Supernatural - the legacy

It’s 21st November 2020 and the Supernatural finale happened two days ago. I’m still getting over it, but in order to do that I need to process what happened.

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!

Here be SPOILERS for Supernatural - the series finale!

So much to unpack here - the episode itself, the reaction from the ‘fans’, the feeling of knowing it’s over after so long. Let’s start at the beginning.

The Episode

In best SPN tradition, the big ending people thought was going to go down was actually resolved in the penultimate episode. This left one more round of 40 minutes to clear up everything hanging. Would we find out what happened to Castiel, would we see Jack again, would we find that monsters and demons and angels and everyone else - were they gone now? Cleared up by Jack reverse-Thanos’ing everyone back into existence? Were the other universes brought back too? AU!Charlie and AU!Bobby - were they back as they were? I hope so.

It seemed that Castiel really was gone - as was Death. Of course the next reaper would become the new Death so that would take care of people on Earth. Sounds like Castiel tinkered quite a bit with Heaven and its inhabitants, causing rebellion, sedition, incitement to tear down walls and have a peaceful Heaven as it should have been. From what Bobby said Jack apparently visited, set some things straight, changed Heaven from a place where you relive your greatest moments into a place where you can make new moments. Logically his would imply a new kind of life - an afterlife of new moments, made outside of normal Earth time. So everyone up there - and Bobby made sure Dean knew his parents weren’t far away - may be gone from Earth, but they’re still going. If Heaven is perfect and you have everything you could ever want, it sounds like the perfect ending.

As long as Dean doesn’t get bored of the easy life.

We see Sam’s life after Dean and it’s a good one. Briefly told in quick flashes, the only weird thing is that we never see his wife. Would it have hurt to add in someone from a previous series that he goes back for, and stays with? But he raises his own Dean, and the circle is complete. Dean raised Sam, so Sam raises a Dean. And when Sam finally goes too, there he is, right back next to his brother. Even the Impala made it - or did it? Was it just something Dean would have wanted, and it therefore appeared (with the original number plates), or did it take on enough of an imprint from its owners that it became its own thing, and was rewarded by getting to an afterlife? People will argue about this for the next fifteen years, I’m sure.

But Dean called it - like he always does. When he told Zachariah he’d ‘stab him in his face’, and then seasons later he did just that. When he said he didn’t shoot the deputy, and seasons later he did just that. When he told Sam his perfect happy ending would be Dean having died relatively quick and bloody in some average fight, causing Sam to leave The Life, have a family, and end up dying old and loved - he did just that, and Sam did just that. It was a good ending, the kind of thing I could see happening. Dean got what he wanted, after all the fighting and arguing and fallings-out and raging against the being who put them all through it. He got what he wanted. And after everything, it came back to just Sam and Dean. And I’m ok with that.

The Reaction from the ‘Fans’

It seems a lot of people were not ok with that. Twitter, tumblr, social media in general - the fall-out from the episode was horrific. At time of writing, I am ashamed of the way some of the ‘fans’ have treated the cast and crew who gave us fifteen years of a show that wasn’t pegged to last more than one. While outpourings of love, of loss, of grief and thanks overflowed between the final filming day and the moments before the finale aired, as soon as it ended it was a different story. People ranted, they swore, they sent tweets to cast and crew saying how the ending was shit, how it was stupid and didn’t make sense, how it ‘ruined’ everything, how it wrote off relationships. Ugly, ugly responses indeed considering the source material and how the fandom has been mostly supportive up to this point. I don’t understand how you can turn on something so quickly, so completely, after hungrily devouring everything given to you in the past fifteen years. Some people have fallen out of love with the show gradually, some have fallen by the wayside, and some have just plain given up with it, and I get that. I gladly cut ties with Doctor Who after the way they wrote Peter Capaldi’s first two episodes made me realise the showrunner was a complete and utter self-centred prick who thought racist digs and jokes about sentient beings burning to death in front of them were ok to air. I gave the show with Jodie Whittaker another chance, since the showrunner had been booted for losing 40% of its ratings. (It’s ok, but it’s not the Christopher Eccleston / David Tennant years.)

What I’m saying is, I understand how people can go off a show and walk away. What I don’t understand it how they can continue to watch it if they don’t like it - why do that to yourself? Why torture yourself by making yourself follow a show you actively despise? Just walk away and leave it, go find something else you do like. Unfortunately, that’s a thing with many shows these days - people on social media are only too happy to leave comments saying how bad something is and that no-one should watch it. I reply to these people now, where I used to ignore them. “Then go watch something that makes you happy”, “then stop watching”, “you don’t have to watch it”, “take control of your life and stop watching if it makes you unhappy”, etc. I get backlash but I literally do not care. Someone has to make the point that no-one welcomes a step-by-step account of how they’re still torturing themselves by posting and commenting about something they profess to hate. I get that “sad is happy for deep people”, but behaviour like that toward people who are still enjoying something is just bollocks and they need to fuck right off and leave others to enjoy something they don’t. It’s everywhere in and out of fandom right now and it needs to die a horrible bloody death as soon as possible.

There seems to be a lot of ‘fans’ chucking their toys out of their respective prams because they didn’t get the ending they wanted. It’s childish and it’s so bloody entitled I don’t even know where to start. Yes I do - these are the kind of people who started or signed an actual real petition to try to get someone to re-write the ending of Game of Thrones because they didn’t like it. How bloody self-centred do you have to be to genuinely believe that just because you didn’t think it measured up, that you get to demand it be redone to be somehow ‘better’? How entitled are you? How far are you up your own arse? Someone wrote that and someone helped edit it. People produced and filmed and costumed and catered and rigged and lit and worked bloody hard to bring it to the screen. And what happened? People turned around and shat on everyone because they didn’t get the death they wanted, or the fight they wanted, or the satisfaction they craved. As Bobby says, “boo-friggin’-hoo”. It wasn’t made for just you - sometimes you just don’t get what you want and you have to step back and let it go. If someone gives you a birthday present and you open it in front of them to find that it’s not what you want or even like, you don’t throw it at them and insult them for it, you accept it and say thank you because that person made an effort. You don’t have to like the present, but you should have the fucking manners and self-respect to thank them and move on. No-one’s asking you to keep the present, or to tell everyone you like it - you don’t have to say you don’t like it, and everything is fine. It amazing how many people just cannot grasp that simple concept.

It’s not the way I wanted the show to go out. It’s not the way I want the cast and crew to be treated. It’s not how a fandom should behave. It’s beneath us and it’s ugly. I am ashamed of the fandom and how they’ve acted - and are still acting. To preserve my own sanity in these trying times of Covid and global madness, I can only conclude that these people are not fans. It’s not much, but it’s something.

The End

On top of all that shitshow, there’s the knowledge that this is The End. No more new episodes. No more new adventures. No more sounds of the Impala’s doors squeaking, that little rattle it made just under the dialogue. No more witty comebacks, slip-ups, dressing-downs, bitch fights, machetes, desperate Hail Marys, strained allegiances and tested friendships.

As I look back over the past fifteen years, at all the fun I’ve had at conventions, writing forums, rewatch parties, it brings happy tears to my eyes. I must be getting old. But those were good times - all of them, even the badly-run Rogue Events conventions, the arguments about spelling on those writing forums, the mismatched time zones during those rewatches. A bad day with Supernatural was better than some of my good days, for so many reasons. It was comfort, it was ease, it was familiarity. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a convention; you need to mortgage most of your organs to be able to afford a ticket to a Creation con these days, before paying for hotels and flights. It’s been a long time since I’ve been part of a writing forum; these days it’s all Wordpress and AOOO but it means it’s fragmented, it’s so open and wide-ranging that it’s no longer our corner of the internet. Instead of one person curating an archive of all the best we have to offer, now it’s just a filter on AOOO. This is not a bad thing, it’s just how things change. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a rewatch; those people aren’t available any more, or their time zone is now even further from mine. The pack has broken up, the people scattered over the globe in a way that only time can do. So gradually that no-one noticed, it all became so spread out, so far between that it wasn’t until I tried to get in touch with people that I realised it was too late.

Where are you when I need you, Hell Bus?

