Frankenstein's Meme: 30 Days of Actually Posting, Dammit

Here we go! I'm calling this Frankenstein's meme because it's not any particular meme but instead spliced together from multiple sources. Mainly taken from this Fandom Alphabet meme and the June Something list, plus some other questions – I aimed for a total of 30 and left out everything I didn't feel like I could easily answer. Because the point of this is to have a simple daily prompt to ease me back into (semi-)regular posting. :)

(Feel free to copy this list if you feel like it!)

Day 1: What's changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days?

Hm. Most things haven't changed:

Guardian is still my main fandom (and I don't expect that to change). sid_guardian is still going strong and providing me with regular fannish content (and I hope that won't change either). Email meta is still happening (and always delightful). Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan and the whole Guardian 'verse still all make me so happy. ♥

I still have the same bunch of perennial fandoms besides - Grimm and Legend of the Seeker and BBC Sherlock and ACD Sherlock, the tiny Yuletide ones, and so on and so forth. (And a year ago I had already fallen out of Doctor Who after the whole Timeless Child thing, but it still makes me happy when someone reads their way all through my fic. :D)

I'm still doing mostly the same bunch of exchanges (520 Day then holmestice then everywoman), and planning to do the same exchanges in winter as well (femslashex, Yuletide, Chocolate Box), though rarepairsexchange is new for me this year.

DW is still my fandom base and I have no intention of going anywhere else.

I'm still doing regular writing sprints, or at least attempts at same, with navaan.

I'm still struggling with my writing, LOL. (That's been happening since work got busier-than-usual in February 2018, which then became the new normal, and my health took a dive in 2019. Both are, annoyingly, getting in the way of fannish things - how dare they!) I still haven't finished the story I was working on for WIP Bing Bang about a year ago, even though I have a rough draft and what needs fixing is all planned out and shouldn't be that hard. (Time, energy, what are those?)

I'm still not-really-learning Chinese, and I still understand a little more every time I watch something, nevertheless.

What has changed?

This time last year, Word of Honor didn't exist yet, so I hadn't fallen in love with Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu and their world yet. (I do love the novel as well, both in spite of and because of the differences, but I needed the drama to get me interested first.) Quoting myself: "They're both vicious and violent and cruel - we see them being vicious and violent and cruel! And yet they're still capable of kindness, and regret, and tenderness, and they can still find someone who understands them, and something to live for, something better than self-destruction. I love them so. ♥ ♥ ♥"

I hadn't yet fallen into a DMBJ abyss either. TLTR started airing in July, I think, and that was what eventually got me to eventually come back and watch a whole bunch of DMBJ shows. I had seen the first five or so episodes of both TLT2 and Sha Hai before, gearing up towards Zhu Yilong's show, but neither managed to capture me at the time. (Both have bad pacing issues at the start - all those interminable diving scenes in TLT2 in which absolutely nothing happens! all those interminable desert scenes in Sha Hai in which absolutely nothing happens! - but both pick up after that.) It wasn't until some time after I'd seen all of TLTR that I went back and fell in love with Sha Hai and post-Sha Hai Wu Xie - I liked TLTR Wu Xie, and his friendship with Pangzi, and the Iron Triangle, but it wasn't a fannish kind of interest until I could look at him through the lens of Sha Hai.

With the Detective L rewatch on glymr's discord I actually managed to regularly participate in one of these things, and it's been a lot of fun!

I actually dithered over doing holmestice this spring, even though it used to be one of my favourite things on the fannish calendar. I may end up actually sitting out the winter round; we'll see. (But I'll miss it!)

I met some lovely new people or got to know them better. (Hi!)

There's probably something else that I'm forgetting, but this is enough for a first post, right? *g*

Full list of questions:

What's changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days?
Your newest fandom.
You've got your OTP, you have to throw a third into the mix (from the same fandom), creating an OT3. Who is the OTP, and in your opinion, why would they make a perfect third for them?
What are the origins of your penname/username?
What's a fandom that you wish had a bigger following?
What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? What fandom was it? Not necessarily your oldest fandom, but a fandom that you started and still continue to read/write/create content for in some way.
What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place?
Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily "icky", though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar.
What's the hardest thing about writing, and why are titles the Worst™?
Do you have a fandom that you follow - either regularly or casually - with little to no knowledge of canon?
Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.
A ship you have never liked and probably never will.
Do you prefer art, fic, or vids? Why? Bonus: If someone was to give you a fandom gift, what format would it be?
A pairing – platonic, romantic or sexual – that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.
What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?
Do you remember your first OTP? Who was in it?
What is your favourite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?
How many fandoms have you written for? How many have you been in, and how many are you still in?
Has social media caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?
What fandom broke your heart?
Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you dislike or even loathe.)
Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.
Your rarest fandoms.
A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.
Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?
A trope which you are virtually certain to love in any fandom.
A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.
How did you first get into fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote fic for?
Have you ever tried to write for a fandom or ship, and found you couldn’t?
Name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

From:	lunabee34
Date:	Date: June 16th, 2021 08:17 pm (UTC)

(Link)

I'm glad your Guardian love is still going strong! It's nice to have what feels like a "home" fandom.

