, you can easily guess which story I wrote. I've got to comment on the stories, and once the reveal happens, I will rec my favorites.

And lastly, the_postal_pub, a community for letter writers. Which, I want to get back into the habit of sending out mail, so...we'll see.

As for the Umbrella Academy, I did watch it all over two days. It was not perfect but I totally loved what they did with it. Keeping my fingers crossed for the green light on Season 2. Tell me in the comments about what you liked, what you didn't, who was your favorite character, and what scene did you love the most.

Of course, that means that there may be spoilers in the comments, so beware of that.

comments

Drive-by posting

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 20:51:09 GMT

A couple of interesting links and a promo...

Article about diversity in punk music

Punks vs Nazis in the 80s and 90s

How to give back to music in 2019

In 1929, sculptor Malvina Hoffman was commissioned to create sculptures of "Racial types to be modeled while traveling round the world." The result were over a hundred sculptures in the Field Museum's Hall of Man, which were on display until 1969.

There were very valid criticisms that the sculptures furthered racist stereotypes and ideas. Recently, the museum has thoughtfully reframed the narrative of these sculptures, and it's fascinating. I think more museums need to take a good hard look at their exhibits and maybe ponder how and where their artifacts were obtained.

If you're in Chicago, check out the exhibit at the Field Museum.

Looking at Ourselves: Rethinking the Sculptures of Malvina Hoffman

And lastly, one of my favorite challenges has sign ups starting tomorrow! I've talked repeatedly about how much I love no_tags. Some of my favorite stories have come from that challenge, and I feel I've written some pretty decent stories because of it. The schedule looks like this:

Thursday, February 7: Signup/prompting post, closes Friday, February 8
Saturday, February 9: Prompt claiming at Noon EST
Saturday, February 16: Posting

The more the merrier, tbh. Come play!

comments

SCIENCE! Introducing the neuston

Tue, 05 Feb 2019 15:44:35 GMT

I'd never heard the word neuston before, and I consider myself pretty scientifically literate.

Neuston: the aggregate of minute aquatic organisms that float or swim in the surface film of a body of water.

Now, I knew that there were some creatures that floated on the surface of the ocean, like the Portuguese man o' war. But it never occurred to me that there was an entire ecosystem of animals that live in that top layer of the ocean.

And just to be On Brand for humans, neuston meadows are being endangered by our activities. The fact that these specific activities are designed to clean up the oceans doesn't make it better.

( Cut for pictures )

comments

Signal Boost: On Fandom and the "culture of selling"

Sat, 26 Jan 2019 06:50:36 GMT

fairestcat posted: On Fandom and the "culture of selling" (Reply)

If you look at the proliferation of gofundmes and patreons and think, "ugh, why do people keep asking me for money?" and not "how can we burn late capitalism to the ground and salt the remains?" then I think you're not seeing the big picture.

There's a bit of meta discussion going on about monetization (Pateron and ko-fi and Kickstarter and Etsy and etc) of fannish things. Older fandom tends to be very much "fandom should be for love not money" whereas a lot of the younger crowd looks at it more like "I create something of value, I should be able to be paid for that value."

I've linked to fairestcat, who wrote thinky things in rebuttal to cesperanza's assertion that this monetization is bad and actively harmful to our interpersonal relationships in fandom. How it's harmful to our social networks, because we're somehow exchanging our emotional support for financial.

There's a lot to unpack here, from privilege to classism to how we're living in a capitalist dystopian hellhole. There's the fact that for a long time, selling of fanworks was a big no-no because we were trying to stay under the radar and not attract the attention of copyright holders. And the fact that for years, fannish endeavors were considered frivolous and valueless. There's a lot of sexism thrown in just for the hell of it, because fannish spaces tend to be woman-driven.

I've always felt that creative people should be paid, so I've never had an issue with people selling fanworks. There was a time when it simply Wasn't Done in my crowd of friends, but that's changed a lot. I'm someone who has leaned heavily on my fannish network, both financially and emotionally, to survive some really rough times. And now I contribute tiny amounts to Patreons and Kickstarters and ko-fi and other fits of crowd funding.

I've never been against monetization of fandom; I've always been against monetization of fandom by outside parties.

Do I think this has harmed my social network? Somehow lessened the value of my emotional connections? Not at all. I think the way we interact and do fandom is fluid and ever evolving, and I've never associated new with bad.

The original discussion of conflating MLM schemes with monetization of fandom really does feel like the worst kind of pearl-clutching from a fandom old.

What do you think?

comments

Post haste

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 21:48:09 GMT

I shoulda waited before posting that last one, but I was just so damn excited.

But there were two other things.

One is the love meme going on over here. angelofthenorth is hosting a love meme for Dydd Santes Dwynwen, the Welsh saint of lovers. My thread is here, and you should leave your name and/or leave love for other people.

Two is that the next iteration of no_tags is happening. Prompts February 7th-8th, claims February 9th, fics due February 16th. If you've been around here for any length of time, you know how much I love this particular challenge. I just don't know if I can participate this time around - Ande and I are driving down to Chicago that weekend to see the Killjoys art exhibit.

