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Life, [Snowflake] Wishlist
Life update:
* Life-crushing news from yesterday, after medical evaluation, nowhere near as crushing as feared. Sigh of relief here
* Last big travel ticket for the next little while settled with bosses at work. Cue second sigh of relief
* Learnt how to start knitting socks. I am to knitting as most emperors are to farming. This is not a natural activity for me, but there is something deeply satisfying about watching something form (become deformed?) beneath my hands
* Signed up for Chocolate Box, but I'm pretty much overwhelmed by the sheer breadth and volume of options. My signup is skeletal; I'm waiting till the weekend to try and... make sense of it.
Snowflake 4: In your own space, create a fannish wishlist.
* Something The Culture. Anything The Culture. Meta, fic, someone reading it for the first time... COME TO LIFE, LITTLE FANDOM O' MINE.
* Fic recs in fandoms I don't know - preferably fic that are dense enough in themselves to get me into a fandom
* Fandom recs: I find it enormously hard to get into anything anymore without people getting on my back about it
* More people talking in general, whether about fandom or not :)
I was trying for a longer journal entry, but I am just spent today, apparently. Huge thanks to everyone who dropped in yesterday to distract me - so, so appreciated.
* Life-crushing news from yesterday, after medical evaluation, nowhere near as crushing as feared. Sigh of relief here
* Last big travel ticket for the next little while settled with bosses at work. Cue second sigh of relief
* Learnt how to start knitting socks. I am to knitting as most emperors are to farming. This is not a natural activity for me, but there is something deeply satisfying about watching something form (become deformed?) beneath my hands
* Signed up for Chocolate Box, but I'm pretty much overwhelmed by the sheer breadth and volume of options. My signup is skeletal; I'm waiting till the weekend to try and... make sense of it.
Snowflake 4: In your own space, create a fannish wishlist.
* Something The Culture. Anything The Culture. Meta, fic, someone reading it for the first time... COME TO LIFE, LITTLE FANDOM O' MINE.
* Fic recs in fandoms I don't know - preferably fic that are dense enough in themselves to get me into a fandom
* Fandom recs: I find it enormously hard to get into anything anymore without people getting on my back about it
* More people talking in general, whether about fandom or not :)
I was trying for a longer journal entry, but I am just spent today, apparently. Huge thanks to everyone who dropped in yesterday to distract me - so, so appreciated.
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Chocolate Box intimidates me too, although I think it's also that it also comes straight after Yuletide. An any-fandom-you-like exchange is too much for me to contemplate yet! That, and it does seem like a lot to think about. Soooo many possibilities.
I love to rec things! I don't know about fandoms to rec because I'm not sure of all the fandoms you're into at the moment. I'm permanently into Star Wars, but other stuff I'm really into lately are The Good Place, Broooklyn Nine Nine, Becky Chambers' Wayfarers books and Revolutionary Girl Utena. The latter is having a bit of a revival lately; it had its 20th anniversary a couple of weeks ago.
I can definitely recommend a fic that got me into a fandom, back in the day, if you're open to RPF; Heart in Hand by salifiable kept me up all night. http://archiveofourown.org/works/367413 I don't know that I'd particularly recommend getting into hockey fandom, but that fic is so good it was worth it.
I know a ton of Yuri!! on Ice fics that are probably good fun even if you don't know the fandom, too:
A snapchat romance http://archiveofourown.org/works/9068467
Accidentally giving relationship advice to someone who keeps texting you by mistake http://archiveofourown.org/works/11114595
Epic camboy/pornstar AU that's also omegaverse, if you're into that http://archiveofourown.org/works/10611891
porn, porn, porn, just epic porn http://archiveofourown.org/works/8669008
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Tell me more about Utena! It's one of those classic fandoms I never quite picked up!
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So, I got into Utena when I was a teen because it was The Lesbian Anime. Like, there were others, but people on yuri boards talked about Utena like it was the Ultimate Lesbian Anime. Plus, it was about a girl who wanted to be a prince and I LOVED girls pretending to be boys so they can be fighters.
That's not exactly what Utena is. It's about high school students engaging in high-stakes sword fights, all manipulated by the school chairman, and the prize is becoming betrothed to his sister, the Rose Bride. Winning the duels and being engaged to the Rose Bride is supposed to give you incredible power, and all the duellists have selfish reasons for wanting it. Utena stumbles into it by accident when she decides to defend her friend's honour by duelling the current champion, but when she wins she becomes accidentally engaged to the Rose Bride.
