enchantedsleeper

Looking back at my fannish goals for 2024: Part 1

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 23:16:45 GMT

One of my favourite prompts for the snowflake_challenge is always setting fandom (and fandom-adjacent) goals for the year ahead: it feels like a really nice way to set out what I'd like my year to consist of. Since fandom has positive connotations for me, it's essentially a list of "some cool things I want to do in 202X!"

(They're also the only new year's resolutions I bother to set, these days xD)

Since last year I've also taken to reviewing my goals for the previous year before I set new ones, just to see how I did. It doesn't matter if I missed any (I never make all of them) - often thinking about how my year was different to what I anticipated is just as interesting.

In 2024 I was really ambitious and set eight(!) goals, so I'm going to split this into two parts, otherwise it would be like... 3,000 words long xD You can check out my goals for 2024 here if you're curious.

1) Make a fanvid (not for a challenge/event)

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No sunshine, but how about some snowflakes?

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 23:02:50 GMT

I know I wasn't the only person who was a little sad that the sunshine_challenge didn't run again this year! I hope that the organiser is doing okay.

However, for anyone who is yearning for some prompts to inspire them, the mod of Pillowfort's Snowflake Challenge community is revisiting Snowflake's challenges during the summer so that people can have a second go, revisit their thoughts, or do challenges they didn't get to in January.

This is just happening on Pillowfort, but for anyone who doesn't feel like signing up there, there's no reason you can't answer the challenges over on your DW! (But also, if you'd like to join Pillowfort to take part, don't let me stop you :D I even have invite codes!) They're being posted at a rate of three per day, and challenges 7-9 just went up.

So far, I've done Day 1 (updating my Pillowfort blog description, which was a touch outdated now that I've been there a while) and Day 4 ("Tell us about yourself"), for which I created a Fort Brochure - a Pillowfort post that describes your blog policies on things like commenting, following, blocking, etc.

I'm looking at doing Day 9, "Recommend a new thing", next and posting one of the fandom manifestos I've been meaning to get to.
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Small Fandoms Drabblethon round-up: week 1

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 22:16:32 GMT

I've been having a great time taking part in the Small Fandoms Drabblethon since I stumbled on it a week ago. It's always really fun to get back into drabble-creating, and it's fun thinking up small fandoms to write for.

I got a bunch of (slightly chaotic) prompts to work with from my friends, but I've also come up with a few ideas apart from those, some of which may or may not pan out; we'll see! But here's a round-up of my drabbles from the first week of taking part. I'm posting them all to the comm on Dreamwidth, but they're also archived on SquidgeWorld Archive in the challenge collection. I'm thinking of putting them up on AO3 right at the end and then backdating them (maybe making a series? Not sure yet).
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Snowflake Challenge #6 & #9: Why I love Harvard/Aiden (FENCE)

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 00:02:07 GMT

Challenge #6 for the Snowflake Challenge is: In your own space, share a favourite piece of original canon (a show, a specific TV episode, a storyline, a book or series, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

For the FENCE Secret Santa last month I had the pleasure of writing Harvard/Aiden, my favourite ship in FENCE. Harvard/Aiden is a brilliant ship pairing the fencing team captain with the 'school playboy', which you can imagine is a very fun combination of personalities. Despite this, it doesn't really have much of a dedicated fandom - it's one of those ships that everyone is happy to ship but that kind of plays second fiddle to the main canon ship (Seiji/Nicholas), usually appearing as a side pairing in fanworks.

As part of canon review for my Secret Santa, I enjoyed re-reading Harvard and Aiden's interactions in the comics (they are also a canon pairing in the spin-off novels by Sarah Rees Brennan, but I'm not a fan of the books) and so for Challenge #6, I'm going to break down a scene that shows why I love Harvard/Aiden so much. I think this also works for Challenge #9, which is all about reccing a thing you love!

But first, who are our characters?

