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wander-wren · 2 months

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sometimes i wonder about what fandom is going to look like in 5 or 10 years. i think we might have already started to see a shift.

because, look, most of the oldest, biggest fandoms are from tv shows and movies, in particular ones that go on for years and scores of episodes. star trek, star wars, stargate (is everything star?), doctor who, supernatural…even sherlock really got its biggest popularity boosts in the modern day from tv adaptations. marvel and dc were comics first, too, but movies made them more accessible; their “cinematic universe” tags are the biggest on ao3 by far.

but what tv shows are we getting now? short, 8-episode things that get canceled two or three seasons in, that are usually less-than-faithful adaptations of other media anyway.

what movies are we getting? well, marvel turns more to slop every day, and everything else is remakes and sequels no one asked for. the general populace will still go see them and find some good movies that they like, but there’s not much really for fandom to grasp onto.

the best shows for fandom that we’ve had recently, that i can think of, are stranger things, game of thrones, and maybe our flag means death. stranger things is dying off, especially since they’re looking at a 3-4 YEAR gap between s4 and s5. game of thrones’s popularity plummeted after its final season, we all know that. our flag means death is still chugging fairly okay, but after that second season a lot of the fandom dropped it, and with it now being cancelled, i don’t see it sticking around.

yes, we can chalk part of this up to a new generation to of fans having this growing idea that fandom is super temporary, to be abandoned as soon as its not on trend. but media used to be on trend for a whole lot longer than it is now. seasons were longer, we had filler episodes, things were lower quality sometimes but at least they came out on a consistent schedule. i don’t mind if supernatural isn’t an artistic masterpiece, but if i was a stranger things fan waiting until 2026 for the final season, i would be annoyed if it wasn’t damn near perfect. that’s assuming i watched it at all—we’re all so used to not getting endings and moving on, so why would i bother?

i think there are two types of shows doing sort of okay about this. one is procedurals—9-1-1 is a popular one i’ve run into, and it started in 2018, around the beginning of the decline, but it’s managed 7 seasons in those six years, most of them with 18 episodes. the other is, honestly, anime—though we can and SHOULD talk about the terrible working conditions that make the fast turnarounds there possible. look at how big some anime fandoms are.

judging by the relative fandom popularity of other procedural dramas (grey’s anatomy, law & order, criminal minds), i think that’s going to remain sort of niche. fandom likes fantasy and scifi best, and they just don’t tend to have as strong of an overarching arc to dig into. at least, that’s why i wouldn’t watch them. i think there’s also a good chance these will start to die out in the coming years as well.

anime could also die out a little bit. better working conditions would necessitate less/slower content, and it’s true that most of the popular anime fandoms have been around for years, even decades.

so, what, no new, lasting tv show or movie fandoms anymore?

what will the biggest fandoms be in 5-10 years?

podcast fandoms have a shot. the magnus archives is still going strong, and i’ve been seeing a lot about dungeons and daddies. i think we’re kind of almost past the golden age for podcasts, but i am an outsider, so maybe that will change.

book fandoms seem like a kind of obvious choice, but they just don’t get as big without, you guessed it, a movie or show adaptation. and the downsizing has hit them, too—can you think of anything from the last 5 or 10 years that rivals harry potter, percy jackson, warriors, lord of the rings, hunger games, acotar…even game of thrones (asoiaf) again? i can’t. the collapse of the publishing industry is another post entirely.

2020 is really what cemented these changes, though they were starting in the late 2010s, at least. with actual industries shutting down, there was room for indie creators making things alone in their houses to pop up, and people had more time on their hands to try new things out and get into them.

the two things that have really been on the rise since 2020 is rpf and video game fic—often both combined. we’ve got genshin impact, call of duty, minecraft of course being huge, rpf of various youtubers, and k-pop rpf. now, i think rpf is contentious enough that it won’t really become the main fandom, but video game fic…might be it.

even video blogging rpf can often be a blurred enough line that people are more comfortable with it. and the thing is…youtube creators are actually more reliable than mainstream television these days. they need to be, to maintain their platforms. they need to not cancel series and to live up to their own hype as best they can and to not abandon the channel for 3 or 4 years at a time. and again, you can talk about burnout and unrealistic expectations and all of those things, but it’s still true.

maybe i’m completely wrong. maybe in 10 years the film and publishing industries will all sort themselves out and we’ll go back to the status quo. but i think this position fandom is finding itself in is interesting, and i wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if what’s most popular (both in the specific source material sense and the medium/genre sense) is different some time down the road.

