#is much easier to make than a fanvid

[lailah-tov]

Recall the deeds as if they're all Someone else's atrocious stories Now you stand reborn before us all So glad to see you well And not to pull your halo down Around your neck and tug you to the ground But I'm more than just a little curious How you're planning to go about making your amends To the dead

A Perfect Circle, "The Noose"  

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

Call for Submissions for Phanatic Phanzine

Opening up submissions for the Phanatic Phanzine! 🥳Calling upon phandom members, new and old, to share their love for Dan and Phil!

We survived the Dan and Phil hiatus, and all we're making is this zine 🌈

The Phanatic Phanzine is a fanzine project created by myself and @aaaaaaaaa-no to celebrate the Dan and Phil content and fandom revival we are seeing. This will be a digital zine including artwork, fanvid tributes, poetry, and personal stories of the space DnP hold in our lives!

The plan is to compile these fan efforts into a digital zine by Christmas '23 and present it to DnP as a gift. 🎀

Since we intend to share it with dnp we will not be taking fanfic or NSFW submissions but we intend to do another zine in the future for the fans celebrating the fandom itself so look out for that one!

Submit at phanaticphanzine@gmail.com

Deadline: 24th December 2023 GMT

Guidelines under the cut

General guidelines

The submissions will be screened for anything NSFW, and no fanfiction is being accepted. Likewise, please be mindful of the language used in written pieces. All submissions will be entertained in good faith.

📌We are also accepting written submissions and links through asks and DMs

We are accepting submissions in the form of artworks, fanvids, written personal accounts, and poetry. You may submit any of the media above but please keep in mind that we will only be accepting five artworks, two fanvids, one written personal account and three poems per person.

Submissions are to be sent to the email id provided above. Please add the name you wish to be credited with + any social media links to add, or specify if you would like your submission to be anonymous

Al generated content will not be a part of this zine

Any doubts or questions can be cleared via asks or messages on Tumblr, to either me or @aaaaaaaaa-no feel free to ask!

Specific guidelines:

For artwork:

Artwork can be digital, traditional, or mixed media

Submissions must be in the email attachment in jpg or png format

Old fanworks that have already been posted are allowed. For new works, please try to not post the full piece (wips okay) till the zine is released!

No more than 5 works per person

For poetry and personal accounts:

Word limit of 1000 words at most. Short notes with lower word count are more than welcome

All written submissions must be in a word or Google document, or written in the body of an email.

Anything posted elsewhere is allowed

No more than 1 personal account and 3 poems per person

For fanvids:

The video must be uploaded as an unlisted video on YouTube or similar video-sharing platforms. Videos that are already posted are allowed as well

Video links and a thumbnail in png or jpg format are to be submitted. The links will be converted to QR codes to present on the digital zine alongside the thumbnail You will be notified via email a few days before the zine is released so the videos can be made public in case they are currently unlisted

Shipping videos are not allowed for this zine, please be mindful of the same

No more than 2 fanvids per person

Adherence to the guidelines will make sorting much easier for the compilers so please try to do so!

To reiterate: even if you send in content that we cannot use we will engage with you in good faith 🌸

Please don’t be disheartened if your piece doesn’t make it! We plan to start work on a fanzine exclusively for the fandom (by and for the fans) soon which will allow content disallowed for this zine, so look out for that!😁

Help us spread this to others who may be interested!

We look forward to all your submissions💫

[air--so--sweet]

Made my first fan edit in over a decade (in my day they were called fanvids). Apparently you can't use copyrighted music longer than a minute on tiktok (it was easier to get round copyright in my day also) so this one is just for you tumblr. Also let's ignore the clips with logos in because I'm not getting clean versions to re-edit it, it's 8am and I haven't been to sleep (thanks ADHD hyperfocus stopping me from literally noticing the sun coming up!)

Edit: Had some sleep so now time to write a ridiculous number of words about a 3 minute edit! This was a lot of fun to make, I forgot how fun video editing is and capcut is a dream compared to windows movies maker and sony vegas (which was what all the cool kids were using for some reason in the mid 2000s but I never got the hang of it).

It also reminded me how fun some of the dance numbers are. Like I love Dancing in the Moonlight and Twistin' the Night Away. I know for the latter they originally had a choreographed routine but it was scrapped and and they were told improvise and have fun. It's something that definitely comes across in the final scene and it makes it feel more authentically like three siblings messing around.

Also in editing the video scenes I noticed stuff I wouldn't have otherwise. Emmy breaks multiple times because she's having so much fun (it's left in because it makes sense for her to laugh in the moment but Emmy's laugh is very different to Allison's).

The weird dance Diego does with the sword during Another One Bites the Dust, and the fact Lila has to fully step back at one point to not get hit in the face! I always thought Lila was just pulling Five in by the hand for a hug in the same scene but you can see them dancing together in the background throughout. I knew they danced together at the wedding but Five was blackout drunk at that point so it's fun to see him dancing with her at a time when he's...well not sober, but definitely less drunk.

Also as an aside, in the first draft of the script for S1E1 it's shown explicitly that Five is uncomfortable with touch after years in the apocalypse. Though the scene in question didn't make it into later drafts, it still feels implied to me throughout season 1 and it makes me feel happy to see how far he's come, seeming genuinely comfortable with Lila's affection. Also if anyone is interested in the idea of him struggling with touch @soshadysoquiet has a great fic exploring this (though rather than my view that he's become accustomed to, and comfortable with touch it posits that he's dealing with so much due to the apocalypse he doesn't recognise touch as the cause of his distress).

I also think there's a sort of theme happening in the partner dances during Footloose, rather than the characters being paired randomly but that will take long enough to explain it needs it's own post, even if this one wasn't already obscenely long.

[according2thelore]

2023 top five!

@preseriesdean thought it would be fun for artists/authors/creators to post their favorite five creations this year, and i agree! it can be anything: your favorite posts, fics, art, edits, fanvids, anything!

i saw some folks turning this into a tag game, so here are some tags! @deanwinchesterpregnant @dyed-red @mercette @crucifysam @weirdbrothers @togethertogethersoulmates @pookeenpie

if you end up doing it, pls tag me! i'd love to see y'all's works! :)

-lizzy

so in no particular order, here are the five fics i liked the best/am the most proud of!

considering that everything i’ve written on this account (240k words of it good lord) was published since february 23rd, i’ve got a lot to work with!

i was in the fandom back in 2012-2013 until 2016-2017, and when i rewatched it recently with some friends, i realized just how many words and feelings had been broiling since. i wrote a LOT for spn back in the day (not published, just for the pure joie de vivre), but everything on the ao3 is completely new since feb!

