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silveradeptChallenge #7 asks us to be selfish and consider our own wishes and wants first.
My first instincts on such a thing are "Peace on Earth, good will towards fen," but that's partially because the Charlie Brown Christmas Special still lives in my head, and partially because other renderings of that statement aren't quite as readily corrupted for my purposes. That's much more of the "and world peace" idea, though. (The relevant sound bit is from Miss Congeniality, the Sandra Bullock movie.) Lots of people want that thing, and yet many of the people who want it are not in the position of geopolitical power to actually move the needle or turn the doomsday clock backward and away from midnight.
The second instinct is that I couldn't possibly need anything, because I'm relatively privileged in my position and my ability to fend for myself, and therefore the effort should be put toward people who need it more, whose lives will be assisted more through the fulfillment of their wishes rather than spending time or effort on my silly things. The usual response to this idea is a roaring chorus bowling me over and saying that putting my own wants last is not good for me, and that I deserve nice things, as well. They usually also take time to make sure that the weasels of "but I haven't earned the gifts of others" and "why would anyone do anything for me?" are appropriately pincushioned as well. (It's a gift economy, people have the free will to make their own choices about how they spend their effort and time, and it's not necessary to earn your self-worth.) Knowing these things doesn't necessarily make them felt, but the effort and the reminders are appreciated, as i continue to work toward that feeling that most other people have intrinsically about being a worthy and lovable entity.
Having fought through those two first instincts, we can get closer to the actual point of the wishlist, which explicitly calls out the "things you want but have been afraid to ask for" aspect, so that people think bigger, or at least feel like they have the permission to ask for things they've been holding closer to their chests.
These seem like reasonable asks, not too outlandish or impossible. (Because there's that part, too, about tailoring your asks to what you think is doable, rather than the asks that might be what you want but that are unlikely to have happen. Caroline, if you're out there, and you are interested in resuming the project, there are a lot of 9E fans who would cheer you on.) I'll go looking at other people's wish lists as well, and see if there is anything that I might be able to do.
And if not, well,![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
threesentenceficathon has already opened up a second post of prompts, so there's definitely going to be plenty there to peruse and fill for.
So what did I do so far? Offered some story suggestions, some short stories and prompt recommendations, clicked some buttons to make donations, some media recommendations, some other media recommendations, two media recs and a writing prompt, trying to help someone find resources for starting up a movie-watching group on Discord.
Today's challenge is one of my favourites - the wishlist - because it's nice to see the variety of wishes across many and varied fandoms.
While today's challenge does look easy, I know that for some people asking for things is hard. You can ask for something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for elsewhere, but you can also ask for something you've prompted and asked for before. If you have wishes for transformative works from your own works or another's work, remember to include links to those sources in order to make it easier for people to create.
Challenge #7
In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a wishlist of sorts. […] Maybe someone will grant a wish. Check out other people's posts. Maybe you will grant a wish. If any wishes are granted, we'd love it if you link them to this post.
My first instincts on such a thing are "Peace on Earth, good will towards fen," but that's partially because the Charlie Brown Christmas Special still lives in my head, and partially because other renderings of that statement aren't quite as readily corrupted for my purposes. That's much more of the "and world peace" idea, though. (The relevant sound bit is from Miss Congeniality, the Sandra Bullock movie.) Lots of people want that thing, and yet many of the people who want it are not in the position of geopolitical power to actually move the needle or turn the doomsday clock backward and away from midnight.
The second instinct is that I couldn't possibly need anything, because I'm relatively privileged in my position and my ability to fend for myself, and therefore the effort should be put toward people who need it more, whose lives will be assisted more through the fulfillment of their wishes rather than spending time or effort on my silly things. The usual response to this idea is a roaring chorus bowling me over and saying that putting my own wants last is not good for me, and that I deserve nice things, as well. They usually also take time to make sure that the weasels of "but I haven't earned the gifts of others" and "why would anyone do anything for me?" are appropriately pincushioned as well. (It's a gift economy, people have the free will to make their own choices about how they spend their effort and time, and it's not necessary to earn your self-worth.) Knowing these things doesn't necessarily make them felt, but the effort and the reminders are appreciated, as i continue to work toward that feeling that most other people have intrinsically about being a worthy and lovable entity.
