Once a Stranger

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 19:48:10 GMT

it's been month now that I've been bemoaning the loss of the mo dao zu shi ao3 feed on tumblr. It kind of went away out of the blue and since that's what I used to keep track of the fics in the fandom, it altered how I was reading fics a lot. I could have tried to remake one (you need an email address but it's not too complicated. I created the one for scum villain actually) but I didn't feel up to it because I also felt a bit less enthusiastic about the fandom at the time. But still I had to get myself a RSS feed tracker just to make up for the lack but I had to make choices about which tag I had the time to follow. Mostly I follow fics tagged Jiang Cheng and also Nieyao. I had to give up on tracking Yi City Crew fics and Xiyao and any number of rare pairing and gen because of it.

Today I found out there's an Untamed ao3 feed on tumblr.

I guess I could follow that? But this is disheartening because i haven't even watched the Untamed. I'd prefer to find fics tagged for the novel canon in priority and that's the ones that got dropped.

So yeah. Mixed feelings here :/

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Do not go gentle

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:22:31 GMT

Lately it feels like more and more people are leaving LJ. It's been getting to me a lot. I really hate this. I hate people saying they're leaving and deleting their journals, I hate realising that people have just vanished out and not updated their journals for months or years, too. It feels like most of the life out of LJ (or DW for that matter) has been extinguished, I don't think I see enthusiasm much anymore elsewhere than in kink memes and other forms of anonymous memes (which frankly, I was never very fond of). I think a big part of it is, fandom has spread itself in other places, across different dimensions. Tumblr is great for fanart, gifs and more stream of consciousness squeeing (despite how much I hate the tumblr interface as well as the way people socialize on it and that is A WHOLE FUCKING LOT, and the more I use tumblr - I made an account a couple of months ago - the more I hate it :p); more in depth text based meta, reviews etc. are on various blogs, I guess. Fics are more simple to post on archives. Recs are handled via delicious (yes, despite the last debacle). And - what I miss most - the networking and befriending people based upon fandom, I guess maybe it's happening elsewhere too, on facebook or twitter or somewhere else I don't know about. But, and it's funny, that was one thing I used to criticise LJ for - the way it was mixing a whole lot of different things in the same place, the way it made us have to jungle all those things at the same time, the intersection of those spheres - which was sometimes unwieldy - but in retrospect feels like it was very productive in social interaction. Conversations bouncing from one journal to another, filled with ideas and joy and depth and silliness and resonance - when's the last I've seen that?

These days it doesn't feel like we get much into great conversations anymore. I dunno, maybe it happens elsewhere that what I pay attention to. I've been through a lot of fandoms - maybe too many - and at the same time I've always refused to follow the bandwagon of the next Big Fandom everyone else was following unless I was, you know, genuinely interesting in that big fandom (and most often I wasn't so much, instead I was more into skipping to another media/genre altogether!), which doesn't help keeping ties. And the biggest problem, I've really sucked about keeping my journal lively either, and I've deeply sucked at keeping lively conversation with others on their journals as well. Oh, I've done a lot of perfunctionary updating, so to speak, quick, shallow comments; and silly memes and I've tried to keep talking about fannish stuff - but... I haven't put in it a lot of myself into it. Big part of that was just depression, and not knowing how to deal with situation in life. I don't want to talk about this much. I don't like talking about it. It feels too shameful, and too vulnerable, and too embarrassing all at the same time. And as far as commenting, I have felt way too out of my depth as well as too numb often enough to have anything to say to people. And I always try to escape spirals of self loathing the same way, with avoidance and escapism; which hasn't ended very profitable for social interaction.

But I still treasure all those things. The friendships I have here - brittle and narrow though some of them may be - and the potential for fannish interactions. I depend on it so much. Maybe that is where I err wrong. Of course, things fall apart. Of course, people drift apart - that's not even a specifically fannish thing. Of course, people jump into the newest thing, and sometimes the newest thing isn't the newest fandom, or the newest kind of fanwork exchange, or the newest meme - sometimes it's the newest platform. What do you gonna do. Heh, it's not like I'm unlikely to jump onto the newest thing when it is to my taste, either.

Not sure where I am going with that. I guess I'd just like to have a reason to be hopeful about fannish networking, here or elsewhere, in a way that isn't just about clinging after past glories. Tell me there is some?

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Mon, 23 May 2011 20:35:21 GMT

1. Failed to go to epitanime this week end after all. Woke up too late I guess. x_x Only now am I suddenly regretting it a little bit. Oh well, not like I had any money to spend.

2. Watched Thor on friday (finally was showing on 2D at my nearby theater). Liked it overall. You know, there's still no Thor-related recs on my list of comics to be read. Just saying :3

3. Posted the ficlets in answer to everyone who prompted:

Title: Taunting
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon / X
Characters/Pairings: Seishirou/Subaru, Fuuma
Length: 328 words

Title: Rebel girl
Fandom: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Characters/Pairings: Juri
Length: 370 words

Title: Learn from the feet of the master
Fandom: Black Lagoon
Characters/Pairings: Balalaika/Revy
Length: 496 words

They're not great, but they're wri~ting, first since 2008, yay! Wouldn't mind getting more prompts, really :3

4. comicstore_news is missing an editor in case you have too much free time and feels like doing something selfless for fandom (it's good for finding good fanart on tumblr, if i say so).

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Stuff

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 19:13:08 GMT

1. My sister is currently studying to become a Yoga teacher, so she started taking me up as a student in order to practice - which means I've started doing yoga, which is actually kind of neat.

2. I've started being an editor for comistore_news. I was feeling guilty about not giving back to fandom in any creative way lately ;)

3. I love joining a LJ community that seems like it's going to be cool and welcoming to all people and without any bullshit tolerated; and then the first time I join in a discussion (because I think that Utena, of all things, is a feminist show) it turns into aggressive grudgewank filled with flames I've ever seen. Still waiting to see if the mods are going to do anything before I leave but it doesn't look good so far. So much for that XD

4. For... I think mainly flo_nelja, I've actually ended up posting some of my quick-impressions-as-I-on-comics-I-read on rpg.net on this :thread . Sorry I suck so much at updating my lj thse days >_> (ideally I should crosspost or something).

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