1. tell me, why are you still so afraid?

or, the "what do you want, sam?" fic. this one might be a surprise! it did moderately well, but i'm really happy with it! i love writing weechesters/pre-series, and i hope this fic did them justice! it hit a lot of points i liked, and i had so much fun writing it!! i'm proud of it! :)

2. you're pretty when you don't speak

or, sam's wife pov. i was shocked!!! aghast!!! frankly agog!!! at how much folks loved this one! i had the idea in the shower of all places, lmao, just the idea that wait, being sam's wife must be so lonely. it was not the usual fare (and written in second-person pov), so i was expecting it to gently and quietly flop. but no! i wrote this fic in two sittings at one a.m. the night before a paleopathology exam, so i'm shocked any of it was coherent in the morning. thank you, dear reader, if you interacted w it at all! :)

3. romans 3:10-11

ahh, romans. to other folks that write, this was one of those fics that scratched in my bones until i sat down and wrote it all out. does that sound pretentious? it was stifling; it was all i could think about. even now, i look back on it and feel like there are things that are missing, extended scenes and extra themes that i wished i had teased out. the response was overwhelming and positive and i'm so glad you lot liked it! if you ever want more...idk...lemme know...

4. we didn't get it right, but love we did our best

or, the Heaven fic! this one took awhile to make, and a lot out of me to do! it's the longest fic i've made this year, by a lot! the planning process was a lot of fun (even though charlotte was mostly asleep), and i even colour-coded themes and turning points i wanted to include. the sense of accomplishment when it was done was a great part of this year!

5. there's no such thing as a clean break, when your heart starts bleeding out

or, the stanford!era fic where dean bleeds out on the highway and decides to not tell sam about it. one of my favorite things to write is a character getting more and more out of it as they lose control (or blood), and this one was a fun challenge! i love stanford!era dean, because he's so mangled and angry and sad. i feel like that one tweet that william shatner posted where he said ELECTROCUTE HIM!!! this also feels the most like the things i wrote back in 2014, so it brings nostalgia :,)

this was WAY harder than i thought! i loved and was so proud of so much of my work this year! a top ten would be easier, but i'm happy with this list!

thank YOU for reading! :)

we are holding hands now and there's nothing you can do to stop it. y'all keep this up and we might even have to stare lovingly into each other's eyes.

[inimitablereel]

2023 Fic+Vid recs

A variety of things I liked this year, made this year. Once again, this got long, so fic recs and fandom-specific recs for dmbj are below the cut. But first a few miscellaneous vids

[vid] Cockroach Motherfuckers by eruthros, thingswithwings multifandom Immortal queer characters multi-vid! This is exactly as much fun and hopeful as it sounds. I've seen maybe 2 of the sources so you know, you don't have to have seen them all.

(We) Didn't Just Come Here to Dance [Fanvid] by FairestCat fandom: Newsies I haven't actually seen newsies, but I really liked this vid. Taking the (very dramatic) musical theater dancing and putting it to a Carly Rae Jepsen song works SUPER well, visually very fun time. Also, unions!

[Vid] Oceanographer's Choice by absternr fandom: Heroes (cdrama 2022) Bai Choufei, Su Mengzhen, and Lei Chun's fucked up relationship(s)/falling apart bad times. This vid is deeply upsetting, just a real exploration of sometimes caring a lot about each other makes everything worse. For maximum sad times, this goes well with absternr's other heroes vid, hey, I just met you, which is the meet-cutes that led to this whole mess.

[AMV] The Draw by Lovely Goblin fandom: Revolutionary Girl Utena Black Rose Arc! I've watched this vid so many times really good weird and creepy black rose arc vibes really good parallels between all the different duelists

Also blanket rec that if you've seen Everything Everywhere All at Once, consider looking for vids for it. There's a bunch on ao3 (which can be easier to navigate than youtube, though there are definitely more total vids on youtube) and they're pretty much all spectacular? I was going to include one or two in this rec post and couldn't decide

The wild phonemes of 40 Eridani Keid by astronicht Fandom: Star Trek (aos/tos mashup canon) relationship: Spirk ~10k words rated E You know if you'd told me a year ago I'd be reccing a spirk fic in 2023 I would have been a bit surprised. This is not particularly my fandom wheelhouse. But you know, they're always good, and this fic is really great. This is almost an episode-fic except that nothing really happens plot-wise. But instead of a plot we get a lot of musing about geology and diplomacy and clever references to current events as history in that very trek kind of way and Spock being bitchy just for fun.

fuori dal mondo by bladedweaponsandswishycoats fandom: Qi Ye relationship: Beiyuan/Wu Xi, Beiyuan/Zhou Zishu (more plot than ship focused) ~60k words rated E This is a retelling of Qi Ye except Beiyuan is... some kind of eldritch horror, part-time. It pretty much goes beat for beat through canon (which I appreciate, I loved that book and do not like any of the current tls enough to reread) but with the added layer of whatever is going on with this eldritch thing, which is very cool and tied into canon so don't let me spoil it for you.

We're Leaving Our Shadows Behind Us by lady_ragnell fandom: Tortall - Protector of the Small relationship: Kel/Neal/Yuki ~70k words rated T Canon retelling of Squire and Lady Knight but from Neal's POV. This fic really digs into Neal as a character and the details of the worldbuilding of Tortall, especially the chamber of the ordeal. Also somewhere along the way it sold me on this ship, which I wasn't exactly rooting for when I read the books the first time.

The Untamed/MDZS

a harmony between qin and se by Alaceron relationship: Wangxian ~60k words rated E This is a gender-bent (to make it a het romance) no magic historical drama au where Wei Wuxian is a woman who's arranged to marry Lan Wangji. Honestly this is pretty far from the untamed, especially in terms of themes, though some plot elements will be familiar, but mostly it's just a really great compellingly written historical drama, that happens to have main characters with some familiar characteristics.

Like a Game of Chess by countingcr0ws relationship: Wangxian ~40k words rated T Modern au: influencer Wei Wuxian runs into Lan Wangji on a trip to Taiwan and they travel around together. I love all the little details of their trip - it's like getting to see a new place without going anywhere. Also sometimes I forget that wangxian are very cute? They're a good ship brant

The Epic Highs and Lows of High School Zine Production by el_em_en_oh_pee relationship: Jin Ling & Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling & the mdzs juniors ~7k words rated G Modern au: High schooler Jin Ling has big feelings about a lot of things, including zines, gender, and family. One of those juniors-centric fics that makes me say oh they are Teens huh.

