fandom essays i'd like to read but feel unqualified to write

On of my favorite sporadic series of posts I ever did on Tumblr was "fandom essays I'd like to read but feel unqualified to write". It worked really well when I had a fandom idea that I wanted to express, but didn't feel confident that I could write a full essay (with proof and arguments and so forth) that would be worth reading.

(That said, I still sometimes wrote up SOME supporting points for my imagined essays. They are included in cuts below.)

My first post, in January 2016, was titled "I am going to start a series titled Fandom Essays I'd Like To Read But Feel Unqualified to Write".

One of them would definitely be Provided, Of Course, That All Is Well: A Comparison of the Symbolism and Narrative Functions of Steve Rogers and Carrot Ironfoundersson.

(Unfortunately, I know very little of Marvel canon beyond the MCU so anything I wrote would be heavily fanon-influenced.)

The second one, just a week later, was Another One For the Pile.

“We’re Bad Guys, It’s What We Do’: The Meaning and Marketing of Transgressiveness in Suicide Squad”

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A couple of weeks later, I was back within another one:

Eroticizing the Overwhelming: Slavery, Submission, and Rape in Captive Prince

A few notes under the cut (content warning for rape, sexual assault, CSA, and other messed-up stuff):

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Next is the one I'm maybe the most proud of:

Now and Forever, No One Would Save Him: Raising a Chosen One In Ender’s Game and Harry Potter

(I mean, yes, they’re both Jesus narratives. But it’s the similarities in how the two characters are groomed, contrasted with the differences in what the groomers hope each hero will ultimately do, which I find so interesting.)

After I finished the entire Captive Prince trilogy, I had another essay I wanted to write:

The Sovereignty of Empathy, the Logic of Trauma: Love and Trust in the Captive Prince Trilogy

(cynical subtitle: How C.S. Pacat Wrote The Platonic Ideal Of A Codependent Relationship And Made Us Love Every Word Of It)

I'm realizing that these almost all came from 2016. Another personal favorite:

At the End of the Universe, A Band Is Playing: Tracing The Narrative and Stylistic Influences of Welcome To Night Vale

(The point I wanted to make, which I didn't make very clear in the original Tumblr post, is that the common description of Night Vale as "a mix of Stephen King and the Cthulhu Mythos" is actually completely incorrect. I would trace the influences of WTNV back, rather, to the dark humor of Douglas Adams, i.e. The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, and the horror-adjacent science fiction works of Ray Bradbury, e.g. Somewhere A Band Is Playing. Doesn't "somewhere, a band is playing" even sound like a WTNV line?)

Then I got a little salty about the show Sherlock and Moffat's obsession with Great Man stories:

"Not Everything Is Deducible”: Aggrandizement, Deconstruction, and Male Mary Sues in Sherlock and Elementary

Skip forward almost a year, to mid-2017, and I got a little excited about Fast & Furious 8, aka The Fate of the Furious:

“Daddy’s Staying Home”: The Evolving Appeal of The Fast and Furious Franchise

(Subtitle: F&F is turning into a fanfiction of itself and I am HERE FOR IT) (spoilery tags behind the cut)

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Next came an essay that I'd actually fully outlined before deciding I didn't want to write it:

The Triumph of Elektra: The Troubling Subtext of Innocence Reclaimed in Labyrinth

(this is technically not an essay i feel unqualified to write, but rather one that i’m hesitant to write. i generally dislike “nostalgic childhood property turned grimdark!” fan theories as much as the next person. on the other hand, the events and themes in Labyrinth are kind of creepy when you start to think about it, especially given the whole “Jareth is the magic-world parallel to her mother’s boyfriend” thing.)

The next essay, from late 2017, I actually titled "an essay I might be able to write after seeing The Last Jedi a few more times""

“You’re Nothing, But Not To Me”: Romance Heroes and Anti-Heroes from Pride and Prejudice to Star Wars.

