Day 2 | In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story.

I'm in my 30s, so of course my fannish origin story starts with Sailor Moon and Pokemon ;D I somehow ended up watching a bunch of Sailor Moon when I was a little kid (like, 4 or 5 years old little), I guess because my mom found it while channel-surfing and figured her small child would like it?

By the time I was given free reign to explore the internet, fandom was already established online and starting to move out of user-groups. I spent hours on Anime Web Turnpike, absolutely enthralled by all the fansites and forums and what have you. I was very lucky to have high speed internet at home starting in the late 90s, and I took full advantage of it XD

I loved everyone's little corners of the internet, seeing what people did differently with their spaces, and I knew that someday, I wanted to be part of it.

Lucky for me, my dad is a computer programmer and engineer, and I grew up surrounded by tech. He was very insistent that I learn how to make websites, because he could tell that the internet was the future...and what better way to practice HTML than with a Sailor Moon fansite? My first websites are long gone, both online and any offline versions, because 10 year olds aren't necessarily known for their dedications to backing up their files.

But I can't talk about my fannish history without bringing up probably my biggest support as a tiny weeb. My cousin, shaenongarrity, was absolutely formative to my love of anime. During her college breaks, she took me to see Miyazaki films in theaters, something practically unheard of in 90s, and it opened my eyes to anime as something beyond the after-school block of programming on Kids' WB. So what if I couldn't really grasp what was going on in Princess Mononoke? It was still the coolest thing I'd ever seen on the big screen.

She also worked for VIZ in the 00s and would send me whole boxes of manga, making me the coolest kid in town~ I had a subscription to Smile magazine thanks to her, which introduced me to Peach Girl, which I absolutely latched onto. I was so inspired; my diary was basically nothing but Peach Girl fanfiction for a couple years there XD I still wasn't publishing any of it, but it's still so important to me, if nothing else.

And sooooooo, all of these various pieces - as well as some others that I'm sure I'm forgetting - led to me finally publishing my first fanfic. I'd lurked for years, but wanting to post my own fic got me out of my shell, so to speak, and I've been a part of fandom spaces ever since :D

Day 1 | Update your fandom information.

I made a new layout for my journal, which includes an updated blurb about myself in the sidebar! I'm very pleased with all the matching assets I made, too. I'm also excited that I've been active enough on DW that I've made two layouts for the same fandom :D

Also, I've been pretty active on the Ensemble Stars Wiki, so I updated my profile there with the projects I'm currently working on.

Overall, I'm pretty deep in Ensemble Stars! hell, I post fanfics on my AO3, and I make graphics at killiansicons ♥ Basically all of my social medias are linked in my pinned post, but I'm most active on bluesky and DW.

Day 4 | IceBreaker Challenge! Tell us about yourself.

noooooooooooooo I just redid my profile and updated things about myself on other sites, do I really have to do it again? XD

Anyway! Hi, I'm Killian~ I just turned 34 earlier this week and I live on the east coast of the US - though not in the same state that I grew up in! - with my wife dragonofeternal & my bff arahith. We bought a house a couple years ago and very quickly filled it with a delightful amount of fandomy things, as well as our four cats :D I'm currently a creative writing student, and I'll be finishing up my associates degree this spring, with hopes to transfer to a bigger university to complete my bachelors. Very exciting!!!!

I'm currently deep, deep in Trigun hell, thanks to my wife dragging me into it last year ♥ It's got me in a fucking death grip; I got out of watching the 98 anime and IMMEDIATELY started writing fic, the same day, and that fervor hasn't really subsided yet XD It's, uh, really good, I swear!!!!!!!

One of my first loves is Kingdom Hearts, and it will always have a very special place in my heart. I enjoy JRPGs in general, particularly Final Fantasy VII & X and the Persona series. Other "previous" fandoms include Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Mo Dao Zu Shi, and Yu-Gi-Oh!........though previous is a kinda strong term, since I can never truly leave a fandom behind.