But then I realise: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yes, the show will have no new episodes. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be conventions till the whole platform itself ceases to be a thing. We still have social media and groups, niche follows and tags. We still have AOOO and FF dot net, Wordpress and Wattpad. It feels like we’ve gone into our fifteenth hiatus, only this time there’s no end date in sight.

That’s the most encouraging thing I think I’ve heard since I watched the finale.

And I think that’s all I’ve got. It’s wet, it’s windy, it’s 12 degrees C and we’re into day 250 since my part of the world went into a Covid spiral of working from home / Tier 3 / national lockdown. However, I have a lot of memories and good times to think about, and I choose to do that rather than focus on the arseholes who have made a dumpster fire out of the series finale. I’m opening my SPN playlist and playing it loud.

Take care, everyone.

With Friends Like These

Done some writing. I blame this on Covid nights and having Green Hornet (2011) on repeat due to its feel-good factor, cheap vodka and equally cheap pork scratchings.

Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:

Title: With Friends Like These

Rated T for injury details, naughty words, fights and semi-nudity (not my fault).

Summary:

Dealing with the aftermath of the movie, new drug dealers, trust issues, new District Attorneys, undercover work, phobias and weaknesses, dating co-workers, how to be friends; it would all be so much easier if Britt and Kato could just get along. Even oil and water can mix temporarily, right?

Disclaimer: 

I do not own any Green Hornet characters, names, likenesses or the suggestion thereof. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave reviews/comments - then I get to smile. Linky-link-link: here at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (which is where we collectively won a Hugo Award last year) and here at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

New stuff now please

Anyone here old enough to remember the original Miama Vice TV show? I saw it on reruns, I think, when I was in my teens. The final scene of the proper big end-of-everything finale stuck with me and I’ve never known why. But every now and then I think of it and it makes me wonder.

It was the scene where Tubbs asks Crockett where he’s going to go next. And Crockett says: “Somewhere further south. Somewhere the water’s warm, the drinks are cold and I don’t know the names of the players.”

We never did find out if he made it, or what happened to Tubbs back in the big bad Bronx. But that feeling of needing to have a fresh situation, to be in a fresh environment where you need to learn or assimilate all over again… I think that’s always stuck with me.

When I was in my early twenties I took a holiday to Hong Kong, mainly to see the sights but also to see the international film festival. It was awesome, and alien, and everything that I needed at that point in my life. I felt like I wasn’t done discovering, that there was more to see, to try, to experience there. Within a year I had passed a CELTA teaching certificate and got 6 months teaching experience under my belt, so I headed back to HK with a suitcase and a one week bed-only booking at a YHA hostel. I got jobs, I got visas, I learnt about the way of life, I went to uni to learn Cantonese… it was a dream.

But all dreams must end. After eleven years out there I was beginning to get bored. I was feeling the drag of the constant changes in visas, the sniping by bosses and the general crowdedness of the city. I made the monumental mistake of leaving HK to return to England. At the time it seemed like a good idea - doesn’t it always? But if I had sat down and weighed everything up, I would have taken a 2 or 3 month break, back-packed around southeast Asia, had a change. And when I had wanted to return to something familiar and routine, it would have been HK. That’s what should have happened. But didn’t.

Instead I returned to the UK and spent time assimilating to the foreign place it had become. People were smaller, more parochial, tiny-minded. Everything was too far apart and public transport was shocking. Food was expensive, rent-related bills a joke. And all my friends and found-family were still in HK. In one fell swoop I had cut myself off from normality, comfortable familiarity, and my favourite people. I lost it all. And it was my fault.

After a stint in the south of England, it came to pass that my job was up for redundancy. There was nothing like-for-like so I was free to take the redundancy payoff and run. I had a choice - go back to HK where I felt I belonged, or try somewhere else. Money not being my friend, I opted for Manchester, the place I had been born but never lived in. And so I hauled my arse 300 miles up the country and started again. I was in a city again, with bright lights, places open till late, neons and crowds and excitement. It didn’t have my friends, it didn’t have my circle: I had done it to myself again. I had cut myself off from everything familiar and everyone I liked.

I’ve been here coming up to 2 years now, and every day I regret leaving HK when I did. That was 7 years ago, and I’m still thinking about that. I still miss the lifestyle, the people, the place itself. But I can never go back (due to a little bit of back-stabbing that I’ve already been over) and even if I could, it wouldn’t be the same place. It’s moved on without me, and I should follow its example.

Sometimes I think about other places I could go to. But it’s a circular argument - if I go to a fresh country to start learning all over again, my friends will still be in HK and England. But if I don’t go somewhere else, what am I doing here? Treading water because I have bills to pay because I’m treading water because I have bills to pay?

You know how people say you need a third place - you have home, you have work, and you need another place that’s not either of those things, so you can recharge from the other two? I’ve tried a few different third places over the course of my life - martial arts, writing fiction, archery, going to the pictures. And while I still have an interest in all of these, it’s writing fiction that’s always been the main one. I cannot seem to get my own original fiction published for love nor money, so I continue with where I got started - fan fiction. I still watch movies and TV, I still end up with muses and I still write the further adventures of these characters. I get reviews and emails, I get thank yous and requests, and this fills a void that getting countless agent rejections have made (and continue to feed).

My third place then - writing - could be done anywhere. I did some of my best work on a repurposed Mahjong table in my spare room in HK. I’ve done some new stuff, for new fandoms, in my old shared house in Manchester and a completely new fandom, muse and story at this flat I moved into just now. I’m doing more writing than ever before, for the things I like and want to expand upon. I could take it anywhere with me, as I have Billy II my MacBook Air within reach at all times, and connected to SugarSync to back me up on a constant save basis.

All I need is somewhere to go, but it feels like the world is shrinking and my best bet is Mars. I’ve missed the Mars One programme and I’m too old, so that’s out. Maybe there truly is nowhere left. Maybe I’m oversimplifying and there are tonnes of places I could yet still find on Earth.

Maybe I just need to go further south, where the water is warm, the drinks are cold, and I don’t know the names of the players.

Now that would be a good place to start.

Playlist alert

I’m in the middle of a Greent Hornet fanfic just now (based on the movie, not the series so much). Why the movie, you ask? Well I’ve done a whole thing about the difference between the show and the film, and I have to say I’m still a big fan of both, for different reasons.

Back in the day, I had a dedicated writing desk (actually a repurposed Mahjong table) and a comfy chair (called Michael) and I would get through a 50,000 word fanfic in a few weeks, spend the next two polishing and fixing it, and then the next month or so releasing it like curated salmon on a few fanfic repositories. When I moved back to the UK all that went away, and I struggled to do much writing at all. However, now I’m in a new flat things just feel different. Maybe it’s the apartment atmosphere, the small, controllable environment, the solo living or the extra time not spent commuting to and from work. Hey, maybe it’s all of those things. The important thing is, I’ve finished a fic I started over 2 years ago, and right now I’m pleased - nay, EXCITED - to be working on a new one. And I haven’t been excited about writing in a long time.

As usual I have required a playlist as quiet background music - choons to subconsciously align me with subject matter, with the chosen style, with the themes. However when I had this one going round and round, the volume would creep up and I found my head was bobbing along to the music as I typed - totally oblivious, of course.

Full disclosure; I had to wait 2 weeks for BT OpenReach to actually do their job and give me wi-fi at home, so during that time I was careful with my data usage. Basically, I moved from Spotify back to my iTunes library and in doing so found that I had billions of Jay Chou albums. Well, alright, it wasn’t billions - but it was over 160 tracks from him over the years. Putting that on shuffle for a week made me miss a lot of his earlier stuff (and the frivolous Sailor songs) so by the time this fic started forming in my head, it was always going to be about those albums on constant shuffle. Of course it doesn’t hurt that he was also Kato in the movie.

