I started off 2015 with a thought piece on the ecosystem of comics and our place, as consumers and fans, in that ecosystem.

This year, I want to talk about the end of the world. ^_^ Not of the Earth, although that’s certainly something we could and should talk about, but about the end of the world as you know it. The end of your fandom as you know it.

The February 2016 issue of Smithsonian Magazine discusses when phonographs were new in the early 20th century. Pundits warned of “‘gramomania’, a growing obsession with buying and collecting records that would lead one to ignore one’s family.” Sound familiar?

The reality of human existence is that we crave and loathe technological advance in equal measure. We disparage any technology we do not ourselves use, art we do not ourselves like, political ideologies we do not ourselves agree with, for whatever reason.

This is true with representation in fandom. We fight, tooth and nail against changes to “our” series. Series that we didn’t write, produce and may never have supported in any way, but with which we identify. George Lucas rails against the changes in Star Wars, even as the changes make it more accessible to people who are not white men. (I, for one, loved the diversity, not just in the leads, but the background, where people on the planet and in the air were notably of many ethnic backgrounds. For me, that was the best part of The Force Awakens.)

So let’s go back to the pundits of the early 20th century for a moment, railing against this isolating new technology – the phonograph. Pundits rail against every new technology in this same way. It will isolate us, it will destroy society and families. Comics, games, science fiction….everything we as a culture of fans embrace and love – it’s all stuff pundits have and continue to tell us is bad for us, bad for society, bad, bad, bad. Which of course implies a moral superiority for eschewing this new stuff. Whatever it is.

In competition with this, we get the techno pundits, screaming “game changer!” with every new toy made. They imply a moral superiority for having the newest, the best, and staying on top, which is the only place possible, otherwise you are a sheeple.

The reality for most of us is that adoption of new technology is asymmetrical, sporadic and putters out as we either can’t afford or are not interested in whatever new thing just debuted.

So, what’s my point? My point is that fandom as you knew it is dead. It died a while ago and you didn’t notice. And it was reborn and died several times since then. Every generation of fans recreates all the slang, the in-crowdness, the exclusion, the inclusion. But now that fandom isn’t just an old school scifi convention, those waves come faster, and they look different. Remember, it was only a few decades ago when scifi fans hated anime and all those new weird people who came to *their* conventions. That’s a good thing. There wasn’t moral superiority in keeping women or people of color out of fandom, any more than there is in virulently hating Microsoft. Or anime. Or Twilight.

And as we start this new year, I am reminded that there is nothing *wrong* with any of us, things are not getting worse, and that pundits have basically been recycling the only article they have between the lot of them for hundreds of years.

Human society is complex. Anxiety is part of human nature. Fear of things changing is part of human society and so is fandom.

Embrace the stuff you like. Enjoy it to the fullest any way you can. Create derivative works, share them. Just remind yourself, the next time you offhandedly begin to dismiss the new wave of fans, or the most recent hot new thing that isn’t interesting to you personally, that it’s not the end of the world. Anime  didn’t destroy fandom, it expanded it. Twilight didn’t destroy fandom, it expanded it. Phonographs didn’t destroy the world, neither did comics, or computer games.

We’re fine.

You’re fine.

Fandom is fine.

As we head into a new year, remember to have fun the way you want to – and let other people have fun the way they want to. There’s room for all of us and by that I mean all of us.

Here’s looking forward to a fabulous 2016 for all of us.

Happy New Year!

I have been remiss with my gift guide, letters to Santas and pretty much everything else (haven’t even started my Top Ten lists, don’t want to rush that, orz). I was thinking a little bit about what I wanted for 2016 for Yuri and I find that there’s surprising little I really want. Most of the series I never expected to see released, have been. We’ve got more Yuri than ever before, but trying to see what I’d like to see in the middle of all the stuff that focuses on things I find creepy is exceptionally hard this year.  So I’m going to keep this list very short. Three things, in fact. There are two things I would like more of and one I would like less of. And these three things will be my simple Wish List for Yuri for 2016.

