Metatalktail Hour: Fandom! June 30, 2018 8:20 AM Subscribe
Good Saturday evening (afternevening? I'm bad at timezones), MetaFilter! This week, jacquilynne wants to know about your fandoms! "What things do people consider themselves to be a huge fan of? Have they watched/read/collected/participated in every episode/book/version/event? Where do they chat about their fandom online? Do they have an OTP (one true pairing)? Do they read or write fanfic? Or cosplay a character?"
This is our first European-time-zone MetaTalktails, and since it's World Cup time, I thought fandoms would be an extra-great MetaTalktails, because you can tell us who your team is! But also all your nerd things.
This is our first European-time-zone MetaTalktails, and since it's World Cup time, I thought fandoms would be an extra-great MetaTalktails, because you can tell us who your team is! But also all your nerd things.
Hello, Metafilter! :) This is my first Metatalktail hour, may there be many more.
I am generally a huge fan of games of all sorts, be they tabletop RPGS, video games, or board and card games, though I don't have a chance to play the latter as often as I'd like. Books-wise, I adore the Vorkosigan and Aubrey-Maturin series, and would recommend them to anyone. Finally, for movies and TV I love Supernatural and Firefly, both deeply problematic but still fun.
posted by Alensin at 9:08 AM on June 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
I am generally a huge fan of games of all sorts, be they tabletop RPGS, video games, or board and card games, though I don't have a chance to play the latter as often as I'd like. Books-wise, I adore the Vorkosigan and Aubrey-Maturin series, and would recommend them to anyone. Finally, for movies and TV I love Supernatural and Firefly, both deeply problematic but still fun.
posted by Alensin at 9:08 AM on June 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
I am a huge fucking nerd for these books, which I read as a teenager and may have influenced the development of my personality and interests more than almost anything else. Dunnett, however, is sort of an acquired taste, and I understand why people don't like her. Her plots are adventurous melodrama of the most ridiculous variety and she intentionally writes like she's trying to confuse her readers to death.
Because of these attributes, though, she's missed the popularization that a lot of other previously underground fandoms (looking at you, Tolkien) have undergone in the last fifteen years. Which means the active online fandom on Tumblr and other platforms is, what, forty or fifty people tops, and is a delightful little community. One of my favorite things that's ever happened to me on the Internet was Dunnett-related: because of our mutual interest in the books, a now good IRL friend and I realized we had known each other, across five or six social media platform migrations for each of us, for eleven years... all without knowing that behind the screen-names it was the same person all along! When we finally figured it out, it was a moment of delightful discovery.
posted by WidgetAlley at 9:13 AM on June 30, 2018 [18 favorites]
Because of these attributes, though, she's missed the popularization that a lot of other previously underground fandoms (looking at you, Tolkien) have undergone in the last fifteen years. Which means the active online fandom on Tumblr and other platforms is, what, forty or fifty people tops, and is a delightful little community. One of my favorite things that's ever happened to me on the Internet was Dunnett-related: because of our mutual interest in the books, a now good IRL friend and I realized we had known each other, across five or six social media platform migrations for each of us, for eleven years... all without knowing that behind the screen-names it was the same person all along! When we finally figured it out, it was a moment of delightful discovery.
posted by WidgetAlley at 9:13 AM on June 30, 2018 [18 favorites]
WidgetAlley: I need to try those again sometime. I could see that she was trying to do something different, but I found the interconnected families hard to handle. I did hear that it gets easier after the first couple hundred pages or so.
posted by Alensin at 9:19 AM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Alensin at 9:19 AM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
This is my first one too. Wrestling is my thing, though I'm more of a fandom lurker, I guess, since for so long it was a solitary interest (I didn't really have friends into it growing up; I didn't have shows to go to or watch with others, etc). I chat a bit about it on Twitter and such, and I've blogged on wrestling in the past, but that's the extent of it.
posted by macdara at 9:39 AM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by macdara at 9:39 AM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
This is a great prompt! I'm looking forward to hearing about other mefites fandom interests (and maybe discover some things to add to my to-be-read/to-watch lists).
My original fandom growing up was the Harry Potter fandom, which I sort of stumbled into while killing time in between book releases as a kid. That was back when LJ was the center for a lot of fandom activity, and fanfiction was spread out over a lot of different specialized subsites. Oh, the good old days...or something. Although I was mostly a lurker back then.
The most active fandom engagement I've had has been with the Hannibal (TV show) fandom. That show is what finally got me to start using tumblr, and I've also done some fic writing, although I tend to have a pretty short attention span for these kinds of things, so I haven't been very engaged lately.
My most recent fandom is Supernatural, which I only finally got around to watching earlier this year. I've mostly lurked in this fandom so far, although I have enjoyed discussing the current season with other mefites over on fanfare.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:49 AM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
My original fandom growing up was the Harry Potter fandom, which I sort of stumbled into while killing time in between book releases as a kid. That was back when LJ was the center for a lot of fandom activity, and fanfiction was spread out over a lot of different specialized subsites. Oh, the good old days...or something. Although I was mostly a lurker back then.
The most active fandom engagement I've had has been with the Hannibal (TV show) fandom. That show is what finally got me to start using tumblr, and I've also done some fic writing, although I tend to have a pretty short attention span for these kinds of things, so I haven't been very engaged lately.
My most recent fandom is Supernatural, which I only finally got around to watching earlier this year. I've mostly lurked in this fandom so far, although I have enjoyed discussing the current season with other mefites over on fanfare.
posted by litera scripta manet at 9:49 AM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm not in any fandom fandoms, but I'm on Tumblr so you could say I participate passively in ALL the fandoms.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 10:00 AM on June 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by lollymccatburglar at 10:00 AM on June 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Father Ted. Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on....feck.
posted by arcticseal at 10:25 AM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by arcticseal at 10:25 AM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
This may surprise you but I'm quite the fan of video games.
posted by Fizz at 10:49 AM on June 30, 2018 [23 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 10:49 AM on June 30, 2018 [23 favorites]
Major civil-aviation fan here. The liveries, the uniforms, the food, the maps. (Have y'all read Skyfaring? People. Read Skyfaring.) It's definitely weird being a fan of, like, companies, but the historical perspective of even something as simple as prestige route flight numbering is fascinating as an artifact of 20th-century capitalism; the places that matter get flight number 1; the places that don't get flight 7348.
posted by mdonley at 10:58 AM on June 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by mdonley at 10:58 AM on June 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
I've been a compulsive viewer of not just Scandi Noir, but Nordic movies and TV for, heck, around fifteen years now. From the obscure (like the film Kitchen Stories which kicked off my addiction) through to the well-known.
And one of the most well-known, The Bridge - the original Swedish/Danish one - finally finished here on UK TV last night (last episode of the last and fourth series). It was good - seriously, very (spoilers) good (spoilers) - and I will miss it, especially the extroadinary character of Saga Noren, played by Sofia Helin. The last episode, and the major arcs within it, are also an on-point example of how to conclude a multi-series show pretty much perfectly.
But again, it's the acting by Sofia Helin which was quite something, and meant that the crime stories almost became secondary to how the life of her character unravelled. The Wire was my favorite TV show of the last decade, and The Bridge will almost definitely be my favorite of this one.
+ + + + +
Life has gone somewhat sideways and I have ripped up my plans for the summer and autumn as I unexpectedly deal with solicitors, property agents and associated matters, plus investigate and maybe follow a few also unexpected opportunities. Annoyingly, because of this British heatwave (post), walking opportunities to village fetes and the like to clear the mind and eat cake have been extremely limited. I'd much rather be doing what I did pretty much ten years ago from now, which was wandering around the epic archipelago of Stockholm, but life gets in the way etc. Stuff from me will be haphzard for a while but pictures will sometimes go into my Flickr collection.
On the plus side, using the psychological trick of visualising forthcoming cool weather to make your brain ignore the relentless heat, there's well under 180 days to Christmas now - and we are nearer to the Christmas Day forthcoming than the last one encountered. So, there's that. Also bought my first Christmas pudding of 2018 today, but it will have to wait for a cooler day before it's cooked and consumed. I suspect that will be a while off.
Hang on in there, hot and sticky fellow Brits...
posted by Wordshore at 10:59 AM on June 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
And one of the most well-known, The Bridge - the original Swedish/Danish one - finally finished here on UK TV last night (last episode of the last and fourth series). It was good - seriously, very (spoilers) good (spoilers) - and I will miss it, especially the extroadinary character of Saga Noren, played by Sofia Helin. The last episode, and the major arcs within it, are also an on-point example of how to conclude a multi-series show pretty much perfectly.
But again, it's the acting by Sofia Helin which was quite something, and meant that the crime stories almost became secondary to how the life of her character unravelled. The Wire was my favorite TV show of the last decade, and The Bridge will almost definitely be my favorite of this one.
+ + + + +
Life has gone somewhat sideways and I have ripped up my plans for the summer and autumn as I unexpectedly deal with solicitors, property agents and associated matters, plus investigate and maybe follow a few also unexpected opportunities. Annoyingly, because of this British heatwave (post), walking opportunities to village fetes and the like to clear the mind and eat cake have been extremely limited. I'd much rather be doing what I did pretty much ten years ago from now, which was wandering around the epic archipelago of Stockholm, but life gets in the way etc. Stuff from me will be haphzard for a while but pictures will sometimes go into my Flickr collection.
On the plus side, using the psychological trick of visualising forthcoming cool weather to make your brain ignore the relentless heat, there's well under 180 days to Christmas now - and we are nearer to the Christmas Day forthcoming than the last one encountered. So, there's that. Also bought my first Christmas pudding of 2018 today, but it will have to wait for a cooler day before it's cooked and consumed. I suspect that will be a while off.
Hang on in there, hot and sticky fellow Brits...
posted by Wordshore at 10:59 AM on June 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
This may surprise you but I'm quite the fan of video games.
posted by Fizz at 6:49 PM
This may be a radical and far-out idea that has never occured to you, but (here goes) have you ever considered doing a MetaFilter post about them?
posted by Wordshore at 11:09 AM on June 30, 2018 [36 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 6:49 PM
This may be a radical and far-out idea that has never occured to you, but (here goes) have you ever considered doing a MetaFilter post about them?
posted by Wordshore at 11:09 AM on June 30, 2018 [36 favorites]
I used to be way more active in fandom than I am now! For a long time, it was my life. My fandoms over the years have been many and varied, from huge megafandoms like Harry Potter and Star Wars to smaller fandoms in bandom and anime/manga. It's been a few years now since I've written fic, alas. I did just get caught up with Stand Still Stay Silent and have been looking for fanworks to fill the void while I'm waiting for the last chapter of this storyline to begin next week.
My main sports team is the Washington Nationals, and I also definitely got caught up in Caps fever during the finals. To paraphrase Ovi, we were not fucking suck this year!
posted by capricorn at 11:10 AM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
My main sports team is the Washington Nationals, and I also definitely got caught up in Caps fever during the finals. To paraphrase Ovi, we were not fucking suck this year!
posted by capricorn at 11:10 AM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Not a hardcore fan but I‘ve been on a Bob Dylan kick lately and listening to all of his albums in chronological order (currently I‘m in 1975), reading up on lyrics and watching documentaries about him and contemporaries. It‘s really something, especially as a tail-end gen Xer who was never really exposed to his work, aside from knowing a few of his songs from the radio (my parents are ‚his‘ generation but not the hippie type, to put it mildly). What can I say, I‘m in love.
posted by The Toad at 11:15 AM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by The Toad at 11:15 AM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm not at all involved in fandom. I mean, I like Monty Python. But then, who doesn't?
I've cosplayed Leela from Futurama, mostly because she's a good fit. I can't say that I'm a real fan, I've not seen most of the episodes.
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:20 AM on June 30, 2018
I've cosplayed Leela from Futurama, mostly because she's a good fit. I can't say that I'm a real fan, I've not seen most of the episodes.
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:20 AM on June 30, 2018
Star Trek! Since I was a wee bab. I just finished season 7 of TNG on the greatest generation podcast- now I get to listen to my favorite series get dunked on by Ben and Adam- DS9!
I finished my pre-op appt for my endo surgery. Now I just have to wait for a call from the anesthetist and then July 18th. I'm not handling this as well as I'd like, but hey, at least my pit hair is blue! On the extreme bright side, I've been put on a new endo treatment/BC pill which might replace my implant and one of the side effect is masculinization. My doc was all... well, you might not like this side effect... and I was all- I'm genderqueer doc, that side effect sounds fucking fantastic! SO hey! I might get a deeper voice without the risks of T!
I just have to keep looking on the bright side of an exploratory abdominal surgery where if they find crap growing on my appendix they have to take it out. which hey- no great loss right? but oof until I wake up I wont know how bad the surgery went, how much was in there, what my future is going to be like... So yeah, not in the greatest of places. I'm throwing myself into the card club, my garden and video games because otherwise I would go crazy.
hugs to everyone who needs them! Wordshore! you be careful in your heat wave! wet dish towels on the neck can help.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:31 PM on June 30, 2018 [11 favorites]
I finished my pre-op appt for my endo surgery. Now I just have to wait for a call from the anesthetist and then July 18th. I'm not handling this as well as I'd like, but hey, at least my pit hair is blue! On the extreme bright side, I've been put on a new endo treatment/BC pill which might replace my implant and one of the side effect is masculinization. My doc was all... well, you might not like this side effect... and I was all- I'm genderqueer doc, that side effect sounds fucking fantastic! SO hey! I might get a deeper voice without the risks of T!
I just have to keep looking on the bright side of an exploratory abdominal surgery where if they find crap growing on my appendix they have to take it out. which hey- no great loss right? but oof until I wake up I wont know how bad the surgery went, how much was in there, what my future is going to be like... So yeah, not in the greatest of places. I'm throwing myself into the card club, my garden and video games because otherwise I would go crazy.
hugs to everyone who needs them! Wordshore! you be careful in your heat wave! wet dish towels on the neck can help.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:31 PM on June 30, 2018 [11 favorites]
Yay European-friendly timezone!
I flit through a lot of fandoms but I've stuck with the Takarazuka revue for... fifteen years this month, actually. It's an all-female musical theatre and a hell of a thing to be a fan of overseas, because on one hand they do So Much (each of five troupes of 60-70 people puts on up to 7 musicals a year, plus dinner shows, concerts and special performances), and on the other there's a serious access problem with the media, so you end up relying on very expensive DVDs published after most large-theatre performances, where the camera focuses on the main stars. Plus the actresses generally stay with the troupes for 5 to 15 years, with a crop of youngsters every year, so just as I've learned all the nicknames for the people I can actually see on DVDs here come the graduation announcements.
But even though basically the entire cast has changed over since I started following the Revue, they're still doing their thing, combining Broadway and European musical theatre with traditional Japanese sensibilities just when you least expect it. A genderflipped and culture-flipped kabuki aimed straight at a 90% female audience, a world of women's dreams, and dammit the girls are pretty. Especially the girls playing the men.
I mean, look at her. She's playing Robespierre in a musical with way too many guillotines, then once everyone is dead the curtain falls and after the intermission it's all sparkles and dancing and dubious makeup.
Dammit, I need to get to Japan again, because this is so so so much better live.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:43 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
I flit through a lot of fandoms but I've stuck with the Takarazuka revue for... fifteen years this month, actually. It's an all-female musical theatre and a hell of a thing to be a fan of overseas, because on one hand they do So Much (each of five troupes of 60-70 people puts on up to 7 musicals a year, plus dinner shows, concerts and special performances), and on the other there's a serious access problem with the media, so you end up relying on very expensive DVDs published after most large-theatre performances, where the camera focuses on the main stars. Plus the actresses generally stay with the troupes for 5 to 15 years, with a crop of youngsters every year, so just as I've learned all the nicknames for the people I can actually see on DVDs here come the graduation announcements.
But even though basically the entire cast has changed over since I started following the Revue, they're still doing their thing, combining Broadway and European musical theatre with traditional Japanese sensibilities just when you least expect it. A genderflipped and culture-flipped kabuki aimed straight at a 90% female audience, a world of women's dreams, and dammit the girls are pretty. Especially the girls playing the men.
I mean, look at her. She's playing Robespierre in a musical with way too many guillotines, then once everyone is dead the curtain falls and after the intermission it's all sparkles and dancing and dubious makeup.
Dammit, I need to get to Japan again, because this is so so so much better live.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:43 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
I am a fan of a few things, but never enough to feel a part of modern-day Internet-fueled fandom. I enjoyed Sleepy Hollow, but I wasn't a "did you see how Abby looked at Ichabod 14 minutes and 8.5 seconds into episode 5?" fan. I enjoy Pro Wrestling, but I'm not a fanfic writer. I'm rather an armchair booker. AJ Styles is my current WWE sweet babboo, and Kenny Omega speaking Japanese is the hottest thing I've ever seen on TV since Tom Mison as Ichabod Crane.