Here we go then - without further ado (because considering this post was supposed to be a playlist dump, there’s a lot of ado up to this point), here is the playlist, all by Jay Chou (周杰倫):

1. 雙載棍 (Nunchucks) from the album 范特西 (Fantasy), 2001 - also the second end credits song on the movie version of Green Hornet (at least where I saw it in Hong Kong)

2. 印地安老斑鳩 (Ancient Indian Turtledove) from the album 杰倫 (Jay), 2000 

3. 忍者 (Ninja) from the album 范特西 (Fantasy), 2001

4. 龍拳 (Dragon Fist) from the album 八度空間 (The Eight Dimensions), 2002

5. 半獸人 (Half Beast Half Human) from the album 八度空間 (The Eight Dimensions), 2002

6. 雙刀 (Double Blade) from the album 葉惠美 (Yeh Hui-Mei), 2003

7. 同一種調調 (Same Tone) from the album 葉惠美 (Yeh Hui-Mei), 2003 

8. 將軍 (Checkmate) from the album 七里香 (Common Jasmine Orange), 2004 

9. 霍元甲 (Fearless) from the EP 霍元甲 (Fearless), 2006

10. 陽光宅男 (Sunshine Nerd) from the album 我很忙 (On the Run!), 2007

11. 周大俠 (Master Chou) from the movie ‘Kung Fu Dunk’ (功夫灌籃) available as an extra track on the album 2007 世界巡迴演唱會 (2007 World Tour Concert) 

12. 魔術先生 (Magician) from the album 魔杰座 (Capricorn), 2008

13. 龍戰騎士 (Dragon Rider) from the album 魔杰座 (Capricorn), 2008

14. 免費教學錄影帶 (Free Tutorial Video) from the album 跨時代 (The Era), 2010

15. 公主病 (Princess Syndrome) from the album 驚嘆號 (Wow!), 2011

16. 驚嘆號 (Wow!) from the album 驚嘆號 (Wow!), 2011

17. 比較大的大提琴 (A Larger Cello) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

18. 公公偏頭痛 (Eunuch With a Headache) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

19. 水手怕水 (Sailor Afraid of Water) from the album 驚嘆號 (Wow!), 2011

20. 烏克麗麗 (Ukulele) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

21. 大笨鐘 (Big Ben) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

22. 陽眀山 (Yang Ming Mountain) from the album 哎呦，不錯哦 (Hey, Not Bad), 2014

23. 我要夏天 (I Want Summer) from the album 哎呦，不錯哦 (Hey, Not Bad), 2014

24. 說走就走 (Let’s Go) from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

25. 英雄 (Hero) from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

26. 土耳其冰𣾁淋 (Turkish Ice Cream) from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

27. Now You See Me from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

There we go. Seeing these written down makes me want to go listen to them all over again.

You know what? I think I will. That’s the beauty of being an adult; no-one can stop me.

Soopytwist.

Lockdown

Not, unfortunately, the stellar (sorry) Guy Pierce 2012 film Lockout, which is just a fantastic old-fashioned 1980s survival in a prison (a space prison) flick with guns, violence, snarky one-liners and brilliantly acted stereotypes all round. No, sadly not that Lockout.

Instead it’s now been seven weeks since I’ve worked from my actual work desk, and three weeks since I’ve left the house. And by that I mean I have not crossed the threshold of any doors to be away from the touch of indoor flooring.

Everyone keeps asking - “how are you holding up?”. And my reply is always the same: “has anything changed?”


I mean yes, obviously some things have changed. I don’t go to the pictures on Saturday and then meet up with mates afterwards to talk about it. I don’t go to the Chinese supermarket one Sunday a month to stock up on food. I don’t go to the archery range. I don’t drive to work. Other than that…? Nah, nothing’s changed.

I don’t have kids, pets, or anything that distracts me. What I do have is Doom Eternal on PS4, along with other games I’m still battling through. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime, I have Kodi and Hong Kong dramas (The Exorcist’s 2nd Meter is on - finally we have the sequel to The Exorcist’s Meter!). I have a Lethal Weapon fanfiction story that I’m halfway through posting, and I’ve embarked on a 21 day yoga shred class online. And did I forget to mention, I’m still working, just from the kitchen table. So yeah, I’m pretty busy and I don’t need to go out. My housemate is also still working, but their essential worker status means that they can stop off at a supermarket on the way home and pick up bits and pieces.

Also, I work in payroll (for the NHS, no less), so what with April being a perfect storm of all the statutory and contractual changes no-one in ops wants, it’s been a full-on, fifty-hour week for four weeks for pretty much the entire team. We’ve been given time off in lieu, so it’s not really a big deal for me, but for others with dependents it’s been “a nightmare”.

The only problem I’m going to have is going back to the office when we’re finally cleared by our bosses to do so (i.e. when our healthcare professionals have assessed it and made the requisite changes, not when Boris waffles his way through saying… whatever it was he was saying on Sunday 10th March). I know a lot of people will be glad of the return - to be in a place where they feel like a professional, like they’re away from all the home distractions, out of the ‘home’ environment and into a work headspace. I get it - in words. I don’t feel it, but I understand what they mean. And then there are those who don’t work in office jobs and will have been itching to get back to work for the last month anyway.

Everyone seems uptight and upset that they’re being told to stay home. Everyone else seems to be getting cabin fever. I’ve just woken up one day, been told to collect my kit from work and then go home until further notice, get on MS Teams when I’m working and that’s that. I just kind of went “so this is how it is now” and got on with it. There wasn’t any drama to be had - it just happened and we dealt with it like grown-ups. Others in the team had some IT hiccups and others have been trying to balance kids and dinner-time and all kinds of trials and tribulations. I don’t have those. I sit down, open up all the apps and emails and everything else, look at the list of stuff I didn’t finish yesterday, and get to work. I don’t see the difference between doing that at work and doing that at my kitchen table.

I’m happy that I don’t have to mix with humans, that I can get on and do my job without being interrupted by co-workers asking if I want to go for a brew, or having to put shoes on (I find it hard to sit on chairs ‘properly’ and often end up folding my legs under the table, which is hard to do with Doc Martens on).

Going back to an office environment is going to be very hard.

But then, what with major companies now wondering why they’re paying rent or a bank loan for sprawling offices in the real world when they could just let their office staff keep a laptop and stay away, I wonder what changes are coming.

Was it not Captain Jack Harkness who said that “the 21st century is when everything changes”? Is this what he meant? Where leaders of large, influential countries have gone off the rails (some would argue that they were never really on them in the first place) and caused nearly 80,000 deaths at this point? Where still others are trying to impose their brand of order on a territory handed back to them twenty-odd years ago, despite the entire population being against it and willing to stand in tear gas and water cannon to prove it? With this new pandemic hitting the globe and reminding everyone how everyone really is connected whether they like it or not, is this when everything finally starts to shift? Pollution from fossil-fuel traffic in a lot of cities has started to ease up - because of people not using those vehicles. One retired army captain (now a colonel) in the UK has raised more for NHS Charities in a few weeks than most people will ever raise in their lifetime - in a team. People are reaching out over social media, children are receiving tweets and replying by old-fashioned letter-writing. Others are holding street parties from behind their fences. Still more are coming out onto their doorsteps to celebrate the NHS on a Thursday night with songs, clapping, and banging pots and pans. Caremongering is becoming a thing - people helping others to get their grocery shopping, to post a letter, to connect and keep their sanity. All signs are pointing toward a feeling of unity, of wanting to help.

And yet.

And yet.

We have brainless, self-obsessed presidents telling the masses the most baseless, misinformed and dangerous things - and nearly half the country are still listening to him. We have others over-buying and stocking up on household items so that they can sell those items for a profit. People think they can get away with behaving like Nazis again. There are people deliberately scamming others using miracle cures and snake oil replacements for this virus. There are news outlets deliberately spreading lies and paranoia, to widen the gap between classes, between minorities, between neighbours, between humans. The top ten multi-billionaires just keep getting richer, earning more per day than they could spend in a month, and apparently happy to keep it that way despite the people all around them living on food stamps, foods banks, charity hand-outs and poverty.

This is what we are as a species. We are opposite ends of the spectrum, in all things. The only thing wrong with that is how far apart those ends actually are. It’s ok that everyone believes different things, it’s ok that everyone feels differently, acts differently, has a different perspective. This is essential for humans to survive. What’s not ok is how some seek to stop others from being allowed to be the difference. Some leaders need to be impeached (or just removed forcibly with a blunt object), some leaders need to realise the way their country has been run for the past few generations just isn’t going to work any more - times have changed and not changing with them is not how evolution or progress works. Some people need to get a heart, or at least hire someone who has one and then take their advice. I am the last person to say they know anything about empathy or feelings, but even I can stand back and work out what is beneficial and what isn’t to a society as a whole. When you work toward controlling a population instead of serving them, you’ve already lost the game.

