I’m sooo rusty at being fannish.

1. Dandadan. Earlier this year, the first season of this anime about battling spirits and surviving adolescence with the help of your sexy, kickass grandma and the weirdos you encounter and add to your found family along the way, went from “oh I’ll keep it on in the background,” to “I love it and am paying attention.” Fun stories, characters (girl protags with girl friends!), dynamics, and animation. Bonus: Kid 2 and I can watch together. We went to the movie (the first three episodes of S2) and earlier this week watched eps. 4-10. Only two more episodes of this season left? Wahhh!

2. In addition to Novel #1 and Novel #2, I’m playing around with a collection focused on mothers and daughters. I’d love to make it a hybrid collection: some short stories, a novella, some memoir-ish shorts, some essays that toe the line between fiction and non-fiction. I also want to put some straight-up fanfic in there, a la Carmen Maria Machado and her SVU novella (though imo it was one of the weakest stories in that collection.) To that end, I was excited when I came across this brief piece about the similarities between fanfic and litcrit, which in turn linked me to this trad published novella about Dan Humphrey from Gossip Girl being trans. I know nothing about the quality of the work, but am super interested in this aspect of the mainstreaming of fanfic. If they can do it, so can I?

3. In YKINMKATO news, months ago I read a good As You Are story. The micro-fandom of my heart, I haven’t found quality fic for it in years. Finally, someone wrote one. The catch, of course there’s a catch, is that this story has a feeding kink. Not. My. Thing. (I’m not sure I would have tried it if I read the tags, but I rarely read the tags before dipping in.)

And yet, despite the please-no-not-that-kink, despite the fact that I disagreed with the characterization of the leads, I really enjoyed it. I’ve read it more than once! Which goes to show that i) I love these characters and ii) if there’s a well-written story, and the author makes a good case for the choices they’ve made, I will read it. And rec it. Judging by the comments, several other people feel the same way.

I’m always happy to see writers who just go for it.

4. Heard good things about the anime of Apothecary Diaries, which IIRC is about a servant in a brothel solving mysteries, and will be checking that out.

5. Yuletide! I’m wondering what I might nominate. I’m totally out of practice at reading fanfic, so thinking about what I’d like to receive, that fits the cut-off of less than 1K works, is quite the head-scratcher.

Some ideas:
- Ash: A Secret History. After one thousand plus pages, what else is left to tell? Lots!
- subwaytakes: the instagram show with Kareem Rahma.
- The Great Gatsby: A while back, I said I wanted fanfic of Gatsby and his mentor who owned the boat. Now’s my chance?
- Two Lane Blacktop. This road movie is all vibes, and hence perfect for fanfic. I especially want to know more about The Girl.

No, not my micro-fandom. I feel too strongly about it. That would be setting up my YT writer and me for disappointment.

6. To close out, movies via letterboxd. One aspect of it that’s fun is that everyone on the platform displays, in their profiles, their four favorite movies. If you’re on instagram, letterboxd also posts videos in which people (mostly in the film industry but occasionally just folks like you and me) list their four favorites. A good way to find new movies.

My current four favorites are:
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, Kim Ki-duk (2003). Buddhist perfection.
Consuming Spirits, Chris Sullivan (2012). I watched this on New Year’s Eve in 2021. As soon as I finished it, I watched it again. Here’s more on it (scroll down).
Minding the Gap, Bing Liu (2018). Y’all know I’m a sucker for coming of age stories. This one, and it’s a documentary to boot, is soooo good.
The Music Room, Satyajit Ray (1958). I enjoy tragedies, and stories of quiet, genteel decline.

Movies that might replace these one day:

Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa (1954). Enough said.
Trenque Lauquen, Laura Citarella (2022 & 2023). A multi-hour, Argentinian puzzle-box film with a fantastic script. Really unique and lovely. Highly recommended.
Yi Yi, Edward Yang (2000). The perfect family saga. Showing in theaters this fall. I’m so here for it.
Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks (1974). Just thinking about this movie gets me cackling.
Before Sunset, Richard Linklater (2004). One of my favorite tropes (after years and years, meeting the one who got away) done just right.

What are your four favorites? What are your runners-up?