Tag: fandom

Whumptober is Coming!

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Remember back in February when I took part in Febuwhump, and I didn’t finish until May? It was 28 fics, and I think I completely about 23 before the end of February, and the got some burned out I dragged myself to finish three months later. All were focused around The Old Guard, and I’m still proud of how much I wrote.

Well, I was thinking back to that time not too long ago, and I figured out why I burned out so much, and so quickly. It’s very simple, actually. I was trying to write every prompt on the day it needed to be posted.

By that, I mean that every morning, I’d get up, so my morning routine, and plant myself in front of the computer to write a fic. There was no real planning ahead, no writing ahead, just daily writing.

And I remember how burned out I got. I just didn’t want to do it anymore, but people in the TOG community were cheering us on, and I wanted to complete it for them.

Well.

After that, and all the stress I put myself under, I told myself never again. No big challenges, no bingos, no big bangs. Just writing when I felt like it. And for the rest of spring and all of summer, I stuck to that.

Until.

I was over on the 118 Discord (the 9-1-1 Discord I’m on) when one of the more prolific and well known writers in the community started talking her plans for October. She mentioned that she was debating between Flufftoper, Whumptober, and Kinktober, and she was jumping between the three. This started a major conversation, that started with an explanation of what each event was.

Flufftoper is basically 31 “fluffy” fics in October. By fluff, it means light and soft, no pain or injury or main character death. Just… happy thoughts.

Whumptober is somewhat obvious, I’d you were around my blog in February when I announced I was doing Febuwhump. Basically, it’s the bad stuff. Nothing’s really off limits. The prompts can be taken in lots of directions.

Speaking of taken, Kinktober is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a month of writing NSFW fics. Yeah. That’s it.

Anyway, we all really got talking, and I ended up getting convinced to take part in one of the two options I’d actually entertain (the third was Kinktober. I’m just no good writing NSFW stuff.

So, I did. I committed. I kept checking Tumblr and Discord to see if the prompts, mostly because I wanted to write them down and make everything pretty. It’s not like I could pre-write or anything. No, not at all.

As of today, it’s September 15th. I’ve already have seven of the prompts completed, with one mostly done and one in bullet point form (which is how I plan stories out). My goal is to be at least halfway done by the time October begins, which is a definite possibility. I also challenged myself (again) to try and do one fandom the entire way through. Thus far, it’s worked!

I came up with a fun way to pick my prompts, by the way. I wrote the numbers 1-31 on tiny squares of paper, folded them up, and stuck them in a jar. Every time I finish a fic, I pull a new one. If I don’t have a plot already planned for that number (of which there are a few that I haven’t come up with yet), I put it to the side and pick again until I find one that I can do. Then any “duds” go back in. I know which ones I’m still coming up with prompts for, and I’m actively thinking about them, even when I’m working on a prompt.

So, yeah. In addition to Blogtober, which is when I write a post every day, I’m also going to be doing Whumptober. The stress is real.

Until next time! (Wish me luck!)

A Hiatus from a Fandom, Again

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Let it not be said that I tried.

So, as I’ve talked about more often than frankly healthy, I fell in love with The Old Guard mid last year. I loved the story, liked the comics (though the art left something to be desired), and started really following the actors. I’ll be the first to say that it became a borderline obsession.

Hell, it even got me back on Tumblr! I’d been very on-and-off during the pandemic, but this movie really caught me, and I fell into the community. There was a strong writing side, the art side was amazing, and the research side was on point.

So… what happened?

Well. A couple of things.

Burnout is real, and so is honestly holding onto hope with no real news. Since the end of January, when we found out that TOG2 was in active development, we’ve heard exactly one thing from anyone involved. During a Instagram AMA, Matthias Schoenaerts (Booker) was asked if there was a sequel, which he answered “YES”. And… that’s it. That’s all. Nearly ten months from the first film dropping, and nothing else but a production magazine listing it in development and one of the actors confirming. And I’m sorry, but that’s just not enough proof.

My family has had ties to Hollywood. Not in a substantial way, but we have. My grandfather knew some of the Hollywood greats from the 50s and 60s. And during the 80s and 90s, my uncle was frequently a script delivery driver. He’s also made friends with people in the industry.

