alwaystheocean

I've been meaning to pick dreamwidth back up for, oh, years, so this seems like a good way to start! (I will also be posting other things. ;D) (Gosh I should really get some new icons if I'm doing this.)

Pick a date in January and give me something to talk about! TV, books, movies, music, poetry, fandom, writing, food, travel, fictional characters (&/or pairings) and all of their feelings, whatever.

You don't have to be following me or ever have commented to request a topic. If you're doing the meme, I'll leave topics for you, too! Feel free to link me at any time if you want one.

Feel free to suggest multiple topics/dates (or to just leave a topic and no date - I'll fill it in).


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January 16 - 'Have you done any recent fun travel?' asked by cesy

January 17 - 'What's your favorite vid you've made?' asked by aurumcalendula

January 18 - 'What's your current home like, or what are your favourite hygge/nesting things about it?' asked by cesy

January 19 - 'What's your favorite source to vid?' asked by aurumcalendula

January 20 -

January 21 -

January 22 - 'What craft projects have you been making recently?' asked by glinda

January 23 - 'Do you have any comfort foods?' asked by lokifan

January 24 - 'What do you love about cold water swimming?' asked by glinda

January 25 - 'What do you think makes for a good vid song?' asked by lokifan

January 26 - 'If you feel like it I'd love to hear about your job!' asked by tellitslant

January 27 -

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January 29 - 'I would please like a post about your deep dive (pun intended) into the world of watersports!' asked by tellitslant

January 30 - 'I see you have a Taylor Swift tag but haven't posted about her in a while - do you have any faves from the last few albums?' asked by lokifan

January 31 -

I stared at my remaining topics and wasn't sure which I felt like talking about, and then I landed on this one because I finally picked a fandom to talk about. ;D I've been struggling with this one ever since carawj requested it because I'm pretty generous in what I define as an active fandom. Like thanks to Tumblr I consider say, Harry Potter, Buffy (ETA: turns out I lied and can't talk about Angel without Buffy), Xena, and Farscape to be fairly active fandoms for me because they come up on my dash a lot, I re-watch eps periodically, I watch vids, I ponder and read meta, so they were all out, and they're some of my oldest fandoms.

I also pondered and rejected Doctor Who because dear show, I feel like I already expend more energy on you and justifying our break-up than is good for me at the mo.

And I regularly re-read say, the Vorkosigan Saga and Robin Hobb, so they're also out.

I briefly considered 'Grey's Anatomy' cuz I had a really fun conversation with someone on twitter about it earlier this evening but maybe another time as this is SO LONG.

Shows I've come to in the last 5 years don't even count as nostalgic yet, so that rules out a LOT. ;)

But! As I mentioned in my entry earlier, I've fallen down a 'Person of Interest'-shaped rabbit-hole, which is ENTIRELY because of Amy Acker, for whom I have a huge thing. And I tend to forget this is the case until I actually see her moving and talking in something? Like stills and even gifsets don't really convey it? But anyway, this has sort of been simmering since purplefringe's beautiful Festivid last year, with which I am slightly obsessed, and then I saw isagel's fantastic character study from POI, and like months later, here we are. ;)

The problem here is that prolonged pondering about Amy Acker inevitably leads me back to Angel in the end, and for various reasons, I haven't hung on to Angel over the years the way I have Buffy. But, because of the Amy Acker thing, it has been on my mind lately more than usual.

(Btw, this entry is going to have massive spoilers for all of Buffy and Angel, so if you're in the process of watching those, or plan to watch them some day, look away.) ( Cut for length, but as yet, no spoilers. I'll let you know when I hit those. )

( OK, here be spoilers. )

Like it would be ridiculous and untrue to say I'm not capable of the depth of feeling I had for Buffy and Angel but they're both wrapped around my me-ness and personality in ways it's harder for things to be as I get older, because my personality and sense of self are more formed.

As an aside, they're the first fandoms I shared with Alex. Like we met through mutual friends in Gargoyles fandom, but we were both done with Gargoyles by the time we started hanging out. She's hugely responsible for my Tara love, I didn't like her at first because I missed Oz. (I know, I know.) We used to hotly debate Buffy/Angel vs Cordelia/Angel. She was very sympathetic (and frequently mocking) over my Fred feelings. My LJ still has an Alex-only filter, and if I ever let another living human being on that filter, they would find hundreds of comments, because that's how we used to talk to each other, and lots of them are about our Buffy and Angel re-watches. We didn't simul-watch because time-zones can bite me but we used to watch more or less concurrently a lot.

Heh, she tried to get me to watch Justice League Unlimited because so many Jossverse alums voiced the characters, chiefly Amy Acker as Huntress.

I don't really know how to wrap this one up. I don't even know what it'll be like to read, it's very introspective (navel-gazey ;)) and rather sentimental. Thinking it over I don't think it's age or depth of feeling that's different about how I watch TV, it's critical thinking. When I watch TV or movies or read a book now I can't switch off pondering whether it has passed the Bechdel test yet, where are the queers, where are the PoC, hey, that woman just got put in a fridge*. Etc. And I wouldn't change that even if I could, even though it makes me a killjoy sometimes, but I'm also glad I got to watch Buffy and Angel BEFORE I learned to do that. (Also I think I worked through a lot of my feelings about relating to canons and problematic canons and how to be a fan of problematic things through Buffy and Angel. Like there was a point where it was important to me to like everything about every aspect of the show, so I worked hard to say, love freaking Spike and Riley, and it was freeing to work out that I didn't have to do that.)

