Sense, Nonsense, and Not-Sense

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.

( Ask me the questions, bridgekeeper. I'm not afraid. )

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.

Challenge #13 asks us to support our community and recommend awesome things that we have seen lately.

One of my favourite things about fandom is screaming, "Did you see that amazing thing?" to someone, and having them scream back at you (hopefully positively) that they have now! Sometimes, it's about the canon itself, but a lot of the time it's about fanworks our community has made. In that spirit, today is the day to sing the praises of our fellow fans' hard work and creativity (or shitposting instead of sleeping, one of those).

Challenge #13

Make a rec list!

Here's the point where I somewhat sheepishly admit that for as much as I write in fandom, I don't actually read or view a lot in fandom. (Or in getting to acquire canons so I can write in more fandoms.) That's not a negative mark on me, others are quick to assure me, but it does make for some difficulty when it comes to doing the recommendations challenge.

Because there are some worlds that lend themselves to compatibility with others, and because Kingdom Hearts is a setting that can connect itself and its story to basically any other story , Miraculous Dive to Hearts gives us a glimpse as to what the Stations of Awakening might look like for the main protagonists of the Miraculous Ladybug series. (It's different than the prose version that I did on The Heart of the Miraculous, but also I need to do some storytelling with those stations, so I would not have expected someone else to find the description and replicate those when I did a more general ask as part of Crossworks.)

I saw this exhibitor at one of my Local Fan Conventions, and I was very impressed with the easy that, as she said, she blended photographs taken of actual people into the fantastical settings that she envisioned for them. There are a of very gorgeous works in the Torres Fantasy Art Original Fantasy Gallery, but those who know me well enough might understand why I was particularly taken by "The Adventures of Alexandria." (There's some Arthuriana works in that gallery, too, and some other myths and stories, so there is gorgeous fanart there, too, for stories that are old enough to be public domain.)

While I was trying to hunt up the original source for something to the scavenger hunt, I discovered that the person responsible is also relatively prolific in RWBY fanart, and claims to also be an concept art designer on the spin-off RWBY Chibi series, so if you like seeing the cast in different outfits (and some fun and terrible puns as well) you can browse through mojojoj27827860's galleries using Nitter. (Nitter is a lovely tool to use if you have all your art people or otherwise posting on Twitter still and you don't want to deal with ads or having a login, or you want to get rid of your account and still follow your people who are still on Twitter.)

And then, two interesting oddities in the world. First is Pepper&Carrot, a comic about a young witch with a touch of chaos about her and the cat companion that accompanies her. It doesn't update particularly quickly, admittedly, but what makes it interesting is the Creative Commons Licensing for the comic, making it possible for others to potentially create their own Pepper&Carrot adventures from what's already been published. (There's also the entire Free (Libre) Open Source Software stack involved in the creation, translation, and distribution of the episodes that are there, but that's a tech flex in showing that it's possible to create something like this without having to use any closed-source software like an Adobe product.) The creator, David Revoy, also has a fair amount of tutorial work and other artwork that's all really good to look at. He's also contributed to at least one of the Blender Open Movies, which are often both interesting shorts and tech demos about what is possible to do in Blender. If you want to follow on socials, there's several there, but I suspect we should be diverting you to David Revoy's Mastodon presence, because of the commitments that David has to promoting alternatives to the single-company controlled, algorithm-driven engagement-and-rage machines.

The other is Ada & Zangemann: A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream. Which is also a Creative Commons-Licensed work that has printed and e-book versions available for purchase, but also the text of the work and several of the illustrations available for remixing purposes, or if you want to try your hand at layout, or illustrate the story in a different way. Or if you want to use the illustrations to tell a similar story, but better, in your opinion. The repository talks about the difference between free (libre) and free (gratis) and how the work is to be free (libre) without necessarily being free (gratis). There's probably a fair amount of other material that's out there, under similar licensing, that we might make fun fic and fanart of, with much less worry about a litigious entity trying to get rid of your work because they don't like it.

I suppose that qualifies as a rec list, right?

Challenge #11 says to indulge in the creative urge.

In your own space, create a fanwork.