I won’t say that no news means trouble, because it could all just be tied up in the contract stage or the writing stage. You know, before the public get’s involved. But I still feel off, because every other day Netflix is announcing sequels to shows and movies released around the same time or after TOG, and yet we get radio silence.

But that’s not the only reason I’m kinda down.

When the film was released, the fans picked apart each scene. Because that’s what you do. Every scene, every frame, every line of dialogue. That’s how we saw Joe sleeping with his leg between Nicky’s legs, Joe and Nicky holding hands on the train while sleeping, Nicky’s little skip during their final assault on Merrick’s penthouse… It’s part of the fandom.

The problem is, as time went on, it seemed like everything took a turn. Suddenly, you couldn’t like Booker without being a horrible person. Nicky was a one point labeled a N*zi, simply because of how he talked to Joe in exactly one panel in Tales Through Time #1 (which, was bullshit anyways). Nile being in the military was labeled as extremely problematic.

Basically, a portion of the fanbase went from nitpicking the film for content and loving every second of it, to nitpicking the film for content and screaming about it.

Now, I’ll be clear, I stayed away from that group. But they got more vocal. If you didn’t like the Immortal Husbands (Joe/Nicky), you were homophobic. If you thought that having them have a threesome with Booker was a good idea, guess again. Or, hell, if you thought of giving Joe a wife before he left for the Crusades and met/was killed by Nicky, just don’t, because the self-imposed “saviors of canon” would come out of the woodwork. Heck, there was a time that if you liked Nicky more than Joe (for whatever reason), you were labeled as racist. Yeah, you read that right. It was frankly disgusting.

Honestly, what killed me the most was all the commentary about the military. Look, I know that the military has done bad things. I’m not excusing it. Hell, I can be vocal about it, too. However… I come from a military family. My father served in the Air Force during Operation Desert Storm. My other uncle (not the delivery driver, the one I don’t speak to), served during peace-time in Germany, including helping out with a volunteer fire department. My grandfather? WWII and Korea. He liberated two death camps. He saved more people I probably could ever name. During his tour in Korea, he saved the woman who would go on to be my grandmother, who worked at the US State Department in Seoul, Korea. And he was also involved in missions into North Korea, but none of us have the clearance to actually know what he did. And now? My mom worked for the Veterans Administration. And I’m trying to get in. I almost joined the military myself, but I have a debilitating fear of real guns (I can watch them on TV or in films, but being around them in the real world sends me into panic attacks. I can barely stand to see them in holsters the few times I’ve interacted with police.)

I understand the racial issues, which is what these people list as the main reason Nile joining the military is problematic. But… that’s not entirely accurate. She flat out says she joined to follow in her father’s footsteps. Yes, getting out of South Chicago, where there were “a million different ways we could have went left” was a factor. But I really think it’s called following her father. Honoring his sacrifice.

Every time I saw a post demeaning the military’s presence in the film, I felt a tiny part of me cry. Because honestly, it seemed like people missed the point. People missed why the military existed in the first place, and why it was in the film.

In the past few months, while I was writing my Febuwhump prompts, I noticed a major shift in the content being posted on Tumblr (where the majority of the fandom lives). There were so many “anti” posts that I didn’t want to check the tags. And I was only doing so when I needed inspiration for whatever prompt I was pulling myself into.

When the discord I’m on (The Immortal Disasters) started getting into 9-1-1, I honestly didn’t give it a second thought to jumping into that fandom. And while there is still discourse, it’s nowhere near as bad as people being accused of supporting n*zis and being racist for liking “insert character here” more than “second character”. (Anti-Ana is basically the real big issue right now, because while I like the actress, the writers have done here character dirty by giving her nothing to work with, no personality, and completely shoehorning her in with Eddie, where they have no chemistry. And also are making leaps in logic that are frankly terrifying considering they’re doing a season-spanning COVID storyline… And on the Lone Star, TK pushed Carlos in a fight and their apology was off screen and no one is happy about it. Though I think the scene was cut for time and a line was thrown in to cover for it.)

Anyway, so, yeah. At this point, I’ve completely stepped back. I’ll continue to work on my TOG/CM crossover, because I love it. But that’s about it, until we get sequel news. I’m stepping back for my mental health. No one deserves to be treated like above for having a favorite character, or for liking a pairing that isn’t mainstream, or for just liking a storyline choice.

