Fandom Promos

[galerian_ash]

Have you already decided what fandom(s) to write for? If so, how about doing a little promoting? :D

We've all chosen tiny obscure canons, needless to say. But by posting here you might be able to entice someone else to give it a try — or perhaps you'll even run into a fellow fan, who can't wait to read your coming fic.

Your promo can be long or short, and contain whatever you feel like. Want to post a couple of intriguing screencaps from a movie? Quote a few paragraphs from a book? Rec the best episode of an anime or a TV series? Talk about why you love your favorite character and/or pairing from your fandom? It's all good; anything goes!

Comments

[primeideal]

I plan to write for "The Sign of the Dragon" by Mary Soon Lee!

Canon is a novel in free verse about King Xau of Meqing (fantasy China) and everyone, big and small, in his orbit. Mei is Xau's sister; Donal is Xau's enemy-turned-friend; Connol is Donal's troubled brother. Eventually, Connol and Mei get married to secure an alliance between their two realms, although they're kind of ambivalent about it. However, before this, I was wondering if things were going to go in a Donal/Mei direction:

“His fourth and least important son.
He planned to marry off
ourself or our sister
to an Innish ruler
and so pacify the barbarians.”

“Your sister speaks Innish too?”

So I think Donal and Mei should meet again post-canon (pre-epilogue) and shoot the breeze and reminisce about their weird brothers and be multilingual friends, even if they don't get together in a romantic way!

This is a hard book to recommend. I can be picky about free verse; I often prefer more formal poetry, but this book isn't too crazy or inaccessible--you can think of it as like flash fiction, with a few brief alliterative snippets and a lot of reading-between-the-lines. However, while the early sections are very Incorruptible Pure Pureness on Xau's part, the later sections get extremely dark. For me, this tonal mismatch meant that it really didn't stick the landing, and it was one of those that left me with a lot of lingering frustration. (More at the link, under spoiler cuts.)

Chance (2015)

[delphi]

I was mulling over a few different options this year, but I've landed on Chance, a 2015 short film available to watch for free on Vimeo.

Packing a lot of pathos, romance, and sweetness into just fifteen minutes, Chance tells the story of two London men dealing with loss who find a second chance at love together. Amir is a refugee fleeing the state persecution that killed his lover. Trevor is a withdrawn widower struggling after the death of his wife. Their paths cross in their neighbourhood park one day when Amir intervenes to defend Trevor from harassment, and the two find some much-needed comfort and happiness in each other's company as they continue to meet up.

[lovelytomeetyou]

Spirit Circle (manga only) was my favorite new read and discovery last year! It handles the themes of reincarnation, past lives, parallel universes so well! If you are super tired of boring reincarnation stories where the MC escapes to an easier reality (like I was), this is such a fresh breath! We start slow, with a young average teenage boy who's nothing special. Then we slowly discover what's going on in his current life and how it affects his other lives. There's a girl hell-bent on revenge against him but what's the deal there?

Who's in the right (and wrong)? Very interesting discussion on many things like justice, revenge, karma, family, love and regret. Even if you don't like religious themes, this is more of an exploration on what is life and what we get to do with the time we have. Sadly, it does have fanservice, nothing is perfect. I'm not even sure what I'll write yet because we have 8 lives that could be discussed - maybe all of them, maybe just one. There's a lot of content in such short chapters!