enchantedsleeper

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So far, I've done Day 1 (updating my Pillowfort blog description, which was a touch outdated now that I've been there a while) and Day 4 ("Tell us about yourself"), for which I created a Fort Brochure - a Pillowfort post that describes your blog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