Tuesday, September 26.

Flula Borg presents: '90s nostalgia.

The 90s, we knew them well; 'twas the one decade to rule them all. The Simpsons was as good as it has ever been. Princess Diana stole our hearts. For reasons still unclear, our species decided to clone a sheep, whom we christened Dolly. Bill Clinton was out and about. Kids and adults alike would escape reality for the havens of the Super Nintendo, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, or Game Boy Color. The McMansion became a mainstay of American architecture. The Cool S reigned supreme.

Generation X were able to enjoy the cultural fruits of rave, grunge, Britpop, hip hop, drum and bass, and Eurodance. And it was a golden era, perhaps the golden era, of the sitcom: The Fresh Prince, Cheers, Seinfeld, Family Matters, Married... with Children. These were days to kick back in an armchair, complete with a built-in refrigerator, and watch and watch every last hour of the finest television our species has to offer. It was a tall ask, but someone had to do it.

Fortunately, that man is very tall, German, and very funny. His name is #flula borg. You know him, more likely than not. And he has most graciously plucked some achingly 90s delights from the dashboard, for your viewing pleasure. 

Alice in Chains - "No Excuses" (live on MTV Unplugged)

One of the most beautiful lyrics ever.

I love AO3. I really, truly do. But at the same time, it reminds me that fanfic had a very different feel back in the day… in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

We didn't so much promote our stories as we traded them like literary contraband, handing them out in the back alleys of newsboards and forums and LiveJournal to be gobbled up by the desperate, starving masses. Sometimes you wouldn't post them, you would simply mention that you had written them; and when someone asked to see your story you would send them an email with the creation copy-pasted within. Those of us who had our own Geocities or Angelfire websites would make elaborate pages for each story, setting the background and font color to match what we felt the fic evoked, and of course adding pictures that we had slapped together in Photoshop for flavor.

When FFnet came along, we eagerly thrust our creations into its algorithm, like birds shoving their babies out of the nest; then we held our breath and waited to see if anyone cared enough to make a comment before our stories slipped into the depths of the pit, never to be seen or read again. And the tingle we felt in our chests when someone did finally comment left us on a high for hours or even days.

There were annual fanfiction awards for some fandoms, and if you won any category at all you would wear that award proudly... a badge of honor to be displayed in your forum signature or FFnet profile. But really, the ultimate honor was when someone did fan art of your stories and posted it on DeviantArt or LJ, and you would hold on to that picture like a child clinging to a favorite teddy bear.

More often than not, the people you knew in real life weren't aware of what you did with your spare time, and you would have died of embarrassment if they ever found out. In general, you stayed in your lane, keeping other fandoms out of your business, except for the occasional crossover (which came with the added complication of having to choose which fandom to post them under on FFnet). We didn't have beta readers... hell, sometimes we didn't edit at all. Grammar and spelling mattered less than your passion for the subject, and research was conducted somewhat haphazardly, to the point where any anachronisms were shrugged off. Still, OOC characters were raked thoroughly across the coals; questioned and poked until the author explained why they had written them that way.

The tropes and cliches that people now cringe at were created then, embraced wholeheartedly. Mary Sues and self-inserts and songfics were everywhere… and we loved it. Authors would interrupt their own stories in the middle to add notes, sometimes presented as the characters themselves giving you information about what was going on in the story or what led the author to add this or that small detail.

We were afraid of being copyright claimed, we were afraid of being ridiculed, we were afraid of being sued by Anne Rice (even if we didn't write anything that took place in her universe). We felt rebellious, accomplished, and maybe a little guilty about what we wrote; but we wrote it because we loved it, and that was enough.

As I said, I really do love AO3… but there was just such a culture surrounding fanfic back then… a kinship and a sisterhood. I wish that those who have never gotten to experience it could have the chance to go back for a while, feel the way it felt… same as I wish my own kids could have experienced the freedom of summer vacation back when summer vacation meant freedom.