So at first she's like, uh, this system is fucked up, I don't want you to be my subservient bride, you should live the life you want! But of course then she really likes having Anthy around and struggles with wanting her to live her own life vs the possessiveness of teenage love, and all the while she has to defend her champion status for them to stay together.
On top of that, the presentation of the whole thing often has this kind of surreal, magical realist tone with a lot of bizarre symbolism. Like sometimes characters will be having a conversation and the room will just be filled with, idk, stacks of chairs facing in different directions and the characters interact with these objects but also act like there's nothing weird about it.
A lot of the appeal of it is that it's a twisted fairy tale thing, too. Utena was rescued by a prince when she was young, and where a conventional fairy tale would have her want to marry him one day, she decided to become a prince instead. Several characters spend the whole series trying to tell her that she's doing it wrong and trying to make her conform to the 'correct' gender role, to make her into a bride, and sometimes she wavers but mostly she stays true to who she is even when it comes at a cost.
So, uh. Swords! High school! Accidentally engaged! Feelings! Gender roles! Fairy tales! Symbolism! It's a weird series but it's really powerful.
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I have no idea what fandoms you do or don't know! What sorts of things are you into, and looking for?
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I don't know about your feelings towards podcasts and/or radio comedy, but something I recently enjoyed is Wooden Overcoats, a British ahort series about the one-sided rivalry between two funeral parlours. It's a bit like a cross between Cabin Pressure and Six Feet Under if those mean anything to you. It's only two seasons long so far.
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Are you on MAL or any other anime-watching trackers? I would rec you some anime/manga fandoms but I don't know what all things you are already into heh (or things you already dislike).
God I don't know whether this fic would actually function well as a path into the fandom at all because it's set far in tbe future and also it makes me half-hate my own OTP ehile reading it lmao, but this is one of my favorite Hikaru no Go longfics: http://archiveofourown.org/works/502360 (27k, Hikaru/OC & Hikaru/Akira)
Uh... 28k of Watchmen Rorschach/Nite Owl with Daniel forced to stay with Rorscach for financial reasons? http://archiveofourown.org/works/56507/chapters/74875
41k of Mythbusters RPF apocalypse AU of the variety where most people on Earth suddenly vanish, also featuring a road trip and a baby, Adam/Jamie http://archiveofourown.org/works/95469
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Ooh, Hikaru no Go!
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It's got really great worldbuilding and also interesting character development. The whole anime is basically focused most of all on being a character development of the main character, Phos. One of the things I love most about this world is the way the gems' embodiment works. Their whole bodies are made out of gemstone and they store their memories distributed throughout them, so if pieces of them get shattered/broken off, if those pieces are lost & can't be reattached they can lose whole chunks of their memories. I love that kinda thung haha. The visuals are also really spectacular. It's largely a 3dcg production (though there is some 2d) and they used this to great effect especially in action sequences wiht really dynamic camera movement & long shots I haven't seen in 2d anime.
I don't have any fic to rec with it alas because I haven't read any for it yet, but the fandom is a currently active one, I've seen a fair bit of fanart and some REALLY NEAT cosplays for it. So anyway! That is my rec haha.
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Some fic recs, starting with Homestuck because for some reason that fandom had a lot of really fantastic longfic? None of these require lots of canon knowledge, because two are AUs and the third is all OCs.
Flotsam - 170k words of amazing worldbuilding and OCs you are guaranteed to cry over. Requires zero canon knowledge, basically.
The Vienna Game - some excellent cyberpunk fun, with lots of nods to cyberpunk classics.
Our Lives on Holiday - canon-divergence AU; diverges before actual canon start so it also doesn't need much canon familarity. The story of a revolution.
Rex Racer on the Final Turn - X-Men comics-verse (though even passing familiarity with X-Men is probably enough). Two brothers finding each other again, and trying to figure out what to make of what's happened to them. Will make you care about Cyclops if you didn't already.
Graduate Vulcan for Fun and Profit - Star Trek AOS, Kirk introspection with a side of linguistics.
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NiF is on my to-watch list and I'm trying to bribe some friends to get in on it with me!
