#2022 in fannish hindsight

[ximeria]

The year in review.

I guess one could say that LOL

2022 has been up and down in many ways, stagnation in other ways. It's honestly an ongoing thing to see if I can get the downs up and the stagnation to move.

Downs: I don't feel I'm creating much anymore, but it's mainly because I have too many hobbies for me to feel I ceate enough in any of them. There's a Danish saying: Mange bække små, which means 'many small streams (make a river when put together).

Solution: Kick my butt repeatedly and realise that I do in fact create, but its across so many types of media and platforms, that each feels like a small island - or aptly: a small single stream, disconnected from the whole..

Solution to not feeling like I create enough, I think, I want to try something new in 2023. I am not talking about views, clicks, kudos, comments or such. I have been in fandom for too many years to truly care? If that makes sense. It used to be about the comments, the interaction, then it became statistics and kudos. Which I feel a lot of fanfic writers are far too focused on. Hey, I could make a vid on that, that would cover another of my myriad of hobbies LOL.

So the new thing? If I can follow through on it, I'd like to try to string some of it together.

a. Tumblr: it's fun and games but can be used to link to other platform content.

b. Twitter: Ahahahahaha the dumpster fire is on fire. I use it occasionally, but that's about it.

c. Twitch: The one that has come closest to give me the kind of interaction I used to enjoy on platforms such as LJ and YahooGroups (yes, I'm that old, suck it up). I am part of a small community on Twitch (one of serveral, but this one is closer to my heart). I fire up a stream appx 3 times a week, none of it is major, new games (or if it is, it is rare and has some connection to our interests). I do not stream to get big, I do not stream to get followers or make money. I stream because the absolute gremlin energy in chat sometimes is amazing and fun. And when I say that, one might worry that it can't be controlled. I have mods, we mod for each others' streams. The mods are by far the biggest gremlins and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So stringing it all together? Well, I think I'll try to get better at putting schedules up on Twitter and Tumblr, and to share silly little shorts/clips. Because we do have fun and honestly, as long as you play nice and are open to the silliness we get up to, who cares?

And to top it all off, I am still in two minds about whether or not I want to cut my VODS from twitch before putting them on Youtube. So far, my Breath of the Wild ones are uncut and they are just there for anyone who might want to use something like 3-5 hours being entertained by my chat being a bunch of trolls and me blowing shit up/sniping enemies with bow and arrow or just puttering about, cussing at the enemies and looking for Korok seeds (or bridge trolls as some of the Koroks have been renamed by chat). We have a quote bot that gets all sorts of stupid stuff added regularly and most of it none of us can remember the context of, but it doesn't make it any less funny.

So you may ask, what do I stream? I stream mainly what I also write in: The Legend of Zelda - most of the time, Breath of the Wild. I run that as Saturday morning chill stream, meandering my way towards 100% the game, but marked as a slowrun because I have to pace myself - Tears of the Kingdom isn't out until May 12th. And even then, I'll not stream that one right off the bat. I want that one to myself, on the couch with my feet up and no other interaction than with the game.

Then there is the mayhem that is Sunday streams. Those are classic/older Zelda titles. It's lovingly also dubbed the scream stream, because I did Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask and both stressed me out like crazy. Currently I am doing A Link Between worlds. (If we go back through the year, I also managed Wind Waker HD, Remake Link's Awakening).

Thursdays fluctuate, but for the time being they are labelled Throwback Thursday - I started out with Grim Fandango, then did Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic and this coming Thursday, I'll be starting the Monkey Island series. It means odd graphics, weird games but ones that have a certain amount of nostalgia for me, for the community and for anyone who might wander by the channel.

And I can honestly say I am enjoying the hell out it. I have found people who became regulars who became friends and are now either streaming themselves or planning to do so. It costs nothing to leave a follow (save perhaps your sanity) and it's entertainment to some of us LOL.

Writing: Yeah. That. I felt I was slowing down, but honestly, I just write longer stories rather than shorter ones and while I do have the occasional writer's block, I still get ideas, I still enjoy writing. I'd just like more than 24H in a day cycle. That's all LOL.

2022 had me only posting 1 story, but one of 67K but I have the drafts for 2 in my GDocs and one needs a heavy revision while the other one I only just handed over to my beta reader. The one that needs the heavy revisions is also 60K+ words while the one I just handed over yesterday is around 20K. So I am writing, just not as much as I used to. That being said, if you guys could see my Trello… XD. I use trello to keep track of ideas or the ideas would either disappear or crush me under their weight. So 2023, my dear new year, I'd like to get some of them marked done ;)

So to all of you out there, hope you have had a lovely new year and I'll hopefully be crossing paths with you in strange places through 2023 ;)

For those interested, the following links are where I lose myself in the fun ;)

AO3

Twitch

Twitter

YouTube

And I'll leave you with some shenanigans from the last stream I did before heading off on my holiday.