But I will always unashamedly love New Kids on the Block. I had dolls, posters, all the magazines, a dozen VHS tapes with videos and appearances recorded from TV, autographs, one of the (losing) Magic Summer Coke cans that burned people, etc. Today, I'll see them perform every 2 years or so, met Joey at a meet and greet and am enjoying us all getting old "together" on Instagram.
**
I went to the Philly Families Belong Together rally today. It was great and hoo boy I am hot and wiped out.
posted by kimberussell at 12:52 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
But I will always unashamedly love New Kids on the Block. I had dolls, posters, all the magazines, a dozen VHS tapes with videos and appearances recorded from TV, autographs, one of the (losing) Magic Summer Coke cans that burned people, etc. Today, I'll see them perform every 2 years or so, met Joey at a meet and greet and am enjoying us all getting old "together" on Instagram.
**
I went to the Philly Families Belong Together rally today. It was great and hoo boy I am hot and wiped out.
posted by kimberussell at 12:52 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
This spring I did a deep dive into Better Call Saul fandom. I liked Breaking Bad but I wasn't insane about it, but BCS hooked me from mid-season one. I think I've read the entire wiki and watched approximately 50 interviews with Bob Odenkirk. I have a twitter list of most of the cast and crew. I follow a bunch of fans on tumblr and I'm pretty active on the subreddit.
I may or may not have written fanfic but I sure as hell haven't posted it, and I need to figure out a way to ensure my hard drive is set to self-destruct upon my death.
The last things I was anywhere near as nuts about were LOST, Heroes and the 2009 Star Trek movie. Those were back when livejournal was a bigger thing. I'm not really a fandom person in general.
posted by AFABulous at 1:20 PM on June 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
I may or may not have written fanfic but I sure as hell haven't posted it, and I need to figure out a way to ensure my hard drive is set to self-destruct upon my death.
The last things I was anywhere near as nuts about were LOST, Heroes and the 2009 Star Trek movie. Those were back when livejournal was a bigger thing. I'm not really a fandom person in general.
posted by AFABulous at 1:20 PM on June 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
oh, and my World Cup team was Peru, for no other reason that I think the local empanada food truck guy is cute. Alas, neither was meant to be.
posted by AFABulous at 1:33 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by AFABulous at 1:33 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I am a casual fan of a bunch of stuff, but I have cosplayed Lady Loki, Peggy Carter, and Lagertha, and done a bit of fan art for Critical Role. CR is probably the thing where I'm the closest to the fandom, because I think it's neat to see all the visual interpretations of a near completely verbal medium, and the fandom is mostly small enough that I can keep the loonies far away from my dash. I'm also a general fan of reimaginings of Sherlock Holmes, possibly because I read the Doyle stories when I was young - most recently Joe Ide's IQ, so I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.
I do vaguely miss the days of fandom on LJ, at least for the threaded comments.
posted by tautological at 1:47 PM on June 30, 2018
I do vaguely miss the days of fandom on LJ, at least for the threaded comments.
posted by tautological at 1:47 PM on June 30, 2018
While I don't do fandom I am a big fan of:
Deadpool
Peter Watts
Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull
Warren Zevon
Richard Feynman
Pizza
Tuna salad on toasted rye
Bourbon
Birds (especially parrots)
Sure there's more.
posted by Splunge at 1:56 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Deadpool
Peter Watts
Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull
Warren Zevon
Richard Feynman
Pizza
Tuna salad on toasted rye
Bourbon
Birds (especially parrots)
Sure there's more.
posted by Splunge at 1:56 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh and, specifically, pizza with crushed potato chips and hot sauce on it. Which I will now eat.
posted by Splunge at 1:57 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Splunge at 1:57 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
It has never occurred to me to put crushed potato chips on pizza; thanks for the tip. Also, thank you for the euro-friendly posting time! Wordshore, is Christmas pudding something one can eat anytime of year? So confusing. I don’t really do fandom and I am not that much of a fan. I am a bit envious of people who are because I think they have more fun probably. I am really enjoying finding out the kinds of things that people are fans of. Like flight and wrestling. I love it.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:06 PM on June 30, 2018
posted by Bella Donna at 2:06 PM on June 30, 2018
I am not really a fan of anything in particular. I mean...movies about running? I do love Jericho Mile.
I am actual a meta fan, or a fan of fans. I get so excited listening about what other people are passionate about. Like I am so jazzed that people have such widely divergent interests.
posted by Literaryhero at 2:09 PM on June 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
I am actual a meta fan, or a fan of fans. I get so excited listening about what other people are passionate about. Like I am so jazzed that people have such widely divergent interests.
posted by Literaryhero at 2:09 PM on June 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
I was in the "Pals of Lee Majors" fanclub when I was young (Six Million Dollar Man, not Big Valley). I had a wallet id card and everything.
Not really in fandom for anything these days.
posted by Gorgik at 2:10 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Not really in fandom for anything these days.
posted by Gorgik at 2:10 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yes Steven Universe!!
The Saga comic series (here in Canada we used to have to wait for the trade paperbacks to come out once a year. It's only been in the last six months or so that I've been able to go to my local comic shop and pick up the individual issues as they come out. I put the release dates into my calendar so I don't forget)
Podcasts: Design Matters with Debbie Millman, Spilled Milk, The Read
And last but not least, art by Daniel Niejadlik, which I have been purchasing since approximately 2001. I think this makes me old?
How my cat copes with the heat here in Hamilton
posted by janepanic at 3:40 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
The Saga comic series (here in Canada we used to have to wait for the trade paperbacks to come out once a year. It's only been in the last six months or so that I've been able to go to my local comic shop and pick up the individual issues as they come out. I put the release dates into my calendar so I don't forget)
Podcasts: Design Matters with Debbie Millman, Spilled Milk, The Read
And last but not least, art by Daniel Niejadlik, which I have been purchasing since approximately 2001. I think this makes me old?
How my cat copes with the heat here in Hamilton
posted by janepanic at 3:40 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
"I am actual a meta fan, or a fan of fans. I get so excited listening about what other people are passionate about. Like I am so jazzed that people have such widely divergent interests."
Ooooh, me too!
I am not particularly "in" fandom, but I have things that I adore and am a giant nerd about. LM Montgomery (duh), any kind of historical costume drama (realistic or bizarre, I'm not picky!), Tamora Pierce, embroidery, textile arts generally, jazz music, vernacular domestic architecture, municipal infrastructure.
I am cheering for Mexico. Our district in Peoria had uniforms but had out-of-uniform days for things like college shirts and sports team shirts. At one of my kids' schools, it was all Bears and Cubs and Cardinals, like you'd expect; at the other, there was an enormous Mexican immigrant population, and it was wall-to-wall Mexico national team jerseys! My kid definitely stood out in his Cubs shirt! Anyway, all these teeny kindergarteners and so on were so super enthusiastic about Mexico, I have adopted them as my team too. (If we hadn't moved, we totally would have gotten Mexico jerseys for sports day!) Soccer becomes downright adorable when it's being explained to you by a super-enthusiastic 5-year-old who only half-knows the rules but adores his or her team!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 3:41 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
Ooooh, me too!
I am not particularly "in" fandom, but I have things that I adore and am a giant nerd about. LM Montgomery (duh), any kind of historical costume drama (realistic or bizarre, I'm not picky!), Tamora Pierce, embroidery, textile arts generally, jazz music, vernacular domestic architecture, municipal infrastructure.
I am cheering for Mexico. Our district in Peoria had uniforms but had out-of-uniform days for things like college shirts and sports team shirts. At one of my kids' schools, it was all Bears and Cubs and Cardinals, like you'd expect; at the other, there was an enormous Mexican immigrant population, and it was wall-to-wall Mexico national team jerseys! My kid definitely stood out in his Cubs shirt! Anyway, all these teeny kindergarteners and so on were so super enthusiastic about Mexico, I have adopted them as my team too. (If we hadn't moved, we totally would have gotten Mexico jerseys for sports day!) Soccer becomes downright adorable when it's being explained to you by a super-enthusiastic 5-year-old who only half-knows the rules but adores his or her team!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 3:41 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
Awww joy, fandom! I've been playing in the Guardians of the Galaxy corner of Marvel fandom for a year or so now, which finally encouraged me to write Baby's First Fics. They've been pretty well received, even if I write very, very, very slowly.
Very slowly.
And also I tend to pick up cowriterships that, uh, founder and get distracted and leave me with about 60k+ of words that just needs a little effort from someone to get out. Oops. I'm still very proud of them, though, and I'll be excited to eventually finish them and release them onto the Archive of Our Own like tiny little niche ducklings.
(Nebula. My heart.)
Guardians aside, I've been kind of on the lurkerdom outskirts of media fandom for.... uh... fuck, fifteen years, apparently! Jesus. I actually got the avatar I use pretty much everywhere on the old God Awful Fan Fiction boards somewhere c. 2007, when someone posted a whole bunch of random avatar clips to the boards for anyone to take and I picked up a little thumbnail of Escher's Cockatrice, which I've never bothered to change out. I'll list all my assorted Fandoms That Were along the way if someone else dares to--it's always a little embarrassing in crowds of folks who aren't Into Fandom as a thing!--but the older megafandom touchstones I can use to sort of anchor myself are HP, then SGA, then MCU proper.
One of the things that was really fascinating for me a few years ago was getting into Sentinel fandom, which was about twenty years old at the time and had a huge body of fic that had been written anywhere from the mid-nineties to the mid-oughts. It was really interesting looking at how fandom aesthetics, for lack of a better term, had changed--both in the sense of the things fanwriters were doing that don't quite ring true today, the reality of queer culture around then, and of course the different things that fans were... put it this way, arguing about? Things like how much weight penetration gets, for example. It's one of those things where you wind up looking at two cross-sections of a genre twenty years apart, and it's really interesting to think about what has changed and why in the interim.
posted by sciatrix at 3:54 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
Very slowly.
And also I tend to pick up cowriterships that, uh, founder and get distracted and leave me with about 60k+ of words that just needs a little effort from someone to get out. Oops. I'm still very proud of them, though, and I'll be excited to eventually finish them and release them onto the Archive of Our Own like tiny little niche ducklings.
(Nebula. My heart.)
Guardians aside, I've been kind of on the lurkerdom outskirts of media fandom for.... uh... fuck, fifteen years, apparently! Jesus. I actually got the avatar I use pretty much everywhere on the old God Awful Fan Fiction boards somewhere c. 2007, when someone posted a whole bunch of random avatar clips to the boards for anyone to take and I picked up a little thumbnail of Escher's Cockatrice, which I've never bothered to change out. I'll list all my assorted Fandoms That Were along the way if someone else dares to--it's always a little embarrassing in crowds of folks who aren't Into Fandom as a thing!--but the older megafandom touchstones I can use to sort of anchor myself are HP, then SGA, then MCU proper.
One of the things that was really fascinating for me a few years ago was getting into Sentinel fandom, which was about twenty years old at the time and had a huge body of fic that had been written anywhere from the mid-nineties to the mid-oughts. It was really interesting looking at how fandom aesthetics, for lack of a better term, had changed--both in the sense of the things fanwriters were doing that don't quite ring true today, the reality of queer culture around then, and of course the different things that fans were... put it this way, arguing about? Things like how much weight penetration gets, for example. It's one of those things where you wind up looking at two cross-sections of a genre twenty years apart, and it's really interesting to think about what has changed and why in the interim.
posted by sciatrix at 3:54 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
Steven Brust - Wikipedia especially the Dragaera novels (then skip down to the Trivia section). The quiet booky fantasy guy in my high school clique that was the only one I saw at the library turned me on to Jhereg (Vlad Taltos) back in 1984-ish.... I've been reading that ever since. Lovely fantasy world, smart-assed human assassin among dragaereans, sorcery, witchcraft, zombies, floating castles in the sky, teleportation spells, an even smarter-ass telepathic little dragonishy familiar. The non-exactly Vlad Dragaera novels are good in their own right. And To Reign in Hell - Wikipedia was hilarious. Good fun.
Formula 1 racing. VROOOOOMMMM. Sumo. Guns in the technical way... thirty-aught-six bolt action 12" barrel about an inch around with a scope... 3 shots touching at 100 yards. I had a 7mm TCU which is a single shot breach-loading pistol that chambers a NATO 5.56 (aka 223 / M16) that has been necked out to 7mm and you had to make the rounds yourself. Lay on the ground, pull the hammer back, brace that against your leg, put shots through the same hole 100 yards away. That's actually quite fun. (only gun I have now is from my grandfather and is locked up in a case in a closet across the country... I do totally shoot the crap out of that whenever I go home for a visit).
Slight SWORD GUY, but blame that on Aikido. I have a 木剣 [ぼっけん] /(n) bokken/wooden sword/, I still practice, it sits in a corner in the hallway, if you break in and I get my hands on that you're probably hurting really really bad. (no actual swords around, it's just a nicely weighted hardwood, good curved stick that I could pop you upside the temple and drop you faster than you could blink if you weren't expecting that.)
Anime in general.... that's more lifetime love of cartoons with a mix of love of foreign films (there's still plenty of Rock and Rule, Heavy Metal, Wizards, Bakshi films etc in there that it's mostly the cartoon bit and the short-tight-beginning-middle-end that's really attracting my attention.) Saturday morning cartoons never ended!
posted by zengargoyle at 4:04 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
Formula 1 racing. VROOOOOMMMM. Sumo. Guns in the technical way... thirty-aught-six bolt action 12" barrel about an inch around with a scope... 3 shots touching at 100 yards. I had a 7mm TCU which is a single shot breach-loading pistol that chambers a NATO 5.56 (aka 223 / M16) that has been necked out to 7mm and you had to make the rounds yourself. Lay on the ground, pull the hammer back, brace that against your leg, put shots through the same hole 100 yards away. That's actually quite fun. (only gun I have now is from my grandfather and is locked up in a case in a closet across the country... I do totally shoot the crap out of that whenever I go home for a visit).
Slight SWORD GUY, but blame that on Aikido. I have a 木剣 [ぼっけん] /(n) bokken/wooden sword/, I still practice, it sits in a corner in the hallway, if you break in and I get my hands on that you're probably hurting really really bad. (no actual swords around, it's just a nicely weighted hardwood, good curved stick that I could pop you upside the temple and drop you faster than you could blink if you weren't expecting that.)
Anime in general.... that's more lifetime love of cartoons with a mix of love of foreign films (there's still plenty of Rock and Rule, Heavy Metal, Wizards, Bakshi films etc in there that it's mostly the cartoon bit and the short-tight-beginning-middle-end that's really attracting my attention.) Saturday morning cartoons never ended!
posted by zengargoyle at 4:04 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
My first fandom was through the Star Trek TNG Usenet group. I'm 'only' 35 now and the show ended in 1994, so I had to have been about 9, which seems crazy now. I got into X-Files in high school and discovered fanfic, which consumed untold hours of my teenager life. Nowadays I am only really into Game of Thrones, although I don't care about the fanfic, just reading the ASOIAF forums for theories and, of course, participating in Fanfare. I've posted a bunch of the GOT new episode posts because I'm always dying to discuss it the moment the episode ends and no one else is fast enough on the Books Included ones to appease me.
posted by gatorae at 4:12 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by gatorae at 4:12 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
I guess I'm sort of a fan of collecting data on what I'm a fan of to generate reports on what other people are also fans of. By coincidence, I started collecting data on the Archive of Our Own Fandoms pages just two weeks ago so that I could gauge what things may be newly popular or still going strong. I'm not sure I understand yet how best to report on it (it'd be pretty easy for renaming, etc., to mess up the data), but the preliminary results seem fun. Here's a picture of what fandoms at AoO have had > 25 new entries in the past two weeks, a number of old entries > the number of new entries, and yet a percentage change > 4%:
∆ %∆ Fandom Tag ---- ---- ---------- 1278 0.06 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia 568 0.1 Firefly 423 0.07 NCT (Band) 365 0.08 Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) 298 0.05 Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types 256 0.06 Critical Role (Web Series) 255 0.09 Sanders Sides (Web Series) 181 0.05 New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing 174 0.06 全职高手 - 蝴蝶蓝 | Quánzhí Gāoshǒu - Húdié Lán 148 0.17 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV) 114 0.3 NINE PERCENT (Band) 105 0.05 Figure Skating RPF 104 0.05 Black Panther (2018) 99 0.29 Oceans (Movies) 94 0.08 Bendy and the Ink Machine 91 0.06 Doctor Strange (2016) 90 0.09 Far Cry (Video Games) 85 0.18 Far Cry 5 83 0.08 Timeless (TV 2016) 75 0.07 Stray Kids (Band) 66 0.07 Deadpool (Movieverse) 65 0.05 Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series) 62 0.18 Splatoon 56 0.23 凹凸世界 | AOTU Shijie | AOTU World 52 0.11 Trollhunters (Cartoon) 52 0.08 The Arcana (Visual Novel) 49 0.07 Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli 49 0.06 Fire Emblem Heroes 48 0.08 Disney Duck Universe 46 0.06 Fate/Grand Order 45 0.3 Flight Rising 45 0.09 Love Simon (2018) 45 0.06 MacGyver (TV 2016) 43 0.14 BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! (Video Game) 43 0.07 13 Reasons Why (TV) 41 0.2 The Incredibles (2004) 38 0.11 DuckTales (Cartoon 2017) 38 0.06 Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel) 38 0.06 Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types 36 0.08 The Worst Witch (TV 2017) 36 0.07 The Worst Witch - All Media Types 34 0.23 Garrisons Gorillas 34 0.13 Granblue Fantasy (Video Game) 31 0.06 Call Me By Your Name (2017) 30 0.33 HiGH&LOW: the Story of S.W.O.R.D. (TV) 30 0.08 Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes 28 0.11 Eurovision Song Contest RPF 28 0.06 龍が如く | Ryuu ga Gotoku | Yakuza (Video Games) 27 0.11 Boruto: Naruto Next Generations 27 0.08 Humans (TV)posted by cpound at 4:14 PM on June 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
My very first fandom was actually with Terry Brooks. I joined his now defunct forum around the early 00s and hung out there for a solid 5-7 years before it started to fade out. Made lots of Internet friends and had cool random conversations with Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore, and even a rare back and forth with Robert Jordan. I'm still a fantasy book nerd at heart but I don't really interact with that crowd any longer. But, lots of fond memories from that period of my Internet life.
posted by Fizz at 4:15 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Fizz at 4:15 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
on the old God Awful Fan Fiction boards somewhere c. 2007
Ahhhhhh GAFF! I used to spend many many happy hours on there.
