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dolorosa_12Before I sink my teeth into the next few fandom meme questions, I'll throw a couple of links in your general direction.
The first is a recording of the book launch for Ava Reid's debut novel, The Wolf and the Woodsman. This book is a secondary-world fantasy that draws on Jewish mythology (most obviously the story of Esther, but there are other strands as well) and Hungarian folklore and history, very much in the vein of Novik's Spinning Silver, and the novels of Rena Rossner, and I love it intensely. The book launch is a panel discussion between RF Kuang, Alix E. Harrow, and Ava Reid, and ranges in topics from nationalism and twentieth-century history to revolution, empire, and academia. Harrow's fiction has never worked for me, and I admire, rather than love, Kuang's books, but all three panellists are excellent as conversationalists, and the whole thing is well worth watching.
The second link is wildly different in tone: a humorous article in The Guardian about a bizarre photo of the NSW premier supposedly watching TV. What I didn't realise until reading this article was that apparently enough photos of 'Australian politicians awkwardly watching TV in strange ways' exist that it's become a mockable — and meme-able — genre. (Enough so that![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
jrhennessy has compiled a Twitter thread of greatest hits of such photos, although some are UK politicians rather than Australians.)
Day 7: What's the longest time you've been in a fandom. Not necessarily your oldest fandom, but a fandom that you started and still continue to read/write/create content for in some way.
As we've established in previous posts, once I'm fannish about something, it's very rare that those feelings go away. In other words, once I'm in a fandom, I'm there for life.
I can recall feeling deep, intense feelings about books pretty much from the earliest days of my childhood (and I certainly went around writing what was essentially fanfic in my head from the age of three or four onwards), but I generally consider my first/earliest fandom to be Gillian Rubinstein's dystopian YA novel, Galax Arena, which I first read in 1994. I count it as my first (transformative) fandom, because it was the first time I encountered a work of fiction, fell in love with it, but realised I had very limited interest in what actually existed on the page: I was bored by the book's first-person narrator/protagonist, wished we'd seen the book from virtually any other character's perspective, and immediately fell into endless speculation about the dark, mutually destructive and complicated relationship between two of the novel's antagonists. Before I even knew what fanfic was, I was writing novel-length fic about these characters, crossing them over with other fandoms, and just generally going against the grain of what Rubinstein provided in canon.
As mentioned, I first read this book in 1994. I wrote fic for this fandom in 2020. I'm in this fandom for life.
Day 8: Crack!fic - We all know it. What's your opinion of it, and if you want, show us an example.
I was at a bit of a loss as to how to answer this question, because I don't really read crackfic. My opinion is basically the same attitude I have towards all types of fanworks in which I have little interest (crossovers and fusions, AUs, podfic, etc): I'm happy that it exists and glad that it brings joy and delight to those who read and write it. I'm unlikely to engage with it myself, but send endless encouragement to the endeavours of those for whom it's a key element of their fannish existence.
That being said, I was very taken bynyctanthes's response to this question — that what might termed 'pro crackfic' in the medium of TV shows/films is alive and well — and realised I share a similar opinion. There are TV shows out there that are basically well-done crackfic — What We Do in the Shadows being the prime example — and I enjoy many of them immensely.
Day 9: Drop the cast of a fandom you follow into a reality tv show - who/what/why?
Day 10: Drop your OTP or small ensemble from the fandom they're in into another fandom - how do they do?
Day 11: What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place?
Day 12: Who is someone that you share the most fandoms with?
Day 13: Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily "icky", though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar.
Day 14: What fandom broke your heart?
Day 15: What fandom pairing took you over like Venom took over Eddie?
Day 16: Do you have a fandom that you follow - either regularly or casually - with little to no knowledge of canon?
Day 17: Do you prefer art, fic, or vids? Why? Bonus: If someone was to give you a fandom gift, what format would it be?
Day 18: Recall a time when two of your fandoms collided, at least in some way. For example, a song that you fell in love with from one fandom showed up in a second fandom.
Day 19: What is something that you associate with a character in fandom, but aren't sure if it's canon or fandom?
