I am struggling to reconcile the reassurance that this thing isn't nearly as bad as the Spanish Flu, most people are surviving and my state seems to have done a really good job of containing it early on with the daily WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE hysterics I'm getting from just about everywhere. I keep cycling between confidence that I can get through this and panic attacks. And when I have a good day and I get a little bit of writing done, I find myself wondering if I could die and leave my WIPs unfinished and I realize THAT COULD HAPPEN LITERALLY ANY OTHER TIME. I don't have dependents, thank god, because it's difficult enough having to worry about my parents, my sister and my friends. But...is this my only legacy? Some stories that TPTB would rather didn't exist?

I just...I want to be able to fast foward to a time after this so I can be a little less scared.

So I'm watching the second episode of the Russian Sherlock Holmes series from the early 80s and two things...

HoYay. I mean...Watson goes to a crime scene, gets knocked unconscious and wakes up basically IN Holmes' lap, being lovingly tended to.

Second, as an entirely faithful adaptation of A Study in Scarlet, it reminded me of just how good those early episodes of BBC Sherlock were and how much I miss those days before it all went sideways.

Anyway. Obviously I just started watching it, but so far I would highly recommend it for fans of Doyle's detective as it is second only to Jeremy Brett's series which came a little later.

I'm drinking coffee from my Sherlock Holmes mug and listening to a teen lit audiobook about a fanfiction writer obsessed with shipping the male leads of her favorite show and SO SURE that her ship will become canon and...it's...bringing up some not so great memories.

Captain America: Now that we have successfully defeated Thanos, I should retire and maybe work on my friendships with Bucky and Sam. Just...enjoy the peace.

Two seconds later: .........or....I could risk totally screwing up timelines by going into the past so I can date Peggy again to the point that I shouldn't even be able to return to the same timeline and might even risk the peace we just earned.

Somehow, despite all reason, he makes it back to the same timeline as an old man.

Dudebros in the fandom every time one of us points out this problem: You're just too stupid to understand!

Woof. Apparently it's been a while since I updated my profile. I finished recapping Torchwwod and writing new Sherlock stories three years ago.

Made the mistake of checking Twitter today and instantly regretted it. Lots of screaming and fighting and a ridiculous rant about Scorsese and Coppola not liking Marvel movies because they don't pander to white boys. Did I wake up in an alternate universe or something?

I decided to take a step back from social media today. Didn't even look at Twitter and barely glanced at Facebook a couple times. And I feel better than I have in a LONG time. Less exhausted, less depressed, more energy. I mean...it's possible that there were other factors involved in this change, but it has DEFINITELY encouraged me to spend a whole lot less time on social media.

Except for this journal. I can totally still do this.

 Facebook is 90% shitty ads, Twitter and Tumblr are both toxic and horrible and I never got into any of the others. I would be here more often, but this site doesn't really work on mobile devices and I'm rarely on a computer anymore...

Atlin Merrick asked a while back for stories about best fandom experiences. Even though I have been in "fandom" for nearly twenty years, my answer was easy. It was "Lost". I know there was drama and I'm sure there were nasty people in the fandom SOMEWHERE, but I was lucky enough that my experience was entirely positive. I found a circle of brilliant women on Livejournal who would have in-depth discussions every week about the latest plot developments and theorize about where the show was headed and what everything meant. We had debates about time travel and suicide theory and they challenged me to really THINK about the show on a deeper level and my enjoyment of the show itself was enriched all the more for it.

But thinking about my best fandom experience of course led me to consider the worst. This was also easy. Hands down, it was "Sherlock". I was describing my experience with "Lost" to a coworker recently and because I neglected to say what fandom it was, he thought I was talking about "Sherlock". He was surprised by the speed with which I said "oh, hell no!" Basically, "Sherlock" fandom was the polar opposite of "Lost" fandom for me. I'm sure there were plenty of lovely people there somewhere, but all I seemed capable of finding was the ones who were deeply invested in ugly shipper wars and making fun of people who like literally any other adaptation of Sherlock Holmes stories. At its worst, I was made an object of such scorn and ridicule in one Twitter group that I nearly gave up ALL of fandom entirely because MY GOD I should have left this shitty drama behind when I graduated high school. 

Anyway. Those are the extreme ends of my fandom experience. Most of them fall somewhere between those.