Fandom Appreciation
Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life. Appreciate them in bullet points, prose, poetry, a moodboard, a song... whatever moves you!
And I nearly skipped this one, because it was too heavy on the "fandom life" thing, which I don't have. I mean I appreciate all of you, don't think I don't, but I don't know how to say it without sounding weird. But then I figured something out even if it was really just an excuse to post this Toothless I made last October (that is, October 2025):
So this is my shout out to Alex of Polymorph Sculpture for being a really cool guy who made me enjoy sculpture again. About a year ago I started noticing some local cafes were hosting pop-culture themed sculpture sessions, and I tried out a "Sculpt Pikachu" event. It was the first sculpture work I'd done in years. I used to do a lot as a side hustle, but I hated the business side of things and it wasn't worth the energy I was putting into it. The pikachu I brought home that day was kind of wonky, but I had fun again. Since then I've done a few more sessions, sculpted different characters including Toothless up there. Also got Blinky the fish, Gromit, Gengar, Stitch, loads others, but Toothless is my fave. I even did some random monsters at home for fun because I was enjoying myself again.
What I love about what Alex is doing hosting these sessions is that it fills a real gap. So often you're told if you want to socialise, go join a club - and then you go looking at local events but none of them really feel right. There are local craft clubs but they all seem to be about knitting or scrapbooking and you kind of feel like... that's great but not really my thing, you know? No shade on anyone who loves those things obviously. But it's not for me. (And they're always at something like 2PM on a weekday so I can't go anyway!) But then some guy comes along and you get to hang out in a cafe or a bar making a wonky pokemon out of polymer clay, suddenly you realise a hole has been filled that you didn't even know was there.
Which I guess is sort of fannish, it's pokemon and movie characters after all, but not capital-F Fandom. Still! Obviously you're probably not anywhere close enough to go to one of these sessions, but... I found myself asking, why haven't I seen anyone do this before? It reminds me of once, ages ago, I saw someone talking about how they wanted to open an art cafe. Somewhere stocked with art supplies where you could hang out and draw and get a drink. It's probably an impossible dream but sitting in a bar sculpting dragons has similar energy. So if you see this - maybe see if you can get some people together at your local $coolHangout for a drink and some nerd crafting. Maybe spark a movement?
