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silveradeptChallenge #14 throws open the doors and asks us to take on the role of the challenge-setter.
One of the common challenges that comes from our peers during this situation is the challenge to make sure that you have a permissions statement somewhere easily accessible (usually on the profile page of where you do most of your fannish work posting) so that when someone comes looking for neat things to make into other neat things, they know whether or not you're okay with it for everyone, for a few things, whether you want to be asked, or whether you don't want anything to happen to it at all. Even if your permission statement is "no, don't do anything to my works," having that statement is going to be an asset. Not everybody is brave enough to ask, and many will assume that no statement means no permissions.
Some of the other common challenges have been done for other entries in this series - creating a fanwork, making recommendations, building community, showing off your favorite pieces of canon, fanworks, or creators, commenting on fics with no comments, interacting with people you haven't interacted with before.
So this is one of those situations where creativity is called for, and often on the spot, because all the other things have been taken, whether by the challenge themselves or by the other people who are faster on the creativity. Luckily for me, I have archives.
One of my previous challenges was to create more, in terms of wordcount or total fanworks, than I did in that year, but as I've gotten older and more wise in the ways that everyone else does fandom, pursuing more output is not always a great challenge, and there are things like![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
getyourwordsout to help with either total wordcount or maintaining the habit of writing. And also, it turns out that I'm kind of longwinded and participate in exchanges and other things at potentially terrifying rates. So, onward to something else, perhaps.
Some of the earlier years of Snowflake focused on talking yourself up, in creating a space where either you could talk about the things that went well for you, or in finding things about yourself that you liked and were willing to admit to other people, and in one of those years, the challenge I set forth to others was to tell someone that you are a fan of that you're a fan of theirs. In the positive, I really like your work, thanks for making it and sharing it with us kind of way. Talking someone else or yourself up is still a challenge for a lot of us, since a lot of people in the fanfiction game have been socialized not to do that, lest it be seen as boasting or drawing attention to someone that other, more hostile forces might follow with. And, as we have been seeing over the years, being a fan of someone in any realm means having to potentially deal with your own feelings if that person turns out to be vehemently opposed to your continued existence, or has been hiding someone who sexually preys on their fans behind an affable, somewhat dorky front. Being a fan of yourself is safer, but so is the immediate cut direct of the Death of the Author and declaring that the work, and your experience of the work, is the only thing that matters, and everything else can take a long walk off a short pier.
(But still, learning how to say good things about yourself, or learning to accept that other people might think of you as a good and awesome person or creator, it can be a challenge. So if you need practice at that, it's a good challenge to take up.)
In some years, I went for big and philosophical ideas like asking people to engage more with works outside their own cultural context, or to forgive each other their faults so long as those faults were confessed as such (and to admit to their own faults, whether on their own or when someone else pointed them out to them), which would now be more succinctly summed up as the quotation about when we know better, then we do better. Which in turn informs our knowledge and offers us the opportunity to do better than that. That particular dynamo does not have a maximum capacity or output, and so it can feel disheartening to some people because it is endless, and there's unlikely to be much praise for having advanced another stage along the pathway. Most philosophical goals are endless, and many of them do not garner praise for progression along them, only new problems and scenarios to tackle. It is still vital and important work to do, but it is not the kind of thing someone does because they want to be showered in praise from all corners for relatively small improvements. So, if you are in the middle of the whirlwind, or you have left the sheltered space and have the scales falling from your eyes, or are witnessing the Four Noble Truths, star or continue your journey, and take a moment and just think of flexibility, love, and trust, so that you can sustain yourself and build community through the difficult times ahead.
One year, when everyone was still talking about the animistically-infused method to decluttering and cleaning from Marie Kondo, I suggested that people get rid of things that do not spark joy in their lives. Given that this year has had several changes to platforms and political situations, and there's been significant amounts of people revealed as terrible or who have wholeheartedly embraced the terrible they were already accused of, it may be time to revisit that particular idea, and let go of platforms, people, ideas, parasocial relationships, or anything else that's causing you more pain than benefit, and possibly even some of the ones that are causing you pain, even if they give you some benefit. We do not need to be constantly embroiled in either Discourse or doomscrolling, and it's a lot easier to have that reflective step or a stop on getting drawn back in when you don't have accounts in those places any more. (And, in many cases, ditching that account might also mean that you stop having your material ingested into an LLM or data mined to sell you ads or to sell your data to others.)
