Five Fandom Friday: Guilty Pleasures

It's my birthday this weekend! So the whole concept of guilty pleasures is pretty apropos since it's my birthday weekend so I can do what I want!!

5. Trashy YA fantasy/SF novels

I mean trashy in the best possible, affectionate way. (And that's why I'm deliberately avoiding specific names, because one person's "trashy" fun speed read is another person's serious business life-changer, and that's okay.) They're like the jelly beans of books: not particularly challenging to your palette/brain, but just what you need when you're stressed, on public transport, or killing time on a long flight. Besides, there is a lot about writing to be learned from them: whether it's about plotting, characters, or what not to do.


4. Trashy 80s action movies

Especially if they star Sly Stallone.

I don't know what it is about them, but they're great.


3. Batman (1965 movie)

This movie is a league (and entry) of its own. With the Christopher Nolan "Dark Knight" trilogy rebooting Batman into something quite dark and gritty, it seems gauche or tacky to bring up Batman's campy past. But I love Batman's campy past. This movie never fails to cheer me up. Never.

"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."


2. Writing "fix fic"...for my own life.

Courtesy finerain

I think this is why a lot of writers write, to be honest. Maybe not often—maybe only a few times in their life, maybe after a traumatic break-up or when it concerns a particularly toxic friend—but my entire 2014 NaNo was essentially a fix fic. Or maybe more like a revenge fic. But you know what? It felt good. And when I was done, I felt even better. And now I have a more or less normal relationship with the toxic, dysfunctional friend who inspired in it!

I just hope that, if it's published, she won't recognize herself in it.


1. K-Pop

I know I shouldn't love it—it's commercial, it's crass, it's the product of years of child abuse and exploitation, a group's music and image are coldly calculated to pander to the tastes of Korean tweens, the music doesn't necessarily reflect the talent or tastes of the members, etc.—but I do. I do not go down the fandom rabbit hole; I don't follow the idols' personal lives, I don't have favorite "baes" and so on. I just put the tunes on my mp3 player and rock out. I guess I can pretend that it's helping my Korean...?

What are your guilty pleasures?