Fun fact: my wife and I met through Homestuck, and they decided to date me despite the Eridan sleeve tattoo I have XD That's true love, baby!!!! We've been together for over a decade now ♥

Other fun fact: my desk has been dubbed the "ita desk" because of how extensively I've decorated it. I'll share a pic and let y'all be the judge of that XD


Okay okay okay, lemme try to wrap this up some~ When it comes to participating in fandom, I mostly write fanfiction, all of which can be found at my AO3. I'm the most active on bluesky, because it's still fairly slow moving and lowkey, with a lot of the features of Twitter I use most. I also cosplay occasionally, but not as often as I used to ;w;

That's about all I've got! If you also like any of these fandoms and/or wanna be writing buddies, I'd love to be friends!!!!!

Day 3 | Create a wish list of fandom things (podfic, graphics, playlists, canon recs translations, research help, vids, sky's the limit!) that you'd like to receive.

My wish list is not very long, but I feel like it's full of things that are very relatable XD

• Transformative works of my fanfics, especially fanart, fanmixes, or even a single song or other work that something I've written reminds someone of. I am always thirsty for interaction XD
• More people engaging with and/or creating for my "rare" pairs- I don't think they're all that rare, but they don't always get as much content
  • Knives/Legato (Trigun)
  • Judal/Hakuryuu (Magi)
  • Ryou Bakury/Yami Malik (Yu-Gi-Oh!)
• My final, secret wish is for a resurgence of sparkle graphics, aka the style of graphics that had me in a death-grip in the mid-00s and I haven't quite given up XD I'm using one as my icon for this post, and I have countless more examples on my various graphics journals

And that's pretty much it! Also, it's my birthday, so that's definitely why I deserve these uwu

Day 2 | In your own space, set yourself some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

Hmmmm, where to begin? I actually have a lot going on this year, so I've had to take some time for figure out what can be boiled down into a list. Like, I guess I don't have to completely simplify it, but......it's easy that way XD

2024 Goals

• finish my associate's degree
  • barring any crises, my graduation is in the spring!!! I'll have an AA in Creative Writing :D
• get into my top choice college
  • I have guaranteed admission to my safety school, but it is the college I had to leave due to mental health issues when I was 19, soooooo I'm not sure if I wanna go back
• write more regularly
  • as opposed to one massive burst during NaNoWriMo, which is frankly unsustainable. I wrote 80k this year...which is WAY more than I wrote the whole rest of the year...
• publish and/or update a fic every month for the year
  • related to writing more regularly, but an actual concrete goal that I always mean to do, but I'm gonna try more seriously this time
• give setsuntamew.net an overhaul to make it a proper landing page with links to where to find me across the interwebs
• organize an event for the Millionsummers fanbase/discord
  • I dunno if I have it in me to run an entire fandom week, but maybe a long weekend with some solid prompts would be cool!
• make more graphics, be it for tumblr or dreamwidth icons
• carry my camera around more

...I feel like there's more going on in my life, but I think this is a pretty solid start :D

Day 1 | Update your fandom information.

I finally made a matching default icon for the layout I finished over the summer + did a complete overhaul of my profile!!! I've been basically copy/pasting the same one since uhhhhh probs 2007 or earlier?? With minor updates/modifications over the years + different graphics to match journal layouts (tho the last one has been the same since like, late 2018? early 2019? I never made it match any layouts since then, oops!).

SO!!!!! That's good!!!!!!! I also rearranged/updated some links on my pinned post to include my bluesky, since it's basically replaced twitter for me. It's slower paced and more chill, probs because less people are there, but I really like its vibes. I needed something less intense ><

But to sum up most of this, I'm currently most active in Trigun, posting my fanfics on AO3, and chatting with people on bluesky and discord~

Day 14 | In your own space, talk about what you think the future holds for fandom.

I like to think of myself as an optimistic person, but also a realistic one. I've been on the internet long enough that Anime Web Turnpike was where I found all the hot new websites for my favorite fandoms. So I've seen a lot of ups and downs, migrations, etc.

