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silveradept(Every time this challenge comes around, Sondheim starts playing in my head. I'm resigned to this.)
Challenge #8 tells us to say "I wish…" and compile a list of things we wish. Between one and ten makes a good list, and most of the suggestions are things for fandom sorts of things.
(Once Upon A Time, in a far-off kingdom, lived a middling ficcer…)
Asking for things for yourself is often hard, especially when you've been socialized to give, and give, and give, and that the entirety of your identity requires you to subsume yourself and submit to someone else's desires and wishes, or you're behaving improperly. (There's a fixed version of the Giving Tree where the tree asserts healthy boundaries.) There's also a certain type of brainweasel that wants to attach all sorts of wrong ideas that appeal to them to whether or not anyone actually fulfills a wish, or suggests asking small things because those are the things that someone might deign to do, and all that you are worthy of having. There's a lot of negative talk, self or otherwise, around saying what you want without qualifications or preemptively trying to minimize yourself or your request.
(The woods are just trees. The trees are just wood.)
Maybe it's a sign of recovery or returning toward equilibrium that there are some things that actually come to mind as things I might wish for, fannishly, rather than spending a lot of time wondering whether it's even worth it to post something. Maybe it's that 02020, including the overtime period that we're in, has been harsh and terrible to everyone, and making a wish for something that will help take the edge off, even if only for a little bit, is much easier to do.
Things that I would wish for:
Challenge #8 tells us to say "I wish…" and compile a list of things we wish. Between one and ten makes a good list, and most of the suggestions are things for fandom sorts of things.
(Once Upon A Time, in a far-off kingdom, lived a middling ficcer…)
Asking for things for yourself is often hard, especially when you've been socialized to give, and give, and give, and that the entirety of your identity requires you to subsume yourself and submit to someone else's desires and wishes, or you're behaving improperly. (There's a fixed version of the Giving Tree where the tree asserts healthy boundaries.) There's also a certain type of brainweasel that wants to attach all sorts of wrong ideas that appeal to them to whether or not anyone actually fulfills a wish, or suggests asking small things because those are the things that someone might deign to do, and all that you are worthy of having. There's a lot of negative talk, self or otherwise, around saying what you want without qualifications or preemptively trying to minimize yourself or your request.
(The woods are just trees. The trees are just wood.)
Maybe it's a sign of recovery or returning toward equilibrium that there are some things that actually come to mind as things I might wish for, fannishly, rather than spending a lot of time wondering whether it's even worth it to post something. Maybe it's that 02020, including the overtime period that we're in, has been harsh and terrible to everyone, and making a wish for something that will help take the edge off, even if only for a little bit, is much easier to do.
Things that I would wish for:
- Transformative works (and feedback) would be lovely.
I got a podfic of my Trick-or-Treat from 2019 this past year, and it was very nice to hear. Fanart of works or scenes in works would be neat, and podfic, or animatics or music videos or moodboards and such are also things that I think I would cherish and desire, mostly because I have trouble conceiving of the idea that people would like my stuff that well to do it.
I realize, though, that creating art and podfic, or remixing or deriving works or creating a universe and other such things is something that takes time, effort, and dedication, and this past year has been a terrible sap on everyone's creativity, effort, and time. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like such things, and likely also not the only person who has put up a statement somewhere about what their transformative works policy is, so I suspect if you are in the mood for transformative works, you will have all sorts of choices to put your effort toward. So, barring that, I appreciate feedback on my efforts. You can find them all atsilveradept, and frankly, because it's almost all exchange fic, there's a very long tail of possible fandoms you might find a useful work in.
- I wish people could be more open about the things they were interested in.
Which is a weird thing to say about fandom, right? We're the people waving the shipping banners from the rooftops, decorating the hotels when convention comes around so as to unmistakably say "We're here!" and otherwise making it clear in all of our spaces how much we are engaged with our canons and our fandoms.
Except…not. For as much as the Geek Social Hierarchy is supposed to be a joke, or at least something to laugh at when you get the wider perspective of "the rest of the world just thinks you're a geek and will make fun of you accordingly," there's a lot of minefields to navigate in fandom, many of which, like their real-world counterparts, should be cleaned up so they stop harming people who step into them. I wish I had something more concrete to offer than "we know when someone is being shitty to someone else for bullshit reasons versus when they're making a sincere effort to raise awareness about something," but I feel like fen who have been around long enough, and have done the work to listen and educate themselves, can tell the difference between the two (much of the time, anyway, or at the very least not to dismiss someone saying a true thing out of hand), and it's a responsible thing to do, as fen, to not let people being shitty for bullshit reasons get a foothold or a following on the matter. The World Wide Web is much more tightly linked together than it was when I was smaller, and there's a lot of it built around the idea that you only ever should have one pseud (if they even allow pseuds) for everything you do, good and bad, so that your entire record can easily be scraped and scrutinized. Usually for advertising purposes. It's a little "fandom old yells at people" of me, but the speed at which someone can summon a brigade to harass someone until they leave is alarming, and it seems to be, more often than not, that the people with the biggest and fastest brigades are the people who are the shittiest people with the most bullshit reasons.
