Vidding Exercises for Creative Distraction

I virtually attended Citrus Con this year, I think because I saw someone talking about it on Bluesky, and it was a very right-time alignment for reminding me how I used to be really into manga/anime. I’ve been keeping up with anime somewhat through watching with friends but not seriously keeping track of what I might be interested in or reading manga. So now I’m getting caught up. 

Lurking in the Citrus Squad discord led me to discovering Korean webcomics. Now I’m in a bunch of tiny fandoms, following 23 ongoing webcomics and keeping tabs on 13 that are on hiatus. As someone who wants fanvids of all the things I love, this has also meant getting a TikTok account because that’s where the edits/vids fandom is for Korean webcomics, so that’s also been a new experience. I haven’t started vidding webcomics yet but I’m definitely observing what I think works, or doesn’t, and hoping that I figure out vidding still images effectively for myself in the next year. This has also meant learning new pronunciation and proper nouns for podfic, which is a bit harder coming from webcomics than Kdramas because at least with dramas I have the show audio to try and mimic, but for webcomics by the time I start recording something I have possibly been pronouncing words incorrectly in my head for a while. So I’m starting to learn phonetic interpretation of transliteration of Korean better (I hope).

I’m now also dipping my toes in the world of Korean webnovels, in addition to having been consistently reading (or listening to) danmei over the course of the last year. I anticipate finishing 2ha in the coming year, and getting to enjoy catching up on the fandom without fear of spoilers. And once that happens I’ll probably get back into Critical Role as my primary audio-accompaniment to the hours and hours of physical therapy I have to do every week. But I am interested in webnovels as long-form story telling, enjoying what I’ve read so far, and curious to check out more of the fan translations particularly for genres that interest me (Korean hunterverse webnovels have been a good match for tropes I like). 

I started doing embroidery last year, so that’s a creative thing I’ve been doing this whole year. I’ve done a few fannish pieces this year, but hope to do more in the next year. (Last year was Perihelion polar fleece, MDZS bunnies, and Utena shadow girls, this year was a humpback whale for Lays of the Hearth Fire, SVSSS bingqiu, a Ghibli-esque train and rice fields image (ongoing), and a character for a gift swap - perhaps I should do an embroidery specific post with pics at some point). My plan for what’s next is a Moshang thread painting fanart piece. 

Podfic

This year I posted 62 podfics totaling 91 hours. That’s ~20 hours more than last year, which makes sense as I did more long podfics than normal - SVSSS is very good for long fic. I went into the year intending to record 2 ~120k fics, I wound up adding to that several in the 30-90k range. 

I recorded in 20 fandoms, primarily Lays of the Hearth-Fire, Scum Villian’s Self-Saving System, Summer Hikaru Died, and S Classes That I Raised.

Most popular: Oversharing is Caring by Prudabaga

Personal Favorite: Embers by alfgifu and Tarnished Gold by Prim_the_Amazing tying for first place in this category as two of my long projects this year that I particularly loved

Completed goals

- Record the rest of the Embers series by alfgifu

- Record some long SVSSS fic - and how! I did 5 podfics of at least 40k each. This was more than I was even anticipating when I set this goal last December. SVSSS fandom has been such a joy <3

- Participate in VoiceTeam

- Continue making cover art for all my podfic

What’s next (future goals)

- VoiceTeam participation

- Continue making cover art

- If particular author completes a particular SVSSS WIP - ask for permission & if granted record (preferably as part of PodficBigBang, but idk if author will be finished timely for that and I’m waiting to ask for recording permission for when they’re done)

- Podfic for Blind Go (if I get permission from author of fic I’m thinking of for it)

- Get all my stuff duplicated to SquidgeWorld so I have diversification off AO3 (I’ve been sidetracked onto other projects and this one has been backburnered so idk when it might realistically happen, maybe this is a 2027 thing)

- Get all my stuff backed up onto the audiofic archive - happily I might be able to rely on the kindness of others and not do this myself since I keep failing to do it.

Vids

I made final drafts of a total of 13 vids this year. I have 3 vids in-progress at the moment. I don’t have any dominant fandom this year, a selection of Festivids fandoms and some anime. 

Personal Favorite: expert in a dying field (my VidUKon GPOY vid, I do enjoy wallowing in my tropes)

Viewer favorite (views/kudos):

Both YT and AO3 agree on the same vid this year: Vigilante Shit

Most fun: Intricate Rituals

Hardest to make: Rust - I signed up for this fandom for Festivids last year knowing the show was ongoing, turns out I don’t like trying to make a vid for an actively ongoing canon, I don’t enjoy constructing a vid when not entirely sure what I’ll get out of the last episodes of a season. Suffice to say I now know I prefer to vid a canon once a season is complete (even if there will be future seasons).

Things I learned this year: I feel like I’m getting better at audio editing (thank you sandalwoodbox!).

Completed goals:

- I sent vids to some cons

- keep growing diversity of my music collection but also listen more to songs of artists I’ve liked so I can be familiar with them/know them well.

Ongoing goals:

- make another collaborative vid w/ sandalwoodbox (we did a tiny bit of work on this but still very much ongoing)

Future Goals:

- Make and send AMVs to AMV Contests? 

- Make a webcomic vid?

Fic

I wrote one fic for Yuletide this year, so just a little bit once again, but I felt better about my writing process this year and I want to see if I can keep writing over the course of the next year. I feel really rusty but like I could enjoy it if I got back into writing regularly like I used to. I had an idea for an additional fic but didn’t write it. Hopefully I’ll do more in the new year without needing Yuletide as encouragement to write.