Anyway.

Some good news to lighten the mood: NASA is going back to the Moon. To date, one person has definitely been cured of HIV, and while science is struggling to replicate the how, they’re getting closer every day. Volvo is looking to get into the Tesla bracket of electric cars - meaning the battle is now on (properly) for better, longer-ranging batteries and smaller price tags. And on that note, the production of energy from renewable sources is literally terawatts ahead of anything it’s ever been before. Wind farms alone are making an impact on the amount of energy we have to import, including Russian coal and Norwegian oil.

When all this covid thing is over, and everyone goes back to work in stages, it’s not the lockdown or the whinging or the team spirit I’m going to remember. It’s the good movies I’ve seen, the comic books I’ve read, the stories I’ve written and the courses I’ve done. I’ve let myself watch more on Netflix and it’s resulted in me seeing some very good series I wouldn’t normally have tried out. I’ve gone for that yoga course even though I don’t understand yoga (you can still go through the motions like you mean it, though). I’ve had a whale of a time in the rip and tear moments of Doom Eternal and I’ve got my highest scores ever on the arcade levels of Doom 2016.

I know all around me people have been losing their shit and things have been going off the rails, but for me life’s been pretty good. As an INTJ who really isn’t here for Human Drama, I have to say I’ve been enjoying this lockdown as a chance to stay away from people. If there was a way for it to continue, without the horrific deaths or riots or protests (against people trying to keep them alive? Fine. Let them die) then I’m all for it. We just need to beat this virus and make something new out of what comes next. And if a majority doesn’t get rid of the orange-faced buffoon spewing arse-gravy on the daily when next they vote, then we may just have to call on the SAS to do everyone a huge fucking favour.

You’ll be glad to know that that’s it for today, folks. Rant over - time for more good telly.

Soopytwist.

Final image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Brothers and Bandages and Bad Guys, Oh My

With this whole COVID-19 thing going on, I’ve had time to review aaaaaall those Works In Progress in my writing folder, and decide that I really should finish one or two. I’ve at least finished one - and this one’s for Lethal Weapon (the TV show THAT ENDED AFTER 2 SEASONS).

Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:

Title: Brothers and Bandages and Bad Guys, Oh My

Rated T for injury details and naughty words.

Summary:

A random encounter with a stolen truck kicks off an entire joint DEA investigation. Murtaugh’s blood pressure and Riggs’ vulnerability will be tested; how do you look out for a brother who isn’t even yours? Contains hurt/comfort and found family.

Disclaimer: 

I do not own any Lethal Weapon characters, names, likenesses or the suggestion thereof. (If I did they wouldn’t have been able to screw over Clayne Crawford and essentially end the show after 2 seasons). This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave reviews/comments - then I get to smile.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (which is where we collectively won a Hugo Award last year) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

Epiphany

I've entered a novel writing competition just now. I've entered plenty before, and to be honest it always ends the same way. However this time I really thought it would be different. This time I actually thought I had a really good chance of getting on the long-list. As it turns out I was wrong. This led me to wonder if I've been doing it wrong from the start. I mean the people who are running the competition have Twitter; they were putting all their favourite lines from the submissions on their twitter feed. It didn't really bother me that I didn't see my own lines on the twitter feed, but at the same time I was really hoping, like everybody else, that I would see something I'd written on there. And then comes 12th July, which is their announcement today for the number of submissions who’ve made it onto their long-list. I'm not going to lie, I was really hopeful. But as it turns out yet again I was to be soul-crushingly disappointed, and I did not make it.

To say that I was devastated might be overstating it, but as it sank in that it was yet another rejection, yet another time when someone had read what I had written and decided it wasn't good enough, I felt the clouds close over the top of my head, as they so often do.

One of the hardest things I have done in my life, and believe me there have been many hard things in my life, is to congratulate everybody who made it onto the long-list whilst simultaneously pretending that I wasn’t trying not to cry. It’s odd; I don’t think I actually had an emotional response that caused me to cry. It wasn’t like I was frustrated or angry or sad. I think I was just resigned to the fact that this is how it’s always going to be. On the plus side this means that I’m an also-ran, so I am helping other people to win competitions. You cannot come first if you're the only one in the competition, after all. But at some point it would be nice not to be an also-ran, although I honestly don't know what I would do if I won something.

After I’d send a tweet to congratulate everybody on getting onto the long-list, I had an epiphany. Just because you don’t win or you’re not picked does not mean that your writing is not good. Just because you don't win all you’re not picked does not mean that the work you've done, all the words that you’ve strung together, are in any way substandard or lacking. The creative arts and novel writing in particular is very subjective. We all know this; a friend at work can recommend their favourite TV show for example. They might go on and on about how amazing the writing is, how good the actors are, or how fantastic the finale is. And then you sit down to watch it and after 30 minutes decide that it's the worst pile of camel shit you've ever had to struggle through.

There are also the people who, say, give a movie a rotten tomatoes rating of 10%. And out of curiosity you end up watching this movie, and find that you really really enjoy it. I guess my point is that it’s the most hit and miss industry I can think of. Sometimes it feels like you're trying to get into the club of really good writers and therefore if you can't get in you must be crap. Sometimes it feels like the amount of rejections you've had must have already been an indication of how bad your writing is, and therefore you should stop.

This is where the epiphany comes in.

I'm sure I don't need to remind anybody that 50 Shades of Grey is an international phenomenon with books, and movies, and tie-ins, and all kinds of crap. What it also is, is complete and utter shit. If you have a tumbler account you may know what I mean. People were sharing the worst paragraphs or phrases that they came across in the books. To begin with for me it was pretty funny. Some of the descriptions and some of the grammar was so bloody awful all you could do was laugh. Afterwards of course you think this just isn't fair. There is no justice in the universe if this complete and utter pile of badly plotted, pretentious, hastily slapdash re-written personal fan-fiction can get published, and yet people who sit down and write original works with the funniest lines and the best presentation get passed over again and again and again.

That's when I realised nobody should ever give up trying to get published if they believe the reason they’re not getting published is that they’re not any good. That is a lie. The reason you're not getting published is not because you’re crap. The reason you're not getting published is because everyone else is getting published. There are many reasons why other people get published over you. Some agents and some publishing houses need books that are “the next Harry Potter”, or the next 50 Shades of Grey. Therefore anything original that you have written is outside of their wheelhouse and they don't care. And that's okay, you know, because people have to focus on what they need and what they think they want. People are always asking me: Did you send it to the right agent? Well, Sherlock, I bother to read what the agent or publishing house wants before I decide whether to send my submission or not. First of all you have to start with an agency that wants fiction an not non-fiction. Then you narrow it down to people who want quirky or sci-fi. Then you narrow it down further to people who want first-time writers or female writers or character driven material. You see where I'm going with this.

Having sent my novel to many different agents I can say that it's always nice to get a response. It may be that they say something about the novel that may be helpful to you, for example “it was great and I enjoyed it but there was no sense of urgency”. That's when you just rewrite it and put more urgency in it. To be fair nearly 50% of the agents I have sent it to have had the time to get back to me with a response. If I don't get a response at all, I believe it's because the sheer number of submissions they must get, and have to read through, must make it nearly impossible to reply to every single one of us who send something in. And I'm okay with that.

The biggest thing I can take away from my epiphany today: maybe my work isn't shit. Maybe that's not the reason why I'm not getting published.

That, I have to say, is the most encouraging thing anyone could ever say about my writing.

I think that's it for today. I have drinking and partying and other things to do this weekend.

Peach and lube everyone. Soopytwist.

Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay

Huff

I am not in a good mood.

Which is odd, because I should be. I have job satisfaction at work, a job that affords me a car and a house-share. I can even afford to go to the gym three times a week, which is helping with my chiropractic problems. I can afford a chiropractor, even.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s a Matrix thing - everything is too even, too uneventful, too boring. It’s not that it’s too good to be true, it’s just… there. It’ll always be just there.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m anhedonic. Things I used to enjoy doing don’t really bring me any joy. Of course this could just mean that my tastes have changed and I would no longer enjoy those things anyway. I mean, people change. But what if I am losing the ability to enjoy things? That worries me - it worried me all the way home from work yesterday in my 2 year old car. It went something like this:

I like writing. If I get the right idea I can write 6,000 words before I have to stop and check what time it is. This is how I pulled together all my notes, spare scenes and plans and wrote a 140,000 word novel over an Easter weekend. However it’s becoming increasingly difficult to write anything. I mean, I can, but I just don’t feel the pull I used to. There’s no muse, no catalyst, no unseen thing making me want to write about a favourite character. Does this mean I don’t have favourite characters any more?

