Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2019-07-13 06:22 pm
silveradept) wrote2019-07-13 06:22 pm
Entry tags:
Sunshine Challenge #4: What You Stan Makes You A Fan
Sunshine Challenge Four asks us to recommend fanworks. In such a broad category, they offer some advice on how to make it even more broad, but also potentially easier to find something to recommend.
With such a broad definition, it would be hard to narrow anything down to "this, these, these are the things I recommend", and yet there are people who do it all the time. (Usually on a theme of some sort, which I am currently lacking, so perhaps as this post unravels, something will turn up that allows for some sort of categorization.)
There's the "recommend yourself" part of it. I'd like to think most of the things in![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
silveradept are worth your time, at least if you're in the fandom that the works are in, but that's a very small and private hope, and not one that necessarily gets out a lot. Far better for someone else to say that your work is something they really enjoy than for me to say a work is something worht looking at and then staring as the crickets chirp.
It's a bit different, writing in an active fandom and in the primary-esque pairing or characters. Where before it took a significant amount of time to reach three digits of kudos, I dashed off Chat Noir's Convention Cosplay Crisis on a whim, and it swiftly became the biggest-kudoed work that I've written. I don't know if that's because it's actually indicative of my writing, or whether it's just silly and the fandom enjoyed it. But maybe you can look at it and see where the magic is. And then tell me.
As for things other people have done, well, there's a lot of things I've enjoyed, and some of the ones that I really, really wanted to make sure I recommended are in my AO3 bookmarks tag, but that's all stuff that's on AO3. Which is mostly fic. Like, I really love looking at fanart, but I'm not necessarily seeking it out all that much, or really making very sure that I show it off to other peopole when they send it along for me to see. Like, the image searches on anything that fits the pairing or description you're looking for will often bring back a boatload of fanart and vids and other such things. But I've received some nice pieces of art as gifts - As The Wood Is Still and But it is Certain I am Loved of all Ladies, Only You Excepted were both by laughingpineapple and have my favorite Final Fantasy XII pair, Fran and Balthier, in different situations. Who Hangs Out With Predators? is a first contact kind of situation with sentient balls of things and cats and all sorts of scientific curiosity between the humanoid and the not-humanoid.
I really like Project Destati as a fanwork for Kingdom Hearts, and walking all the way backward, apparently, they're part of the Materia Collective, which just gave me a lot of new album work to listen to that I didn't realize had been done. I also like the idea of Post Modern Jukebox, which takes lyrics and riffs from pop songs of the current (ish) decade and reworks the music so they sound like various other forms of music, like doo wop, big band, or disco. The concept, a lot of the time, is pretty good (and the tap-dancing is top-notch, when that's involved), the choice of singers is excellent (I especially like Puddles Pity Party singing "Chandelier") and it asks a lot of really interesting questions about what makes a song unique and what makes it tick. It's a conversation that entities like Muzak started, but Post Modern Jukebox is really trying to be as transformative as it can be to the originals without rendering them utterly unintelligible. If, however, you want to go in the opposite direction, there's Frog Leap Studios' metal-style covers of works. Which have a lot of really good options. I particuarly like the video associated with Gorillaz' Feel Good Inc., but also the skill at the playing.
I suppose that's enough possible recommendations. I don't know if I found a theme, other than "Here's some stuff that I found interesting," but if you've been reading the blog long enough, you know that's usually the theme anyway. And if you're looking for more good stuff, there's years upon years' worth of link-laden posts to satisfy your curiosity and more with.
Fanworks in this context can mean anything a fan has spent time creating for their beloved fandoms (.gifs and amv’s and cosplay and that tile you painted in your apartment bathroom to look like that fannish thing … don’t let traditional views of what constitutes a fanwork limit you here).
You do not need to be a content creator to share fanworks. I’ve seen it mentioned in various places that some people don’t feel as much a part of fandom as those who create content, but fandom exists for ALL fans. Many of us are here to enjoy and spread love and this is your time to shine. We want to see what you’ve found over the years!
That said, if you are a creator, then also consider taking this opportunity to self-promote. It can feel awkward for many of us to share our own fanworks and shine lights on them, and if you are one of those folks, please consider this your nudge to step on the podium and be proud of the works you’ve labored over.
With such a broad definition, it would be hard to narrow anything down to "this, these, these are the things I recommend", and yet there are people who do it all the time. (Usually on a theme of some sort, which I am currently lacking, so perhaps as this post unravels, something will turn up that allows for some sort of categorization.)
There's the "recommend yourself" part of it. I'd like to think most of the things in
It's a bit different, writing in an active fandom and in the primary-esque pairing or characters. Where before it took a significant amount of time to reach three digits of kudos, I dashed off Chat Noir's Convention Cosplay Crisis on a whim, and it swiftly became the biggest-kudoed work that I've written. I don't know if that's because it's actually indicative of my writing, or whether it's just silly and the fandom enjoyed it. But maybe you can look at it and see where the magic is. And then tell me.
As for things other people have done, well, there's a lot of things I've enjoyed, and some of the ones that I really, really wanted to make sure I recommended are in my AO3 bookmarks tag, but that's all stuff that's on AO3. Which is mostly fic. Like, I really love looking at fanart, but I'm not necessarily seeking it out all that much, or really making very sure that I show it off to other peopole when they send it along for me to see. Like, the image searches on anything that fits the pairing or description you're looking for will often bring back a boatload of fanart and vids and other such things. But I've received some nice pieces of art as gifts - As The Wood Is Still and But it is Certain I am Loved of all Ladies, Only You Excepted were both by laughingpineapple and have my favorite Final Fantasy XII pair, Fran and Balthier, in different situations. Who Hangs Out With Predators? is a first contact kind of situation with sentient balls of things and cats and all sorts of scientific curiosity between the humanoid and the not-humanoid.
I really like Project Destati as a fanwork for Kingdom Hearts, and walking all the way backward, apparently, they're part of the Materia Collective, which just gave me a lot of new album work to listen to that I didn't realize had been done. I also like the idea of Post Modern Jukebox, which takes lyrics and riffs from pop songs of the current (ish) decade and reworks the music so they sound like various other forms of music, like doo wop, big band, or disco. The concept, a lot of the time, is pretty good (and the tap-dancing is top-notch, when that's involved), the choice of singers is excellent (I especially like Puddles Pity Party singing "Chandelier") and it asks a lot of really interesting questions about what makes a song unique and what makes it tick. It's a conversation that entities like Muzak started, but Post Modern Jukebox is really trying to be as transformative as it can be to the originals without rendering them utterly unintelligible. If, however, you want to go in the opposite direction, there's Frog Leap Studios' metal-style covers of works. Which have a lot of really good options. I particuarly like the video associated with Gorillaz' Feel Good Inc., but also the skill at the playing.
I suppose that's enough possible recommendations. I don't know if I found a theme, other than "Here's some stuff that I found interesting," but if you've been reading the blog long enough, you know that's usually the theme anyway. And if you're looking for more good stuff, there's years upon years' worth of link-laden posts to satisfy your curiosity and more with.