thedeadparrot

I think this is one of those movies I appreciated more than I enjoyed, and I'm still trying to parse out my feelings about it. I thought I would have more feelings about it than I did (my feelings are easy to manipulate). Which isn't to say that I didn't have feelings. Just. Less than I thought. But I've been spoiled by watching Coco and The Shape of Water recently, so.

( All the spoilers in the world )

I took a parkour coaching certification course a few weeks ago, and I'm still processing it. It was three full days of training, both physical training in parkour but also training in how to approach coaching. It was definitely not the sort of thing I was expecting to be as draining as it was. Coming off a work week, it felt like I was being shoved into another job. Which it kind of was. Coaching is a job.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was the only woman there, and I was the oldest person there by about 4-5 years. I was still the slowest and the weakest, but not by as much as I was afraid of. I could keep up with the whippersnappers for the most part. It was tough, but I could handle it.

The real challenge was in the coaching. I felt somewhat prepared, having done a ton of TAing in college and going to a million classes in the area and watching what the coaches do. It turns out having the responsibility for the physical and mental wellbeing of a group of people (a bunch of the people in my class were teenagers) is way different than trying to teach them what a for-loop is.

One of the sessions I had to teach was almost a complete disaster. Granted, I only had three minutes to come up with something and was forced out of my comfort zone to teach the thing. Yeah, that didn't turn out so well. But I survived it.

I survived the whole weekend, actually.

It was an intense three days. The group I train with is intense. They believe very strongly in the importance of being intense. The mental part was a part of that, because parkour is a mentally taxing discipline, and I've seen it in myself and others just how much our mental barriers can keep us back. I value their intensity, because it also comes with a deep sort of self-reflection.

I've watched their Women's International Parkour Weekend 2017 video a whole bunch of times, especially when I feel in need of motivation or inspiration. And I love the Traceuse Portrait Project that came out of it as well. Maybe next year, I'll be able to go in person and experience that energy for myself. I'm definitely thinking of going to Vancouver for another women's jam.

Anyway, now that the course is over, I still have to do 20 hours of supervised teaching. My first class is this Friday. Eep. I guess we'll see how this goes.

I have been meaning to post a bunch of stuff, but I have also been busy, SO.

First up, someone wrote me a long Steve/Peggy and it is EXCELLENT, full of dry wit and snark and adventures and feelings:

Lessons in Unsubtle Diplomacy (12708 words) by Siria
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe
Summary:

Steve, Peggy, and a visit to an English country house after the war. What could possibly go wrong?

Second up, I participated in pornathon, which was both exhausting and also great fun. I wrote six (6!!!) porny ficlets.

Vacation (749 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Iron Man (Movies)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark
Additional Tags: Pre-Movie(s), Beaches, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Series: Part 1 of Pornathon 2017
Summary:

"What did I tell you, sweetums? Tropical vacation. Best stress relief on the planet," Tony says.

Clothes (750 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey
Series: Part 2 of Pornathon 2017
Summary:

"It really does look better on you," Poe says.

Journey (747 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia
Characters: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, Vex'ahlia (Critical Role)
Additional Tags: Travel, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Series: Part 3 of Pornathon 2017
Summary:

The places they've been.

Secrets (749 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: How to Get Away with Murder
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Oliver Hampton/Connor Walsh
Additional Tags: Season/Series 01
Series: Part 4 of Pornathon 2017
Summary:

After the bonfire, Connor can't sleep.

First (744 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Queer as Folk (UK)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Stuart Alan Jones/Vince Tyler
Additional Tags: Consensual Underage Sex
Series: Part 5 of Pornathon 2017
Summary:

Stuart tries some things. Not all of them work out.

Nature (745 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: X-Men (Movieverse)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Additional Tags: Telepathy, Consent Issues
Series: Part 6 of Pornathon 2017
Summary:

There's a story about a scorpion and a frog, about how the scorpion will sting because that's what scorpions do. It always reminds Erik of Charles.