#wren wrambles #fanfiction #ao3 #fandom #fandom meta #fanfic #fanfiction meta #i’m curious what other people think about this #tempted to tag the fandoms i mentioned for reach but. dont know. we’ll see how this does

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nanowrimo · 11 months

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5 Techniques to Help You Write Your Novel

Every writing project is unique, and the methods that help you draft one novel may not work for another. If you’re getting started on a brand new project this Camp, NaNo Guest Vee James has some suggestions for different techniques to help you explore your story. It took a few NaNos before I realized I was developing different techniques each time I sat down to the challenge. I think we all do this naturally, but it helps to step back and observe the process. If you’re strictly a pantster, you’ve been working on the story ideas in your head. If you’re a planner, you’ve set to paper the story concepts, characters, and an outline of what you are about to produce on paper. Some people take a hybrid approach to NaNo. Granted, the basics remain the same: butt in chair, accomplish the hourly/daily goal, and allow yourself to tell your story.

I discovered that each unique novel presented particular challenges, and I had to adapt my style and writing techniques in order to explore the story and keep the production happening. Some of these came from writing instructors and wonderful podcasters. Some came from “how to write” seminars and workshops. Others grew out of a feverish search for “more words.”

Here are five techniques I’ve found that helped me advance writing projects:

1. Research

It was a surprise to me to discover the concept of researching for fiction. I initially thought, “Just make something up.” But there are so many ways to broaden your approach. Plumb your memory, take a course in something related to the story, talk to an expert, and ask lots of questions. You could even become like the character in order to feel what they feel. If you’re writing a western, go ride a horse.

2. Write Scenes Out of Order

If you have a premise, you’ve already got scenes in your mind. Don’t wait until you get to chapter 18. Write that scene now. You can always revise it when you catch up to that point and it gives you something to develop toward. To expand on this technique, when you’ve written the scene, ask yourself, “What happened just before this?” or “What does this scene lead to?”

3. Put disparate characters together and have them have a conversation

Often, we write secondary characters who take a more subdued role in the plot. But what would happen if your protagonist’s best friend had a conversation with the main antagonist? Or if the antagonist’s agent of destruction came upon the protagonist’s love interest? In my experience, these conversations frequently produce more depth in your secondary characters and almost always it’s something you weren’t expecting.

4. Play with Genre Tropes

What have you chosen to write? Urban fiction? SciFi? Fantasy? You already know what your reader expects you to write, and what the plot ahead holds for them. How can you twist it? Sometimes the simplest thing you mentioned in chapter one can be the linchpin of a great plot twist.

5. Study Film

It’s no accident that some of the most astounding stories have been told through film. Quite simply, movie companies invest heavily in every aspect of their production and hire some of the best writers around. Yes, it’s a visual medium and has some advantages over prose. But the main lesson with movies is in the structure of the stories they tell. Here’s a good example: when I was writing a fairytale novel, I wanted to stay true to the classic story structure. One afternoon I was watching the comedy, Galaxy Quest, taking careful notes on the structure. I realized the story structure mapped very closely to what I was doing in the fairytale. It was comforting to see this, and it also gave me some ideas on how to approach the ending.

Most importantly: NaNoWriMo is a thrilling if exhaustive experience, and I urge you to immerse yourself in it completely. Write with utter abandon, delve deep for concepts that will give you the next 2000 words, and try new things like you’re a Mad Scientist in a hurry. We all know that what you end up with is a messy creation. But you will find you have given yourself a great gift.

Vee James is a cross-genre author who loves to write comedies, fairytales, and YA supernatural. He participated in NaNoWriMo for ten years in a row, writing over a half-million words, and it led to nine NaNo novels plus two more non-NaNos. Out of this work, he’s published four novels, with a fifth nearing completion. If interested, visit his site at www.veejames.com and leave a message. He loves to talk to writers of all kinds. Vee's photo by A. Roger Hammons Photo by Daniel Álvasd on Unsplash

#nanowrimo #camp nanowrimo #writing tips #nanowrimo experience #writer's life #by nano guest #vee james

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riversidewings · 4 months

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It's been a bit since I've settled in, and I've been due a reintroduction, so, hi! Nyri, she/her, combat doll dyke, PhD in Japanese history, podcaster, journalist, artist, streamer. Not enough hours in the day or caffeine for those hours but I try my best to get by.

I've won awards for my trans sapphic scifi novels and essays, and you can find a fuller bio and my publication list via the following:

English is my 2nd language and I'm gradually rebuilding a healthy relationship with Western Armenian, my mother tongue.

I host the podcast Friday Night History, cohost Cleyera: Conversations on Shinto, and I make the webcomic One Heart Together. I am entirely reader/listener/fan supported, so all of this is made possible by folks like you. Consider checking out some merch or subscribing to my Patreon.

Pleased to meet you!

#introductions #queer author #queer books #empty spaces #combat doll

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bookcub · 1 year

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Do you have any book (or show or movie) recs with asexual men? I feel like all the books with asexual characters I’ve read feature asexual women but no asexual men. Fiction or nonfiction is good. TIA!

ooo this is a great ask!! women are definitely more likely to be the ace rep in the books I have read!!

first off, How to Be a Normal Person by TJ Klune is fantastic. the love interest is a man and asexual. it's a mlm adult romance novel, very low stakes and I totally cried. I haven't read the sequel, but the main character is demisexual in that one and a man. bonus, TJ Klune is asexual himself and (if I recall correctly) The Lighting Struck Heart has a prominent asexual side character.

