Hey Jim, I'm really proud of you for coming out to your family & I'm sorry they're not making the effort to help you understand yourself. I know how difficult it is to settle into your identity is when you have to figure it out yourself & having people repeatedly misgender you makes it even harder. I also hope you don't take the negative AO3 comment to heart & just delete it. I'm sure if you read the rest of your inbox, you'll be pleasantly surprised!
Oh my friend 🫂💔😭💙💛 thank you so much for your encouragement. You're so kind and good to me and I don't deserve it but I love you so much 🫂💜😭😭😭
People have told me before that it's okay for me to vent here because nobody is being forced to read this crap or follow me, but I still feel like a douche canoe any time I complain here about anything that has to do with my "real life," because I'm so incredibly fortunate and privileged. At least outwardly, my (closest) family has accepted my nb-ness / questioning and I'm overwhelmingly grateful for that. I haven't been disowned, or kicked out of the house, or laughed at... like I said, enormous unearned privilege/good fortune. And ironically, having a few people "in the know" who are still talking to/about me the way they did for 31 years, while frustrating, has genuinely been helping me better understand that I definitely don't identify with my birth-assigned gender or its pronouns anymore, if I ever really did at all. 🤔 It seems to be a matter now of "how long can I continue to pretend the misgendering doesn't bother me when it's coming from my parents," because, lest we forget, I'm still intensely nonconfrontational, afraid of being an inconvenience or a burden to others, terrified of taking up space or standing up for myself, and thoroughly convinced of my own utter worthlessness. 😬
As for the ao3 comment that I have no doubt blown way out of proportion 🤦😣 I'm... I don't know. It has finally taken a backseat in my mind to other concerns, so that's an improvement. But it's going to take a long time to dust myself off from all of this; the comment in question was really just the straw that broke my back after spending the last 2 years having an extremely prolonged existential crisis in regards to my "place" (or lack thereof) in the fandom. I've been feeling really bad/lousy/insecure about my work and my ability to "fit in" or contribute (without also annoying people to death) ever since an incident in the 2020 big bang discord server got under my skin and has just kept on burrowing into my mind and soul like a poisoned splinter ever since.
I don't write fics that are appropriate / desirable / worthy of inclusion in zines or rec lists or what-have-you. I don't know anything about any of the new Trek series or characters or timelines or whatever the hell else because I went and got my ptsd triggered while watching season 1 of Discovery and had to promise myself not to watch anything else produced by the current franchise-runners in the interest of self-preservation. And original series K/S is my only ship, my only fandom interest, the only [hyper-]fixation I've had for at least 6 years now. The harsh fact that I'm simply out of touch and irrelevant has been making me question why I'm even still trying to maintain any kind of online presence at all... and yet my fics and my online friends here have been essentially the only things that have motivated me to keep Living in the last 4+ years. 🤔 So... I'm a mess all over, and not just because of that comment (it clearly didn't help matters any, though). 🤦🤷 (And yet and yet... being a mess is my Thing, like, it's the one thing I'm consistently good at. So although it sucks, I'm also accustomed to it, in a lot of ways. 🙁😬👍)
Thank you, as always, dear, for being my friend and saying such sweet, generous things. I love you (and everybody who has put up with the pain of knowing/interacting with me 💜), and given the especially difficult past few months (both personally and in regards to the state of the US and the world), I'm just really, really grateful to know I'm not alone. 💜🫂💜🫂 Take care, you. 🖖🫂💛💙
I just wanted to let you know that you’ve written some of my absolute favorite fics I’ve ever read in my entire life. I’m so sorry someone said that to you and I honestly have no idea what they were talking about because your writing has gotten me through some really rough days.
I understand if you’re not in a place to hear this, I just wanted to let you know. 💙💛💙💛
Thank you so much, friend 💙💛💙💛 I really appreciate your readership, your support, and your encouragement. I don't deserve any of it, and I'm shocked and humbled that anything I wrote could have had such an effect--so thank you even more 😔💔💛💙💛💙
I just mentioned this to someone else, but if there's anything I've put on ao3 that you might want to have permanent access to, I would advise downloading it. I feel so bad that my work hurt someone and I don't want to risk doing the same thing to anyone else, so my account or fics might be deleted/orphaned sometime soon. If it comes to that, I'll mention it here and on ao3 before I do anything, but... no time like the present, better safe than sorry, I guess.