[…]

Now, a fanwork is anything that you, a fan, creates. Fic, icons, and filling sparkly requests from your fellow snowflakes’ wishlists absolutely fit the bill. But really, your creation can be anything! Draw something, paint something, compose an ode to your current favorite movie. Whittle something to represent your fandom from a bit of driftwood or model it in clay and matchsticks or legos! Whip up a song about your favorite trope or concoct an interpretive dance number for your OTP. Bake some cupcakes and decorate them in homage to your favorite TV show or author. The possibilities are endless. Whatever means of self-expression tickles your fancy right now, embrace it! But most of all - have fun!

Expansive definitions of fanworks are things I love to see. Even if I tend to stick to some specific forms of them, ones that are more traditionally recognized, I do appreciate when the creativity comes out in cosplay or in crafting or cooking. (And it takes a while to put those ones together, so they're not always conducive to challenges like this. threesentenceficathon is much better suited to this challenge.)

( In which I muse about representation over time, spoil much of the ninth volume of RWBY, and content warn for suicide and mental health issues )

Challenge #9 wants to know what's the newest thing to capture our fannish interest.

Rec Us Your Newest Thing.

[…]

Obsessions come in a lot of shapes and sizes, some of them come and go and some linger. You can absolutely use this space for that manifesto or fandom promo that you’ve always wanted to pen. You can also use it to share an earworm that you can’t get out of your head and think the best way to do it is to share it with the world. Or something in between.

( I am not one given over to many fannish obsessions )

So, yeah. That's what came out, a want for more people to poke at worldbuilding or something like it.

Challenge #7 wants us to help each other find things that are useful to us, because the things we use often are usually better and more tailored than algorithmic suggestions.

Make a list of fannish and/or creative resources.

With the understanding that lists can be as short or expansive, specific or general as someone wants.

( What I do and don't recommend to others )

That's probably enough for digestion purposes, and most of those links are TARDISes rather than discrete items, so beware.

It's scavenger hunt time at Challenge #5, which means now is a good time to remind everyone that Dreamwidth does have a limited amount of image hosting for paid accounts (and free ones?) for storing pictures related to this challenge, if you don't have anywhere else to put them. And also, there are some dandy image manipulation programs out there for free if you want to collage or otherwise turn your many pictures into one image before uploading.

Search in your current space, whether brick-and-mortar or digital. Post a picture (a link to a picture will be fine!) or description of something that is or represents:

1. Something your favorite character would like


2. Something that makes you laugh


3. A fandom place you would like to visit


4. A fandom creator (pro or not) you'd like to meet


5. Something you find comforting


6. Something from a favorite TV series or movie from your childhood


7. A piece of clothing you love


8. A book or song with a color in the title


9. Something only someone in your fandom would understand

Shall we see what turns up, then, when we go looking?

Something your favorite character would like

I don't have a single favorite character, but I think that a fair number of the characters that I do like would be very excited at the artwork available as illuminated, exquisitely calligraphed shitpost material, at least one of which is currently hanging on my wall. And if they weren't admiring and buying the stuff themselves, they'd probably be trying to learn how to set a calligraphic hand so they could graffiti with class themselves. (Millie and Calvin absolutely would.)

Something that makes you laugh

It only happened once, but it was a fantastic idea, and I get plenty of mileage out of it getting told I'm on the naughty list for liking it, but have you watched the show Rocket Around The Christmas Tree? They give engineers all kinds of holiday decorations, goals to achieve, and model rocket engines to propel those decorations to their goals. It is exactly as much fun as you might imagine.

A fandom place you would like to visit

Those kinds of questions almost always depend on what I'm going to be when I go there. Much like how entities like the Society for Creative Anachronism basically take as a given that all of the personas that exist in the Known World are people sufficiently noble as to have a life of ease and leisure, rather than being tied to the land without freedoms, going places like Remnant, Pern, or the Enterprise or the Bebop are going to hae very different experiences. If I'm a hero, things go better. If I'm a redshirt, things go less better. If I'm a nameless villager, then I probably get eaten by the world-spanning danger long before it gets fixed by the heroes. With the exception of some series like Avatar: the Last Airbender, there also aren't a whole lot of people with my professional training in fictional worlds. By the Enterprise era, supposedly the computer can handle most queries and provide factual information in response. It probably also does recommendations and other such things, so what need would you have for a librarian in a world with powerful computers such as these? In other worlds, I'd probably end up keeping my professional training, but I'd probably then start insisting upon actual good practice in those places. Imagine a Pern where the Records are arranged in such a way that makes things easy to find, so the authors can't do plots about lost or forgotten knowledge…