(I am SO sorry y’all, I know that Kylo Ren and Reylo Discourse™ is kind of a mess. But I saw The Last Jedi an hour ago and I just…I really need to talk about how thoroughly they Reverse Darcy’d Ben.)

And the final entry, in late 2018, was regarding the Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop.

fandom essays I’d like to read but feel unqualified to write: “holy shit these books, y’all” edition
Father, Brother, Lover, and (Chosen) Child: Visions of Female Power and Gender Relations from Female Speculative Fiction Authors

Along with everything else I did this weekend, I managed to read the entire Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop. And while the plot and setting peripherals were just as over-the-top* id-ficcy as I’d heard, a lot of the thematic elements felt oddly familiar. Like, “super-powerful female child will be our savior but must be guided and helped by a variety of male figures, including a weird jealous scramble around who gets to be her romantic/sexual partner” - I have read that Anne McCaffrey novel AT LEAST three times. The way that consensual, non-violent sexuality is present but muted (extremely non-explicit and peripheral) while violence (both sexual and non-sexual) is foregrounded and described in relatively explicit detail, reminds me of several entries from Mercedes Lackey’s body of work. And the tone - likely progressive for its time, but leaning heavily on “one/a few Worthy Women contrasted with Those Bitches” and gender essentialism - feels so tied to both a cultural moment and the prominent female spec fic writers who were popular at that time.

*and the peripherals are, don’t get me wrong, banana-pants bonkers. Things I said out loud while reading Daughter of the Blood: (cut because of various content warnings)

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Introduction

In December of 2015, I synthesized my years of reading self-help books into a series of posts about goal-setting. I had a lot of fun putting these together! And while it probably wouldn't work for everyone, I do still think this is a legitimate set of tactics to set goals for yourself.

*rubs hands together* My blog description promises “to-do lists” and I hardly ever actually post lists, but now is the time! This is actually the first entry in a series that I’m planning to post throughout December.

I want to talk about goals. And since we are inching ever closer towards 2016, why not talk about that behemoth of goal-setting, New Year’s Resolutions?

Let’s get one thing clear about New Year’s Resolutions: there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with them. It’s become popular among some to roll their eyes at the concept, but “I will set new goals and resolutions to coincide with the new year” is a perfectly sound concept.

The problem with NYRs is the same problem that befalls many people who are told to set goals but never educated on the what, how, or why of the process. Presented with only platitudes, there’s an understandable tendency to set resolutions that are vague, overly ambitious, or which are more in line with what society deems laudable than what the goal-setter actually wants.

Having read a few many, many self-help books, I have strong opinions on goal setting. In fact, I have my own system, cobbled together from various books and resources. Since this is a subject that I feel weirdly passionate about, I decided to write a little series about the questions that I ask myself to set goals, including NYRs. And I encourage anyone reading to follow along if they’d like!

Two important notes. 1) This is necessarily incomplete. Parts of my own goal-setting process involved going through three or four separate self-evaluation programs based on various personal development books. That’s a bit excessive! If y’all are curious and want to dig deeper, let me know; I have book recs. 2) I’m not going to be fully answering all of the questions online, because some of it is personal. I’ll be writing it out longhand, but posting only examples here as illustrations of what I mean each day.

With that said!

Thirty-One Days of Goal Setting
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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day One

The question for the first day of my little homegrown 31 Days of Goal Setting is: What New Year’s Resolutions did you set for last year and why?

The “and why” is a REALLY CRITICAL part of this exercise. A significant chunk of this month is dedicated to figuring out what is important to you. For one thing, when you set a goal to achieve something that you care about, you are more likely to be motivated to achieve it. For another, why bother making goals about things you don’t care about?

Be as exact and descriptive as possible here. Did you write down your New Year’s Resolutions for last year? (I did, but I am sort of a weirdo when it comes to goals. See also: this entire series of exercises.) Any diary/Facebook/other social media entries about your NYRs? Try to dig them up.