I was big into fanfic-type fandom in the early 2000s, when it was all LiveJournal and old GeoCities archives. (rest in power, geocities.com/Area51/). Mostly Babylon 5, Tolkien, Battlestar Galactica And Alias. I drifted away some years ago but I’ve always found it a great creative outlet/stress valve, so I’ve got back into it somewhat this year when in keen need of both. Got an AO3 account recently and everything. I’m really enjoying it.
posted by Catseye at 4:23 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ahhhhhh GAFF! I used to spend many many happy hours on there.
I was big into fanfic-type fandom in the early 2000s, when it was all LiveJournal and old GeoCities archives. (rest in power, geocities.com/Area51/). Mostly Babylon 5, Tolkien, Battlestar Galactica And Alias. I drifted away some years ago but I’ve always found it a great creative outlet/stress valve, so I’ve got back into it somewhat this year when in keen need of both. Got an AO3 account recently and everything. I’m really enjoying it.
posted by Catseye at 4:23 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have great enthusiasm for many things (most of them pretty typical for a nerd of my age) but the only time I Did Fandom was Doctor Who, from about 2007-2013. I wrote a looooot of fanfic. This was before I had my kid and I needed a hobby and it was a really great time. I saw myself out after the birth of my son + my serious dislike of the Eleventh Doctor (and my utter loathing of Steven Moffet and all of his works), but I have so much fondness looking back at the time I was in fandom.
My fic is all still out there. Most of it is on Teaspoon and LiveJournal, some of it is on AO3. I re-read it sometimes because let's face it--ever fic writer is just writing the shit they wish someone else would write, but if no one else is gonna, well....
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:25 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
My fic is all still out there. Most of it is on Teaspoon and LiveJournal, some of it is on AO3. I re-read it sometimes because let's face it--ever fic writer is just writing the shit they wish someone else would write, but if no one else is gonna, well....
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:25 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
(it'd be pretty easy for renaming, etc., to mess up the data)
The AO3 actually has a system of tag wranglers that sort where new tags should go and round variant tags up so that they can be searched under parent tags. For example, right now any new works tagged Incredibles 2 (2018) should show up under Incredibles (2004), which I believe the relevant wranglers have decided is the parent tag. Deadpool (Movieverse) is the more usual way of doing it, with a name for the relevant universe attached, but those fics will include anything tagged under Deadpool (2016) as well as Deadpool 2 (2018), but not something like Cable and Deadpool. (Cable and Deadpool) coexists with Deadpool (Comics) under Deadpool (All Media Types).
It's a little ad hoc, but it is very useful for searching for things and separating out specific universes for people writing in them. It's quite common for people who are writing in one version of a canon with influence from another to dual-tag them, for example. And it relies on massive amounts of volunteer effort to manually direct new and never-before-seen tags into either "misc/one-off" categories or into this nested system. I have a friend who does some wrangling on the side, and she's always got interesting stories about the tags she's seen. There's even a whole tumblr blog for the most amusing tags that pop up in the system!
posted by sciatrix at 4:27 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
The AO3 actually has a system of tag wranglers that sort where new tags should go and round variant tags up so that they can be searched under parent tags. For example, right now any new works tagged Incredibles 2 (2018) should show up under Incredibles (2004), which I believe the relevant wranglers have decided is the parent tag. Deadpool (Movieverse) is the more usual way of doing it, with a name for the relevant universe attached, but those fics will include anything tagged under Deadpool (2016) as well as Deadpool 2 (2018), but not something like Cable and Deadpool. (Cable and Deadpool) coexists with Deadpool (Comics) under Deadpool (All Media Types).
It's a little ad hoc, but it is very useful for searching for things and separating out specific universes for people writing in them. It's quite common for people who are writing in one version of a canon with influence from another to dual-tag them, for example. And it relies on massive amounts of volunteer effort to manually direct new and never-before-seen tags into either "misc/one-off" categories or into this nested system. I have a friend who does some wrangling on the side, and she's always got interesting stories about the tags she's seen. There's even a whole tumblr blog for the most amusing tags that pop up in the system!
posted by sciatrix at 4:27 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
The AO3 actually has a system of tag wranglers that sort where new tags should go and round variant tags up
That's helpful--thanks! I'd wondered in particular about Firefly, which seemed implausible as a top result, but it's easy to imagine a variant tag getting reclassified to bump that up. I try not to scrape more than a handful of pages for reports like this, so it is what it is, but I'm glad to have a guess about why it happens.
posted by cpound at 4:50 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
That's helpful--thanks! I'd wondered in particular about Firefly, which seemed implausible as a top result, but it's easy to imagine a variant tag getting reclassified to bump that up. I try not to scrape more than a handful of pages for reports like this, so it is what it is, but I'm glad to have a guess about why it happens.
posted by cpound at 4:50 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm not really into fandom per se, but I have a lot of wide interests for sure!
The biggest things I love currently would probably be:
Indian cooking
Tennis (watching not playing)
Bread stuff
Nature documentaries
Running
When I was a teen I got really into Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories. I have probably a couple of hundred on my bookshelf, and I read everything I could get my hands on. I've probably read more of them than anyone else in Australia, I'd say. Such a weird thing to be into.
I love finding out when people are really into something; their love makes a thing fascinating, I find.
(Alensin, word up to a fellow Dunnet fan! Question: Lymond or Niccolo for you? I think Niccolo scales higher heights, but the ending was a bit of a letdown for me. I have a signed copy of Niccolo rising, and gave my mum a signed copy of Game of Kings. Amazing books).
posted by smoke at 4:53 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
The biggest things I love currently would probably be:
Indian cooking
Tennis (watching not playing)
Bread stuff
Nature documentaries
Running
When I was a teen I got really into Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories. I have probably a couple of hundred on my bookshelf, and I read everything I could get my hands on. I've probably read more of them than anyone else in Australia, I'd say. Such a weird thing to be into.
I love finding out when people are really into something; their love makes a thing fascinating, I find.
(Alensin, word up to a fellow Dunnet fan! Question: Lymond or Niccolo for you? I think Niccolo scales higher heights, but the ending was a bit of a letdown for me. I have a signed copy of Niccolo rising, and gave my mum a signed copy of Game of Kings. Amazing books).
posted by smoke at 4:53 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
A quick glance at Firefly told me it's actually a different but related phenomenon on the AO3: there's a specific and very prolific user who had written quite a bit in Firefly fandom who has been porting her entire oeuvre to the AO3 in the last few weeks.
The AO3 often will take on hosting of existing smaller archives if the current hosts don't wish to pay for server space or manage the archive anymore, usually with notifications going out to all authors about the planned migration as much as is possible. I'd figured something like that might have happened with an old Firefly archive, but the single-user uploading an entire backlog of fic from a long time ago will also skew these numbers.
sorry I really love things like this and I'm having quite a bit of fun with this list, stop me if I get obnoxious
posted by sciatrix at 5:01 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
The AO3 often will take on hosting of existing smaller archives if the current hosts don't wish to pay for server space or manage the archive anymore, usually with notifications going out to all authors about the planned migration as much as is possible. I'd figured something like that might have happened with an old Firefly archive, but the single-user uploading an entire backlog of fic from a long time ago will also skew these numbers.
sorry I really love things like this and I'm having quite a bit of fun with this list, stop me if I get obnoxious
posted by sciatrix at 5:01 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
I am cheering for Mexico too, Eyebrows! I am in Mexico right now, and it's hard not to be drawn in by the enthusiasm of the fans, even though I have no interest in football normally at all. They've been showing the games on a huge screen out the front of the hotel where my conference is, and the crowd has a LOT of energy. After the last game (even though it was a loss - the win by Korea meant they still moved on to the next round) there was a giant street party right through to midnight. I swear some of the people there had been there since the drums and music had started at 5am (according to colleagues who were staying at that hotel).
posted by lollusc at 6:18 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by lollusc at 6:18 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Thanks to Soren Lorenson above for introducing the notion of using this thread to share "enthusiasms" in lieu of fandoms! I have many, some of which others inform me may cross over into obsessions, most notably my interest in:
Castor Canadensis-- the magnificent North American beaver-- and, to a lesser extent, Castor Fiber (its European counterpart) and other aquatic rodents, although I also have a soft spot for Capybaras. I own numerous books about beavers, curate a large collection of beaverabilia and can go on at great length about beaver behavior, anatomy, reproduction and family structure, use of tools, impact on the environment, impact on the economies of various countries, near extinction and rescue, use as a mascot for a wide range of entities, role in popular culture, appropriation by vulgarians, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Making Ice Cream-- I like inventing new combinations and perfecting recipes through repetition and refinement.
Pouring Acrylic Paintings-- It's very relaxing, the results can be beautiful, and they're always interesting marriage of intent, technique and chance.
Designing new products--my side hustle-- which I then have manufactured and sell via mostly on-line channels.
Mostly I guess my enthusiasms are solitary pursuits, although there are communities built around each of my interests (yes, including beavers). Lately I've been getting interested in small motorboats, which has brought me closer to my brother. Enthusiasms that have faded away over time include other food production hobbies (bread baking, pasta making, hand-tossing pizza dough, perfecting cheesecake, etc.), weightlifting, and playing the bassoon, among others.
posted by carmicha at 6:18 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
Mostly I guess my enthusiasms are solitary pursuits, although there are communities built around each of my interests (yes, including beavers). Lately I've been getting interested in small motorboats, which has brought me closer to my brother. Enthusiasms that have faded away over time include other food production hobbies (bread baking, pasta making, hand-tossing pizza dough, perfecting cheesecake, etc.), weightlifting, and playing the bassoon, among others.
posted by carmicha at 6:18 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
I have many interests, but not really any fandoms in the modern sense. I was born the same year as Star Trek, on Thoreau’s birthday, and both those were powerful influences on little me.
I guess I’m a fan of wild animals, since I’ve spent countless hours rehabilitating them for release.
I have lots of fav writers, including some mentioned above. No fanfic though; I have too many worlds in my own head that need attention. Got to write a couple of novels with one of my longtime favs, which was amazing. TV: Star Tek of course. Tom Baker was my doctor, but I’m enthusiastic about the others. The only cosplay I’ve done is 10th Doctor era Sarah Jane Smith, to accompany my son’s 10th Doc cosplay. Might do an Adventure Zone (podcast) cosplay at some point.
I enjoy video games, especially older Sims games, Zelda franchise, Rune Factory series, and Animal Crossing. I maintain that Rune Factory is much better than Stardew Valley. Especially #4. Fantasy Life for 3DS was also very fun. Monument Valley is beautiful and haunting.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 6:57 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I guess I’m a fan of wild animals, since I’ve spent countless hours rehabilitating them for release.
I have lots of fav writers, including some mentioned above. No fanfic though; I have too many worlds in my own head that need attention. Got to write a couple of novels with one of my longtime favs, which was amazing. TV: Star Tek of course. Tom Baker was my doctor, but I’m enthusiastic about the others. The only cosplay I’ve done is 10th Doctor era Sarah Jane Smith, to accompany my son’s 10th Doc cosplay. Might do an Adventure Zone (podcast) cosplay at some point.
I enjoy video games, especially older Sims games, Zelda franchise, Rune Factory series, and Animal Crossing. I maintain that Rune Factory is much better than Stardew Valley. Especially #4. Fantasy Life for 3DS was also very fun. Monument Valley is beautiful and haunting.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 6:57 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
Oh, and I’m a fan of pinball, but my username says that already. My family are better players than I am though.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 6:58 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 6:58 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
These days the only thing I remotely feel equal to doing is fanfic. I was in a few anime and game fandoms growing up. Since after LJ I've been very lost, but I tend to keep a wide berth of most fandom spaces anyway out of a sense of never having really managed to fit in properly.
The one I've talked about on Metafilter is Legend of Galactic Heroes, which I got into during high school. I didn't really have the words then and nor do I have the words now to really articulate just how much it meant to see a character like Yang co-star as a protagonist of a series. To see a soft-spoken, relatively uncharismatic, bookish, physically clumsy, and anxious person succeed in spite of everything meant a lot.
I don't think I did much of consequence in LoGH fandom though funnily enough, I've had one of my fanfics translated into Russian. The day I found that out I had no idea what to do with the information. So here you are.
posted by redrawturtle at 7:01 PM on June 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
The one I've talked about on Metafilter is Legend of Galactic Heroes, which I got into during high school. I didn't really have the words then and nor do I have the words now to really articulate just how much it meant to see a character like Yang co-star as a protagonist of a series. To see a soft-spoken, relatively uncharismatic, bookish, physically clumsy, and anxious person succeed in spite of everything meant a lot.
I don't think I did much of consequence in LoGH fandom though funnily enough, I've had one of my fanfics translated into Russian. The day I found that out I had no idea what to do with the information. So here you are.
posted by redrawturtle at 7:01 PM on June 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
In my defense it was really short and really fluffy and really plain so I was really very confused. By the time I found out about it it was too late to say anything about it. But it's an honor or something I'm getting nervous so I'll just end it here and discreetly edge my way out to the exit excuse me.
posted by redrawturtle at 7:19 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by redrawturtle at 7:19 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm too old to ever have related to fandom or fanfic but my pop-culture loves over the decades - in chronological order - have been:
- Monty Python
- SNL
- Roald Dahl especially his short stories for "adults"
- Bob Geldof/The Boomtown Rats
- Adrian Mole
- Hothead Paisan
- Isabel Allende
- Nabokov
- William Gibson
- Neal Stephenson
- Ani DiFranco
- Morphine
- Metafilter (I would cosplay the hell out of MeFi)
- zombie movies
- the Saw movies
- Squirrel Nut Zippers
- South Park
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force
- Dexter
- Scrubs
I've had to come to terms with how misogynist a lot of this is... much of it has lost a chunk of its appeal.
posted by bendy at 7:19 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
- Monty Python
- SNL
- Roald Dahl especially his short stories for "adults"
- Bob Geldof/The Boomtown Rats
- Adrian Mole
- Hothead Paisan
- Isabel Allende
- Nabokov
- William Gibson
- Neal Stephenson
- Ani DiFranco
- Morphine
- Metafilter (I would cosplay the hell out of MeFi)
- zombie movies
- the Saw movies
- Squirrel Nut Zippers
- South Park
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force
- Dexter
- Scrubs
I've had to come to terms with how misogynist a lot of this is... much of it has lost a chunk of its appeal.
posted by bendy at 7:19 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
As a naturally cynical and instinctively self-conscious person, I can't think of anything I can say I love without caveats. "This is actually good, if you allow for the fact. . . " is the way I talk about my fandom.
But, I can't deny being a fan of radio producer Joe Frank. I discovered his work as a teenager and was immediately fascinated. I spent years recording his radio programs: first on consumer audio tape, then on microphone inputs to a crappy desktop computer, than on digital audio recorders. (I was too young and too poor for the DAT and MiniDisc fan movements.) Once online file sharing existed, I collected all of his work. I spent hundreds of hours carefully cataloguing the details of his shows, both for my own benefit and in order to answer "name that show" questions on the Joe Frank email list. I learned perl in order to parse the hundreds of pages of text files I'd generated to build a website. (Almost certainly the only skill I possess which is less useful to my life today than knowing Morse code.) I've bought nearly all of his catalogue at least twice (piecemeal, then as part of a fundraiser), subscribed to his website since it existed, and spent an embarrassing amount of money buying plane tickets to see live shows. I've spent far more on being a fan of his work than I've spent on any car I've ever owned.