I worry that with the great Tumblr mess that is going on presently, fandom is becoming disjointed and spread thin. I worry that spaces are becoming less accessible and more restrictive, and that there's no good place for anyone to settle right now. I'm loving Dreamwidth, but I know that it's a hard sell to most people who are used to the simple, fast-paced feeds of tumblr and twitter. I think that pillowfort could be a good alternative, but it's still far too much in beta.

After tumblr banned adult content, I made the decision to quit entirely, keeping my blog up but only using it to occasionally reblog a post with all my contact info on other sites. But now that I'm helping run a big bang, it would be stupid to ignore the huge amount of people who use tumblr as their primary fandom website. So I've resigned myself to going back there at least for that. I hate it, because I hate the policies they have enacted.

But I do have hope that someday fandom has a place online that most everyone can agree on, with policies that don't stifle and lock people out. For me right now, it's Dreamwidth, and I'd love for it to be for awhile. All I know is that I'm willing to try out new places as they show up, with a hope for a brighter fandom future :D

Day 13 | In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

I've been doing daily and weekly goals so far this year (by...writing them on paper, because I'm an old person), but I do wanna take the time to make a proper list of goals for the entirety of 2019.

• Write more: I joined getyourwordsout and pledged to do 200k words, which sounds like a lot, but I'm pretty confident that I can do it. I do 50k+ during NaNoWriMo, so that's just....150k for the rest of the year... I have some specific goals for writing, too :D


• Finish A Bit of Blackened Fate. This is my longest fanfic ever and I have th entire thing planned out, I just need to sit down and finish it. I've never finished a chaptered fic before!! I gotta do it!


• Finish and edit what I wrote during NaNoWriMo 2018. I wrote a decent chunk of an original novel, and I'd like to see that finished. So I guess I gotta make it happen myself XD


• Open up drabble/one shot requests again, either here or on...tumblr :T I love doing things for others, and some of my best Magi fics were written from prompts/requests.


• Join more fandom spaces: I've felt a disconnect from fandom over the past year or so, partially because I pulled back from being on tumblr as much and partially because I've been busy with IRL stuff. I miss meeting new people and having fandom discussions! I miss the community of it!! So it's time to rejoin that world XD


• Make graphics again: A huge part of my early fandom contributions was icons and graphics. Fanfiction was the other part and I've kept up with that, but I don't make icons the way I used to. I already set up a graphics community here on DW, and I plan on updating it at least once or twice a month.


• Keep my living space cleaner: Can't write shit if there's nowhere to sit down!! Staying organized is an uphill battle for me, but I still want to try. I always feel better when the apartment is cleaner. I currently get most of my writing done at work because it's easier to focus there, and a lot of that stems from how clean it is there compared to at home.

Day 12 | In your own space, create your own challenge.

So, this one is kind of a double success?? I originally just had plans to start up a 100 icon challenge (similar to iconfiend100) but then my wife decided to run another Magi Big Bang...and of course I'm helping with that!! So here are the challenges I've decided to create/run/whatever:


icon100


magibigbang

They're in various stages of being set up, but I'm excited!!! I love events...they're stressful to run but also very satisfying, and I love watching everyone have a good time :D I definitely need to do a lot of work on the icon challenge on but like, I did it!! I'm workin!!!

Day 11 | In your own space, talk about your creative process(es) — anything from the initial inspiration to how you feel after something’s done. Do you struggle with motivation or is it a smooth process? Do you have any tricks up your sleeve to pull out when a fanwork isn’t cooperating? What is your level of planning to pantsing/winging it?

Full disclosure: I have ADHD that is completely unmedicated, so focus is a huge struggle for me. I've been putting off this entry because I hate talking about my failures, but I guess doing difficult things is part of the "challenge" part of this event :T

( cut because it got long?? I didn't mean to write so much but then I...did.... )

Anyway, those are the Killian-tested methods of creating fanworks!! A lot of it is an uphill battle for me, but I have no plans of giving up!