I had twelve New Year’s Resolutions for 2015. I’m going to talk about three of them.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Two

The continuing adventures of 31 Days of Goal Setting! Yesterday, we thought about our 2015 New Year’s Resolutions and why we set them. Today, we ask: How did you do with your NYRs? Why do you think you failed or succeeded?

Once again, the what is important but the why is equally essential. Try to be as honest as possible about the reasons for your success or failure.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Three

Day three of 31 Days of Goal-Setting! Today’s question is: What other goals did you set throughout 2015 and why?

Days 1 and 2 focused entirely on New Year’s Resolutions. But January 1 is hardly the only time of the year in which you might set a goal for yourself; it’s just a particularly common time.

As always, the “why” is as least as important as the what of your goals. Identifying the purposes behind your goals helps you think about what is important to you, and whether your stated ambitions are actually in line with what you consider significant.

I had a LOT of supplemental goals that I set for myself throughout 2015 - at least 15, in fact. Again, I’m just going to talk about three.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Four

On the fourth day of the 31 Days of Goal-Setting challenge, we are reflecting on yesterday’s list of goals we set throughout the year for ourselves and asking: How did you do with those goals? Why do you think you failed or succeeded?

I know I’m already starting to sound like a broken record, but the why here is just as important as the answer of whether or not you achieved what you wanted. Be as clear and as honest as you can about your reasons for success or failure; the information is going to help you figure out what makes a goal more or less successful for you.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Five

We’re already on day five of the 31 Days of Goal-Setting challenge! Sick about thinking of last year’s goals yet? We’ve got one last round to go. Today, let’s think about: What unspoken/unwritten goals do you have for yourself? And why do you have them?

What do I mean by “unspoken” or “unwritten” goals? They’re they ones that you don’t record, or even necessarily plan around, but that “of course” you want to make progress on.

These types of goals can be really tricky. They may reflect things that are deeply important to you but that you aren’t focused on. Conversely, they can be things that you don’t care much about but that you are still semi-consciously expending time and energy trying to achieve. (If you are curious about this concept, I strongly recommend Mastering the Art of Quitting.)

The why here is even more important than in days 1 and 3 - why are you pursuing these goals, or at least keeping them around as goals that you should pursue?

You could probably spend an entire month simply rooting out and evaluating your own subconscious goals. For the sake of time, we’re compressing it into a day. I had three big ones that popped into my head almost instantly.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Six

This is the last day of Part 1: Reflecting on Previous Goals for our 31 Days of Goal-Setting challenge. Yesterday we looked at the unspoken, almost unconscious goals that we set for ourselves. Today, we ask: How have you been doing with these goals? Why do you think you failed or succeeded?

When you are evaluating your success or failure, and why you have or have not achieved these goals, another question you may want to ask yourself is, are these goals truly important to me? To what extent are they are priority?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Seven

We’re on to part two of our 31 Days of Goal-Setting! Part Two is all about Considering Goal Categories. (Note: I think I may have run across the explicit idea of goal categories in You, Only Better, and the categories I’m using are based on, though not identical to, the categories from that book.)

Considering goals in terms of different areas of one’s life is a simple but powerful part of goal-setting. For one thing, the process includes evaluating one’s life and which areas might be improved. For another, it generally leads to more balanced goal-setting overall.

For example, how many people have you seen who list eight or ten exercise or physical-based New Year’s Resolutions and absolutely nothing else? Some of these people are very focused on fitness achievement, and that’s fine. Others aren’t, but they are working under the assumption that that’s just how NYR’s work. (Trust me, I used to be one of them.

That said, health is a legitimate aspect of one’s life. So hey, let’s start with the obvious. Today’s question is: How are you doing when it comes to your health?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Eight

It’s day eight of our 31 Days of Goal-Setting! As a reminder, we’ve moved on to Part Two, which is about considering different categories of potential goals - which is just another way of saying, considering the different aspects of our lives - and asking ourselves how we’re doing compared with what we’d like to be accomplishing.

