Snowflake Challenge 2024 #15: And That's A Wrap.

[silveradept]

Challenge #15 hearkens back to the days of the ever-presnt quiz showing up in your social feeds.

Challenge #15

Fandom Snowflake Challenge's 2023 Fandom Wrapped!

Which proceeds to ask us some questions about ourselves and our fandom activity.

Your top 5 fandoms for 2023 were:

If we're going by AO3 stats, the fandoms I wrote multiple stories for this year are:

• Steven Universe


• The Dragonriders of Pern


• RWBY

I also spent a pretty large amount of 02023 doing book club with Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau through her quadrilogy and getting to know Veralidaine Sarrasri in hers, so Tortall is probably a top 5 fandom as such, although it's less about fannish appreciation and more about studying the story and the characters to see whether I think they work or not.

The five spot is generally Fandom or so of the bits and things that I've been paying attention to, but without necessarily getting very very fannish about them.

Your top 5 fandom spaces (Discord, Twitter, etc.) in 2023 were:

• Dreamwidth


• Slacktiverse


• AO3


• Conventions


• Chat programs in general

The top 5 things you did to contribute to fandom in 2023 were:

• Write fic


• Write meta


• Read fic and leave comments and kudos


• Attend conventions!


• Be an Internet Loudmouth about the eventual futility of all attempts to censor materials, especially in schools and libraries.

Your top 5 most appreciated fandom contributions were:

Appreciated is a very subjective measure to work from, just so you know. Because there are people who appreciate by kudos and those who appreciate by comments and then again by bookmarks or by rec posts. Many of those things that might be appreciated might be so in places where I never see it. But, we can use a few of those measures to compile a list of five or so, I guess.

• Subject: Doctoral Defense Protocols, my Yuletide work in the "Snake Fight" fandom, was by far and away the most kuodsed and commented work I made in the year, and many an academic, doctor or not, seemed very thrilled with it and found it funny and relatable. Perfect way to run out the year, right?


• This year, within the span of a few weeks, the Pern read was both very appreciated and strongly unappreciated, which is often the way of things when you have opinions and out them in places where other people can see them. I hope the tag wranglers on AO3 appreciated having someone put in tags for most of the canonical pairings for the source materials. But through all the time that the Pern read has been on AO3, it's been very useful to see all of the fans who come out with more information and context, who recognize that sometimes the things we liked when we were younger were full of yikes, and who sometimes have a different world or opinion about the material and can express it in a way that doesn't immediately reach for ableism or the assumption that the person doing all of this work and quotation must be some airheaded person with an agenda to read into the books.


• Exchange writing is often writing for an audience of two: the recipient and yourself. If it succeeds for both of those people, then it's a success and the rest of the comments and kudos are mostly icing on top (or additional enjoyable flavoring). It's very fun when someone tells you they really liked your cat characters being giant dicks to each other, or that they lost it at "Pants, Magic Pants" or Reviewer Two, or they enjoyed the way you used the ways that Into the Woods is a metatext and therefore can be manipulated in the same way so as to produce a different story that has the same feel to it.


• I'm trying to get better at allowing my fannish things that aren't fic and book club to exist out there, even if they don't appear to get any attention. Dreamwidth fundamentally operates on comments, and I think most of my reading and subscribing audience is interested in different fandoms than I am. And we're all a little more cautious out here, because we see the infighting and outfighting going on in fandoms and between fandoms, along with the people outside of fandom who think it's weird or perverted to be a part of fandom and Innocent Minds will be corrupted if they find material that might be affirming or that recasts characters so they can exist as examples of what has been officially forbidden. Sometimes when I get on my soapbox, it goes mildly viral, which can feel nice for the notifications, but I hope it's mostly people who are okay with the message and would like to pass it on.


• I'd like to believe that being at convention, and perusing and purchasing wares, appreciating cosplay, and having some good discussions and questions in panels is an appreciated contribution to the various fans and fandoms that coexist in those spaces. That the occasional doodle in a whiteboard or the presence of a pin helps make some other fan's day in the simplest of ways, saying "It's not just you. There are other people here who like the same things you do, even in this space where it seems like everything is on display and there's no way someone else might recognize or ask you about your fandom." It's not much, but I can hope that for at least a few people, that a stranger took time to compliment them on their fannish effort helps them understand that the effort itself is worthwhile to someone else as well as them.

Your fandom personality in 2023 was: (i.e. Fandom Eeyore, Twitter Ex-Pat Discord Party Animal, etc.)

Cranky Fandom Old, like so many other years, when not Facepalming Picard from whatever new bullshit has appeared in the name of "protecting" children from the existence of queer people.

In 2023, you discovered: (that you adore hockey RPF, but you hate the Liberty Mutual emu, etc.)

More so than ever, the amount of attention any work gets is directly proportional to the size of its fandom. (This says nothing about the quality of the attention.) Therefore, chasing numbers is always different than chasing the story you want to tell.

Your fandom home in 2023 was: (Bluesky, Mastodon, Middle Earth, lying in my bed, with a good book, etc.)

AO3, with Dreamwidth as another place that talked fandom, at least during the bursts of activity that are the challenges.

And that's all the challenges for this year. There will be another big friendly get together on the 31st, because much of the time, if you wander the comment sections of the challenges, you find all kinds of interesting people. Some in familiar fandoms, some in interesting ones, and occasionally, weirdos like me who are neither serially fannish nor have a small number of fandoms they are very deeply into. The way I experience fandom is not wrong, not right, neither inferior nor superior. But it does seem different than many others, as I have time through the comments to the challenges. Perhaps one day I'll find my pocket, too, but until then, I'm happy to be able to traverse so many fandoms and spaces and meaningfully contribute.

Comments

[tjs_whatnot]

I had so many things that I was going to say but then I got distracted by the nostalgia of your Current Music. *sigh* They Might be Giants *sigh* Good times.

♥

In other news, I like all your thinky thoughts on fandom and your place in it and I'm right there with you on a lot of it. ♥

[silveradept]

Hee. It still holds up over time.

And yeah, I know there are other people out there. I just don't meet them all that often.

[snowynight]

I really enjoy reading your posts. It's very weird to see all the "think of the children" censorship, when I thanked the internet to let me explore my identity and meet different people.

[silveradept]

Thank you.

Many of the people who are cheering the loudest for this kind of "but children!" censorship have rarely seen actual children, much less asked their honest opinion on the matter, and even less so been a person trustworthy enough to get the honest answer they seek. Their motivations are clear, and almost none of it is "we want this place to be safer for children."

[snowynight]

It's sadly true.