I had 2. I mean, I wrote a whole novel about them - my own, not fan fiction. I’ve been trying to get it published since 2012, so on the whole I suppose you could call it a failure. But hey, let’s not dwell, but keep a stiff upper lip and keep trying, right? And I have been. But every so often you have to wonder why you’re just not getting it; of all the people who liked it, not one has taken it on. There’s a hint there, and I’m on the fence as to whether I should pack it all in as a bad job, or ignore all the signs and just keep trying to get it on a shelf somewhere, virtual or no.

But I digress. The characters in that book I felt were pretty fun and I enjoyed putting them through the ringer. However, at nearly all other things I feel apathetic. My go-tos in fan fiction haven’t really been blowing up my skirt either. And neither has anything else. I’m nearly a quarter into another original fiction novel, and every few months I come back to it, read it from scratch and enjoy it, and then when it stops I just think… Well, it was good but it’s just stopped. I don’t feel the need to finish it. I don’t feel the need to write or finish anything, for that matter.

That’s what I don’t like. That’s what makes me miserable at times - that’s the best word for it - miserable. There really nothing else in this universe that can truly cause the same amount of trodden-down, depressive apathy as listening to myself tell me that all my best writing days are behind me, and making me face the fact that I can’t seem to get up the will to do any more of it. I can’t leave unfinished stories alone - I’m constantly re-reading or trying to figure out how to carry them on, but I feel I can’t contribute anything more to anything, that when it runs dry it’s just… how it is.

And so it doesn’t go.

Supernatural is dead. Long live Supernatural

Yesterday it was announced by the lead actors that Supernatural the TV show will end with the finale of its 15th season.

A few facts that came to mind when I heard the news:

The pilot episode (called, remarkably, ‘Pilot’) aired on 13th September, 2005.
The show went through the first 5 or 6 seasons of its life under constant threat of cancellation. However:
The show is older than the network that now broadcasts it - the CW launched 18th September 2006.

A few feelings that hit me heavier and heavier as the day went on:
Yes, it’s ok that it’s ending. After all, The Winchester Boys have been through everything they possibly could have been through. What do you write about after 327 episodes?
The friends I’ve made along the way - the fandom events, the writing fanfiction, the competitions, the rewatches, the hiatuses, and everything in between.
I remember going on the piss with friends, coming back to the flat, putting on the latest season disc of SPN and drinking at least 2 pints of tea before I went to bed.
I remember the writer’s strike of around 2007, which helped screenwriters get paid much more fairly for their work, and the fact that we all supported them, even though it meant season 3 was 16 episodes long instead of the usual 20-21.
I remember moving to a new flat on 16th September 2008, and scrambling to make damn sure my internet was plumbed in ready for 18th, when season 4 would premier.
I remember watching episodes live - for everyone else it was Thursday night, but for me it was Friday 6 - 7am as I was in HK at that time. But we all got on the SPN fan Hell Bus for tweeting shenanigans, so that we were watching along with a group of people just not in the same room, or had people to talk to about the episode and lots besides.
I remember making new ringtones every week from best lines from the show.
I remember the LOLcaps to reacp each episode on Livejournal, the SPN Headlines of the week, and the icons I made for a dozen smaller, lower resolution social media platforms of the time.


Most of all I remember the fanfiction. I remember the now defunct SupernaturalVille site. Taken out by a DDoS attack some years ago, it was just too much to try to get everything back and put it back together. I understand why the volunteers who had real lives didn’t have the resources to rebuild it, but it still makes me sad to know that everything there was lost. I learnt a lot about writing, a lot about cliffhangers, about giving the readers what they wanted but in such a way that it was satisfying, not placating. I learnt a lot about group writing, about round robins, about putting stories together, about pulling others apart, about citing references for other writers to help and communicate. It’s safe to say that without SupernaturalVille, I would not be writing today. It shaped me as a writer, as a communicator, as someone who had found something they enjoyed doing and also that some people enjoyed reading what I was producing. Luckily, at the time I was posting everything that went on the fic site to Fanfiction .net as well - so when the site went, I did at least have digital-ready copies (as well as my own back-ups offline). Some of these I have reposted at Archive Of Our Own, so my work is still out there. I haven’t done a SPN fic in ages, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it’s still around. I didn’t sit down and decide I would never write for them every again; when Constantine came along I really wanted a crossover with The Boys so I wrote it, for example.

And now we get to the crux of the matter; writing. Some of my best work ever (and my only script ever) was written for SPN. I was living in a slipstream back then; I was writing constantly, getting about 2,000+ words written a day (on a work day), and then upwards of that on a Saturday before evening parties and shenanigans. Sundays were reserved for polishing the latest chapter that was then posted online for the world, and then going over the week’s fresh writing on the new Work In Progress so far and tidying, checking, fixing continuity or changing plots. The links were posted to social media, and then once everything was suitably pimped out, I had a shower, jumped on the bus, and went out to the weekly pub quiz. Life was perfect - simple, exactly as I wanted it, and I was producing over 15 works a year, running to an average of probably 30,000 words each. To date, I have over 1,600,000 words on the FF .net archive, and the bulk of those are SPN fics or crossovers.

There were the banner-making competitions, the fandom events, the convention circuit write-ups, the swapping of contacts and social media handles - the friends we have made and the support groups we have become. It’s a huge, huge movement, and campaigns such as Always Keep Fighting, the GISHWHES and Wayward AF have only made things official and expanded the network of fans prepared to help other fans they’ve never met simply because they like the same things.

In short, the show may be ending in late May 2020, but everything it has given the fans, and the non-fans helped out indirectly by those same fans, will not. I have a lot more to say on the writing I’ve done over the years for this and other fandoms, but this is not the time. That will come later, when I’ve had a chat with myself over not writing as much as I know I want to.

How do I bring this post to a close? How do I sum everything up and make it work? I don’t know. I do know that the clock is ticking down for The End of Supernatural (the real one, this time). I’m happy Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki have decided to go out on their own terms - the show wasn’t cancelled, or taken before its time, after all. I hope to see them in other productions - after they’ve had a break from constant filming. Vancouver and parts of B.C. may lose jobs, but other shows will come along and hopefully fill that void.

For now though, we have the rest of season 14 to look forward to, and then season 15.

And that’s ok.

On Giving Up

So many things I’ve haven’t bothered with. So many things I can’t be arsed with. I’ve just finished writing a fanfic and that elation of completing the first draft has given way, as it always does, to being back on this planet and I’m just so disappointed.

Couple this with my reminder that went off a few days ago; it tells me to check my most recent wave of agents off the list of people who don’t want my novel because (a) they’ve already emailed me back and have politely declined, or more likely (b) they haven’t got back to me at all and their recommended waiting period is up.

Too bad, so sad, move on.

Except I don’t think I will. Not this time.

A long time ago on a continent far, far away, I wrote a space opera consisting of 7 novels. This, as you can imagine, took many years and many more in proof-reading, honing, polishing, etc. I then sent the first one out very carefully to agents - for 5 years.

When I couldn’t find an agent to take it I instead took one agent’s advice: write a one-off, a stand-alone, a bit of fun to get you published. When you have a name, then you can sneak in your sci-fi saga. It worked for Jim Butcher, after all, as he really wanted his fantasy books published, but when he wrote a short about a bloke called Harry Dresden he got both feet successfully in the door.


So I did. I wrote a book. It took me just over a year, and then another one in rewrites, changes, polishing - the usual. And that book is the one I’ve been trying to get published since 2012.

This is where a lot of soul searching comes in.

This is where I realise I’ve been the only one who hadn’t seen something up until now.

This is where I decide it’s not a day to get out of bed.

This is where I give up; I’m done.