Hopefully we get news soon. I think it’s about damn time.

Until next time!

Finding a New Fandom

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

Don’t worry, I’m still completely in love with The Old Guard. That’s not changing any time soon.

I briefly talking about this new-to-me fandom in Friday’s post. I’m not at obsession level with it, which I’ll explain why below. But it’s caught me, and I know exactly who to blame.

The show is called 9-1-1. It takes place here, in Los Angeles, following both Station 118 of the Los Angeles Fire Department, as well as a Sargent with the Los Angeles Police Department, and a 9-1-1 dispatcher. It also airs on Fox, though I’m watching it on Hulu.

As of last night, I’ve completed the first two seasons. And I’ve enjoyed it, for the most part. I think the cast is a great bunch that plays of each other very well. Some of the emergencies have been… lame, but most were entertaining. There is some uneven writing, mostly in the B-plots, but all in all, it’s not terrible.

I started watching simply because I was sick of the Monday night 9-1-1/9-1-1 Lonestar chat that would take place for like six hours on the discord I’m mostly on. I’d known about the show since it first launched, but I never gave it a second thought. I figured I was done with crime proctorial shows, thanks to the Criminal Minds/CSI NY burnout I’ve been dealing with for several years. But something about the chat caught me.

So, against my better judgement, I started watching. And after the first episode, I wasn’t completely sold. I could see the actors were trying, but they weren’t gelling. Not yet. But slowly they started to. And the storylines got less soap opera-like and more one the actual primetime tv level.

While I enjoyed season one, there was one character that stood out to me, and not in a good way. That character was Abby, who was the 9-1-1 operator, who made contact with rookie firefighter Buck on a call. Soon, their connection grows (unevenly), and almost too quickly, they are dating. Then, she takes a soul searching world traveling trip and leaves Buck in the dust. Okay, there’s more to it, but that’s the gist of it. Honestly, Abby, who was older than the then 27-ish year old Buck, was almost manipulative in how she got Buck. Maybe others won’t see it, but I sure did. And honestly, I thought I wouldn’t like Buck, after his behavior during the first episode (though he did quickly mature, because his actor deserves good storylines).

Actually, now that I think about it, most of the relationships are written unevenly. I’ve just completed season two, so I’m not sure if things change from her. Hen, a veteran firefighter and first female on the 118, lives with her wife, but their relationship, while loving, feels shallow right now. Not the fault of the actors, it’s the writing that I draw issue with. Buck’s next relationships also feel the same way. (Please, please, please tell me he dumps Ali in season three. She’s a damn idiot.). Buck’s sister comes to town, (which is whole other can of worms I’ll unpack in a second), and deals with the death (literally) of one relationship, and the blooming of another. Which was poorly timed. Hell, even newcomer Eddie, who starts in season two, has a relationship that dies in the same season. The only relationship that makes it through is between Sargent Athena Grant and 118’s Captain Bobby Nash.

Let me talk about Buck for a second. Because the season two finale did him dirty. Buck has spent all of season two becoming a better character. He makes mistakes and fixes them. He deals with his absent sister showing up out of the blue, helps her, deals with the aftermath of his brother-in-law’s death (who didn’t die painfully enough), and then watches finally get with someone who treats her right. It’s clear that everything he learned in season one, he took to heart. And then a firetruck flips because of a bomb, it lands on his leg, he barely gets any screen time, we only see a minor character with him at the hospital (not his team or SISTER), and poof, he’s home and healing. Yes, it’s a major injury, but I just described what amounts to ten minutes. Of the season finale. Where this accident was featured in the promotional material.

They did him dirty.

Honestly, they did the same with Eddie. The man is a Army Veteran, coming from Texas, with his young son, Christopher. His wife ran out on them when she finally broke after having to care for Christopher, who is cerebral palsy, while Eddie was in Afghanistan. Suddenly she’s back in the picture, but she just wants to see him, not get back together or really be a family again. Then poof, she gets hit by a car and dies like a day after asking Eddie for a formal divorce. Because the man with enough issues needs to see that. At least his friendship with Buck mostly well written. Buck easily becomes close with Christopher, and there are at least two comments about “his son” that he doesn’t deny. If the writers are teasing the fans with this bromance, I think they might riot.

