this post brought to you by waking up way too early

[neveralarch]

I've been super quiet on the internet lately! It is because everything is ridic busy. My last substantive post was in, wow, mid-February.

Here is a short summary of what I've been up to since then, I guess?

- High School state champs in fencing went really really well. I'm super proud of my fencers and reasonably confident that I'll be asked to coach next year. It was a great experience.

- Midwest club champs happened, and I did okay the individual day and then my 2-person team didn't manage to advance on the team day. It was super close, agh. I won all three of my bouts, and my teammate won one and then lost one by a point. The invisible ghost person didn't win any bouts. There were some fun times and also some drama with my least favorite teammates, so all in all it was a pretty normal competition, haha.

- My friend who also coaches a high school team introduced his team to the wonders of BY THE SWORD. Oh my god. They loved it. Also apparently some of the girls jumped right on the Maestro/Suba train. There was legit gasping during the scene where they're fencing with their hands and Suba slaps the Maestro and the Maestro touches his face and chuckles. Which is right. That is a moment of glory. Also during the Maestro's topless sword exercises, one of the high schoolers kept saying 'there should be more light in this scene. I can't see his muscles.' These kids truly understand the wonders of BtS.

- I guest lectured at a Public Opinion class for a friend who had to go to a wedding. It was actually super fun! I always think I'm not interested in teaching as a career, but I enjoy the process of it a lot.

- I turned in the final paper for one of my classes, because it was only for half the semester. Supposedly I will now have more free time, except I ditched a lot of important things in order to keep up with coaching and my course load and research. I will still not have free time.

- Last week was spring break! I flew down to Texas and hung out with my parents and did almost none of the work I brought with me. Instead I cleaned sheet pans and went to a chiropractor twice and wrote 17,000 words of Hawkguy AU. I don't know. I'd really like to finish that while I'm still rolling and motivated, but I'm suspicious that it's going to turn out to be 25k+.

- I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel in Texas with my mom, and it was super amazing. I don't have anything coherent to say about it, except that Tilda Swinton was fabulous and totally unrecognizable.

- I got up at 4.30 this morning, got on a plane in Dallas, flew back to the Cities, and landed in the snow. Majorly unhappy about the temperature change (it was briefly 75 in Texas! it is 20-30 here!), but I will cope. Accomplished practically nothing today, except hanging out with my cat, some repairs on my fencing jacket, and mainlining the first four episodes of Agents of SHIELD. It's okay, it kind of feels like it's starting slow (which people warned me about).

- Can we talk about how good Elementary has been lately? I feel like the bits with the roosters were straight out of the best kind of fanfiction.

I think that's it? In the next two weeks I'm going to a lot of academic talks, supposedly writing a draft of another term paper, doing a fun team competition in Iowa, going to a Bastille concert, going to a Caravan Palace concert, and probably collapsing into a puddle of exhaustion. And I'm thinking I should sign up for Remix and aralias' romance novels thing. And getting somewhere with this Hawkguy AU. Woo!

Comments

[aralias]

These kids truly understand the wonders of BtS.

:D :D :D

and glad your champs business seems to have gone well.

and yes, consider signing up. that said, i am pretty sure i am not going to remix this year.

[neveralarch]

Yeah, fencing overall is going well! I am threatening to introduce this year's new fencers on my team to the joys/horrors/awkward melon scenes of Bts, and we're driving to Iowa tomorrow for a team tournament. Fun times.

I'll see if romance novel inspiration strikes, haha (read: I'll see if I can finish this other random fic in a reasonable amount of time). I'm not sure if I would remix if I was only eligible in Doctor Who again this year. Since Night Vale got in, I figured I'd give it a shot. Just out of curiosity, would you remix if Blake was eligible?

[aralias]

good question. i'd certainly think about it more than not really at all - i think much like yuletide. i probably wasn't going to sign up last year at all but then blake didn't qualify and i decided i definitely wouldn't - which is a silly distinction to make as i might very well not have been assigned that fandom, which would mean it would be as if it hadn't been nominated.

with remix....

i like it very much as a format, and it's forced me to write some of my best non-shippy (and shippy) doctor who. which is really good. but now i dont really want to write doctor who (i am still watching it - we watched large swathes of trial of a time lord the other day, although admittedly i rejected the opportunity to watch the end of kinda. my priorities - i ask you. mysterious planet is pretty good, though. and brian blessed is in the next one - mind... something) but... i dont feel that compelled to write it, and if i was writing it i'd just think 'i wish i was writing my blake's 7 romance novel instead'. which is a bit sad.

but we sort of knew that, and you imply something similar in your comment. so - would i do it if my blake fic were elligble, and there was a possibility that i could write a blake fic? i dont know. i would quite like there to be blake remixes, and i am sort of thinking of suggesting that we run one, but now isn't a particularly good time in that i have loads of ideas for fics, including a fic that i started writing for a challenge - and another one that i am writing for unconventionalcourtship, which i didn't think was going to run this year, and hadn't planned for. and then people wanted it, and i felt like i had to play because that was basically all i was going to contribute as a moderator ;) and actually the fic is flowing really easily, and it's sort of a thing i was thinking of writing anyway. my two options were a) massive pre-series plotty thing or b) disposable sex business, and probably for better rather than worse i chose a, even though it meant... i wasn't writing my other-challenge fake relationship story ;) (from once romance novel to another, let's face it.)

i know remix would be in a month or so, once this was done - but maybe i am challenged out. for the moment. and you dont know who else will sign up, do you? and they might be assigned to other fandoms...

as for doctor who, based on the list of people who signed up for who_remix... i suspect i would probably end up with someone i have already remixed (as i did this time).

in summary: it would be a more difficult choice, and depending on the circumstances i might end up feeling like i had to sign up if blake was nominated, but probably still no.

[neveralarch]

Very interested by this thoughtful answer. I think the 'would rather be writing something else' is it exactly - I'm glad I did challenges and stuff to keep the Whofic flowing, but at this point I'd rather dedicate time to other fandoms. I just got my remix assignment and the recipient is all non-Who, so I will have to do my struggle of 'how do you remix' in a new way this year.

Aaand nevertheless I am way more interested in writing the Marvel fandom super indulge-y fic that I'm in the middle of, rather than starting my remix. Or working on this paper that's due soon. So we'll see how I feel in a couple weeks, haha.