1. In 2016 I would like to see more Yuri sports series. I would like to see any Yuri sports series.

I have asked for this pretty much every year since I first became a Yuri fan. ^_^;

Sports are the perfect scenario for love, for hate, for rivalry. Yuri needs a Attack No. 1 or a Ace wo Nerae! of it’s own. Softball, folks, SOFTBALL. It’s the standard lesbian sport, it could be a Ace of Diamond-like guts and will and teamwork series with a lesbian character who finds that teamwork and being a good athlete and player is not incompatible with a love affair off the field with another player. (Yes, all possible sports plots are acceptable. Please stop suggesting possible plot variations, this was not a mandate for one particular plot.)

I’m not saying it has to be softball. Pro wrestling, tennis, horseback riding, diving, track and field, soccer, basketball…I don’t care which sport. It’s just long, long, long past time that we get a really strong Yuri sports series.

2. In 2016 I would like to see more lesbians in Yuri.

We’ve been really patient about this, waiting for every character ever to get through the “I’m in love with you” phase, and grow up a bit and realize that they are actually gay. Takemiya Jin-sensei can’t write every story ever. We need a few more manga artists to think past high school and have the occasional character who is gay. We’ve read enough confessions for 264,844- lifetimes.

And, here is the one thing I’d really like to say goodbye to….

3.In 2016 I would like to see less thigh- and crotch-staring in anime and manga.

 I’m done with this. It’s creepy.

With this, I will wish you all a very pleasant holiday season and I’ll see you back here for some end-of-year reviews, lists and news!

We’ve entered that phase of my to-review piles where the Novels taunt me with their 400 pages of unremitting 8pt Japanese text. I am reading as fast as I can, but will have fewer reviews if only because I read about 30 pages a day on a good day. My eyes just sort of stop seeing anything after a while.

In the meantime, as I have safely and successfully passed an age landmark that includes both zeroes and fives, I wanted to share an important lesson I have learned with you, my dear readers. I am the product of a person who was a super-duper nerd back in the day when “nerd” didn’t mean “makes millions in tech” and a person who has absolutely no interest in nerdly things…or even things. (My seminal story on this was the day when my parents came to visit and Dad sat there playing with every single Sailor Moon wand, hitting all the buttons and playing the music, and Mom, who had her back to him said, shaking her head, “I don’t know where you get your collecting things from.”)

Anyway, here’s the most important thing I’ve learned in 50 years:

Have fun the way you want to.

It doesn’t matter at all if other people don’t understand it as long as it makes sense to you.

Let me remind you that I will be having my brand of fun next month at New York Comic Con (NYC, October 8-11) and Nijicon (Philadelphia, October 24-25)

And if you want to access my /coughcough/wisdom – send me a question for the next Q&A online streaming Yuri panel, which I have not yet picked a date for, but will probably be in November!

One of the most commonly asked questions I have gotten in panels and after lectures is some version of “What is it like to actually be gay in Japan?” It’s always been a hard question to field for any number of reasons.

This kind of question always sounds simple, but because human behavior is complex, the answer needs to be nuanced and complex as well. (As people might realize, if they ask themselves the question honestly about…anywhere, really. Even countries where gay marriage is legal, there are places are not 100% safe for gay people. And discrimination continues no matter what the law says. We see that to be true in every place, if we’re looking with open eyes.)

You know I answer a lot of questions like this on Quora and here, where I have the space, the time and the resources to give apparently simple, but actually complex questions, the time and nuance they require for a full answer.

Yesterday one of my Quora answers was published on Slate.com: How Does Japan Treat Gay People?

I’m confident that I was able to provide a balanced perspective on media and political representation. There are other areas I touched upon as well, including the difference in perception by straight people and gay people of straight people’s “reactions” and the gap between being a fan of same-sex content entertainment and actually supporting LGBTQ people.

Please read and share this article with fan groups you know of, because it’s a question that a lot of folks ask…and now there’s at least one shot at an answer you can point to. ^_^