Still, even my extreme enthusiasm for Joe Frank isn't without caveats. He's the most talented radio artist who ever lived. He's one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. (That Phillip Roth died wealthy and Joe Frank had a GoFundMe campaign to pay for end of life hospital care is absolutely astonishing.) But, he was also a bit of a jerk. When I introduce women to his work, I tell them that half his programs have ugly, vaguely misogynistic content. I usually give them a list of programs to avoid. The fraction of his work that involves white voice actors pretending to be Indian or southern African Americans is tiny - easily less than 1% - but they stick out like a naked penis on the subway. Still, I'll fight you outside if you want to claim that Joe Frank didn't make the world a better place.
I can't think of any other media that I celebrate with as much enthusiasm. Some audio artists have come close and earned my admiration - Glynn Washington, Nate DiMeo, Chris Morris, Jean Shepherd when he isn't playing kazoo, This American Life when they can be bothered to do something interesting - but no one quite captures the magic of Joe Frank. He was a true one-in-a-generation genius.
posted by eotvos at 8:16 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
But, I can't deny being a fan of radio producer Joe Frank. I discovered his work as a teenager and was immediately fascinated. I spent years recording his radio programs: first on consumer audio tape, then on microphone inputs to a crappy desktop computer, than on digital audio recorders. (I was too young and too poor for the DAT and MiniDisc fan movements.) Once online file sharing existed, I collected all of his work. I spent hundreds of hours carefully cataloguing the details of his shows, both for my own benefit and in order to answer "name that show" questions on the Joe Frank email list. I learned perl in order to parse the hundreds of pages of text files I'd generated to build a website. (Almost certainly the only skill I possess which is less useful to my life today than knowing Morse code.) I've bought nearly all of his catalogue at least twice (piecemeal, then as part of a fundraiser), subscribed to his website since it existed, and spent an embarrassing amount of money buying plane tickets to see live shows. I've spent far more on being a fan of his work than I've spent on any car I've ever owned.
Still, even my extreme enthusiasm for Joe Frank isn't without caveats. He's the most talented radio artist who ever lived. He's one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. (That Phillip Roth died wealthy and Joe Frank had a GoFundMe campaign to pay for end of life hospital care is absolutely astonishing.) But, he was also a bit of a jerk. When I introduce women to his work, I tell them that half his programs have ugly, vaguely misogynistic content. I usually give them a list of programs to avoid. The fraction of his work that involves white voice actors pretending to be Indian or southern African Americans is tiny - easily less than 1% - but they stick out like a naked penis on the subway. Still, I'll fight you outside if you want to claim that Joe Frank didn't make the world a better place.
I can't think of any other media that I celebrate with as much enthusiasm. Some audio artists have come close and earned my admiration - Glynn Washington, Nate DiMeo, Chris Morris, Jean Shepherd when he isn't playing kazoo, This American Life when they can be bothered to do something interesting - but no one quite captures the magic of Joe Frank. He was a true one-in-a-generation genius.
posted by eotvos at 8:16 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
lol carmicha, Amazon.com: InstaMorph - Moldable Plastic - 12oz (White). Toss these little plastic pellets into a pot of hot water, watch them melt, play with it while going ouch, hot, ow.... until it cools and turns back into really hard plastic. I have no Idea why someone would prefer Sugaru or whatever except maybe for sticky??? Mess up with intamorph and to toss it back in to the hot water and start again.
The hatchback on my hatchback is made with a doorbell button from Home Depot, some instamorph and some epoxy along with a tea-tin that was sacrificed to provide metallic mechanical support. (Once upon a time on a trip I tried to open my hatchback and ripped that whole assembly off, drove home with parts dangling and then fixed that with epoxy and instamorph.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:51 PM on June 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
The hatchback on my hatchback is made with a doorbell button from Home Depot, some instamorph and some epoxy along with a tea-tin that was sacrificed to provide metallic mechanical support. (Once upon a time on a trip I tried to open my hatchback and ripped that whole assembly off, drove home with parts dangling and then fixed that with epoxy and instamorph.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:51 PM on June 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
I don't really have the attention span for fandom. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was the closest I came, but I never followed anything after the show ended. Very much appreciated the TWoP boards at the time for both that and "The West Wing."
posted by lazuli at 8:52 PM on June 30, 2018
posted by lazuli at 8:52 PM on June 30, 2018
Neil Young.
posted by chococat at 8:56 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by chococat at 8:56 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I just finished watching the Harry Potter films and they are not very good, but I am a crying mess over Snape and Dumbledore and Cedric and Sirius and whichever twin it was that died and Hedwig. Cursed Child changed the way I see some of the characters and I ended up liking them more (Ginny, Draco). So I guess today I’m into Harry Potter, but usually it’s Sherlock Holmes and other detectives who are good at detecting but not so good at life. I’m not “in fandom” because fandom went where I can’t follow (Facebook, tumblr) and I think of Fandom as its people, not as the source material. Crying alone over an owl while eating hummus is hardly a social activity.
posted by betweenthebars at 9:26 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 9:26 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
I have a real difficulty in identifying fandoms in myself, partly because I'm a strongly habit-led person, partly because of a reverse-gatekeeping concept where I can recognise the existence of differing levels of fandom yet have a hard time attributing one to myself and partly because thinking too hard about how my trains of thought are dictated by the whims of Product™ Manager™s makes me bitey. You can probably reduce those last two to vanity, let's be honest.
Thinking how to answer the question I was wondering about whether the duration or the depth (obscurity) or the all-consuming breadth or the shared social expression were what separated an ongoing, perhaps repetitive interest from an actual fandom qua fandom. It eventually clicked that the existence of a relationship to the subject matter was probably enough.
I'm comfortable claiming to be a fan of Doctor Who (old and nu), Formula One racing (20-ish years of) and David Bowie (across all his pursuits). Also, computer gaming (mostly single player and not usually the thing of the moment). I'm not an ubergeek or ultraknowledgeable or a megacollector or a shipsmith in any of those subjects, but those are definitely things I enjoy and return to constantly down the years, even if I'm content to revisit the more familiar and not always investigate the unseen. There are probably others. The Coen Brothers films are great even if I've only (re)watched half of them and not actively looked further (is that a fan?)
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:28 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Thinking how to answer the question I was wondering about whether the duration or the depth (obscurity) or the all-consuming breadth or the shared social expression were what separated an ongoing, perhaps repetitive interest from an actual fandom qua fandom. It eventually clicked that the existence of a relationship to the subject matter was probably enough.
I'm comfortable claiming to be a fan of Doctor Who (old and nu), Formula One racing (20-ish years of) and David Bowie (across all his pursuits). Also, computer gaming (mostly single player and not usually the thing of the moment). I'm not an ubergeek or ultraknowledgeable or a megacollector or a shipsmith in any of those subjects, but those are definitely things I enjoy and return to constantly down the years, even if I'm content to revisit the more familiar and not always investigate the unseen. There are probably others. The Coen Brothers films are great even if I've only (re)watched half of them and not actively looked further (is that a fan?)
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:28 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
So... many... things. But my most embarrassing is probably that I am a Drarry shipper. (Draco and Harry.) They are my OTP. I’ve read waaaaaaay too much fanfic of them. It’s mortifying.
posted by greermahoney at 10:09 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by greermahoney at 10:09 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
Anybody who's followed my comments lol like that's even a thing could probably guess I'm a huge fan of Hitchhiker's Guide, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and Monty Python.
Beyond that are LONG lists (including a number of women and men who only later made their way onto my radar that could easily turn this list into a novel); but for the sake of brevity I'll severely limit myself to a few top-top-tier influences:
Comedy (shading into personal outlook on life) - Robin Williams and George Carlin, with a sprinkling of Simpsons and Futurama.
Music - Bill Evans (piano), Jaco Pastorius (bass), John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, Pepper Adams, and Cannonball Adderly (sax), followed by a healthy dose of Steely Dan.
I know that's all terribly mainstream and shallow, but what can I say - I yam what I yam. Just be glad you don't have to deal with me in real life.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:27 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
Beyond that are LONG lists (including a number of women and men who only later made their way onto my radar that could easily turn this list into a novel); but for the sake of brevity I'll severely limit myself to a few top-top-tier influences:
Comedy (shading into personal outlook on life) - Robin Williams and George Carlin, with a sprinkling of Simpsons and Futurama.
Music - Bill Evans (piano), Jaco Pastorius (bass), John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, Pepper Adams, and Cannonball Adderly (sax), followed by a healthy dose of Steely Dan.
I know that's all terribly mainstream and shallow, but what can I say - I yam what I yam. Just be glad you don't have to deal with me in real life.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:27 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
Reading over my comment above - I should point out that by "ugly," I mean needlessly selfish and cruel, rather than dark and uncomfortable. I'm and big fan of dark and uncomfortable. And, if you ask why I only bother to point out misogynist media to women. . . I have no good excuse. Except that I don't often talk to men about anything I actually care about. . . which isn't a great excuse.
posted by eotvos at 10:38 PM on June 30, 2018
posted by eotvos at 10:38 PM on June 30, 2018
I have ankle deep interests in many things — soccer, gardening, mountaineering, how cars work, model trains — the only thing I have a passionate encyclopedic knowledge of, that has stayed with me over decades, is rock and roll. Like, hard banging drums and loud distorted guitar rock and roll. I myself am amazed that after decades that three to four instruments playing three to four different chords still gets me off so hard. Every time I think maybe it’s all been done, some new band comes along to restore my faith in the same simple recipe.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:55 PM on June 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:55 PM on June 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
In the last five or six years I have written a relatively small amount of fanfiction (mostly for obscure book canons) and read a ridiculous quantity of it. I really like the way the very best of it takes the structure you're familiar with (setting, character, plot, or all three) and brings out extraordinary depth that the original canon didn't or couldn't make visible (sometimes because the original creator wasn't that good, more often because the focus just happened to be elsewhere).
In sports, I guess my fandom would be Japanese baseball, more an aesthetic appreciation than a strictly statistical one. I find the rhythm of baseball, and the focus on one player at a time, very satisfying.
Otherwise, not sure if it's a fandom or a special-topic or what, but I am somewhat obsessed with diaries from Britain in/around World War II. I have, what, sixteen or seventeen different people's diaries? (in book form, not the originals), many though not all from Mass-Observation, and for some reason I find them intensely interesting and fulfilling to read.
posted by huimangm at 11:07 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
In sports, I guess my fandom would be Japanese baseball, more an aesthetic appreciation than a strictly statistical one. I find the rhythm of baseball, and the focus on one player at a time, very satisfying.
Otherwise, not sure if it's a fandom or a special-topic or what, but I am somewhat obsessed with diaries from Britain in/around World War II. I have, what, sixteen or seventeen different people's diaries? (in book form, not the originals), many though not all from Mass-Observation, and for some reason I find them intensely interesting and fulfilling to read.
posted by huimangm at 11:07 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
I am a big big big fan of Shirley Collins. It's not really a fandom in the sense of participating in clubs or anything (we could call ourselves Shirleyites!), but she's someone I adore musically, especially anything with Dolly Collins on organ.
More broadly, I guess my biggest fandom in general is country music. I grew up listening to country, and I love it. I'm a huge George Jones fan. I will buy any record of his on sight, if it's in decent shape (and not too expensive, since I'm cheap). Same goes for anything with Buck Owens and the Buckaroos. Ditto Red Simpson. Really, anything from Bakersfield.
Well, within reason, since country musicians put out about a million reissues and rerecordings and so on. Nobody needs a million Starday compilations. So... not every single record, but I make a point of getting as much as I can. I keep joking that I'll DJ anyone's country music night! Which is a joke, because no one wants a country music DJ set.
I'm sure there's a few others like that. There's a lot of different music that I'm really into and will get really excited about, but there are a few musicians I just cannot get enough of.
Also: cult and horror movies. Don't even get me started. I'm a sucker for any movie about a Satanic cult, or witchcraft, or any other spooky stuff. That's probably the most I've participated in fandom, since I worked at a couple cult video stores and have spent lots and lots of time talking about cult movies with people, going to screenings, and so on. I used to get Cinefantastique when I was kid. You get the idea.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 11:44 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
More broadly, I guess my biggest fandom in general is country music. I grew up listening to country, and I love it. I'm a huge George Jones fan. I will buy any record of his on sight, if it's in decent shape (and not too expensive, since I'm cheap). Same goes for anything with Buck Owens and the Buckaroos. Ditto Red Simpson. Really, anything from Bakersfield.
Well, within reason, since country musicians put out about a million reissues and rerecordings and so on. Nobody needs a million Starday compilations. So... not every single record, but I make a point of getting as much as I can. I keep joking that I'll DJ anyone's country music night! Which is a joke, because no one wants a country music DJ set.
I'm sure there's a few others like that. There's a lot of different music that I'm really into and will get really excited about, but there are a few musicians I just cannot get enough of.
Also: cult and horror movies. Don't even get me started. I'm a sucker for any movie about a Satanic cult, or witchcraft, or any other spooky stuff. That's probably the most I've participated in fandom, since I worked at a couple cult video stores and have spent lots and lots of time talking about cult movies with people, going to screenings, and so on. I used to get Cinefantastique when I was kid. You get the idea.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 11:44 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
Well ..I do write fanfic, it’s relaxing and keeps my writing brain sharp and hey what if Captain America got sent BACK In TIME AND KICKSTARTED A SOCIAL DEMOCRAT REVOLUTION IN THE uS (A completely no need context fun Black Widow fic found here) ( also incorperated Metafilter format into this Hannibal season one fic) (also my Archer spec script )
posted by The Whelk at 12:23 AM on July 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 12:23 AM on July 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
I don't participate much in fandoms, but I did post an Umineko video on Youtube that got a respectable number of views. I still think about getting a blog for Umineko stuff from time to time. I also want to get the piano pieces from the soundtrack, like Answer and Hane, under my belt.
If you call math a fandom, I recently found out that one of my geometry proofs was listed on a Chinese Quora-like site under the question "What's the most clever mathematical proof you've seen?", so that was pretty pleasant.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:52 AM on July 1, 2018 [8 favorites]
If you call math a fandom, I recently found out that one of my geometry proofs was listed on a Chinese Quora-like site under the question "What's the most clever mathematical proof you've seen?", so that was pretty pleasant.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:52 AM on July 1, 2018 [8 favorites]
Yay Formula One... that one goes a bit deeper. When I was in elementary/middle school my dad at one point (a. had a Datsun 240) and tried to build a racing go-kart track near my house. The city council wouldn't let them due to 'concerns' so he and his buddies moved the track to the other side of town across state lines. It wasn't quite a race track but rednecks.... middle school I could tear apart 3/5/10 hp go-kart/lawnmower engine and a few 250/500cc motorcycle engines no problem. Go-karts with 500cc motorcycle engines that you have to change gears on... totally fun. I could technically drive when I was way young. :)
Later in life I had a 1969 850 Fiat convertible. The stated max speed of that car was like 88mph or so. It had fat Pirelli tires, a racing suspension, a 4barrel highrise carb.... I passed 100mph in that. It stuck to the ground like glue. Those 30mph corner warning signs... meant FLOOR IT. That Italian roadster go-kart would do that. Fun times... and a lot of Fix It Again Tony. I don't think I've ever had a car that 'felt' as fast as that little roadster. Tearing up the road between Topeka and Lawrence Kansas.
posted by zengargoyle at 12:56 AM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Later in life I had a 1969 850 Fiat convertible. The stated max speed of that car was like 88mph or so. It had fat Pirelli tires, a racing suspension, a 4barrel highrise carb.... I passed 100mph in that. It stuck to the ground like glue. Those 30mph corner warning signs... meant FLOOR IT. That Italian roadster go-kart would do that. Fun times... and a lot of Fix It Again Tony. I don't think I've ever had a car that 'felt' as fast as that little roadster. Tearing up the road between Topeka and Lawrence Kansas.
posted by zengargoyle at 12:56 AM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
When I was a kid I was *obsessed* with Buckaroo Banzai. I even joined the fan club and got a Team Banzai button and stuff. Somewhere I still have pages and pages of the fan club stuff that I have thought about scanning and uploading somewhere. I remember they had several humorous possible explanations for the "Why is there a watermelon there?" question.
posted by cats are weird at 1:56 AM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by cats are weird at 1:56 AM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Thank you for the European time zone post even if I’m posting the next day!