Ace by Angela Chen is a nonfiction book and she interviews many people throughout her books, and I distinctly remember her interviewing men, specifically talking to one about how his gender intersected with his asexuality.

I never finished Tarnished Are the Stars by Rosiee Thor, but one of the three main characters was an aro ace teen boy. This is a scifi, set in space, YA novel.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman has a major character who is a demisexual teen boy. It's YA contemporary. I also cried reading this.

Rick by Alex Gino is a middle grade novel about a middle school boy questioning his place in the queer community. Very sweet.

That Kind of Guy by Talia Hibbert is a contemporary romance and one of the main characters is a demisexual man falling in love with his best friend (who is a fantasy author). This was unexpected for me because I picked this up for the author, not the demi rep so I was over the moon.

side note, for tv shows, I've only watched Todd's ace clips, but there is a male character who realizes he is ace.

The podcasts A-OK and Sounds Fake but Okay both have interviews with ace men, so if you like podcasts, I would check those out as well.

#asexuality #ace stuff #safeforace #asexual #queer book recs

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astoundingbeyondbelief · 2 months

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Kaiju Week in Review (March 10-16, 2024)

"It looks as though its Japanese producers, assisted by a stray American—fellow named Terry Morse, who is an alumnus of Hollywood's Poverty Row—made a close study of the old film, "King Kong," then tried to do substantially the same thing with a miniature of a dinosaur made of gum-shoes and about $20 worth of toy buildings and electric trains." —Bosley Crowther, reviewing Godzilla, King of the Monsters! for The New York Times

"The special effects are hardly special, but hey, what do you expect in a Japanese monster movie?" —Tony Kiss, reviewing Godzilla 1985 for the Asheville Citizen-Times

"Sure it's bad filmmaking. Sure it's a guy—actor Tsutomu Kitagawa—clad in a nearly vintage latex Godzilla getup and stomping through Tokyo, knocking down cardboard mini-buildings and upending toy-sized cars with his gnarly feet. But that's the point." —Bob Longino, reviewing Godzilla 2000 for The Palm Beach Post

Godzilla Minus One won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards, sending a stunned Takashi Yamazaki (VFX supervisor), Kiyoko Shibuya (VFX director), Masaki Takahashi (3D CG director), and Tatsuji Nojima (VFX artist/compositor) to the Dolby Theatre stage. Said Yamazaki, reading from prepared comments in English, "To someone so far from Hollywood, the possibility of standing on this stage seemed out of reach." I could scarcely believe what I was watching myself, despite having given a presentation for a Wikizilla stream mere hours before on Minus One's very real chances of beating more expensive American contenders. Everything I said about its nomination goes triple for its victory; we'll be talking about this one forever. To those of us who remember when Godzilla was basically a joke in the American consciousness (including my Wikizilla colleague Darthlord1997, who had a speech of his own prepared), it's the ultimate vindication.

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Never one to rest on his laurels, Takashi Yamazaki directed an ad for Ajinomoto about food waste which released this week. It features the unsubtly-named Foodlosslla attacking Tokyo and facing an Ultraman-esque defense team. As with Minus One, the ad's visuals are a clever combination of high-end (a detailed CG monster) and low-end (dropping plastic fruit on top of fleeing extras).

youtube

Last year, the 4Kids Flashback podcast interviewed Mike Pecoriello, producer and writer for the company's renditions of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Ultraman Tiga, and he delivered some major news about the latter. Although only 23 episodes of Tiga aired in the U.S., 4Kids dubbed the whole thing. At the time of the podcast's recording, he thought he made copies of all the episodes, but while that doesn't seem to be the case, he did provide 4Kids Flashback with the series finale. It's a good deal more serious than the episodes which aired, with the quips kept to a minimum. Let the hunt for the rest commence!

SciFi Japan has details on Kaiju Yarrow, a Japanese comedy doubling as a tourism ad for the city of Seki. The premise is very self-aware:

KAIJU YARROW! is set in Seki City, Gifu Prefecture. One day, 30 year old Ichiro Yamada, who works in the tourism department of a government office, is ordered by the mayor to produce a "local film.'' However, Yamada, didn't want to produce the typical "mediocre local movies'' that are everywhere nowadays, so he comes up with the idea of making a "monster movie'', which has been his life-long dream. However, his dreams develops into a major incident involving the city government...! Will Yamada be able to complete his life goal of making a monster movie??

Junichiro Yagi will direct; YouTuber Gunpee will star. Unknown quantities both when it comes to kaiju, so how this will turn out is anyone's guess.

Tickets for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire have gone on sale in the U.S.—and as a reminder, the brief GKIDS theatrical release of The End of Evangelion wraps tomorrow.

