greetings?

It’s truly weird to know how to begin one of these blogs again, because typing the first entry just feels like getting old muscle memory back. I suddenly got flooded with all these old memories of creating RP blogs and doing a “test post” with song lyrics or some other in-character in-jokes. Remember when?

Looking at the interface here, it’s easy to forget that the internet looked this way once, and that the pace of everything felt a little bit slower. And I think that’s why I’m here. I’ve been trying to get back into blogging about my fandoms and fanfic-writing life, but the way everything is dominated nowadays by constant flashy visuals and instant hot takes can be emotionally overwhelming. Now, don’t get me wrong, I remember how the livejournal era had its own dramas. I don’t want to cloud my brain with nostalgia. But I also know I want a place that lets me slow down and better filter my experience while also continuing to do the geeky deep dives I love.

So… we’re here I guess. Hello, Dreamwidth? Do I introduce myself? I can try.

Blue isn’t my real name, but it’s what I’ll be using in public entries. I’m a late 30s human from the east coast of the US, and I’m asexual aromantic with a side of like… poly-flavored relationship anarchy I guess. I have always been passionate about reading, writing, and storytelling, particularly coming of age stories, and I’m in an MFA program for writing kid and teen lit. While I have had many fandoms over the course of my life, the current one is the Swedish television series Young Royals. (I fully expect season 3 to wreck my life in a good way.) Over the past two years I have been co-writing a very long historical AU fic called Heart and Homeland and I’m rather proud of what we’ve done. Outside of YR, I also like AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, countless books, multiple historical eras, figuring out how to cook different types of whole grains in my instant pot, and doing tarot readings. Among other things.

Here are some filters I anticipate setting up if I can keep this blog going for more than a hot minute:

• Personal life and health: I expect I’ll talk about my life on this blog from time to time, but the most personal details will be filtered. I’ve had some recent struggles around health I’ve been trying to figure out, and I’ve also been recently diagnosed with autism, ADHD, and unspecified anxiety. Among other things. I’m coming to terms with thinking of myself as disabled and I may need a place to unpack all that.
• Education and career: I’m a middle school teacher in my day job. I have a lot of thoughts about that, and about education as a system in general. Some of those thoughts are occasionally a rant.
• Fandom dynamics: I have been in fandoms long enough that the sociology of them is interesting to me, and I like discussing that.
• Sargust brainrot: Wilhelm and Simon, the golden couple of Young Royals, are very dear to me. Unexpectedly, however, it is the relationship between Simon’s sister Sara and Wilhelm’s absolute crap second cousin August—sargust, as the kids say—that sunk its rusting iron claws in me and refused to let go. Sara and August are complex individuals who do both good and bad things, and I will mostly be measured about them on main, but may need a space where I can be a little bit feral about them to a group of close, understanding friends. That may change depending on the events of the third season, who knows.

Other filter ideas may emerge later. Like, it’s possible I’ll end up doing something on my tarot practice or my MFA Creative thesis or similar. I may do a politics filter because I can get political. But for now we are just thinking we might try having a dreamwidth.

One final thought: Pretty wild to think I had undiagnosed autism all through my teen years and early 20s, which definitely included mild alexithymia as part of the package, and yet I almost always had something to put in the little “current mood” blank. Was I just making it up based on the bouncing gray kittens? Yes. Yes I was.

Philosophies of Justice and Narrative Catharsis in Young Royals

Note: this meta was originally posted to tumblr in March of 2023 and can also be found at this link. I still stand by most of these opinions but reserve my right to change my mind at any time.

Do you ever just have… conversations with yourself at 2 am?

Me: Wow. August did some bad shit. I want him to get therapy and help, but I also want him to face some kinda legal punishment.

Also me: Oh, self. You don’t trust cops or judges or prisons. The legal system would be way harsher on Simon about the drugs. Doesn’t that give you anxiety?

A third me, thousands of words in and possessed by a hyperfocus demon: Well fuck. We might be doing a meta about it. It’s okay, this can just be building blocks for our graduate school thesis on YA literature. Ahaha it’s fine.

The following meta looks at philosophies of justice, both retributive and restorative, as they appear in the worldbuilding Young Royals. This is a monster of a meta, like ~6500 words long, so be aware of that going in. Content note for discussion of all the usual crime topics in YR, as well as the injustices present in real world legal systems.

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