These are enthusiasms rather than heavily participating in fandoms:
Lady Gaga
Janelle Monae
Childish Gambino
Nicki Minaj
The Marvel Universe
Epbot
The Bloggess
Autostraddle
Fat Mascara
Full Coverage
Beauty News
Arna Alayne
posted by ellieBOA at 1:59 AM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
These are enthusiasms rather than heavily participating in fandoms:
Lady Gaga
Janelle Monae
Childish Gambino
Nicki Minaj
The Marvel Universe
Epbot
The Bloggess
Autostraddle
Fat Mascara
Full Coverage
Beauty News
Arna Alayne
posted by ellieBOA at 1:59 AM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
I am so loving the love. I think the only thing I'm an active, emotionally engaged fan of these days is MetaFilter.
Also: The only music I heard growing up was on the radio when the family was driving somewhere. So I grew up listing to Country and Western music in California's Central Valley. As an adult, I know almost nothing about pop music, which makes me sad. A post from Vesihiisi made me realise that I could actually learn about music if I wanted to. Stonkle's comment reminded me that I am intimidated by pop music because there are so many flavours, so much to learn (twee? shoe gaze?). I don't even know where to begin. Where would I begin?
posted by Bella Donna at 3:08 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also: The only music I heard growing up was on the radio when the family was driving somewhere. So I grew up listing to Country and Western music in California's Central Valley. As an adult, I know almost nothing about pop music, which makes me sad. A post from Vesihiisi made me realise that I could actually learn about music if I wanted to. Stonkle's comment reminded me that I am intimidated by pop music because there are so many flavours, so much to learn (twee? shoe gaze?). I don't even know where to begin. Where would I begin?
posted by Bella Donna at 3:08 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
It is 5:15am on a Sunday morning and I have been up all night to watch a concert streaming from Osaka that started at 4am my time because of Yuri on Ice. It has been everything I hoped and dreamed and I am so, so going to regret it tomorrow. Today. Tomorrow. Whatever. I'm in a Rabbit room with nine other people and I think I only even know like four of them and it is just the most amazing thing to see everybody else also melting down over, like, the background music from the short program of one of the least-seen skaters in the show.
But it was so good. Is still so good. I am downright punchy with lack of sleep and I've still got over an hour to go.
posted by Sequence at 3:20 AM on July 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
But it was so good. Is still so good. I am downright punchy with lack of sleep and I've still got over an hour to go.
posted by Sequence at 3:20 AM on July 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
I am really enjoying this peek into folk’s passions, and find myself wishing I could explore All the Things.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 3:54 AM on July 1, 2018
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 3:54 AM on July 1, 2018
Jurassic Park
I reread the books and rewatched all the movies prior to seeing Fallen Kingdom last weekend. I'll be seeing it again this week (even though it's worse than JP3, and JP3 had a talking raptor fever dream).
posted by phunniemee at 5:40 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I reread the books and rewatched all the movies prior to seeing Fallen Kingdom last weekend. I'll be seeing it again this week (even though it's worse than JP3, and JP3 had a talking raptor fever dream).
posted by phunniemee at 5:40 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't know if this counts as fandom but I've been obsessed with large format photography lately and am trying to buy an old press camera like this Crown Graphic or this Busch Pressman. They weren't designed or marketed for art photography but were meant for news photographers so they don't have all the features that a "real" field camera has but they're very light-weight and pretty much indestructible and I just love the pictures that I've taken with the ones that I've borrowed from school. I love the mid-century diesel-punk look of them. They look like they were designed for the movie Brazil and not something that exists in real-life.
Oh, for reference, large format photography means shooting on individual sheet film that typically comes in sizes of 4x5 or 8x10 inches. It's not a cheap hobby as a 25-count box of Ilford HP5+ 4x5 will run you about $40, meaning that each shot will cost you $1.50 each even before you develop and print it.
posted by octothorpe at 6:11 AM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Oh, for reference, large format photography means shooting on individual sheet film that typically comes in sizes of 4x5 or 8x10 inches. It's not a cheap hobby as a 25-count box of Ilford HP5+ 4x5 will run you about $40, meaning that each shot will cost you $1.50 each even before you develop and print it.
posted by octothorpe at 6:11 AM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
LUGE. I am a luge superfan. This is only ~ 1.5 years old, but I'm looking forward to the new sliding season starting on a non-Olympic year, so I figure it's going to stick.
(small soapbox: I know a lot of you are donating for very very good causes to help fix the shiz that the US administration is putting on us. If you have an Olympic sport you enjoy, especially one of the lesser-known ones, consider donating to their organization. They are generally not working with a lot of money.)
posted by Fig at 6:17 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
(small soapbox: I know a lot of you are donating for very very good causes to help fix the shiz that the US administration is putting on us. If you have an Olympic sport you enjoy, especially one of the lesser-known ones, consider donating to their organization. They are generally not working with a lot of money.)
posted by Fig at 6:17 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
When I was in middle school, I spent hours in the AOL Chatroom for Lord of the Rings, role playing as an elf alongside many other nerdy middle school students. I'm sure some of you were there - if you ever bumped into an Arithiliel in a roadside tavern, that was probably me!
Now I'm old and grumpy and my enthusiasms are mostly ballet and monkeys.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:48 AM on July 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
Now I'm old and grumpy and my enthusiasms are mostly ballet and monkeys.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:48 AM on July 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
Knitting is my enthusiasm. It has everything I love: math, animals, self-sufficiency, its own online social network with a robust database with awesome search capabilities, soft and beautiful pretties in every color you can imagine.... Yeah, knitting is definitely mine.
posted by sockermom at 7:10 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by sockermom at 7:10 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh; as may have been a little obvious over time, I'm also to rural English fetes and events what Fizz is to video games. Just this afternoon there was - luckily close by - afternoon tea in a church to celebrate someone being ordained earlier in the day (and yet another opportunity for the trendy vicar to take selfies). This resulted in some nice speeches and gifts, strawberry scones, some nice cake, and some more cake.
Unfortunately, because of logistics this has left me with a - somewhat self-inflicted - dilemma, but as it's an issue that is close to the hearts (more accurate: stomachs) and experiences of MeFites, have put it on AskMeFi.
posted by Wordshore at 9:03 AM on July 1, 2018 [8 favorites]
Unfortunately, because of logistics this has left me with a - somewhat self-inflicted - dilemma, but as it's an issue that is close to the hearts (more accurate: stomachs) and experiences of MeFites, have put it on AskMeFi.
posted by Wordshore at 9:03 AM on July 1, 2018 [8 favorites]
I was deep into fandom on the proto-Internet around the turn the century (are we still in the turn of the century? Can I say that yet to mean the 2000s?), when I was a teen and in my early twenties. I just posted a comment recently in the filk thread about the deepest I ever got into a fandom.
MegaTokyo was really the only time I ever got so deep into a fandom I regularly discussed it online in a specific place, but I fanned pretty hard about Harry Potter, and the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tenchi Muyo, and Sailor Moon when I was a teen, and read a lot of fanfic about all of those. I also read a lesser amount of Ranma 1/2 fanfic. I even wrote a little Sailor Moon, Tenchi, and Eva fic, though little of worth, and approximately half were entirely in service of jokes that were probably only funny to me.
My favorite two fics of all time are Sailor Moon Z and Children of an Elder God, which was a weird way to be introduced to Lovecraft. Neither fic is Shakespeare, but if you're familiar with the shows in question, I feel like they nail the characters and each fic's respective premise, and are fun and easy to read. I honestly like CoaEG more than actual NEG, these days. It works better than Anno's haphazard melange of contextless Christian imagery and unclear metaphysics. (I'm reserving judgement on the new movies until the last one finally comes out, if it ever does. Classic Gainax.) They held up well enough the last time I read them.
I've never really let myself get that deep into an online fandom after my experiences in the Megatoyko fandom, and Metafilter is the only real other online community I've gotten deep into, though I lurk a lot reading old school D&D gaming blogs, many of which I'm a fan of. D&D and other tabletop RPGs are what have the deepest hooks in my brain these days, though I don't even play that much. I've been fanning pretty hard about Bungie's Destiny universe and series of video games, which are a really strange example of fascinating, really cool world building and hyper-solid shooter mechanics are paired with an almost perplexing incompetence when it comes to their actual storytelling using said world and game mechanics. I don't really fuck with end game stuff because I can't stand any more online gaming interactions than silently playing strikes set up by their matchmaking system, so I can't raid or anything. Instead I've been goofing around trying to make 5e Dungeons and Dragons stats for a Destiny tabletop campaign, though I also have a long term writing project that I think I'm ready to buckle down on again for a while so the Destiny tabletop stuff is probably going to be sidelined until the new expansion comes out in September.
Speaking of that expansion, the story trailer for Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion (a spoiler, I guess, sort of, if you don't know much about Destiny, but like they made it their trailer so whatever) featured a song by my favorite band, Murder by Death (who I've unfortunately failed to make an FPP on before their recent Kickstarter ended), so that was a neat confluence of things I like. It's not my favorite song of theirs, but it's perfect for that trailer. I want to put together an FPP guide to their music, but it's gonna be a big undertaking, and I'm writing and job hunting right now, so I don't know when I'll get that posted.
I've also actually been fandoming harder about Legend of Zelda than I have anything in a long while, because my wife is a big fan and we've been playing lots of Breath of the Wild and Hyrule Warriors on the Switch over the past six months, which is a lot of fun, and she's been reading Zelda fanfic and sent a few of the better ones my way. Breath of the Wild was structured perfectly for inspiring fanfic, at least if you like Link/Zelda romance.
I listen to a lot of MaximumFun podcasts, particularly McElroy based ones, though work's been unsuited to podcasts lately so I'm kinda behind on everything. I think I first heard about MaxFun through MeFi years ago, around when I first signed up for MeFi. I mostly lurk these days, my job for the past seven years doesn't really give me a lot of time to get on MeFi except on my phone on 15 minute breaks or half hour lunches, and at home I try to spend more time with my wife or with creative projects than the Internet.
posted by Caduceus at 9:23 AM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
MegaTokyo was really the only time I ever got so deep into a fandom I regularly discussed it online in a specific place, but I fanned pretty hard about Harry Potter, and the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tenchi Muyo, and Sailor Moon when I was a teen, and read a lot of fanfic about all of those. I also read a lesser amount of Ranma 1/2 fanfic. I even wrote a little Sailor Moon, Tenchi, and Eva fic, though little of worth, and approximately half were entirely in service of jokes that were probably only funny to me.
My favorite two fics of all time are Sailor Moon Z and Children of an Elder God, which was a weird way to be introduced to Lovecraft. Neither fic is Shakespeare, but if you're familiar with the shows in question, I feel like they nail the characters and each fic's respective premise, and are fun and easy to read. I honestly like CoaEG more than actual NEG, these days. It works better than Anno's haphazard melange of contextless Christian imagery and unclear metaphysics. (I'm reserving judgement on the new movies until the last one finally comes out, if it ever does. Classic Gainax.) They held up well enough the last time I read them.
I've never really let myself get that deep into an online fandom after my experiences in the Megatoyko fandom, and Metafilter is the only real other online community I've gotten deep into, though I lurk a lot reading old school D&D gaming blogs, many of which I'm a fan of. D&D and other tabletop RPGs are what have the deepest hooks in my brain these days, though I don't even play that much. I've been fanning pretty hard about Bungie's Destiny universe and series of video games, which are a really strange example of fascinating, really cool world building and hyper-solid shooter mechanics are paired with an almost perplexing incompetence when it comes to their actual storytelling using said world and game mechanics. I don't really fuck with end game stuff because I can't stand any more online gaming interactions than silently playing strikes set up by their matchmaking system, so I can't raid or anything. Instead I've been goofing around trying to make 5e Dungeons and Dragons stats for a Destiny tabletop campaign, though I also have a long term writing project that I think I'm ready to buckle down on again for a while so the Destiny tabletop stuff is probably going to be sidelined until the new expansion comes out in September.
Speaking of that expansion, the story trailer for Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion (a spoiler, I guess, sort of, if you don't know much about Destiny, but like they made it their trailer so whatever) featured a song by my favorite band, Murder by Death (who I've unfortunately failed to make an FPP on before their recent Kickstarter ended), so that was a neat confluence of things I like. It's not my favorite song of theirs, but it's perfect for that trailer. I want to put together an FPP guide to their music, but it's gonna be a big undertaking, and I'm writing and job hunting right now, so I don't know when I'll get that posted.
I've also actually been fandoming harder about Legend of Zelda than I have anything in a long while, because my wife is a big fan and we've been playing lots of Breath of the Wild and Hyrule Warriors on the Switch over the past six months, which is a lot of fun, and she's been reading Zelda fanfic and sent a few of the better ones my way. Breath of the Wild was structured perfectly for inspiring fanfic, at least if you like Link/Zelda romance.
I listen to a lot of MaximumFun podcasts, particularly McElroy based ones, though work's been unsuited to podcasts lately so I'm kinda behind on everything. I think I first heard about MaxFun through MeFi years ago, around when I first signed up for MeFi. I mostly lurk these days, my job for the past seven years doesn't really give me a lot of time to get on MeFi except on my phone on 15 minute breaks or half hour lunches, and at home I try to spend more time with my wife or with creative projects than the Internet.
posted by Caduceus at 9:23 AM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Neil Young
I'm not a superfan but if you have just met me and the subject of music comes up, there is a 100% chance I will bring up the Neil Young video when he goes, here's a new song and then drops Heart of Gold on them and they have no idea what is coming. CAN YOU IMAGINE IT?! And they just kind of clap politely! But it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I've watched that video about 200 times.
And that's probably a great example of my fandom, because I'm definitely the "utterly obsessed" or don't care at all type, but it's fleeting: I'll follow something obsessively for about 4-6 weeks and then drop it for something else. So I'll totally be into, say, listening to South American cumbia and then chicha for a month, and that's alllllll I'll listen to, and then I'm onto reading/learning obsessively about wildfires, and then it's climbing 14ers in the moonlight to recite Rimbaud so I have to memorize a lot of Rimbaud, and then it's onto learning how to weave, and so on with whatever catches my curiosity. And out of all that obsession there will be specific moments or people or stories that really hit me in the gut or heart or head that I'll remember long after everything else has been forgotten/lost. Really, that's what I'm the biggest fan of: those moments or people. So I will remember and cry about a Soviet bloc runner because I went through a phase of reading about runners; wax enthusiastically about how the Portland vase affected the theory of evolution; and get really excited about a particular artifact from the Civil War, because that's what I carry away from those few weeks when I was the biggest fan in the world from whatever caught my interest for a few weeks or month.
I totally admire people who are fans of things long-term, and who can talk about how band A was recording in this studio in this year, or about the different kinds of stitching the Vikings had. That's so very cool! And there's definitely a few things in my life that I'm enthusiastic and passionate about full time, or keep returning to, but my interests just veer too much to be a long-term true fan of any one thing in that way. Even professionally my interests swerve from one thing to another within my field. It used to bother me a little bit and I wished I could be like that. But I'm totally okay with it now, because in the long run, my true fandom is curiosity, and learning about those moments/people have emerged as why I'm such a fan of curiosity even if I forget everything else surrounding them.
Except for food. I'm will always and forever be a true fan of eating. Not like, foodie, because I don't have that sophisticated of a palate and I also just don't have the patience, but wow do I really like to eat. My one true pairing is a wonderful meal, wonderful being 100% subjective in regards to place/circumstance/food/company, and me.
posted by barchan at 9:26 AM on July 1, 2018 [8 favorites]
I'm not a superfan but if you have just met me and the subject of music comes up, there is a 100% chance I will bring up the Neil Young video when he goes, here's a new song and then drops Heart of Gold on them and they have no idea what is coming. CAN YOU IMAGINE IT?! And they just kind of clap politely! But it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I've watched that video about 200 times.
And that's probably a great example of my fandom, because I'm definitely the "utterly obsessed" or don't care at all type, but it's fleeting: I'll follow something obsessively for about 4-6 weeks and then drop it for something else. So I'll totally be into, say, listening to South American cumbia and then chicha for a month, and that's alllllll I'll listen to, and then I'm onto reading/learning obsessively about wildfires, and then it's climbing 14ers in the moonlight to recite Rimbaud so I have to memorize a lot of Rimbaud, and then it's onto learning how to weave, and so on with whatever catches my curiosity. And out of all that obsession there will be specific moments or people or stories that really hit me in the gut or heart or head that I'll remember long after everything else has been forgotten/lost. Really, that's what I'm the biggest fan of: those moments or people. So I will remember and cry about a Soviet bloc runner because I went through a phase of reading about runners; wax enthusiastically about how the Portland vase affected the theory of evolution; and get really excited about a particular artifact from the Civil War, because that's what I carry away from those few weeks when I was the biggest fan in the world from whatever caught my interest for a few weeks or month.
I totally admire people who are fans of things long-term, and who can talk about how band A was recording in this studio in this year, or about the different kinds of stitching the Vikings had. That's so very cool! And there's definitely a few things in my life that I'm enthusiastic and passionate about full time, or keep returning to, but my interests just veer too much to be a long-term true fan of any one thing in that way. Even professionally my interests swerve from one thing to another within my field. It used to bother me a little bit and I wished I could be like that. But I'm totally okay with it now, because in the long run, my true fandom is curiosity, and learning about those moments/people have emerged as why I'm such a fan of curiosity even if I forget everything else surrounding them.