#godzilla minus one #oscars #ultraman tiga #kaiju yarrow #takashi yamazaki #godzilla x kong the new empire #kaiju week in review #godzilla #kaiju

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frociaggine · 2 months

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Any fiction recommendations? I’ve repeatedly read Locked Tomb, natch. I’d love something similarly brainwork inducing but maybe a touch lighter. Also not fantasy or sci fi…I need something to listen to while I do a ton of chores, and those can be hard (for me) because the unfamiliar proper nouns get confusing. :/

anon!! I'm terrible at reccing anything based on “if you liked TLT” because TLT is like five different genres in a trench coat, but I TRIED (⭐) Here are some brainworm-y recs that aren't sff — where by brainworm-y I mean that they stayed with me for a while after I finished them, but aren't overly confusing. (most of them are books, but available on audio)

Podcasts: a tumblr pal recced me the deviser based on me liking the eldritch elements of tlt; it's short and horror-y, and I really enjoyed it.

I haven't checked out the new TMA yet but I see many TLT peeps who are enjoying it (or S1 of the original The Magnus Archives could be a good entry point if you haven't ever listened to it)

TV: Unfortunately I hardly ever watch live action stuff BUT if you haven't seen either IWTV (the series not the film) or Yellowjackets, I do rec those! There's a lot of overlap between these fans and TLT fandom on my dash. His Dark Materials also goes hard and you might enjoy it (dysfunctional characters! worldbuilding! religious weirdness!) but it has more sff elements than other stuff I've recced. Oddball out of nowhere but The Great is a fun show if you enjoy the meme moments of TLT + people being gleefully horrible + having feelings despite your best intentions

Animanga: Utena (!!!!!) also Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, which occupies a very similar space to TLT in my brain

Books!

✧ I went through my “women unhinged” goodreads shelf and found some books that are avaliable in audio format, and might appeal. These are wildly varied in scope and ngl the criterion was just “at least one person (besides myself) who enjoyed tlt also this book” and the similarities stop there. It's all vibes baby! Still, I tried

my heart is a chainsaw by stephen graham jones (horror, slasher), bunny by mona awad (horror, wildly unhinged), the witching hour by anne rice (horror, gothic)

matrix by lauren groff (historical, lesbian nuns), anything by sarah waters (historical fiction + lesbians), rebecca by daphne du maurier (historical, gothic)

the plot by jean hanff korelitz (litfic, thriller), sadie by courtney summers (thriller, coming of age). anything by gillian flynn (thrillers with terrible women).

✧ I really enjoy Tana French thrillers for the strong sense of place, great prose, and the complete emotional turmoil of her character-centric narratives. If anything sounds up your alley, I enjoyed the witch's elm + dublin murder squad series. They're murder mystery procedural but the messy characters really elevate the novels. Available in audiobook also

✧ American Elsewhere, technically scifi but set in New Mexico. Somehow, cosmic horrors who have taken over a quaint little town and worse! They are enforcing HETERONORMATIVITY upon it! They also have tentacles. The main character rocks

✧ Sundial by Catriona Ward: insane, gripping psychological horror. A mother and her unsettling daughter take a trip to the isolate desert ranch where the main chracter grew up. Surrounded by unsettling science experiments

✧ A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan: when the parasocial relationship is so strong, it accidentally summons a hellmonster from another dimension

✧ SFF adjacent, sorry, but set in the real world (historical, tho) — Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge, a middle grade novel with fairytale elements that gave me more brainworms than any kids book ought to, mostly because I LOVED the main character. She occupies a very similar place in my brain as Gideon does. This is actually the only book on the list that I'm not sure is available in audio format, but if you get a chance and it's up your alley, I'd check it out

I hope there's at least ONE thing you'll like in here! lmk (also. lmk if you don't have access to a way to borrow audiobooks but would like to)

#anonymous #ask

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 5 months

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tuesdaypost year in review

this year brought to you by viewers like you. thank you! i still do not know how to thank everyone for their incredible generosity during the Late July/Early August Moving Catastrophe Badtimes and im still feelin some kinda way about it. thank you.

took eight weeks completely off, more than any other year so far

overnight traveled for work for the first time

moved cross country with Mack to face dangers untold and hardships unnumbered

bought an actual for-real couch and not a futon

got Phil

(unrelated to Phil) i got spayed after almost ten years of begging and pleading various medical professionals, (also unrelated) got covid and RSV back to back

listening

fallow weeks: 8. i almost always have a tuesdaysong bc i am almost always listening to something. all of the tuesdaysongs are here:

particular favorites were Peel Me A Grape (Anita O’Day), top spotify song of the year Yeah Yeah Yeah (Blood Orchid), Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Wolf remixed by Sextile, Father Finlee (Spence Hood), A Minha Menina (Os Mutantes).

the very last tuesdaysong of the year is Sugar Rum Cherry by Duke Ellington, one of the few christmas songs i tolerate.

special shoutout to the austin underscore walker universe of podcasts, bc i mainlined A More Civilized Age (clone wars/star wars rewatch) while packing, and devoured P/alisade (the newest scifi season of F/riends at the Table) this month.