So this wish isn't about "civility" or "neutrality" or "tone" or anything like that. It's a wish to metaphorically, or physically, punch the fascists in the face, ban their asses from any spaces you have control over, and generally lay about with your Aurora-class brickzooka in the service of making the space better so that more voices (and especially more marginalized voices) can be more open about the things they are interested in, whether it's about how cute that couple looks together on screen or that the general pattern of a particular author's works is "anything that doesn't look like me and believe exactly as I do is Evil and must be destroyed." - I wish to feel like less of an outsider.
I kind of missed the part where Fandom got online, augmenting their zines and small press options with web sites, web rings, listservs, and eventually, the Archive of Our Own. While events like Strikethrough happened and I noticed them and commented on them (how could I not?), I don't think I really made it to Fandom until well after everything had settled in, and now I was interacting with a group that had known each other since I got online, but had been in different circles than the ones that I had been hanging out in. I missed out on a lot of fannish history. (Obversely, I missed out on a lot of fannish drama.) And, by at least some standards of Fandom, I'm already too old to be here and need to go so I stop polluting their space. It feels like, even with my successes, that I'm still speaking Fandom as a second language and hoping that my accent doesn't come through too much. Some of that is probably because I'm making deliberate choices about which sites I maintain a presence on, and many of the choices I'm making are against turning on the firehose or not engaging on platforms that don't have the kind of curation tools that I want to have, even if those tools could be provided with some browser add-ons.
I suppose some of it is that, like everyone else, I miss the communities that I joined when I was smaller, but they have gone, and there hasn't really been anything that provides that feeling of community or communities any more. Things change, and so have I. But I feel like I lack the origin story, of coming online and finding My People and building all of that together into something, even if we eventually drifted apart and only some of us stay in contact. I look at the stories contained in things like The Internet Girlfriend Club, and while I can understand them, I don't have that visceral sense of relating to them, as if these are my own stories being echoed back to me through other people's experiences. And so, I feel, still, like I'm on the outside, looking in. - I wish, practically, for baking projects that can be done with smalls, ages 6-10, that don't require ingredients or tools outside of what would be affordable at the local Western grocery market, and that can be accomplished from startup to finished project in an hour or less.
Even after the pandemic lifts and we start doing programming in person again, I will probably argue a bit for the idea of continuing at least some of the virtual programming that we've started, including some regular times in the kitchen where smalls can learn how to make stuff (with grownups, of course, helping out, either in the frame or just outside of it). Plus, it turns out these recipes, and doing them on camera for smalls, are really helping me build my own confidence about being able to follow cooking and baking directions and turn out things that taste good. - And finally, I wish, (more than life, more than anything, more than jewels, more than the moon) that if you are a person who has influence over some part of your world, that you use that influence to enrich all of us, to build a more sustainable world, and that, even if it is in only a small space of existence, that things become better for everyone because you were there.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 05:21 am (UTC)Monkey Bread Muffins; monkey bread in general would probably work well, but muffins in particular will have a shorter baking time, 'cuz they're smaller. The Pillsbury site recommends putting the sugar and spices into a gallon-sized plastic bag, then putting the biscuit pieces in that and sealing it up to mix it around, which sounds a lot less messy, especially for smalls.
Crisps and crumbles would also work pretty well, I think, especially if you can use canned fruit pie filling (berry, cherry, apple, etc). I'd have to do a bit more digging to find an actual recipe, though.
If savory is okay:
SAUSAGE HEDGEHOGS RECIPE (beef may be usable instead with some minor tweaks?)