You see, everyone telling you one thing for so long, and you soldiering on because you’re bloody-minded with your eyes on the prize, and you believe you can make it happen, and it will happen if you just keep trying - you can only do it for so long. And then one day you stop and wonder why.

Why do I bother? Agents who rely on selling good books to publishers pass on my novels. People in the industry who know what sells and what doesn’t pass on my novels. And I understand that agents and their readers are humans, and all it takes is a bad trip into work on public transport, or an accident with a pet over the weekend, or anything at all that stops a human from feeling the sunshine, and - bam - grumpy bastard is not in the mood to read, let alone like, anything they see at the office that day. And I don’t blame them for it - I really can’t.

But for every agent that’s had a bad day, there must have been one who didn’t. There must have been one who was in a really good mood and picked up my sample chapters when they got in and thought, “Hey ho, what’s this? Let’s give it a try.”


These, I believe, are the agents who got back to me and declined. All the ones who never got back to me? Well if you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all, right?

So it’s come to this: me realising I’m just not that good, and not worth publishing. I should stick to fanfic, where I get poor traffic but at least people press a ‘kudos’ or ‘like’ button from time to time. Sometimes I even get reviews that tell me I made someone smile today, and that’s when I don’t feel completely useless.

And so it goes.

Revengers Assemble: an Infinity War fix-it fic

I’ve actually done some writing. Amazing what some major blockbusters, a change of manager at work and a dearth of entertainment caused by the season finales of all your shows in the same week will do to you. Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:


Title: Revengers Assemble

Rated T/Teen & Up for some naughty language, some violence and conduct unbecoming, revenge, fix-it fic, and hopefully some stabbings.

Summary:
SPOILERS for Infinity War. Right after the opening salvo, a certain not-dead someone and a ragtag bunch of what's left of Asgard (and some gladiators) will have to stop Thanos. How hard could it be?

Disclaimer:
I do not own any Marvel characters, names, likenesses or the suggestion thereof. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave reviews/comments.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

Star Trek Discovery - What if?

It’s time for some fanfiction. Because there was this time, and then there was this time…

Title: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Vulcan

Rated T/Teen & Up for some naughty language, some violence and conduct unbecoming, and maybe a frying pan.

Summary:
In the dying moments of S01xE15, the Discovery is ordered to Vulcan but gets side-tracked. What if they keep getting side-tracked so they have to keep their Acting Captain for the whole of season 2? Yes please! This is a series of one-shots detailing just that. SPOILERS for season 1 only. For those about to read, I salute you.

Disclaimer: 
I do not own nor make any profit from Star Trek in any of its forms, franchises or characters. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave reviews/comments.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

Fucking done

Everyone knows someone who is a complete sack of arse; a fucker, a complete and utter bastard, someone who is only ‘famous’ on social media for being controversial, or a twat. There have been a few around me before and you just give them enough rope and they’re gone soon enough.

But then there’s this shit-for-brains. They’ve been banned from a messages board. The thing is, is makes them holier-than-holier-than-thou as a result, like suddenly everything they’ve been saying has been validated. Apparently, being banned from a board makes you too cool for school in their books, and they’re right happy about it.

And then they crash another board to gloat about how, because they’re so ‘incendiary’ and ‘polarising’ and just plain all-around awesome, they’re getting a load of their arse-gravy otherwise known as posts and tweets etc. published. As in, in a book. That will be published. And sold. For money.


That. Is. Where. I. Am. Done.

So fucking done.

Some of us having been trying FOR THE PAST 5 YEARS to get an agent and get published. Some of us have actually written a real, physical novel using their little creative brains that has been bled, sweated, and cried over for at least the last 7 years. Some of us have been turned down by no less than 45 different agents, and 5 different publishers direct. Some of us just keep banging our heads against walls and getting nowhere.


But this unclefucker? This steaming pile of camel shit laced with strychnine and topped off with conceited, self-important baboon gonads where their brain should be? They just sit down and people go to them.

Clearly, I’m doing something wrong.

Perhaps in this 'modern' society of people arguing about what’s moral and what’s just fucking rude (yes, you of the tiny, tiny orange hands) I should just go for shock and awe. Perhaps I should be upsetting people. Perhaps I should be ‘incendiary’ and ‘polarising’. Perhaps then I’ll attract enough attention that someone will want to publish me.


Is that it? Is that what you do?

Secrets and Lies

I’m baaack! And I bring more writings! Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:


Title: Secrets and Lies

Rated T/Teen & Up for some naughty language, some violence and conduct unbecoming, snakes, and divine retribution.

Summary:
Lucifer has left LA for some Me Time in sunny Atlanta. Who should he bump into but John Constantine, just minding his own business tracking down a magical weapon of devastating power. With Lucifer now helping him, how wrong could it go? Set after Constantine S01, and Lucifer S02E13. No spoilers for anything after, as I haven’t seen that far yet! Case fic.

Disclaimer: 
I do not own Lucifer or Constantine the shows in any of its forms or any of the characters. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave reviews/comments.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

It’s not you, it’s me

I don’t normally talk about work here, mostly because that’s between me and work colleagues. However, it’s now come to the point where I need to speculate out loud. And because my landlord/housemate downstairs is watching The Princess Bride, I guess I’ll be smiling while I do it.

I'm very comfortable where I am. And by that I mean I go to work, do 8 hours, then go home again. They even let me change my hours to make the day start and finish earlier. Doesn’t help much with the traffic, but it does help with my overall day. I’m free to get on with projects and things I think need doing to keep the day-to-day running of software and background stuff working and all in order. Things like system maintenance, organising upgrades, staying compliant, and also being the only person in the business who can run and deliver payroll to all employees of two companies - I do all this. I know that in the grand scheme of things, I’m just a Corporal Hicks (no offence, Corporal Hicks). I know that I’m not in the team of people who have to make things happen or guide the direction of the company, and I know I’m not important or in fact key to the business. I know all these things, and I thought I was ok with it.


Maybe I’m not. Maybe that’s why I unconsciously ‘push back’ as they call it when people ask my opinion on stuff that I believe is beyond my pay grade. I think this is what it comes down to.

Do you (a) help even though you know it’s not your place, and you don’t have access or knowledge because you’re not in the management team, so everything you say is stuff that they’re asking you to do even though it’s not your job and is way above you so they’re getting it for free, or (b) push back and say it’s not your place to say? If you do ‘a’, maybe you’re proving that you can handle the next pay grade so they can look at promoting or including you more - so if you do ‘b’ then you’re shooting yourself in the foot. But when you know there’s nowhere to go - there’s no position above you, no reason to invent one, and no promotion in sight, then why not do ‘b’?


A long time ago, I was the kind of person who would say that my job description has clear definitions, and I stay inside of those definitions. It wasn’t out of spite, or pay issues, or anything but doing what it says on the tin. If you want me to do more, then write it on the tin. Everyone knows where they stand, people know who to ask to do various tasks because they can look on the tins for guidance, and everyone’s happy.


Then I went through a long phase of ‘well if they ask for my help then I’ll help’ - because we’re all just people, and knowing why someone comes to you instead of picking up the other tin can make all the difference.

Now I’m passing that phase. Now I’m getting to the bitter, twisted phase of ‘why should I?’. Not because of a lack of money or power for me, but more a case of why do I always have to sort this out? It’s not even my fucking job and yet you always ask me to fix this or sort that, as if I get paid for this’. Lest we forget, the more time I’m doing other stuff not in my JD, the less time I have to do what I’m actually paid to do. It’s just math.

So I’m doing ‘b’ more than ‘a’. Will that hurt my chances of promotion? No, because there isn’t anywhere to go. Will that affect my chances of a pay rise? No, surprisingly - I do my JD and the general consensus is that I do it well, with no reason to give me less than 5 out of 5.

It looks like I have an answer, then. Except when I do push back, I get a certain look from my colleagues - you know the look. It’s the look that says ‘you’re not being helpful’. It’s the look that says ‘but I asked you to do it and you always do - why aren’t you doing it now?’. I don’t actually care too much. What is beginning to grate is the maturity of some of the people around me.

A few months ago, I would have said ‘maturity’ as in the stupid, me-me-me questions some people ask me about payroll because they’re actual 5 year olds and think the world revolves around them. Yes, we have a few of those. But in the next 6 - 12 months they’ll find that attitude untenable in the new work environment the CEO is bringing in, and they’ll either be gone or put right, so I don’t waste time thinking about them.