DMBJ

A Little Hole in the Wall by MountainRose gen, Liu Sang centric ~8k words rated G Honestly I would rec this fic even to people who know nothing about tomb shows. One thing that really draws me to a book is descriptions of food (I have read multiple food memoirs this year), and this restaurant au has AMAZING food (and food prep) in it. Not too plotty, mostly just descriptions of delicious things and characterization via cooking.

green with an attitude by ilgaksu relationship: heihua ~8k words rated T If you are in the English language dmbj fandom and you care at all about heihua you probably have already checked out ilgaksu's fic, which has basically defined heihua for the English language fandom. My favorite heihua moments are when other people show up and give you that foil to realize how weird they are, and this fic has that both via Xiuxiu and Wu Xie. Also, a fic about dancing!

making anything last, keeping anything safe by A (mumblemutter) relationship: Wu Xie/Xiao Bai (background pingxie) ~8k words rated M Post canon Xiao Bai takes Wu Xie to explore a tomb that should be perfectly safe... (They set off a sex pollen trap.) I don't particularly ship this, but this fic was extremely well done and kind of sold me on the ship. Fun tomb, really fun characterization for everyone involved.

A World Made Over, Fresh and New by Thimblerig gen, iron triangle, Wu Xie & Li Cu ~1k words rated G If you've ever gotten specific dmbj fic recs from me, it's probably included something by Thimblerig, they're amazing at pulling in very specific canon snippets in under 5k words and I'd generally recommend going through their work by tags if you're looking for fic with underloved side characters or fic set during a part of canon that isn't UN or post-canon, which are generally easier to find. That said, this particular fic is in fact the fandom staple of post-reboot let's go look at a tomb and pulling in a big ensemble cast including some reboot folks. But it's a staple because it's a good vibe, and this is a really well done sliver of friendship and relationship building and perhaps even a tomb trap?

[Vid] Still Into You by absternr iron triangle ot3 This vid is a bop! Multi-tomb show iron triangle being in love, through the years! I've got this bookmark tagged as "joyful"

[vid] When He Died by teyla Wu Sanxing-centric This vid really leans into the weird tomb nonsense and conspiracies and builds to something quite odd, meant in the best possible way. A concentrated version of what tomb shows want to be at their best, from a horror/strange spooky things perspective. Mind the tags.

[Vid] Before I Do by absternr Xiuxiu character study A vid all about Xiuxiu being a badass - she's so clever and cunning and she will figure out and surpass her family history.

[thistooisphanyuri]

Call for Submissions for the Phanatic Phanzine!

Opening up submissions for the Phanatic Phanzine! 🥳 Calling upon phandom members, new and old, to share their love for Dan and Phil!

We survived the Dan and Phil hiatus, and all we're making is this zine 🌈

The Phanatic Phanzine is a fanzine project created by myself and @dapg-otmebytheballs to celebrate the Dan and Phil content and fandom revival we are seeing. This will be a digital zine including artwork, fanvid tributes, poetry, and personal stories of the space DnP hold in our lives!

The plan is to compile these fan efforts into a digital zine by Christmas '23 and present it to DnP as a gift. 🎀

Since we intend to share it with dnp we will not be taking fanfic or NSFW submissions for this zine but we intend to do another zine in the future for the fans celebrating the fandom itself so look out for that one!

Submit at: phanaticphanzine@gmail.com

Deadline: 24th December 2023 GMT

Guidelines under the cut

General guidelines:

We are accepting submissions in the form of artworks, fanvids, written personal accounts, and poetry. You may submit any of the media above but please keep in mind that we will only be accepting five artworks, two fanvids, one written personal account and three poems per person.

📌We are also accepting written submissions and links through

asks and DMs

The submissions will be screened for anything NSFW, and no fanfiction is being accepted. Likewise, please be mindful of the language used in written pieces. All submissions will be entertained in good faith.

Submissions are to be sent to the email id provided above. Please add the name you wish to be credited with + any social media links to add, or specify if you would like your submission to be anonymous

Al generated content will not be a part of this zine

Any doubts or questions can be cleared via asks or messages on Tumblr, to either me or @dapg-otmebytheballs feel free to ask!

Specific guidelines:

For artwork:

Artwork can be digital, traditional, or mixed media

Submissions must be in the email attachment in jpg or png format

Old fanworks that have already been posted are allowed. For new works, please try to not post the full piece (wips okay) till the zine is released!

No more than 5 works per person

For poetry and personal accounts:

Word limit of 1000 words at most. Short notes with lower word count are more than welcome

All written submissions must be in a word or Google document, or written in the body of an email.

Anything posted elsewhere is allowed

No more than 1 personal account and 3 poems per person

For fanvids:

The video must be uploaded as an unlisted video on YouTube or similar video-sharing platforms. Videos that are already posted are allowed as well

Video links and a thumbnail in png or jpg format are to be submitted. The links will be converted to QR codes to present on the digital zine alongside the thumbnail You will be notified via email a few days before the zine is released so the videos can be made public in case they are currently unlisted

Shipping videos are not allowed for this zine, please be mindful of the same

No more than 2 fanvids per person

Adherence to the guidelines will make sorting much easier for the compilers so please try to do so!

To reiterate: even if you send in content that we cannot use we will engage with you in good faith 🌸

Please don’t be disheartened if your piece doesn’t make it! We plan to start work on a fanzine exclusively for the fandom (by and for the fans) soon which will allow content disallowed for this zine, so look out for that!😁

Help us spread this to others who may be interested!

We look forward to all your submissions💫

[winterironmonth]

INTRODUCING WINTERIRON MONTH 2023

We apologize for being late for those of you who like to have time to plan what you are going to write in advance for events like this, time got away from us both last month but here are the prompts to show our two favorite iron dummies some love!

EVENT INFO:

WinterIron Month is a month long event with the intent to create new works but also recommend works created by others! There are two (2) weeks in which prompts are given. There is one (1) SFW prompt week, while there is one (1) NSFW prompt week. During these two prompt weeks, there are three (3) prompts given each day—you can choose which one(s) to do—and you are more than welcome to combine all three prompts for a day.

All types of creations are accepted whether it be writing, artwork, moodboards, fanvids, playlists, crafts, or anything else! The type of work you want to create is yours to chose from.

The other two weeks are rec weeks, one (1) week for SFW recs and one (1) week for NSFW recs. During these two weeks, there are a general (or at least we tried to make most of them broad/general) category in which you will recommend another creator’s work that falls under that category!

You can participate as much as you would like, there is no minimum amount or maximum! We just want people to have fun.

WHEN POSTING YOUR WORK ON YOUR BLOG:

At the TOP of your work, please state which WEEK, DAY and TYPE of prompt (e.g., ‘SFW Sunday: Word’ or ‘NSFW Wednesday: Dialogue/Sentence’. Please don’t do this: ‘SFW Thursday: Birthday’) you’ve done, to make it easier for us mods, to tag accordingly when we reblog!

To help us see/find your work easier, tag us @winterironmonth in your post.

