2026 is plodding on, and it’s been raining almost consistently throughout since January. The skies have been gray and the ground wet all year so far. The gardens I normally walk through on strolls are all flooded. Most of Salisbury is fully underwater - some of which is planned for with the flood plains, and some of which is not. Looking ahead today before writing this, and it looks like I get a whole two days without rain coming up (woohoo!) but hopefully that means there will be a reprieve soon.

Look at me, being all British talking about the weather so much. Anyway, let’s sum up some of the content I’ve put out through February.

Substack Posts

• ​Anti-Fandom and the Power of Hate - I talk a lot about how great fandom is, and how it creates community. But, there’s another side to the whole thing: anti-fandom. Anti-fandom is the love and fandom of hating a thing, rather than loving it. So, I wanted to write a little bit about it!
• ​Dirt is Matter Out of Place - Dirt is Matter Out of Place is one of my favourite anthropological quotes, from the great Mary Douglas. I’m going to do a video essay at some point soon exploring this in context, but I wanted to explain why this is such a great quote to keep in mind for everything in life.
• ​The Haunting of Taylor Swift - Taylor Swift has a common metaphor/trope in her lyrics, which is all about ghosts and being haunted. So, I wanted to deep it a little bit and consider what ghosts are doing here.
• ​Folklore, But Different - this is a nice little compilation of a few different studies in folklore that are a little different. Folklore with the body, folklore on your own, folklore in photos. Just so many different version of studying something like folklore that is different than you may think folklore is.

Video Essay

I like taking an episode of a TV show, or a scene in a larger work, and explore how it really explains and gives light to everything else in its context. Essentially, these little bits are the epitome of the rest of the story, exemplifying everything in the story. So, this month, I did that with the episode “Injured” from New Girl. I show how the episode embodies several of the primary themes of the whole show, and how this episode works, not as character development, but as character explanation.

Writing Vlogs

• ​A Quiet Writing Vlog | Come Write With Me - I forgot to record an intro, so decided to just turn this into a quiet vibey writing vlog. This is the last fiction vlog for a bit because I’m putting the project to the side, and may not put much about the fiction on the channel for at least a bit as I figure out what I’m doing there.
• ​Struggling to Focus | A Research Vlog | Taylor Swift and Mythology - my mind has been rather scattered lately, so I sat down to record an actual normal research day for the Taylor Swift project, and ended up really struggling to focus. Kept recording anyway, because - oh well. Not every day is productive and beautiful.
• ​A Research Filled Evening | Personal Curriculum Research | Valkyries! - back to work on the personal curriculum, which I have not been super successful at this quarter (see previous video about not being able to focus well). So, I have to reorder some timeframes for myself and try and figure out how to go forward the best way.
• ​How I Make My Video Essay | An Info Vlog - you’ve seen me work on it in bits and pieces, so I thought I’d take a vlog to explore the entire process, from idea to posting, on how the video essay creation process works.

I’m a Fan of That

Bonus episodes of Fan of That still going on over at the Patreon. We’ve got one on an exploration of the history and definition of a “Pop princess” - what makes someone a pop princess, and does it exist anymore? We also have an episode where we just kinda chatted about the things we’re enjoying right now, and I mostly talk about Single’s Inferno and Hades 2.

That’s it for February. I’ll be back to those who financially support with some ref pages on the New Girl video essay, and then a fun little overview of the things I’m enjoying later in March. Until then, as always, be kind to one another!