I loved that Graduate Vulcan one when I first read it, ooh. Clearly our tastes are aligned...
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I think with Homestuck, it was one of those things where there were interesting characters, and just enough smattering of interesting concepts that weren't really expanded on for people to go buck-wild with filling stuff out. Plus in-universe concepts of alternate universes and different versions of a person.
And we definitely have similar tastes, heh.
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On Stranger Tides by theroyalsavage This is a Haikyuu!! (volleyball anime) fic that’s a pirates + magic AU. Knowing the canon might be a bit useful since this is a large-cast fic, but it’s AU enough that I think it stands on its own. I found this to be a really neatly built universe/interesting magic system with an engrossing let’s-save-the-world story. I don’t think this is a fic to sell someone on Haikyuu because it’s fairly distant from what Haikyuu itself is (volleyball, no pirates, no magic) but it does give some general impressions of characters that could be useful for getting into canon? Podfic by me.
Vaster Than Empries by Ayezur This is a Kenshin, Kaoru/Kenshin fic which honestly can be read completely without context as a historical romance (I watched a handful of Kenshin episodes in like middle school, and have seen the OAVs but that’s it). This is an arranged/sold-into-marriage story of two characters who are initially quite wary of each other moving into a supportive, respectful relationship. Slight warning/heads up: there’s a lot of concern from the POV female character about sexual violence, given her situation, even though the narrative is clear that it won’t be a threat/present in that relationship. This made me care a lot about Kaoru/Kenshin which I suppose would be useful for wanting to go engage with the original canon? Only this fic gave me what I wanted so I haven’t really.
Stargazer by Fahye, This is a Yuri on Ice space!sports!royalty!AU. This doesn’t really require canon knowledge because the fic recontextualizes it all anyways. Gorgeous and so enjoyable to read, does a great job of giving just enough detail of world building to make it feel like it’s all there while still being rooted in the character relationship and not going overboard on it’s setting. One of my favorite YOI fics. Podfic by me here
Blackbird by sixpences I feel a bit unoriginal reccing this Yuri on Ice fic because everyone loves it it seems, but there’s a really good reason for that. This is a WW2 & Cold War spies/espionage fic. The author did a ton of research and this is an emotionally compelling well paced historical romance drama. I had a lot of feelings about this fic, which I mostly poured out into the podfic I made, which also contains my “I spent a solid month trawling through radio archives for period-accurate chapter/section breaks.” Podfic by me here
The Professor’s Wife by foolish_mortal This is a xxxholic fic which I don’t think requires any knowledge of canon to appreciate. This covers a couple of intersecting timelines following (what I assume was) the end of the canon? (I’ve only read a few volumes of the manga and not in order or to any completion). This feels a bit like a slow burn relationship but it’s more a slow-build relationship as for most of the story they’re already together but the interweaving of prior to their getting together and the fic’s focus on one of the main characters dealing with his job as a supernatural purveyor of wishes, and the fact that most people can’t see him/remember him sets the relationship a bit on the back burner even though it’s the emotional lynchpin to the plot. It just all worked *really* well for me, it’s hard to describe. If you’re willing to wait about a month (at most) there will be a podfic by me available. Also in a ‘co-signed’ rec kind of way, I mentioned that I hoped to record this at the podfic con in October and 3 other anime fandom people were like ‘OMG that fic! I love that fic! I want to record that fic!’…so it’s also possible we might get multiple podfic versions, who knows!
Backslide by blackout This is a very long Naruto fic, an AU of an AU in that main character of a doomed timeline goes back in time (does not de-age) and changes everything by helping his younger self and friends. Great character development, very long, a lot of feels. Some working through grief for his partner from the doomed timeline but moves on to a new ship and fixing all the things. I’ve never actually read/seen Naruto, this fic is my canon. Apparently it’s a pretty close canon AU at least at first (I was talking about this with a friend last night actually) and she was saying how this makes her want to go watch Shippuden to see where/how it actually diverges from canon, but she knew that the actual show would just be a disappointment after this story. So not so much for getting into a fandom, but I’ve gone on to read other Naruto fic with this fic as my baseline for canon and that’s worked well enough. Podfic by Opalsong
Summer Stars by PitViperOfDoom This is a My Hero Academia fic in which the main character of the series (Midoriya) invites one of his classmates to come visit him over the summer bc he’s realized said classmate(Todoroki)’s dad is abusive. I hadn’t even met Todoroki in canon when I read this fic, but I certainly have a lot of feelings about him now (which carried over to me loving him in canon and enjoying the 2nd season more than I might have if I hadn’t mainlined fic about him & this pairing prior to that). Warnings obvs. for referenced child abuse. I’ll probably have a podfic of this fic done by June or July depending on how my schedule goes.