WHEN POSTING YOUR WORK TO AO3:

Add your work to our collection, and also state which WEEK, DAY, and TYPE of prompt you’ve done in the SUMMARY section (e.g., ‘SFW Sunday: Word’ or ‘NSFW Wednesday: Dialogue/Sentence’. Please don’t do this: ‘SFW Thursday: Birthday).

HAVE MORE QUESTIONS?

If you still have more questions, check out our FAQ or check out our faq tag.

PROMPT LIST/SCHEDULE:

SFW Week One (March 1st-March 7th):

Wednesday (March 1st):

TROPE/AU: Second Chances

WORD: Dancing

DIALOGUE: “The first time you smiled it felt like the universe aligned.”

Thursday (March 2nd):

TROPE/AU: Secret Kisses

WORD: Curses

DIALOGUE: "You need to know that I have grown to care for you. Deeply."

Friday (March 3rd):

TROPE/AU: Bodysharing

WORD: Medicine

DIALOGUE: "Let's not BeReal, let's BeEngaged... That was corny, huh?"

Saturday (March 4th):

TROPE/AU: Breakfast in Bed

WORD: Stars

DIALOGUE: "I don't know if I can't bring myself to speak it."

Sunday (March 5th):

TROPE/AU: Small Town Dynamics

WORD: Masks

DIALOGUE: “You know where to find me.”

Monday (March 6th):

TROPE/AU: Natural Disaster

WORD: Helmet

DIALOGUE: "You can't divorce me just because you lost in the game. It doesn't work like that!"

Tuesday (March 7th):

Trope/AU: Roommate AU

WORD: Banana

DIALOGUE: "One of us is clearly smarter than the other."

SFW Recs Week Two (March 8th-14th):

Wednesday (March 8th): Your Favorite Slow Burn Fic

Thursday (March 9th): Most Underappreciated Fic You've Read

Friday (March 10th): A Fic You Had To Mentally Recover From

Saturday (March 11th): Your Favorite AU Fic

Sunday (March 12th): The Funniest Fic You Read Recently

Monday (March 13th): Your Favorite Canon Fic

Tuesday (March 14th): A Fic That Inspired You To Write

NSFW Week Three (March 15th-21st):

Wednesday (March 15th):

TROPE/KINK: Gunplay

WORD: Whip

DIALOGUE: “I swear it was an accident.”

Thursday (March 16th):

TROPE/KINK: Blindfold

WORD: Massage

DIALOGUE: "What's that saying? Save a cowboy, ride a horse?? Or was it save a horse, ride a cowboy? Yeah, I dunno. I just know I want to fuck you."

Friday (March 17th):

TROPE/KINK: Cum Play

WORD: Brothel

DIALOGUE: "Are you really that oblivious?"

Saturday (March 18th):

TROPE/KINK: Muscle Kink

WORD: Licking

DIALOGUE: "There is no such thing as a nice murderer."

Sunday (March 19th):

TROPE/KINK: Body Worship

WORD: Seduction

DIALOGUE: “Let me see those eyes.”

Monday (March 20th):

TROPE/KINK: Sensation Play

WORD: Defiance

DIALOGUE: “Don’t hold back.”

Tuesday (March 21st):

TROPE/KINK: Oral Fixation

WORD: Meddling

DIALOGUE: "Ruin me."

NSFW Recs Week Four (March 22nd-28th):

Wednesday (March 22nd): The Last NSFW Fic You Read

Thursday (March 23rd): A Fic You Started For The NSFW But Stayed For The Plot

Friday (March 24th): A NSFW Fic You Will Always Go Back To Re-read

Saturday (March 25th): A Fic With Your Favorite NSFW Trope

Sunday (March 26th): A NSFW Fic That Made You Cry

Monday (March 27th): A NSFW Fic That's Sweet Like Candy

Tuesday (March 28th): Your Favorite NSFW AU Fic

Free Choice Week Five (March 29th-March 31st):

There are no set prompts or recs this week. You have three (3) days of free choice! You are welcome to use any prompts you haven’t used from above, or you can rec other works that didn’t fall under our categories!

[kiwiana-writes]

7, 10, 13 for the beginning of the year asks!

7. Will you change anything about the way you interact with other writers?

I’ve been trying really hard to get over my chronic crippling fear of being annoying/too much/unwelcome and actually sliding into the DMs of people I want to get to know—it’s not something that comes easily to me at all but I’ve made some really special friendships in the last year and I’d hate to miss out on more of those, so. I’ll keep working on it 😅

Apart from that, trying to be more consistent with my commenting because I know how much comments mean to me as an author (including going back and commenting on stuff I bookmarked when doing my initial whip through the fandom tag after I gave up on trying not to hyper fixate here lol), continuing to share snippets of other authors’ work on tumblr and get hype, and maybe the big one—get better at subscribing to authors I like!! I’m great at subscribing to individual fics but for some reason I keep forgetting author subs are a thing and then being annoyed I’ve missed fics from authors I love 😂

10. Will you keep a record of all the fics you write and/or post this year?

Yes! My nerd ass has actually spent a decent chunk of today not only migrating my batshit Google sheets stats tracker into Airtable to make it a little easier to manage (something something 229 works on AO3 fml) but also adding a pretty cool WIP wordcount tracker into it as well. Because right now it’s all scattered across 52+ docs and a pain in the ass to track. It’ll also have the benefit of letting me see what WIPs I’m ACTUALLY working on…

I also got Zapier set up to create a new row in Airtable whenever I create a new Google doc in my WIP folder, because again, nerding out.

Definitely gotta put some thought into what stats I want it to calculate, though.

13. Aside from fanfic, are there any other fan works you’d like to try creating? Fanart, or fanvids, gifsets, or podfic? 

I have taken the tiniest of baby steps into gif making in the last month or so with my WIP Wednesday/Six Sentence Sunday/etc banner and what I learned from that process is that gif makers are even more ridiculously talented than I already thought they were. Definitely want to play with that more, maybe.

Also neither of them are new things to try, but I did pull back on both podfics and bookbinding in the last year and I’d LOVE to get back into both of those.

[fanfic asks for the new year]

[nerdynikki94]

Okay, so Macden owns me, no news there, but in between surviving life rn and writing a filthy, smutty angst Season 15 fic, I heard this song and just kept thinking about them. I couldn't find any fanvids, so I decided that I needed it so much, I had to make it.

I suck at doing fanvids, I'm truly basic. But I found an app and quickly learned I could do it much easier on my phone than my laptop. NGL, I did pilfer from some videos on YT, but I promise I'm earning nothing from this, and now, that I learned how to screen record in this process, I feel a bit too powerful, because a lot of songs fit them way too well.