The world is just too fast now, the internet too loud; you have to run to catch up, scream to be heard... when sometimes all you want to do is whisper, "Hey… I wrote something… does anyone want to take a look?" and to have someone whisper back, "Yes! Send it to me and I'll print it out to read in bed tonight!"

(via Distorted Perceptions: My Novel)

hey fun fact! a lot of people don’t like fanon bc fanon does a great disservice to marginalized characters (particularly poc, women, etc). often times fanon versions of those characters also means subconsciously projecting bigoted stereotypes on that character/flanderizing a particular part of the character while leaving all the complexity to the white male main characters

An ad from the 1990's TMNT Adventures comics (the Archie run).

Album covers for Bobby Caldwell:

Bobby Caldwell (1978, Clouds/TK Records)

Carry On (1982, Polydor)

August Moon (1983, Polydor)

Heart of Mine (1989, Sin-Drome)

Where Is Love (1993, Sin-Drome)

Iceberg right ahead! This week, V and Emily plumb the depths of the entire world's massive Titanic fandom and its accompanying "Leomania." James Cameron's Titanic was impossible to ignore in 1998 -- from the cinema to some weird video store in Utah, from middle school dances to the Oval Office, from the pages of Vanity Fair to the wilderness of GeoCities, Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt-Bukater were inescapable. So grab your Jewel of the Sea knockoff necklace, polish off your Céline Dion CD, and rewind VHS1 of your two-tape box set. Are you ready to go back to Titanic?

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

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I love that the villain in the 90's Brazilian children's show Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum was a sleazy realtor who wanted to gentrify the neighbourhood.

And the realtor looked like this:

And his name was Doutor Abobrinha, which literally translates as "Doctor Pumpkin". (In Brazil "abobrinha" is slang for "lie", so it was a name implying he was a liar and not to be trusted.)

Wednesday June 7.

The 1990s. It was the best of times, it was the best of times...

Ahh... the 90s. What a time to be alive. People often throw around the phrase "Halycon Days", but believe you me, the 90s was the real Halyconian deal. It was a time of peace, prosperity. Simpler times, you may say, awash with simple pleasures, the promise of "The World Wide Web", and a little start-up called Starbucks. People thought Furbies were spying on them, AOL Instant Messenger revolutionized the way we communicate, and Alanis Morissette wrote a hit song, "Ironic", which misunderstood irony. It was the golden era of the shopping mall, in which parents purchased exciting new electrical goods in the latest fruitless attempt to heal their gaping spiritual void, as teens on skateboards, with tufts of hair sprouting through their backward-facing caps, loitered around outside blowing gum and wearing black t-shirts with skulls on them.

For reasons unbeknownst to us, #the 1990s is trending, and we are here *clap* for *clap* it *clap*. *ouch*

Name a more iconic slasher movie villain introduction than Tiffany Valentine.

A cop getting his throat slit, making the audience think it's Chucky come back to life at first. Then we see a human woman in high heels and Gothic fashion filing her nails with the bloodied knife. Taking the Chucky doll for herself and strutting out as a Rob Zombie number begins. The actress herself getting top billing. Learning about the character's connection to Charles Ray as we see the newspaper clippings in her trailer home with the doll collection as she stitches Chucky back together.

Unmatched.

Film after film: Porco Rosso (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1992)

Shuffle your favourite playlist and post the first five songs that come up. Then copy/paste this ask to your favourite mutuals <3

I used my favorite '90s Jamz playlist, which is the main one that I actually listen to while putzing around the house or whatever.

Quit Playing Games with My Heart - BSB

Torn - Natalie Imbruglia

Can't Fight the Moonlight - LeAnn Rimes

Where My Girls At - 702

Closing Time - Semisonic

Hot damn, what a playlist. Thank you for sending, bb!

Rather than ask-boxing people and stressing out about potentially forgetting anyone, I just tag anyone who wants to do this! <3