The second season has a few episodes solely dedicated to the pasts of some of the characters. While I think it’s a good idea to fill in the backstories of characters, I wasn’t really impressed with how they did this. Flashbacks are fine, but the entire episode was dedicated to these characters, which many main characters not making an appearance if they weren’t around at that time. Hen’s story is empowering, and I really enjoyed the fact that she stood up to her former captain. Chimney’s was fine as well, though it didn’t explain the origin behind his name (real name Howard), and it was placed between two connected episodes with a cliffhanger. It just didn’t do it for me. Bobby’s episode (which is the second time we’ve had major flashbacks to his life before the 118) was also in the middle of two connected episodes, but it was at least more relevant to the currant storyline.

I’m complaining a lot, but I don’t mean to be. It’s all the issues I have with the writing. But there has been some good.

I have really enjoyed some of the cases they’ve been called out to. The banter fits, and the emergencies are varied but interesting. It’s not all crazy incident here and bomb threat there. There are also just general car accidents and fires and people making mistakes and asking for help. The variety is honestly very refreshing. And most (not all) really feel like they are down to earth instead of being spit-balled at a wall.

I’ve been warned that as a Buck fan, I’m going to have issues with the first half of season three. And I’m okay with that. If I could survive season six of Criminal Minds (the year the Powers That Be forced out AJ Cook in two episodes, dropped Paget Brewster to 16 with most of the B-plots revolving around writing her character out, and then hiring Rachel Nicols (no offense to her) to be the token blond girl for most of the season, with a horrifically written character), I can survive this. There’s this magic button on all the streaming players. It’s call the “move forward 15/30 seconds” button. And I will make use of it.

On the flipside…

The show gained a spinoff last year, and I’m not really sure if I want to watch it. I’m talking about 9-1-1 Lonestar. There’s just something about it that feels off-putting. I don’t know what. I know I have to watch it, because there is a crossover episode that just aired, so I have to bite the bullet at some point. But I’m really not looking forward to it. I guess it just hasn’t clicked with me yet.

Honestly, 9-1-1 isn’t a bad show. It’s good old fashioned TV. Not award worthy, but good enough to tune into every week (or, if you’re me, binge-watch two seasons in four days. Now to blast through the rest by next Monday, because I’d love to be able to watch it live with everyone).

I’m gonna get back to Febuwhump (which is suffering because of this show, I swear) and maybe treat myself to another two episodes once I finish. Maybe.

Until next time!

Leaving a Fandom for Mental Health Reasons – Blogtober

~ Liz Harrison ~ Leave a comment

I had planned on a different heavy topic today, but some things have come up in two of my favorite fandoms that have basically destroyed me today.

I’m not planning on naming and shaming any communities or members of said communities. I’m not going into detail. I just need to really vent today.

Ever since quarantine really started for me, I’ve noticed I’ve spent so much time on social media in an effort to feel like I was involved in something. I followed a bunch of social media people in the fandoms I have been a part of for years. I got heavily involved in anything I could.

But for the last several weeks, I’ve been feeling my anxiety getting worse. I really felt almost tapped out. I was having massive issues with feeling like I am behind and missing important things and stressing myself to the point of feeling sick.

So I made the decision to basically step away from pretty much every fandom I’m involved in (minus The Old Guard, because I’ve found some amazing people in that community who have been helping me without knowing it while everything else has breaking down). I stopped following a ridiculous amount of Youtube channels, Instagram and Twitter accounts, heck even some old Tumblr accounts. In a way, it’s almost a new beginning for me.

This is something that you have the right to do. You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone. Stepping away for your mental health is absolutely allowed. When I started unfollowing accounts, it almost felt like a weight was being lifted off of my shoulders. It’s totally allowed and good and worth every bit of it.

At this point, all of my accounts are basically following my personal friends, some Disney accounts, some (but only a few) book accounts), and a bunch of Old Guard people. I feel so much better.

Like I said, I had a different post planned for today. But I think I needed to take a step back. Leaving fandoms is actually hard (like shutting the door on family sometimes) but it is necessary.

Take care of yourselves. You’re more important.

Until next time!