Today’s question is, How are you doing when it comes to your family and/or intimate relationships?

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(I do want to be better at talking with my mom and sister; I love them both, but I don’t talk to them as often as I’d like.)

Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Nine

Continuing with our 31 Days of Goal-Setting, today we’re asking ourselves, How are you doing when it comes to your friendships, community, and other relationships?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Ten

After answering today’s question, we’ll be about 1/3 of the way through 31 Days of Goal-Setting! How do you think things are going so far? Have you found these questions helpful?

We are still working on Part 2, which is all about aspects or areas of your life and how you think you’re doing. Today’s question is, How are you doing in terms of your finances and lifestyle?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Eleven

Our 31 Days of Goal-Setting continues today with a question that I very deliberately separated out from yesterday’s finance question: How are you doing in terms of your career and purpose?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twelve

I feel like there’s a 12 Days of Christmas joke I could be making here, but I can’t quite flesh it out. Ah well. Our question today for the 31 Days of Goal-Setting is, How are you doing in terms of joy and fulfillment?

Surprised by this question? You shouldn’t be. I almost wish I had made this question the last of our goal categories because it’s tied to all of the other aspects.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Thirteen

This is the last pre-set category from our Part 2 (Considering Goal Categories) section of our 31 Days of Goal-Setting. Today’s question is, How are you doing in terms of giving back?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Fourteen

So far during this part of our 31 Days of Goal-Setting, we’ve been talking about the categories that I’ve proposed. Today, it’s your turn. What other areas of your life, besides the ones listed above, are important to you? How are you doing in those areas?

I honestly don’t have a lot of suggestions here, since the categories are the major areas that I feel strongly about in my life. Image and appearance, perhaps? Religion and spirituality - I am not at all religious, but if you are, that might well be an area of your life to evaluate.

Use your clues from Part One as well - what kinds of goals have you set in the past? What areas of your life do they point to?

Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Fifteen

We’re halfway through the month already! Congratulations for making it this far.

We’ve also made it through Part Two of the 31 Days of Goal-Setting challenge. Tomorrow we’ll be starting Part Three: Finding Your Purpose.

But today, we’re wrapping up part two with this question: Overall, how do you think you’re doing?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Sixteen

It’s December 16th! The month is officially past the halfway point and we’ve reached Part Three of our 31 Days of Goal-Setting: Finding Your Purpose.

Purpose is a big scary word. Danielle LaPorte calls it “how you want to feel”; Laura Berman Fortgang calls it your “life blueprint” or “who you get to be”. I like that last one - what kind of person do you want to be?

This is still a really big question, so we’re going to take one more look at the past to get our bearings. Today’s question is: What can your history tell you about who you are?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Seventeen

It’s here, on day 17 of our 31 Days of Goal-Setting challenge, that we start getting into what I think is the fun stuff. It’s time to take what we’ve learned by looking inward and looking backwards, and use it to look forward! Hooray!

Today’s question is: Brainstorm - who do you want to be? How do you want to feel?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Eighteen

How are you feeling on the 31 Days of Goal-Setting? Yesterday we did a lot of brainstorming, which might have been fun or very difficult.

Today’s prompt has a short answer, although getting to it will take thought. Pick your top few defining phrases. What is your purpose?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Nineteen

If you finished yesterday’s exercise from 31 Days of Goal-Setting, you now have a purpose, a vision of who you want to be. Pretty exciting stuff, huh? At least if you’re a dork like me, heh

But a few words aren’t enough to fully flesh out your ideal identity. So today, the prompt is: Considering all areas of your life, who do you want to be?

Remember, we are still not going specific here! You are describing who you want to be, not what career you want, or how many friends, or your specific romantic relationships, or anything along those lines. We’ll get there, but today is all about identity, not achievement.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty

Day twenty! We’re about two-thirds of the way through the 31 Days of Goal-Setting now.

