Sense, Nonsense, and Not-Sense

The final challenge for this year asks us to gather our prognostication devices and describe the future.

So Twitter is going great, but that's okay because you can buy two blue check marks on tumblr! Seems like every other day I hear about a new platform, either because it's starting up or because it has a data breach. Which is to say that fandom at this moment feels a little bit more in flux than usual, both in terms of online spaces and in terms of ways of doing fandom. Where are we all going? What does it all mean? What do you, personally, plan to do?

Challenge #15

In your own space, opine on the future of fandom.

This can be positive, negative, ambivalent; about fandom as a whole, your own fandom(s), or your own plans. Alternately, what do you hope fandom will do? Imagine a best-cast scenario, and tell us what that would look like.

( A standard-issue long piece from my brain )

Challenge #13 asks for our recommendations of fanworks we found worthwhile.

Recs are how I found my way into more than one fandom (or four) and recs are one of my favorite things about fandom. I love to make recs, in part because I want to share the love, and in part because I like to tempt people to join my favorite fandoms. And I love to receive recs. Which is why today is one of my favorite days of the Snowflake Challenge.

In your own space, rec three fanworks that you did not create.

These could be your all-time favorites, fanworks that fit a certain theme, or the last three fanworks you read/viewed/listened to and loved. If you’re looking for a way to make today’s challenge more *coff* interesting, how about rec’ing in small fandoms or rare pairs? A compilation of fanworks that make a great introduction to a fandom?

For the purposes of this challenge, a fanwork is defined as any creative endeavor for a fandom – fic, podfic, art, crafts, vids, meta... If you love it and someone else created it, please share it!

Don’t feel limited (or obligated) to make three recs. One or two is good, and so is a dozen. Just share some fandom love!

I'm actually pretty terrible at recommendations, despite doing it for at least some part of my job. It's not that there isn't a lot of material out there for everyone, it's that I don't do much to actively seek out fanworks unless they're served to me by an algorithm, an exchange connection, or attending a convention. Even then, things that I enjoy are not necessarily things that I would recommend to others. I'm still fan-shy, in a lot of ways, still believing I'm the weird kid that everyone else will think is weird, even in the middle of all the weird people. (And many of us are grown-ups, all the same, and fandom is much more extensive and mainstream than it was before.) But I can do some recs all the same, although it won't be for tiny fandoms.

( The recs )

So, yeah, that's what I have right now for recommendations.

Challenge #11 asks us to talk about our favorite tropes.

In your own space, talk about your favorite trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme.

Tropes can be so much fun but if you want a little guide to articulating your favorites you can check a wealth of them on Fanlore or TV Tropes.

There are clichés, motifs and themes that bring joy to our fannish hearts. Let’s talk about them.

And of course we have kinks which can be more on the non-sexual cliché side or they can be all kinds of sexy. We have ‘em, we love ‘em, we want to talk about ‘em.

A gentle reminder here to say there are reasons the links provided have dozens of tropes, clichés and kinks listed. It is a rich and diverse field so please be respectful if someone’s yum isn’t yours. Also use your discretion if you’re going for the sexy kinks. Pick one topic, pick them all, have fun.

( Use your tropes with intention and I'll probably like your work )

Challenge #9 reminds us that victory comes in many different forms and that celebrating the wins is important.

In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, time you spent in the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well.

This challenge is fairly open, and is based on people looking back on the last year and thinking about their personal wins.

What we want people to remember for this challenge is: wins can be giant, small and everything in-between. Did you finally finish or publish that novel you've been working on for years? Did you get those bookshelves reorganised? Did you learn a new skill? Did you do something you were scared of? Did you post a certain number of fanworks at A03? Did you master the perfect gooey brownies? Those are all examples of wins and they all count. Just something you can look back on and think, I did that, and I'm proud of that.

But, we know life can be hard for us all at times, so please don't think you have to only share big, memorable wins. If you look back at last year and all you can think to say is, 'I survived' well that counts too.

You don't have to share details if you don't want to. But do celebrate yourself, look back at those wins, big to small, and say, I'm amazing and I did this.

( A list of accomplishments and victories. )

It doesn't feel like a lot, when condensed into paragraphs, but it was a lot, and that's not counting the mundane daily, just one thing wins that I've been counting in my journals and on awesomeers and in places that encourage us to write something every day. Those are sometimes the most important of the wins of last year, because they force me to think about what went well on any given day, so that I can comment about it. And the daily pages are a record of accomplishments and completed tasks and can be referenced when there's an attack of brainweasels about what did get done or didn't get done, or how a situation went. I am, perhaps, in the process of grieving many of the things I have lost or never will achieve, while also trying to forgive myself for the feelings that come with that grieving, and to work toward acceptance of things as they are now, so that I can continue to put up wins and recognize them as such, rather than putting off their celebration for not being big enough and perfect enough to satisfy the impossible demands of the brainweasel horde.

Challenge #7 tells us to go comment on a fic or in a community.

We all have different levels of comfort in putting ourselves out there. Different levels of intro/extra-vertness. And while we here at Fandom Snowflake love to challenge people to go a tiny bit out of their comfort zone, we also want you to feel safe. This challenge really has so many different interpretations. Comment on someone's fan-creation, chat up the random person who visited your journal because you have fandoms in common, go find a community that could use a jolt. Find someone to wave to in tags. Really, anything that has you making a connection with someone else, counts.