Except for food. I'm will always and forever be a true fan of eating. Not like, foodie, because I don't have that sophisticated of a palate and I also just don't have the patience, but wow do I really like to eat. My one true pairing is a wonderful meal, wonderful being 100% subjective in regards to place/circumstance/food/company, and me.
posted by barchan at 9:26 AM on July 1, 2018 [8 favorites]
my enthusiasms are mostly ballet and monkeys.
Never cross the streams!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:23 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Never cross the streams!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:23 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
:-( that picture makes me sad - that's a young chimpanzee and it's not smiling or acting cute, it's giving a fear grimace (they grin when they're upset, afraid, or submissive, and training methods to get young captive chimps to wear clothes and pose and grin are ... not kind).
posted by ChuraChura at 10:31 AM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 10:31 AM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Otherwise, not sure if it's a fandom or a special-topic or what, but I am somewhat obsessed with diaries from Britain in/around World War II. I have, what, sixteen or seventeen different people's diaries? (in book form, not the originals), many though not all from Mass-Observation, and for some reason I find them intensely interesting and fulfilling to read.
That’s a super cool thing to collect! I love historic diaries! They illuminate the ordinary aspects of life in ways that are hard to find in other sources, and since most of life is made up of those tedious or unimportant moments, they make for a great (if obviously subjective) window on past lives. There was a great post here a couple years ago about a diary from 1800ish, and I got really obsessed with transcribing it because it was just so interesting. So I definitely see the appeal, is what I’m saying.
Your comment inspired me to see if there are any published diaries from Victorian-era America, since that’s the time and place I did my studies in and is still my period of (historical) fandom.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 10:37 AM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
That’s a super cool thing to collect! I love historic diaries! They illuminate the ordinary aspects of life in ways that are hard to find in other sources, and since most of life is made up of those tedious or unimportant moments, they make for a great (if obviously subjective) window on past lives. There was a great post here a couple years ago about a diary from 1800ish, and I got really obsessed with transcribing it because it was just so interesting. So I definitely see the appeal, is what I’m saying.
Your comment inspired me to see if there are any published diaries from Victorian-era America, since that’s the time and place I did my studies in and is still my period of (historical) fandom.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 10:37 AM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
(but I appreciate the thought! I have gotten to teach ballet classes in the rainforest while studying primates! That was a fun way to cross streams)
posted by ChuraChura at 11:00 AM on July 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 11:00 AM on July 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
(sincere apologies; I was going for the dumb joke and didn't think about that picture's darker insinuations)
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:42 AM on July 1, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:42 AM on July 1, 2018 [5 favorites]
I have pretty much every note of music ever released or recorded as demos or rehearsals that escaped the studio/rehearsal room, and live shows recorded, by XTC as well as a couple of books, a decent stack of 45’s because the packaging was cool, & several 12” singles. I’ve got the Japanese vinyl replica CD reissues, and all the Steven Wilson re-mixes that he’s done so far. I know how to play about half of their catalog on the bass as a result of being the leader of an XTC tribute band for 5 years.
I follow Andy Partridge on Twitter & got all worked up when he replied to me a couple of times.
It’s kinda ridiculous, actually.
The only thing I can’t stand is their MTV-era videos.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:34 PM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
I follow Andy Partridge on Twitter & got all worked up when he replied to me a couple of times.
It’s kinda ridiculous, actually.
The only thing I can’t stand is their MTV-era videos.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:34 PM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Anime Expo is next week and the family is in preparation mode. The cosplay outfit I ordered for my daughter arrived on Friday - it fit and she's thrilled. Spouse is adding some features to his No-Face outfit, so we've made several trips to the craft store this weekend for supplies. One of my daughter's friends is going with us and hadn't decided what to cosplay, and after digging around in the closet, we found a cosplay outfit and matching wig for her.
Back in the day, I was a big fan of the X-Files, Buffy, and Veronica Mars, but no recent shows have grabbed me like they did.
posted by mogget at 5:57 PM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Back in the day, I was a big fan of the X-Files, Buffy, and Veronica Mars, but no recent shows have grabbed me like they did.
posted by mogget at 5:57 PM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Fuzzy headed and home with a cold, I went and read a bunch of Wordshore posts, and now I want cake. Also cheese, but mostly cake.
I could go get some but it's raining and I'm sick and lazy. I could bake one but see above re sick and lazy. And I wouldn't really be able to taste it properly anyway. But! It will be my birthday in the not too distant future (far too soon for my liking) so my cakelessness is thankfully only a temporary state.
posted by pianissimo at 6:39 PM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
I could go get some but it's raining and I'm sick and lazy. I could bake one but see above re sick and lazy. And I wouldn't really be able to taste it properly anyway. But! It will be my birthday in the not too distant future (far too soon for my liking) so my cakelessness is thankfully only a temporary state.
posted by pianissimo at 6:39 PM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
> Not a hardcore fan but I‘ve been on a Bob Dylan kick lately and listening to all of his albums in chronological order (currently I‘m in 1975), reading up on lyrics and watching documentaries about him and contemporaries..
posted by The Toad
If you haven’t yet, you should absolutely positively read Positively 4th Street by David Hadju. It’s a great overview of the Dylan/Baez/Fariña, et al group that was setting the village on its ear in the early days.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:59 PM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The Toad
If you haven’t yet, you should absolutely positively read Positively 4th Street by David Hadju. It’s a great overview of the Dylan/Baez/Fariña, et al group that was setting the village on its ear in the early days.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:59 PM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I will bring up the Neil Young video yt when he goes, here's a new song and then drops Heart of Gold on them and they have no idea what is coming. CAN YOU IMAGINE IT?! And they just kind of clap politely! But it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I've watched that video about 200 times.
That whole show is so good & so insanely well-recorded for its time. I’ve watched it a few times, & the first time I pretty much stared at the microphone pointing at his guitar in wonder. I can geek out about recording technique & gear... it’s not a fandom thing, but it’s definitely a rabbit hole obsession/avocation for me that I have only fractional time to pay proper attention to, sadly.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:30 PM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
That whole show is so good & so insanely well-recorded for its time. I’ve watched it a few times, & the first time I pretty much stared at the microphone pointing at his guitar in wonder. I can geek out about recording technique & gear... it’s not a fandom thing, but it’s definitely a rabbit hole obsession/avocation for me that I have only fractional time to pay proper attention to, sadly.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:30 PM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Fellow fans of Francis Crawford might like P.F. Chisholm's novels about Sir Richard Carey, starting with A Famine of Horses.
posted by clew at 7:44 PM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by clew at 7:44 PM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Devils Rancher, definitely don't describe myself as an XTC fan in that I've never dug into their stuff intentionally. I mainly knew "...Nigel" and (just about) "This Is Pop". However! There's that one great CD compilation of their early EPs which I lucked into decades ago, with "Dance With Me Germany" and "New Broom" and "We Kill The Beast" and "Steam Fist Futurist" and all the rest on it. Near push those songs onto everyone I have the least suspicion might enjoy!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 7:50 PM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 7:50 PM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
You’re thinking of Take Away/The Lure Of Savage — that’s all re-mixes of songs from the first 3 albums that Andy did on a whim. New Broom, for instance, is Making Plans For Nigel slowed way down & fucked around with/overdubbed on. I love that album too.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:30 PM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:30 PM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm a huge dilettante so I tend not to glom on to stuff in any way. I do have Strong Opinions about small aircraft, I guess, but that's also at least tangentially related to my profession so I don't feel like it counts.
One of my evergreen interests is recreational cycling. I spent a long time churning through folks' travelogues at Crazy Guy on a Bike and fantasizing about doing something similar. I have a deep and abiding love for touring bikes, tandems, and "transport bikes" that break away from the lycra-and-carbon-fiber stereotype.
So I rode 150 miles this past weekend on my touring bike to support a national MS charity. It was hot and miserable, my bike is heavy, and I am out of shape. It took me a long time to get from start to finish, but finish I did and I'm rather proud of that. I even biked to work this morning, although it took me about double the amount of time it normally does.
My favorite bit of the ride this past weekend was watching a team from Boston Pedicab haul one of those monstrosities all the way to Provincetown. They rode as a pack, and each person took a turn throwing their own bike in the back of the pedicab and pedaling it for a few miles. At the hills (and there were plenty of hills), the rest of the riders would stage themselves up the incline, and as the pedicab approached them they would jump off their own bikes, push the cab uphill for several hundred feet, and then the next person would take over and the first helper would run back down the hill to their own bike. They were all dressed like they just came from a punk show and I don't think I saw a single one of them break a sweat.
I ultimately beat the pedicab to the finish, but it was a nailbiter.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:25 AM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
One of my evergreen interests is recreational cycling. I spent a long time churning through folks' travelogues at Crazy Guy on a Bike and fantasizing about doing something similar. I have a deep and abiding love for touring bikes, tandems, and "transport bikes" that break away from the lycra-and-carbon-fiber stereotype.
So I rode 150 miles this past weekend on my touring bike to support a national MS charity. It was hot and miserable, my bike is heavy, and I am out of shape. It took me a long time to get from start to finish, but finish I did and I'm rather proud of that. I even biked to work this morning, although it took me about double the amount of time it normally does.
My favorite bit of the ride this past weekend was watching a team from Boston Pedicab haul one of those monstrosities all the way to Provincetown. They rode as a pack, and each person took a turn throwing their own bike in the back of the pedicab and pedaling it for a few miles. At the hills (and there were plenty of hills), the rest of the riders would stage themselves up the incline, and as the pedicab approached them they would jump off their own bikes, push the cab uphill for several hundred feet, and then the next person would take over and the first helper would run back down the hill to their own bike. They were all dressed like they just came from a punk show and I don't think I saw a single one of them break a sweat.
I ultimately beat the pedicab to the finish, but it was a nailbiter.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:25 AM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm old enough that my original fancrush was The Beatles, esp. John Lennon. In 8th grade, when Paula S. scoffed at the Beatles and told me the Monkees were cooler, I was loyal. and right. Lately, I have been listening to old Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan protest songs to deal with the Existential Dread that is banging on my door. I had a little book was given to me, and every page spells Liberty-y, All my sorrows, Lord, soon be over.
I love books by John Brunner, was collecting, then had a flood and lost the books of my favorite writers - Brunner, Colwin, Drabble, because the books were packed in alphabetical order (and stored in a basement that had never flooded before). Still a fan and will buy their books when I see them at used book stores.
I have a big Internet/intellectual crush on Robert Sapolsky. Smart, cute, funny, kind, le sigh. If I wrote fanfic, I'd put him on Serenity with the rest if the gang.
What a great metatalktail theme, loving so many comments. I'm a fan of many MeFites. Stay cool, Northern Hemisphereans.
posted by theora55 at 8:43 AM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I love books by John Brunner, was collecting, then had a flood and lost the books of my favorite writers - Brunner, Colwin, Drabble, because the books were packed in alphabetical order (and stored in a basement that had never flooded before). Still a fan and will buy their books when I see them at used book stores.
I have a big Internet/intellectual crush on Robert Sapolsky. Smart, cute, funny, kind, le sigh. If I wrote fanfic, I'd put him on Serenity with the rest if the gang.
What a great metatalktail theme, loving so many comments. I'm a fan of many MeFites. Stay cool, Northern Hemisphereans.
posted by theora55 at 8:43 AM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I am not particularly "in" fandom, but I have things that I adore and am a giant nerd about.
Yes! It is probably no surprise that a lot of mine are bookish things. For me the "fan" thing is that I know about the thing and then I know about knowing the thing. So like Richard Brautigan, Donald Barthelme, (the other) Jessamyn West are all authors where I've read all their books and a decent amount of critical stuff about them, understand the references, etc. The same sort of thing is true for US Public Libraries. Not like I've been to them all or follow like a zillion library blogs but I understand US public library culture, especially rural culture, from a perspective that is unusual and, I think, useful to other people who are not as deep in to that culture as your average library person. I'm pretty nerdy about modern SNL (since I started watching every episode and follow fan blogs and Fanfare on it, etc) and, of course, trivia but I feel like most people who are in to trivia at all are WAY into it and I'm not into it like that. A lot of times I am considered a fan by people with a passing interest but not a True Fan™ by people who are really into a thing, and that's fine with me.
CAN YOU IMAGINE IT?!
That was a joy, thanks barchan.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 12:35 PM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yes! It is probably no surprise that a lot of mine are bookish things. For me the "fan" thing is that I know about the thing and then I know about knowing the thing. So like Richard Brautigan, Donald Barthelme, (the other) Jessamyn West are all authors where I've read all their books and a decent amount of critical stuff about them, understand the references, etc. The same sort of thing is true for US Public Libraries. Not like I've been to them all or follow like a zillion library blogs but I understand US public library culture, especially rural culture, from a perspective that is unusual and, I think, useful to other people who are not as deep in to that culture as your average library person. I'm pretty nerdy about modern SNL (since I started watching every episode and follow fan blogs and Fanfare on it, etc) and, of course, trivia but I feel like most people who are in to trivia at all are WAY into it and I'm not into it like that. A lot of times I am considered a fan by people with a passing interest but not a True Fan™ by people who are really into a thing, and that's fine with me.
CAN YOU IMAGINE IT?!
That was a joy, thanks barchan.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 12:35 PM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
No major updates from me this week, I was on a self-forced vacation and generally anti-screen-viewing mission to chill the fuck out. My vacation was a generally a huge success. Pulled a couple of all good all night afterparties, slunk home at dawn, even danced myself properly clean and sweaty for the first time since I arrived in town.
Apparently I'm finally quitting vaping/nicotine. My battery broke yesterday, I got really mad and frustrated at it, realized I didn't really like being mad and frustrated about a stupid battery and addiction, decided to stop freaking out about it and mainly went back to bed.
I'm actually at work and about to hit 24/hrs without it. In the meantime I'm taking some overflavored minty e-cig juice and dripping a drop directly under my tongue, and it seems to be keeping me from turning into Godzilla and flattening the town, which is nice because I rather like it here.
So far it's way less traumatic than when I tried to quit smoking actual cigs, and that has a lot to do with the milder and less chemically altered delivery of vaping vs smoking cigarettes. Probably has a lot to do with me putting in my own hard work on self care and growth, too.
And even though the vaping/nicotine is mild to the point of being undetectable in my bloodwork, it's probably still not super great for my GA-HRT treatment ongoing, and may even be holding stuff back.
It's time. Let's do this.
posted by loquacious at 1:48 PM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Apparently I'm finally quitting vaping/nicotine. My battery broke yesterday, I got really mad and frustrated at it, realized I didn't really like being mad and frustrated about a stupid battery and addiction, decided to stop freaking out about it and mainly went back to bed.
I'm actually at work and about to hit 24/hrs without it. In the meantime I'm taking some overflavored minty e-cig juice and dripping a drop directly under my tongue, and it seems to be keeping me from turning into Godzilla and flattening the town, which is nice because I rather like it here.
So far it's way less traumatic than when I tried to quit smoking actual cigs, and that has a lot to do with the milder and less chemically altered delivery of vaping vs smoking cigarettes. Probably has a lot to do with me putting in my own hard work on self care and growth, too.
And even though the vaping/nicotine is mild to the point of being undetectable in my bloodwork, it's probably still not super great for my GA-HRT treatment ongoing, and may even be holding stuff back.
It's time. Let's do this.
posted by loquacious at 1:48 PM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I’m in my mid-fifties and I’m a big Nintendo fan, primarily because I love to watch my kids play. I play sometimes but I kinda suck at it, but I’ve always been a fan of watching other people play video games and I suspect I’m not alone considering, pro players are starting to get six and seven figure contracts and there are now whole platforms where huge audiences watch. Watching my kids playing together creates its own kind of family, especially when we’re rooting for each other instead of competing against each other.
“This level is pretty. I wonder why it’s so pretty.”
“Probably to give you a false sense of security.”
We’ve been playing together for years. It started with Minecraft, rolled our own with Scratch for a while, but for the last four or five years we’ve been all about Nintendo; the DS, Wii, and Switch to be precise. My kids are very nerdy. They first got hooked on Nintendo through their interest in Pokemon, and that brought them to the DS. I wasn’t a fan because we couldn’t all watch very easily, but they loved it. And they could even play each other, but what happened most often was my younger daughter would ask her older brother to help her. Sometimes, sibling rivalry prevented him, but every now and then he’d help her get past something she was stuck on. It was a gift and it made everyone happy when he did it. He’s doing it now, but not on the DS. He’s currently helping her with the Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion.
They are fascinated with the backstories. It’s how they first learned to doubt Wikipedia and look for an original source. Something from an official Nintendo account, that you could trust. They also have opinions on which rumor sites and YouTube channels to trust. It’s not really like learning about information literacy but it’s headed in the right direction.