reading

fallow weeks: 11. pleased that i am killing the invisible rules in my head and including more articles instead of feeling guilty about Not Reading A Real Book!!! every week when i sit down to write the tuesdaypost. read a fuckton earlier this year bc i was procrastinating moving prep, have not read much since i moved.

article sources:

inoreader (the best free RSS feed/app imo)

The Markup (gold standard usage of data to show how various technologies are being used to harm the public good: you may have heard of the recent American bills to equalize internet service and fix organ donation grift. that was them)

Web 3 Is Going Just Great (crypto disasters)

404 Media (technology reporting, internet culture, also break a lot of data/legal/privacy scandals)

Remap (formerly Vice's video games division Waypoint, more active on podcasts and twitch but do have great personal essays about gaming longreads)

Retraction Watch (an important academic service but platformed a particularly virulent transphobe and let the comments devolve into a free for all. yes im still mad about this)

Krebs on Security (~once a month extremely long and thoughtful infosec writeups)

Data Colada (cover academic data whoopsies, currently being sued for their journalism)

the two authors i spent the most time with this year were Alexis Hall (romance novels and novellas) and Raymond Chandler's noir detective novels. i read 90% of Raymond Chandler's work in march and went insane about yet another sad bisexual man. Philip Marlowe the cat is named after his pet detective, the human Philip Marlowe.

march was kind of a banger for this category bc in one of what i consider the best tuesdayposts this year, i tried to break down why i fucking hated Frank Miller's Sin City comics so much.

other comics, but ones i loved: Spy X Family, Berserk, weird noir DC miniseries The Human Target.

watching

fallow weeks: 10

notable stuff i watched for the first time (according to letterboxd) that will stick in my head for a bit. some (The Night of the Hunter) i am so glad i watched once but do not feel the need to revist. some (Slipstream) fascinate me with how good they could have been. some (Twilight. all of them) were fun bc of the people i watched them with. the two i went particularly deranged over are The Big Sleep and Day of Anger. still feel very normal about them.

very heavy on crime and courtroom films this year!

television: very excited for s2 of Blue Eye Samurai, Interview With The Vampire, Spy X Family.

youtube

i should loop back and finish Black Lagoon, Adventure Time (completely forgot i rewatched most of that this spring), and The Big O. that last one is throwing me a little bc (since i last checked) there is no freely available version with subtitles (i cannot find subtitles Period) and i'll be damned if i have to import a dvd. i can find the dub with subtitles but! i want to hear spike spiegel as mecha-batman :(

sort of lukewarm eh-i'll-get-around-to-it about s/tar wars shows. i have not watched a/hsoka At All or wrapped up the animated Resistance show. i'll pay attention when ando/r is airing again.

playing

fallow weeks: 10. way fewer than i would have guessed!

the trouble with this category is that it is exceptionally hard to find new good games (either ones i already own or ones that are free). it is almost completely prohibitively exhausting to trawl through the free category on steam. there's simply a lot of cruft out there. a very good thing (but also incredibly timeconsuming thing) i started this year was throwing games into various folders so the eight bajillion libraries i have are less overwhelming. i can safely ignore 80% of my epic games library, for example. the itch.io library is a whole separate weekend project i think.

got back into genshin for good or for ill, which took up most of the back half of the year.

youtube

go play ABZU. i am no longer asking.

i would like to go back and finish the RPG Gamedec, un-softblock myself in the RPG Weird West, and finish the visual novel Dead Man's Rest. i think i stalled out in Call of Juarez: Gunslinger bc there was a mexican standoff that my reflexes are simply not fast enough for/too much to pay attention to. i am excited to pick up that spooky fishing simulator DREDGE when i have fun money again.

completely forgot i spent most of jan/feb/march being annoyed at fallou/t 4 but having some fun in Far Harbor, also forgot i spent an entire month playing through Wolfenstein: The New Order but i am not compelled to play through it again. it was fun! but like many games after one playthrough my time with it is done!

making

fallow weeks: 17 (unsurprising, pretty low energy year as a whole as i recovered from covid rounds 1 and 2 and the frankly insane stress of moving).

wrote exactly one fic: some matters at the heart of cowboy western snap shirts: why they are so and some of the implications of their being so, i would like to write more next year but i don't really have the brainpower. i hope this changes soon.

the baby blanket i started last year is still not done but the baby is still under a year so i have a very narrow window of time.

dyed some couch covers im still very pleased with

wrote an extremely long but very well received gallery wall guide

recipes: 12. sort of shocked by this? i am becoming an incrementally better cook and slowly finding recipes i both like and can successfully execute. found the fortitude to caramelize onions, for example. quick pickled red onions, for another thing. big year for protein or greens on top of beans and rice. faves included: cuban-style pork shoulder, hellofresh peruvian chicken, red lentil soup, white bean/kale/rice bowls

i would like to be less terrified about cooking fish. i would like to eat more fish.

and of course, the biggest project of all, acquired Phil. here is my very favorite photo ive ever taken of a cat

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

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vintagegeekculture · 2 years

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How 60s Zines and Fandom Led to a Novel Series

One of the biggest parts of organized fandom in the 1940s-1970s were fanzines centered on adventure and scifi writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. Xeroxed and passed around in manilla envelopes in the mail, the organized fandom included fan art, articles, fan fiction, and essays passed from person to person. The big fanzines were the Gridley Wave, ERB Dom, the Oparian, and Burroughsania (fantasy writer A. Merritt and the Weird Tales writers had fanzines even at this late date as well, like Amra).