Challenge #7

In your own space, interact with a community or a fic.

Done, easily, and repeatedly. And if you'd like to comment on some of my fic, or transform it into something, well, I'm not likely to say no. (Shameless plug over.)

Also, I'm reminded that January 13 is More Joy Day, so your interactions with others today could also contribute toward that fine celebration was well.

Also also (holy shit, it's a fun day today!), threesentenceficathon is open and the first post is ready for prompting and filling.

( The extended digression about community related to Challenges #2, #3, and #4 )

Challenge #5 asks for resources that we use to make our stories the best they can be.

In your own space, tell us about 3 creative/fannish resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy. (One or two is fine, especially if you're in a smaller fandom or like many people at the moment, fannishly adrift right now.)

Fandom is a fantastic place, and something that brought many of us together. Fandom is also a huge place made up of amazing and creative people doing incredible things. Anything goes, writing, podficcing, artwork, beta reading, commenting, general squee and so much more. It all combines to help make fandom the brilliant thing that it is.

The problem is, sometimes it's hard to find the places which enable you to indulge your passions. Hopefully, this challenge will help that. So, for example, tell us about a stock image place you enjoy, or a favourite archive. Is there a rec list you keep going back to, an online space where you enjoy a chat or a podcast series that always makes your day?

And of course, these places can be beyond fandom, that recipe site that's your go-to. The step-by-step instructions you saved to make your own cheese. Do you garden and have a favourite blog that's taught you how to grow amazing tomatoes?

Wikis, websites, videos, software, games, books, people, communities... anything! Share those places that you love, and hopefully others will love them too.

One of my most consulted resources from when I talk about fandom, even if I don't use it all that much when I'm creating transformative works, is TVTropes, the all-consuming pop culture wiki. Learning and using trope language helps build a shared dialect around pop culture things and makes things a little more understandable if you have something to build from. There are arguments that trope language is reductive and can be used to flatten or prune the uniqueness of each work or implementation or that understanding true language takes some of the mystery out of the experience, but I haven't found that to be the case, and being able to link things through trope language allows me to make connections between things that seem very distant.

Second, while I don't use them specifically, I have heard very good things about tools like Written? Kitten! to keep someone focused on putting down words and revising them later. If you're somewhere with a spotty internet connection, or you would rather write offline, dice can be effective word count helpers as well. A pair of d6 can cover up to 3600 words of writing if each pip is worth 100 words, and if you have the d10 and the percentage die, that covers 10k of words, probably more than most people would write in a single day. And, so long as the dice aren't disturbed, you'll know how much more you have to get to for your big bang total.

Third, while Great Old Ones like me crack wise about how the back button on a browser is by far the most useful thing in any fen's tool belt, especially when encountering a work that is not to your own taste, I wanted to point out, because it seemed to come up a lot in the Challenge #3 screams, that AO3 offers suggestions on how to use both browsing and searching effectively in the archive and a list of additional, "hidden" search operators that someone can use to further refine what they are looking for. When combined with a primer on how Boolean search operators work, it makes it possible to be your own algorithm, rather than assuming that AO3 has one for the millions of works already present in the archive. On the assumption, of course, that everyone tags well or well enough and there aren't curious synning decisions that get in the way.

In search and browse, you can tell some of the underlying decisions that got made in setting up the structure of the archive, and one of them that comes out strongly is that the Archive is intended to be a place where the power searcher feels at home. For the web as it was, before it became the kind of place with a lot of natural language processing and algorithms behind the scenes manipulating the results on best guesses, ad buys, and large data sets, knowing your way around the Boolean logic and the search operators of your chosen database was part of knowing how to use it. (Which is not to say the improvements in language processing are bad, just that they can sometimes be hlep.) Nobody has to learn the ins and outs of AO3 search and browse to find good works, but I suspect that many of the people who are frustrated at not finding what they want would benefit from learning a little more about browse and search to more effectively ask AO3 for what they want in the language of AO3.

And if none of that makes any sense, then I can try and explain it more, or you can ask for what you're looking for and we can try to connect a search query that gets you most, of not all, of the way there.

Challenge #3 asks us to unburden ourselves of the things we carry and hide.

Okay, hear me out…

I know Snowflake is sunshine and rainbows and singing from the rooftops all the lovely and brilliant that is being in a fandom. But, let’s be honest. Sometimes—like with other thing—there are sucky parts, heartbreak parts and just plain UGH parts. Rather than holding onto those slights and resentments, or burying them and pretending they don’t exist, just to have them slowly and almost imperceptibly seep into the rest of the challenges this month, why don’t we just let it all out?

In your own space, Scream Into the Void. Get it all out.

For those of us who celebrate Festivus for the rest of us, this will be familiar. We call it “Airing of Grievances” and it is actually very satisfying, whether you do it tongue in cheek, get introspective or just literally scream.

Things to note with this challenge. Please do let readers know if you want or need words of encouragement or advice to make it better--some of us don’t, we just want to vent. Also, while we still totally encourage everyone to visit participants journals and spread the love and the cheer, do prepare yourself and don’t feel obligated to spend more time than is healthy for you in other people’s negative. It’s called a void for a reason.

( It is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. )