An Apology and a Promise

When you talk on the internet, especially in a free-form conversational podcast like Verity!, sometimes you stick your foot so firmly down your own throat it’s a wonder the mic doesn’t pick up the sound of toenails scraping molars. I am not immune to this phenomenon.

A few months back, I made an insensitive comment about the 9th Doctor giving hugs. Taken out of context (which it literally was, as it was briefly one of the “pull quotes” in the cold open of the podcast), it sounded like I was saying all people who don’t like hugging are somehow emotionally damaged. YIKES. SO WRONG.

In the context of the podcast, the statement bore more resemblance to what I was thinking (that emotional damage can lead one to change their behavior and stop hugging, and the 9th Doctor wanted to prove that hadn’t happened to him in the course of the Time War). So I replaced the line in the cold open because, wow, was that shitty, and I explained and apologised in a series of tweets. (I appreciate all the folks who called me on that. Thank you!) And of course, I’ve tried to do better since.

Trying doesn’t always mean succeeding.

Welp. I’ve done it again. In today’s episode of Verity!, I talked about how I didn’t like the way series 1 of Doctor Who changed the Doctor from (what I’d always seen as) an asexual character to one who is pretty explicitly sexual. (We were talking about “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances”. Dances, you guys. It’s a metaphor!) I equated being a sexual creature with normality and humanity and ohmigod I want to go back in time and slap the mic away from my face.

But I can’t. Time doesn’t work that way (except occasionally in Doctor Who).

There are two parts to this.

Let Me Be of Service

Just so I don’t bury the lede, it’s official, I am once again employed! But that’s only partially the point of this post.

I’ve been on the hunt for work for quite some time. If you’re like me, when you’re looking for a job, you do a lot of soul-searching. You spend a lot of time thinking about what you like to do, what you don’t like to do, what you’re good at, and what you struggle with. You spend a lot of brain-energy trying to encapsulate your good qualities in pithy little sound bites.

Eventually, if you’re lucky, you discover (or create or stumble upon) a personal motto — something that sums you up as a person, or at least sums up the way you interact with the world. For me, that motto is the title of this piece: Let me be of service.

2 Important Things

#1: Uncanny Magazine‘s Year Three Kickstarter is in its FINAL HOURS!

As I type this, my beloved Uncanny Magazine is only $90 away from the stretch goal that will add an additional story to each issue for Year Three! We are proud of the fact that we help introduce the world to new voices, and this is a great avenue to do that. The additional stories will come from unsolicited submissions, so if you care about diverse voices telling stories that make you feel (and if you haven’t already), I urge you to think about contributing to our Kickstarter.

As of right now you have 24 hours left to do so!

There are still plenty of fabulous backer rewards to choose from, including one in which you get to do a live video hangout with ME! (Plus Steven, Lynne, and Michael!) We’ll geek out about podcasts and help you plan/improve your own! We did this last year, and it was great fun!

 

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August 15, 2006: Episode 1 of a new #DoctorWho podcast called Radio Free Skaro is released, featuring these idiots: pic.twitter.com/NoDWMRih4H

— Steven Schapansky (@Legopolis) August 15, 2016

#2: Radio Free Skaro Celebrates its 10 Year Anniversary!

10 years is positively Methuselan for a podcast! I am so happy for/proud of these guys, and not only because one of them is my husband. He became that after I started listening to the podcast. In fact, all Three Who Rule were complete strangers to me when I discovered their podcast. Now I consider them all great friends.

A lot of celebratory tweets have been slung their way, and the thing that stands out to me the most is the number of times I’ve seen a variation on this one:

I honestly cannot picture what my life would have been like had I not found @RadioFreeSkaro.

— Sarah (@sourcitruslady) August 15, 2016

10 years of podcasting is nothing to sneeze at. 10 years of anything is impressive, and 10 years of something that’s a crapton of work and doesn’t pay (well) is a monumental achievement–one that is clearly born out of love for both the subject matter and what they do. But what’s truly amazing to me is the community (and communities) that sprang up around this group of Canadians. It’s a testament to who they are that so many people’s lives have been inexorably changed (for the better!) by listening to three geeks talk about the thing they love every week.

I know my life would be unrecognizably different if not for RFS. I wouldn’t be married. I wouldn’t be living in Canada. I wouldn’t have my own podcast. (I wouldn’t have half-a-dozen podcasts!) I wouldn’t be working for the aforementioned Uncanny Magazine. I wouldn’t be nominated for a freaking Hugo Award! (Also thanks to Uncanny Magazine!)

I know I’m nowhere near alone in thanking RFS for the life that I have now. Here’s to another 10 years!