THIRDLY, the fic positivity meme:
COME PLAY @ THE [ FIC POSITIVITY FEEDBACK MEME ]
my thread here

Writing has been burning me out a bit, so it would mean a lot to me if you were to drop me a comment if you like my fic. ♥

I have a bike now. I've been resisting for a while, because biking is scary and I felt like I needed a leg up into being willing to do it. I do have a ton of friends who do bike, though, and they all seem to be really into it, so I let one of them talk me into going on a bike ride with her and really enjoyed it. And that led to the slippery slope of actually buying a bike and then riding it to work. And then riding it back home in the pouring rain. It does cut down my commute to about 1/3 to 1/4 of how long it used to take, so it's definitely going to be useful going forward, especially if I need to get someplace that's obnoxious to get to otherwise. I don't think I'm going to give up on walking everywhere, though. I like the slowed down pace and not having to worry about locking up my bike.

One of the awesome things about getting the bike is that I got it, plus accessories, from a local non-profit called Bikes Not Bombs, and the money I gave them will also hopefully support the cool work that they do both locally and abroad.



Other thing I have been fascinated by lately is Mastodon. It kind of is a roll-your-own Twitter clone, but it also is built to be less awful than Twitter? 500 word character limits, cut-tags (called content warnings) for hiding content if necessary, per-toot(tweet) privacy settings. Open source, free of advertising, strong moderation rules. And a way of viewing the local community through the 'local timeline', where you can see the stream of the entire site in one place.

You might be wondering how this idea scales, because a local timeline on Twitter would be a shitshow, and you're right. It would be. But the idea of Mastodon is to be decentralized, which is kinda difficult to grasp these days when all of our social media is so very centralized. What does that mean in this case? It means that there are a bunch of different webistes that run the Mastodon code, but all of these websites can integrate and talk to one another. The easiest comparable example is e-mail. You may be on yahoo.com and I may be on gmail.com, but we can still send e-mail to one another without issue. The way the local timeline is supposed to work is that you get to see the chatter that's happening in your particular instance, and hopefully you've built a cool little community there. But you can also follow people on other Mastodon servers and see their content and interact with them.

Anyway, I started investigating the idea of setting up a fannish Mastodon site ("instance" in the local parlance), where we can gather and talk about fannish things and have fandom-oriented content policies and code of conducts, but still be connected to the larger Mastodon universe if people want to be. It seems like I'm a bit late to the party, as someone else has started a similar project, but I've been invited to help out as well, so that could be fun. Hooray.

There's also a great set of newbie documentation that's been compiled if you're interested in exploring it further.

I'm not going to lie. It's kind of funky. The UI is generally pretty good, but it can be kind of weird at times. The Tweetdeck-but-not can feel kind of limiting. There's tons of Twitter features that haven't been implemented, whether by lack of time or by design. There's still some weirdness with the distributed nature that makes the integration less than seamless. But I still find it interesting and fun, and I'm a sucker for new things.

If you want to find me (at least for now), I'm @thedeadparrot@mastodon.social. My instance is closed down for new signups right now, but if you're interested, I can also dig up other reputable instances if need-be.

So I've been talking about the fic where Jeff Carter becomes a GM and Mike Richards is the head coach and they have to deal with their past in order to make ~their future~. It is the fic of my heart, and I will never actually write it because it is too perfect in my head, and I would just ruin it the second I tried to put it into real words.

That doesn't mean I won't chatfic about it with Dark_Eyed_Junco. So here's some lightly edited chat logs, mostly posted here for my own entertainment. But hey, maybe you'll get some amusement out of them too.

( chatfic )

(or maybe just enough?)

Saw Moonlight for the first time last night. I've been waiting on seeing it, mostly because I wanted to be in the right mood for it. It's such a lovely, aching thing. Quiet and understated. Full of unspoken things. The sound design is fantastic. I think I wanted the ending to have more of a punch, but maybe it's better that it drifts off the way it does. The most amazing thing about it is that it's pretty much the opposite of Oscar bait, and yet.


In more fandom-focused topics, I saw a survey about ways of financially supporting fan creators on Twitter and I'm still trying to process my reaction to it. I am a creature of the gift-economy fandom. In some ways, this conversation is a sign of just how far the wider internet fan communities have come that we now do have mechanisms and models for supporting creators in ways that still mean that their content is still freely available. Probably spearheaded by dudes who are far more shameless when it comes to asking for money, but that's another post and conversation for another day.