(Reply) (Thread)

From:	trobadora
Date:	Date: June 16th, 2021 08:33 pm (UTC)

Yes, it's absolutely fantastic. I hadn't really had an active-on-LJ/DW home fandom since the SGA and Coldfire days.

(Reply) (Parent)

From:	laireshi
Date:	Date: June 16th, 2021 08:34 pm (UTC)

I love your meme name <3

From:	trobadora
Date:	Date: June 16th, 2021 08:37 pm (UTC)

Hee! :D

From:	kaffy_r
Date:	Date: June 16th, 2021 09:57 pm (UTC)

This delightfully named meme is right up my aisle; would it be OK if I grabbed it as a tool in my efforts to post more of anything?

Also, I've wondered for a while whether I should watch some Guardian, since folks on my f'list seem to like it. I've watched a few Chinese fantasy shows (at least some episodes of various shows), and I've generally liked them. I just have so many shows queued up that I'm chary of adding another one to the list.

Edited Date: 2021-06-16 10:05 pm (UTC)

From:	trobadora
Date:	Date: June 16th, 2021 10:32 pm (UTC)

Feel free to take it! If it does help with the posting, then it's fulfilling its purpose. :D

I'm biased, obviously, but I'm definitely recommending Guardian. It's my favourite cdrama of all the ones I've seen, its two main characters and their dynamic are amazing, and it's got great team dynamics on top of that. I love it to pieces. (It's based on a fantasy novel; the drama isn't technically fantasy - it's mutant superpowers instead - and it ends up sharing tropes with both genres. I don't know how much you know about it or if this is useful to you, but here are two intro posts: rheasilvia's and mecurtin's.)

It's available uncensored on Viki, and there are improved fansubs around.

(I totally hear you about having too many shows queued up! There's never enough time for everything, so this is just in case!)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From:	kaffy_r
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 12:45 am (UTC)

Thanks so much! And I appreciate the links concerning Guardian.

From:	shadaras
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 01:06 am (UTC)

Excellent post title/meme name! :D

DMBJ is an acronym I am only just now putting together the meaning of contextually from this post! I'm enjoying my own slow trek into that assortment of shows, and looking forward to when I eventually reach Reboot. :)

From:	trobadora
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 07:03 am (UTC)

Hee! I think when you reach Sha Hai you'll know why that's the one that was a game-changer for me. I'm very predictable in some ways. :D

From:	shadaras
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 09:49 am (UTC)

xD I probably will! There's a half chance I'll react similarly, even! I have no idea what Sha Hai is right now (an alternate name for one of the shows? a location/plot arc/character?), but that's fine; I'll get there eventually.

From:	trobadora
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 09:54 am (UTC)

It's one of the dramas - original title 沙海, Sand Sea. Its English title is, somewhat confusingly, "Tomb of the Sea".

From:	shadaras
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 10:06 am (UTC)

Ah, okay. :) Yeah, I've heard both those english titles for that show! Just not the chinese one.

Well, whenever I get through Mystic Nine (which could take a week or three months, depending on how much I want to watch TV...), that one's next up for me! So that'll be fun. ^_^

From:	china_shop
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 01:34 am (UTC)

Guardian is still my main fandom (and I don't expect that to change). [community profile] sid_guardian is still going strong and providing me with regular fannish content (and I hope that won't change either). Email meta is still happening (and always delightful). Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan and the whole Guardian 'verse still all make me so happy. ♥

\o/ \o/ \o/

(*clings*)

And hooray for all the mostly good new things! :-)

From:	trobadora
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 07:04 am (UTC)

♥ ♥ ♥

From:	grayswandir
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 11:01 am (UTC)

I hadn't yet fallen into a DMBJ abyss either.

I keep thinking about checking out more of the DMBJ franchise, because I ended up liking TLTR a lot more than I'd expected to -- like, if we only count the scenes where Wu Xie is actually onscreen, I probably enjoyed it just as much as Guardian, to be honest. But I'm hesitant to check out the other shows because the main draw of TLTR was definitely Zhu Yilong, so I don't know how excited I'd be about seeing the same character played by someone else. :/

I also still haven't gotten around to watching Detective L. I should probably get on that!

In the meantime, I might end up stealing this meme. :)

From:	trobadora
Date:	Date: June 17th, 2021 01:27 pm (UTC)

I don't know how you'd like the other Wu Xies, and the other Pangzis are definitely a let-down after TLTR's, but Sha Hai's Wu Xie actor is excellent at least. (The drama is deeply weird, though, and Wu Xie isn't the main character even if he is my favourite in it.)

Detective L, on the other hand, is a delight all the way through, and all the characters and actors are excellent.

Feel free to take the meme mash-up and have fun with it!

Comments: