straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2023-08-20 03:06 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2023-08-20 03:06 pm
244 | an update, fannish melancholy, and fic recs
Reading: Plenty! More than anything else, tbh. I’m participating in the Autumn Equinox of the Orilium Readathon, and having a delightful time of it. I only have two books left to read for my main calling, but am also eyeing some of the side quests. We’ll see!
Listening: Fic Clique, mostly.
Playing: Most recently, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which I beat (what I have osmosis-ed is only the first ending) at the end of June, but which I’ve been picking up sporadically ever since with the vague intention of 100%-ing it one day. It’s genuinely one of my all-time favorite games at this point. Otherwise, I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a new visual novel after I finish this post, so maybe that.
Watching: Last weekend, I finished Till the End of the Moon, which sparked the first true fannish passion I’ve felt in almost two years. So that was exciting! Considering a rewatch, but am also considering checking out some of the other cdramas on my to-watch list.
Writing: Nothing, though I am pleased with my output for this year’s round of Battleship.
► I keep going back and forth on whether I should fully quit the former bird site. I haven’t been the most active in fandom over the last couple of years (mostly due to real life), but before I drifted into that fannish semi-hiatus, twitter had become my main source of fannish engagement/socializing. It’s funny, because I remember that only about a month or so before I started that account, I mentioned on here how I just “didn’t understand” fandom on twitter. And I didn’t!
But then I did make an account—to keep up with updates on the 2HA translation, iirc—and the strong presence of the Scum Villain fandom quickly sucked me in, and before I knew it I was more active in the social side of fandom than I had been in years and years. I truly fell in love with that format, which is surprising, considering how much I like long-form social media. There were some things I didn’t like about it (how weird people could get about others interacting with or even looking at “old” tweets, by which they could mean anything older than 24-48 hours—which is still wild to me!), but the casual nature of interactions did mean that I branched out more, and I met so many people who I really really liked.
And now it’s dying a slow death. Honestly, I don’t think I even enjoy going on there anymore. So the obvious answer is to quit.
But none of the new alternatives appeal to me. There’s Tumblr, which I do like to scroll through, but it’s also the site which originally caused me to become a fandom hermit after people flocked there post-LJ. For whatever reason, I’m very bad at using it for the social aspects of fandom. And while I do like discord, imo it works best as a supplementary site, not as a main hub.
More than that… I’ve been in fandom since around 2004/2005. I’ve seen so many fandoms hubs rise and fall over the years, and each and every time, I always lose contact with people I cared about. And now, every time I think, I should permanently log off, I start thinking about all the people who I’ll lose touch with if I do that.
I know I will, eventually, quit, no matter how reluctant I feel about it. I stopped checking LJ one day too, after all. Still, it does get me down.
Though in the interest of not fading away like a fannish ghost, I am going to make an effort to have a little bit more of a presence online again. I have a lot less free time than I used to, but I feel like a goal of “at the bare minimum, some kind of fannish monthly round-up post on dw” could be achievable if I prioritize it? We’ll see.
► Have some scattered fic recs from the last two months of fic reading. (For context, I literally went to a spreadsheet I’ve been keeping as of a couple of years ago, and pulled out links from the fics I remembered liking from my July and August reads. Some were from WIP updates; quite a few were from Battleship.)
► On that note, I did participate in Battleship this year, and got four genuinely excellent gifts: two for Naruto, and two for Stardew Valley. I feel like both fandom pairs had fics that paralleled one another in some way. One of my Naruto gifts tackles a classic time travel concept that never gets old no matter how many takes on it I read, while the other has an approach that felt so fresh and new that I was breathless while reading it. For Stardew Valley, I got one fic for each of my Abigail ships, one featuring a sweet established relationship while the other features an imo fantastic depiction of a first love and the thrill of realizing your feelings are returned for the first time. It just all felt very balanced and satisfying to me!
Seven New Ways (Naruto, Izuna & Sakura, 6.2K)
Twice (Naruto, Kisame & Sakura, 4.7K)
A Life of Rock 'n' Roll (Stardew Valley, Abigail/Sebastian, 3.6K)
Brave New Girl (Stardew Valley, Abigail/Haley, <1K)
Listening: Fic Clique, mostly.
Playing: Most recently, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which I beat (what I have osmosis-ed is only the first ending) at the end of June, but which I’ve been picking up sporadically ever since with the vague intention of 100%-ing it one day. It’s genuinely one of my all-time favorite games at this point. Otherwise, I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a new visual novel after I finish this post, so maybe that.
Watching: Last weekend, I finished Till the End of the Moon, which sparked the first true fannish passion I’ve felt in almost two years. So that was exciting! Considering a rewatch, but am also considering checking out some of the other cdramas on my to-watch list.
Writing: Nothing, though I am pleased with my output for this year’s round of Battleship.
► I keep going back and forth on whether I should fully quit the former bird site. I haven’t been the most active in fandom over the last couple of years (mostly due to real life), but before I drifted into that fannish semi-hiatus, twitter had become my main source of fannish engagement/socializing. It’s funny, because I remember that only about a month or so before I started that account, I mentioned on here how I just “didn’t understand” fandom on twitter. And I didn’t!
But then I did make an account—to keep up with updates on the 2HA translation, iirc—and the strong presence of the Scum Villain fandom quickly sucked me in, and before I knew it I was more active in the social side of fandom than I had been in years and years. I truly fell in love with that format, which is surprising, considering how much I like long-form social media. There were some things I didn’t like about it (how weird people could get about others interacting with or even looking at “old” tweets, by which they could mean anything older than 24-48 hours—which is still wild to me!), but the casual nature of interactions did mean that I branched out more, and I met so many people who I really really liked.
And now it’s dying a slow death. Honestly, I don’t think I even enjoy going on there anymore. So the obvious answer is to quit.
But none of the new alternatives appeal to me. There’s Tumblr, which I do like to scroll through, but it’s also the site which originally caused me to become a fandom hermit after people flocked there post-LJ. For whatever reason, I’m very bad at using it for the social aspects of fandom. And while I do like discord, imo it works best as a supplementary site, not as a main hub.
More than that… I’ve been in fandom since around 2004/2005. I’ve seen so many fandoms hubs rise and fall over the years, and each and every time, I always lose contact with people I cared about. And now, every time I think, I should permanently log off, I start thinking about all the people who I’ll lose touch with if I do that.
I know I will, eventually, quit, no matter how reluctant I feel about it. I stopped checking LJ one day too, after all. Still, it does get me down.
Though in the interest of not fading away like a fannish ghost, I am going to make an effort to have a little bit more of a presence online again. I have a lot less free time than I used to, but I feel like a goal of “at the bare minimum, some kind of fannish monthly round-up post on dw” could be achievable if I prioritize it? We’ll see.
► Have some scattered fic recs from the last two months of fic reading. (For context, I literally went to a spreadsheet I’ve been keeping as of a couple of years ago, and pulled out links from the fics I remembered liking from my July and August reads. Some were from WIP updates; quite a few were from Battleship.)
you have torn it all apart (Death Note, Sayu, 4.7K)
Sayu processes her feelings about Light post-series in the form of letters.
Dear Light (Death Note, Sayu, <1K)
Notes from Sayu Yagami to her brother.
Fleeting Oaths (Fire Emblem Fates, Takumi, 3K)
He makes a promise to each of his siblings before the Nohrian army sets foot on Hoshidan soil.
cracking like a dry branch (Harry Potter, Cho & Percy, 6.7K)
In the midst of yet another falling out with his family, Percy makes a new friend.
January was moments— (Harry Potter, Cho & Percy, <1K)
— and January was a year.
A moment Cho and Percy spent together that January, where things had not yet entirely fallen apart.
January 27th, 1998.
Ends of the Earth (Naruto, Kakashi & Ino & Sakura & Itachi & Kisame, currently 35K, WIP)
Sakura, Ino, and Kakashi get flung to the end of the earth.
They're not alone there.
Behold the Walls of Jericho (Northanger Abbey, Henry/Catherine, currently 32K, WIP)
Catherine Morland, girl reporter (well, Bath Weekly’s junior weddings reporter and photographer), has always longed for something, anything exciting to happen to her. When she meets the Tilneys, it does.
1930s screwball comedy AU... though Catherine thinks she's in a Hitchcockian murder mystery. Otherwise known as "It Happened One Night At Northanger Abbey."
good bones (Revolutionary Girl Utena, Anthy/Utena, 2.2K)
Anthy and Utena buy a rundown old house and restore it together.
This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
The Root of Hope (Scum Villain, MBJ/SQH, 7.9K)
It was what seemed like a perfectly ordinary morning the day Shang Qinghua woke up and faced the consequences of his own actions. (Hanahaki AU.)
quelled and quenched in leaves (Stardew Valley, Farmer, 3.9K)
Spring comes to Stardew Valley again! 🍃
Capture the Castle (Till the End of the Moon, Tantai Jin/Ye Qingyu, 2.2K)
Tantai Jin paused in his leisurely circuit of the room, cast Ye Qingyu an opaque look over his shoulder. “Strip.”
Ye Qingyu blinked. His mouth fell open. “W-what?
Tantai Jin offered him a mocking smile and gestured at Ye Qingyu’s snow-white uniform. “You’ve forsaken your oath to your king. It would be unfit for you to persist in wearing his colors, no?”
► On that note, I did participate in Battleship this year, and got four genuinely excellent gifts: two for Naruto, and two for Stardew Valley. I feel like both fandom pairs had fics that paralleled one another in some way. One of my Naruto gifts tackles a classic time travel concept that never gets old no matter how many takes on it I read, while the other has an approach that felt so fresh and new that I was breathless while reading it. For Stardew Valley, I got one fic for each of my Abigail ships, one featuring a sweet established relationship while the other features an imo fantastic depiction of a first love and the thrill of realizing your feelings are returned for the first time. It just all felt very balanced and satisfying to me!
Seven New Ways (Naruto, Izuna & Sakura, 6.2K)
—That you can eat your young.
Or: the deathless healer in her house on the Crossroads is a mystery that Izuna desperately wants to uncover.
Twice (Naruto, Kisame & Sakura, 4.7K)
Sakura’s in the past, at least a decade before she’s supposed to even be born, with the strength to level mountains but not the strength to return home.
Meanwhile, Kisame’s pretty sure he’s never met someone who’s as intriguing a mix of truth and lies as the pink haired women named simply Sakura.
A Life of Rock 'n' Roll (Stardew Valley, Abigail/Sebastian, 3.6K)
When Sebastian and Abigail joined Sam's rock band, they hadn't intended for it to involve so many literal rocks.
Brave New Girl (Stardew Valley, Abigail/Haley, <1K)
Abigail and Haley decide to take a romantic weekend getaway and do things both of them like.I think I’ll wrap things up here, for now.
Of course, the two of them like very different things.