Thank you again for being so kind and generous to me 😔💔💜💜💜 And please take care of yourself. 🖖💙💛
Going through your AO3 and there are dozens and dozens of glowing comments on your work in fact I'm struggling to find a negative one. One or two negatives by probably some kind of troll, as much as they can sting, merit neither thought nor action. Except, perhaps deleting their remarks, and continuing forward with your work. You've 'hurt' no-one, you're not going to; add more tags if there's a topic some might have a squick over and you think there are more bases that could be covered. It's not you at fault. AO3 is here for this. it's just unfortunate that you're in a vulnerable position and some whiny asshole has chosen to do their internet yapping at you. Don't give them so much credibility or sympathy. And just look at all the heaps and heaps of nice things people say and think about your work; there's your proof of concept
Thank you so much for your encouragement, support, and kind words, anon. 💙💛
It's been such a strange situation overall. If it had been a typically "troll-ish" comment, I would have deleted it and moved on. But there's an issue of... well, a disconnect between my intentions/literary technique as the writer and this reader's interpretation/understanding. There's any number of things that could be standing in the way (English fluency, age, familiarity with literary tropes, etc.) that would make their assumptions perfectly valid and absolutely legitimize them calling me out for seemingly being a bigoted creep. I just still haven't figured out how to explain it to them and apologize for the effect it had without being overly defensive/sensitive, without assuming they're uneducated, without sounding like an insincere, pretentious prick, etc.
As I understand it, there's also the very real possibility that I'm needlessly blowing everything about this situation outrageously far out of proportion, and/or that I take my writing way too seriously (like... to the point of utter absurdity). It certainly wouldn't be the first time... 🤦
But thank you again for your vote of confidence. It's always comforting to know there are people in your corner 💛💙🖖
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I really like your K/S stuff on ao3, and I'd be really sad if you deleted it! I enjoy coming back to it a lot
Thank you so much for reading my fics... and for your support 💙💛💙💛 This has been a really difficult couple of weeks/months for me and at this point I'm still not certain what to do, either with that review or with my ao3 account in the future. I've "hidden" the offending story for now so that others don't have to encounter it and potentially be hurt by it.
At this point... I want to tell you that if there's anything I've posted on ao3 that you might want to keep having access to, please download it. And I swear I'm not trying to be melodramatic or fish for compliments/pity or anything like that. I'm just so ashamed of myself and I'm afraid of hurting anyone any further, so I truly have been very seriously considering orphaning or deleting my fics (to be honest, I've been considering that for almost 2 years now). If I do, though, I'll make a note of that decision here as well as on ao3. You're probably one of about two whole people who might actually want to download anything I've written, but even so, I promise I won't delete anything without some kind of heads-up.
Thank you again, x infinity, for your kind, sweet, generous words and heart 😔💔💙💛💙💛💙💛 I don't deserve to have souls as good as you reading my stuff or this mess of a blog... but that fact makes me all the more grateful for you. 💛💙💛💙
I was tagged a while back by my love @plaidshirtjimkirk for a game... heehee this one's funny, thanks plaidy!!! 💛💙
Rules: Describe yourself with 10 pictures you already have. No downloading or searching for new ones. Then tag 10 people.
I'll just tag a few people because wow 10 is a lot 😅 @beauty-grace-outer-space @yourea--stubborn--man @firefly-party @marlinspirkhall @warpfactornonsense @tau9 (no pressure, of course!) (And anybody else is welcome to jump in!)
