October was… a lot.

In a good way. 

Mostly. 

Aside from dealing with racists empowered by the latest round of “if you have any criticisms of AO3 – including it lacking anti racism policy and its unevenly applied harassment policies – you are a literal nazi burning books and racism in fandom is necessary to fandom itself” shit that lasted the usual two weeks before racist weenies went back to fighting with teenagers on the internet, things in October were… pretty good actually. 

(And we will be digging into that slippery slope to racism in fandom at a later point because uh… a lot of the gays and girlies in fandom are openly white supremacists and we need to talk more about that and how they’re purposefully poisoning the well of discourse in fandom.)

High points in October include finishing all but… maybe one thing over on Patreon, BTS Nieceling spending almost the entire month with me, being on the plenary for FSN’s conference, the BTS Concert on my actual birthweekend, the Sunmi concert the week after, and… my best work with Fan Service so far which is a piece on horror that features quotes from an interview I did with horror legend Junji Ito.(My second best work also came out in October and that’d have to be the “dark fic” column because wow what a fun and enlightening experience!)

I also finally got my column on racist/racial gaslighting up on my site and it’s been heartening to realize how many people it reached. So many of us have the same (or similar) experiences with people actively lying to and about us and why we must be talking about racism in fandom and like… it’s so frustrating. But as always, it feels good to get DMs or messages from other fans of color going “thank you for talking about this” and sharing their experiences. Thank you for sharing your experiences and sticking around in fandom despite how breathtakingly racist this supposed safe space is. 

Speaking of emails, I remain woefully behind on socializing and even doing paid work sometimes because I sometimes just… panic exit out of my emails because I have so many to look at. This is my regular reminder that the first of the month is the best time to jog my memory and set up anything you want me to do for/with you because I haven’t had time to get scared of my inbox yet for the month. I’m not ignoring anyone but I am both busy and scared.

Which is wild because the next update involves me getting/sending emails:

• I’m looking for more consulting and writing work across November and so if you are an editor or organizer looking for a writer and you like my stuff, please send me an email through my contact form (or if you have my email)
• I’m also looking for 4-5 writers to do guest posts across December so if you’ve ever wanted to get paid to say stuff on my site… now’s your chance. You can choose to write something for my regular content like Urban Fantasy 101, What Fandom Racism Looks Like, Ships ‘n’ Shit, or Music Video Anatomy… or you can do your own thing. Just send me an email!

Why the guest posts, you may be wondering? Outside of the work I’m doing for Teen Vogue (and other professional outlets as my schedule allows) and Patreon, I’m basically… taking a break from my website! I’m taking an actual (small) vacation from everything – not just like a staycation in my room where I just watch Adventure Time on repeat – and leaving my laptop at home. 

When I come back… I’m going to be starting 2022 content planning. I have things that can (and probably will) go up too in December, but one of my favorite things is hosting guest posts from other nerds and I want to share my platform with people who could use it!

But good news is… I’ve got 5-7 pieces in-progress for November, a podcast episode or two in the works, and I’ll otherwise be busy working on November and December Patreon Content (including a Dune review for Patreon this month) as well as the Fan Service column I’ve already teased over on my public account. I plan to be busy but I will continue to try to be available and as accessible as possible (within reason). 

Reach out if you need me and once again, thank you all for reading and sharing my work

❤