yuletide | Fandom Promo 2023!

Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!

Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign-ups!

Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!

EDIT: WE HAVE A SPREADSHEET! Thanks to Jaclynhyde we now have a spreadsheet you can access HERE.

Here are some areas you can cover:

Title:
Please put your fandom's title in the subject of your comment, too. This helps people find your promo again.

Media:

Approx length:

Where to find it:
(If giving links, please only link to legal sources. You may want to encourage people to contact you directly if they are having trouble finding a canon and you can give them tips)

What is it, in summary?:

What do you love about it?:

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?:

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?:

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence):
This is at your discretion and is not expected to be comprehensive

(Bonus options: What are you thinking of requesting for this? If you're thinking of nominating worldbuilding, what sort of worldbuilding topics might people explore?)

Useful tip (Not required, but helps people if they want to engage with your fandom!):

- It's best to make each fandom its own entry with its own title in the subject line! That makes it easier for people to find/see what you're promoting! Don't worry about 'spam', that is the entire point of this entry and you're using it exactly as intended.

Previous fandom promo posts can be found at this tag!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mountains of the Moon (1990):

Media: Film

Approx length: 136 minutes

Where to find it:
It's currently available to rent on Amazon Prime Video, I think also Apple TV

What is it, in summary?:

It's the story of how a pair of Victorian explorers became friends and ultimately arch-enemies after a dangerous expedition together to find the ultimate source of the Nile. Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke (played by Iain Glen!) are very different men - Burton is a larger-than-life translator, travel writer, raconteur and sexual adventurer, while Speke is an upright officer in the British army. The movie shows how their unlikely friendship develops and then is destroyed by Victorian stiff-upper-lip denials, stubbornness and a mutual craving for public recognition.

What do you love about it?:

So, um, here's a vid I made about it...

password is 'mountains'

It is extremely gay! Richard Francis Burton the historical figure is fascinating and the film is basically a love letter to him and his work.

In case you were wondering, the director ships it too... “I’m sure Speke was a closet homosexual,” said Bob Rafelson. “Who knows what must’ve gone on between the two men. After all, they spent 1000 days together, walking through Africa. Did they? It probably happened. But I prefer to let the audience imagine the whole of the relationship. I think it makes them more complex. It thickens the relationship.” (from an LA Times interview)

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?:
Anything would be a delight, there is literally no written fic for this film that I can find! My OTP is obviously Burton/Speke, but Burton and his fiancee Isabel Arundel (Fiona Shaw) are also very fun together and on camera Burton has this fantastic disaster bisexual energy.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: You pretty much have to watch the whole movie - what might seem like an unnecessary focus on some details of the expedition comes back to haunt the characters in London and this build-up is important. You don't need to look at anything else about the history of the period though - the film stands pretty nicely alone.

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence):
Period-typical colonialist attitudes and racism, which the film somewhat tries to address. Burton is shown studying people's cultures in a more respectful way, sort of as a proto-anthropologist, and acknowledging (for instance) that 'discovering' the lake is absurd since locals have known about it for centuries. But Speke is very decidedly of his time. The black character with one of the largest roles, waYao explorer Sidi Mubarak Bombay (played by Paul Onsongo) is given some uncomfortably-stilted pidgin English lines to read despite being described as fluent. There is also a disturbingly vivid scene of a beetle flying into Speke's ear and having to be burned out.

And the vid did not post! Sorry about that, here's a better link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/36134191

*adds to the watchlist*

Fandom Promo 2023!

Mountains of the Moon (1990)

Re: Mountains of the Moon (1990)

Re: Mountains of the Moon (1990)