(another lengthy reply, because apparently I can't help myself 🙈)
Okay so... I have several Word docs that are just random k/s fic ideas I jot down whenever they come to me, right? Outlines, messy one-line scrawled ideas, half-stories that I don't know how to start or finish or fit together in the middle, little blurbs/paragraphs of actually edited stuff (but they're, you know, just individual paragraphs or lines of dialogue, lol). But my main document eventually got so long that doing a [ctrl + S] save on it took about 90 seconds?? 😂🤪 which of course made me impatient... and paranoid about losing my work. Thus I decided to put my various ideas/starts of fics in separate docs by category, like... I have a doc of story pieces or concepts that all have to do with Spock's family, a doc for random hurt/comfort ideas, a doc for possible wedding/honeymoon things, etc.
Anyway, one of these docs has all the different after-the-credits / episode tag / missing scene ideas I've had, and--guess what 😅--eventually THAT document got too long for me to handle keeping it all in one place 😅😆 [send help!! 😂😂😂] so I moved some of the longer things I'd spent a little more time developing into their own individual docs. I've put the most time and thought into an after-the-credits fic attempting to fix all the myriad things I hate about "Wink of an Eye" (possibly my Least favorite TOS episode)... but that's neither here nor there. 🙃
My vague outline for an after-the-credits scene of "Turnabout Intruder" is... mostly just... smut... LOL!! 😆 It starts in the turbolift with Kirk, Spock, and Scott (the last shot of the episode is the three of them getting on the lift), and Scotty gets out on the engineering level, leaving the Husbands alone together at last. There's a wee bit of romance there in the lift as they get to their deck, 😉 and then once they're in Kirk's quarters they sort of, um... get half-nakey... and have some massage time... based on the brig scene where Kirk is still in Lester's body and Spock tenderly caresses his neck and Kirk-as-Lester closes his eyes in bliss. 👀😍 Spock picks up where he had to leave off earlier, gently rubbing Kirk's neck, and they discuss the strangeness of body-swapping, the relief Kirk felt when he got Spock to meld with him and realize what was going on, and so forth. Soon enough they're just exchanging touches and sweet nothings, getting each other all worked up, and stripping down to full-nakey for a little "thank God you're okay"/"thank God you were on my side, convinced Bones and Scotty who I was, and helped rescue me" lovemaking. 🙈💞💛💙
Unfortunately thus far it's not actually a fix-it of the terrible gender-related atrocities committed by the episode's script... I do have them discussing some of the differences Kirk has now experienced between his usual body and Lester's, but mostly it's just a PWP (for now, anyway). Perhaps if I get to really working on it again, I'll try to do some ret-con damage control on the canon material, because I truly do *not* buy any of the crew (James Totally-drunk-on-his-daily-Respect-All-Sentient-Beings-Juice™ Kirk least of all) being so misogynistic and gender-binary-deluded the way the script makes them all seem. We'll see what happens, aka if I ever go back to editing and fleshing out this fic for actual posting! 😅
Here's a teeny weeny excerpt:
"I will say, though," Kirk went on, "that I won't miss how much taller you were than me. I can handle the few centimeters' difference between us in these bodies..." Relaxing back against that firm chest, he pulled Spock's arms and hands away from exploring his legs and guided them to rest on his midsection in a loose hug. "I just love it so much when you look down at me with your sparkling 'I'm going to kiss you' eyes," he said dreamily, stroking Spock's arm hair, "or when we dance or cuddle and I can rest my cheek on your shoulder so easily."
Smiling fondly, Spock tightened his embrace and nuzzled his husband's neck again.
"But in Janice's body," Kirk said, "I was, what? At least a full head shorter than you. I missed this--" Here, he squeezed on Spock's arms and gave a happy sigh crossed with a contented hum. "--the feeling of your heartbeat against my hip, the closeness of your breath at my ear. I'm too accustomed to the sweet little kisses you leave on my neck from our normal heights, I suppose."
Spock chuckled; he had been nipping, licking, and kissing Kirk's neck and shoulders the entire time he'd been speaking.
Uhh... yeah, so, it's mostly just fluffy and naughty stuff like that! 🙈☺ Thanks so much for the ask!! And sorry it took me so long to answer!!! 💜💛💙