Having fought through those two first instincts, we can get closer to the actual point of the wishlist, which explicitly calls out the "things you want but have been afraid to ask for" aspect, so that people think bigger, or at least feel like they have the permission to ask for things they've been holding closer to their chests.
- My professional self would like you to become a fierce advocate for your public schools and libraries, as often, the people who work there can't effectively defend themselves against public smear campaigns or refute obvious falsehoods that others are speaking about them in any official capacity. This advocacy has to be more than monetary. Be aware of your local elected and your Board, and steadfastly refuse to allow them to turn your educational and civic institutions into propaganda arms for theocrats, grifters, and fascists. (They may do it anyway, see above about geopolitical power, but the more you can make noise and make it difficult for them to do, and to advocate for actual education and collection development over propaganda and the criminalization of professional staff, the less they can claim that you support them silently.)
- Something I haven't had happen (yet) is someone taking a story that I've created and making some kind of fanart out of it. This wouldn't be "the entire story," no, but if there's a memorable bit with a frame that spoke to someone and they had to draw it, that would be different and interesting and really neat. You've got more than two hundred non-meta works to choose from, if it strikes your fancy.
- Similarly, it's always a delight when someone makes a transformative work of one of my works, whether that's podfic, or cover art, remix, taking an offhand statement I made in a meta work and creating an entire horror sorry out of it, or any of the other ways that fans make and remake each other's works into different media, or enhance them in some way. Having a permission statement handy and visible has meant some delights have crossed my pathway. (If you don't have a permission statement linked somewhere publicly, consider making one. Even if it's " no, don't do it, " it makes it easier for people who are looking for work to remix to know what you want.)
- I'm not as participatory in the love memes as i used to be, but I still need practice at accepting compliments and people saying good things about me and my creations without minimizing, dismissing, or otherwise trying to turn them into something else. This works best, of course, when people are saying good things about me and my creations. So if that's a genuine opinion you have, I can use the practice accepting. (Other people might also really enjoy getting to hear your appreciation of them and their creations. Comments are great, when you have the ability and energy to do them. And More Joy Day was just a little while ago, so that's an excuse to put more joy into the world.)
- As part of December Days for this past year, I conceived of the idea of a "QI resume," the kind of list of accomplishments that you might use to get on the panel show that occasionally subordinates accuracy to interesting, before bringing it all back around again to the strange but true. (Or, occasionally, pedantic definitions of words that have a different common usage.) If you're coming by, and nothing else seems interesting or doable on the list, maybe drop something that would be on your QI resume, a thing that makes other people around you go, "well, that's quite interesting."
- And if nothing else appeals, and in light of the near-constant revelations that people who have been accorded wealth, fame, and power often turn out to be jerks, -ists, and terrible people, whether they hide it under a façade or not, a wish of forgiveness for all of us who have ever been fans of something or someone who turned out to be not Discourse-"problematic," but genuinely horrible human beings or works with genuinely terrible parts that we didn't get at the time. We can still have been changed for the better by those works or those people. We can still have them as the foundation upon which we have set a massive AU or other projects of past and present. Our obligation, as a quote attributed to Maya Angelou states, is "when you know better, do better." Some of that may very well be taking your new knowledge and working it into your projects, or making decisions about the context you may need to provide on recommendations, or who gets places of prominence in your new lists. But the person you were at the time is a person deserving of grace and forgiveness, and for having made decisions at the time that made sense or that were necessary for survival, even if the you of now would not want to do that or would have attempted a different path.
These seem like reasonable asks, not too outlandish or impossible. (Because there's that part, too, about tailoring your asks to what you think is doable, rather than the asks that might be what you want but that are unlikely to have happen. Caroline, if you're out there, and you are interested in resuming the project, there are a lot of 9E fans who would cheer you on.) I'll go looking at other people's wish lists as well, and see if there is anything that I might be able to do.