Mac & Dennis - Ocean Eyes

[hmcbook]

Like you, I’ve been making music videos in my head for quite some time now and it has come to a point where I simply need to materialize them! But the difference between us is that there’s actual content I can use, but I don’t know how to make videos 😭😂. And since you’ve mentioned you make fanvids, would you mind saying which programs you use (or any good tutorials that you know) please? I really appreciate it :) xoxo

Idk any tutorials, but I can give some tips from my own experiences:

Use a proper program, not anything on your phone or things like windows live movie maker, but Proper editing program. It takes a while to get the hang of it but I promise it'll be worth it and actually it will make things much easier in the end!

I use Movie studio platinum 13. Programs like this cost money (mine cost 80€ but it's been so WORTH IT ive used it for 10 years now) but I think you could also (illegally) download them for free. Just be careful and research a safe way to do this🙏

The clips and music I use for my videos are either downloaded from youtube, or ripped from the DVDs I own (with a seperate program, winx dvd ripper). Now my pirating game is trash so I can't advise you on this but I know almost all content in the world is probably available to download in high quality from somewhere, if you know how to pirate. I sadly don't😭 again, research this bc you can get your laptop fucked up if you're not safe with this!

Start with something simple, just to get to know how the editing program works. It can take a while to understand it so just be patient and try different things! The special effects are fun but more important than that is the actual video clips and their timing with the music. I'd say start with short and simple videos and go on from there.

The best motivator is a good idea that you have a vision about, not just something that you'd think would be popular/trendy. Do something you actually like and wanna see and feel inspired about

And most importantly. Have fun! Making fanvids is literally one of the best things I know in this life. It's so much fun and I hope you'll find a way to make your own!:)

[f1-stuff]

i love your fanvids and probably rewatch them a little too much!! what software do you use to save clips and to make videos?

Hi! I’m so glad you like them! ☺️❤️ they take a lot longer to make than maybe some people realize.

I actually just use diff websites online to download videos onto a hard drive (just by searching ‘download Twitter video’ for example) and then delete them once I’ve finished an edit to save space. To edit, I use adobe premiere.

I honestly probably do things the hard way tbh, but I make videos infrequently enough that I haven’t sought out an easier method. Premiere isn’t free obviously (altho I’m sure there’s some way to download it illegally), but I have the adobe suite due to my job/hobbies etc.

[spainkitty]

Like... I'm watching too many fanvids for jessrory and, my conclusion? Jess was the only boyfriend (hell, one of the few PEOPLE) Rory didn't chameleon herself for.

With Dean, there was that RIDICULOUS Donna Reed episode and, later, she stopped recommending books and music to him, they compromised by both suffering through things the other liked rather than enjoying the same things together. Hell, by the end, they had NOTHING in common unless they forced it.

With Logan, she became the High Society Wife. The DAR member. She bent over backwards and destroyed bridges in an effort to be someone she wasn't. It wasn't just about Logan; he *said* that what she was doing wasn't her. But she did, in the end, do it to be accepted by his family and feel worthy. She was desperate for that validation. (as a gifted kid and a struggling adult, I fucking GET this, and I sympathize a lot more now that I'm older).

Both relationships were destined to fail because she wasn't ever completely herself. Either at the start or at the ending of it, she had to change herself fundamentally to make it work.

Jess, though. With Jess she was so completely herself that Lorelai didn't understand her (because yes, Rory chameleoned for EVERYONE in her life, hi, there's that pedestal). They read books and listened to music and hung out with the band (I love that Jess was actually friends with her friends and THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE OF THIS) and stayed home watching movies. The rockiest points of their relationship were because of Dean or Lorelai. The constant comparison of Jess to Dean, the constant out of hand judgements of his character by people who didn't even know him, expectations set up for him he had no way of meeting because he is his own person with his own struggles. Yeah, he fucked up and wasn't communicative enough. But he WAS a 17/18 yr old kid with major issues that most of the other characters would never be able to understand(and tbf, Rory was passive and petulant more than once). He shut down and put up walls, he was called a screw up, his accomplishments were diminished, and every adult in his life let him down, yeah, including Luke (and I LOVE Luke, but his support of Jess was conditional in the end. Maybe if Jess hadnt bailed so IMMEDIATELY after that fight, Luke could've/would've calmed down and re-evaluated, but alas). Every time he did something that could be construed as just a little bit wrong, it was blown completely out of proportion.

Rory believed in him, though, and saw the best in him. And he, in turn, saw and listened to her. He questioned her, yeah, but he also didn't LET her chameleon herself. That was kinda the point of his questioning. How much of only herself was in her answer mattered to him. The other variables, the expectations from other people, weren't important: SHE was.

And I think that's why she first ran into Dean's arms, and then later refused to leave Logan. Why she couldn't let herself choose Jess again, even after he'd obviously grown a lot. She had been so completely and utterly bare with Jess, and he hurt her. He kept leaving and he became a stronger, better person without her (in his words, he did do it because of her, but still). Logan and Dean were safe because there were always walls. There was always a facade in the relationship. It took Rory an ENTIRE YEAR to move on from Jess, but every time Logan hurt her, it took her a few weeks, or even just a few days and a drunken night on the floor, to dust herself off and go right back to him. Easily forgiven.

Yeah, let that sink in for a minute. It was easier for her to forgive Logan for cheating on her, with three women he KNEW she was about to be stuck in a room with and he didn't bother to warn her, than it was to forgive Jess for leaving/not calling her. Jess leaving her broke her heart MORE than Logan's massive fuck up. Like. What. the. hell???

IMO: it was because Logan cheated on someone Rory didn't even recognize as herself. But Jess left *Rory* when she had no facade, when she was so much herself that she stood up AGAINST her mother for him. It was a bigger betrayal.

I will go down swinging that Jess was one of the best characters, and the best person for Rory. The only reason they didn't get back together in/before the revival was because ASP was hellbent on mirroring Rory with Lorelai, at the cost of Rory's entire character arc, and Jess and Rory could only be together if she were her own complete person, not her mother's fucking reflection, because that's the person, the Rory, Jess loved.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Dear Evan Hansen

You may have seen some ~online discourse~ about the film Dear Evan Hansen, an adaptation of the 2016 Broadway musical, and you might have wondered what all the hubbub is about. I mean, it’s a feel good story about a senior in high school, Evan Hansen (Ben Platt), who has some pretty severe anxiety and depression. While trying to fulfill an assignment from his therapist to write a letter to himself, his letter gets picked up by another student, Connor (Colton Ryan) - and later that day, Connor kills himself. Connor’s grieving parents and sister Zoe (Amy Adams, Danny Pino, and Kaitlyn Dever) are desperate to learn more from the boy they think was Connor’s best friend - after all, Connor’s suicide note was a letter addressed to “Dear Evan Hansen.” And, as you can imagine, Evan tells them about the unfortunate mistake and sits with them in their grief as they struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives. 