Day 20: A random character shows up at your doorstep at dinnertime saying a friend sent them. Why did your friend send that person, how does it go, and what do you talk about?
The first is a recording of the book launch for Ava Reid's debut novel, The Wolf and the Woodsman. This book is a secondary-world fantasy that draws on Jewish mythology (most obviously the story of Esther, but there are other strands as well) and Hungarian folklore and history, very much in the vein of Novik's Spinning Silver, and the novels of Rena Rossner, and I love it intensely. The book launch is a panel discussion between RF Kuang, Alix E. Harrow, and Ava Reid, and ranges in topics from nationalism and twentieth-century history to revolution, empire, and academia. Harrow's fiction has never worked for me, and I admire, rather than love, Kuang's books, but all three panellists are excellent as conversationalists, and the whole thing is well worth watching.
The second link is wildly different in tone: a humorous article in The Guardian about a bizarre photo of the NSW premier supposedly watching TV. What I didn't realise until reading this article was that apparently enough photos of 'Australian politicians awkwardly watching TV in strange ways' exist that it's become a mockable — and meme-able — genre. (Enough so that
Day 7: What's the longest time you've been in a fandom. Not necessarily your oldest fandom, but a fandom that you started and still continue to read/write/create content for in some way.
As we've established in previous posts, once I'm fannish about something, it's very rare that those feelings go away. In other words, once I'm in a fandom, I'm there for life.
I can recall feeling deep, intense feelings about books pretty much from the earliest days of my childhood (and I certainly went around writing what was essentially fanfic in my head from the age of three or four onwards), but I generally consider my first/earliest fandom to be Gillian Rubinstein's dystopian YA novel, Galax Arena, which I first read in 1994. I count it as my first (transformative) fandom, because it was the first time I encountered a work of fiction, fell in love with it, but realised I had very limited interest in what actually existed on the page: I was bored by the book's first-person narrator/protagonist, wished we'd seen the book from virtually any other character's perspective, and immediately fell into endless speculation about the dark, mutually destructive and complicated relationship between two of the novel's antagonists. Before I even knew what fanfic was, I was writing novel-length fic about these characters, crossing them over with other fandoms, and just generally going against the grain of what Rubinstein provided in canon.
As mentioned, I first read this book in 1994. I wrote fic for this fandom in 2020. I'm in this fandom for life.
Day 8: Crack!fic - We all know it. What's your opinion of it, and if you want, show us an example.
I was at a bit of a loss as to how to answer this question, because I don't really read crackfic. My opinion is basically the same attitude I have towards all types of fanworks in which I have little interest (crossovers and fusions, AUs, podfic, etc): I'm happy that it exists and glad that it brings joy and delight to those who read and write it. I'm unlikely to engage with it myself, but send endless encouragement to the endeavours of those for whom it's a key element of their fannish existence.
That being said, I was very taken by
nyctanthes's response to this question — that what might termed 'pro crackfic' in the medium of TV shows/films is alive and well — and realised I share a similar opinion. There are TV shows out there that are basically well-done crackfic — What We Do in the Shadows being the prime example — and I enjoy many of them immensely.Day 9: Drop the cast of a fandom you follow into a reality tv show - who/what/why?
Day 10: Drop your OTP or small ensemble from the fandom they're in into another fandom - how do they do?
Day 11: What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place?
Day 12: Who is someone that you share the most fandoms with?
Day 13: Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily "icky", though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar.
Day 14: What fandom broke your heart?
Day 15: What fandom pairing took you over like Venom took over Eddie?
Day 16: Do you have a fandom that you follow - either regularly or casually - with little to no knowledge of canon?
Day 17: Do you prefer art, fic, or vids? Why? Bonus: If someone was to give you a fandom gift, what format would it be?
Day 18: Recall a time when two of your fandoms collided, at least in some way. For example, a song that you fell in love with from one fandom showed up in a second fandom.
Day 19: What is something that you associate with a character in fandom, but aren't sure if it's canon or fandom?
Day 20: A random character shows up at your doorstep at dinnertime saying a friend sent them. Why did your friend send that person, how does it go, and what do you talk about?