the time has come

[seperis]

Hmm.

The thing about having a skin reaction is that it's not visible at all, to anyone. At least, besides that attractive freshly-sunburned look that comes and goes, there was no peeling or blistering or striations or turning purple. At least that would be interesting. But no. I get boring allergic reactions. Boring ones tht are fairly invisible, so everyone and their puppy regularly forgets that I'm wearing a sweater in April while I sweat for a reason. It is please, in the name of God, unless you want to see me wince and make sad noises, or alternately, bring my heel down on your foot in ways that you will remember for many years, DO NOT TOUCH ME.

I never realy comprehended quite this intimately how *much* people touch. Slap on the back--let us never speak of those--grabbing upper arms, pats on the shoulder--adn then quick apologies, and seriously, wearing gray sweater of maximum coverage of my skin and humankind. Breezes could be awkward. DO NOT TOUCH.

It's basically annoyance-grade misery. Not serious, just freakishly inconvenient in the laying down and sitting and whimpering way, in that I could not do the first two well adn the third I did pretty constantly. Plus, suddenly, Waffles wanted affection.

(Waffles, to those new here, is my rabbit. It's a very long story. It starts last February. No, I didn't name him myself. It still hurts me inside to type that name.)

So Waffles, whose fur is awesomely soft except when you are having a skin reaction, then it is sandpaper crawls onto any surface area he can get. It was fairly traumatizing. I won't say he looked like he was trying to see if I would set him free, free, free like the wind in the backyard (though seriously, if he wants to go live in the creek of snakes, crackpipes, and people from ICF houses? Oh baby, you just try) just to make him stop kneading tiny little devil paws into my shoulder or trying to tangle himself in my hair. It's bizarre. And by bizarre, I mean, my pet has been possessed.

...it's sad that my thought right now is suddenly, I wonder if Christo works on rabbits?

Right, the reason for this entry: I'll be catching up on all email and sundry today and tomorrow from the stuff I've basically been skipping since last Wednesday, so if I owe you a response, you will get it. Probably. No, likely. And I apologize for any delays that might be caused. OTOH, I bought the entire Mercedes Lackey Valdemar series(es) and have immersed myself in Valdemar while lying about and feeling dreadfully sorry for myself. Will have stunned book reports detailing how much Firesong annoyed me, why I think Vanyel shold have been allowed to die because Jesus, this woman could totally be an angst h/c fanfic writer, and by that, I mean the scary ones that I can't read anymore because I always break down in tears and swollen eyes are not only unattractive but make it hard to see. TRAINWRECK. Which is why I won't read the Magic's Price books. Too traumatizing. Well, not now anyway. I have a stack of them and the Sherlocks to work my way through. And the two Dark Tower books left in the series. And these other ones. And re-read Everything's Eventual.



Weirdly, I went passively searching for this non-fanfic sci-fi I wrote right around the time I entered Star Trek Voyager fandom. It's about a third done and still dreadfully long, and I can only remember pieces of the plotline. I think--no, I know--that I lost most of it transitioning betwen computers or on disks that died. It had a very strong base sci-fi plotline invovling telepaths and mind control and two empires and the main character, Sahine, is so bizarre and damaged that--wow. Seriously. I'm hard on characters I really like? So I'm assuming I fell in love with her. There's no other explanation.

There's also a fantasy one I wrote later makes me twitch, since its main character is Seperis.

I only wish I was kidding.

In my defense, at the time, it wasn't my pseudonym online, only the thing i used to get a geocities account, but now it's disturbingly personal and I think she has lavender eyes. Lavender. Eyes. I don't even know how to deal with that. My early vaguely h/c tendencies were rolling through it as I merrily killed most of her village, an evil army by an evil mage who wanted her since she was untrained, her grandmother, and sent her to die in the desert with her people unless their long-lost brother-clan would assist them. There was also this thing where a third of the population was neuters, and I know I had to have been reading something at the time that gave me the idea, but for the life of me, this particular incarnation of them is just plain creepy. I think they were bondmates of the people who weren't neutered? And Seperis--God, that is seriously making me twitch writing that--didn't have one and was very depressed. Later she had sex with a desert guy. I wrote bad sex then. I mean--bad sex. Sex so bad that even at teh time, you kinda had to squint adn go with a lot of bizarre euphemisms to realize what it was. And I'm pretty sure I never mentioned actual anatomy.