Just kidding! He lies to them, repeatedly, elaborately, expansively for months, constructing an entire false friendship with Connor that never happened, and ingratiating himself into the wealthy nuclear family he never had, in large part because he wants to get into Zoe’s pants! THIS IS THE PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY. Oh, and it’s a musical so there is a lot of singing and crying and singing WHILE crying and sometimes crying and not singing at all. But the #inspiration, you guys. 

Things I liked:

Pretty much everything but the story and Ben Platt’s performance. The supporting cast is stacked, and all of them do a great job at elevating material scraped directly out of a diaper worn by someone who just chewed their way through a copy of the DSM-5. 

A couple of the songs are damn catchy - “Waving Through a Window” and “You Will Be Found” are standouts for a reason - and here’s the thing, Platt sings them well. But as you’ll discover, there’s a lot more to a movie musical than just singing your part. 

Stephen Chbosky, the man behind every deep thought I and a lot of people in my generation had in 2006 after he wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is a pretty good director. I particularly enjoyed the fanvid-type cuts in “Waving Through a Window” in conjunction with the lyrics, and his use of interstitial shots to flashbacks (and sometimes flashforwards!) is a neat little bit of shorthand that I thought was used sparingly enough to be effective. 

Amy Fucking Adams. She’s holding on so hard, so desperately to the idea of who her son could have been, rather than the reality of who he was, and she is full of such deep pain that is masked by an almost endless supply of patience with Evan and relentless positivity. All this made me want was Enchanted 2 even worse than I already did. 

Super into everything Zoe wears - the costuming department did a great job, and now all I want to do is live in mom jeans and baggy sweaters.

Did I Cry? I teared up a couple of times because I’m not a completely heartless bastard and when Amy Adams offered Evan Connor’s college money, my heart broke for the lie Evan had thrust upon her, and Julianne Moore’s song got me good, because she’s just a single mom to Evan who is doing her goddamn best. 

Things I hated more than the time I dropped a frozen gallon container of fruit cocktail on my pinkie toe in my parents’ garage and it turned black and I thought it was gonna fall off:

Ben Platt is 28 years old. He originated the role of Evan Hansen on Broadway, so in many respects it makes sense that he plays the role in the movie, except for the one kinda sorta important thing where he looks like a wizened old crone standing amongst a sea of children doing his best twitching, cringing Hunchback of Notre Dame impression. If you want someone to convincingly play 20 years their junior, hire Paul Rudd. Otherwise, please don’t ask me to believe that this supposed 18-year-old has crow’s feet. 

And that twitching nervous energy is a huge part of the black hole at the center of this film - he’s playing to the cheap seats and walking through the halls of his high school like a wet chihuahua. It’s an excruciating acting choice to watch - he doesn’t just have anxiety, he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown seemingly every second of every day. Like honestly, where is only-mentioned-never-seen Dr. Sherman, because this young man’s meds are NOT WORKING DR. SHERMAN. 

There’s such a lack of self-awareness on behalf of the writing, directing, and performance by Platt. There’s one song, “Sincerely, Me,” that offers the only glimpse of commentary about what Evan is doing, by pointing out the malicious ridiculousness of him writing a series of fake emails as proof of his and Connor’s friendship. 

Also what high schoolers email this much?? I know this was written in probably 2014 or so, but has a bitch never heard of a text? Even a DM? This whole plot is constructed around the premise that high schoolers are just constantly, constantly emailing each other. 

Everything - and I mean EV-ER-Y-THING - about Evan’s relationship with Zoe is so creepy and disturbing that with a soundtrack change, this could easily be a horror movie. He attempts to get her to like him by describing to her all the things her brother noticed about her - oh wait, I’m sorry, all the things HE noticed about her while he was skulking in the shadows following her around for years, watching every move she made, and it ends with him singing repeatedly “I LOVE YOU” because following a girl around and never having a conversation with her or knowing her at all is love, right? This was clearly written by the same people who chose “Every Breath You Take” as their wedding song because Sting is hot and they never actually listened to the damn words. 

And it gets about 10 billion times worse when Zoe goes to Evan’s house alone, takes him up to his room, and sings “I don’t need reasons to want you” and that was the moment I was that person I hate in a movie theater and I pulled out my phone to Google who wrote the music and lyrics to the musical (we were in the back row of the theater no one was behind me THIS WAS AN OUTRAGE EMERGENCY) and of motherfucking course it was written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, 2 men who heard about meeting an actual human woman from a friend one time but otherwise are unfamiliar with the concept. 

Lastly, enormous serial killer vibes from Evan sending unlabeled flash drives anonymously through the mail with no note in an attempt to right his wrongs. That’s not catharsis, that’s how the next installment in the Saw franchise starts, with Evan in a Billy the clown doll mask showing up on the screen and asking if you want to play a fucking game. 

Also, I know it’s not possible for the narrative to justify this in a way that could be satisfying based on Evan’s actions, but what is with this thing where single working-class mom Julianne Moore is turning down rich people’s money for Evan to go to college? Like, obviously we can’t have that happen in the movie but in real life, fuck your pride! Take those rich people’s money!

I also know how movies work but nothing annoys me more than a giant group of high schoolers all getting beeps and boops to indicate text notifications all at the same time because I don’t know a single person under the age of 55 who keeps their ringer on. That shit is on vibrate AT MOST, and I feel like that’s a millennial thing. 

The emotional climax of the film is obviously Evan’s WAY TOO LATE confession, but the idea that it’s prompted by Connor’s family suddenly getting a lot of internet hate is, frankly, laughable. If Sandy Hook taught me one thing, it is that no tragedy is immune from trolls who live only to cause other people devastating emotional pain on the internet. That shit starts day 1. Apparently no one involved in this production has ever been on Twitter?

Also it feels like there should have been a dog somewhere in this movie and there was no dog, so points off for that too. 

Perhaps Dear Evan Hansen isn’t nearly as deep as it aspires to be. Perhaps it’s a morality play, a simplistic message of “Don’t lie, kids, lying is bad!” Major studio movies wrap themselves up with a nice bow at the end so everyone can feel good about themselves and leave with a happy ending, but the moronic cruelty on display here makes that feat feel impossible. We’re left with Evan in an orchard, reading Connor’s favorite books and staring into the big blue sky with all the self-actualization he’s earned now as a lil treat. And if Evan Hansen looked like an actual 18-year-old, it would be a lot easier to extend more empathy to him and his not-fully-developed prefrontal cortex, but it’s a little harder with this fully-grown, weathered man who was old enough to remember seeing Liar Liar in theaters. 

Dear Evan Hansen, 

Get some actual help and a haircut and maybe you can grow up enough to have an actual healthy interaction with any other living person, ever.