A fandom creator (pro or not) you'd like to meet

By "meet," I probably mean "let them talk to each other for a long time while I sit and silently squee", but I'd love to sit in on conversations between ND Stevenson and Molly Ostertag (the picture is the Princess Prom episode from She-Ra of the two of them, so it's probably a lot outdated to how they look today). (Possibly in the same way that Erika Moen (most famous for Oh Joy Sex Toy) and one of her friends did a "Boats and Boners" panel at a convention that was a conversation between friends and a campfire and just happened to have quite a few of us listening in.)

Something you find comforting

It's at least some of Lisa Frank's palette, in a good way, but the messages and the drawings are both good, and so I should probably see about getting some useful merchandise from The Latest Kate, which also is just a complete archive of positive, uplifting messages and cute drawings on the sites listed from there. I follow The Latest Kate in a few places because it's good to come across my timeline when I need it.

Something from a favorite TV series or movie from your childhood

Some Days, You Just Can't Get Rid Of A Bomb. Which was funny and loved long before it became a meme on the Internet. (Also, I very much appreciate the Batman '66 visual gags of meticulous signage on everything, even for extremely specific things that you wouldn't normally believe someone had crafted a sign for.)

A piece of clothing you love

Have I introduced you to The Communist Party yet? It's one of those shirts that manages to convey its message very well, and I agree with the artist statement—the red cups really sell the idea properly.

A book or song with a color in the title

This is unlikely to be a surprise to anyone who knows me, but I do appreciate the Orkestra Obsolete cover of Blue Monday, which gives it a completely different feel from using authentically pre-synthesizer era instruments.

Something only someone in your fandom would understand

Well, it probably makes just as much sense to everyone else, but even with a cute redhead as a mascot, sadly, the cereal isn't very good for you.

Challenge #3 asks us to think of ourselves first, so that others might bring us joy.

Create a wish list of fandom things (podfic, graphics, playlists, canon recs, translations, research help, vids, sky's the limit!) that you'd like to receive.

( Watch me flounder as I consider it. )

Still, may as well give it a try, right?

• I always like transformative works of my works. There's the AO3 Output tag, which has the summaries and some comments on the works, and broken up into chunks rather than trying to wade through the entire two hundred plus set of works on AO3 all by themselves. So if there's an image you want to draw, or a work that asks to be made into audio, or there's a moodboard or icons or other such things that you'd like to make, that would be really cool.


• I am serious about writing the thing that's your perspective, or that's the work specifically meant to be a callout to a creator that has loaded up their world with sexism, misogyny, transphobia and transmisia, racism, and other such social ills. Make their world better, and be sufficiently over-the-top that it's unmistakable that you're doing it because the original creator made poor choices and then doubled down repeatedly on it. Vivisect those poor choices in meta that makes it clear how terribly wrong things have gone and what it would take to bring things back to acceptable, much less good. The Web is full of strong opinions, why not give it a few that are organic and real, rather than generated by algorithms, clickbait, and confabulation machines?


• Last, even though it's likely to show up later in the challenge as another activity, it's really easy for creators to get snowed under in negative comments, or to have been doing a lot of creating without anyone commenting on the work at all. I don't need someone to comment on my things (you're welcome to, if you want), but if there's someone else work you've admired, leave them a nice comment where you can, and let them know. Yes, even if it's next to a hundred other comments if the same kind, because creators appreciate having as many of those nice feedback as they can, especially the ones who are doing neat things and then have campaigns orchestrated against them. Or leave a supportive comment for a marginalized creator you have learned from or enjoyed their work, because they're more likely to have the people trying to hound them off the Web.

These are hopefully doable things, and there might be ample opportunities to make them go over the course of the challenge.