Fish Out of Water

In which I contemplate about a small headcanon and posting order that no one but myself will care about.

I have been writing more lately. Granted I should be focusing more on finding a better job but like most people, I have that bad habit of being productive in the wrong things. Most of the writing is expanding off the Powerpuff Girls pieces and scraps I digitized during my move but I've had a few half-baked ideas for Harry Potter and Merlin percolating. I'm trying to build off the outlines I made to see if the ideas are viable.

I want to post the small fic I've been working on but a small headcanon that I have is making me wonder if I should wait. In the original Powerpuff Girls show, I always had the idea that in an extended universe of the show Buttercup and Boomer would be friends, or at least friendly. Obviously not always, they are still hero and villain respectively but their grey areas are more alike than different.

They are the odd ones out in their respective trios and a bit more like each other's siblings than their own (more so Buttercup). Boomer isn't as outwardly violent as his brothers are and he doesn't seem to take the lead in antagonizing the girls; instead, he just seems to follow his brothers. When Bubbles was impersonating him, her timid behaviour and general lack of malice didn't make Brick or Butch too suspicious, which implies they see Boomer as different. Buttercup, however, is constantly berated for being too mean or too harsh on enemies and family alike and is shown many times to feel like an outsider from her sisters. Buttercup also has a canon history of being friendly with the rogues gallery and with the boys at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. I can just see the pair of them bonding over being the outlier in their groups and getting along fairly well. Buttercup likes the fact Boomer likes having slightly chaotic fun and can take a hit and isn't always a delinquent she has to stop and Boomer enjoys her mischievous and occasionally mean spirited side and humour.

Part of it is my love of male/female platonic friendships and that in the whole show none of the kids is shown having their close friends beyond their siblings, which isn't realistic (granted I am talking about a show about superpowered children).

Now, the fic I want to post just kind of assumes this headcanon and part of me wonders if I should instead post a fic more dedicated to explaining their relationship first. I know I could write an author's note at the beginning but I hate having those.

The flight to Austria was awesome. I was on a Boeing 787, which can seat upwards of 300 passengers. My flight had less than 180, so I had an entire row to myself. My poor economy-flying ass was able to stretch out, sleep on across all three seats, and actually sleep well enough that I arrived not jet-lagged. I'll be chasing that white whale of a flight for the rest of my life.

Three and some change years, five countries and countless airports later I am saying farewell to Asia and looking towards Europe. It's been a crazy way to spend my late twenties, everything from isolating and freeing to terrifying and exciting.

From my completely nightmarish arrival (think black mould and being locked in an apartment without food or ability to contact anyone) to making a small, one-room apartment into a home, it has been so much more than what I expected. I have driven up part of Mt Fuji and stood on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, surfed in Indonesia, protested against China, kayaked through Halong Bay and crawled through underground tunnels in Ho Chi Minh City. I got to discuss power tools with a Shinto priest, Anthony Bourdain with one of his show's local producers and watched the sunset in Bali with a chain-smoking surf instructor. I've been in three castles, two of the 50 tallest buildings in the world, one presidential palace, and due to one huge wrong turn in Japan, a U.N. diplomatic guest house. I've eaten nearly every possible part of a chicken, fish and duck, drank kopi luwak and given a speech at a Chinese wedding and a million other things I never once thought I would do.

My work has been incredibly rewarding, and I learned that yes I can be patient when it comes to really stupid questions asked multiple times and that kids can be incredibly funny if you listen to them, also they love to teach you every bad word they know (even if you speak horribly accented, garbage level Chinese). Seeing a student struggle through translating bit by bit and then light up when they realise they can communicate their ideas and thoughts with you never stops being amazing.

I had my last class with one of my favourite classes last Friday, and it broke my heart. Two of the students I had taught for half of their lives. Part of me doesn't want to leave, life here in Taiwan is easy, the food is decent and the beer is cheap but I know that it's time to find something else, new opportunities and chances.

I have one more Chinese New Year left in Taiwan, then I leave for the European continent. It's hard to say goodbye, and I'm sure I'll always carry a part of this island with me.

再见台湾 , 謝謝

It's been an interesting few weeks. Celebrated my five-year anniversary with the SO, a close friend took a level in dickhead, my favourite fanfiction updating, all sorts of stuff across the board. I finally got an editing job using my main university degree, which feels pretty damn vindicating. It's only part-time textbook editing but after five years of stagnation on my writing CV, I'm just happy to have something.

Spent a chunk of the evening just meandering around the internet on both Dreamwidth and Tumblr and just wishing I could find some sort of middle ground between the two. I loathe Tumblr's lack of comments and continuity but the visuals and user activity level definitely beat DW. Maybe one day I will get my more visual version of DW and LJ, or less toxic and navigation nightmare Tumblr.

Browsing through fannish blogs and works always makes me nostalgic lately. It's like being both here on a Sunday night in 2018 and also in 2006. I miss the sense of community and anonymity that seemed to be present on the internet of old. I know I'm probably wearing rose colored glasses but I'm so over having my real name online and all my accounts for things trying to link to each other. I miss having my MSN account and that was completely separate from my LJ and FFN accounts, save for a few friends who were in both circles of my life. Signing out of a site or account meant you were 100% offline from it. One door in and out, no interconnected account mess to navigate.

I supposed I will always miss the internet of old. It was just such a different place. It was just equal parts less and more wild and weird and just so hard to describe. A friend was telling how she still hops onto Gaia and how everyone has faded away, and it made me think of the old message boards and mailing lists that have quietly died. I miss them, and all the old friends whom I only knew through them. Wonder if anyone ever misses me.

One thing I noticed my nostalgia has triggered in the past year is that I am writing creatively more than I have since I was in my fanfiction prime as a teenager. It's only increased with the revival/update of my favourite work in the last few weeks. I may cave to my nostalgia and post online for the first time in over ten years. Hell, I already have in a way, this is the first internet journal entry I have written in eleven years. It's therapeutic to be writing to the void of cyberspace again.