ride_4ever

April-May mail from fen!

The USPS damaged one of my pieces of mail so badly that I couldn't read the signature because that part of the postcard was torn off -- and it's a wonder that the postcard ever got to me at all since the part with my last name and half of my street address and half of my zip code and the entirety of my state was torn off -- but I recognized the style of the message as one written by elayna, an amusing comment about having a vision of Fraser gaining some kind of super-powers caused by getting an electrical shock.

From "across the pond" smallhobbit sent me a card for "National Greeting Card Day".

minoanmiss sent me two postcards for "National Poetry Month," one with a poem by Emily Dickinson and one with a poem by Mina Loy.

My "MFU cousin" vysila sent me a box full of zines.

And ION about the USPS: two cards that I mailed to fen at the winter holidays in 2024 were returned to me by the USPS in 2025. One was a fairly quick return, as the card I sent to lauramcewan came back to me within one month. The other card, the one to ver_verlain and Rebel, was returned to me FOUR MONTHS after I had mailed it and it had stripes of black marker on it and the "Title IX" stamp was defaced.

With love for and in support of Dreamwidth!
(Note: this link goes to the 2024 post, not the 2025, because the banner code was posted in 2024. Check for "recent entries" posts..)


3weeks4dreamwidth is celebrating Dreamwidth's anniversary!
Come join in for fun, memes, activities, and more ♥

In March I got delightful postal mail from sidleypkhermit! It was a combination of two cards -- one card inside the other -- and a bunch of intensely adorable stickers. Great timing about the stickers because earlier this year someone gave me a sticker book -- which is the first time I am assembling my stickers all in one place and with an eye to some kind of intentional organization -- and now I'm going to make one section of the sticker book specifically "stickers from fen".

Today, April 2nd, is World Autism Awareness Day and the whole month of April is National Poetry Month so today I bring you a poem by Adam Wolfond, a Canadian non-speaking autistic poet, artist, and book author. (You can read more about his life and accomplishments at his website.)

EROS OF BATHING STIMMING DANCING PACING
by Adam Wolfond

Mostly I want to rake in the people
to understand the ways of pacing real thoughts
the feeling way

pace pace pace the talking
and type type type the thinking

and the two will rally
and become

Pace names the ways of thinking
and typing feels the ways of pacing

every string games
the perfect love in movement
in real relation
with inspirational rights
of people like me

Having the lust dancing in giving life to feel
the names of categories dancing
out of bounds
is amazing to play

and I get a thrill guessing
the way people will respond
to me and my open
languaging

language is the pavement answering
the way and I am the water
bathing and living
lustfully

Main idea in the eros of autism is the pace
dancing so I feel
fantastic like rallying ocean waves
carrying me like a boogie
board of puttering
on top of the warm water

Mind is lavishing
in the ideas in the eros
pacing
give me some examples

Love the power I have been bathing autistically
and living stimming dancing

the pacings
opening that field of thinking toward
artful liberation

from people who think autism is a problem
and janitors of diversity
live in that world

where simple cleanup
is bigger problem

lusting real ludicrous idea
that we need clean perfect people

I fastly make need
jumping always
on the page
===========


Adam Wolfond, “Eros of Bathing Stimming Dancing Pacing,” Copyright © 2022, Milkweed Editions.

It's The Eleventh of March, dS fen!

"They have called this day The Eleventh of March! And whomsoever of you gets through this day, unless you are shot in the head or somehow slain, you will stand at tiptoe when e'er you hear the name again. And you will get excited at the name March The Eleventh! We happy few, we few, we band of brothers... our names will be as like... household names! And those who are not here... be they sleeping or doing something else, they will feel themselves sort of crappy! Because they are not here to join the fight on this day The Eleventh of March!" -- Sergeant Buck Frobisher, March 11, 1999



(Also, I got a kick out of dewline pointing out to me that there is this Wikipedia entry called "March 11".)

Thank you kindly to the following fen for having sent me a winter holiday card: oldtoadwoman, minoanmiss, noxelementalist, mific, dine, adafrog, aurumcalendula, elayna, lauramcewan, smallhobbit, and kensmind.

(If you sent me a card and your name isn't on here, that means your card to me was lost in the mail.)

I mailed a package of history books to a history-buff friend who was hospitalized with pneumonia.

To a fan-friend in Hungary with whom I share due South fandom and Good Omens fandom I mailed some Chicago souvenirs to represent due South and an Aziraphale/Crowley pin to represent Good Omens.

With the USPS five days ago resuming accepting mail to Canada, I mailed "Happy New Year and More Joy Day" cards to the Canadians on my Christmas list who weren't getting mail at Christmas-time.

The 18th Annual All-Fandoms Holiday of More Joy Day will be January 10th, 2025.

What is More Joy Day? In short it's this:

In 2008, in the interest of spreading more joy, sdwolfpup proposed that on a designated day in early January we each engage in one or more acts, either online or in physical space (or both!), which bring joy to another person, in the hopes that that person will spread that joy further, and exponentially onward.

This act can be as simple as leaving a comment on a fanwork to as complicated as planting a tree in someone's honor and sharing a photo of it and why you chose that person.

For more details, and to see where to post on Dreamwidth your More Joy Day action(s), click here.


SPREAD JOY!

Yays! Continuing my "Fannish 50 Streak" of having done fifty Fannish 50 posts per year for each year that Fannish 50 has been running, and also now completing the thematic responses to the due South 30th anniversary celebration's 30 Below Fest created by and run by flownwrong (there were seven thematic prompts of which I already did six and now here's the seventh).

That final prompt of the 30 Below Fest was called "Go Wild Week" and the meaning of that was left open to interpretation. I'm choosing to do it as reccing in two categories that I wouldn't ordinarily rec: reccing a WIP and reccing a tagged "unfinished and discontinued". (Coincidentally, both of these dS fics are science fiction AUs and are F/K.)

For one, there's the series Real Life on AO3, currently comprised of two completed parts ("Real Boys" and "Real Worlds") and with a third part ("Real Girls") that's an active WIP posting snippet-by-snippet on Dreamwidth. On AO3 the author's pseud is MSSalieri and on Dreamwidth it's troyswann (also, in some other fannish spaces, simply "salieri").

The other is The Xenobiology Service on AO3 by luzula. She is still very much active in writing fic, but has been writing in a fandom other than dS for some time now. While I'm sad that she doesn't plan to continue this fic, what there is of it I <3 so much that I've read it and reread it multiple times over the course of years.

Title: That Dream Again & That Awakening
Author: ride_4ever
Fandom: due South
Rating: Teen and Up
Categories: Gen, M/M
Characters: Ray Kowalski, Benton Fraser, Diefenbaker
Word count: 139

Summary: Ray dreams that dream again, then he awakens.

Fic on AO3.