Well, I’ve officially finished editing panels from the first half of my read through of From Eroica With Love!
For those who weren’t here in August when I started, I started Tumblr as a way to talk primarily about my interest in the shōjo works produced by members of the Year 24 group.
My first read of FEWL was Covid era (while I had Covid) and it wasn’t complete, it wasn’t in order, and I didn’t pop into the fan spaces. One of the first things I posted was basically: Help, I’m a fandom elder who hasn’t interacted in spaces to any real extent since the LJ era. I had been badly burned by the purges, and by the time I jumped ship to ao3 I had contented myself to just keep to myself.
I honestly know when I decided to create this tumblr, and it was one of my earliest panel posts:
For anyone who hasn’t read the early volumes of FEWL in awhile, I carefully cropped the panels from two pages and stitched them together. To me, this was the premise. Seeing the mirror images together in my heart and then sharing them; I had to show the parallel to someone or someones who would see it through fan goggles.
Before I even know I was going to post these, I had a camera roll full of panels.
So, I jumped on Tumblr and I started interacting with the incredible people in these tags. Reading the tags and talking in the comments and the FEWL Discord has been such a delight. It’s way different then functionally then the fandom I began in, but the spirit is so unchanged.
This community has been amazing to me since I started and I appreciate it very much.
I’m certainly not going to stop here, but as is widely known in the fandom, there’s a tonal shift after the hiatus. I'm not aware of how much of post hiatus FEWL is really going to encourage my panel edits, though I may be surprised!
Something that I haven’t shared is that I’ve been avoiding fan works while I read up to the hiatus. So before I jump into the 90’s, I’m going to take some time to read the incredible FEWL fic I know is out there.
I’ve also considered reading and posting my read through of a shorter classic series as a kind of refresher before I jump back into FEWL. Or maybe revisiting an old favorite I haven’t read in awhile! I’ve also got other posts about very specific queer history as it intersects with BL in the works as well ( though these take much longer as I want to be very careful to get things right!).
Please recommend me your favorite FEWL fics and or other good shorter (By this I mean on or around max 7 volumes!) reads in a similar vein that you think I may like!
And thanks so much for being here! It’s been so fun so far and I’m sure it will continue to be ❤️