What I care about is the way someone who’s supposed to be my equal, and someone else who’s supposed to be my line manager, come across as immature. And I don’t mean they’re self-centred or selfish or childish or anything negative at all. They’re nice people, they’re normal people, they’re fine. We get on and have a laugh, or agree on why people are being dicks, etc. They really are ok.

What I'm talking about is their attitude to life in general. I don’t care if they go on about shoes they’ve bought or how much they hate their hair today or which ‘pretty’ shirt they pulled out of the wardrobe this morning. I can tune all that inane conversation out very easily. I don’t care about them talking about their boyfriends and what they did last night and what they said and how it was soooo funny because men don’t understand anything and it’s cute and they love them for it. As I said, inane shit = sorted.

It’s the lack of maturity as in lack of experience. They say they’re ‘stressed’ because they have to confront someone, or do something outside of their comfort zone, or think they have a lot to think about.


And it irritates me, I won’t lie. ‘Stress’ is knowing the mortgage or rent is due next week, and even after you’ve done everything you possibly can, you still can’t make it - and you haven’t even eaten yet. ‘Stress’ is looking at your long-term plan for life and knowing it’s all going to go wrong because of the government changing some loophole, or your lack of funds which you can’t do anything about. ‘Stress’ is not having a way to get to work due to money or a bad situation. It is not having a lot to do at work.

I think that’s it - I think I’ve hit the nail on the head: having to work with people less than two-thirds my age, who have very limited life experience and no capacity to think of the bigger picture. I know I’ve been more withdrawn at work lately - talking more to my unofficial other line manager - the one from another department, which my JD kind of makes me keep one foot in. He’s the same age as me, he doesn’t want to talk about shoes, he’s married to someone from another world (perspective speaking). He’s lived and worked overseas for a substantial amount of time, he’s got a small child and juggles that and a job that routinely has more work to do than time to do it. He has perspective and understands the difference between stress and just another day.

Since moving from abroad back to England, I’ve come up against a lot of limited people. Limited in their understanding, limited in their perspective, limited in their willingness to look beyond their own nose. It’s just taken me the last 12 months to realise that working under one of these people, with no idea of why I’m irritated most of the time, is starting to grate.

This is why when I write now it’s straight to the point; the ruthless, logical people survive and the fluffy ones are cannon fodder (gleefully so). Films like John Wick (1 and 2) appeal to me more than others, these days. I’m getting tired of everyone else’s slowness and fluffiness. I’m pretty sure that’s a sign of getting bitter and twisted, with the world in general, not people.

But then I see Star Trek Beyond for the seventh time I’m willing to try, to be a ‘normal’ person and give people a chance, to put up with annoying whiners and get on with it. It sticks for a few weeks. Then I need something else to give me a reason not to get angry with these limited people.

And the next Star Trek film is at least a year away.

I’ve been looking up working overseas again. And again it comes down to not having the right qualifications or certificates to enable a work visa - that old chestnut. It seems lack of university will again be my undoing. This world’s reliance on an out-dated and falsely-regarded education standard is still my nemesis.


And that’s where we leave it, friends. No degrees, no money to get degrees, and therefore no change in sight. Lovely. Just what I need to realise on a dreary Saturday afternoon.

Nor Hell a Fury

Title: Nor Hell a Fury

Rated T for some shooting, some fire, an emu, some friendship and hurt/comfort, our favourite pansexual Devil, and some good old-fashioned vengeance.

Summary:
An intriguing case for Chloe Decker is Lucifer's idea of boredom - until the string of apparently random killings includes Lux. But are the killings really random? And is the perpetrator even human? Case fic.

Disclaimer:
I do not own Lucifer the show in any of its forms or any of the characters. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave reviews/comments.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

To Thine Own Self Be True - a crossing of 3 Doctors

Yay! Done some writing for a change. Things have been looking up recently and I’ve felt like working on things again. It was nice.

Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:


Title: To Thine Own Self Be True

Rating: Rated K+ for some end-of-the-world talk. Thank goodness for the TARDIS swearing filter, that's all I can say.

Summary:
Nine, Ten and Eleven find themselves in the same pub in… Gallifrey? This can’t be a coincidence; some other Gallifreyan must be manipulating them to achieve their plans of world domination, surely. Yes, s/he is. And don’t call me Shirley.

Disclaimer: 
I do not own Doctor Who in any of its forms or any of the characters. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave comments. Then I profit in the knowledge that someone thinks it’s pretty good.

Contains: Nine, Ten and Eleven, Jack Harkness, an OC and two other Time Lords. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

Faith in the Path

Actually done some writing. For reasons I've probably been over and over in recent posts, things are looking mostly up for a change and I’ve felt like working on things again.

Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:


Title: Faith in the Path

Rating: Rated T/Teen and Up for some shooting, peril, O’Brien’s mouth, and references to war. I make no apologies.

Summary:
The orb of time has business with DS9 and the crew of a certain Enterprise ship classification NX-01. Episodically canontastic. Takes place after DS9 5x19 Ties of Blood and Water and ENT 4x21, AKA the Actual Last Episode. Alert: I have been and always shall be a TnT shipper.

Disclaimer: 
I do not own Star Trek in any of its forms or any of the characters. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave comments. Then I profit in the knowledge that someone thinks it’s pretty good.

Contains: The crew of DS9, the crew of Enterprise. Bad guys, uncertain times and some bodily damage and hurt/comfort.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

You can’t sing the blues in an air-conditioned room

A while ago I wrote about how I’d finally left a place of work that I no longer fitted, for so many reasons. I wrote about how enthusiastic I was to be starting something new. Well it’s been two months at my new job. Result?

Pretty fucking happy, to be honest.

When I bring things up that need changing, instead of the old ‘Do not change that. Do not change anything. We’ve done it like this for thousands of years because the first person who did fucked it up and now it can never be changed’ that I got at my old job, I now get ‘Do you think it’ll work better this new way? We’ll try it and see. Let me know how you get on. But it should be fine.’

It’s a lot to get used to. The freedom to actually effect change and make things better is something you always dream of, but once you get it… It feels weird. And then the secondary consequence kicks in: Am I right? What if I’m full of shit and this idea crashes and burns? What if it’s worse than what we had before? How do I know I’m right?

Over time you get used to the uncertainty, you get used to the risk and you realise that, as the great Baz Luhrmann once said, ‘your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.’ That line, that one collection of words from a track that came on my iPhone halfway to work, changed my entire outlook one morning. The incredible idea that it’s not me that isn’t sure, it’s everyone, all humans in general, made me a lot happier about the uncertainty of ideas I came up with to help me transition into my new job.

And then I got paid. I had more money left over than I thought once I’d paid all my bills and also for some unforeseen work done to my car (which is now running like a fucking F1 car, thanks for asking). It was weird - I could save some money. So I did. And when I got paid again, I saved more. And then, one day at the supermarket, I bought something not because I needed it, but because I’d always wanted to know what it tasted like but it had always been too expensive.

That was epic, for me. I found I could have more than one pair of trousers for work. I bought new work shoes, because quite frankly the others were rough as a bear’s arse and should have been thrown out a long time ago. I did my food shop and had provisions left over at the end of the fortnight - I actually have tinned and packaged food stored, that I don’t have to stretch out till the next big shop. I changed my credit card to one of them zero percent balance transfer things - which means I can actually pay it off in my life time. I paid a garage to do work on my car, instead of trying to half-arse it myself.

It’s all new, it’s all strange, but it’s slowly making me slip into this idea that I can do things other than ignore everything I can’t afford. I can take my blinkers off and look at ideas.


I was just getting used to this, and thinking how easy it was to hire a car to go off to another city for a long weekend to attend a convention (in the same country!), when someone needed my help with their payslip. I am payroll after all, and it was me that produced it. We talked over the meanings of all the addings and subtractings thereon, and they went away happy.


But I wasn’t. It suddenly dawned on me what had happened. I wasn’t one of them any more. I was now one of those people who Had, one of those people who wasn’t living hand to mouth, dependent on their pay cheque, because they were not a Had Not.