But still. I'm searching them out to see what they feel like now. I kinda want to look up my box--yes, *box*--of vampire novel manuscripts and kind of relive my teenage years of long, epic stories of angsty girls and the vampires who rescued them ALL FOR LOVE but then I think, wow. And then there's Katheryne--yes, spelled *just like that*, who has about five thousand pages of notebook paper devoted to her.



Randomly: I've been privatizing some posts. None of them are fandom related, mostly personal, mostly stuff I just don't want to look at anymore. So if something vanished that you were looking at--adn the odds of that happening are astronomical--that's why.

Okay, off to do work, catch up, drink monkey-tea--yes, I bought the trained-monkey picked tea, adn it's oolong by the way (is that spelled correctly)? Still mulling whether it is, in fact, tea that is worthy of trained monkeys.

Comments

[celli]

:/

Thank God I never wrote my ridiculous Mary Sues down when I was a kid, just recited them to myself in my head. Because if those stories every made an appearance, I'd have to go into the fannish witness protection program.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

From an early age I was inserting myself into my favorite characters/shows.

God. I sort of rejoice when I think "I could have actually WRITTEN them down."

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE?

I totally did that. I had this *EPIC* neverending story taht covered multiple generations--though all the women had the same name, and two guesses on whose name.

I will not say it. It causes me to hurt.

*bounces* BUT YES! Love. So much.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Randomly: I've been privatizing some posts. None of them are fandom related, mostly personal, mostly stuff I just don't want to look at anymore. So if something vanished that you were looking at--adn the odds of that happening are astronomical--that's why.

HA! That was me! "Does she want to break up?? *WAAAIL*"

Oh man, do not get me started on the names I used to use. Emerald. No really. EMERALD. We all have a shameful past. SHAMEFUL.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*snorts* Of course. No, I just removed like, six or seven to private. It was--a lot of reasons.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Oh and on the Valdemaar front, you SHOULD spend the effort to read the Albereich books.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I'm halfway through the first one, Exile's Honor. I finished the Mage Winds series on Sunday and Arrow's Fall on Monday. Should be fun. *g*

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

Sweetheart, I'm so sorry this is happening to you! I once had hives from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and everywhere in between, soooo, yeah. ::sympatheic itches::

I totally can't go back and read my first fic anymore. It makes me cringe. I was sooo cutesy!!

Though no one ever had lavender eyes. ::is laughing WITH you::

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yes yes yes. it's lavender eyes. I totally deserve laughter. I was in my early twenties. I *knew better*. *sad*

Man, hives. I--cannot even go there. but I am filled with great admiration that you are not currently in prison after having to kill someone, as I have been *so close*. Oh so close.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

Hee. I remember some of your early voyager fic.

Hope the skin clears up! Antibiotic allergic reactions are no fun at all. And I occasionally relapse into teenage vampire love stories. I've got two fat books sitting on my shelf by Stephanie Meyer I bought last year, and I haven't bought the third because it doesn't come out until August.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Stephanie Meyer? Ooh. *marks down*

And thank you. It's--so unglamorus and boring. Tooth stuff--interesting! Weird skin reaction? God. not so much.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Interestingly, no one ever touches me without permission except the boyfriend. No pats on the back, casual touches to the arm, etc. Perhaps I look like I might bite?

John Sheppard's techniques in frightening people away from this "touching" thing:

- The "veer": as a hand reaches in your direction, you veer, disappearing from the original location. The hand intended for the shoulder ends up awkwardly on the elbow. They only try it once.

- The "offended blink": the look of shock crosses your face, as you apparently interpret all touching as an ineffective pass.

- The "freeze": all the molecules of your body suddenly turn to ice as you sit straight as the unwelcome hand lands. For the "touchee" it is like handling a dead fish.

- The "air of distant dignity": the body language is friendly... from the smile up. From the shoulders downward the bodily posture is tight and evasive.

- The "moving target": this requires several diet cokes every few hours but is easy to master. Simply consume, and fidget. Tap the foot. Squirm. Sit in strange positions in your desk chair. Slouch. Twitching is unconsciously connected to insect life, and no one will touch you.

Best of luck on your new untouchability. ;)

Icarus

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is so John Sheppard. It's--yes. That would be a *hysterical* story.

[trobadora]

AHAHAHAHA!!!! Lavender eyes! Seperis! *falls over*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

OH GOD I KNOW. I just--I keep staring at the bit I found of one chapter and wanting to *cry*.

[thornsilver]

I nearly bit my mom's head off when I had bad sunburn and she kept touching me, despite the warnings. I sympathize.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nod* People just do not understand. They are *weird*.

