singedsun

For Challenge #2 sunshine_challenge

In my first post here, I mentioned that I'd shut down my old DW account which made in the LJ exodus days. For about 18 years everywhere I went online was under the username cherith (my now private LJ is still under that name and my IG account is still under cherithe (when cherith was taken). I'd chosen that name... long before I was going online. I'd grown up in a very strict fundamental Baptist upbringing and I used to read a lot of the Strong's Concordance which is basically a research tool for Bible students to find the original Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic used in the Bible. I found Cherith during research of Elijah the Prophet in 1 Kings. God tells Elijah to go to Cherith, which is like a ravine or a brook, during a long drought so Elijah would have access to water. In the lesson I was researching Cherith is described less as a location but as a passage of time where Elijah was cut off from the world, similar to the way God cut off other of his favorites in order to make them reliant on him. Regardless of my beliefs (I've never bought into Christianity even when I lived deep, deep in it for a long time) I liked the name, Cherith. I held onto it and when I needed a name online, it was the one I reached for.

Last year, after some fallout with some friends I needed a fresh start. Something different, something where those people couldn't/wouldn't find me or seek me out. At the time, I'd created a Pinterest account under the name storminme related to a poem that I love by Andrea Gibson. I have a line from their poem "I Sing the Body Electric (but Only When My Power's Out) tattoed on my arm. Andrea wrote the poem about their fight with a chronic illness and as someone with Fibromyalgia and who has been through some pretty emotionally rough spots, it resonates a lot with me. Specifically this part:

I said to the sun
tell me about the Big Bang
The sun said, 'It hurts to become.'

My tattoo says, "it hurts to become", as a reminder that sometimes we go through some real awful shit and if we can make it through that, we can make it through anything. Our past mistakes and challenges make us who we are for good or bad. I find sometimes it helps when I'm going through a rough patch to look at my arm and remember what I've made it through so far.

There was a second part to coming up with singedsun too. Those people I was trying to avoid, they renamed something we were working on together "and so we burned". And I don't know the combination of me seeing Andrea perform this poem I love so much, in person, twice last year and this idea that these people were cognizant of what they were doing, purposefully burning bridges with me. The name singedsun felt appropriate. So most of the place I hang out regularly, DW and Tumblr and Twitter all became that name. Honestly, I love it and I plan to keep it awhile. I miss using Cherith, I'd hung on to it for SO VERY LONG and sometimes I think about changing it back. What it's done for me though, feeling free of old ties, and allowing me a space to kind of come back to fandom in a way I'd gotten away from has made me really happy.

As pronouns I use she/her though I tend to dress and keep my hair pretty androgynous. I'm bi, though I'm not out to my parents and don't ever plan to be unless I feel it's necessary. Because of my religious upbringing I didn't really realize what I was, or what those feelings were until I started dating in my 20s. And I wasn't even really able to admit that feeling to myself or my friends until after I had a serious boyfriend who loved me regardless. We've been married almost 14 years, adopted a daughter, have two grandsons and coming out to my conservative family feels like unnecessary drama. The people in my life who need to know, know.

As for my fannish identity, for what it is, I joined a lot of writing communities in my early days on LJ in the early aughts. Most of my writing was original fiction in those spaces, but through them, I found some really great fan communities/challenges and participated as an artist in a few big bangs because I love to put together a fanmix. I joined a gaming community and through it I met a friend who eventually created a gaming news and reviews website for women and I joined as a writer, and eventually became the Editor in Chief there. It's gone now, I left in about 2010 due to some real life changes (like adopting a teenager and losing my full time job). But about the same time I got really, really into the Dragon Age series and starting RPing in that universe on a few sites. It didn't take long for that to translate into fic writing. My AO3 account at the time was sparse - mostly based on fairytales from community prompts and like the one Buffy and one Firefly fic I'd written. Quickly, it filled up with Dragon Age fics. They're not all good or finished, but there's definitely a lot of them. I've done Yuletide about every year since 2009 and while DA isn't my main "fandom" anymore (I'm not sure I have a main one right now) it's definitely the one where my heart most lives.

You'll find here, aside from my rambling entries on life and fandom, a good deal of music and YT videos because that's where I spend a lot of time these days. Music and concerts are my vice, I don't drink or smoke so my expendable income, what it is, goes to concert tickets. Now that my daughter is married and has kids of her own and it's just me and my husband at home, I watch a lot of TV too. When Yuletide comes around, I'm likely to hang my hat on a variety of fannish offerings from recent television or movies in addition to whatever odd things strikes my fancy. Though, you can pry my request for Lucy/Mina from the 2013 Dracula TV show out of my cold, undead fingers.

Anyway that's me. A lot about me, too much maybe. Questions or chats always welcome.