“Ug, I just got nailed because I can’t dodge good.”
“Next time, try dodging well.”
We don’t do this often, at most once a week. It’s a good substitute for when it’s raining or snowing and the dog park is off the daily agenda. That’s our more typical daily ritual together.
So I really like the effect that watching one of us play has on our relationship. We’ve kind of fallen into roles. My daughter is the baseline regular player who we can all empathize with, my son is the professional, highly skilled player who leaves us in awe, and me the buffoon whose play we can all laugh at. Though when they play, I’m often helpful with advice on the puzzles and mazes.
“Did you know you can spin a mem cake by holding down ZL and tilting the right stick towards a direction and then letting go.”
*twang*
“It makes a rubber band sound.”
“Where did you learn about that?”
“Saw a video.”
“Easter egg or bug?”
“Who cares. It’s funny.”
And can I just say something about Splatoon specifically? I love that you can change your character’s gender at any time in the game. That’s not universally true of games. For a trans kid like my son, it’s really important. He actually came out to Splatoon before he came out to us, changing to a boy character a little over a year ago but only telling us in September. That meant so much to him. If he had to lose all his levels and experience just to play as he identified, that would have sucked, and it would have made a difficult process even more daunting. Not like change-his-mind daunting, just an unnecessary annoyance. But I suspect someone at Nintendo thought about it and made it happen. Even if they didn’t just do it for trans kids, that they let players a choice they could change at any point, seems to work on all kinds of levels of empathy. That’s another really big reason I’m a fan of Nintendo. I know video games aren’t supposed to be good for us, neither as a family or for them as adolescents, but it’s hard for me to look at how and when or even who we play as and to find fault with it. Color me team Nintendo, though maybe more of a Luigi than a Mario. The sidekick, watching them in awe.
posted by Stanczyk at 3:51 PM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
“This level is pretty. I wonder why it’s so pretty.”
“Probably to give you a false sense of security.”
We’ve been playing together for years. It started with Minecraft, rolled our own with Scratch for a while, but for the last four or five years we’ve been all about Nintendo; the DS, Wii, and Switch to be precise. My kids are very nerdy. They first got hooked on Nintendo through their interest in Pokemon, and that brought them to the DS. I wasn’t a fan because we couldn’t all watch very easily, but they loved it. And they could even play each other, but what happened most often was my younger daughter would ask her older brother to help her. Sometimes, sibling rivalry prevented him, but every now and then he’d help her get past something she was stuck on. It was a gift and it made everyone happy when he did it. He’s doing it now, but not on the DS. He’s currently helping her with the Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion.
They are fascinated with the backstories. It’s how they first learned to doubt Wikipedia and look for an original source. Something from an official Nintendo account, that you could trust. They also have opinions on which rumor sites and YouTube channels to trust. It’s not really like learning about information literacy but it’s headed in the right direction.
“Ug, I just got nailed because I can’t dodge good.”
“Next time, try dodging well.”
We don’t do this often, at most once a week. It’s a good substitute for when it’s raining or snowing and the dog park is off the daily agenda. That’s our more typical daily ritual together.
So I really like the effect that watching one of us play has on our relationship. We’ve kind of fallen into roles. My daughter is the baseline regular player who we can all empathize with, my son is the professional, highly skilled player who leaves us in awe, and me the buffoon whose play we can all laugh at. Though when they play, I’m often helpful with advice on the puzzles and mazes.
“Did you know you can spin a mem cake by holding down ZL and tilting the right stick towards a direction and then letting go.”
*twang*
“It makes a rubber band sound.”
“Where did you learn about that?”
“Saw a video.”
“Easter egg or bug?”
“Who cares. It’s funny.”
And can I just say something about Splatoon specifically? I love that you can change your character’s gender at any time in the game. That’s not universally true of games. For a trans kid like my son, it’s really important. He actually came out to Splatoon before he came out to us, changing to a boy character a little over a year ago but only telling us in September. That meant so much to him. If he had to lose all his levels and experience just to play as he identified, that would have sucked, and it would have made a difficult process even more daunting. Not like change-his-mind daunting, just an unnecessary annoyance. But I suspect someone at Nintendo thought about it and made it happen. Even if they didn’t just do it for trans kids, that they let players a choice they could change at any point, seems to work on all kinds of levels of empathy. That’s another really big reason I’m a fan of Nintendo. I know video games aren’t supposed to be good for us, neither as a family or for them as adolescents, but it’s hard for me to look at how and when or even who we play as and to find fault with it. Color me team Nintendo, though maybe more of a Luigi than a Mario. The sidekick, watching them in awe.
posted by Stanczyk at 3:51 PM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
Let's see... I don't really do media or written fandoms. I know lots of people who do, and I've been tangentially part of various SF/F fandom things over the years, but I've figured out in the last couple years that it's emphatically not my thing.
Hobbies and interests that go to mild overkill? Yep. I've got those.
Baking, absolutely. Exclusively pastry, haven't done bread in years and years. Continually perfecting my lemon curd tart. Cooking in general, but baking is more of a hobby for me.
Ice cream making, yep. Five different batches in the freezer right now, which is fitting since Cambridge is repulsively hot.
Fountain pens. Oh my, yes. I've used them pretty much exclusively since 2005. Mostly in the "is that a needle attached to a feed" size nibs, because my handwriting is tiny (as in, I use 5-to-the-inch grid paper, and do my lab notes single-spaced).
Large-scale printing, because Dr Bored for Science and I own a 24" printer, and it's basically a weird little hobby. Printing my photos, printing signs for friends who ask... and a lot of protest supplies, because it's my contribution to protesting, since I can't stand crowds.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 4:09 PM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Hobbies and interests that go to mild overkill? Yep. I've got those.
Baking, absolutely. Exclusively pastry, haven't done bread in years and years. Continually perfecting my lemon curd tart. Cooking in general, but baking is more of a hobby for me.
Ice cream making, yep. Five different batches in the freezer right now, which is fitting since Cambridge is repulsively hot.
Fountain pens. Oh my, yes. I've used them pretty much exclusively since 2005. Mostly in the "is that a needle attached to a feed" size nibs, because my handwriting is tiny (as in, I use 5-to-the-inch grid paper, and do my lab notes single-spaced).
Large-scale printing, because Dr Bored for Science and I own a 24" printer, and it's basically a weird little hobby. Printing my photos, printing signs for friends who ask... and a lot of protest supplies, because it's my contribution to protesting, since I can't stand crowds.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 4:09 PM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm bummed that I didn't check MetaTalk on Saturday, when I was lounging about/binge-watching Steven Universe.
My fannishness goes way back to the late 1970s, but I've been actively involved in fandom since about the late 1990s. I've posted fanfiction in X-Files, Buffy/Angel, Firefly, Farscape, Supernatural, Stargate SG-1, and Narnia. (Some of y'all have been kind enough to let me know you liked my stuff!)
because let's face it--ever fic writer is just writing the shit they wish someone else would write, but if no one else is gonna, well....
Oh, absolutely true. I have a fondness for epic apocalypses or logically-consistent alternate universes (the ones where someone turns right instead of left and the whole plot changes). And if nobody is writing that sort of thing in a fandom, I often find myself forced to do so. As a result I've got hundreds of thousands of words of the world ending in X-Files and Stargate, both of which lend themselves pretty easily to apocalypses anyway. And then there was the time I decided I really need to know why Mr. and Mrs. Badger had a sewing machine in their Narnian lodge...
I'm currently deeeep into Steven Universe, which is relatively unstressful and happy-making, but I feel no need to write in the fandom. I haven't posted any fiction in a couple of years now, and I worry that the drive is gone.
Other enthusiasms: mark me down as another of the Dunnettae. I read the Lymond books first (for several years I thought the series ended with Pawn in Frankincense, which was mildly traumatizing), and while I respect the Niccolo novels I find Niccolo himself pretty unlikeable. I do need to reread King Hereafter, though. Maybe on vacation this year...
And like many other folks here, I read a lot of SF/F in my free time. Current faves: Martha Wells, Kate Elliott, N. K. Jemisin, Rosemary Kirstein, and Robert Jackson Bennett.
posted by suelac at 4:24 PM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
My fannishness goes way back to the late 1970s, but I've been actively involved in fandom since about the late 1990s. I've posted fanfiction in X-Files, Buffy/Angel, Firefly, Farscape, Supernatural, Stargate SG-1, and Narnia. (Some of y'all have been kind enough to let me know you liked my stuff!)
because let's face it--ever fic writer is just writing the shit they wish someone else would write, but if no one else is gonna, well....
Oh, absolutely true. I have a fondness for epic apocalypses or logically-consistent alternate universes (the ones where someone turns right instead of left and the whole plot changes). And if nobody is writing that sort of thing in a fandom, I often find myself forced to do so. As a result I've got hundreds of thousands of words of the world ending in X-Files and Stargate, both of which lend themselves pretty easily to apocalypses anyway. And then there was the time I decided I really need to know why Mr. and Mrs. Badger had a sewing machine in their Narnian lodge...
I'm currently deeeep into Steven Universe, which is relatively unstressful and happy-making, but I feel no need to write in the fandom. I haven't posted any fiction in a couple of years now, and I worry that the drive is gone.
Other enthusiasms: mark me down as another of the Dunnettae. I read the Lymond books first (for several years I thought the series ended with Pawn in Frankincense, which was mildly traumatizing), and while I respect the Niccolo novels I find Niccolo himself pretty unlikeable. I do need to reread King Hereafter, though. Maybe on vacation this year...
And like many other folks here, I read a lot of SF/F in my free time. Current faves: Martha Wells, Kate Elliott, N. K. Jemisin, Rosemary Kirstein, and Robert Jackson Bennett.
posted by suelac at 4:24 PM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
Oh, and then there's the rock-climbing. Can't forget that; I've been climbing off and on for 30 years, although nowadays I'm a purely indoors top-roper. Keeps me limber and provides some weight-bearing exercise.
posted by suelac at 4:25 PM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by suelac at 4:25 PM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
You've probably noticed I'm fond of the Star Trek: TNG and the Disney. I do a lot of theater and choral music (two of my original compositions are being used in plays this summer, can you believe it). And I finally joined MeFi so I could answer a question with references to Dark Shadows and Forever Knight.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:50 PM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:50 PM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
Fandom is an intrinsic part of my life -- you know how as you get older and there are major shifts that happen as relationships, friends, schools change - well, culture/media has been something I've always depended on or looked to for inspiration, and so my fandoms are a big part of that. One of the reasons I learned html in the '90s was so I could create fan pages for my favorite things (on a service called Beverly Hills Internet... which became something called GeoPages and then GeoCities).
Sometimes I'll be in a conversation with someone and they mention something that I *really* love. And... I may not want to deal with the potential "and your favorite band sucks" thing or the "but it's just a TV show" thing. So, I don't engage. Every so often I'll see one of my Epic Fandoms represented here on MetaFilter, whether it be on the blue, or in Fanfare, and I want to say something, but... I don't. Or I do, but I try not to say "too much" if that makes sense, because it might be so personal to me that it almost feels like I'm giving away too much of myself.
Someday I'd like to do a timeline of the important/major fandoms for me across the years. I think at various points I've mentioned E.M. Forster and the Merchant/Ivory adaptations and Emma Thompson. For about 5-6 years, I had a fairly good streak of seeing Richard Buckner (singer/songwriter) perform whenever he passed through on tour, thanks to a good friend who went with me (RB is the only musician I've ever seen in person that many times). I'm also a big fan of Joyce DiDonato (classical singer/performer) and her video master classes are some of my favorite things ever, even though I'm not much of a singer myself -- I have never missed one if I can help it.
I could talk about a bunch of other fandoms! But because of a recent AskMe from Alensin (hi there Alensin), old-time radio is on my mind, and since I haven't talked much about it here before...
I fell in love with old movies when I was a kid, and OTR was a natural extension. (Unfortunately this was back when being a nerd was not cool, so that interest did not really help me win any friends in my age group.) I asked my parents for blank tapes so I could record shows from the radio (there were a number of local stations that aired old shows). I listened to my favorite ones over and over again. Mostly comedies: Jack Benny, followed by Burns & Allen, Our Miss Brooks, Stan Freberg, but I also liked dramas and detective/mystery shows. I transcribed (on a typewriter!) some of my favorite episodes and scenes. I borrowed all the books I could find about OTR from the library. Later, a reason I started learning Excel was to keep an inventory of my collection.
At the time I also wrote fan letters (literally handwriting them or using a typewriter, and sending them in the mail) -- not a whole lot, mostly to folks on current TV shows or sports teams. I got a few signed photos back; some form responses. One of the nicest replies was a handwritten letter from a local old-time radio host. We ended up continuing the communication, and that is how I ended up being invited onto a public radio show for the first (and only) time in my life. My parents drove me to the station. I became a member of an OTR organization for a while, volunteered for a bit. But yeah, it's safe to say I was definitely a lot younger than the rest of the membership.
One of the nerdiest moments of my life happened during that time: I was at my local library to attend an event for a student-run library publication (for which I'd written an article about OTR). In my arms, I carried an encyclopedia of old-time radio I had just checked out from the circulation desk. While waiting around, one of the older students (we were all teenagers at the time) asked to see it. He flipped through the pages, randomly put his finger down on a section and formulated a question to ask me about it on the spot. Without missing a beat, I gave him the correct answer! Super lucky coincidence. He and the others there was noticeably surprised and impressed. (Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised too. I don't recall offhand what the question was but I'm pretty sure he asked something like "Who played the character ___ in ___?" or "Who wrote the music to ____?" or some other behind-the-scenes question on a show I was familiar with.)
While OTR isn't as prevalent in my life now, I still listen to it fairly regularly, and occasionally see what's "new" on the Internet Archive or Youtube (I remember the days where people used to trade reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes over postal mail!). Unfortunately some stuff has not aged well, especially with the racism and sexism of the era, and there are certain shows I just can't bring myself to listen to anymore. But it's always delightful and gratifying whenever I see an AskMe or MeFi post about OTR and folks here respond in a positive way; it takes me right back to when I was that weird kid with that weird hobby, and it's as if the thread is reassuring that kid personally, "It's perfectly okay to like old radio shows. We do, too."
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 12:08 AM on July 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
Sometimes I'll be in a conversation with someone and they mention something that I *really* love. And... I may not want to deal with the potential "and your favorite band sucks" thing or the "but it's just a TV show" thing. So, I don't engage. Every so often I'll see one of my Epic Fandoms represented here on MetaFilter, whether it be on the blue, or in Fanfare, and I want to say something, but... I don't. Or I do, but I try not to say "too much" if that makes sense, because it might be so personal to me that it almost feels like I'm giving away too much of myself.
Someday I'd like to do a timeline of the important/major fandoms for me across the years. I think at various points I've mentioned E.M. Forster and the Merchant/Ivory adaptations and Emma Thompson. For about 5-6 years, I had a fairly good streak of seeing Richard Buckner (singer/songwriter) perform whenever he passed through on tour, thanks to a good friend who went with me (RB is the only musician I've ever seen in person that many times). I'm also a big fan of Joyce DiDonato (classical singer/performer) and her video master classes are some of my favorite things ever, even though I'm not much of a singer myself -- I have never missed one if I can help it.
I could talk about a bunch of other fandoms! But because of a recent AskMe from Alensin (hi there Alensin), old-time radio is on my mind, and since I haven't talked much about it here before...
I fell in love with old movies when I was a kid, and OTR was a natural extension. (Unfortunately this was back when being a nerd was not cool, so that interest did not really help me win any friends in my age group.) I asked my parents for blank tapes so I could record shows from the radio (there were a number of local stations that aired old shows). I listened to my favorite ones over and over again. Mostly comedies: Jack Benny, followed by Burns & Allen, Our Miss Brooks, Stan Freberg, but I also liked dramas and detective/mystery shows. I transcribed (on a typewriter!) some of my favorite episodes and scenes. I borrowed all the books I could find about OTR from the library. Later, a reason I started learning Excel was to keep an inventory of my collection.
At the time I also wrote fan letters (literally handwriting them or using a typewriter, and sending them in the mail) -- not a whole lot, mostly to folks on current TV shows or sports teams. I got a few signed photos back; some form responses. One of the nicest replies was a handwritten letter from a local old-time radio host. We ended up continuing the communication, and that is how I ended up being invited onto a public radio show for the first (and only) time in my life. My parents drove me to the station. I became a member of an OTR organization for a while, volunteered for a bit. But yeah, it's safe to say I was definitely a lot younger than the rest of the membership.