The permission to let go also extended to WIPs, the TBR pile, declaring comment amnesty, and other such expectations set for yourselves about finishing things that you started a long time ago. Some things do not get created, some things stay abandoned and unfinished, even if there are people who are hoping that one day they will be finished, to great fanfare and enjoyment. Sometimes the thing you need to do is scream into the void a lot before you can accomplish anything else or any fannish output.
All of these are still good challenge ideas, so if any of them appeals, by all means, go ahead and do one of those, and call it a victory of having done someone else's challenge.
If none of those bits appeal, though, then I suppose I can set something for you that's just now decided to jump out and say hello as an interesting and hopefully doable idea for all of us:
And if that feels too difficult, if you're in a national subdivision where residents can get free public library service (paid through taxation or other things instead of with an additional assessment or fee), obtain, renew, or use your public library membership. At least in the United States, a fair number of libraries are being attacked for daring to have materials that represent a wide set of viewpoints instead of only ever validating the point of view of the hegemon. Broad public support and use of the library helps make it harder for any one faction to gain sufficient control as to wipe out any opposing viewpoint and have it stick. Plus, your local public library might have resources or materials that you have been looking for, but had become resigned to the possibility of spending significant amounts of money on yourself to obtain.
In the 1970s, educator Arleen Lorrance wrote, "Be the change you want to see happen." Which is all well and good, but personally I think one ought to get one's friends to be the change you want to see happen. In that light, I invite you to...
Challenge #14
In your own space, create your own fandom challenge. […]
This can be big or small; a challenge you saw someone do in another fandom, or that used to run and you miss; something you have thought up just now, or something you yourself are already doing. Earnest, whimsical, fun, all three! For snowflake's penultimate challenge, try challenging us all to give it a go.
One of the common challenges that comes from our peers during this situation is the challenge to make sure that you have a permissions statement somewhere easily accessible (usually on the profile page of where you do most of your fannish work posting) so that when someone comes looking for neat things to make into other neat things, they know whether or not you're okay with it for everyone, for a few things, whether you want to be asked, or whether you don't want anything to happen to it at all. Even if your permission statement is "no, don't do anything to my works," having that statement is going to be an asset. Not everybody is brave enough to ask, and many will assume that no statement means no permissions.
Some of the other common challenges have been done for other entries in this series - creating a fanwork, making recommendations, building community, showing off your favorite pieces of canon, fanworks, or creators, commenting on fics with no comments, interacting with people you haven't interacted with before.
So this is one of those situations where creativity is called for, and often on the spot, because all the other things have been taken, whether by the challenge themselves or by the other people who are faster on the creativity. Luckily for me, I have archives.
One of my previous challenges was to create more, in terms of wordcount or total fanworks, than I did in that year, but as I've gotten older and more wise in the ways that everyone else does fandom, pursuing more output is not always a great challenge, and there are things like
getyourwordsout to help with either total wordcount or maintaining the habit of writing. And also, it turns out that I'm kind of longwinded and participate in exchanges and other things at potentially terrifying rates. So, onward to something else, perhaps.Some of the earlier years of Snowflake focused on talking yourself up, in creating a space where either you could talk about the things that went well for you, or in finding things about yourself that you liked and were willing to admit to other people, and in one of those years, the challenge I set forth to others was to tell someone that you are a fan of that you're a fan of theirs. In the positive, I really like your work, thanks for making it and sharing it with us kind of way. Talking someone else or yourself up is still a challenge for a lot of us, since a lot of people in the fanfiction game have been socialized not to do that, lest it be seen as boasting or drawing attention to someone that other, more hostile forces might follow with. And, as we have been seeing over the years, being a fan of someone in any realm means having to potentially deal with your own feelings if that person turns out to be vehemently opposed to your continued existence, or has been hiding someone who sexually preys on their fans behind an affable, somewhat dorky front. Being a fan of yourself is safer, but so is the immediate cut direct of the Death of the Author and declaring that the work, and your experience of the work, is the only thing that matters, and everything else can take a long walk off a short pier.