Today we’re getting little more specific about our goals and future, but not too specific. The question is, Brainstorm - what dreams do you want to achieve in your lifetime?

Y’all, true story: today may be my favorite of the entire month’s exercises.

While the last few days have been all about states of being and feeling, your dreams are your somewhat concrete life goals. These can be career aspirations, goals related to family or friendships, “bucket list” items - anything that you think “I’d like to do that/have accomplished that someday”.

Here was my strategy for this exercise: Write down absolutely everything that you ever think to yourself “Wouldn’t it be cool if one day I did…”

Think dreamily about being the bass player for a heavy metal band? Want to save enough money to buy a castle someday? Have your eye on running a marathon one of these years? Swear you’re going to write that epic solarpunk series one of these years? Write it all down.

After you’ve finished your initial list, go back and review each of the goal areas from Part Two. This will probably spark some additional goals you hadn’t thought of. Write them down.

Take a quick look through your list of what you want to be from yesterday. Are there any concrete goals related to them that you haven’t already written down? Then go ahead and write them down.

Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty-One

It’s the last day of part three for our 31 Days of Goal-Setting challenge! This section feels like it went by really quickly.

Today we’re going to take all of the brainstorming you did yesterday and whittle it down to your biggest dreams. The prompt is, Finalize your list of dream achievements. How well do they connect to who you want to be?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty-Two

We’ve reached Part Four, the final section of our 31 Days of Goal-Setting challenge! This section is all about getting into the nitty-gritty of our plans. But remember, it will all be based on what we’ve figured out about what we want to do in our lifetimes and who we want to be.

Today’s question is: Brainstorm - where do you want to be in five years? What do you want to have accomplished?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty-Three

Today in our 31 Days of Goal-Setting, we’ll be finalizing the list that we brainstormed yesterday. The prompt is, Finalize your five-year plan. How well do your five-year goals connect to who you want to be and the dreams you want to achieve?

Let’s answer the last part first. Your five-year plan should be intimately connected to your dream goals and who you want to be.

In fact, you should be making progress on every single one of your purpose and dream goals in the next five years. And all aspects of your five-year plan should relate back to those goals.

In other words, when you go through your list of “who I want to be” and “what I want to achieve”, you must be able to draw a line between every single item and something in your five-year plan. And there should not be anything in your five-year plan which doesn’t relate to some bigger goal of what you want to accomplish or who you want to be.

Making sure this is true will take some flipping back and forth between your lists. I personally recommend doing the formal cross-referencing process from day 21.

Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty-Four

It’s December 24th! Those of you who celebrate Christmas may be anxiously awaiting its arrival. Let’s distract ourselves with today’s question from the 31 Days of Goal-Setting: Brainstorm - where do you want to be in one year? What do you want to have accomplished?

Your one-year goals should be a representative slice of your five-year goals! In theory that makes things easy. But of course not all goals are amenable to being split up into neat 20% increments, and in some cases you’re still figuring out how you will achieve your larger goals. Try to come up with one-year milestones that represent meaningful progress towards your five-year plan.

Yes, that does mean that you should make sure every single item in your five-year plan is represented somehow in your goals for the next year.

At this point, your goals should be 100% SMART. Remember, you don’t need to use language that absolutely anyone would understand, but you do need to use language that makes complete sense to you. And at this level, it’s worth it to push yourself to clarify things, even to yourself. When you find yourself writing “improve X” or “get better at doing A, B, and C”, challenge yourself to specify exact what that means and how you’ll be able to tell that you’ve accomplished it.

Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty-Five

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! Today’s question from 31 Days of Goal-Setting is, Finalize your New Year’s Goals for the new year. How well do they relate to your five-year plan, as well as to who you want to be and your lifetime dreams?

If you brainstormed thoroughly yesterday, this should be a pretty easy day. Wordsmith your milestones for the next year, consolidate duplicates, do a final check to make sure everything lines up with your five-year plan (which in turn lines up with your overall goals about what you want to achieve and who you want to be).