Progress, for me. But now I felt bad for having managed to lift myself out of the mud and make something a little better for myself. I’m still on literally half the salary of people close to me, but I don’t care. This salary is more than I’ve ever had, and for a while I was proud of it. Now I’m not sure if I deserve it - what makes me more deserving than that person with with payslip?

The answer, the Dax part of me says, is experience. Theirs lies somewhere useful, but not rare. Mine, luckily, lies in a field that normally attracts more responsibility and therefore risk - and reward. Which Rule of Acquisition is it that states ‘the riskier the road, the greater the profit’? Whichever one it is, it’s not wrong.


So why do I feel like Major Kira, having to confront a man who is exactly the person she was before she herself was lifted up from the mud into a better position, due to her experience?


Why do I feel guilty as I walk past people, on two-thirds my salary for a harder physical job than mine, to my car and then drive home with an iPhone 5S connected to the stereo, offering me Siri to help choose music and text people hands-free as I get there?

Underdog. It’s an underdog thing. Kira was always the underdog - until she was given a commission in the new military and a fancy new job. I always thought I was the underdog - not qualified, not properly trained, just getting by through teaching myself and working long hours. I’m not that person any more. Now I ask for training, and they provide it. Now I leave on time and enjoy my drive home. My writing has picked up again, and now it’s happier, more whimsical, more fun than it has been in about two years. Everything seems to be easier, the wheels more greased, more doors open to me.


It’s true what they say. You can’t sing the blues in an air-conditioned room. Maybe I should just suck it up and get over it. What price serenity?

Star Trek is dead; long live Star Trek

People often ask me ‘Star Wars or Star Trek?’. That’s like choosing between bacon and sausages. Star Wars is without a doubt a big part of my life - I grew up worshiping spaceships, and the people behind them. I loved the world building, the myriad different places and people, the way anyone could be seen as a background character and suddenly have Timothy Zahn write an entire novel about them. That freedom of space travel, of the way characters had a ship and did whatever they wanted with it. It was magic.


But Star Trek is a-whole-nother animal. It’s a system of beliefs, an idea - an ideal - that changed my perspective on people, places and even Star Wars. And let me tell you why.

At the heart of Star Trek you have its ideals. It started off in 1966 as a show where people in the far-flung future had already outgrown petty things like race, gender, age, ability. Instead you had this wonderful notion that people could just be themselves and not try to get along despite their differences, but work together brilliantly because of their differences. There was a spaceship, and aliens who either just wanted to be understood or just wanted the humans to understand themselves. There was a firm triangle of command and support - Kirk, Spock and Bones are legendary. Just one year after over 500 non-violent civil rights marchers were attacked by law enforcement officers while trying to defend the need for African American voting rights, here was a show that had a black person on the bridge in a pivotal position - and a female one, at that. It had an alien crew member as part of the trusted three, in an age where Communist witch hunts and ‘they’re not like us’ arguments were rife. And, bearing that last point in mind, it had a Russian on the bridge, and a Japanese character. Star Trek was indeed pushing the envelope, in terms of what it could get away with and what it needed to get across. It was life-changing, while at the same time reassuring; if the the top two blokes in command could do what they did, if the crew around them supported and followed them because of their actions, why couldn’t real life do the same?

So it boils down to the two basic ideals that made Star Trek what it is: that the universe is full of infinite diversity in infinite combinations, put against the backdrop of the Prime Directive. Simply put, everyone is and should be free to be whatever they are, but at the same time, it’s not for you to interfere if you think they’re doing it wrong. And that, my friends, is what the 2010s are all about. We have stories of ‘gay marriage’ (otherwise known as ‘marriage’) causing controversy all over the world. We have stories of transgender people becoming more and more important and apparent in media. We still have problems with people of colour getting or keeping acting roles. More people are protesting at the inequalities of this life we’ve made for ourselves, and due to social media platforms they are getting heard. ‘The twenty-first century is when everything changes’, as Jack Harkness was fond of saying. But changes into what?

I could go into the Donald Trumps of this world, and how they are throwing us back into the Dark Ages. I could say that everything he is doing, and stirring up in one of the most financially influential countries on the planet, is tantamount to kicking Gene Roddenberry and his like-minded crew in the balls wearing hobnail boots. But I won’t. Instead I’ll say he has to be stopped - whether that means letting people vote him in as President, and thereby giving him enough rope to hang himself so he’s voted out or impeached; or just trusting that the average American is the product of how Obama has left the country a better place, and will reject Trump as the factually racist, misogynist and downright harmful person he is.

Does this make Star Trek less important? No. It makes Star Trek more needed than ever. People still need that vision of What Could Be; every person, no matter what colour or gender, needs something to believe in. In 1966, Nichelle Nicholls received fan mail from little girls of colour who were just stoked to see someone like themselves on TV. Famously, Whoopi Goldberg saw her and was so excited she shouted through the house to her mother “Come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!”

As far as other kinds of social norms go, Star Trek gave us one of the first interracial kisses on TV (after the ITV show ‘You in Your Small Corner’ showed Lloyd Reckord and Elizabeth MacLennan kissing in 1962). The episode ‘Plato’s Stepchildren’ showed Kirk and Uhura educating viewers as to what had been going on for hundreds of years with no ill effects, and yet made a percentage of the filming crew and audience squeamish. With Shatner and Nicholl’s judicious sabotage of alternative versions, the scene was not only shot but got through - and it challenged people. The Next Generation gave us a body swap and gender issue in the case of the Trill with whom the doctor falls in love, in season four’s ‘The Host’. It fell short of the obvious answer the audience was rooting for, but for 1991, it wasn’t bad in the knocking on the glass ceiling department. It was a story line that was pretty much retackled and fixed by the Deep Space Nine episode ‘Rejoined’, aired in 1995, where Dax has to work with Kahn, a scientist - and her wife in a previous life. The first (but not last) lesbian kiss in Star Trek was met with anger, backlashes and utter regression. But in the same way as the Star Trek episode ‘Plato’s Stepchildren’, all it did was bring something that people do every day into the limelight - and letting people know it’s ok.


What I’m saying is, Star Trek is more relevant now than ever before. People (including children) need to see how things could be, how they can make the world better. I’m old, and I’m jaded, but even I believe anything is possible after watching a Star Trek movie (an even numbered one - or an odd numbered one if it’s one of the 2009+ reboots).


With a new series apparently in development, I have high hopes for how they will cast and write it. After all, in 2016, you have a huge responsibility. You have to have an idea of who your demographic is and what they need from it, and in the same way as Whoopi Goldberg gets to see a ‘black lady’ on TV, you have to be representative of the planet. A genderfluid Captain maybe, as someone who’s got their life together and accepts what they are - and so does everyone else. The heterosexual crew being in the minority, as gay, bisexual and omnisexual crew members just quietly get on with their lives without their sexuality being their defining trait. The offset of (identifying) male-female split more true to the planet (i.e. 51% are actually female). Remember that shot of the Enterprise crew members from Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979?

More of that, and less of JJ Abrams / network / studio nagging and worrying over how they’re not going to make money because they’re not doing exactly the same as last time.

Star Trek is about moving forward, about breaking new ground, about shining a light on things that are wrong with our world by playing out a metaphor on another. So let’s do that again; let’s have a new crew, a new ship, a way of working through what’s wrong with the planet and making people aware of how they are the first point of call to effect change.

At time of writing, I’m hopeful for the new series. We have Bryan Fuller (who gave us the DS9 episodes ‘Empok Nor’ and the stellar ‘The Darkness and the Light’, before going onto Voyager) and Nicholas Meyer (who gave us the screenplays for Star Trek II, IV and VI - otherwise known as three of the four best Star Trek movies) attached to the presently unnamed new show. Time will tell what they do with it, but I’m wishing and hoping they actually break ground, as Enterprise completely failed to do. The network there even backed off from showing an interspecies romance several times - and that was as vanilla as it could have been as they were human and Vulcan, and heterosexual. The aliens and wars used were nothing we hadn’t seen before, and it seemed that many of the episodes just simply finished instead of gearing up for something greater.

All I want is to move forward. I await the new show with great anticipation - but part of me is already steeling myself for disappointment. If they can pull something out of the bag - the next Farscape, Mr Robot, or Agent Carter, then I’ll be happy. But it has to be something new - after all, that’s Star Trek.