My other “Okay but I’m not a fan of Bakugo in canon so what can I ship” fic that definitely got me both into the ship, and reinvested in the canon is: Burn and Breathe by PitViperOfDoom which is again My Hero Academia and Todoroki/Midoriya and focuses heavily on the angst side of things and Todoroki’s awful childhood and home life. This is a ‘soulmates share pain’ AU and does a great job developing the whump of both Todoroki’s home life and awful father, and the bullying Midoriya experiences as a kid. …I like angst? But like, this canon is well set up for some great angst fic and tropes. Only like The first 3 episodes are totally unnecessary and the summary/‘last episode’ recap at the beginning of ep 4 is probably all you need. If I hadn’t been told by someone who’s opinion I highly value that I would love the show and the fandom would be good for me I’d have just ditched it after episode two. Honestly a person could probably just enjoy the fandom and not bother with the show because enough fic is manga-based and that’s way ahead of anime canon so spoilers abound in most fic it seems. Podfic by me
nothing can breathe in space by idrilka I mentioned I like angst? Voltron: Legendary Defender fic, Keith/Shiro because this pairing has such delightful potential for people being upset and then eventually happy. So much canon ‘I thought you were dead’ and canon ‘well I’ll just sacrifice myself for you then’ that is my *jam* lack of self worth and a whole lot of loyalty? I blame Gundam Wing fandom at a formative age. Anyways I don’t venture out into the broader fandom a whole lot because I hear there are ship wars and I definitely have an OTP but, I do have recs (most of which I’ve podficced) If you want to get into having Keith & Shiro feels. This fic is a lovely jumping off point because it’s primarily pre-canon/backstory and dwells in the ‘You went to space and then I thought you died’ time gap in canon. If you like this fic and want more like it there are a few other excellent fics set in the same time frame that do similar things in slightly different ways and they’re all lovely. Podfic by me There are a couple of WIP long fics in this fandom that I may eventually be able to rec as a ‘come like this thing with me’ but as they’re WIPs I’ll not mention them for now.
House Proud by Astolat This is a Harry Potter, Harry/Draco fic. I mentioned I liked fae magic? This series is about how Harry’s hatred of Grimauld place compounds with the house’s dissatisfaction of his treatment of it until the house is about ready to kill him. It’s delightfully creepy and neat magic. This is my canon for how wizard houses work. It’s pretty hard to avoid knowing general osmosis about Harry Potter canon and I think that’s about all you need to appreciate this fic, it shines all on it’s own merits aside from the fandom/canon. Podfic by Lazulus here
You’re already in this fandom I think but reccing it anyway in case you haven’t seen it:
A Deeper Season verse by Sahiya & lightgetsin for the Vorkosigan saga, “that fic is my canon”, probably benefits from knowing canon (this diverges after Memory) but I’ve been told folks who didn’t know canon enjoyed it, great fast-paced/twisty plot that feels in keeping with Lois McMaster Bujold’s excellent writing and lovely relationship development. Honestly I hold this as my canon so tightly I’ve had some trouble reading past Memory in the canon, I have read the later books but they’re some very nice AU of my actual canon (this fic)…
Rec I’m seconding now I’ve read it: So my friend who was looking for fic in return recced me: Single Use Weapon by Fahye saying “does not require knowledge of the fandom (I’ve technically seen Kings, but I don’t remember it at all) has an actually good plot and hits the loyalty kink spot if you’re into that.” I read it and can say that yes, without knowing the canon it is enjoyable, though it’s a bit more complex/weird because I didn’t have the context to know exactly what was going on at first, it’s a media-res start that then goes back and unspools how the characters got where they were at the start and then moves forward from that opening point to a nice conclusion. There may be some incesty vibes in this? And kind of a poly triangle (maybe a quad?). I did really enjoy this story and found that the ‘okay but how? why?’ kept me reading enthusiastically. It also had really interesting and weird Christian-ish religious magical realism that I loved as well.
courtship ritual of the hercules beetle by kittebasu This is a Haikyuu!! future fic that doesn’t rely heavily on canon (they played volleyball in high school, that's what you need to know). I read this prior to meeting any of these characters in the canon and enjoyed it. Warning for internalized homophobia (and general societal as well). It's a lovely story of reuniting/getting-together-as-adults, also entomology.