Look at that! You have your goals for the next year, also known as your New Year’s Resolutions. But the month isn’t over yet; we’ll be back tomorrow to break these goals down a little further still.

Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty-Six

We’re on the last week of our 31 Days of Goal-Setting challenge. Yesterday we set our New Year’s Resolutions for 2016 - very exciting! Today’s prompt is: Brainstorm - what do you need to accomplish in the next three months towards your goals for the year?

A year is a long time. It’s easy to procrastinate on goals that you’ll get to “sometime before next December”. Plus, it’s really hard to plan everything you’re going to do for the whole year in January. A three-month or quarterly timeframe is much easier to get your head around and gives you a built-in shorter deadline, making procrastination less likely.

(Side note: if you really like the idea of doing quarterly goal planning, you might like the book 12 Week Year. Some of the suggestions I’ll be making over the next few days originate from that book.)

It’s important to note that you shouldn’t try to work on all of your goals in a single quarter, and you certainly aren’t going to complete all of your 2016 goals in just three months. But for now, go ahead and think a little big. We’ll pare things down tomorrow.

One other word of warning - your three month milestone goals should be achievement milestones, and not simply “do X a certain number of times” unless your larger goals is centered entirely around activity X. For example, if your goal for the year is, “start conversations with strangers more often,” go ahead and make a quarterly milestone “talk to 3 strangers”. However, if your goal is something like, “make more friends”, your quarterly goal should not be “talk to three strangers” because that’s an activity, not an achievement. Instead, make your milestone something like “make one new friend”.*

*These examples are all far too vague and not SMART enough, but you get the idea.

Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty-Seven

Another day of 31 Days of Goal-Setting! Yesterday, we brainstormed about our quarterly or three-month plan that will support our year-long goals. Today’s prompt is simply, Finalize your three-month plan.

Today’s exercise is mostly about trimming your list. If you’re anything like me, you probably get enthusiastic and really, really optimistic about what you can achieve in a few months. New year! New you! Anything is possible! But when it comes down the day-to-day, your ideal “I can do everything” schedule falls apart immediately. Don’t set yourself up for failure; make your three month plan attainable.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty-Eight

We’re getting closer to having finished our 31 Days of Goal-Setting! We’ve set our purpose and life goals, a five-year plan, our New Year’s resolutions, and our three-month milestones. Today we’re planning the final step needed to achieve our goals. The prompt is: Brainstorm - what do you need to do on a daily or weekly basis to make your three month plan work?

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Twenty-Nine

Day 29 of our 31 Days of Goal-Setting challenge! Yesterday, you brainstormed the specific activities you might take to accomplish your first-quarter milestones. Today’s prompt is, Finalize a realistic daily/weekly plan and milestones that will get you to where you want to be.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Thirty

December is almost over; the new year is so close we can taste it. Excited? I hope so! Let’s use that excitement to think just a little bit more about what we want out of the new year. Today’s exercise from 31 Days of Goal-Setting is another one that comes from The Fire Starter Sessions: How do you want to feel in this new year? Choose a word or phrase.

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Thirty-One Days of Goal-Setting: Day Thirty-One

Happy New Year’s Eve! I’m so glad that you’ve come along with this journal of goal-setting with me. I hope these exercises have helped you determine meaningful and exciting goals for the new year ahead.

The final prompt for our 31 Days of Goal-Setting will either be wildly exciting (if you’re a nerd like me) or tedious but necessary: Write it down, schedule it out, and build in regular reminders and review points.

Exactly how you plan, schedule, and track your activities is up to you. Some people love apps, others are all about pen and paper, yet others prefer some combination of electronic and hard copy information. But however you do it, it’s critical to explicitly schedule your tasks into your day and set up regular times to review your progress and get back on track when you stumble.

Below is my general approach to planning and scheduling, as a reference point as to how this might look. As you may notice, I LOVE pen and paper lists.

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