I'm glad these models do exist, and I'm glad that creators who want or need that support can get them, whether it be through commissions or Patreon or tips or what have you. But I don't think it's ever going to be something I do for myself, whether it's paying into someone's Patreon or opening myself up for commissions. And to some degree, I know this is my privilege talking, because I'm pretty financially stable right now, and I have a work/life schedule that allows me to indulge in numerous hobbies at my leisure. But I would feel uncomfortable, having the pressure on me to provide work to the people who are giving me money, and it would feel uncomfortable to me to know that other people would feel pressured to write things for me because money changed hands.

And, I dunno. I feel fundamentally like I am happy to write for the feedback I get. Or, well, post for the feedback I get. *eyes up fic hoard full of wonky first drafts* And I feel like making that the basic exchange that happens for my writing makes everything simpler. Everything gets uglier when money gets involved.

In conclusion: WILL WORK FOR COMMENTS AND KUDOS. PLS INQUIRE WITHIN.

My not-descent into hockey fic continues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.


It's Only Noise (5092 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jeff Carter/Mike Richards
Characters: Mike Richards, Jeff Carter
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Career Ending Injuries, Recovery
Series: Part 2 of Living in Salt
Summary:

Pacific Rim AU. Mike POV companion piece to Living in Salt. Mike works through his issues by talking to everyone except his co-pilot.

this burning desire (2386 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jeff Carter/Mike Richards
Characters: Jeff Carter, Mike Richards
Additional Tags: Humiliation kink, Slut Shaming
Summary:

Jeff likes being humiliated. Mike doesn't really get it, but he's willing to go along with it anyway.

I've been writing things, hooray! I, um, accidentally forgot to cross-post this X-Men fic, despite posting it a month ago.

(The Answer Is) Blowin' In The Wind (7769 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: X-Men (Movieverse)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Additional Tags: Darkest Timeline, Post-X3, Pre-X-Men: Days of Future Past
Summary:

Charles is resurrected. Erik regains full use of his powers. And everything that happens between those two events.

And here's a fic about fishing and clamming and threesomes, because I'm here to drown in my Mike Richards feelings for real.

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life (8443 words) by thedeadparrot
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Megan Mitchell/Willie Mitchell/Mike Richards
Characters: Mike Richards, Megan Mitchell, Willie Mitchell
Additional Tags: Fishing, Clamming, Retirement, Threesome - F/M/M
Summary:
willie_mitch33: @mikehrichards Killer! When you going to come and play with the big boys #bluewater
mikehrichards: @willie_mitch33 just waiting for the invite bud


I have also been knitting things! Lots of things! Maybe even too many things! No pictures as of right now, but maybe I'll make a post that is pretty much just pictures.

And it's knitting. Well, it's a new thing, and I already spent money on expensive yarn because I didn't know any better. Whoops.

I am enjoying it a lot, though. It's great for watching TV or movies. I like how quickly you can pick up the motions. I like making things.

Er, a lot of patterns are still intimidating right now, so I'm making a boring scarf with my expensive yarn, and maybe gift it to someone when I finish? Hopefully? I'm not even sure I have enough yarn right now to finish this scarf yet. But I'm learning things! And maybe I can raid the yarn stashes of a few of my friends at some point?

I also spent this whole weekend drowning in my Mike Richards feelings. He briefly resurfaced! He genuinely seems happy these days! I still desperately want future fic where he becomes a hotshot NHL coach and ends up on the team that Jeff Carter is GMing and they have Complicated Old People Feelings that I can eat with a spoon.

Speaking of Complicated Old People Feelings, I am getting so, so close to finishing a first draft of my X-Men fic. I think I just have one more scene left! And then I will sit down and cry from how much work this fic needs. But that's okay! Making things! I like doing it!

It was delightful, ridiculously self-aware and meta, but with a genuine heart at the center of it.

I was having a good Saturday already, but seeing it with bironic made it all the better. :DDDD

Talk to me if you've seen it as well.