One of the nerdiest moments of my life happened during that time: I was at my local library to attend an event for a student-run library publication (for which I'd written an article about OTR). In my arms, I carried an encyclopedia of old-time radio I had just checked out from the circulation desk. While waiting around, one of the older students (we were all teenagers at the time) asked to see it. He flipped through the pages, randomly put his finger down on a section and formulated a question to ask me about it on the spot. Without missing a beat, I gave him the correct answer! Super lucky coincidence. He and the others there was noticeably surprised and impressed. (Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised too. I don't recall offhand what the question was but I'm pretty sure he asked something like "Who played the character ___ in ___?" or "Who wrote the music to ____?" or some other behind-the-scenes question on a show I was familiar with.)
While OTR isn't as prevalent in my life now, I still listen to it fairly regularly, and occasionally see what's "new" on the Internet Archive or Youtube (I remember the days where people used to trade reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes over postal mail!). Unfortunately some stuff has not aged well, especially with the racism and sexism of the era, and there are certain shows I just can't bring myself to listen to anymore. But it's always delightful and gratifying whenever I see an AskMe or MeFi post about OTR and folks here respond in a positive way; it takes me right back to when I was that weird kid with that weird hobby, and it's as if the thread is reassuring that kid personally, "It's perfectly okay to like old radio shows. We do, too."
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 12:08 AM on July 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
The ongoing heatwave means that tempers are frayed across Albion. People are arguing, animals are finding shade, and middle-aged bald male football supporters are topless and resembling giant, sweaty, lava lamps. And tourists are wondering why, especially in the rural parts of this green (yellowed) and pleasant (sweaty) land, air conditioning is the exception rather than the rule.
One set of neighbours here who unhappily co-habit (it's a stretch to describe them as a 'family unit') are arguing more than their regular frequency. Just now there was much shouting. He wanted to watch the football, she wanted to visit her mother. I know this as I have to keep one set of windows open; otherwise my office (I work from home) will quickly resemble a Finnish sauna at this time of the day.
After several minutes of this shouting, there was silence, followed by the loudest shout I've heard in a long time:
"YOU CAN KEEP THE BOY. I AM TAKING THE POTATOES."
Followed by the sounds of house doors and car doors being slammed, something being dragged outside, and a car being furiously driven off at, well, a furious speed.
I'm not sure what's what, and I'm not getting involved, or looking outside. I just hope the "boy" didn't get to hear that. Otherwise, a lifetime of aversion to chips, crisps, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes and similar lies ahead.
posted by Wordshore at 7:47 AM on July 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
One set of neighbours here who unhappily co-habit (it's a stretch to describe them as a 'family unit') are arguing more than their regular frequency. Just now there was much shouting. He wanted to watch the football, she wanted to visit her mother. I know this as I have to keep one set of windows open; otherwise my office (I work from home) will quickly resemble a Finnish sauna at this time of the day.
After several minutes of this shouting, there was silence, followed by the loudest shout I've heard in a long time:
"YOU CAN KEEP THE BOY. I AM TAKING THE POTATOES."
Followed by the sounds of house doors and car doors being slammed, something being dragged outside, and a car being furiously driven off at, well, a furious speed.
I'm not sure what's what, and I'm not getting involved, or looking outside. I just hope the "boy" didn't get to hear that. Otherwise, a lifetime of aversion to chips, crisps, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes and similar lies ahead.
posted by Wordshore at 7:47 AM on July 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
Hey! It's my Metatalktail question, which came in on a long weekend in Canada, so I didn't ever see it until this morning.
It's fun reading about all of your fandoms. I like a lot of things, but I haven't really felt like I was involved in a fandom since my Usenet days when I used to hang out on on the alt groups for Anne Rice, The West Wing and Law and Order. I have only ever written one fanfic, and it was a fanscript for The West Wing that I wrote when my writers' group assigned fanfic as our homework project for the month. Jack and Claire from L&O were my OTP.
I not-so-secretly think it would be fun to get into cosplay, because I think it fits with my makerish tendencies and seems fun, but so much of cosplay is about spandex and boobs and I am 40 years old and morbidly obese. Plus, there's no one cosplay-ey thing that I'm really a super huge fan of that I can imagine doing all that work on.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:28 AM on July 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
It's fun reading about all of your fandoms. I like a lot of things, but I haven't really felt like I was involved in a fandom since my Usenet days when I used to hang out on on the alt groups for Anne Rice, The West Wing and Law and Order. I have only ever written one fanfic, and it was a fanscript for The West Wing that I wrote when my writers' group assigned fanfic as our homework project for the month. Jack and Claire from L&O were my OTP.
I not-so-secretly think it would be fun to get into cosplay, because I think it fits with my makerish tendencies and seems fun, but so much of cosplay is about spandex and boobs and I am 40 years old and morbidly obese. Plus, there's no one cosplay-ey thing that I'm really a super huge fan of that I can imagine doing all that work on.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:28 AM on July 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Sometimes I'll be in a conversation with someone and they mention something that I *really* love. And... I may not want to deal with the potential "and your favorite band sucks" thing or the "but it's just a TV show" thing. So, I don't engage.
Ah yes, I know this feeling. I follow FanFare threads about some of the things I'm into but not really the things that were One True Fandoms for me at any point, because... well. And fanfic is a whole different way of engaging with and exploring the source material; nobody* needs to hear my eight paragraphs of worldbuilding speculation on how alien government processes work and what would happen if someone had done this instead of that at a crucial point.
*except AO3 of course.
posted by Catseye at 10:29 AM on July 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Ah yes, I know this feeling. I follow FanFare threads about some of the things I'm into but not really the things that were One True Fandoms for me at any point, because... well. And fanfic is a whole different way of engaging with and exploring the source material; nobody* needs to hear my eight paragraphs of worldbuilding speculation on how alien government processes work and what would happen if someone had done this instead of that at a crucial point.
*except AO3 of course.
posted by Catseye at 10:29 AM on July 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
You guys! I survived the work month of doom! It's over, and I didn't quit, get fired, or die of dehydration! Hoooray!
(The work month of doom is going to be a permanent feature of my job, though, and it's kind of pushing me to think about whether I want to stay in this job. I like most of my job, but it feels like it's getting worse in very concrete ways, and I suspect that's only going to continue.)
I'm not much of a joiner, so while I often get obsessed with pop culture things, it's mostly just in my own head. I kind of flirted with Firefly fandom for a while, mostly by doing some fan-related knitting. Knitting is another thing I am a little obsessive about, although there are definitely people who are more obsessive than I am.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:38 AM on July 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
(The work month of doom is going to be a permanent feature of my job, though, and it's kind of pushing me to think about whether I want to stay in this job. I like most of my job, but it feels like it's getting worse in very concrete ways, and I suspect that's only going to continue.)
I'm not much of a joiner, so while I often get obsessed with pop culture things, it's mostly just in my own head. I kind of flirted with Firefly fandom for a while, mostly by doing some fan-related knitting. Knitting is another thing I am a little obsessive about, although there are definitely people who are more obsessive than I am.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:38 AM on July 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
An emblem of the sad times in which we live:
I had a whole post written with links to a photo of my most successful cosplay and, god help us, my fan fiction (no shagging, but still). And then I thought "But if I ever get brigaded, this will make it easier for them to dox me." So I did not post.
But, you know, my Fourth Doctor outfit was pretty awesome.
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:11 PM on July 4, 2018 [5 favorites]
I had a whole post written with links to a photo of my most successful cosplay and, god help us, my fan fiction (no shagging, but still). And then I thought "But if I ever get brigaded, this will make it easier for them to dox me." So I did not post.
But, you know, my Fourth Doctor outfit was pretty awesome.
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:11 PM on July 4, 2018 [5 favorites]
I hate what the substance of your post points to, but I love your unseen Tom Baker cosplay on general principle, Pallas Athena. I need to knit more.
Someone said something upthread about how if someone mentions your particular fandom and how does one navigate that. Especially for one of the long-running/revived fandoms, are they going to be snobby and dismissive? Will they break out the gatekeeping? And if so where? Can I live with and maybe gloss over it? Should I? Or will they be insistent and beyond the pale about their take upon it?
I love when people see something fun or meaningful in Doctor Who. I love when I hear about other people's takes on stuff. Even if my gut screams they're wrong or inexact or self-indulgent... just like my takes are sometimes wrong or inexact or self-indulgent. If I had to pick my favourite scene in all the show old or new I'd go for the Labour Camps moment in Turn Left every single time. I was just reading the A-Millennial-samples-The-Simpsons article and thread and I can see how that "affecting to my generation" scene might/will/should stink to coming generations. "Ugh! So a pseudo-Holocaust only matters because it hurts the feelings of the White/English people. How prejudiced!"
Find us wrong, Future People! Fight the fight! Make us all better! Believe in everyone who deserves it and those who deserve the benefit of the doubt! I'll do my best not to stand in your way and to admit when I'm wrong. Bring me down if you have to.
Future People are my new fandom.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:23 PM on July 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
Someone said something upthread about how if someone mentions your particular fandom and how does one navigate that. Especially for one of the long-running/revived fandoms, are they going to be snobby and dismissive? Will they break out the gatekeeping? And if so where? Can I live with and maybe gloss over it? Should I? Or will they be insistent and beyond the pale about their take upon it?
I love when people see something fun or meaningful in Doctor Who. I love when I hear about other people's takes on stuff. Even if my gut screams they're wrong or inexact or self-indulgent... just like my takes are sometimes wrong or inexact or self-indulgent. If I had to pick my favourite scene in all the show old or new I'd go for the Labour Camps moment in Turn Left every single time. I was just reading the A-Millennial-samples-The-Simpsons article and thread and I can see how that "affecting to my generation" scene might/will/should stink to coming generations. "Ugh! So a pseudo-Holocaust only matters because it hurts the feelings of the White/English people. How prejudiced!"
Find us wrong, Future People! Fight the fight! Make us all better! Believe in everyone who deserves it and those who deserve the benefit of the doubt! I'll do my best not to stand in your way and to admit when I'm wrong. Bring me down if you have to.
Future People are my new fandom.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:23 PM on July 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
I’m not into fandom, and never have been, and am glad I’m not considering the toxicity of fandom over some of my favorite properties lately (looking at you, Star Wars). I’m also just not that compulsive of a follower of things.
However, I have a serious soft spot for Terry Moore’s comics, especially Strangers In Paradise. I haven’t sought out any fan sites or boards, so I don’t know if they exist. So I love Francine and Katchoo in my own lonely little world...
posted by lhauser at 7:57 PM on July 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
However, I have a serious soft spot for Terry Moore’s comics, especially Strangers In Paradise. I haven’t sought out any fan sites or boards, so I don’t know if they exist. So I love Francine and Katchoo in my own lonely little world...
posted by lhauser at 7:57 PM on July 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm a week late to this thread, but here I am ;)
I love music, as you can probably tell from my music posts, and I'm a fan of certain artists, bands and labels, as you could probably tell from my exhaustive music posts. My entry into music fandom was "electronica" (as it was generally called in the US in the mid 1990s), particularly Aphex Twin and Moby. Then I found Ninja Tune with Coldcut, Amon Tobin, Bonobo, and many more. Somewhere along the way, I transitioned from being a trance fan to loving most things drum'n'bass. I also like baroque music, though not with the same fervor.
In terms of more "typical" fandoms, thanks to the access and support provided by my college anime club, I cosplayed a few times at anime cons, but that was also the last time I spent (too) much money on anime models, books, soundtracks and other related items. Since then, most of my anime viewing has been thanks to MetaFilter and FanFare :)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:01 PM on July 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
I love music, as you can probably tell from my music posts, and I'm a fan of certain artists, bands and labels, as you could probably tell from my exhaustive music posts. My entry into music fandom was "electronica" (as it was generally called in the US in the mid 1990s), particularly Aphex Twin and Moby. Then I found Ninja Tune with Coldcut, Amon Tobin, Bonobo, and many more. Somewhere along the way, I transitioned from being a trance fan to loving most things drum'n'bass. I also like baroque music, though not with the same fervor.
In terms of more "typical" fandoms, thanks to the access and support provided by my college anime club, I cosplayed a few times at anime cons, but that was also the last time I spent (too) much money on anime models, books, soundtracks and other related items. Since then, most of my anime viewing has been thanks to MetaFilter and FanFare :)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:01 PM on July 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
Hello, I am arriving insanely late to the party because I'm trying to get back into writing fanfic and I figure telling people about it might help push me into actually doing it. I wrote fanfic as a young teenager without knowing that's what it was called because I wasn't in a fandom, it was just me and my friends and the tv show I loved. Later on via Livejournal I started writing for a few fandoms but never felt like I was actually in fandom as opposed to just watching it from the outside. And that's probably good because I never was involved in fandom wars and just got to partake.
My fic has been for Buffy, Leverage, the MCU, Constantine the movie, the Lord Peter Wimsey books, and a few random others mostly done for Yuletide, which I haven't participated in for a long time now. I don't usually write the megaships so I've happily stayed below the radar which is probably for the best - although every kudo is lovely. (A link to my A03 is in my profile, if anybody is interested.). I'd love to get into cosplay but as I've never been to a big con, don't sew, and don't know who I'd be, this thinks like something that will not happen.
Otherwise, I'm a giant Italophile. Everything else, I tend to be a jack of all trades, master of none.
posted by PussKillian at 1:35 PM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
My fic has been for Buffy, Leverage, the MCU, Constantine the movie, the Lord Peter Wimsey books, and a few random others mostly done for Yuletide, which I haven't participated in for a long time now. I don't usually write the megaships so I've happily stayed below the radar which is probably for the best - although every kudo is lovely. (A link to my A03 is in my profile, if anybody is interested.). I'd love to get into cosplay but as I've never been to a big con, don't sew, and don't know who I'd be, this thinks like something that will not happen.
Otherwise, I'm a giant Italophile. Everything else, I tend to be a jack of all trades, master of none.
posted by PussKillian at 1:35 PM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Don't think I've told this story on MeFi before...
Backstory: I'm a huge Radiohead fan, though I got into them pretty late -- summer 2012 (all thanks to AskMe for making me come across "Paranoid Android"). Did a big post on the 15th anniversary of OK Computer that went up just hours before the horrible stage collapse in Toronto... sad times. Followed up with an even deeper dive into Kid A/Amnesiac for its 15th along with their newest album the following year, then finally proved my fan bona fides by pouncing on general admission floor tickets to two back-to-back shows. Drove three hours to see the Atlanta show, then took the train down to New Orleans a couple days later. It took hours of queuing in the hot sun to get prime positions, but it was so worth it -- they even played my favorite song!
The pinnacle came shortly after that, though. In the run-up to the OKC 20th anniversary re-issue, some promotional material showing early versions of Stanley Donwood's iconic ghostly highway cover art piqued my interest, and I turned to an old-school "roadgeek" forum for help identifying the location (AskMe was my backup, I swear). A subject matter expert solved it within hours -- it's an interchange in Hartford, CT, just up the road from a Hilton the band booked in 1996 -- and the discovery made international news, from my hometown paper to a radio interview with WNPR to mentions in the pop music press -- even an official Twitter Moment! (Fell tragically short of becoming the topic of an FPP, though.)
It was a trip, and probably the single coolest pop cultural thing I've ever been part of.
posted by Rhaomi at 4:44 AM on July 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Backstory: I'm a huge Radiohead fan, though I got into them pretty late -- summer 2012 (all thanks to AskMe for making me come across "Paranoid Android"). Did a big post on the 15th anniversary of OK Computer that went up just hours before the horrible stage collapse in Toronto... sad times. Followed up with an even deeper dive into Kid A/Amnesiac for its 15th along with their newest album the following year, then finally proved my fan bona fides by pouncing on general admission floor tickets to two back-to-back shows. Drove three hours to see the Atlanta show, then took the train down to New Orleans a couple days later. It took hours of queuing in the hot sun to get prime positions, but it was so worth it -- they even played my favorite song!
The pinnacle came shortly after that, though. In the run-up to the OKC 20th anniversary re-issue, some promotional material showing early versions of Stanley Donwood's iconic ghostly highway cover art piqued my interest, and I turned to an old-school "roadgeek" forum for help identifying the location (AskMe was my backup, I swear). A subject matter expert solved it within hours -- it's an interchange in Hartford, CT, just up the road from a Hilton the band booked in 1996 -- and the discovery made international news, from my hometown paper to a radio interview with WNPR to mentions in the pop music press -- even an official Twitter Moment! (Fell tragically short of becoming the topic of an FPP, though.)
It was a trip, and probably the single coolest pop cultural thing I've ever been part of.
posted by Rhaomi at 4:44 AM on July 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Also: improbably, within a month of the OKC story blowing up, a jessamyn FPP on the roadgeek community got featured on AARoads (the very forum I went to for help) and later spawned a BestOf-worthy comment thread about the site. Plus, I'm pretty sure a MetaFilter post about roadgeeks and other single-passion internet communities is how I learned about AARoads to begin with.
It's a small web, after all!
posted by Rhaomi at 4:55 AM on July 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's a small web, after all!
posted by Rhaomi at 4:55 AM on July 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
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posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:26 AM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]