aquietjune

Two challenges in one post because I missed many days and I want to do them before January is over. While I haven't been able to participate to every challenge, it has been fun! I

Challenge #12

In your own space, set yourself some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

This is going to be a busy year, as much if not more than the past one, so I’d rather not set a lot of goals or commitments for myself on the more fannish side, or I will just stress myself more.

Then, just two goals, non time dependent on external events or factors:

Finish my Annie-centric longfic. Of course I wish I could finish this by the time the end of the Attack on Titan adaptation airs, but it’s very unlikely, so it’s more important that I’m satisfied with it.
Read more. This goal remains very vague because reading challenges never really worked for me. In the past two years I read less than before the pandemic and I lost the habit of reading everyday, and especially I lost the habit to focus on reading fiction as text (I mainly read through audiobooks at the moment) because of a series of logistical factors (I read a lot for work and when I’m home I’d rather embroider and read at the same time). Again, no stress, but an intentional commitment to get back into the habit of reading for pleasure without feeling that I have to capitalize on every scrap of time that I have for myself.

Challenge #15

In your own space, opine on the future of fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

The fandom I wish for in 2023. Warning: there's bitterness.

Attack on Titan. I’ll be very blunt and direct, I hope that with the end of the anime, we’ll get an influx of new people that are not so easily swayed by the wars between factions that formed during the last years of the manga serializations, nor up to engage in shipping wars. Attack on Titan is not subtle with its themes, but they’re universal and yet so specifically weaved into the story and the lore that they remain interesting to explore even after the ending; its characters represent a good variety of facets of humanity and core trauma, and in such a sweet age point (the cusp of adulthood when adolescence was never actually lived) that are a joy to write about, and I maintain that this series deserves more than mundane AUs and canon story rethreading--there are a lot of things to invent both character-wise and worldbuilding-wise. It deserves a long-lasting fandom, so I hope it won't be just a binge-feast for whoever comes after.

General fandom. I've been back in fandom for too little to have the most comprehensive ideas about fandom, but from what I've seen of the anime fandom on Twitter, what I hope is to see more fans going back to slower-paced places to talk and to share. I especially hope to see more independent, personal, amateurish fansites and shrines* over daily twitter accounts and other forms of fast-content-churners that can only recycle official content in non transformative ways. More personality, more uniqueness to how we celebrate stories, and more engagement not in terms of numbers but in the nuances and depths of conversations. What do you think?

(So yes, in case I could fit in another goal for the year, I would want to make a fan website.)

(*) other than the Yesterweb, there's this other project called Fandom Coders that "aims to increase coding literacy in fandom, and to connect fandom builders with each other to create and shape the fandom internet they want to see." I want to see this happening!

Thanks for reading.