I'm still pondering it; we will see.

(And omg, I need to get back into the habit of tagging)

comments

HoLY ShiT MR waY

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 19:38:40 GMT

The Umbrella Academy trailer just dropped, featuring a cover of Hazy Shade of Winter by Gerard, with help from Ray Toro and Jarrod Alexander. Hazy is one of those songs that's been covered by a billion different artists, but always stabs me in the heart. This version fucking bangs.

(edited to actually be the trailer and not the teaser).

brb watching it again. And again. And again.

In other news, my cat isn't dying (right at this moment) and we have tickets to the Bouncing Souls. Also, I have a piece of eating-my-feelings cake in the fridge that I'm gonna eat.

comments

Interesting links

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 22:35:53 GMT

Couple of interesting links...

There was another fucking huge data breach (dubbed Collection #1 with 772 million email addresses/passwords/personal data involved), so it's time to change passwords if there's a remote possibility of your information being compromised. Or maybe just change your password if you've been using the same one(s) for a while.

Check out HaveIBeenPwned with your email address - and it'll tell you what breaches (past and present) that you're email has been involved in (scroll down after you've entered your email for the listing of the data breaches).

Here's an article about a couple who are searching for a way to prevent prion diseases before they happen. Neither of them started out as scientists, but circumstances have put them on this particular path.

I just saw on Instagram that Frank is doing a mini-tour of South America, which is great for them. SA so rarely gets tours from musicians, so it's nice that they're getting that. Also, the Bouncing Souls are releasing an EP and going on tour, and they're hitting Minneapolis, so that's a win.

I saw the Souls last September at Riot Fest. prophetic and trojie and I all at barrier, getting sprayed by water and dodging crowd surfers. The Souls started with Hopeless Romantic and ended with True Believer, and it was glorious banger of a show. A++++ would totally mosh again.

And relatedly, a subject near and dear to my heart: giving back to music in the age of streaming.

comments

Icons for fun and profit

Sat, 19 Jan 2019 20:46:27 GMT

I'm really loving the media ramp-up to the Umbrella Academy tv show, and Netflix put out some great posters for the show. Not perfect for iconing, because of the image dimensions, but still usable. So, I made some icons, just basic crop and resize, nothing fancy.

It would be an understatement to say that I'm excited for the show. With a healthy dose of "please for the love of all that's holy, don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up AMEN!"

Also, I realized I had no icons of Janelle Monáe, so I had to remedy that.

Feel free to steal, credit is nice but not required. \o/

( Icons under here )

comments

Femslash ficlets

Sat, 19 Jan 2019 17:25:04 GMT

Thanks to gorgeousnerd for linking to this lovely Janelle Monáe lyric prompt table bingo thingy. The deadline isn't until the end of 2019, and like most everyone else I know, I really want to get more femslash out there in the world.

It's hard to write femslash for most fandoms, because there are so few women characters, which is a whole different rant. But I figure I've got Lindsey and Jamia and Alicia, Kitty and Chantal, Greta and Vicky-T. I can definitely add in Laura Jane, and Ashley Simpson. I don't know enough about the other bandom women to comfortably write about them. But still, this is doable.

If anyone has suggestions/tropes/kinks they'd like to see regarding specific characters, let me know. :D

( Bingo card under the cut! )

comments

Things I have enjoyed the last year-ish.

Sat, 12 Jan 2019 19:25:58 GMT

Basically, a stripped down rec list of things not-fannish that I've enjoyed. Something things are new, some are things you might not have heard of. By no means comprehensive; I'm sure I've missed a lot of things that I really liked.

If you want more details about a specific thing, leave a comment!

Alternatively, let me know about some of your favorite things.

Caveat: Over the last few years, I've found myself supremely disinterested in stories that center (cis, straight, white) men. I just don't give a damn about their lives, their problems, how they can't get laid, how they can't catch a break, how the world is conspiring against them, etc etc etc. Just, so done. And because of this, my consumption of media has been...severely curtailed.

So much of what's out there is created by (cis, straight, white) men for (cis, straight, white) men. Over it.

So, onward.

( Movies )

( Television )

( Books )

( Music, live )

( Music, not live )

( Podcasts )

( Comics )

comments

Another post...

Thu, 10 Jan 2019 22:08:28 GMT

Look at me go!

( Ramblings about bandom challenges, Snowflake, my fic, feelings, &etc )

comments

Jesus, someday I'll get back into the habit of journaling (she says, again and again and again)

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 21:03:08 GMT

Bandom Holidays is possibly happening, if enough people sign up. If creating a fanwork as a gift for someone else, and in return getting a fanwork seems like a think you'd like to do, go sign up. Pretty please.

Deadline for Bandom Big Bang is coming up soon, as well, which is a terrifying thought.

I am disturbed by the trailer for the Detective Pikachu movie, the whole idea of it, but I know deep in my heart I will go to the damn theater to see it.

I am really fucking looking forward to the Spider-verse movie that's coming out, because 1. Miles Morales and 2. Peni Parker, brainchild of one Mr. Gerard Way. I have a lot of feelings about Mr. Way; please raise your hand if you are surprised.