Honestly I wish I had more Haikyuu fic that fit as a rec but while there's some wonderful, and long stuff out there. It's all predominately better if you know the canon, wonderfully written, engaging and enjoyable stuff but somewhat dependent on loving the characters already, I think. I'll think about it a bit more and see if any of others seem like good recruiter fics.
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Oh god a deeper season is so good that it crushed my desire to write for vorkosigan - it's why I almost only write it at yuletide...
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Also, hopefully you like recs bc hi giant wall of recs spam, but maybe some of them will be things you like. ^_^
Also if you want convincing/someone selling you on series I'm happy to rep my current areas of fannish enthusiasm:
My Hero Academia, Haikyuu!!, and Voltron. All of these are longer series though and I saw you mentioned you're usually a shorter-run series person. I've been failing at finishing things for a while so the fact I mainlined Haikyuu in ~2 months says a lot bc typically I loose interest and fail out. On the other hand I am predisposed to enjoy sports anime and I had friends who were already producing in the fandom to lure me along. But there's a lot of great fic and the animation is gorgeous and so many excellent ships. So if you want to hear more about why Haikyuu!! is great I'd be happy to share.
Voltron I honestly only keep up with canon through watching with a friend, not sure I'd do it on my own but it has provided me with a ship (Keith/Shiro) that both narratively and trope-fannish wise does a bunch of things that are great for me so I have a small corner of fandom to love and avoid the rest of it. I keep running into Voltron fans RL which is a bit harrowing given what I've heard through internet osmosis but even though none of them shipped my ship they've all been very nice and polite and we've had good conversations about why Keith is excellent, so that's something to bond with strangers over.
My Hero Academia is a lot of fun with a lot of good ideas and generally good execution once it hits it's stride. I'm fond of it in a 'this provides so much fertile ground for stuff!' more than in a 'hey, hey watch/read the thing, it will change your life for the better' sort of way. So like, if you enjoy the fandom, maybe just enjoy the fandom and check out the show if it seems your thing.
But! Actual you might be interested recs because my actual how-I-like things is 12 episodes or less and 20 min an episode so short run anime:
No.6 = 11 ep sci-fi dystopia anime with main queer relationship \o/ based on a light novel, also has a manga. It's got a bitter sweet ending but I guess that leaves room for fandom? There was a moment in the first episode that totally sold me and I thoroughly enjoyed this anime, though the fandom for the most part hasn't actually given me what I want. I'm not even sure what I want, which might be the problem. I've attempted to write it for myself but nothings quite enough/right. So you can come join me in my sort of existential "this was great but also ??"
Tsuritama = 12 episode anime of fishing to save the world! with aliens! It's a slice of live sports anime with extraterrestrials and a main character with intense social anxiety. The visual metaphor for his anxiety totally sold me on the show. There was a moment in the first episode when he hooks a fish for the first time and is literally dragged out of his anxiety spiral and it was so beautiful I knew I was going to love it. The show meanders a lot at first and when it gets down to the tacks of the plot it's a bit ridiculous (aliens) but I *love* it all. Lovely characters, great friendship building, and a fun story. I typically by happenstance pick the ship that winds up to be the thing everyone loves, sadly this fandom is an outlier and I ship the thing that's obvious to me and apparently few other people do. *sigh*
Jellyfish Princess = 11 or 12 episode anime with little-to-no fandom following a bunch of geeky girls who all live together, primarily a girl who really likes jellyfish as the main character, and a cross dressing guy who befriends her and they start a fashion line together. I found this to be really charming and funny. The guy who enjoys fashion and wearing women's clothes was mostly non-cringey and his 'I'm a guy but I like being pretty/gender fluid presentation' was handled generally well. I wish there was more fandom for this. Also, I don't normally care so much about a heterosexual ship, but here we are.
If I think of any others I'll definitely mention.
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I shall respond more in depth when I am not in a car but loool Voltron and I. We sort of reached an impasse at the talking caterpillar scientist. XD