And if not, well,
threesentenceficathon has already opened up a second post of prompts, so there's definitely going to be plenty there to peruse and fill for.So what did I do so far? Offered some story suggestions, some short stories and prompt recommendations, clicked some buttons to make donations, some media recommendations, some other media recommendations, two media recs and a writing prompt, trying to help someone find resources for starting up a movie-watching group on Discord.
Wish Granted!
Date: 2025-01-14 02:24 am (UTC)Peacemongering 101
Ways to Reduce Violence and Increase Peace
Resources on Kindness
How to Make Fandom More Inclusive
Improving Community in Fandom
<a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/11690782.html">Peacemongering 101</a>
<a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/14032430.html">Ways to Reduce Violence and Increase Peace</a>
<a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/11689961.html">Resources on Kindness</a>
<a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/13268264.html">How to Make Fandom More Inclusive</a>
<a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/13268075.html">Improving Community in Fandom</a>
<a href='https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/14235243.html">How to Run a Fandom Event Through Dreamwidth</a>
>> The relevant sound bit is from Miss Congeniality, the Sandra Bullock movie.<<
I grew up hearing "One moment of shining glory, and then that <i>mouth"</i> a lot.
>> many of the people who want it are not in the position of geopolitical power to actually move the needle or turn the doomsday clock backward and away from midnight.<<
We don't need that for peacework. Sure it'd be nice to have more leverage, but sometimes that's just a distraction because then people pester you for attention all the time. If you're digging a waterline, nobody bothers you because they're afraid of being asked to help!
Peacework is rarely in the limelight. Just go do the things. Feed someone. Clean house until you have a box of things to donate to a charity. Listen. Eat at ethnic restaurants owned by immigrants. Learn a foreign language. Study conflict resolution skills. Model what it's like to live a peaceful life.
Write/draw what a world would look like when people prefer nonviolent problem-solving. Or drop by any of my prompt calls and give me peace prompts. Next up will be the <user name="crowdfunding"> Creative Jam on Jan. 18-19 with a theme of "Work" which is half of peacework! Then there's the Poetry Fishbowl on February 4, but its topic isn't set yet because I'm doing the <a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/14753834.html">Theme Call</a> now.
Remember that the future is made of choices, the way a river is made of raindrops. You can choose peace, and EVERY choice matters. Especially when the people in power are making very poor life choices for the planet.
>>The second instinct is that I couldn't possibly need anything<<
Everyone needs kindness and self-care, and they don't need to be earned, because they are survival needs. Snowflake is a lot about just showing appreciation for our friends and fandom as a community. I just found someone asking folks to download their free fanzine! :D
>> My professional self would like you to become a fierce advocate for your public schools and libraries <<
Been that all along, my parents were teacher's union advocates. It's been a fighting retreat. *sigh* I made a list of <a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/14747723.html">resources about book bans</a>.
You might also like <a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/10668311.html">the Order of Hypatia</a>. And check out <a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/14190614.html">the anti-censorship pledge my supervillains hung in their library</a>.
This is another topic you can drop into pretty much any prompt call of mine.
>>I'm not as participatory in the love memes as i used to be, but I still need practice at accepting compliments and people saying good things about me and my creations without minimizing, dismissing, or otherwise trying to turn them into something else.<<
I appreciate you promoting peacework, libraries, and education at a time when these things are under increasingly violent attack. You are more heroic than you know.
>> drop something that would be on your QI resume <<
I developed a landrace of <a href="https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/14089070.html">Shithouse Marigolds</a>.
>>We can still have been changed for the better by those works or those people.<<
The way I look at it is this: if I only bought or consumed things by people I agreed with, I'd have next to nothing left. Look, humans are damned irritating creatures. That's why the first thing we had to invent to go from family to clan size in pursuit of civilization was <i>privacy</i>. So we could ignore at least some of the aggravating crap that other people do. I'll boycott if someone does something truly egregious, but for the most part, I try to ignore the bother. You don't have to like someone as a person to like the stuff they make.
... that's what used bookstores and libraries are for. ;) You get the goods and the author doesn't get a dime from you.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-14 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-14 08:03 am (UTC)