[digitalwave]

I know what you mean about the skin stuff. There have been days I've wanted to strangle the next person who merrily chirps 'Oh, you got some sun!' becuase it's one of those days when the redness from my lupus mask is been really bad. I generally just try to grin and bear it.

Thankfully most of the evidence of my early story-telling doesn't exist. A lot of my longer, more involved ones have only ever existed in my head. I used to tell myself bedtime stories every night in order to get to sleep.

I don't know if it counts as a Mary Sue or not but I really wanted to be Batgirl when I was little. I think that the only thing that thwarted me was that the tallest building we had in my hometown, except for the hospital and a couple of the schools, was maybe three or four stories high. How can you gracefully swing from building to building without any skyscrapers around? ;)

[digitalwave]

*sigh* sentence structure, what a concept. I promise, I'm not a complete dork. Sometimes the fingers just outpace the brain.

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

*loves on Mercedes Lackey*

Oh I know a lot of people rip on her for writing mary sues and the like, but "By the Sword" (a one off in the Valdemar universe) was my ultimate comfort read paperback, for any long trip. I must have read that book 30 times.

So yes, I am seriously looking forward to reading your reviews.

Also, I don't like it when people are touchy either. My sister's boyfriend's one of those people, all, "Hand on your shoulder while I tell you this." And I know it's not deliberately creepy it's just...pick up on my freezy body language, and don't make me have to be the asshole by taking your hand off me.

(I really like the John Sheppard "don't touch me" list up above)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I LOVE By the Sword adn the Oathbound/Oathbreaks/third one anthology. They are *so* good. Kerowyn remains my favorite ever.

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

Magic's Price is seriously not that depressing until the very end--most of it involves Stefan and Vanyel, and it's kind of sweet how hard Stef works to get into Van's pants.
However. The one about Lavan Firestorm? Don't read that unless you want to BAWL YOUR EYES OUT.
I heartily recommend Oathboand and Oathbreaker and Kerowyn's story. Good, adventure-filled, very little crying on the part of the reader.

[cyprinella]

Gah, yes. That one and The Quartered Sea by Tanya Huff are on my list of "Most depression fiction I have ever read"

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

I realized a year or so ago that I imprinted on Vanyel - in almost every fandom I've read in, there's been a lengthy h/c epic involving a semi-fallen hero and his angst-drenched Redemption Through Love, and I eat them up like they're ice cream, reveling in each and every over the top detail. It's humbling.

Count me as another one who inserted characters into every book/TV show/movie that I liked. Female characters with traumatic pasts and improbable skill sets. Oh yes. Then there were the universe mash-ups, combining my favorite parts of various creations and setting up titanic struggles over good and evil and interstellar resources. I never wrote them down, but I did draw up elaborate floor plans and character notes (plot was always my weakness - I'd go over the universe in minute detail but could rarely get beyond the set-up).

Skin irritation is horrible. I hope you get rid of it quickly.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

...tell me SGA does not have one fo these. Because if it does? I may have to read it and it will KILL MY SOUL.

Though let's face it, SV was *full* of those. And I loved them. So much.

[miss-porcupine.livejournal.com]

My ninth grade creative writing project got points deducted for being too soap opera-ish -- it was a total self-insert into a rock band (not even a real one, just a sort of amalgam of existing bands). I think I got the last laugh a year or so later, when a popular novel had almost the same plot. I was just writing for the wrong audience. (One could argue that I'm still plagued by the same trouble.)

Announce to everyone that you have decided to accept your Jewish heritage and gone shomer negiah. Between the wondering where the heck you've got a Yid in your family tree and the discreet wiki-ing to figure out what the hell you're talking about, you should be free of contact until the sensitivity passes.

Or, conversely, tell everyone you are being tested for leprosy. I got weeks of isolation telling people that I thought my routine cold was West Nile Virus.

I've seen your pictures of Waffles. "Tiny" is not a word I'd use to describe him, either in parts or in sum.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Shomer negiah.

*dies* So perfect.