I am well and alive - I hope everyone out there is alive and well, too. <3

comments

no_tags fall 2018

Sun, 28 Oct 2018 04:24:40 GMT

I had to sit this one out, because I’ve been sick for more than six weeks and really have just started getting back to normal. But no_tags is honestly my favorite challenge in bandom; it has consistently, over the years, produced some of the most amazing stories in the fandom.

This edition has been no different. The number of people participants has dwindled, and there hasn’t been a lot of people reading, kudosing, or commenting on these stories, which is a fucking shame.

So here is a review of the stories that are in the no_tags challenge. Please go read these amazing stories, even if the pairing might not be your otp. If you read, please take a moment to leave a kudos, or a comment. Encourage writers, so that they keep writing.

(The authors are currently anonymous, but I think they’ll be revealed on Sunday. If you want to guess in the meantime, guessing post is up.)

( In no particular order: )

comments

The no_tags challenge has been revealed...

Fri, 16 Mar 2018 08:02:21 GMT

And there are some amazing stories. The collection can be found here. 16 stories, mostly My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy, with a dash of Against Me!, Mindless Self Indulgence, and Panic! at the Disco. All the stories are great, but don't take my word on it - go check out the stories yourself. You won't regret it.

I wrote +2 Damage To My Heart, in which Gerard manages to talk Frank into trying out a tabletop game...

( Narrowed down to seven favorites...in no particular order )

comments

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 20:45:49 GMT

The no_tags challenge is happening for the first time since 2015, and I’m pretty excited. I think you should be, too. Some of my absolutely favorite stories have come from this challenge.

You can find stories from the challenge:

2009-2012 here

2013-2014 here

2015+ is here (includes some stories from previous years that have been uploaded to the AO3)

If you are a bandom-type writer, you should participate! Sign-up here
Simplified version of the rules:

**Leave 2 prompts anonymously (prompt-leaving rules are here). The rules are kinda complex, but they’re designed to make it possible for EVERYONE who participates to find a set of prompts they can write to, regardless of which flavor of bandom they write. Deadline for signing up and leaving prompts is Friday March 2nd 9PM EST.
**Claim a prompt set. Claiming starts on Saturday March 3rd Noon EST, first come, first served. Claiming is anonymous.
**You have a week to write a ficlet with a minimum of 1k, using one (1) of the two prompts you claimed. All the ficlets are posted to AO3, and are unveiled, still anonymous.
**You comment on the awesome ficlets, and play guess-the-author on the Dreamwidth comm.
**Profit ???

If you have questions, feel free to ask. For all the panicking and flailing I have done over this challenge, it’s one that I absolutely love, and I would love to see more people participating.

comments

Snowflake 2018 - Days 3 and 9

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 18:37:24 GMT

Really hadn't planned on doing more days of Snowflake, but I finally watched voordeel's new video and was blow away. So...

( Recs galore! )

comments

Jet Black New Year

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 18:38:03 GMT

Like calendars dying at new year's eve parties
As we kiss hard on the lips
And swear this year will be better than the last

-"Jet Black New Year" by Thursday

I...was not expecting the confetti. It was an amazing show nonetheless. A great way to close out 2017, and to start anew with hope.

Hmm, just realized I don't have a Thursday icon. Need to fix that.

( Blather about Photobucket and preserving your fanworks... )

comments

Snowflake 2018 - Day 7

Sun, 07 Jan 2018 18:48:28 GMT

Okay, I lied. Even though the love meme is always a hard one to do, I'm currently fighting off some sort of death plague and could totally use the love. So yeah.

Day 7

In your own space, create a love meme for yourself. Let people tell you how amazing and awesome and loveable you really are. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Surf the comments and find people to give love to.

Words, cute pictures of cats, cute pictures of bandboys being ridiculous, haikus, limericks, Bandom prompts, recs all also count as love. <3

comments

Snowflake 2018 - Day 4

Sat, 06 Jan 2018 10:22:39 GMT

Day 4

In your own space, create a fannish wishlist. No limits on size or type of fanwork; just tell us what you’d like to see. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. And if you grant a wish, do the same thing!

( Day 4 - wishlist )

comments

2017 in Review - gig edition

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 07:30:16 GMT

2017 in concerts

One of my real life goals was to try to catch at least 12 live shows - which works out to one a month for the year. And I did manage that, amazingly enough.

I think for 2018 the challenge will be a little harder, since I won't have the crutch of Frank shows to rely on. But really, there's so many amazing bands out there to see.

( List of shows I saw and blather... )

comments

2017 in Review - fanworks edition

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 09:58:16 GMT

[Yet another attempt to get back into the habit of journalling...]

It's been a tough year for so many of us, and for me, when I'm not in a good place, mentally or emotionally, it really dries up my creativity. December is a tough month for me most years, the holidays are always emotionally fraught, and it's a struggle to get through the year-end with my sanity intact.

But it's done and over, and I can only hope that 2018 is a kinder year for all of us.

Fannishly, I wrote ~63k words for the year. Not great, but not as bad as I feared.

( Fannish ramble under here )

comments