(But still, learning how to say good things about yourself, or learning to accept that other people might think of you as a good and awesome person or creator, it can be a challenge. So if you need practice at that, it's a good challenge to take up.)
In some years, I went for big and philosophical ideas like asking people to engage more with works outside their own cultural context, or to forgive each other their faults so long as those faults were confessed as such (and to admit to their own faults, whether on their own or when someone else pointed them out to them), which would now be more succinctly summed up as the quotation about when we know better, then we do better. Which in turn informs our knowledge and offers us the opportunity to do better than that. That particular dynamo does not have a maximum capacity or output, and so it can feel disheartening to some people because it is endless, and there's unlikely to be much praise for having advanced another stage along the pathway. Most philosophical goals are endless, and many of them do not garner praise for progression along them, only new problems and scenarios to tackle. It is still vital and important work to do, but it is not the kind of thing someone does because they want to be showered in praise from all corners for relatively small improvements. So, if you are in the middle of the whirlwind, or you have left the sheltered space and have the scales falling from your eyes, or are witnessing the Four Noble Truths, star or continue your journey, and take a moment and just think of flexibility, love, and trust, so that you can sustain yourself and build community through the difficult times ahead.
One year, when everyone was still talking about the animistically-infused method to decluttering and cleaning from Marie Kondo, I suggested that people get rid of things that do not spark joy in their lives. Given that this year has had several changes to platforms and political situations, and there's been significant amounts of people revealed as terrible or who have wholeheartedly embraced the terrible they were already accused of, it may be time to revisit that particular idea, and let go of platforms, people, ideas, parasocial relationships, or anything else that's causing you more pain than benefit, and possibly even some of the ones that are causing you pain, even if they give you some benefit. We do not need to be constantly embroiled in either Discourse or doomscrolling, and it's a lot easier to have that reflective step or a stop on getting drawn back in when you don't have accounts in those places any more. (And, in many cases, ditching that account might also mean that you stop having your material ingested into an LLM or data mined to sell you ads or to sell your data to others.)
The permission to let go also extended to WIPs, the TBR pile, declaring comment amnesty, and other such expectations set for yourselves about finishing things that you started a long time ago. Some things do not get created, some things stay abandoned and unfinished, even if there are people who are hoping that one day they will be finished, to great fanfare and enjoyment. Sometimes the thing you need to do is scream into the void a lot before you can accomplish anything else or any fannish output.
All of these are still good challenge ideas, so if any of them appeals, by all means, go ahead and do one of those, and call it a victory of having done someone else's challenge.
If none of those bits appeal, though, then I suppose I can set something for you that's just now decided to jump out and say hello as an interesting and hopefully doable idea for all of us:
Set some time aside for yourself, whether for extra rest, practice at one (or more) hobbies, to take a nature walk, play a game, practice your meditation, do spellwork, or otherwise engage in some non-work, non-capitalism-feeding (as much as possible) purpose.Post about it if you like, leave a comment if you like, or do the thing and don't mention you did it to anyone else. This is you time, after all.
And if that feels too difficult, if you're in a national subdivision where residents can get free public library service (paid through taxation or other things instead of with an additional assessment or fee), obtain, renew, or use your public library membership. At least in the United States, a fair number of libraries are being attacked for daring to have materials that represent a wide set of viewpoints instead of only ever validating the point of view of the hegemon. Broad public support and use of the library helps make it harder for any one faction to gain sufficient control as to wipe out any opposing viewpoint and have it stick. Plus, your local public library might have resources or materials that you have been looking for, but had become resigned to the possibility of spending significant amounts of money on yourself to obtain.
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