I heard a great description of Edgar Rice Burroughs fans and the fandom around him: they’re like the rest of us, except even more so. This could apply to the extremely right-brained, detective novel approach they took to the source material. All fandoms have people in them that do this, of course, I would never say otherwise...but I’m telling you, nobody did it quite like they did. As an example, ERB fandom in the 50s very precisely calculated where Tarzan grew up, based on the flimsy clues of the text, that his family’s steamer was out several weeks from Libreville. Based on calculating the average 1889 steamer’s range in two weeks, along with overlaying existing maps of the Central African Republic (today’s Gabon), they were able to figure out where he grew up very precisely. This was typical of the kinds of things they did. It reminds me less of the usual activities of fandom, and more like Heinrich Schliemann using a copy of the Iliad to discover the supposed site of the city of Troy.

It’s incredible how ahead of its time that all was, because the culture has only now caught up to what they were doing in the fifties in ERB fanzines. Today, the appeal of a lot of conspiracy theories floating around is that they are participatory, almost like some kind of ARG, like Ong’s Hat and the John Titorverse. Which pop music videos have clues put in them by the Illuminati? Can you guess which of the Hollywood Sickos was secretly replaced by a clone after being executed in a secret trial? It’s fun because you can play along at home! A lot of true crime podcasts and the communities around them also have this “figure out the mystery yourself” appeal, which is why the families of unsolved murder victims absolutely dread being covered by a popular mystery podcast. The future is in the back and forth model carried out by Edgar Rice Burroughs fans in the 50s.

It’s no surprise Edgar Rice Burroughs has fans like this. He had an absolute domination over the pop culture of the early to mid 20th Century. He, not Fitzgerald, not Hemingway, was the best selling novelist of the 1920s. ERB was, in particular, a favorite of two audiences that no longer are reliable customers of the book and publishing world: working class men and young boys. This makes sense, since his works were adventure Walter Mitty daydreams, the male equivalent of romance novels. The fact that young boys are no longer reading is, incidentally, one of the most disastrous and under-researched social phenomena of the present time. I am who I am today because I dreamed and imagined.

The biggest of the Fanzine writers had to be Philip Jose Farmer, who later became a professional writer, a name you’ve probably heard if you’ve been following this blog. Farmer, when he was a full on writer, wrote biographies of Tarzan and Doc Savage that treated them as living people. For example, Farmer’s Tarzan biography was so intensively researched that he calculated that one incident in Jungle Tales of Tarzan could not have happened, as there were no lunar eclipses visible over the Central African Republic between 1908-1909.

What I think is forgotten, however, is that Farmer’s incredible borderline fanwork was merely standing on the shoulders of giants when it came to the right-brained ERB fandom of the 1940s-1970s in Burroughs Bulletin and Gridley Wave. Many of the ideas in Farmer’s biography of Tarzan were long-standing theories in the fandom, so often repeated they gain a strange secondary canonicity, for example, the theory that Tarzan had two different sons, and the John Clayton Jr. captured as a baby in Beasts of Tarzan was different from the one who became Korak the Killer in Son of Tarzan. None of this was new to Farmer, he was a latecomer.

In particular, Farmer wrote an entire novel series was written based on an essay written in 1966 in the fanzines. This essay was “Heritage of the Flaming God: An Essay on the History of Opar and Its Relationship to Other Ancient Cultures” by Frank J. Brueckel and Michael Winger, and used to be referred to as “fanwank” but today would be called “Meta.”

The essay was about one of the most awe inspiring locations in the Tarzan series, one no film version as yet has done justice to: the Lost City of Opar. No film version has yet got across the grandiosity of this incredible ruin in the heart of the African jungle, a colony of Ancient Atlantis abandoned in Central Africa, a city of colossal masonry that almost seemed made by gods. It was a city of peacocks, and apes, gold and diamonds....but also the degenerated inhabitants, the women of which were beautiful, the men were feral, bestial Neanderthals. In an ancient ruin made by their ancestors, the Oparians run like children playing murderous games in a haunted house.

The queen of the city was La, a high priestess of the flaming god, a beautiful, seductive, uncanny sorceress who might be the only true rival to Jane in Tarzan’s affections (and who some fans prefer), who’s icy queenly exterior hid vulnerability and isolation. She was sympathetic and lonely one moment, cold, pitiless, and murderous the next. She was far more than just the evil seductress, but possibly the most complex character of the series, and she got a huge fan response. After all, It isn’t just women who like sexy sympathetic villains, you know.