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Snowflake Challenge #5: Scavenger Hunt

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 22:49:18 GMT

I love the Snowflake Challenge Scavenger Hunt, but I was drawing a blank on what to answer for most of the questions this year, until I had a bit of an epiphany this morning while half-asleep, and then I hit my stride 😄 I prefer to use brick-and-mortar/physical objects because it feels more like a "hunt", but it can also be more challenging to find something physical for each question! Still, the challenge is part of the fun 😊

Snowflake Challenge #5: Search in your current space, whether brick-and-mortar or digital. Post a picture (a link to a picture will be fine!) or description of something that is or represents:

1. Something your favorite character would like

This was one of the first ones where I blanked, because first of all - how can I choose just one favourite character?? But even thinking about some of my faves, it was hard to pick a physical object I'd associate with them.

However, I realised that I had an object that Sakurayashiki Kaoru, aka Cherry Blossom, my favourite character from SK8 the Infinity, would probably like:

Actually, it suits him, doesn't it? 😄

Haha, well, he'd probably wear it with his Cherry Blossom outfit and not as part of his traditional Japanese attire, but it was easier to find space on his wrist in this outfit 😉
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Yuletide, Festivids, and Fence! Secret Santa, oh my

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 22:40:49 GMT

Exchange season is at hand!

I look forward to this time period every year while also feeling bad for looking forward to it because it means the year is coming to a close 🥺 But as a wise Tumblr(?) user once said, "the time will pass anyways", and it's nice to have the excitement of preparing for exchanges and planning gifts as the months (in my part of the world) get darker and colder.

I've been doing Yuletide every year since 2018, and although some years are a bit "skin of the teeth" (my 2020 and 2021 Yuletide gifts were 15k and 13k words, respectively... I very deliberately wrote a shorter fic last year xD) I still have a lot of fun taking part every year. Then a few weeks ago I was boosting posts by the Festivids account on Mastodon because \o/ yay vidding \o/ and I thought, hold on... I could actually do this?? I've never even considered taking part in a vidding exchange, but the idea is really exciting. (I also like that Festivids takes a very expansive view as to what you can nominate as a fandom, and also what counts as a vid, so you can get pretty creative).

Luckily, the timelines for Yuletide and Festivids don't overlap that heavily (obviously they're running around the same time, but the nomination periods are one after the other and the Festivids submission deadline is a while after Yuletide), so I feel pretty good about signing up for both.

But that's not all! (As you can tell from the title of this post xD) I've been on a Fence! fandom kick lately, ever since the last issue of the comic's latest volume, Fence! Redemption, came out. If you haven't heard of Fence!, let me briefly evangelise: it's a comic all about fencing and fencing rivals, in the tradition of sports manga, with a main character who's very determined to become the greatest fencer and beat his rival, whom he definitely despises and does not have a crush on, at all. Also, OMG, they were roommates. (In fact, let me share with you this panel that I coincidentally have a photo of...)

It's wonderfully queer with lots of shippable pairs (mostly M/M but the last few issues introduced a really TOP tier F/F ship that my friends and I are vibrating over), which isn't surprising when you learn that it's written by C.S. Pacat of Captive Prince fame, with artwork by Johanna the Mad. If your interest is piqued, you can get it on Amazon, oooor there are online uploads to be found if you're strapped for cash. The fandom is small but very enthusiastic, as small fandoms often are :D

Anyway, I've been enjoying making and sharing posts on Tumblr, and then I saw that there is a Fence! Secret Santa being organised for December! I thought... I can squeeze in one more exchange, right? XD

And that is the story of how I came to sign up (well, technically sign-ups aren't open yet for Yuletide or Festivids, but I'm definitely gonna) for three different holiday challenges this year :3 I'm sure many habitual exchange-goers do several at once, but the most I've ever done is two (Yuletide and Murderbot Diaries New Year's Gift Exchange in 2021), so, this should be fun!

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