Gill's Place

Or my perception of events. But it’s true for me.

Life this year has had highs and deep lows. I’m writing this to try to set some of it in context, mostly for myself.

( TL:DR the background )

( Establishing an alternative )

( Building an archive )
( Twitter, the hellsite )

Our personal life was a trifle complicated at that time. I had spent most of the fortnight leading up to the Queen’s death living in an Oxford college doing in-person readings with a group of academic friends of the complete works of Christopher Marlowe and plays influenced by or influencing his work. (The day after the accession of King Charles III, as it happened, we read Edward III and Richard III.) My mobility was very poor – I found it impossible to walk as far as a supermarket, so lived on sandwiches and salads bought for me by Dave – so I was pretty much permanently exhausted.

We finished on the Friday and spent the weekend packing, leaving the country for our first holiday on the continent since the pandemic started. For three weeks we were out of the country, travelling or staying in rented holiday apartments. Both of us had health problems during this period; physical and emotional in each case. This may in part explain what happened, though I do not offer it as an excuse.

( Twitter went pear-shaped without help from Elon Musk )

( Peak horribleness )

( When you think it's over, it isn't over )

The next day I had an email from one of the team saying she was “there for me” – it felt like arrant hypocrisy. It may simply have been tone-deafness in an emotional sense.

( Things, bad enough, got worse )

And on that point, I really don’t see the value of that site continuing. It was founded, as I understood it, with the primary purpose of being supportive, forgiving, helpful – above all, safe. It’s turned out to be none of the above.

( The impact on me )

( The bit that angers me now. )

So, it's a fandom kerfuffle. They used to be two a penny. Fewer now, as there are fewer in the fandom. A good sign? Great.

If you've read this far, thanks. Once more, I am very much not asking anyone to act or speak up on my behalf. But it's affected me deeply and will take a fair bit of getting over, so I thought I would share it here, so people understand where I'm coming from.

I've been writing all month for the Elysian Fields Artistic Challenge Month. This year it's a banner-based challenge, and there were so many to choose from! In the end I chose this one, by fellow-Brit AlloSpoike



The request included a requirement that Buffy should rescue Spike from a fire. Well, she did that, but it's gone beyond that. A Special Guest Star appears throughout.

So far it's up to four chapters; I hope to get it finished within the challenge month. You know the drill - characters not mine, just playing with them, promise I'll put them back tidily.

Rating: R, veering towards NC-17. Spuffy. Season Six, with the sex and violence that involves.

( Touching the Fire Chapter One )

Comments are loved and nurtured like my own babies.

In your own space, create some goals. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Fandom goals:
Read and comment more. Especially the comments.

Finish one of my two WIPs, which have been hanging there unloved but close to the end for literally years now.

Write at least five new fics. More would be nice, but one every couple of months is fairly low-pressure and ought to be doable.

Consider writing a crossover or experimenting with a new fandom. This one's scary.

Personal goals:
Get the vaccine.

See friends. In person. In the same room.

Hug my children and my grandchildren.

Write an academic paper of some kind. Even if it's only ever published here.

Apply for that PhD. That needs archives to be open again. But there's hope.

Get my crafting stuff sorted.

Make some clothes for myself and for Rhiannon*.

Sort out some of the mountain of stuff in the house.

Contribute more to charity.**

( *I made a dress for Rhiannon for Christmas. )

**I don't want to sound sanctimonious, but I can't bear how many people are struggling even for basic food while I am comfortably locked down at home.

ETA: I also have a goal of reading 120 books over on Goodreads. Some will be semi-cheating, as I'll be reading a lot more plays on Zoom. But plays of the 1620s ought to count, right?

As I sorta accidentally volunteered to help the mods, I thought I'd better try to do the challenge this year, perhaps get a little further on than before.