Recipe from Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, by Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler
Ingredients:
2 lb ground pork
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 oz blanched almond slivers
¼ cup currants (optional) (tiny raisins good)
Mix pork and spices together thoroughly
Form into balls 1½” to 2” in diameter (2 Tbsp/Size 40 cookie scoop recommended); form a point at one end, so the ball resembles a teardrop
On either side of the sausage ball’s point, place a currant for an eye; place 8 or more almond slivers in the larger part of the sausage ball to resemble quills
Bake at 350° for 30 minutes, or until the sausage balls are a good shade of golden-brown
Makes roughly 20 hedgehogs
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CHEESEBALL HEDGEHOGS RECIPE (not baked, but still a fun potential option)
Recipe from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cheese-Ball-I/Detail.aspx?evt19=1
Ingredients:
16 oz cream cheese, softened/room temperature
3½ Cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 oz packet Ranch-style dressing mix
4 oz blanched almond slivers
Currants for eyes
Mix cream cheese, shredded cheddar, and ranch powder together thoroughly
Form into balls 1½” to 2” in diameter (2 Tbsp/Size 40 cookie scoop recommended); form a point at one end, so the ball resembles a teardrop
On either side of the cheese ball’s point, place a currant for an eye; place 8 or more almond slivers in the larger part of the cheese ball to resemble quills
Makes roughly 40 hedgehogs
Note: For nut allergies, you can probably substitute in fresh rosemary leaves instead?
Any thoughts on things that can take two days? Like mixing it one day, leaving it in the fridge overnight, shaping/putting it together and baking it the next?
no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 05:40 am (UTC)I'll keep looking for more recipes, though I don't know if I'll find any more tonight.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 05:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 05:51 am (UTC)Also, apparently I lied, because it just occurred to me that it's possible to search for things like "Recipes for kids!" *more facepalm* Some of these look like they might be just the ticket! I for one am eying those "bite-sized apple pies"... 👀
no subject
Date: 2021-01-17 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 09:39 am (UTC)You cannot reason with antis, and I have lost the drive to carve out safe spaces in their territory years ago. If you have something concrete I can help with, or if they ever come near my own safe spaces on AO3 and journalspace, I'll dust off my knives and wade back into the muck. But I am not going to look for a fight by going back to tumblr, etc. on my own.
I guess I don't have a community anymore, either. Doing my own thing, talking to people now and then, but no focal point for fan interaction, not really. And yet, I still think of myself as part of fandom. Maybe you are right about how important fannish origin stories are for this.
I never knew zine culture, or mailing lists, either. I started with livejournal, and I started in German-speaking fandom, which was different from English fandom. A lot of my early experiences are not shared by the people in my fannish life today. But there were a few people when I crossed over into English-speaking fandom who had the same background, and I think they played a big part in making me feel like I belong, even though I was, and am again, an outsider to fandom mainstream.
I know I cannot help you find the door into your own community, give you a sense of belonging you are not feeling; the structure of fandom as it is does not make it easy for people who do not fit the demographic of the ones who scream the loudest and think to dictate what "being a fan" means. What I can do is invite you to share your own experiences, and tell you mine. And even if we don't have anything in common, be it fandoms or origin story, we can always learn new things about the world, each other, and the multi-faceted world that still is fandom, no matter what anyone else is proclaiming elsewhere.
Seems like I still might have a little fight in me, after all ;) *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-18 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 05:52 pm (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2021-01-16 11:58 am (UTC)Well, that's me. I can tell you it's not a popular trait. Most people, it just pisses them off. *Behold the field in which I grow my fucks. You will note that it lies barren.*
I like what I like. I talk about what I like. I write what I want to read. People can keep up, or leave and find someone better matched to their tastes. Online, it's a lot easier to build up a circle of folks who share my interests. But mundanes? I might as well not bother. They're never going to be interested in quantum mechanics or possibly-extinct species or xenolinguistics or why it's cool that my detritus food chain is 3 days to apex. And I don't care which celebrity is fucking who.
I will never not be a freak, I can't hide it more than briefly, there is no point trying, I like myself the way I am, and I have no willingness to emulate people who are razing the planet anyway.
But what if everyone did that? I'm not so sure it'd be good for civilization. People seem to need buffers. A lot of the trouble from social media is knowing too much about each other, especially too soon. So perhaps ... balance, in sharing what one likes.
>>I wish, practically, for baking projects that can be done with smalls, ages 6-10, that don't require ingredients or tools outside of what would be affordable at the local Western grocery market, and that can be accomplished from startup to finished project in an hour or less.<<
When I was little, I loved kitchen science, and I still do.
Try an edible zoo -- sourdough, yogurt, saurkraut, whatever ferments your family likes to eat. You can have a lot of fun throwing different things into a sourdough starter to see what will work or not, because wild yeast is on most fruits and some other produce.
You can put zucchini milk in almost any baked good and it takes like it has a billion calories, but nope, vegetable. I had no idea how anyone could have too many zucchini until I realized they were trying to cook it by itself as a vegetable. And had no idea of its magic trick.
