Thoughts & Ideas

  I am covering this topic and these subjects in part as a follow-up to the discussions that I and others have been having for a couple of years now in the Filk community as part of the Meetup Filkpalooza forums. My goal is to provide a comprehensive overview of the scene and explain some of the differences between the hobby of Filking and more conventional film making communities. I am also breaking some ground as this is the first time I am writing about my fandom and I think I should provide at least a working definition of ‘filk’ before I get started. Hopefully this will not only enlighten those of you who do not understand fandom but give you a handy cheat sheet for my definition of the term in the future. Fanaticism One of the first terms I learned about the Filk community was ‘fanaticism’, which was the term used to describe the love many Filk fans had for the music and stories created by their favorite artists and performers. This devotion and loyalty seems to be more...

  In the United States, the term anime is generally used in reference to Japanese animation, while other countries use a wide variety of non-Japanese-derived terms to describe animation produced outside Japan. Since the medium of animation was developed in Japan, the region continues to be home to the majority of animation studios in the world. An anime project is often a large production employing a large staff. Both Japanese animation and Western animation are exported by large production houses with other studios, and with studios using all forms of production methods. Some smaller production houses or groups of studios, however, continue to make animated feature films (often employing their own resources and designs, without the involvement of large production houses), focusing on either children's television programming, films for a young audience, or occasionally conventional feature films. Outside Japan, most of the anime are distributed to television audiences through...

  Larping is the practice of enacting a fictional character or life for one or several days. It was first put forward in 1981 in Norway, where the gaming group Boel built the first well-known elaborate (and fun) larp location, Bree, in the forests of Bergen. It started out as a means to develop a fantasy role-playing game with the intent of participating in its interpretation of the world and literature. Although Boel is no longer active in larping, it is very likely that many of the techniques that made larping what it is today were established here. Some of the earliest examples of larp were done without much thought in order to learn about the social aspect of role-playing. They are often seen in the form of small role-playing games that consisted of other RPG types. These were often called a “side-kick,” or “background-player.” This style still exists today, but has become much more popular as the social aspects of larp have become more integrated into the gaming world. Ano...