[piplover.livejournal.com]

You have my total sympathies about the skin thing. I think wishing people won't touch you is kind of like telling someone not to look down from a great height - they suddenly have this overwhelming urge to do it anyway.
I liked the Vanyel books, although I have to admit that in order to protect myself from becoming a blubbering mess I totally skipped a huge chapter in Magic's Price. Still haven't read it to this day, and I'm ok with that. It does have a happy ending, if that makes you feel any better.
Oh, and I hated Firestorm. The kid got on my nerves.
Hope you feel better soon.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

When I am sufficiently burned out by Valdemar, I shall get the last Herlad Mage series so the trauma will be blunted by bitterness. Cause just reading the *synopsis* hurt. It was totally h/c but with less c than desired.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

The thing about Mercedes Lackey is that she started out in fanfic, K/S no less -- Judy Gran has old zines with some of her stories. She is, in fact, a very successful pro writer of emo-porn fanfic *who has no pretensions* (yes, Anne Rice, I *am* looking at you) but who has found a niche and made a nice living out of it. I doff my chapeau to her.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Wow. Really. Awesome.

[eleveninches.livejournal.com]

That sounds horrible. Can you take an oatmeal bath?

[stereowire.livejournal.com]

I-I just have to say this. I'm sorry.

AN SGA/VALDEMAR FUSION WOULD BE FREAKIN' AMAZING

if I could write, that is what I would write. Or maybe I should write it because I can't write.

[iamtheenemy.livejournal.com]

When I was thirteen, I wrote a story about my best friend and I meeting the members of NSYNC at Disney Land when they jumped into our cart on the ferris wheel. It was called The Ferris Wheel: How it all started (Our 'N Sync Story) (http://iamtheenemy.livejournal.com/17672.html). Umm, at least we didn't have lavender eyes?

[lurkerlynne.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how many people get offended when you tell 'em not to touch you. And then they wanna know why. It's none of your business why I don't want to be touched. Fuck off.

Gah.

My sympathies on the allergic reaction- I get sinus pain, m'self. ::offers bathoils:: These gonna help?

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

Amen. Completely aside from the skin/allergy problems, the number of people who've been offended because I stiffened up when

someone I'd just met

hugged me continues to surprise me.

[saldemonium.livejournal.com]

Gah, I can sympathize. I was going through old boxes not long ago, and came across Star Trek fic I'd written as a teenager. Dear God. The main, Mary Sue, character was Jessica Tawney (had to get the T in there somehow I guess) Kirk. Kirk's long-lost twin sister. And of course, she was madly in love with Spock, and great friends with his mother, and told off his father at some point for trying to keep them apart. And she died in the end, saving Kirk and Spock and McCoy from some alien, and had the gasping, "Always remember me!" death scene in Spock's arms while Spock /cried/. Yeah. Talk about embarrassing to remember.

[eternallycait.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I wrote ridiculously horrific stuff when I was in grade school. Then when I was in uni I wrote OC fic during class to entertain my friend - and I'm pretty sure it was awful. I have this whole QaF/OC crossover thing (god, life, why do you shame me) in a notebook under my mattress.

[idiasm.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure people don't touch me, very often. Lessee - I'll hug my parents and brother without prompting, and there are a couple other people I consider family who I'll poke at, but it's different if I'm initiating it. I'm always uncomfortable when someone else wants to hug a lot, unless it is one of my small-children-cousins. I guess I'm doing the body language thing automatically, because people don't touch ME unless I touch them first, and sometimes not then.

As to Mary Sues - so, does it count if, like, you weren't really doing self-insertion into fandoms, but you made yourself a super-hero (and your friends, only they weren't quite as good) with the whole tortured background and horrible life events but really incredible skillz in everything ever? Is that better or worse than Mary Sue-ing in pre-established worlds? I mean, I did that stuff too, but later, and always with the same super-hero character. Mostly it was a way to entertain myself, and a way to fall asleep quickly; if I was telling myself a *really really bad* story, I wasn't worrying about anything or looking at the monsters in the closet or whatever, and I wasn't bored. So, yeah. But yes, painful. Sometimes I kind of fall into those patterns now if I'm really upset about something or tired, and later I'm always vaguely horrified.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Will have stunned book reports detailing how much Firesong annoyed me, why I think Vanyel shold have been allowed to die because Jesus, this woman could totally be an angst h/c fanfic writer, and by that, I mean the scary ones that I can't read anymore because I always break down in tears and swollen eyes are not only unattractive but make it hard to see.

*sniggers*

And yet? When it comes to pro-versions of slash? That series maintains a happy little melodramatic corner of my heart. (As opposed to Swordspoint which I hated with a passion. There was NO POINT to that book. At all. Like... nothing. Nothing freaking changed, nothing meant anything, and oh, it totally absorbed hours of my life that could have been used to watch paint dry.)

In other words, I look forward tot he review.