Make an erupting volcano cake with lemon juice, baking soda, and red jello. (Test outside the cake first. You really don't need much of the reactants -- if you "fill the glass" even halfway it'll go everywhere. I think we put maybe an inch in ours.)
Find a good master cookie mix, and riff on that.
Experiment with different spice blends. Make garden bread. (LOL that idea is about 6000 years old.)
Buy some cookbooks and read them together.
https://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-cookbooks-for-kids.html
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2021-01-16 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 12:22 pm (UTC)I remember all the circles and comms and all the camaraderie but also the drama. There were cliques of people and whatever I did, I would never belong, I was always an outsider.
Not all groups were like that though, but the lack of community is something many people have mentioned in responses to this challenge.
I've bookmarked your A03, I love exploring new stories, even if I don't know the fandoms, so will definitely do some reading. I love leaving comments as I know how much it means and I love hearing back from authors too, it's humbling to hear how much a short comment means to an author.
Thank you for sharing your wishes. I'll try to remember to pop back with some recipes too :)
no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 04:24 pm (UTC)I was only ever sort of involved in fandom-fandom when I was younger; my fandom experiences were very much on a personal level with my IRL friends, and not with the larger fandom community. When we got online we had our own little spaces (RIP Blogdrive) where we connected with others, and we read and recced fannish works to each other all the time. I was big into reading fanfic, that's for sure, but I never got big into writing it.
I was never in fandom on LJ or tumblr or really any of the other sites that have existed for it. I came to Dreamwidth in 2009 and I keep wanting to connect with circles of writers, but it's really been driven home in the past few weeks with the GYWO discord channel that I am an alien trying to figure out how to fit in with a culture I don't understand and probably never will.
An entire language and culture sprang up when I wasn't paying attention, and now the amount of work I'd need to do in order to get back into the culture is insurmountable for me, and besides would likely not work in the long run. (It doesn't help that I've basically stopped reading fanfic in recent years as time constraints and lack of focus have restricted my reading.)
no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 06:56 pm (UTC)at first i thought "hamentaschen!" as a fun baking project to do with little kids, because the cookie dough isn't difficult and plopping teaspoons of jam on circles of dough and then folding up three sides is pretty easy for small kids with small fingers and not great dexterity, and they're delicious when they're baked, and because you make them for purim they come with a story, but filling and folding takes FOREVER so if you only have an hour it's probably not as helpful an idea as i originally thought. hm.
oh! mexican wedding cookies! five ingredients, really easy, kids might enjoy getting to roll the cookies in powdered sugar, and you can mix the dough with your hands. altho you need a food processor to chop the pecans. if you have access to one, that's my suggestion.
wish #5 is very much "use your powers for good" and i can get behind that.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 07:04 pm (UTC)The wedding cookies sound good, but since it's a program over virtual I'm not sure how safe an assumption it is for there to be a food processor on the other sides.
Yes, please, use the powers for good!
no subject
Date: 2021-01-17 07:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 07:09 pm (UTC)I’m one of those people who isn’t very vocal about the things I like, mostly because I learned people aren’t really interested? But maybe this year I should try to be more open about them. I see others talking about their passions and finding kindred spirits, and I wish it could be that easy for me too. Maybe it can be.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-16 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-17 02:16 am (UTC)3. Fandom is so complex and distributed now that I can't imagine any particular experience or story being central to considering oneself an insider. I wonder how much of feeling like an insider is an internal attitude one has influence over. And if so, how to influence it.
4. This is a savory baking recipe that I swiped from one of the Two Fat Ladies books:
===================
bacon and eggs in a mug (serves 4)
1 oz butter
2 oz grated cheese
8 eggs (4 beaten)
4 oz bacon chopped
1 tbsp parsley
2 oz mushrooms chopped
4 tbsp cream
preheat oven to 350. butter "medium sized heatproof mugs". sprinkle bottoms and sides with 2/3 of cheese. add beaten eggs. mix bacon, parsley, mushrooms, and spoon over eggs. break an egg into each cup, season, and cover with 1 tbsp cream. add remaining cheese and a bit of butter.
put mugs in a pan containing 1.5" water. cover with foil. bake 10-15 mins until whites are set. remove mugs from pan and put under grill to brown cheese.
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no subject
Date: 2021-01-26 09:21 am (UTC)there's a lot of minefields to navigate in fandom, many of which, like their real-world counterparts, should be cleaned up so they stop harming people who step into them
This is such a great way of putting it. I really wish fandom would get better fixing broken stairs.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-26 03:40 pm (UTC)Fandom does seem to be getting better at pointing out the missing stairs, at least, even if it's not always possible to get them fixed.