Edgar Rice Burroughs always preferred Tarzan to get with La of Opar (a sentiment I’ve found to be almost universal among ERB dom), and even had the Germans kill Jane off in Tarzan the Terrible to make it possible. Reader outcry was so harsh at Jane’s death, however, he had to bring her back the very next novel. Tarzan found out her “death” at the hands of the German Army was faked and she was merely a prisoner of the Kaiser’s high command in East Africa. It is easy to see why La would have this towering, monumental stature in the Tarzan novels that she returned three times and almost literally replaced Jane as Tarzan’s wife. In an adventure series that flirted at the borderline edge of fantasy, La was the most “out there” element, a sorceress who was implied to be immortal and ageless, with the blood of Ancient Atlantis in her veins, and to disobey her was to die.

Brueckel and Winger’s 1966 essay on Opar’s origins argued that the mother culture of Opar, Atlantis, was actually an island inside an interior continental African sea, an extension of Lake Tchad, and they used ancient flood data to support their idea about the continental interior. They further argued that Opar’s genders have such different appearances because of the introduction of Neanderthal DNA on the Y chromesome alone. Further, in their lengthy fan speculations, they connected the ancient interior African Atlantean civilization to the other great lost cities encountered by Tarzan, including Athne and Cathne, Tuen-Baka, Kuvuru, and Xuja, all of which had similar traits: cyclopean abandoned cities of great antiquity, worship of a flaming god, human sacrifice, absence of the bow and arrow, and matriarchal rule. Atlantis was the source of the Flaming God religion. They further argued, fannishly interconnecting everything, that the Kuvuru immortality elixir was in the possession of that mother culture, and was the explanation for the beautiful La’s immortality. They also argued that the reason all these cultures did not have the bow and arrow was a religious taboo.

All of this was very impressive stuff, especially for 1966, even for fanwank, though I confess a lot of the geological proofs went over my head.

This essay about the origins of Opar and the Flaming God was so well remembered that fan turned real deal writer, Philip Jose Farmer, wrote a series based on their speculations. Set in the ancient prehistory of Africa, he wrote of Opar at its height, when it was a minor mining colony of a forgotten African civilization on an internal sea in 10,000 BC, just like in Bruekel and Winger’s description. His novel series was Hadon of Ancient Opar, published in 1975, and PJF acknowledged Brueckel and Winger’s fan essay as the primary source of inspiration, which he turned into a book series.

If you need convincing this meta was an inspiration for PJF’s book series, take a look at his map used in the series for their ancient civilization, which was a matriarchy with a sun worship religion with still surviving Neanderthals as a lower class. He even had a woman named La there, who may have been the ancestor of the La of Opar...or perhaps, the actual immortal La herself (the book leaves this open to interpretation). Always keen to have series cross over, PJF also mentioned the lost African cities of H. Rider Haggard and connected them with Burrough’s, which is a surprisingly good fit, since Haggard’s lost races also were matriarchies with a religion of sun worship.

When I heard the connection between this fan essay and PJF’s book series, I had to track down a copy of Brueckel and Harwood’s essay for myself. I was able to find one for sale by the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest on the outskirts of Chicago, Illinois. They have a lot of pride in Edgar Rice Burroughs, who was born there, and they have many rare and old things for sale related to ancient fandom of the 60s. To my surprise, when my order arrived, I got a copy of the Historical Society of Oak Park, IL newsletter, and a personal addressed letter from the historical society librarian. I was so surprised by this that I actually called the Oak Park Society up to thank them, and had a pleasant chat with the kindly librarian about their collections of ERB memorabilia and fandom. All in all, a pleasant ending of an investigation into one of the oldest fandoms, one that, like Opar and the beautiful, immortal La herself, still lives in a hidden corner of the world.

#edgar rice burroughs #tarzan #fanzine #fandom history #fandom

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jeahreading · 6 months

Text

(Right I think It's time for me to finally get this over with )

Helloo and Welcome to my Blog, This is Primarily a Writer/readerBlr, but there are other things too(Particularly listening to podcasts ) since I can't be bothered to make a side one.

My reader side - I am an avid reader and am almost always in the middle of a book, I will be updating here on which books I'm reading

Current read list -

Dracula (Bram Stoker)

The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud)

A Dance with the Fae Prince (Elise Kova)

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Kai Bird)

The Silver Birds (Apolline Lucy)

That Night (Nidhi Upadhyay)

The Complete Adventures of Feluda, Vol 1 (Satyajit Ray)

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)

The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)

The War of Lanka (Amish Tripathi)

City of Bones (Cassandra Clare)

And that's all I can remember Right about now , Yes I'm reading 10 books or more simultaneously, no I do not have an explanation to that.

My main Genre is Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery and thriller, But I do love widening my scope so do recommend me any books you might think may pique my interest. 😁

My reader side also includes me obsessing over podcasts, I'm including my Favourite podcasts here too, and I assure you they are amazing!