In your own space, introduce yourself! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'm Gill, mid-60s, living in the English Midlands in a small town with a big castle. I used to teach English and drama, but after some MH issues I left teaching in 2011 and since then have been a serial student, doing MAs at our nearest universities, Warwick (English) and Birmingham (Shakespeare and Theatre at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon.) As a result I am an even bigger Shakespeare and Early Modern theatre fangirl than ever. I don't as yet write in the fandom, though, apart from academic essays, because treading on the turf of the Greatest Ever Writer seems a bit cheeky. I've been involved in a Zoom reading group of plays from that period since June, and it's been a real support in these strage times.

I do write in the BtVS/AtS universe, with an emphasis on Spuffy. You can find most of my fics here on DW/LJ, on Elysian Fields and AO3. I'm mildly fannish about a whole range of other shows: Doctor Who (I saw the first episode in 1963), Staged, Green Wing, Good Omens, and lots of books. I am a Literature Nerd.

I have two married daughters, one of whom has a daughter and a son. I miss them terribly in this bizarre plague time when even meeting your own family is dangerous. I am lucky to have been married to my Dave for 42 years and counting.

So, BtVS is back on TV here in the UK, late at night on a very minor channel (E4? More4?), but that means it's streaming free to anyone - and that means a little more press. Clickbait? Possibly, but I'll settle for that.

The Guardian has always supported Buffy, so it shouldn't be a surprise that they'd run an article given half a chance. This is a top 20 of episodes. Not much to argue with over the top three, but the others are a bit light on the bleached blond vampire for my personal preference. See what you think: "Demons, death and dynamite dialogue: the 20 best episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer"


So, to balance things up a bit, my FB feed came up with This, on Junkee.com, about how Spike is just the hottest vampire ever. YMMV, but don't tell me if it does!

This has been a PSA for your benefit. Don't thank me...

Like most Brits I know I am spitting with fury about Dominic Cummings. For non-Brits who may not even have heard of him, he is Boris Johnson's eminence grise, who contracted Covid-19 in early April but saw fit to drive the length of England to his parents' home in Durham, breaking not just government advice but also emergency legislation. Other public figures who committed far lesser infractions of the regulations were forced to resign, but not this jerk. LotR fans may like to think of him as a cross between Grima Wormtongue and Gollum, but without the latter's probity.
( So I wrote a letter to my MP )

I doubt if I'll see any reaction - Wright is a particularly useless constituency MP and a party yes-man. But it may add just a little to the avalanche of complaint currently apparently hitting Westminster.

Crossposted from my LJ account

I do rather love this.

It gets worse. The sodding Home Office destroyed the landing cards of the Windrush generation, collected when they arrived here 50-60 years ago, despite protests by civil servants who pointed out that it could make it harder to establish the immigration status of that generation.

And they did it in 2010. I am incandescent and speechless with fury.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/17/home-office-destroyed-windrush-landing-cards-says-ex-staffer

Just how much more shamefully can our government act?

ETA: Particularly interesting is the end of the article:

The former Home Office employee, who worked in a team of around 50 in the data protection unit, said staff had wanted to offer the landing card files to public archives, but were told there was no interest.

He said he asked managers at the time what would happen in the case of a dispute. He said he was told the majority of people on the landing cards were in their 70s and 80s and most of their cases would have been resolved, and the office did “not have the resources to keep them”.

“I suggested digitising but was told there were no resources,” he said. He remembered protesting: “Even if half the people are dead, they are historical records.” His manager responded that the cards were “redundant”.

He said he noticed a change in approach to these cases after the announcement of the “hostile environment” policy by May, then home secretary. In 2009 and 2010, managers gave case workers and members of his team time to look into cases. “Generally speaking, most Home Office staff want to try to do the right thing and be fair, within the rules,” he said.

But from 2013 onwards, he said, staff were “given no leeway to make a judgment call”. The changed atmosphere combined with staff cuts made it a more unpleasant place to work and many experienced staff took redundancy, he said. The people who remained were told: “These are the rules, stick to them.”

He decided to leave at around this time. “I am so angry that people are being treated in a way which is just abhorrent.”

No prizes for guessing what triggered this. S7, Spike in the basement and elsewhere.

( Mothers' Day )
Comments on this will be loved and cherished.

Many thanks to all of you who commented on my previous post - much appreciated.