Sincerely, 

Me

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[ageless-aislynn]

Vidding is one my fandom love languages and normally for a show that I’m fangirling as hard as I am for Halo, I would’ve done several vids by now. As it is, I’ve only done “Identity Crisis” (mostly a Master Chief character study with a bit of John/Kai because that’s just the way I roll, 😉 can be interpreted as non-shippy, though). The footage just isn’t as varied as I’d like for the ideas I’ve had so far, which means it’s just “easier” to write the ideas than to try to bring them to life as a vid.

But. I’m waiting until the finale because I think it’s going to give me the last bit of footage I need to at least make one more vid. 🤞

This doesn’t seem to be much of a fandom for vids, strangely enough. I haven’t seen even ONE other fanvid for the show. Not a single one and that really floors me, honestly. I don’t think I’ve been in ANY other fandom that didn’t at least have a couple of vids for it.😳 (There are vids for the game out there, just not the TV show.)

Do you watch vids? I’d be interested in the why or why nots if you’re reading this post. 😉 I came into fandom via vids so it’s just a part of the fabric of my fandom soul, what can I say? I watch vids for every fandom I’m interested in and even have gotten into fandoms from vids (my introduction to the new Doctor Who was through Nine/Rose vids). I started vidding perilously close to 20 years ago, wow. 😳🤷‍♀️

Anyway! In conclusion, have a GIF of John and Kai because they are my precious bb blorbos and I love them. 😍😉

[namtanlovesfilm]

youtube anon here!! omg thank you!! sorry im so late with this i was busy bc deepavali + wanted to make sure id thought of everything to ask ahsjdjdkf and ofc if you decide not to reply to this i understand as well, so really no pressure at all, okay? 😊 what software do you use to edit your videos? what made you decide to start making videos? do your videos get taken down bc of copyright? how do you deal if/when that happens? what are some of your favourite kinds of videos to make, and why? how long do you usually spend on a video (idea conception, filming, editing etc)? and since i know you from this blog, even before you started making videos: do you have any advice about putting out content in fandom? bc you make gifs + write + make videos and like. idk im just wondering if you ever feel shy about posting? (not that you should bc for real everything you put out is great- including all the off pictures you keep posting… thank you for that btw i dont have social media so thats the only way i get to see his beautiful face) i guess it sounds stupid but IM really really shy and the thought of putting anything out there for anyone at all to see makes me want to hide forever sdjfhskjg but like. i kinda want to make video edits too. mostly for myself as like a visual journal thing? like its a personal project. but i thought okay since im putting in so much effort why not share it with other people too? and id love if people discovered new music + shows bc of me yknow? but yeah anyway like. how do you deal with it if you ever feel that way? thats all i can think of for now, wow this got LONG. i hope its not too much rip. and again thank you for letting me ask you these questions ❤️

hi, OOF you really had QUESTIONS lmaooooo

I use the free software shortcut to edit my videos. I hate it & it's very slow which makes my already least favorite part of the video making, editing, even worse (:

I decided to start making videos bc 1) I saw a gap in the youtube market where people who talked about bl either did reactions or short analyses without showing their faces. 2) there were many topics that were easier to tackle in a longer video than a blog post. 3) if I were to be able to make a living off of youtube (which will not happen but wish I had known that then lol) it would solve most of my problems & allow me to combine pretty much all of my interests at once.

my videos ABSOLUTELY get taken down bc of copyright, if you look through my community page I've talked about that many times.

when that happens, I always appeal but most of the time it doesn't work, which means I spent 30+ hours MINIMUM on something that will never see the light of day (: it's in big part why I'm switching to thailand focused content instead of thai series content tbh, it was very heavy on my mental health for a hobby that takes so many hours out of me every week. not worth it.

my favorite kinds of videos to film are definitely my ranking ones or reaction ones bc they demand very little preparation & scripting and are just about me rambling for 2 hours, but my ranking ones take FOREVER to edit so on that part any non scripted video is the worst haha

the time spent on a video really depends, but usually the writing of a video takes me between 3 to 6 hours, the filming takes me 2 hours & the editing takes me a good 20 hours (funny bc I hate editing so much lmaooooo.) but some videos have only taken me 10 hours (short reactions), while others have taken me well above 50 (longer commentary ones.)

about putting out content in fandom, you're right in saying that I've basically done every kind of content LMAO. honestly the faceless one like giffing, writing fics, making fanvids, etc. is easy? like it needs to come from a drive of wanting to do it but bc your personal image isn't really attached to it, I feel like the trial & error is easier? if you wanna stop tomorrow no one will really care? but when I started making videos that demand significantly more time & that have my face clearly attached to it, that's when the doubts started creeping in. I never feel shy bc I just haven't been shy in a while, but I do feel ashamed to talk to irl people about my videos bc they aren't successful & I've invested over 2 years of my life in them so it's just kinda pathetic LMAO. but about you being shy, you can focus on the fact that it's the internet? like if you really don't want anyone to know it's your fanvids, create a new username & post them under it, bc then literally NO ONE will know it's you. to be honest it's taken me years but I've gotten rid of the notion of "cringe" and "embarrassment" out of my vocabulary. just do what makes you happy bc people will hate on you no matter what. I just know I personally want to live my life authentically & not filter it just so MAYBE I'm not as hated. so yeah, I hope you DO get to create the fanvids you want & good luck with that! thanks for the support as well, it means a lot <3

xxx

[olderthannetfic]

It's really surprising that you're so well versed in older fandoms and yet participate in new popular ones (that cdrama, kpop) is this by design? Im in my twenties and my interest turnover is already way slower than it used to be

You know, that’s a really interesting question. I wouldn’t say it’s by design exactly in that I do tend to just follow what strikes my fancy, and I can’t force myself to want to write fic for just anything. (I find it easier to like reading fic without serious involuntary emotional investment, but writing takes more. Vidding I can do on command most of the time, but I don’t usually bother unless I have a lot of feels or I’m fulfilling someone’s prompt.)

However, me getting into BTS was 100% due to me wanting to understand BTS enough to explain to people who weren’t very interested but wanted to know what was going on in fandom lately. Under normal circumstances, I run the dance party at Escapade, the oldest extant slash con. We borrowed vividcon’s thing of playing fanvids on the wall--all of them set to dance music--as the soundtrack for the dance party. This means I’m creating a 3-hour mixtape of fannishness, which has amazing potential to make people feel in the know about Fandom Today... and equal potential to make them feel alienated if nothing they care about shows up. Only about 100-150 people attend the con, so it really is possible to make a playlist that feels inclusive yet informative--it just takes a huge amount of work.