Like I often talk about how much I've learnt about feminism and equality and intersectionality from fandom, and it's TRUE. I am not sure I even gave credit to how much that's true until I wrote all this down.

(My god, I am so sorry about how long this one is.)

*Not to say every type of media I consume is a paragon of representation or anything, VERY far from it, but part of the automatic process of watching that is critiquing it.

So livii asked me to talk a bit more about Irreverent Dance as my first December topic! :D (If you asked for a fic or podfic for donating to the Kickstarter, I will totally get to those this month! Er, unless your name begins with K in which case I’m working on it. Also it’s not too late to ask if you still want to!) (ALSO if you haven't asked me to talk about something, or you have and want me to talk about TWO things, I have LOTS of slots left! :D) (Also, sorry it's late, livii!)

No lie, I was hoping somebody would, so here we go.

I’d actually been aware of Irreverent Dance for just over a year (and they’ve been going now for close to two and a half I think) but what with one thing and another, didn’t actually make it to a class until August this year. I was a bit worried about it at first just because it had been ages since I’d danced regularly, and I was lighter and thinner then and have had a lot more issues with injuries since, so I had various expectations and concerns.

I DID find my body could not do things as well or as easily as I remembered, but I also found it didn’t much matter. One of the many things I think is amazing about ID is that when they say beginner/all levels, they actually mean it. So many other dance classes I’ve attended that say ‘beginner’ are actually either used as a warm up by advanced students (which is fine, as far as it goes) and thus cater to those students (NOT fine) or the ‘beginners’ there have been at that class for a long time and just not progressed, so they have a lot more familiarity than new students, and the class is still geared to them. Assuming everyone has a 101 understanding of anything is really alienating to beginners in any kind of class/teaching environment, and most dance classes, even ones geared at adult supposed beginners, have no understanding of that.

ID really does start from 0, no previous knowledge is assumed, but at the same time, as a relatively experienced dancer, I found going back to basics really useful. I can’t speak for any of the other teachers (yet! :D) but the founder, Amanda, is a really gifted teacher, I’m not the only student who’s found that her explanation of concepts has stuck in a way others’ haven’t. I also found that it didn’t matter that I couldn’t do things as well as I remembered, because the point was just being able to do it as well as *I* could. Working with the body I have, rather than against it, or being mad at it. I’m finding dancing again, specifically with ID, really helpful for the misc body issues I carry around.

And now it’s 3 and a bit months better and I’ve fallen in love with dance all over again! <3 The BEST bit about Irreverent Dance is it gives me all the things I ADORE about dancing, without all the negatives. It’s not a secret that the dance world and body issue and negativity go hand in hand, so to be somewhere where the fact I’m fat has nothing to do with how good or bad a dancer I am, or in fact, how good or bad a dancer I am has nothing to do with my worth inside the classroom, is wonderful. (I’m not happy with that sentence, but I am happy with its sentiment!)

I’m so excited we’ve got our own studio now!

And of course, the other thing I love about ID is that I said ‘we’ in that last sentence. It’s not just a dance studio, it’s a community. I’m lucky, I have a few close friends I adore, and several larger communities I’m lucky to be a part of and am also extremely fond of, but that is certainly not true for everyone, particularly queer folks. I’ve felt really welcomed by ID, and I can see how it’s an important social space for a lot of the members, and it’s lovely to be a part of that. Like I got a really warm, unclique-y welcome, and you can never know too many good people, really. <3

Like, class and rehearsals and the one performance I’ve done so far have just been such a FUN experience. When I was little, I used to get sent outside for giggling ALL THE TIME (actually, that just happened at school too, not just dance class. I’m sure you’re all stunned.) and obviously I get that from wee!Cleo’s teachers’ POV, but it’s so nice to learn in such a light, laughing environment. Like I said, Amanda is a great teacher, and she puts a lot of herself out there in her teaching, in making a connection with us so everyone feels fun and safe, and the result is a really nice camaraderie in the class. For example, all ballet moves tend to have their proper French name, and our own name. (E.g. ronde de jambe en l’air (spelling bad) is also known as tentacle legs. Or when we are reminded to keep our chests high, we are supposed to imagine we are Iron Man. Or we learned assembles, which are called that because your feet assemble in the air, LIKE THE AVENGERS. Second position is the shape your arms would make if you were hugging Totoro. Nobody likes the Polka. Everyone cheers everyone else when they achieve air time pictures of jumps.)

When they say they’re gender neutral and for all levels, they MEAN it. Everyone learns everything regardless of their gender, assigned at birth, chosen, perceived or otherwise. Pointe is open to everyone, allegro and adagio are open to everyone, everyone learns to lead and follow. There is a lot of emphasis on self-care, and letting the teacher know your injuries at the start of class, and only doing stuff that is comfortable, working with your body, not punishing it, while still stretching and pushing yourself, just safely.

I can’t wait to do many many more classes, I feel so supported by the space, the teachers, and the other students that I'm hoping to try lots more things I wouldn't have felt confident enough to do before.

I could probably go on a bit more, but I'm already a few days late with this, and you definitely get the gist! (If you have questions, please obviously ask away!) Plus, I'm sure ID will work its way into my next post, which is also dance-related. :D <3