Podcasts for you - I usually listen to them on Spotify and love True crime, mystery, Murder mysteries etc. Here they are -

Rotten Mango by Stephanie Soo (True Crime) - I wouldn't suggest you listen to this if you get disgusted or scared easily, I usually am not affected by these kinds of things and I was still very disturbed, The first 2 episodes are quite... I would suggest you research about it more before you listen to it.

Baking a Murder by Stephanie Soo (Books and movies) - This podcast is again one of my favourites, the way she explains the movie is just so immersive, if you want to understand a story but don't have time to sit down and read the book/watch the movie then this is for you.

7 Suspects by Cryptic Radio(Murder Mystery ) - OH MY GOD, holy- this is probably one of the best mystery podcasts I've ever listened to, tbh you think you know what is going on and till the very end that is kinda sorta true, but then in the like the last 5 moments the plot twist so intense you are left sinking on to the floor thinking "What just happened", listen to, right now.

Magnus Archives by Rusty Quill (Story? horror? not sure what it comes under) - I've started listening to it after getting intense FOMO and can confirm it's going pretty well, I mean I have a LOT to catch up to, but I can say, it's caught my interest.

Murder in HR by Caspian Studios (Murder Mystery) - Again OH MY GOD, again, this is one of the best mystery podcasts I've ever listened to, I mean yeah, the gym ad thingy gets a little bit annoying but the rest of the story compensates for it, again, you think you know where you are going, again up until the very end you just don't know what the hell is going on, and again (Do you see a pattern) when the mystery hits you you are flabbergasted, soo I suggest give it a listen(also kinda obsessed with the soundtrack).

Murphy's Inc. by 97toNow Productions (Scifi mystery) - This is one of the better ones, I'm still listening to it and it's just actually really good, It's kinda the thing you listen to once a day, kinda relaxing (for me at least )

Ok, so this one is a bit different, there is a podcast Caso 63: Enigma: Spotify studios but it's in Spanish which I still haven't quite learnt and I didn't know this existed. I was recommended 2063 theke Esechi by Spotify Studios which is in Bengali which I do, in fact, understand. It was voiced by one of my favourite actors and I was absolutely in love with it, It feels like I wasn't listening to a podcast but a movie and there is so much confusion and so many twists. This podcast has been made in other languages as well, the other two ik are Case 63 (In English) and Virus 2062(In Hindi). So check it out!!

Treat by C13Features (Horror, gory) - This is like a podcast movie, it's around 2 hours long maybe? this is pretty good I would say, you can give it a listen.

Welcome to Night Vale by Night Vale Presents (Absurdity?) - I really don't think I need to say anythi_-_- HAIL THE GLOWCLOUD.

Morning Cup of Murder by Morning Cup of Murder (True Crime) - True crime yk...

The Sounds of Nightmares by Little Nightmares - Bandai Namco Europe (Horror, gore, mystery) - Uhh it's a little unnerving how detailed the actions of characters are As if they were compensating for the fact that there are no visuals, but it was pretty good I would say(Also like the soundtrack)

My writer side- My most popularly known name is Jeah (jee - ah) and I'll be using that here, I am a new author getting started on writing. I still have a looong way to go but, I enjoy writing very much even though my mind and body are definitely not on par with my will to write which is why my second unintended hobby is procrastination. Most of the time that I'm here on Tumblr I am supposed to be doing some other work, like right now.

Anywaysss here are my current WIP's

Mirror My Way - This is my first and only properly published Book. Tbh Not very proud of it, I did it in a hurry, because I took part in the school's Writing program, did nothing the whole year, and finished it in the last week, I honestly think It had potential but I kinda ruined it trying to finish it within the deadline. I wouldn't recommend you read it, It was supposed to be a part of a duology or trilogy but I think I'm just gonna let it sit in the corner for now, let it be there, think upon its mistakes, it did wrong 😤.

Tots and Coffee - Now this one I like better, this was actually inspired by the Scam Caller post here on Tumblr. Kinda had a sudden burst of inspiration and Wrote the first Chapter and since then it's still going pretty strong. Unlike the previous one, it is there on Ao3 if you wish to read it 😁.

I dunno what to call this but I occasionally write short stories in the replies of Pinterest pins when I come across writing prompts. This isn't a wip exactly but , I once posted the starting of a story and jokingly wrote "Continue-!" at the end thinking that would be the end of it, but someone did eventually continue it and that led to a string of events and a very weirdly Eledritch, beautiful Frankestine story formation, I'll be posting it slowly here on Tumblr as well, so keep checking!

Forgot to put it in earlier, but check out @the-writers-corner-inc It's a group blog I initiated, and you can find lots of fun stories, prompts, visuals and more!!

And that's about it, I don't what else to say, but while you're here, grab a cup of coffee or tea, pick out a book and read a page, I'm right here on the other side with a book as well, let's be booky buddies 😄😄😃😃🍵☕

#intro post #writers #writing #books and reading

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