Every year, I do a lot of research on which fandoms are getting big and look for vids from vidders people won’t have heard of, so there is an element of consciously trying to keep up with things. Generally, I only get into these fandoms myself if I had no idea what they were and then suddenly, oops, they’re my kryptonite, like the buddy cop android plot in Detroit: Become Human, which sucked me in hard for like 6 months on the basis of a vid.

(So if you’re into cross-fandom meta and associated stuff as one of your fannish interests, you tend to have broader knowledge of different fandoms, old and new, than if you’re just looking for the next place you’ll read fic. It’s also easier to love vids for unfamiliar things than fic.)

But though I was only looking for a basic primer on BTS, BTS has 7 members with multiple names and no clear juggernaut pairing, not to mention that AU that runs through the music videos and lots of other context to explain. The barrier to understanding WTF was going on at all was high enough that to know enough to explain, I had to be thoroughly exposed... And once I was over that hurdle, oops, I had a fandom.

--

In terms of old vs. new, here’s the thing: kpop fandoms in English and c-drama fandoms in English right now feel a lot like anime fandom in English did in the early 00s. I had a Buddy Cops of the 70s phase in the middle, but my current fannishness is actually a return to my older fannishness in many ways.

What do I mean about them being similar?

Yes, I know some wanker will show up to say I think China, Korea, and Japan are indistinguishable, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the way that I used to routinely meet Italian and French and German fans, Argentinian and Mexican, Malaysian and Indonesian and Filipino too. English-language fandom of SPN or MCU may have all those fans from all those countries, but it feels very American most of the time. English-language fandom of a non-English-language canon is more overtly about using English as a lingua franca.

It also tends to attract people who as a sideline to their fannishness are getting into language learning and translation, which are my other passion in life after fanworks fandom. (I speak only English and Spanish and a bit of Japanese, but I’ve studied German, French, Russian, Mandarin, Old English, and now Korean.)

Nerds arguing about methods of language learning and which textbooks are good and why is my jam. This is all over the place in English-language fandoms of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean media. Those fandoms also tend to be full of speakers coming from a Germanic or Romance languages background who face similar hurdles in learning these languages. (In other words, if you’re a native Japanese speaker trying to learn Korean, the parts that will be hard for you are different than if you’re an English speaker, but you’re also usually not doing fandom in English.)

There’s also an element of scarcity and difficulty of access and a communal attempt to construct a canon (in the other sense) of stuff from that country that pertains to one’s fannishness. So, for example, a primer explaining the genre of xianxia is highly relevant to being a n00b Untamed fan, but just any old thing about China is not. A c-drama adapted from a danmei webnovel is perhaps part of the new pantheon of Chinese shit we’re all getting into, but just any old drama from decades ago is probably not... unless it’s a genre precursor to something else we care about. Another aspect here is that while Stuff I Can Access As A N00b Who Doesn’t Speak The Language may be relatively scarce, there’s a vast, vast wealth of stuff that exists.

This is what it felt like to be an anime fan in the US in 2000. As translation got more commercial and more crappy series were licensed and dumped onto an already glutted market, the vibe changed. No longer were fans desperately trying to learn enough of the language to translate or spending their time cataloguing what existed or making fanworks about a show they stuck with for a bit: the overall community focus turned to an endless race of consumption to keep up with all of the latest releases. That’s a perfectly valid way of being fannish, but if I wanted that, I’d binge US television 24/7.

Anime fandom got bigger, but what I liked about anime fandom in English died, and I moved on. (Okay, I first moved on to Onmyouji, which is a live action Japanese thing, but still.)

Hardcore weeaboos and now fans of Chinese and Korean stuff don’t stop at language: people get excited about cooking, my other other great passion. Times a thousand if the canon is something like The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, which is full of loving shots of food preparation. People get excited about history! Mandarin and Japanese may share almost nothing in terms of grammar or phonology, but all of East Asia has influence from specific Chinese power centers historically, and there are commonalities to historical architecture and clothing that I love.

I fell out of love with the popular anime art styles as they changed, and I’m not that into animation in general these days. (I still own a shitton of manga in art styles I like, like Okano Reiko’s Onmyouji series.) I’ve become a filmmaker over the last decade, and I’m very excited about beautiful cinematography and editing. With one thing and another, I’m probably not going to get back into anime fandom, but it’s lovely to revisit the cultural aspects I enjoyed about it via live-action media.

BTS surprised me too, to be honest. I really dislike that early 90s R&B ballad style that infests idol music (not just Korean--believe me, I resisted many rounds of “But Johnny’s Entertainment though!” back in the day). While I like some of the dance pop, I just don’t care. But OH NO, BTS turn out to be massive conscious hip hop fanboys, and their music sounds different. I have some tl;dr about my reactions in the meta I wrote about one of my fanvids, which you can find on Dreamwidth here.

--

But back to your comment about turnover: I know fans from the 70s who’ve had one great fannish love and that’s it and more who were like that but eventually moved on to a second or third. They’re... really fannishly monogamous in a way I find hard to comprehend. It was the norm long ago, but even by the 90s when far more people were getting into fandom, it was seen as a little weird. By now, with exponentially more people in fandom, it’s almost unheard of. I think those fans still exist, even as new people joining, but we don’t notice them. They were always rare, but in the past, only people like that had the stamina to get over the barriers to entry and actually become the people who made zines or were willing to be visibly into fanfic in eras when that was seen as really weird. On top of that, there’s an element of me, us, judging the past by what’s left: only people with an intense and often single passion are visible because other people either drifted away or have seamlessly disappeared into some modern fandom. They don’t say they’re 80 or 60 or 40 instead of 20, so nobody knows.

In general, I’m a small fandoms and rare ships person. My brain will do its best to thwart me by liking whatever has no fic even in a big fic fandom... (Except BTS because there is literally fic for any combination of them, like even more than for the likes of MCU. Wow. Best fandom evar!) So I have an incentive to not get complacent and just stick with one fandom because I would very soon have no ability to be in fandom at all.

My appetite for Consuming All The Things has slowed way down, but it also goes in waves, and a lot of what I’m consuming is what I did back in 2000: journal articles and the limited range of English-language books on the history of m/m sex and romance in East Asia. It’s not so much that I have a million fandoms as that I’m watching a few shows as an expression of my interest in East Asian costume dramas and East Asian history generally.

I do like to sit with one thing and experience it deeply rather than moving on quickly, but the surface expression of this has changed depending on whether I’m more into writing fic or more into doing research or something else.

But yes, I do do a certain amount of trying to stay current, often as a part of research for fandom meta or to help other people know what’s going on. Having a sense of what’s big doesn’t automatically mean getting into all those things, but I think some fans who are older-in-fandom and/or older-in-years stop being open to even hearing what’s new. And if you’ve never heard of it, you’ll never know if you might have liked it.