Guava Continent Outpost

Prompt: In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them.

When the creative juices aren't flowing, there's one thing fans of non-English canons can do to stay involved with the community--translation. For those who're just starting to learn the language of their canon recs, here's three platform recs that budding translators can use as study material.

3 Platform Recs for Translator Superheroes

(01) Wikipedia in your canon's language

You may be surprised to find out that the non-English Wikipedia page for your canon can be five times longer than its English page. There's often more references to cast and crew interviews and extra material that English-speaking fans aren't able to access.

For instance, I've found the exact birthdates and family background of the main heroes of Showa era Kamen Rider series (filmed in the 70s) on their Japanese Wiki page. A closer look at the Plot and Characters sections may lead to more discoveries of tidbits that aren't explicitly referred to in the canon itself.

(02) Twitter fan accounts

For Japanese fandoms, Twitter is THE social platform for fannish activity. Aside from accounts of individual fans, you may find challenge accounts with unique hashtags for challengers to share their fanworks. Tokusatsu fandom has tokusatsu1draw2, a challenge to draw a fanart using a prompt from at least one of the three categories--Work (Shows), Word (Character, Organization etc.) and Free Prompt--within an hour.

If you're looking to encourage activity in your side of fandom, challenge accounts can be a useful starting point for generating inspiring prompts and creating a structured challenge.

(03) Official cast blog/social media account

Commentary from cast members is often a treasure trove for extending the pleasure of canon.

Right after an episode of Lupinranger VS Patranger has aired, I look forward to reading the official cast blog in which the cast members take turns to address the show's fans and talk about what it's like to work on the show. Also, there would often be pics of the actors for my otp being gay (Exhibit A,Exhibit B) like their characters in-universe :P

Prompt: Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create.

There's a kind of fanwork featuring two characters that isn't straightforwardly shippy yet is faithful in portraying their strong bond. Fans of older Western media fandom may recognize this as 'smarm'.

The Japanese fanartist The L on pixiv draws Naoto and Tatsuya, my Timeranger otp, in this way. As a strong friendship that can be something more if the viewer interprets their relationship in that way. Even if I'm undeniably a shipper, I can't get enough of their excellent works which don't need to portray any kissing or sex to get me in the feels.

Three fanart recs by The L, all in Japanese with my translation of the titles:

1. 「先生」/"Teacher". This one contains an implicit fix-it premise in which Naoto survives the series. Tatsuya witnesses a rare moment of Naoto wearing glasses and teaching a little girl about the care of birds, which brings back memories of Naoto and Tatsuya's peaceful college days.

2. 俺·達/"I/Us". Naoto and Tatsuya through the years, from their first meeting at the end of high school to the final battle. Nearly ends with a reminder of the downer ending, but then! Tatsuya: "I'm going to try changing what Naoto couldn't change..."

3. 【TR 四コマ】作者ちゃんと赤ちゃん達１――口は災いの元/[TR 4-Koma] The author and The Little Reds――The mouth is a source of disaster. The rare fanart with 'ヤオイ臭い'(the scent of yaoi)/shippy undertones. Featuring the breaking of the fourth wall and chibi!Tatsuya! The author observes that Naoto has a small mouth and thin lips, and chibi!Tatsuya climbs back into canon to confirm with a kiss <3